Blood drive

The American Red Cross will hold a blood drive from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sun Valley Road in Ketchum.

Blood and platelet donors of all blood types are needed. To schedule an appointment to donate, use the free blood donor app, visit redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767. Completion of a RapidPass online health history questionnaire is encouraged.

Yoga

Morning Bliss Yoga, 9 a.m. Tuesday and Saturday at the Magic Valley YMCA, 1751 Elizabeth Blvd. Stretch and strengthen your muscles through yoga.

All yoga classes are free through July. Donations are welcome and proceeds go towards the fund to purchase bolsters. Child care is available for $5 per child for non-members, and free for members.

Class schedule is available ymcatf.com. 208-733-4384.

Yoga

Prenatal Yoga classes, 6:45 to 7:45 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday at Center for Physical Rehabilitation, 754 N. College Road, Suite D, Twin Falls.

All levels are welcome to join and exercise safely. Sami Ashenbrener, doctor of physical therapy at Center for Physical Rehabilitation, is also a certified yoga instructor with specialized training in prenatal yoga.

Equipment is available, or bring your own equipment if desired. First class is free.

Child safety

Child and Babysitting Safety training for ages 11-16, 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday at College of Southern Idahos Jerome Center. Instructors are Aaron and Christina Keyes.

Topics: Fundamentals of caring for children of different age groups, safety, injury prevention, and babysitting as a business, including leadership, preparation techniques, and communicating with parents.

Cost is $42, and includes course book, two-year certification card, and first aid kit. Register: communityed.csi.edu or 208-324-5101.

Laughter exercise

Laughter therapy class, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays at the Twin Falls Senior Center, 530 Shoshone St. W., with Mary Martinat, a retired physical education instructor.

Learn how laughing can help relieve stress, improve your immune system and breathing, and relieve pain.

Free. 208-734-5084.

Alzheimers support

Alzheimers Association, Greater Idaho Chapter, will hold Caregiver Support Group meetings from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at DeSano Place Suites, 545 Nevada St., Gooding, 208-934-4623; and from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at DeSano Place Village, 1015 E. Ave. K, Jerome; information: Becci Bowler, 208-749-1621.

Recovery support

Safe Harbor will hold Al-Anon meetings at 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Recovery group meetings at 7 p.m. Thursdays at 213 Fifth Ave. W. in Twin Falls,

A meal will be provided at 6 p.m. Thursday; donations accepted.

Information: 208-735-8787.

Mental health support

Mental Health Support Group will meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays at 826 Eastland Drive in Twin Falls.

The free support group is open to Magic Valley residents.

Information: 208-539-7492.

Anxiety support

Anxiety Support Group, 6 p.m. every Thursday at Magic Valley Fellowship Hall, 801 Second Ave. N., Twin Falls.

Support for those who experience anxiety, panic attacks or depression. Learn about the signs, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and coping skills.

Information: Cathy Shaddy, 208-410-2768.

Grief support

Griefshare meeting, 6:30 p.m. Thursdays at Lighthouse Church, 960 Eastland Drive, Twin Falls.

Anyone who has lost a loved one or friend is welcome to attend. A separate class for pre-teen and teens will meet at the same time. Participants can attend any session. Enter through the east doors at the rear of the building.

Information: 208-737-4667.

C-sections

Caesarean childbirth class, 6:30 to 9 p.m. Aug. 1 in the Oak Rooms 2-4 on the lower level of St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls.

Topics: Caesarean delivery procedures, pain management, and non-conforming labors.

Free; pre-registration is required, 208-814-0402.

Childbirth

St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Centers prepared childbirth classes, 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays, Aug. 2 through Aug. 30, in Oak Rooms 2-4 on the lower level of St. Lukes, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls.

Topics: Wellness during pregnancy; labor and delivery process with relaxation and breathing techniques; caesarean birth; postpartum care for mother and newborn; infant CPR; car seat and home safety; and a tour of the maternal and child units. Bring a labor-support person if possible.

Cost is $25 for a five-week session. Pre-registration is required: 208-814-0402.

Grief support

Visions of Hope meetings, 5 p.m. Thursdays, starting Aug. 3, at Hospice Visions, 1770 Park View Drive, Twin Falls.

This grief support group is open to everyone in the community.

Information: 208-735-0121.

Childbirth

St. Lukes Magic Valley prepared childbirth boot camp, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Aug. 5 in the Oak Room at St. Lukes, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls. This session is for those unable to attend the five-week prepared childbirth classes.

Topics: wellness during pregnancy; labor process with relaxation and breathing techniques; videos of deliveries and labor positions; and care of the postpartum mother and newborn. Bring a labor support person if possible.

Cost is $25 and pre-registration is required, 208-814-0402.
President Rodrigo Duterte must clean up the Department of Tourism. Its getting to be too scandal-ridden.

A month ago, the DoT was accused of using a plagiarized advertisement to promote tourism in the Philippines. It was also discovered that the advertisement was the product of a multi-million peso contract the DoT signed with a famous advertising agency.

It is unclear if that contract was subject to public bidding.

Public indignation eventually forced the DoT to cancel the contract. Surprisingly, nobody in the DoT or the advertising agency owned up to the alleged plagiarism.

Eventually, the embarrassing incident was quietly forgotten in the news media when other controversies erupted after it.

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That wasnt the end of the anomalies in the DoT.

Two weeks ago, the news media revealed that a group composed of four members of the House of Representatives, four legislative assistants, and four officials of the DoT were to embark on a week-long junket to Iceland and Norway on Friday, July 14. The junket was to last until July 22.

Airline tickets for the group, which cost around P2.1 million, had already been reserved, and to be paid for by taxpayers money. Expenses for hotel accommodations and other related costs were not disclosed to the news media.

It was also revealed that the congressmen who were to join the junket were Oscar Garin Jr. of Iloilo, Paolo Javier of Antique, Ma. Carmen Zamora of Compostela Valley, and Mark Sambar of the Pwersa ng Bayaning Atleta party-list. They were to be accompanied by Julieta Apostol, Jocelyn Lim, Liza Mijares, and Cecilia de Sahagun of the House secretariat.

Those from the DoT who were believed to join the junket were Director Milagros Say, Operations Officer Ruth Tizon, and Division Officer Jerlie Ganiga. The fourth DoT official was reportedly DoT Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo.

After the news broke out, DoT spokesman Ricky Alegre announced that the congressmen and their assistants were to go to the two Nordic countries to observe their practices in gender equality. The spokesman added that the junket is justified under an existing law on gender awareness development.

Alegre insisted that the overseas trip was not yet confirmed, and that Secretary Teo and DoT personnel were not part of the junket. Despite the disclaimer, Alegre declared that the trip was to enlighten Filipinos about policies that will empower women and promote gender equality.

The next day, it was announced that the junket had been cancelled.

A day after that, news stories revealed that a leading shopping mall chain and a credit card company launched a promotional campaign that will give lucky shoppers a chance to go to Iceland and see the aurora borealis or the northern lights, a natural phenomenon visible only in areas near the Arctic Circle.

Maybe the House-DoT junket was also a chance for Philippine government officials to view the northern lights, but at the expense of the Filipino taxpayer.

Anyway, had it not been for the disclosure made by the news media, that junket to Iceland and Norway would have probably pushed through. That would have meant millions of pesos of taxpayers money wasted on a sightseeing trip masquerading as an observation mission.

Why does the House and the DoT have to send a large contingent to observe women empowerment and gender equality policies in Iceland and Norway, when Filipino refugees from Marawi are starving? With the typhoon season here, shouldnt the money for that junket be spent for disaster relief operations instead?

It would have been more practical and economical if Filipino consular officers from Iceland and Norway gave their report and recommendations to Congress about their observations on women empowerment and gender equality at their overseas postings.

Three of the four congressmen in that aborted junket are men. If that junket is supposed to promote women empowerment and gender equality, shouldnt the contingent be composed of an equal proportion of males and females?

Why is there a need for four assistants to participate in a week-long overseas activity? There are enough Philippine consular employees in Iceland and Norway (or in nearby postings) to assist the congressmen. Those employees cant be too busy there near the Arctic Circle. In fact, that is what they are posted there forto assist Filipinos who happen to be there.

This latest incident involving the DoT looks like a repeat of another shameless event involving government officials identified with ex-President Aquino III.

When the Philippines filed a case against Communist China in the international arbitration panel at The Hague, in the Netherlands, a couple of years ago, Aquino sent a contingent of useless officials to The Hague, ostensibly to observe the hearing. They were useless officials because the Philippines was aptly represented in all hearings by American experts in international law hired by Manila. In other words, those officials were not needed at the hearing, and they obviously went along for a European vacation at taxpayers expense.

Those useless officials include ex-Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, and ex-House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte.

Even if she was the justice secretary, De Lima had no business being there. Its the solicitor general, not the justice secretary, who is tasked to oversee Philippine cases in international tribunals. Besides, De Limas line of legal expertise is election law, not international law.

By being there, De Lima manifested more interest in matters outside her duties as justice secretary. That is probably why the national penitentiary, which is under her supervision, became a narcotics center during her watch.

Belmonte may be the Speaker of the House of Representatives back then, but international arbitration hearings are a concern of the executive department, not the legislative department.

Whether these officials even understood the proceedings at The Hague is anybodys guess.

This second embarrassing incident involving the DoT should not be followed by a third. President Duterte must clean up the DoT now.

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Fatah and Hamas could be on the verge of reaching a power-sharing agreement, which could further relax the blockade on the crossing point with Egypt.

Revealing details of the possible agreement in a telephone interview with Associated Press, Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah politician in exile, hinted that the moment has arrived for political authorities to cooperate to end the dire situation of the Palestinians. We both realized its time to find a way out for Gaza, said Dahlan as he made reference to Gazas newly elected Hamas chief, Yahya Sinwar.

The agreement could be followed by the building of a $100m power plant for Palestine on Egyptian territory to be funded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Dahlan also rejected claims that he is intending to take-over the mantle of leadership by engaging in brokering such a political agreement. Although he admitted that he had aspired to be president when he was younger, he stated that he no longer harbors such ambitions. I can see the situation now, he said, adding that seventy percent of the land is in the hands of the Israelis, and they have no intentions to give us a state. He claimed that he is motivated by patriotism and would do everything in his power to prevent a further drifting apart of the Palestinian territories.

Azzam al-Ahmed, a close aide to President Mahmoud Abbas, questioned the palpability of the would-be agreement that is, he said, going nowhere as he alleged that they (Dahlan and Sinwar) are not going to help any new entity in Gaza.

Azzam al-Ahmed claimed that the Palestinian Authority supports Gaza with $1.2 billion per annum to cover its expenses.

There are also reports that Sinwar did not consult with members of Hamas on the discussions he had with Dahlan. The groups leaders usually hold extensive consultations before adopting important decisions.

As the situation in Palestine continues to be dire especially in the Hamas-controlled Gaza, Dahlan said its better for Gaza that I stay in the diaspora and approach everyone who can extend a helping hand to Gaza. Nevertheless, Fatah continues to be critical of Dahlans dealing especially with Egypt.
Head of the Libyan Presidency Council (PC) Faiez Serraj and his rival, Head of the East-based Libyan National Army are to meet in Paris Tuesday for talks involving other Libyan factions.

The meeting will be held at invitation of the new French President Emmanuel Macron.

Libya has been stranded in political deadlock since the removal of the former strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

UN-backed PC has been wrestling to impose its authority across the country now administrated by two governments.

Haftar who sides with the eastern government has opposed the PC backed by France, US and several western countries.

France also cooperates with Haftar on counterterrorism. Some French special forces died last year in Eastern Libya in a helicopter crash. The helicopter was operated by Haftar forces.

French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who served as Defense Minister in Hollands government, has been supportive of Haftar, seen as the right ally in the fight against terrorism in the North African country.

Haftar and Serraj last met in May in Abu Dhabi under the auspice of the United Arab Emirates.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the regional countries having boycotted Qatar over its alleged support for terrorism, Saturday welcomed the Qatari rulers proposal for dialogue to end the unprecedented Gulf crisis, but demanded that Doha changes its attitude.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani proposed Friday, in his first speech since the crisis broke out, early June, between Qatar and its neighbors, namely Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain, dialogue to end the crisis.

The anti-Qatar quartet, severed diplomatic relations with Qatar and enforced sea, land and air blockades against it.

The Qatari ruler also pointed out that the dialogue can only take place if his countrys sovereignty is respected.

Mohammad Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Saturday on Twitter welcomed the proposal but urged Qatar to review its position.

Repeating the same positions deepens the crisis, he twitted.

I had hoped that Sheikh Tamims speech would have been an initiative for [policy] revision and a call for talks, he added.

Qatar denounced the boycotting countries position noting that it was victim of smear campaign.

In his Friday speech, Sheikh Tamim indicated that his country took a test and passed it and that Qatar will grow stronger through the crisis.

We will open our economy to new initiatives and investment so that we can produce our own food and medicine and diversify our sources of income, he said.
Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
French troops in Mali alongside with the assistance of local security forces have arrested a key jihadist whose followers have claimed dozens of attacks in the West African terrorism-stricken nation, local media reports.

I confirm that the terrorist Alhousseyni Ag Assaleh, in charge of logistics forthe group run by Amadou Koufa was arrested on 8 July during a joint operation with Barkhane in the Timbuktu region, General Salif Traore told reporters on Sunday.

In his words, the arrest was kept secret until now because of ongoing efforts to capture others elements in his network.

The Macina Liberation Front (MLF), led by cleric Amadou Koufa came to international attention in 2015.

Based largely around the town of Macina in southern Mali, the MLF came to prominence after carrying out a number of attacks since January 2015. The group is thought to have as many as 4,000 members and draws its membership largely from the Fulani ethnic group.

Amadou Koufa has called upon followers to take up arms and revive the 19th century Macina Empire, a Fulani-led Islamist state centred on the Mopti and Segou regions of Mali.

The MLF, in 2015, claimed it carried out the attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in the capital Bamako, in which around 20 people died.

Frances 4,000 strong Barkhane counter-terrorism force in the Sahel is collaborating with regional troops in five West African countries to form a new force to fight desert militants.
China is offering assistance to intervene military in the Dumeira Mountains and Islands located between Eritrea and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa region.

According to Chinese Ambassador to the African Union, Asias most populous nation will consider sending troops to the border between the two East African countries and help with mediation if requested.

In June, Qatar has withdrawn its troops from the border between Djibouti and Eritrea, where it has been acting as mediator. The gulf oil-rich nation did not give reason for the withdrawal but the move comes as Qatar faces a major diplomatic crisis with some Gulf Arab nations.

Djiboutis foreign minister has accused neighbouring Eritrea of occupying the Dumeira Mountains and Islands along their border shortly after Qatar peacekeepers left the location.

In his words, Djiboutis military was on alert and has lodged complaints to the United Nations and the African Union.

China earlier this month, dispatched troops to its first overseas naval base in Djibouti. The move is seen as a major step forward for the countrys expansion of its military presence abroad.

As a reminder, China and Djibouti earlier this year consulted with each other and reached consensus on building logistical facilities in Djibouti, which will enable the Chinese troops to make new contributions to regional peace and stability.
International Conference The European Way of Georgia in Batumi

By Messenger Staff

The 14th international conference The European way of Georgia took place in Batumi, Georgia on July 13-14.The conference represented one of the best platforms for debating a number of key issues such as geopolitical security, economic challenges in the European Union and its neighborhood and the role of Eastern Partnership Countries in this process.The conferences main agenda covered a modern concept of security in Europe, new forms of cooperation between the European Union and associated partner countries, Georgias role in stability within the region.On the first session on July 13, among the issues raised for discussion were: global strategy of international and security policies of the European Union, its results for the regional security; trade connections between the East and West, role of Georgia in energy supply diversification of Europe and ongoing projects; consistent harmonization with the EU energy legislation and Georgias accession to energy union  benefits, challenges and future plans; Georgia as a potential supplier of renewable energy; importance of cooperation and interconnections in the sphere of energy and their influence on the regional security.Vice-Premier and Minister of International Affairs, Mikheil Janelidze spoke about significant experiences that Georgia received as a provider of the international security and noted Georgias important geopolitical location. Janelidze thinks that Georgia plays a main strategic role because of transporting natural resources to Europe. In his speech, Minister named the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Supsa oil pipelines as major international projects that would support supplying the Caspian Sea resources to the European market without any delays. While participating in these projects Georgia proves that she is a trustful partner and an important participant in the system of energy-security of Europe.Member of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms gave recommendations to the government of Georgia to create a proper legislation regarding the renewable energy resources and mentioned that government of Georgia should keep in mind that building energy stations has its climate change challenges.The second session Truth, Lie and Trust: Populism and Game without Rules was held on the same day. The key point of the speeches and questions were regarding the challenges of modern informational environment, falsified information and cyber-attacks as tools for changing the international policy aims of the countries, discrediting western values and affective instruments for dividing the society; How vulnerable are the neighboring countries of Russia towards disinformation actions? How to recognize disinformation and protect the society from it, regain and keep trust among the members of society.The third session Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area: Future of Georgia was devoted to the implementation of DCFTA agreement agenda; role of Parliament in monitoring the implementation process of agreement; successful practices of cooperation with the civil society; new agenda of the association  priorities, expectations and further development.The conference speakers also paid their attention to the modern challenges such as: hybrid wars, terrorism and migration crisis; occupied and annexed territories in Europe and expected aggression of Russia; Georgias role in the implementation of common security and defense policy of Europe; conflicts in the region and ways of their resolution for providing peace, stability and security.The occupied territories of Georgia had been one of the main issues of discussion for local and international representatives during the conference. The Georgian government and political leaders from Europe agree on the peaceful solution of the problem and believe that economic and democratic development of the country will help Georgia to gain the territorial integrity in the frame of internationally recognized borders of Georgia.
The News in Brief

Turkmen Foreign Minister Meets Georgian Leaders in Tbilisi



The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, Rashid Meredov, visited Tbilisi on July 17, where he met his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Janelidze, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, President Giorgi Margvelashvili and Energy Minister Ilia Eloshvili.



Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze was the first to meet Meredov.



Political cooperation between our countries is dynamically developing, particularly in the last few years. This is manifested in high level visits and meetings, and I am sure that with this pace, we will achieve tangible results in the future, Foreign Minister Janelidze stated at his joint press briefing with Rashid Meredov.



Both sides reported that the two Ministers covered a broad range of bilateral and regional issues at their meeting, focusing on energy and transport cooperation.



Our countries have special location, we have special opportunities bringing benefits not only through our bilateral cooperation, but also to the entire region, Janelidze said at the press briefing.



Turkmenistan plays a very huge role in terms of the development of transport, energy and transit projects; we talked on these topics and set goals so that jointly, together with our partners, we work on using these opportunities, Janelidze added.



Energy and transport cooperation was also discussed at Meredovs meeting with Prime Minister Kvirikashvili and President Margvelashvili.



The Presidents office reported after the meeting that the sides spoke on the prospects of bilateral relations in the areas of trade, economy and energy, as well as on the development of the Lapis Lazuli Railroad and the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline projects and on cooperation between the Caspian and the Black Sea regions.



The Prime Ministers office said the discussion focused on bilateral and regional cooperation in transport and energy sectors, including through the White Stream project.



Prime Ministers office also announced that Giorgi Kvirikashvili is to visit Turkmenistan in the near future.



Turkmenistan is the leading trade partner for Georgia among Central Asian countries, according to the State Statistics Office, Geostat. Georgias trade turnover with Turkmenistan stood at USD 85.7 million in 2016, with exports at USD 10.3 million (USD 16 million in 2015) and imports at USD 75.4 million (USD 112 million in 2015). (civil.ge)







I hope Poroshenko took towel and soap from Kiev in order to avoid further complications  MikheilSaakashvili



Former President of Georgia MikheilSaakashvili has responded to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenkos visit to Georgia on his Facebook page.



I am glad that at last, President Poroshenko has departed for Georgia in order to pay an official visit there. No matter what kind of leaders there are, the relationship should still develop. I do not know whether Petro Poroshenko is informed but the Georgian government has started legal proceedings against me over misuse of money and the accusations also include Services for Victor Yushchenkos Bath that amounts 28 Euro. Therefore, I hope President Poroshenko took a towel and soap from Kiev to Tbilisi in order to avoid further complications, MikheilSaakashvili posted on Facebook. (ipn)




BUILDING THE LA RAZA 'The Race' WELFARE STATE ON MIDDLE AMERICAS' BACKS: Months ago, the Biden administration publicly defended their proposal to begin providing federal identification cards to border crossers and illegal aliens who they plan to release into American communities. The goal of the proposal is to make securing public benefits easier.
@PatriciaMazzei

The comment appeared on state Senate candidate Ana Rivas Logan's official Facebook page at 7:08 p.m. Sunday night.

"Michelle Obama sucked!!!!" a user named Minerva Rodriguez wrote. "If you are a democrat, then you are for raising taxes and flooding this country of illegal immigrants. Guess what? You are dead!!!@"

After consulting with her attorney, Rivas Logan said she telephoned Miami-Dade police, who took a report by phone and assigned her a case number, as is routine.

But no detective had followed up by Monday morning, prompting Rivas Logan to question how seriously police took the case.

"What upsets me is, I just think it's unequal treatment," said Rivas Logan, a Democrat running against Annette Taddeo in Tuesday's primary. "Somebody threatens Jose Felix Diaz, everybody goes to help him. You know, I have kids, too. I have family, too. Nobody cares. It's like, ho-hum. The guy said to me, 'There's no imminent danger.' There is imminent danger. I'm a public person. They can recognize me."

Police said a copy of their report would be available after 3 p.m., but it wasn't.

Rivas Logan was referring to another Senate District 40 candidate, Republican Rep. Diaz. Last month, police arrested Steve St. Felix the day after he wrote on Diaz's Facebook page, "I'll kill your ass and you better not show up to the next REC meeting," apparently referring the Republican Executive Committee, the official name of the Miami-Dade GOP.

Unlike the Rivas Logan case, news of the Diaz threat didn't come out until police had investigated and St. Felix was in police custody.

St. Felix, 34, who was charged with written threats with intent to do bodily injury. One of Diaz's primary rivals, attorney Lorenzo Palomares, then offered to represent St. Felix, free of charge. Former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla is also running on the Republican side.

The message aimed at Rivas Logan was in response to a July 6 post in which the candidate quoted former First Lady Michelle Obama's presidential campaign line, "When they go low, we go high."

Rodriguez's Facebook page lists her as working at Miami Dade College. An MDC spokesman couldn't find a listing of Rodriguez as a college employee Monday. Rodriguez did not immediately respond Monday to private Facebook messages seeking comment.

"I have no idea if what she meant was, you're dead politically," Rivas Logan said. "I have no idea. But someone should at least call her.... Obviously they're trying to intimidate me. They're trying to scare me. I don't know what the purpose is, but I'm scared."

--with Charles Rabin
For picture posts from 2010 and earlier, see the Earlier Picture Posts Page
A federal appeals court on Monday ruled in favor of a wildlife activist who said his free speech rights were violated when a sheriff's deputy barred him from watching livestock agents herd wild bison into Yellowstone National Park.

The case dates to 2012, when a Gallatin County deputy issued a misdemeanor citation to activist Anthony Reed alleging he obstructed a peace officer, after Reed initially would not get behind a barricade that was out of sight of the herding operations near West Yellowstone.

Reed's attorney, Rebecca Kay Smith, said the lawsuit was needed after law enforcement officials inside and outside Yellowstone issued citations to multiple activists attempting to document the treatment of the park's wild bison over a span of years.

"The whole reason we have the First Amendment is so that people can observe what the government is doing and provide counter narrative," Smith said. "That applies not just to the government's buffalo operation but in everything the government does."

A state court dismissed the obstruction charge and Reed later sued Gallatin County officials including Sheriff Brian Gootkin for violating his First Amendment rights. He appealed after a lower court sided with the defendants

In Monday's ruling, a three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the lower court judge had wrongly accepted the version of events offered by the sheriff's office. The account included an assertion that the presence of Reed's vehicle on a gravel road near the herding operation presented a safety risk.

"There was no genuine safety or operational reason to exclude him from parking on the gravel road," the panel wrote.

The judges added that Reed's claims should have been presented to a jury and not decided on by U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon. The ruling sends the case back to the district court level, to be assigned to a new judge for a jury trial.

Defense attorney Steven Milch did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

Montana livestock officials restrict when and where Yellowstone bison can migrate to prevent them from spreading the disease brucellosis to cattle.

As part of those restrictions, state and federal officials conduct large-scale hazing operations each spring to drive bison back into the park.

___

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter at www.twitter.com/matthewbrownap
Jumping, running, vaulting, dropping, pushing, pulling, balancing and diving. In the gym at Washington Middle School, 18 candidates are preparing to do all this and more during the Montana Physical Abilities Test in order to move on in the selection process for the Missoula County Sheriffs Department.

Each candidate needed to complete six circuits on the obstacle course. The tasks ranged from running up and down stairs to vaulting over a waist-high metal bar. And after those circuits were finished, a push and pull strength test, plus carrying a 165-pound dummy for 25 feet, were required for each participant to finish the test.

The goal for Missoula deputies is to complete the test in under 5 1/2 minutes, even though the Montana Police Academy requires its candidates to be only under 6 1/2.

According to the test proctor Corporal Mike Hash, the tests obstacle course is to simulate you in foot pursuit of the suspect while the push-pull and dummy-dragging tasks test the candidates ability to arrest and bring a suspect into custody.

Its designed for real police work, Hash said.

Dave Sullivan was one of the candidates on Sunday. Already a sworn peace officer in Dillon, Sullivan has been considering trying to move to a larger city like Missoula the last few years.

For Sullivan, the mental part of the test was the most difficult.

You have to push yourself through the obstacles, he said after completing the MPAT.

He had been training for this test over the last few months with running, mountain biking and some calisthenics.

I dont do yoga, Sullivan said with a smile, but I have been doing stretching.

Captain Bill Burt explained that the old Coopers Standard test was phased out because it no longer made sense for the department to use.

It made adjustments and exceptions for age, gender, things like that, Burt said. The 1.5-mile run, sit ups, pullups, and sitting reach did not fully test what is required from deputies, and changing to the MPAT means every candidate has to reach the same threshold, unlike the old standard.

But this is only a small part of the process, Burt said. If candidates pass the MPAT and the classroom test, then they go on to do a battery of interviews with the sergeants as well as taking various other psychological tests.

We dont care how strong or how smart they are, Burt said. The integrity and character of the person is paramount.
WEST GLACIER  Down a tiny trail that threads its way through patches of colorful wildflowers, theres a piece of Glacier National Park history that few ever see.

To get there, you have to veer off the popular routes that take tourists to overcrowded trailheads.

In fact, you have to be a little bit brave or a whole lot naive to turn off on the narrow gravel path called the Inner North Fork Road that was first built back in a time when prospectors from a company named Butte Oil had hoped to strike it rich on lands that would soon become a national park.

That road is probably what brought the young Bohemian named Rudolph Matejka to the backwoods of northwest Montana back in the early 1900s.

He and, maybe, his two brothers helped build the narrow road where it still remains a challenge for two cars heading in opposite directions to pass when they meet.

While his two brothers liked the looks of the lower elevations for a place to settle, there was something that drew Rudolph to this site, where neighbors were scarce and the meadows plentiful. Back nearly a mile off that old oil company road, the 23-year-old from Nebraska built a cabin and barn around 1908.

He lived there off and on with his mother until he died, reportedly of an accidental gunshot wound in 1921.

By that the time, his homestead was one of many in-holdings in Glacier National Park. For years after that, his extended family used the cabin as a place to find solitude and maybe fill their freezers back home with wild meat. They added on and put some paneling over the blue-painted logs inside the structure to make it a little bit more comfortable.

Over time, they lost interest and the structure began to crumble. No one knows for sure just what happened to the barn, but its long gone. This second-oldest of the homesteader cabins inside the park might have been lost, too, without the intervention of a group of volunteers.

Members of the Glacier National Park Volunteer Associates took the historic building under their wing in 2011, with a restoration that is just one of many projects that members of the volunteer association have stepped forward to help with since its establishment in 1989.

Not only have they spent thousands of hours of painting, rebuilding and restoring historic buildings, important bridges and overlooks, association volunteers also give countless more hours of time staffing the Nature Center at Apgar, helping visitors load onto buses and shuttles, and doing what they can to keep tourists at a safe distance from mountain goats and other critters at Logan Pass.

At the Matejka cabin, they offered funding to pay for the materials needed to keep the it from crashing down. Beyond that, they gave more than 400 hours of their time to put on a new roof, paint both the inside and out and help the restoration experts finish stabilizing the building for future generations to come see.

On a recent morning, the associates president Cheryl Klein took a stroll down that narrow pathway after she finished wiping the dust off the interpretive sign that offers travelers of this lonely road a reason to get out of their car and go for a walk.

The trail takes visitors through an old burn that not long ago dropped dozens of dead trees a year across the route.

One year, there were 70 trees that had fallen across the trail, Klein said. We did all this work in bits and pieces as we could get back here. We finished it up last year.

That work focused on restoring the cabin back to something that Rudolph might recognize.

They tore down the addition, took out the paneling and replaced all the chinking that had been lost. They helped reduce the door size down to the four-foot-tall opening that was there originally. And after restoration experts replaced the logs that were rotting, they painted the inside of them blue to match what was already on the wall.

We were surprised to find that blue paint in the first place, Klein said, as she stares in the window. We learned later that it was indicative of his Eastern European heritage where blue was a popular color back then.

Just then, the sound of a pair of sandhill cranes cut through the silence.

Right there, she said. See them? In all this time that Ive been here, Ive never seen sandhills here before.

Klein stopped and looked around with smile.

Just imagine what it must have been like back then, she said. It must have been his little Eden. And all of this could have been lost so easily. Im really proud of this project.

Glacier Parks project superintendent Jack Polzin has no doubt that the cabin was saved by intervention spearheaded by the volunteer association.

Our funding has been shrinking in the last few years, which makes it challenging to get to some of these projects, Polzin said. The Matejka Cabin is one of the very few buildings that we have left that were here before the park was established.

Among its many projects, the volunteer association has also funded a backcountry ranger intern since 1996.

Those efforts have been recognized by the National Park Service. In a couple of weeks, Klein will travel to Washington, D.C., to receive the Directors Wes Henry Excellence in Wilderness Stewardship Award. The associates are the first non-government organization to be presented with the award.

The GNPVA play a vital role in helping Glacier manage wilderness attributes, said Glaciers Kyle Johnson in the nomination for the award. As budgets continue to shrink, we rely on volunteers more each year to augment our workforce and fill the roles of educator and instructor. We have an amazing group of volunteers who give so freely of their time and money to make Glacier a better place and to pay it forward to the next generation.
The University of Montana has a first look at who might become its next president, drawing interest from candidates in 38 states and five other countries.

Were very pleased with the interest that has been created. To get 98 candidates, thats a very excellent response, said Jim McCormick of AGB Search, the firm hired to help recruit for the position.

Initially, McCormick and others had feared the university might see fewer applicants because of the searchs timing: Most academic institutions seek to fill posts before the start of the fall semester rather than mid-year.

When it gets down to brass tacks, some of them will have to work themselves with integrity out of where they are, McCormick said of the applicants. They all know the hopeful start date is the beginning of the second semester. What could happen is the top candidate or two might have to wait a little longer. Well have to face that at that time.

Candidates also were not deterred by a series of challenges UM has faced in recent years, McCormick said. In conversations with many of them, he said questions focused on enrollment and finances.

We were very honest about the challenges, he said. Some of them believe they have the skill sets to take on these challenges and be successful.

Enrollment has declined, causing budget trouble. Since 2010, UM has seen a nearly 24 percent enrollment drop. In May and June this year, the campus offered buyouts to faculty and others as one of several strategies to shore up its budget.

In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated UM for failing to properly handle reports of sexual assaults, and then-President Royce Engstrom fired staff, changed policies, and completed an agreement with the federal agency to address gender bias.

In December, Commissioner of Higher Education Clayton Christian asked Engstrom to step down to make way for new leadership on campus. Engstrom will teach in the chemistry department. Former Commissioner Sheila Stearns has been serving as interim president until a permanent replacement is hired.

Friday was the deadline to apply for assured priority consideration. This week, members of the universitys search committee will begin reviewing applications. At an Aug. 8 meeting, they will winnow the field to a flexible number of semifinalists  perhaps as many as 10  and develop interview questions.

Initial reference checks will be completed before committee members conduct interviews at a neutral location. The goal is to select finalists and begin final due diligence reviews by the end of August.

The commissioners office and university expect to have a number of excellent finalists visit campus for public forums and final interviews this fall, said Kevin McRae, deputy for communications in the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education. The hope is to complete hiring by the first week of October.

We are happy with the number of applicants, McRae said, cautioning however that the committee must still do the hard work of deciding who among them has the qualities they set out to find: strong leadership, an ability to fuse academic and administrative functions, and experience with development and fundraising, among other attributes listed in the job posting.

Most of the 98 applicants have the highest degrees possible in their field, McCormick said, and 81 currently are working in academia.

The candidates primarily live in the western United States: 28 are from the West (including 9 Montanans), 22 from the Midwest, 28 from the Southwest and six from the Northeast. Another five applications came from people outside the United States.

McCormick said his group worked hard to recruit a diverse pool of candidates. He could not say initially how many applicants were from racial or ethnic minorities. Only 19 were women. Although demographic information can be collected for tracking purposes, federal law encourages those details to be separate from application materials reviewed by selection teams to avoid illegal hiring discrimination.

Stearns, who has a long history with Montana higher education and UM even before becoming interim president, said the qualities most needed for the presidency are not the kind of credentials you can check off from a resume.

The best skills for a challenging presidency are clear communication, academic integrity, energetic leadership and fiscal savvy, she said.

Those skills are more likely to be found in someone with a background in academia, but not necessarily, she said, noting the best candidates might have refined them in and outside a campus setting.
University of Montana student Guthrie McLean was freed Sunday after spending almost a week in a detention center in China.

McLean described himself as sleep deprived and overwhelmed in an interview over Skype Sunday evening with the Missoulian.

Jennifer McLean was reunited with her son at about 2 a.m. Monday local time in China; noon Sunday in Montana, said Sen. Steve Daines, who helped negotiate his release.

Im happy, frustrated and overwhelmed, Guthrie McLean said.

McLean was arrested July 17 because he had intervened weeks earlier in a confrontation between his hearing-impaired mother and a local taxi driver. The driver said his knee was injured after Guthrie McLean shoved him.

Police had questioned both McLeans on July 16 and had demanded money in exchange for Guthrie McLean's release. When Jennifer McLean left the room where they were being questioned at a police station, she was not allowed back in and was told she could go home. Her son was held and arrested the next day.

I was worried and I had a feeling they were keeping her from coming back and they had made her leave, Guthrie McLean said. I was kind of scared and didnt really know what was going to happen.

According to a timeline from Daines' office, negotiations for the UM student's release began on July 18, a day after he was sent to the detention center that his mother had described as "one of the worst in China.''

Guthrie McLean said he had no idea what was being done while he was being detained. He said police at the detention center told him he was going to jail because there was no proof the driver had hurt his mother, but the driver had injuries. He said the experience wasnt typical of his life in China.

This incident was done as part of the actions of a taxi driver and a few old-fashioned thinking police officers, Guthrie McLean said.

He thought he was being lied to by everyone and was always worried he was going to say something that would get him into more trouble.

You can start to get creepy paranoid, Jennifer McLean said.

Aside from interrogations by the police, Guthrie McLean said the detention center had about the same accommodations someone would find while camping. There was a shower and toilet in one room and a deck where the people detained could sleep. He and about 20 others were held in the room together.

There was a tentative release agreement made on July 21, but when Jennifer McLean went to finalize paperwork, the police told her they were unaware of any deal. She contacted Daines' office, who reached the Chinese embassy to discuss the confusion.

About two hours before her son was released Sunday, Jennifer McLean said in an email she had received a letter from him, but believed it would be a few more days before she might get a chance to see him again.

"I am hopeful, but cautious that this will all end Monday or Tuesday," she said in an email sent to the Missoulian Sunday morning. "Wally Hsueh and Jason Thielman at Senator Daines office have been working on a solution almost 24/7 since last Monday. I am very grateful to them."

She had said police were demanding compensation for the driver's injuries before releasing her son, something she termed a "shakedown'' that initially started at $14,800 but dropped over time.

The exact terms of Guthrie McLeans release are still being reviewed and finalized late Sunday.

A Youcaring site to raise money to help pay for Guthrie McLean's release was set up by two other UM students, Caitlin Wind and Zakk Winch.

On Sunday, the site announced his release with this note: "We have yet to get in contact with his mother, we will see if she will accept what you wonderful people have raised in order to cover the costs of his release. If she does not accept, then we will either refund you (by sending us a direct message asking for this) or give it to a charity of their choice. Thank you all!"

The site had raised about $600 at the time of Guthrie McLean's release.

Calling the donations a wonderful gesture, Jennifer McLean has said she wants this money returned, because it was requested in the event there would be legal fees, which there have not been, she said.

Im grateful to have my son, she said.

The 25-year-old UM senior was visiting his mother, who lives and teaches in China, when he was arrested in Zhengzhou in Henan Province.

He grew up in China and is the only child of his single mother. He attended a university in China but had transferred to finish his degree in Montana.

McLean plans to return to Missoula Aug. 29.

Daines, who spent six years in China as an executive with Proctor and Gamble, spent the weekend talking with both the Chinese and U.S. embassies, the Chinese government and local officials, his office said.

Sen. Jon Tester, who also had been working to free McLean, said the resolution "is a testament to what can be accomplished when we turn up the heat and hold government accountable.''
A wildfire continued to chew through range land north and west of Sand Springs on Sunday, expanding to 226,000 acres and consuming about a dozen residences.

"I've never seen one out here like this in my lifetime," said local rancher Skye Chamberlin, who owns threatened property in the Musselshell River valley. "It's just so dry. (The fire) does what it wants."

Chamberlain and other ranchers sat hunched over ATVs Sunday afternoon, sweating under a near-100 degree sun and dirtied by dust and soot, watching flames creep closer to the eastern shore of the Musselshell. About 300 local firefighters and ranchers have been fighting the Lodgepole Complex fire, a group of three different blazes that started Wednesday and blew up Saturday across Garfield and Petroleum counties.

"They never went to sleep," said Geremy Olson, a spokesman for the fire's incident management team. "Everybody that could fight fire was."

Between a historic drought, Red Flag warning conditions and a massive fire perimeter, they were overmatched.

Yesterday the blaze hopped Highway 200, torching a swath of land between Sand Springs and Mosby. Blackened ground stretched as far as the eye could see from the road in some spots, with pockets of small smoke plumes dotting the landscape. A handful of structures stood unscathed.

It only took 90 minutes for the fire to make that run, Olson said. He said that one local fire chief reported water and retardant did nothing to slow the fire -- something he'd never seen before.

The fire's movement shifted north Sunday; the flames Chamberlin and other ranchers watched morphed from black to white, slowing down and flaring up as they advanced, torching trees and gobbling up grassland in fingers that stretched toward the river.

"There's just not enough people to get around it," Olson said.

Evacuation orders for residences north of Highway 200 from Fort Peck Lake to west of Edwards Road remain in effect, though Olson said most residents remained to fight the fire.

On the ground firefighting was mostly focused on structure protection and trying to stop flames at choke points, in addition to "trying to save all the cattle we can," Chamberlin said.

From the air, helicopters dumped water near active fire areas. In the later afternoon, planes began laying down a red fire-retardant barrier with several successive drops across hills east of the river.

Olson said that there weren't any confirmed reports of cattle killed; Chamberlin wasn't willing to put a number on it, but said he'd heard "several" cattle were killed. Others swapped rumors about who lost how many head, and discussed the costs of lost grazing land.

Chamberlin and others soon took off toward a ranch near the river. They'd cut a fence, hoping cattle would move away from the approaching flames, but still had to drive some away.

The Lodgepole Complex is made up of three different fires. The South Breaks and Barker Fire are both well north of Highway 200, while the far larger Bridge Coulee Fire that jumped the road pushed toward the Musselshell on Sunday.

The fire already jumped the river yesterday in at least two spots, which were contained. It also jumped fire lines four bulldozer-widths wide. Outbuilding structure losses are expected to far outpace residential losses.

Typically, fires in the region aren't supposed to do that, Olson said. But conditions have fed extreme fire behavior.

Local firefighters extinguished seven fires that started about the same time as other complex fires.

"The community has done a heck of a job fighting a fire that was almost impossible to fight," Olson said.

A shelter set up at the VFW in Jordan hadn't had anyone stay there, but Olson had heard of displaced families staying with neighbors or relatives.

Fire crews have been called in from coast to coast, Olson said, though there's no guarantee the dozens of extra engines requested are available. The tiny burg of Sand Springs grew throughout the day as trailers and equipment parked in the area and tents sprang up.

"We can't control mother nature," he said, "and it takes time for help to come."

The fire is still listed at zero percent contained. There is cold fire line, Olson said, but firefighters aren't being used to document it; instead they're being deployed to more active parts of the fire.

The nearby Crying Fire, about 50 miles north of Winnett, was at about 7,200 acres Sunday night and 35 percent contained.
TARKIO  Its no comfort to the people of Mineral County, but their fire is No. 2 in the nation.

The National Interagency Coordination Center in Washington, D.C., on Monday bumped up the Northern Region to top priority status and the Sunrise fire burning 11 miles southeast of Superior to the second-highest priority among all fires burning in the United States.

Residents and owners of 50 structures on three sides of the Sunrise fire were on standby evacuation status Monday afternoon as west winds kicked up into a red flag warning. Ground crews were pulled off ridgetop attack points earlier in the day.

Right now its smoky and you cant see the resources on the ground, which means they cant see the aircraft above them, said Shawn Pearson, incident commander of the Sunrise fire and the smaller Burdette fire 11 miles to the east.

The two grew to 1,370 acres and 540 acres, respectively, in steep, hard-to- access country overnight from Sunday to Monday.

The Sunrise fire was a little over a mile from several houses on Quartz Creek to the west, with one key ridge between them, Pearson said. Crews finished plumbing homes on Quartz Creek on Sunday and on Sunrise Creek on the Superior side Monday afternoon, then moved north toward the Clark Fork River and Quartz Flats. Sprinklers and porta-tanks of 5,000 and 6,000 gallons of water were engaged and filled at each home site.

Its a full suppression fire. We were given our walking orders. If we can get it out, they want it out, Pearson said. In the last two days weve received a lot of stuff.

Two 20-man teams, one a Hotshot crew from Helena and the other a Hotshot crew in training from New Mexico, arrived Monday to join the Tatanka Hotshots from South Dakota, whose time ends Tuesday.

We have a standing order for more, said information officer Jill Cobb.

A Type I Sikorsky helicopter arrived at noon as attention shifted from the Quartz Creek side to the Sunrise and Quartz Flats sides due to a change in the wind. Both sides were susceptible as the winds again shifted from the southwest to the west later in the day. Gusts of up to 30 mph sent smoke billowing down the Clark Fork valley to the Ninemile and Jocko/Rattlesnake.

Meanwhile, smoke from the 750-acre Lolo Peak fire, still burning mostly within the northern boundary of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, filled the lower Bitterroot and Sapphire Range with smoke.

Only the Lodgepole Complex Fire south of the Missouri River Breaks near Jordan was commanding more resources than the Sunrise and Burdette fires in Mineral County. That fire was approaching 300,000 acres on Monday with at least 22 structures lost. (See related story.)

Mineral County issued a Stage 2 evacuation notice for residents of Sunrise and Quartz Flats, after residents in Quartz Creek received the same notice over the weekend. Stage 2 means that residents should be ready to evacuate quickly if conditions worsen. Stage 3 means its time to go.

Pearson, whose Type 2 Incident Management team took over early Sunday from a Type 3 team from Missoula, said the Sunrise fire is burning in rugged country.

The problem were having is access, trying to get up this terrible road and trying to get up on top early in the morning, he said. From the standpoint of the firefighters, its getting the heavy equipment out in front of them, so we can use those nippers, those dozers, the grapple skidders to get that fuel out of the way so crews can come in behind them because it is such nasty country.

Rock Creek fires: Goat Creek, Little Hogback and Sliderock fires to the east of Rock Creek Road all had increased activity when the winds arrived Monday, though it was due more to the change of direction than wind intensity, according to information officer Gregg DeNitto.

A fourth fire commanded attention to the west of the creek in the Sapphire Mountains. Flames were detected Sunday afternoon near Cinnabar Point in the Welcome Creek Wilderness. Smokejumpers attacked the fire on Monday, and heavy air tankers and single-engine planes made water drops.

"It's not controlled at this point but it looks like we'll catch it before it gets very large," DiNitto said.

A "soft" road closure of Rock Creek Road and evacuation and pre-evacuation notices remained in place. Clinton and Missoula rural fire departments joined state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and U.S. Forest Service crews to keep the Goat Creek fire in check. It has topped 1,300 acres. The Little Hogback is now over 2,100 acres, and the Sliderock was closing in on 400 acres.

A minor structure was destroyed Sunday in the Sliderock fire, the first such loss in any of the western Montana fires. A Hotshot crew was working to protect communications equipment at an electronics site shared by Granite and Missoula counties.

Lolo Peak fire: More resources were due to arrive on the South Fork of Lolo Creek to help build fire line on the Lolo Peak fire, burning directly west of the peak. The plan Monday was to construct line from the South Fork west to Elk Meadows.

Were still kind of scrounging for equipment with a filler buncher, skidder and pretty much some kind of big iron task force on order, information officer Mike Cole said.

The fire on Sunday reached the top of the Bitterroot divide and helicopter water drops worked Monday to keep it from spotting over to the Bitterroot Valley side, Cole said.

Actually, in some places theres still some snow if we could get it herded into the snowbank, Cole said. That was kind of crazy when I heard them say that.

As of Monday morning, 106 firefighters were on the Lolo Peak fire.

Fire managers on Monday raised fire danger in Missoula County to extreme, just a week after raising it from high to very high. On Tuesday, Missoula County commissioners are expected to approve an emergency proclamation to impose Stage 2 fire restrictions, prohibiting all fires and the operation of welding or acetylene torches with an open flame; limiting smoking to enclosed vehicles or buildings; and the operation of motorized vehicles off designated roads and trails.

Stage 2 restrictions will be in place at 12:01 a.m. Thursday in Ravalli County and the Bitterroot National Forest.

The restrictions come as numerous fires continue to burn in the Bitterroot and Sapphire mountains, and after a spark from a swather appears to have caused a small fire near Stevensville Saturday afternoon.

Its hot and dry out there, and its only July, said Tyson Chambers, Stevensvilles rural fire assistant chief. Were kind of afraid of what August might bring.
LEXINGTON, Neb.  A Montana man suspected of bank robberies in five states pleaded not guilty Monday to unrelated charges in Nebraska.

Richard Gathercole entered the pleas Monday in Dawson County District Court to two counts of possessing stolen firearms and one of theft or receiving stolen property, court records said. A trial starting date of Aug. 12 was set.

FBI officials in Los Angeles have said Gathercole, 39, is suspected of being the man they've dubbed the "AK-47 bandit," who's committed at least six bank robberies and attempted another in California, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska and Washington since 2012.

Gathercole, of Roundup, was indicted July 6 in Seattle, accused of using an AK-47 rifle to steal $15,000 in North Bend, Washington, in 2012. San Bernardino County, California, officials have said they intend to charge him with attempted murder of a peace officer for the 2012 shooting of a Chino police officer during a bank robbery.

Court documents filed earlier this month said FBI agents seized bomb-making materials, seven guns and ammunition from Gathercole's home. Agents also said they found sheriff's badges and patches, a sheriff's vest, an ammunition vest, a military-style helmet, an organic chemistry book and material to make identification badges.

Nebraska court documents say Gathercole was arrested June 20 at a gas station near Lexington, Nebraska. A sheriff's deputy had spotted a pickup truck there that Kansas authorities had reported stolen by a man who'd fired at but missed a state trooper.

Dawson County officials said Gathercole is in custody at the county jail in Lexington, which is 198 miles (319 kilometers) west-southwest of Omaha.
Tate Haidle knew something was wrong when, during a stop in Kansas in the summer of 2015, he was so tired he chose to stay back and sleep instead of heading to a festival to see one of his favorite bands perform.

Back in Billings, after his health continued to decline, he went in for a battery of tests and doctors' visits and learned he'd contracted West Nile virus.

Two days later, the doctor called back to tell him he also had Rocky Mountain spotted fever. He was 21 at the time.

The chances of catching both diseases are one in several million, he said. Haidle's doctor found two reported cases where the patients  both teenagers  had contracted the diseases at the same time and had died.

"For a while, it was really scary," Haidle said.

These days, Haidle is almost back to full strength. He works part-time roasting coffee beans for Mazevo, the coffee shop that took over business from Off the Leaf, and earlier this month he competed in the volleyball tournament at Big Sky State Games.

"That was my first competitive physical activity" since getting sick two years ago, he said. "To be able to do that was incredible."

The summer he got sick, Haidle had been traveling across the Midwest as part of Off the Leaf's mobile coffee bar tour, which set up shop at more than a dozen different music festivals in a dozen different states.

On the mobile coffee tour, he was helping run Off The Leaf's coffee bar and then sleeping in a tent with the rest of the crew at night.

"It rains a lot in the Midwest," he said with a smile.

By the time they got to Wisconsin it was constantly wet and they were camping in groves of trees and bushes, often in puddles. And around the puddles were always dozens of mosquitoes. It was there he first started to notice his fatigue.

At the their next stop, the rock festival in Kansas, he ended up in a hotel room so tired he could hardly keep himself awake. At first he thought it was mononucleosis, something he'd had a couple times before as a teen.

When he returned to Billings, he spent enormous amounts of time sleeping. Haidle's health had gotten so bad that he moved back home and spent 22 hours a day sleeping on the couch in the basement.

His parents Candi and Daryl Haidle struggled to respond.

"You're watching your kid deteriorate in front of you," Candi Haidle said.

They both pushed their son a little to get up and at least try to put a little effort into life, into getting better.

"There's this other component where you want to make sure they're not slacking," Daryl Haidle said.

There was a day Tate Haidle slept a straight 26 hours. He had dropped from 203 pounds to 167 pounds and seemed to buckle under the lightest physical activity. For Tate, the scariest was that he had trouble speaking. He would struggle to put sentences together and had difficulty communicating.

"He literally could not do anything," Daryl Haidle said.

Candi Haidle said it was at this point that she and Daryl had a moment with Tate that deepened the contours of their relationship.

"We realized we just needed to be there no matter what," she said.

Tate Haidle went to visit his family doctor, Neal Sorensen, and eventually ended up in the offices of David Graham, an infectious disease specialist, where he was diagnosed with West Nile virus and then, two days later, Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Officials believe he was bit by a mosquito carrying West Nile and by a tick carrying spotted fever.

As frightening as the double diagnosis was, it was a relief to finally have some answers.

"It was a little bit shocking," Candi Haidle said. "But it finally put a face on what was going on."

A few months later, the hives started.

"Anytime it got above 70 degrees or I did something like unload the dishwasher I'd get hives," Tate Haidle said.

After eight months, he decided to head out to eastern Montana to continue healing. His grandparents live in Fallon and he joined them there, helping around their place when he could and resting when he couldn't.

It was there where he had an experience that turned the corner on his health. Haidle has believed in God since he was a young child and as he was recuperating at his grandparents' home, he realized in the back of his mind he was working through issues he had wrestled with since he was child.

He had a moment of clarity and came to peace with what he'd been wrestling with. In a moment he felt his heart had been healed, which, Haidle believes, has allowed the rest of his body to heal.

"I'm not supposed to be doing as well as I'm doing," he said.

It's that faith in God, a belief that God was always in control of the situation, that allayed much of the fears of all three. They knew whatever was supposed to happen would happen, and they'd deal with it knowing that it was God's plan.

By December 2016, a year and a half after getting sick, Haidle was clear of both diseases. He's still a little low on energy and he's hoping to be back to 100 percent by the end of the year. His immune system will take years to recover. When he gets a cold, he gets it worse than those around him, and it lasts longer than it does for others.

Looking back on the last two years, Haidle remarked on how his illness brought together his family, which was already tight-knit. He's the oldest of four kids and, along with his parents, his siblings learned just how much they could rely on each other.

"We became a lot closer," Tate Haidle said. "It exposed the value of what really matters."
I read with interest George Ochenski's July 17 opinion, which had a lot of drama in it, even the title, "Can we save our melting planet?" but very little facts.

Now I am not a climate denier; I think the climate changes a lot. I think that people have something to do with it. You can't put more and more people on the same piece of dirt and not have changes. But what are the facts?

So I started out at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website. NOAA claims to have been keeping track of the weather since 1880 to the present: 137 years of weather record-keeping. I was impressed with that. Just think: 137 years of accurate, reliable record-keeping!

Then I had to stop and think. This was before the first gasoline-powered car was made. Way before airplanes, and about eight decades before the first satellite was shot into orbit. So I had to raise a eyebrow when I thought of the winter of 1880, in Alaska, going outside to read a thermometer, and how accurate that might be. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

So Fact 1 is that NOAA has been keeping weather records for 137 years. How accurate and reliable those early readings were is up for debate.

I heard a lot on TV and saw a lot of print material that 2016 was the hottest year on record. But it was hard to find how much hotter it was than, say, 2015, the prior year. Then I found it. (Are you sitting down?) It was 0.07 degrees F. That's right folks, seven hundredths of one degree warmer than the prior year! That's Fact 2.

But that does not take into any account of the margin of error. After doing a lot of searching I found that NOAA's margin of error is 0.14; that's fourteen hundredths of one degree, which is pretty good, but in this case the margin or error is twice the amount they said the earth warmed.

My next thought was: how much has Mother Earth warmed? I know you can't go by just one summer or one year; you have to go back decades. Good old NOAA told me, they say, in part, that the average global land and sea temperature, in 2016, was 1.69 degrees F higher then the 20th century average. I hope you were still sitting down. That's fact 3.

I was a little disappointed. All this hoopla over, basically, one and a half degrees, and that doesn't take into consideration the margin of error.

Fact 4 is that the good old USA spends tens of billions of dollars on climate change.

I was talking to one person about global warming and she got a little upset and said that she wasn't talking about global warming, she was talking about climate change. I thought "What's the difference?" So I had to find out.

The very first sentence in Wikipedia under the definition of "global warning" is "Global warming, also referred to as climate change..." I found a lot of different definitions, but basically they say that global warming is the rising of the earth's temperature because of pollutants, carbon dioxide, (the use of fossil fuels) are released into the atmosphere. They say climate change is a change in weather patterns due largely to the increased levels of carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels. I'll have to go with Wikipedia on this one, global warming and and climate change are one and the same. Fact 5.

Now my last thought was, how much of this global warming did we cause? Now remember Fact 3, that NOAA said the temperature in 2016 was 1.69 degrees above the 20th century average, hottest year on record. Then I looked at how much we caused, there are several causes of global warming but people say the main one is Co2, emissions from fossil fuel. Well I found that the Environmental Protection Agency said in 2014 that the United States was responsible for 15 percent. In 2015 Wikipedia had the amount at 14.35 percent. Well, to be generous I'll use the EPA estimate: 15 percent of 1.69 equals 0.25. That's right, we're responsible for raising the earth's temperature by a quarter of one degree! That's Fact 6, and my last.

Craig L. Martin,

Troy
The highway out of Butte to the east went south, along what is now Harrison Avenue and ultimately over Pipestone Pass to Whitehall. The route was marked by inns  Mile Houses  at least at 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, and 18 miles from the heart of uptown Butte, the last one about 5 miles east of the Continental Divide. The two most famous survivors are the Nine Mile, in Thompson Park, and the Five Mile, at 5100 Harrison.

An inn, with a cafe and saloon, was probably at this location by the late 1880s and certainly by the early 1890s. The property was owned in the mid-1890s by ticket broker, cigar wholesaler, and later real estate tycoon Adolph Pincus. In 1896, all the personal property in the place, owned by one Ida Au Claire, was offered in security to Pincus for a loan of $855, which he carried at 2% interest per month. The property included eight horses, three wagons, two pair of bobsleds, and 150 cords of wood.

The inn on this site in the earliest 1900s was a resort and venue for prize fights which could not be pulled off in Butte. Kid Foley and Kid Opie both boxed there in lightweight bouts in 1901, and the place was well known as a venue for large private parties. Because of the proximity to the cemeteries out Harrison Avenue, it was also a frequent stopping place for after-burial gatherings.

The original hostelry burned to the ground November 13, 1902. A kitchen fire spread, and the proprietors wife (Mrs. Joseph Ethier) reportedly suffered serious burns and injuries when she jumped from a second-floor window. The building was a total loss, estimated at $3,000.

Frank Cash (1858-1931) was an Austrian immigrant by way of New York. He came to the U.S. about 1886 and was in Butte by 1891, and after a short stint as a miner, he began to work as a saloonkeeper. In 1898, Mr. Cash lived in Meaderville working as a laborer, but by 1900, he was operating a saloon at his residence at 21 Lincoln in Meaderville. The next year he had a new saloon at 1260 Talbot, the continuation of Mercury Street. His saloon was at Talbot and Watson, with the Monitor Mine in the back yard and the massive Braund Boarding House across the street. The Pennsylvania Mine was just a few blocks straight north. His saloon, with a restaurant in the rear, came to be called the Cash House. This area is all in the Berkeley Pit or eradicated by its margin today.

About 1905, Frank Cash moved out Harrison Avenue to a house and saloon across from the present Five Mile House, which was built probably by 1904 or 1905. In 1906, family lore says the flip of a silver dollar allowed him to buy the Five Mile (if it had gone the other way, the owner of the Five Mile would have bought him out), and the family had many decades of connection to the place thereafter. In addition to managing the Five Mile House, Frank was the regional distributor for the Wurlitzer Music Company in Butte; one transaction in 1914 grossed $1,550 in a sale of a violin, flute, and piano.

Frank left Butte when prohibition started in 1919, moving to the Bitterroot Valley where he established a famous $100,000 ranch on 1,000 acres along Skalkaho Creek, where he raised registered shorthorn cattle.
Marietta, GA.  A Georgia mother has been arrested after police say she left her daughter home alone, hungry and in deplorable conditions.

Officers with the Marietta Police Department said Deborah Oats left her 11-year-old at home in their apartment while she went out.

The child then knocked on the door of James Fisher, Oats' neighbor.

"She wanted help, she wanted us to do something about it," said Fisher.

Officials said Fisher and his wife gave the girl some food. She fell asleep on their couch, and, when she woke up at 2 a.m., her mom still wasn't home.

According to Fisher, the child told him, "They're probably out clubbing, like it happens a lot."

Fisher called the police while his wife went into Oats' apartment.

Officials said the apartment had no air conditioning, and Fisher's wife found cockroaches, animals in poor condition and feces everywhere.

"It was a wreck," said Fisher. "If you've seen 'Hoarders,' it was almost like that. No AC in the middle of the Georgia summer means the living conditions were horrible for all parities involved."

When police tracked Oats down, she was in an area officials know to be a popular site for drugs. Oats was arrested and faces a $10,000 bond.

Her daughter is in custody of the state.
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MUSCATINE  Almost 50 years after a one-room schoolhouse in West Liberty closed its doors, it will get a turn-of-the century wooden floor, returning the structure to how it looked when one teacher taught students of all ages under one roof.

The schoolhouse once stood on a particularly swampy swath of land outside West Liberty, earning it the nickname the Swamp School." But since its construction at around 1879, the building was moved a couple of times and was used as a garage at some point. By the time it moved to West Liberty Heritage Park in 2004, the school lost its original wooden floor. Instead, the building had an industrial-looking poured concrete floor that seems at odds with the wooden features of the schoolhouse.

When you look at the old one-room schoolhouse and you see a modern poured concrete floor, thats not really how it was, said Scott Brooke of the West Liberty Heritage Foundation, the organization that now owns the house. We want to try and give a presentation that would give an accurate image of what a one-room school house looked like back in the day. And by putting down a vintage wooden floor it would give you a better idea of how things looked.

The floor will be the last big project in a long list of restoration projects that the West Liberty Heritage Foundation has undertaken to bring the schoolhouse back to its former glory. The $6000 project is funded in part by individual donations. The West Liberty Heritage Foundation was also awarded an almost $3,000 grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa this month for the project.

A relic of rural history, the Swamp School is one of a handful of one-room schoolhouses to be preserved in Muscatine County. At one point, according to the Iowa State Historical Society, almost 14,000 such schools dotted rural Iowa. Most were closed in the 1960s after the Iowa State Legislature mandated the creation of school districts.

It was one of the few ones that actually remained standing and all the other ones have kind of either fallen in or burned down or torn down or fallen to a state of disrepair, Brooke said.

Brooke said the foundation is looking for a turn-of-the century floor to maintain the houses historical accuracy. The floor will most likely come from an old barn or another structure built around that time. Restoration, he said, will begin in the fall and will take about a week to 10 days.

Its just an important part of our history, as an in-town school would be. Its building our community, he said.
At least nine people are dead after a phone call from a Walmart employee led to the discovery of dozens of undocumented immigrants severely injured in the back of a tractor-trailer in Texas early Sunday, according to federal authorities.

More than 100 undocumented immigrants may have been sandwiched in the back of the 18-wheeler during the journey, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Thomas Homan said, citing initial interviews with survivors.

"Checking the video from the store, we found there were a number of vehicles that came in and picked up a lot of the folks that were in that trailer that survived the trip," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said. "We are looking at a human trafficking crime here."

The employee told authorities the trailer was parked at a Walmart lot in San Antonio. A man who was in it asked the employee for water.

The employee brought water for the man, then called police and asked them to conduct a welfare check, McManus said.

That's when authorities discovered eight bodies and 31 people suffering from various injuries, authorities said. A ninth victim later died at a hospital, ICE officials said.

"We quickly called a 'mass casualty incident' and had about 29 units arrive out there and start transporting people," San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

"With heat strokes or heat injuries, a lot of them are going to have some irreversible brain damage."

A heatstroke can cause swelling of the brain and other vital organs, possibly causing permanent damage, if a person's body temperature isn't quickly lowered, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Officials said the air conditioner in the trailer was not working. And the high temperature in San Antonio on Saturday was 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).

"Unfortunately, some of them were severely overheated, and that was a refrigerated truck with no refrigeration," Hood said. "So the inside of the truck was just austere condition that nobody was going to survive in it. So we were very fortunate that they were found."

Two of the people hospitalized are 15 years old, the fire spokesman said.

Feds join the investigation

Authorities don't know where the trailer is from or how long it was parked at Walmart, but they are reviewing surveillance video.

Police also searched the area with helicopters after some people ran into the woods.

The US Attorney's Office said the driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, was being held in connection with the incident, authorities said. Prosecutors plan to file a criminal complaint against Bradley in federal court on Monday morning.

"The driver and whoever else we find is involved in this will be facing state and federal charges," McManus said.

"Fortunately, we came across this one and fortunately there are people who survived but this happens all the time," he said. "You can see that it happens late at night under darkness because they don't want to be discovered."

Once the victims undergo treatment, the case will be turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the police chief said.

Homan deplored the discovery as the latest major case of human smuggling in the United States.

"By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished," Homan said in a statement.

He said in fiscal year 2016, Homeland Security Investigations launched 2,110 human smuggling investigations, which resulted in 1,522 criminal convictions.

During that same year, he said, HSI made 2,734 criminal arrests and 3,007 administrative arrests related to human smuggling operations.

In Sunday's case, "These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters," said Richard L. Durbin Jr., US attorney for the Western District of Texas.

"All were victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo."

US Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat who represents parts of San Antonio, called for reform.

"Horrific scene overnight in San Antonio where a human smuggling attempt turned deadly," Doggett tweeted. "Prosecute smugglers, pray for survivors and the victims' families, stop the hysteria, reform our broken immigration system."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the deaths were "a heartbreaking tragedy."

"Human trafficking is an epidemic that Texas is working to eradicate," the governor said, highlighting a bill he signed in May that provides information to the trucking industry about how to spot and report signs of human trafficking.

Walmart: Some of the incident was on camera

The store captured some of the incident on camera, but declined to describe or release any of the footage to CNN, Walmart corporate spokesman Nathan Barr said.

"(T)his is an ongoing law enforcement investigation. We are cooperating fully with the authorities but will not be providing interviews or footage to media," Barr told CNN in an email.

"We are in the process of reviewing that video with law enforcement but won't be commenting on it."

Barr also declined to identify the employee who asked police to conduct a welfare check on the truck.

"I wish I could be more helpful but we can't interfere with the investigation," he said.

CNN's Sheena Jones, Jason Morris, Ed Lavandera, Kevin Bohn and Darran Simon contributed to this report.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
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 []
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Doreen Gatwiri, a TV presenter at Ebru TV is one of Kenyas revered TV girls.

Doreen who is a lawyer by profession anchors Swahili news at the television channel. She is also a motivational speaker and gives talks to students in campus and high school.

In 2013, she was crowned Miss Catholic University of Eastern Africa. She is also a philanthropist and uses her free time to visit childrens homes, prisons and community service.

She spoke to Sunday Magazine about how she spends Sundays.

Sunday is

An easy day for me. Its church and spa day.

My Sunday starts

At 6 am where I take my half an hour run then I attend the 8 am church service at Shrine of The Sacred Heart of Jesus in Karen. Then I go to the spa for four hours at Hemmingways Hotel in Karen.
Less than a fortnight ago, business in the city center was brought to a standstill courtesy of Bonfire Adventures CEO Simon Kabu.

The businessman made his wife, Sarah Kabu, the envy of women across the city after throwing her a grandiose birthday estimated to have cost Sh30 Million.

He also gifted her with her dream car and had it delivered alongside a five-tier red velvet cake.

Basically, he set the standards way too high and has been doing it for the last couple of years.

In 2015, they went on a cruise in Europe while in 2016, they toured the Seychelles. They were supposed to visit London, but our six-month old daughter does not have a passport, hence I settled for the Range Rover, said Kabu.

It has always been her favourite car. When we are in traffic or driving and one passes by, she would point at it and promise to get one by the time she is 40. So, I decided to get it for her 39th birthday as a surprise, said Kabu.

He added that The cake was intentionally big because we wanted to share it with the street kids but the spectators took over.

For a week, the Kabus were the talk of the town, especially among female social media users. Many of them demanded to know where men like Kabu can be found.

Well, Sarah has some Biblical advice for them.

I advise them to be like the woman in Proverbs 31 and also work hard. My husband knows how hard I work and he decided to give me the gift. Women should stop spending hours on social media groups gossiping and instead, spend time working and helping their husbands, and they will be rewarded.

Women should drop the mentality of getting things the easy way, bleaching themselves and cutting down weight to attract rich men. Let them grow with their men, said Sarah.

Mr and Mrs Kabu are the founders of Bonfire Adventures. They started the multimillion tours and travel company with only Sh20,000 and a desk.
Apparently, Raila Odingas youngest daughter Winnie Odinga does not the like the attention from being the former Prime Ministers daughter.

The 27-Year-Old is often seen behind her father whenever he appears in public forums. Keen observers who have noted her presence in her fathers campaign trail believe she is being prepared to take over from her father.

However, in an interview with Pulse Magazine, the outspoken Winnie revealed she is not planning to run for any political seat.

Here are excerpts from the interview.

How would you describe yourself?

My name is Winnie Odinga but my friends call me Kazi, a nickname my sister Rose gave me because I was always on the move, always active. Im 27 years old.

I went to Rusinga School for my prep school, and Brookhouse for high school. I have a double major degree in International Business and Corporate Communications from Philadelphia, United States.

How was Philly? Did you get to ride motorbikes as part of the Philly culture?

No. Lets just talk about Nairobi.

How comes kids of influential personalities shy away from talking about their privileged backgrounds? Is it part of keeping the public image?

People should accept who they are. Be who you are. When I was born, in 1990, our family was the most hated in Kenya. My dad was in and out of detention. I didnt get to pick the schools I went to, I didnt get to choose which family to be born into.

I sit in meetings where Im the only female and everyone is above 40 years of age. You can see through their looks that they disapprove of my look and my accent but you cant impress everyone.

Tupac or Biggie?

Tupac any day. I mean he was a poet and everything. He was also aggressive. However still, Biggie was alright too.

How would you describe your style?

Its cool, comfortable, and laid back. Im a sucker for shoes. I love boots and sneakers. I have too many of those. I dont like heels and tight clothes that much.

I dont carry around a handbag too.

Dating anyone?

Yes.

Anyone we know?

No. And thats the end of that.

What do you think about socialites?

I dont think we should be glorifying h**s but theyre so damn interesting. They have these crazy lives that they go to great lengths to portray and you cant keep of their Instagram.

The only problem is that they make young girls think that what they do is the only way to acquire that lifestyle. They are other ways you can have that life too and not be even bothered to post every single detail about it.

Other ways like?

I think school-going girls can have that life too. Its eventually what you decide to work and achieve for yourself.

Do you enjoy the attention from being the former Prime Ministers daughter?

No. I hate it. It holds me back. I cant get to have a private life and taking pictures the whole time is not quite what I consider having a good time.

I love to live for the moment, talking to new people and appreciating nice vibes. However, I love being my fathers daughter. Nobody gets me like he does.

Do you have an actual day job?

I work for my dad. I have worked for him for as long as I can remember. Im his bodyguard, his briefcase carrier, travel companion or even driver if need be.

Is that the natural path for all politicians kids?

Indians have shops that they can trace back to the 1900s run by their grandchildren and great grandchildren. You have to support your own.

I cant just sit back and leave the campaign to my father. I dont think anyone would abandon their parents. Its a job like any other.

Do you miss your brother?

Every day. The campaign would be very different if he were here. He was a total goon. Right about now, he would be in Kibera with his fellow goons talking, plotting and everything. It was always comfortable and warm around him.

What do you listen to; what do you watch?

I listen to a lot of Homeboyz Radio. I love most of the new school rappers in Kenya. The only problem is that its hard to dance to Kenyan music, unless of course its Benga music. I love Nigerian music, its easy to dance to Wizkid.

My guilty pleasure is watching Nairobi Diaries and Hot Topics by Wendy Williams. Thats fun. I dig House of Cards and Breaking Bad.

Are you planning on running for political office soon?

No. I just want to be useful. There wont be any need for me to join Parliament to be called Mheshimiwa just for the sake of it yet I dont get to bring forth or contribute to any meaningful policies five years down the line. I want a fulfilling life that I can get to do something meaningful with.

You came under fire for suggesting that Kenyans should be paying their house-helps Sh50,000. What was that about?

People thought that I was just throwing around figures that I have no idea about. Im just appalled that we dont stop to think that even house-helps with kids have their own personal aspirations.

We have become too consumed with ourselves, its all about us improving ourselves and to hell with the rest. If you can afford it, why not uplift the people that take care of you and your kids to be really among us?

Also Read: Winnie Odinga: Shame on You If You Pay Your House Girl Less Than Sh50,000
Napa County supervisors talked about the possible sale of the 8.6-acre former Health and Human Services Agency property on Old Sonoma Road behind closed doors, but took no action.

All of this will be a public discussion at a later time, County Counsel Minh Tran said before last weeks closed session. This is just exploring different options.

The county wants to knock down buildings at 2344 Old Sonoma Road to make room for apartments and town houses. The housing density remains a controversial topic, given the property is in a residential city of Napa neighborhood.

Originally, the county sought to prepare a development plan for the property and have this plan approved by the city of Napa. Then it would sell a project ready to be built by a developer.

Now the county is exploring whether to bring in a developer at an earlier stage. That could have prompted the closed session item that at first glance might prove confusing.

The agenda said the supervisors were to discuss negotiations for price and terms of an Old Sonoma Road property sale. State public meeting laws allow closed sessions for real estate negotiations, given publicly revealing strategies would put the county at a disadvantage.

But Tran emphasized there is no potential buyer. Nor has the county decided whether to bring in a developer prior to settling the controversial density issue and securing city approvals.

That raised the question of whether open meeting laws as dictated by the Brown Act allow supervisors to meet out of public view to discuss negotiations that have yet to take place.

Nikki Moore, legal counsel for California News Publishers Association, said the conversation might be about the range of prices the county finds acceptable. In that case, the county wouldnt need to have a potential buyer for supervisors to meet in closed session.

If they are planning to put it up for sale and they wanted to talk out the limits of what they want, the same interest in secrecy exists, she said.

But supervisors couldnt have a more general discussion in closed session about whether to put the land up for sale, Moore said. That should be done in public.

Of course, what supervisors actually discussed is a mystery, given they were in closed session. That makes it difficult for the public to ascertain whether they crossed any lines.

That is our perennial problem with a closed session meeting, Moore said.

Tran in open sessions periodically reminds supervisors to stick to the topics on the agenda and not digress into side issues. Supervisors sometimes have curtailed such conversations themselves. Moore said the public must hope these admonishments carry over into closed sessions.

The Ralph M. Brown Act is designed to ensure public agencies conduct the peoples business openly and not secretly in a back room. Among other things, it requires the posting of agendas for meetings and requires open meetings in most cases.

However, it allows legislative bodies of local governments to meet in closed session for certain reasons. Among them are real estate negotiations, employee evaluations and litigation.
Important dates for next school year

Calendars for the 2017-2018 school year are available on our website at www.nvusd.org, in both English and Spanish. Note that not all schools have exactly the same calendar, but they are all on our Calendars page. Generally, though, these important dates apply to all schools:

Aug. 16 - First day of school

Oct. 2 through Nov. 30 - Open Enrollment period

Nov. 20-24 - Thanksgiving break

Dec. 18 - Jan. 5, 2018 - Winter break

March 26-30, 2018 - Spring break

April 28, 2018 - NVUSD Family Festival

June 7, 2018 - Last day of school

Top 10 suggestions for preparing your child to return to school

For most of us, the pace of summer is more relaxed than that of the school year. We stay up later at night, get up later in the morning, and routine takes a back seat to spontaneity. That is all good!

To do well at school, though, requires consistency, focus and a healthy lifestyle, including good sleep and nutrition. Here are our Top 10 suggestions to help your student succeed:

#10 - Children need 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night. Start re-setting your childs sleep clock a week or so before school starts, so they get the rest they need to be alert during school.

#9 - Think now about your morning routine, including getting ready, having a nutritious breakfast, and ensuring that everyone leaves the house on time with all the things they need. What can you do the night before? Now that your children are a year older, what new tasks can they be responsible for, such as feeding the family pet or making their bed?

#8 - Most students use a backpack. Choose one that is the correct size, with wide, padded shoulder straps and a padded back. Teach your student to use both shoulder straps. Remove unneeded items often, to keep the pack light as possible.

#7 - Before school starts, review the cafeteria menus online or at the school site, and determine which days your child will have the school lunch and which days he or she will bring a lunch, if any. Establish your online meal account on the District website at www.nvusd.org.

#6 - Depending on the grade level, know your opportunities to become active and engaged in school, and what tools are in place for you to keep track of how your student is doing. You can get this information from the school. Most importantly, complete all of the requested information in the paper Back to School packet, and return it to the school promptly.

#5 - Practice social situations with your child, such as if he or she witnesses someone being treated badly, or if they are interested in approaching a potential new friend or helping someone who is upset. What things can they say?

#4 - If your child has a cell phone, ask at your school for guidance on when and how phone use is allowed. Ensure that your student understands the guidelines, as well.

#3 - Ensure your student has a designated time and place to do homework. Many families find that having the student in the kitchen area while parents prepare dinner works well.

#2 -Take advantage of any orientations or family nights, so your child feels more comfortable and sees you interacting with the school, the principal and the teachers. It reinforces the idea that education is a team effort.

#1 - Show your student, in word and deed, that your family values education. Plan vacations around school holidays, and when your child does miss school, work with the teacher and your student to make up the missed material.

We hope you and your student have an enjoyable, educational 2017-2018 school year!

Incoming 7th graders need Tdap vaccine

California law requires that students entering 7th grade show proof of having received the Tetanus, Diptheria, Pertussis (Tdap) vaccine, or a physicians statement that says receiving the vaccine would be detrimental to the students health.

See your childs health care provider for the vaccine, or call Napa County Public Health at (707) 253-4270 to make an appointment.
There's something about Sean Spicer that inspires pity. He's had so much to deal with: The brutal "Saturday Night Live" skewerings. The fact that his boss, President Donald Trump, wouldn't let him meet Pope Francis during the Vatican visit. That ill-fitting suit he started out in. And so, so much more.

But don't give in to that emotion. To use current parlance, resist.

Because Spicer should have known from the very start that this would end badly. There was never any other possibility for a press secretary who was in the most unacceptable position for a White House press secretary. A classic CNN chyron last month got it just right: "President's Spokesman Says He Can't Speak For the President."

That's been a problem.

Spicer - awkwardly combative, cringingly defensive and ever-so-easy to parody - started out with a world-class disaster.

"This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration - period - both in person and around the globe," the former Republican National Committee official told reporters on Jan. 21, just one day after Trump took the oath. The Washington Post's Fact Checker gave this claim its worst grade: Four Pinocchios.

The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler wrote:

"This is an appalling performance by the new press secretary. He managed to make a series of false and misleading claims in service of a relatively minor issue. Presumably he was ordered to do this by Trump, who conjured up fantastic numbers in his own mind, but part of a flack's job is to tell the boss when lies are necessary - and when they are not.

"Spicer earns Four Pinocchios, but seriously, we wish we could give five."

The tone seems almost quaint. It was an era long ago - six full, insane months ago - when everyone still expected the White House press secretary to hew to reality.

Spin, everyone understands, is in the job description. But serving up outright falsehood as truth, with a side of outrage at not being believed? This was new.

Nevertheless, the president wanted it to be so and insisted that Spicer defend his claim vigorously.

This was the moment when Spicer should have hung it up and walked away.

That would have been uncomfortable, and certainly unprecedented, but it would have had something important going for it: Integrity.

Instead Spicer toughed it out. This was poor decision-making for where could it lead?

The worst moment - and it's a matter of debate because the competition is fierce for that distinction - may have come on the mid-May night that Spicer told the assembled members of the press to work in the dark.

"Just turn the lights off," he pleaded, as he emerged from half-shadow to address, more or less, the president's abrupt firing of FBI director James Comey.

But that statement, which seemed an all-too-apt metaphor at that fractious moment, has become reality, too, as more and more, press briefings have been held off-camera, audio-only.

As the lights go out on Sean Spicer's unforgettably awful tenure, we can only wish - for his sake - that he had seen this moment coming and saved himself months of humiliation.

Instead, likable as he is said to be, Spicer goes down in history as a joke: The president's spokesman who couldn't speak for the president.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale is for the first time offering people the opportunity to complete a bachelors degree in Workforce Education and Development at John A. Logan College in Carterville. Nicole Mathis of Carterville, (seated), talks about the program, the curriculum and the advantage of being able to take classes at JALC with Deborah Barnett, director of off-campus degree programs for SIUs Department of Workforce Education and Development, and Steve OKeefe, director of recruitment and retention for JALC. Mathis is a May graduate of SIUs on-campus WED program and will begin working on her WED masters degree at SIU this fall. (Photo by Russell Bailey)

SIU to offer workforce development degree at John A. Logan

by Christi Mathis

CARBONDALE, Ill.  For the first time ever, people in the Southern Illinois region will be able to complete a bachelors degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale at John A. Logan College in Carterville.

This fall, SIU is introducing an off-campus bachelors degree completion program in workforce education and development at John A. Logan College. The program, with specialization in organizational training and development, is geared toward adult learners who typically have completed some college classes or an associates degree and who have professional work experience and occupational training.

Through a combination of online and accelerated weekend classroom courses, participants can complete their baccalaureate degree in as little as one year, depending on their previous education and work experience.

Our students enter the program with life experience, professional work experience and occupational or military training, says Deborah Barnett, director of off-campus degree programs for the Department of Workforce Education and Development at SIUs College of Education and Human Services. We value this experience by evaluating it for college credit, and by incorporating it in the classroom through assignments, projects and real-world application,

The accelerated format incorporates 36 credit hours of major degree requirements, including six, 16-week-long online classes. In addition, students will participate in a series of six consecutive, seated, eight-week classes. Each seated class meets at JALC for eight hours every other Saturday as well as on Sunday during the first and last weekend of the session for a total of six attendance days per course. Students can also enroll on a part-time basis.

Heather Rose, of Marion, is one of the first to enroll in SIUs new WED program at John A Logan College. She graduated from Logan in fall 2016 but was unsure of what baccalaureate degree to pursue, so she took a little time off from school. Already established in her career and working full-time, she said the programs flexible schedule appealed to her.

I heard about the WED program through an academic adviser at John A. Logan and was instantly interested, Rose said. The program is based around catering to work schedules like mine, which is exactly what I was looking for. This program will help me to achieve my ultimate goal of obtaining my bachelors degree.

SIUs off-campus programs originated nearly a half-century ago at Scott Air Force Base and the university currently has programs at a dozen sites, primarily military-affiliated. The John A. Logan College program is the newest off-campus program, and the closet geographically to SIU Carbondale. The university also offers an on-campus WED degree completion program that utilizes online and evening classes.

Nicole Mathis, of Carterville, is a spring 2017 graduate of the on-campus WED degree completion program at SIU and said SIUs commitment to offering such flexible degree programs is very important to students. After being out of school for nearly 30 years, she discovered the WED program, enrolled and completed her degree.

This is a very versatile program with many opportunities for employment after graduation, Mathis said. The WED program is very flexible, which allowed me to still work full-time, be a mom and a grandmother.

Mathis plans to continue her education this fall as shell begin working on her WED masters degree at SIU.

Barnett said the on-campus program has been quite successful, but SIU officials became aware of the need for additional schedule and location flexibility and the result is the partnership with JALC for the off-campus degree program.

President Ron House and JALC administrators have been wonderful to work with and have welcomed SIU and our WED program with open arms, Barnett said. We all embraced this opportunity not only as a collaborative partnership, but as a great benefit for JALC students and others in the Southern Illinois region who are considering pursuing a bachelors degree.

Barnett, who serves as the contact person for SIUs WED program at JALC, encourages anyone interested in the program to reach out to her soon since classes begin Aug. 26. As an adult learner who returned to college as a student herself, Barnett said she understands the excitement and anxiety of going back to school.

Just making the decision to apply and enroll in classes is probably the hardest part, she said. I always tell students that the time will pass anyway, so why not go ahead and begin taking steps toward the dream of earning their degrees.

Learn more about the Workforce Education and Development off-campus degree completion program at http://ehs.siu.edu/wed/. Or, contact Barnett at 618/453-3321 or dbarnett@siu.edu to discuss your personalized degree completion plan.

In addition, SIU Extended Campus is offering two $500 scholarships to qualifying students enrolling in the WED program at JALC this fall. Learn more at http://extendedcampus.siu.edu/scholarships/.
Heavy bombardment and fierce fighting shook the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold Raqa on July 23, as SDF said they captured a new neighbourhood from entrenched jihadists. (AFP Photo)

DAMASCUS, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Syrian warplanes carried out airstrikes in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus on Sunday, despite ongoing ceasefire in the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The monitoring group said the airstrikes hit the towns of Douma and Ain Terma in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on Sunday.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government or army.

Syria's military declared a ceasefire starting at noon on Saturday in besieged Eastern Ghouta, which has long been controlled by the opposition.

One rebel group in Eastern Ghouta quickly welcomed the

ceasefire.

The Cairo-based political opposition movement Al-Ghad said the agreement had been reached in Cairo, sponsored by Egypt and Russia and with the involvement of mainstream rebel groups.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-23 23:48:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAIRO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss Israeli aggression over the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the Arab League (AL) announced on Sunday.

The meeting, to be held at AL headquarters in Cairo, is requested by Jordan and supported by several Arab states to address "the latest Israeli aggressions and measures in Jerusalem and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque shrine," said AL spokesman Mahmoud Afifi.

Tensions between Israel and Palestinians have been rising since July 14 when Israel installed checkpoints and metal detectors at the entrances of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after three Israeli Arab gunmen shot dead two Israeli policemen near the site. The three were later killed by the Israeli police.

Since then, daily clashes have been erupting between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters at the gates of the mosque compound and elsewhere in West Bank.

In clashes during a massive protest on Friday, Israeli security forces killed three Palestinians and injured hundreds of others.

The AL has repeatedly condemned the Israeli practices at Al-Aqsa Mosque as a blatant breach of the right of worship and violation of relevant international laws and UN resolutions.

The recent Israeli measures led to new tensions in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has lasted for decades, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel is blamed by the international community for the current deadlock of the peace process because of its settlement expansion policy, which is rejected even by the United States, its strongest ally.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews. It has been a flashpoint site for Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past decades since the 1967 Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital city in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 00:13:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RIYADH, July 23 (Xinhua) -- As part of Turkey's renewed mediation efforts, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Sunday to discuss the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and the Saudi-led quartet.

The two leaders addressed bilateral ties and regional developments, in addition to the efforts being exerted to fight terrorism, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.

Erdogan's Gulf tour, which will also take him to Qatar and Kuwait, came amid Turkey's new diplomatic offensive aimed at brokering an end to the Gulf standoff. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu conducted a Gulf tour to mediate the standoff early last month without achieving major results.

The Saudi-led quartet, which also includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 and imposed a blockade on the tiny rich Gulf nation.

They accused Doha of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs, which was strongly denied by Qatar.

Turkey has publicly sided with Qatar, with which it has expansive economic and security ties, while criticizing the Saudi-led blockade as inhumane.

Earlier Sunday, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before leaving for Saudi Arabia that Turkey is seeking an immediate resolution for the ongoing diplomatic row in the Gulf.

"Nobody has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore," Erdogan said.

Among the 13 demands put forward by the Saudi-led bloc included the closure of a Turkish military base in Qatar. Turkey has deployed a number of troops in the base recently in a move aimed at bolstering Qatar's defiance in face of sanctions and threat from its neighbors.

Ankara has refused to withdraw troops from Qatar, a move that has frustrated the four Arab countries.

But signs of easing of the crisis have emerged recently after the visit to the Gulf by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during which the U.S. and Qatar signed a deal on combating terrorism funding.

This addressed one of the core demands by the Saudi-led bloc, which has slammed Doha for financing and supporting a number of extremist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Hamas movement in Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Qatar has revised its law on fighting terrorism over the week, a move that was welcomed by the UAE as a "positive step."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 00:28:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TIRANA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Lulzim Basha, the current leader of the largest opposition party in Albania, Democratic Party (DP), has secured another mandate in this post, winning the party elections in Saturday's vote.

While presenting Sunday the results of Saturday elections, the Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission of the DP Jemin Gjana said the Democrats had re-confirmed Basha as their new leader.

"Basha garnered 91.3 percent of the votes, wining a landslide victory against his opponent Eduard Selami who received only 8.7 percent of votes," Gjana told a press conference.

Around 59,834 eligible voters, or 57.5 percent of all the party members of the Democratic Party cast their vote in ballot boxes.

These elections for the new leader of the DP in opposition were held after a group of DP members sought the resignation of Basha, blaming the latter for the huge defeat in the general elections of June 25.

Meantime, after the announcement of the result, the newly elected chairman of the Democratic Party Lulzim Basha said in a press statement that the high turnout of voters was evidence of trust of DP members in DP.

He called the vote as an expression of unity which implied that they were determined to work for strengthening of the Democratic Party of Albania.

Earlier in the day, the other candidate running for the DP leader Eduart Selami accepted the defeat, but said that he would continue to be part of the DP.

According to him, the DP came out stronger from these elections.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 01:18:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RIYADH, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A Saudi soldier died on Sunday in a landmine blast in the border city of Asir near Yemen, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The incident took place in the morning, when the soldier, a member of a border guard patrol, stepped on the mine, the Saudi Interior Ministry was quoted as saying.

Such incidents have been common along the Saudi-Yemen border since the beginning the Saudi-led war on Yemen two years ago.

Leading a coalition of African and Middle East countries, Saudi Arabia launched the military intervention in Yemen's civil war in 2015.

The coalition has been fighting the Houthi militia and loyalists of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in favor of the government led by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 04:09:40|Editor: An

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People drench each other with water to celebrate Vardavar Water Festival in Yerevan, Armenia, on July 23, 2017. Armenians had a cooling-off day by splashing water on Sunday, to celebrate a holiday known as Vardavar, widely observed 14 weeks after Easter. (Xinhua/Gevorg Ghazaryan)

YEREVAN, Armenia, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Armenians had a cooling-off day by splashing water on Sunday, to celebrate a holiday known as Vardavar, widely observed 14 weeks after Easter.

Although the event was observed by the Armenian Apostolic Church as the Transfiguration of Christ, it has its roots deep in the pagan past of Armenia before the adoption of Christianity in 301 AD.

The holiday, once marked as a tribute to Astghik, the pagan goddess of water, beauty, love and fertility, is now celebrated by drenching each other with water.

On Sunday, it was very common to see people dousing complete strangers and unsuspecting passers-by with buckets of water. The festival is particularly popular among the youth as it is the day when everyone is allowed to pull water pranks and get away with it.

The festival comes at a perfect time for the residents of the Armenian capital as hot weather conditions often force many to stay inside.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 04:24:45|Editor: ying

Jordanian security personnel secure the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, on July 23, 2017. A Jordanian teen was killed and an Israeli staffer at the Israeli embassy in Amman was critically injured in a brawl inside the embassy on Sunday, Al Ghad daily newspaper reported. (Xinhua/Mohammad Abu Ghosh)

AMMAN, July 23 (Xinhua) -- A Jordanian was killed, another injured and a Israeli staffer at the Israeli embassy in Amman was also injured in a shooting inside the embassy on Sunday.

In a statement Sunday night, the Public Security Department of Jordan said a shooting occurred at a residential building within the compound of the Israeli embassy in Amman.

The injured were taken to hospital for treatment.

Police closed the areas surrounding the embassy and was in search of the Jordanian's car in front of the embassy.

The Jordanians entered the building before the incident as they work as carpenters, said the statement, adding that the investigation is underway.

On Friday, demonstrations across Jordan called for severing ties with Israel and closing off the Israeli embassy in Amman over Israeli escalation in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Protests have since broken out in the holy site, with dozens of Muslim worshippers refused to enter the Mosque and prayed outside, considering the security checks a "violation" of the third holiest place for Muslims.

Last Friday, three Israeli Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces inside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, after two Israeli officers were killed in an attack.

Israel reopened the compound on Sunday with the introduction of metal detectors and security checks installed at the entrances.

Jordan, which oversees the holy Islamic and Christian sites in East Jerusalem including Al-Aqsa Mosque, was the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 04:24:46|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LONDON, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The unlikely friendship between Britain's widowed Queen Victoria and a clerk from India will be brought to life Monday at an exhibition opening on the Isle of Wight.

It will give visitors to Osborne House, Victoria's holiday retreat on the island off England's south coast, a rare glimpse of an episode in the monarch's life.

English Heritage, Britain's main cultural agency, outlined Sunday its plans for the exhibition at Osborne.

Costumes from the upcoming film "Victoria & Abdul" will go on show for the first time at Osborne from Monday.

The film, to be released in British cinemas on Sept. 15, was largely shot at Osborne. It tells the story of the unexpected friendship between Queen Victoria and her Indian servant Abdul Karim in the later years of her reign.

The costumes were designed by Oscar nominated designer Consolata Boyle who worked on The Queen (2006), The Iron Lady (2011) and Florence Foster Jenkins (2016). Her designs pay meticulous attention to historical detail.

Costumes in the exhibition include formal and informal attire worn in the film by celebrated British Judi Dench, such as the exquisite black silk gown with gold front piece Victoria wears while waiting for Karim's return to Osborne.

The striking outfits worn by Ali Fazal as Abdul Karim include the faithfully recreated scarlet and gold livery with a peacock blue striped silk turban.

The exhibition will continue until Sept. 30.

English Heritage Curator at Osborne, Michael Hunter, said: "Osborne was Queen Victoria's private family home which means visitors can step straight into Queen Victoria's world when they get here."

"Victoria & Abdul is the first film to ever use the interiors of Osborne as a location and these costumes add an extra layer to the rich experience of a visit here."

Victoria and Abdul forged an unlikely and devoted alliance that the royal household and Victoria's inner circle tried to destroy.

Shrabani Basu, who wrote and researched the remarkable story, said Abdul died a broken man a few years after being banished from England after Victoria's death in 1901.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 04:49:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAIRO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss Israeli aggression over Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem has been delayed to Thursday, the Cairo-based Arab League (AL) said in a statement on Sunday evening.

Requested by Jordan and supported by several Arab states, the emergency meeting was scheduled to be held on Wednesday, but the AL said the delay is to guarantee largest number of participant ministers.

The meeting is intended to discuss the latest Israeli aggressions and measures in East Jerusalem and its Al-Aqsa Mosque shrine.

The AL said that it also coordinated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to address the issue in its ministerial meeting next week.

Tensions between Israel and Palestinians have been rising since July 14 when Israel installed checkpoints and metal detectors at the entrances of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after three Israeli Arab gunmen shot dead two Israeli policemen near the holy site. The three were later killed by the Israeli police.

Since then, daily clashes have been erupting between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters at the gates of the mosque compound and elsewhere in the West Bank.

In clashes during a massive protest on Friday, Israeli security forces killed three Palestinians and injured hundreds of others.

On Sunday, Israel further installed security cameras around the holy site, yet it remains unclear whether the cameras will replace the metal detectors that sparked Palestinian rage.

The AL has repeatedly condemned the Israeli practices at Al-Aqsa Mosque as a blatant breach of the right of worship and violation of relevant international laws and UN resolutions.

In an earlier statement on Sunday, the pan-Arab organization referred to the recent Israeli measures as "playing with fire," stressing that Jerusalem is "a red line."

Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews. It has been a flashpoint site for Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past decades since the 1967 Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem.

The recent Israeli measures led to new tensions in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has lasted for decades, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel is blamed by the international community for the current deadlock of the peace process because of its settlement expansion policy, which is rejected even by the United States, its strongest ally.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital city in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 05:09:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KHARTOUM, July 23 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) on Sunday urged for self-restraint among the local communities in Abyei following a violent incident on Saturday leaving eight people dead.

"UNISFA calls for restraint and calm among communities in Abyei Area following the violent incident on 22 July 2017 along the highway of Todach to Goli, some 27 kilometers from Abyei town, that left eight civilians killed and one person injured," said the mission in a statement.

"UNISFA troops have conducted search operations, as well as an investigation of the incident, but the perpetrators have proved elusive so far," it noted.

The statement further said that the mission has stepped up its security measures on the highway leading to Amiet, a common market in Abyei.

It said the attack took place four days after the reopening of the trading activities at Amiet common market, noting that "Amiet common market has become a vital economic hub for Ngok Dinka and Misseriya communities."

UNISFA expresses its deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims.

The UNISFA mission was created by a UN Security Council resolution on June 27, 2011 and is composed of around 4200 military personnel and 50 police personnel. However, in May, 2013, the Security Council decided to increase the mission personnel to 5,326.

The disputed oil-rich area of Abyei lies on the border between Sudan and South Sudan, where both countries claims affiliation of the region.

A referendum was scheduled to be held in Abyei to decide the fate of the area coincident with the referendum on self- determination for South Sudan in January 2011 which resulted in the separation between the north and the south, but the voting did not take place due to differences over who has the right to vote.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 06:40:39|Editor: An

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A robot takes part in a race contest during an innovation event in Qinhuangdao, northChina's Hebei Province, Aug. 23, 2016. A 2-day innovation event for college students in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei was held here on Tuesday, in which more than 20 colleges took part. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao)

NEW YORK, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China is "on the right path" towards becoming a leading power in global scientific and technological innovations, a renowned U.S. scholar on technology and innovation policy has said.

"China has been doing extremely well in (the Global Innovation Index ranking). China has been going up consistently, in 2012, it was 34," said Soumitra Dutta, the founding dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and co-editor of the Global Innovation Index (GII), in a recent interview via phone with Xinhua.

China sustained its progress in the overall ranking, by securing the 22th spot, which makes it the first ever middle income country in the top 25 ranking, according to the GII 2017 report, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization in June.

"China has been investing for many years on some basic elements, for example, human capital and research and infrastructure...China is doing a lot of right things, China is on a right path," Dutta said.

China has incorporated the 2030 Agenda in China's 13th Five-Year Socio-economic Development Program and set the course of pursuing innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. And it has also launched the campaign of "Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship," which entails a package of measures and policies to encourage creativity and entrepreneurship on an unprecedented scale.

"Overall what I found very impressive is that the government of China has a very clear attitude towards innovation being a national priority," Dutta added. "That's very important for the future competitiveness of China going forward, China can no longer be a low-cost producer. It has to actually be high value creative and to create value you need innovation."

The Indian American professor also called for closer international cooperation in pushing forward global innovation.

"Close cooperation is extremely important for innovation, innovation is a global phenomena, people collaborate across border, cross country, that's how innovation comes," he said.

The GII, which started in 2007, ranks the economies of 127 countries or territories using an innovation performance score out of 100 points, based on the country's institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and finally creative outputs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 08:27:03|Editor: An

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Zhao Lijian (7th L, rear), charge d'affaires of Chinese Embassy to Pakistan and executive director of Pakistan's Higher Education Commission Arshad Ali (8th R, rear) pose for a group photo with teachers during a see-off function of Training Program for Pakistani Teachers at Chinese embassy in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, on July 23, 2017. A group of 40 Pakistani teachers left for Beijing on Sunday to get training on how to impart the Chinese language efficiently under the 2017 International Chinese Language Teacher Training Program sponsored by the Chinese government. (Xinhua/Ahmad Kamal)

ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A group of 40 Pakistani teachers left for Beijing on Sunday to get training on how to impart the Chinese language efficiently under the 2017 International Chinese Language Teacher Training Program sponsored by the Chinese government.

A special see-off ceremony for the teachers was held at the Chinese embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad which was attended by Zhao Lijian, charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy, Arshad Ali, executive director of Pakistan's Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and teachers.

It is the third batch of Pakistani teachers visiting China for language training since 2015. So far, at least 120 Pakistani teachers have got training under the program.

A total of 40 teachers, including 26 females and 14 males, from different institutes across Pakistan, will get training under the 15-day program, being organized and sponsored by the Chinese embassy in Islamabad in collaboration with Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and Beijing International Education Exchange Center.

On the occasion, Charge d'Affaires Zhao said "language is a bridge among different cultures, a bridge to bring our hearts closer to each other. If you could master the Chinese language, you will get a better understanding of the essence of the Chinese culture and the way of thinking, thus you can better communicate and work with Chinese friends."

Zhao appreciated Pakistani teachers for bearing greater responsibilities to teach young students about China and China-Pakistan friendship.

Addressing the ceremony, Ali expressed thanks to the Chinese government for starting such initiatives to strengthen bonds of friendship.

"I hope that the visiting Pakistani teachers will bring back not only training but also memories and experiences of Chinese rich culture to pass on to their students and other country fellows. The visit will be a source of inspirations for the continuation of China-Pakistan deep-rooted friendly relations from generation to generation," said Ali.

Masooma Nayyar, a headmistress of a school from Pakistan's southwest province of Balochistan, told Xinhua that the visit to China is going to be a great booster in her career and life.

"I am very excited and believe that the training will help me understand Chinese culture and language better," said Nayyar.

Since the start of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Pakistani people especially youngsters have been more eager to learn the Chinese language than ever before. Currently, four Confucius Institutes have been working in different areas of Pakistan to impart the Chinese language to students from all walks of life.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 09:03:34|Editor: ying

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COLOMBO, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday instructed his police chief to ensure the security of all judges after a shooting incident on Saturday threatened the life of a high court judge in Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka.

Sirisena strongly condemned Saturday evening's shooting incident which left one police officer dead. The president said the sacrifice of the country's brave police officers will never be forgotten.

An unidentified gunman opened fire at the vehicle of Jaffna High Court Judge M. Illanchelian in Nallur, Jaffna with a shoot-out erupting between the judge's security detail and the shooter.

The police said Justice Illanchelian was unharmed following the shooting. However one police sergeant of the security detail had succumbed to his injuries.

Two suspects have been arrested over the shooting. The reason for the shooting is still unknown but police said investigations were continuing.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 09:23:35|Editor: ying

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COLOMBO, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lanka Navy on Sunday saved two elephants that were swept out to deep sea inbetween Round Island and Foul Point in Trincomalee, in the east of the country, the navy said in a statement.

The rescue is the second of its kind after a team of naval officers earlier this month saved an elephant struggling to keep afloat after it was swept into the rough seas off the island's northern coast. The navy had carried out a 12-hour rescue operation to save the animal and bring it safely into the shallow waters.

After the two distressed jumbos were first noticed by an Inshore Patrol Craft on routine sea patrol on Sunday, a combined rescue mission was launched by the navy and the officials from the Department of Wildlife in Trincomalee to save the two wild elephants.

Responding to the situation, the navy augmented the rescue mission by deploying three more Fast Attack Craft on patrol and a team of navy divers. After being safely guided to the shore, the two elephants were subsequently released to the Foul Point jungle, the navy said.

In the earlier rescue mission, the navy said the jumbo had likely got swept into the sea while crossing the Kokkilai lagoon, a large stretch of water that lies between two areas of jungle.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 10:18:57|Editor: ying

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YANGON, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A total of 31 suspects have been arrested by the Myanmar security forces in Maungtaw township, northern Rakhine state over the weekend for holding a secret meeting in Kyauk Hlaykha village to commit terrorist acts, Myanmar News Agency reported Monday.

Acting on information, the security forces rounded up the secret meeting venue.

One of the suspects tried to attack the security force members with 14-inch knife but was overpowered and was arrested together with the weapon.

The suspects are under legal examination to ascertain if they are connected with any terrorist organization.

A day earlier, the Myanmar security forces had also arrested nine people suspected of murdering a community leader in Buthidaung township of the same state on July 4, bringing them under investigation.

A spate of violence occurred in Buthidaung and Maungtaw from last October to July with at least 44 civilians being killed and 27 others kidnapped by masked armed men.

Myanmar security forces has been put on high alert in Maungtaw following the incidents.

The killing has prompted nearly hundreds of local ethnic Rakhine villagers to flee the area.

According to a recent statement of the National Security Advisor on the security situation in the state, the military has found increasing evidence of extreme activities in recent weeks with tunnels, guns and a terrorist training camp being uncovered in Buthidaung-Maungtaw area's Mayu Mountain.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 10:44:07|Editor: ying

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SYDNEY, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The latest report card on the state of the Australian state economies has been released on Monday, with New South Wales (NSW) holding onto the first place, while Victoria charged back into the second.

The July report compiled by Australia's largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, looks at eight key economic metrics to determine the performance of each state and territory, including economic growth, retail spending, unemployment, and population growth.

In the latest iteration, NSW managed to hold onto its top spot, with the report stating that it was the "best performing economy," with rankings at the top, or near to, for all the assessed indicators.

This was good news for the NSW government, and their Treasurer Dominic Perrottet told Xinhua on Monday that NSW is benefitting from its "massive once-in-a-generation" major infrastructure works underway in the state.

"This report shows that on every single measure, NSW is one of the strongest performers in the country, and our overall economic performance is streets ahead," Perrottet said.

"That means whether you're a job-seeker, a small business owner, an investor, or an ordinary family, NSW is the opportunity state."

The state of Victoria rose from the third to the second place, with the report stating that this was primarily due to the "momentum" generated by its increasing population growth, but there was not much else to separate the state from the third placed Australian Capital Territory.

"Victoria continues to record the strongest annual population growth as well as holding the first place on the differential with the decade-average rate. Victoria's population is 2.4 percent higher than a year ago, and this growth rate is 19.4 percent above the decade average," the report said.

The final rankings in the Commonwealth Bank report saw NSW finish first, followed by Victoria, the ACT, Queensland and Tasmania tied for fourth, South Australia, the Northern Territory, and in last place - Western Australia.

The report forecasted the NSW should hold on to its top spot in the near future, but will face a significant challenge from both Victoria and the ACT.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 10:44:07|Editor: ying

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TORONTO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Two men were killed and a woman was injured in a shooting at a backyard gathering for a birthday party here Sunday morning, CTV reported.

Police said 200 people were at the birthday party in the Canadian city's east end when the shots were fired during an altercation on early Sunday morning. Two men were killed at the scene and the injured woman was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

It is not clear whether the victims were the intended targets and the suspects were guests at the party.

Police are asking anyone with information to come forward.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 11:19:30|Editor: ying

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KABUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- An explosion struck near the house of an Afghan politician in the western side of Kabul Monday, leaving casualties, a witness said.

"The blast occurred in Qala-e-shada locality roughly at 06:50 a.m. local time. The nature of the explosion was like a suicide car bombing," witness Abdul Jalil told Xinhua.

The target of the attack was the house of Mohammad Mohaqiq, deputy to Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Security forces sealed off the scene and do not allow people to gather near the site, he said.

The blast caused casualties as several ambulances and civilian cars evacuated the victims to the nearby hospitals.

A security official confirmed the incident, saying more details would be made public later as investigation is underway.

A thick black smoke was seen rise above the site.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 11:49:27|Editor: Yang Yi

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SEOUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The new South Korean government under President Moon Jae-in will push to raise taxes on super high-income earners and large conglomerates amid overwhelming public support.

The government and the ruling Democratic Party held a meeting Monday, agreeing to change its economic growth strategy from the high and exporters-driven growth to the stable and income-based growth.

The National Assembly passed about 10 billion U.S. dollars of supplementary budget plan Saturday to help create decent jobs and achieve the goal of income-based growth.

As part of efforts to finance the expanded welfare and social security nets, the ruling party planned to push for the higher income tax on those who earn 500 million won (about 450,000 U.S. dollars) per year and the higher corporate tax on companies making at least 200 billion won (about 180 million U.S. dollars) of operating profit a year.

According to a Realmeter poll released Monday, 85.6 percent of respondents supported the increased taxes. Only 10 percent opposed the tax hikes.

It was based on a survey of 507 adults conducted last Friday. It had 4.4 percentage points in margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.

Three major opposition parties, including the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, the minor conservative Righteous Party and the centrist People's Party, objected to the increased income and corporate taxes.

The parties claimed that higher corporate taxes on large conglomerates may weaken corporate investment and job creation.

Despite the corporate tax cut under the five-year presidency of Lee Myung-bak, South Korea's corporate investment and job creation remained lackluster, expanding the cash holdings of large conglomerates thanks to lower corporate tax.

Calls mounted for higher income and corporate taxes on super high-income earners and large conglomerates to finance the growing demand for social security nets and social welfare amid the rapidly aging population and the widening income gap.

The minor progressive Justice Party said the government-proposed tax hikes would only increase tax revenue by 3-4 trillion won, which falls far short of 178 trillion won necessary to fund the President Moon-initiated welfare policy.

The progressive party demanded the government's "bolder" hike in income and corporate taxes for expanded social security nets and preparations for the super-aged society.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 12:04:32|Editor: Yang Yi

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MOSCOW, July 24 (Xinhua) -- More than 1,200 soldiers from 22 countries have arrived in Russia for annual military games set to start later this month, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday.

The teams from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, China, Egypt, India, South Africa and other countries are getting ready for the various competitions of the two-week long International Army Games 2017, scheduled for July 29 to Aug. 12.

The military games, first held in 2015 as an initiative by the Russian Defense Ministry, will be co-organized this year by Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and China.

Events to be held in Russia will include a tank biathlon, military medical relay race, army scout masters and field kitchen competitions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 13:29:58|Editor: ying

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CANBERRA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has agreed to discuss the prospect of fixed, four-year parliamentary terms with opposition leader Bill Shorten, after Shorten raised the issue in a TV interview on Sunday.

A spokesperson for the prime minister has confirmed that Turnbull called Shorten following the interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) political program Insiders, telling Fairfax Media that "the two agreed to discuss the matter further when they next meet," in a move which has since been applauded by experts.

On Monday, the University of New South Wales's Dean of Law, Prof. George Williams said four-year terms would allow governments to focus on governing, arguing that current, three-year terms often do not allow a government to make meaningful changes.

"That sweet spot for actually developing some policy, for getting longer term issues on the agenda, what we've seen is three years or two and a half years tends to be too short," Williams said.

"It's why around the world and in every state and territory it's been thought that four years is a better length."

In the interview on Sunday, Shorten said that Australia "needs four-year terms" in order to ensure that the government can get on with delivering its vision.

"What this country needs is long term policy-making. Governments can be more daring and determined if they're not constantly thinking about the next election," he said.

"The federal political system seems out of whack in that everything is so short-term. The average life of a federal government is two-and-a-half years, not even three years."

But despite the apparent bipartisanship shown by the prime minister and Shorten, some of those in the government have declared that changing the length of term is not a "top priority" even if the idea holds merit.

"I think there is an opportunity to align the federal government with the state parliaments across Australia," Trade Minister Steven Ciobo told the ABC on Monday.

"I think the Australian public would be profoundly supportive of it, but that's not to say there aren't aspects which need to be closely looked at."

The idea has previously been voted upon. In 1988, Australians rejected a push to increase the length of term to four years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 13:40:13|Editor: An

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Maurice Obstfeld (C), chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) addresses to the media in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 24, 2017. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday revised up China's growth forecast for 2017 and 2018 to 6.7 percent and 6.4 percent respectively. (Xinhua/Chong Voon Chung)

KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday revised up China's growth forecast for 2017 and 2018 to 6.7 percent and 6.4 percent respectively.

The updated World Economic Outlook report, which came days after China posted a stronger-than-expected second quarterly performance, was a reflection of a solid first quarter underpinned by previous policy easing and supply-side reforms, including efforts to reduce excess capacity in the industrial sector, the IMF said.

China has set its full-year growth target at "around 6.5 percent." The 6.7-percent forecast will leave the world's second-largest economy on a par with its growth level in 2016.

The fund also revised up China's economic forecast for 2018 by 0.2 percentage point to 6.4 percent, citing expectations that China may maintain high public investment and delay fiscal adjustment to meet its target of doubling the 2010 real gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020.

But the IMF also warned against strong credit growth that may come with rising downside risk to medium-term growth.

Maurice Obstfeld, chief economist of the IMF, recommended China go through a very important rebalancing process, which will inevitably entail a slowing path of growth.

He said China's recent moves to redress non-performing loans and a coordinated financial oversight overhaul are welcome.

The revision followed an April upgrade by the IMF on China's GDP growth forecast to 6.6 percent and 6.2 percent for 2017 and 2018 respectively, 0.1 percentage point and 0.2 percentage point higher than its forecast in January.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 13:50:24|Editor: ying

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BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) foreign policy chief and Turkish president have been travelling around the Gulf countries as part of the most recent worldwide efforts to heal the diplomatic rift between Qatar and the Saudi-led quartet.

Federica Mogherini pledged EU support and assistance for efforts to resolve the Gulf crisis that erupted last month, when meeting with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah Khaled Al Sabah on Sunday.

The current situation should be resolved through dialogue and without delay, she said in a statement released by the European External Action Service, urging all parties to enter into negotiations to hammer out clear principles and a roadmap for a swift resolution.

The Saudi-led quartet, which also includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 and imposed a blockade on the tiny rich Gulf nation.

Accusing Doha of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs, the countries initially put forward a list of 13 demands to Qatar, demanding it close the Al-Jazeera channels, downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran and stopping financing extremist groups.

Qatar has strongly denied the charges.

Also on Sunday and in another Gulf state, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as part of his country's renewed mediation efforts, met with Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz.

Erdogan's Gulf tour will also take him to Qatar and Kuwait. Turkey has publicly sided with Qatar, with which it has expansive economic and security ties, while criticizing the Saudi-led blockade as inhumane.

Earlier Sunday, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul that Turkey is seeking an immediate resolution to the ongoing diplomatic row in the Gulf. "Nobody has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore," he said.

Among the 13 demands put forward by the Saudi-led bloc is the closure of a Turkish military base in Qatar. Turkey has deployed a number of troops in the base recently in a move aimed at bolstering Qatar's defiance in the face of sanctions and threats from its neighbors.

Ankara has refused to withdraw troops from Qatar, a move that has frustrated the four Arab countries.

Highlighting the fallouts of the dispute in and beyond the region, Erdogan and Mogherini were among a string of high-level visitors form outside the Gulf, including top diplomats from Britain, France, Germany and the United States.

Signs of easing of the crisis have emerged recently after the Gulf visit by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during which the United States and Qatar signed a deal on combating terrorism funding.

This addressed one of the core demands by the Saudi-led bloc, which has slammed Doha for financing and supporting a number of extremist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Hamas movement in Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Qatar has revised its law on fighting terrorism over the week, a move that was welcomed by the UAE as a "positive step."

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said Friday that Qatar is prepared to engage in dialogue, provided that any resolution to the crisis must respect its sovereignty and any terms cannot be dictated from the outside.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 14:30:33|Editor: ying

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AMMAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli was injured in a shooting Sunday in a residential building of the heavily-guarded Israeli Embassy compound in Jordan's capital, the kingdom's Public Security Department said.

Jordanians who worked for a furniture company entered the apartment building for carpentry work before the incident, said a statement released Sunday, adding that an investigation is underway. Police did not identify the wounded Israeli, and few other details were immediately released.

Police sealed off the embassy compound in the Rabar district of Amman and searched the Jordanians' car in front of the embassy.

"We have begun a large-scale investigation into the incident and ordered the prosecutor general to look at all the details," the police said in a statement.

Jordan has seen an outpouring of public anger against Israel in recent days, with officials calling on its Jewish neighbor to remove the metal detectors installed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in eastern Jerusalem.

On Friday, demonstrations across Jordan called for cutting ties with Israel, with which it shares a long border, and closing off the Israeli Embassy in Amman.

Tensions are mounting between the Jewish state and the Arab and Muslin world over metal detectors Isreal installed at the Mosque, a shrine both revered by Muslims and Jews.

Protests have since broken out in the holy site, with dozens of Muslim worshippers refused to enter the Mosque and praying outside, regarding the security checks as a "violation" of the third holiest site in Islam.

Last Friday, three Israeli Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces inside the Mosque compound, after two Israeli officers were killed in an attack.

Israel reopened the compound on Sunday with the introduction of metal detectors and security checks installed at its entry points.

Israel said on Sunday it would not remove the metal detectors, but could eventually reduce their use.

The Arab League said on Sunday that "Israel is playing with fire and is igniting a big crisis with the Arab and Muslim world because of its measures in Jerusalem."

The escalation in tensions has triggered international alarm and prompted the United Nations Security Council to convene a meeting Monday to seek ways of calming the situation.

Jordan, which oversees the holy Islamic and Christian sites in East Jerusalem including the Al-Aqsa Mosque, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

A multitude of Jordan's 7 million citizens are of Palestinian origin. They, their parents or grandparents fled to Jordan during the fighting accompanying the creation of Israel in 1948.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 14:35:44|Editor: ying

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RIO DE JANEIRO, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Families and friends of Brazilian police officers took part in a spontaneous demonstration here Sunday to protest the high death rate among members of the force.

Hundreds of people gathered at the city's famed Copacabana Beach just hours after the latest police death raised the death toll so far this year to 91.

Wearing white and carrying photos of their deceased family members, inscribed with the message "Save the PMERJ" (Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State), protesters denounced the lack of state aid for the widows and children of officers killed on duty.

Demonstrators also planted crosses on the beach, one for each of the victims, and called for better and safer work conditions.

A financial crisis has led the state to severely cut back on its budget.

The death toll among police officers means one is being killed every 54 hours so far this year, with the latest victim being a 46-year-old officer who perished in a clash with drug traffickers in Vidigal, a slum in the south of the city.

The police operation at Vidigal aimed to capture criminals believed to be responsible for the killing of police officers.

According to the Sao Paulo-based Association for the Defense of Public Security Agents, 477 police officers were killed in Brazil last year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 14:35:45|Editor: Yamei

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (3rd R) prepares to speak in a special session of the House of Representatives Budget Committee in Tokyo, Japan, July 24, 2017. Shinzo Abe was accused to have used his influence to manipulate a government decision to benefit a close friend's opening of a veterinary school in a special deregulated zone. Speaking in a special session of the House of Representatives Budget Committee on Monday, Abe maintained that he had not given any instructions personally on matters related to the veterinary department's opening.(Xinhua/Ma Ping)

TOKYO, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday was given the third degree from opposition party lawmakers on his alleged involvement in an influence-peddling scandal.

He was accused to have used his influence to manipulate a government decision to benefit a close friend's opening of a veterinary school in a special deregulated zone.

The prime minister, amid tumbling public support, was also grilled over his responsibility for selecting Tomomi Inada as defense minister, as she is currently embroiled in a scandal involving the alleged cover-up of logs containing the activities of Japanese troops in what potentially became a controversial UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.

Speaking in a special session of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, Abe maintained that there was no favoritism shown to his friend Kotaro Kake who runs Kake Educational Institution, which is set to open a new veterinary department at a private university in Ehime Prefecture, in Japan's northwestern Shikoku region.

In a bid to claw back some public support, Abe reversed an earlier party decision for him to not appear in parliament to be grilled by the opposition, as media polls have shown that the public's mistrust in Abe has risen exponentially recently as he has yet to properly account to himself over the favoritism scandal.

The prime minister, who will reshuffle his cabinet early next month in a further bid to restore public support, conceded that he had been friends with Kake since they were students and sometimes dined together and treated each other to nights out.

Abe maintained however that Kake had never asked for any favors based on Abe's position in politics and that he had not given any instructions personally on matters related to the veterinary department's opening.

Following an opposition lawmaker holding up an enlarged print of a photograph in parliament showing Abe and Kake holding up wine glasses while facing the camera, Abe said, "There is a saying that one should never allow room for doubts. Since this is a matter involving a friend of mine, it is understandable that the people would look at it with suspicion."

Abe, whose ruling party has suffered crushing defeats in recent elections, including in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Election and, more recently, in Sunday's defeat to an opposition-backed former lawmaker who won the Sendai mayoral election, added later that his priority remained with the economy.

"The economy has been the administration's top priority and it's our job to create employment and raise wages," he said.

Abe's support rate has plunged following a series of scandals related to himself, his senior Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) member lawmakers and cabinet ministers, with weekend polls showing his support rate well below 30 percent.

He has long been facing accusations of cronyism from the opposition camp since whistle-blower Kihei Maekawa, former vice education minister, claimed that official ministry documents indicated that Abe's influence was used in favor of Kake being selected.

The documents reportedly suggest that the education ministry was told by the Cabinet Office that the choice for the new department "was heard to have been the prime minister's wish."

The Democratic Party also maintains that documents exist which show that negotiations had taken place between the ministry and the Cabinet Office regarding the set time-frame for opening the new department at the university.

As for the timing of the opening of the new veterinary department at the Okayama University of Science, which was slated for April 2018, one document reportedly states, "This is what the highest level of the prime minister's office has said."

Okayama University of Science was specifically chosen by the government to open a new veterinary medicine school, in Ehime Prefecture.

The prefecture is one of Japan's national strategic special economic zones, which has far more relaxed regulations to boost growth in the area, as part of Abe's overall growth strategy.

However, amid an overabundance of veterinary professionals in Japan, the opening of the school would mark the first of its kind in 50 years.

The Japan Veterinary Medical Association has long been opposed to the opening of a new veterinary school, due to the surplus of vets already working in Japan, it has said.

However, Japan's regional revitalization minister Kozo Yamamoto, who is in charge of the Cabinet Office, which oversees specially deregulated zones, has recently been accused of lobbying the association, telling senior association officials that the new department would be constructed in the western Japan island of Shikoku and that the government intended to approve a plan by Kake to open a new veterinary school.

Kake Educational Institution has applied for permission to open a new veterinary department in the specially deregulated zone 15 times since 2007. All of the previous applications were rejected.

Maekawa has also said that aides close to Abe had exerted pressure from the prime minister's office for the school to be selected and its construction expedited, according to explanations on the matter he gave during a special parliamentary hearing on the matter.

Maekawa said that Isao Kiso, an advisor to the Cabinet at the time, visited his office and requested that he accelerate procedures for the opening of a new veterinary school.

The local city assembly provided the land to the institution to build the new department for free, records show, and, in addition, they provided a hefty 9.6 billion yen (86.52 million U.S. dollars) as a subsidy for the school's construction costs.

Maekawa stated that Kiso asked him to speed up the procedures for opening the veterinary school and that it was his understanding that Kiso was specifically referring to the government's plan involving Kake Educational Institution, because he was a senior official of the institution at that time.

Maekawa also stated that Kiso told him that his ministry need do nothing except follow the decision made by the Council on National Strategic Special Zones, which is chaired by Abe.

He also said he met Hiroto Izumi, an assistant to Abe, at the prime minister's office, when the selection of the strategic zone was underway and was also pressurized to speed up procedures for the new school at that time.

Abe on Monday was also grilled by the opposition camp over an alleged cover-up scandal involving Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and the Ground Self-Defense Force's daily activities in South Sudan during its UN peacekeeping mission there.

The prime minister maintained his protective position of Inada, a close ally of Abe's, which was heavily criticized by opposition party lawmakers on Monday.

In response to Hiroshi Ogushi, policy chief of the main opposition Democratic Party, calling for Inada's resignation, Abe said she would retain her portfolio as she has agreed to carry out a thorough probe on the matter and has allowed herself to be investigated by the Inspector General's Office of Legal Compliance, under the auspices of the defense ministry, to investigate the potential cover-up.

Inada and the Defense Ministry have been accused of trying to intentionally conceal the potentially damaging records of the GSDF's activities during a time when 270 people died in fighting between government forces and rebels in Juba, South Sudan, between July 7 and 12, 2016.

In the recovered logs, the troops said they must be "careful about getting drawn into sudden fighting in the city." The record also refers to the possible "suspension of UN activities amid intensifying clashes in Juba."

Inada, a lawyer-turned-politician, according to claims by opposition party members, was seeking to conceal the logs so as the GSDF troops could remain in South Sudan, despite the deteriorating security situation there, in contravention to Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.

The Democratic Party has slammed Inada and the government for attempting to hide the real situation in South Sudan at the time and accused Inada of not using the term "fighting" as that would have required Japanese troops deployed to the area to be withdrawn.

According to Japan's pacifist, war-renouncing constitution and in line with rules governing Japan's GSDF's role in UN peacekeeping missions, troops must be withdrawn from conflict zones if exchanges specifically described as "fighting" occur.

Abe had been looking at becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister by winning a third three-year term when his current tenure ends in September 2018, although intensifying wrangling within the LDP's factions caused by the party's woeful election performances and high-profile scandals, recently, could severely blur this goal for Abe.

Approval for Abe's cabinet tumbled to 26 percent, the lowest since he took office in 2012, in a poll conducted by the Mainichi newspaper over the weekend.

Abe will attend a similar session in the House of Councillors on Tuesday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 15:01:01|Editor: Yamei

Palestinian protestors display mock metal detectors as they take part in a prayer in front of Israeli watch-tower at the main entrance of the West Bank city of Bethlehem on July 23, 2017. The recent Israeli measures led to new tensions in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has lasted for decades, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948. (Xinhua/Luay Sababa)

JERUSALEM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Tensions over the local Al-Aqsa Mosque further escalated on Sunday, gradually turning into a regional crisis endangering the fragile balance of power.

Observers said Israel would not risk irritating the whole Arab world as it had enjoyed a relatively peaceful environment after years of strained relations with regional countries that had become involved in the Syrian war.

ESCALATION

The latest wave of violence broke out on July 14 when Israel installed checkpoints and metal detectors at the entrance of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after three Israeli Arab men shot dead two Israeli policemen near the holy site.

Israel said the installment of detectors was a necessary measure to prevent more attacks.

The Arab world alleged that Israel was trying to expand its control over the Muslim-administrated site, which sparked deadly attacks.

In clashes during a massive protest on Friday, Israeli security forces killed three Palestinians and injured hundreds of others. In retaliation, a 20-year-old Palestinian entered a family home in the settlement of Halamish on Friday night, stabbing a father, his daughter and his son to death before he was shot and injured by a neighbor. The knife attack was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Friday, demonstrations across Jordan, one of the two Arab countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel, broke out with thousands of people calling for severing ties with Israel.

The anger triggered a shooting incident on Sunday at the Israeli Embassy compound in Amman, Jordan's capital, which has left two Jordanians dead and one Israeli wounded.

On Sunday, the Israeli government installed cameras around the Al-Aqsa Mosque as an additional security measure.

"The Temple Mount has become not only a religious symbol but a national religious symbol, as it is now used as a resource for politicians and the public to promote the struggle and the conflict between the two sides," said Ronni Shaked, head of the Middle East Studies Department of the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"The Palestinians feel they are on the losing side throughout the years. They feel that the last stronghold is the Al-Aqsa Mosque which they feel has been given to them as a deposit by the Muslim world in order to defend it from a Jewish invasion," he said.

"This conflict has been going on for a long time. Its religious aspect makes it easier to gather the public's support for the struggle," he added.

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

The United Nations Security Council will hold an urgent closed-door meeting on Monday morning to discuss the violence unfolding in Jerusalem, according to the UN mission of China, president of the Security Council for July.

In a statement released on Saturday, the Middle East Quartet -- Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations -- expressed concern over the escalating tension.

U.S. President Donald Trump has sent his special envoy Jason Greenblatt to Israel to support efforts to reduce the tensions in the region.

In the past week, the White House has been trying to prevent an escalation, as it had been busy healing a breach in its Middle East coalition after Saudi Arabia severed ties with Qatar last month.

Observers said the last thing Trump expected was clashes between his most important allies, Israel and the Sunni Arab countries, amid the intense power struggle with Russia and Iran in Syria.

The Arab League has postponed an emergency meeting of its foreign ministers over the Al-Aqsa Mosque crisis to Thursday to guarantee the largest attendance.

The Cairo-based organization has repeatedly condemned the Israeli practices at Al-Aqsa Mosque as a blatant breach of the right to worship and a violation of relevant international laws and UN resolutions, saying Israel was "playing with fire."

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews. It has been a flashpoint site of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past decades since the 1967 Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital city in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 15:21:16|Editor: Song Lifang

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KIEV, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he will demand a real ceasefire in Donbas, including the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, during a phone meeting of the Normandy Four held on Monday.

The peace deals reached in Minsk is the only available solution to the military conflict in eastern Ukraine at the moment, said Poroshenko on his page in Facebook on Sunday. He also stressed that he will continue to call for tougher Western sanctions against Russia if immediate ceasefire is not realized.

Leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine, known as the Normandy Four, agree to hold a phone meeting to discuss the conflict situation in Donbas on Monday after mediation by France.

The Normandy Four or the Normandy Format is a diplomatic group of leaders from the four countries set up to resolve the Ukrainian crisis in accordance with peace deals reached in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in February 2015.

The situation in eastern Ukraine has been showing an escalating trend in the past few days, with both sides using heavy weapons prohibited in the Minsk agreements. According to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, at least 13 Ukrainian government soldiers were killed in actions last week, which was rare in the past months.

Ukrainian media reported that the phone meeting on Monday can ease the tension in eastern Ukraine, but is unlikely to lead to a breakthrough on critical issues like ensuring security in conflict zones, prisoner swap, control of Ukraine-Russian borders in the conflict area and the election in the regions under opposition's control.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 15:21:18|Editor: Yamei

Photo taken on July 24, 2017 shows a damaged room at the the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. Twenty-four civilians were killed and 42 others wounded after a car bomb struck a minibus carrying government employees in western Kabul in Afghanistan on Monday, sources and witnesses said. (Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah)

KABUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-four civilians were killed and 42 others wounded after a car bomb struck a minibus carrying government employees in western Kabul in Afghanistan on Monday, sources and witnesses said.

"A terrorist driving a saloon car rammed his vehicle to a minibus carrying workers of Ministry of Mines and Industries in Gola-e-Dawakhana locality, Police District 3, roughly at 6:50 a.m. local time (0220 GMT), causing the causalities," witness Abdul Jalil told Xinhua.

Hours after the blast, Afghan Interior Ministry confirmed in a statement released here that 24 civilians lost their lives and 42 others were wounded.

Out of the casualties, at least 12 killed and several injured were passengers on the targeted bus while several passersby were also killed or wounded due to the blast, according to witnesses.

Several of the wounded persons remained in critical conditions.

Among those killed and injured were several women, the witness added.

Three vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or severely damaged in the explosion, according to statement of interior ministry.

House of Mohammad Mohaqiq, deputy to Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, a private university and a wedding hall were also located near the site in the populated area.

Taliban militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since late April when the militant group launched its annual offensive in different places of the country, which has claimed hundreds of lives including militants, security personnel and civilians.

More than 1,660 civilians were killed and over 3,580 others injured in conflict-related incidents across Afghanistan in the first half of the year, according to a report released by the United Nations mission office in the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 16:06:30|Editor: Song Lifang

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MANILA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Monday that nine soldiers were killed and 43 others wounded in "intense fighting" with Islamist militants in the southern Philippine Marawi City before the weekend.

Lorenzana said in a statement that Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, commanding general of the military's Western Mindanao Command, reported that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) "sustained nine killed and 43 wounded in action in one of the most intense fighting yet in the (Marawi) conflict." War continues to rage in Marawi City 63 days after extremists allied with the Islamic State (IS) fighters seized the city. The protracted fighting has so far claimed more than 600 persons, including 105 soldiers and policemen.

Lorenzana did not give details of what he described as "intense fighting" that took place on Friday. But in a news story that came out in the Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday night, Galvez was quoted as saying that militants slipped into the government security forces' position and lobbed hand grenades.

The Inquirer report said that Galvez declined to comment when asked if a car bomb was used in the attack, saying it was an "operational matter."

The AFP has yet to issue an official statement of the Friday attack.

Lorenzana led a dialogue with local officials and displaced civilians in Iligan City on Sunday who are eager to return to their homes in Marawi. But Lorenzana said the military is against the idea.

"(Galvez) has pleaded with the (the evacuees) not to go back yet as there is still intense fighting in Marawi central business district where (terrorists) have chosen to make their last stand," Lorenzana said.

At Sunday's dialogue, Lorenzana said, "We ask for a little more understanding and patience as we deal with the remaining Maute/Daesh (IS) fighters who continue to put up stiff resistance."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 16:51:58|Editor: Liangyu

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China National Tobacco Corporation General Manager Ling Chengxing (3rd L, front) takes a tour in the Cohiba cigar factory, in Havana, Cuba, on July 23, 2017. China National Tobacco Corporation and Leading Cuban cigar maker Habanos S.A. signed a letter of intent here on Sunday on increasing Cuba's cigar exports to China. (Xinhua/Joaquin Hernandez)

HAVANA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China National Tobacco Corporation and Leading Cuban cigar maker Habanos S.A. signed a letter of intent here on Sunday on increasing Cuba's cigar exports to China.

China National Tobacco Corporation General Manager Ling Chengxing and co-presidents of Habanos S.A., Inocente Nunez and Luis Sanchez-Harguindey, inked the document in Havana.

According to the agreement, Habanos S.A. can provide assistance to cigar production in China while expanding its cigar sales in the Asian market.

"With the support of the Cuban side and the Chinese side, and the Chinese and Cuban people, I am sure that Cuban tobacco is going to do very well in China," said Ling, who doubles as the director-general of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration -- the regulator of China's tobacco industry.

Cuba, maker of some of the world's finest cigars, has a substantial share of cigar and cigarette sales in China, accounting for more than half of sales by volume and some 70 percent of sales by revenue.

Habanos, a joint venture between State-owned Cubatabaco and Altadis, and the French-German affiliate of British multinational firm Imperial Tobacco, earned some 450 million U.S. dollars in revenue last year.
Security forces stand outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. (AFP PHOTO)

JERUSALEM/AMMAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The security guard of Israeli embassy in Amman who killed two Jordanians had been attacked by them before he opened fire, said Israeli foreign ministry on Monday.

The embassy staff was assaulted by the Jordanians with a screwdriver in one of the embassy buildings, before he shot dead the two and was injured in the incident, said the foreign ministry in a statement.

The statement also said that the guard had diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention.

Meanwhile, relatives of one of the Jordanians, Mohammad Al Dawaimeh, a 17-year-old boy, held protests on Monday calling for investigations to reveal the truth.

"We demand the truth. Mohammad is a child. We do not know what happened. He has no political orientations whatsoever," Emran Dawaimeh, a relative of Mohammad, told Xinhua.

"We call on the Jordanian government to tell the truth to all. The narrative by the police is mysterious," he added.

Jordanian police said the investigation was still in its early stage, and the public security department has launched a broader probe into all details of the shooting.

According to Israeli media, Jordan has demanded to investigate the security guard and has banned the embassy staff from leaving the compound.

The incident came amidst escalating tensions between the two countries, sparked by metal detectors that Israel has installed at the entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, a compound run by the Jordanian Muslim Waqf under a long-held status quo.

There have been several protests in Jordan over Israeli security measures in Al-Aqsa Mosque. Jordanian demonstrators repeatedly called for the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman and expelling the ambassador over tensions in the holy site.

The detectors also triggered protests and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, which claimed the lives of at least four Palestinians.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 17:47:31|Editor: Liangyu

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URUMQI, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has mobilized an army of birds and chickens to combat a destructive plague of locusts along the China-Kazakhstan border.

Owing to continued drought and scorching heat in recent months, locusts have infested more than 392,000 hectares of pasture in Tacheng Prefecture along the border, according to the local bureau of animal husbandry.

Since mid-june, the bureau has set up brick nests in mountainous areas and grasslands to attract more than 50,000 migrating rosy starlings, a bird that preys locusts and grasshoppers.

The number of locusts per square meter has dropped from 40 to two in areas the birds have visited. The starlings have so far won the battle in the area of 17,000 hectares where locusts were most rampant, the bureau said.

Meanwhile, 85,000 special chickens, unique to the plateau, have been sent out to battle the locusts. The chickens, raised by local herdsmen, have stopped the spread of locusts in a further 30,000 hectares of land in Tacheng.

China once largely sprayed insecticides to eradicate locusts, effectively killing the insects in an instant. However, as the country has realized the importance of environmental protection, it has encouraged the use of biological measures, such as birds.

Xinjiang has more than 100 kinds of locusts, which are a major menace to the health of the grassland. It has a history of using chickens, ducks and other birds to fight the insects.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 17:57:46|Editor: Yang Yi

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Liu Qibao(4th, L), head of the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, meets the Sinologists and academics attending the Symposium on China Studies in Beijing, China, July 25, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhang Duo)

BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Forty-five China watchers from over 20 countries have joined the 2017 Symposium on China Studies, which runs from Sunday to Saturday.

Jointly hosted by China's Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the symposium will look at the Belt and Road Initiative.

A total of 26 sinologists and academics from countries including the United States, Germany, France, India and Kazakhstan, together with 19 Chinese scholars, are attending the event.

The symposium aims to provide a platform for sinologists to exchange views on traditional culture and modern China, Chinese solutions and global governance, as well as mutual development, according to the organizer.

"The Belt and Road Initiative offers more opportunities for international sinologists to exchange ideas on China studies and enhance communication between China and foreign academics," said Xie Jinying from the ministry.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:12:59|Editor: Liangyu

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ABUJA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Ten people have been killed in an explosion which erupted following a road accident involving a tanker in Nigeria's southwestern state of Osun on Sunday, local police said on Monday.

Osun State police spokeswoman Folasade Odoro told Xinhua two others were injured in the incident.

According to her, a Toyota Hiace bus on a road trip from a neighboring state rammed into the tanker near Ife Town, in Osun State. This caused the content of the tanker to spill over, causing the explosion.

Odoro attributed the accident to over-speeding, noting motorists in that axis often drive recklessly.

She said an official investigation is underway to further ascertain the cause of the accident.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:17:59|Editor: Song Lifang

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LONDON, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire embarked Monday on a three-day mission to Washington and New York to brief U.S. politicians, influencers and business leaders on the political situation in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland has been without a functioning devolved government since January, when the coalition led by the two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein, collapsed over a green energy "cash for ash" scandal.

Talks between Northern Ireland's main political parties, particularly the DUP and Sinn Fein, have so far failed to resolve differences.

Speaking ahead of the trip, Brokenshire said: "Regrettably my visit takes place against a backdrop of political stalemate in Northern Ireland, but this is a timely opportunity to brief members of the U.S. administration, who throughout history have done so much to support our efforts in moving forward the political process, on the current situation."

"I also want to reassure them that the UK government is determined to see devolved, power-sharing government restored," he added.

During a reception at the Northern Ireland Bureau in Washington on Monday evening, Brokenshire will praise the expertise and capabilities of Northern Ireland firms whose endeavors have contributed to attracting over 900 international investors, many of whom from the United States, and employing over 75,000 people.

Brokenshire will also hold bilateral meetings with senior U.S. political figures, including Conrad Tribble of the U.S. State Department, the Vice President's National Security Advisor Andrea Thompson, former Senator George Mitchell and various members of Congress to update them on the British government's priorities in Northern Ireland.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:18:02|Editor: Song Lifang

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JALALABAD, Afghanistan, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A total of 25 militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) group have been killed and 15 others injured in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province over the past 24 hours, provincial government spokesman Attaullah Khogiani said Monday.

The operations backed by helicopter gunships kicked off Sunday morning in the Haska Mina district of the Nangarhar province, with Jalalabad as its capital 120 km east of Kabul.

The operations which covered several villages, have so far led to the death of 25 insurgents and injured 15 others, the official said.

Some civilians including a woman also lost their lives after the IS insurgents pounded residential areas.

Security forces would continue to chase militants elsewhere in the country to ensure lasting peace, the spokesman said.

IS group which is active in parts of the eastern Nangarhar province has yet to make comment.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:18:04|Editor: Song Lifang

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ISTANBUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A court in Istanbul on Monday started the trial of 17 executives, reporters and cartoonists of the Cumhuriyet daily over their alleged links to terror groups.

The defendants, including the newspaper's chief executive, Akin Atalay, and editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, are accused of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party and the so-called Fethullahist Terror Organization, which Ankara says is behind last year's coup attempt, press reports said.

Eleven of the defendants have been detained for more than eight months, while the other six are free but under judicial supervision, Cumhuriyet said.

Can Dundar, the daily's former editor-in-chief, will be tried in absentia as he fled to Germany after being briefly jailed over a story accusing the government of sending weapons to Syrian opposition forces, according to Cumhuriyet.

The prosecutors are seeking between 7.5 and 43 years in prison sentences for all the defendants, the daily said, noting the trial is expected to last four days.

The government is continuing its crackdown launched in the wake of the foiled coup in July last year, dismissing tens of thousands of public servants and jailing many others, mostly over their alleged links to terror groups.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:23:08|Editor: Song Lifang

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KUWAIT, July 24 (Xinhua) -- An official of the International Committee of the Red Cross' (ICRC) on Monday warned of a health crisis in the war-torn Yemen due to the rapid spread of cholera.

Yahya Alibi, head of the ICRC delegation in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), told the Kuwaiti official KUNA news agency in an interview that more than 300,000 people have been infected with cholera, which has spread to 20 of Yemen's 22 governorates.

To make things worse, the infrastructure and hospitals in this war-torn country are unable to accommodate this number of patients, Alibi said.

He said that the best way to help is through donation to the Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) because it can reach places in need of help in Yemen in cooperation with the ICRC and the UN.

Through cooperation with KRCS, medical aid has been provided to all health centers in Yemen and tons of chlorine tablets were distributed for purifying water supplies, Alibi added.

But he said that one of the biggest challenges in dealing with the cholera outbreak is the ongoing war in Yemen, which makes it difficult to deliver aid to the worst affected areas, including Sanaa, Hadidah, Amran and Hajja.

The ICRC is currently supporting 11 health centers in the worst affected provinces by improving the hygiene and sanitation conditions there, and providing local residents with necessary medical supplies, Alibi said.

Yemen's government, allied with a Saudi Arabia-led Arab military coalition, has for years been battling Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels for control of the impoverished country.

Statistics showed that more than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen's conflict, most of them civilians, since the Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in 2015.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:33:21|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) --The seventh meeting of BRICS senior representatives on security issues will be held in Beijing from July 27 to 28, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Monday.

According to Lu, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi will chair the meeting, while South African Minister of State Security David Mahlobo,Brazilian Institutional Security Minister Sergio Etchegoyen, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval have confirmed they will attend.

Lu said the upcoming meeting will be centered on global governance, anti-terrorism, Internet security, energy security, major global and regional hot issues, as well as national security and development.

Lu said China hopes the meeting can further protect common interests, promote political and security cooperation among BRICS countries, strengthen the cohesion and influence of BRICS and help prepare for the BRICS summit in southeast China's coastal city of Xiamen in September.

The BRICS meeting on security issues serves as a major platform for the BRICS nations to discuss political and security issues and conduct cooperation, said Lu, noting that the meeting is important for BRICS to enhance strategic communication, political mutual trust and influence in international affairs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:43:17|Editor: Liangyu

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JERUSALEM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian from the West Bank stabbed and injured an Israeli Arab man in central Israel on Monday, in an "apparent terror attack," the police said.

The incident took place near a shop in Petah Tikva, a city in central Israel, north of Tel Aviv.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the assailant stabbed a bus driver in his neck and fled the scene by foot. He was caught and handed to the police by passersbys, Samri said.

The assailant was identified as a 21-year-old resident of the West Bank city of Qalqilya who entered Israel without permits. The victim, a 32-year-old Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel, was sent to a hospital in a moderate-to-serious condition, the emergency medical service said.

Egged, Israel's main transportation company for which the driver is working, said that he was on his lunch break and the stabber had mistaken him to be a Jew.

Samri said that "the initial investigation suggests that the motive was nationalistic." According to media reports, the suspect told his investigators that he carried out the attack "for Al-Aqsa."

The flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound has been at the center of increasing violence after Israel installed metal detectors at the compound's entry following a shooting attack that killed three Israeli policemen.

The Palestinians and some Muslim countries see the new security measures as a violation of the long-held status quo at the site, under which the Jordanian Muslim Waqf holds the administrative authority.

On Friday night, a Palestinian stabbed and killed three members of an Israeli family in a West Bank settlement, also saying his act was made for the sake of Al-Aqsa.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 18:58:23|Editor: Song Lifang

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NICOSIA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A group of 143 Syrian refugees arrived in Cyprus in a boat which had sailed from the port of Mersin in southern Turkey, authorities said on Monday.

Cypriot police said the people on the boat, 62 men, 31 women and 50 children, are being processed before being transferred to a refugee center.

This was the largest group of Syrian refugees to arrive in Cyprus from Turkey since the first boatload arrived about two years ago.

The refugees said they left Mersin on Saturday afternoon and were at sea for over 34 hours.

The police said they were notified about the arrival of the boat off the northwestern coast of Cyprus early last night but it was spotted after midnight and was towed into a marina at daybreak.

Cypriot authorities usually receive notification by the traffickers themselves who call the Cypriot Search and Rescue Center about the arrival of refugee boats before returning to Turkey by speedboat.

Monday's arrival of Syrian refugees brings their total to more than 400 this year.

The refugees were reported to have told the police that they paid to the traffickers 2,000 U.S. dollars each for a place on the boat.

Syrian refugees arriving in Cyprus usually plan to stay on the eastern Mediterranean island, the closest place to there country, either to wait until they can return to their homes or even make a new home on the island.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:23:33|Editor: Liangyu

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by Tian Dongdong

BRUSSELS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- By depicting a flotilla of three Chinese navy ships as a Spanish Armada, a number of Western media outlets and intelligence agencies have left no stone unturned in selling wolf tickets to their audiences. Once again they are hyping their "China Threat" cliche across Europe.

The Chinese flotilla, on its way last week to a joint exercise with the Russian navy, was shadowed by warships from a number of NATO countries. It was subsequently reported by media in the west, which self-righteously portrayed it as evidence pointing to "the rise of military" China.

However, promoting such selling points in this "wolf ticket" fashion does not enhance their moral high-ground, as they forget, if not deliberately, four basic things.

For one thing, freedom to navigate is a right claimed but often misused by Western powers. If Western navy ships sail into the South China Sea, as they do, and conduct disguised "freedom of navigation", like what the United States has done for numerous times there, why should Chinese ships, who act perfectly in accordance with international norms, be strangers to European waters?

Also, the ongoing maneuver is neither saber-rattling, nor aggressive, as it targets no third party. Easily dwarfed by the quantity and quality of the much larger NATO fleet in the area, the small group of Chinese ships is much more a benign visitor than a menacing intruder.

Thirdly, since China is increasingly an active contributor to international peace-keeping in various ways, holding maritime drills with partners is a requisite for future operations.

"Exercises are important tools through which the Alliance tests and validates its concepts, procedures, systems and tactics. More broadly, they enable military and civilian organizations deployed in theaters of operation to test capabilities and practice working together efficiently in a demanding crisis situation."

Those words come from the NATO website, stating very clearly the alliance's view that holding an exercise is an inborn and indispensable right. They surely deliver a thick ear to those trying to offer China the short end of the stick on the issue.

Last but not least, western media outlets apply a double-standard in reporting China's joint military maneuvers with other countries. While China's exercises with western countries, such as the U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific Exercise, are welcomed, the Sino-Russian drills are viewed disapprovingly.

Behind the recent misguided reports lies a Cold War mentality still haunting the West. As the Baltic Sea has many times been a watery battlefield for Western powers, the location of the China-Russia exercise serves as a perfect reminder to the West -- misreading the strategies of others can be both dangerous and costly. It is surely time for hotheads in the West to simmer down and take a chill pill on the China-Russia maneuvers, to recognize them for what they are -- a routine exercise similar to the many carried out by navies from across the world.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:28:36|Editor: Yamei

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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang (Photo source: fmprc.gov.cn)

BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday called for parties involved in the Korean Peninsula to make political decisions as soon as possible and avoid escalating tension.

It is necessary for all sides, especially the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), to make political decisions as soon as possible, reduce tension on the peninsula and reach a political solution, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said.

Lu's comment came after Joe Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the U.S. military can "defend against a limited North Korea attack on Seoul, Japan, and the United States." Dunford also described military options against the DPRK as "horrific" which "would be a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes".

"China maintains that military means should not be an option for resolving the Korean Peninsula issue. Violence cannot resolve disputes and will only lead to bigger disasters which are unbearable for all parties," Lu said at a daily press briefing.

No one should do anything that escalates the tension or intensifies the situation, Lu said.

The foreign ministries of China and Russia published a joint statement in early July, suggesting a comprehensive solution by addressing both the symptoms and the root causes of the issue, based on the "dual-track approach" and the "suspension for suspension" initiative proposed by China and the step-by-step conception by Russia.

"We hope all parties will support the above proposal and find a workable solution to the Peninsula issue," Lu said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:28:37|Editor: Song Lifang

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DAMASCUS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has controlled 41 percent of the Islamic State (IS) stronghold in Syria's northern city of Raqqa after launching nearly 50-day offensive there, a monitor group reported on Monday.

The battles for Raqqa have been raging for 49 days since the Kurdish-led SDF, with the heavy backing of the U.S.-led coalition, launched their major offensive to take Raqqa from IS, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said the SDF fighters are advancing and controlling more neighborhoods in Raqqa.

Over the span of seven weeks, the Kurdish-led groups captured all of the areas in western Raqqa, namely the neighborhoods of Sbahiyeh, Romaniyeh, Hiteen, Qadisiyeh and Yarmouk.

The SDF fighters also controlled the neighborhoods Mashlab, Btani, Sina'a and half of Hashem neighborhood as well as other areas in the eastern part of Raqqa.

The Observatory said the IS militants are now concentrated in the central part of the city.

This progress is a result of the heavy shelling of the U.S.-led coalition and the Kurdish-led groups on the IS positions, the Observatory added.

It said 940 civilians and militants have been killed over the past 50 days in Raqqa as a result of the intense shelling, violent battles, and explosions in Raqqa.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:33:51|Editor: Zhou Xin

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KABUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Up to 23 militants were killed and 37 others injured after Afghan air force struck their position in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, the Defense Ministry said on Monday.

"Acting on a confirmed tip-off, the Afghan air force conducted an airstrike on outskirts of Gereshk district late Sunday night. As a result 23 armed militants had been killed and 37 others injured," the ministry said in a statement.

The strike also destroyed a Taliban hideout, and demolished several vehicles and motorbikes, which have been used by the militants during attacks and fighting, the statement added.

The statement also said that seven militants were killed and 11 others injured during separate clashes with security forces within the last 24 hours across the country.

The Taliban militants have yet to make comments.

The violence has been on the rise as Afghan anti-government militants have intensified subversive activities across the Central Asian country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:38:49|Editor: Song Lifang

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GENEVA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least five people were injured, two seriously, in an attack which occurred Monday morning in the northern Swiss town of Schaffhausen, local police said.

Local police told a press briefing that the suspect was still at large. Witnesses said the Old Town of Schaffhausen was sealed off to allow police to continue their search.

The owner of a shop in the area told local media that the attack was by a man with a chainsaw, but local police did not comment on this detail.

Schaffhausen is a Swiss town on the upper Rhine River near the German border.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:38:51|Editor: Song Lifang

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JERUSALEM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that an Israeli security guard who shot dead two Jordanians after being stabbed outside Israel's embassy in Jordan will be brought home to Israel.

In a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office, Netanyahu said he called the guard over the phone and promised him that Israel "has experience in dealing with such situation" and would "bring him home."

The guard opened fire after he was stabbed with a screwdriver outside the Israeli embassy in Amman on Sunday night.

Local media reported that Jordanian authorities refuse to allow the guard to leave the country before he is investigated. The father of the stabber said he demands justice for his son's death.

Some 30 Israeli workers are still inside the embassy, according to Israeli media reports.

At noon, "a senior military official" was en route to Amman to help solve the diplomatic crisis, reports said.

The incident further complicated efforts to resolve a spiraling crisis over Al-Aqsa mosque compound, East Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:48:55|Editor: Liangyu

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by Naim-Ul-Karim

DHAKA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The first-ever China-Bangladesh Investment Forum, organized by Euromoney Institutional Investor, one of the leading financial publications in the world, will be held in Beijing on Aug. 21.

The City Bank Limited, a leading Bangladeshi bank, and Standard Chartered Bank Bangladesh are the lead sponsors of the forum, which is expected to bring together some 300 attendees comprising Bangladeshi Finance Minister AMA Muhith, government representatives, multilateral financiers, portfolio managers, global asset managers, institution investors and representatives from private bands.

Organizers say the forum will focus on investment and bilateral trade opportunities between China and Bangladesh and the growing opportunities resulting from China's Belt and Road Initiative.

This forum will also provide platform for discussions on many important topics, such as infrastructure, foreign direct investment (FDI), financial and capital markets and more.

The participants will have a valuable chance to learn more about the business environment in Bangladesh and the potential areas for cooperation.

Abrar A. Anwar, chief executive officer of Standard Chartered bank Bangladesh, told Xinhua that as the oldest financial institution in Bangladesh with a heritable of 112 years, Standard Chartered is keenly aware of the enormous potential of the Bangladesh economy.

"There are lot of investment opportunities coming out in Bangladesh. And in Asia and also in the globe, China is a major economy so we believe that there will be private sector (in China) looking at opportunity outside China," he said.

"And Bangladesh gives lots of opportunities for investors. So this forum in Beijing we are hosting along with the City Bank, one of the local bank, as well as supported by Bangladesh Investment Development Authority to talk about potentials of Bangladesh, issues of investing here, how this can be mitigated and how an investor can come here and which are the potential sectors."

"So It will give a good platform in Beijing for people from here, regulators from here, policy makers from here and also from that side ....to come and discuss and find a common ground for accelerating trade and invest in Bangladesh."

Li Guangjun, economic and commercial counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh, said, "I think this is a very good opportunity for publicizing Bangladesh."

After the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in October 2016, more and more Chinese are visiting Bangladesh, he said.

Bangladesh and China signed 28 deals during Xi's trip.

Li said Bangladesh can attract more Chinese investment by offering more incentives and removing investment procedural bottlenecks like transparency and customs.

"Chinese-Bangladesh business cooperation is in the right time. We have very good opportunity to deepen economic and trade relationship. Both China and Bangladesh are now striving for the national dreams - the Chinese dream and golden Bangladesh dream," he said.

"We do see complementarity of economic cooperation. We already see the cooperation being enhanced during the last few years. More Chinese investments are coming to Bangladesh."

According to the Chinese diplomat, the Chinese market is enormous and as one of the largest FDI countries in the world, China hopes to see more investment in Bangladesh.

"We hope that Bangladesh could make use of the forum as a good opportunity to promote the country image of Bangladesh to attract more Chinese investors."

Echoing a similar view, Lin Weiqiang, president of Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh, said private sector businesses from both sides have been pursuing to accelerate trade and investment.

He said the forum will pave the way for further bolstering Bangladesh-China business relationship among private sector business.

"Investment largely came from private sector. Here you see the presence of many Chinese businessmen who represent big companies."

Sohail RK Hussain, managing director and CEO of City Bank, said with increasing economic cooperation with China Bangladesh can truly benefit from the opportunities arising out of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Bilateral trade between China and Bangladesh last year was about 15 billion U.S. dollars, out of which Bangladesh exported products worth about 1 billion U.S. dollars.

China has also emerged as one of the fastest-growing sources of FDI into Bangladesh, which is in dire need for developing many mega infrastructure projects.

In a major development, the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority signed an MoU with China in April, opening the doors for a 2-billion-U.S. dollar investment in the construction materials sector.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:48:55|Editor: Liangyu

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TAIYUAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A seminar on relations between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan opened Monday, stressing the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.

Dai Bingguo, president of the National Society of Taiwan Studies (NSTS), said that since May last year, the Democratic Progressive Party administration had undermined the political foundation of the peaceful development of cross-strait relations by refusing to endorse the 1992 Consensus.

Under such circumstances, the mainland continued promoting cross-Strait personnel exchanges, boosting people-to-people communication and cooperation, and bringing forth favorable policies for Taiwan compatriots, said Dai, a former state councilor.

Dai said that the Chinese side had always opposed any official and military exchanges between the United States and Taiwan, urging the United States to clearly understand the serious harmfulness of such provisions and abide by the China-U.S. three joint communiques.

The mainland firmly opposes "Taiwan independence" secessionist activities in any form and hopes Taiwan authorities return to the 1992 Consensus, which is the right track of the common political foundation, Dai said.

He called for further improvements in cross-Strait economic cooperation to consolidate common interests and enlarge communication between the two sides to deepen social integration.

Zhang Zhijun, head of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said that unceasing kinship and strong will for exchange and cooperation across the Strait was an inexhaustible driving force for the development of cross-Strait relations.

"We are confident to unite cross-Strait compatriots, overcome difficulties and eliminate interference," Zhang said. "the mainland will continue to boost cross-Strait relations, maintain stabilities in the Strait and promote peaceful reunification."

The two-day seminar, held in Taiyuan, capital of northern China's Shanxi Province, was jointly hosted by the NSTS, the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, and the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 19:48:56|Editor: Song Lifang

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BERLIN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier has made a plea for maintaining close ties between Berlin and Washington despite recent irritation caused by the Trump administration.

Appearing on television channel ZDF for a "Summer Interview" on Sunday night, Steinmeier emphasized the historical debt his country owed to the United States.

"We certainly have no reason to assume a posture of moral superiority," the president warned.

He said German democracy would not exist if it were not for the United States and the country's booming post-war economy could not have flourished if it were not for aid provided by Washington under the Marshall plan.

"I would therefore advise not to throw everything over board, even if I admit that I am irritated by many things," he said.

According to Steinmeier, just how much relations between Berlin and Washington had suffered recently was evidenced by the fact that "in the history of German-U.S. relations, transatlantic relations have never faced so much uncertainty."

At the same time, Steinmeier expressed optimism that not all of the United States had forgotten the importance of close ties with Europe. He hoped to see "corrections within current U.S. politics."

During the interview, the president went on to caution that the integration of more than one million refugees who have arrived in Germany since 2015 could take decades. Steinmeier said that society needed to be realistic and resilient about the issue, as well as avoid becoming too polarized as a consequence.

"Above all, we must tell the people that is an enormous tasks which could last for decades," the president said.

Migrants were receiving help to become integrated into German society. In turn, they faced the expectation to "respect our tradition and above all the laws of the land."

Steinmeier called on his country's citizens to respect each others' views on the subject, saying that neither those who associated refugees exclusively with problems and those who denied the existence of any issues were in the moral right.

Steinmeier is a former SPD politician and Foreign Minister who assumed the office of president in February 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 20:14:12|Editor: Song Lifang

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ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least two people were killed and about 20 other injured when a blast hit the downtown area of Pakistan's eastern city Lahore on Monday, local Urdu TV channel 24 reported.

According to local media reports, the blast took place at about 4:00 p.m. local time (1100 GMT) near a vegetable market in downtown Lahore, capital of Punjab province in eastern Pakistan.

Several buildings, vehicles and motorbikes nearby the blast site were damaged in the explosion, said the reports.

Security forces and rescue teams have rushed to the site shortly after the explosion.

All the injured have been shifted to nearby hospitals where emergency was declared.

Local media quoted hospital sources as saying that at least four of the injured are in critical condition.

Malik Muhammad Ahmed, a spokesman of the Punjab government, said they were collecting information about the blast and the nature of the blast was not determined yet.

A senior police officer of Lahore said that the target was the police and several policemen were among the injured.

Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif condemned the attack and directed the concerned authorities to give the best possible medical treatment to the injured.

So far no group has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 20:14:15|Editor: Song Lifang

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BEIRUT, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The families of nine Lebanese servicemen being held hostage by Islamic State (IS) have expressed concerns over the fate of their sons, local LBCI TV reported.

Hussein Youssef, the father of captive soldier Mohammed Youssef, said in an interview with LBCI that he was worried about his son, after Hezbollah launched an unprecedented offensive towards the Lebanese-Syrian border region held by the IS-linked al-Nusra Front group.

"We have nine servicemen in IS captivity. What is their situation and what is their fate amid this pressure, bombardment and battles?" Youssef asked.

He also warned that the families "will not accept that these servicemen turn into a victim" of any military developments.

The fate of the nine servicemen has been shrouded with mystery for around two years now and their families have organized numerous street protests to exert pressure on authorities to unveil their fate and secure their release.

The nine men were among more than 30 troops and policeman who were abducted by IS during the deadly 2014 battle between the Lebanese army and IS and al-Nusra militants in and around northeastern border town of Arsal. Four of the servicemen were executed by IS and al-Nusra while another died of his wounds.

In 2015, al-Nusra released 16 hostages as part of a swap deal with the Lebanese state, however, the fate of the nine others remains unknown.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 20:24:32|Editor: Liangyu

The sixth BRICS Trade Union Forum kicks off in Beijing, capital of China, July 24, 2017. Leaders from 14 trade unions of the BRICS countries attended the event. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The sixth BRICS Trade Union Forum opened in Beijing Monday to discuss the trade union role in sustainable development.

It is China's first time to host the BRICS Trade Union Forum since it was established in 2012.

The two-day meeting will focus on issues including challenges and opportunities facing the labor world, helping achieve the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and strengthening exchanges and cooperation among the group.

The forum will release a declaration, a joint statement toward the BRICS Labor and Employment Ministerial Meeting and other documents.

The forum is one of the supporting activities of the Ninth BRICS Summit to be held in the eastern Chinese port city of Xiamen in September.

The five BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are home to 42 percent of the world's population. Their total share in the global economy has risen from 12 percent to 23 percent in the past decade, while contributing more than half of global growth.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 20:34:44|Editor: Song Lifang

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DAMASCUS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has controlled 41 percent of the Islamic State (IS) stronghold in Syria's northern city of Raqqa after launching nearly 50-day offensive there, a monitor group reported on Monday.

The battles for Raqqa have been raging for 49 days since the Kurdish-led SDF, with the heavy backing of the U.S.-led coalition, launched their major offensive to take Raqqa from IS, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog group said the SDF fighters are advancing and controlling more neighborhoods in Raqqa.

Over the span of seven weeks, the Kurdish-led groups captured all of the areas in western Raqqa, namely the neighborhoods of Sbahiyeh, Romaniyeh, Hiteen, Qadisiyeh and Yarmouk.

The SDF fighters also controlled the neighborhoods Mashlab, Btani, Sina'a and half of Hashem neighborhood as well as other areas in the eastern part of Raqqa.

The Observatory said the IS militants are now concentrated in the central part of the city.

This progress is a result of the heavy shelling of the U.S.-led coalition and the Kurdish-led groups on the IS positions, the Observatory added.

It said 940 civilians and militants have been killed over the past 50 days in Raqqa as a result of the intense shelling, violent battles, and explosions in Raqqa.

It said the IS position is now dwindling as a result of the SDF advance in Raqqa, and the progress of the Russia-backed Syrian army against the terror-designated group in the Syrian desert.

The battles raging on several fronts have shaked IS, which is under the fire of both the U.S.-led coalition and the Russians.

The group is now a target for the Syrians, backed by Russia, in the southern and eastern countryside of Raqqa, the countrysides of the central provinces of Homs and Hama, the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.

The Kurdish-led U.S.-backed groups are also targeting IS in Raqqa and the northern province of Hasakah.

With the rapid retreat, the areas under IS control have dropped to only 22.40 percent of the Syrian territory.

The SDF is now controlling 22.51 percent of Syrian areas in northern Syria, stretching from the town of Manbej near the Turkish borders to areas in Raqqa, and some areas in Aleppo province.

The SDF also took three major dams in Syria on the Euphrates River, namely the Tishreen, Euphrates and Baath, as well as other dams in the Hasakah province.

It also took several border towns in the triangle of the Syrian-Iraqi-Turkish borders all the way to the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

Now, the Syrian government forces are the most powerful group on the ground, controlling 38.39 percent of Syria, according to the Observatory.

Meanwhile, a well-informed source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that the pace of the battles in Raqqa has slowed down, slower than when it began almost 50 days ago.

The source added that Turkish stance toward the Kurds is the main reason behind the slowing pace.

It has become obvious the Turkish army is amassing forces to launch an offensive against the town of Afreen in northern Aleppo province to fight the Kurdish groups there.

Such tension pushed the Jaish al-Thuwar, and Liwa al-Shamal al-Democraty groups, both are allies with the SDF, to leave the battle in Raqqa and head to Afreen to defend the city, which led to a decline in the pace of battles in Raqqa.

The source said that the Kurdish-led groups are urging Washington to take a decisive stance toward the Turkish threats, saying that the Kurdish group doesn't see any meaning of taking Raqqa if the Turkish managed to capture Afreen.

Some activists also contributed the slowed pace of the battles in Raqqa to the big losses suffered by the SDF as a result of the explosions carried out by IS in defending its stronghold in the city, adding that the U.S.-led coalition asked the Kurdish-led groups to keep besieging the city until new reinforcements arrive.
A farewell ceremony of a Chinese naval fleet is held in Shanghai, east China, April 23, 2017. A fleet of three Chinese naval ships left Shanghai Sunday morning for public relations visits to more than 20 countries. (Xinhua/Yu Wei)

by Tian Dongdong

BRUSSELS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- By depicting a flotilla of three Chinese navy ships as a Spanish Armada, a number of Western media outlets and intelligence agencies have left no stone unturned in selling wolf tickets to their audiences. Once again they are hyping their "China Threat" cliche across Europe.

The Chinese flotilla, on its way last week to a joint exercise with the Russian navy, was shadowed by warships from a number of NATO countries. It was subsequently reported by media in the west, which self-righteously portrayed it as evidence pointing to "the rise of military" China.

However, promoting such selling points in this "wolf ticket" fashion does not enhance their moral high-ground, as they forget, if not deliberately, four basic things.

For one thing, freedom to navigate is a right claimed but often misused by Western powers. If Western navy ships sail into the South China Sea, as they do, and conduct disguised "freedom of navigation", like what the United States has done for numerous times there, why should Chinese ships, who act perfectly in accordance with international norms, be strangers to European waters?

Also, the ongoing maneuver is neither saber-rattling, nor aggressive, as it targets no third party. Easily dwarfed by the quantity and quality of the much larger NATO fleet in the area, the small group of Chinese ships is much more a benign visitor than a menacing intruder.

Thirdly, since China is increasingly an active contributor to international peace-keeping in various ways, holding maritime drills with partners is a requisite for future operations.

"Exercises are important tools through which the Alliance tests and validates its concepts, procedures, systems and tactics. More broadly, they enable military and civilian organizations deployed in theaters of operation to test capabilities and practice working together efficiently in a demanding crisis situation."

Those words come from the NATO website, stating very clearly the alliance's view that holding an exercise is an inborn and indispensable right. They surely deliver a thick ear to those trying to offer China the short end of the stick on the issue.

Last but not least, western media outlets apply a double-standard in reporting China's joint military maneuvers with other countries. While China's exercises with western countries, such as the U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific Exercise, are welcomed, the Sino-Russian drills are viewed disapprovingly.

Behind the recent misguided reports lies a Cold War mentality still haunting the West. As the Baltic Sea has many times been a watery battlefield for Western powers, the location of the China-Russia exercise serves as a perfect reminder to the West -- misreading the strategies of others can be both dangerous and costly. It is surely time for hotheads in the West to simmer down and take a chill pill on the China-Russia maneuvers, to recognize them for what they are -- a routine exercise similar to the many carried out by navies from across the world.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 20:49:46|Editor: Liangyu

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CHONGQING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Paying for your groceries by scanning a QR code on your smart phone is a perfectly normal thing to do in China today.

As cold hard cash vanishes into the mists of time, it seems that the cashiers are about to evaporate too.

Over the weekend, Yiqi Shan, a cashier-free store in southwest China's Chongqing metropolis, registered its 1,800th sale, two weeks after opening.

The 24-hour convenience store is on the first floor of an office building in an industrial park. It offers various beverages, fast food and snacks in a space of just 12 square meters.

First-time customers sign up by scanning a QR code at the entrance, choosing a password, registering their phone number and submitting a selfie. They are then admitted through a ticket gate similar to those at subway stations.

Scanning bar codes is hardly a highly skilled job and customers - honest customers - can do it just as well as any cashier. When the subsequent mobile payment is complete, another QR code is generated which allows the customer through the ticket gate and out of the store.

Deng Jie, deputy director of the company that owns the store, described three measures that have been taken to prevent shoplifting. First, the customer's selfie is compared with the Public Security Bureau's national ID database.

Second, every corner of the store comes under the steely gaze of surveillance devices that never sleep.

Third, if a customer somehow manages to escape from the store without paying, he or she receives a friendly reminder by text message requesting payment. If the warning is ignored, the customers is banned from the store and a black mark added to his or her personal credit record.

"The cashier-free store is the result of the coming together of new technology and consumer demand," Deng said. Her technical team worked on the app for over three years with 300,000 yuan (44,000 U.S. dollars) poured into the project.

Venture capitalists believe cashier-free stores could be "the next big thing," and Deng's company plans to open 25 more this year in various parts of the country, with 200 franchised stores in Chongqing.

Earlier this month, Alibaba opened its first brick and mortar store "Tao Cafe" in the company's hometown, Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. A long queue of curious customers soon formed.

In Shanghai, cashier-free stores are already a part of the landscape. BingoBox Minimarkets, 15-square-meter box, have been installed in many residential communities.

Customers open the door by scanning a QR code, select fresh fruit and daily necessities and check out by e-payment, pretty much a clone of the Yiqi Shan system. There will be 5,000 BingoBoxes in place by the end of August, according to the company website.

The focus of the retail industry is shifting from price to customer experience.

"'Restructuring' could become a key word for retail," said Zhang Yong, CEO of Alibaba. "The flow of production, relationships between sellers and customers, and the shopping experience will be revolutionized to the extent that every customer is identified, understood and served."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 20:59:57|Editor: Liangyu

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MANAGUA, July 23 (Xinhua)-- The four-day trade Exhibition of the People's Republic of China concluded in San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, on Sunday, reports reaching here said.

It is the fourth exhibition organized by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade together with the China Chamber of International Commerce since 2010, 2012 and 2015.

The area of the exhibition covered 3,000 square meters, with the public exhibition area displaying China's development achievements, history and culture in the forms of texts, photos, objects, models and multimedia.

A total of 42 Chinese enterprises took part in the business exhibition, covering a large range of areas such as consumer electronics, engineering machinery, construction materials, consumer goods and artifacts, among others.

The fair has become a brand exhibition for China in central America, and has promoted cooperation in trade and economy between China and El Salvador.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 21:10:00|Editor: Liangyu

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SHENZHEN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on botanists worldwide to increase cooperation in protecting biodiversity and promoting green development.

Xi made the remarks in a congratulatory letter to the International Botanical Congress (IBC), which opened in Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province on Monday.

Noting that plants are the primary producer in the ecosystem and have a profound impact on Earth's ecology, Xi said human beings have never ceased their exploration of botany, and the utilization and protection of plants have promoted the progress of human civilization.

China is among the countries with the richest plant species in the world, and its people have displayed affection for nature and plants since ancient times, Xi said in the letter.

The president noted that China has made remarkable achievements in rice breeding, genomics, evolutionary biology and biotechnology, among other areas.

China will uphold the concepts of innovative, balanced, green, open and shared development, strengthen ecological improvement, and build a beautiful country, said Xi, adding China will carry out international cooperation in botany and work together with other countries to protect Earth.

Premier Li Keqiang said in a written instruction that the IBC features an international academic conference at the highest level in the field of plant sciences and plays an important role in global botanic development.

The conference will help China's worldwide exchanges in plant sciences and improve the scientific research level of global botany, Li said.

The Chinese government has insisted on a fundamental national policy of saving resources and protecting the environment, placed ecological improvement at a prominent position, and reinforced research and international cooperation in plant sciences, he said.

The IBC was established in 1900. About 6,000 experts, scholars and delegates from nearly 100 countries and regions attended this year's conference.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 21:20:08|Editor: Song Lifang

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WARSAW, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Monday he decided to veto two of the three judicial bills passed recently by both houses of Polish Parliament, the Sejm and Senat.

The two bills vetoed aimed at reorganizing the Supreme Court and the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS). The third act, the common courts bill, would however be signed, according to the president's spokesman.

Duda said that according to the Polish constitutional tradition, the prosecutor general never had oversight powers over the Supreme Court, or the power to decide who can be a judge of the Supreme Court. He also expressed doubts about the Prosecutor General deciding on the Court's internal regulations.

Referring to recent protests against the law reform, Duda emphasized that the legislation cannot raise so much controversy: "I want to improve these laws as part of my legislative initiative as president so that the Polish justice system is upgraded, so that Poland becomes a better country; stronger, fairer, and safe. This is my responsibility as president."

Duda announced that he would return the vetoed bills to the Sejm and that he would draft two new pieces of legislation within two months with the help of experts.

The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) proposed splitting the Supreme Court into three chambers, changing appointment regulations for its judges and retiring its present judges. The bill was passed by Sejm on July 20 and by the Senat on July 22.

The reform bill on Poland's Supreme Court has stirred up controversies in Poland and abroad.

The European Commission has expressed "grave concern" for "the clear risks for the independence of the judiciary" in Poland, saying it would take legal action against Warsaw in the wake of the series of judiciary bills proposed.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 21:25:12|Editor: Song Lifang

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MOSCOW, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A possible new U.N. Security Council resolution on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue should not seek to economically suffocate Pyongyang, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Monday.

Some U.N. Security Council members are drafting a new resolution to exert pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Gatilov told a news briefing.

The senior diplomat said Russia does not agree on some points of the document under discussion, including an attempt to "economically strangle the DPRK."

Russia condemns Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs, and the new U.N. resolution should exactly target this area, but it does not so far, said Gatilov.

Earlier this month, the DPRK declared that it successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, the latest of a string of missile and nuclear tests that have incurred U.N. sanctions and worldwide criticism.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 21:25:14|Editor: Song Lifang

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MOGADISHU, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Four Al-Shabaab militants surrendered to the Somali National Army at Gof-gudud Burey near Baidoa town, the administrative capital of Southwest State, officials said Monday.

Chief of Gof-gudud Burey, Sidow Ali told reporters that the militants had prior communications with Somali National Army's 60 Division in the area before laying down the arms.

"Four Al-Shabaab militants including senior member who is in charge of finance in some areas near Baidoa town surrendered to Somali National Army's 60 division on Sunday afternoon, they made contacts with the army," Ali said.

He added their administration is committed to welcoming any member of Al-Shabaab militant who denounces terror activities.

Al-Shabaab militants did not comment on the latest defection of one of its senior fighters to Somali National Army.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 21:30:16|Editor: Song Lifang

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NAIROBI, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Kenya Airways confirmed Monday it cancelled a flight to South Africa's Johannesburg on Sunday night after the aircraft was involved in an accident at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

The national carrier said in a statement the accident occurred during a push back of the aircraft, a B-737-800 which has a capacity of about 145 passengers.

"The incident involving an airport tow truck happened during push back of the aircraft from the bay damaging part of its fuselage and engine," the airline said.

The carrier which operates several frequencies in Africa confirmed that there were no injuries. Flight KQ 764 which was later cancelled to allow for further investigations and all guests were accommodated on other flights.

"Kenya Airways remains committed to the safety of its guests and employees and to the integrity of its operations as it aims to bring the world to Africa and Africa to the world," it said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 21:30:18|Editor: Song Lifang

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BERLIN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The share prices of German carmakers fell for a second day in a row on Monday, as investors balked at the prospect of fines being imposed for breaching anti-trust legislation.

Leading German vehicle brands Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz stand accused of holding illicit meetings since the 1990s to coordinate vehicle technology, cost, suppliers, markets and strategy.

The European Commission is investigating allegations that a cartel was formed. German newsmagazine Spiegel reported that the Commission had already seized documents and began questioning employees.

As a result, Volkswagen's shares were down 3.5 percent on Monday, haven already fallen by 3.6 percent on Friday and thus suffering their worst performance since September 2016.

Daimler AG, the owner of the brand Mercedes-Benz, was under pressure in financial markets as well, witnessing losses of three percent after falling two percent on Friday. BMW shares fell by two percent.

The weakness of the automotive industry in Monday's stock trading pushed down the German benchmark DAX index by 0.71 percent.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 21:55:25|Editor: Song Lifang

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KILIFI, Kenya, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police said Monday they are interrogating a suspect in connection with the murder of Italian tourist in the coastal county of Kilifi.

Police report indicates that armed gangster attacked a couple at their private villa in Sultan near Kijipwa Police Station Kilifi County.

Newly posted regional police Commander Larry Kieng' said that they have arrested a guard who is assisting them with investigations.

"The wife succumbed to deep head and neck injuries. We are yet to establish the motive of the attackers. Our officers have already commenced investigation," Kieng said.

The two were identified as Luigi Scassellati, 72 years old, and Maria Laura Satta, 71. They two are from Cremona in Northern Italy and arrived in the country on July 12 and were on a three month visa in the country.

The wife died on the spot as she over-bled while the husband is in critical condition at Mombasa hospital.

The injured husband first rushed to Jocham hospital before being referred to Mombasa hospital for specialized treatment.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 22:15:41|Editor: Song Lifang

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DAR ES SALAAM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania and Kenya have agreed to form a joint commission for resolving trade barriers between the two east African nations, Tanzania's Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Augustine Mahiga, said on Monday.

The decision to form the commission came after a meeting of foreign affairs ministers from the two countries as part of efforts to implement directives by President John Magufuli and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta after they had intervened to avert an escalating trade war.

Presidents Magufuli and Kenyatta stepped in to stem an escalating trade war that has seen Tanzania and Kenya exchange import bans on several commodities.

"The commission that will be chaired by foreign ministers in respective countries will also include trade, tourism and finance cabinet ministers," Mahiga told a news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Kenya imposed restrictions on wheat flour and liquefied petroleum gas from Tanzania while Tanzania retaliated by imposing restrictions on milk and milk products and cigarettes manufactured in Kenya.

"Tanzania and Kenya are one. The sanctions were against East African Community (EAC) customs union protocol but the stage we have reached is a sign that we are committed towards promoting regional integration," said Mahiga.

Tanzania and Kenya are members of the EAC. Other members of the regional bloc include Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 22:25:46|Editor: Liangyu

Visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (Front L) meets with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (Front R) in Bangkok, Thailand, on July 24, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Mangmang)

BANGKOK, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said on Monday that Thailand stands ready to deepen pragmatic cooperation with China under the Belt and Road framework.

Prayut made the remarks during a meeting with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. He said Thailand-China relations have witnessed stable development and fruitful cooperation since the two countries established diplomatic ties.

Stressing that Thailand adheres to one-China policy, Prayut said Thailand would like to deepen the bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, thus contributing to the whole sub-regional development.

Thailand admires China's achievements and hopes to learn from its governance experience, Prayut said, calling for greater synergy between "Thailand 4.0" strategy and "Made in China 2025."

The Thai prime minister noted that Thailand supports Thailand-China railway and welcomes Chinese enterprises participating in the building of Thai Eastern Economic Corridor.

Prayut also expressed the willingness to continue strengthening coordination and collaboration with China under such frameworks as ASEAN-China, Lancang-Mekong Cooperation and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

Wang Yi, for his part, said China attaches great importance to China-Thailand friendship, appreciates Thailand's support for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and is willing to align China's development strategies with those of Thailand.

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.

Calling for expanding bilateral cooperation and advancing the Thailand-China railway project, Wang said China would like to participate in the country's development and continuously tap into the potential of the bilateral relations.

The Chinese foreign minister also noted that China is willing to cement communication and coordination with Thailand in China-ASEAN cooperation and other regional and international affairs.

On Monday in Bangkok, Wang Yi also paid respects to late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the Grand Palace.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 22:30:48|Editor: Zhou Xin

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RAMALLAH, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in the West Bank, Palestinian source said Monday.

The demonstrators protested near Bet El checkpoint against the installing of metal detectors in East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli army dispersed demonstrators with tear gas and firing, as they responded by hurling stones.

Spokesperson of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Erab Fuqaha told Xinhua that the injuries were caused by live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets and suffocation from tear gas.

The Israeli forces also arrested several Palestinians.

Meanwhile, clashes erupted in East Jerusalem where six paramedics were injured and Israeli police "assaulted paramedics and ambulances," according to the PRCS.

Palestinian Foreign Ministry slammed in an emailed press statement the Israeli forces' "aggression" of peaceful demonstrations in East Jerusalem, including worshippers in their prayers and journalists.

The ministry urged the international community "to hold Israel responsible for its violations," saying that international silence provides Israel with impunity.

Tensions remain high and daily clashes after Israeli authorities installed metal detectors and surveillance cameras at the entrance of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound Sunday, two days after closing down the holy shrine in the wake of a shooting attack that left three Palestinians and two Israeli officers killed.
A Palestinian protester hurls stones at Israeli troops during clashes near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bankcity of Ramallah July 24, 2017. (REUTERS Photo)

RAMALLAH, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least 12 Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in the West Bank, Palestinian source said Monday.

The demonstrators protested near Bet El checkpoint against the installing of metal detectors in East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli army dispersed demonstrators with tear gas and firing, as they responded by hurling stones.

Spokesperson of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Erab Fuqaha told Xinhua that the injuries were caused by live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets and suffocation from tear gas.

The Israeli forces also arrested several Palestinians.

Meanwhile, clashes erupted in East Jerusalem where six paramedics were injured and Israeli police "assaulted paramedics and ambulances," according to the PRCS.

Palestinian Foreign Ministry slammed in an emailed press statement the Israeli forces' "aggression" of peaceful demonstrations in East Jerusalem, including worshippers in their prayers and journalists.

The ministry urged the international community "to hold Israel responsible for its violations," saying that international silence provides Israel with impunity.

Tensions remain high and daily clashes after Israeli authorities installed metal detectors and surveillance cameras at the entrance of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound Sunday, two days after closing down the holy shrine in the wake of a shooting attack that left three Palestinians and two Israeli officers killed.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 22:46:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LUSAKA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A former Zambian minister who has been expelled from the ruling party said on Monday that he will not sit idle but fight his expulsion in court.

On Saturday, the Central Committee, the highest organ of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) expelled Chishimba Kambwili, who was information and broadcasting minister for alleged indiscipline and causing divisions in the party.

But Kambwili said in a live interview on Muvi Television that he was going to challenge his expulsion in court because procedure was not followed.

The former minister said he was among the founder members of the party and would not like to see it divided, adding that those accusing him of causing divisions were lying.

"I am going to court to save the PF from collapsing because if we leave PF the way they want us to leave it, I am telling you the consequences will be too grave to contemplate. And in any case, when you know that people want to push you out, it is not a good idea to surrender, you have to fight to the bitter end," he said.

Kambwili, who was fired as minister last November, further revealed that he has tried to seek an audience with President Edgar Lungu to deal with the perceived divisions in the party but that this has failed.

The former minister has been accused of being among top members of the ruling party with presidential ambitions.

But the central committee of the ruling party has settled for Lungu as the preferred candidate for the 2021 general elections although this was subject for approval by a general conference to be held in 2020.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 22:51:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- China Monday urged India to immediately withdraw all troops that have illegally entered China, stating that the nation would defend its territorial sovereignty "at all costs."

"The Chinese border troops have taken initial counter measures at the site and will step up targeted deployment and training," said Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, at a press conference.

Wu said the history of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the past 90 years has demonstrated its increasing capacities and unshakable determination to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"It's easier to shake a mountain than the PLA," Wu said. His words immediately began to trend online.

As Aug. 1, the birthday of the PLA, approaches, these words illustrated China's unswerving resolution to build a stronger army and guard the country's sovereignty.

Highlighting military reform, law-based governance and international reform, the armed forces of China are ready to embrace their big day.

MILITARY REFORM TO GO DEEPER

"A significant goal of the current military reform is to improve the PLA's readiness for war and combat capabilities," Zhou Shangping, an official from the Joint Staff Department under the Central Military Commission (CMC), said at the press briefing.

The PLA aims to reach that goal by straightening the relationship of command, enhancing the structure of the military and strengthening its combat forces, Zhou continued, addressing a journalist's concern that military reform might unsettle the army's readiness for war.

In fact, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in late 2012, the country has championed improving combat capabilities as the ultimate goal in building a strong army.

In order to realize the goal, the PLA set up a two-tier joint operation command center that featured both the CMC and theater commands last year, which focused on commanding combat, and played a big part in maintaining the overall strategic stability, Zhou said.

"We are completely capable of dealing with any sorts of security threats, and will firmly protect our country's sovereignty, security and interests," he noted.h

A LAW-BASED MILITARY

As part of the on-going military reform, the PLA has entered a "fast track" in building a military legal system with Chinese characteristics in the past five years, according to Lu Yu, deputy director of the CMC's legal affairs bureau.

Efforts have been made to advance the rule of law, shifting the PLA's governance from the previous reliance on administrative orders, custom, experiences and campaigns, Lu said.

Responding to a reporter who inquired about measures taken to handle corruption within the military, Lu said the PLA has strengthened law enforcement and checks on power in recent years with an attitude of "zero tolerance" against violations.

China's top leadership has repeatedly called on PLA officers to eliminate the pernicious influence of Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, two corrupt former CMC vice chairmen, amid the anti-corruption drive and efforts to advance strict observance of political discipline and rules.

MILITARY COOPERATION AS DUTY

Moreover, the PLA has been dedicated to improving its military diplomacy, and will continue to do so in the future, Wu said.

Above all, boasting the goal of building a stronger army, the PLA has deepened its military relations with other major powers in the world, neighboring countries and developing countries over the years.

In its attempt to play a bigger role in global governance, the PLA has been pushing forward international military cooperation to give China a bigger say on the international stage, Wu continued.

"China's armed forces have been actively expanding their military cooperation," Wu said, referring to the PLA's participation in international duties, such as peace-keeping, anti-piracy, humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

"It shows the responsibility that the PLA accepts as the armed forces of a major power," he stressed.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 23:06:17|Editor: An

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A man scans the QR code trying to use a shared bike in Xuan'en County, Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hubei Province, July 11, 2017. The first 400 shared bikes were put into use in Xuan'en County.(Xinhua/Song Wen)

BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Ancient China boasts four era-defining inventions -- papermaking, printing, gunpowder and the compass -- that fundamentally changed human history.

Over past four decades, the Middle Kingdom has been largely known as the world's factory floor, as cheap labor fueled its breath-taking economic growth and sold made-in-China products to every corner of the world.

But those who believe China will remain the world's factory floor and "steal" jobs may need to think twice. In the last five years, the pace of innovation across China has notably sped up. The nation's creativity is leading the world once again.

What follows are just a few of China's recent innovations:

SHARING ECONOMY

"China used to copy the Silicon Valley, but now Silicon Valley copies China," said Li Le, who runs Zhubaijia, the Chinese version of Airbnb.

Zhubaijia started the practice of combing homestays with travel services, a business model that Airbnb soon followed.

But the real stars in the sector are bike-sharing companies. Orange or yellow two wheelers first appeared on China's streets in 2015 when the two bike-sharing companies Mobike and Ofo were established.

Now more than 50 bike-sharing startups run a total of 15 million bikes in China, according to Shanghai Bicycle Association.

Mobike and Ofo each have 100 million registered users and more than 5 million bikes in 100 cities worldwide, with more than 20 million completed rides every day. By the end of this year, they expect to reach at least 200 cities worldwide.

Eager investors from China and abroad have injected 600 million and 700 million U.S. dollars respectively into the two companies this year. The market value of Mobike has reached 3 billion dollars.

The bike-sharing sector is the epitome of China's booming sharing economy, which saw deals worth some 3.45 trillion yuan (512 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, according to a report released by the Sharing Economy Research Center under the State Information Center.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 23:31:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TEHRAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry on Monday strongly condemned a deadly terrorist bomb attack in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi offered his condolences to the Afghani government, nation and the families of the victims, saying Iran will help them in fighting extremism and violence.

Some 24 civilians were killed and 42 others wounded after a car bomb struck a minibus carrying government employees in western Kabul on Monday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 23:36:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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SKOPJE, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A Court of Appeal in Macedonia decided on Monday to turn down the motion filed by Macedonia's Special Prosecution which had been seeking to remand in custody the leader of opposition party VMRO-DPMNE and former prime minister Nikola Gruevski.

The request for such a measure was over the so-called Titanik case wherein Gruevski and his collaborators are suspected of electoral violations and misusing public funds during the election campaign.

Macedonia's Special Prosecution decided to file lawsuits against 94 officials a few weeks ago, a decision that sparked strong reactions amongst the VMRO-DPMNE.

After the motion against him, Gruevski told a media conference that the accusations were a mere political attack.

But the Special Prosecution said they had solid evidence of serious abuses committed by these persons, including party leaders, and incumbent and former government officials.

The wiretapping scandal came up in 2015 when then opposition leader and current Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev accused Gruevski, who was prime minister at the time, of wiretapping some 20,000 people, including politicians and journalists.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 23:36:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BRATISLAVA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Slovak police arrested one of the most brutal murderers in the country's history, National Crime Agency director Peter Hrasko announced on Monday.

"Miroslav from Zliechov in the Western Slovakia has killed at least three people. The deeds were carried out in a very brutal manner. I don't even want to describe them. It's obvious that the accused is facing a lifetime sentence," stressed Hrasko.

According to Hrasko, the police found the homicide only by accident, as a certain police officer noticed that various people went missing in places where one specific person had temporarily stayed at the time -- Miroslav.

"The man strangled his own cohabiter, who had wanted to abandon him, further a man whose wife complained to him on an internet chat forum that she was being abused, and finally a woman that he also had found on a chat forum. Miroslav then burned all his victims, with the police still trying to identify them after the killer showed where he had buried them," Hrasko said.

Moreover, it may emerge that the man has in fact killed even more people, as the 18-month old daughter of one of the women he murdered is also missing, among other people linked to Miroslav's whereabouts.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-24 23:52:01|Editor: Xiang Bo

Security officials examine the blast site in eastern Pakistan's Lahore, on July 24, 2017. At least 26 people were killed and 49 others injured as a suicide blast hit the downtown area of Pakistan's eastern city Lahore on Monday afternoon, officials said. (Xinhua/Sajjad)

ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least 26 people were killed and 49 others injured as a suicide blast hit the downtown area of Pakistan's eastern city Lahore Monday afternoon, officials said.

Khawaja Salman Rafique, health minister of the country's eastern Punjab province, said that so far 26 people, including nine policemen, have lost their lives in the blast while 49 others are under treatment at three different hospitals in the city.

Hospital sources said that the death toll might further rise as at least 15 of the injured are still in critical condition.

According to local media reports, the blast took place at about 4:00 p.m. local time when a suicide bomber hit policemen escorting a local anti-encroachment team demolishing illegal buildings of a vegetable market near a Technology Park in downtown Lahore, the capital city of Punjab province.

Haider Ashraf, deputy inspector general of police, confirmed that it was a suicide blast and the target was the police, adding that two police inspectors are among the deceased.

Ashraf said the bomber hit the policemen when they were having a roadside meeting to establish check posts to stop encroachers to enter the vegetable market.

Several buildings, ten motorbikes and one vehicle near the blast site were also damaged, according to local media.

Security forces and rescue teams rushed to the site shortly after the blast was reported and shifted the bodies and injured to the hospitals. An emergency has been declared in all hospitals in Lahore.

Bomb disposal officers claimed to have found the head of the suicide bomber, adding that around 10-12 kilograms of explosives were used in the blast.

Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrows over the loss of precious lives.

PM Sharif directed the authorities concerned for extending best possible medical treatment for the injured.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Ahmad Shah Masood, a splinter group of Pakistani Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the suicide blast, local media reported.

The group, in its message, said that a 13-year-old boy had conducted the suicide attack.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 00:07:14|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) and his Thai counterpart Don Pramudwinai attend a joint press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, on July 24, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Mangmang)

BANGKOK, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that Thailand-China railway project is conducive to the long-term development of Thailand and meets the interests of the Thai people.

Speaking at a press conference alongside his Thai counterpart Don Pramudwinai, Wang said Thailand-China railway is an important project in the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.

The railway project is also an important connectivity project under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, he added.

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.

Wang noted that building of Thailand-China railway will not only bring about growth and prosperity of local industries along the railway in Thailand, but also achieve breakthrough of the Pan-Asian railway network.

Furthermore, the project will lay the foundation for Thailand to be the hub for regional connectivity as well as an important center of ASEAN economy, he stressed.

"No matter judging from a domestic or regional perspective, the project will benefit Thailand in the long run and meet the interests of the Thai people," Wang said.

While noting that it is inevitable to encounter some difficulties in pushing forward the project, Wang said that with the personal endeavor of Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the technical bottleneck has been broken and major progress has been made in the negotiation of the project.

The two sides have worked out a roadmap for cooperation including the time of launching construction of the project and its anticipated completion, the Chinese minister said.

Wang also highlighted that China is willing to share high-speed railway technology with Thailand, help the Thai side train technicians and management personnel.

Thai cabinet early this month approved the Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima high speed railway project under Thailand-China rail cooperation, which is set to start operation in 2021.

The cabinet approved the proposal of the Ministry of Transport for the construction of the 252-kilometer-long stretch of the high speed rail project between Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima province, with an estimated 179 billion baht (5.2 billion U.S. dollars) in funding, all of which is to be raised by Thai government.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 00:07:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TEHRAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran said on Monday security is interlinked in Iran and Afghanistan, and both countries should enhance cooperation to deal with the issue of terrorism in the region, reported official IRNA news agency.

Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting National Security Adviser of Afghanistan Mohammad Hanif Atmar.

He said all the regional states need comprehensive cooperation to deal with the growth and spread of terrorist groups.

Shamkhani condemned terrorist explosion in Afghanistan's Kabul, which killed at least 24 and wounded dozens.

He expressed concern about continuation of financial, intelligence and arms supports of some countries for terrorist groups and said this can increase sectarian and religious violence in the region.

"This can also sabotage the Afghan government's efforts to develop and reconstruct the country," he added.

Shamkhani pointed to cultural commonalities between the two countries and said that continuation of consultations and exchange of experience can help establish peace and stability along the common borders.

The two officials also discussed major security issues, fighting drug trafficking and terrorism, as well as bilateral cooperation in economic fields.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 00:17:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 youth representatives from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan gathered in Beijing on Monday, marking the 20th anniversary of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF) holding cross-Strait youth activities.

CSCLF Chairman Wang Jiarui met with event organizers and youth representatives, and called on young people to firmly uphold the one China policy, seek cross-Strait development, and contribute to national prosperity and revival, and the improvement of people's well-being.

He also noted that youth from across the Strait should carry forward traditional Chinese culture and the great spirit of the times, and promote people-to-people connection and socio-economic development.

"We welcome Taiwan youth to study and seek jobs on the mainland. We are willing to build more platforms for entrepreneurship and innovation with institutions from Taiwan," said Wang.

More than 7,000 young people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait have attended youth activities held by the CSCLF over the past 20 years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 00:22:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KABUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The NATO-led Resolute Support Mission on Monday condemned a Taliban suicide attack which targeted a Afghan government workers' bus earlier on the day in Kabul.

"This morning's Taliban bomb killing Afghan civilians in a crowded Kabul residential area is another in a string of atrocities caused by the insurgent group," it said in a statement.

Twenty-four civilians, including 19 staff of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, were killed and 42 people wounded in the attack which occurred at morning rush hour.

"We offer our most sincere condolences to the families of innocent victims martyred in these cowardly attacks. We hope those wounded quickly recover," the statement reads.

Currently, around 13,000 foreign troops remain in Afghanistan to train and assist local security forces in their fight against the Taliban.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 00:22:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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SEOUL, July 25 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's newly appointed trade minister on Monday accepted the U.S. counterpart's request to convene a special session of the joint committee on the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA).

Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Paik Ungyu, who became the first minister for trade under the Moon Jae-in government, replied to a letter sent on July 12 by U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer to negotiate on the amendment or modification of the bilateral free trade pact that came into force in 2012.

According to the reply letter unveiled by the South Korean ministry, Paik said his country agreed to hold the special session, requested by the U.S. side, in accordance with due procedures.

Paik, however, suggested that the special session would be held after the new government's reorganizing process is finalized, saying the Moon government, which was inaugurated on May 10, should establish a trade office inside the ministry and appoint a new minister for the trade office who would become the co-chair of the joint committee on the South Korean side.

Under the bilateral free trade deal, either side can ask for the special session. The other side, in principle, is required to accept the request within 30 days.

Describing the U.S.-South Korea FTA as a "horrible deal," U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to put things right by "renegotiating" the deal.

The new South Korean leader has instructed government officials to squarely face the call from the U.S. side, saying that if negotiations on the bilateral FTA kick off, the South Korean side would have what it wants in the upcoming negotiations.

Minister Paik proposed to his U.S. counterpart that the two sides would discuss how to objectively examine, analyze and assess the effects of the bilateral FTA since its entry into force.

South Korea has claimed that though it had a trade surplus in goods with the United States, the country has posted a deficit in services trade with the U.S. When including the weapons import, the bilateral trade was almost balanced.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 00:57:51|Editor: huaxia

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VILNIUS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A survey commissioned by Citaele Bank, one of the biggest commercial banks in Lithuania, has found that about 46 percent of Lithuanian business representatives suggest that a large scale and non-abating emigration poses the largest social risk to the country's future development.

Commissioned by Citadele Bank and conducted by local polling company Spinter Tyrimai, the results of the private survey was unveiled on Monday.

"Business sector is concerned about emigration because it means diminishing domestic demand," Giedre Kubiliuniene, the head of small and medium business department at Citaele Bank, was quoted as saying in the bank's statement.

Shrinking size of Lithuania's market prevents international brands from coming to the country and reduces the country's attractiveness to foreign investment, Kubiliuniene added.

Ageing society with growing number of retired persons has been ranked by business representatives as the second most important social risk (16 percent), followed by revenues inequality (11 percent) in the third place.

The survey questioning more than 500 small and medium business representatives was conducted in May.

According to Statistics Lithuania, nearly 38,000 persons declared their departure from Lithuania in the first half of 2017, compared to around 21,000 in the same period last year.

Statistics shows that the number of Lithuanian residents decreased from 3.7 million in 1990 to around 2.8 million in 2017.

Lithuania's emigration rate is among the highest in the European Union. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 01:18:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LONDON, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Defense Secretary Sir Michael Fallon visited Monday the largest and most powerful ship ever built for the Royal Navy.

It was Fallon's first visit to the aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, since she embarked on sea trials off the coast of Scotland several weeks ago.

Fallon landed on the deck of the carrier in a Merlin helicopter. He met with members of the crew and thanked them for their contribution.

Addressing the crew, Fallon announced the Britain's second aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, will be officially named at a ceremony in Rosyth on Sept. 8 this year.

"With two aircraft carriers, we will have one available at all times, providing a world-class carrier strike capability," said Fallon.

"The magnificent HMS Queen Elizabeth provides us with power on a scale we have never seen before...She will be a highly versatile and potent force, capable of both humanitarian and disaster relief and high-end war fighting," he added.

The crew of over 700 Royal Navy and 200 industry personnel have settled in well to the routine of ship's life, said the Ministry of Defense.

The initial period of sea trials, expected to last around six weeks, will test the fundamentals of the ship. The trials are monitoring speed, manoeuvrability, power and propulsion, as well as undertaking weapons trials and additional tests on her levels of readiness.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected to enter Portsmouth to be handed over to the Royal Navy later this year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 01:23:06|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TEHRAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani on Monday urged Washington to "immediately" free Iranian citizens held in the U.S. prisons, Tasnim news agency reported.

Larijani denounced a recent statement by the White House that demanded the release of all Americans currently being held in Iran.

"For about forty years (following the Islamic revolution in 1979), the Americans have violated the rights of our people," he said, adding that they have kept innocent Iranian citizens in their prisons.

"We tell them here that you (the U.S.) should immediately release Iranian citizens held captive in U.S. prisons," he said, noting that "their measures are illegal and contrary to norms and international laws."

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran of facing "new and serious consequences" if Iran did not release the imprisoned Americans.

"President Trump is prepared to impose new and serious consequences on Iran unless all unjustly imprisoned American citizens are released and returned," said the White House in a statement.

The U.S. statement followed earlier remarks by an Iranian Judiciary official, saying that an Iranian court had sentenced a U.S. dual national to 10 years in prison over spying charges.

The person who owns the nationality of both the United States and another country had snooped into Iran to gather documents and intelligence, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie, spokesman for Iranian judiciary, told the reporters.

Also, Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected Trump's demand to release detained Americans, describing it as "interfering and unacceptable."

"The meddlesome and threatening statements by the United States would not affect the Iranian Judiciary's determination to prosecute and punish the violators of Iran's law and national security," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said.

Qasemi stressed the independence of Iranian Judiciary, adding that Iranian Judiciary is responsible to deal with the behaviors and moves that would threaten the national security.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 01:33:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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STOCKHOLM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven called a leak of confidential information from Sweden's transport authority a "total breakdown" and "illegal" in a press conference held Monday afternoon in the government offices Rosenbad.

Confidential information, including the country's driver's license registry with photos, as well as sensitive information about bridges, subways, roads and ports in Sweden, was available to IT personnel working in the Czech Republic and Serbia through an outsourcing agreement between Sweden's Transport Agency and global IT company IBM, Swedish public television broadcaster SVT reports.

Lofven said he first learned of the breach in January.

SVT reported that in 2015 the Transport Agency decided to outsource the management of its vehicle and drivers' license registers to IBM. The databases also contain information about police and military vehicles, as well as data on anybody who has a driver's license.

In 2015, IBM decided to place the IT administration in eastern Europe, giving personnel who have no security clearance access to sensitive information, SVT reports.

"What has happened is a total breakdown, very serious, and against the law," Lofven said in the press conference.

He was joined by Anders Thornberg, head of the Swedish Security Service, Micael Byden, supreme commander of the Swedish Armed Forces and Jonas Bjelfvenstam, the Transport Agency's new director general.

Lofven said the government was considering a new security law proposing stricter rules for outsourcing, which would go into effect in January 2019. The PM also said that outsourcing agreements would be vetted by the Constitution Committee.

Byden said the incident was "serious" but did not affect Sweden's defense capabilities.

He added that most of the information from the Swedish Armed Forces' vehicle database was not in the Transport Agency's system, but noted that the information in the wrong hands could pose a potential risk.

The former director general of Sweden's Transport Agency Maria Agren bypassed several laws designed to protect sensitive information to go ahead with the outsourcing agreement with IBM, according to the SVT reports. Agren was fired in January.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 01:43:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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DAR ES SALAAM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank on Monday expressed concern over what it described as laxity by East Africa's ministries of health in healthcare financing.

Khama Rogo, the World Bank's Head of Health in Africa Initiative, said poor financing in healthcare made countries in the region to fail to fulfill the healthcare benchmarks such as the Abuja Declaration which called for committing 15 percent of African governments' budget to healthcare.

Rogo told the East Africa Health Federation Conference in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam that governments in the region needed to come into dialogue with the World Bank on how to better finance the health sector and how to stop people from dying of preventable diseases.

"Every time I hear in East Africa that a person has died of cholera, I agonize. Every time I hear that a leader in East Africa is traveling abroad for treatment, my heart stops," he said.

"Under such conditions, my heart cannot be healthy. We at World Bank are ready to help work with governments to sort out why healthcare financing is still facing challenges," Rogo told the conference that attracted 400 private healthcare leaders from East Africa and beyond.

In his reaction to the World Bank's concerns, former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete said governments in the region have been striving to put up local health infrastructure that can help solve complex health problems.

"But these governments cannot attain the highest standards provided in high income countries overnight," Kikwete told the conference themed: Health Care Financing: for Sustainable Quality Health Care.

Kikwete appealed to the World Bank to commit more funding for the private health sector.

"Before blaming governments we should ask ourselves how much in loans, does the World Bank extend to the private health sector," queried Kikwete.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 01:43:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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JERUSALEM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt arrived in Israel on Monday amid escalating violence over East Jerusalem's most contested holy site.

An Israeli government official said he was at a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening.

A senior official in the Trump administration said that Greenblatt's visit is "to support efforts to reduce tensions in the region."

His visit marks the first sign of a high-level involvement by the White House to end the strife between Israel and the Muslim world over the violence that broke out in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

The tensions were triggered by metal detectors that Israel has installed at the entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, a compound run by the Jordanian Muslim Waqf under a long-held status quo. Israel placed the detectors in the wake of a shooting attack that claimed the lives of three Israeli policemen last Friday.

The detectors also triggered protests and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, which claimed the lives of at least four Palestinians.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 02:08:26|Editor: ying

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MANILA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday that he will beef up the country's military and police force to meet "the future threats coming our way from within and outside the country."

He also bared the Philippines' plan to buy at least two spy planes and "lots" of high-altidute drones that the security forces can use against the extremists and other insurgents.

"I will build a credible armed force that can fight at all fronts everywhere. I really do not know how many (enemies) will sprout up, but we have the ISIS and the NPAs," Duterte told a news conference after delivering his second State of the Nation Address before a joint congress, referring to the IS militants and the New People's Army rebels.

He said the Philippine government needs to recruit up to 40,000 new soldiers to "replace and to strengthen" the military force.

He stressed the need to beef up the forces because of the deaths of more than 100 soldiers in the ongoing war in Marawi City and attacks launched by rebels.

"I will prepare more armed forces on war footing. There's war, that's why," Duterte said.

Duterte said there is a need to re-train the armed forces and the police in urban warfare, especially in military tactics using new military equipment.

"(The military and police) are back to the drawing board. There is a need for the soldiers and police to reconfigure," Duterte said, vowing to destroy the rebel forces.

The military is fighting the extremists linked with IS fighters still holed up in the southern Marawi City. Duterte said the IS militants are still holding 300 hostages in Marawi, delaying efforts to retake the rest of the city.

"That's why we cannot launch an assault, and if possible we'll just wait it out. I do not want these innocents to be slaughtered," Duterte said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 02:13:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RIYADH, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia will allow pilgrims from Qatar to visit the kingdom to perform Umrah or Hajj this year, despite a diplomatic row, local media reported Monday.

The only restriction on the Qatari pilgrims is they should travel to the kingdom aboard all flights other than Qatar Airways, Qatar's national carrier, the Al Arabiya TV reported.

The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation quoted a statement by the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah as saying that Riyadh welcomes Qataris who wish to perform Umrah or Hajj this year, if they have permits from the ministry and from the relevant department in Qatar.

Qatari pilgrims can travel to the kingdom via any airlines except Qatar Airways and through any flight routes to the kingdom except through Doha, the ministry said.

They should enter the kingdom through King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah or through Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Medina, it added.

Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the most holy city for Muslims. This year's Hajj will begin in the evening of August 30 and end in the evening of September 4.

Umrah is an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims can perform at any time of the year.

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab quartet which cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed blockade on this rich Gulf nation since June 5, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs.

The quartet also included the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt. Despite intensified regional and international mediation efforts, the two sides have failed to hold direct talks to resolve the standoff.
Heavy smoke billows following an airstrike on the western frontline of Raqa on July 17, 2017, during an offensive by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a majority Kurdish and Arab alliance, to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. (AFP Photo)

DAMASCUS, July 24 (Xinhua) -- At least 30 civilians were killed on Monday when a U.S.-led airstrike hit a prison run by the Islamic State (IS) in Syria's northern city of Raqqa, local Sham FM radio reported.

The strike by the U.S.-led coalition struck the prison, where the civilians were held captives by IS in the central part of Raqqa, said the report.

The attack came hours after the U.S. coalition struck areas in Mayadeen city in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, killing tens of people, according to the state TV.

Since entering Syria to fight IS in 2014, the U.S. coalition has killed tens of civilians in areas controlled by IS in northern and eastern Syria.

The U.S. has been recently heavily backing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in their push to capture Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS in Syria.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 02:28:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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IBADAN, Nigeria, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday said that African countries needed to embark on a path of agricultural transformation that makes agriculture the real engine for growth.

Obasanjo made the call in his keynote address during the 50th anniversary celebration of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria's southwestern city of Ibadan. He said the food import bill of Africa has remained ridiculously high, hovering around 35 billion U.S. dollars per annum.

"Food demand is projected to rise by at least 20 percent globally over the next 15 years, with the largest increases anticipated in Sub-Sahara Africa and East Asia," he added.

"If nothing is done, the food import bill for Africa will continue to shoot even higher," said the IITA ambassador.

Obasanjo said zero hunger was possible if the leadership in Africa would leverage on the gains made through technology, innovation and research.

"It cannot be achieved on business as usual terms. It can only be achieved if all relevant institutions and actors will give agriculture the attention it deserves," he added.

The former president called for a world without hunger in Africa through deliberate investment in infrastructure, research and development.

According to the former president, the current population growth has made it imperative to put the context of food security on the front burner, to avoid impending famine.

"From time immemorial, man's history has been dotted with bouts of hunger and famine; attempts have been made to explain the nexus between famine and population," he said.

"Current prognosis suggests that if current trends continue, the world's population in 2050 will be in the neighborhood of 9.7 billion," he added.

"It is in this context that food security of the world for present and future generations need to be discussed," Obasanjo said.

According to him, Africa must increase its investment in agriculture, as most countries are far from reaching the set target to allocate 10 percent of all public expenditure to agriculture.

He called for increased support for research and development for the attainment of food security, wealth creation and employment generation.

Obasanjo also called for strategies to encourage women farmers in a more significant way, including access to land, resources and inputs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 02:33:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Monday summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh and condemned the "unprovoked ceasefire violations" by the Indian forces along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir.

The Foreign Ministry said the Indian troops fired in Leepa Sector on July 21, resulting in the killing of a 12-year-old boy, Umair, in Gheekot village, and injuries up to three others.

"This is the third ceasefire violation by the Indian forces in the past four days," a foreign ministry statement said.

It said despite calls for restraint, India continues to indulge in ceasefire violations.

The foreign ministry said the deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws.

Pakistan and India had declared ceasefire along the LoC, the de facto border, between the two nuclear rivals in Kashmir in 2003. However, both sides routinely accuse each other of ceasefire violations.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 02:44:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Russia has sent its military police to monitor the cessation of hostilities in "de-escalation" or safe zones in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday.

A total of four checkpoints and 14 observation posts have been set up around a safe zone in southwestern Syria and another near Damascus, said Sergei Rudskoy, head of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff.

"These measures will support the ceasefire regime, facilitate the unhindered access of humanitarian supplies, and the return of refugees and temporarily displaced people," said Rudskoy.

Russia informed the United States, Jordan and Israel through military diplomatic channels in advance of the deployment, he added.

On May 4, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on the creation of four safe zones in Syria, aiming to ease tensions for at least six months in Syria, where the civil war is in the seventh year.

Russia started to participate in anti-terrorist operations in Syria in September 2015 and has withdrawn the majority of its troops from the war-torn country after the Syrian government and opposition groups reached a truce in late December 2016.

Russia, Turkey and Iran are working as mediators for the Astana peace talks for a political settlement of the Syrian crisis.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 02:49:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADDIS ABABA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A total of 70,000 Ethiopians have returned to Ethiopia as the Saudi Arabia amnesty deadline for undocumented migrants to voluntarily leave expires on July 24.

Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Meles Alem said Monday that with the extended amnesty deadline expiring on July 24, the Ethiopian government is focusing on repatriating another 60,000 Ethiopians that have registered at Ethiopian diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia.

He also said the Ethiopian government is discussing with Saudi Arabian government to help facilitate registration of thousands of Ethiopians thought to have yet not registered with Ethiopian diplomatic missions in order to return home.

There are no exact figures on the number of Ethiopians illegally living in Saudi Arabia but some estimates put the number close to 400,000 engaged jobs ranging from maids to construction sites.

With a growing population currently at around 30 million and a squeeze in international oil price, Saudi Arabia is on a drive to indigenize its work force currently dominated by millions of illegal and legal migrants.

The approaching deadline recalled painful memories of Ethiopians in the last deportation debacle in November 2013 when a deportation round by Saudi authorities on illegal migrants left many Ethiopians in Saudi detention camps and returned home penniless.

The Ethiopian government has already dispatched a dozen diplomats in its embassy in Riyadh and consular offices in other Saudi cities to give consular advice to stranded Ethiopians.

With an eye to curb illegal migration, the Ethiopian government in May signed an agreement with the Saudi Arabia government for an overseas employment agreement to help future legal Ethiopian migrants.

It has also put advertorials in Ethiopian electronic media urging relatives of Ethiopians illegally residing in Saudi Arabia to persuade them to return ahead of the expiry of the Amnesty deadline.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 02:59:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KHARTOUM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned the Iraqi Charge d'Affaires in Khartoum and conveyed to him Sudan's protest over torture of a Sudanese citizen residing in Iraq.

"Charge d'Affaires of the Iraqi Embassy in Khartoum Mohamed Samir Hassan was summoned Monday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," said Sudan's Foreign Ministry in a statement.

According to the statement, the Iraqi charge d'Affaires expressed regret and apology over the incident under the unrest witnessed by some parts of his country.

He promised to convey this message to the government of his country to conduct an urgent investigation and bring the responsible group to justice, expressing appreciation of the Iraqi community for the Sudanese people.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese foreign ministry explained that Sudan's Embassy in Baghdad is following the health condition of the Sudanese citizen and working to move him to a safe area in coordination with the concerned Iraqi authorities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:09:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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JUBA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- East Africa ministers met in Juba on Monday to help revitalize peace process in South Sudan.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) said the planned High Level Revitalization Forum provides warring parties with opportunity for the broadest consultation, inclusivity to end the more than three years of conflict.

The Chairperson of IGAD Council of Ministers Workneh Gebeyehu told regional leaders and diplomats in Juba the revitalization forum will help restore permanent ceasefire and create conducive environment for broad consultations among the warring parties.

"The revitalized forum is not a fresh renegotiation or negotiation to implement Agreement on Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) rather it is a window of opportunity for all South Sudanese stakeholders to return or join the implementation of the August 2015 peace agreement," he said.

"I would like to call upon the transitional unity government and other parties and non-parties of the ARCSS to lay their arms down and join the revitalization of the peace process once again," he added.

On June 12, regional leaders who met in Ethiopia decided on a High-Level Revitalization Forum of the Parties to the ARCSS which would include all opposition and estranged armed groups.

He disclosed that South Sudanese, the region as well as the wider international community are looking at the IGAD and partners to help the war-torn country achieve enduring sustainable peace through the High Level Revitalization Forum.

Gebeyehu revealed that this process will explore all inclusive peaceful ways to fully implement the weakened August 2015 peace agreement without any conditionality.

"The high level revitalization forum has already started to take effect through endorsing terms of reference and implementation matrix with a view to systematically carry out immediate priorities in implementation of the peace agreement with a revised timeline," he said.

He added in spite of the enormous challenges in peace building, the forum is also expected to develop a realistic timeline towards democratic election at the end of the transitional period.

Executive Secretary of IGAD Mahboub Malim said they have already embarked on work to ensure peace deal revival yields results.

"During the last Heads of State Summit expectations were raised and of course a lot of work has been done. Since then we have so far embarked on the matrix time lines and the modus operandi on how things should happen in this revitalization process," he said.

"We interacted with members of civil society, faith-based organization and women and youth. A lot of ideas were generated. We are now in full picture to reenergize the process," he added.

Gebweyehu also called for immediate deployment of the much-awaited Regional Protection Force (RPF) and that the Chiefs of Defence (CDF) forces of the African troops contributing countries are meeting in Addis Ababa to sort out final critical operational matters.

Meanwhile, Chairperson of the peace monitoring body Joint Monitor and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) Festus Mogae urged all parties to restore the permanent ceasefire by renouncing violence.

"It is reasonable and fair that the turmoil last year has led to estrangement of some parties and new groups have emerged. All South Sudanese leaders must renounce violence and get back to negotiating table," he said.

Mogae added that the outcome of the forum will help improve on humanitarian situation resulting from close cooperation between government, UN and JMEC and other humanitarian agencies.

He also noted that though there has been some progress, the fact that the permanent constitution making process is behind schedule and lack of gender balance in government should be tackled.

"Today the peace agreement has stalled...this is the time to restore it," he said.

The Minister of Cabinet Affairs Elia Lomuro said they will work closely with JMEC clusters to create conducive working environment for both.

He added the national dialogue launched December last year by President Salva Kiir will work alongside the peace deal revival forum to achieve lasting peace.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President 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 Machar to flee into exile.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions that have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.
Local journalists work near a Walmart parking area after it was cordoned off by local police in San Antonio, Texas, the United States, on July 23, 2017. (Xinhua/Yan Bo)

HOUSTON, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The tractor-trailer driver of the migrant trafficking tragedy in Texas, resulting in death of 10 people, was charged with one count of "transporting illegal aliens" in a federal court on Monday.

A U.S. district court in San Andonio alleged that James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, unlawfully transported undocumented immigrants in violation of law, resulting in the death of 10 of the people transported.

He will face up to life in prisonment or the death penalty under a law that allows enhanced penalties when immigrants die during smuggling operations.

Bradley will be held without bail until hearings Thursday morning.

Officials confirmed on Monday that one more person has died after over 30 people were found in a overheated tractor-trailer parked outside of a Walmart in San Antonio, making the death toll to 10.

Nine undocumented immigrants died after being trapped inside a tractor-trailer at a Walmart parking lot in the southern Texas city of San Antonio, officials confirmed Sunday afternoon.

The crime came to light when a man in the truck asked a Walmart employee for water. The employee brought water for the man and called the police.

Police were then called to the parking lot and found eight dead and 31 injured inside the trailer. A ninth victim died in the hospital and several people are still in critical condition at local hospitals.

San Antonio fire chief Charles Hood said the people were in the trailer without any type of liquid.

In the midsummer heat of Texas, where a temperature of 38 degrees centigrade scorched San Antonio on Saturday, and the trailer did not have a working air conditioning system, said Hood.

San Antonio is a U.S. city close to the border area with Mexico. Border patrol agents have reported an increase in smuggling attempts in tractor-trailers in recent weeks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:14:31|Editor: ying

White House Senior Advisor and U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reads a statement after testifying at a closed-door hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on July 24, 2017. White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner on Monday denied having colluded with the Russian government despite four meetings with Russian nationals during the campaign and the transition period. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Xinhua) -- White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner on Monday denied having colluded with the Russian government despite four meetings with Russian nationals during the campaign and the transition period.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in a 11-page statement.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump said.

Kushner said he first met with former Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak in April 2016 at a Trump speech in Washington, where he exchanged pleasantries and business cards with four ambassadors.

Kushner does not name the other three ambassadors he met at the meetings.

"Each exchange lasted less than a minute," Kushner said.

The second meeting, in June 2016, was set up by Donald Trump Jr. and involved a Russian lawyer who was said to possess damaging information on Trump's rival Hillary Clinton.

Kushner said conversations in the meetings focused on a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children and was "a waste of time."

"I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since," he said.

Kushner said his first Russia meeting after election occurred on Dec. 1, 2016, when he met with Kislyak in Trump Tower NYC to discuss future U.S.-Russian ties.

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn attended the meeting.

Both sides agreed to discuss in depth such issues as the Syrian crisis after inauguration for a lack of secure communication channels at the time, according to Kushner.

Kushner said he then met with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov on Dec. 13 at the request of Kislyak, during which no specific policies nor business involving Kushner's companies were discussed.

Kushner said he agreed to the meeting after learning Gorkov had "direct relationship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I have nothing to hide," he said.

The statement was released before his close-door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Kushner is due to appear in front of the House Intelligence committee Tuesday for a similar hearing.

In a separate hearing, Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr. and Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort will appear before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Wednesday to answer questions regarding their ties with Russia.

The questionings are parts of an ongoing investigation to determine whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, an accusation Trump and members of his inner circles repeatedly denied.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:19:34|Editor: huaxia

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DAR ES SALAAM, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania on Monday restated its denial that the east African nation was interfering with the Kenyan electoral process towards the polls on October 8.

Augustine Mahiga, Minister for Foreign Affairs, East African, Regional and International Co-operation, said reports by some of the Kenyan media that Tanzania was interfering with the elections in Kenya were baseless.

"Tanzania has and will never interfere with any foreign country's affairs, including the Kenyan elections," Mahiga told a news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Recent reports by some of the Kenyan media claimed that Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has set a tallying center in Tanzania that will ensure that vote counting was not rigged.

Kenyan incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition chief Raila are in a tight race for the presidency.

The minister added: "We do not understand why this is coming at this time, but I have to assure our people that Tanzania will never think of doing such a move to any country."

He said Tanzania will always cherish the relationship that existed between it and Kenya for many years and that at no time will it attempt to interfere with its neighbor's internal affairs.

"Tanzanians and Kenyans should understand that the political temperature in Kenya is, understandably, very high due to the elections scheduled to take place in August," said Mahiga.

He added: "The rival camps are using every technique in the playbook to outperform one another but the Tanzanian government is not siding with any of the two major camps."

Some Kenyan media have reported that Tanzanian President John Magufuli was supporting Raila, his longtime friend.

But Mahiga said Tanzania respected and believed in the principles of democracy and good governance and thus there was no way it could stick its nose into Kenyan internal political affairs.

He asked the public to ignore the misleading reports in some of the Kenyan media saying they were unhealthy for the growth of democracy and good relations in the region. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:24:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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by Abdi

MOGADISHU, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somalia government kicked of a four-day meeting on Monday to discuss ways of transitioning Somalia's security from the pan-African mission to the country's security forces.

In his opening remarks, Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia, Francisco Caetano Madeira stressed the significance of equipping and facilitating the Somali National Security Forces (SNSF), to effectively strengthen them and ensure a smooth transition.

"The Somali National Security Forces need to be capacitated in all fields and need to be given the required equipment, the required mobility, the required weapons to be able to perform," he said in a statement released by the AU mission in Mogadishu.

Madeira said the question would be how SNA, AMISOM and Somalia National Security Forces are going to fit into these decisions and recommendations and what they need to do to implement these decisions and attain the final result.

The meeting will discuss in detail the implementation of the National Security Architecture derived from a security pact signed by Somalia's leaders on April 16.

The pact roots for the integration of regional and federal forces capable of gradually taking lead responsibility for providing security in the country.

Deputy Prime Minister Mahdi Mohamed Guled urged the meeting to come up with clear goals and accountability mechanisms to implement the transition.

"I want to ask you all to remember that we are at this present positive trajectory because many of our finest men and women, both SNSF and AMISOM have made the ultimate sacrifice; and a successful transition will be about honoring their sacrifice; as it is, bringing peace and prosperity back to the Somali nation," he stated.

Guled lauded AMISOM for the support it has accorded the people and the government of Somalia "until this critical moment in history".

In April, Somalia's leaders made a security pact that resulted in the establishment of a National Security Architecture, in which they commit to taking a lead in providing security in the country, including securing recovered areas.

The Somali-led security forces would also open Main Supply Routes and provide security for the 2021 elections.

During the May London Somali Conference, recommendations encouraged an effective transitional role by AMISOM, on a conditions-based transition.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:24:36|Editor: huaxia

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by Joy Nabukewa

MOMBASA, Kenya, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's anti narcotic detectives on Monday arrested seven wanted drug barons in the coastal county of Mombasa.

Regional police commander Larry Kieng said the officers also impounded seven vehicles hidden in a house in the Nyali suburb, recovered both local and U.S. currencies believed to proceeds of drug smuggling.

Kieng said police are still interrogating the suspects after court granted police five days to complete their investigation.

"The war on drugs must be sustained and we believe the seven are allegedly behind the drug trade in the country," Kieng said.

The government has recently intensified war on drug that led to seize of tones of narcotics and destruction of vessel caught smuggling the drug at high sea.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said they war on drugs must be fought and is urging for public and international support. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:29:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BANJUL, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The Gambian President Adama Barrow on Monday addressed the National Assembly on the state of security, financial situation, and international relations that have been pegged over the past decades.

He said the government is working on reforming the security sector which is closely linked to the delivery of justice and the restoration of free and fair democracy.

"The Gambian Armed Forces are now confined to their military barracks. Members of the former State Guard Battalion have been redeployed to other units, and the armed forces are now disengaged from civilian matters," Barrow said, stressing that "it is also important to note that arms and ammunitions have been stored in safe locations".

The president thanked ECOWAS for providing ECOMIG forces to protect the country.

On finance, president Barrow said his government has inherited a virtually empty treasury and domestic and foreign debts at an all-time high.

"The foreign reserve at the Central Bank was less than one month import cover, and the economic and governance situation had become so bad that our international development partners had deserted us," he said.

Barrow said his government developed in January the Accelerated National Response Plan which seeks technical and financial support from development partners to help mitigate the economic and fiscal crisis in the short term.

Meanwhile, on the area of foreign affairs, he informed that the Gambia has begun the process of rejoining the Commonwealth, and reaffirmed the membership to the International Criminal Court.

The Gambia's Constitution provides that a sitting president should address the national assembly at least once a year and this is his first time to appear before the members of the parliament following his election in December.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:39:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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BISHKEK, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev said that he guarantees peaceful transfer of power and fair counting of votes, the local media reported Monday.

"Today I'm giving the last summer press conference as the president, and after two and a half months, I hope the country will choose a new president," he said, regretting that he did not have time to finish everything he started.

As an example, he cited the issue of borders.

Atambayev expressed hope the next president of Kyrgyzstan would continue the work he started. He has been serving six-year presidency.

Atambayev can not take part in next presidential elections since the same person does not have the right to hold the office of president twice.

The Kyrgyz leader said that he believes that Sooronbay Zheenbekov, who is nominated from his Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK), will be a good president.

"I believe in Zheenbekov. I have known him since 1995. He is a clean, decent man. In my opinion, he will be a good president, "Atambayev said.

Current Prime Minister Zheenbekov, 58-year-old, is the only candidate nominated from the SDPK party.

The next presidential election is scheduled for Oct. 15.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine Erdogan, is welcomed by Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani in Doha, Qatar, July 24, 2017. (Reuters Photo)

DOHA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Qatar's emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a meeting on Monday to discuss ways to end the diplomatic crisis in the Gulf.

Erdogan arrived from Kuwait on Monday at the last leg of his two-day Gulf tour, which had also taken him to Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

The two leaders discussed the efforts being exerted to resolve the standoff between Qatar and the Saudi-led quartet through dialogue and diplomatic means, Qatar's state-run news agency QNA reported.

They praised the mediation efforts made by Kuwait, which has been playing the role of mediator since the crisis began on June 5.

The Saudi-led bloc, which also includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed a blockade on the rich Gulf nation, accusing it of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs. Qatar has strongly denied the charges.

During their meeting, Erdogan and his Qatari counterpart discussed the Qatar-Turkey joint efforts in the fight against "terrorism and extremism", QNA reported.

They also talked about enhancing strategic cooperation in the spheres of defence, trade and investment.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was accompanying Erdogan during the visit, said that Ankara was trying to organize direct talks between the two sides to end their feud.

He said holding direct talks is "the most appropriate way" to resolve the crisis, adding that he hoped that there will be an opportunity for such talks soon.

During his meeting with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Sunday, Erdogan said Saudi as a key player in the blockade against Qatar, will have to play the biggest role in solving the diplomatic row.

No apparent results were achieved during Erdogan's Gulf tour, which came in the wake of the visits to the Gulf by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany.

Turkey has publicly sided with Qatar, a major economic and defense partner, since the crisis started. It has provided food aid to Doha, while deploying troops in a military base in Qatar to show its support.

The Saudi-led bloc has demanded for the closure of the Turkish military base, but was rejected by Qatar.

Signs of easing of the crisis have emerged recently after Tillerson's visit, as Qatar has revised its counterterrorism law last week.

In a national address made on Friday, Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim said Doha was open to dialogue to resolve the disputes with the Saudi-led bloc if his country's sovereignty was respected.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 03:59:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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AMMAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jordanian King Abdullah II on Monday urged Israel to remove all security measures at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

The king said immediate measures should be taken to restore stability in the holy site and end the continued tensions, underlining the need to remove all security measures taken by Israel.

Israel has installed metal detectors and cameras at the entrances to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known by Jews as the Temple Mount, since July 14 after a shooting incident in which three Israeli Arab gunmen shot dead two Israeli policemen at the site before being killed.

Israel has also limited access to the mosque by Palestinian Muslim worshipers in order to prevent further violence.

But the Israeli measures have angered Palestinians and the Muslim world, which regard them as an attempt by Israel to claim further control over the compound, which is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews.

Daily clashes have erupted between Palestinians and Israeli security forces since the installation of detectors, resulting in the death of five Palestinians in the past week.

King Abdullah said it was important to agree on steps to prevent any future escalation, stressing on the need to respect the historic and legal status of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israel has taken over control over East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, but the mosque compound has been managed by Jordanian religious authorities supervised by the Jordanian government.

Meanwhile, the Jordanian Public Security Department said that an investigation was still underway into the shooting at a building near the Israeli embassy in Amman on Sunday, which resulted in the death of two Jordanians and the injury of one Israeli guard.

Jordan insists on interrogating the Israeli guard, but was rejected by Israel.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 04:04:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ST. PETERSBURG, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) considers further prolongation of the Declaration of Cooperation, also known an "Oil Deal", the Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak said after the JMMC meeting in St.Petersburg Monday.

Saudi Minister of Energy Khalid Al-Falih said that the deal withdrew over 350 million barrels of oil from the market and thus caused steady and significant progress towards the market rebalancing.

According to Alexander Novak, it can be prolonged after the first quarter of 2018 if necessary.

In the end of 2016, OPEC and non-OPEC countries agreed to remove 1.8 million barrels of oil a day from the market for six months to increase the demand and raise prices.

The agreement was later extended for nine months, till the end of March 2018.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 04:15:00|Editor: huaxia

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NEW YORK, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices climbed on Monday as major crude producer Saudi Arabia pledged to cap its exports to help ease the global oversupply.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Monday that the country would limit crude oil exports at 6.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in August, almost 1 million bpd below levels a year ago, according to media reports.

The minister said the words during a meeting between OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-OPEC countries in Russia staring Monday. Major oil producers were expected to discuss compliance of agreed production cuts.

The West Texas Intermediate for September Delivery added 0.57 dollar to settle at 46.34 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for September delivery gained 0.54 dollar to close at 48.60 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 04:20:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MADRID, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The various political parties in the Spanish Congress on Monday reached an agreement to sign a State Pact against gender violence in Spain.

The agreement includes some 200 measures and will have a budget of around a billion euros (1.16 billion U.S. dollars) over the next five years to combat what is considered an important social problem in Spain given that 32 women have lost their lives in 2017 at the hands of their partners, five more than at the same time in 2016.

It has needed six months negotiations for the agreement to be reached, due partly to the large numbers of measures to be adopted.

Among those measures Spain's political parties have agreed to forbid minors from visiting their father in jail if he has been convicted of gender violence, while men who have been found guilty of mistreating their partner would lose visiting rights.

Meanwhile it will now no longer be necessary for a woman to make a formal complaint in order to receive advice or protection from judicial services.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 04:30:26|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADEN, Yemen, July 24 (Xinhua) -- President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Peter Maurer visited Taiz, Yemen on Monday to assess a worsening health crisis caused by rapid spread of cholera.

Maurer told a news conference that the situation in Taiz is "bad and catastrophic" in terms of public health, which requires multiplying the budget to face these hard circumstances, the SABA news agency reported.

He said that the ICRC is implementing several programs in Yemen, where it has the second largest operation in the world, an indicator of the magnitude of the humanitarian hardship.

Maurer said that he came to inspect the enormous damage and impact on local hospitals and personnel as a result of the war.

He added that the ICRC has decided to increase its support of the anti-cholera programs.

Maurer described the cholera outbreak as "man-made humanitarian catastrophe" that is directly caused by the civil war that has devastated the civilian infrastructure and brought the whole health system to its knees.

He called on the warring parties to ease restrictions on delivering humanitarian aid and medical supplies to fight the cholera outbreak and help contain the worsening humanitarian situation there.

Following his visits to Taiz and Aden, Maurer will also visit Sanaa, the capital city controlled by Houthi rebels.

Yahya Alibi, head of the ICRC delegation in the Gulf Cooperation Council, told the Kuwaiti official KUNA news agency on Monday that more than 300,000 people have been infected with cholera, which has spread to 20 of Yemen's 22 governorates.

To make things worse, the infrastructure and hospitals in this war-torn country are unable to accommodate this number of patients, Alibi said.

The ICRC is currently supporting 11 health centers in the worst affected provinces by improving the hygiene and sanitation conditions there, and providing local residents with necessary medical supplies.

Yemen's government, allied with a Saudi Arabia-led Arab military coalition, has for years been battling Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels for control of the impoverished country.

Statistics showed that more than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen's conflict, most of them civilians, since the Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in 2015.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 04:40:32|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LA PAZ, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Bolivia's President Evo Morales accused the U.S. on Monday of funding opposition groups to try and divide the country between 2006 and 2009, spending at least 4 million U.S. dollars in doing so through the USAID foreign aid agency.

According to the Bolivian leader, this conclusion came from a study of documents published by WikiLeaks, carried out by a Norwegian researcher, Eirik Vold.

"Now, we can see from where and how the division of Bolivia was planned, how they financed the division of Bolivia, and how important our vision for the country has been to remain united," declared Morales during a public appearance in Santa Cruz.

According to Morales, emails from 2006 to 2009 obtained by Wikileaks show that USAID provided at least 4 million U.S. dollars to separatist movements in the departments of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija.

The process coincided with a series of events between 2008 and 2009 when right-wing groups seized government institutions and demanded the resignation of Morales.

In his speech, the president said that this represented an anti-constitutional conspiracy by groups backed by the United States.

In 2016, Eirik Vold said that around 14,000 documents obtained by WikiLeaks mentioned Morales and the U.S. intention to obtain a hegemony over Latin America.

Bolivia and the U.S. have had distant relations for years and no ambassadors have been appointed for the last nine years. At the end of 2008, Morales expelled American ambassador, Philip Goldberg, as well as all personnel from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), accusing them of conspiring against his government.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L), Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) talk following a group photo of world leaders attending the D-Day 70th Anniversary ceremonies in Benouville, France, June 6, 2014. (AFP Photo)

MOSCOW/KIEV, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of the "Normandy Four" countries held a phone conversation Monday to discuss the settlement of the armed conflicts in southeastern Ukraine, said the Kremlin and the press office of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

During the two-hour conversation, Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron listened to reports of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission.

The leaders then exchanged views on the situation, taking into account the serious disruptions of the implementation of the Minsk peace agreements reached in 2015, the Kremlin said in a statement.

"Putin outlined in detail the Russian approaches to all key provisions of the agreements," it said.

The parties agreed to maintain further contacts, including at the highest level, the Kremlin said, without providing more details.

Poroshenko, according to his press office's statement, called the last days of July the "bloodiest" in 2017 and urged Moscow to immediately stop its "aggressive" actions and arms deliveries to the territories occupied by pro-Russian insurgents.

He also stressed the importance of introducing a U.N. peacekeeping mission to the independence-seeking Donbas region.

According to the Ukrainian statement, Macron and Merkel noted the inadmissibility of any statements that undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in particular, on the creation of a new state called Malorossiya or Little Russia, a plan declared by Donbas leaders last week.

The parties decided to continue to work on a road map for the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

For this purpose, a meeting of foreign policy advisers to the Normandy Four leaders should be convened in the second half of August, the statement said.

A civil war broke out in Donbas between government troops and pro-Russian separatists following the February 2014 revolution that led to the fall of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Violence has been plaguing the region since then.

The Normandy Four, or the Normandy Format, is a diplomatic group of leaders from the four countries set up to resolve the Ukrainian crisis in accordance with the Minsk deals.

Several rounds of Normandy Format meetings have been held so far, but mutual accusations of cease-fire violations by the Ukrainian government and the Donbas insurgents made these meetings largely fruitless.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 04:50:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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DUBAI, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Monday discussed with a visiting U.S. commander ways to boost cooperation in defense and fighting terrorism, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) news agency WAM reported.

At the meeting between Sheikh Mohammed, also deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces, with Joseph Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command, the two sides reviewed "joint efforts in combating extremism and terrorism."

They agreed on "the importance of enhancing such cooperation to serve the common interests of the two friendly countries and safeguard the security and stability of the region."

They also exchanged views on the latest developments in the region as well as a number of issues of common concern.

They also discussed the bilateral relations and means of developing them, the report said.

The U. S. supports the UAE and its allies in the military campaign "Restore Hope" in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Shiite rebels of the Houthi tribe since March 2015.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 05:00:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KALININGRAD, Russia, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and Russian navy sailors held a competition on ship damage control in the Baltic port city of Baltiysk on Monday as part of the "Joint Sea 2017" naval drills.

Each team consisted of both Chinese and Russian soldiers and the competition tested cooperation and coordination between the sailors who speak different languages, said Pei Kechuan, deputy captain of China's missile destroyer Hefei.

The two navies also exchanged experience about ship damage control.

Damage control is the basic means of keeping ships alive and every sailor needs to acquire the capability, Pei told Xinhua.

The Joint Sea 2017 drills, held from July 21 to 28, aims to carry out joint rescue missions and ensure maritime economic activities.

The Chinese fleet consists of Hefei, missile frigate Yuncheng, comprehensive supply ship Luomahu.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 05:15:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ADEN, Yemen, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Warplanes of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition launched Monday a series of airstrikes and targeted several Houthi-controlled areas across Yemen, with no immediate reports of casualties.

According to the Houthi-run Saba News Agency the Saudi-led fighter jets struck the Sanhan and Bani Bahlul districts in the country's capital of Sanaa with with more than five airstrikes.

The agency quoted a local official as saying that the airstrikes struck residential areas and caused heavy damage to citizens' houses, cars and other private and public properties.

Elsewhere in Yemen's northwestern province of Amran, Saudi-led airstrikes targeted a government compound and Houthi-held positions with intensified air raids.

In the country's western port city of Hodyada, the pro-Houthi naval forces targeted on Monday a Saudi war boat off the city's coast, according to reports by local Houthi media outlets.

The reports claimed that the shelling hit the war boat accurately, without giving further details about casualties.

On Sunday night, officials of the Houthi authorities in Sanaa told Xinhua that more than 42 air raids were carried out by the Saudi-led fighter jets and targeted different northern provinces in the war-torn Arab country.

Huge explosions heard in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on Sunday night as a result of the Saudi-led airstrikes and warplanes continued hovering for hours and opened sound barriers, causing panic among residents.

Yemen's internationally-backed government, allied with a Saudi-led Arab military coalition, has for years been battling Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels for control of the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 05:35:55|Editor: An

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A photo exhibit showing China's role in the World War II and cooperation with the United States kicked off on Monday in Washington. (Xinhua/Liu Chen)

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Xinhua) -- A photo exhibit showing China's role in the World War II and cooperation with the United States kicked off on Monday in Washington.

The five-day event was to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of "July 7 incident," or known as Lugou Bridge (Marco Polo Bridge) Incident, that triggered Japan's full-scale invasion of China in 1937.

About 50 photos were on display at Russell Senate Office Building, many of which highlighted the United States' close ties with China during the wartime, including the devotion of the "Flying Tigers," the First American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force.

As an air force formed in 1941 by General Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the U.S. 14th Air Fleet, the "Flying Tigers" helped transport arms and other materials to support China's fight against the Japanese invaders.

When Americans discuss WWII, the emphasis was often on the European Theater or the conflict directly between the United States and Japan, while little attention has been given to the role China played in the war or the deep alliance between China and the United States, said the organizer of the event, the U.S.-China Policy Foundation.

"We hope this exhibit will give some much deserved attention to an often overlooked aspect of the war," said the organizer in a statement.

The exhibit will last until Friday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 05:35:59|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ANKARA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Turkey has withdrawn its request via Interpol for information on German companies based in Turkey as part of its anti-terrorism investigations, local media reported on Monday.

"In a phone call between the two countries, a communication problem at the Interpol's existing mechanism has been detected. Upon this, Turkey withdrew its request for information from Germany over the weekend," the government spokesperson Bekir Bozdag said in a press conference on Monday.

According to Hurriyet Daily, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu called his German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere to underline that no German firms were being probed by Turkey over suspicions of supporting terrorist groups.

Bozdag reiterated that Turkey's investment environment for foreign investors is safe and this policy will continue in the future.

Tobias Plate, the spokesperson of the German Interior Ministry, also confirmed Turkey has formally withdrawn its request for German help in investigating nearly 700 German firms suspected of backing terrorism.

Earlier, some media reported that Turkey launched an investigation into 700 German firms, including giants Daimler and BASF, escalating tension between two countries following Germany offered asylum to Gulen's supporters.

Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based preacher,is blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a failed coup attempt on July 15.

The Turkish government declared a state of emergency and launched a massive crackdown on Gulen's supporters in the aftermath of the coup attempt.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 05:41:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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HELSINKI, July 24 (Xinhua) -- While real forest fires have not been a problem this summer in Finland, Finnish Economic Development Minister Mika Lintila has been trying hard over the weekend to extinguish a fire caused by looming EU restrictions on forest industry.

The European Parliament Environmental Committee decided recently that the use of forest should remain at the level of 2000-2012. The proposal discourages Finnish plans that envisage a much higher level of usage.

Currently, there are several major biomass and pulp plant projects in Finland that still await final go-ahead by the investors, who are pinning their hope on the expansion of the forest sector.

Contributing 20 percent of the Finnish GDP, the forest industry is playing a key role in the economic strategy of the Finnish government. The government has planned to increase the use of forest by 30 percent by 2030.

Talking on national broadcaster Yle late Sunday, Lintila said he still did not believe the committee's view would emerge as the final EU stand. "But if that would happen, Finland would purchase forest usage rights from countries that would be willing to sell them", he said.

Lintila said the impact of the envisaged increased cutdown of forests on the Finnish GDP would amount to seven or eight billion euros, whereas the purchase of forest usage rights would be ten or twenty million euros only.

However, the idea of using tax money to assure the availability of raw material has not been met with unanimous acceptance in the country.

Heidi Hautala, a Member of the European Parliament from the Green Party, told Yle that the direction of the EU climate policy may not have been understood in Finland. Hautala said she does not understand why tax payers' money should be used to purchase the usage rights.

"Public funding should be used for real innovative investments instead, such as replacing plastic with wood based substance", Hautala demanded.

Hautala said the investments that Finland now tries to allure would lose their competitive edge along the change in climate policy.

Liisa Jaakonsaari, a Member of the European Parliament from the Social Democratic Party, told Yle that Finns perceived the EU committee view as unjust on the grounds that Finland has taken good care of its forests. But Jaakonsaari implied that the current enthusiasm about biofuels may encounter with difficulties in the future.

Sirpa Pietikainen, a conservative party MEP, said that the EU committee view was not presented "just to annoy Finland". "We have now such a shortage of time to fight against the climate change," Pietikainen noted.

The EU has committed itself to reducing emissions by 40 percent by 2030. Final decisions on the dimension of forests as carbon sinks are to be taken later this year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 05:51:04|Editor: huaxia

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RIYADH, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia on Monday strongly condemned the suicide car bombing in the Afghan capital Kabul, which killed two dozens of civilians.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs also offered the kingdom's condolences to the families of the victims as well as the Afghan government and people, while wishing a speedy recovery to the wounded in the bombing attack, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

An official from the ministry "reaffirmed the Kingdom's solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan against terrorism and extremism," the report added.

Earlier on Monday, a car bomb struck a minibus carrying government employees in western Kabul, killing 24 civilians and injuring 42 others. Three vehicles and 15 shops were severely damaged in the explosion.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday also strongly condemned the Taliban-related attack in Kabul, saying that the deliberate targeting of civilians "constitutes a grave violation of human rights and international humanitarian law and may constitute a war crime."

The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since late April when the militant group launched its annual offensive in different places in Afghanistan.

UN statistics show that more than 1,660 civilians were killed and over 3,580 others injured in conflict-related incidents across the country in the first half of this year. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 05:51:08|Editor: huaxia

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RABAT, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Morocco court sentenced 33 people to 24 years in prison for foiled mass jailbreak two years ago, the official MAP news agency reported on Monday.

In August 2015, a group of teenagers at the Juvenile Correction and Discipline Center in Oukacha Prison in Casablanca set fire to cause destabilization inside the prison, attacked the guards and tried to steal their arms before taking three trucks to break out.

The quick intervention of the security forces and their use of bullets prevented their escape from the prison.

Security forces surrounded the prison whereas a special commando stepped in and got the prisoners out to the yard to prevent further injuries and control the situation.

During the intervention, 37 people including 28 security forces were injured. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 06:01:12|Editor: huaxia

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CHICAGO, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) grains futures closed lower on Monday with wheat futures dropping more than 2 percent on profit taking as traders said damage from a drought in the U.S. Plains has been fully priced into the market.

Corn and soybean futures also weakened on better harvest prospects as the weather improved in key growing areas of the U.S. Midwest. Expectations for more storms this week and cooler weather added further pressure.

The most active corn contract for December delivery fell 2.75 cents, or 0.7 percent, to 3.9075 dollars per bushel. September wheat delivery dropped 10.5 cents, or 2.1 percent to 4.8875 dollars per bushel. November soybeans fell 12.25 cents, or 1.2 percent, to 10.10 dollars per bushel.

In the outside markets, the Brent crude oil market is 0.52 dollar per barrel higher, the U.S. dollar is higher, and the Dow Jones Industrials are 42 points lower.

Meanwhile, the United States Department of Agriculture(USDA) announced Monday a fresh corn sale.

Private exporters reported to the USDA export sales of 135,000 tonnes of corn for delivery to unknown destinations during the 2017/2018 marketing year. The marketing year for corn began September 1. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 06:26:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MINSK, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The Belarusian nuclear power plant will be fully put into operation in the summer of 2020, Rosatom Director General Alexei Likhachev said on Monday.

While meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Likhachev said Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) adheres to the agreement made between the Belarusian head of state and the Russian president in 2012 that the project was to build the safest and the most modern nuclear station in Europe, local media reported.

"This is a new generation of security. In the world there are no such analogues," Alexei Likhachev said.

Lukashenko said Belarus pays great attention to the construction of the nuclear power plant. He added this project is an important issue from the economic, political and moral point.

"It was not easy for us to make the decision to build a nuclear power plant after the Chernobyl disaster," the Belarusian leader said.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is being built in Grodno region, near the Belarusian-Lithuanian border, with the help of Russia.

With a total energy capacity of up to 2,400 megawatts, it will produce electricity mainly for export to European countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-25 06:26:27|Editor: An

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Photo taken on July 20, 2017 shows mining area near the extraction plant of lead and zinc deposits, in Minas de Matahambre, in the province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba. The sleepy former mining town of Minas de Matahambre, in Cuba's westernmost province of Pinar del Rio, is undergoing a revival of sorts, thanks to an ambitious project to revive the area's dormant industry. (Xinhua/Joaquin Hernandez)

by Raul Menchaca

PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The sleepy former mining town of Minas de Matahambre, in Cuba's westernmost province of Pinar del Rio, is undergoing a revival of sorts, thanks to an ambitious project to revive the area's dormant industry.

Mining activity was idled for a decade, but is beginning to be reactivated by the Caribbean Mining Company (Enmicar), which aims to mine and process the area's Castellanos lead and zinc deposits.

A joint venture between state-run Geominera de Cuba and international consortium Trafigura, Emincar is investing upwards of 270 million U.S. dollars to mine the deposits over an 11-year period.

A modern mineral processing plant built just 1.5 kilometers from the deposits is expected to begin operating in October, enabling the company to export an estimated 470,000 tons of lead and 1.4 million tons of zinc in the coming decade.

Once the plant is fully operational, it should produce 50,000 tons of lead concentrate and 100,000 tons of zinc concentrate a year, to be shipped by sea from the nearby port of Santa Lucia to Cuba's deep-sea port and container terminal at Mariel, near Havana, and from there to other parts of the world.

"In this first stage, we are going to work on putting the plant into operation. In the second stage of the plan, in 2018, we are going to increase production volume, and we are working precisely on that," geologist Justo Hernandez, the project's assistant general manager representing the Cuban partner, told Xinhua.

The plant can process up to 161 tons of minerals an hour, to obtain six tons of lead and 12 tons of zinc concentrate, pulverizing the raw material in mills to the approximate size of 35 microns, practically powder.

While the market tends to fluctuate, lead prices currently stand at around 1,200 dollars a ton, and zinc at around 1,600 dollars a ton, and international demand for both remains robust.

Less than 2 kilometers away from the Castellanos deposits, geologists have identified another even larger mineral reserve, which could help extend the life of the project from a decade to some 25 years.

Geologists are also looking into whether they can make use of the residual gold obtained from processing the lead and zinc.

The Castellanos project is part of the Cuban government's plans to strengthen and diversify the country's economy through domestic reforms and foreign investment.
Police probes suspected negligence in toddlers drowning

Sources said officers are trying to determine if Messis parents were negligent which resulted in the childs death. Gorkin was buried at the Lapeyrouse Cemetery following a church service in Port of Spain on Friday last.

An autopsy revealed that he died from drowning, and that there was a considerable amount of water in his lungs. Yesterday investigators told Newsday that the parents of Gorkin had been already interviewed as well as other people and police were expected to interview others yesterday.

Police sources said that based on some of the statements there appeared to have been some measure of negligence in ensuring the safety of the child.

Gorkin along with his parents and other relatives went to the Boardwalk in Chagauramas to spend a fun filled day. Little Messi was last seen by his father Atiba, however when it was time to leave and checks were carried out, the child was no where to be found. Frantic checks were made in and around the Boardwalk and a missing persons report was made to the Carenage police at about 8 pm that night.

Anxious relatives who thought that Messi was kidnapped made a stirring plea on Facebook for anyone who knew the whereabouts of the child to contact police. However the next day, at around 7 am, the childs body was seen floating near Pier 1 by a security guard.

The body was recovered by the Coast Guard and taken to the Forensic Science Centre in St James.
Car dealer charged for stolen vehicle

On Thursday night a party of officers led by Acting Superintendent Ajith Persad from the Port of Spain CID went to Sukhdeos Lange Park, Chaguanas, home, and detained him.

His arrest came after a Hilux van which was stolen from a Barataria man was recovered in the Penal district recently.

Investigators allegedly traced the stolen vehicle back to the businessman which led to him being charged with the offence.

Sukhdeo spent the weekend behind bars at the Central Police Station, and was charged on Saturday night.
Man charged for Palo Seco shooting spree

Police detained him shortly after the shootings and he remained in police custody up to last evening pending his court appearance today.

Police reports are that shortly after 7 pm on Wednesday, a man went on a shooting spree in Palo Seco. The first victim, age 20 years old of Penal, was shot in the stomach while seated in a parked vehicle along Beach Road. Minutes later, two men, ages 31 and 43 years old both from Palo Seco, were standing near the Tacoma Recreational Club when they were shot.

The eldest victim sustained injuries to his right arm, while the 31 year-old was shot in both legs.

The gunman escaped in a Nissan B15 and Santa Flora police were alerted of the incident.

Shortly after, police intercepted the vehicle and detained the suspect.
CLF shareholders to Govt: Do not liquidate instead negotiate

This was the message coming from the floor and presenters at a CL Financial/Clico symposium held yesterday at St Marys College Centenary Hall, Port of Spain. At one stage, there was cross talk between persons with differing views that interrupted the forum.

Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, who is representing a group of shareholders, presented an overview of Governments petition to wind up CL Financial, claiming insolvency, to recover billions of dollars owed to taxpayers from the 2009 financial bailout, and the appeal by Government on the judges dismissal of an application for a provisional liquidator.

If the appeal, which is due to be heard tomorrow morning, is deemed urgent, he said, from the moment that decision is made, it could have disastrous effects on the assets of the company. If it is not deemed to be urgent, that will be the end of the liquidator, he said.

CL Financial shareholders are also due to meet later in the day to select two directors who would then outnumber the government directors. CL Financial has been under Government control since 2009 until recently when Government and the shareholders agreement was not renewed.

Maharaj said he does not know on what basis Government has filed the appeal because CL Financial has already paid $7 billion debts and has shown that it can pay its debts.

He said that both auditing firms PricewaterhouseCooper and Enrst and Young have advised against liquidation.

Describing Governments opposition to attorney at law John Jeremie representing shareholders as dictatorial, he said, the Government controlled board is not resisting the petition. Government companies are now calling in debts that are owed to trigger insolvency, and you have a situation where the Government does not want the shareholders in the court to put forward the views of the shareholders. He could not understand, he said, why Government was holding on to CL Fanancial, when similar conglomerates which were folding in the US and the United Kingdom at about the same time, and were bailed out by their governments, have long since been handed back to their original companies.

In his presentation Clico Stakeholders Alliance David Walker said that when in 2009 he spoke against the set of agreements which have led us to this position there was no response from the authorities.

The agreement putting us in this bad position, he said, was not something that happened. It was designed. As a nation of laws, he said, to not to give owners access to their company would be a travesty of justice.

While liquidation will put policy holders, especially those in the Eastern Caribbean at a disadvantaged because they have not been compensated, Walker said, the only option is to return CL Financial to its shareholders who have been promising to pay all their debts.

Grenadas Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago Dr Patrick Antoine in his contribution said that 90 percent of policy holders in Grenada have not had a single cent from the bail out.

The current debate on whether the company should be returned to Lawrence Duprey and his cohorts, Walker said, is grounded on a misunderstanding of the facts.
Family to file PCA complaint after Martins funeral

Head of Waajihatul Islaamiyyah (The Islamic Front) Umar Abdullah yesterday told Newsday that he and relatives are hoping firstly to have a funeral service for Martins and then the complaint will be filed.

We are trying to get back the body from Forensic Sciences Centre early enough to have the funeral. If not we will have to do it Tuesday. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the reports so an independent investigation must be done. The truth must be told, Abdullah said.

He said he has spoken to PCAs Director David West about the incident and promised to provide the authority with video footage of the shooting. Witnesses will also be made available to the PCA.

Police said Martins, a member of the Unruly ISIS gang (now referred to as the Masjid of Peace) of Enterprise, Chaguanas, opened fire on them at Caroni Savannah Road, shortly before 4 pm on Friday, while his close friends said police simply walked up to him and shot him.

Police said Martins was wanted for a series of offences, including murder and that he had gone to the automobile dealership to extort tax from the owner. His friends said he went there to purchase a car.

Abdullah was yesterday of the belief that a lot of mischief is taking place. West said when the official complaint is made the PCAs investigators would then review the information.

It will go through the normal process. I cannot say how long the investigations would take. I do not know the complexity of the manner.

Evidence needs to be gathered and I do not have all the evidence right now, West said.
Panday: Change the watchwords of TT

Panday was speaking at the National Council for Indian Culture (NCIC) Hall of Fame induction at the Divali Nagar in Chaguanas on Saturday where he was an inductee.

In his address, Panday said the world was a global village which is seeing a constant struggle for space and recognition by various communities, tribes, ethnicities, clan and religions.

He also said that persons have suggested that the proliferation of commemorative public holidays in this country was perpetuating divisiveness in society.

They advocate instead the abolition of all existing holidays and celebrations that divide our people such as Indian Arrival Day, Emancipation, Corpus Christi, and Eid-ul-Fitr.

The replacement suggested must be a single, all embracing, all inclusive, national holiday in celebration of, and emphasis on, unity instead of the multifarious schism in our nation, he said.

While we call for a peaceful and harmonious society, the answer for the establishment of a peaceful and progressive society it is not to put them into a melting pot and deny them their identity, the beauty of their uniqueness, he said.

Our history is replete with denial, debasement, and demeaning of one group by and against another. Even our national watchwords insinuate the debasement, he said.

Who must tolerate whom? he asked.

He also paid tribute to the late trade unionist Adrian Cola Rienzi, saying he (Rienzi) has been ignored by local historians, including the University of the West Indies.

It was as if there was some kind of morbid fear among our academics and intellectuals that if they wrote about people like Rienzi their academic careers would be adversely affected, he said.

As the former president of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Union, Panday said he renamed the unions headquarters in Couva after Rienzi not for gratification but to send a message that those who served this country would not be ignored.

In a jovial tone, he said he feared that a cemetery would be named after him.

When I left Parliament I asked my friends and foes alike not to name anything after me while I was alive, he said.
Positive Motion needs a home

In a recent conversation with director Gale Tyson Newsday was told that the organisation was established in 2014 with the motto moving with purpose. Positive Motion conducts three main events annually. In June the organisation has a concert entitled C.O.M.E (Children of Multi-faceted Experiences).

In which children perform and the organisation raises funds for our July/August holidays.

The second activity is a Character Values live-in camp. At this camp, there is a strong emphasis on the six pillars of good character trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, fairness, caring and good citizenship with spirituality and motivational sessions to complete the character values curriculum for camp.

The campers also experience a variety of constructive recreational type activities and an educational field trip. The third event is a Christmas poetry competition and treat where a poem is written by parent and child and presented by the child. The competition seeks to inspire parents and children to work together in composing a poem. The organisation uses the methodology of acting, singing, and other performing arts to promote character in children.

We have a learning through play strategy, said Tyson Everything we teach at Positive Motion, there is a game or a fun time attached to it so that it is more palatable to younger minds. Tyson, who has performed at high levels in the country said that she is familiar with what is required to perform the perfect piece, and she teaches these methods to every child that comes under her care. Her organisation was originally based in El Socorro and was intended to be specifically for the children in her area. However, the organisation grew so large that she had to move her practice to the Malick Youth Facility.

I felt like there were children out there that need to be taught what I know, and it can assist with building this country and keeping children away from crime, Tyson said.

She added that her programme is so flexible that it is able to treat with character development in adults as well.

Despite not having a proper base of operations the organisation is still continuing with its goal of developing childrens character through performing arts. This year, their camp will be held in Maraval, with children coming from as far as San Fernando to attend. The organisation is also making preparations for this years Christmas show.

I want people to know that this organisation is open to all children in the country, Tyson said, but right now, we need a home
Early eulogy for Carlet by friends

Some 20 close friends of Holder gathered at the Ariapita Avenue eatery on Friday night to share stories of their various and most hilarious memories of Holder. The only family members present were Maricel Empress, Holders adopted sister and one of Holders cousins, Mark, who flew from the US with his three children to enjoy myself with Holders friends.

The gathering on Friday followed the cancellation of Holders funeral the day before at the St. Theresa R.C. Church in Woodbrook.

Speaking with Newsday before the reading of the eulogy, one of Holders best friends Sule Dyer said hed felt frustrated since Thursday because it didnt have to come to this. Dyer, who met Holder at an interview he had at Synergy TV ten years ago, said the entire situation made him feel sick.

A close friend of Holder and criminologist Renee Cummings expressed the necessity of eulogising Holder and said she felt lost and didnt get the opportunity to receive closure due to the funeral being halted mid-service on Thursday. Cummings said, she, like the rest of Holders friends got no closure from the unfortunate situation.

Cummings added that when she got news of Holders death, everything inside her got empty. Throughout the reading of the eulogy, Holder was described as larger than life, authentic and resilient. Dyer, who read the eulogy, said he felt blessed to have loved and been loved by her, and that Holder taught him How to value friendships. Dyer called Holder a risk taker and, while reading the eulogy, broke down in tears and had to be consoled by those around him while reading the lines, We did it all. But most importantly, we did it together. Amidst all the stories told, it was clear that Holder was a woman of many characters. She was referred to as teacher, goddess, the black girl with the blonde wig and her most famous persona, Third Eye. Explaining the meaning behind the name Third Eye, Cummings said, That third eye gave her a new level of insight. She never judged anyone.

All she saw was the beauty in a person. Cummings added that the name Third Eye manifested physically as Holder often put a bindi in the centre of her forehead to represent her third eye.

All she needed was that bindi on and she was ready to go! Cummings said.

Fashion designer, Claudia Pegus said it was important that Holders life and death were celebrated. Her spirit has gone home, Pegus said, I dont think that we should be sad or cry because I think she is happy wherever she is. A close friend of Holder, Cassie, who worked with Holder at Nigel R Khan Booksellers said that Holder pulled the best out of everyone and forced you to be the best you. In the final moments of farewell, Cummings added that we need to develop the Carlet Holder Spirit Award to be given to a girl at Bishop Anstey High School who is the kind of girl to her friends That Carlet was to us. Its not always about academics. Dyer and Allison, a friend of Holders since they both attended Bishop Anstey Junior School, said that plans are afoot to launch a scholarship and mentorship programme in September called the Enhancement Carlet Holder Organisation (E CHO) in New York.

Allison said they also plan on celebrating Holders life on her birthday September 16 in her second home of New York.

Holder, who lost her battle to Lupus on July 15, exactly 10 years after the death of her own father, was cremated at Allens Funeral Home in Arima on Saturday last.
Presidents wife: Dont glamorise bad eating habits

Harrysingh-Carmona also called for proper food labelling legislation, saying there must be more visual and real information on eating healthy.

We must not glamorise bad eating habits and unhealthy lifestyles. Legislation must, therefore, be in place to ensure that all foods sold are properly labelled in terms of fat content, cholesterol level and calories.

They must form part of the advertisements on radio, television and social media so that informed choices can be made by the public, she said.

Harrysingh-Carmona made the suggestion on Saturday while delivering the feature address at the opening ceremony of a two-day childrens camp hosted by the Diabetes Association of Trinidad and Tobago (DATT).

The association hosted the event at the Preysal Secondary School at Couva.

Emphasing that there is need to devise innovative ways and means of arresting this health crisis in the Caribbean, she added it was why she promotes the child advocate model as a means of trying to push and encourage the message of a healthy lifestyle. The child and not an adult, Harrysingh-Carmona said, becomes the messenger among his/her peer group.

She urged coordinators and facilitators of the camp to ignite in the child that kind of child advocacy so that the youngster can spread messages of good health, well-being and exercise.

The child advocate can warn his parents, friends and schoolmates about improper eating habits that can lead to diabetes and other health issues.

An informed child advocate can, therefore, trigger a veritable health revolution in the society at large, she said.

Harr ysingh-Carmona is the patron of DATT, a non-profit organisation.

Those in attendance were President Carmona; Health Minister, Terrence Deyalsingh; DATTs President Praimraj Boodram; and First VP Andrew Dhanoo (symposium chair).

She said too many persons in the country were hospitalised due to diabetes, which accounts for 28 percent of patients.

Amputations because of diabetes mellitus are simply too high, she added.

Prevention starts at home, in the kitchens and in the lunch kits of our children. Our local cuisine can be a mind field given our obsession with oil, lard, butter, MSG and our well-known Siamese twins- salt and sugar, Harrysingh-Carmona said.

However, she acknowledged that one can eat local and still eat healthily.

Our advocacy can, therefore, involve influencing the manufacturing world to do the right thing through legislative means because collaboration on such entities like issues of health has not proven to be very successful, she told the gathering.

To the children of the camp, Harrysingh- Carmona encouraged them to maintain their focus in their advocacy against unhealthy lifestyles and non-communicable diseases. She publicly thanked Deyalsingh and the authorities for listening and hearing the cries of DATT and mandating the exclusion of drinks and juices with high sugar content from all cafeterias in schools.

Pledging her support to the association, Harrysingh congratulated members for their genuine and selfless volunteerism aimed at creating better lives for those who are vulnerable.

The association will host an expo from September 29- 30 at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya. The aim of this event is to bridge the gap between health care providers and the public. Organisers promise a healthy and delicious food options in a fun atmosphere in IN ORDER to grow its Food Zone.
Another Clinton body bag: Former Haitian official suicided before he can testify against the Clinton Foundation

The so-called Clinton body count continues to grow, this time due to the apparent suicide of a former Haitian government official who was set to testify against the Clinton Family Foundation.

As reported by Your Newswire, Klaus Eberwein, was found dead recently in a Miami hotel room at the age of 50. The website reported that he was set to appear before the Haitian Senate Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to discuss alleged Clinton Foundation misappropriation of funds during recovery efforts from a massive earthquake in January 2010.

Other websites are disputing that account, citing an article from the Miami Herald that reported Eberweins suicide but made no mention of the Clinton Foundation:

A supporter of former Haitian President Michel Martelly, Eberwein served as director general of the governments economic development agency, Fonds dassistance economique et social, better known as FAES. He held the position from May 2012 until February 2015 when he was replaced. He was also a partner in a popular pizza restaurant in Haiti, Muncheez, and has a pizza  the Klaus Special  named after him.

Its really shocking, said Muncheezs owner Gilbert Bailly. We grew up together; he was like family.

The paper reported further that Eberwein was indeed set to appear before the Haitian Senate committee, but for a different reason:

During and after his government tenure, Eberwein faced allegations of fraud and corruption on how the agency he headed administered funds. Among the issues was FAES oversight of shoddy construction of several schools built after Haitis devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake.

Eberwein was scheduled to appear Tuesday before the Haitian Senates Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the head of the commission, Sen. Evaliere Beauplan confirmed. The commission is investigating the management of PetroCaribe funds, the money Haiti receives from Venezuelas discounted oil program.

A couple of things stand out about this. (Related: COLLUSION: Hillary Clinton Opposed Sanctions On RUSSIA While Hubby Bill Raked In $500,000 In Speaking Fees.)

First of all, the Clinton Foundation was indeed heavily involved in Haitis post-earthquake recovery, such as it was  and all while Hillary Clinton was U.S. secretary of state. The relief effort, such as it was, turned out to be a disaster within a disaster.

Who says so? None other than the former first daughter, Chelsea Clinton, Politico Magazine reported in February 2015, just as Hillary was gearing up for what would ultimately be her second (and hopefully final) unsuccessful run at the White House.

The incompetence is mind numbing, she told her parents and their top aides in a seven-page memo that of course the Clintons kept secret  released only as part of the email dump by Wikileaks during Hillarys campaign.

The U.N. people I encountered were frequently out of touch  anachronistic in their thinking at best and arrogant and incompetent at worst, Chelsea wrote. There is NO accountability in the U.N. system or international humanitarian system.

The Haitian government, which had lost buildings and staff in the disaster, was weak, but still has somewhat of a plan, she noted.

Politico reported further:

However, because it had failed to articulate its wishes quickly enough, foreigners rushed forward with a proliferation of ad hoc efforts by the U.N. and INGOs [international nongovernmental organizations] to help, some of which have helped  some of which have hurt  and some which have not happened at all.

There is more. As ABC News reported, Hillarys State Department ensured special attention  as in contracts  was given to FOBs, or Friends of Bill, even if those companies werent the lowest bidder for projects or even in a position to do the task they were given.

There is also this: Just a year after the earthquake, when Hillary went to Haiti to check on relief efforts, there were protests everywhere, as average Haitians were already aware the U.S. State Department and her familys foundation had failed them miserably, The New York Times reported.

As for Eberwein and his connection to this, there are credible sources reporting that he was expected to testify that only about 0.6 percent of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to the Clinton Foundation earmarked for Haiti relief efforts went for that purpose. He was in a position to know, as head of the governments economic development agency.

But now well never know, because hes dead.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

ABCNews.com

NYTimes.com

Politico.com

NewsTarget.com

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The decision by Mauritanian authorities to seal off borders with Algeria as a military zone forbidden to civilians is the tree that hides the forest. The closing of the borders signals cracks in the Algerian-Mauritanian short-lived alliance. As Mauritania tilts towards its Sahel neighbors in their efforts to counter the terrorism scourge, it takes steps away from the Algerian orbit.

The closing of the borders with Algeria was justified on grounds of fighting the proliferation of terrorist groups that engage in all kinds of criminal activities including kidnappings and all sorts of trafficking. The statement announcing the decision was marked by a serious tone warning any civilian found in the area will be treated as a military target.

This change of rhetoric by Mauritanian authorities is indicative of an impatience with Algerias approach towards fighting terrorism in the region.

Algeria, the native land of the leaders of most terrorist groups operating in the Sahel, has shown ambivalence in tackling the terrorist threats.

In fact, terrorism in the Sahel, notably in Mali, Mauritania and Niger is a spillover of Algerian terrorism. Algerias security services have combatted terrorism in the black 1990s decade but have also created terrorist groups and manipulated terrorist attacks. With the advent of Bouteflika, Algerias strategy has been to combat terrorism by pushing terrorists out or rather exporting terrorism outside its borders to its neighbors in the Sahel.

Therefore, the inclusion of Mauritania in the G5 anti-terrorism force under the umbrella of France and with the participation of Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso, has been received as a bad news in Algeria, which sought to use counterterrorism to maintain an upper hand on the Sahel states.

The creation of the G5 force signals the death of the Algiers-led Regional Command for Joint Counter Terrorism Operations (CEMOC), set up in 2010 with headquarters in Tamanrasset with the participation of Mauritania, Mali and Niger. The CEMOC has strikingly failed in accomplishing its goals of cracking down on terrorist groups largely due to Algerias reluctance to grant other countries forces the right to pursue terrorists in its territories.

Seven years after the establishment of CEMOC, Algerias genuine purposes became evident. The goal of Algeria was rather to keep France away from the Sahel and contain its archrival, Morocco. The creation of CEMOC was rather a failed attempt to assert regional hegemony rather than fight terrorist groups.

The connivance of Algerias intelligence services with Algerian national Moukhtar Belmoukhtar, aka Mr Marlboro is no secret. International reports have also accused Algeria of cooperating with Ansar Eddine and its leader Ag Ghali to quell the separatist ambitions of the secular Azawad movement. Algerias support for Ag Ghali was intended to foster extremism in the region to avert a spillover of an independent Tuareg state on its own Tuareg population.

Algerias laxism with Ag Ghali facilitated the merger of four terrorist groups operating in the Sahel into one group pledging allegiance to Al Qaeda and its Jordanian leader Azarkawi. The four terrorist groups were brought together under the command of Ag Ghali. The new terrorist organization bears the name of Jamaat Nasr Al islam wa Al mouminin (Group for the Defense of Islam and the Muslims).

Prior to the launch of the G5 joint force, President Emmanuel Macron called Algerias dead-living President Bouteflika and urged concrete proposals from Algiers to back the Malian peace-process. The call entails Algerias intransigence to unlock peace efforts in the Sahel country, considered by Algiers as its backyard. It also shows Frances growing impatience with Algerias hidden hand in the proliferation of terrorism in the Sahel.

The creation of the G5 has also infuriated Algerian political leaders. It is no coincidence that the anti-Sub-Saharan migrant rhetoric is on the surge following the formation of the G5 force.

In a nutshell, Mauritanias decision to declare its borders with Algeria a military zone forbidden to civilians stems from a real concern of possible retaliations by terrorist groups close to Algerian security services as a punishment for its participation in the G5 force. It also shows wariness with Algerias counterterrorism policy in the region.
Spanish rescue service said Monday it has saved 19 migrants from Algeria as they were attempting to cross the Mediterranean onboard a small boat.

Two days earlier, Spain rescued 57 migrants at sea on Saturday as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean towards Europe from Morocco.

Spain has become the new backdoor to Europe following the closure of the Balkan route through Turkey after the latter signed a deal with the EU to tighten border control and also due to the increasing security risks and human rights abuses facing Sub-Saharans in Libya. The Mediterranean route from Moroccan or Algerian coats to Spain is now considered more peaceful and closer.

The UN Refugee Agency has warned Spain to prepare for an upcoming surge in migrant arrivals as the number of mostly sub-Saharans who made it to Spanish coasts has more than doubled in 2017 from last year, outpacing the Libya-Italy route as the fastest growing entry point to Europe.

While the Italian sea route remains the most popular overall with 59,000 migrants between January and May, up 32 percent from last year, the Spanish route further west has gathered steam with 6,800 migrants using it in the same period, a 75 percent increase from 2016.

However, hundreds of migrants die in the perilous journey on overcrowded makeshift boats between North Africa and Spain. Earlier this month, an inflatable dinghy that had apparently set out from Morocco was flipped over after being hit by a strong wave. Only three survivors were rescued by the Spanish coastguard.

The Spanish North-African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla were a favored point of entry with 3,204 people travelling to Spain after passing through the two Moroccan cities, which are officially on European Union (EU) soil.
The Economic Community of West African States is studying the technical ramifications of Moroccos membership, said Nigerias Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama.

Moroccos request was accepted in principle by leaders of the group known as ECOWAS at a June 4 summit in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, recalled Onyeama.

This shows that there is no hostility regarding Moroccos membership in the ECOWAS, he said, adding that there is no enmity there that would mean an immediate and automatic negative response to such a request. What has to be looked at a bit more is all the technical ramifications.

Several lobby groups in Nigeria, the biggest economy in the ECOWAS, are putting pressure on the Nigerian government to reject Moroccos application out of fear that the North African Kingdoms membership could curb Nigerias powers in the sub-regional groupings. Pressure also emanates from pro-Polisario groups.

But cooperation on the ground shows that Nigeria and Morocco have never been as closer as they are now. Economically, Morocco has offered its expertise in fertilizers production by investing in a giant fertilizer production plant in Nigeria, key to the countrys bid to promote the agricultural sector and reduce dependence on oil.

The two countries have also agreed to build a gas pipeline that will channel Nigerian gas along the West African coast all the way to Morocco and eventually into Europe. Nigeria is also looking forward to benefiting from Moroccos experience in renewable energies, tourism, infrastructure and rural development.

The growing Moroccan-Nigerian cooperation was mirrored also in the political stands of Abuja in African Fora. Nigeria backed Moroccos return to the African Union and is increasingly distancing itself from the Algeria-sponsored separatist thesis in the Moroccan Sahara issue.

Morocco applied last March to join the ECOWAS. Before submitting its application, King Mohammed VI paid visits to the countries in the region where Morocco is already one of the largest investors.

Morocco opted to look southwards and reached out to its partners in West Africa with whom it has been building partnerships on a sound foundation underpinned by a south-south cooperation approach.

Moroccos bid to join ECOWAS is, therefore, a continuation of a decades-long process of fostering ties with the countries of the region.

The admission of Morocco to the ECOWAS sub-region will make it the second largest economy after Nigeria. Thanks to its geographic location and trade agreements with the EU, Turkey, the US and several Arab countries as well as its port and airport hubs, Morocco will offer West African countries a gateway to new markets.

With the inclusion of Morocco, the ECOWAS will bolster its aggregated GDP to the 16th rank globally ahead of Turkey and right after Indonesia.
One Moroccan UN soldier was killed and three others were injured in an attack launched Sunday by Christian armed militia in the Central African Republic targeting UN peacekeepers who were protecting a convoy of water trucks.

The attack took place while the Moroccan peacekeepers were escorting water tankers to the river to help resupply the village, the MINUSCA force said, condemning the assault and sending condolences to the family, the people and the government of Morocco.

The attack ambush occurred in the southern diamond-mining town of Bangassou. Christian militia have been attempting to seize a cathedral housing hundreds of displaced Muslims, who have been sheltering in the compound since a wave of ethnic killings in May.

In January 2017, two Moroccan soldiers of the MINUSCA were killed in an armed attack near the town of Bria, to the northeast of the capital Bangui.

MINUSCA has currently more than 12,000 troops deployed to protect civilians from the repercussion of violence between Christian and Muslim sects.

Central African Republic is struggling to emerge from a civil war that erupted in 2013 following the overthrow of former President Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka coalition.

The coup led to the formation of Anti-balaka vigilant units, drawn from the Christian majority, which began to target Muslims.

Last Friday, a patrol of peacekeepers was shot and one of the attackers killed, said the spokesman for MINUSCA, blaming pro-Christian armed groups once again.

On the same day, a Muslim woman was kidnapped by what is believed to be an Anti-balaka unit and six Christians were held by Muslims. All were released on Saturday following negotiations.

Six peacekeepers were killed in May in the city and surrounding region, which lies around 470km from Bangui on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

French military forces intervened in 2013 to stop violent Christian-Muslim clashes and formally ended its peacekeeping mission only last month, describing it a success despite fresh outbreaks of violence.

The Security Council has expressed lately concern at the ongoing clashes between armed groups in the CAR and the targeting of civilians from specific communities, UN Peacekeepers and humanitarian workers. The clashes continue to destabilize the country and cause heavy civilian losses and significant population displacements despite agreement by parties to the conflict to an immediate cessation of hostilities.

Some of the acts committed in CAR may amount to war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Security Council noted, recalling that the Prosecutor of the ICC opened in 2014 an investigation into alleged crimes committed since 2012.
A new military base, the largest in the Middle East and Africa, was inaugurated over the weekend and baptized after the leader of the 1952 Egyptian revolution and the countrys first President, Mohamed Neguib.

The military base, consisting of more than 1,100 new or recently renovated buildings, was built on what used to be a military city. It will be used for joint military exercises between Egypt and other countries, the Egyptian Armed Forces spokesperson told the media.

The infrastructure located at El-Hammam, near Alexandria, is equipped with numerous tanks, helicopters, anti-aerial defense systems and other warfare equipment.

It has 72 integral battlefields for training, along with complexes for electronic shooting platforms. It also has 27 rest houses for top officials, and 29 buildings for officers, as well as a large camp that can accommodate up to 1,000 soldiers, a 50-bed hospital, a conference center, a museum and other amenities.

According to the Russian online media Sputnik, the base was built to protect the nuclear plant which will be constructed in partnership with Russia and also protect the north African nation against terrorist threats, make borders with Libya and Sudan safer and insure security for traffic on the Red Sea.

The base will also serve as a headquarters to some forces of the Northern Military Unit, which is expected to upgrade its efficiency in protecting the area west of Alexandria.
France has confirmed that the Prime Minister-designate Fayez Serraj of the UN-backed Government of National Accord will be meeting, in Paris on Tuesday, with Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar of the Libyan National Army, loyal to the Tobruk-based House of Representative.

An official statement highlighted that the initiative is geared towards facilitating a political agreement between the two camps and the challenge is to build a state capable of meeting the basic needs of Libyans and endowed with a regular unified army under the authority of the civil power.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011 with the NATO-backed uprising against Gaddafis regime.

Efforts to establish a political government and stability have been unfruitful over the years but Paris intends to show its support for the efforts to build a political compromise, under the aegis of the United Nations, which unites all the different Libyan actors.

Sources hinted that Haftar had arrived in France ahead of Serraj and was expected to meet with President Emmanuel Macron.

Some analysts expressed concern that the meeting would give the renegade military official some form of legitimacy while admitting that it could also contribute to the implementation of the UN-brokered 2015 Libyan Political Agreement.

The French initiative is said to have been determined by security concerns over its investments in the Sahel, the rising terrorist attacks it has experienced on its territory and the influx of illegal migrants.

Paris underlined that it is necessary for the control of Libyan territory and its borders, to fight terrorist groups and arms and migrant traffickers, but also to secure return to a stable institutional life.

The Elysee hopes that its efforts will be timely as newly appointed UN envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salame, assumes his duties.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has repeatedly said that Libya was a priority for Macron and that there was a security risk because of the trafficking of all kinds, including humans from Libya.
Donald Trump Jr. has needed several tries to tell the whole truth about last years now-infamous Russia meeting. Photo: Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images

After the New York Times uncovered the extremely shady meeting Donald Trump Jr. held at Trump Tower last June, the eldest Trump son appeared on Sean Hannitys show and offered to testify under oath on the matter. Then, last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that he and Paul Manafort, who also attended the Trump Tower sit-down, would appear at a public hearing on Wednesday, raising expectations of a Comey hearinglike spectacle.

But on Friday, the leaders of that committee, Senators Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, announced they wouldnt be issuing subpoenas and that the testimony given by Trump Jr. and Manafort would be private.

On Sunday, Grassley appeared to confirm that the two would not even be under oath when they answer questions.

Al Franken complained to Jake Tapper on CNNs State of the Union Sunday that Trump Jr. and Manaforts private testimony was not good enough, and that they should testify under oath.

But CNN reported that the idea of a public hearing at this juncture wasnt likely in the first place:

A source familiar with the committees thinking says there was incentive among the committee to make the agreement with Manafort and Trump Jr. because there was a recognition that they were unlikely to appear in a public session.

But the threat of trying to force them to appear publicly and to issue a subpoena was enough to get agreement from the two to provide records and to interview them quicker than they otherwise would have liked, a source familiar with the discussion says.

Its not clear when Trump Jr. and Manafort will speak to the committee. In the meantime, Glenn Simpson, who co-founded the investigative firm that commissioned the infamous Steele dossier, was subpoenaed by the committee after refusing to testify in private. And, perhaps more intriguing, Jared Kushner will talk to the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed-door session on Monday.
 

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It was Joe Scarboroughs 53rd birthday, April 9, 2016, and his youngest child, an 8-year-old boy named Jack, was trying to tell him something. Dad, look at the birthday cake, he said. The cake was in the shape of a small mammal, resting on a bed of artificially green coconut shavings, its body frosted vanilla white and its floppy ears studded with Smarties. Fourteen candles stuck out of its back, with another stabbed into the center of its head like some kind of sugary acupuncture experiment. Scarboroughs girlfriend, Mika Brzezinski, had baked it from a boxed Duncan Hines mix and then, being the daughter of a sculptor, carved it up with a knife. The result was part Peter Cottontail, part Donnie Darko. At first glance, Scarborough didnt read much into it, but with growing frustration, Jack repeated himself: Dad, look at the birthday cake! Then it hit him: The cake was a clue about his present. Oh my God, he said. Mika did not get me a rabbit. She got me a rabbit?!

He sighed as he told me this story earlier this month, his tiny eyes rolling back into his head at the memory. So, she got me a rabbit.

At six-foot-three, or eight-foot-nine including the hair, Scarborough looks like Jimmy Neutron in his Lizard King phase or Tucker Carlson after someone put him through a taffy-pulling machine. No matter the shoe, he never wears socks, displaying a pair of glistening ankles at all times. Brzezinski is five-foot-six and the unusually even color of a vizsla puppy, her blinding hair a cross between Carolyn Bessette-Kennedys and Polly Pockets. Together, they achieve a kind of strange aesthetic perfection  the decorative figurines topping the bunny cake that is political media in Trumps America.

Jack suggested naming the actual animal Fluffy, but his 12-year-old sister, Kate, had another idea: name it after Donald Trump, who was then something of a family friend and, surprisingly, close to securing the Republican nomination. Okay, Scarborough said, well call it Donald Fluffy Trump.

In the end, the union of Donald Fluffy Trump and Joe Scarborough wouldnt last. Brzezinski was skeptical, but Scarborough insisted Donald Fluffy Trump kept scratching him, and so he banished it from his home in Connecticut (where there was a cat, Oliver Meatball Scarborough; a dog, Scout; and four chickens: Napoleon, Sal, Iris, and S.E.S.) to live at hers, the land-bound Noahs Ark of Westchester, where there were two dogs (Cajun and Hobson); two cats (Elle and Emma); 11 chickens (Pierre, Olivia, Donna, Nugget, Gina, Baby Bumba, Tammy, Jeremih, Graham, Esther, and Marta); and another rabbit they sometimes called Ducky.

It was when Ducky met Donald Fluffy Trump that it first became clear nothing was quite what it seemed. We found out that Donald Trump was actually Melania Trump, Scarborough said. The rabbit comes to my house, and my little, tiny black rabbit  starts  mounting, Brzezinski recalled, horrified. I called Joe. Im like, Uh-oh, because Ducky, at that point, was on top of what we thought was Donald. Off the record, she joked, they were having so much sex I had to put them in separate pens.

Donald Fluffy Trump was renamed Melania, and Ducky was renamed Donald Fluffy Trump, but the tangle of furry confusion continued. I still honestly think they go both ways, Brzezinski said. At one point, Joe sent me a Snapchat and Donald was on top, and then he sent me another one and Melania was! She added, Every time I turn, theres someone else on top.

Its true for rabbits, and true for anyone flying close to the sun in Donald Trumps America  particularly if they appear on television. And if it hadnt been obvious before, by the morning of June 29  when the president falsely accused Brzezinski of bleeding all over his Palm Beach country club while recovering from a face-lift  it was clear that Joe and Mika had become satellite antagonists in the ensemble cast of the Trump-administration soap opera, which plays out on TV, online, and in print each day. But why, exactly, their previously cozy relationship with the president had changed, and what the nature of that coziness was to begin with, depends a lot on which side you ask.

Watch a short history of Morning Joe and Donald Trumps rocky relationship with each other.

How did this camp tragicomedy begin? For years now, Morning Joe, which airs weekdays on MSNBC from 6 to 9 a.m. and in September will celebrate its tenth anniversary, has been the preferred programming of the political elite. Pundits and experts and people presenting as experts clamor to appear alongside the famous-for-journalism cast of regulars and visitors who sit in the round and converse freely, asking one another questions and playfully arguing in what is designed to feel like a breakfast conversation among eggheaded family members. The hosts have come to seem like a kind of political royalty: Betsy Rothstein, Washingtons premier and also virtually only gossip columnist, told me that in the bubble and among a certain breed of D.C. type, they are highly praised  I mean, how else do you get on a show like this unless you sufficiently suck up to the hosts? Its an effective formula, and for ten years, other than the size of my and Joes hair and maybe Mikas haircut, not much has changed, Willie Geist, their co-host, told me.

But suddenly, the politics did. Early in last years Republican-primary season, Morning Joe distinguished itself by treating Trump as a plausible nominee and offering some favorable appraisals of his campaign, comparing the phenomenon of his candidacy to Reagan, coverage that drew criticism but turned out to be prescient. Then, beginning in the summer, something shifted, in particular with Scarborough  once a conservative Republican congressman who modeled himself as a little Newt but who has gradually morphed on television into a Reasonable Centrist Host. He began warning that Trump was unfit for the presidency and, once he became president anyway, amplified the disarray within the White House. Recently, Joe left the GOP and announced he was an Independent. And, most offensive to the White House and its allies, he and Brzezinski have repeatedly questioned his soundness of mind.

A cynic might say that Joe and Mikas reversal on the Donald is evidence of savvy, that they just know when to buy and when to sell. But they are genuinely emotional when they discuss him on air, though with contrasting perspectives: Scarborough remains confident that the American system will ultimately survive and defeat what he sees as the threat from Trump, while Brzezinski, a Democrat who often calls Trumps behavior and statements disgusting, worries that the entire republic could vanish within his term.

One of the great oddities of Morning Joe has been the are-they-or-arent-they dynamic of its hosts, who finally emerged as a real-life couple in May of this year. But that drama quickly became just subtext for viewers; recently, the biggest draw has been the drama of their relationship with the president, unraveling in real time (the shows audience has grown 50 percent since last year). In the deranged reality-television solar system that contains the press and the new presidency, Scarborough and Brzezinski deliver black comedy with a lot of plot. This has made Morning Joe the best place to begin assessing the state of White House palace intrigue on any given day  not a frivolous pursuit, since every policy fight is transacted through perpetually shifting hierarchies. Astonishingly, for the first time in American history, the president is as likely to take time out of his schedule to lance news personalities as he is to condemn the countrys foreign adversaries. And so contemplating the existence of the people yammering on TV is no superficial task, for theyre yammering directly into his head. He watches, says he doesnt watch, and then he freaks out with what he sees, Scarborough told me. We think its in the best interest of the country for him to stop watching our show.

Photo: Jake Chessum

Trump sleeps little and rises early, and most days, before hes spoken to his advisers or received his daily intelligence briefing, hes heard from the media. In recent months, the president has made a conscious effort to consume less critical coverage of himself, which means less Morning Joe. But White House officials have been alarmed by the program and admit to alerting the president when the hosts say something particularly harsh. Honestly, Im not just saying this, he really doesnt watch it, a senior White House official told me, dismissing Trumps tweets about the program, sent while it airs, as beside the point.

Sources close to Trump told me hes angered by what he perceives to be the phoniness of Scarborough and Brzezinski, the very sort of Washington bullshit he campaigned against in the first place: To his face, and to other members of his administration, theyre friendly; to the cameras, its a different story. And those sources in the White House believe the shift in tone on Morning Joe reflects a combination of frustration at being shut out of Trumps orbit and simple jealousy  Scarborough has always been thought to have presidential aspirations. He wanted to be president, and hes not. And, of all people, Donald Trump is. This is crazy, a second senior White House official said. They lost access in month two, month one, of a White House where part of their stock-in-trade was Donald this and Donald that and The president told me this and People close to the president told me that. It became very obvious around here who they talked to every day, and it wasnt the president.

Scarborough and Brzezinski said the White House is misrepresenting their motivations, though they didnt rule out that Scarborough might be interested in running for president in the future. It was never mentioned, never discussed, and anyone who ever said it is a liar, Scarborough said. No ambiguity there at all. Im happy right where I am with Mika, music, and Morning Joe, which he calls his three Ms. Fulfilling a lifelong dream, Scarborough is now performing and recording dad-rock; his first EP, Mystified, on which he sings of speed and sex-shop toys and existential terror, was released last month, in something of a media-fishbowl moment.

People that dont know Joe might say, Oh, thats what this is, but its much more primal than that, said a source close to the couple. If you look at where Joe came from, he has no business being where he is, and that is because he has this internal drive that all politicians have where you look in the mirror and say, I should be leading people. He swims a little higher than jealousy. I think its not that simple; its basically Joe feels that the country should be run a certain way, he believes in a lot of things, and doesnt like to be dismissed or fucked with, and thats kind of what Trumps doing.

As for lost access  On December 30, Scarborough attended what he said was 30 minutes of a dinner at Mar-a-Lago (the White House told me he was there for three hours). The next evening, he and Brzezinski went to a New Years Eve party on the premises and spoke to Trump privately. Openly, theyve referred to this meeting as a brief attempt to secure an interview for their show, and Scarborough theatrically sparred with journalists who reported that they were there as party guests. Months later, the White House remains irritated by Scarborough and Brzezinskis version of events. You know, if you want an interview, ask the president and hell give it to you. You dont need to go schmooze him  youre his friend, a senior White House official told me, exasperated. The fact is, you wanted to go. And then theyre like, And then we got thrown into this side room! You were invited into the presidents private residence and you were chatting with him and his wife; dont make this like youre some hostage at a party. You were there willingly and you enjoyed it and you went because you wanted to go see the president!

Donald thinks that because he goes to your book party or because he says something nice about you that you owe him something, Scarborough said. That somehow youre going to hold a punch back. (He refers to the president almost exclusively as Donald, though he will, with mock difficulty, choke out the word president.) Walter Cronkite told Bobby Kennedy he needed to run for president. You could go down the long list; people have been doing it all the time. I mean, people at this network, people at other networks, they dont admit it, but they do it all the time. The difference is, they have very chummy relationships, whether its in Nantucket or Marthas Vineyard or the Hamptons or wherever. We really dont have chummy relationships. An anchor from a rival network dismissed this idea. They have done everything they could do to be friends with Trump, and Trump rejected them, the anchor said. Theyre full of shit.

As Scarborough explained it, their behavior throughout the campaign  regularly engaging with the candidate, who once referred to them, on the air, as supporters (he corrected himself by saying they were actually believers)  was standard. I remember talking to David Axelrod on Afghanistan, saying, Whatever you give the generals, theyre going to turn around and screw you. Like you can triple or quadruple the number of troops in Afghanistan. Its never going to be enough,  Scarborough told me. He added, I think people have noticed more because Trump was such an isolated figure, meaning he was less connected to the usual Establishment network of contacts in and out of the media. (Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, told me he remembered this well, and that such conversations with broadcasters were not all that common, but Joe is an unusual breed of cat  half-politician, half-broadcaster.) Regardless, Brzezinski and Scarborough say their connection to Trump was merely transactional, somewhere around a decade of superficial lunches and cocktail conversations designed to benefit all parties  a plug for a book or a charity here, an appearance on a reality show there (as of January, the president remained an executive producer on NBCs The New Celebrity Apprentice). A refrain they often use to describe their thoughts about him now is We dont think about him.

Throughout the campaign, Scarborough and Trump did call one another often, and Scarborough did admit to what he calls advising the candidate. He also acknowledged that, over the years, he had stayed at Mar-a-Lago. When my family and I were down there, he called my ex-wife and said, Is Mika there? Did Joe bring Mika down? His obsession with Mika  He trailed off. On Instagram, Ivanka has blessed images of the pastel eggs produced by Nugget and the other chickens in Brzezinskis backyard with likes.

Him getting elected has just amplified all of his insecurities, Scarborough said, explaining the theory he and Mika have tried to advance over the past several months that the man who is president is not the man they once knew. In their telling, gone is his sense of self-awareness, the wink he might give you while handing you a Trump-branded water, and in its place is something that the couple says is somehow  off. The night of the inauguration, Scarborough told me, Trump called him. I talked to him for three seconds. You know when you talk to somebody and you know theyre gone? He remembered Trump saying,  Oh, this place is so great! And he kept talking about the phone system and all the, basically, toys, new toys he had  not his words. I remember getting off the phone really fast and, to Mika, I said, Hes long gone. This is bad. 

Scarborough and Brzezinski saw Trump again at the end of his first week in office. Initially, they had planned to have dinner with the president on Saturday evening and then lunch with Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who, besides being family, serve as two of Trumps closest aides. But Trump canceled on them. According to Scarborough and Brzezinski, Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, called to explain that because the president was refusing to attend the 104th annual Alfalfa Club dinner that same evening, he wouldnt be able to have dinner with them, for optics reasons. (A senior White House official I spoke to said Trump didnt feel like going through with it.)

Whatever the case, their meetings were consolidated into a single lunch with Kushner, Ivanka, and the president on Sunday afternoon in the Blue Room. When I spoke to Ivanka that morning, she was like, Were really going to talk to him about some of these things that I want to do,  Brzezinski told me. And I was all about supporting anything thats good for empowering women, whether its a Republican as president or a Democrat. Im open to hearing it all. With books and a constellation of related content under the banner Know Your Value, she is something of an aspiring guru for career women. (She has Joe so pussy-whipped that he left the Republican Party. If that isnt knowing your value, I dont know what is, Rothstein joked.)

But things quickly veered off course when the president asked Scarborough how he thought his first week in office had gone. I go, Not really well,  Scarborough remembered, adding that he mentioned the protests breaking out across the city and the world and that he thought Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, two key advisers, had failed him. And he spent the next hour saying to anybody whod walk in, Hey, can you believe this? This guy doesnt think we had a great week! And it was shocking; it was the first time anybody had told him that the first week didnt go really well.

Him getting elected has just amplified all of his insecurities.

Afterward, Scarborough said, they toured the White House. He was going around trying to show us all the Andrew Jackson paraphernalia. He asked Mika, Hey, is this the first time youve ever been to the White House? She said, No. He said, Well, when was the first time? She goes, When I was 9, when my dad was national-security adviser. He said, Well, I bet it was your first time, Joe. I said, Well, I was actually in Congress 20 years ago. 

The visit was disturbing, according to Brzezinski, because he was way too into it  it being the fact that hes president. When Ivanka attempted to broach the subject of women, he was like, What?  she remembered. And she goes, Women? And he goes, What?  Irritated, Brzezinski said she shouted, Women!, moving her hands in a motion that suggested the shape of a womans figure, Woah-men! With that, he said to Ivanka,  Oh, women. Yeah, honey. Yeah, honey. We can do that. 

That was pretty much it for both of us, Scarborough said. They never did have the conversation about womens issues.

Starting that Monday, they needled Miller on the air for his performance on the Sunday shows (as did much of the rest of the media). The president came downstairs that morning and he was like, I want to talk to Joe Scarborough,  a senior White House official told me. While he was walking off set with Brzezinski, Scarboroughs phone rang. It was Trump, and all parties have agreed that heated is an accurate characterization of his tone, though Scarborough and Brzezinski described him as screaming so loudly that placing him on speakerphone was unnecessary, while the White House insists he was not screaming.

He said, I invited you over to lunch and youre so rude! Youre killing this kid!  Scarborough said. And I was like, Donald, he said that the presidents authority was not to be challenged. What is that, a totalitarian state over there? He was like, I know what youre like: You think because you came over to the White House you have to prove youre independent! I said, No, you all are just being crazy! He goes, I couldve invited Hannity over here! And I said, Well, invite Hannity next time, because were not going to, like, hold our punches because you give us fish!  (No one can recall what kind of fish was served, though, for future reference, Sean Hannity likes clam chowder.)

Mika Brzezinski arranging Joe Scarboroughs hair. Photo: Jake Chessum

The White House official remarked that the president told Scarborough he didnt think Miller deserved the criticism. The president was like, Im the fucking president. I take responsibility for this. Stop talking about my staff,  the official remembered. It was very endearing, actually, and nobody would ever give him credit for that, but he was really taking responsibility and trying to protect Stephen, which was lovely because they had been really personal to him. This kind of fatherly defense of staff the president believes to be under siege has become standard in the early stages of the administration.

Brzezinski hasnt seen the president since that lunch. But according to the White House, Scarborough spoke to him on the phone a few days later, after Trump had selected his Supreme Court nominee. That was a presidential event; that was how you should act! the White House claimed Scarborough said. You looked amazing, I loved your tie. But both Scarborough and Brzezinski said that account is false. I have no idea what he is talking about, Brzezinski said. Although, Scarborough added: It wasnt out of the realm of possibilities that I would call him up.

In February, Scarborough saw the president a final time, when Jared Kushner invited him back to the scene of the lunch. At first Scarborough said I dont remember when I asked why Kushner had wanted him to visit, but then Brzezinski reminded him: I think he wanted you and Donald to start talking again. Scarborough agreed: Jareds always the one that tries to bring us back together. Why thats the case, he said, youd have to ask Jared. But its perplexing because it never ends well, so I dont know why they think that, and, again, I dont know why anybody thinks, in either party, that were ever going to pull a punch, because we just never do.

But, again, I think the biggest shock for Donald  for the president  is that, regardless of whether we saw him or not, we were going to say whatever we wanted to say.

Their next exchange took place in front of the whole world, beginning at 8:52 a.m. on June 29, when Morning Joe was in a commercial break.

Scarborough had decided to give the end of the show over to Brzezinski so he could, depending on which version of events you believe, sleep or make some important calls. (He fell asleep, Brzezinski told me. First of all, I wasnt asleep, Scarborough said later.) On set, Brzezinski recalled, everyone started acting really weird. In the control room, Alex Korson, the executive producer, saw a notification on his phone: The president had tweeted. I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (dont watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came.. The ellipsis suggested more would be coming soon. I just knew that the next part was going to be something potentially pretty epic, Korson told me. I just had a feeling.

For months, the president had been gossiping about Brzezinskis alleged cosmetic procedures  the next morning on air, she proudly acknowledged having had work done, though not the full face-lift the president talked about  and Id even heard his story myself weeks prior, after hed dished about it to a group of congressmen. But in an act of what I guess you could call restraint, hed kept it out of the press, or perhaps he was just waiting for exactly the right moment, which happened to be 8:58. Geist was on set with Brzezinski when it happened. The second one popped up, and I went, Oh, shit. This isnt just about something we said on the show. This is something deeply personal and deeply ugly,  he remembered.

I handed her my phone, Geist said, and her first reaction, in classic Mika fashion, was to just laugh derisively at how sad it was that the president said that.

Brzezinski recalled that everyone looked really uncomfortable in the newsroom. They were all averting their eyes. I was like, Its funny!  When pressed, she admitted to being made to feel slightly self-conscious, but thats all. I was like, Do I have a huge growth coming out of my head? Her struggles with body image have long been a part of her public persona  she even wrote a book, Obsessed, about her eating disorder. Im glad Im at kind of a more confident, comfortable place in my life, she told me. I think if this had happened when I was, like, 30, it mightve been really painful, but Im 50. And Ive been through stuff that matters, you know? So it is just face-shaming. Its just so silly. Its unbelievable.

She added that she wasnt personally hurt by it: Its just another thing you put on the shelf of sadness about this presidency. Scarborough laughed. The shelf of sadness, I like that. The wall of shame and the shelf of sadness.

In the end, Brzezinski said, Who cares? Weve been through a lot with this guy.

Photo: Jake Chessum

And for now, that is the soap opera of Joe and Mika and Donald. As for the soap opera of just Joe and Mika  well, the truth is, the president has a role in that too.

We knew early on that we clicked on TV, Scarborough said, and until recently the pair was most comfortable discussing their chemistry within the context of the show. They say they first met at the old MSNBC studios in Secaucus, and Scarborough has often talked about how he was sure hed found his co-host when he asked Brzezinski to explain why, when doing news-break cut-ins, she used a caustic lilt when saying Scarborough Country (his old show on the network). Her retort was perfect: How can I make fun of a show Ive never seen? And that flirtatious, cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-cat dynamic has greeted Americans getting ready for work every morning since.

The thing Joe and I both appreciated about Mika was she was just going to give you shit no matter what, Geist told me. They share a small office with desks two feet away from each other, and Nora Ephron once described the show as a romantic comedy and Joe and Mika as a temporary couple on air. Which makes Geist something of a third wheel, though he says hes fine with that: Two people in a relationship is a more interesting story than two people in a relationship and then this  other guy. After the very first episode, Scarborough said, People were calling Mika, saying, When did you work with this guy before? How long have you known this guy? She was like, I just met him yesterday. 

It wasnt until last summer that their relationship became public  when Trump, against their wishes, took it upon himself to make the announcement. Some day, when things calm down, Ill tell the real story of @JoeNBC and his very insecure longtime girlfriend, @morningmika. Two clowns! he tweeted on August 22. It was punishment for their lack of loyalty.

Because Joe and Mika are perhaps the only masochists alive who operate on this schedule and spend this much time together (a 6to9 a.m. show; up as late as 10 p.m., crisscrossing the Northeast corridor for meetings, events, and speeches), it can feel as though they exist in their own private universe. Except they dont. Between them breathes a sprawling web of three ex-spouses and six children, ranging in age from 9 to 29 (Scarborough quietly divorced his second wife in 2013, while Brzezinskis marriage ended in 2015). It has historically been a preoccupation for them, then, to keep the matter of their relationship and its inconvenient origins out of the press, which they achieved with near-total success  something one New York tabloid veteran told me was astonishing and a lesson for everyone in how to tame the gossips. I think of the gossip world as extremely transactional, and they were very good at dealing with it, the veteran told me. They are total operators: They werent above trading one item for another. They took their own PR into their own hands. (Which wasnt an entirely new strategy for Scarborough: In the late 1990s, while serving in Congress, he ran a tabloid, the Florida Sun, in which he penned copy under various pseudonyms like Esther Bankhead, a fictional Central Alabama Demolition Derby Champion 19611964, and Izzy Walser, at turns described as a national affairs correspondent, religion writer, and, in one story, an olfactory correspondent.) Their control of their image is impressive in its efficiency, and they are intensely particular about even the minor details of the show. But whatever else you think of them, youve gotta take beauty where you can find it these days, and these are two people who really fucking love each other. When I asked Brzezinski if there was a moment when she knew, but told her she didnt need to specify the time frame, she said, There was a moment, and it was alarming. Complicated and alarming.

This is really way more than I want to say, she admitted. Ive got people I care about who will read this and  but, yeah. There definitely was a moment where I realized. And it was hard. She added that it hurts when people attack my life and decisions Ive made in my life that they know nothing about and make up things about whats actually going on in my life. Which was precisely Trumps aim. A senior White House official referred to his decision to out them as the most important juncture in their protracted feud. He wanted people to see that. The description was deliberate.

It caused a lot of pain, Brzezinski said.

At Brzezinskis childhood home in Virginia, hidden away in a maze of leafy back roads and long, private driveways, Scarborough was sitting at a table on the porch. Drinking lemonade and avoiding a plate of cookies, he was ready to talk. Guys are really interesting, he told me. Women understand from a pretty early age that at some point theyre gonna die. Guys dont really realize theyre gonna die until they turn 50.

During the past handful of years, Scarborough, typically a very positive, upbeat person, was in a depression. His father, a Republican with a dry sense of humor who, coincidentally, lost faith in his party during Watergate, had died. Soon after, Scarborough got divorced. And boom. I was flattened for about three years. Scarborough decided he had to live the rest of his life in a way he could be proud of, which meant making music and being with Brzezinski, however complicated that would be. Something about turning 50, he told me. Oh my God, Im not going to be here forever. On his debut EP, he sings of looking inside and being by turns mystified, terrified, and horrified by the person hes confronted with.

I dont write love songs. I was inspired to, finally.

He wrote Brzezinski a song, called Lets Fall in Love, in which he sings of how she breaks my heart with a wave of her hand, something that leaves him broken, but still I believe. Fittingly, she almost didnt hear it because they were in the middle of a fight and she didnt want to go see him play it with his band. I dont write love songs, he said. I was inspired to, finally. And it was kind of neat once I got into it, because it was a different feel and it was a different motivation. It was even in a different style. It was sort of in a 3/4 style. They made up, as they always do; in my presence, Brzezinski alternated between stage mom and groupie, warning me that he couldnt talk too much before a Late Show performance because he might strain his voice and shrieking and clapping when he returned to the greenroom.

Joe Scarborough debuts his EP, Mystified, at The Cutting Room.

Ive been very nervous and stressed out and always worrying about everybody in this situation, Brzezinski admitted at the house. And at some point you have to live. And losing my dad was definitely clarifying in that way. And it also just  like, the stupid Trump tweets. Nothing matters after you go through something like that. Only the really real, personal, important, raw, dear-to-you things matter.

Scarborough told me that Brzezinskis father, who died in late May, always had great advice about this, about our relationship and moving forward and everything else. She hadnt yet set foot in his office since his death, and she paused for a moment when she walked into the dark room. She emerged with photo albums. Joe, youre gonna love this, she said, opening one. Look at my dad with Strawberry in front of the house. And Peanut. (Two horses.) I had a rabbit named Bonny-Sadr during the Iran hostage situation, she told me, and also a German shepherd, Napoleon, and geese, though that didnt end so well. My brother named them Lem and Lucius, and my brother was like really viciously mean to me at this time; he was going through a stage. And he was like, Mika, guess where Lem and Lucius are? Theyre hanging out out back. And I go and they were literally  they were beheaded. Her mother  a sculptor who, at 85, still works on trees 50 times her size with a chainsaw  was tired of the shit all over the yard. Brzezinski sighed, removing her stilettos to tour her mothers expansive studio, where an 11-foot-wide, 11-inch-tall rendering of a crucifix is mounted on the wall. Brzezinski was Snapchatting all the while. A thousand Snapchats a day, Scarborough told me. For the daughters.

Joe and Mika were engaged in the south of France in May, and she wears her large diamond solitaire, even though she said it gets in the way of caring for their petting zoo. Im not sure where we begin and the other ends. Were just really connected, she told me. Scarborough added, You dont know where I start, where she ends  We  she  understands me   She cut him off: Makes you better.

She does make me a lot better. Including paying particular attention to the height of his hair, which she has her own stylist cut at the Carlyle Hotel and is often fixing herself with her fingers.

You know, Scarborough said, its actually funny that Mika, she loves  stop that, he laughed, as her hand disappeared into the mane.

Im just trying to get it to be tall.

She loves  she will grab it.

I suggest you dont talk too long about this, Brzezinski cautioned him.

Shell yank it up high and spray it. And Im like, What are you doing? Its going straight up!  He laughed. It just keeps hitting you that its forever. Its forever. Its forever. And you do realize immediately what matters, what doesnt matter. It makes you treat people around you differently, people that you love.

Hair and makeup by Wilbert Ramo. Bouquet from Elan Flowers.

*This article appears in the July 24, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
If he gets the health-care bill to the floor, the biggest question for Mitch McConnell is whether he nukes the legislative filibuster to overcome procedural objections from the Senate parliamentarian. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

After a strangely quiet weekend, this week Senate Republicans are scheduled to push through votes on a budget-reconciliation bill designed to repeal and/or replace Obamacare. There are at least six big questions that are hanging fire at the moment:

Can McConnell find a formula for a version of BCRA that snags 50 votes? BCRA has been repeatedly buried, but so long as McConnell can keep conservatives (with the likely exception of Rand Paul) onboard, and has some money (according to CBOs latest estimate of BCRA, there is about $200 billion generated by the bill in deficit reduction beyond the amount necessary to comply with budget rules) for deal-cutting, theres always a chance. He may, in fact, have already bought one moderate senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, with special provisions for her state. But attracting others like Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Dean Heller of Nevada, and Rob Portman of Ohio, without alienating a single conservative (Mike Lee of Utah seems to be still on the fence) will be tough, particularly with each and every senator knowing she or he has the power to kill BCRA once and for all. And if John McCain does not return to Washington before the deal goes down, 50 votes for any particular Trumpcare bill may already be impossible.

Will an ailing John McCain show up to save McConnells bacon? At various points last week, it looked like the motion to proceed (MTP) math might be stuck at 49 votes. So it could matter a great deal whether the absent Senator John McCain  presumed to be a yea vote on a MTP despite some grumbling over the Better Care Reconciliation Acts impact on Arizona  has sufficiently recovered from surgery and/or cancer treatment to return to Washington in time for the vote. McCain is making positive sounds about a quick return, but no one knows if his doctors have cleared a resumption of work.

Will Mitch McConnell go for broke on bringing up the bill even if hes not sure he has the votes? The first step toward enacting health-care legislation in the Senate is a motion to proceed to consideration of the House bill, the American Health Care Act. That will require 50 votes. Up until now Mitch McConnell has repeatedly held off on that vote because he was short of the needed 50. But some observers think hes not bluffing this time; that he wants to move on to the rest of the GOPs agenda, and also thinks a vote is the only way to concentrate pressure on Republican waverers. A failed motion to proceed would in fact pretty much end the drive to repeal and replace Obamacare, for the time being.

Where are Paul and other wavering senators on beginning debate? The almost complete confusion over Rand Pauls position on beginning the health-care debate epitomizes the fog that has descended over this legislation. A week ago the Kentuckian was the firmest of no votes on an MTP motion. Then he allowed that he was open to a MTP so long as senators would have an opportunity to enact a straight repeal of Obamacare. By the end of the week he was demanding that said straight repeal vote happen before any consideration of a repeal-and-replace bill. Perhaps McConnell can accommodate this sequencing, but technically, the vote-a-rama procedure for amendments on budget bills is wide open, and strange things could happen.

The other question is how many Senate moderates can be convinced to vote for the MTP even if they do not support any particular final bill. A key target for McConnell and company is Moore Capito, who will appear today with Donald Trump in her own state of West Virginia, which the president carried with 69 percent of the vote last year. Trump may be able to pull her across the line on the procedural vote even if shes still negotiating with McConnell over some new version of BCRA.

Is a straight repeal of Obamacare truly doomed? Though you hear vague talk about the base forcing all those senators who voted in 2015 to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan to do so again, thats not the way the wind seems to be blowing now. Four GOP senators have flatly said they will oppose such an effort. Nine earlier opposed the very idea of repealing Obamacare without a replacement. The CBO score of a straight repeal makes it likely a political disaster. So its extremely unlikely to happen.

How will Republicans deal with potentially calamitous Senate parliamentarians rulings? Late Friday, Senate Democrats rolled a hand grenade into the Senate GOP bunker by releasing a summary of the Senate parliamentarians guidance on whether or not a long list of BCRA provisions comply with budget rules that exclude non-budget-germane items. If this is indeed an indication of how she will rule if and when BCRA comes to the floor, it is very likely fatal, barring some brilliant draftsmanship by Senate staffers to change her opinion. Two politically crucial anti-abortion provisions  including a Planned Parenthood defunding that passed muster in the 2015 straight repeal of Obamacare legislation  were on the parliamentarians hit list. So, too, was a substantively critical six-month lockout provision that was the GOPs substitute for Obamacares individual mandate as a way to keep younger and healthier people participating in insurance risk pools. And in terms of the ultimate passage of this legislation, it is significant the parliamentarian frowned on the so-called Buffalo Bribe that probably won the bill six House GOP votes from New York; the guidance on that item might also apply to prospective McConnell deals to shower benefits on individual senators.

Unless something changes virtually overnight, the parliamentarian is messing with so many provisions (and could yet mess with more that she has not yet dealt with, including the Cruz amendment that is essential to a number of conservative votes for the underlying bill) that McConnell could well face the terrible choice of letting the bill die or going along with a wholesale overruling of the parliamentarian by the Senate chair. That step could make virtually any future legislation includable in budget bills and thus passable by a simple majority vote, in effect nuking the legislative filibuster, a revolutionary measure McConnell has vocally resisted up until now.

In theory, McConnell and his advisers will need to answer all six of these questions before he takes that first leap into a MTP, which at the moment is supposed to take place as soon as Tuesday. Considering how strange and unpredictable the whole process has been over the last six months, additional twists and turns could most definitely appear in the road just ahead.
President Trump heads to the White House Rose Garden on May 4 to celebrate almost repealing Obamacare. Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

The first six months of the Trump administration have been marked by a massive revitalization of the U.S. manufacturing sector, an end to the lawlessness of the Obama years, and a new respect for America on the world stage, thanks to the presidents soaring, Reaganesque rhetoric  at least, thats what this video released by the White House would have you believe:

In reality, President Trump is historically unpopular, and despite having a Republican-controlled Congress, he hasnt passed any major legislation. Many measures Trump promised to enact on day one  including overhauling the tax code, building a wall on the southern border, and repealing and replacing Obamacare  have been delayed, curtailed, or possibly killed by disagreements within the GOP.

But amid all the chaos of President Trumps first six months in office, he has managed to enact some measures that have a concrete effect on Americans lives. Heres how Trump has changed America in the first eighth (or sixteenth) of his presidency:

Put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court

Though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell deserves the credit for stealing President Obamas final Supreme Court appointment, technically it was Trump who replaced the late Justice Antonin Scalia with an equally conservative 49-year-old justice. As FiveThirtyEight notes, in his first few months on the job, Justice Gorsuch has proven to be just what conservatives were hoping for:

Gorsuch, in fact, may settle to the right of Scalia. In each of the 15 cases hes weighed in on so far, Gorsuch has sided with the courts single most conservative member, Justice Clarence Thomas. More than that, hes joined every concurring opinion that Thomas has issued so far. That is, he didnt just agree with Thomas on the outcomes of the case but also with the reasoning by which those outcomes were reached.

Some justices have moved to the left during their time on the court, and you never know when a conservative will surprise you by repeatedly saving Obamacare. So far Gorsuch has only been the deciding voice on two votes: one that made it harder to file some class-action claims, and another that made it more difficult for death-row inmates to make inadequate legal representation part of their appeal.

End the Paris Climate Agreement

In June, President Trump announced that the U.S. would pull out of the Paris climate accord. He said he decided to withdraw because the deal would hurt the American economy and U.S. workers, though experts say thats untrue. He reportedly saw disappointing our European allies as a secondary benefit.

President Trump has taken a number of other steps that have alarmed environmentalists, such as approving the Dakota Access Pipeline project and clearing the way for the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. In his first 100 days, Trump rolled back around two dozen environmental rules and regulations.

Its impossible to measure the precise effect of Trumps actions, since many say the Paris agreement isnt aggressive enough anyway, and other world and local leaders are taking action regardless of White House policy. But the fact that the leader of the worlds second-largest source of climate pollution is working against solving global warming certainly takes us one step closer to a terrifying future.

Enact a (Partial) Travel Ban

While its a far, far cry from the total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States that Trump called for on the campaign trail, he has managed to prevent some Muslims and all refugees from entering the country for the next few months.

The executive order Trump signed in January banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days, and blocked all refugees for 120 days. Following a disastrous rollout and a number of legal challenges, the administration issued a revised travel ban in March. Late last month, the Supreme Court said a version of that ban could go into effect as we await arguments on the constitutionality of the order in October.

After even more legal wrangling, the travel ban is currently only barring two groups from the U.S.: 1) People from Libya, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan who have no familial connection with a resident of the U.S., and 2) all refugees, even if they have a relationship with a U.S. resettlement agency. Lawyers for Hawaii, which is challenging the ban, said there are about 24,000 refugees who have a formal assurance from a resettlement agency, yet cannot enter the country.

Build a (Prototype) Border Wall

Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it might be Trumps most famous campaign pledge. Six months into his administration, were still a long, long way from the president making good on that promise, but construction will soon be underway.

The problem is that, regardless of what Trump decrees, he needs Congress to provide the money. (Oh, and by the way: the U.S. will be paying for the wall.) An internal Department of Homeland Security report estimated that it would cost $21.6 billion to seal the border with another 1,250 miles of wall and fencing. The Trump administration asked for $3.6 billion in the 2017 and 2018 budgets to build about 100 miles of wall. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill with just $1.6 billion for 74 miles of fencing.

The idea of an impenetrable border wall still sounds highly implausible (especially now that Trump wants it to be coated in solar panels). But DHS is moving forward with the plan. In March the government began accepting bids from contractors to build prototype walls, and last week DHS said preliminary preparations for the construction are underway. The New York Times reports:

Engineers are drilling and taking soil samples to determine what type of barriers would be most effective in the different types of geography along the border, said David Lapan, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

The drilling and soil testing are taking place in El Paso; Santa Teresa, N.M.; Calexico, Calif.; and the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. Mr. Lapan said the testing has been completed in El Paso and Calexico. The agency has identified the San Diego area and the Rio Grande Valley as priority regions for new border walls. The [U.S. Army Corps of Engineers] will begin work in the San Diego area in August.

Crackdown on Illegal Immigration

Trumps most consequential immigration-related action may be his expansion of deportation priorities. In 2014, the Obama administration prioritized members of gangs; those convicted of felonies or aggravated felonies; and those suspected of or engaged in terrorist or espionage activity for deportation. An executive order that President Trump signed in January broadened the priorities for deportation to include people who have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense, which could include anyone who entered the country illegally.

The order gave rank-and-file Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents more discretion about who to target, and led to a significant increase in arrests. According to USA Today, ICE arrested an average of 13,085 people each month from February through June. The average in the last three months of the Obama administration was 9,134 arrests per month.

As Vox explains, ICE agents arent being totally indiscriminate in who they arrest, but it appears that theyre more willing to go after easy targets. ICE said that 75 percent of the immigrants arrested in the first 100 days of the Trump administration had some previous criminal conviction (which may have been minor).

Its not clear why or how ICE picked up the other 10,000 immigrants, who had no criminal record but got arrested by immigration agents anyway. But the anecdotal evidence thats emerged over the past few months indicates that ICE agents are going after immigrants they have already identified and tracked: either people who already have prior orders of deportation or who have been ordered to check in with ICE at regular intervals.

Reports of large raids and ICE targeting people in vulnerable situations  like people reporting domestic violence and a woman with a brain tumor  have created a new wave of fear in immigrant communities. But while there are more arrests under Trump, deportations are actually down. There were an average of 22,705 deportations per month in the last three months of the Obama administration, but from February to June, an average of 16,895 people were deported each month. There was already a large backlog in federal immigration courts before the Trump administration started adding to the ranks of those up for deportation.

Still, the Trump administration claims the presidents policies are deterring people from attempting to enter the country illegally in the first place. The number of people arrested while trying to cross the southwest border is down 40 percent since Trump took office. Its too early to tell if thats an aberration or the start of a long-term trend.

Deregulation

Shortly after taking office President Trump signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new regulation, and established task forces in every agency for removing job killing regulations and increasing economic opportunity. Working with congressional leaders, Trump made unprecedented use of the obscure Congressional Review Act to quickly undo 13 regulations passed under President Obama. Last week the administration announced that it has already withdrawn or delayed 860 proposed regulations.

While many conservatives applaud Trump for getting the government out of peoples lives, critics point out that regulations arent inherently bad. For instance, the Obama measures Trump did away with made it harder for mentally ill people to buy a gun, required government contractors to disclose labor-law violations, and prohibited broadband providers from tracking customers online activity without their permission.

Plus, the near-standstill in issuing new regulations has created problems in some industries. According to Politico, the two-for-one order is believed to be holding up long-awaited regulations, such as an Environmental Protection Agency rule on the disposal of mercury by dentists and the Federal Aviation Administrations guidelines for the operation of commercial drones over people. Several liberal groups have already sued Trump over the two-for-one order, and consumer and environmental groups may follow if agencies dont start issuing regulations.

But for now, the White House is counting deregulation as an achievement.

As you see, on a daily basis, were getting rid of regulation, Trump said last month. My administration has been laser-focused on removing the government barriers to job growth and prosperity.
do famous people not lock there doors

didn't they learn a thing from the bling ring cases?

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it says the burglar broke a door

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I can't with this nonsense. It was a breakin not a walkin.

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smh at people being harsh towards you, when 99% of ONTD can't be bothered to read...



While this post says that they broke the door, iirc the celebrities robbed by the bling ring didn't always lock their doors. I think they figured that nobody was going to just walk up and into their homes and steal their stuff? I don't trust anybody, though, and that sentiment would double if I was a celeb.

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Who vacations in Canada? Ontario no less.



I say this as a Canadian living in Ontario. Glad nobody was hurt though!

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LOL, my parents just left for a vacation in Vancouver yesterday

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hey! Vancouver's been getting pretty nice weather lately.

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Lmao

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It's honestly giving me immense joy knowing that a Hollywood celebrity is probably getting eaten alive by blackflies and mosquitoes while on vacation like the rest of us plebs.





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i see the double decker tourist bus in toronto every day and i'm like.......... why... (and this summer specifically) it's raining...

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my parents in a few weeks

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Hilary Duff's house, apparently.

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Maybe ppl who ski or whatever

I would visit vancouver cos its pretty or montreal tbh but its def not at the top of my list lool

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Well, she was in the Muskoka region, which makes sense as there are lots of rich ~summer homes there. Muskoka is beautiful and the perfect spot for a relaxing lake trip tbh

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Someone who's trying to kidnap Meghan Markle and steal her life so she can become a duchess.

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two of my friends are actually heading to canada next week lol, though i think they're headed for vancouver

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wow @ this disrespect.

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HDU @ your lack of patriotism. Tbf a lot of Americans like coming here because their money is worth more here.



I scratching my head at Dorset, Ontario tho but I assume she must have friends or family there.



Edited at 2017-07-24 03:33 am (UTC)

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how dare u !

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Probably spending time with her son's paternal side of the family.

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lollll I'm heading to Vancouver for a week next month.

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honey, your toronto-centric bias is showing. ontario has a lot to offer for those who actually want to see it.

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Excuse you, I live right near where she was and it's insanely busy here in the summer.





Now in the winter .. that is a different story.

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$100,000 is a lot of money in jewelry O_O



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her ex was a pro hockey player whose family owns a ton of furniture stores. her engagement ring was huge and gaudy

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omg wat that sucks

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Alarm never went off? Either it wasn't turned on or it was a shitty system.

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It wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't on, I feel like when the whole bling ring thing happened a lot of the houses' alarms weren't on, iirc at one the door wasn't even locked they just walked in. And Paris had a key under her mat.

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Dorset, Ontario?



Girl, what!? You're rich - go to France.

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Lmaooooo

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Mte

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I was kind of wondering if she was visiting her ex's family as weird as that sounds.

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doesn't sound that weird at all, their still her kids grand parents (and aunts and uncles etc). she's on good terms with her ex so i wouldn't be surprised. and cottage country is nice wherever you go (as long as the weather is nice).

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Oh sis

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aw man. that must feel violating as fuck.

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Yeah imagine if her son had been home D:

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I can't imagine having 100,000 dollars worth of anything

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Lol same. Probably the most valuable things I own are my vinyl album collection (a few collectibles in the mix) and musical instruments (which still ain't much at all.)

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get money bitch

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Sis is moving up in the world, from just pap walking outside a Starbucks to being a special guest star at a Chipotle parking lot.

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excuse you she's on a hit tv show called Younger (TV Land Wednesdays @ 10pm)

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We know. There's a post about it every 4 hours.

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I wonder if she'll send me merch if I she reads here I know all the words to So Yesterday & If You Say That's Gay.

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Ugh, it SUCKS having your place broken into. Definitely a creepy feeling so I can empathize with her.



Our current place was broken into while we were in the process of moving in some years ago, so not much was here at the time, and only a couple of items were actually stolen from inside - the thieves cut and stole the copper wiring from UNDER the house since that was their main goal, they were just opportunistic about the other stuff. They used a crowbar on the backdoor to get right to the power unit to shut it off.

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that's fucking scary. i remember when my house was robbed. i was 15 and we were on vacation at the beach for the week and my brother called me to ask me if we had all come home that day. the top lock of the front door was locked (we never locked it & so he didnt lock it when he left the house that day) and his stereo was on in his room. they took over $50k worth of my mother's jewelry including her engagement ring and her original wedding band (my father constantly bought her newer versions of her rings over the years). they came in through the window in the dining room that we never locked bc we lived in the burbs and who locks their doors there?! us after that, that's fucking who. my mom was devastated, i was scared to go to sleep in my own house and my father was furious. we knew who did it, we could just never prove it. my next door neighbor had fallen in with the bad crowd and he and his friends would brag to me and my best friend about selling drugs and stealing from people. all of a sudden he and his friends had all these brand new sneakers and expensive clothing and watches. we were 15. i know his parents didnt buy him that bc they were broke as fuck. when i confronted him on it he laughed at me and said no. karma came their way though less than a year later though and i didnt feel bad when it did.



bottom line: lock your doors and set your alarms.

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Omg bb I'm so sorry!  Ugh, we have a VERY strong hunch as to who broke into our place a few years ago, too, but can't prove it. The fact that the guy had helped us put up a fence in our yard in exchange for an old car only to bitch about not getting enough for the car afterwards (he always took old cars off people's hands to sell for extra cash), on top of his dad being an electrician and knowing how to safely cut wires and shit points us right to him. Plus he has a history of breaking/entering according to his family, not to mention he knew we weren't actually living there yet, so I have no doubt in my mind.

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bc we lived in the burbs and who locks their doors there?!







but I'm sorry that happened to you and your family.

but I'm sorry that happened to you and your family.

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Nobody ever locked the doors in my hometown. They might now. But I remember my sister or me locking the doors once and my parents were pissed because no one knew where the keys were. 

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This was in like 2002 and there was zero crime in this suburb. I lived in one of the richest counties in the country too so no one ever assumed. My mother even said all the years we lived in the city she took ALL of her jewelry with her when we went on vacay and moving to the burbs kinda gave a false sense of security.

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For years, my family's house was not locked. I surely never locked it from the inside. Well, one night, I had a gut feeling to lock my doors for the first time in a long time. Around 8 pm, I hear the door handle make a noise and someone tried pushing the door in. This was the back door, by the way. After that, I made sure to always lock the doors. What would have happened if I didn't lock the doors that night? I was less than 5 feet from the door.

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That's terrible! I remember when my apartment got robbed; they ate the Rocher chocolates I had in my underwear drawer and left the wrappers on top of the dresser, and stole a loose Valium in my jewelry box. I had a lot of nice silver jewelry, and the thief stole it all. He also stole my Walkman and CDs I had in a case. Ugh. That was the last time I left the deadbolt unlocked.



How did karma get the thieves who broke in your house? I hope they got fucked over. I hate thieves.

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People, post your vacay pics and hashtag with #latergram after you come home. be smart.

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that's exactly what i do

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that's smart

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I'm gonna do exactly this next time I go anywhere!

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I do this with... everything. No one needs to know exactly where I'm at, tbh.

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Same

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If I'm checking in, I do it as I leave. Otherwise, pictures are posted when I'm home, or the next day. No hashtag used to denote time.

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i dont even hashtag it i just post old pics like why would i tell you where i am right now bitch nah you're getting a version of me from within the past year, that's all u need to know



Edited at 2017-07-24 02:18 am (UTC)

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I just posted this long story about living alone and being scared, but there are perks to that. Since none of my friends live alone, I have them come dogsit and have a "vacation home" while I'm out of town. My apartment is never empty, haha.

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its so easy to find out EVERYTHING about a person.

i was trying to explain this to my friend and she was like "nah you're paranoid"



so i picked a random on instagram and showed her that JUST THROUGH INSTAGRAM i was able to find out EXACTLY where this person lived and basically figure out their work schedule. and it hardly took any work.



people take photos of their houses, of their street signs, of the numbers on their houses, the view from their homes. they leave mail that shows their address in the photos, etc. its simple as fuqqqqqq to stalk people now

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why is it always a lady pond and never like a lady tornado

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maybe that should be the new standard for wlw coming out speeches lmao



'mom, dad, i got swept up in the lady tornado'

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Lady Monsoon.

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This would be a great name for a superhero. Or a drag queen.

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Lmaoo

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Because everybody knows tornados are male because they are strong, duh.

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My life is one big roll around the lady tornado

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i wouldn't be surprised if andy cohen had it trademarked

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I'm dying at these responses

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makes wizard of oz feel more exciting tbh

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helen hunt took that one

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how do you dip into a tornado?

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Lady Tornado sounds like a roller derby team

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Maybe say caught in a her-icane or something.

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Would you take a dip in the lady pond for Charlize, ONTD?







(I mean, been there, done that, livin' in the pond -- but esp. for her, of course.) (I mean, been there, done that, livin' in the pond -- but esp. for her, of course.)

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I myself am already captain on a ship that sails the lady oceans but Charlize would be free to come aboard any time she wanted.

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"The ultimate gift ship has sailed. A while ago. It's probably in Fiji by now."

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Charlize should take another "dip" with me!

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i think i've taken more strokes in the lady lake than the pond

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she is incredibly hot

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lmao i remember the first time i've watched her in anything was Monster and I was surprised she was actually beautiful irl lmaoooooo

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Lmaoooo

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http://people.com/movies/charlize-theron-opens-up-about-the-night-her-alcoholic-father-was-killed-by-her-mother/ I was just reading on People about how her mom shot and killed her alcoholic father. What an insane story.

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I thought the story was that Charlize actually shot him but her mom covered and said she did it?

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no thats the plot line from Quantico

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I believe he was abusive if I remember the story correctly.

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I dove into diq dam and never came out again to breathe

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Not really here for more perpetuation of women being a phase for other women on their way for solidifying their love of men. Reads like such a male phantasy.

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welcome to ONTD, home to the furthest reaches on the internet

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I too hate when humans are complex beings with their own experiences that don't align with what I want to "read".

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Of course! I saw her in person when she was doing promo for Young Adult (they had a screening at a local theater and a Q&A afterward) and she is just stunningly gorgeous. Her skin was glowing. I have never seen someone else so pretty irl.

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Y E S. i can quote it. its SO good. one of my faves for sure.

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That movie is severely underrated.

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i'm already dwelling at the bottom of the lady pond

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he had a very intense discussion with 50 about if he was on the DL and booty eating....

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Love her.



Also I so apologize for this to comment but has anyone seen girl's trip? my mom wants to see it with me and I'm not sure thats appropriate lol.

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i saw it last night. it depends on how you two's relationship is with regards to being open about sex.

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I was born in the lady pond, actually. Made the migration from the pond to the lady ocean not that many years ago. It was scary, sometimes even grueling, but once I made it it was worth it

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Things have been mostly good for Nigerias oil industry in recent months. The government negotiated a peace with the militants that wreaked havoc on the oil transport infrastructure in the Niger Delta and output has been growing steadily, hitting 1.733 million bpd last month. However, one problem remains: oil theft.

Bloombergs Paul Wallace reports that according to Wood Mackenzie estimates almost a third of the crude that flows along pipelines in the Delta ends up in the hands of thieves. Thieves, who often cause pipeline leaks like the one that led to the closure of the 60,000-bpd Agbada flow station last month.

The oil theft problem is not new and Abuja and oil field operators have tried different approaches to solving it. Operators, such as Shell, are using surveillance helicopters, drones, and wellhead cages, Wallace reports, but according to industry sources, nothing seems to be doing the trick.

The federal Nigerian government, for its part, is swinging between the summary destruction of the illegal refineries in the Delta that process the stolen crude and an initiative to legalize them and organize them into a modular refinery consortium. Just last year, the army destroyed 181 illegal refineries and confiscated oil and diesel worth about US$1.3 billion. Now, Abuja is negotiating with Niger Delta communities on the legalization of the illicit processing facilities. Related: Aggressive U.S. Oil Sanctions Could Bankrupt Venezuela

The Niger Delta has been a sore spot for Nigerian governments for years. The communities living in the oil-rich region only get the scraps from the revenues flowing from the oil wealth they sit on with jobless rates sky-high, especially among the youth. According to the militant groups that crippled the countrys oil industry over the last two years, its this poverty that is driving them to violence, so the governments efforts to appease these groups had focused on proposals that would create jobs and redirect more of the oil revenues to the Delta communities, where about 50 percent of people live on less than US$2 a day.

Also prompted by the militant attacks and oil theft losses has been a recent restart of oil exploration in the North. Muhammadu Buharis administration has been eager to diversify away from the troublesome Niger Delta, but the North may hold pretty similar challenges, if not worse. The northeastern state of Borno, AFP notes, is the stronghold of Islamist group Boko Haram, and any oil and gas discovery in the region would likely exacerbate the violence.

Last week, Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu told media that the federal government had approved a new oil policy that addressed the most pressing issues Nigeria faces with regard to its oil wealth, including the situation in the Delta. Although he did not disclose details, he said that the government focused on stability and consistency in the oil business in the Delta.

It is clear that nothing short of a comprehensiveand viableplan for the economic transformation of the Niger Delta will do the trick. There are thousands of miles of pipelines crisscrossing the region and surveillance is challenging, to put it mildly. Even more challenging is responding to attacks on infrastructure. The only way to put an end to the thefts is find the thieves something else to do.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
OPEC seems to be willing to let exempt members Libya and Nigeria boost their crude oil output further before asking them to join the supply control deal aimed at propping up prices. Thats according to Bloombergs Ben Sharples, reporting on a meeting of OPEC ministers ahead of a wider ministerial meeting today in St. Petersburg.

Sharples noted that both Nigeria and Libya have signaled they are not opposed to capping their production at a certain level, over 1 million bpd for both. Libya, he added, had said it would be willing to stop building production when it hits 1.25 million barrels daily. Nigerias oil minister said earlier this year Abuja is targeting 1.8 million bpd before it considers joining the cut.

The oil cartel seems optimistic about the effect of the production cut deal despite falling compliance rates and growing production both in OPEC and in the U.S., which is not a party to the deal. Reuters quoted secretary general Mohammed Barkindo as saying that although so far progress with the rebalancing of global oil supply has been slow, it should pick up in the second half of the year.

As drivers of this acceleration in supply decline, Barkindo pointed to the satisfactory compliance rates among OPEC members and its partners, three consecutive weeks of falling U.S. crude oil inventories as reported by the EIA, and recovering demand. Related: Daily OPEC Oil Prices Now Public For The First Time Ever

Yet, Russia may beg to differ with OPEC on the issue of Nigeria and Libya joining the cuts. In an interview with the Financial Times ahead of the ministerial meeting, Alexander Novak said the two African producers should join the price-propping effort as soon as their output stabilizes.

I think that these countries should join other responsible oil producers and contribute to the market stabilisation initiative as they reach a stable level of output. We believe that once oil output in Libya and Nigeria stabilises, there will be less uncertainty on the market as to their future moves, Novak told the FT.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Iraqs crude oil output could hit 5 million barrels daily by the end of the year, the countrys Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi told Iraqi media, adding that these projections will not be affected by any fluctuations.

According to OPECs latest Monthly Oil Market Report, in June Iraq pumped 4.5 million barrels of crude daily, up from 4.44 million bpd in May, according to secondary source data.

Exports in June averaged 3.2 million bpd, according to cargo loading data cited by Reuters. Thats up substantially from the 2.69 million bpd average for May and follows a decision by Baghdad to split the crude oil it exports into two grades, Basra Light and Basra Heavy, which prompted some field operators to boost output.

Al-Luaibis announcement of production growth plans comes ahead of a meeting of oil ministers today in St. Petersburg, to discuss how the oil production deal is progressing and what further steps the partners need to take to accelerate this progress. It also comes a week after Ecuador announced it would no longer comply with its obligations under the deal as it needs oil revenues to patch up its budget.

Iraq was perhaps the least willing OPEC member to take part in the deal. To the last day, Baghdad insisted it should be exempted from any cuts along with Nigeria and Libya due to its ongoing battle with IS that requires oil-export money. That Al-Luaibis announcement comes now that the deal was extended by another nine months, to March 2018, strongly suggests Iraq may follow Ecuador out the door.

Iraq is the second-largest oil exporter in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia. Under the November 2016 deal terms, it agreed to cut 210,000 bpd from its daily crude oil output, but to date has fallen short of hitting this target.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Earlier this week, Ecuadors Oil Minister Carlos Perez announced that the country would no longer abide by its commitment to the Vienna Accord.

Thats the OPEC-Russia deal to cut oil production and boost prices.

Now, pundits have been quick to misinterpret that as the first splintering of OPEC on its oil price regimen.

Actually, it may indicate far less than meets the eye.

Now, the Vienna Accord took effect in January.

Despite some questions about the equation between production on the one hand and exports on the other that agreement had held. It initially supported higher prices.

However, that scenario has more recently come under some pressure from the stubborn rise in production in the U.S. (not a party to the OPEC/non-OPEC deal).

In the aggregate, OPEC remained faithful to the commitment with the association at or above the 100 percent compliance level until June. After that, there had been some retrenchment amid signs the agreement might be experiencing some pushback.

Some of this has been the frustrating recent decline in prices as OPEC exports, as a whole, began to increase  and American production rose even higher.

And then there was the signal from Saudi Arabia that the basis for the accord may be wearing thin. Riyadh telegraphed both a rise in production and in exports. Related: Daily OPEC Oil Prices Now Public For The First Time Ever

Still, no OPEC member officially indicated it would not abide by its part of the cuts until Monday. Ecuador became the first.

Ecuadors Oil Production is in Chinas Hands Anyway

Now to put this in perspective, as one of the smallest OPEC producers, Ecuador had been contributing less than 17,000 barrels a day to the effort.

And then theres the reality behind the cash-strapped nations situation.

As I discussed here in Oil & Energy Investor a few years ago, heavy Chinese loans to both the central government and national oil company Petroecuador resulted in the country becoming the first OPEC member to lose control over its own crude oil exports.



Instead, oil revenue was now under the control of Beijing as repayment for the debt incurred.

The situation facing Ecuador had telegraphed what could be the future for both Brazil and Peru, where Chinese funds had also been advanced. It also demonstrated that the lending policy had morphed.

Initially, the loans had resulted in exports of oil back to mainland China. Now, the target end user of the oil was less important to Beijing than the control over revenue.

But Ecuadors defection has introduced the prospect of a broader unraveling of the entire Vienna Accord.

In his defense, Perez had noted that his country has some flexibility in addressing its OPEC production quota. While never made public (these sidebar concessions rarely are), my sources confirm the arrangement exists.

But to see whether Ecuadors defection  with an out or not  will result in the rest of the signatories of the Vienna Accord will fall like dominoes, we need to look at this from a different perspective

Why Ecuadors Defection Doesnt Matter

You see, there are other prospects afoot that indicate the current OPEC production levels are likely to be maintained and may even be deepened.

First, the Saudis introduced the possibility that Libya and Nigeria be included in the cuts.

Under the current deal, both countries, despite being members of OPEC, are not included in the accord. Nigeria has thus far rejected the idea of cutting production.

Yet the realities within both are already producing the same result. Nigeria has renewed fighting in the Delta, once again putting primary oil production in jeopardy. Civil unrest is again expanding while the central government is unable to protect oil drilling from insurgents.

My contacts in foreign companies operating there indicate a paralysis in extractions is already underway.

The Libyan environment is even less stable. This is not civil unrest. It is civil war and its intensifying.

Both fields and export facilities are once again at risk. This is going to be a continuing source of uncertainty moving forward. The overwhelming view among observers is that it will lead to overall lower production and export totals.

Second, the OPEC member widely tough to be the main candidate for first defection has mounting problems if its own.

Venezuela is experiencing a massive and worsening financial crisis.

National oil company PDVSA is suffering an accelerating contraction in production at the same time as its debt becomes untenable. The daily production level is now down to 1.9 million barrels, the lowest in more than 25 years.

This despite Venezuela having the largest reserves in the world, greater than even Saudi Arabia. Related: New Solar Tech Produces 50% More Energy Than Silicon Cells

But this is heavy oil situated in the Orinoco River belt. It requires massive capital infusions and technology to develop.

PDVSA cannot provide either. To make matters worse, as this export revenue flow shrinks, Caracas is also subject to an increasing amount of it having to go to repay Chinese and Russian loans.

Venezuelas Collapse Would Overshadow Anything Ecuador Can Do

Theres a consensus emerging among international market players I talk to that PDVSA is going to experience what amounts to an implosion in short order.

The central government is already showing all the signals of a failed state. PDVSA, meanwhile, has begun to reflect the elements of a failed national oil company.

The difference between Ecuador and Venezuela is a marked one. The former is a minor cog in the global oil picture. The latter has been a huge factor.

The Venezuelan decline in both production and exports will be more important in maintaining the OPEC decline in both than any other consideration.

Finally, Riyadh has introduced its own contribution.

The Saudis have indicated they may be prepared to cut almost 1 million barrels a day from their own production levels. Remember, we are now in the initial rollout of a 5 percent IPO in Saudi Aramco, the largest state-controlled oil producer on the planet.

The value of that float depends upon the underlying value of Aramco. That, in turn, requires as high a market price for crude oil as possible, thereby obliging the Saudis to support a rise in price.

The IPO should result in the largest sovereign wealth fund ever constructed. That fund will result in massive worldwide investments intended to diversity Saudi revenue flows.

And that may be a compelling reason for a Saudi decline in oil production as the country moves into its post crude period.

By Dr. Kent Moors via Oil & Energy Investor

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The 4th OPEC- Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, has  as expected- been a renewal of commitment by the leading producers Saudi Arabia, Russia and others, to stick to their current production cut agreement.



The markets reaction at present can at best be seen as lukewarm. Even Saudi minister of energy Khalid Al Falihs statement about a possible a Saudi export cut to the USA, or OPECs secretary general Mohammad Barkindos call for higher compliance have not yet changed the still bearish views in the market at all. Current feelings in the market are largely linked to higher production volumes in Libya and Nigeria, combined with the threats by smaller OPEC countries, such as Ecuador, to leave the deal.

When asked by the press, Saudi oil minister, Khalid Al Falih, stated that the overall situation has been improving substantially. Demand for crude oil and products in Asia, especially China and India, has been growing at a healthy rate, which is expected to continue into 2018. Al Falih admitted that there is still a need to balance the market, but he rightly stated that the overall rate of OPEC compliance is almost at 98 percent, which is a level nobody expected. The oil cartels historical compliance rate has always been much lower.

Suhail Mohammed Al Mazrouei, UAEs minister of energy, stated that there are several challenges in the market at present. The main challenge for the current OPEC-Non-OPEC production cut is that several countries need additional revenues to fuel economic recovery/diversification, such as Iraq, Iran or Libya, while at the same time, some production is returning to the market.

The U.S. shale oil sector is still growing, even if production growth is flattening out and production per well has fallen. Additional wells drilled are not completed, but are ready to produce when oil prices rise. Related: Libyas Oil King Wont Be Stopped By OPEC



OPECs overall strategy and compliance is definitely challenged by two members, Nigeria and Libya. Nigerias production has witnessed a comeback during the first months of 2017 as security increased in the main oil producing regions and technical challenges were solved. Libyas overall production has also been growing, or has come back on stream. These issues have been discussed during the meeting in St Petersburg, and calls are now made by the OPEC leaders on Nigeria and Libya to expect future production cuts too.

For the coming months, no new production cuts are expected. Only a possible unilateral Saudi 1 million bpd production cut, partly caused by technical issues on the Al Manifa field, which has been reported by the media in full. Al Falih and his UAE counterpart admitted that there is still room for improvement but reiterated that storage levels worldwide have shown a drawdown. Saudi Arabias move to cut U.S. supplies will have also a price effect. Still, a visible effect of these measures is expected in the market later than originally was expected. Al Mazrouei indicated that a full recovery is to be expected around Q1-2 2018.

The financial markets, however, are looking at it from totally different perspective. The still bearish sentiments in the market still seem to weigh oil prices down faster than any bullish catalyst can make up for.



Figures, such as provided by tanker-tracker PetroLogistics, showing that OPECs supply in July will be the highest this year, while compliance has gone down from 110% in May to 92% in June, have a big negative effect. Goldman Sachs statement that peak oil demand could be reality in 2024 due to vehicle efficiency measures is another negative development in the market. It seems that the Bears are currently coordinating their efforts with the anti-fossil fuel lobby to bring prices down. Media analysis is in general negative, based on a possible perceived misinterpretation of reality.

When looking at the news, however, and diving deeper in the respective oil producing regions and their potential risks, it almost looks as if the current bearish reporting is based on either wishful thinking or fake news. The optimism about the production potential of Libya and Nigeria is highly overrated, especially when looking at the potential risks for these two major producers. Analysts seem to ignore news about the growing instability in one of Nigerias main producing regions, the Niger Delta. Even that no real insurgency at present is in place, or major attacks have occurred on oil installations, a conflict is brewing between the Nigerian army and the Igbos in the region. Groups have already threatened to attack again oil installations. At the same time, international oil companies have been warned to relocate their Nigerian HQs to the Niger Delta or otherwise face dire consequences. Another major issue not being analyzed is the position of the president, Muhammadu Buhari. His faltering health is a major destabilizing factor in Nigeria. His power is now waning, as other northerners want to preserve Northern (Islamic) rule in Nigeria. The latter could lead to a conflict with the Christian south and the Niger Delta.

Libyas situation is currently looked upon as another main threat to OPECs cut agreement. Statements made by Libyas NOC, indicating that a production of 1 million bpd will be possible by the end of July have been rattling the oil market. At present, Libyas production in June has been set at 852,000 bpd, while sources now claim that production in July already has already passed 1.05 million bpd. These figures are considered to be a threat to the agreement between OPEC and Non-OPEC. Production capacity or volumes on a field dont necessarily mean that this oil is also entering the global market. Instability in the two main oil producing regions of Libya is still very high. Clashes between rivalling groups occur on a daily basis, interfering with production and transportation. Libyan sources are also expecting that a new military operation is in the making by the forces supporting Libyan general Haftar. Main targets will be the western oil fields and the power base of Tripoli. If this weeks meetings between Egypt-UAE-Russia backed Haftar and UN-EU backed Serraj are not successful, a new period of military confrontation is to be expected. The latter will for sure block a large part of Libyas oil capacity.

Other production constraints are also not assessed or overlooked. The dire situation in Venezuela and the financial strength of U.S. shale oil companies are two of them. Many shale companies still have extraordinary high debt levels, while production has only been partially hedged. Related: China Outpaces Competition In Renewable Race

Overall, OPECs current strategy is irrelevant as long as all these constraints and threats are not taken onboard by the financial gurus in New York, Chicago, London and Hong Kong. As long as hedge-funds, banks and family offices, are convinced of the so-called oil glut hitting the market, nothing that Saudi Arabia, Russia or Abu Dhabi, decide will have an impact on oil prices. An Egyptian saying however could now be the right approach Maalesh, Inshallah Bukra. Maybe, if God wants, it will happen tomorrow. And it will, as fundamentals are clearly indicating that production is not going to grow without a multitrillion investment spree in the coming years. Supply will not be able to keep up with the expected demand growth.



And before analysts again look at global oil stocks and their perceived historical levels, it needs to be remembered that if oil companies are not nearly investing enough in new production. Consequences of this underinvestment are increased production decline in older field. Average production decline in oil fields is 6-8 percent per year, but on older this number is between 10-12 percent. This will undoubtedly take more production off the market than OPEC and non-OPEC are able to replace in the short-term. However, let the market play for longer, and set up an OPEC waiting game, and the cartel will remove more oil than is needed. For Saudi Arabia another 5-6 months is nothing looking at the future, the market could be heading to backwardation before the Aramco IPO will take place.

By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Vietnam has called off a drilling expedition in the South China Sea after reported pressure from Beijing, the BBC reports, citing an unnamed industry source. The source said that the company that was drilling in the Block 136-03, a unit of Spains Repsol, has been asked to stop drilling. The report has been confirmed by a diplomatic source in Vietnam, the BBC added.

Oilprice reported at the start of this month that Vietnam had allowed a drillship Deepsea Metro I to start drilling in the Block 163-03 about 250 miles off the Vietnamese coast. The problem with the block is not just that it is in disputed waters. China, which calls it Wan-an Bei 21, had already leased the block to another driller, Brightoil  a Hong Kong company with close ties to Beijing. Recently, however, the company denied having the drilling rights to Wan-an Bei 21, the BBC notes.

The report about the start of drilling came soon after a week earlier, a senior Chinese military official cut short a visit to Vietnam. Fan Changlong, vice-chairman of Chinas Central Military Commission, was visiting Vietnam for a defense border meeting, as Chinas Xinhua agency reported at the time, but left early because of working arrangements."

The true reason for the departure, the BBC suggested at the time, may have been news about what Deepsea Metro I is doing in the disputed area.



Related: Daily OPEC Oil Prices Now Public For The First Time Ever

China has territorial claims to about 90 percent of the South China Sea, which has put it at odds with its neighbors. Last year, the Philippines won a court case against Beijing regarding its territorial claims but China said at the time that it would ignore the decision of the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration.

The South China Sea may hold 28 billion barrels of oil, according to an estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey from the mid-90s. With technology improvements, this figure could have since increased substantially. Vietnam has welcomed several foreign companies into its oil and gas industry, including Rosneft and Gazprom, as well as Exxon.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
By Kathryn Hickok

Are we missing the trees for the forest in Oregon school funding and education reform debates?

Media reports, school districts, and political leaders usually focus on the big picture: reaching a 100% high school graduation rate so all children have the best chance in life. Thats a great goal. Frequently lost, however, is the fact that every child is an individual. The focus of real-life Oregon parents is helping their kids reach their potential in light of their specific needs and gifts.

These two perspectives shouldnt be at odds. In fact, the second could drive the firstif more parents were empowered to make meaningful choices for their childrens education.

According to the National Education Associations Rankings and Estimates report for 2016 and 2017, counting local, state, and federal funding, current expenditures per Oregon student in Average Daily Attendance are estimated to be $13,230, more than 33 other states. Adding in spending for capital outlays and interest payments, that number increases to $14,911 per student.

Yet, the National Association of Education Progress reports that only 34% of Oregon fourth-graders tested proficient in reading in 2015; and Oregon has the third-worst high school graduation rate in the country.

No one disputes the need for improvements to public schools. But children who need help todayfirst to learn the basics (like reading and math) and then to graduate from high schoolshould get the help they need now. What we ought to do is give Oregon students the power of choice to find their own paths to success.

For lower-income parents, the stakes are high. Nearly half the children born into poverty will stay in poverty as adults. Key to changing that outcome is an education that leads to high school graduation and future employment. Unlike parents with greater means, who can move to another neighborhood or pay out-of-pocket for private schools, lower-income parents often find their children trapped in public schools that do not meet their kids needs. Education Savings Accounts could change that.

Six years ago, Arizona became the first state to pass an Education Savings Account (ESA) law for some K-12 students, and it recently expanded eligibility to eventually include all Arizona children. Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee also have ESA programs limited to certain students, such as those with special needs.

An ESA is analogous to a limited-use debit card for qualifying education expenses. It gives parents who want to opt out of a public school a portion of the per-student state funding to spend on their childs education in other ways. ESAs can fund a wide variety of education-related expenses, including tuition, tutoring, and supplemental materials. Money not used in one year can be rolled over for future education expenses, even college.

But if ESAs let parents spend education funds outside the public school system, would ESAs drain money from public schools? Not necessarily. Schools are funded by local, state, and federal money. ESAs would be funded by only part of the state component. The amount of the ESA deposits is negotiable and would be the biggest driver of their fiscal impact.

Legislators can design an ESA program so that it would be revenue neutral to public schools, or even create a net increase per student who remained in the system. If students leaving public schools took less funding with them than would have been spent if they had remained, schools could reduce their class sizes without a negative impact on per-student funding.

No one can craft a school system that meets every childs needs. Statistical data analysis and bureaucratic goal-setting cant ensure that any particular child makes it to high school graduation or excels in a career. But most parents are keenly aware of their own childrens needs. Giving parents power to find the right fit for their kids would make a world of difference, as any parent knows.

Focusing on the forest (the public school system), Oregon is missing the trees (kids). We should expand the role of parents in achieving better educational outcomes for their children. Weve tried everything else. Parental choice is the future of education reform, and Education Savings Accounts are a fiscally responsible policy solution that can give all kids options now.

Kathryn Hickok is Publications Director at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregons free market public policy research organization. She is also Director of Cascades Childrens Scholarship Fund-Oregon program, which provides privately funded, partial tuition scholarships to Oregon elementary students from lower-income families. A version of this article originally appeared in The Portland Tribune on July 18, 2017.
PPP rally in Punjab for PM resignation 24 July, 2017



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Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Ways that Players Used to Take Advantage of Slot Sites LAHORE: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Sunday took out a rally in the provincial metropolis to force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign from his office before Supreme Court verdict in Panama case involving the ruling family.



Bracing the muggy weather, the participants, occupying jeeps, cars and riding motorcycles and some of them on foot, marched from the Press Club up to Aiwan-i-Iqbal on Egerton Road, covering around one kilometre distance.



Many of them carried placards and banners inscribed with slogans targeting the Sharifs, terming them lutairay (plunderers) and chore (thieves).



The partys senior leader Azizur Rehman Chan, who led the jiyalas Go Nawaz Go rally, said the masses were waiting for a logical end to Panama Leaks case. The prime minister, however, should resign before waiting for the Supreme Court verdict in the case as he (Nawaz Sharif) had lost moral ground to rule the country.



He demanded immediate resignation of the premier, lest any delay in this regard should hit the democratic process in the country.



He alleged that the government removed the PPP banners that had been hoisted for inviting the masses to join the partys rally but, he said, the step could not save the government from accountability.



Mr Chan also criticised the PML-N governments development projects saying it only focused the areas which could help it win wider publicity instead of being beneficial for the public in the long run. Wasting public money on flawed projects was also a sort of corruption and dishonesty, he added.



GUJRAT: The Punjab PPP president Qamar Zaman Kaira led his partys Go Nawaz Go rally here on Sunday that was participated by a large number of the party workers from across the district.



The participants gathered at the Kutchehry Chowk and marched up to the Press Club.



The PPP workers, mostly women, seemed enthusiastic and were carrying party flags and placards inscribed with Go Nawaz Go slogans. They also chanted the slogans demanding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs resignation over Panamagate.



Punjabs former finance minister Tanveer Ashraf Kaira, PPP Gujrat president Zia Mohyuuddin, secretary general Dr Zahid Zaheer and president woman wing advocate Wazirun Nissa Chaudhry were also among those leading the rally that was the partys first major activity in the district since the last general elections. Earlier, Qamar Kaira led a rally from his home town of Lalamusa to Gujrat where another big rally of party workers from Jalalpur Jattan, led by Dr Zahid Zaheer, joined it. According to some observers, participation of party workers from Gujrat city in the rally was thin.



Speaking to the workers on the Press Club lawns, Mr Kaira again asked the prime minister to reveal the names of those elements who were allegedly hatching a conspiracy against PML-N government.



Mr Kaira said all the PPP governments had been facing conspiracies hatched by the state agencies, besides adverse court verdicts, but the party had always exposed the elements behind these conspiracies.



Saying that the days of Nawaz government were numbered, he added that now the publics demand was not limited to just resignation of the premier but the people wanted to see Nawaz Sharif in Adiala Jail. Referring to turncoats leaving the PPP, he said some seasonal migratory birds had been flying towards the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf seeking tickets for next election instead of bringing a change in the country.



He announced that PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would start visiting Punjab districts, including Gujrat, in the next month to meet with the party workers which, he hoped, would bring a new wave in the party for its revival in Punjab.





OKARA: Hundreds of PPP workers led by district president and a former MNA, Chaudhry Sajjadul Hassan, took out a Go Nawaz Go rally from Press Club to Gol Chowk.



The participants holding placards and banners carrying anti-government slogans marched through Ghousia Masjid Chowk and Kutchehry Bazaar to reach Gol Chowk where local party leaders delivered fiery speeches.



Those who spoke included Chaudhry Sajjadul Hassan, city president Alam Sher Lodhi, founder workers Malik Riasat Ali, Sayyed Zakir Hussain Shah, Shahid Saleem Nonari, Asif Baloch, Rana Shakeel Sulehria and Sheikh Najamul Saqib.



They said the premier had been left with no moral or ethical basis for ruling the country following the Joint Investigation Teams findings in Panmama case.



They claimed Nawaz Sharifs disqualification by the apex court was just a matter of days.



Similarly, in Depalpur tehsil the PPP workers took out a rally led by district secretary general Shahzad Ahmed Naul and in Renala Khurd the partys anti-government show was led by tehsil president Rana Abdul Rehman.



SAHIWAL: PPP district president Zaki Chaudhry and 50 others were booked on Sunday under Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) for taking out a Go Nawaz Go rally in the city.



According to police, the PPP local leaders and workers were booked for taking out rallies without seeking permission despite imposition of Section 144 by the district administration.



An FIR (188/17) has been lodged under 16 MPO and section 188 of the PPC.



City SHO Rana Asif Sarwar told reporters that those booked included PPP city president Zaki Chaudhry.



Earlier, local chapter of the party organised a Go Nawaz Go rally from Jogi Chowk to Mazdoor Puli.



Hundreds of party workers including women, led by district, city and tehsil office-bearers participated in the rally where PPP ticket holders of previous election and aspirants for upcoming poll were also present.



Zaki Choudhary told the mediamen that the rally was part of the PPPs campaign in nine divisions of Punjab for making Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resign.



Those who spoke included Mahar Gulam Farid Kathiya, Pir Zafar Shah Khagga, Chaudhry Shafqat Javed, Wajid Ali Doger and Muhammad Ali Bokhari.



SIALKOT: A large number of Pakistan Peoples Party workers on Sunday took out a Go Nawaz Go rally in the city for building pressure on the prime minister for his resignation.



Sialkot PPP President Chaudhry Ejaz Ahmed Cheema led the rally which started at Kutchery Chowk and ended at Allama Iqbal Chowk.



The protesters were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans against the government.



Local PPP leaders Khwaja Awais Mushtaq, Tahir Akhtar Malik, Faisal Gujjar and Azhar Diyal said Nawaz Sharif had no right to stay in power after the JITs report.



KASUR: Scores of PPP workers took out a rally on Sunday against the prime minister demanding his resignation.



Led by PPP local leader Munir Ahmed, the party activists chanted anti-Nawaz slogans.
Turkish president in Saudi Arab to defuse Gulf crisis

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Sunday began a key trip to the Gulf aimed at defusing the standoff over Turkey's ally Qatar, saying no one had an interest in prolonging the crisis.



"Erdogan, whose country has come to Qatar's aid in the dispute, had talks in Jeddah with King Salman who hailed the Turkish leader's efforts in the fight against terrorism and its financing, Saudi state news agency SPA reported.



He also met Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman before leaving for Kuwait for the second leg of his tour.



Erdogan was received by Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who has been mediating to resolve the crisis.



On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with their Shiite rival Iran.



Doha denies the claim and has been strongly backed by Ankara throughout the standoff.



The Turkish president will visit Qatar on Monday for his first face-to-face talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani since the crisis began.



No one has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore, Erdogan said before leaving Istanbul. He accused enemies of seeking to fire up tensions between brothers in the region.



Erdogan praised Qatar's behaviour in the crisis, saying Doha had sought to find a solution through dialogue. I hope our visit will be beneficial for the region, he said.



The crisis has put Turkey in a delicate position, and Erdogan has repeatedly said he wants to see an end to the dispute as soon as possible.



In recent years, Qatar has emerged as Turkey's number one ally in the Middle East, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating over issues including the Syria conflict where both are staunch foes of President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkish base in Qatar



Turkey is also setting up a military base in Qatar, its only such outpost in the region. It has expedited the process since the crisis began and reportedly now has 150 troops there.



From the first moments of the Qatar crisis, we have been on the side of peace, stability, solidarity and dialogue, said Erdogan.



But Turkey, which is also going through a turbulent time with the European Union and the United States, also does not want to wreck its own relations with regional kingpin Saudi Arabia.



As the elder statesman in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia has a big role to play in solving the crisis, said Erdogan, taking care not to explicitly criticise the kingdom.



Erdogan said he supported the mediation efforts of Kuwait's emir, a possible indication Ankara sees Kuwait as the key to solving the crisis.



The Qatari emir said Friday he was ready for talks to resolve the row as long as the emirate's sovereignty is respected.



His call received a cold reception from the UAE's state minister for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, who said he hoped the emir had pledged to reconsider Qatar's position.



Dialogue is necessary, but it should be based on a revision of Qatar's stance, he tweeted.



Erdogan is likely to get a warm welcome in Doha where Turkey has been loudly applauded for sending in food, including fruit, dairy and poultry products by ship and by plane to help Doha beat an embargo.



Turkey has also benefited, with its exports to Qatar doubling in the past month to more than $50 million.



According to the economy ministry, Ankara has sent around 200 cargo planes filled with aid since the crisis began.



Erdogan's tour coincides with a visit to Kuwait by the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, who held talks Sunday with Kuwaiti officials.



A statement said Mogherini paid tribute to Kuwait's relentless mediation efforts in the dispute and called for a resolution through dialogue and without delay.
This June, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) published a report showing that the CIAs post-9/11 torture program constituted a regime of illegal human experimentation. Based on a review of thousands of declassified documents, the report shows that health professionals who designed and implemented the torture program committed a second and related crime: experimental research to investigate the effects of torture on detainees. This research explored the untested hypothesis that torture could psychologically break detainees and aid interrogation.

Senior Anti-Torture Fellow Sarah Dougherty was the lead author of PHRs latest report and explains how she came to these conclusions.

What did you find out in the course of your research?

Sarah Dougherty: In 2010, PHR put out a report showing that CIA health professionals engaged in activities that met the definition of human subjects research and experimentation. Since then, weve reviewed and analyzed extensive new evidence showing that the torture program itself was a regime of experimental research. Psychologists were paid to conduct this research, while doctors, psychologists, and others were tasked with generating data on how these tactics affected the detainees. Our analysis indicates this was done to provide the Bush administration with legal cover in the case of future prosecutions for torture. Such experimentation on non-consenting prisoners violates U.S. law, international law, and medical ethics.

How do you know that this was human experimentation?

SD: Federal law defines human subjects research in the United States: systematic investigation about an interaction or intervention with a living individual thats designed to create generalizable knowledge. The documents we looked at show that the CIA collected data derived from torture sessions, clinical interactions, and manipulation of detention conditions. This data was analyzed and used to create conclusions about how to conduct torture in the future.

Now, by saying that this constituted human experimentation, were not saying any part of it was legitimate. It was junk science peddled by charlatans to add a facade of science to torture. But just because it was flawed, sloppy, and poorly designed doesnt change the fact it was experimentation. The claim that torture could induce learned helplessness  that is, make detainees profoundly passive and depressed  and that this could ultimately aid interrogation, was put forward as a hypothesis. Health professionals then took the basic steps of research whether they knew it or not.

What was the role of the two psychologists who designed the torture program in CIA research?

SD: CIA contract psychologists Dr. James Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen came from the U.S. militarys Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program, which taught survival skills to U.S. personnel in the event of capture. Mitchell and Jessen proposed weaponizing these tactics for use on prisoners  to overcome their resistance to stress rather than build it up. They claimed that this would psychologically break detainees down to the point that they would give up and cooperate with interrogators.

Mitchell and Jessen claimed that torture would work and be safe. None of this was true or supported by any evidence. The SERE tactics were modeled on Cold War techniques designed to coerce false confessions, not produce intelligence. The brutality of the torture program was unlike anything done in the SERE program, and it was done to people who were not volunteers and who could not stop the pain.

This is partly why the CIA framed the torture program as a research endeavor: Mitchell and Jessen needed to describe how these techniques impacted detainees, and they didnt have safety or efficacy data. Their initial research set in motion parallel research by the CIAs Office of Medical Services. Health professionals documented the effects of torture, measured the harm inflicted, developed medical limits for different techniques, and shared their findings inside and outside the CIA.

What shocked you?

SD: I was profoundly disturbed by the torture of Abu Zubaydah, a detainee often referred to as the guinea pig of the CIA program. His waterboarding began in August 2002, and it was apparently so horrific to watch that it moved black site personnel to tears. You can only imagine how excruciating it was for Abu Zubaydah. In at least one instance, he lost consciousness and stopped breathing  that is, he was waterboarded to the point of near-death. This episode had such a profound effect that medical staff continually referenced it in emails throughout the span of the torture program.

These details reinforce that it was the conscious objective of the CIAs program to reduce human beings to the psychological state of tortured dogs in cages. And this was done by health professionals, who are sworn to do no harm and to respect the dignity and autonomy of individuals. Instead, they worked to make torture more clinical, more scientific, more efficient  and they violated basic standards of research and clinical care to do so. Thats something we all need to reflect on.
PLATTSBURGH  A Hudson Falls man who took part in the gunpoint robbery of a Plattsburgh convenience store last winter has been sentenced to 10 years in state prison.

Eric B. Schulz, 23, pleaded guilty to felony counts of robbery, criminal use of a firearm and grand larceny for the Dec. 11 robbery of an Xpress Mart store, during which he and a Clinton County man held up the store at gunpoint and stole more than $1,000.

Clinton County Judge Timothy Lawliss sentenced Schulz to 10 years in prison to be followed by 5 years on parole

Schulz, who has a lengthy criminal record in the Hudson Falls area, will have to serve more than 8 years before becoming eligible for release.

His co-defendant, Rudolph Franklin, 32, of Peru, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Voters in parts of Washington County had an issue with casting their vote because of an error in the way the ballots were printed.
Ukrainian police officers and broadcasts return to city of Kherson after Russian pullout; electricity coming soon, reports AP.
Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg
Law enforcement in the Illinois and Iowa Quad-Cities say that public awareness, collaborative enforcement efforts and aggressive prosecution of repeat offenders is making an impact on the stolen vehicle epidemic that has swept through the area.

Since Jan. 1, Davenport has had 299 reports of stolen vehicles. Davenport Police Maj. Jeff Bladel said at the height of the epidemic, an average of three cars were stolen per day.

That number has dropped down to about one stolen per day, he said.

For the most part, we do believe that the message thats getting out is helping, Bladel said.

The city did see a slight uptick in stolen vehicles, Bladel said. Between July 12 and 13, there were nine reports of stolen vehicles.

At 2:40 a.m. July 14, police recovered a stolen vehicle in the 1000 block of Scott Street and arrested five juveniles.

At 4:42 a.m. July 16, police recovered a stolen vehicle at Sixth and Warren streets and arrested three juveniles.

With the public assistance in addition to the arrests we have made, we are identifying repeat offenders and were able to concentrate our efforts on that, Bladel said.

In April, police across the Quad-Cities held a press conference to announce the Lock it Up Initiative, which urges citizens to lock their vehicles and keep valuables out of plain sight as a way to combat the increase in the number of vehicles stolen that began in 2016.

The following month, the Davenport Police Department released an informational video to further the message.

Bettendorf had 22 incidents of stolen vehicle between Jan. 1 and May 18. After May 18, there has only been one report of a stolen vehicle as of July 19, said Bettendorf Police Capt. Keith Kimball.

Kimball said he believed one of the reasons the numbers are decreasing is law enforcement is apprehending the juveniles involved - sometimes the same ones more than once - and either getting them locked up in juvenile detention or into the juvenile system "and holding them more accountable."

It just shows that the majority of these crimes were being committed by a very small percent of juveniles, and when you get eight or 10 of them locked up or in the juvenile system, that really slows things down, he said.

In Moline, there were 31 vehicle thefts between Jan. 1 and May 1. From May 2 to July 20, there were 11.

Detective Michael Griffin said eight of those were known offender thefts, where a friend, domestic partner or family member was suspected of stealing a vehicle.

Griffin said three of the most recent thefts are believed to be committed by a juvenile crew that took advantage of keys left in the vehicle.

Rock Island had 33 stolen vehicles between January and March, and 16 from April through July 20.

Despite the decrease in numbers, police still urge residents to be vigilant.

One big thing that we continue to push, is for people to lock their cars, remove their keys and valuables from plain site, said Rock Island Deputy Police Chief Jason Foy. Eliminate opportunities.
Congressional Democrats, acknowledging they need to retool their message after last year's election losses, unveiled a new agenda Monday, with Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., playing a key role.

The Moline Democrat, in her third term, joined nine other Democrats in rural Virginia to offer a sharpened emphasis on the U.S. economy, promising better jobs and wages, a lower cost of living and training for workers to better fit into a 21st century economy.

Bustos, who was appointed co-chair of the House's policy and communications committee, has been a more prominent voice in promoting the party in the national media. She has argued that her party place a sharper focus on bread-and-butter issues such as health care and the economy, and after Monday's unveiling, Bustos said she is pleased with the new agenda.

"I think it rings true for what we stand for," Bustos said.

Called "A Better Deal," the plan would invest in infrastructure, create 10 million "good-paying" jobs, stop mergers that would hurt consumers, workers or competition, institute new measures to prevent unreasonable price spikes for prescription drugs and prepare workers for economic challenges by doubling investments in apprenticeships and training. Officials said other proposals would be offered later to build on the agenda.

Bustos said the plan represents a "bubbling up" of ideas developed over the past six months from congressional Democrats bringing back ideas from their districts.

Republicans have increasingly sought to make the argument that Democrats are merely fighting President Donald Trump, rather than offering an agenda of their own. And in some quarters, that view is taking hold. A Washington Post-ABC News poll a week ago said 52 percent of those surveyed said the Democratic Party stands against Trump, rather than for something. Only 37 percent said the party stands for something. A vast majority of Republicans, 82 percent, said the party is just anti-Trump. That's not unexpected, but more than a quarter of Democrats said the same.

"Todays recycled Democrat talking points do nothing to change the fact that the far-left has taken hold of the Party and continues to push a message of more resistance and obstruction," Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. "Until Democrats make a real effort to work with Republicans and President Trump on the priorities voters supported last November, they are going to continue to be lost in the electoral wilderness."

During her remarks in Virginia, Bustos said millions of Americans have been left behind by the economy.

"They dont want a hand out, and they dont want our sympathy. We all know that," she said. "They simply want government and corporations not to work against them. And we're here to say we hear you, we agree with you ..."

She acknowledged that renegotiating trade deals isn't a major focus of the Democrats' agenda at the moment but said more policies will be put forward as time goes on. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly blasted trade deals and promised to rework them.

Bustos is a co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, and she is taking on a greater role in the party's attempt to win control of the House in next year's mid-term elections. A month ago, she also was appointed to a position within the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aimed at spreading the party's message in rural America.
With an abundance of recent rain and the Rock River expected to approach record levels, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has formally declared eight counties, including Rock Island County, disaster areas.

Rauner made the announcement Monday afternoon as part of a news conference at the Illinois Department of Transportation yard in Milan.

"We are declaring disaster area for eight counties so we can be quick with equipment and sandbags and personnel as needed so we can proactively get in front of this," Rauner said.

Rauner said some areas have received as much as 8 inches of rain since Friday, which also coincided with the state receiving requests for more sandbags.

Carroll, Henry, Jo Daviess, Lee, Ogle, Stephenson and Whiteside counties also were declared disaster areas.

Illinois Emergency Management Agency Director James Joseph said the Rock River had been expected to crest at 16.5 feet Tuesday at Moline, tying the record set in 2013. Later Monday, the National Weather Service revised the forecast, saying the river would crest at 15.8 feet Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, the Mississippi River continues to rise. The river measured 15.71 feet Monday night at Lock & Dam 15, Rock Island. Flood stage is 15 feet. It is expected to reach 16.4 feet sometime Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Although Rauner acknowledged that the state could not force residents to leave, he did ask that they comply with requests should conditions deteriorate to that point.

Joseph said the state had received word that some residents in northwest Illinois already have begun to leave their homes.

Although no shelters had been set up yet, Joseph said the state would be prepared in the event residents are asked to leave their homes.

"We will provide any resource that is necessary from a sheltering prospective or whatever resource a community needs in response to the recovery of this event," Joseph said. "We're in very close contact with all the counties, all counties the governor mentioned plus these areas as well to ensure they have every support."

State Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, who is an active member of the Moline Fire Department, issued a statement of support of the governor's declaration.

As a firefighter and paramedic, Im seeing first-hand the effects of this flooding and how it has affected our community, Anderson said. This disaster proclamation will help to ensure that state support continues to be available not only to help affected communities battle rising waters, but also to recover after the floods recede.
UPDATE: The Jo Daviess County Sheriffs Offfice released a statement Monday noting that missing woman Amanda R. Duhack "has been located and is OK. Thanks everyone for their assistance."

Deputies put out a call for information about the whereabouts of Duhack, 38, after she was last seen leaving her home Friday in rural Galena, Ill.

Amanda was driving a blue Chevrolet Uplander minivan with Illinois registration of 2053918. The minivan shown below is similar to the one driven by Duhack.

Duhack is described as a white female, about 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighing 115 lbs. Duhack has brown hair, blue eyes and wears glasses.

No further information is available at this time.
SPRINGFIELD  Gov. Bruce Rauner called on Monday for a second special legislative session in a month, this time after lawmakers ignored his noon deadline for sending him public education-funding legislation with just weeks before the scheduled opening of schools.

Rauner issued the summons for lawmakers to return to the Capitol beginning Wednesday after he held a news conference in Chicago to accuse Democrats who control the General Assembly of holding schoolchildren "hostage" to their political agenda.

"The Democrats in the majority are playing political games with our children's education," he told reporters, while again promising to change the legislation with an amendatory veto. "They seem to be intent on holding up school funding until August when schools need to open."

For weary Illinois taxpayers, it's just the latest flashpoint in an ongoing struggle between the first-term Republican executive and majority legislative Democrats. A special session earlier this this month concluded with Democrats enacting an annual budget  fueled by a 32 percent increase in the income tax rate  over Rauner vetoes. The budget was the first since 2015, ending the longest such stalemate of any state since at least the Great Depression.

It also includes a provision that prohibits the state from issuing state aid to schools unless it's done through an "evidence-based" formula of the type the General Assembly endorsed in May. But threatened with a veto, the Senate never sent Rauner that legislation, prompting the governor's call for special session.

At stake is the Illinois State Board of Education's ability to start processing school-aid payments Aug. 1 and for the school bell to ring mid-month. Administrators at many schools say they have reserves or other means of opening, but some question for how long.

Senate President John Cullerton of Chicago said in a statement Monday that Rauner is confused about what the legislation does and has given conflicting messages about it.

"I'd like to have a conversation with Gov. Rauner in hopes of getting some clarity as to exactly what is going on," Cullerton said in a statement. "We slowed down the process in the Senate in order to let everyone blow off some steam, politically speaking."

The legislation would revise the way schools receive state aid for the first time in two decades. The method funnels money to the neediest school districts first after ensuring that no district receives less money than last school year. That includes a $250 million-a-year grant for the financially troubled Chicago schools for programs funded separately in other districts and a requirement that the state pick up the annual $215 million employer portion of Chicago teachers' pensions.

Rauner contends the $250 million grant was meant to help pay retirement-account costs  something Chicago officials and proponents of the plan reject  and so the extra money is a "bailout" for past pension-payment shortfalls.

Democrats are holding the measure to build pressure, according to House Republican Leader Jim Durkin of Westchester.

"The Democrats want to create and manufacture a school-funding crisis," said Durkin, who appeared with Rauner in Chicago. "I want all schools funded fairly. I want all schools opening on time. We are going to open schools on time. The Democrats cannot stay silent on this issue. Send the bill to the governor."

Illinois is one of just seven states that give its governor the power of amendatory veto. It allows a governor to return legislation with "specific recommendations for change." But according to the state Supreme Court, that does not include changing a bill's "fundamental purpose" or making "substantial or expansive" changes.

Rauner has vowed to excise the Chicago pension payment from the measure. He produced a list last week that showed an amendatory veto of the legislation, known as SB1, would cut $145 million from Chicago schools and distribute it to other districts across the state. But he has not explained who did the analysis or how the numbers were crunched. He declined, when asked on Monday, to explain what changes he would make with the amendatory veto.

"They (Democrats) want to create a crisis and just say, 'There's no discussion, there's no more time, there's nothing to debate. It's over. If schools want to open on time, only SB1 in its current form,'" Rauner said. "That's unfair."
March 27, 1927  July 11, 2017

Geraldine Palmgren Huddleston was born on March 27, 1927, and died on July 11, 2017. Her parents were John and Winnie (Merrill) Palmgren. She met and married Don Huddleston on February 11, 1949 in Custer.

Geri was a lifelong resident of Hot Springs and graduated from Hot Springs High School in 1945. She started her LPN nursing career while still in high school at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, then attended nurses training in Spearfish, continued her career at the Southern Hills General Hospital and the VA Hospital/Hot Springs Campus. Geri retired from the VA in 1992. She was a lifelong member of the American Legion Auxiliary, VFW and the National Active and Retired Federation Employees.

Geri is survived by her two sons, Jerry Sandy (Cheryl) Huddleston; Johnny Ray JR (Freda) Huddleston and numerous grand and great grandchildren.

She is proceeded in death by her husband, Don; son, Charles; her parents, John and Winnie; and her sister, Lorraine Campbell.

Services will be held 10:00 a.m., Thursday, July 20, 2017, at Bethesda Lutheran Church. Committal services will be held at 3:00 p.m., Thursday, July 20, 2017, at the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis, SD.

Arrangements have been placed in the care of Chamberlain McColleys Funeral Home in Hot Springs.
SPEARFISH - The Black Hills State University science labs are buzzing this summer as more than 20 students conduct research with faculty mentors. Rather than getting a typical summer job, the students working in the BHSU laboratories are gaining academic knowledge and skills.

Several programs and partnerships at BHSU provide monetary support to the students to pursue their summer research. This summer at BHSU those programs include the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant and South Dakota Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (SD BRIN) funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Institutes of Health.

Donnie Decker, science education and special education major from Huron, is working with Dr. Dan Asunskis this summer to study the environmental toxicity of nanoparticles.

Were working on making nanoparticles so they can be used as light sensors, eventually to monitor pathways for antibiotics, said Decker, who, as a South Dakota Corps scholarship recipient, will stay in the state to teach in a high-need area after graduation.

Decker is supported by another program at BHSU, the South Dakota EPSCoR program funded by the National Science Foundation to increase the states science and technology research capacity.

Dr. Brianna Mount, assistant professor of physics at BHSU, directs the REU program in collaboration with Sanford Underground Research Facility. She says research is a crucial component of undergraduate education in the sciences.

Undergraduate research has been shown to increase student retention and intellectual curiosity, as well as research and communication skills. Students who participate in research are more likely to finish their degree and report the experience as helpful in determining which discipline to enter, said Mount.

As a smaller university, Mount said BHSU is able to excel in providing quality research opportunities for undergraduate students. Those research opportunities can be based in one of several cutting-edge lab facilities on campus or even a mile underground through collaboration with Sanford Lab in Lead.

The research opportunities at BHSU are gaining national attention as Mount directs seven students from other universities visiting BHSU for a 10-week research experience through the REU program. These visiting student researchers are working with expert BHSU faculty in the areas of biology, chemistry and physics on campus through Aug. 4.

Dr. Micheal Zehfus, associate professor of chemistry at BHSU, is mentoring Caitlyn Larson, a biochemistry major who attends Augustana University in Sioux Falls through the REU program.

Caitlyn is sampling and analyzing water from different locations underground at Sanford Lab. She is learning surveying techniques so she can accurately locate water sampling sites underground, a skill that is unique for most undergraduate chemists, said Zehfus.

A group of South Dakota high school students and those entering/completing their first year of college also participated in the Davis-Bahcall Scholars Program sponsored by BHSU, Sanford Lab, the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium, and First Premier Bank.

Mount, who also directs the Davis-Bahcall program, says the purpose is to encourage students at a turning point in their careers to stay within STEM fields.

This time period in a students life is critical as they are choosing their majors. Often 18 year olds will not understand the difference between a physicist and a chemist or a mechanical versus civil engineer. This program exposes students to those fields as they interact with and learn from distinguished professors all over the world, said Mount.

During the Davis-Bahcall summer program students spent five weeks exploring the world of modern scientific research at some of the nations leading laboratories and universities. They spent two weeks at Sanford Lab and traveled to other research laboratories in the U.S. and Italy.
PINE RIDGE | Percy White Plume sweeps his hand over a world of rolling green hills, ridges and grottos that spills from one horizon to the next.

Where do you want to go? he asks. Wherever you want to go, well go that way.

The horses whinny and scuff their hooves. It is another hot day on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a hemmed-in yet wide open space that White Plume wants to continue exploring on horseback with Native American youth and visitors from around the world.

A 58-year-old retired mental health worker, White Plume runs the Horse Spirit Society from his 2,200-acre property in Manderson and is looking for funding to keep the program going.

Since 2001, he has taken groups of kids from the reservation out on rides that can last days at a time, meandering through windswept fields into the rocky canyons and spires of the Badlands.

This kind of free-roaming horseback riding, White Plume says, is a uniquely powerful act of healing rooted in Lakota culture.

Horses are really in tune to everything, he says. And we can learn by being a part of their life, learn different things about ourselves. Youre healing yourself. The horse is just showing you the way.

White Plume keeps more than 40 horses on his land. He and his family sometimes take them riding bareback across the plains. All of them are trained and each of them has a name.

Sitting atop a chocolate colored stallion named War Bonnet, White Plume points out a cluster of glistening red buffalo berries as the horse canters through the tall grass. There are little birds singing in the breeze.

White Plumes son, Freedom, and his 11-year-old granddaughter, Johnnie, are also along for the ride. Both are expert riders like him. But on a horse you are alone, White Plume says, even when you are with a group of people.

White Plumes parents died when he was very young. He grew up poor, though he never thought of it that way. Raised by his uncle, he remembers using oil lamps and mirrors to light their home, which was the first in the valley to get electricity. That was in the early 1960s, he says.

Horses have always been an important part of his life. White Plume remembers riding quietly through the night under the light of U.S. Army flares on the way to deliver supplies near Wounded Knee to members of the American Indian Movement during the armed occupation in 1973. He was a teenager then.

I remember drinking alcohol and the whole bit, and getting nothing out of it, he says. But when I got on a horse I felt so free. I was essentially healing myself, but I didnt realize it. I was too busy riding and going here and there.

Riding helped him quit drinking. Sometimes he would cry and speak to his horse in Lakota. It was in these quiet moments that he taught himself how to grapple with feelings of loneliness, sadness and worthlessness.

Thats how our young people feel, he said. And for me to have all these horses, to not do anything, its like I would be pushing them away. Its important that I give back all that I know about horses and things Ive learned in life to the children who are coming up.

For him, White Plume says, healing requires a connection between human and horse, a bond that he remembers forging with his very first horse, a black stallion named Rascal. It was 1976, he was a teenager, and a friend had let him borrow Rascal when a storm thundered to life during his ride home from Porcupine.

There was lightning, and I was scared of getting struck so I went down into the ravine and spent the night with him, White Plume said.

He kept Rascal until he died in 1984. He was a good horse, White Plume says. He took me all over.

Today, White Plume has that kind of bond with each of his horses. They recognize his face and respond to the distinct sound of his voice.

I never hit em, I never use spurs, he says. If you have to use spurs, youre not doing something right.

White Plume works with kids of all ages and their parents are invited to ride along too. Getting a chance to build those bonds by living and working with horses even for a few hours has a noticeable effect on the youth, he says.

What drives me is the change in the children, the laughter, the courage that they get to do things differently, he says. Theyre enmeshed in negative behavior, but when they come out here it changes them. When they come out here, I always talk to them about their lives. What are you doing thats a positive thing in your life?

Its not just kids from the reservation who find a moment of peace among White Plumes horses. A few weeks ago, he hosted a group of students from Chicago and in years past, he has had paying clients come from as far away as Germany and Switzerland.

Many are first time riders. Those who have experience with horses tell him they have never ridden as freely as they did during their visit to the reservation.

White Plume doesnt always feel like it, but he does still live in poverty, as many do in Pine Ridge. The rides cost money, so he hasnt been able to take as many groups of kids for rides this summer as he would like. Hes in the process of applying for grant funding and hopes to begin going out again soon.

Standing on a hill, he points to Red Shirt, to Stronghold Table in the Badlands, to a group of hills where some of the old Oglala chieftains are buried, and to a snarl of trees and underbrush where wild horses run free.

I tell people, You ever wonder whats over that hill? he says. Lets go for a ride and find out.
Terri Davis, 58, the Rapid City Public Librarys incoming director, is ready to hit the ground running when she starts her new position on Aug. 14.

But perhaps more than that, shes simply eager to return home.

To know that Im coming back to the Black Hills is just very exciting, Davis said in a Journal interview this week.

Davis, who served as the public services manager and assistant director of the Rapid City Public Library from 2000 to 2015, has been living in Australia for the past two years. Though the experience has been an adventure  she worked at two libraries in the western Australian towns of Fremantle and Dardanup  it also came with a realization.

It really made it clear that being 11,000 miles away was just too far, she said. Its home. Its hard to describe. Its just a visceral feeling.

A native of Brookings, Davis began her career at the Brookings Public Library before earning a Master of Science degree in Information Media. Later, she worked various positions at the Caldwell Library in Idaho before returning to South Dakota to serve as director of the Deadwood Public Library throughout the 1990s.

She will replace Jim McShane, who has been the director since December 2013. He will retire Aug. 11 and is moving to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

McShanes wife, Wendy, has accepted a teaching position at the American International School of Jeddah, and McShane will begin a new role as consultant on a new school and library there.

Describing her upbringing as a background of East and West River, Davis said her first task upon returning to the library will be reacquainting herself with library and city staff and gauging the community interests and information needs.

Its really about the community and what the community needs and how the library can meet those needs, she said, adding that the recently established bookstore model of cataloguing the library's wares would be something she would look at in case tweaks were necessary.

Her focus, though, will primarily be on listening to and engaging with the community.

Its the people that make the library exciting, and thats where the energy comes from, she said. The vibrancy and excitement involved with the library, theres always something new going on. That really energized vibe is very important and very exciting to think about coming back to that.
WASHINGTON | Focus, America, focus. The most urgent task right now is to make sure a stake is driven through the heart of the Republican effort to gut Medicaid and balloon the ranks of the uninsured.

I know that the Russia investigations are charging ahead, with Capitol Hill appearances by members of President Trump's inner circle scheduled for this week. I know that Trump gave an unhinged interview to The New York Times on Wednesday, bizarrely undermining his own attorney general. I know that one of the few remaining giants in Washington, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has received a tough medical diagnosis.

There will be time to digest all of that. At present, however, health care is still the main event.

Keep in mind that this isn't the first time the GOP's gratuitously cruel effort to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act has looked dead. Back in March, House Speaker Paul Ryan called off a showdown vote and glumly declared, "We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future." But he managed to get a revised bill passed in May, prompting President Trump to hold a sophomoric victory rally at the White House.

That bill would have caused 23 million people to lose health insurance over a decade and slashed Medicaid spending by more than $800 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The action then shifted to the Senate, which came up with legislation that would grow the numbers of uninsured by 22 million and cut Medicaid by $772 billion. Experts who tried to parse the details gave differing opinions on which version was more heartless.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's attempt to ram through his monstrosity collapsed in a heap, as both the far-right and moderate wings of the GOP caucus balked. In desperation, McConnell then proposed an approach that Trump once ruled out but now eagerly embraces: Repeal the Affordable Care Act now and worry about replacing it later.

According to the CBO, taking the repeal-only route would mean 17 million more uninsured within a year and 32 million more in a decade. Insurance premiums would soar, and in more than half the nation's counties there would be no insurers willing to service the individual market. Appalling.

McConnell's gambit appeared to fail Tuesday when three GOP moderates  Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia  announced they would vote no. Their stance means McConnell lacks the votes even to open debate on repeal-only, let alone pass it. That should be the end of the story.

But it would be a mistake to take anything for granted. Senate naysayers are under tremendous pressure to give in, and the reason has nothing to do with health care. It's pure politics.

For seven long years, since the day the Affordable Care Act was passed, Republicans have been vowing to eradicate it "root and branch," as McConnell likes to say. And for seven long years, the GOP has reaped political benefit from that categorical promise  while giving no serious thought to what a replacement system would look like.

Obamacare, you will recall, was once Romneycare; it was fashioned after a system Mitt Romney successfully implemented when he was governor of Massachusetts. It is based on ideas originally developed at the conservative Heritage Foundation, ideas the Republican Party once liked  until President Obama embraced them.

While Obama was in office, Republicans in Congress could blithely pass repeal bills knowing the president would never sign them. Now that Trump sits in the Oval Office with pen in hand, however, repeal becomes a real possibility as do the awful consequences.

McConnell says he will bring the bill up for a vote this week anyway. In effect, he threatens to call the opponents' bluff. Fortunately, they do not appear to be bluffing. There is no indication that a lunch Wednesday for GOP senators at the White House  at which Trump basically threatened revenge against anyone who votes no  or a smaller gathering of senators later that evening changed any minds.

But the right-wing message machine will continue to loudly accuse no-voters of committing political treason. So it is more important than ever to remind senators that the repeal-and-replace bill is monumentally unpopular  polls last week showed its approval rating between 12 percent and 17 percent  and that the legislation's cost would be paid in human suffering. We would return to the days when medical expenses were the leading cause of personal bankruptcy.

Keep the pressure on. The war is not yet won.
Husband of woman sentenced for attempt on his life arrested

MOSCOW, July 24 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul)  Vladimir Tkachenko, the husband of a woman sentenced to 6 years in prison for attempting on his life, had been arrested in the Altai Region, RAPSI learnt at the Russian Investigative Committee on Monday.

The man is suspected of causing grievous bodily harm to his daughter. The Committee is going to carry out a thorough and objective investigation, and at present formulates indictment and settles the issue of pretrial restrictions, the statement reads.

Oksana Tkachenko, a mother of two, has received 6 years and 8 months in prison for the attempted murder of her husband. However, she has a chance to get back to her children if a criminal case against her is reviewed, Russia's children's rights commissioner Anna Kuznetsova told RAPSI earlier.

According to Kuznetsova, two children of Tkachenko are currently in the custody of their grandmother. The father of a younger daughter, whose life the woman allegedly attempted on, refused to take tutorship.

Earlier, the Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin ordered to check the rulings in the case of Tkachenko, who allegedly tried to defend herself and her son from the former husband.

If the inspection results in retrial, Tkachenkos sentence may be reduced or overturned, Kuznetsova said. Even mitigation of the sentence will make it possible to lodge a motion to suspend the sentence until her children reach the age of 14, she added. Under the current legislation, suspension of punishment in murder cases may be applied only if the given sentence does not exceed 5 years.




Investigators seek to extend detention of Moscow lawyers alleged killer

MOSCOW, July 24 (RAPSI, Yelizaveta Ponomareva)  Investigators have filed a motion with the Presnensky District Court seeking to extend detention of Marat Yanbukhtin, an alleged murderer of a Moscow attorney, the courts press service told RAPSI on Monday.

The court will hear the petition on July 25.

The woman, who had been working as a lawyer, was shot dead on entering her apartment in the north-east of Moscow on April 26. Investigators consider different versions of the murder including those connected with the victims professional activity.

Reportedly, the victim is the 40-year old Natalya Vavilina. However, this information has not been officially confirmed.

Yanbukhtin was arrested in late May.

According to the Federal Chamber of Lawyers, the woman became the seventh attorney killed in Russia in the last two years. Since 2001, 45 Russian lawyers have been murdered. Most of crimes have not been detected, the Chamber reported earlier.
Motion for extension of Navalnys probation period set for August 4

MOSCOW, July 24 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko)  The Simonovsky District Court on August 4 will hear the Federal Penitentiary Services motion to extend a probation term for opposition politician Alexey Navalny in the Yves Rocher embezzlement case for a year, the court told RAPSI on Monday.

In December 2014, Navalny was given a 3.5-year suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case. His brother Oleg received a 3.5-year prison term. They were convicted of stealing nearly 30 million rubles (about $500,000 at the current exchange rate) from two companies, including Russian affiliate of Yves Rocher. The term of Oleg Navalny is to expire on June 30, 2018.

Moreover, Alexey Navalny was found guilty of embezzling 16 million rubles from the Kirovles timber company. He received a 5-year suspended sentence in this case.

Being convicted the opposition politician was repeatedly subjected to administrative liability for organizing an unauthorized rally in Moscow on March 26, providing resistance to police and obstructing the order or procedure of holding a rally on June 12.




Ex-governor Belykh charged with bribery completes studying case materials

MOSCOW, July 24 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko)  Former governor of the Kirov Region Nikita Belykh, who stands charged with taking bribes, had completed studying the case materials, his lawyer Andrey Grokhotov told RAPSI on Monday.

Although his client has signed a protocol confirming the completion of the study, Grokhotov says, he and Belykh believe investigation has not been carried out in full and demand additional witnesses to be questioned. After the petition on further investigation is reviewed, the lawyer notes, the case may be sent to the prosecutors office for the indictment to be affirmed.

According to investigation, between 2012 and 2016 Belykh personally and through intermediaries received large scale bribes amounting to 600,000 euros for protection of bribegivers and Novovyatsky Ski Plant and Forestry Managing Company controlled by them, the statement reads.

He was arrested on June 24 in a Moscow restaurant while he was allegedly accepting 150,000 euros, the third part of a 400,000-euro bribe, then Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said earlier. Moscows Basmanny District Court ordered the detention of Belykh.

On October 12, the Moscow City Court overturned seizure of assets owned by Belykh.

The defendant has pleaded not guilty.

On July 28, President Vladimir Putin removed Belykh from his post of governor because of loss of trust.
One man's odyssey through the world of books
via: Eqbal Ahmad Centre for Public Education

The ummah is at war with itself. What other way is there to describe the brutal bloodletting by Muslims of Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Turkey, and, of course, Pakistan.

To be fair, the ummah has not mattered for a long time to the governments or peoples of Muslim lands. State-to-state relations among Muslim countries have been astonishingly independent of religious identity. They have depended instead upon perceived self-interest, domestic politics and the whims of rulers. Just look at the evidence.

Pakistan was created on a religious premise. But, in the days of the Suez Crisis of 1956, Pakistanas position was ambiguous. It refused to side with Gamal Abdel Nasser after he nationalised the Suez Canal and threw out the British. On the other hand, India was active in the Non-Aligned Movement, fully pro-Arab, and loud in support of liberating Palestine. To show gratitude, King Saud bin Abdul Aziz paid a state visit to India and declared that Indian Muslims were being treated well. There was outrage across Pakistan. Newspapers exploded in anger when Jawaharlal Nehru, on his return visit to Riyadh, was greeted by the king and with street banners in Riyadh bearing the slogan rasul-ul-salam (messenger of peace).

It is time to give the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation a decent burial.

Dawnas editorial of Dec 1, 1956, bitterly criticised the Arabs and aNasseras hatred of Pakistan, and love of Bharat and its Nehrua . It went on to suggest that such sensate bias and blind prejudice amay well be examined by psychiatristsa . In other words, the Arab worldas greatest hero of the moment was denounced as crazy.

Today, Pakistan has disputes with both its Muslim neighbours, Afghanistan and Iran. Iran occasionally lobs artillery shells over to Pakistan, as does Afghanistan. Pakistan has reciprocated with its artillery, while PAF jets brought down an Iranian drone last month. Ironically, Pakistan has excellent relations with one of its neighbours a China, a communist state that has banned the beard and burqa in its only Muslim-dominated province. India has good relations with both Iran and Afghanistan. And, Indiaas trade with China far exceeds Pakistanas trade with China.

It is not just Pakistan. The Muslim monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both Wahabi, are practically at war with each other now. Teeny tiny Qatar, say the Saudis, is acting too big for its boots and cannot conduct its own foreign policy. Qatar has dismissed the Saudi-UAE demand to close down Al Jazeera, the Arab worldas only independent news source. In response, all Qataris and their families, as well as 15,000 dancing Qatari camels, have been expelled from Saudi Arabia.

Last year, Saudi Arabiaas highest civilian award was conferred upon Hindu fundamentalist Narendra Modi by King Salman. The Saudi king left Kashmir and pellet guns unmentioned.

Saudi Arabiaas war on Yemen shows the emptiness of the ummah notion. Directed against one of the worldas poorest Muslim countries, it has so far has killed 7,600 and wounded 42,000 Muslims. Most casualties have resulted from air strikes of the Saudi-led multinational coalition. Pakistan has shown little concern. I have yet to see a single TV news report or evening talk show discussing the Yemen war.

Ending Israeli occupation of Palestine was once the ummahas grandest cause that cut through the Shia-Sunni divide. But now, Saudi Arabia is fast nearing rapprochement with Israel. Both countries see Iran as the greater enemy. After the failed Arab Spring, Sisias Egypt and the Gulfas monarchies fear Iran as an insurrectionary power and prefer to work with Israel. Palestine is unmentioned.

Where does this leave the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), whose job is to bring together and represent the ummah? Based in Saudi Araba, it has 57 member states and calls itself athe collective voice of the Muslim world.a The OIC has had nothing to say about wars that have consumed Syria, Iraq, Libya, or Yemen. Nor is it relevant to any other conflict between Muslim states or that within them. It has yet to give a single cent to desperate refugees who, instead, must rely on the West.

Pakistan bought into the OIC fantasy early on. But the euphoria of the 1974 Lahore meeting organised by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has gone with the wind. What is left is the magnificent flag-adorned building on Constitution Avenue in Islamabad that serves as the headquarters of Comstech, the highest scientific body of the OIC, for which Pakistan pays the lionas share of its operating expenses.

Comstech is charged with promoting science within the ummah. This is a futile and misplaced effort because science does not have a religion. Add to this the abysmal quality of science in Muslim countries (with Turkey and Iran only partly excluded). Prime minister Suhrawardy once famously remarked, azero plus zero plus zero is after all still zeroa . While he said this of the Arab bloc during the Suez crisis, itas still truer about scientific cooperation.

It is time to give the OIC a decent burial and end the fantasy that Comstech can serve as the centre of Muslim science. Among the benefits, Comstechas staff could be put to good use promoting science in Pakistan with the building turned into a public science library or science exploratorium where Pakistani children could be introduced to the wonders of science.

If Muslim states have paid no attention to the ummah, non-state actors have paid even less. They have slaughtered tens of thousands of co-religionists. The Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban are like two wings of the same bird. One kills Afghan Muslims, the other kills Pakistani Muslims. One finds shelter in Pakistan, the other in Afghanistan. The militant Islamic State group seems to be everywhere and kills with even less concern. There is no sign any of them will fade away soon.

There is a way for Muslim states and peoples to move forward. This will require creating strong democratic institutions based on equal rights for all citizens, encouraging the participation of women in public life, and respecting equally all Muslim sects as well as other religions, providing space and freedom to individuals and education for all based on science and reason.
sacw.net- 24 July 2017

From: Minority Identities and the Nation-State, by D.L.Sheth and Gurpreet Mahajan (eds) Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999. PagesA 73-112

Anil Nauriya

The rise of Hindutva,A particularly since the eighties, is paralleled by strenuous contemporaneous attempts by writers like Ayesha Jalal and H.M. Seervai to present a sanitized version of the politics of M.A. Jinnah. Such accounts have had an appreciable circulation. Some of the conceptual questions arising on the above basis and having implications for the notion of aminority and aminority politics are dealt with in this paper.

Part I of the essay sets out the idea ofA community-for-itself,A a conception which lies at the core of the later politicsA ofA both Savarkar andA Jinnah. Part II examines the extent to which such politics may be seen as nationalist politics; while Part III discusses the parity theoryathat is, the notion that Jinnah wanted parity rather than partition. Part IV examines the claim that League politics involved an espousal of acivil rights or aminority rights as against communalist demands. PartsA VA andA VIA are concerned with two occasionally conflicting explanations and descriptions of Muslim League politics that are currently in circulation. The first depicts this politics as a reaction to the pre-freedom Congress; the second seeks to set out League demands as being asecular in nature. This usage is ostensibly in the sense of abeing of this world, but is loaded with other implications which are also critically examined.

Essentially, it is argued that, as with Savarkar, fewA of JinnahsA political positions till the partition of India and formation of Pakistan can find a natural place in a secular constitution. Some of these may even serve to legitimize a Hindutva framework. In fact, many of Jinnahs ideological positions are comparable to, where they are not drawn from, Hindutva. It is,A therefore,A not logically possible to counter Hindutva from a Jinnahesque political stance. Those who have been reproducing theA standardA JalalaSeervai arguments are, we submit, on a mistakenA track. Without an upright critique of the politics of the MuslimA League,A it will not be possible logically or adequately to counter Hindutva. The notion thatA JinnahA represented the position of theA MuslimsA at large prior to 1947 tends to be accepted without question, As a consequence writers tend to go soft on Jinnah andA hisA politics lest they be understood as having been harsh to Muslims as a whole; also, with the exception of a few prominent ones, those Muslims who struggled for Indian freedom unconditionally, or as plain Indian nationalists, tend to be ignored in such writings.

I. The Community-for-Itself Idea

The 1928 All Parties Conference at which the Nehru Report on framing a constitution for India was discussed is sometimes presented as marking a aparting of the ways betweenA JinnahA and theA Congress [1]. In fact, matters were more complicated and there was more than one turning point. The important issue at this stage was to obtain an agreement that would command wide support. A crucial event that occurred immediately after was the meeting of the Council of the All India Muslim League, which took place in March 1929 at Delhi. This meeting has perhaps not received from historians and other writers the attention that itA deserves [2].

The Council of the League met in Delhi on 29 March 1929, on the eve of the open session of the League. The 20th Session of the All India Muslim League began on 30 March 1929 with Jinnah in the Chair. On the previous day, the Council of theA aJinnahA faction of the League had appointed a Committee to consider Jinnahs draft resolution and to report upon it the next day. This Committee consisted ofA Jinnah,A Maulana Azad, Maulana Mohamed Ali, Malik Barkat Ali, Nawab IsmailA Khan,A Dr Shafaat Ahmed Khan and Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew.

The open session of the Muslim League was attended by Maulana Azad, T.A.K. Sherwani and S.A. Brelvi. Their participation and the passage of an agreed resolution moved by Abdul Rahman Ghazi, in the subjects committee was a development of great significance. The resolution accepted the Nehru Report, subject to five modifications, one of which was proposed by Brelvi. Dr Mohd. Alam was also present at this session. The resolution which was passed in the subjects committee was also passed in the open session but in the absence of Jinnah. Having been based on approval also by Azad, Sherwani and Brelvi, the Ghazi resolution signalled the possible evolution of a position between that of the Congress and the League.

The notion that the Congress was set against all modifications in the Nehru Report and that the All Parties Conference in December 1928 was the turning point is put somewhat into question by the adoption of this resolution by the Muslim League in the presence of Azad, Brelvi and Sherwani. December 1928 was not the only aturning point and not necessarily the most significant one. A reason why an agreement repeatedly proved elusive was the search, perhaps mistaken, for an agreement which would have the backing of the larger section of theA Muslims,A apart from the other communities.

The March 1929 Resolution was to beA stillborn [3]. Jinnah, on his return to the open session of the League adjourned the house, giving the rowdyism that had taken place at the open session as the reason for the adjournment. This rowdyism also signalled the beginning of a new phase in League politics.

Choudhry Khaliquzzaman has shed light on this:

Mr Jinnah was very late in coming to the session as he was negotiating with the Sir Shafi group their acceptance of the fourteen points of the All Parties Muslim Conference and in the meantime we voted Dr Alam to take the Chair. Immediately after the election of the President, discussion on the Nehru Report started and was in full swing when Rafi Qidwai [sic] called me outside to inform me that there was a danger that there would be a mass raid on the hall. Hardly had he finished talking when hundreds of people from outside knocked down the doors of the hall and threw out the supporters of the Nehru Report one by one, clearing the hall. Mr Jinnah came in soon after. ...A The mob which had burst into the hall was led by Sayed Shamsul Hasan, Assistant Secretary of the Muslim League, who is still alive in Karachi. Some of those who had been thrown out of the hall attributed it to the policy of the Muslim League High Command and started thinkingA of formingA a Muslim NationalistA Party [4].

It is significant that Khaliquzzaman, in holding Shamsul Hasan responsible for breaking up the meeting, did so whileA Shamsul Hasan was still living. The book was published in 1961.

Khaliquzzaman has also given an account of theA contentsA of the resolution passed in the open session afterA theA supportersA of the Nehru Report had been removed from the hall,A butA this does not match the account given by Maulana Azad, presumably because Khaliquzzaman had, as he himself recounts,A been called out by Rafi Ahmed Kidwai while the proceedings were going on.

Maulana Azads detailed and contemporaneous account leaves no scope for ambiguity. This is what he says:

The Council meeting was then resumed, and a Committee, consisting of representatives of the three sections of the League, was appointed to draft an agreed resolution regarding the Nehru Constitution. In the Subjects Committee meeting I made it quite clear that I personally did not consider modifications in the Nehru Constitution necessary. But, realising that a large section of the members of the League considered modifications to be essential for safeguarding the rights and interests of the community, I and my co-workers were prepared not to come in the way of a united and agreed resolution being passed by the League.

Mr Jinnah and Mr Mahomed Ali said that they could not agree to any resolution which in expressing Muslim demands, did not reject the Nehru constitution. We considered our position. Though naturally we could not go to this length, we were prepared to agree to any draft that was acceptable to the largest majority.A On this basis, Mr Ghazi Abdur Rahmans resolution was framed and accepted by us and carried in the SubjectsA Committee by 84 to 7 votes. Meanwhile, all possible efforts were made by those representing the Shafi League and the Delhi ConferenceA to obstruct the work of the Subjects Committee. TheseA dilatoryA tacticsA wereA adoptedA because theyA realisedA the overwhelming force in theA LeagueA supportingA theA Nehru constitution. They sought every means to add to their own numbers without success. On the morning of the 30th March, I was informed by several reliable citizensA ofA DelhiA thatA attempts would be made to break up the session of the League and that for this purpose a large number of visitors tickets were sold to secure admission of rowdies in the League meeting. Thus, on the 31st March, when the session of the League commenced, a large number of visitors entered and created scenes which have been fully described by Dr Alam in his statement. From all that I have said it would be clear to every impartial mind that we did all we could to make it easy for the members of the Shafi party and of the Delhi conference to join the League. If an agreement could not be brought about the responsibilityA should be laid at their door and not at the door of those who were prepared to welcome them. One thing clearly emerges from the session of the League, namely, that there is an overwhelming majority in it in favour of the Nehru constitution and that opponents who have no argument to prevail against the majority, tried to resort to these deplorable tactics in order to gain their object (emphasis added) [5].

The proceedings which took place despite this sponsored rowdyism were rejected by the League Secretary as well as by the Delhi Conference party [6]. Thus the rowdies succeeded in their object.

If there was a parting of ways between Muslims who wished to participate in the struggle for freedom and those who were inclined wholly to take a community-for-itself separatist view, was this not a significant turning point? At this stage Jinnah succumbed to the pressures of the Shafi faction of the League rather than take the hand extended by Maulana Azad, Brelvi, and T.A.K. Sherwani.

JinnahA now formulated his future strategy based on the community-for-itself idea. This is the notion, common to Hindutva, that political strategies must be related to specific religious communities; that religion may be the very organizing principle of a political party and that obligations towards others outside these communities are not to be recognized and may even be denied. This is the framework of the later Jinnah and the later Savarkar, or the sectarian framework. While the Jinnah and the Savarkar components of this framework are formulated from different sides of the tunnelathe minority side and the majority sideathe conception is essentially the same. Each denies its obligations towards a civil society larger than his own defined community. Each component of this framework justifies and rationalizes the other by its very existence.

This thinking, which was to mark Jinnahs approach to theA end,A is reflected in his observations in a letter which he wrote to Abdul Matin Chowdhury on 2A MarchA 1932:

The British want our cooperation and support, it canA onlyA beA on our safeguards plus responsibility at the centre beingA agreed to. If Hindus want our cooperation and support itA canA onlyA be on their agreeing to our safeguardsA andA self-Govt. withinA the British Commonwealth of nations. We cannotA supportA oneA or the other except on these terms. If we are notA wanted byA either, let them do what they like and we shall not be a consentingA party. I am sure they cannot ignore 80 millionsA specially,A ifA they stand together to organiseA themselves [7].

The kernel of Jinnahs future strategy is formulated byA thisA time and this seems not nationalistic, as claimed by certain writers, but entirely sectarian and religious-community-based. It sought to treat the Muslim community as a unit apart from theA restA of civil society and the country; it would negotiate separately for what Jinnah saw as its asafeguards. These were, as we have shown, substantially accepted by the Resolution as passed in the League Subjects Committee in March 1929 to which Brelvi, Sherwani and Azad were party and which would have involved modification of the Nehru Report. But even these proceedings were rejected by the Jinnah faction of the League.

The meaning of this strategy, formulated in Jinnahs letter to Abdul Matin Chowdhury, is that the acommunity, as envisaged by Jinnah, would support whichever side assured what he saw as asafeguards. The fly in the ointment was this: Any asafeguard agreed to by the Congress would also be conceded in more than ample measure by the British. Who would the acommunity support then? Besides, the asafeguards themselves appear to have had a rolling character. So by the time agreement is possible over one set of safeguards, the minimum negotiating position adopted by Jinnah moves ahead to another set of conditions.

II. Was this Nationalist Politics?

After the 1937 elections Jinnah appears to have raised the question of a asettlement [8]. Following upon the messages, letters andA telegrams exchanged between Jinnah and Gandhi, talks started between Subhas Chandra BoseA as theA CongressA President, andA Jinnah. Seervai describes the solutionA sought by Jinnah at this time as nationalist [9]. This is ironical as Jinnahs demand was invariably posited on undermining and questioning the position of the nationalist Muslims and also undermining the nationalist character of the Congress. This was an unrealistic stance and the Congress could not reasonably have been expected toA agreeA to give in to it, a fact Jinnah must surely have known.

(There has been some debate about the term anationalist Muslims; for reasons which we consider relevant and sufficient we shall continue to use this expression. By anationalist Muslims we refer to those Muslims who participated in the movement for Indian freedom without seeking to strike bargains. And even if they did bargain, the outcome of the bargaining process was not a condition for participation in the struggle for freedom. Call this nationalism, or love of freedom. Whatever term one uses.A CongressA Muslims is not an adequate substitute for nationalist Muslim. Allah Baksh was not a Congressman, but he was a perfect nationalist.)

The same problem arose in the correspondence and discussion which now ensued between Bose as Congress President andA Jinnah.A The Congress President handed a note to Jinnah on 14 May 1938 summarizing the main positions in the talks that had taken place between them thus far.

This note recorded the Muslim Leagues insistence that it be regarded:

as the authoritative and representative organisation of the Indian Muslims and the Congress as the authoritative and representative organisation of the solid body of HinduA opinion [10].

The note recorded also the Congress response:

The Congress cannot possibly consider itself and function as if it represented one community only even though that might be the majority community in India. Its doors must, inevitably be open to all communities. ...

At the same time the Congress is perfectly willing to confer and cooperate with other organisations which represent minority interests [11].

It was added that the Congress would be bound toA conferA also with other Muslim organizations whichA hadA cooperated with it in theA past. [12]

On 6 June 1938, Jinnah forwarded to Bose the reactionA ofA the Muslim Leagues Executive Council to the noteA handedA over by Bose on 14 May. The reaction was expressed inA theA form of three resolutions. The first stated that it was notA possibleA for the League to atreat or negotiate with the CongressA theA question of Hindu-Muslim settlement except on the basis that the Muslim League is the authoritative and representative organization of the Mussalmans of India. The second resolution asserted that ait is not desirable to include any Muslim inA theA personnel of the proposed committee that may be appointed by the Congress. And the third resolution declared that the Muslim League would consult with other minorities and interests asA well [13].

Bose placed this reply before the Congress Working Committee in July 1938 and wrote to Jinnah on 25 July, pointing out inter alia, that many Muslim organizations were associated with the Congress and that the Frontier Province

is over-whelmingly Muslim and is solidly with the Congress. ... The Working Committee, therefore, hopes that the League Council will not ask the Congress to do the impossible. Is it not enough that the Congress is not only willing but eager to establish the friendliest relations with the League and come to an honourable understanding over the much vexed Hindu- MuslimA question? [14]

AsA regards the third resolution, Bose pointed out that the League membership was open to Muslims only. He, however, hoped that it would be possible to proceed further with the negotiations.

If it is assumed that Jinnah stood for a anationalist solution, is it not surprising that he persisted to the end, assisted by the colonial rulers, with the demand that, as Bose put it, the Indian National Congress ado the impossible? and reduce itself to a Hindu organization? Also, in view of the above exchanges, Seervais suggestion that there were no attempts or response from the Congress side at this time to arrive at a settlement, is factually incorrect.

The atmosphere of the time can also be gauged from the fact that while these talks were going on there was a physical attack on Subhas Bose by Muslim Leaguers at Brahmanbaria in Chittagong Division on 15A JuneA 1938 in which Bose was injured. Ashrafuddin Chaudhary, the Secretary of the Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee and thirteen others were also injured in theA attack. [15]

It should be marked that it is not wholly correct to place the demands made by the Muslim League at this time under the rubric of asafeguards. Claims to sole spokespersonship for any community and a denial of the right of other parties equally also to represent that community go beyond the notion of asafeguards. One test may be to ask whether such a demand by any communal party could be countenanced today. The notion that a religious community may be represented exclusively by a asole spokesman in the form of a political party whose praxis would owe no political obligations to other communities is akin to the Hindutva view. The agony of the nationalist Muslims who were up against such attempts to place the entire community in one straitjacket is paralleled by the plight of those Hindus who resisted Hindutva and the recent BJP-RSS claim to represent their feeling on various matters, including the matter of places of worship and ostensible disputes regarding these.

In 1940 there were reports that Jinnah was attempting to bring together parties opposed to the Congress. These parties included the Justice Party and Dr Ambedkars party; Savarkar of the Hindu Mahasabha was also reportedly to meet Jinnah.

Gandhi welcomed the idea that parties opposed to the Congress should come together. About Jinnahs move he commented: aHe is thus lifting the Muslim League out of the communal rut and giving it a national character. He also wrote:

Such an alignment of parties is consummation devoutly to be wished. If the Quaid-i-Azam can bring about the combination, not only I but the whole of India will shout with one acclamation, aLong live Quaid-i-AzamA Jinnah.A For he will have brought about permanent and living unity for which I am sure the whole nation isA thirsting. [16]

Jinnah replied on 21 January 1940 that aIndia is not a nation, nor a country and that while the combination was indeed being attempted, this was apartly a case of aadversity bringing strange bedfellows togethera . [17]

Soon thereafter, the Muslim League resolution of March 1940 was passed asking for Muslim-majority areas in the north-west and east to be constituted as aindependent states. [18]

In his speech,A JinnahA said aIt is a dream that theA HindusA and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality, andA this misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyondA theA limits, and is the cause of most of our troubles. ... [19]

This marked the beginning of a new phase in Indian politics. Savarkar had similarly been sharpening theA acommunity-for-itself idea. A few months before the 1940 session of the Muslim League, Savarkar had, in December 1939, declared thatA Hindus were a separate nation, claiming aWe Hindus are a nation by ourselves. ... We Hindus are marked out as an abiding Nation byA ourselves. [20]

It is significant that the rise of the two-nation idea paralleled the rise of Naziafascism in Germany. The connection between these phenomena requires further exploration. That several members of the Arya Samaj, for instance, had developed a fascination for Hitler at this time is quite probable. [21] Both Hindutva and the League now tried to impose their ideology on all Hindus and Muslims. These ideologies were to encounter considerable resistance; the resistance was often glorious and where the ideologies in question were not supported by the apparatus of the colonial state, the resistance met with considerable success.

III. The Parity Theory

Let us consider three developments which overlapped, to some extent, with one another. These were the Bhulabhai-Liaquat pact ofA January1945; the Sapru Committee report of 1945 (The interim report became available in May 1945 and the final report was published in December 1945); and the Shimla conference of June 1945.

Negotiations had taken place between Bhulabhai Desai and Liaquat Ali Khan, leading to an agreement between the two. This agreement would have resulted in the Congress andA theA Muslim League joining hands in parliamentary work andA parity between them. An interim government was to have been formed at the centre, subject to the Governor-General agreeing to thisA arrangement. In the interim government there was to be an equal number of persons nominated by the Congress and the League. There would also be representatives of minorities. The government would function within the framework of the Government of India Act, 1935 and the Working Committee of the Congress would be released fromA prison. [22]

The agreement was signed on 11 January 1945. On 22 January 1945, Jinnah stated in a press interview at Bombay:

My attention has been drawn to reports in a section of the Press that an agreement has been arrived at between Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan on behalf of the Muslim League and Mr Bhulabhai Desai on behalf of the Congress with the consent of Mr Gandhi and myself. I know nothing about this. There is absolutely no foundation for connecting my name with the talks which may have taken place between Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan and Mr BhulabhaiA Desai. [23]

On 4 February 1945, Liaquat Ali Khan also made the supporting statement that: aThere is no truth in the report appearing in a certain section of the Press that an agreement or a settlement has been reached between me and Mr BhulabhaiA Desai. [24]A Thus the pact between Desai and LiaquatA Ali KhanA wasA stillborn. [25]

The question that arises is that if Jinnahs object was parity rather than partition, why did he and Liaquat Ali Khan disown this pact? This matter is not dealt with by Ayesha Jalal who in recent years has expounded the parity theory; neither does Seervai deal with it correctly as he presents an inexact account of the Desai-Liaquat Ali KhanA pact. [26] Seervai does not mention that Jinnah disowned this pact within eleven days of it being entered into and thatA LiaquatA Ali Khan also similarly did so within twenty-five days. Instead, Seervai relies on an account by Setalvad of a Congress Working Committee meeting held in the summer of 1945, long after the Bhulabhai-Liaquat pact had already been disowned by Jinnah and Liaquat. Setalvad in his account of this Working Committee meeting had said that at the meeting Gandhi had failed to speak, in support of Bhulabhai. This Working Committee meeting was not concerned with the implementation of the pact as such, but some Working Committee members had wanted to know why Bhulabhai had entered into the pact. Seervai used this account by Setalvad of the Working Committee meeting, held long after theA pactA was dead, to suggest by erroneous implication that Gandhi was responsible for the repudiation of the pact ignoring the fact that this pact had already been disowned by Jinnah. [27]

When the Sapru Committee was established, the Muslim League showed no interest in the matter and, in fact, alleged deprecatingly that the Committee had been established on inspiration from Gandhi. Pethick-Lawrence, who served later as Secretary of State for India in Clement Attlees government, wrote of the Sapru Committee in 1949: aGandhi was cooperative, butA JinnahA declined to have anything to do with it on the ground that he was not interested in making one constitution for India but wanted two constitutionsaone for Hindu India and the other for Muslim IndiaA (aPakistana ). [28]

In May 1945, the Sapru Committee made interim recommendations, including the release of all political prisoners, grant of dominion status, and the establishment of a national government. For the last mentioned proposal, the Sapru Committee also suggested that part II of the Government of India Act, 1935 be brought into force and a Ministry be installed at the Centre representing the largest single party as well as, as far asA possible apersonsA commanding the confidence of other important parties in theA legislature. [29]

In respect of the last proposal the Sapru Committee also suggested an alternative, which was that except for the Commander-in-Chief who might continue ex officio, the Executive Council should consist of Indians commanding the confidence of the parties in the CentralA Legislature. [30]

The interim proposals of the Sapru Committee were published by May 1945. The inter-communal aspects of the report were also conveyed to Gandhi, who appears to have approved them in May 1945. He wrote:

I considered the whole of your report as sketched to me to be an able document. But I did not interest myself in the whole of it. My interest was naturally confined to the communal question and it was wholly satisfactory. I hope you do not want me to express any opinion on theA rest. [31]

The final report of the Sapru Committee, also known as the Conciliation Committee, came to be published in December 1945. The constitution-making body envisaged by the Committee was to have a total strength of 160 members. This was to be broken up as follows:

a) Hindus excluding Scheduled Castes 51

b) Muslims 51

c) Scheduled Castes 20

d) Indian Christians 7

e) Sikhs 8

f) Backward Areas and Tribes 3

g) Anglo-Indians 2

h) Special Interest Groups, namely commerce and industry, landholders, universities, labour and women 16

i) Europeans and others 2

This report was based on the condition that separate electorates would, however, be given up. In the event, however, this report was also rejected by the Muslim League and the HinduA Mahasabha; [32]A consequently nothing was done about it. The report had, however, considered parity between Muslims on one hand and Hindus other than Scheduled Castes on the other. It will be seen that the report reduced such Hindu representation to less than half ofA the constitution-making body. Even this could not become the basis for settlement. Dawn, the Muslim League mouthpiece, was reported to have described it as a comic opera report fit to be consigned to theA WPB. [33]

Seervai writes of the report that the arejection of Pakistan made it unacceptable to the Muslims and the recommendation of parity was unacceptable to a large number of Hindus. [34] The rejection of these proposals by the Muslim League is a matter which has however not been explained by the aparity theorists, and brings into question the argument that the Muslim League wanted parity rather than partition. Seervai himself seems to admit that the aMuslims (by this he means the Muslim League) could not have accepted the Sapru Committee report as itA would haveA meant giving up the Pakistan demand.

However, since the Muslim League did not necessarily command the confidence of the Muslims in India and probably did not do so at this stage [35] it was apparently a big gamble for it to have repudiated both the Bhulabhai-Liaquat Pact as well as the Sapru Committee report. It stands to reason that the League could not have taken this decision unless itA hadA assurances from the British on the question of partition and Pakistan. This is a crucial point about communalism. ItA canA seldom manoeuvre itself to the centre of the stageA withoutA external or state support. This is because communalism has an unnatural character, in that it is generally contrary to the life of the people.

The Conference called by Wavell atA ShimlaA in 1945 and the manner in which it was conducted by him is one ofA theA most curious episodes in modern Indian history. This Conference was held on the basis of a broadcast by Wavell in which he announced at the outset itself that there would be parity between the Congress and the Muslim League. The Congress accepted this parity. Yet the conference failed because Jinnah wanted more than just parity. He wanted a veto on the Muslims that might be nominated by the Congress to the Executive Council evenA within its own quota. Thus, Jinnah wanted not merely parity but parity plusahe wanted the Congress to become a Hindu mirror image of the Muslim League by depriving itself of any right to nominate a Congress Muslim. Seervai racily admitted this but did not care to consider the implications this had for his own thesis on parity versus partition. aAfter a hopeful start, it floundered on Jinnahs insistence that all the five Muslim members of the council should be nominated by the Muslim League. Or, to put it differently, no Muslim should be included in the quota of five members allotted to theA Congress. [36]

If a doubt arose in Seervais mind about the correctness of his own argument about Jinnahs real object being parity rather than partition at this point, he did not record it. Interestingly, V.P. Menon recalls that Jinnah himself, in his speech at the conference stated:

The Muslim League could not in any circumstances agree to a constitution on any basis other than that of Pakistan; its attitude was fundamentally opposed to the Congress demand for a united India and a common centralA government. [37]

Menon records that Jinnah viewed the arrangement proposed by the British government as being merely of a astop-gap nature.

Thus even after obtaining, in effect, Congress acceptance of parity with the Muslim League, Jinnah reiterated the Pakistan demand. This fact and its implications, call into serious questionA theA entire SeervaiaJalal superstructure.

Jinnah appears to have further demanded parity in the ExecutiveA Council with aall other partiesA combined [38] compelling even Wavell, who had no inclination towards the Congress point of view, to record in his journal that it was difficult to see in that case why Jinnah had come to Simla aat all. This would have meant that a aminority would in fact have rights greater than the amajority that is, if one were to accept the identity between the Congress and the acaste Hindus which Jinnah sought to propound; and further, if one were to accept permanent minorities and majorities defined on a religious basis.

In recognition of a fact that again brings into question Seervais strenuous argument, Jalal herself records that:

Wavell, no match for Jinnah in this game of bluff and counter-bluff did not see that Jinnah had come to Simla precisely to ensure itsA failure. [39]

It is remarkable that in spite of having acknowledged that Jinnah wished to ensure the failure of the 1945 Shimla Conference, Jalal should persist in following the parity versus partition argument.

The report of the Sapru Committee summed up its account of the JuneaJuly 1945 Conference at Shimla as follows:

Mr Jinnah told the Viceroy that the League could not agree to what he had done and ahe was so decided that I felt it would be useless to continue the discussion. In the circumstances I did not show my selections as a whole to MrA JinnahA and there was no object in showing them to the other leaders. The Viceroys remark which immediately follows this statement, viz.: aThe Conference has, therefore, failed is significant. It is a clear confession that at the time no alternative was open to him but to act on the policy that, on such a matter, the Muslim Leagues veto is final irrespective of its merits. Whether this attitude was due to Lord Linlithgows commitment in his declaration on 8th August, 1940, or to his own commitment to the Coalition Government in London when he finally obtained their assent to his plan at the end of May or to fresh instructions received from the caretaker government during the sittings of the Conference is not a matter whose investigation is of importance for the purpose of this report. The break down caused almost universal regret and disappointment. [40]

The raising of the stakes by JinnahA andA theA conferringA uponA him of the power of veto by Wavell in the face of not merely nationalist but, in particular, Nationalist Muslim opinion suggests that the investigation which the Sapru Committee didA notA then consider necessary to make, is now required. The notion of aparity between religious communities in the sense used in the JalalaSeervai discourse entails also that all political activity must thereafter take place at the level of and in the framework of such communities. Those who uncritically repeat theA Jalala Seervai arguments fail to realize that this destroys the basis of secular politics. Far from providing a safeguard to the minorities, this is the surest guarantee of their oppression because it insists that the majority be communalized and defined in terms of a religious community; that this notion of majority be imposed upon all persons belonging to the religious communityA concerned; and that all future political discourse be on this basis.

What Jinnah had in mind was further set out by him in the very next month. He said on 12 August 1945, aWe are determined not to submit to any scheme of an All India Union, interim or otherwise, and we will resist any attempt to impose such a union uponA us. [41]

On 6 December 1945, Jinnah again spoke of the division of India. He declared:

Muslim India will never accept any method of framing theA ConstitutionA of India by means of one Constitution-making body for all India in which the Mussalmans will be in a hopeless minority and the conclusions are foregone in such an Assembly. Nor will they agree to any United India Constitution, federal or otherwise, with one centre, in which again, they will be in a hopeless minority and will be at the mercy of a perennial Hindu majority domination. ... [42]

In the light of this, it is surprising that any one should argue that Jinnah had not made his intentions clear.

IV. The Civil Rights Claim

In the talks that had taken place between Gandhi and Jinnah in 1944, Gandhi suggested a solution. This involved, inter alia, a referendum of the adult population in the Muslim-majority areas on the point whether they wished to separate from India. Jinnah took the stand that unless the referendum was confined to the Muslim population, it would be aopposed to the fundamentals of the LahoreA Resolution. [43]

Thus the fate of Bengal, Sind, Punjab, Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province was, on this basis, to be decided regardless of the wishes of those inhabitants of these areas who were not Muslim. This implied precisely the doctrine that the RSS and other Hindu communal elements proclaim for India: that the fate or political complexion of any geographical area must be determined in accordance with the religious community which has the majority in those areas.

Jinnahs concept would have confined the referendum to the Muslim population and would have excluded the rest from its scope. Thus in Punjab, for example, where Muslims were slightly more than 51 per cent if a referendum had been confined to the Muslims alone, 26 per cent of the Punjab population could have determined the outcome for the whole of Punjab. Seervais laboured defence of thisA position [44] sits ill with his civil libertarian claims as this clearly involves denial of the rights of a major part of the population of the state.

Seervai has drawn attention away from this by dwelling instead on an alleged distinction between Rajagopalacharis and Gandhis scheme of voting in the referendum. But regardless of whether Gandhis or Rajajis scheme was to be adopted, the consequences of Jinnahs concept of confining the referendum to one community for the civil rights of the remaining population have to be considered. This Seervai fails to do.

The matter had a bearing also on Jinnahs earlier claim on behalf of the League, in the talks with Subhas Bose inA June,A 1938, to consult with other minorities and interests as well, a claim made primarily for effect, as the vote in Punjab would now not extend in Jinnahs scheme even to the Sikhs.

In the course of the negotiations with the Cabinet Mission also,A Jinnah,A in his attempt to attain a larger Pakistan, took positions that seemed to reduce the theory of two nations to a logical absurdity. In his meeting with the Cabinet Mission and Wavell on 4 April 1946,A JinnahA maintained that a... he could not agree that Calcutta could be taken away merely because it was a HinduA majorityA city. Much of theA HinduA population of Calcutta was not indigenous but broughtA thereA fromA outside. [45] He argued further, aPakistan without Calcutta would be like asking a man to live without his heart.A HeA didA not want to keep Hindus in PakistanA againstA their will and they couldA migrateA but he could not reduce the area ofA Pakistan below the point on which the state couldlive (emphasis added). [46]

The notion that Pakistan must come into being, even if people are uprooted from their homes to bring thisA about,A does not appear to be consistent with notions of democracy, civil rights or humanism. ThisA community-for-itself idea is an extension of the position thatA JinnahA had taken on separate electorates namely, aWe, Hindus and Muslims are different in everything. We cannot get together only in the ballotA box. [47]

We have seen that earlier Jinnah had demanded that any referendum in the Muslim-majority areas, must be confined to the Muslim population. He now demanded that, in addition to this, certain non-Muslim-majority areas should be included in Pakistan regardless of their wishes and volunteered that the non-Muslim inhabitants could leave that territory if they wished. He explained his conception further: aWhat he wanted was a nucleus Muslim territory surrounded by sufficient additional territory to make it economically viable (emphasisA added). [48]

This demand now turned the basis of the two-nation theory on its head. Earlier, during the Muslim Leagues sessions, the two-nation theory had been asserted on the basis that the Muslims were a separate nation because they were the only one of the religious minorities in a majority in certain geographical areas and which were capable of supporting a separate country. It was now argued that this was not enough and that surrounding areas, even if these were notA Muslim-majorityA areas, should be included in the proposed Pakistan. On this basis, in the aTermsA of the offer made by the MuslimA LeagueA as basis ofA agreementA on 12 May 1946, Assam was described as a aMuslim Province. [49] This it was possible to do only within an imperial framework.

A year later the same theme was still being pursued. Rafiq Zakaria writes:

The League president pleaded with Mountbatten on 26thA April,A 1947, aWhat is the use of Bengal without Calcutta: they had better remain united and independent; I am sure that they would be on friendly terms with us. But Nehru and Patel rejected the proposal outright.

Pakistan, thus, came to be foisted on the Muslims of the North-West and theA North-EastA of India much against theirA wishes. [50]

This passage in Zakarias narrative suggests that the reason for Pakistan being formed was the inability of Nehru and Patel to agree to adding Calcutta to the Bengal that would be separated. This is baseless andA self-contradictoryA because the separation envisaged would also have involved partition. Moreover, Jinnahs statement on a United Bengal is for the purpose of resisting the application of his own principle of partition to the non-Muslim majority districts of Bengal.

Zakaria has not given a complete picture of Jinnahs position. This is set out byA JinnahA in a conversation with Sir E. Mieville four days later. On 30 April 1947, Mieville recorded this conversation in a secret letter to the Viceroy:

He said that whilst the justification for Pakistan was that it was impossible to ask two peoples withA differentA religions, habits etc.ain fact two entirely foreign nationsato live together, this did not apply to Provinces, because the minority communities could move to their homelands if they wish to do soai.e. Hindus to Hindustan and Muslims to PakistanA ... [51] (emphasis added).

Although Jinnah went on to say that he saw no necessity for the people to move, and to assure Mieville that there would be no discrimination against minorities in Pakistan, he repeatedly envisaged the shifting of people to their respective homelands, an idea that had been with him since at least 1941. In fact, on the same day,A JinnahA issued a statement in which he said, inter alia:

It is obvious that if the Hindu minorities in Pakistan wish to emigrate and go to their homelands of Hindustan they will be at liberty to do so and vice versa those Muslims who wish to emigrate from Hindustan can do so and go to Pakistan and sooner or later exchange of population will have toA takeA place and the Constituent Assemblies of Pakistan and Hindustan can take up the matter and subsequently the respective governments in Pakistan and Hindustan can effectively carry out theA exchange of population wherever it may be necessary and feasibleA (emphasisA added). [52]

JinnahA knew then the possible implications of theA ideologyA he and his party were propounding and the impact it could have on the lives of millions of people.

The basic characteristics of whatA JinnahA and his movement represented did not, however, change after the creation of Pakistan. Soon after partition came Pakistans EssentialA ServicesA Act. According to the telegram received by B. R. Ambedkar from Choithram Gidwani, members of the ScheduledA CastesA in Sind and Baluchistan were being forcibly prevented through the Essential Services Act from migrating toA India. [53]

Shortly after the partition decision came, Jinnahs speech in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in August 1947 seemed to suggest that he stood for a secularA state. [54] Thus Jinnah now seemed to adopt, towards the religious minorities in Pakistan, the very position which the Indian independence movement had, through the Nehru Report in 1928, adopted towards religious minorities. As the imperial context was not there any longer within Pakistan, no occasion arose to test whether Jinnah would be prepared to concede to the principal religious minority within Pakistan, particularly in East Bengal, the same positions, rights and privileges without which he had found it impossible to function within a United India. But even this position he was, it seems, unable to maintain for long. On 28 March 1948,A JinnahA delivered a speech in which he suggested that Pakistan was the aembodiment of the unity of the Muslim nation and so it must remain. [55]

This is exactly the RSS/Hindutva ideology in reverse, which decrees that the majority religious community in India alone has the right to define or determine Indian nationhood. The predilection that the north Indian Hindu chauvinist often displays towards the imposition of a highly Sanskritized form of Hindi upon non-Hindi speakers, found its counterpart in Jinnahs speech at Dhaka University in what is now the capital of Bangladesh, on 24 March 1948 that aUrdu and Urdu alone would be Pakistans national language. [56] This was to set in motion a train of events which Indias religion and language sectarians can ignore only at the general peril.

V. The Reaction Theory

Muslim League-oriented writers naturally argue that Jinnahs politics was a reaction to Congress politics which, accordingA toA them, was communal. H.M. Seervai also seems to make this interesting but misleading argument. Based on this logic, political actors and forces are not responsible for their own actions. Thus, the Hindutva of the 1980s and 1990s can be explained away as a reaction either to the Congress (I) or to Muslim communal parties. Indeed, even the formation of the Hindu Mahasabha can, based on this logic, hardly be seen independently of the formation of the Muslim League.

Several problems arise in the reaction theory as an explanation for League politics. On and after the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, considerable efforts were made to involve the various communities of India in the new organization. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who wielded considerable influence, opposed the Congress and advised Muslims against being involved with it. At this stage there was no cause for a reaction to any action that political leaders of other communities may have taken. But Syed Ahmed felt that it was not in the interests of Muslims to involve themselves with the Congress and that their interests lay instead in concentrating on the field of education.

His opposition was therefore formulated not merely in practical terms; but also in emphatic ideological terms. In a letter to Badruddin Tyabji on 24 January 1888, Syed Ahmad wrote that athere can be no such thing as a National Congress, norA canA it be of equal benefit to allA peoples. [57] He added:

You regard the doings of the misnamed National Congress as beneficial to India but I am sorry to say that I regard them as not only injurious to our own community but also to India at large. IA objectA to every Congress in any shape or form whateverawhich regards India as one nation on account of its being based on wrong principles, viz. that it regards the whole of India as oneA nation. [58]

This viewA of Indian nationalism remained at the heart of the opposition to the Congress by a section of the Muslim community. As in the case of the Hindu communal world-view, it tested nationalism on the basis of what it aoffered to particular religious communities. It was the constituency represented by this opinion that Jinnah ultimately took over.A TheA constituency had a life and rationale of its own basedA largely on a community-for-itself view. On the premises of this viewA the relative demographic configuration of the variousA communities in India was itself aA majorA handicap. Had JinnahA not ultimately taken over this constituency, it could well haveA been represented by another. There is no denying, of course, that Jinnah was to impart a definite and personal imprint uponA it.

aReaction explanations are inadequate on other countsA asA well. They fail, for example, to explain the relativelyA poorA performance of the Muslim League in the 1936-7 electionsA toA the provincial assemblies. If Congress politics was acommunal and if League politics is to be explained on this basis, why was this feeling not reflected in the 1936-7 elections?

In this connection, it is useful to recall that in the United Provinces, for example, many Muslim groups supported the Congress in the elections. The Congress and the local unit of the Muslim LeagueA itself appeared to have had a kind of apact in the 1937 elections. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote that initially in the election campaign both the Muslim League and the Congress opposed the Agriculturist Party of the abig Zamindars. But, according to him, during the election campaign the League took a areactionary turn and the aoutstanding and most powerful reactionary elements seemed to gain the upperA hand. [59] The president of the UP League Board, the Rajah of Salempur, even joined the non-Congress interim ministry that was initially formed after the elections. Many Muslims, including the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind, disapproved of the Leagues methods and of the way the League fought the Bundelkhand election in 1937. It is also well known that in the ministry-making in the United Provinces thereafter, theA Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind,A among others, opposed the proposed pact between the (United Provinces group of) the Muslim League and theA Congress. [60]

If the Congress were a Hindu communalist party, as alleged, the Muslim religious parties like the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind would, in the ordinary course of things, have been the first to react against it.

It is also significant that even a substantial section of theA localA United Provinces unit of the League was, at thisA stage, willing to go along with the Congress. At least one reason for the pact falling through had to do not so much with Hindu-Muslim relations as with considerations relating, for example, to the Congress programme for land reforms. According to M. Hashim Kidwai, a biographer of Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, the Congress-League negotiations on cabinet-making failed because of opposition not only from Congress socialists, but also from aCongress communists headed by Dr Ashraf and Dr Z.A.A Ahmad.

Kidwai writes:

Nehru thought that the U.P. Congress having led the first mass agrarian movement in the country was now set for radical land reforms and the inclusion of the moderate-cum-conservative Muslim League elements would moderate the economic and social radicalisms of the Congress and that the Muslim masses could be wooed through the socio-economic programmeA ofA the Congress, for which the Muslim mass contact campaignA had already beenA launched. [61]

There is another weakness in the areaction argument. It fails to explain the politics of the substantial section of Indian Muslims who stood by the Indian freedom movement. The Muslim-majority North-West Frontier Province elected a Congress government in the 1946 elections which were fought by the League on the Pakistan plank. Baluchistan remained a Congress stronghold till the end. It cannot be Seervais case, for example, that the nature of the Indian struggle for freedom is to be defined only by the movement in the politics of the League and not by the politics of another significant section of Indian Muslims or of other minorities.

Jinnahs post-1931A politics appearsA to have been facilitated by the imperial context in which such positions could be taken with impunity, many of them with the solid support of the colonial power. For his politics, his essential positions, including his negotiating positions, are not natural and could not have been adopted in the absence of the colonial context, a fact recognized by many. Acharya Narendra Deva noted in 1946 that aJinnahs methods are Nazi methods ... and that he was ... amisleading the Muslim masses. [62]

There are other voices of Indian Muslims with equal, if not greater, claims to authenticity. These are, for example, symbolized by Allah Baksh who was murdered on 14 May 1943; by Saifuddin Kitchlew (a hero of the ferment which led to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919), who wasA draggedA inA the streets of Multan in March 1947, because he wouldA not support the Pakistan demand; by Syed Nausher Ali,A theA SpeakerA of the Bengal Assembly who was injured in the course ofA anA attack on his house in August 1946 by Muslim League cadres who took over the house and declared it to be the League office; indeed also by men like Shafaat Ahmed Khan whoA wasA in the Muslim League for a long time but who, having been nominated a member of the interim government at the centre by the Congress in 1946, was stabbed in Shimla immediately thereafter and, as Choudhry Khaliquzzaman puts it, whose ainjuries provedA fatal. [63]

An important phenomenon which should also be noticed is of certain leading Muslims from the Muslim League returning to the Congress, or turning back from a community-for-itself position to an Indian nationalist position. Thus, for instance, Saifuddin Kitchlew returned to the Congress in the 1940s; similarly, Ali Imam, having been one of the founders of the Muslim League in 1906, emerges later as one of the major supporters of the Nehru Report; or Mian Fazli Husain,A aA classic example, who prior to his retirement from the Viceroys Executive Council in March 1935, had been one of the major instruments by which the British regime had sought to influence Muslim opinion. He was also active from New Delhi in preventing a settlement from being reached at the Round Table Conferences in London. It was he who had thrown his weight to ensure that Dr M.A. Ansari was not invited to the Round Table Conference at London in 1931. But this same Fazli Husain, at the head of a reorganized Unionist Party, aenvisaged co-operation with the Congress on the economic plane. [64] He died a few months before the 1936-7 elections.

Just as Jinnah turned to a community-for-itself position, his junior and political associate, M.C. Chagla started taking a firm Indian nationalist position.

As noted, even after the League passed the aPakistan resolution in 1940, it did not command the support of the majority of Indian Muslims, a point conceded even by Cantwell Smith who many believe sold the asupport-for-Pakistan line to the CPI.

TheA timingA of such a League areaction is interesting. Humayun Kabir, for instance, argues that the Muslim League was in fact alosingA ground during 1943-4 in Bengal and the Punjab and nationalist forces were becoming stronger. Kabirs criticism hereA isA not that the Congress did not reach out to the League, butA thatA Gandhis decision to talk toA JinnahA at this time helpedA theA latter to regain ground. [65]

The dilemma of the pre-freedom Congress in such matters was acute, though there is insufficient recognition of it. If it did not reach out to the League, it was held responsible for causing the areaction represented by the Leagues politics. If it reached out to the League, it was accused by many, including the nationalist Muslims, of actually contributing to strengthen it. In such situations it was not quite possible ever to be aright. Easy judgementalism in relation to the pre-freedom Congress is often a back projection of present-day critiques of the role of the Congress (I).

In addition to these factors were the roles of officialdom and of the pre-freedom Communist Party of India. (A criticism of this phase of the CPI should not, however, be confused with criticism of the present-day CPI or Communist Party (Marxist) both of which parties have now a fairly creditable record of opposition to communalism.)

Kabir records, for example,

During the war years and immediately thereafter, Indian communists were found again and again as staunch supporters of the Muslim League. The position came to a climax during the general election of 1946 when they openly canvassed for Muslim League candidates. In spite of the Communist distaste for religion, they appealed to the religious fanaticism of the Muslim masses in order to bolster the claim of Pakistan. It is in fact extremely doubtful if the Muslim League by itself could have brought about the partition of India unless it had received such unstinted ideological organisational support from the IndianA Communists. [66]

Evidently, there was more than merely the Leagues alleged areaction, in the events that led to partition.

Even within the League there were differences on the question of a settlement. Wavell, who contributed considerably to the building up of Jinnah,A admits in his journal on 6 October 1948A toA aa certain reluctant admiration for him and his uncompromising attitude. [67] But he conceded on 18 March 1947 that had Liaquat abeen inA Jinnahs place I think we could have got a solution. [68]

The movement for Indian freedom cannot be judged merely through the Muslim League, to the exclusion of otherA groupsA of Muslims. And as regards the Muslim League as well, isA oneA to see it merely in the context of the later years? Further,A isA the freedom movement to be judged merely on the HinduaMuslim frame, to the exclusion of other communities?A Another unexplained fact in the areaction paradigm is why the Hindu Mahasabha leaders moved in the direction of the two-nation theory. For, as we have seen, some of them did so even before Jinnah formally adopted it (though theA community-for-itselfA idea came to dominate Jinnahs politics considerably before it was transformed into the two-nation theme). Were theA MahasabhaA leaders also reacting to the Congress? Or is the argument that is presented for the League, not to be presented for the Mahasabha? Who and what was the Mahasabha reacting to?

VI. The aSecular Demands Theory

I have argued elsewhere that there is no secularism without humanism. [69] A politics of hate, or a community-for-itself view in disregard of the interests of the larger society outside that community is not compatible with secularism. Secularism is not aA substituteA for humanism but the form humanism must acquire when expressed at the level of the state. Secularism without humanism is an empty shell. Kamal Ataturk set up a state in Turkey, with asecularism being confined to the Turkish state; the Greek population was to be uprooted from Asia Minor, where the Greeks had lived since the beginning of recorded history, to be exchanged with the Turkish population in Greece. Jinnah also similarly and repeatedly referred to and hinted at, from at least as early on as 1941, to a possible exchange of population between aHindustan and the aMuslim dominion that the League had proposed. The protagonists of Hindutva also similarly spoke of such an exchange of population. In August 1947 Jinnah spoke of equal rights for all citizens of Pakistan thus signalling a secular state, but on 28A MarchA 1948 he suggested that Pakistan was athe embodiment of the unity of the Muslim nation and so it must remain. [70] The Hindutva agendaA for India is an identical image of this. The notion of the state taking colour from the religion of the majority, orA ofA the nation being defined as such, was rejected by constitution makers in India. This understanding runs through the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly. Yet the temptation to eraseA theA distinction between the majority community and the definition of the nation is ever present. This is the politics of Hindutva. This notion has also been reflected in certain controversial remarks of the Supreme Court of India in the Hindutva judgements delivered in late 1995.

Secularism in form becomes secularism in substance only in association with humanism. When the term is used in relation to the state it must not only reflect the minimum norms of humanism and equal respect for the humanistic basis of all religions, as required from the individual and civil society, but must also ensure that religious considerations of any particular community are kept out of the affairs of state and its institutions and do not influence such affairs.

Asghar Ali Engineer has deplored the communal politics of both the Hindu Mahasabha and of the Muslim League traditions. But while depicting such politics as communal he has recently been describing the causes behind the Leagues demand for Pakistan as asecular. Thus he observes:

It should also be noted that the Urdu-speaking Alite (not the masses) from North India was mainly responsible for the creation of Pakistan. And it is also important to note that this Urdu-speaking Alite created Pakistan not for religious reasons, as is commonly believed, but for secular reasons. [71]

Here the loaded term asecular is obviously being used in the specific sense of atemporal. Yet on account of the various shades of meaning that attach to the term, one would be diffident in describing such demands, if made by non-Muslims in Muslim-majority provinces of pre-independence India, as asecular. Else Hindu leaders who made such demands in Punjab and Bengal and Sikh leaders who made similar demands in Punjab would also have to be characterized as making asecular demands. In fact, Engineers use of the term asecular is primarily a terminological vagueness, because Engineer is doubtless aware of theA connotationsA of the term asecular and himself has no difficulty in characterizing the politics of Jinnah and the League as communal. For instance, he observes, asimilarly, one whoA isA communal, like M.A. Jinnah and Veer Savarkar, never developed an inner faith in religion. [72] How does Engineer resolve the contradiction? He does so by saying,A aThusA communalism is all about secular issues without involving any religious or sectarianA doctrine. [73]A The Muslim League demands, though largely non-theological, were religious-community-based.A IfA such demands are described as asecular, it creates the misleading impression that those Muslims who did not make such demands somehow did not reflect secular concerns. On this reasoning,A MuslimsA like Zakir Husain, Asaf Ali, Mohd. Tayebullah, SyedA Nowsher Ali, Allah Baksh, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Munshi Ahmeddin, Abdul Bari (the socialist from Bihar), Yusuf Meherally and M.Y.A Nurie,A who tended to think on an Indian national plane were, by implication, not articulating secular demands or the real needs of the Muslims. The fact, however, is that they were concerned with these issues but they were also concerned about similar aspirations of persons from other communities and sought a secular and nationalist resolution of all such aspirations. Their secularism lay in the holistic nature of their concerns.

The League often demanded, as we have seen, that the Congress may not be represented by a Muslim in say, the 1945 conference, or the Executive Council in 1946, or even in talks with the Muslim League, as in 1938. Was this a asecular demand in any sense? Did this articulate the needs of the Muslim masses?

There was at this time no universal franchise. The formulation that the League was voicing secular demands implies also primary popular support for the Muslim Leagues demands, as against support merely from the relatively small proportion comprising the enfranchised sections of the Muslim population. As against this, we have the following position from, for example:

1. Bengal

Moni Singh, the Bangladesh Communist leader, points out in his memoirs how Muslim League leaders influenced the MuslimA peasantsA against the Tebhaga movement inA 1946. [74]

2. Baluchistan

Cantwell Smith acknowledges in ModernA Islamin India, that in Baluchistan theA landowners were with the Muslim League (that is, as against Abdus Samad KhansA Anjuman-e-Watan). [75]

3. U.P.

Prof. M. Mujeeb wrote of the 1937-39A events,A in U.P.:

Further, while on the one hand the will of the majorityA seemed to be an argument which swept everything before it, an attempt was made by the Congress, through a programme of mass contact, to drive a wedge between the class and the Muslim masses. The land reforms that formed an essential part of Congress policy, though intended in fact to benefit the farmer, threatened to deprive the class of its only means of sustenance. It was inevitable that the class should retaliate as vigorously and as viciously as itA could.[M. Mujeeb, aThe Partition of India in Retrospecta, in C.H. Philips and Mary Doreen Wainwright (eds), The Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives, 1935-47 , George Allen & Unwin, London, 1970, p. 412.]

4. Kerala

Interestingly, the League influence in the Malabar seems to have grown ajust when the Socialist group in the Congress in Kerala was becoming powerful in the late 30s. [76]

In fact, Engineer himself, in a way, questions the representative nature of the League when he asserts that it was the Alite and not the masses which were responsible for the creation of Pakistan. In the circumstances, the position that the League was articulating the secular aspirations of the Muslim masses is open to question.

As Engineer would himself gladly point out, there were many Muslims opposed to the League, and many (Muslim-predominant) organizations also opposed to the League. Can it be said of the former that they wereA religiousA personalities; and of all of the latter that they wereA religious organizations in the theological sense? For this is what seems erroneously to be implied by contrasting them with the League which is here described as asecular. Here one may note the existence of an advanced section of Muslims in the Indian National Congress, including the Congress Socialist Party; a section of Muslims within the pre-freedom Communist Party of India, represented by Dr K.M. Ashraf, who seem to have opposed that partys support to the Muslim League; the Muslims in the Krishak Praja Party; the Muslims in the Unionist Party of Punjab; the Anjuman-e-Watan of Baluchistan; Allah Bakshs United Party in Sind; the National Conference in JammuA & Kashmir; and the All India Momin ConferenceA andA several otherA organizations. What interests were these organizationsA articulating?A DidA they not also reflect the secular interests of the Muslim masses?

The fact that the ostensibly religious groups like theA Khudai Khidmatgars (which may also be classified as aA regionalA organization), Majlis-e-Ahrar and theA Jamiat-ul-Ulama-e-HindA largely supported the Congress is significant. DidA membersA of these parties have no secular interests? For even the PopeA hasA some secular interests (Vatican business investments, etc.). If these organizations were in a sense religious, was religionA their primary concern? If the Muslim League demands wereA secularA demands of the Muslims, did the All Parties ShiaA Conference, which was opposed to the Muslim League, represent the asecular demands of the Shia Muslims? Why should the two asecular demands have been totally opposed to one another?

What employment interests of Muslims at large in, say, UP and Bihar were served by the movement for Pakistan? In fact, so far as the Muslim artisans of India were concerned, they were an intrinsic part of a unified Indian economy and the partition demand was contrary to their secular interests. It was their lives which were severely affected byA partition. [77]

How did secular demands get associated with an intense hate campaign akin to that conducted by Hindutva especially in recent years? If these demands were simply attempts at abargaining, was this bargaining process helped or hampered by the hate campaign? In other words, was not the hate campaign contrary to the secular interests of the Muslim masses and of all Indians?

Further, if Muslim League demands were asecular, should such demands now be repeated and would all asecular forces be obliged to support such demands?

Does not secularism as a political concept, involve as a precondition an element of humanism? Or is secularism definable with reference to a single community or sect even if this is to the extent of disregarding the fate of those who do not belong to that community or sect? Is the uprooting of humanity involved in the suggestion made by Jinnah, for example, in 1941 regarding Hindus and Muslims settling ain their respective homelands,A consistent with humanism? [78] Is the demandA thatA only Muslims ought to participate in a referendum in the Muslim majority provinces, made by Jinnah in the talks with Gandhi in 1944, a secular demand? [79]

Jinnahs acceptance (after partition had been agreed upon) of the principle of equal rights for all within Pakistan, is often hailed as evidence of his secularism. [80] On the other hand, when the Congress did the same thing in 1928 through the Nehru Report, this is sometimes cited as an instance of the Indian nationalists being inA error; [81] for here, it is argued, they should have accepted the demands made on behalf of Jinnah. Here the secular ideal is stood on its head. Instead of the Nehru Report being presented as secular, these demands are themselves described as asecular. Some facts in relation to this event are often overlooked. First, a number of Indian nationalists, many Muslims among them, stoutly supported the Nehru Report. These included Ali Imam, one of the founding members of the Muslim League. Secondly, in 1928, when Jinnahs proposals were being discussed, the British colonial regime was backing another group of Muslims. During the Round Table Conferences of the 1930s Mian Fazli Husain, who was then in the Viceroys Council, was the primary ainstrument by which a section of Muslim opinion was sought to be orchestrated by the colonialA regime. [82]A The hypothetical questions of history are always engaging. It is too simplistic to believe that an agreement with Jinnah at this stage would have prevented the League or another communal party in its place from pursuing communal politics. Jinnah himself had a different interpretation of the 1928 and subsequent events. He said: aThe Congress will not come to terms with me because my following is very small. [83]

At this time the British were backing others. They were to start their primary backing for Jinnah only subsequently. Fazli had by then turned towards a more nationalist position. In a broad political sense, Fazli and Jinnah switched roles. Had Jinnah not been available, the British regime would perhaps have found it convenient to find or create others to play a role which was not unconnected with the various means by which the colonial regime sought to contain IndianA nationalism. [84]
Dhaka Tribune - July 23, 2017

Colour within the lines

Why is a ruling party religious affairs secretary so concerned about a childas artwork?

Whether Advocate Obaedullah Saju has ever dreamed of being an artist or an art critic, I do not know.

Either way, the AL Barisal city unitas religious affairs secretary should have stuck to his regular job, instead of deciding to weigh in on the merits of an artwork made by a child, printed on the back of an invitation card.

The story has caused people from all over the country, AL-supporters or not, to shake their heads in disbelief: Gazi Tarek, the upazila nirbahi officer of Barguna Sadar, had organised an art competition for children.

He took a portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, drawn by a student of class V, and put it on the back of an invitation card.

Seeing this, Advocate Saju, took it upon himself to decide that the drawing was offensive.

He took legal action against UNO Gazi Tarek a Tarek was sent to jail, though he was released on bail on the same day.

Saju filed a Tk5 crore defamation case with Barisal Chief Metropolitan Magistrateas Court, and has said something along the lines of: aHad he been born during the time of Bangabandhu, Gazi Tarek would have realised who Bangabandhu was.a

But what does any of that have to do with a childas drawing?

Hereas the thing. No one, and certainly not a religious affairs secretary from Barisal, holds a monopoly over the memory of the most revered figure in Bangladesh.

A picture, drawn with the utmost love and respect by a child, is not some kind of anti-state or subversive activity. It does not, in any conceivable way, cause anyone any kind of harm.

Everyone has the right to pay homage to the Father of the Nation: Through art, through poetry, through music

Everyone has the right to pay homage to the Father of the Nation: Through art, through poetry, through music.

By going after the man who published the drawing in a totally innocent invitation card, Saju has inadvertently revealed his true colours.

He would like us to believe he is honouring Bangabandhu, when in truth he is doing the opposite. Whatever he has against Gazi Tarek, using Bangabandhuas name as a pretext for his own agenda is not excusable. The good news is that sanity has prevailed.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has suspended Saju, and asked the party why he should not be expelled for good. She has also asked the leaders of Barisal division to take organisational action.

Sajuas holier-than-thou antics have backfired, and now his political career is in jeopardy. He could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had stuck to his regular job, and not pretended to understand art.

But thereas a bigger lesson to be learned here a we live in dangerous times.

While technology has made it more possible than ever to disseminate information, to be heard, to be published, there are also an unprecedented number of self-proclaimed judges out there.

These judges go through life giving rulings on anything and everything. From the clothes you wear, to the music you prefer, to the drawing done by a pre-teen a you name it, they have an opinion on it. And they think it is their right and their duty to dole out punishment to those they find guilty. Such verdicts come wrapped in the cloak of patriotism a they feign a concern for the rule of law, but in truth, they are an affront to civilised society.

What Obaedullah Saju tried (and thankfully, failed) to do was an insult to the principles of due process, of basic human rights, and yes, of the spirit of our independence.

We cannot stand for that sort of thing.

Abak Hussain is Editor, Editorial and Op-Ed, Dhaka Tribune.
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" " A tabular iceberg floats off the coast of Antarctica. Researchers are monitoring the massive iceberg A-38 (significantly larger than the one pictured here) to see whether it breaks up and how it affects shipping lanes. Ignacio Palacios/Getty Images

News broke on July 12, 2017, that the growing crack in Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf finally had given way, and calved an immense 2,240-square-mile (5,800-square-kilometer) iceberg roughly the size of the state of Delaware.

Since then, the National Ice Center (NIC) has named the iceberg A-68, and is starting to track where it goes and what happens to it.

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NIC says that A-68 is expected to drift east-northeast along the Antarctic Peninsula in the Weddell Gyre, a system of swirling ocean currents formed by global wind patterns and Earth's rotational forces. From there, it's likely to break up into a bunch of smaller icebergs before drifting to the north and entering the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. It's one of the strongest ocean currents in the world, flowing eastward and encircling the Antarctic continent, passing through the southern portions of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans along the way.

" " This animation created by NASA shows how a crack spread across the Larsen C Ice Shelf over a period of 11 years, leading to the creation of an iceberg more than 12 percent of the shelf's surface area. NASA/USGS Landsat

Weather Network meteorologist Scott Sutherland notes that Iceberg B-15, a similarly massive piece of ice that calved from the Ross Ice Shelf, broke up into 28 pieces over the 17 years since its formation. Four of those pieces still are being tracked by NIC, and the biggest, B-15T, is about 256 square miles (663 square kilometers) in area.

The iceberg's disintegration process has already begun. Antarctic researcher Adrian Luckman tweeted on July 14 that A-68 already appears to have broken into two pieces. Sutherland writes that the iceberg's pieces could get trapped in inlets along the coast, but they'll most likely end up in the waters of the Southern Ocean, where they'll slowly melt. That process could take decades, meaning ships in the waters will have to navigate those obstacles.

And scientists aren't concerned only with the iceberg, but also with its former home, the Larsen C Ice Shelf, named after Norwegian explorer Carl Larsen. They're monitoring its stability following the loss of a substantial portion of its mass, and have already detected the potential for new cracks and massive icebergs.

Now, That's Interesting Dan McGrath, a glaciologist at Colorado State University, said on NASA's website that scientists haven't yet determined whether the calving of Larsen C is somehow linked to climate change
Director Im Heung-soon returns for his third feature, casting his artistic light on another under-served segment of the population with the documentary Ryeohaeng. Focusing on the lives of several female North Korean defectors in Korea, Im contrasts talking heads positioned in some unusual locations with dreamy reveries and musical sequences.

The NK refugees, who are quickly introduced less through their backgrounds than their personal quirks, range in age but are united in a desire that led them to leave the hermit kingdom. Some have been in the South for decades, others only a few years, but all talk about their surprise upon arriving south of the border and finding it to be worlds away from the backwater hellhole that their government had warned them about.

The paths that led them all to South Korea (generally by way of China) are similar, though some take a darker turn in human trafficking. They diverge further once they reach the southern part of the peninsula, as each ends up in a different line of work. Yet, notably, many of the women show an artistic side, whether seamstresses with a keen interest in fashion or aspiring actresses.

Two women walk through the mountains near Anyang, a city that is reputed to be place to find comfort (and whose government partly financed the work), and one practices her acting in front of the other, wearing full hanbok (traditional Korean costume). Before we know it, we're whisked into a fictional scene of the same women running through the woods and hiding in a village of old huts after darting past a table, from under which the feet of a corpse poke out.

Each character has something interesting to say, but if that wasn't enough, director Im frames them in unexpected ways, highlighting the alienness of their experiences and their undefined roles in a foreign country that, not so long ago, they might have called home. One woman sits barefoot at night in a red plastic chair placed in the middle of a stream. Another woman's jerky hand gesticulations project shadows which jut around the face of a large, coarse boulder.

Ryeohaeng is an elegant film that finds purpose in its subject and the unusual way it frames it, just as in the style of Im's previous documentaries, yet it's also a smaller work that opts to stay within its thin scope. It presents a small group of people and the common issues that bind them but never attempts to dig too deeply into the admittedly bigger topics it dances around. It's no Factory Complex, but cements Im's status as a leading figure in Korea's documentary scene.
At the moment, in Korea, there arent many stars that shine brighter or hotter than Gang Dong-won. The leading man of more than 20 features creates frenzies everywhere he goes, as proven by his appearance to receive the Star Asia award at the New York Asian Film Festival.

Gang spoke with me about his featured film, Vanishing Time, and his upcoming films, director Kim Jee-woons Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and director Jang Joon-hwans 1987.

The Lady Miz Diva: VANISHING TIME is a very interesting film with fairytale-like qualities. What was your sense of the projects when you first read the script?

Gang Dong-won: The first time I read the script, I was making a movie called A Violent Prosecutor. When you read the script, it doesnt look like a very commercial movie - of course, I felt like this was a commercial movie - but this is a new kind of genre in Korea. We dont like fantasy kind of movies that much. So, I felt like it was going to be difficult again, because when I made a movie called Haunters, I felt a very similar feeling.

So, I needed to know about the director, get his information. He came to my shooting place and I talked with him for an hour, and then I could believe him. {I said,} Okay, lets shoot the movie together.

LMD: I loved watching the vulnerability of your character, Sungmin, once hes back in the world after so long, which is exactly the one he left, but is now alien to him. What were some of the things you looked at to create those gestures and reaction?

GDw: First, the reason why the character felt so scared of the environment was because he lived for almost 15 years alone and everything had stopped, but when he came back, everything started to move.

I had a kind of a little bit similar experience in reality in New York, in SoHo; because it was too busy, and then in SoHo, everybodys rushing. Then, when I was walking in SoHo, suddenly I became totally covered in sweat and I got panic disorder. I couldnt walk, so I sat down on the street, and then I took 10 minutes break and then I could walk.

So, maybe, I thought this character would feel extremely the same feeling like my experience.

LMD: What are older Sungmins feelings toward Su-rin? You have a walk a strange line there, because all this time has passed, but is Sungmin still a young boy in his head with his first big crush on Su-rin?

GDw: That was a pretty difficult point, so the director and I, we talked about the kind of love, or friendship, we talked about a very deeply. We felt, of course, that Sungmin would still have some feelings toward her, because she was the only one who believed him. But he became older, he knows, because he studied a lot alone; so, hes not a very social person, but hes still a little bit of an adult, already.

Yet, he knows that this cannot happen, so hes controlling his feelings. There is that scene in the bathroom where shes cutting his hair and then theyre looking at each other; both of them felt something, whether it was friendship or love.

Anyway, they are still friends; the little girl and the strange man, although they have this very confusing situation. They cannot be lovers, but it is still very pure.

LMD: Tell us about working with your VANISHING TIME leading lady, the amazing Miss Shin Eun-Soo?

GDw: Actually, this movie, since this is the directors first movie, we talked about the casting so many times, because he was not very sure about the casting. Casting is so difficult, its the most difficult thing in movies. And he showed a picture  we had a lot of discussions about this boy or this girl  and then when I saw Eun-soos picture  director Uhm Tae-Hwa had sent her photo by messenger, and when I saw her picture, I texted him to say, Shes the one. Shes the girl.

LMD: With Director Kim, youre doing JIN-ROH: WOLF BRIGADE and one of your first successes was called TEMPTATION OF WOLVES. I sense a theme. Please tell us about JIN-ROH.

GDw: Of course, the movie is based on the animation story. We have changed it a little bit to a future story. It was a story that took place in the past. Not me, actually, the director and the producer and everybody discussed about which would be better; the past, or now, or the future, and then we decided to set the whole film in the future.

I cannot give much information, because we havent even started to shoot, but my character will be the strongest character Ive played in my career.

LMD: It has taken a very long time for director Kim Jee-woon to bring Jin Roh to production. Is it extra pressure to collaborate on something that has been gestating in an artists mind for so long?

GDw: We talked about Jin-Roh from maybe five years ago, when I was in the military service. He asked me, Are you interested in Jin-Roh? Yeah, of course, its good. And then he said, Okay, lets make it.

LMD: Today, he put up what looked like a costume test on his Instagram.

GDw: He did?

LMD: Yes, he did, it looks really cool, this really sharp-cut military uniform in green.

GDw: Thats me!

LMD: Im very interested in your other upcoming film, 1987, directed by Jang Joon-hwan. He is not only a great director and nice man, but he is my drinking idol. Tell us about that film.

GDw: He is one of my best friends. We made a film called Love For Sale, and we became pretty good friends. But actually, in Korea, we dont call it friends; because we have senior and junior, and we are very strict, but he is not a person like that. He is not strict, he is very open-minded and I think we became pretty close after doing the film. And now, we talk about Lets make this, and Lets make this, during our drinking sessions.

This movie, called 1987, when he finished the script, he first addressed it to me. Now, its not a good timing to talk about the story. Maybe he will announce it later, because we have some kind of schedule.

LMD: So, the film is not in production yet?

GDw: No, we are starting around October 3.
This weekend, Luc Besson'stravelled across America, where it faced tough competition in a VERY crowded blockbuster season. Our J. Hurtado had a hard time warming up to the film's leads , but lauded its spectacle and eclectic cast of supporting characters.And among those supporting characters we spot Rutger Hauer! The Dutch multi-talented septuagenarian can still often be spotted in both arthouse films and international blockbusters, and he was obviously having fun here. The still above is from a recent talk he had aboutwith Romanian television ( and you can watch that interview here, it's English-friendly ).He is our actor of the week, so our question is: what is your favorite performance by him? Or maybe that one is so damn obvious (hi Roy) that I should say: please add your second-most favorite performance by him... Anyway, chime in, in the comments below!
Wilson Yip's much-anticipated action thriller Paradox will have its world premiere on 15 August as the Opening Film of this year's Cine Fan Summer International Film Festival, organised by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society.

Paradox is the third installment is the hugely successful SPL franchise, and stars Louis Koo, Tony Jaa, Gordon Lam, Wu Yue and Chris Collins. Koo plays a Hong Kong police officer who heads to Thailand in search of his missing daughter, where he is assisted by local law enforcers Tony Jaa and Wu Yue.

Koo and Jaa both appeared in SPL2, directed by Soi Cheang, but here play new characters. Yip returns to the director's chair after making a splash with the original SPL in 2005, seen as bringing the filmmaker to international attention and also kickstarting Donnie Yen's struggling career.

The festival's Closing Film will be 24 Frames, the final posthumous work from Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. There will also be a Master Class from fellow Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, accompanied by screenings of his films The Nights of Zayandeh-rood and Salaam Cinema.

Other highlights at this years festival, which runs from 15-29 August, include Cannes favourites The Day After and Claires Camera from Hong Sang-soo, Redoubtable from Michel Hazanavicius and the Safdie brothers Good Time, starring Robert Pattinson. Cate Blanchett takes on 13 different roles in Julain Rosefeldts experimental Manifesto, while Anne Hathaway struggles with alcoholism while terrorising Seoul as a giant kaiju in Nacho Vigalondos hilarious Colossal. Lea Mysius' Ava and Jakob Lass' Tiger Girl will also be making their local debuts.

The Summer IFF always devotes ample screen space to restored classics, with this year proving no exception. A sextet of vintage Hollywood comedies will be shown, including The Freshman, Night at the Opera, Steamboat Bill, Jr, City Lights, Some Like it Hot and The Nutty Professor. British comedy fans will also get the chance to see Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Monty Pythons Meaning of Life on the big screen, alongside Woody Allens Love and Death and Martin Scorseses The King of Comedy.
 Reduced jail time in Tennessee for inmates who ... agree to vasectomy or birth control implant!?!?! | Main | "Nine Lessons About Criminal Justice Reform: What Washington can learn from the states" 

July 23, 2017

"North Dakotas Norway Experiment: Can humane prisons work in America? A red state aims to find out."

The title of this post is the headline of this interesting new Mother Jones piece. Here are a few excerpts from a piece that justifies a full read:

Scandinavian prisons tend to elicit eye rolls from law-and-order types weaned on the punitive American model. Yet a growing number of state corrections officials are coming to the realization that our approach is ineffective, costly, and cruel. Fred Patrick, director of the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice, cites the nations staggering recidivism rate  77 percent of inmates released from state prisons are rearrested within five years. Once you realize that this system isnt working well, he says, its fairly easy to pivot to: How do we do something different?'... North Dakota has advantages as a laboratory for correctional reforms. Like Norway, it is sparsely populated and relatively homogeneous  race-based prison gangs hold little sway here. Another advantage, Don Specter told me, is simply that the state government is sufficiently small that it can be responsive to the exertions of a visionary leader. Yet [North Dakota prisons chief Leann] Bertsch and [deputy Karianne] Jackson have no illusions about transforming their system into a corrections utopia overnight. You have to pace yourself, Bertsch says. The Norwegian principle of dynamic security posits that warm relationships between inmates and staff reduce the potential for violence. American prisons typically try to create safe conditions by means of oppressive rules, random searches, and the threat of additional punishment. Transitioning from one approach to the other requires a profound paradigm shift and the ability to sell front-line prison workers on a brand new mindset. How do you get somebody who thinks theyre in law enforcement to figure out you need to be more of an empath, more of a social worker, a friend, and a mentor? Jackson asks. The correctional officers I met at the state penitentiary, ex-military all, werent outwardly hostile to the idea of cultivating relationships with prisoners, but it clearly didnt come naturally to them. For that reason, perhaps, the brass created a mandate: Guards in the segregation unit must have at least two conversations per shift with each of the inmates under their supervision. Its worth a shot, a corrections officer named Josh Hedstrom told me. Because what we were doing before wasnt working.

July 23, 2017 at 05:31 PM | Permalink

Comments

It should work

Posted by: Docile/Kind Soul in OR | Jul 24, 2017 5:33:22 AM

North Dakota is sparsely populated, white, rich, and very cold. It is not representative of the rest of the nation. There is virtually no crime there, anyway, because you need to fear your armed neighbors, not the police.

Posted by: David Behar | Jul 24, 2017 8:56:15 AM

WHAT IS THE SENTENCING STRUCTURE IN NORTH DAKOTA? HOW MUCH TIME MUST BE DONE IN ON SAY A 10 YEAR SENTENCE?

Posted by: CRAIG FLATEBO | Aug 26, 2017 3:55:11 PM

Post a comment
The defendant in the murder case of Kathryn Steinle, who was fatally shot two years ago on Pier 14, made an appearance in court Friday, and as the Mercury News reports, his attorneys asserted his right to a speedy trial despite some initial delays. Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez is due back in court this Friday, but a couple of factors may be slowing the legal process for the time being. First, per the Examiner, Assistant District Attorney Diana Garcia told the court that she has a conflicting trial and is hoping for a postponement in this case. Secondly, the defense is hoping to get a federal agent to serve as a witness, and the government is insisting on further documentation to justify the testimony.

Bureau of Land Management agent John Woychowski is wanted as a witness for the defense because it was his gun, stolen out of his vehicle in San Francisco, that Lopez-Sanchez said he found and used in the shooting, which the defense is arguing was accidental. The Department of the Interior is seeking further justification in writing for why Woychowski's testimony is relevant in the case, as ABC 7 reports, citing rules about how federal agents can be subpoenaed in state courts.

Its such a critical part of the narrative, says defense attorney Matt Gonzalez, speaking to the Examiner. He is hoping to get Woychowski "on the stand cold," he says, and he's also been seeking the service reacord for the gun, a .40 caliber SIG Sauer P329 that reportedly has a hair trigger, which is a key part of the defense's argument for an accidental shooting.

Woychowski's name was made public by KQED, and they now report that prosecutors are seeking to seal the rest of their witness list in order to prevent media-influenced bias in potential jurors.

As discussed earlier, multiple times, the legal proceedings of this case are going to garner national attention because of the immigration issue, and the fact that then Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi freed Lopez-Sanchez, who had a history of deportations and drug convictions, following the dismissal of a drug case against him, without informing ICE.

Discussions of the scheduling of the trial will resume Friday, but it's not looking like the actual trial is going to commence any time soon.

Previously: Trial Of Man Accused Of Killing Kate Steinle Begins Friday


A man who aggressively expressed his displeasure with his drink is being sought on suspicion of aggravated assault today, as the bartender he attacked recovers from her injuries.

Police say that the assault went down at 7:18 p.m. Friday, at a bar on the 3400 block of Mission Street, which is between 30th and Cortland Streets.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, a man who looked to be in his mid-20s was unhappy with the drink served to him by the 31-year-old female bartender.

As opposed to using his words, the man threw a beer bottle at the bartender, striking her in the head. The blow was hard enough that police say it caused "a laceration requiring medical care." She was transported to an area hospital for injuries police say are not life-threatening.

The bottle tosser fled on foot, police say. As of Monday morning, he remains at large, and police say no arrests have been made in the case.
A federal grand jury indicted a West Oakland man Thursday on terrorism charges for allegedly creating social media accounts and planning an attack in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The defendant, 22-year-old Amer Sinan Al Haggagi, is charged with attempting to provide support and resources to a terrorist organization, and a federal court filing obtained by the Chronicle says Al Haggagi went so far as to meet with undercover agents on multiple occasions to plan a potential terrorist attack.

KRON 4 reports that Al Haggagi was actually arrested in November on separate charges of identity theft and buying nearly $5,000 worth of clothing on a stolen credit card. But a new indictment unsealed Friday alleges that the services Alhaggagi attempted to provide included opening social media accounts for the use, benefit, and promotion of ISIS, and that the personnel he provided was himself.

A separate court document obtained by ABC 7 says Al Haggagi has made frequent trips to Yemen and has met with undercover agents on multiple occasions to plan a potential terrorist attack. He also allegedly told agents he had plans to flee to Mexico following the theoretical attack.

Al Haggagis attorney, Mary McNamara, released statement to ABC 7 saying, Amer is not anti-American and does not support ISIS or any other terrorist organization. He is completely nonviolent, and he took no actions to harm anyone. The evidence we have suggests these charges are based on internet chat conversations that he had with a number of unknown people. Amer is a very young and naive man, and it appears he allowed himself to be drawn into conversations that he should have been far more suspicious of.

For their part, Al Haggagis family also put out a statement. We were shocked to learn of the accusations involving Amer, they said, according to ABC 7. Amer is not and has never been radicalized in any way. He grew up in this country and loves it here. He is peaceful and kind. He was very young and immature when he got involved in the online conversations that are the basis for these accusations. He did not think those conversations were serious and he never had any intent to harm anyone. We love him and continue to fully support him.

If convicted, Al Haggagi faces a possible 47 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines.

Related: ISIS Now Wants To Kill Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey Over Deleted Accounts


 Expand The tugboat James Hannah, which lost control of an oil barge in 1975, leading to one of the biggest oil spills in Great Lakes history

There has been a lot of pollution dumped into Lake Michigan over the years, but one surprising such incident occurred in 1975, when one of the worst oil spills to ever occur on the Great Lakes fouled a huge stretch of water just off the shores of Milwaukee.

It was late February when the ten man crew of the 150-foot tug James Hannah set out from Chicago, towing a barge carrying over 600,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil. The weather forecast for their arrival in Milwaukee, where they would deliver the oil to the Atlantic Richfield Oil Company docks on the citys inner harbor, was not great. But the tugs captain, Richard Marone, had been working on the lakes since the age of 15 and the tug, which had been used during WWII to help crippled war ships back to port, was one of the sturdiest on the lake. They reported no trouble until they began to approach Milwaukee Bay, around 10 pm on the evening of February 23.

As they neared the main gap in the breakwater wall, tremendous winds kicked up and swell of the lake neared eight feet. With visibility minimal, the tug inched towards the space between the channel markers. The tug was pulling the barge with a Y rig, a 2,000 foot two-inch-thick steel cable that linked the tug and barge and a pair of 60 foot cables run between the corners of the barge and the main line. As the tug turned sharp into a wave, one of the ancillary cables snapped. Captain Marone immediately killed the engines, to avoid ruining the props with a wayward wire. Idling, but still rolling badly in the treacherous seas, the barge was thrown back from the tug, snapping the main cable and breaking completely free.

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Radioing an emergency distress call to the Coast Guard, the tug had no visual contact with the barge, which was hidden within the stormy seas. For over an hour, the tug and the Coast Guard were able to keep track of the barge via radar. But as the seas worsened, the waves crashing over their boats confused the radar, blotting out the barges location. Now in grave danger of being struck by the 264 x 52 foot barge, the boats retreated to land. Twice the tug went back out in search of the barge, but twice the weather forced them back.

The Coast Guard couldnt locate the barge until the next morning. It was found up against the jagged rocks of the breakwall, a large slick of oil surrounding it. Inspecting the vessel, it was determined that three of the five main tanks of the barge had ruptured and waves crashing over its decks had washed some of the oil into the lake. The barge could not be moved until it was determined to be structurally secure, so it was pinned to the wall by a tug and given a thorough inspection.

Atlantic Richfield, owners of the oil itself, at first claimed that only about 5,000 gallons had been spilled. Within days, this estimate had jumped to 12,000. When the Coast Guard issued their findings, they determined that nearly 60,000 gallons had been spilled. Luckily for Milwaukee, the weather had pushed most of the oil out into the open lake. A survey of the lake from the air a few days after the spill found a slick of oil three miles wide by a mile long, about 22 miles off of the shoreline.

The oil that did make it into the harbor was driven towards the shore by boats equipped with water cannons, where it was drawn up by suction trucks. The Coast Guard went on duck patrol during the cleanup, using propane guns and noisemakers to keep wildlife away from the slicks. With cleanup crews working the lakefront from McKinley Beach down to the South Shore, nearly 21,000 gallons of oil were taken from the lake. The rest was left to dissipate on its own. The cleanup efforts were declared completed after seven days.

The Hannah Inland Waterway Corporation, owners and operators of the tug and barge, were required to pay the cleanup costs. It was noted in the days following the wreck that they could also be subject to fines of up to $5,000 for any negligence in the accident. The Coast Guard later cleared them of any wrongdoing.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man pleaded not guilty Monday to stealing a cooler filled with fish and beer after disabling a home's surveillance cameras.

Hai Nguyen, 47, entered his written plea in Woodbury County District Court to single counts of third-degree arson, second-degree burglary and reckless use of fire or explosives.

According to court documents, surveillance footage taken early July 4 at a house in the 1500 block of Virginia Street showed Nguyen sneaking into the yard and entering an open patio. After Nguyen noticed the security camera, he attempted to conceal his face and knocked the camera down. A few minutes later, a second camera went dead. Police later discovered a wire attached to the home was burned with fire to disable it.

After disabling the cameras, Nguyen took a cooler containing fish and beer, court documents said.

A man and his son were inside the home at the time of the burglary and discovered the crime after waking up.

In an interview with police, Nguyen admitted to going into the victim's yard and knocking down the camera but denied stealing anything or lighting anything on fire, court documents said.
SIOUX CITY | Jason Lee Marlin, the 36-year-old Mapleton, Iowa, man arrested Friday and charged with first-degree theft and second-degree robbery, was involved in one of three robbery incidents that have taken place at a Kum & Go on Gordon Drive over the past month, according to court documents released Monday.

Documents say around 7:23 p.m. July 16, Marlin entered the Kum & Go, 2930 Gordon Drive, selected a bottle of water and approached the sale counter. As the clerk rang up the sale, documents say Marlin "violently lunged over the counter" to grab the cash in the drawer. During the lunge, documents say he injured the clerk's arm.

He fled through the front door on foot after grabbing $120, documents say.

Police released images of the incident last week in an effort to identify the man involved in the robbery. At the time, the suspect was also believed to be connected to a separate incident in Correctionville at the Valley Stop, 404 11th St., when a man reportedly tried to grab money from an open cash register.

Sgt. Chris Garthright with the Woodbury County Sheriff's Office said Monday that deputies have not at this point connected Marlin to that separate incident, and the investigation is ongoing.

Marlin was arrested Friday in South Sioux City just hours after police released to the public that he was a suspect. Police would not immediately disclose which of the robberies they believed Marlin was involved in.

Police are continuing to investigate a handful of recent robberies that have occurred in the past four months.

Police say the same man is a suspect in six incidents dating back to March, including two others that have occurred at the same Gordon Drive Kum & Go over the past month. Police describe him as a white or possibly mixed-race male in his 20s, about 5 feet 10 inches tall and 150 pounds. The man has been spotted wearing a ski mask and gloves and has used a black handgun in each instance, police said.

People with information on any of these cases can call CrimeStoppers at 712-258-TIPS (8477). Tipsters may remain anonymous and could receive a reward for information resulting in an arrest and conviction.
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The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
(WB) The former editor of an Orlando, Fla., LGBT newspaper who led its coverage of the Pulse nightclub massacre died on Friday.

The Orlando Weekly reported Billy Manes passed away shortly after 4 p.m. at Orlando Regional Medical Center. The newspaper said he was surrounded by his husband, Anthony Mauss, and other family members and friends when he passed away.

Mauss in a statement to the Orlando Weekly on Sunday said Manes had been ill for a couple of weeks with what turned out to be pneumonia. He said his husband died from complications of his condition that led to organ failure.

Manes, 45, was a long-time Orlando Weekly columnist.

He made history in 2005 when he became the citys first openly gay mayoral candidate.

Manes then-partner, Alan Jordan, took his own life in 2012. Manes became an advocate for marriage rights for same-sex couples after a protracted legal fight with Jordans family over his ashes and assets he and Jordan shared.

Manes lived two blocks from the Pulse nightclub. He spoke with the Washington Blade a few hours after a gunman on June 12, 2016, opened fire inside the gay nightclub, killing 49 people and injuring 53 others.

Our town has been ripped apart, said Manes, noting helicopters were still flying above the nightclub as he spoke to the Blade. Its incredibly frightening.

Manes joined the board of directors of the Pride Fund to End Gun Violence, a political action committee that formed in the wake of what remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. He wrote about the Orlando LGBT communitys response to the Pulse nightclub massacre in a Watermark column that marked a year since the massacre.

After June 12, thousands lined up to donate blood for the 49 dead and the 53 injured in that nightclub nightmare, not because standing in the sun on a hot summer day is an act to be applauded, but because they knew that, in times like these, the masses are needed, wrote Manes. This was no time to hide behind your couch cushions and cry at the television broadcasts. This was a time of people connecting  arm and arm, blood to blood  in the manner that societies do when tragedy strikes.

Manes on Sunday wrote on his Facebook page that he was effectively let go from Watermark on July 14. Watermark later confirmed Manes was no longer the newspapers editor.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer on his Twitter page described Manes as a vibrant force of nature with a healthy dose of wit. Barbara Poma, owner of the Pulse nightclub, is among those who also mourned Manes death.

He touched so many lives as a selfless friend, community supporter and a willing mentor, said the Pride Fund to End Gun Violence in a statement. We will greatly miss him and his contributions to the gun violence prevention movement and the advancement of LGBTQ equality.

Equality Florida, a statewide LGBT advocacy group, echoed this sentiment.

Billy not only chronicled the LGBTQ movement in his inimitable style, he was an activist willing to tell his story with a raw and powerful honesty, it said in a post on its Facebook page.

Billy Manes was a walking fucking miracle, a man who fought ferociously to create a world where justice, equality and respect were the cornerstones of his community, said Mauss in his statement to Orlando Weekly on Sunday. He loved Orlando. He knew what was possible here in this sprawling mass of ex-pats, misfits, introverts, seekers, party people, bookworms, performers, makers, artists and friends.

His driving force was love, he added. He loved you, Orlando, and he knew of your love for him. He fed off it; it sustained him. He would have fought proudly for each and every one of you forever. Unfortunately, his body had other plans.

 Michael K. Lavers, Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.
(AP) A federal judge has ordered Kentucky taxpayers to pay more than $220,000 in attorneys' fees for an elected county clerk who caused a national uproar by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2016.

U.S. District Judge Jim Bunning says Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis was acting on behalf of the state government when she refused to issue marriage licenses to same-couples on the basis of her personal religious beliefs. He ordered the state to pay $222,695 in attorneys' fees and another $2,008.08 in costs. He said the county government and Davis herself are not liable.

"Davis represented the Commonwealth of Kentucky when she refused to issue marriage licenses to legally eligible couples. The buck stops there," Bunning wrote.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in the summer of 2015, setting off joyous celebrations among gay rights advocates nationwide. But just hours after the decision, Davis' announcement she would stop issuing marriage licenses transformed the tiny town of Morehead into the front lines of the culture war with angry demonstrations from both sides captured on national television.

The case reached its zenith after a judge sent Davis to jail for refusing his order to issue the licenses. When she was freed five days later, two Republican presidential candidates were there to greet her along with thousands of supporters, including a church choir.

Davis' office issued modified marriage licenses that did not include her name. In the spring of 2016, Kentucky's new Republican governor signed a law removing the names of county clerks from marriage license forms. Davis said that satisfied her concerns.

William Sharp, legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said he was pleased with the ruling and hopes it serves as a reminder to Kentucky officials that "willful violations of individuals' civil liberties ... will not only be challenged but will also prove costly."

"It is unfortunate that Kentucky taxpayers will likely bear the financial burden of the unlawful actions and litigation strategies of an elected official, but those same voters are free to take that information into account at the ballot box," Sharp said.

The judge ruled that the couples were the "prevailing party," meaning Davis officially lost the lawsuit. Mat Staver, Davis' attorney, said he will appeal that. If he succeeds, it could mean the state would not have to pay because only "prevailing parties" are entitled to legal fees.

While Davis is a county official, she is elected by the voters. Rowan County Attorney Cecil Watkins said the county should not have to pay those fees.

"My job was to protect the county taxpayer money. I did that," he said.

Emails to representatives of Republican Gov. Matt Bevin and Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear were not immediately returned.
(CNN) Ruthie Robertson is a life-long Mormon who supports equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender individuals.

Despite the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' doctrine opposing same-sex marriage, she firmly believes her views are compatible with her faith.

But Robertson, a 23-year-old recent graduate of Brigham Young University-Idaho, claims her views cost her her job.

Robertson says her alma mater fired her from her post as an adjunct professor after she shared a statement on Facebook in support of the LGBT community.

"This is my official announcement and declaration that I believe heterosexuality and homosexuality are both natural and neither is sinful. I will never support the phrase 'love the sinner, hate the sin' because that 'sin' is part of who that person is. Homosexuality and transgenderism are not sins; if God made us, and those are part of who we are ... then God created that as well," she said in the Facebook post.

"I realize that my views counter the current day policies of the LDS Church, but I hope that over time the Church will come to see the harm these policies have."

The LDS Church declined to comment on Roberston's dismissal and referred inquiries to the school. For questions about doctrine it pointed CNN to its website, Mormon and Gay. BYU-Idaho spokesman Brett A. Crandall confirmed that Robertson will not be teaching at the school next semester. He declined to elaborate on Robertson's case citing "a long-standing policy of not commenting on personnel matters."

The school did not respond to repeated requests to clarify its policy on homosexuality in its honor code or faculty guide. The honor code mirrors church doctrine, which distinguishes between same-sex attraction and homosexual behavior, condoning the former but not the latter. According to church teachings, "the attraction itself is not a sin but acting on it is," and even though people "do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them."

BYU's honor code says that "one's stated same-gender attraction is not an Honor Code issue. However, the Honor Code requires all members of the university community to manifest a strict commitment to the law of chastity. Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings."

The faculty guide is not publicly available. In a copy Robertson provided to CNN, a section on faculty commitment and academic freedom says faculty members are charged with broadening students' perspectives "without causing doubt of fundamental tenets of the gospel."

The policy does not appear to apply to adjunct faculty members like Robertson, nor does it address statements of personal views of faculty or staff made outside the classroom or on social media. That's why Robertson thinks the decision to not renew her contract was punitive and unfair.

She said she never discussed LGBT rights in her political science classes for the sake of avoiding controversy. She made her statement on June 5 in a personal Facebook post shared only with friends.

"... We like to pick and choose from the scriptures, and if we choose to use the Old Testament as a defense for condemning homosexuality, there's a whole lot more we need to be condemning as well," she said in the post.

"Church History shows that the Church has rescinded policies before that weren't doctrinal, and that weren't inspired by the Lord. I hope that this will some day apply to the stance on the LGBT community. I will always and forever stand up for the equality of the LGBT community. Sexuality and gender are not binary, they are on a spectrum and that's how we were made."

She said a Facebook friend shared it with her department head and the school's president, leading to a meeting with administrators the next day. The school would not confirm those details.

What began as a positive discussion about her motivation for the post ended with administrators telling her she was wrong and that she should go home and pray on it, she said.

She took that to mean they wanted her to remove the post; instead, she said she modified it somewhat. The following week, she was told in a phone call that she would be terminated after finishing the semester.

"I knew it would upset some of my Facebook friends, but I never thought any of them would report me to the school," she told CNN. "I never thought I'd lose my job over this."

"It's made me feel like my voice and view isn't wanted, both in the school and the culture, and that's been disappointing."

The controversy reignited debate in the Mormon community about church doctrine on LGBT identity.

Lori Embree, another BYU-I adjunct professor, said the church still has a long way to go despite its efforts in recent years to be more inclusive and welcoming of gay and lesbian members.

Mormon support groups have formed in recent years for LGBT youth and their parents, Embree said. But a culture of fear still exists, one that stifles LGBT Mormons and prevents them from coming out, with devastating effects, she said.

She commended Robertson for not backing down from her statement. While Embree fears her dismissal may have a chilling effect, she also believes it will empower others. "I applaud her personal decision," Embree said. "I also applaud her assertion that, no, she will not be silenced for having a different opinion than that of the mainstream Church."

"This is the larger issue this young faculty member is standing up for, the one I stand up for, and the one that needs to be heard," she said."
(WB) German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday signed a bill that extends marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Steinmeier signed the measure less than a month after the lower house of the German Parliament, which is known as the Bundestag, approved it by a 393-226 vote margin. The bill is expected to take effect as early as Oct. 1.

Lawmakers approved the measure ahead of elections that are scheduled to take place on Sept. 24.

The Social Democratic, Green and Free Democratic Parties all back marriage rights for same-sex couples. Chancellor Angela Merkel voted against the bill, even though she said her position on whether to allow a vote had changed.

Gays and lesbians can legally marry in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Guernsey, England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Ireland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. A bill that extends marriage rights to same-sex couples in Malta received final approval earlier this month.

Germany since 2001 has allowed gays and lesbians to enter into civil partnerships. It is among the last countries in western Europe to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

 Michael K. Lavers, Washington Blade via the National LGBTQ Media Association
This Week at NASA: Happy 100th Anniversary, Langley. NASA

Our Langley Research Center officially celebrated its 100th anniversary on July 17. Groundbreaking took place on that date in 1917, for what is now known as Building 587  the first aeronautical research laboratory erected in 1918 for NASAs predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

The establishment of Langley  NASAs first field center  marked the start of our quest to achieve aerospace excellence through the scientific study of flight. Also, ISS Research & Development Conference, Next Station Crew Heads to Launch Site, Electrons Whistle in Space, and Mars Day.
Providence, Rhode Island, is about as small as cities get, an itty-bitty city for our unions tiniest state. Here, somewhere between Boston and New York, Providence has often been stuck playing second or even third fiddle. But this scrappy city has heart, and people are taking notice. In recent years the town has ranked high as a great food city in numerous pollssometimes beating out its bigger East Coast siblingsand the coffee scene is catching up. Heres a list of some of our favorite coffee shops in the Creative Capital.

The Shop

Located at the top of Fox Point on the East Side, this aptly named shop is a local favorite. Every morning, sleepy college students and community members stride over to enjoy the plentiful sunlight that streams into the cafe and open their eyes with offerings from Parlor Coffee.

Since late 2014, The Shop has been the place to meet a friend, write a paper, talk politics, or people-watch. This hub of activity lacks a kitchen, but still manages a solid food program. They serve delicious toasts (ricotta and honey or avocado with sea salt), porridges, and locally produced pastries. The crew is friendly and the coffee hits the mark.

The Coffee Exchange

Providence institution The Coffee Exchange became a microroast- and origin-focused cafe long before such things were in vogue. A dimly lit space loaded with dark wood and impossibly scuffed floors, this cafe boasts numerous blends and single-origin beans all in a multitude of roast styles. There was a time when cafe evoked an image of warm dens buzzing with tinny jazz and filled with more hardcovers than laptopshere, that world feels alive and well. In a sea of cold minimalist cafe design, its nice to be reminded of a coffee culture where ideas, not just Wi-Fi passwords, are shared.

Co-founder Bill Fishbein was ahead of the industry in other ways as well: he started the Coffee Kids organization in the 80s, the first US nonprofit focused on improving coffee farmers and their families lives. Later, he also created The Coffee Trust, an organization dedicated to improving sustainability in coffee farming in Guatemala and Honduras. This cafe is a good spot to grab a cup of coffee with a conscience.

Bolt Coffee Company at The Dean Hotel

The lobby/lounge of The Dean Hotel houses a cafe rather than a concierge. Here, around a giant communal coffee table bathed in the glow of pink neon, hotel guests and cafe patrons rub elbows over cappuccinos. Bolt Coffee Company supplies a steady supply of caffeine to commuters and advice to overnighters. The coffees featured are rotated semi-regularly giving visitors from near and far a chance to try exciting roasters from around the country. Batch brews, espresso, and Clever Dripper offerings are available.

Its a wonderfully open feeling at The Dean; you are free to stay or to go. Design buffs and consumers of cool will find the atmosphere to be clean and polished, but not sterile. Though this shop screams hip it does not scream pretentious. Grab a chair at the table to get some work done, or sink into a couch and sort through the plentiful volumes of current magazines. This is what modern hospitality feels like.

Bolt Coffee Company at Cafe Pearl (RISD Museum)

The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) ensures that Providence keeps a steady flow of young art-minded individuals in its population. The school also benefits the city with numerous art installations and the beautiful RISD Museum in the center of the town. In the foyer of this museum is Bolt Coffee Companys second location. Here, under lofty ceilings, the Bolt team offers the same great service as at their Dean Hotel location but adds a modest food menu to the mix. Their savory grits are a work of art that almost looks too good to disturb.

Coffee is served either via batch brew or from a pair of La Marzocco GS3 espresso machines. A creative menu of signature drinks and a choice of two espressos give the customers plenty to be excited about. The cafe is often bustling, but the baristas at Bolt focus on one drink at a time. The goal here is to give the customer the same experience whether they are the sole patron or if the line is 10 people long.

Bolt Coffee Company at Cafe Pearl is located at 224 Benefit Street

New Harvest Coffee and Spirits

New Harvest Coffee Roasters can be credited with bringing Providences coffee culture forward. Co-founder Rik Kleinfeldt has put the city on the map as a coffee capital by organizing the grassroots MANE Coffee Conference, an industry favorite. New Harvest has also hustled to bring freshly roasted specialty coffee into cafes and bakeries throughout the region. If you see their Whisper Espresso on the menu then you can expect good things.

Inside of The Arcade, the oldest shopping mall in the US, New Harvest Coffee and Spirits serves up coffee in the morning and cocktails at nightthere is even an after-hours speakeasy entrance. Behind the bar, new and creative creations and numerous choices of whiskeys are on the menu. If you are looking for a solid espresso, or a masterfully made Manhattan (or both), this is the spot.

Daves Coffee

Daves Coffee has made a name for itself by doing the impossible: improving upon a cultural icon and local favorite. Rhode Islands official state drink is coffee milkin most places, kids grow up drinking chocolate milk but not here. Coffee milk is made from coffee syrup, and for as long as any Rhode Islander can remember, Autocrat brand has been the only option. Daves came along with a simplified, small-batch version of the syrup and people have been gulping it down ever since.

Of course, Daves Coffee also features non-syrup based coffee drinks, in a coffeehouse relaxed in atmosphere but sleek in design. Little cubbies carved out over the bench seating act as shrines to brewing equipment. An imposing black monolith of a table serves as a communal workspaceand conjures memories of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stools line the front of the cafe windows allowing coffee sippers to perch, and, if they care to, ponder the world outside.

Borealis Coffee Company

Though technically just outside of Providence, Borealis Coffee Company warrants a mention. Housed inside a reclaimed train depot, this cafe roasts in-house. The atmosphere is rustic and warm and the coffee choices range from comforting to exciting. The folks at Borealis host a number of pop-ups featuring bagels, waffles with pulled pork, yoga lessons, and more. This coffee shop is a great community hub that keeps things interesting, so consider making the drive over. Better yet, take the bike path that runs right along its side.

Eric Tessier is a freelance journalist based in Providence. Read more Eric Tessier on Sprudge.
Yonkers Raceways perennial leading driver, Jason Bartlett, reached the next plateau Sunday afternoon (July 23) with the 7,000 victory of his career.

The milestone number came behind favoured I C Caviar ($4.40) in the $11,000, seventh-race trot.

The six-year-old Malabar Millennium gelding, making his first start for trainer Richard Banca, went up and over Me The Boss (Dan Dube) down the backside, then defeated 65-1 rank outsider Mr Protab by a couple of lengths in 1:58.2. The winner is co-owned by Joseph & Vincent Barbera, Allan Alkes and Richard Facciola.

Jason Bartlett celebrates his 7,000th career driving win on Sunday, July 23 at Yonkers Raceway. (Mike Lizzi)

But back to the man of hour, who suffered through an un-Bartlett-esque dry spell (three-for-35) before earning his requisite congratulatory sign.

Longest three days of my life, Bartlett said, Im so happy its over, and the kids are, too. They were asking me, Daddy, do we have to go to the track again?

I was talking with my wife [Kristen] the other day, Bartlett said. Weve been down here [Yonkers] close to 10 years now, and when I first came, I was around 2,000 wins.

Its been a helluva ride.

The 36-year-old Bartlett, native of Augusta, Maine, has $87.7 million in career purses. He began Sunday leading the locals in wins (297) and purses ($6.1 million).

(Yonkers Raceway)
Organizers behind the Truro vs. Ontario  Best of the Best Team Showdown, which took place on Sunday (July 23) at Truro Raceway, have informed Trot Insider that the challenge came down to the wire, but when the dust settled it was Team Truro that pulled out a narrow victory.

Ontario-based drivers Carl Jamieson, Paul MacDonell, Mike Saftic and Rick Zeron  aka Team Ontario  battled Dave Carey, Clare MacDonald, Pooker McCallum and Danny Romo  Team Truro  this coming Sunday (July 23) during the Truro vs. Ontario  Best of the Best Team Showdown over the Bible Hill, NS oval.

Prior to the showdown, Trot Insider was told by organizers that points would be rewarded for all finishing positions during the selected showdown races  so whether a driver finished first or eighth, they received a point for their respective teams. In the case of a horse being scratched, the driver on the horse in question would also receive a point. At the end of the competition, the team that accumulated the most points would be determined the winner of the showdown.

The showdown began in Race 2 and saw Team Ontarios Mike Saftic notch a three-quarters of one-length victory with Eye Forty Seven in 2:01.1. The nine-year-old P Forty Seven gelding is owned and trained by Roy Burton of Truro, NS. The win was the first of Eye Forty Sevens 2017 campaign.

Race 3 saw Team Truro's Danny Romo and SF Razamatazz cross the wire first in 1:56.4 for trainer Mark Whidden, who co-owns along with Barry Whidden of Truro. Romo and SF Razamatazz posted the fastest mile time in the Team Showdown. Rounding out the triactor in Race 3 were Team Ontario's Mike Saftic (with NS Acadian) and Rick Zeron (A Regal Beauty).



Rick Zeron takes a quick look over at the Truro Raceway tote board on Sunday, July 23, 2017 (Image courtesy Twitter / Truro Raceway)

The teams were tied heading into the third leg (Race 4) of the showdown, which saw Team Ontario' Rick Zeron secure another win for the invaders. Zeron scored his lone win of the day with Jamie Ramsey trainee N Expense, who recorded a gate-to-wire victory in 2:00.1.

Team Ontario led Team Truro by two points heading into the final leg of the showdown (Race 6), but it was Team Truro that finished strong.

Team Ontario member Paul MacDonell won the final leg with Prince Adam in 2:00 for Kurt Harper, who trains for his co-owner Carrie Saunders. Team Truro drivers secured the second, third, and fourth-place finishes in the dash, which gave them a 74-70 win over Team Ontario.

Organizers with the event told Trot Insider that attendance was great for the afternoons card of racing, which saw race fans line the fence along the homestretch to watch the show that the drivers were putting on. Drivers were presented with gifts of appreciation from Joe Nicholson, the manager of the NSPEC Complex. Drivers mingled with fans after the showdown, as they signed autographs and took photos with racegoers. The drivers attended an appreciation BBQ after the races where horsemen and fans had the chance to interact with drivers again, which produced another great turn out.

To view the harness racing results for Sunday at Truro, click the following link: Sunday Results  Truro Raceway.
Gerard Breedveld Waar ik een probleem mee heb is dat 'ongekozen' von der Leyen, China afgeschilderd als het land met de grootste v...
Ld. DR contends that the assessee was found to have maintained undisclosed foreign a/c in HSBC Bank, Switzerland, whose details were not disclosed to the Income Tax Department. During the course of these assessment proceedings the assessee deliberately adopted a non-cooperative attitude to ward off the necessary inquiries and investigation by the Income Tax Department. Ld. CIT(A) has made detailed observations in this behalf and deliberated on the consequent impact of non-cooperative attitude of the assessee in necessary investigations about the undisclosed HSBC Bank Accounts. In penalty proceedings also the assessed adopted a rigid attitude and went on challenging the legality of the notices and refusing to furnish any satisfactory reply. The notices issued being statutory were supposed to be diligently complied with by assessee in terms of IT Act. Since the assessee avoided the compliance of statutory notices and attending the proceedings without any justified reasons, therefore, the penalties have been rightly imposed and confirmed.

The facts about the Bank Accounts and other circumstances are in the exclusive knowledge of the assessee and non co-operation leads to derailment of It is the duty of every assessee to duly respond to statutory notices failing which the law provides imposition of penalty u/s 271(1)(b) of Rs. 10,000/- each default. In this case, assesses non- compliance of statutory notice is for more than 3 times in each A. Y.

The Ld. CIT(A) has properly taken note of all these relevant facts, legality of notices, nature of non-compliance and its adverse impact on investigations related to alleged undisclosed HSBC bank account. We find no infirmity in the order of Ld. CIT(A) confirming the imposition of penalty of Rs. 30,000/- each in above assessment years as defaults are more than 3 times. It has been rightly held that there is no law that for each default separate notice u/s 27(1)(b) should be issued on defaulting assessee. The orders of ld. CIT(A) being justified on proper appreciation of facts and law and based on relevant Supreme Court judgments are upheld. The appeals of assessee are dismissed.

ORDER

Per R.P.Tolani : V.P

1. This is a group of 6 appeals challenging imposition of penalty u/s 271(1)(b) for the above A. Ys. The issue being common and assessee being same are disposed off by common order for the sake of convenience.

By various argumentative common grounds, assessee challenges imposition of penalty u/s 271(1)(b) at Rs. 30,000/- for each assessment year claiming that ld. CIT(A) erred in law and on facts in confirming the same as:

i. The penalties have been illegally levied against the provisions of Act as sec. 142(1) does not authorize IT authorities to issue such notice and force the assessee to sign the The imposition is in violation of principles of natural justice.

ii. The defaults for violation of notices u/s 142(1) dated 2/5/13 and 12/6/13 have been attributed without issuing notices.

iii. The penalty notices u/s 271(1)(b) for one default but same has been levied for 3 defaults.

2. None appeared for the assessee despite notice of hearing. Therefore, the appeals are disposed of ex-parte qua assessee after hearing Ld. DR and on perusal of the record.

3. Brief facts are that assessments for these AYs were being framed u/s 153A rws 143(3) on assessee consequent to information about undisclosed HSBC Bank Account in Switzerland. During the course thereof notices u/s 142(1) along with questionnaire dated 13.5.2013 were served on the assessed for hearing on 30.5.2013 along with details and evidence. Assessee did not comply; thereafter further reminders for hearings were issued on 02.05.2013, 12.06.2013 and 11.07.2013. Since the assessee did not comply with all these statutory notices, show cause notices u/s 271(1)(b) read with section 274 were issued in accordance with IT Act.

4. In response to penalty notices, assessee of notices vide reply dated 01.10.2013 challenged the legality and claimed that no evidence as alleged was called for by The replies were found to be non satisfactory and penalty at Rs. 30,000/- for each assessment year was imposed by ld. AO for repetitive defaults.

5. Aggrieved assessee preferred first appeals where Ld. CIT(A) passed a detailed order confirming the penalties. Considering the various issues as under:

6.1 I have considered the penalty order and the submissions made. The objections raised by the appellant are three-fold  (i) that penalty was imposed without notice / adequate notice, (ii) penalty could not be levied for the information / documents sought as proceedings u/s 142 do not require furnishing of such documents, and (iii) no specific default or amount of tax has been referred to in the penalty order.

6.2 So far as the first objection is concerned, it is noted that appellant had been searched u/s 132 and was well aware of the tax proceedings against him. The appellant was specifically asked in the notices dated 02.05.2013 and 12.06.2013 about the details of foreign bank accounts opened and maintained by the appellant and his relatives. A third notice was issued to him on 11.07.2013, in which the information sought earlier was again sought and in addition the appellant was required to execute the enclosed consent document to get the aforesaid information. No reply was filed by the appellant to any of these notices except seeking adjournment on one or the other pretext. Seeking adjournment is not compliance to the law. Show-cause notices were duly issued on 05.08.2013 and by the revenue asking the appellant to explain the reasons for not furnishing the information called for and as to why penalty should not be imposed for such failure u/s 271(1)(b). One of the objections raised by the appellant is that the show-cause notice was only in regard to the notice dated 11.07.2013 and not in regard to the earlier notices dated 02.05.2013 and 12.06.2013. As the defaults of the appellant were continuing defaults, the appellant was given one more opportunity during this appeal also, and a show-cause notice was issued to him on to explain as to why penalty should not be levied for failure to submit the information sought vide the three notices issued by the revenue. Till date, the appellant has not furnished the information sought in the said three notices nor filed the consent documents. Thus, there is no basis to conclude that the penalty was imposed without notice or adequate notice.

6.3 So far as the second objection is concerned, in the background of the matter as reproduced in Para- 4 above, and in view of the fact that appellant had paid the tax with interest on the amount of deposit in a foreign bank account brought to his notice by the Department during the search and seizure, the information called for was necessary for the correct assessment of the income of the appellant chargeable to tax under the Act as the appellant is a tax resident of India, it cannot be concluded that the information / document sought was not required u/s 142(1). The appellant, having admitted the amount of deposit in the said bank account, continues to plead ignorance about the existence of the said account and details thereof. In such an event, he is bound to execute the consent documents which will enable the Department to get the requisite information from the bank. Having failed to execute this document also, the appellant is in continuous default of noncooperation with the ongoing investigations and non-compliance to these statutory notices.

6.4 So far as the third objection is concerned, penalty is leviable u/s 271(1 )(b) for each failure to comply with a notice u/s 142(1). There is no requirement under the law for escapement of tax or any reference to any tax quantum. Thus, this objection raised by the appellant has no legal basis.

7.2 These cases are not of simple tax evasion, but of suspected tax evasion by transferring or keeping funds overseas in an illicit manner. These persons suspected of having opened and maintained undisclosed bank account overseas, were required to sign and execute / notarize the consent letter to verify the truth of the allegation against them. It is the duty of every citizen of India to cooperate with and join the investigation to ascertain the truth regarding cases with such serious allegation. The purpose of the penal provision contained in section 271(1)(b) is to ensure compliance to tax enquiry / investigation. This penalty is attracted where there is failure to comply with notices u/s 142(1) or u/s 143(2). In criminal law, similar provisions are contained in Sections 160 and 161 in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the punishment for the same is prescribed in Section 174 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. Under the civil law, the relevant provisions are contained in Sections 31 & 32 and Order XVI (Schedule-!) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. Under the Income Tax Act, 1961 the enforcement provisions are contained in Sections 131, 132, 133, 133A 142 and 143. The penal provisions contained in Chapter XXI relevant to enforcement of sections 142/ 143 are Sections 271 and 272A.

6. Ld. CIT(A) in support of his decision relied on following judgments:

(a) Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. V. CIT [1955] 27 ITR 126 (SC)

(b) Estate of Late Rangalal Jajodia V. CIT [1971] 79 ITR 505 (SC)

(c) Isha Beevi V. TRO [1975] 101 ITR 449 (SC)

7. Ld. CIT(A) finally confirmed the penalty orders passed by ld. AO by following observations :

 In view of the above factual and legal position in the matter, the penalties imposed u/s 271(1)(b) for refusal, without reasonable cause, to furnish the information sought and to execute the consent letter vide the three notices issued by the revenue, is upheld. These orders shall be read as three separate orders. I also find that for refusal to sign /execute a document, penalty is imposable u/s 271 as well as u/s 272A. Accordingly, the provision shall be read as section 271(1)(b) and alternatively as Section 272A.

8. Ld. DR contends that the assessee was found to have maintained undisclosed foreign a/c in HSBC Bank, Switzerland, whose details were not disclosed to the Income Tax Department. During the course of these assessment proceedings the assessee deliberately adopted a non-cooperative attitude to ward off the necessary inquiries and investigation by the Income Tax Department. Ld. CIT(A) has made detailed observations in this behalf and deliberated on the consequent impact of non-cooperative attitude of the assessee in necessary investigations about the undisclosed HSBC Bank Accounts. In penalty proceedings also the assessed adopted a rigid attitude and went on challenging the legality of the notices and refusing to furnish any satisfactory reply. The notices issued being statutory were supposed to be diligently complied with by assessee in terms of IT Act. Since the assessee avoided the compliance of statutory notices and attending the proceedings without any justified reasons, therefore, the penalties have been rightly imposed and confirmed.

9. We have heard Ld. DR and perused the material available on record. In our considered view the assessee was subjected to such assessments u/s 153A in respect to alleged maintenance of un-disclosed HSBC, Switzerland Bank Account.

10. The facts about the Bank Accounts and other circumstances are in the exclusive knowledge of the assessee and non co-operation leads to derailment of It is the duty of every assessee to duly respond to statutory notices failing which the law provides imposition of penalty u/s 271(1)(b) of Rs. 10,000/- each default. In this case, assesses non- compliance of statutory notice is for more than 3 times in each A. Y.

11. The Ld. CIT(A) has properly taken note of all these relevant facts, legality of notices, nature of non-compliance and its adverse impact on investigations related to alleged undisclosed HSBC bank account. We find no infirmity in the order of Ld. CIT(A) confirming the imposition of penalty of Rs. 30,000/- each in above assessment years as defaults are more than 3 times. It has been rightly held that there is no law that for each default separate notice u/s 27(1)(b) should be issued on defaulting assessee. The orders of ld. CIT(A) being justified on proper appreciation of facts and law and based on relevant Supreme Court judgments are upheld. The appeals of assessee are dismissed.

In the result, assessees appeals are dismissed. Order Pronounced in the Court on 08/06/2017.
Play at the new site will be free and first come, first served through the...
By Delana Isles

AMONG the many Belongers whom were allegedly used by cohorts of the Michael Misick administration was Edwin Dickerson, owner of Olympic Construction Company.





Over the past few weeks, Dickerson has been testifying in the Special Investigation and Prosecution Team (SIPT) trial about a $12.5 million loan from Belize Bank.





He had signed the loan as guarantor for the controversial Juniper Hole development.





Dickenson, who is a witness for the Crown, testified to being used to secure the massive loan from Belize Bank as he did not read the documents which locked him into the deal.





Dickenson ultimately lost the conditional purchase lease for land he owned on Salt Cay that was used as guarantor for the loan, when his CPL was revoked for non-payment of the loan.





His contention is that he did not know that he was being used as a guarantor for the loan because he did not read the six documents he signed.





On Monday (July 17) when the trial resumed after its one week adjournment, one of Chal Misicks lawyers Hew Evans grilled Dickenson about his part in the deal.





The witness had signed the loan documents in Misicks office, he said.





Evans put to the witness that at the time of the loan his client had told Dickenson that the bank would only seek to recover the land if the loan was not repaid.





But an angry Dickenson strenuously denied this, maintaining throughout the questioning that he would not have been stupid enough to sign the documents knowing that he was being used as guarantor for a $12.5 million loan when he himself did not have that much money.





Evans also accused the witness of changing his story and denying all knowledge of the deal only after the SIPT came along and complicated matters with their investigations.





Dickenson again denied this, stating that he had told his attorneys at the time of the investigation that he was asked to sign documents but that he was not fully aware of what he was signing.





When asked if it was his own stupidity that made him lose the land, even though he had copies of

the documents he signed and as such had ample time to read them, Dickenson admitted that he

was stupid to put his signature to documents he had not properly read.





However, he stated that after receiving the loan documents, he had a discussion with Floyd Hall about them, and raised his concerns.





Partnership

Upon further questioning about an alleged agreement for him to serve as partner in the Juniper Hole development, Dickenson testified that he did not see any documentation to this effect nor

did he have any such discussion with Hall about a partnership.





Dickenson told the court that he was not the only person that was used in this manner for the same Juniper Hole deal - that Warren Madden (purchasinng agent) had relayed to him that he too had signed documents without reading them, only to find out later that he had been a guarantor for a $12.5 million loan.





But Evans accused the witness of lying and for colluding with Madden to claim they were used so as not to have any liability for the loan.





Others who were listed in initial court documents as potential witnesses being used in the Juniper Hole deal include Henry Harvey, Elliot Harvey, Clay Arthur, Dwight Hall, Charne Williams, Roynord Robinson and Veldon Robinson.





They all claimed to investigators that they had no knowledge of land purchased in their names or companies with their names attached.





The Juniper Hole proposed development in Middle Caicos has been described as the largest land scam in the history of the Turks and Caicos Islands with a low sale price of $15 million, while only $7.5 million was paid to the government.





A second payment due in February 2011 went unpaid because the Miami-based developer was forced into bankruptcy shortly after the purchase.





The "secret land in Middle Caicos was exposed by the Weekly News in April 2010, launching a

massive probe by the Civil Recovery Team.





A loan of $12.5 million was provided to the developer by the then Belize Bank - now British Caribbean Bank Limited, controlled in part through holding companies by Lord Michael Ashcroft.





The area sold to developers in February 2008 was originally believed to be 1,250 acres in size, but it was later revealed and confirmed that it was the area actually encompassed a staggering 2,580 acres.





Then PNP leader Clayton Greene had acted as legal counsel for the developers.





Greene is also a defendant in the SIPT trial.





The trial continues.




tech2 News Staff

In less than a month after releasing the Firefox Focus browser for Android, the application has already seen over a million installs by users of the platform. Firefox Focus is a privacy oriented web browser that automatically blocks a wide range of trackers, ad delivery networks, and allows users to easily clear their passwords and browsing history. Focus had been launched for iOS users in September 2016, after initially available as a ad-blocker plugin for Safari.

Firefox decided to thank the users for the great response, and rolled out three new features in less than a month after the release. All the three features are commonly requested by the fans. Focus now allows users to view videos in full screen mode, which works on most video sites but not YouTube. According to Firefox, the roll out of full screen video support for YouTube is dependent on a bug fix from Google's side, and Firefox has committed to update the app with support for full screen videos on YouTube as soon as Google fixes the bug.

Users can now download files of any kind from the internet. The notification area now features a shortcut to directly fire up Focus, so users have a quick and easy way to access private browsing. The application requires Android 5.0 and newer versions, and has a rating of 4.5 stars on the Play Store. The privacy features of the browser have the added benefit of providing a snappy and streamlined browsing experience. The update has already rolled out, and users can get the latest version of the browser from the Play Store.
IANS

In the first launch of real-time transit information for Google Maps in India, commuters riding the West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC) buses in Kolkata will now be able to get real-time bus information on the app. Starting 21 July, Google has teamed up with the WBTC to add real-time information about bus arrival times for Kolkata on Google Maps, making it easier for people to plan their trips.

"By sharing the real-time transit information of our buses with Google Maps, we are striving to deliver an enhanced level of service for our commuters. We expect this to help increase the footfall in our buses and improve revenue realisation," Narayan Swaroop Nigam, WBTC Managing Director, said in a statement. Currently enabled for key WBTC transit routes, the service will soon be expanded to the remaining routes. "This is yet another attempt to bring smart public transport to Kolkata and to improve the performance of WBTC," added Transport Department Minister Subhendu Adhikari

To use this new feature, commuters should open Google Maps app on Android or iOS devices. Enter the destination and tap the 'get directions' icon. If it's not already selected, tap the 'transit' icon (the little tram) to view times, bus/train numbers, routes and more. You'll see the real-time arrival information in green.

"Tapping a recommended route lets you view more information on the route's stops. Tap the bus stop to see a listing of all arriving buses, where relevant real-time info is depicted by the green beacon," the company said.
tech2 News Staff

Samsung is expected to release an 'Active' variant of the Samsung Galaxy S8 soon. While Samsung has yet to give out any official details about this handset, a post on Android Police has revealed plenty of images of a prototype handset with Galaxy S8 Active branding. The images and videos were first leaked on Reddit by a friend of a Samsung employee who later took down the post. Android Police managed to procure some of the images, shown below.

The leaked Samsung Galaxy S8 Active shows the model number SM-G892A on the back of the device. The display of the prototype is reportedly a 5.8-inch unit, which is the same as the standard S8 variant; just that this one is flat and not curved. Unlike the Active models in the past, Samsung seems to have gone with on-screen navigation keys this time.

According to the post, the smartphone houses a 4,000 mAh battery (that is bigger than the S8+) while the body of the device is made of poly-carbonate with the sides protected by metal inserts around the corners. All of this addition insulation and protection makes the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active 1.5x thicker than standard Samsung Galaxy S8.

Samsung has ditched the re-programmable Active key as seen on earlier Active devices with a Bixby button (that should only open the Bixby Assistant). The phone is pre-loaded with Android Nougat 7.0 and also features the underwater camera mode that is not present on the standard Galaxy S8. The device as mentioned by the website is expected to get the same internal hardware specifications as Samsung Galaxy S8. Samsung Galaxy Active is expected to pack in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB of internal storage, 12 MP primary and 8 MP secondary camera on the front of the device.

There were reports of Samsung bringing another small and rugged version of Samsung Galaxy S8. Samsung recently launched the two variants of its flagship smartphone, the standard Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8+, which is also available in a special 6 GB RAM variant in India.
hidden

CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, Malaysia's second-biggest bank, on Monday said its subsidiary will form an equity joint venture with Ant Financial Services Group, the parent of Alipay, to provide mobile wallet and related financial services.

The CIMB unit, Touch 'n Go Sdn Bhd, will be majority shareholder and Ant Financial a minority shareholder, the bank said in a statement filed at the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange. "The capital injected by both parties will go towards the creation of a world-class online and offline payments provider, delivering superior mobile wallet solutions and other related financial services," CIMB said in the statement.

Millions of Malaysians use 'Touch 'n Go' cards daily to pay for road tolls, bus fares, parking and shopping. The envisaged mobile wallet will allow these users access more services on mobile phones, said the statement. Alipay users currently use e-wallet services on mobile phones to hail taxis, book hotels, buy movie tickets, pay utility bills, make doctors appointments and manage their finances.

For Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the investment would be its first in Malaysia. Its association with CIMB is likely to advance the bank's plans to build an early lead in the country in so-called fintech.

Chinese Expansion

After growing into multi-billion dollar companies, Chinese financial technology (fintech) and internet firms including Ant Financial, Lufax, and Tencent Holdings Ltd are moving into Southeast Asia and beyond in search of more customers.

Ant Financial last year bought a minority stake in Ascend Money looking to benefit from the Thai company's presence in six countries, including Indonesia, Southeast Asia's most populous.

"To bring digital financial inclusion to more people across the world, Ant Financial takes an approach of collaborating with strategic partners overseas and enabling them with its innovative solutions," Ant Financial Chief Executive Officer Eric Jing said in the statement.

Digital payments firms are looking to tap the more than 370 million people without bank accounts that use cash on a day-to-day basis in Southeast Asia to offer lending and other financial services. Tencent has applied for a license in Malaysia to offer local payment services via its popular WeChat Pay, while Lufax announced plans to launch its wealth management platform in Singapore.

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

Mozilla is ending updates for Firefox on Windows Xp and Windows Vista. The last supported version of the popular browser on the older operating systems by Microsoft will be Firefox Version 52, according to a post in the Firefox support site. The supported operating systems by Microsoft are now limited to Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. While new features will not be released for the older operating systems, Firefox will continue to deliver security patches till September 2017.

The main reason Firefox is ending updates on the browser for older operating systems, is out of concern for the security of the machines. Microsoft itself has ended support for Windows XP and Windows Vista. According to the developers, it is difficult to maintain a reliable and safe version of the software once the underlying operating system itself is no longer being supported. Those who want to continue to use Firefox will either have to upgrade to a newer operating system, or switch to a Linux distribution.

Those using the browser on Windows Xp or Windows Vista will automatically be upgraded to the extended support release version of Firefox. Other competing browsers, including Internet Explorer and Google Chrome have already stopped supporting Windows XP and Windows Vista. Support for enterprises using Firefox will also end after September 2017. According to a post in Blorge, continuing to use the older versions of the browser on outdated operating systems may be difficult.
IANS

Adding to its successful 'A1' series of Bravia TVs, Sony India on Monday launched its much-awaited premium flagship line-up of OLED TVs. The company has a pre-booking offer from August 1-15 where customers will be entitled to get a PlayStation 4 for free on purchase of these OLED TVs from select dealers.

The new series  'KD-65A1' and 'KD-55A1'  are based on OLED technology which brings enriched visual experience with blur-less image and a wide-viewing angle. 'KD-65A1' with screen-size 163.9 cm (65 inch) is priced at Rs 4,64,900, while KD-55A1' with screen size 138.8 cm (55 inch) will cost Rs 3,64,900.

The units will be available at retail stores from August 4, the company officials told reporters here. The OLED TVs have a sound technology called Acoustic Surface' which can emanate sound directly from the screen itself using two actuators' behind the TV that vibrate the screen to create sound.

In addition, there is an integrated sub-woofer behind the TV which provides powerful bass for movie experiences. Sony has introduced One slate' concept which gives the TVs single plane surface display, incorporating different functions within the screen itself, eliminating the need for distinct elements like speakers, a bezel or a stand.

The TVs come with 4K HDR display which provide refined image quality with the latest detail enhancement and noise reduction technology for amazingly realistic pictures. The TVs are powered by 4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme' which enables 40 per cent more real-time image processing than 4K Processor X1,' offering great visual experience with combination of superior picture quality of OLED. The 'smart' TVs come with Android 7.0 Nougat platform and support Dolby Vision' which further enriches the visual experience.
The 5 City SME Connect by Schneider Electric completes its 5-city journey with the Bangalore event. On June 7, it kicked off from Ahmedabad and travelled across cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi. The highlight of the event was to interpret the SMEs technology challenges and mitigate those challenges with a systematic approach.

During these city events, decision makers from various SME organisations came forward and participated in the events and sought solutions to their challenges and tried to understand the technology approaches from the resource persons of Schneider Electrics IT Division and senior CIOs addressing at the event. Power, cooling, racking and stacking, etc. being important aspects of any data centre and often being undermined during the decision making, the IT decision makers were keen to know about the criticality of these components.

With Bangalore being the IT hub of India, the panel discussion was an engaging one on Optimizing Infrastructure to cater to the applications like IOT, Cloud Computing, Social Media Management, etc. The key panelists included Shibu V Kurian, CIO, 10kInfo Data Solutions, Mayank Bedi, Head  IT, VST Tillers and Tractors, General Manager, Sales  IT Division, Schneider Electric India, Subbarao Hegde, CIO, ApOn Solutions with Sanjay Mohapatra, Editor, SME Channels being the moderator.

Talking about the criticality of datacentres for businesses in an age of proliferation of data, Amod Ranade  General Manager Data Center Business, Schneider Electric stated, Integrating physical infrastructure and software plays an important role in the operations of the IT industry today. Major market and technology trends such as the Internet of Things (IoT) has lead to an exponential growth in the amount of data that needs to be captured, stored, analysed and connected. Cloud computing is a solution explored and adopted by small and medium scale businesses.

He added, The Cloud has certain inherent limitations, primarily congestion, cost and regulations. The answer to counter these challenges is to apply edge computing solutions closer to users, data, and things. APC by Schneider Electric creates solutions that help IT professionals anticipate and protect their information and data, along with addressing the key issues of pure cloud architecture, which build up as the Internet of Things evolves.

Along with this, Hariharan Balasubramanian, General Manager  Sales  IT Division, Schneider Electric India gave presentation on Life is On with Schneider Electric while Amod Ranade, General Manager, Data Centre Business Development, IT Division, Schneider Electric India spoke about Scalable IT Strategies for Small & Medium Businesses.

Technuter.com News Service
Cabinet mourns death of Ishaq Mia



The cabinet on Monday adopted an obituary reference expressing profound shock and grief at the death of M Ishaq Mia, an elderly politician of Chittagong and member of the Advisory Council of the Bangladesh Awami League.

The obituary reference was adopted in the weekly meeting of the cabinet held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

Cabinet Secretary M Shafiul Alam, while briefing reporters after the meeting, said the cabinet recalled the contribution of Ishaq Mia to politics as an organiser of the War of Liberation, member of Gono Parishad in 1970 and a member of fourth Jatiya Sangsad.

The cabinet prayed for eternal peace of the departed soul and conveyed profound sympathy to the bereaved family members.
China says it wants to `maintain stability` in disputed South China Sea

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) shakes hands with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-O-Cha A at Government House in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday.

Reuters, Bangkok :

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday Beijing wanted to maintain stability in the South China Sea as it seeks alliances in the region amid tensions in the disputed waters.

The United States has criticized China for disregarding international law by the construction and militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea, undermining regional stability.

China claims most of the energy-rich sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

Thailand is not a claimant state in the dispute and has maintained a neutral stance on the topic.

Addressing the South China Sea issue, Wang, on an official visit to Bangkok, told reporters China would like to "maintain stability in the South China Sea, abiding by the terms that have been agreed on the Declaration of Conduct and Code of Conduct in near future".

China and Southeast Asian countries agreed in May to a framework for a long-proposed code of conduct for the disputed waters.

Wang's visit comes ahead of a regional meeting of Southeast Asian countries in Manila next month.

"China and Thailand are like brothers," Wang said.

Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai praised Thai-Chinese relations, saying there were "no obstacles" to the relationship between the two.

Thailand this year has approved Chinese submarines, tank and helicopter purchases worth more than $500 million.

Last month, Thailand approved the construction of the first phase of a $5.5 billion railway project to link the industrial eastern seaboard with southern China through landlocked Laos, part of China's One Belt One Road regional infrastructure drive.

The project, which has been held back by delays, was pushed through after junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha invoked an executive order known as Article 44.

Wang said he hoped the rail project would "elevate" Thailand's status in the region and said that the two countries would overcome differences to bring the rail project to fruition.
Mustafiz becomes 8th icon of BPL



Cutter master Mustafizur Rahman as expected became the eight and the latest addition to the list of icon players for the fifth edition of the Bangladesh Premier league (BPL) as announced by BCB on Monday.

BPL's governing council chairman Afzalur Rahman Sinha broke the news that pace bowling sensation Mustafizur Rahman will be the new Icon of the forthcoming BPL.

Speaking to the press, Sinha told reporters about the news. This year's BPL 5 will feature eight franchises teams compete for the coveted title with Sylhet making a comeback as new franchise.
Migrants fall easy prey to human traffickers

Baher Kamal :

Every single day, print and online media and TV broadcasters show images and footage of migrants and refugees adrift, salvage teams rescuing their corpses-alive or dead, from fragile boats that are often deliberately sunk by human traffickers near the coasts of a given country. Their dramas are counted -and told- quasi exclusively in cold figures.

Every now and then a reporter talks to a couple of them or interviews some of the tens of humanitarian organisations and groups, mostly to get information about their life conditions in the numerous so called "reception centres" that are often considered rather as "detention centres" installed on both shores of the Mediterranean sea.

It is a fact that their numbers are shocking: 101,417 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2017 through 9 July, the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported. Of this total, 2,353 died.

Beyond the figures, migrants and refugees live inhumane drama, are victims of rights abuse, discrimination, xenophobia and hatred - often encouraged by some politicians. Let alone that tragic realty that they fall easy pry to human traffickers who handle them as mere merchandise.

On top of that, another UN organization - the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that the Central Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe is among the world's deadliest and most dangerous migrant routes for children and women.

"The route is mostly controlled by smugglers, traffickers and other people seeking to prey upon desperate children and women who are simply seeking refuge or a better life," it reports.

On this, Afshan Khan, UNICEF Regional Director and Special Coordinator for the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe, said that this route "is mostly controlled by smugglers, traffickers and other people seeking to prey upon desperate children and women who are simply seeking refuge or a better life."

Moreover, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has estimated that 7 of 10 victims of human traffickers are women and children.

True that statistics help evaluate the magnitude of such an inhumane drama. But, is this enough?

1,200 Migrants Tell Their Dreams and Realities

In a singular initiative, IOM launched "i am a migrant" - a platform to promote diversity and inclusion of migrants in society. It's specifically designed to support volunteer groups, local authorities, companies, associations, groups, indeed, anyone of goodwill who is concerned about the hostile public discourse against migrants, says IOM.

"i am a migrant" allows the voices of individuals to shine through and provides an honest insight into the triumphs and tribulations of migrants of all backgrounds and at all phases of their migratory journeys."

"While we aim to promote positive perceptions of migrants we do not shy away from presenting life as it is experienced. We seek to combat xenophobia and discrimination at a time when so many are exposed to negative narratives about migration - whether on our social media feeds or on the airwaves."

The IOM campaign uses the testimonials of migrants to connect people with the human stories of migration. Thus far, it has seen 1,200 profiles published. The anecdotes and memories shared on the platform help us understand what words such as "integration", "multiculturalism" and "diversity" truly mean.

Through stories collected by IOM teams around the world, "diversity finally finds a human face." While inviting migrants to share their stories with its teams, IOM informs that "i am a migrant" is part of the UN TOGETHER initiative that promotes respect, safety and dignity for everyone who has left home in search of a better life.

IOM is among the world's most experienced international agencies dealing with migrants. No wonder- it rose from the ashes of World War Two over 65 years ago.

"In the battle-scarred continent of Europe, no government alone could help survivors who wanted no more than an opportunity to resume their lives in freedom and with dignity. The first incarnation of IOM was created to resettle refugees during this post-war period," it reminds.

The agency's history tracks the man-made and natural disasters of the past over 65 years - Hungary 1956; Czechoslovakia 1968; Chile 1973; the Viet Nam boat people 1975; Kuwait 1990, Kosovo and Timor 1999; the 2003 invasion of Iraq; the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake and Haiti's 2010 earthquake.

Now under the United Nations umbrella as part of its system since 2016, IOM quickly grew from a focus on migrant and refugee resettlement to become the world's leading inter-governmental organisation dedicated to the well-being, safety and engagement of migrants.

Over the years, IOM has grown into 166 member states. Its global presence has expanded to over 400 field locations. With over 90 per cent of its staff deployed in the field, it has become a lead responder to the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.

Shall these facts -and the stories migrants tell-help awaken the consciousness of those European politicians who ignore the fact that their peoples were once migrants and refugees as a consequences of wars their predecessors provoked? And that the migration agency was born for them?

(Baher Kamal is Senior Advisor to IPS Director General on Africa & the Middle East. He is an Egyptian-born, Spanish-national, secular journalist, with over 43 years of experience).


Monopolistic contract with Reliance of India is damaging

AS PER a national daily, Indian conglomerate Reliance has set a time-bound action plan for the government to expedite signing of unsolicited contracts with it for import of liquefied natural gas and installation of, and electricity supply from, a 750MW power plant in Bangladesh. When local industries suffer most for the sheer shortage of uninterrupted power and gas supply, welcoming the Indian giant will constrain the growth of local industries. In this age of globalization, a state can never open its border completely though economic theory argues for a borderless economy, but every state puts some embargoes. Already local industries and agriculture have been suffering most due to aggression of Indian commodities. The invasion of Indian Reliance which engulfs even Indian small enterprises will establish a market monopoly in Bangladesh.



In a letter on July 16, Reliance requested Bangladesh government to ensure the completion of five specific tasks by July 31. The tasks included issuing letter of intent to Reliance by the Bangladesh Power Development Board, initialing land lease agreement by the Board, issuing gas allocation letter to Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company by Petrobangla and finalizing the gas supply agreement with Titas for the construction and operation of the power plant. The tasks also included finalising discussions with Reliance and initialing agreements for the installation and the use for the LNG terminal which would supply 500 million cubic feet of natural gas a day by gasifying imported LNG.



Our government allowed Reliance to implement the projects under the Speedy Supply of Power and Energy (Special Provisions) Act 2010. In a move to award the contracts to the companies without tenders, the Power Board signed two memorandums with the companies on June 6, 2015, the day Indian premier Narendra Modi arrived in Dhaka on a two-day state visit. Reliance will set up facilities at Kutubdia Island to import LNG and supply 500 mmcfd gas a day and set up and operate a 750MW gas-fired combined cycle power plant at Meghnaghat in Narayanganj. The Power Plant will consume 110 mmcfd gas. Interestingly, on May 24, the Cabinet Committee on national purchase approved a proposal for Power Purchase Agreement under which Reliance would sell electricity from the plant to the Power Board at 7.3123 US cents (Tk 5.80) per unit or kilowatt-hour for 22 years.



The unsolicited agreement that the government awarded the Indian conglomerate is unprecedented and damaging for the country. The government must disclose the articles of agreement signed with Reliance to the public and the Parliament should arrange discussion on this issue.



Such one-sided contract, not favourable for Bangladesh, is not helpful for friendly relationship with India. It is reported that Reliance has other connections including with our newspaper world. Activities of Reliance should be open and fair.
1st Hajj flight with 418 pilgrims reaches Jeddah

The first Hajj flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines carrying 418 Bangladeshi pilgrims took off from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital on Monday morning.

Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon, Religious Affairs Minister Principal Matior Rahman and high officials of the two ministries saw the pilgrims off at the airport.

The Biman flight which left the airport at 7:55am reached an airport in Jeddah around 11:13 am (local time), general manager (Public Relations) of Biman Bangladesh Airlines Shakil Meraz told UNB.

Meanwhile, two more flights with Hajj pilgrims left the Shahjalal airport yesterday.

The 2nd flight with 419 Hajj pilgrims left for Saudi Arabia at 11:55 am while 3rd one at 7:55pm with 419 pilgrims.

Besides, another regular flight of the national flag carrier with Hajj pilgrims is scheduled to leave the airport at 8:40 pm.

Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the hajj programme for 2017 at the Hajji Camp at the city's Ashkona.

A total of 177 flights will carry the Hajj pilgrims till August 26.

The return flight will start on September 6 and continue till October 5. The number of return flights will be 169.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines will carry 50 percent of Bangladeshi pilgrims while Saudi Airlines the rest of the pilgrims.

Some 127,198 pilgrims will perform Hajj from Bangladesh this year under government and private managements. Of them, 4,230 pilgrims will perform Hajj under the government management.

From this year, flights carrying the Hajj pilgrims will also go to Madinah.




Victim's Camera Trial Aug 6

banglanews24.com :

A Dhaka tribunal on Monday (July 24) deferred the date to August 6 for taking a Camera Trial, an esoteric deposition, from one of the victim girls claimed to be violated at the Raintree Hotel in the capital's Banani.

'Camera Trial' describes a locked-door procedure where a judge privately looks at confidential, sensitive, or private information to determine what, if any, information may be used by a party or made public.

Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, Dhaka-2 passed the order responding a time extension plea from the accused side in the case filed over 'raping' two university girls..

The girl also a plaintiff will be testifying in presence of the lawyers from both sides and one of the accused, at the private chamber of Tribunal Judge Shafiul Azam on August 6.

However, the plaintiff appeared before the tribunal Monday.

Besides, five accused of the case-Safat Ahmed, Nayeem Ashraf alias HM Halim, Sadman Shakif, Rahmat Ali and Billal Hossain were also produced before the tribunal the same day.

Advocate Fahmida Akhter Rinky, President of Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers' Association (BNWLA) moved for the plaintiff while Lawyer Kazi Najibullah Hiru moved for the accused at the court.

On Monday, the tribunal was all set to take the fortified deposition responding an appeal from Advocate Fahmida Akhter Rinky, but later reshuffled the date as the accused side sought the time claiming that they will plead at the High Court against the charge-framing in the case.

The tribunal then granted the time extension, responding the appeal from Lawyer Kazi Najibullah Hiru.

However, on July 13, the tribunal began trial in the case through forming charges against the five.

While asked regarding the incident, the accused claimed themselves innocent before the court Monday.

Of the accused, Safat and Nayeem were indicted with Section 9(1) of Women and Children Repression Prevention Act while Safat, Rahmat and Billal were indicted with Section 30 of the same act.

However, a total 47 of witnesses are supposed to testify in the case.

On June 7, Ismat Ara Emi, probe officer of the case also Inspector of Victim Support Center (VSC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) filed charsheets in the case with the Chief Metropolitan and Magistrate Court, Dhaka.

On June 11, the case was shifted to the tribunal from the CMM court.

On June 19, the tribunal accepted charges against the accused in the case.

The five accused had earlier given confessional statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

On May 6, one of the victims filed the case with Banani Police Station against Shafat, Sakif and three others.

According to the compliant, the girls were sexually attacked and filmed after they were invited to a birthday party at the Raintree Hotel at Banani in Dhaka on March 28.

The two girls said they did not file the case earlier because the accused threatened them with dire consequences.

?The girls accused Safat and Nayeem of locking up in a room and raping them overnight. The two girls were raped by Safat and Nayeem at gunpoint while the three others helped them and filmed the incident.




DMP boss expresses doubt over Siddiqur's injury

Staff Reporter :

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia on Monday expressed doubt if the injured college student Siddiqur Rahman suffered in his eyes during the police action or it was an act of sabotage.

"A teargas shell or a piece of stone cannot hit both the eyes simultaneously. If his eyes are hit by a single object, his nose and forehead too should have been damaged. But his nose and forehead bore no injury marks," he said.

The DMP commissioner made the remarks after observing Siddiqur's health condition during undergoing treatment at the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital in the capital in the afternoon.

Siddiqur, who was allegedly hit by the police teargas shells in his eyes during a demonstration at Shahbagh intersection on July 20, might have lost eyesight in his right eye and the other eye is also injured, according to physicians.

"How did he sustain the hit? It is a big question. The reason will be found out through investigation. We'll look into whether any party carried out an act of sabotage there," the DMO chief said while ostensibly trying to defend his force from being accused of doing excesses during the demonstration.

The authorities were looking into how Siddiqur suffered the injury. He said they will also look into whether it was an act of sabotage."

The DMP has formed a three-member committee led by its Joint Commissioner (operation) Mir Rezaul Alam. The committees have been asked to submit its reports in three working days






NBR raid next month to trace tax-dodger foreigners

Badrul Ahsan :

Thousands of foreigners have long been working in different private organizations in the country renewing tourist visa instead of obtaining employment visa, allegedly in connivance with their employers to dodge tax, according to the tax administration.

Officials at the National Board of Revenue (NBR) said tax collection from foreign nationals remained stagnant for the last couple of years although these employments in different private and non-government organizations (NGOs) marked a sharp rise during the time.

The number of foreign taxpayers remained static at around 10,000 during the last two years, the NBR said.

However, the data from Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) shows the number of foreign employees is much higher than the present taxpaying foreign workers.

The NBR authority now plans raiding some organisations on a pilot basis to trace the foreign workers evading taxes.

"Allegations are rife that a section of foreign employees came to Bangladesh on tourist visa for avoiding tax payment. The number might be several thousand," a senior NBR official told The New Nation preferring anonymity.

The official said absence of data hinders the activity of taxmen to crosscheck the BIDA-furnished information.

"A taskforce of NBR is working for preparing an automated databank on foreigners doing

jobs in Bangladesh," he added.

Once such databank is formed, each foreigner may have to obtain a certain number from the NBR so that the tax administration can trace their entry and exit, he said.

The taskforce in its meeting last year recommended raiding some companies for finding out their actual foreign employees, the official said.

Taxmen are contemplating to implement the recommendation next month by paying visit to at least one organization for a case study.

The NBR will also reconstitute the taskforce as two members of the body recently went on retirement.

"We have planned to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Immigration Department to ensure information sharing on the foreign nationals," another NBR official said.

Several NBR steps including setting up of tax-desk in airports and land ports also failed to perform as per expectation, he added.

"Income-tax desks in airports collected tax from foreign nationals in the first two months but now cannot perform well due to its location and lack of cooperation from the immigration authority," he also said.

Taxmen collected around Tk 60 million in income tax from 150 foreign nationals in July-August 2016 from the check-posts set up at airports and Benapole land port.

In July 2016, the NBR set up four income-tax check-posts Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka, Shah Amanat International Airport, Chittagong, MAG Osmani International Airport in Sylhet and Benapole land port.

Foreign nationals have to show tax-clearance certificates at the income-tax counters at the checkpoints.

Officials said as the desk is located at a distant place in the airport and immigration authority hardly asks for the tax-clearance certificate of the departing foreign workers, many foreigners fail to notice the tax check-posts.

The counters of the check-posts should be located just beside the immigration desk, an official suggested.

Earlier, the revenue board had sent a letter to the Civil Aviation Authority to fix a visible place for relocating the income-tax check-posts at the airports.

As per income-tax ordinance, foreign workers are required to pay 30 per cent tax on their incomes. There is no tax ceiling for them.






Govt, academic groups better aware about energy-efficient tech: TIB

UNB, Dhaka :

The government and academic groups in Bangladesh are more aware of energy-efficient technologies than private players and NGOs, says a news study of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB).

The study shows that perception on using rail and water transport systems to reduce GHG (green house gas) emission is much lower among private players, too. The same is true for energy efficient fans to reduce emissions.

Prof AK Enamul Haque of Asian Centre for Development,

Dr Pranab Mukhopadhyay of the University of Goa, India, Dr Mani Nepal, Research Programme Manager of ICIMOD, Nepal, economist Fatimat Shafika of the Maldives, Dr Heman Das Lohano of Karachi University, Pakistan, and Shamen P Vidanage ofAsian Centre for Development, Bangladesh, jointly conducted the study on behalf of the TIB.

Prof AK Enamul Haque presented the findings of the study titled, 'Unbundling Pledges, Actions of INDCs and Measuring Public Perceptions - A Methodological Study: The Case of South Asian Countries' at a press conference at TIB head office in the capital on Monday.

About the strategies of the Bangladesh government to fulfill its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) pledges, the study reveals that the high level of consensus exists in case of nine pledges (above 70pc) out of the 11 main strategies.

Both groups of stakeholders are less skeptical on use of 'standardised gadgets' and 'accredited auditors' to reduce GHG emissions. Among the 6 major steps pledged by the government in the INDCs to reduce GHG emissions, the study found fuel switching for brick kilns and promoting combined cycle power plants is relatively less known than other actions of the government.

Actions of the government to promote solar home systems, rooftop solar, solar irrigation pumps and waste to energy programs are most known among all stakeholders.

The study identified top 10 strategies of Bangladesh for reducing GHG, which include reducing traffic jams, upgrading urban bus services, improving traffic management, energy efficient power production, fuel switching for brick kilns, modernisation of power plants (to make them energy efficient), promotion of waste to energy projects in cities, standardising energy efficient gadgets, promoting improve cooking stoves in rural areas and conducting energy audits in factories.

About the level of awareness on INDC pledges in the South Asia, the study says governments in each of these six countries pledged to reduce GHG emissions, but the level of awareness vary across different stakeholders.

The government and academic groups are less aware about the pledges made by the government than NGOs and private sectors players, it added. Speaking at the press conference, TIB executive director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said the sources of power generation, including carbon emission, remain under the control of the governments of the South Asian countries, and that is why it is the governments' responsibility to reduce carbon emission. Besides, he said, general people as well private players can play a strong role in reducing GHG, which is revealed in this study. TIB adviser (Executive Management) Prof Dr Sumaiya Khair was present.
Jamaat man's daughter gets berth in Mahila AL for being wife of ruling party MP

bdnews24.com :

Mahila Awami League leader Mahmuda Begum Creek has said that Rizia Nadvi's inclusion in their central committee has nothing to do with her being a daughter of a Jamaat-e-Islami leader.

"Rather, her (Nadvi's) identity as the wife of an Awami League MP was prioritised," General Secretary Creek told bdnews24.com on Sunday, amidst criticisms from inside the organisation.

Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader approved the 151-strong central committee of the ruling party women's

front on Saturday. Rizia Nadvi's name is in No. 68 in the list as an executive committee member.

Nadvi is the daughter of Muminul Haque Chowdhury who is a member of the Jamaat executive council. He has also contested in several parliamentary elections with the party's ticket from Chittagong's Banshkhali.

It is also alleged that Nadvi was involved with Islami Chhatri Sangstha, Jamaat's female student wing, when she was a student in Chittagong College.

She is now married to Awami League MP from Chittagong-15 constituency (Satkania-Lohagara) Abu Reza Muhammad Nezamuddin Nadvi. He was elected in the 2014 national elections.

Rizia Nadvi was selected as the organising secretary of the Mahila Awami League's Chittagong South unit in February. But later she was taken off the committee due to internal backlash.

Responding to the criticisms at that time, she had told bdnews24.com, "Attempts are being made to tarnish my image because my father is a Jamaat leader.

"It's been a long time since Awami League came to power. Would they have given me a post if the allegations were specific?"

Regarding her alleged ties to Chhatri Sangstha during student life, Nadvi said, "I was married off when I was a ninth grader. Then there was no opportunity and time for politics. Later, I joined Awami League's politics instead of following my father's footsteps."

About the disapproval from the organisation's leaders and activists over Saturday's development, Mahmuda Begum Creek said, "Rizia is now the wife of an Awami League MP who won the election with the boat symbol.

"We considered her present identity while selecting her for the post (on the committee). She is our MP's wife, and who is her father doesn't matter now."

Mahila Awami League President Safia Khatun and General Secretary Creek disclosed the 151-member full committee on Sunday evening at the ruling party chief's political office in Dhaka's Dhanmondi.

The committee came four months after Khatun and Creek were elected the organisation's leadership through a council that was held 14 years ago.
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Here's what and How it Happened:

Tons of Sensitive Info Exposed about Both Individuals and Nation's Critical Infrastructures

The weight capacity of all roads as well as bridges (which is crucial for warfare, and gives a lot idea about what roads are intended to be used as wartime airfields).

Names, photos, and home addresses of fighter pilots in the Air Force.

Names, photos, and home addresses of everybody in a police register, which are believed to be classified.

Names, photos, and residential addresses of all operators in the military's most secret units that are equivalent to the SAS or SEAL teams.

Names, photos, and addresses of everybody in a witness relocation program, who has been given protected identity for some reasons.

Type, model, weight, and any defects in all government and military vehicles, including their operator, which reveals a much about the structure of military support units.

Another day, Another data breach!This time sensitive and personal data of millions of transporters in Sweden, along with the nation's military secrets, have been exposed, putting every individual's as well as national security at risk.Who exposed the sensitive data? The Swedish government itself.Swedish media is reporting of a massive data breach in the Swedish Transport Agency (Transportstyrelsen) after the agency mishandled an outsourcing deal with IBM, which led to the leak of the private data about every vehicle in the country, including those used by both police and military.The data breach exposed the names, photos and home addresses of millions of Swedish citizen, including fighter pilots of Swedish air force, members of the military's most secretive units, police suspects, people under the witness relocation programme, the weight capacity of all roads and bridges, and much more.The incident is believed to be one of the worst government information security disasters ever.In 2015, the Swedish Transport Agency hand over IBM an IT maintenance contract to manage its databases and networks.However, the Swedish Transport Agency uploaded IBM's entire database onto cloud servers, which covered details on every vehicle in the country, including police and military registrations, and individuals on witness protection programs.The transport agency then emailed the entire database in messages to marketers that subscribe to it.And what's terrible is that the messages were sent in clear text.When the error was discovered, the transport agency merely thought of sending a new list in another email, asking the subscribers to delete the old list themselves.If you think the scandal ends there, you are wrong. The outsourcing deal gave IBM staff outside Sweden access to the Swedish transport agency's systems without undergoing proper security clearance checks.IBM administrators in the Czech Republic were also given full access to all data and logs, according to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), which analysed the Sapo investigation documents.According to Pirate Party founder and now head of privacy at VPN provider Private Internet Access Rick Falkvinge, whobroughtdetailsof this scandal, the incident "exposed and leaked every conceivable top secret database: fighter pilots, SEAL team operators, police suspects, people under witness relocation."According to Falkvinge, the leak exposed:Although the data breach happened in 2015, Swedish Secret Service discovered it in 2016 and started investigating the incident, which led to the fire of STA director-general Maria Agren in January 2017.Agren was also fined half a month's pay (70,000 Swedish krona which equals to $8,500) after finding her guilty of being "careless with secret information," according to the publication.What's the worrying part? The leaked database may not be secured until the fall, said the agency's new director-general Jonas Bjelfvenstam. The investigation into the scope of the leak is still ongoing.
If you are looking for the new Immoral Minority posts, you should know that they can be found here at our new home Please stop by to get caught up on politics, join the conversations, or simply check out the new digs.
Former IRA volunteer and ex-prisoner, spent 18 years in Long Kesh , 4 years on the blanket and no-wash/no work protests which led to the hunger strikes of the 80s . Completed PhD at Queens upon release from prison. Left the Republican Movement at the endorsement of the Good Friday Agreement, and went on to become a journalist. Co-founder of The Blanket , an online magazine that critically analyzed the Irish peace process. Lead researcher for the Belfast Project , an oral history of the Troubles.
A car driven by a Chicago man hit a building Saturday evening on East Pleasant Hill Road in Carbondale, according to a news release from the Jackson County Sheriffs Office.

At approximately 7:36 p.m. Saturday, Jackson County deputies were called to 1251 E. Pleasant Hill Road for a single-vehicle traffic accident.

Witnesses at the scene reported they observed a large passenger car crash into a two-story apartment building located at that address.

Deputies arrived on the scene and determined that Rashawn Clifton, 26, of Chicago, drove his 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis into residential parking and lost control of the vehicle.

The vehicle then collided with the south wall of the apartment building causing major damage to the structure.

There were no injuries reported. Clifton was cited for operating an uninsured motor vehicle, the news release said.

 The Southern
A Saline County woman with an extensive criminal history has been sentenced to 10 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for possessing meth, according to a news release form Saline County States Attorney Jayson Clark.

Kisha M. Roberson, 36, of Harrisburg, will serve a decade-long sentence, plus one year of mandatory supervised release; she pleaded guilty to a Class 3 felony charge of methamphetamine possession, the release said.

The Saline County states attorney filed charges against Roberson on Dec. 14, 2016, after a traffic stop in which it was alleged Roberson possessed methamphetamine. Robersons extensive criminal history factored in the severity of her sentencing, the release said.

The investigation of Robersons case was handled by the Harrisburg Police Department. Assistant States Attorney Jason Olson handled the prosecution.

 The Southern
Courtesy of Jenn Miller(KINGSTON, Pa.) -- Jenn Miller, 19, and her grandma, Susan Grey, 70, are like best friends.



We are super close, Miller of Kingston, Pennsylvania, told ABC News.



So when the granddaughter bought a cute dress to wear to her cousins wedding this September in Ohio, her grandmother loved it so much, she bought an identical dress.



I ordered the dress, and I took a picture and sent it to her and asked if it was OK to wear my cousins wedding, Miller recalled. She said, You mind if I try it on? I really like the sleeves on it. I went over, and she tried it on and she was like, Oh I dont know. Maybe its too short. Maybe you dont want to match with me. But she looked so cute. As soon as she took it off, she ordered it too.



Grey said, I dont usually steal her style. She dresses like a 19-year-old, and Im a 70 year old."

But with this dress, Grey said, "The sleeves are just magical.

My gram decided to buy the same dress so we can match at my cousins wedding.. sad part is she prob wears it better!! pic.twitter.com/3bOjeWk6vD  Jenn Miller (@Jenn123097) July 18, 2017

Now the two women are trying to convince Millers mom to wear the same dress.



Its a dress that could work for anybody, said Miller. We tried to get my mom to get it but they dont have her size.



Oh she could get it in the smallest size and have it taken in, Grey quipped.



The dynamic duo said the bride isnt worried about them stealing her thunder on the big day with their identical dresses.



We told her, and shes really excited, said Miller. She think its super cute. She thinks its going to be pretty funny.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
COLUMBIA  The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and the Clemson University Center for Watershed Excellence are partnering to form the South Carolina Adopt-a-Stream program.

DHEC and Clemson will promote and expand existing South Carolina volunteer stream-monitoring efforts by providing volunteer monitors with a website for information, a database to maintain water quality-monitoring data, training classes and materials, and other useful resources.

Numerous volunteer organizations from across the state have already agreed to participate in this citizen river-monitoring program. These volunteer river stewards will spend a few hours each month documenting stream conditions and alerting local authorities if they exceed water quality standards or of evidence of illegal and illicit discharges.

South Carolina is home to some of the most beautiful streams, rivers and watersheds in the world and we are committed to doing our part to protect these beloved natural resources, said Catherine E. Heigel, DHEC director. Our citizens deserve the opportunity to fish, swim and play in clean rivers and streams and this program helps make that a reality.

This is an exciting opportunity to engage the public in a program to promote water quality awareness and provide interested residents opportunities to protect our shared water resources, said Katie Buckley, Clemson University Center for Watershed Excellence director. The Georgia Adopt-A-Stream program already has approximately 60 volunteer groups monitoring over 100 streams in South Carolina. The program has received a great deal of national and statewide attention, and interest is increasing.

The South Carolina Adopt-a-Stream volunteers will be certified to collect the following types of stream data:

Visual  documenting the conditions of a river, stream bed, stream banks and floodplain.

Chemical  tracking basic stream conditions over time, including clarity, dissolved oxygen, conductivity and more.

Bacteria  monitoring for fecal pollution and how this may be affected by storm events and, over time, watershed changes. This important monitoring is also used for reporting of potential wastewater pollution or other bacteria-laden pollution to surface waters.

Macroinvertebrate  the canaries in the coal mine of water quality, macroinvertebrates and their community species richness and population are indicators of healthy or polluted waterways. This special monitoring tracks changes over time to a stream and stream beds conditions and ecosystem health or stress.

South Carolina Adopt-a-Stream river stewards will be trained and certified in sample- and data-collection protocols designed to inform future monitoring efforts, infrastructure repairs, restoration priorities and more. Training events will be posted at http://www.clemson.edu/public/water/watershed/scaas/aas-events.html.
FLORENCE  Tiny, hungry and rapidly reproducing sugarcane aphids have made their annual migration to South Carolina to feast on grain sorghum, an agricultural commodity that had been gaining popularity.

The bugs cant survive South Carolina winters so they migrate from warmer states each year. Once here, they can quickly colonize plants by the thousands. In addition to injuring or even killing grain sorghum plants, sugarcane aphids secrete a sticky substance that can clog and damage agricultural harvesting equipment. Field trials in other states have shown sugarcane aphids to cause 20-50 percent crop loss in some fields and total loss in others, including in South Carolina.

Sugarcane aphids were first spotted in South Carolina in October.

Growers should scout fields for aphids once or twice weekly and, in most cases, if more than 50 aphids are found on one leaf, growers should apply an insecticide, said Francis Reay-Jones, an entomologist at Clemsons Pee Dee Research and Education Center near Florence. Farmers can apply either Transform WG or Sivanto Prime. Refer to the product labels for application instructions. More detailed information on insect control for grain sorghum is available online here.

Grain sorghum had become an increasingly popular agricultural commodity before sugarcane aphids first arrived in South Carolina in 2014, said David Gunter, a grain specialist with Clemson University Cooperative Extension. The grain is used for animal feed. It had become a good alternative to dryland corn because of its drought resistance and strong yield potential without the need for costly insecticide treatments.

South Carolina farmers harvested around 14,000 acres of grain sorghum in 2012, more than double the amount harvested five years prior, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Information is not available for more recent years, but Gunter said planted acreage has dropped.

I think sugarcane aphids have kind of scared off growers, along with commodity prices, Gunter said.

Data are limited on sugarcane aphid control for grain sorghum because this is a relatively new problem. Sugarcane aphids were first identified in the U.S. in Florida in 1977, but they fed on sugarcane. In 2013, the pest began feeding on grain sorghum, as well, and spread rapidly across the Southeast.

The pest has been spotted as far north as Darlington County, Reay-Jones said.

Sugarcane aphids colonize a grain sorghum leaf in a South Carolina field.

Some sorghum varieties have shown tolerance to sugarcane aphids. Gunter recommends farmers interested in grain sorghum plant DeKalb DKS 48-07 or 37-07, Pioneer 83p17 or Sorghum Partners SP7715 or SP73B12. More information on Clemson variety trials on grain sorghum and other crops is available online here.

When I say these varieties are tolerant, that does not mean they are resistant, but it may save farmers one insecticide application, Gunter said.

Reay-Jones continues to test varieties for tolerance to sugarcane aphids at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center. Fellow Clemson entomologist Jeremy Greene at the universitys Edisto Research and Education Center near Blackville is performing similar testing.

Tolerant varieties are not a silver bullet. If you get heavy pressure, youll still need to apply treatment, Reay-Jones said.

Reay-Jones also is evaluating the effectiveness of insecticidal seed treatments, developing sampling plans and researching the impact nitrogen fertilization may have on the presence of sugarcane aphids.
NORWAY -- The town of Norway has been awarded a $301,140 Community Development Block Grant to upgrade water lines on Winchester Avenue and Hunter, Maple and Kinard streets, Mayor Ann Johnson announced at Norway Town Council's July 10 meeting at the Old Willow School.

The mayor noted that since she lives on Harrison Street in that same area, it could not be included in the water line upgrade project because it would be considered a conflict of interest.

Council also discussed the maintenance of Main Street and a Neighborhood Crime Watch organizational meeting that was held in an effort to try to get the Crime Watch program started in Norway.

Additionally, the filling of swimming pools by residents was addressed. Council decided that area residents who wish to fill their swimming pool using a town fire hydrant should first contact Norway Town Hall at 803-263-4300 to obtain permission to do so.
The beautiful black water of the North Edisto River puts Orangeburg in the enviable position of a having a continuous and quality source of drinking water. The Department of Public Utilities has been honored for having some of the best water in the country.

It is a resource generally taken for granted  except for thousands of people not served by a water system. There is important news for them.

The Water Well Trust, the only national nonprofit helping low-income Americans get access to a clean, safe water supply, has announced that it is expanding from 13 to 16 the number of South Carolina counties eligible to receive assistance for drilling a new water well or rehabilitating an existing well.

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a $140,000 matching grant to the Water Well Trust for a project to increase potable water availability to households in 13 rural South Carolina counties, including Orangeburg.

Other counties are Darlington, Lee, Marion, Sumter, Clarendon, Williamsburg, Laurens, Cherokee, Kershaw, Union, Marlboro and Spartanburg.

The WWT has now expanded eligibility to another three counties: Fairfield, Colleton, and Jasper.

The USDA grant monies will provide long-term, low-interest loans to applicants seeking new or improved water wells in the 16-county area.

To be eligible to receive a WWT loan, an applicant must be the owner and occupant of the home as their primary residence.

In addition, the applicants household income must not exceed 100 percent of the median non-metropolitan household income for the state. The 2016 Non-Metropolitan median household income for South Carolina is $44,200. The income criteria apply to both the applicant and all other occupants of the home.

Prospective applicants can download the application form and instruction letter from the Water Well Trust website at www.waterwelltrust.org under Apply at the top of the home page. If a person would like the application mailed, he or she can contact the trusts office at 202-625-4383.

The Water Systems Council established the Water Well Trust in 2010 to provide clean, sanitary drinking water to Americans lacking a reliable water supply and to construct and document small community water systems using water wells to demonstrate that these systems are more economical.

The program stands to benefit a great many people as estimates are that from an eighth to a third of people in Southern states rely on wells.

Ask those people whether water is to be taken for granted. Installation of and improvement to wells are priorities.
By Trend





As OPEC and some of non-OPEC oil producers are meeting in Russia to discuss the oil market, an Iranian official and an expert told Trend that cancelling the oil production deal is unlikely.

Before, Russia and Kazakhstan have said that they may leave the oil cut deal, however, Russia's energy minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that Libya and Nigeria were approaching the moment when their output should be capped due to significant rises in recent months, Reuters reported.

Libya has been producing over 1 million bpd, below its capacity of 1.4 million to 1.6 million bpd but near its record high since violence erupted in 2011. Nigeria has also ramped up the output. The two have now increased their output by about 700,000 to 800,000 bpd since the OPEC-led pact was agreed.

According to the deal, OPEC should decrease output by 1.2 mb/d during January 2017-March 2018. Non-OPEC producers also had agreed to decrease output by 558,000 b/d.

Meanwhile, Iranian expert Behzad Ahmadi Nia told Trend July 24 that the discussions are focused on forcing Libya and Nigeria to join the oil cut deal.

An Iranian official, who asked to remain anonymous, also told Trend that regarding the hard fluctuations in oil price, both OPEC and non-OPEC producers are keen to help market to be established.

In case some of the obliged nations want to leave the oil cut deal, the prices would plunge, said the official, adding that they may even deepen the oil cut volume as well.

OPEC sources told Reuters on Saturday that Nigeria could cap output if it managed to sustain production at 1.8 million bpd for 90 days. They also said Libya could struggle to sustain output at above 1 million bpd and hence a cap was not needed.



The option of deeper output cuts has so far been ruled out, OPEC sources said. Non-OPEC member Oman's oil minister Mohammed al Rumhy told reporters he saw no need for additional production cuts from OPEC and non-OPEC producers.
President of the International Eurasia Press Fund, deputy chairman of Azerbaijan Press Council Umud Mirzayev has described the recent meeting of the Azerbaijani and Russian presidents as yet another demonstration of Azerbaijan`s regional importance.





He hailed the fact that the heads of state elevated Azerbaijan-Russia relations to the level of strategic partnership.





Regular visits of the Russian President to Baku and of the Azerbaijani President to Moscow gave a strong impetus to the expansion of equal and mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries, Mirzayev told AZERTAC.





He said Azerbaijan-Russia relations are developing at a rapid pace. We maintain close cooperation in public and political, trade and economic, and humanitarian areas. Relations between the subjects of the Russian Federation and regions of Azerbaijan are also developing in an effective and dynamic manner, Mirzayev added.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

The issue of extradition of the blogger Alexander Lapshin, who was sentenced to three years in prison in Baku, is not on the agenda, Lapshins lawyer Eduard Chernin told Trend on July 24.

Last week, the Baku Court on Grave Crimes sentenced the blogger to three years of imprisonment on charges of his illegal visits to the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani lands and a criminal conspiracy with the Armenians living there.

Chernin said the extradition is impossible as long as the court decision doesnt come into force.

The verdict against Lapshin has not yet entered into force. Therefore, he is still contained in the Baku detention facility No. 1, said the lawyer.

Chernin added that he will meet with Lapshin next week.

After the meeting we will know whether he will appeal the courts decision. Lapshin hasnt yet made any decision in this regard, the lawyer said.

Blogger Lapshin was charged with his illegal visits to the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani lands and a criminal conspiracy with the Armenians living there. He violated Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

Helped by his accomplices in the occupied territories, Lapshin paid a number of visits to Azerbaijans occupied lands, where he voiced support for "independence" of the illegal regime, and made public calls against Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

The blogger was arrested in Minsk in late 2016 and transferred to Baku in February 2017.

By the decision of the Baku Court on Grave Crimes, Lapshin will serve his three-year sentence in a general regime colony.

Unauthorized visits to Nagorno-Karabakh and other regions of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia are considered illegal, and any individuals paying such visits are included in the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's black list.
By Trend





The head of Irans Judiciary System called on the U.S. for immediate release of Iranians jailed in the United States, Tasnim news agency reported July 24.

Ayatollah Sadeh Amoli Larijani said that detaining Iranian citizens in the US is against international lows.

He also called the seizing of Iranian properties in the United States a clear theft.

Larijanis statement came after Donald Trump on July 21 warned that Iran could face "new and serious consequences" if Tehran refuses to free "unjustly detained" American citizens.

Just one day after Trumps warning, Tehran called for the freedom of Iranians who have recently been arrested across the world at the US request.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi has said that a group of Iran nationals have recently been arrested in several countries across the globe on the charges of bypassing the sanctions on the Islamic Republic, ISNA news agency reported.

About 12 Iranians are in prison in the US due to violating Washingtons sanctions on Iran. Four American citizens also were sentenced to prison in Iran, are charged on security issues.

A New York jury also has ruled in June 2017 that US can seize a Manhattan skyscraper worth as much as $1 billion from an Iranian-American charitable foundation accused of violating sanctions against Iran.
Dubai is fast moving toward achieving its goal of becoming the worlds first government to execute all implementable transactions on blockchain by 2020, an international expert on blockchain has said.



Private sector enterprises, which stand to gain due to potential synergies with the government, are also gearing up and early adopters and first to market with this technology will have definite first mover advantages, Dan Frankel, Blockchain City Adviser to Dubai, ConsenSys, told Chief Information Officers (CIOs) at the recently held CIOMajlis session on Blockchain Technology.



CIOMajlis is an initiative by Smartworld, an Etisalat and Dubai South joint venture company, focused on bringing CIOs from public and private sector companies in the UAE on a common platform to share international best practices and explore business solutions in line with the UAEs Innovation Strategy and the governments goal to make it the worlds most innovative country by 2021.



Ahmad Al Mulla, Chairman of CIOMajlis, said: Dubai is a frontrunner in adopting the latest technology and has set a goal to become the worlds first government to execute all implementable transactions on the blockchain by 2020. The government initiatives in this direction present tremendous business opportunities for the private sector in the UAE. There is a current global shortage of object oriented programmers and developers. We need to ensure sufficient availability of trained manpower and as these opportunities are accruing across all sectors, we will see a lot of blockchain implementation in near future across government as well as private sectors.



Worldwide, the market size for Blockchain is projected to grow from $210 million in 2016 to over $2.3 billion by 2021.



HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and chairman of Dubai Executive Council, launched the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, which is focused on exploring and evaluating the latest technology innovations that demonstrate an opportunity to deliver more seamless, safe, efficient, and impactful city experiences.



Adoption of Blockchain is estimated to result in over Dh5.5 billion savings annually towards streamlining document processing alone.



ConsenSys has been named as the official Blockchain Advisor for the City of Dubai and will be working in collaboration with government officials along with IBM, the projects Lead Strategic Partner.



Explaining the potential benefits that embracing Blockchain can bring, Frankel said blockchain technologies could reduce banks transaction costs by $15 billion to $20 billion a year by 2022, and as it removes costs of intermediaries, manual processing, re-work and processing errors, it could generate a potential savings of as high as 75 per cent.

He said blockchain technology will transform every major market in the world by significantly reducing infrastructure costs, fraud and fee, thus driving the growth of global market share at an unprecedented rate. The first industries that will be transformed by blockchain will include financial services and real estate, technology, media and telecommunications, energy and resources, consumer and industrial products.



Early adopters and first to market with this technology will have a strategic advantage, he added.



He said that to facilitate availability of trained manpower in Blockchain technology, ConsenSys will launch ConsenSys Academy, a highly selective and immersive online blockchain training programme that prepares developers to enter this rapidly growing technology field. The graduates will be flown after graduation to Dubai to receive their certificates and offered jobs in the Dubai Blockchain initiative.  TradeArabia News Service
Smart Dubais DubaiPay portal for payment online and via smartphones registered a 15 per cent increase in the amounts collected between June 1, 2016 and June 1, 2017, generating Dh12 billion ($3.26 billion).



The more than 10 million transactions marked a surge of 13 per cent carried out over the same period.



Dr Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, director general of Smart Dubai Office, said: We, at Smart Dubai, are working in harmony with the vision of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, which defines the future in terms of the citys smart transformations.



These measures seek to enable Dubai to be the happiest and smartest city in the world, and an example to follow for smart cities worldwide. We are adapting technology into initiatives and services that directly affect peoples lives and make them happy.



We look at every initiative from the happiness perspective before we develop it. For this purpose, we partnered government and private entities to introduce the DubaiPay portal and add a distinctive experience that makes customers happy, enabling them to pay the fees for all their daily services. We are working tirelessly on every initiative and service provided to the public, developing them in a way that is more beneficial to citizens, residents, city officials, businessowners, and visitors, Dr Aisha added.



She went on to say: Dubai is a very ambitious city that aspires to be number one in whatever it does  be it in business, lifestyle, or innovation and creativity. Smart Dubai seeks to support the emirate to achieve this goal and make Dubai the happiest city on earth, using the innovative tools of the future.



Wesam Lootah, CEO of Smart Dubai Government Establishment (SDG), said: SDG constantly strives to make life easier and more convenient for people in Dubai; we launch bold initiatives  such as DubaiPay among others  based on cutting-edge technology and adopt innovative, breakthrough solutions that allow residents to go about their daily tasks as seamlessly as possible. The strong demand for smart payment solutions proves that our leaderships vision for a smart city is beginning to take shape, a feat that would not have been achieved had it not been for the cooperation between the public and private sectors.



SDG's partner, the Department of Finance for the Government of Dubai (DOF) is playing a vital role in enhancing the revenues collected through DubaiPay, according to Jamal Hamed Al Marri, DOF executive director of Central Accounts, who stressed on DOFs role in attracting service providers to the portal.



"By offering competitive prices and flexible money transfer service that meet the service providers needs, the governmental platform can be more appealing to them. DOF plays a significant role in increasing confidence in the DubaiPay portal which now offers more payment options, including debit cards, e-Dirham, and others, said Al Marri.  TradeArabia News Service
In a major move, the Saudi Public Transport Authority (PTA) has opened its doors for the private sector, inviting global pioneering companies to partner in the construction and operation of railways in the kingdom, said a report.



PTA has called upon the experts in the field of building and operation of railway transport services to forge long-term strategic partnership with Saudi companies in this vital sector, reported the Saudi Gazette, citing a top official.



The partnership will be ensured for the construction and operation of Riyadh-Dammam Railway, the Northern Railway as well as the Land Bridge Project that would connect the Gulf with the Red Sea, and other future projects, said Minister of Transport Sulaiman Al Hamdan.



This will be in co-operation with the Saudi Railway Company (SAR) and Saudi Railway General Corporation, stated Al Hamdan, who is also the chairman of the board of PTA..



Al Hamdan also unveiled plans to privatise some key sectors such as the public transport and roads in addition to airports and seaports, it added.



In a related development, the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture has announced that it plans to start privatising the sewage sector offering three key projects in five cities and governorates across the Kingdom.



Muhammad Al Muwakali, the CEO of National Water Company, said that a consortia, comprising three international consultants, will be involved in the initial phase of the project.



The new sewage treatment plants are Jeddah Airport Plant 2, a plant west of Dammam, and a system of plants covering Turaif, Arar and Sakaka.



A contract was signed with an international consultant specialised in preparing tender documents and subsequently the plant projects will be awarded on a BOT (build, operate and transfer) basis to the private sector.



The consultancy consortia, is led by financial consultant Mizuho Bank, and comprising of legal consultant White & Case, and technical consultant Atkins.
The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) has provided a total of Dh4 billion ($1.08 billion) worth of grants and concessionary loans to Egypt for 64 development projects, a report said.



The constructive cooperation between ADFD and the Government of Egypt continues to promote sustainable development in vital economic sectors that benefit the citizens of Egypt, reported Wam, the Emirates official news agency.



The funded projects spanned over diverse sectors, most notably transport, housing, agriculture and irrigation, energy, industry and mining, education and healthcare.



In addition, ADFD owns an 84 per cent stake in Abu Dhabi Tourist Investment Company, a Cairo-based hotel and tourism holding firm, Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, director general of ADFD, stated.



Al Suwaidi made the statements on the occasion of Egypts July 23 Revolution Day, where he complimented the government and people of Egypt on making significant headway in fulfilling the nations development goals.



He noted that such efforts would significantly contribute to improving the everyday lives of its citizens and accelerate Egypts economic growth.



He emphasised ADFDs keenness to bolster the Egyptian governments endeavours through financing projects that support infrastructure development  a prerequisite for socio-economic growth and prosperity.



He added, "ADFDs work in Egypt over the past four decades is a testimony to the funds crucial role in boosting economic and social development across developing countries. The funds projects align with the expansive vision and goals of the Egyptian government."
Deyaar Development, one of the UAEs leading real estate companies, has awarded a Dh600-million ($163.3 million) contract to Belhasa Engineering and Contracting Company for its Afnan and Dania districts at Midtown project in Dubai.



Located near Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, Midtown is an integrated urban community in Dubai Production City. The development boasts 27 buildings with a built-up area of almost five million sq ft, offering studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, said a statement from the company.



In Midtown, the first two phases have been launched. The Afnan district features 659 apartments, while Dania District has 579 apartments.



The contract between Deyaar and Belhasa to build 1,238 units will last for 29 months from the signing date, with the superstructure in Afnan and Dania districts expected to be completed by December 2018, with the aim to reach 15 to 20 per cent completion by the end of this year, it added.



Deyaar Development CEO Saeed Mohammed Al Qatami said: "Belhasa has a proven track record of delivering quality, premium properties, making them the ideal partner for the next phase of Midtowns Afnan and Dania districts."



"Midtown is proving to be a popular development with over 70 per cent of properties already purchased off-plan, and we are eager to deliver in good time," he stated.



Majed Belhasa, the managing director of Belhasa Engineering and Contracting Company, said: "We are keen to take on projects that are unique and add value to Dubais communities, and Deyaars Midtown development fits that bill."



"We are pleased to be working with Deyaar on this project, which represents a previously underserved residential sector," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Faithful+Gould, an integrated project and programme management consultancy, has appointed Paul Sweeney as the new head of programme management for its 160-strong business in Saudi Arabia.



The integrated project and programme management consultancy has seen rapid growth in the kingdom, with its order book expected to grow by 15 per cent over the course of the next year.



Sweeney is new to the Middle East, joining Faithful+Gould from Aecom, where he performed a number of roles including head of project management and a director and partner in Davis Langdon in the UK, said a statement from the company.



With over 25 years of service, he brings a wealth of programme, project and operational experience into Faithful+Gould. His recent responsibilities included business unit and financial planning, performance and delivery, staff development and mentoring and business development amongst others.



Sweeney has considerable knowledge of major international PPP schemes in the healthcare and education sectors, having acted for both the promoting client and SPV/developer, which aligns with the Saudi governments move towards alternative financing solutions squarely at the centre of the countrys Vision 2030 strategy, it stated.



Welcoming the appointment, Spencer Wylie, the Saudi country director, said: "The demand for our expert programme and project management services has risen exponentially, making this an opportune time for Sweeney to join us."



"His appointment further enables F+Gs growth strategy, not just for Saudi Arabia, but for the wider region, aimed at ensuring we remain in a position to deliver the best possible solutions to our clients, supporting the delivery of their projects on time, to budget and to their quality aspirations," he noted.



Wylie pointed out that 2016/17 had been a great year for Faithful+Gould in Saudi Arabia as it had been signed up for a number of major transformational projects.



"We are providing programme management services for a mixed use and leisure development that is set to attract millions of domestic visitors; also we are cost managers on several super regional mall developments, and we have implemented a programme management office for the roll out of a countrywide fibre optic network," he noted.



"We are very excited to see what 2017/18 brings with Paul joining our existing team in country," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Dubai's Taqdeer Award, the worlds first-of-its kind points based reward system for recognising excellence in labour welfare practices and promoting best practices in labour welfare, has formed a technical committee, said its chairman.



Major General Obaid Muhair Bin Suroor, who is also the deputy director general of General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai, explained that the technical committee includes Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE), Dubai Free Zone Council and Dubai Municipality.



It aims to spread the vision and mission of the Award to reach thousands of companies across Dubai to set international benchmarks in labour practices.



I highly appreciate and would like to thank the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, Dubai Free Zone Council and Dubai Municipality, for their strong support and am confident that their cooperation will help us exceed our targets in terms of reaching out to companies. This year, as we have extended the award to include factories and free zones, in addition to construction companies, and we are expecting more than 200 participants, said Major General Obaid, during the awareness workshops for companies.



More than 150 company representatives attended the workshops, organised at the MOHRE office and at Meydan Hotel, by MOHRE and the Dubai Free Zones Council respectively.



In its second edition, the award includes companies in construction sector, factories and free zones in Dubai, raising the number of workers targeted by the award to 1 million. In its first cycle, the award focussed on construction companies and included over 280 companies employing more than half a million workers.



The points based reward system will evaluate companies on the basis of essential fundamentals such as labour policies, occupational health; cultural and work environment factors such as communication, creativity and innovation, rules and regulations; as well as results based on labour perceptions and performance indicators.



Companies which get four and five-star rating will be given priority in awarding government projects.



Qasim Mohammed Jameel, director of Guidance, Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) said: Taqdeer Award is another milestone in labour welfare initiatives in the UAE and will also enhance the relationship between companies and workers. The awareness workshop aims to generate awareness among hundreds of companies regarding the criteria of the award and the benefits they get by participating. I am happy to work closely with the Taqdeer team to ensure that the message, vision, and mission of the award reaches maximum number of companies and workers in the second cycle.



Dr Juma Al Matrooshi, assistant to the secretary general, Dubai Free Zone Council, said: Taqdeer Award recognises the hard work of those who are playing an important role in the development of the nation.



The free zones constitute an important part of Dubais economy and have a significant share in the GDP and free zones require companies to adhere to high international standards.



The opportunity for free zone companies to participate in Taqdeer Award will encourage them further to compete in providing maximum care and ensure welfare of their workers. This award is not an event for one year or two years, it is a continuous process, which will lead companies to set international standards, acknowledge excellence among companies and workers and enhance their competitiveness on an international arena. We are expecting a high participation from the free zone particularly as there has been a massive increase in awareness.



There are over 338,000 workers in 34,000 companies in the free zones in Dubai, according to Dubai Statistics Centre. There are over 9,854 factories operating in Dubai in different categories and over 283 companies.



During the workshops, the participants were given details on the objectives of the award, along with the requirement criteria and procedural details to participate in the 2nd edition of the award.  TradeArabia News Service
Businessmen from Oman and Qatar are expected to launch three manufacturing projects, said a senior official from Zubair Corporation.



The company has three projects under consideration based on partnerships between Qatari and Omani businessmen, C S Badrinath, CEO, Zubair Corporation, was quoted as saying in a Gulf Times report.



He was part of a trade delegation from Oman that met with Qatar Chamber vice chairman Mohamed bin Towar Al Kuwari and board member Mohamed bin Ahmed al-Obaidli.



He added that the first project involves water production and distribution under the brand Oasis Qatar, with production expected to be within two months. The second project is a factory for electrical transformers, while the third is a factory for production of petrochemicals.
Russia will supply a large batch of tanks to Iraq this year, according to the Russian Tass news agency in a recent report.



Vladimir Kozhin, the Russian presidents aide for military technical cooperation, revealed that the contract was significant and would likely be followed by other deals, added the Iraq Business News report.



The total sum of the contract may exceed $1 billion and will be facilitated through Russias Uralvagonzavod Corporation (UVZ), the supplier of the tanks, it said.



According to the Tass report, Iraq made the decision to purchase the Russian military hardware following the successful performance of the tanks in Syria.
The impact of Destruction of Service (DeOS) attacks, which could eliminate organizations backups and safety nets, required to restore systems and data after an attack is predicted to grow in 2017, according to a new report.



Also, with the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), key industries are bringing more operations online, increasing attack surfaces and the potential scale and impact of these threats, said the Cisco 2017 Midyear Cybersecurity Report (MCR).



Recent cyber incidents such as WannaCry and Nyetya show the rapid spread and wide impact of attacks that look like traditional ransomware, but are much more destructive. These events foreshadow what Cisco is calling destruction of service attacks, which can be far more damaging, leaving businesses with no way to recover.



The Internet of Things continues to offer new opportunities for cybercriminals, and its security weaknesses, ripe for exploitation, will play a central role in enabling these campaigns with escalating impact. Recent IoT botnet activity already suggests that some attackers may be laying the foundation for a wide-reaching, high-impact cyber-threat event that could potentially disrupt the Internet itself.



As recent incidents like WannaCry and Nyetya illustrate, our adversaries are becoming more and more creative in how they architect their attacks. While the majority of organizations took steps to improve security following a breach, businesses across industries are in a constant race against the attackers. Security effectiveness starts with closing the obvious gaps and making security a business priority, said Steve Martino, vice president and chief information security officer, Cisco.



Measuring effectiveness of security practices in the face of these attacks is critical. Cisco tracks progress in reducing time to detection (TTD), the window of time between a compromise and the detection of a threat. Faster time to detection is critical to constrain attackers operational space and minimize damage from intrusions. Since November 2015, Cisco decreased its median time-to-detection (TTD) from just over 39 hours to about 3.5 hours for the period from November 2016 to May 2017. This figure is based on opt-in telemetry gathered from Cisco security products deployed worldwide.



Complexity continues to hinder many organziations security efforts. Its obvious that the years of investing in point products that cant integrate is creating huge opportunities for attackers who can easily identify overlooked vulnerabilities or gaps in security efforts. To effectively reduce Time to Detection and limit the impact of an attack, the industry must move to a more integrated, architectural approach that increases visibility and manageability, empowering security teams to close gaps, said Scott Manson, cyber security leader for Middle East and Turkey, Cisco.



Threat landscape: Whats hot and whats not



Cisco security researchers watched the evolution of malware during the first half of 2017 and identified shifts in how adversaries are tailoring their delivery, obfuscation and evasion techniques. Specifically, Cisco saw they increasingly require victims to activate threats by clicking on links or opening files.



They are developing fileless malware that lives in memory and is harder to detect or investigate as it is wiped out when a device restarts. Finally adversaries are relying on anonymized and decentralized infrastructure, such as a Tor proxy service, to obscure command and control activities.



While Cisco has seen a striking decline in exploit kits, other traditional attacks are seeing a resurgence:



 Spam volumes are significantly increasing, as adversaries turn to other tried-and-true methods, like email, to distribute malware and generate revenue. Cisco threat researchers anticipate that the volume of spam with malicious attachments will continue to rise while the exploit kit landscape remains in flux.



 Spyware and adware, often dismissed by security professionals as more nuisance than harm, are forms of malware that persist and bring risks to the enterprise. Cisco research sampled 300 companies over a four-month period and found that three prevalent spyware families infected 20 percent of the sample. In a corporate environment, spyware can steal user and company information, weaken the security posture of devices and increase malware infections.



 Evolutions in ransomware, such as the growth of Ransomware-as-a-Service, make it easier for criminals, regardless of skillset, to carry out these attacks. Ransomware has been grabbing headlines and reportedly brought in more than $1 billion in 2016, but this may be misdirecting some organizations, who face an even greater, underreported threat. Business email compromise (BEC), a social engineering attack in which an email is designed to trick organizations into transferring money to attackers, is becoming highly lucrative. Between October 2013 and December 2016, $5.3 billion was stolen via BEC, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.



Unique industries face common challenges



As criminals continue to increase the sophistication and intensity of attacks, businesses across industries are challenged to keep up with even foundational cybersecurity requirements. As Information Technology and Operational Technology converge in the Internet of Things, organizations struggle with visibility and complexity.



As part of its Security Capabilities Benchmark Study, Cisco surveyed close to 3,000 security leaders across 13 countries and found that across industries, security teams are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of attacks. This leads many to become more reactive in their protection efforts.



 No more than two-thirds of organizations are investigating security alerts. In certain industries (such as healthcare and transportation), this number is closer to 50 percent.

 Even in the most responsive industries (such as finance and healthcare), businesses are mitigating less than 50 percent of attacks they know are legitimate.

 Breaches are a wake-up call. Across most industries, breaches drove at least modest security improvements in at least 90 percent of organizations. Some industries (such as transportation) are less responsive, falling just above 80 percent.



Important findings per industry include:



 Public Sector Of threats investigated, 32 percent are identified as legitimate threats, but only 47 per cent of those legitimate threats are eventually remediated.

 RetailThirty-two percent said theyd lost revenue due to attacks in the past year with about one-fourth losing customers or business opportunities.

 ManufacturingForty percent of the manufacturing security professionals said they do not have a formal security strategy, nor do they follow standardized information security policy practices such as ISO 27001 or NIST 800-53.

 UtilitiesSecurity professionals said targeted attacks (42 percent) and advanced persistent threats, or APTs (40 percent), were the most critical security risks to their organizations.

 HealthcareThirty-seven percent of the healthcare organizations said that targeted attacks are high-security risks to their organizations.



Ciscos advice for organizations



To combat todays increasingly sophisticated attackers, organizations must take a proactive stance in their protection efforts. Cisco Security advises:



 Keeping infrastructure and applications up to date, so that attackers cant exploit publicly known weaknesses.

 Battle complexity through an integrated defense. Limit siloed investments.

 Engage executive leadership early to ensure complete understanding of risks, rewards and budgetary constraints.

 Establish clear metrics. Use them to validate and improve security practices.

 Examine employee security training with role-based training versus one-size-fits-all.

 Balance defense with an active response. Dont set and forget security controls or processes.  TradeArabia News Service
Kuwait-based Equate Group, a global producer of petrochemicals, has announced the successful restart of its Ethylene Unit 2 (EU2) in Kuwait, following a brief shutdown for technical reasons during last week.



Equate Groups president and CEO Mohammad Husain, said: Operations at our EU2 have resumed normally in record time following repairs.



The EU2 has a production capacity of 850,000 metric tonnes annually (MTA) and is owned by The Kuwait Olefins Company (TKOC), part of the Equate Group, said a statement.



The dedication and efforts of Equate Groups employees were lauded by Husain as operations were resumed within a timeframe less than the originally planned two weeks and in absolute abidance to safety standards, it said.



Both the Ethylene Glycol (EG) and Polyethylene (PE) plants in Kuwait have returned to the usual production levels as they were impacted by the temporary shutdown of EU2, he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Abu Dhabi-based Borouge, a leading provider of innovative value creating plastics solutions, will highlight how the company, using innovation as an integral part of its business, delivers new solutions to meet the evolving market demands, at the upcoming Abu Dhabi International Downstream Summit.



Dr Thorsten Loehl, vice president innovation, Borouge, will speaking at the summit, which runs on September 18 and 19.



Working closely with the oil and gas industry, Borouge has focussed strongly on innovation when it comes to plastics solutions.



Those visiting the summit will learn how Borouge creates a continuous pipeline of development with ongoing rejuvenation of its product portfolio. They will also be given an insight into how Borouge focuses on unmet customer needs and tackles some of the very specific challenges faced by numerous different industries, the company said.



Packaging is another area where Borouge has great success in re-defining benchmarks for excellence.

Whether for consumer or industrial use, creating materials that have a lower gauge than traditional solutions while still meeting required stretching, impact resistance, etc. characteristics, means customers can save millions in packaging and shipment costs. Sustainability is another important consideration for packaging solutions where Borouge is helping many customers move away from complex, multi-material package solutions to practical, single material ones that can be easily recycled, the company said.



Other current innovations include light-weighting of material through foaming techniques. This interesting area of the plastics business offers benefits in applications from packing to automobiles. Having a good idea, however, is not enough on its own. A complete solution is required to address specific industry challenges  and this is an area where the Borouge way of working ensures a final, saleable, beneficial outcome from its R&D pipeline, it added.



Borouges experience and innovation means it has many exciting insights to share that can be applied across many different market sectors. Dr. Loehl is looking to inspire many different conversations and ideas with his talk at the summit, the company said. - TradeArabia News Service
The oil market will need more crude from Libya and Nigeria as it re-balances at a faster rate in the second half of the year after a slow start, Opec secretary-general Mohammad Barkindo said Sunday.



Compliance with production cuts by members of Opec is "excellent," Barkindo was quoted as saying in St Petersburg, Russia, Wam, the Emirates official news agency.



Libya and Nigeria are exempt from the cuts and have been boosting production, leading to speculations about whether the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries will seek to cap their output to help reduce a global glut.



"The re-balancing process may be going on at a slower pace than we earlier projected, but it is on course, and its bound to accelerate in the second half," Barkindo told reporters in St Petersburg, according to Reuters.



Six Opec and non-Opec ministers will meet tomorrow, Monday, in St Petersburg to discuss the market outlook and compliance with output cuts.
Team Oman Air claimed their first regatta win of the 2017 Extreme Sailing Series with a dominant display in Barcelona, Spain, narrowing the gap to the top spot on the overall leaderboard to just one point. An emphatic victory in the final race, which counted for double points, sealed glory for Phil Robertson and his team after three days of tense, high octane racing.

The crew of Pete Greenhalgh, Ed Smyth, Nasser Al Mashari and James Wierzbowski joined Robertson in celebration as they crossed the finish line a massive two minutes ahead of closest rival SAP Extreme Sailing Team.

Over the Act's 22 races the crew notched up an impressive four race wins and 15 podium finishes.

Crucially, the victory in Barcelona moves Oman Air to within one point of joint leaders SAP Extreme Sailing Team and Alinghi on the overall scoreboard at the halfway mark of the tour.

The team now has a short two-week break before racing resumes with the fifth round of the Extreme Sailing Series in the German city of Hamburg from August 10 to 13. -TradeArabia News Service


Meet award-winning artisans and buy their products at Kerala Arts and Crafts Village
Some 35,000 people may descend on Casper and Natrona County for the solar eclipse in mid-August, among them denizens of the Wyoming uranium industry.

For the first time since 2011, a Wyoming chapter of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration is hosting a trade show and conference, boasting key note speakers like U.S. House Rep. Liz Cheney, state lawmaker Eli Bebout, R-Riverton, and Uranerz Energy Corp. Vice President Paul Goranson.

It was a way of exchanging ideas, what folks were doing, lessons learned, said Sheryl Garling, organizer for the event and a member of the Central Wyoming division of the national society.

The industry has trudged through a trough of low prices in recent years. Some hope for a slow rise in the price of yellowcake in the coming years. The largest known uranium reserves in the U.S. reside in Wyoming, but as a global commodity, the states sector is moved, shaped and shaken by an international market.

During the recent downturn, interest in gathering to talk shop waned, Garling said.

She hopes the symposium will create the kind of sparks that early symposiums did when uranium was just developing as a national industry.

Garling has been involved in uranium symposiums since the late-70s, and has seen meetings swell with people when prices were robust and when technology like in-situ mining was in its infancy.

Expectations for next month are more modest.

If we get 250, Im going to be really tickled, Garling said. We should have had [a symposium] in 2015, but there was just no one out there that would support it. They were reducing their staff, and they just didnt have the manpower.

The long list of participants this year includes geologists and engineers, academics and environmental regulators. The symposium will also offer limited tours of uranium mines north of Casper.

Some of the presentations will likely resonate in Wyomings uranium industry.

Donn Pillmore, from Energy Fuels Resources, will talk about bringing a historic uranium mine, the Canyon Mine in Arizona, back to life after years of stagnation.

A long-time uranium operator in Wyoming recently announced that his new company, URZ Energy, would resurrect some sites in Wyoming that havent been mined for uranium in decades.

Peter Woods, from the International Atomic Energy Agency, will present a report on supply and demand of uranium in the global market.

More than 20 countries produce uranium, but production growth from some of the main players has slowed or turned into decline.

From the expected reduction of cheaply mined uranium in Kazakhstan to planned construction of nuclear power plants globally, the changing economics of uranium have stoked hope in a few that the low prices will rise again.

Garling, the local organizer, said she hopes for an international showing so that U.S. producers can enamor their foreign counterparts with the national industry.

We are kind of in our own little world in the U.S., she said.

The relatively small industry means that for many the symposium in Casper will be a reunion. A chance for the older generation to catch up and meet the newer players in the uranium field.

Proceeds from the symposium will feed the Central Wyoming chapters scholarship program, which provides $2,500 grants to students studying in mining related fields.

To date the chapter has given about $200,000 in scholarships to students and to local teachers in the Rocky Mountain Region, according to their website.

The U2017 Global Uranium Symposium goes from Aug. 21-25, at the Ramkota Hotel in Casper.
Tuesday's Highlights

Tuesday 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; 7 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, closed; 7 p.m., 520 CY; 8 p.m., 328-1/2 E. A; 8 p.m., 328 E. A; 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech. Douglas: 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back). Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688.

Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 7 p.m., 15th and Melrose, at the church. Web site: http://www.urmrna.org.

VBS at Prince of Peace

A summer kids event called Passport to Peru VBS will be hosted at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church at 2300 E. 15th St. from Tuesday to Friday. Kids will sing songs, play games, dig into Peruvian treats, experience Bible adventures and explore what daily life is like for kids in Peru. Passport to Peru VBS is for kids from 3 years to sixth grade and will run from 6 to 8:30 p.m. (preschool ages until 8 p.m.) each day. To register, visit https://vbspro.events/p/events/princeofpeace. For more information, please call the office at 234-6475.

Open ceramics at Art 321

Art 321 hosts an open ceramics studio every Tuesday morning from 10 a.m. to noon. The cost is $10 per session and an instructor is present during studio hours to assist you. Clay is available for purchase or you are welcome to bring your own. All other supplies are provided. This is a great opportunity to learn (or re-learn) basic and intermediate construction and wheel techniques and to produce fully finished pottery.

NARFE meets

Casper Chapter #358 of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) will have a business meeting at noon in the meeting room at the Casper Senior Center at 1831 E. Fourth St. The guest speaker will be Trish McDaniel, Casper Humane Society. She will bring a special guest.

Corvette Cruise and Dine every Tuesday

Cruise and Dines sponsored by the Central Wyoming Corvettes (a nonprofit organization) are every Tuesday night through Nov. 7. Bring your Corvette and meet at Whites Chevrolet at 6 p.m. and take a short cruise with several other Vettes to a local restaurant for dinner. Guests or new members are always welcome. See us on Facebook or visit our website.

Weekly yoga

Weekly yoga classes have returned to the Bart Rea Learning Circle in Amoco Park. All except the SolAbration on Aug. 21 are free, although nonperishable food items for Wyoming Food for Thought and donations to cover program costs are always welcome. Tuesday, 5:30 p.m., Yoga on the Labyrinth; 6:30 p.m., Drum Circle.
A few months before his contract was terminated by then-Interim City Manager Liz Becher, Casper Police Chief Jim Wetzel forwarded a New York Times article to city department heads: Kompromat and the Danger of Doubt and Confusion in a Democracy.

Wetzel, who would later blame his ouster on a coup organized by the Fraternal Order of Police and enabled by irresponsible journalism, could easily fancy himself a Nostradamus.

Very interesting article, Wetzel wrote in the January email. (S)eems to be identifying what we are experiencing in the police dept and the city gov... albeit largely through a social media platform backed by a press that does more to bolster it than expose it.

The email was obtained by the Star-Tribune through a public records request.

Kompromat is a Russian term that describes compromising information, both real and fake, that quickly erodes public trust in, well, everything.

By eroding the very idea of a shared reality, and by spreading apathy and confusion among a public that learns to distrust leaders and institutions alike, kompromat undermines a societys ability to hold the powerful to account and ensure the proper functioning of government, Times columnist Amanda Taub wrote.

While kompromat might appear to target powerful individuals  like a police chief  in the end it makes it impossible to believe anything, which is bad for democracy.

Wetzel believes he was brought down by a survey and report compiled by the local order of the FOP and shared with city officials and the media. The survey described low morale among police employees and blamed Wetzel, though it is unclear whether Becher terminated his contract due to the report or a confidential investigation that was conducted by local attorney Judith Studer.

In any case, the email was sent months before the survey was released in April.

One department head who may have already considered himself a victim of kompromat at the time of Wetzels email? Fire Chief Kenny King.

King announced his retirement last October after the Star-Tribune revealed that he had asked an employee investigating the Cole Creek Fire to delete bad parts from a video of the fire.

But his retirement doesnt take effect until January. Which meant he was still around in January and able to weigh in on Wetzels belief that autocratic Russian propaganda techniques were being replicated in Casper.

In a nut shell, King wrote.

***

Time limits are finally coming to work sessions. Perhaps buried in the coverage of Councilman Dallas Lairds desire to limit public comment at meetings, City Council agreed to set time limits for work sessions. These are the informal meetings Council holds twice each month and they can sometimes drag on for four or five hours.

But in addition to slightly new formatting, the agenda released on Friday for the work session this week features time limits for each item and a timed schedule.

The 20-minute time limits for staff and community presentations seem pretty easy to abide by (though why 20 minutes is also needed to review the next meetings agenda, I do not know). It will be interesting to see how Council navigates time limits during more controversial or in-depth discussions like the budget.

***

Its official! Im all done on the city beat. Theres a certain awkwardness that accompanies covering city government in Casper. Namely, its a small city. Or a big town. The Star-Tribune is the only local media outlet that assigns a reporter to cover every City Council meeting and I get to know the people I write about reasonably well  whether I deserve to or not.

I say that because last Tuesday, Laird decided to share an inspirational meme, printed out from a positive thinking Facebook page.

Not everyone deserves to know the real you, it read. Let them criticize who they think you are.

I didnt inquire, though it may have been a reference to the column I wrote last week noting that Laird  Councils most vocal member  wanted to restrict public comment because, among other things, elected officials were not slaves.

Covering the city has been an honor. Casper is a unique place with big stuff happening, and I often lament that there arent three or four newspapers in Casper, or at least three or four reporters from different outlets covering local government here. There are always more stories to tell.

Our new city reporter, Katie King, will help tell some of them. Her byline started appearing on Friday. Keep an eye out for it.
The former treasurer for the town of Mills will serve five years of probation and pay back more than $60,000 that she embezzled from the town's accounts.

After a lengthy hearing Monday morning, Natrona County District Court Judge Daniel Forgey sentenced Lisa Whetstone to supervised probation and $60,365 in restitution. Whetstone previously pleaded guilty to a single charge of failing to account for public property.

She previously admitted to using a town credit card to make personal purchases.

The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation took an interest in the towns finances after a 2015 state audit uncovered discrepancies, including cash receipts that didnt match the amount of money that was deposited into the towns account.

Prosecutors also charged the town's former mayor, Marrolyce Wilson, with interfering in the investigation and profiting from town land sales.
JERUSALEM  Israels security Cabinet met Sunday to review a decision to install metal detectors at a contested Jerusalem holy site, following a week of escalating tensions with the Muslim world, mass prayer protests and Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The ministers met amid mounting controversy at home, with some critics saying the government had acted without sufficiently considering the repercussions of introducing new security measures at the Holy Lands most sensitive shrine and the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a possible spillover of the tensions, three people, including an Israeli, were wounded by gunfire Sunday in a residential building in the heavily fortified Israeli embassy compound in Jordans capital. A Jordanian man later died of his wounds, a security official said.

The kingdoms Public Security Directorate said that before the shooting, Jordanians had entered the apartment building for carpentry work, the statement said

The Israeli Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.

The metal detectors were installed a week ago, in response to an attack by Arab gunmen there who killed two Israeli policemen. Muslim religious leaders alleged Israel was trying to expand its control at the compound.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, an outspoken supporter of the security measures, on Sunday for the first time raised the possibility that the metal detectors might be removed, provided an alternative is found.

He said security measures at the 37-acre esplanade, with eight entry gates for Muslim worshippers, were insufficient before the shooting attack.

We need different security measures and means for checking (those entering) there, he told Israel TVs Channel 2.

Erdan said it is certainly possible that the metal detectors will be removed if police recommend a different security program.

Muslim leaders signaled earlier Sunday that they would reject any new proposal that leaves additional security measures in place.

The top Muslim cleric of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, told Voice of Palestine radio that he demands a complete return to the security measures before the shooting attack.
Omaha (Nebraska) World-Herald writer Kevin Coffee summed up ex-child star Corey Feldmans March 20 concert as an altogether odd experience.

Feldman played a small Omaha pub called Maloneys and the audience was in a constant state of streaming in, then streaming back out.

It was pop music  mostly bland but often bad pop music  played into the wee hours as more and more people fled through the doors after having enough of it or perhaps after having their curiosity sated, Coffee wrote, noting that Feldman dressed like a modern-day Michael Jackson.

If you watch Feldman on YouTube its easy to see the comparison. And if you know anything about the 46-year-old actors past, you know the Jackson conjuring is intentional. Feldman, who brings his all-female Coreys Angels band to Rialto Theatre on Tuesday, Aug. 1, met the pop icon when he was just 12 years old. He still considers him his mentor and role model, despite the pairs very public parting. Feldman later claimed that Jackson had befriended him as a child and then dropped their friendship when the superstar became bored.

Coffee said fans at Feldmans March concert initially went wild for the entertainer.

People screamed for him, and they danced during the opening salvo of songs, Coffee wrote. But enthusiasm quickly waned. He didnt have particularly good songs.

Feldman, who is backed by a band of women dressed in white with angels wings, comes here a month after accidentally knocking out a tooth with a microphone at a show in Milwaukee, according to the Milwaukee Record.

Feldman is in the midst of an ambitious world tour that will bring him across the United States for the fifth time; hes toured as a solo artist and a member of his former band, Truth Movement. Feldman in June released the album Angelic 2 the Core.

If youre into breaking up your week with a concert, we recommend these two shows:

Bakersfield, California, country twanger Dwight Yoakam shares a bit of Hollywood with Feldman. Yoakam has credits in several movies, most notably 1996s Sling Blade, playing opposite Billy Bob Thornton in the Thornton-penned and directed movie. Yoakam played the cruel boyfriend who finds out the hard way what Karl Childers (Thornton) could do with a sling blade when properly provoked.

But Hollywood will be worlds away when Yoakam, 60, takes the stage at the AVA at Casino del Sol Resort & Casino, 5655 W. Valencia Road, on Thursday, July 27. Hell pull out his classic cowpunk hits  Guitars, Cadillacs, A Thousand Miles From Nowhere, Aint That Lonely Yet  as well as cuts off his new bluegrass album Swimmin Pools, Movie Stars ..., a collection of his hits stripped of electric guitars and amped up with fiddle and dobro. If were lucky, he will play his acoustic cover of Princes Purple Rain. (Check out the video at tucson.com)

Brandy Clark and King Leg are on the bill and the show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25-$75 through tickets.casinodelsol.com

Country music veteran Tracy Lawrence pulls the tour bus into Desert Diamond Casino, 1100 W. Pima Mine Road, Wednesday, Aug. 2, for a 8 p.m. show. This might be the best bargain of the week when it comes to big name shows: Tickets start at $10 and top out at $25 (for the prized standing-only dance space in front of the stage). Personally, thats our favorite spot, especially for Lawrence, 49, whose honky-tonk tunes  Alibis, Time Marches On, Texas Tornado, Find Out Who Your Friends Are, Paint Me A Birmingham, Lessons Learned, Any Fool Can See, You Cant Hide Redneck  dare you to keep still.

Get tickets at the door or in advance at startickets.com
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some July 24 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.
PHOENIX  With the threat of a lawsuit looming, the states attorney general wants regents to explain why they believe dreamers are legally entitled to pay the same tuition as other Arizona residents.

Attorney General Mark Brnovichs office is considering legal action against the Arizona Board of Regents for a policy it considers illegal, chief deputy Michael Bailey told regents President Eileen Klein in a letter. A recent ruling by the state Court of Appeals voided a similar tuition policy of the Maricopa community colleges.

Bailey indicated that, everything else being equal, Brnovich would prefer not to open up a new legal battle against the regents, at least not until the Arizona Supreme Court considers the issue and makes a final determination.

But he told Klein that it may not matter what Brnovich thinks now that former state Sen. Russell Pearce and Justice Watch have said they will sue to overturn the regents policy if the Attorney Generals Office does not. And Bailey warned that could have sharp implications.

We feel compelled to make you aware that ABOR may be at risk of liability for improper public expenditures as a result of its present tuition policy, Bailey wrote. Moreover, ABOR members could face personal liability for failure to collect tuition in compliance with state law.

For the moment, Klein isnt saying what she will advise the board  or tell Brnovich.

We will reply to the letter in a timely manner, she said. Bailey said he wants an answer by Aug. 10.

The fight has been years in the making.

A 2006 voter-approved law makes in-state tuition and state-financed aid off limits to students without lawful immigration status.

In 2012, however, the Obama administration approved the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It allows those who arrived in this country illegally as children to remain without fear of deportation if they meet certain circumstances.

DACA recipients, known as dreamers, also are issued Employment Authorization Documents entitling them to work here legally.

Based on that, the Maricopa colleges concluded they were entitled to the same in-state tuition as others who meet residency standards.

That conclusion was challenged by Tom Horne, Brnovichs predecessor.

But in 2015, after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge sided with the college, the regents voted to follow suit.

Earlier this year, however, the Court of Appeals unanimously overturned that ruling. And when the Maricopa college board voted to seek Supreme Court review, the regents opted to leave their own policy in place, at least for now.

The vote to retain the tuition policy was not unanimous: Regent Jay Heiler warned colleagues that ignoring the appellate court decision carries legal risks for the board.

Bailey, in his letter to Klein, specifically asked for an explanation of any legal authority demonstrating that the Arizona Board of Regents position is not in contravention of Arizona law.
Air Force veteran Daniel Kester of Tucson studied the transition of military veterans into civilian society to earn his Ph.D. in education.

But the retired intelligence specialist still needed help with his own transition issues, as he stepped away from a military career that included combat duties in Iraq and Afghanistan and left him with post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Kester found some of that help in 2015, when he participated in a No Barriers Warriors Veterans Expedition through the Grand Canyon, through a program sponsored regionally by defense contractor Raytheon.

Conducted by No Barriers USA, a nonprofit based in Colorado Springs, the No Barriers Warriors expedition program teaches vets with disabilities to overcome personal barriers through wilderness challenges.

Raytheon, the Tucson regions biggest employer, is partnering on the No Barriers Warriors expedition program regionally for the fourth year.

This year, the company is sponsoring a dozen wounded warriors from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and southern California for a 10-day trek through the Wind River Range in Wyoming in August.

Kester, who now works in mission control for the Tucson-based high-altitude balloon startup World View Enterprises, said he gained new confidence and bonded with fellow vets on his 2015 trip.

It definitely helped, said Kester, who retired as a senior master sergeant last year after a 20-plus year career including 11 years on active duty and stints in the Air Guard and Air Force Reserve.

Its one of those things where you put yourself in a situation thats out of your comfort zone, that youre not really sure youre able to accomplish, but with the help of your support group youre able to get through. They made it very positive.

Though unlike military survival school, food was provided, participants had to manage their way through a series of challenges while rough-camping in the wet.

And though the Army vets often jokingly threatened to test Kesters Navy skills by throwing him out of the raft, Kester and his colleagues made it through, together.

The toughest parts of the trip included helping one participant who had difficulty walking straight because of a traumatic brain injury hike out of the canyon.

We had to help get him out of the canyon and up Bright Angel Trail, which is a mile straight up, he recalled. Some of the trail is as wide as a sidewalk with a 7,000 foot drop, and were holding onto each other.

And in a sense, they are still holding onto each other.

Im still in touch with several of the people in the group on Facebook and other places, Kester said. Theyre great guys and helped me when Ive had issues afterward, and when they have issues, we call each other and help each other out.

There are plenty vets who need such help.

About 2.5 million veterans have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that between 11 to 20 percent of those veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD, a mental-health disorder with symptoms including flashbacks, anger and constant fear of danger.

As of 2015, some 1.8 million veterans who served since the first Gulf War in 1990 were receiving benefits for a service-connected disability, according to the VA.

Raymond Davis of Phoenix, a former Navy hospital corpsman one of three Arizona veterans picked for this years No Barriers trip to the Wind River Range, said he hopes to find help dealing with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury he suffered in Iraq in 2006.

A lot of veterans I know, for whatever reason, just have a hard time blending in with everyday people, said Davis, 39, who works as an advanced medical support assistant at the Phoenix VA hospital. Ive had some issues just adjusting, so for the last few years Ive just been on a downward spiral of emotions, just finding my place.

Davis said the trip combines things that have helped him in the past.

I always find I do better if I spend sometime outdoors or in a physical challenge, or getting together with the people I served with, he said.

Davis says hes been through VA counseling and though he doesnt know his fellow Wind River trekkers he has no doubt they will pull together through the challenges.

I know other veterans who have been through the same thing, so were not going to give up on each other.

Kester, who spent a year and a half heading Pima Community Colleges veterans services department, said its critically important that disabled vets seek help.

One of the things I found in my dissertation is that vets arent the type of people who ask for help, Kester said. Thats one of the things you have to overcome, you have to be OK with just asking for help. Theres a lot of help out their from all sorts of institutions, and especially other veterans who will step up and help out any way they can.
Ward 3 residents will get several chances in the next two weeks to hear from the four candidates looking to replace Councilwoman Karin Uhlich.

Democrats Paul Durham, Tom Tronsdal, Felicia Chew and independent Gary Watson are vying to replace Uhlich, who announced last year that she would not seek another term on the City Council.

A forum organized by Legislative District 9 Democrats will be held on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. The forum will be held at the Water of Life Church, 3269 N. Mountain Ave.

Another candidate forum is scheduled for Thursday night, starting at 6:30 p.m. That event is being organized by the Pima County Interfaith Council and Literacy Connects. It will held at the Literacy Connects building, 200 E. Yavapai Road.

A third forum, organized by the Arizona Daily Star and the Tucson Hispanic Chamber Commerce, is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 2. That forum will be held inside the Tucson Medical Center auditorium.

The August primary will decide the Democratic nominee who will face Watson in Novembers election.
PHOENIX  Federal officials have removed the last legal barrier to full-blown casino gambling on the edge of Glendale.

The U.S. Department of Interior this past week approved the changes in the gaming compact between the Tohono Oodham Nation and the state. That new agreement formally means the state will no longer oppose expanded gaming on the site and will, in fact, provide the necessary permits. The main parts of the tribes reservation are in Pima County.

A day later the tribe told U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell it was dropping its lawsuit to force the state to allow its casino plans to proceed.

But it could be months before the new slot machines that the deal allows could be in place.

And forget about playing blackjack or other table games at the West Valley Desert Diamond Casino for more than a year.

For the time being, operations will continue in the warehouse that was built for the limited gaming the tribe could conduct without state permission.

That consists of devices that look all the world like slot machines. But they are, in fact, a form of electronically interlinked bingo games.

A tribal spokesman said the first step is replacing those 1,089 machines with true slots, which operate using programs determining payouts. But he said it involves more than flipping a switch.

And table games are another matter.

Put quite simply, since the area where the casino gaming is now taking place was built as a warehouse, there just isnt the space for them.

Those will need to wait for completion of the new casino along with the resort that will be at the center of it. With construction not set to begin until later this year, that puts completion out into 2019.

The federal approval marks the end of what has been a plan decades in the making  though people outside the tribe did not know that.

It traces its roots to 1986 when Congress agreed to give the tribe $30 million in compensation when a federal dam project flooded about 10,000 acres of land in the San Lucy District of the reservation.

That law also allowed the tribe to purchase replacement land in Pima, Pinal or Maricopa counties. And it said that land could be made part of the reservation if it was not within any city limits.

In 2002, voters approved a measure giving tribes the exclusive rights to casino gaming. That law not only cemented existing casinos, but also gave the Oodham the right to build a new one.

A year later, the tribe bought land on the edge of Glendale. But its ownership was hidden under the name Ranier Enterprises.

It was only in 2009, when the tribe asked the federal government to make the land part of the reservation  a legal precursor to gaming  that the true ownership became known.

That resulted in a series of lawsuits by the state, the city of Glendale and the Gila River Indian Community aimed at blocking the move. They claimed that the 2002 ballot measure limited gaming to existing reservations.

But federal courts said thats not the way the language reads.

In the interim, the tribe moved some Class II gaming devices  those interlinked bingo machines, which the state has no authority to regulate  into the warehouse and opened its doors.

The last litigation was settled earlier this year when Gov. Doug Ducey agreed to provide the permits for full-scale Class III gaming at the site. In exchange, the tribe agreed not to try to open any more casinos in Maricopa County for the foreseeable future, meaning at least 2041.

And that deal paved the way for the tribe to finally get the liquor license for the facility it has been seeking since it opened in late 2015.

The expanded plans call for a $400 million complex. That includes not only a casino with a larger gaming floor than exist now, but also five restaurants.

Plans are to have the existing casino remain open in the interim.

The second step is going to be the resort and some conference center space.
WASHINGTON  Records show the head of the Environmental Protection Agency spent weekends in his home state during his first three months in office, frequently flying to and from Oklahoma at taxpayers expense.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitts expense reports from March, April and May were released following a Freedom of Information request filed by Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit watchdog group.

Records show Pruitt traveled home at least 10 times, typically leaving Washington on Fridays and returning on Mondays. Pruitt was either in Oklahoma or on trips that included stops there for nearly half the days encompassed in the three-month period, costing more than $15,000.

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman did not respond to emails or phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Pruitt, a Republican, served as Oklahomas attorney general before his appointment by President Trump to lead EPA. Married with two children, Pruitt owns a home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There were a couple of occasions where Pruitt traveled on a trip for EPA then paid out-of-pocket to fly to Tulsa before returning to Washington at government expense.

AP reported earlier this year that while Pruitt was in his state job, he was in frequent contact with political donors, corporate executives and industry groups opposed to new environmental regulations enacted under the Obama administration.

He appears to have continued that practice since coming to EPA, including traveling to accept an award from the Oklahoma Well Strippers Association, make a keynote address to a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council and deliver a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers.

EPA records indicate Pruitt also attended informational meetings during the trips. Though a trip to Oklahoma might last three or five days, it was not unusual for only one such meeting to be listed during Pruitts time away from Washington.

An example is Pruitts reported trip to Tulsa on Friday, May 19, on a flight scheduled to depart Washington at 5:37 p.m. The listed purpose of the trip was an informational meeting at the Brainerd Chemical Company in Tulsa. Pruitts return flight to Washington was scheduled to depart the following Monday at 6 a.m. local time.
Re: the July 20 column "In-home caregiving could be ideal work opportunity for retirees."

Writer Judith Clinco suggests that we effectively preserve low wages in the home health industry by tapping into a vast pool of affluent "retirees" who work to "stay active." First off, if economic trends of the past three decades continue, that pool will drain fast. Saving is increasingly hard, pensions are increasingly rare, and many seniors, like me, now depend on earnings to survive.

Furthermore, we professional caregivers aren't Walmart greeters. We are hired to do demanding work that family members can't or won't perform. Many caregiving assignments require physical strength. All require deep wells of patience and compassion. Caregiving is very much a real job.

If caregiving is as valuable to our society as Ms. Clinco says, then do the right thing. Pay fair wages for necessary, high quality work.

Kim Mathews

East side
Australian Story this week reveals a fathers radical experiment to help his autistic teenage son -as a trip to Africa shows how the brain adapts to change.

Dr James Best threw away the rule book on autism, deciding to take his son Sam on a backpacking trip across Africa.

Rather than keeping him to routines and wrapping him in cotton wool, he wanted to expose his 14-year-old son to uncertainty and unpredictability.

It was based on the idea that adolescence represents a particular opportunity for learning, similar to that during infancy when the brain is highly receptive to change.

The program follows father and son for six months as they travel from South Africa to Uganda via Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya.

Dr Best set up a daily program of exercises and challenges for his son as they trekked across the African continent, hopping on and off buses, shopping in local markets, visiting schools and churches, and coming face to face with wildlife on safari.

By the end of the trip, there was a clear improvement in Sams ability to hold conversations and look after himself.

I really think it is much more likely that Sam will be able to do things like have a relationship and have a job now than it was at the beginning of the trip, Dr Best told Australian Story.

The project has been hailed as ground-breaking by autism researcher Dr David Trembath of Griffith University.

Dr Trembath, who studied video footage of Sams interactions in Africa, says it may shake up the field of autism.

Usually what we do is we take a research environment and we try and replicate the real world, he says.

What were doing here is were taking the real world and were attempting to wrap research around it.

8pm Monday on ABC.
Many Conservatives fell out of love with Michael Gove last year, after he stabbed Boris Johnson in the back during the latter's campaign to become the next Tory leader. Mr. Gove, rightly, lost his job as Justice Secretary when Theresa May took over from David Cameron as Prime Minister. She urged the former justice secretary to 'go away and learn some loyalty.'

It is fair to say that he did that. After losing his position last July, Mr. Gove appeared on programmes like The Andrew Marr Show pledging his support for Mrs May. But after he went to interview Donald Trump at Trump Tower prior to the current President's inauguration, the Prime Minister was smart enough to realise that he was still capable of causing trouble for her Conservative administration.

Equally, she was wise enough to provide him with a Cabinet position following her disastrous election campaign, for she was much more vulnerable to her potential enemies under a minority government.

'He is a formidable politician.'

However, regardless of whether one believes Mrs May was right to bring Mr. Gove back into the Cabinet as Environment Secretary, he is already proving why the Prime Minister was right to select him for the position. He is a formidable politician who is not afraid to make tough decisions.

Mr. Gove proved this when he pulled Britain out of the 1964 Fishery Convention, a decision that will benefit hundreds of fishermen for years to come. He has already sparked outrage across neighbouring EU states, including Ireland, France and the Netherlands.

Many politicians and fishermen from these nations fear that their own industries will be badly damaged by the Environment Secretary's action. Despite this, since the 1990 Factortame Case, which overturned the UK Government's ban on Spanish fishermen entering British waters, our own fishermen have been placed at a huge disadvantage for decades.

'He would have made an outstanding leader.'

This is why, had the former education secretary not publicly suggested he would never run for prime minister and then changed his mind, he would have made an outstanding leader with the sort of mettle not witnessed since the Thatcher years. Pleas from EU member states have not hindered Mr.

Gove's convictions. It is this sort of bold leadership our politicians need to demonstrate as Britain prepares for Brexit.

His record as education secretary is impeccable. This is the man who has improved school standards and made himself so unpopular with teachers, as a result of the brave measures he took to change our education system for the better.

Bravo, Mr. Gove, keep up the good work. It is fair to say you have redeemed yourself since last year.
It was a low point during the EU Referendum last year when Bob Geldof and his ship full of pro-Remain supporters intimidated Nigel Farage's boat full of pro-Brexit fishermen. However, it encapsulated what the battle between both campaigns was; a fight between the established order and the people.

Mr. Geldof demonstrated in 2016 that scores of celebrities failed to comprehend the daily challenges of ordinary workers who struggle to make a living. Fishermen have been placed at a disadvantage for decades thanks to EU legislation. The 1964 Fisheries Convention, which Britain signed up to, along with a series of other measures like the Common Fisheries Policy, have hindered the UK's fishing industry for decades.

'The EU does not understand why fishermen are struggling.'

The 1990 Factortame Case, which was not exploited by Vote Leave during the EU Referendum, serves as an example of Brussels' interference. Prior to 1990, successive British governments banned Spanish fishermen from exploiting UK waters. Yet the European Court of Justice decided that year to overturn the ban. It is understandable why fishermen believe the EU does not understand why they are struggling and voted to leave the trading bloc in overwhelming numbers last year.

Despite 52 per cent of participating electors voting to leave the EU, Mr. Geldof learnt no lessons. He continued to snub Brexiteers at a concert he held not long after the result.

But despite his protestations, it turns out our fishermen will have the last laugh.

'Brexit provides our fishermen with numerous opportunities.'

Brexit provides our fishermen with numerous opportunities. Firstly, the UK Government will be able to restore its ban on Spanish fishermen entering British waters. Britain will no longer have to abide by the hated Common Fisheries Policy, which imposes unfair fishing quotas on member states.

The fishing industry has welcomed Michael Gove's decision to pull the UK out of the 1964 Fisheries Convention, which enables European fishermen to fish in the British coast, which is 6-12 miles from their own waters.

At a Vote Leave event in Oxford in May 2016, John Major's former Scotland secretary, Michael Forsyth, recalled how fishing ports thrived prior to the Heath government's choice to join the Common Market.

The fishing industry has not witnessed such golden days since. Mr. Forsyth admitted he voted to remain a member of the European Community in 1975, but campaigned for Brexit last year because EU measures like the CFP destroyed Scotland's ports. There will be no excuse for that after the UK leaves the trading bloc in April 2019.

It was embarrassing to see passionate fishermen being bullied by a wealthy celebrity last year. But ultimately, our fishing ports will thrive and Mr. Geldof will become a figure of the past, if he isn't viewed as one already.
A Guatemalan mother of four children sought sanctuary in her local church in Connecticut to avoid deportation. She is a Single Mother and has been in the United States since 1993, Reuters reported.

The mother, identified as Nury Chavarria, was ordered by immigration officials to leave the country and head to Guatemala last Thursday. This is part of President Donald Trump's plan to deport unauthorized immigrants living in the country.

Chavarrias case is the latest of many cases regarding immigrants ordered to be deported to the countries they came from even if they have not had run-ins with the law.

Most of these immigrants are parents, and they would be leaving their families behind.

Immigration agents do not want to make arrests at sensitive locations

Chavarria did not follow the orders and instead, the 43-year-old housekeeper went to Iglesia De Dios Pentecostal church located in New Haven, Connecticut. She is being represented by attorney Sid Sinha with the Formica Williams firm.

In the past, those who sought refuge in churches could not be arrested. This is no longer followed now but the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement spokesman Khaalid Walls said that they want to avoid making arrests at sensitive locations as much as possible. Aside from churches, the other sensitive locations are hospitals and schools, according to Reuters.

Immigrant has a child who has cerebral palsy

Chavarria left Guatemala due to violence at home. She became a single mother in the United States and has four U.S.-born children. Her childrens ages range up to 21 as the oldest and her youngest child is nine. Her eldest child has cerebral palsy. Her youngest daughter, Hayley, said in a statement while outside the church, Shes not a criminal. Christian Post added that Hayley told reporters that her mom has a positive attitude about everything and she wants her to stay because she loves her mother so much.

Hayley directly addressed Trump and said, Dont separate my family.

In the past, she received grants to stay in the country because she has to take care of her four children as a single mother. She did receive deportation orders over the past 24 years but she refused to leave.

Chavarria receives support from local government

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy took to Twitter to say that Chavarria is a mother who has no criminal record. He pointed out that they have no problem with her and she is welcome to live in their state.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy also said that although he believes that laws should not be broken, he cannot see the logic behind Immigration and Customs Enforcement to have Chavarria deported despite the many times she was allowed to stay because of her kids. Connecticut's Third District Representative Rosa DeLauro also said that she hopes the Immigration and Customs Enforcement would stop deporting people who do not have run-ins with the law and who play by the rules.

Agents in law enforcement believe that Chavarria is a fugitive because she failed to return to Guatemala despite the order last week, WNPR reported.

It remains unknown what will happen to Chavarria and her family.
Breaking from the Associated Press, Charlie Gard's Parents have decided enough is enough, choosing to end their internationally-followed legal battle over their son Charlie's major health issues.

The Battle For Charlie Gard Has Ended In Defeat https://t.co/nuZA9ILkWW via @dailycaller  Joshua K. Gill (@Joshua_K_Gill) July 24, 2017

Timeline of events

September 16' - infant Charlie Gard was diagnosed with rare genetic condition mitochondrial depletion syndrome , which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. He has been on life support since October, causing mixed reactions across the world.

, which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. He has been on life support since October, causing mixed reactions across the world. March 16' - Bosses of Great Ormond Street Hospital requested life support be removed, as the child ate through a tube and relied upon oxygen from a ventilator to sustain life.

requested life support be removed, as the child ate through a tube and relied upon oxygen from a ventilator to sustain life. April 11 17' - Judge Justine Francis requested the matter be turned over to the High Court in London's Family division, where a trial would take place and could result in the doctors to discontinue life-support pending analysis. The judge suggested the child be removed from life support based upon negligible hope of survival.

in London's Family division, where a trial would take place and could result in the doctors to discontinue life-support pending analysis. The judge suggested the child be removed from life support based upon negligible hope of survival. May 3 - June 8 - Chris and Connie transition their case from the Court of Appeal to the UK Supreme Court , only to have their request denied both times.

, only to have their request denied both times. June 27 - Judges throughout Europe refused to get in the middle of this tragic situation. A spokeswoman of Great Ormond Street Hospital reiterated what many had already thought, but didn't want to say, that it was "the end" of a "difficult process . " No rush would be permitted to expedite the child's care, although "careful planning and discussion" would remain a necessity.

. No rush would be permitted to expedite the child's care, although "careful planning and discussion" would remain a necessity. July 2 - While Charlie's parents were trapped in between a rock and a hard place, as they've been for quite a while, Pope Francis sent his respects in Charlie's situation. The Pope said the child shall die of natural causes, dismissing the notion of removing life support.

sent his respects in Charlie's situation. The Pope said the child shall die of natural causes, dismissing the notion of removing life support. July 3 - POTUS Trump sends message to Chris Gard and Connie Yates to let them know he's thinking of them and wishes them the best.

Trump sends message to Chris Gard and Connie Yates to let them know he's thinking of them and wishes them the best. July 10 - Charlie's parents continue presenting evidence at the High Court in hopes to prolong their son's life.

July 24 - The couple decide it's time for the child's suffering to come to an end, terminating their five-month long legal battle.

Time has run out

Charlie has not only been world news, but he's made the top story countless times through this entire horrific ride.

Those who knew of the child's situation have been on a roller coaster throughout, experiencing sadness, frustration, and aspiration.

The child's parents have decided the time has come for fate to intervene, against their will and sacrifice, resulting in their son most likely passing within a matter of days, if not hours. The struggle was real. The fight was substantial. The support was enormous.

Little Charlie may soon be gone, but never forgotten.
The incident was captured on surveillance video as 58-year-old Cregg Jerri battled with a knife-wielding robber at a starbucks outlet in Fresno in California on Thursday, July 20. Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer dubbed Jerri a courageous hero for his actions when he placed his own life at risk to stop the crime from occurring at one of his favorite locations.

Robber enters Starbucks in a Transformers mask with knife

According to Dyer, Florez entered Starbucks at around 5 PM Thursday, armed with a knife and carrying a yellow bag and a fake gun.

There were six employees and two customers in the Starbucks at the time. The suspects face was concealed by a blue Transformers mask. Florez headed straight for the cashier in the restaurant, demanding money. At that moment, Jerri leaped to the rescue, grabbing a chair and hitting Florez repeatedly over the head. As noted by the New York Daily News, the pair then fought for a short time before Florez fled the scene driving a pickup truck. The suspect then ditched the truck and ran towards a canal where passersby noted his bloody state and called the police.

The Starbucks surveillance footage can be seen here.

Suspect hospitalized but facing charges on his release

Florez is currently hospitalized for his injuries and is in a critical condition.

The suspect will be facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted armed robbery on his release when he will be booked into Fresno County Jail. Jerri was a little better off from the incident and only required a few staples to close the stab wound in his chest, received during the fight with Florez. As noted by the Sacramento Bee, Dyer said Florez had no past criminal history as an adult but did have a juvenile record.

As noted by local media outlet Your Central Valley, blood and other forensic evidence was taken from the scene of the attempted robbery and the restaurant was closed for a while.

Dramatic video shows customer take on armed robber at Fresno Starbucks https://t.co/nwN4z7YwSH  ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) July 22, 2017

Hero is a regular customer at Starbucks

According to the police chief, Jerri is a regular customer at the Starbucks and is well known by the employees.

Dyer said Jerri was a pleasure to talk to following the incident and that it is always great to talk to heroes. However, Your Central Valley quotes police authorities as saying Jerri had taken a risky action in fighting off the wannabe robber. While they ask the public to always be a good witness in a situation of this kind, they say it is not recommended for people to take action which could endanger their own life.
illegal immigrants are known to be smuggled into the United States aboard trailer trucks which ferry them across the borders. However, a new case of human smuggling was reported outside a Walmart in San Antonio, Texas. Police have recovered nine dead bodies of immigrants and send 30 more to hospitals after they were discovered trapped inside a tractor trailer.

Police recover dead bodies of immigrants inside a truck

Police have said that the incident was reported by an employee of the supermarket chain who was approached by a person from the truck for drinking water.

The authorities opened the trailer door to discover that many people including school going children were trapped inside. Eight people were already dead inside the truck, while one more person died after being taken to the hospital. All of those that passed away were men.

Initial reports suggest that the deaths occurred due to the intense heat and asphyxiation which was caused by the heavily crowded closed off trailer structure. 30 people were hospitalized out of which 20 remain in critical condition. Police have also revealed that among those recovered were two school-going children as well, although most of them were in their 20s and 30s.

The New York Times reported that the dead bodies have been taken to the Bexar County Medical Examiners Office for further investigation into what exactly caused their deaths.

It is believed that the excessive temperature in Texas was perhaps one of the reasons behind the deaths. The region is known to experience sweltering temperatures of around 100 degrees Fahrenheit in summer. So, even with the air cooling turned on inside the trailer, the occupants would have suffered from intense heat in the closed off environment.

The driver has been identified and taken into custody. Prosecutors said that he will be charged for human trafficking. CCTV footage also showed that several vehicles had approached the truck to pick up members from inside, while some of the other immigrants had fled on foot toward the nearby woods. These people would be searched for and deported back to their countries once found.

Illegal immigrant cases becoming more common

Police revealed that this case shows how rampant the problem of such human trafficking is. These methods of entering the U.S. are not only illegal but also posed great dangers to the people themselves. Unsafe modes of transportations are used to ferry the people inside the country which causes deaths or serious sickness.

Previous cases have also enumerated the dangers involved in such trafficking and immigrating attempts. 19 immigrants died from heat exhaustion while being transported into the country inside a milk truck in May 2003. This incident had occurred just around 100 miles from the Walmart where the latest discovery was made.
China and Russia kicked off their annual joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea on Saturday, the first of their kind for the Chinese Navy in Europe.

The Chinese ships arrived at the Russian seaport of Baltiysk on Friday. This year's exercise, dubbed Joint Sea 2017, will focus on strengthening Sino-Russia naval combat and coordination capabilities, as well as practicing maritime anti-piracy and emergency rescue operations.

These regular drills, which began in 2012 in the Yellow Sea, are not targeting against any other states, defense ministries from both countries said.

The first phase of the exercise is taking place in waters off the Russian cities of Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg from Monday to Friday. The second phase will be in the Russian Far East, the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk in September, according to the Russian defense ministry.

The drill is a practical step in strengthening the Sino-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, as well as bolstering exchanges and cooperation between the two militaries, especially the navies, Vice-Admiral Tian Zhong, the deputy commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army Navy, said at the drill's opening ceremony on Saturday.

Russian Navy Deputy Commander-in-Chief Vice-Admiral Alexander Fedotenkov said the Joint Sea exercises have become more professional and comprehensive since 2012.

This year's exercise will feature China's most advanced military vessels, including the Type 052D guided missile destroyer Changsha, Type 054A guided missile frigate Yuncheng and the Type 903A supply ship Luomahu.

These ships belong to the South Sea Fleet responsible for operations in the South China Sea. They set off from their home port in Sanya, Hainan province, on June 18, and conducted live-fire drills in the Mediterranean on July 10 en route to the Baltic Sea, according to China's Defense Ministry.

The Russian Navy will deploy the latest class corvettes  Steregushchiy and Boiky. In addition, nearly a dozen aircraft and helicopters from both sides, such as Ka-27 helicopters and Su-24 fighter-bombers, will take part.

Since its debut, the annual Sino-Russian naval exercise has been closely monitored by the West. This year, British, Dutch and Danish ships trailed the Chinese flotilla as it passed into the Baltic Sea.

Li Xing, a professor of international relations at Beijing Normal University, said it is understandable for Western countries to closely follow this year's drill because this is the first time the Chinese navy is conducting exercises at NATO's doorstep.

Russia has also been moving its most powerful ships, including its nuclear-powered Kirov-class battle cruiser and the Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine  the largest submarine ever built  into the Baltic Sea for the upcoming naval parade at St. Petersburg on July 30.

"The Chinese navy will learn much from this year's exercises, especially on improving far sea operations in unfamiliar waters. Such capabilities are crucial benchmarks for a strong navy, and the Chinese navy will have more in the future," he said.

The Chinese navy will learn much ... especially on improving far sea operation in -unfamiliar waters."
Giant panda Mei Xiang at the National Zoo in Washington takes a nap on Sunday morning. Chen Weihua/China Daily

Giant panda cubs often steal the spotlight at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, such as the departure of female cub Bao Bao on Feb 21 and the weaning of male cub Bei Bei a few weeks later. All eyes have now turned once again to their mother Mei Xiang, who turned 19 on Saturday.

Mei Xiang, meaning beautiful fragrance in Chinese, was treated to a frozen cake that morning. She was born on July 22, 1998, at China Conservation and Research Cener for the Giant Panda in Wolong, Sichuan province. Her parents, mother Xue Xue and father Lin Nan, were both born in the wild. She came to the National Zoo in 2000 with male panda Tian Tian, who will turn 20 on Aug 27.

But before celebrating Tian Tian's birthday, the zoo might have some other big news to announce, again about Mei Xiang, who was artificially inseminated on May 25 after the zoo biologists found her estrogen levels peaked on May 24, an indication that she was ovulating and able to become pregnant. Female giant pandas are only in estrus, or able to become pregnant, for a 24-to-72-hour window once a year, according to the zoo.

Mei Xiang was artificially inseminated with semen from Tian Tian. Li Rengui of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda was at the zoo for the procedure.

The zoo received approval for the breeding plans from the China Wildlife and Conservation Association and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, both of which monitor giant panda research programs in the US.

"Right now, Mei Xiang is her normal self," Laurie Thompson, assistant curator of giant pandas, said on Friday in a posting on the zoo's website.

"She's doing her normal routine  like the other pandas  where she's going out and napping, eating, and doing her thing."

On Sunday morning around 11am, Mei Xiang was seen napping on a rocker, her limbs fully stretched out.

The zoo said her behavior will change toward the end of the summer and early autumn as she will become less interested in going outside and prefer to spend most of her time building a nest for her new cub (or cubs?).

Her appetite will eventually drop off and she will stop going outside all together. During that time, Mei Xiang will continue to be responsive but will no longer pay much attention to the outside world. "She's in her own world and spends a lot of time in her den," Thompson said.

This phase could end in a few possible ways, according to the zoo, including the birth of a cub; a miscarriage; reabsorption; or false pregnancy.

Reabsorption, as described by the zoo, happens when food and blood supply to the fetus is stopped, the placenta becomes useless and the fetus, having very little bone content, is simply reabsorbed into the female's body.

The female panda can also exhibit all signs and symptoms of a pregnancy despite not being pregnant. Giant panda pregnancies and false pregnancies, or pseudo-pregnancies, generally last between three to six months.

According to the zoo, the only way for veterinarians to determine if Mei Xiang is pregnant is to see a fetus through ultrasound, because her hormones and behavior will mimic a pregnancy even if she is experiencing a false one.

Mei Xiang has given birth to six cubs at the National Zoo, all fathered by Tian Tian. Only three have survived: Tai Shan, a male, was born on July 9, 2005 and moved to China on Feb 4, 2010, to join the breeding program under the agreement between China and the US; Bao Bao, who was born on Aug 23, 2013 and moved to China in February; and Bei Bei, the current male cub at the zoo, who was born on Aug 22, 2015.

A total of 1,864 giant pandas live in the wild today, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Last year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature changed the giant panda's status from "endangered" to "vulnerable" thanks to the increase in their numbers due to extensive conservation efforts.

Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com.
A while ago, I promised that I would give more blogging tips, so here we are today with five ways to invest in your blog right now. This post is for the bloggers and aspiring bloggers who want to take their blogs to the next level. If you are blogging just for fun, then you dont have to jump through these hoops.

Okay, so a little bit of a back story for those who might be reading this blog for the first time. I started blogging in 2006, and I  like many others  was doing it just for fun. It was never meant to become a money-making thing. I dont know everything about blogging, and I dont think anyone does, especially considering how fast the market is changing, but I do feel like it is my responsibility to share what I do know for anyone who might have questions. Its the least I can do.

Now, for those of you who might want to take your blog to the next level, I have news for you: its going to cost you. But fear not, its a good thing. Getting your blog to the point where it has to cost you money to maintain it is a good thing. Dont wait to start making money before you invest in your blog. I was not making a cent when I started investing either.

Here are 5 ways to invest in your blog right now:

1. Purchase your domain name: If your blog started with dot Blogspot or dot WordPress or any other dot, now is the time to change it. Example: I was verastic.blogspot.com before I became verastic.com. When you own your domain name, you sound a lot more professional and serious. Its the same reason why you should have a professional email address. I recommend Bluehost for your domain name. Theyre very, very affordable and reliable. However, I recommend you use Bluehost for your domain AND your hosting. Click HERE.

2. Have a self-hosted blog on WordPress(.org): There are other options, yes. But it is no coincidence that more than 60 million people host their sites on WordPress. This is hands down one of the best things I did for my blog. WordPress has over 45,000 plugins to help make your blog what you want it to be. Plugins are like the apps we have on our mobile devices. I was intimidated at first, but its so intuitive (and keeps getting better), so youre going to wonder why you did not make the switch sooner. NOTE: WordPress.com is not the same thing as WordPress.org. Should I blog about the difference?

3. Pay For Stock Photos: Searching for images on Google and using them without getting consent from the owners is dangerous and can lead to a law suit. I used to use Dollar Photos before they closed, and now I use Adobe Stock, but honestly, I wouldnt recommend Adobe Stock, and Ill blog about that on a different day. There are other options for stock photos, and some of them are even free. I will put up another post about options for stock photos.

4. Design Your Blog Beautifully: Your blogs look is the first impression it leaves on a new visitor. Before they get to read your awesome content and before they get to read your witty about page, the look is what they see first. Whether you design it yourself or buy a customizable theme or hire someone to do it is all up to you. I am not good at web design, and if I were to attempt to do it myself, I would mess things up and/or not completely get it right  not to mention the amount of time it will take me to do it. So for me, I always hire someone to give my blog a face lift.

5. Host your blog on Bluehost: This might be the biggest one. I LOVE Bluehost. I used to be hosted on Media Temple before I relocated to Bluehost. I did not have any problems with Media Temple, but Bluehost is bae. First of all, you can host on Bluehost for as little as $2.95/month and that includes a free domain, so you wont have to pay separately for your domain name (like I suggested in number 1). Bluehost also has the 1-click WordPress installation and 24/7 support. I really, really appreciate the 24/7 support because I have called Bluehost at the oddest times when something wasnt working right on Verastic. They would log in and fix it and help me sleep better at night. Finally, if you dont like Bluehost, you can get a refund if its been less than 30 days since you registered. You have to try Bluehost.

Bonus: Invest Your Time. A lot of times, when we think of investing in our blog(s), we forget about the investment of time. Blogging takes time. Period. Whether you make money one month after you start blogging or seven years later (like me), it will still take time. In order to consistently bring you great content, I have several opportunity costs like sleeping, lounging in the pool, reading a book, seeing a movie, visiting a friend  the list is endless.

The business of blogging is like any other business. You have to invest in it before you make significant income from it, and you can start with these five ways to invest in your blog. Time and money are two ways you have to invest in it, and when you try to talk yourself out of investing financially, remember that you can only go so far with free, and you get what you pay for.

In conclusion, I owe you two posts: (1) A post about why I do not recommend Adobe Stock and (2) a post about options for stock photos. And whatever you do, dont sleep on hosting your blog on Bluehost. Do it now.

Is there a blogging-related topic youd like me to write about? Let me know in the comments.
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HA NOI  Australias Anti-Dumping Commission (ADC) has announced a partial rescission of its anti-dumping, anti-subsidy investigation on Vietnamese zinc-coated (galvanised) steel.

The ADC, under Australias Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, has also been investigating zinc-coated steel imported from India and Malaysia. However, only the probe on Viet Nams steel has been terminated partially.

Viet Nams Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) said the ADC concluded that Vietnamese galvanised steel producers and exporters received countervailable subsidies from the government during the investigation period, but the subsidies were at negligible level. Therefore, the ADC has decided to terminate the anti-subsidy probe on all Vietnamese galvanised steel producers and exporters.

The ADC will not recommend any subsidies for Viet Nam in its final report to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science.

Also, Australian investigators found that the dumping range of two of the three Vietnamese exporters was even lower than the minimal level. As a result, the ADC has terminated investigation into these two companies.

To arrive at the decision, the MoIT said, the ADC took into account complaints from the concerned parties, the statement of essential facts (SEF), comments relating to the SEF, and information it gathered from the investigation process.

Parties can seek a review of the decision by lodging an application with the Anti-Dumping Review Panel within 30 days of publication of the notice.  VNS
HA NOI  Bosch Group will pump an extra US$47 million into its manufacturing plant in the southern province of ong Nai, adding to the capital already invested by the group over the past few years.

In 2015 and 2016, Bosch poured $23 million and $22 million, respectively, into the plant. The increase in investment is aimed at meeting the demand for the automotive belt in the Southeast Asian and Asian markets, baodautu.vn reported.

Bosch is one of the worlds leading global suppliers of technology and services, headquartered in Germany.

Last year, Bosch Vietnams domestic sales revenue stood at $98.9 million, a year-on-year increase of 40 per cent.

Vo Quang Hue, managing director of Bosch Vietnam Company Ltd, said as Viet Nam accelerates the industrialisation and urbanisation process, it is aiming for a smart economy. These trends provide an opportunity for Bosch to diversify its products, especially in connectivity solutions for a smart city and Industry 4.0, he added.  VNS
HA NOI  The US Department of Commerce (DOC) has announced the termination of the anti-dumping investigation on polyester fibre imported from Viet Nam.

Earlier, on June 20, DOC officially initiated the investigation on polyester fibre imported from Viet Nam, China, India, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan (China), based on petitions filed by DAK Americas LLC, Nan Ya Plastics Corporation and Augira Polymers.

The plaintiffs alleged that polyester staple fibre products were being shipped to the United States at prices lower than their normal value. In addition, the dumping had caused significant damage to the domestic industry due to price depression.

The scope of the investigation covers fine denier polyester staple fibre, not carded or combed, measuring less than 3.3 decitex in diameter, coded HS: 5503.20.0025.

The withdrawal of the lawsuit was requested only for Viet Nam, and the investigation into products from China, India, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan (China) continues.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Viet Nam exported some 13,000 tonnes of fine denier polyester staple fibre worth an estimated US$12.4 million to the United States in 2016, ranking third behind China ($79.4 million) and India ($14.7 million).  VNS
The local stock market is set to experience another week of corrections but the decrease will likely slow down with divergence based on the results of second-quarter earnings.  Photo dautuchungkhoan.vn

HA NOI  The local stock market is set to experience another week of corrections but the decrease will likely slow down with divergence based on the results of second-quarter earnings, analysts say.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange lost over 2 per cent last week with four falling sessions and only one mid-week rising trade.

The key index closed Friday at 761.86 points, down 2.7 per cent from the nine-year peak of 782.665 seen on July 6.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index slumped 2.5 per cent for the whole week, ending at 97.96 points on Friday.

The market seems to be exhausted and faces risks of downward corrections. However, the speed of fall last week was quite strong and fast, negatively impacting investors psychology, said Nguyen Huu Binh, leading analyst at Vietnam Investment Securities Co, told tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn.

But this could also be a sign that the market will soon retreat to the strong support threshold of 740-750 points, Binh said.

All shares, including large-caps, medium-caps and penny stocks, performed badly last week with a majority of stocks falling across the two exchanges electronic boards.

The shares weighing down the market most included PV Gas (GAS), Vinamilk (VNM), big banks like Vietcombank (VCB), BIDV (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), Military Bank (MBB), Mobile World Group (MWG), steel manufacturer Hoa Phat Group (HPG), insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH). They were among top 30 largest shares by market value and liquidity on the HCM Stock Exchange.

However, liquidity is waning, which may indicate weaker demand and a possibility that the high selling pressure would soon stop, Binh said, predicting would increase again at the 740-750 points for the VN-Index.

Trading volume through order matching method on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 2.5 per cent over the previous week, averaging 193.3 million shares per session but it was seen that the volume was declining towards the end of the week.

A downward correction was inevitable after seven consecutive months of growth and in my opinion, this is an essential correction before the market will advance into the next growing period in the last months of the year, said Nguyen Trung Du, head of the brokerage division in the North region under HCM Securities Co.

Divergence

According to analysts at BIDV Securities Co (BSC), the VN-Index is likely to remain under correction pressure in the next one to two weeks with a support threshold at 750 points. However, they added, the market will also see divergence based on second-quarter earnings results of listed companies.

Nearly 320 out of total 719 companies on the stock exchanges, accounting for 45 per cent of total listed companies, have released their second-quarter earnings as of July 21. In terms of absolute value, net profits of these companies reached VN10 trillion ($439 million), up 10 per cent over the same period of last year.

Five biggest earners were Vietcombank, Pha Lai Thermal Power, Vicostone, Kido Group and Nam Long Investment Group.

About 160 companies reported improved earnings results compared to last years same period.

With such results, the market will likely experience strong divergence in the coming time, BSCs stock analysts wrote in a report.

They suggested that investors refrain from investing in the companies with unstable business performance as well as those that have gained large value in the past rallies.  VNS
TOKYO  Viet Nams tra fish sold at Aeon supermarkets in Japan is listed among TopValu products, which are goods of superior quality.

Keisuke Hino, who manages AEONs aquatic products section in the northern Kanto and Niigata region, said to meet TopValu standards, products must satisfy consumers taste and be produced in line with AEONs strict process.

The Vietnamese tra fish product made following the recipe of the eel dish  a traditional food of Japan in the summer  is being sold at AEON supermarkets since June, and the retailing group plans to expand the sale of this product in the future, he added.

Ta uc Minh, trade counsellor and chief representative of Viet Nams Industry and Trade Ministry in Japan, said the countrys tra fish exports to Japan were some US$14 million in 2016 and $7 million in the first five months of 2017.

To boost shipments of tra fish to Japan, it was very important to ensure food safety and align fish farming, packaging and labeling activities with Japanese standards, he added.

Aside from tra fish, bananas, mangoes and red-flesh dragon fruits are considered strategic goods helping to increase the two countries trade revenue.  VNS
HA NOI  Australian food, rice processing and information technology companies want to accelerate co-operation and expand operations in Viet Nam, according to Australian officials and business representatives who met yesterday in Sydney with Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue.

SunRice CEO Rob Gordon said a number of Vietnamese firms had exported rice to Australia for his company, which carries 30 product labels and has about 2,100 workers in 60 countries across the world.

To reinforce production capacity in Viet Nam, Gordon proposed the Vietnamese Government allow Sunrice to expand investment in the country, transferring skills and sharing scientific technology in rice production, processing and marketing.

Deputy PM Hue praised Sunrices co-operation with Vietnamese rice trade, which was important for both sides, contributing to food security.

He said Viet Nam could supply all types of rice in great volume. The co-operation of rice trade between the two countries grew in 2016 when Viet Nam exported 220,000 tonnes of rice to Australia, over 50 per cent more compared with 2015.

To ensure the trade of rice, Hue asked businesses on both sides to meet and discuss doing business. The Vietnamese ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development and Trade and Industry would co-operate with Sunrice to help it develop investment in Viet Nam, he pledged.

Speaking with Jan Craps, CEO of Carlton&United Breweries (CBU) which has a 47-per cent share of the Australian market and plans to expand its beer production to the southern province of Binh Duong, Hue said Viet Nam was interested in sustainable development, ensuring environmental safety and water resource in this area.

In addition, he said, the Vietnamese Government has been conducting divestments at its two biggest brewers - Sai Gon Beer-Alcohol-Beverages Joint Stock Corporation (Sabeco) and Ha Noi Beer Alcohol and Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Habeco) - suggesting CBU may have an interest as strategic investor.

Craps said his company expected to be a strategic investor in Sabeco and Habeco when the State divests its investment capital this year.

Bruce Taper, the director of Kinessis, a technology company, said he wanted to take part in urban design projects in Viet Nam. Through the companys technology apps, it can supply information for policymakers to help them make decisions on urban management and development. Hue said many urban areas are facing difficulties in sustainable development.

Seafood meeting

Hue also met with representatives of the Australian Seafood Importers Association, saying the two sides reached good growth in import and export turnover. However, Australia had not yet allowed the import of head on shell-on shrimp from Viet Nam.

Hue expected the association to support Viet Nam in the export of head on shell-on shrimp to the Australian market.

He expressed his support for ensuring quality but concern about Australias technical barriers, which were hurting Vietnamese exporters.

He also proposed the association help Viet Nam build labs to assess the quality of shrimp to raise its shrimp production capacity.  VNS
CAN THO  Scientists are compiling a crop structure map for the Mekong Delta to counter growing climate change impact in the region known as the countrys food granary.

The plan will determine which crops would be cultivated and on what scale based on annual weather and natural disaster predictions, said Nguyen Hong Son head of the Department of Cultivation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

"The map will help authorities and farmers prepare appropriate production plans," he told a seminar in Can Tho Province last week.

However, Son cautioned that the plan cannot cover the entire region, just the large sub-regions of the ong Thap Muoi and Long Xuyen quadrilateral, Ca Mau Peninsula, coastal areas, and alluvial zones.

Bui Tan Yen, a scientist from the Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS), explained the vulnerability of the Mekong Delta region to adverse climate change impact, especially extreme drought, flooding, and salt intrusion. Yen said a wealth of research on natural disaster risks has not been utilised well to devise early warning systems and plans for coping with disaster.

Since there are varying natural characteristics, production practices and infrastructure development levels in the sub regions of the Mekong Delta, the master plan must be customised for each locality, he added.

He proposed categorising natural disasters risks according to how much damage they will cause to the regions and countrys main crop - rice. High-level risks would mean a drop of 70 per cent in rice production; medium-level risks  an output decrease of 30-70 per cent; low-level risks  rice output decrease of less than 30 per cent.

Yen also urged inter-provincial co-operation into building long-term climate change coping models.

Luong Quang Xo, Vice Rector of the Southern Institute of Water Resources Planning, said his institute is working with the Department of Cultivation to build a natural disaster risk map, based on which provinces can reschedule their cultivation schedules, minimising losses.

He proposed a number of measures, including switching to less water-intensive crops and saving water in the deltas vast network of canals and in the fields to use in the dry season.

Awareness campaigns must be done so farmers know that drought is upcoming. Complacency following some years with favourable weather might lead to significant consequences, Xo stressed.

According to the Southern Institute of Water Resources, since 2010 salt intrusion in the Mekong Delta has been starting 1-1.5 month earlier and lasting longer compared to previous years.

Prof Le Quang Tri, head of the Climate Change Research Institute under the Can Tho University, identified six challenges for the region: climate change and rising sea level, the development of hydropower projects on the Mekong River, increasing population and migration, overexploitation of natural resources, change of land use, and air, water and land pollution.

Farmers in the region have to deal with many challenges and risks at the same time, and they need situation-based solutions that help them effectively adapt and improve their livelihoods, he stressed.  VNS
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong receives Bangladeshi Parliament Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Tri Dung

HA NOI  Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong yesterday said the ongoing visit by Bangladeshi Parliament Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury would make significant contributions to bilateral ties.

Receiving the top parliamentary official of Bangladesh yesterday, Trong also expressed his hope that the relationship between Viet Nam and Bangladesh thrives in the coming time, meeting the practical needs of both countries.

The Communist Party of Viet Nam and Vietnamese people always attach much importance to the traditional friendship and co-operation with Bangladesh, he said.

On the basis of such a fine relationship and other similarities, both sides should take concrete measures to implement more effectively our signed agreements, especially strengthening economic co-operation to bring it in line with sound political ties, he said.

Applauding Bangladeshs achievements in the past, Trong said he was convinced that the Bangladeshi Government and people would reap further successes in building a country of peace, development and prosperity, contributing to regional and international peace, stability and development.

Speaker Chaudhury said she also hopes Viet Nam continues its robust growth.

She said Bangladesh has always treasured the promotion of sound traditional friendship and co-operation with Viet Nam.

Bangladesh is ready to share with Viet Nam its experiences in areas that it enjoys advantages in, Chaudhury said, adding that she expects the two countries to reinforce co-operation in all areas.

She extended an invitation to Party leader Trong to visit the country at a convenient time.  VNS
HCM CITY  Public schools in HCM City need to hire nearly 3,000 teachers for the upcoming academic year starting next month since the number of students and classrooms are set to increase, Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper reported quoting figures from district education divisions.

Kindergartens need the highest number, followed by primary- and secondary-level English classes.

For instance, Long Thanh My Kindergarten in District 9 and Huong Duong Kindergarten in Tan Phu District each need 16 new teachers.

Phuoc Thanh Kindergarten in Cu Chi District needs 15.

Other districts requiring large numbers of teachers are Binh Tan, Binh Chanh, Go Vap, Cu Chi, Thu uc, Hoc Mon, 12, and Tan Phu, where the large number of migrants has increased the number of students.

The city Department of Education and Training said the number of students in the city is set to increase by 59,082, mostly at kindergarten and primary levels and in those districts.

It said 1,497 more classrooms are being built.

Recently the city Peoples Council greenlighted the recruitment of kindergarten teachers who have temporary residency registration known as KT3. Until last year only people with permanent residency  ho khau in Vietnamese  could apply for a kindergarten teachers job.

Salary hikes have also been approved for kindergarten teachers.

Le Hoai Nam, the departments deputy head, said the department would come up with polices to attract teachers to primary schools.

Nguyen Huynh Long, head of the departments personnel division, said 1,400 applications have been received for high school teachers jobs while the need is for only 420.

But most applications are for teaching maths, physics and chemistry with only a few applying to music, English, and fine arts, he said.

Nguyen Quang Vinh, head of the departments primary education division, said a shortage of teachers, especially English teachers, has caused a failure to meet the Ministry of Education and Trainings standards and difficulties in implementing the new overall training programme.

Educational departments in districts 8 and Thu uc also need to employ staff such as librarians and cashiers.VNS
HA NOI  New medical graduates could be required to work for three to five years at healthcare centres in outlying regions to meet a critical lack of doctors and help improve healthcare services there.

Pham Van Tac, director of the Personnel Department under the Ministry of Health, said the proposed initiative would require graduates to work at district and communal level healthcare centres, particularly in Vit Nams 62 most disadvantaged districts.

In the future, the requirement could be included in a law on social responsibilities and obligations of medical workers, Tac told the Nhan Dan (The People) newspaper, adding that this would be a condition for a license to practice medicine.

In 2013, the Health Ministry launched a pilot programme for young doctors to volunteer in disadvantaged areas. Last month, after undergoing specialised training, 78 volunteers from central and provincial hospitals went to work in poor communes and districts of four northern provinces - Lao Cai, Son La, Bac Kan and ien Bien.

Wanted: 600 doctors

According to the Health Ministry, the public healthcare sector in Viet Nams 62 poorest districts faces a shortage of about 600 doctors in 15 specialities.

The director of the Cao Bang Province Health Department Luc Van ai, said that the province had 199 communal healthcare centres but only 90 had facilities meeting national standards, 40 needed more doctors and some didnt even have one doctor. All the district general hospitals in the province lacked doctors.

For example, the Bac Ha District General Hospital in northern Lao Cai Province has not received any new doctors in the last ten years, and some good ones have left. Vice director of the hospital Nguyen Nhu Tuan said there was a critical shortage of doctors for important departments like cardiology, and the hospital cannot perform half the treatments required by the health ministry of district hospitals.

A shortage of high-quality medical workers has been blamed for public mistrust in grassroots healthcare, resulting in overcrowding at higher-level hospitals, according to the ministry.

Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said that working at grassroots healthcare centres in disadvantaged areas could offer young doctors practical lessons in various diseases and give them the chance to implement clinical treatments.

Without strengthening grassroots healthcare, Viet Nams healthcare sector cant address major issues like non-communicable diseases, child malnutrition, life span and the height and weight of Vietnamese, she said.

If Viet Nam can improve primary healthcare by sending high-quality staff to grassroots facilities, they will earn the trust of local people. They will use local healthcare centres instead of flocking to central-level hospitals, she added.

Vu Thi Ly, a new graduate from Viet Nam University of Traditional Medicine, said she agreed with minister Tien about the advantages of working in primary healthcare centres. We are aware of the disadvantages, too. For example, poor facilities and infrastructure put higher pressure on medical workers and patients, especially in emergencies, she said. Working in remote, disadvantaged areas should be optional instead of compulsory.

Ly also said that policies for medical workers, particularly payment and allowances, should be improved to attract them to the public healthcare system.

Nguyen Lan Phuong, a new graduate from the Viet Nam Military Medical University, told Viet Nam News that medical students have longer training programmes than other students - six years instead of four - and are then required to do an internship of up to 18 months, part of which they have to fund themselves.

If medical graduates are required to work in remote, disadvantaged areas to earn a licence, this means we have more challenges to overcome. The challenge will surely cost time, money and sweat, she said.  VNS
HA NOI  Vietnamese students bagged four gold, one silver and one bronze at the 58th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) held in Brazil.

The rich yield helped the country rank third in the medal tally - the higest result achieved by Viet Nam in 43 years of attending the event, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) reported on Saturday.

The gold medallists are Hoang Huu Quoc Huy, a 12th grader from Ba Ria-Vung Tau Provinces Le Quy on High School for Gifted Students; Le Quang Dung, a 12th grader from Thanh Hoa Provinces Lam Son High School for Gifted Students; Nguyen Canh Hoang, a 12th grader from Nghe An Provinces Phan Boi Chau High School for Gifted Students; and Phan Nhat Duy, also a 12th grader from Ha Tinh Provinces High School for Gifted Students.

Pham Nam Khanh, an 11th grader from Ha Noi-Amsterdam High School for Gifted Students, won the silver medal, while o Van Quyet, a 12th grader from Vinh Phuc High School for Gifted Students, pocketed the bronze.

Hoang Huu Quoc Huy was also one of the three contestants who achieved the highest scores at this years event, with 35 marks.

On his private Facebook page, the head of the Vietnamese team, Assoc Prof Dr. Le Anh Vinh wrote "Vietnamese students have made a record in the history of Viet Nams 43 years of attending the IMO." According to Vinh, Viet Nam had gained the same rank in IMO 1999 and 2007, but the gold this year outnumbered the previous efforts.

Held from July 12 to July 23, the 58th IMO attracted 615 contestants from 112 countries and territories worldwide.

Gold rain in physics

Like the the Vietnamese teams achievements at the IMO and the 2017 International Chemistry Olympiad held this month in Thailand, where four Vietnamese students earned three golds and one silver, Vietnamese students attending a physics competition in Indonesia continue to create records.

All five Vietnamese contestants at the 48th International Physics Olympiad held from July 16 to July 24 in Indonesia earned medals, four of them won gold and the remaining took silvers, according to the MOET.

The gold medallists were inh Anh Dung, a 12th grader from the Ha Noi-Amsterdam High School for Gifted Students; Ta Ba Dung, 12th grader from the University of Natural Sciences High School for Gifted Students; Nguyen The Quynh, 12th grader from Quang Binh Provinces Vo Nguyen Giap High School for Gifted Students; and Tran Huu Binh Minh, 12th grader from Nghe An Provinces Phan Boi Chau High School for Gifted Students.

Phan Tuan Linh, also from Nghe An Provinces Phan Boi Chau High School for Gifted Students, won the silver.

The results positioned Viet Nam in the No. 5 spot, after China, South Korea, Russia and Singapore, among the 86 participating countries and territories.  VNS
The Viet Nam Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre Region 3 in southern Ba Ria - Vung Tau Provinces Vung Tau City successfully saved a Chinese seaman who had suffered a stroke at sea yesterday.  Photo tuoitre.vn

BA RIA-VUNG TAU  The Viet Nam Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre Region 3 in southern Ba Ria - Vung Tau Provinces Vung Tau City successfully saved a Chinese seaman who had suffered a stroke at sea yesterday.

The centre received signals calling for help from the Chinese Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre at 6.40pm on Saturday. The seaman Zhang Qi, 57, an electrician, suffered from a stroke while on the Hai Su 2 Ship from Hongkong.

The centre gave guidance to the Hai Su 2 Ship to head towards the city. After receiving the seaman, doctors and rescue workers administered first aid to the victim.

The seaman is under treatment at the Le Loi Hospital in Vung Tau City.  VNS
HA NOI  Parents scurrying to send their children to the many life skills classes blooming in the big cities has been a trend that has been picking up lately.

These classes, organised during the three-month summer vacation in Viet Nam, claim to train children on important communication and survival skills that can then be applied to real-life situations.

However, are these classes as effective as their numerous advertisements claim? Its a question that has many parents worried across the cities.

Many teaching centres holding classes for children aged between 7 and 14 in important life skills have been coming up.

These centres design the life skills programmes separately for each age group, and include various outdoor and indoor activities.

One such life skills teacher said children would be trained in self-efficacy, ability to analyse and synthesise issues, working independently or in a team, and ability to communicate.

Nguyen Kieu Lan, a teacher at the Ha Noi Children Palace, said many parents created conditions for their children to succeed in all fields, but forget that an important skill is the survival skill, including escaping skills, knife-using skills, self-service, behaviour skills when lost, knowing to use money, and knowing the full menu for a meal, among others.

Generally, such useful skills help children live independently under all circumstances, she said.

However, according to pedagogical psychological experts, before sending children to life skill classes, parents should thoroughly research the content, curriculum, goals, specific experiences schedule, and the quality of teachers in the class.

In particular, parents should not rely solely on online advertisements.

Parents should send their children to specialised centres that teach life skills, rather than places where its only a coursework.

Nguyen Ngoc Oanh, a mother of two from Ha Nois Hoan Kiem District, said initially she was confused about choosing the apt life skills class for her children. She then decided to choose a presentation skills class for her eight-year-old boy and leadership skills class for her 12-year-old girl.

They (two children) study hard and are stressed during the whole academic year, so, during the summer, I want them to rest while honing the skills they lack.

I was struggling to decide, because I did not know what to choose, as all skills centres are making attractive offers. At home, the children dont have to do any housework, so teaching them to be independent is necessary, she said.

According to the WHO, life skills are adaptive, and positive behaviour enables an individual to cope effectively with the needs and challenges of everyday life.

Life skills are divided into two categories: Psychosocial skills and personal skills. Personal skills consist of 10 elements: Self-awareness, creative thinking, problem solving, communication, coping with stressful and emotional situations, sympathy, commentary and critical thinking, decisiveness and negotiation.

In real life, many parents do not have the time to care and educate their children. They then entrust their children to teachers and educational institutions.

Many children have excellent academic record at school but lack basic living skills, or are good at theory, but lack practice. So, during the summer holidays, parents take children to life skills classes, hoping that these will provide step-by-step training to children.

However, is a week, two weeks or a month, even two months of learning life skills enough to make children capable?

A complaint raised by a father was that at the end of her life skill class, his eight-year-old girl had only learnt to write a letter to her relative, which too had been copied from an online source.

According to experts, parents must remember that they are their childrens first teachers.

Viet Nam has a saying: Teach children from their childhood.

It means that before children enter the school, family is the foundation for their whole education progress, as well as basic life skills.

Thus, parents need to self-enrich their knowledge on life skills, through constant and close communication with their children, experts said.

Among the various types of life skills classes, the programme Military term received good and positive feedback from parents and children. A term, lasting from one week to two weeks, with the goal to train children as soldiers, it included teaching the basic military skills of discipline, performing activities on schedule and teamwork, among others. Though some parents complained about the teaching methods, the content far exceeded their expectations.

Prof. Pham Thanh Nghi from the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences said the summer activities were necessary to supplement the childrens knowledge beyond the school curriculum.

Also, parents should be encouraged to play with children, and guide them in life skills at home to help them remain active before a new school year, experts noted.  VNS

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HA NOI  A Vietnamese rescue ship on Sunday brought in the body of a Greek crewman and handed it over to relevant authorities on the mainland, online newspaper vov.vn reported.

On Saturday afternoon, the Third Zone Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre, located in Vung Tau City in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, received information that a crewman on the ship Agios Nikolaos I (Cyprus), heading from Singapore to China, had suffered a serious head injury and collapsed. The injured crewman was identified as Laspas Alexandros, 29.

The centre immediately got in touch with the HCM City-based Coastal Information Station to transfer the information to local search and rescue agencies. The stations health workers then gave medical advice to crew members to help their injured colleague.

The centre also instructed the ship to move to Vung Tau coastal area so that the injured crewman could be brought to the mainland for treatment. However, the crewman died after a few hours on the ship.

The captain continued the ships journey to Vung Tau coastal area to complete necessary procedures to send the crewmans body back home.

Viet Nams salvage ship SAR 413 cruised to Vung Tau to receive the body and complete procedures to hand over the body to relevant authorities and a representative of the ship owner.  VNS
HA NOI  Hoang Thi Hien, owner of a private health clinic in Hung Yen Province, has been suspended from work for 15 days while investigation into her illegal treatment of phimosis in boys is underway.

The suspension will be extended until the investigation is completed, the Tuoi tre (Youth) reported on Monday.

The decision was made recently by deputy director of the provinces health department Bui Quang Chung.

The clinic, based in Khoai Chau District, was found to be responsible for nearly 50 boys developing genital warts after undergoing circumcision there.

On Monday, Chung is heading a meeting with the departments health experts to identify the connection between Hiens treatment of phimosis and the boys disease.

The department will collaborate with doctors from the National Hospital of Dermatology and Venereology in Ha Noi to provide treatment to the boys and health examinations for their parents to prevent transmission. It will also examine the clinics medical equipment seized by police to identify the source of disease transmission to the boys.

The capital citys hospital recorded a drastic increase in the number of children requiring treatment of genital warts in June and July. Nearly 50 out of 52 boys from HungYen Province were from Khoai Chau District and had received treatment for phimosis at Hiens clinic.

The hospital advised those who had received treatment at the clinic to get checked up at the hospital since genital warts incubation period can last for a year.

Boys under 15 years old will receive free treatment for the disease from the hospital until the end of this year.

Hien has been working as a nurse at Me So Communes health clinic in Van Giang District and practising at her unlicensed home clinic.

The provinces health department has proposed revoking Hiens professional certificate for between six and 12 months and imposed a VN110 million (US$4,400) fine on her home clinic.

However, the department has not taken responsibility for allowing the unlicensed clinic to operate for the last several years, the newspaper reported.  VNS
HA NOI  Two top officials of Lao Cai city and province will attend court on Tuesday as defendants of a land eviction lawsuit filed by a resident.

Pham Thi Nghia, a resident of Lao Cai Citys Kim Tan Ward, filed a lawsuit against the committees decisions on land eviction and compensation after her family was evicted from the land they were living on since 1984 without allegedly being given proper compensation.

On Tuesday, Le Minh Quang, chairman of the northern Lao Cai City Peoples Committee, and ang Xuan Phong, chairman of Lao Cai Province Peoples Committee, are both expected to attend court.

On June 19, 2014, the Lao Cai City Peoples Committee issued three land acquisition decisions concerning the families of Pham Thi Nghia, Pham Van Kha and Pham Thi Nga in Kim Tan Ward, Lao Cai City.

Soon after, it also issued a decision on the compensation awarded to the three families. However, the evicted families did not find the deal offered by the chairmen of the city and the province peoples committees acceptable.

According to the provincial Peoples Committee, the land the three families were using was allocated to the provinces transport department in 1992. However, the three families alleged that when they claimed the land in 1984, no authorities told them about the land allocation.

Moreover, the families were granted land-use right certificates in 1984 and in 2000, which had the signatures and seals of the chairmen of ong Tuyen Commune, Lao Cai Town  now known as Kim Tan Ward, Lao Cai City.

Unclear land origins, land mismanagement and improper compensation are said to be the major causes for land disputes in Viet Nam. Land-related issues account for 70 per cent of the complaints made by residents to state/government bodies.  VNS
QUY NHON  Professor Gerardt Hooft, Dutch Nobel Laureate in Physics and his wife arrived in Binh inh on Sunday afternoon.

Accepting an invitation from Prof. Tran Thanh Van, president of Rencontres du Vietnam, Prof. Hooft will attend Viet Nams scientific event on cosmography in the coastal city of Quy Nhon.

He will be present at the opening ceremony of Discovering the Dark Universe in Quy Nhon City on Monday. With the participation of 70 scientists from 19 countries, this event recaps recent discoveries on dark matter, cosmic particles, particle physics, etc.

Additionally, scientists will conduct academic conferences on direct and indirect research, BMS physics and DM, astrophysics and cosmology, DM research at LHC particle accelerator, and future detector.

On Tuesday afternoon, Prof. Hooft will conduct a talk on the basic laws of nature in front of a scientific audience in Binh inh and all over Viet Nam.

Prof. Geradust Hoot, born in 1946 in Den Helder (Netherlands), is a theoretical physicist working at Utrecht University.

In 1999, he and his teacher, Prof. Martinus J. G. Veltman, won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research on "Quantum structure of electroweak interactions." This is a significant scientific work on building a strong mathematical foundation for physics theories of particles.

In the course of his career, he has made several other important contributions to quantum field theory, theory of quantum gravity and black holes in the universe and research on basic foundations of quantum mechanics.

His research focused on measure theory, black holes, quantum gravity and basic aspects of quantum mechanics. His contribution to physics includes evidence proving that measure theories can be re-standardised based on dimensional space and holographic principle.  VNS
PARIS  Leaders in the fight against HIV on Sunday urged the US government, the largest donor to global AIDS research and treatment, to reject "draconian" funding cuts proposed by President Donald Trump.

Any funding lapse, they said, will be counted in human lives.

"As we gather today, the largest and most important donor in HIV response has threatened devastating cuts to funding for research and treatment programmes," International AIDS Society president Linda-Gail Bekker told a global HIV science conference in Paris.

"Draconian cuts to research and... HIV funding is a catastrophe we cannot afford to see happen," she said.

More than 6,000 scientists are gathered in the French capital until Wednesday to assess advances in AIDS science amid concerns over money drying up.

Globally, government donor funding for HIV dropped last year to the lowest level since 2010 -- from US$7.5 billion (6.4 billion euros) in 2015 to $7 billion, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a California-based health policy NGO.

The United States has for years been the biggest contributor by far to the global fight against HIV infection, accounting for about two-thirds of funding by governments.

However Trumps proposed budget, submitted in May, reduces funding for "several global health programmes, including HIV/AIDS, with the expectation that other donors can and should increase their commitments." Bekker urged the United States to "stay engaged".

"These onslaughts on funding, principles and programmes have already begun to erode the gains we have so painstakingly made," she told conference delegates.

"If we do not actively move forward on the HIV response, then we are sliding back. Sliding back means sick patients, lost lives, ongoing transmission and infected children -- a world that we do not want to go back to."

Return on investment

UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe pointed to gains in life expectancy for people infected with HIV as a "return on investment".

From only four percent of infected people on life-saving anti-retroviral treatment in 2003, the number grew to more than 50 percent in 2016  covering 19.5 million of the 36.7 million people living with HIV around the world.

"I know that donors... want to see impact. And today we can say... that we have been able to reduce by more than 50 percent the death rate, mortality rate, among people living with HIV," said Sidibe.

But much work remains -- some 17 million people are still not getting the treatment they need, including 1.2 million children.

And in east Europe and central Asia, there has been a 60-percent rise in new infections in the last six years, mainly in Russia.

"The worst conspiracy would be complacency," said Sidibe, pointing to a $7 billion gap in annual funding for AIDS research and prevention and treatment programmes.

"Any cuts to funding will jeopardise our results."

AIDS expert Jean-Francois Delfraissy, co-chairman of the conference, said there are likely to be similar funding trends "in Europe, and probably also in France in the next years".

"We have a lot of great success and I think that politicians can understand that, but I think its not sufficient," he said.

Trump was not the only world leader to come under fire.

Activists questioned why French President Emmanuel Macron did not attend the first day of the conference, though it was unclear whether he had been invited.

Protesters waved placards reading: "Shame on Macron" at Sundays opening session. The presidency has since announced Macron will receive conference organisers, including Bekker, on Monday.  AFP
WASHINGTON  The global economic recovery is on firmer footing as improving growth in China, Europe and Japan offset downward revisions for the United States and Britain, the International Monetary Fund said on Sunday.

However, wage growth remains sluggish which risks increasing tensions that have pushed some countries toward more anti-global policies, while efforts to erode financial regulations put in place since the 2008 crisis could erode stability, the IMF warned.

"The recovery in global growth that we projected in April is on a firmer footing; there is now no question mark over the world economys gain in momentum," IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said.

Presenting the latest update of the World Economic Outlook (WEO), he said "recent data point to the broadest synchronised upswing the world economy has experienced in the last decade."

The fund still expects the global economy will grow by 3.5 per cent in 2017 and 3.6 per cent in 2018, the same as in the April WEO.

However, the unchanged forecast masks some significant revisions, including in the United States where the IMF downgraded its growth estimate last month after judging that spending plans promised by President Donald Trump that had been expected to provide a boost to the economy were stuck in limbo.

The US estimate was cut to 2.1 per cent for this year and next, down 0.2 points and 0.4 points, respectively, from the more optimistic forecast in the last report.

The outlook for the British economy also was revised down by 0.3 points to 1.7 per cent this year on weaker-than-expected activity in the first quarter, while the impact of Brexit "remains unclear".

Upward revisions

But those downward revisions were offset by the improving outlook in key economies, including the euro area where growth prospects have improved in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The euro area now is projected to see economic growth of 1.9 per cent this year and 1.7 percent in 2018.

Japan also is seeing improved growth prospects, with an expansion of 1.3 per cent this year expected, although that is seen slowing sharply to 0.6 per cent in 2018.

Meanwhile, China continues to be a major engine of global growth, expanding by 6.7 per cent this year, and 6.4 per cent next, driven by economic policies in Beijing.

The forecast for 2017 was revised up by 0.1 percentage point, "reflecting the stronger than expected outturn in the first quarter" which the IMF said was underpinned by Beijings "supply-side reforms".

The 0.2-point upward revision for 2018, however, was the result of the expected delay in the "needed fiscal adjustment," which could cause risks down the road.

Chinas "higher growth is coming at the cost of continuing rapid credit expansion and the resulting financial stability risks," Obstfeld warned in his prepared statement.

Key to prosperity

But within the mostly upbeat forecasts, the IMF once again sounded the warning on the growing anti-global sentiment, which could leave all economies worse off.

That has been fueled in part by the fact the benefits of increased growth have not been broadly shared.

"Even as unemployment is falling, wage growth still remains weak," Obstfeld said.

That "not only holds back the improvement of living standards, but also carries risks of exacerbating social tensions that have already pushed some electorates in the direction of more inward-looking economic policies."

While the report does not specify any country, it comes amid Brexit talks and the Trump administrations continuing focus on "America first" policies, including cutting bilateral trade deficits and backing away from free trade agreements.

The report warned that "policies based narrowly on domestic advantage are at best inefficient and at worst highly damaging to all".

Obstfeld said, "Strengthening multilateral co-operation is another key to prosperity."

Finally, the IMF cautioned that "a broad rollback of the strengthening of financial regulation and oversight achieved since the crisis" -- something the Trump administration is pushing -- could increase the risk to global financial stability.  AFP
KABU  At least 24 people have been killed and 42 wounded after a Taliban car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees in western Kabul on Monday, officials said, the latest attack to strike the Afghan capital.

"The car bomb hit a bus carrying employees of the ministry of mines during rush hour," interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast that hit a busy neighbourhood of the Afghan capital just before 7am (0230 GMT).

The bombing comes as the resurgent militant group has stepped up attacks across the country in recent days, with several new districts falling to the Taliban over the weekend.

The blast hit an area of the capital that is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority who have been targeted many times in the past.

It is also near the home of prominent politician and former warlord Mohammad Mohaqeq.

Omid Maisom Mohaqiq, a spokesman for the politician, said the bomb had detonated near the first checkpoint approaching the house, "killing and wounding some civilians".

An AFP photographer at the scene saw multiple bodies and wounded people in the street, surrounded by shattered glass as security forces cordoned off the area.

The charred remains of the bus stood in the middle of the road and a black column of smoke from the explosion hung in the air.

An army truck and forklifts were attempting to remove the carcass of the bus as ambulances as well as taxis and private cars ferried the injured to nearby hospitals, an AFP photographer said.

One-year anniversary

Kabuls Hazara community were due on Monday to mark the one-year anniversary of an attack in the heart of the capital that killed 84 and wounded more than 300 people, mostly members of the ethnic minority.

That attack was the first in Afghanistan claimed by the Islamic State group, which has since carried out multiple attacks targeting the countrys Shiite minority.

The Hazara community were due to hold a demonstration to mark the July 23, 2016 tragedy, but had agreed to postpone the march after meeting with President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday.

Kabul is regularly rocked by suicide bombs and attacks. A recent UN report showed that attacks on the capital accounted for nearly one-fifth of all civilian Afghan casualties in the first half of 2017.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which has been documenting civilian casualties since 2009, said in its recent report that 1,662 civilians were killed and more than 3,500 injured in the first six months of the year.

Many died in a single devastating attack in Kabul in late May when a truck bomb exploded, also during the morning rush hour, killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds.

UNAMA put the civilian death toll at 92, saying it was the deadliest incident to hit the country since 2001.

The UNAMA report also said that nearly half of Afghanistans 34 provinces have seen an increase in civilian deaths in the first six months of the year, mainly due to the rise in attacks by anti-government forces across the country.

NATOs combat mission in Afghanistan ended three years ago, handing sole responsibility to the countrys security forces, which have also suffered spiralling casualties as they try to beat back the resurgent Taliban and contain the growing threat from the Islamic State group.  AFP
I wanted to study food and agriculture through an international lens because I believe that so many of the problems we have  poverty, lack of education, crime  can be traced back to a lack of access to food, said Sarah Bateman, a rising senior from Cambridge, New York, who is majoring in crop and soil environmental sciences with an option in international agriculture and a minor in global food security health. You cannot set out to solve problems related to development or even begin to clearly see them until you are looking them in the face, standing on the ground, and are adequately exposed to the sociological aspects of the problem itself.



Some of the students on the trip were taking a class called Agriculture, Global Food Security, and Health. The class is part of the colleges global food security and health minor, which examines some of the most pressing issues that will be facing our planet as the world population swells by an additional 2 billion people over the next 30 years.



I want them to know that everything is interconnected in the food chain, from the moment we put the seed in the ground to the moment we eat it, said Ozzie Abaye, a professor of crop and soil environmental sciences and Virginia Cooperative Extension specialist who led the students on the journey. The students are learning that people around the world have the same needs. We all need food, shelter, and clean water. I want them to understand that we are not that different from one another.

The class and the new minor are part of a larger push by the college to expand students opportunities to study overseas and examine their studies through a global lens. The diversity of students on this trip highlighted how interdisciplinary this global charge of feeding the world is. They included students majoring in crop and soil environmental sciences; food science and technology; agricultural and applied economics; human nutrition, foods, and exercise; and environmental policy and planning, which is in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies.

In order for students to learn the vital role of agriculture and life sciences in an increasingly globalized world, its imperative that they travel to the far corners of the globe where they can immerse themselves in the culture and understand the unique challenges facing various countries, said Tom Thompson, associate dean and director of Global Programs.

And immerse themselves they did.



On their first day in the country, the students visited local food markets in Quito and gobbled down spicy soups swimming with charbroiled tripe. Deep in the rainforest, they ate live grubs as thick as a thumb that locals eat as a source of protein and one student described as delicious and velvety. They crossed wide rivers to visit tiny villages and drank chicha, a beverage made by women who chew cassava root and spit it out to create a sour, fermented drink. At a banana plantation that exports more than 300 million bananas a year around the globe, they met a woman named Fernanda who puts stickers on bananas for $7 a day. In the Andes, they ate guinea pig with a local who is fighting to hold on to his ancient culture in a rapidly changing world. After hiking on hardened lava flows on the Galapagos, the group learned the challenges of food security vulnerability when living on an island.
WAVERLY  From the farms and factories of eastern Iowa to the jungle of the Philippines during the second World War, Archie Barkhoff, 98, has lived a life full of adventure.

Times were tough early on. Barkhoff worked for $15 a month in the summer and $40 a month in the winter, plus meals, during the Great Depression.

He found work as a machinist at the John Deere factory in Waterloo, making tank transmissions for World War II. While in Waterloo, a young teaching student named LaVonne at the nearby University of Northern Iowa caught his attention.

But Barkhoff was drafted in May 1942 to serve in the U.S. Army.

Throughout the war, they exchanged letters. LaVonne said they wrote each other often, and Archies letters would come all at once in a bundle.

I can only remember him having one furlough, LaVonne said.

A recipient of the Purple Heart Medal and the Bronze Star, Barkhoff commanded a platoon of five medium tanks in New Guinea and the Philippines against the Japanese forces.

The minute I got in the service, I had 15 people under me, Barkhoff said. Youve gotta teach them to be soldiers. You better get them to trust you, and you trust them.

His age and experience helped.

I was probably a little older. Some of those guys couldnt even drive a car, he said.

So the Iowa farm boy taught the younger men to drive.

I could drive anything, Barkhoff said. I farmed with horses.

Barkhoffs first car was a Model T Coupe. LaVonne recalled he had a 36 Chevy when they met. She said Archies driving lessons also helped him win favor with officers.

More than once, Archie thought he wouldnt make it. During reconnaissance missions, Barkhoffs tank platoon would need to find the enemy and get out fast.

Sometimes you didnt make it, Barkhoff said.

Four men operated each tank. As commander, Barkhoff was on top, looking out over the turret.

I was the target, Archie said. If you want to hear a loud noise, be in a tank and get hit with a shell.

The experiences stuck with him.

We had some pretty bad times, he said. Oh well, you live and learn.

LaVonne was in Omaha training to be an air stewardess when a message in Morse code came across saying the war was over.

Archie got home a couple days before Christmas in 1945 and went back to work for John Deere on New Years Day, LaVonne recalled. In June 1945, Archie and LaVonne were married.

And were still married, Archie said. On June 22, the Barkhoffs celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary. She was a good catch.

Archie continued to work at John Deere until frequent layoffs pushed him to look for work elsewhere. After a stint at a Caterpillar dealership, he got into landscaping work.

I made a lot of grass in Waverly, Archie said. This included building lawns for Wartburg College.

Others took notice of Archies green thumb and his good eye for drainage. In 1955, Archie and LaVonne bought a 200-acre farm north of Waverly where they raised four children.

The Barkhoffs grew crops, hogs, chickens and fed cattle on the farms bluegrass pasture. They rented additional land to the north and continued farming until 1983.

In agriculture, youre on your own, Archie said, no bosses or subordinates like in the Army. Its a strange way to make a living.

He continued farm work into his 90s, working with Waverly farmer Mark Mueller. Beginning with Marks father, Howard Mueller, Archie helped the Muellers with tillage, grain hauling and harvest.

Howard was active in the development of the Iowa Corn Checkoff program and chaired the Iowa Corn Promotion Board in the early 1980s. One year, while Howard was working for the ICPB overseas, Archie planted the Muellers corn too.

Archie still has the title on our farm of senior advisor, Mark said. He described Archie as a skilled welder and machinery expert.

Mueller said Archies only rule was he had to be home for lunch and dinner with LaVonne at noon and 6 p.m. each day.

Over the years, the Barkhoffs kept up with fellow soldiers from the war.

I treated them fair, Archie said. I could go back to any one of them.

Barkhoff said he thinks all young men and women would benefit from serving in the Armed Forces for six months to a year.

They would learn something and it wouldnt hurt them a bit, he said. Life is an adventure.
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CEDAR FALLS  The city is moving ahead with plans to construct a recreational trail parallel to Center Street in the North Cedar area of the city.

The City Council recently approved an agreement with the Iowa Department of Transportation to fund the estimated $650,000 project.

The trail would run along the west side of Center Street, from the Snag Creek bridge to Lone Tree Road. It would include lighting other streetscape amenities, city officials have said. The sidewalk on the east side of Center Street will be maintained. The existing street pavement width would be maintained, but the remaining gravel shoulder would be regraded as a drainage swale. Crosswalks would be improved.

City officials have said the road surface, once part of U.S. Highway 218, is in good condition and a complete reconstruction is not warranted right now.

The trail will link with other trails in the area, giving residents in adjacent neighborhoods direct access to the trails around them, instead of having to walk or ride some distance, in the right of way, to access them. It also is adjacent to a relatively new neighborhood park. The city is working with property owners to acquire easements for the trail work.

Pending acquisition of those easements, the Iowa Department of Transportation would let bids on the project in November with construction beginning next spring. That project has been in the works for some time and funding has been secured.

The Iowa DOT would pay $259,000 toward the project and the city $331,000 from its flood reserve account, made up of federal funds reimbursed to the city for time and expense fighting past floods.
CEDAR FALLS  The City of Cedar Falls is conducting a public informational meeting Aug. 3 to discuss the planned improvements to the Cedar Falls flood control levee system.

Information will be provided on the need of the project, the proposed improvements and the permitting process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

All interested persons are invited to attend the Aug. 3 meeting. Doors open at 5 p.m. with a brief presentation at 5:15 p.m. followed by a time for questions and answers.

In June, city officials received word the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had given a long-awaited final approval to an estimated $6.6 million project to raise the downtown Cedar Falls flood control levee by 3 feet. The improvement was proposed in response to the record flood of June 2008 when flood waters nearly overtopped the existing levee.

The plans had been in the works for five years, and state funding was secured in 2014.

City officials had complained about the protracted review process to members of Iowas Congressional delegation, particularly after a second, near-record flood this past September.

In March, the Corps of Engineers streamlined the review process, only requiring approvals at the district and regional levels  at Rock Island, Ill. and Vicksburg, Miss., respectively  without having to go to Washington, D.C. for final approval.

A state flood mitigation panel approved $6.6 million in funding for Cedar Falls in March 2014. A state Sales Tax Increment Fund receives deposits of increased sales tax revenues from flood-impacted areas for improvements there.

Cedar Falls City Council members recently approved an amendment updating cost estimates and revenue-flow projections for the project last week, which was approved by the Iowa Flood Mitigation Board.

More information may be obtained by notifying the Cedar Falls Engineering Division at 268-5161.
Church will host

community meal

WATERLOO  First Baptist Church, West Fourth and Baltimore, will host a free community meal from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday in the church social hall.

Parking is available in the church parking lot. Call the church with any questions at 234-1537.

The free meal is held the last Wednesday of every month.

Legion post

sets events

WATERLOO  American Legion Post 138 at 728 Commercial St. has several events planned.

Today there will be bingo at 6:15 and 7 p.m. Open pool is planned from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Snack bar open until 8 p.m.

Brats, hot dogs and grilled chicken will be available at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Garys rib night is set for 5 to 8 p.m. Friday.

A pepper tournament will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday. On Sunday, bingo is planned for 1:15 and 2 p.m., with the snack bar open.

Kiwanis club set

to meet Tuesday

WATERLOO  The Waterloo Noon Kiwanis Club will meet at noon Tuesday at the Waterloo Elks Lodge.

Lunch will begin at 12:10 p.m. The program will be on the Kiwanis International Strategic Plan, led by District Lt. Gov. Katie Orlando.

Guests are welcome. For more information, call president Bruce Jacobs, 215-8267.

Blood drive

set in Waterloo

WATERLOO  A blood drive is set for 1 to 6 p.m. July 26 at Our Savior Lutheran Churchs fellowship hall.

Schedule an appointment at redcrossblood.org or (800) 733-2767.

Breakfast

slated at church

WATERLOO  The Knights of Columbus will host an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon July 30 at Queen of Peace Churchs Scallon Hall, 320 Mulberry St.

The menu also includes sausage, scrambled eggs, cinnamon rolls and beverage.

Cost is $7 for adults and free for kids younger than 5. Part of the proceeds will go to the Community Meals Program.

Church to host

giveaway event

WATERLOO  Grace Reformed Church will host a Jesus Give-Away for the community from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

The event will take place at Shady Lane Youth Center, 1322 Shady Lane, next to the Grace Reformed Church, 520 Maxwell St.

The congregation has collected good used items to give away to those who need them.

Items include mens, womens and childrens clothing, shoes, furniture, housewares, televisions and computers, kitchen utensils, appliances, pots and pans, books, tapes and DVDs and various miscellaneous articles. A free lunch will be served.
CEDAR RAPIDS  The former chief of police of the Tama Police Department who stole and pawned a Tama police service weapon, as well as two other guns held by the police department as evidence, was sentenced Monday to federal prison.

Jeffrey Filloon, 48, of Toledo, received the prison term after pleading guilty Feb. 9 to one count of possessing, selling and disposing of a stolen firearm and one count of making false statements to a FBI special agent.

In a plea agreement, Filloon admitted while serving as the Tama police chief from July 2013 through August 2015 he stole and sold property, including three guns and four vehicles that were in police impound, from the Tama Police Department for his own personal benefit. Filloon also admitted he lied to a FBI special agent who was conducting an investigation into the missing property by claiming he had bought one of the impounded vehicles. In fact, Filloon had not bought it from the individual he claimed sold it to him.

Filloon was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand to two months imprisonment and fined $5,000. A special assessment of $200 was imposed, and he was ordered to make $1,625 in restitution to the victims of his crimes, including the city of Tama. He must also serve a two-year term of supervised release after the prison term.

Filloon was released on bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Morfitt and was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
DES MOINES  Charging incredible incompetency and disservice to Iowa voters, Jim Mowrer of Des Moines is considering challenging Secretary of State Paul Pate in 2018.

Mowrer, whose experience in conducting elections goes back to helping fellow Iowa Army National Guard members vote while in Iraq in 2006, said Pate is trying to make it as expensive and difficult as possible.

Mowrer, 31, a two-time Democratic candidate for the U.S. House, now works for an Iowa human services nonprofit agency and is an adjunct instructor at Grand View University in Des Moines.

In conversations with county auditors  Republicans and Democrats, he said, who oversee elections  Mowrer has heard Pates office does not work well with them.

Thats really what its about  working with county auditors and others to make sure our elections are as free and fair and secure as possible, Mowrer said Friday. Frankly, thats not happening right now.

In addition to voting registration and election systems, the Secretary of States Office business functions are out-of-date and way behind the times compared to what other states are doing with online instant filings, he said.

Theres a lot of work that needs to be done, Mowrer said, adding it would be similar to work he did at the Army Office of Business Transformation at the Pentagon to improve business practices.

Pate, a former state senator and mayor of Cedar Rapids, was elected secretary of state in 2014 after having previously served in that office from 1995-99. He has often spoken of the lack of funding to update hardware and software, some of which is no longer available from the manufacturers.

Mowrer attributed that to severe mismanagement by Pate.

Rather than get funds to update those systems, Mowrer said, Pate went to the Legislature to get resources to make it more difficult to vote. Pate proposed the Voter Integrity Act that, among other things, will require Iowans, beginning in 2019, to show an ID before they vote.

Despite Democratic opposition, polls showed requiring a voter ID was popular with voters.

Mowrer did not call for repealing the law but said there needs to be a reprioritization, such as returning to 40 days of early voting before Election Day. The new law reduced that to 29 days, which Mowrer said could limit voter access.

As he considers the race, Mowrer is encouraged by a June 19-21 20/20 Insight poll of 526 Iowans showing that in a head-to-head match-up he tops Pate 38 percent to 33 percent. The poll had a 4.3 percent margin of error.

Mowrer said he is talking to his family and friends about challenging Pate and expects to make a decision before Labor Day.

Other Democrats said to be considering the race are Des Moines business owner Deidre DeJear and Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert.
WATERLOO -- Even at a distance, the bombers were impressive.

The B-24 Liberator came in low across the skyline, and smoke puffed up as the tires hit the runway at the Waterloo Regional Airport.

A crowd of a few dozen outside the Livingstone Aircraft building fell silent as the World War II bomber taxied closer and the roar of the engines and gusts from the aircraft's propellers blasted the onlookers.

"I never realized the B-24 was so big," said 88-year-old Leonard Kaster Sr. of Waterloo, who came down to the airport Monday for the Wings of Freedom Tour. It also featured other workhorse aircraft --- a B-17 Flying Fortress, a B-25 bomber and Mustang fighter.

It was Kaster's first time seeing legendary warplanes up close. He was in his mid-teens during World War II and had a brother stationed in England and another relative in the Battle of the Bulge.

"I was familiar with all the airplanes. I could name you all of them at that time," Kaster said.

The Wings of Freedom Tour is a flying history exhibit that travels the United States 11 months each year. It's organized by the nonprofit Collings Foundation of Stow, Mass., which operates a transportation museum. It has a fleet of about 60 aircraft as wells as boats, cars, trains and tanks, said Jamie Mitchell, flight coordinator for Wings of Freedom.

"It started in the 1980s as a way to reconnect the veterans with the aircraft they served in, and as we started to lose them, it kind of became a flying memorial for family to honor those who served in the aircraft during the war," Mitchell said.

The right sides of the planes sport names of veterans, placed there by family members who sponsor the aircraft.

Now, the tour serves as a way to inspire today's youths and instill a sense of appreciation and respect.

"Our thing is giving the past a future because we want to get the kids out here. We wouldn't be out here if someone didn't inspire us," Mitchell said.

Visitors can explore the interior of the planes as part of the standard $15 admission --- $5 for children under age 12 -- and WWII veterans are free. Half-hour flights are also available. The B-17 and B-25 flights run $450 per person, and the B-25 flight is $400. Thirty minutes of flight training stick time in the Mustang costs $2,200.

The B-17 is one of only eight in flying condition in the United States.

The TF-51D Mustang is the only authentic specimen still flying, Mitchell said. After the war, the plane, which had been a P-51, was one of 15 to be modified to include a second cockpit for training. It was placed with the West Virginia Air National Guard, which nicknamed it "Toulouse Nuts" because it was their only two-seater.

Later, the plane was sold to the Bolivian air force, where it shot down a Corsair fighter and later wrecked, Mitchell said. An American bought the aircraft and got it flying again and then wrecked it, she said. Collings bought the wreck and used the remaining 20 to 30 percent of the original airframe to rebuild it.

During reconstruction, they stripped the paint job and underneath found its original Toulouse markings. The Mustang won grand champion for restoration at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture show in 2016.

Wings of Freedom will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday and 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesday. The exhibit then travels to Chicago.
Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to eliminate governmental waste and fraud, just released its 2017 Congressional Pig Book, an annual publication highlighting wasteful government spending that should embarrass each and every member of Congress.

While it is true most government spending is for entitlements and other fixed costs, the Pig Book properly ridicules politicians who waste significant amounts of money on questionable programs.

In 2011, Congress promised to go on the wagon when it came to pork. That didnt last long because pork to politicians is like blood to a vampire.

Members promised to swear-off earmarks, which is spending attached to bills that dont go through the appropriations process. As CAGW notes, despite that supposed moratorium, earmarks keep showing up in numerous bills. The Pig Book exposes 163 earmarks in the fiscal 2017 budget, an increase of 32.5 percent from 123 in fiscal 2016.

You owe it to yourself to get this book at cagw.org. Check your outrage meter when youre done. In 2014, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called earmarks a corrupt system. And its bipartisan, perhaps the only activity that qualifies for such a designation in divided Washington.

Theres $150 million going to the Department of Defense for the National Guard Counter-Drug Program. The Drug Enforcement Administration, which has a budget of $2.1 billion, is already responsible for these activities, but duplication is no reason to stop the spending.

How about $15 million for alternative energy research within the Combat Vehicle and Automotive Technology program? Since FY 2004, Congress has used the Defense Appropriations bill as a vehicle to insert 27 earmarks worth $289.9 million for this purpose, despite the billions already appropriated for alternative energy research through the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act. Arent we already exporting natural gas and headed toward energy independence with less reliance on Middle East oil?

Legislators have long treated the Army Corps of Engineers as a prime repository of pork, notes CAGW, and it is among the most heavily earmarked areas of the federal budget. Since FY 1996, members of Congress have added 6,916 earmarks for the Corps, costing taxpayers $12.8 billion.

A lot of this spending, of course, goes straight to a members state or congressional district and is designed to sustain politicians in office.

One item not in the Pig Book, but reported by the Washington Free Beacon, is $224,999 for a clean water video supplied by the National Institutes of Health aimed at helping children right the environmental wrongs in a fictional town. My free program growing up was from my conservationist father who told me not to throw trash on the ground or in the creek behind our house.

Back to the Pig Book: $2.4 million for advanced materials and structural safety within the Airport and Airways Trust Fund, through which the Federal Aviation Administration finances infrastructure improvements for airports.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., has noted the AATF has the indirect effect of preventing competition among airlines at airports. Because the AATF allows for only limited funding for maintenance and improvements, airports are limited in the number of gates they can build. As a result, airports ration gate access through long-term contracts with established companies, creating a barrier for potential competitors.

Im betting some of the recipients of this largesse probably contribute to their benefactors political campaigns. Its the way Washington works, or more accurately, doesnt work, at least not to the benefit of taxpayers.

The larger point is not whether any of these earmarks produce anything that benefits anyone other than the recipients of the money. It is whether all this spending is constitutional and something the federal government should be doing in an age when the national debt continues to grow.

Dont read the Pig Book and weep. Read it, get angry, call your representatives and ask them to give up earmarks for good.
If youre an employee, youve probably been subjected to human resources videos depicting the need for basic workplace civility  scripts of middle-school quality, horribly acted, perceived as a corporate effort to avoid lawsuits.

If youre a responsible boss, youve invariably had to discipline an employee who didnt get the message, making sexual, racist or gay-bashing comments.

The Republican leadership in the Iowa Senate didnt get the memo.

Now their employers  we, the Iowa taxpayers  will pay $2.2 million for the way they mishandled sexual harassment complaints after the recent verdict by Polk County jurors in favor of Kirsten Anderson, the former communications director for the Republican Senate caucus.

The $1.4 million for past emotional damages and $795,000 for future harms is yet another wave on Iowas sea of budgetary red ink  most recently at $353 million, but yet to crest  captained by the gang that cant add straight.

Anderson previously worked as executive director of the Iowa Architectural Foundation before being hired for the communications job in 2008. Professionalism was lacking from the outset  no formal orientation; the personnel guidelines document was missing every other page.

The GOP staff did policy research and administrative work for various committees and assisted with communications between senators and their constituents.

She was fired in May 2013, seven hours after giving her supervisor a list of harassment complaints about a toxic work environment. She made a complaint in 2010  along with analyst Pam Dugdale  with short-lived results and again in 2012.

Republicans countered Anderson was dismissed because of her writing skills. During her testimony, she acknowledged being told her writing needed to improve.

Trial testimony, as reported by Des Moines WHO-TV and cited in the Des Moines Register, elicited another aspect of Andersons poor performance. Before Republicans became the majority party in the Senate this year, she continually called Sen. Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, the minority leader when the party didnt want voters reminded about its minority status.

But the jurors were swayed by Andersons testimony  substantiated by male and female colleagues:

Jim Friedrich, a senior analyst, would taunt and tease female staffers about their sex lives and engage in lewd and insensitive subjects  despite their protests. I dont care, hed reply.

Friedrich asked Anderson her opinion of a nude photo of reality TV star Kim Kardashian on his computer, devised a hot chick report and wanted staff to look at women walking by his window.

After his divorce in 2010, Friedrich began calling his wife expletives, frequently began using a vulgar term about women, Anderson testified. His jokes became more angry and his anger toward ethnicities increased. It was very scary.

Friedrich gossiped with a Republican senator about a female Democratic senators college sex life and commented in a staff meeting that a potential clerk liked sleeping with black men.

Tom Ashworth, an attorney and staff analyst, testified Friedrich not only harassed women and was racially insensitive, but some of his comments youd probably term as gay-bashing.

Sen. Shawn Hamerlinck, then a DeWitt Republican and now chair of the Clinton County Board of Supervisors, would stop by the office to comment on lobbyists breasts and the skirt lengths of the high school juniors and seniors working as Senate pages.

Analyst Russ Trimble, a West Des Moines city councilman, heard Hamerlinck ask analyst Pam Dugdale about the size of her areolas. At that moment I looked down and I just slid away, he testified. I didnt even hear the response. I just had to get out of there.

Dix, who became head of the caucus in 2012, stated he was disappointed in the verdict.  Kirsten Anderson was terminated only for her poor work product and absolutely no other reason. The environment prior to my leadership was lacking in professionalism and appropriate behavior. Any issues that arose during the trial, which had not previously been reported to a supervisor, will be investigated and addressed immediately.

That concern might be belatedly triggered by the verdict. After all, Friedrich, the trifecta offender (women, race and gays), still has his job after at least seven years of documented problems.

Ashworth testified nobody in the Senate leadership ever asked him a single question about his experiences in the office after Anderson filed the suit, which doesnt speak well of Dixs curiosity about the work environment  the first step in resolving any issues.

Senate Republicans should do the right thing and donate the $2.2 million back to the state treasury.

Then, as the party of business, they should call corporate HR on how to run an office.
At organized wine tastings, the participants often finish by putting the wines in some sort of consensus quality order, from the wine most-preferred by the tasting group to the least-preferred. This is especially true of wine competitions, of course, but trade and home tastings are often organized this way, as well.The question is: how do we go about deciding upon a winning wine? Perhaps the simplest way is for each person to rank the wines, and then to find a consensus ranking for the group. This is not necessarily as straightforward as it might seem.To illustrate this idea, I will look at some data involving two separate blind tastings, in late 1995, of California cabernets (including blends) from the 1992 vintage. The first tasting had 18 wines and 17 tasters, and the second had 16 wines and 16 tasters. In both cases the tasters were asked, at the end of the tasting, to put the wines in their order of preference (ie. a rank order, ties allowed).The first tasting produced results with a clear "winner", no matter how this is defined. The first graph shows how many of the 17 tasters ranked each wine in first place (vertically) compared to how often that wine was ranked in the top three places (horizontally). Each point represents one of the 18 wines.Clearly, 15 of the 18 wines appeared in the top 3 ranks at least once, so that only 3 of the wines did not particularly impress anybody. Moreover, 6 of the wines got ranked in first place by at least one of the tasters  that is, one-third of the wines stood out to at least someone. However, by consensus, one of the wines (from Screaming Eagle, as it turns out) stood out head and shoulders above the others, and can be declared the "winner".However, this situation might be quite rare. Indeed, the second tasting seems to be more typical. The next graph shows how many of the 16 tasters ranked each wine in first place (vertically) compared to how often that wine was ranked in the top five places (horizontally). Each point represents one of the 16 wines.In this case, the tasters' preferences are more evenly spread among the wines. For example, every wine was ranked in the top 3 at least once, and in the top 4 at least twice, so that each of the wines was deemed worthy of recognition by at least one person. Furthermore, 10 of the 16 wines got ranked in first place by at least one of the tasters  that is, nearly two-thirds of the wines stood out to at least someone.One of these wines, the Silver Oak (Napa Valley) cabernet, looks like it could be the winner, since it was ranked first 3 times and in the top five 7 times. However, the Flora Springs (Rutherford Reserve) wine appeared in the top five 10 times, even though it was ranked first only 2 times; so it is also a contender. Indeed, if we take all of the 16 ranks into account (not just the top few) then the latter wine is actually the "winner", and is shown in pink in the graph. Its worst ranking was tenth, so that no-one disliked it, whereas the Silver Oak wine was ranked last by 2 of the tasters.We can conclude from this that being ranked first by a lot of people will not necessarily make a wine the top-ranked wine of the evening. "Winning" the tasting seems to be more about being thewine! That is, winning is as much about not being last for any taster as it is about being first.This situation is not necessarily unusual. For example, on my other blog I have discussed the 10-yearly movie polls conducted bymagazine. In the 2012 poll Alfred Hitchock's filmwas ranked top, displacingfor the first time in the 50-year history of the polls; and yet, 77% of critics polled did not even list this film in their personal top 10. Nevertheless, more critics (23%) did puton their top-10 list than did so for any other film, and so this getsthe top spot overall. From these data, we cannot conclude thatis "the best movie of all time", but merely that it is chosen more often than the other films (albeit by less than one-quarter of the people). Preferences at wine tastings seem to follow this same principle.Finally, we can compare the seven wines that were common to the two tastings discussed above. Did these wines appear in the same rank order at both tastings?In this case, we can calculate the consensus rank for each tasting by summing the ranks from each participant, giving 3 points for first rank, 2 points for second, and 1 point for third. The result of this calculation is shown in the third graph, where each point represents one of the seven wines, and the axes indicate the ranking for the two tastings.The two groups of tasters agree on the bottom three wines in their rankings. However, they do not agree on the "winning" wine among these seven. More notably, they disagree quite strongly about the Silver Oak cabernet. In the second tasting this wine received 3 firsts and 2 thirds (from the 16 tasters), while in the first tasting it received 1 third ranking only (out of 17 people). The consensus ranking of this wine thus differs quite markedly between the tastings. This may reflect differences in the type of participants at the tastings, there being a broader range of wine expertise in the second tasting.
A startup needs to test an idea quickly. For this, an MVP is created. MVP, Minimal Viable Product  a test version of a product or service with a minimum set of functions (up to one or two), which allows you to see the product's value for consumers and the market. MVP is created to test hypotheses and check the viability of the intended product: is it worth developing the project further, what changes should be made? The sooner a startup brings its MVP to market and tests the idea, the better. This article will look at how no-code technology can help founders achieve their business goals.

This article will try to cover everything that a founder needs to know about no-code at the initial stage of creating a startup.

What is no-code?

No-code, zero-code platform is a tool for creating websites, applications, chatbots, and other programs without the need for direct code writing by programmers. No-code is a valuable alternative to traditional development.

No-code is confused with low-code, but there is a difference in these terms. Low-code includes no-code and the ability to "finish code", add parts of code and the functionality.

A user of a no-code platform usually does not need to know layout, programming languages, or hire a team of programmers. The user of the no-code tool creates an application using a visual block constructor, which he fills with the necessary content and functions, and the no-code platform itself does the processing of requests, compiling the application and other "magic." It generates code using AI and/or contains blocks of code pre-written by programmers.

No-code allows the startup founder to create an MVP himself, entrust it to his employee with basic technical literacy and understanding of the project, or hire a no-code developer. Even in the case of hiring a no-code developer, the cost of creating an MVP will be significantly lower than with classical development with programmers. For example, you can read the interview of a startup and no-code developer on our website, who initially worked as a Product Manager and was able to master no-code for his project himself.

Benefits of no-code for a startup founder

There are the following key advantages for a startup founder in using no-code technology:

a large selection of no-code tools, platforms, and their integrations at the moment  already in 2022, there are many tools and platforms for creating an MVP, a larger project, or even a finished product on no-code, but few people still know about them, and others are far from all startups and founders use their potential;

cost  no-code development saves the money by speeding up the development process, not hiring professional programmers or no need to maintain a developer department, monitoring functions and quick bug fixes, avoiding or reducing the growth of technical debt;

speed is the main advantage over classical development  no-code allows you to build a simple application in a weekend, and a more complex one can be built in a month. In this way, you can test an MVP and even several versions of an MVP very quickly;

low entry threshold  to master a no-code platform, you often do not need technical education at all, but only an understanding of a company's business processes or product from the inside. In the case of pro-level no-code platforms, technical education is required, but you can get used to it hundreds of times faster than with any programming language. This makes no-code available to almost everyone who wants to work with technology;

ease of use  no need to write hundreds of code lines  just move the blocks and assign links between them. Work on a project can be entrusted to your employee without communicating with a team of third-party developers. You can speak "in your language" without the need to understand the "inner kitchen" of developers;

flexibility  with the help of no-code, it is easy for a startup founder to add new functionality and new features right during a project or a MVP testing without a significant increase in development costs.

Possible disadvantages of no-code for a startup founder

As often, any property can be, under certain conditions, both a disadvantage and an advantage. In no-code, many of the benefits with the wrong choice of tool can turn into disadvantages:

no-code is not always a budget solution for a project. Sometimes in a no-code development package, you get unnecessary functions and additions (on AppMaster.io you can separately connect the frontend and pay only for the backend or only for those functions that you are using); if you do not understand the needs of your project, then you can make a mistake with the choice of a no-code tool and not be able to implement the necessary functions on it, or it will be too difficult to implement them; often, no-code tools fail to ensure proper data security and contribute to data leakage (but AppMaster.io allows you to host a finished application on any server); no-code tools often do not provide the ability to upload source code or provide uploading in an inconvenient format, which makes it difficult to move to another tool or to your development. You have to choose a no-code tool "once and forever immediately" (AppMaster. io gives you the ability to download the source code. Also, we generate human-readable code and you will not have any difficulties with its transportation); most no-code tools on the market are not suitable for creating a finished product, and there are significant difficulties with scaling the project if the MVP is successful (AppMaster.io is a professional no-code platform and our capabilities allow us to implement and support the finished product and scale it in the future).

Forewarned is forearmed. Choose your no-code tool wisely and take full advantage of your choice.

Types of no-code platforms

Conventionally, all no-code tools can be divided into several types: no-code devices with a low entry threshold (you can create frontend and not very powerful backend on them), integrators that help connect applications and services, and professional no-code platforms (they strive to replace the code completely, provide the ability to create a robust backend and high bandwidth).

The basic principle of operation of your MVP and the choice of a no-code platform depend on such a conditional division into types. For example, if you make a simple application like a diary, you can limit yourself to a no-code tool with a low entry threshold and a beautiful design.

If your application has powerful potential, high bandwidth, multi-user interface, and works with large amounts of data or real-time data, it is better to choose a professional no-code platform like AppMaster.io or Direcual.

If you use several services at once, link them on integrators like Integromat and Zapier.

Adalo

An easy-to-learn designer with a relatively user-friendly interface. The free version is helpful for learning. The free version contains Adalo watermarks and does not allow you to upload your applications to GooglePlayMarket and AppStore. Beginners often choose this no-code platform to create their first applications with simple logic.

Bubble

It will take more time to learn Bubble , but the platform allows you to work with the backend, databases, business processes, and layout. There are many plugins. The free plan allows you to master the tool, and you can start developing at the middle rate. The price increase is due to the rise in the number of users.

Integromat

It is an integrator. Experts talk about it as a simple and affordable platform for linking applications and services. Scenarios can be created personally, or you can use templates. If you need to connect an application with a service not from the Integromat database, fill out the form and connect to its API via HTTP.

Zapier

This is an integrator for linking applications with each other or with other external services. You can transfer data between thousands of applications. There is a script constructor (one event starts a chain of necessary actions).

Directual

The no-code platform positions itself for creating MVP applications (Minimal Viable Product, minimum viable product) and full-fledged applications of finished products. Scenarios are the backbone of the platform. Using scripts, you can automate the backend logic of the application, create and combine workflows. The Directual catalog includes out-of-the-box connectors, HTTP requests, webhooks, database listeners, and integration with popular services.

AppMaster.io

No-code next-generation platform for creating native and web applications on a real backend. Visual drag-and-drop designer, user-friendly business process designer, one-click app publishing to AppMaster Cloud, or integration with any cloud platform. Push notifications, authorization using social networks. Networks, email, and more. Connect applications to hundreds of services or programmatically access them using APIs. The ability to upload source code and documentation in a human-readable format and transfer it to your servers. Documentation auto-generation. Modern and fast language GoLang at the core.

No-code perspectives for startups

No-code development is gradually gaining popularity around the world. There are already more than 500 no-code tools for creating websites and various types of applications.

According to the forecasts of IT world experts, no-code will develop more and more actively and capture parts of the market responsible for medicine, small online business, small business, and all niches where it is possibly necessary to optimize and automate development processes.

The mass shift of businesses and their customers online and to gadgets has increased the demand for the fast and inexpensive creation of mobile applications that would work according to a single quality standard and have a simple, understandable, user-friendly interface.

Conclusion

No-code is visual programming in the form of a constructor without directly writing code. Usually, basic knowledge in development is enough to build applications on no-code.

The logic of no-code constructors is intuitive: the application interface is assembled from blocks, icons, buttons, and text which are connected to the database. Usually, you can choose a suitable template or do everything from scratch. Speed and economy are the main advantages of no-code tools.

No-code is suitable for creating an MVP, testing an idea or new features in a product, saving time for solving standard tasks. PRO level no-code platforms can provide you with a finished product, an application.

If you don't have an account on AppMaster.io yet, join us. After registration, you will be given a free trial period for 14 days, in which all the basic functionality of the platform is available. It will allow you to learn the intricacies of working with a professional-level no-code platform and understand its potential.
Jul 24, 2017 | By Benedict

Russian astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are preparing to launch Russias first 3D printed satellite into space. The Tomsk-TPU-120 satellite was sent to the ISS in March 2016, and will be deployed on August 17, 2017.

The world has changed a great deal since Russian scientists first prepared the Tomsk-TPU-120 satellite for its voyage to the ISS last year. Just think: when the sensor-packed, 300 x 100 x 100 mm satellite was being packed up for space flight in early 2016, had you even heard of Jared Kushner?

But that was then and this is now, and 2017 will finally see Russias first 3D printed satellite move from the ISS into space. Its had to wait for its opportunity though: scientists at Tomsk Polytechnic University thought the 3D printed CubeSat could be launched within six months of its arrival on the ISS; the time elapsed is now well over a year.

Thankfully, the university put out a press release today in which it specified the exact date on which the 3D printed satellite is expected to be launched.

On Monday, the satellites systems will be checked, and its batteries will be charged from the Station onboard equipment, the university said. The launch is scheduled for August 17.

The launch will be performed by Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergei Ryazansky, who will deploy the 3D printed vessel by hand from the exterior of the ISS. (A large handle is clearly visible on one side of the satellite.) Once the 3D printed satellite is orbiting, it will remain in space for between four and six months, before eventually being destroyed by the dense layers of the atmosphere.

An important part of the 3D printed Tomsk-TPU-120 project is its use of experimental materials. The satellite is being used to test research models for the Universitys Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science, and scientists will be able to monitor the satellites internal temperatures (including that of its battery) and electronic component parameters as it orbits.

This information will enable the scientists at Tomsk Polytechnic University to determine whether their chosen materials are suitable for future space missions.

When building the 3D printed satellite, the scientists had help from both the Energiya Aerospace Corporation and the Institute for Studies of the Physics of Strength and Material Engineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Siberia. Together, the three parties fitted the satellite with a 3D printed casing and 3D printed ceramic battery packs, making the device Russias first 3D printed satellite.

This collaboration followed the establishment of a Russian satellite-developing consortium dedicated to creating satellites weighing between 3 kg and 30 kg.

(Images: Tomsk Polytechnic University)

This is the first 3D printed satellite shell, showing that 3D printing technology has created a breakthrough for manufacturing small satellites, making them more massive and convenient, the scientists explained last year.

In May 2016, to mark the 120th anniversary of Tomsk Polytechnic University, the 3D printed Tomsk-TPU-120 was activated whilst aboard the ISS to transmit a greeting to people on Earth. A message, recorded by students at the university, was delivered in 11 languages: Russian, English, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Tatar, Kazakh, Hindi, and Spanish.

Russian space authorities are planning to launch two groups of small satellites into space in the course of the next two years. If the information gathered from the Tomsk-TPU-120 is positive, it is possible that these and future satellites could also be 3D printed.

The countrys engagement with additive manufacturing technologies in the aerospace sector mimics its work in other areas. Two weeks ago, Russias Russias Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov suggested that 3D printed aluminum wheels could benefit the countrys aluminum and automotive industries.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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by Michael Liss

Is American Democracy dying? For months, as I have watched the bizarre spectacle of the new Marshal in town and his posse, there's been a phrase rattling around in my headthe historian Allan Nevins' observation that "Democracy must be reborn in every generation."

For Nevins, the man who met the moment was Lincoln, who persevered through failure and terrible loss of life to lead "a new birth of freedom." For me and many of my generation, it was Watergatea crime met with the deliberative process leading to bipartisan consensus that a sitting President needed to resign. For others, it might have been the Reagan years and the restoration of American power, or the astonishing rise of Barack Obama.

What rebirth might this generation, marinating in the glory that is the Age of Trump, see that would reaffirm their faith in first principles?

For the moment, it's not coming from the Right. We have a Tweeter-in-Chief who demonstrates his policy chops by sending out 140 character jeremiads. A substance-free Speaker who practices posing three quarters' front with chin upraised, affecting a scholarly but manly demeanor. And a Senate Majority Leader who periodically emerges from whatever underwater den he schemes in to gum a little lettuce while spreading his own bilious joy. This is not a trio that inspires confidence.

Meanwhile, on Stage Left, La Resistance (sounds chic and tres Macron, n'est-ce pas?) bravely fights the good fight with banners and words and marchesbut without victories in Congressional Special Elections, or on cherished policies. And, besides a Democratic version of #nevertrump, without a coherent ideology.

Drama, poor judgment, and just malfeasance we have in abundance. The White House seems to be stocked with people who spend their time watching their backs. Most of the Executive Branch jobs that require Senatorial oversight are unfilled, either because of benign or malign neglect. The State Department is so understaffed that they are considering setting up a search party to find anyone who might know anything about foreign policyor just anyone who knows anything about anything.

It goes on. There's Russian meddling, a tragi-comedy in three acts. Trump meets privately and alone with "Friend of the Show" Vladimir Putin and Putin's translator. Donald Jr. had a chinwag with seven caviar salesmen bearing gifts of opposition research. Jay Sekulow, one of Dad's platoon of lawyers, does a "Full Ginsberg," appearing on all five Sunday talk shows, in each one showing his remarkable intellectual dexterity by seemingly claiming simultaneously that Senior has never met Junior, and if he had they would have never talked about the campaign, and if they had talked about the campaign, no laws were brokenbecause Jay Sekulow says so. I'm certainly satisfied. And, again, the Democrats chasing every thread as if it were catnip, and, again, taking their eyes off the ball. Please, boys and girls, I beg of you. This is why the Almighty invented Robert Mueller. Look to your own house first. It's not like you don't have work to do.

We can also check in on the Senate, where sly old Mitch McConnell is now experiencing a dose of John Boehner's private Hellwhen you insist on single-party, Parliamentary-style rule, then you empower even modestly-sized ideologically motivated factions to bring things to a screeching halt. Some of those factions might just be ornery, and some might even have good reasons for voting no, but a miss is as good as a mile here.

That's the box the GOP is in now on all its big policy initiatives: tax reform, cutbacks in entitlements, and most prominently, healthcare. Whatever compromises they are willing to make within their own caucus, they can't be seen cavorting with Democrats. In a perverse way, this incentivizes failure. It's almost better for them to lose on Obamacare and entitlement "reform" than to take responsibility for winning and the actual policy that follows. What some of them are beginning to realize is that Donald Trump managed a hostile takeover of the good old "money and morals" GOPbut the new elements that made that possible were already embedded. Ever since Obama's first election, the party's coalition has been moving towards an unwieldy linkage of the uber-wealthy who write the checks, Evangelicals, seniors who resist social change, hardline anti-government purists, and Trump's Blue-Collar Brigades. But a reckoning for the GOP is coming. Giving (as in tax cuts and regulatory goodies and state-sponsored religion) is easy. Taking (as in health insurance, Medicare and Social Security and literally hundreds of local programs) is hard. It was a heck of a lot easier when implementing ideology didn't involve fragging some of your own.

Should we let the Democrats off the hook? Well, it's probably good politics to allow the GOP to flounder, but I wonder if it's really wise. There is a subscript here: Winner-take-all legislating invariably leads to apathy, atrophy, and intellectual lazinessfor both parties. You stop thinking about the real-world implications of what you are doing, including disparate impacts on subsets of the electorate, and focus only on the intra-party mechanics of passing the billor opposing it. In short, you forget who you are working for and misunderstand even many of those who would be inclined to support you. Then, you lose them, maybe forever.

We Democrats (and I write this as someone who has, in his entire life, pulled the lever for a Republican at any level exactly once, for Mayor, and that with shaking hand) should be sensitive to this. The vandals may be tearing down the house, but we deserved it. The electorate wants solutions, and the perception is that our Party is so engrossed in finding the oppressed and reviled to represent that we have forgotten about the rest of America. Human rights and social justice are important and worthy causes. So are putting people back to work, rebuilding our infrastructure, and improving our schools. We can do both, and I think our heart is there. But every day that the "Democratic" story is only about a college campus turning back a controversial speaker, or a rejection of pro-life folks who want to make common cause with us on other issues, or a boycott of Wonder Woman because she's played by an Israeli, we lose.

The public is restless. For a generation, it has careened from Reaganism to Clintonism, Bushism, and Obamaism, eventually finding all wanting. In 2016, it threw up its collective hands and decided conventional politics and conventional politicians weren't working, and chose disruption. Democrats who foolishly take comfort in Hillary's popular vote margin miss the point47% of Americans voted for someone who is just as bad in reality as we expected. And many of those are sticking with him.

What's next? Something has to breaksomething that makes people take a step back and realize the gravity of the situation. There isn't a Deus ex machinaeven if Mueller were to find an entire arsenal of smoking guns, that would only leave you with a compromised Pence.

I would look at three words, irrelevance, isolation and fear. The Democratic Party needs to take its present irrelevance as a call to changeit should remember that the Whig Party went from control of the House and the Presidency to oblivion in less than a decade. But for Republicans, the issue is more complex. Many of them fear Trump's anger, his scorched-Earth media supporters, and his hordes. Being out front on something is an invitation to get hammered.

It may be that this last week has shown harbingers of change. Trump's rambling interview with the New York Times has unnerved many, both emotionally and intellectually. Many Republicans were shocked when Trump, quite forcefully, threw loyalist Jeff Sessions under the bus. Others were disturbed by his implied threats against Mueller. And his increasingly dissociative style of speaking raises genuine concerns about his capacity for the job.

Legislatively, McConnell's failure to move either of his health-care bills may have been the product of an emergent resistance to being bullied. For such a critical-to-the-GOP-DNA bill, there were an unusual number of Republican Senators unwilling to commit publicly. They were saved, first, when conservatives Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas jointly provided the 3rd and 4th no votes on the Repeal and Replace bill, and, thenwhen McConnell teed up a full, but deferred Repeal without a Replaceby three centrist Republican senators, Susan Collins (Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), who immediately said they would oppose any vote to proceed with immediate repeal without an alternative in place. If McConnell is going move legislation forward (especially now, with the hopefully temporary loss of John McCain) he's either going to need absolute party discipline, or he's going to have to do some reaching out.

But these are, at best, shoots of grass in a historic drought. It still returns us to the basic question, Is Democracy dying? Do we have it in us to reconnect? I think back to how I felt after the Supreme Court decided the 2000 Electionjobbed and excluded. I sent an email to a very conservative editor who, in the past, had been kind enough to print my letters in his newspaper and got back an unusually sensitive response. Paraphrasing, what he said that was that America did not belong to one group or one party, and that we would again choose our own destiny, our basic values intact.

I'm going to go with that for now.
School board, county commission and zoning meetings are this week

Here's a look at who's meeting this week and what's on the agenda.
CACI (NYSE:CACI) provides information solutions and services in support of national security missions and government transformation for Intelligence, Defense, and Federal Civilian customers. CACI is a member of the Fortune 1000 Largest Companies, the Russell 2000 Index, and the S&P SmallCap600 Index. CACIs sustained commitment to ethics and integrity defines its corporate culture and drives its success. With approximately 19,000 employees worldwide, CACI provides dynamic career opportunities for military veterans and industry professionals to support the nations most critical missions.


Quarterly Update and Appendix 4C

Sydney, July 24, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - DroneShield Ltd ( ASX:DRO ) ( DRSHF:OTCMKTS ) ("DroneShield" or the "Company") is pleased to provide the following update on its activities during the three-month period ended 30 June 2017 and its Appendix 4C quarterly cash flow report for the same period.



Key Developments



DroneShield made significant progress in the quarter to June 30, 2017. The key developments included the following.



- The Company launched DroneSentinel, a multi-sensor detection product, and DroneSentry, an integrated multi-sensor detect-and-defeat product.



o The introduction of DroneSentinel and DroneSentry has streamlined the Company's offerings into three key product lines - DroneSentinel, DroneSentry and DroneGun.



o DroneSentinel and DroneSentry consist of the following components - RadarOne (radar based drone detection), RFOne (radiofrequency based drone detection), DroneOpt and DroneHeat (optical and thermal cameras), WideAlert and FarAlert (the Company's legacy acoustic detection), DroneBeam (optical range extender and optical disruptor) and DroneCannon (fixed site jammer).



o Customers are able to select these detection and countermeasure modules as appropriate for their specifications and budget. By way of example, a customer may elect to include all six detection methods in its DroneSentinel product, or choose only two detection technologies (eg radar and acoustics) if they have a limited budget.



o The above components are also available as standalone products.



- The inclusion of these multiple detection methods makes DroneSentinel and DroneSentry the most comprehensive and diverse drone detection and mitigation solution globally. The Company is not aware of any other product which includes all of the detection methods described above.



- The Company made several sales in the quarter totalling $115,000, including a sale of its DroneGun tactical drone jammer product to the military of a G7 country through the Company's distributor. It is understood that this DroneGun will be deployed for testing in the Middle East. While the fact that the sale involved only one test unit means that the revenue from the sale is not material, the sale is important in that this is the first sale of DroneGun to the military of a G7 country. The sale illustrated the increased need for drone security systems globally and the increased acceptance of DroneShield as a leader in the industry, capable of delivering an immediate working and cost-effective solution to its end users, without the need for further development.



- The French military and other French government agencies continued their evaluation process for DroneGun, and certified DroneGun as compliant under the French military's Dangers des Rayonnements Electromagnetiques sur les Personnels ("DREP") test, which measures electromagnetic emission levels on human users. The test is part of the French defence procurement processes. It is also accepted by other European countries.



- DroneShield continued to conduct a number of demonstrations to various militaries globally, including a scheduled demonstration for the United States Department of Defense in September.



- The company exhibited at IFSEC, the largest security trade show in Europe, in June 2017. The conference attracts a number of high caliber distributors globally, which closely ties into DroneShield's distributor strategy. DroneShield has also attended the Counter UAS 2017 conference in London, alongside a number of international militaries focused on acquiring counterdrone solutions.



- The Company appointed Cassidy & Associates, Inc. ("Cassidy"), a pre-eminent Washington, DC government relations firm, whereby Cassidy will advise the Company on contracting with U.S. government agencies, contracts in connection with U.S. federal government budgetary allocations, as well as on other U.S. federal government relations matters.



o Cassidy is a leading bipartisan government relations firm with a particular focus on defence, and expertise in budgetary appropriations, federal procurement processes, and warfighter modernization programs.



o Cassidy's DroneShield advisory effort is headed by Cassidy's head of Defense practice Terry Paul, a retired U.S. Marine Corps General, who is best known in Washington for his experience as the Marine Corps liaison officer in the U.S. Senate, a post he held for an unprecedented ten years.



- The press continued its extensive coverage of DroneShield. Among many press reports on DroneShield were the following:



o DroneShield Unveils Security System for Detecting and Disabling Invasive Drones (Seeker, 10 July) (see link 1 below)



o Got a drone problem? DroneShield open orders for DroneSentry and DroneSentinel (NewsShooter, 5 July) (see link 2 below)



o DroneSentry jamming system open for orders (New Atlas, 5 July) (see link 3 below)



o DroneShield Opens Orders for DroneSentry and DroneSentinel (sUAS News, 5 July) (see link 4 below)



o DroneShield New Device Detects and Jams Rogue Drones (dronelife, 4 July) (see link 5 below)



o DroneGun Passes French Military DREP Standards (American Security Today, 16 June) (see link 6 below)



- The Company's U.S. subsidiary DroneShield, LLC employed Ryan M. Vervack as its Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Vervack has held management positions within multiple defense contractors. Prior DroneShield, he was the CTO for National Programs at CACI International Inc. ( NYSE:CACI ), a New York Stock Exchange-listed defence contractor with multi-billion dollar revenue and approximately US$3bn in market capitalisation. The National Programs division is CACI's government services group with annual revenues of approximately US$400m, and was acquired by CACI from L-3 Technologies in 2016 for approximately US$500m, with Mr. Vervack joining CACI as part of the acquisition. Mr. Vervack previous roles included senior positions with Lockheed Martin and Leica Geosystems. Mr. Vervack has a BS in Applied and Discrete Mathematics from irginia Tech, and an MS in Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia.



- DroneShield has been awarded two additional patents and one allowed application (expected to be shortly converted into an additional patent) by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patents relate to acoustic detection of drones.



- The Company conducted its first AGM in Sydney in April 2017, with a substantial shareholder support and all resolutions passing by a significant majority.



- DroneShield launched a new website (www.droneshield.com), as part of its continued focus on effective marketing to its global customers.



- DroneShield moved into new and larger premises in Vint Hill, Virginia, consolidating two existing U.S. sites into a single location. The new site allows for effective customer demos, with a dedicated control room simulating customer experience for the demos.



- The Company successfully completed a $1.25m Share Purchase Plan and Placement capital raising in June 2017.



- DroneShield ended the quarter with approximately $2.8m in cash.



- DroneShield's in-house and distributor salesforce continued to progress a large number of opportunities, with several orders in advanced stages, including participating in a number of government procurement processes, the outcome of which is expected be determined in calendar year 2017.



Environment



The overall global demand for drone detection and mitigation products continued to rapidly rise. For more information, please see

http://www.droneshield.com/press-coverage

http://twitter.com/DroneShield



Examples of recent relevant drone-related incidents and concerns, public statements by officials, and media coverage about relevant issues included the following (all in the last month alone).



- A high number of near misses with aircraft continue to be reported globally, with experts warning of deadly consequences in a collision. These included:



o A US Airforce F-22 Raptor pilot coming in for a landing barely avoided colliding with a drone.



o Medical helicopter at Sioux Falls (USA) reporting a near collision.



o Firefighting air tankers and helicopters being grounded twice in San Diego County due to drones flying in the fire area, with another drone operator in Arizona facing 14 felony charges over firefighting aircraft being grounded by a drone. Cal Fire (California fire department) alerted the public to the critical state of the problem with Tony Mecham (Cal Fire Chief) making a statement about drones hindering firefighting flights in California.



o Drone flying close to aircraft at Parafield Airport in in Adelaide.



o Dubai airport shutting down in several separate incidents, with reported cost of US$100,000/minute, and shutdowns lasting 30min to over an hour each.



o Gatwick Airport closing runway due to a drone. The UK's Airprox Board, which investigates air incidents, says there have been 33 reported cases of drones flying near aircraft in 2017 already.



o Airliner coming within 200ft of crashing into drone above County Durham (UK).



o Drone flying within meters of a Westpac Life Saver Rescue helicopter in Clovelly, Sydney.



- Ongoing multiple reports of drones delivering contraband into prisons continue, including reports at Erlestoke and Warrington in UK, South Carolina, with UK Police setting up a dedicated investigative squad for drone crime. According to a statement from the UK Ministry of Justice, there have been 35 arrests and 11 convictions to date of criminals "involved in drone activity".



- Australian drug cartel was reported to be using a drone to spy on the AFP.



- Royal Canadian Mounted Police warned the public about drones flying at Cavendish Beach Music Festival, following drone sightings recorded.



- ISIS continued to develop weaponised drones on significant scale and deploy them against the Iraqi and Western troops. A number of ISIS drone factories have been discovered, including the images below.



US and other militaries continue to express substantial concern over the use of drones both in the military zones and at home, with Gen. James Holmes, commander of Air Combat Command stating [in relation to a drone coming close to an immediate collision with an F-22 Raptor]: "Imagine a world where somebody flies a couple hundred of those [drones], and flies one down the intake of one of my F-22s with just a small weapon."



Performance Shares



As at 30 June 2017 45,000,000 Performance Shares are on issue. No performance share vesting or conversion milestones were met during the period, and no performance shares were redeemed during the period.



Cash Balance



As at 30 June 2017, DroneShield had a combined cash balance of $2.8m as outlined in the accompanying Appendix 4C (see the link below).



Links:



1. http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/O84D56K1

2. http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/RA7MN1J3

3. http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/18476WTI

4. http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/043CE1ZU

5. http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/91ZT2565

6. http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/106X0WRL



To view the report with Appendix 4C, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/C625R440





About DroneShield Ltd





DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO) (OTCMKTS:DRSHF) is an Australian publicly listed company with its head office in Sydney and teams in the US and UK. We specialise in RF sensing, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Sensor Fusion, Electronic Warfare, Rapid Prototyping and MIL-SPEC manufacturing.

Our capabilities are used to protect Military, Government, Law Enforcement, Critical Infrastructure, Commercial and VIPs throughout the world.

Through our team of primarily Australian based engineers - we offer customers bespoke solutions and off-the-shelf products designed to suit a variety of terrestrial, maritime or airborne platforms.

DroneShield is proudly exporting Australian capability to customers throughout the world and supporting Australia's defence, national security and other organisations protect people, critical infrastructure and vital assets.

.


Partners with RHB Securities Singapore

Perth, July 24, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Flexiroam Limited ( ASX:FRX ) is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Flexiroam Asia Limited ("Flexiroam") has signed a partnership agreement with RHB Securities Singapore (RHB).



RHB was established in 1987 and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RHB Investment Bank Berhad. As a long-established brokerage firm, RHB have a broad reach and offer a wide suite of financial products and services to their substantial client base.



Throughout the 6 month partnership, it is expected that as many as 1,000 Flexiroam X Starter Packs will be distributed to RHB trading account clients. During the period, RHB will circulate information on Flexiroam X through electronic direct mailing to their extensive client lists. RHB will also promote Flexiroam X offers during investor events, making the product available for redemption for new client signups. As part of the campaign, existing loyal RHB customers will also stand a chance to redeem the Flexiroam X starter packs.



The campaign is designed to benefit Flexiroam through accessing RHB's customer base and generating awareness of Flexiroam in this industry segment. Increased sales are anticipated through recurring data top-ups by new users. Many RHB customers are frequent travellers and stand to gain from this unique partnership, as they will be able to continue trading when they are overseas.



"This partnership with Flexiroam will allow RHB Securities to leverage on innovative technology to increase value for customers and expand our base. With Flexiroam X, our customers will have access to data roaming to trade online while they travel without having to pay exorbitant roaming charges" said Raymond Chin, Head of Retail Equities, RHB Securities.



Jef Ong, the Managing Director of Flexiroam, added "This is an exciting partnership as it is the first time an international data roaming provider has teamed up with a brokerage firm to provide data for their clients. It is a strategic move as Flexiroam stands to benefit from increasing in sales and visibility to potential investors. RHB is well established and can reach many new clients, while we can offer them free data roaming to form a strategic partnership. We hope that this partnership will spark more collaborations with other brokerage firms to provide their clients with affordable, borderless data roaming."





About Flexiroam Ltd





FLEXIROAM Limited (ASX:FRX) is a leading telecommunications company offering universal voice and data services for mobile users globally. Its flagship data roaming product, FLEXIROAM X has coverage in over 100 countries with 4G speed in over 56 countries. FLEXIROAM is an asset light telecommunications company that does not own physical infrastructure yet is able to connect to around 580 network operators globally. FLEXIROAM aspires to be a household name in borderless mobile broadband service in Asia and beyond. Please visit https://www.flexiroam.com
Acquisition of UltiSat Extends Speedcast Remote Communications Leadership into Government Sector



to acquire UtiliSat Inc and create new Govt division

Sydney, July 24, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Speedcast International Limited ( ASX:SDA ), the world's most trusted provider of highly reliable, fully managed, remote communication and IT solutions, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire UltiSat for a purchase consideration of up to USD100m, payable over 2 years and subject to the ongoing financial performance of the company. UltiSat is a leading provider of remote communications and professional services to governments, in particular the US Government, and to International Government Organizations (IGOs) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The acquisition strengthens Speedcast's position in the Government and NGO sectors, complementing Speedcast's government activities in Australia, Asia, Europe and Latin America.



"The acquisition of UltiSat extends Speedcast's position serving Government and NGO customers. UltiSat has built a really strong reputation providing remote communications and professional services to key customers, such as the U.S. Government and IGOs" said Speedcast CEO Pierre-Jean Beylier. "I am excited to have the UltiSat team joining Speedcast. Speedcast's scale, global network and unique support services capabilities will enable the combined Group to provide expanded services and coverage for UltiSat's customers around the world. Speedcast will also be able to leverage UltiSat's solutions and expertise to serve other governments globally with which Speedcast has existing relationships."



UltiSat CEO Mohammed G. Abutaleb will lead the newly-formed Government division at Speedcast that will be focused on providing communication solutions and professional services to Speedcast's and UltiSat's existing and new Government and IGO customers, as well as driving new growth in the nearly $5B market for government and military satellite communications.



"The UltiSat team is thrilled to join the Speedcast Group. Speedcast's scale and global capabilities will enable us to expand the portfolio of services we can offer to our customers and to pursue new opportunities. This is an exciting development for our employees and our customers and I look forward to taking our combined Government and IGO business to new heights over the years to come." said Mr. Abutaleb.



The transaction is expected to complete in Q4 2017 subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. Speedcast was advised by Goodwin Procter LLP and Deloitte Global. UltiSat was advised by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and Trinity Advisers".



Investor call:



Speedcast is hosting an investor call at 1pm AEST this afternoon regarding the transaction. To register, participants can dial either of the numbers below to join the call, and quote the Conference ID number 5895 0036.



Speedcast's half year results are currently being finalised and under review by its auditors, and will therefore not be discussed on this call. Further details will be provided when Speedcast announces its half year results on 29 August 2017.



International dial-in numbers:



Australia (toll-free): 1800 123 296

Australia (toll): +61 2 8038 5221

Canada: 1855 5616 766

China: 4001 203 085

Hong Kong: 800 908 865

India: 1800 3010 6141

Japan: 0120 477 087

New Zealand: 0800 452 782

Singapore: 800 616 2288

United Kingdom: 0808 234 0757

United States: 1855 293 1544



Conference ID: 5895 0036



To view the UtiliSat Inc Acquisition Presentation, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/5931GQK4





About Speedcast International Ltd





Speedcast International Ltd (ASX:SDA) is the world's most trusted communications and IT services provider, delivering critical communications solutions to the Maritime, Energy, Mining, Media, Telecom, Cruise, NGO, Government, and Enterprise sectors. With more satellite capacity than any other provider, Speedcast enables faster, seamless pole-to-pole coverage from a global hybrid satellite, fiber, cellular, microwave, MPLS, and IP transport network with direct access to public cloud platforms. The company also integrates differentiated technology offerings that provide smarter ways to communicate and distribute content, manage network and remote operations, protect and secure investments, and improve the crew and guest experience. With a passionate customer focus and a strong safety culture, Speedcast serves more than 3,200 customers in over 140 countries. Learn more at www.speedcast.com.


Quarterly Activities Report

Sydney, July 24, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Horizon Oil Ltd ( ASX:HZN ) ( HZNFF:OTCMKTS ) provides the Company's Quarterly Activities Report for the period ending 30 June, 2017.



HIGHLIGHTS



FINANCIAL



- Revenue lifts 5.9% to US$19.0 million for June quarter 2017 (inclusive of hedge settlements), compared to the prior quarter. This results from oil sales of 378,254 bbls at an average realised oil price of US$50.21/bbl.



- FY 2017 revenue of US$68.5 million and net annual operating cash flow (see Note 1 below) of US$51.7 million (see Note 2 below).



- Horizon Oil's free cash flow break-even price, inclusive of all capital expenditure, is US$33/bbl.



- Cash at 30 June 2017: US$24.5 million.



- Voluntary prepayment of US$5 million of subordinated debt and available senior debt facility capacity increased after scheduled facility redetermination.



- Net debt further reduced to US$108.5 million. Stable financial position, with steadily decreasing debt and increased liquidity availability.



- Continued rigorous management of exploration and development costs, with capital costs of US$1.1 million in quarter incurred to progress the Western LNG project in Papua New Guinea and Maari/Manaia production enhancements.



PRODUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT



- Strong, long-lived production profile in China and New Zealand buoyed by a strategic stake in large oil and gas development in PNG.



- Sales for quarter of 378,254 bbls (see Note 3 below) (including cost recovery oil entitlement), an 8.2% increase on prior quarter. FY 2017 sales of 1.4 mmbo.



- Production for quarter of 283,442 bbls, a 3.6% increase on prior quarter. Annual production of 1.1 mmbo.



- Net production rate for the quarter in excess of 4,000 bopd, including additional priority cost recovery oil entitlement in Block 22/12.



- Average cash operating costs for the quarter of US$9.54/bbl (sales) and US$12.12/bbl (production), compared with guidance of US$12-13/bbl.



- Overall Development Plan for the WZ 12-8E field in Beibu Gulf is well advanced, with final investment decision scheduled in Q4 2017.



- Strategic enhancement of asset base. Further expansion and balancing of Horizon Oil's Western Province, PNG gas/condensate resources base with acquisitions of an additional 3.15% interest in PRL 21 (Elevala/Tingu and Ketu fields) and a 20% interest in PRL 40 (Puk Puk and Douglas fields), the latter exchanged for a 20% interest in PRL 28 (Ubuntu).



CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER'S COMMENTS



The strong operational performance of Horizon Oil's assets in Block 22/12 (China) and Maari/Manaia field (New Zealand) has led to an 8% increase in sales to 378,254 bbls of oil, resulting in quarterly revenue of US$19.0 million, an increase of 5.9% from the prior quarter. The Company's revenue for the 2017 financial year was US$68.5 million.



With cash operating costs of approximately US$10/bbl sold, Horizon Oil's high gross margin and long life conventional oil fields continue to generate material free cash flow as demonstrated by improved net operating cash flow (see Note 4 below) of US$14.9 million for the quarter and approximately US$51.7 million (see Note 5 below) for the 2017 financial year.



This robust cash flow, particularly in the context of a free cash flow break-even price of US$33/bbl (see Note 6 below), enables the Company to comfortably maintain its debt reduction trajectory while progressing planning for the WZ 12-8E development in Block 22/12 in China with our partner CNOOC Limited. Because the development is incremental to existing production facilities and the mobile production platform will be leased, China field development costs will be comfortably funded from internally-generated cash flow.



In the last six months, Horizon Oil has successfully concluded a series of transactions which ensure that the Company is strategically positioned in each of the appraised gas fields composing the proposed Western LNG gas aggregation project in Western Province, Papua New Guinea. As a result, the Company has a material 28% interest in the aggregate gas/condensate resource and operates the core Elevala/Tingu and Ketu gas-condensate fields. Recent consolidation of ownership of gas condensate resources has also seen the entry of Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited, PNG's National Oil Company, indicating strong support for the commercialisation of Western province gas fields from the PNG Government.



Horizon Oil's project team made very good progress during the quarter on planning for the three key elements of Western LNG - the upstream processing facilities, the gas and condensate export pipelines to Daru Island and the modular liquefaction facility to be located near Daru.



Notes:



1. Net operating income after operating expenditure, excluding extraordinary items

2. Unaudited

3. Including Block 22/12 cost recovery oil entitlement

4. Net operating income after operating expenditure, excluding extraordinary items

5. Unaudited

6. Includes all capital expenditure



To view the full report with tables and figures, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/WT1FIP81





About Horizon Oil Ltd





Horizon Oil Limited (ASX:HZN) (OTCMKTS:HZNFF) is an ASX-listed petroleum exploration and production company, with a geographic focus on the Asia-Pacific region. The company currently produces over 4,000 barrels of oil per day net from its fields in New Zealand and China, which generated over US$80 million in net operating income after operating expense for the year ended 30 June 2015. Further development candidates remain in and around these producing fields.

Horizon Oil maintains prudent policies of oil price hedging and loss of production insurance to ensure that sufficient cash flow is generated to meet the funding requirements of its growth program.

The company holds a large undeveloped reserves and contingent resource position in Western Province, onshore Papua New Guinea. These are liquids-rich gas resources and reflect Horizon Oils strategy to focus on Asian gas for growth. Gas constitute about 2/3 of the reserves and resource base. Commercialisation pathways for the gas are emerging.

Although Horizon Oil anticipates continuing strong cash generation over the medium term from its existing producing fields, these developed reserves account for only 10% of total reserves and resource base. The focus going forward will be on new field development, funded largely from existing production cash flow.


Loch Lilly Drilling Underway

Sydney, July 24, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Argent Minerals Limited ( ASX:ARD ) (Argent, or the Company) is pleased to report that diamond drilling has commenced at the Loch Lilly - Kars Belt.



Highlights:



- Diamond drilling has commenced for the Loch Lilly programme.



- Testing of first target underway - Netley, to be followed by Eaglehawk target - each with a 500 metre hole.



- Drilling phase anticipated to be completed within a 3 to 4 week timeframe, subject to drilling conditions.



- Drill core logging and assay sampling processes streamlined with the work being performed at a nearby facility in Broken Hill.



- Maiden test of Loch Lilly - Kars Belt for mineralisation associated with geology analogous to western Tasmania Mount Read volcanics.



- 75% co-funded by NSW Government Cooperative Drilling Programme - awarded on technical merit and prospectivity as assessed by an independent expert panel.



- Argent to earn first 51% interest, with right to earn up to 90%.



The programme is the Company's maiden drill test of the Loch Lilly - Kars Belt, continuing on from the work performed by Anglo American Exploration (Australia) Pty Ltd (AngloAmerican) and Dr. Anthony Crawford in 2015.



Drilling has commenced at the Netley target, and will be followed by the Eaglehawk target, each with a 500 metre hole.



The Netley target is being drilled first to accommodate a recent request from a local landowner related to farming activities.



The drilling phase of the programme is expected to be completed within a three to four week period, subject to drilling conditions.



Drill core logging and sampling processes will be streamlined by conducting these activities at a facility in Broken Hill.



The Netley and Eaglehawk targets are two high priority targets of four identified by the AngloAmerican-Crawford team, following Dr. Crawford's analysis of the Loch Lilly - Kars Belt geology and prospectivity.



The in-depth analysis, conducted over approximately 10 years, concluded that the Loch Lilly - Kars Belt, located approximately 80 kilometres south of Broken Hill, is likely to be an extension of the Mount Read Volcanics Belt in western Tasmania, which hosts several world class mineral deposits.



These include Mt. Lyell, to date producing more than 62 tonnes of gold, 1.8 million tonnes of copper and 1,300 tonnes of silver (see Note 1 below), and major VHMS deposits at Rosebery, Que River and Hellyer featuring high grade silver, lead and zinc. The Mt. Read Volcanics Belt also includes the shear-hosted Henty gold mine, which has produced more than 1.5 million ounces of gold (see Note 2 below). Poorly exposed in western Victoria, the same broad belt hosts the Stawell gold mine that has produced more than 2.5 million ounces of gold (see Note 4 below).



A significant outcome of the analysis performed by Dr. Crawford, AngloAmerican, and more recently, Argent, is that the Loch Lilly - Kars Belt geology is prospective for volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) and porphyry copper-gold, with further prospectivity of Sedex silver-lead-zinc, nickel sulphide and sedimentary copper.



For further information about the Netley and Eaglehawk targets please refer to the following announcement made by the Company:



http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/XU2Q90U5



Under the Loch Lilly joint venture agreement with Dr. Crawford, Argent will earn 51% by completing the drilling programme. The programme is 75% co-funded by the New South Wales Government up to a maximum of $150,000 under its Cooperative Drilling Programme Round 2. The co-funding was awarded on the basis of an assessment performed by an independent expert panel that reviewed technical merit, project prospectivity, and the Company's track record in financial management.



Notes:



1. Mount Lyell historical production figures were obtained from the Copper Mines of Tasmania Pty Ltd (previously known as Mount Lyell Mining Company Limited) website http://www.cmt.com.au



2. The Henty Gold Mine historical production was obtained from Diversified Minerals Pty Ltd's statement to ABC News 16 January 2017.



4. The Stawell Gold Mine historical production was obtained from http://earthresources.vic.gov.au/earth-resources/victorias-earth-resources/minerals/prospectivity



To view figures, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/4X6N30OA





About Argent Minerals Limited





Argent Minerals Limited ( ASX:ARD) is an Australian publicly listed company with a 100% interest in a silver/gold project at Kempfield NSW. Work is underway on the preparation of an EIS and a feasibility study for the first stage of the project which will involve heap leaching some 8.8 million tonnes of mainly oxide and transitional material to produce over 9.5 million ounces of silver and 15,000 ounces of gold over a 5 year mine life. Argent is also earning up to a 70% interest in two other NSW projects - gold at West Wyalong and base metals at Sunny Corner.
BAE Systems has signed an agreement with the Goriziane Group SpA - an Italian company that specialises in the engineering and maintenance of vehicles and other heavy equipment - to support BAE Systems' highly mobile amphibious all-terrain armoured vehicle, the BvS10.





The agreement significantly builds on BAE Systems current relationship with Goriziane Group in support of the BV206, and calls for joint marketing and sales of the BvS10. The BvS10 is combat proven and designed to operate in difficult terrain while offering fully amphibious capability for littoral operations, making it capable of accessing some of the worlds most remote regions. The BvS10 is in service with an ever increasing number of European Union and NATO countries.



Our new, extended agreement with Goriziane Group further demonstrates BAE Systems commitment to work closely with industries in the countries we do business in to support government programs and local economies, said Tommy Gustafsson-Rask, general manager of BAE Systems Hagglunds, which produces the BvS10, as well the CV90 Infantry Fighting Vehicle, in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden. Goriziane Groups excellent record of producing high quality work has made it a trusted partner for years.



The BvS10 is the successor to the legacy BV206 all-terrain vehicle. More than 11,000 BV206s have operated in more than 40 countries over the last few decades. The Italian military is one of the largest users of the BV206 and BV206S vehicles. Leveraging the BV206s venerable design, the BvS10 offers improved mobility, better soldier protection, and lower life-cycle costs, leaving it well suited for the Italian Armed Forces mission profile.



We are pleased with the latest agreement with BAE Systems and see tremendous potential for the BvS10 in Italy and we will continue to perform the services we provide at the highest possible level, said Massimo Zanin, president of Goriziane Group.



Countries under contract to receive or are already operating the BvS10 include Austria, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
WASHINGTON, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Aerial firefighters continue to battle the huge Detwiler Fire, burning across much of Mariposa County, near California's iconic Yosemite National Park. To date, the fire has burned over 119 square miles, destroyed some 130 structures, and resulted in mass evacuations throughout the central California community. It is currently 40 percent contained.

"We were among the first to deploy air assets to the fire when it broke out on July 16," said Dan Snyder, the Missoula, Montana-headquartered company's Chief Operating Officer.

At the time, the BAe 146 was joined by one of the operator's four remaining legacy P2V Neptunes, flying under a US Forest Service (USFS) exclusive use contract. The P2V, which was working out of Fresno, has since been assigned elsewhere, Snyder explained. The BAe 146, however, continues to work the Detwiler Fire, under a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) exclusive use contract. "Under the contract, that tanker is considered a 'California State Asset," said Snyder. "It stays in California."

In fact, the BAe 146 tanker is currently averaging 10 to 12 missions per day, dropping fire retardant, not only on the Detwiler fire, but on others which continue to plague much of central and southern Californiasuch as the Whittier Fire near Santa Barbaraas directed by CAL FIRE. Snyder pointed out that thanks to its jet speed and endurance, it is also working on numerous unnamed fires, over a rough triangle bounded by Paso Robles, Fresno and Castle. The aircraft is supported by two mechanics in the field, and flown by a two-person flight crew.

Snyder added that this is the third year that Neptune Aviation Services has had one of its BAe 146 tankers under contract from CAL FIRE.

Also among the first responders with airborne assets, Rogers Helicopters has had a Bell 212 HP working on the Detwiler Fire out of Castle, California, under a USFS exclusive use contract. According to Robin Rogers, the Fresno-based company's Vice-President, the helicopter was deployed from the Stanislaus National Forest, starting with the initial attack phase on July 16.

"The helicopter had been flying about seven hours each day, and doing about 100 daily water drops, until heavy smoke conditions caused flying to be reduced," Rogers noted. "But it will remain on the fire until otherwise directed by the USFS."

Rogers Helicopters has also provided a fixed wing, twin engine Turbo Commander in an air traffic management role on the Detwiler Fire since July 19. Repositioned from the Sierra National Forest, and flying out of the Fresno Air Attack base, it carries an air attack officer, who coordinates the activities of the helicopters and fixed wing firefighting aircraft. "It flies over the fire and directs those assets to go where needed," Rogers said.

"California, and much of the West, are experiencing a late-starting, but explosive fire season, due to an abundance of dry vegetation, produced by heavy winter rains," said George Hill, Executive Director of the American Helicopter Services and Aerial Firefighting Association (AHSAFA). "As dry conditions continue to dominate much of the country, the modern fixed wing air tankers, and helicopters, operated by private industry, will be essential tools to combat increasingly devastating wildland fires, which have become a new normal."

Neptune Aviation Services and Rogers Helicopters are members of AHSAFA, the Washington-based trade association representing the privately operated aerial firefighting industry before federal agencies tasked with overseeing and managing government owned wildlands and natural resources.

Media Contact: George Hill, American Helicopter Services & Aerial Firefighting Association, 8016737324, ghill@ahsafa.org

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

SOURCE American Helicopter Services & Aerial Firefighting Association
Moreover, disregarding the highly intolerant atmosphere which is being generated in some quarters it is not evident that even if the science involved could approach the level of being definitive that it is anywhere near that at present. For example, three successive reports by Cochrane on the safety of MMR have declared [5,6,7]:

I read with concern Tom Moberly's report that the British Medical Association is trying to open a debate about mandating vaccines in the United Kingdom [1] having already made a number of relevant observations under an earlier article [2]. Most fundamentally, I would urge the medical establishment to exercise a little humility when today's scientific orthodoxy could so easily in retrospect become tomorrow's horrific misjudgement. It does not help when we see all vaccine critics dismissed by the Guardian newspaper or, by CEO of Gavi, in the Spectator in abusive terms as "anti-vaxxers" [3, 4], when it is far from clear that every issue in vaccine safety has been resolved - or that we can even begin to assess the risks while denying a respectful hearing to patients or their families, which pre-empts both evidence and argument in an inappropriate way. In my experience the most vociferous vaccine critics hitherto have not so much been people with an ideological objection to vaccination as people who had had their children vaccinated and regretted it. Such indiscriminate (scorched earth) strategies scarcely command the moral high ground.

which would indicate that the science has never been done (and some might consider it a bit late now). I also note the current complaint to the European Ombudsman regarding HPV vaccines and the European Medicines authority from Nordic Cochrane [8,9]. Though HPV vaccines may or may not be mandated the complaint partly relates to the uncertain science surrounding aluminium adjuvants which are also used in scheduled infant vaccines such as Infanrix Hexa [10], Prevenar [11] and Bexsero [12]. Yet this science is being publicly promoted as if infallible. There are surely lessons here from history. Meanwhile, it is far from apparent that Dr Farah Jameel who proposed the motion at the BMA had the remotest idea of these shortcomings [1].



Nor is it immediately obvious that the threat from infectious diseases has increased in any degree to justify such an abrupt change in policy (and in a way which could antagonise people presently much more well disposed to the vaccine programme than I might be myself). A greater problem which presently demands attention from health officials is the steep, unexplained rise in neurological disorders such as autism, which even now seem to be gathering dramatic momentum [13, 14, 15].

[1] Tom Moberly, 'UK doctors re-examine case for mandatory vaccination', BMJ 2017; 358 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j3414 (Published 18 July 2017)

[2] Rapid Responses to Peter Doshi, 'US government website for collecting adverse events after vaccination is inaccessible to most users', http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2449/rapid-responses

[3] Editorial: 'The Guardian view on vaccination: a matter of public health' , The Guardian 7 July 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/07/the-guardian-view-on-vaccinations-a-matter-of-public-health#_=_

[4] Seth Berkley, 'Anti-vaxxers have embraced social media; we paying for fake news with real lives' Spectator Health 28 June 2017, https://health.spectator.co.uk/anti-vaxxers-have-embraced-social-media-were-paying-for-fake-news-with-real-lives/

[5] Jefferson T, Price D, Demicheli V, Bianco E, 'Unintended events following immunization with MMR: a systematic review' 2003 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12922131

[6] Demicheli V, Jefferson T, Rivetti A, Price D., 'Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children', 2005 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16235361

[7] Demicheli V, Rivetti A, Debalini MG, Di Pietrantonj C, ''Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children', 2012.

[8] Stephane Foucart , http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2016/12/09/papillomavirus-les-autorites-europeennes-dans-la-tourmente_5046054_3244.html

[9] Gtzsche P, Jrgensen K, Jefferson J, Auken M , Brinth L, 'Complaint to the European ombudsman over maladministration at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in relation to the safety of the HPV vaccines', http://nordic.cochrane.org/sites/nordic.cochrane.org/files/public/uploads/ResearchHighlights/Complaint-to-ombudsman-over-EMA.pdf

[10] http://ca.gsk.com/media/537989/infanrix-hexa.pdf

[11] https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/22689#COMPOSITION

[12 ]http://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/28407/SPC/Bexsero+Meningococcal+Group+B+vaccine+for+injection+in+pre-filled+syringe/#COMPOSITION

[13] Helen McArdle, 'Call for investigation as 20 young Scots a day are rejected fro mental health care', Sunday Herald 20 December 2016, http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14975962.Call_for_investigation_as_20_young_Scots_a_day_rejected_for_mental_health_care/

[14] Brett Campbell, 'Autism assessment list now at crisis level, says MLA', 22 December 2016, http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/autism-assessment-waiting-lists-now-at-crisis-level-says-mla-35313064.html

[15] Jane Dreaper, 'Autism diagnoses 'could be reduced under NHS plan'', BBC News 27 May 2017, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40058482

July 2017

John Stone

UK Editor

AgeofAutism.com

London N22

The motion has been raised to look at the advantages and disadvantages of making childhood immunisation mandatory. I'd like to share some thoughts to help the discussions.



Our group JABS is a support group of parents of vaccine-damaged children and I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that doctors' children are not immune to vaccine damage. We have parents from many groups of the medical establishment (consultants, doctors, nurses etc) that have reported serious life-changing events following reactions to routine vaccinations. Some of the doctors have actually vaccinated their own children and now have to live with the consequences. We have asked some if they will speak out but they have told us of their fears for their reputations, promotion prospects even their final pension plans. I can understand this.



Parents have reported to us that their children were healthy and developing well and regardless of the age when vaccinated the children have suffered adverse reactions within the incubation periods of the vaccines and developed long-term problems also recognised by the manufacturers' in their own product information sheets. Treating physicians have been unable to give an alternative explanation for the children's medical decline other than it was coincidental to the vaccinations.



We have a strange double standards in operation. When a child is due for a vaccination medical staff are happy to discuss the minor reactions and state that they are very common but the serious reactions also known to the drug companies are supposedly so 'rare' that background prevalence of a disease is always the answer. Yet if a child were to have a vaccine preventable disease and suffer the exact same symptoms and long-term consequences medical staff would have no hesitation in blaming the disease and the parent for not vaccinating.



Where do medical staff get their information on how 'rare' a serious reaction is? The passive surveillance system is recognised as a poor collection service with less than 5-10 per cent of serious reactions being put forward through the yellow card system.



And those reactions that are put forward to the MHRA? In conversations with staff I have been told that if a card contains details of a reaction known to be associated with the vaccine, for example a febrile convulsion, it is just ticked off and no further action taken. There apparently is no follow-up six to 12 months later to determine if the child fully recovered from the reaction or if the child's health and mental state has seriously changed. I know this from personal experience.



Mandatory vaccinations were tried once before in the UK in the late 1800s. It did not go well. There was great hostility and considerable resistance and the plans had to be abandoned. There is no mandate in the UK for any government to impose compulsory vaccination. Without democratic consent such a policy would face escalating opposition.



You only need to see what is going on in Italy right now following government plans to pass laws quickly through its parliament, without public consultation, for mandatory vaccinations with threats of heavy fines, children to be excluded from nurseries, potential prison sentences for non-payers and the diabolical announcement that children could be forcibly removed from their parents and vaccinated.



Ever since the plans were announced, Italian people have been taking to the streets of their major cities each weekend in huge numbers (thousands and thousands) to peacefully protest against this attack on civil liberties. Is this really the way UK doctors want to take us?



And how could compulsory vaccinations be enforced? My son, who is severely vaccine-damaged, has had many hospital emergencies because of his conditions and from being a baby through infancy to adulthood every time we are in the A & E department bloods need to be taken and staff have told us many times over the years that they are not allowed to restrain our son. My husband and I are expected to hold and calm him whilst they draw blood. If you as a doctor are faced with parents who refuse to give consent and a distressed, screaming child who is thrashing their arms about and refuses to co-operate, how do you vaccinate the child safely? And how do you expect that child or the parents to ever trust you again?



Competing interests: Mother of MMR vaccine-damaged son



21 July 2017

Jackie Fletcher

Carer

JABS

Warrington, Cheshire UK








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An Ottawa elderly woman has been made a prisoner in her own home. This is apparently because the Ottawa Chief of Police Charles Bordeleau has his confederates don't want her to reveal the truth of her forcible confinement that has been sponsored by Ottawa Police management.



Ms D's son had launched a law suit against the Ottawa Police for criminal interference against the desire of his Mom and him to see each other. However, Ms D has been prevented from seeing her son by her abusive husband for more than two years with the hired help of apparent rogue / dirty cops.



It appears that these dirty cops fear the evidence of abuse which would be revealed by Ms. D and her son seeing each other again. They have not seen each other since 12 June 2015 when evidence of police-sponsored abuse against Ms D was self-evident.



Since that time, the Ottawa Police under the apparent auspices of the Office of Chief of Police have sought to keep Ms D away from her son or any would be whistleblowers who might reveal the complicity of the Ottawa Police in on-going human rights abuses against Ms D.



On 24 March 2017, Justice Macloed of the Superior Court of Justice in Ottawa urged Ms D husband's lawyer to allow a representative of Ms D's son to check on her well being to ensure she has not been held prisoner.



However Ms D's husband refused that judicial urging and continued to keep her under "lock and key". Ms D husband continued to be backed by apparent operatives of the Ottawa Chief of Police who seek to prevent Ms D from getting the truth out about her continued forcible confinement and neglect. Ms D. cannot escape the abuse because the abuse conducted under the auspicies of Ottawa Police management rendered Ms D profoundly disabled.



Ms D husband legal resistence to Ms D's son and whistleblowers seeing Ms D is being backed up by those operatives who have sadistically sponsored the abuse. The same culture which beat up Abdi to death also subjected Roxanne Carr to abuse in police custody. Sponsors of Ms D abuse have given money to Ms D's husband in support of his efforts in and out of court to thwart efforts of Ms D's son to uncover the Ottawa Police's complicity is abuse and corruption.



Most recently it was reported in the Ottawa Citizen that A former Ottawa woman has been awarded $255,000 in damages for a wrongful arrest in 2008 that left her with broken bones and later naked for hours in a jail cell during a false imprisonment by Ottawa police. This article elaborated,Superior Court Justice Sylvia Corthorn found Roxanne Carr, then 39, should never have been arrested on Aug. 23, 2008 as she sat on the steps of the home she shared with an ex-boyfriend who wanted her out. [watch the above video]



Human rights abuses are common very under Chief Bordeleau's command of the Ottawa Police who always seems to has an excuse for it as being legitimate.



One thing that rogue Ottawa Police officers apparently like to do is kidnap and dump homeless people outside of Ottawa in rural areas they say "just for fun - something to do!"



Ottawa police Chief Bordeleau has denied he's giving senior officers preferential treatment in deciding not to suspend three of them being investigated by Ontario Provincial Police.



CBC news reported that the allegations of possible obstruction of justice, fraud and evidence manipulation by three senior Ottawa police officers are so alarming that police Chief Charles Bordeleau asked an outside police force to look into it.



Yet, despite requesting the Ontario Provincial Police investigation, the three officers  with ranks of inspector and above  are still doing their regular work with no restrictions placed on them this report elaborated.



The Office of the Ottawa Chief of Police has sought to protect, defend and entrench a fifth column of apparent psychopaths who engage is on-going criminal misconduct with no accountabilty whatsoever. Indeed, the Office of Chief of Police has sought to do everything within his power to embolden these apparent criminals include those who preside over a House of Torture against a now helpless disabled woman in Kanata who has been subjected to neglect and abuse for more than 2 years.



There's no apparent hope for a culture of abuse and corruption to get any better within the Ottawa Police until the Chief of Police resigns in favour of a more ethical commander who respects the rights of women, the elderly, First Nations, visible minorities and the poor who are frequently also the targets of police abuse.



For now 825 days, since 20 April 2015, the Ottawa Police Services Elderly Abuse Unit have been maintaining their House of Torture against an elderly woman by forcing her to be subjected to an abusive husband while keeping her cut off from her son and others who have sought to help her.
An artist's rendering depicts The Clubhouse, a mixed-use apartment and office building, that will be located next to the Augusta GreenJackets' new stadium at Riverside Village in North Augusta.
Who Are the Groups Fighting in Syria?

Patches worn by Syrian opposition forces, clockwise from upper left: Syriac [Assyrian] Military Council (MFS), Syrian Self-Defense Forces, People's Protection Units (YPG) and Free Syrian Army, ( Molly Hennessy-Fiske/Los Angeles Times) Since Syria's civil war began six years ago, dozens of forces have been fighting to hold sway. Now many have united in eastern Syria against Islamic State with U.S. backing as the Syrian Democratic Forces, but they still wear the signature badges and insignia of their militias. The largest is the People's Protection Units, or YPG, and their female counterparts, the YPJ, about 25,000 strong, notable for their bright red and yellow patches, some of which feature the likeness of their Kurdish nationalist founder, Abdullah "Apo" Ocalan, imprisoned by Turkey for terrorism. Other forces fighting militants in eastern Syria include the Free Syrian Army, the Revolutionary Army, and the Syriac Military Council, or MFS. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF): An alliance of about 55,000 fighters, about half from Kurdish militias, fighting Islamic State with U.S. support. They are fighting to recapture the self-declared capital of Islamic State's "caliphate," Raqqah. But some have already said their focus is shifting southeast to the strategic city of Dair Alzour. Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces have been fighting there with Russian and Iranian support. It's unclear what position the U.S. will take should the SDF clash with the Syrian army and its allies. People's Protection Units (YPG): The largest militia in the Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG was founded as the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, which Turkish authorities have accused of being linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, considered a terrorist group by Turkey and the U.S. The PKK's founder, imprisoned by Turkey for life, is lionized by YPG fighters, who have posted Ocalan's image on street corners, squares, checkpoints, schools and offices. Many say they are fighting for his socialist vision of a world governed by a confederation of local councils. Women's Protection Units (YPJ): The female wing of the People's Protection Units, a Kurdish force inspired by Ocalan. His philosophy, detailed in a book "Jineology," is based on gender equity and the notion that a society's success rests on how well women are treated. In accordance with that philosophy, Kurdish paramilitary units and the local political councils they support are jointly run by male and female leaders. Women serve in combat and have died on the front line fighting Islamic State. They often wear floral scarves, as do male YPG fighters, and patterned socks. The Free Syrian Army: A U.S.-backed opposition militia fighting Islamic State as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, it has about a thousand fighters in Raqqah and 2,500 staging north of Dair Alzour, said Abu Imad, a commander in Raqqah. Syrian Self-Defense Forces: Drafted by Kurdish authorities to defend northern Syria, they are local, multiethnic troops. Those conscripted train for about a month with the YPG. Some young men attempt to avoid the draft by fleeing to Iraq and Syria. But if caught by the Asayish, or Kurdish police, they can be forced to serve. Syriac Military Council (MFS): A small militia with only a couple thousand fighters, many of them members of the Assyrian Christian minority in eastern Syria, the MFS has established a presence in west Raqqah and attracted volunteer fighters from America and other western countries, who said they have come to Syria to support Christians as a religious minority. Asayish, or Kurdish police: Charged with holding areas cleared of Islamic State, the Asayish often find themselves working with the military to root out sleeper cells and confront militants. Officer Haval Mirwan works in an area west of Raqqah wearing a patch that honors his 36-year-old brother, Bilind, left, and friend Navi Sheraman, 20. Both were Kurdish soldiers killed two years ago fighting Islamic State. Mirwan had left Syria for Germany at the time, but returned to fight. "I will not leave until Daesh is gone," he said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. This month, his officers caught a militant disguised as a woman milling with the afternoon crowd on a busy street in Mansoura, an area 10 miles west of Raqqah supposedly free of Islamic State for a month. He suspected the fighter was a spy, or had planned to attack. "Now that we caught him, maybe they will send somebody else to do an explosion," Mirwan said.
July 24, 2017

CAIRO  Satellite images taken July 10 and showing around 200 million cubic meters (almost 53 billion gallons) of water pooled at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) reservoir site have sparked controversy in Egypt amid fears that Ethiopia has started filling the reservoir. The Egyptian government, however, says the pooling water is due to construction and the 2017 seasonal Nile flooding.

On July 12, the Egyptian government stated that the water pools have no impact on Egypt's water quota. On the same day, Haytham Awad, the former head of the Irrigation Engineering and Hydraulics Department at Alexandria University, told Egyptian news outlets, After analyzing the newly acquired satellite images of the Renaissance Dam reservoir site, it appears that a small new lake is being formed over a surface around 16 square kilometers [10 square miles].

Awad told Al-Monitor that this quantity of water could be the beginning of a water-storage process or could be gone by the end of the flooding. If the former is true, The filling by Addis Ababa of the Renaissance Dam before the end of the neutral technical studies conducted by international consultancy firms would constitute a breach of Article V of the Agreement on the Declaration of Principles on the [GERD project] signed between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, he said.

He noted, The pooled water does not represent more than 1% of the Renaissance Dams lake [capacity] after completion of the dam. This lake will have a surface area of 1,680 square kilometers [1,044 square miles], and the reservoir would contain 74 billion cubic meters [19.5 trillion gallons] of water.

He said the quantity of the pool can be discharged in less than one day into the Blue Nile.

Egypts Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation spokesman Hossam Imam told Al-Monitor, Ethiopia is not filling the dam lake. The quantity of stored water will shrink when the Nile flood season ends in Ethiopias highlands. Imam stressed that the water is pooling for the first time around the dam due to the large amount of construction work and because the water quantities flowing to the Blue Nile have exceeded those currently discharged from the dams tunnels.

The anxiety comes in the context of stumbling technical negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia led by the National Tripartite Committee, composed of 12 experts from the three countries.

The French consultancy firms hired to conduct impact studies of the dam on Egypt and Sudan submitted an introductory technical report earlier this year, to diverging opinions among the three concerned states.

Cairo had expressed fear that the studies would never be completed. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry had told his Ethiopian counterpart, Workneh Gebeyehu, in a July 1 meeting on the sidelines of the African Union preparatory meetings in Addis Ababa that Egypt would be the most affected by the construction of the GERD if its concerns are not taken into consideration.

In a July 1 statement, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said, Shoukry assured his Ethiopian counterpart that the Declaration of Principles signed between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan clearly confirms the necessity of abiding by the results of the studies on the possible impacts of the dam on the two downstream states.

Abu Zeid also said Shoukry told Gebeyehu, Losing more time without conducting such studies at their specified dates would bring the three countries major challenges, and that political intervention would be necessary to put things in order to maintain ongoing technical cooperation.

Shoukry also repeated the request of the Egyptian Water Resources and Irrigation Ministry to his Ethiopian and Sudanese counterparts to hold an urgent ministerial meeting concerning the Tripartite Committee. The committee needs to issue instructions for moving forward on the introductory technical report, which it has yet to accept.

Abu Zeid further indicated that the Ethiopian foreign minister affirmed his country is committed to cooperating with Egypt to complete the tripartite technical negotiations and to finalize the studies on time, stressing Addis Ababas commitment to the 2015 Declaration of Principles.

Mona Omar, who was the assistant of the former Egyptian foreign minister for Africa and is currently the director of the African Center at the British University in Egypt, told Al-Monitor, There are no negotiations at the moment about the Renaissance Dam. The three countries are awaiting the impact assessment studies conducted by international consultancy firms. An introductory report by those firms was submitted a long time ago and has yet to be discussed, prompting Cairo to call for an urgent meeting of water ministers in Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.

Commenting on Ethiopias pledge not to fill the dam before the technical studies are complete, Ahmed Mufti, a Sudanese expert on international law who resigned from the first GERD international panel of experts formed in 2011 told Al-Monitor the outcomes of the studies are not binding for Ethiopia, according to the Declaration of Principles. There is no specific obligation for Ethiopia when it comes to the first filling of the dam, he said.

He confirmed that the National Tripartite Committee was expected to decide on three topics: the rules regulating the first filling of the dam, the annual operational rules and how to deal with the negative impacts. This committee has been around for four years and has yet to agree on any of those issues. This requires searching for an alternative for the technical committee negotiations, he added.

The Declaration of Principles signed between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia in March 2015 set a period of 15 months as of the start of the two studies recommended by the international panel of experts to complete the impact assessment studies on Egypt and Sudan.

The consultancy firms have yet to finish their studies. Their contracts ended in September and they had agreed to submit final reports within 11 months, but because of disagreements among the various parties involved, a timely conclusion appears unlikely.
July 21, 2017

CAIRO  Terrorists appear to be shifting their tactics in Egypt, not only aiming for highly visible civilian targets but also taking on higher-risk attacks.

After Egypts armed forces overthrew President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, in the wake of massive protests against him on June 30 of the same year, clashes spiked between the forces and terrorist groups in Sinai.

These clashes escalated when violence spread to the cities with a series of terrorist operations: the bombing of the Cairo Security Directorate building in 2014; the assassination of former Attorney General Hisham Barakat in 2015; the bomb explosion that hit Cairos St. Peter and St. Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in December; and the bloody April attacks on St. Mark's Church in Alexandria and St. George's Church in Tanta.

On July 7, new attacks seemed to make a quantum leap in daring, as terrorists targeted the outpost of an elite Egyptian commando force, the 103rd Thunderbolt Battalion (al-Saaka), in the southern Rafah village of el-Barth in Sinai. In a statement the same day, an Islamic State (IS) splinter group in Sinai claimed responsibility for ambushing the battalion.

The attack began when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into an Egyptian army checkpoint in the border town of Rafah. Militants started shooting at soldiers, killing at least 15 members of the battalion and injuring 11 others. The battalion, however, immediately retaliated, killing 40 of the group's fighters and destroying six of its vehicles.

The 103rd Thunderbolt Battalion is one of the Egyptian army's most renowned units, ever since its members participated in Fighting Group No. 39 in the War of Attrition (1968-1970) against Israeli forces in Sinai. They also fought in the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, during which their commander, Ibrahim al-Rifai, was killed.

Given this battalions outstanding achievements, it detached from the infantry division and the traditional Thunderbolt force to become directly subordinated to military intelligence and the republic's presidency. Its members take on the most difficult military tasks. The battalion played a major role in the fight against terrorism by deploying to Sinai to raid several criminal and terrorist outposts in the peninsula. Since 2013 it has eliminated a large number of militants.

The assault on the 103rd Thunderbolt Battalion was the first time such groups have targeted a specific battalion, and it might suggest that terrorist operations in Sinai will no longer be limited to ambushing police patrols.

Gen. Hisham al-Halabi, a military adviser at Egypt's Nasser Military Sciences Academy, told Al-Monitor, The terrorist operation against the 103rd Battalion does not mean that militants will be launching qualitative operations from now on against Egypts armed forces or in Sinai in general. Terrorist organizations are not state or regular forces, [which] have a specific strategy. These are a group of gangs acting according to the circumstances and the information available to them. For example, if these organizations feel that military points are well secured, they will attack civilians in Sinai; if they sense tight control at the entrances and exits of villages and cities to protect civilians, there they would attack government facilities; and when these facilities are well protected, they attack tourists or churches.

He added, Terrorist members are just a group of mercenaries living on the support and financing of foreign intelligence agencies such as Qatar's." The recent operations, including the assault on the 103rd Battalion, represent an "attempt to keep this support and funding," he said, since such support is at risk following the Egyptian-Gulf ban on Qatar. Egypt  along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain  accuses Qatar of financing extremists, which Doha denies.

That kind of motivation, however, is no substitute for a strong strategy, he said.

The desire to keep the support and financing flowing at any price prompted terrorist organizations to embark on reckless operations that resulted in more losses than gains, as happened in the assault on the 103rd Battalion, due to the battalion's preparation and training.  If these operations turn into a continued pattern, terrorists will suffer more losses, especially as the armed forces are more than ever resolved to avenge their comrades," Halabi said.

Retired Col. Khaled Okasha, director of the National Center for Security Studies, told Al-Monitor, Although the operation appears to be somewhat qualitative, given that it targeted the 103rd Battalion and was carried out with professional tactics, it is clear that it was not planned like other [such] operations executed in Egyptian cities, such as the attack on the Cairo Security Directorate and on several churches. [The terrorists] did not thoroughly assess the battalion's strong capabilities compared with their own, despite the professionalism and skills they had in using arms and car bombs, as evidenced by the high number of casualties registered among the ranks of the terrorist group.

Okasha explained, This operation is a mere attempt by terrorists to reshuffle their cards by confusing the armed forces. The army had, between February and April 2017, succeeded in clearing most terrorist strongholds in Jabal al-Halal. This may also be an attempted revenge, since the 103rd Battalion played a major role in the clearing operation, and terrorists assassinated Col. Rami Hassanein, the commander of this battalion.

Maj. Gen. Fouad Allam, deputy of the State Security Service, also believes such attacks are reactionary.

Qualitative operations are a characteristic of specific periods when terrorist organizations see their activities subject to an increasingly tight security grip. In light of the intensified crackdown on terrorism in Sinai, [such] terrorist operations are now being executed in cities, targeting churches and tourists," he told Al-Monitor.

However, the pendulum will swing back as security forces secure churches and ensure the safety of tourists, he said. Terrorist organizations will once again try to ensure a strong foothold in Sinai "by waging such ferocious qualitative operations, which are likely to become even more brutal," he said. But such operations "aren't a sign of victory or advance," but rather indicate a setback as the attackers are driven out of one venue and forced to adapt to another.
July 24, 2017

SHIRQAT, Iraq  A village retaken by the Islamic State (IS) in the southern part of Mosuls Ninevah province in early July has been clawed back after weeks of fighting and a SWAT team being called in from another province.

The village of Imam Gharbi was cleared after "at least 10" coalition airstrikes, officers involved in the battle told Al-Monitor.

On a July 15 visit to the nearby front line, several officers told Al-Monitor that their requests for airstrikes had to travel a circuitous route: first to the regional operations command and then Baghdad, and then on to the coalition forces at the nearby Qayyarah air base.

Lt. Col. Kareem Aboud Alaw, the commander of the Salah Ad-Din SWAT team called in to assist in the operations, noted that IS had exploited a "gap" in security near the river and had managed to take back an area measuring about "3 kilometers by one and a half."

He said that all of the security forces on the ground  namely the 50th Brigade in the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), backed by the 9th Armored Division of the Iraqi army  were new. "They had only been there a few days" and didnt know the terrain well, he said, adding that the Iraqi army and local tribal fighters had previously been responsible for the area.

Imam Gharbi and a few buildings of a nearby village in the southern Ninevah province were taken "during the night of July 3-4," Alaw told Al-Monitor. "We were called in to help two days later."

After about two weeks back under IS control, the village was retaken late on July 20 by a combination of emergency forces from the Ninevah and Salah Ad-Din regional operations commands, the SWAT team and local tribal fighters, the SWAT team's First Lt. Qusay told Al-Monitor.

He said that "40 to 50 IS fighters were involved in the battle" and that "28 to 30" had been killed. The rest had returned to the part of Shirqat still under IS control on the other side of the river, where the city of Hawija is located.

The village of Imam Gharbi had repeatedly been said to have been cleared prior to this date, but during Al-Monitors visit on July 15 there was still significant terrain to be regained and a key highway between Shirqat and Qayyarah  the site of an air base used by the international anti-IS coalition  was still cut.

The bodies of two local journalists were also still lying where they had fallen after being hit by IS snipers, as recovering them was too dangerous. Other local journalists who had traveled with them had to be rescued by the SWAT team.

The surprise attack on the village near the western bank of the Tigris slightly north of the flashpoint town of Shirqat occurred a few days before victory was announced in Mosul. Since the attack, IS forces "have been concentrated in Imam Gharbi and there have been very few attacks in Shirqat," one SWAT officer at the front told Al-Monitor.

Meanwhile, rumors had abounded in the capital that the Shiite PMU had been responsible for gains in the Sunni village of Imam Gharbi, but everyone Al-Monitor spoke to on the ground there denied that they were even in the area. Nevertheless, weathered, bright yellow "Ya Hussein" (a reference to the historical religious figure revered by the Shiites) flags are hoisted high at many checkpoints in the area "out of respect for their help in liberating the area" prior to the current attack, one resident said.

The road running out of Shirqat northward toward Imam Gharbi passes grain silos with the faded visage of Saddam Hussein still visible on their side on the left and the Tigris on the right, with IS still holding the other side of the river.

Hawija  where many IS fighters from the Kirkuk and Diyala areas went after their areas were reclaimed by Iraqi forces and from which a major attack was launched last autumn on the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in Iraqs disputed territories  will likely receive attention only after Tal Afar is retaken from IS.

Qusay noted that several important IS figures had come from Imam Gharbi and that it had been a stronghold of insurgents even before the current war. The Salah Ad-Din SWAT team had been called in for their training by US forces, he said. "The fighters knew the area well, and they expected the locals to support them."

He added that the proximity of the area to desert terrain to the west meant IS expected to be able to get fighters and weapons in through vast tracts of land difficult for Iraqi security forces to monitor.

The fact that the area is near Qayyarah Air Field West, which is key to the Mosul operations, and some 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Mosul but only 7 kilometers (4 miles) from the village, was also likely a major strategic reason for IS to try to gain ground in the area.

The IS attack and Iraqi forces' subsequent difficulty in recovering the territory indicate what sort of risks may lie ahead for the fight for areas outside of Mosul still held by the group.
July 24, 2017

A Jordanian citizen used a screwdriver to attack a security guard July 23 at the Israeli Embassy in Amman. The guard shot and killed him. Another Jordanian was killed as well, hit by a stray bullet. Two days earlier, Omar al-Abed, a Palestinian from Kubar, penetrated the adjacent Israeli settlement of Halamish, entered a home, and stabbed and killed a grandfather and his adult son and daughter. Five children hid in a second-floor room until a neighbor arrived and shot the intruder. That same day, four Palestinians were killed in rioting over the Temple Mount, known as Haram al-Sharif to Muslims. East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank had reached a boiling point. For the first time in a long time, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets to demonstrate and vent their rage at the symbols of Israeli rule.

All of this stems from the metal detectors installed at the entrance to the Haram al-Sharif compound after the July 14 terrorist attack there. After two years of hard work, Israel had suppressed a wave of knife and other individual attacks that began in September 2015. The ensuing quiet was erased in a week.

The current round of violence lacks two major restraining factors that usually tend to lower the flames. The first is a responsible and energetic US administration familiar with the situation and reacting to such circumstances from almost the first moment by mediating between the parties. The second is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

One question asked with increasing frequency is whether Netanyahu is intentionally delaying the removal of the metal detectors in an effort to sustain tensions and divert Israeli public and media attention from the wave of police investigations into his affairs. On July 20, Miki Ganor, who served as the intermediary between Israel and the German's Thyssenkrupp for a sale of submarines, signed a deal and turned into a state witness in one of the investigations. A vociferous public outcry is expected during the impending parade of defendants and others incriminated by his testimony. There is not yet any indication that Netanyahu will be implicated, but his most intimate confidants, including attorney David Shimron, are in up to their necks.

Is it possible that Netanyahu has lost his moderate edge and his aversion to security adventurism because, among other things, he feels under siege by the investigations? The situation is complicated, and opinions are divided.

One component playing a major role in Netanyahu moving ever further right on issues pertaining to the Temple Mount is competition among the Israeli right over Knesset seats and popularity. Netanyahu is trapped by HaBayit HaYehudi head Naftali Bennett and by many of his own Likud ministers, who are calling for him not to concede. They insist that he leave the metal detectors in place.

Netanyahu tries never to allow Bennett to position himself to his right under any circumstances, but this makes it hard for him to be decisive. The decision to install the metal detectors was rushed, made right before Netanyahu flew to Paris July 15, and without Cabinet discussion and without bringing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet into the picture. Had Netanyahu listened to Shin Bet or the military, he might well have heard that installing the detectors could reignite the individual intifada and unite the Arab and Islamic world in support of the Palestinians, which had not happened in a very long time. Netanyahu did not consult with them, and that is exactly what he got.

The IDF reports that the level of aggressive posts on social networks is unlike anything they have seen in years. The two greatest nemeses in the region, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas' political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, were pushed into each other's arms. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quick to join the party, and huge demonstrations took place in Jordan, where the Muslim Brotherhood is strong.

The Israeli Cabinet met on the night of July 23-24 in an effort to avoid serious public repercussions. That is also when the attack in Jordan occurred. The story is becoming reminiscent of Mossad's 1997 botched assassination plot against Hamas' political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal in Jordan. Once it was uncovered, the new prime minister, Netanyahu, was forced to save Meshaal's life, release Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from prison and plead with King Hussein of Jordan to forgive him.

It is quite possible that the current incident will help Netanyahu get off his high horse with some sort of deal along the lines of the Israeli security guard in exchange for the metal detectors. Meanwhile, the embassy staff in Amman is under siege. The Jordanians want to interrogate the guard, but the Israelis are refusing. Abbas has announced the cessation of security coordination with Israel, and throngs of Palestinians gather for prayers every evening at the Lion's Gate, outside the Temple Mount compound, while violent demonstrations take place elsewhere.

Adding to all these problems is the emerging tension between Israel's defense establishment and the political leadership. In all matters pertaining to the Temple Mount, Netanyahu has deferred to advice from the police, ignoring the security establishment. The problem is that the police lack a broad perspective. They are less involved in what is taking place in the West Bank, less interested in the geopolitical situation. Netanyahu now finds himself pitted against the IDF and Shin Bet.

Two years of laborious work, which is being studied in the West, has been cast into oblivion. The IDF and Shin Bet developed a series of algorithms to patrol social networks and identify potential attacks with a very high degree of certainty. Vast resources and effort were invested on the ground as well, in creative, sometimes circuitous ways. Under the leadership of the IDF chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, and Defense Ministers Moshe Ya'alon and Avigdor Liberman, Israel was able to keep most of the Palestinian population out of the conflict without affecting their quality of life, freedom of movement or ability to obtain the necessary permits to work in Israel. This led to victory over the intifada of individuals. It is also why it is so frustrating to see it all erased by the current eruption of violence.

About an hour and 40 minutes before the Halamish attack, Abed posted his last will and testament on his Facebook page along with notification of his impending attack. In theory, Israel's security forces should have quickly targeted the post. The IDF and Shin Bet should have caught Abed before he had a chance to vent his rage. The smart, sophisticated systems developed by Israel are not airtight after all.

Now Israel is trying to learn how Abed slipped through their fingers, and how three Israeli Arabs did the same on their way to the July 14 attack. Meanwhile, the genie has been let out of his bottle and is wreaking havoc. Israel is praying that it will not ignite the entire region. It is hoping for a responsible adult to arrive and restore calm. There is currently no one on the horizon who fits that description.
July 24, 2017

Three Palestinians were killed July 21 during clashes with Israeli security forces over the placement of metal detectors at the entrance of the Temple Mount compound. On the same day, three Israelis were killed at the Halamish West Bank settlement by a Palestinian assailant. After these bloody events in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority (PA) informed Israel that it is freezing all ties until the metal detectors are removed. Immediately after this announcement, however, a Palestinian security official told Al-Monitor that security coordination would remain in place, since it was necessary for both parties to restore calm. But as the hours and days passed, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas came under increasing pressure, and his tone changed accordingly.

Palestinian sources told Al-Monitor July 23 that they have received explicit instructions from Abbas to cease all ties with Israel, including security coordination. At the same time, however, Abbas approved contacts between lower levels of the Palestinian security apparatus and their Israeli counterparts "in extreme cases." What exactly constitutes an "extreme case" remains unclear.

When the individual intifada erupted in September 2015, Abbas came under heavy pressure to cancel security coordination with Israel. At the time, the argument was that the security coordination serves Israel's security interests only, while abandoning the Palestinians. When the Palestinian presidents opponents accused him of collaboration with Israel, he insisted that security coordination was "sacred" and ordered the arrest of any Palestinian suspected of planning to attack Israelis. Senior officers in the Palestinian security apparatus even organized seminars in high schools to prevent young people from choosing the path of violence and in an effort to restore hope that nonviolent means could lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was pleased with Abbas' commitment to security coordination with Israel. A senior officer in the Central Command told the press as early as July 2015 that he cannot remember any other Arab leader who spoke out like Abbas did by stating decisively that "his way is not the way of violence."

Two years have passed since then, and it looks like security coordination is no longer as sacrosanct to the Palestinians as it used to be. Meanwhile, the Israelis are relaying the message that it is business as usual. "That is their decision. It is not like the security coordination is an Israeli need," said Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in response to the cutting of ties. "It's a Palestinian need first and foremost. If they want it, they'll continue [coordination], if not, they won't. We don't intend to chase after them over it or force the issue. Well manage either way."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli security source told Al-Monitor that it is unclear how long this cessation of security coordination will last, adding that it could be a tactical measure by Abbas to reduce public pressure on him. "Nevertheless," he continued, "it is perfectly clear that the mood in the West Bank now is very different from the mood just before the wave of terrorism erupted in autumn 2015. All of our sensors are buzzing, telling us that something is happening  that it isn't good and that the explosion could happen at any moment."

According to that same source, many factors impact the situation, including economic distress and the lack of hope sensed by the younger generation, which is losing confidence that the situation will change anytime soon. "When we add the level of incitement and hatred, the picture that emerges is not very encouraging. It looks like we are on the verge of another intifada," he said.

One expression of the concern that a new wave of violence could erupt can be found in comments by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot during a visit to the IDF's induction office on July 23. He said that when we compare what is happening now to the last wave of terrorism, in September 2015, what we are witnessing is "something different." IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis explained that the "something different" is "the impact of the religious motif on the Palestinian street, which legitimizes acts of terror."

In a conversation with Al-Monitor, however, a Palestinian security source utterly rejected claims that growing religious extremism is the primary motivator to the rage felt by young people. Nevertheless, he did admit that he does not remember seeing anything like the current pressure placed on the PA or the tense mood throughout the West Bank as a result of the recent events at Al-Aqsa Mosque since the second intifada (2000-2005).

"What happened at Al-Aqsa Mosque is the straw that broke the camel's back. Still not everyone who was outraged by Israel's actions in al-Quds [Jerusalem] is responding out of pure religious motivation. Many are responding to the overall feeling that there isn't a single place left that the Israelis haven't touched and desecrated," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. He also claimed that the measures that Israel is currently taking in Jerusalem and the West Bank leave no window for hope. He noted that Israel is doing whatever it wants, without taking into consideration that there is another side, which also has something to say in the matter.

The source made it clear that the situation had reached the point that if Abbas had not taken what he considers to be dramatic steps (suspending ties with Israel), he would have been putting various key officials throughout the PA at risk, including himself. Israel knows that the members of the Palestinian security forces have come under intense pressure over the past few years, leaving them caught between a rock and a hard place. They are obligated to follow the explicit instructions of Abbas to maintain their commitment to security coordination, but at the same time they feel as if they are acting against their conscience. Given this background, Abbas has been forced to declare the cessation of security coordination with Israel. In a meeting with scientists at the Muqata (seat of the Palestinian government) on July 23, Abbas said that the decision was difficult but necessary.

"The PA is fighting against terrorism and violence. Israel wants to fight terrorism and relies on us for that, but it is not keeping its side of the bargain. If Israel wants security coordination to continue, it must retract its decisions concerning Al-Aqsa," Abbas said.

The same Palestinian source explained that Abbas sent a very big hint to Israelis. If Israel would have coordinated security arrangements at Al-Aqsa Mosque with the PA, as it has been doing effectively in the West Bank for years, things would have looked different now.
Hot Chicken Kitchen Nashville Style may have closed this month, but another restaurant serving spicy chicken will open soon in Huntsville.

Big Shake's Hot Chicken & Fish will launch next to Salon de Juis in a 6,300-square-foot shopping center on 671 Martin Road near the intersection of Martin Road and Zierdt Road. It will be the eatery's first Alabama location.

The business, which has two locations in Franklin, Tenn., closed its Kentucky restaurant in March following a legal battle, according to The Lexington Herald Leader. The concept was originated by celebrity chef Shawn Davis, also known as Chef Big Shake.

A sneak peek of the new Huntsville menu is available on the Big Shake's website. Features include chicken plates, shrimp burgers, deep fried Oreos and family-style meals.

Big Shake's is still hiring staff for the new restaurant. Click here to apply.

AL.com has contacted Big Shake's for more details.

Hot Chicken Kitchen Nashville Style, open on 1591 Hughes Road in Madison since 2016, closed to the public in early July. The fast-casual concept specialized in Nashville-style hot chicken tenders and sandwiches.

Hot Chicken Kitchen in Madison was founded by Huntsville native and restaurateur Alan Thompson, who helped grow Gigi's Cupcakes to more than 100 units. A news release from December said he recently sold to a private equity firm from Texas.
Ashley Mac's, a cafe and takeout business with three locations in suburban Birmingham, plans to open its first downtown location in the former home of a famous old Magic City restaurant.

The cafe will move into the former La Paree restaurant space at 2013 Fifth Ave. North, Ashley Mac's co-founder and co-owner Ashley McMakin told AL.com this afternoon.

"Being a Birmingham native, it's great to see downtown reviving," McMakin said. "We are excited to be a part of the Birmingham food scene - especially downtown, as it's kind of booming down there."

The La Paree space has been vacant since that restaurant closed in 2003. It opened in the 1940s, and was once a popular breakfast and lunch spot for downtown office workers.

Earlier this summer, the Caribbean restaurant Miami Fusion Cafe opened in the former Cameo Cafe space next door to La Paree. That space also had been vacant for several years.

Construction on the new downtown Ashley Mac's should begin within the next couple of weeks and the target date for opening is late fall, McMakin said.

The restaurant should accommodate about 100 guests, she said.

"We will have a little patio, so we will have some outdoor seating, too" McMakin said.

The cafe, which will mainly cater to the downtown lunch crowd, will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, she said.

The Ashley Mac's menu features sandwiches, salads and side dishes, including chicken salad, pimento cheese, grilled chicken and ham-and-Swiss.

The "gourmet-to-go" menu also includes take-home appetizers, entrees, casseroles, salads and desserts, including Ashley Mac's famous strawberry cake.

McMakin and her husband and co-owner Andy McMakin started Ashley Mac's as a catering business about 10 years ago, and their business has since grown to include Ashley Mac's cafes in Cahaba Heights, Inverness and Riverchase.
A 108-year-old retired elementary school teacher was remembered last week for her 41-year career in Elmore County's public school system.

Clarissa Black Lee first graduated from Alabama State University in 1931 and was considered the oldest known alumna at the time of her death. Lee died on July 17 in Macon County.

Lee earned three degrees from Alabama State University, which included an associate's degree in 1931, her bachelor's degree in 1950 and her master's degree in 1957.

Lee's association with ASU actually began long before her enrollment in the Alabama State Teachers College - then ASU. As a young person,

Before college, she was a student at the Lincoln Normal School in Marion, Ala., which is the founding school of Alabama State University. ASU just celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding in Marion on July 17.

Lee last visited the ASU campus one year ago this week - on July 27, 2016 - and was welcomed by students, faculty, staff and administrators. "She spoke of her love for Alabama State University and about her excitement to be able to return to campus," according to a statement released by the university. "She was sharp, energetic, and full of the 'Hornet Nation' spirit."

Lee was a lifelong member of Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Tuskegee, where her funeral was held on July 22.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama announced today that Randall Marshall will be its new executive director.

Marshall, who had been serving as acting executive director, was chosen after a nationwide search, board President Mark Lester said.

Marshall replaces Susan Watson, who died in December.

Marshall has been a legal director for the ACLU of Alabama for four years and held the same position in Florida for 13 years.

Before that, Marshall worked in employment and civil rights law for the Texas Rural Legal Aid Farm Worker Program and Advocates for Basic Legal Equality. He has been licensed to practice law for 35 years.

"Randall's passion and commitment to the ACLU and its mission is unmatched. He has set the tone for the organization over the last several months, and we are excited to continue expanding our work in Alabama under his leadership," JaTaune Bosby, Director of Development, said in a press release.

At the ACLU of Alabama, Marshall has brought litigation on LGBTQ rights, policies that have led to prison overcrowding, freedom of speech and religion and ensuring access to abortion, the news release said.

"I am honored to accept this position and look forward to leading the ACLU of Alabama in the continuing struggle to protect our civil liberties," Marshall said in the press release. "Now more than ever, the work we do is important to ensure our democracy is strong and vital."
An investigation is underway after a state prison inmate was found dead in cell over the weekend.

Alabama Department of Corrections officials identified the inmate as Joseph Michael Wood. He was 33.

St. Clair Correctional Facility officers found Wood unresponsive about 2:15 p.m. Saturday during a security check of the facility. Wood was alone in a two-person cell and lying on the floor unconscious.

A prison nurse was brought in to treat the inmate, but he was already dead.

Prison officials said there were no visible stab wounds on the body and the cause of death will be determined by the county coroner. Officials placed the facility on lockdown while the ADOC investigates the death. The department is not releasing additional details at this time pending the investigation.

Wood was serving a life-sentence on a 2011 first-degree robbery conviction in Houston County. A second inmate, who was assigned to the cell with Wood, is being questioned.
The long-discussed plan could see most of Gazas population end up in Sinai, alongside millions of Palestinian refugees.

Gaza has been the focus of intense talks behind closed doors in recent weeks as disquiet has risen among Arab states at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the coastal enclave.

Palestinians there are enduring a scorching summer with barely a few hours of power a day, after Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian Authority (PA) has refused to finance essential services. Abbas is trying to weaken his Hamas rivals who rule Gaza and assert his own authority.

In the background, an ominous deadline is rapidly approaching. Gaza is expected to be uninhabitable within a few years, according to United Nations forecasts. Its economy has been broken by years of Israeli military attacks and a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade, its population is mostly destitute, and its aquifers are increasingly polluted with sea water.

Gazas rapidly growing population of two million is already suffocating in a tiny patch of territory. In May, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that Gaza was on the brink of systemic collapse.

READ MORE: Gaza power cuts  This is the worst its ever been

Israel has good reason to fear the future. Another round of fighting with Hamas, and heavy casualties among ordinary Palestinians, will further damage its image. And sooner or later, ordinary Palestinians are likely to rise up and tear down the security fences that imprison them.

For that reason, Israel and its patrons in Washington  as well as the Arab states  are desperately in search of a remedy.

It is in this context that Palestinians have been pondering the significance of a series of recent secret meetings between Egypt, Hamas and Mohammed Dahlan, an exiled Fatah leader and enemy of Abbas. Are they paving the way to a permanent solution for Gaza  and one that will be largely on Israels terms?

One possibility  known to be much-favoured by Israel  would be to engineer the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza and then pressure Egypt to allow it to expand into the neighbouring territory of northern Sinai.

According to this plan, not only would most of Gazas population end up in Sinai, but so too would potentially millions of Palestinian refugees.

READ MORE: Gazas Game of Thrones  A fight to defeat resistance

Atef Eisa, a journalist in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that the meetings between Egypt, Hamas and Dahlan were the main topic of discussions in the enclave: People understand that Israel wants Gaza permanently separated from the West Bank. They wonder whether Sinai might be a way to achieve it.

Suspicions of a Gaza-Sinai state are not new. In fact, there is strong evidence that Israel has been pushing aggressively, along with the United States, to create a Palestinian state in Sinai since it withdrew its soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip more than a decade ago.

Now rumours are circulating that the Sinai plan is being revived. Are the stars aligned for Israel? The US administration of Donald Trump is openly on its side, Hamas is at its weakest point ever, and Israel is increasingly close to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.





There is no doubt that this is what Israel would like to see happen, Shawqi Issa, a Palestinian analyst and former government minister in the PA, told Al Jazeera.

Issa believes Israel is now firmly set on turning Gaza into the Palestinian state, as part of a regional solution that might also see the Palestinian cities of the West Bank, currently in Abbas charge, ultimately falling under Jordanian responsibility.

But such a regional solution  what Israel calls its outside-in strategy  hinges on Egyptian help. The chief difficulty with the Sinai option is allaying Egyptian concerns, said Issa. Israel and the United States can manage it only as part of a dramatic reshaping of the entire Middle East.

The plan requires Cairo to accept a humiliating compromise of its sovereignty by surrendering territory in Sinai, possibly in a swap for Israeli land in the Negev. It would also undermine long-standing Arab demands that a Palestinian state be realised in historic Palestine.

But most importantly, the military regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is concerned about an expansion of Hamas influence into Sinai, strengthening support for Egypts Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas sister organisation and the main opponents of Sisis rule.

However, the extent of Egypts opposition is far from clear, especially given that it may be facing stiff pressure from the Trump administration and the Saudi-led Gulf states to alleviate Gazas problems.

READ MORE: Will Hamas survive the Gulf crisis?

In fact, Israeli media reports in 2014 suggested that Sisi may have agreed to cede 1,600sq km in Sinai to Gaza, expanding the enclaves size fivefold. This would have realised Israels vision of a demilitarised Palestinian state it calls Greater Gaza.

Abbas is reported to have rejected the plan outright.

Not surprisingly, both Egyptian and Palestinian officials publicly denied the reports. Nonetheless, Abbas and his officials subsequently appeared to corroborate some aspects of the story.

At a meeting of Fatah loyalists in August 2014, Abbas reportedly said that a senior leader in Egypt had told him: A refuge must be found for the Palestinians and we have all this open land.

A week earlier, he told Egyptian TV that the Israeli plan had unfortunately been accepted by some here [in Egypt]  Dont ask me more about that. We abolished it.

Abbas was unclear about whether these were references to Sisi or his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, who briefly headed a Muslim Brotherhood government before being removed by the Egyptian military.

At the same time, a report in the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat indicated how long the Sinai plan may have been gestating. An aide to Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president until he was toppled in 2011, quoted the former leader as saying: We are fighting both the US and Israel  In a year or two, the issue of Palestinian refugee camps in Sinai will be internationalised.

Indications that the Sinai plan may have been revived at a high level have come from Ayoub Kara, a government minister and ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In February, shortly before Netanyahu and Trump met in Washington, Kara tweeted that the two leaders would adopt the plan of Egypts Sisi. A Palestinian state in Gaza and Sinai.

Kara added that this would provide a regional solution of the kind Netanyahu and Trump officials have recently been talking up: This is how we will pave a path to peace, including with the Sunni coalition [of Arab states].

Egyptian officials again issued hurried denials. But Karas statements prompted so much alarm that a group of prominent Egyptian lawyers filed a suit against any moves by Cairo to resettle Palestinians in Sinai.

In what could be seen as a territorial precedent, the Egyptian parliament approved last month the transfer of two islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia in return for billions of dollars of investments in Egypts ailing economy.





There are good reasons why Israel may believe all the pieces are falling into place to realise a Palestinian state mostly outside the borders of historic Palestine.

Hamas is at its lowest ebb ever, with Israeli officials speaking of the movement fighting for its life. After Egyptian and Saudi-led moves to sideline Qatar and Turkeys support, Hamas is now all but friendless.

The carrot for Hamas of a Greater Gaza would be the chance to rule a much more substantial piece of territory, solving the enclaves humanitarian crisis and rehabilitating the Islamic movement in the eyes of the international community.

Naji Shurrab, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, told the Jerusalem Post newspaper that the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza would be the first step. But he believed territory in Sinai would be included too, once Egyptian security concerns had been addressed.

Israel has all but gone public with its close security ties with Egypt and the other key regional Arab state, Saudi Arabia. The two share Israels concern about curtailing Irans influence in the region and appear to be prioritising that alliance over the Palestinian cause.

Indications are that the White House is engaging in vigorous shuttle diplomacy with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to help with what Trump has called the ultimate deal for peace.

What of Abbas, who has previously rejected the Greater Gaza plan?

He is much weaker than he was a few years ago and has alienated Saudi Arabia and Egypt with his continuing bitter feud with Mohammed Dahlan, his key rival within the Fatah movement and the man the Arab states would like to see succeed him.

Yoni Ben Menachem, a former Israeli intelligence officer, told Israels Channel 1 earlier this month that Sisi intends to bring down Abbas.





Dahlan has been living in exile in Dubai, in the Gulf, reportedly channelling money from the United Arab Emirates into Gaza and the occupied West Bank to buy popularity and political influence. There are long-established suspicions that Dahlan is close to officials in Washington, too.

In fact, Dahlan is rapidly emerging as a pivotal figure, promoted by Riyadh and Cairo. Could he be the key to unlocking the Greater Gaza plan?

Over recent weeks, a series of secret, three-way meetings between Dahlan, Hamas and the Egyptian security figures have been trying to devise a new power-sharing arrangement in Gaza.

Reports suggest that Egypt will agree to reopen Gazas Rafah crossing into Sinai if security is overseen by Dahlan loyalists rather than Hamas. According to some reports, Dahlan may even become prime minister of Gaza, with Hamas leaders serving under him.

Hamas has been trying to prove its good faith by creating a buffer zone inside Gaza to prevent fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), who have targeted Egyptian soldiers in northern Sinai, from using tunnels to find sanctuary in the enclave. These measures serve as a message of assurance to the Egyptian side, Tawfiq Abu Naeem, Gazas head of security services, told reporters.

What is slowly emerging looks suspiciously like a Gaza state project.

READ MORE: Gaza conditions unlivable 10 years into siege

This arrangement could reassure Egypt and Israel that Hamas influence can be contained and that the movement may even be able to help in the fight against ISIL. A strong Dahlan would be expected to restrict Hamas efforts at arming, prevent rocket fire on Israel and block any alliance with Egypts Muslim Brotherhood.

Assuming the model is successful, and with Abbas likely to be out of the picture soon, the Sinai plan could be properly unveiled with Dahlan and Hamas maintaining order in a Palestinian state in northern Sinai, sponsored by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

All of this could be sold to the watching world as a supremely humanitarian gesture  to end the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the region.

The question remains, however, whether Israel and the US can pull it off.
AU ambassador to the United States on colonisation, hate crimes and changing the narrative of the continent.

Washington, DC  It has been almost six months since Arikana Chihombori-Quao was appointed African Unions ambassador to the United States.

Chihombori-Quao, a former medical doctor, served as the Chair of the African Union-African Diaspora Health Initiative (AU-ADHI) between 2012-2016, became the second representative for the continental bloc in the US capital.

The African Union (AU), originally the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) until 2002, met in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, last month to discuss solutions to a range of problems spanning from youth unemployment to HIV to cleaner energy. The AU is often accused of being a talkshop  critics say that most policies or plans to emerge from such discussions are rarely implemented.

Chihombori-Quaos tenure as ambassador to the US coincides with a purported shift in US foreign policy. US President Donald Trump has already hinted at tremendous budget cuts to aid and development projects on the continent, while the so-called Muslim ban affects three African countries. There has also been a rise in deportations of African immigrants.

Chihombori-Quao spoke to Al Jazeera about representing Africa at a time of uncertainty in US policy with the African continent.

Al Jazeera: What is your mandate as AU ambassador to the United States?

Arikana Chihombori-Quao: My mandate is to promote Africa in the Americas and more importantly, to mobilise the African diaspora  meaning all people of African descent living outside of Africa.

We at the AU understand that for the continent to move forward it will need its people in the diaspora. The brain drain from migration has caused Africa to suffer a lot. Mobilising the diaspora and encouraging involvement in the development of Africa is key to our mandate.

Read a related article about Senegalese mothers working to dissuade their sons from travelling abroad for work: Saving Senegals sons from vanishing in European seas

Al Jazeera: There has been an increase in hate crimes in the United States. Are you concerned about what it means for the diaspora?

Chihombori-Quao: It is a concern. And with my understanding of the dynamic of hate crimes, it is usually based on ignorance. The Americans need to know who we are. Africa must be brought into their faces.

Decisions are being made at Congress on Africa by people who know nothing about the continent. Part of my mandate is to be the face of Africa here and change that.

Al Jazeera: What about deportations of illegal African immigrants from the US? Does the AU have a duty to get involved?

Chihombori-Quao: We have our own borders. We have no right to dictate to a sovereign nation what they can or cannot do.

Al Jazeera: US President Donald Trump has plans to reduce aid to Africa. Is this seen as a problem for the AU?

Chihombori-Quao: What bothers me is the realisation that the richest continent on Earth is the poorest. Our raw materials leaving Africa creates employment for the world and we consume the things we send out.

Things are being stolen out of Africa and we need to stop the drain. But we are very capable to take care of ourselves. I am confident that the continued collaboration and more regional and continental trade will show us a new Africa.

With everything else that other governments are implementing, we dont have a choice. We have everything we need. Everybody knows this.

Also read this OpEd from Nick Dearden of Global Justice Now on how Africa is not poor, we are stealing its wealth

Al Jazeera: If aid ends abruptly, how will people receive assistance, including emergency medicines?

Chihombori-Quao: Studies show that the assistance going into Africa from the diaspora is more than any aid.

Africans are capable of looking after themselves.

Al Jazeera: Is this an opportunity for the AU to look towards solving its own problems?

Chihombori-Quao: There are many issues pushing people out of the continent. There is still interference from outside. How does the AU deal with looking inward as well as at the outside interference?

The problems affecting Africa today have been in the making for centuries. The legacy of colonialism is alive and well. Rules, laws and treaties enacted long before independence that still exist today.

The process of untangling some of those issues is not as easy as one might think. Migration and the reasons and issues regarding conflict are not of Africas making.

They are created for us by others of special interest for a purpose. Ghanaians would joke when the discovery of oil was made a while back: When will the coup happen? theyd ask.

Wars in Africa are created. In Liberia, a young boy on the news had more ammunition on him than clothes. Who gave him all that ammunition but not a pair of shoes? People dont think.

They jump in and blame the governments when these ammunitions are coming from outside of the continent. There is an agenda. Some [leaders] get used and then get taken to the Hague. The depth of the problems in Africa are based on the strength of outside forces.

Al Jazeera: Is it not the case that arms and ammunition come to Africa because African countries buy them? The AU is seen as a body which protects heads of state and not ordinary people.

Chihombori-Quao: The AU is a young union. The office here only opened in 2007. It has been a process.

Unlike the truly independent members of the EU, we have had to dig ourselves out of a very deep ditch to get to where we are today.

But we are in a much better space now.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has been tasked with leading the reform at the AU.

The AU launched Agenda 2063 as the aspirations of the AU. They are the yardstick with which African leaders measure themselves and their progress.

Twice a year, they meet and grade themselves. Ive sat in meetings where each African leader gave themselves failing grades. The leaders are accepting their own failures and committing to do better.

That is new. They have a platform now and guidelines to conform to.

Read more about the gathering of African leaders to elect AU chair and re-examine key issues

Al Jazeera: Colonisation has left the continent at a disadvantage. Yet there appears to be a new type of colonisation taking place on behalf of China. What is the position of the AU on this?

Chihombori-Quao: Regarding China, there is concern.

China used sheer economics to get a stronghold on the continent.

China came in generously with funding, but now leaders are realising this needs to slow down. We are slowing down on Chinese products and the transition is getting there.

Al Jazeera: There is a much confidence about mobility on the continent with the launch of an African passport how will this policy be implemented within the continent?

Chihombori-Quao: We are relaxing the borders that are not ours.

We want our original continent back.

We are protecting African borders, not those imposed on us. The manner in which these borders were created were to divide tribes.

Al Jazeera: How does this affect places like South Africa for instances, where there is a sense of exceptionalism and xenophobia towards other African nationals?

Chihombori-Quao: Thats a totally different problem. This goes along the same lines as divide and conquer and superiority.

South Africans are suffering from mental borders. We have created mental borders as the result of mental colonisation.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Follow Azad Essa on Twitter: @AzadEssa
A short explainer on the main candidates and process of the 2017 Kenya presidential elections.

Kenyans are heading to the polls on August 8 to pick a president in a tightly fought election. Eighteen candidates are competing for the countrys top position. President Uhuru Kenyatta, who came to power in 2013, is seeking a second and final term in office. Raila Odinga, who lost to Kenyatta in the last election, is his main challenger.

READ MORE: Kenya election  Candidates may boycott debate

Besides the presidential election, people will also go to the polls to vote on governors, members of parliament and senators.

More than 19 million Kenyans have registered to vote in the election.
In his annual address, the president calls on critics not to trivialise his drugs war by demanding human rights.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed that his campaign against illegal drugs will not ease despite mounting criticism over the rising death toll, calling on the nation to keep supporting him.

Duterte, in his annual State of the Nation address, before Congress, said that the illegal drug campaign was part of efforts to ensure peace and order in the country to encourage investment.

I have learned that the economy surges only when there is peace and order in places where investors can pool their capital and expertise, the 72-year-old president said.





That is why I have resolved that no matter how long it takes, the fight against illegal drugs will continue because that is the root cause of so much evil and so much suffering that weakens the social fabric and deters foreign investments from pouring in, he added.

The president also called on his critics not to trivialise his drugs war by demanding human rights.

Thousands of people have died since Duterte took office last year and ordered an unprecedented war on crime that has drawn global criticism for alleged human rights abuses.

The move, however, has been popular with many in the mainly Catholic nation.

Duterte also said he wanted all mineral resources extracted from the country to be processed domestically and, if possible, to stop exporting such commodities.

He said he would hold mining companies responsible for the clean-up and rehabilitation of areas damaged by mining.

He added that the government on Friday would draft a new law for the countrys mining industry, which he said pays too little in tax and not enough in compensation for any environmental damage.

Criselda Yabes, a columnist, told Al Jazeera from Manila that there was not much change compared to when Duterte made his State of the Nation address last year.

There has not been any signs of change in the country, she said.

[The president] would generally find the prepared speech boring, deviate from the text and talk about anything under the sun, Yabes said, adding that most of the time people get confused during his speeches.

You see Congress members clapping his every word and laughing at every joke he makes, demonstrating the state of the country.

Protests

Ahead of the address, several thousand left-wing protesters marched in the capital Manila with an effigy of Duterte to the House of Representatives to demand that he deliver on promises.

Riot police, without batons and shields to underscore a policy of maximum tolerance towards demonstrators, separated the protesters from a smaller group of Duterte supporters outside the heavily guarded building, where Duterte delivered the speech.





Inside the hall, left-wing legislators sought ingenious ways to protest. Representative Emmie de Jesus, who represents the Gabriela womens party-list group, wore native clothes with beadwork reading Regular Jobs Now, a criticism of contractual work without benefits.

Another representative, Arlene Brosas, wore a black dress with a hand-painted message by a former political prisoner saying No to Martial Law.

Duterte won congressional approval on Saturday for an extension of martial law in the south to deal with the siege of Marawi city by an armed group, the worst crisis he has faced since taking power last year.
La Plata County Sheriffs Office(BELLINGHAM, Wash.) -- Nearly five years after a 13-year-old boy disappeared while on a court-ordered visit with his father in Colorado, the man has been charged with murdering his son.



Mark Redwine was arrested Saturday in Bellingham, Washington, and may face a request by authorities to extradite him to Colorado where a grand jury has indicted him for second-degree murder and child abuse in the death of his son, Dylan, the Sheriff's Office in La Plata County, Colorado, said in a press release.



Redwine, who is being held in Washington on a $1 million cash-only bond, has in the past denied involvement in the death of his son Dylan. It is unclear at this time whether Redwine has obtained a lawyer or if he has yet made a plea.



Thanksgiving visit allegedly turned violent



Dylan was visiting his father in Bayfield in La Plata County for the Thanksgiving holiday in 2012 when he disappeared, the indictment says.



The father and son had argued on a previous visit, according to the indictment, and witnesses said Dylan had not wanted to go to his father's home that Thanksgiving.



Surveillance video at the airport, where the father picked up the boy who had flown from the home of his mother, Elaine, in Colorado Springs, and from a store they went to afterward showed that the pair had "little to no personal interaction," according to the grand jury indictment and Sheriff's press release.



"Dylan Redwine was never seen or heard from again after that evening," the indictment says.



Dylan had made plans to stay with a friend the same night of his arrival, a plan his father denied. The boy then made plans to visit a friend's house early the following morning. When Dylan did not show up, his friend texted, "Where are you?" the indictment states.



Redwine told police at the time that his son was in his home when he left to run some errands at 7:30 a.m. that morning and that when he returned four hours later, the boy was missing.



A previous wife of Mark Redwine's, Betsy Horvath, told investigators shortly after Dylan's disappearance that she was concerned Redwine might have hurt the boy. She said that during her and Redwine's own divorce and custody proceedings over their children he told her he would "kill the kids before he let her have them."



Horvath's account was referring to her children with Redwine, not to his children with his later wife, Elaine.



Horvath also told investigators that Redwine once told her that if he ever had to dispose of a body, he would leave it "out in the mountains," the indictment said.



At the time Dylan went missing, Redwine and his more recent wife, Elaine, were in the middle of a heated custody battle, the indictment states.



Elaine Redwine told ABC News in November 2012 that she suspected her ex-husband was involved in the boy's disappearance.



"I was married to Mark for a lot of years, and I know the way he reacts to things," Elaine Redwine told ABC News. "If Dylan maybe did or said something that wasn't what Mark wanted to hear, I'm just afraid of how Mark would have reacted."



Dylan's blood was found in Redwine's home



Grizzly details are laid out in the indictment of the discovery of Dylan's blood and later his remains.



The boy's blood was found in multiple locations inside of his father's living room, according to the indictment, including on the couch, the floor in front of the couch, the corner of a coffee table, the floor beneath a rug, and on a love seat.



In June 2013, some of Dylan's remains were found on a road about eight miles from his fathers home, and that August, police conducted a canine search to determine "if the corpse of a deceased person" had been present. The search found traces of the scent of a human cadaver in Redwine's home and in the bed of his truck, the indictment said.



More than two years later, on Nov. 1, 2015, hikers found Dylans skull one and a half miles away from where his partial remains had been discovered in 2013.



Wildlife experts determined that "no animal known to the area would transport a body up the mountain from Mr. Redwine's residence to the first recovery site ... [or] would transport the skull an additional 1.5 miles through the terrain where the skull was found," the indictment said.



Forensic anthropologists examined the skull and said it showed injuries "consistent with blunt force trauma," and that the skull "had two small markings consistent with the use of a knife."



Authorities in 2015 identified Mark Redwine as a "person of interest" in the death of Dylan, according to ABC affiliate KMGH-TV.



In the more than four years since Dylan has disappeared, the La Plata County Sheriffs Office, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, and Federal Bureau of Investigation "invested thousands of hours in investigating this case," the Sheriff's office said in the press release announcing Redwine's arrest.



'A tremendous loss'



Betsy Horvath told ABC affiliate KMGH-TV that her heart breaks for Dylan's mom, Elaine, and Dylan's brother.



"They've suffered a tremendous loss," she said.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
At least 25 killed and scores wounded in a suicide attack claimed by the Taliban targeting police in the eastern city.

Islamabad, Pakistan  A suicide attack targeting police personnel in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore has killed at least 25 people and wounded scores more, officials say.

The attack targeted police assisting in a drive to clear the Ferozepur Road, a main road in Pakistans second city, of illegal construction and street vendors on Monday, provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told media.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group claimed responsibility for the attack, confirming they used a suicide bomber on a motorcycle.

Jam Sajjad Hussain, a senior rescue official, confirmed the death toll, saying that at least 52 wounded had been moved to nearby hospitals.

The explosion took place near one of the citys largest office towers, home to a government-sponsored technology park.

READ MORE: Deadly bomb blast targets census team in Lahore

It was a very loud noise for a split-second, said Zaair Hussain, a witness who was working in the building when the explosion occurred. There are lots of police and ambulances surrounding the site.

It seems this was a suicide attacker who was on a motorcycle, Haider Ashraf, a senior police official, told local television channel Geo News. Forensic and investigation teams are at the scene. When they have their findings we can share them.

Ashraf confirmed that at least nine police personnel were among those killed.

Local police official Nazar Abbas, who was at the scene, confirmed to Al Jazeera that it was a suicide attack.

Television footage showed a vehicle badly damaged by the blast, and dozens of police officials cordoning off the area, as well as ambulances at the scene.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for Mondays attack in Lahore. The city has often been in the crosshairs of violence in the last year, as Pakistan continues its battle against several armed groups seeking to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia law on the country.

The country has made significant gains in the fight against those groups since 2014, and in February launched a new operation, dubbed Radd-al-Fasad (Elimination of Chaos), to widen the scope of military operations against them.

That month, at least 13 people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted police posted at a protest demonstration in the heart of Lahore.

In April, another six people were killed when a vehicle carrying government census workers was targeted by a suicide attack in Lahore.

In 2016, Lahore suffered one of Pakistans deadliest assaults when a suicide attack in a park killed more than 70 people, including many children.
Taliban claim responsibility for an attack on a bus carrying government workers that killed at least 35 people.

At least 35 people have been killed and more than 40 wounded after a suicide car bomb targeted a bus carrying ministry staff in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, officials said.

Intelligence officials told Al Jazeera that the bus was carrying staff of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum when it came under attack on Monday.

The attack happened just before 7am local time (02:30 GMT) and took place close to the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqi, said officials.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to Al Jazeera.

The bus was destroyed, along with three other cars and several shops in the area, said Kabuls police chief spokesman, Basir Mujahed, adding children were among the wounded.

READ MORE: UN condemns jump in Afghan civilian deaths

Najib Danish, an acting interior ministry spokesman, added that the casualty toll could rise.

It was a very loud blast, and my shop is completely destroyed, Baqi Mohammadi told Al Jazeera.

The Taliban has attacked innocent people. Who has ever benefited from killing innocent people?

Spokesman Mujahed said the bomber struck at one of the busiest times of the day.





There were traffic jams with people going to work and to the university and schools. Many of the shops had just opened, said Mujahed.

Al Jazeeras Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said the Hazara community had called a demonstration for Monday to commemorate a suicide bombing that killed 84 in the same area on July 23 last year.

The Hazaras are one of Afghanistans largest ethnic minorities, accounting for up to 20 percent of Afghanistans 30 million inhabitants.

The demonstration was postponed because of security risks.

Security has been very tight in Kabul, she said. This morning, new barrier gates went up that limit the height of trucks coming into the city.

Hazaras are often the target of sectarian violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One-year anniversary

On Monday, Kabuls Hazara community was due to mark the one-year anniversary of an attack in the capital that killed 84 and wounded more than 300 people, mostly members of the ethnic minority.

That attack was the first in Afghanistan claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, which has since carried out multiple attacks targeting the countrys Shia minority.

The latest suicide bombing adds to the unrelenting violence in Afghanistan, where at least 1,662 civilians were killed in the first half of the year.

Kabul is regularly rocked by suicide bombs and attacks. A recent UN report showed that attacks on the capital accounted for nearly one-fifth of all Afghan civilian casualties in the first half of 2017.

READ MORE: Desperate journeys  Persecuted Hazara flee Afghanistan

Many died in a single devastating attack in Kabul in late May when a truck bomb exploded, also during the morning rush hour, killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan put the civilian death toll at 92, saying it was the deadliest incident to hit the country since 2001.

NATOs combat mission in Afghanistan ended three years ago, handing sole responsibility to the countrys security forces, which have also suffered casualties as they try to beat back the Taliban and contain the growing threat from the ISIL group.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in the massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to UN figures.
China tells India not to push your luck and pull back troops from Doklam plateau amid rising tension.

China has demanded that India pull back its troops from a contested region high in the Himalayas, warning New Delhi not to push your luck amid a festering border dispute.

According to Indian officials, about 300 soldiers from either side face each other about 150 metres apart on the Doklam plateau, an area also claimed by Indias ally Bhutan.

The standoff began in June when Chinese troops started building a road onto the plateau towards Indias border.





Bhutan sought help from India, which sent troops across the border from the northeastern state of Sikkim.

On Monday, Colonel Wu Qian, a Chinese defence ministry spokesman, said India must not underestimate Beijings determination to safeguard what it considers sovereign territory belonging to China in the Doklam plateau.

Chinas determination and resolve to safeguard national security and sovereignty is unshakable, Wu said.

Here is a wish to remind India, do not push your luck and cling to any fantasies.

Sushma Swaraj, Indias foreign minister, said the border road has serious security implications.

If China unilaterally changes the status quo of the tri-junction, it becomes a matter of security concern for India, Swaraj said in parliament last week.

Although the Doklam plateau is not part of Indian territory, India is sensitive to Chinese building activity in the region as it would give China access to the so-called Chickens Neck, a thin strip of land that connects India and its remote northeastern states.

India has called for a withdrawal of forces and a negotiated settlement to the standoff.

Wu, however, reiterated that the withdrawal of Indian border guards was a precondition to resolving the situation.

READ MORE: Hong Kong-China tension  Sheung Shui, a frontline town

Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the Peoples Liberation Army is hard, he said.

We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border regions peace and tranquillity, he said.

He added that the military had taken emergency measures in the region and would continue to increase focused deployments and drills.

The crisis is expected to be discussed when Indias National Security Adviser Ajit Doval visits Beijing this week for a security forum under the BRICS group of large developing nations that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

China and India share a 3,500km frontier, large parts of which are disputed.

The two nuclear-armed powers fought a bloody border war in 1962.
UN envoy warns of catastrophic costs if al-Aqsa Mosque compound crisis is not resolved swiftly.

The United Nations Middle East envoy has said a solution is needed by Friday to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound crisis in Jerusalem, which threatens to have potential catastrophic costs well beyond the walls of the Old City.

It is extremely important that a solution to the current crisis be found by Friday, Nickolay Mladenov told reporters on Monday after briefing the UN Security Council behind closed doors.





The dangers on the ground will escalate if we go through another cycle of Friday prayer without a resolution to this current crisis.

Also on Monday, the UKs ambassador to the UN has called on all parties to denounce violence.

Matthew Rycroft told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York City that it was important that the full Security Council stands together to do what we can to help bring peace to the Middle East.

The Middle East Quartet of Russia, the United States, the European Union and the UN in a statement encouraged Israel and Jordan to work together for de-escalation, noting the special role of Jordan as recognised in its peace treaty with Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, Jordans Royal Court issued a statement on Monday saying that King Abdullah II discussed the crisis with Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stressing the need to remove the security measures taken by the Israeli security forces.

He also highlighted the importance of agreeing on the measures in the future to prevent the recurrence of such escalations and to ensure respect for the historical and legal situation in the holy site, the statement said.

READ MORE: Palestinian hospitals stretched with influx of wounded

Tensions have escalated since Israel installed metal detectors and CCTV cameras at entry points to the Muslim-administered al-Aqsa Mosque compound after two police guards were shot dead by gunmen there on July 14.

Palestinians view the move as Israel asserting further control over the site.





They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside instead.

Clashes have broken out during protests over the measures, leaving five Palestinians dead and hundreds more injured.

Three Israelis were also killed when a Palestinian entered a house in a West Bank settlement and stabbed them.

Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit on Sunday accused Israel of playing with fire with the new security measures, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called them an insult to the Muslim world.

The compound, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, is located in occupied East Jerusalem.

It was seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.
Speakers at conference in Doha question Saudi-led groups accusation that Qatar is funding terrorism.

Doha, Qatar  The Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) has questioned Saudi Arabias accusation of Qatar funding terrorism while the Kingdom itself continues to carry out terrorism that is killing people in Yemen.

The conflict in Yemen has escalated dramatically since March 2015, when the Saudi-led forces launched a military operation against the rebels.

Since the conflict began, more than 10,000 people have been killed and millions have been driven from their homes.





We dont talk about government terrorism such as the Saudi-led coalition that is killing people in Yemen, HRWs Kenneth Roth said at the Freedom of Expression, Facing up to the Threat conference in Qatars capital Doha on Monday.

I am not aware of Qatar financing terrorist groups, but I am aware of the long-term Saudi promotion of an extreme version of Islam that is often adopted by terrorist groups.

Yemen is also facing a health crisis, with the charity Oxfam reporting 360,000 suspected cases of cholera in the three months since the outbreak started in April.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with their Shia rival Iran. Qatar denies the claims.

The four countries imposed an air, sea and land blockade on Qatar last month.

READ MORE: Qatar-Gulf crisis  All the latest updates

Speakers at the conference criticised calls to shut down Al Jazeera Media Network, one of the 13 demands that the Saudi-led group had sent to Qatar through Kuwait.

Earlier this month, in an interview published by The Times newspaper, Noura al-Kaabi, the UAE minister for the federal national council, said the Emirates sought fundamental change and restructuring of Al Jazeera rather than to shut it.

While praising Al Jazeera for contributing to freedom of the press in the region, Mohammad Ali Alnsour, chief of Middle East and North Africa to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, criticised the Arab states for dealing with freedom of the press as a security threat for their governments.

John Yearwood, President of the International Press Institute, also questioned calls to shut down Al Jazeera.

We must continue to speak truth to power even when its inconvenient. We can all learn from how Al Jazeera stood up to the Saudi-led coalition. It did not wobble and neither should we, said Yearwood.
At least eight people killed after female suicide attackers strike two IDP camps in Maiduguri, Civilian-JTF group says.

At least eight people have been killed after female suicide bombers attacked two camps hosting internally displaced people (IDP) in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, a civilian self-defence group said.

It was the first major attack on a displaced persons camp in the city which is the birthplace of Boko Haram.





The attack started late Sunday night and left another 15 people wounded, the Civilian-JTF group spokesman Bello Danbatta told The Associated Press.

Boko Haram often targets the city with suicide bombers and has been using female bombers increasingly.

Late last year, Nigerias government declared the group crushed but dozens of such attacks have taken place in 2017.

The latest bombings occurred a few days after Nigerias army chief of staff issued a 40-day deadline for troops to flush out Boko Harams leader and finish off the group.

Danbatta said one bomber sneaked into the Dalori camp and detonated, and two other attackers exploded on or near the camps perimeter fence. Another bomber detonated early on Monday.

Thousands of people continue to shelter in camps after being forced from their homes by Boko Haram.

Attacks carried out by the group over the last eight years have killed more than 20,000 people, kidnapped thousands of others, spilled into neighbouring countries and created one of the worlds largest humanitarian crises.

Nigeria is moving closer to famine, with more than five million people expected to face crisis, emergency and famine conditions by the end of August as the lean season continues, the Norwegian Refugee Council said in a statement on Monday.
The guard sought by Jordanian security agencies in connection with deadly embassy shooting returns to Israel.

Jordan has said it is looking to question an Israeli security guard who killed two Jordanians at the Amman embassy compound, as Israel points to his diplomatic immunity.

A Jordanian government source, who declined to be named, told AFP news agency on Monday that Israel was still examining the request to question the guard involved in Sundays incident in which, according to Israeli officials, a Jordanian attacked the guard with a screwdriver.

There is no need for a diplomatic escalation, the source said.

The embassys staff, including the security guard, returned to Israel late on Monday, according to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said hours earlier that they would seek to find an agreement.

We are holding contacts with Jordanian security and government officials in order to bring the incident to a close ASAP, he said in a statement.

READ MORE: Deadly shooting incident at Israeli embassy in Jordan

The security guard shot the Jordanian attacker dead, while a second Jordanian there at the time was also killed  reportedly by accident.

A Jordanian security source named the first dead man as 17-year-old Mohammed Jawawdeh and the second as Bashar Hamarneh, a doctor who was in the residential quarter of the embassy at the time of the incident.

He said the Israeli was the deputy director of security at the embassy.

The government source said an initial investigation indicated that Jawawdeh and the security guard fell out over some dispute which led to a stabbing and a shooting.

Jawawdehs father, Zakariya, told AFP news agency that he wanted the truth, urging authorities to view CCTV footage from security cameras at the embassy.

My son has no interest in politics. He does not follow any extremist ideology, he said.

I want to know how the investigation is going and know what happened and what led to the killing of my son.

Custodian of Muslim holy sites



Israel and Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty. But tensions have been high in recent days after Israel put in place security measures at the highly sensitive al-Aqsa Mosque compound in east Jerusalem, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the site after an attack nearby on July 14 that killed two of its policemen. Palestinians view the move as Israel asserting further control over the compound.

Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

Israeli measures at the flashpoint site sparked angry demonstrations in Amman on Friday, when thousands took to the streets in a protest.
Soldiers enter parliament after opposition politicians defy lockdown and scale walls demanding a vote to remove speaker.

The Maldivian army has locked down the countrys parliament after the opposition vowed to move ahead with a vote against a key ally of President Abdulla Yameen.

Several politicians, however, defied the ban on Monday, fighting off riot police and scaling metre-high walls to enter the parliament compound.

The opposition was hoping to hold a vote to impeach Speaker Abdulla Maseeh, whom they accuse of ignoring allegations of corruption and rights abuses.

They had secured enough support from government defectors to begin impeachment proceedings earlier this month.

The lockdown was ordered to prevent the vote, and Yameen announced that four of the defectors had lost their parliamentary seats.

READ MORE: Prominent blogger stabbed to death in Maldives capital

Ahmed Mahloof, an opposition politician, said soldiers carrying batons followed the members inside on Monday and forcibly ejected them.

Soldiers in riot gear are dragging elected members out from the parliament, Mahloof told Al Jazeera.

This is clearly unconstitutional. Many of us have been injured.

Videos posted on social media show soldiers pushing politicians out of the building. A few appear to have been injured.

There is no better symbol of Yameens dictatorship than the image of his security forces barring elected MPs from parliament. This president has lost all legitimacy and credibility, said Eva Abdulla, an opposition politician from the Maldivian Democratic Party.

The army could not be reached for comment.

Yameen has arrested or forced into exile most of the opponents who might have challenged him in next years presidential elections.

Last year, an Al Jazeera investigation revealed how Yameens government embezzled millions of dollars in tourism revenue.

Yameen denies allegations of corruption and rights abuses.

The embattled president now faces a coalition of four opposition parties, led by his brother Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives with an iron fist for 30 years, and Mohamed Nasheed, the countrys first democratically elected president.

Faris Maumoon, Yameens nephew and the leader of the effort to impeach the speaker, was arrested on charges of bribery last week.

Two other politicians were put on trial on charges of bribery and terrorism.








Turkish president reviews Gulf row with Qatars Emir on the last leg of his shuttle diplomacy tour in the region.

Qatar and Turkey have discussed the Gulf crisis and efforts being exerted to defuse the dispute between Doha and a group of Saudi-led Arab states through dialogue and diplomatic means.

This came during a meeting between Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Doha on Monday.

The two sides praised Kuwaits mediation to end the row. Erdogan is on a Gulf tour that took him to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The two leaders also discussed Qatar-Turkey joint efforts in the fight against terrorism and extremism, according to Qatars state news agency.





Turkeys Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was accompanying Erdogan, said that Turkey was trying to organise direct talks between the disputing sides.

The most appropriate way is to sit together around the table and [have] direct talks. This is the main obstacle in front of us and I hope there will be an opportunity for such format soon, he said.

On Sunday, Erdogan met with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman separately in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

He then travelled to Kuwait  the main mediator in the Gulf row  to meet with the countrys Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah.

Qatars emir said in an address to the nation on Friday that Doha was open to talks with the Saudi-led bloc on condition that his countrys sovereignty was respected.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeeras senior political analyst, speaking from London, said: Everyone now understands that Kuwait is going to have to be the party where Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others sit down with Qatar and work their differences out diplomatically at the negotiation table.

He said the blockade on Qatar will have to be lifted in order to make that happen.

The air, land and sea embargo was imposed against Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt after they accused Qatar of supporting extremists in the region and cut ties with it. Qatar has strongly denied the allegations.
Clashes between two Arab tribes come as the UN and African Union prepare to downsize their peacekeeping mission.

Clashes between two Arab tribes in Sudans war-torn state of East Darfur have killed up to 10 people this weekend, tribal leaders told AFP news agency on Sunday.

The fighting that began on Saturday comes as the United Nations and African Union prepare to downsize their peacekeeping mission in Darfur, saying that overall violence there has diminished.

The clashes between the Arab Maaliya and Rizeigat tribes came months after a similar clash left at least nine dead.

The two tribes have a history of violence over land ownership rights and allegations of cattle theft.

A group of tribesmen from Maaliya were ambushed by members of Rizeigat when they tried to chase thieves who had stolen livestock belonging to Maaliya tribesmen, said Ahmed Nour, a Maaliya leader.

OPINION: The hidden impediment to political change in Sudan

He said 10 people were killed and 18 wounded in the clashes on Saturday 40 kilometres southeast of El-Daien, the capital of East Darfur.

The chief of the Rizeigat tribe, Mohamed Madibu, told AFP that the two groups also clashed on Sunday.

He said that three Rizeigat were killed in the initial clashes on Saturday.





A group of Maaliya attacked some Rizeigat villages yesterday. There are clashes even today, but we dont have details about casualties, Madibu said.

The UN and African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, said initial reports received by the mission put the death toll at nine, including six from Rizeigat tribe.

The mission is verifying the exact number of casualties on both sides, while engaging with state authorities and community leaders to deescalate the situation, UNAMID said in a statement.

Khartoum limits international media access to Darfur so it was not possible to independently verify the toll, and Sudanese authorities could not be reached for comment.

Although Khartoum insists that the conflict in Darfur has ended, parts of the region have been destabilised by fighting between myriad ethnic and tribal groups.

The UN and the African Union maintain that the Darfur conflict is winding down, and their peacekeeping mission  among the costliest with a budget of more than $1bn  is being trimmed.

The Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against President Omar al-Bashirs Arab-dominated government, accusing it of marginalising the region.

Since then, more than 2.5 million people have been displaced and 300,000 killed, the UN says.
Trumps son-in-law said in a statement that he had no improper contacts with Russian officials.

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner has said he had four contacts with Russian officials, but denied any collusion to help his father-in-law Donald Trump to win the US presidency.

In a statement released on Monday, Kushner described contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other Russian officials as normal in his former role as the campaign liaison to foreign governments.





I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government, he said in the statement.

I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.

Kushner, who is married to Trumps eldest daughter Ivanka, testified before the Senate intelligence committee later on Monday.

Two sources with knowledge of what Kushner told the Senate staff said the session was pleasant and conversational and that there may be another interview.

After the session, Kushner gave a speech at the White House, reiterating remarks made in the statement earlier.

On Tuesday, he will stand in front of the House panel, according to his lawyer.

Kushners appearance has been highly anticipated, in part because of a series of headlines in recent months about his interactions with Russians and because until Monday he had not personally responded to questions about an incomplete security clearance form and his conversations with foreigners.

In Mondays statement, he gave details of a meeting in June 2016 with a Russian-American lawyer and said it was such a waste of time that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

Emails released this month show that the presidents son, Donald Trump Jr, accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

But Kushner said he had not seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

READ MORE: Putin, Trump held second undisclosed G20 conversation

Kushner also denied reports that he discussed setting up a secret back-channel with Kislyak.

He said he did speak with Kislyak in December at Trump Tower, but that conversation was about policy in Syria.





Kushner said that when Kislyak asked if there was a secure line for him to provide information on Syria from what Kislyak called his generals, Kushner asked if there was an existing communications channel at the embassy that could be used. He denied proposing a secret form of communication.

He also said he met a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, at the request of Kislyak, but no specific policies were discussed.

Trump Jr and Trumps former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was also at the June 2016 meeting, were scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.

But on Friday their attorneys said the two men were in discussions to be privately interviewed by staff or politicians, though the chairman of the committee, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, has said they will eventually testify in public.

Trump took to Twitter over the weekend to defend himself and repeat his criticism of the investigations.

On Sunday, he tweeted: As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!
During Gulf Arab tour, Turkeys president says blockade against Qatar must end for diplomatic efforts to be effective.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has joined the diplomatic offensive to try and end the worst Gulf crisis in decades.

He visited Doha on the final stop of his two-day mission, following talks in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Turkeys leader is putting the onus on the Saudis to end the diplomatic isolation of Qatar.

He says direct talks are the only way to end the crisis  and the blockade must end first.

How significant is the visit of Qatars Turkish ally? Can shuttle diplomacy bring an end to the crisis?

Presenter: Richelle Carey.

Guests:

Enes Bayrakli  Professor, Turkish German University in Istanbul.

Mohammed Jaham Abdulaziz Al Kuwari  Qatars ambassador to Spain.

Abdulaziz al-Horr, Chief Executive, Qatar Finance and Business Academy
The new weekly service is being supported by three dedicated vessels providing direct transits through the Panama Canal between Miami and a handful of cities in Ecuador and Peru.



Miami, Fla.-based container carrier Seaboard Marine is launching a new service between PortMiami, Ecuador, and two cities in Peru beginning Aug. 11.

Our customers have been requesting faster transit times to and from Ecuador and Peru. This new weekly service does exactly that by providing more rapid southbound transit to Guayaquil, Callao, and Paita from Florida, Seaboard Marine Vice President of South America Piero Buitano said in a statement.

The new northbound transit times to PortMiami, Buitano said, are unmatched by any carrier, and ideal for the transport of refrigerated cargo from both Ecuador and Peru.

The new weekly service is supported by three dedicated vessels providing direct service through the Panama Canal to and from Ecuador and Peru. The expanded service will support all equipment types, plus less-than-container load cargo via Seaboard Marines Miami warehouse, the company says.

The documentation and delivery cut-off at PortMiami is each Thursday, with the dedicated weekly vessels departing for South America each Friday with arrival at Guayaquil every Saturday, Callao every Sunday and Paita each Wednesday, according to Seaboard Marine.

Total transit time from Miami to Ecuador is scheduled at eight days; to Callao, Peru is nine days and Paita, Peru is 12 days, according to the schedule.

Northbound cargo to PortMiami will depart from Guayaquil every Friday, from Paita every Wednesday and from Callao each Tuesday, Seaboard has said. The transit times from each city to Miami is set at six, eight and nine days, respectively.

Cargo is scheduled to arrive at PortMiami each Thursday with same day availability.
The Uber for shipping start-up will be moving operations to San Francisco  and halting those elsewhere  in wake of decreased profitability, according to CEO Kevin Gibbon.



Shipping start-up Shyp is suspending operations in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in order to refocus on San Francisco, business customers and profitability, according to CEO Kevin Gibbon.

The Uber of shipping start-up will no longer accept new orders in the three major cities it previously served, but will fully process any orders already in-house, said Gibbon.

Knowing what we know now, theres no question wed do some things differently. We would have built profitability in from the beginning. And shifted to serve business customers sooner. In a business that requires significant investment to grow physical operations across multiple cities, we would have focused on achieving success in one market before expanding into others, said Gibbon in a blog post last week.

Shyp started operations in 2014 as a courier, intending to cater to small-scale merchants via eBay, Etsy and those who wanted to avoid the post office. However, the company quickly expanded to building out features like advanced scheduling and bulk upload and revenue increased per transaction by 150 percent, according to Gibbons blog post. Shyp then began focusing on businesses that ship in large or commercial quantities as a result.

In a statement to Fast Company, Gibbon said Shyps downsizing is part of a trend affecting more and more Uber-for companies that struggle with profitability while catering to the on-demand economy. However, he expects Shyp to reach profitability before the end of this year.
For leading Republicans today, the answer is almost certainly yes. As evidence, allow me to take you back to the fall of 2013.

The House GOP, the chamber majority since 2010, had a choice in deciding the fate of the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for the fiscal year of 2014. They could have simply increased the spending limit and continued funding the government, including Obamacare. However, this strategy presented a problem in terms of political optics. Republicans saw their huge victory in the House in 2010 due to popular opposition to Obamacare -- there can be no legitimate argument about that, and Republicans knew it well. They had to offer at least the perception that they were on the Hill to fight Obamacare tooth and nail. So, what could Republicans do to shield Americans from all of Obamacares detrimental machinations, from which Congress had so carefully exempted itself in that year?

Heres how it played out in 2013. House Republicans first thought to issue two separate bills, one funding the government, and a separate bill to defund Obamacare. This was the path of GOP compromise, we were assured. However, it was also little more than preemptive capitulation. The Senate, then with a Democratic majority, could simply pass the bill funding government in its entirety, and ignore the bill to defund Obamacare, as would have been Harry Reids prerogative at the time.

Some conservative House members devised a different approach. What if a single bill was crafted which both provided a stopgap allowance to continue funding the government with the exception of Obamacare?

House Speaker John Boehner interestingly opted for the latter, saying that Obamacare was a train wreck. Its time to start protecting families from this unworkable law.

So the House bill passed, and it went to the Senate. Ted Cruz famously spoke for over 20 hours to protest the Senate Democrats insistence upon passing a clean bill which continued funding Obamacare. Cruz had his allies, including Jeff Sessions, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and David Vitter. However, turncoat Republican Senators John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell undermined Cruzs efforts by rallying Republicans against him. Knowing that the Senate wouldnt have the 60 votes to pass a clean bill, Cornyn and McConnell pushed for, and voted for, a cloture vote to allow a gutting of the House bill with 51 votes. They then voted against funding Obamacare, but only after it had become a meaningless show vote.

All this opposition to funding Obamacare led to the latest of 17 government shutdowns in American history. Despite all the bluster about how it would prove harmful to Republicans, 2014 was another landslide victory for them  giving them the largest majority in Congress and state legislatures since 1928.

Forward to 2015. Now in command of the House and Senate, Republicans spearheaded and passed a bill to repeal Obamacare. Naturally, Obama vetoed the bill in January of 2016, and Republicans did not have the votes to override the veto.

Later that year, Democrats lost the presidency to candidate Donald Trump, who vocally railed against Obamacare.

The American people, after nearly seven long years of struggle which led to a complete reversal in the balance of power at the federal level, had created the circumstances necessary to eliminate the ever-unpopular Obamacare once and for all, relegating it the annals of immediate history as a failed socialist experiment. Republicans had, after all, proven that theyre driven to repeal Obamacare at all costs, hadnt they?

But once in power, Republicans didnt try to repeal Obamacare at all. They tried to reform Obamacare. Thats how Daniel Henninger at The Wall Street Journal characterizes the recent efforts of Congress, and its apt. He calls it Republicans Obamacare reform failure.

Its interesting that Ive never really thought of it in those terms, which is, I suppose, a testament to the power of media and our political narrative which insists that recent Republican efforts on the Hill have anything at all to do with repeal. But it has become very clear that Republicans outward desire to repeal Obamacare had become Republicans outward desire to reform Obamacare once they had attained the power to repeal it outright. That is what repeal and replace means. It may sound better to the Republican faithful to repeal and replace rather than reforming the big-government, liberty-strangling monstrosity that is Obamacare, but there is little difference when youre trading one federal law regulating our healthcare system for another that features an awful lot of the same regulatory strictures on private industry, rather than eliminating the federal regulations which Obamacare introduced altogether.

Now, in the wake of this failure to reform Obamacare, what have we learned?

Henninger writes that, though Republicans had become self-identifiably conservative in recent years, weve just learned that theyre not as conservative as they think they are.

Personally, I dont believe that Republicans, particularly of the Washington establishment ilk, ever thought of themselves as conservatives. Likelier, they knowingly feigned conservative positions in order to get elected. And they could wear the conservative mask easily when it came to Obamacare, because none of their efforts in the past could ever actually yield the result of repealing it.

When Boehner championed defunding Obamacare in 2013, he knew it would never effect an end to Obamacare. It was a way to express conservative bona fides on the cheap, pandering to the conservative base, leaving now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (whos leading the effort to repeal Obamacare in the Senate) to do the dirty work of quietly sabotaging the effort. Similarly, in 2015, Republicans in Congress knew that Obama would veto their bill to repeal, and that they wouldnt have the votes to override the veto.



Maybe, just maybe, all of that was nothing more than a show, meant to get you excited and to get them elected?

After all, if it were not, what would be keeping them from sending that same repeal bill from 2015 to President Trumps desk with the actual prospect of repeal, knowing that he would sign it?

Republicans can still win this. They can win this because, against all odds, the American people have put the pieces in place necessary to repeal Obamacare outright. Those Republicans who vote against a pure repeal will be cast out as quickly as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, who spectacularly lost the Republican primary as a result of his pro-amnesty position in 2014.

And Republicans need to win this, because if they do not, Republicans will own whatever now comes of Obamacare. They will own it because now they have the ability to repeal it, but are refusing to do so in hopes of reforming it.

Future legislation, including much needed tax reform, hinges on this. The legacy of Trump and this Republican Congress hinges on this. All they need to do is pass a simple bill to repeal Obamacare, as Republicans promised the American people. Healthcare reform - hopefully free-market reform - can follow thereafter.

William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter.
Led by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-wing think tank founded by John Podesta, who later served as chairman of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, the political left is attempting to smear the modern school-voucher movement as the offshoot of a racist scheme to keep black children in segregated Southern public schools in the 1960s.

That is such a gross distortion as to be a damnable lie.

CAPs propagandists focus on the shameful attempt of one Virginia jurisdiction, rural Prince Edward County, to thwart court-ordered desegregation by closing its public schools in 1959. While the countys whites could obtain public tuition grants to attend an all-white academy under a hideously misnamed freedom of choice plan, black civil rights leaders declined to participate in taking such handouts obviously designed to perpetuate a segregated system. Not until President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy joined Virginia leaders in marshaling support behind a stopgap Prince Edward Free School in 1963 did black children have access to formal schooling. In 1964, the Supreme Court finally ordered the Prince Edward public schools reopened.

A CAP-affiliated news blog called ThinkProgress opened the smear campaign on January 10, 2017, by praising U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for exposing the racially charged history of school choice vouchers. That blast came in the context of Warren harshly criticizing Betsy DeVos, who was then the education secretary nominee. Warren insinuated because DeVos is strongly pro-voucher, she would surely would be weak on civil rights enforcement.

On July 12, CAP followed up with a turgid 11-page white paper titled, The Racist Origins of Private School Vouchers, which was mostly devoted to the sad Prince Edward saga (as was the ThinkProgress piece).

Hypocrisy alert! Warren herself co-authored a book in 2003 that advocated for a school voucher system, in part to save middle-class families from buying homes beyond their means in order to be zoned to desirable public schools. Moreover, the progressive Senator didnt envision just a partial subsidy but rather private-choice vouchers paying the entire cost of educating a child.

In advocating for a voucher system, was Warren aligning herself with a long-rotting racist scheme? Or is her perception of history no more clear-minded than her unsubstantiated claim of Native American heritage?

As a young writer just out of journalism school, I lived with and through a significant portion of the education history in question, settling into Prince Edward residency as a news-bureau chief for the Richmond Times-Dispatch just as the Free School was coming to fruition and remaining there through the death throes of the unwise and unjust school-closing scheme. Therefore, I am confident I know more about what went down in Southside Virginia than Elizabeth Warren ever will.

In regular chats with town and county officials, police officers, everyday citizens, and leaders of the local black community (notably, the Rev. L. Francis Griffin), I came to understand that most whites saw the civic and social structure they and their forbears had always known crumbling around them. Fear, more than hatred, occupied their hearts. In adopting the wrong-headed course of closing the public schools, their leaders took their cue from the policy of massive resistance to racial integration espoused by Virginia Sen. Harry F. Byrdthe Democratic boss of a formidable political machinein the wake of the Supreme Courts historic Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Never once did I hear one of Prince Edwards inner circle mention the voucher concept, first broached by economist Milton Friedman in his 1955 paper The Role of Government in Education, as the inspiration for their resort to a phony free-choice plan based on state tuition grants. If they had, the hypocrisy would have been even thicker than Liz Warrens. Friedman championed universally available private-choice vouchers with the goal of breaking down statist barriers and creating opportunities for all within an educational marketplace. The segregationists objective was to use government dishonestly to preserve white privilege.

Any doubt about that in a young reporters mind was erased upon awakening August 6, 1964, and finding that a substantial part of Prince Edwards white adults had gone to local banks in the dead of night to collect $180,000 in tuition-grant payments. The countys leaders put together this hush-hush payout for whites only because they feared the NAACP was on the verge of securing a court injunction on further payment of tuition grants to Prince Edward residents. Civil rights lawyer Samuel W. Tucker aptly described this sleazy operation as a midnight raid on the public treasury.

By complete contrast, the vouchers envisioned by Milton Friedman have advanced in the light of day and with major backing from minority families. Consider:

An African-American state legislator and Jesse Jackson supporter, Polly Williams, pioneered the advent of private-choice vouchers for disadvantaged Milwaukee schoolchildren in 1990. Choice has expanded greatly in the city and state since then.

Research studies have shown voucher recipients attending private schools are more likely to be in racially integrated classes than are their peers in public schools.

Polls have consistently shown that black and Hispanic parents overwhelmingly favor vouchersand by larger margins than do parents from other racial/ethnic backgrounds.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 2002 case (Zelman v. Simmons-Harris) vouchers are constitutional, the case before it was from Cleveland, where the vast majority of children benefitting from choice came from low-income black or Hispanic homes.

In truth, vouchers (or opportunity scholarships) are impeded by a legacy of bigotry rather than being propelled by one. An honest history lesson CAP could teachwere it interestedwould show how anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments inserted into many state constitutions in the late 19th century continue to block some families from freely choosing faith-based schools, Catholic or otherwise. Of course, CAP is blind to that injustice because its allegiance is to those with vested interests in government-monopolized education.

Robert Holland (holland@heartland.org) is a senior fellow for education policy with The Heartland Institute.
The left is determined to sink the Trump presidency.

But something even more important than the Trump presidency is at stake. The ultimate target is not Trump, but human liberty. Donald Trump is a great man, but far greater are the millions of Americans whose dream of liberty he represents. Obviously, the left hates Trump with a vengeance, but what they despise even more is the average American with his dream of freedom and opportunity.

From the left's perspective, the Trump presidency is illegitimate not because it lacked a plurality of votes or because of the supposed Russian connection. It is illegitimate because it gives voice to those who do not deserve representation. Hillary Clinton let it slip when she mocked the "basket of deplorables," those whom she accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. Having at first insisted that "half" of Trump voters fall into these categories, she then retreated from that figure: it was somewhat less than half who are deplorable.

Rarely has a presidential candidate been so candid and so obtuse at the same time, for "deplorable" is exactly what the left thinks of average Americans. And for that reason, Trump's presidency cannot be allowed to succeed, even if sinking Trump means sinking the country. The left is willing to savage our economy, trash health care, weaken our national defense, and lose the fight against terrorism just to see that the deplorables are kept in their place. That is the central motive of the anti-Trump forces.

That sort of disdain for the heartland has a long history stretching back to John Quincy Adams, with his determination not to see Jackson achieve the presidency. After the Era of Jackson and the Civil War that followed, it continued with the political dominance of the Northeast, the victory of McKinley over William Jennings Bryan, Wilson's expansion of government powers during WWI (including the Sedition Act of 1918), FDR's reversal of Coolidge's small-government policies, Johnson's disastrous anti-poverty programs, and Obama's governance by executive order in defiance of the people's elected representatives. Ordinary Americans have always had to struggle against the ambitions of a political elite that assumes it has the right to govern in their place.

It goes without saying that the ideology of the left has always been anti-democratic and anti-pluralistic. The terror tactics of radical student groups in the 1960s revealed a disdain for democracy, as has the barrage of environmental lawsuits aimed at blocking legal property development. And the more recent rulings of rogue judges obstructing Trump's immigration orders.

Nor does the left believe in open debate within a pluralistic society. Conservative speakers are blocked from appearing on college campuses. Conservative opinion is hardly represented in the mainstream liberal media. When Democrats controlled the Senate, Republicans were blocked from presenting amendments. Even now, Senate Democrats have allowed confirmation of only two of President Trump's nominees to the federal courts.

As many writers, including Jonah Goldberg, have documented, the American left today has much in common with radical regimes of the past. In his superb book The Dragons of Expectation (New York 2005), Robert Conquest noted the continuity between these violent regimes and the left today: "if no longer driven by theory [that is, hardcore Marxism], the instinctive urge to impose values or opinions remains. And the urge toward using the state for those purposes is still common in the West" (77).

It is important to understand the true source of the left's disdain. It has nothing to do with policy or the good of the country. It is, in effect, closely aligned with the psychology of racism  the need of defensive groups to transfer their uncertainties to an object of scorn. In his chapter on "Judgement and Condemnation" in Crowds and Power (New York, 1961), Elias Canetti begins his analysis with "the pleasure of pronouncing an unfavorable verdict." This "cruel pleasure ... consists in relegating something to an inferior group" and then pronouncing judgment (296). Underlying the hostile rhetoric is always "the urge to push it to its conclusion, to the active and bloody hostility of two packs" (297), a process that ultimately entails the pronouncement of a "death sentence," whether actual or metaphorical (relegating one's opponents to the inhuman "basket of deplorables" or finding other ways of denying them speech and volition).

This is a dangerous state of affairs. The left's brazenness is something new, and something that holds the potential for great danger. As a Fox News commentary pointed out at the time of Hillary's deplorables remark, "anything [traditional Americans] say 'no' to is to be labeled racist, sexist, misogynist, xenophobic and nativist." This is just another way of saying that from the left's point of view, ordinary Americans should have no say, and no political or cultural existence.

In order to remain a cohesive movement, leftism, which has no positive agenda, must continue to ramp up hatred of its opponents. It has come to resemble a "pack" motivated by instincts of power rather than a source of civil debate. What if the left's current posture of intolerance is only the beginning? What follows once you have labeled your opponents "deplorable"?

What follows is the urge to crush them, a primitive impulse that Canetti discussed at length in a remarkable section of Crowds and Power entitled "Seizing and Incorporation." Speaking of the instinct to crush one's opponents, Canetti notes that "it is contempt which urges [an attacker] on to crush [his prey]. ... You mean nothing to me[.] ... You mean nothing to anyone. You can be destroyed with impunity with anyone noticing" (205). That, in essence, is what we are facing.

And that is why the hostility toward Trump will never lessen. Assuming that Trump is re-elected in 2020, we are in for eight years of rhetorical warfare. The left's contempt for ordinary Americans is now the basis of its own political survival. We're going to see more "deplorables" speeches, only this time more extreme. (Within hours of Anthony Scaramucci's appointment as White House communications director, Mother Jones headlined that he "may have a Russia problem of his own." More to come, I'm sure.)

The left continues trying to sink Trump with Russia and other pretexts. Why not say what you mean? "WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." Anything to keep the proles in their place.

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
Obamacare is dying, afflicted with a terminal illness not curable by current medical technology. The system is plagued with ever rising premiums and deductibles, reduced choice of physicians and hospitals, and fewer options for insurance. Adverse selection is chasing healthy individuals away, who choose to have no insurance rather than paying for coverage they don't want or need  and can't afford.

Is this all just the typical government program, bloated, inefficient, and financially unsound? Or is it by design, doomed to fail, paving the way for a replacement such as single-payer? Regardless of motives, the "Affordable" Care Act is anything but.

Now in the intensive care unit, doctors from Congress are deciding what to do with their moribund patient. In this case, I favor the approach of Charlie Gard's doctors: letting Obamacare "die with dignity." How ironic that bureaucrats and judges are happy to let a little boy "die with dignity" without the opportunity for a last-ditch effort at life-saving therapy but are hell-bent on continuing CPR on the pulseless corpse of Obamacare.

The House passed a lousy replacement bill. It was like moving an ICU patient to another room with a better window view, thinking that will cure the patient. The Senate couldn't even do that, instead fretting over how much dextrose to add to the IV, believing that will change the disease course of a patient suffering from multiple organ system failure.

Next week is the Charlie Gard decision for the Senate. Let Obamacare "die with dignity" via repeal, or continue the tube feedings via insurance company subsidies and bailouts, prolonging the inevitable?

It's not looking promising in the Senate. The "we know better than you" men and women of the "world's greatest deliberative body" will likely choose life, unlike the E.U. judges choosing death for Charlie. Maybe we could swap a few U.S. senators for E.U. judges as a solution. Charlie would get a chance at life, and Obamacare could sail off to the afterlife.

Next week, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is throwing down the gauntlet: a simple up-or-down vote on repealing Obamacare. About time.

Remember the endless campaign promises from Congress to repeal Obamacare? They told us they needed the House. Delivered. But we need the Senate, too. Also delivered. But President Obama will just veto what we send him, including the 50-plus attempts by Congress to repeal or defund Obamacare in some manner. We need the White House, too. Guess what: you have it. Now there's Republican control of Washington, D.C. not seen in generations.

The stars aligned, the weather perfect, no more excuses. Time to perform. And the Senate choked  big league, as the president might describe it.

Next week, Senators demonstrate whether or not their talk of the past eight years was cheap and empty. As it stands now, Senators Murkowski, Collins, and Capito will not vote for repeal. What a difference a couple of years and now a real vote make.

In 2015, Senators Murkowski and Capito were among 48 GOP senators who voted "yes" to repeal Obamacare  a much easier vote then, since it faced a veto. Not so much now. When the vote matters, integrity and honesty are thrown out the window.

It's much like standing in front of the bathroom mirror, telling off your boss or asking someone out on a date. It sounds so clever when the recipient is just a reflection in the mirror. But then when facing a real person, nothing of substance comes out  just some tongue-tied jibber-jabber.

Other senators may vote no, too. My local senator, Cory Gardner, voted for repeal in 2015, but now he is spinning like a weathervane in a tornado, deciding which way to vote. Focus groups, polls, the Denver Post opinion page...all far more influential than what he promised Colorado voters.

No more hiding behind the skirts of Senate rules and procedures. Time to take a position. Draw that line in the sand. They wanted to be senators. So now they can do their jobs. Take a stand, and be prepared to defend it.

Is it their voters they are afraid of? Or their campaign donors? It seems more like the latter, else Obamacare would have been repealed last January, consistent with their endless campaign promises. Republican senators can enrage their voters, assured that most would never vote for a Democrat. But don't forget primaries, and don't rule out voters staying home in 2018 under the assumption that their votes don't matter. All votes are for the uni-party, beholden to the establishment and donors, not the voters.

Repeal won't pass the Senate. Those senators up for re-election who were "for repeal before they were against it" can seek guidance from former senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton on how to tap-dance around their shifting votes, as those two did for their Iraq War votes.

The media will blame Trump for the failed vote, as will NeverTrumps. Voters will not. They will rightly blame Congress for their ineptitude and dishonesty. Don't be surprised if Trump calls Schumer and tries to work with Democrats, since Republicans can only chase their tails.

Congress abdicated taking tough votes when Obama was in the White House. No oversight. No checks and balances. No power of the purse. Instead, they sat in the bleachers, occasionally clapping or booing but doing little else. Now they are on the field. It's their turn to play.

Talking out of both sides of your mouth is fine for Sunday talk shows and speeches to campaign donors. But let's see how it plays out on a national stage.

Everyone is watching, just as they are with the Charlie Gard case. Death with dignity or continued life support? What will senators choose for Obamacare?

Brian C Joondeph, M.D., MPS is a Denver-based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
A few days ago, we got this amazing update about the situation in Venezuela. This is from my friends at Pan Am Post:

Cuba has an "occupation" army in Venezuela, according to Secretary General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro. He spoke at a US Senate hearing on Wednesday, July 19, during which he expounded on Venezuela and Cuba's long-standing relationship. "There are currently about 15,000 Cubans in Venezuela," he said. "It's like an occupation army from Cuba in Venezuela," Secretary Almagro said during his testimony before US lawmakers. The diplomat, who has strongly condemned Maduro's dictatorial regime in Venezuela, said: "If we don't seek to free the prisoners and restore power in Venezuela, there will be no solution to the problem Nestor Reverol, Benavides Torres and General Zavarce are responsible for every gunshot and every death in Venezuela."

That's quite an update, to say the least. I was aware of Cubans in the Venezuelan "deep state," from enforcing laws to collecting tax payments. I was not aware of so many Cubans. Let's remember that 15,000 is a huge number for a small nation like Cuba. It certainly rivals the Cuban military participation in African wars.

My first question was this: are those Cuban soldiers fighting Venezuelan protesters?

I don't know the answer, but it won't be surprising if the Maduro regime is using Cubans to clash with the locals. Maduro probably does not trust that Venezuelan soldiers will hurt their own people. The confrontations have turned very harsh lately, as we can read in daily reports from the country.

The issue is even more interesting because of stories that Cuban soldiers are conducting drills in Venezuela to prepare for an invasion.

Could U.S. Marines or Army Rangers confront Cubans in Venezuela should President Trump authorize a unilateral or lead a regional action? Let's remember that the Marines overcame Cuban soldiers when President Reagan ordered them into Grenada in 1983.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
It appears that New York mayor Bill de Blasio's recent trip to Germany to speak to G-20 protesters in lieu of attending a vigil for an assassinated police officer will be dogging him for some time to come.

De Blasio was in Queens to announce a $16-million effort to fix sidewalks when an ordinary voter stepped out of her car to confront him about his lack of respect for the police.

The whole thing was recorded for posterity:

In the finest tradition of Monty Python, de Blasio ran away.

Washington Free Beacon:

Vickie Paladino and her husband were driving through their neighborhood when they spotted the far-left mayor, who was there to announce a $16 million initiative to fix sidewalks damaged by tree roots. Paladino was so upset over de Blasio's trip to Germany to speak at a G-20 protest in lieu of attending a vigil for slain New York police officer Miosotis Familia that she left the car to berate him. As de Blasio approached her and a group of others to shake hands, she started to ask about his trip. He turned around with his security detail and went to his car. "I want to know why you let your police officers down and our country down by going to Germany and protesting against our country," she yelled at de Blasio. "I want to know why you're doing that. OK? I don't care about the trees. We'll work it out." CBS reporter Marcia Kramer had a scathing assessment of de Blasio, who she said "simply fled" when Paladino started her criticism. "The woman in the white shirt single-handedly brought WrestleMania to the streets of Whitestone, Queens, but her opponent Bill de Blasio was no Hulk Hogan or The Rock," Kramer said. "He was more like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard Of Oz." Paladino caught the attention of the media assembled for the event, and she told reporters that she'd "had it" with de Blasio and doubted he had a friend in the city. "This is got to do with a liberal, socialist mayor who is running our city and has no regard for our country," she said. "Why did you go to Germany? Why did you stand with the communists, with the anarchists, with the socialists when youre supposed to be here, taking care of our business, our police officers," she said in a later interview with Kramer.

...to which de Blasio apparently had no reply.

What could he possibly say? I wanted to get street cred with the socialists and communist wackos who vote for me? I didn't want to make it appear to the black community that I cared about the police? I needed a vacation, and Hamburg is very nice this time of year?

The problem for opponents of de Blasio is that there is no one candidate they can rally around to oppose him. If anything, his main opposition will come from the even farther left  a sure sign that New York has lost any sense of the center of American politics and is now a haven for some truly radical politicians.

De Blasio ran away from the woman in Queens because he doesn't have to deal with the issue of his relations with police, who can't forget de Blasio's crack about telling his son to be afraid of the cops. Most de Blasio voters either don't care or support his position regarding New York's finest. Unless or until de Blasio is forced to pay politically for his lack of respect for cops, he can safely ignore constituents who question his choices.
The media's condemnation of President Donald Trump for having a second chat (this time over dinner) several weeks ago with Russian president Vladimir Putin, about which President Trump did not inform the media, is one of the most inane and empty-headed charges conjured up yet. The media should be ashamed of themselves for portraying this second discussion as some type of infraction. What exactly was the wrongdoing that was committed? This "news story" is a total concoction on the part of a media machine that is hungry to lynch the president, such that the media will create meaningless stories out of thin air in their desperate attempt to unilaterally judge and convict Mr. Trump.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was recently subjected to the same type of condemnation by liberal European and American media. At a meeting in Budapest last week with the leaders of four Central and Eastern European nations, Netanyahu criticized the European Union on a "hot mic":

"The EU is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, that produces technology and every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it. It's crazy. It's actually crazy. There is no logic here. "The EU is undermining its security by undermining Israel. Europe is undermining its progress by undermining its connection with Israeli innovation by a crazy attempt to create political conditions. "I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear. I am not very politically correct. I know that's a shock to some of you. It's a joke. But the truth is the truth  both about Europe's security and Europe's economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy towards Israel." [emphasis added]

Despite the liberal media's effort to conjure up an "attack" story out of a candid and critical assessment by a world leader, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban welcomed Netanyahu's remarks and replied:

"If Europe does not cooperate with Israel, then Europe punishes herself[.]" ... "Israel and Europe's relationship is not rational, and there is no rationality in their connection. It is time to return to a normal and smooth relationship. Europe should appreciate Israel's effort in the interest of the stability of the Middle East."

Although the press portrayed the Israeli prime minister's remarks as some type of unforgivable sin, they were received as a breath of fresh air by those more interested in security than in the left-wing political correctness that has a stranglehold on much of Western Europe.

President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu continue to brush off the fake news. May this continue.

However, some in the media, and Palestinian leadership in particular, have now used fake news to justify the commission of new and horrific acts of terror.

A little over a week ago, three Arabs on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem gunned down two Israeli police officers in a totally unprovoked massacre. In response, the Israelis closed the Temple Mount for two days, during which they installed metal detectors in order to prevent further smuggling of firearms onto the Mount by terrorists. Makes sense.

In response, the Jerusalem Arab street has undertaken violent rioting against the Israeli police for the Israelis' "provocation" of installing metal detectors on the Temple Mount to prevent further terrorism. If this is a provocation, I cannot image what type of passive self-defense action is not a provocation in the eyes of these rioters.

Then, this past Friday night, as a Jewish family was eating a Sabbath meal after returning home from prayers, a 20-year-old Arab terrorist entered their home and stabbed three of them to death in cold blood. What was their crime? There was no crime, yet the murders were praised by Hamas head Ismael Haniyeh as "an heroic act that lifted the heads of the (Palestinian) nation high."

Yesterday, two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli seriously wounded when a Jordanian terrorist opened fire at the Israeli embassy in Amman. This occurred in tandem with mass street protests in Amman against the Israelis' installation of metal detectors on the Temple Mount.

And yesterday as well as today, Hamas shot two rockets from Gaza toward Israeli civilian targets.

This wave of Arab terror was incited by fake news. The installation of a noninvasive security system  metal detectors  was fabricated by Palestinians and others into an excuse for the continued brutal terror.

Major public gathering places the world over, including stadiums, government buildings, airports, and even houses of prayer, have metal detectors. It may be a bit inconvenient, but civilized people know that it can save many lives, and they appreciate it.

The Talmud states that before the Eschatological Era, decency will be replaced by insolence, and normal values will be turned on their head. It sure looks as though we're approaching that point.

Avrohom Gordimer is a senior rabbinic fellow at the Coalition for Jewish Values, a public policy institute reflecting traditional Jewish thought. He serves on the editorial board of Jewish Action magazine; is a staff writer for the Cross-Currents website; and is a frequent contributor to Israel National News, Yated Ne'eman, and a host of other publications. He is a member of the Rabbinical Council of America and the New York Bar, and he works as an account executive at a large Jewish organization based in Manhattan. The views expressed in the above article are solely those of the writer.
French president Emmanuel Macron is finding that translating his ideas espoused on the campaign trail into public policy is wreaking havoc on his popularity, gained from his landslide victory just three months ago.

Macron is running into the same problems his three predecessors discovered when they, too, tried to reform the archaic labor laws that are a huge drag on the economy. The president is also in hot water with several other groups over proposed budget cuts to trim the size of government, reform pensions, and rein in military spending.

France has the second largest economy in Europe, but it's been hamstrung in recent decades by a plethora of union-friendly labor contracts and 3,000 pages of labor laws that make it virtually impossible to fire anyone while granting extraordinarily generous pay and benefits to all workers. Unemployment is close to 10%  worse for working-age adults under the age of 25. Economic growth has been stagnant, and the productivity rate is among the worst in the E.U.

Can Macron succeed where his predecessors failed?

Politico:

Macron, a centrist first-time candidate who swept to power at age 39, still has similar or higher popularity than most of his predecessors at the same point in their terms. Former President Francois Hollande enjoyed an approval rating of 56 percent in July 2012, Francois Mitterrand was down to 48 percent, and Nicolas Sarkozy was still flying high at 66 percent. In each case, the rating in July had little bearing on long-term averages. Even so, Macron's shrinking score is a tough reality check for a president whose first weeks in power were uncommonly blessed. It comes after he held a number of high-flying meetings with world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, and now turns to deal with a stuttering domestic economy and unpopular plans to shrink the country's deficit over the next year. Budget cuts are planned for multiple sectors, including a short-term one in the military, which prompted top officer Pierre de Villiers to resign this week in a public fracas that tested Macron's authority. The poll showed voter groups concerned by cuts turning against the president. His approval score dropped by 18 percentage points among civil servants, by 11 points among over-65s worried about planned changes to the pension system, and by 25 points among supporters of the centrist MoDem party, whose leaders left the government last month amid a scandal at the European Parliament. Things are only set to get tougher. In September, outrage over public sector budget cuts will combine with fury over plans to overhaul labor rules and trigger street protests across the country. The anti-Macron front will have a fiery, uncompromising leader in MP Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is already planning demonstrations for after the summer lull.

"Summer lull" is a euphemism for the unprecedented five weeks of vacation granted French workers by law. The entire economy shuts down during this time. Not even Macron is proposing any changes that grant some French workers up to nine weeks of vacation a year.

But Macron is proposing other changes that are likely to enrage many workers.

Bloomberg:

In talks with union and business leaders, Macron and his labor minister, Muriel Penicaud, focused on three main areas: giving individual companies more say on contractual issues such as working hours and pay; merging the myriad workers' councils that proliferate as companies grow (they're why France has so many 49-employee companies); and putting limits on court-imposed severance pay, which are widely viewed as so unpredictable that they discourage companies from hiring people in the first place. As always, the devil is in the details, and there's lots of detail in those three areas. One area that's not up for discussion is France's 35-hour work week, which has been weakened enough over the years that it's no longer seen as a priority. 4. How does Macron plan to get this done? He wants to avoid taking the usual route, which is sending a formal proposal to parliament, where debate and amendments might well water it down. Instead, Macron and Penicaud  a former head of human resources at Danone  met unions and business leaders throughout May to establish what they might and won't accept. On June 28, Macron's cabinet asked parliament to give his government the power to change the country's labor law by decree. Macron's party has an overwhelming majority in parliament, and that law is expected to pass later this month. The government will then resume talks with labor and business leaders, and publish the decrees in September.

Macron can issue as many decrees as he wishes, but the unions and labor activists are adept at filling the streets with protesters, putting pressure on the government to dial back any reforms. Meaningful reform is not possible under these conditions, which is why the French economy will remain in the doldrums for the foreseeable future.
Sixty Minutes had a long section on the sons of the Rosenbergs, who you may remember were American Jewish Communists who were part of a Soviet espionage ring. This espionage ring had been active for many years, and they were found guilty relaying information on the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort to construct an atomic bomb, to the Soviet Union and were sentenced to death.

Sixty Minutes interviewed the sons, who go under their adoptive name "Meeropol," at length, and the interview was a tear-jerker about how much pain they had gone through as children before, during, and after their parents' execution. Words like "Joseph McCarthy" (who had nothing to do with the case) and the "'50s" were strategically voiced.

Decades later, with the help of various leftist "activists," the Meeropol brothers tried to rehabilitate their parents, claiming they were innocent. However, examination of documents by a sympathetic academic revealed that, lo and behold, they, indeed, had been guilty of espionage. The investigation were written up in The Rosenberg File, and the writer, Ronald Radosh, lost a lot of leftist friends as a result. Incidentally, the very same change of mind happened regarding an investigation of Alger Hiss, another Communist spy, by Allen Weinstein, documented in Perjury.

The two brothers have since that time changed their efforts from declaring both parents innocent to having only their mother declared innocent. In this, they rely on arguing that one of the Communist witnesses at the trial lied to save his skin and that Ethel's role in the espionage ring was relatively minor and did not merit the electric chair.

There is an additional factor that comes into play here, which was not brought up in the sympathetic 60 Minutes segment. It comes from the history on the KGB as detailed in Col. Oleg Gordievsky's book, KGB, The Inside Story. Gordievsky defected to the West in 1985 and provided a massive amount of information. With regard to the Rosenbergs, a tactical ploy was used very effectively. Since the Rosenbergs were a couple whose children would end up orphaned, they were ordered by Moscow to constantly proclaim their innocence. The Communists would then organize a worldwide campaign agitating against the cruel, heartless, evil United States for its persecution of innocent people falsely accused of being Communist spies. When the pair  including a woman!  were sentenced to be executed, this martyrdom went beyond their wildest expectations. Julius Rosenberg, in particular, was perfect for the role, with his puny frame and his facial expression of martyrdom. Massive demonstrations took place  secretly organized by Communist organizations. Instead of the Rosenbergs being denounced for betraying their country, it was America that was denounced as being evil. It was a great propaganda victory.

What is also interesting is that both Rosenbergs were told that if they came clean about their operation, the death sentence would be rescinded. Even with the knowledge that her husband had been executed and her sons would be orphaned, Ethel, the true believer, refused.

This would not have been surprising to those who had firsthand knowledge of Communists: many persons in the Soviet Union had denounced relatives for the mildest negative comments, and some Communists who had ended up in the Gulag still proclaimed themselves Marxists and praised the genius of Josef Stalin.

Armando Simon is a retired college professor and the author of A Cuban from Kansas, Very Peculiar Stories, and The U. They can be found at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
This is a long, complicated story that has been bubbling beneath the surface for a few years. It has now taken on a life of its own after FBI agents raided the former home of an I.T. staffer for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and took away several smashed hard drives.

The staffer, Pakistani-born Imran Awan, along with two of his brothers and their wives, are being investigated for potential cyber-crimes relating to the House of Representatives' computer network. There is evidence that Awan transferred some data to an outside server in clear violation of the law.

In addition to the I.T. staffer's ruined hard drives, FBI investigators have also seized a laptop belong to Wasserman Schultz that Awan may have worked on. The congresswoman has threatened the FBI if they don't return it.

Daily Caller:

The congressional source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, confirmed that the FBI has joined what Politicopreviously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into "serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network" by Imran and three of his relatives, who had access to the emails and files of the more than two dozen House Democrats who employed them on a part-time basis. Capitol Police have also seized computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker. Awan's younger brothers, Abid and Jamal, his wife, Hina Alvi, and Rao Abbas, Imran's best friend, are also under investigation. There have been no arrests in the case. There is also evidence of financial schemes that extend beyond the Capitol Police's purview and may expand to Pakistan, where Imran spends significant portions of the year. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said in March that the Capitol Police are "getting the kind of technical assistance they need to do that. This is under an active criminal investigation, their capabilities are pretty strong but, they're also able to go and get the kind of help they need from other sources." The brothers' stepmother independently filed court documents in Virginia accusing the brothers of wiretapping and extorting her. Soon after Imran began working for Wasserman Schultz in 2005, his two brothers and two of their wives  plus Abbas and another friend  began appearing as IT staffers on the payrolls of other House Democrats. Collectively, the Awan group has been paid $4 million since 2009. Fellow IT staffers interviewed by TheDCNF said the Awans were often absent from weekly meetings and email exchanges. One of the fellow staffers said some of the computers the Awans managed were being used to transfer data to an off-site server. Shortly after the criminal probe was revealed in February, Imran abruptly moved out of his longtime home on Hawkshead Drive in Lorton, Va., and listed it for rent on a website that connects landlords with military families. One of new tenants  a Marine Corps veteran married to a female Navy Officer  said he found "wireless routers, hard drives that look like they tried to destroy, laptops, [and] a lot of brand new expensive toner."

There are several possibilities that would explain what's going on with Awan and his brothers  most of them frightening. Are he and his conspirators Pakistani spies? Are they al-Qaeda plants? Or are they simply selling the information they've collected to the highest international bidder?

And most interesting  but perhaps least likely  is any of this related to the hack of the DNC? Wasserman Schultz was DNC chairperson up until the hack in 2016. Could Awan have gotten access to DNC servers and sold the information on the black market?

At this point, the FBI is being unusually tight-lipped about what the investigators are looking for. That alone tells us national security is probably involved and that Awan and his cohorts may have tried to compromise sensitive information from the House of Representatives.
My wife and I took my 91-year-old mom to the emergency room yesterday because she had a bad pain in her back and said she now needed 24-hour care. After ten hours waiting, she was finally admitted.

As I heard her continuous, continuous screaming and crying, when her blood pressure went to 220/130, at which point she asked God to help her and that it was time to go, and as she had two morphine shots, other pain relievers, and finally a muscle relaxer, I learned that none of that would allow her to be admitted under Medicare.

A C.T. scan showed that in a fall, she had caused an acute fracture in a vertebrae. She had literally broken her back. The same bureaucracy was at work when I was told that this alone would also not be accepted as a legitimate cause for a stay at the hospital, according to Medicare. You see, a broken back, according to the bureaucrats at the government, merits only observation, not admittance, because three days in the hospital might cause Medicare to have to pay for 20 days of acute nursing home treatment.

Thank goodness my mom also has a UTI, is dehydrated, isn't eating, and isn't confused, because that might be good enough for Medicare. The doctors are not even sure that all of this will qualify mom for Medicare coverage, but obviously, she will be headed to an acute care facility this week whether we have to pay for it or they do. She certainly can't go home.

Anyone who believes that Medicare for all or single-payer insurance is the solution and that there would be no limits for many of the gravely ill has been seriously misled. There are limits all over the place within Medicare. I would rather argue with any private insurer than attempt to argue with the government because with the government and its massive, unaccountable bureaucracy, I will lose.

The reason Democrats took off all limits to care for private insurance companies within Obamacare was to get rid of competition and to get to single-payer. Smaller companies cannot afford no annual and no lifetime risk rules, so competition disappears as a few behemoths remain. In contrast, it is OK with Democrats if Medicare limits its risks and slaps on massive rules; it just won't tolerate that if it is done in the private sector.

All of you who want the government to control health care should think of the British baby Charlie Gard, whose the parents have no choice under Britain's National Health Service, not even if they want to pay, because this is what single-payer looks like. Or think of anyone here with a broken back.

We need our freedom back.
Would baby Charlie have gotten his death sentence were he not a white boy? It may seem an odd question, but there's a good reason to pose it.

The poor child at issue is Charlie Gard, a British infant thus far denied medical treatment by the U.K. government  even though his parents can pay for it themselves. So much for death panels being a myth.

Charlie has a serious genetic condition called mitochondrial depletion syndrome, which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. The details of it aren't important here, however. What's significant is that the boy's parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, have raised $1.7 million via crowd-funding and can pay for travel and treatment themselves; this would allow them to bring Charlie to the U.S. for a novel therapy offered by a Dr. Michio Hirano.

"Would" is the operative word, because the British medical establishment, bureaucracy, and courts have, again, thus far said "No, you may not seek further treatment for your son. It doesn't matter that you're paying the piper; we're calling the tune and say he must be allowed to die with 'dignity'" (as if these statists have even the foggiest idea what that is).

And we'll have to wait to see if it matters that, according to Dr. Hirano, the new therapy would give Charlie an 11- to 56-percent chance of meaningful improvement, which, even under Common Core math, is far better than the zero-percent chance offered by Oceania. (Note: British authorities just recently granted Charlie an 11-day "stay of execution," so to speak, so that Hirano can travel to the U.K. to evaluate him.) But on to my opening eyebrow- and doubts-raising question.

To illustrate why I ask it, here's a little background. It was revealed in 2014 that British authorities had ignored Pakistani Muslim child sex-trafficking rings for 16 years  even though the perpetrators were responsible for the abuse (and sometimes torture) of at least 1,400 girls, some as young as 12. In fact, when complaints were made, the girls were often dismissed as tramps to justify the inaction.

Of course, they were only white girls.

And this abuse is still occurring, we hear.

The reason for turning this blind eye has been absolutely established: the authorities, from police to bureaucrats to social workers, were afraid that pursuing Muslim criminals would get them branded "racist."

In fact, some of the girls who went to the police "were told they were being racist," reported The Federalist. And a Home Office researcher attempting to blow the whistle was warned by a colleague that she "must never [again] refer to Asian men" ("Asian" in the U.K. references Muslims). She also was forced into diversity indoctrination to raise her "awareness of ethnic issues."

You see, better to allow young girls to be raped and brutalized than to, as one British politician put it, "rock the multicultural community boat."

That is, in today's (formerly) Great Britain  one of the more politically correct places on Earth.

Now back to poor Charlie. Would the powers that be have denied the opportunity for life if he were, let's say, a Muslim female?

I believe that the likely answer is no. They'd be too afraid of accusations of racism (yes, I know that "Muslim" isn't a race, but leftists use "racism" as synonymous with "bigotry"); they'd be worried about their reputations and careers. Their whole mindset would be different. Remember, again: the U.K. is a place where the rape of little white girls is preferable to implicating swarthy men.

It's not just fears of labeling, but also something far darker. In today's world of identity politics  where we hear about mythical "white privilege," "dead white males," "the problem of whiteness" college courses, and prohibitions against whites expressing opinions  white males are lowest on the totem pole. They get the most grief and blame and the least consideration and charity  and compassion. Hey, given group voting patterns, Charlie could grow up to be a Tory or, perish the thought, even a Brexit supporter.

To be clear, I'm not saying the biases in question here are generally conscious. They are mainly, if not completely, those unconscious biases (you know, those things you leftists ever warn about but always get wrong). Man has a great capacity for rationalization, and Charlie's grim-reaper judges have no doubt convinced themselves they're acting in the "best interests of the child." Were the baby a Muslim female, I suspect they would've rendered the opposite decision and deferred to the parents without prodding, again convincing themselves of their righteousness.

To those taking offense at my speculation, realize it's similar to when activists respond to the shooting of a black criminal by claiming it wouldn't have happened had the miscreant been white. The only difference is that they're wrong  police are actually more likely to shoot white criminals than black ones  while my suspicion has a basis in today's social reality.

The reality is that with the current group spoils system, race and sex can determine one's chance of enjoying college scholarships, good jobs, justice in court and perhaps even life itself.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com.
The Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is home to many famous dead people, including Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. The grave of Oscar Wilde, in particular, is very popular. His female fans have smothered the tomb with kisses leaving red lipstick marks all over. Many female visitors, after assaulting the grave of the famous Irish writer, move over to the adjacent plot for their next targetthe effigy of Victor Noir.

Its perfectly reasonable to ask who Victor Noir is, just like it was a century and a half ago when the man was alive. He was an ordinary young man, an unimpressive fellow, who just found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody knew him until he was dead. His recent cult following, however, has nothing to do with the manner of his death nor its political fallout, but rather on the mysterious bulge in his pants.

Photo credit: David Edwards/Flickr

Victor Noir was working as an apprentice journalist for the newspaper La Marseillaise, in 19th century Paris. At that time, the newspapers owner, Henri Rochefort, and the editor, Pascal Grousset, became embroiled in a conflict with Prince Pierre Bonaparte, the great-nephew of Napoleon, and cousin of the then-ruling Emperor Napoleon III. In order to settle the matter in a way unbefitting of an editor of a newspaper, Grousset sent Victor Noir and another of his employee to the home of Bonaparte to deliver a challenge to a duel. Prince Bonaparte originally declined the challenge and asserted his willingness to fight Rochefort instead. An altercation broke out that resulted in Bonaparte drawing out his pistol and shooting Victor dead.

The murder of a journalist by a member of the emperors family infuriated the public, and on the day of the funeral, some 100,000 people showed up at Noirs home in Neuilly. To add salt to injury, Pierre Bonaparte was acquitted of the murder charge, leading to a number of violent demonstrations across the city. Later on that year, the Prussians invaded France and the empire was overthrown.

Victor Noirs martyrdom was conveniently forgotten and the young journalist remained peacefully in his hometown Neuilly for the next twenty years, until his name began to make rounds again. This time, a decision was made to erect a memorial to his name. Renowned French sculptor, Jules Dalou, was given the job of creating the sculpture in bronze.

Dalou choose to depict Victor Noir at his moment of death. Using sketches made by the press for reference, Dalou sculpted a life-sized bronze effigy of Victor lying flat on the ground as though he had just fallen down when he met his unnatural death. For reasons unknown, Dalou decided to give the sculpture a noticeable bulge under the belt. Whether or not anybody noticed this, we dont know, but in the 1970s, a myth began that rubbing the crotch and kissing the statue on the lips will bring women enhanced fertility and a blissful sex life. You can see the effect of this myth on the statueVictor Noirs lips and groin are shiny, while the rest of his body has the usual greenish tone of oxidized bronze.

In 2004 a fence was erected around the statue of Noir, to deter indecent touching of the statue. But this agitated so many women that the fence was torn down again.

Photo credit: Chupacabra Viranesque/Flickr

Photo credit: theblackdog2071/Flickr

Photo credit: istolethetv/Flickr

Photo credit: istolethetv/Flickr

Photo credit: Neil Howard/Flickr

Photo credit: Jp Rosa/Flickr

Source: Wikipedia / parisisinvisible.blogspot.com
(ANSA) - New York, July 24 - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Monday that it has hiked up its growth forecasts for Italy. The fund said it expects Italian GDP to increase by 1.3% this year, 0.5 of a percentage point more than it predicted in April.

It sees GDP growth of 1% in 2018, 0.2 of a point more than the previous forecast. Premier Paolo Gentiloni expressed satisfaction. "A country that improves on the forecasts can have a more significant and important budget law and lowering of its debt," Gentiloni said in Milan. "This also brings confidence and conviction about our country's possibilities". The IMF also revised up its growth forecasts for the eurozone as a whole, by 0.2 of a point to 1.9% this year and by 0.1 to 1.7% in 2018. "We are inside a positive period for the eurozone but we must also take note of an interesting thing," Gentiloni said. "While we are talking of a step up for other countries, there are a few steps more in the Italian case". It said the world economy will grow 1% in 2018, but cut its GDP forecasts for the United States for both this year and next.


(ANSA) - Rome, July 24 - The farmland of two-thirds of Italy is hit by drought and the cost to Italian agriculture amounts to two billion euros, according to farmers association Coldiretti.

It said the long period of intense heat and lack of rain of has badly hit both crops and livestock farmers.

At least 10 Italian regions are preparing to present requests for a state of natural calamity to be declared to the agriculture ministry because of the drought, ANSA sources said. Water utility ACEA is considering rationing water for around 1.5 million people in Rome after the Lazio region said it will be stopped from taking water from nearby Lake Bracciano, the level of which has fallen significantly due to the recent drought.

The move could kick in next weekend, with water being cut off for around eight hours, mostly in the night and in the morning.

A meeting will be held at the environment ministry in Rome on Wednesday or Thursday on ways to avert the possibility of water rationing in the capital due to the drought emergency, sources said Monday. Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti and officials from the Lazio region and ACEA are set to be among those taking part, the sources said.


BRUSSELS - Interior ministers from 12 countries in Europe and Africa met in Tunis to discuss migration issues including cooperation on repatriations, strengthening efforts and collaboration against human trafficking, and facing the root causes of irregular migration.



The countries - Algeria, Austria, France, Italy, Libya, Mali, Malta, Niger, Slovenia, Switzerland, Chad, and Tunisia - have decided to improve coordination of their efforts to manage migration in the Central Mediterranean.



Representatives from the European Commission and the Council of the European Union are also attending the meetings.



A statement from the meeting said that to face the root causes of irregular migration, there must be efforts to "facilitate integrated and inclusive development in the countries of origin and transit, in particular in regions with strong migratory potential".



It also said this could be done by "placing particular attention on the framework of the EU External Investment Plan" announced by the European Commission and "in particular, with the support of private initiatives and strengthening work opportunities".



To strengthen efforts for cooperation against migrant trafficking, the focus is also on "supporting border authorities in countries of origin and transit as well as prevention and management of irregular migration, border surveillance and security, through training, equipment and support of infrastructure, in particular, in light of the strengthening of the management of land borders in Libya that have a strategic value for Libya, Europe, and Africa".



Regarding repatriations, among other elements, is the plan to "support programmes of voluntary repatriation" and "strengthen cooperation in terms of readmission".


PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron is to receive the prime minister of the Tripoli government, Fayez Al Sarraj, and General Khalifa Haftar on Tuesday, presidential sources have said. France wants to make "its contribution to efforts to build a political compromise under the auspices of the United Nations that brings together all the different Libyan actors on an inclusive basis," a statement said. The meeting will be held in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, near Paris.



Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram reports that Haftar intends to tackle a series of "important" issues including dismantling of the rebel groups in Misurata or Tripoli, or their integration into a future army, changing the Skhirat agreement to strip Al Sarraj of army leadership and declaring his Muslim Brotherhood supporters - along with Daesh, Ansar Al Sharia and LIFG - a terrorist group. The general also wants the Libyan army to be the only army in the country and for all other parallel armed forces to be banned, the paper adds. His demands would allegedly require a reorganisation of the political agreement reached in Morocco in December 2015.







Alfano says Rome, Paris collaborating for Libyan stability. Elysee 'to work in concert' with partners at Tuesday meeting

ROME - Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano on Monday said that Italy supports "Libyan unity" and that Italy has "deepened its cooperation in recent weeks" with the country's unity government led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Alfano spoke at the opening of the 12th Conference of the Ambassadors of Italy at Rome's Farnesina Palace. "The fact that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is here for the third time in a month is indicative of how Italy and France are working in synergy for Libyan stability," Alfano said, adding that "the fragility of Libyan institutions can have a devastating impact on nearby countries".

statement from France's Elysee Palace on Monday highlighted that "France intends to show its support for the efforts to build a political compromise in concert with all of its partners". The statement, released on the eve of a meeting between Libya's Sarraj and General Khalifa Haftar to be hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, said France "intends to facilitate the political understanding between the president of the Libyan Council and the commander of the Libyan National Army in a moment in which the newly appointed Special Representative to the Secretary General of the United Nations for Libya, Ghassan Salame, who will take part in the meetings, takes up his work as a UN mediator"
TEL AVIV - Two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli citizen wounded in a shooting at the Israeli embassy in Amman on Sunday night.



The episode follows three days of clashes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank over the introduction of metal detectors at the Al-Aqsa mosque after two Israeli policemen were shot dead by three Arab-Israeli gunmen at the site on July 14.



Israel has blamed the upsurge in violence on Islamic organisations, particularly Hamas. Local media report that one of the Jordanians, who allegedly worked for a furniture company engaged at the embassy compound, stabbed the Israeli citizen before the pair was shot dead by security. Meanwhile, the Israeli army arrested numerous Hamas leaders in the West Bank on Sunday night including a former minister, an MP and five militants who had been released in an exchange of prisoners several years ago. "This heavy campaign of arrests is the best demonstration that the occupying forces are losing control of the situation," said Abdel Rahman Shedid. Israel is sounding out moderate Arab countries including Egypt and Jordan in the search for a solution to the problem at Temple Mount that might allow the metal detectors to be removed while also guaranteeing security at the Muslim and Jewish sacred site. Meanwhile, appeals for calm continue to arrive from abroad, most notably from Pope Francis who on Sunday invoked "moderation and dialogue" and prayed that the "Lord might inspire the desire for reconciliation and peace in all people". The Islamic Movement led by Sheik Raed Sallah is also under pressure from Israel amid suspicions that, with discreet help from Turkey and Qatar and the open support of Sheik Yusuf al-Qardawi, it and Hamas are trying to erode the influence of Jordan and the PNA in order to gain exclusive control of the holy site.

Tension between Jordan and Israel after embassy shooting. Israel cities immunity to prevent questioning of security staff

AMMAN - A diplomatic row is escalating between Jordan and Israel following an overnight shooting at the Israeli embassy that resulted in the death of two Jordanians and the injury of an Israeli security officer, security sources said on Monday. Israel prevented Jordanian security officials from questioning Israeli security personnel on grounds of immunity under the Vienna Convention, security sources told ANSA. The overnight incident is said to have been caused by a dispute between the embassy staff and Jordanian workers who were delivering furniture.

Local media said authorities prevented embassy staff from leaving the premises in order to question them over the incident, reporting the presence of the interior minister at the scene. It said that the killing of the two Jordanians could have been avoided, blaming Israeli security staff of using lethal force unnecessarily. The incident comes against the backdrop of tension in Jerusalem, where Israeli security clashed with Palestinians near the al Aqsa mosque, leading to the death of three men and injury of scores of others.






Avramopoulos urges more Europe-Africa migrant cooperation EU commissioner at Tunis summit calls for saving lives

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, JULY 24 - EU Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos on Monday called for increased cooperation between Europe and Africa on migration, speaking from the second meeting of the Africa-Europe contact group being held in Tunis, according to Tunisian news site businessnews.com.tn.



"Our goal is to take a step forward in our cooperation, in order to save human lives at sea and in the desert, reduce irregular migration, fight against the 'passeurs' and traffickers, and protect the rights of migrants and refugees," Avramopoulos said.



Participating in the summit are the interior ministers of Algeria, Austria, Chad, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Libya, Mali, Malta, Niger, Slovenia, Switzerland, Tunisia, and Estonia in its EU Council presidency role.



The first Africa-Europe contact group summit was held in Rome last March.



Avramopoulos said "more efficient cooperation" is needed in managing borders along the Central Mediterranean route.



"There's no time to waste. Since the Rome conference, the migrant flow from Libya to Europe has continued to increase," he said.



"Italy, but more generally the entire region, needs all of our solidarity".



Avramopoulos said Tunisia has managed to avoid becoming a departure point for irregular migrants, "despite the migratory pressure that it's facing as a country of origin and transit".



"I applaud the work done so far, but at the same time, I'm conscious of the socio-economic challenges the country is facing. That's why last week we allocated a 100-million-euro loan as the third and final instalment of the EU macro-financial assistance programme to Tunisia, for a total value of 300 million euros," Avramopoulos said. (ANSAmed).




Gentiloni hopes Macron-Sarraj-Haftar meeting positive Premier comments on Paris encounter

(ANSAmed) - MONZA, JULY 24 - Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Monday that he hopes a Paris meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron with Libyan head of government Fayez Al-Sarraj and rival General Khalifa Haftar delivers results. "We'll see," Gentiloni said. "I hope there is a positive contribution".



French government sources on Monday dismissed talk that Italy had been excluded in relation to the move to seek to end the chaos that the North African country is still enduring after a Paris-led campaign contributed to the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. "Our Italian friends and partners are closely involved in this initiative," Elysee Palace sources told ANSA. "We had very intense dialogue with Rome again this morning". The chaos in Libya has helped human traffickers and contributed to the Mediterranean asylum-seeker crisis. Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano opened the 12th Conference of Ambassadors at his ministry in Rome Monday by saying that Italy supports "the unity of Libya" and had examined "collaboration" in recent weeks with Sarraj's government. "The fact that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is here for the third time is indicative of how much Italy and France work in harmony for stability in Libya," Alfano said. "The fragility of the Libyan institutions can have a devastating impact on the countries nearby".




King Salman, emir of Qatar family to vacation in Morocco Despite diplomatic crisis, just 400 km separating families

(ANSAmed) - RABAT, JULY 24 - King Salman of Saudi Arabia will spend his August holidays in the northwestern Morocco port town of Tangier for the third year running.



The king, who recently severed his country's diplomatic ties with Qatar, is expected to arrive in the country on Monday.



Despite the diplomatic crisis, the Saudi royal family will be vacationing not far from emir of Qatar's family, which chose the inland mountainous town of Ifran, less than 400 kilometres away, for its holidays.



King Salman will make his a working holiday, but he has left the kingdom in the hands of his son, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 31, who was named on June 21 as heir to the throne.



The Moroccan government has chosen to remain neutral in the face of the diplomatic crisis with Qatar.



Two jets are expected to arrive at the Ibn Battouta Airport in Tangier from Jeddah on Monday evening, one with King Salman and his delegation aboard, and the other carrying his wife and part of his family.



The Saudi royal family has reserved 924 hotel rooms, for around 1,000 guests total; the large number of guests has made it impossible to find accommodations in 5-star hotels in the city for the entire month of August.



The delegation also had to comb auto dealerships in Marrakech, Rabat, and Casablanca to provide all of the 453 luxury cars it required.



Preparations in Tangier for the delegation's arrival have been underway for about two weeks, since the time that the kitchen, cleaning, and ceremonial staff of 143 men and women arrived in the royal family's luxurious estate with a view of the Atlantic Ocean. (ANSAmed).




PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron is to receive the prime minister of the Tripoli government, Fayez Al Sarraj, and General Khalifa Haftar on Tuesday, presidential sources have said. France wants to make "its contribution to efforts to build a political compromise under the auspices of the United Nations that brings together all the different Libyan actors on an inclusive basis," a statement said. The meeting will be held in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, near Paris.



Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram reports that Haftar intends to tackle a series of "important" issues including dismantling of the rebel groups in Misurata or Tripoli, or their integration into a future army, changing the Skhirat agreement to strip Al Sarraj of army leadership and declaring his Muslim Brotherhood supporters - along with Daesh, Ansar Al Sharia and LIFG - a terrorist group. The general also wants the Libyan army to be the only army in the country and for all other parallel armed forces to be banned, the paper adds. His demands would allegedly require a reorganisation of the political agreement reached in Morocco in December 2015.
Tension between Jordan and Israel after embassy shooting Israel cities immunity to prevent questioning of security staff

(ANSAmed) - AMMAN, JULY 24 - A diplomatic row is escalating between Jordan and Israel following an overnight shooting at the Israeli embassy that resulted in the death of two Jordanians and the injury of an Israeli security officer, security sources said on Monday.



Israel prevented Jordanian security officials from questioning Israeli security personnel on grounds of immunity under the Vienna Convention, security sources told ANSA.



The overnight incident is said to have been caused by a dispute between the embassy staff and Jordanian workers who were delivering furniture.



Local media said authorities prevented embassy staff from leaving the premises in order to question them over the incident, reporting the presence of the interior minister at the scene. It said that the killing of the two Jordanians could have been avoided, blaming Israeli security staff of using lethal force unnecessarily. The incident comes against the backdrop of tension in Jerusalem, where Israeli security clashed with Palestinians near the al Aqsa mosque, leading to the death of three men and injury of scores of others. (ANSAmed)


remaining of

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We hadnt witnessed such a clear example of Spanish politics historical tendency to commit suicide for a while now. A refusal to talk, threats, upping the ante in each round and seeking victory by suffocating your opponent. One hundred to nil. Captive and disarmed. The problem is that this attempt to bring about Catalonias financial asphyxiation is like agent orange being dropped by a suicide pilot.

The Spanish government has decided to completely overwhelm the Catalan administration by demanding weekly reports on its accounts. The measure has several objectives: first off, to terrorize the auditors who are required to testify to the correct use of public spending, under threat of some form of penalty, should they fail to comply. It is also intended to ensure its teams of accountants are unable to process the avalanche of information being sent to Madrid, which has better resources at its disposal than the Catalan administration itself.

The Spanish government is also looking to culminate its takeover of Catalonias public finances, which began with the creation of the Autonomous Liquidity Fund [FLA in Spanish] in July 2012. In the midst of the financial crisis, with the debt markets closed to the Catalan government (along with other regional governments), leaving them unable to obtain credit, the Spanish government offered a line of credit subject to accepting a draconian deficit target, the sharing of information and a permanent cap on the Catalan administrations spending autonomy. The Spanish government initially resorted to costly loans from the debt markets, and subsequently for free thanks to Saint Mario Draghis policies as the head of the ECB. It then lent the cash to Catalonia at interest.

How come a Spain on the threshold of bankruptcy was able to obtain money and the 50 billion bailout it needed to save its banking sector? Because it was and continues to be in control of its taxation system. Because Spain is responsible for collecting tax revenue and it distributes it in such an arbitrary manner that it has been challenged by every autonomous community, except the Basque Country and Navarre, who collect their own taxes and do not contribute to the interregional solidarity fund. The FLA and the extent to which it can be used to blackmail in such a manner was accompanied by a refusal to renegotiate the regional finance system, which was the last step in the financial takeover. Under the current arrangement, the Spanish government controls the Catalan governments income through an out-dated system of financing in the form of the FLA. It decides the priority of payments and obtains detailed information concerning its invoices, which it pays directly to the Catalan governments suppliers. Does this sound like a tax model belonging to a colony, a province or a tobacco plantation?

The current threat is not being able to pay the bills associated with 1-O [the 1 October referendum on independence]. Again, the arbitrariness. Will it be a response to public broadcasters reporting on the vote or running ads encouraging participation in the referendum? Will any IT expenditure be included? Office supplies? What criteria will be applied, aside from political arbitrariness? What is the limit of the Spanish states access to the monies collected in Catalonia, where the vast majority is in favour of a referendum?

Spains threat of withholding the FLA funds is suicidal. Catalan debt currently stands at 75 billion, of which two thirds are owed to Spain, a little over 50 billion, a debt which is underwritten by the Kingdom of Spain, who would be held responsible if Catalonia were to default. This year Catalonia will receive FLA funds to the value of 7.34 billion, of which 1.324 billion correspond to its authorized deficit (0.6% of GDP), with the rest destined for debt maturity. Every international creditor is aware that the reputations of the Kingdom of Spain and Catalonia are entwined.

BELIEVING THAT THE OTHER GUYS AN IDIOT

The current impasse in the relations between Spain and Catalonia has its origin in an unfortunate, useless contempt. In some cases, it is mutual, like when Catalonia makes the mistake of underestimating the power of the state, but in general, Catalonias popular movement has managed to present a positive project that has no need to denigrate anyone. Displays of contempt are often used by certain commentators who are opposed to the independence process and believe that Catalonia is experiencing a moment of collective alienation which they put down to the demonic manipulative power of a part of the Catalan media.

The most recent example is that of a nostalgic enfant terrible who, in a moment of glory, appears to still believe himself to be the editor of Mundo Obrero [Workers World, the periodical of the Spanish Communist Party] and writes pamphlets designed to free the ignorant of the yoke of capitalism and bourgeois nationalism. Mr. Moran, the Catalan people are not manipulated idiots. They simply wish to vote in a referendum. Some even wish to vote no. Thank you.
Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker said, "At Qatar Airways, safety and security are always our highest priorities. They are expressed in everything we do. We were pleased to be the first airline audited under the IOSA program in 2003, and we remain very proud of maintaining our unblemished safety and security record yet again in 2017. This achievement provides continued assurance that Qatar Airways meets world class safety and security standards when measured against IATAs global benchmark. I congratulate all our staff on this achievement, which is recognition of their dedication to the safety and security of our passengers.

The IOSA programme enables airlines to review their safety processes using a worldwide standard that has become the single internationally-accepted safety and security audit process for airlines. Under IOSA, accredited auditors assess an airline's operational management and control systems, including the areas of corporate organisation and management, flight operations, operational control, flight dispatch, aircraft engineering and maintenance, cabin operations, aircraft ground handling, cargo operations and operational security.
ABCNews.com(WASHINGTON) -- The presidents new press secretary dismissed the medias focus on the Russia investigation, what she called Russia fever, as an attempt to delegitimize Trumps election victory.



There's a ton of focus on what I like to call Russia fever, press secretary Sarah Sanders told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on This Week Sunday.



She said the allegations swirling around Russia and Trump associates is a total made-up story about the president, trying to take away the legitimacy of his victory in November.



Instead, she said the focus should be on leaks of sensitive information to the media. We need to focus on these leaks. This is the only illegal thing that has taken place, and it's a real serious problem.

Sanders was responding to a question by Stephanopoulos about a tweet by the president Saturday decrying what Trump called "a new intelligence leak" about Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post,this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions.These illegal leaks, like Comey's, must stop!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2017

Stephanopoulos pressed Sanders on the tweet: "That appears to be a confirmation that the attorney general was talking to the Russian ambassador about the campaign" during the 2016 presidential race.



Sanders disagreed.



"I think the president's point is that there's a real problem with leaks, whether they're actual leaks or not. There's an issue that there are constant stories, sometimes true, sometimes not, that are being leaked out of the intelligence community," she said.



Earlier this week, President Trump, in a lengthy interview with The New York Times, said he would not have appointed Sessions as attorney general if he knew the former Alabama senator would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.



Sanders said on "This Week," "The president knows the attorney general is trying hard and he appreciates that. But at the same time, he's disappointed that he chose to recuse himself. I don't think that that's inconsistent or hard to understand, that there would be frustration with that."



The presidents spokeswoman also said Trump will support proposed legislation slapping new sanctions on Russia.



The administration is supportive of being tough on Russia, particularly in putting these sanctions in place, she said.



The House and Senate struck a deal on a bill that puts new sanctions on Russia for its interference in the U.S. 2016 election and its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria.



The bill also gives Congress the power to review any effort by the Trump administration to ease or end sanctions against Moscow. The legislation includes stiff economic penalties against Iran and North Korea as well.



The original piece of legislation was poorly written, but we were able to work with the House and Senate, and the administration is happy with the ability to do that, and make those changes that were necessary, and we support where the legislation is now, Sanders said.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Post the merger, Vodafone will own 45.1 per cent stake while the Aditya Birla group will have 26 per cent shareholding.

The Competition Commission on Monday approved the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.

New Delhi: The Competition Commission on Monday approved the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, said lawyers who worked on the deal, which will create the country's largest telecom operator.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co said the regulator has "unconditionally" approved merger of the telecommunications businesses of Vodafone India and its wholly-owned subsidiary Vodafone Mobile Services, with Idea Cellular.

"The USD 23 billion transaction is the largest transaction by value in the history of Indian M&A," it said in a statement.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co advised Vodafone India and Vodafone Mobile Services on the deal.

According to the statement, the regulator carried out a comprehensive review of the transaction and concluded that there was no appreciable adverse effect on competition from the proposed merger.

"The CCI approval, within Phase 1, is a very welcome development for both the Indian M&A landscape and the telecom sector, and will serve to fuel more investment in capacity and coverage across a battling telecom sector in India," Shweta Shroff Chopra, Partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, said.

Phase 1 refers to the deal being approved within 30 working days as provided by the Competition Act. Law firm Trilegal, which advised Idea Cellular on the competition law aspects, said the deal with Vodafone India has received CCI approval.

"The proposed merger involved a merger of two of the biggest telecom companies in India and will create the largest telecom player in India, creating significant efficiencies and synergies," Trilegal said in a separate statement.

Getting approval within Phase I implies that the deal would not be subject to detailed scrutiny. Transactions where there are prima facie concerns that they would adversely impact competition are taken into Phase II for an in-depth scrutiny.

Mergers and acquisitions beyond a certain threshold require approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which keeps a tab on unfair business practices across sectors.

The deal, announced in March this year, will create the country's largest mobile phone operator worth more than USD 23 billion with a 35 per cent market share.

Post the transaction, Vodafone will own 45.1 per cent stake in the merged entity while the Aditya Birla group, Idea's parent, will have 26 per cent shareholding after paying Rs 3,874 crore cash for a 4.9 per cent stake. The remaining 28.9 per cent will be held by other shareholders.
Moody's also downgraded IOB's Hong Kong branch's senior unsecured debt rating to Ba3 from Ba1.

Mumbai: Global rating agency Moody's on Monday affirmed ratings of nine banks, including Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Axis Bank, at Baa3/Prime-3, and downgraded the ratings of Indian Overseas Bank and Central Bank of India to Ba3 from Ba1.

Other banks whose rating was affirmed are Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Syndicate Bank Union Bank of India and ICICI Bank. "We continue to position the rated public sector banks in the "very high" government support bucket, reflecting the systemic importance of public sector banks in the country," Moody's said in a report.

For Axis Bank and ICICI Bank, the agency expects the pace of bad loan formation to decline materially from the very high levels seen fiscal 2017, but to remain elevated.

"Both banks remain exposed to weak corporates that have not yet been classified as NPLs, thus representing a potential source of asset quality stress," the report said.

The agency also downgraded IOB's Hong Kong branch's senior unsecured debt rating to Ba3 from Ba1.

Moody's also downgraded the standalone credit profile, or the baseline credit assessment, of Syndicate Bank to Ba3 from Ba2, and as a result, downgraded its subordinated MTN and junior subordinated MTN programme ratings to (P)Ba3 and (P)B1 from (P)Ba2 and (P)Ba3, respectively.

It changed the outlook to stable from positive for BoB and its London branch, Canara and its London branch, PNB, and Syndicate and its London branch.

The rating firm changed the outlook to negative from positive for BoI and its London and Jersey branches, OBC, and Union Bank and its Hong Kong branch, and changed the outlook to stable from negative for IOB and its Hong Kong branch.

The rating agency used the joint default analysis model to determine government support for PSU banks. Under this model, it has placed each bank in a support bucket, which can be "very high", "high", "moderate", or "low".
The accused had used the helps ATM card to withdraw Rs 50,000, CCTV footage of which eventually aided the police in nabbing him.

Mumbai: The Khar police has arrested an alleged thief, who is a carpenter by profession, who burgled the Khar residence of Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor last month and fled with the wallet of her domestic help. The accused had used the helps ATM card to withdraw Rs 50,000, CCTV footage of which eventually aided the police in nabbing him.

The accused, identified as Imtiyaz Ansari (35), a resident of Kamani in Kurla, had allegedly carried out five similar burglaries in the Borivali-Khar belt. The accused would call random phone numbers and propose doing carpentry work there, seek an entry and then flee with valuables. The accused allegedly revealed during his interrogation that he had carried out 18 burglaries so far, though the police could confirm only five of them during its preliminary probe against him. The police has learnt of Ansaris involvement in cases registered by Bandra, Santacruz, Juhu, Amboli, Versova, Vile Parle and Borivali police stations.

During his questioning, we learnt that Ansari had managed to enter the house of the actress and stolen a purse of her maid. We are still questioning him and trying to ascertain the number of crimes he has committed. We have also recovered some valuables, said Paramjit Dahiya, deputy commissioner of police (zone IX).

After the theft at Kapoors residence was reported to the police, officials found out that the accused had used the maids ATM card to withdraw around Rs 50,000. The police secured CCTV footage from the ATM kiosk and began studying it. Ansari had been calling random phone numbers introducing himself as a carpenter and gaining entry into the residences of his victims, sources said.

The investigators began tracking the phone number he had been using to make the calls and finally with the help of technical intelligence identified the accused. During his questioning, Ansari allegedly revealed that he would enter houses, steal valuables when he got a chance and then leave the place quietly.

Ansari was produced before a local court and has been remanded to police custody till July 26 for further questioning in the cases against him. The police has also sought for details of theft cases involving a carpenter who has used similar modus operandi to enter houses.

Brazen act
NIA nabs Altaf Ahmed Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Shahid-ul-Islam, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Nayeem Khan, Farooq Ahmed Dar.

The National Investigation Agency had raided the houses of the arrested separatist leaders in June. (Photo: AFP/File)

Srinagar/New Delhi: Seven people including Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, were arrested on Monday by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, officials said.

Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who had put him in preventive detention immediately after the festival of Eid earlier in July.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the NIA from the Valley, officials engaged in the operation said.

The NIA also arrested Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, they said.

The others arrested are Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate', they said.

The houses of those arrested had been raided by NIA sleuths in June.

Shah is perceived as an influential force in the Tehrek-e-Hurriyat.

Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Dukhtaran-e-Milat.

The raids were part of the NIA's efforts at clamping down on separatist groups allegedly receiving funds for subversive activities in the Valley.

The NIA had recovered account books, Rs 2 crore in cash and letterheads of banned terror groups, including of the LeT and HM, from the raids.

The NIA investigation also seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, including those who masterminded the throwing of stones at security forces, burnt down schools and damaged government

establishments.

For the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s, a central probe agency had carried out raids in connection with the funding of separatists.

In 2002, the Income Tax department had raided the establishments of some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.
Iraq Foreign Minister said there is no report about them whether they are dead or alive and Iraqi govt is doing its best to locate them.

New Delhi: Iraq Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday he was not sure about fate of 39 missing Indians, who were held captive by Islamic State in Mosul.

He said there is no report about them whether they are dead or alive and added that the Iraqi government is doing its best to locate them.

"We're not 100 percent sure whether they're alive or not, we don't know. We are going to do our best, but till now we cannot say anything about their fate," al-Jaafari said.

"We will do our best in order to find those 39," he added.

Earlier, the Iraq Embassy in India informed that search operations are underway to locate the 39 missing Indians, and assured there is a high level coordination between concerned Iraqi and Indian authorities to locate them.

The Government of India has already sent two high-level senior delegations to Iraq to follow up on this matter.

Sushma Swaraj, along with Ministers of State (MoS') for Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) MJ Akbar and Gen (Retd) VK Singh, met families of 39 Indians who have been missing in Iraq since July 16, 2014.

She said "Indian authorities have been informed that the missing Indians were last located in a prison in Badush, so as soon as the area is cleared, further developments would be reported".

Sushma had assured, "Once fighting stops in Badush and the area is cleared, we can probably find out about the whereabouts of the missing nationals.
India-China border standoff: RSS targets blanket boycott by Diwali.

Organiser in a separate article has called on the people to boycott Chinese products as imports have resulted in closure of companies in India, leading to mass unemployment. (Photo: Representational Image)

New Delhi: With increased hostility at the border with China, RSS-backed Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) has threatened to intensify its boycott campaign against Chinese products to see that by Diwali not a single rupee Chinese product will be purchased or sold in the Indian markets.

In an interview in RSS mouthpiece Organiser, SJM claimed that due to its pressure, the Modi government had imposed a steep 18 per cent anti-dumping duty on Chinese steel and barred them from bidding in power, steel, railways, plastic industries.

Organiser in a separate article has called on the people to boycott Chinese products as imports have resulted in closure of companies in India, leading to mass unemployment.

China is engaged in fierce inimical hostilities with Bharat. Yet, we have been bolstering the Chinese economy by purchasing Chinese products, worth more than Rs 4-5 lakh crores a year, leading to industrial closures, large scale unemployment and wide trade deficit for the country, ranging between $45 to $52 billion a year in the past 3 years, said the article published in the magazine.

SJM national vice-president and head of Rashtriya Swadeshi Suraksha Abhiyan Satish Kumar said that the organisation had collected more than 87 lakh signatures from people who had taken a pledge of boycotting Chinese goods.

The abhiyan is gaining momentum. They are burning Chinese goods publicly. Demonstrations are being organised all over the country. We are on the right track. I hope, by this Diwali, entire Bharat will be aware of Chinese nefarious designs and not a single rupee Chinese product will be purchased or sold in the Indian markets, he said.

He said that different activities were being conducted as part of the campaign.

Demonstrations outside the Chinese Embassy, mass protests in Delhi and other parts of the country are being held. Market associations across cities have also passed resolutions not to import and sale any Chinese good. We are motivating Indian industries to take up manufacturing, he added.
The (NIA) on Monday arrested seven second-rung Kashmiri separatist leaders and activists on the charges of terror funding.

Srinagar: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven second-rung Kashmiri separatist leaders and activists on the charges of terror funding.

The NIA has been probing alleged funding of terror and subversive activities in Kashmir Valley after a national TV channel had in May this year in a sting operation showed three separatist leaders admitting on camera that they had received funding from Pakistan and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, a co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the chief or amir of Jama'at-ud-Da'wah, which has had sanctions placed against it as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations.

Those who were arrested include Altaf Ahmed Shah alias Fantosh, a son-in-law of separatist patriarch Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Shah, perceived as an influential force in Geelanis Tehrik-e-Hurriyat party, was in the custody of Jammu and Kashmir police after he was taken into prevention detention in the last week of June following a request from the NIA.

The others arrested on Monday are Ayaz Akbar, Raja Merajuddin Kalwal and Peer Saifullah all close aides of the octogenarian separatist leader-, Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bita Karate, a leader of a faction of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and Naeem Ahmed Khan, the leader of National Front. Also arrested by the NIA is Shahid-ul-Islam who is the media advisor/secretary to another prominent separatist leader and Kashmirs Chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

An alliance of key separatist leaders has called for a shutdown in Kashmir on Tuesday against revengeful, arbitrary and illegal arrests.

The alliance which calls itself Joint Resistance Leadership and has Geelani, the Mirwaiz and JKLF chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik on it said in a statement, They have been arrested by the NIA on fabricated charges.

It added, The leadership expressed serious concern about the safety of these people after their sudden arrests as no one has been able to establish contact with them and their whereabouts are not known.

The NIA had a few weeks ago conducted raids at 23 places in Srinagar, Delhi and Haryana in connection with alleged hawala operations between Pakistan-based terror groups and Kashmiri separatists and claimed seizing about Rs 20 million cash, incriminating documents, letter-heads of some militant outfits, laptops and mobile phones.

Those whose houses and offices were searched besides Khan, Dar, Islam and Saifullah Gazi are Javed Baba, Zaffar Akbar Butt alias Saif-ul-Islam and business tycoon Zahoor Ahmed Watali. Later, some of these leaders and activists were called to Delhi by the NIA for further questioning.

They were accused of funding the unrest in the Kashmir Valley and the NIA claims that it has obtained irrefutable evidence pointing out to involvement of the accused in terror funding and other subversive activities.

But the separatists alliance on Monday reiterated, It is a drama enacted by the Government through its agency, the NIA, of first raiding, then questioning and now arresting these people and thereby giving the impression that law and procedures had been followed and then these people arrested on grounds of some evidence being found to link them to the alleged charges.

It alleged, The sensationalizing propagandist anti-Kashmir electronic media of India was also brought into play to aid and abet this drama and deceit.

The NIA had in June registered an FIR in which Hafeez Saeed has been named as an accused besides both factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Geelani and the Mirwaiz, militant outfit Hizb-ul- Mujahideen and all-women rightwing Dukhtaran-e-Milat organisation.
Sources said party leaders also raised questions on JD(U)s persistent demands for Tejashwis resignation.

Patna: Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav will not step down from his post, the RJD clarified after a party meet on Sunday.

Sources said party leaders also raised questions on JD(U)s persistent demands for Tejashwis resignation. However, RJD state president Ram Chandra Purvey told reporters, Tejashwi Yadav will give a point-wise explanation during the rally on August 27.

Observers said that cracks in Bihars ruling alliance had deepened. Insiders claimed that chief minister Nitish Kumar was likely to take a decision on Tejashwi before Bihar Assembly meets for Monsoon Session on July 28. On Saturday, Mr Kumar met Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi where he is said to have urged him to take a stand on corruption charges against Tejashwi.

However, a section in the RJD denied reports of a rift. There is no rift but a hype is being created by the BJP to damage Lalu Yadav. We will expose the BJP during our rally on August 27, disaster management minister Chandrasekhar said.

Mr Kumar has been giving signals that he may sack Tejashwi if his position on corruption is not heeded by his coalition partners. BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi said, JD(U) has been urging the deputy CM to explain his position on the corruption charges but there has been no response, so Mr Kumar must take a stand and remove him from the Cabinet.

Earlier this month the CBI had registered a corruption case against Lalu Yadav, his wife Rabri Devi and younger son and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav over alleged irregularities in awarding the tender to a private company while he was the Railway Minister in 2006.
Sushma to make statement in Parliament, families upset.

New Delhi: Visiting Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Monday that his government does not know the fate of the 39 Indians who were abducted by terror group ISIS in 2014 in Mosul.

Were not 100 per cent sure whether theyre alive or not, we dont know. We are going to do our best, but till now we cannot say anything about their fate, he was quoted as telling TV channels and news agencies.

The Iraqi minister, who began a five-day visit to India on Monday, met external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj amid mounting anxiety among families of the 39 missing Indians, most of whom are from Punjab.

Meanwhile, family members of the missing Indians expressed pain over the Iraqi ministers failure to bring any information on them.

We feel very disappointed. We heard the Iraqi minister say that he does not know whether the 39 missing Indians were dead or alive, said Chandigarh resident Davinder, whose elder brother Gobinder is among the missing.

Initially, the Indian government was informed that the 39 Indians could be in a prison in Badush. However, media reports later said that the prison had been completely destroyed.

In the absence of any confirmation, the Indian government has so far been dismissing claims from some quarters that the ISIS had executed the abducted Indians.

Minister of state (MoS) for external affairs Gen. (retd.) V.K. Singh visited Erbil in nothern Iraq earlier this month after the defeat of ISIS in Iraq.

After his return, Ms Swaraj had reportedly told the families of the abducted Indians that they could be in Badush jail.

Ms Swaraj had also recently assured Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh that the Indian government is making all-out efforts to trace and facilitate return of the 39 Indians.
The entire country should watch this, says Speaker, as MPs throw papers

Papers being thrown towards Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in Lok Sabha by Congress MPs on Monday.

New Delhi: Amid slogan shouting, high drama and pandemonium, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended six Congress MPs for five days for causing grave disorder after they stormed into the Well of the House, tore official papers and threw them towards the Chair, in protest over mob lynchings and cow vigilantism.

As the treasury benches shouted shame, shame to condemn the Congress MPs, Ms Mahajan said that the conduct of Congress MPs Gaurav Gogoi, K. Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M.K. Raghavan was highly unbecoming and had undermined the Chairs dignity.

The Speaker said she was constrained to name these members due to their behaviour which was in abuse of the rules.

Gaurav Gogoi snatched papers from the table and waived them towards the Chair. K. Suresh snatched papers from the table, tore them up and threw them towards the Chair. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M.K. Raghavan tore papers and threw them towards the Chair, she said in her order.

Also Read: Congress ruckus irks Speaker, BJP

The conduct of the members is highly unbecoming and in abuse of the rules of the House. It seeks to undermine the dignity of the House. These members were persistently and wilfully obstructing the business of the House and have caused grave disorder, the Speaker noted.

These members, she said, stood automatically suspended from the service of the House for five consecutive sittings under the provisions of Rule 374A of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha.

The six MPs, along with other lawmakers from their party, the Left and the Trinamul Congress, and the RJD and Samajwadi Party, started protesting against incidents of lynching and mob violence as soon as the proceedings of the Lok Sabha began at 11 am.

They had entered the Well of House, seeking a discussion on the matter while raising slogans against the BJP-led government. They squatted in the Well even as Question Hour proceedings continued.

The Speaker, while repeatedly requesting them to go back, said that they will get an opportunity to raise the matter during Zero Hour.

However, the Opposition MPs protest turned aggressive after Ms Mahajan disallowed their adjournment notice over the barbaric and shameful incidents of lynching.

The angry Opposition members, who had returned to their seats after Question Hour, stormed into the Well again, tore papers and shouted anti-government slogans.

Leader of Congress Mallikarjun Kharge said the minority communities, dalits and women were living in an atmosphere of terror and fear.

The Prime Minister has asked cow vigilantes not to take law in their hand, but such incidents keep happening and no action is taken against them, he added.

The Prime Minister and home minister should attend the House when the issue is discussed, Mr Kharge said.

Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar, at this point, said that the entire country believes that cow is our mother and should be protected. However, it will not be tolerated if anyone takes law in their hands.

In 2016, the Centre had issued an advisory to the states. As law and order is a state subject, the state governments concerned should take action, Mr Kumar said, adding that the government is aware of the situation and will not tolerate any hooliganism.

A dissatisfied Opposition, including members of the Congress, TMC and CPI(M), stormed the Well and raised slogans. As Congress members continued to create ruckus in the House and tore papers and threw them towards the Chair, Mr Kumar demanded action against them.

A visibly angry Speaker said, The entire country should watch this incident.

Torn papers were scattered on the floor near secretary general Anoop Mishras seat.

Amid the din, the Speaker adjourned the proceedings at around 12.45 pm till 2 pm.

The Speaker pronounced her order, suspending the six MPs, as soon as the House reassembled at 2 pm and again adjourned it till 2.30 pm due to the noisy protests by Congress members. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi was present in the House at that time.

When the House again met at 2.30 pm, Congress members were joined by members of the Left in protesting against the suspension, prompting Deputy Speaker M. Thambi Durai to adjourn the House for the day.
The chief minister said some parties were trying to malign his partys image.

Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday said that the BJPs allegations about his party, Biju Janata Dal (BJD), receiving funds from dubious sources during the 2014 general and Assembly elections were malicious, fabricated and false.

The allegations leveled against my party are malicious, fabricated and false. If needed, we will take legal action, Mr Patnaik told reporters here on his return after a five-day visit to Delhi.

The chief minister said some parties were trying to malign his partys image. A petition has been filed in the Odisha high court over the alleged dubious transactions in the BJD account during the 2014 general and Assembly elections.

The court has directed Election Commission to dispose the matter within a month.

Sameer Mohanty, BJP state vice-president, said the CM was trying to divert attention by asserting his party would take legal action.

Mr Mohanty questioned whether the money deposited in the BJD bank account was alleged commission or funds given by chit fund companies that had duped lakhs of investors in the state.

He said the party would raise the matter before Election Commission, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department to ensure a detailed investigation into the alleged irregularities.

One Purna Padhi had collected huge amounts of money from the public and deposited it in BJDs bank account. He is a peon whose voice was recorded and aired on national media on Friday.

People of Odisha are eagerly waiting to know the identity of Purna Chandra Padhi, the saffron leader said. He further suspected the use of chit fund money in the election by BJD.

BJD also received money through another RTGS in which chit fund accused and BJDs Mayurbhanj MP Ramachandra Hansda transacted money earlier. Isnt this the chit fund money? he asked.
Stresses on right to debate, dissent at farewell function.

New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday cautioned the government against using the ordinance route to bring in a law. He advised that it should only be used in a compelling situation and not taken recourse to in monetary matters. At his farewell function, stressing on the importance of dissent and debate, he urged the Opposition not to disrupt proceedings in the two Houses as it took away from it the opportunity to raise people's concerns. I am of the firm opinion that the ordinance route should be used only in compelling circumstances and there should be no recourse to ordinances on monetary matters, he said.

The hour-long function was attended by vice-president Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and H.D. Deve Gowda, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other Union ministers, MPs and political leaders.

Mr Mukherjee said the ordinance route should not be taken on matters which are being considered or have been introduced in Parliament or pending before a House committee.

If a matter is deemed urgent, the committee concerned should be made aware of the situation and should be mandated to present its report within a stipulated time, he said.

The presidents remarks bear significance as after repeatedly failing to amend the Enemy Property Act, 1968 in last three years, the Modi government had promulgated five ordinances. The Bill was passed by the Parliament in March.

Senior Union ministers were reportedly deputed to convince the President to sign the fourth and fifth enemy property ordinances as he was against promulgating them.

Mr Mukherjee said he was greatly benefited from the advice and cooperation extended by Mr Modi at every step. With passion and energy, he (Modi) is driving transformational changes in the country. I will carry with (me) fond memories of our association and his warm and courteous behaviour, he said.

The outgoing president, who will demit office on Tuesday, said he was mentored by late prime minister Indira Gandhi whose steely determination, clarity of thought and decisive action made her a towering personality. He said she never hesitated to call a spade a spade. Mr Mukherjee recalled during a visit to London with Gandhi after the Emergency, she had told journalists, In those 21 months, we comprehensively managed to alienate all sections of Indian people.

Recalling his days as a member of Parliament, which he entered in 1969 as Rajya Sabha member, Mr Mukherjee said by listening to stalwarts in the Treasury and opposition benches, he understood the real value of debate, discussion and dissent.

I realised how disruption hurts the Opposition more than the government as it denies it the opportunity to raise the concerns of the people, he said. Ms Mahajan said Mr Mukherjee is respected for his impeccable knowledge of constitutional and parliamentary rules and procedures and exemplary memory of events and precedents.

You have been a guru from whom generations of parliamentarians have received lessons on the operational dynamics of our parliamentary polity, she said.

Ms Mahajan said the Presidents admirable administrative acumen and efficiency have played pivotal roles in shaping appropriate responses to various momentous events and challenges before the nation at large.

Lauding Mr Mukherjees contributions, vice-president Ansari said his views and pronouncements on issues of national and international importance have enhanced the stature of the high offices held by him.

From the highest pedestal, he has, on several occasions, urged citizens to rededicate themselves to the cause of upholding the democratic values. He has spoken with conviction about Indias pluralism and diversity being her greatest strength and the need to constantly nurture and protect them, he said. Mr Mukherjee was presented a coffee-table book by the Speaker on behalf of the MPs. Later, Mr Mukherjee attended a high-tea at the Parliament House.
The move is intended to put in public domain all relevant information about government work and also enable the masses to track them.

New Delhi: With an aim to enable citizens to track governments work, schemes, projects, etc., the Delhi government has planned to launch a mobile application which would serve as a single-window platform to let people check status of its various projects.

The planning department has been asked to develop an app which will enable citizens to know about governments work, schemes, proposals and projects and track their implementation at a single platform, said a senior government official.

The planning department has already started work on the project and if things go according to the plan, one can track several Delhi governments projects and proposals through the mobile app from October, the official said.

The move is intended to put in public domain all relevant information about government work and also enable the masses to track them. The name for the mobile application is yet to be finalised, the official said.

Earlier this month, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had said the Delhi government would put all relevant information online to ensure transparency in its functioning. He had also said that if the government puts all information online, people wont need to then file RTI applications.

People of respective areas would be able to straight away verify the claims, he had said. The Delhi Assembly has also directed all government departments to send their replies to questions asked by legislators via email and in a pen drive.

The system will come into effect when the four-day Monsoon Session of the Assembly begins on August 8.
The woman delivered a baby girl in the hospital and both are said to be in a good condition.

Bhubaneswar: Despite the media regularly highlighting medical negligence and lack of healthcare services in backward districts of Odisha, there seems to have been no efforts on the part of the Odisha administration to mend loopholes and reach out to people.

The faulty system once again came into focus as a pregnant woman was carried on a stretcher for 16 kms to a hospital in Kalahandi district, reports said on Sunday.

The incident was reported from Kansabundel village in Trilochanpur under Lanjigarh block, where a woman had to be taken to the hospital on a stretcher after ambulances could not reach her home due to a road blockade. Without having an option, the kin carried her for 16 kms.

The woman delivered a baby girl in the hospital and both are said to be in a good condition.

According to reports, the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) worker called on 102 for an ambulance to take the pregnant woman to the hospital after she suffered labour pain on Saturday.

However, the ambulance could not reach her home after a fallen tree blocked the road to the village. Without having an option, the kin of the woman carried her on a stretcher for 16 kms. Later, she was rushed to Lanjigarh hospital in an ambulance.

The woman delivered a baby girl in the hospital and both are stated to be in a good condition. The incident took place just a few days after a pregnant woman in the same district was carried on a stretcher to the hospital due to ambulance failure and her newborn baby died.
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis stated that he is ready for a discussion on any issue and is not worried about possible attacks from the Opposition.

Mumbai: With the crucial Assem-bly session set to begin from Monday, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have reason to breathe easy as a split in the Opposition became apparent on Sunday. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) boycotted the opposition meeting over passing congratulatory resolutions related to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

Meanwhile, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis stated that he is ready for a discussion on any issue and is not worried about possible attacks from the Opposition. We are ready for a debate on any issue. We will start issuing forms to farmers for loan waiver. We are ready to discuss the loan waiver issue also, said Mr Fadnavis.

Before Mr Fadnavis made his comments, it was decided that, with Mr Pawar completing 50 years in public life, both houses of the state legislature would pass a resolution congratulating him. However, Congress leaders insisted they pass a resolution for Mrs Gandhi too, as it is her birth centenary year.

Congress group leader Sharad Ranpise wrote to Council chairman demanding to take Mrs Gandhis resolution first and then adjourn the house. The NCP felt this was an attempt by Congress to reduce the importance of Mr Pawar and decided to boycott the opposition meeting.

We have always maintained that the opposition must work in union and have even taken initiative for it. But if they (Congress) are going to take decisions without taking us into confidence, then may be they do not need our help and cooperation, said NCPs Maharashtra unit chief Sunil Tatkare.

If the Congress has an independent position against the government, then even we can present our position against the government independently, he added.

Congress, on the other hand, claims innocence.

Maybe one should ask the NCP whether they trust us or not? I dont know the reason behind NCPs separate programme. They might have different issues that they want to raise. It is up to them to tell why they didnt attend the meeting, said Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Leader of Oppo-sition in the Assembly.
Ties between Moscow, Washington have slumped to their lowest since Cold War as US slapped sanctions on Moscow over it meddling in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump's maiden face-off with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at G20 summit in Hamburg (Photo: AP)

Moscow: The Kremlin on Monday warned that new US sanctions on Russia would hit the interests of both sides as Congress gears up to approved fresh punitive measures.

"We consider such a continuation of the rhetoric of sanctions counter-productive and harmful to the interests of both countries," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

In mid-June, the US Senate overwhelmingly passed tough sanctions, but the text stalled in the House of Representatives, until agreement was reached on Saturday.

The House is now set to vote Tuesday on a bill that targets Russia -- for its alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election and its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 -- as well as Iran and North Korea, for its ballistic missile tests.

Initially, US President Donald Trump resisted the legislation, which would prevent him from unilaterally easing penalties against Moscow in the future -- effectively placing him under Congress's watch.

But he seems to be left with little option but to sign off on the move as a political firestorm swirls over potential collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Peskov said the Kremlin is still waiting and watching to see if Trump will approve the measures, after White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said the US leader was weighing his decision.

Before Trump definitively takes a decision it is too early to talk about any potential counter measure from Moscow, Peskov said.

Ties between Moscow and Washington have slumped to their lowest since the Cold War as the US slapped sanctions on Moscow over it meddling in Ukraine.

Russia had hoped that Trump's election might ease relations between the two sides, but those prospects have dimmed in the face of a major political pushback in Washington.
Islamic State has now been defeated in its main stronghold in the Iraqi city of Mosul and is under pressure in Syrian city of Raqqa.

Smoke from an explosion rises during fighting against Islamic State militants in the old city of Mosul, Iraq. (Photo: AP)

Misrata: Seven months after Libyan forces defeated Islamic State in the coastal city of Sirte, hundreds of bodies of foreign militants still lie stored in freezers as authorities negotiate with other governments to decide what to do with them, local officials say.

The corpses have been shipped to Misrata, a city further to the west whose forces led the fight to defeat Islamic State in Sirte in December.

Allowing the bodies to be shipped home to countries such as Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt would be sensitive for the governments involved, wary of acknowledging how many of their citizens left to fight as jihadists in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

"Our team removed hundreds of bodies," a member of the Misrata organised crime unit dealing with the bodies told Reuters, his face masked to conceal his identity because of security concerns.

"This is the main operation which allows us to preserve the bodies, document and photograph them and also collect DNA samples."

The crime unit said it was awaiting a decision from the Prosecutor General, who was in talks with foreign governments over the return of the bodies.

Islamic State has now been defeated in its main stronghold in the Iraqi city of Mosul and is under pressure in its base in the Syrian city of Raqqa. But at the height of its territorial control it attracted recruits from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe to its ranks.

In Tunisia alone, officials say more than 3,000 citizens left to fight in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Tunisians who trained in militant camps in Libya carried out two gun attacks on foreign tourists in 2015 that battered Tunisia's vital tourism industry.

Islamic State took over Sirte in 2015, taking advantage of infighting between rival Libyan armed factions and using the city as a base from which to attack oil fields and other nearby towns.
'The issue of the Al-Aqsa mosque is a red line', the Jeddah-based OIC said in a statement after a meeting in the Saudi Red Sea city.

Palestinians burn mock metal detectors during a demonstration in Bethlehem. Israel's minister of public security said Sunday that metal detectors set at the entrance to a major Jerusalem shrine that angered Palestinians could be removed if police have another way of ensuring security there. (Photo: AP)

Jeddah: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation will meet in Istanbul next week for talks on the crisis around Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, after a weekend of violence left eight people dead.

The 57-member pan-Islamic organisation will hold a ministerial meeting on Tuesday in Turkey, which currently holds the OIC presidency, a statement said on Monday.

Israeli authorities installed metal detectors at entrances to the highly sensitive east Jerusalem site, which includes Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of Rock, following an attack on July 14 that left two policemen dead.

"The issue of the Al-Aqsa mosque is a red line," the Jeddah-based OIC said in a statement after a meeting in the Saudi Red Sea city.

"Attacking the al-Aqsa mosque in any way and under whatever pretext will have serious consequence and will lead to instability in the region," it added.

Palestinians view the security measures as a move by Israel to assert further control over the site. They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside.

Israeli authorities say the metal detectors are needed because the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the site and emerged from it to shoot the officers.

Clashes have broken out during protests over the measures, leaving five Palestinians dead. Three Israelis were killed when a Palestinian snuck into a house in a West Bank settlement and stabbed them.

The site in east Jerusalem is considered the third holiest site in Islam and is the most sacred for Jews.
Prime Minister Sharif strongly condemned the blast and directed officials to provide best possible medical treatment for the injured.

Pakistani rescue workers prepare to remove a body from the site of a deadly bombing in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, July 24, 2017. (Photo: AP)

Lahore: At least 26 people, including policemen, were killed and 57 others injured today when a suspected suicide bomber targeted police personnel deployed near residence-cum-office of Pakistan's Punjab province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore.

"Police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the CM's Model Town residence, when a powerful blast took place," Rescue 1122 Deeba Shahnaz told PTI.

Lahore police chief Capt (R) Amin Wains confirmed that it was a suicide blast and the "target was police".

The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.

The Punjab government confirmed that 26 people were killed and and 57 others injured in the blast. One Sub- Inspector, 1 ASI and 6 Constables were among dead, it added.

Rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital. Emergency was declared in city hospitals. "The condition of several injures is stated to be critical" Shahnaz said.

"29 injured persons are being treated at Lahore General Hospital, 9 in Jinnah and 18 in Ittefaq hospital," the official Twitter account of the Government of Punjab tweeted.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast.

Citing police sources, the Geo News reported that a suicide attacker targeted police personnel deployed at the site. The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed.

"We are collecting evidence and this could be a suicide bombing. The death toll includes police and civilians," DIG Operations Haider Ashraf was quoted as saying.

Prime Minister Sharif strongly condemned the blast and directed officials to provide best possible medical treatment for the injured.

"No words can express the grief which grips my heart right now. Blast destroyed many families, but terrorists can never destroy our resolve," Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said.

"Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins!," he tweeted.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said terrorism can not be ruled out as the motive behind the explosion. He added that security forces are conducting their investigations.

Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, has witnessed several terror attacks in recent years.

In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahore's Bedian Road.

In February, a suicide bomber killed 14 people, including senior police officers, near the Punjab Assembly here.
Doval was expected to hold a meeting with his Chinese counterpart to discuss the Sikkim standoff between the two nations.

Doval is expected to visit Beijing on July 27 to attend the meeting of the NSAs. (Photo: PTI/File)

Beijing: China on Monday put a question mark on meeting between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi to discuss the Sikkim standoff. Doval is scheduled to visit Beijing between July 27 and July 28.

Beijing has maintained its stand of no dialogue between the two neighbours until India withdraw its troops from Doklam area, according to a report in Hindustan Times.

Doval is visiting China later in July for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in Beijing. Doval was expected to hold a meeting with his Chinese counterpart to discuss the Sikkim standoff between the two nations.

However, Chinas foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang on Monday said that talks between India and China on the Sikkim row is unlikely.

On bilateral meetings, I do not have the relevant information right now. As far as we know, in previous meetings, usually it is arranged for the heads of delegations to hold meetings to exchange views on bilateral relations and other international issues, Lu said.

The crux now is Indian border troops illegally stayed on Chinas territory. Once again, we urge India to pull back to the Indian side of the boundary. I want to stress that this is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides, Lu said.

Despite mentioning the fact that China and India have a smooth diplomatic channel, the spokesperson said, India has the responsibility for initiating dialogue on the standoff, which has entered its second month.

China hopes to maintain peace and stability of border areas but China will not make any compromise on sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said. The responsibility for this incident lies completely with India and we hope India can get a clear understanding of the situation and can take swift and correct measures to avoid escalation of the situation.

Earlier in June, the tri-junction disputed Doklam area between India-Bhutan-China is claimed by Beijing as their territory; however, the area belongs to the Himalayan state.

The two sides' troops then confronted each other close to a valley controlled by China that separates India from its close ally, Bhutan, and gives China access to the so-called Chicken's Neck, a thin strip of land connecting India and its remote northeastern regions.

India has warned China that construction of the road near their common border would have serious security implications.
by Sumon Corraya

The kids from Notre Dame College Mymensingh raised funds in their classrooms. According to government sources, 132 schools have been closed in Jamalpur due to flooding. Many roads are under water.

Jamalpur (AsiaNews)  Heavy rains in recent months have caused flooding, especially in Jamalpur, a region about 140 km north of the capital Dhaka. As a result, crops and homes have been damaged or destroyed, forcing thousands to live outdoors.

Last Friday, 300 flood victims received help from Notre Dame College Mymensingh and the Caritas Mymensingh regional office. "We visited flood victims in Jamalpur to help them and we saw that their situation was worse, Father Placid Proshanto Rozario, director and teacher at the Notre Dame Mymensingh College, told AsiaNews.

In some areas, they did not get any help from the government. However, I am grateful to our students who have offered assistance, Fr Placid added. In fact, many kids have raised funds in their classrooms and most students have responded to the request by making a contribution.

"We have provided a package containing rice, pulse, oil, salt, etc., at a cost of 600 takas (US$ 7.5). We have handed out a total of 300 packages. The regional office of Caritas Mymensingh pitched in as well."

A 60-year-old Muslim woman, Anjumanara Begum, who received help, talked about her suffering from the flood. "We lost all the crops. All the cattle are dead. We are going through the worst situation in our lives. We have no food, no medicines. We have not seen any government official to give us any help."

She said she received a package that will be very useful to her family. She is deeply grateful to Notre Dame College Mymensingh and Caritas Mymensingh. Like her, other flood victims, including Muslims, have expressed gratitude to the Church.

According to government sources, 132 schools have closed in Jamalpur alone because of flooding. Many roads are still under water.

"We have been distributing aid among flood victims, said Ahmmaed Kabir, deputy commissar of Jamalpur. We distributed 90 tonnes of rice and 11,000 dried food packages."
by Shafique Khokhar

Javed Masih was 32 years old. With his job, he was repaying a debt that his family had contracted three years ago. Contracted, he was supposed to work 24 a month. In reality he was a slave. Accused of theft, he was tortured for days. The employer's family threatens serious consequences while police refuse to open an investigation.

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) - A 32-year-old Christian has died as a result of injuries inflicted by his Muslim employer. The man's name was Javed Masih and he lived in Kamalpur on Sargodha Road, Faisalabad district. He worked for Bilal Wahla to pay a debt of 350,000 rupees [about 2900 euros] contracted by his family.

Officially, he would have to sweep the musings of the Muslim, take care of the animals, milk the cows, and distribute the milk. In reality Javed was treated like a slave. Accused of stealing a biker's motorcycle, the Christian was repeatedly beaten with sticks and other objects. He was taken to the hospital and died from serious torture.

Speaking to AsiaNews Imran Masih, Javed's older brother, denounces: "We want justice. We are poor and therefore the police refuse to listen to us and record the complaint. Large landowners are threatening serious consequences because we have opposed any compromise. All this is because we are Christians and poor. "

Javed Masih was one of six children (five males and females) of Irshad Masih and Naseem Bibi. In 2014, his parents contracted a debt with the Muslim owner. Upon his father's death, the deal was signed with the wealthy landowner Wahla, alias Jutt: Javed worked for the Muslim and in return he would have 7,000 rupees deleted from the debt every month [equal to 57 euros, ed]. Under the agreement, Javed was required to work 24 hours a month. But in reality he was enslaved.

On June 20 some unknown criminals stole a motorcycle from Bilal Wahla's private estate. The latter immediately blamed his employee, beginning to torture him cruelly and assigning new jobs to him. For his part, Javed rejected allegations of theft, but given the debt - he had no choice but to resist and continue working.

On July 18, after completing the daily assignments, Javed asked for an hour to leave to meet some friends. Returning after two hours, he found the furious master waiting for him, who struck him without any justification until he left the Christian bloody and broken. The next day, Javed was taken to the Allied Hospital in Faisalabad, where doctors pronounced him dead.

At that point the threats of the Muslim and other landowners began who tried to corrupt the family of the Christian to reach a compromise. Faced with their rejection of the Masih, Bilal Wahla tried to cover up the murder by stating that it was a case of suicide. Instead, Javed's relatives filed a complaint at the Nishatabad police station. But to date, Imran Masih complains, the agents "have not yet accepted our statement. The police department must arrest and punish the culprit according to the law. We do not want any compromise. We want justice for our innocent brother. "
by Santosh Digal

For the first time, the role of women is highlighted as a key to prevent the new slave trade. Nearly 45 million people are victim of trafficking all over the world, nearly two thirds in Asia. For Sister Cecilian Espenilla of Talitha Kum, an organisation of Catholic women, modern slavery is opposed by all religious traditions. It is a crime against humanity and a serious offense against God.

Manila (AsiaNews)  The Asian Conference of Religions for Peace (ARCP) held the International Conference of Women Empowerment Against Modern Day Slavery at the University of Santo Tomas in Sampaloc, Manila, from 20 to 22 July 2017 as part of the UN World Day against Trafficking in Persons.

For the first time, the role of women in multi-faith traditions was stressed as key to reviving family values and, as consequence, preventing the trafficking of vulnerable women and children.

At the meeting, representatives of various religious communities, faith-based organisations, and human rights advocate groups, talked about the complexities and the dehumanising adverse effects of modern day slavery.

Participants heard that the number of trafficked women and children is growing. The 2016 Global Slavery Index (GSI) reveals that there are nearly 45 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, nearly two-thirds in Asia.

Because of their vulnerability, millions continue to be forced into bonded labour, commercial sex and child soldiering.

We are aware that the advancement of technology, the rise of globalisation and the increasing economic divide between rich and poor countries have exacerbated the demand-supply of the modern-day slavery, said Lilian Sison, secretary general of Religions for Peace Philippines and event organiser. [M]odern-day slavery is one of the most lucrative global industries, she added.

What is more, We are saddened by the fact that traditional protectors such as parents, mothers, grandparents and relatives have fallen prey to the lure of economic gain due to abject poverty thereby becoming conduits to the abuses done to their own children and family members. Sadly, the breakdown of traditional values has made the home, the first line of care for the children and women, as the very site of abominable abuses, she noted.

One of the issues that raised concerns among the conference delegates is Asias seemingly weak criminal justice system and ineffective law-enforcement, which have favoured large-scale modern-day slavery.

Participants decided to stand together in solidarity and observe the United Nations World Day against Trafficking in Persons every 30 July. They also support, subscribe to and are commit to the UN Convention against Transnational Organised crime (2000), the Palermo Protocol, and other International instruments concerning human trafficking.

We declare that modern day slavery is contrary to the teachings and values of all religious traditions, said Sister Cecilian Espenilla, who works with Talitha Kum, an organisation of Catholic women established by the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) in 2009. Modern day slavery is a crime against humanity, and a grave offense against God.
Amman (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli wounded in an apparent attack on the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital. The two locals worked for a furniture company and had entered the embassy before the shootout. The Jordanian security forces have sealed off the area (see photo).

For the time being the only reports of the accident are those of Jordanian police and security forces. The Israeli authorities have not commented and almost imposed a press silence. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the incident was under "completely censorsed" and forbade Israeli and accredited media reporters in Israel to report the incident.

Meanwhile, Israeli personnel at the Amman embassy were evacuated. The reasons for the attack are not known for now.

On Friday last, July 21, following calls from left-wing groups and Muslim integralists, thousands of Jordanians demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy against the installation of metal detectors and cameras for entry onto Temple Mount in Old Jerusalem. The measure, after the killing of two Israeli soldiers, is seen by Muslims as interference in the management of the sacred place, the most important for Islam after Mecca and Medina.

Jordan is officially "the guardian" of this holy place to Islam.

Last Friday, July 21, thousands of Muslims in Israel refused to pass under metal detectors and prayed in the streets. In clashes with police in several areas of Jerusalem and occupied territories, three young Palestinians were killed.

Yesterday, Pope Francis appealed for all parties to implement "moderation and dialogue" and for "the Lord to inspire in all involved intentions of reconciliation and peace".
Kabul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - At least 24 people have died and 42 have been wounded in a suicide bombings this morning in Kabul's Shiite district in the west of the city. The explosion took place at 7 am local time when a car filled with explosives crashed into a small ministry bus. The vehicle was destroyed, along with three cars and some shops in the area.

According to the Interior Ministry, the number of deaths may rise. It appears that the victims are civilians, including students heading to the university during a period of examinations. They also include security guards at the service of one of the main leaders of the Hazara community, parliamentarian Mohammad Mohaqeq. There are also children among the injured.

In a tweet, the Taliban claim to have attacked a bus carrying "NDS members" (secret services). But it is unclear whether responsibility is attributable to them or the Islamic State.

The neighborhood is known to be "lively". The hazara community, a minority of about 3 million, discriminated and marginalized in the country, is one of the most open, especially with regard to women's rights. Today the Hazari had organized a commemoration for the anniversary of the attack on their demonstration on July 23, 2016, in which 84 people died and more than 300 injured. It was the first assassination claimed by the Islamic State in the heart of the Afghan capital.

This is the latest episode of violence in Afghanistan, where at least 1,662 civilians were killed in the first half of the year alone. The escalation coincides with the US proposal to intensify its presence by sending more troops to the training mission and advisers in support of Afghan forces.
Texas School District Permits Paddling For Bad Behavior

Trending News: A Texas School District Is Bringing Back Corporal Punishment

Long Story Short

A Texas School District just permitted beating students who engage in bad behavior, a practice that is strangely not that strange.

Long Story

Didn't do your homework? Got caught Snapchatting in class? Ate a pint of glue? If you're a student at a few Texas schools, you're going to get a good ol' spanking.

The Three Rivers Independent School District in South Texas sent out a memo last week indicating that it will allow the campus behavior coordinator or principal to beat students for bad behavior, the Washington Examiner reports.

For me, this sounds pretty damn archaic but plenty of Americans don't see it that way. A whopping 15 states expressly permit corporal punishment, according to NPR, and it's legal in four more states.

Within these states, more than a few schoolchildren are getting hit. Politico reports that 109,000 students were beaten in the 2013-14 school year. That's actually down from 163,333 in 2011-12, but still notably high.

At the three Texas schools, parents are contacted first and are allowed to opt out. A witness also has to be on hand. But even with those limitations, the question remains, should we allow schools to inflict physical pain on a child?

Former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. called out the ineffectiveness of corporal punishment in a 2016 statement:

While some may argue that corporal punishment is a tradition in some school communities, society has evolved and past practice alone is no justification," the statement reads. "No school can be considered safe or supportive if its students are fearful of being physically punished."

Also quoted in the statement was Fatima Goss Graves of the National Womens Law Center, a group campaigning to end corporal punishment once and for all. She said that beating still happens in America for very minor behavior and has discriminatory undertones.

It is a disgrace that it is still legal in states to physically punish a child in school," she's quoted as saying. "Students are subject to corporal punishment for something as minor as cell phone use or going to the bathroom without permission. And students of color and students with disabilities are disproportionately victims of physical punishment."

Despite studies showing how discriminatory corporal punishment is, don't expect current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to come to the rescue. She's been quoted saying she won't swoop in to remedy the racial disparities in school beatings because that's up to the individual states.

I do not think the nations governors want me to come to their states and tell them what to do, she said.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Should corporal punishment be banned?

Drop This Fact

Black students are disciplined far more frequently than white students, even in preschool.
Australias top 5 wasted food ingredients



OzHarvest Think.Eat.Save 2016 on July 25, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cole Bennetts/Getty Images for OzHarvest)

Australian food rescue charity, OzHarvest, has revealed Australias most wasted ingredients in an effort to stop food going to waste.

According to OzHarvest, Australias top five wasted ingredients are:

Bread Bananas Bagged lettuce and salad Meat Milk

OzHarvest says food waste in Australia is costing the nation an estimated AUD $20 billion dollars each year in commercial and residential waste.

Approximately four million tonnes of food ends up in landfill annually and one in five grocery bags of food is wasted.

In New South Wales, the average family wasters almost AUD$4, 000 worth of groceries each year. The average household bin is now 35 per cent food waste.

New campaign to stop the waste

To help combat the waste, OzHarvest has launched its 2017 Think.Eat.Save campaign in partnership with the United Nations. Working with Woolworths, and other corporate sponsors, OzHarvest will be telling Australians to think about what they already have in their fridge, to eat or freeze what they already have and to save food, time and money by doing these things.

Chief Executive Officer of OzHarvest, Ronni Kahan, said Australians can help cut the 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted globally each year by starting by changing things at home.

People shop for the week, stack the fridge and food gets forgotten  stuck in the dark corners of the vegetable crisper or hidden behind jars of jam, Kahan said.

Its the main reason why people waste food at home, she said.

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Tips for business growth: How to guidance from The Fruit Boxs CEO



Marty Halphen , CEO of The Fruit Box

Australian Food News recently interviewed Martin Halphen, Owner and Chief Executive Officer of fruit and milk delivery service, The Fruit Box. He offered the following tips and advice for other food companies.

Behind every customer question is a potential business opportunity. At least that is how Marty Halphen, Owner and Chief Executive Officer of The Fruit Box sees it.

Since acquiring a fruit delivery service, The Fruit Box, Halphen has listened a lot to his customers, something which he says has lead his business to the success it experiences today.

When Halphen brought The Fruit Box in the early 2000s, the business delivered fruit to homes in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne, but it was after a customer one day asked whether or not he could deliver to an office, he (successfully) explored doing so.

The key for us is that we have just listened to the questions that have come our way, Halphen told Australian Food News.

So if a customer asks you a question, there is a reason why they have asked you that question and I think behind that question is a potential opportunity.

When the home delivery customer asked us can we deliver to the office, that was a question. In 2004, one of our bigger Melbourne food customers asked us if we could deliver to their Sydney office, so that was a question that lead onto an expansion program, he explains.

Not that all of the questions lead to successful business ventures admits Halphen.

I think everything is worth testing if it is not going to break the bank, he says.

In that first year or two, I would have tried many things because I did have an open-mind and this [office delivery] was just the one that stuck.

Seeing your customer as a teacher

It is this philosophy of listening to customers which has also lead Halphen to see his customers as teachers.

I think you need to look at your customer as a teacher and someone to guide you, because thats essentially the needs you are trying to service, he says.

Engaging and working together with your customer, and finding a way to continually enhance a better experience for them is what drives us.

You cannot build a house, or a business, in a day

Engaging in smart growth is on Halphens agenda as a believer in setting the foundations right first.

It just takes a lot of time to do it, you cant build a house in a day, it is something that takes a lot of time, he said.

You have got to get the design right, you have got to get the foundation right, it is just a lot in it and I think the fact that we are in an industry where your only option to grow is to do it slowly has kept us in good stead.

We have never grown too quickly, he said.

Giving back

Slow but steady growth is evident across The Fruit Box which slowly evolved from a home delivery fruit service, to an office one, to a milkman service.

It is also evident in other parts of the business too, with The Fruit Box this year launching a formal expansion of its charitable efforts, deciding to donate boxes to those in need.

For us personally, we have a lot to be thankful for and I felt that once we started engaging in a proper community program. This is not just about a healthy bottom line, there is a bit more about it, Halphen said.

From a personal point of view, I felt that we were a lot more well rounded if we did something a lot more purposeful for the community.

The future of The Fruit Box

So where will The Fruit Boxs next steady growth action take them?

Halphen says an expansion into offering offices more supplies, such as general pantry and janitorial items is on the cards.

We have managed to build a pretty good base by just doing fruit and milk, he said.

We feel that going into the future that our relevance will diminish if we dont expand our product range. So where were heading is to expand our product range and become a more comprehensive offering outside fruit and milk.

We do 30, 000 deliveries, but at the moment we have 8, 000 corporate customers. They are trusted relationships and I think if we are able to introduce such a range, I would trust them to expand their business with us. Thats where we are heading.

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Everyday Hero host Bill Murphy met Bobby and Valerie Palermo at their Tarpon Springs home.

Bill Murphy profiles a local person who is making a difference in the Bay area and beyond on "Everyday Heroes"

Tune in every Monday starting at 5:53 a.m. for stories that will warm your heart and soul

To nominate an Everyday Hero, please email Michael.hardin@charter.com

Many people know him as Floridas Neil Diamond.

For years he toured with his Neil Diamond tribute show.

Bobbys career has taken him from Vegas to Valrico and many other stops around the world.

Today, Bobby has a new song hes written with Val; a song, dedicated in large part to cops and that means family.

My dad worked in Staten Island when he was a brand new cop in Staten Island, Bobby Palermo said. And then we moved to providence and he worked for B.C.I., Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

News stories about police officers being assassinated in American cities moved Bobby and Val to write their tribute titled You Are Heroes Thru and Thru.

Honest to God, I think we turned the tv off and said this is ridiculous. Wheres the law and order? Wheres the why arent we honoring these people, Palermo said.

A Vietnam vet, Bobby hopes to find a distributor for the song and will donate part of the proceeds to families of fallen police officers and those in the military.
A 60-year-old Clearwater man has been charged in the Texas human trafficking case that has left 10 people dead.

James Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, appeared in federal court on charges of illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death. He was ordered held for another hearing on Thursday.



He could face the death penalty.

Authorities on Saturday found eight bodies inside the crowded 18-wheeler parked in the San Antonio summer heat late Saturday, and two more victims died at a hospital, victims of what officials said was an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.

"We're looking at a human-trafficking crime," San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said Sunday, calling it "a horrific tragedy."

Authorities discovered eight bodies inside the crowded 18-wheeler parked in the summer heat, and two more victims died at a hospital. Officials feared the death toll could rise because almost 20 others rescued from the truck were in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

A passenger told authorities that people took turns breathing through a hole in the trailer and pounded on the walls to try to get the driver's attention, according to court papers.

Authorities would not say whether the trailer was locked when they arrived, but they said it had no working air conditioning.

The victims "were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water," Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

Based on initial interviews with survivors of the San Antonio tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at one point in its journey, Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Thomas Homan said. Officials said 39 people were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were thought to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination.

Four survivors appeared to be between 10 and 17 years old, Homan said. Investigators gave no details on where the rig began its journey or where it was headed.

Mexican Consul General in San Antonio Reyna Torres said Mexican nationals were among the survivors and those who died on the rig. The Mexican government also released a statement Sunday night expressing its condolences to the relatives of those who died and called for an "exhaustive investigation."

A Guatemalan official said two natives of Central American country were among those hospitalized. Consul Cristy Andrino in McAllen, Texas, said the two told her they had crossed into the U.S. on foot and were later picked up by the rig.

But Homan said it was unlikely the truck was used to carry the immigrants across the border into the United States. He said people from Latin America who rely on smuggling networks typically cross the border on foot and are then picked up by a driver.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute," Homan said.

Who is James Mathew Bradley Jr.?

Bradley is a bit of a ghost as far as any records tied to his past.

No criminal record for Bradley has been found in the state of Florida. Also, no confirmed social media accounts have been located, and no family members for Bradley were found.

Bradley was charged Monday in the deaths of 10 of his passengers.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department stepped in to take the lead in the investigation from San Antonio Police. DHS Secretary John Kelly said the incident demonstrates the brutality of smuggling organizations that "have no regard for human life and seek only profits."

The truck had an Iowa license plate and was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa. A company official did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.

San Antonio is about a 150-mile drive from the Mexican border. The temperature in San Antonio reached 101 degrees Saturday and didn't dip below 90 degrees until after 10 p.m.

The tragedy came to light after a person from the truck approached a Walmart employee and asked for water late Saturday night, said McManus, the local police chief.

The employee gave the person water and then called police, who found the dead and desperate inside the rig. Some of those in the truck ran into the woods, McManus said.

Investigators checked store surveillance video, which showed vehicles arriving and picking up people from the truck, authorities said. Walmart released a brief statement Sunday saying it was doing what it could to help investigators.

On Sunday evening, about 100 people gathered at a San Antonio church for a vigil to mourn those killed.

Previous case

It was just the latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in tragedy. In one of the worst cases on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

In the May 2003 case, the immigrants were being taken from South Texas to Houston. Prosecutors said the driver heard them begging and screaming for their lives but refused to free them. The driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

The Border Patrol has reported at least four truck seizures this month in and around Laredo, Texas. On July 7, agents found 72 people crammed into a truck with no means of escape, the agency said. They were from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Authorities in Mexico have also made a number of similar discoveries over the years. Last December, they found 110 migrants trapped and suffocating inside a truck in the state of Veracruz. Last October, also in Veracruz state, four migrants suffocated in a truck carrying 55 people.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
President Donald Trump is putting the pressure on lawmakers to repeal former President Barack Obamas health care law before their August recess.

Senate has postponed vote twice due to not enough GOP support

Compromise with Democrats suggested

And the president has taken to Twitter to express his frustration.

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

The White House says the president will be meeting with people who suffered from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or better known as Obamacare, on Monday.

If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand! the president told followers on Twitter.

The Senate has postponed voting on a new health care bill twice, because it failed to get enough support from Republicans.

"The problem is Republicans can't seem to agree on what 'replacement' means, Sen. Rand Paul (R) Kentucky said on CNN Sunday. To me, replacement is legalizing inexpensive insurance. That means the federal government doesn't regulate it and allow the sale of inexpensive insurance again, legalizing the ability to join an association across state lines. I thought that is what we as republicans believed in. But it turns out many republicans actually believe in this giant insurance bailout super fund."

The lack of action has some suggesting Republicans work with Democrats on a compromise.

We can't work on bipartisan fixes to health care until Congress stops trying to scrap the whole thing. This is life & death for families. https://t.co/lh1kCGF2oP  Rep Stephanie Murphy (@RepStephMurphy) July 24, 2017

We can't work on bipartisan fixes to health care until Congress stops trying to scrap the whole thing. This is life & death for families, said Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D) Orlando.

Regardless, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to push for a vote Tuesday to move forward on a Republican health care bill.

Whether the legislation will seek to replace Obamacare or simply repeal it that has yet to be released.


Small Section of Route to Oregon Coast Closed This Week; Delays

Published 07/23/2017 at 7:43 PM PDT - Updated 07/23/2017 at 7:53 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Hillsboro, Oregon)  For those heading to the beaches from Portland there are a couple of delays in store this week.

The westbound ramp from Highway 26 to Highway 6  just before the Oregon coast range - will be closed for a few days, starting Monday. The closure begins at 4 a.m. Monday (late tonight) and goes until 1 p.m. on Friday, July 28.

There is still a fairly quick detour around this, however. Simply continue westbound on Highway 26 until you reach NW Banks Road (which is within a half mile of the Highway 6 junction ramp). Continue on NW Banks Road about a half mile, then turn left on Oregon 47  which reaches Highway 6 within a half mile.

Highway 6 is the route to Tillamook and the Three Capes Route on the Oregon coast, otherwise known as the Wilson River Highway.



ODOT said this closure is needed to repave both directions of Highway 26 between Northwest Glencoe Road and milepost 53. Other work done along this section of the road to the beaches includes resurfacing of some highway ramps and bridges, adding rumble strips, adding a cable media barrier and repaving of the weigh station.

A host of other nighttime lane restrictions are taking place along the more inland portion of Highway 26 between Beaverton and Hillsboro, and some work will be done during the day. The daytime work will only mean closures of the shoulders along the highway, but at night some lanes and on-ramps and off-ramps will be cordoned off.

Schedule of nighttime lane closures:

Monday through Thursday: 8 p.m. - 6 a.m.

Friday: 8 p.m. - 8 a.m.

Saturday: 8 p.m. - 9 a.m.

Sunday: 8 p.m. - 6 a.m.

Down in Oregon's Yamhill Wine Country, the route to the Oregon coast may be getting some delays in the sections near the Newberg  Dundee Bypass construction. The majority of that work is done separately and away from Highway 18 and 99W on the way to the beaches, but some parts of OR99W will see a few delays.

Some impact to travelers may happen during the day at the southern end of Dundee, where Niederberger Road crosses OR99W, over to Parks Road. This week, there will be truck traffic, hauling material across OR99w at Niederberger Road and Parks Drive.

ODOT said some intermittent delays will happen there between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., and at night between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Keep up on road delays and closures with the up-to-the-minute Oregon Coast Traffic Conditions page. More on the Oregon coast below:























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To say Arbol Grande was opulent would be an understatement.

The Beaumont mansion, built in the 2200 block of Calder in 1902 by the Keith family, boasted an elevator, the city's first private swimming pool, a gym and a third-floor ballroom. The home, also known as Big Oak, was featured on several postcards printed in the first half of the 20th century and was often referred to as a "Beaumont showplace."

Jehu Frank Keith and his wife, Alice, threw lavish gatherings at Arbol Grande, which were reported on in several area newspapers.

On Dec. 9, 1910, the couple hosted friends until 11 p.m., The Houston Post reported.

"The Keith home, or Arbol Grande, was decorated throughout with palms, ferns and hot house flowers, red carnations being used in the greatest profusion," according to a quick blurb on the party.

Other snippets written in the early 1900s on the mansion mentioned numerous fundraising teas, wedding receptions and welcome home celebrations.

A society story printed in The Post on Aug. 3, 1919, stated that the Keith's "big swimming pool was filled and the young society set enjoyed two hours of swimming, diving and splashing" before dinner.

J. Frank Keith amassed his immense wealth as a Beaumont lumberman and oilman.

Keith was born in Jasper County on Dec. 18, 1857, to Henry Cortes Lafayette and Sarah Elizabeth (LaPorte) Keith, according to the online Handbook of Texas.

The family moved to Sabine Pass during the Civil War and later to Beaumont.

In his youth, Keith worked as a "laborer and teamster for Long and Company's shingle mill," the Handbook stated.

"Although Keith had little formal education, he quickly advanced to management of the mill and on March 29, 1882, married his employer's daughter, Alice Carroll," according to the Handbook.

The Keiths moved to Village Mills after their wedding, "where he served as superintendent of the mill owned by the Texas Tram and Lumber Company."

In 1890, Keith accepted a job with another sawmill owned by the company and the couple returned to Beaumont, where they raised five children.

By 1898, Keith opened his own business, Keith Export Lumber Co. The next year, he invested in two ships, "the schooner Mary and the bark Alice," according to the Handbook.

"He sold that company, as well as most of his other lumber interests, to the Kirby Lumber Company in the early 1900s," the Handbook said. "The discovery of the Spindletop oilfield in 1901 brought Keith another fortune when producing wells were brought in on his land."

The Keiths were generous philanthropists.

In 1898, J. Frank Keith gave $3,000 - which would be around $84,000 in today's currency - "to beautify the area set aside by the original proprietors of Beaumont as a courthouse square," according to the Handbook.

Alice Keith spearheaded numerous benefits for the poor and in 1915 made sure 200 in Beaumont had Christmas meals, according to multiple newspaper stories.

J. Frank Keith died suddenly on Nov. 6, 1921, after an emergency "operation for intestinal trouble," according to a story in the Galveston Daily News.

He was 63.

Keith is credited with "securing a deepwater port for Beaumont," the Handbook said. He also "conducted successful experiments with citrus and pecan trees."

The Port Arthur News estimated Keith's estate at the time of his death was around "three quarters of a million dollars." That would be around $10 million in today's money.

After his passing, Alice Keith "carried on her charitable works and became a well-known philanthropist who contributed generously to the YWCA, the First Baptist Church of Beaumont, and the Beaumont Children's Home," according to the Handbook.

Alice Keith died on Dec. 19, 1956, at the age of 94.

In a story on her passing, The Associated Press called Alice Keith a "pioneer resident and one of Beaumont's leading philanthropists."

"Mrs. Keith was known as the first lady of Beaumont," the story continued. "She gave generously to many."

Beaumont's Alice Keith Park is named for her.

Arbol Grande was demolished in 1949.

Southeast Texas Tales is a weekly feature that revisits regional history.
iStock/Thinkstock(BEIJING) -- An American college student who was arrested in China one week ago after allegedly injuring a taxi driver who was roughing up his mother in a dispute over a fare has been released, according to a U.S. senator.



Steve Daines, the U.S. Senator from Montana, released a statement Sunday announcing the release of Guthrie McLean, 25, at 2 a.m. local time in China.



"I am thrilled to report that we just received an email from Guthrie McLean's mother that 'prayers answered, Guthrie is home,'" Daines said in a statement. "After days of working the phones with top Chinese and American officials to secure Guthrie's freedom from a Chinese detention facility, he has been safely reunited with his mother."



Daines' office said in a statement that he had been working with Chinese and U.S. embassies as well as Jennifer McLean in an effort to coordinate the student's return to the U.S.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Here are seven things ASC leaders should know for July 24, 2017.

Iowa ophthalmologist receives CON for ASC on 5th try

Lee Birchansky, MD, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based ophthalmologist received state approval to open an outpatient eye center on his fifth attempt in more than 10 years.

SurgiSite North creates new surgery center

Boston-based SurgiSite North partnered with Bowdoin Construction Corp., for its new 8,000-square-foot surgery center in Chelmford, Mass.

New York firm buys ASC operator

New York private equity firm Cortec Group's portfolio company Eyeconic Vision Partners purchased Phoenix-based Swagel-Wootton Hiatt Eye Center.

ASA appoints Dr. Lauren Berkow to committees

The American Society of Anesthesiologists appointed Gainesville-based UF Health anesthesiologist Lauren Berkow, MD, to its committee on neuroanesthesia and equipment and facilities.

International Association of Top Professionals awards Dr. David Bass top honor

The International Association of Top Professionals named David Bass, MD, its Top Doctor of the Year in Gastroenterology for 2017.

Gastroenterology Associates of Northwest Ohio adds Dr. Vivian Chidi

Findlay-based Gastroenterology Associates of Northwest Ohio welcomed Vivian Chidi, MD, to its staff.

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals reports positive phase IIB GERD therapy data

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals reported results from its phase IIB trial for IW-3718, its gastroesophageal reflux disease therapy.
Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health on Monday closed Walla Walla (Wash.) General Hospital along with its affiliated home health division and medical group.

The closure comes after Adventist called off plans in June to transfer ownership of Walla Walla General to Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health & Services. Under the deal, Providence agreed to assume ownership and operation of the Walla Walla campus and disburse $14 million over 24 years into a special fund for community health that Adventist would direct.

However, Adventist said late last month the proposed transaction encountered "unexpected regulatory challenges" that could possibly block the deal. The system discontinued negotiations with Providence and announced it would close the Walla Walla campus.

Adventist said Walla Walla General has faced financial troubles for the past decade. The system invested $68 million into Walla Walla General in recent years, but that wasn't enough to save the hospital.

"We respect the legacy of this hospital, its place in the heart of our community, and the investments we have all made to sustain it for more than a century," Adventist said. "Unfortunately, the current volatile healthcare environment, legislative challenges, and consistent low inpatient census have created an unsustainable future for Walla Walla General Hospital."



Adventist said many of the Walla Walla General Hospital physicians will remain local and will inform patients of their future plans.

Walla Walla General Hospital was founded in 1899 and has more than 400 employees, including a medical staff of more than 175 clinicians.

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Eight veterans groups are urging House lawmakers to vote against a budget plan that includes funding for the Veterans Choice Program via cuts to other Veterans Affairs programs, according to a Military Times report.

The request came in a joint statement from AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association, Military Officers Association of America, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Vietnam Veterans of America and Wounded Warrior Project. In the joint statement, the groups declare their opposition to the funding legislation, which the House will vote on Monday night. The legislation would cut about $2 billion from various VA programs to fund Veterans Choice Program services for the next six months, according to the report.

The Veterans Choice Program stems from the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act signed into law by former President Barack Obama in 2014. The program, which President Donald Trump extended in April, "allows veterans who face significant wait times or travel times for VA care to see private physicians at the department's expense," according to the report. Funds for the program will be depleted by mid-August unless action is taken, according to VA officials.

The veterans groups in the joint statement call for House lawmakers to vote "no" on the legislation "and instead work with the Senate to reach a bipartisan, bicameral agreement."

"We oppose legislation that includes funding only for the 'choice' program, which provides additional community care options, but makes no investment in VA and uses 'savings' from other veterans benefits or services to 'pay' for the 'choice' program," the groups wrote. "[T]o ensure that veterans can receive necessary care without interruption, we call on House leaders to take the time necessary to work together with Senate leaders to develop acceptable 'choice' funding legislation that not only fills the current funding gap, but also addresses urgent VA infrastructure and resource needs that led to creation of the 'choice' program in the first place."

The bill's proponents argue the legislation helps sustain the Veterans Choice Program pending long-term fixes, and thousands of veterans could be negatively affected if lawmakers do not vote "yes," according to the report.

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Los Angeles-based University of Southern California officials said the university has "initiated the process to terminate" Carmen Puliafito, MD, former dean of the USC Keck School of Medicine, according to The New York Times.

USC Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Michael W. Quick, PhD, said in a statement the university "[was] provided access to information of egregious behavior" on the part of Dr. Puliafito, 66, July 21. Dr. Quick called the information "extremely troubling" and said it required officials to take "serious action."

It was the first time university officials received first-hand information concerning Dr. Puliafito's alleged substance misuse activities with people unaffiliated with the university, the statement read.

"We certainly understand that substance abuse is a tragic and devastating disease," Dr. Quick said in the statement. "But we are also bound to our responsibilities as a university to take the necessary actions concerning Dr. Puliafito's status."

The statement also said Dr. Puliafito is "under immediate suspension from the university and is barred from our campuses and any association with USC, including attending or participating in university events" during the termination process.

USC officials announced their decision July 21 to hire a partner from Los Angeles-based law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to investigate Dr. Puliafito's conduct and the university's response, the report states.

"Our priority now is to obtain a clear picture of exactly what happened and to ensure the well-being and trust of our students at USC, the patients at the Keck School and our entire university community," USC officials said in an emailed statement to The New York Times July 22.

Allegations of Dr. Puliafito's substance misuse and associations with drug misusers and criminals surfaced July 17 in a report by The Los Angeles Times. One woman  who worked as a prostitute, according to The New York Times  said Dr. Puliafito was with her at the time of her drug overdose in 2016. The Pasadena Police Union said July 21 it was investigating the police's handling of the overdose incident.

Dr. Puliafito resigned from his position as dean in March 2016, less than one month after the alleged incident, according to The New York Times. He continued to accept new patients and remained a part of the Keck faculty following his resignation.

The day after The Los Angeles Times published its investigation, USC President C.L. Max Nikias, PhD, wrote an open letter to the campus community stating Dr. Puliafito had been placed on leave and was no longer seeing patients.

The Medical Board of California is also investigating the allegations against Dr. Puliafito.
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Warrenpoint Harbour in Co Down is hoping a new freight contract will secure its position as the province's second busiest port for freight. The harbour authority has announced a 10-year extension to its arrangement with Dublin-based freight firm Seatruck Ferries.

It follows major investment in Warrenpoint's port facilities, including a recent 1.3m dredging project.

It's another piece of good news for the region's waterways, after the launch last week of a new ferry service between nearby Greencastle and Greenore in Co Louth.

But business organisations in the region say the Newry area, around six miles from Warrenpoint, still requires a southern relief road to combat traffic pressures.

The road would link the A1 Dublin Road - described as "key strategic route" - to the A2 Warrenpoint Road, which leads to Warrenpoint Port.

Seatruck is now the largest tonnage operator in Warrenpoint and had the fastest percentage freight growth of any Northern Ireland ferry service during last year.

It has operated a twice-daily ferry between Warrenpoint and Lancashire for 21 years.

As part of the new agreement, Warrenpoint Harbour said it would provide more terminal space if needed for future growth.

Alistair Eagles, chief executive of Seatruck Ferries, added: "Warrenpoint is where the Seatruck story began, and we are absolutely delighted to extend our agreement with the port and in turn our commitment to the local area.

"The wider financial benefits of having a successful port in this area should not be underestimated.

"Warrenpoint Harbour is the economic heartbeat of Newry and the Mournes and more widely on both sides of the border."

Warrenpoint Harbour Authority chief executive Peter Conway said: "Seatruck is a fast-growing, innovative ferry operator with a long and successful history at Warrenpoint.

"Together, both companies hope to continue to grow the business and to provide and develop this modern, cross-channel roll-on-roll-off service. Seatruck is the port's largest customer and this new deal demonstrated its commitment to the port and the region for the long term.

"As Northern Ireland's second general cargo port, Warrenpoint Harbour is a major economic driver for its local region, and its position halfway between Dublin and Belfast on the island of Ireland is a major benefit in attracting business.

"North-south connectivity in a post-Brexit era will be all the more important and we will continue to lobby for the construction of the Newry southern relief road to further improve access to the major road networks across both parts of this island."
Emotional exit for Montana and Alex as they miss out on place in Love Island final

Montana Brown and Alex Beattie have become the latest contestants to be dumped from Love Island in the penultimate episode of the series.

Their emotional exit came after the shows host Caroline Flack revealed they had received the fewest votes from the public  who were voting to save their favourite two couples  out of them, Camilla Thurlow and Jamie Jewitt, and Gabby Allen and Marcel Somerville.

Failing to fight back the tears as she said her goodbyes, Brown told her co-stars: Youre such lovely people and I honestly feel so lucky to have met every single one of you.

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Brown added that leaving and saying goodbye to her friends after seven weeks in the villa was emotional turmoil.

As she and Beattie left the villa, they said they have a lot of confidence that they can make things work as a couple back in the UK.

Thurlow, Jewitt, Allen and Somerville join Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies, and Chris Hughes and Olivia Attwood in the final, where they will compete to win a 50,000 prize.

The emotional episode saw the islanders visited by their parents and other family members, reuniting with them after weeks in the Majorcan villa while also meeting their partners relatives.

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Fans of the show were greatly entertained by the arrival of some of the parents, with Thurlows mother particularly impressing viewers.

Camillas mum quickly became a trending topic on Twitter as fans of the ITV2 show were entertained by her telling her daughter she was brave for taking part in the show, for breaking down in tears and for confessing she enjoyed the recent sausage-fest challenge.

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Fans were also in stitches as Thurlows mother told Hughes, a farmer, that she likes cows too as she left the villa.

One wrote on Twitter: Camillas mum shouting I like cows too to Chris was actually my fave moment all episode #LoveIsland.

When Camillas mum turned to chris and said i like cows too, i cant shes even cuter than Camilla #loveisland, another added.

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One said, using a crying laughing emoji: Camillas mum though I like cows too howling @LoveIsland.

Many could not believe Hughess parents said that Attwood was sweet after weeks of the couple breaking up and making up.

One stunned viewer wrote: Chris parents saying Olivia is sweet  Have we been watching the same programme ? #LoveIsland.

Another asked: Did I just hear right, Olivia is sweet? @LoveIsland.

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Elsewhere, Allens brother, who joined their mother, was a popular addition to the programme, as many remarked that he was handsome.

@LoveIsland how nice looking is gabbys brother, one fan wrote, while another said he was the highlight of my night.

The Love Island final airs on Monday at 9pm on ITV2.
The 35-year-old is a crime and women's fiction writer originally from Rostrevor, who now lives in London. She will be taking part in this year's Eastside Arts Festival.

My best moment

Finishing my first book back in 2010. It was never published, but just actually achieving that was a great moment.

My best song

The Tracks of My Tears, by Smokey Robinson, is my old karaoke favourite. It's got great lyrics and is quite a sad song.

My best way to relax

I like to go swimming. There's an open air pool or lido close to where I live in London, and it's great when the weather's nice. It's not heated, so it can be a bit chilly sometimes.

My best job

I'm more or less writing full-time now, although I do some teaching at a university too. I love working from home and I'm quite disciplined with it. I don't mind working on my own for long periods of time either, so it suits me really well. I spent some years working in offices and for charitable organisations, and it was a bit of a risk to take the leap to full-time writing. It's been a little bit like starting my own business, but it's been a dream come true.

My best advice

It's actually from a book. It's called Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, and someone gave it to me when I was 18. I was living in Rostrevor, and really wanted to be a writer, but I'd never met anyone like that and didn't think that I could do it as a job. The book really let me see how I could.

My best movie

LA Confidential. It's very stylish and entertaining, but dark and sad at the same time. It's even quite romantic. Curtis Hanson also directed a film called In Her Shoes, about two sisters. I like that they are two very different styles of film, in the same way that I wrote two different styles of fiction.

My best gift

My parents gave me a diary for Christmas when I was about 10. That was the thing that got me into the habit of writing every day, which has really stood me in good stead. Lots of people now give me notebooks as presents, as they know I like them.

My best achievement

That's getting published. It was something I really wanted to do, and I hadn't managed to finish a book. My first published book was The Fall, but it doesn't have anything to do with the TV series. I didn't mean to write a crime novel, but it worked out to fit into the genre perfectly.

My best buy

My Macbook. I put off getting one for years and just had my really old laptop. The Macbook is much, much more expensive, but it's so portable and so fast too. My old laptop took 10 minutes to warm up.

My best book

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. I'm sure lots of people say it's their favourite book, but it's so gripping and beautifully written. It's the kind of thing I would like to write if I could. I've read it about 10 times now. I am a big reader and go through two or three books a week. I read a lot of crime because I know a lot of crime writers and try to keep up with their books. I also read good women's fiction, which can sometimes be hard to find. Something that's light-hearted but meaningful, like anything by Marian Keyes. She's really funny about really serious and sad subjects.
Michael Gove (third left) with DUPs Ian Paisley, Paul Girvan, Diane Dodds, Nigel Dodds and Michelle McIlveen during his visit to Antrim

Cross-border trade in agri-food products will not be affected by whatever final Brexit agreement is struck between London and Brussels, according to the Environment Secretary.

On a surprise visit to the Antrim Show at Shane's Castle Estate on Saturday, Michael Gove said: "A pragmatic approach will be required to reach a final settlement.

"However, the British Government fully recognises the importance of the long established trading arrangements that are a feature of the farming and food sectors on the island of Ireland.

"These must be retained."

In his first major speech last week, Mr Gove said farmers will be paid for delivering environmental benefits after Brexit.

Currently, they receive subsidies from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy for the amount of land that they farm.

The Government has vowed to maintain levels of funding up to 2022, but Mr Gove said ministers could only go on "generously supporting farmers" in the face of other demands on spending if the environmental benefits were clear.

In Antrim, Mr Gove said: "Farmers must be supported to help maintain and improve the environment."

The Environment Secretary met with DUP members on his visit, who told him of the need to protect the family structure of farming here.

Speaking afterwards, South Antrim MP Paul Girvan said: "As a party we also highlighted our views on imports of food products into the UK and the need for a level playing field. It's not acceptable to ask our farmers to meet a raft of requirements and then have to compete with cheaper, lower standard goods."

Sinn Fein MLA Declan Kearney accused Mr Gove of pulling out of a pre-arranged meeting with his party "without prior notice at the very last minute".

A spokeswoman for Mr Gove said the meeting had been cancelled at short notice due to flight delays. She added: "Due to the unexpected cancellation, apologies were made and arrangements are under way to set up a meeting soon."

Antrim Show, Page 18
The Conservative Government is "ill-prepared for Brexit" and has little concern for the economic impact of a hard border in Ireland, the Sinn Fein president will tell US politicians this week.

Gerry Adams left for Washington yesterday for several days of meetings with political leaders - as did Secretary of State James Brokenshire.

Speaking ahead of the trip, Mr Brokenshire said: "Regrettably my visit takes place against a backdrop of political stalemate in Northern Ireland, but this is a timely opportunity to brief members of the US administration, who throughout history have done so much to support our efforts in moving forward the political process on the current situation.

"I also want to reassure them that the UK Government is determined to see devolved, power-sharing government restored."

Mr Adams will attend a memorial Mass in Washington for Martin McGuinness, and will meet the Congressional Friends of Ireland group and State Department to update them on the recent Stormont negotiations and the situation arising from Brexit.

Mr Adams said: "My meetings this week will allow me the opportunity to update Irish America, the State Department and Capitol Hill on recent developments in the political process, the failure to reach agreement at the start of this month and the widely held concerns across the island about the damaging consequences of Brexit.

"These have been heightened in recent days following a week of confusing Brexit negotiations between the EU and the British Government which suggest that the Tories are ill-prepared for Brexit, have no clear plan and have little concern about the impact of a hard economic border on the island of Ireland.

"I will also tell Irish America and Congressional leaders that Sinn Fein is totally committed to the restoration of the political institutions, but that this can only be achieved on the basis of equality and respect, and the implementation of outstanding commitments arising from the Good Friday and subsequent agreements."

Meanwhile, work will begin on preparing the ground for a post-Brexit trade deal with the US when the International Trade Secretary flies into Washington.

Liam Fox will meet trade representative Robert Lighthizer for two days of talks at the first UK-US trade and investment working group.

EU rules mean the UK cannot sign a deal until after it has quit the bloc, but the discussions will pave the way for a future potential free trade deal.
The heartbroken father of a 12-year-old Northern Ireland boy who has an inoperable brain tumour has urged other parents not to take their children for granted.

Cameron Truesdale (12) from Co Down was diagnosed earlier this year with a rare brain tumour known as DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma).

Dad Harold said the family were now desperately trying to raise funds to get lifesaving treatment for the youngster.

"Cameron is okay at the moment. We're taking it one day at a time," he said. "He's in good spirits. He's a normal 12-year-old boy who loves going fishing and playing on his quad.

"He's so selfless and kind."

Harold said that the day Cameron was diagnosed was the worst of his life.

"His mummy Cassandra phoned me to say she was taking Cameron to the GP. She rang again to say he was sent up to the hospital, so I met them up there," he explained.

"I was sitting at the side of the ward waiting on the consultant to come back and tell me what was happening.

"He told Cameron to go play the Xbox and wanted to speak to us alone. My heart sank. The walk from the ward to the private room was the worst. I knew it wasn't good news.

"His mummy and I have been separated for seven years, but we collapsed into each other when the consultant told us that he had a rare brain tumour and they couldn't operate.

"Our whole lives went from 100 to zero in a heartbeat. Our whole world fell apart."

The family are now fundraising to take Cameron to Mexico for potentially lifesaving treatment.

"His mummy did a lot of research and found the treatment. We can't afford it ourselves because it'll be in the region of 300,000 for the treatment, flights and accommodation."

Mexico is the only trial of its kind and Cameron's parents have been following its progress closely.

"It's trial and error at the moment. Each person adapts differently, but Cameron deserves the chance, especially because he is so well after six months of being diagnosed that we really think that this could help him," he said.

"We can't just do nothing. We have to do our best for Cameron, because he deserves it."

While the family had to go public with their heartbreaking story, Cameron wants to remain anonymous, and has asked that only one photo of him, taken from the back, is used to publicise the family's campaign.

"He's a very private boy. He's a typical 12-year-old," his dad added.

Cameron has a sister Chloe (9) and two stepsisters aged two and 15 months.

"It's an ongoing conversation between his mummy and me about the logistics of us all going over to Mexico. The two of us want to go over and be there with Cameron," he said.

And he added: "Don't take your children for granted. You don't know what is around the corner. When you're saying no to your kids, don't, unless you have to."

You can donate to the fund at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/cure4cam
A teenager accused of posting a grossly offensive message about the Manchester bombing on social media has had the charge withdrawn.

Belfast Magistrates' Court was told Kevin O'Neill will instead be cautioned over comments made online in the wake of the atrocity.

The 19-year-old, from Cliftonville Road in the city, had been charged with improper use of a public electronic communications network.

He was arrested following the terror attack under the Malicious Communications Act.

Twenty-two people were killed and scores more injured when a suicide bomber targeted fans leaving an Ariana Grande pop concert at the Manchester Arena on May 22.

O'Neill appeared back in court today for the final resolution to the case.

His lawyer confirmed that the Public Prosecution Service has agreed to withdraw the charge on the basis that a formal caution is to be administered.

On that basis District Judge Fiona Bagnall agreed to the criminal proceedings being ended.
The Seagen tidal turbine in Strangford Lough, as cross-border studies into bio and marine-based power are announced

The EU is to spend almost 10 million euro (8.9 million) on researching renewable energy in Britain and Ireland.

The work will focus on the use of tidal power at Strangford Lough and the North Antrim Coast in Northern Ireland, ocean energy sites in Western Scotland and the potential for wave and tidal power generation in Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.

A virtual centre of competence at Queen's University Belfast will host cross-border studies into bio and marine-based power, the European funding organisation said.

Gina McIntyre, chief executive officer of the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB), said: "The region has a low level of industry-relevant research and innovation within the renewable energy sector.

"The Bryden Centre project will help address this issue by creating a new centre of competence made up of dedicated PhD students creating high quality research with strong commercial potential."

Working with a number of cross-border partners including the University of Highlands and Islands, Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ulster University, the Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute, Donegal County Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council, the project will create the largest amount of cross-border research in this area to date.

It will recruit 34 doctoral students and six post-doctoral research associates to produce relevant research with the potential to produce strong commercial benefit.

The EU is contributing more than 9.3 million euro (8.3 million) while match-funding for the project has been provided by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in Ireland and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland.

It will also focus on bio-energy, specifically heat, biogas and electricity which can be produced through the anaerobic digestion of agri-food waste.

Findings produced are intended to benefit many small and medium-sized businesses struggling to become more innovative within the renewable energy sector.

A massive tidal energy project on the seabed off Northern Ireland's north coast is planned for next year.

Cork-based DP Energy hopes to install a series of 100 megawatt (MW) turbines off Fair Head.

It would generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 70,000 homes.

The proposed technology is a further development of that used in Strangford Lough in Co Down.
James Brokenshire is to hold a series of meetings with Trump administration officials and business leaders over the next three days

James Brokenshire is travelling to Washington to discuss the political crisis at Stormont with US officials.

The Northern Ireland Secretary of State is to hold a series of meetings with Trump administration officials and business leaders over the next three days.

Topping the agenda will be the political situation in Northern Ireland, the need for foreign investment into the region and Brexit.

Mr Brokenshire will be hoping to reassure politicians and business leaders that the region is open for business, despite the lack of an executive.

Speaking ahead of the trip Mr Brokenshire said it is "regrettable" that his visit takes place "against a backdrop of political stalemate in the region".

He insisted however that this was a "timely opportunity to brief members of the US administration, who throughout history have done so much to support our efforts in moving forward the political process, on the current situation".

He added: "I also want to reassure them that the UK Government is determined to see devolved, power-sharing government restored."

While in Washington Mr Brokenshire will meet with Conrad Tribble of the US State Department, the Vice President's national security adviser Andrea Thompson, former senator George Mitchell and various members of Congress to update them on the UK Government's priorities in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams is also in Washington where he will attend a memorial mass for former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness on Tuesday.

The Louth TD said he will also be meeting with political leaders and Irish America to discuss the Stormont talks and concerns over Brexit.
Police in Newtownards are appealing for the public's help after a man was threatened by a knife-wielding burglar in his own home.

The incident happened on Monday at around 10am in the Windsor Avenue area of the town.

A man entered a house through a rear window, threatened a male occupant with a knife and demanded money.

After a sum was handed over, the occupant was then tied up an left in a bedroom by an intruder.

The assailant is described as being over six feet tall, aged in his 30s, and wearing a gray tracksuit.

Speaking about the incident, the PSNI's Detective Sergeant Andrews said: "The occupant then managed to release himself before raising the alarm. He was not injured but was left suffering from shock."

Anyone who noticed any suspicious activity in the Windsor Avenue area this morning or anyone with further information is being asked to contact detectives in Bangor on 101, quoting the reference number 307 with the date 24/07/2017.

Alternatively, the public can anonymously contact independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Detectives seized around 1 million worth of cocaine and cannabis, along with cash in excess of 500,000, during raids in Belfast, Derry, Armagh and Omagh.

At least 17 people are facing prosecution following a year-long surveillance operation targeting a suspected drugs and money laundering gang in Northern Ireland, the High Court heard today.

Detectives seized around 1 million worth of cocaine and cannabis, along with cash in excess of 500,000, during raids in Belfast, Derry, Armagh and Omagh.

The scale of the investigation was revealed as bail was refused to a man accused of being a key figure in the organised crime outfit behind the illegal trade.

Granted anonymity and referred to only as XY, the Courts Service also declined to confirm his age due to the tight reporting restrictions imposed.

He faces a total of 10 charges, including conspiracy to supply Class B drugs and possessing, transferring and using criminal property.

According to Crown lawyer Robin Steer the alleged offences are connected to a large-scale investigation into a gang operating across different locations.

"Seventeen people have been arrested and charged, and police still wish to speak to other people in respect of the financial aspects of the investigation," he said.

Mr Steer detailed five incidents as part of surveillance carried out from July 2016. They included:

The seizure of nearly 114,000 and 73,500 euros in Armagh in July 2016.

Another 400,000 recovered by police in the same area a month later.

Herbal cannabis worth 120,000 seized in Omagh, again in August 2016.

A further 280,000 of cannabis and 10,000 in cash confiscated in Derry in September 2016.

A consignment of high-purity cocaine, valued at 500,000, seized with more cannabis, at Duncrue Street in Belfast in February 2017.

According to the prosecution, the cash was to be used for purchasing drugs.

Mr Steer claimed telephone evidence links XY to the suspected crime operation.

Financial investigations showed more than 300,000 was moved through his bank account between 2014 and 2017, the court heard.

Based on XY's line of work, the prosecutor argued he had no legitimate source for that level of income.

Defence counsel stressed his client is only charged in connection with one of the drugs seizures.

The barrister also claimed there was a lack of evidence to back the case being made against XY.

"The Crown have alleged (he) is a major player, but they have not been able to substantiate that."

Despite those submissions, Mr Justice Maguire ruled that the accused must remain in custody at this stage.
One of Northern Ireland's best-known female presenters has signed a letter demanding an end to the gender pay gap at the BBC.

Wendy Austin is among 40 high-profile women who have written to director-general Tony Hall urging him to end the sex "discrimination" revealed in a list of stars' salaries.

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The frank, open letter has been signed by some of the BBC's biggest female names, including Clare Balding, Victoria Derbyshire and Angela Rippon.

Northern Ireland-born Annita McVeigh, a presenter on the BBC news channel, also added her backing to the demand to sort out pay inequality "now" rather than by Lord Hall's 2020 target.

The unprecedented show of anger follows mounting controversy over the stark difference in pay for the BBC's star men and women.

The salaries, published in the corporation's annual report last Wednesday, revealed two-thirds of those earning more than 150,000 are male, with Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans the top-paid on between 2.2m and 2.25m.

Claudia Winkleman was the highest-paid female celebrity, earning between 450,000 and 500,000 last year.

Yesterday Lord Hall said work was under way to close disparities between how much men and women are paid.

Ms Austin (65), awarded an MBE for services to broadcasting in 2012, presented Radio Ulster's flagship Talkback show for five years. In 2014 she was moved to front a new Sunday show, Inside Business.

Meanwhile, Co Armagh-born Ms McVeigh, began her career in the late 1990s with the BBC's Newsline programme.

In 2002 she moved to BBC network news, and is now a regular face on its round-the-clock news channel.

Both signed the letter, co-ordinated by BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour host Jane Garvey, which urges the BBC to "do the right thing" to stamp out its tradition of paying women vastly smaller salaries compared with those of their male counterparts.

Other signatories include Wimbledon presenter Sue Barker, BBC Radio 4 Today programme journalists Mishal Husain and Sarah Montague, and BBC Breakfast regular Sally Nugent.

The women said they would be "prepared to meet" Mr Hall "so that future generations of women do not face this kind of discrimination".

In response to the letter, Lord Hall said "work is already well under way" to resolve the gap.

"There will be wider consultation meetings over the next two months so we can accelerate further change in the autumn. I would obviously value your contribution and thinking as part of this process," he added.

"When figures are published next year, I am confident they will look very different.

"When other organisations publish their gender pay data by next April, I want the BBC to be one of the best performers when comparisons are made."

Presenter Andrew Marr, who is paid up to 449,999, said he received a high salary because he had been around for a long time.

Speaking on his Sunday morning show, he said: "People like me, I have been around for a long time, we get paid more because we have got experience.

"I'm a bit grizzled, going a bit weird around the edges.

"But if I had been born Audrey Marr rather than Andrew Marr, I would have been out 10 years ago.

"There's a real lack of older women on the screen."

Former Conservative minister Anna Soubry, a one-time television presenter, said she kept a "very beady eye" on pay when she was a mother of the chapel at a branch of the National Union of Journalists, adding that there needed to be "fairness".

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would "sign the letter with them" and called on the BBC to "look very hard at itself".

"This gender pay gap is appalling," he said.
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service spent almost 2million on nearly 600 incidents involving animals in the past two years, it has been revealed.

Figures released under Freedom of Information laws reveal that between 2014 and 2016 local firefighters were called to 590 incidents of animals in need of rescue.

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The majority of the animals that needed rescued were cats and dogs. There were also call outs for cattle, sheep, snakes, a hamster, a chinchilla, a sparrow and in one instance a seagull.

Some of the cases involved the rescue of kittens from trees, cats from chimneys, dogs from roofs, cattle from slurry tanks and a hedgehog from a drain. In one case a heffer was freed from a gate by the use of a saw.

The fire service has a number of personnel trained in the specialist rescue of animals.

In a number of cases hydraulic spreaders were used to separate rails to free the animals and one rescue resulted in the fire fighter being scratched.

The over cost to the service was 1.9m. And in some cases fire crews attended the scene and the animal had already freed itself, others were false alarms, but noted as being so with "good intent" or just a case of advice being issued.

A Fire Service spokeswoman said: "Protecting the public is of paramount importance to NIFRS and animals in distress can pose a serious risk to the public or anyone attempting to rescue them.

"Firefighters would rather members of the public call for assistance than tackle a serious animal rescue themselves as it may result in individuals placing themselves, and others in danger.

"If that should happen, the financial cost of rescuing the animal, and the would-be rescuer, may well be a lot greater and have more serious long term implications.

She continued: "NIFRS has two specialist Animal Rescue teams based in Newcastle and Omagh which cover all of Northern Ireland. These firefighters are specially trained in animal rescue to help reduce the likelihood of injuries and deaths, to members of the public who otherwise may attempt to carry out a rescue themselves."

The BBC reported that across the UK, there were over 15,000 incidents involving animals costing more than 6m.
The term is widely used on Facebook and Twitter to mark the passing of someone.

Orange Order members have been told not to use the term "RIP" to commemorate deaths with the term considered "un-Protestant".

The instruction was made in an article in the Orange Standard, a magazine for members of the institution. The term is thought un-Biblical and a form of superstition which is connected historically to Catholicism.

Wallace Thompson, Secretary of Evangelical Protestant Society said he would encourage Protestants not to use the term but realised many would use it without understanding its roots.

"The issue is obviously a sensitive one," he told BBC Talkback, "because people are expressing their grief.

"Just observing on social media we have noticed a lot of Protestants are using the letters and some are evangelical Protestants."

Mr Thompson said there needed to be a better understanding of the issue among those that observe the Protestant faith.

"From a Protestant point of view we believe when death comes a person either goes to Christ for all eternity or into hell. That's what we believe the Gospel to be.

"So from a Protestant point of view to use the term is not theological or correct."

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The comments were made in an article in the Orange Standard concerning the widespread use of the term particularly on the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

It said that while the term was probably used "innocently" it was a "illustration of spiritual confusion within Protestant circles".

The letters RIP meaning Requiescant in pace or rest in peace, have long been used by the Roman Catholic Church, and can be frequently seen, for example, in death notices and gravestones," the article said.

The Orange Order said the message in the article was clear and well put together and "clearly explains why Protestants and members of the Orange Institution should not use the term 'RIP'.

"For guidance on any matters like these we should refer to what the Bible teaches."
A bid to impose a two-child limit on claims by universal credit recipients in Northern Ireland unless a woman can prove she was raped must be debated by MPs, Labour has urged.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Owen Smith called for an urgent Commons debate and vote over plans to extend the so-called 'rape clause' to Northern Ireland over the heads of MLAs while Stormont remains in limbo.

The policy will limit new universal credit claims to two children per family unless certain conditions are met - including the mother proving she conceived a third child through rape.

There have been widespread calls for the rape clause to be scrapped.

There has been particular concern about the impact of the controversial clause in Northern Ireland as failure to report a crime in the province remains an offence.

The Opposition said it was wrong to push the policy without a functioning government in Northern Ireland as the Assembly remains suspended.

In a letter to Secretary of State James Brokenshire, Mr Smith and shadow welfare secretary Debbie Abraham warned: "This measure is being introduced in the absence of a functioning Executive in Northern Ireland.

"To impose such changes from Westminster, especially through the back door of a statutory instrument without scrutiny even by committee, is completely at odds with principles of the devolution settlement as agreed under the Good Friday agreement and subsequent agreements, including Fresh Start."

Mr Smith further warned that women could be unintentionally criminalised. The letter continued: "That would add gross insult to heinous injury for the women concerned and it cannot be allowed to pass into law."

The two-child limit for those claiming tax credits was introduced across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, in April.

Universal credit, which replaces some benefits and tax credits, has yet to be extended to here.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Mr Smith said: "There is no way the Tories should be able to get away with introducing these controversial changes without parliament debating and voting on them, especially in the absence of devolved government in Northern Ireland."

The Department for Work and Pensions, which is overseeing the changes, has said that rape victims would not have to describe the details of the offence to members of its staff.

Both Sinn Fein and the DUP have spoken out against the two-child limit.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone Sinn Fein MP Michelle Gildernew described the clause as "disgusting and traumatic".

Campaigners in Northern Ireland, too, have spoken out against the policy.

The head of Women's Aid Federation NI, Jan Melia, said: "This policy is tone deaf to the reality of sexual violence. Many victims take years before they are ready to open up and talk about sexual violence that they've suffered.

"Forcing them to do so before they're ready, in order to access welfare, is profoundly cruel.

"Forced disclosure can exacerbate post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health issues, and will heighten the sense of shame and isolation felt by victims.

"We already live in a culture where women are not believed when they report sexual assault.

"This policy will only magnify the worry that rape victims have about being told that they are lying about what's happened to them."
The scene at Cave Hill Country Park where the body of Dean McIlwaine was discovered on Saturday

Family, friends and dozens of volunteers joined in Saturdays search for Dean McIlwaine in Cave Hill Country Park

The body of Dean McIlwaine was found on Cave Hill at the weekend by a team of volunteers led by the same man who rescued an injured German girl from the exact same area eight months ago.

Dean disappeared on July 13, just days after being best man at a family wedding in Cyprus.

His body was found in the country park on Saturday after a massive search.

One of those involved in the search was jogger Davey McCrum who discovered Sonja Klinger close to the famous rock formation known as Napoleons Nose in November.

She had lain injured for more than 24 hours after the wind swept her off the hill into a wooded area below as she took photographs.

Davey and his friend Richard Lamont searched for the Queens University student after coming across her bag and other personal items.

A rescue helicopter from Prestwick winched her to safety and flew her to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and shes now recovering in Germany from her injuries.

Davey said he decided to search the same area where he found Sonja after hearing about Dean McIlwaines disappearance.

I went there a few days ago, but the clothes I was wearing werent suitable.

I was getting ripped to shreds so when I heard there was a full-scale search on Saturday at Cave Hill Country Park, I got the right gear and returned.

They asked me to become a team leader because of what happened in November.

I had a small team of volunteers with me on Saturday and it was noticed that the grass had been trodden down.

Then a shoe was found and it was recognised by a member of Deans family who was with us.

Shortly afterwards we found the body. It was a sad outcome to our search.

By a bizarre twist of fate, Davey also found a shoe belonging to Sonja Klinger during the search on Saturday.

I slipped down a bank and when I put my hand out it actually landed on Sonjas shoe.

In November I had always wondered why she was only wearing one shoe and there I was at the weekend finding the other one.

Last years rescue inspired Davey and several of his friends to raise money for an air ambulance by climbing 12 mountains across Ireland.

And by another coincidence, Northern Irelands air ambulance took part in its first mission on the same day that Davey and his search team found the body of 22-year-old hairdresser Dean.

The helicopter airlifted an 11-year-old boy to hospital after he was injured in an accident involving a tractor near Castlewellan in Co Down.
It's not thought the corn snake is dangerous. [File photo]

Police are appealing for the owner of a snake found on the street of a Northern Ireland town to get in touch.

The reptile was found on Portmore Street in Portadown on Sunday afternoon.

Police have urged everyone to take a quick headcount of their snake collection - after the initial panic dies down.

"Some bai who knows what he's talking about thinks it may be a Corn Snake variant," said police in a Facebook post.

"According to tinterweb, this is a very good thing: non venomous and they take out rodents."

If you own the snake, police ask you ring 101, quoting reference number 938 of 23/07/17.

The find sparked one officer's memory of the last time he had to deal with a snake on the loose back in 2013.

"I summoned my inner Steve Irwin, grabbed it behind the head and put it in a pillow case. Into the dark, instantly calm, result.

"On the way back to the station we got called to an ongoing mass brawl. The snake didn't like the sirens and the sideways round corners movement.

"We arrived and I jumped out of the car with a squirming pillow cased snake in one hand and my baton in the other. The wannabe cage fighters all seemed to have the same phobia and became remarkably compliant when I threatened to release the police snake on them. I wish we'd had body cameras back then.

"The footage would have broken the internet."
The restaurant worker previously pleaded guilty to damaging a letterbox belonging to 'Radius Housing' at Weaver's Court, in Coleraine.

A judge has told an arsonist to "tell that to the people in Grenfell" after the court heard he thought it would be "funny" to pretend to start a fire at a four-storey flats complex in Coleraine.

The reference by District Judge Liam McNally at Coleraine Magistrates' Court on Monday regarding the London tower block inferno came as Reece Louden (22) of Church Street, Portstewart, was jailed for four months for arson.

The restaurant worker previously pleaded guilty to damaging a letterbox belonging to 'Radius Housing' at Weaver's Court, in Coleraine.

A resident heard an alarm and put the flames out at 6am on Saturday February 18 this year.

A prosecutor said two men were seen running away and getting in to a vehicle and 500 worth of damage was caused to a letterbox.

The prosecutor said scorch damage was caused and no-one was injured after a fire alarm sounded.

The court heard Louden told police he was drunk and thought it would be "funny" to pretend to set fire to the door and he panicked when the letterbox ignited.

Defence solicitor Brendan McLernon said his client used a lighter in a "foolish reckless act" and when sober he made a full admission.

He said Louden was off drink for six months but was on a binge and had gone with two others to a "drinking flat" and after knocking on the door was told by the occupants to go home.

Mr McLernon said it was not a case of people sleeping when he set fire to the door which he didn't believe would take hold but when it created a "good deal of smoke" he "panicked" but punched a fire alarm to set off an alarm and ran off.

The solicitor said there was little chance of the fire spreading but Judge McNally said: "Tell that to the people in Grenfell".

Mr McLernon replied: "I certainly don't want this coloured by the London tragedy, it is an entirely different scale".

The solicitor said it would have been very difficult to become an active fire as Louden had not used any accelerants or rags or papers.

"There was no premeditation, it was stupidity of the highest order" rather than someone who set out to "cause harm to people and damage their property".

Mr McLernon said his client had previous offences and at one stage had gone off to live in a Scottish island "to keep himself out of trouble" but returned home.

Judge McNally said fortunately the flames were put out by an alert neighbour.

He told Louden: "You shouldn't play with fire because you never know what will happen".

The defendant was jailed for four months but released on his own bail of 500 pending appeal.
Police at the scene of the accident

Three people were rushed to hospital for treatment yesterday afternoon following a three-vehicle crash outside Armoy.

A car and two motorcycles were involved in the incident, which happened on the A44 Hillside Road in the small north Antrim village.

The Hillside Road is a busy main road running from Armoy to Ballycastle.

It forms part of the Armoy Road Races, which start later this week.

Many motorcyclists took to the road yesterday to ride round the course before the the event gets under way.

Three ambulance crews attended the crash scene to help the injured yesterday.

An Ambulance Service spokesman said two people were taken to the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, and the third victim was rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, where their condition was described as stable last night.

No information was available about the condition of the two people admitted to the Causeway Hospital.

Local councillor Cara McShane said: "There are a couple of bad bends on that road. It's a busy road - especially on a Sunday, with tourists visiting the Glens or heading for Ballycastle."

The Hillside Road was closed last night as the PSNI investigation into the collision got under way.

Diversions were in place northbound via Dry Arch and southbound by way of Lagge Road.
Clare with her sister and brother at a family christening in 1974

Clare at her graduation with her children and mum Eleanor

The most personal and probing interviews: Clare Bailey, Green Party, on performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival... and waiting on the Duchess of Argyll.

Q. Tell us about your parents and your siblings.

A. My dad John died suddenly from a massive heart attack last year. He was 69. We're still trying to deal with it. He lived alone. My sister Elaine is still traumatised because she found him.

My mum Eleanor (67) and him split up when I was a teenager but they lived fairly close together in Antrim. She retired from Antrim Council last year.

Elaine, 11 months older than me, works at Quaker Cottage in Belfast and has two children - Conor (27) and Coleen (18). My brother Sean-Paul (40) looks after health and safety on Game of Thrones.

Like my dad, he was a fireman. When the film City of Ember was being shot in Belfast he got the health and safety contract and it took off from there. He's met loads of famous people - like Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks - but refuses to introduce me to any of them. He has two sons - Tiernnan (19) and Oliver (seven). None of us are married.

Q. You're 47, a single mum of son Brien (21), who's an IT student at Belfast Metropolitan College, and daughter Jude (20), who studies Textiles at Ulster University. Are you and their father in touch?

A. Their dad and I were together for seven years before we split up when the kids were four and five. We have very little contact now but the kids see him a few times a week; they're close.

Q. Did you find it difficult bringing up two kids alone?

A. When they were small I spent a lot of time on benefits. Being a lone parent is full-time work. We lived on around 700 a month. It was very tough. I went back into education in 2003 because I felt I needed to create options and choices for us in life.

Q. How did you end up becoming homeless?

A. I'd signed a year's lease on a house. When that was up, in 2008, they asked me to sign for another year but I asked for a month by month contract and they refused, giving me 28 days' notice.

It happened around the time we were about to leave on our first ever package holiday, to Crete, at the end of June. I had declared myself as homeless to the Housing Executive and they took all the furniture away and put it into storage.

I vividly remember myself and the kids left sitting in an empty house on a suitcase before going to Crete the next morning. We flew back into Belfast International Airport on July 12 with nowhere to go.

Q. And what happened then?

A. We stayed with friends and family for a while. It was traumatic. I've never been through anything as horrendous. We ended up in a hostel on the Ormeau Road for five months. Finally we got the house we're living in now in Newtownbreda. My daughter was doing her transfer test, my son was starting first year and I was in my final year at Queen's. But we got through it.

Q. You attended two primary schools - St Vincent's in Belfast and St Joseph's in Antrim - and then you were a founder pupil of Lagan College, Northern Ireland's first integrated school. You were in the same year as your older sister. Was that a bit strange?

A. We knew we were a wee bit different because of all the visitors coming to Lagan, but it was just a school to us. Looking back now, when I realise what we were part of, it gives me the 'wow'.

There were 28 pupils. It was at Ardnavalley Scout Hall at Shaw's Bridge because the school had no official premises. On the first day we went in the back entrance because there were protests at the front.

Elaine and I were always in the same year; it's the Irish twin thing - she was born in July and would've been the eldest in the year; I was born in June so I'd have been the youngest.

Q. You were born in Clonard on the Lower Falls and moved to Antrim in 1977. At Lagan College you stayed at home for part of the week and with friends the rest of the time. Tell us about that.

A. I was a wee alley cat. My best friend was the playwright Christina Reid's daughter Heidi and I became the unofficially adopted extra daughter. It was a very bohemian household in the Holylands.

Q. You completed a BA in Politics with Cultural and Media Studies at Queen's University, but that was as a mature student. Tell us about drama school (Rupert Stanley) and your original career plan.

A. I left school in 1986 and I did personal development through drama at a small studio in Willowfield. It was definitely one of the best years of my life. There was a huge amount of street performance, and at the end of it we played at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. At 17 I'm not sure I had a plan for myself.

Q. You worked as a live-in chambermaid at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane in London for six months when you were 18. What was that like?

A. One of the people I looked after was Margaret Campbell, the famous Duchess of Argyll. She was very much a Barbara Cartland figure; all silk and satin, but she was very nice.

Q. How come that you can speak Dutch?

A. In the '70s and the '80s, my mum organised holidays putting Catholic and Protestant kids with Dutch families via a programme called Help Northern Ireland. Mum and Dad both worked so Elaine and I were fostered to Dutch families every Easter, summer and Christmas until we were seven or eight.

Q. You have worked in the community sector for years, including in the Suffolk/Lenadoon interface area, serving as a community development worker in 2010/2011. Give me a brief resume of your career to date.

A. I came back from London when I was 22, worked in Vision Express in Belfast for four years, then I had children.

I signed up for A-levels but didn't finish them. In 2003 I did a two-year part-time access course ran by Belfast Met. After that I went to Queen's, aged 35.

It was a three-year course but I ended up homeless and it took me four as I had to do the final year over two years. I graduated in 2009.

Q. What made you enter into politics?

A. I was an angry woman by that stage. I finished with a politics degree so I thought I'd dip my toe in and see what happened. I went for the Greens because I felt that I could be me without being too curtailed within party structures or policy. My politics are very much feminist.

Q. As a volunteer escort at Marie Stopes you're on the record as having either bought abortion pills online or helped others procure them. Are you happy about the recent ruling in England?

A. It's a good step forward. It will relieve the financial burden for women who do travel but there are still a lot of women here who don't have the luxury of being able to travel. We need to sort it out here.

Q. You're obviously in favour of abortion reform - when do you see it being legal here?

A. A few years ago I'd have said not in my lifetime, but the speed of change in the public debate and understanding of the issue has accelerated in a short space of time. Since Marie Stopes opened in Belfast a new conversation happened. Hopefully we'll see it in the next decade.

Q. You are deputy leader of the Green Party - another fine example of a woman rising high in politics. Was that position hard to come by?

A. Not at all. The support that I got was overwhelming. I've always been very encouraged. It was them who came to me with that offer.

Q. Do you come across misogyny on the Hill?

A. I find misogyny everywhere, even on social media. If you're going to put yourself above the parapet you're going to take a lot of flak. It doesn't get me down but it's good to call it out. I take screen shots and keep them for when I'm ready...

Q. You're a proud feminist. Is is still something you have to fight hard for?

A. Yeah, feminism is a dirty word although I don't know why. Most people misunderstand what it's really all about - for me, it's equality of access to opportunity and choices in life.

Q. What's the most important piece of advice you've been given?

A. Don't be putting barriers up for yourself, there are enough of them out there already.

Q. Do you believe in God and religion?

A. No. My family is Catholic but faith isn't present in my life.

Q. Does death frighten you?

A. Death frightens me the older I get because I need to make sure that my children will be okay. I don't think you really understand death and grief until it happens to you. I can deal with the physical aspect of my dad being gone, but psychologically he's still there. I still have a chat and a laugh with him, but he's just not physically there.

Q. How do you relax outside of politics?

A. Good food, good wine, good coffee. I like spending a weekend cooking in the kitchen. My Bolognese sauce is very popular. For 15 years I was a volunteer for a vegetarian drop-in centre; that's when I got the cooking buzz. My chocolate mousse cake was the big one there. For peace and quiet I like to climb a mountain for the sense of isolation and calm.

Q. If you were in trouble who is the one person you would you turn to?

A. Jan Melia, director of the Women's Aid Federation. We've been friends for nearly 20 years. She doesn't think like everybody else.

Q. Who's your best Protestant friend?

A. I don't ask the interdenominational status of anyone.

Q. Tell us about the best day of your life.

A. The day that I got the keys to our house in Newtownbreda after being homeless. I'd rented since I was 18 so I could never decorate the kids' bedrooms. That was the first time we had somewhere we could call home.

Q. And what was the worst day of your life?

A. That day sitting on a suitcase in an empty house thinking that I'd failed on every level. That trauma stays with you for a long time.

Q. To date what is your greatest achievement?

A. Getting elected, and raising two happy, healthy kids.

Q. Do you have any bad habits that you don't like?

A.I bite my nails and I smoke. I need to stop.

Q. What's the craziest thing you've ever done?

A. Jan talked me into doing a stand-up night in Dublin. It was for Channel 4's 'So You think You're Funny'. I was her sidekick. We didn't win.
The funeral of a mother-of-four killed in a tragic road collision has taken place in Donegal.

Along with Margaret McGonigle (69) and her daughter Mairead Mundy (37), Rachel Battles (39) was killed in a crash as the group returned home from a holiday on Friday.

The crash happened at about 12.30am on the N2 a few minutes north of Ardee as a group travelled home to the village of Bruckless in Donegal from Dublin Airport.

A six-year-old girl, one of Ms Battles' four children, was seriously injured in the crash and taken to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin.

Speaking before the congregation, Parish Priest Father James Sweeney said: "This tragedy has devastated the community and a sense of shock permeates our parish as well as the entire country.

"This tragedy has reminded us of the goodness and kindness and generosity of this rural community here in south Donegal.

"Rachel, wife to Martin and mother to Killian, Owen, Ellie and Danni, was also a well-known member of the community.

"It is to our faith we turn for consolation and to the love and support of the community to help us at this difficult time."

He went on to describe Rachel's role in the local community, talking about how she met her husband while working as a barmaid in Killibegs, where she met her husband Martin.

She later went on to work caring for people in the local community.

The funerals of the three women killed in a car crash after returning home from a holiday last week heard how their local community has rallied around their family to support them in the wake of the tragedy.

Requiem Mass for Mrs McGonigle and daughter Mairead was celebrated at 11am at the Church of St Joseph and St Conal in Bruckless, with funeral mass for Mrs Battles beginning in the same church at 2.30pm.

Fr Sweeney, who knew all the deceased well, officiated at both the funerals.

"We, as a community give thanks today for the gifts of their lives," he told mourners at the funeral of Margaret and Mairead.

"The community has rallied together over the last few days to support all the families involved. The sense of community spirit has brought the parish together helping to provide all the support and assistance we can humanly give.

"This tragedy has devastated the community and a sense of shock permeates the parish. This tragedy has reminded us of the goodness and kindness and generosity of this rural community here in south Donegal.

"We are today united in prayer for the deceased and continue to remember those injured in the accident."

Grandmother Margaret McGonagle, nee McKenna, was born in Sligo in 1948, the funeral heard. She married and moved to Bruckless, Co Donegal in 1970 and had three children Roger, Geoffrey and Mairead.

"She dedicated her life to the home and children," said Fr Sweeney.

"When all children were reared Margaret returned to education and became an accredited counsellor. She was to the fore setting up the Donegal Rape Crisis in her early work and proceeded to work in different areas helping others with their trauma and difficulties."

Mairead Mundy, nee McGonagle, was born in 1979 living in Bruckless all her life. In 2002 Mairead married Declan and they had a baby boy, Caoimhin. Declan passed away in 2009 before she met Pauric.

"A real home-bird, at the age of 18 Mairead moved to nearby Glenties, but after three days returned home to Mammy homesick," mourners heard.

"Mairead was a champion Irish dancer and danced in both the Ulster and All-Ireland competitions.

"Several years after Declan's death she was blessed to meet Pauric and they began a happy life together with Caoimhin. Having just celebrated their first wedding anniversary, it was tragically cut short by last weeks accident. Mairead was much loved by many people, especially by Caoimhin, Pauric, her family and her friends. Mairead will be sorely missed in all our hearts."
An Irish prison officer who mounted an "evil and sadistic" poison pen campaign against the son of IRA murder victim Brian Stack has won an appeal against a sentence he was given.

John Cooney (57) admitted sending anonymous letters to jail governor Austin Stack, pretending to be an IRA member and telling him his slain father Brian had deserved to suffer.

The victim was among 13 prison service staff targeted over several years in the hate mail campaign.

Cooney had been jailed for a year, but will now serve no prison time after an appeal court reduced his penalty to community service.

Cooney had been given a 20-month sentence, with the last eight suspended by Judge Cormac Dunne last February.

However, he appealed the severity of that sentence and his case was reheard by circuit court president, Judge Raymond Groarke.

After the hearing, Judge Groarke allowed Cooney's appeal and ordered him to carry out 240 hours of community service in lieu of the prison sentence.

Austin Stack's father Brian, who was chief prison officer at Portlaoise Jail, was shot by the IRA in 1983, suffered brain damage and died 18 months later.

Mr Stack had said that he felt "retraumatised" by the three abusive letters which Cooney sent.

Separately, a female prison worker was told in a letter she had got cancer through "promiscuous conduct", while an officer was sent an obscene 40th birthday card. Cooney, of Colthurst Road, Huntington Glen, Lucan, pleaded guilty to nine charges of sending indecent, obscene, offensive or menacing letters and five of harassment.

The offences happened at various locations between 2011 and 2015.

The 14 charges referred to 13 prison service employees.

Previously, governor Austin Stack told Dublin District Court he began receiving letters around the time the Garda began making headway in the investigation into his father's murder.

The first letter arrived at his workplace in Wheatfield Prison. The others followed months later.

The author pretended to be from the IRA and it became obvious that he had worked with him in St Patrick's Institution.

The letters stated that Mr Stack's father "deserved to be in pain" for the 18 months before his death.

The author wrote that it was a waste of State money for the Garda to be investigating his father's death."
Charlie Gards parents have abandoned a legal fight over treatment for their terminally-ill baby son after concluding that he had deteriorated to the point of no return.

But Chris Gard and Connie Yates still think that 11-month-old Charlie might have been saved if experimental therapy had been tried sooner.

Ms Yates told a High Court judge who has overseen the dispute that if Charlie had been treated at the start of the year he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy.

She said time had been wasted.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London did not agree. Lawyers representing the hospital told Mr Justice Francis that the clinical picture six months ago had shown irreversible damage to Charlies brain.

They said the unstoppable effects of Charlies rare illness had become plainer as weeks passed.

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A barrister representing Charlies parents on Monday drew the five-month legal battle to a close at a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London.

Grant Armstrong told the judge that the couple had decided to stop pushing for Charlie to be allowed to undergo a therapy trial overseen by a specialist in New York.

He said they had made the most painful of decisions after reviewing new scan results.

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Ms Yates outlined her thoughts in a statement. She read it from the witness box with Mr Gard at her side.

The couple wept as Ms Yates told a court packed with lawyers, relatives, supporters and journalists: We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately wont make his first birthday in just under two weeks time.

Ms Yates said the latest scan results had forced a change of heart.

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We are truly devastated to say that following the most recent MRI scan of Charlies muscles  we have decided that its no longer in Charlies best interests to pursue treatment and we will let our son go and be with the angels, she said.

Our son has an extremely rare disease for which there is no accepted cure, but that does not mean that this treatment would not have worked, and it certainly does not mean that this shouldnt have been tried.

She added: We have been asking for this short trial for the past eight months. Charlie did have a real chance of getting better if only therapy was started sooner. It was never false hope, as confirmed by many experts. Now we will never know.

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Ms Yates said: Our poor boy has been left to just lie in hospital for months without any treatment whilst lengthy court battles have been fought.

We have been told time and time again that Charlie has a progressive disease but rather than allow treatment for him with a medication that was widely accepted to have no side effects, Charlie has been left with his illness to deteriorate, sadly, to the point of no return.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis is praying for Charlie and the 11-month-old boys parents, the Vatican said. In a statement, it added that Francis feels especially close to them at this time of immense suffering.

Francis, who had previously expressed support for the parents in their bid to seek an experimental medical treatment for their sons rare genetic condition, also asked the faithful to join him in prayer so the babys parents may find Gods consolation and love.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has come under fresh fire after backing Londons multibillion-pound Crossrail 2 scheme days after announcing that rail electrification plans for Wales and northern England are being cut.

Mr Grayling said on Monday that he would work with London mayor Sadiq Khan to ensure Crossrail 2, the proposed north-south rail line running across London between Hertfordshire and Surrey, was fair to the UK taxpayer.

But the statement prompted Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to say on Twitter: On Friday, Tories say they cant afford rail schemes in the North. On Monday, they find billions more for London. Are these 2 things linked?

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Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram also weighed in, saying that while he did not begrudge the investment in London and the South East, there needed to be balanced spending to support growth in the North as well.

Mr Grayling came under fire last week for scrapping long-awaited rail electrification plans, with Labour claiming he was taking people for a ride and breaking promises on upgrading the routes.

The Transport Secretary said using new bi-mode trains which run on diesel and electricity meant the move to abandon commitments to electrify the main lines from Cardiff to Swansea and Kettering to Sheffield was about modifying plans where it makes a difference.

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On Monday it was announced that Mr Grayling and Mr Khan had agreed the need for new infrastructure in the capital at a meeting last week, as well as a funding package which works for both London and the rest of the country.

Mr Grayling said he was a supporter of Crossrail 2, but cautioned that we have to ensure that we get this right given the price tag.

Mr Rotheram said the news came as a bit of a surprise given it wasnt included in the Conservative Party manifesto.

He added: Sadly the juxtaposition of last weeks cancellation of northern rail electrification schemes and this weeks green light for Crossrail, suggests it is just going to be business as usual from this Government when it comes to transport investment.

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Mr Burnham said: This statement from the Transport Secretary will cause widespread anger across the North of England. With every day that passes the promise of a Northern Powerhouse becomes ever more distant.

The time has passed where we can take these decisions lying down. I will today be contacting fellow metro mayors and council leaders across the North of England to consider how we best challenge this Governments continued neglect of transport in the North together. 

The capital may have to fund half of the Crossrail 2 project during its construction, Mr Khan and Mr Grayling said.

London has already shown it could foot the bill for half of the scheme over its life, but the pair said they want to see if the city could do the same during the construction period.

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Mr Khan said he was pleased to have reached an agreement to take this vital project forward.

The scheme is estimated to cost around 30 billion at 2014 prices and construction could start in the early 2020s and the railway could be open by 2033.
Armchair critics of Britains most powerful warship need to shut up for a while, said the Defence Secretary as he hailed the return of big decks and fast jets.

Whilst on board HMS Queen Elizabeth, the 280-metre, 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier, Sir Michael Fallon, who was visiting the ship for the first time while at sea, also praised it as great for British industry.

During his address to the crew gathered on the four-acre flight deck of the vessel on Monday, he said it has been a while since HMS Illustrious, adding: But big decks and fast jets are now back.

This ship is so much bigger than Illustrious and it combines, of course, sea power with air power. Already we have 10 F-35s being flown and trained in the United States. By the end of this year we will have 14 of those fast jets  the worlds most sophisticated fighter.

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The Defence Secretary also told the ships company it is time for the armchair critics to shut up for a while, adding that HMS Illustrious has now gone.

But Queen Elizabeth, the biggest and the greatest warship this country has ever built, will go on now from these trials to defend our country, to safeguard our sea lanes, to work with our allies and partners to keep the peace, and to save lives across all seven seas, he added.

When pressed on what he would say to the armchair critics, Sir Michael told the Press Association: They should come and see this wonderful flagship of the Royal Navy, which will help keep this country safe for 50 years to come.

In a modern world, we need a strong Navy, we need an aircraft carrier, and from an aircraft carrier you need to be able to fly the best jets.

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The 3 billion behemoth is set to be the nations future flagship  her 700-strong ships company plus 200 contractors are currently sailing off the coast of Scotland for maiden sea trials.

During her estimated half a century working life, HMS Queen Elizabeth can be pressed into action for various work such as high-intensity war fighting or providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Sir Michael, who stepped on to the carrier from a Merlin helicopter, said in a modern world we need aircraft carriers.

Sir Michael also said the mighty aircraft carrier is great for British industry, with many yards across the UK, thousands of people, and hundreds of apprentices and businesses involved in its creation.

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90% of it  British  17 million parts. This ship is a floating showcase for British industry, British talent, British skills and British brainpower, he added.

This is a great day for Britain. There are only three other countries in the world building aircraft carriers  and we are building two.

The aircraft carrier and F-35B stealth fighter jets will provide the armed forces with a military operating base which can be deployed worldwide.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected to enter Portsmouth and be accepted by the Royal Navy towards the end of the year.
A surgeon jailed for 15 years for carrying out a raft of needless breast operations had betrayed the best interests of his patients, a medical tribunal has heard.

Ian Paterson, 59, was imprisoned in May after he was convicted by a jury of offences of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding against 10 patients.

His trial at Nottingham Crown Court heard harrowing evidence from the nine women and one man who were treated in the private sector between 1997 and 2011 at Little Aston and Parkway hospitals in the West Midlands.

On Monday, the General Medical Council (GMC) argued that Patersons fitness to practise was impaired because of his convictions.

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Paterson did not attend the Medical Practitioners Tribunal in Manchester and was not legally represented, although he was made aware of the proceedings by post to HMP Nottingham.

The tribunal heard that Paterson did not oppose the proceedings and had expressed a wish to be erased from the medical register without the need for a hearing.

Nigel Grundy, for the General Medical Council, told tribunal members: It is our submission that the convictions and the circumstances surrounding them involve a flagrant disregard by Mr Paterson of the fundamental tenets of the medical profession.

Not only do they represent the antithesis of the Hippocratic Oath, they represent the antithesis of the fundamental tenets of good medical practice.

Mr Patersons conduct is a pattern of betrayal of his patients best interests over 14 years, acting, as it seems, out of arrogance.

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Lying repeatedly to his patients, giving them the false impression of evidence of malignancy when there was none. Seeking to justify the need for invasive procedures when there was no justification. Showing no insight or empathy to his patients and the effect these procedures would have upon them both physically and psychologically, no doubt for the rest of their life.

He added Patersons actions were aggravated by his lack of remorse.

He said: He has given no apology to his victims. He has shown no remorse, on the contrary, he has adopted a position of indifference and arrogance.

This is a serious case. In the spectrum of misbehaviour for a doctor it is at the very highest level.

In 2012, more than 700 patients of Patersons were recalled after concerns about unnecessary or incomplete operations.

He was suspended by the General Medical Council that same year amid claims that he carried out so-called cleavage-sparing mastectomies (CSMs).

Before his suspension, in July 2011 Paterson also had interim conditions, which included a ban on him performing breast surgery, imposed by the GMC.

Patersons sentence has been referred to the Court of Appeal by the attorney general to assess whether the term of imprisonment was unduly lenient.

The GMC said it understood that Paterson, formerly of Altrincham, Cheshire, had made no appeal against conviction or sentence.

The tribunal will reconvene on Tuesday when a decision on impairment will be made before a likely further submission from the GMC on sanction, which is expected to argue that Paterson should be struck off.
The Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Devonshire will discuss Stormont crisis in Washington this week (Niall Carson/PA)

James Brokenshire is travelling to Washington to discuss the political crisis at Stormont with US officials.

The Northern Ireland Secretary of State is to hold a series of meetings with Trump administration officials and business leaders over the next three days.

Topping the agenda will be the political situation in Northern Ireland, the need for foreign investment into the region and Brexit.

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Mr Brokenshire will be hoping to reassure politicians and business leaders that the region is open for business, despite the lack of an executive.

Speaking ahead of the trip Mr Brokenshire said it is regrettable that his visit takes place against a backdrop of political stalemate in the region.

He insisted however that this was a timely opportunity to brief members of the US administration, who throughout history have done so much to support our efforts in moving forward the political process, on the current situation.

He added: I also want to reassure them that the UK Government is determined to see devolved, power-sharing government restored.

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While in Washington Mr Brokenshire will meet with Conrad Tribble of the US State Department, the Vice Presidents national security adviser Andrea Thompson, former senator George Mitchell and various members of Congress to update them on the UK Governments priorities in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Feins Gerry Adams is also in Washington where he will attend a memorial mass for former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness on Tuesday.

The Louth TD said he will also be meeting with political leaders and Irish America to discuss the Stormont talks and concerns over Brexit.
Kabul's western neighbourhoods have been targeted in a series of attacks

A Taliban suicide bomber has killed 24 people in an area of Kabul where prominent politicians live, causing residents and analysts to question the government's ability to protect Afghanistan's capital.

Another 42 people were injured in the attack during morning rush hour as government employees and students made their way to work and school.

Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing skyward outside the entrance to a private high school. Students in nearby dormitories were injured by flying glass.

Several cars were destroyed and many people inside small shops that lined the busy street were killed.

The suicide bomber had rammed his explosive-laden car into a minibus carrying employees of the mines and petroleum ministry, Kabul police chief spokesman Basir Mujahed said.

In a statement to the media the Taliban took responsibility for the bombing, saying the target was the employees of the intelligence services.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said insurgents had spent the last two months in Kabul shadowing intelligence services employees before striking.

Analysts said widespread corruption, rife within the government and the security forces, makes keeping Kabul safe a difficult job.

Kabul-based security analyst Waheed Muzhda said: "You can bring any amount of explosives into the city if you have money. Corruption is the big problem.

"Any group, even a small group, can bring weapons, ammunition to anywhere in the city."

Last year, Afghanistan was ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries according to Transparency International.

The western Kabul area where the attack occurred is home to many prominent political leaders, such as Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq.

It has also been the site of several previous attacks, including the suicide attack last month that killed prominent Shia Muslim cleric Ramazan Hussainzada, who was also a senior leader of the ethnic Hazara community.

Amir Helam, whose friend died in the explosion, told Afghanistan's Tolo TV that "every day people are dying".

Addressing the government, Mr Helam said: "If you cannot bring peace then please leave and bring other people."

Kabul has been battered by explosions claimed by the Taliban and by the Islamic State group's affiliate in Afghanistan.

On May 31, the Afghan capital saw its worst suicide attack since the Taliban's collapse in 2001 - an attack that killed 150 people and wounded scores more.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing, saying: "Once again, these terrorist are attacking civilians and targeting government staff."

Pakistan also condemned the bombing.

AP
Nelson Mandela suffered a lung infection and other ailments before he died in 2013 (Themba Hadebe/AP)

A publisher has withdrawn a book that documents Nelson Mandela's medical treatments following complaints that it violates doctor-patient confidentiality, according to South African media.

Nkosi Mandela, a grandson of the late anti-apartheid leader, president and Nobel laureate, said that the removal from shops of Mandela's Last Years showed respect for the family's wishes "to guard the sanctity of his last moments".

Mr Mandela's foundation also welcomed the decision by publisher Penguin Random House, South African news outlet eNCA said.

The book was written by retired military doctor Vejay Ramlakan, who treated the ailing statesman and said Mr Mandela's family requested that the book be written.

Dr Ramlakan has not named the family members he says authorised the book.

Mr Mandela suffered a lung infection and other ailments before he died in 2013 at the age of 95.

AP
Domestic violence is an odious crime but also a world-wide phenomenon, and no society has managed to extinguish it. Violence against women, according to UN statistics, is often proportionately worse in rich, developed countries than in poorer, less developed ones.

In Finland, over 46% of homicide victims are women, whereas in the Central African Republic, it's just over 14%. Austria, the Czech Republic and Denmark all clock up considerably higher percentages of female homicide victims than Colombia, Guatemala or Uganda (Ireland, though a developed society, has a relatively low proportion of female homicide victims at just over 13%).

So why do quiet countries like Denmark kill - proportionately - nearly three times more women than the troubled Philippines?

Less developed societies with extremes of poverty and wealth are often more violent than sophisticated, more egalitarian countries. But once a society becomes better policed, more compliant with law and order and more egalitarian, public violence declines.

Proportionately, domestic violence can increase. What people do behind closed doors is much harder to monitor than when gangs stab or shoot each other in the street.

There are many charities and organisations now working to combat domestic violence. Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged a new Domestic Abuse Bill in the current parliament, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, espouses campaigns against domestic violence and abuse.

In Ireland, organisations like Safe Ireland and Women's Aid have done fine work supporting women (and children) terrorised by domestic violence and abuse. In Northern Ireland, the PSNI recorded more than 29,000 incidents of domestic abuse in 2016/17.

Since, on average, men are bigger, stronger and more muscular than women, it is evident that in most relationships the person inflicting the physical (or sexual) abuse is likely to be a male. Alcohol abuse can aggravate domestic violence.

But Margaret Martin, the director of Women's Aid, says that drink can be the excuse, not the reason for violence. In one survey, 27% of victims said alcohol was "always" involved, and 29% said "never" (the rest said "sometimes").

Why physical and sexual abuse happens is a complex question. Some evolutionary psychologists put it down to the human condition and, particularly, the male condition. Testosterone produces male desire - and male aggression. That's no excuse. Physical and sexual abuse are crimes, and should always be reported and prosecuted.

But the concept of domestic abuse has now moved on to include emotional abuse and "controlling" behaviour. Sharon O'Halloran of Safe Ireland has written in the media about the damage that psychological abuse can inflict and how it can be a prelude to physical assault. Coercive control is categorised as a serious form of abuse - though the Irish government harbours a certain reticence in making emotional abuse an offence.

The Irish government is right. Coercive control and emotional abuse may leave psychological wounds. Most of us have seen controlling behaviour in our own families. But is it the State's place to invade private life to such a degree that our psychological wounds are a matter of prosecution?

And if emotional abuse is a crime, then it's a crime committed as frequently by women as by men. I can think of many couples where the woman is the psychologically dominant partner, and where I have seen the woman needle, manipulate and control the man.

I once knew a woman whose cringeworthy and repeated abusive humiliation of her husband was almost unbearable to witness. The man always looked miserable, but he sat there and took it. Maybe he loved her anyway; maybe he was a masochist and sought punishment - there are men who pay dominatrix prostitutes for that reason. Maybe he felt he had no option, and feared possible homelessness if he walked away from it.

Was I supposed to inform the police? Report it to the social services? Suggest a victim's refuge? My attitude was that adults must sort out their own couple psychology.

Controlling behaviour happens in personal relationships and at work, and, again, the coercive personality can be male or female.

We must learn to deal with it, or to avoid control freaks. Making it a crime is treating adults like children, and where it's specifically aimed at male control of women, it's belittling women's independence and autonomy. Women need to be empowered, not infantilised.

Steven Pinker, the psychologist, has referenced the many studies showing that female brains are often superior in verbal skills, and girls nearly always have better verbal fluency. When it comes to trading words, rather than blows, women have the capacity for full equality.

The government and the State cannot do everything to regulate private life. It can, and should, protect vulnerable citizens from violence and assault. The developed societies should concentrate on reducing physical violence against women, including homicide. But words, psychology and emotional control are something else again.
Edwin Poots spoke up for the Irish language at the MacGill Summer School in Donegal

Theres some good news from the MacGill Summer School in Donegal where Edwin Poots was involved in a sensible discussion of the Irish language. It was in November 2014 that Gregory Campbell gave Sinn Fein the gift that was Curry my yoghurt, can coca coalyer, his mockery in the Assembly of the term Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle (Thank you, Mr Speaker).

The late Terry Wogan, Englands favourite Irishman, occasionally used to say on air Ta se mahogany gaspipe (Its a mahogany gaspipe) to denote Irish gibberish.

The phrase is attributed to Flann OBrien/Myles na gCopaleen, aka Brian ONolan, a satirical genius from Strabane.

Among his finest works is An Beal Bocht, a parody of a misery memoir.

In English its The Poor Mouth, from the expression to put on the poor mouth, used of people who wildly exaggerate their misfortunes.

How he would have enjoyed ridiculing the Mopery (MOPE  Most Oppressed People Ever  an invention of that fine historian Liam Kennedy) of Sinn Fein, who try to compensate for being shameless apologists for murder by seizing every opportunity to produce grievances.

Since these days most of the grievances are bogus, Mr Campbells crassness was leaped upon triumphantly by Culture Minister Caral Ni Chuilin, who made an official complaint to the Speakers office.

As Jim Allister of the TUV pointed out, this row led to a serious issue about the Department of Education being required to proactively encourage and facilitate Irish being missed.

Mr Campbell should have remembered his manners.

Its OK for a Northern Irish Catholic to call himself a taig, for a black to use the n-word, or for a gay to call him/herself queer, but normal courtesy precludes outsiders from using the terms.

Similarly, Wogan was free to laugh at the language he learned at school, but Mr Campbell should have left it alone, for it comes from a rich culture that deserves respect, even though a cynical political party uses it as a weapon.

Arlene Fosters visit to Our Ladys Grammar School in Newry last April, where she said thank you in Irish, was welcome, especially her statement that: Theres nothing to fear from engaging with another culture.

It was late in the day, but had a big impact.

And there, last week in Glenties at MacGill, that haunt of Irish politicians, was Poots saying that while he deplored Irish being used as a weapon, anyone who speaks and loves the Irish language is as much a part of Northern Ireland life as a collarette-wearing Orangeman, and he wanted them to feel at home and feel respected and part of society.

He then went on to say Maireann an chraobh ar an bhfal ach ni mhaireann an lamh do chuir, which he translated as The branch lives on the hedge though the hand that planted it be dead.

Mr Poots claimed this old Irish saying was a reminder that actions today will live long after we are gone (I loved the remark by Newton Emerson  an equal opportunities Northern Irish satirist  that: Any other interpretation of plants, handling and the branch would be entirely coincidental.).

Mr Poots shared a platform with Joe McHugh, Minister of State for Gaeilge, the Gaeltacht and the Islands, who famously had to immerse himself in Irish in order to be able to hold a conversation in it. His boss from Monaghan, Presbyterian Heather Humphreys, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, whose father is an Orangeman, cannot speak Irish at all.

I want to say to Edwin that the Irish language does not belong to any political party, north or south. It belongs to all those who wish to engage with it, said Mr McHugh.

The Presbyterian community in particular helped to save the language over many years.

Both Mr McHugh and Mrs Humphreys are the product of a system of force-feeding Irish that failed utterly to restore the language.

Like most Irish parliamentarians, they will have no sympathy for an Irish Language Act that is exclusionary, expensive, counter-productive and for the benefit of Sinn Fein.

More initiatives like those of Mrs Foster and Mr Poots, and unionists could enlist southern politicians to help them rescue Irish from the enemys arsenal.
Women and girls watch a funeral procession in Bahmnoo, a village in Pulwama, Kashmir, for a rebel who was killed during a gunfight with Indian government forces, July 4, 2017.

Updated at 2:24 p.m. ET on 2017-07-24

Indias top counter-terror unit charged seven Kashmiri separatist leaders Monday with allegedly funding terror groups and instigating violence in the disputed Himalayan region, officials said.

The suspects in the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) were identified as Nayeem Khan, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Mehraj Kalwal, Shahid-ul-Islam, Farooq Ahmad Dar and Altaf Shah.

We have technical and electronic evidence that establishes the roles of the accused in funding terror groups and fomenting violence in Kashmir. We also know that they were involved in arranging funds through illegal channels to instigate Kashmiris to pelt stones at [Indian] security forces and burn down schools and government buildings in an attempt to disrupt peace in the region, Alok Mittal, the NIAs inspector general, told reporters in New Delhi on Monday.

Evidence collected so far clearly proves a financial trail as well as a direct link between terror activities and funding from Pakistan-based terror groups, Mittal said.

The NIA said the arrests were part of efforts to unravel how Pakistan and terror groups allegedly backed by Islamabad, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), were funding separatism in Indian-administered Kashmir. The intervention by the NIA marks the first time that a central agency is probing the alleged involvement of Pakistan in instigating regional separatism since the insurgency broke out in the late 1980s.

India has on several occasions accused Pakistan, its arch rival, of funding separatists  a charge repeatedly denied by Pakistan, which says that the conflict in Kashmir is a result of Indias oppressive rule in the Muslim-majority region. Claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, more than 70,000 people have been killed in the insurgency in Kashmir over the course of decades.

All the accused will be produced in a Delhi court on Tuesday, following which we will thoroughly interrogate them, Mittal said.

More arrests likely: police

More than a month ago, the NIA conducted raids at the residences of the accused and claimed that it recovered almost 20 million rupees (U.S. $310,872) in cash along with letterheads for the LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), the oldest and largest separatist faction of Indian Kashmir.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who head different factions of the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), and Pakistan-based Hafiz Saeed, co-founder of LeT, also have been named as suspects in the first information report (FIR) filed by the NIA, Mittal said.

Hawala operators from Punjab and Delhi are being used by Pakistan-based terror groups to incite violence in Kashmir, a senior police official told BenarNews on condition of anonymity. Hawala is an illegal way of transferring money internationally where money is paid to an agent who then instructs an associate in the relevant country to pay the final recipient.

More separatist leaders, such as Geelani, Farooq and Yasin Malik, will also likely be arrested soon as the NIA has sufficient incriminating evidence to establish their roles in funding terror activities in Kashmir, the official said.

In January, the NIA blamed LeT for orchestrating last years months-long unrest in Kashmir that followed the killing of Burhan Wani, a top HM separatist, in July 2016. More than 100 people were killed and over 10,000 injured in near daily street clashes between anti-India protesters and security forces, between July and December.

Separatists spearheading the agitation against Indian rule called for a complete shutdown of Indian Kashmir on Tuesday to protest what they described as arbitrary, revengeful and illegal arrests of their leaders.

The Indian government is using [the] NIA to malign and suppress an indigenous movement and the genuine Kashmir leadership, APHCs Farooq told BenarNews.

[The] NIA carried out the arrests only to mislead the international community. In actuality, Kashmir is reeling under terrorism sponsored by the Indian government for over two decades. But we are committed to taking our fight against this hegemony to its logical end, he said.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is seen on a monitor as he delivers his state of the nation address to Congress, in Manila, July 24, 2017.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte vowed Monday to carry on with his administrations war on drugs that has left thousands dead since he took office last year, despite condemnation from local and international rights groups.

During a 2-hour state of the nation address before Congress, Duterte called on critics to help educate the public against the evils of the drug scourge in the country instead of condemning and blaming authorities for every killing.

I have resolved that no matter how long it takes, the fight against illegal drugs will continue because it is the root cause of suffering, Duterte said.

He warned that those who continue to deal with drugs faced either jail or hell. And I will make sure, very sure that they will not have the luxury of enjoying the benefits of their greed and madness.

I do not intend to loosen the leash in the campaign or lose the fight against illegal drugs. Neither do I intend to preside over the destruction of the Filipino youth by being timid and tentative in my decisions and actions, he said.

Duterte said he was undeterred by the public condemnations, including from the United States, the United Nations and the European Union. The drug war is one of the defining issues of his first year in office.

The fight will be unremitting as it will be unrelenting. Despite international and local pressures, the fight will not stop until those who deal in it understand that they have to cease.

Joko Jokowi Widodo, the president of neighboring Indonesia, took a similar stance against drug traffickers, saying on Friday that he was authorizing police to shoot at suspects resisting arrest.

I have said that we should take firm action especially to the foreign drug dealers who come [to Indonesia] and fight back. Just shoot straight away, do not show mercy, Jokowi said responding to participants at a national meeting of the United Development Party, an Islamic-based political party. Because we are really in a narcotics emergency position now.

Thousands killed

Philippine police have admitted to killing at least 2,700 alleged drug addicts and drug peddlers since Duterte stepped into office in June 2016. But about 5,700 drug-related deaths were under investigation, including those blamed on vigilantes, police said.

The government has denied accountability for the killings and said the many deaths could be blamed on drug gangs conducting purges among their ranks amid the strengthened anti-drug campaign.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros, a Duterte critic, said the presidents speech on Monday failed to address many of the publics concerns and was short on substance.

Its akin to a bad open mic performance, Hontiveros said, describing the congressional address as all sound and fury but lacking in substance.

Duterte has unleashed a human rights calamity in the mostly Catholic nation with his drug war, according to Carlos Conde, a researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch. He said Mondays speech served to prove fears by rights groups that the bloodshed would continue.

This can only mean more extra judicial killings and the perpetuation of impunity and absence of accountability, Conde told BenarNews, adding that the presidents support for the death penalty was a setback for a country that had abolished it a decade earlier.

The next five years of the Duterte regime will be one of worsened human rights calamity, Conde said.

Same old material. Bloody war on drugs, martial law, death penalty and wanton disregard for democracy and human rights, Hontiveros said, adding that Dutertes message was lost to the sheer weight of his disdain to democratic governance.

Rina Chadijah in Jakarta contributed to this report.
Philippine government workers prepare a mass burial for bodies retrieved from the war zone in the southern city of Marawi City, July 24, 2017.

The Philippine military said nine more soldiers died while fighting militants in southern Marawi city as President Rodrigo Duterte secured congressional approval to extend martial law in the south for the rest of the year.

The nine were killed Friday when Islamic State-linked enemy forces snuck close to government positions and lobbed hand grenades, said Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, the chief of the Western Mindanao Command. He did not elaborate on the incident, citing operational matters.

This brings the death toll since the fighting began on May 23 to 109 soldiers, 452 militants and 45 civilians, according to the latest tally released Monday.

Also on Monday, local health officials and police laid to rest 27 bodies retrieved from the war zone in Marawi. The bodies  unidentified and unclaimed by their relatives  were given a Muslim burial in a mass grave in nearby Iligan city.

The mass burial took place just hours before Duterte delivered his annual state-of-the-nation address to Congress, during which he said that the government was prepared to wage urban warfare with the gunmen.

Until the last terrorist is taken out, the war will continue, Duterte said, adding that security forces believed the gunmen were still holding at least 300 civilians as human shields.

I do not want these innocents slaughtered. Patience, he said.

He said the battle dealt a terrible blow to the governments quest for peace with the gunmen espousing what he described as an alien ideology.

There is rebellion in Mindanao, he said.

The extremists have declared it their purpose to establish a caliphate within Philippine territory along the teachings and beliefs of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or otherwise known as ISIS, he said, using another acronym for Islamic State (IS).

Talking to reporters after the speech, Duterte admitted there was a failure of intelligence that allowed the enemy to stock up on arms in Marawi.There was a mistake in the evaluation of assessment, he said.

Martial law extension

On Saturday, Dutertes allies in Congress voted to grant his request to extend martial law in the entire south until Dec. 31.

They approved the request after Duterte argued that the enemy force was larger than initially thought and better armed than had been feared.

Troops have been slowly inching their way into four villages occupied by the Abu Sayyaf and Maute group gunmen, who were backed by militants from Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Staunch allies the United States and Australia have been providing intelligence help to Philippine forces in the campaign. Singapore has also offered to do the same.

BenarNews journalists who were allowed to follow troops as they advanced into enemy-held areas said soldiers were using loudspeakers to call on the fighters to give up.

Surrender now! The government knows where you are hiding, the broadcast said. Your families are waiting for you.

The taped broadcasts, blasted from speakers placed in strategic areas near the frontline, were aired in the local dialects of Maranaw, Tausug, Yakan and Maguindanao that are widely spoken by Filipino Muslims.

Near the speakers, a Marine officer fired mortar rounds toward an area controlled by the militants.

These loudspeakers are good psychological weapons. They are very effective, Marine Lt. Col. Bill Pasia said.

If our mortars are not effective, these loudspeakers are a big help persuading the ISIS-Maute militants to surrender, he said, using a local term for the IS.

Pasia said some militants had surrendered after hearing the broadcast, but he could not give details.

Felipe Villamor in Manila contributed to this report.
Thailand Deputy National Police Chief Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan (left) and Lt. Gen. Sommai Kongvisaisuk, head of the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, inspect the infographic about the AlphaBay web marketplace, July 24, 2017.

Thai police said Monday they had seized millions of dollars in assets belonging to the founder of AlphaBay, the worlds most profitable dark web marketplace, where users traded illicit goods, including drugs and weapons.

Officials said they froze 726 million baht (U.S. $21.73 million) in assets  from luxury vehicles to crypto-currency  owned by Alexander Joseph Cazes, a Canadian who allegedly committed suicide on July 12 while in Thai custody prior to extradition to the United States.

Cazes, 25, and his Thai wife, Sunisa Cazes, were arrested at their home in Bangkok on July 5 at the request of the United States, deputy national police chief Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan told a news conference.

The dark web is the term for content that exists on darknets, computer networks built on top of other networks that can be accessed only with specific software. Connections are re-routed through layers of servers, allowing users to remain anonymous.

Websites on the dark web are not indexed, meaning online surfers will not see them by doing a Google search.

Lt. Gen. Sommai Kongvisaisuk, chief of Thai polices Narcotics Suppression Bureau, told reporters that Cazes managed the worlds biggest online merchant of drugs and illicit items from his home in Bangkok.

The whole world was in his hand, Sommai said during the news conference.

Cazes was from Quebec, Canada, and launched AlphaBay in 2014 in Thailand, where he had been living for almost four years, officials said.

AlphaBay had more than 350,000 listings for illegal drugs, stolen and fraudulent identification documents, counterfeit goods, malware, firearms and fraudulent services around the time that it was taken down, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

It said AlphaBay took the place of Silk Road, another dark web marketplace shut down by the FBI in November 2013. Silk Road, which was then the largest marketplace, had only 14,000 listings when it was seized.

Thai officials said among Cazess assets seized are a villa in resort Island of Phuket, valued at 200 million baht ($5.9 million), a house valued at 99 million baht ($2.96 million) in Bangkok, a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador, a Porsche Panamera, millions of dollars in digital currencies and computers.

Dealing with cryptocurrencies

Lt. Gen. Sommai said Cazes ran the AlphaBay website from his base in Thailand, designating what crypto-currencies, such as bitcoin and Z-cash, could be used for trading.

There are more than 200,000 users worldwide. About 180,000 are drug users and more than 200,000 are clients of illegal items, Sommai said about AlphaBay.

We seized huge amount of assets. I think he had tens of millions of baht in bitcoins that can be exchanged to other currencies. We seized physical assets of more than 700 million baht ($21 million), Sommai said.

U.S. officials said Cazes faced charges related to narcotics distribution, identity theft, money laundering and other crimes, while his wife, who remains in police custody in Bangkok, faces a money laundering charge.

Six countries  the United States, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Thailand  joined forces July 5 to 20 during the Operation Bayonet, a law-enforcement operation to shut down AlphaBays infrastructure, according to the news release from Thailands Narcotics Suppression Bureau.

Sommai said Thai agencies, together with the FBI and the DEA agents, raided Cazes home.

He said Cazes death had little impact on investigation to identify more suspects.

Asked to explain what might have forced Cazes to take his own life, Sommai replied, I guess just because world criminals would not feel safe when they are sent back.

He said Thai forensic experts have confirmed Cazes death as a suicide.

Despite his technical skills needed to create a secret marketplace, U.S. officials said Cazes was brought down by his unencrypted laptop and a Hotmail address.

By his own accounting, based on documents found in his laptop, Cazes was worth about $23 million, including $12.5 million in properties and vehicles, according to CBC News in Montreal.

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions described the AlphaBay shut down as likely one of the most important criminal investigations of the year.

Make no mistake, the forces of law and justice face a new challenge from the criminals and transnational criminal organizations who think they can commit their crimes with impunity using the dark net, he said. The dark net is not a place to hide.
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Von: KAI WEISE and NIKOLAUS BLOME

Wolfgang Schauble (74, CDU) has been a member of the Bundestag for 45 years. However, the German Finance Minister is going to run for parliament one more time. He explains why he intends to do so in an interview with BILD.

BILD: You cant live without politics?

Wolfgang Schauble: Im into politics. Thats why Im going to run for parliament again. I have discussed this with my wife, too. Im fascinated by politics.

BILD: What is so fascinating about politics?

Schauble: We live in a time of great challenges. Think of the annexation of Crimea and the large number of migrants. In addition, we have to ensure that Europe and Germany remain strong. International competition is pretty tough. At the moment, it is a matter of finding the right answer to Mr. Erdogan. He is jeopardizing the centuries-old partnership between Turkey and Germany. It is dramatic! There is so much more that connects us. But we cant let him blackmail us.

BILD: Turkey is a big problem currently. But, what was the most dramatic moment over the last four years?

Schauble: Perhaps the dispute over the program for Greece in the Summer of 2015 when the country had to close its banks. On the day we had to make a final decision, I talked to the Chancellor over the phone a dozen times...

Auch interessant

BILD: ...because you wanted Grexit...

Schauble: Almost all European finance ministers agreed that a path outside the Eurozone would be better for Greece. I was in agreement with Mr. Gabriel, too, before I left for Brussels...

BILD: Sigmar Gabriel also wanted Grexit?

Schauble: He said, of course, that Schauble is right internally. Only later on, he demonstrated the opposite externally. In the end, Ms. Merkel had to weigh the pros and cons. She had to prioritize the overall responsibility for Europe. In retrospect, one can live well with the result. Greece has implemented many reforms and is on a good path.

BILD: But you had doubts about Merkels course. Including the refugee crisis which was the second dramatic challenge over the last four years in office. Were there any moments where you thought that it is growing over her head?

Schauble: It wasnt just the problem of a single person! The danger at that time was that Europe was going to fall apart altogether. We can be proud today that we have shown a very helpful attitude and that we are ready to support integration. However, the refugee topic will keep us busy for a long time at a political and economic level.

BILD: You are faced perhaps with the last parliamentary election and youve promised that you will reduce taxes. Why wait until now? You havent reduced taxes, that is worth mentioning, in the eight years that youve been Finance Minister!

Schauble: In the last legislative period we had to go into debt due to the financial crisis. It was impossible to achieve that goal...

BILD: Yes, it was!

Schauble: No, because at the beginning of the legislative period the ministers of state decided unanimously that they wont consent to a tax legislation that would cost the states even one cent of tax revenues.

BILD: Back then, it wasnt clear, by how much tax revenues would increase!

Schauble: It was the decision of the states for the remaining legislative period. The wiggle room for fiscal policy was equal to zero. The states must agree to tax laws in the German Bundesrat.

BILD: With these arguments, a tax reform will never be possible.

Schauble: Hold on! It is unacceptable that the federal government has to bear tax reductions alone. The states profit from revenues and have to bear their share on tax benefits.

BILD: It does mean that your tax promises are worth nothing!

Schauble: Yes, they do! CDU and CSU have agreed to it. CDU has now two more ministers of state than it had a few months ago. We are going to reduce taxes and relief familes with children considerably. One example: Child allowance will increase by 25 euros a month per child which will add up to 300 euros per year. Mr. Schulz, however, is conducting a redistribution debate which will damage the climate for investment in Germany. It clearly shows, that he has clue what constitutes good economic policies.

BILD: His tax program is calculated and he has a retirement concept! We havent heard anything anymore about your call to tie retirement with life expectancy during the election campaign!

Schauble: It has been agreed upon for a long time to increase retirement age gradually to 67 by 2030. Hence, it makes no sense to argue about further development passed 2030. No one who will retire within the next ten years will have to think about the pension scheme.

PS: Sind Sie bei Facebook? Werden Sie Fan von BILD.de-Politik!
Media Advisory, July 24, 2017

Idahoans to Protest Dangerous Cyanide Bombs

BOISE, Idaho Members of the public will make known their strong opposition to the use of M-44 cyanide bombs while protesting at informational sessions being held this week in three Idaho cities by U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program.

Protesters will tell Wildlife Services that it must make permanent the moratorium that began in March 2017 on all use of these indiscriminate and deadly devices on Idaho lands.

Earlier this year, a cyanide bomb placed near a residential area in Pocatello, Idaho exploded, killing a family dog and injuring 14-year-old Canyon Mansfield. Wildlife Services temporarily halted the use of the devices in the wake of that incident and both wildlife and public safety advocates are concerned the agency may be holding these information sessions to placate critics while preparing to resume M-44 use.

M-44s are intended to kill coyotes, but they can also injure and kill people, pets, and unintended native wildlife.

WHAT: Protests against Wildlife Services' M-44 cyanide bomb use outside the agency's information sessions.

WHEN AND WHERE:
Media Advisory, July 24, 2017

Contact: Blake Kopcho, Center for Biological Diversity, (805) 708-3435, bkopcho@biologicaldiversity.org

Alena Simon, Food & Water Watch, (612) 986-4323, asimon@fwwatch.org

Campaign Opposing Offshore Drilling, Fracking Launched in Santa Barbara

Press Conference to Discuss Santa Barbara City Council Resolution, First in Series of California Cities Resisting Trump Push to Expand Offshore Leasing

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. Elected representatives; a business owner; and environmental organizers will hold a press conference tomorrow to discuss the launch of a statewide campaign against expanded offshore oil drilling and fracking along California's coast. Afterward, the Santa Barbara City Council will approve the first resolution opposing plans by President Trump and the oil industry to expand offshore drilling in federal waters, including possibly the Pacific, which has been protected from new leasing since 1984.

The resolution is co-sponsored by Santa Barbara City Councilmembers Jason Dominguez and Bendy White, who developed it with help from the Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, and other organizations. Similar resolutions are being introduced in Los Angeles, Goleta, Berkeley, Oakland, Cayucos, and other cities throughout California.

A similar campaign last year on the East Coast successfully pressured the federal government to abandon a proposal to offer Atlantic offshore leases to oil companies for the first time in more than 30 years. But President Trump issued an executive order on April 28 urging federal agencies to expand offshore drilling in federal waters, possibly including the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans and eastern Gulf of Mexico.

What: Press conference on Santa Barbara City Council resolution opposing expanded offshore oil drilling and fracking in California and the statewide campaign it is launching.

When: Tuesday, July 25, at 1:30 p.m.

Where: Outside Santa Barbara City Hall, 735 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, Calif.

Who: Speakers include Santa Barbara City Councilman Jason Dominguez, a representative for U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, Santa Barbara Adventure Company owner Michael Cohen, and representatives from Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, and Environmental Defense Center.
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
Both the companies, together aim to focus on providing Taiwanese medical devices companies in-depth market intelligence and new market entry strategies in Europe and USA

Singapore: Biomedic consulting, the Taiwanese Medical Devices and Biotechnology consulting firm has inked a strategic partnership deal with Taiwan Biomed. The partnership aims to combine Biomedic Consultings expertise in Business Development and Regulatory in Europe and USA with Taiwan Biomed's multi-disciplinary team composed of industry consultants, scientists, designers and software/hardware engineers to deliver solutions for Taiwanese medical devices companies.

Both the companies, together aim to focus on providing Taiwanese medical devices companies in-depth market intelligence and new market entry strategies in Europe and USA. With this partnership, these companies will benefit from Biomedic Consultings extensive network of distributors and professional in order to facilitate their business development effort and build new revenue streams through Licensing, Indirect Distribution and Joint-Ventures.

Biomedic Consulting and Taiwan Biomed look forward to providing Taiwanese medical device organizations with unique, world-class solutions that will allow them to bring life-changing technologies to the global marketplace in the most efficient manner possible.

Taiwan is becoming a major hub for Medtech and Biotechnology innovation in Asia, said, Sofiane Bennacer, CEO, Biomedic Consulting. We are well aware of the challenges Taiwanese companies face when trying to expand their business in Europe and USA. Through this new partnership with Taiwan Biomed, we will support their international expansion and leverage our mutual expertise and network to bring Taiwanese excellence to the forefront of of the worldwide Healthcare and Biotechnology markets."

Taiwans government has designated biomedicine as one of the five plus two innovative industries for priority development. The Executive Yuan also passed the Biomedical Industry Innovation Program on November 10, 2016 to make Taiwan an Asian-Pacific hub for biomedical research and development.

As of the end of 2016, Taiwan had 108 listed biomedical industry firms with an aggregate market capitalization of NT$976.1 billion (US$30.2 billion). Total business revenues for those companies in 2016 was NT$186.4 billion (US$5.8 billion), up 21 percent from 2015, and the government will continue to spur industry growth through strategic, value and commercial innovations.

By the year 2020, the domestic industry is expected to develop 10 new pharmaceuticals, put 40 high-value medical devices on the international market, and achieve output value and export sales worth NT$650 billion (US$21.4 billion). By 2025, the goal is to develop 20 new pharmaceuticals and have 80 different high-value medical devices on the international market, creating an NT-trillion-dollar industry offering a wide range of quality products.


Cartel conduct is in the cross-hairs of the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK), whose new leniency programme has some unique aspects.

scale/  faithie via 123RF

Its clear that the CAK is gearing up to pursue cartel conduct in earnest. Now that the leniency programme guidelines have been published, companies have an incentive to approach the CAK to confess their participation in cartel conduct and ask for immunity, says Joyce Karanja-Nganga, partner at pan-African law firm Bowmans Nairobi office.

Already known as one of the best-performing competition authorities on the continent, the CAKs leniency programme, announced in May this year, appears to have drawn from best practices globally - while introducing some elements unique to Kenya.

Ordinarily, regulators first try to investigate and prosecute cartel conduct on their own, but given that cartels are secretive by nature it is quite difficult to find evidence, she says. The CAK, which is less than six years old, appears to have taken lessons from jurisdictions such as South Africa, which have identified that leniency is the most effective tool against cartel conduct because whoever reports it first has the incentive of 100% immunity.

Leniency for employees and directors too

A major departure from conventional leniency practice is that the Kenyan programme offers leniency not just to companies, but also to their directors and employees, says Xolani Nyali, Cape Town-based senior associate at Bowmans. This is in contrast to many other jurisdictions, including South Africa.

Countries usually have two completely separate regimes, one for corporate leniency and the other for whistle blowing. In South Africa, for example, if a company goes and applies for leniency, it is the company that receives leniency, not its officers and employees, who can have criminal sanctions imposed on them.

Kenyas decision to include company directors and employees in a leniency agreement (as long as they cooperate with the CAK) may prove to be a drawcard in encouraging individuals and companies to come forward, particularly insofar as cartel conduct carries criminal sanctions.

According to the leniency programme guidelines, a leniency applicant who has received immunity will also not be subject to any criminal prosecution - subject to the concurrence of the Director of Public Prosecutions, says Karanja-Nganga.

However, it is not clear how the CAK and the Director of Public Prosecutions will work together.

Clarity needed on criminal liability

The civil liability side of immunity is clear because that is in the hands of the CAK. The criminal side is less clear-cut because it is in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions, says Karanja-Nganga. Cooperation between the two would be necessary to avoid the potential chilling effect of personal criminal liability on the success of the leniency programme, for instance by leading company executives to avoid authorising their companies from applying for leniency. This would be a great pity.

Nyali agrees that the issue of criminal sanctions is less clear-cut - which is also the case in South Africa, where criminal sanctions for cartel conduct were promulgated as recently as 2016. No regulator in Africa has experience yet in criminally prosecuting alleged cartellists and it will be interesting to see how the issue is handled both in Kenya and in South Africa, he says.

Kenyas leniency programme is one step ahead as it at least deals with aspects of criminal prosecution  albeit not completely. It remains to be seen how the CAK and the Director of Public Prosecutions cooperate.

Says Karanja-Nganga: The leniency guidelines are in place, which is positive and to be welcomed. The sooner there is certainty over the issue of criminal sanctions, the more likely it is that companies engaging in cartel conduct will come forward. The CAK has demonstrated its willingness to learn from its peers, as well as to fashion approaches unique to Kenya, so it is likely that this aspect will be tackled soon.
Pick n Pay has launched a dedicated online distribution centre in Gauteng, which is expected to significantly improve service to online shoppers in the province. Deputy CEO Richard van Rensburg also states that it significantly increases Pick n Pay's online distribution capacity, enabling the retailer to handle the rapid growth it's currently experiencing in online sales.

The news follows the opening of its Cape Town online distribution centre, which made Pick n Pay the first major brick and mortar grocery retailer in South Africa to serve its online consumer customer base with a dedicated fulfilment centre.

A multichannel approach

This distribution centre represents a significant investment in Pick n Pays online business, which is one of the fastest-growing divisions in our business, and represents a conviction by the company about the long-term opportunities from online, said van Rensburg.

It is the next step in our journey to build an advanced, convenient and simple omnichannel shopping experience for our clients. Later this year, we will launch a new online shopping website and an upgraded version of the Pick n Pay mobile app.

Michael Cotterell, head of Pick n Pay Online, added: We were encouraged by the performance of our dedicated online facility that was opened in Cape Town 18 months ago. We experienced a significant acceleration in sales growth after the facility went live, and we are confident our Gauteng customers will benefit from a similar facility.

Advantages for Gauteng online shoppers

In the past, orders placed by Gauteng customers via Pick n Pay Online were fulfilled by a store close to the customers location. There are significant advantages to serving customers with a dedicated facility instead of picking online orders from a store near to their delivery location, said Cotterell.

Firstly, availability improves as online customers are not competing with customers in store for products. Secondly, freshness improves as the supply chain is shortened and the integrity of the cold chain is enhanced. Products move directly from our distribution centre to the customer and do not go via a store, thereby improving shelf-life for customers. Thirdly, we are able to significantly increase the range of products we offer to our customers. Our facility has the capacity to hold almost three times the number of product lines as a regular store. Our aim is to offer our online shoppers the widest range possible from Pick n Pay.
Climate change is threatening the survival of African wild dogs. Rising temperatures have cut the endangered animals' hunting time and their pups' survival rate is plunging as a result.

 Sam D Cruz  123RF.com

A scientific paper published in the latest Journal of Animal Ecology is one of the first to show the effect of global warming on wildlife well adapted to heat.

Only 6600 African wild dogs survive in the wild. The adults leave their pups in dens when they hunt in the early morning and late evening, avoiding the worst heat of the day.

The scientists found rising temperatures in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Botswana cut the time the dogs were active, reducing the amount of meat they were able to regurgitate into the mouths of their young, endangering their survival.

In Botswana, the average number of pups that reached their first birthday fell by 35%, from 5.1 per litter between 1989 and 2000, to 3.3 between 2001 and 2012. The average temperature rose by 1.1C between the periods.

The paper says: "It is shocking that even right on the equator these effects are being seen."

Source: The Times
There's been a great deal of contention and debate in Kenya over what should be used to replace plastic bags following the country's announcement that it's banning them.

One possible substitute is biodegradable plastic bags. Over the last 25 years plastics that are easily biodegradable have increasingly been seen as a more environment-friendly alternative to conventional plastic packaging. Their use has slowly gained prominence in a number of developed countries.

But, at the moment, a number of factors stand in the way of this approach being successful in Kenya. Two in particular stand out: Kenyas biodegradable plastic bag sector isnt ready to produce the range of bags currently available, and the distribution points  mainly supermarkets  dont make sense for most Kenyans. My research found that only about 42.5% urban Kenyans shop in supermarkets. The majority shop in open air markets.

The country has been here before: nearly 10 years ago it set down rules about how thin bags had to be, and imposed a heavy excise duty. The effect wasnt what the government had hoped for. Instead, high costs, poor performance, a lack of manufacturing capabilities and local perceptions have all prevented them from taking root.

If the biodegradable route is going to work the Kenyan government needs to do a lot more to support it.

Kenya has been here before

Biodegradable plastic bags have been on the scene in Kenya since 2008, when the government imposed a ban on the manufacture of bags less than 30 micron thick and instituted an excise duty of 120%. Due to concerted lobbying by the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, this ban was later abandoned.

While the initiatives were initially greeted with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement, it didnt last. The impact on the packing industry was severe. Most producers couldnt keep up with the change. Over time, Packaging Industries Limited, one of countrys main plastic bag producers, became the sole producer of biodegradable plastic bags to be used as shopping bags.

But the company could only produce three different bag sizes, sold between USD$0.5 and USD$1 per bag compared to the regular plastic bags that are given freely. They were supplied to just one retail outlet in Kenya. This is still the situation today.

The result was that the anticipated shift in favour of biodegradable plastic bags didnt happen.

There are several reasons for this.

More than half of Kenyas urban shoppers buy their food in open markets. Yet supermarkets are the only point of contact with consumers for biodegradable bags. Exposure to them has only been for a small percentage of consumers  those that shop at supermarkets and, in particular, those who shop at Kenyas Nakumatt Holding.

AIDSVaccine

Even among this cohort of shoppers, very few use biodegradable plastic bags. My research showed that only 1.6% of supermarket shoppers have ever bought a biodegradable plastic bag.

Why?

There could be several reasons for this low adoption.

The first is cost. Biodegradable plastic bags are expensive for most Kenyans. The cost of the smallest size bag is equivalent to a 400g piece of bread. The price is unlikely to come down as the government doesnt set unit prices and production isnt subsidised.

Secondly, choices are limited. The bags only come in three sizes which is very limiting for consumers.

Thirdly, their use would require a major change in shopping habits. This is a real barrier. For example, my research showed that only 20% of the shoppers I interviewed remembered to carry an old bag for reuse on their next shopping trip.

Fourthly, there are concerns over the life span, or degradability, of the bags manufactured in Kenya. My research shows that local bags currently referred to as biodegradable, only degrade between 40%-60%, instead of completely, after 90 days of being subjected to composting.

Another factor getting in the way of uptake is that the production of biodegradable plastic is very low  across the world. Current global production is around 350,000 tons  less than 0.2% of the production of petrochemical-based plastics.

One of the reasons for this is that biodegradable plastics are more expensive to produce because of the extra steps required in the process.

What needs to be done

The Kenyan government could take a number of steps to jump start the culture of using biodegradable plastic bag. These include:

Channelling the money theyve raised from the excise duty to support the development and research of alternatives, such as sisal bags.



Getting supermarkets to take more responsibility in increasing the use of biodegradable plastic bags.



Providing incentives, including tax rebates, to encourage more manufacturers to enter the sector. At the time of my study there was only one external supplier of raw material, one manufacturer and one retailer.



Offering free biodegradable bags to consumers at the initial stage to encourage their use.



Creating networks among governmental actors (for policy and technical support), producers, consumers and others such as lobby groups and the media. They need to work together to support and disseminate information about the bags



Developing the proper know-how. Research organisations and universities need to be part of this development by improving the quality of bags so that they can get their market and consumption niche.

The steps needed to achieve these goals are huge. But Kenya needs to resolve these technical and economic issues before biodegradable plastics can be seen as a viable alternative.
Today (19 July 2017), Western Cape Minister of Economic Opportunities, Alan Winde, attended a demonstration of how technology can be applied in agriculture to stimulate jobs and increase food security. The event took place at the head office of the Western Cape Department of Agriculture, Elsenburg, and was led by its research division.

Nir Naamat via 123RF

Embracing cutting edge technology

Winde, who has made innovation across the economy a top priority, explained how technology could drastically accelerate change in this sector: "We've seen across Africa how technology can help us leapfrog other economies. In agriculture, which is generally perceived as being unprogressive, adoption of technology has, in fact, happened very quickly.

Farmers in the Western Cape have embraced cutting edge devices, such as drones, to conduct general monitoring flyovers, to assess vegetation health through near infrared imaging, to track animals which may require assistance, and to assess stressed zones amongst crops that require watering and fertilisation. We've also seen technology being developed here which is now being exported."

Drone technology leading to efficiency gains

Elsenburg drone expert, Arie van Ravenswaay, added that drone technology was leading to efficiency gains: "By giving farmers overview imagery in a very short space of time, and by allowing them to become more targeted, they're using less chemical fertilisers, resulting in reduced input costs and better margins. We have also seen farmers upskilling their employees into agri-technicians."

The drone used in the demonstration, a Phantom 4 Pro, has a 20-megapixel camera sensor, and a range of 7km, allowing agri-technicians to achieve high-resolution imagery and wide area monitoring. "A farmer from Laingsburg told me that he has already saved R20,000 in diesel by using his drone to check his water point, instead of using his vehicle."

As a sector, agriculture plays a vital role in feeding the global population, which has well surpassed seven billion. By 2050, this number is expected to climb to over nine billion.

Winde concluded: "The race is on to produce higher quality food with maximum efficiency to ensure we keep pace with growing demand. This increased competitiveness has the potential to grow our economy and create more jobs. By embracing technology, Africa can become the food basket of the planet."
Business leaders from across Africa discussed the effect of anti-globalisation on emerging markets at the CEO Agenda: the new rules for global business, held in Sandton on 17 July 2017. They concluded globalisation is irreversible and innovation, sustainability and diversity will continue to be key tenets in business for the near future.

Irene Mia, global editor, thought leadership at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), launches a new report into supply chains entitled No more excuses: responsible supply chains in a globalised world.

In her opening address Irene Mia, global editor, thought leadership at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), said, While there is geopolitical uncertainty, I think we all agree that globalisation and the work that has been done over 35 years cannot simply be reversed. Innovation in technology shows how unstoppable globalisation is.

Pat Thaker, editorial and regional director, Middle East and Africa at the EIU, unpacked the key global themes for the 2018. The world economy is looking its healthiest for some time. Global trade is still upbeat, despite the rise in populism. Emerging markets are leading the way and we expect this year to end fairly strongly but defined by bad politics and uncertain economics. The political outlook is deteriorating. We are seeing the highest level of political risk in years and 2018 will be another year of anxiety and market jitters.

This geopolitical environment, meant it was important for multinationals to review and re-assess their strategies, and address major risk factors. While Asia will continue to see solid economic growth, driven by China and India, Africa - in particular sub-Saharan Africa - will experience slower growth in 2018. Major economies in sub-Saharan Africa, such as South Africa and Nigeria, will see very slow growth of below 3% in 2018.

Natarajan Venkatakrishnan, chief executive of Giddy.io and director, advanced technologies at GE Appliances, shed some light on the challenges of a multinational innovating in the same way a startup would.

Three years ago, Venkatakrishnan set up Giddy.io  a startup owned by GE  with the sole purpose of innovating new products and bringing them to market in a new and agile way. Giddy.io operates in the exact way a startup would but can rely on the parent company to support it when it comes to scalability and regulatory issues.

What I learnt is that you set up the big business like a navy and when you want to do something new we set up like a pirate ship: quick, easy to move and turnaround. Many startups fail because they do not know how to scale up. We went the other way. We knew how to scale so we started a startup.

Responsible supply chains

As part of the event, The EIU launched new content that threw the spotlight on the importance of responsible supply chains.

With its world premiere at the event, Sourcing Transparency: Who should clean-up supply chains? is a mini-documentary that looks at how policymakers and companies are paving the way in creating more transparent and responsible supply chains. In addition, no more excuses: responsible supply chains in a globalised world is a new report that finds that progress in raising ethical standards in global supply chains has stalled in many places, and in supply chains: a collective responsibility. The EIU interviewed globally-renowned experts including Professor Richard Locke, provost at Brown University, to understand how supply chain complexity has created a need for the private sector to regulate itself better.

Karsten Wellner chief executive of Ascendis Health and Martyn Davies managing director, emerging markets and Africa, Deloitte (far right) speak to Pat Thaker editorial and regional director, Middle East and Africa at the EIU about the future of business in Africa.

Including women in senior management

A key debate on the day centred on the inclusion of women in senior management positions. While patriarchy was highlighted as a major challenge globally, Africa is making strides when it comes to empowering women in business.

Ayodele Odusola, chief economist and head of strategy and analysis at the Regional Bureau for Africa, United Nations Development Programme New York, said, Gender equality in Africa is improving but we are not yet there. The inclusion of women is generating many positive effects. What is important for us to realise is that it is not only an economic imperative but also a development imperative.

South Africa has set a good example when it came to empowering women, growing the number of women in the boardroom from 7% to 17% in the private sector and from 7% to 34% in the public sector from 2004 to 2013.

However, Nkiru Balonwu, co-founder, African Women on Boards, said there was still much that could be done to empower women in Africa.We have to change the minds of men who are gatekeepers. We need to convince men that as women we can maximise opportunities and shareholder value.

Standard Chartered supported the event.
The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth has relaunched itself as the Nelson Mandela University.

The university says the new name affords them an opportunity to rethink the kind of university it can, and should become as it contributes to the resolution of the myriad of educational and developmental challenges  in line with late former president Nelson Mandelas legacy.

The launch of Nelson Mandela University will not only be a celebration of the efforts to be named after this great leader, but of the Universitys commitment to transformation and truly living out its values  which mirror those of Mandela  that includes Ubuntu, integrity and respect for diversity, the university said.

Speaking at the relaunch on Thursday, Deputy Presidency Cyril Ramaphosa said the university must strive to uphold all the values the struggle icon stood for. These inlcude non-racialism non-sexism honesty truth and integrity.

This university must be at the forefront of efforts to make higher education accessible to the poor and marginalised. This university must be at the forefront of efforts to ensure that higher education is an instrument for the achievement of social equality  that it does not simply perpetuate privilege.

The launch was held at the universitys Missionvale Campus and was attended by a number of other dignitaries, including former deputy Chief Justice, Dikgang Moseneke.

The deputy president also called for the decolonisation of the higher education system.

We need an education system that will see Africans as worthy contributors to the development of curriculum content.

A university that associates itself with Nelson Mandela , the Deputy President Ramaphosa said, must necessarily review its curriculum, and examine the subtle layers of colonial and neo-colonial norms that underlie its thought systems.

It will have to liberate the minds of the oppressed and awaken them to the potential of African scholarship.

It will have to remove the cloak of institutionalised racism and sexism. It will have to promote an African renaissance and contribute, through teaching and research, to the making of the African Century.

The Deputy President added that the university must remain rooted in answering the challenges that confront our society in a global economy and that serves the continent and her people.

The institution will have to build partnerships for African scholarship through knowledge sharing and be deeply-rooted in its African identity.

When students walk onto the grounds of this university they should feel the humanism of Nelson Mandela. They should feel part of a people-centred university  where all are recognised and valued for their individuality.
ARUSHA, Tanzania - The government announced a $156m (Sh340bn) major plan to boost tourism in the southern circuit. The plan, which will be financed by the World Bank (WB), will involve upgrading of roads leading to the iconic tourist sites in the zone, including the Ruaha National Park and Rungwa and Selous game reserves.

Ulf Rydin via Wikimedia Commons - Msembe airstrip in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania

Under it, the local airlines would be encouraged to increase their fights to the Mbeya and Iringa airports currently being expanded. The huge swathe of land in the southern part of the country, where the largely virgin national park, game reserves, and other natural attractions are found, have airstrips. However, the minister did not say if dozens of airstrips and aerodromes in the zone will be included in the envisaged transport infrastructure development to be funded from the WB loan.

"We still have fewer visitors compared with the great attractions we have compared to many other countries," said the minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Prof Jumanne Maghembe, when announcing measures to boost the sector.

He revealed this when inaugurating a Sh3.2bn exhibition hall constructed by the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC) to complement its conference activities.

The minister said Tanzania received 1,250,000 tourists last year, noting that the figure sharply contrasted with the world famous tourist attractions the country has which ranges from wildlife parks, beaches, and archaeological sites.

A challenge to tap the potential of conference tourism

He challenged the AICC, a state run body under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, to tap the potential of conference tourism which, according to him, generated $670m (Sh1.4 trillion) for the economy last year.

Maghembe promised that the government would give every necessary support to the centre to secure an affordable land in Dodoma to enable it to construct a convention centre in the envisaged capital. The minister revealed this when responding to an appeal by the chairman of the AICC board of directors, Dr Ladislaus Komba, to secure an affordable plot for its investment in Dodoma because the one shown to them would cost a whopping Sh2.4bn.

"We are afraid we will reach a situation where land being sought for construction of buildings is more expensive than the investment structures," he said, noting that they have secured a 32-acre land.

AICC also plans to put up another convention centre in Iringa Region, which is slowly becoming a hub of tourism activities in the southern circuit. However, details of the proposed facility were not revealed.

The minister emphasised that Arusha would continue to remain a major gateway for tourists from overseas most of them using the city as a transit to visit the national parks and other sites in the north. However, he regretted that conference tourism has not been fully tapped in Tanzania due to lack of state-of-the-art conference facilities in the country and inadequate marketing overseas of the existing potential.

The minister took time to castigate dishonest tour operators who are behind a conning racket for tourists from abroad who have pre-paid their bookings. "These tourists pay for full packages in their respective countries but when they land here the tour agents are nowhere to be seen. Let us fight this," he fumed.

He vowed that the government would have no mercy on those behind the racket because by so doing they were tarnishing the good image of Tanzania. "I will not sleep until this mess is dealt with to its end and those responsible apprehended," Maghembe told scores of tourism sector stakeholders who attended the opening of the exhibition hall.

New facility targets major conferences and meetings

AICC managing director Elishilia Kaaya said the new facility has targeted major conferences and meetings hosted there with exhibitions.

Baptised Lake Nyasa Exhibition Hall, the facility can accommodate 2,000 people and 100 booths at one time. Social events and meetings would also be hosted in it. Its viability was put to test during yesterday's (20 July) inauguration which coincided with the opening of an exhibition on tourism and allied sectors.

AICC, a parastatal created in the 1970s, had lacked purpose-built exhibition halls despite hosting some of the largest international conferences ever since. Kaaya said this led to some cancellations of high profile meetings in the past. At times, some exhibitions have been squeezed into the open space in the middle of its three blocks or in the stalls erected in its parking yards.

Utility

AICC which was established in 1978 taking over the properties of the former East African Community (EAC) which broke in 1977. It is the leading landlord in Arusha. Besides, its landmark structure (conference centre), it has at least 650 residential units and recently built 48 apartments in town.

It is the leading conference venue in Tanzania owned by the government 00 percent but operating without receiving any subsidies.

It has a total of 10 meeting rooms which cater for conferences, workshops, seminars, and committee meetings, with a seating capacity of 10 to 1,000 delegates. Most of these rooms are equipped with Simultaneous Interpretation Systems (SIS) which can handle up to 12 languages.
SAN FRANCISCO, US: Microsoft on Thursday reported that its quarterly earnings were lifted on the back of its shift to focusing on computing services hosted in the internet cloud.

 melpomen via 123RF

The US technology giant said it made a profit of $6.5bn in the recently ended quarter as revenue rose to $23.3bn.

Microsoft shares - which closed the official trading day at a new all-time high of $74.22 - leapt after the release of the earnings figures, only to come back down and even slip a bit in after-market trades to $73.65.

About $7.4bn of the revenue in the quarter came from "intelligent cloud" offerings that are part of Microsoft shedding its legacy of packaged software and embracing a future in which computing power is hosted online as a service.

"Innovation across our cloud platforms drove strong results this quarter," Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said in a statement.

"Intelligent cloud"

Microsoft uses the term "intelligent cloud" to refer to services that let businesses take advantage of computing power online in its data centers, coupled with insights or analysis by artificial intelligence software.

Microsoft also said cloud-based products like Office 365 rose in the quarter, with the number of Office 365 subscribers climbing to 27 million.

The quarterly profit figure topped Wall Street expectations, while revenue was roughly in line.

During an earnings call, Microsoft executives sidestepped providing details about recently disclosed plans to cut jobs, evidently while reorganising its global sales operations to better hawk cloud products.

First port-of-call

It is seeking to be a first port-of-call for businesses relying on cloud computing, as the industry moves away from packaged software.

Microsoft's cloud computing platform will be used outside China for collaboration by members of a self-driving car alliance formed by Chinese internet search giant Baidu, the companies announced this week.

The US software powerhouse is one of more than 50 entities to join the Apollo alliance created by Baidu in April.

Microsoft will enable alliance members to collaborate, share information and tap into its Azure cloud computing service, according to the companies.

Azure faces competition from technology titans Amazon and Google.

Investment in AI

Each of the companies has also been investing in artificial intelligence, which can make services hosted in the internet cloud more intuitive when it comes to handling data and meeting user needs.

Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, has announced thousands of jobs cuts in recent years, the most severe being 18,000 positions eliminated in 2014 linked to the company's acquisition of Nokia and failed efforts in the smartphone market.

Cloud, business, and productivity offerings were bright spots for Microsoft in the recently ended quarter, while matters appeared dimmer in the world of personal computing software that was long a money-making stronghold, according to J. Gold Associates principal analyst Jack Gold.

Revenue essentially doubled from Azure, which has an advantage over rivals operated by Amazon and Google because huge numbers of businesses are already using Microsoft software in-house, the analyst said.

Microsoft also saw impressive growth at Dynamics, its cloud service for managing sales teams that competes with the likes of Salesforce.

"Clearly, the money and growth going forward is not in the personal computing area, it is in the other areas," Gold said, adding: "which is why it is so important for Microsoft to be in the cloud."

Microsoft is also looking to the cloud to rebound from failure in the smartphone market.

The company remains a part of the mobile landscape with applications, digital assistants and other offerings.

Enhancements to the widely used Windows operating system to roll out later this year are designed to make applications built on Microsoft technology work more harmoniously across an array of internet-linked devices, according to demonstrations at the company's developers conference.

Windows 10 will be able to integrate with a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets and virtual or augmented reality gear, a strategy Microsoft refers to as its "intelligent edge."

Source: AFP
The government is identifying state assets it can sell to offset its recent R2.2bn bail-out for South African Airways (SAA) and so ensure the cash injection has no effect on the 2017-18 budget.

But for the bail-out to be budget neutral in the current financial year as finance minister Malusi Gigaba has promised, the sale will have to be fairly quick and suggestions are that the quickest would be for the government to dispose of all or part of its 39.7% stake in Telkom, which is worth about R14bn.

Telkom shares "fairly easily marketable"

DA deputy finance spokesman Alf Lees said the Telkom shares were "fairly easily marketable" and their sale would generate funds fairly quickly to meet the commitment to the budget neutrality of the bail-out.

Gigaba disclosed the initiative to identify disposable state-owned assets in a letter to speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete, in which he explained the circumstances behind the Treasury having to repay the R2.2bn which SAA owed to Standard Chartered Bank after the bank refused to extend its short-term bridging facilities to the airline. SAA had no funds to repay the loan.

The minister is obliged by the Public Finance Management Act to inform parliament of the use of the act to defray expenditure of an exceptional nature.

Gigaba's spokesman, Mayihlome Tshwete, said an audit was being undertaken of the state's 700-odd entities to see which nonstrategic ones could be disposed of.

March 2018 deadline

The 14-point plan released by Gigaba last week set a deadline of March 2018 for the finalisation of the audit, but an asset sale to offset the R2.2bn will have to happen sooner if the bail-out is to be budget neutral in the current financial year.

Provision for the bail-out will be made in the medium-term budget policy statement and the Adjustments Appropriation Bill in October. Gigaba said the details of the disposal initiative would be disclosed in October.

Gigaba's letter refers to the recapitalisation of Eskom in 2015 when the government sold its 13.9% stake in Vodacom to the Public Investment Corporation for an undisclosed sum to fund its R23bn allocation to the utility. This reinforced Lees' view that the Telkom shares were a frontrunner for a sale.

SAA used up R18.6bn of its total state guarantees of R19bn

The letter also reveals that SAA has used up R18.6bn of its total state guarantees of R19bn, of which R16bn has been used to guarantee loans from various lenders; R542m for SAA's air traffic liabilities; R522m for letters of credit; R768m for unflown ticket liabilities; and R830m for banking facilities.

Lees said the unprofitable SAA could not sustain such a huge loan book and the sale of assets should deal not only with the bail-out money but also the R16bn owed to lenders. The recapitalisation of SAA is on Gigaba's to-do list.

Significantly, Gigaba attributes the urgency of the SAA bail-out to "the downgrade in SA's foreign-current credit rating by certain rating agencies, the downturn in the economy and the more rapid deterioration in SAA's cash-flow position."

An SAA default on its Standard Chartered Bank loan would have triggered defaults on SAA's other guaranteed debt of R13.8bn and general banking facilities of R830m.

Source: Business Day
BERLIN, Germany: German luxury carmaker BMW has denied any collusion with industry rivals on emissions from its diesel engines, saying none of its models had been "manipulated" or violated industry regulations.

 Adymyabya via pixabay

As revelations about polluting exhaust continue to buffet Germany's all-important auto sector, the Munich-based giant sought to distance itself from what it called the "scandalisation of diesel motors".

"The fact is that automobiles from the BMW group are not manipulated and comply with the relevant legal requirements," the company said in a statement.

"This, of course, also applies to diesel automobiles. This is confirmed by the relevant results from tests by national and international authorities."

Der Spiegel magazine had reported that German carmakers Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW, and Daimler had secretly worked together from the 1990s onwards on issues including polluting emissions from diesel vehicles.

Volkswagen, which is facing tens of billions of dollars in compensation and fines after admitting in 2015 to cheating on diesel emissions, had reported the cartel to German competition authorities in a letter seen by the weekly, as did Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler.

"Innumerable meetings" from 2006 onwards

According to the report, carmakers held "innumerable meetings" from 2006 onwards about diesel exhaust processing systems designed to reduce emissions of harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx).

Carmakers agreed to install only small tanks of a treatment solution, AdBlue, used to convert the gases into harmless water and nitrogen, as larger tanks would have been more expensive.

The size of the AdBlue tanks agreed on was too small to clean exhaust gases by the necessary amount -- "laying the foundations for the diesel scandal," Spiegel reported.

However, BMW said it "firmly dismissed the accusation" that its AdBlue tanks were insufficient, meaning that any "recall or retrofitting for the Euro 6 diesel cars is unnecessary".

Software installations

Volkswagen admitted in September 2015 to installing software in 11 million cars worldwide that reduced NOx emissions when it detected that cars were undergoing regulatory tests.

More recently, authorities' suspicion fell on Mercedes-Benz and Smart maker Daimler, with investigators raiding sites belonging to the group in late May.

The firm recalled some three million cars last week for a software update designed to reduce emissions.

Meanwhile, VW subsidiary Audi on Friday recalled up to 850,000 cars fitted with its diesel engines for a similar software update.

Source: AFP
For decades films based on comic book series have raked in the cash and generally entertained the masses. But every so often one misses the mark, and today Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, by Fifth Element director Luc Besson, well and truly lost the plot, pun intended.

The comic book series, often referred to as Valerian, was created by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres in 1967 and first published in Frances Pilote magazine. But while this series, which ran until 2010, is one of the most popular in all of French comics, the film that stemmed from it is cringe-worthy at best.

As the main characters, spatio-temporal agents Valerian and Laureline, Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne do not shine. Instead the chemistry that should exist between the two is entirely absent. Its not just confined to the main characters either, and the dialogue and acting is stilted and unbelievable throughout. If you are a stickler for such things as logical dialogue and decent acting, you should expect to be disappointed.

A cheesy mess

Whats more, the narrative of Valerian had more plot holes than a piece of Swiss cheese and is just as, well, cheesy. The start of the film delivers a big promise as it sweeps through the majestically beautiful planet Mul and its nature-loving inhabitants. But then the rest of the film ensues and even the stunning visuals that Besson creates isnt enough to pull it out of the gutter. It spectacularly fails to focus on a central plot as it consistently becomes overshadowed by the fact that it loses its way too often until eventually being lost for good.

Besson has confirmed that he has already penned two Valerian sequels. If, after this film, he gets the go-ahead, and re-casts the leads, one would hope that more consideration would be given to providing a bit of heart to the story.

Ultimately, Valerian is too ambitious and lacks any sort of substance to make it an enjoyable movie experience. As the film dragged on, it became clearer and clearer that Valerian is an epic and muddled mess. There is more to science fiction than overloaded special effects.
The sixth Customer Experience (CX) Management Summit in Africa, taking place 16-17 August 2017 at the Century City Conference Centre in Cape Town, will explore current and future state of CX to strengthen the industry within the African continent

Image supplied.

The platform for the sharing of ideas and the development of the CX industry has grown exponentially, already showing a 35% increase in attendees on 2016's event.

With swift advancements in technology, industries need to be innovative and flexible to changes within the CX ecosystem. The summit provides a platform for like-minded CX professionals to display their extensive industry knowledge as well as solutions to shape consumers' perception of brands in an authentic and relevant manner. With over 50 speakers presenting informative and educational workshops and keynotes, the event promises to provide invaluable insider knowledge into every aspect involved in creating an exceptional customer experience.

Customer Experience is a rapidly growing discipline and profession across the African continent. From Ghana to Kenya; Namibia to Malawi; Tanzania to Botswana; Nigeria to South Africa; marketing, service and customer experience professionals are educating, influencing and inspiring organisations across multiple industries to understand the need to transform and improve customer experiences, says advisory panellist, Ian Golding, customer experience consultant from the UK.

Four speaker tracks

The CEM Africa Summit agenda will explore four key topical tracks: The Influence of Advancing Technology; Redesigning the Customer Journey; Internal Changes for Positive Experiences; and Understanding the Customer.

Speakers include CX thought-leaders such as Sven Schoof, head of customer experience at Spree; Phakiso Tlali, director, customer experience at Gauteng provincial government; Graham Stephen, chief commercial officer at Wonga; Julio Hernandez, global customer lead at KPMG; and Khomotso Molabe, executive and head: client experience transformation at Standard Bank.

The advisory panel includes Prof. Adre Schreuder, CEO and founder, Consulta & SAcsi; Iain Meaker, executive manager  commercial distribution, Comair; Ica Van Eeden, former head of customer service and experience, Takealot; Ian Golding, certified customer experience professional; and Shep Hyken, Customer Service Expert.

Awards added

Kinetic will be hosting the inaugural Customer Experience Africa Awards on the evening of 15 August 2017 at the Century City Conference Centre. This gala evening, preceding the summit, will recognise influential brands, celebrating and promoting the highest level of customer experience in Africa.
YANGON  Two Myanmar private organizations have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China's CITIC Construction to implement an agronomics service center project, Myanmar News Agency reported Monday.

The MoU, which involves Myanmar Rice Association and Myanmar Agronomics Public Corporation, was signed in Nay Pyi Yaw in the weekend.

The project aims to boost per acre production rate, mitigate production cost, increase internal and external investment in rice production, milling and trading and to enhance the quality of rice.

Myanmar exports a variety of Emata rice, Ngasein rice, sticky rice, parboiled rice and broken rice to international markets including China, the European Union and South Africa.

According to statistics, the country exported a total of 700,000 metric tons of rice as of June in FY 2017-2018.

In last fiscal year (2016-2017), about 1.5 million tons of rice were exported with 50 percent going to neighboring China through border gates.

Meanwhile, Myanmar's Ministry of Commerce has allowed foreign-run companies to trade such agricultural supplies as fertilizer, seed and pesticide, and hospital supplies. The move was made in accordance with the country's economic policy which aims to boost agriculture, people's health and the infrastructure by upgrading the materials used.

Myanmar has planned agricultural development strategy on the basis of the second five-year national development plan.

According to statistics, foreign investment in Myanmar's agricultural sector amounted to $254.675 million in 21 projects as of the end of June this year since late 1988.
According to MarketInvoices research, more than half (58%) of business leaders in the UK place a stable trading environment as part of Brexit negotiations as their top priority  far more so than continuing access to EU workers (18%) or the stability of sterling (7%).

More than half (53%) of UK business leaders are worried in light of a current uncertain economic environment although less are concerned about the stability of the Government (15%), foreign worker rights (8%) or a weak sterling (1%).

Business leaders are clearly focused on ensuring they are prepared to do business before worrying about people issues, said Anil Stocker, CEO and co-founder of MarketInvoice. Anecdotal feedback from this survey is that businesses in the UK are getting on with it but are clearly unsettled which doesnt make for a healthy business environment.

On a more positive note, more business leaders (85%) now believe that the Government is tuned in to the voice of business. According to Stocker, businesses finally feel their voices are being heard by Government although around a quarter are not inspired with confidence with the negotiating efforts.
The UKs Information Commissioners Office (ICO) recently fined comparison website Moneysupermarket $104,000 for sending more than 7 million emails to customers that had already opted out of receiving marketing email.

The emails sent my Moneysupermarket contained a section called Preference Centre Update which alerted the recipient to the fact that the company held their email address and states Youve told us in the past you prefer not to receive these. If youd like to reconsider, simply click the following link to start receiving our e-mails.

Any emails sent by businesses to consumers under the guise of customer service, re-checking their opt out decision or even in an attempt to update personal information is against the law, stressed the ICO.

When people opt out of direct marketing, organisations must stop sending it, no questions asked, until such time as the consumer gives their consent, said head of enforcement at the ICO, Steve Eckersley. They dont get a chance to persuade people to change their minds.
Farmers in Rakhine (Arakan) States Ann township said they have yet to receive compensation promised in return for land they allege was ruined by the construction of a controversial oil and gas pipeline.

U Myo Lwin, chair of the Ann township pipeline affairs watchdog group, blamed the state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) for the delay, claiming it has failed to pass on the list of farmers who have not received compensation.

The local authorities are still unable to allocate the compensation money due to this failure, he said. In a letter signed by [Ann] Township Administrator U Ko Ko Myat, MOGE was again instructed on July 18 to send the list of farmers to the Committee for Calculating the Compensation by July 31, he said.

Based on the field inspection groups site visits to the farmlands, orchards, homes and cemeteries near the pipeline project, the Rakhine State government made a decision on May 16 that compensation would be provided.

The Ann Township Committee for Calculating the Compensation was established in June to determine the right compensation amount for each of the farmers. The 11-member committee is comprised of seven government officials and four farmers representatives.

The Ann township pipeline affairs watchdog group met with Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu in mid-June, pressing him to quickly allot compensation for farmlands and crops ruined by the pipeline project.

The pipeline passes through over 40 villages under nine village groups in Ann township. Pat Kway and Chaung Pauk villages had to entirely relocate due to the project.
The US ambassador to Myanmar met with the Karen National Union on July 21 to get input about supporting local health and education projects in a bid to spur peace through development, according to a KNU official present at the gathering.

The meeting at the KNUs liaison office in the Kayin (Karen) State capital lasted over an hour.

The ambassador himself came to discuss about the plan to assist the public in peace-related development programs. He came to ask us our view on assisting in education and health issues. Besides these issues, we also talked about peace, said Pdoh Saw Taw Ni, head of the KNUs foreign affairs department.

Ambassador Scot Marciels five-person delegation met with Major General Saw Isaac Poe, quartermaster-general of the KNUs armed wing the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), Pdoh Saw Taw Ni and the head of the KNUs Hpa-an liaison office.

We discussed the need to review the weaknesses and deviations from the path in each step during the implementation of the NCA [nationwide ceasefire agreement] after the new government came into power. We expressed our view on the need for the government to take its time and hold more informal talks, Pdoh Saw Taw Ni added.

This was the first meeting between US ambassador Mr Marciel and the KNU.

The US delegation also met with civil society organizations from Kayin State on July 20, according to the Karen Affairs Committees secretary Saw Kyaw Swar.

He [Mr Marciel] believes cooperation between the government and the KNU on healthcare contributes to peace. He said the government and the KNU need to build trust on small matters that can contribute to peace in order to finally achieve peace, he said.

The delegation led by the US ambassador also met with representatives from the Kayin State government earlier on July 21.
More than 70,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since October to escape a bloody crackdown by security forces, many bringing stories of mass killings, gang rapes and arson by security forces.

UN investigators fear the military has used "clearance operations" launched to find militants who attacked police as a cover for possible ethnic cleansing of the oppressed minority.

The government has stanchly denied the allegations but refused to allow in a UN fact-finding mission to investigate, or allow unfettered access for international journalists or rights workers.

UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee "strongly" urged the government to allow in the mission, saying she was still receiving reports of abuses by security forces from Rakhine State.

She also warned police and military were still trying to intimidate and harass people for speaking out over rights abuses in the same way they did under military rule.

"I have to say I am disappointed to see the tactics applied by the previous government still being used," she told a press conference in Yangon at the end of her 12-day trip to the country.

"In previous times human rights defenders, journalists and civilians were followed, monitored and surveyed and questioned - thats still going on."

Hopes were high that democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi would usher in a new era of freedom when her party won landmark 2015 elections -- the first fully free vote for generations.

Her victory ended half a century of military control, which left Myanmar impoverished, scarred by ethnic conflicts and gripped by an oppressive security apparatus that killed and imprisoned thousands of dissenters.

But a jump in prosecutions of journalists, a surge in violence on the country's restive northeast and the military crackdown on the Rohingya have already tarnished her reputation a little over a year since her government took power.

Buddhist-majority Myamar has long faced criticism for its treatment of the more than one million Rohingya who live in Rakhine, who are seen as interlopers from Bangladesh, denied citizenship and access to basic rights.

Lee -- who Buddhist nationalists have previously branded a "whore" for speaking out over the Rohingya -- warned the UN would keep up its scrutiny of the country until more was done to protect its people.

"Just as we are told not to expect Myanmar to transition into a democracy overnight, that it needs time and space, Myanmar should also not expect to have (UN) special mechanisms dismantled overnight," she said.

"Not until a real and discernible progress in the human rights situation."
It will be used to improve strengthening and improving access to local basic health care structures.

Also conducting awareness raising campaigns on health topics in communities is programmed. In this regard, providing care to pregnant women and new mothers is a special focus.

The organisation of the project lies with Malteser International. The attribution will increase the financial volume of the project Reducing the vulnerability of conflict affected population by ensuring access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) in Rakhine State for the period from 1st June 2017 until 31st May 2020.

The project has already been funded by the German Government over previous years. In the framework of this project, Malteser International assists directly in dealing with the local population in the crisis-ridden regions in northern Rakhine State.

Rakhine State suffers from high rates of poverty, communal strife, and a low-level insurgency.
Local residents have been objecting to the Kyaikmaraw township factorys use of coal since last year. However, the US$400 million Mawlamyine Cement Limited factory opened in June despite the locals concerns that pollution could cause public health and environmental problems.

The factory uses 40-megawatts from a coal-fired power plant and nine-megawatts produced from a waste heat generator.

Protesters expressed frustration last week that their efforts have so far failed to rouse a government response.

We have held public talks. We held a praying ceremony in Kyaikmaraw. We held a much bigger protest in Kawt Dun Kawt Pa Naw. But we havent received any effective response up to now, said protest leader Nai Ye Zaw.

He added that the residents arent asking to shut down the factory, they just want it to use an alternative, cleaner energy source.

Around 800 residents from the Pyar Taung area held a praying ceremony against the use of coal-power last August. Then in February, over 2,500 residents took part in a protest in Kawt Pa Naw Village.

At the July 21 demonstration, the protesters shouted slogans against the coal-fired power plant and called for the protection of natural resources, cultural heritage and rivers and streams, and demanded a reduction in rock mining.

Nai Shwe Win, a demonstrator from Mei Ka Yo Village in Kyaikmaraw township, said none of the demands repeatedly made by the protestors have been met, with the government doing little to ease their fears.

After the protest in February, the villagers attempted to negotiate with the Mon State Hluttaw. But when the factory came online regardless of the talks, the protesters rolled out the picket line once again.

Nai Shwe Win added that the movement will continue the fight to stop coal from being used, escalating their actions until they can elicit a response.

Local fishermen also complained that the ships transporting coal for the plant are scaring fish and prawns away from the Attaran River.

The Mawlamyine Cement Limited factory is a joint venture between Thai firm Siam Cement Group and Pacific Link Cement Industries.
Activists discuss the need for a new Mon political party in Ye Township (Photo  Oak Sar)

Do the Mon people need a new ethnic political party? Activists in Mon State are trying to gauge potential public support for an alternative political party that could be established by early next year, according to U Aung Naing Oo, a local activist.

The New Mon State Party resigned from a coordination body [that was trying to merge the two local political parties] so the Mon people have lost their hope for Mon unity. If it continues like this, the future of the Mon [people] wont improve. So we are urging those who want unity to support a new method and [we are] collecting public opinion, he said.

Starting on July 2, several activists  including members of the existing Mon parties who have either resigned or been axed  have been going township to township in a bid to engender public backing. So long as the movement can get enough momentum, U Aung Naing Oo thinks the new party could be established in January 2018.

Nai Ta Lah Nyi, a former executive committee member of the New Mon State Party, has joined the efforts to assemble a new political force.

If the two [existing] Mon parties [the Mon National Party and the All Mon Region Democracy Party] unite [while we are campaigning], we will immediately halt our activities and will join the merged party. If they dont accept us, we wont join it [but then] we also wont form a new party. We will be satisfied so long as there is a party that represents the Mon, he said.

He added that a strong party able to represent the needs of the Mon people must be ready in time for the upcoming 2020 election. Only 4 out of around 90 candidates from Mon parties won seats in the 2015 general election.

The campaigning activists said they have not encountered any opposition on the formation of the new party.

I fully support the new party since it has promised to withdraw from the activities immediately if the two political parties [AMDP and MNP] merge. I support the establishment of a new party since it is working for the good of the public, said U Thiha, a Mon State monk.
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Multirole MiG-35 fighter jet. Photo: Russian Aircraft Corporation

ZHUKOVSKY, RUSSIA (PTI): Russia is keen on selling its new fighter jet MiG-35 to India with the MiG corporation's chief saying the country has evinced interest in the aircraft and talks were on to understand its requirements.



Chief Executive Officer of the MiG Aircraft Corporation Ilya Tarasenko said that after having presented MiG-35 in January, the MiG corporation began to actively promote the aircraft in India and in other parts of the world.



"We are proposing supply of the aircraft for tenders in India and we actively work with its Air Force in order to win the tender," he said while talking to reporters on the sidelines of the MAKS 2017 air show here.



The MiG-35 is Russia's most advanced 4++ generation multipurpose fighter jet developed on the basis of the serial-produced MiG-29K/KUB and MiG-29M/M2 combat aircraft.



Asked if India has expressed any interest in the MiG-35, Tarasenko said, "Of course they have."



MiG aircraft have been used by India for almost 50 years and MiG corporation proposes its new products to India among the first countries and intends to continue supplying India with its most modern aircraft, the MiG chief said.



Asked about the current status of the proposal of the aircraft to India, he said, "We are in the negotiation stage where talks on technical and technological specifications that MiG can present to India and the requirements that India has for this aircraft were taking place."



"Since this is a very new plane, it will still take some time to negotiate on exactly what India needs and adjust the product to it," he added.



Talking about the cost of the plane, Tarasenko said it was economical due to the after-sales services being offered along with the aircraft.



"We propose not just the aircraft, but also training for its use, as well as after-sales servicing where we take upon the responsibility to service it for 40 years," he added.



He stressed that in comparison to its competitors, the prices offered by MiG were 20-25 per cent cheaper, making it an attractive option for those who wish to purchase this aircraft.



Highlighting the main features of the MiG-35, Tarasenko said its technical specifications were close to a fifth generation aircraft, namely its flight capabilities, its new weapon range and defence systems, including stealth.



"I would like to note the demand for this aircraft for our own air force, as well as our foreign partners. The plane is light, multi-functional and has high manoeuvrability," Tarasenko said, adding that the MiG was also offering special commercial terms to its partners.



He also stressed that the plane was fully Russian-made with Rostec companies like United Engine Corporation (UEC), KRET and Technodinamika participating in the project.



At MAKS 2017, the MiG-35 grabbed all the limelight as it took to the skies and enthralled the audience with breathtaking manoeuvres like the tail slide, barrel roll and the nesterov loop.



Belyaev Mikhail, the Lead Test Pilot of MiG-35, told reporters that the main feature of this aircraft was the new on board equipment and the new quality of weapons -- air-to- air, air-to-ground and air-to-sea.



"Compared with the basic version of the MiG-29, it is a new aircraft, new airframe, fly-by-wire, glass cockpit, adapted for night vision goggles...new engines, more power, more fuel, new on board equipment and new weapons," said Mikhail, who was earlier this year presented the star of the 'Hero of Russia' by President Vladimir Putin for bravery in piloting and testing of aviation equipment.



Asked if it was easier to fly MiG-35, Mikhail said new tasks were required for such an aircraft so one needs to learn these.



"On the basic level it is not that difficult to switch from MIG 29 to 35 as the plane remains the same. It is still a light simple plane. The combat tasks that can be achieved from this plane are much more serious and much more complex," he said.



"More combat tasks can be achieved from this plane than with the MiG-29. So it will take time to learn new tasks and to adapt," he added.



An overhauled MiG-35 multi-role fighter completed a successful demonstration flight at the MAKS 2017 air show, with Russian officials saying the first combat-ready plane will be delivered to the Air Force next year.



While speaking to reporters at MAKS, Tarasenko also noted that around 30 countries are using various modifications of MiG-35's predecessor, the MiG-29, and that "talks are already ongoing with potential buyers."



The fighter jet features improved flight and technical characteristics, the most advanced on board radio-electronic equipment and a wide arsenal of air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles.



The flight tests of MiG-35 fighter aircraft began on January 26 and the plane's international presentation was held in the Moscow Region on the following day.


Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEEPAWA  It was an emotional scene in Neepawa on Saturday evening as hundreds of residents came out for a street party to celebrate acceptance for all cultures.

The celebration was the communitys collective response to racist graffiti, directed at Neepawas large Filipino population, that was scrawled upon property in the town earlier this month.

I thought, lets just kill the issue with kindness, organizer Rochelle Unico said.

Michaela Solomon/The Brandon Sun Dishes from all over the world are offered to members of the community during a potluck at the ArtsForward building in Neepawa on Saturday evening as part of a celebration of diversity in response to racist graffiti that was scrawled on property in the town earlier this month.

Members of the community got together to do just that. Flags from all over the world decorated the parade as well as the street outside the ArtsForward building where the parade ended, and the party began.

Its one per cent of the community that feels that way towards us, said Unico, who settled in Neepawa nine years ago from the Philippines, and with the help of leaders in town was able to see her dream of the celebration of diversity come to fruition.

Our parade showed that were united and that Neepawa is the Land of Plenty; plenty of culture and heritage to offer.

It is believed that 25 per cent of the population of Neepawa is of Filipino descent.

Amanda Naughton-Gale, president of ArtsForward, and Rrain Prior, director of programming for the towns cultural centre, along with Unico, figured now would be the perfect time to Neepawas JamFest to celebrate the towns diversity.

It has been Unicos goal for many years to bring a street party to Neepawa that focuses on celebrating cultural diversity.

In the face of racism, community needs to come together and thats what we have done, Naughton-Gale said. Grassroots and on, this is what community is about.

She described the feeling at the event as electric.

Im just vibrating with the positivity that is happening here, Naughton-Gale said.

I was all smiles and suddenly I got overwhelmed, Prior said. I really felt the enormity of what we managed to do here, and I was crying as I was walking in the parade.

Prior is originally from Neepawa, and has lived all over Canada including Toronto and Winnipeg, but said she knew home was where she wanted to settle.

A march kicked off from town hall and people dressed in clothing traditional to their heritage made their way down Manitoba Avenue to the ArtsForward building, where a town potluck was held. Included were dishes from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

Michaela Solomon/The Brandon Sun Muriel Gamey shows off her love for community diversity with a homemade hat during Neepawas street party on Saturday.

Muriel Gamey sported a homemade hat complete with dozen of flags representing different countries from around the world.

Unless youre Aboriginal or First Nations, were all immigrants, Gamey said. Our forefathers have the guts to come over to this country and we profited from it. Im wondering how many of us would be able to do that.

Gamey also arrived with a sign that read, Every culture enhances us!

The community gathered in an effort to connect with their neighbours, and show their support for one another.

Following the meal, which included three roast pigs, stir fry, salads, pizza, spring rolls and dessert, the street party continued with karaoke, and a performance by local Filipino band Last Drop.

The organizers expressed an interest in making the cultural street party an annual event.

 msolomon@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @mdsolomon12
The NIS Directive has been passed by the EU to boost cyber security for member states.

It comes as businesses across the world have been hit by vicious online attacks in recent months.
The Irish construction industry is set to deliver a number of key hotel development projects over the next three years, paving the way for a significant tourist influx and boost to the economy.

In the month of May, Ireland welcomed over 900,000 tourists, an increase of 7% over the same period in 2016.

In 2016, tourism in Ireland brought in a revenue of 4.7bn, a 10% increase on 2015 and the demand for competitively priced hotel bedrooms is on a rise as a result.

According to Construction Information Services (CIS), Dublin's hotel stock will rise by an additional 3,000 hotel bedrooms by 2020, a 15% increase of the total current stock.

The Construction Industry Federation (CIF) has welcomed these CIS figures.

"This anticipated upturn in hotel development will lead to significant demand for specialist fit-out package subcontractors," said CIF director for specialist contracting, Sean Downey.

"Ireland's construction industry has a great track record in delivering a superb standard of hotel and dining accommodation that is best in class.

"We would expect that in the initial stages there will be demand for the groundworks and structural subcontractors with phased demand for finishing trades as developments move through to completion.

"Hotels typically demand a high level of specification, so subcontractors with specialist skills and experience in delivery of a quality product will be most in demand.

"Perhaps the greatest opportunity with such a positive demand forecast will be for those 'smart contractors' that can bring off-site and lean fabrication solutions forward to help the hotels advance in line with programme demands."
A "gargantuan" effort would be required to remove key EU-wide bodies from the jurisdiction of the bloc's highest court, according to an expert.

Cambridge University professor of EU law Catherine Barnard said it is clear the treaty behind the European civil nuclear regulator, known as Euratom, gives the European Court of Justice (ECJ) the official power to make legal decisions and judgements.

She added the ECJ also has jurisdiction over matters involving EU agencies, such as when challenges are made against decisions by the 40 or so bodies - which include the London-based European Medicines Agency.

But Prof Barnard said there is a lengthy amendment procedure in place, including referendums being held in several countries, should attempts be made to amend the EU's fundamental treaties to remove references to the ECJ.

Her final remark came after she was asked what would happen if the UK asked to retain access to certain EU-wide bodies but without ECJ involvement.

Prime Minister Theresa May has made leaving the remit of ECJ a "red line" for Brexit negotiations.

Her decision to pull out of Euratom, which is not formally part of the EU despite being under the jurisdiction of the ECJ, has prompted Tory unease and fears among MPs about risks to high-skilled jobs, cancer treatment and the nuclear fusion supply chain.

Speaking at an Institute for Government (ISG) event focused on Brexit, dispute resolution and the ECJ, Prof Barnard said: "These agencies... are firmly bedded in the institutional structure and dynamics of the European Union, and of course why wouldn't they be - they are institutions, agencies of the European Union and they were set up with the EU system in mind."

Former senior civil servant Jill Rutter, the ISG's programme director who chaired the event, asked: "If we wanted to have a slightly pick n mix variation and take some of these things but without ECJ, you're basically saying 'Hello EU, you need to amend the fundamental treaties of the European Union to take out references to the ECJ or to amend them'?"

Prof Barnard replied: "Absolutely, which would be under the lengthy amendment procedure which would require referenda in a number of countries - I mean this is a gargantuan exercise."

The professor also said attempts to take back control by the UK will be "partial" as a "deep and special" trading relationship will need someone to "set the rules of the game and to ensure the rules of the game are arbitrated upon".

She said: "So there'll need to be some supranational body and thus taking back control, by definition, will be partial.

"Now we already concede that through the WTO panels system, there are all sorts of other supranational bodies that we give deference to.

"But the fact is, if we're going for a deep partnership there will need to be somebody who acts as referee in some form."

Michael-James Clifton, chief of staff to the president of the Court of Justice of the European Free Trade Association (Efta), told the same event: "The experience of the Efta states is that's been a great advantage to have an own court.

"A court provides a gateway to justice for companies and individuals that state-to-state arbitration cannot.

"Whether the UK proposes to create a new tribunal is a matter for the Government.

"But I think, from my personal perspective, it'd be well advised to seriously consider docking to the Efta court for both the transitional agreement - potentially through the European Economic Agreement - and the sought deep and special partnership."
Irish Water has said 1,000kms of Victorian piping needs to be replaced around the country, at a cost of 13bn euro.

The company were responding to growing criticism after an asbestos main burst in Drogheda leaving 50,000 homes and businesses without supply for a number of days.

Irish Water say they are taking measures to try prevent whats happened in the north east from happening elsewhere.

The companys Conor Foley said they have now identified the most problematic pipes.

"We are prioritising 3.5bn in the next five years to upgrade the worst performing assets and the Drogheda area is actually getting 23m of that."

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Irish Water has also warned the water supply problem currently affecting Louth and Meath could happen elsewhere.

Jerry Grant told RTEs Six One News that the utility has replaced around 860km of pipe across the country over the last three years and that around 1,000km remains over the next four or five years.

Mr Grant also warned that will take a number of days for the supply in the northeast to be restored in full but was confident the repair would be completed by Thursday.

Reacting tonight long time opponents of water charges say scrapping water bills will not lead to any further decay in the water network.

Sinn Feins Eoin O Broin says the Oireachtas committee on water decided that the government should step in to cover whatever shortfall is left by the scrapping of domestic charges.

"I think it is completely reasonable to expect that the money the government wanted to come from water charges can come from general taxation and that money can be ring fenced on an annual basis to ensure it goes where it is needed."
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre is to ask the United Nations to press the Irish Government for faster victim protection.

They will make a submission to the UN Committee today asking them to look at Ireland's slow progress in protecting victims of sexual violence.
Update 7pm: A French court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether a former journalist can stand trial in his absence for the 1996 murder of a filmmaker in Ireland.

Authorities in Paris have failed twice to extradite Ian Bailey over the death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, with the Irish High Court branding the latest attempt an "abuse of process".

The 39-year-olds badly beaten body was found on an isolated hillside in Toormore, near Schull, west Cork, two days before Christmas in 1996.

Under French law, investigators can look into the death of one of their citizens overseas and seek a prosecution.

Originally from England but living in west Cork since the mid 1990s, Mr Bailey was twice arrested in Ireland in connection with the murder but never charged. He vehemently denies any involvement in the death. Irelands Director of Public Prosecutions decided that he should not be prosecuted.

After Judge Tony Hunt refused to order his extradition, Mr Bailey, 60, from The Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, said he expected the decision to be appealed. He said he had no indication of legal developments in France but expressed sympathy with Ms Toscan du Plantiers family.

"I know they believe, for whatever reasons, that I had something to do with the death of their daughter and Im very sympathetic. But I had nothing to do with it," he said.

"It would be good from my point of view if a new piece of evidence came to light or somebody admitted the truth, but I dont suppose thats going to happen."

Last year in Paris, an indictment of voluntary homicide was issued by the investigating magistrate, Nathalie Turquey, against Mr Bailey and a European Arrest Warrant was sent to Irish authorities. The penalty for the offence is up to 30 years in jail.

An appeal was lodged by lawyers acting for Mr Bailey in France and a ruling on the indictment is expected in the Paris Court of Appeal in the next few weeks. It is understood that will determine if Mr Bailey can be put on trial in his absence.

The Association for the Truth about the Murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier (Assoph) - founded by the dead womans family to campaign over her murder - said the latest failed extradition bid was expected.

Spokesman Jean Antoine Bloc said: "We have been waiting for 20 years for justice and we are no longer expecting anything more from Ireland."

The first application to extradite Mr Bailey was refused by the Supreme Court in Dublin in 2012. Judge Hunt found that decision should block any new application.

He also criticised the second attempt to extradite Mr Bailey when the DPP had decided that he should not face charges.

"(The application) is also refused because, in the unique circumstances of this case, further proceedings seeking surrender on the fresh warrant constitute an abuse of process," the judge said.

Mr Bailey has not worked as a journalist for many years. He is currently trying to sell a collection of poems he has compiled.

He lost a marathon lawsuit against the Irish state over the handling of the Ms Toscan du Plantier murder investigation and a claim that detectives had tried to frame him. A decision on an appeal in that case is expected this Wednesday.

Mr Bailey has also suggested that he should be put on trial in connection with the murder in Ireland.

Ms Toscan du Plantier was married to the late Daniel Toscan du Plantier, a major player in French cinema who had close contacts with the upper echelons of government in Paris. Her son Pierre-Louis Baudey-Vignaud, who was 14 when she was murdered, has told RTE that he wants to see Mr Bailey on trial.

"I am confident that we will get the answer. Im not sure if it will be tomorrow, in one month, in one year, in 10 years. But I must get the answer for my grandparents before they die," he said.

"Im 35 and I will wait for justice to be done and justice will be done one day, for sure."

Mr Bailey, who moved to Ireland from Cheltenham, admitted during the failed lawsuit to beating his partner Jules Thomas three times.

The fallout from the case was not limited to the exposure of Mr Baileys domestic violence, cannabis use and heavy drinking or assessments by Irelands senior law officers that gardai botched the initial investigation.

As part of disclosures in the lawsuit, it emerged that phone calls at Garda stations countrywide were recorded for years without the publics knowledge.

The courtroom defeat in his bid for damages was the second Mr Bailey suffered after he lost libel actions in 2003 against several newspapers over their reporting of the murder investigation and naming him as a suspect.

Update 4pm: Ian Bailey says he expects the Minister for Justice to appeal todays decision not to extradite him to France.

Authorities there applied for him to be surrendered after deciding he should stand trial for the voluntary homicide of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

Mr. Bailey said he was pleased with todays result but expects it to be appealed. He again insisted hed nothing to do with the violent death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996 and said he hoped her killer would come forward, but wasnt too confident of that happening.

The Ministers barristers werent in court for todays judgement and its not yet known if there will be an appeal.

The French authorities previously indicated their intention to try Mr. Bailey in his absence.

Earlier: The High Court has refused to order the extradition of Ian Bailey to France in relation to the death of Sophie Tuscan du Plantier, dismissing the Minister for Jusitces application as an "abuse of process", among other reasons.

Mr Bailey (60) of The Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, west Cork, denies any involvement in the death of Ms du Plantier, who was found dead outside her holiday home in Schull in December 1996.

French authorities previously sought the surrender of Mr Bailey in 2010 but this application was refused by the Supreme Court in 2012. A second extradition request was transmitted to Ireland last summer, seeking the surrender of Mr Bailey for alleged voluntary homicide.

French authorities have previously prosecuted people for crimes committed against French citizens outside of France. Mr Bailey, who claims gardai tried to frame him for the killing of Ms du Plantier, could be tried in France in his absence.

Refusing the surrender of Mr Bailey today, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the Minister was estopped or halted from obtaining an order for Mr Baileys surrender in light of the Supreme Courts judgment in 2012 on identical relevant facts.

Mr Justice Hunt said he would also refuse surrender because, in the unique circumstances of this case, it was an abuse of process for five distinct reasons for the Minister to seek surrender on the fresh warrant.

Mr Justice Hunt also said he did not need a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as had been requested by the State. He said the Minister and his successors were disappointed litigants and it appeared to him that the underlying theme of the Ministers application was a conviction that the majority of the Supreme Court were in error in 2012.

A five-judge panel of the Supreme Court refused to surrender Mr Bailey in 2012 and four of the five judges upheld Mr Baileys argument that section 44 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.

Opposing surrender at a High Court hearing in May, counsel for Mr Bailey, Garrett Simons SC, said there was no way around the Supreme Court decision in 2012.

Mr Simons said section 44 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003, which implemented the European Framework Decision on extradition between member states, was determined by the Supreme Court as an absolute bar to Mr Baileys surrender and that that bar continued to apply.

In a written judgment handed down today, Mr Justice Hunt said he believed the application should be dismissed an abuse of process for five reasons.

Firstly, he said there was the binding and conclusive decision of the Supreme Court on the extra-territoriality issue.

Secondly, five years had passed since that decision and it was now 21 years since the death of Ms du Plantier.

Apparently, neither the Minister nor the French authorities considered it appropriate to furnish any information by way of explanation for the elapse of time, Mr Justice Hunt said. I do not know when or why Mr Bailey moved from being a suspect to a person required for prosecution.

Thirdly, there had been no engagement by the Minister of the French authorities with the unusual fact in an extradition case that Mr Baileys alleged involvement in the death of Ms du Plantier had been comprehensively and repeatedly investigated and considered by the police force and prosecuting authorities in Ireland.

The DPP concluded long ago that there is no basis for either (a) charge or trial on this matter in this jurisdiction, and unusually, a comprehensive statement of reasons for this prosecutorial decision came into the public domain during the previous Supreme Court proceedings.

Neither the warrant nor the Ministers application for surrender engages with this situation at all.

It is simply suggested by the Minister that such matters are not relevant to the surrender request. I am unable to share this sanguine viewpoint, Mr Justice Hunt said, adding that this was a significant omission.

In effect, proceedings were issued for the involuntary surrender of a person entitled to the protection of our laws and Constitution for a trial and possible imprisonment for 30 years, ignoring or regarding as irrelevant the comprehensive determination by Irelands domestic legal process that the allegation giving rise to the request could not justify the preferment of a charge, let alone trial and conviction.

I believe I am entitled to regard this highly unusual state of affairs as a contribution to a finding of abuse of process in this case, Mr Justice Hunt said.

Fourthly, even if it were subsequently decided that the Supreme Court was wrong, it was highly debatable whether that would result in the rendition of Mr Bailey and the forfeiture of the earlier ruling in his favour.

Fifthly, Mr Justice Hunt said he considered the conduct of the first proceedings. He said the tactical decision to proceed on all fronts, notwithstanding manifest difficulties . makes the current position of the Minister untenable.

These proceedings amount to no more than a belated and direct challenge to that outcome (in the Supreme Court).

In the absence of any material change of circumstances  and unless and until the Supreme Court agrees it fell into error in the manner in which section 44 was interpreted, I cannot regard proceedings issued in such circumstances as other than an abuse of process of this (High) Court.

Such a conclusion will not be reached lightly in extradition litigation, but the unique features of this case justify termination of the process on this basis at this time.

Furthermore, he said the doctrine of precedent also disposed of the matter in Mr Baileys favour. The principle that the High Court follows the Supreme Court is so long established that it rarely requires expression.

He said the binding effect of the Supreme Court decision on legal issues went beyond the parties to or facts of the case. In the unlikely event the High Court was faced with a surrender request involving different people in identical circumstances, the High Court would still be bound to follow the Supreme Courts interpretation and application of section 44.

In relation to issue estoppel, Mr Justice Hunt said there was no reason to exempt extradition proceedings from the rationale that public policy required a definite and decisive end to litigation.

There was the same interest in finality and certainty in relation to outcomes, and the need for parties and courts to avoid being vexed repeatedly with issues previously and conclusively decided as between the same parties.

He said the second warrant was different and must be assessed individually but the Minister could not point to any relevant change in legal or factual circumstances which would allow the High Court to take a different view of the extra-territoriality issue.

Mr Justice Hunt said he did not consider it necessary to obtain the opinion of the European Court, as had been requested by the Minister.

Mr Justice Hunt said it appeared to him that the theme underlying the Ministers second extradition application was a conviction that the majority of the Supreme Court were in error in deciding the previous application in the manner they did.

Unlike most disappointed litigants, the Minister and his successors had the power to amend the legal position applicable to that ruling if it was genuinely felt the Supreme Court had incorrectly interpreted section 44 in the light of the framework decision, as was submitted by the Minster in this case.

No steps had been taken in that direction. Instead, the Minister now seeks to take advantage of the fact that a reference tot he Court of Justice of the European Union in relation to the interpretation of the Framework Decision is now possible from the Irish courts.

It is suggested the earlier interpretation (by the Supreme Court) could be overturned (by the European Court) if a preliminary reference to the European Court resulted in an opinion which suggested that the Supreme Court was in error.

Mr Justice Hunt said the correct interpretation of the national provision has been specifically, finally and conclusively determined in proceedings between the same parties by a court whose decisions are final and conclusive under the Constitution.

An assertion that the Supreme Court incorrectly decided the previous case does not permit the High Court to proceed to adopt the minority view. If that were the position, the work of the courts would expand exponentially and no legal advice could be offered with any degree of certainty.

Speaking outside court, Mr Bailey said: I tend not to have reactions to this long ongoing ordeal. Obviously Im pleased and delighted with the judgement of the judge today and I thank judge Hunt for that judgment. I would also thank my legal team who have been amazing.

Its not the end of it because the State will almost certainly appeal that decision today. Its noticeable that the State who took this case against me and have put me through a form of torture for 20 years on-and-off, were not even represented in court today. There was nobody there, which is astonishing.

Later this week we get a decision on whether I have a new civil appeal. Thats happening on Wednesday.

I would think the sate would almost certainly appeal this decision today so its not the end of the matter.

He said he did not know if the French would go ahead with a trial in his absence. When asked if he had a message to the French, Mr Bailey said: I have always said, Im very sympathetic to the family and I know that they believe for whatever reason that I had something to do with the death of their daughter. And Im very sympathetic, but I had nothing to do with it. I cant say very much more than that.
The Naval Service is set to expand its use of drones after their first deployment on an operational mission proved an outstanding success, capturing critical footage of a people smuggler changing his clothes to blend in with migrants, writes Sean ORiordan.

The LE Eithne, which returns to Haulbowline at the weekend, became the first navy ship to use drone technology during its deployment on humanitarian rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea.

Naval Service sources have disclosed they want to develop a special section for the use of remotely piloted air systems which will use drones to spy on potential drugs and arms smugglers, illegal fishing and identifying pollution at sea.

They hope to make their own specialised drones for such purposes and have them operational within the next few years.

The man in charge of the drones launched from LE Eithne, Lt Commander Phil Watson, said they were activated to help quickly access situations before rescue crews arrived at scenes.

They used a commercial Phantom 4 PRO, which can stay airborne for 35 minutes and features a maximum range of 8km.

We used them predominantly just before a rescue mission was under way, said Lt Cmdr Watson. The footage showed how many migrants on crafts didnt have life-jackets and would also allow us to see the condition of the vessel they were on and if it was sinking. It enabled us to access and prioritise.

However, during one mission, he said, the Naval Service captured footage of a suspected people-smuggler unaware of the drone as he changed clothes before the migrants on a dinghy he was steering had been rescued.

Lt Cmdr Watson said the suspect tried to pretend he was a refugee or migrant.

When brought onboard, he was discreetly watched for two days and, on berthing in an Italian port to offload the migrants, was pointed out to Italian authorities, who were also provided with the video evidence by the navy.

The officer said the drone also proved effective when a boat came at LE Eithne at high speed. The crew were taking no chances and went to action stations, manning machine guns and warning the approaching craft off over the VHF radio.

However, in the meantime, Lt Cmdr Watson was able to buzz the approaching craft with the drone and see there were no arms onboard.

The man was fleeing Libya and we came across him 40 miles off the coast, he said. The reason he was coming for us at speed was that he was running out of fuel. We rescued him. A lot of good lessons were learned from drone deployment. They allowed us to access any threats and to make it easier to save lives.

The navy must always be on alert, it was emphasised. Islamic State terrorists are present in the area, along with militias who take a percentage of money made by people-smuggling gangs.

To date, the Naval Service has saved the lives of 16,808 men, women and children.

LE William Butler Yeats has replaced LE Eithne on the mission.

This article first appeared in the Irish Examiner
Some landlords in Dublin are demanding tenants pay two months rent as a deposit.

The news comes as the number of people who cited the cost of rent as their number one national concern, doubled in the last year.

Labour TD and former Minister for Housing Jan O Sullivan is calling for the process to be stopped immediately and says the legality of this needs to be checked.

"The Residential Tenancies Board has the power to interevene in these kinds of disputes.," she said.

"If they're looking for two months' deposit as well as the first month's rent I'm not sure if that is actually legally allowed. I think most definitely there can be ministerial intervention if that's needed to stop this."
At least eight people are dead after female suicide bombers attacked two displaced persons camps in north-eastern Nigeria's main city, Maiduguri.

It is the first major attack on a displaced persons camp in the city - the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist insurgency.

Another 15 people were hurt in the attack, which started late on Sunday night, the Civilian-JTF civilian defence group said.

The Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram often targets the city with suicide bombers, and has increasingly been using women in these roles.

Late last year, Nigeria's government declared the group "crushed", but dozens of such attacks have been carried out this year.

The latest bombings occurred a few days after Nigeria's army chief of staff issued a 40-day deadline for troops to flush out Boko Haram's leader and finish off the extremists.

The Civilian-JTF's Bello Danbatta said one bomber sneaked into the Dalori camp and detonated, and two other attackers exploded on or near the camp's perimeter fence. Another bomber detonated early on Monday morning.

Thousands of people continue to shelter in camps after being forced from their homes by Boko Haram.

The extremist group's eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, kidnapped thousands of others, spilled into neighbouring countries and created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

Nigeria is moving closer to famine, with more than five million people expected to face "crisis, emergency and famine conditions" by the end of August as the lean season continues, the Norwegian Refugee Council said.

The unrest has disrupted farming and access to markets in the region.

Threats to displaced person's camps have included Nigeria's own military.

On Monday, the air force issued a statement expressing its "deepest regrets" for mistakenly bombing a camp in the town of Rann in January.

A Borno state government official said more than 230 people were killed when the air force bombed the camp multiple times.

Last week, the military said the camp was not appropriately marked as a humanitarian base on its operational maps.
The driver of a sweltering tractor-trailer found packed with immigrants outside a Walmart in San Antonio has been charged over the deaths of 10 of his passengers and could face the death penalty over the hellish journey.

In outlining their immigrant-smuggling case against James Matthew Bradley Jr, federal prosecutors depicted the trailer as pitch-black, crammed with around 90 people or more by some estimates, and so suffocatingly hot that one passenger said they took turns breathing through a hole and pounding on the walls to get the drivers attention.

Bradley, from Clearwater, Florida, appeared in federal court on charges of illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death.

The 60-year-old did not enter a plea or say anything in court about what happened.

Bradley was assigned a public defender and ordered held for another hearing on Thursday.

Over the weekend, authorities discovered eight bodies inside the crowded 18-wheeler parked in the summer heat, and two more victims died in hospital.

Officials feared the death toll could rise because nearly 20 others rescued from the rig were in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

Bradley told investigators that the trailer had been sold and he was transporting it for his boss from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas.

He said he did not realise people were inside until he parked and got out to relieve himself.

After hearing banging and shaking, he opened the door and was "surprised when he was run over by Spanish people and knocked to the ground", according to the complaint.

Bradley was quoted as telling investigators that he knew the trailer refrigeration system did not work and that the four ventilation holes were probably clogged.

He also said he did not call emergency services, even though he knew at least one passenger was dead.

The truck was registered to Pyle Transportation of Schaller, Iowa.

UPDATE: A tenth victim has died at the hospital after being trapped in truck found outside San Antonio Walmart https://t.co/WhbZe2SQj6 pic.twitter.com/e3uDOdJ3oK  Fox News (@FoxNews) July 24, 2017

President Brian Pyle said that he had sold the truck to a man in Mexico and that Bradley was an independent contractor who was supposed to deliver it to a pick-up point in Brownsville.

"Im absolutely sorry it happened. I really am. Its shocking. Im sorry my name was on it," Mr Pyle said, referring to the truck.

He said he had no idea why Bradley took the looping route he described to investigators.

Bradley told authorities that he had stopped in Laredo, Texas - which would have been out of his way if he were travelling directly to Brownsville - to get the truck washed and detailed before heading back 240 kilometres (150 miles) north to San Antonio.

From there, he would have had to drive 275 miles south again to get to Brownsville.

"I just cant believe it. Im stunned, shocked. He is too good a person to do anything like this," said Bradleys fiancee, Darnisha Rose, of Louisville, Kentucky.

"He helps people, he doesnt hurt people."

She said Bradley told her he had no idea how the immigrants got into his trailer.

One of the passengers told investigators that he was in a group of 24 people who had been in a "stash house" in Laredo for 11 days before being taken to the tractor-trailer.

A passenger told investigators that he and others crossed into the US by raft, paying smugglers 12,500 Mexican pesos (540).

They were then put aboard the truck to be taken to San Antonio, according to the criminal complaint.

The man said he was supposed to pay the smugglers 5,500 dollars (4,200) once he got there.

He said that those in the truck were given no water or food and that the immigrants soon began to struggle to breathe and started passing out.

Raw: Vigil in San Antonio for truck victims. Death toll has just reached 10. https://t.co/ztp6RzX747 pic.twitter.com/U1tNeWrgqS  USA TODAY (@USATODAY) July 24, 2017

At least some of those in the truck were from Mexico and Guatemala, according to diplomats from the two countries.

Latin Americans who enter the United States illegally often rely on smuggling networks to guide them across the border by foot or raft, put them in safe houses and then give them rides to their destination in the US.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you theres going to be many more people were looking for to prosecute," said Thomas Homan, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The tragedy came to light after a person from the truck approached a Walmart employee and asked for water late on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning after a day in which the temperature had climbed over 100F (37.7C), police said.

The employee gave the person water and then called police.

In one of the worst smuggling-by-truck tragedies on record in the US, 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003. The driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

Activists blamed federal and Texas authorities hard-line immigration policies for contributing to the latest deaths by forcing immigrants to take greater risks to reach the US.

"These tragedies are compounded when its incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive and we push migration into the hands of illicit actors," immigration activist Bob Libal said.

9 Migrants Die After Being Crammed into Sweltering Truck on Journey to U.S. https://t.co/kBB8YswzbZ #SanAntonio pic.twitter.com/36VHejqA1S  Democracy Now! (@democracynow) July 24, 2017

- AP
The US manufacturer of the cladding panels on Grenfell Tower in London, where at least 80 people died in a fire last month, has said it stopped selling them for high-rise buildings because it cannot control how they are installed.

David Hess, interim CEO of Arconic, said the company is still working with investigators on the blaze.
Somalia-based Islamic extremists al-Shabab have mocked US president Donald Trump in a new video that calls him a "brainless billionaire" as his administration steps up military efforts against the group.

The new video said US voters elected "arguably the most stupid president a country could ever have" and said Mr Trump is "making the United States the greatest joke on earth and is now propelling it further to its eventual defeat and destruction".

The SITE Intelligence Group said the video also addresses next month's presidential election in neighbouring Kenya.

The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab has claimed a growing number of deadly attacks in Kenya as the election approaches, with Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta declaring a new offensive against the extremists this month.

Mr Trump earlier this year approved expanded military operations against al-Shabab, including more aggressive air strikes and considering parts of southern Somalia areas of active hostilities.

Somalia is also included in Mr Trump's ban on refugees and visitors from six mostly Muslim countries.

The extremist group has vowed retribution on Kenya in particular for sending its troops to Somalia to take part in a multinational African Union force against al-Shabab.

"Your military's invasion of Somalia will continue to destabilise your country," the new al-Shabab video said. "When we do strike, your government will not be able to protect you."

Somalia is trying to rebuild after more than two decades as a failed state, and its chaos helped fuel al-Shabab's rise.

The extremist group last year killed more than 4,200 people, according to the Pentagon-supported Africa Centre for Strategic Studies.

Al-Shabab has vowed to step up attacks against Somalia's recently elected government and has carried out numerous deadly attacks in the capital, Mogadishu.

Pressure is growing on Somalia's military to assume full responsibility for the country's security.

The 22,000-strong African Union multinational force, which has been supporting the fragile central government, plans to start withdrawing in 2018 and leave by the end of 2020.

The US military has been among those expressing concern that Somalia's forces are not yet ready.

AP
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged Qatar and the four other Arab countries opposing it to negotiate an end to the crisis dividing them as he wrapped up a two-day Gulf tour.

He voiced his support for mediation efforts being led by Kuwait and said initiatives under way to resolve the crisis through dialogue should continue, a presidential spokesman said.

Mr Erdogan travelled to Qatar on Monday for talks with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who has said Qatar is open to dialogue so long as it respects his country's sovereignty.

He earlier met King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which leads an anti-Qatar bloc which includes the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, before holding talks with the emir of Kuwait.

The quartet cut diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar in early June, accusing it of supporting extremists. Qatar strongly denies the allegation and sees the dispute as politically-motivated.

Mr Erdogan's Gulf trip follows visits aimed at defusing the crisis by the top diplomats of the UK, France, Germany and the US, underscoring the depth of concern the crisis is causing well beyond the region.

Turkey has built increasingly close ties with Qatar in recent years, including opening its first military base in the Persian Gulf there last year.

More Turkish troops have arrived since the Gulf rift erupted, raising fears of an escalation with the countries seeking to isolate it.

The anti-Qatar quartet included expelling the Turkish troops as one of its list of demands to resolve the dispute.
InterLaced: an exhibition of works by Belinda Rosee. Gallery One, Strathnairn Arts Association. Until August 6. In her opening remarks at Belinda Rosee's exhibition at Strathnairn, Monique van Nieuwland, herself a weaver of note, mentioned that Rosee was largely self-taught. This is remarkable when viewed in the light of the skill displayed in the woven textiles on exhibition. It is the artist's first solo exhibition although she regularly exhibits with the Canberra Spinners and Weavers. Belinda Rosee's The Moors conjures up the colours of heather and gorse found in the Scottish highlands. Credit:Belinda Khan Rosee had followed another career path until physical injury caused her to look for some form of creative expression. Van Nieuwland and Kay Faulkner introduced her to weaving and she attended a weaving workshop at the Sturt Craft Centre in Mittagong. In 2014 she took the decision to become a serious weaver. From that time Rosee has continued to teach herself the complex skills of weaving through experimentation and practice and has embraced the changes that have occurred in the practice of hand weaving. Technology using digital programs has enabled artists to design and plan patterns, which is a less time-consuming method than drawing them up on graph paper. Computer programs also mean fewer mistakes are made in working out intricate patterns. Rosee's work is alive with colour testifying to the new colours available for dying fibre. New yarns such as Tencil (a sustainable fibre derived from wood cellulose) are also available and Rosee also weaves with natural fibres of silk, bamboo, alpaca, chenille, linen and wool. The floor looms she uses have designs ranging from four to 16 shafts. All her yarn is pre-dyed before weaving.

Malachite (centre) by Belinda Rosee in InterLaced. Photo Belinda Khan Credit:Belinda Khan For this exhibition, which is the result of 12 months' work, Rosee has woven scarves, wraps and throws. The work is grouped into a number of themes  summer and winter being the two main colour groupings. Predominant among the winter wraps are two beautifully patterned and coloured works  Malachite and The Moors. The Malachite wrap with its butterfly wing patterns and colours of soft greens and yellow brown tones is inspired by the malachite butterfly, itself named after the mineral malachite because of the vivid green colour they both share. The choice of colours in this work are beautifully designed to suggest the kind of repeat and tonal patterns found in nature. In the same way The Moors, a weaving in a palette of soft muted browns and yellows, conjures up the colours of heather and gorse of the highland moors  a tribute perhaps to Rosee's Scottish heritage. Other works are more geometric in design  Boxes in Boxes and Fibonacci Blocks are made up of a pattern of squares and cubes where variety in size and the lively interplay of colour has a dramatic impact. Morse code was the inspiration for two other smaller scarves that have more of a structural design. Cleverly woven into their pattern is, in Morse code, the message "I weave with a happy heart". Their striking asymmetrical patterns marry well with the predominant strong colours of reds and black. In contrast to the warm winter colourings, the theme of summer is expressed by a shimmering palette of Indian pinks, reds, oranges and yellows  mostly woven in hand dyed silks. This is a visual antidote to the cold wintry Canberra skies at this time of year. In these works the colours are free-flowing  seemingly moving across the pattern woven into the fabric instead of being contained within it. Not all the works were so dramatic  softly coloured shawls in pale blues, apricots and creams were serenely draped and displayed while a group of three blue and white scarves Mono 1-3 seem to echo a Japanese love of indigo blue and white.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says she does not need to ban plastic bags in NSW, "because 80 per cent of plastic bags" will already be banned by the supermarkets themselves.

Addressing a meeting at the Tweed Chamber of Commerce on Monday, Ms Berejiklian welcomed the recently announced plastic bag bans at Coles, Woolworths and Harris Farm Markets, but said they were the very reason she did not need to legislate a state-wide ban as Premier.

"[Coles, Woolworths and Harris Farm] produce about 80 per cent of the plastic bags in NSW, so in essence they themselves would ban the plastic bag," she said.



"I don't need to [put a ban in place] because 80 per cent of plastic bags are already banned. I don't need to put a law in for something that's already happening."



The comments have hindered hopes among environmental advocates, who considered the recent commitments from Australia's major supermarkets as a positive sign that there remained no more barriers to introducing a ban across NSW.

"Despite the action by Coles, Woolworths and Harris Farm, data shows that at least 10 million bags will continue to pollute the state's environment each year," said Jeff Angel, director of the Boomerang Alliance of 47 groups.



"The facts are, the retailers' actions are voluntary and not enforceable. Key business sectors have called for a level playing field; and the community wants a full ban.
If the news that Scott Ludlam was an accidental Kiwi and therefore ineligible to sit in the Senate was surprising, Larissa Waters' announcement that she too was stepping down because of a citizenship glitch was almost unbelievable. You would be forgiven for uttering a quick 'Eh, bro?'

Twitter reacted with its usual mix of spite and glee, especially when it turned out that Ludlam had made disparaging remarks about similar difficulties faced by former Senator Bob Day. When it subsequently turned out that Waters may have brought attention to her potential citizenship issue via tweets, the schadenfreude was almost too much for some.

Larissa Waters with her family. Credit:AAP

Several commentators suggested these constitutional provisions were horribly archaic, especially as we move to the kind of one world parliament Bob Brown thought was a good idea. Others pointed out Ludlam and Waters could both return to parliament within months if  having fixed their respective citizenship issues  their replacements created a casual vacancy by resigning.

However valuable the contribution made by Ludlam and Waters, there are several reasons why both those views are mistaken.
Psychologist Janine Clarke from The Sydney ACT Centre says Roselyn's situation is far from an isolated experience. "Changing family relationships seem to be an inevitable consequence of a marital breakdown." Clarke says the situation Roselyn found herself in with Bree  when an ex's friend or family member decides to choose sides  is a common one, and that it happens because many people think it's too hard to stay friends with both parties. In such cases, she says, people tend to side with the person they knew first. That's not always the case. Sometimes sides are created following a split, such as when Stella*, 54, got divorced 14 years ago. While she had hoped to continue her friendships ("I was very naive"), she was swamped by the "blatant sabotage" fed to her friends by her ex. "He went around telling everyone that I had been unfaithful to him but, because he loved me, he'd turned a blind eye," she says. She couldn't believe how quickly her friends believed him and promptly turned their backs on her. "I ended up with no friends, and eventually moved town to get away from their petty slander and nastiness." The shattering of friendship groups is not uncommon in acrimonious splits, says Clarke. When things become really nasty, people may shun both parties. "If a choice appears necessary, or when things become uncomfortable, people generally decide not to see either one." But that's not the only reason friends abandon ship. Other friendships change because people don't like confronting unpleasant situations.

"When someone passes away, people can find it difficult to know what to say or do to be helpful, so it's the same response when someone they know is going through a divorce," says Clarke. She says avoiding the person altogether is a way for people to avoid having to confront uncomfortable feelings. That happened to a man she knew who told her that, after his divorce, he was treated "like a social leper" by other parents in the school yard. Those parents acted like "divorce was something awful you could catch". While Roselyn says she was spurned by some friends, she no longer sees that as negative. After all, she says, if a friendship doesn't weather the storm of divorce, it wasn't worth holding on to. Besides, once those disposable attachments have been shed, there's more room in your life for the people who really matter. Since her divorce, Roselyn has reconnected with her aunt and cousin, and has found that her relationships with the people who stuck around are so much stronger. Clarke agrees that the changes in friendship dynamics post-divorce can be a hidden blessing: "I recall one woman telling me that one good thing about her divorce was that it had sorted her friends into true friends and acquaintances."

Bridget*, 46, experienced those kinds of changes following her divorce 12 years ago. While some friendships floundered, she was surprised that others strengthened. She nominates one couple in particular: "I always believed they would choose my ex-husband's side, as they were his friends first and foremost, but that was far from true." After her divorce, they stood by her and she now considers them among her closest pals. "I can call them in the middle of the night and they will be with me in a flash to help out," she says. Bridget also suffered the loss of a few friendships following the breakup of her marriage. She was devastated when one woman she thought of "like a sister" walked out of her life. "The minute I told her I was leaving my ex, she said, 'Oh my god, that's terrible.' But the first thing she did after that was get on the phone to him." Bridget's then father-in-law also "dropped" her immediately. He rang her up, called her many "colourful" names and demanded she return every present he'd ever sent her. In contrast, her mother-in-law phoned her in tears, begging Bridget to stay with her son and remain part of the family. While Maria*, 44, didn't think her relationship with her in-laws would undergo such dramatic changes following her divorce eight years ago, she couldn't have predicted the turn it would take. Instead of leaving her, as their son had done, Maria's parents-in-law supported her ferociously. Within weeks of the separation, they had moved into Maria's house to help with her two young children as she struggled to find her feet as a newly single mother. "My father-in-law was great in taking the kids out while my mother-in-law made cups of tea and listened," Maria says.

They also offered emotional support in the form of reassurance, constantly telling her she was doing a great job and letting her know that they wouldn't abandon her. "Successful relationships with ex-family members have a key feature," says Clarke. They're pursued because the friendships themselves matter, making them rewarding for both parties. When the "friendship" is continued because it's aiming to serve another purpose  "such as trying to get back at the ex-partner, or keeping tabs of what the ex-partner is doing"  it's likely to implode. While Maria remained close to her in-laws during the turbulent period immediately following her separation, Clarke says it's more usual for relationships to go through a period of upheaval during which friendships cool. Once the divorce dust has settled, people may then reconnect with former family members and their ex's friends. To maintain a harmonious relationship, Clarke says it's important for both partners to make a conscious effort not to involve family members in the "unpleasantness" of divorce. In other words, once the foundation of the relationship has been rocked, new boundaries need to be enforced. Maria discovered this first hand. A quasi "code of silence" ensued  Maria's erstwhile in-laws never probed her about the complexities of the marriage breakdown, and she never tried to turn them against their son. The relationship flourished because of a fine balance between what was spoken and what remained unsaid.

Maria's bond with her ex's parents has changed again now her children have grown up. They still speak on the phone every few months and catch up in person when they can, but it's not as intense. "Our relationship is now not so much a daughter-in-law/mother-in-law relationship but an old friendship with the bond of the kids as an added benefit," says Maria. The presence of children in a divorce certainly adds incentive to prevent a rift between ex-family members. Melanie*, 49, credits her four children with keeping her relationship with her former partner's family intact. Following her divorce 10 years ago, Melanie and her ex-husband made a pact that they would always "respect and support" each other as co-parents. This allowed their relationships with each other's families to continue. "There was no need for family members to take sides," she says pragmatically. Melanie was particularly keen to continue her close relationship with her then sister-in-law, who was heavily pregnant at the time of Melanie's divorce. "I didn't want to miss out on being an aunty to my niece and couldn't imagine not having ongoing contact with my sister-in-law."
Anthony Scaramucci had nothing but glowing praise for new White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders when he made the rounds on morning shows on Sunday.

"I think Sarah does a great job. She's an incredibly warm person. She's incredibly authentic," the new White House communications director told Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union," even adding that he's letting Sanders take the bigger office while he settles on a smaller one because she has the tough job of taking hits from the press.

Anthony Scaramucci gives his first press conference as White House director of communications on Friday, flanked by new press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Credit:Bloomberg

Then, at the end of the lengthy and, at times, heated interview, Scaramucci said there's only one thing he's asking of Sanders.

"Sarah, if you're watching," he said. "I love the hair and makeup person that we had on Friday, so I'd like to continue to use the hair and makeup person."
The ETF, VAS, is a passively managed derivative of Vanguard's underlying unlisted index fund that owns all 300 shares in the ASX 300 index. The ETF has a much lower fee of 0.14 per cent compared with 0.18 per cent for the Wholesale Fund ($500,000 minimum investment) and 0.75 per cent for the retail fund. Dividends vary quarterly, are partially franked and are listed on asx.com.au .

Nearly a decade ago, the company also began to offer ETFs covering shares or property securities or government bonds, etc. ETFs are one of the growth stories of the post-global financial crisis (GFC) era with trillions of dollars flowing into them around the world. One of the biggest advantages of ETFs is that they trade on a stock exchange so investors can buy and sell during market hours as well as use purchase limits and stop loss limits. By comparison, the standard unlisted fund is priced daily after the market closes.

For other readers, VAS is an exchange traded fund or ETF issued by Vanguard Australia. This is the subsidiary of a US company, initially famous for offering "index" funds that track all the shares in an index, or simply the largest shares that comprise a large index.

I am retiring soon and will have about $700,000 in super. I am planning to take it out and hope to invest it in index funds. I do not want to leave it in super for tax reasons. Are there any Australian funds exposed to overseas companies and emerging markets? I will invest in Vanguard Australian Shares index (VAS) for exposure to Australia. Do these funds pay reasonable dividends (4 per cent or more) and do any of them have any franking credits? I need about $28,000 for living expenses but I have a share portfolio of $200,000 that I can use for capital items, downturns or emergencies. H.W.

I'm going against the tide here in that I have long believed that derivatives have a history of high downside risk and are generally more complex than their issuers like to make out but their flaws do not emerge until the market dislocates (crashes). That is evidenced by the promotion of put options as "portfolio insurance" before the 1987 crash. Later came the AAA rated, high yielding "collateralised debt obligations", and "credit default swaps" used before the GFC. All are still being sold.

Among the high-level warnings that have been issued regarding ETFs, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pointed out back in 2011 that, even though most ETFs are supported by one or more market makers, there is no guarantee of active trading under illiquid conditions. The IMF wrote: "Analysts point to the so-called flash crash in May 2010 as an example of the risks ETFs are susceptible to, when market makers were overwhelmed by a surge in computer-driven selling. Market makers stopped offering bid-ask quotes, fuelling volatility further and the eventual meltdown in equity prices" on the US market.

If you want an indexed fund, you can always use the Vanguard Retail Managed Fund (minimum $5000) but its returns are significantly lower than the ETF. Interestingly, the Colonial First State Wholesale Index Australian Share Fund (also $5000 minimum) almost matches the ETF, VAS. For example, over one year, the ETF and the CFS fund have returned 13.7 per cent each; 6.5 per cent and 6.3 per cent compound respectively over three years, and 11.5 per cent and 11.4 per cent over five years. By comparison, the Vanguard Retail Australian Shares Fund shows returns of 13.1 per cent, 5.9 per cent and 10.8 per cent over the same periods. (All figures from their respective websites.)

But why remove the money from the tax shelter that is super? You could either set up a self-managed super fund, which can then buy an index fund, or rollover into the CFS index fund.

I am an Australian citizen, engaged to my British fiance. Our plan, after marrying, is to move to Britain. Will I still be able to claim my disability pension once I have migrated from Australia? I am 61, my husband to be is 72 and on the age pension. We will definitely need the two incomes in order to live there, although there is a small chance that I can do a bit of part-time work. W.B.
Some girls and young women wanted Rodger Garry Leighton to give them laughing- gas so they could cope with their fear of dentists.

Instead, they and other patients faced a worse nightmare as he sexually molested them while they were immobilised by the nitrous oxide gas as they reclined in his Sydney dental chair.

Rodger Leighton has been jailed for a second time. Credit:Edwina Pickles.

On Monday in Sydney's District Court, Judge Chris Craigie jailed the frail 81-year-old retired dentist for eight years with a non-parole period of three years for his "brazen" predatory crimes.

He had pleaded guilty to molesting five girls, aged between 10 and 14, and three young women between 1974 and 1983 at his surgery at Jannali in Sydney 's south.
The father of a young man stabbed to death in western Sydney says the Valentine's Day killing left a "huge gaping hole" in his family's life.

Wade Martinez, 23, and Jake Tortell, 21, on Monday faced a NSW Supreme Court sentence hearing after a jury found them guilty of the 2015 murder of George Garmo.

Wade Martinez is escorted from a prison services vehicle into the Supreme Court on Monday. Credit:AAP

The 20-year-old was killed on February 14, two weeks before his birthday, and his "devastated" father said he had to organise his son's funeral instead of celebrating his 21st.

"For the rest of our lives we will continue to wonder what George would be like at each birthday and every milestone," Harith Garmo said in a victim impact statement that was read in court.
Four men who removed a brass sword from a Brisbane war memorial crucifix have been found guilty of wilful damage.

James Joseph Dowling, Andrew William Paine, Tim Webb and Franz Dowling all pleaded not guilty to desecrating the memorial at the Toowong Cemetery on Ash Wednesday, saying they improved the stone cross by removing a symbol of war that was not in line with Christian teachings.

Photos of the Catholic Worker movement members removing the sword from the Cross of Sacrifice on Ash Wednesday.

Queensland's chief magistrate, Ray Rinaudo, says they acted in line with their beliefs, but the law condemned the destruction of public property.

Ringleader Dowling received a three-month wholly suspended jail sentence, 100 hours of community service and was ordered to repay half of the $17,812 in restitution, Webb was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service and pay the remainder of the restitution, and Dowling and Paine each received fines.
One of three men accused of raping an unconscious teenager with a bottle at an Australia Day party described footage of the alleged assault as the "funniest thing I've ever seen", a court has heard.

Bailey Hayes-Gordon, Jacob Watson and Nicholas Jackson on Monday pleaded not guilty in the Brisbane District Court to one count each of rape in relation to the alleged assault of a 19-year-old in 2015.

The trio jointly raped the man, who had passed out on a bed, by inserting a bottle into his anus and repeatedly moving it in and out without his consent, crown prosecutor Caroline Marco said.

The prosecution alleges Jackson rolled the teenager over and restrained him by his feet, Watson took video footage on his phone and Hayes-Gordon - as the principal offender - inserted the bottle.

Footage of the assault was later shared in Facebook conversations, with Hayes-Gordon accused of posting the video and screenshots and writing: "(The complainant) passed out so we stuck a bottle up his arse and he just took it".
Four Christian zealots who claimed they were "improving" a Toowong war memorial in March 2017 by removing a brasss sword from a stone cross have been found guilty of vandalism.

Two have narrowly avoided jail terms and were ordered to repay $17,812 in repairs between them.

Guilty but unrepentent Catholic activist Jim Dowling outside Brisbane Magistrates Court. Credit:Tony Moore

The four broke one of the brass blades from Toowong's Cross of Sacrifice, which was erected in 1924, and beat it into a crude hoe, angering the general community and Queensland's defence community.

The Toowong monument was where Queensland's Anazc Day services were held until Anzac Square was built in 1930. It honours Reverend David Garland, acknowledged as the founder of Anzac Day.
A three-year-old Sydney girl who almost drowned in a Bali pool has received overwhelming support from the public to fly her to Perth for treatment.

The Manly Daily reports Kawa Sweeney was on a trip with her parents when she was found unconscious in a pool in their villa on Sunday morning.

It's been reported she was resuscitated by a doctor from Perth.

After issues with their travel insurance her parents Dee Tang and Desmond Sweeney turned to social media in a plea to raise $42,000 to get their daughter on a plane to Perth as soon as possible.
Don Damond is comforted by his son Zach Damond following the death of his fiancee Justine. Credit:Star Tribune/AP And in interviews last week in Sydney and Minneapolis, Damond's friends and her fiance were trying to fill in the blanks of her final night. A week has passed. A cardboard sign at the end of the alleyway, propped amid the flowers laid there by friends and neighbours, asks the still-unanswered question: Why? Justine Damond was shot and killed in Minneapolis by US police. Credit:LinkedIn From silence to 'Yes'

She was the luminous Australian in the Fulton neighbourhood of Minneapolis, leading meditation sessions, scattering her communications with rainbow emojis and greeting people with, "Hello, beautiful!" Don Damond, Justine Damond's fiance, is comforted outside his home by Valerie Castile, the mother of Philando Castile. Credit:Star Tribune/AP One moment her friends remember her for is the time she rescued a flock of ducklings from a street drain, descending barefoot to scoop them up. It was only last month. At one of the talks she occasionally gave at the Lake Harriet Spiritual Community, Damond, again barefoot, told the story: "You've never lived until you've had eight ducklings fling themselves into your lap because they've realised you're trying to help," she said. "So beautiful!" Justine Damond and her fiance Don Damond. Credit:Facebook

Born in pre-revolutionary Iran to an Australian mother and an American father who was teaching English in Tehran, Justine Ruszczyk grew up on Sydney's north shore with an affinity for horses, a three-legged dog named Brad and any animal she could rescue and nurse to health in her home. Her mother was a nurse midwife; her father owned a bookstore. She studied to become a veterinarian, but disliked that so much of the job consisted of spaying animals, said Sara Baldwin, her godmother. Then, when she was 22, her mother died of cancer. In pain and confusion, she went to an ashram, emerging from a three-week silent retreat with a determination to practise a different kind of healing. "There was a time when I wasn't sure I wanted to stay on the planet," she wrote on her blog in August 2014. "It took me 13 years to come to where I am now - living with a deeply connected understanding of what it means to be a spiritual being in this very physical experience, a clear and grounded understanding of how this reality around me comes into being - and to be honest it was a pretty long and painful journey at times." She found what she was looking for in the teachings of Joe Dispenza, a chiropractor with a wide following for his ideas about changing lives through the power of the human brain. At a meditation retreat in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2012, she met Don Damond, a casino manager from Minneapolis. "Hey, I just met my future wife," he told a friend when he returned. "The only problem is, she lives 9000 miles [15,000 kilometres] away."

They chatted on Facebook for months, but when Don Damond declared his feelings for her, Ruszczyk went silent for more than a year. She told friends that she did not reciprocate until, having drawn up a list of the traits she wanted in a partner, she realised Damond was a match. They met in Maui, in Australia, in San Francisco, impatient with happiness. The day he planned to propose, standing in the Marin Headlands with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, it was cold, and she kept trying to put her hand in his coat pocket where he had the ring. He had to keep grabbing her hand to stop her from finding it before he was ready to pull it out himself. She said yes. Reluctantly leaving Australia, Ruszczyk, who through her father was an American citizen, moved to Minneapolis in 2015. "She had her family there," Damond said on Friday. "All her friends, lifelong relationships, and she moved here for one person."

Though she took his name, they put off marrying, partly because a wedding with families on two sides of the world would be hard to organise, partly because Justine Damond was so absorbed in a new project, creating training materials for Dispenza. Someday, she told Baldwin, she hoped she and Don would return to Sydney. It was not only the weather or her friends or family that drew her back. "She didn't like the guns" in the United States, Baldwin said. "She didn't like the violence." 'We think it's Justine'

With Damond in Las Vegas for work, she had been sleeping on his side of the bed - the left, under a pair of dream catchers - when she heard a scream for help. She walked across the white shag rug to the windows that overlook the backyard. She peeked past the massive oak tree. The noise was coming from near a neighbour's garage on the right, she told Damond. At 11.27pm, a call came in to 911. "Hi, I'm, I can hear someone out back and I, I'm not sure if she's having sex or being raped," Justine Damond reported, according to a transcript released by the Minneapolis police. "We've already got help on the way," the operator promised.

Eight minutes later, officers had not arrived. Damond called back, wondering if they had gone to the wrong place. They were coming, the operator reassured her. Nearby, Officer Matthew Harrity, with a year on the force, and Officer Mohamed Noor, with 21 months, got the call. Noor had been the first Somali officer in the immigrant-rich 5th Precinct, his hiring hailed by the mayor and members of Minneapolis' Somali community. He was supposed to be a bridge, leaping over the chasm of ingrained suspicion between the community and the police. Here, now, he was another officer, less than three hours from the end of a 10-hour shift. They turned their Ford Explorer into the alleyway behind Damond's house, driving south along a stretch of concrete and asphalt wide enough only for one car. Their lights were off. Under the street lamps, the detached garages on either side were pale in their vinyl sidings.

As they reached the end of the alley, Harrity, who was driving, was startled by a loud noise near the squad car, he told investigators. Then Damond came up to his open window. Noor fired. Past his partner, through the window, the bullet found Damond's abdomen. The officers got out of the car, calling back to the dispatch centre, as the operator's computer recorded the first sign that lives were about to change on two continents: "ONE DOWN ... STARTING CPR." In Las Vegas, Don Damond's texts to his fiancee were going unanswered. Maybe she had just gone back to bed, Damond thought. About 12.45 am, the Minneapolis police called. There had been a shooting. A woman had died.

Damond told himself it must have been the woman being raped. Then he asked who the victim was. "We can't give a positive ID, but we think it's Justine," Damond said he was told. He sat at a slot machine, hyperventilating. Had the rapist killed his fiance? He was at the airport when the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is investigating the shooting, called to say that the person who had pulled the trigger was a police officer. Damond got a seat on the 7am flight to Minneapolis. When he landed, a friend, a Delta Air Lines employee, was waiting. Hugging him, Damond heaved with sobs.

"There's like a glitch in the matrix," Damond recalled thinking. "I just know I'm going to wake up from this nightmare." One shot, many questions A year after a police officer in a Twin Cities suburb fatally shot Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black driver whose dying moments were streamed by his girlfriend on Facebook, some of the same questions have pursued the shooting of Damond. What led Noor to fire his weapon? The loud noise the other officer said he had heard? Fear of an ambush, as his partner's lawyer has implied? At this point, almost everything is conjecture. Neither officer had his body camera turned on, leaving investigators and the public blind, a fact that the Minneapolis mayor, Betsy Hodges, has called "unacceptable".

Noor, whose record included three civilian complaints and a lawsuit over his treatment of a woman while performing a mental health check-up, has declined to speak to investigators. Both officers have been placed on leave, and on Friday, the mayor forced the police chief, Janee Harteau, to resign. It was an abrupt end to a contentious tenure as chief, during which Harteau faced criticism over her handling of other police shootings, including the killing of a black man, Jamar Clark, that led to weeks of protests. Activists have also questioned why city officials moved so decisively to condemn the shooting in this case, compared with other police shootings in which the victims were black. But as in other cases, prosecutors may find it difficult to make a case against Noor if he argues that he believed he was in danger. A 1989 Supreme Court decision, Graham v Connor, held that officers' actions had to be judged by whether force was reasonable given what the officer knew at the time.

"There is this huge misunderstanding in this country about the rules surrounding police officers' use of deadly force," said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief in Redlands, California, who is now the president of the Police Foundation, a research group. "People just say, if a person was unarmed, why would an officer have shot him or her?" In fast-moving situations, police protocol often leaves little room for error. What made this shooting particularly bizarre, to veteran police officers, was that Noor fired at close range past his partner. Many officers would be furious or unnerved if a partner shot across them in any situation short of being attacked, said Vernon Geberth, a former New York City police commander and the author of Practical Homicide Investigation, a widely used textbook. The officer's partner might well be thinking, "You could've shot my head off," Geberth said.

Personal effects Barefoot, on a beach in Kona, Hawaii, exchanging vows under a wooden arch trellised with Tibetan prayer flags onto which their guests would add prayers of their own: that was the plan. The wedding was set for August 17. Don Damond would wear a bright blue suit with an open-collar white shirt. Following tradition, he had never seen Justine Damond's dress. Now last-minute wedding tasks had given way to the business of death. There was a cremation to arrange, her clothes and engagement ring to pick up from investigators. Loading
Paris: More than 200 sheep have died after they hurtled over the edge of a cliff in the Pyrenees mountains while being chased by a bear, reigniting a debate about the predator's reintroduction to France.

The bears were reintroduced to the mountain range on the French-Spanish border 20 years ago after disappearing in the early 90s.

A French shepherd. Local authorities sent experts to examine the scene during the week and they concluded that the sheep had been running away from a bear. Credit:File

The sheep belonged to a farmer in the Couflens area on the French side of the border, but their bodies were found last Sunday at the foot of a cliff just over the border in Spain.

The rest of the large flock were missing after dispersing over the mountains while fleeing an attack.
San Antonio police officers investigate the semi trailer where the gruesome discovery was made. Credit:AP The employee "came back with the water, called the police, and we found eight dead in the back of that trailer," McManus said. The back of the trailer was open by the time police arrived, shortly after midnight, a spokesman said. Young girls take part in a vigil at San Fernando Cathedral. Several people died after being crammed into a sweltering semi trailer. Credit:AP The driver was taken into custody. Federal officials plan to file a criminal complaint against James M. Bradley jnr, 60, on Friday.

Eight were dead on the scene, and one more died in a hospital hours later, according to federal officials. A hearse sits in the parking lot of a Walmart store where eight people were found dead. Credit:AP "We're very fortunate there weren't 38 people that were all locked inside the vehicle, dead," Hood said. Some of the survivors ran into the surrounding trees, according to police, evading helicopters and foot patrols in the darkness. One person was later found nearby. But many more remained in the truck, in dire need of help.

"They were very hot to the touch," Hood said. "Each one of them had heart rates over about 130 beats per minute." They had been transported inside "a refrigeration truck with no refrigeration," he told CNN. "If they were to spend another night in that environment, you'd have 38 people who would not have survived." As it was, Hood said, 30 were hospitalised - 17 in critical condition. Of those who suffered heatstrokes, a lot of them are going to have some irreversible brain damage," he said. "We flooded downtown San Antonio and our critical hospitals with patients tonight." At least two in the truck were school-age children, he said. A spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not specify what would happen to survivors once they left the hospital.

"All custody issues are handled on a case by case basis," she said. While juveniles were initially reported among the dead, a police spokesman said the children survived. Authorities tagged and numbered the bodies, and were trying to figure out their identities. A hearse pulled into the carpark early on Sunday morning, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Walmart customers went about their shopping when the store reopened, though a large area of the carpark remained cordoned off with police tape.

The truck was towed away later in the morning. It advertised an Iowa company - Pyle Transportation - on the side. Brian Pyle identified himself as the owner of the company but said the driver owned the truck, managed his own deliveries and operated largely independently from his company. "This was his very first trip," Pyle said. "It's a common thing in the trucking industry . . . He had my name on the side, and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel." Pyle declined to name the driver, who he said was from Louisville, and said he had no idea what the man was transporting. While investigators did not know where the truck had driven from, the police chief said such operations were routine in the area - often going undiscovered in the darkness.

A San Antonio police spokesman said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would take over the investigation. In his own statement, ICE acting director Thomas Homan wrote that he had worked on a similar case 14 years ago - in which 19 people suffocated inside an abandoned milk trailer in south Texas. "These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle, as last night's case demonstrates," Homan wrote. His sentiments were echoed by Democrat lawmaker Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who has criticised many of the Trump administration's moves toward stricter immigration policies. "The smugglers responsible for the incident, who showed no regard for the lives of the people they were transporting, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Castro wrote.

A candlelight vigil was planned at a cathedral, and Mayor Ron Nirenberg offered his sympathy. The grisly discovery in San Antonio comes as the Trump administration is calling on Congress to increase funding for border security and to expand the wall on the southern border with Mexico. It also illuminates the extreme risks immigrants face as they try to elude border agents in the searing northern summer heat. Some try to slip through legal checkpoints undetected, while others sneak illegally across the border. Many are fleeing violence and poverty in Latin America, advocates say. It is unclear whether the truck smuggled the immigrants across the border or picked them up once they had crossed into the United States. According to US Border Patrol, thousands have died trying to enter the United States from 1998 to 2016, drowning in the Rio Grande, lost in the desolate ranch lands of south Texas, or collapsing from exhaustion in the Arizona desert. Two weeks ago, Houston police discovered 12 immigrants, including a girl, who had been locked for hours inside a sweltering truck also in a carpark, banging for someone to rescue them. Three people were arrested. A Harris County prosecutor said the migrants were at imminent risk of death.
San Antonio: A truck driver faces the possibility of the death penalty or life in prison under a federal criminal charge in the deaths of 10 migrants who were being smuggled in a stifling semi trailer found in a Walmart carpark.

Human traffickers had probably packed more than 100 people into the hot, unventilated semi trailer driven by James Bradley jnr, federal officials said.

Bradley, 60, was charged under a federal law against knowingly transporting people who are in the country illegally - a law that provides for an unlimited prison term or capital punishment, if the crime results in a death. He made a brief initial appearance in US District Court on Monday, answering, "Yes, I do," when Judge Betsy Chestney asked if he understood the maximum penalties he faced.

Three federal marshals escorted Bradley, who was handcuffed, to and from the courtroom. Wearing a dark blue prison uniform, he appeared composed, giving brief, direct answers to the judge's questions.
Over 1,200 mail-in votes added to Montco totals; Bucks still in limbo

Two of Montgomery County's three commissioners said they did not support disenfranchising more than 1,200 voters because of a handful of rule breakers
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October 31, 2022

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Builders Merchants Federations (BMF) has announced Simon Weston to be the keynote speaker at the BMF Members Day in September.

Thirty-five years ago, the Sir Galahad was destroyed in Bluff Cove on the Falkland Islands. Simon, a Welsh Guardsman, was on board. In the aftermath, his name and face become well known for his struggle to overcome his injuries and redefine his role in life. Simons message is one of achievement, of triumph over adversity, of seizing the moment and succeeding.

Simon conveys his story in order to motivate and encourage those, who like him, want to move on to the next goal, whatever it may be. The only obstacles to achieving ones targets and successes are those you create for yourself. His words never fail to inspire.

The Build Show is supporting Simons appearance at BMF Members Day. Nathan Garnett, director the Build Shows parent company, Media Ten, said: "The Build Show has always been keen to support veterans who often join the construction sector. Veterans are crucial in this sector to keep the skilled workforce levels we need to meet the challenges of building millions of new homes, so for the Build Show to sponsor Simon Weston at the BMF Member's Day is a real privilege.

John Newcomb, BMF CEO said: We are not only delighted to welcome Simon to Members Day we are also pleased to have the Build Show involved as a sponsor for the first time.
Teen visits South Jersey in 50-state Flowers and Flags tribute to vets

Preston Sharp of Calif. visits veterans graves in Cinnaminson cemetery in South Jersey on 50-state Flowers and Flags tribute to their sacrifices
The Rajasthan police have arrested 31 persons and claimed to have busted an inter-state syndicate that allegedly stole crude oil worth crores of rupees from Cairn India's oilfield in Barmer over the past several years.

"We have arrested 31 persons in connection with a crude oil stealing racket, including 7-8 persons working with Cairn India. Seventeen drivers involved in the syndicate have been arrested," SP, Barmer, Gagandeep Singla told PTI.

More arrests are likely, he said adding that the police were investigating the links of the syndicate outside the state.

We have been able to establish links of the racket in Uttar Pradesh and Kolkata so far, Singla said adding that the role of some top officials of the oil and gas giant was also being examined.

The Barmer police had yesterday arrested two accused with one tanker that was filled with 2,200 litres crude oil, police officials said.

The accused were arrested on the information that crude oil from the Cairn India field was being supplied to factories.

According to the police, operators were authorised for transporting water. However tankers were used to carry oil in two of the five compartments inside them while the rest would be filled with water.

Two of the accused Sata Ram and Dharma Ram were allegedly selling the crude to Gautam Singh and Bhoor Singh at a factory located about 12 km from the city, the police claimed.

Gautam Singh allegedly paid Rs 7.50 per litre to the tanker owner and sold the crude further, the police claimed.

The tanker owner kept Rs 4 for himself and distributed the rest Rs 3. 50 among the staff posted at production site, the surveyor, helpers and others, they said.

SP, Barmer, Singla said the tankers belonged to a Gujarat-based firm and a local construction company.

Based on the statement of the accused, the police claimed that theft of 15000-20,000 litres of crude oil worth Rs 3 lakh was taking place daily leading to loss of Rs 11 crore per annum to the company.

The lid was blown off the racket following a complaint lodged by Cairn India's legal officer on July 14 at Nagana police station of Barmer against tanker operators, Sata Ram and Dharma Ram, the police said.
After Tata Group and IndiGo, Air Indias privatisation bid has received yet another boost as private equity players KKR and Co and Warbug Pincus have expressed interest in acquiring the national carriers businesses, reported Live Mint.
The Competition Commission of India on Monday gave an unconditional nod to Vodafone-Idea merger with no additional scrutiny, sources said today. CCI has further sent the letters of approval to Vodafone and Idea.


Essar Steel on Monday sought dismissal of an application for insolvency proceedings filed against it by lead creditor State Bank of India (SBI) on "technical grounds" at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Ahmedabad bench.
A huge pay gap between CEOs and other employees at Indian has come to the fore, with the biggest listed blue-chip firms doling out to their top executives salary packages of up to 1,200-times of their median employee remunerations.
Small shareholders (under the banner of Unifi) are trying to get their nominee appointed to the Alembic board
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Accusing the government of making "zero" efforts in bringing back the 39 Indians abducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) three years ago from Iran's Mosul city, the Congress Party on Monday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "net result" for all his middle-east visits.

Speaking to ANI in Bengaluru, Congress leader N A Harris said somewhere the Indian government has failed miserably to help the stranded Indians.

"It's is been pending for more than six months and I don't understand what our government is doing, because the innocent people who are under ISIS, their families will be in difficult situation. The efforts from our country are zero. The Prime Minister also went to Middle East and what is the net result?," he said.

Putting the onus on the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Harris added that the Centre is not able to function or has failed to figure out its priority.

"If the Indians are in problem and if the Indian government will not help them then who will help them?" he said.

The Iraq Embassy on Sunday informed India that search operations are underway to locate the 39 missing Indians who were taken as prisoners by ISIS in 2014, further assuring there is a high level coordination between Iraqi and Indian concerned authorities to locate them.

The Government of India has already sent two high-level senior delegations to Iraq to follow up on this matter.

However, Iraqi Ambassador to India Fakhri H Al-Issa had said that the Embassy has no information about the missing 39 Indians citizens.

"I don't want to say anything. I have no information. Sometimes no news is good news. They might be in Badush prison," Issa said.

Sushma Swaraj, along with Minister of State (MoS) for MEA M J Akbar and MoS MEA Gen (Retd) V K Singh, met families of 39 Indians who are missing in Iraq since 2014 on July 16.

Swaraj had assured, "Once fighting stops in Badush and the area is cleared, we can probably find out about the whereabouts of the missing nationals."
Digital holograms - 3D images recorded using lasers - may be our best bet for finding alien life, scientists say.

No probe since NASA's Viking program in the late 1970s has explicitly searched for extraterrestrial life. Rather, the focus has been on finding water.

Saturn's icy moon Enceladus has a lot of water, but even if life does exist there in some microbial fashion, the difficulty for scientists on Earth is identifying those microbes from 790 million miles away.

"It's harder to distinguish between a microbe and a speck of dust than you'd think," said Jay Nadeau, research professor at California Institute of Technology in the US.

Enceladus has enormous geysers, venting water vapour through cracks in the moon's icy shell, regularly jet out into space.

When the Saturn probe Cassini flew by Enceladus in 2005, it spotted water vapour plumes in the south polar region blasting icy particles at nearly 2,000 kilometres per hour to an altitude of nearly 500 kilometres above the surface.

Scientists calculated that as much as 250 kilogrammes of water vapour were released every second in each plume.

Since those first observations, more than a hundred geysers have been spotted.

Water blasting out into space offers a rare opportunity, said Nadeau. While landing on a foreign body is difficult and costly, a cheaper and easier option might be to send a probe to Enceladus and pass it through the jets, where it would collect water samples that could possibly contain microbes.

Some strategies for demonstrating that a microscopic speck is actually a living microbe involve searching for patterns in its structure or studying its specific chemical composition.

"Looking at patterns and chemistry is useful, but I think we need to take a step back and look for more general characteristics of living things, like the presence of motion," he said.

To study the motion of potential microbes from Enceladus's plumes, Nadeau proposed using an instrument called a digital holographic microscope that has been modified specifically for astrobiology.

In digital holographic microscopy, an object is illuminated with a laser and the light that bounces off the object and back to a detector is measured.

This scattered light contains information about the intensity of the scattered light and about its phase - a property that can be used to tell how far the light travelled.

With the two types of information, a computer can reconstruct a 3D image of the object - one that can show motion through all three dimensions.

To study the technology's potential utility for analysing extraterrestrial samples, researchers obtained samples of water from the Arctic, which is sparsely populated with bacteria.

With holographic microscopy, Nadeau was able to identify organisms with population densities of just 1,000 cells per millilitre of volume, similar to what exists in some of the most extreme environments on Earth, such as subglacial lakes.

That low threshold for detection, coupled with the system's ability to test a lot of samples quickly (at a rate of about one millilitre per hour) and its few moving parts, makes it ideal for astrobiology, Nadeau said.
In his farewell address to the nation on the last day of his presidential tenure, President Pranab Mukherjee said the multiplicity in culture, faith and language makes India special. He also expressed concern at the increased violence in the society, which he said stems from "darkness, fear and mistrust." Mukherjee said the power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society.
During the Kargil war in 1999, the Indian Air Force (IAF) narrowly missed bombing a Pakistani army forward base that was hosting the current and then Pakistani Prime Minister and then Pakistan Army chief General Pervez Musharraf, the Indian Express reported on Monday.
India has witnessed the third highest number of terrorist attacks in 2016, more than Pakistan that has slipped to the fourth position, according to the latest data compiled by the US State Department. (Read the full report here)



Iraq with 2,965 terrorist attacks and Afghanistan with 1,340 terrorist attacks, were ranked first and second position respectively, followed by India that recorded 927 attacks and Pakistan at 734 attacks, the department said in its Country Report on Terrorism.

The department said more than half of the terrorist attacks in India in 2016 took place in four states: Jammu and Kashmir at 19 per cent, Chhattisgarh at 18 per cent, Manipur at 12 per cent, and Jharkhand at 10 per cent.

This geographic pattern is relatively stable compared to 2015, with the exception of Jammu and Kashmir, which experienced an increase of 93 per cent in attacks in 2016, it said.

In its annual report, the department said the number of terrorist attacks has increased by 16 per cent and the total number of deaths has increased by 17 per cent in India in 2016.

Although India ranked third among countries that experienced the most in 2016, the lethality of these attacks remained relatively low compared to other countries that also experienced a great deal of terror violence.

On average, in India led to 0.4 deaths per attack in 2016, compared to 2.4 deaths per attack worldwide, the report said.

Nearly three-quarters of attacks at 73 per cent in India in 2016 were non-lethal, the report said.

According to the report, the deadliest attack in India in 2016 took place in July, when the Communist Party of India - Maoist detonated explosives and opened fire on Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Bihar. Sixteen people were killed in the attack, including six assailants.

According to the report, a majority of terrorist attacks in India in 2016 involved either bombings/explosions at 47 percent or armed assaults at 18 per cent.

In addition, kidnappings were particularly prevalent in India at 15 per cent of all attacks, compared to 10 per cent worldwide, as were facility/infrastructure attacks at 12 per cent of all attacks, compared to 6 per cent worldwide, the report said.

The report ranked the Philippines at fifth position with 482 terrorist attacks and Nigeria at sixth position with 466 attacks.

In 2015, Iraq at 2418 attacks and Afghanistan at 1708 attacks were ranked first and second respectively, while Pakistan took the third spot with 1009 terrorist attack.

Pakistan was ranked second in 2014, when it experienced 1823 terrorist attacks.

In 2013, there were as many as 1920 terrorist attacks in Pakistan, killing 2315 people.

In Pakistan, the report said in 2016, the total number of terrorist attacks reported in Pakistan decreased by 27 per cent, and the total number of deaths decreased by 12 per cent.

However, the total number of people injured increased 29 per cent in comparison to 2015.

The number of perpetrators killed in attacks in Pakistan in 2016 decreased 25 per cent between 2015 and 2016.

Perpetrator deaths comprised nine of all deaths in Pakistan in 2016, compared to 26 percent worldwide, the report said.

The State Department said for 70 per cent of all attacks in Pakistan, source materials did not identify a perpetrator group.

Of the remaining attacks, 30 per cent were carried out by Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the most active and deadly perpetrator group in Pakistan in 2016.

The number of terrorist attacks carried out by TTP continued to decline, to 67 in 2016, down from 136 in 2013.

However, following sharp declines in previous years, the lethality of attacks carried out by TTP increased in 2016 to 283 total deaths, up from 240 in 2015, it said.

According to the department, several countries that have routinely experienced large numbers of terrorist attacks in recent years observed considerable decreases in total attacks in 2016, compared to 2015.
Outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee addressed the nation one last time. In his address he stated that he was indebted to the love and kindness of the people he received in the past five years. He said, "I congratulate and extend a warm welcome to Shri Ram Nath Kovind, the President-to-be and wish him success and happiness in the years to come." "But I have no sermon to make. For the past fifty years of my public life,  My sacred text has been the Constitution of India; My temple has been the Parliament of India; and My passion has been the service ...

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Udupi Ramachandra Rao, an internationally renowned space scientist who had been at the forefront of developing space technology in India, passed away at the age of 85 in Bengaluru on Monday morning. He was the scientist who spearheaded the establishment of satellite technology in the country and the launch of India's first satellite, Aryabhata, in 1975.
The state government in Delhi told Philip Morris International Inc and other tobacco companies on Saturday to remove all advertisements from tobacco shops in the city, warning them of legal action if they do not comply.

The order, sent by Delhi state's chief tobacco control officer S. K. Arora, comes days after Reuters reported that Philip Morris was promoting Marlboro cigarettes, the world's best-selling brand, by advertising them at tobacco shops and distributing free cigarette samples. Government officials say such tactics flout the law.

The strategy was laid out in hundreds of pages of internal Philip Morris documents reviewed by Reuters that cover the period from 2009 to 2016.

Indian officials have previously said tobacco advertising using brand names or promotional slogans is illegal under the country's Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and its accompanying rules. But Philip Morris and India's leading cigarette maker ITC Ltd say they comply with regulations and that the law allows advertising inside a kiosk.

Arora said the central health ministry had told him that all brand advertisements, irrespective of where they were placed, were not allowed in the country.

Philip Morris and ITC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Tobacco companies have continued to advertise at sale points despite repeated warnings from the Delhi state government in recent years. Philip Morris has been paying a monthly fee to some tobacco vendors to display the company's colourful advertisements, the Reuters investigation found.

Arora also told Reuters he "will investigate and conduct raids" to check on the distribution of free cigarettes at social events. "If violations are found, action as per law will be taken," Arora said.

India enacted its tobacco control law in 2003 and has since added rules to strengthen it, but government officials say companies get away with violations because law enforcement is weak.

The central health ministry on Friday said it planned to seek an explanation from Philip Morris and other tobacco companies about their marketing practices following the Reuters investigation that was published earlier this week. Philip Morris and ITC did not respond to requests for comment.
The Uttar Pradesh government will soon launch 'Pink' air-conditioned buses exclusively for women, an official said on Monday.

The union government's Ministry of Women and Child Development has sanctioned funds for the 50 buses from its 'Nirbhaya Fund'.

The staff, including a conductor in these buses, will be women, the official added.

A presentation for these buses was made before ministry officials on July 21 by the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) authorities.

The ministry has mandated the state government to buy the buses and also to purchase and install CCTV cameras in the other 12,500 buses owned by the UPSRTC.

The 'Pink' buses will have panic buttons installed for emergencies.
Raking up a controversy, Aurangabad District Magistrate Kanwal Tanuj has said that those who cannot build a toilet for their wives, should sell them.

He was addressing a public gathering on Saturday on a cleanliness drive in Jamhore village of the Aurangabad district.

"Due to lack of toilets, women get raped and harassed. It only costs Rs. 12,000 for the construction of the toilet. Is 12,000 more than anyone's wife's dignity? Who can let her wife get raped in return of Rs. 12000?" Tanuj said.

"If this is your mentality then go and sell your wife. Those who cannot build toilet should sell or auction his wife," he added.
On a day Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended six Congress Lok Sabha members for causing grave disorder, the Opposition parties said they would unitedly continue to raise issues, particularly of agrarian distress, in both the Houses.
The Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven prominent Kashmiri separatists on charges of receiving funds from Pakistan to sponsor terrorist activities and stone-pelting protests in the Kashmir Valley.

Speaking to IANS, Jammu and Kashmir Police sources in Srinagar and an NIA official in Delhi identified the seven as Nayeem Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah and Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal.

Shah is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir's merger with Pakistan, and Islam is a close aide of moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Akbar is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat.

Karate was arrested from Delhi and the others from Srinagar. The six would be taken to Delhi, an NIA official said.

While New Delhi has for decades accused Islamabad of funding, arming and training Kashmiri separatists, it is the first time so many senior members of the Hurriyat Conference have been arrested on charges of receiving money from Pakistan.

The Geelani-led Hurriyat suspended Nayeem Khan after he confessed in a TV sting operation that Hurriyat leaders had been receiving funds from Pakistan for subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley.

The NIA had questioned the arrested persons after the May 2017 expose. Shah was questioned earlier in Delhi for nearly two weeks.

In June, the NIA conducted raids in Srinagar, Jammu, Delhi and Haryana and reportedly seized incriminating evidence against those involved in receiving, acting as intermediaries and final beneficiaries of funds coming from Pakistan.

The NIA FIR names Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference, Hizbul Mujahideen and Dukhtaran-e-Milat.

During the raids, the NIA had recovered unaccounted account books, Rs 2 crore in cash and letterheads of banned terrorist groups including LeT and Hizbul.

The NIA also seized property-related documents, pen drives, laptops, mobile phones, phone diaries, receipts and vouchers from the residences showing hawala payments.
in the US have successfully reversed brain damage in a two-year-old who became unresponsive to all stimuli after a drowning accident.

The girl experienced cardiac arrest after a cold water drowning accident in a swimming pool. After resuscitation at Arkansas Children's Hospital in the US, MRI revealed deep brain injury as well as grey and white matter loss.

She had no speech, gait or responsiveness to commands, and was constantly squirming and shaking her head.

Since hyperbaric oxygen therapy was not available in the patient's location, at Louisiana State University Sciences Center in the US began a bridging treatment to prevent permanent tissue degeneration until they could get the patient to a hyperbaric treatment center.

Fifty-five days post-drowning, they began short duration treatment with 100 per cent normobaric oxygen for 45 minutes twice a day through a nasal cannula.

The girl became more alert, awake and stopped squirming, said.

Her rate of neurological improvement increased amd she started laughing, increased movement of arms, hands, and taking some food orally.

She also showed pre-drowning speech level, but with diminished vocabulary.

The patient and family then traveled to New Orleans 78 days after drowning, where doctors began treating her with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

She "dove" in a hyperbaric chamber for 45 minutes a day, five days a week for 40 sessions.

"At the beginning of each session, the patient showed visually apparent and/or physical examination-documented neurological improvement," doctors said.

"After 10 HBOT sessions, the patient's mother reported that her daughter was "near normal" except for gross motor function, and physical therapy was re-instituted," they said.

After 39 HBOT sessions, the patient exhibited assisted gait, speech level greater than pre-drowning, near normal motor function, normal cognition, improvement on nearly all neurological exam abnormalities, discontinuance of all medications, as well as residual emotional, gait and temperament deficits.

Gait improvement was documented immediately upon returning home.

An MRI at 27 days following HBOT session 40 and 162 days post-drowning demonstrated mild residual injury and near- complete reversal of grey and white matter loss.

The synergy of increased oxygen and increased oxygen with pressure in the hormone-rich environment in a child's growing brain is consistent with the synergy of growth hormones and hyperbaric oxygen caused by normobaric and hyperbaric oxygen- induced activation of genes that reduce inflammation and promote cell survival.

"The startling regrowth of tissue in this case occurred because we were able to intervene early in a growing child, before long-term tissue degeneration," said Paul Harch, Director of Hyperbaric Medicine at LSU .

"Such low-risk medical treatment may have a profound effect on recovery of function in similar patients who are neurologically devastated by drowning," said Harch.

The case was reported in the journal Medical Gas Research.
Room for peacefully ending the will shrink the longer Indian troops "remain on the Chinese side" of the mutually recognised section of the Indo-China border, an article published in the English-language Chinese daily said on Monday.
Bitcoin and other crypto or virtual currencies have surged the past week after a sharp fall, as a solution to increase the speed of transactions has been agreed upon by miners. The solution is expected to avoid problems and hiccups in trading when it is implemented on August 1.
The Directorate General of Anti-Dumping (DGAD) has again started a probe to ascertain if dumping of solar panel imports from China, Malaysia and Taiwan is hurting the domestic industry.
The cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops with new transgenic traits such as herbicide tolerance (HT) is spreading fast in cotton growing states even though no license or approval has been granted by authorities such as GEAC or ICAR for growing them in India.
Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India not to follow the bill-and-keep method of pricing calls, as proposed by Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio and Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications.
Going ahead with its commitment towards the responsibility of creating, upgrading, maintaining and managing civil aviation infrastructure in the country, Airports Authority of India (AAI) signed an MoU with Government of Uttarakhand last week and joined hands with Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) to develop the civil aviation sector in the state. .

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The scope of the MoU is to identify relevant factors influencing the development of civil aviation infrastructure in Uttarakhand, assessing commercial potential of various airports of the state, identifying technical considerations for airport operations in the state, evaluating site related technical and engineering parameters for development of projects, making estimate of the capital outlay for the future projects and development of master plan for existing and future civil aviation infrastructure in the state. AAI will also assist UCADA in obtaining necessary clearances for airport operations starting with the upgraded airport at Pithoragarh and later at Chiniyalisaur. .

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The MoU was signed by Shri. S. Ramaswamy, Chief Secretary, Government of Uttarakhand and Shri. Anil Gupta, General Manager (Business Development). Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Secretary, GoUK said that the Government of Uttarakhand is determined to fulfill the long pending requirement of operational airports within the state. These airports would also be part of the Regional Connectivity Scheme and will boost tourism and air connectivity for the local public. .

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Extension of Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor

A letter from the Chief Minister of Kerala was received suggesting a Kochi-Palakkad Hi-tech Industrial Corridor, which the Chief Minister wishes to link with the Chennai Bengaluru Industrial Corridor. Preparation of a National Plan on Manufacturing Clusters is underway to facilitate optimal utilization of resources.

The proposal would be appraised accordingly by National Industrial Corridor Development and Implementation Trust (NICDIT).

This information was given by the Commerce and Industry Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman in a written reply in Lok Sabha today
Global Conventions on Child Labour

After the enactment of the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, Government has recently ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions No. 138 concerning minimum age for employment and No. 182 concerning prohibition and elimination of worst forms of child labour.

Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 stipulate to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.

In order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal with respect to eradication of child labour, Government has already strengthened the legislative framework by completely prohibiting child labour upto 14 years in all forms and prohibiting employment or work of adolescent in hazardous occupations & processes. Subsequently the ratification of two core ILO Conventions regarding child labour would further strengthen the commitment of Government for effective enforcement of the provision of Child & Adolescent Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986.

This information was given by Shri Bandaru Dattatreya the Minister of State (IC) for Labour and Employment, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, today.
ILO Fundamental Conventions India ratified six out of the eight core/fundamental International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions

India has ratified six out of the eight core/fundamental International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions. These are the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105), Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100), Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111), Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182).

India has not ratified the core/fundamental Conventions, namely Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) and Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

The main reason for non-ratification of ILO Conventions No.87 & 98 is due to certain restrictions imposed on the Government servants. As communicated by Department of Personnel & Training (DOPT), the ratification of these conventions would involve granting of certain rights that are prohibited under the statutory rules, for the Government employees, namely, to strike work, to openly criticize Government policies, to freely accept financial contribution, to freely join foreign organizations etc.

In India we ratify an ILO Convention only when the national laws are brought fully into conformity with the provisions of the Convention in question.

Government of India has been taking various pro-active steps to examine the prospects of ratifying Conventions No. 87 & 98, including holding regular discussions on the issue with the stakeholders.

The matter has also been widely discussed in the meetings of the Tripartite Committee on Conventions (COC). A meeting under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Labour & Employment) is scheduled on 09.08.2017 along DOPT and ILO to further look into the matter, including international practices. Ratification of ILO Convention is a voluntary process and no time frame has been agreed for the same.

This information was given by Shri Bandaru Dattatreya the Minister of State (IC) for Labour and Employment, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, today.

AK
Yoga was inscribed in UNESCOs Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity during the 11th session of Intergovernmental Committee held from 28th November to 02nd December, 2016 at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. .

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The dossier for nomination of Yoga for inclusion in the UNESCOs Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity was submitted to UNESCO Headquarters before the first International Yoga Day. .

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The inclusion of Yoga on the UNESCOs Representative List will contribute to the visibility of intangible cultural heritage in general and raise awareness of its importance at the local, national and international levels as its practice is universal and widespread cutting across community, class, income, gender, faith and age. Additionally, Yogas inscription on the Representative List will promote respect for cultural diversity and human creativity as it will create a commonality and a bond between and across practitioners, transmitters and the diverse communities and individuals that follow the practice. .

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This information was given by Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent Charge) in a written reply in Lok Sabha today. .

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NEET Exam

The provisions for age limit and number of attempts were decided in consultation with Medical Council of India (MCI) and Central board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Accordingly, these were included in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) Bulletin 2017 prepared and issued by CBSE. It was further clarified that the three attempts will be counted from 2017 onwards. The Honble Supreme Court in the matter of Rai Sabyasachi and anr Vs.

Union of India and Ors in WP (C) 99 of 2017 ordered to remove the age limit restriction for NEET-2017. The matter was further heard by the Honble Supreme Court of India dt. 10.07.2017 and decided that as far as the present year is concerned, nothing survives to be adjudicated in the Writ petitions and they are accordingly, disposed off.

In National Eligibility and Entrance Test- Under Graduate (NEET-UG), from the year 2017, three attempts have been fixed. In Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main too, there are three attempts.

Section 10D of Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 prescribes conducting of a uniform entrance examination namely National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to all medical educational institutions at undergraduate and post-graduate level.

The private medical educational institutions have a management quota which is decided by way of signing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the respective State and the Institution. Admission to management quote is also through NEET and common counselling.

This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Shri Upendra Kushwaha today in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question.
Optional reporting of details of one foreign bank account by the non-residents in refund cases

Refund generated on processing of return of income is currently, credited directly to the bank accounts of the tax-payers. Availability of the detail of bank accounts in which the refund is to be credited is a precondition for direct credit of refund in the bank accountsIncome-tax Return Forms for the Assessment Year 2017-18 were notified on 30th March, 2017.

A number of representations were received from the non-residents that they are facing difficulties in getting refund as they do not have bank account in India and there is no column in the notified form of return of income for reporting details of foreign bank account by the non-residents for this purpose. In view of this, a facility has been provided in return utility for reporting of details of bank account by non-residents, who do not have bank account in India and who are claiming income-tax refund. Therefore, the non-residents who are not claiming refund or non-residents who are claiming refund but having a bank account in India are not required to furnish details of their foreign bank account in the return of income. However, the non-residents, who are claiming income-tax refund and not having bank account in India may, at their option, furnish the details of one foreign bank account in the return of income for issuance of refund.
Union Home Minister chairs first meeting of Islands Development Agency (IDA) IDA focuses on Holistic Development of Islands

The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh chaired the first meeting of the newly constituted Islands Development Agency (IDA), here today. The IDA was set up on June 01, 2017 following the Prime Ministers review meeting for the development of islands.

The Union Home Minister presented the vision for developing Indias maritime economy while preserving the natural eco-system and addressing the security concerns. He emphasized upon the need for sustainable development of Islands with peoples participation.

The CEO, NITI Aayog made a detailed presentation on the current status and the way forward for holistic development of identified islands. He informed that Concept Development Plans and Detailed Master Plans are being prepared for identified islands with principles of sustainability, peoples participation, eco-system preservation and determination of carrying capacity as the guiding principles. Such an exercise is being taken up for the first time in the country.

Admiral D.

K. Joshi, former Navy Chief and Vice Chairman of IDA suggested taking up suitable interventions for sustainable implementation of planned projects.
For Britons, is one of the proudest moments of World War II. The evacuation of 338,226 troops and other personnel from the beaches of northern France  which took place between May 26 and June 4 1940  was an act of stubborn defiance by a plucky island nation against Hitlers blitzkrieg. It was a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
Southeast Asian ride-hailing service Grab expects to raise $2.5 billion in a record round of fundraising to cement its lead over Uber Technolgies Inc in the region and grow its payments platform.

Southeast Asia has become a key battleground for technology start-ups vying for a market of over 600 million people, with a burgeoning middle class as well as a youthful, internet-savvy demographic.

Grab's Chinese peer Didi Chuxing and Japan's SoftBank Group Corp, both of which are existing investors, will contribute up to $2 billion to lead the current financing round, it said in its statement on Monday.

The firm expects to raise an additional $500 million, bringing the total to $2.5 billion in this round, which it said would be the largest-ever single financing in Southeast Asia.

Grab will be valued at more than $6 billion at the close of this round, according to a source close to company.

The Singapore-headquartered company said it has a Southeast Asia market share of 95 per cent in third-party taxi-hailing and 71 per cent in private vehicle hailing. It operates private car, motorcycle, taxi and carpooling services across seven countries in the region, with 1.1 million drivers.

"With their (Didi and SoftBank's) support, Grab will achieve an unassailable market lead in ridesharing, and build on this to make GrabPay the payment solution of choice for Southeast Asia," Anthony Tan, group chief executive officer and co-founder of Grab, said in the statement.

Building on soaring user numbers of its Grab ride-hailing app and GrabPay function, the five-year-old start-up aims to transform into a consumer technology firm that also offers loans, electronic money transfer and money-market funds.

Grab bought Indonesian payment service Kudo earlier this year, and has said it is seeking more acquisitions to support rapid growth.

"The heterogeneity of the banking system, multiple competitors in each country, and multiple regulations to meet are barriers to success," said analyst Rushabh Doshi at researcher Canalys.

"However, given no single payment solution has been able to work across all S.E. Asian markets, Grab stands a good chance of building market share via its ride-sharing business model, and then extend the payments to other adjunct businesses," he said.

Grab competes with the likes of Uber, the world's largest ride-hailing service, and Indonesia's Go-Jek. Tencent Holdings invested around $100 million to $150 million in Go-Jek, sources told Reuters earlier this month.

Grab's fundraising comes at a time when San Francisco-based Uber has been beset by complaints about its workplace culture, a federal inquiry into software to help drivers avoid police, and an intellectual property lawsuit by Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc.

Uber has been expected to increase its focus on India and Southeast Asia after retreating from China last year.

Grab's previous investors include sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp, hedge fund Coatue Management LLC, venture capital firm GGV Capital, and Vertex Ventures Holdings  a subsidiary of Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings.
The has raged for more than six years now. Youve probably heard the following story linking it to climate change: an intense drought, made more likely thanks to global warming, caused mass migration within the country from rural to urban areas, which in turn contributed to the 2011 uprising which then escalated into civil conflict.
Grab raised $2 billion from Didi Chuxing and SoftBank Group in the largest-ever venture fundraising in Southeast Asia, joining forces with two instrumental in driving Uber Technologies out of China.
I never told my Bengali parents about my first kiss. I was 14 and we were in the basement of my house in Howell, N.J. Her name was Sharon and she had braces. It didnt go well. Sorry, Sharon.
The White House indicated on Sunday that President Trump would accept new legislation curtailing his authority to lift sanctions on Russia on his own, a striking turnaround after a broad revolt by lawmakers of both parties who distrusted his friendly approach to Moscow and sought to tie his hands.
Chinas government reined in one of its brashest conglomerates with the approval of President Xi Jinping, according to people with knowledge of the actiona mark that the broader government clampdown on large private companies comes right from the top of Chinas leadership.
An editor of a prestigious publication had to step down after a large corporate group, irked by a negative article, sent legal notices. Another young website, publishing strong stories, has been dragged to a court in Mizoram. A few months earlier, a minority shareholder was dragged to another small town court for questioning a listed companys bankrolling of the lavish lifestyle of its promoter.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), the biggest non-promoter shareholders in the Indian stock market, increased their allocation to several financial services companies in the June quarter, while reducing holdings in pharmaceutical and health care firms.
July 22, 2017

On July 18  three days before US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hosted his Omani counterpart, Yusuf bin Alawi, in Washington  Sultan Qaboos became the latest Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) head of state to speak directly with US President Donald Trump.

In their conversation, Trump stressed the urgency of countering Irans ascendancy shortly after Washington implemented new sanctions on Iranian individuals and businesses despite the Trump administration's certifying Tehrans compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), at the same time maintaining that Iran has breached the JCPOA's spirit. This call also came one week after Alawi visited Tehran to discuss the ongoing Qatar crisis after he spoke by phone with Tillerson about Qatar and Yemen.

It is no secret that the Trump administration and Muscat have not been on the same page on a host of regional issues. The JCPOA, which Oman played a pivotal role in helping the Obama administration and Iran negotiate, was in Trump-the-candidates words "the worst deal ever" and he vowed to rip up the historic accord. In April, each GCC member, save Oman, strongly endorsed Trumps decision to launch dozens of missiles at Syrian regime military infrastructure near Homs. On the Yemen front, the Saudi/United Arab Emirates-led military campaign, which the Trump administration has stepped up US support for, has irked Oman. Also, Trumps urging of US allies throughout the Muslim world to help Washington counter Iran has not prevented Muscat and Tehran from continuing to maintain a close defense relationship as neighbors and co-owners of the Strait of Hormuz.

In the grander picture, Oman and the Trump administration's not seeing eye to eye on regional security issues has much to do with Muscats uniquely cooperative and normalized relationship with Tehran. While the Trump administration sees Iran as the Middle Eastern state most responsible for the outgrowth of terrorism and regional instability, Muscat views Iran as an important strategic partner across a diverse host of sectors. Furthermore, ongoing developments within the GCC in light of the Qatar crisis are prompting some smaller member states, including Oman, to constantly assess the strategic depth from Saudi Arabia that Iran offers them.

Omani-Iranian relations have led Muscat to conduct a foreign policy that is quite interactive with a host of state and nonstate actors across the Middle East, making Oman unique in the GCC. For example, Oman was the only GCC state to maintain official relations with the Syrian regime throughout the past 6 years. Earlier this year, Muscat responded to suicide bombings in Damascus that left scores of people killed and wounded by sending Bashar al-Assads regime a message of condolence. Also, Omanis have strong feelings about their countrys historic ties with all of Yemens communities, including the Houthis. There is also strong disagreement with the Saudi/UAE-led military campaign in Yemen, which Oman has been the only GCC member to have stayed out of since the March 2015 launch of the operation.

Trump, Oman and the Qatar crisis

When Trump delivered his speech at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh two months ago, he commended all GCC states, save Oman, for their counterterrorism cooperation with the United States. While Trump was in Saudi Arabia, Omans Deputy Prime Minister Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud Al Said had a scheduled meeting with the American president that was canceled for reasons unknown to the public, as was Tillersons meeting with Alawi. This administrations budget blueprint for the next fiscal year hints at a 35% decrease in US military aid to Oman, which is notable given the extent to which the White House has been inking landmark arms sales with other GCC states.

Perhaps the main variable that led to Trump and Qaboos first conversation was the Qatar crisis, which has likely prompted Washington to turn to Muscat as a regional mediator between GCC states. To be sure, Kuwait, and not Oman, has been leading inner-GCC diplomatic efforts to resolve this years row, and Washington has fully supported the Kuwaiti emir in doing so. Yet the Trump administration might be encouraging Oman to step up its own role in the ongoing row to help defuse the crisis in pursuit of reconciliation. Unquestionably, with the United States Sunni Arab allies divided, there is much potential for Iran to take further advantage of friction between the GCCs various members to advance Tehrans own political agenda in the Arab world.

Last month, the White House communicated to Qaboos that Omans economic relationship with Iran is not one Washington expects the sultanate to sever; this message was delivered when CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Trump's deputy national security adviser, Army Reserve Maj. Gen. Ricky Waddell, held a secret meeting with Qaboos. Pompeo and Waddell called on the Omani leader to do more to crack down on smuggling routes linking Iran to Yemens Houthi fighters allegedly via Omans ports and land border with Yemen. Although there is no solid evidence that Oman has facilitated this transfer of weaponry to the Houthis, the Trump administration and other GCC states seem to believe this narrative of Muscats role in the Yemeni civil war, which Omani officials unequivocally deny.

Most likely the Trump administration is not going to be entirely welcoming of Omans independent foreign policy and unique relationship with Iran. An unsettling question for Oman is the following: If the Houthi fighters obtain long-range missiles capable of striking Riyadh from Yemen, would the Trump administration believe that some blame belongs on Muscats doorstep? In any event, as the Qatar crisis threatens to disintegrate the GCC, the Trump administration is turning to Oman, whose relationship with America dates to 1790, for help mediating the row.

Over the years, Muscat has been a useful ally of the United States during challenging times. Now, with Washington deeply concerned about the GCCs future, the White House has seemingly, albeit slowly, begun to show appreciation for the value of Oman as a unique ally that can help this administration navigate the Middle East.
Earlier this month, Manish Gunwani, deputy chief investment officer (CIO) at ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, quit the fund house. He'd managed Focused Bluechip Equity since January 2012 and the move worried its investors; the fund has assets of Rs 13,500 crore.


Oil rose as Saudi Arabia said it would make deep cuts to its crude exports in August and encourage better compliance with supply reductions from other producers.
Going ahead with its commitment towards the responsibility of creating, upgrading, maintaining and managing civil aviation infrastructure in the country, Airports Authority of India (AAI), has signed an MoU with Government of Uttarakhand on 21st July, 2017 and joined hands with Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA).

The MoU was signed by S. Ramaswamy, Chief Secretary, Government of Uttarakhand and Anil Gupta, General Manager (Business Development), AAI in the presence of Dr. R Rajesh Kumar, ACEO, UCADA, Capt. Ashok Shetty, Head of Ops, UCADA, Sh. Chandra Shekhar, AGM (Business Development), AAI, Capt. Sandeep Soti, Chief Pilot, UCADA and Mr. G. Seetaiah, Chief Engineer, UCADA.

The scope of the MoU is to identify relevant factors influencing the development of civil aviation infrastructure in Uttarakhand, assessing commercial potential of various airports of the State, identifying technical considerations for airport operations in the State, evaluating site related technical and engineering parameters for development of projects, making estimate of the capital outlay for the future projects and development of master plan for existing and future civil aviation infrastructure in the state. AAI will also assist UCADA in obtaining necessary clearances for airport operations starting with the upgraded airport at Pithoragarh and later at Chiniyalisaur.

Speaking on the occasion Chief Secretary Ramaswamy reiterated that the Government of Uttarakhand is determined to fulfill the long pending requirement of operational airports within the State.

These airports would also be part of the regional connectivity scheme and will boost tourism and air connectivity for the local public.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court on Monday sought reply from Tihar Jail on a plea of middleman S. Chandershekhar accused in connection with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) symbol bribe case, alleging he was strip-searched by the officials.

Justice Ashutosh Kumar issued a notice to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government and the DG Prison of Tihar Jail and asked them to file a status report on the plea, that alleged that Chandrashekhar was strip-searched by jail officials while he was lodged in a high-risk ward.

In his plea through his counsel Aman Lekhi, the accused today alleged that he was being tortured by jail officials in connivance with Tamil Nadu Special Police, which is handling the security of Tihar Jail, because he was supporting the rival faction of the ruling AIADMK (Amma).

The court termed the allegations as serious and asked the jail authorities to ensure that the accused is not tortured in custody.

The court sought to know from jail authorities why the accused was kept in a high-risk cell meant for dangerous criminals.

The court has listed the matter for hearing on August 22.

The court also sought CCTV footage details to see where Chandrashekar was allegedly assaulted.

Recently the Delhi Police Crime Branch has filed an over 700-page charge sheet alleging that Chandrashekar, who was arrested on April 16, had conspired with Dhinakaran to bribe the Election Commission (EC) officials to get the 'two leaves' symbol for the Sasikala-led AIADMK (Amma) faction.

The petition filed through advocate Gurpreet Singh alleged that "to the utter surprise and shock, he was subjected to illicit monetary demands", of around Rs. two crore by jail authorities.

He urged that he be shifted to a prison other than the high-risk one to be protected from cruelty and torture.

The plea alleged that "he was shifted to the ward occupied by high-risk detainees and convicts endangering his life and was subjected to immense psychological pressure."

It further said that two jail officials subjected him to a strip- search in gross violation of his right to live with dignity and that he was subjected to immense humiliation in front of other inmates.

Chandrashekar was denied bail by the high court on June 14 on the ground that the police had seized a fake Rajya Sabha member ID card from his possession which was a "serious threat on Parliament's security".

According to the police, they had allegedly recovered cash worth Rs 1.3 crore from him at the time of the raid at a hotel in Chanakyapuri area of South Delhi.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said that the 'genie' of Bofors case will continue to haunt Congress until a proper investigation is conducted.

"The genie of Bofors is back again and the basic issue remains that the investigation which should have been taken place had not taken place yet. In fact everybody collaborated to scuttle the investigation. It is for everyone to see that the skeletons will keep coming out till they have a decent burial. The decent burial of Bofors has not happened at all," BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi told ANI.

"The documents which were received by the Swiss Banks were never worked at, bail applications were moved and unfortunately the bails were granted without looking at the law. In the absence of decent burial, as I said, the genie will keep coming back," Lekhi asserted.

She further said that the big ticket of corruption which this country saw in the age of television channels, needs to be buried decently and people who accepted the bribe, its trail needs to be found.

"When heads of states get involved in corruption then that's a huge thing," Lekhi added.

Earlier in the day, pandemonium reined in the Parliament when the Opposition trooped into the wells of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to protest against the Centre's recent actions with regard to the Bofors Gun Case, frequent incidents of mob lynching arising out of the ban on cow slaughter and the Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET).

The Parliament witnessed uproarious scenes and disruptions as the opposition cornered the government on several issues and also sought a discussion on farmer suicides.

In the Lok Sabha, the opposition disrupted Question Hour by raising slogans against the government over incidents of cow vigilantism. The ruckus continued for over an hour.

Some the protesting members also threw papers at Speaker Sumitra Mahajan as the treasury benches countered the opposition over questions related to mob lynching and Bofors scam allegations.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge questioned the Speaker as to why his adjournment motion on mob lynching and cow vigilantism was rejected? He pointedly asked that when the country is facing incidents of lynching and attacks on Dalits, minorities and women, it was a clear case of failure on the part of the government to protect marginalized sections of society.

Union minister and BJP leader Ananth Kumar countered and retorted by saying that the country worships the cow and the cow must be protected. He said that any crime happening in the name of cow would not be tolerated.

This statement caused pandemonium and led Speaker Mahajan to adjourn proceedings on the House till 2 p.m.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan then proceeded to suspend six Congress MPs for five working days citing unruly behavior.

The opposition also raised objections to a six-member sub-committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on defence looking into non-compliance of certain aspects of the Comptroller and Auditor General or CAG report of 1986 on the Bofors howitzer gun deal.

A majority of the members of a parliamentary sub-committee have asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to move the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court's 2005 order quashing proceedings in the Bofors case.

CBI Director Alok Verma and Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra were among the officials who appeared before the panel headed by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab last week and faced questions from members of the sub-committee on defence attached to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on why the premier investigating agency did not approach the Supreme Court after the Delhi High Court dismissed proceedings in the case in 2005.

The Bofors scandal relating to alleged payment of kickbacks in procurement of howitzer artillery guns had triggered a massive political storm and led to the fall of the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989.

The CBI wanted to approach the Supreme Court in 2005 after the Delhi High Court quashed the Bofors case, but it was denied permission by the then UPA government.

In the Rajya Sabha, opposition MPs from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal demanded answers on the Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET) and took their protest into the Well of the House.

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The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Monday has released four helicopters to conduct flood rescue and relief operations in different parts of Rajasthan.

Four 04 Mi-17v5 helicopters from bases at Rajasthan's Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Phalodi have been assigned for the rescue operations.

Villages in Dhanera and Deesa Taluka of Gujarat's Banaskantha, Jalore and Pali districts have been the main focus of rescue operations at present.

The IAF helicopter crews have been braving extremely bad weather since morning and attempting to save as many lives wherever they find a window of opportunity to reach the stranded people.

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Iraq Foreign Minister Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is on a five day visit to India, arrived in New Delhi on Monday.

Dr. Ibrahim will meet External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan to hold discussion on the entire gamut of bilateral relations between both the countries, as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest.

The visit is expected to add further impetus to our mutually beneficial bilateral engagement.

In the afternoon, at around 3 p.m., he will hold a meeting with Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan at Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shastri Bhawan.

Later in the day, at around 4:30 p.m. he will meet Vice President Hamid Ansari at 6, Maulana Azad Road.

On the second day of his visit, the Iraq Foreign Minister will attend a programme in the capital and on Wednesday, July 26, he will fly to Mumbai to attend a programme there.

On the fourth day of his visit, Dr. Ibrahim will come back here to be a part of another programme and on Friday July 28, he will emplane to Iraq at around 4 a.m.

He will be accompanied by a senior-level official delegation.

"India and Iraq have historically enjoyed close and friendly political, economic and cultural ties. Our robust bilateral trade amounted to nearly US$ 13 billion in 2016-17. Iraq contributes significantly to India's energy security and is the second-largest supplier of crude oil to us (over 37 MMT during 2016-17). Thousands of Indians visit Iraq annually for pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

Minister of State for External Affairs V. K. Singh had visited Iraq this year to coordinate and facilitate the return of the Indians stuck in Iraq.

Earlier in August 2016, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar visited Iraq.

Bilateral trade till August 2016 between India and Iraq was of USD 5077 Mn of which India's Exports accounted for USD 425 Mn and Imports for 4652 Mn.

Indian exports to Iraq consist of cereals, iron and steel, meat and meat products, pharmaceutical products, agro chemicals, cosmetics, rubber manufactured products, paints, gems and jewellery, ceramics, manufactures of metals, machine tools, electrical machinery and instruments, transport equipment, electronic goods, handicrafts, sugar, tea, garments.

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After the Lok Sabha witnessed uproar during the zero hour, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended six Congress MPs for five days citing unruly behavior.

The MP's are Gourav Gogoi, K. Suresh, Adhiranjan Chowdhary, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and MK Raghwan.

Speaking to ANI, Congress leader Ranjeet Ranjan said, "Backward class and minorities are currently scared of lynching that is happening in the country. We are fighting for the people even Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said that the government is not with the fake Gaurakshak- Whichever state BJP rules lynching is occurring there. BJP has always been corrupt in ways and practice. And when we stand up for the justice we are suspended".

The members threw pieces of paper and disrupted proceedings during zero hour when mob lynching and Bofors scam was brought up.

The Speaker has suspended them and adjourned the Lok Sabha for the day.

Earlier today, the Opposition members demanded the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence to discuss the incidents of lynching in the name of cow protection.

Congress members tore and flung papers on the Chair and raised slogans against the government.

Even after the Speaker's repeated appeals for calm went unheeded and she adjourned the House for lunch. The ruling party members demanded the re-opening of the Bofors case.

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Democratic Alliance (NDA) vice-presidential candidate M. Venkaiah Naidu on Monday hit back at the Congress Party's allegations about his property and said the allegations are 'entirely false and politically motivated'.

Naidu's reaction came after Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh raised a question about Naidu's accumulation of properties and asserted that he should come clean about all of them.

"The allegations are entirely false and are politically motivated as he has raised the issues which were responded to in the past. This is a clear evidence of the sense of hopelessness and political bankruptcy of the Congress Party," Naidu said.

He further said the issue has been raised a few days before the Vice Presidential election reflects the mischievous intentions of the Congress Party.

Earlier in the day, the while addressing a press conference, Ramesh first referred to 'secret order', and said, "On June 20, 2017, the Telangana government issued an order in which the trust was exempted from a development charge of more than Rs.2 crore, which had to be paid to the Hyderabad Development Authority. A secret exemption order was issued, whose information is not available on the website."

Replying on this, Naidu said the Telangana Government had already made clarification on the Swarna Bharat Trust and had stated that it was not the first and the last to get exemption from paying development charges.

"In fact, the Telangana Government gave details of several other organizations that have been given such exemption including exemptions granted by the Congress Governments in the state," Naidu said.

He added the Telangana Government had also clarified that there was nothing in law that prevented the state government from giving such exemption.

"Telangana Government also clarified that Swarna Bharat Trust is a non-profit organization established in the year 2001 and its buildings are for Skill Development, Training and Provision of health care for the needy. It said that this Trust was given exemption with a view to encourage it in doing social service," he added.

The trust's managing trustee is Naidu's daughter Deepa Venkat.

Ramesh further questioned Naidu on the Telangana Government's order of 4,000 motor vehicles worth Rs.270 crores, being given to his son Harshvardhan Naidu, without an open tender release.

"On July 2014, the Telangana government gave an order to two dealers without any open tender release. One dealer was Himanshu Motor, whose owner is the state CM's son and the other dealer is Harsha Toyota, whose owner is Naidu's son", Ramesh said.

Answering this charge, the vice-presidential nominee said the Harsha Totoya never directly dealt with the state government in the procurement of vehicles.

"The parent company i.e. Toyota, offered to supply vehicles as desired by the state government at DGS&D rates and the supply order was placed on parent company i.e. Toyota Kirloskar and payment was also made to them. As a matter of policy, DGS&D concludes the rate contract with manufacturers," he said.

Ramesh also accused Naidu of keeping a land, meant for the landless and poor in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore.

"Is it not true that on August 7 2002, Venkaiah Naidu had to return a land of five acres in Nellore district? He had to return the land to the district administration, as it was for the landless", he said.

Naidu had got the land in 1978 when he was a MLA.

While replying the charge, Naidu said he had no role in the allotment of land.

"Isn't it a fact that several trusts were similarly allotted land by various governments including the Congress Governments?" he asked.

Naidu said the land issue of Andhra Pradesh's Nellore, raised by Ramesh was also raised in 2002 but was dismissed by the court.

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The Investigation Agency (NIA) team deputed to bring the seven Hurriyat leaders arrested on money laundering charges to fund terror in the Kashmir Valley, arrived at the headquarters of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) a short while ago.

The arrested Hurriyat leaders are likely to be interrogated before being presented before a Patiala House court on Tuesday.

Tonight's development came even as they were mixed political responses on the NIA's move to arrest the seven Hurriyat leaders for fuelling terror activities in the Kashmir Valley. While some hailed the move, others described it as a tactic to suppress voices being raised against the Centre.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dubbed the arrested Hurriyat leaders as murderers and traitors.

"They will be punished. The law will take its own course. People of Hurriyat are murderers and traitors. They have destroyed Jammu through the support of Pakistan and China. You will get see big Hurriyat leaders behind the bars in future," Ravinder Raina told ANI.

G.A. Mir, Jammu And Kashmir Congress chief, said through the NIA the central government was trying to suppress voices in the valley that were being raised against it.

"If someone is involved in wrongdoing, then action should be taken against them. But the NDA government is using these agencies for their petty politics. Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing the same situation that Gujarat witnessed when Narendra Modi was chief minister of the state. It is a tactic to suppress voices which are being raising against them," Mir told ANI.

Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said, "I would like to congratulate the NIA for taking this decisive step, because these are the people who create all this trouble. The Government of Jammu and Kashmir and the Centre will not tolerate such anti- elements. For decades, they have been creating and spreading chaos and disorder with the help of Pakistan," Singh told ANI.

The Deputy Chief Minister also criticized Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq for describing such arrests as 'simplistic drama'.

A short while back, six of the seven Hurriyat leaders were airlifted from Srinagar to Delhi by the NIA.

The accused have been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The seven separatists include Naeem Khan, Bitta Karate, Altaf Funtus, Ayaz Akbar, T. Saifullah , Meraz Kalwal and Saheed Ul Islam.

Six of them were arrested from Srinagar while Bitta Karate was arrested from New Delhi.

All of seven them will be produced before the Patiala House Court tomorrow.

NIA Inspector General Alok Mital, said "We had registered a terror-funding case related to Jammu and Kashmir on May 30 this year under various sections of the IPC and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Thereafter, we conducted wide ranging searches in several cities and collected incriminating documentary and electronic evidence. We have also seized a large amount of cash. Based on the evidence we have collected and subsequent examinations of the persons today, we have arrested seven persons --six from Srinagar and one from Delhi."

He further said that the evidences which have been collected so far clearly prove the financial trail and the direct link between terror activities and its (money laundered) funding.

The NIA visited Srinagar in May to probe the alleged funding by Pakistan for illegal activities in Kashmir, and questioned several separatist leaders on the issue of raising, collecting and transferring funds via the Hawala route and other channels to fund terror activities in Kashmir.

NIA sleuths specifically questioned separatist leaders Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karate and Gazi Javed Baba at that time.

The NIA is said to be probing all aspects of funding to separatist leaders and how they reportedly used these funds to fuel unrest in the Kashmir Valley.

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Outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday condemned all forms of violence and batted for pluralism and tolerance.

Addressing the nation on the eve of demitting office as the 13th President of India, President Mukherjee said the soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance.

"We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal. The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance. We derive our strength from tolerance," he said.

The outgoing President said that non-violent society ensures participation of all section of people.

"Only a non-violent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people, especially the marginalized and the dispossessed in the democratic process. Power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society."

He also exhorted the people to protect the environment and termed it essential for the survival of mankind.

"Protection of the environment is essential for our survival. Nature has been kind to us in its bounty. But, when greed exceeds need, nature lets loose its fury," President Mukherjee said.

Earlier on Saturday, President Mukherjee attended a farewell dinner hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Prime Minister hosted the ceremony at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi, where president-elect Ram Nath Kovind, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, senior ministers and Opposition leaders were also present.

The president, who is also Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, was also given a farewell by the chiefs of the armed forces.

President-elect Ram Nath Kovind will take oath as the 14th President of India on Tuesday (July 25).

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The Standard Chartered Bank on Monday launched a 'Multicurrency Forex Card' to allow customers the convenience of loading up to 20 widely used currencies on one card with an online reload facility during overseas travel.

The card aims to offer travelers a secure way to carry money while travelling abroad. Some of the currencies that can be loaded are USD, Euro, British Pound, Singapore dollar, Swiss franc, Thai baht etc.

It will also provide Forex rate lock-in with zero mark-up on cash withdrawals and shopping abroad as this ensures the travelers get protection against the frequent currency fluctuations by locking in the currency exchange rate they availed during the time of loading the card, and not pay different rates every time they use the card.

Additionally, the Multicurrency Forex card will provide travelers with insurance covers against misuse of lost card, personal accident, insurance and loss of baggage or personal documents.

The newly launched card offers personal air accidental death cover of Rs. 50 lakh, fraud protection up to Rs. five lakh against misuse of lost or stolen card or due to counterfeiting/skimming loss of baggage and personal documents cover up to Rs. one lakh.

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The world's visually impaired will be the subject of some serious discussion at the forthcoming second World Congress of Optometry in Hyderabad.

Preventable blindness and eye care delivery as a public issue is of paramount importance to tackling the problem.

The Hyderabad congress, from September 11 to 13, will address issues of blindness, refractive error, and vision care as an integral component of public .

It will be one of the largest gatherings of Optometrists, professionals, and public health specialists.

The congress is hosted by the World Council of Optometry, Asia Pacific Council of Optometry, and the India Vision Institute (IVI).

The conference theme, 'Accessible, quality vision and eye health', ties into WHO's 'Universal Eye Health: A global action plan 2014-2019', which aims to reduce 'the prevalence of avoidable visual impairment by 25 per cent by 2019'.

Professor Kovin Naidoo, CEO of the Brien Holden Vision Institute, is the conference chair. Professor Naidoo is associated with several universities, including in Australia and the US.

Professor Naidoo said, "This conference brings together world leading experts in Public Health and clinical care. The program is aimed at addressing the twin challenge of quality care and access."

Adding, "We are really glad to host this in India as India has made tremendous strides in terms of creating access through civil society organisations and government. Concurrently Optometry is growing at a rapid pace in India and the challenge of quality of care is brought into increased focus."

IVI CEO Vinod Daniel shared, "With 100 million Indians suffering from blindness-related ailments, including uncorrected refractive error - and around 10 million children with the problem, the congress could not have come to the country at a better time. It will not only highlight and raise awareness of issues, but will also further the important strides made by India to improve both access to vision care and reduce avoidable blindness."

Adding, "The congress will deliberate key issues of preventable blindness, skill development and training Optometrists, and vision care delivery as an integral element of public health."

"Preparations are on in full swing for the congress, which is expected to have some 1,500 delegates attending. The conference secretariat has received over 600 abstracts. Delegates will deliberate, debate and try to find solutions not only for India, but the region and the world as well," Mr Daniel noted.

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Zee Learn Limited, India's leading Education company and India's Most Trusted Diversified Education Brand*, today reported its Standalone and Consolidated Q1 FY18 financial results. The company delivered healthy topline growth and improved its margins by leveraging its model.

Commenting on the financial results, Mr Debshankar Mukhopadhyay, CEO, Zee Learn Ltd, "The quarter saw the economy gradually settling down as the process of demonetization moved towards completion. The company has shown consistent performance, riding on the positive sentiment in the economy. Building on the momentum that we generated over last few quarters, we have delivered revenues in line with our guidance.

We are happy to report robust, all-round Q1 FY18 performance. We took a number of actions in the quarter towards upgrading our services, cognitive intelligence, delivering value and we are pleased to see that our disciplined focus on driving profitable growth has delivered the desired impact. The performance strengthens our confidence in the underlying growth potential of our brands and the ability of our model to deliver it. We continue to expand the reach of our product offering to harness efficiency and gains. Going forward, we will continue to drive the strategic pillars of product innovation, value, customer experience, technology and cost efficiencies. There being no adverse impact of GST on Education Sector, we are totally geared up to be a part of the greatest tax reform-GST."

Consequent to notification by the Central Government on the Companies (Indian Accounting Standard) Rules, 2015 (Ind-AS) under Section 133 of the Companies Act, 2013, for the first time the Company has adopted the Ind-AS beginning from April 01, 2017. The Standalone and Consolidated financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2017 are prepared in accordance with the Ind-AS and the comparative financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 under the earlier Indian GAAP have been re-stated in accordance with Ind-AS.

Zee Learn Limited is an Essel Group Company listed on National Stock Exchange (NSE), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and on Luxemburg Stock Exchange, and is India's leading company in education segment with the fastest growing chain of K-12 schools and Asia's No 1 chain of pre-schools in its portfolio. The Company through its brand 'Zee Institute of Media Arts' (ZIMA), a TV and Film training institute, offers Certificate courses in Direction, Acting, Sound, Editing, Production and Cinematography. Another offering from the company, 'Zee Institute of Creative Art' (ZICA) is the nation's first full-fledged Classical and Digital Animation Training Academy that trains youth in classical 2D and modern 3D animation.

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On 1 August 2017

Dhoot Industrial Finance will hold a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company on 1 August 2017, for considering and approving inter alia, the Un-Audited Financial Results of the Company for the quarter ended 30th June 2017.

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From Moody's

Punjab National Bank announced that Moody's has affirmed Bank's local and foreign currency bank deposit rating at Baa3/ Prime -3. Moody's has also reaffirmed the bank's foreign currency issuer rating at Baa3. At the same time, Moody's has affirmed the bank's Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) and Adjusted BCA at ba3. Moody's affirmed the bank's Counter Party Risk Assessment (CRA) at Baa3 (cr)/ Prime-3 (cr).

The outlook, where applicable, has been changed to Stable from Positive.

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Reliance Industries rose 1.85% to Rs 1,651.50 at 15:05 IST on BSE after the company announced the launch of JioPhone, a 4G VoLTE-enabled feature phone, at an effective price of Rs zero.

The outcome of the AGM was disclosed to the stock exchanges after market hours on Friday, 21 July 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 188.33 points or 0.59% at 32,217.22.

High volumes were witnessed on the counter. On the BSE, 7.07 lakh shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 4.14 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 1,624.80 in intraday trade, which is also a 52-week high for the stock. The stock had hit a low of Rs 1,586.20 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 932 on 9 November 2016.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 21 July 2017, gaining 11.85% compared with 2.38% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 13.32% as against Sensex's 9.07% rise. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one year, surging 57.56% as against Sensex's 15.58% rise.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 3251.74 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Reliance Industries (RIL) held its 40th annual general meeting (AGM) on Friday, 21 July 2017. RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced the launch of JioPhone, which is a 4G VoLTE-enabled feature phone.

Reliance Jio JioPhone will hit the shelves starting the first week of September, and pre-orders begin 24 August 2017, he said. Reliance Jio has close to 100 million paid customers, added Ambani. Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) is a telecom subsidiary of RIL.

RIL's consolidated net profit rose 28.3% to Rs 9079 crore on 28.4% to Rs 83471 crore in Q1 June 2017 over Q1 June 2016.

RIL is India's largest private sector company. RIL's activities span hydrocarbon exploration and production, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals, retail and telecommunications.

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On 26 July 2017

Swarnsarita Gems will hold a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Company on 26 July 2017, to take a note on resignation of Mr. Sunil G. Jain the Whole Time Director of the Company from the Directorship of the company w.e.f. 26th July 2017.

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The Government is mindful of the concerns of tax payers, especially the small taxpayers, arising from transition to the GST regime from 1st of July, 2017.

With a view to ease the compliance burden of provisionally migrated small taxpayers opting to pay tax under the Composition scheme, it has been decided to extend the time limit for filing intimation for Composition levy (filing of intimation FORM GST CMP-01) up to 16th August, 2017.

Similarly, the taxpayers who were provisionally migrated by virtue of being registered under the existing laws, but who are no longer required to be registered under GST, the period of applying for Cancellation of Registration is being extended up to 30th September, 2017.

Relevant notifications are being issued.

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Oil and gas fields in the Krishna Godavari (KG) Basin in India's eastern offshore would attract investment of about $23 billion for these hydrocarbons' exploitation, Parliament was informed on Monday.

"The operators of blocks/fields in KG basin under Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime and nomination fields have submitted DoC (Declaration of Commerciality)/FDP (Field Development Plans) for the commercial oil and gas discoveries along with projected investment estimates," Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told the Lok Sabha in a written reply, adding that the estimated investment from various stakeholders was $22.9 billion.

The new oil and gas production from these fields in the KG Basin is expected to reach up to 22.27 billion cubic meters of gas, and 4.68 million metric tonnes of oil by 2021-22, he said.

Last month, Reliance Industries and British major, BP, annnouced the creation of a joint venture energy vertical to work across the entire value chain, involving investment of $6 billion, or Rs 40,000 crore. This would also develop their existing deep water gas fields in India's eastern offshore to bring to fresh production 1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas by 2022.

Pradhan also informed the Lok Sabha on Monday that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had given in-principle approval for sale of the government's 51.11 per cent stake along with the management control of oil marketer HPCL to the exploration firm ONGC.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) will continue as a public sector undertaking after Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) acquires its stake, he said.

"The proposed acquisition in the oil sector will create a vertically integrated public sector oil major company having presence across the entire value chain.

"This will give ONGC an enhanced capacity to bear higher risks, take higher investment decisions and to neutralise impact of global crude oil price volatility," he said.

--IANS

bc/vd

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At least 26 people were killed and 58 others injured on Monday in a powerful explosion, claimed by Pakistan Taliban, near an IT Park in Pakistan's Lahore city, officials said.

The deafening explosion, which authorities blamed on a suicide bomber, occurred at the entrance of the Kot Lakhpat Vegetable Market on Ferozepur Road.

Punjab government spokesperson Malik Mohammad Ahmed said 26 people lost their lives and 58 were injured when a car bomb struck the old vegetable market.

A top police officials said the blast was a suicide attack and "police were the target" -- the 26 dead included nine policemen.

Senior police official Imran Awan said the injured had been shifted to the Jinnah Hospital and other hospitals. Several of the injured were in critical condition and the toll may rise, Geo News reported.

According to Awan, an anti-encroachment drive was underway at the vegetable market near Arfa Karim Software Technology Park when the explosion took place.

A fire erupted after the explosion. Glass panes of nearby buildings were shattered.

The area where the blast took place is supposed to be one of the most secure neighbourhoods of Lahore, just 100 metres from the Chief Minister's office.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed the bombing, stating that it used a "motorcycle bomb" to target police officials.

The top civilian and military leadership has denounced the blast and extended their condolences to the bereaved relatives.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed sorrow over the loss of precious lives. He directed authorities to provide all possible medical assistance.

"No words can express the grief which grips my heart now," Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said.

Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa expressed grief over the incident and said that he was equally grieved over the loss as that of victims' families.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz also expressed sorrow over the heart-wrenching incident.

Lahore has been in the centre of terror attacks. A suicide blast on February 13 ripped through a crowd of protesting chemists in front of the Punjab Assembly, leaving 13 people dead and 70 others wounded.

Last year, a suicide bomber killed 72 people at the Gulshan Iqbal Park.

Pakistan launched an anti-terror operation in its tribal regions in June 2014, in which 3,500 alleged terrorists have been killed, according to the data provided by the army.

In February, Islamabad launched a new nationwide military offensive against the insurgency after a series of attacks, and a week ago it started a new offensive with Kabul against the Islamic State.

--IANS

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The Airports Authority of India (AAI) on Monday said that it has signed an MoU with the Uttarakhand government to develop the civil aviation sector in the hill state.

"The scope of the MoU is to identify... evaluating site related technical and engineering parameters for development of projects. AAI will also assist UCADA (Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority) in obtaining necessary clearances for airport operations starting with the upgraded airport at Pithoragarh and later at Chiniyalisaur," it said in a statement.

--IANS

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A Class 10 student was killed in Moreh, a Manipur town located on the India-Myanmar border, early on Sunday sparking an indefinite shutdown of the area, police said.

Ningeingat Khongsai, 18, was staying with her uncle. She was killed in her bed at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, H. Chaoba, station house officer of Moreh police station, told IANS.

Chaoba said a suspect, Sasat Haokip, 21, was arrested within a few hours of the sensational killing and was being interrogated to establish the motive.

A country-made 9 mm pistol with three live rounds was recovered from the accused and was believed to be the murder weapon, police said.

When the police tried to take the suspect to Imphal for further investigation, they were prevented from doing so by women activists.

Protesting the killing, the Kuki Students' Organisation has announced a shutdown, disrupting trade at the border town.

All shops and business establishments pulled down shutters and while hundreds of vehicles turned back towards Imphal, many others were stranded in Moreh.

Three months ago, a middle-aged woman, A. Shanti, was gunned down in broad daylight in Moreh, a crime that hasn't been solved yet.

--IANS

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China on Monday hinted that its top diplomat Yang Jiechi and Indian NSA Ajit Doval may hold a bilateral meeting this week on the sidelines of the BRICS NSA Summit even as it warned New Delhi to shed "illusory thinking" and immediately withdraw troops that Beijing says have crossed into Chinese territory.

Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had "indomitable" will to defend China's territorial sovereignty at "all costs".

"Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the PLA is hard. We would like to remind the Indian side to have no illusion," Wu told the media.

He said the military deployment and training in Tibet would be stepped up in the face of the dragging stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam.

Wu said withdrawal of Indian troops was a precondition for any dialogue.

The Foreign Ministry echoed a similar view but hinted that Jiechi and Doval could meet on the sidelines of this BRICS security summit this week.

If they meet, the stand-off in Doklam will certainly come up for discussion.

Doval and China's State Councillor Yang are Special Representatives of the two countries on the boundary talks. There have been 19 rounds of talks on the disputed border.

Last week, India's Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said both India and China should withdraw their troops in order to start talks on the festering dispute.

However, China on Monday made clear India must pull back if wanted a dialogue.

"India should immediately withdraw its troops to the Indian side of the boundary with China, which is a precondition and basis for resolving the conflict." the Defence Ministry spokesperson said.

A meeting between Doval and Jiechi did not seem a possibility until now in the view mounting tensions on the border.

Asked if the National Security Advisers of member countries will have bilateral meetings, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said there was a tradition of host countries arranging bilaterals between the head of the delegations at the summit.

"As far as we know, during the previous meetings, the host arranges the head of the delegations to hold bilateral meetings in which they exchange views on bilateral relations, BRICS cooperation, and multilateral affairs," Lu said.

The two-day meeting of BRICS NSAs will begin on July 27. "The meeting is the main platform to discuss the contact political and security cooperation," Lu said.

"Currently the global geo-political factors are complex and intertwined and regional hotspot issues are escalating."

Asked if the BRICS NSAs would call on Chinese President Xi Jinping, Lu declined to comment.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in a dragging stand-off in Doklam, which is at a tri-junction of India, Bhutan and China. China calls Doklam its own territory but India and Bhutan say it is Bhutan's.

India stopped the Chinese Army from building a road in Doklam in June, leading to the face-off between New Delhi and Beijing. India has blamed China for trying to change the status of the tri-junction and wants the issue to be resolved diplomatically.

(Gaurav Sharma is the Beijing-based correspondent of IANS. He can be contacted at sharmagaurav71@gmail.com and gauravians@yahoo.com)

--IANS

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Chinese and Russian commanders conducted a simulation exercise in Kaliningrad province for the ongoing joint military drills code-named "Joint Sea 2017" in the Baltic Sea.

In the hours-long exercise on Sunday, two tactical assault groups, consisting of mixed warships from the Chinese and Russian fleets, simulated details of the drills on a map including ship-to-sea firing by secondary cannons, air defense, joint landing and inspection, maritime search and rescue, underway replenishment and other subjects.

"The simulation exercise was conducted for two purposes, namely, making commanders at all levels more familiar with the procedures and subjects of the drills, as well as enhancing coordination and tacit understanding between commanders of the two countries," Xinhua news agency quoted Wang Xiaoyong, deputy captain of a destroyer detachment of the Chinese Navy, as saying.

During the drills, the participating air forces and sea forces will be deployed through unified guidance by a joint directing center, a joint headquarter and a tactical command post, which are formed by commanders from both countries.

The Joint Sea 2017 drills, which kicked off on Saturday and will last until July 28, aims to carry out joint rescue missions and ensure maritime economic activities.

The Chinese fleet consists of one destroyer, one frigate, one supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines. The Russian side includes one frigate, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and marines.

Chinese and Russian navies will conduct a variety of joint exercises and attend the parade in St. Petersburg on the occasion of Russia's Navy Day.

--IANS

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The Congress on Monday attacked NDA's Vice Presidential candidate M. Venkaiah Naidu over issues of transparency and probity, alleging that the Telangana government had placed a direct order for purchase of vehicles with a company belonging to his son and had granted exemption from Rs 2-crore charges to a trust in which his daughter was a managing trustee.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh posed four questions to Naidu and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying it is mandatory for them to answer the queries as they have spoken of transparency, accountability and honesty.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often stated that there was zero tolerance for corruption and wrongdoing.

Ramesh said the Telangana government had issued an order in June this year which "exempted the Swarna Bharat Trust of Naidu's daughter from paying various charges amounting to more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority".

"Is it not a fact that such an exemption has no precedent and it has been done because his daughter is the managing trustee of the organisation," Ramesh asked.

Earlier in July 2014, the Telangana government had placed an order worth about Rs 271 crore for the purchase of police vehicles from two companies -- Harsha Toyota owned by Naidu's son and Himanshu Motors owned by the son of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao.

"Is it not a fact that such an order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating a tender?" Ramesh asked.

He said that Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust with Naidu as its Chairman was allotted 20 acres of land in Shahpura, Bhopal, valued at a few hundred crore rupees in September 2004 and the lease deed was registered in January 2007.

"Is it not a fact that this land was allotted by BJP government of Madhya Pradesh for a pittance of one-time premium of Rs 25 lakh and a yearly rent of one rupee? Is it not a fact that even the 'land use' was changed from 'residential and forestry' to 'commercial' as an act of favouritism by BJP government?" Ramesh asked.

The Congress leader alleged that all this was done without inviting an application in public domain in a "completely arbitrary and whimsical fashion".

"Is it not a fact that Supreme Court of India quashed this allotment on April 6, 2011, in a PIL and passed stringent strictures of 'political favourtism' and cancelled the allotment of land?" he asked.

Ramesh alleged that Naidu was accused of grabbing 4.95 acres of land in Andhra Pradesh reserved for the poor and the destitute.

"Is it not a fact that on August 17, 2002, Naidu was forced to return this 4.95 acres of land after public embarrassment and accusations of wrongdoing?" he asked.

--IANS

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The Congress on Monday filed a complaint against BJP MP Anurag Thakur for what the opposition party said was filming Lok Sabha proceedings.

The party also requested the Lok Sabha Secretary General for a copy of the unedited recording of the house proceedings between noon and 1 p.m. and also demanded action and inquiry against the Bharatiya Janata Party leader.

Congress MP Sushmita Dev, who was one of the six Congress members suspended from the Lok Sabha for five consecutive sittings after they tore papers and threw them in the air and towards the Speaker's podium, wrote to the Lok Sabha Secretary General on the issue.

Another Congress leader K.C. Venugopal also wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and requested her to take immediate action against him to "preserve the sanctity of the proceedinsg of the house".

"BJP MP Anurag Thakur was caught filming the house proceedings. This, according to the rules, is forbidden. The Congress requests immediate action to preserve the decorum of the house proceedings," Dev said in a statement.

"Just like in case of Aam Aadmi Party MP Bhagwant Mann, an inquiry should be ordered and immediate action taken against Thakur for flouting house rules and endangering its security," she said.

The Congress said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government cannot use its brute majority to intimidate the opposition.

"The opposition keeps the government accountable. We have every right to raise issues of public importance. The government time and again uses its majority to suppress, repress, and stifle the opposition's voice," she added.

--IANS

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As part of Turkey's renewed mediation efforts, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz to discuss the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and the Saudi-led quartet.

The two leaders on Sunday addressed bilateral ties and regional developments, in addition to the efforts being exerted to fight terrorism, Xinhua news agency reported.

Erdogan's Gulf tour, which will also take him to Qatar and Kuwait, came amid Turkey's new diplomatic offensive aimed at brokering an end to the Gulf standoff. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu conducted a Gulf tour to mediate the standoff early last month without achieving major results.

The Saudi-led quartet, which also includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 and imposed a blockade on the tiny rich Gulf nation.

Turkey has publicly sided with Qatar, with which it has expansive economic and security ties, while criticizing the Saudi-led blockade as inhumane.

Earlier Sunday, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before leaving for Saudi Arabia that Turkey is seeking an immediate resolution for the ongoing diplomatic row in the Gulf.

"Nobody has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore," Erdogan said.

Among the 13 demands put forward by the Saudi-led bloc included the closure of a Turkish military base in Qatar. Turkey has deployed a number of troops in the base recently in a move aimed at bolstering Qatar's defiance in face of sanctions and threat from its neighbors.

--IANS

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At least five people were injured on Monday by an unknown assailant wielding a chainsaw in the northern Swiss town of Schaffhausen, police said.

Police confirmed it had received a call about a man, armed with a chainsaw, who entered an office building near the local train station in the medieval old town and attacked several people, Efe news reported.

The injured persons were hospitalized and two out of them were seriously hurt, said Schaffhausen police spokeswoman Cindy Beer.

The old town had been cordoned off as officers searched for the suspect who had fled the scene.

Police released a statement describing the suspect as a bald male with a dishevelled appearance and approximately 6 feet and 3 inches tall.

--IANS

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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday inaugurated an eight-lane flyover on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway, fulfilling a long-standing demand.

The 1.4-km flyover on National Highway 48 was thrown open to public and is expected to tackle traffic jams at the busy Hero Honda Chowk in Gurugram. An underpass under construction as part of the flyover project would be completed by December.

Vehicles moving to Sector 10, Kadipur, Basai, Jhajjar and Sultanpur will not have to take the Kherki Daula toll plaza route since a straight road to these areas has now been provided.

Similarly, commuters moving towards Jaipur and Ajmer, Ahmedabad and Mumbai would also be facilitated.

The Chief Minister told the media after the inauguration that two of the several ongoing projects in Gurugram were nearing completion and would be opened on August 14.

Union Minister of State for Planning and Urban Development Rao Inderjeet Singh and Haryana PWD Minister Rao Narbir Singh were also present.

--IANS

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Adding to its successful 'A1' series of BRAVIA TVs, Sony India on Monday launched its much-awaited premium flagship line-up of OLED TVs.

The company has a pre-booking offer from August 1-15 where customers will be entitled to get a PlayStation 4 for free on purchase of these OLED TVs from select dealers.

The new series -- 'KD-65A1' and 'KD-55A1' -- are based on OLED technology which brings enriched visual experience with blur-less image and a wide-viewing angle.

'KD-65A1' with screen-size 163.9 cm (65 inch) is priced at Rs 464,900, while 'KD-'55A1' with screen size 138.8 cm (55 inch) will cost Rs 364,900.

The units will be available at retail stores from August 4, the company officials told reporters here.

The OLED TVs have a sound technology called 'Acoustic Surface' which can emanate sound directly from the screen itself using two 'actuators' behind the TV that vibrate the screen to create sound.

In addition, there is an integrated sub-woofer behind the TV which provides powerful bass for movie experiences.

Sony has introduced 'One slate' concept which gives the TVs single plane surface display, incorporating different functions within the screen itself, eliminating the need for distinct elements like speakers, a bezel or a stand.

The TVs come with 4K HDR display which provide refined image quality with the latest detail enhancement and noise reduction technology for amazingly realistic pictures.

The TVs are powered by '4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme' which enables 40 per cent more real-time image processing than '4K Processor X1,' offering great visual experience with combination of superior picture quality of OLED.

The 'smart' TVs come with Android 7.0 Nougat platform and support 'Dolby Vision' which further enriches the visual experience.

--IANS

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India on Tuesday strongly condemned the terror attack in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday in which four people, including an Indian national, were killed and scores injured.

"India strongly condemns the horrific terror attack in which an Indian national and many others lost their lives," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured," it stated.

The Indian Embassy in Kabul was taking steps to repatriate the mortal remains of the Indian national, it said.

India called for the perpetrators of the attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously.

Four people have been confirmed dead and 90 others, including 23 children, injured in the blast that rocked Kabul on Monday evening.

The bombing took place in the Green Village, a supposedly well-protected area next to the main office of Afghan Election Commission.

The blast took place just hours after the Afghan election body announced preliminary results of the much-awaited parliamentary elections for Kabul.

--IANS

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The Indian government is concerned about the country's growing trade deficit with China and it is making efforts to realise greater access for Indian goods and services in the Chinese market, Parliament was informed on Monday.

"Trade deficit with China is a matter of concern. We are discussing the issue with China for greater access for Indian products and services in the Chinese market," Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.

She said that with China topping the list of 25 countries with which India has a trade deficit in the last three years, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had raised the issue with the Chinese authorities at the highest level.

"Efforts are being made to increase overall exports by diversifying the trade basket with emphasis on manufactured goods, services, resolution of market access issues and other non-tariff barriers," Sitharaman told the Lok Sabha in a separate written reply.

"This is done through bilateral meetings and institutional dialogues. Indian exporters are encouraged to participate in major trade fairs in China to show-case Indian products," she said.

India's trade deficit with China in 2016-17 had declined slightly to $51.08 billion, from $52.69 billion in 2015-16. It was at $48.48 billion in 2014-15.

The trade deficit with China for the month of April 2017 stood at $4.92 billion.

Sitharaman had earlier told Parliament that the increasing trade deficit with China can be attributed primarily to the fact that Chinese exports to India rely strongly on manufactured items to meet the demand of fast expanding sectors like telecom and power.

On Monday, the Minister also told the Lok Sabha that the Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) had initiated 62 anti-dumping investigations till date on imports from China, which comprises nearly one-fourth of the total investigations started against all countries since January 2012.

She had earlier spoken of the difficulties in accessing the Chinese market faced by Indian firms, particularly by those in the IT and pharmaceuticals sectors.

Among the countries with which India has favourable trade balance are the US, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bangladesh and UK.

Sitharaman said the government has taken a number of steps to overcome the overall trade deficit, which include New Foreign Trade Policy (2015-20), Merchandise Exports From India Scheme, the Services Exports from India Scheme and Niryat Bandhu Scheme

She said India has exported merchandise and services worth $230.36 billion between December 2016 and May 2017 to various countries.

In another written reply to the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said foreign direct investment (FDI) grew by 23 per cent to $10.02 billion during the April-May period of this fiscal.

In 2016-17, the FDI inflows aggregated $60.08 billion, she said.

"Except for a small negative list, most sectors are open for 100 per cent FDI under the automatic route," the Minister said.

--IANS

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Indians are better at imitation than innovation, Vice President Hamid Ansari observed on Monday.

"As a people, we are better at imitation than innovation. We take hesitant steps and make what is known in common parlance as 'jugaad'. But transition from jugaad to innovation is what we need to make," he said as he released a book titled "The Innovation President" at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

He hoped that outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee's interest in, and emphasis on, innovation would give the desired results.

--IANS

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Iraqi government and security forces have received some 350 civilians fleeing the rule of Islamic State (IS) in the province of Anbar, a police source said.

The civilians have arrived in Rutbah, an area in the west of Anbar currently under the control of Iraqi government, Colonel Adel al-Dulaimi of Anbar's Police Command Center told Xinhua on Sunday.

The refugees came from regions including Anah, Rawah and Qaim, all of which are 200 km away and are still under the IS control.

The civilians paid a large amount of money to the smugglers to walk across a large swath of desert in western Anbar before reaching the government-controlled Rutbah, Xinhua news agency reported.

Dulaimi said that the health conditions of these civilians were very poor and local government had provided food and medical treatment to them, before resettling them in the camps near the province's capital Ramadi.

The bordering towns of Anah, Rawah and Qaim between Iraq and Syria are situated in the northwest of Anbar. More and more Iraqis are fleeing these areas as government forces are approaching.

--IANS

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The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Monday after opposition members created pandemonium as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended six Congress MPs for five consecutive sittings for improper conduct.

The MPs had thrown some torn papers towards the Speaker's podium.

Soon after the house met at 2.30 p.m., the opposition members rushed towards the Speaker's podium protesting against her decision.

Deputy Chairman M. Thambidurai, who was on the chair, urged the suspended members not to attened the proceedings but the opposition members were on their feet.

Amid the din, he adjourned the House for the day.

After the House was adjourned, the opposition members gathered around Congress President Sonia Gandhi and held discussions inside the house while the ruling BJP's women members rushed towards the Speaker's Chamber.

Earlier, the house was adjourned till 2.30 p.m. as the opposition members protested against the suspension of Congress members.

The six MPs -- Gaurav Gogoi, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ranjit Ranjan, Sushmita Dev, M.K. Raghavan and K. Suresh -- would have to remain out of the lower House for the whole of this week.

During Zero Hour, as the Congress MPs were protesting demanding a discussion on attacks on Dalits and Muslims by cow vigilantes, the six MPs tore up papers and threw them in the air and towards the Speaker's podium.

"This conduct is not right. It is highly unbecoming and against the rules of the house which seeks to undermine the dignity of the House," Mahajan said.

She said the members were "wilfully obstructing" the house and had caused disorder. She announced their suspension under rule 374 A for "five consecutive sittings".

Earlier, the Lok Sabha witnessed noisy scenes as the Opposition members led by the Congress created pandemonium, demanding a discussion on the atrocities against Dalits and Muslims by cow vigilantes.

Congress members staged a sit-in near the Speaker's podium throughout the Question Hour as she refused to permit a discussion on the issue.

While Opposition Leader Mallikarjun Kharge spoke on the issue as Zero Hour started, Opposition members trooped near the Speaker's podium as a discussion was not allowed and kept raising "anti-government slogans" and threw torn bits of paper, irking the chair.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar demanded action against the members who threw papers towards reporter's table.

"This behaviour was not expected from Congress. This is shameful. There must be action against those who threw the papers. The members should be named," Kumar said.

--IANS

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The Supreme Court will not be sitting in its pre-lunch session on Tuesday as all its 27 judges of the top will be attending the swearing-in of President-elect Ram Nath Kovind at the Central Hall of Parliament

Kovind will be administered the oath of office by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar at 12.30 p.m.

The Supreme Court on Monday afternoon announced that it would sit at 2 p.m. on Tuesday.

Perhaps it for the first time that Supreme Court would be skipping its pre-lunch sitting on account of the swearing-in of the President-elect that is always done by the Chief Justice of India.

"I can't be very sure, perhaps it has not happened before," said senior counsel P.H. Parekh who has the distinction of being with four Presidents - K.R.Narayanan, A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee - to extend legal assistance at the time of filing their nomination papers.

This comes as Chief Justice Khehar, a workaholic, who after taking oath as 44th CJI on January 4, came to Supreme Court and commenced the hearing of cases in court number one sharp at 10.30 a.m. - the time for top court to commence its sitting every day.

Some other veterans in the top court are unable to recall instances when pre-lunch setting of the top court was dispensed with altogether because of the swearing of the President-elect.

They say there were instances when the sittings were delayed but never failed to be held.

--IANS

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Pakistan on Tuesday summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh to condemn "unprovoked ceasefire violations" by India along the Line of Control in which, it said, a civilian had lost his life.

Mohammad Faisal, who heads the South Asia wing in the Foreign Office, summoned the Indian envoy and "lodged a strong protest on the unprovoked ceasefire violations" by Indian forces in Nikial sector.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws," the official said.

"The ceasefire violations by India are a threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation," he added.

The Director General urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 ceasefire arrangement and investigate the incidents of truce violations, said an official statement.

The Indian diplomat was also told that New Delhi should permit the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan to play its mandated role in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan and India had declared ceasefire along the LoC and International Border in 2003. Both, however, routinely accuse each other of violating the ceasefire.

--IANS

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A CBI court on Monday convicted businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surender Koli to death in a Nithari serial rape and murder case, observing it is a rarest of rare case which had shaken society.

Special Judge Pawan Kumar Tripathi gave the ruling after finding them guilty of rape, murder, abduction, tampering with evidence and criminal conspiracy over the killing of a 20-year-old woman.

The judge also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on Koli under Section 302, a further 10 years for abduction with intention to murder and Rs 10,000 fine, 10 years jail under Sections 376 (rape)and 511 (attempt to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life) and a Rs 10,000 fine and seven year jail term and Rs 5,000 fine under Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence). All the terms of imprisonment would be increased for failure to pay the fines.

Pandher was slapped a Rs 10,000 fine under Section 302, a seven year jail term along with Rs 10,000 fine under Sections 376 and 511 and seven years jail and Rs 5,000 fine under Section 201. All jail terms would be increased for failing to pay the fines.

The case, the eighth of the several lodged against them, was registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on December 29, 2006.

Koli and Pandher were present in the court during the sentencing. Pandher was earlier out on bail but was taken into police custody on Saturday after being held guilty.

Prosecution lawyer J.P. Sharma sought the death sentence and argued that forensic evidence proved that Koli abducted, killed and raped the woman and also tampered with evidence.

Since Pandher was in collusion with his domestic help, so he deserved the same punishment for the crime rarest of rare, he said.

Also seeking the death penalty for both the convicts, lawyer Khalid Khan, appearing for the victim's family, alleged that police had been lax from the beginning and therefore the woman's family had engaged him in the case.

On October 5, 2006, the woman was returning home from work. She took the road outside Pandher's residence.

Koli lured her inside where she was killed and beheaded. Investigators found her skull behind the house, and its DNA matched with her parents.

Her parents also identified her clothes, which were recovered from Koli.

Defence lawyer Devraj Singh pleaded for minimum punishment as Pandher suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes.

He also said it has been proved that on that date of the crime, he was in Dehradun. Claiming that Pandher had been denied justice, since in an earlier case, he was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court. He also noted that the Supreme Court had found Koli guilty of crime, not Pandher.

The gruesome cases came to light in 2006 when the police discovered the skulls and bones of 16 persons, mostly children, near Pandher's house in Noida's Nithari village.

Earlier, many children had gone missing from the nearby slums of Nithari and their parents alleged that police had ignored their complaints.

It was alleged that Koli would lure the children to the house, offering them sweets and chocolates, murder them and have sex with the corpses. He was also accused of cannibalism. He would throw the bones and other belongings into a ditch behind the house.

--IANS

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Polish President Andrzej Duda on Monday announced he would use his veto power to block two controversial bills passed by his own party to reform the country's judiciary system.

Duda said in a televised address that he would veto the laws passed by the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) Party that aimed to overhaul the powerful judges' ethics council and reform the Supreme Court, reports Efe news.

"Poland's legal system does need a thorough reorganisation, but above all it needs to provide a sense of security," Duda said.

"And no change of the legal system should open a divide between society and the state. I needed to make this decision immediately as the proposed reforms caused huge emotions," he added.

The proposed changes to the judicial system had been harshly criticised by Opposition parties, pro-democracy activists and the European Union (EU).

Duda also said that he was against bolstering the influence of the Attorney General over the Supreme Court, one of the major changes included in the proposed legislation.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched throughout the Eastern European nation over the weekend to express their complete rejection of the government-backed reforms, which they argued would put the principle of the separation of powers in jeopardy.

--IANS

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A day before President Pranab Mukherjee demits office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday lavished praise on him, saying he never judged his government's decisions or compared them with those made by previous governments.

"I was surprised while working with Pranab Da for three years that despite having been a part of the government for so long, and that too in key decision-making positions, he never judged or compared my government's decisions by his past experiences," Modi said.

Modi released a book titled "Selected Speeches of President - Volume 4" at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan here and presented the first copy to Mukherjee.

"He always saw the decisions in the present context with the present realities," Modi added.

Modi said although he and the President came from entirely different political backgrounds and were nurtured by different ideologies, "Pranab Da never let me feel that".

He said it was due to the guidance of "guardian and fatherly figure" of Mukherjee that he could learn the nitty-gritty of governance at the Centre.

"I was new, had no experience at this level (Centre). I came from a state. But through his (Mukherjee's) guidance we could do many things that we have done," the Prime Minister said.

He said his every interaction with Mukherjee will serve as a guiding light in his life.

Speaking on the occasion, Mukherjee said: "I have received much more from the country, than what I have given."

He also said he was overwhelmed by a deep sense of gratitude to the people of India for the trust and confidence they reposed in him and humbled by their kindness and affection.

He also said that in last five years he learnt from his travels across the length and breadth of the country.

"I learnt from conversations with young and bright minds in colleges and universities, scientists, innovators, scholars, jurists, authors, artists and leaders from across the spectrum. These interactions kept him focused and inspired," Mukherjee said.

Mukherjee congratulated and extended a warm welcome to his successor Ram Nath Kovind and wished him success.

--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.)
Heavy downpour and high tide battered the eastern metropolis and some districts, inundating large swathes of land on Monday. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused Jharkhand of releasing water without information but claimed there was no flood-like situation in her rain-hit state.

"Jharkhand has released some water. They have not informed us. There is no flood-like situation in the state yet. It is okay till now. I am monitoring the situation," Banerjee told the media here.

She said rivers were flowing below danger level but low-lying areas in districts like West Midnapore and Birbhum were water-logged.

Incessant rain since Saturday submerged key traffic corridors and connectors in Kolkata, while inundating districts in the Gangetic Bengal, officials said.

A high tide in the Hooghly river under the new moon's effect has compounded the problem.

Heavy rain is likely to persist during the day owing to the presence of a low pressure area over Gangetic Bengal and adjoining Jharkhand and associated upper air cyclonic circulation, according to the weather office.

It said "acute spells of rain or thundershowers" were likely till Tuesday.

"Heavy showers may also hit isolated places. Gusty winds will accompany the rains. A generally cloudy sky would be seen," a Met official said.

West Bengal Irrigation Minister Rajib Banerjee said the Damodar Valley Corporation has released 18,000 cusecs of water from its dams following the rains in Jharkhand.

"We are in discussions with them. We have requested them to not release more water. Our preparations are in line with the forecast for the next two days (Tuesday and Wednesday)," he said.

"In some areas, the cumulative rainfall for the past four days (since Thursday) is 600 mm or more. No embankments were breached. We have made arrangements to increase the height of some of the embankments," he added.

In addition, Monday and Tuesday being peak high tide timings, officials are carefully assessing the water flow, the Minister said.

The Hooghly and Bidyadhari rivers serve as outlets for accumulated rainwater in the city to drain out from a network of drains and canals.

Usually the lock gates are opened three hours before the peak of high tide to about two hours after the tide recedes.

"Today (Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday) is the peak (high tide). After tomorrow, the water will start receding.

"We are trying to stem the reservoir release but we can do so only up till the point the river can accept the released water. During this time, if the lock gates are opened, there is a risk of river water flooding the networks," he said.

High tide peak is around 1.57 p.m. on Monday with a height of 19.36 feet.

Over 30 wards in neighbouring Howrah and at least 10 in Kolkata were inundated.

The water level in several rivers in some districts, including West Midnapore's Shilabati river, that were flowing above the danger level on Sunday, has started to go down, officials said.

Incessant rain overnight caused waterlogging in Burdwan's Asansol, Hooghly's Baidyabati, besides West and East Midnapore, affecting thousands of people.

Fresh alerts were issued to fishermen in East Mindapore.

Kolkata received around 83 mm of rainfall till Monday morning, the Met Office said.

Stretches in Garia, Barasat, Chittaranjan Avenue, Ultadanga, Baguiati, Behala were waterlogged, leading to massive traffic snarls with rickshaws and auto-rickshaws refusing to ply.

An ambulance in Baguiati got stuck in the submerged area, prompting the patient to take an auto ride to the hospital.

Civic officials in Behala said they would have to evacuate several families if the water level does not recede. Residents of Behala were seen wading through knee-deep water.

A portion of an old residence in Harish Neogi Road here collapsed in the downpour. No one was injured, civic officials said.

In view of the deteriorating situation, control rooms have been set up at the state secretariat Nabanna, and leaves of all officials and employees of the Irrigation Department cancelled till October 31.

--IANS

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The Supreme Court on Monday asked Chandigarh's Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) to examine a 10-year-old rape victim who is 26 weeks pregnant and ascertain the extent of risk to her life if the court was to allow an abortion.

A bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked the PGIMER to set up a medical board and conduct the examination on Wednesday, and submit its report in a sealed cover.

Asking the secretary, Chandigarh Legal Services Authority, to assist as amicus curiae, the court directed next hearing of the matter on July 28.

The order came on a PIL by advocate Alok Srivastava who moved the top court after a plea for the medical termination of pregnancy was refused by a district court in Chandigarh on July 18.

The top court also issued a notice to the Central government on the plea which also sought framing of guidelines for setting up of medical boards in every district for an expeditious examination of cases necessitating abortions in incidents of child rape victims.

"Medical experts have categorically opined that if the 10-year-old rape survivor is forced to give birth through normal delivery or C-section, it may be fatal to the life of the girl as well her child," says the PIL.

The petitioner has also sought amendment of Section 3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, which prohibits termination of pregnancy beyond 20 weeks.

The top court had on July 3 allowed a Kolkata woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to abort the foetus suffering from serious abnormalities following a report from the city's premier SSKM Hospital.

--IANS

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The Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven key Kashmiri separatists on charges of receiving funds from Pakistan to sponsor terror activities and stone-pelting protests in the Kashmir Valley.

Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Peer Saifullah and Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal were arrested from Srinagar while Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate was arrested from Delhi.

Calling the arrests "revengeful and arbitrary", the Hurriyat leadership called for a shutdown in the Valley on Tuesday.

Altaf is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir's merger with Pakistan, while Islam is a close aide of moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Akbar is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat.

The six, who were arrested from Srinagar, were later flown to Delhi. They will be presented before Special NIA Judge at the Patiala House Courts on Tuesday, an NIA official said, adding their custody would be sought for further questioning.

The arrested persons have been booked on charges of criminal conspiracy and abetting waging war against the Indian State.

The official refused to divulge details about the new evidences collected by the NIA but confirmed that more people could be arrested as the agency collects more proof.

He also did not rule out the possibility of issuing summons to other Hurriyat leaders, including Geelani and JKLF leader Muhammad Yasin Malik who gave the call for the 'Kashmir Bandh' to condemn what they called were the "revengeful, arbitrary, and illegal arrests".

While New Delhi has for decades accused Islamabad of funding, arming and training Kashmiri separatists, it is the first time so many senior members of the Hurriyat Conference have been arrested on charges of receiving money from Pakistan.

The Geelani-led Hurriyat suspended Nayeem Khan after he confessed in a TV sting that Hurriyat leaders had been receiving funds from Pakistan for subversive activities in the Valley.

The NIA had registered a case on May 30 against separatist leaders, including members of the Hurriyat, who have been acting in connivance with militants of outlawed terrorist groups Hizbul Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Taiba and others for raising and receiving funds.

Investigators said the funds were received by the separatists through illegal means, including hawala channels, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in Kashmir through street protests, burning of schools, damaging public properties and waging war against India.

The NIA had questioned the arrested persons. Altaf was questioned earlier in Delhi for nearly two weeks.

In pursuance of the FIR, the NIA in June conducted raids in Srinagar, Jammu, Delhi and Haryana and seized "incriminating" evidence against those involved in receiving funds, acting as intermediaries, and final beneficiaries of funds coming from Pakistan.

The NIA FIR names Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ud Dawah, the front of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), as an accused, besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference, Hizbul Mujahideen, and Dukhtaran-e-Millat.

During the raids, the NIA had seized unaccounted for account books, Rs 2 crore, and letterheads of banned terrorist groups, including the LeT and Hizbul.

The NIA also seized property-related documents, pen drives, laptops, mobile phones, phone diaries, receipts and vouchers showing hawala payments.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended six Congress MPs for five consecutive sittings for improper conduct after they tore up papers and threw them towards her podium.

The six MPs - Gaurav Gogoi, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ranjit Ranjan, Sushmita Dev, M.K. Raghavan and K. Suresh -- would have to remain out of the lower House for the whole of this week.

During Zero Hour, as the Congress MPs were protesting demanding a discussion on attacks on Dalits and Muslims by cow vigilantes, the six MPs tore up the papers and threw them in the air and towards the Speaker's podium.

"This conduct is not right. It is highly unbecoming and against the rules of the House which seeks to undermine the dignity of the House," Mahajan said.

She said the members were "wilfully obstructing" the House and had caused disorder. She announced their suspension under rule 374 A for "five consecutive sittings".

--IANS

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Actor- filmmaker Shreyas Talpade says he wanted the "Ghayal" star Sunny Deol to play a role in "Poster Boys" to add credibility to the film, which has a "little sensitive subject".

"Poster Boys" is the official remake of Shreyas's production venture in Marathi "Poshter Boyz", based on three characters who find their pictures on a vasectomy poster.

Asked about choosing Sunny to play one of the character, Shreyas told media on Monday: "I wanted Sunny sir to play the role because it adds credibility to the film. It's a little sensitive subject, and Sunny being a part of the film adds the credibility that it isn't an unpleasant or cheap film and it's a family entertainer."

Shreyas was speaking at the trailer launch of his directorial "Poster Boys" here. The launch was attended by Sunny, Bobby Deol, Dharmendra and Sonali Kulkarni.

"The script is very interesting and when it's a great idea, the actor just wants to grab it. It gave me an opportunity to do something which I wouldn't have done otherwise," said Sunny, known for playing action roles.

Bobby, who is playing one of the lead characters, spoke about the dialect he had to use for the film.

He said: "It was a big challenge to speak in pure Hindi. Shreyas and I did a lot of workshops together. It was amazing how Shreyas knew everyone's dialogues. I wanted him to say my dialogues too. It was a difficult task, but also it was a lot of fun and exciting."

Sneha Rajani, President and Head, Sony Pictures Networks Productions, one of the producers of the film, said Shreyas was not ready to make the film without Sunny and Bobby.

"When Shreyas first told me he wants Sunny and Bobby to play these characters, I asked him if he was joking. He said, 'No, I am not making this film without them.' Absolutely wonderful casting."

"I was told to watch the Marathi film, and the impact it had on me was tremendous. I immediately got in touch with Shreyas. I just had to be a part of the film. It's such a wonderful film," added Rajani.

Dharmendra was so impressed with the trailer of "Poster Boys" that he said Shreyas should start working on its sequel.

"I had heard that the Marathi film was a big hit. But after watching this trailer, I can say that this will be a bigger hit than the original. I think 'Poster Boys 2' should also come out. Shreyas should start working on a sequel," Dharmendra said.

"Poster Boys" is scheduled to release on September 8.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kolkata, July 24 ( IANS) With the rolling-out of Goods and Services Tax (GST) and anticipated boost in the housing sector, the tiles industry is expected to grow by 6-9 per cent in the current fiscal, a top industry player said here on Monday.

"The tiles industry size is about Rs 26,500 crore and in other words, it is at 865 million square metres. The industry is expected to grow by 6-9 per cent in this year," Kajaria Ceramics Chairman and Managing Director Ashok Kajaria said at the launch of its largest showroom here.

Affordable housing boom, Smart City and Swachh Bharat programmes and GST implementation are expected to boost the demand in tge industry, he said.

Kajaria also said the tiles industry had grown by 3-5 per cent in the last fiscal due to a muted market.

"GST is win-win for the industry. The incidence of tax, prior to GST, was varying between 28 per cent to 31.5 percent depending on the states' VAT. Now, it comes down to 28 per cent, which will be beneficial for the industry," he said.

Of the total industry, unorganised sector is contributing to 60 per cent and some of the unorganised players work with organised players. As a result of it, the break-up is 50:50, he said adding that the industry is likely to move towards organised segment with the implementation of GST.

The ceramic tiles segment is of 55 per cent of the total industry size while vitrified tiles segment has 45 per cent share, he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump accused Republican lawmakers of doing "very little" to protect him, and he once again criticized the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election campaign.

"It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President," Trump tweeted on Sunday.

It is not clear what Trump was referring to, although his message comes a few days after Republican congressional leaders failed on their second attempt to overturn and replace the health care reform ObamaCare, Efe news reported.

Trump blamed Democrats and "some" Republicans in Congress, along with the leaders of the conservative party controlling both houses, of planning once again this week to push a plan to replace ObamaCare, although the contents of that plan have still not been clarified.

After the failure of the Republicans' second attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Trump said that GOP lawmakers should repeal the reform even if they have no alternative plan to replace it, but the White House insisted that Trump preferred to have both things accomplished at the same time.

Trump also could have been referring to the investigations by the FBI and two congressional committees into the links between his campaign team and Russia, because he alluded to that issue in an earlier tweet.

Trump's son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner is scheduled to testify behind closed doors on Monday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and on Tuesday he will appear before the analogous House committee to answer lawmakers' questions about his Russian contacts during the election campaign.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jared Kushner, the senior adviser and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, has, in a statement sent to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and published by local media, denied having colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in a written statement issued hours before testifying behind closed doors to the Senate Intelligence Committee about his contacts with Russia during the 2016 electoral campaign, Efe news reported.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent," Kushner said in the 11-page statement.

Kushner said he had no inappropriate contacts with anyone who had been or was at that time a representative of the Russian government.

In his testimony, Kushner mentions a meeting unknown up to now with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

According to Kushner, he met Kislyak and three other ambassadors a few months before Trump was designated the Republican candidate for President.

He said they "shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries" and "each exchange lasted less than a minute".

Recently Trump's son-in-law has been at the centre of a controversy for a meeting with a Russian lawyer who was expected to provide damaging information against the then-Democratic candidate and Trump rival Hillary Clinton.

But Kushner said the meeting "was a waste of our time".

Kushner will be questioned on Monday by the Senate Intelligence Committee and on Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee, both currently investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and the possible collusion of members of the Trump campaign with the Kremlin.
US President Donald Trump remains unconvinced that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election, the newly-appointed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said.

"He basically said to me, 'Hey you know, this is, maybe they did it, maybe they didn't do it,'" Scaramucci told CNN on Sunday night of a conversation he had with the President about alleged Russian interference.

Prior to Trump's inauguration, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified report showing the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency all concluded the Russian government attempted to influence the election to bring down Hillary Clinton and help Trump.

Scaramucci suggested Trump does not yet accept the conclusion of the intelligence community and questioned the media's pursuit of the story, saying it tarnished Trump's victory in November.

"The mainstream media position on this, that they interfered in the election," Scaramucci told CNN.

"It actually in his mind, what are you guys suggesting? You're going to delegitimize his victory?"

Scaramucci said he intended to review the intelligence community's evidence once he had his security clearance and pledged to give Trump his personal thoughts on the conclusions.

He said Trump would make up his own mind in time and that if Trump believed Russia was responsible for the 2016 efforts and a threat to future elections, he would act.

"A person that's going to be super, super tough on Russia is President Donald Trump," the Communications Director added.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump posted a tweet that called the Russia probe a "witch hunt", saying Democrats were using the Russian hacking allegations as an "excuse for a lost election".

"As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!" he wrote.

In response, Democratic Senator Al Franken told CNN: "What can you say? It's just bizarre."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Turin (Italy), July 24 (IANS/AKI) Police in north Italy on Monday arrested two Sinti Gypsy brothers accused of robbing bank cashpoints at night while wearing US President Donald Trump masks.

The men, aged 26 and 30, were held after their latest alleged heist when they made off with 92,000 euros after blowing up two cashpoints in the northwest Piedmont region - in Cavallermaggiore, near Cuneo and in Vigone, near Turin.

The two brothers are suspects of pulling off dozens of similar robberies after driving to the bank cash points aboard stolen cars which they had resprayed with black paint, police said.

The suspects forced open the slot where the cashpoints dispense money and inserted an explosive device to blow them open, said police.

The pair were identified from security camera images, according to police.

--IANS/AKI

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two Jordanians were killed in a shootout inside the Israeli embassy in Amman, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The attack took place on Sunday evening when the owner of the embassy compound and two workers entered the premises "for a routine furniture replacement", according to the Foreign Ministry.

One of the workers allegedly stabbed an Israeli security officer with a screwdriver, who, in self-defence, opened fire on the assailant, 17, reports Efe news.

Another Jordanian, identified as the owner of the building, was injured in the gunfire and later succumbed to his wounds at the hospital.

The incident comes at a time of escalated tensions between Israelis and Palestinians over newly-installed metal detectors at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque following an attack in which three armed Palestinians killed two Israeli policemen before being shot dead.

The holy site is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and Jews as the Temple Mount.

On Friday, thousands of Jordanians protested in Amman against Israel over the installation of metal detectors outside a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews in East Jerusalem.

--IANS

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Iran's Foreign Ministry and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned a deadly terrorist bomb attack in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi on Monday offered his condolences to the Afghani government, nation and the families of the victims, saying Iran will help them in fighting extremism and violence, Xinhua news agency reported.

For his part, UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said: "The secretary-general expresses his deepest sympathy to the families of those who lost their lives and wishes a speedy recovery to the injured. He reaffirms the solidarity of the United Nations with the people and Government of Afghanistan."

"The deliberate targeting of civilians constitutes a grave violation of human rights and international humanitarian law and may constitute a war crime," he said.

Condemning the attack, the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission said: "This morning's Taliban bomb killing Afghan civilians in a crowded Kabul residential area is another in a string of atrocities caused by the insurgent group."

"We offer our most sincere condolences to the families of innocent victims martyred in these cowardly attacks. We hope those wounded quickly recover," the statement reads.

Currently, around 13,000 foreign troops remain in Afghanistan to train and assist local security forces in their fight against the Taliban.

Earlier on Monday, a car bomb struck a minibus carrying government employees in western Kabul, killing 24 civilians and injuring 42 others. Three vehicles and 15 shops were severely damaged in the explosion.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since late April when the militant group launched its annual offensive in different places in Afghanistan.

--IANS

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A Moroccan peacekeeper was killed and three others were injured in an ambush in Bangassou city of the Central African Republic, local media reported on Monday.

"The UN mission to Central African Republic (MINUSCA) military convoy was targeted by anti-Balaka militiamen on Sunday," le360.ma news site reported quoting a statement from the United Nations mission.

"The attack took place while the Moroccan peacekeepers were escorting water tankers to a river to help resupply the village," Xinhua news agency cited the report as saying.

MINUSCA condemned the assault and expressed condolences to the victims and their families. In May, six peacekeepers, including two Moroccans, were killed in the city and the surrounding region.

--IANS

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The UN High Commissioner for (UNHCR) on Monday urged Australia to stop detaining and close down its offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

"Four years on, more than 2,000 people are still languishing in unacceptable circumstances. Families have been separated and many have suffered physical and psychological harm," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in a statement.

According to the statement, around 2,500 and asylum-seekers have been forcibly transferred by Australia for offshore processing of their applications in Papua New Guinea and Nauru since the introduction of the current policy in 2013.

Of these, some 1,100 remain in Nauru and 900 in Papua New Guinea, added the statement.

The statement adds that the Australian government informed the UNHCR it will not accept refugees on its territory and offered the options of either letting them be where they are, or transferring them to Cambodia, with whom it signed an agreement in 2014, or the US, with whom it signed an agreement in 2016, to transfer some of the refugees detained in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

"To avoid prolonging their ordeal, UNHCR has no other choice but to endorse the relocation of all refugees on Papua New Guinea and Nauru to the US, even those with close family members in Australia," the UN High Commissioner said in his statement.

Many of the refugees in these offshore centres have fled strife-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Darfur, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, and have escaped discrimination or status as stateless persons such as the Rohingya minorities from Myanmar.
Facing flak over its advisory for ensuring separate lanes for VIPs at toll plazas in Uttar Pradesh, the state government on Monday took a U-turn and said the earlier system of same lanes for all vehicles will be adhered to.

The state was earlier rapped for its communique to all Divisional Commissioners, District Magistrates, Chief Engineers of Public Works Department and regional officers of National Highways Authority of India, seeking special lanes at toll plazas across the state for VVIPs -- members of Parliament, legislators and ministers.

Additional Chief Secretary (Urban Development) Sadakant in a letter issued on Monday to these officials said the earlier instructions were "misinterpreted".

He clarified that the issue was mooted since 'vishisht mahanubhav' (VIPs) had difficulty in commuting in case of traffic jams at the toll plazas.

The state government's move for separate lanes for VIPs was questioned since the Centre had earlier banned use of beacon lights and sirens on official vehicles, except in particular cases.

--IANS

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The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has given approval for the Vodafone-Idea merger.

"Idea Cellular is pleased to confirm receipt of the letter from the Competition Commission of India dated July 24, 2017, according approval to the proposed merger of Vodafone India, Vodafone Mobile Services Limited, and Idea Cellular under sub section (1) of section 31 of the Act," Idea Cellular said in a statement.

"The transaction is expected to close during calendar year 2018 subject to customary approvals," it added.

Vodafone India and Aditya Birla Group-promoted Idea Cellular on March 20 announced their much-awaited amalgamation.

Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, will be its Chairman.

"Vodafone Group and Idea Cellular announced they have reached an agreement to combine their operations in India (excluding Vodafone's 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers) to create India's largest telecom operator," a joint statement by the companies had earlier said.

"The combined company would become the leading communications provider in India with almost 400 million customers, 35 per cent customer market share and 41 per cent revenue market share," it added.

The merger will create an entity with over Rs 80,000 crore revenue.

"Vodafone will own 45.1 per cent of the combined company after transferring a stake of 4.9 per cent to the promoters of Idea and/or their affiliates for Rs 3,874 crore in cash concurrent with the completion of the amalgamation," the statement said.

"The promoters of Idea will hold 26 per cent of the company and the balance will be held by the public."

--IANS

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In a flip-flop, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said here on Monday that the 39 Indians missing in the city of Mosul since 2014 are considered alive, after having said earlier in the day his government was not 100 per cent sure about this.

"We are trying to follow news gained through intelligence sources, and we consider that all the Indians are alive," al-Jafaari told the media here late Monday.

He also said that the Iraqi government had financial incentives for people who could help locate those 39 Indians.

He said that the IS was known for spreading fake news and that the Iraqi government checked such information from its own sources while expressing hope that the 39 Indians were alive.

Earlier in the day, following a meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, al-Jafaari said: "I am not 100 per cent sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul are alive. We are trying our best (to trace them)."

Most of the 39 Indian construction workers who went missing in 2014 are from Punjab.

Al-Jaafari's comments came after Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh visited Iraq after Iraqi forces aided by an international coalition liberated Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation on July 9.

Sushma Swaraj had earlier said that with the freeing of Mosul, the process to trace and rescue the missing Indians would be taken forward.

She said they had information that the Indians were in a jail in Badush, which lies in ruins now.

Singh was earlier sent to Erbil in Iraq to pursue the case of the missing Indians.

On July 12, Singh visited the Kurdish Peshmarga frontline in Mosul area to seek information about the Indians. He said some IS-held areas were still being cleared.

Sushma Swaraj has met the families of the 39 persons around a dozen times since they were abducted in June 2014 and assured them that the government was doing everything to locate them.

Iraqi forces liberated Mosul after 266 days of fierce battles, ending three years of IS rule.
A young man was stabbed by unidentified assailants in south Delhi after he asked them to remove their two-wheelers from the road, police said on Monday.

Police said 28-year-old Prince Tewatia, son of a Delhi Police Head Constable and working in a Gurugram call centre, was returning home in Saidulajab area on Sunday evening after dropping a friend in Lado Sarai area when he had an altercation with the four youths.

"A complaint of stabbing was received at the Saket police station around 8.45 p.m. Police found victim Prince's motorcycle parked in a pool of blood while he was admitted in All India Institute of Medical Sciences Trauma Centre," Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Chinmoy Biswal said.

"The caller, Paras Sharma, a resident of Lado Sarai and friend of the victim, told police that Tewatia dropped him at Lado Sarai and on the way back, he had an altercation with four youths standing near two scooties near a temple. He said he later received a call from Prince that he has been stabbed by unknown persons," Biswal said.

The young man sustained four stab injuries -- one in the upper back, one in the right thigh and two on his hands. The doctor had declared him unfit to give a statement, the officer added.

Police is examining closed-circuit television footage from nearby areas to ascertain the identity of the accused, he added.

--IANS

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Its not just large private sector banks that are offering instant to their customers through ATMs or via online bank accounts. Financial technology start-ups are changing the way personal are disbursed to borrowers.

Recently, Indias largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, started offering personal to its pre-selected salaried customers through its ATMs. Only those on the banks pre-approved customers list based on their credit score would get the option to avail the facility. HDFC Bank has been offering instant loan through net banking. But if you dont have a credit history or a longstanding banking relationship, you can approach start-ups such as EarlySalary.com, LoanTap, and so on.

As these lenders target customers who dont have any credit history, they use a variety of parameters to evaluate the customers profile. They access an applicants social media account and build a profile after getting information through the app such as friends list, location, etc. They also evaluate the spending habit after evaluating the customers bank account statement.

EarlySalary.com offers short-term loans from a day to a month. Once a person takes 5 minutes to fill in the loan application on the company's app, the KYC, signing of documents and disbursement can be done within a few hours. From the next time onwards, the disbursement is instant. Around 35 per cent borrowers are new to credit, says Akshay Mehrotra, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO), EarlySalary.com.

Illustration: Ajay Mohanty

LoanTap offers on-tap credit up to Rs 5 lakh for one day to five years. But their loan system works like a credit card. You can repay a minimum amount and revolve the outstanding, paying interest on it, says Satyam Kumar, CEO, LoanTap.

There are also intermediaries such as Qbera.com which has tied up with RBL Bank, and PaySense, that works with India Infoline Finance. These fintech start-ups underwrite the loans for partner lenders. In case of defaults, they also bear the risk. Theoretically its possible for lenders to do the same kind of underwriting that we do but the reality is that they are not as agile. Their adoption of technology is slow. Also, operating costs for lenders are too high, especially for small-ticket loans, says Aditya Kumar, founder and CEO, Qbera.com.

In case of Qbera and PaySense, too, the borrowers can be big bank customers or those without a credit history. Once we establish a relationship with them with the first loan, subsequent loans are disbursed instantly, says Sayali Karanjkar, co-founder and COO, PaySense.

As availing personal loans gets easier, financial planners say borrowers should not fall for this easy money trap. If theres a default, the institutions will report it to credit bureaus, and there can be problems when the borrower wants to go for a housing loan.

While these facilities are convenient, borrowers should use them only in case of an emergency and not on their usual expenditure. Most financial disasters happen due to an individuals inability to control spending. Its difficult not to get habituated to debt when once uses such a product, says Malhar Majumder, certified financial planner.

If you have a salary account with a bank, do explore the option of overdraft (OD) facility on the salary that comes at 14-19 per cent interest rates. Once set up, you can take an OD for up to a year in case of emergencies.
Shiv Sena chief on Monday said India had failed to get international support on its issues with Pakistan and China despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi making friends with world leaders.

Thackeray, whose party is a constituent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre and in Maharashtra, also said it would be an injustice to the nation if the senior ally remained embroiled in elections and internal .

"What has happened which caused a severe unrest in Kashmir and has made the dragon (China) our enemy? Are we lacking somewhere? The PM roams around the world and has made many friends. Then, why is it that nobody is openly supporting us against these enemies?" Thackeray asked in the second part of his interview to Sena mouthpiece Saamana.

"The BJP might be considering the Shiv Sena as its number one enemy. That is why may be, Pakistan and China have been ignored? If they feel the Sena is a bigger enemy than these two nations, it is their misfortune, not mine," he said.

There has been nearly a month-long border standoff between India and China in the Sikkim sector, which is seen as part of Chinese coercive tactics to change the status quo. India has taken a strong stand against such a Chinese move.

According to Thackeray, China's strength cannot be ignored and India needs to make efforts to match it.

"If the ruling party remains stuck in elections and internal politics, it will be an injustice to the nation... You can win elections anytime, you have even won them. But, a war is a war and there is China on the opposite side," he said.

"On one hand, they (the BJP) have been able to get back Kashmir from Pakistan and on the other hand, China is trying to expand," Thackeray said.

The environment in the country isn't good now, the Shiv Sena chief said, referring to the issue of gau rakshaks and instances of them resorting to violence.

"On how many fronts will you be able to fight at the same time?" he asked.

Asked on his interaction with Modi during the NDA meet held before the presidential polls, Thackeray said the prime minister welcomed him with a lot of affection.

The PM requested him to sit with him to eat and affectionately asked about the wellbeing of his family members. Modi even spoke to him in Marathi, the Sena leader said.

In the first part of the interview published on Sunday, Thackeray had accused the prime minister of being on a "centralisation spree" as he criticised demonetisation and goods and services tax (GST).

He had said reforms are a must, "but one should pause" to review their impact.

The Sena leader also said that going by government advertisements, one would get a feeling that everything was hunky-dory, but one should check the ground reality.
Congress on Monday alleged the Democratic Alliance's (NDA) vice-presidential candidate M and his family members, especially his son and daughter, to have benefitted from the largesse of the Telangana government. Later in the day, Naidu rebutted the allegations and said it was clear evidence of hopelessness and political bankruptcy of the Congress party.
Expressing serious concern over the continuing tensions on India's borders with Pakistan and China, Shiv Sena President on Monday wondered whether the country is really prepared for war.

"Jammu and Kashmir, which was peaceful for the past 10 years, is up in flames since the killing of Burhan Wani. China is outright issuing threats to us. Are we really prepared in case a war breaks out?" Thackeray asked.

His comments came in the second instalment of his customary, annual birthday-eve interview series to the party's publications 'Saamana' and 'Dopahar Ka Saamana'. Thackeray, who spoke with Saamana Executive Editor Sanjay Raut, MP, will turn 57 on June 27.

Thackeray decried suggestions that "Shiv Sena is the No. 1 enemy of the Bharatiya Janata Party" and said "dump all in the fire and pay attention to the nation's security".

"If Shiv Sena is their No. 1 enemy, then what about Pakistan and China? The Chinese dragon ... is now aggressively trying to pounce on us," he said.

The Sena chief said he was perturbed over what had gone wrong though Prime Minister Narendra Modi was globe-trotting.

"If the whole world is our friend, then why can't these two neighbours be restrained? Why not a single of our friends is openly coming to help and rein in our enemies?" Thackeray asked.

He pointed out that now China was openly "aggressive against India".

"It is all very nice to hear that India and China are very different now since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, but we cannot ignore China's present strength and we need to consider how we can grapple with that challenge effectively.

"If we continue to play over these serious issues, it will be a downright deceit of the people of the country. You will continue to win elections, but a war is war," Thackeray said.

He referred to a report in which China has claimed that Tibet is its hand and Leh, Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan are its five claws.

"When it tightens the grip of its hand, do we have an iron fist to tackle it? Under such circumstances, when you have lost your domestic friends, will your global friends rush to your aid? As the Shiv Sena founder, the late Bal Thackeray, used to warn, what will be the fate of the country if war actually erupts?" Thackeray asked.

Internally, the situation was not conducive, what with violence breaking out over beef and cow protection, he said. If a war erupts on the border, how many wars will they fight, he asked.

To a query, Thacekray dismissed the idea of the proposed bullet train, saying: "There's no need for it but the upcoming Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway was necessary as it will link the state's capital and its second capital."
Outgoing President on Sunday gave a message to both government and opposition telling them ordinance route should be used only in compelling circumstances, disruption harms the opposition too and passing bills without discussion was a breach of the people's trust.

Addressing a farewell function held in the Central Hall of parliament by the members of both houses, Mukherjee described himself as "humble servant" of people who had sought to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution in both word and spirit.

A nostalgic Mukherjee, who will demit office on Tuesday, recalled that he was only 34 years old when he first entered parliament in 1969 as a Rajya Sabha MP and went on to complete 37 years as a parliamentarian - where he "understood the real value of debate, discussion and dissent" - before being elected to the highest constitutional post.



Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan read out the farewell address by the lower house's members, describing him a "guru" from whom generations of parliamentarians have received lessons on operational dynamics of parliamentary practice.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, who is also Chairman of Rajya Sabha, cited Mukherjee's remarks at a farewell dinner for Governors and Lt Governors last week in which he had said that their role is "mainly confined to giving advice to Chief Minister" as "there cannot be two functional executive authorities in a state".

The function was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, union ministers, senior leaders from the opposition besides present and former MPs. Former Prime Ministers H. D. Deve Gowda and Manmohan Singh were among those present.



Mukherjee was presented a scroll, a memento and a book containing signatures of the parliamentarians.

In his speech, which received repeated applause, the president addressed both the government and the opposition.

"I am firm in my opinion that the ordinance route should be used only in compelling circumstances and there should be no recourse to ordinances on monetary matters," he said, adding it should not be brought on matters pending in the house or before a committee and if a matter is deemed urgent, the committee should be asked to present its report in a stipulated time.

He said it is "unfortunate" that parliament's time devoted to legislation has been declining.



"With heightened complexity of administration, legislation must be preceded by scrutiny and adequate discussion. Scrutiny in committees is no substitute to open discussion on the floor of the House.

"When Parliament fails to discharge its law making role, or enacts laws without discussion, it breaches the trust reposed in it by the people," he added.

Mukherjee said he realised as a parliamentarian that disruptions of proceedings "hurts the opposition more than the government as it denies them the opportunity to raise the concerns of the people".

Mukherjee remembered his "mentor", former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, terming her a "towering personality" who had the courage to call a spade a spade.

Praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said he had greatly benefitted in his task of protecting and preserving constitution by advice and cooperation given by Modi at every step.

"With passion and energy, he is driving transformational changes in the country. I will carry with me fond memories of our association and his warm and courteous behaviour," he said.

Mukherjee rued that as he retires, his association with Parliament will also end. "It will be with a tinge of sadness and a rainbow of memories that I will be leaving this magnificent building today," he added.

"With a sense of gratitude and a prayer in my heart, I take leave of you. I leave with a sense of fulfillment and happiness of having served the people of this great country through this institution -- as their humble servant."

Mukherjee said his long innings in Parliament was both instructive and educative and recalled contributions of several leaders including former Prime Ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, BJP leader L.K. Advani and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police has arrested 20 persons in connection with the mob lynching of DSP Mohd Ayub Pandith here last month, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, Munir Khan said here today.

A militant involved in the killing of the police officer was shot dead in an encounter with security forces on July 12, the IGP said addressing a press conference on the status of the investigations in the case.

Pandith was lynched outside Jamia Masjid in Nowhatta area of the city on June 22.

The IGP said the investigation in the case is still on and more arrests are likely to take place.

"So far 20 accused have been arrested and one more, a militant identified as Sajad Ahmad Gilkar, was killed in an encounter with the security forces in Redbugh area of Budgam on July 12," Khan said.

"The investigation of the case is going on at a fast pace and some more arrests are expected which will lead to the completion of the investigation and the case will be submitted for judicial determination," he said.

Khan said the police is making vigorous efforts to identify the remaining assailants involved in the crime, while recovery of other evidences related to the commission of the crime is underway.

"The important pieces of evidence including an iron rod, by which the officer was hit, his identity card, service pistol (in a damaged condition) and his cell phone have been recovered," he said.

The IGP said it was encouraging to note that people came forward to provide valuable information which led to a substantial headway in the investigations.

"Unlike other cases, there was widespread condemnation by cross-section of the society.General public and eyewitnesses voluntarily came forward to render assistance in the investigation and provide valuable information.This led us to the right conclusion and the right line of investigation," he said.

Khan said in the initial phase, three persons were arrested and questioned which led to subsequent arrests and recovery of the evidence.

Stitching together the sequence of events which led to the lynching of the officer, the IGP said during investigations it surfaced that a group of hooligans came out of the mosque raising slogans in favour of militant commander Zakir Musa and "supposedly to welcome" chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

"Four miscreants saw the DySP, who was coming out of the mosque after checking the deployment for access control duties, called him and questioned him.They asked for his identity card which he refused to give.

"The hooligans started heckling the officer and the number of miscreants swelled.The officer fired some shots from his service rifle below the waistline causing injury to three assailants who were in the immediate proximity and were heckling him. However, the mob continued to beat him which ended in his death," Khan said.

He said it took time to identify the slain officer as "he was defaced and disfigured".

Rejecting the charge that there was any kind of dereliction of duty on the part of police officials present in the area, the IGP said, "It seems the slain officer had not liaised with the officers of the police station concerned".

Asked whether Mirwaiz's supporters were involved in the incident, Khan said the probe is still on.

He said "Everyone who needs to be questioned, would be questioned" in response to a query whether Mirwaiz would be questioned in connection with the case.

He said the slain officer was there to protect everyone praying at the mosque including the Mirwaiz.

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At least 26 people, including policemen, were killed and 57 others injured today when a suspected suicide bomber targeted police personnel deployed near residence-cum-office of Pakistan's Punjab province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore.

"Police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the CM's Model Town residence, when a powerful blast took place," Rescue 1122 Deeba Shahnaz told PTI.

Lahore police chief Capt (R) Amin Wains confirmed that it was a suicide blast and the "target was police".

The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.

The Punjab government confirmed that 26 people were killed and and 57 others injured in the blast. One Sub- Inspector, 1 ASI and 6 Constables were among dead, it added.

Rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital. Emergency was declared in city hospitals. "The condition of several injures is stated to be critical" Shahnaz said.

"29 injured persons are being treated at Lahore General Hospital, 9 in Jinnah and 18 in Ittefaq hospital," the official Twitter account of the Government of Punjab tweeted.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast.

Citing police sources, the Geo reported that a suicide attacker targeted police personnel deployed at the site. The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed.

"We are collecting evidence and this could be a suicide bombing. The death toll includes police and civilians," DIG Operations Haider Ashraf was quoted as saying.

Prime Minister Sharif strongly condemned the blast and directed officials to provide best possible medical treatment for the injured.

"No words can express the grief which grips my heart right now. Blast destroyed many families, but terrorists can never destroy our resolve," Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said.

"Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins!," he tweeted.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said terrorism can not be ruled out as the motive behind the explosion. He added that security forces are conducting their investigations.

Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, has witnessed several terror attacks in recent years.

In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahore's Bedian Road.

In February, a suicide bomber killed 14 people, including senior police officers, near the Punjab Assembly here.

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today paid a visit to NDA's vice-presidential nominee M Venkaiah Naidu here.

"He (Adityanath) came to extend his best wishes to me," Naidu said after the meeting.

The former Union housing and urban affairs minister added that Adityanath apprised him of the progress of various schemes in the state such as the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) and Swachh Bharat Mission.

In May, Naidu had visited Uttar Pradesh to review the implementation of these schemes.

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In the wake of victory against the Islamic State group in Mosul, Iraq's political, religious and military leaders are debating the future of the country's powerful Shiite militias, the tens of thousands of men who answered a religious call to arms three years ago and played a critical role in beating back the extremists.

Some are demanding the mostly Iranian-backed forces be disbanded but the militias say their sacrifices on the battlefield and the fact they were sanctioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi have earned them a permanent place in the hierarchy of Iraq's security forces.

The Shiite militias stepped into a vacuum when the Iraqi army largely dissolved after IS overran Mosul and pushed within 80 miles (130 kilometres) of the Iraqi capital.

Shiite Sheikh Fadil al-Bidayri was among the clerics at an emergency meeting in the holy city of Najaf in June 2014, when Iraq's Shiite religious elite, led by the country's top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a call to arms as a last-ditch effort to protect Baghdad.

Tens of thousands of men, many of them members of the long-established Shiite militias with close ties to Iran, answered al-Sistani. In the days that followed, Iraq was flooded with training, money and weapons from Tehran.

Billboards praising the groups, depicting Iraqi and Iranian paramilitary leaders side by side, popped up across Baghdad, alongside posters of martyrs honouring the fallen.

The government-sanctioned groups became known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces, known as Hashed al-Shaabi in Arabic.

Although the Shiite militias did not play a central role in the battle for the city of Mosul itself, they moved into the deserts held by IS west of the city, massing around the town of Tal Afar and taking a border crossing between Iraq and Syria. They also took control of highways bisecting the Sunni heartland in western Iraq and used as vital military and civilian supply lines.

In past fights against IS, including the operation to retake for the cities of Tikrit and Fallujah, the Shiite militias were accused of sectarian killings and other abuses against minority Sunnis. They acknowledge some abuses may have occurred but say those responsible have been disciplined.

Over the past three years, as the military fight against IS in Iraq pushed the extremists back, Iran's influence in the country grew.

"We always knew that Iran would use this (call to arms) to increase its own power in Iraq, but we had no other choice," said al-Bidayri, recounting the meeting in Najaf and the panic-filled days after the 2014 fall of Mosul.

Al-Bidayri says now that Mosul has been retaken and the Iraqi military has been partially rebuilt, he believes the Shiite militias should be disbanded, to curb Iranian influence in Iraq and reduce sectarian tensions. The elderly sheikh, like much of Iraq's religious establishment in Najaf, is a staunch nationalist and wary of Iran's growing influence.

"From the very beginning ... Iran used every opportunity to get involved in Iraq," al-Bidayri said. "Each time they used the protection of the Shiite people as an excuse.

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Israel is working to calm the situation in Jerusalem following a flare-up of violence, but it will do whatever is necessary to maintain security at a holy site, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said today.

"We will enable everybody to come and pray on the Temple Mount, but at the same time we will do whatever is necessary to maintain security," Ambassador Danny Danon told journalists ahead of a Security Council meeting to discuss ways to de- escalate tensions.

Egypt, France and Sweden called for the talks following clashes over the weekend that left five Palestinians dead.

The violence was triggered by new security measures put in place at the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, following an attack on July 14 that killed two Israeli police officers.

Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the site, which includes Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, in a move the Palestinians denounce as a bid by Israel to assert control.

Asked whether Israel was prepared to remove the metal detectors, Danon said: "Our goal is to calm the situation" by allowing access to the holy site, but also to "maintain security at this important place."



The Security Council was to hear a report from UN envoy Nikolay Mladenov during a closed-door meeting later Monday.

"We hope that members of the council will send a clear message to the parties to de-escalate, to exercise restraint, to refrain from provocations, and to work together to lower tensions and discourage violence," said Swedish diplomat Carl Skau.

Sweden is among a handful of European countries that recognize Palestine.

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said there was concern at the council about a possible escalation.

"It's important that the Security Council plays our part in calling for calm," Rycroft told reporters.

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A 36-year-old biker was killed when she was thrown off her two-wheeler after hitting a pothole on a road near Mumbai and was crushed by a passing truck.

Bandra-resident Jagruti Hogale, a member of the all-women 'Bikerni' motorcycle club, was on a trip with two other bikers to Jawhar in Palghar district yesterday when the incident occurred, a police official said.

The advertising professional tried to overtake a truck on the Jawhar-Dahanu road around 9 am but her bike landed in a pothole, throwing her off.

She was then crushed under the wheels of the truck, the official said, quoting an eye witness.

Hogale was rushed to a hospital where she was declared dead before admission, Kasa police station's assistant police inspector Jaiprakash Guthe said.

The biker had earlier driven up to Khardung La in Ladakh, one of the highest motorable roads in the world, the police official said.

An accidental death report has been registered and the truck driver has been arrested.

He has been booked under the IPC sections 304-A (causing death by negligence), which carries a punishment of up to two years in jail, and 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), which provides for up to 6 months in prison, Guthe said.

This is the fourth death this year caused by vehicles skidding on potholes on the Jawhar-Dahanu road, police said.

On July 4 this year, an 18-year-old boy was killed when he lost control over his motorcycle while trying to avoid a pothole at Bhiwandi Naka in the neighbouring Thane district. He fell from the vehicle and later died of head injuries.

Earlier, a 21-year-old man was killed when his two-wheeler landed in a pothole near the state-run JJ Hospital in Mumbai in September last year.

Popular radio jockey Malishka Mendonsa recently incurred the wrath of the Shiv Sena which controls Mumbai's civic body for a satirical song on pothole ridden-Mumbai roads during the monsoon.

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The Congress has asked the government to bring more transparency in the electoral bonds scheme and alleged that it was a "completely opaque mechanism".

Congress treasurer Motilal Vora in a letter to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley demanded more transparency so that the electorate knows who the donor was, which was the donee political party and what was the amount donated.

He said that he had announced in his budget speech that he would come up with the scheme that would bring transparency in electoral funding.

Vora said from the finance minister's speech it could be inferred that the donor's name would be known only to the bank issuing the bond and the donee's name would be only known to the income tax department.

"In effect, only the government will know the names of the donors and the donees, and the people will not know who donated how much to which political party.

"I am afraid that this will not ensure transparency in electoral funding, on the contrary, it will be a completely opaque mechanism," he said.

The Congress leader said his party would give a detailed view only after studying the proposals of the scheme formulated by Jaitley.

"My party's view is that, to ensure total transparency, the names of the donors and the donees and the amounts donated must be known to the public so that the people will have the information," he said.

The Congress and some other political parties are demanding more transparency in electoral funding.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his budget speech, had announced formulation of a new electoral bond scheme to bring transparency in electoral funding as part of government's electoral reform measures.

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A car bomb exploded in western Kabul today, police spokesman Najib Danish said, adding there were no details yet about the target.

The neighbourhood is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority which was hit hard just a year ago in a strike which killed dozens - in the first attack claimed by the Islamic State group in the heart of Kabul.

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The CBI should reopen the Bofors case and move the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court's 2005 order quashing proceedings in the scandal over the arms deal, a BJP MP said today.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said the CBI wanted to approach the Supreme Court in 2005 after the Delhi court quashed the Bofors case.

"But it was denied permission by the then UPA government," Dubey told reporters here.

The MP from Godda in Jharkhand said he had also raised the issue in the Lok Sabha today.

"It is a clear case of a systemic failure and also reflects criminality. Therefore, the CBI must seek permission from the government to reopen the case by filing a plea in the Supreme Court," he said.

He added that the CAG report on Bofors was the oldest "pending" report before Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), of which Dubey is also a member.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar told reporters earlier that the Bofors issue had resurfaced and the Congress should support an investigation into it if it stood for probity in public life.

Quoting Sten Lindstrom, a senior Swedish officer who had probed the alleged scam involving then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Kumar said he had spoken about a "huge amount of evidence" that had been handed over to India and that the scale of bribery in the deal could be bigger than earlier thought.

"He has said that Rajiv Gandhi was involved in this. There must be a thorough probe. The country should know the complete truth," the minister said.

The Bofors scandal relating to alleged payment of kickbacks in the procurement of Howitzer artillery guns had triggered a political storm, leading to the fall of the Gandhi government in 1989.

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Amid the Sikkim standoff, China today hinted that a bilateral meeting between State Councillor Yang Jiechi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval could take place on the sidelines of a BRICS NSAs' meet here this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, during a briefing, left the door open for talks between Doval and Yang by saying that he cannot confirm it but in the past meetings of BRICS NSAs, the officials have held bilateral meetings.

Lu's remarks came after Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian asserted that China will safeguard its security interests at "any cost" and asserted that India should not "harbour any unrealistic illusions".

"China will safeguard its security interests at any cost. India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," he said ahead of the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

China maintained its hardline stance on the Sikkim standoff, even as Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from July 27-28.

"I don't have relevant information you mentioned right now. As far as we know during the previous meetings, the host countries arranged for the heads of the delegations to hold bilateral meetings in which they exchanged views on bilateral relations, BRICS cooperation and multilateral affairs," Lu said when asked whether there would be a bilateral meeting between Yang and Doval.

Both Doval and Yang are Special Representatives of the two countries in the boundary talks.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, while replaying to a question about Doval's schedule in Beijing, had last week said that if there are any further developments in his programme then the media will be informed.

Asked whether the Doklam standoff will figure in the BRICS NSAs' meeting since the agenda included discussion on regional hotspot issues, Lu said, "China and India enjoy smooth diplomatic channels".

"The Indian border troops illegally crossed into China's territory. We once again urge India to pull back its troops to the Indian side of the boundary. I want to stress again that this is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides," he said.

Lu also declined to comment on whether the BRICS NSAs would call on Chinese President Xi Jinping or Premier Li Keqiang, saying that he has no information on it.

The tradition of the previous BRICS NSA meetings has been that it was followed by a meeting with the top leaders of the host country.

In his briefing, Lu said Doklam standoff is like no other between India and China.

Reacting to the Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's comment that territorial disputes between India and China should solved peacefully, Lu said the Australian leader is "correct".

"But this principle does not apply to the current standoff between China and India because Doklam region has no dispute. The Sikkim section is a defined boundary recognised and abided by both sides," he claimed.

Earlier, commenting on the over a month-long military standoff between the troops of the two countries at Doklam area in the Sikkim section, Wu urged India to "correct its mistake".

Stating that the PLA has taken emergency measures in the region and continues to increase focused deployments and drills, he said, "We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquillity."



Last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had told Rajya Sabha that China intends to unilaterally change the status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to India's security.

She had said there was a written agreement between India, China and Bhutan in 2012 that the three nations will together decide on the boundaries at the tri-junction point.

She also accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China.

The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area near the Bhutan tri-junction has dragged on for the past four weeks. It started after a Chinese Army's construction party attempted to build a road.

Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam while China claims it as part of its Donglang region.

Of the 3,488-km-long India-China border from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in the Sikkim section.

On the BRICS NSAs meeting, Lu said the meeting is the main platform for the BRICS countries to "discuss and conduct political and security cooperation".

"It will play an important role in strengthening strategic communication, increase political trust and elevate their influence in international affairs," he said.

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Union Commerce Secretary Rita Teotia today expressed hope that the current border standoff between India and China will not have any impact on the bilateral trade.

She also dismissed concerns that the confrontation between the two neighbours on the Sikkim sector will affect the ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations.

"I would hesitate to classify it in such a way (that it would impact bilateral trade). Of course, this is not the remit of the department of commerce, but we would hope that the regular trade between the two countries would move ahead and move in a way that is positive for everybody," Teotia said on the sidelines of the 19th round of negotiations on the RCEP here.

She was in the city to participate in the RCEP trade negotiations committee meeting.

Indian and Chinese soldiers are locked in a face-off at the Doklam area, which is roughly 15 km southeast of the Nathu La Pass that separates India and China and about 30 km southwest of the river Dramana Chhu in Bhutan. Last month, the Indian Army stopped Chinese road construction activities in Doklam area, which is claimed by China as its own, and since then the standoff has continued.

India's trade deficit with China has marginally dipped to $51 billion in 2016-17 from $52.69 billion in the previous fiscal, commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament today.

The country's bilateral trade with China stood at $71.48 billion in 2016-17.

Teotia also allayed the apprehensions that the current standoff between the two largest countries in Asia would impact the RCEP talks, saying "our negotiators would keep in mind" the interests.

"(In) our negotiations, we are very clear what our trade interests are. Every country is negotiating for moving forward constructively, of course taking care of its own economic interests. And I think our delegation is very aware of that responsibility," Teotia said when asked about the impact of border tension on the trade discussions.

She also said a ministerial-level meeting of the regional trade agreement will be held in Manila in September and all the member countries have actually made conscious efforts to move forward.

"The work on the goods side has been quite substantial also. And now all the member-countries have given their revised offers also. Those will be under discussion now," she added.

The 16-member RCEP bloc comprises 10 Asean members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners -- India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

These 16 countries accounts for over a quarter of the over $75 trillion global economy.

She said India is looking for a balanced agreement in which there would be give and take between any two agreed countries in RECP.
Veteran journalist and nominated member Swapan Dasgupta today expressed concern over the reported influx of Rohingya refugees in Jammu and Ladakh saying it was a matter of national security.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, he said there was a "vicious" ethnic conflict and civil war going on in Myanmar, but since it was an internal affair of a friendly neighbouring country, "we refrain from commenting on it".

"But it is curious and somewhat inexplicable as to why there should be so many Rohingyas who have migrated to Jammu and to Ladakh," he said. Rohingyas are tribals from Myanmar, commonly also known as the 'boat people'.

Dasgupta said as per the Jammu and Kashmir Government, there are approximately 5,700 Rohingyas in Jammu and 7,664 Rohingyas in Ladakh.

Whereas the UN High Commission for Refugees states there are 14,000 Rohingyas in the whole of India, the media reports say that the Home Ministry estimates there are 40,000, he added.

"Now to my mind...This is very, very suspicious. The suspicion arises not for humanitarian reasons or anything like, but because of what the Bangladesh Government has reported - that there are at least three terrorist organisations among the Rohingyas," the member said.

He further said "we have seen" evidence of Rohingya involvement in the blast in Bodh Gaya and in October, 2016, that one of the two militants killed in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir, turned out to be from Myanmar.

"To my mind...It is something which is a pressing matter, which goes beyond the humanitarian aspect...," he said, adding that the Rohingya refugees have also been flaunting voter cards and Aadhaar cards.

"It is only when they tried to register themselves as State Subjects that the issue came to the fore and assumed great importance. I would urge the Government to take this matter very, very seriously," Dasgupta added.

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The Congress today sought to embarrass NDA vice presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu by raising the issue of alleged irregularities in land deals involving him and his family members and demanded answers since he always spoke of transparency and probity.

Accusing Naidu of land grab in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district that was reserved for the poor, destitute and landless, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Naidu was "forced" to return this land after public protests and political pressure.

Responding to Ramesh's allegations, Naidu, until recently Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Urban Development, said all these things have been answered and mentioned earlier.

"Some people went to court, and the court has also dismissed it. I feel really sorry that they could stoop down to this level in this election also," he told reporters.

Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar said whatever allegations Ramesh has tried to level are "baseless and unsubstantiated."



Ramesh did not give any proof to back up his allegations beyond giving the sequence of events allegedly involving Naidu and his family members.

At a conference here, Ramesh also alleged that on June 20, 2017, the Telangana government issued a "secret order" exempting the "Swarna Bharat Trust" of Naidu's daughter from paying development charges of more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.

The Congress leader alleged further that in July 2014, the Telangana government placed an order of Rs 271 crore without inviting tenders for purchase of vehicles for the police from two car dealers - Harsha Toyota owned by Naidu's son and Himanshu Motors owned by Telangana chief minister's son.

"Is it not a fact that such an order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating a tender?" he asked.

Ramesh also said that the Supreme Court on April 6, 2011 quashed the allotment of 20 acres of land to "Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust" of which Naidu was chairman.

He said the Supreme Court also passed strictures against the Madhya Pradesh government in alloting this land in Bhopal on September 25, 2004.

"I think it is incumbent upon Venkaiah Naidu, it is incumbent upon the BJP to provide satisfactory answers, the nation wants to know," he said.

He said Naidu is a senior, experienced and articulate leader and a candidate for the post of vice president for BJP and he should explain to the country and answer the questions raised by the Congress party.

"Naidu has been a great champion of transparency, accountability, integrity and probity in public life, apart from being a master player with words and a poet of sorts. In the same spirit we are asking these questions," he said.

"Those holding the highest public offices must fully disclose their 'interests' as also 'special treatment' in the shape of state largesse for themselves and for their kith and kin," he said in his written statement.

Asked if he was alleging corruption by Naidu, Ramesh did not answer and instead demanded answers from Naidu and the BJP.

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A CRPF company commander was allegedly thrashed by his subordinates following death of their colleague due to illness in Anantnag district of Kashmir, a police official said today.

Khupmani Misall of 28 Battalion CRPF, posted at Qaimoh, was taken ill on Saturday night, the official said.

He said Misall was taken to the CRPF Unit hospital at Anantnag, where he died.

The death of the jawan angered his colleagues who allegedly thrashed their company commander for not allowing Misall to be taken to the nearest health facility, which caused delay in timely medical attention to him, the official said.

He said they have not received any complaint from the CRPF in this regard so far. Inquest proceedings have been initiated to ascertain the jawan's cause of death.

A CRPF spokesman said an inquiry has been ordered into the entire incident including the alleged thrashing of the company commander by his subordinates.

"Once the inquiry is completed, action, as warranted under rules, will be taken," he added.

The incident comes close on the heels of Army men allegedly thrashing and injuring seven police personnel at Gund in Sonamarg and ransacking the police station also.

While the Army has downplayed the incident as a minor altercation, the state police has asked the Army to take action against the erring soldiers.

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"Inception" actress Ellen Page has been getting death threats on her Instagram.

According to TMZ, the Los Angeles Police Department has launched an investigation into the matter.

The perpetrator sent several messages, including one calling her a "lying worthless Canadian" who "needs to die in my hands."



Another message read, "I find Ellen and kidnap her and kill her throat and let everyone see it on my Instagram."



Detectives got a search warrant last month so they could trace the IP address of the IG name but so far, there have been no arrests in the case.

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The Kerala High Court today granted anticipatory bail to former state police chief T P Senkumar in a case of alleged incitement of communal disharmony by him.

The court, while granting bail to Senkumar, asked him to appear before the investigating officer within 10 days.

Senkumar was given interim anticipatory bail last week by a bench of Justice B Sudheendra Kumar, who had slated his plea for detailed hearing today.

When Senkumar's bail plea came up for hearing today, the court made his interim bail absolute.

The court stipulated that in the event of arrest, he should be released on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with two sureties of the same amount.

The case against the former police chief was registered by Thiruvananthapuram Cyber Police on complaints from various organisations in connection with an interview to aMalayalam publication by Senkumar.

The complainants had alleged that the former police chief had made statements aimed at causing communal disharmony in the interview.

Senkumar, who retired on June 30, was booked under section 153A (1)(a) of the Indian Penal Code allegedly for causing communal disharmony.

Senkumar had a sore relation with CPI(M)-led LDF government when he served as the state police chief. He was removed from the top post soon after the LDF government came to power in May 2016.

But, he was reinstated in May by the Supreme Court.

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A woman and her daughter died today after a jeep carrying them was washed away in swirling waters in Rajasthan where a heavy downpour in Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts has led to a flood-like situation leaving several persons marooned.

The Army and the Air Force have been pressed into rescue operations. Four MI-17V5 helicopters of the IAF from its bases at Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Phalodi have been assigned target areas for conduct of flood rescue and relief operations.

The continuous rainfall in the region has affected normal life and the road and rail network.Two trains were partially terminated in Jodhpur Railway division today due to water logging on theBhiladi-Samdari railway route.

In Udaipur, a 30-year-old woman and her 7-year-old daughter died today when a jeep carrying them was washed away while crossing a bridge over an overflowing canal in Kherwada police station area.

The deceased were identified as Vimla Meena and her daughter Jashoda of Badla village in Udaipur district, SHO Kherwada Ratan Singh said.

The Army along with district administration teams are at work to rescue the people stuck in low-lying areas.

State Minister of Disaster Management and Relief, Gulab Chand Kataria said the condition in Jalore, Pali and Sirohi is "critical" due to heavy rainfall that occurred in the last few days.

Rescue teams have been directed to carry out operation to rescue people especially in Jalore and Pali.

"Condition in Jalore is critical as five persons have taken shelter on a tree. Unfortunately, due to dense clouds choppers are finding it difficult to fly in the region. However, teams are at task and waiting for the weather to normalise," Kataria told reporters.

He said the condition worsened in Jalore after a few small dams were damaged whereas in Mount Abu, Sanchor and in neighbouring areas a number of people are stuck in low-lying areas.

Jalore SDM Rajendra Singh said the people in Siyana, Aakoli Tathu, Dadani are stuck due to ongoing rainfall and bad weather condition.

Two persons each were rescued safely from Betala and Aakali, he added.

The focus of the operations at present is villages in Dhanera and Deesa taluka of Banaskantha district (Gujarat), villages in Jalore and Pali districts (Rajasthan).

IAF helicopter crew have been braving extremely bad weather since morning and attempting to save as many lives wherever they find a window of opportunity to reach the stranded people, the spokesperson added.

In Sirohi district, district administration teams have rescued several persons from low-lying areas.

Food packets have been distributed, Sirohi Collector, Sandesh Nayak said.

The MeT department has warned of heavy rainfall in South-East Rajasthan.

In the last 24 hours, Jaipur recorded 65 mm rainfall followed by 40.4 in Barmer, 33.1 in Dabok, 30 mm in Bundi, 20.2 mm in Bhilwara, 10 mm in Jodhpur, 7.1mm in Vanasthali, 6.3 mm in Pilani, 5 mm in Swai Madhopur, 3.8 mm in Ajmer respectively.

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Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa today expressed concern over the blame game perpetrated by some elements in the US and Afghanistan to undermine his country's role in war against terrorism.

Gen Bajwa met Gen John W Nicholson, Commander Resolute Support Mission (RSM) and US Forces in Afghanistan, at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi and discussed the regional security situation and border management issues.

"COAS raised concern over the blame game perpetrated by some quarters in Afghanistan and USA to undermine Pakistan's contributions towards war on terror," the army said in a statement.

Gen Bajwa said it's not a coincidence that this theme is being played at a time when policy review is being undertaken in the US.

"Despite provocations, Pakistan will continue to act positively as we consider defeat of terrorism as a national interest," the statement quoted him as saying.

It said the two generals "agreed on the need for continuous engagement and coordination for peace and stability in the region."



US Ambassador to Pakistan David Hale was also present during the meeting.

The meeting took place on a day when more than 50 people were killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan in two separate terror attacks.

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The Women and Child Development ministry today launched an online platform to enable women employees of the central government to file complaints related to sexual harassment at the workplace.

Union minister Maneka Gandhi said the platform will cater to central government employees in the beginning and thereafter, its ambit will be widened to include the private sector as well.

"We are also going to soon conduct a national survey to assess the nature and magnitude of sexual harassment at the workplace," the minister of woman and child development said after launching the portal at her office here.

The online complaint management system -- 'SHe-box' (sexual harassment electronic box) -- hosted on the website of the Women and Child Development Ministry, also seeks to ensure "effective implementation" of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

Once a complaint is submitted to the 'SHe-Box', it will be directly sent to the internal complaints committee (ICC) of the ministry/department/PSU/autonomous body etc concerned, having jurisdiction to inquire into the matter.

The ICC will take action as prescribed under the Act and update the status of the complaint.

The portal is also an effort to provide "speedier remedy" to women facing sexual harassment at the workplace, as envisaged under the sexual harassment Act, a senior official of the ministry said.

The WCD minister also instructed officials to make the portal as "interactive" as possible.

The portal should offer a list of follow-up details so that the employee gets to know the exact status of the complaint, she told officials.

The Union government has 30.87 lakh employees. According to the Census of Central Government Employees 2011, women constitute 10.93 per cent of the total force.

"To begin with, central government women employees can file complaints, but we are going to widen the ambit to include the private sector as well," she said.

"We just need to make a few changes in our online interface. Once it is done, employees from private companies would also be able to lodge complaints," Gandhi added.

The decision to host an online platform for sexual harassment cases was taken by the WCD Ministry in October last year after the minister received complaints from women employees in various ministries.

Interacting with reporters later, Gandhi said, "If the internal complaints committees (on sexual harassment) is working, then we are out of the picture totally."



"But people, who will come to us, are those women employees who work where there are no committees or there's one for the sake of it or composed of people who are outrightly negative," she said.

The sexual harassment Act mandates that all workplaces with more than 10 workers constitute an internal complaints committee for receiving complaints of sexual harassment.

"We are not treading on anybody's toes. The idea of this portal is to remedy the cases before they reach the level where legal action may be warranted," the minister told reporters.

Gandhi also asked officials to include a section in the portal where complainants can "vent" their grievances.

On the proposed pan-India survey, she said the idea was initiated after an NGO came up with a small-scale study on women-related matters.

"We will put up the survey on out portal as well as our Facebook page and Twitter handle to reach out to as many people as possible," Gandhi said.

The minister also said the definition of what constitutes a case of sexual harassment must be made available on the portal.

"Some people say installation of CCTV cameras is a harassment. So, we need to to define it so that there are no frivolous cases," she added.

The senior official said, "The survey would be conducted both online and offline and the ministry will collaborate with organisations which have worked on this subject.

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The Archives of India has received 304 declassified records or files related to Subhas Chandra Bose, the government informed Parliament on Monday.

The records were received from four departments of the government, Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha about records pertaining to Bose and the Azad Hind Fauj received by the Archives.

The Prime Minister's Office had sent over 58 files, the Ministry of External Affairs sent 200 such files, the Ministry of Home Affairs sent 37 and the cabinet secretariat sent nine, he said.

He, however, did not say when the files were sent.

Sharma said out of the 304 files, 303 had already been uploaded on the webportal www.Netajipaper.Gov.In.

In 1997, the Archives of India had received 990 declassified files pertaining to the Indian Army (Azad Hind Fauj) from the defence ministry, Sharma said.

In 2012, 271 files and items pertaining to the Khosla Commission and 759 items from the Justice Mukherjee Commission of inquiry from the home ministry were sent to the National Archives, he said. The commissions dealt with Bose's disappearance.

"All these files or items are already open to the public under the Public Records Rules, 1997," Sharma said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his meeting with members of Bose's family at his residence in New Delhi on October 14, 2015, had announced that the government would declassify files relating to the freedom fighter in a phased manner, and make them accessible to the public.

The government declassified the first set of 100 files in January last year.

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Flood waters swept across several places in the country today, killing two in Rajasthan and forcing Gujarat to declare a high alert.

In an upside, the situation in flood-ravaged Assam improved considerably as the swollen Brahmaputra and Barak rivers, along with their tributaries, started flowing below the danger mark at most places.

In West Bengal, lowlands in Birbhum, Purulia, West Medinipore and Hooghly districts were inundated.

With the meteorological department predicting more rains in the Gangetic region of the state in the next 24 hours, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a monitoring meeting with senior officials at the secretariat this afternoon.

Rains lashed state capital Kolkata through the night, inundating thoroughfares and choking traffic.

In the neighbouring coastal state of Odisha, extremely heavy rains and thundershowers, along with high-speed surface winds, are expected tomorrow due to the formation of a low pressure area over the region.

The Odisha government has dispatched one Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) team each to the northern Keonjhar and Bhadrak districts, as the threat of floods loomed large due to the rising water level in major rivers.

The levels of the Baitarani, Subarnarekha and Budhabalang rivers have been rising steadily following heavy rainfall in most parts of the state over the last couple of days.

The state government has already sounded an alert about possible floods in six districts after the IMD forecast extremely heavy rainfall in the northern region of the state.

The districts are Keonjhar, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh.

In Gujarat, 1,526 people in Banaskantha district, about 500 in Patan district, and over 200 at Kalol in Gandhinagar district have been shifted after floods to safer places.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the large inflow of water into rivers and dams in Banaskantha and Patan were caused by heavy rains in neighbouring Rajasthan.

The desert state saw heavy rains in Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts which caused inundation, leaving several people marooned.

A woman and her daughter, meanwhile, died after being swept away while crossing a bridge over a swollen canal in Udaipur.

The Army and IAF choppers have been pressed into rescue operations in the state. The road and rail network has also been affected in the region.

Uttar Pradesh too experienced rainfall over several places. Temple town Varanasi recorded nearly 100 mm of rain.

Rainfall was also received in the national capital as well as the hills of Himachal Pradesh.

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Former BJP minister Maya Kodnani, an accused in the 2002 Naroda Gam riots case, was at her hospital on the day of the massacre, a defence witness told the trial court here today.

Raiben Thakor, the witness, was questioned by Kodnani's lawyers as well as the prosecution before the judge for the Special Investigation Team (SIT) cases, P B Desai.

Thakor said she saw Kodnani at the Shivam Maternity and Surgical Nursing Home, Kodnani's hospital where she practised as a gynaecologist, at around 1 pm on February 28, 2002.

Thakor said she had gone there as her daughter-in-law was expecting a baby. Kodnani was in the hospital all the while and helped deliver the baby at around 5.30 pm, Thakor told the court.

Kodnani, a BJP MLA in 2002, later went on to become minister of women and child development department in the Narendra Modi government.

Dhaval Shah, a partner doctor at Kodnani's hospital, will depose as a witness on Friday.

Earlier, Kodnani's husband Surendra Kodnani had told the court that she had not gone to Naroda Gam, the scene of the riots, as she was busy overseeing a delivery at the hospital.

The prosecution, on the other hand, has claimed that it was Dhaval Shah and not Kodnani who managed the hospital full-time.

Naroda Gam massacre is one of the nine major riot cases investigated by the SIT. Eleven Muslims were killed at Naroda Gam, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, on February 28, 2002 in the aftermath of Godhra train burning incident.

Eighty-two persons including Kodnani are facing trial in the case. She has already been convicted in the Naroda Patiya riots case and is currently out on bail.

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Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and senior advisor of President Donald Trump, today flatly denied colluding with Russia during the 2016 election, saying he had no "improper" contacts with the Russian officials.

Giving a detailed explanation, Kushner in an 11-page statement said he hopes that that he has been able to demonstrate the entirety of his "limited contacts with Russian representatives during the campaign and transition".

Kushner's statement came hours before his meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee staff.

"It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defence. I have tried to focus on the important work at hand and serve this President and this country to the best of my abilities," Kushner said.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," Kushner said.

Kushner said that the record and documents he provided to the committee shows that he had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable.

The president's son-in-law said over the last six months, he made every effort to provide the FBI with whatever information was needed to investigate his background.

Kushner said in the week before the inauguration, amid the scramble of finalising the unwinding of his involvement from his company, moving his family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from his outside positions and complete his security and financial disclosure forms, people at his New York office were helping him find the information and organise it, review it and put it into the electronic form.

"They sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed. At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known). Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017," he explained.

That evening, Kushner said, when his team realised the form had been submitted prematurely, they informed the transition team that they needed to make changes and additions to the form.

The very next day, January 19, 2017, they submitted supplemental information to the transition, which confirmed receipt and said they would immediately transmit it to the FBI.

"The supplement disclosed that I had "numerous contacts with foreign officials" and that we were going through my records to provide an accurate and complete list. I provided a list of those contacts in the normal course, before my background investigation interview and prior to any inquiries or media reports about my form," he said.

"It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians. That is not the case," Kushner said.

"In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted. The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form. These included meetings with individuals such as Jordan's King Abdullah II, Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso and many more. All of these had been left off before," said the top presidential aide.

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Leading the charts, Maharashtra has emerged as one of the most dynamic states contributing towards skill development in the country.

According to the data for various programmes managed by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), as on June 30, Maharashtra has trained over 10 lakh people across 40 sectors since 2011.

"Skill India mission is a positive step towards creating a skilled and employable workforce, providing better career opportunities to the youth across India. In a recent trend analysis, Maharashtra has emerged as a hub for skill training," NSDC Managing Director and CEO Manish Kumar said.

Maharashtra government has planned to equip 4.5 crore people with employable skills by 2022, as a part of the overall plan of the government.

According to figures, Maharashtra is leading with cumulative training of over 10 lakh employable workforce in the age group of 15-59 years.

Textile and apparels, banking and finance, IT and ITES, textiles, electronics, hardware, beauty and wellness, telecom, gems and jewellery were amongst the top sectors in the state to train for skilling.

Complying with the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), these trainings were executed by private institutions affiliated under the Skill India Mission.

Bridging the skill gap, 75 per cent of the trainings were imparted by partners funded by NSDC, it added.

In the last one year, nearly three lakh people have been trained and 45 per cent have received employments, it revealed.

The data also showed a positive sign of development in the state, with women comprising 60 per cent of the skill trained.

Further, it said Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are the other two prominent states, which have contributed significantly to skilling people across the country.

More than 8.5 lakh people were trained in Uttar Pradesh followed by Tamil Nadu, which has empowered 8.45 lakh people with skill training, across over 1,900 job roles, based on the industry defined standards.

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A Kansas man who tried to set off what he thought was a bomb at an Army post to support the Islamic State group has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.

John T. Booker Jr., 22, of Topeka, was arrested in April 2015 outside Fort Riley, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Topeka, as he tried to arm what he thought was a bomb. When he pleaded guilty in February, he acknowledged that he wanted to kill Americans and participate in jihad to support the Islamic State group.

Booker intended to detonate the bomb, which he believed contained 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, and die in the process, prosecutors said. The device was an inert device built by FBI informants he had been meeting with to plan the plot.

Booker was arrested outside the fort when he made the final connections on the device that he believed would arm the bomb. Fort Riley is the home of the Big Red One, the Army's 1st Infantry Division.

In a video he made for Americans to see after his planned death, Booker said "You sit in your homes and think this war is just over in Iraq. Today we will bring the Islamic State straight to your doorstep."



Booker pleaded guilty in February to one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of attempting to destroy government property with an explosive device. The plea agreement recommended the 30-year sentence. A conviction on the weapons-of-mass-destruction charge could have led to life in prison.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped a charge of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group.

"If Mr. Booker had been successful in detonating a car bomb, the results could have been dozens, if not hundreds, of casualties," FBI Special Agent in Charge Darrin Jones said in a statement.

"The FBI and our law enforcement partners remain committed to protecting the citizens of the United States and thwarting acts of terrorism."



Booker's attorneys had said at past hearings that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was taking medication.

The FBI began investigating Booker in March 2014 after he posted pro-jihad comments on Facebook. Prosecutors said he tried to enlist in the US Army to attempt an insider attack against American soldiers but his enlistment was denied.

In March 2015, he made a video in which he pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, prosecutors said yesterday.

Another Topeka man, Alexander Blair, was sentenced in October to 15 months in prison for conspiracy after he admitted he loaned Booker USD 100 to store what they thought was the explosive device. Blair's attorney argued that Blair had an unusual genetic condition called Williams syndrome that made Blair "susceptible" to being manipulated by Booker.

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Global rating agency Moody's today affirmed ratings of nine banks, including Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Axis Bank, at Baa3/Prime-3, and downgraded the ratings of Indian Overseas Bank and Central Bank of India to Ba3 from Ba1.

Other banks whose rating was affirmed are Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Syndicate Bank Union Bank of India and ICICI Bank.

"We continue to position the rated public sector banks in the "very high" government support bucket, reflecting the systemic importance of public sector banks in the country," Moody's said in a report.

For Axis Bank and ICICI Bank, the agency expects the pace of bad loan formation to decline materially from the very high levels seen fiscal 2017, but to remain elevated.

"Both banks remain exposed to weak corporates that have not yet been classified as NPLs, thus representing a potential source of asset quality stress," the report said.

The agency also downgraded IOB's Hong Kong branch's senior unsecured debt rating to Ba3 from Ba1.

Moody's also downgraded the standalone credit profile,



Or the baseline credit assessment, of Syndicate Bank to Ba3 from Ba2, and as a result, downgraded its subordinated MTN and junior subordinated MTN programme ratings to (P)Ba3 and (P)B1 from (P)Ba2 and (P)Ba3, respectively.

It changed the outlook to stable from positive for BoB and its London branch, Canara and its London branch, PNB, and Syndicate and its London branch.

The rating firm changed the outlook to negative from positive for BoI and its London and Jersey branches, OBC, and Union Bank and its Hong Kong branch, and changed the outlook to stable from negative for IOB and its Hong Kong branch.

The rating agency used the joint default analysis model to determine government support for PSU banks. Under this model, it has placed each bank in a support bucket, which can be "very high", "high", "moderate", or "low".

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Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi this morning flagged off the first batch of 300 Haj pilgrims from the Indira Gandhi International Airport here.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also was present on the occasion, an official statement said.

Haj pilgrims will also head towards Jeddah, Saudi Arabia today from other cities like Guwahati, Lucknow, Mangalore, Varanasi, Srinagar and Kolkata.

Addressing the pilgrims, Naqvi, the Union minister of state for minority affairs, reiterated that the Centre would soon finalise the new Haj policy which will be effective next year onwards.

"A high-level committee constituted in this regard will soon submit its report. The new Haj policy is aimed at making Haj process transparent and smooth," he said.

The minister said the government was mulling revival of the option of taking pilgrims via sea route from Mumbai to Jeddah, contending this mode would help cut down travel expenses "by nearly half".

4,000 to 5,000 devotees could be ferried at a time, he added.

The practice of ferrying pilgrims from Mumbai to Jeddah by sea route was stopped in 1995.

India has a Haj quota of 1.70 lakh. Out of this, 1.25 lakh pilgrims travel through Haj Committee of India, while the rest through private tour operators from 21 embarkation points.

From Delhi, 1,628 people will head towards Saudi Arabia for the pilgrimage this year, the statement said.

Apart from Delhi, there are 20 more embarkation points including Mumbai, Goa, Bhopal, Bangalore, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad (in Maharashtra), Chennai and Hyderabad.

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The New Pension Scheme, introduced for the central government employees, has been made applicable to the regular employees of the Samiti (NVS), the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.

The employees of the NVS has been given the benefits of contributory provident fund (CPF) scheme since its inception.

The scheme was introduced for the central government employees with effect from January 1, 2004 and it was made applicable to the regular employees of NVS since April 1, 2009, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said.

He said those employees who had joined NVS on regular basis before April 1, 2009 were given an option to continue with the existing CPF scheme or to join the NPS.

"Those employees of NVS who have opted for and are covered under the NPS are entitled to the benefits envisaged under this scheme.

"The teachers of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas are already entitled to benefits of either the CPF scheme or the NPS scheme having regard to the option exercised by them," he said during Question Hour.
Markets broke new ground today as the Nifty came tantalisingly close to 10,000 and the Sensex signed off at 32,246 after banking stocks came alive on better-than-expected quarterly results.

Oil and gas, IT and FMCG stocks also threw their weight behind the rally.

There was cheer on the growth front as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its World Economic Outlook Update, retained India GDP forecast at 7.2 cent for the current fiscal, saying the country will pip China in growth sweepstakes in 2017 and 2018 as well.

The 30-share BSE barometer rose to all time intra-day high of 32,320.86 as index heavyweight Reliance Industries, ITC and TCS registered strong gains.

The Sensex settled higher by 216.98 points, or 0.68 per cent, at 32,245.87, a closing record.

The NSE Nifty too broke free and hit an all time high of 9,982.05 in day's trade. However, it closed at 9,966.40, a life high, up 51.15 points, or 0.52 per cent, over its last close.

Reliance Industries raced to 52-week high on better than estimated earnings and announcement of bonus share. It closed with gains of 1.89 per cent on the BSE.

The stock of HDFC Bank jumped 1.83 per cent after it posted 20 per cent growth in net profit.

"Positive growth metrics for India endorsed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya propped up investors' risk-on sentiment. Latest report from the IMF has projected India's growth at 7.7 per cent in 2018 estimating a significant increase against the backdrop of ongoing economic reforms," said Karthikraj Lakshmanan, Senior Fund Manager - Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.

Bharti Airtel, FMCG giant ITC, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, ICICI Bank and SBI all had a good day, posting gains of up to 2.20 per cent.

Better-than-expected earnings by most corporates so far and a steady progress in monsoon also aided the rally that saw several stocks touching fresh 52-week highs, traders said.

The bullishness rubbed off on broader markets, lifting both small-cap and mid-cap indices.

Bucking the trend, Dr Reddy's, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma lost by up to 2.44 per cent.

Most Asian markets ended mixed as investors trained their attention to the US Federal Reserve meeting later in the week.

European shares were under pressure in their late morning trade.

Foreign portfolio investors bought shares worth a net Rs 12.90 crore while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) made purchase to the tune of Rs 147.66 on Friday, as per provisional data.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today said that there is no flood-like situation in the state which is being lashed by heavy rains although some low-lying areas in a few districts were inunandated.

"There is no flood-like situation in the state as yet. Water-levels are still below (danger level) though some low lying areas of Labhpur in Birbhum district, Purulia, Ghatal in West Medinipore and Goghat, Arambagh in Hooghly districts have been inundated," she said.

With the Met office predicting more rains in the next 24 hours in the state, Banerjee held a monitoring meeting with senior officials at the secretariat this afternoon.

"I held a meeting to monitor the situation and I am keeping a watch on it," she told reporters.

Banerjee said that the state government has already started distribution of relief materials including tarpaulin to different districts.

In an obvious reference to the discharge of water by DVC, she said that inundation takes place due to discharge of water.

Meanwhile, irrigation minister Rajiv Banerjee said that the state has asked DVC to release that much water which could be accepted by the state.

"Huge rainfall is a matter of concern and more rainfall is predicted. It is creating problem. I am regularly monitoring the situation in the control room," he said.

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Odisha government has rushed ODRAF personnel and despatched dry food to two northern districts in view of a possible flood-like situation due to rising water level in some rivers.

"One Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) team each has been rushed to Keonjhar and Bhadrak districts, special relief commissioner (SRC) B P Sethi said.

"We are fully prepared to deal with a possible flood -like situation in the northern region of the state," the SRC said.

The threat of a flood-like situation looms large with the water level of Baitarani, Subarnarekha and Budhabalang rising steadily following heavy rainfall in most parts of the state in the last couple of days.

Sethi pointed out that the water level of Baitarani river at Akhuapada was 18.06 metres at 3pm against the danger level mark of 17.83 metre.

"Since the river embankments have been strengthened, our engineers in water resources department have assured us that there is no fear of flood even as the water level of Baitarani touched 18.06 metres at Akhuapada," Sethi said.

However, not wanting to take any risk, the SRC said, the district administrations have mobilised the requisite men and material in flood-prone areas.

Certain blocks like Binjharpur, Bari and Dasrathpur of Jajpur have been put on high alert as the river Baitarani could cause flood in those areas, Sethi said.

School and Mass Education Minister Badri Narayan Patra held discussion with the Keonjhar district administration.

At least two blocks like Anandapur and Hatadihi of Keonjhar could also witness flood, sources in the water resources department said.

While the danger level mark of the Subarnarekha is 49.15 metres at Jamsholaghat, the river is flowing at 49.50 metres there at 3 pm there.

The Budhabalang is rising steadily as per the water level recorded at Rajghat at 3 pm, though it is still below the danger level mark.

Odisha government has already sounded an alert about possible flood in some rivers of six districts in view of the IMD forecast of extremely heavy rainfall in northern region of the state.

The districts are Keonjhar, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh.

The district collectors have been asked to remain fully prepared to face any eventuality.

"Please ensure that field officials are in their respective positions," the communication from the special relief commissioner's office to the collectors said.

The rain-battered state is likely to be further hit by heavy to extremely heavy showers coupled with gusty surface winds by tomorrow due to a well marked low pressure in the region, the forecast said.

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Customs officials arrested an passenger of Air Arabia for carrying gold by concealing in electronic gadgets.

The officials, on suspicion, intercepted the passenger Abdul Gafoor, who arrived from Kuwait via Sharjah in the early hours of today, police said.

On examination, the officials found gold concealed in electronic goods, weighing about one kg, valued at Rs 30 lakh.

Gafoor, hailing from Kozhikode in Kerala was arrested and remanded to judicial custody, police said.

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Military was today called out to help in relief and rescue operations in some districts of Gujarat and Rajasthan after copious rains caused floods, leaving thousands of people marooned, officials said.

A woman and her daughter were killed when the jeep they were travelling in was washed away by strong currents over a bridge across a canal in Kherwada police station limits in Udaipur in Rajasthan where downpour has resulted in inundation in Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts.

Army and Air Force contingents have been rushed in to assist in relief and rescue operations. Four MI-17V5 helicopters were conducting sorties from bases in Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Phalodi.

Incessant rain has thrown normal life out of gear in several areas in the three districts of otherwise parched Rajasthan, hitting road and rail transport. Two trains were terminated in Jodhpur Railway Division following waterlogging on Bhiladi-Samdari section.

Torrential rains pounding north Gujarat have caused flood in Banaskantha and Patan districts, prompting authorities to declare a state-wide "high alert" and call out Army, Air Force and NDRF teams for assistance.

About 2,200 people have been shifted to safer places and 460 maroon people rescued, officials said.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who reviewed the situation with top officials, said the problem has been compounded by heavy rains in neighbouring Rajasthan which led to surge in water levels of rivers and dams in Gujarat.

Video footages showed even large vehicles like trucks stuck in flood water which entered several homes in the two districts.

Banaskantha and Patan districts are hugely affected due to heavy rains in north Gujarat and Rajasthan. Dantiwada and Sipu dams are overflowing, and due to the release of water from the dams, people living in low-lying areas have been shifted to safer places, he said.

So far, 1,526 people in Banaskantha, about 500 in Patan, and over 200 in Kalol in Gandhinagar have been shifted.

The administration is making arrangements for distributing food packets to those hit, Rupani said.

As many as 462 people have been rescued in the affected areas and the state has been put on high alert due to the heavy rains, Rupani said.

One column of the Army, roughly about 100 personnel, has been rushed to the flood-hit areas from Dhrangdhara to assist the Disaster Response Force in evacuating people and reaching relief to them.

Three Air Force helicopters have been kept ready in Deesa town in Banaskantha to provide help if the situation worsened.

Rajasthan's Minister of Disaster Management and Relief Gulab Chand Kataria said the situation in Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts was "critical".

In Jalore, he said, five people were precariously perched atop a tree and were unable to climb down due to strong currents. Inclement weather has made deploying helicopters for their rescue difficult, he said. Rescue teams were waiting for the weather to clear to launch fresh efforts to take them to safety.

Kataria said a large number of people were marooned in Mount Abu, Sanchor and the adjoining areas.

Food packets were being distributed to those affected by floods.

Meanwhile, the Odisha government has rushed ODRAF personnel and dry food items to two northern districts apprehending floods.

One Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) team each has been rushed to Keonjhar and Bhadrak districts, special relief commissioner (SRC) B P Sethi said.

The threat of flood looms over these districts due to sudden rise in water levels of Baitarani, Subarnarekha and Budhabalang rivers.

Meanwhile, the weatherman has forecast heavy to very heavy rain Gujarat and Rajasthan over the next 24 hours.

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Poland's president says he will veto two contentious bills that are widely seen as assaults on the independence of the judicial system and are part of a planned legal overhaul by the ruling party that has sparked days of nationwide protests.

In announcing his decision today, Andrzej Duda broke openly for the first time with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling Law and Justice party.

Duda is closely aligned with the party and has supported its agenda since taking office in 2015.

Duda said he would veto two of three bills recently passed by lawmakers. One would have put the Supreme Court under the political control of the ruling party, giving the justice minister, who is also prosecutor general, power to appoint judges.

Duda said a prosecutor general should not have such powers.

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Hung Liu shows a body of work adopting American imagery and bold, colorful underpaintings in each work. Runs through 8/4.

Chinese artist Hung Liu underwent re-education in China, during Maos Cultural Revolution. She toiled in the fields 364 days a year for four years, before graduating from the prestigious Central Academy of Art, with cohorts the likes of Ai Wei Wei. Liu immigrated to the U.S. and has since become one of the most collectible contemporary artists of this country. Her works are in the permanent collections of every major museum from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Los Angeles County Museum.

Liu is widely known for transforming the pain and struggle of Chinese workers into quasi-imperial objects of beauty. She makes a landmark step forward in her career with this American Dream Series. For the first time, Liu turns her attention toward the purely American struggle of forced migration. Finding inspiration in Dorothea Langes iconic photography, Liu transforms Langes imagery into full color, monumental beauty. Liu says we can adopt each others children, so why not adopt each others ancestors, as well. This body of work is pivotal not only because Hung adopts American imagery, but also because she allows her Social Realist Muralist training to show through in the bold, colorful underpainting in each work.
Ryanair has made a "non-binding offer" for its loss-making Italian rival Alitalia, the Irish no-frills carrier said today.

"We have made a non-binding offer for Alitalia. As the largest airline in Italy, it's important we are involved in the process," Ryanair said in a statement after Italian media said Friday that about ten such bids had been made.

The announcement comes as Ryanair on Monday logged soaring quarterly profits, aided by the timing of Easter, while the company noted that the outlook was clouded by Brexit.

The deadline for Alitalia to receive non-binding offers had been last Friday.

Alitalia, which has struggled to compete with low-cost rivals including Ryanair, went into administration at the start of May, moving the flagship airline a step closer to liquidation as efforts continue to find a buyer.

About 18 companies expressing an interest in a potential purchase had reportedly been given access to the company's figures, including also Delta Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa and EasyJet.

Italy's government in May said it would provide a bridging loan to keep Alitalia planes flying for around six months.

Those interested in making binding offers have until October.

If no buyer can be found, the administrators will have to organise Alitalia's winding-up, with the potential loss of 20,000 jobs at the company and among suppliers.

Ryanair added today that its net profit rallied 55 percent to 397 million euros (USD 463 million) in the three months to June 30 from a year earlier.

The performance was boosted by the timing of the Easter holiday.

Easter -- a peak-time for holidaymakers -- fell in April this year, inside Ryanair's reporting period. In 2016, it fell in March.

"We are pleased to report this 55-percent increase in profit after tax... But caution that the outcome is distorted by the absence of Easter in the prior year first-quarter," chief executive Michael O'Leary said in the earnings statement.

The Easter boost was partly offset by a Brexit-fuelled slump in the pound -- which reduces the amount Ryanair earns from its key British market once the currency is converted into euros.

The Dublin-based carrier warned once again of the impact of Britain's looming exit from the European Union, set for March 2019.

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Even as embattled Sahara Group chairman Subrata Roy today met Irdai chairman to seek more time to resolve the crisis at his life insurance arm, the largest private player ICICI Prudential submitted a valuation report to the regulator to take over the same.

Last month, the Irdai appointed an administrator to run the crippled Lucknow-based Sahara Life due to governance- related issues at the company.

"ICICI Prudential Life submitted a valuation report on the assets and liabilities of Sahara Life to Irdai today," Irdai member (life insurance) Nilesh Sathe told PTI from Hyderabad.

"In the interest of policyholders, the assets and liability of policyholders of Sahara Life will be transferred to ICICI Prudential Life shortly," he said.

"If all goes well, ICICI Pru may take over Sahara Life shortly," Sathe, who is also functioning as an officiating member (finance and investment) at Irdai since June, said.

While an ICICI Prudential spokesman refused to comment on the development, citing silence period, Sahara Life chief executive Sanjay Agarwal also refused to confirm the development, saying he was travelling.

Meanwhile, Irdai sources confirmed that Roy called on the chairman T S Vijayan in Hyderabad and sought some more time to resolve governance issues at the company.

"Roy today met the Irdai chairman Vijayan and explained the position about Sahara Life, requesting the Irdai to grant them some more time to complete the governance norms," an official of the regulator told PTI.

But a source said there is no scope for granting additional time as Irdai has already appointed an administrator to run the Sahara Life.

On June 23 this year, Irdai had appointed its general manager R K Sharma as an administrator for Sahara Life and deputed three of its junior level officials to assist him.

Even though everything is right at Sahara Life as the company is adequately capitalised with its solvency margin more than the regulatory requirement of 1.5, it is the governance-related issues that have become a matter of concern before the regulator, the source added.

Some of the governance-related issues which have become a matter of concern before Irdai include the company not having appointed an actuary for a long time, not uploading company's data, including its quarterly numbers, on the Irdai site for quite some time.

In a letter on June 23, Irdai had directed Sahara Life to shutter its business with immediate effect and inform its intermediaries to not issue any fresh policies. The insurer, however, was allowed to collect renewal premia and service its around 3.5 lakh policyholders.

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Seven people including Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, were arrested today by the NIA in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, officials said.

Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who had put him in preventive detention earlier this month.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Ayaz Akbar, who is also spokesman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat--a hardline separatists organisation--and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from the Valley, they said.

The NIA also arrested Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, said the officials, engaged in the operation.

The others arrested are Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate', they said.

The houses of those arrested had been raided by NIA sleuths last month.

Shah is perceived as an influential force in the Tehrek- e-Hurriyat.

Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned terrorists organisation Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM)--another terrorists outfit--and Dukhtaran-e- Millat--an all-woman outfit of separatists.

Those arrested have been brought to Delhi and will be produced before a court here tomorrow, the official said.

The raids were part of the NIA's efforts at clamping down on separatist groups allegedly receiving funds for subversive activities in the Valley.

The NIA had registered a case on May 30 against the separatist and secessionist leaders, including members of the Hurriyat Conference, who have been acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed terrorist organisations HM, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and other outfits and gangs, an official release said.

The case was registered for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in Kashmir Valley by way of pelting stones on the security forces, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India, it said.

In pursuance of this case, the NIA had conducted widespread searches on the suspected persons in Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Haryana and incriminating documents, electronic devices, cash and other valuables worth crore of rupees were unearthed, the release said.

For the the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s, a central probe agency had carried out raids in connection with the funding of separatists.

In 2002, the Income Tax department had raided the establishments of some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.

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Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner is denying that President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, saying in a statement ahead of congressional interviews that he has "nothing to hide."



The 11-page statement provided to The Associated Press by a representative Monday details four contacts with Russians during Trump's campaign and transition. Kushner plans to deliver the statement during closed-door meetings with investigators on the Senate and House intelligence panels this week.

Kushner is meeting with staff on the Senate committee Monday and lawmakers on the House committee Tuesday as part of both panels' investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and possible links to the Trump campaign.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, says none of the contacts was improper. He also denies that Russians finance any of his business in the private sector.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in the statement.

In it, he also details a June 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer and says it was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

Emails released this month show that the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

Kushner said in his statement that Trump Jr. Invited him to the meeting. He says he arrived late and when he heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions, he texted his assistant to call him out.

"No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted," Kushner's statement says.

Kushner also denies reports he discussed setting up a secret back-channel with the Russian ambassador to the US.

He said he did speak with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in December at Trump Tower. But he says that conversation was about policy in Syria.

Kushner says that when Kislyak asked if there was a secure line for him to provide information on Syria from what Kislyak called his "generals," Kushner asked if there was an existing communications channel at the embassy that could be used. Kushner says he never proposed an ongoing secret form of communication.

He also says he met with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, at the request of Kislyak. But he says no specific policies were discussed.

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The United Nations is "not giving up" on efforts to seal a Cyprus reunification deal despite the failure of an international summit held in Switzerland earlier this month, UN envoy Espen Barth Eide said today.

"We were not able to stitch it together to a final deal. That was a blow I think to everybody involved, and the question is what we can do now," Eide told reporters in Nicosia.

He said the process was now in "a cooling off phase".

The Norwegian diplomat returned to the island for his first talks with the rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders of the divided eastern Mediterranean island since UN-mediated negotiations collapsed on July 7 in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana.

"I am here partly to share some of my impressions with the leaders... To hear where they think we stand, where the process is and frankly what they would like us to do," he said after meeting President Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot leader.

The Norwegian diplomat said the United Nations has not closed the door on reviving a process than many observers feel has reached a dead end.

"I am not giving up, the UN is not giving up, but at the same time I do not want to create any false illusions, I want to be honest," he said.

He later crossed the capital's UN-patrolled ceasefire line to hold separate talks with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci.

"I do not see any immediate developments, I haven't heard anything here that suggests something will happen in the very near future, there is a cooling off phase going on now," he said after their meeting.

The negotiations between Anastasiades and Akinci broke down after the United Nations failed to broker a compromise deal on a new security arrangement for a post-solution Cyprus.

Greece wanted to end the right of intervention on Cyprus it holds with Britain and Turkey, while Nicosia was also pushing for a withdrawal of Turkish troops stationed on the Mediterranean island and EU member state.

The talks in Switzerland left a UN-led push that ran for more than two years -- the latest in a long list of aborted bids to find an elusive Cyprus settlement -- in limbo.

"Turkey has been clear all the time that they can not except both zero guarantees and zero troops," said Eide.

He said at Crans-Montana that the UN was working towards ending guarantees and intervention rights but some foreign troops would have stayed on the ground.

Both Nicosia and Athens have accused Eide of having been "unprepared" in Crans-Montana and then of not giving a full picture of what happened in the Alpine ski resort.

The eastern Mediterranean island has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece.

Turkey maintains around 35,000 troops in the north, while Akinci heads a self-declared statelet recognised only by Ankara.

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Only 30 per cent of USD 1.4 billion aid needed in 2017 for refugees fleeing the conflict in South Sudan has been raised, a UN official said today, raising fears of aid cuts.

Nearly two million South Sudanese have fled, and tens of thousands have been killed, since the country descended into civil war nearly four years ago.

In May, the United Nations said it needed USD 1.4 billion this year alone to help people who have sought refuge in Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

But today a senior UN official told AFP that so far only 30 per cent of this amount had been raised.

"The shortfall is 70 per cent and we are already in the middle of the year," said Arnauld Akodjenou, UN regional coordinator on South Sudanese refugees.

He said the crisis had been further aggravated by "famine and diseases" in parts of the world's youngest country.

Aid groups have denounced a "man-made" famine caused by the conflict in South Sudan that has also disrupted agriculture, sent prices soaring and cut off aid agencies from some of the worst-hit areas.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, and the civil war erupted in December 2013 in a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.

Akodjenou said there were fears that aid agencies might even have to cut food aid to refugees if the funding shortfall continues.

"Now we have the facility to provide food to those who are in South Sudan from here (in Sudan), but the level of food is so low that we cannot" provide them what they need, he told AFP in Khartoum.

In recent months Khartoum has opened several "human corridors" to deliver aid directly from Sudan to areas of South Sudan, a move praised by UN and US officials.

Around 403,000 South Sudanese refugees have arrived in Sudan since the war began, the UN says, about 39 per cent of them in 2017.

Akodjenou said international donors must acknowledge the "tragic situation", or "mass starvation" among refugees cannot be ruled out.

While a political solution was urgently needed to stop the violence in South Sudan, he said the United Nations also needed to "receive resources to tackle the situation of refugees and IDPs (internally displaced people)".

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The US is looking into the potential role of India and its neighbours in bringing stability to Afghanistan, a top American intelligence official has said, underlining that the Trump administration continues to review its policies in the war-torn country.

In response to a queestion on the reasons for which the US is in Afghanistan for nearly 17 years now, US Director of National Intelligence Dave Coats said poicymakers are assiduously working on it.

"We've been there, what, 16, 17 years. But the history goes back before that. The president has raised, I think, legitimate questions on that very question," he said in response to a question, if the Trump administration is looking at a stalemate.

"And that is being worked through assiduously by the policymakers with our constant provision of information relative not just to Afghanistan, but relative to South Asia as a whole, because we're talking here about Pakistan, we're talking about India, we're talking about the South Asia region, which also brings China into the play, given their interest in expanding their sphere of influence, and it's complicated and it's difficult," Coats said.

"Decisions have to be made that haven't been made yet relative to what the US response should be, given the situation as it now exists," Coats said, adding that he and his team has spent a lot of time trying to really provide the very best intelligence they have about stability of the Afghanistan government at this point.

This also includes, he said "the capacity of the defence forces, the role of the Taliban, the role of terrorist groups that are doing things into Pakistan, potential role of what India could do. The process is still going. A conclusion has not yet been reached," Coats said.

Concerned over the current stalemate in Afghanistan, the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, headed by Senator John McCain, last week said the US should leverage the capabilities of allies and partners to more effectively secure regional stability and security in Afghanistan.

In a report attached along with the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2018, the committee had said it believes that India, as a regional partner to Afghanistan and a major defence partner of the US, is well-suited to assist Afghanistan Government to improve the security of the country and the broader region, and can work on a trilateral basis with the US and Afghanistan to do so.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dozens of firefighters were battling a blaze on the French island of Corsica today that has spread across 900 hectares of forest and was threatening homes, emergency services said.

Residents were evacuated from homes at the edge of the town of Biguglia, on the island's northeastern coast.

"The fire is very fierce and heading to urban areas of Biguglia," lieutenant-colonel Michel Bernier, of Corsica's civil defence forces, told AFP.

"We are awaiting reinforcements," said regional deputy fire chief Jean-Jacques Peraldi, adding that around 150 people were battling the blaze aided by more than a dozen fire engines.

Local official Gerard Gavory said that three firefighting planes were also involved, and "have been surveying the area to make sure no homes are effected."



Another fire on the south of the island, which destroyed 110 hectares around the town of Aleria, was brought under control on Monday, Bernier said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ruling AIADMK today said it would take legal action against senior Karnataka police official D Roopa if she did not withdraw her charges that party general secretary V K Sasikala was provided special treatment in prison, contravening laws.

AIADMK mouthpiece 'Namadhu Dr MGR' quoted the party's Perambur MLA and district secretary P Vetrivel and party's Karnataka state unit secretary V A Pugazhendi as saying that legal actions would be taken if Roopa did not take back her 'false charges.'



As DIG (Prison) a few days ago, Roopa had alleged that Sasikala was provided amenities flouting prison rules. Though she was eased out of the prison department subsequently, she continues to stick to her stand.

Sasikala is lodged at Parappana Agrahara central prison in Bengaluru ever since her conviction in February in the disproportionate assets case along with her two relatives V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, all serving a 4-year jail term.

Extensively quoting the Karnataka Prison Manual, the AIADMK mouthpiece explained rules that permitted amenities for those sentenced to simple imprisonment and in respect of women prisoners.

Convicts undergoing simple imprisonment are allowed to wear their own clothes and use their own mattress.

With the permission of jail superintendent, the class-1 prisoners could also cook food for themselves inside the jail out of their money and may get help from other prisoners in this regard as well, the daily said.

They are entitled to a table, a chair and a mirror.

Similarly, they could buy fruits, biscuits from their own funds and get them from their friends and relatives too.

Such prisoners could also get help from other prisoners in cleaning the cooking utensils with the permission of the jail superintendent, it said.

They could also read books, magazines and newspapers from the prison library and may even buy them from outside if a particular magazine or book is not available in jail.

Though she was entitled to such amenities, Sasikala did not even fully utilise them, the ruling party's mouthpiece, which is perceived to have the backing of party deputy general secretary T T V Dhinakaran's faction, said.

"While this is the real status, former Karnataka Prison DIG Roopa is making allegations. There is not even an iota of truth in any of her charges and she has not released any evidence for the same," the daily said, attributing it to the party functionaries.

"It is obvious that Chinnamma is fully following all prison rules and she was not provided any special treatment, flouting laws."



The Karnataka government had on July 17 shunted out Roopa who brought to light the alleged special treatment to Sasikala in the central prison in Bengaluru and dragged her senior into a bribery row over the matter.

While shifting DIG (Prisons) D Roopa, the government also transferred DGP (Prisons) H N Sathyanarayana Rao after they sparred over a report on the charges in public.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Davide Barbuscia and Stanley Carvalho

DUBAI (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi oil giant Adnoc is in talks to obtain a syndicated loan worth up to $5 billion, the latest sign that the region's giant oil companies are increasingly turning to the debt markets to fund expansion.

Two banking sources said on Monday that company's talks with regional and international banks are focusing on a loan that may total several billion U.S. dollars. A third said it was expected to be in a range of $4 billion to $5 billion.

The loan facility, which would have various maturities of up to five years, is one of a number of fund-raising options being considered by the company, formally called the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. It is also discussing the possibility of issuing a project bond that could be as large as $3 billion, bankers said, declining to be named because of commercial sensitivities.

An Adnoc spokesman told Reuters: "As announced on July 10, Adnoc is expanding its partnership model and creating new partnership and co-investment opportunities across all areas of its value chain.

"Alongside this new partnership model, Adnoc is also taking a more active approach to managing its portfolio of assets and balance sheet to both unlock value and drive growth.

"Furthermore, as per the normal course of its financial planning, Adnoc is also looking at the most effective capital structure for the efficient management of its business."

Before oil prices crashed in 2014, state energy firms in the Gulf largely financed themselves with money from their governments. But low oil and gas prices mean governments' finances are under pressure, so companies are increasingly turning to the markets.

FIRST DOLLAR

The planned loan would be Adnoc's first large borrowing from banks beyond a deal worth up to $3.3 billion with Japanese banks that it signed last year. The project bond would be Adnoc's first dollar bond.

In April, Riyadh's national oil firm Saudi Aramco raised 11.25 billion riyals ($3.0 billion) with a debut issue of Islamic bonds. Oman Oil is working on a pre-export financing loan of around $1 billion after closing a $2 billion loan package a few weeks ago.

Adnoc's financing strategy is driven by Sultan al Jaber, the company's group chief executive, who took charge last year.

"Adnoc is looking at funding for different projects and talks have just begun - nothing has been finalised," said a regional banker.

The company has not appointed banks yet to lead the planned loan transaction, but a Dubai-based banker said "things will move quickly" and a mandate was likely to be awarded within the next couple of weeks.

Adnoc is also working on an initial public offer of shares in its retail unit, Adnoc Distribution, which could raise up to $2 billion, sources told last week.

First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup have been mandated for the IPO, the sources said.

U.S. boutique investment firm Moelis & Co is advising Adnoc on its funding strategy, while Rothschild has been hired as adviser on the flotation of Adnoc's distribution unit.

The energy producer manages 95 percent of proven oil reserves in the United Arab Emirates and 92 percent of the country's gas reserves.

(Reporting by Davide Barbuscia and Stanley Carvalho; Editing by Andrew Torchia/Jeremy Gaunt)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi government has told Philip Morris International Inc and other tobacco companies to remove all advertisements from tobacco shops in the city, warning them of legal action if they do not comply.

The order, sent by Delhi state's chief tobacco control officer S. K. Arora, comes days after Reuters reported that Philip Morris was promoting Marlboro cigarettes, the world's best-selling brand, by advertising them at tobacco shops and distributing free cigarette samples. Government officials say such tactics flout the law.

The strategy was laid out in hundreds of pages of internal Philip Morris documents reviewed by Reuters that cover the period from 2009 to 2016.

Officials have previously said tobacco advertising using brand names or promotional slogans is illegal under the country's Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and its accompanying rules.

But Philip Morris and India's leading cigarette maker ITC say they comply with regulations and that the law allows advertising inside a kiosk.

Arora said the health ministry had told him that all brand advertisements, irrespective of where they were placed, were not allowed in the country.

Philip Morris and ITC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Tobacco companies have continued to advertise at sale points despite repeated warnings from the Delhi state government in recent years. Philip Morris has been paying a monthly fee to some tobacco vendors to display the company's colorful advertisements, the Reuters investigation found.

Arora also told Reuters he "will investigate and conduct raids" to check on distribution of free cigarettes at social events. "If violations are found, action as per law will be taken," Arora said.

The government enacted its national tobacco control law in 2003 and has since added rules to strengthen it, but government officials say companies get away with violations because law enforcement is weak.

The health ministry on Friday said it planned to seek an explanation from Philip Morris and other tobacco companies about their marketing practices following the Reuters investigation that was published earlier this week. Philip Morris and ITC did not respond to requests for comment.
Reliance Industries is paying 6 per cent more price to buy coal-bed methane gas from its own block in Madhya Pradesh in the second quarter of current fiscal, the company said in an investor presentation.

RIL had in May become the first buyer of gas it produced from its own coal-bed methane (CBM) block after agreeing to pay the highest price for the fuel. It paid USD 4.23 per million British thermal unit for the CBM produced during May-June.

"For 2Q (July-September) FY18 supplies discovered price is USD 4.50 per mmBtu," the company said in an investor presentation after announcing first quarter earnings. "RIL is the successful bidder." RIL said it began CBM production from its Sohagpur blocks in Madhya Pradesh in March this year. "205 wells are flowing and production ramp up is in progress. Produced 8.6 million standard cubic meters of gas in 1Q FY18," it said.

Following the April decision of the government to give coal bed methane (CBM) producers freedom to discover market price, RIL invited bids from users of gas. The price discovered in the process was USD 4.23 for May-June and USD 4.5 for July-September. The rate is almost double the USD 2.48 per mmBtu price RIL gets for natural gas produced from its eastern offshore KG-D6 block. RIL said average production of gas from KG-D6 was 6.4 million standard cubic meters per per day and oil and condensate at 2,791 barrels per day during April-June quarter.

This compares to 7.4 mmscmd of average gas production and 3,749 bdp of oil and condensate production during January-March. "Production continues to decline due to natural decline in the fields," it said.

"Currently eight wells in D1-D3 and three wells in MA field (in KG-D6 block) are under production." RIL has invested about USD 500 million in CBM and laying a 300-km pipeline from Sohagpur to Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh to connect to the national gas grid. Through the April 13 notification, the oil ministry had stated that a CBM producer has to call for open bids for sale of coal gas and seek price quotes to discover the market price. The process prescribed was the same as the one RIL had run in 2012 to discover a price for CBM gas it is to produce in Madhya Pradesh.

Back in 2012, it had sought bids for 3.5 mmscmd (as against 0.40 mmscmd put on offer this time) of coal gas from its Sohagpur CBM block in Madhya Pradesh at a benchmarked rate at 12.67 per cent of JCC, or Japan Customs-Cleared Crude, plus USD 0.26 per million British thermal unit.

The formula was the same at which Petronet LNG, a joint venture of public sector oil companies, whose chairman is the oil secretary, used to buy long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar. At USD 100 per barrel oil price prevalent that year, CBM from RIL's Madhya Pradesh block was to cost USD 12.93 per mmBtu. At USD 55 a barrel rate currently, it would cost USD 7.2. That formula was, however, rejected by the ministry even though 59 valid bids seeking about 70 mmscmd of gas were received in the open tender. This time, RIL sought bids in form of a deductible from Platts DES West India price of USD 7.659 per MMBtu.


The Competition Commission today approved the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, said lawyers who worked on the deal, which will create the country's largest telecom operator.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co said the regulator has "unconditionally" approved merger of the telecommunications businesses of Vodafone India and its wholly-owned subsidiary Vodafone Mobile Services, with Idea Cellular.

"The USD 23 billion transaction is the largest transaction by value in the history of Indian M&A," it said in a statement.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co advised Vodafone India and Vodafone Mobile Services on the deal.

According to the statement, the regulator carried out a comprehensive review of the transaction and concluded that there was no appreciable adverse effect on competition from the proposed merger.

"The CCI approval, within Phase 1, is a very welcome development for both the Indian M&A landscape and the telecom sector, and will serve to fuel more investment in capacity and coverage across a battling telecom sector in India," Shweta Shroff Chopra, Partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, said.

Phase 1 refers to the deal being approved within 30 working days as provided by the Competition Act.

Law firm Trilegal, which advised Idea Cellular on the competition law aspects, said the deal with Vodafone India has received CCI approval.

"The proposed merger involved a merger of two of the biggest telecom companies in India and will create the largest telecom player in India, creating significant efficiencies and synergies," Trilegal said in a separate statement.

Getting approval within Phase I implies that the deal would not be subject to detailed scrutiny. Transactions where there are prima facie concerns that they would adversely impact competition are taken into Phase II for an in-depth scrutiny.

Mergers and acquisitions beyond a certain threshold require approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which keeps a tab on unfair business practices across sectors.

The deal, announced in March this year, will create the country's largest mobile phone operator worth more than USD 23 billion with a 35 per cent market share.

Post the transaction, Vodafone will own 45.1 per cent stake in the merged entity while the Aditya Birla group, Idea's parent, will have 26 per cent shareholding after paying Rs 3,874 crore cash for a 4.9 per cent stake.

The remaining 28.9 per cent will be held by other shareholders.
On May 23, the defense ministers of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey (AGT) held a trilateral meeting in Batumi, followed in June by the joint trilateral field training Caucasian Eagle 2017 of the three countries Special Operations Subdivisions in Georgias Vaziani base. The negative impact of terrorism and aggressive separatism on stability and development in the region makes it necessary to pool the capabilities of these countries to confront potential threats directed against their security and sovereignty. The AGT tripartite partnership has proven more successful than other regional integration blocs and initiatives.

BACKGROUND: After successful meetings of the AGT tripartite foreign ministers in Turkey (2012), Georgia (2013) and Azerbaijan (2014), the military dimension of this cooperation commenced with meetings of the defense ministers in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan (2014), Tbilisi, Georgia (2015) and Gabala, Azerbaijan (2016), aimed at developing relations between the defense structures and armed forces of the three countries. The meetings of the defense ministers paved the way for cooperation in military education, cyber security, development of military technology and organization of joint seminars, as well as joint military exercises for the purpose of protecting energy transport infrastructure. The three defense ministers agreed in Nakhchivan (2014) on tripartite exercises to enhance the combat capability of the three countries armed forces to protect oil and gas pipelines, which was a noteworthy step in this regard.

Georgia initiated the military dimension of the trilateral cooperation, under former Defense Minister Irakli Alasania. The three countries then established a bilateral working group to enable cooperation on the production of defense-related products. Georgia has invited Azerbaijan and Turkey to attend the Noble Partner military exercises in the Vaziani military base in 2017. After the reorganizations of the ministries of defense in Azerbaijan (2013), Georgia (2014) and Turkey (2016, following the military coup attempt), the importance of the trilateral cooperation has only increased. The preliminary steps of cooperation were merely focused on military preparedness to protect energy-transport infrastructure in emergency cases. Turkey plays a key role in boosting Georgias and Azerbaijans cooperation with Euro-Atlantic structures through NATOs Partnership for Peace Program and in training the two countries armed forces, and enables Azerbaijan to participate in NATOs military missions abroad under Turkish flag.

IMPLICATIONS: Although Azerbaijan partakes in other trilateral cooperation formats (Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia; Azerbaijan-Turkey-Turkmenistan; Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkey), the AGT tripartite is the only one that comprises a military dimension. The military dimension has so far been conducted on an intergovernmental basis, and lacks an institutional body of its own. The intergovernmental nature of the trilateral military cooperation neither implies integration of the participants military structures, nor the establishment of a regional military alliance in the traditional sense. It is merely a manifestation of the three countries common interest in protecting themselves against both conventional and unconventional threats. Therefore, they have hitherto pooled their efforts to build capacity through exchange of military experience, defense consultations and joint exercises to secure energy infrastructure.

All three countries avoid portraying their military cooperation as an institutionalized military alliance in order not to irritate other regional actors antagonized by the military presence of alternative powers in the region. The establishment of a trilateral military alliance remains unlikely, due to the differences in bilateral relations between each of the three countries and their neighbors. Indeed, AGTs military dimension does not contradict existing bilateral military cooperation with other neighboring states  with Iran and Russia in the case of Azerbaijan and Turkey, and with Armenia in the case of Georgia.

Azerbaijan is located in an unstable neighborhood and all three countries are directly or indirectly involved in armed conflicts. The internationally recognized territories of both Azerbaijan and Georgia are under occupation, while Turkey is combating terrorism on its soil. Therefore, all three countries perceive cooperation in the security and defense domains as necessary. Despite its growing military buildup and defense budget (which has surpassed Armenias entire state budget), Azerbaijans reliance on AGTs military dimension is rational. The countrys membership in the Non-Alignment Movement stipulates non-membership in military blocs (NATO or the Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO), and precludes the collective defense granted within these alliances. The combined military expertise of all three countries will grant a hybrid military capability to each countrys defense structures and armed forces. Yet, exchanges of expertise and trainings should also be expanded to the domains of cyber-terrorism, air-defense, military-[counter] intelligence, military-civilian dialogue, and other areas.

Azerbaijan also conducts separate military cooperation with Turkey and Georgia on a bilateral basis (as well as within the framework of NATO) in the military-technical sphere, as well as military education and intelligence sharing, and participates in military exercises with various branches of the armed forces. The scope of Azerbaijans military cooperation with Turkey is wider than that with Georgia, and has since the early 1990s encompassed joint exercises, the military-technical sphere, and a joint-defense industry. Bilateral military relations shifted from the military-technical sphere to the military-strategic level following the agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkey on Strategic Cooperation and Mutual Support in 2010. Georgias defense and military cooperation with Turkey does not contain such an assistance agreement stipulating security support in case of military aggression from abroad, but is limited to military-technical assistance. Neither is there any similar agreement between Azerbaijan and Georgia. In recent years, the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey have established a long track record of joint tactical military exercises. No such bilateral exercises took place between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Georgia, whose cooperation mostly encompasses the areas of military education, trilateral military exercises, and working meetings.

The motivating drivers of the AGT format are Turkeys energy demand, Azerbaijans energy capacity, and Georgias geographical location allowing secure transportation of Caspian hydrocarbons to European markets. Cooperation in the area of critical infrastructure protection (pipelines, railways and power lines) is therefore vital. The oil and gas pipelines have earlier been targeted on Turkish territory by the PKK. Georgia experienced an illegal expansion by Russia of the South Ossetian demarcation line encompassing a segment of the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline in the summer of 2015, as well as the risk that both the BTC and Baku-Supsa pipelines could be targeted by bombings during the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008. Finally, separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh have threatened Azerbaijan to target the countrys strategic energy infrastructure.

Armenia has voiced concern over the strengthening trilateral cooperation format between these countries, and considers the military dimension of the AGT format as forming a military belt around the country. Armenia is subjected to an embargo by Azerbaijan and Turkey due to its occupation of Azerbaijans territories and this cooperation format contributes further to Armenias isolation in the South Caucasus. On May 26, three days after the Batumi meeting and before the Caucasian Eagle training, Armenia hosted the Cobalt 2016 joint exercises of divisions within CSTOs Collective Rapid Reaction Force, composed of the internal affairs agencies of the CSTO member states.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite the changing political systems and domestic reshuffles in these countries, as well as external pressures and their diverging relations with their neighbors, all three have managed to preserve the pragmatic spirit of this format. The motivation for trilateral cooperation has increased, since the three countries benefit from stable political systems and economies in their partner states. Both the AGT format and Azerbaijans bilateral military ties with Turkey and Georgia also enable Baku to diversify its military policy of modernization and specialization by conducting trilateral military drills, cooperating in military education and participating in NATO trainings in Georgia. The promotion of a joint military industry with Turkish military companies will contribute to harmonizing Azerbaijans military capacity with NATO standards, as well as modernizing its military equipment. Currently, 85 percent of Azerbaijans military hardware originates in Russia, implying a need to diversify imports. However, instead of building the military dimension of cooperation exclusively on energy security, the AGT format should include new types of joint military exercises in the field of military-engineering, air-defense, rescue-search operations, cyber terrorism and others.

AUTHORS BIO: Ilgar Gurbanov is a research fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies (Azerbaijan).

Image source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Azerbaijani_soldiers_at_CENTRASBAT_02.jpg#file accessed on 18.07. 2017
| BY Ricki Green |

Toyota is encouraging people to get outside and make a difference to the environment as part of the 2017 National Tree Day, in a new TVC campaign from Gemba.

The Get Your Hands Dirty campaign, which launched this week, shows how contributing to a healthy local environment is a mark of pride for Toyota dealers, National Tree Day volunteers, schools, and the community as a whole.

Wayne Gabriel, Toyotas divisional manager, national marketing, said the campaign perfectly illustrated how much of a positive impact people could have on their local community simply by rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty this National Tree Day.

Says Gabriel: Toyota has a long-standing commitment to the environment and has been a proud supporter of National Tree Day for the last 18 years, in partnership with Planet Ark.

Since the National Tree Day and Schools Tree Day events began, weve helped more than 3.8 million people plant more than 20 million trees  but we believe theres always room to plant more.

This year, we wanted to create a symbol that everyone in the community could share to demonstrate their dedication to making Australia a greener, more environmentally-friendly place. The dirty hands motif in this campaign perfectly encapsulates this.

The upbeat TVC features a cross section of the community  children and adults, Toyota dealers and celebrities  all showing with pride that they are contributors on National Tree Day.

Boyd Hicklin, executive creative director at Gemba said people should wear their dirty hands as a badge of honour.

Says Hicklin: Getting your hands dirty for the community is something people should be proud of. We wanted the National Tree Day campaign to express that pride and get people excited to take part in such a great initiative.

The TVC campaign will also be supported by social media.

National Tree Day will take place on Sunday, 30 July, and Schools Tree Day will be held at participating schools around Australia on Friday, 28 July.
He also pleaded guilty to lifting another girl onto his lap and placing his hand on her genitals for two to three minutes. The sisters were at his home after his wife had offered to babysit for their parents.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said Hau's wife had been seen near the drug lab. It has been updated to say a woman matching her description had been seen. Mai Phuong Do has not been charged over the matter and denies any knowledge of her husband's drug manufacturing.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Bullying is an aggressive behavior where one person or group coerces another person or a group by using physical strength or by forcing them by other means to do something they don't. It can also be an act where a person is left out on purpose or when someone is verbally abused or teased.

As adults most of us understand that bullying is an act violence. We understand that there are some boundaries that are never to be crossed. Adults thus believe in debating and confronting their feelings by talking.

Kids on the other hand do not understand that there are results to certain acts which can be problematic for all. In school and in groups it is sad but very normal to see a kid getting bullied. This act of bullying may not just be physical violence and can be mental torture as well.

Why is it Important to talk about Bullying?

In a study that was conducted, it was noted that 49 per cent of students in class 4-12 were bullied by other students once during the past month. Other studies have found a link between bullying and risk of mental health problems like anxiety and depression, and an increased risk for suicide.

In a world where we are trying time and again to spread peace and harmony, the most fragile beings the children, are being targeted by none other their own peers. Bullying needs to stop and students and children need to understand that there is no pride in inflicting any sort of violence and abuse on each other.

If we want a safer world for our kids, the first step that we need to take is spread awareness about bullying. If a child gets off without any understanding of how much pain and hurt he or she caused to another child, then there are more chances of him/her growing up to become a bigot who thinks it's his/her right to violate others.

What can Parents do to stop Bullying?

Identify Bullying

Parents need to understand and accept the fact that bullying is something that exists. Parents tend to avoid certain behavior of kids as attention seeking and tantrums, but sometimes there is more than just that. You need to know that bullying mainly exists in there forms:

Physical violence

Verbal Abuse or teasing

Social- where a child is left out on purpose, spreading of rumors etc.

Bullying as an act can exist through the Internet as well.

The parents need to look for signs in their child. Whether they are being unusually quiet or if they tell you that they don't want to go to specific place or tell you that certain events are happening.

Change your Perspective

As an adult we think about world differently. The child in us gets shadowed by the responsible adult in us. Thus when our kids try to tell us things we tend to ignore them. We don't do this on purpose, rather we just tend to let somethings go off without thinking much about it.

But when we deal with kids, we need to look from their perspective. Something that may sound very trivial to you may be very serious in their heads. Try understanding what they feel and empathize with them.

How to be your child's best friend?

Educate the kids about Bullying

Spreading awareness about bullying is very important, and something that's much more important is to talk about it with the kids. Your kid might be the one who is getting, bullied, or the one who is bullying or the one who is just standing by or walking by when someone else is getting bullied.

Any way if the child knows what is happening is wrong, and knows that they can talk about it with adults the experience will become much easier to deal with. Kids should be told not to hurt other kids and that if they see or experience bullying, they must report to a parent or teacher.

Be Calm

If you come across an experience of your child or someone's child being bullied, don't just run to the parent of the bully and start shouting at them. They might have no clue at all. Understand that children have a microcosm, their own little universe in school. Your actions may cause damage to the kid, with the bullying being increased.

Instead approach the parents calmly and talk to them like a mature person. Tell them to not ignore it and that your child has suffered. Make them understand the gravity of the situation. If they continue to ignore the talks, and the bullying continues, approach the school authorities.

Support your Child

One might question that should a parent just be calm and keep approaching other parents and teachers whilst the child continues to suffer? No. The parent needs to talk to the child and make him or her understand why people bully.

Tell them that people try to dominate others because they themselves feel powerless. Be the support that your child needs and be with them through thick and thin. Listen to them, every time they have something to say and don't ignore them.

Students need concentration and focus in their school and college years. Such instances might hinder their desire to study and perform academically.

Even though there are many campaigns that focus on anti-bullying, we come across instances where children break under the force of bullying. It affects the mental and psychological aspect of the kid's development. Incidents of ragging and hazing are all extensions of bullying and should not be entertained under any circumstances.

As parents it is your responsibility to make sure your child grows up in a world where there is less violence and more happiness. So take the first step and talk to your kid about bullying!

Top 6 Problems Students Face During Adolescence
A French manufacturer of all-electric shuttles is planning to open its first North American production facility in Michigan.



Shuttle-maker Navya has 45 of its autonomous Arma shuttles operating around the world and was founded in 2014. To help bring the Arma to life, the manufacturer partnered with the University of Michigans Mobility Transformation Center in October 2015 and selected a production facility just south in Saline, Michigan.

In a statement, Navya chief executive Christophe Sapet said We at NAVYA could not be more pleased to call Saline, Michigan, home to our first assembly plant in North America.

As the greater Ann Arbor area continues to establish itself as a hub for autonomous vehicle development, we feel its the perfect location for us. Strong government and community support for mobility initiatives combined with an excellent talent pool provide the ideal environment for our expansion in North America, Sapet said.

The Navya Arma can transport up to 15 people and uses a wrath of sensors to drive autonomously without the assistance of a human driver.

The company intends on building 25 units in North America before the end of the year.

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: The Canadian Press Guthrie McLean on the Great Wall of China.

An American university student is free following a weeklong detention in China for allegedly injuring a taxi driver who was roughing up his mother during a fare dispute, in a case that drew objections over the student's treatment from U.S. lawmakers.

Guthrie McLean, a student at the University of Montana, was released from a detention centre in Zhengzhou early Monday, according to his mother, Jennifer McLean, a teacher who lives in the central Chinese city.

"We are very, very very, very happy," Jennifer McLean wrote in an email to The Associated Press. She said the release  at 2 a.m. local time when her son was delivered to her doorsteps  came as a surprise after she'd twice been told to anticipate a release only to be disappointed.

The release followed an agreement with Chinese authorities to drop any charges against Guthrie Mclean, according to Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.

Jennifer McLean told The AP the taxi driver had been pushing her around and hurting her when her son intervened and pushed the taxi driver to the ground.

She said when police detained Guthrie five weeks later on charges of intentional injury, they demanded the equivalent of $7,400 in compensation and threatened to imprison her son for up to three years if they refused to pay, which they refused.
Photo: The Canadian Press Former U.S. president George Bush and first lady Barbara Bush with their dog, Millie.

Politically ambitious pups and kittens: Put your resumes aside.

The job of first pet  an enviable White House gig with luxurious live-in privileges, after-hours access to the president and guaranteed positive press coverage  is not currently available.

That's because President Donald Trump is not looking for a fluffy sidekick at the moment. Asked about plans for a four-legged addition to the White House, Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Melania Trump, said in a statement: "The first family is still getting settled so there are no plans at this time."

If Trump stays pet-free, he will be breaking with a long held tradition of presidential pet ownership.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's had his beloved terrier Fala. President George H.W. Bush's English springer spaniel Millie was featured on "The Simpsons." When President Barack Obama's family acquired their Portuguese water dog Bo, it was big news.

"In the modern-day presidency, almost all of them have had a pet," said Jennifer Pickens, a White House social expert who wrote "Pets at the White House." Still, she noted, "all didn't necessarily have them at the beginning of the administration."
Photo: The Canadian Press

South Africa said Monday it is moving ahead with draft regulations for a domestic trade in rhino horn, despite critics' concerns that a legal market will spur rhino poaching.

Anyone possessing a rhino horn will need a permit under national rules that are being prepared, and South Africa continues to recognize a ban on the international trade in horn that was imposed in 1977, said Edna Molewa, the environmental affairs minister.

Earlier this year, South Africa's constitutional Court rejected a government appeal to preserve a 2009 ban on the domestic trade in the horns of rhinos, which have been poached in record numbers in the past decade.

Rhino breeders say a regulated trade would undercut poaching. Some international conservation groups disagree, saying it would only encourage traffickers to kill rhinos and try to sell their horns on the legal market.

Molewa also said 529 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa in the first half of this year, a drop of 13 over the same period in 2016. South Africa has nearly 20,000 rhinos, according to some estimates.
Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump boards Air Force One in Norfolk, Va., Saturday.

President Donald Trump is expressing his frustration with fellow Republicans, saying they "do very little to protect their President."

In one of several tweets issued Sunday afternoon and evening, Trump said the lack of support happens even with "some that were carried over the line on my back."

Trump's tweet wasn't clear about why he was upset. It came as Republicans in the Senate struggled to come together on a bill to overhaul President Barack Obama's health care law.

On that topic, another tweet from the president was more specific: "If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!"

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for their August recess without passing a health bill.
Photo: The Canadian Press Winston Blackmore

A British Columbia judge is expected to issue her verdict today for two former religious leaders accused of one count each of polygamy.

Winston Blackmore is alleged to have married 24 women in the practise of "celestial" marriage, while the trial earlier this year heard that James Oler has five wives.

Both men are former bishops for a fundamentalist sect in the tiny southeastern B.C. community of Bountiful.

If Justice Sheri Ann Donegan finds Blackmore guilty, his lawyer Blair Suffredine has said he'll launch a constitutional challenge to the validity of the polygamy laws.

The 12-day trial heard from mainstream Mormon experts, law enforcement who worked on the investigation and Jane Blackmore, a former wife of Winston Blackmore who left the community in 2003.

The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is based in Utah, officially renounced polygamy in the late 19th century and disputes any connection to the fundamentalist group's form of Mormonism.
Photo: CTV Welcome Home banner in 100 Mile House.

Residents of two communities evacuated due to wildfires have been allowed to return, but officials say it's unclear when thousands of others will be allowed to go home.

Evacuation orders for 100 Mile House and Princeton were downgraded to alerts on Saturday, allowing residents to go home, although with the knowledge that they may have to leave again on a moment's notice.

People returning to the Interior communities have been picking up cleanup kits and advice from the Red Cross as they return home, Al Richmond, chairman of the Cariboo Regional District, told a conference call Sunday.

"I think it's been a happy time for most people there, even those who had some losses. They're glad to be back," Richmond said.

More than 30,000 people remained displaced by wildfires on Sunday as a cold front moved across central and southern B.C., bringing with it gusting winds that threatened to stir up flames.

The weather is making it difficult to predict when other evacuees, including about 10,000 people from Williams Lake, may be able to return home, said fire information officer Navi Saini.

"It really depends on fire activity," she said. "Although we are making progress on the fires, it is a pretty fluid situation right now, and with the forecast wind, it's something we'll continue to monitor and there'll be discussions had later."

Residents of Williams Lake were forced out more than a week ago when flames threatened to cut off highways that could provide future escapes.

Geoff Payton with the City of Williams Lake says officials are working on plans for re-entry, but there's no set date for when people will be able to return.

A wildfire continues to burn about seven kilometres outside of the city, Payton said.

"It wouldn't take much more than a strong wind event to blow it into town," he said.
Photo: BC Hydro Multiple regions across B.C. are without power

Strong winds have caused multiple outages to customers in the Golden, Salmon Arm, and Revelstoke regions.

Crews have been sent to all areas to restore power quickly and safely.

In the Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast 2333 customers have been affected and 2985 customers in the Thompson and Shuswap region are without power.

Exact restoration times will not be available until full damage assessments are complete.

Check BC Hydro for a full list of outages.
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
AbbVie must pay $150 million to an Oregon man who accused the pharmaceutical company of misrepresenting the safety risks of its AndroGel drug to treat low testosterone, a federal jury decided Monday in Chicago.

AbbVie must pay $150 million to an Oregon man who accused the pharmaceutical company of misrepresenting the safety risks of its AndroGel drug to treat low testosterone, a federal jury decided Monday in Chicago. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

AbbVie must pay $150 million to an Oregon man who accused the pharmaceutical company of misrepresenting the safety risks of its AndroGel drug to treat low testosterone, a federal jury decided Monday in Chicago.

Jesse Mitchell blamed the drug for a heart attack he had in 2012 after taking AndroGel for four years. The jury awarded Mitchell $150 million in punitive damages, meant to punish the company, but did not award him damages to compensate him for any personal losses.

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The jury, however, found in favor of AbbVie on allegations that AndroGel lacked adequate warnings or instructions, making it unreasonably dangerous, as well as allegations that the company was negligent.

"We expect the punitive damage award will not stand," AbbVie spokeswoman Adelle Infante said in an email.

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Mitchell's case, filed in 2014, was the first to go to trial over AndroGel. Thousands of similar lawsuits have been filed against AbbVie.

AbbVie sold about $675 million worth of AndroGel last year.

The company had argued in court documents that Mitchell had other risk factors that could have caused his heart attack, such as a history of smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, among other things.

But Troy Rafferty, an attorney for Mitchell, called the $150 million decision "a powerful message that the jury sent to AbbVie about the way they marketed and promoted this drug."

Mitchell, who used AndroGel from 2008 to 2012, alleged that AbbVie knew or should have known the drug could cause cardiovascular disease, strokes and other serious injuries, but failed to adequately warn consumers and doctors. He was 49 at the time of his heart attack.

He took the drug amid an advertising campaign warning consumers about "low T."

The company marketed the drug to consumers despite its "dangerous side effects" even though there were "safer alternative methods of treating loss of energy, libido erectile dysfunction, depression, loss of muscle mass and other conditions AndroGel's advertising claims are caused by low testosterone," Mitchell alleged in court documents.

Abbott Laboratories was also named in the lawsuit, but AbbVie spun off from Abbott in 2013, taking with it U.S. commercial rights and responsibilities for the drug.

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AbbVie's stock fell by about 1 percent Monday.

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker
A lunchtime crowd waits to order at Portillos on April 27, 2017, in Chicagos River North neighborhood. The chain is expanding in Minnesota. ( Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune )

Portillo's, slinger of Chicago-style dogs, is plotting a third location in Vikings country as it continues its steady, deliberate expansion since selling to a private equity firm in 2014.

Earlier this month, the Oak Brook-based chain also known for Italian beef and chocolate cake shakes opened its first Minnesota location in Woodbury, a St. Paul suburb. Then last week, Portillo's confirmed another location in Maple Grove, a Minneapolis suburb, while also filing an application for another location in Apple Valley.

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"We are looking at several other locations throughout the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area, including Apple Valley, but pending regulatory approvals and a signed lease, I can't confirm (the Apple Valley location)," Portillo's spokesman Nick Scarpino said in an email Monday.

Documents filed with Apple Valley's plan commission last week indicate Portillo's hopes to open a 9,000-square-foot restaurant with its standard two-lane drive-through. Meanwhile, the lease is signed for the Maple Grove location, which is expected to open in November, Scarpino said.

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When founder Dick Portillo sold the company to Berkshire Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm, the company had 38 locations. Today, there are 50 with more in the pipeline.

The plan is to continue growing the number of restaurants at a rate of about 10 to 15 percent each year, executives have said, building in the Chicago market but also in other areas with a fondness for the brand and for Chicago. Vikings fans may or may not confess to such a connection.

The Pioneer Press in Minnesota first reported the news.

gtrotter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GregTrotterTrib
Alex Lapinski stars as Sweeney Todd and Catherine Mojsiewicz as Mrs. Lovett in Schaumburg Summer Theatres production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. ( Schaumburg Summer Theatre )

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and his meat pie-baking sidekick are coming to Schaumburg Summer Theatre. Fifty-nine college and high school students, under the direction of Rob Pileckis, will perform the Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and Hugh Wheeler (book) blockbuster musical, "Sweeney Todd," opening July 28.

The musical takes place in Victorian-era London and tells the tale of a barber who has been falsely accused of a crime and separated from his wife and daughter for years. He returns to London seeking to destroy the judge responsible for his incarceration.

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Pileckis noted that he tends to choose lighter fare for the theater company's annual summer production  past shows have included "Guys and Dolls," and "Kiss Me Kate," among others. He initially thought the show was too "heavy" for young people. But when he learned that the Illinois High School Theatre Festival had staged the musical, he decided to do it, too.

"It's really a morality play," Pileckis said. "This isn't a heavy psychological drama. To me, it's just like an old-fashioned melodrama with good guys and bad guys. With that comes a lot of humor."

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Pileckis noted that Sondheim's music is vocally demanding, and includes a lot of dissonance. "I'm always amazed at how the kids are able to rise up to the challenge," the director said.

Alex Lapinski, a sophomore at Luther College in Iowa, plays the title character.

Lapinski noted that the director told him that he wants "to creep the audience out." The actor said that he is working hard to make Sweeney as creepy as possible.

Lapinski believes that for most of the show, Sweeney isn't completely certain about what he wants. "He convinces himself that he's being driven by revenge, but I think it's more that he's driven by grief. Once the judge is dead, what's he going to do?"

The role of Mrs. Lovett, the piemaker who encourages Sweeney's dark enterprise, is played by Catherine Mojsiewicz, a junior at Illinois Wesleyan University. She has performed with Schaumburg Summer Theatre for five years.

Mojsiewicz was drawn to this show because, "It's a dark comedy so it mixes up a little drama and then lightens it up. And the music is incredible."

The actor laughingly described Mrs. Lovett as "crazy. She's probably the villain of the show. She's kind of like a puppet master. She sparks everything. She's very cunning and smart. Everything she does is for her own gain."

Pileckis said that they will be using video projections "to enhance the experience of what's happening onstage." He added that what's going to distinguish this "Sweeney Todd" from other productions is that it is being performed in a 450-seat theater. "The audience is really close to the cast so it will become a lot more of a visceral experience," he said.

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'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'

When: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, July 28-Aug. 5

Where: Prairie Center for the Arts, 201 Schaumburg Court, Schaumburg

Tickets: $20; $16 students and seniors
Three-month-old Tanta, in River North, is easily Chicago's most accomplished Peruvian restaurant, elevating the cuisine  a melting pot that claims Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, African and ancient Incan influences  to the level of fine dining.

Gaston Acurio, the internationally renowned chef who owns Tanta, has made this elevation his life's work. He operates more than 30 Peruvian restaurant in 12 countries, including Astrid y Gaston, his world-class restaurant in Lima, Peru (currently No. 14 on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list; for purposes of comparison, Alinea is No. 15). Factor in his 20 cookbooks and media appearances, and it's fair to view Acurio as his nation's culinary prophet.

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To be clear, Tanta is not comparable to Alinea; it's no Astrid y Gaston. It's a casual, approachable concept, much like his La Mar restaurant in San Francisco. Tanta is essentially Peruvian 101, a restaurant that provides a very enjoyable introduction to the cuisine  aided by knowledgeable service and enhanced by a strong beverage program  in a lively (occasionally too lively) atmosphere.

Tanta is not a place in which to contemplate the joys of the Peruvian table. It's a noisy, festive place for light bites and good times.

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The menu evokes the suitcase of a world traveler, the various categories of Peruvian cuisine arranged like luggage stickers on the single, oversize page. You'll find a boxed selection of cebiches (ceviches to you and me) at top center, a quartet of anticuchos (skewered street-food nibbles) at top right, Del Chifa (dishes reflecting Peru's Chinese influence) at lower right, and so on. The layout and terms are daunting initially, but servers are pretty good at demystifying the options.

The vast majority of the offerings are two- and three-bite dishes, so one can try anything, even the beef-heart anticuchos  quite good, especially with smears of lively mesa sauce  without investing one's taste buds too heavily.

Your first challenge might be differentiating among cebiches, tiraditos and leches de tigre (tiger's milks), as they all involve citrus-cured raw (or nearly raw) seafood. The differences are largely textural; the cebiches are coarsely diced, the tiraditos are sliced like sashimi and leches de tigre refers to a specific sauce (reputed to be a hangover cure) in which the fish and/or vegetables swim.

If you like ceviche but not cilantro, you may be happy at Tanta, where the herb is used only sparingly. If you're pepper-sensitive, you may not be as happy; the aji amarillo, a hot pepper, is used extensively, albeit judiciously.

A good way to start is with the cebiche tasting, a three-dish assortment of clasico (fluke with red onions and cilantro), nikei (tuna with tamarind and avocado) and mixto (the day's catch, nearly always mahi-mahi, with squid and shrimp). Then it's best to play culinary butterfly, touching lightly on the menu subdivisions. Try one of the causitas, mashed potatoes with various toppings; the clasica, with crab, avocado and egg, is especially good. Niguiris, Peru's take on nigiri sushi, are two-piece protein-on-rice bites; I recommend the criollo, tuna topped with a circle of fried squid and a dab of aji amarillo sauce, and the pobre, richly flavored wagyu skirt steak with quail egg and ponzu sauce. The octopus anticucho, served off the skewer with thick chimichurri, olive sauce and fried garlic, might be the best appetizer in the bunch.

Soon enough, you'll want to move to the more substantial courses  there's only so much lime marinade and Peruvian corn I can embrace at one sitting  and there is good news there: The mains tend to be complex, deeply flavored and delicious. There is paiche, a farm-raised Amazon River fish, its firm white flesh perched over yuca-bacon mash with a red onion and tomato sauce; and adobo de ternera, slow-cooked marinated veal cheeks. Chicharron, a frequently offered special, combines pork belly and ribs in a tart Peruvian barbecue sauce, supported by kabocha puree.

The signature entree, the one that gets its own menu box, is the pollo a la brasa, a roasted chicken that's brined for 24 hours and marinated in garlic, vinegar, oregano, wine  and even a little Coca-Cola. What emerges from the oven is a crispy-skinned treat, available in whole- and half-bird options, and it arrives with simmered white beans, arroz con choclo (sushi rice studded with those oversize Peruvian corn niblets) and three pepper sauces of ascending potency. It's a terrific dish and makes a fine leftover, if you're debating between the half and whole order.

Side dishes worth your attention include the chaufa aeropuerto, a fried-rice dish with pork and a mighty hit of garlic; and the huancaina, Peruvian fingerlings with purple olives, bathed in a creamy, sneaky-spicy sauce that gives the dish its name (the full name is papas a la huancaina).

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Desserts are simple and fun. Las trufas de chocolate are little round warm-chocolate bombs with a toasted-quinoa coating and lemon grass ice cream to the side; and I particularly like the mazamorra crumble, a sort of concentrated mixed-fruit tart with an oat and almond crust.

The dining room is noisy with conversation and color, including the multicolor chalk recipes and specials posted over the bar and the Peruvian-inspired artwork (by Chicago muralist Jeff Zimmerman) on the far wall.

I have a feeling that Tanta is going to be around for a while. Long enough, I hope, to vary its small-plate offerings more, and long enough to get to summer, when the restaurant plans to open a rooftop cafe.

Watch Phil Vettel's reviews weekends on WGN-Ch. 9's "News at Nine" and on CLTV.

Tanta

118 W. Grand Ave., 312-222-9700

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Tribune rating: 2 stars

Open: Dinner Monday-Sunday

Prices: Entrees $22-$53

Credit cards: A, DS, M, V

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Reservations: Strongly recommended

Noise: Conversation-challenged

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Other: Wheelchair accessible; valet parking.

Ratings key:

Four Stars: Outstanding

Three Stars: Excellent

Two Stars: Very good

One Star: Good

No stars: Unsatisfactory

The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.

pvettel@tribune.com

Twitter @philvettel
Condiments may seem simple, but, as chef Marcus Samuelsson writes in "New American Table," "they reflect who we are more than any other food."



Not only do condiments offer flavor, they contribute color, texture and aroma to any dish. And they can speak of culture and history. Take ketchup, that all-American dunk. It was created in Asia, with nary a tomato in sight, at least for a century or two. Here are some of the world's favorite condiments, the ones you'll find on the dining tables of each continent, and how you can use them in your kitchen.



wdaley@tribune.com



Dijon mustard



Made by mixing powdered mustard or mustard seeds with a liquid, often vinegar, water or wine, and adding herbs, spices or other flavorings as desired. Assertive yet adaptable, French Dijon mustard may be stirred into sauces and vinaigrettes, used as a coating for grilled chicken and salmon or served as-is with cold cuts, sausages.



Olive oil



Whether green and peppery or golden and buttery or somewhere in between, olive oil comes in various quality grades. Extra-virgin olive oil, the first pressing from the olives, is considered the best (and is priced accordingly). Drizzle on cooked fish, chicken, mashed potatoes; use in vinaigrettes, sauces.



Pickapeppa sauce



Called "Jamaican ketchup," this brand-name sauce is made with cane vinegar, tomatoes, onions, sugar, mangoes, raisins, tamarinds, peppers and spices. It is aged one year in oak barrels for a taste described by the makers as "sweet but mellow." Used to give snap to cream cheese, Pickapeppa also can be used to season meats, vegetables, fish, poultry



Fish sauce



As ubiquitous in Southeast Asian cooking as salt is in the West, fish sauce is stirred into curries and stir-fries, whisked into sauces and dressings or used as a dipping sauce for spring rolls and satay. Made from fermented, salted fish, the sauce is intensely briny and smells pungent. Names vary by country: nam pla in Thailand, nuoc nam in Vietnam, patis in the Philippines, shottsuru in Japan.



Hot red pepper sauce



Made with chilies, salt and vinegar, different Latin hot sauces give heat to all sorts of dishes, from chili stews to tamales. Plus gumbo, stewed greens and chicken wings.



Harissa



From North Africa, a spicy blend of oil, chilies, garlic, cumin, coriander, caraway and other spices. Serve with couscous, soups, stews.



Piri-piri sauce



Piri-piri (or peri-peri) is the word for the small, incendiary bird's eye chilies of Africa. That gives you a clue to the fire in the sauce, popular in southern Africa and Portugal. Use it as a marinade or sauce with chicken, seafood, soups.



Major Grey's Chutney



Salute Major Grey, whoever he was, for though the sun long ago set on the British Empire, this Raj-era condiment remains popular around the world. Made from mangos, onions, raisins, vinegar and brown sugar, it adds a spicy lushness to any plate. Pair with grilled lamb chops, curry dishes, rice casseroles.



Sriracha sauce



A thickish hot chili sauce from Thailand with just enough sugar to curb the fire and deepen the flavor. Use it to zip up everything from stir fries to sushi.



Sources: "The Deluxe Food Lover's Companion" by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst; "Food" by Waverley Root; "Asian Ingredients" by Bruce Cost; "Olive Oil" by Charles Quest-Ritson; "Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking" by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo; Webster's New World Dictionary of Culinary Arts; pickapeppa.com; http://www.nandos.com.
Maple miso glazed pork belly charred on the robata with Asian pear kimchi will be on the menu at Katana. (Katana)

Katana, the much anticipated and buzzed-about restaurant from LA-based Innovative Dining Group, will debut Aug. 3.

Occupying 13,000 square feet that once housed Bin 36 (339 N. Dearborn St.), Katana will feature sushi, robata-grilled proteins and vegetables, and prime steaks.

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In many ways, this will be a copy of the original Katana, which opened in 2002 along the celebrity-heavy Sunset Strip. The Chicago Katana, however, is double the size and, principals say, is designed with locals in mind.

"We don't want to be seen as a corporate restaurant," said IDG director of development and operations Brent Berkowitz. "When we first opened on Sunset Strip, where touristy people hung out, we designed the restaurant for the locals. We want to fill (Katana) with people who live in the surrounding area."

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To that end, IDG brought aboard Jason Chan, who created such successful Chicago restaurants as Butter and Juno, as general manager.

"We didn't want a general manager who was from out of town," Berkowitz said.

IDG, which also created and operates multiple locations of Sushi Roku, is known for its gorgeous, sexy interior design. Expect the same in Chicago; the massive interior has been broken up into multiple, more intimate spaces, and the enormous bar and lounge likely will become a magnet for the eye-candy crowd.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

That said, IDG principals actively avoid the "clubby" label, emphasizing their culinary expertise.

"We're one of the first restaurants, 20 years ago, to make Japanese cuisine more mainstream and accessible," said IDG partner Lee Maen. "We're foodies and love exotic and crazy dishes, but we love to take the California-roll-and-miso-soup customers and slowly turn them into real sushi aficionados. And guests who have never eaten sushi will find plenty of other interesting things to eat. And because we're set up with small bites, for the most part, it takes less commitment to try something new."

Servers, Berkowitz said, are trained to function as tour guides.

"We train the staff to be able to gauge what the guest is in the mood for," he said. "We love it when customers let us choose everything for them (via the omakase, or chef's choice, option), but other people, who might be more conservative, can still do an omakase, but we'll ask if there's anything you don't like, anything you don't want or anything you just have to have."

Maen acknowledged that 13,000 square feet is a lot of space to fill.

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"In LA and here, the trend is toward smaller places," he said. "But we found this space and fell in love with it. My dad's from Skokie; it just seems like we were always meant to be here. "

Phil Vettel is a Tribune critic.
"The Simpsons" tease the upcoming episode of the show, scheduled to air Sunday night on Fox, "paid for by Anybody Else 2020."

Donald Trump has always been quick to boast that he usually gets what he wants.

But when the real estate developer and TV celebrity once asked the producer of "The Simpsons" for the honor of a guest appearance on the long-running show - a coveted recognition for so many celebrities and cultural icons - he was apparently turned down, according to the Wrap.

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"The Simpsons" executive producer Al Jean recalled the episode Saturday during the show's panel at Comic-Con in San Diego after an audience member asked if the series had ever turned down a celebrity who had asked to voice a character, the Wrap reported.

Jean paused for a moment before answering: "Let's just say he's the president of the United States."

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Of course, that didn't stop Trump's likeness from appearing on the show. He was famously depicted as the future president in a 2000 episode, "Bart to the Future," wherein an adult Lisa Simpson inherits the presidency from Trump and struggles to fix the wreckage he left behind.

At the time, writer Dan Greaney told The Washington Post, the joke was meant to be absurdist, purely tongue-in-cheek. "He seemed kind of lovable in the old days, in a blowhard way," Greaney said of Trump. But after Trump announced his run for the presidency, "I see that in a much darker way," Greaney said.

Since Trump took office, "The Simpsons" has taken a starkly critical view of the 45th president. Recent episodes have seen Trump visited by the ghost of Richard Nixon, and the show's portrayal of Trump's first 100 days in office was particularly bleak.

During the panel on Saturday, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening made his thoughts on Trump explicitly clear when he led the Comic-Con crowd in a chant of "Lock him up! Lock him up!" It was a pointed riff on the anti-Hillary Clinton "Lock her up!" refrain that dominated so many of Trump's campaign rallies.

RELATED STORIES:

'The Simpsons' has a grim take on Trump's first 100 days

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Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
Oddly in synch with the narrative strategy (though without the imposing visual panache) of "Dunkirk," the other historical drama of the moment, director Kathryn Bigelow's "Detroit," is an artfully frazzled mosaic of suffering, putting the audience through the wringer in the name of truth, injustice and what many see, still, as the American way with police brutality.

At its best the movie, written by Mark Boal, Bigelow's collaborator on "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty," evokes a spirit of mournful provocation, as the bloody Detroit events of July 1967 unfold. There are significant limitations, however, with Bigelow's latest film, and they prevent "Detroit"  a war chronicle no less than her masterworks "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty"  from measuring up to those exceptional standards. In various, depressing ways, the film speaks to our present-day rage-fueled American divisions, clear echoes of where we were 50 years ago. Audiences are responding to "Dunkirk" because it's a reassuring period piece, about grace under pressure and never giving up. "Detroit" is a tougher sell for a Friday night at the movies, because it's about people who never had a chance at justice in the first place.

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The events are well known in some circles, less so in others. On July 23, 1967, police raided an illegal after-hours bar (a "blind pig") on Detroit's Near West Side. This sparked riots that, as one character in the film notes, exceeded the destruction of the 1943 Detroit clashes between police and African-American citizens. In the movie Anthony Mackie plays a key supporting character, real-life Vietnam War veteran Robert Greene, caught up in the blind pig raid and the ensuing nightmare. He later described it as worse than anything he endured in Vietnam.

Some characters are pulled from the historical record; the key fictionalized character (for legal reasons), a venal, sociopathic police officer played by Will Poulter, is based on an officer found not guilty in court by an all-white jury. The excruciating centerpiece of "Detroit" concerns what happened at the Algiers Motel, an 11-dollar-a-night dive, home to hookers and johns and all kinds of transients. A group of officers, mistaking a starter's pistol for sniper fire, turned against innocent suspects in a show of outlandish, illegal force. With the tacit cooperation of state police and the National Guard, the interrogation turned on a sick game of pretend-killings (pretend for a while, anyway) in a room adjoining the hallway where various, battered and abused suspects were being held while police searched for a sniper's rifle that did not exist.

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It's one hell of a difficult sequence to endure. Bigelow does not elide or cut out anything for the sake of going easy on the audience. The film's audience surrogate, who remains watchful on the margins of this long scene, is real-life security guard Melvin Dismukes, played by John Boyega of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." He's a singular note of decency amid an indecently cruel scenario.

This protracted Algiers Motel nightmare, which recalls the urban warfare of "The Battle of Algiers" by more than name only, raises a question. Is there a way to dramatize a gut-grinding scene so that the audience stays rapt instead of checking out emotionally? Bigelow knows the answer is affirmative, but it's extraordinarily tricky. Here she cannily cuts in and out of the scene for rhythmic variety, picking up other plot strands for a while, then returning.

Detroit, which focuses on the 1967 riots in Michigan, is directed by Kathryn Bigelow. (Annapurna Pictures)

But Poulter is miscast, and one-note, and it seriously hurts "Detroit." As written and as acted, the vicious cop here called Krauss (whom we first see shooting a looter in the back) serves as the embodiment of all law enforcement evil, a scared, racist, paranoid bully acting with impunity, pulling his partners (one willing, the other reluctant) into the escalating carnage. Screenwriter Boal has done copious research and read through various accounts of the evening, as recalled by various parties, but the scene is missing something. What should be impossible to look away from grows too easy to tune out.

Bigelow and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd plow through "Detroit" with an aggressively destabilized camera, familiar if you've seen "The Hurt Locker" and, even more extreme in its hand-held, faux-war documentary tactic, "Captain Phillips," both shot by Ackroyd. It's the logical aesthetic choice, but by now the conventional one. Striking and vivid in short bursts and its accumulation of outrages, "Detroit" might've benefited from Bigelow working with a different director of photography, as well as a co-writer for Boal.

The casting, for the most part, seamlessly mixes relative newcomers with seasoned pros (Mackie's Vietnam vet; Algee Smith as a member of the vocal group The Dramatics, whose big break is forestalled by the riots; cameos taken by John Krasinski and Jennifer Ehle). The movie interpolates archival footage (Michigan Gov. George Romney decrying "hoodlumism") indicated by a narrow aspect ratio. A prologue written by Henry Louis Gates Jr., charts the Great Migration and subsequent economic disenfranchisement of countless African-Americans. "Change was inevitable," one title card reads in the animated "Detroit" opener, using illustrator Jacob Lawrence's paintings. It's a disarmingly folkloric way to introduce the blood-stained mosaic to come.

I watched "Detroit" with one eye on a movie yet to be made. If anyone is ever to take on a major piece of cinematic historical fiction dealing with Chicago in August 1968, Bigelow's "Detroit" offers intriguing signposts about what might, and might not, work. A handful of films, from "The Battle of Algiers" to Paul Greengrass' splendid "Bloody Sunday," have met the challenge of dramatizing civil unrest and law enforcement outrages, memorably. "Detroit" comes close.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @phillipstribune

"Detroit"  2.5 stars

MPAA rating: R (for strong violence and pervasive language)

Running time: 2:23

Opens: Thursday evening

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
"The Force" by Don Winslow, Morrow, 496 pages, $27.99

It's sometimes hard to tell whether Don Winslow's novels are ripped screaming from the headlines or the headlines are ripped screaming from his novels. His astonishing 2016 drug saga, "The Cartel," is inspired by real-life cases but has foreshadowed any number of unseemly events. And his gut punch of a new cop thriller, "The Force," gets so deep inside the horror of what "Homicide" author David Simon called life on the street, it leaves you fearful that its invented outcomes will become reality as well.

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"The Force" traces the downward spiral of veteran New York cop Denny Malone, who has become the legendary "King of Manhattan North" through an understanding that a certain amount of corruption, brutality and betrayal  not to mention drug dealing  is justified in the fight against crime. After all, the system itself is wickedly corrupt. He swears he would never rat out a brother cop, but when his misdeeds catch up with him and prosecutors threaten the welfare of his separated wife and kids, who knows what he will do? Winslow takes his time setting the scene. Malone "just loved the (expletive) city ... the domino games on the sidewalks, the reggaeton music blaring out of car stereos, the street merchants hacking coconuts open with machetes." But once the author, a former investigator, starts tightening the screws of this by stunning drama, it has you unrelentingly in its grip.

"The Lies We Tell" by Theresa Schwegel, Minotaur, 368 pages, $25.99

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No less than Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski thrillers, Theresa Schwegel's police procedurals go to town on the particulars of her native Chicago and the challenges of being a woman in a man's world. In Schwegel's excellent new standalone effort, "The Lies We Tell," 29-year-old police detective Gina Simonetti must contend with an even more loathsome foe than sexism on the job: She has multiple sclerosis, something she is determined to keep hidden from her superiors and snoopy colleagues. That isn't easy to do after she is left in a heap of hurt by an assault suspect who runs off with her gun. But Gina weathers on, outlasting IVs, MRIs and CT scans in her determination to protect a female Alzheimer's patient from heartless schemers.

As lively as the plot is, it's the casual intimacy and insight of the first-person narration that makes "The Lies We Tell" special. The novel lacks the usual filters between author and character and reader: Schwegel makes you feel like you're experiencing tough-edged Gina's full, flawed reality. She has to battle with putting her own needs first, even in taking care of her drugged-out brother's little girl, Isabel. And as much as losing Isabel would pain her, that reality won't wreck her. At least if she doesn't have to look in the mirror: "You lose who you love, your face is just a reminder of how amazing it was that someone used to love you back."

"Love Like Blood" by Mark Billingham, Atlantic Monthly, 432 pages, $26

British ace Mark Billingham drew inspiration for "Love Like Blood," his latest Tom Thorne novel, from the so-called honor violence to which a surprising number of British Asians have been subjected in recent years. The victims here are two 18-year-old Muslims: Amaya, who is found savagely murdered, and her male friend Kamal, who has disappeared. Amaya offended her authoritarian father with her modern lifestyle; Kamal, a closeted gay man posing as her boyfriend, was prepared to marry her to flee an arranged marriage. Thorne, haunted by the unsolved honor killing of another girl four years ago, violates regulations (nothing new for him) by teaming up with Nicola Tanner to investigate the murders. A specialist in the field, she is supposed to be on compassionate leave following the murder of her life partner, Susan  a mistake, says Tanner, who is convinced she was in fact the intended target.

As strong a thriller as "Love Like Blood" is, Billingham fails to fully capture the monstrosity of these crimes and the people who countenance them in the name of morality. Having a comically mismatched pair of killers do the evil deeds doesn't help. But if "Love Like Blood" doesn't rise to the level of other Billingham novels, it's still a solid effort, bolstered by the social conscience that sets him apart.

Lloyd Sachs is a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune.






More than 42 percent of kids ages 15 to 19 say theyve had sex at least once, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (martin-dm / Getty Images)

A couple of radio segments and many emails later, it's clear we are a nation divided over (among other things) that Teen Vogue tutorial on anal sex.

"Truly, I am sad for you," one reader wrote in response to last week's column, in which I defended Teen Vogue.

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Recapping, sex educator Gigi Engle wrote an article headlined, "Anal sex: What you need to know," which spelled out how it works, why some people enjoy it and, if you're interested, how to do it safely and as pain-free as possible. "When it comes to your body, it's important that you have the facts," she wrote. "Being in the dark is not doing your sexual health or self-understanding any favors."

Some readers emailed to say they interpreted Engle's article the way I did: as a nonjudgmental source of sex education for teens, particularly LGBTQ teens, whose questions too often go unaddressed by educators and parents  leaving them to turn to Google, which promises a whole lot you can't unsee if you type in the words "anal" and "sex."

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Others emailed to say I'm tearing apart the moral fabric of society.

In my initial column, I wrote that I fully support parents who hide the article, forbid the article, cancel the magazine, etc., if the message doesn't square with their values. I wrote that I often hide magazines from my own daughter, who's 11, when they include too many pointers for whittling down your thighs and dropping pesky pounds and other body-shaming junk I don't want floating around in her head.

This was, for some, a bridge too far.

"Boy, are you a liberal," WGN Radio's John Williams said when I went on his show Thursday. "So you're OK with an article that promotes this kind of sex, but you're not crazy about how these teen magazines or women's magazines sort of glamorize the unrealistic thin shape? That offends you more?"

Many readers wondered the same, although less politely.

To which I can only say: Yes. I am OK with my kids receiving accurate, clear-eyed information that will help them better understand their bodies, their sexuality and the bodies and sexuality of the people with whom they share this Earth.

Yes, I worry about eating disorders, body dysmorphia and the many ways that magazines feed into both more than I worry about sex. The former, I'd love to see eradicated. The latter, under the right conditions, is quite lovely.

Now, the right conditions are debatable. Many don't believe teens should be reading about sex at all, let alone anal sex. Again, as a parent, that is your right to decide.

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But more than 42 percent of kids ages 15 to 19 say they've had sex at least once, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And sex ed has been shown to help prevent and reduce the risks of adolescent pregnancy, HIV and sexually transmitted infections.

Which is why I exercise my right to appreciate sex tutorials aimed at teens.

One reader emailed her disappointment that I would condone an article that, to her mind, tries to convince girls to go along with something they don't want to do.

"Teen Vogue is insinuating to teen girls that they're abnormal if they don't acquiesce to male-dictated sex as encouraged by the porn industry," she wrote. "If they want to get into anal sex and eventually, as mature women, discuss it with their partners, great. But Teen Vogue is widening the (already extremely broad) spectrum of what every young teen girl is supposed to consider 'normal' and 'expected.'

"Publish, instead," she suggested, "a detailed article on exactly what any teen (hetero or LGBTQ) should do if a partner suggests something that they are not comfortable with."

I have written that article, and I appreciate this reader's concern.

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I liked that the Teen Vogue article never stated  explicitly or implicitly  that anal sex is something everyone should try. There were none of the asinine, "Don't judge it till you try it'" or "Even if it sounds icky, it might be for you!" lines, which all too often pop up when teen magazines tackle beauty and health trends. On this topic, I was relieved it didn't go there.

That being said, a firm statement would have been welcome. Something along the lines of, "Never let anyone pressure you into any sexual act. Your body is yours and yours alone. Every time. A partner who makes you feel otherwise is a partner you should walk away from."

That would have made a strong piece even stronger. And I'd urge parents to add that all-important addendum themselves  if not after this particular tutorial, then the next time your child consumes something in our culture that mentions sex. You probably won't have to wait long.

hstevens@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @heidistevens13

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Cruise lines like to get bookings for their offerings far in advance, so they'll often throw in perks to get you to commit to a cruise that's a year or two off. Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours is dangling the offer of free airfare for some of its 2018 Asia river itineraries, which is worthwhile given the cost of flying to Southeast Asia. The deal applies to departures from the top 25 U.S. gateways, including Chicago and most East and West Coast metro airports. It's good for itineraries of at least 13 days, which includes the company's Treasures of the Mekong from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to Siem Reap, Cambodia, or Mystical Irrawaddy, which explores the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar. These aren't inexpensive tours. For 2018, the Mekong River trip is priced from $6,680 per person, double occupancy. But Scenic's river craft are five-star, and all cabins are balcony suites. Also, all tours are included in the price, and in Ho Chi Minh City and Siem Reap, hotel accommodations are thrown in. Among the tours in Siem Reap, of course, is the spectacular Angkor Wat temple complex. Info: 857-216-7703, tinyurl.com/yccec5lj

Travelers' thoughts

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Seventy-four percent of travelers taking part in a recent survey say that they believe actions by the Trump administration are making travel more difficult, and a little more than one-third think the travel bans and potential laptop restrictions are discouraging Americans from traveling out of the country. The survey of 2,170 adults in the U.S. was commissioned by Helpshift, an online customer service company. The survey also looked at travelers' views on smartphone apps offered by airlines and whether these apps improve the travel experience. Live customer support from within an airline app got an enthusiastic response from those surveyed. An infographic with other survey results is at tinyurl.com/yb3akr4k.

Holidays on the water

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Summer still has a ways to go, but it's not too early to start thinking about holiday travel. The American Queen Steamboat Co. has a variety of holiday-themed cruises in November and December aboard its paddle wheelers that ply the lower Mississippi River and its major tributaries. Discounts are being offered through September. The American Queen will be joined this fall by the newly launched American Duchess. Among the holiday trips on the Duchess, there will be a Nashville Holiday cruise, a Creole Christmas itinerary and a New Year's celebration that will be round-trip from New Orleans. The American Queen is scheduled for a Thanksgiving cruise from Memphis, Tenn., to New Orleans and will also have several cruises that take in the Christmas markets at Nottoway Plantation in Louisiana. The American Queen fleet also includes the American Empress, which cruises rivers of the Pacific Northwest. Info: 888-749-5280, tinyurl.com/hc4gsyn

Phil Marty is a freelance reporter.
The CTA will begin work next year to reconstruct the main station house at the Blue Line's Illinois Medical District station and add an elevator and rebuild ramps to the platforms.

The CTA board on Tuesday approved an agreement with the Emanuel administration to use $23 million in city tax-increment financing funds to rehabilitate the 55-year-old station on the Near West Side. All three station entrances  on Ogden Avenue, Damen Avenue and Paulina Street  will be accessible to individuals with disabilities when the project is completed in 2016, officials said.

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Other renovations will include brighter lighting, additional security cameras, CTA Bus and Train Tracker displays and repairs to the station platform canopy, officials said.

The station is the closest CTA rail stop to the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Rush University Medical Center and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center.

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The station, which is the third-busiest stop on the Blue Line's Forest Park branch, also serves Malcolm X College and the United Center.

The project's mid-2015 launch was selected because it will take time to finalize the inter-governmental agreement between the CTA and City Hall and to receive City Council approval for using TIF funds made available through the Chicago Neighborhoods Now program, said CTA spokeswoman Tammy Chase.

jhilkevitch@tribune.com | Twitter: @jhilkevitch
Cortez Harrington, 24, left, and Donzell Grant, 20, are charged with shooting a Chicago police officer after a robbery July 21, 2017. (Chicago Police Department )

Two men are facing a slew of charges, including attempted first-degree murder, after a Chicago police officer was shot in the leg Friday afternoon by armed robbery suspects fleeing a cell phone store in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, authorities said.

Donzell Grant, 20, and Cortez Harrington, 24, were each charged with seven felonies, including armed robbery with a firearm, kidnapping with a firearm and two counts of attempted first-degree murder, police said.

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Police said Grant, of the 1600 block of West 61 Street, and Harrington, of the 300 block of East 69th Street, are accused of robbing the store in the 4300 block of South Ashland Avenue and tying up the male employees in the back of the store.

As uniformed officers responded, robbery suspects were fleeing with merchandise from the store, police said. Gunfire was exchanged between the officers and the suspects.

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A female officer was shot in the left leg and taken to Stroger Hospital, where her condition was stabilized.

The suspects are expected to appear in central bond court Monday.
Chicago police are warning bicyclists that two people on bikes have been robbing people riders on The 606 Bloomingdale trail.

The two young men or boys have knocked at least three people from their bikes as they rode on the trail, a converted elevated railroad right-of-way on the Northwest Side, in the last three weeks, police said in a community alert Sunday. The victims have been injured when they fell off their bikes.

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In the most recent attack, early Sunday, one of the attackers was armed wth a small black handgun, and the attackers beat the victim and demanded his belongings, police said.

The attacks took place on the trail:

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About 4:30 a.m. Sunday at 1850 N. Ridgeway Ave.;

About 5:30 p.m. Saturday at 3300 W. Bloomingdale Ave.;

And about 1:15 a.m. July 2 at 3510 W. Bloomingdale

The robbers are described as young black males, both riding bicycles, one wearing a black do-rag, a brown long-sleeved shirt and black shorts, the other with short hair, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans.

There are surveillance cameras at each entry point to the raised trail, but no surveillance photos were released.

Anyone with information is asked to call Area North detectives at 312-744-8263.
At least six people were killed and 35 others were wounded in weekend violence in Chicago as the number of homicides continues to outpace last year.

There have been at least 391 homicides this year, four more than last year when violence reached levels not seen in two decades, according to data kept by the Tribune.

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The number of people shot, however, is down from last year: 2,112 compared to 2,337.

The first homicide of the weekend occurred Friday night when 23-year-old Brendon Frazier was killed in the 8800 block of South Eggleston Avenue, the South Side block where he lived.



Early Monday, an ambulance responded to the same block to treat a man for a gunshot wound to his right ankle. He told police the shooting happened near the 400 block of East 87th Street. Neighbors said the ambulance arrived at the same home where Frazier lived.



Between Saturday and Sunday mornings, a 35-year-old man was killed in Humboldt Park on the West Side, and an 18-year-old was fatally shot in Marquette Park on the Southwest Side. In Avalon Park on the South Side, a 40-year-old man was killed and three others were wounded. The surviving victims gave officers different accounts of what happened, police said.



Two people were fatally shot between Sunday and Monday mornings.



An 18-year-old man died Sunday after he was shot in both legs in the 5400 block of South Damen Avenue in the Back of the Yards neighborhood about 9 p.m. Someone took him to Holy Cross Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Circumstances leading up to the shooting were not known, but officers were checking an alley.



Earlier, a 23-year-old man was killed and a 15-year-old boy was wounded in a Sunday afternoon shooting in Park Manor on the South Side. The two were standing outside in the 7000 block of South Vernon Avenue when someone came up and fired, police said.



The shooting on the Dan Ryan occurred in the northbound lanes near Canal Street on Friday night. It was the second time in less than 24 hours that someone was struck by gunfire on the expressway.
Overtly racist, sexist and homophobic emails were distributed for years among a group of top-level Chicago water department supervisors. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune )

State officials are investigating a longtime employee whose personal email address is a source of racist, sexist and anti-gay emails at the center of the Chicago water department's burgeoning scandal, including a fake "Chicago Safari" tour making light of the shootings of children in black and Hispanic neighborhoods

The state began a review into Frank Capuzi  an investigator with the Workers' Compensation Commission and son of a former Republican state lawmaker  following Tribune inquiries into offensive emails forwarded from his address to a water department boss and others.

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The state's actions mark the first time the email scandal has created fresh headaches for another government body.

"The Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission is currently investigating the highly offensive and inexcusable email messages from one of its employees," said commission spokesman Ben Noble. "After a complete and thorough administrative review, the commission will determine what actions may be appropriate."

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Capuzi hung up on a reporter and did not respond to follow-up emails sent to his work and personal addresses. He has worked for the state since 1975 and makes more than $114,000 per year.

Capuzi, 62, was a longtime GOP committeeman on the West Side, having won the 26th Ward post as recently as 2008 and the 27th Ward at least as far back as the early 1980s, according to records from the Chicago Board of Elections.

The "Chicago Safari" email was among at least four of the most offensive ones that circulated among water department bosses that came from Capuzi's personal address.

The city redacted the address in the messages released via open records requests. The Tribune through interviews and sources, confirmed it was Capuzi's personal AOL address. It is the same email address Capuzi listed in the past as a contact for his political work.

Even though Capuzi didn't use his government email address, Chad Fornoff, executive director of the state Executive Ethics Commission, said that this type of matter should be referred to the executive inspector general for investigation into whether any violations of state law, rules or policies have occurred, including conduct unbecoming a state employee.

Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration's code of personal conduct states, in part, that employees should conduct themselves "with integrity and in a manner that reflects favorably upon the state." That code, a union bargaining agreement and the state ethics law are all part of the review, the commission said.

The Rauner administration confirmed that the Workers' Compensation Commission had launched an investigation. The commission is a quasi-independent body with members appointed by the governor and currently has six Republicans and four Democrats. "The administration was not previously aware of these emails, and the language used is inappropriate and unacceptable," said Rauner's spokeswoman Laurel Patrick.

The revelation of how the offensive messages found their way into the water department comes amid the city inspector general's ongoing investigation into the sharing of racist, sexist and anti-gay emails among city water workers and their bosses.

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Inspector General Joseph Ferguson's findings have led to five high-level water department bosses being ousted, including Commissioner Barrett Murphy; his deputy, William Bresnahan; and Paul Hansen, a district superintendent and the son of former Democratic Ald. Bernie Hansen (44th). The Tribune reported earlier this week that a private contract employee was caught up in the scandal and has been blocked from working on city projects.

The Tribune, under a public records request, had obtained nearly 1,300 emails from the water department, including several emails forwarded from Capuzi to Hansen.

The Tribune found that at least four offensive emails shared with Hansen and others came from Capuzi's address. The email threads include the names as "Frank Capuzi," "Frank" and "F. Capuzi."

A July 2013 email with the subject line "Chicago Safari Tickets" states that if "you didn't book a Chicago safari adventure," for the Independence Day weekend, "you missed" the shootings of a 5-year-old boy and two others in West Pullman; the shooting of a 7-year-old boy in Chatham; and the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy in Humboldt Park.

"We guarantee that you will see at least one kill and five crime scenes per three day tour. You'll also see lots and lots of animals in their natural habitat. Call and book your Chicago Safari today," the email reads. An image shows four white people in safari gear taking pictures of several black people trying to break into a car.

The emails states that safari guests will stay in a hotel with triple deadbolt locks and window bars, but the safari guides cannot "guarantee Bell Hops won't run off with your luggage." The safari promises the rooms will be "99% free of drug needles and crack pipes."

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The Tribune on Friday obtained the Chicago safari email, uncovered as part of the inspector general's investigation, through a public records request.

Another titled "Watermelon Protection" was sent to Hansen in July 2014 and included an image that depicted a scarecrow, dressed in a white KKK robe and pointed hood, amid a watermelon patch.

Hansen, in turn, forwarded the email to Murphy. "I don't understand," Hansen wrote in the email to Murphy.

There is a March 2014 email received by "F Capuzi" then forwarded by "Frank" to Hansen with the subject line "The World's Shortest Essay  Gotta Love the Texas School Systems."

The email contained a joke that spares few in its offensiveness. It refers to an essay contest held for Texas teens that had to include elements of religion, royalty, racism, disability and homosexuality. The "winning" essay read: "My God," cried the Queen, "That one-legged n----- is a queer."

In turn, Hansen forwarded the email to Bresnahan and two other water department bosses.

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An April 2017 email forwarded from Capuzi's address announces that "Today is Heterosexual Male Pride Day!" It makes that declaration after showing a series of photographs of steaks grilling, a row of beer taps and a naked woman.

The body of the email states: "To all of my friends who are tired of taking a BACK SEAT to gays, lesbians, homosexuals, trans genders, women soldiers, bra burners, female boy scouts, women libbers, tree huggers, and eco-commie-environ-freaks, the looney left, Greens, social justice warriors and worse of all -- those f------ Democrats!"

Hansen could not be reached for comment. Capuzi's boss, Robert Ruiz, said he did not know about the emails and declined to comment further.

Paul Finamore, a Chicago area businessman and longtime friend of Capuzi, was listed as receiving some of the emails and said he was appalled at the content when shown the watermelon protection and the shortest essay emails.

"Oh, my God," Finamore said after he reviewed the emails at the Tribune's request. "I don't remember seeing anything of this, to tell you the truth."

Finamore, the chief executive officer of Hairline Creations Inc., said Capuzi was a groomsman for his 1989 wedding party and that the two had hunted together.

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"This man is not a racist," Finamore said. "You've got to know this guy. He's a good, good guy."

rlong@chicagotribune.com

tlighty@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RayLong

Twitter @TLighty
Gov. Bruce Rauner called on Democrats to quickly send him a school funding bill or face being called back to the Capitol for another special session. (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)

Update: Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday summoned lawmakers into special session Wednesday after Democrats did not send him a school funding formula bill that's under dispute after passing the legislatur at the end of May.

"We will ask everyone in the General Assembly, come to Springfield, do your job, pass school funding. We have a deadline set for July 31st," Rauner said at a news conference at the Thompson Center in the Loop. "There is no reason that we can't have school funding completed and signed off and done by July 31st so our schools can open on time."

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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

Call it Gov. Bruce Rauner's version of "High Noon."

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The Republican governor gave Democrats a noon Monday deadline to send him the school funding formula bill they've been holding onto since the end of May, or else he'll call them into special session. Democratic Senate President John Cullerton hasn't indicated he'll do so.

Some points to consider:

*Whether or not Cullerton sends the governor the bill today, lawmakers were going to be headed back to Springfield anyway. Rauner has vowed to use amendatory veto powers to rewrite the bill when it hits his desk. That means the legislature would have to decide whether to override Rauner (possible, but unclear at best), accept his changes (highly unlikely) or kill it by not taking it up at all (Speaker Michael Madigan has a long-running issue with governors using amendatory veto powers in ways he deems excessive). They've got to be at the Capitol for at least two of those scenarios.

*Even before Rauner's Friday declaration, Democrats were probably going to have to send Rauner the bill by early August anyway. The first school aid payments from the state are supposed to go out by Aug. 10, and if Democrats hadn't sent him the legislation by then, they'd be blamed for the resulting mess. (Background: Democrats loaded the state budget with a trip wire: If there's no rewrite of the education funding formula, then there's no spending authority for schools.)

*So that really makes all of this about timing and political pressure and the never-ending blame game in Springfield. The longer it takes for the school funding bill to get to Rauner's desk, the more the pressure builds on the issue. You'll recall that Republican lawmakers finally bucked their governor over a major income tax increase and budget only after two years of pressure had built up. That was not lost on Rauner, so he wants to be able to veto the bill ASAP, when pressure is still low and there's time to start negotiations on an alternative.

*Despite Rauner's wish that the school funding issue be resolved by July 31, it seems destined to drag out longer than that. Speaker Madigan undoubtedly also noticed what happens when lawmakers are under intense pressure, and letting the issue play out longer means they're more likely to vote for something, anything rather than go over the falls in a barrel.

*Education funding is a third-rail issue at the Capitol, and for the first two years of Rauner's tenure, both sides made a point to avoid school closures due to lack of state funding. The backlash from parents would be too risky to bear. In the end, assuming Rauner's veto is not overridden, the betting line is that a deal is cut to reduce some, but not all, of the added money for Chicago Public Schools. As we've been reporting, that's what all this is really about.

What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel, back from Europe, will attend a transportation event marking the redeveloped Belmont and Western corridor.

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*Gov. Bruce Rauner's schedule wasn't available.

*The City Council Finance Committee meets.

*Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx will be the keynote speaker at a breakfast at Roosevelt University for Chicago high schoolers participating in Mikva's Think Tank Summer.

*The week ahead: On Tuesday , the City Council's committees on Transportation and Public Way, and Budget and Government Operations meet. On Wednesday , the City Council meets. On Friday , a judge could rule on the Cook County soda pop tax.

From the notebook

*Beale backs Kennedy: Ald. Anthony Beale said he's backing Chris Kennedy for the Democratic nomination for governor, particularly due to Kennedy's attacks on the property assessment system in Cook County.



"Chris is the only one talking about the inequality of the property tax system that's plaguing our community," the 9th Ward alderman told an audience at a Kennedy event Saturday in South Shore.



Beale contended South Side residents of the city were paying upward of 30 percent more on their property taxes due to an unfair system that assesses property at a disproportionately higher value in poorer neighborhoods than in wealthier ones.



"And over 20 or 30 years (of those assessments), you wonder why we have so many vacant houses and abandoned properties in our community?" Beale asked. "We are systematically being driven out of our own community by the system that's supposed to be there to help us. So am I mad? You better believe I'm mad."



Beale, who also is the 9th Ward Democratic committeeman, also took a shot at rival Democratic governor candidate and billionaire investor and entrepreneur J.B. Pritzker, though not by name.



"This election cannot be bought," Beale said. (Rick Pearson)

*Quick spin(s): State Sen. Daniel Biss added another endorsement for his Democratic campaign for governor. This time, fellow state Sen. Omar Aquino of Chicago is backing him.

*On the Sunday Spin: Chicago Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson's guests were Tribune reporter Hal Dardick; state Rep. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin; and campaign finance expert Kent Redfield. The "Sunday Spin" airs from 7 to 9 a.m. on WGN 720-AM. Listen to the full show here.

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What we're writing

*How Rauner's focus on messaging played role in staff shakeup.

*Rauner says he wants school bill sent to him by noon Monday, education funding issue resolved by month's end.

*Ex-Ald. Singer among 6 fined for illegally lobbying Emanuel via email.

*Kennedy recounts family's history with gun violence as he unveils his plan.

*Teamsters boss with political ties pleads not guilty to alleged extortion of Cinespace studios.

*Soda pop tax still on hold, ruling next week.

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*Some Illinois families struggle to access 529 college savings in wake of change.

*Condo living on the Gold Coast: Lawsuits, fines, insults.

*Double Door fight headed to federal court.

What we're reading

*The bill for treating a gunshot wound: $21,000 for the first 35 minutes.

*'It was like the Wild West': Chicago police officer shot in leg confronting robbery suspect.

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*More Illinois police departments putting drug users into rehab instead of arresting them.

Follow the money

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago



*Trump pushes idea of his "complete power" to pardon.

*White House offers muddled messages on Russia sanctions legislation, WaPo reports. NYT says white House signals Trump will sign bill.

*Infrastructure, a Trump priority, is pushed aside.

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*9 die in immigrant-smuggling attempt in sweltering truck
Chicago aldermen on Monday backed Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan to enter into a $38.75 million settlement of a lawsuit alleging the city broke its own rules on issuing automated camera traffic tickets.

The City Council Finance Committee advanced the package, which includes money from a $26.75 million pot the city will use to reimburse people who paid tickets after the city failed to issue second notices of violation as required until 2015. The city will forgive another $12 million in unpaid tickets. The full council is set to consider the proposal Wednesday.

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Emanuel on Monday tried to focus on fraud under the red light camera ticket firm that was in place when he took office, saying he dealt with problems he inherited.

City Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel told aldermen the settlement could head off a much worse finding for the city if the case went to trial.

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"If the circuit court rules that all tickets issued during the five-year statute of limitations period for plaintiffs unjust enrichment claims, which the city contends is the correct time period, if the court rules that those are void, the city could be required to refund approximately $264 million and could not collect approximately $164 million in outstanding debt," Siskel said.

The refund tab to the city could have gone up to $700 million if the court ruled the statute of limitations didn't apply, Siskel said.

Ald. Anthony Beale continued his long-running attack on the automated cameras, saying an unjust system designed to make money off Chicagoans "came back to bite the city."

"Let me just start by saying how disturbing it is that we have to, today, pay out $39 million for a corrupt system that was corrupt from the very beginning," said Beale, 9th.

And after Siskel said the city will tap general fund revenue and other funds to pay the settlement, Beale marveled the administration can find "a pot of gold" to cover the payout. More than $11 million of the $26.75 million payment could go to attorneys who filed the class-action lawsuit, Siskel said.

Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th, wondered why nobody has been fired for messing up the process of issuing the tickets. Siskel countered that the problem was an institutional one that went on for years, not a mistake for which particular people could be held accountable.

Under the deal to settle a class-action lawsuit, the paybacks will equal half of whatever people paid for the tickets, and those who qualify will be notified in the mail in the next few months.

More than 1.2 million tickets issued from 2010 to 2015 could qualify for money back under the settlement.

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Chicago Tribune's Hal Dardick contributed to this story.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne
Afghan commandos man a checkpoint in Afghanistan's Momand Valley. The building was captured from the Islamic State in Khorasan, which used it as a prison and court. (Andrew Quilty / The Washington Post)

ACHIN, Afghanistan  A recurring rumble of explosions echoes off the barren, boulder-strewn slopes of the Spin Ghar mountains, each ordnance aimed wishfully at redoubts where Islamic State militants are suspected of hiding. Afghan and U.S. special forces listen in on enemy chatter, intercepting dozens of their radio channels. American AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighter jets whir in circles overhead, at low altitude, waiting for strike orders. Soldiers on the ground man the mortars.

The operation against the Islamic State in Khorasan - or ISIS-K, as the Syria-based group's Afghan contingent is known - is now into its fourth month of unremitting warfare. The U.S. military has pledged to "annihilate" the group by year's end, and the redoubled assault has contributed to a spike in U.S. airstrikes to levels not seen in Afghanistan since President Barack Obama's troop surge in 2012. One in five of those strikes is against ISIS-K, despite it controlling only slivers of mountainous territory.

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The battle is lopsided, but each day the front line here in Achin district moves back only slightly. Both local intelligence officials and the U.S. military believe that ISIS-K is replenishing its stock of fighters almost as quickly as it loses them. A sense that this may be an indefinite mission has set in.

Soon after its founding in 2014, ISIS-K descended into this district and established it as its stronghold. Entire villages emptied as word of the group's mercilessness spread. Fighters infamously strapped defiant local clerics to explosives and filmed their detonations. For nearly three years, ISIS-K held firm not just in the Spin Ghars but in the vacated villages in the fertile valley beneath them.

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In April, the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb, a MOAB - nicknamed "the mother of all bombs" - on a cave complex in one of Achin's valleys, known as the Momand. It is unclear how many fighters, if any, were killed. The MOAB - which felt so forceful that "every ant in the valley must've died," said one villager - was followed by weeks of airstrikes on compounds that ISIS-K fighters had held for two years.

On a recent trip up the valley, the bodies of at least four were still there, lying in abandoned fields overgrown with wild cannabis. The corpses were mostly just bones after months in the sun.

Over the past three years, ISIS-K has succeeded in carrying out ghastly attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But as Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria is whittled away, coalition forces here are worried that Afghanistan's notoriously ungovernable eastern provinces could become a safe haven for fleeing fighters and a new staging ground for attacks on the West.

"We believe that ISIS-K is not currently able to launch attacks because they are essentially being hunted," said Capt. William Salvin, spokesman for the U.S. military here. But he did not refute the assessment of a local Afghan intelligence officer in Achin, who spoke on a condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media: In terms of numbers, ISIS-K has not been severely reduced. The battle is looking more like one of attrition.

While the Pentagon maintains that ISIS-K is down to about 1,000 fighters across Afghanistan, from a high of 2,500 in 2015, the Afghan intelligence officer surmised that there were more than 1,000 in Achin district alone.

Inside the former ISIS-K building in the Momand Valley that is now a government checkpoint, an Afghan commando holds a bayonet he says belonged a rebel fighter. (Andrew Quilty / The Washington Post)

The fierce conflict also is scattering fighters across a wider swath of the mountainous east, ensuring a longer, more dispersed mission. Last week, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. drone strike killed Abu Sayed, ISIS-K's leader, or emir. That took place in neighboring Konar province, indicating that the fighting has spread at least that far.

Most of ISIS-K's fighters are thought to be Pashtuns, with few, if any, coming from Iraq and Syria. According to Salvin, the United States sees ISIS-K as more of an "authorized franchise of ISIS-main" than the Islamic State's operation in Libya, which is more closely tied to the fighting in the Middle East. Instead, Afghan analysts say, ISIS-K derives much of its support from Pakistan's military establishment.

"In Nangahar, it is Pakistan's game," said Davood Moradian, director of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, referring to the province in which Achin is located. Pakistan has launched its own military operation against Islamist militants on its side of the Spin Ghar range, but Moradian was skeptical that they shared the goal of the group's elimination.

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"Pakistan's military operation against Daesh" - an alternate name for the Islamic State - "is more of a disciplinary mission: Stop your internal disagreements and concentrate on the target we've agreed upon, namely, the Afghan state," he said.

Pakistan has always denied playing a destabilizing role in Afghanistan, but its neighbor's ongoing instability has proved hugely lucrative for Pakistan's military, which has ruled the country for almost half its 70-year existence. George W. Bush's and Barack Obama's administrations gave the Pakistanis a combined $33.4 billion in aid, and there is little evidence their support for Afghan militants has stopped.

Members of the U.S. Congress have been calling for years for a drastic reduction or elimination of security assistance to Pakistan, as well as ending its status as a major non-NATO ally - or even designating it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said that the Trump administration's new Afghanistan strategy, expected this month, will have a "regional component," but it is unclear if that means a curtailment of U.S. aid to Pakistan. In fact, a hostile Pakistan might well pose a greater threat to the U.S. mission here.

Even so, exasperation toward Pakistan runs high here.

"That people are even asking the question 'Should the U.S. stop giving money to Pakistan?' shows the silliness of the discourse in Washington," said Moradian. "It is like asking if we should stop giving heroin to an addict. Of course. It is the very first thing you must do. Otherwise, you will keep fighting permutations of the same adversary here for eternity."

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During a recent meeting of his full national security team, President Donald Trump reportedly focused on Pakistan's role in harboring Islamist militants, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster pressed for a more punitive approach.

Shaguftar's children play with neighbors - also from families displaced by conflict - in the yard of their simple house in Surkh Rod district of Nangahar Province. (Andrew Quilty / The Washington Post)

Among the Momand Valley's former residents, the belief that "Pakistan wants to destroy Afghanistan" is near universal. People eagerly share conspiratorial evidence of Pakistan's hand in their calamity. Daesh leaders all speak Punjabi, one of Pakistan's main languages; their long hair and beards are just wigs supplied by the Pakistani government; one man said that he had seen fighters swimming in the Momand River, and one had a big Pakistani flag tattooed on his biceps.

Many of these people's homes were destroyed by U.S. airstrikes because they were suspected of being used by ISIS-K as hideouts. Most shops in Shadal Bazaar, the valley's main market, were reduced to rubble, too, although the fighting is now far enough into the mountains that some butchers and barbers have dared to rebuild.

Yet the Momand Valley possesses a mesmerizing beauty that makes those who fled yearn to return. If they do, they will find the evidence of ISIS-K's presence not just in their ruined homes but in the few that were left standing. ISIS-K converted Kitab Gul's home into a prison, for instance, and the disturbingly small cages in which they locked those accused of petty crimes such as smoking cigarettes are still lying about. The Afghan army has requisitioned Gul's home as a lookout post.

Despite the U.S. bombing of their homes, and despite U.S. support for Pakistan, locals were largely positive about the campaign to "annihilate" ISIS-K.

"They are not Muslim. Their only religion is cruelty, and there is nothing crueler than what they have done to us," said Mir Jamal, a proud but exhausted father of nine who has spent two years loading trucks for meager sums since escaping his village with nothing but the clothes on his back. When fighters swept into the valley, Jamal's brother and elderly father stayed behind to protect their home. They were caught. His brother's forearm was burned with embers from a fire, and he was waterboarded. His father was pitilessly beaten and now barely speaks.

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"My father had red cheeks. He prayed five times a day. He had a big chest, and he farmed late into his life," said Jamal, fighting back emotion. "How can we ever accept Daesh?"
Evidence is collected at the scene where eight people were found dead in a tractor-trailer loaded with multiple others outside a Walmart on July 23, 2017, in San Antonio. (Eric Gay / AP)

It could take months for investigators to determine what preceded the deaths of at least nine people found with dozens of ailing individuals in a tractor-trailer discovered outside a Walmart in San Antonio in what authorities are calling an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.

But previous cases of smugglers using similar trucks to move human cargo shed light on the dangerous method of human trafficking  and how it can quickly turn fatal.

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Here's a look at how smugglers deploy and use large trucks to move people:

How common is human trafficking by truck?

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Border officials have reported an uptick in the number of people-smuggling incidents using tractor-trailers. That included one on July 7, when Border Patrol agents in Laredo, Texas, found 72 people from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador locked inside a trailer. Weeks before, they'd rescued 44 people from Mexico and Guatemala discovered after police stopped an 18-wheeler near one of the city's international bridges.

Whether this recent increase is a trend and what might explain it is hard to know. A recent report from European-based global-risk group Verisk Maplecroft suggests that a harder line on border security by the Trump administration might be leading migrants to accept the risks of more dangerous smuggling methods.

By far the most notorious and best documented case occurred in 2003, when 19 of about 100 people being smuggled in a truck trailer in south Texas died of heat-related injuries; that included a 7-year-old boy. More than a dozen smugglers were convicted in that case, including the American commercial driver at the wheel, Tyrone Mapletoft Williams, and the purported head of the smuggling ring, Karla Patricia Chavez-Joya, a Honduran national.

Where are the immigrants from?

Transportation by truck is often one of the final steps in a process that can begin months before somewhere in Mexico or more than a thousand miles from the U.S.-Mexican border in Honduras or Guatemala. A review of court documents in other cases indicates the tractor-trailers are often brought in only after Mexicans and Central Americans arrive by train, bus or car to the Mexican-U.S. border region  and then slip into the U.S. by foot or by raft across the Rio Grande.

In the 2003 case, the pickup site for the immigrants was near Harlingen, Texas, about 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. The plan was to drive the tractor-trailer through an immigration checkpoint 50 miles away on Highway 77 near Sarita, Texas; once through the crossing, the immigrants were to be transferred to separate vans bound for Houston.

Why trucks?

The objective of immigrants who make it undetected across the border typically isn't to remain in that border area. Most hope to make it to large U.S. cities, like Chicago or New York, where they may have jobs or family waiting for them. That's where the trucks come in. Smugglers know there are hundreds and thousands of immigrants desperate to get away from the border as fast as possible. And they see the money-making opportunity. The more people they can move at one time, the higher the profit.

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In the 2003 case, the smugglers actively sought non-Hispanic, American drivers who they believed would be less likely to raise suspicions and more likely to make it through the Sarita checkpoint. Tyrone Williams, a licensed truck driver from New York, fit that description. Just before picking up his human cargo, Williams had hauled milk products from New York in his refrigerated truck.

How do they die?

Dehydration, hyperthermia, suffocation, and mechanical asphyxia have been among the causes of death in truck cases. In the 2003 case, Williams' trailer was equipped with a refrigeration unit that enabled him to haul milk earlier at 35 degrees Fahrenheit from New York to Texas. But when it came to his human cargo, he didn't turn it on. The immigrants remained silent as Williams was waived through the checkpoint, but they soon after began banging on the sides of the trailer as it became increasingly hot and increasingly hard to breathe. Finally, fearing detection, Williams unhooked the trailer at a truck stop in Victoria, Texas, and drove off. An appellate court later described the scene inside: "Bodies, both dead and living, were stacked in a pile in the trailer. Some of the aliens were standing behind the pile. The aliens were stripped down to their underwear and were sweating."

Charges

Because the crime involves the crossing of international and of state borders, it's often federal authorities who prosecute human traffickers. The available charges range from conspiracy to aiding and abetting the transporting of unlawful aliens resulting death. Maximum sentences can range from a few years behind bars and to the death penalty. Prosecutors did initially indicate they would seek the death penalty for Tyrone Williams. But in 2012, a federal judge sentenced him to more than 30 years in prison without the possibility of patrol.
SAN ANTONIO  Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick condemned sanctuary cities after at least 39 people  a number of them dead  were found packed into a sweltering trailer in San Antonio.

The Republican said the victims, who authorities suspect were caught up in an immigrant smuggling operation, called the incident a "tragedy" and said that such situations are why he helped passed a bill to ban sanctuary cities.

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"Sanctuary cities entice people to believe they can come to America and Texas and live outside the law," he wrote Sunday on social media. "Sanctuary cities also enable human smugglers and cartels. Today, these people paid a terrible price and demonstrate why we need a secure border and legal immigration reform so we can control who enters our country. We continue to pray for the families and friends of the victims."

Chicago is among several sanctuary cities in Illinois.

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Authorities discovered the victims Sunday in the tractor-trailer in a Walmart parking lot, several of them on the verge of death  their skin hot to the touch, their hearts dangerously racing. Eight men were already dead. Another died at a hospital.

The victims, as young as 15, appeared to have been loaded like cargo into a trailer without working air conditioning during the height of the Texas summer. It was unknown how long they had been in the trailer or where their journey started, but 30 of the victims were taken to area hospitals and 17 had life-threatening injuries. Federal authorities said the victims were "undocumented aliens."

Reyna Torres, consul of Mexico, confirmed in Spanish that Mexican nationals are among those dead and in the hospitals and said the consulate is interviewing the survivors.

City Fire Chief Charles Hood said some of the victims appeared to have suffered severe heatstroke, with heart rates soaring over 130 beats per minute. In the worst cases, Hood said, "a lot of them are going to have some irreversible brain damage."

Even more people were thought to have been inside the trailer before help arrived, police said. Survivors at six area hospitals told investigators that up to 100 individuals were originally in the tractor-trailer.

Walmart surveillance video showed cars stopping and picking up people as they exited the back of the trailer. But suspicions were not raised until an employee noticed a disoriented person, who asked for water. The employee then called police, authorities said. Then, a chaotic scene unfolded outside the Walmart on the city's southwest side, as ambulances and police cars arrived and people were carried away, leaving behind shoes and personal belongings strewn across the asphalt and trailer floor.

The truck's driver, identified as James M. Bradley, 60, of Clearwater, Florida, has been arrested and is expected to be charged Monday morning, said the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Texas.

The grisly discovery in San Antonio comes as the Trump administration is calling on Congress to increase funding for border security and to expand the wall on the southern border with Mexico.

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It also illuminates the extreme risks immigrants face as they attempt to elude border agents in the searing summer heat. Some try to slip through legal checkpoints undetected, while others sneak illegally across the border. Often, they are fleeing violence and poverty in Latin America, advocates say.

Many have died attempting to enter the United States, drowning in the Rio Grande, lost in the desolate ranch lands of south Texas, or collapsing from exhaustion in the Arizona desert.

Two weeks ago, Houston police discovered 12 immigrants, including a girl, who had been locked for hours inside a sweltering box truck in a parking lot, banging for someone to rescue them. Three people were arrested. A Harris County prosecutor said the migrants were at imminent risk of death.

In May, border agents discovered 18 immigrants locked in a refrigerated produce truck, with the temperature set at 51 degrees. Passengers were from Latin America and Kosovo.

One of the deadliest smuggling operations occurred in 2003, when 19 people died after being discovered in an insulated trailer abandoned at a truck stop in Victoria, Texas. The truck driver in that case, Tyrone M. Williams, was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

In San Antonio, the driver was working with Pyle Transportation, a hauling firm in Schaller, Iowa. The company's name was emblazoned on the truck. Owner Brian Pyle said Bradley, the truck driver, operated largely independently from his company.

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"This was his very first trip," Pyle said. "It's a common thing in the trucking industry. ... He had my name on the side, and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel."

Pyle declined to name the driver, who he said was from Louisville, and said he did not know what the man was transporting.

A woman at a Louisville address listed for Bradley declined to comment.

The tractor-trailer was found outside the Walmart about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, police said. The store, which was closed at the time, is surrounded by a heavily wooded area. Police feared that some people had fled the trailer when emergency workers arrived. A search using a police dog and a helicopter found one more victim, who was taken to a hospital.

In the morning, Margarita Balderas, 64, stopped by the Walmart on her way home from Sunday Mass. She had seen the news but was shocked to realize that the tragedy had occurred at that store.

"It makes me feel so bad. Why are they treated like that?" she said of the migrants. "They're just trying to make a living."

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A vigil was held Sunday night by groups that support immigrants in San Antonio.

"We'll be praying for the survivors, praying that they are able to recover and be okay," said Amy Fischer, policy director for RAICES, a nonprofit group that provides legal services for immigrants in central Texas.

Fischer expressed concern that upon finding the victims in the trailer, San Antonio police called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities. Police spokesman Sgt. Jesse Salame said that is standard practice for cases of international smuggling.

"We didn't call ICE to get everybody deported. We called them because they are the investigating authority," Salame said.

What will happen to the survivors once they are released from the hospital has not been decided.

But authorities indicated that their journey was not over.

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Salame said he expects the victims to be released into ICE custody.

"They have to be turned over to the custody of somebody," he said. "They don't have anywhere else to go."

Later Sunday, moments after Mass ended at the historic San Fernando Cathedral, two dozen people held a gathering in Main Plaza to show their support for immigrants. A handful of people made speeches and said prayers in Spanish and English, using a megaphone, to a crowd of about 50 people. Children played in the splash pads nearby while adults wandered in and out of the crowd, many taking photographs and videos.

"Hold your family extra tight tonight," said Barbie Hurtado, the statewide organizer for RAICES, which organized the event, "and keep the people that lost their lives in your thoughts, in your prayers."

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, a San Antonio native, addressed attendees at the end of the hourlong service.

"This represents a symptom of a broken immigration system that Congress, of which I am a part, has had the chance to fix but has not," he said. "That's a colossal failure that has a human cost."

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Another San Antonio native, Debbie Leal-Herrera, 55, said she was in town visiting from New Mexico this week and wanted to come to the plaza because "it touches me as a Hispanic."

Leal-Herrera, an elementary school teacher, said she knows several people who have immigrated to the United States illegally and has taught many students whose parents are undocumented.

"It reminds me of how much we truly take for granted," she said. "What a beautiful gift it is to be an American."

Advocates for immigrants in Texas are still reeling from the recent passage of the tough new immigration law, set to take effect Sept. 1. The deaths marked yet another blow.

Maria Victoria de la Cruz, who is originally from Mexico, publicly urged federal officials not to deport the immigrants who were found Sunday.

"As an immigrant, I feel destroyed," she told the group in Spanish. "It's not fair to return them to the place they have fled."

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During the vigil, a somber group quietly approached the consul from Mexico to ask about a relative. Juan Jose Castillo, who said he is from the Mexican state of Zacatecas but lives in the United States, said he was relieved that his 44-year-old brother was among the survivors.

"He came out of necessity," Castillo said in Spanish. "It's very bad."

The Washington Post's Eva Ruth Moravec contributed to this report from San Antonio.
In this photo provided by DC Fire and EMS, emergency personnel respond to a call from a man who was stuck in a trash chute on July 23, 2017, in Washington. (Vito Maggiolo / AP)

WASHINGTON  A man looking for a dropped cellphone ended up in a stinky situation, tumbling into a building's trash chute where he had to be rescued.

Washington, D.C., Fire Spokesman Vito Maggiolo says the man was throwing out trash at an apartment building when he thought he dropped the cellphone in the chute. Maggiolo says the man leaned in to check and fell inside.

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Maggiolo says the man was able to call 911 from inside the trash chute around 3 a.m. Sunday, though it wasn't clear what phone he used. A video posted online shows firefighter rescue crews pumping fresh air down the chute to the man through a hose. They eventually hauled him out using a harness.

Maggiolo says the man didn't appear hurt and was released on the scene.
Cook County government headed into Fiscal Year 2017 expecting to balance its budget in part with $68 million in revenue generated by the sweetened beverage tax that narrowly passed the Cook County Board last fall.

This $68 million can no longer be counted on, due to a lawsuit filed by the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. As part of the initial phase of that lawsuit, a judge has granted a temporary restraining order that prevents the county from imposing the sweetened beverage tax.

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From the moment it was first proposed, the sweetened beverage tax was based on a dishonest premise. Board President Toni Preckwinkle tried to sell it to commissioners and residents as a public health initiative, aimed at reducing obesity.

In fact, the tax was never about health  it was always about revenue. Taxpayers saw through the public health charade from the beginning. Now the Cook County Circuit Court has also seen through the charade.

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As a result, President Preckwinkle presently confronts a fiscal crisis that she herself manufactured.

Unfortunately, rather than deal with the crisis collaboratively, with an eye toward maintaining essential public safety services during a time when we face severe levels of gun violence in the county, President Preckwinkle has once again yoked herself and the county to a false premise.

The board president now insists that without the sweetened beverage tax, the county must make sweeping, disastrous cuts to essential public safety services. These across-the-board cuts impact services we can ill afford to lose amid rampant shootings in poor communities of color.

However, just as her assertion that the sweetened beverage tax was motivated by public health turned out to be a false justification designed to push through a revenue grab, President Preckwinkle's current insistence on these painful cuts presents the judiciary with another false choice designed to intimidate.

Allow the tax, she is saying, or I will withhold services from the communities that need them the most. And absent those services, those communities will almost certainly see more pain, more violence, more senseless death.

These disingenuous strong-arm tactics got us into this mess. They will not get us out of it.

Instead, President Preckwinkle should reverse course and do the following:

1. Ask Chairman John Daley to convene an ongoing, emergency meeting of his County Board Finance Committee. Do not adjourn the meeting until key areas of waste in county government have been identified for immediate spending freezes and reductions. We know from previous budget hearings where the fat is. It's long past time that we trim it. Immediate areas of opportunity include procurement, litigation and overtime.

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2. Institute an immediate, countywide hiring freeze, exempting those positions that are court-ordered.

3. Immediately eliminate the 1,500 positions in the county budget that are vacant. I estimate this action itself would save $70 million.

4. After the above three actions are taken, President Preckwinkle should call a special meeting of the Board of Commissioners in August to consider enacting an emergency package of reductions that accomplish meaningful savings while continuing to provide vital services.

President Preckwinkle would have us believe that the above course of action is impossible. It is not.

Cook County never needed a sweetened beverage tax to operate with both efficiency and compassion. Now that we do not have that tax for the foreseeable future, we have another opportunity to achieve meaningful reforms while protecting our most vulnerable citizens.

It is time for President Preckwinkle to abandon her bullying tactics and work with others to solve these long-standing problems.

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Richard Boykin is the 1st District Cook County commissioner.

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In light of news reports that President Donald Trump's team is scouring the record for conflicts of interest on special counsel Robert Mueller's team (the essence of chutzpah) and contemplating pardons (of aides and/or himself), it is worth considering how this may all play out.

We offer several scenarios:

1. Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions quits, as does Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. Eventually someone agrees to fire Mueller. Republicans either will not pursue impeachment or are obliged to begin impeachment hearings but refuse to vote out articles of impeachment. In 2018, Democrats sweep to victory in the House and gain a seat or two in the Senate. Trump cannot be removed (two-thirds of the Senate is required for removal), but his presidency is in tatters. Some aides or ex-aides face criminal prosecution. LESSON: Republicans' failure to stand up to Trump early dooms his presidency and crashes the GOP.

2. Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions quits, as does Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and Associate Attorney General Brand. Eventually someone agrees to fire Mueller. Republicans, together with Democrats, pass by a veto-proof majority an independent prosecutor statute. Before impeachment proceedings can finish, Democrats sweep to victory in 2018 in the House and gain a seat or two in the Senate. Trump cannot be removed, but his presidency is in tatters. Some aides or ex-aides face criminal prosecution. LESSON: Fire Mueller, and Congress will hire him back.

3. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller remains and keeps digging. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents; Trump refuses to comply. A court orders him to comply. He doesn't. We have a full-blown constitutional crisis. LESSON: Congress cannot delegate all responsibility to Mueller. It must conduct a parallel investigation and, if need be, commence impeachment proceedings.

4. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller remains and keeps digging. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents; Trump refuses to comply. A court orders him to comply. He declares this a witch hunt, an attack on his family (or whatever). Then he resigns, claiming he has already made America great. He tells the country that Vice President Mike Pence will carry on in his place. LESSON: Congress must protect Mueller and preserve the possibility that Trump may be forced to resign.

5. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents. Trump complies. The evidence of collusion and/or obstruction is overwhelming. Mueller recommends prosecution or impeachment. The GOP turns on Trump, who is impeached and removed (with the GOP by that time possibly in the minority in one or both houses). LESSON: Congress must protect Mueller and pay the price for failure to oppose Trump's nomination and election.

Is there a sixth scenario in which Mueller exonerates Trump? That's the least likely outcome after Trump has fired former FBI director James Comey and threatened the special counsel. Why would he do those things unless there was something really, really bad to find? And if there is something bad, Mueller will find it. You can understand then why Trump sounds frantic. In no scenario does Trump's presidency recover.

Washington Post

Jennifer Rubin is a Washington Post columnist.

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Investigators in Congress have been waiting a long time to talk to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and top adviser. They'll get to do so behind closed doors on Monday and Tuesday. According to his prepared statement, Kushner will say he did not do anything wrong.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," the testimony, as obtained by The Washington Post's Philip Rucker, reads.

Whether he did anything wrong  or believes he did anything wrong  Kushner remains a central figure in the broader Trump-Russia investigation. Here's why:

1. He's close to the president

I know, this is obvious. But it's worth pointing out given that this White House is particularly indiscriminate about who's in and who's out. (See: sudden hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director and sudden resignation of Sean Spicer as press secretary). Kushner is family and has been one of the president's closest advisers for the past two years.

Kushner's daily proximity to the president is valuable for investigators as they try to gauge just how deep Trump and Russia relationships went.

2. He was high up in the campaign

One of Kushner's many campaign jobs was outreach to foreign governments for his father-in-law. He was in that job when, in June 2016, Donald Trump Jr. set up a meeting with a Russian lawyer and a series of other connected Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.

According to emails Trump Jr. released, he was also given a heads up that this meeting was part of a Russian government effort to help his father win. And guess whom he invited to this meeting? Then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and Kushner.

The fact that Kushner and Manafort were there suggests the Trump campaign was taking this meeting with connected Russians seriously, said Jeffrey Jacobovitz, a white-collar lawyer who represented officials in the Clinton White House. And it also suggests that, far from raising red flags about potential Russian intervention, the Trump campaign may have embraced their help.

3. He's a focus of the FBI's broad investigation
If you had $10 billion to invest in a business, would you sink that money into Illinois? Or would you think twice about locating in a tax-happy state that can't pay its bills on time and sits atop a mountain of unfunded pension obligations?

Granted, this is a hypothetical question for most people, but it's real to Terry Gou. He's chairman of Foxconn, the Taiwanese tech giant best known for assembling Apple iPhones. While the company does much of its work in China, Gou wants to produce LCD display panels and other gear in the U.S. in partnership with Sharp, which Foxconn owns. Gou has $10 billion to spend, and if he proceeds he will have as many as 10,000 jobs to fill ... somewhere.

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A handful of states are on his short list, including Illinois, according to several reports. That's great news! We'd love to sell Mr. Gou on Illinois, high-tech capital of the Midwest. Unfortunately, southeast Wisconsin is said to be Foxconn's top pick, and we can guess why: Wisconsin isn't a disaster area for employers and other taxpayers. In fact, every other state on Foxconn's list looks better than Illinois by the basic measures of financial stability and pro-growth economies. Whoops, let's amend that: Just about every state in the Union appears better off than jobs-unfriendly Illinois.

Any business wanting to invest does an assessment of risk. Illinois, sadly, is a bad risk: It has the worst credit rating of any state owing to its massive debts and dysfunctional government. No one knows when Illinois might fix itself, or what such a plan will cost taxpayers, because the Democratic-led General Assembly and Republican governor don't work together. The state passed a budget this month after a two-year standoff only when lawmakers rammed through a 32-percent income tax increase by overriding Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto. But a budget doesn't change the big ugly picture, featuring $130 billion in unfunded pension obligations.

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Sorry, we did say we'd love to sell Terry Gou on Illinois.

Beyond Wisconsin and Illinois, Foxconn's list includes Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas or North Carolina; sources disagree. Foxconn could choose one or several states. Gou said in June the places he's considering represent the heart of U.S. manufacturing. That description fits Illinois perfectly. Located at the crossroads of the nation, Illinois is a factory hub with top universities for engineering. Chicago is a world-class city with a booming digital sector and an international airport. The region gives companies easy access to capital and an educated workforce.

Assuming Gou pits states against each other for incentives, Rauner indicated he'd play ball. The Tribune reported that the governor wrote to Gou in February saying he would cut red tape and potentially offer "corporate tax credits, electricity and sales tax exemptions, workforce grants, infrastructure grants and property tax abatements."

There could be a point at which Foxconn's demands for tax benefits and other subsidies are too costly to justify, but Illinois is right to compete because the payoff would be enormous: Construction jobs to start, followed by thousands of permanent positions at Foxconn and an ecosystem of subcontractors and suppliers comprising thousands more jobs. And because Foxconn is one of the world's biggest tech firms, this deal would redefine Illinois' global image. Even more manufacturers might locate here. All this economic growth would add to the tax base, improve the standard of living and generate even more investment.

Honestly, though, we worry that Illinois won't make Foxconn's cut. Wisconsin could win simply because of its proximity to Illinois' workforce, without the Illinois baggage. Sure, having Illinoisans commute north to work at Foxconn would be better than nothing, but it hardly compares to a future in which Illinois is as welcoming to businesses as it used to be. Achieving that requires politicians working together to make Illinois attractive to investment. The sooner that happens, the better.
Dear Satan:

Thank you for your recent inquiry submitted under the subject line: "Current price for one upscale human soul." We here at USA Soul Procurement Ltd. have appreciated your business over the years.

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As the Prince of Darkness, you are well aware that soul prices can vary dramatically, but in this case we will assume you are looking for a high-value human essence and not some run-of-the-mill, knockoff soul like the Mike Huckabee Model sold by our competitors.

To that end, we would like to introduce you to our latest line, which we proudly call the Scaramucci Edition.

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It is based on the soul sale of Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci, who just last week was named the White House's new communication director, reporting directly to President Donald Trump.

Scaramucci engaged in one of the most thorough and complete separations of soul from body in human history. In keeping with the standard he set, any Scaramucci Edition soul purchased from us is guaranteed to be 100 percent free of lingering integrity or sense of self.

Before we get to the price, let us provide you with more detail on the remarkable steps Scaramucci took to bring his soul to market, the same kind of steps we guarantee are followed with any Scaramucci Edition soul we sell.

Let us begin in 2012, when Trump was rumored to be considering endorsing Newt Gingrich for president. Scaramucci tweeted of Trump: "Odd guy. So smart with no judgment."

That same year on Twitter, Trump's new communications director described Hillary Clinton as "incredibly competent" and declared that he is "For Gay Marriage, against the death penalty, and Pro Choice. I am for social inclusion, fiscal responsibility." He also tweeted his support for stricter gun laws.

Fast forward to 2015 and Scaramucci tweeted this regarding Trump's proposed plan for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico: "Walls don't work. Never have never will. The Berlin Wall 1961-1989 don't fall for it."

That same year he went on Fox News and said of Trump: "He's a hack politician. ... I'll tell you who he's gonna be president of  you can tell Donald I said this  the Queens County bullies association." He added that Trump's "crazy rhetoric" is "anti-American and very, very divisive."

But the thing that made Scaramucci's soul sale so truly remarkable  the preparatory move that pushed an already high-end soul into the realm of the artisanal  was a column he wrote for Fox Business in January 2016 under the headline: "The Bankruptcy and Restructuring of the Republican Party."

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"Unbridled demagoguery has driven the GOP to an inflection point from which there is no turning back," Scaramucci wrote. "If a populist prevails in the primary, as appears increasingly likely, the party faces either devastating defeat in the general election or a new, unrecognizable identity. In either scenario, a large swath of the GOP electorate will be forced to eat crow and reevaluate its affiliation. Call it, if you will, a moral debt restructuring, one caused by the reckless behavior of a man who knows a thing or two about bankruptcy."

The populist and bankruptcy expert he referenced is, of course, Trump.

Scaramucci continued: "We are in the midst of an ideological Civil War, one pitting American values of hope, empowerment and self-reliance against defeatist attitudes of fear, entitlement and victimization."

He noted that "GOP voters have responded most enthusiastically to candidates driving people apart with hate speech and alarmism," and wrote eloquently: "There is no doubt we need to secure our southern border and ensure the vetting process for all immigrants is air-tight, but betraying common decency out of primeval fear reeks of World War II-era attitudes that led to the internment of Japanese-American citizens and rejection of European-Jewish refugees  events that are a stain on our history."

Scaramucci concluded: "Democracy is a device that ensures the people shall be governed no better than they deserve. I know America deserves better."

Beelzebub, we are sure that a soul connoisseur like yourself can imagine what comes next. A little more than 550 days after that scathing column was published, Scaramucci stood in the White House briefing room as the newly named communications director and said of Trump: "The best messenger, the best media person, the most savvy person in the White House is the president of the United States and I'm hoping to learn from him."

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From person driving people apart with hate speech and alarmism to mentor. That's what we here at USA Soul Procurement Ltd. call "closing the soul sale."

After praising the greatness of the man he once called divisive and a hack, Scaramucci began deleting the aforementioned tweets from his Twitter account, then defended that move as "transparency." He said to Jake Tapper on CNN: "So if I'm for something and then I'm against something, then, all of a sudden, I'm a hypocrite."

King of the Underworld, we hope you take note of how adeptly Scaramucci defined hypocrisy via his own actions while simultaneously suggesting he is not a hypocrite, an act that is, in and of itself, hypocritical. That is the kind of upper-tier soul cleaving you can expect from any of our Scaramucci Edition souls.

We now return to your original question: the price for such a fine immaterial item.

We do not have details on Scaramucci's soul sale, or even know the buyer. (Perhaps it was you, Satan, and you are just being coy with us! LOL! Just kidding!)

But we can assume Scaramucci's new salary will be at least the same as his predecessor, Sean Spicer, who as acting communications director was earning $179,700 per year. And surely the hedge fund dealer will find additional ways to net millions in his move from Wall Street to the White House.

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So we are setting the price of our Scaramucci Edition souls at a firm but reasonable $10 million each. We think you will find them worthy investments and fine additions to your infamous collection.

Sorry we were not able to offer you the original Scaramucci soul. It went fast and was gone before anyone  perhaps even Scaramucci himself  knew what happened.

Most sincerely,

 Your friends on the USA Soul Procurement Ltd. sales team

rhuppke@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RexHuppke

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That's resulted in Illinois coming in dead last in the country in equitably paying for education. Some districts spend $30,000 per student, while others spend $6,000. The effect is wealthy students get robotics classes, iPads and small class sizes, while students born in less wealthy areas are left in the cold.

After 16 years of work, Illinois can make a great leap forward with a new law that has passed both chambers of the General Assembly: Senate Bill 1. SB1 is the culmination of research and review beginning in 2001 and hearty, honest and lengthy bipartisan debate. It isn't perfect, but it gets an A from every organization  from hundreds of superintendents across the state to countless teachers, parents and nonpartisan, conservative and liberal policy organizations. And Beth Purvis, the Illinois secretary of education, said Gov. Bruce Rauner agrees with 90 percent of SB1. Not perfect, but an A nonetheless. That's a big deal when the current system merits a definite F.

SB1 changes the current formula, which is clunky and overcomplicated, resulting in a Robin Hood-reverse effect, taking money from low property value areas and sending it to wealthy areas. SB1 creates a streamlined, scientific and transparent formula that sends money to districts based on student need. Under SB1, no district loses money. Not one. Additionally, for the first time in decades, Chicago Public Schools is treated the same as every other district. The block grant is eliminated, and Chicago's teacher pension system is treated the same as Rockford's, Winnetka's and Cairo's.

Rauner must carry out his constitutional responsibility. Make Illinois one of the few  if not only  states to reform its education funding system without court intervention. SB1 is not a bailout. It treats CPS identically to every other district. Put aside partisan bickering, listen to the superintendents and constituents, and give all Illinois students, including my daughter  a future CPS student  the equitable and adequate resources they deserve.

 Josh Cauhorn, Chicago
Pepe Barajas, chef/owner of La Josie, a new upscale Mexican restaurant in the West Loop, was practically born into the hospitality game.

As a little kid in the '80s, he was popping the tops off Jarritos and Coke for patrons at his grandfather's Mexico City taco stand. When he was 7, he immigrated to Chicago and watched his single mother waitress for her brother, founder of the local Los Comales chain of restaurants. Seeing her struggle financially, Barajas dropped out of high school and helped his mom open her own taqueria, Los Comales No. 8.

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He completed his GED and committed to learning everything about operating a restaurant and read every Mexican cookbook he could get his hands on. In 2007, he opened up a spot near Midway called El Solazo. His Mexican heritage wasn't an issue, but location was a problem for his first restaurantit was near a glut of pedestrian and mediocre spots.

"I remember going out and giving food to local businesses and as I was walking out of one place, I heard the guy say, 'Oh, great, another Mexican restaurant here on Pulaski,'" he said. "I didn't say it to him, but what I remember thinking was, 'We're not just another Mexican restaurant. We're not gonna stay where we start. We're always gonna drive to be better.'"

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The room: Barajas' success on the South Side allowed him to start searching for other opportunities. By luck, the Holiday Bar and Grill space in Chicago's West Loop was available, so he snatched it up.

"A lot of people have been saying, 'Oh you're riding a trend, going to hot Randolph Street.' I got this place a few years ago before City Winery and a lot of these places were here," said Barajas. "We had Holiday as a tenant, and that allowed me to really plan La Josie (named after his aunt) for a couple years."

The attention to detail shows. Inside you'll find handsome wood floors, fulsome tufted banquettes and a robin's egg blue neon sign that says "Hoy por ti," the beginning of a Spanish idiom about paying things forward. Aesthetically, the restaurant skews more River North than Maxwell Street Market taco stand.

The food: The kitchen is led by executive Saul Chavez, a Mercadito vet.

"Just like me, Saul didn't go to culinary school. Well, that's not true. He's amazing. He went to the 'love what you do' school," Barajas said.

Chavez and his crew dish up supple, house-made tortillas that waft splendid corn perfume. The fillings include a silky veal cheek barbacoa ($14) and tender cochinita pibil ($14), featuring a sinus-clearing habanero salsa that gives you a serious chile high. The carbon-flecked al pastor ($14) is crispy, juicy and riddled with smoky pineapple. It has a serious case for best al pastor in Chicago.

I have only two quibbles with the tacos. The pescado ($16), which has a nice golden plank of fried mahi-mahi, could use a little more lime or pickled jalapeno to cut through the richness. Also, the tacos are only available in threes and you can't mix and match. Since most of the trios cost $14, if you have a small group, it will be an expensive proposition to try more than a couple of the 14 flavors on offer.

Guacamole ($8), too, is inspired. There are three versions, and my favorite features flecks of strawberry and bracing bits of mint.

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Ceviche ($10) is made to order, which means the fish's flesh still has a nice bite. Mahi-mahi drips with floral notes of passion fruit with sweetness mitigated by a serrano chili bite.

Frijoles charros ($5), often a gloppy unsalted mess at so many Mexican restaurants, feature distinct toothsome caoba beans, smoky chorizo and bacon bits, salty ham cubes and the spicy grassy essences of epazote and cilantro. It's eats like a legendary campfire chili.

While the mole tampiquena plate ($18) features a juicy cookbook-spread-worthy crosshatch-grill-marked chicken breast, the sauce on top just doesn't feature the deep cinnamon, chili and chocolate notes I expect from a stellar mole. Bajaras tells me that they enhance a pre-made mole base for this dish.

On the other hand, head-on prawns ($20) drip with a rusty-colored, fragrant garlic, butter and achiote paste-infused sazon sauce (brewed for six hours). It's so addictive that once the tail meat is gone, I suck every last drop from their empty heads and shells.

If I had a dollar for every terrible gourmet mac and cheeseor in this case, mac y quesoI've ever experienced, I might be on the Forbes richest people list. But, La Josie does not contribute to this fund. The mac and cheese here ($8), featuring velvety manchego and fireworks of smoky grilled poblano pepper and roast sweet corn, is killer.

Drinks: All that cheese and salt will make you thirsty. Stick to the margarita, a refreshing blend of fresh lime, Corazon blanco tequila and Mandarine Napoleon liqueur ($12). Unlike margaritas made with throat-parching shelf-stable mixers, this cocktail is smoky, orange-kissed nectar.

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Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Some of the drinks were a little too liquor-heavy and unbalanced, including the Yo Soy Para Ti ($12). Though it promised mezcal, I could not detect any of the charred agave essence I love in a great one. The bitter green tea in the drink also clashed with watermelon notes from a Ballast Point watermelon beer that was in the mix.

Dessert: At many Mexican restaurants, you're lucky to find a wobbly old flan as a sweet ending. Here, pastry chef Quetzal Alvarez serves some stellar goodies, including a treat called tarta vainilla chocolate, which tastes like a dark chocolate-covered creme brulee perched on a chocolate chip cookie ($8). It may sound like stoner-food, but it's a pretty elegant sugar rush. There's also a ricotta cheesecake so moist it weeps rum and orange juice ($9).

Bottom line: Randolph Street in the West Loop has become a landing pad for Chicago's celebrity chefs. And while Pepe Barajas is not a big star just yet, his vision and execution of a gourmet Mexican experience on Randolph at La Josie means he's about to be a household name.

Review: La Josie

740 W. Randolph St. 312-929-2900

Rating: ** (out of four)

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[ Check out more of Michael Nagrant's restaurant reviews here.  ]

Michael Nagrant is a RedEye freelancer. Reporters visit restaurants unannounced and meals are paid for by RedEye.
All parties involved in the proposed Woodmans Food Market at the northwest corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway in Buffalo Grove (pictured) recently closed on a land deal that puts the project on track for construction. (Ronnie Wachter/Pioneer Press)

For those feeling nervous about future of the proposed Woodman's Food Market in Buffalo Grove, all parties involved in the project recently closed on a land deal that puts it on track for construction.

A bank based in Harwood Heights agreed July 21 to sell about 30 acres near the corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway to Shorewood Development Group, which plans to build a gas station, convenience store, car wash and retail on the southwest corner, and manage the construction of a 240,000-square-foot Woodman's Food Market on the northwest corner, said Louis Schriber III, CEO of Shorewood.

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"Shorewood has multiple national quick service restaurants, a national financial institution, and other nationally known medical and retail users committed to a spring 2018 opening," Schriber said. "Shorewood is also planning to build their suburban office on the second floor of one of the retail buildings."

Representatives with Parkway Bank and Trust Co., which agreed to sell the acreage, did not return calls for comment Monday. Representatives with Woodman's Food Market also did not return calls for comment.

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But earlier in the month, Clint Woodman, president of Woodman's Food Market, said the parties were working to finalize the land deal, adding how the business was wanting to start construction by early August.

Since announcing the project nearly a year ago, officials have said they were planning to break ground on the project earlier this summer on the long vacant site with an eye toward opening in summer 2018.

As of mid-July, the 25-acre site slated for the proposed Woodman's store, along with a gas station, convenience store, car wash and retail stores on the southwest corner, didn't feature any hints of construction activity or any signs alerting residents to an upcoming project.

But activity should start soon now that the land deal has been worked out, said Dane Bragg, village manager for Buffalo Grove.

"The project timeline always envisioned closing by July 31, which puts the project on track," Bragg said. "Given the complexities of transportation, access, environmental, stormwater management, etc., we believe the timeline was and still is appropriate."

Village officials have worked unsuccessfully to develop the corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway for decades.

The first effort involved a plan to build "Berenesa Plaza," a proposed shopping center for the site in the 1990s that never came to fruition. Years later in 2015, representatives with Shorewood Development Group proposed a new shopping center for the site, but village trustees urged them to come up with a bigger project.

They then came back with Woodman's proposal last year, setting the stage for various village board approvals, including a $7 million sales tax incentive with Woodman's Food Market that spelled out a revenue-sharing agreement between the grocer and village over the course of years.

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"This is 25 years in the making," said Chris Stilling, community development director for Buffalo Grove.

He said village officials are ready to finalize the paperwork to the project as all parties prepare for a 2018 opening.

"We're ready to issue building permits," Stilling said.

RWachter@PioneerLocal.com

Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer
Ryan Kuo, a Deerfield resident, is a former executive with Kraft Heinz and recently went into business for himself as a consultant. He became the newest member of the Deerfield Public Schools District 109 Board of Education in July.

Moving to Deerfield with his family four years ago, Kuo has three children. Growing up in Los Angeles and graduating from high school in Reno, Nev., Kuo said he went to the United States Military Academy, spent five years on active duty and seven more in the reserves.

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Q. Why did you apply to sit on the Deerfield Public Schools District 109 Board of Education?

A. I'm extremely passionate about education and believe that I can effectively represent the district's residents in a way that balances the board's responsibilities of fiscal responsibility with providing best in class K-8 education to their children. I saw joining the board as an opportunity to continue to push District 109's excellent educational programs by leveraging my leadership experience from the army, my expertise in maximizing outcomes within financial constraints in business and the passion for ensuring my three children receive the best education we can provide. Making lasting improvements to our country is a generational effort. It starts and ends with education.

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Q. What do you hope to accomplish as a board member?

A. I fully intend to continue the successful execution of the board's strategies and policies that resulted in our district's schools being recognized as state and national leaders. My hope is to be able to bring a new outlook, based on my experiences and skills, to the development of students that are lifelong learners and of strong moral character. Current and past Board of Education members have put District 109 in a fantastic financial position while executing a shift to next-generation educational processes and opportunities. It's my hope that I can aid in the next phase of the continuous mission of adapting and improving how our children are educated.

Q. What are the most important aspects of educating elementary and middle school students today?

A. As District 109 Superintendent Mike Lubelfeld is fully aware we live in a fast changing world that often leads to an educational environment that now requires a level of flexibility in order to keep up with ever-changing future requirements. It is critical that while the district's board and staff maintain a clear vision for the outcomes of successful learning, we remain open and agile in our approaches to ensuring them. To be successful in a world where technology and social challenges are shifting at a pace never experienced before, our children must have the ability to independently learn and be inspired to do so.

Q. How will your military and business backgrounds help you as a board member?

A. One of the greatest honors of my life has been the opportunity to lead U.S. soldiers into combat and be an integral part of their development as men and women. This experience has informed my leadership philosophies and when combined with my international business experience, it has solidified my belief that well-rounded students are required more than ever. While academic success is at the core of the traditional educational process, my hope is that my background can bring value to the development of our students' character, view of service (to the community, to the country, and to the world) and their social-emotional capacities.

Steve Sadin is a freelance reporter.
What to expect next in the Frisch vs. Boebert CD-3 race

Final results in the race won't be known until Friday, Nov. 18, after clerks in all 27 counties upload final counts. So what happens between now and then?
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang Monday sent a congratulatory letter to the inaugural ceremony of the Asian Financial Cooperation Association (AFCA).

The establishment of a stable and efficient financial system is an important foundation for sustainable development of the world economy, and the AFCA will serve an important role in optimizing the allocation of regional financial resources and supporting the development of all countries, especially emerging economies, Li said in the letter.

Vice Premier Ma Kai attended the ceremony.

Officially established in May at the Belt and Road forum in Beijing, the AFCA has 107 institutions from around the world as founding members.

China is willing to join hands with relevant parties to push for the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, for which AFCA can provide strong support, according to the letter.

Li hoped that the AFCA could follow the philosophy of green finance and inclusive finance, step up exploration and cooperation, and make active contributions to the stable growth of Asian economy, and the global economy as a whole.

"The AFCA should gradually develop into a promoter of regional financial exchanges and cooperation, a leader of standard-setting bodies, a defender of security and stability, as well as a participant in global financial governance," Li said.
The Beijing police are hunting for a man who allegedly stabbed five people and committed a hit-and-run that killed one and injured eight others on his way to escape on Sunday.

The suspect hurt five people with a scissor around 3 p.m. in Jugezhuang Township in the suburban district of Miyun and fled on a van. His van then hit nine people, leaving one dead and eight injured, according to the police.

The injured are being treated in hospital. The Miyun police are searching for the suspect who is still at large.
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Chinese officers and soldiers waves to say goodbye to Russian fleet during a China-Russia naval joint drill at sea off south China's Guangdong Province, Sept. 19, 2016. (Xinhua File Photo/Zha Chunming)

China and Russia kicked off their annual joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea on Saturday, the first of their kind for the Chinese Navy in Europe.

The Chinese ships arrived at the Russian seaport of Baltiysk on Friday. This year's exercise, dubbed Joint Sea 2017, will focus on strengthening Sino-Russia naval combat and coordination capabilities, as well as practicing maritime anti-piracy and emergency rescue operations.

These regular drills, which began in 2012 in the Yellow Sea, are not targeting against any other states, defense ministries from both countries said.

The first phase of the exercise is taking place in waters off the Russian cities of Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg from Monday to Friday. The second phase will be in the Russian Far East, the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk in September, according to the Russian defense ministry.

The drill is a practical step in strengthening the Sino-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, as well as bolstering exchanges and cooperation between the two militaries, especially the navies, Vice-Admiral Tian Zhong, the deputy commander-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army Navy, said at the drill's opening ceremony on Saturday.

Russian Navy Deputy Commander-in-Chief Vice-Admiral Alexander Fedotenkov said the Joint Sea exercises have become more professional and comprehensive since 2012.

This year's exercise will feature China's most advanced military vessels, including the Type 052D guided missile destroyer Changsha, Type 054A guided missile frigate Yuncheng and the Type 903A supply ship Luomahu.

These ships belong to the South Sea Fleet responsible for operations in the South China Sea. They set off from their home port in Sanya, Hainan province, on June 18, and conducted live-fire drills in the Mediterranean on July 10 en route to the Baltic Sea, according to China's Defense Ministry.

The Russian Navy will deploy the latest class corvettes  Steregushchiy and Boiky. In addition, nearly a dozen aircraft and helicopters from both sides, such as Ka-27 helicopters and Su-24 fighter-bombers, will take part.

Since its debut, the annual Sino-Russian naval exercise has been closely monitored by the West. This year, British, Dutch and Danish ships trailed the Chinese flotilla as it passed into the Baltic Sea.

Li Xing, a professor of international relations at Beijing Normal University, said it is understandable for Western countries to closely follow this year's drill because this is the first time the Chinese navy is conducting exercises at NATO's doorstep.

Russia has also been moving its most powerful ships, including its nuclear-powered Kirov-class battle cruiser and the Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine  the largest submarine ever built  into the Baltic Sea for the upcoming naval parade at St. Petersburg on July 30.

"The Chinese navy will learn much from this year's exercises, especially on improving far sea operations in unfamiliar waters. Such capabilities are crucial benchmarks for a strong navy, and the Chinese navy will have more in the future," he said.

The Chinese navy will learn much ... especially on improving far sea operation in -unfamiliar waters."
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As part of Turkey's renewed mediation efforts, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Sunday to discuss the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and the Saudi-led quartet.

The two leaders addressed bilateral ties and regional developments, in addition to the efforts being exerted to fight terrorism, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.

Erdogan's Gulf tour, which will also take him to Qatar and Kuwait, came amid Turkey's new diplomatic offensive aimed at brokering an end to the Gulf standoff. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu conducted a Gulf tour to mediate the standoff early last month without achieving major results.

The Saudi-led quartet, which also includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 and imposed a blockade on the tiny rich Gulf nation.

They accused Doha of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs, which was strongly denied by Qatar.

Turkey has publicly sided with Qatar, with which it has expansive economic and security ties, while criticizing the Saudi-led blockade as inhumane.

Earlier Sunday, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before leaving for Saudi Arabia that Turkey is seeking an immediate resolution for the ongoing diplomatic row in the Gulf.

"Nobody has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore," Erdogan said.

Among the 13 demands put forward by the Saudi-led bloc included the closure of a Turkish military base in Qatar. Turkey has deployed a number of troops in the base recently in a move aimed at bolstering Qatar's defiance in face of sanctions and threat from its neighbors.

Ankara has refused to withdraw troops from Qatar, a move that has frustrated the four Arab countries.

But signs of easing of the crisis have emerged recently after the visit to the Gulf by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during which the U.S. and Qatar signed a deal on combating terrorism funding.

This addressed one of the core demands by the Saudi-led bloc, which has slammed Doha for financing and supporting a number of extremist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Hamas movement in Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Qatar has revised its law on fighting terrorism over the week, a move that was welcomed by the UAE as a "positive step."
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U.S. Republicans and Democrats on Saturday have reached agreement on a bill that would include new sanctions against Russia, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The bill could largely limit Trump's power of easing sanctions on Russia, as it gives Congress power to veto any decision made by the president that would "significantly alter" U.S. foreign policy in connection with Russia.

The decisions could include easing sanctions or returning diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York that former U.S. President Barack Obama ordered vacated in December.

The House will vote on the bill on Tuesday and the Senate is likely to take it up after that. The bipartisan agreement could send the new bill to President Donald Trump by the end of the month.

The three countries have "in different ways all threatened their neighbors and actively sought to undermine American interests," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a joint statement released on Saturday.

"A strong sanctions bill such as the one Democrats and Republicans have just agreed to is essential," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

The bill came at a time when the Trump administration was under media fire over the Russia scandal.

Last week, e-mails surfaced between Trump's son and a Russian lawyer who allegedly had access to compromising information on then Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The latest incident added suspicion that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia during last year's election.
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A group of 40 Pakistani teachers left for Beijing on Sunday to get training on how to impart the Chinese language efficiently under the 2017 International Chinese Language Teacher Training Program sponsored by the Chinese government.

A special see-off ceremony for the teachers was held at the Chinese embassy in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad which was attended by Zhao Lijian, charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy, Arshad Ali, executive director of Pakistan's Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and teachers.

It is the third batch of Pakistani teachers visiting China for language training since 2015. So far, at least 120 Pakistani teachers have got training under the program.

A total of 40 teachers, including 26 females and 14 males, from different institutes across Pakistan, will get training under the 15-day program, being organized and sponsored by the Chinese embassy in Islamabad in collaboration with Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and Beijing International Education Exchange Center.

On the occasion, Charge d'Affaires Zhao said "language is a bridge among different cultures, a bridge to bring our hearts closer to each other. If you could master the Chinese language, you will get a better understanding of the essence of the Chinese culture and the way of thinking, thus you can better communicate and work with Chinese friends."

Zhao appreciated Pakistani teachers for bearing greater responsibilities to teach young students about China and China-Pakistan friendship.

Addressing the ceremony, Ali expressed thanks to the Chinese government for starting such initiatives to strengthen bonds of friendship.

"I hope that the visiting Pakistani teachers will bring back not only training but also memories and experiences of Chinese rich culture to pass on to their students and other country fellows. The visit will be a source of inspirations for the continuation of China-Pakistan deep-rooted friendly relations from generation to generation," said Ali.

Masooma Nayyar, a headmistress of a school from Pakistan's southwest province of Balochistan, told Xinhua that the visit to China is going to be a great booster in her career and life.

"I am very excited and believe that the training will help me understand Chinese culture and language better," said Nayyar.

Since the start of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Pakistani people especially youngsters have been more eager to learn the Chinese language than ever before. Currently, four Confucius Institutes have been working in different areas of Pakistan to impart the Chinese language to students from all walks of life.
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China and Russia will hold their 13th round of strategic security consultations during the visit of Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.

The two countries will also hold the fourth China-Russia meeting of institutionalized cooperation in law enforcement and security, during Patrushev's stay in Beijing from July 26 to 27, according to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang.

Lu told a daily press conference that Meng Jianzhu, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, will co-chair the bilateral meeting in law enforcement and security, while State Councilor Yang Jiechi will co-chair the strategic security consultation with Patrushev respectively.
Xinhua | Jul. 24, 2017

Ethiopia aims to have strategic cooperation with China on the aviation sector as the East African nation works to be an African aviation hub, said Ethiopia's transport minister on Saturday.

Speaking to Xinhua, Ahmed Shide, minister of Ethiopia's Ministry of Transport, says Ethiopia and China have air infrastructure as a major pillar of the two countries' cooperation.

"Aviation is an important area of cooperation by both governments, with Ethiopia's national air carrier Ethiopian Airlines becoming a connecting force between African and China," says Shide.

Ethiopian Airlines already has five flight destinations to China ,they are Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

"We plan to make Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa a strategic aviation hub between China and Africa," says Shide, adding that with China working on being an airplane manufacturing center, he expects Ethiopia to be a customer of fully developed Chinese airplanes in the future.

Ethiopia's aim to be an African aviation hub connecting the continent to the world's most populous in the world is also where Ethiopia's aviation dreams intersect with China's capital and expertise.

Expansion work on Ethiopia's largest airport the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, funded by a US$345 million loan from China's Exim bank is being undertaken by China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC).

The project, lying on 74,000 square meters of land, plans to increase the airport's annual passenger handling capacity from the current 7 million to 22 million.

However, Shide says Ethiopia expects Chinese cooperation in Ethiopia's aviation sector to only grow with plans by Ethiopia to build a mega airport outside of Addis Ababa to meet its aviation ambitions.

"The planned mega airport which is expected to cost US$3 billion will be able to service up to 100 million passengers annually," Hailu Lemu Chief Engineer of Ethiopian Airports Enterprise (EAE) told Xinhua early this month.
KUALA LUMPUR  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday revised up China's growth forecast for 2017 and 2018 to 6.7 percent and 6.4 percent respectively.

The updated World Economic Outlook report, which came days after China posted a stronger-than-expected second quarterly performance, was a reflection of a solid first quarter underpinned by previous policy easing and supply-side reforms, including efforts to reduce excess capacity in the industrial sector, the IMF said.

China has set its full-year growth target at "around 6.5 percent." The 6.7-percent forecast will leave the world's second-largest economy on a par with its growth level in 2016.

The fund also revised up China's economic forecast for 2018 by 0.2 percentage point to 6.4 percent, citing expectations that China may maintain high public investment and delay fiscal adjustment to meet its target of doubling the 2010 real gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020.

But the IMF also warned against strong credit growth that may come with rising downside risk to medium-term growth.

Maurice Obstfeld, chief economist of the IMF, recommended China go through a very important rebalancing process, which will inevitably entail a slowing path of growth.

He said China's recent moves to redress non-performing loans and a coordinated financial oversight overhaul are welcome.

The revision followed an April upgrade by the IMF on China's GDP growth forecast to 6.6 percent and 6.2 percent for 2017 and 2018 respectively, 0.1 percentage point and 0.2 percentage point higher than its forecast in January.
Engineers check facilities at BMW's R&D center in Shenyang, Liaoning province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

International carmakers are investing heavily to localize their research and development operations in China, the world's largest automobile market.

BMW's Chinese venture, BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd, expanded its R&D center earlier this month in Shenyang, capital of northeastern Liaoning province. The facility is now BMW Group's largest outside Europe.

The new center, spanning more than 40,000 square meters, is five times that of the first phase of development, put into use in 2013.

"The new R&D center is a testimony to BMW Brilliance's commitment of 'In China, for China'. Innovation is the critical foundation of our corporate strategy, and the center is the connection between innovation and the application," said Johann Wieland, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance Automotive.

BMW Group's sales in China, including BMW and Mini branded vehicles' deliveries, were up 18.4 percent in the first half-year.

This strong increase is largely due to full availability of the BMW X1 and the popularity of the new BMW 1 Series sedan, a car designed exclusively for China, according to the group's news release.

John Shen, Accenture Strategy Greater China managing director, said: "International automakers have to expand their local R&D capabilities to accelerate their product development, while boosting the correlations with the local demands."

"Considering the world's largest market's scale, the international carmakers are focusing more on China, so they are empowering the companies in the country," he added.

Yale Zhang, managing director of Automotive Foresight (Shanghai), noted that BMW is among the progressive international automakers in expanding the R&D capabilities in the Chinese auto market, together with Volvo Car Group and Volkswagen AG.

Volvo Car Group is to set up a new joint venture with Geely Holding to share existing and future automobile technology, according to a memorandum of understanding the two parties signed on Thursday.

The 50-50 joint venture will be headquartered in China with a subsidiary in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The partnership will enable Volvo Car Group, Geely Auto and Lynk & Coall of which are controlled by Geely Holdingto share technologies via license agreements.

Whichever company leads the development will own the technology and the other group companies will have full access to it through a license, reducing overall development costs.

Local media reports said Volkswagen AG, which entered into a joint venture with JAC Motors called JAC Volkswagen, also has a plan to build a new R&D center for new energy vehicles with a total investment of 6 billion yuan.

Shen added: "The digital evolution is reshaping consumer demands and competitions, and the situation in China is ahead of that in the United States and Europe. As a result, the R&D centers in China are necessary given the expectation it will grow to one of the leading powers in autonomous driving, mobility, digitalization, and so on."
Pedestrians walk past an office building in Beijing's Central Business District. [Photo/Agencies]

There is no let up in the rental uptrend in top-grade office spaces in Beijing's key areas and some in fact became costlier in the second quarter of this year, which could force prospective as well as existing tenants to look for cheaper alternatives in other areas, industry analysts said.

According to Jones Lang Lasalle, a real estate services firm, popular locations in Beijing for Grade A office spaces include Central Business District or CBD, Olympic Park, Wangjing and East Chang An Avenue.

They have seen four new Grade A projects that added 2.7 million square meters to the capital's office space supply in the second quarter, taking the total to 102 million sq m.

Ping An Trust Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Ping An Insurance Group, has bought a shopping mall in northeast of Beijing for 1.25 billion yuan ($184 million) in April.

According to JLL, Ping An Trust may convert the mall into an office complex, potentially adding 1 million sq m more of gross floor area to the market.

Additional supply in Beijing's suburban areas such as Olympic Park has increased the choices available, which could encourage some tenants in prime localities to relocate.

In such a scenario, high rents in CBD may drop, sometimes significantly, JLL said in a research note.

Eric Hirsch, head of markets of JLL in Beijing, said high rents and emerging alternatives will likely stoke a rethink among property owners, potentially resulting in cheaper offices in prime locations.

"Some 78 percent of newly added offices have been rented out already in the second quarter," said Zhang Ying, general manager of JLL, North China region. "After the new projects are finished, Beijing will see more Grade A offices in suburban markets. The property owners there may offer discounts, bringing rare opportunities for tenants to avail top-quality offices at cheaper rents."

Savills, a real estate consultancy, predicts that supplies will grow by 3.37 million sq m in the second half of this year. The boom in supply could well leave about 8 percent of the overall office space vacant.

Although the emerging markets may drive down rents in prime locations, the average rent of top-grade office space in Beijing may stay stable, given the strong demand in key financial and technology districts such as Zhongguancun.

"The increasing rents in such areas will level up the average rental price pulled back by CBD, and the demand in Financial Street and Zhongguancun will keep heating up," said Hirsch.

According to Cushman & Wakefield, another commercial real estate services company, rents in Zhongguancun have increased by 13.8 percent year-on-year in the second quarter as the country pushes through the Made in China 2025 strategy, attracting more companies and research institutions to move in to the tech hub.

"Strong demand, coupled with limited office availability, has caused rents to rise," said Sabrina Wei, head of research at Cushman & Wakefield in North China.
A dog enjoys a haircut at a pet store in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. [Photo by Wang Kangkang/For China Daily]

China's pet market will grow annually at an average 20.5 percent to exceed 200 billion yuan ($29.5 billion) in sales by the end of 2020, according to an industry report from Guangzhou Yourpet Network Technology Inc.

The growing number of pet owners in China are more willing now than in the past to spend on their furry friends, spawning an industry chain covering products and services. The focus is no longer on just animal breeds and veterinary services.

Branded food, imported medicine, and a plethora of lifestyle-related products like pet cages, shampoos, showers, beauty items and garments are prominent pet products.

Services comprise food and nutrition clinics, photography, beauty parlors, insurance, styling, nail painting, grooming, pet walks, healthcare, training and pet hotels.

The last-mentioned business line has taken off in a big way in China. For instance, Banlv Vet, a pet hotel in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, is equipped with a sanitized surgery room, a secure access system, a centralized temperature and humidity control system and closed circuit TV cameras that monitor every room.

It is now upgrading its facility to make sure every furry little guest has a wonderful stay while its owners are away. "Last year, we invested quite a lot in upgrading to the modern system, including the cage made of better material," said Xu Shanshan, a vet and the owner of Banlv Vet. "Pet owners are becoming picky about services like pet hotels. They would love to pay more for better services like branded food, imported medicine and pet shampoo."

Banlv started as a small vet shop outside a residential compound five years ago. Back then, it used to have only one retired vet on its staff. It also had simple foldable pet cages and an open surgery table. Banlv is beefing up its staff with more veterinary graduates and pet nurses.

"It used to cost 20 yuan for a small-sized dog shower. Now it costs 50 yuan, and hundreds (of yuan more) for styling, nail painting and grooming," said Wang Yunya, a regular customer of Banlv. "During Spring Festival, I spent 2,000 yuan for my three little dogs to stay here for a week."

According to the National Statistics Bureau, China is on its way to becoming the third-largest pet market after the United States and Japan. From 2010 to 2016, the local market has been growing annually at almost 50 percent on average.

Neil Wang, president of the China unit of Frost& Sullivan, a global consulting firm, said per-capita GDP in China has reached $8,576, laying the foundation for a boom in the pet market. Higher incomes, he said, spur consumption upgrades and people are more willing to pay for better food, healthcare, beauty products and training for their pets.

But the market is some distance from producing its first unicorn startup. Companies in the pet market are still busy building their brands. Wang Tiange, who owns five Chihuahua dogs, said, "Sometimes, I don't know which Chinese dog food to buy because there are so many of them and none of them is a dominating brand. And I don't think there is a recognizable brand in dog clothes or other daily products. So I usually buy imported brands."

Neil Wang said China has too many small companies in the pet market, more so because of insufficient regulation. However, with more investors entering the market, it will hopefully see some big companies leading the way in future, he said.
A workshop of Mengniu in Helin, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China Mengniu Dairy Co Ltd, one of the country's biggest dairy producers by revenue, plans to launch more products to suit local preferences in Canada and Indonesia this year, its top executive said.

Such business expansion opportunities are arising from China's growing trade with countries and regions participating in the Belt and Road Initiative over the past four years, especially in fast-growing markets such as India and Southeast Asia.

The Belt and Road Initiative, comprising the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along ancient trade routes.

Mengniu, which is based in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, will continue to invest in traditional dairy production bases such as New Zealand and Australia, as well as in the United States and European countries to produce quality dairy resources.

Jeffrey Lu, chief executive officer of Mengniu, said the company has also started to adjust its strategies in China. It is building three digitally enabled plants for long-term growth and to serve as manufacturing bases for exports to countries in Asia.

In line with China's industrial and consumption upgrading boom on the back of the Made in China 2025 initiative, Mengniu invested in a digitally enabled plant in Jinhua of East China's Zhejiang province. The aim is to ship more dairy products to Southeast Asian markets through the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Last year, Mengniu signed a cooperation agreement with the Tibet autonomous region for joint efforts to build a modern pasture and a dairy factory. The partnership is expected to boost Mengniu's revenue.

The company plans to take advantage of Tibet's unique environment and resources to create pure and healthy dairy products to serve local consumers and also cover South Asian markets such as Nepal and India.

Some 1,500 cows have been raised in the pasture to date. The plan is to set up a production facility with annual capacity of 50,000 metric tons after the first-phase factory is completed in its neighborhood.

"Encouraging dairy consumption is a reflection of economic success in many markets related to the Belt and Road Initiative. The types of foods people eat now include health food and convenient food," said Lu.

"I think it's a combination of quality and innovation that is linked to growth and demand. Those two factors came together to create a big market," said Lu. "The biggest opportunity for us is the closer connection with consumers in the Belt and Road markets as well as in the home market."

To date, Mengniu's products have entered markets including Hong Kong, Macao, Mongolia, Singapore and Myanmar. Its portfolio ranges from regular-temperature products to low-temperature and frozen products.

It has also formed partnerships with suppliers in Canada and Indonesia this year.

Cows with an automatic milking equipment in Hengshui, Hebei province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

According to Mengniu's 2016 financial report, revenue grew 9.7 percent year-on-year to 53.8 billion yuan ($7.9 billion.

"Going overseas always brings challenges, particularly from a cultural perspective. Running a business in less familiar economies requires us to know the local culture, work with the locals, gain a thorough understanding of the legal environment, regulations and laws," said Lu.

"We developed new products to meet the preferences of local consumers in Hong Kong, Macao and Indonesia. In New Zealand, 80 percent of our staff are locals," he said. "After we acquired a large company in Australia in 2016, we retained 95 percent of their local employees."

Mengniu is also the largest shareholder of Anhui-based Modern Farming, showing the domestic dairy giant's shift to pasteurized milk and other low-temperature dairy products to get ahead of its international rivals.

Modern Farming is the country's leading farm company, with the largest number of cattle. It is also a leading provider of raw milk. The company operates 27 farms with over 220,000 cows. This move will allow Modern Farming to produce pasteurized milk, yogurt and pure milk.

To ensure product safety, Mengniu has been working with Germany's Siemens AG to build an internet-based system that is able to generate over 400,000 pieces of qualitative data a day.

Li Gang, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation in Beijing, said: "Learning from experience in overseas markets and gaining advanced industrial technology will help Chinese dairy producers secure market share and further compete with foreign companies. So, they should keep diversifying their distribution channels and product portfolios in global markets."
MOSCOW  Russia and China have great potential in cooperation in the aviation and aerospace sector, which contributes to the amplification of economic relations between the two countries and help achieve their bilateral trade goals, Russian industry insiders have said.

"It (Russian-Chinese cooperation in aviation) has longstanding traditions of many years, and we have traditionally supplied aviation equipment to China," Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov told Xinhua at the ongoing 13th MAKS-2017 airshow, which runs from Tuesday to Sunday in the Russian city of Zhukovsky on the southeastern outskirts of Moscow.

Over 790 aviation and aerospace companies from 26 countries and regions are displaying thousands of products and design projects at the MAKS airshow in search of cooperation opportunities, among which Russia-China businesses are deemed with excellent prospects.

Manturov said that the two countries now have two major joint projects. One is intended for producing a heavy-lift civil helicopter which will be developed by the Russian Helicopters company and Chinese institutions, and the other is for developing, designing and producing a wide-body long-haul aircraft by companies of both countries.

"(The new heavy-lift helicopter) will be of mutual benefit for China and Russia and will be widely operated in both countries," said Dmitry Zuykov, head of product marketing of the Russian Helicopters company.

Highlighting that China is one of the biggest markets for Russian Helicopters, Zuykov told Xinhua that currently more than 400 Russian-made helicopters are operating in China for a wide range of civil and military services including transportation of cargoes, passengers, search, rescue and fire-fighting.

"We are going to increase this number and to provide new-generation helicopters for services," he said.

According to Zuykov, the Russian Helicopters company provides China with its best products, including the low-noise MI-8/17 helicopter, the MI-26T helicopter which can carry up to 20 tons of cargoes, and the Ka-32A11BC helicopter for fire-fighting in forests and in cities between high buildings.

Russia's MiG Aircraft Corporation also showed its interest in the Chinese market. The company showcased its latest MiG-35 aircraft for the first time at the MAKS airshow, aiming at finding more potential buyers including China.

"Naturally, we offer this aircraft not only on the territory of India, but also to countries of Southeast Asia, the countries of the Middle East, the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries, and Latin America... Some 30 countries are our potential customers," MiG Director General Ilya Tarasenko said.

In Manturov's opinion, apart from impelling the development of the entire industry, the expansion of joint aviation projects and relevant businesses also contribute to the promotion of the bilateral economic and trade relations between China and Russia.

"We see positive dynamics this year, and we expect that aviation projects, of course, will provide added value and an additional economic result, which will in general affect our trade relations and bring us closer to the goal of reaching the annual turnover of 200 billion dollars by 2025," Manturov said.

Both the Chinese and the Russian governments are simultaneously working in this direction to facilitate the increasing implementation of the joint projects and boost supply volumes, he said.

On the opening ceremony of the airshow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he expected the airshow to help strengthen production cooperation, the growth of international cooperation and the promotion of Russian products in the global markets.

Founded in 1993, the MAKS is a biennial event aimed at displaying Russian aerospace-related high-tech products and promoting business cooperation with foreign partners in the aerospace sector.

The entire event received more than 330,000 visitors in the past five days, according to the Russian Interior Ministry.
RABAT  A Chinese firm has signed a deal with Moroccan companies to build the tallest skyscraper in Africa in the capital of Morocco, local media reported on Sunday.

The deal was concluded in Casablanca by China Railway Construction Corporation and Morocco's BMCE Bank of Africa and Travaux Generaux de Construction de Casablanca, Morocco's leading construction company, le360.ma news site said.

The 55-storey tower will reach 250 meters high, with the adoption of ecological and sustainable design concepts. It will include offices, hotels and luxury apartments, according to the report.

The tower will be the highlight of a large-scale project to develop the Bouregreg valley in Rabat, a key component of the 2014-2018 Integrated Development Program dubbed "Rabat, City of Light, Moroccan Cultural Capital."

The new project also involves the construction of several innovative facilities, including the Grand Theatre of Rabat, the Arts and Culture House, the National Archives of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Archaeological Museum.
ADDIS ABABA  Ethiopia aims to have strategic cooperation with China on the aviation sector as the East African nation works to be an African aviation hub, said Ethiopia's transport minister on Saturday.

Speaking to Xinhua, Ahmed Shide, minister of Ethiopia's Ministry of Transport, says Ethiopia and China have air infrastructure as a major pillar of the two countries' cooperation.

"Aviation is an important area of cooperation by both governments, with Ethiopia's national air carrier Ethiopian Airlines becoming a connecting force between African and China," says Shide.

Ethiopian Airlines already has five flight destinations to China ,they are Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

"We plan to make Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa a strategic aviation hub between China and Africa," says Shide, adding that with China working on being an airplane manufacturing center, he expects Ethiopia to be a customer of fully developed Chinese airplanes in the future.

Ethiopia's aim to be an African aviation hub connecting the continent to the world's most populous in the world is also where Ethiopia's aviation dreams intersect with China's capital and expertise.

Expansion work on Ethiopia's largest airport the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, funded by a $345 million loan from China's Exim bank is being undertaken by China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC).

The project, lying on 74,000 square meters of land, plans to increase the airport's annual passenger handling capacity from the current 7 million to 22 million.

However, Shide says Ethiopia expects Chinese cooperation in Ethiopia's aviation sector to only grow with plans by Ethiopia to build a mega airport outside of Addis Ababa to meet its aviation ambitions.

"The planned mega airport which is expected to cost $3 billion will be able to service up to 100 million passengers annually," Hailu Lemu Chief Engineer of Ethiopian Airports Enterprise (EAE) told Xinhua early this month.
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba  With China's help, Cuba hopes to produce more solar panels, as part of a larger government effort to promote renewable energy sources and bring electricity to remote areas.

Chinese raw materials are guaranteeing production at Cuba's only photovoltaic panel manufacturing plant, the Ernesto Che Guevara Electronic Components, in the western province of Pinar del Rio, 160 kilometers west of Havana.

"We buy raw materials from China that are the same quality as those from the United States or Europe," the plant's director, Ivan Gonzalez, told Xinhua.

Gonzalez, 50, studied electrical engineering in the town of Lvov, in what was then the Soviet Union. Since graduating in 1990, he has worked at the plant.

After 27 years in the field, few people know the plant's ins and outs quite like Gonzalez, who jokes that he began at an entry level job "tightening screws" and gradually worked his way up the ladder to where he is today, supervising some 500 employees.

The plant was inaugurated in September 1987 to develop the island's microelectronics, but the dissolution of the Soviet Union soon after practically brought operations to a standstill.

In 2001, the facility was readapted to make five-watt solar panels instead of semiconductors, and now makes some 60,000 solar panels a year with a 15-megawatt capacity.

Cuba aims to generate 24 percent of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2030, but the plant's annual output is currently too limited to help meet that goal.

"We are looking for technological variants to increase capacity," said Gonzalez, adding that Cuba plans to invest $10 million over the next three years to boost production.

According to a 2012 census, some 20,000 homes in Cuba have no access to electricity. The results of the survey led officials to devise a program to outfit those homes with solar panels.

The plant in Pinar del Rio is in charge of making the roof-mounted panels, and with production at 75 percent, they are expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2018.

The plant, which can currently make about 200 panels a day, is also set to begin making one-kilowatt panels for the domestic market, and has diversified production to include induction ovens, electronic automotive parts, LED lights, and water treatment and desalination plants.

Cuba's trade ties with China have been instrumental in helping the Caribbean country work towards its renewable energy targets and development goals.
LAS VEGAS, the United States  A US expert highlighted the progressive cooperation between the United States and China in cyber security, as companies strive for better solutions and top hackers started their annual meetings here on Saturday.

US-China co-op highly valued

Susan Shirk, Chair of the 21st Century China Center of University of California, San Diego, noticed that the bilateral cooperation evolved since leaders of the two countries met in April.

"Then we went to the G20 and tried to make it a global norm. So I think this is a great example of how the US and China through frank negotiation can address a very difficult topic to make progress and then to move forward," she told Xinhua.

As enterprises need to strengthen their defense to make their own systems secure, government efforts are equally important to address the issue, said Shirk.

"I do think it's the governments' responsibility to try to work at the government to government level. We'd like to see government crack on it," she added in a recent interview.

Tech firms always on alert

While governments remain active, IT producers are on high alert and intensively prepared to counter any attack.

"We have many layers of open security, encryption capability, fault tolerance capability, buffering, and so on. There is a lot of capability that Intel can bring, but there a lot of third parties out there that will bring that to the table," Jon Marshall, Senior Technical Marketing Engineer of Intel, told Xinhua.

Keith Shank, director of Advanced Technology Labs of Ericsson, also took a hardened stance.

"Ericsson is working to make extreme robust networks that can tell what's been hacked. Not necessarily stopping, because that's really hard to do. However, you (can) know what's been impacted, so you can avoid it," Shank said.

Thorsten Held, managing director at White Encryption Code and Data Protection, emphasized the importance of web safety for automobiles.

"If anyone tries to modify the application, our system will set off some kind of alarm, which will recognize there is a modification, which can be classified as an attack and stop the execution," Held said.

On Wednesday, the Cyber Readiness Institute (CRI) was launched as a joint project between the Center for Global Enterprise and the Center for Responsible Enterprise and Trade.

The non-profit organization will bring together senior leaders of global companies to discuss best practices for managing security employees, processes and technology.

Hackers are restless

In the battle field of IT, winner is always closely followed by challengers. Winner can be turned into underdog any minute.

In the city known as the gambling capital of the world, the annual Black Hat Conference opened on Saturday with its training session in the traditional high-stake style, where the bettors are cloak and dagger and the outsiders including the media are hard to get a chance to peek into the risks they take.

The conference was initiated in 1997 to involve system and network administrators, hackers and computer security experts, as a pal event of DEF CON, whose annual meeting will start on July 27 when the Black Hat is concluded.

DEF CON was created in 1993 as one of the world's largest hacker conventions, held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada.

During the Black Hat Conference, researchers will release an open-source SS7 firewall that aims to bolster security of mobile operators' core networks.

SS7 vulnerabilities, which can allow cyber criminals to hijack two-factor authentication codes texted to mobile phones, read and re-direct text messages, eavesdrop on phone calls, and track a phone's location, have existed since 2014.
A man rides a Mobike earlier this month in Manchester, UK. The company placed 1,000 bikes in the city in June. Rival Chinese company Ofo is making a similar effort in Cambridge. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Within a few weeks of the launch of Chinese bike-sharing company Mobike in Manchester, United Kingdom, local resident James McConnell had already used the bikes more than a dozen times.

"They are easy to use, great for short distances, and I've never been unable to find a bike when I needed one," said McConnell, 33, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Manchester, who often cycles from the university to other parts of the city.

Mobike's launch of 1,000 bikes in Manchester last month is one example of how China's burgeoning sharing economy is spreading to the UK. Rival bike-sharing company Ofo is making a similar effort in Cambridge.

Bike sharing in the UK is not new. In London, Santander Cycles is widely used. But Mobike and Ofo are challenging the status quo by not requiring consumers to return the bikes to fixed docking stations and by cutting the price.

This small detail is hailed by British scholars as an innovation within the theory of the sharing economy.

"This holds a very high potential to foster characteristics that research has identified as crucial for successful sharing schemes: flexible, individual and on-demand mobility," said Antje Graul, a doctoral researcher in marketing at Leeds University Business School.

Graul added that Mobike and Ofo's use of tracking data, locking mechanisms, secure and easy mobile payment, and competitive pricing strategies are other winning advantages.

Diane Coyle, a professor of economics at the University of Manchester, said Mobike was smart to spot a gap in the market and target Manchester, a city that had no bike-sharing program. She said what will determine success will be whether it can reach critical mass quickly enough.

Mareike Moehlmann, assistant professor of information systems and management at Warwick Business School, added that Mobike's current low charge of 50 pence (65 US cents) for 30 minutes is not an impediment to future profitability, because once scale is achieved it can raise prices.

"It might not cover all their expenses and they may run at a loss, but once network effects take hold and they have built a big consumer base, they can then increase prices," Moehlmann said. "It is an investment for the future."

Looking beyond bike-sharing program, Coyle said there could be room for other ideas from the Chinese sharing economy that could succeed in the UK, especially costly items that are not used all the time. Items that fit those characteristics include cars, lodging and parking in driveways.

Lower-cost items tried in China, such as umbrellas or laundry services, are far less likely to succeed, Coyle said.
SINGAPORE  Grab, the leading on-demand transportation and mobile payments platform in Southeast Asia, announced on Monday that China's Didi Chuxing and Japan's SoftBank Group Corp will invest up to $2 billion to lead Grab's current financing round.

Grab anticipates that it will raise an additional $500 million, bringing the total to $2.5 billion in this round from existing and new investors.

This is the largest single financing in the history of Southeast Asia, Grab said in its press release.

According to Grab, DiDi and SoftBank will continue to support Grab's vision of helping consumers in Southeast Asia access safe transportation and financial products whilst creating employment opportunities.

Grab said it is by far the most dominant on-demand transportation platform in the region with a market share of 95 percent in third-party taxi-hailing and 71 percent in private vehicle hailing.

The company said it will continue to strengthen its already-leading market position and invest in GrabPay, its proprietary mobile payments solution.

Anthony Tan, Grab's Group CEO and co-founder, said with the support of Didi and SoftBank, Grab will achieve an unassailable market lead in ridesharing, and build on this to make GrabPay the payment solution of choice for Southeast Asia.

Tan's counterpart in Didi, Cheng Wei, said by deepening strategic partnership, DiDi and Grab reaffirm their shared commitment to innovating localized solutions to global urban development challenges from the world's fastest growing marketplaces.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank, said Grab is believed to be a tremendously exciting company in a dynamic and promising region, and SoftBank is excited to deepen this partnership and looking forward to continuing to support Grab's journey.
An employee counts yuan banknotes at a bank in Huaibei, Anhui province, June 22, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]

China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs) will play an exemplary role in controlling debts and reducing financial leverage, according to a report by Economic Information Daily on Monday.

To date, 12 centrally administered SOEs have entered into debt-to-equity swaps framework agreements in a bid to deleverage, the newspaper reported.

Debt-to-equity swap deals are an important tool for SOEs' deleveraging. With the progress of such deals, enterprises will be in a better position to reduce non-performing assets and reduce debts burdens, the report said.

In the recent National Financial Work Conference, the central government required that SOEs give priority to deleveraging and speed up the phase-out of debt-laden "zombie enterprises".

China's non-financial SOEs have a high rate of leverage. Data from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that the leverage ratios of financial institutions and non-financial institutions were 21 percent and 156 percent respectively as the end of 2015, the Economic Information Daily reported.

It meanwhile quoted unnamed separate data as saying that debts from SOEs accounted for 70 percent of the total of non-financial enterprises.

"The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration has attached great importance to risk prevention of central SOEs," said Shen Ying, chief account of SASAC, the State-owned assets regulator, at a recent news conference.

The SASAC has done a lot of work in deleveraging this year, Shen said.

It encourages enterprises to improve capital structure by raising funds from the capital market via IPOs or share placement, she added.

Meanwhile, it supports enterprises to conduct asset securitization and pushes them to activate the existing funds to reduce reliance on debts.

Shen believed that the financial structure of central SOEs will improve and their risk mitigation capability will increase as the enterprises implement various reform measures.

At present, central SOEs such as China Baowu Steel Group Corporation and China First Heavy Industries have made positive results in conversion of debts into equities, the report said.

In March, State-owned China Construction Bank signed a 20 billion yuan ($2.96 billion) framework agreement with coal producers Lu'an Group and Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group and the Shanxi Provincial SASAC in a bid to reduce leverage and promote the supply-side structural reform in the coal sector.

The first phase of funding valued at 1.8 billion yuan from a debt-to equity swap deal between Anhui Provincial SASAC, CCB and Anhui-based Huaibei Mining Group was delivered last month, while central China's Henan Energy and Chemcial Industry Group has recently received 5 billion yuan first-phase funding from its debt-to equity deal.

China's banking regulator has recently approved the establishment of CCB Financial Asset Investment Co Ltd, the first market-oriented debt-to-equity swap company, with a registered capital of 12 billion yuan.
A man inspects a property model display in Rizhao, Shandong province, on Jun 14, 2014 . [Photo provided to China Daily]

Leadership: Property market will be stabilized, coordination strengthened

China will strengthen the coordination of financial regulation, stabilize the property market and prevent systemic financial risks, according to a statement issued after a top leadership meeting on Monday.

"Financial disorder will be tackled thoroughly, financial coordination will be strengthened, and the efficiency and level of financial sectors supporting the real economy will be improved," said the statement released after a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee.

"The property market will be stabilized, the continuity and stability of policies will be maintained, and the establishment of the long-term mechanism (in managing the property market) will be accelerated," the statement said. "(China) will hold fast to the bottom line that no systemic financial risks should occur," the meeting said, according to Xinhua News Agency.

"Policymakers have reiterated such stances recently. It shows that they will take more coordinated steps to fend off potential financial risks," said Gao Haihong, an economist of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, citing the establishment of a committee under the State Council, China's Cabinet, to oversee financial stability and development, a decision made at the National Financial Work Conference, which ended on July 15.

"Financial regulations used to be fragmented and often failed to catch up with financial market development. The Political Bureau meeting has urged it be strengthened, and I think it will become more coordinated and efficient," Gao said.

The real estate market is also a crucial factor that has an important bearing on the financial market and therefore should be dealt with properly, analysts said.

"Slumping property prices could trigger financial crisis, as Japan's experiences, the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and the global financial crisis that began 10 years ago have all proved," said Dai Yiyi, an economist at Xiamen University. As China's property prices in some major cities have been hovering at high levels, policymakers must be careful in addressing the market so that prices won't continue to rise, nor will they slump, he said. "That's why the Political Bureau meeting urged to 'stabilize' the property market."

So far, China has managed to keep the financial market largely stable, analysts said. "While it has strengthened overall financial regulation, signaled by the establishment of the financial stability committee under the State Council, China has, in particular, effectively controlled capital outflow and the yuan's exchange rate has stabilized," said Gao of CASS.

"While fully affirming economic performance, we must at the same time clearly recognize the many problems and contradictions in the economy," the meeting statement said.

China will "actively resolve the pileup of local government debt risks, and effectively regulate local governments' debt financing", said the statement.

China will also "make unremitting efforts to push forward supply-side structural reform, properly resolve major potential risks, and promote sustainable and healthy economic and social development", the statement said.
Paying for knowledge has become a focus for venture capital, as the number of consumers and products of knowledge sharing has increased rapidly in 2016.

A list of top 10 new knowledge economy investment institutions in China was released on May 6.

Return on investment is not the only standard to judge these institutions. Future trends and the "value" of the project they have invested in help these investment institutions more.

Now let's take a look at the top 10 new knowledge economy investment institutions in China.

No 10 Bertelsmann Asia Investments (BAI)
Chinese automaker Geely will inject cash and one SUV product for the 49.9 percent stake it has agreed to acquire in loss-making carmaker Proton to gain access to the booming Southeast Asian market. [Photo/Xinhua]

To further boost China's economy, the authorities are nurturing the domestic auto industry's expansion in international markets with supportive measures to enhance their competitive edge, according to industry insiders.

There has been a recent series of investment deals involving Chinese and overseas automotive companies, including three mergers and acquisitions involving Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and Key Safety System's takeover of Japan's Takata.

Industrial data show that the overall value of such deals exceeded $5 billion in the first half of this year.

Senior consultants at global firms share the opinion that the government is backing the country's automakers' bid to "go global", with action taken to speed up development in the world's largest car market.

"The country is giving support rather than creating constraining factors in order to nurture the industry. It is among the prioritized sectors that help boost the entire economy," Shu Chang, a partner of German firm Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, said.

"A couple of years ago, for every 1 yuan (15 cents) in value the local automobile industry generated, the country saw 8 yuan added to its GDP. Also, the industry is creating a large amount of job opportunities along the value chain, both within the carmakers and their suppliers," Shu said.

Deloitte Consulting (Shanghai)'s automotive industry partner Marco Hecker said that the government is helping local carmakers to accelerate their growth rates, for example by uniting authorities' departments in order to make decisions more quickly.

Wang Xia, chairman of the automotive committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said in June: "Chinese carmakers should focus on their fields of expertise and continue to integrate the best resources from all over the world."

Looking to the future

Today, Chinese automakers' international footprints tend to reflect proactive action, with their eyes firmly focused on their next steps, instead of simply acquiring technologies.

Key Safety System's takeover of scandal-stricken airbag maker Takata is viewed across the industry not only as a step toward upgrading production, but also a bid to break into the Japanese-dominated air bag sector.

Similarly, Zhejiang Geely Holding is ready to make a name for itself in the Southeast Asian market through buying into Proton and Lotus.

Zhejiang Geely's 100 percent acquisition of Terrafugia, a flying-car startup based in the United States, is a bet on the profitable future of the currently fictional business.

Shu at Roland Berger said Chinese automakers are preparing for the future, aiming to get ahead of the competition through M&A activity overseas, for example expanding into the new energy vehicle and autonomous driving fields. He said: "It's a more reasonable strategy to buy into the Silicon Valley companies that are working on new energy and autonomous driving vehicles. Electric cars and automated vehicles will be the mainstream within the coming five years.

"In this way, Chinese carmakers will lay solid foundations for next generation vehicles. They could take a leading position in the world, as the nation has come to expect."

Michael Hawes, chief execuctive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders in the United Kingdom, echoed Shu's comments, saying the market is shifting swiftly toward autonomous vehicles and new energy vehicles, especially in China.

He added that Chinese carmakers need to overcome barriers to entry before establishing a presence in a market, giving MG as an example.

SAIC Motors now owns the British brand MG, so it has gained instant access to the European market after the deal, Hawes said. Now, MG badges are attached to the vehicles to be exported to many European countries, according to Hawes.

Thanks to MG's local expertise, SAIC understands that the market prefers hatchbacks, not the Chinese favorite sedan models, he added.

However, Chinese companies still have to be very careful in their overseas M&A activity, especially regarding intellectual property aspects, and need to make it clear for both sides what will be shared, or not shared, according to Hawes.
Colin Angle, chairman, CEO and founder of iRobot.

iRobot, a US-based manufacturer of consumer robots, is planning to make China the largest market for its autonomous home vacuum cleaners by 2022 as the country's vast middle class chases quality products that can save on time spent on chores.

iRobot, led by Colin Angle, its chairman, CEO and founder, has already sold more than 15 million home robots worldwide. A scientist by training, Angle made a six-legged autonomous walking robot called Genghis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of his master's degree course project work.

"China is our fastest growing region and it's the fourth largest region today. China is expected to be the largest market for robot vacuums," Angle said.

Last August, iRobot launched a floor mopper tailor-made for the China market. In the first month, about 1,000 units were sold on online retailer JD.com alone, with several hundred units sold per month afterward.

Angle said the floor mopper is most successful in Asian countries where hard floors are common. Currently, it brings in about 10 percent of iRobot's total revenue globally. About 40 percent of sales in China is contributed by wet floor care products.

"We're excited by our success in building robots focused on a particular geography, so it's certainly something that we think about as we plan our next products," said Angle.

As a company that introduces innovative new features and products, iRobot estimates it will pump in up to $100 million in research and development this year.

"We see the market for vacuuming robots growing very rapidly. We'll continue to invest in building our presence in China. We think there will be opportunities for research and development in China. It's a country that has tremendous talent and infrastructure to support the robot industry," said Angle.

During his latest trip to China, Angle launched iRobot's connected products, marking the company's leap forward into the smart home segment.

"No company can build everything for the home. So it's my vision that there should be an ecosystem of products and an opportunity for companies to work together to create a benefit to the consumer, so the home can do a more complete job of taking care of itself," said Angle, adding that iRobot will search for companies to work with in coming years.

According to him, iRobot's long-term vision is to build an ecosystem of robots and data to enable the smart home. This smart home will be based on a wide range of connected and coordinated robots, sensors and devices that will seamlessly respond to the needs of daily living.

Although its China head office opened in Shanghai in September last year, iRobot started its business in the country as early as late 1990s by working with US toy manufacturer Hasbro in Guangzhou to build robot toys.

Despite iRobot's 27 years of experience in building robots, Angle said the industry is still young, and the consumer robot segment nascent.

"The opportunity to have robots working together is much larger than just vacuuming and mopping robots. There could be other robots and other products in the home that can take advantage (of emerging technologies). The challenge in making the home truly smart is the complexity," said Angle.

According to him, a truly smart home will one day have hundreds of connected devices in it: light bulbs, thermostats, television, radio, heating system, music system, air conditioner, refrigerator, so on. The smart home needs to understand itself and do the right thing automatically.

"So over the next five years, the robot will help the house understand where things are, so that if you walk into a room, the room will do the right thing. The lights will turn on, the heat will turn on, the television might turn on if you typically watch television at that hour in that room," he said.

Angle regards China and the United States the two world leaders in service robots, and he expects that to continue, especially as the Made in China 2025 initiative will help companies in China to succeed.

"The Chinese government is doing a very smart thing and making robotics a priority for the country. The goal of the (Made in China 2025) plan is to increase technology in manufacturing to allow factories to work smarter and more efficiently," Angle said.

"Service robot is a small industry today, but is quickly growing into a more important industry, although it will be many years before it is as large as the manufacturing industry. But it's important, given that China has some very good advantages and good infrastructure in the robot industry, that it focuses on continuing to be an important and major player in service robots," he said.
An employee of iFlytek demonstrates a voice-controlled speaker at an expo in Hefei, Anhui province. [Photo/Xinhua]

In November 2016, US President Barack Obama in Washington "addressed" a conference in Beijing via a video link and highlighted the big leaps made by artificial intelligence or AI. As if to underscore his point, Obama switched to fluent Chinese and joked he wanted to contribute to China's development in his post-retirement years.

Well, turned out, it was not really Obama who made that speech. For the record: the former US president hardly knows Chinese. The video clip was produced by iFlytek Co Ltd using AI, to demonstrate its speech synthesis capability, which can produce human voice.

The audience was wowed by the machine's ability to reproduce Obama's tone, intonations, inflections and pitch in Chinese words.

The video is part of iFlytek's broad efforts to tap into voice computing, which is said to be the next major medium for man-machine interaction.

The company was founded in 1999 by a group of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China. iFlytek is the Chinese counterpart of the US firm Nuance Communications Inc and Siri, the virtual voice assistant developed by Apple Inc.

"We aim to offer key technologies needed for the era of voice interaction," Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek, said. The company is in fierce competition with Baidu Inc for supremacy in the burgeoning sector.

In Blizzard Challenge 2016, a global competition to test speech synthesis, iFlytek secured the crown in computer-based production of human-like voice in Chinese, English and Hindi languages. The score for Chinese synthesis reached 4.5 points, roughly meaning its computerized speech sounds like that of a TV news bulletin anchor.

Last year, the company also prevailed in the Winograd Schema Challenge, a well-recognized global competition to test machine intelligence.

The technology is widely used to enhance peoples' lives. As of April, about 300,000 startups are using the firm's voice computing platform to work on different applications ranging from smart house appliances, robots to conversation-savvy stuffed toys. Last year, there were half that number of firms using that technology, suggesting its adoption rate is increasing rapidly.
NEW YORK  China is "on the right path" towards becoming a leading power in global scientific and technological innovations, a renowned US scholar on technology and innovation policy has said.

"China has been doing extremely well in (the Global Innovation Index ranking). China has been going up consistently, in 2012, it was 34," said Soumitra Dutta, the founding dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and co-editor of the Global Innovation Index (GII), in a recent interview via phone with Xinhua.

China sustained its progress in the overall ranking, by securing the 22th spot, which makes it the first ever middle income country in the top 25 ranking, according to the GII 2017 report, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization in June.

"China has been investing for many years on some basic elements, for example, human capital and research and infrastructure...China is doing a lot of right things, China is on a right path," Dutta said.

China has incorporated the 2030 Agenda in China's 13th Five-Year Socio-economic Development Program and set the course of pursuing innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. And it has also launched the campaign of "Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship," which entails a package of measures and policies to encourage creativity and entrepreneurship on an unprecedented scale.

"Overall what I found very impressive is that the government of China has a very clear attitude towards innovation being a national priority," Dutta added. "That's very important for the future competitiveness of China going forward, China can no longer be a low-cost producer. It has to actually be high value creative and to create value you need innovation."

The Indian American professor also called for closer international cooperation in pushing forward global innovation.

"Close cooperation is extremely important for innovation, innovation is a global phenomena, people collaborate across border, cross country, that's how innovation comes," he said.

The GII, which started in 2007, ranks the economies of 127 countries or territories using an innovation performance score out of 100 points, based on the country's institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and finally creative outputs.
China's military has sent a 90-personnel medical team to provide free services to people in Laos, the Defense Ministry said on Friday.

The team's first division departed via train this morning, according to China National Radio. Their mission will last from July 25 to August 8 as part of the "Train of Peace---2017" project.

The team consists of 60 staff from the People's Liberation Army Third Military Medical University and 30 from the Kunming General Hospital in Chengdu province, according to CNR. All members of the team are experienced health workers who have participated in several major relief missions, such as in the wake of earthquakes in Wenchuan and Nepal.

The members have expertise in 20 fields including respiratory, gastroenterology, urology and ophthalmology.

The team will bring tent hospitals and various medical and sanitation equipment to provide free services, from examination to surgery, in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and the Luang Namtha province in northern Laos.

The Chinese medical team will also meet with their counterparts in Laos. After the mission ends, the returning team will stop at Pu Er and Yu Xi in Yunnan province to help locals there.
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Changes spearheaded by Xi showing tangible results, many citizens say

A 10-episode political documentary that began airing last week has gained positive feedback from the public nationwide, with many people expressing confidence toward the Communist Party of China's ongoing efforts to comprehensively deepen reform.

The documentary, Jiang Gaige Jinxing Daodi (Carrying the Reform Through to the End), was aired with one episode each day on the state broadcaster, China Central Television, beginning on July 17. It highlighted President Xi Jinping's important speeches and his new thoughts on the governance of China.

Focusing on the achievements made by the CPC in deepening reforms in the past five years, the documentary's topics include the economy, politics, social management, Chinese culture, environment, military reform and the Party's thorough self-improvement.

The documentary, with about 45 minutes for each episode, will conclude on Wednesday. The latest episode aired on Sunday and focused on military reforms.

It has triggered wide discussion among the public over the effective reform measures put forward in the past five years.

Jin Yanlei, a geography teacher at Dongying No 1 Middle School in Shandong province, said the political documentary presented an "epiclike" story of China's reform, which has improved the people's lives from many aspects.

Noting that he had a second son early this year after the government adopted the universal second-child policy last year, Jin said he has benefited from the Party's new policies.

"I am glad to see that in the past several years, commodity prices are stable and, at the same time, my income has been rising gradually," he said.

Statistics from the government show the consumer price index increased by less than 3 percent annually in the past four consecutive years, and more than 13 million people found new jobs each year.

"I believe that under the leadership of the CPC with Comrade Xi as the core, we will see more measures to be taken to improve our livelihood after the 19th National Congress of the CPC," he added. The Party is going to hold its 19th National Congress later this year, which will lay the foundation for the country's development in the next five years.

Jing Linjun, a communications major at Shanxi University, said she is confident she will get a job after graduation next year.

"It's amazing that the government has managed to get rid of overcapacity and at the same time stabilized the employment in recent years," she said.

Comprehensively deepening reforms has been one of the most important tasks for the Party and the government since the CPC elected its new leadership, headed by Xi, in November 2012.

The president has taken the lead in proactively pushing the reform. In late 2013, the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform was established, with Xi as the group's head.

In the group's latest meeting on Wednesday, Xi called for solid moves to advance reforms.

The president urged local governments to be devoted to delivering reforms, shouldering their due responsibilities and making concrete and pioneering efforts.

While presiding over the 33rd meeting of the Central Leading Group in March, Xi told officials to pay more attention to reform tasks that could enhance the people's sense of gain.

Liu Zhencheng, a tea company manager in Rizhao, Shandong province, said that thanks to the new rules put forward by the local government last year, he managed to sign contracts with dozens of farmers to rent their farmland to plant tea trees.

"In the past, the farmers were reluctant to rent their farmland because they were afraid of being deprived of their usage rights, but after the government issued them paper certificates last year to protect their usage rights, they are prone to renting now," he said.

In August 2016, the Central Leading Group issued a guideline encouraging the farmers to rent their land to people with a larger scale of production. The farmers' land usage rights were to be protected by the government certificates. Such measures could increase the farmers' incomes and improve the efficiency of the land simultaneously.

Statistics from the government show that more than 70 million farmers nationwide have rented their land, accounting for 30 percent of the country's total farmers and 35 percent of the farmland.

Zhu Lijia, a professor of public administration at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said comprehensively deepening reform will be an arduous task for the Party and government in the coming years as China faces challenges both domestically and globally.

Domestically, China's traditional engine for economic growth is losing power, while the new engine is yet to take shape; internationally, the trade protectionism and instability of regional situations may pose threats to the development of China, he said.

With the Party's ongoing efforts to deepen reform, China will be able to resolve these challenges and overcome difficulties to usher in a new round of economic improvements, he added.
Friends and family gather for a post-wedding banquet in Kangxian county, Gansu province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In an isolated pocket of Northwest China, women have traditionally been dominant, with husbands assuming their wife's surname and living with their parents-in-law, as Wang Xiaodong reports from Kangxian county, Gansu province.

In most regions of China, women leave home to get married and then follow their husbands. However, in many parts of Kangxian county in the northwestern province of Gansu, the reverse is true: traditionally, the groom moves in with his parents-in-law and his children take his wife's family name.

"Although this tradition mostly prevails in the southern parts of Kangxian, it also exists in a few other places nearby, such as Lueyang in neighboring Shaanxi province," said Li Wenkang, chairman of the Kangxian Federation of Literary and Art Circles.

Unlike most regions of China, where men traditionally play the main role in the family, women are usually dominant in Kangxian, and they, rather than their husbands, are registered as the head of the family on household registration forms, according to Li, who researches local customs.

Status update

"The tradition has some advantages, such as helping to improve the social status of women. With the development of society and the growing integration of these places with other parts of China, some members of the younger generation are abandoning the tradition, but it is still well preserved in these areas. Last year, I attended two weddings, and at the banquets I heard family members, both male and female, discussing the grooms' new names so they will follow their wife's families."

In 1993, Liang Yan, 47, from Ningqiang county, Shaanxi, married Xu Guilan in Yangba, a township in Kangxian.

Liang, who has three brothers, said his family was poor, so he came to Yangba to work as a brick carrier on construction sites.

"My parents didn't object when I told them I was getting married in Yangba and would live with my wife," he said. "They were actually pleased because they knew I would have a better life there. On my wedding day, I took a bus from Ningqiang to Yangba, accompanied by dozens of my relatives, including my father and my brothers."

After he married, Liang moved in with Xu and her parents. They both looked after the older couple, while Liang also grew tea and repaired houses.

Following a brain hemorrhage in 2009, his mother-in-law could barely move or take care of herself. She died in 2012, but during the last three years of her life, Liang spent a lot of time taking care of her and helping her to move around the township.

Almost every year, he returns to his home village to see his parents, who are in their 80s and live with one of his brothers. However, he always spends Chinese New Year, traditionally the most important festival for family gatherings, at his home in Yangba.
More than half of the births in China during the first five months of the year involved a second child - or even additional ones - more than a year after the universal second-child policy was introduced in January 2016, according to China's top health authority.

The number of births at Chinese hospitals between January and May was 7.4 million, an increase of 7.8 percent over the same period last year, Wang Peian, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said at an annual meeting of the China Population Association held in Kunming, Yunnan province, last week.

Of all births in the first five months, 57.7 percent were at least the second child of their parents, an increase of 8.5 percentage points over the same period last year, he said.

The total number of births at hospitals in China last year was about 18.5 million, the highest level since 2000, according to the commission. More than 99 percent of births in China take place in hospitals.

The universal second-child policy has produced good results, and the number of babies born has been increasing significantly despite a drop in the number of women of fertile age, Wang said.

Over the past year, health authorities have been improving measures to support the policy and establish a social environment that encourages childbirth, he said.

With an increasing number of pregnancies, China faces some health challenges in the next few years - for example, a significant number of the mothers are over 35 - according to health officials and doctors. The number of pregnant women over age 35 is expected to remain at about 3 million through 2020.

"Surveys show that many couples from the generation born in the 1970s who were hesitant about having a second child during the initial period when the universal second-child policy was adopted are now hurrying to give birth to a second child so they won't miss that last chance," Ma Xiaowei, another vice-minister of the commission, said last week.

In Guilin, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, more than 28 percent of women who gave birth last year were at higher risk in pregnancy and childbirth, according to a report in Guilin Evening News on Friday. One factor was age.

At Guilin Women and Children's Hospital, doctors saved 140 pregnant women in critical condition in the first half of the year. The oldest pregnant woman treated so far this year was 56, the report said.

China introduced its family planning policy in the late 1970s to check its soaring population by limiting most urban couples to one child. Couples in rural areas could have a second child if the first one was a girl, and in some ethnic regions couples in rural areas could have more than two children.

A major policy change at the end of 2013 allowed couples nationwide to have a second child if either parent was an only child. That limitation was erased last year.
Twelve underwater gliders developed in China are carrying out scientific observations in the South China Sea and sending back real-time data, according to a briefing aboard the research vessel Kexue on Saturday.

It is the largest group of gliders to perform simultaneous observations in the region.

The Kexue left Qingdao, Shandong province, on July 10 for a maritime scientific expedition. After completing the first part of the mission, it stopped on Friday in Xiamen, Fujian province, to resupply.

"The gliders have collected detailed maritime information, including temperature, salinity, turbidity and oxygen levels, as well as the intensity and direction of currents," said Yu Jiancheng, a scientist in the program.

The 12 submersibles will collect comprehensive ocean data over the next month, said Sun Song, another scientist in the program.

Underwater gliders are a new type of robot featuring higher efficiency and better endurance. During the first stage of the mission, scientists successfully placed three submersible buoys and conducted several dives.

The Kexue will leave Xiamen on Sunday for the mission's second stage. It is China's most advanced, independently made marine science vessel. It was put into operation in April 2014. The 4,711-metric-ton vessel is capable of conducting deep-water and open sea exploration and research.

Xinhua
Mariia Kilian watches a Russian cerebral palsy patient exercise at the Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation Center in Harbin, capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.[Li Yang/For China Daily]

Mother of boy with cerebral palsy helps introduce effective treatment to others in similar situations across the border

On Mariia Kilian's desk is an enormous stack of notebooks labeled with the names of dozens of Russian children with cerebral palsy.

She records the condition and treatment information about each of the children in the corresponding notebook and organizes them so they are easy to refer to.

Kilian, 48, has been a volunteer at the China Disabled Persons Federation's Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation Center in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, since arriving from Nakhodka, Russia, in 2010.

"Since 2009, our effective treatment methods have attracted nearly 500 new patients from Russia," said Liu Lu, the director of the center.

Mariia's 12-year-old son, Zakhar, is one of them.

He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was 2 years old, and in the following three years, he was given treatment at hospitals in Moscow, which cost his family about $700,000. However, the treatment had almost no effect.

"At that time, I tried my best to find information about effective treatments," Kilian said.

"It gave me great hope when I found out online about the Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation Center, so I decided to bring my son to Harbin."

They arrived in the northeastern city in April 2010, and Zakhar's brain function began to improve after just a few months of treatment.

Kilian was able to relax more and began paying attention to other Russian families at the center.

Since she can speak some Mandarin, she began to help her fellow Russians communicate with the doctors in her spare time.

"As a mother whose child has the disease, I can empathize with parents who are in the same situation," Kilian said. "So I hope I can do something to help them."

When a doctor at the center told Kilian that her son required long-term rehabilitation over a matter of years, she made a decision.

"My son likes Harbin very much and he has made several friends at the center, so I decided to stay in Harbin instead of regularly traveling between the two countries," Kilian said.

She rented an apartment near the center and employed an overseas student from Russia to help her look after Zakhar.

"I know there are lots of children with cerebral palsy in Russia and I hope I can introduce information to their parents about the effective treatment at the center," she said.

By coincidence, Liu had the same idea.

"We constructed a website in Russian, on which people can find detailed information about the center," Liu said.
In some parts of China, it is traditional for bridegrooms to leave their homes and live with their wife's family.

In Xilin county, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on the day of their wedding, parents almost always send their sons to live with their wife's family.

The bride's family hosts a wedding ceremony, bears all the expense and, unlike other parts of the country, does not demand a dowry.

In such families, sons-in-law enjoy the same status as their wives and other residents native to the village.

In many rural areas, traditional wedding ceremonies require the bride and groom to undertake a number of odd rituals to conclude a wedding.

For example, on the day of the ceremony the door of the groom's home is blocked with bamboo sticks by his relatives and friends.

The bride's family and the matchmaker, who arrive to invite the groom to the bride's home, have to try to break the blockade, enter the room and find the groom. In some areas, brides may have to drink up to three bowls of wine or sing traditional songs.

Before the groom arrives at his bride's home, he is subject to tests, such as carrying two buckets of water on a pole until he arrives at the door. The bride will be pleased if her groom spills very little water because it indicates strength.

When the ritual is complete, the bride carries the groom across the threshold to her bedroom.

In recent years, wedding ceremonies have become simpler, and grooms are allowed to wear Western-style suits instead of traditional costumes during the ceremony.

A similar tradition prevails in the Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture in the southwestern province of Yunnan, an area with a high proportion of people from the Dai ethnic group.

According to local tradition, before the wedding, the groom has to undertake unpaid work for his fiancee's family - such as logging or collecting resin from rubber trees - for a period of time. During this time, which may last as long as three years, he will eat with his fiance's family, but is only allowed to sleep in the living room.

Before marriage, the groom's family has to prepare a dowry, such as silverware, and banana and rubber trees.

After marriage, the husband must live with his wife's family for three years, and then bring his wife to live with his own family for three years. Following that, they return to the wife's family for a further three years.

The process continues until they eventually have their own home.
Xie Zhijun, a resident of Songgou village, Kangxian, Gansu province

I was born in Guangyuan, Sichuan province, and came to Kangxian in 1980, at age 21, to work as a carpenter.

My family was very poor then. My father died when I was a baby, so my mother raised me and my four brothers. At the time, the scarcity of farmland meant many residents of mountain villages in Guangyuan cut down trees to provide farmland so they could grow more crops.

I arrived in Songgou village on foot. I walked through the mountains for a whole day, covering more than 100 kilometers, and arrived at night.

I worked in the village for about three years and married a local woman. I followed the local tradition and lived with my wife's parents.

When I was in Guangyuan, I had never heard of the tradition that a man lives with his wife's family, but after I had been in Songgou for three years, I grew accustomed to it, especially after seeing many other men settle down.

My mother did not oppose my decision to marry in Songgou. In fact, she actively supported me, understanding that I could have more farmland and a better life than in my hometown.

I undertook different types of work, including farming, growing vegetables and repairing roads, while my wife spent most of her time looking after our two children.

I look after my wife's parents as if they are my own parents, and they are very kind. I return to my hometown to see my mother, who is more than 80 years old, about once a year.

We used to live high in the mountains with my wife's parents, but in 2005, the local government encouraged us to move down to a new house near a new road.

Now, I also grow tea and can make about 6,000 yuan ($890) a year, which is much better than before.

My son is 32. He married in nearby Yangba township in 2009 and followed the local tradition. He now works in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, and my daughter-in-law looks after their son, who attends a primary school in the town.

My daughter's husband is a migrant worker in Yichang, Hubei province. He and my daughter have bought a house in the city.

In the past, at least one child would stay in the village so they could care for their aging parents. I don't mind that my children aren't here - I'm happy that they are much better off than I was when I was young.

Xie Zhijun spoke with Wang Xiaodong.
The heat wave has raged on in eastern China over the past two weeks, with Shanghai sweltering under a record high, while the southern coastal regions have been lashed by typhoon-driven rains and gales, the Central Meteorological Center said on Sunday.

Shanghai continued to issue an orange alert, the second highest of four levels, amid the persistent heat wave on Sunday morning. It was the 12th consecutive day of the alert, which could again reach the red level, the Shanghai Municipal Meteorological Center said.

On Friday, Shanghai, China's most populous city, wilted in heat reaching a 145-year record of 40.9 C, the weather center said. It had issued this year's first red alert on Friday.

"New record highs have been set in many other cities, too, like Changshu and Changzhou in Jiangsu province, where temperatures stood at 40 to 41 C on Saturday," Central Meteorological Center chief forecaster Chen Shuang said on Sunday.

Records are expected to be broken again on Monday and Tuesday, when temperatures in Shanghai and neighboring provinces are forecast to reach 41 C.

Lingering subtropical high and hot winds are to blame, Chen said, and Shanghai and vast eastern regions will continue to swelter till the end of the month, when the subtropical belt is forecast to weaken and the weather to shift.

The Central Meteorological Center has issued heat wave alerts for 17 consecutive days, and on Saturday an area of up to 1.84 million square kilometers saw temperatures higher than 35 C.

Many Shanghai residents have traveled to northern, cooler climes for relief.

Short-term bookings at Spring Airlines, headquartered in Shanghai, were 10 percent higher last week than the week before. Passengers headed mainly to southwestern cities like Kunming, Yunnan province, or to northeastern cities.

"The travel peak is always in summer, but Shanghai's lingering heat has motivated more passengers to go away," said airline spokesman Zhang Wu'an on Sunday.

Authorities in eastern areas have suggested that residents, especially children, the elderly and the infirm, avoid staying outdoors for prolonged periods. They suggested workers should receive heat subsidies.

By contrast, the southern coastal provinces of Guangdong and Hainan have been hit by typhoon-driven rains, gales and floods.

One typhoon made landfall on Sunday morning, and the influence will last through Tuesday, Zhang Ling, chief forecaster of the China Meteorological Administration, said on Sunday.

Since Friday morning, four typhoons formed within 34 hours in China's southern seas, indicating the start of the active period of typhoon this year, she said, adding that the southern regions need to prepare for the typhoons in the coming months.

Cang Wei in Nanjing contributed to this story
China is offering research grants of up to 500,000 yuan ($74,000) to attract world-class talent to the agricultural industry, as the nation looks to gain an edge in an increasingly competitive sector.

The money will support top-level experts and young elites from home and abroad to boost development and innovation, according to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which will handle the payouts.

Some 5 million yuan a year will also be allocated to promote academic exchanges among postdoctoral researchers, provide health checks for industry experts and create awards for those who make outstanding contributions.

The academy said the move aims to attract more talent and nurture potential, with the goal of having about 4,750 researchers aged under age 45 in the agricultural sector by 2030.

China faces growing competition for talent in agricultural industries, and the current situation cannot meet the demand for the nation's future development goals, said Tang Huajun, president of the CAAS.

"We need to have a deep understanding of the importance of talent and take concrete measures to improve the situation," he said.

The new grants come as the CAAS celebrates its 60th anniversary. In a congratulatory letter, President Xi Jinping urged the academy to step up innovation and strive for a leading position in science and technology.

In addition to financial support, the academy has said it is exploring opportunities for more exchanges with overseas counterparts in developed countries and regions, including Australia, North America and Europe.

Over the past two years, the CAAS has invested about 280 million yuan in helping top young scientists purchase equipment and carry out R&D.
A group of information officers and reporters from Latin America visited Qingdao, Shandong province, on Saturday, to explore the coastal city's rapid economic and cultural development.

Sixty-six media representatives from 11 Spanish-speaking countries, including Bolivia, Columbia, Panama and Uruguay, are attending a five-day tour of Shandong, the birthplace of philosopher Confucius.

Qingdao was the second stop of the tour after the provincial capital, Jinan.

Members of the group said they were impressed by the large passive house  a construction built to strict voluntary energy efficiency standards  at the Sino-German Ecopark in the city's West Coast New Area.

The park, the only strategic cooperation park in China supported by the Chinese and German governments, aims to build the largest passive housing complex in China over the next five years, covering an area of 1.6 square kilometers.

Cristobal Antonio Chen Solis, from Panama, said, "Cooperation between two large world economies has achieved remarkable results, and set a good example for environmental protection and energy-saving technology."

He added that he hopes to bring the environmentally friendly concept back to his country and promote the building of a similar ecopark.

Panama, which established diplomatic relations with China last month, has 23 delegates on the tour  the largest number among the 11 countries.

Solis said he was impressed by China's rapid development and its strong innovation capabilities.

The media group also visited Qingdao Port and several cultural sites during a three-day tour of the city.

Alfredo Vaneskahian Keuchkerian, a broadcast journalist from Uruguay, said he feels that China's fast-paced development has made the country a global leader.

He said he was impressed by Qingdao's infrastructure and port facilities.

"The strong economic development and manpower will be two main highlights of my news report when I return," he added.
Liu Mei (left), chairman of the Guangzhou Women's Federation, opens a summer camp for "left-behind" children in Guangzhou on July 24, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A four-day summer camp for "left-behind" children - youngsters whose parents have moved away to work - opened in Guangzhou on Monday.

More than 80 children from areas such as Qiannan prefecture and Bijie in Guizhou province as well as Conghua and Zengcheng districts in Guangzhou, and Meizhou in Guangdong province are attending the camp.

Liu Mei, chairman of the Guangzhou Women's Federation, said the camp is aimed at helping enrich the lives of the children and allowing them to reunite with their parents, who all work in Guangzhou.

"We also hope to raise awareness about the needs of left-behind children," Liu said.

In addition to meeting with their parents in Guangzhou, the left-behind children will take part in group games and activities to develop their skills. They will also cruise along the Pearl River, visit the Guangdong Science Center, museums, libraries and parks, as well as watch movies to educate them about Guangzhou's cultural, scientific and technological development.

Two students perform at the opening ceremony.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Huang Mengyuan, a junior high school first-grade student, said she was excited about attending the summer camp.

"Guangzhou is very different compared with my hometown," she said.

Zhou Jiajia, a 16-year-old girl from Guizhou, said she took the high-speed train to Guangzhou, which took just four hours. She added that she was eager to learn more about the provincial capital during the camp.

The senior high school student met her uncle in Guangzhou after the camp's opening ceremony.

"I had not seen my uncle, who works in Guangzhou's Yuexiu district, for about a year," she said.

The camp has enabled Huang and Zhou to visit Guangzhou for the first time and to experience traveling on a high-speed train.
A camera image shows Sun Meiling is dragging the driver out of his burning car. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A young woman is being lauded after saving a man trapped in a car fire at a village in Xiongan New Area, North China's Hebei province.

Sun Meiling, 19, rushed to the scene as soon as she was told a driver was trapped in a burning car at the scene of an accident last week.

"I first shouted to him to run, but he seemed very weak," said Sun, who is from neighboring Shandong province and moved to Xilijiaying village in Rongcheng county to work.

As the fire grew bigger and bigger, she was left with no choice but to drag the driver out of his seat.

The wreckage of the car. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"He was too heavy for me, and I could only drag him out, but not far from the fire," Sun said. Luckily, a 33-year-old man came to lend a hand as she screamed for help.

Together, they saved the driver from disaster.

The 64-year-old driver, who had fainted due to chronic illness when the car was caught fire, suffered slight burns and is at a hospital.

Contact the writer at: zhangyu1@chinadaily.com.cn
First lady Peng Liyuan greets students at the opening ceremony of the Love in the Sun summer camp in Beijing for youngsters affected by HIV/AIDS. They expressed their appreciation for Peng's longtime support. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

First lady Peng Liyuan got a warm welcome on Sunday from dozens of students attending a summer camp in Beijing for youngsters affected by HIV/AIDS.

Peng, long active in HIV/AIDS prevention and other health matters, was greeted as "Mother Peng" by Yaoyao, 18, a student from Shanxi province, at the Love in the Sun camp's opening ceremony.

The affectionate name also was used by Yaoyao's 14 classmates attending the camp from Linfen Red Ribbon School, the only school in China exclusively for children orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS. She has made several visits to the school.

Yaoyao, on behalf of her schoolmates, expressed gratitude to Peng for her longterm concern and support for children affected by the epidemic.

"We've grown up and will keep trying to become better people no matter what," she said.

At the fiveday camp in Beijing, lectures to help the Linfen students get ready for university life and studies will be held alongside sightseeing and team building activities, said Guo Xiaoping, the school's principal.

At the ceremony, Peng said society as a whole is responsible for supporting children facing difficulties. Many of the students knew Peng well  her efforts in promoting public health, particularly HIV/AIDS intervention, date back at least 10 years.

Also attending the event was Melinda Gates, cofounder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, named for the cofounder of Microsoft and his wife. The event saw the signing of a cooperation agreement between the foundation and the National Health and Family Planning Commission. The foundation pledged a donation of $16.5 million to help China to combat poverty and the AIDS epidemic.

Dozens of other AIDSimpacted children from Sichuan province and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region also are attending the camp. The summer camp is an annual event since 2010 held by the Chinese Association of STD and AIDS Prevention and Control. It aims to raise public awareness and allocate more support for children affected by HIV/AIDS.

Peng was appointed as a WHO goodwill ambassador for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in 2011. In China, she became the health ambassador for HIV/AIDS prevention for the Ministry of Health in January 2006 and the national ambassador for TB control and prevention in March 2007.

shanjuan@chinadaily.com.cn
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, called for more consensus from non-Communist parties to maintain the leadership of the CPC and boost confidence toward the development of socialism.

Xi, also president of China, made the remarks on Friday at a symposium attended by representatives of non-Communist parties, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and those without party affiliation.

Xi told them to unite their parties' members and the people connected with them, view the problems and difficulties of development in an objective manner, and reach more political consensus.

Xi said he hoped the representatives make full use of their own advantages, focus on the country's major strategic plans, do thorough research, and raise valuable proposals.

The representatives should have an accurate understanding of the CPC Central Committee's analysis and judgment of the current economic situation, unite all forces that can be united, make full use of all resources, and make a joint contribution to building a comprehensive well-off society, he said.

The president pointed out that in the first half of this year, the country's main economic index developed better than expectation, with a more stable macroeconomy and improvements in people's livelihoods.

There are also lots of problems in the economy, which require a clear mind and proper measures to handle, Xi said, adding that more efforts should be made to push forward supply-side structural reform and rule out major risks.

During the symposium, Premier Li Keqiang delivered a report on the country's economic work in the first half of this year and introduced the CPC Central Committee's plan for economic work of the second half of the year.

Ten representatives offered their suggestions on issues including building the Belt and Road, preventing local government debt risks, boosting open markets, improving the efficiency of logistics, improving the healthcare system, and pushing forward sustainable development of new energy.

Noting that the representatives' proposals are enlightening, Xi said the suggestions will be taken into consideration in a proactive manner.
A prototype of a mounted monorail train is tested at CRRC Qingdao Sifang.[Provided to China Daily]

Chinese rail car manufacturer CRRC Qingdao Sifang has unveiled a prototype of a mounted monorail train with a maximum operating speed of 70 kilometers per hour, the fastest of its kind in China.

Driven by a high-efficiency magnet motor, the experimental train runs along an overhead monorail.

The mounted monorail train is a rising new mode of transportation featuring light weight, moderate speed and low manufacturing cost.

Liu Yuwen, deputy head of the company's technology center, said the train can comprise three or five cars, with a passenger capacity of 300 to 510 people.

"The train has a strong climbing ability, with a maximum rise of 100 meters over a distance of 1,000 meters," Liu said. "The mounted monorail system is suitable for passenger transport in scenic areas, mountainous regions and urban areas where road traffic is heavy."

The train is built to the strictest European safety standards, with various safety devices, including a whole-train monitoring system that can help passengers escape in the event of danger.

The company, based in Qingda

o, Shandong province, is undertaking China's first overhead monorail project in Hancheng, Shaanxi province. The construction of the line, which is designed to stretch 55 kilometers, began in November.

Wang Mengshu, a railway expert and academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering in Beijing, applauded the breakthrough.

"Mounted monorail does not rely on land facilities, and is even immune from bad weather such as a big snowfall or frost. It should be an important part of China's urban transportation network," Wang said.

Moreover, it costs only about one-third of what a subway costs. Building one kilometer of subway or light rail generally costs 500 to 800 million yuan ($74 million to $118 million).

China plans to complete more than 2,500 kilometers of rail transportation in major cities during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), at an estimated cost of 1 trillion yuan.

"If one-fifth of the investment is put into mounted monorail projects, loads of money will be saved," Wang said.

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Workers hoist an underwater science robot named Tansuo in preparation for its first experimental dive on Monday in the South China Sea. The task is expected to last about 20 hours. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Chinese-developed underwater robot Tansuo conducted its maiden test dive in the South China Sea on Monday.

The robot is 3.5 meters long and 1.5 meters wide and can dive to a depth of 4,500 meters. It will conduct 20 hours of collaborative operations with the unmanned submersible Faxian in the South China Sea.

The Chinese research vessel Kexue left the port of Xiamen, Fujian province, on Sunday to continue its South China Sea scientific expedition.

During the second stage of its mission, the unmanned submersible will carry a domestically developed Raman spectrometer to take physical and chemical measurements, and photograph organisms.

The Kexue left Qingdao, Shandong province, on July 10 for a scientific expedition. It docked in Xiamen to resupply on Friday after completing the first phase of the mission.

In the first stage, 12 Chinese-developed underwater gliders carried out scientific observations in the South China Sea, sending back real-time data. It was the largest group of gliders ever to perform simultaneous observations in the region.

Xinhua
President Xi Jinping, accompanied by Premier Li Keqiang and other leaders, visits the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution in Beijing on Friday to see an exhibition featuring landmark achievements of the People's Liberation Army.

President tours new exhibition, praises military's achievements

Ahead of the upcoming 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, President Xi Jinping has called for unremitting efforts to make the PLA a world-class army.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while visiting an exhibition opened in Beijing on Friday.

The exhibition at the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution features more than 1,000 photos as well as relics and multimedia presentations to show the landmark combat, events and achievements of the PLA.

Also on display are models of the major military equipment in active service as well as China's first atomic bomb and H-bomb, which were detonated in 1964 and 1967, respectively.

While touring the exhibition on Friday, Xi noted that the military has scored many victories in the past 90 years and has made outstanding contributions to national independence, people's liberation, the country's prosperity and public well-being.

The 90 years is a concentration of the PLA's strong ideals and beliefs, great tradition and bravery in combat, and it is a great spiritual treasure, Xi said.

The country should remember the history, hand down the revolutionary gene and constantly bring forward the great course explored by the older generation of revolutionaries at a new starting point, Xi said.

Officials, the public and all the servicemen and women should be encouraged to hold tight their faith in the Chinese socialist path, the theories, the system and the culture, and strive for realizing the dream of rejuvenating the great Chinese nation, he said.

Other Party and State leaders, including Premier Li Keqiang, also toured the exhibition on Friday.

They stopped from time to time and were intrigued by the delicate design and presentation of the historical moments and achievements.

Key moments of the PLA that are presented include the start of the garrisoning of Hong Kong and Macao in 1997 and 1999, respectively, as well as the sailing of the aircraft carrier Liaoning to the South China Sea for training.

Touching moments of the PLA that are shown include soldiers on the forefront of disaster relief after the deadly Wenchuan earthquake in southwestern China's Sichuan province in 2008.

Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said at the opening ceremony on Friday morning that the exhibition offers a comprehensive look at the history of the PLA, whose 90th anniversary falls on August 1.

It also presents the PLA's glorious achievements after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, particularly in the wake of the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, Liu said.
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba - With China's help, Cuba hopes to produce more solar panels as part of efforts to promote renewable energy and bring electricity to remote areas.

Chinese raw materials are guaranteeing production at Cuba's only photovoltaic panel manufacturing plant, the Ernesto Che Guevara Electronic Components, in the western province of Pinar del Rio, 160 kilometers west of Havana.

"We buy raw materials from China that are the same quality as those from the United States or Europe," the plant's director, Ivan Gonzalez, told Xinhua.
Sven Romberg hosts weekly storytelling nights at 4corners bar in Beijing. [Photo by Mark Marino/For China Daily]

Sven Romberg narrated a personal story in public for the first time as a freshman at American University in Washington in 2005.

As part of an assignment on local culture in the US capital, he had visited a popular jazz bar called HR-57 Center for the Preservation of Jazz & Blues and bought a soft drink because he was then underage. He had expected to listen to jazz but a woman there walked onstage and said that the evening would be about storytelling.

"I was so terrified of public speaking," recalls Romberg, now 32. "I almost left, but ended up sticking around."

Romberg didn't tell a story that night but did so the following month at the same venue. He told his audience about his brother who "woke up" during a knee surgery.

Over the past three years, Romberg has been hosting weekly storytelling nights at 4corners, a hole-in-the-wall hutong (alley) bar-and-restaurant in Beijing, which mostly serves Canadian and Southeast Asian food. Every Thursday evening, he goes from table to table asking regulars and newcomers if they have a story to tell.

The venue's resident dog, Bojangles, commonly known as Bo, greets patrons at the door, while a board inside holds up the sign "Storytelling theme: Bully".

"Pow, pow," says Romberg, imitating a feisty young girl he once knew and punches the air in an attempt to teach the invisible bully a lesson.

He usually weaves his anecdotes with action and intonation. The night goes on as others recount and remember their own such storiesa woman who found out from her parents that she had bullied her brother during their childhood and a teacher who witnessed his students' pranks go wrong.
Producer/director Warren Beatty and cast member Annette Bening arrive at the premiere of Rules Don't Apply during the opening night of AFI FEST 2016 in Hollywood, California, US November 10, 2016. [Photo provided to China Daily]

US actress Annette Bening will chair the international jury of the competition at the 74th Venice International Film Festival, organizers announced Wednesday.

On the final night of the festival running from Aug 30 to Sept 9, the jury composed of nine international celebrities will assign the Golden Lion for best film and the top prizes for best director, actress, actor, and screenplay.

"It was time to break with a long list of male presidents and invite a brilliant, talented and inspiring woman to chair our international competition jury," said festival director Alberto Barbera.

He called Bening "a sophisticated and instinctive actress, able to portray complex shadings of character" whose "career is marked by always interesting, often daring choices."

"I look forward to seeing the movies and working with my fellow jury members to celebrate the best of this year's cinema from all over the world," said Bening, a four-time Academy Award nominee and two-time Golden Globe winner.

She was last seen in 20th Century Women directed by Mike Mills, for which she received her eighth Golden Globe nomination, opposite Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig and Billy Crudup.

Upcoming for Bening is Michael Mayer's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull opposite Saoirse Ronan, Paul McGuigan's Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool with Jamie Bell, and Dan Fogelman's drama Life, Itself with Olivia Wilde, Oscar Isaac, Samuel L. Jackson and Antonio Banderas.

Bening received Oscar nominations for her roles in The Grifters, 1991; American Beauty, 1999; Being Julia, 2004; and The Kids Are All Right, 2010.
The 2017 Symposium on China Studies was unveiled in Beijing, July 24, 2017. [Photo provided to Chinaculture.org]

The 2017 Symposium on China Studies was unveiled in Beijing on July 24. The event was organized by the Ministry of Culture of China and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Twenty-six sinologists from across 22 countries attended the forum, along with 19 domestic scholars and sinologists from the Visiting Program for Young Sinologists in Zhengzhou.

The forum, themed on the "Belt and Road Initiative in a global view", includes three panel sessions traditional culture and contemporary China, Chinese solution and global governance, and mutual development and common values  which will run until July 25.

Xie Jinying, director of the Bureau for External Cultural Relations of the Chinese Culture Ministry, attended the opening ceremony of the forum, along with Zhu Qi, deputy-director of the Bureau for External Cultural Relations of the Chinese Culture Ministry, Hu Leming, deputy-director of the International Cooperation Department of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Yu Fan, director of the Center of International Cultural Exchange.

Xie said the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, held in May, provided an opportunity for international cultural exchanges, and added the Belt and Road Initiative gave a boost to the development of the world and sinology.

"The forum is based on the Belt and Road Initiative, and we sincerely hope all invited sinologists can give more constructive suggestions to the application of the initiative," he said.

"The upcoming 19th National Congress of the CPC will enable China to see more chances in transformation and development, as well as an opportunity for sinologists to boast their good ideas about how China could have a better future."

Jacques Gies, former president-director of the Musee Guimet National Museum of Asian Art (Paris), also addressed the opening ceremony.

He extended thanks to forum organizers for holding such a high level platform for sinologists around the world to communicate, and said the theme for the forum was a worthy question to discuss under the circumstances of globalization.

"The communication on this forum will highlight sinologists' understandings of Chinese culture, who come from a variety of cultural backgrounds," Gies said.

"I think the forum is a place which will see an exchange of different ideas and values."

After the forum, the Sinologists will start a theme tour of the Belt and Road Initiative in Qinghai province, which will run from July 26 to 28. The speeches of sinologists at the forum will also be published afterwards.

About Symposium on China Studies and Visiting Program for Young Sinologists

The annual Symposium on China Studies was first held in 2013, and was organized by the Ministry of Culture of China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Center of International Cultural Exchange. It was designed to boost cultural exchanges between Chinese scholars and sinologists from other countries, as well as promote sinology studies.

The visiting program for young sinologists is run by the Culture Ministry of China and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Since 2014, the annual event has aimed to strengthen cultural exchanges and set up a platform for young sinologists worldwide to communicate and learn more about Chinese culture and its history. The program will be held in Zhengzhou, Shanghai, Xi'an and Beijing from July to September. A total of 31 young sinologists from across 28 countries participated in the program in Zhengzhou.
Cuba seeks to boost solar panel output with China's help 2017-07-24 10:39:15 Xinhua With China's help, Cuba hopes to produce more solar panels, as part of a larger government effort to promote renewable energy sources and bring electricity to remote areas.

PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba  With China's help, Cuba hopes to produce more solar panels, as part of a larger government effort to promote renewable energy sources and bring electricity to remote areas.

Chinese raw materials are guaranteeing production at Cuba's only photovoltaic panel manufacturing plant, the Ernesto Che Guevara Electronic Components, in the western province of Pinar del Rio, 160 kilometers west of Havana.

"We buy raw materials from China that are the same quality as those from the United States or Europe," the plant's director, Ivan Gonzalez, told Xinhua.

Gonzalez, 50, studied electrical engineering in the town of Lvov, in what was then the Soviet Union. Since graduating in 1990, he has worked at the plant.

After 27 years in the field, few people know the plant's ins and outs quite like Gonzalez, who jokes that he began at an entry level job "tightening screws" and gradually worked his way up the ladder to where he is today, supervising some 500 employees.

The plant was inaugurated in September 1987 to develop the island's microelectronics, but the dissolution of the Soviet Union soon after practically brought operations to a standstill.

In 2001, the facility was readapted to make five-watt solar panels instead of semiconductors, and now makes some 60,000 solar panels a year with a 15-megawatt capacity.

Cuba aims to generate 24 percent of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2030, but the plant's annual output is currently too limited to help meet that goal.

"We are looking for technological variants to increase capacity," said Gonzalez, adding that Cuba plans to invest $10 million over the next three years to boost production.

According to a 2012 census, some 20,000 homes in Cuba have no access to electricity. The results of the survey led officials to devise a program to outfit those homes with solar panels.

The plant in Pinar del Rio is in charge of making the roof-mounted panels, and with production at 75 percent, they are expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2018.

The plant, which can currently make about 200 panels a day, is also set to begin making one-kilowatt panels for the domestic market, and has diversified production to include induction ovens, electronic automotive parts, LED lights, and water treatment and desalination plants.

Cuba's trade ties with China have been instrumental in helping the Caribbean country work towards its renewable energy targets and development goals.
LUO JIE/CHINA DAILY

Ninety years ago, on August 1, just after bloody battles during the Northern Expedition (1926-28), the Communist Party of China initiated the Nanchang Uprising in 1927 to counter the anti-communist purges by the Kuomintang. That was the beginning of the CPC's efforts to build an army aimed at serving the people, and establish a government of the people and for the people.

The CPC then established a revolutionary base in the border region of Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. After that, led by the Party, the army initiated the land revolution and embarked on the Long March (1934-35), whose longest route was about 12,000 kilometers from Jiangxi to Shaanxi.

The Japanese invasion of China, which began in 1931, eventually led to the establishment of the Second United Front between the Kuomintang and the CPC in 1937, with the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army emerging victorious in many battles in northern and southern China. The CPC-led armies were not only supplementary forces on the battle frontlines in the early phase of the war against the Japanese invaders, they also played the bigger role in guarding the nation against the invaders in the later stage of the war.

The People's Liberation Army, a term first used in 1945 and formally adopted by the Party in 1948, developed rapidly and fought bravely to liberate the people from the corrupt Kuomintang government in the years following Japan's surrender in World War II in 1945, paving the way for the establishment of New China in 1949.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the PLA has been the mainstay of national defense and the pillar of national development and security. The PLA has always put the fundamental interest of the nation and people first, exhibited a strong fighting spirit and made great sacrifices to defend the nation's sovereignty and integrity.

In the Korean War (1950-53), the Chinese People's Volunteers Army, a special wing of the PLA, bravely fought against troops armed with more sophisticated weapons and equipment, and consolidated China's s regional strategic position.

In the Sino-Indian border war in 1962, the PLA defended the nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and since then has maintained stability in border regions.

Decades of defending the country has taught the PLA to keep modernizing itself and improving its ability to deal with any eventuality to maintain a peaceful environment. As a result, the PLA has transformed into a modern military capable of both attack and defense. In the ever-changing strategic environment, the PLA has maintained its composure, characteristics, people-oriented work and has accepted the Party's absolute leadership and served the people wholeheartedly.

The PLA shoulders the responsibility of safeguarding the nation, and dealing with increasingly severe challenges, territorial disputes and maritime interests. It has also actively participated in rescue and relief operations during natural disasters, countered terrorism, and maintained cyber and space security.

Besides, the PLA carries the hopes of the people and will continue to improve its capability to counter security threats based on the principle of building unity between the military and civilians.

The PLA should now endeavor to become a higher-caliber military, conduct training under computer-simulated conditions, and enhance its integrated combat capability based on extensive application of information technology. To meet new challenges that have emerged due to various national strategic factors and maintain domestic stability, the PLA needs new contributions, which will also help it to safeguard regional security and world peace, combat terrorism, and deal with natural and other disasters.

In the 21st century, the PLA has been participating in many United Nations peacekeeping missions in some of the most dangerous countries and regions of the world. China today accounts for the highest number of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. PLA soldiers protect local residents' life and property in these countries and regions, tirelessly build roads and bridges, and provide humanitarian aid and medical treatment for the local residents.

The PLA Navy has cooperated with other countries' navies, sent its fleets to escort ships in the Gulf of Aden, thwarted piracy and guarded international navigation routes. The China International Search and Rescue Team has selflessly provided aid for people and countries struck by natural disasters, and won their trust and friendships. In some areas of conflicts, the PLA has cooperated with the troops of other countries, rescued migrants and accomplished humanitarian missions, and ensured the safety and security of civilians, winning great honor for China.

With the global strategic environment changing and China's comprehensive power growing, the PLA is prepared to cope with the new challenges of security. Under the able leadership and guidance of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, the reform of national defense and the modernization of the military have deepened. And thanks to such efforts, the PLA has transformed from a quantity-oriented to a quality-conscious force.

The reform of national defense has also helped the PLA carry out major changes in various fields to make the management of troops more scientific and reasonable, the security system and policies more effective, military and civilian integration smoother, national defense resources more integrated, and the national defense mobilization system more comprehensive. Military colleges and military scientific research institutions now have to work with each other to meet the needs of national defense construction and help prepare the PLA for modern combat.

The PLA will stay true to its mission and keep improving its ability to deal with eventualities through innovation and practice. And as a force built by the people, for the people, the PLA will more steadfastly safeguard national security and interests.

The author is a professor at the National Defense University of the PLA.




Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures as he addresses the nation from the historic Red Fort during Independence Day celebrations in Delhi, India, August 15, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

The trespassing in Chinese territory by Indian troops has now dragged into a second month. The longer they remain on the Chinese side of the long-demarcated and mutually recognized Sikkim section of the border, the less room there will be for peacefully ending the crisis.

Considering that both sides have reportedly sent more troops into the Donglang area, the face-off between Indian and Chinese troops, if not properly handled, could easily be the fuse that ignites a military clash between the two countries.

Especially as some Indian officials and media are bellicosely proclaiming that India today is different from the India of 1962, implying the country's military muscles have grown since then.

They should be aware that the same applies to China, if not more so.

China has so far exercised the utmost restraint and is still trying to defuse the situation in a peaceful manner. However, this should not be misinterpreted by India as a sign of weakness, as that would likely lead to it making a dangerous miscalculation. It should be aware that China has both the necessary means and the will to safeguard its territorial integrity.

Since the Indian troops have not been withdrawn from the Chinese territory, despite China's repeated urgings, their trespassing bears every emblem of being an incursion. If China's appeals for India to see sense and respect the demarcated border continue to fall on deaf ears then a military response may become inevitable.

This would not only disrupt the good momentum in ties that had seemed to be on the cards after recent bilateral high-level meetings, but also the peaceful environment the two economies need for their development.

Despite their disputes over other parts of the border, the Sikkim section of the China-India boundary has been delimited by treaty, and the Indian government has repeatedly confirmed in writing that it recognizes this part of the boundary. Yet Indian troops entered Chinese territory to obstruct the construction of a road.

Indian claims that the area where China is constructing the road is disputed by Bhutan and it is helping it as obligated by their friendship treaty. However, this is dissembling its real reasons, which stem from its own unfounded sense of insecurity and fear that it is losing out to China in regional influence.

Reports from India, suggest its troops in the Donglang are preparing to stay for the long haul. However, that will not be allowed. It is high time India corrected its wrongdoing and respected the demarcated boundary by withdrawing its troops from Chinese territory.
A Sina Weibo booth displays at a conference on September 24, 2013 in Beijing. [Photo/dfic.cn]

ZHAO HUI is the mayor of Deyang, a city in Southwest China's Sichuan province. On Wednesday, he opened a micro blog account under his real name to interact with the public. China.com.cn comments:

Many youngsters obtain information and share ideas via micro blogs. And many officials have micro blogs, too. However, the majority of them do not register under their real names. Many simply use the platform to get information. Seldom do any officials use the micro blogs to express their ideas or share their moments.

Zhao is obviously an exception. He not only registered for the micro blog account using his real name, but also issued several micro blogs and interacted with those who commented on them.

Deyang officials say that Zhao opened the micro blog because he hoped to help his city get more support in the China Central Television competition Charming China. He succeeded, because he had already got 30,000 followers by Sunday, many of whom expressed support for Deyang.

A glance at Zhao's micro blogs shows that instead of writing them in a bureaucratic style, he adopts a friendly voice. It is this that has ensured his popularity. The comments under Zhao's micro blogs prove that people welcomed the move. People want to see their mayor living like they do, instead of showing just an official stance.

The trend of officials using social networks is irreversible. If they do not speak online, they might lose the trust of the people. In this sense, Zhao has set a brilliant example to all the officials nationwide and we hope more officials will follow suit.
Following the success of bike-sharing schemes in China, sleep-sharing has arrived. Whether you need a 30-minute power nap in the middle of the day or a good night's sleep, visitors can now rent a sleep capsule at a mini-hotel in Zhongguancun, a technology hub for startups in Beijing. When tiredness sets in, people simply scan a QR code on the outside of each capsule and pay 6 yuan per 30 minutes during off-peak times or 10 yuan per half-hour for peak times. [Photo/VCG]

EARLIER THIS MONTH, some companies installed "shared sleeping capsules" in office buildings in Beijing and Shanghai, which office workers could rent for a nap during their lunchtime breaks. Yet the local authorities in both municipalities have shut them down, citing fire hazards and other reasons. China Youth Daily comments:

The police in Shanghai said there were two main reasons for shutting down the capsules. First, the management companies did not obtain permission from the fire department, second, the capsules are in essence a hotel and the companies did not get permission to run a hotel.

Such sleeping capsules are convenient because they help white-collar workers find a place to rest during their lunch breaks. However, potential challenges do exist: How to ensure health and safety? How to check the identity of users so that wanted criminals and suspects cannot use them?

These problems must be answered before the sleeping capsules are put into use. That's why the local authorities' decision to shut them down is the right move, because it better protects people's safety before such questions are answered.

The shutting down of the capsules is not necessarily bad news for the companies that were providing them. They now know what they have to do to improve their operations so as to better serve the public.

Some call for tolerance of the "sleeping capsules" as an emerging business model. While the authorities and the public need to show tolerance, those offering the capsules must follow the rules. Meeting health and safety requirements, as well as conducting ID checks, are necessary, and when the management companies meet these required standards, they will find their products are welcome.

We hope the capsules will soon be back with better and safer standards.
A patient is given her physical checkup results at a community medical service center in Beijing in April, after a comprehensive medical reform started in the capital.[Wang Xin/For China Daily]

ON TUESDAY, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced that after its negotiations with the manufacturers of 44 pharmaceutical drugs, the prices of 36 of them had been cut and put into the list covered by the medical insurance fund. Xkb.com.cn comments:

The 36 drugs share two points in common: First, they were so expensive that ordinary patients could hardly afford them; second, they are necessary for certain illnesses and there is no substitute for them. For example, half of the 36 drugs are used to treat six types of cancer, including breast, lung and liver cancer.

There have long been calls for these expensive drugs to be covered by the national medical insurance fund. However, their previously high prices made it impossible for the fund to cover them.

The only possible solution was for the government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical manufacturers and persuade them to lower their prices so the medical insurance fund could afford to cover them. That's what the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has done.

It should be noted that the government has a unique advantage in the negotiationsa huge potential market. When a drug is covered by the medical insurance fund, its sales will doubtlessly rise because more patients will be able to afford it. That's a major reason why the pharmaceutical manufacturers agreed to cut their prices.

Therefore, everyone benefits from the success of the negotiations. Patients benefit because they can get the medicine they need at lower prices, and the medical insurance fund reimburses much of the cost.

The pharmaceutical enterprises benefit, too, because the sales of their products will be promoted and their market will expand. Even with lower prices, they will make more profit.

The medical insurance fund benefits, too, because it both saves money, and it can help more people in need. The successful negotiations are a good outcome of the ongoing medical reform and we hope there are more successes to come.
At a poverty alleviation meeting held in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, a year ago, President Xi Jinping pointed out the significance of poverty alleviation collaboration between China's eastern and western regions. By that time, Xi had made four requirements on this work, which has injected vitality to the poverty alleviation collaboration work between the country's eastern and western regions.

Poverty alleviation collaboration between the eastern and western regions is a significant deployment of China's poverty relief work. In the past year of collaboration between the regions great achievements have been made in poverty alleviation work. Till now 267 developed eastern cities and counties have provided targeted assistance to 406 poverty-stricken counties in the western region. All 30 ethnic autonomous prefectures are covered by the poverty alleviation collaboration project, and poverty relief work in impoverished regions such as Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces has been strengthened.
Chinese travelers have become big consumers of shared accommodation overseas, with their footprint extending from Asia to the United States, Europe and Australia. Travelers on sightseeing and leisure tours are the main consumers, and most of them travel with friends and families. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Young Chinese travelers are increasingly opting out of traditional hotels in favor of shared accommodation. Yang Feiyue reports.

Wang Haining, a seasoned traveler, who has visited many cities both at home and abroad, chooses to avoid conventional hotels and instead opts for homestay, as he says it is more cost-effective and his host can introduce him to the local culture.

"It's a convenient way to get useful tips and gain a firsthand experience of local life," says Wang, who began using house-sharing platforms, such as Airbnb, Xiaozhu and Tangguo, on the recommendation of a friend.

"This way of traveling allows me to interact with local residents and get a better understanding of local culture and customs," he says.

There are a growing number of Chinese travelers opting for peer-to-peer accommodation when traveling.

According to a report jointly published by Airbnb and the China Tourism Academy, Chinese travelers have become big consumers of sharing accommodation overseas, and their footprint extends from Asia to the United States, Europe and Australia.
Police officers work on a crime scene after eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the United States were found dead inside a sweltering 18-wheeler trailer parked behind a Walmart store in San Antonio, Texas, US July 23, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

HOUSTON - Eight people were found dead in a trailer carrying illegal immigrants at a Walmart parking area in southern Texas City of San Antonio early Sunday morning, authorities said.

The San Antonio Police Department said the victims include at least two children, adding that about 30 more people were found inside the truck and were transferred to local hospitals for treatment.

Police did not know the victims' country of origin, destination, or ages of the deceased or injured, it said.

San Antonio is a US city close to the border area with Mexico. Border Patrol agents have reported an increase in smuggling attempts in tractor-trailers in recent weeks, starting with 44 people from Mexico and Guatemala discovered after police stopped an 18-wheeler on June 19 near one of the city's international bridges.

On July 7, the agents found 72 people from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador inside a locked trailer in the same part of town. The next day, they found 33 people from Mexico and Guatemala inside a trailer stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint.

In another incident last week, border patrol agents found 16 people inside a locked trailer.
Chinese officers and soldiers waves to say goodbye to Russian fleet during a China-Russia naval joint drill at sea off south China's Guangdong province, Sept 19, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

KALININGRAD - Chinese and Russian commanders conducted a simulation exercise here on Sunday for the ongoing joint military drills code-named "Joint Sea 2017" in the Baltic Sea.

In the hours-long exercise, two tactical assault groups, consisting of mixed warships from the Chinese and Russian fleets, simulated details of the drills on a map, including ship-to-sea firing by secondary cannons, air defense, joint landing and inspection, maritime search and rescue, underway replenishment and other subjects.

"The simulation exercise was conducted for two purposes, namely, making commanders at all levels more familiar with the procedures and subjects of the drills, as well as enhancing coordination and tacit understanding between commanders of the two countries," said Wang Xiaoyong, deputy captain of a destroyer detachment of the Chinese Navy.

During the drills, the participating air forces and sea forces will be deployed through unified guidance by a joint directing center, a joint headquarter and a tactical command post, which are formed by commanders from both countries.

The Joint Sea 2017 drills, which kicked off on Saturday and will last until July 28, aims to carry out joint rescue missions and ensure maritime economic activities.

The Chinese fleet consists of one destroyer, one frigate, one supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines. The Russian side includes one frigate, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and marines.

Chinese and Russian navies will conduct a variety of joint exercises and attend the parade in St. Petersburg on the occasion of Russia's Navy Day.
Jordanian security personnel secure the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, on July 23, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

AMMAN - A Jordanian was killed, another injured and a Israeli staffer at the Israeli embassy in Amman was also injured in a shooting inside the embassy on Sunday.

In a statement Sunday night, the Public Security Department of Jordan said a shooting occurred at a residential building within the compound of the Israeli embassy in Amman.

The injured were taken to hospital for treatment.

Police closed the areas surrounding the embassy and was in search of the Jordanian's car in front of the embassy.

The Jordanians entered the building before the incident as they work as carpenters, said the statement, adding that the investigation is underway.

On Friday, demonstrations across Jordan called for severing ties with Israel and closing off the Israeli embassy in Amman over Israeli escalation in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Protests have since broken out in the holy site, with dozens of Muslim worshippers refused to enter the Mosque and prayed outside, considering the security checks a "violation" of the third holiest place for Muslims.

Last Friday, three Israeli Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces inside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, after two Israeli officers were killed in an attack.

Israel reopened the compound on Sunday with the introduction of metal detectors and security checks installed at the entrances.

Jordan, which oversees the holy Islamic and Christian sites in East Jerusalem including Al-Aqsa Mosque, was the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
The Ministry of Defense holds a news conference in Beijing, July 24, 2017. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

The Ministry of Defense has demanded India immediately withdraw its military from Chinese territory, warning its leaders not to leave things to luck or have unrealistic expectations.

Last month, the Indian military crossed the mutually recognized Sikkim section of the China-India border and trespassed in the Doklam area to disrupt China's road-building in the region, resulting in a faceoff between the nations' troops, according to the ministry.

It is normal and completely legal for a nation to build roads in its own territory, as China is doing, ministry spokesman Wu Qian said at a news conference on Monday.

He said India's actions had severely infringed China's sovereignty and the basic principles of international laws.

China will resolutely protect its territorial sovereignty, and will spare no effort in maintaining its sovereignty and security interests, Wu said, adding that Chinese border troops have begun emergency measures, and will strengthen specific training and deployment.

He said the nation has "strongly demanded" that India withdraw its troops from Chinese territory.

Border security is in the best interests of both nations, Wu said, adding that China has called on India to take measures to correct its mistakes and provocation, and work with China to promote and maintain regional peace and harmony.

China has reminded India not to take dangerous risks or hold unrealistic expectations, he said.

The People's Liberation Army's 90 years of history is testimony to China's capabilities in protecting its sovereignty and its unshakable resolve, Wu said, adding, "It might be easier to shake the mountains than shake the PLA."
Britain's Secretary of State for Business, Greg Clark, arrives in Downing Street for a cabinet meeting, in central London, Britain, July 18, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

BIRMINGHAM - Britain's business minister said the government will discuss later this year how a transitional period after Brexit might work, a key demand for businesses worried about a cliff-edge exit at the end of two-year talks in March 2019.

Many companies have urged the government to push the European Union to agree a clear and lengthy transitional arrangement to help them make investment decisions and continue the unfettered flow of British exports to the continent.

When asked when the government would set out what kind of transitional arrangement it would be seeking, Greg Clark said:

"During the autumn ... and as the negotiations move forward, we hope from their initial discussion, then that's the time to say more about that," he said during an event in Birmingham.
A meditation and sharing support group that brings together the practice of meditation, Buddhist teachings and the 12 steps of recovery integrating the basic sanity of the Dharma and the basic goodness of meditation.

The Heart of Recovery is a meditation and sharing support group with the purpose of bringing together the practice of meditation, the Shambhala and Buddhist teachings, and the Twelve Steps of Recovery with the goal of integrating the basic sanity of the Dharma and the basic goodness of meditation with our commitment to abstinence. We welcome all those who wish to share in these common interests.

There are no requirements to attend our meetings.

Suggested donation: $5

The Heart of Recovery is a meditation and sharing support group with the purpose of bringing together the practice of meditation, the Shambhala and Buddhist teachings, and the Twelve Steps of Recovery with the goal of integrating the basic sanity of the Dharma and the basic goodness of meditation with our commitment to abstinence. We welcome all those who wish to share in these common interests.

There are no requirements to attend our meetings.

Suggested donation: $5
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that in early July, al-Shabaab militants led a series of attacks in Kenya's Lamu County. Between July 5 and July 8 2017, militants raided three villages, Pandanguo, Jima, and Poromoko, killing three police officers as well as seven Christian men: Said Mbigo, Matei Mlatia, Peter Mburu, Teresio Munyi, Mwangangi Muneni, Katana Karisa Chai, and Musyoka Maithya.

On July 5, over 200 militants raided Pandanguo village in Lamu County, killing three police officers posted at the Pandanguo police station, looting homes and the local dispensary. On July 8, 15 of the militants returned and attacked the nearby villages of Jima and Poromoko.



According to locals contacted by ICC, the militants went door to door in Jima and Poromoko, killing seven Christian men. Schools in the three villages were closed and Christian families have evacuated to a church in Witu town.



"The attackers have been targeting Christians living in Lamu County especially farmers in the interior areas where small-scale agriculture thrives," Pastor Henry Divayo, head pastor of the church in Witu town, told ICC. "[The militants in Jima] were asking the villagers to produce their identification cards and if you were found to be a Christian you would be shot or slaughtered."



"Victims have been evacuated to camps where food and security is provided by [the] government and the Kenya Red Cross," Divayo said. "We are hosting more than 200 people in our church and we expect the number to increase as more families are evacuated from Boni Forest."



"The government has been in the forefront in giving security to churches but a lot more needs to be done," Divayo continued. "We need more well equipped police officers in churches, schools and hospitals."



Since 2011, Kenya has been aiding the fight against al-Shabaab in Somalia. In retaliation, al-Shabaab and its supporters have targeted Christians across the border in Kenya. On July 5, 2014, al-Shabaab attacked a Hindi village in Lamu which left nine dead. Militants also attacked Garrisa University on April 2, 2015, where 148 Christian students were killed. On June 12, 2016, the Islamic terrorists attacked Mpeketoni, Lamu County, killing 48 who couldn't recite Quaranic verses.



ICC's Regional Manager for Africa, Nathan Johnson, said, "The Kenyan government must provide safety and stability to all of its people. They must end al-Shabaab's reign of terror that has been thriving on the border with Somalia. We pray for the families of the deceased and for peace to come to a region that has seen such violence towards Christians. We hope that Kenya's government can take effective action to rid Kenya of these terrorist actions."

Used with permission by International Christian Concern (ICC). More Christian persecution news can be found at www.persecution.org.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: July 24, 2017
A suicide bomber killed 24 people and injured 42 others on Monday after ramming his car loaded with explosives into a bus in the Afghan capital.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, according to news reports.

The bomber attacked at one of the busiest times of the day, said Basir Mujahed, Kabuls police chief spokesman. There were traffic jams with people going to work and to the university and schools. Many of the shops had just opened.

The Interior Ministry called the attack a criminal act against humanity.

The bus was destroyed, along with three other cars and several stores. Children were among the injured, Mujahed said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid identified the bomber as Ahmad and said they were targeting intelligence services and their employees. He said the bus were intelligence services employees.

Police officials said the bus was carrying government employees, who worked in the mines and petroleum ministry.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said this was another attack on innocent lives.

"Once again, these terrorists are attacking civilians and targeting government staff," Ghani said in a statement.

This was the second attack on employees of the mines and petroleum ministry. Last year, a bus carrying employees were also targeted and killed.

Also Monday, a suicide bomber killed 12 people and wounded 25 in Pakistan.

The driver rammed his motorcycle near police who were guarding a demolition site near Lahore. The militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: July 24, 2017
Haddon Robinson, the respected author and seminary president who set the standard for expositional preaching, died Saturday. He was 86.

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where Robinson served as an interim president and professor of preaching, broke the news of his passing and posted a tribute this weekend. Robinson also taught at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) and was president of Denver Seminary.

In his books, classes, and radio instruction, Robinson taught that sermons should be guided by the biblical text and focus on one idea or theme.

Christianity Today featured Robinsonformerly the senior editor of a fellow CT site, PreachingToday.comin a 2002 article on the neglected craft of expository preaching:

Robinson has been teaching students about expository preaching for decades. His classic (and recently updated) tome Biblical Preaching, which is used in more than 150 seminaries and Bible colleges, has become the go-to text for aspiring expositors.The number of ...

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One of past President Barack Obamas most infamous quotes was his 2008 campaign trail comment on small-town citizens that cling to guns or religion. New research identifies how many Americans actually favor both.

Two out of five self-identified white evangelicals own a gun, higher than any other religious group, according to a recent study from the Pew Research Center. Four out of five have fired one.

But only a quarter of white evangelical gun owners are members of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and more white evangelicals actually want US gun laws to be more strict than less strict. (A plurality are satisfied with the status quo.)

Pew gave CT a look at the religious breakdowns behind its recent comprehensive report on firearms, which excludes air guns such as paintball, BB, and pellet guns. (Though two-thirds of black Protestants identify as evangelicals, Pew could not break them out on many questions due to small sample size.)

The 41 percent of white evangelicals ...

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Paradoxically, we live in an age of both unprecedented information access and widespread religious illiteracy. Never has there been more material available on the rational and historical grounds for Christian faith, yet our Western culture is becoming ever more secularized. Increasing numbers of people feel comfortable embracing agnosticism or atheism, and every day we see evidence of hostility to Christianity, especially on topics related to sexual ethics. How are we to approach evangelism and discipleship in this strange, new, post-truth world, with its ever-deepening cultural and political divisions?

The classic rational arguments for Christian faithbased on evidence, philosophy, and historyare as sound as ever, but they are effective only when people are interested in the questions and find our words and ideas meaningful. Today, we cannot count on our listeners to be either interested or informed. Here, we see the need for a new approachor rather, the return to an older, more integrated approach to apologetics that engages the whole human person. Many contemporary apologistsmyself includedlook to both reason and imagination to help us lead people to know about, follow, and love our Lord Jesus Christ.

As an apologist, I appreciate the value of the imagination in no small part because of the role it played in helping me come to Christian faith. I was once an atheist, and a hostile one, who agreed with the New Atheists that Christianity was not just false but irrational and harmful.

Although I was not interested in apologetic arguments at the time, I had, without knowing it, been experiencing the work of grace through my imagination. As a child, I fell in love with the Chronicles ...

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home World About a third of Britons believe Jesus Christ was an 'extremist,' ComRes poll reveals

An opinion poll conducted by ComRes has found that almost a third of people in the U.K. believe that Jesus Christ was an "extremist."

The survey, commissioned by the Evangelical Alliance and a coalition of organizations, found that 28 percent of 2,004 respondents considered Jesus to be an extremist.

A quarter of respondents said that Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela could also be considered extremists, The Catholic Herald reported. Thirteen percent also said the same for the Dalai Lama, and 20 percent gave the same description to Gandhi.

The findings also indicated that 41 percent the respondents believe that defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman only amounts to extremism.

The study came just weeks after the British Government announced plans to set up a Commission for Countering Extremism as a way to combat Islamist ideology and "to support the Government in stamping out extremist ideology in all its forms, both across society and on the internet, so it is denied a safe space to spread."

Other findings revealed that while 54 percent found the word "extremism" an unhelpful "description when discussing political or social opinions," 23 percent said it was a helpful description, while 14 percent did not know what it was.

Churches have expressed skepticism about the strategy to combat the spread of ideas considered as extremist due to the subjective and changing nature of how extremism can be defined.

Some Christian groups have lamented that the measures that are intended to combat the spread of radical Islam have been used as a pretext to impose secularist ideologies on children attending schools affiliated with churches.

"The language of extremism is a recipe for chaos and division. This poll shows the scale of moral confusion in our society with the public having no way of deciding whether something is extreme or not. It also shows the division that might ensue if the government persist in trying to use extremism as a way of regulating peaceful ideas in society," said Dr. David Landrum, director of advocacy for the Evangelical Alliance.

He contended that extremism, detached from terrorism and incitement to violence, cannot be used as a "litmus test" to judge peaceful beliefs and opinions.

"Indeed, the government have tried and failed over the last two years to define extremism with any precision and this poll shows that the public share that confusion," he added.

The respondents were less divided when asked about leaving the European Union. Thirty percent stated that it was extreme to believe that the U.K. should remain in the EU. In contrast, 36 percent said it was extreme to believe that the U.K. should leave.
home World Archaeologists find ancient clues in search for location of Ark of the Covenant and Tabernacle

Archaeologists working at Shiloh in the West Bank have found ancient clues that could help them determine whether the site really held the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle.

A new group of American archaeologists and volunteers have launched a new excavation in order to prove that the Bible is also a history textbook that contains revelations about humanity's past.

The Associates for Biblical Research (ABR), led by Dr. Scott Stripling, are using the latest archaeological techniques, combined with their strong religious faith, to find definitive evidence that the Tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant were once held at Shiloh.

The archaeologists have yet to find conclusive evidence, but they have already found a few artifacts that could provide more clues to the exact location of the tabernacle.

Among the artifacts they found this summer include 10 enormous pre-First Temple pottery jugs and a kobaat, which is a ritual chalice that could be linked to religious use. The archaeologists suggested that the intrinsic value of the pottery jugs could indicate that the site was vacated in an abrupt manner, as described in the Bible.

"There are some who say the Bible is unreliable. We have found it to be very reliable," Stripling told the Times of Israel. "We're taking the Bible as a serious historical document, but the evidence is what the evidence is," he added.

Shiloh is mentioned in the Bible as the 369-year home of the Tabernacle, which once housed the Ark of the Covenant.

The Psalms and the Book of Jeremiah recount the destruction of the site after the Israelites were defeated by the Philistines, who also stole the Ark of the Covenant.

The Bible describes the tabernacle as a multi-colored tent, embellished with glittering precious metals, In the 26th chapter of Exodus, God gave Moses detailed instructions on how to build the tent and from which materials the curtains should be made.

God had instructed the prophet to use 50 gold clasps, 50 bronze clasps, 40 silver bases and other utensils made out of metals, leading some archaeologists to wonder whether any of the items could be found at the site.

The ABR team had reportedly processed about 2,000 pieces of pottery and over 700 additional objects, including jewelry, tools and metal or stone weapons. The researchers also found 15 pieces of Jewish ritual vessels, two almost complete pottery vessels, and 250 coins, but no artifacts have been found to confirm the existence of the tabernacle at the site.

Stripling, however, says that working at the site is the irresistible fulfillment of a 25-year-old dream, and he is anything but deterred.

"A sense of awe came upon me as I contemplated how God had set before us an open door at Shiloh which will have a direct impact on how people read their Bibles in the future," he said in his letter to donors about walking on the field for the first time.

"I saw the stakes that I drove into the ground back in May and envisioned the 100 volunteers and staff who will work with us in Season One. I thought of the first words ever sent via Morse code a 'Behold what wonders God has wrought!'" he added.

Other archaeologists from France and Israel are also searching for the Ark of the Covenant at the ancient site of Kiryat Ye'arim outside Jerusalem, which is said to be one of the last unexplored sites in the region.
home World China's Communist Party threatens members with punishment if they don't abandon their faith

China's ruling Communist Party has threatened its estimated 85 million members with punishment if they refuse to abandon their religious beliefs for Marxist atheism.

"Party members should not have religious beliefs, which is a red line for all members. ... Party members should be firm Marxist atheists, obey Party rules and stick to the Party's faith ... they are not allowed to seek value and belief in religion," Wang Zuoan, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, wrote in an article published in the Qiushi Journal on Saturday, as reported by China's Global Times.

Wang warned that officials who have religious faith will be persuaded to give it up, and those who resist will be punished by the Party.

He also noted that Party members are not allowed to support or get involved in religious affairs in the name of developing the economy or diversifying the culture.

"We should guide religious groups and individuals with socialist core values and excellent traditional Chinese culture and support religious groups to dig into their doctrines to find parts that are beneficial to social harmony and development," Wang stated.

"Some foreign forces have used religion to infiltrate China, and extremism and illegal religious activities are spreading in some places, which have threatened national security and social stability," he continued.

Su Wei, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Chongqing Committee, said that the regulation banning Party members from having religious beliefs would be permanent, but implementing it would involve more work in some parts of the country, such as Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Gansu Province as well as Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

The Chinese government has stepped up its crackdown on Christianity and other religions in recent years, arresting hundreds of pastors and activists who protested against the forced demolition of churches.

The Communist Party has also reportedly targeted Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners for their faith.

In May, the Party's Youth League released an 11-minute propaganda video that mocks Christian beliefs and argues that humans, not God, saved the world.

Due to the ongoing persecution of believers, China has been ranked 39th on Open Doors World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most persecution.

In March, Freedom House reported that an estimated 100 million people, including Protestant Christians, are facing "high" or "very high" levels of persecution at the hands of the atheistic government.
home US Christian apologist James White draws criticism for holding interfaith dialogue with Muslim imam

James White, a well-known professional debater and Reformed apologist, has drawn criticism for holding an interfaith dialogue with a Muslim imam at a Mississippi church.

According to Christian News Network, the event in question was held on Jan. 24 at Grace Bible Church in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

White, the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, appeared with Dr. Yasir Qadhi, the Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, at the church for an unmoderated interfaith discussion called "Christians and Muslims: Agreements and Differences."

"I think the greatest barrier for Christians in reaching out to the Muslim people is fear," White explained at the event.

"We have fear in our hearts. It's based upon ignorance. It's based upon other things. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do this," he added.

Footage of the event was recently discovered by Brannon Howse, who expressed concern that an Islamic imam was brought to a church for dialogue.

In an op-ed published on the website of Worldview Weekend, Howse contended that the event was not a debate and said that White never disagreed with Qahdi when the imam "spewed lies about Islam and Jesus Christ."

"James White knows this radical imam has preached that Christians are filthy and that their property and lives can rightly be stolen in Jihad. Yet White defends this Jihadi Imam and wants to have an interfaith dialogue with him?" Howse wrote.

During the discussion, White had stated that Qadhi has been a "primary influence" in his studies on Islam and shared that he "sense[d] in him such a kindred spirit on the other side of the chasm that divides us in regard to our theology and our beliefs."

The Christian apologist revealed that he had once invited Qadhi to critique his presentation on Islam to ensure it accurately represents the Muslim religion.

White had stressed that the event was not a debate, but rather a dialogue. Among the topics discussed at the event included an explanation about the two sects of Islam, the belief that the Quran is the word of God, and the Muslim view that Jesus was just a prophet, who was not divine and never crucified.

After the dialogue at the Mississippi church, White participated in a similar discussion about the Muslim and Christian faith at the Memphis Islamic Center, where the apologist explained concepts such as the Trinity, original sin and the imputation of righteousness through Christ.

Andy Woods, the senior pastor of Sugar Land Bible Church in Texas and president of Chafer Theological Seminary in New Mexico, expressed concern about giving a Muslim imam a platform at a church.

"I'm totally in favor of having an accurate view of what they believe," he told Christian News Network.

"Working out our differences and sitting down and making sure we understand each other is one thing, but giving someone a platform at a church is a different matter," he added.

White has repeatedly defended the event and asserted that his critics had overlooked that the dialogue was held on a weekday outside of regular service hours, and was a ticketed event only for those interested.

The Christian apologist explained that while he has engaged in debates with Muslims in the past, Qadhi did not want to participate in a debate. However, he said that the imam was willing to have a dialogue about the similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity.
home US Christian florist who was fined for refusing to serve gay wedding files Supreme Court appeal

Barronelle Stutzman, a florist from Washington state, has filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that found her guilty for refusing to make floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal organization that defends religious liberty, announced on Friday that it had asked the Supreme Court to hear the case of Stutzman.

"For more than four years, Barronelle has endured the litigation in this case with unwavering grace, humility, and faith a even as she faces losing everything she owns. Now she will take her last stand before the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to preserve her religious freedom and her right not to be forced to speak a message about marriage that violates her beliefs," the ADF wrote.

Stutzman, the owner of Arlene's Flowers in Richmond, Washington, was sued in 2015 after she refused to make flower arrangements for her longtime customer Robert Ingersoll and his homosexual partner.

The florist told Ingersoll, who had been her customer for 10 years, that she could not make the flower arrangements as it would violate her deeply held religious beliefs, and referred him to a florist who could.

That same year, the Benton County Superior Court handed down a fine of $1,001 on the Christian florist and held her responsible for paying thousands of dollars in legal fees incurred by Ingersoll and his partner. The Washington Supreme Court took up the case last year and agreed with the lower court ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the lawsuit against the 72-year-old florist, reportedly offered to drop the case against her if she donated $5,000 to an LGBT activist group, issued a public apology and promised to stop refusing customers.

According to Church Militant, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson offered to settle a second case against Stutzman for a $2,000 penalty, a $1 fine and a promise to stop refusing customers.

She rejected the offers, saying she could not compromise her Christian faith. A total of $174,000 was raised by supporters to help Stutzman with the legal fees, but the online fundraising platform GoFundMe canceled the donations after complaints from LGBT activists.

Stutzman's appeal came just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the case of Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker who was also sued for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage.

ADF attorneys have reportedly requested permission to consolidate Stutzman's cases with Phillips' case.
home World Christian human rights activist released from Chinese prison after serving 4-year sentence

The Chinese government has released a prominent human rights activist on Saturday after having served his four-year prison sentence.

Xu Zhiyong, a Christian lawyer and activist who founded the "New Citizens' Movement," was released from his jail on Beijing's outskirts on Saturday morning in good physical condition.

His lawyer, Zhang Qingfang, said that he had been updated with "events on the outside," including the death of fellow activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Liu Xiaobo. Zhang said that Xu had been "upset" upon hearing the news.

According to Reuters, the prominent activist was detained in 2013 and subsequently convicted of "gathering a crowd to disturb public order." He first gained prominence in 2003 for helping victims of tainted baby formula and migrant workers without access to healthcare and education.

Xu's activism, which attracted hundreds of supporters, prompted a crackdown from the Communist Party, which swiftly crushes any perceived challenge to its rule.

One of the main advocacies of Xu's group was to require officials to publicly disclose their assets, a demand taken against the backdrop of the ruling Communist Party's efforts to crack down on corruption.

"The idea of the New Citizens Movement is not to overthrow, but to establish," Xu wrote in a 2010 essay. "It's not one social class displacing another social class, but allowing righteousness to take its place in China," he added.

During his trial in 2014, he refused to defend himself and remained silent in protest of what Zhang said was a controlled legal process where a guilty outcome was a foregone conclusion.

At the end of his trial, he delivered a speech, in which he talked about his faith and the values that inspire his advocacy.

"Freedom, justice, and love, these are our core values and what guides us in action," he stated. "You may find my ideas too far-out, too unrealistic, but I believe in the power of faith, and in the power of the truth, compassion and beauty that exists in the depths of the human soul, just as I believe human civilization is advancing mightily like a tide," he added.

After the sentencing, Maya Wang of Human Rights Watch noted that Xu was "very moderate" and has been accused of "bending over backwards to meet the other side."

"This heavy sentence will be seen as a slap in the face for that group of activists who have tried to put out a moderate message," she remarked.

At the time, U.S. Embassy Spokesman Nolan Barkhouse expressed concern that Xu's conviction was a retribution for public campaign to expose the corruption of Chinese officials.

It is still not clear if Xu would be allowed to live as a free man, and his supporters are concerned that he will be kept under close watch or effective house arrest.

Some social media posts have suggested that security guards and plain-clothed officers have prevented people from visiting him at his home after his release.

Other high-profile prisoners who have been released from jail, including rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and journalist Gao Yu, remain under the close watch of Chinese authorities.
home US Christian university rejects $3 million offer from organization that requested removal of LGBT student group

A Christian university in Birmingham, Alabama has rejected a $3 million donation from the Alabama Baptist State Convention because the offer came on the condition asking the school to remove an LGBT student group.

Samford University, an institution founded by Alabama Baptists, turned down the donation and refused to shut down the student group called Samford Together, which describes itself as an organization dedicated to studying "an array of ideas and opinions" related to "sexual orientation and gender identity."

The Alabama Baptist State Convention, which has donated to the small school for many years, had asked the school to rescind Samford Together's provisional group status and eliminate its chances for permanent status as conditions for the $3 million donation.

The College Fix reported that the private Christian university still denies full recognition of the group, but it has promised to support its "worthy goals."

The students applied for permission to form Samford Together earlier this year, and it was approved by the university's faculty in April.

Alabama Baptist State Convention President John Thweatt and State Board of Missions Executive Director Rick Lance said in a statement following the faculty vote that they were "saddened" by the school's decision, noting that recognition of the group is "contrary to biblical teachings on sexuality."

"In the days to come, Alabama Baptist leaders will be in dialogue with the leadership of Samford as to the serious implications this action has for the relationship between Samford University and the Alabama Baptist State Convention. We request your prayers as this situation is handled in a Biblically correct way," they said, as reported by Metro.

Thweatt and Lance warned the university that the convention would withdraw the $3 million funding offered if the board of trustees approved Samford Together.

The decision to reject the convention's offer was approved the university's executive committee, the school said in a statement.

Samford President Andrew Westmoreland clarified that he does not intend to seek formal recognition for the student group from the trustees.

"I will involve these students and others across campus in taking essential steps to create new and ongoing opportunities for robustly engaging these and other important issues," he said.

"Our actions at Samford, irrespective of financial considerations, must demonstrate fidelity to God's truth, abiding compassion and respect for all people, and solidarity with the timeless ideals of a strong university," he added.

According to Inside Higher Ed, the university has eliminated "anti-LGBTQ" language from its policies about a decade ago. The school does not expressly prohibit same-sex relationships, but both same-sex and opposite-sex intercourse outside of heterosexual marriage are banned.

Samford University, which was founded in 1841, is the 87th oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, according to the school's website.
home World Christians blocked from seeking asylum after fleeing persecution from camps in Greek Isles

Christian refugees were reportedly prevented from seeking asylum on the Greek mainland after they fled from camps in the Greek Isles due to persecution at the hands of Muslim migrants.

The British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA) recently called on the Greek government to change a policy that prevents homeless Christian refugees, who fled from the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos due to persecution, from being able to apply for asylum.

BPCA President Wilson Chowdhry told The Christian Post that he was informed that Greek authorities have put in place a "geographical restriction" that effectively blocks asylum seekers, who fled from one of the camps on the Greek islands, from being able to apply for asylum in mainland Greece without having to return to the very camp where they experienced persecution.

He explained that the authorities only made an exception for asylum seekers with severe health conditions.

"I would like to bring to your attention several reports of persecution that have been raised with the British Pakistani Christian Association, relating to persecution of Christians within the Muslim-majority ... Moria Camp," Chowdhry wrote in an email to Dimitris Caramitsos, the Greek ambassador to the U.K.

"Christians are being prevented from holding church services, worshiping and praying by their Muslim neighbors. Moreover, reports of tents being burned down, violence, bullying, harassment and severe threats paint a very bleak picture of the quality of life for Christians caught up within the camp," he added.

Chowdhry said that the failure to assess asylum seekers leaves them with no status, which prevents them from receiving statutory assistance from the Greek government and help from UNHCR.

Haroon Maqbool, a Pakistani who arrived in Lesbos in 2016 with his two children, was not able to complete his asylum application before he escaped the camp and the island.

"Haroon became bullied straight away and all the Christians left the camp ... and escaped by ship rather than be harrassed and bullied everyday," Chowdhry said.

Magbool has been living illegally in the mainland where he is at risk of being arrested for overstaying his visa. Even though it has been nine months since he fled the camp in Lesbos, the policy has prevented him from completing his asylum application to stay legally in the mainland.

According to Chowdhry, the UNHCR is compiling a list of cases like Maqbool's where refugees are too afraid to return to the camps in the Greek isles to complete their asylum applications.

The BPCA is providing support to as many as seven Pakistani Christian asylum seekers who were found homeless in the Greek mainland by another charity. Chowdhry's group is accepting online donations that will provide much-needed aid to homeless Christian refugees like Maqbool in Greece.
home US Court issues injunction against Illinois law requiring Christian pregnancy centers to promote abortion

A federal court has issued an injunction to stop the state of Illinois from enforcing a new law requiring pregnancy centers and doctors to refer patients to abortion providers.

On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued an injunction to stop the enforcement of SB 1564, which requires health care personnel who have conscience-based objections to certain health services to inform patients of their legal options and refer them to facilities that provide such services.

In September, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and allied attorneys filed a federal suit challenging the law on behalf of multiple pregnancy care centers, a pregnancy care center network, and a doctor and her medical practice.

The plaintiffs argued that the new law would their belief prohibit them from referring patients to abortions providers, saying it would implicate them in the destruction of human life. They contended that requiring them to do so would violate their constitutional free speech protections.

"The government is out of line when it attempts to force Americans to communicate a message that is contrary to their most deeply held beliefs," said ADF Legal Counsel Elissa Graves, according to Life News.

"In addition, the state shouldn't be robbing women of the freedom to choose a pro-life doctor by mandating that pro-life physicians and entities make or arrange abortion referrals. The court was right to halt enforcement of this law while our lawsuit proceeds," she added.

Attorneys for the defendants, Gov. Bruce Rauner and Department of Financial and Professional Regulation Secretary Bryan Schneider, argued that Illinois law already requires health care providers to give information about relevant treatment options to their patients.

According to The Daily Signal, Illinois amended its Healthcare Right of Conscience Act in 2016 to allow pro-life medical professionals to be held liable to civil penalties for refusing to provide counsel on the supposed benefits of abortions and refer their patients directly to local abortion providers. A judge has previously granted a preliminary injunction to exempt three pregnancy centers from the law.

Similar attempts to enact laws that would have required pro-life pregnancy centers to refer patients to abortion providers have been struck down in New York City; Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; and Montgomery County, Maryland.

Pro-life pregnancy centers in California and Hawaii have also filed lawsuits to challenge laws that require them to provide advertising for state-funded abortions and contraception coverage programs.
home World Eritrean Patriarch reappears at Sunday Mass a decade after being placed on house arrest

Abune Antonios, the patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, made his first public appearance in a decade at a mass in St. Mary's Cathedral in Asmara on Sunday.

Antonios, who has been under house arrest since 2007, participated in the worship service, which was attended by hundreds of Christian worshippers.

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), the patriarch's rare appearance has been described by its sources as "a profound answer to many prayers and much pressure." However, the sources noted that it is not yet clear whether the patriarch had been released temporarily or conditionally.

"It is encouraging to hear that Patriarch Antonios was able to participate in a mass after a decade of incommunicado incarceration. We await clarification regarding the terms of his release, and our profound hope is that the patriarch is finally free and will be reinstated unconditionally," CSW chief Mervyn Thomas said in a statement.

"We also remember the tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience of all faiths and none still languishing in indefinite detention in Eritrea, including the four Orthodox priests and eight Protestant leaders, and reiterate our call for their immediate and unconditional release," he said.

The patriarch, who turned 90 on July 12, was placed under house arrest in 2007 after he was expelled from office.

Antonios has been critical of the Eritrean government's increasing interference in church affairs ever since his ordination in 2004.

He drew the ire of the authorities after he refused to excommunicate 3,000 parishioners who opposed the government and called for the release of political prisoners.

He was removed from effective control of the Patriarchate and confined to ceremonial duties in 2005 for raising his objections to the appointment of Mr. Yoftahe Dimetros, a government-affiliated lay person, as administrator of the Church's governing body, the Holy Synod, in contravention to canon law.

In January 2006, he received a letter informing him of his dismissal from office. Later that month, Antonios was replaced by an alternative patriarch, and Dimetros allegedly ordered the confiscation of the patriarch's car and the dismissal of his chauffeur.

In the early hours of May 27, 2007, Antonios was removed from his residence and detained incommunicado in an unknown location.

Eritrea has been ranked in the Open Doors 2017 World Watch List as the 10th worst nation in the world when it comes to persecution of Christians.

Open Doors noted that Eritrea's authoritarian government is "intolerant towards any form of association, dissent and free expression" and it tries to "control all religious institutions," and that was "particularly evident" when Antonios was deposed as the head of the Eritrean Orthodox Church.
home Tech Facebook attributes removal of more than two dozen Catholic pages to 'malfunction'

Social media giant Facebook has stated that the recent removal of around 25 popular Catholic pages from its website was caused by a "malfunction in the system."

A total of 21 Catholic pages based in Brazil and four English-language pages were reportedly removed from Facebook on July 17 but were restored just over 24 hours later. The blocked pages reportedly had between hundreds of thousands and nine million followers, according to Catholic News Agency.

One of the affected accounts was the "Catholic and Proud" Facebook page, which has more than six million followers. Kenneth Alimba, who lives in Nigeria and administers the account, said that the removal was "extremely heartbreaking" and "too horrible."

"I've worked on the page for over five years and have put in all I am into it," he told the website ChurchPOP.

The pages were reportedly restored around 1 a.m. on the morning of July 19, just hours after the removal was reported by several media outlets.

Carlos RenA, administrator of "Papa Francisco Brazil," which has nearly four million followers, stated that the page was available again "without notification. I just realized that it was already on the air."

The owners and administrators of other popular pages such as "Father Rocky," "Catholic and Proud," and "Jesus" have similarly stated that they simply realized that their pages had been restored after seeing their accounts were back online.

Facebook later issued a statement announcing the restoration of the pages and attributing the removals to a malfunction.

"The pages were re-established. The incident was a malfunction of the spam detection mechanism in our platform. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

Questions have been raised as to why all the affected pages appear to be Catholic in nature, as there have been no reports so far of non-Catholic pages being taken down and restored.

Facebook claimed that many religious sites often produce similar comments to spam on their posts, which may have caused the removal of the pages. The company explained that protocols aimed at taking down fake pages out of line with commercial spam policies allow for machine searches of posts that have similar comments.

In 2016, the social media giant faced accusations of censoring conservative trending topics, specifically the Conservative Political Action Conference and other conservative leaders.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg rejected the allegations and met with several conservative U.S. leaders to assure them of the platform's neutrality.
home US Federal court strikes down Christian-only prayer at commission meetings in North Carolina

A federal court has ruled that the practice of opening commission meetings in North Carolina with Christian prayers and inviting the audience to join violates the U.S. Constitution.

In a 10a5 decision on Friday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that found the prayers practiced by the Rowan County Board of Commissioners to be "unconstitutionally coercive."

The lawsuit against the county was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of non-Christian residents who said they felt excluded by the prayers.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that it is appropriate for local clergy to deliver predominantly Christian prayers at meetings in limited circumstances, according to Fox News. But in the case of Rowan County, the court weighed whether the prayers were delivered by the elected-commissioners themselves and whether their invitation for the audience to join was coercive.

"The prayer practice served to identify the government with Christianity and risked conveying to citizens of minority faiths a message of exclusion," Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in the majority opinion.

Judge Paul Niemeyer, in his dissenting opinion, contended that the decision "actively undermines the appropriate role of prayer in American civil life."

"In finding Rowan County's prayer practice unconstitutional, essentially because the prayers were sectarian, the majority's opinion strikes at the very trunk of religion, seeking to outlaw most prayer given in government assemblies, even though such prayer has been an important part of the fabric of our democracy and civic life," he wrote, as reported by The Associated Press.

The full Fourth Circuit decided to hear the case in March after a divided three-judge panel ruled that the commissioners had a constitutional right to open meetings with prayer as long as audience members are not pressured to participate.

The ACLU argued that the commissioners directed the public to participate in the prayers, by using phrases such as "please pray with me." The law group also claimed that the commissioners also used language that can be seen as proselytizing, like "I pray that the citizens of Rowan County will love you, Lord."

The attorneys for Rowan County, however, contended that the commissioners do not force anyone to participate, noting that anyone can leave the room or stay seated during the prayer. A volunteer chaplain has been invited to lead the prayers after the lower court decision deemed the practice unconstitutional.

Chris Brook, legal director for ACLU of North Carolina, described Friday's ruling as a "great victory for the rights of all residents to participate in their local government without fearing discrimination."

First Liberty Institute, one of the firms representing the county, noted that it is up to the commission whether to appeal. Mike Berry, deputy general counsel for the law firm, said he believes the case is ripe for Supreme Court review because it conflicts with the justices' prior rulings.
home US Federal judge orders state of Kentucky to pay legal fees in case against Kim Davis

A federal judge has ordered the state of Kentucky to pay over $220,000 in legal fees to the attorneys of the same-sex couples who sued Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis for refusing to issue marriage licenses.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered the state to pay the legal fees, rather than Davis, saying the clerk was acting in her official capacity when she stopped issuing marriage licenses in 2015. Bunning also noted that the state was held liable rather than Rowan County because the state is primarily responsible for regulating marriage, USA Today reported.

"[W]hen Davis made the unilateral decision to adopt a 'no marriage licenses' policy, she was acting as an agent of the Commonwealth, not Rowan County. Therefore, Rowan County is not liable for Davis's actions or Plaintiffs' attorneys' fees," Bunning wrote.

"Davis represented the Commonwealth of Kentucky when she refused to issue marriage licenses to legally eligible couples. The buck stops there," the judge added.

The judge ordered the state to pay $222,695 to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorneys who worked on the cases and another $2,008 in costs.

Davis gained national attention after the Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling on June 26, 2015, when she decided not to issue marriage licenses to either homosexual or heterosexual couples. She said that she would only issue the licenses if her name was removed from the documents.

Her refusal led to three lawsuits a Miller v. Davis, Ermold v. Davis and Yates v. Davis a filed by couples who were turned down when they sought to get a license from Davis' office.

She was jailed briefly in August that year after she refused to comply with a court order telling her to issue marriage licenses.

The cases against Davis were dismissed by Bunning after Gov. Matt Bevin issued an executive order removing the names of the clerks from the licenses in December 2015.

The plaintiffs soon filed a motion requesting to be granted attorney's fees and cost, but earlier this year, a magistrate denied their request, arguing that they were not the "prevailing parties" in the case against Davis.

"This voluntary conduct by the state changing the marriage license forms so that the county clerk, Kim Davis, was no longer required to sign the license, does not signal that the plaintiffs prevailed in the action, and cannot serve as the basis for an award of attorney's fees," U.S. District Judge Edward Atkins wrote, according to Christian News Network.

On Friday, Bunning rejected Atkins' recommendation, arguing that the plaintiffs "won the war" because they got an injunction requiring Davis' office to issue the marriage licenses again.

Woody Maglinger, a spokesman for Bevin, said that the state's outside counsel is still studying Bunning's ruling and that no decision has been made whether to try to reverse it.
home US Hobby Lobby dispels rumors that it's closing down all stores

Arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has issued a statement to dispel rumors that the company is closing down all of its stores.

The rumor that Hobby Lobby was shutting down its stores was first reported by the conservative website US Herald. However, the Oklahoma-based company released a statement on Saturday to refute the rumors of store closure.

"Hobby Lobby often hears from concerned customers who have read on social media that the company is closing its doors. The online article gives the impression that Hobby Lobby founder and CEO, David Green, has decided to shut down all Hobby Lobby stores," the statement read.

"The good news is that the report is false. Hobby Lobby is not closing stores. In fact, the company is experiencing tremendous growth, opening 50 new stores in 2017 with plans to open more in the following years. The company looks forward to meeting customers' expectations with super selection and super savings for many years to come," it continued.

The US Herald site claimed in a July 11 post that it has obtained an open letter from Hobby Lobby CEO David Green announcing the closure. The Herald article was reportedly shared approximately 206,000 times on social media, but it no longer appears on the website.

Hobby Lobby, founded in 1972, gained national attention in 2014 after it sued the Obama administration over a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring for-profit companies to provide health care coverage for all FDA-approved birth control, including abortifacients, to their employees.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby, which is overseen by a devout Christian family, could be exempted from the HHS mandate due in part to being a closely-held family business.

Snopes noted that the rumors of the store closures first appeared in 2012 when the HHS mandate was first proposed. Similar rumors circulated after Hobby Lobby agreed to pay a $3 million fine over claims that the company had brought ancient artifacts illegally smuggled from Iraq.

On July 5, the Department of Justice announced that Hobby Lobby agreed to forfeit about 5,500 artifacts that were obtained from antiquities dealers and pay $3 million to settle the civil charges against the company.

The artifacts, which include cuneiform tablets and bricks, clay bullae and cylinder seals, were reportedly shipped from a dealer based in the United Arab Emirates to three Hobby Lobby corporate addresses in Oklahoma City.

Green denied that the artifacts were purchased from dealers in Iraq and stated that the company has now "implemented acquisition policies and procedures based on the industry's highest standards."
home US House votes against ban on military funding of transgender surgery

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to reject a proposal to ban military funding of gender reassignment procedures for military service members.

Members of the House voted 209a214 to dismiss an amendment to the $696 billion 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which lays out military budget and expenditures.

The amendment, proposed by Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), was aimed at rescinding the military's authority to fund hormone therapy, sex change surgeries and other treatments related to gender transition for service members and their families. The proposal, however, would have maintained funding for mental health services related to gender dysphoria.

Hartzler had expressed concern over funding the high-priced surgeries on the military's financially strapped budget, as well as the decrease in troop readiness due to post-surgery recovery time.

"There are many problems, but funding transition surgeries with tax dollars are problematic because the surgery is very costly," Hartzler stated, as reported by Church Militant. "Surgical recovery time decreases the deployability of our soldiers and funding transition surgeries means diverting money from other defense priorities," she added.

Hartzler's proposal came after the Obama administration ended the ban on openly serving transgender service members and enacted a policy last year that funds costly transgender health services for members of the military who are medically diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

At least two dozen Republicans joined 190 Democratic lawmakers in opposing the amendment. House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi argued that the proposal amounted to discrimination against transgender service members by not paying for such surgeries.

"Make no mistake, the effect and the intent of this unjust and mean-spirited amendment is to ban patriotic Americans from serving our country," Pelosi contended. "It is designed to throw transgender service members out of the military," she continued.

Congressman Duncan Hunter rejected Pelosi's argument, saying the amendment did not prevent transgenders from serving in the military. "You're joining the U.S. military. Choose what gender you are before you serve," he said.

On June 30, Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that he was postponing the July 1 deadline for the armed services to begin accepting transgender applicants by six months to study the new policy further.

However, service members have already been required to undergo training on the new policy, and female Army soldiers have been instructed to accept having biological men in their showers.

The new guidelines state that soldiers only need to obtain a diagnosis from a doctor and change their gender in the military's database prior to showering with members of the opposite sex.
home World Indian police round up 4 suspects in murder case of Christian pastor

Indian authorities have rounded up four suspects on Saturday in connection with the murder of a Christian pastor in Ludhiana.

According to Times of India, the police carried out a search operation in Jageerpur, Arjun Colony, Kakke, Bajrna and Bahadur K on Saturday and rounded up four youths in connection with the murder of Pastor Sultan Masih.

The pastor was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne assailants on July 14 while he was talking on the phone outside the Temple of God church in Ludhiana. The attack was captured by CCTV cameras installed at the church, but a police spokesman said that the footage was too dark to make out the faces of the attackers.

Over 200 police officers led by senior officials carried out the search operation which lasted almost six hours.

"The police showed us the CCTV footage and asked if we have seen anyone in our area. Besides, cops also asked about 6-ft men. The police also asked about the bikes and cars owned by villagers," a villager stated.

"The police noted down names and mobile numbers of several villagers. They also asked not to give house or room on rent to any person without police verification," another villager said.

Among those arrested was a scrap dealer, a worker at a welding shop and the owner of the welding shop.

The arrests were made on the same day the Christian community threatened to hold protests if the authorities failed to arrest the perpetrators by July 24.

"We will hold Masih's memorial service on July 24. Till then, the police should be able to arrest the culprits else the Christian community that is living under fear would be forced to hold protest demonstrations in Ludhiana," said Albert Dua, a representative of the Christian community.

Two days after the shooting, hundreds of Christians took to the streets and blocked off a major national highway for three hours in protest of Masih's murder. The protesters only agreed to leave after receiving assurances form the police that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

Meanwhile, the pastor's 22-year-old son, Alisha Masih, has revealed that the pastor received death threats on social media before he was shot.

Alisha, who is also training to be a pastor, also noted that his father had been approached by a group of men after an event celebrating the anniversary of his church in May. The men reportedly asked Masih where he found the money to pay for the function attended by about 800 people, and whether he would give them something if they converted to Christianity.

According to Alisha, the pastor told the men that he would not give them anything and that those who converted had done so only because of their belief in Jesus.

Alisha believes that the perpetrators were monitoring his father on the night he was killed, noting that the attackers waited until the pastor was alone before carrying out the shooting.

"Our father was a courageous man and he was never afraid to die for Jesus. He has put the same zeal in us. Our family will continue to serve God," said Alisha.
home US Indiana school district gives in to atheist group's demand to ban prayer at graduation ceremonies

A school district in Indiana has promised to stop allowing prayers at graduation ceremonies in its schools following a complaint from a Wisconsin-based atheist group.

Last month, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent a letter to Elkhart Community Schools to complain about the prayers that have been featured in a graduation ceremony at the Roosevelt STEAM Academy.

The atheist organization has reportedly sent two notices to the school, arguing that the inclusion of prayer at school-sanctioned events is "unconstitutional."

FFRF lawyer Ryan Jayne claimed that a "concerned parent" reached out to the group after a speaker "invoked the name of Jesus" during a graduation ceremony at the academy on May 26.

"The Supreme Court has continually struck down prayers at school-sponsored events, including public school graduations," Jayne wrote.

"It makes no difference how many students want prayer or wouldn't be offended by prayer at their graduation ceremony," the lawyer continued.

In response to the FFRF's letter, Elkhart Schools District Counsel Chief of Staff and General Counsel W. Douglas Thorne confirmed that the academy will no longer include prayer in their graduation ceremonies.

"The Elkhart Community Schools understand our obligation to maintain a status of neutrality on matters related to religious belief, and to avoid actions which might be construed as endorsement of any particular religious beliefs," Thorne wrote, according to The Blaze.

"Our obligation to maintain a status of religious neutrality is communicated to our staff at all levels on a regular basis," he added.

In a statement released on Thursday, FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said she and her organization trust the school district to keep its promise not to allow prayers at the STEAM Academy's graduation ceremonies.

The FFRF complaint came just a few months after Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb approved a legislation that guarantees the students' rights to religious expression in public schools.

House Bill 1024, signed by Holcomb in late April and went into effect at the beginning of July, allows students in public school to pray or participate in religious activities "before, during, and after the school day in the same manner and to the same extent that students may engage in nonreligious activities or expression."

The new law also permits public schools to teach survey courses on world religions and allows children to express their religious beliefs in their homework and artwork as well as their jewelry or clothing. Additionally, the legislation also grants religious groups the right to use public school facilities.
home World ISIS 'bill of sale' document details how women in Mosul were sold for $1,500

A document found in the newly liberated Iraqi city of Mosul appears to show how women in the city were traded as sex slaves by members of the Islamic State terror group.

The "bill of sale," which appears to be signed with fingerprints of the buyer and seller, details how one woman, described as "20-years-old, physically fit with brown eyes," was sold for $1,500.

The hand-written note reveals that the woman was sold by someone named Abu Zubair to an individual named Abu Monem.

According to Daily Mail, the authenticity of the document, which is now circulating on social media, has not been independently verified, and the identity of the woman involved is not known.

Most of the sex slaves captured by the terror group are members of the Yazidi community. Yazidis, who are neither Arab nor Muslim, are regarded by ISIS as devil-worshippers and citizens without rights due to their alleged anti-Islamic beliefs.

It is believed that ISIS has kidnapped as many as 6,470 Yazidis when the militants captured Sinjar in August 2014. Most of the men were killed and dumped in mass graves, while the women and children were sold into slavery.

Younger children were reportedly sold for about $500 to couples who could not have children to be brought up as Muslims. Older boys were forced to train as fighters or sold as house slaves if they were found to be unfit for combat.

Last year, an ISIS posting in Arabic detailed the sale of a young girl, saying: "Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old.... Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon."

The advertisement was reportedly posted on an encrypted Telegram application and was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with Iraq's persecuted Yazidi community.

Another document recently discovered in Mosul appears to show how much ISIS fighters earn for committing terrorist acts. Single militants receive as low as 55 (US$71) for each task, the Daily Star reported, citing Sputnik News.

One jihadi, identified as Abu Jana, was paid 140 (US$182), while another militant called Abu Nasser, received 195 (US$253) for leading an attack on coalition forces. Leaders of the terror group reportedly take home monthly payments of over (US$494).

The document also indicated that militants who are injured in attacks launched by coalition forces receive generous reimbursements.

However, the wages have dropped dramatically as the terror group continues to lose ground. When ISIS gained control of the region in 2014, foreign fighters reportedly earned as much as 1,000 (US$ 1,301) a month.
home World ISIS uses drones to drop bombs on coalition forces in Raqqa, according to Christian militia

Christian forces battling against the Islamic State in the Syrian city of Raqqa have reported that while a significant number of terrorists have already fled from the city, the remaining militants are now turning to drones to drop bombs on coalition forces.

The Syriac Military Council (MFS) has stated that the remaining militants have resorted to "dirty tactics" in its efforts to maintain its control on Raqqa.

"ISIS has been defeated so far inside the city, hundreds maybe thousands of fighters maybe escaped during the first stages of the operation and just before the siege of the city from all sides," MFS spokesman Kino Gabriel said in a video message on Tuesday, according to PJ Media.

"Those who are left, maybe they will be in the thousands, and they are fighting very hard against our forces, mostly using, let's say, dirty tactics including dropping bombs from drones, snipers, VBIEDS [car bombs], and are using tunnels that have been built under the city to infiltrate our forces. So far, our forces have been able to do the task and stop any attacks from Daesh," he added.

The MFS, which consists of Assyrian men and women fighting alongside Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and other ethnic groups under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), also warned that the Turkish government and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are blocking the SDF's efforts to fight against ISIS.

Gabriel said that the participation of the MFS in liberating Raqqa is important "in order to revenge the persecution that Syriac Christians have taken, to revenge the persecution that we see and that people have been living under since 2013 and 2014."

He said that many civilians are still trapped in Raqqa who are living alongside a few Christian families whose status is "currently unknown," adding that the MFS is "taking different measures" to rescue the civilians as the operation against ISIS continues.

The spokesman also emphasized the role of the Bethnahrin Women's Protection Forces, which comprises the women of the MFS, who have participated in the operation in its early stages.

Gabriel said that the goal is to "completely liberate the city" from ISIS and allow the civilian administration to take control.

Raqqa was seized by ISIS in January 2014, the first of the group's captures in its expansion across the IraqiaSyrian border three years ago.

Earlier this year, ISIS released a lengthy video detailing the terror group's weaponized drone program. The militants have also used drones in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, but the Iraqi military had also done the same to the terrorists, dropping munitions on their positions using unmanned aircraft.

Last month, the Pentagon expressed plans to send greater anti-drone resources into Syria as the operation in Raqqa continues.

More than half of the old city of Raqqa is now under the control of militias backed by the U.S., but the battle is causing a rising toll of casualties, including from allied air raids in support of ground troops.

About 190,000 residents have fled the fighting, but the U.N. has estimated that 30,000a50,000 civilians remain trapped in the city.
home World Israel refuses to remove metal detectors outside Jerusalem mosque despite protests

Israel has refused to remove the metal detectors outside a major Jerusalem mosque despite the violent protest that occurred near the site on Friday.

The metal detectors were installed by Israeli authorities at entrances to Al-Aqsa mosque plaza after two police guards were shot dead on July 14.

Reuters reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated that he would halt security ties with Israel until the metal detectors are removed from the gates of the mosque.

On Friday, thousands of Muslims avoided the mosque and prayed on the narrow alleyways of the Old city's Muslim Quarter and the streets outside the Old City in protest of the new Israeli security measures.

According to Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, only "several hundred" worshippers prayed inside the mosque, which is usually attended by more than 50,000 Muslims on a typical Friday.

After the prayers, hundreds of young Muslim men and boys started throwing rocks at the Israeli security personnel spread out across the Old City and elsewhere in Jerusalem.

Three Palestinians were killed in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and more than 200 people were injured.

Many Muslims saw the metal detectors as an Israeli attempt to impose its sovereignty over the Temple Mount. The site, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, is considered to be the third holiest place in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

"It's not an issue of security. It's an issue of who controls the house of Allah. The Temple Mount is and must remain Muslim," said Khaled Moghrabi, a resident of the Muslim Quarter.

Tzachi Hanegbi, the Israeli minister for regional development, has firmly stated that the metal detectors will not be removed.

"They (metal detectors) will remain. The murderers will never tell us how to search the murderers," he told Army Radio, according to Reuters. "If they (Palestinians) do not want to enter the mosque, then let them not enter the mosque," he added.

The violent protests on Friday and Saturday have prompted the United Nations Security Council to convene a meeting to seek ways of calming the situation.

Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump's special representative for international negotiations, was sent by Washington to Israel on Sunday evening in hopes of helping to reduce the tensions.

"President Trump and his administration are closely following unfolding events in the region," he said. "The United States utterly condemns the recent terrorist violence," the official added.
home World Jehovah's Witnesses consider European court appeal after Russian Supreme Court upholds ban on sect

The Jehovah's Witnesses expressed its plans to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg after the Russian Supreme Court upheld a ruling that banned the sect and declared it as an "extremist" organization.

"We plan to appeal this at the European Court of Human Rights as soon as we can. All legal avenues inside Russia have been exhausted," Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a member of the European Association of Jehovah's Christian Witnesses, told Reuters.

Sivulskiy said that the sect strongly disagreed with the court's ruling, but it had no option but to comply.

The latest court ruling would allow the Russian government to liquidate the 395 Jehovah's Witnesses congregations and seize the sect's properties.

David Semonian, a spokesman for the sect, issued a statement saying, "it's very concerning that despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, powerful elements within Russia continue to frame our organization as extremist."

A European Union foreign policy spokeswoman had stated that the ban had already caused problems for the group.

"This ban has already resulted in cases of criminal prosecutions against Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as police raids on their prayer halls, arson attacks and other forms of harassment," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

"Jehovah's Witnesses, like all other religious groups, must be able to peacefully enjoy freedom of assembly without interference, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, as well as by Russia's international commitments and international human rights standards," she added.

A survey conducted by the Levada Center last month indicated that 79 percent of the respondents support the government's ban on the sect.

Prior to the ban, the group's publications have been included in a list of banned extremist literature and the prosecutors have long cast it as an organization that destroys families, fosters hatred and threatens lives. However, the Jehovah's Witnesses, which is known for its door-to-door preaching and rejection of military service and blood transfusions, contends that the description is false.

Jehovah's Witnesses, which claims to have about 175,000 followers in Russia, was legally registered as a religious group in the country in 1991 and re-registered in 1999.

In 2009, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision that declared 34 pieces of the group's literature as "extremist." That same year, the Jehovah's Witnesses was officially banned from the port city of Taganrog, after a local court ruled the organization guilty of inciting religious hatred by "propagating the exclusivity and supremacy" of their religion.

In 2015, 16 members of the sect were convicted of practicing extremism in Taganrog. Five of the convicted members were sentenced to more than five years' imprisonment, which was later suspended, while the others were punished with stiff fines.
home US Ken Ham lights Ark Encounter with rainbow colors to reclaim symbol from LGBT community

Famed creationist Ken Ham has announced that the Ark Encounter theme park in Williamstown, Kentucky, will be permanently lit in rainbow colors in an attempt to reclaim the symbol from the LGBT community.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Ham shared a photo of the 500-foot-long replica of Noah's ark lit up in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

"We now have new permanent rainbow lights at the Ark Encounter so all can see that it is God's rainbow and He determines its meaning in Genesis 6," Ham wrote.

He further explained that the rainbow serves as a reminder that "God will never again judge the wickedness of man with a global Flood-next time the world will be judged by fire."

"The Ark is lit permanently at night with a rainbow to remind the world that God owns it and He decreed it's a sign of His covenant with man after the Flood-Christians need to take back the rainbow as we do at the Ark Encounter," he added.

A majority of Ham's followers reacted positively to the announcement, with nearly 34,000 liking the post and over 8,000 expressing love for the move.

Ham first attempted to reclaim the rainbow when he lit up the theme park with rainbow lights last Christmas.

Chris Hartman, director of the Kentucky Fairness Campaign, said at the time that the rainbow symbolizes love, acceptance, unity and inclusion, "None of which Mr. Ham or his operation embrace or embody."

Josh Wagoner, co-chairman of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network of Greater Cincinnati, mocked Ham's Christmas campaign while expressing concern about how young people will receive the message. "I think the rainbow is big enough for all of us," he said at the time.

The use of the rainbow as a symbol for the gay rights movement was conceptualized by LGBT activist Gilbert Baker. In 1978, he was asked by San Francisco politician Harvey Milk to create a flag for the city's annual gay pride parade, and the rainbow flag has since become an international symbol for the movement.

In an interview with The Gospel Herald last month, Ham stated that issues surrounding gay and transgender rights have become "paw prints" in America, signaling the increasing secularization of the culture.

He contended that part of the problem lies with the Church, noting that many pastors and religious leaders "water down" the gospel and compromise God's word to "fit in" with the culture.
home US Minnesota city abolishes 'free speech zone' following protests against Satanic monument

Council members in a Minnesota city have decided to abolish the free speech zone at a local Veterans Memorial Park following large protests against the installation of a Satanic monument at the park.

In February, the Belle Plaine city council voted to create a "limited public forum/free speech zone" in Veterans Park after an atheist group threatened to sue the city for allowing a monument that featured a soldier kneeling before a cross tombstone to be displayed at the park.

The zone was supposed to be an area where religious monuments from all creeds, including Satanism, can be displayed.

The Satanic Temple soon applied to install a monument that features a pentagram in the park, and city officials said that they had to allow it due to the forum status.

On Saturday, over a hundred Christians held a prayer rally against the decision to allow the Satanic monument, prompting the council to abolish the "Free Speech Zone."

Apart from the prayer rally, the city has been flooded with calls and emails complaining about the Satanic monument. According to council member Cary Coop, the city received approximately 200 calls and emails each day.

"The original intent of providing the public space was to recognize those who have bravely contributed to defending our nation through their military service. In recent weeks and months, though, that intent has been overshadowed by freedom of speech concerns expressed by both religious and non-religious communities," Belle Plaine city officials said in a statement on Tuesday, as reported by Christian News Network.

The city officials lamented that the debate over the monuments has "promoted divisiveness" among the residents, adding that it detracted from the city's original intent of "designating a space solely for the purpose of honoring and memorializing military veterans."

"Therefore, the council believes that it is in the best interests of our Belle Plaine community to rescind the resolution, and bring this divisive matter to closure," the officials concluded.

The proposed Satanic monument was never installed, but the statue of a soldier kneeling at a grave marked by a cross has now been removed from the park.

The Satanic memorial would have been the first of its kind to be displayed on public grounds in U.S. history.

The space that was formerly designated as a "free speech" zone will now remain empty except for the American flag.
home World Over 500 boys abused in choir once run by elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI

At least 547 members of a choir once run by the brother of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI were reportedly abused by Catholic clergy in Germany over a period of sixty years, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The report counts a total of 500 cases of physical violence and 67 of sexual violence committed by a total of 49 perpetrators against members of the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir between 1945 and 1992.

Ulrich Weber, the lawyer tasked with investigating the cases, noted that the alleged physical abuse relates to children attending both the Regensburger Domspatzen's pre-school and high school.

"The whole system of education was oriented toward top musical achievements and the choir's success," the report stated. "Alongside individual motives, institutional motives - namely, breaking the will of the children with the aim of maximum discipline and dedication - formed the basis for violence," it continued.

Crux reported that the choir was run for 30 years by Benedict's elder brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger.

The 93-year-old Ratzinger, who served as head of the choir from 1964 to 1994, has denied any knowledge of what went on and maintained that it was "never discussed" while he ran the choir.

He once admitted that he had occasionally slapped boys, but he insisted that he never beat them until they were "black and blue"

Weber said that while Ratzinger had no knowledge of sexual abuse, "one can accuse him of looking the other way and failing to intervene."

He noted that he was unable to speak directly to some of the former students, and he estimated that the true number of abuse victims could be as high as 700. He said that some of the victims he spoke to described their experiences at the boarding schools as "the worst time of their lives, characterised by fear, violence and hopelessness."

Weber revealed that the alleged perpetrators had been identified but they were not expected to face criminal charges as the supposed crimes were committed too long ago to be legally valid. Out of 49 perpetrators, nine were reportedly found to have committed sexual abuse, Weber noted.

According to the BBC, the 1,000-year-old choir was previously rocked by allegations of widespread sexual abuse in 2010, and a report released in 2016 indicated that 231 children had been abused.

Weber had criticized Regensburg Bishop Gerhard Ludwig MAller, who is now a cardinal, for the weaknesses in the initial investigation when the scandal first emerged in 2010.

The church has previously offered to pay between a5,000 (US$5,776) and a20,000 (US$23,255) to the Regensburg victims.
home World Over 9 out of 10 British Christians feel their faith is marginalized, new survey finds

A new survey conducted by Premier Christian Communications has indicated that more than nine out of 10 Christians feel that their faith is being marginalized in British society.

The "State of the Faith" study found that 93 percent of about 12,000 Christian respondents believe that Christianity is being marginalized.

As many as 80 percent of the respondents feel that Christianity is not given equal respect, while 50 percent say they have experienced prejudice. Twenty-six percent said that they are unable to be open about their faith.

Tim Dieppe, Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern, which provides legal support to Christians, said the findings reflect the organization's experiences over the years.

"People try and say that our cases are the exception and extraordinary cases," he stated. "I think what [Premier's] research shows is that it's the tip of the iceberg and actually underlying this there is a very strong ground swell of feeling and experience of prejudice or marginalisation," he added.

The study also found that 67 percent of the respondents say that it is not considered acceptable in society for Christians to share their faith.

The latest figures also indicated that there is a generational gap in views regarding Christian marginalization. As many as 94 percent of pensioners agreed that Christianity is being marginalized in British society compared to only 77 percent of 15 to 19-year-olds.

However, as many as 70 percent of respondents aged 15a19 said they had experienced prejudice because of their faith, compared to just 51 percent of pensioners.

"It's clear that we are not the liberal accepting society we think we are if we don't tolerate and accept everyone, including Christians," Premier CEO Peter Kerridge stated.

"This survey clearly indicates how it feels to be an ordinary Christian today. I suspect that other faith groups may have similar stories to tell," he added.

Alex Cunningham, a Christian and Labour politician, said that the survey result was a "frightening statistic," noting that efforts by believers to challenge negative perceptions among non-believers could reduce the number of Christians who feel marginalized.

"We can all talk about them [Christian values] but actually doing the practical things - I think those are the things that change [that] perception," he said.

The survey came about a month after Tim Farron resigned as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, saying he could no longer do his job because of the hostility to his faith.

Farron, an evangelical Christian who has served as head of the Liberal Democrats since 2015, drew criticisms during the General Election for failing to answer questions about his views on homosexuality.

He clarified that he supported same-sex marriage and LGBT rights, but he declined to say whether or not he believed homosexuality is a sin. The politician continued to face questions in interviews even after he stated that he did not believe gay sex is a sin.
home World Pakistani Christian family flees from home following blasphemy accusations against teenage son

A Pakistani Christian family has fled from their home in Punjab province after their 16-year-old son was charged with blasphemy last week for talking with a colleague about his faith.

Shahzad Masih, a cleaner at a hospital in the city of Dinga, was arrested on July 13 after he was accused by his colleague, Ishtiaq Ahmed Jalali, of insulting Islam's prophet Muhammad, according to World Watch Monitor.

"We left the city same evening the clerics captured him," Shfaaqt Masih, the father of the teenager, told UCA News. "I switched off my phone fearing they will trace my family," he added.

Shfaaqt said that the local police station will not disclose where the teenager is being held. "My relatives even visited the jail but he is not there. We don't know what to do," he said.

Former Punjab parliamentarian Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, the leader of the largest Christian political party, said that he had personally investigated the matter, and he found out that the argument stemmed from Jalali's attempts to convert Shahzad to Islam.

The police complaint against Shahzad was reportedly filed by another man identified as Nadeem Ahmed, who claimed to have called the accused from his mobile phone repair shop to ask him about what he had said. Ahmed further claimed that Shahzad repeated the "abusive words" against Muhammad and then fled.

According to UCA News, activists from the Islamist party Tehreek-e-Tuhafaz Islam Pakistan took Shahzad to an Islamic seminary, where he was arrested by the police.

Shfaaqt noted that he and his family has been on the run since Shahzad was arrested. "We don't even know what to eat and where to live," he said.

Several Christian NGO's have offered to help the family, including Minority Rights Watch, which plans to provide legal support.

"An assistant sub inspector lodged the FIR though law clearly states that no police officer below the rank of superintendent can investigate cases involving derogatory remarks in respect to the Prophet," said Kashif Nawab, a patron of the group.

"The government should also establish a committee of religious leaders and police to probe and handle such issues," he added.

Both church and civil society have called for a repeal of Pakistan's blasphemy laws, claiming that the measures are being used to settle personal scores and persecute religious minorities.

The Human Rights Commission reported that 15 people a 10 Muslims and five non-Muslims a have been charged with blasphemy last year.

Blasphemy against Muhammad is punishable by death, but the state has not carried out an execution on anyone found guilty of the supposed crime. However, several people accused of blasphemy have been killed before their trial ended.
home US Pro-life pregnancy centers challenge Hawaii law requiring health facilities to promote abortions

Pro-life pregnancy centers in Hawaii have filed a lawsuit to challenge a new law that requires health facilities to provide advertising for state-funded abortions and contraception coverage programs.

A Place for Women Pregnancy Care Center and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates are challenging S.B. 501, which requires locally funded pregnancy centers to post and distribute a notice indicating that the state offers free abortions, as well as a website link on where and how to schedule a taxpayer-funded abortion.

"This clinic does not provide abortion services or abortion referrals. Only ultrasounds performed by qualified healthcare professionals and read by licensed clinicians should be considered medically accurate," part of the notice read.

"Hawaii has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services including all FDA-approved methods of contraception, prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women," it continued.

According to Christian News Network, the notice must also include the web address and phone number where women can obtain abortions or other services.

Pregnancy centers found to be in violation of the new regulation could be slapped with a $500 citation for a first-time offense and $1,000 for subsequent refusal to advertise abortions.

The two pro-life pregnancy centers have argued that such a requirement violates their faith and is tantamount to compelled speech.

The groups are asking for an injunction against the law and a declaration that it is unconstitutional both on its face and as applied to the pregnancy centers.

Unlike abortion businesses, the pregnancy centers targeted by the law are not funded by the state. All five pro-life pregnancy centers in Hawaii are operated and funded by Christians who have created the organizations as life-affirming alternatives to abortion.

The lawsuit against the Hawaii law is tied to an ongoing challenge to a similar law in California that could be headed to the Supreme Court as early as this fall.

In October 2016, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Hawaii and California, upheld the California law that requires pregnancy centers to promote abortions.

"Like the California law, this law violates the fundamental constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion," National Institute of Family and Life Advocates President Tom Glessner wrote to supporters on Tuesday, according to The Daily Signal.

"The matter is clearaif we win our case against California at the Supreme Court, then we will also win the Hawaii case. Failure is not an option for us," he added.

Apart from California and Hawaii, the state of Illinois has also tried to enact a law that penalizes pro-life medical practitioners for refusing to promote abortions. In 2016, the state overturned the Healthcare Right of Conscience Act to allow pro-life medical professionals to be held liable for refusing to counsel on the supposed "benefits" of abortions and refer their patients directly to local abortion providers.

Several groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom and Thomas More Society, have filed lawsuits to challenge the Illinois mandate, and a judge has granted a preliminary injunction for three pregnancy centers in the state.

Similar attempts to enact laws that would have required pro-life pregnancy centers to post a notice to refer patients, directly or indirectly, to abortion providers have been struck down in New York City; Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; and Montgomery County, Maryland.
home US Social services offered by churches often go unnoticed by Americans, new study reveals

Many Americans know that churches are involved in programs to feed the hungry and clothe the poor, but few are aware of other church programs that are aimed at serving the community.

A study conducted by LifeWay Research found that 60 percent of Americans are aware that churches feed the hungry, while 50 percent know that churches give clothing to the poor.

However, few Americans are aware of that churches also provide other social services, such as tutoring school kids, teaching English to immigrants and helping people prepare their taxes.

"Unless you've received help from a church -- or been involved in serving others -- these kinds of programs may fly under the radar," said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, according to Baptist Press.

Out of 1,000 Americans surveyed, only eight percent were aware that churches help people prepare their taxes. Only 12 percent know that churches offer foster care, and 13 percent were aware that churches teach English to immigrants.

A few more knew about the churches' efforts to provide aid to new moms at 19 percent. Twenty-one percent were aware that churches support local schools, while 29 percent know about after-school programs offered by churches.

A quarter of the respondents said they were aware that church members visit prisoners, while 33 percent knew that churches shelter the homeless. Thirty-nine percent knew about the efforts of churches to provide relief to disaster victims.

The findings indicated that those who attend religious services at least once a month are more likely to know about the services offered by congregations.

Thirty percent of the respondents who attend services at least once a month said they have heard of churches tutoring school kids, while eight percent of those who attend less than once a month have heard of church tutoring programs.

A total of 72 percent of respondents who regularly attend services, knew that churches give clothing to the poor, compared to 39 percent who attend church less than once a month.

McConnell noted that churches often serve anyone from their community, whether they attend services or not. However, those who attend the services may not get the message, which he said is a problem because people won't turn to a church when they need help if they don't know about a church's efforts to help others.

"People who need help may be missing out," he said. "And Americans who want to lend a hand might miss the chance to help out and along the way connect with the church," he added.

The survey was conducted between Sept. 27 and Oct 1, 2016, with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
home US Supreme court retains expanded list of exemptions from Trump travel ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a federal judge's decision to expand the list of relatives who are exempted in President Donald Trump's executive order banning visitors from six Muslim-majority countries.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson issued a ruling exempting grandparents and other relatives of U.S. citizens from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from acquiring visas under the travel ban. He also ordered the government to allow refugees formally working with a U.S. resettlement agency to enter the country.

The Trump administration asked the high court last Friday to overturn Watson's ruling, which limited the scope of Trump's travel ban.

On Wednesday, the justices blocked Watson's order as it applies to refugees, but upheld the federal judge's expanded list of relatives.

According to The Associated Press, the Supreme Court decision affects 24,000 refugees who already have been assigned to a charity or religious organization in the U.S.

"This ruling jeopardizes the safety of thousands of people across the world including vulnerable families fleeing war and violence," said Naureen Shah, Amnesty International USA's senior director of campaigns.

The brief order stated that the court's decision is only temporary as the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considers a separate case on the same issue.

The latest round in the fight over Trump's executive order began after the Supreme Court allowed the administration to partially reinstate the 90-day ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries and a 120-day ban on refugees from anywhere in the world.

The court's ruling had exempted people with a "bona fide relationship" with a person or an entity in the U.S., but the justices did not define those relationships.

The administration had narrowly interpreted the ruling, saying the ban would apply to grandparents and other family members, prompting the state of Hawaii to ask Watson to expand the definition of relatives who could be admitted to the country.

The exemption from the travel ban had previously applied only to parents, spouses, fiances, sons, daughters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law or siblings. Watson added grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins to the list of relatives that could be allowed to enter the U.S.

The State Department has already instructed diplomats to use the expanded list when considering visa applicants from the six countries.

Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas stated last month that they would have allowed the travel ban to take full effect, and the same three justices also would have blocked Watson's order in its entirety.

The Supreme Court announced that it has scheduled oral arguments regarding the lawfulness of the travel ban for Oct. 10, though the 90-day pause will have expired by that time.
home US Trump administration redirects funds from teen pregnancy research to abstinence programs

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is pulling over $200 million in taxpayer funding away from teen pregnancy prevention programs and research. Instead, it will redirect the money to abstinence programs.

On July 14, HHS Secretary Tom Price made the decision to cut $213.6 million from 81 organizations that had been awarded five-year grants under former President Barack Obama.

According to Church Militant, the administration of President Donald Trump is now calling for the redirection of the money, with an additional $50 million, towards abstinence and personal responsibility programs between 2018a2024.

Cleveland Right to Life commended the Trump administration for the decision. "It is certainly refreshing to see that the President and his administration are acknowledging this fact and are working with abstinence program organizations who have shown that these programs work," said the group's president, Molly Smith.

"Throwing contraception at young girls and telling them that as long as they are contracepting they can be sexually active verges on abuse," she continued.

Federal funds for abstinence-only programs, which had been receiving only $10 million each year, had been cut under the Obama administration in February 2016.

More than 80 institutions conducting research in teen pregnancy prevention lost their funding, including Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins University, Reveal News reported.

The decision to take away funding from teen pregnancy prevention programs came after Trump appointed abstinence-only advocate Valerie Huber to head the Office of Adolescent Health.

Huber once served as the president and CEO of Ascend, a group that advocates for abstinence-only education and was once known as the National Abstinence Education Association.

Among the programs affected by the HHS decision include the Choctaw Nation's efforts to combat teen pregnancy in Oklahoma, Johns Hopkins' work with adolescent Apaches in Arizona, and the University of Texas' guidance for youth in foster care.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), youth between the ages of 15 and 24 make up just over a quarter of the sexually active population, but they "account for half of the 20 million new sexually transmitted infections that occur in the United States each year."

The CDC also noted that teen pregnancy decreased eight percent from 2014a2015 through a combination of both contraception and abstinence programs.

"The birth rate to unwed mothers has reached alarming proportions despite these young women having easy access to contraception," Smith added.
home US Walter Martin's family urges Hank Hanegraaff to step down as head of CRI

Hank Hanegraaff has been asked to step down from his post as president of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) by family members of Dr. Walter Martin, who founded the organization in 1960.

A majority of Martin's family members signed a statement asking Hanegraaff to resign, following his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Hanegraaff confirmed in April that he had joined the Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte that month after attending services there for more than two years.

In an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday, Martin's eldest daughter, Jill Martin Rische, stated that she and many other evangelical Christians were "shocked and surprised" when Hanegraaff was formally received into the Eastern Orthodox Church.

She accused the popular radio host of being "fundamentally dishonest" because he has since been teaching a blend of Eastern Orthodoxy and evangelical Christianity on the "Bible Answer Man" show.

In an interview with NPR's Charlotte affiliate earlier this month, Hanegraaff had maintained that his theological beliefs have remained mostly unchanged.

However, Rische cited an article on waltermartin.com to point out that there are major differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and evangelical Christianity, adding that it would be dishonest to claim that the two traditions have no disagreements on major aspects, such as on Sola Scriptura, or Scripture alone.

"Evangelical Christianity believes that the Bible is the absolute and final authority, and Eastern Orthodoxy does not," she insisted.

Rische explained that while evangelicals believe in Salvation by the grace of God as a gift, Orthodoxy considers salvation to be a progress based on good works.

She argued that CRI was started by her father in 1960 as a Protestant ministry, and asserted that it is problematic that it is now being run by a man who has joined the Eastern Orthodox Church.

"It is not OK for an Eastern Orthodox believer to run a Protestant ministry," Rische stated. "You have to be one or the other. It is fundamentally dishonest from a theological standpoint for Hank Hanegraaff to be teaching Eastern Orthodoxy on the 'Bible Answer Man' program," she continued.

The statement calling on Hanegraaff to resign as CRI's president has been signed by Rische and her husband, as well as other members of Martin's family, including his children a Daniel, Elaine, and Debbie a and his widow Darlene.

However, Cindee Martin Morgan, who is also Martin's daughter, did not sign the statement. In May, she defended Hanegraaff from critics who have indicated they have a problem with his conversion.

Morgan contended that her father would never declare that someone who had converted to either the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church had "left the faith" if the person "professed faith in Jesus Christ demonstrated by the fruit of their life."

In response, Rische stated that Martin should be allowed to speak for himself, and pointed to her father's comments on one of his series on Roman Catholicism, where he warned against the reuniting with the Vatican.

"There is a great movement on today in apostate Protestantism to reunite with Rome. The threat of Communism is pushing Eastern Orthodoxy a the Greeks, the Coptics, the Egyptians a and the Roman Catholics together ... I would return to one Universal Church and to one supreme bishop if the theology of that church were consistent with the theology of the Word of God," Martin reportedly stated.

Rische clarified that the disagreements between evangelicalism and Eastern Orthodoxy need to be discussed, and she said that she continues to pray for Hanegraaff, especially in light of his battle with a rare form cancer known as mantle cell lymphoma.
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WASHINGTON  A Houston energy lawyer challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in next year's GOP primary was a registered Democrat in New York City, polling records obtained by the Chronicle show.

Stefano de Stefano, 36, has said he is running against Cruz as a "free market Republican."

In a statement Monday, de Stefano said his old party registration was a matter of practical politics in a largely Democratic state.

"I have always been a free market conservative," he said. "However, in New York, it was out of necessity to register as I did in order to have any say in the elections that mattered in my community.

"There might be a sitting president who could back that up, but you'll have to check," de Stefano added, in reference to President Donald Trump's past as a New York Democrat.

De Stefano said returned to the Republican fold in 2012, when he moved to Texas and supported Cruz's first bid for the Senate.

"When I got to Texas in 2012, I was excited to be back among other like-minded Republicans and had been looking forward to re-registering with the party I felt always better represented who I am," he said.

He is the only GOP primary challenger to emerge so far against Cruz, who was elected in 2012 with strong conservative and tea party support.

Besides de Stefano, Cruz faces Democratic hopeful Beto O'Rourke, a congressman from El Paso.

In launching his campaign last week, de Stefano described himself as a primary challenger from the political "center." He criticized what he called Cruz's history of promoting his personal brand over the interests of Texas.

"In the end, this campaign is about much more than political teams," he said Monday. "I'm tired of that, and I feel a lot of other decent people are, too. This is about having the political courage to find common ground and create solutions."
Three massive cranes departed China on Sunday and are en route to Barbours Cut Container Terminal.

Standing 270 feet tall from dock to apex, these cranes will be used to unload the increasingly large container ships that call on Port Houston. They are expected to arrive in Houston in early October, according to a Port Houston spokeswoman.
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A Mexican drug cartel has added improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to its arsenal after drawing inspiration from Colombia's largest rebel group.

The New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) has started using IEDs modeled after ones produced by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), according to a new report from Mexico's Center for Research and National Security (CISEN).

The IED is called the "potato" and includes nuts and nails wrapped in foil, according to a Google translation of Excelsior, a daily newspaper in Mexico City.

GANG LIFE: Texas gangs and cartels: A visual timeline of organized crime in Texas

CISEN warns that deadly attacks involving this IED may increase in the near future because of the Jalisco Cartel's rapid expansion, according to Excelsior. One of the factors fueling this expansion is the cartel's relationship with FARC, Excelsior said, citing CISEN's report.

The New Generation Jalisco Cartel has risen to power thanks to legal troubles dogging Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel. The young group controls territory in the center of the country and along the Pacific Coast.

Guzman is a master escape artist who has been jailed numerous times in Mexico. He was recently captured by Mexican marines in Jan. 2016 after months on the run. Guzman was extradited to the U.S. in Jan. 2017 on numerous charges that include murder conspiracy, money laundering and use of firearms, NPR reported.

Guzman was the focus of the TV series "El Chapo" which debuted on Netflix in April. The addition of "El Chapo" builds on the success Netflix has had with its original series "Narcos." The third season of the show, which follows the drug trade in Colombia during the 1970s, premiers on Sept. 1.

MUST WATCH: Narcos returns with a new enemy in season 3: The Cali Cartel

A request for comment has been made to CISEN.
Warning, there will be spoilers in the content below.

The second episode of "Game of Thrones" aired Sunday on HBO and fans across the nation reacted to every twist and turn with hilarious memes.
SPOILERS, ETC.

Thoughts on last week's episode. Also last chance, SPOILERS, ETC.!

More than two decades later my wife and I still use a quote from an evening newscast about a tiger. This zoo-bound tiger had mauled one of his keepers and the Kent Brockman guy doing the report asked a zoo administrator what would become of the tiger. "Nothing," he replied. "The tiger was just being a tiger."

While family and faith dominated my thoughts with last week's episode of "Game of Thrones," this week's had me thinking more about the nature of the show's characters, due in large part to the return of a favored "character," Nymeria the direwolf.

I give author George RR Martin and this show's creators credit for creating such a tempestuous story that characters that seem destined for the periphery often swirl into the eye of the storm, and some of those who seem closest to an ill fate sometimes make decisions that extend their arc.

When Arya left Braavos with all sorts of wild new killing skills, I feared the character was ruined and lost -- given the capacity to do more than just carry out the execution of the names on her list. But in the previous episode she broke bread (well, rabbit) with some Lannister bannermen and the character's early sweetness just briefly shone through.

A brief reunion with her old pal Hot Pie last night yielded new information for the youngest Stark daughter. That her "brother" Jon had assumed the place of King in the North. For Arya everything was simplified into a choice between going north to join Jon or going south to assassinate Cersei.

She chose north and while making camp encountered her direwolf, who had been missing since season 1. And then they parted again, with a simply heartbreaking line, "That's not you," a callback to a conversation Arya had with father Ned in the first season before the $#!+ the fan. "That's not you."

And who is she? She's one of three surviving Starks, and I realized the one who in the course of this specific story spent the most time with her father, who by all accounts of GOT pre-history and book/TV narrative, was one of the few characters with a moral code we'd refer to as "good."

I don't know what this means long term for Arya. Look where goodness got her father. But much in the same way she told Ned "That's not me," when he talked of some future where she'd be a lady married to some guy, it's possible that the part of vengeance-consumed assassin isn't her either. This development could save her neck. It could also cost her head.

But we've learned the hard way on this show large awesome creatures like direwolves aren't always deadly defense machines spiritually connected to their chosen humans. Sometimes they're just metaphors.

As our narrative funnel tightens toward its conclusion, the nature of these remaining characters looks to be more important than ever.

And the subject made me curious as to the episode title "Stormborn," a direct reference to Daenerys and one of the fifty or so names and descriptors in her title. The word refers to weather conditions during her birth, a very clear reference to nature, not nurture, though more specifically an external nature in contrast to her Targaryen blood. Which is to say there are scores of factors about which way this character will break, and only a few people know for sure. The meeting she held with her patchwork council was unsettling because the fractures and tensions were obvious. Not that I doubt the loyalty any of those in her service -- which includes Martells, Tyrells, Greyjoys, Tyrion, Varys, etc. -- but only elderly Olenna Tyrell said something that sounded true: "Peace never lasts, sweetheart."

Ouch. And yet . . .

At this stage the nature of our other characters appears to be close to cemented. Jon's aspirations truly seem to end with a defense against the White Walkers. Cersei really has no redeeming qualities left. Brother Jaime is becoming problematic. His redemption cycle has been interrupted by Lannister loyalty. If his sister's cruel ambition bothered him, it doesn't show anymore.

Jon plans to meet with Daenerys -- the idea being dragons and fire might counter the White Walkers. He leaves Sansa in charge of the North. The Littlefinger reaction shot at this news was Valdez-level oily. Like Cersei, Dany demands Jon bend the knee.

Here's the thing, Jon doesn't care about knee bending. He really just wants people to take certain annihilation seriously, dammit.

And he complicates the bejeebus out of the whole nature/nurture thing. The guy is part Stark, but he's not Ned Stark's kid, though he doesn't know that and appears to want to play by the Ned Stark playbook. Like Ned, he has little ambition beyond establishing some sort of cold, quiet peace. If he is part Targaryen -- suggested but at this point on the show still not QUITE confirmed -- he's missing that volatility. Instead he simply stands up at every opportunity to get knocked down.

And the last word on nature, those bleeping Greyjoys. Man, the Iron Born are some culture. And the episode ends explosively. If you'll recall, psychopath Euron wants to go kill his niece and nephew Yara and Theon, and he also promises Cersei some sort of cool gift to go with his marriage proposal. He lays waste to Yara and Theon's crew, Sand Snakes included. And in doing so, he moves from the periphery closer to the center of the story. Usually loons come in, disrupt things and exit grotesquely. Euron is a little different, though. In addition to being unhinged, he also comes across as brutally capable. He's not going to be standing when this show is over. But he could wreck a lot of stuff between now and then. It's in his nature.

And Theon is our miserable case study in nurture. He was obnoxiously arrogant when we first met him on this show. Captivity with Ramsay Bolton fundamentally changed him. And when his sister needed him most, he jumped ship. Literally. He's open for a redemption arc, but thus far he's given no indication that arc will come.

Other odds and ends: There was also talk of prophecy and "the prince who was promised," which Missandei complicated by suggesting the translation was funky and it could refer to a prince OR a princess. Then she and Grey Worm got all naked because the show had sailed past any previous record for episodes without nakedness. For the curious, Grey Worm is still a eunuch, so he abided by an Aerosmith lyric.

Melisandre returns, seemingly in Dany's service, suggesting she has a role to play in the north. Tyrion's all for forging some sort of alliance with Jon. They always got on well -- "cripples and bastards and broken things," etc. etc.

Qyburn returned after a week off. Turns out he's been hanging with the research and development guys on ways to kill dragons. We also get to see Sam's dad Randyll Tarly again, and he's no cheerier than when we last saw him. Jaime tries to enlist him to the Lannister side in the oncoming scrap. In a little allegorical touch Cersei decides kindling xenophobia is a smart strategic stroke, suggesting utopic Westeros is under siege by foreigners like those savage Dothraki. In her defense, Tyrion knows how Westeros works, and he thinks the optics of a foreign army trying to seize King's Landing will be bad. Smart guy.

Sam's working with Jorah to try and cure his greyscale, a process that is unpleasant to watch.

_____

Andrew Dansby is a pop culture writer at the Houston Chronicle. But as a young editorial assistant at the Spectra division of Bantam Books in the mid-1990s working with George R.R. Martin's editor, Dansby attained a unique distinction among all "A Game of Thrones" enthusiasts: No person spent more time Xeroxing manuscript pages for the first volume of Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. Seven hundred book pages amounted to well over 1,000 manuscript pages, a tedious and epic conflict at the copier that resulted in scores of paper cuts. That doesn't give him any particular insight into how the televised version of Martin's story will play out in its two final seasons. It's just proof that his love for Martin's story was more begrudgingly earned than yours.
Charges have been filed against a suspected robber who shot at a Houston police officer early Saturday.

David Elias, 21, was charged Saturday with aggravated assault against a public servant and aggravated robbery, according to a news release from the Houston Police Department that was sent out Monday.

He is accused of firing multiple times at an HPD sergeant while at a southwest Houston Shell station on Texas 6.

A bullet pierced the window of the sergeant's cruiser, but the sergeant only sustained minor injuries from glass fragments.

The gunfire followed a police chase, after the driver of the car Elias was in failed to stop when the HPD sergeant tried to pull them over, according to the release.

The suspected driver, Lawrence Gordon, 20, was charged Saturday with aggravated robbery, felony evading arrest and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, according to court records.

Officers first tried to track down the duo after reports that they had stolen a couple's car at gunpoint, at 11131 Windmark. The police chase ensued after Gordon, believed to have been driving the stolen car at the time, refused to pull over after the sergeant signaled.

Elias appears to have been on the run after being charged July 13 with aggravated assault of a family member, according to court records.

Elias was accused of brandishing a gun July 13 at his sister.

Gordon has one prior criminal charge in Harris County. He was charged in October 2016 for possession of between 1 and 4 grams of a controlled substance, according to court records. Gordon was participating in a pre-trial intervention program for the charge when he was arrested in connection with the police shooting, according to court records.

Elias and Gordon are being held in the Harris County jail.

Elias' was initially being held without bail. It was later reduced to $50,000 for each charge, according to court records.

Gordon is being held without bail.
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Reports of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at Texas Southern Universitys Thurgood Marshall School of Law prompted the American Bar Association to hand down sanctions against the program, the trade group announced last week.

Association investigators reviewed harassment and discrimination complaints and concluded last October that the law school didn't meet accepted standards.

NATIONAL ISSUE: Investigation launched into alleged prep school sex assaults

The law school, publicly censured after the association's findings, must pay $15,000, turn in a plan for reducing sexual harassment and gender discrimination on campus and submit possible remediation and educational programs by an October deadline.

TSU appealed the October decision but acknowledged that the school had to eliminate a perception of gender bias at the law school. In June, association committee members denied TSU's appeal "to assure that the university follows through on the plans that it is making to address this issue," the association wrote in its decision, which was published late last week.

Interim dean James M. Douglas said Sunday that no evidence of gender discrimination has been found at the school, but the perception on campus is prevalent. He said the university has started to hold discussion groups and seminars on the issue.

"Because there have been a number of allegations, it means we have to deal with the environment that creates those perceptions," he said. "If somebody says, 'I feel I'm in a hostile environment,' and you look into the facts, and the conclusion is that there is no hostile environment, it doesn't relieve that person of their belief. Somehow you have to deal with those beliefs."

President Austin Lane, who started at the university after the allegations that supported the team's conclusions occurred, said at an appeal hearing that gender discrimination "will not be tolerated," according to the association.

WITHIN TEXAS: New Title IX investigation opened at Texas A&M

Separately, the association  which represents more than 400,000 of the 1.3 million lawyers in the U.S.  found that the Thurgood Marshall School of Law did not uphold basic admissions standards by letting in applicants who do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its educational program and being admitted to the bar.

In October, the association raised questions on first-time bar passage results, student attrition, the size of incoming classes and the nature and scope of academic support at the law school. TSU also appealed these findings at the time, but they were affirmed at a June meeting.

The law school must give the association admissions data regarding the fall 2017 class by October 1 and indicate what factors led to a students admission to the university. It also must share with students pass rates for the Texas bar examination by their class rank.

Douglas said TSU will work to improve its first-time bar examination performance but that a student's race plays a large role in his or her results, making the effort more challenging.

"They're thinking you need to admit students who will pass the bar the first time," he said. "That disregards our mission of educating minority lawyers. It doesn't matter where you go to school. Minority law graduates have problems with the bar regardless of where they go to law school."

Enrollment at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law has varied from 466 to 544 in the fall semester of the last five years.

Heidi Smith, Lane's chief of staff, said in an emailed statement that after TSU learned of the deficiencies from the self-study and on-site re-accreditation visit, the university changed department leadership and required new training for faculty and staff.

"In the coming months, we will continue to partner with the ABA to address the concerns raised by the censure," she said in an email.

All accredited law schools are evaluated every seven years to ensure compliance with association standards, she said.

Lindsay Ellis writes about higher education for the Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter. Send her tips at lindsay.ellis@chron.com.
U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Houston Democrat, said he plans to introduce legislation on Monday that would prevent President Donald Trump from pardoning himself.

Trump said in a Twitter post Saturday that he has the complete power to pardon, an apparent reference to his ability to pardon himself and other associates as federal officials investigate Russian interference in Trumps election.
PECOS - The Houston water well company Layne Christensen has laid its last segments of 22-inch polyethylene pipe in the Delaware Basin, and is just days from opening its 20-mile pipeline to oil and gas operators here.

The Delaware, the southern lobe of the prolific Permian Basin, is a desert, full of thorny mesquite trees and pesky agave lechuguilla  also called shin daggers  a cactus that trips up horses and pierces skin. Oil and gas companies must find water here for hydraulic fracturing operations to work.
Oil optimists are back. Theyre just not betting the ranch on a rally yet.

Hedge funds added the most weekly wagers on rising West Texas Intermediate crude prices since February, with short-sellers on a steady retreat. Whether the improving mood sticks will depend largely on OPEC, whose members are gathered in St. Petersburg.

Everybody is still operating off of OPECs mantra that it will do whatever it takes to get global inventories down, Rob Thummel, managing director and portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC, which manages $16 billion in energy-related assets, said by telephone.

Oil has rebounded from a funk in June one timid, fleeting rally at a time as American stockpiles decline and the summer boosts demand for gasoline. But doubts still abound that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have a grip on the global supply and demand balance.

Output has risen from Libya to U.S. shale fields. Ecuador, an OPEC member, stirred up uncertainties last week when its oil minister said the country can no longer comply with production curbs agreed on in November.

OPECs supply in July will be the highest this year, according to tanker-tracker Petro-Logistics SA. The groups compliance with the November deal dropped to 92 percent in June from 110 percent in May, according to a person familiar with the data.

Several OPEC nations and other leading oil-exporting countries gathered in St. Petersburg for a technical meeting on Saturday before a summit of oil ministers on Monday. OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said the technical meeting was "very productive" and compliance with production cuts has been "excellent.

Limiting oil output from Nigeria and Libya has been ruled out for now, with both African nations saying theyll need to keep pumping at a higher level before they can join the global effort to stem the supply glut, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Declining stockpiles

Meantime, the U.S. market appears to be starting to shape up. Nationwide crude inventories are at the lowest level since January, and gasoline supplies have declined for five straight weeks, the latest Energy Information Administration data showed. The agency has lowered its U.S. crude output forecast for next year to 9.9 million barrels a day, from a 10.01 million estimate in June.

Hedge funds increased their WTI net-long position -- the difference between bets on a price increase and wagers on a drop -- by 21 percent to 215,488 futures and options over the week ended July 18, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission show. That was the most bullish stance in six weeks. Shorts slipped by 17 percent, a third week of declines, while longs climbed 4.6 percent to the highest level since April.

The net-bullish position on the benchmark U.S. gasoline contract rose for a fourth week to the most bullish stance since April. The bearish net-position on diesel increased by 13 percent.

WTI traded at $45.59 a barrel at 9:49 a.m. London time on Monday, 8.4 percent higher than its June low. The rebound from last months doldrums may have encouraged investors to cut back on short positions, according to Tim Evans, an analyst at Citi Futures Perspective in New York.

We are seeing a little bit of fresh buying, but not really a confident flow that would reflect an expectation that prices will continue to work higher, he said.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is considering a reduction in its exports of a further 1 million barrels a day to offset rising Libyan and Nigerian production, according to consultant Petroleum Policy Intelligence.

People are still leaning a little bearish, Bill OGrady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis, said by telephone. Anything OPEC does to cut production probably gets offset by the shale boys anyway.
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Citizens of San Jacinto County learned some of the history of East Texas when Wallace Scot McFarlane of Columbia University was hosted by the local historical commission.

McFarlane is a PhD at Columbia University in New York City. He is in the process of writing his dissertation where his current stage is sharing his current findings on East Texas history with local residents. He hopes this can provide him with more insight for writing his dissertation.

"It's going to probably be another four years before the dissertation is complete," he said.

McFarlane delivered his presentation on July 20 first at the Coldspring Senior Center and later at the Old Waverly School Building, which is part of the Old Town Heritage Village. He focused on the Trinity River, referring to it as one of the borders of East Texas.

The river is popular for those who fish for alligator gar.

"The alligator gar is a sort of nice metaphor for the river itself," said McFarlane.

Alligator gar are known for spawning their eggs during a flood. If the river isn't flooding, they reabsorb their eggs. They are also known to have lengthy life spans with some of them living to be 100 years old.

"They hold a lot of history in them," he said.

While the fish were once considered a good source of food, many started to consider them to be trash fish and began killing the gar.

"This was not unlike the Trinity River," McFarlane continued, noting the river was reflective of the view on the alligator gar at the time. "Today the Trinity River is kind of going under a renaissance."

The State of Texas experienced a number of newcomers starting with the Spanish. They were kicked out of the state by the Comanche tribe, who were also newcomers to Texas.

"They left a number of their horses behind," said McFarlane.

The Comanche tribe took the Spanish horses and built what many people call an empire.

Another group of Native Americans also came into the state known as the Alabama-Coushatta. This tribe built flat boats during the Civil War to transport goods. A French settlement on the Trinity River also became very prominent and played a part in the nation of France being the first European power to recognize the State of Texas.

In 1836, citizens of Texas experience what was known as the Runaway Scrape.

"That's where people were fleeing Santa Anna," said McFarlane.

The Trinity River was in a state of flooding during this time period, but those who crossed it were able to escape Santa Anna's forces.

The Coushatta villages were prominent in helping Texas citizens flee Santa Anna's army.

"They helped everyone get across the river," said McFarlane.

One of the individuals they helped across the river was Mirabeau B. Lamar. Lamar allegedly distrusted the Native American tribes but made an exception for the Alabama-Coushatta tribe.

The Trinity River was also used to ship cotton, which became one of the major crops in the area. Many crop producers were also using slaves, some of whom found the local environment had not been cleared and therefore proved to be beneficial for anyone trying to escape.

"There were lots of places to hide out," said McFarlane.

Slavery came to an end at the conclusion of the Civil War, prompting many plantations to switch to sharecropping.

The reputation of the Trinity River also changed.

"This is where you start to get a lot of mentions of murders," said McFarlane.

He explained that the Trinity River was notorious for having bodies dumped into it by local criminals, which includes Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, more commonly known as Bonnie and Clyde.

According to McFarlane, the City of Dallas built lots on the river and tried to turn it into a port city. However, they started to pollute it, causing many to refer to it as a mythological river of death.

The river also started to develop a terrible smell and also destroyed the levees.

"This was really a tough situation for a lot of people," said McFarlane.

The Clean Water Act came into effect in 1972 and addressed the pollution in the Trinity River.

McFarlane describes the Trinity River as one of the ways the State of Texas is connected. The future is still being decided for it but Dallas is already taking an initiative.

"Dallas is trying to reconnect with the river," said McFarlane.
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The Coldspring/San Jacinto County Chamber of Commerce welcomes Church BBQ at their second location in Point Blank, Texas.

Church BBQ originates from Huntsville and has existed for 48 years. Originally owned by Annie Ward, the barbecue restaurant is now owned by Clinton Edison after Ward's health declined.

"He took over and has been running it ever since," said Kebble Edison, Clinton's daughter and an employee at the Point Blank location.

The second location opened July 1 of this year and specializes in providing homemade barbecue for its customers.

"It's church oriented and we sell the best barbecue," said Kebble.

Church BBQ sells anything from chicken and ribs to brisket and sausage with sides of beans and potato salad. Barbecue can also be sold in family containers and Church BBQ also has pies for dessert.

Kebble explains that Church BBQ has a story all on its own as Ward provided barbecue years ago for members of the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church congregation in Huntsville as they were renovating the building.

"She came over and started cooking for them," said Lawrence Pickett, one of Church BBQ's pit masters. "Everyone started joining in."

Many who were passing by at the time started to inquire as to whether or not if the barbecue was for sale. This led to Ward creating Church BBQ.

Church BBQ is located at the Exxon gas station at 10890 Highway 190 Point Blank, Texas 77364. Their hours of operation are Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 936-377-5101 or visit their Facebook page at Church BBQ.
Canadian rapper and Houston lover Drake had a busy couple of days in the Bayou City as he celebrated the third annual Houston Appreciation Weekend.

HAW festivities included a charity barbecue at Jet Lounge, a pool party at Cle and The Ballet, Drake's pop-up strip club that was hosted by Lil Wayne. Drake also showed up at the Manchester Derby at NRG Stadium and Discovery Green for local rapper Trae Tha Truth's annual Trae Day on Saturday.
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Barry Jenkins the writer and director of the best picture Oscar winning film "Moonlight" will appear as the keynote speaker at the South By Southwest Conference's film festival in Austin in March.

Jenkins first film "Medicine for Melancholy" had its world premiere at SXSW in 2008. He returns next year having won a best adapted screenplay Oscar for "Moonlight," which also won a Golden Globe for best picture, drama.
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Isabella Morrison hopes her stint this summer as Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" is just a step on the yellow brick road to Broadway.

"So far, so good," she sings, in her favorite song of the musical, which plays through July 30 at Main Street Theater in Houston.

The Friendswood High School sophomore, 15, is the only teenager in the fully professional production, said Shannon Emerick, MST's director of marketing and communications.

"'The Wizard of Oz' has definitely been one of my favorite movies, and 'Wicked' was the first show I saw on Broadway," said Morrison, referring to the popular stage musical that upends everything fans thought they knew after seeing the classic movie or reading the book by L. Frank Baum.

"Our show is a little different from the movie, but we still have the Lion and the Tin Man and the Scarecrow," she said

"My favorite song in the show is 'So Far, So Good,' which we sing a lot, with different variations."

Last summer, Morrison portrayed Fiona in "Shrek, the Musical" at MST.

At Stages Repertory Theatre in Houston, Morrison performed in Rebecca Gilman's "Dollhouse" in 2013.

"It was a tiny role," she said. "Another little girl and I would run onstage and bug the lead character, and then run off."

Among her other theater credits are as Wednesday in "The Addams Family" and shows at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the Bay Area, Dickinson's Bay Area Houston Ballet & Theatre, United Players Inc. in Friendswood, and Wildfish Theatre and the Humphreys School of Musical Theatre in Houston.

At Friendswood Junior High, Morrison appeared in "Apocalypse," "And a Child Shall Lead," "Antigone" and "Cinderella."

In her freshman year at FHS, Morrison sang "Castle on a Cloud" as Young Cosette in the school's 49th annual spring musical, "Les Miserables School Edition," which scored 14 nominations at the recent 15th annual Tommy Tune Awards.

Morrison is looking forward to finding out what the 50th annual FHS musical will be.

"They usually announce it on the first day of school," she said. "We don't know what the fall show will be either."

After graduating from high school, Morrison said, "I definitely want to go to college and major in musical theater, and I do hope to end up on Broadway."

Both of her parents, Josh Morrison of Houston and Julie Garcia of Friendswood, are well-known thespians in Houston theater circles.

Morrison's stepfather is attorney Chris Garcia.

A "sensory-friendly performance" of "The Wizard of Oz" was held on June 24 for children on the autism spectrum, while another "accommodation performance," designed for children with low or no vision, was audio-described on July 16.

Performances are in midtown Houston at 3400 Main St. 77002, in MATCHBox 4. They include an 11 a.m. show Saturday July 29.

"This is a rare opportunity to see the musical based on the book rather than the movie," Emerick said.

Tickets are $18-$22, depending on the secton where the seats are located. Call 713-524-9196 or visit www.mainstreetheater.com.

Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net
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A fight that boiled over into gunfire landed one man in the hospital Sunday night and another behind bars, authorities said.

Wilson Hurtado, 20, and Keegan Fry, 22, allegedly started brawling around 7 p.m. outside Fry's Galleria-area home in the 5300 block of Beverly Hill.
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On this date in 1917, construction began on Camp Logan. The site is better known now as Memorial Park, the largest and most heavily used green space in the city.

The federal government took advantage of Houstons climate and the nearby Ship Channel for the World War I-era U.S. Army training camp, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

PREVIOUS: Bringing the memorial back to Memorial Park

No doubt the heat in Houston, coupled with the kindly coaxing of Army drill sergeants, quickly turned recruits into trench-ready fighting men in no time. The other WWI-era training area was located at Ellington Field.

In 1924 the deserted camps 1,000 acres became Houstons Memorial Park with the help of the Hogg family.

Story continues below...

But there is a bit of Camp Logans past that Houston would probably wish wasnt a part of its history.

From Lisa Grays column on the camp in Oct. 2013:

In late July (1917), a battalion of African-American soldiers arrived in Houston to guard the Camp Logan construction site. About a month later, one of those soldiers tried to intervene when he saw police officers assaulting and arresting a black woman, dragged partially clothed from her house. The police beat and arrested the soldier, too. That afternoon, when a corporal from the base tried to investigate the arrest and arrange for the soldier's release, the police beat, shot at and arrested the corporal, too.

A race riot ensued - a riot that involved 156 armed black soldiers marching on the city, and left 20 people dead.

These days the park is constantly full of people making use of its wide expanses and running trails, along with the stray run-in with either a furry or scaly member of the Houston population.

PARKS AND RECREATION: How Houston's parks rank against other cities

The park as you know it today will likely go through many changes over the two decades or so as the Memorial Park master plan become a reality.

Restoring the parks ecosystem after 2011s drought is a major goal, as the park lost more than half its trees as the state was scorched by high heat and non-existent rain. Expect extra drainage, parking, and land bridges as the area changes to fit the needs of Houstonians.
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A Harris County judge on Monday barred a 58-year-old man from contacting his wife and another witness to the fatal shooting of an innocent bystander during a domestic disturbance Thursday.

James Hickam appeared before state District Judge George Powell,who signed a no-contact order after hearing that Hickam is accused of inadvertently shooting a young mother while arguing with his wife outside their northwest Houston apartment complex.

The order means Hickam cannot call or write his wife or another witness to the shooting. If he makes his $100,000 bail, he cannot live where his wife is or talk to her.

Hickam has been charged with murder in the death of Krystle Watson, who was parking her car next to a car that Hickam's wife was trying to get in about 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

The couple had been arguing for several hours earlier that day, said Thomas Gilliland, a Harris County sheriff's deputy.

Hickam's wife was trying to leave their apartment in the Windfern Meadows complex, in the 12900 block of Windfern, near Jersey Village.

Watson had just pulled up to the complex with her 2-year-old son, inadvertently putting her -- and her baby -- between Hickam and his wife.

Hickam is accused of firing at least one shot toward his wife as she got into her car. A shot apparently went through Watson's car before striking Hickam's wife, Gilliland said.

Watson, who was in her 20s, was killed. Her toddler, who was in the car during the gunfire, was not injured, Gilliland said.

Hickam's wife was also hit and suffered massive trauma. She was taken to a local hospital in critical condition. Hickam was charged with murder in the slaying,

Assistant District Attorney John Crump said prosecutors are still investigating and may file additional charges in connection with his wife's injuries.

Hickam remains in the Harris County Jail in lieu of bail.

His defense attorney, Thomas Martin, declined to comment on the case.

In 2004, Hickam pleaded guilty to assaulting a family member, his only prior charge in Harris County.

READ ALSO: Man charged in shooting death of mother in front of toddler
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9/23/22 UPDATE: Family of 4-year-old girl who suffered brain damage after Houston dentist visit gets $95.5M

The below information was originally published on July 24, 2017:

A former Houston dentist was formally charged Monday with failing to properly treat a sedated 4-year-old patient who was left with permanent brain damage in what should have been a routine procedure.

Bethaniel Jefferson, 40, who lost her license to practice in Texas in November, was indicted by a Harris County grand jury on a felony charge of causing serious bodily injury to a child by omission, according to the district attorney's office.

The child's mother, Courissa Clark, said she was "overjoyed" when she heard the news.

"We're really grateful that justice has been served and the person that did this to our baby is finally being brought to justice," Hall told the Chronicle.

Her lawyer said the young mother now balances work with caring for her disabled daughter, Nevaeh Hall.

"When little Nevaeh was taken to the dentist that day, (her parents) turned her over to the dentist trusting that the dentist would protect and look after their little girl," said attorney James Moriarty. "But she overdosed her on sedatives."

The girl was sedated for treatment of tooth decay at the Diamond Dental office about 8:30 a.m. Jan. 7, 2016, prosecutors said in a statement. Three hours later she suffered a seizure, and her oxygen level and temperature fell dramatically. Prosecutors say it took more than four hours before anyone called for medical assistance.

The girl's mother told the Houston Chronicle last year that her Nevaeh was a healthy and rambunctious girl until the January incident resulted in brain damage that left her unable to walk, talk or respond to instructions.

'DISHONORABLE CONDUCT': Judge urges revoking of dentist's license after girl, 4, suffered seizure

Jefferson could not be reached for comment, and court records did not list an attorney who could speak on her behalf.

Jefferson was reprimanded by the Texas Board of Dental Examiners in 2005 and 2012, prosecutors said. The board revoked her license in November after a state administrative judge ruled that she "fell below the minimum standard of care, failed to uphold the duty of fair dealing and committed dishonorable conduct when providing dental care."

The Chronicle's investigation cast a spotlight on Medicaid dental clinics that had flourished through treatment of pediatric patients whose low-income families qualified for government assistance.

Medicaid dental claims in Texas quintupled between 2005 and 2015 to $1 billion a year after the state doubled reimbursement rates in 2007.

FULL STORY: Medicaid dental clinics targeted, accused of overtreatment; Houston girl's case shines light on risky practices, critics say

The reimbursement system rewards dentists who perform multiple procedures, leading to allegations that clinics rush children through serious treatments to claim more government money.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported last year that it had 160 ongoing investigations into Medicaid dental fraud in Texas, far more than any other state.

Jefferson now faces trial on a first-degree felony charge.

"This indictment should send a message to the medical community that they will be held accountable for abandoning their patients in times of crisis," prosecutor Stan Clark of the Texas attorney general's Medicare fraud unit said in the statement.

"While accidents in the health care industry occur more than everyone would prefer, practitioners must react appropriately and contact higher level medical care providers when they realize their patient is distressed beyond their capabilities," he said.

Note: This article was updated Tuesday, July 25, to identify the dental procedure - treating tooth decay.
The tenth annual Trae Day was celebrated in Discovery Green on Saturday, July 22, and to celebrate, the Houston rapper gave scholarships to local students for higher education.

On Sunday, Trae Tha Truth partnered with Houston Public Library to award 75 scholarships as a part of the festivities of the three-day celebration of Trae Day 2017, KTRK reports.
An Austin man has spent more than two years raising money on crowdfunding websites to fight against Ukraine on behalf of Russia.

Russell Bentley, who is in his late 50s, has been in Ukraine's Donbass region since Dec. 2014, which is when he raised more than $2,000 on GoFundMe for the trip.

The campaign was called "Fact Finding Mission to Donbass." It has since been taken down from the site.

"The campaign created by Mr. Bentley violated GoFundMe's terms of service and it has been removed from the platform. In general, we don't tolerate campaigns that violate GoFundMe's terms of service," GoFundMe said in a statement provided to Chron.com.

AMERICAN DREAM: Ukrainian Houstonian came as refugee, built popular Heights boxing gym

"The US-installed government in Kiev says the people of the Donbass region are terrorists and that Russian troops have invaded Eastern Ukraine," Bentley said on GoFundMe page. "The people of Donbass say they are defending themselves against a regime that is neo-nazi and committing war crimes against civilians. One of them is lying. So, I am going to see for myself and report back."

The Russia-Ukraine conflict dates back to March 2014 when the Ukrainian territory of Crimea was annexed by Russia. Today, the territory is under Russia's control and is at the heart of tensions between both countries, the Huffington Post reported.

LEARN MORE: Russia says 2 die in clashes with Ukrainian agents in Crimea

Since arriving in Donbass, Bentley has become a one man media machine. Armed with a "rocket propelled grenade launcher and tasked with repelling Ukrainian forces at Donetsk airport," Bentley threw himself into conflict and was once involved with the Essence of Time, a Russian movement, the BBC reported.

Bentley regularly produces videos on YouTube, raises money on his website, and has been interviewed by Vice and the Guardian. Before his time abroad, Bentley was a tree trimmer in Austin. A video he saw in 2014 of a Ukrainian air attack on a building in Luhansk, an eastern Ukraine city, partly inspired the GoFundMe campaign.

"This is the hope for the future of the world," Bentley told the Guardian in Sept. 2015. "Because if Donbass falls, and the fascists are right on the borders of Russia, once nuclear weapons start shooting it ain't just going to be one or two, it's going to be all of them, dude, and that's it for all of us."

FALLOUT CONTINUES: Photos of Chernobyl, Ukraine's radioactive ghost town

The comment request made to Bentley did not go over well.

Bentley was insulted that Chron.com has only expressed interest in his crowdfunding efforts now. He also called Monday's BBC story from Sam Bright a "hit piece."

"I've been fighting genuine Nazis here for over two years, and the first interest shown by you and your rag is about how to try to cut my funding," Bentley told Chron.com. "I'll be writing my response to Bright's hit piece in the next 24 hours. Keep an eye out for it on my website, www.russelltexasbentley.com and feel free to quote it. In the mean time, if you want to interview me, come to Donetsk."
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A harrowing story out of Grand Prairie near Dallas is enough to terrify any parent.

On July 19, Victoria Edward was finishing up grocery shopping outside of a Kroger when a man walked up and began pushing away the cart with her 2-year-old toddler still inside, according to WFMY News.

Edward, who was starting up her car, was notified by her 5-year-old son. She quickly rushed the man to stop the brazen abduction.

RESCUED: Woman kidnapped in alleged forced sex trafficking attempt

Story continues below...

"I was just yelling let go," Edwards told WFMY. "Let my baby go! Let the basket go! You need to get out of here! And I'm screaming at the top of my lungs."

The mysterious man told Edwards he was just "trying to say hello," but continued to try to push the cart away and pick up the strapped-in child.

Finally, the public struggle was enough to scare the kidnapper away and he jumped inside a get-away car, a black pick-up truck that was waiting for him.

ON THE RUN: Police searching for man accused of kidnapping teen from Dallas, forcing her into prostitution

Police released a sketch of the suspect, described as 50 to 60-years-old with a dark comb over and mole under his left eye.

Click through above to see how police sketches compare with real mugshots.
A San Antonio man blamed the devil after he was allegedly caught with his pants down in a room with a 4-year-old relative, according to police.

Stefan Stewart, 29, was arrested on a charge of indecent sexual contact with a child on Sunday. He remains in the Bexar County Jail on a $75,000 bond.

RELATED: 10th victim dies in hospital after dozens found in sweltering trailer at San Antonio Walmart

According to his arrest warrant affidavit, the child's mother woke up around 5 a.m. on Sunday and found Stewart in the child's bedroom. Both Stewart and the boy had their pants down, according to the affidavit.

"[Stewart] was hurting me," the child told his mother, according to police.

The victim's mother then confronted Stewart, police said, and a recording of the conversation was handed over to police. The affidavit says Stewart started apologizing to the victim's mother and blamed his actions on his medication and the devil.

"The victim's mom offered to pray with the suspect (Stewart), but he said the devil had already left him," according to the affidavit.

RELATED: SAPD: 1 woman killed, another injured in stabbing at Haven for Hope apartment near downtown

The victim's mother then called Stewart's mother and asked her to call authorities. Stewart was later interviewed by police and denied any wrongdoing, authorities said.

"The suspect said that he was not 'gay,' and that the only reason his DNA would be on the victim... is because he changed his diaper at an earlier time during the day," according to the affidavit.

Police are investigating the allegations against Stewart.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

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Twitter: @calebjdowns
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WASHINGTON (AP)  Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner denied Monday that he colluded with Russians in the course of President Donald Trump's successful White House bid, declaring in a statement ahead of interviews with congressional committees that he has "nothing to hide."

The 11-page statement , released hours before Kushner's closed-door appearance before the Senate intelligence committee, details four contacts with Russians during Trump's campaign and transition. It aims to explain inconsistencies and omissions in a security clearance form that have invited public scrutiny.

POWER: Trump declares he has ' complete power' to pardon

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in the prepared remarks in which he also insists that none of the contacts, which include meetings at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador and a Russian lawyer, was improper.

In speaking to Congress, Kushner  as both the president's son-in-law and a trusted senior adviser during the campaign and inside the White House  becomes the first member of the president's inner circle to face questions from congressional investigators as they probe Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign. He is to meet with staff on the Senate intelligence committee Monday and lawmakers on the House intelligence committee Tuesday.

Kushner's appearances have been highly anticipated, in part because of a series of headlines in recent months about his interactions with Russians and because the reticent Kushner had until Monday not personally responded to questions about an incomplete security clearance form and his conversations with foreigners.

"I have shown today that I am willing to do so and will continue to cooperate as I have nothing to hide," he said in the statement.

WAR ZONE: Twitter roasts Jared Kushner for his fashion choice in Iraq

The document provides for the first time Kushner's own recollection of a meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. to talk about secure lines of communications and, months earlier, of a gathering with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information to provide about Hillary Clinton.

In the document, Kushner calls the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

Emails released this month show that the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., accepted the meeting with the idea that he would receive information as part of a Russian government effort to help Trump's campaign. But Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

Kushner said in his statement that Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting. He says he arrived late and when he heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions, he texted his assistant to call him out.

"No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted," Kushner's statement says.

Kushner also denied reports he discussed setting up a "secret back-channel" with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. But he did detail a conversation with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in December at Trump Tower in which retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then-incoming national security adviser, also attended.

During the meeting, Kushner said he and Kislyak talked about establishing a secure line for the countries to communicate about policy in Syria.

Kushner said that when Kislyak asked if there was a secure way for him to provide information on Syria from what Kislyak called his "generals," Kushner asked if there was an existing communications channel at the embassy that could be used to convey the information to Flynn.

"The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Nothing else occurred," the statement said.

Kushner said he never proposed an ongoing secret form of communication.

Flynn attorney Robert Kelner declined comment when asked about Kushner's characterization of the meeting.

He also said he met with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, at the request of Kislyak but that no specific policies were discussed.

Kushner also explained that his application form for a security clearance form was submitted prematurely due to a miscommunication with his assistant, who had erroneously believed the document was complete.

He said he mistakenly omitted all of his foreign contacts, not just his meetings with Russians, and has worked in the last six months with the FBI to correct the record.

In addition, Kushner described receiving a "random email" during the presidential campaign from someone claiming to have Trump's tax returns and demanding ransom to keep the information secret.

BUSTED: Old tweet from Ivanka Trump about husband Jared Kushner has the internet amused thanks to irony

Unlike every other major presidential candidate over the last 40 years, Trump didn't release his tax returns during the campaign. Since taking office, he has continued to refuse.

Kushner said he interpreted the late October email as a hoax and that the email came from a person going by the name "Guccifer400." The name is an apparent reference to Guccifer 2.0, an anonymous hacker who has claimed responsibility for breaking into the Democratic National Committee's computer systems.

Kushner said the emailer demanded payment in Bitcoin, an online currency. Kushner says he showed the email to a Secret Service agent, who told him to ignore it.

Trump Jr. and Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was also at the June 2016 meeting, were scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. But on Friday their attorneys said they remained in negotiations with that panel. The two men are now in discussions to be privately interviewed by staff or lawmakers, though the GOP chairman of the committee, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, has said they will eventually testify in public.

The president took to Twitter on Monday to repeat his criticism of the investigations, and reiterate allegation against his former opponent and included a swipe at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was the subject of a scathing public rebuke by Trump in a New York Times interview last week. "So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?" the president tweeted.

___

Associated Press writers Chad Day and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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To the pleasure of Twitter, Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner is in the hot seat.

The presidential son-in-law recently exited a three-hour meeting with members of congress where he spoke about multiple undisclosed contacts with Russian persons, including a Russian ambassador and a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information on the Clinton campaign.

"I did not collude with Russia nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner said to reporters outside the White House after the meeting.

MORE DETAILS: Trump son-in-law Kushner on Hill for questioning by Senate Russia investigators

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Kushner is the first member of Trump's inner circle to be questioned by congressional investigators concerning Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, according to the Associated Press.

Twitter users were quick to comment on the camera-shy adviser's sudden push into the spotlight, something even Kushner himself brought up during his statement to the Senate intelligence committee.

HOUSTON REP: Bill by Al Green would block Trump's ability to self-pardon

"I am not a person who has sought the spotlight," Kushner told senate investigators. "First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception. Because there has been a great deal of conjecture, speculation, and inaccurate information about me, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight."

Click through above to see memes and other ways Twitter reacted to Kushner's senate meeting.
AUSTIN --Remember Gov. Greg Abbott's pledge last week to publicly call out lawmakers daily who don't support his agenda during the special legislative session?

Don't count on seeing that list anytime soon.

Abbott said Monday that he will continue to issue lists of people and groups that support his 20-item agenda for the special legislative session that started last Tuesday.

As for the non-believers? Not at present, aides said.

"I will be listing all senators" who already have passed 18 or his 20 items out of committee, Abbott told Lubbock radio host Chad Hasty in an interview. In coming weeks, the governor added, "I'll be looking to add House members."

Abbott a week ago said he would aggressively call out legislators who opposed his list of must-pass issues who didn't support his agenda, a threat that drew deep breaths from some Democrats and political consultants who suggested it might backfire as the session progressed.

"I'm going to be establishing a list," Abbott said in remarks a week ago to a briefing at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Austin that agrees with his positions.

"We all need to establish lists that we publish on a daily basis to call people out  who is for this, who is against this, who has not taken a position yet. No one gets to hide."

In his speech, Abbott had urged others to follow his example.

The governor was forced to call the summer session after lawmakers in May failed to approve a bill to continue the operations of the Texas Medical Board and a handful or related agencies, a move that could have resulted in their shutdown.

But in calling lawmakers back to Austin to address that mistake, Abbott added 19 other items -- many of them controversial -- including the bathroom bill that will regulate bathroom use in public buildings for transgender people, a pay hike for teachers, property tax reform, private school vouchers for special needs students and limits on municipal annexations among others.
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AUSTIN -- Call it the Battle of the Lapel Pins.

Before the special legislative session began last Tuesday, Scott Braddock, editor of the premier political insiders' newsletter Quorum Report, crafted a pin that read: "Sunset And Sine Die."

That was a nod to the sentiment among some lawmakers, mainly House members, who were not too happy with having to return to Austin for a summer session -- and were ready to quickly pass a bill to continue the operations of the Texas Medical Board, then go home.

Gov. Greg Abbott, wanting more than just that bill passed, quickly followed up own his own: "20 For 20."

He even created a hashtag #PassThemAll.

That's the number of bills he called the Legislature into session to pass, including controversial measures such as the bathroom bill, property tax reform and limits on municipal annexation.

On Monday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, never the shrinking violet when it comes to political messaging, issued a pin of his own with an Abbott-esque theme: "Pass 'Em All."

"To show support for passing this conservative legislation during the Special Session, enter to win one of my 'Pass 'Em All' pins,' Patrick said in a message to supporters. "I'm giving away pins to the first 50 e-mail subscribers" who sign up online.

No word on whether House Speaker Joe Straus, no fan of many of Abbott's must-pass bills, will have one of his own.

What do you think it would say?
An early morning start had the Texas Senate on track to pass out all 20 of Gov. Greg Abbott's priority items by the end of the second week of the session.

After a rare midnight session Thursday and a weekend of around the clock committee meetings, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, had dozens of bills primed to be heard on the Senate floor over the next three days starting at 9 a.m. Monday. That includes bills dealing with highly controversial issues like abortion, transgender bathroom policies, school vouchers and tree ordinances.

DEBATE: 10 hours of public testimony in Austin over 'Bathroom Bill'

But while the Senate plows through the agenda with Patrick's promise to pass all of them by week's end, the prospects of each in the House remains in doubt. House Speaker Joe Straus and the House met for less than 2 hours all of last week and have yet to pass out the one bill considered must pass -- a bill reauthorizing the Texas Medical Board and four other agencies. That bill cleared the Senate early Thursday morning.

The Legislature's regular session ended in May, but Abbott forced lawmakers back into a 30-day special session to restore the Texas Medical Board and the other boards. But he said last week that if he was going to call the lawmakers back, he was going to make it count.

OPPOSITION: Turner tells lawmakers 'bathroom bill' tries to solve non-existent problem

That has meant adding 19 other items to the special session call that are mostly celebrated by conservative groups, such as the bathroom bill, which would bar schools and local governments from enacting transgender bathroom policies and instead give the state full authority to set the rules. On Friday, a Senate committee overwhelming passed a bill that would require all people to use the bathroom of the sex that is listed on their birth certificates.

That legislation and other controversial items had hundreds of people filling the Texas Capitol over the last seven days, mostly in protest against the conservative agenda that Abbott has lined out.

Check out our gallery to find out the 10 things you should know about the Texas 'Bathroom Bill.'
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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Hyderabad, July 24 (IANS) A Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Hyderabad drug racket quizzed Telugu actor Navdeep on Monday.SIT officials began questioning the actor at Abkari Bhavan, the office of Prohibition and Excise Department of Telangana, here around 10 a.m. and it was continuing after 1 p.m., officials said.



Navdeep is the fifth southern filmdom celebrity being questioned by the authorities for alleged links with drug peddlers arrested in the case.The young actor, one of the 12 celebrities summoned by the SIT for questioning, has already denied taking drugs or having any links with the peddlers."It is usual to sensationalise news as soon as there are film people involved, me being involved in events and working with some wrong event managers I can understand why this happened," Navdeep had tweeted on July 14.



"It's a matter of time before this is sorted... requesting media and people to have patience," he added.Navdeep was being quizzed about his links with Zeeshan Ali Khan alias Jack, one of the accused arrested in the case. The actor admitted that he knew Khan as an event manager but denied involvement in any illegal activity.The investigating officials on Saturday grilled actor Tarun. They had quizzed actor Subbaraju on Friday. Known for his negative roles in many films, Subbaraju had reportedly provided leads to the SIT for further investigations.



The SIT earlier questioned director Puri Jagannadh and cinematographer Shyam K. Naidu.The celebrities were summoned for questioning as their contact numbers were found in the call data of Calvin Mascrenhas, the kingpin of the racket.Actors Ravi Teja and Nandu, actresses Charmee Kaur, Mumaith Khan and art director Chinna are among the other celebrities who will be questioned this week.The enforcement wing of the department has so far arrested 13 accused, including US citizen Dundu Anish -- an aerospace engineer who had earlier worked with the NASA, and seven B.Tech graduates, most of whom were working for multi-national companies.










Hyderabad, July 24 (IANS) Actress Charmme Kaur, who has been summoned by Telangana excise authorities for questioning in a drug racket case, on Monday moved Hyderabad High Court, seeking its direction that authorities should not forcibly collect her blood, hair and nail samples.



Denying addiction to drugs or any links with the accused arrested in the case, the actress in her petition expressed apprehension that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) may forcibly take a statement from her.



Charmme, who has been served notice by the SIT to appear before it on July 26 for questioning, sought direction for the SIT to abide by the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court guidelines by permitting presence of her lawyer and women officers at the time of examination.



Her petition is expected to come up for hearing on Tuesday.



Charmme, also known as Charmi in film circles, said that she comes from a respectable family and apprehends that her samples may be taken without her consent.



"If the same happens, I, being an unmarried lady, will have to face serious consequences in the eyes of society spoiling my career and future," she said in the petition.



The actress is known for her films predominantly in Telugu and has also acted in a few Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi films.



The actress's lawyer Vishnnuvardhan Reddy told reporters that, according to media reports, the investigating officers were forcing Tollywood celebrities to give their blood, hair and nail samples for analysis.



The petitioner argued that it was illegal to force anybody called for questioning to give the samples. She also alleged that the officers were asking irrelevant questions.



The advocate said Charmme was ready to cooperate with the authorities but sought constitutional safeguards.



Charmme is one of the 12 personalities from Telugu film industry summoned by SIT for questioning in the drug racket which was busted here earlier this month.



The SIT last week grilled four celebrities, including actor Tarun and director Puri Jagannadh. Actor Navdeep was being questioned on Monday.



They were summoned after the SIT found their contact details in the call data of Calvin Mascrenhas, the kingpin of the racket.



Charmme's advocate, however, said her name did not figure anywhere in Mascrenhas's confession statement.
Copiii cu nevoi speciale din Stefan Voda au conditii de reabilitare mai bune, datorita UE si Fundatiei Soros Moldova
While legislators still dont have a deal on a new state budget, one key senator says theres agreement on creating a new fund to help thousands of homeowners whose concrete foundations are crumbling because of a naturally occurring chemical reaction.

Democratic Sen. Cathy Osten, of Sprague, a co-chair of the General Assemblys Appropriations Committee, said shes hoping that about $60 million will be set aside, enough to help homeowners with immediate problems.

We have committed to having a fund in the budget on crumbling concrete. That piece will happen, Osten said. If we can get a budget through, this can get settled this year.

Lawmakers have yet to reach an agreement on a new two-year state budget. They did not pass a plan before the fiscal year ended June 30. Democratic House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz has said he hopes a deal can be reached before the end of July.

Tim Heim, a founder of the Connecticut Coalition Against Crumbling Basements, said many affected homeowners are frustrated that the General Assembly has not been able to provide financial relief. He said the $60 million wont solve the entire problem, which he estimates could end up costing more than $1 billion, but it could help those homeowners whose homes have seriously deteriorated or become unlivable. For some homeowners, it could cost as much as $200,000 to replace an entire basement.

Im trying to stay hopeful and optimistic that there will be some type of financial resolution for the victims who need the help today out of this budget, he said. But, Ill believe it when I see it.

On Friday, Heim and his group filed a request with the U.S. Attorneys office in Connecticut to investigate how much various officials and entities knew about the problem and whether there was any wrongdoing. The frustrated residents argue that if the problem had been seriously reviewed years ago, the problem could have been solved and many homeowners could be been spared the misfortune of having deteriorating foundations.

Thirty-six communities in central and northeastern Connecticut have been identified has potentially having homes with failing foundations because of the presence of pyrrhotite, a mineral that naturally reacts with oxygen and water. Over decades, that reaction can cause the concrete to crack and crumble, making some homes unsellable and unlivable. The problem, which first came to light in the mid-1990s, has been traced to a Willington quarry that provided material to a concrete maker whose product was used in thousands of houses.

As of July 14, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection had received complaints from 545 homeowners with crumbling foundations.

During this years regular legislative session, legislators were considering various proposals to help some homeowners. Osten said some of those ideas are still being deliberated, such state bonding, a surcharge on homeowner policies and a special account funded by insurance companies, banks and other entities.

Osten convened a meeting Tuesday to urge the Connecticut Department of Housing to apply for a federal loan of up to $60 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, of Connecticut, helped to secure the loan about a year ago.

We think more could be done to really work with the department to get the maximum amount of assistance possible, said Courtney, who has neighbors in his hometown of Vernon whose foundations are crumbling.

Dan Arsenault, spokesman for the states housing department, said conversations are continuing between the states executive branch, the legislature and federal partners to determine how best to address the problem.

Many ideas have been discussed and all those involved will continue to evaluate every option that may be available to provide relief to these homeowners, he said.

Courtney and fellow Connecticut U.S. Rep. John Larson, also a Democrat, are currently waiting for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which oversees the Internal Revenue Service, to agree to grant tax relief to the affected homeowners through a casualty loss deduction.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Chubb Appoints New Casualty Leadership for North America Major Accounts Division

Chubb announced several new leadership appointments within its Global Casualty and Excess Casualty lines of business for its North America Major Accounts division, which serves large U.S.- and Canadian-based companies requiring risk management solutions for some of the most complex global risks. The following appointments are effective immediately:

Bill Rabl appointed executive vice president, Chubb Global Casualty

Lou Capparelli appointed executive vice president, Chubb Global Casualty Field Operations

Bill Hazelton appointed executive vice president of Chubb Construction Industry Practice, Environmental and Excess Casualty

Joseph Fobert appointed executive vice president, Chubb Excess Casualty

As executive vice president, Rabl will lead Chubbs Global Casualty business unit. In this new expanded role, he will have overall responsibility and oversight of the day-to-day operations for Chubbs full range of global primary casualty coverage offerings and service solutions for U.S. and Canadian domiciled large national and multinational companies.

Rabl joined ACE in 2002 and previously served as chief operating officer for Chubbs Global Casualty business. He will report to Matt Merna, chief operating officer, North America Major Accounts and will be based in New York City, N.Y. He holds the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) professional designation.

Capparelli, who previously served as senior vice president, Chubb Global Casualty will now oversee all field operations for the business unit. He will spearhead efforts to implement strategies centered on delivering Chubb Global Casualtys full range of capabilities and services to distribution partners in Chubbs U.S. and Canadian branch offices. All branch managers supporting Chubb Global Casualty will report to him.

Based in New York City, Capparelli will report to Rabl. He holds the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) professional designation.

In his expanded new role, Hazelton will oversee Chubbs Excess Casualty business operations. He will continue to lead and retain current responsibilities for Chubbs Construction Industry Practice, Environmental and Primary and Excess Construction lines of business. Reporting to Chris Maleno, he will be based in New York City.

Reporting to Hazelton will be Fobert, who will lead and handle all day-to-day management and field operations for Chubbs Excess Casualty business unit. All excess casualty underwriting segments will report to Fobert, who will be based in New York City. He holds both the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designations.

CCG Expands Executive Management Group Appoints Evans Vice President of Business Development

Certified Collision Group (CCG), an OE Certification and KPI-focused solutions provider to the automotive collision repair and insurance communities, appointed Martin (Marty) Evans vice president of Business Development.

A seasoned business development executive, Evans provides more than 25 years of direct automotive refinish distribution and key account development and management  including large MSOs across the U.S. and Canada.

CCG now operates in 22 states and is quickly expanding beyond 135 locations, with an average of 8 OE certification badges per repair center.

Rinella Elected Vice President of GEICO Claims, Quagliato Named Vice President of New Claims Legal Planning Center

GEICO, a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies, recently named Angela Rinella vice president of claims operations at its corporate headquarters in Chevy Chase, Md. Rinella will oversee all of GEICOs claims operations.

Rinella began her GEICO career in 2002, as a telephone claims representative in Woodbury, N.Y., and was part of the team that opened GEICOs regional center in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2004. She helped established the Buffalo claims department in 2005, and served in several management capacities.

In 2010, Rinella became regional liability director in Lakeland, Fla. For the past three years, she has served as assistant vice president of claims in GEICOs Fredericksburg, Va., regional office.

In a separate announcement, John Quagliato has been named vice president of GEICOs new claims legal planning center.

Quagliato started his GEICO career in 1985, at the companys corporate office in Chevy Chase, Md., as a telephone claims adjuster. He became a continuing unit examiner and went on to earn a law degree from the George Mason University School of Law.

After joining GEICOs staff counsel, he was promoted to senior trial attorney in 1997. Transferring to claims home office in 1999, Quagliato held numerous positions including claims attorney and senior claims attorney, before being elected as an officer to the company in 2009.
It may be reprehensible and morally outrageous, but legal experts say a group of Florida teens had no obligation to rescue a drowning disabled man they instead mocked, laughed at and recorded on a video that was later posted online. Still, authorities are pursuing possible misdemeanor charges against them for failing to report a death.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a 2012 legal argument, summarized that across the U.S. theres no general duty to render aid to someone in distress. You dont have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you, Kennedy said in arguments on the Affordable Care Act.

Kennedy added that there are some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but thats generally the rule.

The case in central Floridas Brevard County involves the July 9 drowning of Jamel Dunn, 31, in a retention pond. Police in the city of Cocoa discovered later that five teenagers, ages 14 to 16, had made a video of the drowning, which was published Friday by Florida Today. The teens can be heard laughing at Dunn, telling him hes going die and that they werent going to help him as he struggled and screamed.

Police identified and interviewed the five teens involved. The office of State Attorney Phil Archer initially determined there was no immediate indication that a crime was committed because state law does not require people to give or call for help when someone is in distress. But later, after the story drew widespread attention online, officials said they were pursuing misdemeanor charges of failure to report a death against the teenagers.

While this in no way will bring justice for what occurred, it is a start, Cocoa Mayor Henry Parrish III said. I know that everyone working on this investigation has been tireless in their efforts to find answers. Everyone has been affected by what we have seen.

Many countries, including Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, do have laws requiring people to render aid, even if it means only summoning authorities. And violations in some countries can result in prison time.

But Floridas law is hardly unique across the U.S., legal experts said.

Generally, throughout the U.S., there is no duty to rescue, said David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. Still, he added: It seems like common sense that those kids should have tried to help the guy instead of filming it.

There are some differences in various states, but Weinstein said exceptions typically include required assistance in car crashes; for people in special relationships with others such as police officers, firefighters, teachers, married couples, common carriers such as bus drivers and employers; and if you yourself put the other person in danger in the first place.

Some states, such as Nebraska, require most people  especially professionals  to report suspected child abuse or face possible misdemeanor charges, said attorney Jeffrey Lapin in Lincoln, Nebraska. He agreed the Florida teenagers committed no crime.

While it is morally and ethically wrong, it is not illegal to not render aid or make extremely despicable comments, Lapin said in an email Friday.

The Cocoa mayor, Parrish, was even more blunt: Never in my life would I have ever thought we would need a law to make this happen, he said.

Lapin noted that in the final episode of the sitcom Seinfeld, the four main characters are convicted of violating a purported city ordinance by failing to assist an overweight man who is getting carjacked  instead joking about the mans large size and doing nothing. The judge character said the four had callous indifference and utter disregard for a positive society.

Most U.S. states have no such laws.

There are situations in which U.S. law does require assistance to be rendered. One of those is on the high seas, where federal law requires the master of any vessel under U.S. jurisdiction to help anyone found at sea in danger of being lost, according to the statute. A 1989 international treaty extends that obligation to mariners around the world.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia also have Good Samaritan laws aimed at protecting people from being sued for anything they did while rendering aid or attempting to rescue someone in danger. There are exceptions to those laws as well.

(Associated Press writer Mike Schneider in Orlando contributed to this story.)

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 2.9 million non-fatal workplace accidents occurred that year. Of this, over 50 percent of the injured workers experienced time lost from work. A number this large obviously eats into a companys productivity, which is why employers and carriers are continuously looking for ways to ensure their return-to-work programs are effective and focused on whats best for injured workers.

Lets start with defining what the goal of any return-to-work program is: its to get the injured worker back to their pre-injury condition in a safe and timely manner. Typically, these programs are comprised of all of the accommodations and resources that are needed to facilitate the processes that make up the return-to-work program for injured workers. Employers and insurers generally collaborate to create these return-to-work programs and are responsible for identifying and providing work arrangements that accommodate any restrictions or limitations that may interfere with an injured workers return to work.

In pursuit of building out an effective return-to-work program, employers and carriers should keep in mind the following best practices and elements, while also recognizing the potential factors that could affect the success of an injured workers return to work.

Addictive behavior: If an injured worker has a history of addiction or shows signs of addictive behavior, there is a chance the medication they are prescribed to relieve their injury can trigger their behavior or addiction  thus disrupting and demotivating their will to return to work. In these instances, its important for insurers and employers to be aware of whether an injured worker might be affected negatively by opioids and other pain relievers. Relationship with employers: If an injured worker has a negative relationship with their employer, or the employer does not recognize that the employee is an essential part of the workplace, injured workers can lose their sense of worth, making them less likely to want to return to the workplace. Fear of re-injury: Employees who are injured on the job, especially when performing an activity they do frequently, creates a new sense of fear, leaving workers wondering, what if this happens the next time I perform this task? That feeling of what if might be enough to stop an injured worker from hurrying back to work. Unnecessary litigation: Its common to see injured workers confused or feeling frustrated by what they believe is a complex workers compensation program. If they feel like the insurer or their employer has failed to educate them on the workers compensation process or doesnt share a concern for their well-being, the injured worker may seek legal counsel, which can add to the cost of the claim, delay the return and generate hostility toward injured workers. Multiple workers compensation claims: In general, when an injured worker has multiple claims open, it can be somewhat confusing to keep track of which injury is being accounted for, ultimately delaying settlements and prolonging the return-to-work process.

Creating an effective return to work program: The employers role

Until now, most employers have focused their return-to-work programs on containing costs and reducing days lost, representing a more transaction-centric approach to workers compensation. However, experts now say that changing the primary focus to supporting the injured worker in return-to-work programs can improve outcomes for all parties involved  this is just one of many best practices to strengthen employee engagement and ultimately support an injured workers return to work.

What we describe below are three of the most effective best practices and elements employers should consider when building out an effective return-to-work program.

Establishing and effectively socializing the companys return-to-work policy

In order to set the right expectations, its essential for employers to clearly define, establish and communicate their return-to-work policy and protocols to internal employees across the organization, as well as communicate out to their external program vendor partners.

Often, its not until after the fact that nurse case managers know the employers return-to-work policies, which can cause discrepancies in expectations. If the nurses are aware earlier of the employers policy and its goals of the program, it could lead to easier and more effective facilitation of processes.

Stay in touch with the injured worker

Employers who keep the lines of communication open with injured workers post-injury are playing an important role in keeping the worker engaged. Injured workers tend to withdraw from their employer and coworkers when they are recovering. Losing that sense of connection has the potential to demotivate injured workers from wanting to return to work. To that end, by highlighting that the employers return-to-work program focuses heavily on the injured worker and their health and wellness, staying in touch with the worker becomes an essential part to uplifting an injured workers wellness to keep them motivated to return to work quicker.

Modify and accommodate light-duty job assignments

The goal is to keep the worker engaged even if the work that they come back to post-injury is not the work they are used to performing. Employers should consider making accommodations or modifications to job positions so that the injured worker feels safe and supported to return to their job. Even small modifications can yield significant results  such as, not lifting more than x amount of pounds. Larger accommodations, for instance, offering the flexibility for employees to telecommute or work part-time, can also yield great results  as they are providing employees with the tools and resources they need to carry out their responsibilities. Studies have shown that the longer an injured worker is out of commission, the more likely it is that they dont return to work at all. Because of this, there is an imperative to helping injured workers avoid long delays in returning to work, and accommodating light-duty job assignments is one way of doing so.

How insurers can work with employers to ensure an effective return-to-work

Its common for employers to programmatically coordinate their return-to-work efforts with an insurance company. It makes sense to engage vendor partners in return-to-work initiatives, such as medical management organizations case management programs. As a result, employers can then leverage these companys subject matter experts who are well versed in this particular area of expertise  and have the ability to help refine the programs for optimal outcomes.

Last piece of advice: partner with a medical management organization to refer the case to case management

In an ideal world, the first notice of treatment of an injured worker should be forwarded to the medical management organization partner for case management triage. Realizing that not every case warrants a nurse at the beginning, employers and carriers benefit from having a trigger list of injuries on which it would be advantageous to enlist early case management. The key to cost containment is not to prohibit workers from care or provide less desirable care, but rather to ensure the right care is provided at the right time. Early case management facilitates treatment:

Provided within networks, if applicable .

Provided within evidence-based guidelines.

And engages the injured worker to educate them on the workers compensation process, which can often be a confusing and frustrating process for most.

Everybody wins with an effective return-to-work program

Its essential for employers and insurers to work together to create an effective return-to-work program. Addressing the challenges head-on that arise when creating a return to work program ensures an injured worker is never lost in the process. A successful return-to-work program aligns the employer, insurer and injured worker, and can make the recovery process less worrisome for the person impacted. Ultimately, that peace of mind can help speed up their recovery process and make sure the injured worker feels supported  which means the employee gets back to work sooner.

Jackie Payne is vice president of Medical Management Services for Mitchell Casualty Solutions.
Clay Henderson has lived on the same block along the Indian River in New Smyrna Beach for 34 years. Living in a storm-prone state like Florida, you expect to see a river top its bank on occasion, but only in the past two years has Henderson seen it happen on sunny days.

He hears similar stories almost everywhere he travels in Florida. In dozens of locations along the states 1,350-mile coastline, sea level rise is no longer an esoteric discussion or a puzzle for future generations to solve. Its happening now and is forecast to worsen over the next 20 to 30 years.

Canal systems in Fort Lauderdale and Coral Gables have become a liability. For officials in Port Orange and Longboat Key, fortifying storm drains against encroaching seawater is a concern. Along the Withlacoochee River on Floridas Gulf Coast and the Matanzas River at Marineland, residents report finding saltwater species theyve never seen before in those waterways.

Federal gauges stationed around the states coast document the slowly rising water. After decades of almost imperceptible increases, the sea began rising faster about 30 years ago, said William Sweet, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It jumped again beginning in 2006. Now NOAA reports sea levels are rising along parts of the Florida coast by more than a third of an inch every year.

The average person visiting a favorite beach or fishing hole surely wont notice the difference. But soon, if the trend of the past 30 years continues, the impact will be hard to miss.

Henderson and others who have spent a lifetime on the water already notice a difference.

Until the last couple of years, the only time the water would have come over the seawall would have been for a named tropical event or one of the extraordinary noreasters, said Henderson, executive director of Stetson Universitys Institute of Water and Environmental Resilience. In the fall of 2015 and 2016, he said, the water came out of the banks on cloudless, breezeless days.

A coast in peril

Mid-range projections by NOAA scientists  not the worst-case scenario  put the seas around Florida up to 17 inches higher by 2030, with the highest rise at Mayport, Fernandina Beach and Daytona Beach.

With just a 9-inch rise in sea level, NOAA advisories for coastal flooding capable of causing significant risks to life and property could occur 25 times more often, said Sweet, lead author of NOAAs January report describing the updated sea level scenarios. Higher seas would push seawater inland in waterfront areas along bayfronts in Sarasota and Apalachicola and in low-lying areas along the St. Johns, Suwanee and other rivers, flooding neighborhoods with increasing frequency and longer duration.

By 2070, the mid-range scenarios call for seas to be anywhere from 8 inches to 5.5 feet higher than today. By the turn of the century, NOAA projects the ocean could be as much as 10.5 feet higher, a height that could turn some of the states most crowded communities into new scuba diving destinations.

Just three feet of sea level rise could force at least 1.2 million Floridians to abandon low-lying communities and migrate to higher ground, according to a study co-authored by Jason Evans, an assistant professor of environmental science at Stetson University. A six-foot rise could displace 6 million.

Scientists say the ocean began rising more than a century ago, averaging an almost imperceptible 1.5 millimeters a year from 1900 to 1990, based on data from a network of federal tide gauges around the country.

In the 1990s, the rising sea doubled its previous rate, reaching about an inch a decade, said Sweet. And then, over the past 10 years, tide gauges in Fernandina Beach, Mayport and Key West recorded an increase of about 0.9 centimeters per year, a little more than a third of an inch per year.

Whether that higher rate continues remains to be seen, said Sweet, lead author of a January report by NOAA, the South Florida Water Management District, the U.S. Geological Survey and others. The report, Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States, uses information from tidal gauges around North America to show how sea level rise might occur regionally, based on local elevations and ocean depths.

The goal was to inform people, said Sweet, so they can make smart decisions as they plan for the future.

Their research indicates that the sea will rise at least another 12 inches by 2100. NOAAs higher scenario projections indicate seas could rise as much as 11 feet in Bradenton and Daytona Beach and 10.75 feet in Panama City and Cedar Key.

Hard to soft butter

Seas have risen and fallen hundreds of feet in the ancient past. This time scientists at NASA, NOAA and other academic and governmental organizations say warming temperatures around the world  a result of increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere  are to blame.

They report that warming, especially in the worlds polar regions, is driving the melt occurring on land-based glaciers and ice sheets and the thermal expansion of warming ocean water. Federal studies show average sea surface temperatures have increased since 1980, in part because the ocean stores excess heat from the Earths atmosphere, and as the water warms it expands, leading to additional sea level rise.

The two enormous ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are holdouts from the last ice age, said oceanographer John Englander, a Boca Raton resident and author of High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis.

Greenlands ice sheet is 660,000 square miles and about two miles thick. Antarctica is 5.4 million square miles, covered by an ice sheet that averages a mile thick. Scientists with NASA, NOAA and other organizations say both ice sheets are losing gigatons of ice a year to melting.

At a lecture in Sarasota in April, University of Miami professor Harold Wanless described his visit to Greenland. It was a sobering experience, Wanless said, to see ice sheets with rivers and lakes, fracturing like going from hard butter to soft butter.

The melting of that land-based ice is akin to pouring water into a glass, said Englander. A land-based glacier moving into the ocean has a similar effect, like adding an ice cube to the glass of water.

While melting sea ice often attracts the splashiest headlines, it does not contribute directly to rising sea levels. But it is a crucial issue because federal scientists say thawing sea ice leads to additional warming. For example, with smaller areas of ice reflecting sunlight in the Arctic, open dark areas of water absorb the suns energy instead and grow warmer. Scientists with NOAA and NASA say warmer temperatures as a result of declining Arctic sea ice are helping to thaw areas of permafrost and allowing additional greenhouse gases stored in the permafrost to escape into the atmosphere. That in turn leads to the warming that fuels sea level rise.

Scientists are working to understand just how much water the melting ice sheets could contribute to sea level, said Sweet. But the rate of ice sheet loss prompted Sweet and his colleagues to bump up their upper level estimates of sea level rise for 2100 and beyond.

Andrea Dutton, assistant professor of geology at the University of Florida, doesnt find the sudden increase in sea level rise surprising. Her study of the oxygen isotopes found in ancient coral reefs across the world shows the rate of sea level rise has always varied from decade to decade, she said. Her research will be used to help refine projections for how melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica could affect sea levels.

Happening to us right now

Regardless of whats happening in the worlds polar regions, Bruce Mowry, city engineer for Miami Beach, is among those already dealing with the rising ocean. Sea level rise is happening to us right now, Mowry said. Im out meeting residents every day talking to them about the impacts.

While the phrase rising seas prompts mental pictures of a rising ocean sweeping into beachfront hotels and homes  as it did in Daytona Beach during Hurricane Matthew last fall  the more pressing issues are the ones being encountered in Miami Beach and other neighborhoods that have drained their stormwater to the sea for generations.

The sea has begun pushing back, swelling with lunar high tides and storms, reversing the flow in drainage canals and flooding neighborhoods. Rising water infiltrates stormwater systems, coastal highways, septic tanks and fresh water wells.

Over the past couple of years in Miami Beach, on a bright sunny day, the streets would fill with water, twice a day with the tide, Mowry said. The citys existing drainage system had created avenues for water to come right into our city, he said. Now the city is spending $500 million to hold back the tide and prevent flooding. The city has installed check valves on storm drains, and is building up streets and sidewalks, as well as changing some of its building codes.

Stormwater is the No. 1 sea level-related issue already occurring, said Stetsons Evans, with most coastal communities in the Southeast United States already experiencing periodic stormwater drainage issues and failures.

The water level is 5 to 6 inches higher than when drainage pipes were installed 50 or more years ago, said Evans, who works with cities in Florida and Georgia on sea level rise issues. When it rains heavily we have an issue because the water just cant get out of the canal or stormwater basin.

Most communities begin to plan because they are seeing saltwater in roads, said Evans, and its coming into their yards and killing their grass.

One of those communities is Longboat Key in Sarasota and Manatee counties, where residents have experienced sunny day street flooding in Longbeach Village, an older bayside neighborhood with the lowest elevation on the island.

Like other low-lying areas on bays and rivers, the islands shoreline on Sarasota Bay is more vulnerable than the dune-protected Gulf coast, Town Manager David Bullock said. During unusually high tides, seawater rises through the storm drains and enters the streets.

Lee Hayes Byron, Sarasota Countys sustainability manager, watched that near the Mar Vista restaurant in Longbeach during one recent flooding event on a sunny day.

When a boat went by, said Byron, the puddle in the street moved.

Not every coastal local government has documented problems.

Walton County spokesman Louis Svehla said his northwest Florida community hasnt experienced any issues with sunny day flooding in their area.

A force multiplier

In South Florida, sea level rise is a force multiplier, said Jim Murley, chief resiliency officer for Miami-Dade County. Its slowly making natural events a little worse.

Sea level rise is taking place so gradually youre not going to see it, but its amplifying those events, Murley said. People tend to overlook these events we need to be paying attention to.

Bob Whitener, a retired Marine, couldnt overlook the rising water at his familys cottage on Cedar Key. His family has vacationed in a cottage there for about 75 years.

In 2006, he spent $11,000 to raise the cottage four feet, to keep it safe from floodwater. Now other neighbors are doing the same thing.

It seems like in the last decade, things have started heating up, Whitener said. In late May, he snapped photos in his backyard as seawater came up over the seawalls.

High winds and a high tide from the southwest were blowing the water onto the island, Whitener said. Thats unusual.

Such issues are only going to get worse, said Thomas Ruppert, an attorney and coastal planning specialist with the Florida Sea Grant College Program. If it seems like a big deal during a high tide now, you can bet your bottom dollar youd better start thinking about it really quick.

Business is booming in backflow preventers as local governments and utilities try to keep the ocean from infiltrating stormwater systems. One of those cities is Fort Lauderdale, which has billed itself as Americas Venice since the 1920s.

Turns out that was pretty darned appropriate, said Ruppert. It has a little ironic ring to it now.

Venice, Italy is working to complete a set of $6 billion floodgates to hold back rising seas. Meanwhile, to keep Fort Lauderdales canal-laced neighborhoods from flooding, Ruppert said the city is installing backflow preventers and upgrading drainage systems.

In St. Augustine, the nations oldest city, nuisance flooding is now happening more than a dozen times a year, said Mayor Nancy Shaver.

Kathryn Frank, an assistant professor in the department of urban and regional planning at the University of Florida, has worked to document sea level rise on both coasts, in Flagler, St. Johns and Levy counties. In Levy County, Frank said, old-timers have described islands that are disappearing and places they can reach in their boats that they couldnt before.

But defining the potential impacts of rising seas along Floridas coast is not easy because so many changing dynamics are at work all at once. For example, Evans and Frank said its difficult to tease apart the factors driving erosion and other changes along the beach.

Erosion cant be blamed on a single factor, said Evans. But as the ocean rises, it will make that issue worse. Florida already spends millions of dollars to battle beach erosion every year, and studies differ on whether beach renourishment helps or worsens erosion.

But the powerful storm surges from Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Hermine in 2016 seemed to offer a glimpse of the damage that could occur in the future. Saltwater poured into seaside communities from Sarasota north to Apalachicola on the Gulf Coast and from New Smyrna Beach to the Carolinas on the Atlantic Coast. In many cases, the water remained for days.

Scientists havent determined whether higher seas worsened the widespread flooding, but they say the flooding illustrates the states vulnerability to the sea. If sea levels continue to rise, for example, higher seas would lead to more devastating impacts from storm surge.

In Flagler County, Hurricane Matthews erosion damage could cost more than $50 million to repair.

In Cedar Key, Hurricane Hermines storm surge measured 7.5 feet. Topped by powerful waves, it pushed water levels to a record 6.1 feet above the mean higher-tide mark. Records on the island date back to 1914. Kathryn Frank, the UF researcher, said one road in the town remained flooded for a week. So did a spot on the main highway to the island archipelago. Other low-lying areas in Cedar Key remained flooded for a month.

Those are the places that are just going to get worse, she said. Theyre vulnerable because theyre low-lying and sea level rise will make that much more difficult.

The seas insidious reach

Hermine created another issue thats forecast to occur with increasing frequency.

The water table, the shallow layer of groundwater under most of Florida, will get higher, said Sweet, the NOAA oceanographer. Ocean water interacts with underground aquifers and the higher density saltwater displaces the fresh water.

It also will take fewer inches of rain for the soil to become saturated, said Frank. It will flood more easily and the floods will stay longer because the water table is higher.

Floridas geographic location adds two additional factors that could contribute to higher-than-average sea level rise: its proximity to the Gulf Stream and the influence of the earths gravitational forces.

The Gulf Stream, a seawater current that parallels the Florida Coast in the Atlantic Ocean, is seasonal and typically slows down in the fall, Sweet said. Its also sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure, winds and disturbances along a region influenced by the Bermuda High, a ridge of high pressure that expands and shrinks across Florida and the western Atlantic Ocean.

When the Gulf Stream slows down, coastal sea levels rise, said Sweet. Since the mid-2000s, theres a noticeable, more prolonged slowdown.

Gravity could come into play as the melt continues on Antarctica and Greenland, said Sweet. For now, the tremendous ice pulls water closer, he said. As it melts and the seas rise, the gravitational pull will be less and the water will be released to go elsewhere. Some forecasts, he said, call for it to pool higher around Florida, which will be particularly sensitive to the reduction of ice in Antarctica.

Long before flooding permanently swamps low-lying parts of Florida, Sweet said people who live along tidally influenced bodies of water, such as coastal rivers and tidal creeks, will begin experiencing rapid increases in the frequency and duration of tidal flooding. Using the mid-range scenarios, NOAA projects that could be happening by 2030-2040.

The change wont be gradual, said Sweet. Its going to be happening by leaps and bounds.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Gun-friendly Arizona is trying to avoid deadly encounters between police and people behind the wheel by teaching armed drivers how they should handle themselves when they are pulled over.

Arizona, which allows residents to carry weapons without permits, recently changed its rule book for the road in a bid to avoid confrontations such as the one that killed Philando Castile. The Minnesota man, who had a gun permit, was fatally shot during a 2016 traffic stop after telling an officer he was armed.

Arizona is among a small number of states instructing drivers on what to expect during traffic stops. It appears to be the first to use its driving rules to address situations in which motorists are armed.

Democratic state Rep. Reginald Bolding said Castiles death inspired him to seek changes to the states drivers manual. He said the revisions were necessary because Arizona does not require gun permits and some owners have not been trained to handle firearms.

The goal was to create a set of standards, Bolding said.

The new edition of the drivers manual, published about a month ago, advises drivers with guns to keep their hands on the steering wheel during traffic stops and tell officers right away that theres a firearm in the car.

It also tells drivers not to reach for anything inside the vehicle without getting permission first. And officers can take possession of guns, for safety reasons, until the stop is completed. The firearms would be returned if no crime has been committed.

Lawmakers in Tennessee, Virginia and Illinois have enacted laws over the last year that require driver education courses to teach people how to react when they are pulled over. Unlike the guidelines published in Arizona, none of the laws explicitly mentions what to do when armed motorists are stopped.

The changes in Arizona happened without a law being passed. The Department of Public Safety worked with Bolding to produce the new guidelines.

It all comes down to safety, said Quentin Mehr, a spokesman for the state police agency.

Arizonas gun laws are less restrictive than other states, allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit in most places. Gun owners are seen with some frequency in public places with guns holstered on their hips.

Will Gaona, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said its not a bad idea to tell drivers what to expect when getting pulled over. But the manuals new section does not include descriptions of a drivers rights, he said.

For instance, the rules say a driver can be arrested for disobeying an officers order. Gaona said the rule book should tell people that they have a right to refuse an officers request to search a vehicle.

You also need to tell them what their rights are  not just what you think they should do, but also what they are allowed to do, Gaona said.

In the Minnesota case, the officer said Castile was pulling out his gun despite his commands not to do so. Prosecutors said the officer never saw the gun because it remained in Castiles pocket until paramedics removed him from his car. The officer was acquitted of a reckless-homicide charge.

The material from the new section of the Arizona manual could appear on drivers license tests, said Doug Nick, a spokesman for the Department of Transportations Motor Vehicle Division, which produces the rule book.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Chinese national who federal authorities say brought fentanyl and other drugs to the U.S. -- and whose opioids are tied to a series of overdoses deaths in Northeast Ohio -- faces drug charges after his arrest in Massachusetts.

Bin Wang, 42, is accused of distributing opioids and drugs shipped from China to dealers and users in the U.S., according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Cleveland.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says Wang worked with a man named "Gordon Jin" who shipped drugs to people who ordered them from a series of Chinese websites.

Agents found several websites that sold pounds of fentanyl and shipped the drugs to the United States. One of the websites sold drugs that led to two overdose deaths in Summit County in 2015, the release states.

Wang is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service in Massachusetts following his arrest Friday.

An affidavit filed for his arrest says he was arrested after he bought a round-trip ticket to Toronto Friday morning, but his return flight was scheduled for a short time after his departing flight landed. This led agents to believe he was trying to flee, according to the affidavit.

He is next set to appear in court in Boston later this week and is expected to be prosecuted in Cleveland.

Jin also faces charges in the United States but is not in custody.

The 56-page affidavit sworn by DEA agent Matthew Fitzpatrick says Wang operated companies from a warehouse in Woburn, a Boston suburb.

Undercover agents started ordering drugs from Jin in November, and wired him money. The drugs were shipped to Wang, who mailed the drugs to people who ordered them in the United States, the affidavit states.

Fitzpatrick detailed a series of emails that agents exchanged with Jin, as well as other emails intercepted when investigators obtained a warrant to monitor Jin's emails earlier this year, according to the affidavit.

Jin's and Wang's case is believed to be the first time local federal prosecutors have charged wholesale opioid suppliers in China. The case comes as some local dealers have turned to Chinese sellers to obtain fentanyl to either mix with heroin or sell outright.

The case also comes as Cuyahoga County and Northeast Ohio remains on pace to see a record number of opioid overdoses in 2017.

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Monday's crime and courts comments section.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - "Fear the Walking Dead" brought "The Walking Dead" franchise to Mexico. Europe could be next on the travel plans.

During a panel at this past weekend's San Diego Comic-Con, the question of if we'd see walkers in other parts of the world was posed to showrunner Scott Gimple.

"I would say it is entirely possible that that could happen," Gimple replied. "I'd say it's something."

Considering Gimple and his team have suggested in the past "The Walking Dead" could last 20 seasons, a trip to Europe wouldn't be out of the question.

In fact, the comics introduced a limited story titled "The Alien" that took place in Spain and centered on a character Jeffrey, who turned out to be the brother of Rick Grimes.

Of course, Season 8 has to come first. Check out the trailer for the upcoming run, which returns Oct. 22.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is throwing his support and his image behind an Ohio ballot measure that seeks to reduce state spending on prescription drugs.

Sanders was an outspoken opponent of the pharmaceutical industry during his unsuccessful Democratic Party presidential primary race and in the months since last year's election.

Issue 2 on the November ballot would require Ohio to pay no more for prescription drugs than the the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does.

Supporters of the proposed law say it would save the state $400 million a year on drugs bought through Medicaid, state retirement plans and other state-operated health programs. Opponents, which include professional medical associations, chambers of commerce and pharmaceutical industry backers, dispute the savings and say the measure would cause privately insured Ohioans to pay more for drugs.

Last year Sanders endorsed a similar California measure, which failed 53 to 47 percent. As in California, the Ohio measure is funded by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

"Ohioans have the opportunity this year to take on the greed of the drug companies and significantly lower the cost of prescription drugs," Sanders said in a statement issued by the Yes on Issue 2 campaign. "Corporate greed has no place in the health and wellness of you and your family."

Sanders appears in a new 30-second ad supporting the measure but doesn't mention Ohio once. Campaign spokesman Dennis Willard confirmed the ad uses footage recorded last year during the California campaign.

Willard couldn't say Monday whether Sanders will visit Ohio to rally support for the measure or appear in future campaign advertisements.

"Sen. Sanders has committed to this issue and will be involved," Willard said in an interview.

Dale Butland, spokesman for opposition group Ohioans Against the Deceptive Rx Ballot Issue, said the "no on Issue 2" campaign doesn't need celebrities to get its point across. Butland, a longtime Democratic staffer and consultant, said he voted for Sanders in Ohio's primary and respects him, but Sanders is wrong on Issue 2.

"Everyone who has looked at this [proposed law] says it is bad public policy that would have the opposite effect of what is intended and could likely raise drug costs for a majority of Ohioans and reduce access to needed medications for our most vulnerable citizens," Butland said.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio regulators say they'll need another $5.6 million this year for a medical marijuana tracking database, a toll-free help line and anticipated legal costs responding to lawsuits and complaints challenging the state's licensing process.

The Ohio Department of Commerce and State Board of Pharmacy received approval Monday to spend an additional $6 million over the next two years for the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program. That's in addition to the $5 million included in the state budget passed last month.

The appropriation request is the first time state officials have recognized that the program may face legal challenges from unsuccessful cultivator or dispensary license applicants.

Other states that award a limited number of marijuana business licenses have been sued over their decisions, which can cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars and delay the program's start date.

Ohio's medical marijuana law allows people with 21 medical conditions to buy and use marijuana if recommended by a physician. State officials are still setting up the program with the goal of opening dispensaries by a September 2018 deadline.

Next year, both agencies say they'll be able to repay the state and operate with annual license fees.

if the state awards all the initial licenses available, it would collect $10.8 million a year from license fees for cultivators, processors and dispensaries. Additional fees, including employee licenses and nonrefundable application fees, could generate a couple million more.

The 185 cultivator applications collected in June netted more than $2.3 million in application fee revenue. The state plans to issue only 12 licenses to applicants with larger grow spaces and 12 for smaller spaces; licensees will pay $200,000 and $20,000 a year, respectively, to renew their license.

Here's how each state agency plans to spend the money.

Department of Commerce: $6,84,423

The department already planned to spend $1.4 million on payroll, $518,757 on supplies and $305,000 on other services over the next two years.

The additional funding request includes:

$3.9 million to set up a seed-to-sale database system and add licenses to the state's e-licensing program this year.

$180,000 to maintain both systems next year.

$306,444 for legal expenses from the state's administrative hearing process.

The seed-to-sale database will track each marijuana plant through each stage of life, from cultivation to sale at the dispensary.

The commerce department issued a request for proposals for the technology in March, but a department spokeswoman said a vendor has not been chosen.

Hunt said the department is also considering security video monitoring and closed-loop payment systems. The payment system would allow cashless transactions between marijuana businesses, patients and state vendors, easing concerns about businesses operating solely with cash because federally-backed banks won't serve them.

Neither system was included in Monday's request.

Board of Pharmacy: $4,403,400

Of its original $2.8 million appropriation, the board planned to spend $1.8 million on payroll and $766,500 on updates to include medical marijuana in the state's prescription drug database.

Most of the additional $1.6 million requested Monday is for a consultant to develop a scoring system for dispensary applications and score applications. Atlanta-based North Highland Company was recently selected through a competitive bid process and will be paid $729,000 for the work -- more if applications exceed 250. The board has budgeted $1.3 million for the work.

The board plans to spend $250,000 setting up a toll-free hotline required by law and set aside $62,500 for legal fees.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Jury selection began Monday in the case of a man charged with killing a state trooper in a crash last year.

Joshua Gaspar faces aggravated vehicular homicide and other charges in the Sept. 15 death of Trooper Kenneth Velez.

Judge Michael J. Russo is overseeing the trial.

Gaspar on Sept. 15 was driving about 78 miles per hour on I-90 when he swerved to avoid a car stopped in his lane, according to prosecutors. He drove off the road and hit Trooper Kenneth Velez, who was shooting radar on the highway, investigators said.

Prosecutors have said Gaspar took a dose of methadone 14 minutes before the crash.

Gaspar's attorney, John Sinn, has said Gaspar took a prescribed dose of the drug at the doctor's office while battling an opioid addiction.

Gaspar called Velez's death a "tragic accident" in a March Facebook post.

"I'm not the person you think I am," he wrote. "I am in total support of all police, armed services and civil servants. I am a Christian. This was a tragic accident."

A two-mile stretch of I-90 along the Lakewood border was renamed last month in honor of Velez and Cleveland police officer David Fahey, who was struck and killed Jan. 24 while conducting traffic about two miles from the scene of Velez's death.

The driver accused in Fahey's death, Israel Alvarez, is awaiting trial.

To comment on this story, please visit Monday's crime and courts comments page.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the crash that killed Velez as a hit-and-run.
U.K. credit card users are about to get a break that could save them millions.

"All extra charges added to payments for goods and services made by card are to be outlawed, ending a 'rip-off' that costs Britons hundreds of millions of pounds a year," reports The Guardian, writing that the loss to consumers amounted to an estimated 473 million in 2010. Right now, many merchants and government agencies alike can charge consumers more for the ability to pay with plastic.

The changes will go into effect January 2018.

Surcharges and "convenience fees"  such as the extra dollar or so a movie theater charges you to buy tickets in advance with a card, and the 2.9 percent plus $.30 merchants must pay for each digital sale they make via PayPal  are still common in the U.S. That's thanks to regulations that allow sellers to charge customers who pay with credit a surcharge to account for processing and merchant fees, according to The National Conference of State Legislators.
Wilbur Ross, U.S. commerce secretary, speaks during the 47th annual Washington Conference on the Americas at the U.S Department of State in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, May 9, 2017. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is to welcome British Trade Secretary Liam Fox on Monday to begin discussions for a new trade deal between the two countries. The pair will be joined by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for the two-day talks that aim to lay out a continuity agreement allowing businesses from the two countries to continue trading after Brexit. Many aspects of the U.K.'s relationship with the U.S. are currently governed by wider regulatory and technical agreements held with the European Union, but these will become uncertain once Britain leaves the bloc. Though the U.K cannot formally negotiate independent trade deals until it leaves the EU, it is allowed to prepare for them by holding discussions with current European trade partners, "so as to deliver maximum continuity and certainty for businesses," a U.K. government white paper stipulates.

Why is a deal important?

The U.S. is the U.K.'s second-largest trading partner outside of the EU, importing approximately 20 percent of all Britain's goods and services. The countries also currently share a number of agreements on economics, security and trade, which could be at risk as of March 2019, when the U.K. is expected to formally exit the EU. Maintaining this special relationship with the U.K. is increasingly important given the new administration's protectionist 'America First' stance and preference for bilateral trade deals rather that multilateral deals, which are seen to disadvantage the U.S. Likewise, the U.K. will be eager to secure new trading relationships outside of those brokered by the EU. However, the U.S. has been critical of other countries' trade surpluses with the U.S. and the U.K., whose trade surplus is an estimated 40 billion, will be starting its dialogue from a tricky position. Without a deal, the two countries will have to revert to World Trade Organization rules, with tariffs applied universally to countries without deals, ranging from 32 percent on wine to 9.8 percent on cars.

Where do talks stand?

Ross said last month that the U.S. is eager to start trade talks with the U.K. as soon as possible and is confident of a "happy finish." "From the U.S. side, we've made it clear that we are prepared to begin as soon as the U.K. is ready," Ross said at a Select USA Investment Summit in Washington in June.

U.K. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox outside 10 Downing Street Carl Court | Getty Images

Fox said at the time that the U.K. was eager to "scope out" its future relationship with the U.S. Trade working groups on both sides of the Atlantic have since been working behind the scenes to lay the groundwork. More recently, Fox has voiced his rejection of protectionist policies, which he said had emerged from those who had benefited most from globalization. "It is so concerning to hear the voices of protectionism growing louder. Those who have benefited most from an open, liberal trading environment have a duty to ensure that others are able to take advantage of the same benefits in the future," Fox said Thursday.

What progress will be made this week?

Under EU rules, few details of the deal can be thrashed out this week but U.S. trade officials have suggested that Ross, Lighthizer and Fox will focus on establishing "commercial continuity" as well as exploring possible ways to "strengthen trade and commercial ties," according to Reuters.

Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

"The early discussions will focus on laying the groundwork for commercial continuity for U.S. and U.K. businesses as the U.K. leaves the EU and exploring possible ways to strengthen trade and commercial ties, consistent with the EU's common commercial policy," a U.S. trade official said. "These discussions will also provide a mechanism for preparing the ground for a potential future trade agreement once the U.K. leaves the EU." Some commentators are less optimistic. Paul Hollingsworth, U.K. economist at Capital Economics, told CNBC via email Thursday that he is expecting little more than "hot air and some broad ideas."

Which sectors stand to benefit?

Pharmaceuticals, finance, technology and infrastructure are some of the most valuable areas of business between the U.K. and the U.S. This means they are likely to rank highly in trade ministers' negotiations.

Eric Thayer | Reuters

"These are the high value-added sectors where there are synergies to be had by agreeing [on] a common set of standards and legal structures," Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Research, told CNBC via email Thursday. However, similar aims were proposed under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal and were quickly "bogged down," French cautioned, referring to the delayed proposals for an EU-U.S. deal.

How likely is a deal?

Both parties have a lot to gain  and lose  if their existing agreements fall apart after Brexit. But analysts have suggested that the U.S. may be reluctant to sign up to an agreement until Britain's post-Brexit standing becomes clearer. In the second stage of negotiations late week, Britain's Brexit minister David Davis faced criticism for his lack of clarity on key issues, such as citizens' rights. Also, with Congress facing divisions over key issues such as health-care reforms, Hollingsworth suggests the chances of getting approval for a deal are "extremely low at present."

Who will be the winners and the losers?

Under a new U.K.-U.S. deal, businesses could benefit from reduced tariffs, common standards and increased investment. Critics have cautioned though that the U.K. will begin negotiations on the back foot given its reliance on EU trade negotiators over recent decades, leaving U.K. businesses vulnerable to takeovers by U.S. firms. "The US has many of the world's toughest trade negotiators, whereas the UK has ceded policy and knowhow to the European commission for decades," Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, wrote in the Observer on Sunday. "If talks began on a U.S.-U.K. deal over the coming months, I know which of the two I'd put my money on. "There is a huge risk that UK-based firms will continue to face higher upfront costs and regulatory requirements after any agreement, leaving them at an instant disadvantage to U.S. competitors that would suddenly have wider scope to compete in and buy up chunks of the U.K. market."

What will this mean for Britain's future trade deals?

Success for the U.K. in securing a trade deal with the U.S. will have important implications for other countries considering establishing a bilateral trade agreement with post-Brexit Britain.

A Union Jack flag flies near the Elizabeth Tower, commonly referred to as Big Ben, at the Houses of Parliament in central London, U.K., on March 29, 2017. Justin Tallis | AFP | Getty Images

"The symbolism of a UK-US 'agreement in principle,' which may be the short-term outcome, will be helpful for other countries considering terms with the U.K.," Panmure Gordon's French suggested. However, as countries outside the U.S. continue to show favor for global, free-trade agreements, the recently agreed outline free trade deal between the EU and Japan is likely to provide a "more valuable precedent" for those looking to establish over-arching multilateral partnerships, French added.

How will they match the U.K.'s existing trade within the EU?
Health and safety regulations across the U.S. require families to provide clean beds for each of their kids. If they can't afford the beds, they risk losing kids to foster care.

A "bed-in-a-box" startup called Leesa Sleep wants to stop that from ever happening.

As a registered B-Corp., Leesa donates one mattress for every ten it sells to a family or individual in need, and plants a tree for every mattress it sells.

The startup's social minded approach to the mattress and bedding industry has attracted a new $23 million venture investment from big names in the world of social ventures, including Seventh Generation CEO John Replogle, and TOMS shoes founder Blake Mycoskie. Replogle will also serve as chairman of the board at Leesa.

"The U.S. mattress industry is over $14 billion per annum with room for several winners," Replogle told CNBC. "To grow in the next stage, the company will have to use sleep science and design to drive for better sleep. That's table stakes. But it helps that their core mission and brand resonates with consumers who shop beyond price."

According to Leesa co-founder and CEO David Wolfe, the startup plans to use its new funding for hiring, and to develop new sleep products including mattresses, pillows and proprietary materials that go into them.
Vietnam stopped a company from exploring for energy in contested waters of the South China Sea after taking threats from Beijing, the BBC reported early on Monday.

Talisman-Vietnam, a subsidiary of Spanish energy firm Repsol, commenced gas-drilling operations in an area about 400 kilometers off Vietnam's coast earlier this month, but Hanoi has since ordered Repsol to leave the zone, the BBC said, citing an unnamed source.

Last week, Beijing warned Hanoi that it would attack Vietnamese bases in the Spratly Islands if drilling continued, the BBC continued.
President Donald Trump is set to deliver a statement on health care at 3:15 p.m. ET on Monday, according to the White House.

Trump's statement will follow him participating "in a greeting with victims of Obamacare," the White House said in a news release.

The president offered an opinion on the state of the Republican attempt to change the U.S. healthcare system in a Sunday Twitter post.

Donald J. Trump tweet: If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!

Last week, the GOP effort to simply repeal Obamacare after multiple Republican senators said they would not support the move.

That setback followed the replacement plan hitting a roadblock in the Senate.

Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate, and passing a plan under budget reconciliation rules requires 50 votes, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a tie. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is away from the Senate recovering from surgery, so losing two votes or more will stall a Republican plan for now.

The GOP's effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, a campaign promise for most of the last decade, has stalled multiple times this year amid party divisions. The GOP chose to address the health-care overhaul before it took on tax reform, another key campaign plank, and every setback is seen as delaying the party's broader agenda.

Trump initially urged lawmakers to pass a repeal plan and then figure out a replacement later. Last week, the president told reporters that

CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.
Workers of the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention company at the company's laboratory in the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade zone on September 24, 2014.

"VPNs provide a pressure valve for those who rely on open internet access to communicate and stay informed  even government supporters," said Madeline Earp, a research analyst at the group. "Interfering with these channels to the outside world creates tremendous frustration and uncertainty."

Freedom House, a US-based democracy and human rights NGO, says Beijing has escalated efforts to "restrict individual VPN usage over the past few years", branding it "the world's worst abuser of internet freedom".

Beijing has championed the concept of "cyberspace sovereignty"  control of its own digital space  that has forced VPN providers into a long-standing dance with the authorities over their "legal grey zone" of operation.

However, it may become more difficult for people in China to evade the censors amid the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's "clean-up" campaign of internet access services such as VPNs.

"Everybody here does the same," he said. "First-class research at a truly competitive level can't go on with researchers cut off from the outside world. It's truly unthinkable."

Its push in recent years to further limit people's abilities to circumvent controls on the internet have forced academics such as Pastor-Pareja to depend on tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs), which redirect users to offshore servers to bypass the censors. His personal VPN subscription, paid for out of his own pocket, allows him to access Google, monitor his Twitter feed for the latest scientific literature, and connect with the wider scientific community via social media.

China is notorious for its "Great Firewall"  the mass censorship and blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, plus news sites including The New York Times. It also routinely censors politically sensitive information across Chinese social media and websites.

But access to this resource is not guaranteed as he works at Tsinghua University in China  where the government has been tightening what are already among the strictest controls over the internet in the world.

Like most academics, biology researcher Dr Jose Pastor-Pareja relies heavily on Google's search engine, using it "every 10 minutes", he says.

A research team member from Tianjin Universit at a laboratory in Tianjin University on November 2, 2015 in Tianjin, China.

In January this year, Beijing launched a 14-month nationwide campaign against unauthorised internet connections, including VPN services, saying all service providers must obtain government approval.

Nathan Freitas, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Centre for Internet and Society, said "anyone who was anyone" in China depended on "the VPN of the week that works" to access essential blocked resources.

Any new restrictions would cause "significant" harm to global collaborations, including Chinese academics or open-source projects on the mainland, he said.

"There is this idea that for people inside  the playing field, the collaboration field, was levelled because they had VPNs," he said.

John Zhang, a chemistry professor at New York University Shanghai, has used his college's VPN network to access academic information for years. If that changed, "the impact on my work would be serious", Zhang said.

Another Chinese academic at a university in Shanghai said he had used VPNs since 2012 to access sites such as Google, a service he needed to "accurately and quickly" find academic papers.

He now bypasses the firewall with his university's VPN system. Since researchers could still access legal VPNs through work, he did not think the restrictions were harmful to China's academia  "at least for now".

A Chinese physics professor at a university in Beijing said he hoped the VPN crackdown would not affect his ability to use Google.

"Baidu has absolutely no use for my work," he said, referring to the Chinese search engine.

"It is a shame ... Without Google, academic research and study will definitely be adversely affected."

More from the South China Morning Post :

Beijing tries to pull the plug on VPNs in internet 'clean-up'

China tries to ease fears over impact of VPN crackdown

Bhutan can sort its border with China  if India lets it

Academics in China are reluctant to publicly comment on censorship. But both Chinese and foreign researchers in the country need to tap into to global conversations for "well-informed research", according to Dr Nicole Talmacs, lecturer in media and communications at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University.

One former visiting scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai tried multiple services in his "adventures of finding a VPN". The first was blocked upon arrival, the second worked for one night and the third worked only after a prolonged configuration process.

He said it was "catastrophic" for his research to be restricted from file sharing services such as Dropbox or Google Drive. "I don't want to risk my access being limited to whatever the government decides I can use," he said.

Dr Christopher Balding, a business and economics professor at the HSBC Business School in Shenzhen, frequently accesses Twitter, Gmail, and Google Scholar for his work.

"If we start taking [VPNs] away, it's going to be very problematic," Balding said.

"When you're going to such extremes, you're stopping basic access to information for professors ... It's really going to harm the types of jobs and industries that China says it wants to grow."

Dr Mario Poceski, a former visiting scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the lack of complete internet access was a constant hassle while he was in China, creating conditions that were "rather intolerable".

He added that this would negatively affect the country's appeal for foreign scholars.

The firewall's impact on research was raised when the legislature met in March in Beijing.

Even Liu Binjie, a former director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, indicated support at the National People's Congress meeting this year for the reintroduction of Google Scholar to China after the authorities suspended access to the service in 2010.

Luo Fuhe, a vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also said this year that limited access to the internet was harmful to scientists.

"It is not normal when quite a number of researchers have to buy software that helps them bypass the country's firewalls in order to complete their scientific research," Luo said.

The communist government has been increasing efforts to maintain its ideological grip on the country's universities, which President Xi Jinping has vowed to turn into "strongholds of the party's leadership".

Universities  which fall under the control of Communist Party committees  have repeatedly been told to maintain purity in their socialist ideology, including steering clear of teaching topics such as press freedom and civil rights.

The party dispatched anti-graft teams earlier this year to inspect 29 top universities on criteria including the implementation of the party's guiding principles for education and strong "political awareness".

China's drive for internet restrictions on academics may stem from a desire to keep data on Chinese internet platforms and sensitive information such as defence or cybersecurity research within its borders, according to Freitas.

But when scholars and researchers could not use VPNs to access a free and open internet, it might lead to government censorship of academic information and a "brain drain" of skilled individuals overseas, he noted. "Intelligent people want to be connected with a global cohort of collaborators," he said.

Balding said China was "definitely a different environment" from when he arrived in the country eight years ago, citing its restrictive internet and politically sensitive academic environment.

Asked if he was now considering working outside China, he replied soberly: "I should probably start thinking about looking."
As people continue to store more of their personal information online, identity theft has become a crime on the rise. And that risk becomes even greater when traveling. In 2016, more than 15 million Americans were victims of identity theft, up 16 percent from the previous year, according to Experian, a global information services group. About 33 percent of that fraud took place when people were traveling.

baona | Getty Images

The fear is present for Americans, with 84 percent acknowledging their concern about the security of personal information online. Yet they apparently haven't taken the necessary precautions. To that point, nearly 64 percent of those polled said it's too much of a hassle to constantly worry about securing their online information, according to a survey by Experian. The survey was conducted in March by Edelman Berland on Experian's behalf, and polled 1,000 U.S. adults online. The rise of the Internet has only aided hackers in their quest for your personal information, said Michael Bruemmer, vice president of consumer protection at Experian. "Your information, once it's out there on the Internet, it's out there," said Bruemmer. "You can't grab it back. "Unlike the days of a physical piece of paper where, unless it was copied, you could get that physical piece of paper back, now, once you hit send or enter on your keyboard, it's gone," he added. "We leave a digital footprint everywhere we go."

Here are seven tips on how to stay protected while travelling.

1. Avoid using public WiFi

Public WiFi makes it easy for thieves to hack into the information stored on your mobile phone or laptop, according to the report. Yet less than half (47 percent) of respondents avoid using public WiFi when traveling. "We never recommend using public WiFi, and of course you're given free public WiFi in most hotels," Bruemmer said. "So people say 'OK, so if I shouldn't use public WiFi, how can I check my transactions like my bank statement or my credit card statement?'" Instead of using public Wi-Fi, get a portable router to set up your own WiFi hotspot, the report advised. To do this, you'll need a local SIM data card, which you can purchase at an electronic store or an airport kiosk.

Brent Lewin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

2. Password-protect phones and add tracking tools

Your phone stores sensitive information, such as access to your emails, and possibly even credit card information (if you use Apple Wallet or bank apps.) Only 48 percent of respondents password-protect their smartphones, making it easy for thieves to access that information. Also, only 26 percent have a tracking device set up in case their phones get stolen, the report said. Not only should you set up a password to unlock your device, but you should create a strong, unique password and change it regularly, the report advised. In addition, enable location tracking and install a wiping software so you can track down your phone or destroy the data on it if it's ever stolen.

Getty Images

3. Don't post location or agenda on social media

Only 32 percent of people avoid posting photos or status updates online while traveling, and only 20 percent disable geotagging on pictures, according to the survey. Sharing your agenda or location on social media allows potential thieves to keep track of where you are, making it easier for them to time a crime. Instead, wait to post about your trip until you get home, the report said.

4. Bring only what you need; lock up what you do

Only bring a passport with you if you're traveling abroad, and always avoid bringing your Social Security card or birth certificate with you, the report advised. Also, don't bring all of your credit and debit cards; choose instead to carry only a select few. If you do bring sensitive documents with you on your trip, lock them up in a hotel safe or other secure location, Bruemmer said.

Linus Strandholm | EyeEm | Getty Images

5. Keep a record of important documents

If your wallet or any important documents do get stolen, it's important to know exactly what's missing, the report said. Before you go on your trip, write down all the information from your credit and debit cards, driver's license, medical insurance and other important documents. This will help you figure out who to call after a theft and what to tell them.

Sakkawokkie | Getty Images

6. Monitor credit cards and reports

Monitoring bank and credit card accounts (58 percent), as well as credit reports (55 percent), was seen as helpful in detecting suspicious activity. Yet 53 percent of respondents say monitoring financial transactions is challenging, and 81 percent trust banks and credit card companies to catch fraud for them. However, you must rely on yourself to catch a thief by constantly monitoring your accounts. If people think monitoring their accounts is normally a challenge, it's an even bigger challenge away from home, Bruemmer said, "When people are traveling  you're out of your normal environment or routine," he said. "And it just makes things a little bit harder even with a smartphoneto check some of your online accounts."

Jonathan Bainbridge | Reuters

7. Protect your home while you're away

Before you leave for your trip, stop your mail delivery. An overflowing mailbox is like a huge neon sign on your house that says "no one is home." This will also ensure that important documents aren't stolen from your mailbox while you're gone, Bruemmer said. "Stop mail delivery, online through the postal service," he said. "That way, nobody can take pieces of mail and open it up, especially bills or tax statements."

PeopleImages | Getty Images

Get these common misconceptions out of your head

A majority of respondents (72 percent) think thieves are only interested in "wealthy people's identities," according to the report. However, thieves target all people from all rungs on the socioeconomic ladder. Many (66 percent) think the threat of identity theft diminishes over time after their personal information is stolen, with 14 percent believing risks lasted just a few days after an information theft, 20 percent saying a few months and 23 percent a few years. Just 44 percent knew the risk can last a lifetime.

Bottom line:

If you abide by these guidelines, you have a much better chance of avoiding security breaches and identity theft while traveling. Identity theft takes a long time to recover from, and has lasting negative impacts that you don't want to ever have to experience. Of those victimized by identity theft while traveling, 55 percent stated it took from weeks to more than a year to resolve issues related to identity fraud, the survey found. Victims also acknowledged the negative impacts to their short and long-term financial goals (37 percent and 27 percent, respectively).
A positive workplace culture is an important factor in job satisfaction, and a toxic environment can be detrimental to your health and productivity. But how do you know what a company's office culture is like before accepting a job?

To find out, Wharton business school's top-ranked professor, Adam Grant, suggests using this one simple question during the job interview process: "Ask them to tell you a story about something that happens in the organization that would not happen anywhere else," he says during a panel at OZY Fest in New York City.

Grant is a best-selling author and an organizational psychologist who consults for companies like Facebook, Google and Goldman Sachs.

Using this specific question is more useful than just asking people to describe the culture, because "they're going to say like, 'Oh these are our values,' but it doesn't tell you anything about what it is like to work there," explains Grant.

"When they tell a story, then you can start to see a pattern," says Grant. "You want to know, what are the stories that get told over and over again and what do they reveal about, is this a place where you have a sense of psychological safety, where you can trust people, where your voice is heard.

"It is amazing how often that is not the case."

Grant formulated his question when one of his students asked him for advice on how to select a job. She was interviewing for positions at several different banks, but didn't know which one would be a good fit.

When she took Grant's advice and asked his question in interviews, she got some shocking, but useful, results. For instance, one interviewer told her he heard a story about someone throwing a chair at an employee for turning in "bad work." According to Grant, "she started hearing these horror stories."

That's why the anecdotes are so important, says Grant: "If you do this over and over again, the culture comes to life."

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Don't miss: 5 things you can do every day to be more productive and less exhausted at work
That started to change in 2015, when it was rebranded Amazon Business. The much larger goal: to be a supplier to the entire B2B community, a business that encompasses much more than just the industrial space.

In 2005, Amazon bought a business called SmallParts.com . No one paid much attention to it, not even after 2012 when Amazon renamed it Amazon Supply with the idea of supplying industrial and commercial customers.

Here's the issue: If you don't make the object you are selling, or don't have some sort of intellectual property, or solve a pain point for a customer, then you're just a middleman, and you are increasingly more vulnerable. The concern is that these middlemen will start losing volume because sales in general are going to the internet and because it's increasingly difficult to get pricing.

Before it was Amazon killing the retailers. Last week it was Amazon disrupting appliances . Now there's a broader concern: Amazon has the potential to disrupt the middleman in general, particularly those that work in the $7 trillion business-to-business (B2B) space.

Amazon Business now has 300,000 registered corporate buyers, according to Crain's, and recently surpassed $1 billion in sales, according to Reuters.

How serious is this as an issue? It's already affecting a specific class of middlemen: Industrial distributors who sell screws, pumps, fasteners and other parts for industrial America, companies like W.W. Grainger and Fastenal who have been profitable for many years serving the B2B industrial community.

But that is now changing. Last week, Goldman Sachs put out a note to clients entitled "Distributors Disrupted" where it claimed that "the value proposition of the industrial distributor is not keeping pace as new entrants like Amazon are disrupting traditional models. As a result, we see $130bn of industrial distributor TAM [total addressable market] on the line."

It has a sell rating on Grainger (GWW), which sells industrial and security supplies like lighting and electrical products and power and hand tools, as well as Genuine Parts Co. (GPC), a distributor of automotive replacement parts, because of their susceptibility to price competition and lower margins.

Grainger is already familiar with the Amazon effect. Its earnings declined in the first quarter because it has had to make price cuts to compete with cheaper competitors on the internet, mainly Amazon.

But the rapid growth of Amazon Business is now attracting significant attention. After volumes were shakier than expected in the second quarter, Susquehanna lowered its price target for Grainger $20 to $181 last week, citing "heightened anxiety about the potential negative impacts of rising online competition from Amazon and other players."

That competition could significantly affect prices and margins. Goldman found that Amazon and Grainger both carried 98 of 100 products that Goldman sampled. Of that, Grainger's prices were at a 55 percent premium to Amazon. It also found that Fastenal was at a significant premium of 49 percent.

Could Amazon get even more aggressive and start buying in the B2B space? It's certainly not out of the question. Here's Gabelli & Co. analyst Justin Bergner last week: "We would not rule out an acquisition of Grainger by Amazon if such a deal were embraced by both parties. It would be a good way for Grainger to leverage its e-commerce capabilities and scale within Amazon's platform, while retaining leadership."

(Amazon and Grainger declined to comment.)

Still, the Amazon juggernaut is not unstoppable.

Small companies may use Amazon more because price is the most important factor for them. But larger companies will still want relationships with companies like Grainger because the larger customers place a higher value on receiving expertise and customer service.

That was the point Morningstar made last week, when it said there was "too much pessimism" around Grainger's loss of pricing power, noting the company "is entrenched within many of its larger customers' operations, and the firm's ability to manage large, complex accounts and provide inventory management services support some degree of pricing power."

That added value isn't going to go away anytime soon, and until Amazon finds a way to duplicate that hands-on service, some of this business will be beyond its reach.
Soldiers of People's Liberation Army stand inside tanks at a drill during an organized media tour at a PLA engineering academy.

China has ramped up its defenses along its border with North Korea to ready itself for a potential crisis on the peninsula, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The newspaper reported Beijing has increased surveillance of the border region as well as a "combat readiness-level big data disaster recovery center." The military has also conducted drills and transferred units from other regions, the Journal reported.

The Journal said that these measures parallel President Donald Trump's comments that he is considering military action to curb Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions and that Beijing should do more to handle the matter.

Despite Trump's self-professed admiration for Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea's missile program has repeatedly strained the relationship between the world's two largest economies.
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Actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. His latest co-star, Apple's Siri voice assistant, is a relative newcomer to the big screen. Johnson, a former wrestling superstar, teamed up with Apple for a new commercial which was released on Monday. "The Rock x Siri Dominate The Day" sees Johnson hail a Lyft car, travel to Rome, take a selfie in space, and then turn up for a film shoot, all with the help of Apple's voice assistant on an iPhone 7.

Tapping into Johnson, who was the highest-paid actor in 2016, according to Forbes, shows just how serious the U.S. technology giant is about pushing its voice assistant. Siri has often been seen to be trailing Amazon's voice assistant Alexa and Google Assistant. Johnson created buzz on social media on Sunday before the commercial was launched on Apple's YouTube channel on Monday. TWEET Across his social media, Johnson is known for posting inspirational quotes and images, and touting the importance of a hard work ethic. It's something Apple was keen to tap into to show the extent of Siri's capabilities.

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(L-R) Dieter Zetsche, CEO of the German car maker Daimler AG, Harald Krueger, CEO of the German car maker BMW and Matthias Mueller, CEO of German car maker Volkswagen AG, shake hands after a talk at the so-called Auto-Gipfel - automotive meeting - in Munich, southern Germany, on November 9, 2016.

Shares in the top three German carmakers dropped sharply on Monday after it was reported that EU antitrust officials had started investigating a possible breach of regulatory standards.

Volkswagen , BMW and Daimler all slumped towards the bottom of the autos sector shortly after Monday's opening bell. BMW fell more than 2 percent while Volkswagen and Daimler slid over 3 percent on the news.

EU antitrust officials confirmed Saturday they had started investigating allegations of a cartel among a group of German carmakers.

"The European Commission and the Bundeskartellamt (German cartel office) have received information on this matter, which is currently being assessed by the commission. It is premature at this stage to speculate further," the European Commission said in a statement.

German news magazine, Der Spiegel, reported Friday that Volkswagen, Audi , BMW, Porsche and Daimler may have been engaged in industrial collusion. The major German carmakers were accused of using industry committees to agree on costs, suppliers, technologies and even the prices of diesel emission treatment systems.

BMW rejected reports of emissions collusion while other carmakers have reportedly refused to comment on the claims.
In his last earnings call as CEO, Jeff Immelt announced yet another disappointing quarter for General Electric. The pressure now mounts on Immelt's successor, John Flannery, to put the company back on track. GE's market capitalization tumbled $170 billion during Immelt's tenure. This year alone, GE stock is down some 18 percent, while the S&P index is up almost 10 percent.

When GE surprised its investors in May by announcing its CEO transition, Flannery promised an immediate review of GE's portfolio by November, noting, "Focus on the cost, and margin and cash, and then where do you focus the company." Such a financially-oriented approach may please GE's investors in the near-term, but it begs the vastly more important question: What business is GE in? Does GE have a unifying purpose other than making money?

GE did not become the most iconic American company through financial engineering or margin analysis. While Flannery can create near-term value by focusing GE's business, he must look beyond immediate financial returns to build an enduring enterprise. Otherwise, GE risks becoming a holding company that buys and sells businesses opportunistically with no dominant strengths. If Flannery's mission for GE is simply a set of financial metrics, he will put the company on the opposite side of great, enduring companies like PepsiCo, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, Mayo Clinic, and Merck.

For GE to lead American industry for the next century, Flannery needs to determine an over-arching corporate strategy that leverages GE's global strengths to create sustainable competitive advantage. Then he needs to determine how to translate those strengths into leading market positions for each of its businesses through innovation and operational excellence. That's the only way GE can achieve superior long-term financial results.

For decades GE has set the standard for the business community through the direction of the company. When Jack Welch took over leadership in 1981, he immediately undid the work of his predecessor, Reginald Jones, declaring that all GE businesses had to be No. 1 or No. 2 in their respective industries or risk being sold off. Welch quickly disposed of Utah International, Jones's largest acquisition. Then he streamlined the organization, taking out multiple layers of line and staff managers. Welch proceeded to build the most successful conglomerate of the 20th Century, with high-performing industrial businesses ranging from appliances to jet engines, balanced by high growth, high return financial businesses in GE Capital.
In a normal administration, this could be the week that the White House stages a comeback.

President Donald Trump just hired smooth-talking, well-liked former hedge fund executive Anthony "Mooch" Scaramucci to take control of a dysfunctional White House communications operation. The president is hitting the road to honor American soldiers in West Virginia and Ohio. The Senate is set to vote on one of Trump's biggest campaign promises: repealing Obamacare.

But this is not a normal administration. And this is not likely to be the week that things get back on track.

Scaramucci, blocked from multiple attempts at other White House jobs, could wind up being a shrewd hire. He was affable from the podium on Friday and did a mostly smooth job on the Sunday news shows. But behind the scenes, his hiring shows just how messed up the West Wing really is.

Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and top strategist Steve Bannon tried desperately to block the hire. Priebus didn't want another top advisor who reports directly to the president. Bannon didn't want another "globalist" allied with National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and the president's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Now Priebus is chief of staff in name only, lacking any major allies or real authority in the White House. Bannon is said by White House insiders to be sulking, bitter and considering quitting.

And Scaramucci, for all his charismatic delivery, made pretty clear over the weekend that his number one job is flattering and appeasing his boss. In an extraordinary moment on CNN's "State of the Union," the new communications director spoke directly to his most important viewer: "If I said some things about him when I was working for another candidate, Mr. Trump, Mr. President, I apologize for that. Can we move on off of that?"
In celebration of National Tequila Day on July 24, George Clooney may be toasting to Casamigos Tequila, which the Hollywood star co-founded with friend Rande Gerber.

The company, which the duo recently sold to Diageo for as much as $1 billion, was never meant for the public. It started out as a private collection of tequila for the co-founders and their friends and family.

While building their side-by-side vacation homes in Cabo San Lucas, the long-time friends were spending a lot of time in Mexico and, consequently, drinking a lot of tequila.

"As you do when you're in Mexico, you drink a lot of tequila," Gerber tells CNBC. "After a couple of months trying a lot of different tequilas, George turned to me and said, 'Why don't we just make our own? One that's perfect for us to drink?'"

That's just what the pair did, along with their friend Michael Meldman.

The team found a distiller in Jalisco, Mexico, and explained exactly what they were looking for. "It was important that it tasted great and didn't burn going down," Gerber explains. "We wanted one that we could drink straight or on the rocks. One that we could drink all day and all night, and not be hungover in the morning."
All the experts agreed about one other fact: Even if Trump does pardon himself, that would not shield him from impeachment hearings. And most believe if he did make a move like this, it would be both an admission of guilt and a potential constitutional crisis.

I reached out to 15 legal experts and asked them if the president has the constitutional authority to pardon himself. As it turns out, this is something of a legal gray area. The overwhelming consensus was that Trump could make a plausible legal argument that his pardoning powers extend to himself, mostly because the Constitution isn't clear about this  and, frankly, because this is just not a situation the framers expected.

President Trump's lawyers are exploring the potential uses of presidential pardons  including whether the president can pardon himself  as part of an effort to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, according to a new Washington Post report .

You can read their full responses below.

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The White House denies reports that Trump is looking into pardons

Asha Rangappa, associate dean, Yale Law School

It's a historical anomaly that the pardon power is even in the Constitution, considering that it is derived from royal grants of clemency and the framers of the Constitution, who had just revolted against a tyrannical king, were leery of putting too much power in the hands of a single person. A worst-case scenario like the current crisis is probably one of the reasons why.

That's why it's useful to look at Alexander Hamilton's defense of the pardon power, which he lays out in Federalist No. 74. Hamilton notes that "humanity and good policy" require that such a power ought to remain in the hands of the president  rather than dispersed among the many members of Congress  because "the sense of responsibility" he would feel in having such enormous power over another person's fate would ensure that he exercised it with "scrupulousness and caution."

Hamilton also argued that the president would be less susceptible to political pressures and partisanship than Congress in cases like treason or after times of national crisis, when forgiveness and reconciliation might be warranted.

This is obviously not dispositive, since the text of the Constitution doesn't impose any limitations on pardons except that they can't be used in cases of impeachment. However, Hamilton's concept of the pardon power was predicated on the idea that the president would be exercising it for the benefit of another person or the country  not for his own personal gain.

Of course, presidents can deceive themselves into thinking that their bad acts are justified for the common good (Nixon, anyone?), but the point of the pardon power was to bestow mercy on another, not to enrich oneself.

Mark Tushnet, law professor, Harvard University

The president's constitutional power to pardon "offenses against the United States" is limited only by excluding "cases of Impeachment." A self-pardon for ordinary criminal offenses does not fall within that exception, on my understanding.

A self-pardon might well be outrageously improper (unless there was the prospect of charges brought by a rogue prosecutor, whom, for some reason, the president could not control by firing him or her), but the response the Constitution creates for such misconduct is impeachment, a political rather than criminal remedy.

Samuel Gross, law professor, University of Michigan

The president is considering pardoning himself as a way to avoid a Department of Justice investigation into his electoral campaign? This is theater of the absurd. The fact that we're even talking about it is a measure of how far we've fallen under Trump.

Jessica Levinson, law professor, Loyola Law School

As is the case with a number of important constitutional issues, the answer to the question here of whether or not the president can pardon himself exists in gray area. Or put more bluntly, the answer is, "Who the heck knows?" This is partly because this is simply not a question we ask ourselves very often.

Let's take a step back and remember the unique reality we all now inhabit. This is not an issue which the courts have been asked to answer. Why? Because a president is rarely in the position of asking whether he will pardon himself.

The Constitution means whatever the courts say it means. If the US Supreme Court decided tomorrow that the word "emolument" actually means "sunglasses," then that is the law of the land. Congress would have to ratify an amendment to the Constitution to change or override that interpretation. Article II, Section II of the Constitution provides that the president "shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

Shortly before President Nixon resigned from office, the Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion in which they cautioned that no one may be a judge in his own case. (This is also a principle of so-called "natural law.") This meant, the OLC said, that the president cannot pardon himself.

In addition, the language of the clause and Supreme Court case law seems to assume that there is someone giving the pardon (let's call this person Mr. President) and someone receiving the pardon (let's call this person Mr. Not President). Put another way, the language seems to assume there is a grantor and a recipient who are two different people.

But a conclusion based on natural law and an assertion that the language "seems to assume" something is hardly a conclusion you want to take to the proverbial bank.

Jimmy Gurule, law professor, University of Notre Dame

The recent revelation that President Trump has asked his lawyers whether the president of the United States has the constitutional authority to pardon himself is absolutely stunning. President Trump's inquiry on the scope of the president's pardon power demonstrates consciousness of guilt. Only if President Trump believes that he may be guilty of a crime would he be interested in pardoning himself. This is not the behavior of an innocent man.

Further, the view that the president has the power to pardon himself contradicts a central tenet of American democracy: "No man is above the law." In a democracy based on the rule of law, no one may engage in criminal conduct with impunity, including the president of the United States.

Susan Low Bloch, law professor, Georgetown University

I believe the president can pardon anyone, including him or herself. But the pardon cannot stop an investigation and, in a well-functioning democracy, should provoke an impeachment. The Constitution specifically provides that the pardon power does not prevent  or undo  an impeachment. I'm not sure if these Republicans would impeach, but I think that is the only check on the president.

Keith Whittington, professor of politics, Princeton University

A validity of a presidential self-pardon is an issue of genuine uncertainty. Although theoretically interesting, this is one of those questions that seemed "purely academic" and of no real practical consequence, and yet here we are.

There are two potential checks on the pardoning power that should be noted upfront. First, the Constitution specifically rules out the possibility of pardoning someone for impeachable offenses. Moreover, I think Congress could certainly regard an "abuse" of the pardoning power as an impeachable offense in and of itself (even if we were to think that such a pardon should be regarded as legally valid).

There are fair questions as to what should count as an abuse that would rise to that level, but a self-pardon should certainly do it. In this context, I think a pardon of any member of the Trump family for offenses committed as part of the presidential campaign or its aftermath would be an impeachable offense.

Second, the value of a pardon is that it provides legal immunity from criminal liability for some action, and in order to invoke that immunity, the pardon must be presented to a court in response to a prosecution. At that point, the judiciary would have to make a ruling on whether to accept the pardon as valid.

In the case of a self-pardon, ultimately the US Supreme Court would have to render its own conclusion on whether the courts should accept such a pardon as constitutionally valid, and there would really be no option but to reach an independent judgment on that question and not simply defer to the judgment made by the president.

But substantively, can the president pardon himself? The pardoning power is vested solely in the president, and the constitutional text only identifies a single qualification on that power (does not apply in cases of impeachment).

Our legal tradition nonetheless recognizes implicit limits on that power (e.g., pardon can only be issued after the offense has been committed). There is no well-established legal tradition regarding self-pardons. All that might suggest that the president could do it, and then take his chances in an impeachment.

Julie O'Sullivan, law professor, Georgetown University

The text of the Constitution says that the president has no pardon power over impeachment. If the president were to pardon himself to preempt a legitimate investigation into potential criminal wrongdoing, it would have no effect on congressional investigations. In the debates surrounding the framing of the Constitution, the framers were very clear: No one, least of all the president, can be above the law.

If President Trump does this, and it does not immediately provoke an impeachment inquiry  that is, if the Republican majority can excuse such a blatant disregard for the rule of law  then we are in a full-blown constitutional crisis. The Saturday Night Massacre pales by comparison. That was a stupid burglary. This is potential collusion with a foreign power over the most important electoral contest in the United States.

Miriam Baer, law professor, Brooklyn Law School

News that the president allegedly asked his lawyers to investigate the viability of a "self-pardon" raises a number of questions, separate and apart from that pardon's effect on any subsequent criminal prosecution. (The Constitution on its face makes clear that the pardon cannot block impeachment; whether and how it might affect a later criminal prosecution is unclear.)

First, it is surprising this kind of a request  one that ordinarily would arise in the context of a confidential communication between a client and his attorneys  found its way to reporters. If one or more of Mr. Trump's "close advisers" (the terminology employed by the Washington Post) communicated this information to reporters, did they do so with or without the president's knowledge? One of the president's attorneys has already denied the Washington Post's report as "nonsense," but that doesn't reveal much about the original leak.

Moreover, one might wonder if the self-pardon talk is being raised as a method of reining in the special prosecutor's investigation, or as a means of distracting the special prosecutor's team by forcing them to consider a series of unprecedented, even if politically far-fetched, legal arguments.

The New York Times's report that the Trump team is investigating Mr. Mueller's team for conflicts of interests is consistent with this tactic. The actual merits of these claims matter less than their intended strategic effect, which is to place the special prosecutor and his team on the defensive.

Steven Duke, law professor, Yale University

There is, of course, no precedent on whether a president can pardon himself. The question is mostly academic. A president can't be prosecuted federally while in office, so a pardon would only be of legal significance after he left office, and the validity of it would likely be tested in a federal prosecution.

If such a prosecution seemed a serious possibility, the president would likely make a deal with his successor (Pence?) to grant him a pardon after he left office, just as Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. (There was suspicion of such a deal, but Ford denied it and there was no evidence of one.)

In any event, a president cannot use the pardon power to immunize himself from impeachment or from prosecution by one or more of the 50 states. Were a president to pardon himself, this would surely trigger prosecution in the states (e.g., for fraud or tax evasion). It would, therefore, be a very foolish decision. The pardon would be admissible evidence of guilt.

Diane Marie Amann, law professor, University of Georgia

"I beg your pardon." That standard phrasing exposes the oddity of the notion that a person may pardon himself. One simply does not say, "Pardon me," while standing in front of a mirror. This also holds true in our government  in John Adams's words, "a government of laws and not of men."

To permit the elected leader of that government to absolve himself of wrongdoing  perhaps, for good measure, to do so on a weekly basis  would erode the bedrock of our Constitution.

It was based on this reasoning that the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel wrote in 1974: "Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself." Days later, President Richard M. Nixon chose to extricate himself from scandal not by self-pardon, but rather by resignation from office. Nixon's precedent should put an end to the current discussion.

Even if a president were to break from this tradition, it would not free him from all concerns about accountability. Congress's powers of impeachment would remain undisturbed. The same is true of states' powers to prosecute, for a president's power applies only to federal crimes. Self-pardon thus would do little to advance a president's self-interest, yet it would do much to undermine our national interest.

Jed Shugerman, law professor, Fordham University

First, can Trump pardon himself? That's surprisingly hard to answer. The constitutional text gives no answer, and the convention debates aren't particularly helpful.

Some people cite the Latin phrase "Nemo judex in causa sua" (one can't be a judge in his own case) as some kind of answer, but the pardon power is executive, not judicial, so a president isn't formally a judge in his own case. Plus, we don't live in Rome, even if the Latin sounds wicked smart.

The bottom line is that the only significant barriers to self-pardons are politics (impeachment) and federalism (state powers).

Eric Posner, law professor, University of Chicago

I don't think a self-pardon would work. The major question is, What would happen if, after Trump leaves office, investigators determine that he committed a crime covered by a self-pardon? They would very likely bring charges against him anyway, and then it would be up to a judge to decide whether a self-pardon is valid.

The Constitution gives the president the power to pardon, but as is always the case with powers bestowed by the Constitution, the contours of that power are uncertain. A judge would probably worry that if he ruled that a president can pardon himself, future presidents will feel free to commit crimes.

While impeachment might seem like an adequate deterrent, because removal from office requires two-thirds of the Senate, presidents normally don't need to worry about impeachment. It is possible that a judge would rule that even if a self-pardon would relieve the president of liability for a crime, the act of self-pardoning itself is a crime, obstruction of justice, that would independently create criminal liability.

Bob Bauer, law professor, New York University

The president and his legal team may consider throwing the constitutional dice on a self-pardon and winning. Of course, all issues, including ones of this magnitude, come before the court on specific facts, in a particular case, which shape or influence the outcome.

The Trump team is not shaping up the facts to its benefit. The president and his lawyers' attacks on the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, the former FBI director, and the special counsel, Robert Mueller  along with the reports of their research into the personal background of Mueller team members  leave them open to the charge that they are considering a pardon as an act of obstruction.

This is not a case where Mr. Mueller has brought controversial charges, or where there are other unique circumstances that might arguably support the resort to an unprecedented, extraordinary, and constitutionally uncertain act. All that is so far clear is that the president does not want an investigation, not of himself or of his aides and family members, and he is not ready to let the experienced prosecution team "see where the evidence will lead."

Perhaps he is genuinely offended by the whole process, which he may believe is rigged and running amok. Others may conclude that he has something to hide. Mr. Trump may be gambling that in pardoning himself, the courts will see things his way. They may not.

Peter Shane, law professor, Ohio State University

In 1993, I wrote an article critical of George H.W. Bush's decision to pardon six defendants in prosecutions related to the Iran-Contra scandal, an episode in which his own role and prior knowledge (if any) have never, I think, been fully clarified.

I noted that the text of the Constitution did not explicitly limit the pardon power, but added this:

The courts could conceivably determine . . . that Presidents are without power to pardon themselves. General Haig reportedly presented this option to Richard Nixon, who rejected it. . . . [A] President's capacity to pardon himself would seem to violate flagrantly the cornerstone premise of due process and the separation of powers that no person should be judge in her own cause. Interestingly, the chief objection to conferring the pardon power on the President was the fear of some critics that the President might use her authority to shield her confederates in treason. Although reasoning from snippets is problematic, it is worth noting the response of James Wilson to Edmund Randolph's unsuccessful proposal during the Philadelphia Convention to bar presidential pardons in treason cases. Wilson contended that a pardon power was needed even as to the crime of treason, and if the President 'himself be a party to the guilt he can be impeached and prosecuted.' 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 626 (Max Farrand ed., 1937)."

The response of Wilson  an influential framer and one of the Supreme Court's first justices  implies that presidents cannot pardon themselves; if they could, then the scenario he offered would not be a guaranteed option.

In other words, this is a gray area, but the Constitution's commitment to checks and balances and more generally to the rule of law strongly argue against self-pardoning.
Shoes of Prey co-founders Jodie and Michael Fox. To date, their Los Angeles-based mass-customization online shoe retailer has logged more than 6 million customer shoe designs. Photographer | CNBC

Fox, whose background is in law and advertising, co-founded the company with two former Google execs, including then-husband Mike Fox, who is still CEO, and ex-Googler Mike Knapp, who was CTO and managed the Shoes of Prey engineering team. In January he left the company to pursue a new start-up. None of the three had shoe-industry experience. "When you're pioneering a space, you tend to figure out by doing," says Jodie Fox. "We test the things we think might work, and when they don't, we adapt and move on with that much more understanding." One hard lesson came in 2016 after a much-ballyhooed brick-and-mortar partnership with Nordstrom came to an end. For nearly a year, six Nordstrom locations had been featuring Shoes of Prey in-store design studios, a deal that had been viewed as an important step forward for the brand. While Nordstrom continues to have a stake in Shoes of Prey as part of a $15.5 million funding round and sells the company's shoes online, the pullback forced a change of focus for the start-up.

When you're pioneering a space, you tend to figure out by doing. Jodie Fox co-founder of Shoes of Prey
Ride-sharing company Lyft has announced plans to move deeper into self-driving technology  but that does not put the company at odds with its fleet of drivers, according to one top executive.

"We will always need drivers," Raj Kapoor, chief strategy officer at Lyft, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday. He also said that Lyft's big driver network is an advantage over other companies such as Tesla who are also working on self driving cars.

"What the consumer cares about the most is having a reliable experience, in addition to safety and that means that when I open up the app, I know that there's a car there in a couple minutes," Kapoor said. "For that kind of ubiquity, you need to have human drivers. We have over 700,000 drivers now. That's something that any other company would have to replicate instantly."

The ride-hailing start-up announced a new autonomous driving facility in Palo Alto, California, last week, expanding its previous partnership-based approach with Alphabet's Waymo to start-up nuTonomy to carmaker GM.
President Donald Trump, center, waves from a fire truck next to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, right, while participating in a Made in America event, with companies from 50 states featuring their products, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 17, 2017. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

"Made in America Week" at the White House has come and gone, amounting to . . . not much. There was a terrific parade of American-made goods, some of them near to my heart: Stetson hats and Gibson guitars among them. But the newly energized nationalists among us may not want to look too closely at those sentimental "All-American" claims.



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How low will the teachers' unions go? Gibson makes some of the finest electric guitars in the world, along with some very fine acoustic guitars, mandolins, and much more. It was founded by a child of immigrants and currently is owned by an immigrant, Henry Juszkiewicz, whose parents moved from Poland to Argentina before he found his way to the United States. For much of its history, Gibson was a Panamanian company, and while Gibson-branded guitars are indeed made in the United States, there is much more to Gibson Brands than American-made guitars: Chinese-made Baldwin pianos, Chinese- and Japanese-made Epiphone guitars, Boston-based Cakewalk Software, Malaysian-made Cerwin Vega audio components, a stake in Japanese electronics firm Onkyo, and much more. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took an interest in Gibson's wood imports from Madagascar a few years back, which came via a German intermediary. Which is to say, in its triumphs and in its troubles, Gibson is a truly global company.



Stetson hats currently are made under license in Texas, but the original John B. Stetson Company of Philadelphia was a global enterprise, too, over the years operating facilities everywhere from Germany to Brazil to New Zealand. In the 1990s, the iconic Western headgear was acquired by a conglomerate held by an all-American leveraged-buyout firm based in New York.

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In some ways, it hardly makes any sense to label almost anything "Made in the U.S.A.," or "Made in" any other place. Real life in the 21st-century economy is a great deal more complicated than anything that can be captured on a label. The Michigan-based watchmaker Shinola was informed by the Federal Trade Commission last year that it could no longer describe its watches as American-made. Shinola watches are American-made, but they are made in America by inserting Swiss-made watch movements into cases made in any number of places. Isn't that Made in the U.S.A.? In a sense, sure, and also in a sense not. About 80 percent of what goes into a Toyota Camry sold in the United States is made in the United States, which is a lot more than in some "American" cars. About 70 percent of a 2011 Honda Civic was American-made, while only about 2 percent of a Chevy Aveo from the same year was of North American origin. (Weird thing: The country-of-origin breakdown often is given in U.S. and Canadian content  is Canada a foreign country or isn't it?) Toyota gets a fair amount of mileage out of advertising that the trucks it sells in Texas are made in Texas, to heck with the other 49 states. One of the great enduring stupidities of modern economic life is the belief that buying American is somehow beneficial to the United States as a whole. A related daft notion, very popular among our progressive friends horrified at the chauvinism of "Buy American" campaigns, is that buying local helps your local community and economy. This stuff has been studied and studied and studied, and the short version is that buy-American/buy-local efforts amount to approximately squat. It makes sense if you think about it: You can buy a bag of green beans from your local farmers' cooperative and feel good about yourself, but that farmer is going to use the money to pay his bills, probably to a faraway financial company that holds his mortgage, a carmaker overseas, or a tractor-financing company abroad. He might buy his diesel from a local retailer, but that diesel very likely comes from crude oil drilled in some faraway place (from Canada to the Middle East) and refined in another faraway place. The components that went into those green beans  seeds, fertilizer, farming equipment  probably weren't locally made. Money likes to move around.



Does "Buy American" create or protect American jobs? Almost certainly not. That's because we all buy lots of different things, and paying more than you have to for an inferior General Motors product doesn't stick it to Honda so much as it sticks it to . . . everybody else you might have bought something from with that money you spent making yourself feel patriotic about buying a car assembled in Michigan out of components from all over God's green Earth. There is a word for making a national economy policy out of "buy local" or "buy national," and that word is "autarky." Autarky is what happens when a country tries to produce everything it uses and use everything it produces. There are a few countries organized around something like that principle, and they are desperately poor: North Korea is the leading example, though a little bit of autarkical policy helped to reduce Venezuela from one of the wealthiest countries in the Western Hemisphere to one of the poorest, a country so far up that infamous creek that it cannot even manage to produce toilet paper in sufficient quantities. Autarky and socialism tend to go hand-in-hand, for reasons that are pretty obvious: Both are attempts to put economic exchange and production under political discipline. The results of each are predictable and similar: misery.

One of the great enduring stupidities of modern economic life is the belief that buying American is somehow beneficial to the United States as a whole.

I once had the pleasure of meeting a few of the master luthiers who craft Gibson guitars, and I can tell you that it isn't sentimentality, dopey and half-digested nationalism, or pity that is keeping them in business. What keeps them in business is that they are among the best in the world at what they do. They have a great deal of which to be proud  they enrich the American scene and do not require our condescending protection. Likewise, a few years ago I asked some workers at the Mercedes-Benz factory in Stuttgart whether they were worried about their jobs being outsourced. They scoffed at the notion of some low-paid Third World clock-puncher taking their jobs. They know who the real competition is: robots, many of which are designed and made right here in the United States.



Americans make a great deal of the best stuff in the world. But how often do you hear the complaint: "When I go into Walmart, everything says 'Made in China.' Where's the 'Made in the U.S.A.'?" It is true that you will not find a great quantity of cheap T-shirts, flip-flops, or injection-molded plastic toys made in the United States. Those things are made overseas  often on industrial equipment made in the United States. Ordinary consumers see only consumer goods and have no appreciation for the size and scope of the American capital-goods industry. We import a lot of shoes and apparel, but we export a lot more industrial machinery  and twice as much transportation equipment. But those are big, general categories: We export a lot of industrial machinery, and we import a lot of it, too. Some of that imported machinery is used to make Gibson guitars, among other things. Part of the case for free trade is the fact that the gentlemen at Gibson know a great deal more about what kind of wood they need, and what kind of machinery they need, than the gentlemen in Washington do.



And there is almost nothing in this modern world that is as truly American-made as the principles and practices that make truly global production possible. It is a system of incalculable complexity and vast subtlety, as great a work of genuine and humane greatness as anything the hands of men have produced.



So, about those hats and guitars: Made in the U.S.A.? It's complicated. Commentary by Kevin D. Williamson, a roving correspondent at National Review. Follow him on Twitter @kevinNR. For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter. 2017 National Review. Used with permission.

WATCH: Trump's 'Buy American, Hire American' order
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent his Sunday afternoon smoking meats and doing a Facebook Live from his backyard in Palo Alto, California. While waiting for his brisket to slow cook, he delivered an admonition to Elon Musk, his fellow Silicon Valley billionaire, and others who sound alarm bells over artificial intelligence posing a threat to our safety and well-being. AI is going to make our lives better in the future, and doomsday scenarios are "pretty irresponsible," says Zuckerberg. A user submitted a question, which Zuckerberg read out loud: "I watched a recent interview with Elon Musk and his largest fear for future was AI. What are your thoughts on AI and how it could affect the world?" Earlier in July, Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, said that artificial intelligence will cause massive job disruption, that robots "will be able to do everything better than us." Musk also expressed dire concern over a future shared with robots: "I have exposure to the most cutting edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned by it," Musk said. "AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization."

In the Facebook Live, Zuckerberg says he opposes the spread of fear surrounding the potential of artificial intelligence. "I have pretty strong opinions on this. I am optimistic," says Zuckerberg. "I think you can build things and the world gets better. But with AI especially, I am really optimistic. "And I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios  I just, I don't understand it. It's really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible," he says. "In the next five to 10 years, AI is going to deliver so many improvements in the quality of our lives," adds Zuckerberg.

With AI especially, I am really optimistic. Mark Zuckerberg founder and CEO of Facebook
Martin Shkreli, former chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, center, exits federal court with his attorney Benjamin Brafman, right, in the Brooklyn, New York, July 21, 2017.

The biggest mouth in pharmaceuticals is keeping quiet  for once.

"Pharma bro" Martin Shkreli on Monday said he will not testify in his own defense at his securities fraud trial in Brooklyn, New York, federal court.

Shkreli's decision was not surprising, because of the risk he ran from facing a blistering cross-examination by prosecutors, who have a huge trove of questionable prior statements by Shkreli to use against him.

While Shkreli has teed off on prosecutors to reporters earlier at his trial, and continues to spout off on Facebook, he apparently has less nerve when it comes to going on the record for jurors who will decide his fate.

Judge Kiyo Matsumoto asked Shkreli if he was making the decision not to take the witness stand after consulting with his four defense lawyers and understanding he has a right to testify.

"Correct," Shkreli told the judge at the end of Monday's court session, after jurors were dismissed from the courtroom.

Prosecutors could conclude their case as early as Tuesday. It is not clear if the defense will call any witnesses.

Shkreli, 34, is accused of defrauding multiple investors in two hedge funds he ran by lying to them about the performance of those funds. Prosecutors said that as he was boasting of returns that outpaced a major financial index, he was actually steadily losing money.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell answers questions from journalists concerning the Senate Republican Healthcare Bill on the Capitol Hill in Washington DC Tuesday July 18, 2017. Melina Mara | The Washington Post | Getty Images

In the next day or so, Senate Republicans are expected to take their first vote in a health care crusade that has consumed Congress for the past six months. Nobody knows what they're voting on. Nobody knows if it can pass. Nobody is even sure if the Senate's plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, as a policy, can even work. It is a bewildering state of affairs  and health insurance for millions of poor and middle-class Americans hangs in the balance. More from Vox:

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The White House denies reports that Trump is looking into pardons Every path forward that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has floated appears to lack the necessary support of 50 Republicans. Nevertheless, Senate leaders are promising to vote within the next 36 hours, without a workable bill, a final Congressional Budget Office score, or perhaps even the votes to pass anything. "Mitch McConnell is Doc Brown  'Where we're going, we don't need roads,'" a Republican health care lobbyist quipped on Monday morning, referencing the cinematic classic Back to the Future. Confusion and uncertainty are the order of the day. But this, as best as we can tell, is what's going on.

1) Nobody knows which health care bill the Senate is trying to pass

Senate Republicans currently have two health care bills. One is the Better Care Reconciliation Act, the repeal-and-replacement plan that Republicans have been discussing and drafting in private for the past two months. That's the health care bill you've been hearing about for most of the Senate debate. That bill would overhaul Medicaid, end Medicaid expansion, scale back assistance for people buying private coverage, and roll back some of Obamacare's regulations. The result would be, according to the CBO, 22 million fewer Americans with insurance in 2026. The other is the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act, an updated version of 2015 legislation that repeals all funding for Obamacare's insurance expansion but keeps its regulations on insurers. This bill would lead to 32 million fewer Americans having health coverage 10 years from now, according to the CBO. Senate leadership hasn't yet decided which bill they're even trying to advance to. They are meeting Monday evening to chart a path forward for a vote they are planning to hold the very next day.

2) The vote tally is fluid, but both bills have a steep climb to passage

There are two critical votes that could happen this week. The first is called "the motion to proceed," which simply opens up the debate on the Senate floor. Then at some point after that, there would be a vote on one of the Senate bills  or maybe both. McConnell has an extraordinarily thin margin or error: 50 of the 52 Senate Republicans must back any bill for it to pass, with the 48 Democrats united against the GOP's plans. The ORRA seems dead. Three Senate Republicans have already said they won't vote for the repeal-and-delay bill, and 10 more might join them when the time comes. McConnell might nonetheless put it up for a vote, to give conservatives the vote on clean repeal that they've been asking for and to show them that such a plan doesn't have the support to pass. The BCRA also appears short on votes. But repealing and replacing Obamacare probably has a more viable path to passage, though the legislation as written still has some huge policy and political problems. Some changes would undoubtedly be necessary to win over enough conservatives and moderates to get 50 votes  changes that have yet to be unveiled, just hours before the first expected Senate vote. Further complicating things is Arizona Sen. John McCain's health emergency. McCain's absence, plus the likelihood that moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) will vote against any bill Republicans put forward, means that McConnell must bring every other Republican senator on board in order to pass anything. One possible course for McConnell is promising a vote on both bills: the ORRA to appease conservatives and the BCRA to persuade the other moderates. But he would be asking his members to start debate without any certainty about what the final product will be or whether it can pass.

3) The BCRA, as written, can't even work after new guidance from the Senate parliamentarian

The Senate's budget rules blew a big hole in the Senate's repeal-and-replace bill on Friday. According to Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders's office, the Senate parliamentarian has said that the bill's six-month waiting period for people who have a lapse in health coverage  the GOP's replacement for the individual mandate  is not permissible. The provision was considered necessary in order to encourage people to sign up for health insurance and keep the market stable. Without such a provision, experts fear the insurance market could be sent into a death spiral  only the sickest people, who cost insurers the most, buy coverage, and premiums and costs continue to rise. Health insurers and conservative policy experts have said some kind of enticement for people to enroll in coverage is necessary for the individual market to work under the bill. That news came Friday, leaving Republican leaders just a few days to rewrite the provision in hopes of clearing the Senate's Byrd Rule, which is supposed to limit the policies considered under "budget reconciliation" to those that directly affect the federal budget. It is not at all clear that any tinkering can save the waiting period; outside experts have long said any similar policy would not survive the Byrd Rule. And without it, the Republican bill is tailor-made for a death spiral. Other politically important policies  defunding Planned Parenthood and placing abortion restrictions on federal tax subsidies  were also deemed out of order under the Byrd Rule. Those provisions must be rewritten too; otherwise, social conservatives are likely to balk at the bill, which would doom it.

4) Last-minute dealmaking is still underway to woo moderate holdouts

Wavering senators, Trump administration officials, and Senate leaders have been negotiating over the past week, seeking a compromise to bridge the current divides in the GOP conference over the BCRA. Medicaid has been a sticking point, particularly for a half-dozen senators who represent states that expanded the program under Obamacare. The Hill reported that Senate leaders are prepared to add $200 billion in funding to the bill for those states. That wouldn't actually be enough to offset the $772 billion in Medicaid cuts, much of which results from ending the expansion, but maybe it would win their votes anyway. Collins, the most moderate Senate Republican, might be unpersuadable no matter what. She is concerned about the Medicaid spending caps and the projected losses in insurance coverage. She told reporters last week that she couldn't vote for a bill that capped Medicaid spending, especially one brought up without any public hearings. Some of the conservative holdouts are tricky. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul seems nearly ungettable: He staked his opposition on the $182 billion in stabilization funding, calling it an insurance bailout, and leadership would never remove that money from the bill. Utah Sen. Mike Lee is unsatisfied with the version of a proposal by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, allowing non-Obamacare plans back on the market. A technical change might be enough to win him over. The demands of Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, another BCRA opponent, have been opaque throughout the debate, so it's not clear how leadership can secure his support.

5) No last-minute changes can fix the projected coverage losses under the BCRA
Not necessarily an obvious flavor combination for a McDonald's burger.

Widely considered Malaysia's national fare, nasi lemak consists of rice infused with coconut milk and pandan leaves, deep-fried fish or chicken wings, grilled fish cake, fried anchovies, peanuts, eggs, cucumber and a spicy chill paste called sambal.

In markets outside North America, McDonald's is well known for extensive menus that cater to local taste-buds , and in celebration of Singapore's 52nd birthday next month, it released a burger based on a well-loved regional dish.

The Golden Arches' latest handiwork in Singapore has seen "overwhelming demand," but it remains the subject of hot debate in the city state.

But the chain's 'Nasi Lemak' burger was nevertheless released on July 13. Instead of rice, it features semolina buns served with coconut-flavored fried chicken thigh, egg, caramelized onions, cucumber and sambal.

The success of the limited-time offer thus far has exceeded the fast-food giant's expectations.

"The 'Nasi Lemak' burger has proven to be one of our most successful promotions in recent years," Agatha Yap, senior director of marketing, menu and digital innovation at McDonald's Singapore, told CNBC. "We've seen tremendously overwhelming demand  in fact, double that of our expectations."

However, some Singaporeans declared the burger was nowhere close to the original dish.

Many said the burger's lack of coconut milk rice didn't warrant the nasi lemak label. Nasi means rice in Malay.

Dear Mac, you should have just used rice bun to replace the burger bun... What is nasi lemak without nasi.

Forget McDonald's. Here's how to make an actually authentic nasi lemak burger.

Malaysian culture is pervasive in food-crazy Singapore, which was part of the Muslim-majority nation from 1963 to 1965. And alongside Chinese and Indians, Malays make up one of Singapore's primary ethnic groups.

To accompany the burger, McDonald's also released a suite of other locally-inspired menu items, including a McFlurry version of cendol  a Southeast Asian dessert with rice flour jellies as the main ingredient  and the Bandung McFizz, a rose syrup drink.

In the past, other popular local promotions included curry sauce dip for McNuggets and the black pepper spice Prosperity Burger, said Yap.
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OPEC faces a wealth of challenges as it seeks to keep its deal to limit oil production alive for eight more months, analysts said Monday as oil ministers met in St. Petersburg to discuss the accord. While the producers have done a better job of sticking to the deal than in the past, the accord may come under further stress as the months grind on, analysts said. "Various producers will try to comply, but I think compliance will slip versus what has happened in the first half of this year," said Victor Shum, head of IHS Markit's oil market and downstream energy practice in Asia. "It seems like OPEC really faces a mission impossible at this time, which is to try to tighten oil markets and to sustain oil prices," he told CNBC Asia on Monday. OPEC was generally upbeat about the deal but acknowledged in a statement that some members had not entirely done their part. The cartel said it had "serious discussions" with those countries.

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The 14-member cartel and other oil exporting nations including Russia are trying to clear a global glut of crude oil by keeping 1.8 million barrels a day off the market through March. On Monday, the ministers did not discuss making deeper cuts, which some analysts have said are necessary, but OPEC members took other measures to shore up the deal. Oil prices rose on Monday after top exporter Saudi Arabia vowed to limit its exports to 6.6 million barrels a day in August, about 1 million barrels below last year's shipments. Nigeria, one of the two OPEC members exempt from the cuts, agreed to cap output once its production stabilizes at 1.8 million barrels a day, OPEC said. While the deal initially boosted oil prices above $50 a barrel, they have since slumped below that key psychological level. Surging output from U.S. shale fields, a rapid recovery in Libyan and Nigerian production and robust crude exports have made it harder for OPEC to shrink global stockpiles. Last week, OPEC-member Ecuador put another crack in the deal, saying it would start raising output to plug a budget deficit.

To be sure, Ecuador's output is a "drop in the bucket," said Greg Priddy, director of global energy and natural resources at Eurasia Group. He, too, expects more members to start cheating, but said that is to be expected the longer these deals last. He said OPEC is unlikely to agree to deeper output cuts. While that would likely boost oil prices, it would also lead to another surge in U.S. oil output. "They realize that if they tried to jump start prices they would get short-term benefit from increasing prices over the next six months or so, but they would get a real head of steam behind U.S. production growth heading into next year, more loss of market share and eventually prices coming down toward the same equilibrium," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box." That would make it even harder to unwind the production deal next year, Priddy said.

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Charlie Gard's parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard leave after a hearing at the High Court in London, Britain July 10, 2017.

The parents of Charlie Gard have ended their legal battle to give the terminally ill British baby further treatment, a lawyer representing the parents said on Monday.

The lawyer told London's High Court that time had "run out" for the child.

"For Charlie it is too late. The damage has been done," Grant Armstrong said.

Charlie has a rare genetic condition causing progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. His parents had sought to send him to the United States to undergo experimental therapy.

Britain's courts, backed by the European Court of Human Rights, have refused permission, saying it would prolong his suffering without any realistic prospect of helping the 11-month-old child.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Pope Francis have voiced support for Charlie.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images

Poland could lose its voting rights in the European Union if it presses ahead with reforms to the judiciary. The country has become a headache for the EU since the right-wing conservative government won the general election in 2015 and began implementing several laws deemed risky for democracy. The European Commission, which is responsible for ensuring that member states follow European law, could announce Wednesday that it is stepping up procedures against Poland as Warsaw tries to reform its judiciary. "Given the actions of the Polish government, the chances of the EU triggering Article 7 are increasing," Janis Emmanouilidis, political analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, told CNBC on Monday.

What does Article 7 state?

The EU's Article 7 stipulates that the European Commission can warn member states to change policy directions when these obstruct the so-called rule of law. If no action is taken by the member states, the European Commission can propose removing certain rights, as a way of sanction, until the country is no longer seen as in breach of the EU's common values. This could ultimately mean that Poland will lose its voting rights at European summits, though that would need a consensus decision between all European countries. Frans Timmermans, first vice-president of the European Commission, warned last week that the Polish government's decision to push through four reforms that would put the judiciary under government control were pushing Brussels "very close" to triggering Article 7. Last year, the same government tried to constrain media freedom, but protests across the country didn't allow it to pursue the plan.

Why is the government pushing this agenda?

"It could be a trap," Emmanouilidis from EPC warned. "The President of the PiS party (the ruling party) would love nothing more than seeing the Polish people becoming more critical of the EU," he said. The ruling PiS party is slightly Eurosceptic whereas the Polish people are vastly pro-European. Emmanouilidis explained that the constant attempts by the Polish government to increase its control could be a tactic to make Poland less EU-friendly. Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Poland carrying Polish and EU flags demonstrating against the most recent government's proposals. As a result, the country's president Andrzej Duda, a member from the ruling party, decided Monday to veto the judiciary reforms, arguing they did not strengthen the sense of justice in society and needed to be amended.

What impact is this having on the image of the country?
Tech stocks' dazzling performance might be giving some investors tunnel vision  but Kevin O'Leary is not one of them.

The blowout performance of the four tech titans known as the "FANG" stocks  Facebook , Amazon , Netflix and Google parent company Alphabet  has been a boon to the S&P 500, which is currently boasting gains of more than 16 percent from last year. Nearly a quarter of the index's market value is resting on the information technology stocks being led by FANG.

The temptation to keep betting on the fastest horse is difficult to argue against, according to NYSE trader Steve Grasso.

"How do you tell people to rotate into energy when tech has performed the way it has?" said Grasso, a trader at Stuart Frankel & Co., on CNBC's "Closing Bell" Monday.
But I recently witnessed how some of Silicon Valley's largest tech companies, from Uber to Facebook, are impacting professional and personal lives for some in far greater ways than myself. Specifically, on an island more than 8,300 miles from California's tech hub.

BALI, Indonesia  As an American who relocated to Singapore last year, I often tend to think my life has been disrupted heavily over the past decade by tech companies: Recent technologies allow me to connect with an old friend from years past or have nearly anything delivered to my door in a day or sometimes just hours.

This article is part of a "Reporter's Notebook" series, wherein CNBC journalists submit tales and observations from the field.

I had just landed in Bali for a weekend trip from Singapore. The guy on the flight next to me was going for two weeks from Paris, making me instantly envious of France's comfortable vacation policy. He asked if I had researched how to get from the airport to the hotels. "I'm just going to Uber," I replied.

Stunned, he asked me, "You think they have Uber in Bali?"

If there's one thing I've learned during travels, it's that where there are cars and internet, there is usually Uber. I've used it in places from Cairo to Bogota. For North Korea, I assume it doesn't exist. And in Iran, perhaps not yet: The app was usable when I was there, but said "No Cars Available" when I opened the app.

While its availability is near-uniform, whether Uber is allowed by various local regulations is another story.

I ordered an Uber and two minutes later experienced something new: The driver wasn't calling me from a phone number to find my exact whereabouts, but rather through Facebook -owned WhatsApp. He added my number to his phone to find I also use the messaging platform. (I appreciated the move since it uses regular internet data as opposed to a mobile network's phone charges.)

After I entered the car, he offered me a bottled water  and later, candy. And then a wifi password. Before I could even ask, he offered me a phone charger offering both Android and iPhone options.

I nervously wondered if I had chosen the default UberX option or accidentally clicked on an Uber Premium/Exec/Luxury/VIP/Pamper ride?

No, it turned out, it was just UberX.

"Is there Uber in Bali?" I heard the French guy's voice in my head. If only he knew: He was probably still standing in the airport's taxi line.

Inside the car was a binder with photos showing a monkey on a tourist's shoulder, exotic waterfalls and people riding jet skis. All covered in a nicely, laminated book.

He asked me what my plans were for the next day, offering to be a tour guide and driver. The cost would be $35 for up to 8 hours.

His job as an Uber driver was just the beginning. An ideal ride for him was far less about a nominal fee and a 5-star rating. Rather, it was a chance to upsell a rider to a private tour in later days.

Before driving for Uber, my driver said, he worked in laundry services at a local hotel, but he made a lot more money now and gets to choose his own schedule.

And it's not just him. He told me he's part of a WhatsApp group with dozens of other drivers doing similar work. They're all using Uber to meet tourists, becoming their personal tour guide, and then getting paid directly in cash  of course.

He uses the WhatsApp conversation thread to share and converse with other drivers about best tips for their line or work and recently to share where there are police checkpoints. Bali recently officially banned Uber from the island, but it has had a challenging time enforcing the rules as drivers and passengers alike are still using the service.

At age 26, the driver had a wife (whom he met on Facebook), a 3-year-old daughter and another child on the way. He claimed he made more money than ever before, which made their lives better.

He also had the newest Samsung Galaxy, and his car was quite nice (remember, he was also offering high speed wifi from his vehicle).

The ride took about an hour and cost $6.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Jay LaPrete | AFP | Getty Images

What does Medicare-for-all mean?

It's worth laying out all of the wildly different kinds of policy ideas could reasonably fall within the rubric of Medicare-for-all. Interpreted in the most literal possible way, Medicare-for-all would entail extending Medicare coverage to the rest of the country. Medicare is a broadly popular program that enjoys wide support and name recognition with the public. The idea of extending Medicare to everyone is one that voters can immediately and easily understand, particularly compared with the byzantine subsidy structure of Obamacare's private exchanges. But that simple description obscures massive differences between potential policy paths for the idea. "Medicare-for-all is a concept with very different meanings to different people," said Harold Pollack, a health care expert at the University of Chicago. "Within that term, you're really talking about vastly different visions for the health care system." For instance, Medicare could be made available to all Americans as a buy-in, without necessarily forcing everyone off their current private plans in order to put them on the government-run system. Vox's Dylan Matthews has looked at Rep. Peter Stark's AmeriCare Health Care Act, which wouldn't immediately create a single-payer system but would automatically enroll all children and all Medicaid patients, in addition to offering a cheap public option available to employers and individuals alike that would be cheaper than private insurance and eventually drive private insurers out of the market. A more sweeping solution would be to create a single, government-operated health insurer that would automatically enroll every American and pay for their insurance. This idea  what is typically meant by "single-payer" or "Medicare-for-all"  would make it illegal for private insurers to offer basic health insurance plans, except in highly specialized and expensive cases. In other words, these plans would force at least 150 million Americans  or everyone who gets their insurance through their employer, except for a small number who could choose to buy specialty insurance  off their current health care plans and onto the new government system. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has a single-payer bill  now co-signed by about 60 percent of House Democrats  that would do roughly that. Sanders's upcoming Senate bill is expected to adhere to a similar blueprint. These plans would face significant political obstacles, which I'll address in the next section. Another big bucket of policy questions is the benefit package itself. "Many people refer to single-payer as Medicare-for-all, but most of the proposals don't actually use Medicare," said Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Foundation. "If you proposed Medicare-for-all, some people would be horrified at the level of cost sharing required." Medicare is a somewhat strangely designed benefit aimed at elderly beneficiaries  it would need standardization and customization to work for the rest of the country. The plans that use Medicare's name often don't actually use its benefits package. Unlike in real Medicare, for instance, Conyers's bill calls for zero cost sharing, meaning the government would pay for all Americans' premiums, copays, and deductibles, which would drive up the bill's price tag; Sanders's plan is likely to offer something similar.

Democrats don't have a real Medicare-for-all plan  yet

This ambiguity over what Medicare-for-all actually means might be cleared up if Democrats had implemented a version of it at the state level that they could point to as their model. When Democrats were writing the Affordable Care Act, they could point to the private exchanges set up in Massachusetts by Gov. Mitt Romney, and draw from that example. No similar model exists for congressional Democrats to replicate on single-payer. In California, Democratic representatives launched a push to implement single-payer at the state level  only to see their proposal shelved by the House speaker because of the state's constitutional provision that a certain amount of funding must go to education. In Colorado, voters rejected a single-payer ballot referendum by a nearly 60-point margin. A similar push for single-payer in Vermont also ended in failure amid pushback from the business community. There's a reason these states struggle so much to advance single-payer: The tax hikes required are enormous, and can easily overwhelm a state's budget. An estimate from the Urban Institute  though rejected by the Sanders team as overblown  put his campaign proposal at $32 trillion. California's single-payer proposal came in at $400 billion per year, or double the state budget (though as Matt Bruenig pointed out, that eye-popping number misses the fact that existing government and private insurance spending in California alreadyapproaches $300 billion). Single-payer advocates also argue that these upfront tax hikes would pay long-term fiscal dividends, in part because the government  acting as the sole insurer  could unilaterally hold down prices and thus restrain spending. "When Republicans talk about the $32 trillion cost of single payer, can every Democrat please point out the current system costs $49 trillion!" Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a House progressive, recently said on Twitter. But there's no getting around the fact that any full single-payer proposal would entail massive short-term disruption  both in the trillions of new taxes (Vox's Matt Yglesias looked at some potential ways to raise them) and in Americans being thrown off their current health care plans. President Obama came under heavy fireafter about 1.8 million people saw their plans canceled because of the ACA; a single-payer plan would involve hundreds of millions of Americans losing their existing coverage. This disruption is one reason Senate Democrats in particular have been quicker to get behind Medicare buy-in proposals, or a public option in which the government would compete alongside private insurers. Single-payer advocates say part of the problem is they've been unable to convince heavy hitters in the Democratic Party, who say they are primarily focused on stopping the Senate Republican health bill, to help them craft a more feasible bill. But in the absence of a workable single-payer plan to defend, Democrats have been able to talk up the idea of a single-payer system where everyone has government insurance  without having to commit to underlying policy trade-offs.

Democrats embrace Medicare-for-all. Will they endorse a $32 trillion single-payer plan?
Jobs at tech companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook are the most sought-after roles around. But what type of employees are these companies looking to for?

Data analysis site Paysa looked at over 8,200 job posting and over 70,000 resumes at tech companies worth $10 billion or more to find what roles they are hiring for the most.

The most sought after employee by far was software engineer. Companies like Airbnb, Facebook, Snap Inc., Twitter, Uber, Amazon, Apple, Google and Oracle are all looking to hire more software engineers than any other job title.

The only company where software engineer was not the most common job opening was Microsoft, which was looking for more product experts than software engineers.

According to Paysa's results, Airbnb, Snap Inc., Twitter, Uber, Apple, Google and Microsoft are also hiring a large number of data analysts and data scientists. The ability to interpret and interact with data is a skill that many experts predict will be increasingly important as the workplace becomes more data-driven.

In an interview with CNBC, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet said, "I think a basic understanding of data analytics is incredibly important for this next generation of young people."

Check out the full list of in-demand job titles at big tech companies to see what you can do to improve your chances of grabbing a job with one of these employers:
Former United States Mint Chief Engraver John Mercanti designed the common reverse of the three 2017 Cook Islands coins for Spider Man.

A 1-ounce gold $200 coin is also part of the program honoring the latest Spider-Man movie.

ModernCoinMart and GovMint.com have partnered with former United States Mint Chief Engraver John Mercanti to celebrate the movie Spider-Man: Homecoming with three new precious metal collector coins.

The Marvel film Spider-Man: Homecoming is set to be one of 2017s biggest movies.

ModernCoinMart and GovMint.com have partnered with former United States Mint Chief Engraver John Mercanti to celebrate the movie with three new precious metal collector coins.

A Proof 1-ounce .999 fine silver $5 coin, Proof 5-ounce .999 fine silver $25 coin and Proof 1-ounce .9999 fine gold $200 coin feature Mercantis common reverse design.

His initials can be found in the lower portion of the design. Spider-Man is shown swinging forward and the background is filled with a large web. This side is inscribed with the metal content, Marvel copyright, and the name of the movie. The date and face value are also inscribed on the reverse.

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This obverse features the Ian Rank-Broadley portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

The coins are issued in the name of Cook Islands and were struck by Mayer Mint, a private mint in Germany.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is the second Spider-Man film reboot and the 16th film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Released June 18 in the United States, the movie stars Tom Holland as Spider-Man, supported by a cast that includes Robert Downey Jr., Jon Favreau, Michael Keaton and Marisa Tomei.

Connecting coins, the arts, and American monuments: Another column in the August 7 monthly issue of Coin World continues with the art theme, as the artists whove designed our most gorgeous pieces of paper currency are profiled.

The 1-ounce silver $5 coin measures 38.61 millimeters in diameter, has a mintage limit of 5,000 pieces, and retails for $69.95 from ModernCoinMart.

The 5-ounce silver $25 coin measures 65 millimeters in diameter, has a mintage limit of 1,000 pieces, and retails for $349.

The gold $200 coin measures 30 millimeters in diameter, has a mintage limit of 250 pieces, and retails for $2,795.

Encapsulated examples of the coins, graded by Numismatic Guaranty Corp., are also being sold for various prices, subject to availability and grade.

To order, or for more information about the coins, visit the distributor website.
We have no way of knowing why Microsoft released the driver updates last Friday or what theyre supposed to accomplish. What we do know is that the last set of patches came just 10 days earlier, on July 11, when Microsoft added support for the new Surface Pro Type Cover and Signature Type Cover.

With two dozen major firmware and driver updates pushed onto the Surface Pro 4 since its release in October 2015, and a new Surface Pro 2017 currently on offer, its noteworthy that Microsoft is still trying to get the SP4 and SB drivers right.

Commenter Bespin on the OnMsft forum has a screenshot of the drivers just installed on his Surface Pro 4:

Surface driver update for Surface Management Engine

Surface driver update for Surface Pen Pairing

Marvell Semiconductor Inc. driver update for Marvell AVASTAR Bluetooth Radio Adapter

Surface driver update for Surface UEFI

Microsoft driver update for Surface Accessory Device

Surface driver update for Surface Embedded Controller Firmware

Marvell Semiconductor Inc. driver update for Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller

Intel(R) Corporation driver update for Intel(R) Display Audio

Surface driver update for Surface Integration

Ive also seen reports of a new Intel Corporation driver update for Intel(R) HD Graphics 520. Of course, until Microsoft graces us with a change list, were reduced to speculating about the changes.

Judging by the decibel level of complaints, the rollout has been anything but problem-free.

[ To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page. ]

On Reddit, I see reports of a new power slideraccessible by hovering your mouse/pen over the power icon in the system traythat lets you adjust the power mode from Best battery life to Best performance. Apparently, its the same slider available now in the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro 2017, and it seems identical to the one Microsoft has announced for the Fall (North America) Creators Update version 1709, due in September or October.

In the same Reddit thread, there are reports of new Wi-Fi problems, and theres a divergence of opinion as to whether the new Pen driver improves matters.

On the Microsoft Answers forum, poster CDLeePatrick says:

I updated the latest update Jul 2017 and it bricks my type cover completely. Tried everthing, from reset, volume + and power, everthing including cleaning etc I also cannot see the device under device manager after the update. I have wipe out my entire computer and do an install again. Not working. Pure waste of time.

It isnt clear if thats an isolated incident, or the vanguard of a new wave of complaints.

You'd think that a billion-dollar business inside Microsoft would deign to publish a changelog of pushed kernel-level patches.

Commiseration continues on the AskWoody Lounge.
Christopher Howarth is a senior researcher working in the House of Commons. Prior to this he worked for Open Europe, as a Conservative Foreign Affairs Adviser and senior researcher to a Shadow Europe Minister.

The UK has, by accident or design, followed a policy of economic growth driven by migration-fuelled population growth. EU free movement supplemented by a taxpayer subsidy for employers to take on low paid workers  in-work benefits  has been a dominant feature of our economy for the last 15 years.

So all established companies that have a secure market benefit from a growing economy, while those who find it easier to import skills rather than invest in domestic skills or automation get a double benefit. Whether individual domestic workers and taxpayers have benefited is another question.

It should therefore be no surprise that organisations who represent these companies  the CBI, the IoD and so on  are now in panic mode at the prospect of the withdrawal of their cheap labour drug. These addicts are playing for time, clinging to an EU free movement transition as a heroin addict clings to methadone. But their shrill cravings should be resisted. There is no bad time to reduce immigration. Just as there is no bad time to leave the EU.

So what might be being considered?

The papers have recently been full of stories about transitional measures to allow for the continuance of EU free movement post Brexit. The Guardian claimed last week that Free movement may go on until 2023 while the Times claimed on the same day that borders will remain open for two years after Brexit (i.e: 2021).

As this site pointed out on Saturday, no agreement within Cabinet has been reached. And from these stories, it is unclear exactly what is being discussed. There are, as always with Brexit, a number of options.

a) Full EU reciprocal free movement continues as a legal obligation

This would entail the Article 50 EU/UK agreement subjecting the UK to a legal obligation to continue the status quo of free movement for either two years post-Brexit (as suggested by Michael Gove) or for years according to that Guardian story. This could be on the same basis as now, with all the ECJ case law imperfections regarding criminal records, dependants and welfare.

b) The UK decides a new sector-specific domestic policy

When the UK leaves the EU in 2019, it will be free to set up its own immigration system. The UK could expand its existing scheme of work permits for non EU state,s but supplement it with a special temporary scheme for EU workers. This could include a targeting of particular industry sectors that are the most unprepared for a reduction in migration, as well as sectors such as seasonal agricultural workers, for which there was a scheme predating the UKs EU membership.

c) Will the EU citizens who arrive in a transition period gain permanent rights to stay?

In its offer to the EU regarding EU citizens, the Government has proposed a date of somewhere between March 2017 and March 2019 as a cut-off date on which to give EU citizens already in the UK permanent rights. Those with five years residency would get automatic leave to stay, while those with less than 5 years would be allowed to stay to gain the additional years. If the UK decided to keep free movement for an extended period, would it also extend the cut-off dates?

Implementing or transitioning to what exactly?

You may ask why the Cabinet is discussing a transition before it has agreed what we are transitioning to? We do not know yet what, if any, agreements will be agreed with the EU regarding trade and withdrawal. It is therefore impossible to agree any transitional agreement with the EU at this point.

This leads to the conclusion that what is being discussed internally is simply keeping our present immigration policy after we leave the EU. So is the Cabinet negotiating with itself a UK policy based on keeping EU free movement for a period, in order to assuage the UK business lobby? If it has, both sides have missed a wider point.

What the Government needs to do now is give a clear sense of direction. There is cross-party agreement that free movement within the context of EU membership should end. There is no question of staying within the jurisdiction of what would be a foreign court. UK business will need to adapt  so they should start now and put their effort into Government policy towards domestic skills and investment rather than delaying the inevitable. Michael Forsyth, who chairs a Lords Committee looking into this issue, has summed the situation up well:

Some firms will need to raise wages to attract domestic workers. In other sectors, where migrant workers may not easily be replaced by domestic workers, firms will need to change their business models or increase capital investment in automated processes.

None of this is the end of the world; quite the opposite. The Remain campaigns Project Fear was ludicrously based on the alarm (for big businesses) that labour costs  wages to you and me  would rise. That is not a bad thing. Nor is investment in automation and rising competitiveness.

We have two years to implement a domestic tailored immigration policy that benefits UK Citizens; two years to put in place the necessary administrative measures. Business and government should not waste time asking for extensions and complaining the task is too big for them  but get on with it now.
We will replace the unfair and ineffective inclusivity rules that prevent the establishment of new Roman Catholic schools, instead requiring new faith schools to prove that parents of other faiths and none would be prepared to send their children to that school.

So declared the Conservative Manifesto, which was no surprise. Theresa May had explained the reasoning behind the proposal in a major speech on schools last September.

Britain has a long history of faith schools delivering outstanding education. They already account for around a third of all mainstream schools in England. They are popular with parents and significantly more likely than other schools to be rated by Ofsted as Good or Outstanding.

I believe we should confidently promote them and the role they play in a diverse school system.

Yet for Catholic schools in particular there are barriers in their way. When a faith-designated Free School is oversubscribed, it must limit the number of pupils it selects on the basis of faith to 50 per cent.

The intention is to improve the diversity of the schools intake but in practice it has little impact on many Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu schools because they tend not to appeal to parents of other faiths.

So despite the best intentions, the rule is failing in its objective to promote integration. But it does prevent new Catholic schools opening, because the Catholic Church believes it contravenes its own rules for a Catholic Bishop not to prioritise the admission of Catholic pupils.

This is especially frustrating because existing Catholic schools are more ethnically diverse than other faith schools, more likely to be located in deprived communities, more likely to be rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted, and there is growing demand for them.

So we will remove this 50 per cent rule to allow the growth in capacity that Catholic schools can offer. Instead we will consult on a new set of much more effective requirements to ensure that faith schools are properly inclusive and make sure their pupils mix with children of other faiths and backgrounds.

Yet we read yesterday that the Government may drop the plan. Elsewhere, we also read that it may allow people to change their gender legally without a doctors diagnosis.

In other words, Ministers may permit continued discrimination, as they see it, against the rights of Catholic children while barring continued discrimination, as they see it, against the rights of transgendered people.

This site passes no comment this morning on the merits of either case, other than to point out that the juxtaposition confirmed the muddle that the Conservative Party has got itself into about equalities policy. A glance back at history helps to explain why.

Two of the three most prominent anti-discrimination measures were promoted by Labour governments (the Sex Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act), and the third promoted by a Conservative one (the Disability Discrimination Act. Read Andrew Gimsons interview with William Hague, who masterminded the measure, here).

These were then rolled, together with other anti-discrimination laws, into the Equalities Act of 2006 (updated by another equalities act in 2010). The aim of the law was no longer merely to prevent discrimination; it became to promote equality. This was signalled by the rolling together of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission into the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Same-sex marriage then followed under the Cameron Government.

It is more than fair to say that the impetus for equalities policy (rather than mere anti-discrimination measures) has come mostly from the Left. Conservative responses have tended to divide into denouncing each proposal as politically correct nonsense, or embracing them with an enthusiastic me, too-ism. Neither approach has been distinguished by intellectual rigour.

What sort of equality does the Conservative Party support? Equality before the law? Equality of opportunity? Equality of outcome? An equality of esteem? A snappy summary would be: answer has come there none. Which should it favour?

What does it believe should happen when protected characteristics clash? These were defined under the 2010 Act as age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. But there is no hierarchy of rights: politicians ducked establishing one, and threw the whole business into the lap of the courts.

And what does it think about having a select committee in place to cover Women and Equalitieswhile another finds in an enquiry that the most-underperforming group in schools is British boys (and white ones at that)?

According to Lord Ashcrofts survey of 14,000 people on election day, 67 per cent of 18-24 years olds voted Labour, with that total falling only to 58 per cent among 24-35 year olds. There is broad agreement across the Conservative family that one of the reasons for this Tory failure is that, for too long, the Party has failed to make the case for conservatism. And conservatism cannot have intellectual no-go areas. Equalities policy is part of the territory it must explore and occupy.

Party Conference takes place in scarcely more than two months. Theresa May and other Ministers need to spell out at it what they plan to do put that case to a new generation of young people. They should, for example, encourage the setting up of a modern equivalent of Swinton College.

Someone needs to take charge of the push. The best-qualified and most senior Minister is Michael Gove, but he is busy elsewhere. Perhaps Jesse Norman could do it. The wise old owls of the Conservative Parliamentary Party will murmur that the whole business is best avoided. Maybe. But let them not complain if theyre saddled in due course with, say, a policy on transgendered people that they dont particularly care for.
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"Come back next week for our follow-up piece: 'Babies: Should We Be Drop-Kicking Them?'"

There's a legitimate medical technique wherein severely disabled children are given a battery of hormones and surgical procedures designed to halt their development forever. It was designed in 2006 by Dr. Daniel Gunther, and faced a moderate amount of controversy. When the idea was first proposed, critics argued that it violates several laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and even the 14th Amendment of the goddamn Constitution, and amendments are, like, super-laws. Nevertheless, they went ahead and did this crazy mad scientist shit on a bunch of people anyway. Why would anyone want this? Because caring for a tiny disabled person is a lot easier than caring for a grown-ass adult disabled person. And if they're likely to retain the mental age of a child for their entire life, then why not? Aside from violating essentially all the fundamental rights of a human being, why not?

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The most famous recipient of the treatment, benignly called "growth attenuation therapy," was a six-year-old known to the media only as "Ashley." Born with cerebral palsy, Ashley couldn't hold her own head up and had to be fed through a tube. Her parents, fearing they wouldn't be able to carry her around as an adult, decided to subject her to the controversial treatment, which involves hormone therapy to stunt her growth, as well as major surgery to remove both her breasts and her uterus. Now, thanks to incredibly invasive and medically unnecessary surgery, she'll be a child forever! Isn't that ... something?

Pillowangel.org

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Seen here looking just a smidge different than your average 18-year-old.

Ricky's parents used estradiol to prematurely mature his bones so that no matter how old he got, he'd remain a child in appearance. At seven years old, he was still only 37 pounds, and his parents are greatly relieved they won't have to strain too much to take care of Ricky when he gets older.

While there's no doubt that disabled people are easier to care for when they can fit in your pocket, the major criticism is that this prioritizes the comfort of caretakers over the rights of the human being being physically transformed by risky medical procedures that they're in no position to consent to. You gotta admit, that's a pretty one-sided argument.

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Jordan Breeding has a blog, a Twitter, and thinks you all should watch 13th on Netflix right now.

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No, just no. You can say something is inevitable until you are blue in the face, but that doesnt make it true. It does, however, get you some free PR. Thats what is happening after a Wisconsin company claimed it will be the first U.S. company to offer microchip implants to its employees.

Its the next thing thats inevitably going to happen, and we want to be a part of it, Three Square Market (32M) CEO Todd Westby told KSTP.

Inevitable? Not everyone even microchips their pets, even though RFID chips for animals have been around since the 1980s.

In 1998, University of Reading Professor Kevin Warwick reportedly became the first person to be microchipped. He used the implant at the Cybernetics department to open smart doors, turn on lights, be tracked through the building, and for his PC to recognize and talk to him.

Since then, several bio-hackers have had RFID microchip implants, but it certainly is not mainstream.

To claim RFID microchipping of humans is inevitable is a pretty gigantic leap. You see, 32M, based in River Falls, Wisconsin, is in the break room market. It sells self-checkout kiosks. Westby suggested to KSTP that people can use the implanted microchip in their hands to pay at break room market kiosks. Ill hold my hand up, just like my cell phone, and itll pay for my product, he said.

Although that may be true, people have been able to use NFC tech in their phones to pay for years, but its not like everyone does it.

Nevertheless, Westby said, We foresee the use of RFID technology to drive everything from making purchases in our office micromarkets, opening doors, use of copy machines, logging into our office computers, unlocking phones, sharing business cards, storing medical/health information, and used as payment at other RFID terminals. Eventually, this technology will become standardized, allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit farecard, all purchasing opportunities, etc.

A microchip implant party

On August 1, 32M is hosting a chip party. The company is expecting over 50 staff members to be voluntarily chipped. The microchip will be implanted under the skin with a syringe between the thumb and forefinger; the process is said to take mere seconds. The company is providing the $300 microchip for free to its volunteers. Westby said the data on the microchip is encrypted and secure and that theres no GPS tracking at all.

The RFID chips, which are about the size of a grain of rice, were developed by Swedens BioHax International. The Vending Times reported BioHax chief executive Jowan Osterland will perform the injections. His company sees the concept as part of an evolution toward what he calls the Internet of Us.

Oh, good, just what we needbecause the Internet of Things has proven to be so secure.

32M decided to go for it with the microchips after working with partners in Europe and coming across a company of chipped BioHax employees, then the concept of using RFID with micro markets quickly grew.

Some European companies already microchip employees

Europe, which is reportedly far more advanced in mobile and chip technology usage than the U.S., has had some companies microchipping their employees for years. Just this year, it was reported that the Swedish company Epicenter intended to embed a chip into about 150 workers, so bosses can monitor toilet breaks and how long they work. Those workers, who got the chip implanted for free, were also referred to as volunteers.

The day may be come when humans embrace being microchipped, using it to unlock tech devices, to carry around their medical records at all times and even to make payments, but theres a long way to go to convince everyoneespecially people who consider microchips to be something along the lines of the mark of the beast. Still, microchipping employees is one way to stir up free PR.
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Since earlier this week when Norwalk resident Nury Chavarria sought sanctuary in Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal Church in New Haven after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcemen officials attempted to deport her to Guatemala  a country she hasnt called home in 24 years  she has not been able to see much of the outside world.

On Sunday, more than 200 people came to her new home at the church to bring a message from the outside world: She is loved, supported, and the fight has just begun.

Midway through a planned vigil on a hill beside the church, an emotional Chavarria briefly addressed the crowd in Spanish from behind a fence guarded by volunteers, thanking the community for being there and for supporting her.

Chavarria speaking may have come as a surprise for some, as community activist Kica Matos made the stakes clear at the beginning of the vigil.

Nury is right there, Matos said, gesturing up the hill and to her right. She will hear you. She will feel the love. But she cant step outside because (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) can get her.

According to a 2011 internal memo, ICE has been directed to avoid conducting raids in sensitive places, including churches.

Among Chavarrias supporters were about a dozen women wearing red, with paper roses in their hair. Jessica Poland and Evelyn Mantilla said they were with a group they call Latinas in the Resistance, which started about three months ago.

We have to support Nury. Something has to change, Poland said.

A mother herself, Poland said the thought of Chavarria being separated from her four children was emotional.

Im devastated for her, she said, wiping away a tear.

The Rev. Hector Otero, whose congregation took in Chavarria and her daughter, said in Spanish Chavarria should be allowed to fill the obligation life has granted her in being a mother.

New Haven Mayor Toni Harp said she was frustrated and extremely disappointed by the cruel and inhumane treatment Chavarria was receiving for attempting to be upfront and cooperative with immigration officials.

It is a foreign concept to me that a woman who lived in Connecticut 24 years, worked in Connecticut and raised a family in Connecticut must now leave Connecticut, her home, her job and her children, she said. Certainly no people have been harmed, at least until now.

Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling, who with Harp visited Chavarria before the vigil, said there was fear, concern and helplessness visible in Chavarrias face.

To do everything the right way and to be treated like this is horrible, he said.

Rabbi Herb Brockman, of Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden, one of several religious leaders present offering support of Chavarria, encouraged those present to view her not for her victimhood, but for her courage in taking a stand for her family. The Rev. Paul Fleck, of Hamden Plains United Methodist Church, said followers of the Abrahamic religions are reminded they were once foreigners in the land of Egypt, and Chavarria is at home in Connecticut.

Matos said Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro all visited Chavarria in the last week, to applause from the crowd.

Local socialist organizer Norm Clements expressed a bit more cynicism following DeLauros vote to reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE.

Politicians will tell you what you think you want to hear at the moment, he said. What do they do for the immigrant population when its not in the spotlight?

Approximately 30 minutes before the rally, Chavarrias daughter Hayley, 9, appeared to be in high spirits as she made a banner with JoAnn Moran of RepublicArt.org, which was later hung in view of the crowd.

Shes napping now, Hayley said. But when she sees this, shes going to flip out, because its a surprise.

The scene on the banner was of a lively protest, with multiple signs. We are Norwalk citizens, Hayley suggested for one of the blank signs.

How about, Stand Up Norwalk? Moran asked. And so they stenciled the lettering.

During Chavarrias brief appearance, multiple chants broke out in Spanish: Nury, listen, we are in this fight; No more deportations and then Yes, we can.

A few in the crowd added an extra letter to that chant: si, se puedes or Yes, you can.

bzahn@newhavenregister.com; @brizahn on Twitter
TRUMBULL - Two Bridgeport teenagers were arrested after police said they stole a motorcycle and then fled in a stolen car.

The two teens, both 17-years-old, were charged with third-degree larceny and sixth-degree larceny and were referred to Juvenile Court in Bridgeport.

Police said a Cheshire resident arranged through CraigsList to sell his Honda motorcycle to a prospective buyer at a prearranged location at the Hawley Lane Mall here. The two Bridgeport teens arrived with a third young male, who then drove off with the motorcycle, and was never located or identified, police said.

The two teens fled in a 2009 Honda Accord which was later determined to be stolen from Waterbury, police said. Officers, who were in the area at the time, quickly located the car in another nearby parking lot and tracked down the two suspects after they ran away on foot.

Stratford Police assisted with the apprehension, along with several witnesses who saw what had occurred.

Police said they did not recover the Honda motorcycle which is valued at $ 3,000.

CraigsList is an online website that is commonly used to connect buyers and sellers through the internet, using a minimal exchange of identification. Police are warning area residents to use caution with such websites, since several similar thefts have occurred recently when these sales meetings were arranged at public locations.
Whether they are taking credit for your work or promoting the wrong people -- having a bad boss can make going to work miserable.

Related: The 6 Most Familiar 'Bad Boss' Types and What to Do About Them

A recent study by BambooHR, which surveyed more than 1,000 employees across the U.S., uncovered the top reasons workers don't like their bosses. And for most, the biggest boss no-no is when they take credit for work that isn't theirs. Lack of trust and empowerment, overworking employees and promoting the wrong people are also among the top bad behaviors of bosses.

Of all participants, a whopping 44 percent say the primary reason they left a job was because of a bad boss. And of the 44 percent, a boss's inappropriate behavior was the main factor that drove them out the door. Other management-related issues that push employees to leave are management style, a condescending attitude and a bad temper.

Related: How to Survive 5 Types of Toxic Bosses

However, bosses shouldn't be overly friendly with their employees. In fact, on average, 64 percent of respondents said it's OK for their boss to decline an employee's friend request on social media. And 54 percent also say that it's acceptable for a boss not to spend time with workers outside of the office.

Do you have a bad boss? Check out BambooHR's infographic below to learn more.

Related:

The Unusual Habits of 8 Famous and Successful People (Infographic)

Do You Have a Bad Boss? Here's What to Look For. (Infographic)

The Organizational Tactics, Work Habits and Routines of the Most Successful People (Infographic)



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


These days, youre just as likely to meet your next big client while waiting in line at Starbucks as you are while attending an official networking event, which means that every first impression matters. Even someone who knows nothing about your industry could be related to or working with someone who needs exactly your expertise, and if you make an impression on them, that contact could change your business.

This doesnt mean you need to spend hours in front of a mirror scrutinizing and nitpicking yourself or your business. If you keep these five tips from Biron Clark of Career Sidekick in mind, youll leave everyone from your fellow Starbucks patrons to the speaker at your next networking event with a smile on their face when they think of you.

Related: 4 Ways to Make Yourself Memorable and Leave Great Impressions

1. Clearly define what it is you do.

The first step to being able to articulate something to others is to fully understand it yourself. Focus on the one thing you do best and make it the center of your elevator pitch. Make sure its clear and easily understood, even by those who arent familiar with your industry. If you tell someone youre great at six different things, none of them will stick. But if you focus on your strongest skill and are able to articulate why youre the best at that one thing, theyll remember you for that and are much more likely to be impressed.

2. Listen twice as much as you talk.

In a world full of distractions, its unusual to get someones undivided attention while youre talking. By focusing one hundred percent on the person youre speaking to and actually listening to what theyre saying, youll make them feel important. Its a rare and special enough feeling that theyll remember you for it. If you feel youre talking too much, use a question to bring the focus of the conversation back to them. Something like You mentioned earlier that youre focused on lead generation and business development for your startup right now. Do you have a background in this? Or what made you decide to step into that role as a founder?

Related: 6 Ways to Make a Great First Impression

3. Be a super-connector.

Even if you arent a connector by nature, this is worth the extra effort. Find out what they do and how they could be helped and then figure out one person you know who they might benefit from knowing (and who would also benefit from knowing them.) Make the introduction that same week. This ensures youre adding value to every person you meet right away. Another upside to making the connection is that youll have to listen very closely to what your new acquaintance does and what they need in order to introduce them to the right person in your network.

4. If you ask for advice, take action.

While its flattering to be asked for advice, its also frustrating when the advice you give isnt considered good enough to be acted upon. If youre asking someone for advice or help figuring something out, be sure to act on the advice or clarification immediately. If you dont, theyll likely feel youve wasted their time and energy and will be disinclined to help you the next time you ask. If youre asking for advice or any sort of help, be sure to take action right away.

Related: 10 Ways You Can Blow a First Impression

5. Practice strong body language

Most people are so focused on whats coming out of their mouths that they forget how important the non-verbal cues theyre sending are. Your body language can be just as, if not more, important than what you say during a first (or twentieth) impression. Convey confidence by practicing holding an open stance with your arms relaxed by your sides. Dont put your hands in your pockets or cross your arms as these can indicate a lack of confidence or defensiveness. Whether youre standing or sitting, ensure your posture is straight with your shoulders back. Practice maintaining eye contact, whether youre speaking or listening. Most people find it easier to do when listening than when speaking. Check in on your posture, where your arms are and your level of eye contact regularly during everyday interactions and correct as necessary. With enough practice, your body language will become stronger and more confident.

There are dozens of other tips to be memorable you can try to squeeze into every interaction with every new person you meet but trying to a huge to do list of best behaviors can be both exhausting and stifle your natural charm. If you focus on just these five, youll leave every person you meet with a clear idea of who you are and a desire to help you, which add up to a very positive first impression.

Related:

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Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Silican Valley, home to Fortune 500 companies and thousands of startups whose work has changed millions of lives across the planet, has long stood as a leader in innovation and technology. For years, however, cities outside of the U.S. have surfaced in an ambitious attempt to dethrone the Valley as the dream destination for entrepreneurs and founders.

In a 2017 Global Startup Ecosystem Report, the tech Mecca took the top spot in the funding and market reach categories. While the Valley still holds the crown in key areas that help grow and sustain a vibrant startup ecosystem, other regional hubs have emerged to compete and showcase their resources, talent and thriving startup culture. With tech infrastructure developments, pro-startup governments and friendlier cost-of-living expenses, the career landscape has expanded significantly towards todays hottest international cities.

Recently, I spoke with three successful entrepreneurs about their fast-growing and robust startup communities.

Below are the important insights I gathered from our conversations, including the biggest challenges and rewards they shared for anyone exploring employment opportunities outside of their home country.

Related: Top 10 Global Accelerators for Overseas Startups

Shanghai

Originally known as Chinas financial center, Shanghai is the nations largest startup hub. With innovation as its top strategic goal, Shanghai now hosts around 70,000 startups, countless accelerators and incubators, major tech events and networking parties. Rob Eberenz, managing director of CORE Investment Partners and Core 360, described Shanghai as one of the most interesting ecosystems outside of the U.S.

The Shanghai marketplace and demographic is certainly the most diverse in China, with every province and ethnicity of China represented, as well as a balanced expat community representing most countries and cultures from around the globe, Eberenz says.

Challenges for young foreign professionals and recent graduates include the countrys new points-based visa system, high level Chinese language requirements and comparatively low wages. However, Eberenz thinks that international graduates can still find full-time roles in Shanghai through networking and gaining professional experience on the ground, which can be effectively accomplished through an extended internship. In spite of the obstacles that could deter a successful career in a foreign city, Eberenz strongly encourages pursuing jobs overseas, whether temporarily or permanently.

The biggest reward from work experiences abroad is the global perspective you ultimately achieve from the experience. This perspective is the net sum of the positive and, sometimes, negative experiences you find yourself in during your time abroad, such as gaining humility from struggling with daily tasks you take for granted at home, seeing the world from a different culture's point of view, and solving problems in other languages with colleagues from completely different backgrounds, Eberenz shares.

Related: 6 Tips on How to Find a Job in China

Buenos Aires

Argentine founder Matias Recchia disrupted traditional business models in his home country through IguanaFix, Latin Americas leading ondemand platform for home improvement services. In 2016, he raised $16 million dollars to fuel his companys expansion, making his "Uber for the home" startup one of Latin Americas most prominent success stories.

The country proves to rely heavily on human capital and, for years, has risen to become a major source for tech talent. Recchia believes that the level of engineering education in Argentina is high and that schools across the nation offer world-class programming and technology courses.

With the country recently passing a law to fuel entrepreneurial economic growth, aspiring business owners can now launch their companies with easier procedures and lower costs. Also, Recchia says that, apart from paying a fraction of the price for rent compared to other tech neighborhoods, Latin American communities are very friendly and laid back.

For English-speaking individuals, Recchia shares that, at the start, new expats and graduates filling customer-facing roles will definitely find the language barrier difficult. He recommends looking for companies that serve international markets, while also taking Spanish language classes. He says that being proficient in the local language makes a vast difference. Knowing how to speak in the native tongue pushes you to become resourceful. You are forced to figure stuff out on your own, Recchia adds.

More than tech education, the startup mentality in Latin American cities like Buenos Aires has changed much over time. According to Recchia, the workforce used to be more cash-oriented.

With successful companies like MercadoLibre and Globant in the news, people have become increasingly familiar with the value of working for startups in Argentina. Today, more people are into stock options and theres now an appetite for risk, he explains.

Related: From Tourist to Mogul: How 3 Americans Found Business Success Abroad

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv, with easy access to seasoned angel investors, mentors and venture capital firms, has evolved into a hotbed for innovation and tech startups. One Israeli success story comes from the founders of team management tool DaPulse. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, the SaaS tool now services 10,000 teams spread across 125 countries around the world.

I spoke with Eran Zinman, currently the Chief Technology Officer and one of the brilliant minds behind DaPulse, about why he thinks Tel Aviv is now widely known as Silicon Wadi or the Startup Nation.

Israel is a relatively new country and exists in a challenging region. As a result, since its establishment, the country has always had to come up with creative solutions to its problems. For example, Israel is one of leading countries in agrotech, which is inspired by Israeli desert geography. To grow their own food and irrigate the land, Israelis were forced to come up with creative solutions, Zinman explains.

He also says that the emerging startup community is tight knit and that there is strong access to capital.

Zinman notes that Israeli culture strongly supports failure. In his opinion, this mentality has caused the countrys startup ecosystem to thrive. People are always encouraged to pursue their ideas and it is widely understood that often, you have to fail a few times before you succeed. This gives people the freedom to try and try again.

He also says that while language is not a barrier (with Israeli startups focusing on external markets from the beginning), cost of living is rather high. Zinman recommends that there are definitely ways around this, such as living with roommates at first and buying food from local markets.

Over 30 percent of the team at DaPulse is international, and he strongly believes this to be a huge asset. For career seekers who want to explore options outside of the U.S., Zinman says that, seeing how other countries work and what challenges them is a worthy reward. It is a great skill to be able to acclimate successfully and you learn so much about yourself and the world in the process.

Related:

How These Liquor Brands are Reviving their Legacy

The #14 Most Daring CEOs in India

How to Choose a VPN Provider for Your Business



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Beekeepers in the Cuban central province of Ciego de Avila collected over 110 tons of honey that will be exported after its processing in a plant in nearby Santi Spiritus province.

The figure represents a 25 percent increase compared to the same period of last year, and it was possible thanks to the strategy implemented of placing beehives in the northern keys of the province.

Over 3,500 beehives were moved to that area, where there is plenty of wild vegetation, blossoming during the spring that creates the right environment for the bees to produce more honey.

The beekeepers in this province now have over 7,600 beehives in exploitation, and they also reported growths in the amounts of wax and bee glue collected, according to Engineer Robin Perez, director of the provincial company in charge of honey production.

In 2016, this provinces beekeepers gathered 393 tons, one of the biggest volumes in recent times. Seventy percent of that amount came from private beehives.

The most outstanding beekeepers is Oneido Gomez Farias, from the municipality of Majagua, whose beehives doubles the Cuban average of 50 kilograms of honey a year.

Ciego de Avila has five centers to reproduce queen bees that improve the genetic quality of the bee swarms, therefore increasing honey production
Great Allegheny Passage improvements coming

The bids were opened Nov. 1 and Adam Eidemiller's was the lower of two bids received. The project will take two weeks starting within the next week.
Ego: Simon Dee, pictured in 1967, was the Jonathan Ross of his day

By happy chance, on the same day the BBC revealed its payments to its top stars, I tracked down a volume for which I had long been searching: The Simon Dee Book, published nearly 50 years ago, in 1968.

In those days, Simon Dee was the highest-paid personality on the BBC, with his own twice-weekly chat show, Dee Time. It always started with a film of him driving his open-top E-type Jaguar around London, with a glamorous blonde in the passenger seat.

He was the Jonathan Ross of his day, but, at 33, younger, leaner and  to employ a once-fashionable phrase  more 'with-it'. Roughly two million viewers tune into Jonathan Ross's current chat-show, but Simon Dee attracted audiences of 18 million.

The Simon Dee Book is like a time capsule, or, more accurately, a black box. How cool he seemed in 1968, but many of his statements in the book now seem hopelessly out-of-date. For instance, in a questionnaire, he is asked what he thinks of working wives. 'Only in the bedroom,' he replies. Throughout, he calls women either 'dolls' or 'birds'.

He talks of his early days as a door-to-door salesman. 'I never found much trouble in chatting up the housewives,' he says. 'Actually women are their own worst enemy. A little bit of flattery and they're ready to believe anything. Believe me, it never ceased to make me laugh!'

He talks in the third person about the effect he has when he goes into his local supermarket. 'It's a hint of glamour having Simon, the big TV star, right among them to brighten their suburban lives  and I don't mean that unkindly either,' he says of himself.

Simon, pictured in his car on London's Carnaby Street in 1967, became increasingly demanding, increasingly rude, increasingly big for his boots

Part of the book is taken up with his diary ('Dee Days') of a typical week. It starts with his drive into work and reveals his contempt for the passing commuters. 'The faceless ones are on the march, folks, crawling with deadly purpose into the metropolis, eyes half closed.'

He then drives down the then-trendy King's Road in Chelsea. 'Float my way past 'Countdown', 'Fifth Avenue' and 'Dandie Fashions . . . past 'Bazaar', where Mary Quant launched her famous dolly gear . . . Arrive at Vidal Sassoon's, am ushered in by young dolly, have my coat taken by another and a coffee brought up by a third.'

After meeting his lawyer  'Actually, he's a pretty swinging fellow: not at all the stuffed owl you might expect'  Dee is interviewed by a journalist who asks: 'How much do you earn?'

'Currently, around 30 grand,' replies Simon Dee. This means he was on today's equivalent of 364,000, which puts him roughly in line with radio DJs Nick Grimshaw and Simon Mayo and newsreader Fiona Bruce.

In his next diary entry, he boasts of going out to lunch with 'the casting director of a major film company'. He wants to get into films. 'Mike Caine's had a good run for his money. So it's time he moved over for a younger lad. Not to say prettier!'

The Simon Dee Book presents a picture of a man at the height of success, complete with full-page photographs of himself with the stars of the day: Professor A.J.P. Taylor, Davy Jones of The Monkees, Twiggy, Donovan, and Vanessa Redgrave (in a psychedelic trouser suit).

But a year later, it all came tumbling down. It seems that he became increasingly demanding, increasingly rude, increasingly big for his boots. Whenever he didn't get his own way, he threatened to walk out. Finally, the BBC could take it no longer and engineered his departure.

Exiled to ITV, he found himself marginalised, to make way for the thrusting young David Frost. He kicked up a fuss and they sacked him. By the end of 1970, he had signed on at the Labour Exchange. 'How the mighty have fallen,' said the clerk who served him.

Radio 4's Today programme offered him a job, but he walked out after just two days. He also managed to get a job on a Reading radio station, but left on his very first morning, after refusing to interview Alvin Stardust.

Over the next 35 years, Simon Dee found himself in court, and occasionally in prison, for offences such as shoplifting a potato peeler and assaulting a Buckingham Palace policeman who refused to let him speak to the Queen.

He died at 74 in 2009. By then, he had come to personify the frailty of fame. His ghost must haunt the nightmares of today's TV personalities. Simon Dee is buried on the outskirts of Winchester under his real name, Cyril Henty-Dodd, a tomb to that most modern of creations, the Unknown Celebrity.
It is a smell synonymous for millions with teenage shopping trips spent perusing polo shirts and tracksuit bottoms in a dimly lit store.

But Abercrombie & Fitch is set to replace its signature scent Fierce - a fragrance worn by young men in the noughties and branded with a chiselled masculine torso - with a gender neutral perfume.

The teen fashion chain, which has struggled financially in recent years and is currently undergoing a major rebrand, is rolling out the new unisex Ellwood scent to be sprayed in stores in place of Fierce, according to Teen Vogue.

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International retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is reportedly set to replace its signature scent 'Fierce' - a fragrance worn by millions of young men in the noughties and labelled with a chiselled masculine torso (inset) - with a gender neutral perfume

The retailer, which has a flagship store in central London, has been on a re-branding mission since 2013 when sales fell, and has already ditched its once must-have moose logo.

A&F has also cut back by 25 per cent the amount of the cologne sprayed in shops - one former attendant reported being instructed to spritz every display four times from eight feet away every 30 minutes on the job.

And now the smell that resurrects those wistful youthful memories will no longer waft from the high street.

On the A&F website, an ode to the scent still stands. It reads: 'Our signature men's fragrance is Fierce cologne. Also known as The Worlds Hottest Fragrance, this sophisticated blend of marine breeze, sandalwood, and musk woods embodies strength and masculinity for an irresistible effect.'

On the website, an ode to the scent reads: 'Our signature mens fragrance is Fierce cologne. Also known as The Worlds Hottest Fragrance, this sophisticated blend of marine breeze, sandalwood, and musk woods embodies strength and masculinity for an irresistible effect'

Its fellow fragrances have similarly upscale-sounding names, Hempstead and Ryder, and may be aimed at attracting a new and more mature audience as part of the re-branding efforts

An A&F spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Ellwood is replacing Fierce from now. All three new scents are available in UK stores at the moment, and will be sold online from July 31st'

By contrast, unisex Ellwood - which is one of a trio of new gender neutral fragrances launched this summer by the brand - is 'a musk fragrance' that's 'clean, subtle and simple yet memorable', according to Seventeen.

Its fellow fragrances have similarly upscale-sounding names, Hempstead and Ryder, and may be aimed at attracting a new and more mature audience as part of the re-branding efforts.

An A&F spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Ellwood is replacing Fierce as the in-store scent from now.

'We are very excited about our new range of fragrances which are in tune with fashion and cultures inclusive approach to gender expression.

'The in-store experience has been evolving over the past two years to become a lighter, more modern, fresh and open space and changing the in-store scent is part of this evolution.

'Fierce remains one of our top selling items and will still be available to purchase.'

All three new scents are available in UK stores at the moment, and will be sold online from July 31st
Instagram gives users the chance to peek into (and get jealous of) lifestyles that most mere mortals could never afford.

But for the pampered teens and twenty-somethings featured on the Rich Kids of South Africa feed, it seems nothing is out of reach.

Whether it's flitting between five-star hotels in their super-cars or by private jet, or splashing some of their endless stacks of cash on his 'n' hers Louboutins, the extravagant lifestyle of South Africa's young elite is all documented here.

They've joined existing international accounts including the Rich Kids of Dubai, the Rich Kids of London and even the Rich Kids of Vietnam, all of whom delight in flaunting their luxury holidays and jaw-dropping shopping sprees online.

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The Rich Kids of South Africa enjoy posting pictures of stacks of their cash to Instagram

Both the young men and young women had a thing for expensive cars, which they flaunted

Many self-styled Rich Kids are the children of rich parents or have made money as entrepreneurs

Making its followers jealous, the account is full of snaps of luxurious holidays all over the world

Many of the Rich Kids are couples and they often post snaps of expensive his and hers fashion - like these matching Louboutins

The Rich Kids often post pictures of their latest expensive buys, including this Carter purchase

One Rich Kid flaunted their gold iPhone while enjoying an expensive meal in Johannesburg

The account offers a glimpse into lavish lifestyles, including the Rich Kids' fancy appartments

This user made sure all his followers knew that his new shoes were by the designer Lounboutin

One Rich Kid had his own personalised Dior scent, which was shared on his page

The group enjoyed sharing pictures of their designer gear, including Louis Vuitton bags
Australian TV reporter Sam Squiers has shared an adorable photo of her newborn baby girl, Imogen, with a strawberry pink birthmark she calls her 'Wonder Woman kiss'.

Sharing the heartwarming photo on her Instagram page, Sam wrote: 'You may notice Immi's hemangioma. It wasn't there when she was born but popped up 6 days afterwards, starting off as a tiny pressure point.

'They occur in 1 in 10 babies and are more common in premmies, girls and babies under 1.4kgs - so Immi ticked all the boxes.

Australian TV reporter Sam Squiers has shared an adorable photo of her newborn baby girl, with a strawberry pink birthmark she calls her 'Wonder Woman kiss' (pictured)

WHAT IS A HEMANGIOMA? A hemangioma is a birthmark that most commonly appears as a rubbery, bright red nodule of extra blood vessels in the skin. A hemangioma grows during the first year of life, and then recedes over time. A child who had a hemangioma during infancy usually has little visible trace of the growth by age 10. A hemangioma can occur anywhere on the body, but most commonly appears on the face, scalp, chest or back. Treatment of a hemangioma usually isn't needed, unless the nodule interferes with vision or breathing. Source: Mayo Clinic Advertisement

'It's not there forever, they do go away on their own but because it's so close to Immi's eye & growing we're treating it with #propranolol,' she went on.

The first time mother and her husband Ben, both from Queensland, welcomed their bundle of joy Imogen Grace Squiers on the morning of June 13.

The 35-year-old Channel Nine journalist underwent an emergency caesarean after suffering a placental abruption - a serious pregnancy complication where the placenta detaches from the womb, causing her baby to be delivered at 32 weeks.

Sam went on to say the birthmarks are sometimes called 'strawberry kisses or stork kisses'.

'But given Immi's battle over the last 38 weeks, we have been calling hers her Wonder Woman kiss because this little girl has shown Ben and I her incredible strength fighting her way through some incredibly tough times in NICU,' she wrote.

'This little girl has shown Ben and I her incredible strength fighting her way through some incredibly tough times in NICU,' Sam wrote

'She's made of stronger stuff than us and after seeing the struggles of some of the parents in NICU if Immi comes out with just a hemangioma, then we're doing incredibly well.

'I've always said strength is true beauty and Immi already has plenty of that.'

Sam's post led to an outpouring of support from her fans, with others sharing their own stories.

Sports reporter Sam Squiers has opened up about the premature birth of her baby girl Imogen

'My little guy was an emergency delivery and was born with "angel kisses" all over the back of his neck and lower head. With a little bit of time they are hardly noticeable. Your little girl is one strong bubba,' one supporter wrote.

'My daughter was born 5 weeks early and she has a strawberry mark on her head. I think it makes them extra special. Hope your gorgeous bubba is home in your arms very soon,' wrote another.

Talking openly about her baby's birth to 9Honey, Sam previously said: 'They were talking about kidney failure, heart murmurs, fluid on the brain and I just thought, "All I did was have a baby".'

The first time mother and her husband Ben welcomed their bundle at 32 weeks on June 13

Sam was initially warned her baby could arrive early after she started experiencing pregnancy problems at 19 weeks.

On the night of June 12, the expectant mother woke multiple times in the night when she begun enduring constant stomach pains.

As she tried to fall asleep, she realised she could no longer feel her baby move.

Doctors found there was a blood clot between her baby and placenta, and Sam's kidneys were shutting down dramatically after rushing to hospital.

The Channel Nine journalist underwent an emergency caesarean after suffering a placental abruption - a serious pregnancy complication where the placenta detaches from the womb

Following the birth, she said she briefly saw her daughter just moments before she was taken away to the NCCU.

Eventually, the mother-of-one was able to see her baby again - but she could only hold her after going through a washing procedure.

'Everyone kept saying, "You're a mum!" But I have to ask for permission to pick up my own daughter,' Sam previously said.

'I can touch her but only after I've washed my hands for a minute-and-a-half and sprayed them and checked that it's okay for her to be touched.'

'It can sometimes feel like we're stuck in a cruel time warp but we're trying to treat the premmie progression of two steps forward one step back like our new dance, knowing, however slow, we will get to our destination eventually,' Sam wrote

In a post to Instagram on July 11, the new mum wrote about her newborn reaching a milestone.

'One month...No milestone cards as milestones take on a different meaning here in NCCU. There's cracking 2kgs, moving off a respirator, no more CPAP, advancing to an open cot, and saying goodbye to extra oxygen plus so many more,' she wrote.

'It can sometimes feel like we're stuck in a cruel time warp but we're trying to treat the premmie progression of two steps forward one step back like our new dance, knowing, however slow, we will get to our destination eventually.'
They are the iconic sweet treats many people will remember from their youth.

And now beloved Australian biscuit brand Arnott's and ice cream company Peters have teamed up to create a new range of ice cream flavours - bringing Iced Vovos, Mint Slices, Wagon Wheels and Caramel Crowns to the freezer.

'It may be winter but the sun is shining and weve been busy working with the clever folks at Peters Ice Cream Australia on a cool collaboration!' Arnott's announced on its Facebook page on Monday, stating the new range is available straight away from all major retailers in the ice cream aisle.

Australian biscuit brand Arnott's and ice cream company Peters have teamed up to create a new range of ice cream flavours - bringing Iced Vovos, Mint Slices, Wagon Wheels and Caramel Crowns to the freezer (pictured)

Peters also took to social media to announce the move, declaring on its Facebook page: 'We have joined forces with Arnott's Biscuits to bring some of your favourites to the ice cream freezer!'

The Peters website provided more detail about just what each ice cream treat tastes like - and which ones might be a little more forgiving on your waistline.

Iced Vovo ice cream - 94 cal per serving

'This much loved classic is a delicious, icy cold mix of marshmallow, coconut, raspberry jam and vanilla biscuits,' the Peters website states.

'One bite and youll be transported straight back to your childhood.'

As news of the tempting range broke, social media went into meltdown with enthusiasts posting their thoughts

Poll Which is YOUR favourite flavour? Iced Vovo Mint Slice Wagon Wheel Caramel Crown Which is YOUR favourite flavour? Iced Vovo 30 votes

Mint Slice 60 votes

Wagon Wheel 30 votes

Caramel Crown 27 votes Now share your opinion





Mint Slice - 229 cal per serving

According to the website, this treat is a new way to experience one of Australia's favourite biscuits.

'Taste the deliciousness of classic, cool mint and chocolate biscuit smothered in premium dark chocolate,' it states.

Wagon Wheels - 268 cal per serving

'Yeeeehawwww! The wildest treat in the freezer has arrived,' Peters states on its website.

'The classic combination of vanilla biscuit, marshmallow, jam, smothered in chocolate just got cooler. Literally.'

'It may be winter but the sun is shining and weve been busy working with the clever folks at Peters Ice Cream Australia on a cool collaboration!' Arnott's announced on its Facebook page on Monday

Caramel Crowns - 115 cal per serving

Peters describes this treat as 'an indulgent and cool mix of rich chocolate, gooey caramel and biscuit'.

'Its the famous chocolate, caramel biscuit combination you have been waiting for,' the company states.

As news of the tempting range broke, social media went into meltdown with enthusiasts posting their thoughts.

'Iced Vovo ICECREAM!!!! I NEED it in me stat!!!!' wrote one fan on Facebook.

'ICED VOVO ICE CREAM - I think I must have died and gone to heaven....!!!!!' another declared.
A Queensland childcare centre will let children play around a fire pit - and claims parents are on board.

The Amaze Early Education Centre in Ormeau, Qld, has installed the pit to teach children as young as two how to handle risky situations by themselves.

Children at the centre will have the chance to cook sausages and marshmallows over the pit while learning about fire safety.

This fire pit has been installed at the Amaze Early Education Centre in Ormeau to teach children as young as two how to handle risky situations

Children at the centre will have the chance to cook sausages and marshmallows over the pit in the centre's backyard (pictured) while learning about fire safety

While the idea of toddlers near fire would seemingly conjure up the image of frantic parents, there has been no such outrage amid the announcement.

'We expected critics, but there has not been one,' Amaze director Lucy Cook told News.com.au.

'From the response we have had so far, parents are crying out for experiences that replicate real life and challenge children.'

'They are supporting the backlash against screen time and too much bubble wrap.'

And these parents might be on to something.

A new University of Newcastle study found that 'risky play' actually helps teach children how to be aware - and avoid - potentially dangerous situations.

Amaze director Lucy Cook said not one parent has complained about the fire pit being installed in the innovative playground at the Gold Coast centre

Amaze Early Education Centre, which has locations throughout the Gold Coast, prides itself on being a place that helps children 'learn through play'

Sixty children, whose ages ranged from six months to five years, were slowly introduced to fire, knives and power tools to play with under adult supervision.

The older children even built a clubhouse by themselves at the end of the program.

'These days, there's a tendency for parents and guardians to shelter children from risks that past generations were readily exposed to,' Associate Professor Linda Newman told Kidspot.

'Things like playing out in the street or climbing trees are often avoided, but these activities can be vital in shaping a child's perception of the world and how they approach risk, ultimately building resilience in adulthood.'

Its playground features movable and interchangeable parts that helps teach children strategies to solve problems and assess dangerous situations

Newman added that teaching 'risky play' in a safe environment will help children learn to take risks while an adult is present, rather than by themselves.

Amaze Early Education Centre, which has locations throughout the Gold Coast, prides itself on being a place that teaches children through activities.

The centre said it's new Ormeau location has been designed to maximise 'your children's learning through play'.

Its playground features movable and interchangeable parts that helps teach children strategies to solve problems and assess dangerous situations.

Amaze states on its website that the centre's mission is to provide the kind of education that 'prepares, inspires and motivates children to be inquirers and explorers on their learning journey'.
Education in Australian schools is in crisis and someone has to listen to those who are game enough to speak up. I have been a primary school teacher in Brisbane schools for over 30 years. This year, after much thought, I have decided to look for another job, not easy for a woman in her 50s. I cannot continue to do a job that requires me to do what is fundamentally against my philosophy of how it should be done. I love my students and they love me. I know how to engage children in learning and how to make it fun. Its what I do best.

Teachers have very little professional autonomy anymore. We are told what to do, how to do it and when it has to be done by. Never have I experienced a time in my profession where teachers are this stressed and in real fear for the mental health of not only themselves, but the children that they teach. The pressures are enormous. And before we get the people who rabbit on about our 9 to 3 day and all the holidays we get, lets get some things straight. No teacher works from 9 until 3. We are with the students during those hours. We go on camps, we man stalls at fetes, we conduct parents/teacher interviews, we coach sporting teams and we supervise discos. And of course there is the lesson preparation, the marking, the report cards. Full time teachers are paid 25 hours a week. Yes you read that correctly, 25 paid hours a week. In any other job that would be considered part time. So now that I have justified our holidays, many of which are spent doing the above, lets talk about what is going on in classrooms across this great nation of ours.

Classrooms are overcrowded, filled with individuals with all sorts of needs both educational and social. Teachers are told we must differentiate and cater to each individual. Good teachers try desperately to do that but it is near impossible and we feel guilty that we are not doing enough to help the children in our care.

The curriculum is so overcrowded. Prep teachers who used to run lovely play based programs (which might I add work beautifully) are teaching children sight words and how to read and write alongside subjects like history and geography. As a teacher and a mother of 3 sons, this scares the proverbial out of me. We all know that boys this age need to be moving around doing things that interest them, not sitting at desks. And what about the notion of readiness? I fear those little ones who are not ready are going to be left behind. And heres the problem with our crowded curriculum. There is not enough time to consolidate the basics. Every teacher on this earth will tell you that the early years should be about the 3 Rs. My own children went off to year one after having had a lovely, enriching play based year of learning back in the days of pre-school. They didnt know any sight words; they could write maybe a few letters and guess what? They learnt to read and write without being pushed at such an early age.

In my teaching career I have never seen so many children suffering from stress and anxiety. It saddens me greatly. Teaching at the moment is data driven. We are testing them and assessing them and pushing them so hard. I get that teachers need to be accountable and of course we need assessment but teachers have an innate ability to know what kids need. A lot of it is data for datas sake. Dont even get me started on NAPLAN. Teachers wouldnt have a problem with NAPLAN if it wasnt made out to be such a big deal by the powers that be, the press and parents. It has turned into something bigger than Ben Hur.

So why am I writing this? Im writing this because teachers need to speak up but we are often afraid of retribution. We need to claim back our profession but we are powerless. Teachers teach because we love children and are passionate about education. Our young teaching graduates enter the profession bright eyed and bushy tailed, energetic and enthusiastic, ready to make a difference. So why I ask are they only staying for an average of 5 years? Of course that question is rhetorical. I know the answer. They are burnt out and disillusioned. Older teachers like me have seen better days in the classroom so in a way its harder for us to see all the joy slowly being sucked out of learning. But we also have a wealth of experience to draw from and we know which hoops you dont necessarily need to jump through. We occasionally speak out. We are not as easy to control. But we are tired and also burning out with disillusionment.
A mother-of-two so ashamed of her weight she made her own clothes has dropped 8 stone - after banning herself from multi-pack crisps.

At her heaviest, Anna Plews got through 1,000 bags of crisps a year and ate ready meals every night, going from a size 10 up to a size 22 and weighing 19 stone.

The 36-year-old chef, from York, says her weight made her too self-conscious to go out so she struggled to go shopping.

When she did venture into shops, Anna struggled to find things that fit her - so she eventually began making her own clothes.

'I didn't realise how unhappy I was': Mother-of-two Anna Plews soared to 19 stone and a size 22 (left), but has since dropped an astonishing 8 stone in just over a year (right)

Fed-up of being overweight, she embarked on a healthy eating plan and banned herself from eating crisps.

She also took up Taiko, a Japanese-style drumming and martial arts ensemble which helped her drop an initial 7 stone 7 lbs in just over a year.

The mother-of-two says that since dropping to a size 12 and 11 stone 7 lbs, she is virtually unrecognisable to people who have known her for years.

Speaking about her weight loss, Anna said: 'It was like a sudden change of character. I think I surprised myself that I managed to do it. It gave me more confidence.

'I have had people not recognising me on the street that I've known for about ten years because I look so different.

'My weight did stop me from going out. I would find it hard to eat out and to go to certain events and parties. I would feel very self-conscious.'

'My parents were concerned': Anna says those around her became concerned for her health after she ploughed through 1,000 packets of crisps a year and ballooned to a size 22

Anna recalls: 'I'm a chef and looking back at it now I did use to pick at food. I would be awful and skip meals and at the end of the day I would just grab a ready meal or some crisps'

Anna on stage in 2013 before shedding weight, when her confidence was at an all-time low> She says now: 'My weight did stop me from going out. I would find it hard to eat out and to go to certain events and parties. I would feel very self-conscious'

Anna's weight forced her to make her own clothes, she reveals: 'I never felt comfortable in anything. I felt quite self-conscious when I went shopping'

Anna, who says she had an 'awful' attitude towards food, explains: 'I'm very into goth clothing, wearing corsets, dresses and alternative fashion. I studied A level textiles so I knew how to make them'

'I did use to pick at food': Anna says her job as a chef meant she developed bad snacking habits. Eventually, fed-up of being overweight, she embarked on a healthy eating plan and banned herself from eating crisps

Anna added: 'My weight also stopped me from buying nice clothes so I ended up making my own. I never felt comfortable in anything. I felt quite self-conscious when I went shopping.

'It would be really hard to find something that I liked and would fit me. Whenever I tried something on it would never look how I imagined it. I would always be disappointed.

'I'm very into goth clothing, wearing corsets, dresses and alternative fashion. I studied A level textiles so I knew how to make them.'

'I'm a lot happier now': Anna signed up to Slimming World in May 2016 and began spending ten hours a week at her Taiko class - dropping five dress sizes in just over a year

Transformation: The mother-of-two says that since dropping to a size 12 and 11 stone 7 lbs, she is virtually unrecognisable to people who have known her for years

Anna signed up to Slimming World in May 2016 and began spending ten hours a week at her Taiko class, dropping five dress sizes in just over a year.

Since dropping the weight, Anna is now able to spend more time with her two children, Anja, 13, Javan, 9 and partner Jared Hardwich, 40, who also attends the Taiko class.

She said: 'I never thought I could get this far. I had tried so many different things and didn't have any results but I am proud of myself. I just want other people to know that they can do it too.

'I've had a positive reaction and it has encouraged other people to try it, I've had lots of compliments.

'I have to ban myself from crisps now or I will eat the multi-pack': Anna (pictured since dropping 8 stone) says she has learned to master the art of self-control

'I never thought I could get this far,' Anna admits. 'I had tried so many different things and didn't have any results but I am proud of myself. I just want other people to know that they can do it too'

'I'm a lot more positive these days': Anna says dropping weight in the past year has not only helped with her general health - it has also made her much happier

Happier than ever: 'I've had a positive reaction and it has encouraged other people to try it,' says Anna. 'I've had lots of compliments'

'I'm a lot happier now, looking back I didn't realise how unhappy I was. I'm a lot more positive these days.

'My parents were concerned about my weight especially because I have young children. They were worried about what affect it would have on my health.

'I'm a chef and looking back at it now I did use to pick at food. I would be awful and skip meals and at the end of the day I would just grab a ready meal or some crisps.

'I have to ban myself from crisps now or I will eat the multi-pack.'

Anna's diet before Breakfast - Nothing Lunch - Nothing Dinner - Curry ready meal Snacks - 3 packets of crisps, salted nuts, cheese and salami Drinks - Energy drinks and red wine TOTAL: 2,500 calories Advertisement
A woman who was nearly killed in a devastating car crash says the first three decades of her life have been 'completely wiped' from her memory - even making her forget her own children.

Elizabeth Boudreaux, from Dunvant, Swansea, suffered a catalogue of horrendous injuries and was in a coma for almost three months - with the mother-of-two unable to remember anything before the horror smash in 1999.

It meant the 47-year-old could not identify her own children, who were two and five years old at the time, and had to learn to walk and talk again like a newborn child.

'A whole chunk of my life has gone,' said Elizabeth, who was training to be a nursery nurse before the crash at the age of 29.

Elizabeth Bourdeaux was badly injured in a car crash, leaving her with no memory of her life up until that point - but she still harbours hope that her amnesia will one day disappear

'Nobody should have to experience memory loss like this. Those precious early moments with my children were taken away from me.'

Elizabeth, who worked as a senior carer for the elderly before switching to work with young children, had just driven away from a petrol station on August 4, 1999, when her red Rover was hit by another car and careered into a wall.

She said firefighters spent 45 minutes cutting her out of her car before ambulances took her to Morriston Hospital in Swansea.

'Both of my legs were shattered and I suffered many internal injuries,' added the mum of two.

'Doctors had to remove 80 per cent of my liver, I had kidney failure, and 200 units [pints] of blood needed to be given to me.

Damage: Elizabeth had just driven away from a petrol station on August 4, 1999, when her red Rover was hit by another car (pictured) and careered into a wall

Elizabeth said it was an incredibly emotional and frightening moment when she was introduced to her children, Sian and Sarah, for the first time since the life-changing incident

Elizabeth before the crash. Recalling the moment she woke up from her coma, she said: 'I couldn't even recognise my own mum, Rose. I could see that she was crying all the time but I had no idea why. I wasn't able to talk to her either - because I'd forgotten how to'

'Apparently I was pronounced dead five times. They didn't think I would survive it.'

Following her three months in a coma, which doctors feared she would never recover from, Elizabeth finally awoke to find hospital wires and machines surrounding her.

'All I saw was different doctors and nurses all around me. I didn't know what was going on,' she said.

'I couldn't even recognise my own mum, Rose. I could see that she was crying all the time but I had no idea why. I wasn't able to talk to her either - because I'd forgotten how to.'

She said it was an incredibly emotional and frightening moment when she was introduced to her children, Sian and Sarah, for the first time since the life-changing incident.

One of Elizabeth's stomach injuries. She was in a coma for almost three months - and says she cannot remember anything before the horror smash in 1999

'My mum brought them into the hospital and introduced them to me,' she said. 'I was drugged up and I couldn't really comprehend what she was saying.

'All I could see was this little girl with black ringlets [Sian] and piercing blue eyes that stuck out.

'Sian grabbed my mother's hand and went behind her. My mum said "You shouldn't be afraid, it's your mum."

'But when Sarah saw me she screamed and ran out of the room. I was still in a bad way and I was very yellow. She took it really badly.'

Since then doctors have battled to repair her legs and her severe stomach injuries with Elizabeth climaing to have undergone more than 200 different operations.

Elizabeth, pictured with her daughter, says her memory since the accident has been relatively normal - but she still suffers with hallucinations and headaches

In a bid to piece her memories back together, Elizabeth has recently contacted her former comprehensive school to see if she can take a tour of the building in case it triggers any long-lost memories

'One of the most frightening things was when doctors said I could return home. I didn't know what 'home' was,' she added.

'The hospital had become my home. It was so scary. I didn't recognise Swansea at all. My friends would come up to me and I wouldn't remember them at all.'

Elizabeth, who says her memory since the accident has been relatively normal, still suffers with hallucinations and headaches.

'I once saw a gentleman outside my house wearing motorbike clothing.. He was there for a couple of minutes and then disappeared.'

Elizabeth, who has now written a book about her experiences, said she still harbours hope that her amnesia will one day disappear.

Ongoing problem: Doctors have battled to repair her legs and her severe stomach injuries, with Elizabeth climaing to have undergone more than 200 different operations

She has now contacted her former comprehensive school to see if she can take a tour of the building in case it triggers any long-lost memories.

'My life is really complicated and I would really like to find peace in myself and try and move on but a lot of stuff is just holding me back,' she added.

'But my kids and my parents have been helping me quite a lot. It would also be nice to find someone else who was in a similar position as myself so that I could find a better way to be able to cope with things.'

Daughter Sian, 20, is now working as a beauty therapist and Sarah, 23, is studying psychology in university.

Sian said: 'Because I was so young I didn't realise what was going on. So all I remember is my mum being there and normal. I don't know what I would do without her.'
Our beloved pets seem to have it made, enjoying an easy life of being stroked, fed and going for walks.

But it seems the more you pamper your pet, the more they start to take on some very human-like characteristics, as these hilarious Snapchats prove.

Proud pet owners have been documenting the ups and down of their pets' lives, including that moment when you lay your head on the steering wheel in despair in a traffic jam, to having to grin and bear it when your mother dresses you up in an 'adorable' outfit.

From a candlelit dinner a deux, to a dog ploughing a potato field on the farm the owners of these fluffy friends shouldn't be surprised when their dogs start driving their cars and taking over their lives.

Dancing for dollars! This dog is determined to earn her keep, whatever it takes

Lovely pugly! This perfectly timed snap showed off this pooch's best side

Part of the family: Don't be surprised when you see him driving your car and taking over your job

We've all been there! This puppy's feelings about being stuck in traffic speaks for us all

No rest for the wicked! No lounging about in front of the fire all day for this dedicated dog

Pomeranian learns an important life lesson! All mothers embarrass their children with a dubious outfit at some stage

It's Paw-casso! This canine looked rather pleased with his own artistic endeavours

Grounded! Perhaps he was going to spend the loot on dog treats

No prizes for guessing who the most graceful member of the household is

Getting used to a certain standard: A bowl of food on the kitchen floor is simply not good enough

Just chilling! Many dogs dig to bury, this one likes to create his own hangout

Would be prefer to hear about The Princess and the Flea or 101 Dalmatians?

Step into my office: This Alsatian wanted to show he means business

Travel nightmare! We've all been that disgruntled plane passenger

Buy me a shirt! This dog was remarkably sanguine about being taken on a shopping trip

Please don't sell me: Nobody wants to end up in the classifieds

Philosophical: This dog came out the wrong end of a fight with a basketball

Wearing the furniture: Perhaps she was caught out by the instructions

I'll have it all please! A dog shows its owner who is boss during a trip to the supermarket

How could you leave me on the shelf? A very cute puppy knows he's irresistible

Poor puppy! A canine was left feeling rather sheepish after accidentally eating a bee
A glamorous grandmother who has 32MM breasts is on a desperate quest to achieve the title of 'biggest in the UK' - despite a surgeon warning her against going larger because of health risks.

Sharon Perkins, 51, from Coventry, West Midlands, reached her fifties and saw it as a chance to reinvent herself with the help of plastic surgery.

After getting divorced from her husband of eight years, the mother-of three spent 10,000 of her 33,000 settlement money on getting two breast augmentations.

With encouragement from her new fiance Carl Hamilton, who she left her husband for, they realised the money-making potential of her enormous bust.

'By accident I have the second largest boobs in the UK. Even though its an accident that I can make a career out of this Im just going to milk it and get everything that I can,' she said in Channel 5's OMG: My Midlife Plastic Crisis.

Sharon Perkins became a glamour model at the age of 50 after pursuing a life-long dream to become famous by getting big breasts

After getting divorced in 2013 and meeting her new fiance, Sharon decided to get breast augmentation surgery

Carl and Sharon are determined to make her as famous as possible, and that means finding a surgeon to implant even bigger boobs

The programme which aired on Sunday night, followed Sharon on her quest to find a surgeon who will increase her chest - which already has around 1,500cc of silicone and weighs a back-breaking 7lbs - to a whopping 2,500cc.

Something which one Birmingham surgeon strongly warned against.

He was concerned that the weight of her implants could cause serious problems with her neck and shoulders hunching over. Also as her muscles fatigue it could lead to her spine and vertebrae to collapse.

The surgeon said it was 'beyond normal'.

'And thats where as a surgeon you must tell the patient that is not right back off now.

He told the part-time glamour model: 'If you ask me I would advise you strongly not to get this or go anywhere. My worry is that it will do more harm than good.

'It could have a knock-on effect on your life, family and career.'

But Sharon and Carl ignored his advice, certain in the knowledge there was a possibility she could go bigger, they don't seem to heed the risks.

'My doctor was advising me of the problems, but that it can be done,' she said.

'I am fairly confident that we will get there eventually,' Carl added.

Mother-of-three Sharon was 'bored' with her housewife lifestyle. After having three children she put on weight

In the Channel 5 programme OMG My Midlife Plastic Crisis, Sharon visits a surgeon for a consultation but he warns her not to go any bigger

Sharon opened up about her 'boring' lifestyle in the programme, recalling how her former job as an office administrator didn't hold the excitement she had always been looking for.

'I think after the feeling that I was in a rut, Ive been let loose and Ive gone crazy. Im just doing what I should have done years ago.'

After divorcing her husband in 2013, she followed her dreams of becoming a glamour model.

Now living abroad in Bulgaria, Sharon along with her new fiance came back to the UK to seek advice from an agent to help her achieve fame.

Despite warnings Sharon and Carl are convinced she can get the surgery done and achieve the title she desperately wants

He suggested to make her unstoppable she could insure her breasts for 5million, turn her into an ambassador for the over-fifties as well as getting her in the Guinness Book of World Records.

'I know I want the bigger boobs and I want the fame and fortune that goes with it,' she confidently said.

And Carl is on board: 'Of the two of us who is the most excited about being the biggest boobs in the UK, I think its me.

'I have encouraged, pushed and persuaded Sharons image. I dont think Sharon could see where she was going in life and I think I just gave her a few ideas. She's got the bug, that addiction to keep on going.'

OMG: My Midlife Plastic Crisis is available to watch now on Channel 5 player.
It is likely going to be a tough few days for Ivanka Trump, as her husband Jared Kushner prepares to face questioning from investigators over his foreign contacts, as the probe into Russia's involvement in the presidential election continues.

So it is no surprise that the 35-year-old mother-of-three is seeking some light relief from her young children, who seemed more than happy to oblige on Monday, helping to bring some much-needed cheer to their mom's morning.

Ivanka took to Instagram to share a very happy image of her eldest child Arabella, who turned six on Monday, and her youngest son Theodore, one, who appeared to have covered his face in yogurt while enjoying his breakfast. But despite the mess, both children were grinning happily at the camera - with Arabella donning a smart straw boater hat for the occasion, while her brother was wearing some giraffe-print shades.

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All smiles: Ivanka Trump left her home on Monday morning with a happy look on her face, having spent the morning with her children

Not a care in the world: The 35-year-old looked completely relaxed and calm, despite her husband Jared Kushner being questioned about his Russia contacts at Capitol Hill

Happy as can be: While her husband faced questioning from investigators, however, Ivanka appeared to be seeking solace in her children, sharing this adorable picture of two of her kids

'Good way to start the day!' Ivanka captioned the cute picture, before adding a sunglasses smiley, no doubt in reference to her son's rather unique early morning ensemble.

Pairing his sunglasses with a silver spotted bib - a sensible addition to his look given the messy mass of breakfast foods covering his face - Theo can be seen beaming happily at the camera, while his sister Arabella, dressed in a white T-shirt and shorts, looks equally thrilled to pose for the picture.

And it seems that spending some quality time with her kids was exactly what Ivanka needed to take her mind off her husband's political troubles; on Monday morning, shortly after Jared left to meet with investigators at Capitol Hill, the busy businesswoman was seen leaving the family's D.C. home, wearing a fun floral dress - and a beaming smile.

Leaving the property via the side gate, before quickly climbing into a waiting SUV, the First Daughter looked as though she didn't have a care in the world, smiling happily for the cameras as she prepared for another day of work.

Embracing the summer season in style, Ivanka looked chic in a short-sleeved navy dress that was covered with a white, blue, and purple floral pattern.

She cinched in the design with a black leather belt, adding a pair of dark sunglasses and a pair of dainty dangly earrings to complete her look.

Worked a treat! Spending time with her children seemed to take Ivanka's mind off the issues with her husband's government disclosure forms, given the wide smile on her face

Summer loving! Ivanka wore a pretty floral dress and a pair of dark sunglasses as she made her way into the office on Monday morning

'Summer daze!' On Sunday, the mother-of-three posted this adorable picture of Theo posing alongside a bright blue surfboard

Ivanka's sunny disposition comes after spending what was no doubt a much-needed weekend with her children; on Sunday evening, she shared another image of her son Theodore, this time capturing the toddler by himself.

In that picture Theo is seen wearing a cute pair of blue overalls, another rather bold pair of sunglasses, and a matching pair of blue sandals - while posing against a sea-blue backdrop, and alongside a bright blue surfboard.

Giving little information away about where the picture was taken, Ivanka simply captioned the snap: 'Summer daze!'

And while Ivanka continues to maintain her cheery disposition, Jared, 36, also seems eager not to let any of the tension he might be feeling show; on Monday morning the White House advisor was seen leaving the home that he shares with Ivanka and their three children, smiling happily at the waiting cameras before climbing into his waiting SUV.

Ahead of his meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, Jared released a 3,600-word statement, in which he listed meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, as well as his infamous meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer that the White House aide says he left early on.

Signing off the statement, he said: 'I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts.

Nothing to worry about? Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner left home before his wife, smiling as he climbed into an SUV - and then waving at the cameras as he arrived at Capitol Hill (right)

TGIF! Ivanka was seen smiling happily as she left her home on Friday, carrying baby son Theo on her hip as she made her way out of the side gate of her home

What an honor: Ivanka's daughter Arabella was given the chance to visit her mom in the West Wing on Wednesday, meeting Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus

'I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.

'I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.'

Jared first came under scrutiny for a previously undisclosed meeting with Russia's leading US diplomat. He did not list a December rendezvous with Kislyak at Trump Tower on forms he turned into the government as part of the security clearance process.

He left off another meeting during the transition with a Russian banker, too, Sergey Gorkov, and a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that the president's eldest son, Don Jr, set up with a Russian lawyer who wanted to discuss adoption.

Jared is due to meet with staff on the Senate Intelligence Committee today behind closed doors, and he will also talk - again privately - to the US House Intelligence Committee on Monday.

The First Daughter played an active role in the inaugural FIRST Global Challenge throughout the week, a robotics competition that saw high school children from 160 states going head to head to test their knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Dance it out! On Wednesday evneing, Ivanka shared a fun-filled video of her eldest two children dancing around their D.C. home to Justin Bieber's hit Despacito

As well as attending the conference early in the week, Ivanka also played host to the top three nations - winners Hungary, second-place Afghanistan, and third-place USA, at the White House on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Ivanka had another welcome visitor to her place of work on Wednesday, this time in the form of her six-year-old daughter, who was given the chance to make a trip to the West Wing - meeting both Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump's Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus.

Ivanka shared an image of her daughter's fun-filled visit on Instagram, writing alongside it: 'Arabella loved visiting me in the West Wing yesterday.' She then added the hashtag #coolmom to the post.

She also noted that 'meeting the Vice President and Chief of Staff was the highlight of the day' for Arabella, who is seen in the image standing alongside her mother, and the Vice President, wearing a pair of denim overalls, and pink sandals, and carrying a doll.

But it wasn't simply a fun-filled trip for Arabella - whose visit to the White House took place during her grandfather Donald Trump's explosive interview with the New York Times.

Birthday tradition! Ivanka and daughter Arabella shared a plate of spaghetti on the little girl's sixth birthday on Monday evening; in China long noodles represent a long life

While the president was speaking to reporters, a process which took just under an hour, the six-year-old and her mother joined him briefly, with Arabella showing off her command of the Chinese language, speaking a few phrases for the reporters.

And on Monday evening, the Trump-Kushner clan were busy celebrating Arabella's sixth birthday with a fun-filled party in their home.

In a series of videos and images shared on Ivanka's Instagram account, Arabella could be seen opening up a variety of gifts, enjoying a host of sweet treats - including hot dogs topped with marshmallows - and then chowing down on a plate of spaghetti with her mother, something which is something of a birthday tradition in the Trump-Kushner household.

She also shared an adorable Instagram image of herself and Arabella in a Lady and the Tramp-style pose, with the two sharing the same long strand of spaghetti together.

'Birthday tradition - noodles for a long life!' Ivanka captioned the picture, adding a plate of spaghetti emoji for good measure.

The businesswoman's caption made reference to a Chinese belief that long noodles represent a long life; Long Life Noodles - or Yi Mein - are traditionally eaten at all Chinese celebrations, including birthdays and at the New Year.
Time waits for no man but one Asian model-turned-photographer seems to have found a way to halt the clock.

Handsome Chuando Tan, from Singapore, is actually into his sixth decade, having turned 50 earlier this year - but you really wouldn't know it by looking at his Instagram account.

The one-time pop star's social media is filled with images that laugh in the face of the ageing process - with his chiselled abs and fresh-faced looks taking centre stage.

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I'll have what he's having: Singapore former male model Chuando Tan is 50 but could pass for a man decades younger with his perfectly-honed physique and youthful face

Real-life Dorian Gray? Tan says the secret to looking young is working out regularly, eating his favourite chicken dish and never bathing early in the morning or late at night

With a whole half-a-century behind him, the Far East's real-life Dorian Gray says his elixir of youth is simple - but we're pretty sure it's not going to work for everyone.

Tan, known as CD, says his regular work-outs and the habit of not bathing late at night or early in the morning are the only secrets to his age-defying body and face. Oh, and a taste for spicy Hainanese chicken.

In reality, some awesome genetics are probably playing a major part too.

Bottle those genes! An eye for fashion means Tan also dresses like a man who doesn't look anywhere near the half-century mark

Tan's Instagram account has some 160,000 followers, many who were staggered to find out his real age

Much to the delight of his growing online fan-base, he also loves a selfie, with his Instagram account littered with shirtless shots. Right: Doing a great impression of a teenager

His raven-black hair - whether dyed or natural - frames a face with perfect skin...but Tan, known as CD, isn't just a pretty face, he owns a photography company that has shot some of Asia's biggest stars

Alongside his ripped physique and baby-face charm, his hair is - enhanced or otherwise - raven black and he dresses like a man several decades younger.

Now a photographer, Tan occasionally models and was recently propelled back into the public eye after appearing on Saturday in an advert for Chinese news website Yidian Zixun.

His photography business, ChuanDo & Frey, has seen him shoot high-profile Asian celebrities including Rosamund Kwan and Shu Qi. He also shot Janet Jackson's 2008 album cover for Discipline.
Queen Letizia looked like a real life senorita as she stepped out at a museum in Malaga on Monday.

The mother-of-two was radiant in red as she joined creatives to inaugurate the annual meeting with director of Cervantes Institutes at Museo Ruso San Petersburgo.

Posing for the camera in a chic red dress offset with matching shoes, the Queen of Spain mingled with Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis and regional President of Andalusia Susana Diaz.

Queen Letizia looked radiant in red upon her arrival for the Instituto Cervantes' board of directors annual meeting in Malaga, Spain

Some seventy directors of the Instituto Cervantes' world delegations gather in Malaga from 24 to 27 July each year.

The Instituto Cervantes is the official Spanish Language and Cultural centre. It's a non-profit organisation founded by the Government of Spain in 1991.

Its mission is to promote Spanish language teaching throughout the world as well as Spain's co-official languages, in addition to fostering knowledge of the cultures of Spanish-speaking countries.

Queen Letizia inaugurates the annual meeting with director of Cervantes Institutes at Museo Ruso San Petersburgo

Queen Letizia (C) poses for a group photo with Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis (C-R), and regional President of Andalusia Susana Diaz (C-L), upon her arrival for the Instituto Cervantes' board of directors annual meeting in Malaga

The mother-of-two displayed her trim figure and toned legs in her all-red ensemble

The mother-of-two was radiant in red as she joined creatives to inaugurate the annual meeting with director of Cervantes Institutes at Museo Ruso San Petersburgo

Some seventy directors of the Instituto Cervantes' world delegations gathered together on Monday

On Friday, Queen Letizia was the main attraction as she arrived at music awards.

The Queen of Spain, 44, looked radiant as she paid a visit to the International School of Music for the Princess of Asturias Foundation in Oviedo.

The mother-of-two was in high spirits as she greeted wellwishers and students who had gathered to welcome her.

Queen Letizia, 44, looked radiant as she paid a visit to the International School of Music for the Princess of Asturias Foundation in Oviedo on Friday

Rather fittingly, the Queen was welcomed with a musical performance by students of the school - and Letizia even got involved by helping turn the pages whilst they played.

The music school was opened in 1990 and aims to change the area's music scene by laying the foundations for quality training for Spanish youths in the country and those visiting from abroad.

The centre runs training activities and boats visits from some of the most acclaimed visiting lecturers.
Chewed-up shoes are pretty commonplace in the homes of dog owners, most of whom are not unfamiliar with the idea of trashing the odd pair that have been given particularly rough treatment by the family pooch.

But for one dad, the idea of throwing out his beloved sneakers after they had been attacked by his dog, was just too wasteful to bear - so he came up with a genius solution by turning them into the perfect pair of summer sandals, using nothing but a pair of scissors and a knife.

And now Pennsylvania resident Steve Onuffer's ingenuity is earning him a place in the viral hall of fame, with dozens of social media users rushing to praise his clever hack, some going as far as to hail him a 'hero' among men.

Crafty solution: Pennsylvania resident Lindsay Onuffer revealed that her dad Steve turned his old sneakers into a pair of sandals when they were chewed by the dog

Hilarious: The 20-year-old's tweet about the sneaker sandals is helping to earn her dad, 47, some seriously high praise on Twitter

47-year-old dad Steve saw his online star begin to skyrocket after his 20-year-old daughter Lindsay shared an image of his sneakers sandals on her Twitter account, revealing exactly what her father had done in order to ensure his favorite sneakers didn't go to waste, despite falling victim to the family pet Sam.

'My dog chewed my dad's sneakers so he cut them into sandals,' she wrote, while posting an image of the worn-out Nike shoes that have the heel and the toe area completely removed - with just the soles and the laces part remaining.

She added an eye roll emoji for effect, no doubt hoping that others would share in her feeling of exasperation at her dad's rather bizarre DIY project.

But far from rushing to poke fun at Steve and his sneaker sandals, a number of social media users were quick to praise the DIY-loving dad, with one going as far as to label him a 'hero'.

'If this isn't a classic dad move I don't know what is,' what person wrote.

Naughty pooch: The family's dog Sam was behind the sneaker sabotage

'Hero': While Lindsay seemed slightly exasperated by her dad's bizarre sneaker solution, many other social media users have been quick to celebrate his crafty DIY project

Another added: 'Your dad is my hero...'

Indeed, the only person who seemed to be on Lindsay's side was her friend Lil, who joked that it is time for Steve to get 'a new pair', because he has had them since the duo were in the sixth grade.

'Tell him it's about time for a new pair...' she wrote. 'He's had those since I was in 6th grade!'

According to Lindsay, fun DIY projects are actually a keen interest of her dad's; the college student told BuzzFeed that Steve is 'always building stuff and fixing stuff'.

And when it came to crafting his fabulous footwear, the crafty dad needed nothing more than a pair of scissors and a utility knife, with Lindsay explaining: 'He really liked those sneakers because they were comfy.

'So instead of throwing them out he grabbed some scissors and a utility knife and made them into sandals so that he could still wear them.'
A father rushed his baby daughter to hospital after he heard her 'crying in a different way'  only for her to be diagnosed with life-threatening sepsis and put in a three-day coma.

Stu Bonsall, 45, from Burnley, Lancashire, is urging other parents to trust their instincts, even if they might 'look an idiot' for doing so.

He said: 'I could so easily have done nothing  fearing I'd be told I was over-reacting.

'But my actions saved Megan's life.

'I will never regret that, I would advise all worried parents to visit their hospital. It could save your baby's life.'

Megan (pictured at four weeks old) was put in an induced coma after contracting sepsis

Her father Stu (pictured) became concerned after Megan was 'crying in a different way'

WHAT IS SEPSIS? Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infections results in injury to its own tissues and organs. It can lead to shock, multiple organ failure and death. Symptoms include slurred speech, extreme shivering, passing no urine in a day, severe breathlessness and mottled skin. Treatment usually involves antibiotics, intravenous fluids and oxygen. Source: Sepsis Trust Advertisement

'I would rather look an idiot and know my daughter is okay.'

Mr Bonsall said: 'I know all babies cry, I'm not stupid.

'But I sensed something was different. I wanted a doctor to check her over.

'I would rather look an idiot and know my daughter is okay.

'It's a good job I trusted my gut, because in a matter of minutes, she was rushed from casualty to Manchester Children's Hospital (MCH) with sepsis.

'Don't be scared of visiting your doctors or local hospital, because you never know.'

Mr Bonsall trusted his instinct despite some possibly thinking he was acting like 'idiot'

He is urging other parents not to be scared of visiting a doctor if they have suspicions

Megan's parents drove the youngster four miles from their home to Burnley General Hospital

Travelling behind the ambulance, Megan's parents feared she may die en route to the hospital

'It was touch and go'

Father-of-three Mr Bonsall, a service engineer, was concerned when he returned home from work on June 11, 2016, and heard Megan, then just four weeks old, sobbing in a way he had not heard before.

When his wife, Tracy Bonsall, 44, told him Megan had been like that for a few hours, his worries increased.

Megan's parents drove the youngster four miles from their home to Burnley General Hospital.

Mr Bonsall said: 'We were told she was seriously ill and she was being put in an induced coma. 'It was terrifying.

'Then, doctors said she was being taken to the bigger MCH.

'We were to travel behind her ambulance by car. We were told, even if the ambulance pulled over on the way, not to stop.

'It made me think she was going to die before she got there.'

At MCH, she was taken to neonatal intensive care, where a series of tests were carried out.

Soon after, Megan was diagnosed with sepsis, a life-threatening condition where the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs.

It is unclear how exactly Megan developed sepsis, however, it is most commonly caused by an infection.

Once there, she was put on intravenous drips and her family were told to wait and see

Megan responded well to treatment and was allowed to go home one week after arriving

Megan is now a happy and healthy one-year-old despite facing such an ordeal in early life

'Our daughter is well and healthy after our quick thinking'

Megan was put on intravenous drips and her family were told to wait and see what happened.

Mr Bonsall said: 'Suddenly, because of all the drugs they were feeding her, she was double her size.

'It was awful to see, but we just hoped she would get better.'

After three days, Megan  who responded well to treatment - was brought out of the coma.

One week later she was allowed to go home and is now a happy, healthy one-year-old.

Mr Bonsall said: 'It was touch and go, but our daughter is well and healthy, after the fantastic staff and our quick thinking to have her checked out.
Ria Sharma, 21, who started Make Love Not Scars after visiting India for her studies

A young woman helping acid attack survivors in India has revealed it's no longer just women being targeted but babies, the elderly and animals too.

British graduate Ria Sharma started Make Love Not Scars, an organisation to help survivors after being moved when she visited the country to shoot a documentary for her studies.

The 21-year-old who studied at Leeds University is helping them to rebuild their lives by providing them with education, job prospects and medical and legal advice.

Acid attacks in India have risen over the last few years, with estimates of a 1,000 each year.

However, as many go unreported, the on ground number of these attacks is likely to be double.

Ms Sharma believes that over the past few years, more people have started recognising acid as a form of weapon.

Ms Sharma is helping women like Mamta who ran a beauty salon before she was scarred

The easy and cheap availability of acid in the form of cleaning products and the lack of hard sentencing for the perpetrators, has made this crime prominent.

Ms Sharma said: 'In the past it was used for more of gender based violence to put the 'woman in her place. But that is no longer the case in my opinion.

'The demographics when I started three years ago were extremely different. It was always a girl, aged between 16 to 25 and always a spurned lover who would commit the crime.

'But now, my youngest survivor is a six-month old baby boy, my oldest is a 65-year-old woman and in the middle, there are men and we have even had cases where animals have been attacked using acid.'

'Lack of concrete help on the ground'

Ms Sharma was moved to help after she went to India to shoot a documentary about acid attack victims while studying at Leeds College of Arts.

She said: 'While I was studying fashion at the Leeds College of Arts, I came across a picture of an acid attack survivor and it really moved me. I went and spoke to my professor about it.

'As I was due to give my final major project, my professor suggested that I should go back to India and shoot a documentary on the subject.'

While shooting the documentary, Ms Sharma realised that there was a major lack of awareness and concrete help on the ground.

She said: 'I knew that the documentary would help spread a lot of awareness in the West about this problem that we had in India.

'But I wasn't convinced that it was going to save lives. So, I decided to take the name of my film, Make Love Not Scars and turn it into a fully fledged organisation.'

'He attacked me because I hurt his ego'

Sapna is a 24-year-old survivor and has been helped by Make Love Not Scars, based in New Delhi, for the past three years.

She was viciously attacked by her cousin in 2013 after she spurned his advances.

She said: 'My cousin's brother in law committed the crime. He liked me and wanted to marry me.

Bright future: Sapna, who was attacked by her cousin for rejecting him, is studying English

'But I wasn't ready as he was much older and I wanted to study more. So I refused. He first threatened me. But I still declined. That hurt his ego.'

Sapna reported the attack, which led to two males being convicted and imprisoned for 11 years.

Make Love Not Scars has helped Sapna come to terms with the aftermath of the attack and also given her a strong support system.

She said: 'When I was attacked I thought nothing good is going to happen now. I just thought that I will live in closed room.

'My father supported me a lot. I wasn't even ready to fight the legal case, but he insisted that I do. I am even married now.'

Proud: Sapna poses with a framed newspaper cutting which features her story

Sapna has since learnt how to make jewellery and liquid soaps, which helps her earn money. She is also learning English and taking computer classes.

Ms Sharma has now started an online campaign called #SkillsNotScars, through which survivors share a video CV for potential employment opportunities.

Sapna said: 'The idea was that if we send someone a resume for a job they would tend to think that it would be a normal CV.

'But we made video CV because we are not like normal girls. We have been attacked. So, we wanted people to see us along with the CV.'

Ms Sharma said: 'The campaign has had a phenomenal response. It has created a lot of awareness and has sensitised people towards this issue.

'Employers are actually open to the possibility of hiring someone with disfigurement and for us, I think that's a massive milestone in itself.'

'I met other survivors like me'

All smiles: Fashion enthusiast Mamta hopes to get ahead in the beauty and fashion industry

Mamta, another survivor, used to work as a beautician.

She was attacked with acid in 2010, resulting in her losing an eye.

She said: 'After joining Make Love Not Scars, I met other survivors like me. I have learnt so many things here.

Mamta (left) shows off the mugs she painted during group classes with Make Love Not Scars

'I am learning how to read and write English. We are going to have computer classes very soon. All of this is going to help me get back on my feet.'

The Indian Justice system has laws and punishments in place for such crimes, but the system lacks implementation.

Ria said: 'Very few survivors end up getting justice and it's years and years later.

'They are entitled to a compensation from the government, which either gets stuck in paper work or they just don't see the light of day.

The organisation aims to help acid attack survivors regain their life 'on their own terms'

Thriving: Mamta (left), Sapna (centre) and Basanti (right) are thankful for the support

'Another issue is that many of these cases are not reported due to fear of social stigma and victim blaming. And acid itself is so easily available.'

Four years ago, the Supreme Court of India had put a stop to over the counter sale of acid. But one can still buy a bottle easily in various parts of the country.

Sapna, Mamta and many survivors like them, who had once isolated themselves after the attacks, are now stepping out and finding a foot hold on their own, with Make Love not Scars being their support system.

As Mamta says: 'Get up, hold yourselves up and walk again. This is called life.'

For more information, visit here.
Almost 63,000 people in England will die over the next five years from liver problems linked to heavy drinking unless cheap alcohol is tackled, doctors warn.

Doctors are urging the government to introduce minimum unit pricing of alcohol, as well as tighten restrictions on drink advertising.

Research from the University of Sheffield reveals that alcohol misuse will cause 62,905 deaths between 2017 and 2022 and cost theNHS 16.74 billion.

Of these deaths, 32,475 will be the result of liver cancer and 22,519 due to alcoholic liver disease, the report adds.

According to the Foundation for Liver Research, inaction by the government is leading to avoidable loss of life.

Almost 63,000 people will die over the next five years from heavy drinking, doctors warn

TEENAGERS ARE LESS LIKELY TO BINGE IF THEIR PARENTS SHOW DISAPPROVAL Teenagers are less likely to drink if their parents show disapproval, research revealed earlier this month. Study author Ms Jacqueline Bowden from the University of Adelaide, said: 'Parents have more influence on their teenagers' decisions regarding alcohol than they probably realise. 'Parental behaviour and attitudes towards alcohol really do make a difference and can help prevent children from drinking at an early age.' Mr Lincoln Size, chief executive cancer council SA, who supported the study, added: 'This latest evidence highlights the need to educate young people about the consequences of alcohol consumption and for parents to demonstrate responsible drinking behaviour. 'We need to get the message through that what may be considered harmless fun actually has lifelong consequences.' Advertisement

Raising the cost of alcohol saves lives

Liver specialist Professor Roger Williams, said: 'Liver disease is a public health crisis that has been steadily unfolding before our eyes for a number of years now and the government will have to take robust action if its main causes  alcohol misuse, obesity and viral hepatitis  are to be controlled.

'Our new report strengthens the argument for intervention by revealing the full and alarming extent of the financial costs associated with inaction in these areas and setting out the economic benefits of addressing these risk factors,' The Guardian reported.

Katherine Brown, director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, has accused the government of doing little towards tackling alcohol-related mortality despite evidence that implementing such policies reduces deaths and hospitalisations.

She adds that the report demonstrates the financial burden alcohol misuse has, which puts further strain on the NHS, police and public services.

Raising the price of cheap alcohol is the most effective way to save lives and money, adds Ms Brown.

Andrew Langford, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, highlights the need for prevention over treatment, arguing that three out of four people with liver conditions are diagnosed in hospital when treatment options are limited and expensive.

Saves more than 1,000 lives in five years

The research from the University of Sheffield demonstrates that introducing a 50p minimum unit price for alcohol would save 1,150 lives, 74,500 hospitalisations, 326m to the NHS and 711m costs in crime in England in less then five years.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK (AHA), said: 'Previous estimates suggested that in the first year after the introduction of MUP in England, 192 lives would be saved.'

The research comes as the supreme court holds the latest round over the Scottish government's plan to introduce a 50p minimum unit price for alcohol.

The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) and others are appealing against the move.

Wales and Northern Ireland are in talks to introduce similar policies.

Professor Gilmore urges the UK government to note the research and introduce minimum unit pricing.

A Department of Health spokesperson stated that it has made moves to tax higher strength beer and cider more than equivalent lower strength products, as well as introducing a childhood obesity plan, guidance on low-risk drinking and a free screening programme.
A child who was infected with HIV at birth has been virtually 'cured' and is healthy and drug-free at nine years old.

The unnamed youngster from South Africa was given a short course of antiretroviral therapy treatment shortly after birth.

The child has since been off medication and without symptoms or signs of the virus being active for eight-and-a-half years.

Most patients need drugs daily to prevent HIV attacking the immune system and causing AIDS.

Doctors do not fully understand why the South African child is doing so well and do not believe it is the antiretroviral therapy alone.

They hope that finding answers could lead to a new drug or vaccine to stop the virus in its tracks.

Doctors believe the child's good health could be genetic or immune system-related (file image)

Dr Avy Violari, the head of paediatric research at the Perinal HIV Research Unit in Johannesburg, told the BBC: 'We don't believe that antiretroviral therapy alone can lead to remission.

'We don't really know what's the reason why this child has achieved remission  we believe it's either genetic or immune system-related.'

This is the third case of a child with HIV who has remained healthy for a lengthy period of time without treatment.

The case is similar to a French child who has now gone more than 11 years without drugs.

Virtual cure

The South African child was reported to have had 'very high' levels of HIV in the blood after having caught the infection from their mother in 2007.

The baby was given antiretroviral medication at nine weeks old for 40 weeks as part of a clinical trial.

Unlike any other patients in the study, levels of the virus were virtually undetectable  there is no active HIV in the body but has been detected in the child's immune cells.

A short course of HIV drugs given early enough in infancy may prevent life-long therapy

Early therapy has been credited to apparent 'cures' in children twice before.

In 2015, the 'Mississippi Baby' was put on treatment within 30 hours of her birth and went 27 months without treatment before the virus re-appeared in her blood again.

In France, a child who was born with HIV in 1996 has showed no measurable signs of the virus more than 11 years later.

The patient was given treatment at the age of three months and it was stopped sometime between the age of five and seven.

SCIENTISTS MAY BE ONE STEP CLOSER TO A CURE FOR HIV Scientists may be one step closer to developing a cure for HIV, research suggested yesterday. An injection may soon be available that prevents the virus spreading and could rid sufferers of the infection, a study implies. Researchers from multiple institutions, including Texas A&M University, injected cows with HIV, all of which developed an immune response within as little as 35 days, a study found. When the immune cells of the cows were analyzed, one in particular was found to bind to a key site on HIV that the virus uses to spread infection, the research adds. The researchers believe such immune cells could be incorporated into an injection to neutralize HIV in infected humans. Currently, there is no cure for HIV, with patients usually being required to take lifelong medication that causes nausea, diarrhea and insomnia. Advertisement

Early action is key

Dr Michael Brady, medical director at Terrence Higgins Trust, said the news boosted hopes that early treatment in infants could prevent the need for life-long therapy.

He said: Early HIV therapy, in both children and adults, has been shown to reduce some of the damage to the immune system that HIV causes in the first few weeks and months of infection.

'If we can understand this mechanism better it will hopefully lead to novel treatment strategies and, maybe one day, a cure.

'Further research is needed, but this case adds to the hope that, one day, we may be able to prevent the need for life-long therapy with a short course of early HIV treatment in infancy.

'For now, however, early diagnosis and life-long treatment for HIV remain our best options for fighting the epidemic.'

As a result of medical advances, HIV-positive people now live longer and healthier lives.

However, HIV and AIDS remains one of the world's most significant public health challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

Globally, only 46 per cent of the 36.7 million people living with HIV in 2015 were receiving antiretroviral therapy.
Women 'shouldn't rely' on a smartphone app designed to track their menstrual cycles, fertility experts claim.

Natural Cycles, approved as a contraceptive in the EU, uses body temperature to warn women when they are most likely to become pregnant.

Studies have even found the app, which plots ovulation on a calendar, to be as effective in preventing pregnancies as the Pill.

But it's unreliable, says Dr Mary Jane Minkin, a professor of obstetrics, gynaecology and reproductive sciences at Yale University.

She told LiveScience: 'Don't rely on something like this.'

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Natural Cycles, approved as a contraceptive in the EU, uses body temperature to warn women when they are most likely to become pregnant

While Dr Nathaniel DeNicola, a gynaecologist at The George Washington University, said its success rate seems strangely high.

She pointed out that other methods of contraception, such as condoms, the Pill and IUDs, have been thoroughly tried and tested.

The app could be an option if a couple wanted to postpone pregnancy for a while but would not mind it if they did become pregnant, she said.

But most people who are looking for contraception are going to want something more reliable.

Studies have even found the app, which plots ovulation on a calendar, to be as effective in preventing pregnancies as the Pill

How does it work?

Natural Cycle asks the user to digitally record their body heat each morning, which then produces an algorithm to build a fertility schedule.

This then predicts which 'red days', when the woman is most fertile, and advises her to use a condom to slash her risk of becoming pregnant.

In the days leading up to ovulation, a woman's body is flooded by oestrogen, which cools the body, compared with the post-ovulatory stage.

During that second stage of the menstrual cycle, after ovulation, the hormone progesterone warms the body, raising its temperature.

MOST FERTILITY APPS GET IT WRONG! Women using fertility apps and websites to work out when they are most likely to get pregnant could be getting bad advice, a study warned. Tests were carried out on 20 websites and 33 apps designed to help predict a woman's fertility window - the days before ovulation when having sex is most likely to result in conception. Usually, a woman with a standard 28-day menstrual cycle will ovulate around day 15, which would also be the last day of a six-day fertile window. While most reliably predicted the day of ovulation, only four provided the correct fertile window, the Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Presbyterian Hospital study found. This suggested thousands of women are being wrongly informed about when they are most likely to conceive. Advertisement

The two phases are separated by an ovulation day - when a woman is at her most fertile - when the body's temperature rises between 0.2 and 0.45C.

The app, available in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store, works on the so-called 'rhythm method'.

It claims to be 93 per cent effective, despite most of these methods having a failure rate of around 25 per cent.

'There is always a risk'

Professor Adam Balen, spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), told MailOnline of his concern.

He said: 'Fertility apps can be helpful when planning a pregnancy, however, there is always a risk of conception with any device that does not prevent the release of an egg or prevent the sperm from reaching the egg.

'Apps that monitor the menstrual cycle are fallible as women don't always ovulate predictably every month and even those with very regular cycles can sometimes have occasional months where ovulation doesn't occur when expected.'

Evidence it works

A trial of the app found that just five women in every 1,000 experience an accidental pregnancy within a year of using it.

This is compared three in every 1,000 for the Pill, researchers wrote in the European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care.

The result means women can potentially avoid unwanted pregnancies, while also side-stepping the unwanted side-effects of traditional medicine.

There are more than 250 versions of menstruation apps available, and they are booming in popularity.

Natural Cycles was founded in Switzerland but now based in Sweden. Its co-founder Dr Raoul Scherwitzl said: 'I urge any healthcare professional to read our research and get in touch with us in order for them to be able to make informed statements.

'DeNicola is clearly unaware of our recent research and it can be dangerous for society to scare people from using approved methods of contraception.

'Informing women and men about pros and cons of various approved contraceptive methods based on scientific facts are essential for society.'
Taking up Tai Chi can prevent falls that lead to fractures and broken bones in the elderly, new research suggests.

The ancient Chinese practice slashes the risk of pensioners having a tumble by 43 per cent, compared to other interventions

Used for more than 1,000 years, it combines deep breathing and slow and gentle movements to boost muscle health.

In recent years it has been touted as an effective exercise to improve balance and flexibility in the elderly, to stop their deadly falls.

Now Spanish researchers have found the practice could offer a simple and holistic way to prevent injuries in those at risk of losing their balance.

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The ancient Chinese practice slashes the risk of pensioners having a tumble by 43 per cent, compared to other interventions

The primary cause of traumatic death

Study author Professor Rafael Lomas-Vega, of the University of Jaen, said: 'Falls are the primary cause of traumatic death in older adults.

'They generate a great burden in the public health system due to the associated comorbidities in falling subjects.

'It is well-established that exercise and multi-factorial intervention programmes reduce falls in community-dwelling older adults.

'Particularly, home based exercise programmes have been reported to reduce the rate and risk of falls.'

'Tai Chi may be recommended'

He added: 'Tai Chi is an ancient Chinese practice focused on flexibility and whole body coordination.

'It has been reported that Tai Chi is an effective exercise to improve balance-control and flexibility in older adults, suggesting a protective role against falls.'

'Tai Chi practice may be recommended to prevent falls in at-risk adults and older adults, especially over the short term.'

How was the study carried out?

For the study, researchers looked at 10 randomised controlled trials of nearly 3,000 people in Tai Chi.

TAI CHI TO TREAT DEPRESSION Taking part in Tai Chi could combat depression, Massachusetts General Hospital research claimed in May. Attending classes in the Chinese martial art for 12 weeks significantly reduced symptoms of the blues. It can work independently of treatment, suggesting it can scupper the need for an antidepressant prescription, the small study showed. The findings held promise amid soaring rates of depression worldwide, with drugs and therapy often proving ineffective. The meditative practice, which has been used for more than 1,000 years, combines deep breathing and slow and gentle movements. Advertisement

They were between the ages of 56 and 98, and took part in either one hourly session each week or three.

There was some evidence Tai Chi reduced risk of a fall by 50 per cent over the short term and by 28 per cent over the long term.

But it did not seem to influence when an older or at-risk adult was likely to have their first fall, the study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed.

Researchers warned that further research is needed to investigate the effect of Tai Chi in slashing the risk of falls.

Deadly falls

Figures estimate that one in three over 65s living at home will have at least one fall a year, and half of these will suffer more frequently.

They are more likely to have a fall if they have balance issues and muscle weakness, poor vision and a chronic health condition.

Falls among elderly people have become the most common cause of major trauma seen in NHS hospitals, a national audit showed.

Hip fractures

The real danger from a fall is a hip fracture  around 700,000 people mainly women are admitted to hospital each year for surgery to mend a broken hip bone.

One in ten dies within four weeks of their hip fracture, with many more dying within a year.

Many of those who do survive never regain their independence, or struggle to return to the same activities or hobbies.
Hypochondriacs are often told they will worry themselves into an early grave.

But there's good news at last as scientists have found they have a lower risk of dying.

Generally, people with neuroticism  who have higher than average feelings of anxiety  had a higher mortality rate, the study found.

But those who rated their health the poorest  in other words were the hypochondriac types  had a lower risk of dying.

It is thought 'the healthy neuroticists' take better care of their health and seek medical advice more often.

'Our findings are important because they suggest that being high in neuroticism may sometimes have a protective effect, perhaps by making people more vigilant about their health,' says lead researcher Professor Catharine Gale.

Neurotics who worry about their health may live a healthier lifestyle and seek medical advice every time they think something is wrong (file)

Neuroticism is characterised by emotional instability, sadness, low self-esteem, anger, anxiety, feelings of guilt, and frustration.

It has been linked to hostility, depression, and excessive drinking and smoking.

But a 2012 study discovered neurotics displayed lower levels of a biomarker for inflammation and chronic disease  again because they may be more health conscientious.

NEUROTICS HAVE LOWER LEVELS OF INFLAMMATION A previous study has found physical evidence that neurotic traits could be good for your health. With the personality trait usually linked to negative health effects, researchers assumed that neurotics would display the highest levels of a biomarker for inflammation and chronic disease. However, they were surprised to find they displayed the lowest levels. Study leader Dr Nicholas Turiano, from the University of Rochester Medical Center, said the result suggested there are a large number of people who are both neurotic and conscientious. He said: 'These people are likely to weigh the consequences of their actions, and therefore their level of neuroticism coupled with conscientiousness probably stops them from engaging in risky behaviors.' In 2012, Turiano and co-authors tapped into the National Survey of Midlife Development in the U.S. (MIDUS) database, a sampling of just over 1,000 adults to reach their findings. Advertisement

Key findings

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh studied UK Biobank data collected from more 500,000 people aged 37 to 73 in the UK.

They hypothesized that the relationship between neuroticism and risk of death may depend on how people rate their health.

Participants completed a personality questionnaire and answered whether they thought they were in excellent, good, fair, or poor health overall.

The data showed that mortality was higher among participants with higher levels of neuroticism.

However, when the team adjusted for participants' self-rated health, they found higher neuroticism was linked with lower risk of death.

'When we explored this further, we found that this protective effect was only present in people who rated their health as fair or poor,' explained Professor Gale.

'We also found that people who scored highly on one aspect of neuroticism related to worry and vulnerability had a reduced risk of death regardless of how they rated their health.

'We had thought that greater worry or vulnerability might lead people to behave in a healthier way and hence lower their risk of death, but that was not the case.'

The researchers plan to further investigate why worry and vulnerability may have specific protective effects.

The research was published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Children whose parents get divorced are more likely to be obese in later life, a new study warns.

Psychologists at Florida State University investigated how unpredictable childhood experiences - such as violence, divisions, and moving house - affects their weight.

Divorce was one of the biggest triggers that caused young people to over-eat when they reached adulthood.

The researchers said they believe such upsetting events cause children to focus too much on the short-term, since they fear planning for the future or investing their hopes in long-term goals.

These children grow up to 'live for the now', psychology professor Jon Maner says. They tend to have kids at an earlier age, spend money instead of saving, and seek immediate gratification from food.

Psychologists at Florida State University investigated how unpredictable childhood experiences - such as violence, divisions, and moving house - affects their weight

'Experiencing an unpredictable environment in childhood sensitizes people to the idea that it's difficult to plan for the future because if you don't know what's around the next corner, you live for the now,' lead researcher Professor Jon Maner said.

'They end up focusing on short-term rather than long-term goals and they're not good at delaying gratification.'

Previous studies have confirmed a clear link between low socioeconomic status and obesity.

However, no research has clearly identified the root causes of the problem.

Most published work has concluded that stress in general can lead to a variety of negative outcomes for children in later life.

To try to reach a clearer conclusion, Professor Maner used a well-established barometer from behavioral science called Life History Theory.

The method has been used to predict a wide range of behaviors - from parenting skills to being financially literate.

But it has never been used to study one's likelihood of being obese or overeating.

Life History Theory is rooted in the idea that people have a limited amount of reproductive energy in their lives, and the way they use that energy is influenced by the amount of structure they experience during childhood.

Unpredictable childhoods can cause a 'fast-life-history strategy' for adults, Professor Maner said.

In contrast, predictable childhoods tend to teach that planning for the future is good, and that mindset results in a 'slow-life-history strategy.'

As adults, they form long-term goals; they often have children at an older age; they are more likely to invest in education and save money for retirement.

'If you don't know where the next meal is coming from, it would make sense to eat what you can now,' Professor Maner said.

'But people with a slow-life-history strategy feel the future is more certain, and they intuitively know where their next meal will come from. They are inclined to listen to their body and eat based on their current needs.'

Our research suggests it's not just about reducing stress, it's more about creating structure and predictability for children Professor Jon Maner, Florida State University

More than one-third of American adults and 17 percent of youth, aged between two and 19, are obese, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency calls obesity a serious, costly problem that causes heart disease, stroke, cancer, liver disease, type 2 diabetes and other health issues. Professor Maner said those negative effects create urgency for researchers and health professionals to identify the behavioral factors causing obesity.

One of the main goals of Professor Maner's research is to identify ways to prevent obesity. While past research vaguely encouraged families to reduce stress without suggesting clear tips on how to make that happen, Professor Maner said his research points toward some potentially valuable prevention ideas.

'Our research suggests it's not just about reducing stress, it's more about creating structure and predictability for children,' Professor Maner said.

'For example, have family meals at the same time each night or bedtime rituals every day. Routines teach children to have expectations that, when met, result in a sense of certainty and structure. Theoretically, that feeling of predictability instills a slower-life-history strategy, which may reduce obesity in adulthood.'
Anyone whos tried to get an appointment with their GP lately will know there arent enough family doctors to go round.

The average wait to see a GP is now 13 days, according to a survey by Pulse, the GP magazine, and last week the NHS announced it will recruit an extra 2,000 GPs from overseas to help make up the shortfall.

But its not only GPs who are thin on the ground. Many vital specialties, including paediatrics, emergency medicine and mental health, are struggling with severe staff shortages.

There are currently 200 vacancies for paediatric doctors across the NHS, including 133 consultants  but, in fact, 752 more consultants above the 133 are needed to meet recommendations from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

In fact, as we reveal here, the NHS shortfall could run to thousands of doctors  and this has very real consequences for patients, from children waiting six months or longer just to see a paediatrician to potentially life-threatening conditions being missed in A&E.

Although there is a chronic shortage of senior consultants  the top rank of hospital doctors  the problem starts with junior doctors, who are in training as the next generation of specialists.

The number of junior doctors in England applying to start training in key hospital-based specialities has dropped 8 per cent in three years  a new low  according to figures published last year by Health Education England (HEE). They are going into non-training roles, research roles or leaving for higher pay, and less stress, in Australia.

But this is not just a new crisis of struggling to fill advertised posts: specialties such as allergy and dermatology say they have long been under-prioritised, with the number of jobs allocated in those areas falling far short for the number of patients.

So at least part of the problem lies with planning. Every year, the individual NHS Trusts, informed by clinicians and professional bodies, produce annual workforce plans to meet the needs of their patients. They send these figures to HEE, which then calculates the number of training places for each specialty.

But because it takes at least three years to train a nurse and twice that to train a GP or hospital doctor, the trusts need to forecast future patient demand.

HEE can get it wrong, too. It is difficult to get planning perfect for every one of 50 or 60 specialties all of the time, says Dr Mark Porter, immediate past chair of the British Medical Association.

Shortages are wide ranging. The Royal College of Anaesthetists has warned that operations could be delayed or patient safety threatened as there arent enough anaesthetists to meet demand.

The NHS has agreed that by 2033 there should be 11,800 anaesthetists, which means as of now we need 300 more a year  but the college says just 130 a year have been added.

There are also shortages of junior doctors choosing to specialise in cardiology, haematology and respiratory medicine. And a chronic lack of neurosurgeons has led to this specialty having the worst patient-waiting times. Here, we identify some of the key areas where the number of specialists is falling short  and what it means for you.

MISSING 2,443 A&E DOCTORS

A war zone is how A&E departments have been described, as the demands of a growing and ageing population, combined with a lack of social care provision and inadequate out-of-hours GP services have seen ever more people turning up.

Just how bad things are can be seen in this extraordinary figure: we need at least 50 per cent more A&E doctors to cope with current demand, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, who are calling for an extra 2,200 emergency medicine consultants in England alone.

Last year, HEE proposed an extra 58 training posts  well below what the college says are needed. However, hospitals cant even fill current posts. Data obtained from more than 100 trusts and health boards showed 243 vacancies for consultants in emergency medicine in England and Wales and Northern Ireland out of a total 2,209 available.

A war zone is how A&E departments have been described, as the demands of a growing and ageing population, combined with a lack of social care provision and inadequate out-of-hours GP services have seen ever more people turning up

Why is there a shortage?

A&E doctors work long, unsociable hours often in highly stressful situations and the specialty is struggling to attract junior doctors.

As Dr Taj Hassan, President of the Royal College, says, doctors are overstretched and working to the very limits of their abilities to provide safe, compassionate care  this is leading to burnout and doctors leaving the profession, creating a vicious circle.

In 2015 it was reported that 600 A&E consultants and trainees had left to work overseas over the previous five years.

What it means for you

Longer waiting times. Four-hour waiting limits are increasingly a thing of the past, with an investigation last November revealing a 60 per cent rise in delays in a two-year period, with some patients waiting up to nine hours in an ambulance before they are seen.

And chances are you will not see a consultant, but a junior doctor. And juniors may not always have the experience to deal with complex cases or recognise symptoms such as appendicitis  which can be life-threatening.

A junior doctor is left in charge for 40 per cent of the time, according to a 2016 audit of hospital trusts in England. In some units, a junior doctor with just one years clinical practice since leaving medical school is the most senior person on duty.

Research published in January suggests more than ten avoidable patient deaths a year are linked to overcrowded A&E departments because of the overstretched system. Dr Hassan says: Most doctors will agree that our services at a senior level are stretched to their very limits and safety is compromised as a result.

MISSING 335 ALLERGISTS

There are only around 40 allergy specialists in the UK: if we were to match the proportion of allergists in Germany, we would need 375. Consider this: there is just one consultant allergist per 2 million people in the UK, according to the charity Allergy UK.

And yet allergies of all types, including food allergies, are on the rise and NHS allergy services are unable to keep up, says Dr George Du Toit, paediatric allergy consultant at St Thomas Hospital and Kings College London.

One in 30 children now suffers from a potentially life-threatening peanut allergy and it is estimated that 44 per cent of adults have at least one allergy.

Despite the shortfall, for 2016/17 HEE said there should be no additional training places in this specialty  keeping the number of places at 12.

There are only around 40 allergy specialists in the UK: if we were to match the proportion of allergists in Germany, we would need 375

Why is there a shortage?

Multiple studies have found that funding is woefully poor  the problem is allergies are not regarded as a serious condition, despite the fact that food allergies can be life threatening. Its also a relatively new specialty, which has gained prominence only in the past few decades as allergy has reached epidemic proportions.

What it means for you

Few people are referred to specialists, even those at risk of life-threatening anaphylaxis. Theres been a 615 per cent increase in the rate of hospital admissions for anaphylaxis between 1992 and 2012.

Provision of allergy services is patchy, so many have to travel long distances to see a consultant in one of the few clinics where they work. As a result, it is usually GPs who diagnose and treat most people with allergies.

The lack of specialists means a risk of having an allergy misdiagnosed, says Dr Adam Fox, a consultant allergist at Guys and St Thomas Hospital Trust in London.

He often sees children referred at a very late stage. I look at them and think, my goodness, they should have been here years ago. They come in with multiple allergies, which have affected their lives. And allergies which are poorly controlled can be dangerous.

MISSING 1,350 PSYCHIATRISTS

There are currently around 100 vacant consultant posts  around 6 per cent of the total  and only 70-80 per cent of training places for junior doctors to be psychiatrists are filled, says the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

In fact, the NHS needs 250 more child psychiatrists and 1,000 adult psychiatrists to meet a five-year plan set out by NHS England, explains Professor Sir Simon Wessely, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

But HEE has allowed for just three further training posts in both specialties in England  hardly putting a dent in the shortfall.

There are currently around 100 vacant consultant posts  around 6 per cent of the total  and only 70-80 per cent of training places for junior doctors to be psychiatrists are filled, says the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Why is there a shortage?

Professor Wessely says poor recruitment is partly down to old- fashioned attitudes: I have heard people say to medical students, you are too good a doctor to be a psychiatrist.

However, recent reforms that require medical students to take on psychiatric jobs as part of their training should help recruitment.

What it means for you

You might not get any treatment at all  just under half of people referred to a mental health specialist by their GP never get treated, according to a 2014 report by the NHSs Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Children with mental health problems, including eating disorders and self-harm, are already waiting up to three years for treatment.

MISSING 952 PAEDIATRICIANS

There are currently 200 vacancies for paediatric doctors across the NHS, including 133 consultants  but, in fact, 752 more consultants above the 133 are needed to meet recommendations from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

Many childrens wards are on the brink of collapse owing to doctor vacancies, a new report by the college found, with nearly a fifth of all posts for paediatric doctors currently unfilled.

According to latest official data, there are 3,219 paediatric doctors in NHS hospitals altogether. HEE recommended one extra training post in paediatric and perinatal pathology, making 14 in total, 41 training posts in paediatric cardiology, the same as the year before, and 92 posts in paediatric surgery  down two from the year before. So despite the shortages, there will actually be one fewer training post overall than last year.

Why is there a shortage?

One issue is that female doctors  who increasingly dominate paediatrics at the junior end  are more likely to go on maternity leave or opt to work part-time, suggests the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

Women represent 52 per cent of the consultants, but 74 per cent of the trainee paediatric workforce as younger women choose this option. Around one third of female consultant paediatricians work less than full-time, compared to 9 per cent of male consultants.

Brexit is also having an impact because of confusion around employment status of non-UK nationals, according to the Royal College: 40 per cent of qualified paediatricians gained their first qualification outside the UK.

What it means for you

Fewer childrens wards open, for a start. Around one third of the UKs 195 trusts and health boards temporarily closed childrens wards owing to staff shortages in 2015, according to the Royal College.

And those waiting for non-urgent treatment may face longer waits  six months or more to get an appointment for a tonsillectomy with a paediatrician after being referred by a GP.

Im worried about the wellbeing of patients today, says Professor Neena Modi, the colleges president and a professor of neonatal medicine at Imperial College London.

When resources are insufficient, hard decisions have to be made and those who have the most urgent need will be seen first. But children with less urgent problems could be forced to wait even longer.

MISSING 400 DERMATOLOGISTS

As many as a quarter of the 800 dermatologist posts have not been filled, says the British Association of Dermatologists.

Even filling these would mean we dont have enough dermatologists  we need another 200 on top of what weve got, according to the Royal College of Physicians (it recommends one full-time consultant per 62,500 of the population, a target which in dermatology is not achieved in any region in Britain). Were still way behind other countries: for instance France has one full time consultant for every 120,000 people compared with one per every 200,000 in the UK.

As many as a quarter of the 800 dermatologist posts have not been filled, says the British Association of Dermatologists

Why is there a shortage?

There are two problems  a government failure to plan for the numbers needed, and a botched restructure, says Dr David Eedy, president of the British Association of Dermatologists.

Introduced in 2007, this aimed to move medical facilities closer to where people live  dermatology moved to GPs with a special interest in it and away from consultant-led teams in hospitals.

Dr Eedy says there arent enough dermatology trainees coming through to replace retiring staff and with the significant rise in skin cancer cases  up 400 per cent over the past 35 years  demand is increasing.

What it means for you

In some parts of the UK its now almost impossible to see a dermatologist on the NHS. London is relatively well catered for, but the North East and the South East coast have just 0.69 and 0.64 full-time consultants per 100,000 population. In England, waits of four or five months for referrals for severe acne are common  only consultant dermatologists can prescribe treatments such as Roaccutane.

Dr Tamara Griffiths, a consultant dermatologist at Salford Royal NHS Trust, says this means many people who need help are not getting it. The real issue with skin disease is that it may not be life threatening, but can be life ruining.

Worryingly, a study by the University of Manchester last year found that more than a third of children and young people who committed suicide between January 2014 and April 2015, had a physical health problem, the most common being acne.

GPs also may be less knowledgeable about the early appearance of potentially deadly skin cancers, too. A report from the National Cancer Intelligence Network last year found GPs failed to refer almost one in three patients with malignant melanoma for urgent tests. Early diagnosis is critical as its treatable in the initial stages.

MISSING 1,000 OBSTETRICIANS & GYNAECOLOGISTS

There are currently 5,500 obstetricians and gynaecologists in the NHS, according to the Department of Health, including 2,000 consultants. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists carried out a recent survey of their workforce and found a shortfall in trainees on staff rotas of at least 30 per cent of the time. The estimated shortfall in the specialty is around 1,000 doctors. However, last year, HEE actually reduced the number of obstetrics and gynaecology trainees from 1,724 to 1,719.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists carried out a recent survey of their workforce and found a shortfall in trainees on staff rotas of at least 30 per cent of the time

Why is there a shortage?

This is a specialty increasingly dominated by female doctors, according to Professor Mary Ann Lumsden, vice president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. About 80 per cent of trainees are female, leading to a high rate of maternity leave, she says.

But demand is growing: a recent baby boom, coupled with a trend towards women having babies later in life has increased complications in childbirth, as has obesity.

One in five doctors in this speciality leaves training before they complete it, but senior doctors are also leaving. The heavy toll of night shifts, anti-social hours and increased litigation against doctors has also increased burnout, says Dr Clare Gerada, former Chair of the Royal College of GPs.

How this affects you

Women are already having to travel longer distances to get the specialist gynaecological care they need to deal with common complaints like fibroids and cysts, says Mike Bowen, a consultant gynaecologist who has worked in the NHS and now works privately in Oxford and London.

Mums-to-be with high-risk pregnancies may also have to travel long distances and make sure they get to a centre in time for help from specialist obstetricians.

Studies show that stillbirths and neonatal deaths rise if mothers are forced to travel long distances. In fact, a 2011 study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found risks started rising if a woman had to travel just 20 minutes or more by car to a hospital while in labour.
Women damaged by surgical mesh used to treat post-childbirth incontinence have reacted with fury to a Government report investigating the problem.

At least 7,800 women say theyve suffered lacerations and nerve damage because the mesh has broken into tiny fragments.

The report, which is unpublished but has been seen by Good Health, is the result of a three-year investigation by NHS England. It confirms that many more women have complained of injuries than previously suggested and calls for a helpline to support victims.

At least 7,800 women say theyve suffered lacerations and nerve damage because the mesh (pictured) has broken into tiny fragments

But it did not look at the safety of the mesh and rejects calls for a ban. Instead, it says hospitals should ensure that surgeons be trained to implant it; at the moment any gynaecologist can perform the procedure.

The report stops short of demanding a register of all implant operations, which injured women had called for, but suggests women use the yellow card reporting system, used by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), where patients and doctors can report reactions to treatments.

More independent rigour [needs to be] brought to discussions, says the report.

Campaigners are furious about the reports tenor and findings.

All the doctors Ive seen think this material should be banned, says Teresa Hughes, 66, who has been battling for recognition of the injuries she suffered after she had the mesh implanted in 2006.

At least 7,800 women say theyve suffered lacerations and nerve damage because the mesh has broken into tiny fragments

We wanted a proper register of how many meshes were implanted, how many were removed and mandatory reporting of problems to get a scale of the problem.

This inquiry and the way we have been dealt with has been utterly disgraceful, and whitewash is the only word for this report.

Teresa, a former auditor and mother of two from St Helens, Lancashire, has had surgery to retrieve the mesh shards that penetrated her bladder, urethra and surrounding tissues.

A lot of it is still there, she says. I can hardly walk because of nerve damage. I have pains shooting down my legs. There are so many women like me, yet surgeons continue to use this stuff.

Teresa is one of seven representatives from victims groups invited to give evidence to the NHS-led Mesh Oversight Group, which produced the new report. The year after the group was formed in July 2014, the representatives and a number of doctors involved stopped receiving invitations to meetings and received no further communication from the group.

The mesh, introduced 20 years ago, was promoted as a quick, cheap alternative to complex surgery for incontinence and which did not require specialist training to implant. More than 10,000 women a year have the mesh procedure. This week the MHRA insisted the mesh is safe, despite its use being recently suspended in Scotland, pending a review of a review of the safety concerns.

Suzy Elneil, a urogynaecologist who specialises in removing mesh fragments, was invited to join the inquiry but was dropped from the committee 18 months ago.

I had no idea until now the meetings were even continuing, she told Good Health. I think they [the NHS and the MHRA] think this is a problem that will go away.

They insist the complications are only 1 to 3 per cent, but thats ignoring data showing complications averaging up to 40 per cent in some studies.

Kath Sansom, of the campaign group Sling the Mesh, said she had questioned the complication rate cited by the Department of Health. They ignored their own evidence showing 14 to 15 per cent of women couldnt have sex after having this tape inserted.

Meanwhile campaigners have raised questions about potential conflicts of interest affecting the Mesh Oversight Group.

A database of implants run via the British Society of Urogynaecology who have been involved in the inquiry, was funded by manufacturers and was reported to have recorded only 27 per cent of operations.

British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) events also receive funding from manufacturers and Roland Morley, a former BAUS chairman who has been on the Mesh Oversight Group, has had research funded by mesh manufacturers.

I make every effort not to be influenced, he said. I have never knowingly been influenced in the use of any surgical appliance.

Campaigners believe fear of litigation means the NHS will be reluctant to take further action.

Catherine Lee, 43, a former university lecturer from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, is disabled following a mesh operation a year after the birth of her son Charlie, now nine. Last week she received 375,000 compensation from Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, the first in the country to receive such a payout.

Suzy Elneil believes this will open the floodgates for more claims: Even if the NHS delays the litigation by continuing to deny theres a problem, the claims are still going to come in.
The headline of an article on July 8 reporting passengers concerns about Ryanairs seating policy said that the airline forces children aged three to sit apart from their parents. Ryanair has asked us to make clear that, while a 4/4 payment is required for families to sit together, children under 12 are allocated free-of-charge, reserved seats to ensure that families are not separated. Ryanair informs us that it has never been their policy to separate families from their children and that it now requires under-12s to sit with an adult. We are happy to set the record straight.

If you wish to report an inaccuracy, please email corrections@dailymail.co.uk. To make a formal complaint under IPSO rules go to www. dailymail.co.uk/readerseditor. You can also write to Readers Editor, Daily Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or contact IPSO directly at ipso.co.uk
In February 2002, some of the worst communal riots in India's history erupted in Gujarat - and survivors of the bloody clashes are still suffering the consequences.

More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the violence which saw mobs rampaging the city for days - burning houses, looting shops, raping women and killing men, women and children.

S hahjahan Bano was a young boy selling vegetables with his mother in a market in Ahmedabad, back then. They hid in the market during the first night of rioting and were taken to a relief camp the next day where other Muslims huddled, awaiting news of their families and homes.

An Bajranj Dal activist armed with a iron stick shouting slogans against muslims, burning muslim shops and attacking residences in Sahapur, Ahmedabad February 2002

It was a month before Bano was reunited with other family members - and eight months before they could leave the camp.

They moved into what they thought would be a temporary home in Citizen Nagar, an enclave of 116 modest homes, built quickly by a Muslim charity for some of the displaced families.

But 15 years on, Bano and his family still live there, spilling out of their two-room home in a fly-infested neighbourhood flanked by a large, smoking landfill.

A Hindu mob waving swords at an opposing Muslim mob during communal riots in Ahmedabad in 2002

'We lost everything in the riots,' said Bano, 23, a lanky young man, staring into the distance.

'We are very grateful for this house, but we die a little everyday here: the smoke, the smell, the rubbish, the lack of facilities. We have thought about moving, but where can we go?'

The riots displaced about 200,000 people in the state, mostly Muslims. Some returned to their homes, while others found new accommodation in mainly Muslim neighbourhoods.

Ahmedabad resident Jaiwantiben watching a wood market burning after it was set ablase by Muslims that fled the Lathi bazar area in Ahmedabad

Muslim charities resettled about 17,000 people in 80 colonies across Gujarat, among India's wealthiest states.

Fifteen of these colonies are in Ahmedabad. Every family in these colonies lost family, homes, possessions or businesses in the riots, which led to greater segregation and marginalisation.

'The state has done very little to resettle the victims,' said Shamshad Pathan, a lawyer who has represented some victims in their fight for more compensation from the government.

A train coach and belongings of Hindu activists at Godhra Railway Station burnt in the riots, some 200 kms from Ahmedabad

'Today, Ahmedabad is a segregated city: you will not find many buildings or neighbourhoods where Hindus and Muslims live together. Muslims are forced to live in ghettos, excluded from the development of the rest of the city and state,' he said.

Nearly 800,000 people have been displaced by conflict and violence in India, according to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. The data is not specific to communal violence.

Muslims displaced by communal violence are often too fearful to return to their homes, and have asked the government to relocate them.

Indian state police watch a Muslim owned shop burn March 1, 2002 in Ahmadabad

But government officials say that would promote division rather than unity between Muslims and Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of India's population.

But informal rules and deep-rooted biases are eroding the multi-cultural nature of India's cities and dividing communities into ghettos, analysts say.

Horrific as the Gujarat riots were, they were not solely responsible for the segregation in the state.

A property law unique to Gujarat, the birthplace of India's founding father Mahatma Gandhi, helped create ghettos and a sense of apartheid in its urban areas well before 2002.

A mob of Hindus wielding swords and sticks back off after Indian Rapid Reaction Force officers stopped them from attacking a small group of Muslims March 1, 2002 in Ahmadabad

The 'Disturbed Areas Act' (1991), a law that restricts Muslims and Hindus from selling property to each other in 'sensitive' areas, was meant to avert an exodus or distress sales in neighbourhoods hit by inter-religious unrest.

The state, headed at the time by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, amended the law in 2009 to give local officials more power in property sales.

The RIOTS and wrongs of Narendra Modi: The 2002 Gujarat riots The Gujarat riots in 2001 were a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. As a leader from the Hindu right-wing party BJP and a former member of its Hindu paramilitary wing the RSS, the Chief Minister of Gujarat at that time (and now current Prime Minister) Narendra Modi, has been accused of initiating and condoning the violence. Police and government officials allegedly directed the rioters and gave lists of Muslim-owned properties to attack. According to official figures, the riots resulted in the deaths of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus; 2,500 people were injured non-fatally, and 223 more were reported missing. Other sources estimate that over 2000 people died. There were instances of children being burned alive, mass rape and widespread looting and destruction of property. The violence started after the burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims karsevaks returning from Ayodhya. The United States Department of State ultimately banned Narendra Modi from traveling to the United States due to his alleged role in the attacks. It is alleged that Modi did little to quell the violence, with attacks continuing well through the Spring. Modi's state government were accused of 'organized political massacres' Advertisement

It also extended the reach of the law, saying it was doing so to protect Muslims, who make up about 10 percent of the state's 63 million people.

But critics say the act's enforcement and the addition of new districts under it - about 40 percent of Ahmedabad is governed by the law - means it is being applied as a tool of social engineering.

'It is state sanctioned segregation,' said Pathan.

'As a result, Muslims are confined to the filthiest corners, with no hope of upliftment. Development and progress are for everyone else in the state, but not for Muslims,' he said.

The division is so marked that Juhapura, a teeming township in Ahmedabad of about 400,000 people, many who moved there after the 2002 riots, is referred to by local Hindus as 'Little Pakistan'.

Conditions there and in other Muslim settlements in Ahmedabad, Gujarat's largest city, are similar: residents lack proper roads, streetlights, adequate drinking water, sewage pipes, and access to public clinics and schools.

They also do not own the small homes they live in, whose title deeds are with the charities that built them.

'They don't own their homes, they can't live anywhere else; they are just forgotten here,' said Rasidaben Abdul Sheikh of the Adhikar Prapti Kendra charity that works with riot victims.

'After 15 years, their difficulties are no less. Maybe they feel a bit more secure because they are living with their own people, but in many ways they are worse off,' she said.

Elsewhere in Gujarat, which has among the most slums in the country, officials are backing residents as they upgrade and redevelop their settlements, but not here.

Calls to the state social welfare department were not returned.

The federal government, in response to petitions, said it has given Gujarat about 4.3 billion rupees ($6.7 million) to compensate victims, including for residential and commercial losses.

Victims say the compensation was not enough to buy new homes.

There's little evidence of that money in Mehtab Colony, another Muslim settlement of 16 houses for riot victims. Piles of rubbish lie in the open courtyard where stray dogs scavenge.

'We used to live in a neighbourhood with Hindus, but we never went back to our home,' said Razia Aseembhai Kedawala, standing outside her one-room home.

'This is where we have lived for 15 years. Perhaps we will live here always; we have nowhere else to go.'
A sweeping search by an India Today TV team that travelled all the way to Iraq's Badush village found no signs of 39 Indians who were believed to be captive at an ISIS prison in the violence-racked region.

And the only Indian known to have escaped the terrorist group's clutches from the area has reiterated a dark possibility.

By some accounts, these abducted people were construction workers from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal who were captured from the University Lake Towers of Iraq's Mosul city on June 11, 2014.

Harjit Masih says he is the lone survivor among 40 Indians taken by ISIS in the abduction

Out of 40 labourers, one managed to flee and contact the Indian embassy, paving the way for his safe return.

India Today TV set out to meet Harjit Masih, who claims ISIS terrorists abducted him and the other Indians and executed them near Badush deserts on June 15, 2014, while he escaped.

From Mosul, Harjit managed to reach the Erbil border, where he was picked up by representatives of the Indian consulate. He is now living a tough life after his return to Kala Afghana village in Punjab's Gurdaspur district.

India Today TV travelled to the outskirts of Mosul and found that the jail, where the prisoners were said to be being held captive, had been completely destroyed

'I hope and pray that they (the missing Indians) are alive and I am proven wrong...but I am telling the truth...I saw it by my own eyes...How can I lie?' he said.

Harjit claims that he survived as a bullet only grazed his body. But, he feigned being dead and fled after the shooters had gone.

India Today TV's investigation suggests that there could be three possibilities.

The construction workers might have been killed as Harjit Masih claimed. Or the 39 missing Indians may be, as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has suggested, in Badush jail under ISIS captivity. The third possibility is that they are still working somewhere as bonded labourers under Islamic State as some reports suggest that they were sighted near a church.

A third possibility is said to be that they are still working somewhere as bonded labourers under Islamic State (picture for representation only)

'They are blaming me for the missing 39 Indians...I have been booked by police...My life has become hell...Is it my fault that I managed to escape?' Harjit said. 'Sometimes I think I should have also died.'

The government had contradicted Harjit's version of the incident. He was later identified as the alleged agent who took the workers to Iraq. The kin of the missing Indians filed a case against him and he spent a few months in jail.

To refute Harjit's claim, Swaraj had said as many as 'six sources' confirmed that the 39 missing Indians were alive. She met the family members of the abducted people this month and gave assurance.

'I have repeated it so many times. They took us in a container-like truck. We were lined up and shot from behind. I was the only survivor. I called names of my friends but nobody replied... they were all dead. Around that area I saw many bodies rotting,' Harjit said.

About 6,000 Indians live in Erbil and at the beginning of the conflict 22,000 lived in Iraq.

As with other parts of West Asia, Indians go to Iraq looking for work in construction, oil refineries, marketing and as engineers. The region provides India with a high amount in remittances and livelihood.

AMIT SHAH: SEARCH CONTINUES BJP president Amit Shah said search operation for the missing Indians is underway.

The families of the missing people are likely to come to Delhi in next few days, demanding answers from the Union government.

Singh Bajwa accused External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj of misleading the nation by saying the 39 missing Indians were lodged in the destroyed jail.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal also said the information given in Parliament is misleading. He said: 'We should be concerned about whether they are alive or where they are. If the prison is not there, we should look into whether the MEA verified the information'.

MoS VK Singh has said that Iraq's national security advisor will provide information. Advertisement

After crossing 12-13 security checks and driving through endless destroyed and uninhabited homes, India Today TV reached Hamadiya, where Christians lived before ISIS arrived.

Brigadier Abdul Amin-al- Kazraji, in-charge of the famous golden division, told the reporter that he holds India in high regard but has no information on the missing people.

Brigadier Kazraji provided the India Today TV team with security to let it get to Badush prison while warning about the presence of sleeper cells in West Mosul.

The team finally reached close to the prison where another local group then facilitated it. The group of men led the India Today TV team to a path full of mines and they watched their steps carefully to reach the prison where, as per the intelligence information that Sushma Swaraj has received, the abducted Indians could possibly be.

However, the information is absolutely incorrect because the building, the team was told, was destroyed by Islamic State itself years ago and the area was liberated a few months ago by the counter-terrorism unit of Iraq.

What is left are the remnants of what was once a prison where ISIS had come to get some of their Islamist brothers released and in the process also ended up occupying Mosul.
A man was arrested after he allegedly began masturbating in public while looking at a German PhD student from Jawaharlal Nehru University, police said.

The 33-year-old woman chased the accused before taking pictures of his car as he fled the scene on Friday afternoon.

A case was registered under Indian Penal Code sections 294 and 509 after the doctorate scholar accused him of unzipping his trousers and masturbating while she was walking her dog in a public park.

The 33-year-old woman chased the accused before taking pictures of his car (picture for representation only)

The owner of the car, a Faridabad resident, was tracked down using its registration number.

The man said he had sold his car to a man, from Hodal village in Haryana. That's where the accused, Tarun Kumar, 32, was arrested.

'The woman provided us pictures of the registration number of the car and we tracked the owner before swooping in on the accused,' said Anil Kumar, investigating officer with Delhi Police.

Tarun had dropped off his employer's wife at a shopping complex before engaging in the indecent act, the officer said.

On Friday Tarun was produced before a court that sent him to judicial custody. The latest incident comes a week after a 22-year-old woman posted a video on social media of a man who masturbated in front of her and five other women while on a train in Mumbai.

A man was arrested after he allegedly began masturbating in public while looking at a German PhD student from Jawaharlal Nehru University, police said

She had to catch an early morning train from Mumbai's CST railway station when she saw a man masturbating looking at her. What's more shocking is that when she called a policeman posted at the railway station where the accused was present, he did nothing and asked the woman to sit somewhere else and left.

The woman filmed the entire incident and posted it on social media on July 12. As the post went viral, the cops immediately acted on the post and within six hours arrested the accused.

'The offence took place on June 29. The complainant has made a video. We did not call woman to police station. Based on the video itself we filed an FIR and started investigating the case. We have recorded her statement. And within six hours nabbed the accused, the accused is identified as Ashok Pradhan, a resident of Mahul Gaon in Chembur,' said a police officer.

According to police, with the help of the viral video and some CCTV footage they zeroed in on the accused. Few people working at the CST station identified the accused and immediately he was traced.

'The accused does odd jobs at railway station. In fact when our team reached to him, he did not even know that a case is registered against him for the offence,' said the officer.

The incident caused further outrage after the woman accused a police officer of refusing to take action against the voyeur following a complaint. The accused was eventually arrested.
No one can seriously claim that India has had a proper presidential election. Ram Nath Kovind's election was fixed.

That brings no honour to a nation that claims to be a democratic republic. The election was a non-starter because the votes were pre-determined.

If Meira Kumar provided a temporal moment which could provide the possibilities of a contested match, it was dashed into the ground by majority politics.

India's President elect Ram Nath Kovind greets people during a ceremony after his election

Constitution

India's imitative, but otherwise interesting constitutionalism, did not know what to create for future head of the Indian State.

Everything was copied: Federalism from the British Government of India Act 1935.

Parliamentary democracy was based on the British electoral model. Accountability was based on British Cabinet principles.

But the Commonwealth provided no clue about the President.

Britain's head of State is a self celebrated monarchy. Governor-Generals were appointed by Her Majesty. India has no such alternative.

Yum Yum! Prime Minister Narendra Modi offers a sweet to Ram Nath Kovind on being elected as the 14th President of India

I guess the Nehrus were the only royal family India had. The de-politicisation of the Nehrus could have taken place by Presidential office. I jest.

The contribution of the Nehrus to Indian politics has been considerable even though the thought of Rahul Gandhi as a Prime Minister seems anathema.

In May 1947, the Constituent Assembly mulled over the discretionary powers of the President which would remain despite the cabinet system.

But the President was carelessly discussed. There was discussion of even America's Presidential system. Now we know that in America a dimwit is less dangerous than a 'Trump'.

Ram Nath Kovind gestures before the media after being elected as the 14th President of India

In India, the reverse is the case, a manipulable dimwit is preferred by the politicians.

Anyhow, Ambedkar was clear in December 1948 that the President was 'the symbol of the nation... a ceremonial device on a seal by which the nations are known'.

Is that all? The thought occurs, and has been aired, why have him in the first place?

Anyhow, some figure was needed and the election was to be done by MPs (Parliament) and MLAs (Assemblies).

This meant that politics would decide how Presidents were to be elected and used. This could, as it has, make the Presidential election meaningless.

The first three Presidents (Rajendra Prasad, Radhakrishnan and Zakir Hussain) were every inch the ceremonial symbol required.

But Prasad did challenge the mighty Nehru on the Hindu Code. It does seem odd that Zakir Hussain allowed Mrs. Gandhi to impose President's rule after her electoral losses in the state elections of 1967 and after.

Perhaps that is why Mrs. Gandhi wanted Giri to be President. Although he was not the Congress nominee in 1969, she garnered support for him.

Fakruddin Ahmad let the nation down when he went along to sign subversive anti-democratic measures.

The Presidency had fallen in those Emergency years (1975-77) as had democracy itself.

Sanjiva Reddy was anti-Congress and anti-Indira, who thwarted him earlier.

Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards 31 October 1984 after the Indian army raided the Golden Temple, Sikhdom's holist shrine

Balance

Venkataraman and Narayanan maintained a 'yes-no' balance while acceding to Prime Minister pressures. Even Zail Singh put a 'no' to the Postal Bill.

By that time, the President's prestige had fallen. I lay less emphasis on Kalam even though he is credited to return some bills with advice.

He was the 'People's President' because he met some influential people who influenced the people. I give Patil more credit than she has been. Pranab exited Congress and was a bit of a martinet. He, too, succumbed to BJP government on President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

One can see that since 1966, the President's office has been an unprincipled office controlled by politics with limited areas of dignity and mortgaged discretion.

Kovind's election in July 2017 was a non-event after a small ideological competition between the 'right' and the 'left'.

He will be confined to the President's Palace with party whispers on how he should reign but not rule. Meira Kumar was put into the fray too late after Nitish had already succumbed to Kovind.

Meira would have given the office more, would have been more neutral and a greater credit to the office despite her political antecedents. Kovind is a Hindu ideologue.

Totally grateful to Prime Minister and Amit Shah to whom he will bend.

Elections by political caucus is a terrible idea. Individual electors should be allowed to vote according to conscience, not party diktat.

Nervous? Kovind's election in July 2017 was a non-event after a small ideological competition between the 'right' and the 'left'

Powers

As things stand, the President has interesting powers.

The Constitution gives him the right to access all government information (article 78), to remand matters (article 78 (3) and 74 (1)) for reconsideration, especially after post-Emergency changes to the constitution.

He can block President's rule and ordinances. He has a role in the appointment of governors. He is not a mere symbol but can be the powerful conscience keeper for the nation. This is why his post is important and should go beyond appointing stooges bereft of dignity.

Some years ago, an American (or French) style Presidency system was canvassed for India.

Indira Gandhi's son Rajiv, his wife Sonia, and their daughter Priyana watch the coffin of the slain Prime Minister during the cremation ceremony following her assassination

Leave aside America's crazy of system of Presidential election which gave the world Donald Trump - in my opinion, an evil man surrounded by evil. That system can generate huge conflicts between the legislature and the Presidency.

Such a system for India would be a mistake. But leaving that debate aside, we do need to rebuild the Indian presidency.

Noticeably, the 'people's discourse' was missing on the Kovind election. Cows got more coverage.

This high command Presidential nominee system has to give way to a better system. We have amended our Constitution for lesser reasons.

Our Constitution, along with a devalued Presidency, has been on drift for too long.
In what is once again another sickening reminder of the brutal 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder, a schoolgirl has been found dead under similar circumstances in Himachal Pradesh, India.

The five accused are suspected to have first brutally raped her and then dumped her body in a forest in Shimla after strangling her to death.

Though senior state police authorities are yet to make the post-mortem report public, the victim's family tell a tale of spine-chilling torture meted out to the girl.

ABVP activists burn the effigy of chief minister Virbhadra Singh during a protest and demanded justice for teenage school girl who was raped and murdered, in Shimla on Thursday

'There were cigarette burns on her body. She was bitten over the lips, cheek and breasts. A leg and an arm had fractures. She was subjected to inhuman treatment before being murdered,' the victim's uncle said.

Eyewitnesses said the victim, whose body was found two days after her disappearance on July 4, bore scratch marks on her back, which proves she was thrown inside a pit after being killed. There are also allegations that the post-mortem report finds very little mention of torture.

The victim's mother refused to buy the police theory and alleged that the actual perpetrators are roaming free and police are trying to hush up the case by falsely arresting five labourers.

Demonstrators march along a street during a Shimla Nagrik Sabha rally against the rape and murder of a teenage girl, in Kotkhai, Shimla

She said: 'The accused are roaming free. Police have failed to arrest the actual perpetrators. They first said it was a high profile case. But when people mounted pressure, they arrested four labourers and a local, that too after 10 days.

'Had it been a high profile case, then why did it take 10 days to arrest two Nepalese and two Uttarakhand labourers. Were these labourers waiting for their arrest? This clearly shows police are hiding something.'

Meanwhile, three CBI teams reached Shimla on Sunday to probe the case, and also the custodial death of one of the accused. The minor's family has refused to accept the police theory and hopes that the CBI will do justice to the victim.

The mother continued: 'We fear police may destroy evidence. We trust the CBI which is a national agency to bring the truth forward. It's almost 20 days and police have failed to arrest the actual offenders.

'Those arrested are also not safe. This shows that police are trying to hide something. Those arrested are not the ones whose photos were released on social media. This is why we demand a CBI probe, so that they do not spoil the evidence.'

Having attracted criticism for an alleged botched-up investigation, the murder and rape theory findings of Shimla Police have not been accepted either by the victim's family or the locals.

The police said the victim was gang raped and killed between 4.30 and 6pm at a place located between two roads. The labourers' shanties are also located close by.

But, interestingly, nobody heard her screams. This suggests, it's claimed, that the girl was raped and killed elsewhere and then the body was dumped in the forest.

Police said the victim was raped and killed at the same spot from where the body was recovered. The body of the victim, according to police, was lying in the forest for two days when it was discovered by her uncle. However, no signs of wild animals mauling her body was found - despite the forest area being home to wild beasts.

It's alleged that another major hole in the police theory is that the victim's school uniform was untouched. Only one sock was missing. There are allegations that the missing sock was recovered from the house of one of the accused.

It has also been claimed that police have ignored the safety of the accused by keeping all five in a single cell. Incidentally, on Tuesday, when an alleged scuffle took place between prime accused Rajinder Singh and Suraj Singh, police were said to be unprepared to handle the situation.
Through the narrow lanes of Srinagar the body of Sajad Gilkar, a slain Hizbul militant was being taken out for burial from his home on July 12.

The atmosphere looked tense with hundreds of people shouting slogans. It looked like a routine funeral procession until someone removed the green Pakistani flag from the body and later covered it with a black one.

It resembled the flag that ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) uses globally.

The body of a dead Kashmiri covered in the flag of ISIS

Masked youths carrying the Pakistani and ISIS flags in Kashmir

Pictures of this incident have ever since become a talking point.

Many use it to suggest that this was a clear indicator of ISIS having made inroads into Kashmir. If true, this would certainly mean a monumental shift in Kashmir's conflict.

But conflicts have a habit of throwing doubts at people and at times even make things look real only to be proven wrong, later.

So is the 'ISIS in Kashmir' story a reality or just a myth? Top security officials working in Kashmir, however, dismiss such terror theories as nothing but fables.

A Kashmiri Muslim protester wears an ISIS mask during pro-freedom clashes in old Srinagar

Indian army soldiers and police clash with Kashmiri villagers who were demanding the bodies of militants killed in a gun battle after a group of militants stormed a military camp in Panzgam

'Kashmir is not Syria. An organisation like ISIS establishing a base in Kashmir and working the way it does in Iraq and Syria is just not possible. Let us not underestimate our grids', said a top official.

Even in the case of Sajad Gilkar, officials have denied his linkage with any ISIS affiliated networks or groups so far.

'In Downtown it is for the first time we have seen ISIS flags on a militant body. Earlier such flags were seen in protests. We have already started investigations but so far found nothing concrete', said Munir Khan, Inspector General of Police, Kashmir.

The only tangible link between ISIS and Kashmir has been found among youths who were attracted towards the ideology while outside the country. Over the years, only three such cases have come to light.

In August 2015, news emerged about a young Kashmiri named Adil Fayaz Wada from Srinagar's upscale Jawahar Nagar locality who has allegedly joined ISIS from Australia.

He had been pursuing his MBA degree from Queensland University. After finishing his degree, Wada had told his family that he had got a job in Turkey, after failing to get one in Australia, Dubai and Qatar.

There has been no news about him ever since. In January 2016, another youngster, Sheikh Azhar ul Islam, from Preng village of Ganderbal district, was deported from the United Arab Emirates for being an alleged IS sympathiser, along with two other Indians.

This year Afshan Pervaz, 21, a resident of Khanyar, a downtown Srinagar locality, has been deported from Turkey for allegedly trying to join ISIS.

According to police, Pervaz had told his family that he wanted to go to Iran for higher studies, and had booked a seat on a flight to Tehran in March 23.

He went to Turkey from there. However, what bothers security forces more is the growing ideology of 'hard-line Islam' among the youngsters who are joining militant groups.

Recently a boy from North Kashmir had left his home to join the Zakir Musa group of militants. His parents and the police worked hard to bring him back just in the nick of time.

They had to take the help of a religious scholar to convince him to shun the path.

When the police spoke to him it seemed that he was fascinated by the ideas of Islamic supremacy that Zakir Musa has been professing.

ISIS professes ultra radical Salfist ideology and their system of Islamic governance is guided by that. They use brutal means to achieve the objective. Kashmir won't accept that. Police official in J&K

Musa made headlines with his audio message in which he threatened to chop off the heads of Hurriyat leaders if they came in his path and insisted that the struggle of Kashmir was just political.

Zakir also later announced his breakup from the parent group of Hizbul Mujahidin. He was even heard saying that he had no ties with ISIS or Al- Qaeda but he wasn't against them.

Since then he and his group have been functioning as a separate entity mostly in the south of Kashmir.

To some people all this bear similarities to ISIS. However, there still is a sharp difference between ISIS and Kashmiri militancy.

'ISIS professes ultra radical Salfist ideology and their system of Islamic governance is guided by that. They use brutal means to achieve the objective. Kashmir won't accept that ', says a top police official in J&K.

So what explains for this growing trend of young boys getting lured towards Zakir Musa brand of Islam?

Kashmiri protesters shout anti-India and pro-Pakistan slogans as they hold Pakistan, ISIS, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Palestinian flags and a pictures of leader of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

There are many factors to this and one among them is hopelessness. 'Youngsters are losing faith in Hurriyat and to an extent even Pakistan. In these decades nothing has changed in Kashmir. Not an inch has been won by them. And now there seems to be little interest shown by political class in Delhi for any headway or talks.

'This causes hopelessness and in such a state some are bound to find refuge in extreme thought process', explains an important top functionary in the security team.

Another factor as per the experts could also be the sudden assertion of the 'Hindu' ideology in the rest of the country. Social media users in Kashmir do react sharply to every news item about cow vigilantism or any other such issue that comes up from the mainland.

Indian paramilitary soldiers were spotted using catapults to shoot glass marbles at Kashmiri protesters during a protest in Srinagar

Zakir Musa has issued audio tapes attacking Hurriyat conference and even Pakistan.

His audio recordings have also touched upon the atrocities on 'Indian Muslims.'

But is Zakir Musa such a big problem for the security situation? Well, yes he seems to be.

The security establishment feels that Zakir Musa brand of extremism is finding space among youngsters who are mostly disgruntled by the inefficacy of Hurriyat and Pakistan.

Some believe that the more these separatist political outfits like Hurriyat become irrelevant, the more space it would create for the thought process that Zakir Musa supports.

'Zakir Musa and his band of boys is a threat. If not ISIS, they certainly do have the capability of creating a disruption of a different kind in the valley.

He appeals to a youngster because they want to see something happening on the ground, which others haven't been able to achieve', said a senior police officer dealing with anti-militancy cases.
BJP External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj's statement in Parliament on the Doklam plateau stand-off should be commended.

It was restrained, unlike the belligerent statements emanating from the Chinese foreign office.

By declaring that China's road building activity in Doklam was a threat to India's security, she sent a firm message that India will resist Chinese attempts to determine the Sikkim-Tibet- Bhutan tri-junction unilaterally in violation of its understandings both with Bhutan and India.

Approach

Her approach that the solution to the impasse in Doklam lay in both countries withdrawing their soldiers to previous positions and restoring the status quo ante is eminently reasonable.

She has implicitly dismissed China's imperious demand that India must first withdraw its troops from 'Chinese territory' prior to any dialogue.

Chinese and Indian troops pictured at the Nathu La border crossing between the two countries

This attempt to dictate terms to India by a country that has deliberately triggered the current confrontation through a calculated act that it knew would attract an Indian response has been rejected.

India and China have had a conflict in this general area since 1967 but, more pertinently in terms of more recent experience, the two countries were locked in a confrontation in Depsang (2013) and Chumar (2014).

China has, therefore, not walked into the current border stand-off as an unwary party falling victim to unprovoked warmongering by a third country.

India and China have had a conflict in this general area since 1967

Swaraj's statement is significant as it follows a spate of dire warnings from China, officially and through its statecontrolled press, that India should heed the lesson of 1962, that China will not compromise on the issue as it involves its sovereignty, that as its patience eventually runs out, China will use force to evict the Indian troops and so on.

If the purpose of employing thunderous language was to intimidate India and unnerve its leadership, the external affairs minister's statement shows these tactics have failed.

The government is showing signs of confidence in dealing with the situation despite China's psychological warfare against us getting a boost from some Indian commentators who have purveyed the Chinese line with some gusto and much of our media that has been uncritically disseminating China's propagandist versions of the stand-off and echoing its menacing statements as well.

Preposterous explanations have been given by some China apologists in our country that China is building the road in Doklam because its infrastructure companies have run out of orders, and as its military have large budgets to spend, some powerfully connected construction company is trying to fill its order book!

One thought that the humongous Belt and Road Initiative, the $50 billion China intends to spend on infrastructure in Pakistan, and $20 billion that it is committed to spending on developing ports to facilitate the use of the Arctic route for trade with Europe provide massive opportunities for Chinese infrastructure companies.

That a line like this can be purveyed, fed probably by the Chinese embassy, with accusations against the Prime Minister for making a series of provocative moves against China and peddling scenarios of a crushing, humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese of our unprepared army headed by a politically appointed army chief, shows the extent to which we are ready to sap the national morale to the advantage of an external adversary because of internal political prejudices.

Reality

In reality, China's diplomatic and media-channelled tongue-lashing against India reflects its frustration at not being in a position to take India head-on militarily in a localised conflict in this theatre without suffering heavy casualties.

Talk of evicting Indian soldiers from this area by force is just bluster.

If it opens a front in a disputed area elsewhere where it is advantageously placed - though we will be able to monitor a Chinese build up through our technical means and prepare ourselves - it will be seen as responsible for broadening the conflict.

If we, in return, opted to retaliate in disputed areas where we have advantage, it will mean a further step on the escalatory ladder.

China has no easy options just as we do not either. A sane Chinese approach, in its own interest, would be to resolve the current stand-off diplomatically on an equitable basis and tone down its trade-mark arrogant and crude behaviour.

If the Chinese up the ante in Kashmir or the Northeast, they must think of their political vulnerabilities in Tibet and Taiwan.

Chinese talk of evicting Indian soldiers from this area by force is just bluster

Reservations

Much is being made by some in Indian quarters of Bhutan's reticence on the developing situation as a sign of its reservations about our intervention.

This too contributes to the Chinese game of weakening India's position. It is politic on Bhutan's part not to get caught too much in the cross-fire between China and India and let the latter handle the situation.

Bhutan's statement about China violating bilateral understandings over this disputed area is sufficient.

By being too vocal and inviting more Chinese bullying, it will draw India into the quarrel even more, which would be undesirable for both Bhutan and India.

Some Bhutanese may prefer to distance themselves from India-China frictions for sovereignty reasons, but in falling prey to China's strategy of destabilising India's neighbourhood they would seriously hurt their own self-interest.

That Swaraj's enunciation of India's position has come before the national security adviser visits Beijing for a BRICS NSAs meeting means that any dialogue in Beijing will have to be within its scope.

India should neither seek escalation nor accept China's hegemonic conduct.
DM Kanwal Tanuj had gone to meet the villagers in Aurangabad

On a drive to promote the Swachh Bharat campaign (Clean India drive), a district magistrate of Bihar's Aurangabad Kanwal Tanuj ended up telling a poor villager that if he did not have money to build a toilet at home, he should sell his wife.

DM Kanwal Tanuj had gone to meet the villagers in Aurangabad district to spread awareness about building toilets and to tell them why open defecation was bad for everyone.

But, he stirred a huge controversy with his uncharitable remarks. The magistrate was seen addressing a gathering at a village in the district where he tried to link toilet with the dignity of women.

He said: 'Save the dignity of your women if you can. How poor are you? Raise your hands and tell me if the value of your wife is lower than Rs 12,000. Listen to me first. Don't raise your hands.'

Then he said: 'Which man would say, "take the dignity of my wife and give me Rs 12,000?" Is there anyone like that?'

A Swachh Paryavaran Walk at Rajpath on February 19, 2017 in New Delhi, India

Responding to his open queries thrown at the villagers, one from the audience said that he did not have enough money to build a toilet at home.

'Sir, I don't have the money to build a toilet,' the man said.

Tanuj responded by saying: 'I will talk to you. If that is the case then go and sell your wife. If this is the mentality you have then go and sell your wife. So many people talk about advance payment, they get advance and then spend it on useless things.'

A policeman helps in cleaning the garbage dumped at the river bank of Yamuna during the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or Clean India Mission early in the morning in Allahabad

In September last year, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had launched two schemes as part of the Saat Nishchay or Seven Resolves of state government. The schemes were Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal and Shauchalay Nirman, Ghar Ka Sammaan.

The schemes were part of larger Clean India drive to cover all towns and villages of the state by the end of 2019.

Under the Shauchalay Nirman, Ghar Ka Sammaan, a beneficiary is given Rs 12,000 by the state government for building toilets. Tanuj was addressing the gathering about the same scheme.
As the armed forces grapple with strained ties between officers and men, the wife of a Navy Special Force Commando has complained to the President and Prime Minister about her husband's 'mental harassment and torture' by his officers.

The complaint, which includes the commanding officer, has been made by the wife of a Marine Commando (MARCOS) Anoop TS who is presently posted at the Diving School in Kochi (Kerala).

'My husband has been insulted, abused and humiliated by the chief instructor of the rank of a commander of his unit in front of others with indecent and vulgar language on March 18 this year,' the wife of the sailor wrote in her complaint.

Wife of Marine Commando Anoop TS alleged her husband has suffered 'mental harassment and torture' at the hands of his seniors (photo for representation only)

The woman said after facing public humiliation by his officer, her husband went to the officer in charge of the unit - Captain Manish Rao, through the system on March 21 to air his grievances.

'However, even after two months of filing the complaint, he did not initiate any action in favour of my husband and purposefully manipulated and closed the complaint with a fake counselling given to my husband to protect his junior officer,' the woman alleged in her complaint.

The woman said her husband has been deeply affected by the mistreatment by his officers which is taking toll on his conduct in day-to-day life.

In the allegations, the woman claimed that after the incident, the commander-rank officer started taking revenge from the sailor by personally targeting him and is 'torturing him by sending him for all outdoor duties and banning him from using office computers'.

But a Navy spokesperson said procedure had been followed and said action would be taken if an investigation uncovers any wrongdoing

Levelling a serious charge against the unit officers, the woman said her husband was being forcefully sent on leave without his knowledge and signature by his superior officers including the chief instructor and two other officers of the unit.

'(This can put) my husband's life in danger... The unit grievance redressal system is neither sending his complaint forward nor taking action in spite of his repeated requests,' the complaint said.

Asked to respond, a Navy spokesperson in Kochi said the complaint filed by the woman has been received by the force and it is following a due procedure to carry out investigations into the matter.

'We are looking into the charges and if required, will take required action after due investigations,' the officer said.

The woman said recent suicide cases of armed forces members and forcefully establishing them as psychopathic patients while redressing grievances also enlarges her fear factor in her husband's case.

'These unpleasant incidents are affecting our lives and resulting in marital discord. I request the President to take immediate action in the matter,' the woman said.

In recent times, a number of cases have been exposed through complaints filed by wives of naval sailors and officers. In one such case, a Navy sailor's wife had alleged that her husband was wrongly diagnosed with psychiatric problems and forcefully admitted in the psychiatric ward at the naval hospital in Kochi as he had levelled corruption charges against his seniors at INS Kattabomman naval base in Tirunelveli.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven Hurriyat leaders, including hardliner Syed Ali Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah, in connection with its probe into terror funding and subversive activities in the Valley.

In addition to Altaf, the other arrested are Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's close aide and media advisor Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul- Islam, Ayaz Akbar, Raja Mehraj-ud-Din Kalwal, Peer Saifullah, Naeem Ahmad Khan and Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate.

All of them are being brought to Delhi for further questioning and will be produced in court here on Tuesday, NIA IG Alok Mittal said.

Separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah has been arrested

The arrests come after the NIA conducted several rounds of interrogation following India Today's 'Operation Villains of Valley - The Hurriyat Tapes'.

The report had clinching evidence of Pakistan's state and non-state actors, including Hafiz Saeed, choreographing anarchy through their agents in the Valley.

NIA had registered the case on May 30 this year against the separatist leaders for acting in connivance with Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other militant groups and female separatist group Dukhtaran-e-Millat for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means including hawala for funding separatist and militant activities in Kashmir.

The report had clinching evidence of Pakistan's state and non-state actors, including Hafiz Saeed (pictured) choreographing anarchy through their agents in the Valley

Hurriyat Leader Naeem Khan has been arrested

The separatist leaders were accused of fomenting trouble in the Valley by inciting youths to pelt stones on security forces, burn schools, damage public property and waging war against India.

The NIA sleuths had questioned the separatist leaders and businessmen in Valley and conducted raids in Kashmir, New Delhi and Haryana in May and June this year to unearth separatist funding from Pakistan, India's most wanted and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed and militant groups for carrying subversive activities in the State.

Kashmir witnessed over five months of unrest in the Valley last year after killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani on July 8.

Ninety civilians were killed and over 13,000 injured in security forces firing while at least 34 schools were burnt by miscreants during the agitation period in the Valley.

Bitta Karate is a Kashmiri young activist has been arrested

A young Kashmiri protester throws stones at the government forces, who called off the operation after about 10 hours without finding the militants, according to police

During the raids on residences and offices of separatist leaders and businessmen, the NIA sleuths had recovered few crores cash, gold jewellery, currency notes of Pakistan, UAE and Saudi Arabia, large number of property documents, letterheads of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, pendrives, laptops, mobile phones and other incriminating documents.

On the other hand, separatists in Kashmir have called for a bandh (strike) on Tuesday to protest against the arrests.

Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik have given a call for the Kashmir bandh to 'protest and condemn the revengeful, arbitrary and illegal arrests of Hurriyat leaders', the separatists said in a statement on Monday.

Kashmir witnessed over five months of unrest in the Valley last year after killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani (centre) on July 8
A new video has leaked showing how banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is now provoking jihadis to wage war in the northeastern states of India.

The malicious intentions of Lashkar came under the radar of security agencies through a video, where its co-founder Amir Hamza is seen instigating his cadre to spread violence in Northeast, including Darjeeling and Sikkim.

A recent video, believed to be shot in Lahore on July 19, has given security agencies great cause for concern.

Intelligence officials claim LeT leader Amir Hamza (left) was seen recently in Lahore

Citing the example of China military standoff with India over Doklam plateau, Hamza is asking jihadis to break up Indian states.

'We will fight in Sikkimwe will fight in Bhutanwe will fight in Darjeelingwe will fight in Srinagar,' Hamza can be heard saying in the video, as seen by Mail Today.

Agencies have also authenticated the video clips. Recently, several terror activities came under the radar of security agencies from Northeast states but the fresh threat has raised alarms bells in the Home ministry.

Senior officials claim Hamza was seen recently in Lahore and this was his first public appearance since JuD chief Hafiz Saeed's house arrest in January.

Citing the example of China military standoff with India over Doklam plateau, Hamza is asking jihadis to break up Indian states

Hamza, in the video, threatens to create violence in several states of the country. 'For one Bangladesh, we will take seven states,' says Hamza.

He has also praised China and talks about the dispute over the 40-km-long stretch between Doklam and Bangladesh border.

This video is the first such proof of Lashkar-e-Taiba's direct involvement in the Northeast and their strategy to work along with China. 'if India will send its army in Bhutan to counter China, then along with Pakistan, Chinese troops will enter Srinagar,' Hamza said in the video.

Hafiz Saeed, center, leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa arrives to address an anti-Indian rally in Lahore, Pakistan (file pic)

Hamza was designated a global terrorist by US in 2012 and is wanted by India for the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that claimed over 160 lives and left more than 300 injured.

He was detained by Pakistan authorities along with 26/11 key operative Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi soon after the attacks.

He enjoys the position of number two in Lashkar ranks currently. In the video, Hamza, in his screeching voice, is also asking jihadis to fulfil Saeed's dream of Ghazwa-e-Hind (holy war to capture India).

The Ghazwa-e-Hind is a saying some Islamic traditions attribute to Prophet Muhammad, prophesying that army arising from the West will seize India.

According to reports, in a separate gathering held this month, Lashkar-e-Taiba-led jihadist commanders met in Islamabad to demand that the Pakistan government should go to war with India to seize Kashmir.
A private equity firm backed by the Chinese state is reportedly planning to make a bid for Imagination Technologies, the former iPhone chip maker ditched by Apple.

Canyon Bridge Capital Partners has held talks about a potential bid for the whole of Imagination or parts of its business. It is reportedly one of several Chinese firms looking at a bid.

Hit hard: Imagination had designed graphic chips for the iPhone since the products 2007 launch

Imagination, once the UKs most valuable tech firm worth 2bn, was forced to put itself up for sale after seeing almost 500m wiped off its value in just one day in April. It is now worth just 408m.

The Hertfordshire-based business has designed graphic chips for the iPhone since the products 2007 launch, but its fortunes tumbled when Apple announced plans to make the components itself.
Europe's biggest budget airline Ryanair has posted a jump in first-quarter profits due to strong summer demand, but issued a warning that Brexit could cause it to ground flights and cancel holidays unless a deal with the EU is struck.

The airline posted a 13 per cent rise in revenue to 1.7billion in the three months to June 30, while profits soared 55 per cent to 356million.

In today's morning trading Ryanair's shares were down 3 per cent or 0.59 at 17.51.

Sunny outlook: Ryanair is flying high despite Brexit uncertainty

The discount carrier cautioned it could move its planes out of the UK if no post-Brexit aviation deal is reached by next year.

It has almost 90 aircraft based at British airports, and flies them to dozens of European destinations under the EU 'Open Skies' agreement.

Ryanair campaigned strongly for a Remain vote in the EU referendum.

Announcing its first quarter results, the airline warned: 'There may not be sufficient time, or goodwill on both sides, to negotiate a timely replacement bilateral.

'If we do not have certainty about the legal basis for the operation of flights between the UK and the EU by autumn 2018, we may be forced to cancel flights and move some, or all, of our UK based aircraft to Continental Europe from April '19 onwards.'

The Irish airline was boosted by the later timing of Easter, and saw a 12 per cent rise in customer numbers to 35million. The firm announced it could cut fares by as much as 9 per cent on some routes as it predicted fierce competition in the airline industry could intensify in the next few months.

Chief executive Michael O'Leary said: 'We expect the pricing environment to remain very competitive,'

Meanwhile, Ryanair's chief financial officer Neil Sorahan has submitted a non-binding bid for bankrupt Italian airline Alitalia.

Price war: Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary warns of fierce competition in airline fares

It filed in May to be put under special administration for the second time in less than a decade, starting a process that will lead to the airline being overhauled, sold off or wound up. Reports say it received about ten non-binding offers by a Friday deadline.

Sorahan said: 'We put a non-binding bid in, I can't say much more other than we think it is right to be involved in the process.'

Last month, O'Leary said Ryanair would seek a majority stake in the struggling airline if it decides to invest.

However, at other times he indicated he was keen on cooperating with the business, and was more interested in participating in the sales process, than buying the airline.
Household goods group Reckitt Benckiser has revealed the impact of a cyber-attack last month that significantly disrupted its manufacturing and orders systems across a range of markets.

The maker of Dettol disinfectant and Nurofen painkillers cut its full-year sales forecast earlier this month from growth of 3 per cent to 2 per cent.

Reckitt's shares were down 0.69 per cent at 7,826.50p in this morning's trading.

Headache: Sales fall after the cyber-attack NotPetya virus hit Reckitt Benckiser

On June 27, it became one of several major companies to be blindsided by the NotPetya virus, which restricted systems for everything from manufacturing to shipping.

Chief executive Rakesh Kapoor said: 'From an operational perspective, as expected we had a tough first half, with challenging conditions exacerbated by a sophisticated cyber attack.

'We are experiencing tough market conditions, and we still have work to do on addressing the full implications of the recent cyber attack.'

The majority of its systems and key manufacturing sites are now producing near full capacity, however Reckitt said it had not yet returned to normal operations everywhere. Most issues will be resolved during the current third quarter.

Spicy deal: Reckitt is selling its food brands including Frank's hot sauces

The company said for the first six months of the year, like-for-like revenue fell 1 per cent to 5.02 billion.

Reckitt has said that performance in the second half of the year will improve, as comparisons ease.

It recently bought US baby formula maker Mead Johnson Nutrition in an enormous 16.3 billion deal to expand its consumer health arm, and said that the integration is progressing well.

The firm confirmed last week a 3.2 billion deal to sell food brands including Frank's hot sauces and French's mustard to the maker of Schwartz spices.

US group McCormick fought off a number of rival bidders to secure the British firm's food business in a move that will accelerate it to the number one position in America's condiments market.

Rakesh Kapoor added: 'In the first half of the year, we have made significant progress on portfolio transformation and becoming a more focused consumer health and hygiene business, with both the acquisition of Mead Johnson Nutrition, and the agreed sale of our Food business.'
There has been a smattering of savings rate improvements over the past week, and no surprises, they have all come from the challenger banks.

The most eye-catching rate boost came from RCI bank, which bumped up its easy-access Freedom Savings Account rate to 1.2 per cent.

This falls just shy of the top deal from Ulster Bank which pays 1.25 per cent.

Challenger banks: RCI, Charter Savings Bank and Ikano have all boosted their rates

The French-owned bank, however, doesn't offer savers UK FSCS protection, instead your money is protected by the French deposit guarantee scheme up to 100,000 (currently worth 89,532).

The RCI Freedom Savings account long held the top spot of This is Moneys independent best buy savings tables with a rate of 1.1 per cent since August last year, until the eSavings account from Ulster Bank deal launched last month.

RCI has now hit back, bumping up its rate to close the gap.

The next best easy access deals come from Bank of Cyprus at 1.15 per cent and Ford Money at 1.07 per cent.

What about fixed rate savings?

RCI has also added to its rates across fixed-rate accounts.

RCI has moved its one-year fixed account to 1.56 per cent from 1.46 per cent, placing it firmly in the middle of the pack.

The bank has also added 0.1 per cent to both its two-year fixed-rate account, now paying 1.81 per cent and its three-year fix at 1.96 per cent.

Swedish challenger, Ikano Bank has also boosted its fixed rates. It will now pay 1.95 per cent over three years, 2.1 per cent for a four year term and 2.3 per cent for those locking their cash away for five years.

Currently savers can earn up to 2.02 per cent if they commit to leaving their savings pot for a year with Al Rayan Bank.

The Sharia compliant provider also offers the top rate over a two year term at an expected 2.11 per cent.

This in fact also comes in slightly higher than the top three year deal from Axis Bank and United Trust Bank at 2.1 per cent.

On the up: They may still be low but savings rates have risen slightly over recent weeks

The highest rate on the market currently is from United Bank at 2.41 per cent for a five-year bond.

Charter Savings Bank has also updated the interest on its one-year fixed rate cash Isa deal at 1.21 per cent over one year, just shy of the best-buy deal from Bank of Cyprus at 1.22 per cent.

Paragon bank offers a slightly lower rate of 1.2 per cent followed by Shawbrook and Ford Money at 1.15 per cent.

The bank hitched up both its two and three-year Isa deals last week. This pushed both accounts to the front of the pack with best-buy rates of 1.37 and 1.45 per cent respectively.

Despite small improvements however cash Isa deals still lag behind standard savings deals with a 0.8 per cent gap between the best one-year fixed bond and the equivalent Isa deal.
In a glistening new laboratory at Imperial College, west London, a team of scientists is perfecting the design of the world's first edible water bottle.

Two doors down a group is creating food packaging that bubbles when the contents have gone off and across the hallway a team is solving the world's energy crisis with a 'hydrogen sponge'.

Across the city, at Old Street's 'silicon roundabout', entrepreneurs are working on a computer that can read and a version of Airbnb for warehouse storage space.

Britain's start-up economy is booming with a record 1.1billion of funding poured into London's tech firms this year - and incubators for bright new ideas are cropping up all over the capital and around the UK. So the question is: why now?

Britain's start-up economy is booming with a record 1.1billion of funding poured into London's tech firms this year

The rise and spread of the internet, the improving infrastructure around the start-up ecosystem and a cultural shift that means Britons are more willing to try new things have rapidly accelerated the start-up economy.

The UK has a tech-savvy young population and a consumer base renowned around the world for being willing to test new technology and accept financial innovation.

There is also a lot of money floating around. Investors both small and large are tapping into tax-friendly schemes, mainly the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), which give them a tax buffer against losses and the chance to make gains with less to pay to the taxman - and start-ups are taking advantage of this to raise funds.

Put all of this together and you have the recipe for a thriving start-up scene.

How digital start-ups get going cheaply

The internet has created countless opportunities for new businesses which can use it to solve problems or provide better services.

In the developed world we can order food and taxis on our phones and pay our friends or employees at the touch of a button. Many of these technological improvements have been brought to us by start-ups like Just East or Uber.

Fabian Flatz, who founded online payments app Telleroo, said: 'The internet is taking over everything. It's a general macro shift and it's changing our lives.'

It has also made it easier for start-ups to form and grow by lowering the barriers to entry.

Entrepreneurs can instantly reach half the world's population and the number online is increasing every day.

Sanjeev Jeyakumar of Stowga, a website where companies rent out their excess warehouse space to others, said: 'The start-up industry is booming' (stock image)

Sanjeev Jeyakumar of Stowga, a website where companies rent out their excess warehouse space to others, said: 'The start up industry is booming largely because of the internet. Facebook has just hit two billion users - we can sit in an office in London or San Francisco and reach out to the whole world.'

This means that anyone with a computer has the potential to start a billion-dollar business. Snapchat, for example, was created in a Stanford classroom and now has 160million users.

Jake Schofield, who founded the app Labstep which helps scientists record their experiments, said: 'The barriers to entry have dropped drastically. A teenager in his bedroom can knock up software and because of the internet their impact on the world can be huge.'

Meanwhile, the world wide web has made it much easier for entrepreneurs to secure the funding they need to get their ideas off the ground.

In February last year digital bank Monzo set the record for 'quickest crowd-funding campaign in history' when it raised 1million in 96 seconds via the Crowdcube investment platform.

What does a start-up incubator do?

So the power of the internet means it's easier to set up a business but keeping it alive and making it successful is another matter.

The infrastructure supporting start-ups has improved dramatically over the past decade - there are now more than 300 start-up incubators in Britain which help new companies grow by providing advice, training and space to work.

One of the newest is Imperial College's White City Incubator which harbours 'deep science' start-ups in its laboratories.

Imperial College's White City Incubator (in the orange building to the right) harbours 'deep science' start-ups in its laboratories

Its incubation manager Graham Hewson likens this work to that of a farmer nurturing livestock. 'Chicks will often need an incubator to keep them warm, to keep them sustained through a fragile time,' he said. 'That's what start-up incubators do for new companies - they offer tailored support.

The whole point is to bring companies together... so the CEO of one company can bump into the finance guy of another and get talking

He added: 'They also provide economies of scale and opportunities for collaboration - in our case with university academics and experts at Hammersmith Hospital.

'The whole point is to bring companies together in one place - that's why we have lots of open areas, so the CEO of one company can bump into the finance guy of another and get talking.'

The incubator helps its scientists with the basics of a running a business - from human resources or insurance policies to contracts with suppliers.

The edible waterbottle Start-up Skipping Rocks Lab, which has grown at the Imperial College incubator, has created an 'edible waterbottle'. The water is encased in a natural tasteless membrane made of seaweed extract which can be healthily ingested. A layer can be peeled off so the outside is kept clean. The company, which raised 500,000 from crowdfunding, aims to reduce the plague of plastic waste.

More than 98 per cent of companies that outgrow and leave the Imperial Incubator survive, showing just how helpful this support can be.

The incubator's community manager James Sheppard said: 'There's never been a better time to start a company in London - there's so much support from governmental help through to private financing or even lawyers who are giving special deals to start-ups.'

Indeed, the access to funding has improved dramatically as more funds recognise the potential of start-ups.

One of the UK's oldest start-up funds, Seedcamp, has now backed more than 250 companies since it set up ten years ago.

Its success has inspired competitors as venture capitalists battle for equity in the best early-stage companies.

And it's not just in terms of money that start-ups can benefit from working with such funds.

Seedcamp investment manager Tom Wilson explained: 'Aside from the money we give them, our start-ups benefit from a strong network and a platform of support with contacts in Europe and the US.

'We're like a GP - we can see where a start-up needs help and point them in the right direction or put them in touch with the right person.'

We're like a GP - we can see where a start-up needs help

Alongside incubators and seed funds there are numerous accelerator companies offering courses and meetings with industry experts to help start-ups grow.

Entrepreneur Rishi Chowdhury, who runs the accelerator programme Momentum, said: 'Interest in start-ups in general has grown, with record numbers popping up every year.

'There's a need for a place to support them and that's why these structured programmes have come up which make it easier for start-ups to thrive.'

Why the British consumer matters

The rise of the start-up is not all about boffins and venture capitalists. It's also a response to a broader cultural shift - the British consumer is more willing than ever before to try new things.

Dmitry Ivanov who founded Wevat, an app that helps tourists get their VAT refunded, said: 'The start up ecosystem in Britain is growing very fast because people as consumers here are very accepting - they are being braver and less risk averse when it comes to trying new things.'

Monzo, again, provides a case in point. 'British people never used to switch banks,' said Mr Ivanov. But Monzo has attracted 100,000 customers in two years. We're now more willing to experiment with our money.

One of the laboratories at the Imperial White City Incubator which hosts deep science start-ups

Mr Ivanov thinks this type of company would not succeed in other countries where people are less keen for the new: 'In China,' he said, 'people are not so willing to try new things which is why the start-up ecosystem is yet to take off there.'

This cultural shift has created a new demand for innovation which can often only be met by new companies, making start-ups integral to technological change.

Stowga's Mr Jeyakumar explained: 'The point of start-ups is that they approach a problem in a new way.

'To innovate from within long-lasting companies is harder than with a new company because start-ups are free to try different avenues for growth and to quickly respond to the demands of the consumer.'

Wevat's Mr Ivanov added: 'Start-ups can also be much more efficient than big co-corporations and really good at understanding what the consumer wants. We test our product on the consumers, see why they do or don't like it and make it better.'

Stowga is a new website where companies can rent out their excess warehouse space to others

And as the public's responsiveness to new products and solutions increases, so does people's desire to provide them.

'Young people are creative and want to try things from scratch,' said Telleroo's Mr Flatz, 'it's a big cultural movement actually.'

I used to be a trader for Citigroup and now everyday I wear shorts

So start-ups are easier to begin, better supported and more in demand than ever before.

And they've got a final trick up their sleeve that attracts so many smart millennials - they're lots of fun to work for.

Stowga's Mr Jeyakumar summed this up when he told me: 'I used to be a trader for Citigroup and now everyday I wear shorts.'
High roller? Johnny Depp has slammed his former business managers who claimed he had a compulsive spending disorder in his $25million lawsuit against them

Johnny Depp is demanding that allegations he has 'psychological issues' and a 'compulsive spending disorder' be stricken from the $25 million legal battle with his former business managers.

Court documents obtained by DailyMail.com reveal the Hollywood star has accused the duo of disclosing information they learned while working with him, only to use it against him in a vicious attack to ruin his reputation.

The actor accuses his former advisers of adding 'irrelevant and improper' statements to their response - which he believes constitutes 'inflammatory material' - only to try and 'viciously attack' him in the public sphere

The 54-year-old actor filed a multi-million dollar fraud lawsuit in January against his former business managers Robert and Joel Mandel at The Management Group, who he fired in 2016. He filed the suit after his new managers alleged financial misconduct on the part of the Mandels.

Depp explained he paid the firm $28 million in fees for legal, business, tax and accounting services from 1996-2016.

He accused them of negligence, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty for failing to pay his taxes on time resulting in $5.6 million in federal tax penalties and interest, and claims they loaned $10 million of his money to third parties without permission and kept messy financial records.

Depp also accuses them of using his money to invest in businesses his managers had an interest in.

The firm fired back denying the claims and accusing the big-spending A-list actor of living an expensive high-life with 14 homes, an $18 million luxury yacht, and even dropping $30,000 a month on fancy wine.

Together again: The A-list actor reunited with Platoon co-stars Charlie Sheen and Kevin Dillon on Monday night in Hollywood

The Pirates of the Caribbean star - who TMG says still owes it $4.2million - also allegedly spent extravagantly on his staff, homes, and gifts.

His business managers claimed they did everything to manage the actor's finances and warned him about his overspending multiple times.

They blamed him solely for his dire financial situation claiming he spent $2 million a month to maintain his lavish lifestyle spending $75 million on 14 homes, $1 million to archive his Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, $300,000 a month on 40 full-time employees, $150,000 on 24/7 security for him and his family and $200,000 a month in private jet costs.

Lawyers for TMG also argued his expenditures such as the $400,000 diamond cuff for his ex-wife Amber Heard and $5 million to shoot the ashes of his friend author Hunter S. Thompson out of a cannon in Aspen, were to blame for his financial predicament.

Last week, a judge ruled Depp's personal spending habits were not currently relevant and don't impact the fraud aspect of the case.

Bitter battle: Depp's ex-business managers Robert and Joel Mandel of TMG filed a counter-suit against their former client saying the actor's financial woes are his own fault. Depp had accused them treating his money as their own

TMG says Depp owes them for the Pirates of the Caribbean payout he received

The judge dismissed their declaratory relief claims, but ruled TMG's fraud claims against its former client will be allowed to proceed.

On Thursday, TMG headed back to court with a second amended cross-complaint, vehemently denying Depp's claims and adding more details of the actor's extreme spending habits in their arguments.

The group claims Depp spent more than $500,000 in storage rental fees to keep his Hollywood memorabilia, spent $17,000 in luggage at Prada, and bought his daughter Lily-Rose a $7,000 Keeping Up With the Kardashians couch as a gift, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

After firing TMG, his former managers claim Depp continued to make minimum credit card payments before ultimately forcing them to pay off the rest of his $55,000 dent. They deny not paying the star's income tax in a timely manner and allege Depp simply refused to follow his team's advice on avoiding penalties and interest accruals.

As far the claims that TMG lent $10 million of the actor's money without his permission, the group argues that Depp still employs 'these two individuals in important, high-level positions even after they supposedly took well over $7 million in unauthorized distributions.'

TMG, the group that managed Depp's finances for 17 years, said he got mad at them when they suggested he sell his 150-foot yacht (above) to pay off some of his debts. 'Depp angrily told Mandel that he would "never forgive him" for "making" him sell that yacht.'

TMG also got Depp to agree to sell his chateau in the South of France, but that he refused to list it for an appropriate price. In December, he raised the asking price up to an astounding $63million, and it appears that it still has not sold

Last week, Depp had filed a motion demanding the court strike large portions of TMG's 28-page response to his lawsuit.

The actor accuses his former advisers of adding 'irrelevant and improper' statements to their response - which he believes constitutes 'inflammatory material' - only to try and 'viciously attack' him in the public sphere.

Depp says they included over 100 paragraphs which have unnecessary detail that is beyond the scope of what is required to answer a complaint.

He takes issue with background facts TMG included in their filing including allegations Depp 'spent $75 million to acquire, improve and furnish certain residences'.

He argued this has nothing to do with any particular allegation in the lawsuit, adding that the section appears to be 'designed solely and gratuitously' to attack his character.

Furthermore, Depp points to the claim that he engaged in a practice of habitual lying which  as his ex-managers stated: 'has become Depp's modus operandi when confronted with and asked to take responsibility for his continually outrageous and sad conduct', saying this false allegation is only an attack that serves as a vehicle for distracting from the main issues of the case.

TMG also alleged Depp spent $400,00 on a diamond cuff for his wife Amber Heard (seen together in 2016) The two divorced earlier this year

Depp says adding gratuitous and unnecessary allegations that he has a compulsive spending disorder and psychological issues is an opportunity for them to attack him and raise confidential matters which they obtained while working for him.

He adds that these statements have nothing to do with his financial condition.

Depp's legal team maintains that the allegations made by the group contain 'neither general or specific denials, nor statements of "new matters" constituting a defense.'

Depp is demanding the judge force TMG to amend their answer and strike the 100 paragraphs of allegations from the record.

The filing concludes that the TMG response constitutes 'irrelevant, false, and improper matter' and should be stricken.
The California 'supermom' who disappeared for three weeks last November after allegedly being kidnapped by sex traffickers is now a virtual recluse who is 'trying to put her life back together'.

The disappearance of the pretty blonde wife of Keith Papini, 33, and mother to Tyler, five, and Violet, three, sparked one of the largest manhunts in California history.

Investigators looking into the case have told DailyMail.com that they are still having no news on the case but continue working on the assumption that Papini was kidnapped.

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Sherri Papini, 35, lives isolated from society in her family home in Shasta Lake, California as investigators are still trying to find who kidnapped her for 22 days

Papini is staying in her family's $128,000 home in Shasta Lake, California. Neighbors said it was unusual to see her out jogging

Papini said she was taken at the intersection of Sunrise Drive and Old Oregon Highway while on a job. A neighbor who lives nearby said she never saw her running near there

The last time Sherri Papini was seen was leaving her home last January

Sherri's hair, which was apparently chopped off by her captors, could not be seen beneath her hat

Since returning to her $128,000 family home in Shasta Lake, California, Papini has lived a reclusive existence, with father-in-law Kenneth, 63, saying she is now battling to pick up the pieces of her life.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, he said: 'It's been hard for them and they're trying to put their lives back together.

'She talks to the Sheriff and she's told him everything that she knows [about her kidnapping].' But he added: 'Even we don't know everything.'

Another family source who asked not to be identified said the couple 'have been through enough'.

He said: 'They've been through a lot. They've been through more than enough already. But they will be OK.'

Neighbors living close to Papini's home, which was purchased by the couple in April this year, say the mother-of-two is rarely seen and does not interact with people living nearby.

They also said she no longer jogs but insisted that it was unusual to see her running even before the apparent kidnapping.

'She's a quiet person,' said Joyce Allison, 77. 'She keeps herself to herself and stays at home with the kids.

'I've been here 12 years and I've never seen her jogging. The only time I've ever spoken to him [Keith] was when she went missing. He came to ask if he could search my yard.'

Sherri Papini's father-in-law Kenneth, 63, said the family is trying to pick up the pieces of their life following the kidnapping

Joyce Allison, a neighbor who lives near where Sherri Papini was reportedly taken, said Keith asked to search her yard for clues

Sherri's husband Keith works at the Best Buy branch in Redding as part of the Geek Squad team

Another neighbor, Douglas Lea, 64, added: 'They're here. They're around. They just kind of keep themselves to themselves so this is nothing new.

'I've seen him around a few times and the kids as well. My mother-in-law has seen her.'

The Papini home has been owned by the family for more than 40 years and once belonged to Kenneth and his ex-wife, Kathleen, 59.

Tucked away down a potholed dirt road on the outskirts of Shasta Lake, it occupies a shady plot of land fringed by local Ponderosa pine trees.

The couple moved into the property shortly after Papini split from her first husband, platoon sergeant David Dreyfus, 32, who now lives in Southlake, Texas, in 2007.

Papini filed to separate from her first husband, David Dreyfus, in 2008 according to court records

According to records seen by DailyMail.com, the petite blond filed for divorce less than a year after the couple wed, citing irreconcilable differences.

By then, Dreyfus had moved to Stafford, Virginia, and Papini had begun living with now-husband Keith, who she first met in middle school and with whom she shared her first kiss.

Her divorce was finalized in January 2008 and TV engineer Keith proposed later the same year during a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Writing in a blog penned shortly before her wedding in 2009, Papini wrote excitedly of her plans for life with her 33-year-old spouse and said she had high hopes for a life 'full of joy'.

The couple went on to have two children, Tyler, five, and Violet, three, with Papini taking on the task of creating a pleasant home for the family.

Keith, who works a 20-minute drive away, is employed at the Redding branch of Best Buy where he is part of the 'Geek Squad' team of technical engineers who make house calls to customers in the area.

Until recently, the house, which has a yard scattered with children's toys and several clapped-out cars parked behind it, belonged to Kenneth and Kathleen but in April 2017, the couple bought it outright  paying just over $128,000 for the property.

Locals in the Shasta Lake community helped search for Papini after she went missing on November 2

After Papini went missing, locals reported several sightings in Shasta Lake and the surrounding area. One person reported seeing her at Mount Shasta Mall

And it was from the same home that Papini disappeared on November 2, 2016, with the alarm raised after she failed to return from a jog at around 2 p.m. that afternoon.

Police logs obtained by DailyMail.com show the first panicked phone call came in at 5:51 p.m. that day with cops arriving at the property at 6.30 p.m.

A summary of the call made to police by Keith notes: 'Arrived home from work and wife isn't there. Wife also didn't pick up their juvs [children] from school.

'RP [reporting party Keith] found her phone at the end of the driveway, hair in headphones.'

In fact, the phone was discovered a mile away at the intersection of Sunrise Drive and Old Oregon Highway  neatly placed on the ground and with the headphones tidily wrapped around it.

Betty Vaughn, 72, whose home overlooks the spot where Papini was allegedly kidnapped, told DailyMail.com that the discovery was 'strange'.

'The phone was found with the headphones wrapped around it  it was strange, like it had been placed there,' she said.

Asked if Papini was often seen in the area, she said: 'Not at all. I've never seen her jogging, never seen her coming up to the mailboxes.

'I've been living here for 20 years so you would have thought I would have seen her at some point.'

Speaking in December, Sheriff Tom Bosenko confirmed that the phone had been found 'neatly placed' on the ground, telling the Today Show:

'It appeared it had been set in some grass with the screen facing up, and then the earbuds to the phone were loosely coiled and appeared to be placed on the screen.

He added: 'It did somewhat appear to be that it was placed there purposely.'

Papini's cell phone was discovered placed in the grass near where she said she was kidnapped. Her headphones were neatly placed on top of her phone

Like Allison and Lea, Vaughn says her property was searched repeatedly in the aftermath of Papini's disappearance, with locals joining cops to search for the fresh-faced blonde.

Police logs seen by DailyMail.com show that multiple 'sightings' were reported in the days after she vanished, including at an eyebrow store in Mount Shasta Mall and at Hilltop Medical Center in Redding.

Other calls came from panicked local women concerned that they might be next to be abducted, including one who said she was getting strange messages at work.

Isabella Kori told police that because she looks similar to Papini, she was scared that traffickers might want to take her as well.

A $10,000 reward for information was later offered by police, while another $100,000 for tips was dangled by an anonymous donor who contacted the family.

Keith, who said at the time that his wife would never leave him or their children voluntarily, also launched an appeal  a GoFundMe account raising cash to pay for the search.

Managed by his sister Suzanne, who now lives in Long Beach, California, the Bring Sherri Home Safe appeal eventually raised a total of $49,070  just short of the $50,000 goal.

Keith used the 'find my iPhone' feature to locate Sherri's iPhone when he returned home from work and discovered she hadn't picked up their children Tyler and Violet from daycare

Police said there was no reason to disbelieve Sherri Papini. Rumors starters swirling because of the mysterious way she disappeared

Papini's long, blonde hair was cut off when she was discovered at the side of the road in Yolo

It is not clear what has happened to the money.

Papini was eventually found 150 miles away in the 452-person town of Yolo, which is approximately 15 miles north of Sacramento, early on the morning of November 24.

According to police, she was found on a rural road just off the I-5 freeway and, despite being chained, had managed to flag down a passing car.

Her long hair had been hacked off and Sheriff Bosenko said she had also been beaten and branded by her alleged captors.

In a subsequent interview with police, Papini said she had been taken by two Hispanic women who went to great lengths to conceal their faces. Their car is understood to have been a dark SUV.

Now back with her family, her relations say they still do not know the full story, although she has told police all she can remember, according to father-in-law Kenneth.

Detective Kyle Wallace, who is leading the police investigation, said: 'The investigation is ongoing and we have no reason to disbelieve her.

'If someone reports that they are the victim of a horrible crime, we believe them.'
National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers (left) rebuffed the prospect for a US-Russia cyber unit, saying 'now is probably not the best time'

National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers rebuffed the prospect for a US-Russia cyber unit, saying now isn't the best time.

The cyber unit proposal has been greeted with incredulity by several senior US lawmakers and President Donald Trump himself appeared to back down from it after initially indicating interest.

When Rogers was asked on Saturday whether it was a good idea to set up a cyber security cell with the Russians, he told the annual Aspen Security Forum: 'I'm not a policy guy here. .... I would argue now is probably not the best time to be doing this.'

US intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election by hacking Democrats' emails and distributing online propaganda to help Trump win the election over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump has said that his campaign did not collude with Russia.

Rogers said such a unit was 'something that you might want to build over time were we to see changes in (Russia's) behavior.'

A Russian presidential envoy said this week that Moscow and Washington were in talks to create a joint cyber security working group.

Trump said earlier this month that he had discussed the idea of creating such a group with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

Senior Republicans criticized the idea, saying Moscow could not be trusted, and Trump later appeared to back away, saying in a post on Twitter: 'The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't.'

The proposal has been greeted with incredulity by several US lawmakers and President Donald Trump appeared to back down from it after initially indicating interest. Trump said he discussed the idea with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit (pictured)

Widespread concern and confusion about the possible cyber working group reflects the Trump administrations struggles to articulate a clear approach to international cyber security issues amid inconsistent statements by the president and ongoing personnel changes.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it is finalizing plans to revamp the nation's military command for defensive and offensive cyber operations in hopes of intensifying America's ability to wage cyberwar against the Islamic State group and other foes.

Under the plans, US Cyber Command would eventually be split off from the intelligence-focused NSA.

Details are still being worked out, but officials say they expect a decision and announcement in the coming weeks.
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A battle between media mogul Barry Diller and developer Douglas Durst has been holding up a plan to replace a crumbling New York City pier with an avant-garde park.

After years of legal battles, proponents and opponents of the $250million Pier55 project on Manhattan's Hudson River - which critics have dubbed 'Diller Island' - plan to meet Monday to seek a detente.

Diller, who formerly led Paramount and Fox, and his wife, fashion maven Diane von Furstenberg, helped hatch the idea for the park and have promised to pay for it through a family charitable foundation.

Durst, a skyscraper baron, was once chairman of Friends of Hudson River Park Group, but had a falling out with other leaders and quit.

He recently acknowledged secretly funding three lawsuits challenging the Pier55 project.

'I did not want this to be a personal battle between me and Barry Diller,' Durst told The Villager earlier this year, explaining why he had tried to keep his involvement in funding the opposition lawsuits quiet.

'I have nothing against Diller - except he said he wishes I had been killed by my brother,' Durst told the neighborhood newspaper.

Battle Of The Billionaires: A battle between developer Douglas Durst (left) media mogul Barry Diller (right with wife) has been holding up a plan to replace a crumbling pier with a park

 Slide me  Slide To View: Construction has been held up for years at the site of the Pier55 project, seen left last week. Concept art for the proposed futuristic park, raised above the water on mushroom-like pillars, is seen right

Estranged Brother: Durst's brother Robert Durst was acquitted in the death of an acquaintance in Texas and is now facing murder charges in Los Angeles. His life was examined in the explosive HBO documentary series The Jinx.

Durst's estranged brother, Robert Durst, was acquitted in the death of an acquaintance in Texas and is now facing charges in Los Angeles that he killed a longtime friend because he feared she might divulge incriminating information regarding the 1982 disappearance of his first wife.

His life was examined in the explosive HBO documentary series The Jinx.

Diller, who had made the quip about Durst's brother in public while discussing the battle over the pier, later apologized.

Diller said that he didn't plan to attend the meeting on Monday but hoped the negotiations would be successful.

'I wish them well,' he said.

Durst declined to be interviewed. But Richard Emery, a lawyer for the project opponents, confirmed the meeting.

'There's a lot of anxiety that Diller won't follow through if this is further delayed,' Emery said.

The plan to tear down the old, deteriorating Pier 54 on the Manhattan waterfront and replace it with a new structure, Pier55, seemed like a fait accompli when it was first announced in 2014.

The design calls for an undulating 2.4-acre landscape of trees and fields rising over a cluster of mushroom-like pillars.

Project On Hold: Supporters of the park hope that Monday's meeting will resolve the legal wrangling that has held up the project for years. Pictured is the proposed Hudson River site of the Pier55 park

Future Park: The construction site of Pier55 is seen last week. It would have three venues for dance, theater and musical performances and would be accessible via two walkways out over the water

It would have three venues for dance, theater and musical performances and would be accessible via two walkways out over the water.

The press dubbed it 'Diller Island' after Diller and von Furstenberg promised to fund the project.

It would be built on a stretch of Hudson River waterfront that has been transformed over many years from a long-faded port district into a green string of popular recreational piers and esplanades known as the Hudson River Park.

Opposition emerged, though, partly based on environmental concerns about the pier's impact on aquatic life, and partly rooted in complaints from some over the way in which the project had been planned without broader public input.

'The way they've operated is like moving plants around their personal backyard,' said Emery, a civil rights attorney representing the nonprofit City Club of New York, a civic group fueling the contrarian position.

The press dubbed the proposed park 'Diller Island' after Diller and von Furstenberg (seen together in July) promised to fund it

Durst, a skyscraper baron, was once chairman of Friends of Hudson River Park Group, but had a falling out with other leaders and quit. He recently acknowledged secretly funding three lawsuits challenging the Pier55 project.

Both Durst and Diller are noted philanthropists. Diller gave tens of millions of dollars with his wife to another innovative, elevated city park, the High Line.

Durst is a conservationist and a proponent of green buildings and organic farming.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio phoned Durst earlier this month and encouraged him to drop his opposition to the Pier55 project.

The federal government issued a new environmental permit in June that will allow work to proceed in mid-August as long as it isn't halted by a new court battle, said Hudson River Park Trust CEO Madelyn Wils.

The target completion date is sometime in 2020, she said.

If a settlement that's satisfactory to both sides is not reached after Monday's meeting, Emery said that another lawsuit would be filed challenging the latest permit.

Diller, who can see the old pier from his offices at InterActiveCorp, which owns many online businesses including Tinder, Match, Vimeo and the Daily Beast, said he'd love to see the project become a reality.

'What was in my mind was to build something for the people of New York and for anyone who visits New York - a space that on first sight was dazzling, and upon use made people happy.'
Boots was criticised last night for capitulating in the face of political pressure over the cost of the morning-after pill.

The high-street chemist originally defied calls to slash the price of emergency contraception  with its chief pharmacist saying it did not want to incentivise inappropriate use.

But late on Friday night Boots released a statement to say it was truly sorry about its poor choice of words, and was looking at cheaper alternatives.

Spokesman Dr Peter Saunders said Boots had failed to support chief pharmacist, Marc Donovan (pictured), who had put forward legitimate concerns about overuse of the pill

The climb-down came after a campaign led by abortion provider BPAS and supported by female Labour MPs, two of whom backed calls for women to boycott the store over its stance.

Last night the Christian Medical Fellowship said Boots had given in to a cartel of radical feminist MPs  and now risked encouraging a rise in sexually transmitted diseases.

Spokesman Dr Peter Saunders said Boots had failed to support chief pharmacist, Marc Donovan, who had put forward legitimate concerns about overuse of the pill.

Having forced Boots to back down, BPAS is now understood to be turning its fire on Lloyds Pharmacy, which has also refused to cut the cost of contraception.

While Tesco and Superdrug agreed to halve the cost of the Levonelle pill (pictured), Boots originally refused to do so

BPAS said the chain was selling a non-branded version of the pill for 28.25, more than double that charged by other outlets.

While Tesco and Superdrug agreed to halve the cost of the Levonelle pill, Boots originally refused to do so.

The chain said it would continue to charge 28.25 for the contraception, with Mr Donovan saying it polarised public opinion and many felt the store should not supply it at all.

He said: We would not want to be accused of incentivising inappropriate use, and provoking complaints, by significantly reducing the price. The stance angered 35 female Labour MPs, who wrote to Boots to demand a change of course, calling the pill vital back-up contraception. Two of them urged women to vote with their feet and boycott Boots  prompting pro-life campaigners to accuse them of bullying.

On Friday night, Boots apologised for its previous position.

It said: We are truly sorry that our poor choice of words in describing our position on emergency hormonal contraception (EHC) has caused offence.

The chain said its price was based on the cost of the tablet and the consultation a pharmacist carries out with women, but that it is committed to finding less expensive versions.

Boots charges 28.25 for Levonelle and 26.75 for its own version, while Tesco charges 13.50 for Levonelle and Superdrug 13.49 for a generic product.

A Boots spokesman said: We firmly believe in the right of all women to access the EHC service with ease and convenience.

We are committed to looking at the sourcing of less expensive EHC medicines ... to enable us to continue to make a privately funded EHC service even more accessible in the future.

Last night Dr Saunders said: It is regrettable that Boots has capitulated in the face of political pressure and failed to support its chief UK pharmacist in his legitimate concerns over incentivising the inappropriate use of emergency contraception.

By appeasing this cartel of radical feminist MPs Boots is encouraging more reckless sexual behaviour and thereby exposing young people to an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections.
A 37-year-old British man has drowned while attempting to swim out to an island on Lake Garda, despite a desperate rescue attempt by his family.

His body was recovered from the bottom of the lake with a remote controlled submarine, it was reported.

The man is understood to have been swimming with his wife, mother, sister and brother-in-law while on holiday.

The family are believed to have been on holiday in the lakeside town of San Felice del Benaco (pictured)

When his sister and her husband realised he was no longer swimming behind them, they desperately tried to save him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in the water, but without success.

After risking their own lives and becoming exhausted trying to save him, they were forced to leave him in the water and head to the island to raise the alarm.

The family were attempting to swim out to the Isola dei Conigli but strong winds resulted in 6ft high waves.

The man was named in reports as Gary Wood, 37, from east London.

It is thought that five people have now drowned in Lake Garda since the beginning of the year (file photo)

The family are believed to have been on holiday in the lakeside town of San Felice del Benaco.

It is thought that five people have now drowned in Lake Garda since the beginning of the year.

Emergency services searched the area but his body was eventually discovered by sonar.

Pierluigi Mazzardi, who was a volunteer involved in the rescue attempt, told The Times: After 160 yards, the mans mother and wife turned back, and then, about 550 yards from the island, the sister saw her brother had stopped.

She and her husband, both doctors, went to help him, but he had suffered an ailment  possibly a heart attack, he said.

Mr Wood is thought to have been swimming with a floatation device to alert any boats that he was swimming in the water but it had somehow detached and his body sank.

We are providing support to the family of a British man who has sadly died in Italy, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.
Ministers face a growing rebellion from Tory MPs over moves to punish diesel drivers, it emerged last night.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove will this week publish an air quality plan to deal with air pollution in towns and cities across the UK.

An early version of the proposals, published in the run-up to the election, suggested diesel drivers would be hit with pollution charges in some areas.

But the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Fuel said today the new policy must not involve punitive taxes.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove will this week publish an air quality plan to deal with air pollution in towns and cities across the UK

An early version of the proposals, published in the run-up to the election, suggested diesel drivers would be hit with pollution charges in some areas

The groups chairman, Tory MP Julian Knight said: Drivers were told for years that diesel was the environmentally-conscious choice.

'As an MP for a car-making town Im very shocked that some manufacturers mislead customers and regulators on emissions  but the Governments response must not punish motorists who acted in good faith and on the advice of Tony Blairs ministers.

'He pointed to polling showing the public want practical solutions, not punitive taxes.

Former minister Rob Halfon, the groups vice chairman, added: Why should hard pressed motorists bear the burden for mistakes made by Gordon Brown and his Government.

Instead diesel car owners should be given tax breaks to replace their vehicles. Too often motorists are the easy target for tax raising enthusiasts. Enough is enough.

Ministers are being forced to act because of a legal challenge by environmental groups.

Instead diesel car owners should be given tax breaks to replace their vehicles. Too often motorists are the easy target for tax raising enthusiasts. Enough is enough,' said Mr Halfon

The courts have ruled that pollution levels in towns and cities are exceeding legal limits and required the government to say what action it will take.

Plans announced by Mr Goves predecessor, Andrea Leadsom, in May suggested the creation of clean air zones in the worst affected areas.

Councils in these areas would be required to combat pollution, and this could involve charges on polluting vehicles.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is already proposing a similar scheme in London. It will hit diesel drivers with a 10 charge for entering the city centre.

Motorists were encouraged to buy diesel cars under the last Labour government in an attempt to cut climate emissions

Motorists were encouraged to buy diesel cars under the last Labour government in an attempt to cut climate emissions. But the unforseen consequence was higher levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air, which causes health problems.

Last week Mr Gove criticised the EU testing regime for failing to enforce emissions standards. He said car manufacturers were allowed to rig the tests leading to a risk to public health which we have to deal with.

The EUs laboratory-based mechanisms for testing emissions have proven inadequate, and they have allowed manufacturers to game  or directly cheat  the system.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is already proposing a similar scheme in London. It will hit diesel drivers with a 10 charge for entering the city centre

Outside the European Union, we can do much better. And we will be saying more about this when our Air Quality Plan is published later this month.

Ministers have also discussed a diesel scrappage scheme which would pay drivers to trade in their old polluting vehicles. But it would come at a high cost to the Treasury.

Official figures suggest air pollution contributes to up to 40,000 deaths a year.
Andrew Meadowcroft let loose at 'certain women' who would enjoy their meal and a night out but wake up the next day and complain about their service online

A Gold Coast man has taken aim at restaurant customers who use the internet to lie about their experiences.

Andrew Meadowcroft, who works in PR, told the Gold Coast Bulletin he was particularly frustrated at customers who spent a lengthy period of time photographing their food before complaining it was cold.

'Are you kidding? By the time they have taken the right photo, done their tagging and uploaded it, of course it's cold,' he said.

It comes after Mr Meadowcroft vented his anger on social media, directing it at 'certain women' who 'hit social media again and whine about their experience at a restaurant'.

'You ate all your meal, downed bottles of wine, snapped at the staff all night,' he said in a Facebook post.

He said some customers will spend time taking photos of their food and uploading it to social media before sending it back to the kitchen because it's cold

'The next day you wake up with a hangover and jump on social media and bag everything including the food, service and atmosphere.

'Venues have CCTV cameras darlings and while you were rotten drunk at midnight trying to pick up the barman...you looked very happy.'

He said restaurant owners and their employees 'all deserve medals' for their tireless work, and then suggested it was about time to take revenge.

'These keyboard warriors are so silly. They post this crap but can't even remember the night,' he continued.

'They have businesses as well. Perhaps restaurants should return the favour? Real estate, massage, artwork, yoga? We can all post our thoughts about their businesses too!'

He said many would enjoy a night out, finish their meals and order more drinks before waking up with a hangover and proceeding to trash the venue online

It comes just weeks after Spanish officials launched a crackdown on fraudulent sickness claims made by British all-inclusive holidaymakers.

A staggering 1,800 complaints have been retracted just days after it was announced those making false allegations could face prison sentences.

Fed-up hoteliers in Majorca have hired private detectives while court officials and police have joined forces to sift through the hundreds of bids.

Tourists were set to make thousands of pounds for claiming they were sick on holiday, but multiple claims have already been found to be false.
Donald Trump Jr has boosted his legal team by hiring a new lawyer with congressional experience.

The president's oldest son has added Karina Lynch of the law firm Williams and Jensen, a D.C-based firm with more than thirty years experience in Congressional investigations.

A federal special counsel and several congressional panels are investigating allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election.

Trump Jr will be interviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections

Lynch has extensive experience on the Hill. She has worked for Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) on Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and served as investigative counsel to Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA).

Both senators Collins and Grassley are involved in the Russia investigations.

Last year Trump Jr met Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya in the hopes of receiving potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

News of the meeting emerged earlier this month amid the ongoing allegations over his father's campaign links with Moscow.

Karina Lynch (pictured left), from the D.C. law firm Williams and Jensen, will join Alan Futerfas (pictured right) in representing Trump Jr

The Kremlin has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

The meeting with was held in June 2016 at Trump Tower. Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, were also present.

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, also on July 11, Trump Jr said: 'In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently.'

Trump Jr met Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya (pictured) in 2016, hoping to receive potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton

Lynch has already said to have a private meeting between Trump Jr and the Senate Judiciary Committee, ensuring that he will not have to testify publicly on Wednesday, according to Fox Business Network.

Trump Jr also recently hired Alan Futerfas, a criminal defense attorney with 25 years experience, who has frequently represented clients in cybersecurity cases.
Doctors are failing to detect dementia in hundreds of thousands of patients, a major study has found.

It suggests a third of those affected by the illness do not realise it because they have not been given a formal diagnosis.

The Cambridge-led research, the first of its kind, found even those who were eventually diagnosed had to live with the disease for an average of three years before it was finally detected by GPs.

The Cambridge-led research, the first of its kind, found even those who were eventually diagnosed had to live with the disease for an average of three years before it was finally detected by GPs

Many suffer from dementia for more than six years before it is picked up  while others die without finding out.

The research will raise serious questions over the Governments dementia strategy. Ministers have pledged to make the UK a world leader in tackling the condition.

A major study earlier this month said dementia was one of the reasons that life expectancy had stalled for the first time in 100 years.

The Alzheimers Society says early diagnosis is vital. But researchers behind todays study believe some GPs think telling patients and families will only cause anxiety, as there is no cure for dementia.

Another reason is that many sufferers live alone, meaning no one notices if they become more forgetful, confused or start behaving differently.

Others are worried about the stigma of dementia and fear losing friends, their independence and their driving licence.

A major study earlier this month said dementia was one of the reasons that life expectancy had stalled for the first time in 100 years

The research by Cambridge, East Anglia and Newcastle universities, which is still ongoing, hopes to provide one of the most accurate pictures of dementia diagnosis rates to date.

It involves 7,796 over-65s in England who were interviewed between 2011 and 2013 for two to three hours. Results were then analysed to see which patients had dementia.

Controversially, the researchers did not tell patients if they tested positively. Instead, they waited to see how much time elapsed before the disease was diagnosed by family doctors.

Earlier this year the researchers contacted the GPs of 458 patients they had identified as having dementia.

The nine risk factors Nine risk factors including obesity, smoking and high blood pressure have been blamed for dementia in one in three cases. A report last week was the first time scientists have been able to show how much of the disease is preventable. They warned the public should not see dementia as an inevitable part of ageing but take responsibility for reducing their own risk. In the journal The Lancet, senior experts recommended a major crackdown on high blood pressure which could help prevent one in 50 dementia cases. Ensuring universal education to age 15 would cut the number of dementia cases by 8 per cent, the report added. In middle age, treating hearing loss would have the biggest impact, cutting cases by 9 per cent. Stopping smoking in over-65s would stop 5 per cent of cases and treating depression would prevent 4 per cent. Even a 1 per cent reduction in dementia cases would mean that 8,500 fewer Britons suffer from the disease. Advertisement

They found more than a third  some 37 per cent  had yet to be given a formal diagnosis by the GP.

There was not even any mention of symptoms in their notes. Of the patients who had been diagnosed, there was an average delay of three years between researchers identifying the illness and GPs picking it up.

The researchers calculated a fifth of dementia patients wait six years or more for a diagnosis. Another fifth die before being told they have the disease.

These early results were presented at the worlds largest Alzheimers conference in Docklands, east London, last week.

The full research will be presented at the end of the year.

Dr George Savva, lead author from East Anglia University, said: Many of these people have been living with dementia for six years without diagnosis.

Doctors thought theres no point in diagnosing because theres nothing we can do.

We dont have a lot of evidence as to whether diagnosis helps and the broad consensus is that many people dont really want to know. But there are drugs that can certainly help some people for some time, although not everybody and not much.

Dr James Pickett, of the Alzheimers Society, which is funding the study, said: We know people who get a diagnosis can get access to drugs, help and support, they can plan for their future and they can avoid reaching a crisis point.

East Anglia researcher Clare Aldus said diagnosis helps them understand what is going wrong  a diagnosis can bring some relief.

Separate figures last week suggested approximately one million Britons are living with dementia. This number is expected to double by 2051 due to the ageing population and obesity, which raises the risk.

Ministers have pledged to improve dementia care since Labour issued a National Dementia Strategy in 2009 and former prime minister David Cameron launched the Dementia Challenge in 2012.

GPs were urged to improve diagnosis rates and hospital doctors had training to better detect the illness. In 2014, the NHS paid GPs an extra 55 for every new dementia case they recorded. The scheme was scrapped the next year.

A Department of Health spokesman said it is investing 50million to make hospitals dementia-friendly and 150million to develop a national Dementia Research Institute.

An NHS England spokesman said the number of people with a formal diagnosis has dramatically increased  with approximately 150,000 more people able to access early support.
Speaking openly about his mother is important, says Prince William, because it reminds people of the person she was. But, significantly, in doing so, he has been equally revealing about himself.

For this is not just a poignant homage to an adored mother. It also offers a fresh portrait of a more purposeful Prince at a pivotal moment in his life.

In the next few days William will formally complete his transition from part-time royalty to frontline member of the Firm.

Before the end of the month he will carry out his last mission as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance and hang up his flying suit. From September he will devote all his time to public duties in support of the Queen.

The Princess Of Wales, William and Harry at the VJ Day 50th Anniversary Celebrations In London in 1995. In the next few days William will formally complete his transition from part-time royalty to frontline member of the Firm

Princess Diana and William watching Prince Charles at Smith's Lawn playing polo in 1987

We're both in the photo Diana cuddling William while she was pregnant with Harry Dressed in a casual pink jumper and beaming as she cuddles William, this candid photo of Diana has been released for the first time. And what made the picture even more special to the princes is that she was pregnant with Harry at the time. In the ITV documentary, the brothers flick through her photo albums. When they come across this one, William says: Believe it or not, you and I are both in this photograph. Youre in the tummy. Harry replies: Oh, nice. You look excited youve got a brother or sister coming. William says he thought the picture was sweet, and Harry adds: She seems happy there as well. Advertisement

We are going to see more of the Cambridges undertaking trips like last weeks tour of Poland and Germany.

As British ministers and diplomats battle to reposition the UK on the post-Brexit world stage, it is the Royal Family who will be expected to apply soothing balm to all the bilateral cuts and bruises.

All of which, inevitably, will invite fresh scrutiny of the Dukes appetite for the role which lies ahead, particularly in light of Prince Harrys recent remark: Is there any one of the Royal Family who wants to be king or queen? I dont think so.

In tonights film, though, his older brother comes across as a mature, stoical, reflective figure who seems comfortable focusing on the next stage of his life.

Not long after his wedding in 2011 I asked William what he thought about his royal destiny.

As I am flying along in my helicopter, he replied, I try desperately hard not to think about it. That can wait until Im older.

Six years on, it would seem he has thought about it a lot and it is clear that his mother has shaped his attitude to the job.

She gave us the right tools and has prepared us well for life, he points out.

She understood that there was a real life outside [the] Palace walls, and she wanted us to see it from a very young age. We understood some of the real problems in life that can pass you by very easily.

William clearly acknowledges that those in positions of great privilege have a moral obligation to explore outside their comfort zones. Hence, the sight of him visiting a shelter for the homeless.

As he points out, it all stems from visiting the homeless with his mother at the age of 12.

Prince William and Princess Diana Skiing Holiday in Lech, Austria, in 1991

Princess Diana taking Prince William and Harry to Wetherby school London in 1989

PAPARAZZI SPAT ON HER TO MAKE HER CRY Diana's treatment by paparazzi has left her sons wary of media intrusion. Prince William said: If you are the Princess of Wales and youre a mother, I dont believe being chased by 30 guys on motorbikes who block your path, who spit at you to get a reaction from you, and make a woman cry in public to get the photographs, I dont believe that is appropriate. William said people would be utterly appalled if they knew the extent of the way his mother was treated. An inquest in 2008 found the pack of French freelance photographers on motorbikes was a contributory factor in the crash that killed her. Advertisement

What we sense in this film, however, is a new confidence in front of the camera.

Here is someone with an innate wariness of the media  one lesson Ive learnt is you never let them in too far because its very difficult to get them back out again; a man for whom speech-making is clearly a duty rather than a pleasure.

Yet, when discussing subjects which would leave many eloquent public figures floundering for words, William shows a natural empathy.

My heart goes out to all the people who have lost their loved ones, he says.

You know  it does connect you. Its a very sad club you dont want to be a member of.

'But you do all have a shared sort of pain that you can immediately understand and see in anyone when you meet them.

Prince William, Prince Harry and Prince Charles watch as Diana's coffin is driven away from Westminster Abbey

PARENTS' SPLIT LEFT DIANA A 'BUNDLE OF INSECURITIES' Her parents separated when she was a child and fought a bitter divorce which left the young Diana (pictured in Italy in 1997), with emotional scars Earl Spencer said his sister Diana was a bundle of insecurities and unhappiness after her own parents divorce. Her parents separated when she was a child and fought a bitter divorce which left the young Diana with emotional scars. Her younger brother said the turbulent years meant she empathised with others who were suffering. Earl Spencer told the documentary: My mother left home when I was two or three and so Diana was the most significant warm female presence in my life. Because of her own sensitivities and vulnerabilities, she felt able to connect with people who were going through a very tough time. And [she could] sort of give them hope. Advertisement

The Princes may have stayed quiet for many years about their own deep loss but no more.

Tonights film shows they are determined to shape the way the world remembers their mother rather than leaving it to others.

That was underlined by Williams decision to introduce the film personally at a special preview screening for royal correspondents.

Subtext: this is no ordinary documentary  this is our documentary.

Of two things we can be very clear. However much critics of the Royal Family accuse them of airbrushing Diana from history, there is no chance of that.

And as William embarks on the next phase of royal life, he clearly feels he now has the tools for the job.
The young girl who was found dead in the bath at her home is being mourned by students and teachers at her school.

Tasmyn Whiteman, nine, was a 'much-loved' student at Auckland's Westmount School and due to return on Monday for term two before tragedy struck.

The Year five student drowned in the bathtub of her home in Conifer Grove just before 8am on Sunday and was found by a family member.

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'Much-loved' Year 5 student Tasmyn Whiteman (pictured), 9, was found tragically drowned in her bathtub on Sunday morning

Police (pictured) said a nine-year-old girl drowned in the bath at her south Auckland home on Sunday morning, calling it 'absolutely tragic'

The school have described her loss as, 'a tragedy for the family, the School and the wider community,' and are offering support for staff and students.

Police say emergency services were called to the girl's home on Bacardi Place, Conifer Grove but were unable to save the girl.

The girl was deceased when the ambulance arrived and although CPR was attempted she was pronounced dead at the scene, the NZ Herald reported.

Police Senior Sergeant John Yearbury said the cause of death would be determined by the coroner.

'It's an absolutely tragic event for the family, and for the emergency services, most of whom have children themselves,' he said.

The family are being supported by members of their church, New Zealand Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, who are offering assistance along with neighbours.

'Just genuine heartbreak,' said one man.
A young man is fighting for his life after he was shot in the head during an apparent hunting expedition.

The 21-year-old is in Flinders Medical Centre with life-threatening injuries after the shooting in an area popular with deer hunters on Sunday afternoon.

He was found in Parawa, 86km south of Adelaide, at about 3.45pm and was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition.

Police responded to reports that a man had received a serious wound to the head at Springs Road Parawa (above, file photo) on Sunday

Another man, 28, was refused police bail and will appear in the Christie Beach Magistrates court on Monday to face a charge of wounding with intent.

He and the victim are known to one another, according to South Australia police.

Police and paramedics responded to reports that a man had received a serious wound to the head at Springs Road Parawa, about 40kms west of Victor Harbour.

But the victim had been driven by a friend to the Victor Harbour hospital before emergency services arrived at the scene, according to the Adelaide Advertiser.

The 21-year-old is in Flinders Medical Centre with life-threatening injuries after the shooting

A crime scene was established around where the victim had been lying and a ute thought to belong to him.

Detectives from Victor Harbour CIB are investigating the incident, which is now being treated as suspicious.

Police originally believed it had been an accident but later arrested the 28-year-old man on Sunday night.
Vince Cable has made a career out of U-turns

Vince Cable has made a career out of U-turns so it's not surprising that the new Lib Dem leader should be accused of yet another screeching about-face.

First, he moved from the Labour Party, then he was ridiculed for claiming the damage the Lib Dems suffered after their university tuition fees reversal was a 'price worth paying'.

Now, he puts opposition to Brexit as his priority to rebuild his party's dwindling support  despite thinking very differently not long ago.

At the weekend, Dr Cable said: 'I specifically support the aims of the single market and its four freedoms: free movement of goods, capital, services and labour.' Compare this with what he told the New Statesman earlier this year: 'There is no great argument of liberal principle for free EU movement; the economics is debatable; and the politics is conclusively hostile.'

At the time, he wasn't an MP  having been booted out of his Twickenham seat in 2015  and an embarrassed Lib Dem spokesman was forced into damage-limitation mode and said: 'Vince's views are his own . . . and he does not speak for the party.'

Also, for good measure, here's another 180-degree switch.

At the weekend, Cable said: 'What we now need is an exit from Brexit'.

Yet, less than a year ago, he insisted it would be 'disrespectful' to voters and 'politically counter-productive' to call for a second referendum on the EU.

Vince should be beatified as the patron saint of U-turns.

Cut-price Kendall

Although a proud feminist, Andrew Neil (BBC salary in the 200,000-249,999 bracket) presides over a gender pay gap on his late-night BBC2 politics show This Week. Labour's Liz Kendall says she gets 350 for her appearances, while former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson is paid 700. Perhaps that's because Liz has started stretching out her words like Robert Peston, so says less than Johnson.

Labour's Liz Kendall says she gets 350 for her appearances, while former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson is paid 700

Whoops! A tweet from Jeremy Corbyn condemned car parking charges at a Cardiff hospital as 'a burden on families, patients and NHS staff'. However, it was soon deleted. His staff must have quickly woken up to the fact that the NHS in Wales is run by the Labour Party and has been for years.

Claret-lovers have pointed out a classy Bordeaux vintage that will be attractive to Corbynistas. Its tasting notes say: 'A dense red, pure and impressively endowed in an elegant yet authoritative style.' It is Chateau Grand Corbin, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2011  and is said to be good for another eight years!

Clearly worried that the size of her salary might offend hard-pressed voters in her Middlesex constituency, Labour MP Seema Malhotra told ITV's Good Morning Britain that she's paid 'about 70,000'. In fact, MPs get 76,011 a year. Let's hope the former Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury's hazy understanding of figures doesn't affect her job.

Labour MP Seema Malhotra told ITV's Good Morning Britain that she's paid 'about 70,000'. In fact, MPs get 76,011 a year

Gag-writers are being invited to contribute to a comic book anthology on Comrade Corbyn which is being produced by a company called SelfMadeHero. May I suggest they start by taking extracts from Labour's 2017 General Election manifesto  and, in particular, its La La Land economics.

MPs whip up a Stormzy

Novice Labour MPs Sarah Jones and Emma Dent Coad both quoted the Croydon-born 'grime' rapper Stormzy in their maiden Commons speeches. Jones said: 'As Stormzy put it so well in one of his songs: 'You're never too big for the boot.' ' This was a blatant attempt to pander to young inner-city voters. At least they spared us some of the rapper's more objectionable lyrics such as: 'Yeah, f***ing repping, init, Yeah fire in the park, let's go!'

Refreshingly different was Kemi Badenoch, who was raised in Nigeria and now represents Saffron Walden for the Tories. She said in her maiden speech: 'The vote for Brexit was the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom.'
President Donald Trump has threatened Republicans over their failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

'If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!' he tweeted on Sunday.

The tweet was one of several the commander-in-chief sent out ahead of the Senate vote this week on revised healthcare reform legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, is making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for their August recess without passing a health bill.

President Donald Trump threatened Republicans (pictured, Friday) over their failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The tweet was one of several the commander-in-chief sent out ahead of the Senate vote this week on revised healthcare reform legislation

The tweet was one of several the commander-in-chief sent out ahead of the Senate vote this week on revised healthcare reform legislation

The process to repeal the healthcare law put into place by former President Barack Obama has proved harder than originally thought to undo.

So far, at least three Republican senators have announced their intention to vote against a bill that would fully repeal the Affordable Care Act and a bill to repeal and replace parts of Obamacare - losing the GOP the majority they need.

In further expressing his frustration with Republicans, Trump said they 'do very little to protect their President'.

In another tweet Sunday, the president wrote this happens even with 'some that were carried over the line on my back'.

Trump has a complicated relationship with the GOP, but its lawmakers have continued to be generally supportive of the president, even as approval ratings slip to 38.5 percent.

The president also took the opportunity to criticize The New York Times and The Washington Post in another tweet.

In further expressing his frustration with Republicans, Trump (pictured, Saturday in Virginia) said they 'do very little to protect their President'. In another tweet Sunday, the president wrote this happens even with 'some that were carried over the line on my back'

Trump further expressed his frustration with Republicans (above) saying they did little to 'protect their president'. Trump has a complicated relationship with the GOP, who have continued to be generally supportive of him, even as approval ratings slip to 38.5 percent

Trump also took an opportunity on Twitter to attack The New York Times and The Washington Post (above). He denigrated both newspapers in the past over what he deemed to be critical coverage before and after the 2016 election

'It's hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!' he wrote.

Trump has denigrated both newspapers in the past over what he deemed to be critical coverage before and after the 2016 election.

The president has had a strained relationship with numerous news outlets, often times attacking them on Twitter and calling them out at his rallies.
Labour was plunged into a fresh bout of Brexit infighting last night after Jeremy Corbyn said he supported Britain leaving the EU single market.

Ending months of confusion over his partys policy, the Labour leader said the UK must quit the common market because it is inextricably part of the EU.

But he admitted his party had not made up its mind on membership of the Customs Union  which places tariffs on imports from around the world and stops Britain negotiating trade deals.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he believes Britain should leave the EU single market

Former Labour front bencher Chuka Umunna, pictured, said some countries such as Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway had single market membership despite being outside the EU

His comments sparked fury from Remain-supporting Labour MPs. Former frontbencher Chuka Umunna said some countries were outside the EU but inside the single market, including Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway.

The Blairite MP pointed to polls suggesting most Labour members support continued single market membership.

The overwhelming majority of Labour members think we should be fighting to stay in the single market - lets do it, he said.

Mr Corbyn said Labour had made it clear it wanted tariff free trade with the EU but had not jumped on either side of the fence on customs union membership.

He told BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show: The single market is dependent on membership of the EU. What we have said all along is that we want a tariff free trade access to the European market and a partnership with Europe in the future.

The two things are inextricably linked so the question then is the kind of trade relationship of the future and we have made it very clear we want a tariff free trade access with the European market.

We havent jumped on either side of that fence but, again, the customs union is part of the European Union.

Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake accused Mr Corbyn of parroting lies.

Jeremy Corbyns failure to stand up for the single market is a betrayal of future generations who will suffer most from an extreme Brexit.

He is parroting the lie used by leading Brexiteers that membership of the single market is the same as staying in the EU.

Tory MP Nusrat Ghani said: Week after week Jeremy Corbyn and his top team are simply unable to give straight answers on Brexit.

Labours confusion and inability to agree on anything shows they are not up to the job of negotiating a Brexit deal.

Whilst Labour cannot agree on anything the Conservatives are getting on with the job of negotiating the best Brexit deal and making the most of the opportunities of leaving the EU.

During the vote on the Queens Speech 49 Labour MPs backed an amendment, proposed by Mr Umunna, that Britain should stay in the single market.

It forced Mr Corbyn to sack three front benchers and a fourth resigned.
The Church of England should 'keep up' with modern society and drop its opposition to gay marriage, Justine Greening said.

While same-sex couples have been able to have civil weddings since 2013, the law still bars them from doing so in Anglican churches.

The Education Secretary suggested it was now time that the CofE allowed its vicars to bless homosexual unions.

Education secretary Justine Greening, pictured, said the Church of England should allow gay people to get married in churches and catch up with modern society

Commons speaker John Bergow also said the CofE should allow gay people to get married

She told Sky News: 'I think it is important that the church in a way keeps up and is part of a modern country.

'I wouldn't prescribe to them how they should deal with that but I do think we are living in a country where people broadly recognise that attitudes are in a different place now to where they were many, many years ago.

'We have allowed same sex marriage, that is a massive step forward for the better and for me, I think people do want to see our major faiths keep with modern attitudes in our country.'

Miss Greening's comments come a week after Theresa May urged the CofE to 'reflect' on its opposition to allowing vicars to bless gay marriages.

The Prime Minister urged the Church to consider how attitudes had changed.

And Commons Speaker John Bercow also said last week that gay people should be able to 'bloody well' get married in church if they wanted to.

John Bercow's comments were controversial as he is supposed to be politically neutral.
A Muslim woman arrested after reading a Syrian art collection on her honeymoon flight is taking legal action against the travel company.

Faizah Shaheen, 28, raised suspicions of cabin crews while reading the book 'Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline' on her outbound flight to Turkey.

The mental health worker was marched away by anti-terror police after stepping off the return journey to Doncaster airport, South Yorks., two weeks later in July 2016.

A shocked Faziah Shaheen, 28, was told by officers that a cabin crew member had reported that she was reading a 'Syrian phrase book'  despite the language not existing

A shocked Faziah was told by officers that a cabin crew member had reported that she was reading a 'Syrian phrase book'  despite the language not existing.

Police questioned her for 15 minutes under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act and told her their suspicions were aroused by her holiday reading.

The book, entitled Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline, is an award-winning collection of essays, poems and songs from Syrian artists and writers.

She is now is taking legal action to obtain a court declaration that she was discriminated against under the Equality Act.

Police questioned her for 15 minutes under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act and told her their suspicions were aroused by her holiday reading

Faziah, of Leeds, West Yorks., said: 'It's just completely stupid really because it was clearly an art book, written in English, and 'Syrian' isn't even a language.

'It just shows a complete lack of education and ignorance about the region.

'Even if the book had been in another language, no one should be discriminated for just reading a book.'

Mrs Shaheen has demanded an apology from Thomson Airline and wants them to acknowledge that their actions were 'unacceptabe'.

Faizah said: 'Being detained by the counter-terrorism police after my honeymoon because I was reading a book about art and culture was humiliating.

'All I want is an apology for being treated in this way.'

She says Thomson has ignored her requests, so she is taking legal action to obtain a court declaration that she was discriminated against under the Equality Act.

Faziah has launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website CrowdJustice to raise funds for her legal action.

She explained: 'What is truly important, and the reason why I've continued to fight for this apology is because I feel I need to stand up for all those people who may have faced discrimination at a time where racial, religious discrimination and hate crimes are on the rise.'

Thomson Airline says it has written to her explaining that crew members undergo regular security awareness training and are encouraged to share information with authorities.

A spokeswoman for Thomson said: 'We appreciate that in this instance Mrs Shaheen may have felt that over-caution had been exercised, however like all airlines, our crew are trained to report any concerns they may have as a precaution.

'We're really sorry if Ms Shaheen remains unhappy with how she feels she was treated.

'We wrote to her to explain that our crew undergo general safety and security awareness training on a regular basis.

'As part of this they are encouraged to be vigilant and share any information or questions with the relevant authorities, who would then act as appropriate.

'We appreciate that in this instance Ms Shaheen may have felt that over caution had been exercised, however like all airlines, our crew are trained to report any concerns they may have as a precaution.'

Ravi Naik of Irvine Thanvi Natas Solicitors, which represents Mrs Shaheen, said: 'She only wants an apology, to acknowledge that what happened to her was wrong.

'It is most regrettable that the airline have failed to provide any proper response to Ms Shaheen or to us.

'We had hoped that they would have taken the decent and simple step of apologising but instead, they are forcing Ms Shaheen to go to Court.

'We hope the court will do what the airline failed to and recognise that she was the victim of discrimination. Such discrimination must not be left to pass but rather is an affront to all our humanity.

'It is only by the bravery of Ms Shaheen sticking up for her principles that we continue with this fight. We hope that we are able to support her in this goal through this CrowdJustice campaign.'

Joanna Sidhu of CrowdJustice, a donation-based legal crowdfunding platform, said: 'By fighting for a simple apology, Faizah is bravely speaking out on behalf of all those who may have suffered from racial or religious discrimination.

'Now, all those people for whom Faizah has stood up for have the opportunity to stand behind her by supporting her crowdfunding campaign.'

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Dramatic footage shows knife-wielding man stamping a fellow diner after a brawl broke out inside a McDonald's.

The clip, recorded in Gravesend, Kent, shows furniture being hurled around as the man, dressed in a grey hoodie, attacks someone on the ground.

Other customers beg for him to stop as he picks up the knife from the ground, but the video cuts out before it is used.

Kent Police are still hunting for two black males in connection with a stabbing at around 3.45am on July 16.

The victim of that attack was taken to hospital but his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

'One is believed to be aged between 16 and 20 years old, around 5ft 8, medium build and wearing black tracksuit bottoms with a grey tracksuit top with the hood up.

'The second suspect is believed to have been wearing dark grey tracksuit bottoms with a dark top and is described as having short hair.'

Dramatic footage shows knife-wielding man stamping a fellow diner after a brawl broke out inside a McDonald's

The clip, recorded in Gravesend, Kent, shows furniture being hurled around as the man, dressed in a grey hoodie, attacks someone on the ground

A McDonald's spokesman said: "We can confirm an incident occurred at our Gravesend restaurant in the early hours of Sunday morning.

"This incident is subject to an ongoing police investigation and we're unable to comment further."

Anyone with information should call Kent Police 01634 792209, quoting crime reference number 16-0255.
The notorious former Hells Angels bikie who was caught on camera partying with Jarryd Hayne is back behind bars after failing to report to police on Friday.

Christopher Bloomfield's lawyer Adam Guest told court the ex-Gold Coast Titans under-20s player was a no-show because he swallowed his dentures.

The court heard Bloomfield was having intestinal issues as a result of the incident and was hospitalised until 11am on Friday.

Suspected former Hells Angels bikie enforcer Christopher Bloomfield (pictured) is back behind bars after failing to report to police because he 'swallowed his dentures'

The alleged standover man (pictured, right) made headlines after partying with Jarryd Hayne (pictured, left) on the Gold Coast

Bloomfield (pictured, right) is facing trial for extortion over an alleged incident in which he and two other Hells Angels bashed a man and stole his BMW over a $20,000 debt

Mr Guest said his client missed a court appearance last month because he had changed lawyers and was unaware he was due in court, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

Bloomfield is also facing charges of fraud and extortion over an alleged violent standover incident.

He and two other suspected bikies allegedly bashed a man, threatened to murder his family and stole his BMW, all over a $20,000 debt.

Bloomfield will face Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday over the fraud and extortion charges.

Bloomfield (pictured) also missed a court date last month, but his lawyer says he was unaware of it due to changing lawyers

He is due to face Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday after being charged with extortion

The former bikie (pictured) is now trying to turn over a new leaf and has been accepted into Bond University to study law

The alleged ex-bikie gang enforcer also made headlines for partying with Jarryd Hayne after a day at the races on the Gold Coast.

He is now trying to turn his life around and was conditionally accepted into Bond University to study law.

Bloomfield was fined $500 for the missed court appearance, and convicted for missing his reporting date with police, but received no punishment.

Bail was granted and his fraud charges were adjourned to September 5.
The most decorated Olympian faced his fastest opponent in the water and people on Twitter were not happy about it.

Michael Phelps raced against a simulated Great White shark in a highly anticipated television program to kick off Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week.

The 32-year-old American swimmer was beat by two seconds in the open-water 100-meter race, filmed off Mossel Bay, South Africa, and televised on Sunday night.

The computer-simulated shark clocked in at 36.1 seconds and Phelps, wearing a special swimsuit and fin, swam the distance in 38.1 seconds.

Though Phelps didn't actually go up against an actual shark, Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White showed an animated opponent superimposed on the footage beside the Olympian.

As it became clear Phelps wasn't swimming against a real Great White, viewers took to Twitter to show their disappointment and confusion by the program.

Michael Phelps raced against a simulated Great White shark in a highly anticipated television program to kick off Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week (pictured). However, viewers on Twitter weren't so impressed by Phelps' animated opponent

Though Phelps didn't actually go up against an actual shark, Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White did show an animated opponent beside the Olympian

The 32-year-old American swimmer was beat by two seconds in the open-water 100-meter race

'Should've called it Michael Phelps vs a Computer Generated Simulation. Huge letdown @Discovery', Twitter user @jkoz19 wrote.

Marissa Ruda wrote: 'I wasted an hour of my life to watch Michael Phelps race a hologram'.

'Call me crazy but I thought they were gonna put Phelps up against a real shark not a simulation. I feel robbed,' @MegDownSouth said.

The television program, which was filmed in June , showed Phelps prepare for what Discovery Channel promoted as a race for the ages.

Scientists gathered data from actual sharks, including a Hammerhead and a reef shark, and then used the data to create simulated sharks that Phelps swam against.

He swam a few trial runs in open water against the simulated sharks ahead of the big race against the Great White.

After gathering more data on Great Whites, Phelps even went underwater in a cage to meet his opponent, or at least a shark like his opponent.

Finally, he was ready to challenge a Great White.

HOW SCIENTISTS FOUND THE SPEED OF THE GREAT WHITE A team of scientists worked with Phelps to calculate the speeds of the sharks he swam against. The data was then used for the computer simulation that was superimposed for the television broadcast Sunday night. Scientists created a 'cutting-edge water vehicle prototype' that trailed bait behind it to entice the sharks. As the shark followed the bait, scientists were able to measure the speed of the sea creatures. Advertisement

The Olympian was given a swimsuit made like the skin of a shark to help him cut through the water faster, and a fin made similar to that of a shark.

Phelps took some practice laps in the pool before he finally set out to the open waters where the big race went down.

However, as the race was set up and boats prepared, Phelps' great opponent was animated into the footage and the Olympian wasn't able to beat the speed of the Great White.

Though Phelps did stay alongside the simulated shark until the halfway point, he finished two seconds behind.

'They swim so fast, it's almost like a bullet,' Phelps said.

'I don't like taking silver medals but I'll take one against a Great White.'

On Twitter, however, people seemed less forgiving.

One person tweeted: 'uh michael phelps not racing a real shark was a scam'.

Another said: 'I didn't sit here for an hour to watch Michael Phelps race an animated Great White shark'.

The television program, which was filmed in June , showed Phelps prepare for what Discovery Channel promoted as a race for the ages

Scientists gathered data from actual sharks, including a Hammerhead, a reef shark and a Great White, and then used the data to create simulated sharks that Phelps swam against

Phelps was given a special swimsuit made like the skin of a shark to help him cut through the water faster, and a fin made similar to that of a shark
The heartbroken fiance of slain Justine Damond has revealed his regrets from the night she was shot dead by a US cop and has picked up her wedding dress  just a month before they were set to wed in Hawaii.

The 40-year-old Australian woman had ordered the dress shortly before she was shot dead in Minneapolis just over a week ago.

Following tradition, her American fiance Don Damond wasn't going to see it until the couple were about to exchange vows, barefoot on a beach on August 17.

But Mr Damond told the New York Times that he planned to go to the bridal shop on Sunday to pick it up.

In his first interview since the shooting, Mr Damond  a casino operator who was on a business trip in Las Vegas at the time - said he regretted not staying on the phone with his fiancee.

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Justine Damond's fiance Don Damond (above, with ms Damond and his son) has revealed his regrets from the night she was shot dead by a US cop

She had called him to say she feared a sexual assault was taking place.

He told her to call 911 and stay put  but had hung up the phone when she told him the police had arrived, urging her to call him back afterwards.

'I have played this over in my head over and over,' he told the Times. 'Why didn't I stay on the phone with her?'

When Ms Damond didn't call him back and his text messages went unanswered, he assumed that she'd gone to bed.

But around 12.45am, he got a call from Minneapolis police informing him that woman had died.

He'd assumed that the victim was the woman his fiancee thought was being assaulted, but he was told: 'We can't give a positive ID, but we think its Justine.'

Mr Damond said he was going to pick up his slain fiancee's wedding dress on Sunday

Ms Damond, from Sydney, was shot dead by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor (left)

He was at the airport when the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension called to say the person who pulled the trigger was a police officer.

Mr Damond caught the 7am flight to Minneapolis, where a friend  a Delta Air Lines employee  comforted him.

'There's a glitch in the matrix. I just know I'm going to wake up from this nightmare,' he remembered thinking at the time.

The couple met at a meditation retreat in Colorado Springs five years ago, but Ms Damond lived in Sydney's northern beaches.

Mr Damond said he'd made his feelings clear after months of communicating via Facebook.

But then, Ms Damond  then Ms Ruszcczyk  stopped talking to him for more than a year, but drawing up a list of the qualities she wanted in her ideal partner and realising he was perfect for her.

Don Damond (right) makes a statement to the media as his son Zach comforts him on July 17

Me Damond is comforted outside his home as demonstrators march by during the Peace and Justice March for Justine on July 20

The couple met up all over the world and he proposed to her in San Francisco.

She moved to Minneapolis in 2015 and took his name, but the wedding was delayed partly because of the difficulty of arranging nuptials with friends and family and two sides of the world.

Her godmother Sara Baldwin told the Times that she'd hoped to return to Australia with Mr Damond one day.

Tragically, Ms Baldwin revealed that it wasn't just her family and friends drawing her back home, but her dislike of America's gun problem.

Officer Mohamed Noor shot Ms Damond after police were called to an alley behind Ms Damond's home on July 15.

She called 911 about 11.30pm after hearing a woman's screams and fearing a sexual assault was taking place.

As Ms Damond suddenly approached the police vehicle, Noor shot across his partner Matthew Harrity and struck Ms Damond in the stomach.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsey Hodges listens as protesters interrupt a press conference to announce the resignation of Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau

John Thompson, a friend of Philando Castile who was shot by police a year ago, gestures as protesters interrupt a press conference

Noor, a Somali-American officer, and Harrity were criticised for not having their body or vehicle's dashboard cameras on at the time.

However, a cyclist filmed part of the fatal encounter offering a potential breakthrough in the investigation.

On Friday, authorities announced they had identified and interviewed a male cyclist who was spotted at the scene.

Days earlier, they had asked for the man to come forward.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on Saturday that a source with direct knowledge of the investigation said the witness filmed part of the encounter.

Meanwhile, Noor has so far refused to be interviewed by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is investigating the shooting.

The BCA cannot be compel him to answer their questions.

Minneapolis has been rocked by what was the latest in a string of high-profile fatal police shootings in the region. Above, protesters make their way to Minneapolis City Hall on Friday

Minneapolis has been rocked by what was the latest in a string of high-profile fatal police shootings in the region.

Police Chief Janee Harteau was fired on Friday and at a press conference to explain the dismissal, Mayor Betsy Hodges was shouted down by protesters demanding she resign.

Before Ms Damond's shooting, Hodges was blasted in the wake of the controversial shooting of Jamar Clark in 2015.

It led to an 18-day occupation by Black Lives Matter protesters outside a police station.

Last month, tensions rose last month after a policeman was acquitted of shooting dead Philando Castile after pulling him over for a broken tail-light.

His girlfriend livestreamed the horrifying aftermath of the shooting on Facebook last summer.

Now, Hodges has tapped Medaria Arradondo, a 28-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, to replace Harteau.

Arradondo, who is African-American, served as the department's public face for most of a week after Ms Damond's death, while Harteau was on leave.
Bumper stickers taking a jab at 'mediocre white men' were sold at a feminist Labor Party fundraiser in Sydney's inner-west.

The stickers were handed out at council candidate Anna York's Women in Government event held at the Petersham Bowling Club on June 29.

The event to discuss women's representation in parliament featured a panel including Senator Jenny McAllister and NSW state MP Jo Haylen, with former deputy premier Carmel Tebbutt as MC.

Bumper stickers taking a jab at 'mediocre white men' were sold at a feminist Labor Party fundraiser in Sydney's inner-west

The stickers were handed out at local council candidate Anna York's Women in Government event held at the Petersham Bowling Club on June 29

One sticker simply read 'give me the confidence of a mediocre white man' and carried the party's 'Labor Local' branding and bright red colours.

Others read 'nasty women of the inner west unite' and 'making history, keep fighting, proud to be a nasty woman'.

A fourth substituted 'nasty' for 'strong' in the famous feminist quote: 'Here's to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.'

Labor's left faction also shared a photo of the stickers laid out on a table on its Facebook page to promote the event.

The recurring slogan was a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump referring to then-opponent Hillary Clinton as a 'nasty woman' in a debate during last year's presidential campaign.

His insult was quickly co-opted by the campaign and feminist groups more broadly, and appeared on t-shirts and even Clinton campaign material.

The event to discuss women's representation in parliament featured a panel including Senator Jenny McAllister (second from left) and NSW state MP Jo Haylen (L), with former deputy premier Carmel Tebbutt (R) as MC. Ms York pictured second from right

The former National Union of Students NSW branch president said she was a committed feminist and proud of the 'feminist event'

But Ms York's 'mediocre white men' line angered senior ALP figures who worried it would alienate large sections of the electorate.

'That bumper sticker squarely attacks the people that we're trying to target in the 2019 election,' one told The Daily Telegraph.

'Everyone who lives in Western Sydney and lives in rural and regional areas... that's who it's attacking. Those tactics defeated Hillary Clinton and elected Donald Trump.'

Another party official said the stickers were not representative of the party because the ALP was 'trying to show it's inclusive'.

The Labor insiders were not opposed to the sentiment per se, just that it was a bad strategic move ahead of the 2019 Federal Election.

The 'nasty woman' was a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump referring to then-opponent Hillary Clinton (inset) as a 'nasty woman' in a debate during last year's presidential campaign, and quickly co-opted by her campaign and feminist groups

Ms York is standing for the Stanmore Ward in the Inner West Council elections on September 9.

The former National Union of Students NSW branch president said she was a committed feminist and proud of the 'feminist event'.

She said the number of women in government was appallingly low with only 27 per cent of local councilors and five per cent of chief executives being female - and no women councilors in Inner West.

'This inequity impacts all of us each day in the decisions local governments make. You see it in the under-investment in affordable childcare, after school care, support services for stay at home mums and carers, and women's support services,' she said.

Ms York shared this picture of an anti-Liberal Party poster with the comment 'Stanmore is the centre of the #resistance'

'One of the things we talked about at my fundraiser was how it's especially difficult for young women, or women with caring responsibilities, to balance the work required to be elected to public office.

'So there's a whole generation of women with kids who are not being represented in elected office.'

Ms York's policies include improved access to childcare, opposition to the WestConnex motorway, and housing affordability.

Ms York works as a project leader for the Boston Consulting Group and consults for Jawun Indigenous Corporate Partnerships, as well as being the mother of a toddler.

She attended Harvard University after getting her undergraduate degree in politics at the University of NSW.
Homeless people were allegedly removed from the New York City subway so Mayor Bill de Blasio could have a 'clean' ride.

Police reportedly removed all vagabonds from two stations ahead of the mayor's four-stop press event as he rode from his Park Slope gym to his new re-election headquarters in downtown Brooklyn.

Authorities allegedly had until 11.00am to make sure the Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street and Jay Street/MetroTech F train stations 'looked nice'.

Mayor Bill de Blasio reportedly had police officers remove homeless people from subway stations on Sunday (pictured left and right) ahead of his four-stop press event as he rode from his Park Slope gym to his new re-election headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn

Opponents blasted the supposed stunt, including De Blasio's (pictured on Sunday) presumptive Republican challenger. A City Hall spokesman denied the claim, saying: 'These sources are refusing to provide their names because what they are saying is not true'

A newsstand manager inside the Jay Street/MetroTech station said he was surprised by the absence of homeless on the platform.

'I see a lot of homeless people in a week - up to 25. On average, five a day. Today, I have seen only one,' Ali Imtiaz told the New York Post.

'I was asking my colleague today why we don't see any homeless.'

He also said he saw at least four police officers walk past the kiosk around 10.00am.

'It's good for everybody that they clear out the homeless,' he said. 'This should be continued. This is a very busy subway.'

De Blasio's presumptive Republican challenger, Staten Island Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, blasted the mayor for the stunt.

'For someone who claims to care about the most poor New Yorkers, to have someone clear his path when he's about to board the subwaytells you all you need to know about Mayor de Blasio,' she said.

A City Hall spokesman denied the claim, telling the Post: 'These sources are refusing to provide their names because what they are saying is not true.'

During his ride, de Blasio railed against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and MTA Chairman Joe Lhota, the latter of who blamed de Blasio last week for refusing to spend the city's $4billion-plus budget surplus to fix the subways.

During his ride, de Blasio (pictured at the Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street station with wife Chirlane McRay, right) railed against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and MTA Chairman Joe Lhota, the latter of who blamed de Blasio last week for refusing to spend the city's $4billion-plus budget surplus to fix the subways

The mayor (pictured with McRay at a re-election event on Sunday) vowed not to allocate any more funds, saying the state 'has used the MTA as a piggy bank'

'Here's the truth: They're not even spending their capital budget,' the mayor told reporters.

'There's a huge amount of money sitting there, including the money the city gave. We gave them $2.5 billion a couple of years ago. Almost 90 percent of that money is just sitting there.'

De Blasio vowed not to allocate any more funds, saying the state 'has used the MTA as a piggy bank' by taking 'almost half a billion dollars in money out of the MTA to use for the state budget.'
Queensland counter terrorism police have revealed it is 'swamped' over monitoring more than 100 suspects across the state and have demanded more money for resources.

The list of potential terrorism suspects range in age, sex and employment status, but the Queensland police claim the physical and digital surveillance needed to prevent an incident demands more money into high-tech resources.

Suspects are on the list because of intelligence, behaviour or their associates and family and police are believed to fear they could become attackers or financiers of terror, according to The Courier Mail.

Queensland Police Union President calls for more resources for counter terrorism officers

The Queensland Union President Ian Leavers (pictured) has called for more resources into counter terrorism

Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said the police are swamped with the number of potential suspects they are monitoring and called for the Federal Government to step in.

'Queensland police are being swamped with potential terrorism targets we are monitoring,' he told the publication.

'The Federal Government needs to step up to start delivering to increase counter- terrorism capability.

'The Federal Government are asleep at the wheel when it comes to properly resourcing the states to fight terrorism and monitor terrorist targets,' he said.

Meanwhile, Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart has refused to say how many people are currently being watched by counter-terrorism officers in the state.

The Courier-Mail reported between 100 and 150 suspects are being actively monitored by police, with officers requesting more high-tech resources before the state suffers a Lone Wolf-style attack.

The Queensland Union President wants more resources from the Turnbull Government

Mr Stewart said giving a number was 'not helpful' and they were focusing on contacting potential terror suspects to offer them help and support to prevent them becoming radicalised further.

'Giving a number is not helpful to the community, because that number really does fluctuate widely,' he told ABC Radio.

'There are always those we will put into the high-risk category, and it's not just about watching, we actually work with a lot of these people in terms of engaging with them, talking to them about why they would have particular thoughts.'

The commissioner said around 40 per cent of terror events worldwide are carried out by Lone Wolf actors, many of whom have mental health issues as well.

He said calls for hi-tech solutions also miss the point because technology is advancing so rapidly that once police have advanced technological equipment potential terrorists have already found a way around it.

Mr Stewart said the recent federal government announcement of a beefed-up national counter-terror agency meant there would be more resources available to Queensland police.
Two 11-year-old boys were crossing a channel notorious for fierce currents when they became trapped by rising water and started screaming for help.

Good Samaritan Peter Dobos, 43, saw the kids in distress and dived in to save them, followed by Senior Constable Steve Ah Tow who was in his first week on the job.

'We were just really scared and hoping someone was going to save us,' Cody said before breaking down while thanking his rescuers at The Entrance on the NSW Central Coast.

Coby Bishop (pictured), 11, got stuck in a strong rip at The Entrance on the New South Wales Central Coast on Sunday

Senior Constable Steve Ah Tow (pictured) was in his first week at Tuggerah Lakes Local Area Command when he helped save the two boys

Local father Peter Dobos (pictured) was walking with his own children when he heard the 11-year-olds screaming for help

The incident took place in a channel at The Entrance (pictured) which is notorious for strong currents

'We hopped in over at the sandflats and started walking over and we realised that we couldn't get back when the water started rushing in on us and it got stronger and stronger,' he said.

'It [the current] was building up sand on our legs so we couldn't move that well and it was getting higher.'

Police say the boys were hysterical when Mr Dobos and the senior constable swam over and brought them to safety.

Snr Const Ah Tow was in his first week at Tuggerah Lakes Local Area Command and has been a police officer for six-and-a-half year, 9News reported.

Coby (pictured) was overcome with emotion while thanking his rescuers in front of the media

Coby's mother (pictured, left) thanked Senior Constable Steve Ah Tow (pictured, second left) and Peter Dobos (pictured, second right) for saving Coby (pictured, right)

He arrived at the scene after getting the call at The Entrance Police Station and saw the boys trapped in the channel, holding each other.

He said the fast-moving current was very strong and was 'surprised that the two kids were able to stay in that one spot'.

Mr Dobos was with his own children when he saw the boys caught in the rip and heard them screaming for help.

Cody (pictured, right) says he was really afraid and hoping someone would save him when Mr Dobos (pictured, left) and Senior Constable Steve Ah Tow (pictured, centre) dived in

'Everyone was just standing there, I'm like, I've got to do something,' he said.

Mr Dobos says there were 15 to 20 bystanders doing nothing, which he found shocking.

'All I could think of was my kids, if they were in that position.'

Mr Dobos and the senior constable then swam out to where the 11-year-olds were trapped, and carried them out of the rip.

Coby's mother (pictured) said she was very grateful for the bravery of the men who saved her son

Mr Dobos (pictured, right) had tried to save Coby (pictured, left) and his friend when Senior Constable Steve Ah Tow (pictured, centre) arrived

Coby and his mother thanked the police and Mr Dobos and were overcome with emotion.

Police said in a statement that the public must remain vigilant in and around the water.

'If you are caught in a rip current the number one priority is to remain calm and conserve your energy,' it said.

'Attract the attention of a lifesaver or lifeguard and wait to be rescued.'
Two fast-moving fires in southern California triggered evacuations and threatened homes as they burned more than 100 acres of land on Sunday.

The wildfire in Lucerne Valley was reported just before 4pm. Within two hours the fire moved quickly from five acres to about 100 acres of brush, prompting mandatory evacuations.

About 200 firefighters responded to the Lucerne Valley fire, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Two fast-moving fires in southern California triggered evacuations and threatened homes as they burned more than 100 acres of land on Sunday. Pictured is the fire in La Verne

The wildfire in Lucerne Valley was reported just before 4pm. Within two hours the fire moved quickly from five acres to about 100 acres of brush, prompting mandatory evacuations

About 200 firefighters responded to the Lucerne Valley fire, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Pictured is a home in the La Verne area

Mandatory evacuations were in effect along sections of High Road, as well as south of Sutter, north of Santa Rosa and east of Buena Vista roads, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Firefighters battled the blaze from land and air and around 10.45pm, the department tweeted that the Lucerne fire was '20% contained'.

About an hour before the Lucerne Valley fire was reported, a blaze broke out in La Verne.

That fire scorched about 40 acres of medium to heavy brush. Eddie Pickett, a dispatcher with the LA County Fire Department told the Times that three firefighters were sent to the hospital with minor injuries while battling the blaze.

The La Verne fire was burning uphill toward residential neighborhoods, but around 6.30pm it was no longer moving toward the homes.

Pickett said it was likely that a 'gust of wind' changed the direction of the fire.

About an hour before the Lucerne Valley fire was reported, a blaze broke out in La Verne (pictured). The La Verne fire was burning uphill toward residential neighborhoods, but around 6.30pm it was no longer moving toward the homes

The three-alarm fire required at least three water-dropping helicopters and planes that dropped fire retardant

The three-alarm fire required at least three water-dropping helicopters.

Fire officials tweeted that voluntary evacuations were lifted and the fire was about 50 per cent contained around 7pm.

A third brush fire spread to 150 acres Sunday afternoon, but didn't cause evacuations in the Santa Clara County area.

The fire started around 4pm and spread to 50 acres within an hour. Later Sunday, officials said the blaze had spread to 150 acres and was 20 per cent contained.

No structures were threatened and no evacuations were issued within that area.

Fire officials are still investigating the cause of the three fires.

The three fires came right after the massive Detwiler Fire near Yosemite that lasted for more than a week, burned thousands of acres and destroyed dozens of homes.
One of three men accused of raping an unconscious teenager with a bottle at an Australia Day party described footage of the alleged assault as the 'funniest thing I've ever seen', a court has heard.

Bailey Hayes-Gordon, Jacob Watson and Nicholas Jackson on Monday pleaded not guilty in the Brisbane District Court to one count each of rape in relation to the alleged assault of a 19-year-old in 2015.

The trio jointly raped the man, who had passed out on a bed, by inserting a bottle into his anus and repeatedly moving it in and out without his consent, crown prosecutor Caroline Marco said.

Bailey Hayes-Gordon (pictured) is accused of inserting a bottle into a 19-year-old male who had passed out at an Australia Day party

Jacob Watson is also accused of being involved in the alleged rape. The prosecution claims he filmed the assault on his phone

The prosecution alleges Jackson rolled the teenager over and restrained him by his feet, Watson took video footage on his phone and Hayes-Gordon - as the principal offender - inserted the bottle.

Footage of the assault was later shared in Facebook conversations, with Hayes-Gordon accused of posting the video and screenshots and writing: '(The complainant) passed out so we stuck a bottle up his a*** and he just took it'.

He then allegedly wrote: 'Funniest thing I've ever seen, legit. The whole end of the bottle disappeared'.

The complainant responded by saying he didn't remember the incident at all and calling it 'f***ed up', the jury heard.

Ms Marco also said one of the defendants said words to the effect of 'hope it breaks' during the incident.

Nicholas Jackson (pictured) is accused of holding the victim down

Hayes-Gordon appeared concerned as he left the Brisbane District Court on Monday after pleading not guilty

The jury would be shown the video taken of the incident, which shows the complainant 'lying motionless' on a bed before he stirs and tries to break free, she said.

The jury heard the video and screenshots were initially shared in Facebook messages the day after the party, but resurfaced in separate conversations in August that included the complainant's younger brother and girlfriend.

Hayes-Gordon allegedly told the complainant's sibling the content was 'your brother getting analled'.

About a week later, the complainant and his girlfriend went to Ferny Grove police station, the court was told.

Ms Marco said the teenager did not have the capacity to give consent because he was unconscious when the alleged rape happened.

The complainant did not sustain any injury during the incident.

The trial, which is expected to run for five days, continues before Judge Anthony Rafter SC.

Jackson (centre) also pleaded not guilty to one count of rape in court on Monday
Leonard Benitez asked to borrow a cup of salt from Louis and Irene Rosen in their Tamarac, Florida, home before he pressed the 99-year-old and his wife for $50,000 on Friday

A man has been charged on Sunday with holding his elderly neighbors hostage in Florida after he pulled out a gun and knife and kept them captive.

Leonard Benitez asked to borrow a cup of salt from Louis and Irene Rosen in their Tamarac, Florida, home before he pressed the 99-year-old and his 70-year-old wife for $50,000 on Friday.

'I was scared to death,' Mrs Rosen said to ABC 10.

According to the Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Gina Carter, the 45-year-old pistol whipped Louis in the head with his gun.

His wife had managed to escape the home and alert authorities but had to leave her husband temporarily behind so she could get help.

Mrs Rosen had managed to escape the home and alert authorities but had to leave her husband temporarily behind so she could get help

Mrs Rosen said: 'I am not a gun person. I've never been around guns.'

Benitez fled the scene, running to a nearby house where he was staying supposedly with family. A swat team was finally able to take him into custody.

Mr Rosen was taken to North Broward Health, where he needed stables in the back of his head where Benitez hit him.

According to the Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Gina Carter, the 45-year-old pistol whipped Louis in the head with his gun. He would need staples in the back of his head for the injury

Benitez fled the scene, running to a nearby house where he was staying supposedly with family. A swat team was finally able to take him into custody

'I try to think of the positive and say, "What an adventure we had," an adventure I could have done without,' Mrs Rosen added.

Benitez was arrested on charges for home invasion, battery, false imprsionment and kidnapping. He is being held without bond in jail.

On Sunday a judge instructed the alleged kidnapper to stay away from the Rosen family.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has likened a traditional Maori greeting to a headbutt while visiting indigenous leaders in New Zealand.

Johnson opened his two-day trip with a visit to a marae, or Maori meeting house, in Kaikoura, the South Island town that was hit by a massive earthquake last year.

While there he was greeted with a hongi, the Maori welcome which involves two people pressing their noses together.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has likened a traditional Maori greeting to a headbutt while visiting indigenous leaders in New Zealand. Pictures on his Twitter feed today showed him being welcomed by a Maori elder

Johnson opened his two-day trip with a visit to a marae, or Maori meeting house, in Kaikoura, the South Island town that was hit by a massive earthquake last year. While there he was greeted with a hongi, the Maori welcome which involves two people pressing their noses together

is pictured during an unveiling ceremony for the UK Memorial at Pukeahu War Memorial Park in Wellington today

The ritual symbolises participants sharing the breath of life, but Johnson said he was concerned about how it would be received in Scotland, home of the 'Glasgow kiss', or headbutt.

'Thank you for teaching me the hongi, I think it is a beautiful form of introduction, though it might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow if you were to try it,' he said.

Later Prime Minister Bill English said he didn't think New Zealanders would be offended by Johnson's comment.

'A hongi is a fairly unfamiliar ritual to almost anyone else in the world,' he said.

But others took to Twitter to criticise the British politician.

One said: 'Well, that IS what a buffoon would say. I expect nothing less.'

Another wrote: 'Boris is in New Zealand and still has time for a sly dig at Glaswegians. Some boy.'

Mr Johnson also quipped that 'the marae has a tradition of strong female leadership, which we also have back home', referring to his boss, British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson unveils a new UK memorial at Pukeahu War Memorial Park in Wellington

Boris Johnson (centre) arrives with New Zealand's Governor-General Patsy Reddy (second left) and New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Gerry Brownlee (right) prior to unveiling the UK Memorial at Pukeahu War Memorial Park in Wellington today

Mr Johnson is on a two-day visit to New Zealand which is expected to focus on trade, foreign policy and international security issues.

While in Wellington, Johnson will also unveil a war memorial and will meet New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English.

It is the former London mayor's first visit to New Zealand.

'I also have to say that this is the most mind-blowingly, mind-numbingly beautiful country that I've ever seen,' he said.

'I think probably the only landscape that I can think of that can conceivably do justice to the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings.'

Mr Johnson has a history of blunders, including touting the trade benefits of Scotch whisky in a Sikh temple earlier this year, before being told that alcohol was against the religion.

Prior to becoming Britain's top diplomat, he compared Hillary Clinton to 'sadistic nurse in a mental hospital' and said ex-US president Barack Obama was 'part-Kenyan' with 'an ancestral dislike of the British Empire'.
A seven-year-old girl says she was attacked by a squirrel that has been terrorizing residents of Brooklyn, New York, over the past week.

Maria Guerrero was with her family on Sunday - and nowhere near squirrels - when they say the animal appeared suddenly and attacked them.

Now a warning has been sent to visitors of Prospect Park after Guerrero became the fifth victim to be attacked.

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Maria Guerrero, 7 (pictured), says she was attacked by a squirrel in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, on Sunday - making her the fifth attack victim over the last five days

She and her family (pictured) say they were walking when the squirrel appeared out of nowhere and bit down on Maria's arm

'It kind of looked like a flying squirrel. He jumped on my arm and then he started to bite my arm, but I had no food!' Maria told ABC7.

'After that my dad he took off the squirrel, but then he came back.'

Her father explained that after he heard his daughter scream, he was able to pry the squirrel's jaw open and threw it onto the sidewalk.

But the animal was surprisingly resilient and tried to attack them two more times before running up a tree.

Maria suffered injuries to her left arm and her right hand.

Maria's father said he was able to pry the squirrel off and throw it onto the sidewalk, but adds that the animal tried to attack them twice more before escaping up a tree (Pictured, injuries on Maria's arm)

Maria is being treated preventatively for rabies even though cases of squirrels with the disease in the state of New York are rare (Pictured, injuries on Maria's hand)

The New York City Health Department has regardless cautioned anyone who was bitten by a squirrel in the last two weeks to get checked for rabies (file image)

She is being treated preventatively for rabies even though cases of squirrels with the disease in the state of New York are rare

The New York City Health Department has regardless cautioned anyone who was bitten by a squirrel in the last two weeks to get checked for rabies.

Officials are also urging residents to not feed the seemingly-cute creatures.

'This animal has exhibited extremely unusual behavior and we are urging anyone who has been bitten by it, including any pets, to go and see your doctor or veterinarian,' said Health Commissioner Mary Bassett in a statement.

'Most squirrel bites occur when someone attempts to feed the animal. Keep a safe distance from wildlife and never feed wild animals.'
A frail 81-year-old retired dentist has been jailed for a second time for sexually molesting girls and young women while they were under the influence of nitrous oxide gas at his Sydney surgery.

On Monday in the District Court in Parramatta, Judge Chris Craigie set a minimum term of three years for Rodger Garry Leighton who pleaded guilty to molesting five girls and three women between 1974 and 1983.

The same judge jailed him last year after a jury found Leighton guilty of indecently assaulting four other girls who were also patients at his surgery at Jannali in Sydney's south.

Dentist Rodger Leighton departs the Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney, Tuesday, Oct. 20 2015

The judge set a maximum term of eight years, which is partially accumulative on his previous sentence - meaning he will be eligible for release on parole in March 2019.

He stressed that he was bound by penalties applicable at the time of the offending, penalties which were now much tougher for such crimes.

Leighton's 'predatory sexual behaviour' involved him sexually molesting patients while they were under the influence of so-called laughing gas.

Leighton's (left and right outside Sydney Downing Centre in 2015) 'predatory sexual behaviour' involved him sexually molesting patients while they were under the influence of so-called laughing gas

Leighton (pictured in 2015) administered the gas under 'the pretence it was solely for the purpose of legitimate dental treatment', but it also facilitated his opportunistic offending for his own sexual gratification

He administered the gas under 'the pretence it was solely for the purpose of legitimate dental treatment', but it also facilitated his opportunistic offending for his own sexual gratification.

'For some 40 years, the offender has been unpunished' while his victims had been reliving the humiliation and distress he caused them, the judge said.

Leighton continued on with his life, with the social status and standing in the community that was given to professionals such as him.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezezinski are sharing details about the argument that ended their years-long friendship with President Donald Trump.

The affianced 'Morning Joe' co-hosts appear on the cover of New York Magazine, and inside recount how President Trump called them up 'screaming' back in early February after taking issue with Scarborough's treatment of Stephen Miller on their program.

'He said, "I invited you over to lunch and youre so rude! Youre killing this kid!"' said Scarborough, 54, who later claimed that President Trump told him he should have invited Sean Hannity to the lunch.

Not to be outdone, Brzezinski, 50, told her own salacious tale about a frustrated Ivanka Trump being forced to shout at her father during a White House meeting when he ignored her attempts to discuss woman's issues.

Brzezinski said that the 'disturbing' interaction made it clear that the billionaire businessman was 'way too into' being president.

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Spilling secrets: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski reveal the fight that led to the end of their friendship with President Trump in 'New York' (above)

The way they were: President Trump called the co-hosts enraged after they criticized the performance of senior adviser Stephen Miller on their February 13 show (President Trump and Scarborough in January)

A little bit louder now: Brzezinski told her own salacious tale about a frustrated Ivanka Trump being forced to shout at her father during a White House meeting (Ivanka and her father at the G20 summit earlier this month)

It was just one week after President Trump was sworn into office that he hosted Scarborough and Brzezinski for lunch at the White House with daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

At that point the two already believed that President Trump was 'long gone,' with Scarborough claiming that winning the election 'has just amplified as of his insecurities,' a conclusion he came too just hours after the inauguration when he got a phone call from the new Commander-in-Chief.

'I talked to him for three seconds. You know when you talk to somebody and you know theyre gone,' explained Scarborough.

Oh, this place is so great!, he recalled the President saying during that call, while also 'talking about the phone system and all the, basically, toys, new toys he had  not his words.'

Scarborough added: 'I remember getting off the phone really fast and, to Mika, I said, Hes long gone. This is bad.'

Brzezinski soon found out first hand during her trip to the White House, she said in the interview.

'When I spoke to Ivanka that morning, she was like, "Were really going to talk to him about some of these things that I want to do,"' recalled Brzezinski.

'And I was all about supporting anything thats good for empowering women, whether its a Republican as president or a Democrat. Im open to hearing it all.'

Ivanka was still months away from actually having a formal position in the White House at the time, but that did not excuse the way her father treated her that day said Brzezinski.

She claimed that the First Daughter tried to bring up a discussion of woman's issues, but was ignored by her father, who eventually offered up a 'what?'

That eventually resulted in Ivanka shouting out 'Women!' and then 'Woah-men!' for emphasis said Brzezisnki.

Ivanka also began drawing the figure of a woman in the air with her fingers to try and help her father.

Brzezinski went on to state that President Trump finally responded to his frustrated daughter's outburst by saying: Oh, women. Yeah, honey. Yeah, honey. We can do that.'

Critical analysis: Scarborough called Miller's performance defending the administration's controversial immigration order 'horrendous' and 'embarrassing' (above on February 13 show)

What's the cue: Miller (above on February 12) had been tasked with defending President Trump's controversial executive order over

Scarborough meanwhile spent the meeting digging himself into a hole with President Trump after offering up his very honest personal assessment of the newly elected leader's first week in office.

He said that in the wake of telling President Trump that he thought week one went 'not very well,' the rest of the lunch was spent watching President Trump as he shouted out to those nearby: 'Hey, can you believe this? This guy doesnt think we had a great week!'

That response made Scarborough realize that his criticism was the 'first time anybody had told him that the first week didnt go really well.'

On top of all this, President Trump also kicked things off that day by asking Brzezinski if this was her first trip to the White House.

Brzezinski explained that she first visited when she was 9 because her father Zbigniew Brzezinski was the national security adviser to former president Jimmy Carter.

President Trump was not deterred however, and tried to bounce back by then saying: 'Well, I bet it was your first time, Joe.'

Scarborough informed President Trump that he got the chance to previously visit as well when he served in Congress two decades prior.

'That was pretty much it for both of us,' said Scarborough.

Things only got worse a week later however, when the 'Morning Joe co-hosts took aim at Miller on their program.

Miller had been tasked with defending President Trump's controversial executive order over that weekend, which heavily restricted the citizens of six Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States and banned any new immigrants from those nations from coming to America.

Scarborough did not hold back, calling the senior policy adviser's performance on the weekend shows 'horrendous' and lambasting him for visibly reading off of cue cards.

The biggest issue Scarborough had was with the totalitarian viewpoint that Miller had taken on the shows, repeating over and over that the order should be law because President Trump wished it to be the law of the land.

Scarborough commented that the White House should 'stop embarrassing themselves by putting this guy up!'

Through this all he also frequently referred to the 31-year-old adviser, who is the send youngest member of President Trump's core team behind Hope Hicks, as 'Little Miller.'

Scarborough and Brzezinski said President Trump himself was soon on the phone to them, and not happy.

The White House said there was 'no screaming' on the call, which both 'Morning Joe' hosts dispute, but there was anger.

Scarborough said that he explained to his still-friend that he was taking issue with the idea that the 'presidents authority was not to be challenged.'

President Trump did not respond well according to Scarborough.

Lovers in love: 'Im happy right where I am with Mika, music, and Morning Joe,' said Scarborough

'I know what youre like: You think because you came over to the White House you have to prove youre independent!' Scarborough claimed President Trump said to him during that conversation.

President Trump followed that up by stating: 'I couldve invited Hannity over here!'

Scarborough said that he urged President Trump to invite Hannity next time, because he and Brzezinski had no plans to 'hold our punches because you give us fish!'

A shockingly candid and casually vulgar White House official also gave their account of the conversation.

'The president was like, "Im the f***ing president. I take responsibility for this. Stop talking about my staff,"' said the unnamed official.

'It was very endearing, actually, and nobody would ever give him credit for that, but he was really taking responsibility and trying to protect Stephen, which was lovely because they had been really personal to him.'

Scarborough met with President Trump again later that month at the behest of Jared, but things did not go well he said.

'Jareds always the one that tries to bring us back together,' said Scarborough of the failed reunion.

He went on to note: 'But, again, I think the biggest shock for Donald  for the president  is that, regardless of whether we saw him or not, we were going to say whatever we wanted to say.'

President Trump has been at odds with Scarborough and his fiancee Brzezinski ever since the day they criticized Miller on the air.

And that feud has allowed the pair to cash in on the Trump bump.

The hosts reached their biggest audience ever when they talked about President Trump's tweets about their show late last month.

HOW JOE'S BUNNY 'DONALD FLUFFY TRUMP' TURNED OUT TO BE MELANIA Brzezinski got Scarborough a bunny rabbit for his 53rd birthday last year. As they were trying to figure out a name for the pet, they landed on Donald Fluffy Trump. At the time, Trump was something of a family friend. Eventually, the rabbit had to move in with Brzezinski because Scarborough said it kept scratching him. When she brought the bunny home, she put it in a pen with her male rabbit, Ducky. 'We found out that Donald Trump was actually Melania Trump,' Scarborough said. Brzezinski said: 'I called Joe. Im like, "Uh-oh," because Ducky, at that point, was on top of what we thought was Donald.' So Donald was renamed Melania and Ducky was renamed Donald Fluffy Trump. Advertisement

Nielsen reported that 1.66 million people watched the MSNBC morning show the day after President Trump'c tweets about the two.

That narrowly beat the show's previous record, which came the day after President Trump was elected last year.

President Trump, in denouncing the show, wrote: 'Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!'

That tweet came two days after President Trump's personal attack on Mika.

'I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore),' wrote the commander-in-chief.

'Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came 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!'

Willie Geist told New York that in the moment, Brzezinki managed to laugh it off.

'I handed her my phone, and her first reaction, in classic Mika fashion, was to just laugh derisively at how sad it was that the president said that,' said Geist.

'Im glad Im at kind of a more confident, comfortable place in my life,' said Brzezinski, who has been candid about her struggles with her weight and appearance over the years.

'I think if this had happened when I was, like, 30, it mightve been really painful, but Im 50. And Ive been through stuff that matters, you know? So it is just face-shaming. Its just so silly. Its unbelievable.'

She was also dealing with the recent death of her beloved father, who died in May.

And now she has love, with her and Scarborough set to walk down the aisle next Spring in Nantucket.

Scarborough has four children from prior relationships while Brzezinski has two.

Katherine and Jack are Scarborough's two children with Susan Warren, a former aide to Florida Governor Jeb Bush who he divorced in early 2014 after 11 years of marriage.

The popular morning host also has two adult sons, Joey and Andrew, from his first marriage to Melanie Hinton, which ended in 1999 after 13 years.

Brzezinski has two adult daughters, Emilie and Carlie, from her marriage to Jim Hoffer, which ended in 2016 after 23 years.

'Im happy right where I am with Mika, music, and Morning Joe,' said Scarborough.
An adorable four-year-old couldn't hold back his tears of joy as his dad and new stepmom said 'I do'.

US Marine Corps Sergeant Joshua Newville and Senior Airman Emily Leehan said their vows in an emotional wedding on Saturday at Quincy Cellars in Ripley, New York.

But it was Sgt Newville's son, Gage, who became overwhelmed with emotion when his stepmom read vows that she had written especially for him.

Scroll down for video

Emily Leehan read her four-year-old stepson Gage his own set of vows at her wedding on Saturday

Leehan, a senior Airman, married Marine Sgt Joshua Neville on Saturday

Little Gage was brought to tears by his new step-mother's kind words

Gage and his mom shared the emotional moment at the New York ceremony, in front of family and friends

The new family-of-three post for a picture after the ceremony on Saturday

The new Mr and Mrs Newville share a kiss after saying 'I do' on Saturday

Stepmom's vows to her four-year-old stepson on her wedding day I want you to be safe and to try your hardest and to be a good person. [To Gage: Don't cry!] I know that you and I will butt heads, but I hope that with all my heart, that as you become grown man you will understand my methods and realize I have only done what is best for you and that I love you. The last thing thing I hope you learn is that you are a special boy. You are so extremely smart, handsome, and kind to others. You have helped shape me into the woman that I am today and I may not have given you the gift of life, but life surely gave me the gift of you. Advertisement

As his father looked on proudly, Gage gazed up at his stepmom while she said: 'I want you to be safe and to try your hardest and to be a good person.'

And that was all she was able to say before sweet little Gage wrapped his tiny arms around her and began to cry.

'Don't cry baby,' she said as the wedding guests simultaneously said 'aww' followed by soft laughter.

His dad then tried to calm him down. 'Buddy. It's okay,' he says as Gage continues to cry in his dad's arms.

'I hope you learn that you are a very special boy,' Gage's stepmom continued.

'You are so extremely smart, handsome and kind to others. You have helped make me into the woman that I am today.

'You have helped shape me into the woman that I am today and I may not have given you the gift of life, but life surely gave me the gift of you,' Leehan told her stepson on Saturday

According to ABC 7 , the newlyweds are still on active military duty and they won't be taking a honeymoon at this time

The pair will instead return to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in a few days

'And I may not have given you the gift of life, but life surely gave me the gift of you,' Leehan said as she leaned down to kiss Gage, who then reached out for a big hug.

Both Leehan and Newville cried right along with Gage as they finished up their vows.

According to ABC 7, the newlyweds are still on active military duty and they won't be taking a honeymoon at this time.

The pair will return to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey, in a few days.
A Papua New Guinean paedophile started using Facebook to groom a 10-year-old boy for sex only days after he landed in Australia.

Married father-of-five Casper Hauaiembe, 52, was in Tasmania to do a training course that lasted for six weeks when he started speaking to the boy.

The boy's father soon became aware of the messages and told Hauaiembe his son's age multiple times before raising the alarm with police.

Papua New Guinean national Casper Hauaiembe used Facebook to groom a 10-year-old boy for sex (stock image)

Police discovered that the man thought he was talking to a girl, and posed as the boy's 13-year-old sister by assuming his online profile (stock image)

Hauaiembe asked the boy to come to a party with the promise of 'wine and dancing' and said he would pay for a taxi so the boy 'could cuddle up and sleep' with him.

When the boy's father alerted police, investigators took over the conversation and soon discovered Hauaiembe had thought he was interacting with a girl, the ABC reported.

During the explicit exchange, the predator said they could meet but it would be inappropriate for them to have sex.

Police then pretended to be the boy's 13-year-old sister and set up a meeting - five days after Hauaiembe first made contact with the boy.

Hauaiembe then arranged to meet the girl after explicit conversations (stock image) and was arrested by police

Hauaiembe was convicted of using the internet (stock image) to procure a child to engage in a sexual act, and sentenced to 76 days jail

The Papua New Guinea national was then arrested and spent 76 days in jail.

Justice Stephen Estcourt called the sexual predator's actions 'reprehensible' and emphasised the need to protect children.

He noted there had been no adverse effects on the 10-year-old boy and Hauaiembe was 'highly respected' in his home country.

Hauaiembe was handed a conviction for using the internet to procure a child to engage in a sexual act and sentenced to 76 days behind bars.

The sentence was backdated, allowing the Australian Federal Police to take him into custody for deportation.
Former Married At First Sight contestant Lachlan Rofe has escaped jail for assaulting his ex-girlfriend in front of her two-year-old daughter.

Known as Lachlan McAleer on MAFS, he was sentenced to a 12-month good behaviour bond after being found guilty in Picton Court, south-west of Sydney, on Monday.

The 38-year-old attacked Kasey Williams at his farm in nearby Cawdor late last year after a heavy drinking session.

Former Married At First Sight contestant Lachlan Rofe got 12 month behaviour bond for assaulting ex-girlfriend Kasey Williams in front of her two-year-old daughter

Rofe went by Lachlan McAleer on the first season on Married At First Sight. Above, with Clare Tamas, the woman he was matched with on the show

However, the judge on Monday found an accusation Rofe choked Ms Williams to be false.

Police in March took out an apprehended violence order against him on Ms Williams' behalf, preventing him from approaching her within 12 hours of drinking or taking drugs.

Rofe also appeared on The Farmer Wants a Wife last year, where he was known as Farmer Lachlan, and dated Ms Williams after both shows.

The 38-year-old attacked Kasey Williams at his farm in Cawdor, in Sydney's southwest, late last year after a heavy drinking session
A black Mercedes has been taken away from the Melbourne home of murdered mother Karen Ristevski.

A witness working in the area snapped a picture of the car on the back of a tow truck outside the Ristevski family home in Avondale Heights about 1.20pm on Monday.

The caller told Radio 3AW the car was escorted by an unmarked police stationwagon with flashing lights.

A witness named Rob took this photograph of a black Mercedes being taken away from the Ristevski family home

Mystery: Karen Ristevski went missing last June. Borce Ristevski, on right, is the chief police suspect in her disappearance, his own lawyer said

Ms Ristevski's body was found wedged between two logs in bushland at Mount Macedon, north of the city, on February 20.

The Bella Bleu fashion retailer went missing in June 2016, apparently following an argument with her husband.

The car towing comes weeks after police released CCTV footage of a similar vehicle driving through Diggers Rest the day Ms Ristevski disappeared.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman declined to comment. 'We're not providing a running commentary on any investigation,' she said.

The day of her disappearance, Ms Ristevski's phone' pinged' near Gisborne. Her body was found inn bushland at Mount Macedon in February this year

Police released CCTV footage of a black Mercedes Benz SLK coupe in Diggers Rest on June 29, 2016 - the day Ms Ristevski was last seen

Both police and Borce Ristevski's own lawyer have described Karen's husband as a suspect in the disappearance.

Mr Ristevski reportedly told police he took his wife's 2004 Mercedes coupe for a drive to test a faulty fuel gauge.

He said the fault fixed itself after he drove the car over a bump in the road near Calder Park Raceway so he turned back home.

Mr Ristevski closed his wife's last remaining shop in May.
Two men with links to outlaw motorcycle gangs and long criminal records have won a last-minute court bid to stay in Australia.

The Full Court of the Federal Court on Monday overturned a decision by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton to deport the two men.

The three judges ordered the two men - Tomasi Taulahi and Helder Agapito Carrascalao - be immediately released from immigration detention and Mr Dutton to pay their legal costs.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton (pictured) decision to deport the men has been overturned

The judgment set aside Mr Dutton's decision to cancel the men's visas on December 16 last year.

Mr Taulahi and Mr Carrascalao claimed Mr Dutton had not spent enough time considering their cases before making his decision and the judges agreed.

They said Mr Taulahi was a Tongan citizen who first arrived in Australia in December 1988 and had held a series of visas since then.

Mr Taulahi, whose wife and two young daughters are Australian citizens, had run a successful earthmoving business employing about 20 people before being arrested and taken into immigration detention.

His criminal history began with a conviction for malicious damage in 1993, when he was 16.

He was also convicted as a minor for offences including assault, resisting police, and breaking, entering and theft.

His first offence as an adult was cocaine possession in 1997.

But the main reason Mr Dutton decided to cancel Mr Taulahi's visa in the national interest was because he did not pass the character test given his association with the Lone Wolf bikie gang.

Two men with criminal records have won a last-minute court bid to stay on in Australia

The three judges said father of two Mr Carrascalao, who was born in East Timor and is a Portuguese citizen.

Mr Carrascalao was granted an entry permit in 1976 to remain permanently in Australia with his mother and seven siblings.

The judges said Mr Carrascalao's criminal history dated back to when he was found guilty of stealing at age 13 but no conviction was recorded.

His record includes convictions in May 2007 for common assault, contravening an apprehended domestic violence order and driving while disqualified.

Mr Dutton's decision to cancel Mr Carrascalao's visa was based on his assault conviction in 2007 and his past involvement with the Bandidos bikie gang.

The three judges said this was despite Mr Carrascalao claiming he was no longer associated with the bikie gang.




Hate preacher Anjem Choudary is the first extremist to have been moved into a new jail-within-a-jail unit to stop jihadis spreading hate behind bars.

The ISIS-supporting preacher has been placed in a separation centre in HMP Frankland in County Durham.

Frankland, which is a Category A prison meaning of the highest security, is the first of three UK jails to have such units.

Anjem Choudary, pictured, has become the first extremist to be moved into a special 'separation centre' behind bars to stop him preaching hate among inmates

The extremist, pictured left, at a demonstration, and right, was jailed in 2016 for urging Muslims to support ISIS

According to the Sunday Times, Choudary was moved into the separate unit after refusing to stop preaching extremist views despite warnings from prison bosses.

It comes as it was revealed the notorious hate preacher  who was jailed for five-and-a-half years last year for urging Muslims to support ISIS - has received more than 140,000 in taxpayer-funded legal aid.

The establishment of separate units for extremists was recommended after a review of Islamic extremism in prisons conducted last year.

Author Ian Acheson wrote: Islamist ideology can present itself in prisons as a struggle for power and dominance in which perceived weaknesses are exploited by a gang culture which threatens or undermines legitimate authority and security.

Islamic extremism should therefore be a greater and more visible priority for the National Offender Management Service, led by people with the time and resource to act swiftly and with authority.

The two other prisons that will set up secure units for extremists are HMP Woodhill, in Milton Keynes, and HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire.

Choudary is believed to have inspired at least 110 Britons into committing terrorist acts and encouraged up to 850 fanatics to travel to Syria to fight for the Islamic State.

He billed the taxpayer 140,557 for his unsuccessful court battle - and the figure is set to rise as his lawyers continue to file claims.

HMP Frankland, pictured, in County Durham, is the first of three prisons which will have special centres

The data, revealed in a freedom of information request, includes 98,122 to pay for a solicitor, 23,569 for another court lawyer, and 18,866 in legal firm expenses.

After an Old Bailey trial shrouded in secrecy, Choudary was found guilty of 'inviting support for a proscribed organisation' under the Terrorism Act 2000.

His deputy, Mizanur Rahman, was convicted of the same offence, and the pair were each sentenced to five and a half years in prison.

Choudary has long served as the smug public face of radical Islam, organising protests against British troops and spouting his bile in TV interviews.

His now-banned radical group, Al-Muhajiroun, has links to 15 terror plots, including the murder of Lee Rigby and the 7/7 attacks.

Choudary, pictured at a rally in 2014, has also been revealed to have received more than 140,000 in taxpayer-funded legal aid

As leader, he repeatedly provoked the British public with a series of stunts in which his followers burned remembrance poppies and disrupted Armistice Day events.

Choudary also called for Buckingham Palace to be turned into a mosque and paraded a picture of his vision which was made by a man now fighting for ISIS.

For his trial anti-terror police investigated 20 years worth of material, with more than 333 electronic devices containing 12 terabytes of storage data analysed.

His conviction could be revealed only after the case had concluded due to court orders banning reporting.

A Legal Aid Agency spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Anyone facing a crown court trial is eligible for legal aid, subject to a strict means test.

'Those who do meet the relevant thresholds may still be required to pay a significant contribution towards the costs of their defence.'
A former tattoo parlour owner who raped a teenage girl in his regional Victorian shop after giving her a body piercing has been jailed for more than three years.

Clinton Osborne, 48, was found guilty by a jury of two counts of having sex with a child under the age of 16, stemming from a 2008 attack at his Shepparton tattoo parlour.

Osborne gave the girl five or six cans of bourbon and a body piercing before assaulting her, Victorian County Court Judge Richard Smith said.

'You asked what she was going to do in return for the piercing,' Judge Smith told Osborne during his sentencing on Monday.

A former tattoo parlour owner who raped a teenage girl in his regional Victorian shop has been jailed for more than three years (stock image pictured)

Osborne then forced himself upon the teenager in the shop, holding her down by the shoulders as she 'repeatedly said no'.

He was also found guilty of the false imprisonment of another female customer who he pierced at his shop in 2012.

Osborne demanded she give him her phone number and blocked her path in the narrow shop when she tried to leave.

'The experience would have been a frightening event for her,' Judge Smith said, noting the victim suffered anxiety and stress after the incident.

'There was no one else in the shop at the time. You are much larger and stronger than her.

'To describe her as a soft target would be an understatement.'

Clinton Osborne, 48, was sentenced in the Victorian County Court (pictured) on Monday after being found guilty by a jury of two counts of having sex with a child under the age of 16

Osborne, who has prior child sex convictions dating back two decades, was jailed for three years and nine months on Monday.

'In each case the girls involved were much younger than you,' Judge Smith said.

'You would have been well aware it was illegal and a serious offence.

'Your plea of not guilty and vigorous denial suggests you do not have any remorse.'

Osborne must serve at least two-and-a-half years in jail before being eligible for parole.
A video has emerged of a Danish man being set on fire after a light-hearted tradition went horribly wrong.

The unmarried man believed to be 25, can be seen engulfed in flames after friends threw cinnamon on him in the bizarre coming-of-age ritual.

The tradition sees unmarried men (and women) in Denmark covered in spices when they reach the milestone age.

It stems from the sixteenth century, where Danish spice salesmen were so caught up with work they 'didn't have time to date'.

In the clip posted by video sharing website Liveleak, the unsuspecting man can be seen with a dust mask on and hands tied behind his back as his mischievous companions gather for the peculiar right-of-passage.

The unnnamed Danish man (pictured) waiting patiently for the coming-of-age ritual, before being accidentally set on fire by friends

He is covered in cinnamon by two male friends as he reached his 25th birthday and was still single

He is splashed with water before the spices are thrown on him. Just seconds later he is engulfed into a ball of flames, before falling to the floor in agony.

'Because he had a dust mask on and his friends poured water on him first, he was mostly unharmed, he only suffered from minor burns on his legs.'

Just seconds later he is covered in flames after the prank goes horribly wrong

'Normally you just cover the victim in cinnamon, its not part of the tradition to accidentally light your friend on fire.', the poster on Liveleak said.

It is thought the dust cloud around the victim ignited.

He falls to the floor in agony, but luckily escaped with just 'minor injuries on his legs'
Beverly Martin's departure from the party has left UKIP outnumbered on Thanet council

A UKIP councillor has defected to the Tories, dissolving the far right, nationalist party's control of the only council it still dominated.

Beverly Martin's departure from the party has left UKIP outnumbered by Tory, Labour and independent councilors on Thanet district council on which it previously held 28 of 55 seats.

Ms Martin said that she had decided that she could 'better serve the residents of Thanet' as a Conservative, as reported by The Times.

The news comes as the beleaguered party holds its fourth leadership campaign in just over a year after Paul Nuttall stepped down following disastrous general election results in June.

UKIP leader on Thanet council Chris Wells, said that Ms Martin had 'contributed little' since she rejoined the party after a spell as an independent.

But the loss of the party's last council majority is yet another blow to the party which has lost its potency since the Brexit referendum, with many voters who supported their campaign drifting back to Labour and the Conservatives.

In the general election, UKIP's vote nose-dived from 12.6 per cent in 2015 to below 2 per cent in June, and earlier in May, Ukip lost every incumbent seat it was defending and won only one new position in the local elections.

Former UKIP leader Paul Nuttall stepped down following the general election

Anne Marie Waters is one of the most controversial candidates now bidding for the party leadership.

UKIP MEPs have reportedly threatened to leave the party if Waters is announced leader in September.

Waters has described Islam as evil, she is a director of Sharia Watch UK, she was a leader of the anti-Muslim street movement Pegida UK and she has developed links to the European extreme far right.

Nigel Farage said he is firmly committed to the Brexit process and will do whatever is needed to see that process through

Also battling for the leadership is Nutall's previous deputy, Peter Whittle, and David Coburn, a Ukip MEP for Scotland who is homosexual but opposes same-sex marriage are some of the leading names among the field of 12 candidates.

Former leader Nigel Farage said that he will not contest the leadership battle although he has not categorically stated that he will never return to a leadership role.

He said that he is firmly committed to the Brexit process and will do whatever is needed to see that process through.

He also said that if his party did not 'sort itself out' something else would be created to replace it.

'It is already something of an ongoing joke about the number of times I have stood for the leadership and resigned. 'To return now would be premature,' Mr Farage told The Times.
Perth's most wanted man has been caught 10 days after a mother's body was discovered in the back of a car on a busy freeway.

Shawn Newton was arrested by police on Monday afternoon after the body of Rebecca Gascoigne was discovered in the back of a car on the Cedric Freeway in Silverton, north of the CBD.

Police are questioning Mr Newton, 42, over the incident after another man co-operated with investigations leading to his arrest.

Shawn Newton (pictured) was arrested by police on Monday afternoon after the body of Rebecca Gascoigne was discovered in the back of a car on the Cedric Freeway in Silverton, north of the CBD

Ms Gascoigne (pictured), a mother-of-three, was found in the back of a man's car. It is believed the man, Ms Gascoigne and Mr Newton were all known to each other. The man driving the car told police he had a body in his car and was being chased

Mr Newton was arrested in Mullaloo, north of Perth, late on Monday afternoon after police have been searching for him for over a week.

His brother, who did not wish to be named, released a video pleading for Mr Newton to turn himself in to police.

'Please Shawn, as your brother I beg you, hand yourself in to the police station. Do the right thing. I'm very worried for you and I'd like to see you again,' he said.

Detective Senior Sergeant Dean Bailey described Mr Newton as 'extremely dangerous.'

Ms Gascoigne, a mother-of-three, was found in the back of a man's car. It is believed the man, Ms Gascoigne and Mr Newton were all known to each other.

The man driving the car told police he had a body in his car and was being chased.

WA Police also released a statement saying they are investigating whether Mr Newton was involved in an armed robbery at a McDonald's in Perth's north on Sunday night, as well as a string of other burglaries in the past week.
A woman who was killed in a horror car crash that left her husband fighting for his life made a chilling prediction just a week before the tragedy.

Taylor Nieri , 22, and James Thorp, 35, were travelling on a United States highway last Sunday when a blown tyre sent their vehicle into a deadly roll.

Ms Neiri died at the scene while her husband, from Tasmania, suffered devastating injuries after he was thrown from the vehicle.

Just days before the fatal crash, Ms Nieri told a friend she felt destined to die young.

Taylor Nieri (right) , 22, and James Thorp (left), 35, were travelling on a United States highway last Sunday when a blown tire sent their vehicle into a deadly roll

Ms Nieri made a chilling prediction just a week before she was killed in last Sunday's tragedy

'I mean, I just live such a good life... I truly feel that I am just so lucky to be living the best life that how could I not die young?' she said.

'If I die tomorrow, it would be fine.'

The pair, who were described by friends as 'soulmates', met on a beach on Queensland's Whitsunday Islands in 2016.

They were married less than a year later and returned to Tasmania before moving to America.

They had planned to return to Australia to set up a sea kayaking expedition business before tragedy struck.

Just days before the fatal crash, Ms Nieri (pictured) told a friend she felt destined to die young

Mr Thorp suffered multiple fractures, a punctured lung, a punctured spleen and broken pelvis

Ms Neiri died at the scene while her husband, from Tasmania, suffered devastating injuries after he was thrown from the vehicle

'Although Thorpie and Taylor only had one year together, they both found a soulmate in each other and unconditionally loved one another,' friends of the couple said.

'Taylor often expressed her overwhelming love and satisfaction for her new husband and her perfect life.'

The couple had been travelling in Oregon at the time of the horror crash.

Ms Neiri, who was behind the wheel, was wearing her seat belt, but her husband was not restrained, according to police.

The couple (pictured together) had been travelling in Oregon at the time of the horror crash

The pair, who were described by friends as 'soulmates', met on a beach on Queensland's Whitsunday Islands in 2016

Mr Thorp suffered multiple fractures, a punctured lung, a punctured spleen and broken pelvis, according to his GoFundMe page.

'James will be repatriated to Australia and will face a long rehabilitation in a specialised facility,' the page reads.

'James has suffered the loss of his wife and he may also require assistance with grief and future planning.'
A popular bar has made the best of one customer's bad Tripadvisor review by naming a new cocktail after his scathing comments.

The online critic, named as 'Wayne S', took to the website to complain about The Old Butcher's, in Bristol, calling it 'poncey', 'too bright' and 'uncomfortable'.

His furious one-star review slammed the owner of the bar, Ben Gatt, for 'strutting about in dungarees' and frequently checking his reflection.

Ben Gatt, who owns the bar, was slammed by the reviewer for 'strutting about in dungarees'

The ponce's dungarees: The cocktail is made with white wine, rose, vodka, Bols Blue liqueur and gomme syrup

Wayne concluded his rant by announcing he would 'never' drink there again.

But staff at the establishment, which opened in April, seemed unfazed by his criticism and were even inspired to introduce a new cocktail called 'the ponce's dungarees'.

What's in the ponce's dungarees? Ingredients: White wine Rose Vodka Bols Blue liqueur Gomme syrup. Advertisement

Writing on the bar's Facebook page, the management team said: 'Thank you to Wayne S for his recent review of our lovely "non-bar/restaurant".

'Wayne's inspiring words have won him a place on our menu; congratulations Wayne!

'We are therefore proud to introduce our new cocktail, for a limited time only, "The Ponce's Dungarees".

'We hope to see you soon in our "grey and drab" area of town.'

The cocktail is made with white wine, rose, vodka, Bols Blue liqueur and gomme syrup.

And amused customers say the bar's comical response has made them want to visit even more.

Amy Ruth wrote: 'Best thing I've read all day! Definitely gonna pop in one day with my dungarees in solidarity, and get me a poncy cocktail.'

And Lindsay Wilkinson added: 'Great advertising. Makes me want to visit now just to check.'

Wayne S. described The Butcher's Arms as 'poncey', 'too bright' and 'uncomfortable
A mother-of-two criminal psychologist who spent a year exchanging letters with Ian Brady claims he used a secret code to relay hidden messages to her.

Emilie Cassinelli, 30, contacted the notorious Moors murderer while studying at university and spent twelve months writing to him as he served a life sentence in Ashworth Hospital.

Now the psychology graduate is revealing their private letters to see if others can crack the code he created. She said he switched between different fonts, inks and handwriting and repeated the words 'capture' and 'captive'.

Cunning Brady and accomplice Myra Hindley, who tortured and murdered alongside him, used to write in a secret code he created before they were arrested.

Dear killer: Emilie Cassinelli, 30, spent a year writing to Moors murderer Ian Brady while she studied psychology at university (left, Emilie reading and right, one of Brady's replies)

Dubbed the 6-7-8 code, Brady developed a pattern where they would underline a date in a letter, starting on the sixth line with the seventh and eighth words being significant.

HOW IAN BRADY HID MESSAGES TO LOVER Brady and accomplice and partner Myra Hindley used to write in a hidden pattern he developed before they were arrested. It was called the 6-7-8 code where they would underline a date in a letter, starting on the sixth line and the seven and eight words would be significant. The couple are thought to have used more codes as they exchanges hundreds of letters after they were imprisoned. Hindleys prison records were released into the National Archives after she died aged 69 in 2002. They included five files of letters between the wicked couple  but only two have been made public. The Ministry of Justice said they would not be disclosed until at least 2051. Advertisement

Spookily Brady used a similar technique in his letters to Miss Cassinelli  but she has never been able to break it.

He underlined words, changed the colour of his ink and style of handwriting throughout their correspondence, and she believes he was trying to give a message.

Brady died in a high-security hospital aged 79, after contracting a lung and chest condition in December.

Going through her collection of letters seven years after she started writing to him in 2010, she said: 'When I look through the letters, knowing that Brady has had his hands on them and written them, it feels eerie. It's a strange sort of feeling to know I have the letters of a serial killer.'

The correspondence was monitored through the police and security hospital in Merseyside where the killer was serving his sentence.

The mother from Barnstaple, Devon, described the code as made up of different phrases but she admitted she had no idea what he was trying to say.

Hidden messages: Miss Cassinelli said Brady switched between inks and handwriting styles and believes this was a part of a secret code he created

Going through her collection of letters seven years after she started writing to him, Miss Cassinelli said: 'Knowing that Brady has had his hands on them and written them, it feels eerie. It's a strange sort of feeling to know I have the letters of a serial killer'

What was he trying to say? Miss Cassinelli said she got the impression he couldn't say what he wanted to in their correspondence

She said: 'Brady wrote in little codes to me. Still to this day I don't know what he was trying to do. Some phrases were in different colours, different fonts or underlined.'

She said she felt like there was a mutual 'acceptance' between them but was unsure whether he was trying to manipulate her.

'That was part of his personality, like when he'd tell the police he knew where his victims' bodies where, then get to the moors and he'd claim he'd forgotten.' she said.

'I'd get a slip in the envelope with the letters to say the prison had read it before sending, so I got the feeling that he couldn't say what he really wanted to and that's why he was underlining certain parts.

On his hidden messages, she said: 'He'd coded it very well. After I received the letter I'd read it through and be left thinking about it for days.

'It was hard to work out. You could take it as him trying to say something else.'

In the letters they exchanged, the killer claimed that most serial killers - himself included - 'couldn't kill a mouse' and that he believed criminals were only labelled so because they were caught.

As well as trying to convey what could have been a hidden message to Emilie, he wrote extensively about his anti-Labour leanings and showed a keen interest in politics.

Eerie: Miss Cassinelli said she feels spooked out to know she has letters from the serial killer (right)

Cracking his code: Brady was known for creating secret codes and regularly wrote to lover Hindley using his hidden pattern

He'd repeatedly blame white collars, the media and politicians for 'scourging the globe' and seemingly believe his own crimes were far less than theirs.

Miss Cassinelli said: 'Often he'd write things like, "If you are going to call me a criminal, look at Blair and Bush - that's like comparing a mountain to a molehill". I think he was very happy with himself.

'In his book, The Gates of Janus, his writing style is like how he was with me. It's heavily political and his letters were like that too. He saw 'white collars' as far worse criminals than he ever was.'

But despite the bizarre nature of his letters, Brady's tone never put her off wanting to meet him in real life.

She said: 'I'd have loved to have met him. I'm interested in how he would be with me in person, but I think he'd be just as manipulative.

'He didn't think what he did was that bad. He constantly said 'if you want to see the real serial killers, look to Blair or Bush'.

Keeping watch: Correspondence was monitored by the police and Brady's high-security hospital

Miss Cassinelli also wrote to Dennis Nilsen - who murdered 12 young men in London from 1978 to 1983. He is still alive and serving a life sentence in HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire

After a while, the psychology graduate said she got tired of writing to Brady.

She said: 'He wrote back extensively about his own opinions of criminal psychology and politics. In the end, that was why I stopped writing to him because the letters became very similar.

'Brady constantly tried to deflect the blame from himself and felt what he'd done nothing.

'[In his letter from 29th June 2010], he says that 'capture' creates a criminal. He clearly thought the only reason he was classed as a criminal was because he was caught.

'To me, it seems he's suggesting you're only a criminal if you get caught. Brady had to get to everyone. Even now, seven years later, I find myself reflecting on it day-to-day.'

Miss Cassinelli also wrote to Dennis Nilsen - who murdered 12 young men in London from 1978 to 1983. He is still alive and serving a life sentence in HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire.

She said she preferred writing to Mr Nilsen whose tone was more of that like a 'grandfather' than Brady, who could be patronising.
Cardinal George Pell plans to be at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday for the first court hearing on historical sexual assault charges.

Cardinal Pell, 76, was charged on summons on June 29 with multiple historical sexual offence charges involving multiple complainants.

It is understood Cardinal Pell could have asked to have his lawyer appear on his behalf at the filing hearing, but he will appear in person.

It will be a short administrative hearing to set the next dates in the court process.

Cardinal George Pell plans to be at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday for the first court hearing on historical sexual assault charges

Pope Francis has granted Cardinal Pell, who as Vatican treasurer is considered the third most powerful person in the Catholic Church, a leave of absence to return to Australia to defend himself

Pope Francis has granted Cardinal Pell, who as Vatican treasurer is considered the third most powerful person in the Catholic Church, a leave of absence to return to Australia to defend himself.

Cardinal Pell arrived in Sydney on July 10, after following his doctors' advice to avoid taking a long-haul flight from Rome to Australia due to his heart condition.

The former Sydney and Melbourne archbishop and Ballarat priest has repeatedly rejected the allegations and maintains he is innocent.

Cardinal Pell has taken leave from his position as prefect for the Secretariat for the Economy to return to Australia to clear his name, saying he is looking forward to finally having his day in court after a two-year investigation.

Wednesday's filing hearing is expected to attract international media attention.

It is understood no special arrangements have been made for his appearance in court, which will operate on a business as usual basis.
An 18-year-old woman has been arrested after crashing her car and killing her 14-year-old sister, a moment she live streamed to her Instagram account.

Obdulia Sanchez, from Stockton, is accused of driving under the influence during the deadly incident in Los Banos, California on Friday.

Her younger sibling, Jacqueline Sanchez, died at the scene and authorities are now looking into the graphic video that they believe shows the deadly events unfolding.

The live Instagram footage shows Obdulia talking to the camera as she drives normally and the moment the car rolled over a barbed wire fence and onto a field.

Obdulia Sanchez, 18, is now detained in the Merced County Jail on charges of vehicular manslaughter while under the influence and DUI

The driver filmed herself singing and gesturing to the camera before the deadly crash

Gory visuals from the scene then show Jacqueline's body strewn on the floor, the other girl in the car waving for help and Obdulia talking to the camera.

During the live recording Obdulia said: 'Jacqueline, please wake up. I f****** killed my sister, OK? I know I'm going to jail for life. I love my sister this is the last thing I thought was going to happen to us.'

'I killed my sister, but I don't care. I killed my sister. I know I'm going to prison, but I don't care. I'm sorry baby. I'm a hold it down.'

The disturbing clip ends with her kneeling next to her dead sister and saying: 'Wake up baby, I'm f**king sorry baby, I did not mean to kill you sweetie.'

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said Jacqueline was not wearing a seatbelt when the car crashed and rolled on Henry Miller Road at about 6.45pm on Friday.

The 14-year-old was thrown through the back window of the car, authorities said.

Another girl, who police have not named but confirmed she was a minor, was also not wearing a seatbelt and suffered major leg injuries in the crash.

'I killed my sister.' Obdulia speaks directly to the camera before the crash, with a passenger visible in the background, left, and, right, keeps filming after the crash

The car rolled over a barbed wire fence and onto a field in Los Banos, about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco, on Friday

Authorities say Obdulia was detained at the scene after allegedly becoming combative with officers after the crash. She was screaming that her sister was dead as officers tried to calm her down and lead her into an ambulance (above)

The California Highway Patrol said Obdulia was driving the car when it veered onto the right shoulder of a road about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco.

She over-corrected, causing the vehicle to swerve across lanes, crash through a wire fence and overturn into a field.

Obdulia was wearing a seatbelt and suffered minor injuries.

She is now in the Merced County Jail on charges of vehicular manslaughter while under the influence and DUI.

Authorities say she was detained at the scene after allegedly becoming combative with officers after the crash. She was screaming that her sister was dead as officers tried to calm her down and lead her into an ambulance, the Fresno Bee reports.

Obdulia complained of pains in her chest and knee after the crash.

Police told ABC 30: 'Sanchez was under the influence when she rolled her car over, into a barbed wire fence and then a field.'

Obdulia has more than 7,400 followers on Facebook and Instagram. It is not clear if her Instagram profile photo (right) shows her injuries from the recent deadly crash

Authorities say 14-year-old Jacqueline Sanchez, pictured above, died at the scene

Authorities say they were made aware of the shocking crash scene video circulating on social media and were working to determine if it was authentic.

Family members have confirmed the video was shot by Obdulia.

They say the victim, Jacqueline, was supposed to celebrate her Quinceanera (15th birthday) on Sunday.

Mary Hernandez, of Stockton, who viewed the live stream, decided to record it while unsure if the shocking footage was real.

'At first we didn't even want to believe it was real,' she said.

'I recorded it and posted it mainly because as someone who uses Snapchat I see a lot of people driving with their Snapchats doing what she was doing, so to me it was like an eye opener.'

The footage received at least 700,000 views.

Family members have started a GoFundMe Page for Jacqueline's funeral expenses.

Facebook has been repeatedly accused of failing to remove graphic and unsuitable content. In April it announced it was hiring 3,000 more staff to monitor posts.
Financier turned whistleblower Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, collapsed and died while running in Weybridge, Surrey, on November 10 2012 and a poisonous plant called 'Heartbreak grass' was found in his stomach

The wife of a millionaire Russian who died in Britain after allegedly being poisoned with sorrel soup may not be helping police because of pressure or threats from the couple's home country, it emerged today.

Financier turned whistleblower Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, collapsed and died while running near his 3million home in Weybridge, Surrey, on November 10 2012.

Surrey Police insists there is no evidence the married father-of-two was murdered and his wife Tatiana says he did not fear for his life.

But Mrs Perepilichnyy may have ended co-operation with detectives probing his death because she was threatened by people in Russia and is scared for her safety.

The inquest into her husband's death has been adjourned until September but heard that his widow had not yet handed over her husband's mobile phone and may also have his work laptop.

A police document written by a family liaison officer, seen by the The Sunday Telegraph, reportedly says: 'Concern has started to develop around Tatiana for the following reasons: first, there was the issue about the telephone; secondly, there was the issue about the laptop; thirdly, it was noted about the toxicology in that he had had lunch that day with his wife at home; fourthly Tatiana has often not been co-operative  while personal, cultural and grief reasons are considered possibilities, there are concerns that this could be deliberate because she does not wish to assist the police, or it could be that she is in fear, under pressure from others, which could be linked to the Russian threats.'

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Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, collapsed and died while running near his home in Weybridge, Surrey, (pictured) in November 2012, after eating sorrel soup with his wife and children

Last month a glamorous blonde companion of Mr Perepilichnyy said she met him in Paris two days before and he appeared to fear for his life.

Elmira Medynska, 27, was in France with the married father-of-two on November 8 and they stayed at the opulent Hotel Bristol and dined at the nearby Four Seasons.

The businesswoman, who runs a 'haute couture' company, says on their night together he was 'very stressed', drinking heavily and was so distracted he bought her Laboutins in the wrong size.

She fears he may have been murdered in the UK for handing sensitive information about money laundering in Russia to the Swiss authorities.

Miss Medynska told Buzzfeed News: 'It happens to Russian people in London. He gave Russian information to Swiss and you can be killed for that.'

An exclusive investigation by the news website, published during the inquest into his death, claims:

US spooks have told MI6 Perepilichnyy was likely 'assassinated on direct orders from Putin or people close to him' by Russian hitmen

CIA are said to have branded British investigation inadequate in leaked intelligence documents

The French are working on the same theory but British police have knocked them back

Miss Medynska says British police have never interviewed her about their night in Paris and sent her an email asking if she knew four other women he knew but she was never asked anything else.

Businesswoman Miss Medynska, from Kiev, fears he may have been murdered in the UK for handing sensitive information about money laundering in Russia to the Swiss authorities

The businessman's death was originally attributed to natural causes, but traces of a chemical that can be found in the poisonous plant Gelsemium elegans - known as 'Heartbreak grass' - were later found in his stomach.

An inquest has been opened into his death and the judge hearing the case warned that 'anybody can get caught up in a conspiracy theory'.

Miss Medynska says British police have never interviewed her and sent her an email asking if she knew four other women he knew but was never asked anything else

Before his death, Mr Perepilichnyy had been helping a specialist investment firm uncover a 230 million US dollar (150million) Russian money-laundering operation.

US spies wrote a report claiming they have 'high confidence' his death was ordered by the Kremlin - or Vladimir Putin himself, according to Buzzfeed.

Miss Medynska, who appears to have been in a secret relationship with Mr Perepilichnyy after meeting him in Kiev earlier in the year he died, says he was 'stressed' and drinking heavily on November 8.

The glamorous blonde Ukrainian, then 22, flew to France to meet married Mr Perepilichnyy, then 39, because he wanted to 'show her Paris'.

She says they had met twice before the French trip - and fell for the 'intelligent, handsome man' with 'gentle eyes' after meeting in the exclusive Kiev club Leo earlier in 2012.

They would later holiday together in Nice before agreeing to meet in Paris, where he appeared agitated and was 'worrying, walking from side to side' before buying her Laboutins in the incorrect size.

She told Buzzfeed, who have been investigating his death: 'I was feeling from him that he was very stressed' and over dinner he was drinking 'lots of wine', which he then spilled over his shirt.

Miss Medynska, who appears to have been in a secret relationship with Mr Perepilichnyy after meeting him in Kiev earlier in the year he died, says he was 'stressed' and drinking heavily on November 8.

He also repeatedly left the restaurant for a series of phone calls that left his 'hands shaking', she said.

Miss Medynska says they fell out when he later tried to buy her a handbag because she believed he was trying to buy her affections with designer goods.

Miss Medynska says they fell out in Paris when he later tried to buy her a handbag because she believed he was trying to buy her affections with designer goods

She said: 'He was expecting if he would buy me some bag I would be happy with that, but in fact I was even angry with him after that. He was very upset.'

The following day she apologised to him for her mood in a conciliatory text but never heard anything back - two days later he was dead.

She then said she received an email from his widow Tatiana containing 'bad words'.

The judge hearing allegations a Russian whistleblower may have been poisoned told the inquest that 'anybody can get caught up in a conspiracy theory'.

Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, the Recorder of London, made the comment as DS Ian Pollard of Surrey Police was being questioned over the handling of the investigation into the death of Alexander Perepilichnyy.

DS Pollard has already told the hearing at the Old Bailey he found no evidence the father-of-two had been murdered.

But claims have been made that Mr Perepilichnyy's death was suspicious after he helped investment firm Hermitage Capital Management to uncover a 150million money laundering operation in Russia.

Police say they have not pursued his trip to France to see Miss Medynska because of 'no useful inquiries to be conducted in Paris'

Mr Perepilichnyy took out life insurance policies worth 3.5million with a number of companies including Legal and General between May and July 2012, and applied for a further 5million before he died.

The inquest heard traces of a compound matching the atomic weight of rare and deadly vegetable poison were found in Mr Perepilichnyy's stomach lining.

His widow Tatiana Perepilichnaya has been quizzed about the sorrel soup she cooked for her husband's lunch shortly before his death on 10 November 2012.

She claimed had finished the soup with her daughter and suffered no ill-effects, and dismissed suggestions that Mr Perepilichnyy had been murdered after coming to Britain because he feared for his life.

DS Pollard admitted that the initial post-mortem was handled locally rather than being referred to a Home Office pathologist.

He said that the death was not felt to be suspicious and 'in the circumstances there was no suggestion or information about Mr Perepilichnyy's status as was subsequently reported.'

DS Pollard accepted that by the time of the second post-mortem by Dr Ashley Fegan-Earl only 'limited stomach contents' were recovered.

But he added: 'We took the samples we needed to take.' DS Pollard also told the court that he had to follow the evidence rather than chase conspiracy theories.

Judge Hilliard interjected: 'Anybody can get caught up in a conspiracy theory can't they. Wherever they come from and whoever is the subject of them.'

DS Pollard replied: 'Yes. We have to stick to the facts.'

In the days before his death, married Mr Perepilichnyy had stayed at the Bristol hotel in Paris with another woman, the inquest heard. This woman is believed to be Miss Medynska.

Officers made inquiries about the woman and attempts were made to contact her for information, Mr Pollard said.

Credit cards revealed the deceased had spent hundreds of pounds on hotels and meals for two, with the greatest single transaction totalling more than 1,800.

Inquiries were made at the Bristol hotel and police were informed they no longer had any CCTV footage from their stay.

Mr Pollard said he had determined there would be 'no useful inquiries to be conducted in Paris' so did not pursue any more information about the French connection.

Henrietta Hill QC, for Hermitage, said: 'You will have seen reports late last night on BuzzFeed?' Mr Pollard said he had not seen them.

Ms Hill said the report suggested French authorities had tried to seek assistance from British counterparts as they tried to investigate whether Mr Perepilichnyy was poisoned on his trip to Paris.

She said they were told the death was 'not suspicious' and were refused help, according to the report.

Mr Pollard said: 'I have not had any contact to French authorities.'

Ms Hill said: 'But we do know that the French themselves had initially made contact before you tried to make inquiries at the Bristol hotel?'

The officer replied: 'Not that I recall. I think the inquiries were instigated at our request'.

The businessman's death on this private Surrey estate was originally attributed to natural causes, but traces of a chemical that can be found in the poisonous plant Gelsemium elegans were later found in his stomach

Ms Hill challenged Mr Pollard's assertion there was no link to Russian criminal groups.

She highlighted an Interpol request from Moscow for information on whether Mr Perepilichnyy held any property in the UK.

She said the request made it clear he was 'suspected of fraud, money laundering and abuse of power', and had allegedly 'organised a criminal gang to misappropriate money'. Mr Pollard said the deceased was only 'suspected' of fraud.

Last week Insurance giant Legal and General was accused of creating a 'John Le Carre atmosphere' and spreading 'florid theories' about poisoned soup to avoid being stung the widow 2m.

And last night Buzzfeed reported claims that Mr Perepilichnyy was likely assassinated on the orders of the Russian President.

Last week his widow Tatiana Perepilichnaya gave evidence at the Old Bailey behind a screen to protect her identity.

She denied the suggestion her husband fell out with an 'organised crime syndicate' in Russia or that he moved to England because he owed people a lot of money.

The mother-of-two said the family only moved to the UK for their children's education and because she liked the culture of people being polite and smiling in the supermarket.

Asked if she or her husband feared for their safety, she said: 'In 20 years of marriage Alexander never had bodyguard or security so our life in Russia and our life in England never varied. It's the same.

'I know if there were any threats or problems Alexander would have told me.'

The widow, who is originally from Kurdistan, said her husband had been the breadwinner while she was a full-time mother and they did not talk much about his work.

She told the inquest her husband was 'very smart' and hard working. He had wide business interests in computers, manufacturing, frozen foods and condensed milk.

He was a commodity dealer and trader on the Russian stock exchange, the court heard.

She said: 'I just knew he was interested in that business. I didn't know what commodity meant.'

The inquest has been adjourned until September.
A 92-year-old World War II veteran was pushed to the ground as he tried to stop a vandal taking his American flag hanging on a flag pole in his yard.

Howard Banks, who is legally blind, was prompted to investigate after he heard someone pulling down the flag outside his Kaufman, Texas home.

Banks said: 'I walked out, hanging onto the railing and stepped down. That must've startled them.

Howard Banks, who is legally blind, proudly shows off his war time memorabilia

The US flag hangs proud on Banks' lawn in Kaufman, Texas

'They could see me. I couldn't see them. I turned and looked in the other direction, and about then  'wham!' They knocked me down.'

The would-be thief ran off, without the flag, but they did toss his 'God Bless All Police' sign across the yard.

Watching neighbors rushed in to help Banks who suffered a twisted knee and has numerous bumps and bruises however he says 'I'm durable. I can take it.'

Banks, who was 18 when he enlisted in the armed forces and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima, Japan during World War II, says he salutes the flag everyday while clutching the railing for support.

'It's the one thing I can cling to. Yet at my capacity, there's not much I can do. But I can honor our flag,' he told CBS DFW.

'We are doing everything in our power to find the suspects that committed this cowardly assault and bring them to justice,' the Kaufman Police Department said.

'This gentleman is a hero to our officers and the city's residents should be extremely proud to have him as part of our community.'

Banks retraces his steps to the pole, where he came face-to-face with the would-be thief

The veteran salutes the flag everyday in honor of the country's servicemen

He told responding officers that his flags have been vandalized in the past. Someone reportedly cut them down, shredded the American flag and threw the U.S. Marine flag in the ditch, but he never reported the crimes.

Banks admits he'd like to apply his own brand of justice when the culprits are caught. 'If there's any way to catch them and was able to do so, I'd like to whoop them good with my crutch.'

Banks' family is now planning to install cameras around the house, police said.
James Brokenshire, pictured outside Stormont last month, is jetting into the US for talks with Trump officials on the political crisis in Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland Secretary is today jetting into Washington for talks with Donald Trump's administration on the political crisis in Stormont.

James Brokenshire is holding talks with the Americans on how to get devolution back up and running after negotiations to restore powersharing failed earlier this month amid bitter recriminations.

Sinn Fein and the DUP have been at loggerheads for months, and if the squabbling parties do not reach an agreement then Northern Ireland will return to direct rule from Westminster for the first time in a decade.

Mr Brokenshire is holding a series of talks with Trump administration officials and US business leaders over the coming days.

The US has historically played a crucial role in helping to broker peace in Northern Ireland, and the government will hope the administration will help support talks to bring the impasse to an end.

The need for foreign investment into the region and Brexit will also be on the agenda.

Speaking ahead of the trip Mr Brokenshire said it is 'regrettable' that his visit takes place 'against a backdrop of political stalemate in the region'.

He said there is a 'timely opportunity to brief members of the US administration, who throughout history have done so much to support our efforts in moving forward the political process, on the current situation'.

He added: 'I also want to reassure them that the UK Government is determined to see devolved, power-sharing government restored.'

While in Washington Mr Brokenshire will meet with Conrad Tribble of the US State Department, the Vice President's national security adviser Andrea Thompson.

He will also meet former senator George Mitchell and various members of Congress to update them on the UK Government's priorities in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams is also in Washington where he will attend a memorial mass for former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness on Tuesday.

He will also be holding his own set of meetings with political leaders and key figures among the Irish community to discuss the Stormont talks.

Key officials from the administration of US President Donald Trump - pictured on Friday at the White House - will meet with James Brokenshire in the capital

Negotiations to being back powersharing to Norethern Ireland broke down in tatters earlier this month after Sinn Fein and the DUP failed to come to an agreement.

They have been suspended until autumn and there are concerns that if the two squabbling parties do not compromise then the British government will have to step in and govern the region.

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement both sides must share power, but Sinn Fein is refusing to serve under DUP leader Arlene Foster because of her role in a renewable energy scandal.

The row has re-opened much deeper splits across the republican and unionist divide.

And it has been thrown into further turmoil by Mrs May's 'confidence and supply' deal with the DUP's ten MPs.

The PM is being propped up in No10 by the party in return for a promise to turn the spending taps on and pour 1billion into Northern Ireland's coffers.

But critics have hit out at the deal, which they say has undermined the British government's role as a neutral broker in the talks to restore powersharing.

Sinn Fein's Northern Ireland leader Michelle O-Neill accused the PM of being 'in hock' to the DUP and said the impasse in Stormont constitutes a 'monumental failure on behalf of Theresa May'.
A man was rushed to hospital after being mauled by a dog.

The real estate agent had gone to a home to collect rent money from a tenant on Monday when he was viciously attacked.

It is believed a pitbull was responsible for the man's injuries at Werrington, in Sydney's west, Nine News reported.

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A man (pictured) was taken to hospital after being viciously attacked by a dog in Sydney's west on Monday afternoon

Nine News reported it was thought a pitbull was responsible for the attack

Paramedics raced to the scene on Railway Street about 2.30pm and treated the man outside the home.

He suffered wounds to his hands, arms and legs after desperately trying to fight off the dog.

The man, believed to be aged in his 50s, was later taken to nearby Nepean Hospital for further treatment.

His daughter took to a Facebook group to inform residents in surrounding suburbs of the attack.

'He fought it off as long as he could then called out for help as it wouldn't back off,' she wrote.

Penrith City Council's animal services team has taken possession of the dog as inquiries into the attack continue.
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The brutality and violence of London's historic gangs has been laid bare in a new book examining the role of organised crime in the capital.

London's Gangs at War, written by former police officer Dick Kirby, examines the impact of gangsters in London during the 1950s and 60s including infamous names such as the Kray twins.

Murder, torture and extortion all feature prominently as Mr Kirby investigates some of the most famous incidents from the post-war era, using old police reports, court and newspaper records to give an accurate portrayal of what life was like at the time of the Krays and the Richardsons.

Mr Kirby said it was the gangsters' portrayal of their own experiences that prompted him to start researching the book.

The infamous Reggie (left) and Ronnie Kray (right), pictured with their brother Charlie (centre), are a key part of new book London's Gangs at War. It focuses on the criminal underworld in the capital in the 1950s and 60s and is written by a former police officer who has examined some of the most notable crimes to take place, including several murders linked to the twin brothers

Charlie (left) and Eddie Richardson (right), who led a rival gang to the Krays, are also heavily featured in the new book. They were well known for their gambling rackets around south London pubs and would threaten landlords who did not take their slot machines. The Richardsons were also infamous for their 'mock trials' they would preside over to punish anyone who crossed them, with their victims often brutally tortured with whippings or electrocutions

Jack 'Spot' Comer, pictured, was the son of a Polish immigrant who grew up in a Jewish 'ghetto' in Whitechapel. He earned his nickname due to a large mole on his cheek, and entered the gang life from age seven when he used to fight Irish Catholic boys alongside other Jewish children. Comer rose to power in east London in the early 1950s and was allegedly behind the 1948 'Battle of Heathrow', an attempted raid on valuable goods in a British Airways warehouse, including 1,000 in gold bullion. But the crooks were foiled by the Met Police Flying Squad who were lying in wait and managed to subdue the gang after a vicious fight that injured seven criminals and nine officers. Comer eventually retired from crime after he and his wife were attacked and injured by former friend Billy Hill's bodyguards 'Mad' Frankie Fraser and Bobby Warren in 1956

Other figures from the criminal underworld featured in the book include Zoe Progl (left), known as the 'Woman of the Underworld', and Billy Hill (right), who was supposedly a mentor to the Krays. Progl, a serial burglar, was the first woman to escape Holloway Prison by climbing over the walls via a rope ladder in 1960, only to be recaptured five months later. Hill became involved in the London criminal scene in the 1920s, beginning as a burglar before moving into the black market and partnering up with Jack Comer, whom he eventually feuded with in the 1950s. He is said to have advised the Krays early on in their careers and then began running crooked card games in the 1960s, before retiring from crime in the 1970s

He said: 'I got a little fed up with 'gangster books' in which the person concerned trivialises, boasts about or justifies their crimes.

'Matters are not improved when offences for which they were acquitted at court, amidst howls of police malpractice, they now claim that they were, in fact, guilty of. And therefore, I wanted to show the reader the true facts of the cases in which they figured.'

Mr Kirby said he poured over the accounts of several London gangsters as research for his book, before comparing them to official documents to get the 'real truth' behind the legends.

And he said he found the glamorous reputations that gangsters such as the Kray twins enjoyed in London were often misguided.

The Krays, pictured left in their younger days when they competed at boxing clubs in east London, are two of the UK's most notorious gangsters yet enjoyed celebrity status around the capital in the 1960s and were often spotted at their nightclubs with stars of showbusiness. Beneath the facade they were involved with robbery, arson and murder, including the death of Richardson gang member George Cornell at the Blind Beggar pub (right) in 1966. He was shot by Ronnie Kray, who was eventually convicted and jailed for murder

Another east London criminal featured in the book is Albert Dimes, pictured with his wife Rosie. Dimes was born in Scotland but moved to London during his childhood and went to work for Billy Hill in the 1940s, before becoming associated with the Richardson gang in the 1960s. Dimes was involved in a bid to convince New York and Corsican gangsters to invest in London casinos and is said to have delayed the Krays setting up activities in Soho. He is pictured celebrating after being acquitted of GBH following an attack on Jack Comer in 1955

The murders of George Cornell (left) and Jack 'the Hat' McVitie (right) set in motion the downfall of the Krays and they were jailed for their murders in 1969. Ronnie killed Richardson enforcer Cornell in 1966 after shooting him point blank in the forehead during the height of the gangs' rivalry. McVitie was stabbed to death by Reggie a year later after failing to carry out an assassination on a former Kray associate who the brothers feared would turn informant. Both Krays were imprisoned for life over the murders

Metropolitan Police Sgt Ken German is pictured here as part of the force's underwater search unit dragging the Thames for evidence of the Richardson gang's torture weapons. The most notable was the 'torture box' - an old Army field telephone, including a hand-turned generator, that would be attached to a victim's nipples while they were forced to sit in a cold bath

He said: 'I read the books which the Krays and their hangers-on had written; then, for comparison, I checked police reports, court & newspaper records and spoke to the police officers who were there at the time, to get at the truth.

'What I found out about the twins were that they were self-serving, ruthless and murdering bullies.

'The most harrowing of the stories was undoubtedly the Richardson Torture Gang, though, who used their particular talents to utterly humiliate and denigrate their victims for their own gratification.'

So does Kirby see any parallels between the gangsters of the post-war years and the gangs that patrol London's streets today?

'There's little difference in the gang culture nowadays from the 1950s and 60s; the problem is that the police are hampered with nonsensical rules and regulations as well, of course with political correctness and 'elf n' safety rules, so that little is done to contain gang violence.

'It's only when police officers get real leadership and guidance from their senior officers that law and order on the streets will be reclaimed.

'Because the majority of senior officers see themselves as politicians, eager for advancement or inclusion in the Honours List, rather than police officers with a strong knowledge of the law, who can inculcate dedication and enthusiasm into their subordinates, this can't happen.'

Originally from Glasgow, 'Scarface' Jock Russo (left) was an associate of both Billy Hill and Jack Comer and earned his nickname due to the large scar on his cheek. Much of his body was covered in scar tissue and he had nine convictions for violence during his life, while he was also shot and knifed twice. Frank 'the Mad Axeman' Mitchell (right) was another associate of the Krays who became infamous for escaping prison several times, including once when he escaped from Broadmoor in the late 1950s, when he held a couple hostage with an axe, earning his nickname from the press. Mitchell was shot to death in 1966 after another escape from HMP Dartmoor, and it is thought his murder was ordered by the Krays to avoid them being linked his escape and subsequent manhunt

Reggie Kray, centre, is pictured here at his mother's funeral in 1982, after being allowed a temporary release from prison to attend the ceremony. Both brothers were given permission to attend the funeral, but they were guarded by heavy security and not allowed to visit the graveside

A huge police presence is pictured here outside Bow Street Magistrates' Court in 1969 ahead of their murder trials, after which they were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 30 years in jail
A portly stray dog was taken to an animal clinic after people thought it was going into labour and called for help.

But the vet said the canine was male and it was 'just too fat'.

The dog, spotted in Dalian, China, was too good at absorbing nutrients, according to the vet.

Subway staff and commuters spotted the inside the Youhao Plaza Station in Dalian, China

Subway staff used food to lure the dog to a corner of the station so it wouldn't block the way

They thought the dog was going into labour, so they called an animal clinic for help

The animal was taken to the vet on a mini stretcher after passersby spotted it lying in a Chinese subway station inside the Youhao Plaza Station in Dalian on July 21.

Passengers and subway staff thought the canine was pregnant.

After carrying out medical examination, the vet said the dog was not pregnant and that it was obese.

Staff from the animal clinic used a mini stretcher to carry the dog from the subway station

The stray dog was taken to the Dalian Xingwang Animal Hospital for a medical checkup

According to a statement from Dalian Subway Group, staff first saw the stray dog near a staircase and it had a 'bulging belly'. They thought the dog was expecting puppies.

Staff used food to lure the dog to a corner of the station so it wouldn't block the way of other commuters.

With the help of a commuter, they managed to contact an animal clinic, which agreed to come and pick up the dog.

Staff from the animal clinic soon arrived and took the dog to the vet on a mini stretcher, according to a video on Pear Video.

Staff at the animal hospital (pictured) said the dog wasn't pregnant and it was just obese

According to Dalian Xingwang Animal Hospital, which examined the animal, the dog was about six years old and it was male.

The stray dog is said to suffer no major illnesses.

'The dog is just too fat. We think it's because the dog is too good at absorbing nutrients,' said a worker at Xingwang Animal Hospital.

The worker also said stray dog was discharged from the Xingwang Animal Hospital on the same day and was being looked after by the stray dogs centre.
A swan stranded in rush hour traffic has been rescued by a kind-hearted man who walked the lost bird back home.

Jack McGrath, from Limerick in Ireland, was returning home from his shift at a bookmakers when he spotted the bird dodging traffic on the Sarsfield bridge, in the heart of the city.

The 24-year-old, who is also a student at Limerick Institute of Technology, stepped in to help and spent more than 15 minutes guiding the swan across the road and down the steps back to the river.

Jack McGrath, 24, from Limerick, in Ireland, was photographed while helping to rescue a swan that had got stuck on a bridge in the city centre

Mr McGrath said he spotted the bird while walking home from his shift at a bookmaker and felt he couldn't leave it because of the risk it would be run over

The incredible encounter was caught on camera by Deirdre Power - a photographer who also happened to be passing at the time.

Jack said: 'It was a Saturday evening and I had just finished work inside in town so I was walking home over the bridge as I only live around 100 metres past it.

'As I was getting towards the end of the bridge there were two American tourists assessing the swan.

'They were two women in their late sixties. They didn't have much lifting power between them so asked me for my help.

'Having a soft spot for animals meant I was never going to ignore the poor animal.

The student said he guided the swan back to the river using pointing and whistling, and did not know he was being photographed

Mr McGrath did call animal services but since they were 25 miles away he decided to help the swan himself rather than risk it being run over

Animal workers helped Mr McGrath to assess the bird for injuries over the phone, and fortunately he found it wasn't hurt, but merely disoriented

'I decided to call on limerick animal welfare to seek their assistance but they are based some 25 miles away from the city and in the middle of a busy rush hour I couldn't risk waiting around as the bridge was full of traffic.

'With the help of the girl on the phone I assessed the swan for any injuries but she looked to be fine, just stunned by all the traffic and commotion around her.

'I was trying to direct the swan down the safest way possible but she got other ideas and took off onto the road so I started whistling and calling her.

'Then she seemed to trust that I was helping her find her way back to the river, so from there on just followed wherever I would point and whistle to go.

Mr McGrath said he was with the swan for around 15 minutes before these pictures were taken, as the animal tried to run away from him at first

Eventually Mr McGrath managed to win the bird's trust and guided it back to the river

'I was actually with the swan for about 15 minutes maybe longer before Deirdre the photographer passed and couldn't believe what she was seeing.

'People were all looking on in bemusement at the sight of me walking along the bridge side by side with the swan as if it were my pet dog.

'I actually didn't realise Deirdre was taking pictures of me until I got down the stairs nearest to the river and saw she was behind me.

'I have a golden retriever called Mollie which is where my love for animals started so I could never leave an animal in distress like that.'
This is the man police are hunting over a chainsaw rampage that left five injured in a Swiss town.

Officers say the Franz Wrousis, 51, broke into the offices of insurance firm CSS-Krankenkasse in the town of Schaffhausen before targeting the employees.

Two were badly wounded and required surgery, a police spokesman said, without releasing more information on the other three victims.

The alleged attacker, who has two previous weapons convictions, is still on the loose, and armed police have warned people to shelter in their homes as they launched a huge manhunt for the 6ft 2ins suspect.

Police are hunting 51-year-old Franz Wrousis over a chainsaw rampage that left five injured in a Swiss town

Five people have been injured after a man wielding a chainsaw went on the rampage in a Swiss town

The suspect attacked people in Schaffhausen in northern Switzerland, according to police who have launched a manhunt

A spokeswoman said officers were searching for the suspect in Schaffhausen, northern Switzerland

Prosecutor Peter Sticher said the man had no fixed address but had previously been registered as living in the south-eastern Swiss state of Graubuenden.

Police official Ravi Landolt said Wrousis' two previous convictions date back to 2014 and 2016.

He is believed to be driving a white Volkswagen Caddy vehicle with Swiss plates.

Police warned 'the suspect is dangerous', but said it was not clear whether he still had the chainsaw.

Wrousis is a schizophrenic who was a client of the health insurance firm whose employees he attacked with a chainsaw, police said on Monday evening.

He is of no fixed abode and, in between living in hotels and community lodgings, routinely camped out in woodland.

Police said they had reports that for the last three weeks he had been living out of his VW Caddy.

Armed police descended on the scene this morning as they launched a manhunt for the attacker

Officers say the Franz Wrousis, 51, broke into the offices of insurance firm CSS-Krankenkasse in the town of Schaffhausen before targeting the employees

Investigators search for evidence after closing down Schaffhausen's old city on Monday

Officers examine evidence after five people were wounded in the chainsaw attack

Authorities are still searching for the alleged attacker, pictured is public prosecutor Peter Sticher (left) and head of police Ravi Landolt (right)

The health insurance company with a ground-floor office in the Schaffhausen building where the attack took place said two of its employees had to be taken to a hospital.

'We can confirm that a man with a chainsaw came into the agency and seriously wounded two of our employees,' said Christina Wettstein, a spokeswoman for insurer CSS. 'They are undergoing operations at the moment and we don't know how they are.'

The company doesn't know yet whether the other three wounded people were customers or passers-by, she added.

Pictures show someone being treated and led to an ambulance outside a McDonald's restaurant in the town.

Media reports said the unknown attacker first struck close to a bookstore called World View.

Eyewitnesses saw a man with blood streaming down his face helped from the premises by police and paramedics.

The alleged attacker, who has two previous weapons convictions, is still on the loose, and armed police have warned people to shelter in their homes as they launched a huge manhunt for the 6ft 2ins suspect

People had to leave their homes and the shops in the area as police systematically began locking down entire streets to capture the attacker

Schaffhausen, a town of nearly 35,000, is in northern Switzerland, close to the border with Germany

According to another witness a second victim was stretchered out of the building.

People had to leave their homes and the shops in the area as police systematically began locking down entire streets to capture the attacker. A helicopter circled over the old town as police reinforcements poured in.

Cindy Beer, spokesman for the local police, confirmed the casualties and said the attacker was the subject of an intense manhunt.

She said police were called at 10.39am but was unable to confirm if the man was armed with a chainsaw.
Theresa May tried to brush aside the many political pressures bearing down on her by making the 'shaka' sign as she chilled out with a group of teenagers.

The Prime Minister was egged on to flash the symbol - the popular Hawaiian 'hang-loose' sign - as she met youths enrolled in the National Citizen Service (NCS).

Mrs May - who is well known for her strait-laced image winning her the nickname 'Maybot' - awkwardly flashed the sign as she posed for photos with the group of 15 to 17 year-olds in Maidenhead yesterday.

The youngsters could barely believe that they had managed to persuade her to strike the pose.

Charnice Clifford, 15, from Slough in Berkshire, said: 'I'm just gassing we got the PM to do that.'

The appearance at Maidenhead Festival was the Prime Minister's final public duty before heading off on holiday. She was pictured arriving in Italy with husband Philip today.

Theresa May does the Hawaiian 'shaka' - a symbol of laid-back surf culture - as she met with teens in her constituency in Maidenhead yesterday

The PM was egged on to make the sign with her hand by youngsters who had volunteered with the National Citizen Service (NCS), which was set up by her predecessor David Cameron

The PM is facing a multitude of political pressures with continued speculation that she could face a leadership challenge and be ousted from No10.

WHAT IS THE SHAKA? The shaka sign originates from Hawaii where it is used to convey the laid-back Aloha spirit. It was taken up by surfers in the 1960s who used it to salute fellow riders of the waves, and used it to mean hang loose. The symbol is an embodiment of the island style which promotes a culture in which people are meant to not worry or rush through life. As surf culture exploded the hand symbol rapidly spread throughout the world. Advertisement

While Labour have promised to wage guerrilla warfare in Parliament in a bid to wear down her precarious administration when MPs return from their summer break.

But Mrs May cut loose from her political woes to meet teenagers who had been volunteering with the NCS.

The national volunteering service was set up by David Cameron and aims to encourage youngsters to get active and work on team building skills.

Charnice said: 'At first on the NCS we did some camping, rock climbing, lots of outdoor activities.

'Then we stayed in like a uni style campus and competed against some other groups, and then stuff like today were we have been working with charity groups.'

Mrs May travelled from her constituency to more glamorous surroundings in Italy today for the start of her summer holidays. She arrived with husband Philip (right) and her security detail

Mrs May and her husband Philip are expected to spend much of the holiday, which will continue in Switzerland next week, hiking

Mrs May, 60, said the NCS is something she would have liked to have been involved in if it had been available when she was a child.

She added: 'Obviously, the festival is a great event for Maidenhead, but I particularly wanted to visit the NCS as its been developing over the years and it's a great opportunity to meet other young people and have experiences they wouldn't otherwise, build skills like teamwork and be active in the community.

'I want to encourage more young people to take part in it.

'One of the members of staff I just met said she wishes it had been there for her children, so it's something that's growing and I'd like to see more people take it up.'

The National Citizen Service was announced by former Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 and he is still involved with the service today.
The Chinese Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog has launched an investigation into a Politburo member who was once seen as a contender for a top leadership post, state media reported Monday.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is investigating Sun Zhengcai, who until a week ago was party chief in the major city of Chongqing.

Sun, 53, is being investigated for 'serious discipline violation', Xinhua news agency said in a report on July 24.

The Chinese Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog is investigating Sun Zhengcai (pictured), who was once seen as a contender for a top leadership post, a report said

An insider told media that Sun was once regarded as a possible successor to Xi Jinping (pictured), who became the President of People's Republic of China in 2013

Sun is the first serving member of the 25-person Politburo to be placed under investigation since Bo Xilai, who was jailed for life in 2013 in the wake of President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign.

Sun was once regarded as a possible successor to Xi Jinping, 64, who became the President of People's Republic of China in 2013, according to The Wall Street Journal which quoted people familiar with the matter.

Xinhua's brief report did not say whether Sun would remain a member of the Politburo, the nation's top political body.

Sun was removed from his position as the party chief in Chongqing on July 15, according to a previous Xinhua report.

Chen Min'er, 56, was appointed as Sun's replacement on the same day.

Chongqing is one of the four municipalities in China - alongside Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin - and is an industrial metropolis in the south-west of the country.

This file photo taken on March 5, 2017 shows former Chongqing Communist Party Secretary Sun Zhengcai (left) talking with Chinese vice chairman of the Central Military Commission Xu Qiliang (right) during the opening session of the National People's Congress in Beijing

Chongqing (pictured) is one of the four municipalities in China and an industrial metropolis

The shake-up in Chongqing comes as the Communist Party prepares for a congress later this year that is expected to cement Xi's position as the most powerful Chinese leader in a generation.

Sun, who was replaced in the city by former Xi aide Chen Min'er, had once been tipped as a contender for promotion to the Politburo's elite seven-member standing committee.

Bo Xilai was also once the party chief in Chongqing.

Bo was rumoured to be part of a network plotting to stop Xi from assuming control of the party in 2012, and Sun was tasked with erasing Bo's influence on the city.

Bo Xilai (pictured) was also once the party chief in Chongqing before being investigated and later jailed for life. This photo taken on March 14, 2012, shows then Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai during the closing ceremony of the National People's Congress

Bo was jailed for life in 2013 in the wake of President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign. A screen shows the picture of the sentence of Chinese politician Bo Xilai (Center) on September 22, 2013 in Beijing, China

But in February party discipline inspectors publicly rebuked Sun for failing to get the job done, leaving his future in question.

Shortly after replacing Sun, Chen was quoted as saying by a local daily that the city must 'resolutely remove the bad impact' of Bo's case.

Sun's downfall has raised Chen's profile.

Chen first worked with Xi in 2002, when the latter became party chief of the eastern province of Zhejiang.

In late 2012 the former propaganda chief's career kicked into overdrive following Xi's ascension to the head of the Communist Party.

Chen became governor of the southwestern province of Guizhou in 2013, adding the title of party secretary in 2015.
The man charged with driving a Texas tractor-trailer packed with immigrants in the U.S. illegally will remain in detention after an initial court appearance.

James Matthew Bradley Jr. was handcuffed and wearing blue jail scrubs as U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Chestney explained he could face the death penalty if convicted. Bradley is charged with transporting immigrants here illegally, resulting in the deaths of 10 people.

Bradley, 60, of Clearwater, Florida didn't speak about what happened Sunday.

Chestney scheduled another hearing Thursday.

A federal complaint says Bradley told authorities he was driving the trailer to Brownsville, Texas, and was unaware that it was packed with people until he stopped at a Wal-Mart in San Antonio.

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James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, arrived in San Antonio, Texas court on Monday in handcuffs

During his court appearance, he didn't speak as he was charged with transporting immigrants to the U.S. illegally, resulting in the deaths of 10

Bradley told authorities he was driving the trailer to Brownsville and was unaware that it was packed with people until he stopped at a Wal-Mart

Authorities fear the death toll could rise because many of those rescued from the sweltering truck in San Antonio have been hospitalized with extreme dehydration and heatstroke. Eight were dead at the scene, while two later died at the hospital.

The federal complaint says the immigrants packed into the tractor-trailer discovered outside a Texas Wal-Mart were taking turns breathing through a hole in the trailer and pounding on the walls to get the driver's attention.

A passenger in the trailer told investigators that he and others who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally were guided into the trailer to be taken north to San Antonio.

The complaint says passengers appeared fine during the first hour of their journey, but people later began to struggle to breathe. They were trying to get the driver's attention, but to no avail.

Bradley, however, told cops that he was taking the tractor-trailer to its new owner in Brownsville, and had no idea what was in the cargo hold. He said that it wasn't until he made a stop at the Wal-Mart to urinate, that he heard the people pounding on the inside to get out.

'Bradley said he went to open the doors and was surprised when he was run over by "Spanish" people and knocked to the ground,' the affidavit says.

Dan Patrick (pictured), lieutenant governor of Texas, on Sunday blamed the deaths of ten illegal immigrants in San Antonio on sanctuary cities

Bradley told police that he noticed 'bodies just lying on the floor like meat' and that he knew at least one of them was dead. He also said that he knew the trailer's refrigeration system didn't work and that the four vent holes were likely clogged.

'Bradley stated he went back to the tractor and called his wife but she didn't answer. Bradley said he did not call 911,' the affidavit says.

It was a Wal-Mart employee who called to alert 911 about the suspicious vehicle, around 12:30am on Sunday.

When officers arrived on the scene, they found Bradley in the camper, between the cab and the trailer.

It was not immediately known whether Bradley had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Meanwhile, the lieutenant governor of Texas has blamed the deaths of ten illegal immigrants on sanctuary cities.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Dan Patrick said if it wasn't for sanctuary cities, which refuse to work with the federal government in deporting illegal immigrants, the tragedy in San Antonio would never have happened.

'Sanctuary cities entice people to believe they can come to America and Texas and live outside the law. Sanctuary cities also enable human smugglers and cartels.

'Today, these people paid a terrible price and demonstrate why we need a secure border and legal immigration reform so we can control who enters our country. We continue to pray for the families and friends of the victims,' Patrick, a Republican, wrote.

On Sunday morning, emergency crews pulled dozens of people from a sweltering tractor-trailer parked outside a Walmart in the midsummer heat.

Ten people are dead and the death toll could rise, as 30 others were taken fro the rig and hospitalized in dire condition, with extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

Above, Dan Patrick's Facebook post on Sunday about the tragedy

Ten people died after being crammed in the back of an 18-wheeler in San Antonio, Texas this weekend. Above, investigators taking evidence from the scene on Sunday

The ten people were all illegal immigrants. The air conditioning was not working in the back of the truck on a day when the temperatures remained in the 90s

The group were found in the back of the truck, which was parked at a San Antonio Walmart

The victims 'were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water,' San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

Authorities would not say whether the trailer was locked when they arrived, but they said it had no working air conditioning.

It was just the latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in tragedy. In one of the worst cases on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

Based on initial interviews with survivors of the San Antonio tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at one point in its journey, ICE acting Director Thomas Homan said. Officials said 39 people were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination.

Four of the survivors appeared to be between 10 and 17 years old, Homan said. Investigators gave no details on where the rig began its journey or where it was headed.

But Homan said it was unlikely the truck was used to carry the immigrants across the border into the United States. He said people from Latin America who rely on smuggling networks typically cross the border on foot and are then picked up by a driver.

'Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute,' Homan said.

San Antonio is about a 150-mile drive from the Mexican border. The temperature in San Antonio reached 101 degrees on Saturday and didn't dip below 90 degrees until after 10pm.

Eldia Contreras wipes away a tear as she takes part in a vigil at San Fernando Cathedral for victims who died as a result of being transported in a tractor-trailer Sunday, July 23, 2017, in San Antonio

The tragedy came to light after a person from the truck approached a Walmart employee and asked for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, said McManus, the local police chief.

The employee gave the person water and then called police, who found the dead and the desperate inside the rig. Some of those in the truck ran into the woods, McManus said.

On Sunday evening, about 100 people gathered at a San Antonio church for a vigil to mourn those killed.

Immigrants' rights activists and church officials held up handmade signs reading 'Who here is not an immigrant' and 'No human is legal.'

The Border Patrol has reported at least four truck seizures this month in and around Laredo, Texas. On July 7, agents found 72 people crammed into a truck with no means of escape, the agency said. They were from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador.
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A suspected tornado has ripped the roofs off of multiple houses and left 8,000 without power, as thunderstorms move into the Northeast.

High winds struck Stevensville, Maryland around 1.30am on Monday, downing power lines, damaging structures and tossing boats into people's yards from the harbor, the National Weather Service said.

Gas leaks were reported and one structure collapsed in the storm as it passed over the community on Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay.

Brandon Testerman, 14, and his dog Tippy, sit on what was once part of their roof on Kent Island in Maryland on Monday

Gas leaks were reported and one structure collapsed in the storm as it passed over the community in the Chesapeake Bay

Some of the hardest hit areas include the Ellendale community in Stevensville where several new homes were leveled

Several new homes had their roofs ripped off. National Weather Service survey teams are en route to asses the storm damage

New homes are seen devastated by the wind damage, with their roofs ripped off and furniture tossed outside

Trees were downed throughout the area. Here a Bay City resident is seen cleaning up after the storm hit on Monday

People walk past a home that was destroyed in Bay City, Maryland after a suspected tornado struck the area

Officials are sending a survey team Monday to determine whether the damage was due to a tornado.

In the same storm system, a waterspout was caught on video over the Delaware Bay from New Jersey on Sunday afternoon.

More than 8,000 customers of Delmarva Power in Queen Anne County were left without power in the storm's wake.

One house was on fire and multiple trees were down after the storm, the NWS said.

There was a report of one minor injury due to the storm, described as a puncture wound that was not life-threatening.

Some of the hardest hit areas include the Ellendale community in Stevensville where several new homes were leveled.

More than 8,000 customers of Delmarva Power in Queen Anne County were left without power in the storm's wake

A produce stand on the side of Route 8 south destroyed by the storm as it passed through around 1.30am on Monday

High winds sent a downed tree smashing into this car on Kent Island. About 8,000 were left without power after the storm

Trees damaged by the storm are seen on Monday. The NWS is sending a survey team to Kent Island to verify it was a tornado

An air hockey table was tossed from a damaged structure in the high winds. A tornado is suspected of causing the damage

Radar shows the storm passing over Chesapeake Bay early Monday, with the highest winds at the north tip of Kent Island

Those homes were unoccupied, according to ABC7.

County Emergency Services Director Scott Haas said at a news conference early Monday that one person was injured, but it's not considered life-threatening.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan tweeted out his support Monday morning for those affected by the storm.

'Lt. Gov [Boyd Rutherford] & I offer support to all impacted by storms in Kent Island. We are working w/ locals to provide necessary resources,' the governor wrote.

Maryland Emergency Management spokesman Chas Eby says high winds closed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge for more than an hour, but engineers didn't find any damage.

The same storm system rolled across the Northeast, flooding roads in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Two cars were stranded in floodwaters with people trapped inside and rescues were effected in New Castle, Delaware.
The heartbroken family of a 15-year-old girl who died after taking a new psychoactive substance said she was aware of the risks but thought she was 'invincible'.

Leah Kerry was found unconscious in Bakers Park in Newton Abbot, Devon, after apparently taking a new psychoactive substance (NPS), formerly known as a legal high.

She was taken to Torbay District Hospital at around 4.50am on July 15 and died there later with her parents at her bedside.

Her parents have now urged other teenagers to make 'better and safer choices'.

They also said it was 'shocking' a 15-year-old girl could have access to such a strong drug it could lead to her death.

Two other girls, believed to have taken the same substance, were taken to hospital as a precaution and released later.

Leah Kerry was found unconscious in Bakers Park in Newton Abbot, Devon, after apparently taking a new psychoactive substance

Leah, pictured as a toddler (left) in a heartbreaking image released by her parents, was found unconscious in Bakers Park in Newton Abbot, on July 15

In a statement issued through Devon and Cornwall Police, Leah's family described her death as 'the most painful experience that we have all ever had to endure'.

'Leah was a delightful strong-willed, caring and compassionate child and had developed into a courageous and confident young woman who was ready to take on the world,' they said.

'Leah had really started to engage in her education and for the first time since leaving primary school, felt very well accepted and supported by her school setting in Salisbury.

'She had a real love of expensive make-up products and ambitions of following her dreams of doing make-up and beauty professionally.

'This was a talent that she had already mastered on herself, Leah loved to look nice, she would never leave the house without her Jeffrey Star Highlighter being over zealously applied and she shimmered and shone her way through her life.'

The family said Leah lit up 'any room she walked into with her incredible personality, sense of humour, striking looks and demeanour'.

Leah had made 'lifelong friends' while living in Torquay, Devon, and managed to maintain the friendships despite the family relocating to Wiltshire at the start of 2015.

The family said Leah lit up 'any room she walked into with her incredible personality, sense of humour, striking looks and demeanour'

The family asked the government to place the dangers of psychoactive substances at the top of their agenda following the Drugs Strategy for 2017, published the day before Leah's death

She was 'at her happiest' when with friends in both Wiltshire and Devon, where she regularly returned.

'Leah had the benefit of good information and advice from many different sources at various intervals of her adolescent life,' her family added.

'Leah was well aware of the nature of different illicit substances and the risks attached.

'Sadly, despite being well aware of the risks, she thought she was invincible and she rolled the dice and has paid the ultimate price.

'If there are any young people who have known Leah, or who have heard about her story, I would urge them on Leah's behalf to not make the same mistake and to make better and safer choices when out in the community.

'If even one young person decides to reduce their risk taking behaviour and not take these dangerous NPS tablets, then Leah's death has not been in vain.'

Police in Newton Abbot, Devon, where a 15-year-old girl died at after taking legal highs

The family also asked for the government to place the dangers of psychoactive substances at the top of their agenda following the Drugs Strategy for 2017, published the day before Leah's death.

The Psychoactive Substances Act, which came into effect in May 2016, made it illegal to produce, supply or import NPS for human consumption.

'It's so shocking that a 15-year-old girl who is socialising with other 15-year-old peers is able to easily have access to a drug so strong that it could lead to her death in the way that it did,' they said.

Leah's parents thanked staff at Torbay Hospital's accident and emergency department and the paramedics who 'tirelessly' tried to help their daughter.

Jacob Khanlarian, 20, from Newton Abbot, has been charged with two counts of supplying MDMA and one count of supplying cannabis.

He appeared at Plymouth Magistrates' Court on July 17 and was remanded in custody.

Detective Superintendent Ken Lamont warned about the dangers of taking new psychoactive substances.

He said: 'They're not legal. They're illegal, they're very, very dangerous, probably more dangerous than traditional drugs. People do not know what it is in them.

'It is a real safeguarding plea to the community, don't touch new psychoactive substances, they are very, very dangerous.'
Furious campaigners set fire to bins and blocked roads outside a London police station as they protested against the handling of a young father who died after being restrained by officers during a chase.

Up to 150 people chanting 'no justice, no peace' while holding Black Lives Matters placards had brought traffic to a standstill outside east London's Stoke Newington Police Station in a vigil for Rashan Charles, 20.

The vigil was organised by Stand Up To Racism, with campaigners saying they are 'enormously concerned and angered' over his death.

Footage had earlier emerged appearing to show at least one police officer attempting to restrain Mr Charles on the floor of an east London shop on Saturday before he was taken to hospital, where he died.

A bin set alight following a march by members of Hackey Stand Up To Racism protest

A crowd of people holding Stand Up To Racism and Black Lives Matter placards outside the police station

Litter is strewn across the carriageway following the march, as protesters sought to bring disruption to the area

Rashan Charles' father speaks at the event, which doubled as a vigil for Mr Charles and a protest against the police

The vigil was organised by Stand Up To Racism, with campaigners saying they are 'enormously concerned and angered' over his death

Up to 150 people, many holding up Black Lives Matter banners, brought traffic to a standstill outside east London's Stoke Newington Police Station

The crowd, which was made up of people from different races and ages, listened to speeches about alleged police brutality as uniformed officers looked on.

Rashan's father Patrick Charles said: 'I'm a father but my son was killed in the hands of police. Me and my family are grieving over this.

'I thank everyone for their support, it's a comfort to us to read your messages. We are seeking justice on this but I want everybody to be peaceful. This is not something we are going to take into our own hands.'

Metropolitan Police said Mr Charles was seen 'trying to swallow an object' and that an officer 'sought to prevent the man from harming himself'.

The crowd marched peacefully from the police station, behind a line of uniformed officers, to the shop where the incident happened.

Dalston resident Joyce Folks, 67, joined the walk to the shop as it passed by. She said: 'I am here as a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and it is as all those things that when I saw that video, I cried for that boy.

The IPCC is investigating Mr Charles' (pictured) death

'My condolences are with the family. We are out here in numbers because it is the only way we can show that we care. It is a sign of community spirit. This needs to be peaceful.'

The crowd walked back to the station, but a few people that stayed behind threw bottles and sticks at police at around 8.15pm.

The police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), is investigating.

In a statement, Chief Superintendent Simon Laurence, the Borough commander for Hackney, said: 'All police officers understand that they will be asked to account for their actions and they would not want it any other way.

'I understand his death has had an impact on some members of the local community.'

He also said he had earlier met with community representatives and wanted to continue to hear about community concerns.

Campaigners holding Black Lives Matters boards in protest over the death of young father Rashan Charles after a police chase

Police Officers deployed outside their Stoke Newington station as they keep a close eye on the protests

An officer speaks to a member of the public during the demonstration earlier on Monday evening

A woman stands holding placards in each hand, left, while another sign, right, calls for people to come together

The IPCC tweeted: 'For those following #justiceforrash #justiceforrashman - We are making good progress, building a full picture of what happened and why.

'We know people have concerns, but our independent investigation will be thorough, rigorous & when appropriate its findings will be published.'

New CCTV released today shows Mr Charles putting his hand to his mouth as he entered a Hackney shop moments before a policeman sprinted in after him.

The unnamed Met officer then tried to arrest him but the pair were involved in a tussle on the floor lasting at least a minute.

New CCTV shows Rashan Jermaine Charles, 20, (circled) putting his hand to his mouth as he entered a Hackney shop moments before a policeman tackled him

The Met say that Rashan swallowed something before his arrest (pictured) - loved-ones believe he was targeted and is the victim of police brutality

A force spokesman said the Independent Police Complaint's Commission was now investigating

A second man also helped to detain him but it is understood that Rashan stopped breathing in the Kingsland Road shop and could not be revived - the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is now investigating if excessive force was used.

His family and others are said to be 'enormously concerned and angered' by his death and will hold a 'Justice for Rash' vigil outside Stoke Newington Police Station at 6pm.

It came just a month after Edir Frederico Da Costa died in hospital on Wednesday six days after his arrest where police say he also swallowed a package - some of his relatives claimed he had his neck broken so the IPCC was called in again.

Scotland Yard said Mr Charles was trying to 'swallow an object' and an officer was trying to prevent him from harming himself.

Footage of the arrest when viral across the internet after a friend of the family shared it, late last night.

It shows the moments that followed after Mr Charles ran into the store, in Kingsland Road, east London at 1.45am on Saturday morning after failing to stop for police.

At the beginning of different footage obtained by MailOnline, Mr Charles can be seen walking into the shop before an officer attempts to arrest him.

He is wrestled to the floor and the policeman can be seen holding his hand briefly over the Mr Charles' mouth.

As the suspect struggles on the floor, a bystander in to help the policeman with the arrest. After they put the handcuffs on, it appears the man has stopped breathing and the officer removes his hat as he radios for help.

In footage obtained by MailOnline an officer appears to restrain Mr Charles on the floor of the shop, in Kingsland Road, east London, at 1.45am on Saturday

Moments later, two more officers arrive on the scene and the video is cut off.

Police and the IPCC said the man was pronounced dead at the Royal London Hospital but would not comment on whether he stopped breathing beforehand.

A force spokesman said the Independent Police Complaint's Commission was now investigating.

Tributes have been pouring in for Mr Charles, with a family friend saying he was visiting his grandmother just moments before the incident.

Yesterday friends and family have gathered at the scene in Hackney to lay flowers and to mourn the loss of a man they say 'never out to harm anyone,'.

Speaking yesterday, the mother of his daughter Jada, 19, said: 'He was a really good guy. Obviously everyone has their ups and downs but he was never out to harm anyone. But he was a good guy.

'He was close to all his family and close to all his friends. You trust officers, and that's what they do, they take lives.'

She added that he and his mother had been shot in an attack earlier this year and he had been injured in the leg while his mum had been shot in the head.

She said: 'I first met him from the area. I knew him from the area during school days and he was a funny guy. We actually met when I tripped up. 'I was on roller skates and I tripped up and he laughed at me and we just started talking.'

A friend of Rashan, who came down to the scene said he has two younger sisters and a younger brother. He said: 'This family has been through so much, and now they have lost him. It's a lot for them to go through.

Devastated: Friends and family gathered outside the shop in Hackney yesterday afternoon following Mr Charles' death

A family friend said Mr Charles had been visiting his grandmother just hours before the incident. Pictured above, grieving friends at the scene in east London

Tragic: A friend of Mr Charles lighting a candle outside the convenience shop on Kingsland Road

He also said Rashan had been the 'victim of police harassment' with stop and search.

Family friend Shirley Watkis told MailOnline the footage appearing to show Rashan's final moments was leaked and distributed by friends.

'If this wasn't released, we never would have known what happened. It went viral, it's been everywhere, otherwise this would have been covered up and we would have believed them,' she said.

Having known Rashan nearly all his life, Ms Watkis described him as 'respectful'.

'Like every young man he could be challenging but he was always respectful and showed so much respect to me,' she added.

Ms Wakis announced the news online yesterday, writing: 'To all my Facebook friends and family, it is with great sadness I announce the death of 20-year-old Rashan Charles after being stopped by police in Hackney in the early hours of this morning.

'The family is so shocked and in disbelief because he only just left his grandmother's house to return home after a visit. Within a short while he was dead.

'The police complaint's authority is dealing with it. Please pray for his family.'

This evening around 20 friends gathered outside the convenience store.

Tributes: A family friend posted a tribute to Rashan on Facebook following the tragic news

Tonight police chiefs urged the public to follow the progress of the IPCC's investigation amid fears of mounting speculation.

The Met's chief superintendent Simon Laurence, borough commander for Hackney: 'A man, who was in the car, was pursued on foot before entering a shop where he was seen to be trying to swallow an object. He was then taken ill.

'He was taken to hospital by the London Ambulance Service where, sadly, he died later that morning. Our thoughts remain with his family and friends.'

Supt Laurence said the officer's body camera was being reviewed by the IPCC.

He added: 'There is likely to be speculation over the next few days regarding what led to this man becoming ill, so I would encourage people to keep up-to-date with the IPCC's statements, as and when they are released.

'All police officers are fully aware that they will be asked to account for their actions - officers are not exempt from the law and we would not wish to be.'

A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: 'The man entered a shop in Kingsland Road, where he was seen to be trying to swallow an object.

'The officer intervened and sought to prevent the man from harming himself, but he was then taken ill.'

London Ambulance Service attended, and before they arrived first aid was provided by officers, including a police medic.

A spokesman for the IPCC told MailOnline they were investigating the contact between the police officer and the man who died.

CCTV footage from inside the shop and police body worn video has also been gathered and viewed.

They said they were contacted by the Met Police at 2.45am and an independent investigation was launched - less than an hour and a half after police pursued the man. The Directorate of Professional Standards has also been informed.

London Ambulance Service attended, and before they arrived first aid was provided by officers, including a police medic.

Investigators are keen to speak to any witnesses who were in the Kingsland Road and Middleton Road area of Hackney.

Anyone with information should contact investigators by emailing witness-contact@ipcc.gsi.gov.uk.
Anthony Collins, 50, bombarded Sara Cox at her family home by sending her letters after buying her address online for 17

A convicted paedophile who stalked Radio 2 DJ Sara Cox by sending her 'distressing' letters calling her 'sexy' and 'fantastic' has been jailed for 16 months.

Anthony Collins, 50, bombarded the BBC star at her family home by sending her letters after buying her address online for 17.

When police arrested him they found a fake BBC visitor's pass, the work address of Miss Cox's sister, and indecent images of girls aged four to 15.

The court heard how obsessive Collins had a string of child abuse convictions including poisoning a nine-year-old girl and attempting to have sex with her.

Among the hand-written letters in felt-tip pen, Ms Cox was sent a DVD about child abuse victim, photographs of young contestants in American beauty pageants and a picture of an eight-month-old sleeping baby.

The radio star first received a hand-written envelope on January 24.

Prosecutor Mary Jacobson said she recognised the 'oddly-addressed' writing as it was the same as that on a letter she had been sent a year earlier but did not report to police.

'It understandably caused her concern. She had never met the defendant or ever given him her address,' said Miss Jacobson.

'The offending was in relation to sending very distressing letters to both her and her husband.'

Pictured: Sara Cox was stalked and plagued with letters from convicted paedophile Anthony Collins, 49

Ms Cox informed the BBC of the envelope and its contents. Reading extracts from it, the prosecutor said Collins stated he was lonely, had an 'extensive' history of criminal convictions and 'not loved by anyone'.

Ms Cox reported the harassment to the BBC after Collins sent a letter to her husband Ben Cyzer at his work address, which made her feel 'immediately more scared'. The letter included a picture of Ms Cox holding a child, and a diagram with the words 'Cancer Analysis'.

Collins was arrested on suspicion of harassment and told police 'I am guilty'. When interviewed he made full admissions to all the offences, telling officers he was attracted to Ms Cox and wanted to be 'in the news'.

He also claimed to have written to several other high profile media celebrities although never revealed any names.

At Maidstone Crown Court today, Judge Martin Joy sentenced the stalker to 16 months behind bars.

The radio star and her husband Ben Cyzer (pictured together above) first received a hand-written envelope in January

Mary Jacobson, prosecuting, said: 'The victim is a radio broadcaster in national radio, she is a well known public figure.

'Out of the blue on the 24 June she received an envelope in the post which was addressed in capital letters in felt tip, she recognised the wording from a letter she had received at work the previous year.

'She was extremely concerned and informed her work place, that envelope contained two letters in capital letters in different coloured felt tip pen they told her about himself and his feelings for her.'

One letter read: 'I am poor, on DWP, and live in a poor bedsit for poor people, I am unhappy.

'I apologise for writing to your home address. I got it for 17 the internet.'

In the letter, which had writing on both sides, Collins wrote: 'My name is Tony Collins, I am tall and have green eyes.

'I know you are married to Ben, I am unsuccessful in my life.

He put: 'You care a lot about people because it is in your nature, do not feel sorry for me Sara.

'Sara you are a lovely human being, sexy, attractive and an all round fantastic human being.'

Mrs Jacobson added: 'He said 'Sara I like dogs and horses and referred to her dog by name and to horses being psychic and feel our feelings.'

The radio star first received a hand-written envelope on January 24 this year containing photographs and notes

'Also in the envelope was a passport sized photo of the defendant.

'He said he had done his research online by himself.'

She added: 'On 7 February this year Ben Cyzer was at work when an envelope was delivered to him, that envelope contained a diagram in felt tip of a cancer diagram.

'She was immediately much more scared and the matter was reported to the police the next day.'

Sentencing Collins today Judge Joy said: 'There is a very detailed and accurate psychiatric report by Dr Hussain.

'Psychiatrists and mental health services have been dealing with you for a number of years.

'Some say you have no mental illness while others have come to the conclusion that you have schizotypal disorder.

'Quite plainly the mental health services have had to deal with you both in and out of the community for many years.

'We have also heard about a conviction of poisoning a child, trying to give her prescription medication so she was sedated so that you could try to have sex with her.'

Ms Cox reported the harassment to the BBC after Collins sent a letter to her husband which made her feel 'immediately more scared'

He also told the court how the report revealed Collins' twisted fantasies of wanting to force himself on very young children.

He added: 'You have been quite open about your predilection to young children...that you are a paedophile, that you wanted to deviate and be a deviant.

'For the harassment I sentence you to the maximum which would be six months, but you receive full credit for making admissions at the first opportunity, so it will be four months in custody.

'And 12 months for the indecent images. There were three images of children in category B, as young as eight, and eight images at level C, sexual posing of children as young as four.

'It's quite plain you are an obsessive person.'

Collins had a string of previous offences starting with a conviction of ABH in 1991.

But a developing interest in young girls saw his offences take a turn towards paedophilia.

In 1999 Collins began striking up conversations with young girls in parks and playgrounds, try to get their addresses and follow them home.

He would then write them letters and messages and try to arrange future meetings.

This resulted in a restraining order to protect a child under 16 but he breached it the following year in June 2000.

He continued to harass her before trying to poison the nine year old girl, with the intent to try to have sex with her.

And in addition to that he was also convicted of harassing an adult female librarian.

The court heard how he went into the library on 16 occasions just that stare at the woman before he began writing to her.

He told her in the letters that he found her sexually attractive and wanted to sleep with her. But the courts only jailed Collins for 18 months.

When he was released he breached an order preventing him from speaking to children under 16 by speaking to two girls aged six and seven.

The court heard how he asked the girls 'do you know what sex is? What colour are your knickers?'

Over the same period he became friends with a 15-year-old boy, who introduced Collins to two young teenage girls.

Collins would have the girls round to his home on a daily basis where he would give them booze and cannabis, he was jailed for two years.

Despite his continued offending, Collins was able to live opposite a primary school playground where he watched and followed home a girl.

He hand posted her a letter with his mobile number and a 10 note addresses to 'the blonde girl' but her parents quickly intervened and prevented any meeting.

Collins was jailed for 39 months for the latter.
Lewis Criddle, 19, was savagely kicked and punched unconscious by a gang of thugs

A gang of thugs kicked and punched a 19-year-old man unconscious because he twerked at them in a nightclub.

Lewis Criddle, 19, suffered such severe injuries from the savage beating that he was left with memory loss, a fractured cheekbone, skull, nose and eye socket.

The hairdresser was drinking at the Twenty One Bar in Harlow, Essex, when he was attacked by Luke Martin, 19, Craig Quennell, 22, Daniel Lockett, 21, Jordan Hinton, 20, and Sean Stuart, 32.

The gang targeted their victim after claiming he 'insulted' Martin by dancing towards him.

Chelmsford Crown Court how Martin was kicked out of the bar by bouncers after confronting Mr Criddle.

But when the victim left the club at around 3.30am he was attacked by a group of five men who repeatedly punched and kicked him to the ground, knocking him unconscious.

Anwar Nashashibi, prosecuting, said: 'The motive was a perceived insult to Luke Martin that happened inside the club, it seems the victim twerked to him.

'The bouncer asked him [Martin] to leave the club. He wanted revenge and the defendants helped him to get it. They said they wanted to ''f****** kill him''.

He added: 'The victim was knocked down unconscious by a punch and was kicked and punched in the body and head.'

The court also heard how Martin sent a text message to his girlfriend stating: 'Let's hope they don't catch me or anyone else or it's five years straight.'

Luke Martin, 19, and Craig Quennell, 22, were found guilty of GBH with intent after savagely attacking Mr Criddle

Another of the attackers, 20-year-old Jordan Hinton, sent a text message to his mother just after the assault, the court heard.

The text stated: 'I had a fight with some kid. He ripped Luke's shirt so it kicked off. Luke pushed him because he tried to twerk with him.'

All four defendants found guilty are from Harlow, with Martin and Craig Quennell found guilty of GBH with intent on Friday.

Pictured: Mr Criddle was left with a fractured cheekbone, skull, nose and eye socket from the attack

Lockett and Jordan Hinton were found guilty of violent disorder on the same day.

Sean Stuart, 32, from Tottenham, north London, had previously pleaded guilty to GBH on the first day of trial, which started a fortnight ago, and a sixth defendant, Luke Quennell, 19, from Harlow, was found not guilty of violent disorder and GBH.

DC Leo Fordham, of Harlow CID, said: 'This was a vicious attack on a man who innocently bumped into his attackers while dancing during a night out.

'His attackers continued to punch and kick him as he lay unconscious before boasting about their actions on social media.

'The victim underwent emergency surgery in hospital for his injuries and he has shown great bravery throughout the investigation and trial.

'I would also like to thank all those who were involved in the investigation for their hard work and dedication in helping to secure these convictions.'

All five will be sentenced on September 22.




A Muslim lawyer has quit a group she founded three years ago to raise awareness of anti-Islamic hatred, with an FBI critic from the U.S. taking over.

Mariam Veiszadeh has stepped aside from running Islamophobia Register Australia (IRA) after enduring death threats and months of cyber-bullying.

She left a parting shot on her Facebook page at bigots, arguing that raising awareness of anti-Muslim discrimination remained a challenge as it was in 2014.

Mariam Veiszadeh stepped aside running Islamophobia Register Australia which she started

The wife of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian's media director Ehsssan Veiszadeh had endured months of cyber bullying

Mariam Veiszadeh told her Facebook followers Islamophobia was a misunderstood term

'Islamophobia was a misunderstood term (and still is but mostly by people who are willfully ignorant),' she said.

'Little was known about its actual scale and incidents were barely publicised.'

The hijab-wearing Shia Muslim, who is married to New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian's media director Ehssan Veiszadeh, has been replaced by Brice Hamack, a former civil rights co-ordinator with the Council on American Islamic Relations.

As a San Francisco-based activist in March 2015, he accused the FBI of unfairly targeting Muslims by baiting potential terrorists.

'These situations begin with an FBI informant going into mosque Eids and playing the role of the instigators, standing up at community gatherings and saying, Who wants to help me take down America?,' he said on Facebook.

'Who wants to engage in jihad with me? Who wants to fights for your brothers and sisters overseas?'.

He has been a grants officer with Legal Aid in Canberra since November last year.

Brice Hamack has immediately taken over as the president of Islamophobia Register Australia

The IRA's new president raised concerns about the FBI as a Muslim activist in California
A grandmother who owns the largest collection of royal memorabilia in the world has opened up a museum on her farm to show off her thousands of artefacts.

Self-confessed 'royal nut' Anita Atkinson, 60, from County Durham, is the proud owner of 7,000 royal items including jugs, tea towels and flags spanning 200 years.

Now she has converted an old dairy barn on her farm, near the town of Crook, into a museum and stuffed it with half of the memorabilia she has collected over the space of 40 years.

She said: 'The collection is very precious to me. The vast majority of it has been gifted, some by elderly people who want it looked after once they have gone.

Self-confessed 'royal nut' Anita Atkinson, 60, from County Durham, is the proud owner of 7,000 royal items including jugs, tea towels and flags spanning 200 years

The grandmother-of-three has converted an old dairy barn on her farm, near the town of Crook, into a museum and stuffed it with 3,500 pieces of memorabilia

Ms Atkinson is a huge fan of Prince Charles, who she describes as 'the most misunderstood and underestimated man on the planet'

Mrs Atkinson's passion for all things royal began in 1977 - the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee

'Most of it is old, but I sometimes buy myself something new if there has been a big occasion, such as a royal birth.

'I am very excited about the museum. I will be giving talks to people who visit.

'They will always be over afternoon tea as British people never go anywhere unless there is a promise of a cup of tea.

'They will be fun talks, but I want to educate people too.'

Her collection includes some historic pieces such as a commemorative jug made for the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840 and a 1935 silver edition of The Daily Mail in honour of King George V's Silver Jubilee.

Mrs Atkinson's passion for all things royal began in 1977 - the year of the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

The grandmother-of-three, who is married to farmer John, 61, said: 'In 1977 it was madness allover the world. You would come across the Silver Jubilee wherever you went.

'It was on milk bottle tops, knickers, mugs. Everything had the crest on it.

Her collection includes a 1935 silver edition of The Daily Mail in honour of King George V's Silver Jubilee

The grandmother will be giving talks at her museum over afternoon tea

A commemorative milk jug in honour of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, left, and right, a mug to mark the marriage of William and Kate which incorrectly features a picture of Harry

'The collection started by accident when I got a 24 piece Silver Jubilee tea set which came with a magazine as long as you bought it every week for a certain period of time.

'After that people just started buying me stuff and the collection grew and grew.'

To her horror Mrs Atkinson's first child's due date coincided with Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding and she prepared a bag stuffed with royal books and even bunting in case she was in hospital on the big day.

Luckily her baby, who she named Dawn Elizabeth, came a week late and she was able to enjoy the celebrations.

In 2011, she camped outside Westminster Abbey for days to ensure she got a good view of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's wedding.

A year later Mrs Atkinson hit headlines around the world when she set up a royal-themed cafe in Stanhope, County Durham, and ejected three pensioners for refusing to stand up during the national anthem.

In 2011, Mrs Atkinson camped outside Westminster Abbey for days to ensure she got a good view of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's wedding

Mrs Atkinson is full of praise for Prince Charles but says she is 'reserving her judgement' on the younger royals

She said it was good for business but criticised the group saying they shouldn't have visited a royalist cafe if they were anti-monarchy.

Mrs Atkinson is full of praise for Prince Charles but says she is 'reserving her judgement' on the younger royals.

She added: 'Prince Charles does so much for agriculture and people living in rural areas, as well as young people with the Prince's trust.

'He must be the most misunderstood and underestimated man on the planet.

'Without a shadow of doubt he will be the next monarch.

'William does not want to be king. Anyone is their right mind would want to put that off for as long as possible.

'He wouldn't be able to take his children to his in-laws for Christmas or pop off to a stag do at Cloisters.

'Charles in definitely the man for the job.'

Mrs Atkinson held the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of royal memorabilia until she was overtaken by Janet Williams, of Woonnoa, near Wollongong, Australia, in December 2010 who has more than 10,000 pieces.

But Ms Williams has since died, meaning that Mrs Atkinson is now once more the owner of the largest collection in the world, although this is yet to be verified by the Guinness World Records.
An Indian Muslim make up artist was dragged from the shower and Tasered before being raped and murdered in an alleged 'honour killing' because she fell in love with an Arab Muslim, a court has heard.

Celine Dookhran, 19, was found dead inside a 1.5million South London house after her friend managed to escape despite having her throat slit in the same attack.

The court was told Miss Dookhran had been in a relationship with an Arab Muslim and her family members did not approve because they were Indian Muslims.

The survivor, who is in her twenties, claims she heard her friend scream as she was dragged from the shower and stunned with a Taser.

The victims were bound with duct tape and rope and had socks shoved into their mouths before being rolled up into dust sheets and thrown into a vehicle by two men in balaclavas.

They were driven five miles to a house under renovation before Miss Dookhran was raped and murdered  but the second woman fled.

Mujahid Arshid, 33, appeared before magistrates in Wimbledon yesterday charged with the murder, rape, and kidnap of Miss Dookhran and the attempted murder, rape and kidnap of the second woman. Vincent Tappu, 28, was charged with the kidnap of both.

Celine Dookhran, 19, pictured for the first time, was found dead inside a 1.5million home in south west London, pictured, after she was kidnapped, raped and murdered

Miss Dookhran, left and right, had been in a relationship with an Arab Muslim and her family members did not approve because they were Indian Muslims

Mujahid Arshid, 33, appeared in court charged with the murder, rape and kidnap of Ms Dookhran at the property, pictured, and also the rape, attempted murder and kidnap of a second woman

Binita Roscoe, prosecuting, said two men in balaclavas stormed into a house near Wimbledon where Miss Dookhran was with her friend, who is in her twenties, last Wednesday morning.

Miss Dookhran was in the house with the woman, who is in her twenties, when they were both grabbed

She said the pair grabbed the teenager who was in the shower and the other woman. A Taser was used to subdue them and they were tied up before being rolled bundled into a vehicle, she said.

The court heard they were driven five miles to a location in Kingston where they were raped.

Ms Roscoe, prosecuting, said: 'The deceased was involved in a relationship with an Arab Muslim and the family members didn't approve of this relationship because they are Indian Muslims.'

Two men in balaclavas entered the property on July 19, the prosecutor said. She told the court: 'Her face and mouth were covered in duct tape. Her hands were tied with cable ties and her feet were tied with rope.

'She believes a sock was placed in her mouth. She had heard the deceased who was in the shower screaming.'

The surviving victim said a sock was forced into her mouth and the kidnappers used a Taser to subdue both her and Ms Dookhran before they were rolled in dustsheets and bundled into a vehicle, said Ms Roscoe.

Miss Dookhran was the eldest of three children and born in Wandsworth in 1996.

Her passion was make-up and her nearly 3,500 tweets are packed with advice on using cosmetics - she also did the make-up for an A-Level film made at sixth form.

In her last message, posted a week before her death, she wrote: 'Alhamdulilah for everything that's all I can say' and she also liked a joke about finishing work on the eve of her murder.

She also posted messages when she passed her driving test in 2015 and would also tweet about her faith.

During Ramadan she wrote: 'Please tell me why I'm casually sitting in Costa during my lunch break whilst fasting.'

Police carried out an extensive investigation at the home in London and also subsequently charged Vincent Tappu, 28, with the kidnap of both women

Both Arshid and Tappu were remanded in custody. The court heard the murder at the property allegedly took place because Indian Muslim Miss Dookhran was in a relationship with an Arab Muslim

Bearded Arshid wore a grey prison-issue tracksuit, while his co-defendant wore a black suit and white shirt, with short black hair and a beard.

They were flanked by three dock officers. A young man and a woman sat in the packed public gallery during the hearing at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court.

A middle aged man and a woman, wearing a head scarf, sat in the well of the court, who Tappu nodded at.

District Judge James Henderson remanded Tappu, of Ealing, west London, and Arshid, who gave no fixed address, in custody.

Arshid will appear at the Old Bailey on Wednesday 28 July. Both men are due to appear at the same court on August 21.

Ms Dookrhan was born in Wandsworth, London in 1996 and her Twitter account points to her being a keen make-up artist.

A friend tweeted: 'It's never nice hearing news like this, RIP Celine, you were a beautiful soul and will be truly missed.'
Ukrainian businessmen have been accused of exploiting the reputation of the University of Oxford to sell millions of pounds worth of 'fake' honours.

The European Business Assembly advertises opportunities to get 'boosts' and 'recognition from Oxford' on its website, where it invites people to apply for non-affiliated awards that can cost up to 9,300.

It also uses images of Oxford colleges in its adverts and uses a similar typeface to the university's in its logo and claims to offer access to 'exclusive Oxford University lectures'.

The European Business Assembly has been accused of trading off Oxford University's reputation to 'sell fake awards' which it hands out at grand ceremonies, pictured, featuring bagpipes and processions

Ukrainian businessmen Anton Savvov, right, founded the company in 2000 and runs it from Oxford and Ukraine with son Ivan, left, charging up to 9,300 fees for awards

According to The Times, former members of staff claimed they were told to mass email foreign businesses and approach firms in developing countries telling them they had been nominated for awards, and informing anyone who responded positively they would have to pay 'thousands of pounds' for admin fees and a licence to use the award for 'public relations and marketing purposes'.

One ex-employee told the paper they were 'selling the idea that they were becoming part of the great Oxford institution'.

Another former employee said: 'We were asked to focus on areas where people would buy. The Middle East, eastern Europe and Russia where the idea that money buys you credentials is still there.'

Another said: 'What's 8,000 for a certificate? 8,000 is not a lot to have Oxford on your wall.'

The company was founded in 2000 by Anton Savvov and is run from offices in both Ukraine and Oxford by the businessman and his son Ivan.

The EBA has also hired guest speakers including former trade minister Lord Digby Jones, pictured, to 'boost its reputation'

The EBA's events are full of pomp and prestige and feature trumpeters and period uniforms

Awards are given out by EBA director general John Netting, a former lecturer of the separate Oxford Brookes University who is believed to have previously taught Ivan Savvov.

Awards include the European Quality Award, recognising 'aspiration to achieve high quality in accordance to European standards' and the Socrates International Award to recognise 'intellectual development in today's society'.

Venues used to present the awards include Oxford Town Hall and the Institute of Directors in London.

The company has also brought in guest speakers in an apparent effort to boost its reputation, including former trade and investment minister Lord Digby Jones.

It also publishes its own journal, the Socrates Almanac, and offers membership of the 'Oxford Academic Union' organisation for 980.

The EBA also advertises membership of the 'Oxford Academic Union' for 980

Pictures of previous awards ceremonies show they are full of pomp and pageantry, featuring trumpeters, bagpipers and a procession led by a flag-waving man wearing a historic military uniform.

The EBA also hosts conferences with titles including 'Summit of Leaders' and has its own crest and dress robes for attendees.

Previous recipients of awards include European MEP Fernando Ruas, a former mayor in Portugal, who is reported to have used public funds to buy a 'Best City' award.

Mr Ruas told the Times he 'paid a registration fee' but said the EBA was 'credible'.

Oxford University has confirmed it has no affiliation to the EBA and would not comment further.

MailOnline has approached the EBA for comment.

A spokesman for Lord Jones said he was not affiliated with the EBA and had only been hired as a speaker for a specific event.
A 16-year-old boy from Kent has been arrested at Stansted Airport on suspicion of terrorism offences, police said.

The teenager was held by counter-terrorism officers at around 4pm on Sunday as he prepared to board an international flight.

He was arrested by officers from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit, working with Counter Terrorism Policing South East.

A Thames Valley Police spokesman said: 'He is currently in police custody and was detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE).'

A 16-year-old boy from Kent has been arrested at Stansted Airport (stock image) on suspicion of terrorism offences

It comes almost two weeks after another teenager was arrested for unrelated alleged terror offences.

The 17-year-old boy was held in Redhill, Surrey, on July 11 and later charged with three counts of disseminating terrorist publications and one count of preparation of terrorist acts.

At the end of June another 17-year-old boy was arrested and later charged with planning a terror attack in Cardiff.

The teenager, from the Rhondda Cynon Taff area of South Wales, was charged with obtaining a knife and hammer and preparing a suicide note for an attack.

The teenager, who cannot be identified because of his age, is also charged with posting an image and comment on Instagram to encourage others to commit acts of terror.
Labour is hit by a fresh bout of Brexit infighting as the First Minister of Wales defies Jeremy Corbyn to insist there is 'no need' to leave the single market

Corbyn said UK must leave single market as it is 'inextricably' linked to the EU

Gardiner said UK would become a 'vassal state' if it opted for Norwegian model

Carwyn Jones defied Labour leader to say there is 'no need' to quit single market

Labour was today plunged into fresh chaos over Brexit after the First Minister of Wales defied Jeremy Corbyn to insist there is 'no need' to leave the single market.

The Labour leader yesterday said the UK must quit the common market because it is 'inextricably' linked to the EU.

And he was backed up by his loyal lieutenant Barry Gardiner who warned the UK would become a 'vassal state' if it opted for a Norwegian style model which stayed in the single market.

But in the latest bout of Labour infighting over the issue, Carwyn Jones - who leads Labour in Wales - said there is 'no need' to leave the single market.

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Labour's First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, today said there is no need for Britain to leave the European Union's single market after Brexit (file photo)

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme: 'I don't accept that that's [leaving the single market] necessary at all.

'I went to Norway in January, they are not members of the EU but they have almost full access to the single market.

'We don't have to leave the EU and leave one of the world's biggest markets at the same time. That's an interpretation that's been put on the referendum result by the current UK Government and that makes no sense at all.'

He said that Brexit will mean Britain can no longer have a full say over the rules of the single market, we can still participate fully in it.

Mr Jones said: 'You cannot be a member of the single market unless you're a member of the EU. In other words, you cannot have a say over the rules of how the market operates unless you're a member.

'We can't be a member because we'd have to be a member of the EU to do it. That doesn't mean we can't participate in the single market. We wouldn't control the rules but we'd have full and unfettered access...

'Let's have a Brexit that's sensible, not one that's driven, essentially, by nationalists in London.'

Labour is deeply split over its position over what Brexit should practically mean.

Mr Corbyn attempted yesterday to end months of confusion by saying Britain cannot continue to be members of the single market when we quit the bloc.

And Mr Gardiner, shadow international trade secretary, publicly backed his leader's comments, saying Britain will seek access to the single market but not membership.

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured yesterday on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, said he believes Britain should leave the single market as he tried to end months of speculation over Labour's position

Former Labour front bencher Chuka Umunna, pictured, said some countries such as Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway had single market membership despite being outside the EU

He told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour: 'If you do what Norway does, what happens is the very reasons that most people who voted leave, voted to leave - namely to regain sovereignty, to regain control of our borders, not to pay money into the European budget - all are not achieved.

'To adopt the Norwegian situation would be to become a vassal state, because you actually end up paying money into the EU budget but you have less control over the regulations than you do now with a seat round the table.'

He stressed the importance of respecting the democratic outcome of last year's historic referendum result.

And he warned that staying in the EU's custom's union would be a 'disaster' because Britain would be forced to aide by the EU's deals without having a say in brokering them.

Mr Corbyn said Labour has yet to make its mind up over its position on the customs union  which places tariffs on imports from around the world and stops Britain negotiating trade deals.

He told BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show yesterday: 'The single market is dependent on membership of the EU. What we have said all along is that we want a tariff free trade access to the European market and a partnership with Europe in the future.

'The two things are inextricably linked so the question then is the kind of trade relationship of the future and we have made it very clear we want a tariff free trade access with the European market.

'We haven't jumped on either side of that fence but, again, the customs union is part of the European Union.'

His comments sparked fury from Remain-supporting Labour MPs. Former frontbencher Chuka Umunna said some countries were outside the EU but inside the single market, including Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway.

The Blairite MP pointed to polls suggesting most Labour members support continued single market membership.

'The overwhelming majority of Labour members think we should be fighting to stay in the single market - let's do it,' he said.

Mr Corbyn said Labour had made it clear it wanted tariff free trade with the EU but had not 'jumped on either side' of the fence on customs union membership.

During the vote on the Queen's Speech 49 Labour MPs backed an amendment, proposed by Mr Umunna, that Britain should stay in the single market.

It forced Mr Corbyn to sack three front benchers and a fourth resigned.
The University of Southern California has announced it will fire its former medical school dean over allegations that he abused meth and ecstasy while partying with young criminals.

The school started the process of terminating Dr Carmen Puliafito from the faculty and stripping him of tenure on Friday.

USC Provost Michael W. Quick said in a letter to the faculty that Puliafito was immediately suspended and barred from the campus and from any association with USC including attending or taking part in university events.

The action came after USC received information of 'egregious behavior' concerning substance abuse.

The University of Southern California has announced it will fire its former medical school dean Dr Carmen Puliafito over allegations that he abused meth and ecstasy

'This was the first time we saw such information first-hand,' Quick wrote. 'It is extremely troubling and we need to take serious action.'

'We certainly understand that substance abuse is a tragic and devastating disease. But we are also bound to our responsibilities as a university to take the necessary actions concerning Dr Puliafito's status.'

The woman, named as Sarah Warren, was rushed to hospital after the overdose in March 2016 and was able to recover. Police found meth in the hotel room but no one was ever arrested

The announcement came the same day that USC said it had hired a former judge and federal prosecutor to head an investigation into allegations, first reported in the Los Angeles Times, that Puliafito was seen on video apparently smoking meth and consorting with addicts and criminals.

Debra Wong Yang, a former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission, Superior Court judge and federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, will present her findings to a committee of the USC board of trustees.

'We are outraged and disgusted by this individual's behavior,' USC President C.L. Max Nikias said in a letter announcing the investigation and urging colleagues to cooperate fully.

Puliafito, 66, is a renowned eye surgeon.

He led the Keck School of Medicine for nearly a decade before resigning his $1.1 million-a-year post in 2016. However, he remained on the Keck faculty and continued to represent the university at public events as recently as last weekend.

Repeated attempts by The Associated Press and the Times to reach Puliafito have been unsuccessful and he has not publicly commented on the allegations raised by the Times investigation.

The 66-year-old abruptly quit his job as dean of Keck School of Medicine in March last year soon after a 21-year-old woman overdosed in his Pasadena hotel room

Puliafito (right) is pictured standing next to Arnold Schwarzenegger at the opening a USC clinic in 2010

His resignation came three weeks after a 21-year-old woman overdosed in his presence in a Pasadena hotel room.

The woman, named as Sarah Warren, was rushed to a hospital, where she recovered. Police found methamphetamine in the hotel room, according to a police report, but made no arrests.

Puliafito's secret life was chronicled in photos and video shot between 2015 and 2016 by his drug-related friends.

The footage, reviewed by the Times, allegedly showed him taking pills and smoking from glass meth pipes.

It also showed Puliafito partying with others in hotel rooms, cars and even the dean's office at USC.

He was filmed once showing an orange pill on his tongue before he swallowed it and said: 'Thought I'd take an ecstasy before the ball.'

The surgeon was also filmed heating a glass meth pipe, inhaling and blowing out white smoke.

Puliafito heavily involved in fundraising and attended star-studded USC galas where he would pose behind celebrities, including Jay Leno. They are pictured above in 2014

Warren said she met Puliafito while working as a prostitute in 2015. They saw each other regularly and she claims they would often spend the night together in hotel rooms he paid for.

When she overdosed, Puliafito told the 911 operator he was a doctor.

'My girlfriend here had a bunch of drinks and she's sleeping,' he told the dispatcher. When asked if the woman had taken anything else, he replied: 'I think just the alcohol.'

Several men, most with criminal convictions, said Warren had introduced them to Puliafito. They claimed he had given them drugs like meth while they partied.

Puliafito, who is married with three children, oversaw hundreds of medical students, professors and research grants as dean of USC's med school.

He was also heavily involved in fundraising and attended star-studded USC galas where he would pose behind celebrities, including Jay Leno, Gwyneth Paltrow and Pierce Brosnan.

When he resigned from his $1.1 million job, the Harvard graduate said it was to explore outside opportunities.
Jailed: Fraudster Mohammed Chaudhari

A conman who splashed out on a 55,000 Bentley and holidays in Dubai after swindling 1.1million from an EU fund to help immigrants settle into the UK has been jailed.

Mohammed Chaudhari, 37, of Birmingham, used bogus documents to secure grants for schemes promoting social, cultural, and economic integration into Britain.

The crooked businessman cynically took advantage of Home Office officials, who did not have the resources to really closely scrutinise every document.

Southwark Crown Court heard the money was intended to help scores of migrants learn English through the fraudsters Birmingham-based firms Inspire Futures and Accent on Training.

Chaudhari claimed people in the community would benefit but instead used the funds splurge on a 55,000 Bentley Continental, holidays to the Middle East and expensive jewellery.

His sister Suraiya Alam, 43, and his business partner Victoria Sherrey, 66, helped him carry out the scam between 2010-2015.

The trio were convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud following a near month long trial in May of this year.

Chaudhari was handed a seven-year prison sentence before the two women were told their lesser terms would be suspended.

Jailing the conman, Judge Stephen Robbins said: I am quite satisfied that you played by far the most significant role in this extensive and elaborate fraud, milking these funds that were set up to benefit third world nationals who needed assistance with education and employment to the tune of about 1.13million.

I am satisfied that you drew in, exploited and used the co-defendants, who played a much more limited role.

Therefore, I can, and do, substantially distinguish between them and you.

Chaudhari and his sister Suraiya Alam pictured outside court

Prosecutor Edmund Vickers, QC, said at the start of the trial: The funds were part of the EU Integration Fund, and EU members fund - in other words, public money.

These funds, the EU Integration Fund monies, were administered by the Home Office in this country, and they were intended to help the social, cultural and economic integration of third-world nationals coming into the EU, and, specifically in this case, the UK.

The businesses that the defendants were running or were involved in became involved in targeting soft funding of grant money and those funds that they granted were obtained by fraud over a four-year period between 2011-2015.

Chaudhari was experienced in applying for funds and began cynically taking advantage of the relative ease of granting funding.

The disgraced businessman submitted false documents while working as a director of Accent On Training with Sherrey.

Meanwhile Alam posed as an independent adviser to assure officials the projects were using the funds properly.

But she maintained close contact with the fraudster while working for his Birmingham-based business Perception Training and Consultancy.

The defendants were arrested after whistle-blowers informed the Home Office.

Southwark Crown Court heard the money from the Home Office was intended to help scores of migrants learn English

Chaudhari claimed he was set up by crooked colleagues but, cross-examining the fraudster, Mr Vickers said: Your speciality is pulling the wool over peoples eyes, isnt it Mr Chaudhari?

Your speciality is faking documents. Your speciality is providing documents that look like genuine documents but are false.

Chaudhari replied: No, Mr Vickers.

Mr Vickers continued: Did everyone drive a Bentley at Inspire Futures Group?

Did anyone else have a personal registration number?

Chaudhari replied: No, they didnt.

Projects were being run, people in the community were benefiting, he added.

Mr Vickers said the conman made claims more convincing by providing false documents that appeared to be genuine when audited by the Home Office.

He added: 'They gave the appearance that the money was being properly spent.

Unfortunately, the Home Office didnt have the resources to really closely scrutinise every document that was sent in.'

The prosecutor explained that the fact there were legitimate schemes receiving funds from other sources allowed the trio to give the veneer that the money was going to legitimate projects but no more.

This was a sophisticated plan from the outset and documentation was clearly designed to tick all the boxes and to deceive the Home Office who were assessing the applications, he said.

Chaudhari was also banned from being a company director for 15 years

Chaudhari was clearly the mastermind and involved others through pressure and influence and Mr Vickers said there was evidence of Mr Chaudharis controlling and bullying nature.

Ms Alam was clearly used by Mr Chaudhari to assist in preparing documents for the fraud and in particular when there were inspections by Home Office investigators, said Mr Vickers.

He added that one investigator could not identify any money going to legitimate projects.

The victim is therefore the taxpayer, added Mr Vickers.

Of course, these funds should have gone to legitimate beneficiaries and so, public funds were not put to their benefit.

Defending Sherrey, Ashraf Khan said his client had had no expensive cars, holidays, jewellery, whatever.

There was no evidence that Ms Sherrey had an expensive lifestyle resulting from income that was coming from the fraud, said Mr Khan.

This was a lady who, even though experienced in business undoubtedly, was being controlled by one person in many ways.

He then highlighted the influence and control Mr Chaudhari had over her and other people in the organisation.

Narita Bahra, for Alam, told the court that control extended to within the family.

She was reliant on Mr Chaudhari who was effectively taking on the adult male role in this extended family which has clear cultural divides between male and female roles, she said.

A probation report noted that Alam had been taken advantage of and used by Mr Chaudhari while Ms Bahra confirmed she had received no personal benefit from the scam.

She has been ostracised by her extended family and she has effectively had to start again, with blame apportioned to her in some ways for her brothers convictions, she added.

Chaudhari was also banned from being a company director for 15 years.

Alam, of Birmingham, was handed a 12-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, ordered to undertake 100 hours unpaid work and made the subject of a three-month curfew.

Sherrey, of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, was handed a two-year sentence, also suspended for two years, ordered to carry out 200 hours unpaid work and given a six-month curfew.

Both women were also disqualified from acting as company directors for five years.
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It's an Italy from a time before budget airlines, cruise ships and packaged holidays.

Stunning photos have emerged showing some of the country's most precious historical sites, from Cathedral Square in Pisa to the Grand Canal of Venice, in age before mass tourism.

The pictures, shot between 1890 and 1900, are part of a collection of Victorian postcards held by the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

They show what the country looked like to men and women taking part in the 'Grand Tour' of Europe, a traditional voyage taken by wealthy young aristocrats.

The custom first started to emerge in the mid-17th century and flourished well into the 19th century, when the advent of large-scale rail transport made it easier for the middle and lower classes to travel.

The British traveler on the Grand Tour would usually begin in the Low Countries before heading through France or Germany to Switzerland. They would then head towards Turin and Florence before traveling south through Italy.

However in the mid-19th century, businessman Thomas Cook had begun to offer more affordable trips to the continent.

In 1864 he took two large groups of tourists to Florence and Rome, laying the foundations for the modern tourist industry.

Today, Italy receives nearly 50million tourists every year, which contributes nearly two trillion euros to its economy.

However some cities say the numbers are now too high. Earlier in July thousands of Venetians took the streets to protest against mass tourism.

 Slide me  Work first began on the Roman Catholic Pisa Cathedral in 1064. Today more than a million tourists flock to the Cathedral Square, located in the heart of Tuscany, each year, part of the 48million which came to the country in 2016

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the main attractions in Tuscany and has achieved an iconic status worldwide for its architectural quirks. But its hard to capture the majesty of the building visiting with the throngs of tourists today

The Doge's Palace in Venice, Italy. The city on the Adriatic was a major financial power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and was seen as a key location for the young European aristocrats visiting the city as part of their Grand Tour

The Grand Canal in Venice in the late 19th century. The peaceful Venetian life of Gondolas and waterways seen in this photo is being made nearly impossible today by the influx of tourists.

The Grand Canal today. Depsite the economic benefits of tourism many of the city's inhabitants are complaining that the relentless crush of visitors in the city is making the city almost impossible to live in

 Slide me  The Baptistry in Florence, Italy. The Tuscan city, with a population of just 350,000, experiences an astonishing 16 million tourists a year - mainly because the city contains sixty per cent of the world's art

A street scene in Rome, Italy .The eternal city was seen as an essential stop for young men and women taking part in the Grand Tour

The same street in Rome today. This summer the city has had to put measures in place to ensure that the 'New Barbarians' - i.e. tourists - don't wreck the city's heritage

The People's Place, Rome. The stunning photos are all part of the Victorian postcards held by the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. They have recently been collated and colourised.

The Pesaro Palace in Venice. The once-beautiful building has now turned into a boutique hotel. As part of a new crackdown on tourism Venetian authorities have banned any new holiday accommodation from opening in its historic centre

Venice however remains one of the most popular cities on tourist's radars in Italy. Pictured here, people row during the masquerade parade on the Grand Canal during the Venice Carnival

The sun sets on Partenope Street, Naples. During the 18th and 19th century voyagers on their Grand Tour would occasionally visit the southern Italian city to visit the nearby ruins of Pompeii and, if adventurous, hike up mount Vesuvius

The wharf in Naples, Italy. The city was often the last city visited on the Grand Tour in Italy, partly because of its distance away from the northern cities of Florence, Milan and Rome, but also partly because of its reputation for sex, gambling and drinking

The Arena in Verona, Italy. This Roman amphitheatre could once house 30,000 people to watch gladiator games. Remarkably it is still used today for large-scale opera productions - although the numbers are limited to roughly half that number today.

The Vendramin Palace in Venice. Earlier in July Venetian locals took to the streets to protest against mass tourism in their Venetian city, saying that the constant influx of tourists was destroying the city's proud heritage

The Horologe in Venice (pictured left) and the Columbus Monument in Genoa, (pictured right). Venice has always fascinated outside travelers

The interior of the Church of the Scalzi in Venice. Despite being built in 1680 the iconic Venice landmark has been well-maintained. The interior was designed by Baldassare Longhena, the architect behind some of Venice's greatest Baroque architecture

The Venetian Arsenal, a complex of shipyards and armories clustered together in the former city state.

The Forum Romano in Rome, Italy, first built in the 7th century BC as part of a grandiose vision of temples and basilicas. In 2015 the Roman Chamber of Commerce warned that the city was 'on the verge of collapse' because of its infrastructure

The Harbor in Venice Italy. The city has long been a maritime power but today, Venetians are protesting that massive tourist cruise ships are damaging the city environmentally. Locals also fear that they are being priced out of the city by tourists

Plazza Navona in Rome. A trip to the Italian capital was seen as essential during the Grand Tour, but the city's popularity has not waned during the age of mass tourism. Nearly nine million tourists visited the city in 2014.

The town of Malcesine, near Lake Garda in northern Italy. In the times of the Grand Tour many young men and women would make their way past the Italian Lakes towards either Turin, Milan or Florence

The cosy, isolated towns tucked away throughout Italy have long fascinated foreign tourists, however in recent years concerns have mounted that the country can no longer support the huge numbers of tourists it experiences every summer

Tragically, many of the traditional Italian villages, like this one in Meta near Naples, risk dying out, as the population ages and more and more of the small-town inhabitants migrate to major cities

Tremosine in Lake Garda, northern Italy. The modern mass tourism industry can trace itself back to the mid-19th century, when British businessman Thomas Cook began offering more affordable trips to the continent

The town of Nago in Lake Garda, northern Italy. In 1864 Thomas Cook took two large groups of tourists to Florence and Rome, laying the foundations for the modern tourist industry.

The Venice harbour. This scenic view of small trade ships would be unimaginable today, as cruise ships continue to pack the harbour. Locals have set out multiple times to try and block the massive visiting ships from entering the port

The harbor in Naples, Italy. The southern Italian city has suffered less from the influx of tourism, partly because of its 'dangerous and dirty' reputation, which it has carried with it for centuries

A general view of Verona, Italy. Today, Italy receives nearly 50million tourists every year, which contributes nearly two trillion euros to the country's economy

A street scene in Piazetta Monteoliveto, Naples, Italy. The photos offer a brilliant insight into what it would be like to be on a'Grand Tour' of Europe before mass tourism took over

The Capitoline in Rome, Italy. This summer the city is cracking down on tourists, sometimes referred to as 'New Barbarians' swimming in the city's water fountains and making a mess of the the sacred monuments

The Courtyard, Naples, Italy. High crime and problems with waste disposal have put tourists off the area in recent years

The wharf in Naples, Italy. Despite its fearsome reputation the city is full of unique charms for tourists

Venice's problem with cruise ships have been a stark example of the problems with tourism over the last few months
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Sir Michael Fallon today hailed the return of 'big decks and fast jets' as he visited the largest and most powerful ship ever built for the Royal Navy.

The Defence Secretary made his first visit at sea to the HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is on trials off the coast of Scotland.

He described the 280-metre vessel as the 'greatest warship this country has ever built' after he landed by Merlin helicopter aboard the boat's four-acre flight path.

And he told armchair critics of the 3 billion warship to 'shut up for a while' as he told how the aircraft carrier will improve Britain's military and humanitarian prowess for generations to come.

He also announced the Britain's second aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, will be officially named at a ceremony in Rosyth on 8th September 2017.

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Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon accompanied Officer Captain Jerry Kyd aboard HMS Elizabeth as it carried out manoeuvers off the coast of Scotland today. Sir Michael landed by helicopter to make his first visit at sea to the boat

Sir Michael landed by Merlin helicopter aboard HMS Elizabeth today. The aircraft carrier is the biggest and most powerful vessel ever made for the Royal Navy and is due to be fully operational by 2020

Crew walked aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth as it set sail for ts latest set of sea trials near Lossiemouth in Scotland

The behemoth of a ship has a large runway to allow aircraft to take off and land - giving Britain's military greater flexibility

Hundreds of crew members gathered on the aircraft carrier's deck to listen to Sir Michael Fallon as he hailed the return of an era of 'big decks and fast jets' which he said would help keep Britain safe for generations to come

Speaking to crew aboard the warship, Sir Michael said it has 'been a while since HMS Illustrious' - an aircraft carrier built in the late 1970s - and added: 'But big decks and fast jets are now back.'

He said: 'This ship is so much bigger than Illustrious and it combines, of course, sea power with air power. Already we have 10 F-35s being flown and trained in the United States. By the end of this year we will have 14 of those fast jets - the world's most sophisticated fighter.'

VITAL STATISTICS ABOUT HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH It weighs 65,000 tonnes and is some 280 metres long. HMS Queen Elizabeth will have a crew of 700, increasing to around 1,600 when a full complement of 36 F-35B aircraft and four Crowsnest helicopters are embarked. The flight deck is 70 metres wide and 280 metres long  enough space for three football pitches. It keeps 45 days worth of food in its stores. The warship is made up of 17 million parts and there are 364,000 metres of pipes inside it. Some 51 million hours have been spent designing and building the Queen Elizabeth Class. Advertisement

The Defence Secretary also told the ship's company it is time for the 'armchair critics to shut up for a while', adding that HMS Illustrious 'has now gone'.

'But Queen Elizabeth, the biggest and the greatest warship this country has ever built, will go on now from these trials to defend our country, to safeguard our sea lanes, to work with our allies and partners to keep the peace, and to save lives across all seven seas,' he added.

He said critics of the project should 'come and see this wonderful flagship of the Royal Navy, which will help keep this country safe for 50 years to come'.

He added: 'In a modern world, we need a strong Navy, we need an aircraft carrier, and from an aircraft carrier you need to be able to fly the best jets.'

The 3 billion behemoth is set to be the nation's future flagship - her 700-strong ship's company plus 200 contractors are currently sailing off the coast of Scotland for maiden sea trials.

Sir Michael said the ship will bolster Britain's ability to fight wars and help in humanitarian disasters around the globe.

He said: 'Our carrier programme is a clear demonstration of British power and commitment to our global standing.

'With two aircraft carriers we will have one available at all times, providing a world-class carrier strike capability.

'They offer a prodigious promise to future generations of our determination to continue fronting up to aggression for years to come.

'The magnificent HMS Queen Elizabeth provides us with power on a scale we have never seen before.

Sir Michael Fallon landed by Merlin helicopter to inspect the aircraft carrier. he said the new class of aircraft carrier will strengthen the United Kingdom's ability to deliver humanitarian and disaster relief and engage in high-end warfighting

The ship is a staggering 280-metres long and weighs some 65,000 tonnes. Inside, the warship is made up of 17 million parts and there are 364,000 metres of pipes which are laid within it

The aircraft carrier is the largest and most powerful ship ever built for the Royal Navy and cost 3billion to construct

Sir Michael Fallon spoke to many of the 700 members of crew aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth in a speech which hailed the power and might of Britain's military. He said the new carrier shows the UK's commitment to its global standing

'Protecting us for the next half a century, she will be a highly versatile and potent force, capable of both humanitarian and disaster relief and high-end warfighting.'

He said the demands of modern warfare means Britain needs aircraft carriers.

He said: 'The coalition would not have been successful in Iraq in defeating Daesh terrorism in Mosul without the strikes the American jets have flown from their aircraft carrier in the gulf,' he said.

'We can't tell what the future will hold, or which part of the world the terrorist threat may next emerge. We can't tell that now, so we have to be sure we can play our part with our allies in any of the seven seas.'

Sir Michael also said the 'mighty aircraft carrier' is 'great for British industry', with many yards across the UK, thousands of people, and hundreds of apprentices and businesses involved in its creation.

'Ninety per cent of it British - 17 million parts. This ship is a floating showcase for British industry, British talent, British skills and British brainpower,' he added.

'This is a great day for Britain. There are only three other countries in the world building aircraft carriers - and we are building two.'

Four weeks ago today HMS Queen Elizabeth sailed for the first time from Rosyth, under the authority of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance which is responsible for building and delivering the ship to the Royal Navy.

Celebrating a number of firsts as we bring the ship to life, she has now had her first helicopter landing, first passenger boat transfer and first port call in Invergordon.

And the Ministry of Defence said the the ship's crew of over 700 Royal Navy and 200 industry personnel 'have settled in well to the routine of ship's life'.

The initial period of sea trials, expected to last around six weeks, will test the fundamentals of the ship.

The trials are monitoring speed, manoeuvrability, power and propulsion, as well as undertaking weapons trials and additional tests on her levels of readiness.

Sir Michael arrived by chopper to inspect the aircraft carrier. HMS Queen Elizabeth is 280 metres long and weighs 65,000 tonnes. Some 1,000 people were involved in making the carrier, which was constructed at yards around the UK

Sir Michael inspected the ship and looked over the edge as he toured the ship as it carried out manoeuvres. It is part of a new class of carriers that are expected to form the backbone of the Royal Navy until the 2060s

The crew of the HMS Queen Elizabeth were out in force to help Sir Michael land. The Ministry of Defence said that some 700 people are stationed aboard the ship

Sir Michael was given a guided tour of the new ship by Commanding Officer Captain Jerry Kyd (pictured right)

Last week the Defence Secretary announced the name of the first Type 26, HMS Glasgow, as part of the new City class frigates that will form the backbone of the Royal Navy until the 2060s.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected to enter Portsmouth to be handed over to the Royal Navy later this year.

The ship is a 280-metres long, 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier which cost some 3 billion to build.

It is set to be the nation's future flagship ship.

A total of 10,000 people worked on construction of the ship, made up in sections at yards around the UK and transported to Rosyth, where it was assembled.

Britain's new generation of F35 fighter jets, which are still in production, will use the massive aircraft carrier to take off and dock.

The ship is expected to come into operational use by the 2020s, the Ministry of Defence said.
Rudy Giuliani denied on Monday that he was under consideration to become the next U.S. attorney general.

Trump reportedly has casually floated the idea of nominating the former New York City mayor to replace former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.

Sessions drew Trump's ire when he recused himself from all Russia-related investigations. The president told The New York Times last week that he would have chosen someone else for the mission-critical job if he had known Sessions would take that course of action.

But Giuliani told CNN that Sessions 'made the right decision under the rules of the Justice Department.'

The Axios news website first reported on the apparent intramural trial balloon about Giuliani  the kind of 'what if' exercise the president plays with staff and VIP visitors from time to time, and either explores or discards depending on the reactions he hears.

Donald Trump is angry that Jeff Sessions, whom he appointed to lead the Justice Department, isn't running a formal investigation of Hillary Clinton's 'crimes and Russia relations'

Trump has floated  internally  the idea of having former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani replace him, but Giuliani's Russia ties could be more daunting than those that led Sessions to recuse himself from arbitrating the Trump investigation. Giuliani denied on Monday that he was in the running for the job

But Giuliani, known as 'America's mayor' following the 9/11 terror attacks nearly 16 years ago, would have brought his own set of potential conflicts of interest to the job, including some that would appear even more problematic than Sessions'.

The former mayor originally had his heart set on becoming secretary of state, but was left without a chair when first round of presidential-appointment music stopped.

He was later touted as a potential pick to lead the FBI following James Comey's ouster.

On Monday he was spotted in a New York City airport, boarding a plane to D.C.

'Stop the presses,' tweeted a Bloomberg columnist. 'Just saw Rudy (and his muscle) at the Delta shuttle terminal. Got on the flight to...Washington.'

Sessions, the U.S. attorney general, is presiding over a department whose Special Counsel is probing Trump's alleged Russia ties, but not Clinton's

On Monday Giuliani was seen hopping a flight from New York City to Washington  for reasons unknown

The New York Times reported in November that among the clients of his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, is an international consultancy called TriGlobal Strategic Ventures  which is in the business of greasing Moscow's skids to the advantage of Western businesses.

TriGlobal has also 'provided image consulting to Russian oligarchs and clients with deep Kremlin ties,' according to the times.

'They have included Transneft, Russias state-owned oil pipeline giant, which is the target of Western sanctions imposed after President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and began meddling in Ukraine.'

In 2004 TriGlobal arranged for Giuliani to meet Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, and steel billionaire Viktor Rashnikov in the city of Magnitogorsk.

Any or all of these connections could raise a Democratic outcry if Giuliani were to find himself at the helm of the Justice Department.

Trump tweeted Monday that 'Crooked Hillary' should receive at least as hot a spotlight as the one trained on him

The president also wrote that investigations of him and his family have proceeded 'with Zero evidence being found'

It was Sessions' personal recusal that created the need for a Special Counsel, the role filled by former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Putting a new attorney general in Sessions' place  someone who is not compromised by any Russia ties  could eventually provide Trump with a soft landing if he were to fire Mueller and put the investigation back in the DOJ's hands.

Trump blasted Sessions Monday, asking on Twitter why the man he appointed isn't running a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton.

'So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys [sic] crimes & Russia relations?' the president tweeted.

A White House spokeswoman said following Trump's impromptu New York Times interview last week that the president had confidence in Sessions, and the attorney general himself announced that he had every intention of remaining in his job 'as long as that is appropriate.'

On Air Force One Monday afternoon, new Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president has been 'extremely clear' about his position when it comes to Sessions.

'I know I've answered this question a number of times over the last week,' Huckabee Sanders told reporters. 'He's very disappointed that Attorney General Sessions chose to recuse himself, and there's not much more to add beyond what we've already said on that.'

Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta sat on the board of a green-energy company called Joule Unlimited, according to 'Clinton Cash' author Peter Schweizer.

That company received $35 million in 2011 from a Kremlin-backed investment fund that Russian President Vladimir Putin founded.

Podesta went to work for the Obama White House While Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, choosing to transfer his shares in the company to a company controlled by his adult children.

Trump seemed to highlight this and other quirks of Clinton's inner circle in a pair of weekend tweets.

'So many people are asking why isn't the A.G. or Special Council [sic] looking at the many Hillary Clinton or Comey crimes. 33,000 e-mails deleted?' the president wrote.

'What about all of the Clinton ties to Russia,' Trump added, 'including Podesta Company, Uranium deal, Russian Reset, big dollar speeches etc.'

Hillary Clinton lost a winnable presidential race in shocking fashion, largely by ignoring states where Trump later beat her but which she took for granted

New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer conceded on Sunday to The Washington Post that his own party, not a Russian conspiracy, was likely responsible for its lackluster performance in November 2016

Former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta (center) sat on the board of a green-energy company that received $35 million from a Kremlin-backed fund founded by Vladimir Putin

Monday's Clinton-clobbering came after another tweet that claimed multiple investigations into his own campaign's alleged Russia ties have proceeded 'with Zero evidence being found.'

Trump has called the probes a collective 'witch hunt,' claiming they only gained currency because Democrats were searching for a convenient explanation for his stunning election win that didn't highlight their own political weaknesses.

Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, said Monday on Fox & Friends that Trump was 'absolutely right' to characterize the probes that way.

'Remember, there was no such thing as a witch. Witches didn't exist. It's hysteria, and on top of that, it's a message to everybody who simply cannot get over, psychologically can't deal with what happened on November the eighth,' he said.

'We won the election. The presidnet with less money, with really a tiny fraction of the establishment capabilities that the DNC had, won an election, trounced Hillary Clinton, and this is how those people who do not wish to recognize the legitimate new leader of the most powerful nation in the world, how they create a smoke screen.'

On Monday Trump also seized on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the garrulous New York Democrat, for putting an end to finger-pointing that had previously implicated former FBI Director James Comey and all of Trumpworld.

Comey famously  and publicly  jump-started criminal probe related to Clinton's classified email scandal just days before the 2016 election.

Schumer told The Washington Post on Saturday, amid a Democratic National Committee re-branding effort, that his party could no longer deny its own responsibility for losing to Trump.

'When you lose to somebody who has 40 per cent popularity, you don't blame other things  Comey, Russia  you blame yourself,' he said.

'So what did we do wrong? People didn't know what we stood for, just that we were against Trump. And still believe that.'

Trump also took aim at California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who, he claims 'spends all of his time on television' alleging that Moscow made Trump the president

The president also proposed a tweak of his frequent pledge to 'drain the swamp' of Washington, now saying that DC is more like a 'sewer'

Trump drew a Twitter-sized red circle around that admission.

'After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that "Democrats should blame ourselves,not Russia",' he tweeted.

The president gave the back of his hand, however, to a California Democratic congressman who is pushing a House probe.

Rep. Adam Schiff is the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating some Democrats' contention that his campaign actively colluded with agents of the Russian government to skew the Election Day results in the Republican's favor.

'Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into "Russia," spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!' Trump wrote Monday in another tweet.

The House Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, drew Trump's ire for repeating unfounded claims that the president only won by colluding with a foreign government

The president is correct in stating that no evidence has emerged to support the Democrats' theory, and Schiff said Sunday on CBS's 'Face the Nation' program that he doesn't 'want to comment on the evidence.'

The constant drumbeat of suspicion, however  and the layered accretion of news stories painting him as a tool of Moscow  have driven much of Trump's discontent with the national political press corps.

The newspapers and cable networks then-candidate-Trump loved to hate became the basis for some of his pledges to 'drain the swamp' of Washington, and led to rally crowds of thousands often chanting in unison that 'CNN sucks.'

On Monday the president refreshed his reservoir of indignation, announcing that the 'swamp' has  rhetorically, at least  become a 'sewer.'

'Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer - it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought,' Trump tweeted, 'and it begins with the Fake News!'
A US Navy surveillance plane almost collided with two Chinese fighter jets over the weekend after they attempted to buzz the aircraft.

The US EP-3 plane was flying over the East China Sea - which is bordered by China's east coast, South Korea and Japan - when it was intercepted by the Chinese aircraft.

One of the J-10 jets came up from under the spy plane just 300 feet away, forcing it 'to take evasive action to avoid collision,' a US official told Fox News.

Two Chinese J-10 fighter jets (seen in file image) buzzed an American surveillance plane over the East China Sea over the weekend, almost causing a collision, US officials said

Both of the Chinese jets were armed with air-to-air missiles, the official claimed.

The incident was also confirmed to Reuters by two officials.

The near-collision occurred around 90 miles south of the Chinese port of Qingdao, officials said. That's 250 mile north-west of Shanghai, China's second-most populous city.

This is the third time in three months that US aircraft have been buzzed by Chinese planes in the region.

On May 25, American officials blasted 'unsafe and unprofessional' Chinese pilots after they flew just 100 feet from one of the Navy's P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft.

And on May 17, a USA WC-135W Constant Phoenix 'nuke sniffer' plane was approached by two Chinese SU-30 jets - one of which flew upside down over the WC-135W, Top Gun-style.

China declared an air defense identification zone over a large section of the East China Sea in 2013, a move the US called illegitimate and has refused to recognize.

China has demanded foreign aircraft operating within the zone declare their intentions and follow Chinese instructions.

It is unclear whether this weekend's incident took place within the disputed area.

The US EP-3 surveillance plane (seen in file photo) had to change its course after one of the jets flew up at it from just 300 feet away. Both jets had air-to-air missiles, officials said

The incident continues the awkward relationship between the US and China during a period of high tension in East Asia.

On Friday Admiral John Richardson called his Chinese counterpart to discuss putting pressure on North Korea to curb its nuclear weapons development.

That comes amid continuing rivalry between US and Chinese ships in the South China Sea, which the Asian country has also laid claim to.

It has built aritifical islands and constructed bases on naturally-occurring islands of disputed ownership in order to cement its claim on the waters.

The US, meanwhile, has continued Obama-era policy of sending ships through the disputed area - including within 12 miles of the islands, in water that would be considered Chinese if the islands were internationally accepted.

China has condemned the exercises, and tailed ships in waters it considers its own.

Earlier this month China sent troops to the African nation of Djibouti, establishing its first international base just four miles from a US base also in the country.

In June the USS Nimitz - the nation's oldest aircraft carrier - was sent to the Pacific to join the US Carl Vinison and the USS Ronald Regan, amid concerns over North Korea.

In July the Nimitz, along with ships from India and Japan, took part in exercises off the Indian coast in what was said to be a show of strength against China.
Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer (file picture) has been offered a job advising the law firm which represented Gina Miller in her case against the Government

Labours Brexit spokesman is poised to become an adviser to the law firm behind the controversial Article 50 court challenge.

Sir Keir Starmer is in talks with Mishcon de Reya, which represented Gina Miller in the case that forced the Government into a Parliamentary vote on leaving the EU.

The prospect of his appointment as an adviser to the firm sparked accusations from the Conservatives that Sir Keir faced a possible conflict of interests.

Tory MP James Cleverly questioned whether it was appropriate for him to take the role and called on him to list any clients he will advise.

He also highlighted the fact that Sir Keir had recently been appointed to the Privy Council, the group of political senior advisers to the Queen, so he could view secretive and privileged government documents on Brexit.

Sir Keir, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, has advised the firm before. His Parliamentary register of interests shows he received 4,500 a month for work between June and September last year.

He quit the post days before taking on the high profile front bench post of Labour Brexit spokesman.

If he rejoins the firm, Sir Keir will be working alongside Alison Levitt QC. She previously worked as his principal adviser when he headed the CPS from 2008 to 2013, and was the lead lawyer on the phone hacking investigations.

The potential new role is with the Mishcon Academy, which the firms website says handles training, development, learning and new thinking.

Sir Keir Starmer, pictured with his wife Victoria Alexander during the recent election count

The company rose to prominence as the representative of Ms Miller (pictured outside the Supreme Court in January), who controversially challenged Theresa May's right to invoke Article 50

In a letter to Sir Keir, Mr Cleverly, who is a ministerial aide in the Home Office, wrote: Mishcon de Reya have been an active participant in legal cases surrounding the United Kingdoms exit from the European Union.

The firm stressed that the result of the referendum was not legally binding and supported anonymous claimants in their legal efforts last year.

The firm acted for Gina Miller in her case against the Government regarding the triggering of Article 50 even though Jeremy Corbyn called for Article 50 to be triggered immediately following the referendum, without the consent of Parliament.

Controversial ex-colleague If Sir Keir Starmer becomes an adviser to Mishcon de Reya he will potentially work alongside a controversial figure. Alison Levitt QC, a partner at the firm and head of its business crime group, played a key role in the investigation into journalists paying cash for stories. Out of 29 charges against journalists in the multi-million pound inquiry, only one resulted in a conviction  and this was later quashed. Sir Keir worked closely with Miss Levitt at the CPS, as she was principal legal adviser there when he was DPP. A previous employee of the law firm is Sue Akers, who led Scotlands Yard investigation into phone hacking and retired from the force in 2012. She was recruited by the firm as a private investigator after it had been retained by the wealthy family of an alleged rape victim. Miss Akers worked alongside Miss Levitt, and her work helped lead to a rape charge against Kato Harris. But the teacher was cleared by a jury in 15 minutes. Earlier this year, a judge cleared the way for Mr Harris to seek damages after ruling his prosecution was an improper act. Advertisement

The firms legal work alongside your role in the Shadow Cabinet creates a possible conflict of interests.

He pointed to the MPs Code of Conduct which says MPs should avoid any conflict between personal interests and the public interest.

He added: In your position as the Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union you will be involved with drafting and speaking on amendments on the EU Withdrawal Bill.

You have also recently been made a member of the Privy Council, which will allow you privileged access to documents and information. A Labour source also raised doubts about whether the role would be approved by the party leadership.

The Article 50 case forced ministers to pass legislation before they could begin the process of Brexit. Mrs Miller won in both the High Court and Supreme Court. Recent figures revealed the case cost taxpayers 1.2million.

Mishcon de Reya said: We are in discussions with Keir Starmer about reappointing him as an adviser to the Mishcon Academy.

His wide experience and previous association with the firm would enable him to play a key and unique role in shaping the work of the Academy.

Sir Keir did not respond to requests for comment.
A gay couple have hit out after they were sent a shocking message by the owner of a guest house in Italy.

Massimo Arcangeli, 30, who lives in Rome, was booking to stay at a privately owned property in the town of Santa Maria, in Calabria, with his partner Gennaro, who he has been dating for seven years.

But while swapping details with the owner, Mr Arcangeli received a message saying: 'Important, and sorry if I seem like a troglodyte - no gays or animals are allowed.'

Massimo Arcangeli, 30, was trying to book a guest house in Calabria with his male partner of seven years. While swapping details with the owner via WhatsApp, the landlord told him that 'no gays or animals are allowed' (bottom right)

In a translation published by The Local, Mr Arcangeli said: 'It made me think of the infamous message Nazis would post on their shop windows: "No dogs or Jews".

'Seventy years have passed since then and this story cannot be ignored.'

He also wrote on Facebook: 'Me and my partner were looking for a facility where we could spend some days at the end of August.

Mr Arcangeli said the phrasing reminded him of Nazi signs banning 'dogs and Jews' from shops and public places

'After some research we decided to book a guest house in Santa Maria where they offered the exclusive use of an annex and private pool.

'After a regular online reservation on the Booking platform, on Friday evening we were contacted by WhatsApp by the property owner who asked for some additional information (in particular, he wanted to know where we came from) and we took advantage of it to ask for clarifications about the use of the house and the services offered, and the payment methods.'

It was then that Mr Arcangeli received the message informing him that gays would not be welcomed.

Mr Arcangeli said he did not dignify the message with a response, instantly cancelled the booking, and made another one elsewhere.

Mr Arcangeli, who has been 'out' for 12 years, said he deiced to go public with the messages after thinking about younger couples who could have been easily intimidated by the owner.

He sent screenshots of the exchange to Arcigay Napoli, a gay right advocacy group, which denounced the guest house owner and asked for the listing to be taken down.
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The tour firm that arranged a trip into North Korea that led to the death of a US student has released images of the country to encourage people to visit.

Otto Warmbier was jailed for a year by Pyongyang for stealing a poster before being sent home in a mysterious coma that proved fatal soon afterwards.

Young Pioneer Tours was responsible for the trip and came in for criticism for failing to protect the 22-year-old. But company bosses insisted they had made 'constant requests' to see Warmbier in jail which were denied and that they had been left 'reeling' after learning of his death.

Now the firm has issued new photos to encourage visits to Kim Jong-un's hermit state - just a month before American citizens face a complete ban from visiting the nation.

Hard at work: A local guide wearing a traditional cholgori or Hanbok is pictured in the middle of a factory. The image was one of many released by Young Pioneer Tours aimed at promoting tourism in the country. The firm has hit the headlines recently for arranging a trip into North Korea that led to the death of US student Otto Warmbier

Young Pioneer Tours has issued new photos to encourage visits to Kim Jong-un's hermit state - just a month before American citizens face a complete ban from visiting the nation. A female traffic officer is pictured in the capital Pyongyang

The photos show a range of different tourism draws in North Korea, from soldiers at work to families at the recently finished Munsu Waterpark in Pyongyang

The photos, which show everything from soldiers at work to families at a recently finished water park, were taken by Irish national Shane Horan, the International tours manager for Young Pioneers Tours.

Recent months have seen tensions between North Korea and the west, particularly America, ratcheted up to a level rarely seen since the days of the Korean War.

But Mr Horan says these developments have not concerned him, and that even his family have stopped worrying now when he takes a trip.

'These tensions are quite normal and seem to flare up at least once a year,' he said. 'I'm not concerned as I feel I've seen it all before and nothing will change.

'At first my family were slightly concerned when I first took the job. But having seen me return from Pyongyang 40 plus times, I don't even think they care anymore.'

The U.S. government last week said it will bar Americans from traveling to North Korea due to the risk of 'long-term detention' in the country.

An army officer is pictured in front of Mount Paektu on the Northern Chinese border. The area is sacred for Koreans and it is said that General Kim Jong Il was born at the base of the mountain

A cyclist on the newly built 'Scientist Street', built for the workers in the nearby university in Pyongyang. The photos were released by Young Pioneer Tours, which organises trips into North Korea

The photos, including this image of students dancing on Liberation Day, have been released just a month before American citizens face a complete ban from visiting the nation

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has authorised a 'Geographical Travel Restriction' on Americans to forbid them from entering North Korea, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

'Once in effect, U.S. passports will be invalid for travel to, through and in North Korea, and individuals will be required to obtain a passport with a special validation in order to travel to or within North Korea,' Nauert said.

The move was due to 'mounting concerns over the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention under North Korea's system of law enforcement,' she said.

Warmbier was sentenced last year to 15 years hard labour in North Korea for trying to steal a propaganda sign while on a tourist visit.

He returned to the United States in a coma on June 13 after being released on humanitarian grounds and died on June 19. The circumstances surrounding his death are not clear, including why he fell into a coma.

North Korea has said through its state media that Warmbier's death was 'a mystery' and dismissed accusations that he had died as a result of torture and beating in captivity.

North Korea is currently holding two Korean-American academics and a missionary, a Canadian pastor and three South Korean nationals who were doing missionary work. Japan says North Korea has also detained at least several dozen of its nationals.

It was not known how many Americans were currently in North Korea and the State Department said it was not its practice to give numbers of U.S. citizens living in or travelling to a particular country.

The 105 storey and still unfinished Ryugyong Hotel dominates Pyongyang's skyline. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has authorised a 'Geographical Travel Restriction' on Americans to forbid them from entering North Korea, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said last week

A worker is illuminated by an oncoming train at Pyongyang's 'Glory' station in one of the world's deepest metro systems

Two metro conductors watch and wait for the doors to close before departing from a station in Pyongyang. The images were released to encourage people to visit North Korea

Fishermen sit and talk about the catch in the Taedong river off Pyongyang's central square and in front of a large cruise boat

U.S. officials say North Korea will become the only country in the world Americans are banned from visiting.

The department said it plans to publish a notice in the Federal Register this week, starting a 30-day clock before the restriction takes effect, Nauert said.

She said Americans who wanted to travel to North Korea 'for certain limited humanitarian or other purposes' could apply for special passports to do so.

North Korea allows foreign tourists to visit but their travel is strictly limited. Hundreds of Americans are among the roughly 4,000 to 5,000 Western tourists who visit North Korea each year, according to U.S. Representative Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina.

North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threat is perhaps the most serious security challenge confronting U.S. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear warhead.

North Korea this month test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that experts believe has the range to reach Alaska and Hawaii and perhaps the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Mr Horan insisted it remained 'very easy' for tourists to secure a visa to travel to the country - unless they were from the US.

Mr Horan insisted it remained 'very easy' for tourists to secure a visa to travel to the country - unless they were from the US. Locals are pictured at a beach on the West Korean sea at the mouth of the river Taedong and near the port of Namp

Two women stand in front of a newly constructed water park in Pyongyang. The photos were released by Snahe Horan from Young Pioneer Tours

A local tour guide dressed in a pink outfit poses on top of Pyongyang's Arch of Triumph and in front of the city's unfinished Ryugyong Hotel

A young woman walks along one of the traditional streets of Sariwon city in North Korea's North Hwanghae province

A scuba diving fisherman emerges from the ocean on Wonsan beach, on the east coast of North Korea, carrying his catch

'The country is opening slowly but surely to tourists. There are more places than ever that you can visit all over the country and not just in Pyongyang.

'Of course, we have to stick to places we're supposed to, but we can choose what to put on our itineraries.

'You are watched when out and about on the street, but not in your hotel rooms and not so much when visiting the places you're allowed. But I've never been anywhere that's restricted.'

However, Shane says that despite the fact that certain access is restricted, there are still large parts of North Korea where you can go and meet real locals.

'Our tours are geared towards balancing the history and monuments with genuine interactions with locals,' he says.

'I always push for visits to local bars, bowling alleys, parks, waterparks etc where we can roam free and genuinely interact with locals doing casual, leisurely things.'
Punished: Jennifer Caswell, 31, a former Oklahoma middle school teacher, was sentenced to 15 years, with five years suspended, after pleading guilty to second-degree rape and other related charges stemming from her affair with a student

An Oklahoma school district has paid out $125,000 to a family after an English teacher was jailed over having sex with an eighth grader in her classroom.

Middle school teacher Jennifer Caswell, 31, publicly admitted to having sex with a 15-year-old student and was sentenced to 10 years in prison back in May 2015.

The boy's father filed a lawsuit alleging the school - Hollis Middle School - had played a part in covering up the crime.

Now, two years after the disgraced teacher was sentenced, the family have finally been compensated for the teenager's strife.

The family, who we are not identifying because the boy was a victim of a sex crime, allege he was told to keep his mouth shut about his relationship with Caswell.

She appeared on the Dr Phil Show claiming that she was 'not a rapist' and blamed the 15-year-old boy for making the first move.

Caswell, who was formerly known by her married name Saxton, said she was disgraced by her 10-year sentence and said: 'I didn't force anything. I didn't manipulate. I didn't take advantage.'

But Hollis Public Schools agreed to pay the six-figure sum to settle the claims made against them in relation to the illicit relationship.

Speaking out: In May, Caswell appeared on the Dr Phil Show claiming that she was 'not a rapist'

Unpleasant surprise: Caswell's lawyer said they had been expecting a sentence of no more than five years. Caswell, who has an eight-year-old son, will only become eligible for parole in six and a half years

The disgraced teacher admitted to having sex with her student while standing up in her classroom at Hollis Middle School (pictured), six weeks after she qualified for her profession

Charles Watts, an attorney for the victim's family, told The Oklahoman the figure was $125,000, but school officials refused to speculate on the figure.

The boy's parents said his life outside of school and his grades suffered as a result of the relationship and that he suffered emotional distress and humiliation when word got out to classmates.

Watts said: 'The truth is that this has a terrible effect on a child.

'You can expect in his future life that he will have a hard time with relationships.'

It was claimed the school allowed Caswell to resign so that she could keep her teaching credentials.

School attorney Andy Fugitt argued school officials notified police and the local district's attorney's office when Caswell resigned, and said the Oklahoma State Department of Education has the right to revoke a teacher's credentials, not the school district.

'The school district responded to the information it had  which was very limited  in an appropriate way,' Fugitt told The Oklahoman.

In May 2015, Caswell appeared on the Dr Phil Show claiming that she was 'not a rapist' and blamed the 15-year-old boy for making the first move.

'I didn't force anything. I didn't manipulate. I didn't take advantage,' she said at the time.

Harmon County District Judge Richard Darby sentenced Caswell to 15 years in prison, with five years suspended, for each of the six incidents involving sex with the teenager.

The sentences were ordered to run concurrently, totaling 10 years behind bars for the then 29-year-old divorced mother of one from Hollis.

'I cant say that we had ever considered it being that harsh,' Caswell's attorney, David Cummins, told the station NewsOK after the hearing.

Cummins said they had expected a maximum sentence of five years.

Caswell, who had a 6-year-old son, will only become eligible for parole in six and a half years.

After her release, she will be required to register as a sex offender.

Blaming the victim: Caswell told Dr Phil it was her student's flirting and affection that led to them having sex

In the wake of Caswell's sentencing, the young victim's mother said she felt the disgraced teacher's punishment was fair.

The victim's father initially sought $1million in damages after alleging that at least two people saw Caswell engaged in sexual acts with his son in her classroom.

After she resigned in April 2014 with her credentials intact, Caswell had sex with the boy in a vehicle, her house and the boy's father's house, according to prosecutors.

After the woman followed the 15-year-old 650 miles to Mississippi, where he had been sent to stay with his mother, the boy began cooperating with authorities.

During her appearance on the Dr Phil Show in May, Caswell suggested it was the boy's persistence that led to them having sex in her classroom last April.

Bleak future: After her release, Caswell will be required to register as a sex offender

She told Dr Phil: 'He came in, I was working on things, he kept coming closer to me and I would kind of walk away to the other part, you know another room, another areas of the classroom and he just walked up to me and then he kissed me. And then it just kind of went from there.'

'I was walking around the classroom straightening up the desks and he came and I guess it was standing up,' Caswell said.

The 31-year-old admitted that she did not tell the student to stop what he was doing.

She said: 'I kept on saying, ''No you know we cant do this. No, no, no.''.

'He wasn't forcing me, I mean, I couldn't easily just walked out of my classroom, but I didn't.

'But I was resisting because I knew it was wrong, but I didn't.'

Caswell said that following sex with the student, she felt 'terrified'.

'I just couldn't believe I had done something like that,' she added.

The sexual encounter took place within six weeks of Caswell having her teaching certificate. She was arrested two months later.

Caswell claimed her failing marriage with her now ex-husband, as well as the culture in her small town, all contributed to the unlawful relationship.

She said: 'I felt very unwanted by my husband. I was with him for ten years and I was never complimented. We never held hands or were physical.'

The former English teacher said she was flattered and came to enjoy the attention, flirting and compliments she received from the student.
Fake street signs warning of 'easily startled' police are popping up in the area Australian woman Justine Damond was shot dead by a U.S. officer.

The orange signs, spotted at locations in Minneapolis and neighbouring city Saint Paul, feature a graphic of a policeman shooting two guns in separate directions.

'Warning: Twin cities police easily startled,' the seemingly professionally-made signs read.

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Fake street signs warning of 'easily startled' police are popping up in the area Australian woman Justine Damond was shot dead by a U.S. officer

Ms Damond (right), from Sydney, was shot dead by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor (left)

The message appears to refer to a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension statement which said Mohamed Noor's partner heard a loud noise before Ms Damond was killed.

Ms Damond had called 911 at around 11.30pm on July 15 after hearing a woman's screams and fearing a sexual assault was taking place in an alley behind her home.

As she approached the police vehicle, Noor shot across his partner and struck her in the stomach.

Noor has so far refused to be interviewed by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which cannot compel him to answer their questions.

The message refers to a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension statement which said Mohamed Noor's partner heard a loud noise before Ms Damond was killed

Ms Damond had called 911 at around 11.30pm on July 15 after hearing a woman's screams and fearing a sexual assault was taking place in an alley behind her home. She is pictured with fiance Don Damond and his son

It was the latest of a string of high-profile fatal police shootings in the region.

Police Chief Janee Harteau was fired on Friday and at a press conference to explain the dismissal, Mayor Betsy Hodges was shouted down by protesters demanding she resign.

Before Ms Damond's shooting, Hodges was blasted in the wake of the controversial shooting of Jamar Clark in 2015.

It led to an 18-day occupation by Black Lives Matter protesters outside a police station.

Last month, tensions rose after a policeman was acquitted of shooting dead Philando Castile after pulling him over for a broken tail-light.

John Thompson, a friend of Philando Castile who was shot by police a year ago, gestures as protesters interrupt a press conference
Police are to be provided with acid response kits to tackle the escalating scourge of violence in which corrosive liquids are used as weapons across the country.

Britain's largest police force are to roll out new measures as part of a targeted operation which includes distributing 1,000 acid relief kits to London's police force today.

And West Midlands Police said that they are issuing guidelines for dealing with corrosive liquids in accordance with national police policy.

A recent chemical scare in Solihull, Birmingham spread the 'face melter' fear of corrosive substances beyond London's borders when a man shouted 'I've got acid' before squirting what is now thought to be cleaning fluid in the face of a drinker outside a pub last week.

And a major operation has been launched in London to combat the rise in acid attacks, which have claimed multiple victims in the capital in recent months.

Five litre bottles of water are now to be stocked in emergency patrol cars across the the capital to provide vital and immediate treatment on the scene.

Aspiring model Resham Khan was in a car in Beckton, East London, on June 21 with her cousin Jameel Muhktar when a man threw liquid through the window on the pair

Resham was celebrating her 21st birthday when acid was thrown through the car window as she was stopped at traffic lights with her cousin. Both suffered lifechanging injuries

Water is one of the most effective ways of mitigating acid injuries and London fire brigade, which carries large volumes of water, will now respond with police to acid attack emergency calls to ensure that enough water is available to treat victims.

The capital's 999 response officers are also to be given protective equipment and trained in the appropriate medical response to treat injured victims.

Although police in east London are already equipped with acid response kits, under the new operation every car in London will be issued with water and protective equipment.

Acid attacks - an escalating problem 455 acid attacks were reported to Scotland Yard last year  a rise of 74 per cent

20 people were convicted of offences but more than a third of perpetrators were never caught

Between January and April this year alone there were 114 attacks

Surgery often involves multiple skin graft operations to reconstruct eyelids, noses and ears

Victims can also be left blind Advertisement

A trial scheme in east London, where attacks with corrosive liquids have been most prevalent, will see officers carry test kits which will allow them to determine what a liquid is during stop and search operations in the street.

These kits will allow police to safely investigate the contents of liquid in all containers, even in innocent-looking soft drink bottles.

Officials are now considering banning the sale of corrosive substances like certain household cleaners to under-18s.

Stricter regulation of other chemicals has also been mooted.

Acting Detective Superintendent Mike West, who is the Met's lead officer for corrosive based crime, told The Evening Standard: 'We are liaising closely with the London fire brigade, the ambulance service, the Home Office and hospitals as to how to deal with this issue. We are all tuned in to this and determined to tackle it.'

Det Supt West also revealed that some big companies who produce acid based products had contacted the Met to ask what measures they could bring voluntarily in to reduce the ready availability of the liquids.

Police officers were seen pouring bottle after bottle of water over a victim, understood to be Jabed Hussain, in a video that appeared on Twitter from Hackney Road

Acid attacks have escalated to such a level that prominent plastic surgeon Professor Peter Dziewulski has described it as an 'epidemic.'

Professor Dziewulski, clinical director at St Andrews Centre for Plastic Surgery and Burns, told The Evening Standard that he had seen an 'explosion' of cases involving noxious or corrosive substances since the start of last year.

He treated 20 patients for injuries caused by chemical burns last year and he has already seen the same number this year, with 10 needing surgery including skin grafts.

Most of the victims he has treated were male and the vast majority are under 30 - including many teenagers.

He has now likened the use of corrosive substances to knife crime as calls are increasing within both government and civil society to tighten controls on the sale and supply of corrosive chemicals.

Australian model Isobella Fraser, 22, (left) was attacked in the London Mangle nightclub attack. Sophie Hall (right) was taken to a specialist burns hospital in Essex

'It is a complex issue because you can't ban the products people use in their homes. It's a bit like knife crime in that respect. There is a lot of talk about restricting access for youngsters who would need to show ID.

'No one thing will stop this happening but we can restrict access and improve legislation so people are properly penalised if they are caught doing it,' Professor Dziewulski told The Evening Standard.

'What worries me is that we have seen a slow increase in attacks until last year and this year, where there's been an explosion in the number of cases. This is the tip of the iceberg and we are seeing more serious cases,' he said.
Florida crews are drilling the area around the massive sinkhole that opened up in Land O'Lakes earlier this month in order to assess its stability.

The vast hole began on July 14 and continued to grow, swallowing up two houses in a neighborhood and topping out at around 235 feet wide and 50 feet deep.

Now county employees are going to work to make sure it won't get any bigger.

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Work crews are tackling this massive 235-foot-wide sinkhole by drilling around it to test its stability. It opened up on July 14 and swallowed two homes in Land O'Lakes in just minutes

The hole, which is 50 feet deep, continued to grow, widening from 200 feet to 235 feet in just days. Crews are checking roads to make sure they're safe for heavy equipment

Pasco County spokesman Doug Tobin said in a news release that the work will begin today, and that removal quotes are due for 5pm.

Crews will look for anomalies in the roadway to make sure that they are safe for transporting heavy equipment.

Tobin says the goal is to have a debris removal company in place for the county in case homeowner's insurance companies don't accept responsibility to clean up the sinkhole.

The edges of the sinkhole are caving in because there's no support for the sandy soil as it dries out, officials said.

As the water in the sinkhole recedes, the sand on the right-angled banks can't support the weight of the ground and it's giving away.

Engineers believe the solution lies in quickly getting dirt into the area to create a sloping bank that can keep the edges of the sinkhole from falling in.

On Friday residents of Land O'Lakes were warned to gather up their possessions in case they needed to leave urgently, after officials noted that the hole had widened ten feet in around a week.

Five homes near the sinkhole had already been evacuated.

The sinkhole also swallowed up a boat (right). The county also plans to have a debris removal company in place in case the homeowners' insurance companies refuse to pick up the tab

'This is not a time for panic. We have somebody out here monitoring this sinkhole, monitoring the expansion. We will let people know in plenty of time that they need to get their stuff together and be ready to go,' Guthrie said at the time.

'When we say, "Now is the time to leave." It's time to leave. It's not time to pack things up.'

Pasco County's risk manager has told officials that the response to the sinkhole could cost at least $1.5 million but it will be likely much more, Guthrie said.

Pasco County, along with Hernando, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, make up an area known 'Sinkhole Alley', the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Despite the threat, those who live in the Land O'Lakes neighborhood where the huge hole has already swallowed two homes, a nearby resident is vowing to stay unless the hole consumes her house.

'I'm apprehensive, a little nervous,' said Patty Camunas, 57, whose family lives near the sinkhole.

But she added, 'Where are you going to go? There are sinkholes all over Florida. Unless something happens that the sinkhole takes my house, I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon.'


A three-year-old Sydney girl who was pulled unconscious from a Bali swimming pool has arrived in Perth.

Kawa Sweeney was on a trip with her parents, from Sydney's Northern Beaches, when she was found unconscious in a pool at their Uluwatu villa on Sunday morning.

The girl from Newport arrived in Perth late on Monday night and was taken straight to Princess Margaret Hospital where she is fighting for her life, The West Australian reports.

Her mother Dee Tang, who runs homewares brand Kawaiian Lion, with her husband Desmond Sweeney, an artist, planned the trip for work as well as a family getaway.

A three-year-old Sydney girl (pictured) is being flown back to Australia after she was pulled unconscious from a swimming pool in Bali

Little Kawa, 3, arrived in Perth on Monday night on a medivac flight in Perth from Bali

The girl was taken straight to Princess Margaret Hospital where she is fighting for her life

Ms Tang's sister Christine Walsh told Daily Mail Australia that Kawa had been pulled out of a pool unconscious on what was to be the family's last day of a week-long trip to the popular Indonesian island.

'Basically, she was in a drowning accident,' Ms Walsh said.

'They pulled her out of the pool and she was unconscious.'

She added that a doctor who happened to be nearby at the time performed CPR on the little girl for 45 minutes.

'Kawa is still in an induced coma. They will be keeping her that way until her vital signs improve,' Ms Walsh added.

She said her sister is still in Bali, but is expected to return to Australia soon.

A GoFundMe page set up to cover the cost of a medivac flight back to Perth for Kawa (above, in hospital) raised the $42,000 goal in less than a day

Three-year-old Kawa is in an induced coma, her aunt Christine Walsh told Daily Mail Australia

Kawa (pictured, with her one-year-old sister Rafa) was on the last day of a family trip to Bali

Kawa Sweeney was on a trip with her parents when she was found unconscious in a pool on the Indonesian island on Sunday morning

Three-year-old Kawa is pictured with her mother Dee, father Desmond and one-year-old sister

'She's trying to stay strong,' Ms Walsh said.

Ms Tang's friend Pearl Tan issued a fundraising appeal on her friend's Instagram page saying Kawa was in a coma after a 'drowning accident.'

She set up a GoFundMe page seeking donations to cover the cost of a medivac flight to Perth.

'Kawa was in a drowning accident in Bali. She is currently stable but unconscious,' a post on the fundraising page said

Kawa was pulled out of a pool unconscious on what was to be the family's last day in Bali

Kawa's mother Dee Tang (pictured with her daughters) runs homewares brand Kawaiian Lion

The campaign raised more than $70,000 in a day, surpassing the $42,000 goal for the flight.

An update said the remainder would cover medical bills.

'Thanks for the speedy support everyone,' it said, alongside a picture of Kawa in a hospital bed.

Ms Walsh said the family is extremely grateful by the support they've received.

She said they had thought they had travel insurance, but it turned out they weren't covered.

Kawa (pictured with her one-year-old sister) is in an induced coma after being pulled out of the pool unconscious

Kawa (above, with her father) is expected to be airlifted back to Australia by Monday evening

The family were advised to get Kawa back to Australia as soon as possible, she said.

Ms Walsh said the air ambulance company had advised Ms Tang, who is originally from Perth, to raise funds to charter a plane to fly her daughter there as it is closer to Bali than Sydney.

She added that any funds left over after Kawa's medical bills have been paid will be donated to charity.

'They are really overwhelmed by the support and people's generosity,' Ms Walsh said.

'They are really grateful.'
Tens of thousands of Australians are at risk of having their power cut off as they are unable to afford their bills.

A report by the Daily Telegraph has revealed 68,400 residents across New South Wales are set to lose their electricity as energy bills continue to skyrocket.

The state government are having to step in with emergency funds, with Western Sydney suburbs the hardest hit.

New South Wales homes pay more for power bills than any developed nation in the world.

Tens of thousands of Australians are at risk of having their power cut off as they are unable to afford their bills

The Energy Accounts Payments Assistance was implemented in 2012 as a measure to prevent an eletricity bill crisis, with each home to receive $50 in vouchers towards their energy bill. The new report suggests the average household needs five vouchers.

The suburb of Campbelltown is in need of the most help, with an estimated 1,619 homes needing financial assistance to continue their access to electricity.

The government are setting aside $404,750 for Campbelltown alone.

Auburn is not far behind, with 1,270 families needing assistance at a cost of $317,650.

A report by the Daily Telegraph has revealed 68,400 residents across New South Wales are set to lose their electricity as energy bills continue to skyrocket

The report estimates Blacktown and Bankstown are the next suburbs with the most risk with 1191 and 1156 homes in trouble respectively.

Western Sydney suburbs have been the worst effected because of the large number of fibro homes combined with uncommonly low winter temperatures.

Don Harwin, the NSW Energy Minister, has approached the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal over the crisis to ask whether the continually increasing prices are the result of a fair and balanced market.

'We are concerned about national energy rises and we are pushing our federal counterparts hard to ensure there is a sensible plan to fix the broken national energy market,' Mr Harwin told the Telegraph.
Ledins was still technically a priest when she made her transition

Nancy Ledins died over the weekend at the age of 84

A Roman Catholic priest who lived the latter part of life as a transgender woman died over the weekend in North Carolina at the age of 84.

The life of Nancy Ledins, who made national headlines in 1979 after becoming the first female priest in the history of the church, will be celebrated at Charlotte based Wedgewood Church on Sunday.

Born William Griglak in 1932, Ledins transitioned into a woman following a successful sex-change operation 20 years after taking her vows with the church.

Nancy Ledins (pictured) transitioned in 1979, sparking a national debate

'For the first time in my life, I am running into and not from... What a healthy feeling!' she wrote in a letter to her parents in 1978 as she was beginning the transition process, according to The Charlotte Observer.

'I am now very very glad to be alive... My bucket of tears (and there were many) are over. The sunshine is real.'

Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Ledins joined the church in 1959, becoming a priest with the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, a Catholic religious order, moving shortly thereafter to command a parish in Detroit, Michigan.

A few short years later, she would join the fight in Vietnam, becoming an Army Chaplain in the armed services.

Still technically a priest, the issue centered on whether Ledins was the first female priest in the church's history

Born William Griglak in 1932, Ledins transitioned into a woman 20 years after taking her vows

In 1969, still living as a man, William Griglak resigned from the priesthood and married a woman, a former nun, where the two settled in Indiana.

'It was my last macho attempt to find an answer,' Ledins would later tell The National Catholic Reporter in 1980.

At the time, Griglak worked as a psychologist at a drug rehabilitation center at a state-run facility, finding meaning in helping others, but was struggling with an inner-conflict that was making life difficult.

'I recall from way back that I didnt know what to call it, but I felt it and knew that you didnt talk about it,' Ledins told the Reporter in 1979. 'I wanted to be like my sister. I didnt want to be myself. Women didnt seem to be hassled like I felt hassled.'

The couple would later divorce, leading William Griglak down a path where she would eventually emerge as Nancy Ledins.

She moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1996 where she became a congregant at the Wedgewood church in Charlotte, NC

A surgeon in Trinidad, Colorado would perform the surgery in 1979, leading to a national debate whether Nancy Ledins was still technically a priest in the church.

An article in The Los Angeles Times in 1980 read: 'Priests Sex Change May Pose Test of Church Law,' while religious publications like the Reporter asked if Ledins might be the first woman priest in Roman Catholic history.

Religion reporter for the Times, John Dart, who interviewed Ledins in 1980, surmised that 'since she never sought to be returned officially to lay status, has never been summarily notified of such by the church and, by the usual understanding of church law, is still a priest  though not a legally functioning one.'

Ledins later told the National Catholic Reporter that 'technically, Im still ordained... But if the church is clever enough, there is probably a canon somewhere that spells my demise as a priest.'

Nancy Ledins died over the weekend at the age of 84 and is remembered as 'warm' and 'loving' by her fellow congregants

Multiple attempts on Ledins' life were made following her transition, including being shot at and having her car bombed, along with numerous dead animals being left in the front of her home.

Ledins would later move to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1996, working as a tax prepare, but the church was always in back of her mind.

That's when she would discover a welcoming community in Wedgewood, where she shared with congregants her life story and often help lead the worship.

Congregants remembered her fondly as a source of warmth and inspiration, describing her as an 'amazing lady' who was very 'welcoming' of everyone.

In 2014, on the 55th anniversary of her becoming a Catholic priest, Ledins led Wedgewood in a prayer, stating: 'Lord Father, my special thanks for the gift of ordination and ministry over the years... and thank you for letting me be here. Amen and amen. Alleluia.'


A 43-year-old man died while inner tubing in Colorado's Platte River over the weekend, making it the state's third fatal accident related to the activity in a week, authorities say.

The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office said Sunday that a 43-year-old Castle Rock resident drowned near the Platte River campground.

Authorities say the man had been tubing Saturday afternoon with his fiance and friends when he apparently lost his tube and went into an area near the bank with bushes and tall grass.

Manuel Gallegos (left), 31, was taken of of life support Thursday after he fell out of his inner tube at at the Animas River Whitewater Park on July 16

Gallegos was not wearing a life jacket at the time of the accident at Animas River Whitewater Park (file above)

A camper saw the man emerge face down. Several people pulled him from the water but attempts to revive him failed. His name has not been publicly released.

Golden police say a 48-year-old woman, whose name has not been released, flipped off of her inner tube and went underwater Friday afternoon.

She resurfaced downstream and was pulled from the water.

Firefighters and park rangers performed CPR, but the woman died at a hospital.

A 43-year-old man died while inner tubing in Colorado's Platte River (above) over the weekend, authorities say. His name has not been publicly released

Manuel Gallegos, 31, was taken off of life support Thursday after he fell out of his inner tube at Smelter Rapid while at the Animas River Whitewater Park on July 16.

Gallegos, who was visiting from Albuquerque, New Mexico, was not wearing a life jacket or helmet at the time of the accident, The Durango Herald reported.

He was transported to Mercy Regional Medical Center where he was in critical condition until he was taken off of life support.

His family has created a GoFundMe page in hopes of raising $10,000 to help bring his body back home and to pay for funeral arrangements.
A Sikh family in Melbourne is taking action against their son's Christian school - after they banned the five-year-old from wearing his traditional turban.

Sagardeep Singh Arora is fighting on behalf of his young son Sidhak, five, believing that he is being denied a basic human right outlined in the Equal Opportunity Act because he can't wear his 'patka' - which is the turban for children.

'I believe students should be allowed to practice their religion and should be allowed to wear their article of faith,' Mr Arora said, ABC reported.

'I was very surprised in an advanced country like Australia, they are still not allowing us to wear patka in the school,' he said.

A Melbourne Christian school is facing legal action after forbidding five-year-old Sidhak (pictured) from wearing a his traditional Sikh patka - an essential religious turban for children

Sagardeep Singh Arora (pictured left) is fighting on behalf of his young son, believing that he is being denied a basic human right outlined in the Equal Opportunity Act

Sidhak was enrolled to begin school at Melton Christian College, at the start of the year however the school's uniform policy does not accept his head covering.

The principal of the school David Gleeson said that multiple Sikh students go to the school but none are given an exception to wear the religious head covering.

'I think one of the real strengths of the college is that we're blind to  everyone is blind to religious affiliations,' he said.

Mr Gleeson likened the situation to a child who likes to wear a New Balance cap but is not permitted.

He said anything additional to the uniform is not acceptable and this policy does not breach the Equal Opportunity Act.

'I believe students should be allowed to practice their religion and should be allowed to wear their article of faith,' Mr Arora said

Sidhak was enrolled to begin school at Melton Christian College (pictured) at the start of the year however the school's uniform policy does not accept his head covering

Mr Arora's son is now on the class list at another school but hopes the Christian school will change their minds so Sidhak can attend school with his cousins, who do not wear the turban.

The hearing will continue on Wednesday.
Competitors on the Australian Ninja Warrior program have been struck down by the 'Rebecca Maddern jinx' as the commentator 'cursed' their performance.

Maddern was praising the efforts of contenders as they moved through the obstacles on Tuesday night's semi-final episode when things came undone.

At one point on the Channel Nine show she was telling fellow commentator Ben Fordham how well Zayne Wealthall was progressing, only for him to take a tumble and crash out of the competition.

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Australian Ninja Warrior's Ben Fordham (right) on Tuesday's episode told how the 'jinx' of Rebecca Maddern (left) had struck competitors

Zayne Wealthall (pictured) took a tumble on the spinning log just as Maddern had finished praising his performance through the obstacles

'He looks incredibly focused Ben. He's not put a foot wrong,' Maddern said.

But just as she finished her sentence, Wealthall lost his footing and slipped off the spinning log obstacle, landing in the water to cries of 'Oh, he's out'.

'It's the Rebecca Maddern jinx, and it strikes again,' Fordham said.

Maddern responded: 'Next time somebody goes across the spinning log, I'm not saying a word. Not one word'.

Warwick Draper (pictured) also came undone on the spinning log after receiving praise from Maddern

Maddern (left with Fordham) pledged after the mishaps 'Next time somebody goes across the spinning log, I'm not saying a word. Not one word'

Dylan Pawson (pictured) crashed out on the spinning log just moments after Fordham explained how 'a serious case of commentator's curse has afflicted the spinning log'

She had earlier in the program been commentating Warwick Draper's move through the course when he also suffered the same fate as Wealthall.

'This is a serious contender,' Maddern had said before he too slipped on the spinning log and landed in the water, ended his campaign.

Fordham later explained to viewers how 'a serious case of commentator's curse has afflicted the spinning log'.

Dylan Pawson also bowed out after coming unstuck on the spinning log just moments after Fordham's spiel.

He survived an earlier scare through the course but made it unscathed to the spinning log.

'Nearly a huge shock there. Now, Dylan, compose yourself for the spinning log, please,' Maddern urged.

But just like Wealthall and Draper, he crashed into the water.

'I don't know what happened there. We had high hopes for Dylan and he's crashed out.

'He saved himself on the log grip but couldn't get past that spinning log,' Maddern said.

The NRL Footy Show's Beau Ryan also slipped off the spinning log but as he was about to tackle the obstacle, Maddern was quick to quip 'I'm not saying a word'.
A video showing a boy, said to be 13 years old, marrying his girlfriend in aChinese village has sparked controversy.

The newlyweds live in the Ding'an County of Hainan Province, and the bride was five months pregnant when the wedding took place, according to Chinese media.

After watching the popular footage, many people expressed their concerns, saying the couple were too young to look after themselves, let alone each other.

The bride and groom, both underage, were married to each other in Hainan, China, last week

The wedding was held last month, said an official from Ding'an County to Beijing News.

The official said the couple were both 16 years old, not 13 years old as reported.

The official also said that because the couple were underage and could not officially register their marriage, their families arranged the ceremony to seal the union.

In the video, the two teenagers, wearing red costumes, followed the Chinese wedding customs as they bowed to the heaven, their future in-laws and to each other in order.

Their family members appeared to be happy to see them tying the knot, but many people online said the bride and groom were too simply young.

Many people concerned the couple wouldn't be able to shoulder their marital responsibilities

Their families appeared to be happy to see them tying the knot. People worried that the rural villagers were still living in the feudalistic past when parents rushed to marry off their children

An internet user with the screen name 'Cherry_hanbao' said on Weibo: 'They are still children. How could they shoulder their responsibilities in the future?'

While user 'Jingbao baby' said the young couple might regret when they understand life better.

People also worried that the rural villagers were still living in the feudalistic past when parents' top priority was to marry off their children - not to educate them - so they could carry on the blood line.

The legal age of marriage in China is 20 for women and 22 for men, however child marriage has been described as a 'common' practice in rural China.

Many of the teenage couples are 'left-behind' children whose parents live and work in big cities thousands of miles away from home, according to an article from Xinhua.

They usually grew up with their grandparents and are not given proper sexual education.

Liu Neng, a sociology professor from Peking University, said getting married at this age was a cultural norm for youngsters in rural areas who had not much to do once they reach puberty

Last year, the story of a teenage couple in Yunnan getting married shook China.

The bride, 13-year-old Jie, married her 18-year-old husband Wen just three days after they had met. The girl got pregnant soon afterwards and dropped out of school.

At the time, Liu Neng, a sociology professor from Peking University, commented that getting married at this age was a cultural norm for youngsters in rural areas who had not much else to do once they reach puberty.

Some suggested that China's one-child policy was also a reason to blame for the practice of child marriage.

The policy which was enforced on parents for more than three decades has caused a big gender imbalance because families preferred a son to a daughter. This means China has many more men than women.

It's been estimated that 15 million men between the ages of 35 and 59 wouldn't be able to find wives by 2020, reported People's Daily, and by 2050 the number would be nearly 30 million.

As a result, families of teenage boys are keen to secure their bride quickly, for fear of losing her to the competition.
Documents filed in federal court late last week show Lakeya Hicks and Elijah Pontoon called for a partial dismissal of their lawsuit against four Aiken, Ohio police officers. Court papers didn't include an amount of the settlement

A black South Carolina couple that accused police of subjecting them to illegal body searches on the side of the road has settled a lawsuit against four white officers.

Documents filed in federal court late last week show Lakeya Hicks and Elijah Pontoon called for a partial dismissal of their lawsuit against four Aiken, Ohio police officers. Court papers didn't include an amount of the settlement.

But a document obtained by the Aiken Standard indicated the city's insurer is paying a $150,000 settlement.

'This settlement is in resolution of a doubtful and disputed claim,' court document states.

'...This settlement does not represent an admission of liability on the part of the City of Aiken or any of its law enforcement officers.'

The suit named Chris Medlin, Clark Smith, Brian Hall, Penny Schultz and Charles Barranco as defendants.

Attorneys signed a stipulation of partial dismissal with prejudice towards the defendants - including Barranco who is the city's Public Safety Chief and the others who were officers with the department.

'As of the signing of this Stipulation, all parties agree to bear their own costs and fees,' the court document states.

In prepared comments, Aiken Mayor Rick Osborn shared that it was an outcome that 'all hoped for' and was happy to see the 'Public Safety itself cleared.'

He added: 'From the very beginning, we had confidence in the professionalism of our officers, but we took these allegations seriously and took comprehensive steps to further ensure our city is fully respecting the rights of all.'

The couple's lawsuit came after several high-profile incidents sparked a nationwide debate about how white officers treat African-Americans.

In October 2014, Hicks and Pontoon say they were pulled over and subjected to a humiliating search on the side of a public road. Hicks said her breasts were exposed as she was detained and searched. Pontoon said police searched his anal cavity, and officers found no drugs in their car.

In October 2014, Hicks and Pontoon say they were pulled over and subjected to a humiliating search on the side of a public road

Hicks said her breasts were exposed as she was detained and searched. Pontoon said police searched his anal cavity, and officers found no drugs in their car

The searches don't occur on camera, but audio captured by a dash camera has been widely circulated online.

According to the lawsuit, the couple said they were pulled over because the car had a paper license tag, though an officer said during the encounter that he knew Pontoon because he had previous arrests several years earlier. Their car is then searched with dogs trained to sniff out drugs, and the couple is put in police cars before being searched themselves.

According to the suit, Hicks' breasts were exposed as she was detained on the side of the road and searched by a female officer. During a search of his anal cavity, Pontoon explains that a mass the officer felt was not hidden drugs but was actually a hemorrhoid.

The officer is heard telling Pontoon that because of 'your past history,' he summoned a police dog to check the car. When Pontoon - who has prior drug arrests but none in recent years - objected to what he described as harassment, the lawsuit says the officer told him: 'You gonna pay for this one boy.'

'I felt very humiliated,' Hicks told The Associated Press in a 2016 interview, discussing the incident and lawsuit.

'We don't want this to happen to anybody else.'
Four former Lloyds employees were among seven people jailed for 38 years for raiding bank accounts of wealthy clients to fund their luxury lifestyles.

Bank workers Courtney Ayinbode, 29, Tajinder Galsinh, 35, Molly Jones, 24, and Benjamin Omoregie, 26, were all involved in the 'high-level and sophisticated' scam that took place between 2012 and 2013.

The four insiders scoured the computer system for rarely-accessed accounts holding large sums of money before passing the details to the criminal gang.

They also ordered new bank cards so impostors could pose as the customers and set up transfers of hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time.

The money was then laundered through a series of bogus companies before being moved offshore to prevent it being recovered.

Courtney Ayinbode, 29, and Molly Jones, 24, were all involved in the 'high-level and sophisticated' scam that took place between 2012 and 2013

One victim lost more than 750,000 after a unknown man used a fake driving licence in his name to set up two transfers over three days.

Another customer with 3 million in the bank only avoided becoming a victim when another member of staff became suspicious and rang him up to check.

The money was handled by 'bespoke money launderer' Eddie Lakes, 41, and his henchman Kushveer Raulia, 25, through a complicated network of fake companies and accounts with the help of Parvez Hussain, 50.

Prosecutor Paul Cavin said 'a lot of expensive designer clothing and shoes' were found in Omoregie's car boot, including a Vivienne Westwood shirt worth 230.

Omoregie had previously refused to tell police where his car, holding the stash of designer goods, was located.

Mr Cavin said the gang 'were all involved in an agreement to defraud Lloyds TSB of millions of pounds'.

He continued: 'Accounts belonging to people with large balances - in some cases several millions of pounds - were targeted.

'To identify those rich accounts, an insider, an employee of the bank was recruited to help the gang.

'The insider would then assist in breaching the security protocols in order to steal the money.

'The money would be transferred to accomplices who would swiftly transfer the money through a number of bogus businesses before eventually the money would disappear offshore.

'Once it is offshore it can come back onshore and nobody can trace it.'

Kushveer Raulia, 25, (pictured) is said to have operated a network of bogus companies to launder the proceeds while Parvez Hussain, 50, allegedly laundered some of the cash

The first victim lost 750,975 in the space of three days after his account was accessed by both Ayinbode and Omoregie at the Balham and Streatham branches of Lloyds TSB in July 2013.

A few days later the customer's address was changed and a new card was issued to the new address.

Then on August 5, a man claiming to be the customer went into the King's Cross branch to ask to set up a transfer.

Staff accepted the imposter's bogus driving licence as genuine and authorised the transfer, even though the customer's local branch was in Clapham, south London.

The money was laundered through a bogus company operated by Raulia.

The network of fraudulent businesses had been set up by Lakes, who has previous convictions for providing a 'bespoke money laundering service' to criminals. He recruited Raulia as his front man.

Mr Cavin said: 'Raulia provided a ready made money laundering structure, limited companies with bank accounts both here and overseas.

'What these accounts allow you to do is to transfer money to a number of other accounts that equally do not seem to have any legitimate purpose.'

Raulia then withdrew 'significant quantities of cash' and used 860 of it to pay off his credit card.

Following his arrest he claimed the money going in and out of his businesses was related to legitimate trading.

Parvez Hussain, 50, (pictured) allegedly laundered some of the cash during the scam

Galsinh and Jones were involved in the attempted fraud on the account of Thomas Murphy at time when it had a 3 million balance.

Jones set up a CHAPS payment of 486,000 - supposedly for a house purchase - after an impostor came into her branch of Lloyds TSB.

Investigation of her mobile phone revealed messages relating to the Murphy account and a description of the man impersonating the customer.

Galsinh was involved in opening more than half of all the suspicious bank accounts which were set up at the Feltham branch.

Jailing Ayinbode, Jones, Omoreji and Galsinh for a total of 20 years, Judge Anuja Dhir QC said: 'You had accessed to valuable, sophisticated client information, you abused the trust your employers placed in you - you passed on that information and compromised bank accounts.

'You all knew that money would be dishonestly transferred from client accounts as a result of your actions.

'Such was the sophistication of this fraud that the money was money was dissipated and spent in a professional and organised manner.

'You were friends acting together and with others to steal as much money as you could. You were motivated by financial gain.'

The first victim lost 750,975 in the space of three days after his account was accessed by both Ayinbode and Omoregie at the Balham (pictured) and Streatham branches of Lloyds TSB in July 2013

Jailing Lakes, Hussain and Raulia for a total of 18 years, she said: 'All of your accounts were fraudulent and conducted no legitimate trade - these accounts were an integral part of the laundering process.

'Hundreds of thousands of pounds were laundered through them - often from other accounts connected with Mr Lakes.

'Large quantities of cash were withdrawn from them by Mr Raulia designed to mask the criminal activity and and frustrate the efforts of law enforcement in tracing the funds.'

Raulia, from Hayes, west London, was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of converting criminal property and was jailed for seven years.

Lakes, from Brentford, was jailed for a total of five years.

He was jailed for three years for converting criminal property for the Lloyds Bank fraud, with two years consecutive for conspiracy to defraud and money laundering for a separate, unrelated fraud.

Ayinbode, from South Norwood, southeast London, was convicted of conspiracy to defraud between 9 November 2012 and 8 August 2013 and was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

Galsinh, of Hayes, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud and was jailed for six years.

Hussain, of Romford, east London, was convicted of converting criminal property and was jailed for six years.

Jones, of Leigh-on-Sea, in Essex, admitted conspiracy to defraud ahead of trial and was jailed for five years.

Omoregie, of no fixed address, admitted the same charge and was sentenced to four years imprisonment.
A grandmother organised a reunion for her family that was so big the guests had to wear name tags.

Susan Kellow, 54, from Falmouth, Cornwall, comes from a large family with relatives scattered around the world - making big gatherings a rarity.

After a family member from Norway asked Mrs Kellow how big the family was during a visit to the UK this year, she decided to do some digging.

Site supervisor Mrs Kellow, who has five sisters, soon discovered more than 250 family members spanning just four generations all descended from the same couple, Mary and John Henry Webb.

Big event: Susan Kellow (pictured in centre wearing a pink sleeveless top), 54, from Falmouth, Cornwall, comes from a large family (above) with relatives scattered around the world

The Webbs lived in Falmouth and had nine children, who had 50 children between them.

Those 50 then had 118 children between them, who in turn had 98 children.

Mrs Kellow then set about tracking down the family members and invited everyone she could contact to a special reunion held in Kimberley Park, Falmouth.

Around 90 people aged from two weeks old to 77-years-old attended the reunion which was held on 15 July.

Mrs Kellow said: 'This was the first one we have organised. I decided to get all of my relatives from all over to come. There was 19 that came over from Norway and I had some come from Portsmouth, Teignmouth and of course Falmouth.

Mrs Kellow (second from right) with her sisters and her aunt (seated) at the event in Falmouth

'I hadn't met some of them. We had about 90 people there roughly - I didn't have enough time to count everyone. I had to give out stickers and a pen for people to write their names down.

'They all wore a name badge with their name and who they were related to. It really helped on the day. It was amazing how many people had the same names - there were so many Stevens and Daniels, it was just endless.'

Mrs Kellow, who has been married to husband Phil Kellow for more than 20 years, is from a family of six sisters, who have 18 children and 24 grandchildren between them.

She added: 'It all comes from my grandparents. It's quite a lot to come from just two people. We took up all the parking spaces around the park.

'It was quite a dull day to begin with but then the sun same out and it felt like the relatives that have passed away were watching out for us and were happy that we all got together.'
A care home worker who sprayed an aerosol can in the face of a 78-year-old woman with dementia has been handed a four-week jail term.

Susan Draper, 44, was caught on camera abusing Betty Boylan after the pensioner's family set up a covert camera in her room.

Although the court heard Mrs Boylan was not hurt, District Judge Ian Strongman said a prison sentence was necessary to mark the seriousness of the reckless offence.

However Draper walked free from court this afternoon after immediately appealing the decision, meaning she has been released on bail.

Birmingham Magistrates' Court was told Draper, who was dismissed by the Bupa-run Perry Locks care home, used the can of Impulse body spray from about a foot away.

Susan Draper (pictured arriving at court, left) was caught on camera abusing Betty Boylan (right) after the pensioner's family set up a covert camera in her room

Draper, from Kingstanding in Birmingham, denied ill-treating the immobile pensioner but was found guilty of an ill-treatment offence earlier this month.

CCTV footage played to the trial showed Mrs Boylan coughing and gurgling after being hoisted into a chair and sprayed in the face in September.

Prosecutor Shawn Williams told the court the camera was placed in Mrs Boylan's room to monitor the retired nurse's treatment amid concerns at apparent bruising.

Describing the footage, Mr Williams told the court: 'She sprayed the facial area not once but twice, causing gurgling-type noises to emanate from the victim.'

The carer told investigators she had made a 'stupid mistake' and had lost her job at the home, where she worked for 17 years.

Passing sentence, Mr Strongman told Draper: 'I found this a particularly difficult case because the neglect is not of the worst kind that comes before the courts, and I accept it's reckless rather than deliberate actions to harm people.

CCTV footage played to the trial showed Mrs Boylan coughing and gurgling after being hoisted into a chair and sprayed in the face in September

Bernadette Boylan, daughter of victim Betty Boylan with partner Nigel Louth, outside Birmingham Magistrates Court

'Nevertheless Betty Boylan was 78. She suffers from vascular dementia, she is immobile, she has respiratory issues and she is wholly dependent on other people for her care.

'It's said on your behalf that other people in the care home from time to time asked you to do extra things for them because they could rely on you.

'I am afraid that wasn't demonstrated in the video clip that I have watched. It seems to me you demonstrated a cavalier attitude to caring.'

In a statement issued after the court hearing, the family of the victim said: 'At last justice has been done.

'The sentence is a message to all carers who abuse the elderly to let them know what to expect.'

Draper was the second care worker convicted of ill-treating Mrs Boylan due to evidence provided by the camera.

Care worker Bina Begum, 49, was given a 12-month community order in February after admitting ill treating and neglecting Mrs Boylan.

Begum, from Perry Barr, Birmingham, was also ordered to carry out 40 hours of unpaid work.
Residents of a French town have built a concrete wall around an abandoned hotel to stop it being turned into a migrant shelter.

Worried locals in the town of Semeac, in the Hautes-Pyrenees, constructed the 6ft high, 65ft long barricade on Monday morning.

Laurent Teixeira runs local group Collectif Semeac, which built the wall, and says the town is not against welcoming those in need.

Shop owners and locals in the town of Semeac, in southern France, have built a 6ft high, 65ft long concrete wall around a hotel which was due to be turned into a migrant shelter

Residents say they are not opposed to helping those less fortunate, but blasted this project for a lack of transparency and being situated in a residential area

However, Mr Teixeira told Le Fiagro that he does oppose putting the migrant shelter in the middle of a residential area.

He also blasted the 'opacity' of the project, saying it was carried out without consulting locals.

He said: 'Nothing is foreseen for the daily life of these migrants and public structures, such as canteens and schools, are undersized.'

Semeac, which is in southern France, has a population of around 5,000 people. The hotel can be used to house a maximum of 85.

Workers emerged early in the morning to start the construction (pictured), organised by local protest group Collectif Semeac

The hotel, which can house a maximum of 85 people, is one of 61 properties to be bought with public money to house migrants (file image)

The Formule 1 hotel, which was owned by the AccorHotels group, is one of 61 properties to be bought with taxpayer money in order to house migrants.

The keys are officially scheduled to be handed over tomorrow morning, though it is unclear if this will now take place.

More than 110,00 migrants have come to Europe so far in 2017 according to borders agency Frontex, with the vast majority of those landing in Italy.

Italian authorities have begged their European counterparts for help with the crisis, saying other countries must do more to alleviate the burden.
Colombia's FARC rebels announced Monday they will launch as a political party on September 1.

The move was heralded as a major step as the group transitions into civilian life as part of a historic peace agreement after the 55-year conflict.

Commander Carlos Antonio Lozada said: 'We will publicly launch the party on September 1 in the Plaza de Bolivar'.

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FARC Commander Carlos Antonio Lozada (pictured) said the group's new political party would launch in Bogota on September, and hailed it as a 'great political-cultural act'

He added the group had been working on details of the 'great political-cultural act'.

Chief negotiator Ivan Marquez said: 'We made peace to participate in politics'

FARC, which translates to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, will decide the party's policies and name at a congress at the end of August.

The disarmament last month by the roughly 7,000 members under the 2016 peace accord brought a complete end to a half-century-old civil conflict.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for reaching the historic deal with the group that was signed last November.

However in a shock upset the accord was narrowly rejected by Colombians in a 2016 referendum last year by 50.2 per cent to 49.8 per cent.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was given the Noble Prize for helping to negotiate a peace deal - but results were nearly scuppered after a shock 2016 referendum result

Voters thought the government's plan to give former FARC rebels a monthly stipend and help some start a business was a reward for criminal behaviour.

They said that they didn't trust the rebels to keep their promise to permanently lay down their arms.

However in November 2016 the government and the group signed a revised peace deal before pushing the reforms through congress.

FARCE began in 1966 as a peasant army demanding agrarian reform. In their 55-year conflict with the Colombian government more than 220,000 were killed

The accord allows the FARC 10 unelected seats in Congress through 2026 and grants amnesty to the majority of ex-fighters.

Rebels convicted by special courts of human rights violations will avoid traditional prison sentences, instead performing reparations work such as removing landmines.

The country's only remaining rebel group, the smaller ELN, is currently following the path set by the FARC to negotiate a peace deal aiming to disarm and demobilize.

The civil conflict has left at least 220,000 dead since it began in set up in 1966.

A Colombian policeman stands guard in front of confiscated packets of cocaine. FARC used to tax drug exports for Colombian cartels to help fund their insurgency

About 60,000 Colombians remain unaccounted for and seven million have been displaced in the conflict.

Originally the group was set up as a Marxist-Leninist peasant force promoting anti-imperialism.

But it used kidnapping, ransom and taxation from the production of illegal drugs to fund its campaign.


A police officer who shot dead an unarmed black man after pulling him over for a motor vehicle violation has been cleared on charges of murder or voluntary manslaughter.

University of Cincinnati officer Ray Tensing, 27, had the charges he was facing in his case dismissed on Monday by Hamilton County Judge Leslie Ghiz after a second mistrial was declared in the case last month.

Sam DuBose, 43, was shot in the head by Tensing on July 19, 2015 after being pulled over for a missing front license plate.

A stoic Tensing made no eye contact with others present in the court and stared straight ahead on Monday as Judge Ghiz announced her decision to dismiss the case with prejudice.

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Blank slate: Judge Leslie Ghiz dismissed charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter against former University of Cincinnati police office Ray Tensing (above on Monday)

Indicted: The decision came a week after the prosecution declared that they would not try Tensing for a third time after two mistrials in the case (Tensing above in July 2014)

Tensing testified at both of his trials that he shot at DuBose out of fear that the man might run him over as he drove away, adding: 'I meant to stop the threat. I didn't shoot to kill him. I didn't shoot to wound him. I shot to stop his actions.'

He is the latest in a string of white police officers who have shot dead an unarmed black man and managed to be acquitted or have charges against them dropped.

Tensing was fired from the police department immediately after the incident.

'It's sort of a note of finality, which is what we were looking for, although we still have the potential for a federal civil rights investigation, said defense attorney Stewart Mathews after the decision was announced on Monday.

Body cam: Tensing, 27, shot dead Sam DuBose, 43, in July 2015 after pulling over the father-of-13 for a motor vehicle violation

Tensing did not speak to reporters and made a hasty exit from the courthouse.

His former employer already reached a $5.3 million settlement with DuBose's family for the shooting death, which included free undergraduate tuition for the victim's 13 children.

He testified that he shot DuBose at point blank range because he feared for his safety

Tensing was tried in 2016 and then again in 2017, but on both occasions the jury could not reach a unanimous decision.

The jury's inability to reach a consensus proved to be confounding for the prosecutor in the case, Joseph Deters.

'This is the most asinine act I have ever seen a police officer make,' he said back in 2016 while deliver his opening remarks to the jury.

'It was totally unwarranted.'

He also provided an expert witness who was able to dispute Tensing's claim that he was being pulled under the car as DuBose drove off, using the body-camera footage the cop was recording as evidence.

Deters made the difficult decision to step away from the case last Tuesday however, saying that a third trial would not be sought following his extensive interviews with a number of jurors from both trials, both black and white.

Hard road: Family and friends of Samuel DuBose console each other back in July of 2014

Ray Tensing, seated, waits for court to begin Monday, July 24, 2017, in Cincinnati while his attorney, Stew Mathews, center, and Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Seth Tieger talk

'After two trials and probably a million dollars, the best lawyers I could come up with were unsuccessful at conviction. I have come to the conclusion we cannot win this case on these facts,' he said at the time.

'We did everything we could to secure a conviction. We left nothing on the table and its incredibly disappointing professionally. It's disappointing personally.'

He also informed the public that he was suggesting that federal authorities look into the possibility of filing civil rights charges against Tensing.

Tensing's decision was no doubt shaped by the note sent to Judge Ghiz in the most recent trial, which revealed that there was a very even split among the jurors.

A line of demonstrators, center, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing march onto the Newport Southbank Bridge, flanked by supporters of Sam DuBose, who was fatally shot by Tensing in 2015

A pair of pro-Tensing demonstrators, left, march in support while being trailed by supporters of Sam DuBose

A demonstrator, center right, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing, marches across the Newport Southbank Bridge trailed by supporters of Sam DuBose

A demonstrator in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing reacts as he marches while surrounded by protesters against the cop

'We are almost evenly split regarding our votes toward a final verdict,' wrote the jury.

'We have given this extensive deliberation, with opportunity for both sides to express their positions. We do not perceive coming to a unanimous decision.'

The Vice Mayor of Cincinnati, David Mann, showed his support for the family of DuBose over the weekend as he attended a rally organized by Black Lives Matter.

'There's something wrong given the way the events have unfolded in our community, and some way somehow, we need to come together: black and white,' declared Mann.

'And in the future, not have a jury so divided on racial lines. We all have a lot of work to do.'
President Trump's new Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci announced on Twitter Monday that the briefing room cameras will be turned back on under his reign.

'The TV Cameras are back on,' Scaramucci tweeted, using a television and a video camera emoji to better articulate his message.

On Sunday, Scaramucci hinted that he wanted to see the press briefings, which will now be helmed by new Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, back on TV.

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New White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said Monday that televised briefings were back on at the White House

On Monday, Anthony Scaramucci announced that the White House press briefings would once again be televised, a recommendation he made Sunday during an appearance on CNN's State of the Union

Incoming White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said Sunday he'd like for the White House press briefings to go back to being on-camera

Sarah Huckabee Sanders (left) and Anthony Scaramucci (right) made their debut in their new White House jobs during one of the first televised press briefings conducted in recent weeks

'If you're asking for my personal opinion  and maybe the president will be upset for giving my personal  we should put the cameras on,' Scaramucci told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday morning on State of the Union.

With President Trump traveling to West Virginia on Monday, on-camera press briefings will likely start later this week.

For weeks now, as Press Secretary Sean Spicer's longevity in the position was questioned, the White House press team would hold briefings off-camera, allowing reporters to only record sound files and take still photos from within the room.

The administration suggested it was limiting camera time so reporters would have less of an opportunity to be divas.

'There's a lot of them that want to become YouTube stars and ask some snarky question that's been asked eight times,' Spicer said during an interview in June.

However on Friday, the president rebooted his communications team, hiring Scaramucci, which prompted Spicer's resignation.

Trump then quickly elevated Huckabee Sanders, Spicer's deputy, to his role.

The first thing Scaramucci did was get in front of television cameras, making his debut by taking questions at the briefing.

He followed that up Sunday by doing the Sunday show rounds.

While Huckabee Sanders spoke exclusively to ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Scaramucci made the other Sunday show rounds, appearing alongside Tapper, Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace and Face the Nation's John Dickerson.

On each, Scaramucci talked candidly about the reorganization.

Scaramucci said he both wanted to 'soften' the White House's relationship with the press, but also be 'tough' on them.

He showed off that style by occasionally ribbing the hosts.

'He's going to win again, Jake. He's going to win again. I will bring a box of Kleenex over here to CNN in 2020,' Scaramucci boasted on CNN of Trump's re-election prospects.

'We don't, we don't need Kleenex, we don't need any Kleenex,' Tapper shot back.

He also talked at length about how he wanted to make Huckabee Sanders successful in her new role.

'I think Sarah does a great job. She's an incredibly warm person. She's incredibly authentic,' Scaramucci told Tapper.

'And what I told Sarah on Friday, you get the big office. I will take the small communications office. You deserve the big office because you're taking the hits from the press,' the incoming communications director added.

Anthony Scaramucci (right) informed CNN's Jake Tapper (left) that the newsman looked 'tan and refreshed' as the two discussed television makeup artists

Anthony Scaramucci dashed off this tweet on Sunday, in response to some people suggesting he was giving just Sarah Huckabee Sanders makeup advice

Scaramucci then suggested that he and Huckabee Sanders looked especially good Friday in the briefing room, when the duo officially made their debut.

'The only thing I ask Sarah  Sarah, if you're watching, I loved the hair and make up person that we had on Friday, so I would like to continue to use the hair and makeup person,' Scaramucci said.

When some interpreted the remark to be a dig at Huckabee Sanders' looks, he took to Twitter to correct the record.

'For the record, I was referring to my hair and make up and the fact that I like the make up artist. I need all the help I can get! #humor' Scaramucci said.

On State of the Union, Tapper had suggested that Scaramucci could 'swing by CNN' if he ever needed good makeup.

'We have hair and makeup here if you ever need,' Tapper said.

Scaramucci responded by telling the host: 'You, you got a lot on today. And you look very tan, Jake.'

'Very tan and refreshed,' the new Trump aide said.
A 32-year-old Michigan man has been arraigned in the death of his ex-wife's husband - one of two Michigan slayings in which he's a suspect.

Zachary Patten was arraigned Monday in St. Joseph County District Court on felony murder, open murder, first-degree home invasion and felony firearm charges, MLive.com reported.

The charges are related to the shooting death of 29-year-old Shane Richardson, who is the husband of Patten's ex-wife Kaleena Richardson.

Zachary Patten was arraigned Monday (above) in St. Joseph County District Court on felony murder, open murder, first-degree home invasion and felony firearm charges. Patten is the suspected of shooting dead his ex-wife's husband, Shane Richardson (right), Thursday

Patten is also a suspect in the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Graciela Portillo-Esparza in Kalamazoo, which happened about 45 minutes before Richardson was shot (scene above)

Police say Patten drove to a house in the Florence Township, which is just north of the Indiana state line, around 10.15pm Thursday and got into an altercation with Richardson.

Patten then allegedly shot and killed Richardson, a father-of-three who was expecting his fourth child in November, before fleeing the scene.

Patten is also a suspect in the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Graciela Portillo-Esparza in Kalamazoo, which happened about 45 minutes before Richardson was shot.

Her son told MLive.com that Patten was arguing with another family member when his mother stood up and got in the way when she was shot.

Patten (above) is also a suspect in the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Graciela Portillo-Esparza in Kalamazoo

No charges have been filed in the killing of Portillo-Esparza.

Police arrested Patten Friday after he approached officers in South Bend, Indiana, and told them he 'needed to be arrested.'

A judge assigned Patten a court-appointed lawyer. An August 15 preliminary examination has been scheduled.

Patten faces a possible life sentence if convicted of the murder charges.

The home invasion charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison; and the firearms charge of up to two years.

Patten might still be facing additional charges in Indiana.
White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner

I am voluntarily providing this statement, submitting documents, and sitting for interviews in order to shed light on issues that have been raised about my role in the Trump for President Campaign and during the transition period.

I am not a person who has sought the spotlight.

First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception.

Because there has been a great deal of conjecture, speculation, and inaccurate information about me, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight.

My Role in the Trump for President Campaign

Before joining the administration, I worked in the private sector, building and managing companies.

My experience was in business, not politics, and it was not my initial intent to play a large role in my father-in-law's campaign when he decided to run for President.

However, as the campaign progressed, I was called on to assist with various tasks and aspects of the campaign, and took on more and more responsibility.

Over the course of the primaries and general election campaign, my role continued to evolve.

I ultimately worked with the finance, scheduling, communications, speechwriting, polling, data and digital teams, as well as becoming a point of contact for foreign government officials.

All of these were tasks that I had never performed on a campaign previously. When I was faced with a new challenge, I would reach out to contacts, ask advice, find the right person to manage the specific challenge, and work with that person to develop and execute a plan of action.

I was lucky to work with some incredibly talented people along the way, all of whom made significant contributions toward the campaign's ultimate success.

Our nimble culture allowed us to adjust to the ever-changing circumstances and make changes on the fly as the situation warranted.

I share this information because these actions should be viewed through the lens of a fast-paced campaign with thousands of meetings and interactions, some of which were impactful and memorable and many of which were not.

It is also important to note that a campaign's success starts with its message and its messenger.

Donald Trump had the right vision for America and delivered his message perfectly.

The results speak for themselves. Not only did President Trump defeat sixteen skilled and experienced primary opponents and win the presidency - he did so spending a fraction of what his opponent spent in the general election.

He outworked his opponent and ran one of the best campaigns in history using both modern technology and traditional methods to bring his message to the American people.

Campaign Contacts with Foreign Persons

When it became apparent that my father-in-law was going to be the Republican nominee for President, as normally happens, a number of officials from foreign countries attempted to reach out to the campaign.

My father-in-law asked me to be a point of contact with these foreign countries.

These were not contacts that I initiated, but, over the course of the campaign, I had incoming contacts with people from approximately 15 countries.

To put these requests in context, I must have received thousands of calls, letters and emails from people looking to talk or meet on a variety of issues and topics, including hundreds from outside the United States.

While I could not be responsive to everyone, I tried to be respectful of any foreign government contacts with whom it would be important to maintain an ongoing, productive working relationship were the candidate to prevail.

To that end, I called on a variety of people with deep experience, such as Dr Henry Kissinger, for advice on policy for the candidate, which countries/representatives with which the campaign should engage, and what messaging would resonate.

In addition, it was typical for me to receive 200 or more emails a day during the campaign.

I did not have the time to read every one, especially long emails from unknown senders or email chains to which I was added at some later point in the exchange.

With respect to my contacts with Russia or Russian representatives during the campaign, there were hardly any.

The first that I can recall was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC in April 2016.

This was when then candidate Trump was delivering a major foreign policy speech.

Doing the event and speech had been my idea, and I oversaw its execution.

I arrived at the hotel early to make sure all logistics were in order.

After that, I stopped into the reception to thank the host of the event, Dimitri Simes, the publisher of the bi-monthly foreign policy magazine, The National Interest, who had done a great job putting everything together.

Mr. Simes and his group had created the guest list and extended the invitations for the event.

He introduced me to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

With all the ambassadors, including Mr Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump's speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America's foreign policy.

The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election.

Each exchange lasted less than a minute - some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies.

I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.

Reuters news service has reported that I had two calls with Ambassador Kislyak at some time between April and November of 2016.

While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador.

We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place.

A comprehensive review of my land line and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls.

I had no ongoing relationship with the Ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then.

In fact, on November 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian Ambassador.

When the campaign received an email purporting to be an official note of congratulations from President Putin, I was asked how we could verify it was real.

To do so I thought the best way would be to ask the only contact I recalled meeting from the Russian government, which was the Ambassador I had met months earlier, so I sent an email asking Mr Simes, 'What is the name of the Russian ambassador?'

Through my lawyer, I have asked Reuters to provide the dates on which the calls supposedly occurred or the phone number at which I supposedly reached, or was reached by, Ambassador Kislyak.

The journalist refused to provide any corroborating evidence that they occurred.

The only other Russian contact during the campaign is one I did not recall at all until I was reviewing documents and emails in response to congressional requests for information.

In June 2016, my brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr asked if I was free to stop by a meeting on June 9 at 3pm.

The campaign was headquartered in the same building as his office in Trump Tower, and it was common for each of us to swing by the other's meetings when requested.

He eventually sent me his own email changing the time of the meeting to 4pm.

That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time.

As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4pm at his office.

Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as 'Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner'. No one else was mentioned.

I arrived at the meeting a little late.

When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on US adoptions of Russian children.

I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting.

Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting'.

I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since.

I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently.

I did not read or recall this email exchange before it was shown to me by my lawyers when reviewing documents for submission to the committees.

No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted.

Finally, after seeing the email, I disclosed this meeting prior to it being reported in the press on a supplement to my security clearance form, even if that was not required as meeting the definitions of the form.

There was one more possible contact that I will note.

On October 30, 2016, I received a random email from the screenname 'Guccifer400'.

This email, which I interpreted as a hoax, was an extortion attempt and threatened to reveal candidate Trump's tax returns and demanded that we send him 52 bitcoins in exchange for not publishing that information.

I brought the email to the attention of a US Secret Service agent on the plane we were all travelling on and asked what he thought.

He advised me to ignore it and not to reply - which is what I did. The sender never contacted me again.

To the best of my recollection, these were the full extent of contacts I had during the campaign with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government.

Transition Contacts with Foreign Persons

The transition period after the election was even more active than the campaign.

Starting on election night, we began to receive an incredible volume of messages and invitations from well-wishers in the United States and abroad.

Dozens of messages came from foreign officials seeking to set up foreign leader calls and create lines of communication and relationships with what would be the new administration.

During this period, I recall having over fifty contacts with people from over fifteen countries.

Two of those meetings were with Russians, neither of which I solicited.

On November 16, 2016, my assistant received a request for a meeting from the Russian Ambassador.

As I mentioned before, previous to receiving this request, I could not even recall the Russian Ambassador's name, and had to ask for the name of the individual I had seen at the Mayflower Hotel almost seven months earlier.

In addition, far from being urgent, that meeting was not set up for two weeks - on December 1.

The meeting occurred in Trump Tower, where we had our transition office, and lasted twenty- thirty minutes.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn (Ret), who became the President's National Security Advisor, also attended.

During the meeting, after pleasantries were exchanged, as I had done in many of the meetings I had and would have with foreign officials, I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations.

Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President.

The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day.

The Ambassador expressed similar sentiments about relations, and then said he especially wanted to address US policy in Syria, and that he wanted to convey information from what he called his 'generals'.

He said he wanted to provide information that would help inform the new administration.

He said the generals could not easily come to the US to convey this information and he asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation.

General Flynn or I explained that there were no such lines.

I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, and I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn.

The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration.

Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a 'secret back channel'.

I did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office.

I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period.

We did not discuss sanctions.

Approximately a week later, on December 6, the Embassy asked if I could meet with the Ambassador on December 7. I declined.

They then asked if I could meet on December 6, I declined again.

They then asked when the earliest was that I could meet.

I declined these requests because I was working on many other responsibilities for the transition.

He asked if he could meet my assistant instead and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed.

He did so on December 12.

My assistant reported that the Ambassador had requested that I meet with a person named Sergey Gorkov who he said was a banker and someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together.

I agreed to meet Mr Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President, and because Mr Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days.

I made room on my schedule for the meeting that occurred the next day, on December 13.

The meeting with Mr Gorkov lasted twenty to twenty-five minutes.

He introduced himself and gave me two gifts - one was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village. (Any notion that I tried to conceal this meeting or that I took it thinking it was in my capacity as a businessman is false. In fact, I gave my assistant these gifts to formally register them with the transition office).

After that, he told me a little about his bank and made some statements about the Russian economy.

He said that he was friendly with President Putin, expressed disappointment with US-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future.

As I did at the meeting with Ambassador Kislyak, I expressed the same sentiments I had with other foreign officials I met.

There were no specific policies discussed.

We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration.

At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind.

At the end of the short meeting, we thanked each other and I went on to other meetings.

I did not know or have any contact with Mr Gorkov before that meeting, and I have had no reason to connect with him since.

To the best of my recollection, these were the only two contacts I had during the transition with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government.

Disclosure of Contacts on My Security Clearance Form

There has been a good deal of misinformation reported about my SF-86 form.

As my attorneys and I have previously explained, my SF-86 application was prematurely submitted due to a miscommunication and initially did not list any contacts (not just with Russians) with foreign government officials.

Here are some facts about that form and the efforts I have made to supplement it.

In the week before the Inauguration, amid the scramble of finalizing the unwinding of my involvement from my company, moving my family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from my outside positions and complete my security and financial disclosure forms, people at my New York office were helping me find the information, organize it, review it and put it into the electronic form.

They sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed.

At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known).

Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017.

That evening, when we realized the form had been submitted prematurely, we informed the transition team that we needed to make changes and additions to the form.

The very next day, January 19, 2017, we submitted supplemental information to the transition, which confirmed receipt and said they would immediately transmit it to the FBI.

The supplement disclosed that I had 'numerous contacts with foreign officials' and that we were going through my records to provide an accurate and complete list.

I provided a list of those contacts in the normal course, before my background investigation interview and prior to any inquiries or media reports about my form.

It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians.

That is not the case. In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted.

The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form.

These included meetings with individuals such as Jordan's King Abdullah II, Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Luis Videgaray Caso and many more. All of these had been left off before.

Over the last six months, I have made every effort to provide the FBI with whatever information is needed to investigate my background.

In addition, my attorneys have explained that the security clearance process is one in which supplements are expected and invited.

The form itself instructs that, during the interview, the information in the document can be 'update[d], clarif[ied], and explain[ed]' as part of the security clearance process. A good example is the June 9 meeting.

For reasons that should be clear from the explanation of that meeting I have provided, I did not remember the meeting and certainly did not remember it as one with anyone who had to be included on an SF-86.

When documents reviewed for production in connection with committee requests reminded me that meeting had occurred, and because of the language in the email chain that I then read for the first time, I included that meeting on a supplement.

I did so even though my attorneys were unable to conclude that the Russian lawyer was a representative of any foreign country and thus fell outside the scope of the form.

This supplemental information was also provided voluntarily, well prior to any media inquiries, reporting or request for this information, and it was done soon after I was reminded of the meeting.

As I have said from the very first media inquiry, I am happy to share information with the investigating bodies.

I have shown today that I am willing to do so and will continue to cooperate as I have nothing to hide.

As I indicated, I know there has been a great deal of speculation and conjecture about my contacts with any officials or people from Russia.

I have disclosed these contacts and described them as fully as I can recall.

The record and documents I am providing will show that I had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight. I also have tried to provide context for my role in the campaign, and I am proud of the candidate that we supported, of the campaign that we ran, and the victory that we achieved.

It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defense.

I have tried to focus on the important work at hand and serve this President and this country to the best of my abilities.

I hope that through my answers to questions, written statements and documents I have now been able to demonstrate the entirety of my limited contacts with Russian representatives during the campaign and transition.

I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts.

I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector.

I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.
Italian police said on Monday they had arrested two brothers suspected of robbing dozens of cash machines while wearing masks of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The stunt evokes the 1991 film 'Point Break' starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, in which a gang of surfers don masks of ex-U.S. presidents while robbing banks.

But in a statement police said the brothers had been inspired by a different film.

'Inspired by the (1997) film 'The Jackal', whose protagonist -- played by Bruce Willis -- changes the colour of his car because police are in pursuit, the two brothers painted their (white) Mercedes black,' the police statement said.

Italian police said on Monday they had arrested two brothers suspected of robbing dozens of cash machines while wearing masks of U.S. President Donald Trump

The stunt evokes the 1991 film 'Point Break' starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, in which a gang of surfers don masks of ex-U.S. presidents while robbing banks

The brothers, aged 26 and 30, targeted cash machines near the northern Italian city of Turin.

In closed circuit footage of one of the robberies, one of the brothers in a Trump mask is seen covering the surveillance cameras in the lobby of a bank and planting an explosive in the cash dispenser.

He then ducks around a corner after lighting the fuse, just before a violent blast. (Reporting by Steve Scherer; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Brentley Jason Byers, 28, was arrested and charged with raping the young girl on Saturday in Iredell County, North Carolina

A seven-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her mother's boyfriend and suffered injuries so horrific she will have to undergo surgery.

Brentley Jason Byers, 28, was arrested and charged with raping the young girl on Saturday in Iredell County, North Carolina.

The girl's mother, who has four children including two with Byers, came home from work on Saturday to find her daughter sitting in a chair covered in blood.

Byers was nearby asleep on the couch, according to Iredell County Sheriff Darren Campbell.

The seven-year-old, who refers to Byers as her father, told her mother she had been sexually assaulted by him.

Byers had been left with all four young children when the mother went to work on Friday night.

Police say another family member came by on Friday night and picked up two of the children from the home.

Byers is suspected of raping the girl at some point during the night when it was just him and the two small children.

The girl's mother, who has four children including two with Byers, came home from work on to find her daughter sitting in a chair covered in blood. Byers was asleep on the couch nearby

The seven-year-old, who refers to Byers as her father, told her mother she had been sexually assaulted by him

Investigators searched the home after being notified by their girl's mother.

They found clothing in the washing machine which made them believe Byers had tried to conceal evidence.

The girl was rushed to Brenner Childrens Hospital in Winston-Salem.

She suffered extensive injuries from the assault and will undergo surgery.

Byers was charged with statutory rape of a child by an adult. He is being held in jail on a $1 million bond.

Police say the investigation is ongoing and more charges are likely.
Kelly Green, 32, (left with her husband Shane Green) moved from Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the UK to Tristan da Cunha (pictured), one of a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, in July 2013. The whole island descends from just seven families and has a population of just 138 inhabitants. It is only accessible by boat from Cape Town, South Africa, and the journey can take anywhere from a week to 15 days - depending on the weather. After going through a tough break up, Kelly travelled to the island to visit her parents in 2010 as her dad was a diplomat posted there. Kelly said she 'fell in love' with the island and it was there that she met her now husband Shane Green, 33. Shane, a carpenter who has lived on the island for his entire life, had helped Kelly carry her luggage off the raft and they soon became besotted with each other. Kelly made the move to Tristan da Cunha permanently in July 2013 and the couple now have two children together - Savannah, eight, and Seren, who is 16-months-old.
Wanted: Police seek this suspect

Police are seeking the arson suspect who set a woman on fire while she was sleeping on a front porch.

Rachele Jarrett, 44, remains in critical condition with severe burns after a male suspect doused her with gasoline and lit her on fire around 6am on Sunday in Charleston, West Virginia.

Police released a photo of the suspect showing a black male with a shaved head and slim build wearing a blue ballcap, New York Yankees logo T-shirt and jean shorts, carrying a red gas can.

Jarrett, who may be homeless, was asleep on the porch of an unoccupied home when the vicious arson attack took place.

The suspect checked into a homeless shelter over the weekend and is also believed to be homeless.

Heinous: Rachele Jarrett, 44, was sleeping on the porch of this unoccupied home when the suspect doused her in gasoline and set her on fire. She remains in critical condition

Sought: Police released these photos of the suspect showing a black male with a slim build wearing a blue ballcap, New York Yankees logo T-shirt and jean shorts, carrying a red gas can

Neighbors were evacuated as the flames engulfed the house, in a blaze so intense that heat damage can be seen on the adjacent home

The suspect doused Jarrett in gasoline and set her ablaze, in a fire that quickly engulfed the house on Randolph Street, in the city's West Side.

'It's not something that we see very often,' Charleston Police Lt. Steve Cooper told WSAZ.

'It's extremely heinous. It's shocking to the conscious, and we ask anyone who knows anything about this crime to please contact us,' Cooper said.

Police say that minutes after setting Jarrett alight, a male matching the suspect's description kicked in the door to a home about a block away.

Minutes after the vicious arson attack, a suspect matching the description of the arsonist kicked in the door to this home a block away, but was chased off by the residents

He began pouring an accelerant on the floor and tried to light that home on fire as well, police say.

The residents heard the commotion and intervened, though, stopping the arsonist before he managed to set their home ablaze.

Police have not released a motive for either attack at this time.

The suspect will face multiple felony charges when apprehended, police say.

Anyone with information about the suspect is urged to contact Charleston Police at 304-348-8111.
Jordan's military released security camera footage Monday of a shooting in which a Jordanian soldier killed three U.S. military trainers at an air base in the kingdom.

The video had previously been shown to the families of the U.S. Army Green Berets by U.S. law enforcement but had not been made public until Monday.

The soldiers were killed on November 4, when their convoy came under fire at the entrance to the al-Jafr base in southern Jordan.

A Jordanian military court sentenced the soldier, 1st Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha, to life in prison with hard labor last week.

Jordan has released video showing the November 2016 shooting of three U.S. Army Green Berets by one of their soldiers, 1st Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha

The video shows a caravan of vehicles trying to get onto the al-Jafr base in Jordan, when gunfire starts somewhere off camera. In this frame, you can see how a bullet caused a window to crack in the rear truck

Two men are seen exiting the rear two trucks and then seeking shelter behind some nearby concrete barriers

At first, it appears that the soldiers are shooting back, but eventually they throw their hands up, indicating they are peaceful

After a few moments, the two soldiers decide to seek shelter at a different set of concrete barriers across the road

The second soldier is seen sprinting across the road to the second hiding place

At this point, the Jordanian soldier comes out, armed with his rifle, searching for the pair

The defendant had said he opened fire because he feared the base was coming under attack and that he had acted in line with open-fire regulations.

Jordan's military said in a statement Monday that the soldier 'had acted against orders and military instructions and had not acted in self-defense.'

The statement was posted by Hala Akhbar, a news site linked to the military that also released the security camera footage.

Jordan initially said the Americans triggered the shooting by disobeying entry rules, a claim that was later withdrawn.

The Jordanian soldier points his weapon into one of the trucks, finding no one

Eventually, he spots the two soldiers in their new hiding place and springs there, firing

The soldiers fire back as they are fired upon, as shown in the above surveillance footage

The Jordanian soldier and one of the others point their weapons at each other in the above grab from the surveillance footage

After a struggle, it appears that one of the soldiers has taken the Jordanian down, and he lifts his hands up in surrender as another Jordanian apperas

The victims of the shooting were Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Kirksville, Missouri; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson, Arizona; and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Texas.

The 6-minute-long video was in line with descriptions previously given by the relatives of the American soldiers who had watched the footage.

It shows the U.S. convoy coming under fire at the entrance to the base. The footage has no sound, but puffs of white-gray smoke indicate gunfire.

At one point, two figures, U.S. forces, are seen getting out of their vehicles to take cover. They raise their hands and wave from behind a barrier, but the shooting continues. Another figure, according to past descriptions the Jordanian, chases them and keeps shooting.

Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27 (left); Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30 (center); and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27 (right) were the three killed in the incident

Last week, a Jordanian military court sentenced 1st Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha (left, behind bars) to life in prison with hard labor. Al-Tuwayha said he opened fire because he feared the base was under attack, but Jordanian officials said he had 'acted against orders'

According to the descriptions of the relatives, Lewellen and McEnroe, who were in the first vehicle waiting at the gate, were the first to be hit by gunfire.

Moriarty and another soldier jumped out of the next two cars to take cover and returned fire with their pistols. They yelled that they were friendly forces, the relatives said.

The defendant kept shooting, they said. He was seriously wounded in the exchange.
Edward Moore (pictured) is alleged to have beaten four other homeless people with a hammer while they slept in an abandoned school on Saturday after believing they stole his possessions

An ex-convict has been charged with attacking four homeless people with a hammer while they slept in a Missouri school.

Edward Moore, 61, was charged Sunday with four counts of assault and armed criminal action after the victims were found with 'head trauma' in the vacant Carr School north of downtown St Louis, on Saturday.

Moore was sleeping rough in the school when he accused some of the victims of stealing his property and began his assault, police told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.

Moore attacked two women and a man with a hammer and a 'long, hard object' before 10am on Saturday, according to the arrest report.

When another man intervened to stop the assault he was attacked as well, the report says.

One of the women, aged 37, was left in critical and unstable condition after the attack; one of the men, aged 39, was in critical but stable condition, the River Front Times reported.

The other two victims - a woman aged 29 and a man aged 37 - were reportedly stable, but no condition was given.

Their injuries were so severe that the case is now being investigated by the city's homicide division.

According to the River Front Times, Moore is an ex-con who served more than 25 years for first-degree assault after being convicted in 1991.

The man, whose nickname is 'Texas,' was released in June and was still on probation, the site said.

Moore is being held in lieu of a bail of $500,000 in cash.

His address was given as being in the 12100 block of Epernay Court in Maryland Heights, but police said he was homeless when the attack took place.

The Carr School is 108 years old, but was shut down in 1978, and is now used by homeless people for shelter.

Coincidentally, St Louis is currentlyplaying hose to a photography exhibition based around abandoned local public schools.
Poland's president will block a law that would allow the country's government to appoint supreme court judges of its choosing.

President Andrzej Duda announced he will veto two controversial new laws that were passed by the Polish parliament.

The move comes after days of demonstrations across the country in retaliation three new judicial reforms.

Before they can become law, they require approval by the president.

The move comes after days of demonstrations across the country in retaliation three new judicial reforms. Anti-government protesters are pictured in front of the Supreme Court

One of the reforms requires all Supreme Court judges to step down and gives the justice minister the power to decide who should stay on

The second Reform would give politicians control over who sits on the National Judiciary Council which nominates judges

The third gives the justice minister the right to select and dismiss judges in the lower court

WHAT ARE THE NEW LAWS THAT THE PEOPLE OF POLAND ARE OPPOSED TO? The three reforms would give the justice minister and MPs much broader powers and have alarmed the US and EU. Reform one requires all Supreme Court judges to step down and gives the justice minister the power to decide who should stay on

Reform two gives politicians control over who sits on the National Judiciary Council which nominates judges

Reform three gives the justice minister the right to select and dismiss judges in the lower courts Advertisement

'As president I don't feel this law would strengthen a sense of justice,' Mr Duda addressed the country in television broadcast.

'These laws must be amended.'

While President Duda vetoed two laws, he passed a third that allows the justice minister to name the head of Poland's lower courts.

Poland had been faced with sanctions imposed by the European Commission if the reforms were not scrapped.

Donald Tusk, the European Council President and a former Polish prime minister, warned of a 'black scenario that could ultimately lead to the marginalisation of Poland in Europe'.

Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government  of which President Duda is a former member  strongly refuted allegations that the reforms would move towards authoritarian rule.

It added that it was disappointed with President Duda's veto, who last week stepped in to find a compromise.

It proposed that the government's bid to push through its nominees for the National Judiciary Council be watered down, by requiring the support of another party.

Anti-government protesters raise candles and placards reading "Constitution", as they gather in front of the Supreme Court in Warsaw

The president also opposed the strengthened role of the Justice Minister who, in Poland, also serves as the attorney general

Polish democracy icon and ex-President Lech Walesa addresses a large crowd of anti-government protesters in Gdansk, Poland, on Saturday

He also opposed the proposed strengthened role of the Justice Minister who, in Poland, also serves as the attorney general.

The president also spoke with his adviser Zofia Romaszewska, a dissident from the country's communist era who was jailed during ears of martial law.

She advised the president not to return to the days when 'the general prosecutor could do virtually anything', and told the media it was out of the question for the attorney general to take charge of the Supreme Court.

The country's opposition MPs welcomed the role of protesters in influencing the president's decision.

Protests and demonstrations had erupted throughout Poland's cities, including Poznan, Lublin, Krakow, Gdansk and Warsaw.
Tributes were paid today to a 'beautiful' young couple who died in a horrific car crash after dancing the night away at a wedding reception.

Stuart Moorat, 27, and Georgina Le Prevost, 25, were killed when their car left the road and crashed on to rocks.

The crash happened on the Perelle coast road yards from the sea on the Channel Island of Guernsey on Friday evening.

Tragic: Stuart Moorat, 27 (left), and Georgina Le Prevost, 25 (right), were killed in a car crash

Police say Mr Moorat, a technician at a telecoms company, and Miss Le Prevost, a secretary in a law firm, were at a wedding reception and dance shortly before the tragedy.

News of their deaths had to be broken to other people in the wedding party, many of whom were said to be in tears.

Investigators said today it appears their car left the road at Rue du Catioroc in St Saviour's, and crashed down on to rocks on the foreshore at about 11pm on Friday evening.

Horror: The crash happened on the Perelle coast road (pictured) yards from the sea on the Channel Island of Guernsey on Friday evening

Mr Moorat's boss, Sure CEO Ian Kelly, told the BBC Mr Moorat was 'a popular member of the Sure family.'

He added: 'He will be sorely missed by his colleagues and friends here.

'Our thoughts and condolences go out to his and Georgina Le Prevost's families at this tragic time.'

The managing partner of Miss Le Prevost's workplace, the law firm, Mourant Ozannes, told the BBC she was 'always full of life, laughter and fun'.

Commenting on the police Facebook post, Matt Le Clercq said: 'So sad.. used to live opposite Georgie and she was always smiling and saying hello. Thoughts to the families of both.'

Rebecca Sarre said: 'Worked with Georgie for a while - such a lovely sweet girl. Very shocked today.'

While Mandy Sangan added: 'Terrible news, such a beautiful girl. Our condolences to the families.'

Gone: Police (pictured) say the pair were at a wedding reception shortly before the tragedy

Karen Jagger posted on Mr Moorat's mother Helen Moorat's Facebook page: 'I am devastated. I have worked with Stu and Dave for six years and your son was always the one to make me laugh and think my day was not that bad.

'He will be missed so very much by us all. My comfort is that Georgie made him so happy you could see the happiness everyday as they grew to love each other.'

Grief-stricken relatives and friends left flowers at the scene this morning.

A police spokesman said: 'Enquiries are ongoing and we would again ask that anyone who saw the couple at a wedding reception on Friday evening, and in particular anyone who saw them leave, contact Sergeant Tom Marshall on 725111.'
A pregnant ten-year-old Indian girl will be examined by doctors to determine whether it is safer for her to have an abortion or continue and give birth to the baby.

The girl, who is from the northern city of Chandigarh, Punjab, was allegedly raped by her uncle.

Her parents took her to the hospital after she complained of stomach pains where it was discovered she was pregnant having been raped.

The girl's parents have appealed a decision by the District Court in Chandigarh, Punjab, pictured, which ruled she must continue with her pregnancy despite being aged just 10

The girl was allegedly attacked in the northern city of Chandigarh in the Punjab

The girl's parents want her to abort the child claiming it is unsafe for her to continue. However, a local court in Chandigarh denied their petition.

As a result, the parents took the case to India's Supreme Court who have ordered the Chandigarh's Postgraduate Institute of Medical Evidence and Research.

According to the BBC, the girl is believed to be 26 weeks pregnant and Indian law dramatically restricts abortions after 20 weeks, unless the mother's life is in danger.

The girl will be examined on Wednesday by experts who will report back to the Supreme Court about the risks relating to either course of action.

The parents' lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava said the lives of both the girl and her baby were at 'very serious risk'.

He claimed: 'Medical experts have categorically opined that if the 10-year-old is forced to give birth, either through normal delivery or even through caesarean-section, it may be fatal to the life of the rape survivor as well as to her child.'

The girl's lawyer wants the Supreme Court to set guidelines for dealing with similar cases of child rape in future including the establishment of panels of experts across the country

As well as dealing with the current case, Srivastava wants the Supreme Court to issue guidelines and establish a panel of experts across the country to deal with cases involving child rape survivors.

Psychiatrists involved in the case said the girl has no understanding that she is pregnant or the implications of her condition.

The BBC reported that the girl is from an extremely poor family. Her father is a government employee while her mother is a domestic help.
A Daily Beast writer has been slammed for calling White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders a 'butch queen' on Twitter.

In the now deleted tweet, culture writer Ira Madison wrote: 'Butch queen first time in drags at the ball.'

The slur appears to mock Sanders, who recently took over from Sean Spicer, saying she looks like a man in 'drag'. While the term 'butch queen' refers to a gay man that is 'neither extremely feminine, nor extremely masculine.'

A Daily Beast writer has been slammed for calling White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders a 'butch queen' on Twitter (pictured)

Culture writer Ira Madison (pictured) wrote: 'Butch queen first time in drags at the ball'

Madison, who has also written for GQ and New York magazine, has now deleted the tweet.

But not before it attracted fierce criticism on Twitter - much from the conservative right.

'So sexist and misogynistic comments are acceptable as long as they're aimed at Conservative women,' wrote one user on Twitter. 'Thanks for clarifying those rules.'

Dan Gainor, VP of business and culture at the Media Research Center, called the tweet 'disgusting.'

The slur appears to mock Sanders (pictured) who recently took over from Sean Spicer, saying she looks like a man in 'drag'

'Since The Daily Beast says it values 'an inclusive culture, committed to the public good,' I assume this is the last time Ira Madison III will be writing for them,' Gainor told Fox News. 'It goes to a larger point. Liberals get away with personal attacks that would ruin the careers of people on the right. This is demented, but watch how little attention it gets from the national press.'

Madison, who is gay, has not commented on his use of the homophobic slur.

Reporters have also reached out to the Daily Beast for comment.

This isn't the first time Madison's tweets have landed him in trouble.

Earlier this year, he accused Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) of using an Asian-American girl, who turned out to be his granddaughter, as a 'prop'.

The MTV News culture writer and host tweeted a picture of Sessions, who was once considered too racist to be a federal judge, with his young granddaughter sat on his lap.

MTV host Ira Madison III has accused Jeff Sessions of using his Asian American grandchildren as 'props' during his confirmation hearings where he faces allegations of racism

Sen. Jeff Sessions awaited his turn to speak with his granddaughter on his lap. Four of the attorney general nominee's grandkids attended today's confirmation hearing

'Sessions, sir, kindly return this Asian baby to the Toys 'R' Us you stole her from,' Madison captioned the picture.

Madison added that senator's Asian American grandchildren were nothing more than a prop to show he isn't racist.

'Why is she a prop? Sessions argued for policy that in the 1880s was used to discriminate against Asian Americans,' he wrote in a followup tweet.

Sessions has repeatedly been accused of racism during his long career.

Madison wrote on Twitter there was 'no reason' for Sessions to have has Asian American granddaughter sat on his lap during the lengthy, judiciary hearing, 'other than to send an "I'm not racist message"'.

The children belong to the senator's daughter, Ruth Sessions Walk and her husband John Walk, an Asian-American man.

Madison was not alone in accusing Sessions of using his grand kids to detract from his racism allegations.

Madison (pictured) has since deleted his original tweet after a furious backlash branding him as racist. He defended his earlier tweet, saying: 'I often tell jokes, but seeing as bringing up Sessions' history of racial hatred of Asians is seen as an attack on his grandchild, I deleted'

Madison added that senator's Asian American grandchildren were nothing more than a prop to show he isn't racist

Sara David, managing editor of Complex Life magazine, tweeted: ' lol loving jeff sessions' "how can i possibly be a racist when i'm holding this nonwhite baby" moment'.

Madison has since deleted his original tweet after a furious backlash branding him as racist.

He defended his earlier tweet, saying: 'I often tell jokes, but seeing as bringing up Sessions' history of racial hatred of Asians is seen as an attack on his grandchild, I deleted.'

Madison added that it was 'sad that many don't see Sessions' legitimate history of racism as a cause for concern today, but he can deeply affect our country.'

This is not the first time Madison has made a controversial tweet about a Republican and race.
A signed sketch of the New York City skyline drawn by none other than President Donald Trump is going up for auction for a minimum bid of $9,000.

The drawing, which features Trump Tower prominently at the center, will be auctioned off on Thursday by Nate D. Sanders Auctions.

Trump drew the sketch back in 2005 at a charity event.

A signed sketch of the New York City skyline drawn by none other than President Donald Trump is going up for auction for a minimum bid of $9,000 on Thursday

He was among a number of celebrities and politicians, including John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron, Joe Torre and Jennifer Gardner, to draw an artwork to raise money for a literacy campaign.

The prints were originally auctioned off through eBay.

Trump's 11.5 x 9 inch drawing shows a series of New York City high rises. Trump Tower sits right in the middle with a distinctly different roof to the other buildings.

He signed his name with a gold marker.

Trump drew and signed the sketch back in 2005 at a charity event to raise money for a literacy campaign. It was originally auctioned off on eBay

The auction house described the sketch as a 'rare original artwork by the President'.

'Originally drawn by Trump for a charity event, and very rare, with only a handful of such drawings known,' the auction house website reads.

Bidding on the sketch will begin at $9,000.

A 10-year-old bright red Ferrari that was owned by Trump went on the auction block in Florida in April and sold for $270,000.
A gold-digging bride helped her secret lover murder her elderly husband in a ruthlessly-planned crime so they could cash in a 250,000 life insurance policy, a court heard

Father-of-two Mohammed Yousaf, 65, was beaten about the head with a hammer and had his throat cut with a craft knife bought from discount retailer Poundland.

Mr Yousafs wife of five months, Rukhsana Bibi, 38, had connived with boyfriend Muhammed Arif, 45, to have him killed.

He was found dead three days later by the landlord of a property where he had been staying, with tests showing his skull had been shattered in the vicious attack.

The victims wife of five months, Rukhsana Bibi, 38, had connived with boyfriend Muhammed Arif, 45, to have him killed

Arif had earlier passed himself off as Mr Yousaf to set up the life insurance policy and the pair also planned to take him for every penny he had.

During the course of the doomed marriage, more than 24,000 left Mr Yousafs savings account and police found 22,000 in cash at Arifs home.

Yesterday, Bibi was jailed for life with a minimum of 28 years imprisonment, while Arif was also given a life sentence and must serve at least 32 years.

Both were convicted of murder after a trial at Preston Crown Court.

Gordon Cole QC, prosecuting, said: This was a planned killing in order to make monetary gain.

Mohammed Yousaf was brutally killed for his money

Muhammed Arif has in effect inveigled his way into Mohammed Yousafs domestic and financial arrangements through his girlfriend Rukhsana Bibi.

Throughout the relevant time we say Arif was having a sexual affair with Bibi.

They wanted to take Mr Yousaf for every penny he had.

Police investigating the killing on September 20 last year discovered Bibi, 38, had been having a long-running affair with married Arif, 45.

The relationship had been going on before and after her wedding to Mr Yousaf - and Arif himself had arranged the couples marriage.

The court heard Mr Yousaf had learning difficulties, was illiterate and could not read or write English.

The dead mans undated will  which also included his village post office in Pakistan - named Bibi as beneficiary and Arif as a legal guardian.

A document apparently showing Mr Yousaf had divorced his first wife bore a forged signature.

He married Bibi under Islamic law in April 2016 - just two days after her divorce from first husband Abdul Hafeez  Arifs brother - with whom she had two children.

But ten days before the wedding Mr Yousaf had gifted his 45,000 home in Accrington to Mr Hafeez during a meeting at a solicitors office in nearby Darwen.

The father-of-two had his throat cut with a craft knife (pictured) bought from discount retailer Poundland

Lancashire Constabulary handout photo of a CCTV still which shows Muhammed Arif's car near the scene on the night 65-year-old Mohammed Yousaf was killed

Arif himself attended the meeting and claimed the transfer was a gift to assist Mr Hafeez in applying for a visa for his wife.

In that same month, an application was made for a 500,000 life insurance policy in Mr Yousafs name.

The sum was reduced at the request of insurers Avia to 244,411 but the court heard Arif himself purported to be Mr Yousaf and attended a branch of Barclays Bank to arrange the policy.

Arif also took a will in the name of Mr Yousaf to a solicitors office, which bequeathed the old mans Village and Post office Balti Ankar in Pakistan to Bibi.

Mr Yousaf himself attended later with Arif and the victims passport to complete the process.

In July last year Mr Yousaf flew out to Pakistan to see his former wife, but on his return to the UK on September 17 he was picked up by Arif from the airport.

He took Mr Yousaf to an empty rented property and later killed him. The victims body was found by the landlord of the house when he went to collect the rent.

Detectives who searched Bibis home in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, after Mr Yousafs death found what they believed were practice signatures in his name on a piece of paper.

She was in Ireland at the time of the murder and it is thought she made the trip to give herself an alibi.

Arifs home in Accrington was also searched and police found Mr Yousafs will, which named Bibi as a beneficiary and Arif as the guardian of any minor children, 25,000 cash and a divorce document, which had been fraudulently signed on Mr Yousafs behalf from his first wife in Pakistan.

Traces of the victims blood were also found in Arifs VW Passat.

The scene in Accrington, Lancashire, where Mohammed Yousaf was murdered

Arif and Bibi denied murder.

Arifs wife Amna Khatoon Arif, 44, of Accrington, was sentenced to 15 months in prison, suspended for two years, for perverting the course of justice, after providing a false alibi for Arif for the night of the murder.

Following the sentencing, Det Ch Insp Joanne McHugh, of Lancashire Police, accused Bibi and Arif of planning a ruthless murder.

She said: This murder was ruthlessly planned by Arif and Bibi, who manipulated a vulnerable and gentle member of the community, before taking everything they possibly could from him for their own financial gain.

Mohammed Yousafs death is nothing short of the cold-blooded assassination of a wholly innocent man.

While it may have been Arif who carried out the actual killing, there can be no doubt that Bibi was just as involved in the planning and is as culpable as he is.
The parents of Charlie Gard bitterly condemned doctors yesterday after they made the heartbreaking decision to let their baby son die.

Connie Yates reduced a courtroom to tears while accusing Great Ormond Street of wasting so much time her little boy no longer had hope.

'We are so sorry we couldn't save you,' she said.

'We had the chance but we weren't allowed. Sweet dreams baby. Sleep tight our beautiful little boy.'

The parents of Charlie Gard (pictured last September) bitterly condemned doctors yesterday after they made the heartbreaking decision to let their baby son die

Charlie's heartbroken parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates pay tribute to their son outside the High Court after they decided to let him die

Connie Yates with baby Charlie at his bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital, who the youngster's parents have criticised

Charlie cuddles two toy monkeys in his hospital bed, left, and Chris and Connie watch over him, right

Charlie Gard's paternal grandparents say their final goodbye to their grandson at Great Ormond Street Hospital

Even the judge appeared to wipe away a tear when Miss Yates said her 'warrior' son  pictured above before he became ill  would not live to see his first birthday next week.

Charlie's life-support system will be withdrawn after his parents reluctantly gave up their eight-month crusade to win treatment for his extremely rare and devastating muscle-wasting condition.

As relatives in the public gallery sobbed, Miss Yates, 31, said her son's brain was never as damaged as the hospital claimed.

But a new scan last week revealed his muscles had deteriorated so much, the experimental treatment being offered by a doctor in the United States would now be hopeless. On a day of great drama:

An emotional Connie Yates outside the Royal Courts of Justice

Great Ormond Street said the American doctor had a financial interest in the drugs he was offering Charlie  and accused him of offering 'false hope';

The judge condemned social media for encouraging people 'who know almost nothing' spreading gossip about the case;

Members of a 'Charlie's Army' of supporters burst into tears outside court and screeched into megaphones about the hospital 'failing' the 11-month-old;

Miss Yates declared the legacy of her 'sweet, gorgeous, innocent little boy' would be to save other sufferers of his rare condition;

She vowed to help others battle medics so 'no parents have to go through what we have been through';

She said Charlie had a greater impact on the world in 11 months than most do in a lifetime;

The hospital praised the parents' 'brave' decision to end his life;

The Vatican said Pope Francis was praying for the family and 'feels especially close to them';

His parents' final wish for Charlie be allowed home to die was still not settled last night.

Chris Gard announced they must now 'do the hardest thing that we'll ever have to do which is to let our beautiful little Charlie go'

Miss Yates, 31 (pictured with Charlie), said her son's brain was never as damaged as the hospital claimed

The world's media gathers outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London as Chris Gard makes a statement on behalf of baby Charlie's family

The little boy's mother and father said his British doctors had cost him his chance of survival by denying him treatment

Miss Yates said yesterday: 'There is now no way back. Charlie did have a real chance of getting better if only therapy was started sooner.'

She said Great Ormond Street should have trusted them with the decision to take Charlie to the US and said: 'We only wanted to give him a chance of life'.

Miss Yates and Mr Gard gave away nothing of the shock to come as they arrived at the High Court in London for what was expected to be a two-day hearing.

They have been battling the hospital in the courts since March for the right to take Charlie to New York for experimental drugs on his rare form of mitochondrial disease  which saps energy from his organs and muscles.

But instead of the case continuing, Grant Armstrong, for the parents, told Mr Justice Francis: 'Poor Charlie. It is too late. The damage has been done. Sadly time has run out.'

He claimed Charlie's brain condition was 'considerable better' than stated by hospital doctors, and said the case might have turned out differently if the hospital had shown the raw data from scans in January to his second-opinion doctors, led by Professor Michio Hirano in the US and an Italian at the Pope's hospital in Rome.

At the end of yesterday's 45-minute hearing, and with the judge's permission, Miss Yates went into the witness box with Mr Gard and held the court spellbound as she delivered an excoriating and emotional 2,000-word statement.

Chris Gard mops his eyes as his partner Connie Yates reads her moving statement in the witness box at the High Court as Mr Justice Francis listens on

The High Court had been due to decide the fate of the 11-month-old, and whether he should be allowed to try experimental therapy or 'die with dignity' at Great Ormond Street Hospital - but his parents have now made the decision themselves

Charlie has had three scans in the past eight days, as doctors try to decide whether there is a chance of improving his rare type of mitochondrial disease

She said: 'There is one simple reason for Charlie's muscles deteriorating to the extent they are in now  time. A whole lot of wasted time. Had Charlie been given the treatment sooner he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy.

'The American and Italian team were still willing to treat Charlie after seeing both his recent brain scans performed last week. He is not brain dead, and never has been. He still responds to us, even now.'

'Our hero': Charlie's parents pay tribute to their baby and lawyers The parents of Charlie Gard spoke of their 'hero' baby as they addressed the world's media outside the Royal Courts of Justice today. A statement was read out by Charlie Gard's father Chris Gard, alongside his partner Connie Yates, as they ended their legal battle to send him to the US. He said: 'Firstly I would like to thank our legal team who have worked tirelessly on our behalf for free and to nurses and staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital who have cared for Charlie and kept him comfortable and stable for so long. 'We would also like to thank everybody who has supported us, including all the people here about us today. 'This is one of the hardest things we will ever have to say and we are about to do the hardest thing we will ever have to do which is to let our beautiful little Charlie go. 'Put simply, this is about a sweet, gorgeous, innocent little boy who was born with a rare disease who had a real, genuine chance at life and a family who loved him so very dearly - and that's why we fought so hard for him. Ms Yates thanked her lawyers, who had worked for free and 'won't even let us buy them a coffee'. She also thanked everybody who has supported them 'throughout this journey in this country and thousands of people worldwide'. Ms Yates added: 'We also would like to thank the staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital who have looked after Charlie and kept him comfortable and stable for so long. 'The care he has received from the nurses who've cared for him has been second to none.' She went on: 'Most of all, we would like to thank Charlie for the joy he has brought to our lives. 'The love we have for you is too much for words and we love you so very much.' Ms Yates ended her statement by saying: 'Sweet dreams baby. Sleep tight our beautiful little boy. Charlie Matthew William Gard. Our hero!' Advertisement

But she said his muscles had been ravaged as he lay waiting for someone to treat him.

'His quality of life would now not be one which we would want for our precious little boy,' said Miss Yates.

'Our poor boy has been left to just lie in hospital for months without any treatment while lengthy court battles have been fought. Rather than allow treatment for him with a medication that was widely accepted to have no side effects, Charlie has been left with his illness to deteriorate, sadly, to the point of no return.' As relatives wept, she added: 'I promise every single one of you that we would not have fought this hard for our son if we thought that he was in pain or suffering.

'Our son has an extremely rare disease for which there is no accepted cure but that does not mean that this treatment would not have worked, and it certainly does not mean that this shouldn't have been tried. It was never false hope. Now we will never know.'

Miss Yates denied the case was about 'parents know best', saying despite being 'two normal everyday people', they had listened to experts worldwide.

'All we wanted to do was take Charlie from one world- renowned hospital to another world-renowned hospital. We feel that we should have been trusted as parents to do so.

'We have never done this for selfish reasons. We didn't keep him alive just because we couldn't bear to lose him. Charlie had a real chance of getting better.'

Miss Yates, of Bedfont, south-west London, said there were 'no winners here'. But she promised her 'hero' son's 'legacy will never, ever die'. He will die before his first birthday on August 4, but so far it has not been settled where and when.She said: 'Charlie has had a greater impact on and touched more people in this world in his 11 months than many people do in a lifetime. We could not have more love and pride for our beautiful boy.

'His body, heart and soul may soon be gone, but his spirit will live on for eternity and he will make a difference to people's lives for years to come.'

She vowed: 'The next Charlie that comes along will get this medicine before it's too late and Charlie will save many more lives in the future.'

Great Ormond Street told the court the 'clinical picture' six months ago had shown irreversible damage to Charlie's brain, and that the 'unstoppable effects' of his rare illness had become plainer as weeks passed.

Great Ormond Street Hospital say US doctor couldn't have helped and raises 'concerns' about his 'financial interest' in drugs offered to Charlie Great Ormond Street Hospital said 'the agony, desolation and bravery' of the Gard's decision 'command GOSH's utmost respect and humble all who work there'. But they also insisted that US doctor Dr Michio Hirano (pictured) could not have helped him. They also raised the issue of his financial links to the drug he was offering Charlie. In a damning assessment of his claims the hospital said: 'On July 13 he stated that not only had he not visited the hospital to examine Charlie but in addition, he had not read Charlie's contemporaneous medical records or viewed Charlie's brain imaging or read all of the second opinions about Charlie's condition. 'Further, GOSH was concerned to hear the Professor state, for the first time, whilst in the witness box, that he retains a financial interest in some of the compounds he proposed prescribing for Charlie. 'Devastatingly, the information obtained since 13 July gives no cause for optimism. Rather, it confirms that whilst NBT may well assist others in the future, it cannot and could not have assisted Charlie'. The hospital said Charlie's parents had 'fought long and hard for what they have been led to believe was a treatment that would give him a chance to be the Charlie he was before the effects of his illness became evident'. In a statement, it said: 'Over the weekend, they communicated their desire to spend all the time they can with Charlie whilst working with the hospital to formulate the best possible plan for his end of life care. 'The agony, desolation and bravery of their decision command GOSH's utmost respect and humble all who work there.' The comments came in a 'position' statement prepared by the hospital's QC Katie Gollop. It said: 'Whilst GOSH has striven to work with them throughout, Charlie's needs have taken priority. 'It is greatly hoped that in the days ahead it will be possible to extend to his parents the same quality of care with which Charlie has been provided and to concentrate on the family as a whole.' Advertisement

Katie Gollop QC, for the hospital, said: 'Charlie's parents believe that his brain was not damaged, that it was normal on the MRI scan in January and that treatment could have been effective at that time.

There remains no agreement on these issues. As the weeks have passed, the unstoppable effects of Charlie's aggressive, progressive, depletive disorder have become plainer to see.'

She added that her heart went out to the parents and she praised their bravery.

Miss Gollop said the hospital would review the case to see if it could improve its procedures. But she added: 'It is hoped that those who, like the professor, have provided the opinions that have so sustained Charlie's parents, their hopes and thus this protracted litigation with its many consequences, will also find much upon which to reflect.'

Mr Justice Francis said: 'It is impossible for any of us to comprehend or even begin to imagine the agony to which Charlie's parents have been subjected. There are few, if any, stronger bonds known to humankind than the love that a parent has for his or her child.

'To lose a child, particularly at such a tender age, and in such tragic circumstances, is grief of a magnitude of immense proportions. These parents should know that no parent could have done more for their child.

'They have, however, now accepted that Charlie's life cannot be improved and that the only remaining course is for him to be given palliative care and to permit him to die with dignity.'

Charlie's parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard arrived at the High Court in tears today before it was revealed their much-loved little boy will be allowed to die

Charlie's parents are furious with Gosh for not letting Charlie try the therapy in December or January, when he was 'a relatively normal boy'

Charlie Gard's parents said: This is one of the hardest things that we will ever have to say' as they said his life will now end

A brain scan last week dashed the family's hopes and bolstered Great Ormond Street's argument that it not fair on Charlie to keep him alive.

The court hearing into Charlie Gard started with the judge informed that Connie and Chris have made the decision to allow their son to die.

LITTLE BOY'S YEAR OF TORMENT August 4, 2016 Charlie born 8lb 3oz to Connie Yates and Chris Gard. October 2016 Tests reveal mitochondrial depletion syndrome. Believed to be only 16th sufferer in the world of rare strain. Autumn 2016 Miss Yates finds specialist in US testing nucleoside therapy, but it has never been tried on Charlie's rare type. January Gosh doctors say drug would be futile because of irreversible brain damage. Parents contact US doctor. March Gosh asks High Court to let Charlie die. Mr Justice Francis gives parents a month to make case for treatment. Daily Mail readers help raise 197,000 in days to help fly Charlie to US. April Doctors say he is likely to be in pain. Judge rules Gosh should let him die. May Court of Appeal upholds ruling. Parents appeal to Supreme Court. June Supreme Court rejects appeal. On June 27, European judges back decision. Gosh gives parents more time with Charlie. Pope Francis intervenes, followed by Donald Trump on July 3. July 7 Seven scientists hand Gosh fresh evidence showing higher survival chances. July 10 Mr Justice Francis gives parents 48 hours to produce new evidence in case. July 13 US specialist Dr Michio Hirano invited to London by High Court July 17 Dr Hirano examines Charlie. July 21 Court told scan results 'very sad'. Today High Court due to rule on the case, ten days before Charlie's birthday - but his parents end their legal battle. Advertisement

US medic Dr Michio Hirano flew to London last week to examine 11-month-old Charlie but failed to convince Great Ormond Street that experimental nucleoside treatment would improve his condition.

The 11-month-old also had two MRI scans in the past week - one on his brain and another on his body - but these made 'for very sad reading', GOSH's Katie Gollop QC, told Mr Justice Francis on Friday.

There was a hint of today's decision as Miss Yates and Mr Gard looked bereft on arriving for the day's proceedings.

As news of Charlie Gard's fate broke outside the High Court, a group of 'Charlie's Army' supporters burst into tears and started screeching angrily through megaphones.

They severely criticised Great Ormond Street Hospital, claiming they had 'failed' the infant and 'denied' him a life-giving opportunity.

Breaking down and hugging each other, they demanded 'justice' and chanted 'Shame on GOSH. Shame. Shame. Shame ... Charlie's Army never sleeps.'

One visibly distressed woman fell to the ground and shouted: 'He had a chance and you took it away.' Meanwhile, one girl sang through a megaphone while fighting back tears.

Dorit Ronen, 49, said: 'I'm shocked, I really don't understand how this could happen. How could they not give him one chance?'

Around 20 supporters of the terminally ill infant had gathered outside the High Court with megaphones, blue balloons and banners.

The group, of mainly women and children, are part of the 'Charlie's Army' movement. They chanted slogans and cheered when passing cars beeped their support.

David Gillespie, 45, from St Andrews, flew from Scotland on Monday morning to be there. He said: 'This boy has to have one chance. That's it.

'He's not had one in life. I had one with a heart attack. He's not even had one at anything.'

Charlie's parents ended their legal fight after it was confirmed damage to the infant's muscle and tissue was irreversible.

The couple felt that continuing their fight would cause Charlie pain, he said, adding they hope to set up a foundation as part of their son's legacy.

Heartbroken supporters sobbed and screamed outside the High Court when the news filtered out of the court

As news of Charlie Gard's fate broke outside the High Court, a group of 'Charlie's Army' supporters burst into tears and became very angry

Supporters were upset with and some demanded 'justice' and chanted 'Shame on GOSH. Shame. Shame. Shame ... Charlie's Army never sleeps.'

The judge said last week that the hearings would start early and finish late, and added that he was worried two days might not be long enough.

But yesterday a judiciary spokesman unexpectedly announced that the hearing would be shorter, beginning at 2pm instead of 10am. Neither the family, the hospital nor the judiciary offered an explanation for the sudden change.

1.3m raised for Charlie will help other children so 'his spirit will live on' His mother Connie Yates sobbed as she told the High Court today: 'Mummy and Daddy love you so much Charlie, Charlie Gard's parents have said they hope to set up a foundation as part of their son's legacy. Connie Yates, right today, and Chris Gard want their son's spirit to 'live on' after his death. More than 1.3million was raised from donations that will now never be spent on his treatment. His parents said in a statement: 'Charlie had a real chance of getting better. It's now unfortunately too late for him but it's not too late for others with this horrible disease and other diseases. We will continue to help and support families of ill children and try and make Charlie live on in the lives of others. We owe it to him to not let his life be in vain'. Previously Miss Yates spoke about what would happen should the worst happen to their son. She said: 'We have thought long and hard about it and we would set up a charity for mitochondrial depletion syndrome's (there are others that are more common than Charlie's specific gene). 'We'd like to save other babies and children because these medications have been proven to work and we honestly have so much belief in them. 'We would like some of it to go to research at the specific hospital that are willing to treat Charlie and the rest will be available to help other families to get the medication that their children desperately need. 'We hope that you can all support us in making treatments available so that nobody else ever has to go through what we have.' Advertisement

Charlie has had three scans in the past eight days, as doctors try to decide whether there is a chance of improving his rare type of mitochondrial disease.

Last Friday, the High Court was informed his latest scan report made for 'very sad reading'  prompting Miss Yates to shriek in anguish because the parents had not yet read the report themselves.

Mr Gard shouted that the hospital's QC was 'evil'.

The parents, of south-west London, are furious with Gosh for not letting Charlie try the therapy in December or January, when he was 'a relatively normal boy'.

Previously, Mr Justice Francis has urged the two sides to come to an agreement on the best course for Charlie.

He said if there was agreement, he was 'bound to agree' too.

The judge ruled 'with the heaviest of hearts' in April that it would be kinder to let Charlie die, as his British doctors said he was brain damaged and beyond hope.

The case was reopened after US specialist Dr Michio Hirano and six other experts brought 'new' evidence.

Pope Francis and Donald Trump tweeted support and a radical US pastor and fellow pro-life campaigners arrived, sparking protests.

On Saturday Gosh chief Mary MacLeod said in a statement the hospital had called in police as medics were being abused online, in the street and in the hospital. Charlie's parents yesterday said they too were victims of abuse.

Miss Yates, 31, said: 'We are extremely upset by the backlash we have received after Gosh put out their statement.

'We do not and have not ever condoned any threatening or abusive remarks  We would have appreciated it if  they had asked the public not to say anything hurtful to us, as well as their doctors.'

She said they had 'utmost respect' for Gosh staff, adding: 'Chris and I are just ordinary parents with a very sick baby and we simply have his best interests at heart.'

Mr Gard, 32, said: 'Without the excellent care of the doctors at Gosh, our son would not even be alive and not a day goes by when we don't remember that.'

The parents' official spokesman said they had faced 'shameful, disgraceful and hurtful criticism'.

'Our son is an absolute warrior and we will miss him terribly': Charlie's parents speak out as they make the heartbreaking decision to let him 'slip away'

Here is the statement from Connie Yates which she read to the High Court today:

The last 11 nearly 12 months have been the best, the worst and ultimately life changing months of our lives but Charlie is Charlie and we wouldn't change him for the world. All our efforts have been for him.

This is one of the hardest things that we will ever have to say and we are about to do the hardest thing that we'll ever have to do which is to let our beautiful little Charlie go.

Connie Yates and Chris Gard leave the High Court after making their heartbreaking decision to let Charlie pass away

Put simply, this is about a sweet, gorgeous, innocent little boy who was born with a rare disease, who had a real, genuine chance at life and a family who love him so very dearly and that's why we fought so hard for him.

We are truly devastated to say that following the most recent MRI scan of Charlie's muscles, as requested in the recent MDT meeting by Dr Hirano; as Charlie's devoted and loving parents we have decided that it's no longer in Charlie's best interests to pursue treatment and we will let our son go and be with the angels.

The American and Italian team were still willing to treat Charlie after seeing both his recent brain MRI and EEG performed last week. He's not brain dead (and never has been). He still responds to us, even now, but after reviewing the recent muscle MRI it was considered that Charlie's muscles have deteriorated to the extent that it is largely irreversible and, were treatment to work, his quality of life would now not be one which we would want for our precious little boy. They both agreed that treatment should have been started sooner.

There is one simple reason for Charlie's muscles deteriorating to the extent they are in now - TIME. A whole lot of wasted time. Had Charlie been given the treatment sooner he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy.

Charlie's bereft mother Connie arrives at court as his family said their worst fears had now been realised

His muscles were in pretty good shape in January, although obviously weaker than a child of similar age, and his brain scan was that of a relatively normal child of his age. He may well have had some disabilities later on in life but his quality of life could have been improved greatly.

The reason that treatment was not commenced in January or April this year was that Charlie was found to have 'irreversible brain damage' and treatment was considered as 'futile'. Dr Hirano, together with other internationally renowned paediatric neurologists have now reviewed Charlie's MRI's and EEG's which were performed in January and April respectively and they have confirmed that these MRI's and EEG's showed NO actual evidence of irreversible brain damage.

Unfortunately Professor Hirano did not have access to the raw data and he based what he said in April on reports. We did not have access to these second opinions before the initial trial, hence why we are where we are today. Had we had the opportunity to have raw data of the MRIs and EEGs independently reviewed, we areconvinced Charlie would be on treatment now and improving all the time.

However, we are now in July and our poor boy has been left to just lie in hospital for months without any treatment whilst lengthy court battles have been fought. We have been told time and time again that Charlie has a 'progressive disease' but rather than allow treatment for him with a medication that was widely accepted to have no side effects, Charlie has been left with his illness to deteriorate, sadly, to the point of no return.

We would like to say a few words in the hope that Charlie's life will not be in vain. We have always acted in our son's best interests from the very beginning. We were told back in November that all his organs would fail and it was likely that we only had days left with him but to this day aside from Charlie's need for ventilation not one organ has 'failed'.

We have always been led by Charlie. I promise every single one of you that we would not have fought this hard for our son if we thought that he was in pain or suffering. There has never been any proof that he was and we still don't think that he's in pain or suffering to this day.

Having said that, we have decided to let our son go and that's for one reason and one reason only. It is because the prospect of improvement is unfortunately now too low for Charlie.

Our doctors in America and Italy were still willing to treat Charlie after reviewing the MRI head scan from July 2017 as they still felt that there was a chance of meaningful improvement in Charlie's brain. However, due to the deterioration in his muscles, there is now no way back for Charlie. Time that has been wasted. It is time that has sadly gone against him.

Charlie Gard lying in his hospital bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital with some of his cuddly toys

We now have 7 experts supporting therapy for Charlie's condition which I think is proof that it was more than reasonable to try it. Nucleosides are simply a powder that would've gone into Charlie's milk and are compounds which all of us in this room produce naturally.

Unfortunately, Charlie can't produce these due to his disease, which is why he is the way he is. We want people to realise that we have been speaking to parents whosechildren were just like Charlie before starting treatment and now some of them are walking around like normal children. We wanted Charlie to have that chance too.

Our son has an extremely rare disease for which there is no accepted cure but that does not mean that this treatment would not have worked, and it certainly does not mean that this shouldn't have been tried. We have only been asking for a 3 month trial of treatment to see if there was any improvement. We have been asking for this short trial for the past 8 months.

Charlie did have a real chance of getting better if only therapy was started sooner. It was never false hope as confirmed by many experts. Now we will never know what would have happened if he got treatment but it's not about us. It's never been about us. It's about what's best for Charlie now. At the point in time when it has become too late for Charlie we have made the agonising decision to let him go.

This has also never been about 'parents know best'. We have continuously listened to experts in this field and it has raised fundamental issues, ethically, legally and medically - this is why the story of one little boy from two normal everyday people has raised such conflicting opinions and ferocious arguments worldwide.

All we wanted to do was take Charlie from one world renowned hospital to another world renowned hospital in the attempt to save his life and to be treated by the world leader in mitochondrial disease. We feel that we should have been trusted as parents to do so but we will always know in our hearts that we did the very best for Charlie and I hope that he is proud of us for fighting his corner.

We will have to live with the 'what if's' which will haunt us for the rest of our lives but we're thinking about what's best for our son. We have always believed that Charlie deserved a chance at life and we knew that his brain was not as bad it was made out to be and that's why we continued.

Chris kisses Connie's baby bump before Charlie was born

We completely understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion and this was always going to be a matter which would cause a huge debate in who's right and who's wrong. In truth, there are no winners here.

One thing is for sure though. We know deep within our hearts that we have always had Charlie's best interests in the forefront of our minds and despite what some people think of us, we will try to walk away from this with our heads held high.

As I said, we know the truth, and in our hearts we know that we have done all of this for our darling little Charlie. We have never done this for selfish reasons. We didn't keep him alive just because we couldn't bear to lose him.

Charlie had a real chance of getting better. It's now unfortunately too late for him but it's not too late for others with this horrible disease and other diseases. We will continue to help and support families of ill children and try and make Charlie live on in the lives of others. We owe it to him to not let his life be in vain.

We would like to thank our current legal team who have worked tirelessly to try and save Charlie's life and they have not asked for a single penny. They won't even let us buy them a coffee.

They have done it out of the kindness of their hearts because they believed in us and they certainly believed in Charlie. We would like to thank everybody who has supported us throughout this journey in this country and thousands of people worldwide and we also would like to thank the staff at GOSH who have looked after Charlie and kept him comfortable and stable for so long.

The care he has received from the nurses who've cared for him has been second to none. But most of all, we would like to thank Charlie for the joy he has brought to our lives. The love we have for you is too much for words and we love you so very much.

Despite the way that our beautiful son has been spoken about sometimes, as if he not worthy of a chance at life, our son is an absolute WARRIOR and we could not be prouder of him and we will miss him terribly.

One little boy has brought the world together and whatever people's opinions are, no one can deny the impact our beautiful son has had on the world and his legacy will never ever die. Charlie has had a greater impact on and touched more people in this world in his 11 months than many people do in a life time.

We could not have more love and pride for our beautiful boy. His body, heart and soul may soon be gone, but his spirit will live on for eternity and he will make a difference to people's lives for years to come. As his mum and dad, we will make sure of that. We owe that to our boy.

We will do our utmost to ensure that no parents have to go through what we have been through and the next Charlie that comes along WILL get this medicine before it's too late and Charlie will save many more lives in the future, no doubt about that.

The couple have decided it is best for Charlie to withdraw their opposition to Great Ormond Street's court application. It means doctors will remove Charlie's breathing ventilator allowing him to 'slip away'

We are struggling to find any comfort or peace with all this, but one thing that does give us the slightest bit of comfort, is that we truly believe that Charlie may have been too special for this cruel world.

We truly believe that any parent would have wanted the same thing if they knew what we knew.

We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately won't make his 1st birthday in just under 2 weeks' time, and we would ask that our privacy is respected at this very difficult time.

Mummy and Daddy love you so much Charlie, we always have and we always will and we are so sorry that we couldn't save you. We had the chance but we weren't allowed to give you that chance.

Sweet dreams baby. Sleep tight our beautiful little boy.

Charlie Matthew William Gard

Our hero!

'They should know that no parent could have done more for their child': Judges praise Charlie's parents as they 'permit him to die with dignity' Mr Justice Francis said that Charlie's mother and father did everything they could for their beloved son Mr Justice Francis has praised the dignity and bravery of Charlie Gard's parents today. The High Court judge had been due to rule for the second time on the little boy's fate after deciding he should be allowed to die in April. Addressing Connie Yates and Chris Gard he said: 'It is impossible for any of us to comprehend or even begin to imagine the agony to which Charlie's parents have been subjected in recent weeks and months as they have had to come to terms with the decision that they have now made. 'A lot of things have been said, particularly in recent days, by those who know almost nothing about this case but who feel entitled to express opinions. Many opinions have been expressed based on feelings rather than facts. My task today is to deal with the applications that are before me and to make the declarations which are now unopposed. 'Before I do so I must, again, pay tribute to Chris Gard and Connie Yates for the love and care which they have at all times given to their wonderful boy Charlie. 'I said in my judgment on 11 April that there are few, if any, stronger bonds known to humankind than the love that a parent has for his or her child; to lose a child, particularly at such a tender age, and in such tragic circumstances, is grief of a magnitude of immense proportions. 'These parents should know that no parent could have done more for their child. 'They have, however, now accepted that Charlie's life cannot be improved and that the only remaining course is for him to be given palliative care and to permit him to die with dignity'. Advertisement

Will Charlie now be allowed to go back home to die? Final wish of terminally-ill baby's parents is still not settled

His parents' final wish that he be allowed home to die was still not settled last night.

Charlie Gard will not survive until his first birthday next week. But his parents long to take him home for a bath and to put him to bed in his cot, before saying goodbye.

However it was unclear last night whether Great Ormond Street will block their wish.

Charlie's lungs are too weak to function without the help of an artificial ventilator, which he is hooked up to in the paediatric intensive care unit of the London hospital.

A mobile ventilator unit would be needed along with a team of medics. His parents have offered to pay for this privately.

Chris Gard (pictured with Charlie) and Connie Yates were still in discussion about the arrangements with the hospital

The court heard that Chris Gard and Connie Yates were still in discussion about the arrangements with the hospital and the talks could continue today. If they cannot agree, Mr Justice Francis could be asked to make a ruling on the matter.

Miss Yates told the court: 'We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately won't make his first birthday in just under two weeks' time.'

The question of when and where Charlie's breathing ventilator is withdrawn is likely to be the subject of the intense discussions.

Charlie was due to die in Great Ormond Street on June 30 but this was postponed after his parents accused doctors of blocking their final wish to let him pass away at home. They issued a tearful video message in which Miss Yates, 31, said: 'We promised our little boy every single day that we would take him home.'

Mr Gard, 32, added: 'We want to give him a bath at home, put him in a cot which he has never slept in.'

He said Great Ormond Street had refused to let them do so, adding: 'Our parental rights have been stripped away. We can't even take our own son home to die.

'We've been denied that. Our final wish, if it all went against us, was to take our little boy home to die, and we are not allowed.'

The couple said they had been discussing end-of-life palliative care options since last November when Charlie first went into hospital. They had always wanted him to die at home if all else failed, they said.

Miss Yates added: 'One option was to let Charlie go home to die. We chose to take Charlie home to die. That is our last wish.'

Dr Michio Hirano, who is a world expert on the nucleoside treatment being denied to Charlie, from the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, tried to convince the hospital that the little boy should get his chance. GOSH were 'concerned' by his advice

The couple have hardly been at their flat in Bedfont, south-west London, since Charlie's illness told hold. They have mounted a vigil by his bedside night and day for month after month.

Charlie was born on August 4, 2016, a healthy 8lb 3oz. Aged just six weeks, he delighted them with his first smile but a fortnight later, he began to lose weight and strength.

He was admitted to hospital in October last year and transferred to Great Ormond Street where tests revealed he had mitochondrial depletion syndrome. His strain of the disease was so rare he is believed to have been only the 16th sufferer in the world.

His parents both unwittingly carry a faulty gene  meaning in theory they are at risk of the same thing happening in future.

Charlie's legacy: Now the 1.3million donated to pay for his treatment in the US will go to help other sick children

Charlie's legacy will be a 1.3million fund to help other children.

The court heard the foundation will use the cash donated to pay for his treatment in the United States.

His mother Connie Yates said: 'One little boy has brought the world together and whatever people's opinions are, no one can deny the impact our beautiful son has had on the world and his legacy will never ever die.

'Charlie has had a greater impact on and touched more people in this world in his 11 months than many people do in a lifetime. We could not have more love and pride for our beautiful boy. His body, heart and soul may soon be gone, but his spirit will live on for eternity and he will make a difference to people's lives for years to come. We will do our utmost to ensure that no parents have to go through what we have been through and the next Charlie that comes along will get this medicine before it's too late  and Charlie will save many more lives.'

The 1.3million was raised in little more than two months earlier this year on a GoFundMe online appeal publicised by the Daily Mail.

Grant Armstrong, who represents the family, said: 'Charlie has waited patiently and peacefully for his right to receive treatment to be realised. Sadly, due to the considerable delaythe window of opportunity has been lost for Charlie.'

'His legacy will be to support other young children and families faced with similar circumstances.
President Trump's recent comments undermining Attorney General Jeff Sessions came off as unprofessional to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who may depart his post sooner than expected, according to a report.

Trump went after Sessions, his first congressional endorser and a longtime advisor, for having recused himself from oversight of the FBI's Russia probe, speaking during a New York Times interview last week.

'I think is very unfair to the president,' Trump said. 'It's extremely unfair, and that's a mild word, to the president,' Trump said in reference to the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Several sources say the former Exxon CEO found the attack unprofessional, CNN reported.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson found President Trump's dissing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions unprofessional, according to a report

Two sources told the network they wouldn't be surprised if Tillerson didn't depart his post sooner than the end of the year  after earlier giving the impression he was determined to stay on the job at least that long.

The sources said they were familiar with Tillerson conversations with 'friends outside Washington.'

Talk of an early exit by the nation's top diplomat comes just days after White House press secretary Sean Spicer resigned Friday in a staff shakeup.

Tillerson, who was new to government when he left his lucrative job and took the post, has yet to produce his reorganization of the agency. Staying a full year would allow him to leave a more lasting mark.

Tillerson has clashed with the White House over personnel issues, and had one reported blowup over the inability to get his team in place. A recent White House encounter with the head of personnel grew 'intense' and 'uncomfortable,' according to a CNN report.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) and Attorney General Jeff Sessions wait to give remarks related to a reconstituted travel ban at a news conference at the U.S. Customs and Borders Protection headquarters, on March 6, 2017 in Washington, DC. Tillerson reportedly found the president's recent treatment of Sessions unprofessional

TAKE THIS JOB: The former Exxon CEO got a $182 million golden parachute from the oil giant when he left to join the administration

The president's comments to the Times appear to have been another irritant. Trump said he wouldn't have hired Sessions had he known in advance he would recuse himself from the sprawling Russia probe that has grown to include his own financial transactions.

'Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,' Trump said.

The administration budget is calling for a 30 per cent staff cut at the agency, something Tillerson says he supports.

One thing Tillerson doesn't need is a pay check. The former Exxon CEO got a $182 million golden parachute from the oil giant when he left to join the administration.
The 17-year-old Georgia high school senior who lost both his legs below the knees when he was struck by a train in March is now suing the company that he says is responsible.

Jacob Ohl was hit by the CSX train on March 2 while he was walking along the track with his earbuds in; his mother later claimed that while he 'sensed' the train was near, he didn't hear it.

That, Ohl claims in a suit filed in DeKalb County last week, is because CSX was negligent - and now he wants at least $200,000 compensation, AJC.com reported.

Jacob Ohl (left before accident and right after), 17, was struck by a train while walking along tracks in Georgia on March 2 with his earbuds in, losing both legs beneath the knee

Ohl has already racked up $200,000 in medical bills, his suit claims. It says CSX is responsible, in part because it failed to put up signs and fences to keep people out

Ohl's suit names not just CSX but also train operators Derrick Tyrone Marshal of Stone Mountain, and Clifton Edward Martin of Greenwood, South Carolina.

It says that they saw Ohl when they were 1,000 feet from him but did not ring the train's bell, blow its horn or put on the brakes before they struck him.

The train took at least half-mile - around 2,600 feet - to come to a full stop once the brakes were applied, police said at the time.

The suit also claims they were stopped from spotting Ohl earlier by a lack of a properly functioning camera on the front of the train.

CSX also did not put up proper warning signs or fences to stop people walking by the tracks, the suit alleges.

It says that CSX is liable for his hospital bills - which have already totaled more than $200,000, as well as damages he may incur in the future.

CSX declined to comment to AJC.com on the suit and would not say whether Marshall and Martin are still employed by the company.

A GoFundMe page was established to help him; it had made $45,652 as of Monday afternoon.

The suit also says the drivers didn't brake until they hit him despite seeing him 1,000 feet away, and that the train lacked a camera that might have helped identify him from a distance

Police said at the time that it took at least half a mile for the train to come to a halt. Ohl is pictured here in a post-accident image from his GoFundMe page

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Ohl was able to call 911 for help. In the recording he can be head calmly telling the operator 'Um, I just got hit by a train.'

Noting that his voice is unusually flat - Ohl was in shock at the time - she asks whether he is all rightr and what happened.

He replies that there is a problem with his legs: 'I think it cut them off.'

After finding him at the scene, paramedics applied tourniquets to Ohl's legs to stop the bleeding, likely saving his life.

A family friend described Ohl in the GoFundMe page as a thriving senior at Brookwood High School, where he is enrolled in honors classes and plays first-chair stand-up bass in the school orchestra.

Ohl, who goes by the stage name FishbOhl, is also a member of the high schools jazz band, where he plays bass.

'Jacob has two brothers and an extended family that loves and admires him for his genuine, peaceful spirit, his old-soul wisdom and his compassion,' reads the description of the fundraiser.

Ohl plays stand-up bass (left) with his school orchestra and bass guitar (right) in a jazz band.

Ohl's family friend says the teen, pictured center, is a senior taking honors classes. His GoFundMe page has raised around $46,000 for his expenses - far less than the actual cost

In a post made in April, his family wrote about him being released from hospital.

'Both legs are healing well and he is mostly pain free except for the phantom pains,' they said. They sent him home with only one non-narcotic prescription for those phantom pains and only minimal instructions for wound care.

'Once a week, he will visit the physical therapists and prosthetics teams to work towards his new mobility. For now, the borrowed wheelchair is working great.

'He is elated to be sleeping in his own bed, eating home-cooked food, playing his own games and instruments and living at his Dad's house.'

Ohl had been accepted into college and got a job as an office assistant at a landscaping company in the days before the accident.
A Georgia man managed to stop traffic on Monday with his self-made aircraft, which is covered in World War II-era Nazi symbols.

Fred Meyer was heading towards the Gwinnett County Airport when he was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after noon when he suffered a sudden engine failure on his tiny one-seater.

He quickly remedied the situation by bringing the plane down along the side of Ga. 316 in Gwinnett County, swastikas and all.

Rough landing: A small plane (above) made an emergency landing on Ga. 316 in Gwinnett County, Georgia a little after noon on Monday when the engine died

Germn wings: The plane was covered in World War II-era Nazi symbols and swastikas

'Just for fun': It was being flown by Fred Meyer, who does maintenance on the aircraft and built the engine

Meyer, who does the maintenance on the plane but is not the owner, managed to make his way out of the aircraft without injury and hung around the highway median to give a few interviews.

He did not seem bothered by the less than ideal optics.

When asked by WSB about the Nazi designs he said they were 'just for fun.'

The craft is modeled after a Messerschmitt BF 109, the fighter plane flown by the Germans in World War II.

'The engine just quit, it just died,' said Meyer.

'You just sort of fall back on your training at that point in time. You dont think of the circumstances, you just think of your training.'

Joy ride: When asked about the Nazi designs he said they were 'just for fun'

Pass: As for the plane's design, all Meyer would say is: 'A lot of people like to paint these planes up like old war birds'

Meyer was able to keep his cool in large part because he is the man who built the engine, with the actual plane owned by a trustee in Buford.

As for the plane's design, all Meyer would say is: 'A lot of people like to paint these planes up like old war birds.'
His parents final wish that he be allowed home to die was still not settled last night.

Charlie Gard will not survive until his first birthday next week. But his parents long to take him home for a bath and to put him to bed in his cot, before saying goodbye.

However it was unclear last night whether Great Ormond Street will block their wish.

Charlies lungs are too weak to function without the help of an artificial ventilator, which he is hooked up to in the paediatric intensive care unit of the London hospital.

Farewell: Charlie's grandparents give what they thought were their final kisses to him earlier this year before interventions from the White House and the Vatican saw the legal case to save him reignited

Chris Gard and Connie Yates in court yesterday had previously stated their desire to take their son Charlie home to give him a bath and place him in his cot he has never slept in

A mobile ventilator unit would be needed along with a team of medics. His parents have offered to pay for this privately.

The court heard that Chris Gard and Connie Yates were still in discussion about the arrangements with the hospital and the talks could continue today. If they cannot agree, Mr Justice Francis could be asked to make a ruling on the matter.

Miss Yates told the court: We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately wont make his first birthday in just under two weeks time.

The question of when and where Charlies breathing ventilator is withdrawn is likely to be the subject of the intense discussions.

Charlie was due to die in Great Ormond Street on June 30 but this was postponed after his parents accused doctors of blocking their final wish to let him pass away at home. They issued a tearful video message in which Miss Yates, 31, said: We promised our little boy every single day that we would take him home.

Mr Gard, 32, added: We want to give him a bath at home, put him in a cot which he has never slept in.

Charlie Gard's parents Connie and Chris want to bring him home where he can pass away

Charlie, pictured on July 14, will require a medical team and mobile ventilator if he is to go home with his parents in order to have a bath and sleep in his own cot before passing away

He said Great Ormond Street had refused to let them do so, adding: Our parental rights have been stripped away. We cant even take our own son home to die.

Weve been denied that. Our final wish, if it all went against us, was to take our little boy home to die, and we are not allowed.

The couple said they had been discussing end-of-life palliative care options since last November when Charlie first went into hospital. They had always wanted him to die at home if all else failed, they said.

Miss Yates added: One option was to let Charlie go home to die. We chose to take Charlie home to die. That is our last wish.

Charlie Gard, pictured moments after he was born on August 4, 2016 weighing 8lb 3oz, appeared to be a perfectly healthy baby, but two weeks later he started losing weight

In October, he was transferred to Great Ormond Street where tests found he was suffering from an incredibly rare mitochondrial depletion syndrome which affects just 16 people

The couple have hardly been at their flat in Bedfont, south-west London, since Charlies illness told hold. They have mounted a vigil by his bedside night and day for month after month.

Charlie was born on August 4, 2016, a healthy 8lb 3oz. Aged just six weeks, he delighted them with his first smile but a fortnight later, he began to lose weight and strength.

He was admitted to hospital in October last year and transferred to Great Ormond Street where tests revealed he had mitochondrial depletion syndrome. His strain of the disease was so rare he is believed to have been only the 16th sufferer in the world.

His parents both unwittingly carry a faulty gene  meaning in theory they are at risk of the same thing happening in future.
A now-retired Roman Catholic priest is accused of forcing a 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy to perform oral sex on him after counseling the 4th-grader about misbehaving on a school bus.

The state attorney general's office said Monday that the Rev. John Thomas Sweeney committed felony involuntary deviate sexual intercourse against the boy at St. Margaret Mary Elementary School in Lower Burrell.

Prosecutors say the alleged assault occurred during the 1991-92 school year, and that the boy was given milk and cookies afterward.

Rev. John T. Sweeney, of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, arrives for an appearance before District Judge Cheryl J. Peck-Yakopec, in Leechburg on Monday

Sweeney, a now-retired Roman Catholic priest is accused of forcing a 10-year-old boy to perform oral sex on him after counseling the 4th-grader about misbehaving on a school bus. After the assault he had his secretary bring the child milk and cookies

Sweeney was arrested today and charged with involuntary sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony, for a sexual assault committed against a 10-year-old boy during the 1991-92 school year

The Greensburg Diocese says the 74-year-old Sweeney was removed as pastor of Holy Family Parish in West Newton in 2016 after church officials learned of the allegation.

Court and diocese officials were unable to identify a defense lawyer for Sweeney. Sweeney made no comment to reporters when he turned himself in.

The now-grown victim came forward last September. He said he had kept his secret because he worried his parents would blame themselves.

While a student in fourth grade, the boy was sent for discipline because he had been disruptive on a school bus.

According to the grand jury, Sweeney then forced the boy to perform the sex act in a conference room by the priest's office inside the St. Margaret Mary Parish.

After the assault, Sweeney's parish secretary brought the boy milk and cookies, the report said.
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Of all the courtroom dramas the High Courts of Justice have witnessed through the years, few surely can have matched the painful intensity of yesterdays harrowing climax to the case of the sick baby boy who moved the world.

Connie Yates and Chris Gard had finally come to the most painful conclusion imaginable  that they should, after all, let their boy, Charlie, die. Time, like hope, had finally expired.

The lawyers for all parties had just had their say, as had the judge, Mr Justice Francis. All had agreed that nothing more could be done. Even some of these battle-hardened barristers had been struggling to get through their prepared statements in one piece.

It was the summer of love for Chris Gard and Connie Yates in 2016 as they looked forward to the birth of their first child

Its a boy! Charlie is born on August 4 and is soon happily snuggling up to Dad  whose eyes are red from shedding tears of joy

Hello Dad. Little Charlies face lights up with wonder as he stares up at Chris, who looks at his baby son with that mixture of pride and love all new parents know

So was there anything, the judge asked, that the parents might like to add?

At which point Connie Yates squeezed out of her pew, followed by her partner, and made for the witness box. A court usher had thoughtfully parked a box of tissues on the handrail.

Drawn and drained to the chalky pallor of one who has spent sleepless months at a hospital bedside, the 31-year-old carer was resolute none the less. She had her speech and she was going to make it. Chris Gard stood behind her, stooped and biting his lip.

There followed a mix of deep gratitude, cogent medical argument and burning anger, reaching its crescendo in an unbearably poignant tribute to an absolute warrior who has had a greater impact on and touched more people in this world in his 11 months than many people do in a lifetime.

The what-ifs would haunt them both for the rest of their lives, Connie said, but they would always hold their heads up high. We will always know in our hearts that we did the very best for Charlie. And I hope that he is proud of us for fighting his corner.

How could he not be? This has been a turbulent, historic legal battle which has touched millions, dragged in the White House, the Vatican and Downing Street and raised serious questions about the rights of parents versus the jurisdiction of the courts.

It is one that has generated heated international debate. It has also led to ugly online threats against both Great Ormond Street Hospital, for obstructing plans to fly Charlie for treatment overseas, and against Charlies family for refusing to bow to the British medical establishment.

Connie learns doctors in the U.S. are testing a new drug, but Great Ormond Street medics say it would be futile

In March, Great Ormond Street asks the High Court to let Charlie die. His parents are given a month to make their case for treatment in the U.S. and Mail readers raise 197,000 in days

By April, 1.2 million has been donated. The Appeal Court and Supreme Court rule against the parents  but Connie and Chris fight on

In his conclusions yesterday, the judge deplored such threats and the pitfalls of social media when a case such as this goes viral.

The authorities were certainly not taking any chances, posting security guards at the doors, an extreme measure more appropriate to the Old Bailey than the Family Division of the High Court. Once again, a large contingent of international media had come to witness the latest stage  no one knew it would be the last  in this story.

There was so much interest that the judiciary had moved the proceedings to a court with camera equipment to provide a video link to an adjacent court. When the link wouldnt work, the usher did her best to cram everyone into the one court, even breaking her own rules to allow standing at the back.

We had come prepared for hours if not days of yet more heated arguments. As he opened the proceedings, Grant Armstrong, barrister for Charlies parents, was anything but combative. He began by talking of the new treatments which Chris and Connie had hoped for their offspring. The word had said it all. It meant they were not being hoped for any more.

Charlie had been clinging to a window of hope. That window no longer exists, he said softly. For Charlie, its too late. Time has run out. Irreversible muscular damage has been done and the treatment can no longer be a success.

As news of this grave conclusion was still being tweeted to the wider world, sobbing broke out around the court. The court usher made a beeline for the bench where Chris Gards family were sitting, handing them a badly-needed box of tissues.

Safe and snug in Mums arms, Charlie has a well-needed nap, giving Connie a few precious moments of peace to marvel at her baby

A picture of health. For the first few weeks Charlie seemed a normal baby, but then Connie noticed something was not right and the nightmare began

September and the diagnosis is devastating: a rare strain of mitochondrial depletion syndrome, one of only 16 known cases

While Mr Armstrong continued to reflect on a pattern of events worthy of a Greek tragedy, Connie gently rocked from side to side, clearly wanting to get this over with, to get back to her sons bedside.

Great Ormond Streets barrister, Katie Gollop QC, looked subdued. On Friday, she had enraged Charlies family by revealing the contents of his latest, undisclosed medical reports as very sad reading, a low blow considering the family had not yet seen them. Wisely, she kept things to a minimum yesterday. We are more sorry than I have words to say, she said, and sat down.

Mr Justice Francis offered profuse condolences to the parents and, once again, attacked the legal system for the ludicrous anomaly whereby parents qualify for legal aid if a council wants to take their child into care but not if a hospital wants to switch off a childs life support machine. He has been a model of restraint and compassion throughout these proceedings, even when the family were trying to have him kicked off the case.

However unorthodox it might have been, he said that the parents were welcome to come forward and say whatever they wanted.

After all that they have been through, it would have been no surprise if Chris and Connie had chosen not to come to court at all yesterday. There was no longer anything to fight for. Instead, they wanted to set the record straight and leave no one in any doubt  least of all Charlie  that this had been a just, honourable and entirely rational campaign.

This is one of the hardest things that we will ever have to say and we are about to do the hardest thing that well ever have to do, Connie began, prompting fresh sniffles around this red-eyed court.

As lawyers and doctors continue to argue, devastated Connie is left to face the fact that she may have to let Charlie go

As summer arrives, there is a brief reprieve for Charlie as scientists come up with new evidence and the High Court invites American specialist Dr Michio Hirano to examine him

But final scans show there is no hope. Chris and Connie give up their battle in court. A window of opportunity has been missed, says their lawyer

It was a magisterial, 2,000-word address, going back over all the arguments without yielding on any of them. This has never been about parents know best. We have continuously listened to experts in this field, she said. We didnt keep him alive just because we couldnt bear to lose him. Charlie had a real chance of getting better. Its now unfortunately too late for him.

There was one batsqueak of levity as she thanked her stalwart legal team: They have not asked for a single penny. They wont even let us buy them a coffee.

Her closing thoughts, however, were agony. Through the tears, she battled on: We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately wont make his first birthday in just under two weeks time. Mummy and Daddy love you so much Charlie. We always have and we always will and we are so sorry that we couldnt save you. Sweet dreams baby. Sleep tight our beautiful little boy.

The court could not adjourn fast enough. Outside in the Strand, a group of supporters and young mothers calling themselves Charlies Army had been waiting beneath blue balloons and placards appealing to the judge. As Chris and Connie appeared, they launched a few forlorn chants of Justice for Charlie before falling silent as Chris reiterated the main points of Connies statement above the rush-hour traffic.

Over to one side, I met Connies father, Matthew, 72. He was just sorry that his wife, Elizabeth, could not be there. As ever, she was keeping Charlie company at his bedside and so had not seen their daughters saddest yet finest hour. I didnt think Connie would get through that, he said. I am so proud of her. As no doubt her son would be, too.

No parents could have done more. But now a family who had been hoping against hope to see that first birthday party must now start to prepare their farewells.
Families are making their toddlers drag suitcases on planes to avoid paying fees to put baggage in the hold, says Ryanair.

The budget airline said passengers were taking advantage of its 'generous' allowances and it might have to increase checks at boarding gates.

But travel experts described the claims as 'ludicrous' and said customers were simply following the rules.

Ryanair says fewer passengers than ever are checking bags into the hold in order to save money. The carrier allocates all ticket-holders, including children aged two and above, an allowance of two pieces of luggage  a 10kg suitcase and a second smaller 'personal' bag  on board.

Ryanair's finance boss Neil Sorahan sid: 'I've seen two-year-olds wheeling a bag up to the plane as people try to take advantage'

The airline's 'no-frills' model, and emphasis on cut-price fares, means it can cost more to check in a bag than purchase a seat

But finance boss Neil Sorahan said some passengers were abusing the system and 'coming in with the kitchen sink'.

'I've seen two-year-olds wheeling a bag up to the plane as people try to take advantage,' he said.

'The vast majority of people play by the rules, but there's always people who don't. If people turn up with a normal size bag, handbag or a briefcase, it works very well.

'Unfortunately some people bring massive backpacks or things that will never fit into the aircraft and that causes issues.'

The airline's 'no-frills' model, and emphasis on cut-price fares, means it can cost more to check in a bag than purchase a seat.

Bags weighing 15kg typically cost 50 to check in while 20kg bags cost 60.

Mr Sorahan added: 'We will have to start paying closer attention to the size of bags that people are bringing to the gates with them.

'We are very generous when it comes to our on-board bags. It is important that people play by the rules  and if everybody does that there's no issues. But it is the people coming with the kitchen sink that could change the policy.'

Mr Sorahan added: 'We will have to start paying closer attention to the size of bags that people are bringing to the gates with them'

But Emma Coulthurst, travel expert TravelSupermarket.com, said: 'You have to pay for a seat for a child of two so a family is fully entitled to bring luggage for that child. And, really, how many toddlers have you seen on the Tarmac pulling 10kg cases.

'He may find families choosing, as a result of his comments, to fly with someone who seems to want their custom more.

'Perhaps, customers feel that Ryanair is taking the Michael with some of its seating charges, with families feeling that they are being held to ransom to pay for priority allocated seating, to ensure that they can sit with their children on a plane.

James Daley, managing director of consumer group Fairer Finance, said Ryanair's claims were 'ludicrous', claiming it showed the airline 'has lost its grip on reality'

'Perhaps, Ryanair should instead be looking at that policy and guaranteeing that families can sit with their children and don't have to pay in advance for the privilege.'

James Daley, managing director of consumer group Fairer Finance, said Ryanair's claims were 'ludicrous', claiming it showed the airline 'has lost its grip on reality'.

Mr Sorahan was speaking after Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary raised the possibility of a fares price war.

He said the airline would likely make cuts averaging 8 per cent in the second half of the year and added: 'We expect the pricing environment to remain very competitive.'

Budget rivals easyJet and Wizz Air have already both said they expect to cut fares.

A Ryanair spokesman said: 'No one does more for families than Ryanair and no families are 'held to ransom'. Our family seating policy does guarantee that families sit together and we give children under-12 free reserved seats once an accompanying adult has paid 4/4 to reserve a seat for themselves.'
Michio Hirano (pictured) said his experimental drugs might help Charlie Gard, and he offered to treat him in the US

An American professor was criticised by Great Ormond Street last night for giving Charlie Gard's family false hope.

Michio Hirano said his experimental drugs had a chance of helping the sick child and he offered to treat him in the US.

But lawyers for Great Ormond Street said they were concerned to learn the doctor had a financial interest in some of the drugs he proposed to use. The children's hospital said it was disappointed he had been so optimistic when he had not examined Charlie himself, or read his latest medical records or seen his brain scans.

The court case over Charlie's treatment was reopened after Dr Hirano and six other experts said they had new evidence that could affect the judge's earlier decision that the boy would not benefit from further treatment and should be allowed to die.

But Great Ormond Street's lawyer, Katie Gollop QC, said there were no grounds for such optimism and she questioned why Charlie's parents were led to believe Dr Hirano's nucleoside bypass therapy could help.

In a statement to the High Court, she said: 'When the hospital was informed that the professor had new laboratory findings causing him to believe NBT would be more beneficial to Charlie than he had previously opined, GOSH's hope for Charlie and his parents was that that optimism would be confirmed.

Radical American pastor Patrick Mahoney (centre, outside the Royal Courts of Justice) loudly called on God to change the judge's mind. He has been arrested  and jailed  in the US for repeated direct action against judges and medics he perceives as being pro-abortion

'It was, therefore, with increasing surprise and disappointment that the hospital listened to the professor's fresh evidence to the court.

'On 13 July he stated that not only had he not visited the hospital to examine Charlie but in addition, he had not read Charlie's contemporaneous medical records or viewed Charlie's brain imaging or read all of the second opinions about Charlie's condition  obtained from experts all of whom had taken the opportunity to examine him and consider his records  or even read the judge's decision made on April 11.

'Further, GOSH was concerned to hear the professor state, for the first time, while in the witness box, that he retains a financial interest in some of the NBT compounds he proposed prescribing for Charlie. Devastatingly, the information obtained since 13 July gives no cause for optimism.

Dr Hirano, a Harvard-educated neuroscientist, told the High Court along with Charlie's parents Connie Yates (left) and Chris Gard (right, holding his son) that new drugs had a 'small but significant' chance of helping Charlie's rare condition and it was 'worth trying'

'Rather, it confirms that while NBT may well assist others in the future, it cannot and could not have assisted Charlie.'

Dr Hirano, a Harvard-educated neuroscientist, told the High Court that new drugs had a 'small but significant' chance of helping Charlie's rare condition and it was 'worth trying'.

Great Ormond Street has been praised by judges for its care of Charlie, but has faced condemnation by some pro-life campaigners.

It has emerged that hospital staff have received death threats and abuse and that police were called after 'unacceptable behaviour' was recorded in the hospital.

Great Ormond Street has been praised by judges for its care of Charlie (pictured), but has faced condemnation by some pro-life campaigners. Hospital staff have received death threats and abuse and police were called after 'unacceptable behaviour' was recorded in the hospital

The case took on the air of a circus when Donald Trump and Pope Francis made high-profile interventions at the start of July. They were swiftly followed by a radical American pastor loudly calling on God to change the judge's mind. The pastor  Patrick Mahoney  arrived on July 9 bringing his 'power of prayer'. He has been arrested  and jailed  in the US for repeated direct action against judges and medics he perceives as being pro-abortion.

Next up was American attorney Catherine Glenn Foster, part of Rev Mahoney's pro-life lobby. She planted a tender kiss on Charlie's head and then tweeted it to her followers and made it her Facebook profile photo.

She has apparently been offering legal tips to the family. Alasdair Seton-Marsden, a UKIP candidate in the general election, was also involved in the case.

Supporters of Charlie Gard's parents outside the High Court for a hearing on the baby's future

He initially made statesman-like pronouncements on behalf of the family outside court. But then he started appearing on American television accusing the NHS of holding Charlie 'as a captive'. He then fell out with Charlie's parents over the media strategy.

Last Saturday, hospital chief Mary MacLeod called in police and issued a statement revealing 'a shocking and disgraceful tide of hostility and disturbance'. In response, Miss Yates and Mr Gard said they were 'extremely upset by the backlash we have received after Great Ormond Street Hospital put out their statement'. They added: 'We too have suffered from the most hurtful comments from the public and GOSH is aware of this.'

Dr Hirano, of Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, specialises in mitochondrial depletion syndrome. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr Justice Francis (above) poured scorn on the 'absurd notion' that Charlie Gard had been a 'prisoner of the NHS'

The judge in the Charlie Gard case yesterday lamented social media for giving a platform to users 'who know almost nothing'.

Mr Justice Francis poured scorn on the 'absurd notion' by online commentators that the baby had been a 'prisoner of the NHS'.

And he condemned the tide of abuse directed at the doctors and nurses of Great Ormond Street Hospital as well as Charlie's parents.

He told the High Court in London: 'The world of social media doubtless has very many benefits but one of its pitfalls, I suggest, is that when cases such as this go viral, the watching world feels entitled to express opinions  whether or not they are evidence-based.

'A lot of things have been said by those who know almost nothing about this case but who feel entitled to express opinions... based on feelings rather than facts'.

The judge said the case had escalated to an 'international scale' and had even involved US President Donald Trump, the Vatican and Prime Minister Theresa May. But he said he had to try cases on the basis of evidence  and urged anyone who wanted to understand it to examine his judgments.

He said one idea circulating online held that Charlie was a 'prisoner' but the judge described it as 'the antithesis of the truth'.

Although he did not identify anyone in particular, Alasdair Seton-Marsden  a former Ukip candidate who was briefly the family spokesman  went on US television recently to make a series of claims about Charlie.

Mr Seton-Marsden said of the youngster: 'Literally, he is being held captive by effectively the British state and the British national health system.'

He also told Sky News that if Charlie's parents had been rich and not 'ordinary people', their son 'wouldn't have become what is essentially  and these are my words  a prisoner of the state. The child is effectively being taken prisoner by the NHS and by the state'.

Mr Justice Francis also condemned the tide of abuse directed at the doctors and nurses of Great Ormond Street Hospital as well as Charlie's parents, Chris Gard (L) and Connie Yates (R)

Yesterday the judge said the court was involved 'precisely because the hospital does not have the power' to determine Charlie's best interests.

He said it was his 'duty to comment briefly on the absurd notion which has appeared in recent days that Charlie has been a prisoner of the National Health Service or that the National Health Service has the power to decide Charlie's fate. This is the antithesis of the truth.

'In this country children have rights independent of their parents'.

Mr Justice Francis also condemned abuse of the medical team at London's world renowned Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). He said: 'Some of the staff at that hospital have been subjected to serious threats and abuse. I made it clear before, and make it clear now, that I am completely satisfied that these fine parents have nothing whatever to do with those threats.

'Each and every man and woman working at Great Ormond Street Hospital is dedicated to the treatment of sick, very often desperately sick, children. These surgeons, physicians, doctors, nurses, ancillary staff, technicians and all others working there are dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the treatment of sick children and it is in my judgment a disgrace that they should have been subjected to any form of abuse whatsoever and it is to be condemned.'

The judge also said it was absurd Charlie's parents did not qualify for legal aid when a hospital was trying to end their son's life. He said MPs made a mistake with legal aid reforms

Last Saturday, hospital chief executive Mary MacLeod called police amid revelations of a 'shocking and disgraceful tide of hostility and disturbance'. She added: 'Staff have received abuse both in the street and online. Thousands of abusive messages have been sent to doctors and nurses whose life's work is to care for sick children.

'Many of these messages are menacing, including death threats. Families have been harassed and discomforted while visiting their children, and we have received complaints of unacceptable behaviour even within the hospital itself.'

Charlie's parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard have repeatedly condemned the abuse of medical staff and say they have also been on the receiving end of vile abuse.

Miss Yates said they were 'extremely upset by the backlash we have received after Great Ormond Street Hospital put out their statement', adding: 'We too have suffered from the most hurtful comments from the public and GOSH is aware of this.

'Chris and I are just ordinary parents with a very sick baby. We have always had the utmost respect for all the staff who work tirelessly at Great Ormond Street Hospital.'

.............................................................................Why didn't baby's parents qualify for legal aid?

The judge said it was absurd Charlie's parents did not qualify for legal aid when a hospital was trying to end the life of their child.

He accused MPs of making a mistake with legal aid reforms.

Parents do get help if social services applies to court to take away their child  but not if a hospital wants to withdraw life-support.

Charlie's parents have been fortunate because a succession of lawyers have represented them for free, or 'pro bono'.

But Mr Justice Francis said yesterday: 'It does seem to me that when Parliament changed the law in relation to legal aid, it cannot have intended that parents in the position that these parents have been in should have no access to legal advice or representation.'

Supporters of Charlie Gard's parents react outside the High Court hearing on the baby's future

He said to 'most like-minded people', the NHS was as much an arm of the state as is a local authority, adding: 'I can think of few more profound cases than ones where a trust is applying to the court for a declaration that a life-support machine should be switched off in respect of a child.'

He thanked Charlie's lawyers for working pro bono but said: 'I am aware that there are many parents around the country in similar positions where their cases have been less public and where they have had to struggle to represent themselves. I cannot imagine that anyone ever intended parents to be in this position.'

By law, a couple cannot receive legal aid if they have more than 30,804 pre-tax income, 8,796 disposable income and 8,000 savings and assets. Bob Neill, chairman of the Commons justice committee, said that it was 'extraordinary' the family might not have qualified.

He called for the rules to be made more flexible and said: 'To apply an ungenerous means test in effect without any regard to the nature of the case and evidence required isn't fair. The way [legal aid] has been pared back in recent years has gone beyond what is reasonable and it only leads to injustice.'
The husband of Melbourne mother Karen Ristevski has been spotted leaving the couple's Melbourne home as footage has emerged of police conducting a re-enactment with what is believed to be the boutique owner's car.

Borce Ristevski, who police previously said is a suspect in his wife's murder, was seen driving away from the couple's home in Avondale Heights around 6.30am on Tuesday.

Borce refused to answer questions about the investigation into Karen's death, which appears to be heating up amid fresh developments.

It comes one day after police were seen driving a black Mercedes Coupe from the Ristevski's home reportedly in the direction of Mt Macedon, where her body was found, according to 7News.

The husband of Karen Ristevski was seen leaving the couple's Melbourne home on Tuesday as footage emerged of police examining what appears to be his wife's car (pictured)

Mystery: Karen Ristevski went missing last June. Borce Ristevski, on right, is the chief police suspect in her disappearance, his own lawyer said

Borce Ristevski, who police previously said is a suspect in his wife's murder, was seen driving away from the couple's home in Avondale Heights around 6.30am on Tuesday (pictured)

During the 'staged police activity', a police car followed the Mercedes as it headed back to the Ristevski home before being placed on a tow truck.

A witness working in the area snapped a picture of the car on the back of the tow truck and later told Radio 3AW the car was escorted by an unmarked police station wagon with flashing lights.

Karen's body was found wedged between two logs in bushland at Mount Macedon, north of the city, on February 20.

The Bella Bleu fashion retailer went missing in June 2016, apparently following an argument with her husband.

The car towing comes weeks after police released CCTV footage of a similar vehicle driving through Diggers Rest the day Ms Ristevski disappeared.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman declined to comment. 'We're not providing a running commentary on any investigation,' she said.

A witness named Rob took this photograph of a black Mercedes being taken away from the Ristevski family home

Police previously released CCTV footage of a black Mercedes Benz SLK coupe in Diggers Rest on June 29, 2016 - the day Ms Ristevski was last seen

Both police and Borce's own lawyer have described Karen's husband as a suspect in the disappearance.

Borce has adamantly denied any involvement in his wife's death.

Borce reportedly told police he took his wife's 2004 Mercedes coupe for a drive to test a faulty fuel gauge.

He said the fault fixed itself after he drove the car over a bump in the road near Calder Park Raceway so he turned back home.

Borce closed his wife's last remaining shop in May.
A Marine Corp veteran has made a bucket list for his bomb dog turned service dog who only has days to live.

Corporal Jeff DeYoung, 27, from Muskegon, Michigan, was first deployed to Afghanistan with Cena in 2009. After they both left the service, DeYoung adopted Cena in 2014, which helped him cope with his PTSD.

Two weeks ago, Cena was diagnosed with bone cancer and given a short time to live.

The dog will be put down in a few days and DeYoung wants to make sure they can cherish their remaining time together.

Corporal Jeff DeYoung, 27, from Muskegon, Michigan, has made a bucket list for his bomb dog turned service dog Cena, who only has days to live

DeYoung was first deployed to Afghanistan at the age of 19 with Cena in 2009. The two were paired based on a personality test

Before DeYoung was first deployed to Afghanistan at the age of 19, he was paired with Cena based on a personality test.

'He was very quiet, I was very quiet. We were very mellow and kind of belonged together,' DeYoung told Fox 17.

The pair walked in front of an infantry unit to locate IEDs to protect the unit behind them.

'Have you ever gambled? It was like that times by like 300,' DeYoung, a combat engineer, said.

'Our first day inside the city of Marjah we were clearing an already tilled over corn field,' he said.

'The sun was coming up with the village in front of us so the sun was hitting our eyes. The moment the sun peaked over those buildings we took contact.

'We took machine gun fire from three separate places and I laid on top of Cena and hooked his collar to my flack jacket and laid on him until the threat was neutralized.'

The pair walked in front of an infantry unit to locate IEDs to protect the unit behind them. DeYoung, a combat engineer, said it was like gambling

After that tour, Cena did two more tours with other handlers. DeYoung retired in 2013, but struggled with PTSD. In 2014, he was able to adopt Cena, who became his service dog.

'I started noticing that going out in public was easier, less anxious, I could do more things when I had him once again by my side,' said DeYoung.

But when he noticed two weeks ago that Cena was limping and not walking on his back leg, DeYoung took him to a vet who thought it was bone cancer.

He went on to get opinions from other vets, but they all said the same thing.

Cena only had a few weeks to live. DeYoung was devastated.

'To be frank, I hid under the desk in the vet's office, I threw my phone against the wall and the vet had to leave the room until I could compose myself,' DeYoung said.

DeYoung retired from the Marines in 2013, but struggled with PTSD. In 2014, he was able to adopt Cena, who became his service dog

To help the two cherish their last days together, DeYoung made a bucket list for Cena.

'I want to go for a ride in a Jeep Wrangler with the top off, surrounded by green trees and my dog by me,' he said. 'Just one last good day.'

DeYoung is also organizing a salute for his dog, hoping military members and police will be there to salute Cena as he walks into the vet Wednesday afternoon.

The dog is scheduled to go down around 6pm. DeYoung will keep his remains in an ammo can.

'We walked in front of the group that we served with and everything that they faced we faced first,' he said. 'Overseas it was me and him against the world.'

A GoFundMe page has been set up so a headstone can be built for Cena. DeYoung hopes his dog can be buried at a war dog memorial in Lyons, Michigan.
President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner had to walk by an angry protester who mockingly asked him to sign a Russian flag after he appeared before Senate investigators Monday.

Kushner was going through a carefully choreographed morning Monday, with the release of an 11-page statement on his Russia contacts and a closed meeting with staff accompanied by his lawyer.

When he left the meeting with Senate Intelligence Committee staff, he quickly exited the Hart Senate office building, but had to walk by three groups of reporters hoping for a statement.

'Please, sign my Russian flag!' a protester yelled at Jared Kushner in the Senate Hart Building Monday

Scroll down for video

Instead, he got an earful from Ryan Clayton, who was hiding out in an area where reporters were staking out the meeting.

After his Senate meeting as he walked down a hallway packed with a crush of media, Clayton tried to hand Kushner a Russian flag to get him to sign it.

'Mr. Kushner will you sign my Russian flag? Sign my Russian flag, please, sign my Russian flag!'

Kushner can be seen on video of the incident giving a wide smile as he walked through the stunt, just hours after he disclosed four Russian contacts in an 11-page letter in advance of his meeting with investigators.

Clayton previously walked around the annual CPAC conference with Russian flags in a similar stunt.

Kushner said only a few words as he left the building  en route to the White House where he delivered a pre-written statement.

ESCAPE PLAN: Kushner left the Senate Hart Building with his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, after getting harangued by a protester

RED, WHITE, AND BLUE: Ryan Clayton of "Americans Take Action" asks White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner to sign a Russian flag for him as Kushner (not pictured) departs following his appearance before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of their probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

WAVE THAT FLAG: A protester who identified himself as Ryan Clayton holds a Russian flag on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, July 24, 2017, after yelling at White House senior adviser Jared Kushner

As Kushner made his way out of the building to go to the White House, Clayton held court before reporters and photographers

Clayton stood in an area that Capitol Police reserved for reporters staking out a meeting between Kushner and Senate investigators, essentially posing as a reporter

That left Capitol reporters without much to cover besides Clayton, who proceeded to deliver a harangue about the Trump administration's Russia ties.

'I think he's a liar. And everyone who reads that statement knows he's a liar,' said Clayton, as a group of videographers and photographers recorded him.

'He is communicating through secret back channels with agents of the Russian government. We all know it. Why does everyone in the White House have all these connections to Russia?' he asked.

'Its despicable we must do something about this. Impeach this president. He must resign immediately,' he continued, after Kushner was long gone.

THIS IS MORE WHAT WE HAD IN MIND: Kushner speaks at the White House, with a large American flag pictured in the frame

'I am here today because that man right there conspired with the Russians to steal an American election. That should be unacceptable,' Clayton said.

Clayton said he was from the group Americans Take Action. 'There is a traitor in chief in the White House and he should be removed immediately.'

Kushner may have gotten his message briefly stepped on. But he scored his own tactical win on the airwaves when his own White House statement  delivered using a podium with the seal of the White House on it  preempted coverage of the rollout of a new Democratic message.
Abbiegail 'Abbie' Smith, 11, was found stabbed to death in New Jersey on July 13

A Jamaican man missed his 11-year-old daughter's funeral after being denied a temporary visa, despite pleading with President Donald Trump.

Kenroy Smith said his heart was 'torn apart' after the brutal death of AbbieGail 'Abbie' Smith after the girl was stabbed to death in Keansburg, New Jersey, on July 13.

Kenroy, who was deported to Jamaica after a marijuana arrest in 2001, was unable to attend his daughter's funeral on Monday morning because his temporary visa was denied.

Abbie's older sister Kenish also had her visa denied and missed the young girl's funeral which was held at St. Anns Roman Catholic Church.

Kenroy and Kenish had even appealed to President Trump in order for the US to let them inside the country, but their efforts were in vain.

Kenroy, talking to WCBS-TV from Jamaica, echoed the sentiments expressed at Monday's service for Abbie, who was remembered as Princess Abbie.

'She was my everything,' Kenroy said. 'She was my princess. She was my angel.'

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Her father Kenroy Smith (pictured with Abbie when she was younger) missed the little girl's funeral on Monday after being denied a temporary visa to visit from Jamaica

Her sister in Jamaica, Kenish Smith (right), also had her visa denied and wasn't allowed to travel to the US for the Monday morning funeral

Kenroy revealed he was originally deported to his home country after a marijuana arrest in 2001.

He tearfully said to WABC: 'I just want to see my daughter for the last time please.

'I want to see her before, before, please I'm asking, I want to see her before they put her underneath. I want her to rest in peace knowing her dad was there.'

Kenish said she wasn't told why her application was rejected and the Department of State said it's prohibited from disclosing details about visa cases.

Abbie's body was found July 13 in a blanket near her apartment building. Authorities said she was stabbed by Andreas Erazo, an 18-year-old neighbor, and charged him with murder.

The 11-year-old girl moved to the US with her mother, Carol Bennett-Smith, about 10 years ago after she was born in Jamaica.

Abbie was laid to rest by family and loved ones in Keansburg, New Jersey (pictured)

Kenroy (above with Abbie) told WABC he was deported because of a marijuana arrest in 2001 and pleased with President Trump to allow him into the country for the funeral

The heartbroken mother broke down during his Erazo's first court appearance and started screaming at him.

'I hope you rot in jail,' Bennett-Smith screamed at him in Monmouth County Superior Court on Friday.

'My one and only daughter, you took her away from me. You need to rot in jail.

'You can't even look at us,' she yelled as Erazo sat hunched and stared at the ground.

Erazo, who is charged with murder and weapons charges, lived in the apartment above Abbie's family.

Abbie was found dead with multiple stab wounds and was wrapped up in a blanket near her apartment building

Andreas Erazo (pictured), 18, was arrested and charged with Abbie's murder. He is pictured above during his first court appearance on Friday at Monmouth County Superior Court

Her mother had reported her missing to police after she was last seen inside her apartment at 7.45pm.

Police have not released a motive for the killing. The neighbor is scheduled to appear in court this week.

As Abbie's family wept and shared stories of her life, her aunt Sonja Bennett hoped for answers.

'We want to hold your hand and see your face, but you were taken from us and we don't know why,' she said.
The father of a six-year-old Hawaii boy who disappeared two decades ago has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

Peter Kema Sr, 46, was ordered Monday to two decades in prison for manslaughter, fulfilling a deal with prosecutors that required him to reveal the location of his son's body.

He must serve a minimum of six years and eight months.

Though the father led police and prosecutors to a remote coastal area of the Big Island in April, water and time prevented authorities from finding any remains, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rick Damerville said.

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Peter Kema Sr (left), the father of a six-year-old Hawaii boy who disappeared two decades ago, has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars. Kema Sr is pictured in court Monday with his lawyer

Kema later passed a polygraph test, which said he was telling the truth about where he disposed of the remains and allowed his sentencing to move forward.

Prosecutors believe the child, known as 'Peter Boy,' was abused and died from septic shock after a festering arm sore went untreated.

Kema declined to speak at his sentencing.

'He didn't apologize or acknowledge his family,' Prosecuting Attorney Mitch Roth said.

The boy's mother, Jaylin Kema, was released from jail in April after serving a year for manslaughter.

At a hearing last year, she agreed to facts that prosecutors laid out in court about abuse the boy suffered, her failure to get him medical treatment and his eventual death.

Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura speaks after handing down the sentence to Kema Sr on Monday

This undated file photo shows Hawaii boy, Peter Kema Jr, known as 'Peter Boy,' in a photo provided by his family. Kema Sr was sentenced on Monday for killing the boy

That was the first official confirmation the child was dead.

The Kemas had long been suspects in their son's disappearance, but prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to charge them until last year, when a grand jury indicted the couple on murder counts.

After Peter vanished in 1997, he became the face of a Hawaii campaign for missing and abused children in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Posters and bumper stickers asked, 'So where's Peter?'

Peter Kema told authorities that he took his son from the Big Island to Oahu and gave him to someone named 'Aunty Rose Makuakane' in an informal adoption.

Police could not find a woman as described by Kema or airline records that indicated he had flown there.

The turning point in the cold case came when Peter Kema Sr's wife, Jaylin Kema (right), agreed to testify against her husband in exchange for a one-year sentence

Peter Kema Sr and Jaylin Kema, parents of Hawaii boy Peter Kema, known as 'Peter Boy,' are seen here in Honolulu in April 1998

Sometime between May and June 1997, the couple's then-4-year-old daughter heard Jaylin Kema calling out for her husband and saw her trying to resuscitate the boy, prosecutors said.

The girl later saw her brother in a box, prosecutors said.

In 2005, then-state Human Services Director Lillian Koller released more than 2,000 pages of heavily redacted documents, detailing allegations of abuse suffered by Peter and his siblings at the hands of their father.

The case shows that more needs to be done to protect abused children, Roth said. The prosecutor said he plans to push for legislation that would require a judge to weigh in when parents with a history of abuse want to pull a child out of school.

Peter had been taken out of school.

'This is not the final chapter,' Roth said.

'This is a time that we should be looking at what kind of changes we can make to the system.'
The moon's interior could contain as much water as Earth's, say scientists.

Volcanic deposits scattered across the surface of the moon contain unusually high amounts of trapped water, researchers have found.

The finding bolsters the idea that the lunar mantle is surprisingly water-rich which could make colonising it for future space exploration much easier, researchers said.

New research shows trace amounts of water trapped in ancient volcanic deposits on the moon. Coloured areas indicate elevated water content compared with surrounding terrains. Yellows and reds indicate the richest water content

MOON'S WATERY INTERIOR Volcanic deposits scattered across the surface of the moon contain unusually high amounts of trapped water, researchers have found. To study the water content of lunar volcanic deposits, researchers had to study data from satellites orbiting the moon's surface. Scientists used orbital spectrometers to measure the light that bounces off the surface of the moon. The researchers found evidence of water in nearly all of the large volcanic deposits that had been previously mapped across the moon's surface. This included deposits near the Apollo 15 and 17 landing sites where samples had previously been collected. Advertisement

The ancient deposits are believed to consist of glass beads formed by the explosive eruption of magma coming from deep within the lunar interior, according to the scientists.

Last month Professor Stephen Hawking said mankind could have a station on the moon within 30 years. He says it will be a useful stopping off point to other planets,

But one of the biggest problems for any human settlement is the difficulty in transporting vast quantities of water from Earth.

However, this suggests these lunar beads could provide water for inhabitants of a future space city.

Scientists had assumed for years that the interior of the moon had been largely depleted of water and other volatile compounds.

But in 2008, researchers detected trace amounts of water in some of the volcanic glass beads brought back to Earth from the Apollo 15 and 17 missions.

And in 2011, further study of tiny crystalline formations within those beads revealed that they actually contain similar amounts of water as some basalts on Earth.

That suggests that parts if the moon's mantle contain as much water as Earth's.

'The deposits of volcanic glass beads on the moon are quite large', Ralph Milliken, lead author of the new research and a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island told MailOnline.

'The beads would need to be heated to high temperatures to extract the water, and then any vapor that comes out could be condensed to liquid', he said.

'Although the total amount of water in a single glass bead may not be much, the presence of water in these materials and the sheer volume of material means that these deposits may be a useful resource for water on the moon', he said.

Volcanic deposits scattered across the surface of the moon contain unusually high amounts of trapped water, researchers have found (stock image of the moon's surface)

Although the volcanic beads contain only 0.5 per cent water, they appear in large clusters.

These volcanic clusters could potentially be harvested by lunar settlers, the researchers said, although they could not specify what a future settlement might look like.

HOW THE MOON FORMED Many researchers believe the moon formed after Earth was hit by a planet the size of Mars billions of years ago. This is called the giant impact hypothesis. The hypothesis claims the moon is debris left over following an indirect collision between our planet and an astronomical body approximately 4.5 billion years ago. The colliding body is sometimes called Theia, after the mythical Greek Titan who was the mother of Selene, the goddess of the moon. But one mystery has persisted, revealed by rocks the Apollo astronauts brought back from the moon - why are the moon and Earth so similar in their composition? Several different theories have emerged over the years to explain the similar fingerprints of Earth and the moon. Perhaps the impact created a huge cloud of debris that mixed thoroughly with the Earth and then later condensed to form the moon. Or Theia could have, coincidentally, been isotopically similar to young Earth. A third possibility is that the moon formed from Earthen materials, rather than from Theia, although this would have been a very unusual type of impact. Advertisement

Dr Milliken said one draw-back of using beads is that they are not a renewable resource.

'Once you have extracted the water from a pile of the volcanic glass beads it is no longer a useful source for water', he said.

To study the water content of lunar volcanic deposits, researchers had to study data from satellites orbiting the moon's surface.

'The key question is whether those Apollo samples represent the bulk conditions of the lunar interior or instead represent unusual or perhaps anomalous water-rich regions within an otherwise 'dry' mantle,' said Dr Milliken.

'By looking at the orbital data, we can examine the large pyroclastic [volcanic] deposits on the moon that were never sampled by the Apollo or Luna missions.

'The fact that nearly all of them exhibit signatures of water suggests that the Apollo samples are not anomalous, so it may be that the bulk interior of the moon is wet.'

Scientists used orbital spectrometers to measure the light that bounces off the surface of the moon.

By looking at which wavelengths of light are absorbed or reflected by the surface, scientists could get an idea of which minerals and other compounds are present.

But the lunar surface heats up over the course of a day, especially at the latitudes where these volcanic deposits are located.

This causes the spectrometers to measure heat as well as light wavelengths.

'That thermally emitted radiation happens at the same wavelengths that we need to use to look for water,' Dr Milliken said.

'So in order to say with any confidence that water is present, we first need to account for and remove the thermally emitted component.'

To do that, the researchers used laboratory-based measurements of samples returned from the Apollo missions, combined with a detailed temperature profile of the areas of interest on the moon's surface.

Evidence from ancient volcanic deposits suggests that lunar magma contained substantial amounts of water, bolstering the idea that the moon's interior is water-rich.

Using the new thermal correction, the researchers looked at data from the moon mineralogy mapper, an imaging spectrometer that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter.

The researchers found evidence of water in nearly all of the large pyroclastic deposits that had been previously mapped across the Moon's surface.

This included deposits near the Apollo 15 and 17 landing sites where the water-bearing glass bead samples were collected.

'The distribution of these water-rich deposits is the key thing,' Dr Milliken said.

'They're spread across the surface, which tells us that the water found in the Apollo samples isn't a one-off.

'Lunar pyroclastics seem to be universally water-rich, which suggests the same may be true of the mantle.'

HOW THE MOON GOT ITS RINGS Researchers have suggested that collapsing craters have led to large scars on the moon's surface The Orientale impact basin is one of the largest, youngest and best-preserved craters on the moon. In the past, the feature has been difficult to study because it was hard to see, but scientists have now been able to investigate it further thanks to new data. Last year, two papers were published detailing both the structure of the impact crater, and a more complete theory as to how it was formed. Researchers used data gathered by Nasa's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (Grail) spacecraft mission, two orbiters designed to create the most accurate gravitational map of the moon to date. The study, published in Science, said the researchers' simulations suggest the impact was caused by a 39 mile (64 km) diameter body travelling at 9 miles (15km) per second. The impact first produced a bowl-shaped crater with a maximum depth of about 111 miles (180 km), but this cavity was unstable and experienced gravitational collapse. As the initial crater collapsed, existing faults in the rock allowed warm, weak mantle material to flow inward. This resulted in a sequence of collapses that formed the two outer rings of Orientale, after ejected material from the initial impact had already settled. Advertisement

The idea that the interior of the moon is water-rich raises interesting questions about its formation.

Scientists believe the moon formed from debris left behind after an object about the size of Mars slammed into the Earth very early in solar system history.

One of the reasons scientists had assumed the moon's interior should be dry is that it seems unlikely that any of the hydrogen needed to form water could have survived the heat of that impact.

'The growing evidence for water inside the moon suggest that water did somehow survive, or that it was brought in shortly after the impact by asteroids or comets before the moon had completely solidified,' said co-researcher Shuai Li from the University of Hawaii.

'The exact origin of water in the lunar interior is still a big question', Dr Li said.

'Other studies have suggested the presence of water ice in shadowed regions at the lunar poles, but the pyroclastic deposits are at locations that may be easier to access.

'Anything that helps save future lunar explorers from having to bring lots of water from home is a big step forward, and our results suggest a new alternative.'
Drones capable of carrying explosives to countries thousands of miles away could be available in just five years, according to an expert.

These terror drones could fly from Africa to the US in just over a day, a top US defence adviser told the Pentagon.

Many companies are chasing a new commercial market and pushing this technology forward which means in the next few years they could become widely available.

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The Greased Lightening drone (pictured) can fold eight out of its ten propellers down to reach optimum efficiency. It can fly for up to 24 hours without a break

OCEAN-SPANNING DRONES A company called Advanced Aircraft Company has created a drone called Greased Lightening which combines the best bits of drone and aeroplane design. It can fold eight out of its ten propellers down to reach optimum efficiency and can fly for up to 24 hours. Although it probably won't be in production for a few years it has benefited from the development of powerful electric motors. Silent Falcon, which was created by a subsidiary of Bye Aeronautics, has a solar-powered drone that can fly 200 kilometres (124 miles). The device is small enough to fit in the back of a pickup truck and can be put together and launched in less than 30 minutes. Advertisement

'In about five years, drones will be able to be launched from Africa which can reach our shores, because they'll have permanent power by the sun', Owen West, who is a top adviser for the Pentagon's special operations and low-intensity conflicts told US lawmakers in Virginia last week, according to the report by Defense One.

Last year, ISIS became the first non-state group to use commercial drones to attack their enemies,

General Raymond Thomas, who is the US Special Operations commander said their use of this technology was the 'most daunting problem' of last year.

They're particularly threatening because they could be commercially bought.

The US already has unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that can stay up for a day or more.

The MQ-1C Grey Eagle drone can stay up for 25 hours and the MQ-9 Reaper can fly more than 1,150 miles (1,850km), according to the report.

Over the next few years experts believe electric UAS will need more powerful electric motors, lighter solar cells and flight management systems that require a minimum of human input.

One of these companies, Advanced Aircraft Company, has created a drone called Greased Lightening which combines the best bits of drone and aeroplane design.

The report says many companies are chasing a new commercial market and pushing this technology forward which means they could become widely available. Pictured is the Greased Lightening drone

It can fold eight out of its ten propellers down to reach optimum efficiency and can fly for up to 24 hours.

It is a commercial variant of a design that was also being developed by NASA.

Although it probably won't be in production for a few years it has benefited from the development of powerful electric motors.

'You have conventional airplane UAS that are launched from catapults and have large recovery equipment like nets or skyhooks or things like that', founder and CEO Bill Fredericks told Defense One.

The Greased Lightening drone is a commercial variant of a design that was also being developed by NASA. Although it probably won't be in production for a few years it has benefited from the development of powerful electric motors

The US already has unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that can stay up for a day or more. Pictured is the Greased Lightening drone

'And basically those aircraft, the advantage is like a normal airplane, it gets a very good lift-to-drag ratio,' he said.

'Electric motors are really unique, and good efficiency and good power-to-weight electric motors are a relatively new thing to come to the market', Mr Fredericks said.

Silent Falcon, which was created by a subsidiary of Bye Aeronautics, has a solar-powered drone that can fly 200 kilometres (124 miles).

Silent Falcon, created by a subsidiary of Bye Aeronautics, has a solar-powered drone that can fly 200 kilometres (124 miles). Pictured is the Greased Lightening drone in flight

Over the next few years experts believe electric UAS will need more powerful electric motors, lighter solar cells and flight management systems that require a minimum of human input. Pictured is the Greased Lightening drone being controlled with a remote control device

The device is small enough to fit in the back of a pickup truck and can be put together and launched in less than 30 minutes.

'We take off with a catapult, and land with a parachute, so anywhere you can get a pickup truck, you can utilise our system,' said Silent Falcon's CEO and founder John Brown.

The Silent Falcon system currently costs several hundred thousand dollars but it will become more affordable as the technology becomes more used.
A new leak from Chinese social site Baidu claims to show the Nokia 8 flagship phone from all angles.

The photos suggest the phone has a dual camera setup with flash and comes in a copper gold finish.

While a release date has not been announced yet, rumours suggest the phone could be launched on 31 July.

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The photos leaked on the Chinese social site Baidu suggest the phone has a dual camera setup with flash and comes in a copper gold finish

NOKIA 8 RUMOURS The images show a Micro-USB port which suggests there might not be fast charging integrated into the device. It is believed to run on Android 7.1 and have a 5.3-inch QHD display. Insiders suggests it will initially be launched with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage - with later models getting 6GB RAM and 8GB variants. It is believed to be powered by a Snapdragon 835 processor. If rumours of collaboration with Carl Zeiss are true, the phone could have two 13-megapixel rear lenses and a 12-megapixel front camera. The dimensions are believed to be 151.55x73.7mm. Advertisement

The new device, which will be sold by Finnish company, HMD Global, is expected to cost between 500-600 (450-540, $580-700) and to come in four colours - Blue, Steel, Gold/Blue and Cooper/Gold.

The leak shows a Micro-USB port which suggests there might not be fast charging integrated into the device, writes Gadgets 360.

It is believed to run on Android 7.1 and have a 5.3-inch QHD display.

Insiders suggest it will initially be launched with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage - with later models getting 6GB RAM and 8GB RAM variants.

It is believed to be powered by a Snapdragon 835 processor and have a 3.5mm audio jack on top.

And following the announcement of a collaboration with lens brand, Carl Zeiss, the phone could have two 13-megapixel rear lenses and a 12-megapixel front camera - although the photos of this latest device do not have Zeiss branding.

The dimensions are expected to be 151.55x73.7mm.

Images suggest it will have curved glass at the edges and a soft curve on the rear.

The Nokia 3 handset is now available to order in the UK and the mid-range Nokia 5 and 6 are believed to be available from next month.

The Nokia 8 is believed to run on Android 7.1 and have a 5.3-inch QHD display. Insiders suggest it will initially be launched with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage - with later models getting 6GB RAM and 8GB variants

In May, HMD released the retro Nokia 3310 which had the much-loved game, Snake, and weighed just 79.6 grams.

The remake of the Nokia 3310 was announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), held in Barcelona in February.

A spokesperson for Nokia said: 'Thin, light and incredibly durable, the Nokia 3310 is a head turning modern twist on one of the best-selling feature phones of all time.

In May, HMD released the retro Nokia 3310 which had the much-loved game, Snake, and weighed just 79.6 grams

'Boasting an incredible 22-hour talk-time and month long stand-by, the Nokia 3310's fresh, colourful, modern design brings it bang up to date.

'Talk all day, text, take pictures, listen to music, and get hooked once more on the original mobile gaming hit Snake, all on a single charge.'
Earth sized 'rogue' planets that could harbour life may roam the darkness of space between the stars, according to new research.

The wandering worlds, known as free floating, rogue or orphan planets, have been detected using a technique called gravitational micro-lensing.

A team of Polish researchers found that Jupiter-like rogue planets may be at least ten times less common than previously thought.

But Earth-sized ones, which are harder to spot but could support life, could be more widespread.

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Pictured is artist's impression of a gravitational microlensing event by a free-floating planet. Microlensing is when a star or planet acts as a cosmic lens to magnify and brighten a more distant object lined up behind it

ROGUE PLANETS Rogue planets are objects that orbit the galaxy itself rather than a star. Other names for the objects include interstellar planet, nomad planet, free-floating planet, orphan planet, wandering planet, starless planet, sunless planet, and Planemo. The objects have either been ejected from the planetary system in which they were born or have never been associated with a star. It is believed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, could be home to billions of wandering worlds. Advertisement

Researchers from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw carried out a survey of the Milky Way's vast central bulge.

Previous studies have suggested that there were almost twice as many free-floating Jupiter-mass planets as main-sequence stars, which account for 90 per cent of stars in the observable universe.

The Polish team's study, which was six times larger, discovered that there is just one Jupiter-mass planets rogue planet for every four stars.

It also indicated the existence of free floating rocky planets the size of Earth, which some scientists speculate could play host to life.

But more research will be needed before these observations can be confirmed.

First author Przemek Mroz, a PHD student at Warsaw University Observatory, said: 'We detected a few possible ultrashort-timescale events, less than half a day, which may indicate the existence of Earth-mass and super-Earth-mass free-floating planets, as predicted by planet-formation theories.

'The shortest-timescale events are not well covered by observations and it's difficult, if not impossible, to either prove or disprove their nature as free-floating planets.

'The detection efficiency at these timescales is very low, meaning a very few detections imply the existence of a large population of Earth-mass free-floating or wide-orbit planets.

'Future space-based missions like WFIRST and Euclid will enable the exploration of these short events in more detail.'

Professor Andrzej Udalski and colleagues used a technique called gravitational micro-lensing.

Earth sized planets that could harbour life roam the darkness of space - between the stars, according to new research. Pictured is a Nasa artist's impression of a free-floating planet

This is where light gets bent as it passes close to a large object such as an 'orphan' planet.

The planet's gravity warps the space around it, making the area act like like a giant magnifying glass.

If this magnifying glass passes in front of a star that is already being watched by a telescope on Earth, the star will apparently brighten for a short period of time.

The longer the timescale for this brightening, the larger the distorting planet's gravity.

WHAT IS MICROLENSING? Microlensing uses Albert Einstein's theory of general relatively which suggests what we perceive as the force of gravity actually arises from the curvature of space and time. Einstein believed that although Earth appears to be pulled towards the sun, it is in fact the shape of space-time around the sun that changes the way Earth moves. Microlensing makes use of this theory by measuring how the light of a distant star is intensified due to the gravitational field of a closer star. According to Einstein's theory, this is caused by bending of the surrounding space-time which makes the more distant star easier to discover by Earth observatories. Advertisement

The timescale for a Jupiter sized planet is up to two days.

The Polish team analysed over 2,600 micro-lensing events picked up by a ground based telescope in Chile between 2010 and 2015.

The earlier study was based on data over a much shorter period during 2006 to 2007 claimed they could outnumber stars in the galaxy by two-to-one.

Planets that have no stars were only identified as a new class in 2011, but they were gas giants rather than rocky worlds like Mars and Earth.

The warmth of a sun has long been thought to be a key ingredient to life. But astronomers say 'rogue', sun-less planets that wander the stars could still harbour extra-terrestrials (artist's impression)

STUDY FINDINGS Earth sized planets that could harbour life may roam the darkness of space between the stars, according to new research. The wandering worlds, known as free floating or orphan planets, have been detected using a technique called gravitational micro-lensing. Researchers from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw carried out a survey of the Milky Way's vast central 'bulge'. They found that Jupiter-like rogue planets may be at least ten times less common than previously thought. But Earth sized ones, which are harder to spot but could support life, could be more widespread. More research will be needed before these observations can be confirmed. Advertisement

The rogue planets cross the Milky Way without companion planets or even a star and there some experts believe there are probably billions out there.

Despite having no sunlight organisms could survive in hydrothermal vents, opening up more opportunities in the search for extra terrestrial life.

Heat from the planet's formation and decaying radioactive elements in the rock would still make it habitable.

Some scientists have suggested they could have lakes, oceans and hydrothermal vents, like those on Earth where life thrives.

Euclid is a European Space Agency telescope due to be launched in 2020 to investigate the 'dark universe'.

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is expected to be launched by NASA in 2025 to study the atmosphere of exoplanets, world's beyond our solar system.

Thousands have been detected in the past two decades, but very few have been deemed potential candidates for life.

The full results were published in the journal Nature.
New Pictish remains have been discovered at a fort thought to have been largely destroyed by a 19th-century development.

Archaeologists uncovered a longhouse and an 1,100-year-old Anglo Saxon coin in a dig at Burghead Fort near Lossiemouth, Moray.

Experts believe the fort was a significant seat of power in the kingdom of the Picts - often described as the 'lost' ancient people of Scotland - dating between 500AD and 1,000AD.

New Pictish remains have been discovered at a fort thought to have been largely destroyed by a 19th-century development

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FINDINGS The finding of a Pictish longhouse is important because Burghead is likely to have been one of the key royal centres of northern Pictland. Understanding the nature of settlement within the fort is key to understanding how power was materialised within these important fortified sites. The coin suggests that the fort occupants were able to tap into long-distance trade networks. The coin is also pierced, perhaps for wearing; it shows that the occupants of the fort in this non-monetary economy literally wore their wealth. Dr Gordon Noble said: 'Overall, these findings suggest that there is still valuable information that can be recovered from Burghead which would tell us more about this society at a significant time for northern Scotland - just as Norse settlers were consolidating their power in Shetland and Orkney, and launching attacks on mainland Scotland.' Advertisement

Artefacts including the Burghead Bull carvings and a mysterious underground well were discovered in the 1800s, but it was thought further remains were destroyed when a new town was built on top of the fort around the same time.

But a new dig by researchers from the University of Aberdeen has now led to fresh discoveries.

The team uncovered a Pictish longhouse, within which an Anglo Saxon coin of Alfred the Great was found, providing key dating evidence for the use of the house and fort.

Archaeologists said the coin dates to the late ninth century when Viking raiders and settlers were leading to major changes within Pictish society.

Dr Gordon Noble, senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, said: 'The assumption has always been that there was nothing left at Burghead; that it was all trashed in the 19th century but nobody's really looked at the interior to see if there's anything that survives inside the fort.

'Beneath the 19th-century debris, we have started to find significant Pictish remains.

'We appear to have found a Pictish longhouse.

Archaeologists uncovered a longhouse and an 1,100-year-old anglo Saxon coin in a dig at Burghead Fort near Lossiemouth, Moray

The discovery of the coin suggests that the fort occupants were able to tap into long-distance trade networks

'This is important because Burghead is likely to have been one of the key royal centres of northern Pictland and understanding the nature of settlement within the fort is key to understanding how power was materialised within these important fortified sites.

'There is a lovely stone-built hearth in one end of the building and the Anglo-Saxon coin shows the building dates towards the end of the use of the fort based on previous dating.

'The coin is also interesting as it shows that the fort occupants were able to tap into long-distance trade networks.

Several artefacts were discovered in the 1800s, but it was thought further remains were destroyed when a new town was built on top of the fort around the same time. But a new dig led by researchers from the University of Aberdeen has now led to fresh discoveries

Burghead is likely to have been one of the key royal centres of northern Pictland and understanding the nature of settlement within the fort is key to understanding how power was materialised within these important fortified sites, according to the researchers

'The coin is also pierced, perhaps for wearing; it shows that the occupants of the fort in this non-monetary economy literally wore their wealth.

'Overall, these findings suggest that there is still valuable information that can be recovered from Burghead which would tell us more about this society at a significant time for northern Scotland - just as Norse settlers were consolidating their power in Shetland and Orkney, and launching attacks on mainland Scotland.'

The dig has been carried out with the Burghead Headland Trust and Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service.

The coin is also pierced, perhaps for wearing; it shows that the occupants of the fort in this non-monetary economy literally wore their wealth

The dig has been carried out with the Burghead Headland Trust and Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service

Council archaeologist Bruce Mann said: 'The fact that we have surviving buildings and floor levels from this date is just incredible and the university's work is shedding light on what is too often mistakenly called the "dark ages"'

Archaeologists from the University of Aberdeen uncovered a longhouse and an 1,100-year-old anglo Saxon coin in a dig at Burghead Fort near Lossiemouth, Moray

Council archaeologist Bruce Mann said: 'Burghead Fort has long been recognised as being an important seat of power during the early medieval period and is known as the largest fort of its type in Scotland.

'Its significance has just increased again though with this discovery.

'The fact that we have surviving buildings and floor levels from this date is just incredible and the university's work is shedding light on what is too often mistakenly called the "dark ages".'
Researchers have developed the world's first autonomous, zero-emissions cargo ship.

The vessel, dubbed Yara Birkeland, will be fully battery-powered and capable of autonomous mooring and route planning

The vessel could dramatically reduce diesel emissions from conventional cargo ships.

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The vessel, developed by agriculture company Yara International ASA and high-technology systems firm Kongsberg Gruppen, is set to start sailing fertilizer in late 2018

The vessel, developed by agriculture company Yara International ASA and high-technology systems firm Kongsberg Gruppen, will be loaded and unloaded automatically using electric cranes.

THE YARA BIRKELAND Researchers have developed the world's first autonomous, zero-emissions cargo ship: The Yara Birkeland. Developed by agriculture company Yara International ASA and high-technology systems firm Kongsberg Gruppen, will be capable of autonomous mooring and route planning. The fully battery-powered vessel will be loaded and unloaded automatically using electric cranes. The vessel will have a GPS system allowing it to navigate itself and around other boats autonomously, with the aid of a radar, cameras and sensors. Three control centers are set to handle the ship's operation. Advertisement

It's set to start sailing fertilizer in late 2018, 37 miles down from a Norwegian fjord, to a production plant at the port of Larvik, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

The vessel will have a GPS system, allowing it to navigate itself and around other boats autonomously, with the aid of a radar, cameras and sensors.

Three control centers are set to handle the ship's operation.

These centers will handle emergency and exception handling, condition monitoring, operational monitoring, decision support and surveillance of the ship and its surroundings and other safety aspects.

According to Kongsberg Gruppen, the ship will not have a ballast tank, which the company says will aid in the protection of the marine environment.

Indeed, ballast tanks on large ships are known to have a negative impact on the marine environment.

This is because the water carried inside them can be discharged in different ports, and non-native species inside this water can be introduced to different areas, leading to economic and ecological damage.

The ship will costs $25 million to build - approximately three times more than a conventional cargo ship of its size.

However, because it doesn't require fuel or a crew, its backers say it will cut annual operating costs by up to 90 per cent.

The vessel has a GPS system which allows it to navigate itself and around other boats autonomously, with the aid of a radar, cameras and sensors

The ship, which will be able to carry 100-containers, is expected to be tested near the end of next year - but it will be tested with a person at the control instead of autonomously.

Petter Ostbo, Yara's head of production who leads the ship project, said the company would look into investing in larger ships for longer routes when there are international regulations in place for vessels without crews.

'Maybe even move our fertilizer from Holland all the way to Brazil,' Ostbo told the Wall Street Journal.

The Yara Birkeland automated vessel would sail within 12 nautical miles from Norway's coast, between three ports in southern Norway. The ship is set to sail 37 miles down from a Norwegian fjord, to a production plant at the port of Larvik in late 2018

However, this may take time as the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations body that regulates shipping, doesn't expect legislation for crewless ships to be in place until 2020.

According to Kongsberg Gruppen, the ship will reduce diesel-powered truck haulage by 40,000 journeys a year in Southern Norway.

'We want to go zero emission,' said Ostbo.

Three control centers are set to handle the ship's operation. These centers will handle emergency and exception handling, condition monitoring, operational monitoring, decision support and surveillance of the ship and its surroundings and other safety aspects

'Even if some say climate change is not reality, its a business reality because clean sources of energy are more affordable than fossil fuels.'

Yara International and Kongsberg Gruppen aren't the only companies looking to develop autonomous ships - last year, Rolls Royce revealed plans to develop fleets of 'drone ships,' with the first ships developed being ferries and then cargo ships to carry cargo around the world - all controlled from a central 'holodeck'.

The boats would be controlled from land using hi-tech control rooms, and cameras would beam 360-degree views from the drone ship back to operators based in a virtual bridge.
It is an idea first conceived 50 years ago by the ex-Nazi ballistic missile engineer credited with inventing the V-2 rocket and revolutionising the American space programme.

Now, Lockheed Martin has revealed its version of the system that could one day take man to Mars.

The team will build a full-scale habitat prototype in the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and a next-generation deep space avionics integration lab near Johnson Space Center.

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A full-scale prototype of the deep space habitat will be built by refurbishing the Donatello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) flown in the space shuttle payload bay and used to transfer cargo to the International Space Station.

NASA'S 50-YEAR-OLD RECYCLING PLAN The recycled rocket programme was originally put forward by German aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun. Mr von Braun remains a controversial figure - he worked with the Nazis on ballistic missiles during World War 2 before surrendering and and taking his rocket-building team and talents to the United States. He proposed in the 1960's that Nasa separately send parts for its Skylab space station and its crew aboard two Saturn IB rockets, which would launch a day apart. Once both rockets were in orbit, he offered that the astronauts could build the station that they were to inhabit within a spent rocket fuel tank. Launching a station as two payloads would considerably save on rocket fuel and costs, he claimed. Mr von Braun's plan was eventually scrapped by Nasa in favour of launching Skylab fully equipped. But now Nasa is now reviving the bizarre idea. Advertisement

The prototype will integrate evolving technologies to keep astronauts safe while onboard and operate the spacecraft autonomously when unoccupied.

'It is easy to take things for granted when you are living at home, but the recently selected astronauts will face unique challenges,' said Bill Pratt, Lockheed Martin NextSTEP program manager.

'Something as simple as calling your family is completely different when you are outside of low Earth orbit.

'While building this habitat, we have to operate in a different mindset that's more akin to long trips to Mars to ensure we keep them safe, healthy and productive.'

Under a public-private partnership, NASA recently awarded Lockheed Martin a Phase II contract for the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) habitat study contract.

As part of Phase II, the team will continue to refine the design concept developed in Phase I and work with NASA to identify key system requirements for the Deep Space Gateway.

A full-scale prototype of the deep space habitat will be built by refurbishing the Donatello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM).

Donatello was one of three large modules, flown in the space shuttle payload bay, that were used to transfer cargo to the International Space Station.

The team will also rely heavily on mixed reality prototyping using virtual and augmented reality.

Through this approach, the team can reduce cost and schedule, as well as identify and solve issues early in the design phase.

'We are excited to work with NASA to repurpose a historic piece of flight hardware, originally designed for low Earth orbit exploration, to play a role in humanity's push into deep space,' said Pratt.

THE ISS 'MOVING VANS' The Multi Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) served as the International Space Station's (ISS) 'moving vans,' carrying laboratory racks filled with equipment, experiments and supplies to and from the Space Station aboard the Space Shuttle. The second and third modules are named Raffaello and Donatello. The Italian Space Agency chose the names of the modules because they represent some of the great engineers in Italian history: Leonardo da Vinci; Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi; and Raffaello Sanzio. The space shuttle Atlantis and its payload. At the rear of the cargo bay is the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, packed with supplies and spare parts for the International Space Station. Another of the modules will now be repurposed as a space habitat. The cylindrical module is approximately 21 feet long and 15 feet in diameter, weighing almost 4.5 tons. The un-piloted, reusable MPLM functions has both a cargo carrier and a space station module. Mounted in the Space Shuttle's cargo bay for launch and landing, the modules are transferred to the station using the Shuttle's robotic arm after the Shuttle has docked. While berthed to the station, racks of equipment and stowage items are unloaded from the module and racks and equipment may be reloaded to be transported back to Earth. The MPLM is then detached from the station and positioned back into the Shuttle's cargo bay for the trip home. The cylindrical module is approximately 21 feet long and 15 feet in diameter, weighing almost 4.5 tons. Advertisement

'Making use of existing capabilities will be a guiding philosophy for Lockheed Martin to minimize development time and meet NASA's affordability goals.'

The Deep Space Gateway will rely on many of Orion's advanced capabilities that can be used while astronauts are there, and utilizes capabilities common to Lockheed Martin-built planetary spacecraft like Juno and MAVEN while it's unoccupied.

Employing NASA's space-proven Orion spacecraft as the Deep Space Gateway command deck early on allows for a safe and practical approach for the incremental build-up of deep space exploration capabilities.

Additionally, Lockheed Martin will build a Deep Space Avionics Integration Laboratory in Houston to demonstrate command and control between the Deep Space Gateway and Orion.

The lab will help reduce risk associated with critical data interfaces between Deep Space Gateway elements and provide an environment for astronauts to train for various mission scenarios.

'Because the Deep Space Gateway would be uninhabited for several months at a time, it has to be rugged, reliable and have the robotic capabilities to operate autonomously. Essentially it is a robotic spacecraft that is well-suited for humans when Orion is present,' said Pratt.

'Lockheed Martin's experience building autonomous planetary spacecraft plays a large role in making that possible.'

NASA has also signed another $10 million (7.8 million) contract to investigate turning used rocket tanks into space labs with support for a functioning crew.

The idea was first conceived in the 1960's by German aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, who proposed it was the cheapest way to build a space station.

Mr von Braun, who died in 1977 aged 60, was an ex-Nazi ballistic missile engineer credited with inventing the V-2 rocket.

Now Nasa is reviving his plan to use two rockets, one crewed and one un-crewed, to build a space station from recycled parts.

The un-crewed rocket will carry a satellite or resupply cargo, while the manned rocket - which will launch a day later - will carry the recycle crew and equipment.

Once both are in orbit, the astronauts in the crewed craft will remotely vent any leftover fuel from the un-manned rocket's large hydrogen tank.

They will then build and install life-equipment and move into the empty space, reusing a fuel tank that would otherwise have been left to float in orbit or directed into Earth's atmosphere for destruction.

'This innovative approach offers a pathway that is more affordable and involves less risk than fabricating modules on the ground and subsequently launching them into orbit,' Jeff Manber, founder and CEO of NanoRacks, one of three private US firms involved in the Nasa contract, wrote in a blog post.

'Our commitment is to bring about cost-efficient, commercial space stations via re-purposing in-space hardware, and we can't wait to bring you along for the ride into the future.'

Wernher von Braun, who conceived the recycled rocket idea in the 1960's, was an ex-Nazi ballistic missile engineer credited with inventing the V-2 rocket. In this image Mr von Braun is pictured alongside an explanatory model of the rocket that would eventually lift Apollo 11

Three private companies have been contracted to test whether the recycled rocket programme is feasible.

Nanoracks, a space commercial service company, will make the parts needed for a lab and living space.

This laboratory will be bolstered with robotic outfitting from Space Systems Loral, a company that designs and builds satellite and spacecraft systems.

United Launch Alliance, which has sold rockets and other launch services to Nasa and the US government for more than a decade, will provide the used second stages of Atlas V rockets.

The upper stage of these rockets are currently discarded after only one use, so converting them into small space stations could save the considerable costs of building new orbiting labs from scratch.

The recycled rocket programme was originally put forward by German aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun.

Mr von Braun remains a controversial figure - he worked with the Nazis on ballistic missiles during World War 2 before surrendering and and taking his rocket-building team and talents to the United States.

This image shows one of Nasa's Centaur upper stage rockets, which Nanoracks, along with space firms United Launch Alliance and pace Systems Loral, one day wants to turn into a space station for Nasa

Eventually, he became a leader in the American space program, building the Saturn V rocket that carried Apollo 11 to the moon.

Before the United Sates' first ever space station - Nasa's Skylab - was launched in 1970, Mr von Braun proposed that the cheapest way to get the station beyond Earth's atmosphere was to send it in separate parts.

He proposed that Nasa separately send parts for a space station and its crew aboard two Saturn IB rockets, which would launch a day apart from another.

Once both rockets were in orbit, he offered that the astronauts could build the station that they were to inhabit using a spent rocket fuel tank.

Launching a station as two payloads would considerably save on rocket fuel and costs, he claimed.

Mr von Braun's proposal was eventually scrapped by Nasa in favour of launching Skylab fully equipped, but now Nasa is now reviving the bizarre idea.
- even firing up the computer consoles

Project hopes to restore the room to its Apollo

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It was the nerve center for the Apollo missions - but now NASA's h istoric Apollo Mission Control is relying on a Kickstarter to safeguard its future.

The campaign, which ties in with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to first land a man on the moon in 2019.

In preparation for the anniversary, Space Center Houston has launched a $5 million campaign to raise funds to help support a major restoration of the room.

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This photograph of the Mission Operations Control Room in the Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, was taken on April 13, 1970, during the fourth television transmission from Apollo 13, NASA's third crewed mission to the moon, launched on April 11, 1970. Now, the room is set to be restored.

WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT NOT PAYING? Space Center Houston is not funded by the U.S. Government. It is a project of the Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, the nonprofit science center that serves as the Official Visitor Center of JSC. It relies on private contributions and ticket revenue to fund its operations. However, the restoration of the National Historic Landmark will be coordinated by NASA Johnson Space Center. Advertisement

Its Mission Control  where NASA's flight control team planned, trained and executed decades of Gemini, Apollo and early shuttle human spaceflight missions  is in acute need of restoration.

Called 'On a Mission: Restoring Historic Mission Control,' $3.5 million has already been raised through a generous lead gift from the City of Webster.

Space Center Houston has turned to Kickstarter to raise an additional $250,000.

The City of Webster will also match each gift dollar-for-dollar up to a $400,000 maximum. July 20 is the 48th anniversary of the first lunar landing of Apollo 11.

The restoration of the room, also called the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR), will feature the authentic consoles used to monitor nine Gemini and all Apollo flights.

'With the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 approaching in 2019, restoration of Historic Mission Control is now urgent, and a crowd of supporters is gathering,' organisers say.

The red telephone which currently adorns the Department of Defense console, and the PAO console as it exists today, with a portable speaker unit perched on the edge

A close-up of Flight Director Gene Kranz's console during Apollo 13. The green event indicator panel just above and left of center is displaying the indicated status of the other MOCR consoles.

Retired Historic Mission Control operations team members are working with Space Center Houston to secure the funds needed to restore the site and create a world-class visitor experience that will inspire future generations through this amazing story of technological and human achievement.

They include the flight of Apollo 11 that first landed men on the moon, the Apollo 13 mission that famously experienced an in-flight emergency and 40 other space missions.

This important site was named in 1985 to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its historical significance and worthiness of preservation.

The restoration of the National Historic Landmark will be coordinated by NASA Johnson Space Center with funds raised by the nonprofit Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, which owns and operates Space Center Houston, the official JSC visitor center.

Enlarge / Eidophor projections of the Apollo 11 lunar module descent stage trajectory during the first manned lunar landing. The Eidophor video projectors showed a very sharp image for the time

The room was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985 and retired seven years later.

In the room that had its glory days during the decades of Gemini and Apollo and the shuttle programs, many of the carpet squares are stained and taped together, The Houston Chronicle reported.

Behind the glass in the visitor area  where dignitaries and media observed mission control at work  the seats are worn.

Ash-tray covers have been pried loose and pieces of upholstery cut away for souvenirs.

THE HOUSTON ROOM THAT CHANGED THE WORLD Located on the third floor of Building 30 on the JSC campus, five distinct, interrelated areas make up Historic Mission Control. The Historic Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR2) includes the consoles used by flight controllers and large group display screens. Behind the screens is the summary display projection room, known as the 'bat cave.' Adjacent to MOCR2 are two support rooms: the Simulation Control Room (Sim Room) and the Recovery Control Room, which served to coordinate support following splashdown. Overall view of the Mission Operations Control Room in the Mission Control Center, Building 30, during the Apollo 9 Earth-orbital mission. The Apollo Mission Control Center is located in Building 30 at Johnson Space Center. When this photograph was taken a live television transmission was being received from Apollo 9 as it orbited Earth. A wall with large windows separates MOCR2 from the Visitors Viewing Area, a dedicated space where family members and VIP guests were able to observe mission controllers without disrupting them. The restoration project will focus on all five areas of Historic Mission Control, with the goal of accurately portraying how the area looked the moment the moon landing took place on July 20, 1969. Even more specifically, that look will portray the exact moment that the team of controllers, after achieving the impossible, put out their celebratory cigars and headed home for a much-needed night's sleep. The project will restore each of the consoles to the Apollo era, specifically to mimic their Apollo 15 operational configuration. Console arrays (such as panels, switches, indicators and monitors) also will be configured to their Apollo 15 locations, which represents the apex of technological achievement of the Apollo missions. Consoles will be shipped to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas, where experts in the SpaceWorks division will restore and reanimate each console. What's inside: The consoles and dispalys in the room, and what they all did SpaceWorks has restored numerous flown space artifacts around the globe, including artifacts currently in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. They will install appropriate buttons and sequences and light the monochromatic displays on the CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors. The reanimation of the consoles is a key component of bringing MOCR2 'back to life' for future visitors. Other important details include restoring and replacing the historic furnishings specific to the Apollo era. The project will restore each of the consoles to the Apollo era, specifically to mimic their Apollo 15 operational configuration. Extensive research, including interviews with Apollo flight controllers in the MOCR2, will confirm the activities that took place at each console and discover what types of personal items would be found on each console. We will replicate everything such as ash trays, binders, pencils, headsets and coffee cups. Advertisement

Gene Kranz, a flight director during NASA's Gemini and Apollo missions who was portrayed by Ed Harris in the film 'Apollo 13,' told a group of preservationists touring the room last year, 'This is a place of history.'

'But what I see is a tired Mission Control, worn of its heart and soul. It's time to start the battle for its restoration,' he said.

Deke Slayton (in black shirt, left of center) director of flight crew operations, and Chester M. Lee shake hands in Mission Control, while Rocco Petrone watches Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell on the screen.

Like others from NASA, Kranz usually refers to the room by its acronym, MOCR2  pronounced 'Mo-ker Two.'

The most recent proposal to restore the room, released last year, would cost about $3 million and require about 18 months of work.

That would restore the room to the way it was for Apollo missions 11 through 17  right down to the headsets, pencil holders and amber glass ash trays.

The result would make MOCR2  already a popular attraction  the crown jewel of Space Center Houston, the Johnson Space Center's visitor center.

'We are certainly excited about the whole restoration project,' said Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa.

'And we're also committed to doing it in time for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.'

Apollo 11 mission officials relax in the Launch Control Center following the successful Apollo 11 liftoff on July 16, 1969. From left to right are: Charles W. Mathews, Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight; Dr. Wernher von Braun, Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center; George Mueller, Associate Administrator for the Office of Manned Space Flight; Lt. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips, Director of the Apollo Program.

She also notes though that they 'have to make sure we concentrate on the current work and the future as well.'

MOCR2 is just one room in a building where NASA still does classified work.

The Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center still manages space flights from there.

Because it's a historic landmark, the National Park Service and the Texas State Historical Association are both interested parties in the room's restoration.

However, it remains the property of Johnson Space Center.

The National Historic Preservation Act requires a consultation meeting to advance the project, but it hasn't taken place.
Season two of Australian Survivor is right around the corner.

And with the phenomenal success of Channel Nine's Australian Ninja Warrior, some feel that Network Ten is hoping to capitalise on the show's popularity by highlighting the physical challenges of Survivor over the strategic gameplay and drama.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph on Monday, MediaWeek editor James Manning said: 'I think Ten has focused on running promos that highlight the physical challenges on that show to try and attract that Ninja Warrior audience.'

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New approach: Australian Survivor is focusing on physical challenges over gameplay and strategy in its promo trailers in a bid to capitalise on the success of Australian Ninja Warrior

'I think you'll see a lot of those this week with Ninja Warrior ending just days before Survivor launches,' added James.

Season two of Australian Survivor is set to premiere on July 30.

The first season of the show performed well enough in the ratings for Ten, but the struggling network will be hoping to improve ratings this year.

Coming soon! Season two of Australian Survivor is set to premiere on July 30

Australian Ninja Warrior has achieved high ratings since its premiere this month.

And in addition to attracting female viewers, it's also popular with male audiences.

The show - which drew 1.7 million metropolitan viewers last Sunday, 1.6 million on Monday and 1.5 million on Tuesday - had a 50-50 split of male to female viewers.

Testosterone friendly: Australian Ninja Warrior is equally popular with male and female viewers

Speaking to the publication, James said the down-the-middle split could be because the show represents a change from the usual cooking and dating reality TV fare.

'They think, "I could do that" or "I could beat him" or "I could get that far". They naturally compare how they might have gone on the course,' he explained.

It was reported that figures released by Fusion Strategy revealed the top 20 shows in 2017 have an 'overall audience bias' of 62 per cent female to 38 per cent male.

Even split: The Daily Telegraph reported the show, which drew 1.7 million metro viewers on Sunday, 1.6 on Monday and 1.5 on Tuesday had a 50-50 split of male to female viewers

Fan favourite: Scott Evennett is known for his no-excuses approach to diet and exercise

Fusion Strategy chief executive Steve Allen told News Corp Australian Ninja Warrior could be a 'wake-up call' to networks to cultivate more male content in their line-ups.

'The commercial network programmers and program creators are conscious that too many shows don't have enough male content or viewers,' he said.

'There is no way to can get a show to rate more than one million viewers if you are only attracting one half of the population.'
She made it into the top three before being eliminated from MasterChef on Sunday.

And on Monday, Karlie Verkerk told The Daily Telegraph her loss actually has helped her to focus on her true passion - being a food critic.

The 26-year-old revealed that judge Matt Preston is giving her one-on-one guidance on how to become a professional food reviewer.

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Chef turned reviewer? On Monday, eliminated MasterChef star Karlie Verkerk told The Daily Telegraph her loss has helped her to focus on her true passion - being a food critic

'I think it's been really nice that Matt can have someone that he can impart his knowledge on to and it's been really humbling,' Karlie said.

'To have someone of his calibre offer his help is mind-blowing. That is more than winning itself.'

Since departing the show, the top judge has had the amateur chef by his side while he's been working on his latest cookbook.

Being mentored: 'I think it's been really nice that Matt (Preston) can have someone that he can impart his knowledge on to and it's been really humbling', said Karlie

Revealing they'd dined together a couple of times, the student said she followed up her meals with a bit of writing homework that Matt later reviewed and edited for her.

Karlie was eliminated on Sunday night after feeling the pressure of having to cook an impeccable main and a dessert for 25 guests.

'To be honest, I had a feeling that it was my day,' she said.

So close! Karlie was defeated by rivals Diana Chan and Ben Ungermann, who have made it through to Monday night's finale

Stressful challenge: Karlie was eliminated on Sunday night after feeling the pressure of having to cook an impeccable main and a dessert for 25 guests

Karlie was defeated by rivals Diana Chan and Ben Ungermann, who have made it through to Monday's grand final.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph last week, Karlie said she was putting her money on Diana to take home the grand prize, calling her an 'all-rounder'.

'The one to beat is Diana, I've learnt so much from her in the house, she's a really natural cook, it comes naturally to her and she just knows flavours,' she said.

'I'm a little bit biased because she's a great friend of mine. My money would be on her.'
She is the university student who is set to make her reality TV debut vying for the heart of Matty 'J' Johnson on The Bachelor.

But it seems Leah Costa has already got some close ties within the Bachelor circles, with New Weekly reporting she's friends with Matty's ex, former Bachelorette Georgia Love.

The 24-year-old also appears to be close with season one Bachelorette 'villain' David Witko, having attended multiple events with him recently.

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Getting acquainted? Leah Costa, 24, apparently shares a friendship with Matty J's former flame, Georgia Love

The Melbourne-based model stepped out with fellow model David Witko, 34, at the Cambridge Clothing Spring Summer Launch, in Melbourne earlier this month.

The architecture undergraduate turned heads in her figure in a little black dress which featured a racy cut-out across her bust and upper torso.

She and David were spotted getting rather close in a series of photos of them posing together, but it seemed their relationship was purely platonic.

Getting the low-down: Along with Georgia Love, Leah follows a bevy of Bachelor and Bachelorette stars on social media

In the past, David has insisted the pair were just good 'friends'.

But they seem to be spending a lot of time together since Bachelor filming wrapped up, with David recently taking to Instagram to share a snap of himself and Leah snuggling up at a Melbourne club.

Speaking with the publication, the blonde revealed she was chasing a man who was 'cheeky, outgoing, doesn't take himself too seriously, is grounded and a family man'.

Getting close: David recently took to Instagram to share a snap of himself and Leah snuggling up at a Melbourne club

Her checklist: Laura said she's looking to share a future with a cheeky and outgoing family man

'Talk, dark and handsome wouldn't hurt either,' she added.

The striking beauty described herself as an avid traveler and animal lover and according to her social media account, she studies construction management and architecture.

She certainly hasn't wasted any time getting the low-down on Matty J, with her following him and former flame Georgia Love on Instagram, along with other stars of the franchise including Sam Frost, David Witko, Sam Johnston and Sam Wood.
Charlotte McKinney looked sensational as she supported a brunch for the Tori Praver swimwear line Sunday in Miami.

The 23-year-old blonde beauty sported a dark blue strapless mini dress for the daytime event.

The stylish number had a straight neckline and a small slit on the right side of the thigh-skimming skirt.

Model perfect: Charlotte McKinney looked sensational in a dark blue strapless mini dress at a brunch for the Tori Praver swimwear line Sunday in Miami

The dress revealed Charlotte's lovely long legs that were elongated with a pair of pretty white sandal heels with bows at the ankle and toe.

She left her signature locks loose and tumbling messily down over her shoulders.

Charlotte rimmed her eyes with black liner and mascara and dusted rosy blush on her cheeks,

She completed her look with a matte dark pink lip color.

Striking: The dress revealed Charlotte's lovely long legs that were elongated with a pair of pretty white sandal heels with bows at the ankle and toe

Revealing: The stylish number had a straight neckline and a small slit on the right side of the thigh-skimming skirt

Sexy: The 23-year-old blonde beauty left her signature locks loose and tumbling messily down over her shoulders

On Saturday, Charlotte was in more familiar mode as she showed off her busty charms during a day on Miami Beach.

She rocked a black bikini top and Daisy Dukes for her relaxing time in the Florida sunshine.

The tight top maximized her cleavage while the ripped denims rode up high on her thighs.

She wore her hair piled up high on top of her head and covered up with a pair of wide black-framed sunglasses.

Sand stunner: Charlotte had left little to the imagination during an outing at Miami beach on Saturday as she sported a black bikini top and distressed Daisy Dukes
Chris Hemsworth made it very clear he's a huge fan of former co-star Charlize Theron during an interview with W magazine earlier this month.

And according to NW magazine this week, the 33-year-old actor's gushing comments about the statuesque blonde appears to have caused tension between him and his wife Elsa Pataky.

'Elsa knows that he'll never cheat, but a part of her does find it upsetting for Chris to be talking about Charlize so publicly when they're not even promoting a film together,' an insider is said to have revealed to the publication.

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Too close for comfort? NW magazine has claimed Chris Hemsworth's gushing comments about Charlize Theron have caused friction with his wife Elsa Pataky

'It's more than a little disrespectful,' the source added.

NW's speculations come after Chris told W magazine his former Snow White And The Huntsman co-star is 'smart as hell'.

The Australian hunk further gushed about the 41-year-old actress, nominating her for the role of Bond in the next 007 blockbuster.

'Upset': The Australian hunk's wife Elsa is said to find his public comments about Charlize 'upsetting'

'She embodies every sort of ounce of strength and nobility and dignity and integrity that that character should have,' Chris said.

'She's smart as hell. She's physically able. I worked with her on Snow White And The Huntsman,' the Thor star added.

'Watching her in those fight scenes, doing it in high heels, by the way, and an eight foot long gown was even more impressive.'

Former co-stars: NW's claims come after Chris nominated his former Snow White And The Huntsman co-star Charlize for the role of Bond in the next 007 blockbuster

'Impressed': Chris also admitted he found watching Charlize perform fight scenes on set 'impressive'

What's more, Chris has also revealed he's not opposed to starring alongside Charlize once again as her love interest in Bond.

'I could be the Bond man. Sure. We could do a duet of Bonds,' the Byron Bay-based actor said.

Daily Mail Australia have reached out to Chris and Elsa's representative for comment.

'She's smart as hell': Chris said of the statuesque blonde during an interview with W magazine earlier this month
She loves to make an exhibition of herself.

And Blac Chyna certainly did that as she flaunted her feminine form in a revealing bra and tight trousers while performing yoga on Sunday.

The mother-of-two took great pride in showcasing her extremely curvy physique, posting a series of revealing images on social media.

Timber: Blac Chyna struck a tree yoga pose in a snap shared on social media on Sunday

The stumpy 29-year-old looked tree-mendous as she struck her pose in a undersized bra that flashed underboob, and completed her look in very tight green velvet trousers.

Offering some rudimentary self help advice, the eyelash entrepreneur captioned the Instagram snap: 'FIND YOUR BALANCE!'

Blac, whose real name is the much more mundane Angela White, was rocked earlier this month after rapper Rarri True shared two pictures of her topless in bed in an apparent attempt to taunt her hosiery tycoon ex Rob Kardashian.

And her on-off fiance Rob made a shocking emotional outburst on social media in which he accused her of cheating, as well as uploading explicit images of the mother of his eight-month-old daughter Dream.

What a croc: She also flashed her robust rear as she stood next to a crocodile head statue

Backseat superstar: She looked completely at ease as she struck a racy pose in the rear of a car

Last week she was openly flaunting her latest man, rapper Mechie, going so far as to put on a very public display of affection with the 24-year-old at a club in Miami.

Before shacking up with sock magnate Rob, Blac famously dated his half-sister Kylie Jenner's now ex Tyga from November 2011 to late 2014.

She was also engaged to the handsome rapper for almost two years.

Fixed asset: The former stripper's bulbous bottom was a sight to behold in her tight trousers

Covered up: She later put on a more demure outfit as she travelled in a car

Rumours surrounding Kylie and Tyga's blossoming romance started surfacing around October 2014, and the overlap in the relationships led to social media feuding between the classy women

Former stripper Blac was clearly unhappy the father of her son was romancing a teenager.

The rapper first met 15-year-old Kylie at her sister Kendall's sweet 16 party, where he, for lack of a better word, performed.

The exes share three-year-old son King Cairo Stevenson.

Flaunting it: Blac was out on the town with her latest beau Mechie in Miami last week

Trouble in paradise: Fuming Rob Kardashian accused her of cheating in a social media tirade
She's the iconic Australian entertainer who revealed in May that her breast cancer had returned after 25 years and spread to her back.

And Olivia Newton-John is bravely battling the disease and is on the mend.

On Monday Woman's Day reported that friends close to the 68-year-old star say a combination of radiation and wellness therapies has the star 'feeling extremely optimistic.'

'Olivia amazes everyone around her!': Grease star Newton-John is ever-optimistic in her second battle against breast cancer... while her husband hopes for a 'miracle healing'

According to the magazine, Olivia's husband John Easterling, 65, has cleared his schedule so he can be with his wife.

A friend told the publication that he is: 'Devoting all his energy to helping his "soulmate" and telling everyone "We're hoping this will be a miracle healing."'

The Grease star has reportedly undergone radiation therapy and is currently at a healing centre.

Said to be 'following doctors' advice to the letter,' the star seems to be optimistic.

A source told the magazine that she was making plans for the future, including a possible trip to Melbourne in September.

Staying optimistic: The Grease star, who has reportedly undergone radiation therapy and is currently at a healing centre, is said to be 'following doctors' advice to the letter'

'Olivia amazes everyone around her,' the friend told Woman's Day.

The star was first treated for breast cancer in 1992, at the age of 43 and underwent a partial mastectomy, chemotherapy and breast reconstruction.

Afterwards, she championed breast cancer awareness and in 2008 built the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

In a statement released to People, Olivia revealed she was certain treatment she was undergoing would be successful.

'I'm totally confident that my new journey will have a positive success story to inspire others!' she said.
It's the bromance that's brewed throughout the filming of both The Bachlelorette and the Bachelor.

And now Osher Gunsberg's true feelings about Matthew Johnson have been revealed, with the veteran host labeling him as one of his favourite Bachelors of all time.

Speaking with Woman's Day, the 43-year-old admitted it hadn't only been the women in the mansion that Matty had won the affections of.

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Bromance alert! Osher Gunsberg, 43, says Matty J is one of his favourite Bachelors, alongside Sam Wood

Osher is known to keep up friendships with male contestants off-screen, but it seems his relationship with Matty is extra special.

He said he'd even taken the Bachelor home to meet his wife Audrey and stepdaughter Georgia.

And in true Matty style, he won them over as well, 'He's passed the family test', Osher told the publication.

Extra strong bond: Osher has even taken the Bachelor home to meet his wife Audrey and stepdaughter Georgia

Matty sits at the top of Osher's favourite Bachelors list alongside fellow fanchise star, Sam Wood.

'Tim (Robards) is probably going to be upset because he's my chiropactor, but Matty and Sam are wonderful, wonderful guys.

The host also confirmed that Matty has in fact found love in one of the women contestants in the upcoming series.

Everyone has their favourites: He said Sam Wood was another of his top Bachelors, but former Bachelorette Sam Frost didn't crack a mention

'I'll just say I've had a 100 per cent hit rate so far and I'll leave it at that,' he said.

Osher dished that his favourite contestant of all time was Rochelle from Tim's season because of her hilarious behind-the-scenes commentary.

He added that Kiera Maguire from Richie Strahan's 2016 season was his top pick in the villain stakes.
Stephanie Davis has been spotted letting her hair down at a music festival with male pals - but it is claimed that her actions are an attempt to make her former flame, Jeremy McConnell jealous.

The 24-year-old mother of one posted a video to her Twitter page, filming herself with her friends in the background, after publicly thanking an ex fling, Maziar Ajtar, for buying her son an outfit on the microblogging site.

The video comes after a source told The Sun: 'Theyve got a romantic history and Steph knows that Jeremy will be upset by it'.

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All a ploy? Stephanie Davis has been spotted letting her hair down at a music festival with male pals - but it is claimed that her actions are an attempt to make her former flame, Jeremy McConnell jealous

'Seeing her asking Maz to spend time with her and their son will be painful for him. Its like shes using Caben to hurt Jeremy.'

They added: 'Jeremy cant see his son so this is killing him.'

While Stephanie appeared to be letting her hair down in the face of her woes, sources close to the star revealed she is determined to come out on top to prioritise her son.

Cut off: The 24-year-old mother of one posted a video to her Twitter page, filming herself with her male friends in the background, but it is thought to be a ploy to get Jeremy's attention

Going public: She publicly thanking an ex fling, Maziar Ajtar, for buying her son an outfit on Twitter, with a source telling The Sun: 'Theyve got a romantic history and Steph knows that Jeremy will be upset by it'

Insiders tell MailOnline: 'Stephanie is getting her life back on track, is feeling good and looking good. She has put the horror of the past few weeks behind her and is now ready to come back fighting.

'Stephanie is getting back to her career and her life after being disengaged from it for some time. Caben as always is her priority and doing the best for him is what she needs to do both in work and home life'.

This comes after it was reported that Jeremy was reportedly left 'heartbroken' after the police ordered him to cut contact with Stephanie - meaning he is unable to see his son.

Moving on: While Stephanie appeared to be letting her hair down in the face of her woes, sources close to the star revealed she is determined to come out on top to prioritise her son

According to the paper , the Irish model has not seen Caben-Albi for two weeks, as he has been banned from contacting his ex following her claims of abuse.

The new reports however come after a different source told MailOnline he had 'forgotten his son' in enjoyment of single life - before Stephanie admitted she had been attending therapy sessions to recover from their troubles.

Earlier this week, a source informed MailOnline that Jeremy had failed to check up on Caben-Albi, who he welcomed with the Hollyoaks actress in January, after resuming single life as a young model.

Back on track: Insiders tell MailOnline: 'Stephanie is getting her life back on track, is feeling good and looking good. She has put the horror of the past few weeks behind her and is now ready to come back fighting'

However, an insider close to the Dublin native has now told The Sun this is not the case - and that the model has actually been refused access to his child.

Being told to cut contact with the family following recent abuse claims, the insider said: 'Because of what happened last week the police have told Jeremy he can't speak to Steph. He misses his son with all his heart but there is nothing he can do.'

Representatives for both Jeremy and Stephanie declined to comment when approached by MailOnline at the time.

The new claims also followed Stephanie's recent admission that she was ready to 'move on' from the dramas with her former beau, through the medium of counselling.

The former Hollyoaks actress admitted to the Mirror on Friday that she is through with her volatile on/off relationship with the model, and that their six-month-old son is now 'all she cares about' .
He's set to become Home And Away's newest heartthrob when he makes his Home and Away debut in a week.

But this isn't Jake Ryan's first foray into Summer Bay's waters.

On Monday the 33-year-old revealed to TV Week that he had auditioned for the part of Brax years ago.

'I was up for the role of Brax all those years ago!' New Home and Away hunk Jake Ryan reveals he wanted to play the bad boy but his new character is nothing like him

The part of Darryl Braxton went to Steve Peacocke who played the character for five years before leaving the soap in June last year.

Despite rumours that producers hope Jake will fill the void left by the former 'river boy' but he's keen to make his own mark on the show.

'Both characters have been painted with the bad boy brush... but they're very different,' he told the magazine.

Perfect fit: With his hunky good looks and copious tattoos, Jake definitely fits the Summer Bay 'bad boy' type

Jake is set to play Pia Miller's character's love interest, with the pair having already been spotted filming steamy scenes on multiple occasions.

The Bondi-based hunk, who has previously said he had never considered acting as a career, is loving being a leading man.

On set: The Bondi-based hunk, who has previously said he had never considered acting as a career, is loving being a leading man

But one person who is more excited than him is his mum, who he says loves the show and is 'over the moon' he's in it.

'She was probably more excited than if I had gotten a franchise movie deal playing Batman,' he said.

Ripped: Jake also revealed that he had to get in shape quick for his new role and shed 15 kilos in the process

Jake also revealed that he had to get in shape quick for his new role and shed 15 kilos in the process.

The hunky actor has been spotted getting very close to Pia's character, constable Katrina Chapman, while filming in Palm Beach in the lead-up to his appearance on the long-running soap.

And with his hunky good looks and copious tattoos, Jake definitely fits the Summer Bay beauty's 'bad boy' type.
The cast of Netflix's Stranger Things took Comic-Con by storm on Saturday as they unveiled the trailer for season two of the his streaming series.

But the biggest cheers were reserved for actress Shannon Purser, who played Barb on season one and who disguised herself as a fan so she could ask a question during the cast panel at the convention.

Fans went wild when she got up to the microphone in the auditorium and asked: 'Will Barb make it into season two?'

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Barb's back! Actress Shannon Purser got a wild reception from fans as she made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con during the Stranger Things panel

The cast, who seemed equally surprised, excitedly motioned to her to come join them on stage.

However, the answer to her question turned out to be 'no'.

But, she was promised, 'There will be justice for Barb.'

Something to say: Shannon, 20, who played Barb on season one of the Netflix hit, had disguised herself as a fan so she could ask a question during the cast panel at the convention

Just asking: Fans went wild when she got up to the microphone in the auditorium and asked: 'Will Barb make it into season two?'

Second time around: She was then invited up on stage where she asked the question again

Written out: However, the answer to Shannon's question turned out to be 'no'. But, she was promised, 'There will be justice for Barb'

The character of Barb was captured by The Upside Down monster and was last seen dead in its lair.

Marie Claire caught up with Shannon, 20, and asked the actress what she would consider to be 'justice for Barb.'

'I just feel like she deserves a funeral at least. I feel like that's not too much to ask, for someone to recognize that she's gone,' she responded.

'I just feel like she deserves a funeral at least. I feel like that's not too much to ask, for someone to recognize that she's gone,' Shannon said when asked what justice for Barb might look like

The Stranger Things stars were joined at Comic-Con by three new castmembers as they hyped up the next installment set to become available on Netflix on October 27.

The action of season two takes place about a year after the events of the first season.

Paul Reiser, 61, Dacre Montgomery, 22, and Sadie Sink, 15, will join the ensemble cast as Dr Owens, Billy and Max.

The original kids are, of course back - Millie Bobbie Brown is still alive as Eleven and joins Natalia Dyer, Joe Keery, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo and Noah Schnapp.

David Harbour also reprises his role as the sheriff of Hawkins, Indiana, where the action takes place.

Dressed to impress: Stranger Things star Millie Bobbie Brown, 13, made an appearance in a quirky white dress printed with chocolate-dipped strawberries

Lovely look: Co-star Natalia Dyer, 20, wore a pretty short-sleeved red frock decorated with black patterns

Striking: Sadie Sink, 15, who was unveiled as one of three new cast members for season to, arrived on stage in a boldly patterned colorful shift dress

Working the crowd: Gaten Matarazzo, 14, was given a rock star welcome when he walked onstage ahead of the panel discussion

Gang's all here: Stranger Things Cast photo: L-R Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Sadie Sink and Millie Bobbie Brown with actor David Harbour, who reprises his role as the sheriff of Hawkins, Indiana, where the action takes place

The new trailer teased the return of Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, who mysteriously disappeared at the end of the first season.

The show's cast hadn't even viewed the sneak peek, which starts up in an arcade and is set to Michael Jackson's Thriller.

And like the first series, season two also promises to have fans on the edge of their seats, with plenty of twists and turns.

The trailer shows that Will Byers may not be out of the woods yet after spending time in the Upside Down, and his troubles continue as he acclimates to life back home.

The trailer shows Noah Schnapp's Will Byers having strange visions and emotionally relaying it to his concerned mom, played by Winona Ryder.

She's back! Eleven returns to season two of Stranger Things, as seen in the new trailer for the highly anticipated series

Scary: The youngster could be seen walking an eerie classroom

Coming soon: The boys are back and looking for Eleven

Surprises: They're seen heading out into the woods

At one stage, the young boy appears to be almost comatose as his distraught mother orders him to 'wake up'.

Following their panel discussion, the close-knit cast posed for a series of group photos.

They even managed to recreate some of the show's iconic sets, with the actors all making the most of the opportunity to clown around for the cameras.

Brace yourself... Like the first series, season two also promises to have fans on the edge of their seats, with plenty of twists and turns

Troubled: The trailer shows that Will Byers may not be out of the woods yet after spending time in the Upside Down, and his troubles continue as he acclimates to life back home
Asa Soltan Rahmati defended her relationship status during a confrontational dinner party on Sunday's episode of Shahs Of Sunset.

The 41-year-old pregnant reality star was quizzed about her lifestyle choices by Mike Shouhed and Mercedes 'MJ' Javid.

Asa during last week's episode revealed that she was five months pregnant while expecting a baby with boyfriend Jermaine Jackson Jr, 40.

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Tough crowd: Asa Soltan Rahmati was quizzed about her relationship status during Sunday's episode of Shahs Of Sunset

MJ asked if Asa and Jermaine planned on living together.

'We practically live together. We'll live together at some time,' Asa answered.

MJ then wanted to know why Asa wasn't engaged or going to get married after being with Jermaine for six years.

'I'm pregnant. It's my baby and it's my life,' Asa said.

Seeking answers: Mercedes 'MJ' Javid wanted to know why pregnant Asa wasn't engaged or married

Her life: Asa said that it was her baby and her life

Mike then noted Jermaine was 'black and not Persian' and how that remains 'a big deal in our culture'.

'We know the future we want and we're working toward it,' Asa said.

'Don't dance around,' MJ scolded her.

Big deal: Mike Shouhed noted that Asa's boyfriend Jermaine Jackson Jr is 'black and not Persian' and how that remains a 'big deal' in their culture

'If things aren't perfect, why cant we talk about it? That protective shell is bulls***,' she added.

The interrogation came during a group dinner celebrating the one-year anniversary of Reza Farahan, 43, and Adam Neely.

MJ and Mike before the dinner talked behind Asa's back.

Protective shell: MJ called out Asa for being secretive and hiding behind a 'protective shell'

Proper steps: Mike wondered why Asa wasn't taking the steps to 'do it correctly'

Reza organized a tour at a wildlife way station for animal-loving Adam for their anniversary.

It was a consolation prize for a previous trip to Thailand that Reza took after calling off a previously planned wedding to Adam.

Thailand remained a sore subject for Adam as every mention of the trip by MJ put him on edge.

Anniversary present: Reza Farahan organized a trip to a wildlife way station for husband Adam Neely

Caged tiger: The wildlife way station included a tiger that brought back bad memories of Thailand for Adam

Adam earlier had lunch with Golnesa 'GG' Gharachedaghi who apologized for attacking him and spreading lies about Reza.

She left Adam with deep scratch marks around his neck after Reza confronted her.

'The most innocent person got the worst of it,' GG told him.

Saying sorry: Golnesa 'GG' Gharachedaghi apologized to Adam for hurting him

Dog mauling: Adam told GG that when he was asked about the scratches on his neck he told people he was mauled by a dog

Adam told GG that he told people who asked about the scratches that he was mauled by a dog.

GG tearfully apologized and Adam graciously accepted it.

Adam later told Reza about GG's apology and urged him to give her a second chance.

Second chance: Reza was urged to give GG a second chance by Adam

Reza and MJ on the way to a Malibu house party hosted by Shervin Roohparvar visited her ailing father Shams.

MJ insisted he was 'on the mend' and headed toward a 'full recovery', but he looked rather ill and did not speak.

'Seeing Sham, someone I remember as a teenager, hurts in a way I can't express. I see him and this isn't him,' Reza said.

Health issue: MJ and Reza visited her ailing father on the way to a party in Malibu

Healthier times: A throwback photo was shown of MJ with her father Sham

Rough transition: MJ said her father had a 'rough transition' from a hospital to a rehab facility

He bawled while MJ talked to her father.

Reza at the Malibu party remained moved by the hospital visit and he called over GG and MJ.

'My heart is open. I don't want to have a beef with anybody,' he declared.

Getting emotional: Reza cried while seeing Sham in the hospital

Getting ready: GG got ready for the party while feeling nervous about seeing Reza

He told everyone if there's 'anything that needs to be said, now is the time'.

GG jumped at the opportunity and rushed upstairs to retrieve gifts that she had bought for the group in Belize.

She then apologized to Reza who accepted it and pledged to move forward.

Making up: GG apologized to Reza who sought to fix relationships after the hospital visit

Together again: Reza and GG hugged after she apologized and he accepted

'It's over. We're all best friends again. Let's have a good time,' GG said.

GG also introduced her new boyfriend Shalom to her friends at the party.

Shahs Of Sunset continues next week on Bravo.
T.J. Miller diverted his gaze toward the camera as he planted a smooch on his wife Kate Gorney at the premiere of his new film The Emoji Movie.

Held at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California, the premiere saw 36-year-old T.J. turn up in an emoji-patterned splashy yellow suit.

There were emojis of multiple varieties on the outfit - possibly a nod to T.J.' s character Gene, an emoji capable of putting several looks on his face.

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How romantic: T.J. Miller diverted his gaze toward the camera as he planted a smooch on his wife Kate Gorney at the premiere of his new film The Emoji Movie

T.J. had matched white sneakers with the white dress shirt he'd got on, and he'd added a dash of contrast by way of a thick black tie he'd worn to the event.

He added another bit of emoji-themed fun to his ensemble courtesy of the gold Alison Lou sunglasses-face lapel pin, which could be seen attached to the collar of his white shirt.

Meanwhile, Kate, whom he'd married in 2015, bared a bit of midriff in the off-the-shoulder green dress she'd slid into, showcasing her enviably slender frame.

A thigh-slit allowed her to flash her vertiginous legs, which she'd slipped into open-toe heels, and a powder blue glinting bow was just below Kate's decolletage.

Taking the leap: Held at the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, California, the premiere saw 36-year-old T.J. turn up in an emoji-patterned splashy yellow suit

A bit of fun: There were emojis of multiple varieties on the outfit - including on his Alison Lou lapel pin - possibly a nod to T.J.' s character Gene, an emoji who can make more than one look

T.J. was seen playfully leaping into the air from the carpet, both by himself and while he was holding hands with his wife, who also kicked one leg off the floor, smiling.

He's also given a broad and toothy grin to the camera as he signed a poster for a fan, with Kate standing nearby behind him, as the day's festivities rolled along.

The celebrity-strewn cast of The Emoji Movie also includes Sir Patrick Stewart, who'd flung a charcoal blazer over a pine green shirt and light grey trousers.

Up in the air: T.J. was seen playfully leaping into the air from the carpet, both by himself and while he was holding hands with his wife, who also kicked one leg off the floor, smiling

Dapper: The celebrity-strewn cast of The Emoji Movie also includes Sir Patrick Stewart, who'd flung a charcoal blazer over a pine green shirt and light grey trousers

Troika: Sir Patrick and T.J. posed both as a duo and flanking Kate, the latter photo taken while T.J. and Kate held emoji signs - Kate's, unfortunately, of feces - over their faces

Sir Patrick and T.J. posed both as a duo and flanking Kate, the latter photo taken while T.J. and Kate held emoji signs - Kate's, unfortunately, of feces - over their faces.

Sony Pictures Animation President Kristine Belson, director Tony Leondis and producer Michelle Raimo Kouyate stood for a photo with a phalanx of The Emoji Movie actors consisting of T.J., Sir Patrick, Jennifer Coolidge, James Corden, Christina Aguilera, Anna Faris, Steven Wright and Jake T. Austin.

Maya Rudolph, Sofia Vergara, Rob Riggle, Sean Hayes and Tony himself are all in the film, which will be released to American movie theaters this coming Friday.

Fan service: He's also given a broad and toothy grin to the camera as he signed a poster for a fan, with Kate standing nearby behind him, as the day's festivities rolled along
He's the Australian television icon who has suffered a series of health scares this year.

But Bert Newton, looked fighting fit on Sunday when he celebrated his 79th birthday with family and friends at swanky Melbourne eatery Georges on Saturday.

Bert's wife Patti took to Instagram to share a series of photos documenting the surprise party.

Many happy returns: After recent health scares, Bert Newton, looked fighting fit on Sunday when he celebrated his 79th birthday with family and friends at swanky Melbourne eatery Georges on Saturday

One photo showed Bert looking pleased as punch to be surrounded by Patti, daughter Lauren, son-in-law Matt Welsh and grandchildren Sam, Eva, Lola and Monty.

Bert looked to be happily holding a cigar in a second photo that showed him surrounded by guests that included legendary radio and television voice-over artist Pete Smith and entertainer Rhonda Burchmore.

Patti's followers were quick to fawn over the celebratory posts with many taking the opportunity to wish Bert many happy returns.

Birthday boy: Bert looked to be happily holding a cigar in a second photo that showed him surrounded by guests that included legendary radio and television voice-over artist Pete Smith (front row third from right) and entertainer Rhonda Burchmore (second row fourth from right)

'Happy Birthday Bert, have a wonderful day, you are a beautiful man, you also have a beautiful family.xx,' one fan said while another offered a similar: 'Bert's charm, personality and pizzazz will never age.'

Leggy chanteuse Rhonda Burchmore also shared a snap of the celebrations, showing her hugging a seated Bert tightly as she kissed his head. Patti, meanwhile gave a look of mock indignation at the scene.

'So honoured to share a special birthday dinner for Bert the magnificent with Devine [sic] @pattinewtonofficial @laurenelisenewton & family,' he captioned the playful post.

Saucy: Leggy chanteuse Rhonda Burchmore also shared a snap of the celebrations, showing her hugging a seated Bert tightly as she kissed his head. Patti, meanwhile gave a look of mock indignation at the scene

Speaking with Phil Brady and Simon Owens on 3AW on Sunday, Bert revealed that while he had a ball the previous night, not all of his birthdays had gone as swimmingly.

'I remember one that I had, I think it was a year before my dad died...when I was 11,' Bert recalled.

'I misbehaved that day and Dad sent me to my bedroom...and for at least half of the party I looked out the window and watched my friends from school having a wonderful time.'

Speaking with Phil Brady and Simon Owens on 3AW on Sunday, Bert revealed that while he had a ball the previous night, not all of his birthdays had gone as swimmingly

Bert has had somewhat of a tumultuous year health-wise with the icon finding himself in and out of hospital battling pneumonia.

Patty was recently forced to slam claims by Woman's Day who suggested that Bert was on death's door and had been crying in a photo the magazine published on its cover.

'Who ever took this photo caught (Bert) having a sneeze, not tears!' Patti wrote on Instagram. 'He's not dying and it's sad he couldn't sneeze in peace.'
He implied women needed an easier course on Australian Ninja Warrior during an interview with failed contestant Andrea Hah on the Today show on Monday.

And Karl Stefanovic's own physical skills were put to the test as he struggled through an obstacle set up for him to complete in-studio, while Andrea looked on.

The 42-year-old failed the activity after Andrea correctly demonstrated how to do it.

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'How is that even possible?' remarked co-host Sylvia Jeffreys as she initially watched Andrea climb over and under the large wooden table with ease.

'I wonder how many kids are going to end up in the hospital today,' Karl joked before he tried the exercise himself.

As the television personality awkwardly began to move himself from being laid across the top of the table to moving underneath it, Sylvia gasped in shock.

'How is that even possible?' remarked co-host Sylvia Jeffreys as she initially watched Andrea climb over and under the large wooden table with ease

'I wonder how many kids are going to end up in the hospital today,' Karl joked before he tried the exercise himself

'Those pants are about to go!' she warned.

As he asked Andrea and the men assisting him for instructions on what to do, Sylvia yelled out to him, 'You got it Karl!' before he dramatically fell to the floor.

The father of two laughed and pretended the fall didn't happen, propping himself back up under the table as he grasped two legs.

Fail! As he asked Andrea and the men assisting him for instructions on what to do, Sylvia yelled out to him, 'You got it Karl!' before he dramatically fell to the floor

'I'm still in it!' he yelled out.

He fell down again, then jumped back on top of the table to pose like a winner as the group laughed together.

'Karl Stefanovic, effortless!' joked Sylvia as the rest of the ensemble cheered.

'Karl Stefanovic, effortless!' joked Sylvia as the rest of the ensemble cheered

During his interview with Andrea, Karl earlier implied women needed an easier Ninja Warrior course due to the 'different strength and agility between man and female'.

Andrea, who made history for being the first woman to conquer the infamous Warped Wall in the show's Australian edition, begged to differ.

'I think it's fantastic that it's the same course for men and women,' she offered.
Charlize Theron shot down reports that she's dating Gabriel Aubry during Sunday's episode of Watch What Happens Live.

The 41-year-old actress was asked by host Andy Cohen, 49, about the rumors she was seeing Halle Berry's ex-boyfriend.

'No. I've never met him. I've met him for like three seconds,' Charlize replied during a game of Plead The Fifth.

Dating question: Charlize Theron shot down reports that she's dating Gabriel Aubry during an appearance Sunday on Watch What Happens Live

She was also asked about an alleged 2014 incident involving an attempt to get Tia Mowry banned from SoulCycle after rolling her eyes at the reality star.

'What a b****. Did she say that?,' quipped Charlize.

She denied the encounter saying that she's really nice at SoulCycle and not an eye roller.

'Once the endorphins kick in, I'm too friendly,' Charlize said.

Model looks: Gabriel, shown in June 2016 in Los Angeles, has a daughter Nahla from his previous relationship with Halle Berry

She added: 'I'm not an eye roller, but I would be ''f*** off''.'

Andy also asked about rumored tension between Vin Diesel and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson on the set of The Fate Of The Furious.

'It wasn't the talk of the set. I started the film and I think it happened after I left,' she answered.

Game time: Charlize played Plead The Fifth on the Bravo chat show

A caller asked if it was important for her spy character Lorraine Broughton in Atomic Blonde to be bisexual.

'Why not? It should be normalized by now. It's something not represented enough in cinema,' Charlize said.

Andy followed up by asking Charlize if she ever 'took a dip in the lady pond', which is his usual euphemism for sexual relations with another woman.

Fielding questions: Andy Cohen relayed questions from callers to Charlize

Good times: The Bravo host had fun with the stars of Atomic Blonde

'Ooh. When I was younger, yes. When you're young, you're exploring it all. But, it was pretty clear that I really like dudes,' Charlize said.

Another caller asked Charlize how happy she was to not get the lead role in Showgirls that went to Elizabeth Berkley.

Charlize praised Elizabeth who she met at a party '10 or 15 years' after the 1995 widely panned erotic drama was released.

Showgirls role: A caller asked Charlize how happy she was to not get the lead in Showgirls

'The cookie crumbled in a certain way,' Charlize said.

She added: 'You have to understand at the time, Paul Verhoeven had just discovered Sharon Stone. You go with the filmmaker, right?'

Charlize also backed Michelle Rodriguez for demanding more respect for her role in The Fast And The Furious franchise.

Showing support: Charlize supported Michelle Rodriguez in her demand for more respect for her role in The Fast And The Furious franchise

'Vin, give her your money,' she joked after revealing that Michelle was the reason she became a fan of the franchise.

She also declared that none of the suitors on The Bachelorette were good enough for Rachel Lindsay.

She urged the Dallas attorney to get off the show and instead have a good friend set her up.

Bachelorette fan: The Oscar-winning actress also said none of the suitors on The Bachelorette were good enough for Rachel Lindsay

Andy asked Charlize if she would date another actor.

'I hope not to. I really hope to meet someone out of this f***ing business,' she said.

Charlize was joined in the Bravo clubhouse by her Atomic Blonde co-star James McAvoy, 38.

Spy movie: James stars with Charlize in the spy drama Atomic Blonde

James admitted that Charlize hurt him while filming when she punched him once in the ribs.

Charlize also is a producer of Atomic Blonde that opens in wide release in the US on Friday.

Atomic Blonde also stars John Goodman, Til Schweiger and Sofia Boutella.
She's the Australian singing legend with a career spanning four decades.

So it was a major shock for festival goers when Tina Arena joined Client Liason on stage for their Sunday night set at Byron Bay's Splendour In The Grass festival.

The 49-year-old iconic performer dazzled thousands of fans during her surprise appearance, belting out classic hits alongside the Melbourne indie pop group.

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Aussie icon: Tina Arena, 49, shocked thousands when she joined Client Liason on stage during their Splendour In The Grass set on Sunday night

Tina proved she still had it as she bounced around the stage in a military-inspired gold and black ensemble.

After being introduced as the 'voice of our nation', Tina joined the duo in a rendition of their original track, A Foreign Affair.

Later, the trio sent the crowd into an absolute frenzy when they performed Tina's 1995 hit, Sorrento Moon.

Still got it! Tina proved she still had it as she bounced around the stage in a military-inspired gold and black ensemble

Shock show: The songstress dazzled festival-goers during her surprise appearance, belting out classic hits alongside the Melbourne indie pop group

It was clear the songstress was an old-timer on stage as she put on an age-defying show in a figure-hugging outfit.

Her slender frame was highlighted by a high-waisted gold satin skirt with button-up detailing.

She matched her on-stage counter parts with glitzy gold embellishments on her black top.

Belting classics: The trio sent the crowd into an absolute frenzy when they performed Tina's 1995 hit, Sorrento Moon

Wearing a black navy-style cap, the brunette kept her outfit sharp by keeping her hair tied back in a pony tail.

She opted for a some bold red lipstick and dark coloured eye shadow.

Tina wasn't the only iconic Australian act to shock fans with a surprise performace at the festival, with rock group Powderfinger making their first appearance together in seven years.
If the trailer is anything to go by, My Friend Dahmer is sure to be terrifying.

A new teaser trailer for the upcoming biopic was released at Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday.

The film profiles notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer back when he was in high school, before he began his killing spree.

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Chilling: A new teaser trailer for the upcoming biopic My Friend Dahmer was released at Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday

Ross Lynch, 21, portrays Dahmer, taking on the role of the killer with a chilling performance.

The film also stars Alex Wolff as his oblivious friend, Vincent Kartheiser as his doctor, and Anne Heche and Dallas Roberts as his parents.

In real life, Dahmer earned himself the nickname the 'Milwaukee Cannibal'.

Between 1978 and 1991, he raped, murdered and dismembered 17 boys and men, killing his first victim just two weeks after his high school graduation.

Disturbed: Ross Lynch portrays Jeffrey Dahmer in the film, taking on the role of the killer with a chilling performance

The start of something... The film profiles notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer back when he was in high school, before he began his killing spree

Clueless: The film also stars Alex Wolff (left) as his oblivious friend, Derf, who wrote the graphic novel on which the film is based

Some of his later killings involved necrophilia, cannibalism and the preservation of the remains of his victims.

Dahmer was arrested on July 22, 1991, after a potential victim managed to escape and informed police.

After scouring his house, officers found dismembered body parts of his other victims throughout the property, along with disturbing Polaroid pictures he'd taken of them.

Future killer: In real life, Dahmer went on to earn himself the nickname the 'Milwaukee Cannibal'

Contributing factors: The film details his troubled upbringing, his isolation from his peers, his mental illness and his battle with alcoholism

Between 1978 and 1991, he raped, murdered and dismembered 17 boys and men, killing his first victim just two weeks after his high school graduation

Dahmer was later sentenced to 16 life sentences, which he began serving on February 15, 1992.

On November 28, 1994, he was killed by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who bludgeoned him to death.

He was 34.

Horrifying: Some of his later killings involved necrophilia, cannibalism and the preservation of the remains of his victims

Recognizing the signs... The film also stars Mad Men actor Vincent Kartheiser as Dahmer's childhood doctor

Speaking about the film, Ross told Rolling Stone this week he had 'no idea' who Dahmer was before taking on the part

Hostile: Anne Heche and Dallas Roberts star as Dahmer's dysfunctional parents. The pair went on to divorce, which had a lasting impact on their son

My Friend Dahmer profiles what led to the young man's escalation into full-blown serial killer.

It details his troubled upbringing, his isolation from his peers, his mental illness and his battle with alcoholism.

The movie is based on the graphic novel by Dahmer's high school friend John 'Derf' Backderf, portrayed by Alex, 19, in the film.

After being sentenced to 16 life sentences in 1992, Dahmer was killed by a fellow inmate in November, 1994

House of horrors: Police officers would later find dismembered body parts of Dahma's other victims throughout his home

Challenging: 'I thought it was awesome to just be unpredictable,' Ross said of the role. 'Hopefully my next role could be something that most people won't expect from me'

Speaking about the film, Ross told Rolling Stone this week he had 'no idea' who Dahmer was before taking on the part.

A former Disney star, the actor says he took the role on as a challenge.

'I thought it was awesome to just be unpredictable,' he said.

'Hopefully my next role could be something that most people won't expect from me.'
She plays the rebellious teen who's taking Summer Bay by storm.

And actress Sophie Dillman was spotted putting on a flirty display as she filmed scenes for Home And Away alongside a mystery hunk.

The blonde beauty stood out in a bright pink bikini top as she strolled across the sands of Summer Bay, which is set in Palm Beach.

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SPOILER ALERT: Actress Sophie Dillman was spotted filming scenes for Home And Away alongside a mystery hunk on Monday

The new-comer, who plays Ziggy Astoni on the popular soap, appeared to be on her way out to the surf.

Clutching a bright yellow surfboard under one arm, Sophie oozed confidence as she made her appearance.

The actress stopped to chat with a mystery hunk, who appears yet to be introduced on-screen.

Who's the hottie? Sophie's character was seen chatting with a handsome mystery man as filming got underway in Palm Beach

Fun in the sun: The blonde actress stood out in a bright pink bikini top and a matching towel wrapped around her torso

With his washboard abs on display while sporting a pair of blue shorts, the mystery actor also had a surfboard in tow and beamed as he spoke to Sophie.

With her hair worn out and straight for the scenes, Sophie also wore a pink towel wrapped around her waist.

The actress was later seen wearing a different outfit on set.

Making waves: The actress plays rebellious teen Ziggy Astoni, who recently made her on-screen debut

Surf's up: Both Sophie and her co-star had their surfboards in tow as they stopped to chat along the beach

New kid on the block: Sophie recently joined the show alongside actors Kestie Morassi, Anna Cocquerel, Rohan Nichol, who play her family on the show

She showed off a more grungy aesthetic, sporting a tiny pair of black denim shorts and a cut-out T-shirt.

The blonde beauty added a black choker necklace to her ensemble.

It was announced in January that Sophie would arrive in Summer Bay as part of the Astoni family, along with her parents and sister.

New character: It was announced in January that Sophie would arrive in Summer Bay as part of the Astoni family

Actors Kestie Morassi, Anna Cocquerel, Rohan Nichol have also joined Sophie on the show, starring as her family.

Sophie has been spotted filming alongside the show's other stars, including James Stewart, over the past several weeks.

This is believed to be Sophie's first TV role, after performing primarily in theatre productions before graduating from a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting in 2015.
She's the beautiful Australian model and actress, well known for her role in US drama Vampire Diaries.

And Phoebe Tonkin put a stunning display when she attended the San Diego Comic Con at Hard Rock Hotel on Saturday.

The 27-year-old looked ravishing in a strapless leather dress with floral embellishments.

Aussie beauty: Phoebe Tonkin, 27, was a picture of class when she attended San Diego's Comic Con on Saturday

Phoebe flaunted her genetically blessed looks with flawlessly applied make-up, and framed her face with an effortlessly styled bob, which allowed her to show off her Anita Ko earrings.

She flashed a series of her signature sultry expressions as she posed for photos at the event.

The brunette stunner offered a cheeky glimpse of her cleavage as the fitted bodice accentuated her slender top half.

Glam queen: Phoebe flaunted her genetically blessed looks with flawlessly applied make-up, and framed her face with an effortlessly styled bob, which showed off her Anita Ko earrings

Quirky: The 27-year-old looked ravishing in a strapless leather dress with floral embellishments

Phoebe was a picture of elegance, opting to keep her accessories to a minimum with simple silver earrings.

At one point, she showed off her tiny waist as she whipped herself to the side and flashed a cheeky glance over her shoulder.

The Hollywood star kept her footwear classic, donning a pair of black pointed-toe stilettos.

Professional poser: She flashed a series of her signature sultry expressions as she posed for photos at the event

Classic beauty: Phoebe flaunted her genetically blessed looks with flawlessly applied make-up, and framed her face with an effortlessly styled bob

Fantasy pals: She posed for a photo with American actress and Clary Fray star Katherine McNamara

Meanwhile, the Australian actress recently confirmed her reunion with her co-star Paul Wesley, after splitting for five months.

Phoebe gushed over her partner in her stunning cover story spread for Elle Australia's July issue.

The pair first began dating in in 2013 after meeting on the set of the supernatural drama series.
She's the Sydney PR queen, known for her glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle.

But in a recent photo shoot taken at her luxurious North Bondi home, Roxy Jacenko showed off her domestic side.

The 37-year-old posed for a series of photos, after signing on to become cleaning brand ENJO Australia's latest ambassador.

At home with Roxy! PR queen Jacenko, 37, showed off her domestic side in a photo shoot for cleaning brand ENJO, at her luxurious North Bondi home in Sydney

Roxy highlighted her slimmed-down figure in a khaki frock with semi-sheer detailing.

Elongating her frame with a pair of nude patent Christian Louboutin heels, the mother-of-two accessorised further with a statement gold watch and delicate jewels.

Hair and makeup artist Max May styled Roxy's signature blonde locks in structured waves, and enhanced her striking facial features with a flawless complexion, defined brows, a set of false lashes and a glossy nude lip.

Demonstrating the effectiveness of the cleaning brand's eco-friendly products, the notable used her trusty Hermes Birkin bag as a prop.

Fashion-forward: Roxy highlighted her slimmed-down frame in a khaki frock with semi-sheer detailing, and accessorised with nude patent Christian Louboutin heels, her trusty Hermes Birkin bag, a statement gold watch and delicate jewels

Beauty: Hair and makeup artist Max May styled the mother-of-two's blonde locks in structured waves, and enhanced her striking facial features with a flawless complexion, defined brows, a set of false lashes and a glossy nude lip

Switching into a casually chic ensemble, Roxy was seen wiping her kitchen island bench top with an all-purpose cloth.

The author opted for a charcoal silk shift-style top, tucked partially into a pair of slim-fitting jeans.

While another image saw Roxy, in a white round-neck T-shirt, beaming broadly for the camera as she attempted to clean her black-rimmed reading glasses.

Testing the product: Switching into a casually chic ensemble, Roxy was seen wiping her kitchen island bench top with an all-purpose cloth

Another fashion look: The author opted for a charcoal silk shift-style top, tucked partially into a pair of slim-fitting jeans

Crystal clear shot: Another image saw Roxy, in a white round-neck T-shirt, beaming broadly for the camera as she attempted to clean her black-rimmed reading glasses

Drawing attention to Roxy's striking facial features, another photo saw the entrepreneur attempting to wipe off her makeup with the brand's eco-friendly pad.

This time opting for a white long-sleeved top with cut-out detailing, Roxy appeared primped to perfection.

Her wedding band from Oliver Curtis was also visible in the shot.

Two other images within the shoot saw Roxy holding onto a mop, while another saw her seated on a couch with her laptop open.

In profile: Drawing attention to Roxy's striking facial features, another photo saw the entrepreneur attempting to wipe off her makeup with the brand's eco-friendly pad

Flawless: This time opting for a white long-sleeved top with cut-out detailing, Roxy appeared primped to perfection

Sports luxe: An image within the shoot saw Roxy holding onto a mop, highlighting her slender legs in abstract tights

Meanwhile the photo shoot comes at a busy time for Roxy.

Just two weeks ago, the blonde beauty took to Instagram, announcing that she had accepted husband Oliver Curtis' second proposal.

Oliver was released from Cooma prison late June, after spending a year behind bars for conspiracy to commit insider trading.

The couple share two children, daughter Pixie, five, and son Hunter, three.

Staying connected: Another image saw Roxy seated on a couch with her laptop open

Happy news: Meanwhile the photo shoot comes at a busy time for Roxy. Just two weeks ago, the blonde beauty took to Instagram, announcing that she had accepted husband Oliver Curtis' second proposal
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth tied the knot to her artist partner Keith Tyson, 47, over the weekend.

And scenes inside the lavish nuptials show the 48-year-old mother-of-four and her third husband spared no expense when it came to their wedding.

Saying 'I do' in a purpose-built barn in Oxfordshire, England, millionaire Elisabeth looked simply radiant in a gorgeous white gown.

Third time's the charm! Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth (left) tied the knot to her artist partner Keith Tyson (right) over the weekend

The famous guests included chef Jamie Oliver, who congratulated the couple on Instagram, and Blur bassist-turned-cheesemaker Alex James.

Elisabeth's billionaire father Rupert, 86, was of course also in attendance, as well as British TV personality Jamie Theakston and Love Actually star Meredith Ostrom.

Jeremy Clarkson, who also attended the buck's weekend, commented that the lavish flower arrangement left little room for his statuesque girlfriend Lisa Hogan.

Indeed, in photos shared to social media, many elaborate displays of colourful blooms hung from the walls and ceilings around the guests.

Society event: Scenes inside the lavish nuptials show the 48-year-old mother-of-four and her third husband spared no expense when it came to their wedding

Her perfect day: Saying 'I do' in a purpose-built barn in Oxfordshire, England, millionaire Elisabeth looked simply radiant in a gorgeous white gown

High profile: The famous guests included chef Jamie Oliver, who congratulated the couple on Instagram, and Blur bassist-turned-cheesemaker Alex Alex James

The couple's guests dined on mozzarella and pizzetta, followed by beef sirloin at the Michelin-starred River Cafe for the reception.

With a fortune of $263 million, money appeared to be no object for Elisabeth, who treated her guests to very expensive champagne on the night.

Barons de Rothschild 2008 champagne, worth $1,265 a pop, was served along with a similarly extravagant Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1998.

Inside look: Elisabeth's billionaire father Rupert, 86, was of course also in attendance, as well as British TV personality Jamie Theakston and Love Actually star Meredith Ostrom

Third time's the charm! Elisabeth has been married twice before - first to investment banker Elkin Kwesi Pianim and, later, to PR supremo Matthew Freud from 2001 to 2014

A stunning floral ceiling provided a colourful canopy for guests to dance under, while more extravagant flower arrangements were laid out on each of the tables.

Photos shared by party-goers on social media also offered a glimpse of the meticulous details which made up the venue's decor.

One particularly impressive installation included an arrangement of summer flowers suspended in a block of ice.

Floral: Jeremy Clarkson, who also attended the buck's weekend, commented that the lavish flower arrangement left little room for his statuesque girlfriend Lisa Hogan (pictured)

So beautiful! In photos shared to social media, elaborate displays of colorful blooms hung from the walls and ceilings around the guests

Wow! A stunning floral ceiling provided a colourful canopy for guests to dance under, while more extravagant flower arrangements were laid out on each of the tables

Bourbon cocktails were also served in small tins featuring the words 'Keith's paint' in gold text, an ode to the Turner Prize-winning artist groom.

Meanwhile, the blushing bride stunned in a sleeveless floral embroidered gown, while the groom cut a dapper figure in a dark grey suit.

Elisabeth and Keith have been dating since 2015.

Bottoms up! Bourbon cocktails were also served in small tins featuring the words 'Keith's paint' in gold text, an ode to the Turner Prize-winning artist groom

Dinner is served! The couple's guests dined on mozzarella and pizzetta, followed by beef sirloin at the Michelin-starred River Cafe for the reception

Exclusive access! Photos shared by party-goers on social media also offered a glimpse of the meticulous details which made up the venue's decor

The businesswoman was previously married to PR supremo Matthew Freud (the great grandson of Sigmund Freud) from 2001 to 2014.

The union produced two children, Charlotte, 17, and Samson, 10.

Her first marriage was to investment banker Elkin Kwesi Pianim, and the former couple also share two children, Cornelia, 23, and Anna, 20.

You may now kiss the bride! Elisabeth and Keith have been dating since 2015
They've been spending a lot of time together recently, but Bella Thorne's relationship with Max Ehrich is strictly professional.

The 19-year-old Famous In Love actress was spotted heading to a recording studio in Hollywood with the 26-year-old Under The Dome actor on Saturday.

Bella put her long legs on show in a pair of skimpy white hot pants.

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Making music together... Bella Thorne was spotted heading to a recording studio in Hollywood with Max Ehrich on Saturday

The extroverted star gave onlookers a show, with the shorts barely covering her butt cheeks.

She teamed it with a pale pink Lacoste cardigan, which she buttoned only at the bust, showing off hints of her midriff.

Bella also donned block heel white ankle boots.

Her fuschia colored hair was worn in a high ponytail, and she wore a series of layered necklaces.

Showing some skin... After pulling up in a blue, green and yellow check shirt, Max soon removed his top, showing off his muscular physique

Smoking hot: The chivalrous multi-hyphenate was seen puffing on a cigarette as he helped Bella out of the car

Feeling cheeky: The extroverted star gave onlookers a show, with her shorts barely covering her butt cheeks

The multi-hyphenate also carried a black handbag and wore a pair of aviator glasses.

Like Bella, Max also rocked a quirky ensemble.

After pulling up in a blue, green and yellow check shirt, the handsome star soon removed his top, showing off his muscular physique.

He also donned a pair of rolled up blue pajama bottoms printed with the Superman logo.

Quirky: Both Max and Bella sported eclectic ensembles as they made their way into the recording studio

Get to work... The pair were greeted by music producer Ari Blitz in the parking lot, who was also seen smoking

Max also wore a pair of white sneakers and a white captain's hat.

The chivalrous multi-hyphenate was seen puffing on a cigarette as he helped Bella out of the car.

The pair were greeted by music producer Ari Blitz in the parking lot, who was also seen smoking.

Searching for a hero... Max donned a pair of rolled up blue pajama bottoms printed with the Superman logo

Pretty in pink: Bella teamed her ensemble with a pale pink Lacoste cardigan, which she buttoned only at the bust, showing off hints of her midriff

Rock on: It appeared to have been a productive day for the trio, with Max later taking to Instagram to share a playful photo of them all in a room at the studio

It appeared to have been a productive day for the trio, with Max later taking to Instagram to share a playful photo of them all in a room at the studio.

'Are you ready?' he captioned it, adding a musical note emoji.

Their outing comes after weeks of sightings of Max and Bella together, as well as teasing by The Young And The Restless actor on Instagram.

Coming soon... Their outing comes after weeks of sightings of Max and Bella together, as well as teasing by The Young And The Restless actor on Instagram

Listen up: He posted yet another teaser earlier this week, showing himself and Bella facing each other on the floor, phones in their hands, while Ari strummed a guitar beside them

On June 23, Max posted a photo of himself and the former Disney star sitting on the floor together in a pink colored room.

'Creating w/ @bellathorne,' he captioned it, adding '#BeHereNow'.

He posted yet another teaser earlier this week, showing himself and Bella facing each other on the floor, phones in their hands, while Ari strummed a guitar beside them.

'Coming soon,' he captioned it.
It's the popular cooking reality program, with a line-up of star judges including Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan.

But MasterChef failed to win the ratings war on Sunday's primetime episode, falling behind Channel Nine's Ninja Warriors.

According to OzTam, the endurance series that sees competitors put through their paces, saw an impressive 1.745 million metro viewers tune in.

Not a recipe for success? MasterChef failed to win the ratings war in Sunday's grand finale episode, as an impressive 1.745 million metro viewers tuned into Channel Nine's Ninja Warriors. Pictured is MasterChef star judge Matt Preston, 53

OzTam's overnight preliminary ratings stated that Ninja Warriors brought in 1.745 million metro viewers on Sunday night's episode.

The program, having begun airing at 7pm, reached 2.461 million viewers nationally, making it the most-watched program in its time slot for a third consecutive week.

Meanwhile, MasterChef's grand finale episode reached 953,000 metro viewers at 7.30pm, and nationally 1.286 million.

Stellar run: OzTam's overnight preliminary ratings stated that Ninja Warriors brought in 1.745 million metro viewers on Sunday night's episode, compared to MasterChef's 953,000 metro viewers

Not a front-runner: Despite the cooking show's line-up of star judges, MasterChef has failed to win the ratings war. Pictured are Gary Mehigan (far left), 50, Matt, and George Calombaris, 38

According to Mediaweek editor James Manning, much of Ninja Warrior's success can be attributed to the high interest-rate among men.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he explained: '[Men] think 'I could do that' or 'I could beat him' or 'I could get that far,' they naturally compare how they might have gone on the course.'

The publication reported that figures released by Fusion Strategy reveal that the top 20 shows in 2017 have an 'overall audience bias' of 62 per cent female to 38 per cent male.

Interest: According to Mediaweek editor James Manning, much of Ninja Warrior's success can be attributed to the high interest-rate among men

Reasoning: Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he explained: '[Men] think 'I could do that' or 'I could beat him' or 'I could get that far,' they naturally compare how they might have gone on the course'

Fusion Strategy chief executive Steve Allen told the publication that Australian Ninja Warrior could represent a 'wake-up call' to networks to cultivate more male content in their programming.

'The commercial network programmers and program creators are conscious that too many shows don't have enough male content or viewers,' he said.

'There is no way to can get a show to rate more than one million viewers if you are only attracting one half of the population.'
Alessandra Ambrosio showcased her knockout legs in a frayed pair of denim shorts when she was photographed in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The Erechim-born 36-year-old had swung by celebrity-flypaper Nobu Malibu in a tight yellow T-shirt with 'California HONEY' emblazoned on the front in black.

Her hair falling free, the slender Victoria's Secret Angel had accessorized with bracelets, a walnut brown purse, a necklace and a pair of round Oliver Peoples sunglasses.

Allez, Ale: Alessandra Ambrosio showcased her knockout legs in a frayed pair of denim shorts when she was photographed in Los Angeles on Sunday

Alessandra's been engaged since 2008 to RE/DONE founder Jamie, by whom she's got a five-year-old son called Noah and an eight-year-old daughter called Anja.

Giving an interview to The Edit last year, she conceded: 'Your body will never go back to exactly what it was before pregnancy, whatever people tell you. It cant.'

Meanwhile, 'I think I have a better body now than before I had kids. Its partly because I work out, whereas before I didnt, but also to do with the shape  it just looks more formed now and I feel better about it than I did.'

Swank locale: The Erechim-born 36-year-old had swung by celebrity-flypaper Nobu Malibu in a tight yellow T-shirt with 'California HONEY' emblazoned on the front in black

The look: Her hair falling free, the slender Victoria's Secret Angel had accessorized with bracelets, a walnut brown purse, a necklace and a pair of round Oliver Peoples sunglasses

She did recall that 'after having Anja I only had three months to lose all the weight [before doing the 2008 Victorias Secret show] and I was on this 1200-calorie-a-day meal-delivery service that I hated. I couldnt do that again.'

Motherhood has, indeed, shifted her view of modeling in that 'I used to be 100% comfortable on lingerie shoots - then I had a child, and it was more of a mental shift than anything else. Somehow it felt a bit weirder to be in lingerie once I was a mum.'

She recalled that 'I did that cover for Maxim last year [naked but for a strategically placed newspaper],' but 'you dont see anything,' Alessandra noted.

Background: Alessandra's been engaged since 2008 to RE/DONE founder Jamie, by whom she's got a five-year-old son called Noah and an eight-year-old daughter called Anja

'It can't': Giving an interview to The Edit last year, she conceded: 'Your body will never go back to exactly what it was before pregnancy, whatever people tell you'

'When my daughter saw it, she asked: "Mummy, why do you have no clothes on?" And I said: "Mummy actually has a G-string on - its just so small you cant see it."'

Ale's also said in that interview that 'Growing up in Brazil, its the curves that I remember most. Brazilians dont just appreciate curves - they worship them.'

The model explained that 'It comes from that carnival culture, where women will parade around barely wearing a thing - just a tiny bikini, G-string or feathers.'

She's held that 'Every womans body is spectacular there, not because its perfect but because theyre loving life. Its never been about having a Barbie-like physique in Brazil but having the right curves, whatever your proportions or size.'

'I feel better about it than I did': Meanwhile, she's maintained over the course of that same interview that 'I think I have a better body now than before I had kids'
She's the high-profile businesswoman who's also the mother of two young children.

And Roxy Jacenko is motivating Pixie, five, and Hunter, two, to be social media savvy, with both of them already the subject of their own Instagram accounts.

The 37-year-old was seen being snapped by Pixie during a birthday lunch for Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis and her mother Doreen Jacenko at Otto Ristorante on Sunday.

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Adorable: Roxy Jacenko was seen being snapped by Pixie during a birthday lunch for her husband Oliver Curtis and her mother Doreen Jacenko at Otto Ristorante on Sunday

The pint-sized photographer was a picture of concentration as she held up the phone to take a shot of her mother holding her younger brother.

The adorable youngster stood while she focused on getting the frame perfect, her glamourous mother encouraging her as she expertly posed in black stilettos.

The trio are no strangers to social media, with a combined following of 320,000 followers on their individual Instagram profiles.

She's a pro! The pint-sized photographer was a picture of concentration as she held up the phone to take a shot of her mother holding her younger brother

The threesome celebrated Roxy's husband Oliver and her mother Doreen's joint birthday celebrations at the upmarket Italian eatery in Woolloomooloo.

The mother-of-two braved the winter chill in a pair of black shorts and a polka dot off-the-shoulder top.

Showcasing her long legs and toned physique, Roxy paired her ensemble with designer Sergio Rossi sandals she bought the previous day.

Good work Pixie! Roxy Jacenko is motivating her daughter, five, and son Hunter, two, to be social media savvy, with both of them already the subject of their own Instagram accounts

Pixie and Hunter also dressed up for the family gathering, both promoting the upscale childrenswear brand LM Bambini.

They posed for more group shots along the upscale wharf as they enjoyed the unusually warm weather.

Oliver's 32nd birthday is understood to be next week, with the lovebirds planning a second wedding after he recently surprised his wife with a new proposal.
He sealed his romance with Uzbek beauty Nigora Whitehorn by saying 'I do' during intimate beach nuptials on the shores of Portugal at the start of June.

And Duncan Bannatyne appeared to be in the throes of newlywed bliss on Sunday, as he enjoyed a romantic honeymoon with his new wife in Croatia.

The businessman, 68, and the former dental hygienist, 37, held hands as they made soaked up the sights and sun, before heading to a local eatery for an al fresco lunch.

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Wedded bliss: Newlyweds Duncan Bannatyne, 68, and Nigora Whitehorn, 37, were spotted enjoying a romantic honeymoon in Croatia on Sunday

As the lovebirds sat closely at their small wooden table, they lovingly gazed at one another, ignoring all of the buzz and chatter from fellow diners surrounding them.

Duncan looked suitably casual for the relaxed excursion, donning a sky blue linen button-down shirt with matching shorts and a pair of black tasselled plimsolls.

Shielding his eyes behind a pair of stylish sunglasses, he held hands with brunette stunner Nigora, who displayed her jaw-dropping curves in purple knitted minidress.

Fine dining: The loving couple enjoyed a romantic al freso lunch at an upscale local eatery

She teamed the figure-hugging number with a pair of brown strappy sandals, while a textured handbag rested on her shoulder.

With her chestnut brown tresses perfectly coiffed and resting on her shoulders, she kept herself cool with a floral-patterned black fan.

The couple have been enjoying an extended period of travel since tying the knot last month, having visited such destinations as Monte Carlo, Geneva and Montenegro.

They have also been travelling extensively throughout Croatia, starting their honeymoon in Dubrovnik before their current journey up the coast.

The look of love: Duncan and Nigora looked deliriously happy in London last month, as they made their first public appearance since their intimate beach wedding in Portugal on June 3

Nigora has been sharing details of their adventures on her private Instagram page, where she has often gushed about her new husband, dubbing him her 'soulmate.'

Sharing a shot of the couple basking in the sunshine together, she wrote: 'My best friend, my husband, my soulmate @duncan.bannatyne. I don't need anything or anyone when I've got you next to me.'

Last month, weeks after their wedding, they made their first public appearance as husband and wife at a fundraising dinner for The Petra Stunt Foundation in London.

Glittering glamour: Nigora, 37, wore a black gown, which was covered in sequins and featured a lacy split up the side

Former dental hygienist Nigora met the twice-divorced father-of-six in 2015 when he walked into the Harley Street clinic where she was working.

The couple looked madly in love as they tied the knot in Portugal on June 3.

Multi-millionaire Duncan told MailOnline: 'It was a perfect family wedding and I was overwhelmed by how beautiful Nigora looked. Our wedding was filled with love, laughter and happiness.

'My new Uzbek family are generous, caring, giving people and I am proud to be part of what is to me a wonderful new world. I feel very blessed and look forward to our life together as husband and wife.'

Glowing: Nigora wore her raven tresses down and had backcombed her hair slightly to give a more voluminous finish

Nigora also said: 'I am so happy to have married my love, best friend and soul mate.

'It was the most wonderful weekend and sharing it with our families and friends made it complete. I am so proud to be Mrs Duncan Bannatyne.'

The couple defended their 31-year age gap on This Morning on their honeymoon as Nigora said: 'It's their loss and they can sit back and be jealous. Im happy with the man with I love. Look at him.'
She's the host of Channel Seven's breakfast show Sunrise.

But Samantha Armytage has spent the last week enjoying a well-deserved vacation in Greece.

Perhaps reflecting on her rating success over Channel Nine's Today, Sam couldn't stop smiling in her holiday snaps.

Love is in the air! Taking to Instagram on Monday, Sunrise host Samantha Armytage (right) shared several photos from a wedding in Argolis, Greece

Taking to Instagram on Monday, the glamorous 40-year-old shared several photos from a wedding in Argolis.

Sam looked radiant in a red floral dress as she posed with several lively guests.

In one photo collage, she even planted a friendly kiss on a male pal while they were joined by several other guests.

Looks like fun! In one photo collage, Sam even planted a friendly kiss on a male pal while they were joined by several other guests

'A big, phat, spectacular Greek Wedding,' she wrote on Instagram.

Later, Sam shared an Instagram Story photo of herself with a male wedding guest and another female friend.

Appearing to continue the festivities, they posed for a selfie while dining at a waterfront restaurant.

'Now this is Sunrise'! Sam has been spending the last week relaxing on holiday in Greece

Sam kept cool and casual in a white top and accessorised with a blue bandanna and orange framed sunglasses.

It comes as Sunrise continues to enjoy success in the TV ratings against Channel Nine's breakfast program, Today.

With strong regional support, Seven's flagship remains Australia's most popular morning show nationally.
He's won the hearts of the nation thanks to his lovable nature, comedy raps and bromance with co-star Chris Hughes.

And Love Island fans couldn't wait to see Kem Cetinay reunite with his family on Sunday night's episode of the ITV2 show, revealing they were shocked by how glamorous the Romford based hairdresser's mum was.

Viewers took to Twitter to enthuse, 'KEM'S MUM IS A MILF #LoveIsland', 'Why is Kem's Mum peng' and 'Kem's mum is actually pretty damn hot! #LoveIsIand #Milf'.

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Family reunion: Love Island fans couldn't wait to see Kem Cetinay reunite with his family on Sunday night's episode Love Island, and were shocked by how glamorous the Romford based hairdresser's mum was

As Amber commented on how gorgeous her boyfriend's mother was, another fan joked: '#loveisland ambers thinking Kem's mum is her type on paper'.

After getting over the initial shock, viewers only had one thing on their mind - the moment Chris was introduced to his best pal Kem's loved ones.

Chris skipped over to meet Kem's mum and brother, looking delighted as he was given a warm reception.

Glamorous: Viewers took to Twitter to enthuse, 'KEM'S MUM IS A MILF #LoveIsland', 'Why is Kem's Mum peng' and 'Kem's mum is actually pretty damn hot! #LoveIsIand #Milf'

Mummy's boy! It was plain to see the close bond between Kem and his mother

Jealous: Kem's brother confessed he was jealous of his friendship with co-star Chris Hughes

Twitter reaction: Viewers were surprised by how glamorous Kem's mum was

Taking to social media: Fans were stunned by her glamorous appearance

100 percent her type on paper: Even Amber was impressed

Meme: One fan shared a GIF of rapper Drake clapping in reaction to Kem's mum

'Its not just your and Ambers love that is talked about, its yours and Chris too', Kem's mum tells her son.

Kems brother joked: 'I'm a bit intimidated that he is going to be your best man at the wedding, Im not happy about that!'

'I think hes my third son now!', Kem's mum said after meeting the lovable farmer.

Pleased as punch: Amber's meet the parents moment was a success

The real life Gavin and Stacey: Essex met Wales on Sunday night's show

Viewers took to Twitter in their droves to talk about the moment Chris invited himself around to Kem's family home for tea.

'Still laughing at Chris asking Kem's mum if he can come round for tea like they're in primary school #loveisland', one fan joked.

Another commented: 'Kem's mum is more interested in meeting Chris than Amber my life is complete #LoveIsland'.

'Kem's mum is more interested in meeting Chris than Amber my life is complete #LoveIsland', a third joked.

Thrilled: Chris skipped over to meet Kem's mum and brother, looking delighted as he was given a warm reception

Bromance: Kem's loved ones were delighted to meet Chris - perhaps even more so than meeting Amber

Cute: Viewers took to Twitter in their droves to talk about the moment Chris invited himself around to Kem's family home for tea
They've been dating for almost two years.

And it appears Tyson Mullane has well and truly taken on the role of stepfather to his girlfriend Pia Miller's sons as the family stepped out for lunch in Sydney this week.

With Home And Away star Pia, 33, on his arm, the handsome entrepreneur led the way with young Isaiah and Lenny by his side on Monday.

We are family! Tyson Mullane (second from left) joined girlfriend Pia Miller (second from right) and her two sons Isaiah (right) and Lenny (left) in Sydney on Monday

At one point, he placed his arm around Lenny, 10, like a protective father figure.

The tight-knit family unit appeared to have coordinated their outfits.

Tyson and Pia both wore all-black ensembles, while Lenny and Isaiah, 14, opted for navy shirts with matching black jeans.

Step-daddy duties? At one point, Tyson placed his arm around Lenny like a father figure

What a guy! Tyson and Pia have been dating for almost two years, and the entrepreneur enjoys a close relationship with her children from previous relationships

Pia currently stars as policewoman Katarina 'Kat' Chapman on Home And Away.

She also works as a model and ambassador for several brands, including GHD and Mazda.

But despite her celebrity status, Pia and Tyson were famously turned away at the door from an Logies after party last year.

Matching: The tight-knit family unit appeared to have coordinated their outfits

Getting along well! Pia looked comfortable while chatting to her companions

All smiles! The group posed for a photo together at the restaurant

Tyson is the founder of MacaMilk, a macadamia milk company based in Byron Bay.

On his LinkedIn page, Tyson describes MacaMilk as 'for the the growing passionate, health conscience cafe culture that doesnt compromise on taste.'

Tyson previously dated model Cheyenne Tozzi before finding love with Pia.

The couple debuted their romance in early 2016, months after her split from AFL star ex-husband Brad Miller.
She went from being the most popular girl in the villa to being booted from Love Island in just a few short days.

And Montana Brown claims she was 'encouraged to be bitchy' due to the stressful environment after she was voted off the ITV2 show on Sunday night alongside her boyfriend Alex Beattie.

The 21-year-old graduate admits she is 'guilty' of saying some things 'in the heat of the moment', following a dramatic few days which saw her bad-mouthing her friends Gabby Allen and Camilla Thurlow.

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Speaking her mind? Newly-axed Love Island contestant Montana Brown claims she was 'encouraged to be bitchy' due to the ITV2 programme's stressful environment

She told the Daily Star: 'We were all encouraged to be bitchy. It was in the heat of the moment and I have been guilty of saying some things.'

Now that she isn't eligible to win the 50,000, Montana wants to see close pal Amber and her partner Kem take the prize money.

Asked who she is rooting for to win, she said: 'Amber has been through hell and back from the start. [Her and Kem] are only going to go from strength to strength.'

Alex wants Olivia and Chris to take the crown, however, and added: 'Together, they are wicked.'

See ya! The brunette was voted off the show on Sunday night alongside boyfriend Alex Beattie

Meanwhile, Alex insists the pair are going to 'play it by ear' when it comes to their romance out of the villa.

And Montana has defended having sex on screen, insisting she and Alex weren't the couple who were at it the most.

Speaking about her on screen antics, she added to The Sun newspaper: 'Kem and Amber had the most sex in the villa - without a doubt. The trouble was our bed was in the middle of everyone elses so it was really obvious when we were at it.'

Close bond: Now that she isn't eligible to win the 50,000, Montana wants to see close pal Amber (pictured saying goodbye to her) and her partner Kem take the prize money

Showing a different side to herself: Before she was voted out of the villa, Montana had a dramatic few days which saw her bad-mouthing her friends Gabby Allen (right) and Camilla Thurlow (centre)

She also confessed that she wouldn't be making amends with her estranged father following the show, even if he should extend the olive branch first.

'I do not want to make amends with him at all  that is not what I am looking for and not why I entered the show', she said.

The star had confessed during an emotional chat with boyfriend Alex that she found it hard to trust men because of her relationship with her father.

The self-proclaimed 'ice queen' said that her partner was finally helping her break down her barriers.
She is facing a 240 fine after taking her two daughters on a holiday to Barbados during term time earlier this year.

But Kerry Katona made full use of the summer holidays with two of her five children - Heidi, 10 and Dylan-Jorge, 2, as they enjoyed a sunny getaway to Marbella, Spain on Sunday.

The former Atomic Kitten star, 36, looked every inch the doting mother as she donned a summery blue dress and ensured both her girls were in matching ensembles.

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Family time: Kerry Katona, 36, made full use of the summer holidays with two of her five children - Heidi, 10 and Dylan-Jorge, 2, as they enjoyed a sunny getaway to Marbella, Spain on Sunday

Kerry looked in a great mood as she soaked in the sunshine with her young daughters in the same dress.

The songstress looked sensational as she embraced summer chic in the bardot style loose-fitting blue dress which boasted white crotchet detailing.

Kerry - who is now estranged to her husband George Kay - donned a low-key slick of make-up and shielded herself from the rays in a pair of cool shades.

The star, who sported spiked up platinum blonde locks, was in high spirits as she held the hand on her youngest Dylan-George - who in return held hands with older sister.

Summer chic: The former Atomic Kitten star looked every inch the doting mother as she donned a summery blue dress and ensured both her girls were in matching ensembles

Fashionista: The songstress looked sensational as she embraced summer chic in the bardot style loose-fitting blue dress which boasted white crotchet detailing

Summer ready: Kerry - who is now estranged to her husband George Kay - donned a low-key slick of make-up and shielded herself from the rays in a pair of cool shades

Doting mum: The star, who sported spiked up platinum blonde locks, was in high spirits as she held the hand on her youngest Dylan-George

The mother and daughters seemed to be having a great time as they strolled casually down the street - enjoying lively conversation and taking in the view while they were at it.

According to The Sun, the star is holidaying at the home of Kent businessman Mon Basra who was jailed in April 2013 for the harrassment of two women.

Mon, whose partner is also on the trip, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison after admitting blackmail, breaching a non-molestation order and two harassment offences.

He was branded a 'dangerous individual' by the investigating officer in the case.

Friends: According to The Sun , the star is holidaying at the home of Kent businessman Mon Basra who was jailed in April 2013 for the harrassment of two women

Kerry's sun-kissed appearances comes after she landed in hot water with the authorities after two of her daughters went on holiday during school term time.

The blonde is now facing a 240 fine after Molly, 15, and Lilly, 14, went away for a 'week's holiday' earlier this year.

But Katona insisted the children were away in Barbados with their father, her former husband Brian McFadden, and that he was responsible for informing the school.

Sister love: Dylan in return sweetly held hands with older sister Heidi

Chilling: The mother and daughters seemed the having a great time as they strolled casually down the street

Multi-tasking: They enjoyed lively conversation and took in the view while they were at it

Smile! Kerry was in the mood to capture the moment as she bent down to snap a a sweet family selfie

A representative said the fine has now been paid for the trip, which took place between February 20 and 24 this year.

Katona's spokesman told MailOnline: 'This is related to a holiday the children took with their father, Brian.

'As far as Kerry was aware he had informed the school. The fine has been paid.'

Brood: Kerry was also joined by her nine-year-old son Maxwell who adorably hugged her

In trouble: Kerry's sun-kissed appearances comes after she landed in hot water with the authorities after two of her daughters went on holiday during school term time

Landing in hot water: The blonde is now facing a 240 fine after Molly, 15, and Lilly, 14, went away for a 'week's holiday' earlier this year

Kerry was due to appear at Brighton Magistrates' Court after the failure to pay a fine of 60 per child for the non-attendance at Uplands Community College.

The bill for non-attendance rises to 120 per child if it is not paid within 21 days.

Katona faces an unlimited fine, a possible jail sentence of up to three months and a parenting order if prosecuted.

MailOnline has contacted McFadden's representatives for comment but have not received a reply.

Explanation: Katona insisted the children were away in Barbados with their father, her former husband Brian McFadden, and that he was responsible for informing the school

Taking action: A representative said the fine has now been paid for the trip, which took place between February 20 and 24 this year

The songstress took to social media to protest her innocence, writing: 'Just to clear this whole thing regards to the children going away on holiday in February this was not me

She took to social media to protest her innocence, writing: 'Just to clear this whole thing regards to the children going away on holiday in February this was not me.

'Their dad took them away to Barbados. The matter has now been sorted.'

Meanwhile, Kerry is in the midst of her third divorce to George Kay after they announced their split last month.
She's been hard at work shooting her new movie The Gift.

And Katie Holmes appeared carefree and relaxed as she headed out for dinner with a friend in New York City's West Village on Sunday.

The actress, 38, looked relaxed and chic as she headed to El Toro Blanco restaurant in a white t-shirt, jeans and elegant purple kimono-style coat.

Casual chic: Katie Holmes looked relaxed and chic as she headed to El Toro Blanco restaurant in New York's West Village in a white T-shirt, jeans and purple kimono-style coat on Sunday

The Batman Begins star highlighted her long legs in the kooky outfit, walking with her hand in her pocket and white handbag slung over her shoulder.

She paired the look with buckled sandal shoes and a matching belt, holding the glare of the summer sunshine at bay with reflective cat-eye sunglasses.

Katie's outfit was complete with matching jewellery, including a dainty pendant necklace and gold bracelets.

The mother-of-one opted to showcase her barefaced beauty, going make-up free and wearing her brown tresses tied back from her face.

Eclectic: The actress, 38, highlighted her long legs in the comfy outfit, walking with her hand in her pocket and white handbag slung over her shoulder

Katie has been busy filming new drama The Gift in Montreal, Canada, playing the character of Helen Morrison opposite co-stars Patrick Stewart and Giancarlo Esposito.

Seemingly enjoying her time on set, the former Dawson's Creek star shared a behind-the-scenes selfie to Instagram earlier this month.

Sitting at a table grinning, the actress showed off her curly locks and wore a white top with floral embellishing.

On set: Katie has been busy filming new drama The Gift in Montreal, playing the character of Helen Morrison opposite co-stars Patrick Stewart and Giancarlo Esposito

Mother and daughter time: Last week Katie treated daughter Suri, 11, to a trip to the theatre to watch Dear Evan Hansen, with the youngster meeting the star Ben Platt after the show

Last week, Katie treated daughter Suri, 11 - whose father is actor Tom Cruise, 55 - to a trip to the theatre to watch Dear Evan Hansen.

The youngster was pictured grinning with excitement after the show when she and her mum headed backstage to meet the show's star Ben Platt.

Proving she's a woman of many talents, Katie also recently revealed she has filmed a guest appearance on the new season of Project Runway.

Katie, who has appeared on the fashion reality show before, gushed about the experience on social media, posting a photo of herself with close friend and judge Zac Posen.
Ariel Winter has a new tattoo on her right hip.

The Modern Family actress revealed her latest inking on her Snapchat account on Sunday, posting a picture of her most recent body art, which reads, 'Loves risks everything and asks for nothing.'

The 19-year-old star's picture of her bare hip and legs was followed by a snap of herself kissing her long-time boyfriend, Levi Meaden.

The write stuff: Ariel Winter has a new tattoo on her right hip. The Modern Family actress revealed her latest inking on her Snapchat account on Sunday

Her love: The 19-year-old star's picture of her bare hip and legs was followed by a snap of herself kissing her long-time boyfriend, Levi Meaden

Her other tattoos include Greek writing on her hip, writing on her side, tiger on her upper back, roman numeral on her elbow, playing card, spade on her wrist, half a heart on her hand, a block of Swiss cheese on her finger and a snake on her wrist.

Ariel's Instagram post came shortly after she hit out at criticism of the 10-year age gap between herself and Levi.

The actress explained: 'I'm happy, and whatever people want to say they can say. I don't understand why someone would even comment on our situation at all, I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Marks for life: The siren has initials on her side but it's not know who they are for

Animal lover: She also has a snake on her wrist, left, and a tiger on her back, right

With her beau: She and Levi got matching tattoos this year - on the left they each have half a heart and on the right they have symbols for their nicknames cheese and peanut butter

'But I'm super happy in the arrangement that we have; we love living together and we share all the duties and it's great.'

And prior to that, Ariel gushed that Levi is the 'most incredible person' she's ever met.

The curvaceous star revealed Levi boosts her self-esteem by frequently making complimentary comments about her appearance.

Ariel shared: 'I have to say he is the most incredible person I've ever met and that I'm so lucky to be with him.

Angry: Winter has been sensitive about people commenting on her short shorts and low-cut tops lately. Last week, the teen hit back at critics who had a thing or two to say about the way she dresses

'He's always complimenting me and making me feel special and beautiful. We went grocery shopping today, and I was in, like, a weird T-shirt that I kind of hate and my semi-pajama pants, and he still took the time to tell me that I look pretty.'

Ariel said her boyfriend's comments help to lift her spirits when she is feeling particularly down about herself.

She shared: 'Even when I do feel bad about myself, he's just there to support me and pick me back up when I'm feeling down.'

Winter has been sensitive about people commenting on her short shorts and low-cut tops lately.

Last week, the teen hit back at critics who had a thing or two to say about the way she dresses.

More from her: 'I'm not a whore because I wear shorts and tank tops. I'm a normal girl,' she ranted on Twitter. 'Also, I'm not "squeezing" into anything. My shorts fit me and everything I'm doing is just fine. Please leave young women alone. We're just living our live'

'I'm not a whore because I wear shorts and tank tops. I'm a normal girl,' she ranted on Twitter.

'Also, I'm not "squeezing" into anything. My shorts fit me and everything I'm doing is just fine. Please leave young women alone. We're just living our lives.'

Winter's way of dressing was also criticized by her mother in June when she talked to InTouch Weekly. Crystal Workman, from whom Ariel is estranged, said she wishes her daughter would not show so much flesh.

'I would not do that,' said Chrystal. 'She needs to grow up. I would tell her to dress properly, be the beautiful person she is.'

'I feel sad that she feels the need to expose herself when its not necessary,' she added.

Ariel, who has accused her mother of abusing her physically and emotionally, became emancipated in 2015.
She is rumoured to be going into the Celebrity Big Brother House next month.

But Jemma Lucy, 29, was giving nothing away as she made a glamorous appearance with gal pal Zaralena Jackson, 25, in Portugal on Sunday.

Tattoo model Jemma, flaunted her bountiful assets in a plunging ivory top which showed off her braless bust, heaving cleavage and panther chest inking as she strutted along.

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Rumour mill: Jemma Lucy, 29, was giving nothing away about a rumoured appearance on Celebrity Big Brother as she made a glamorous appearance with gal pal Zaralena Jackson, 25, in Portugal on Sunday

The top featured a striking asymmetric train which flowed into the breeze as she stepped out into the night.

The Ex On The Beach alumni teamed her racy top with tiny white hotpants which showcased her toned pins and newly acquired leg sleeve.

Her pretty features were highlighted with mascara and a slick of scarlet lipstick, and she swept her raven locks up into an elegant bun.

Adding a pop of colour, she teetered on scarlet sandals as she held on tightly to Zaralena's manicured hand.

Close: Zaralena donned a silver crop top with a bardot neckline and long sleeves as she held onto Jemma's hand, amid claims the pair are now an item

First flush of romance? The pair, who both ignited glittering reality careers on EOTB,have forged a firm friendship after a string of girls nights out together

Pouty: Meanwhile, Jemma is rumoured to have signed up for the imminent season of Celebrity Big Brother to 'dish the dirt on Stephen Bear'

The pair, who both ignited glittering reality careers on EOTB,have forged a firm friendship and are now rumoured to be an item after a string of girls nights out together.

Zaralena donned a silver crop top with a bardot neckline and long sleeves, which flashed a hint of cleavage and revealed her taut midriff.

The flame haired star accessorised with an unusual matching skirt with baby pink trim, over which she appeared to have pulled on amethyst velvet underwear.

Adding height with strappy gold sandals, the star wore her locks in soft waves , parted on the side, with lashings of mascara and false lashes making her peepers pop.

Gossip: A source told The Sun: 'Jemmas not afraid to speak her mind so this series of CBB could be explosive! She makes for great TV and is seriously sexy so its bound to give ratings a boost

Meanwhile, Jemma, who recently underwent a Brazilian bum lift, is rumoured to have signed up for the imminent season of Celebrity Big Brother to 'dish the dirt on Stephen Bear'.

A source told The Sun: 'Jemmas not afraid to speak her mind so this series of CBB could be explosive! She makes for great TV and is seriously sexy so its bound to give ratings a boost.

'Her exes might have to keep a close eye on the show  you never know what Jemma might say.'

The MTV bad girl and Bear had enjoyed a brief fling following his stint on Celebrity Big Brother, but Jemma later confirmed their romance was over as she accused Bear of 'cheating' on her.
It will be his last outing as the two-hearted Gallifreyan.

And it looks like Peter Capaldi will go out with a bang as Comic Con audiences were treated to the explosive trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special.

The Scottish actor, 59, will join forces with David Bradley, who plays William Hartnell's First Doctor, and Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss, playing a Great War soldier called The Captain.

In the yuletide special, titled Twice Upon A Time, the two doctors find themselves on a First World War battlefield, where time has stopped.

The trailer begins with an old clip of William Hartnell's Doctor from the 1966 episode The Tenth Planet.

In she short clip, shown in black and white, the Doctor is speaking to the Mondasian Cybermen, who recently returned in the series 10 finale.

Speaking in a commanding tone, the Doctor says, 'Love, pride, hate, fear', before the image morphs into full colour and David Bradley says, 'Has he no emotions, sir?'

Double trouble: The Doctor Who Christmas Special, titled Twice Upon a Time, will see Peter Capaldi's Doctor join forces with the first incarnation of the Time Lord

Back from the dead: The trailer begins with an old clip of William Hartnell's Doctor from the 1966 episode The Tenth Planet, which morphs into David Bradley playing the role

The trailer then flashes back to the final scene of the last episode, where Peter Capaldi's Doctor comes face to face with the first incarnation of the Time Lord.

When the 13th Doctor says, 'I'm the Doctor', the first Doctor replies, 'I am the Doctor'.

The sneak peak shows the start of both Doctors' regenerations, teasing fans with a glimpse of Polly, who was a companion in 1966.

Who's there? The Comic Con trailer then flashes back to the final scene of the last episode, where Peter Capaldi's Doctor comes face to face with the first incarnation of the Time Lord

Getting muddled: When the 13th Doctor says, 'I'm the Doctor', the first Doctor replies, 'I am the Doctor'

In a striking image, both Tardises are parked next to each other as the two Doctors exit their respective time machines.

Peter Capaldi's Doctor taps a stationary snowflake as he announces: 'Something has gone very wrong with time.'

As he reveals what is wrong, Mark Gatiss's character is shown holding a pistol at a German soldier as both men are frozen in time.

She's back: The sneak peak shows the start of both Doctors' regenerations, teasing fans with a glimpse of Polly, who was William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton's companion in 1966

Changing faces: The Doctor started his regeneration when he was shot by a Mondasian Cyberman in the series 10 finale

Two is better than one: In a striking image, both Tardises are parked next to each other as the two Doctors exit their respective time machines

Face to face: Mark Gatiss's character is shown holding a pistol at a German soldier as both men are frozen in time

The Captain later encounters both Doctors together and obliviously asks: 'So sorry, I don't suppose either of you is a doctor?'

In a deadpan fashion akin to his famous turn as Malcolm Tucker, Peter's Doctor says: 'You trying to be funny?'

The heroic trio are seen taking a ride in William Hartnell's 1960s Tardis, complete with its white circular panelling.

Lucky man: The Captain later encounters both Doctors together and obliviously asks: 'So sorry, I don't suppose either of you is a doctor?'

In shock: In a deadpan fashion akin to the actor's famous turn as Malcolm Tucker, Peter's Doctor says: 'You trying to be funny?'

Impressed, the Captain says: 'These police boxes, they're ever so good aren't they.'

Viewers were given a taste of the action to come as both Doctors duck from explosions, while Peter's Time Lord uses his sonic screwdriver in an attempt to save the day.

He says, 'We do have one little advantage', inviting the first Doctor to ask, 'What advantage?'

Hurtling through time and space: The trio took a trip in the first Doctor's Tardis as the Captain says: 'These police boxes, they're ever so good aren't they'

'One little advantage': In 2013, David Bradley played William Hartnell in An Adventure In Time and Space, which followed the early history of Doctor Who and the actor who first portrayed the Time Lord

The 13th Doctor replies: 'There's two of us.'

Pearl Mackie's Bill Potts also makes a brief appearance in the exciting trailer, as she asks: 'Is he here? Is the Doctor here?'

In a heartwarming moment, Bill and the Doctor enjoy a close embrace, leaving fans desperate for more.

One last hurrah: In a heartwarming moment, Bill and the Doctor enjoy a close embrace, leaving fans desperate for more

The Christmas special is set to be Peter and Pearl's last outing in Doctor Who.

But the actress told fans at Comic Con that she could well return in the future.

She said: 'No, thats it  Christmas special, last chance to see Bill.

Yuletide treat: According to co-star Mark Gattis the special is 'a Christmas episode without being overtly Christmassy - it's very happy-sad'

'But, I mean, hey, its Doctor Who so never say never.'

This isn't David Bradley's first outing as William Hartnell's doctor.

In 2013, he played the actor in An Adventure In Time and Space, which followed the early story of Doctor Who and the actor who first portrayed the Time Lord.

End of an era: Mark Gatiss said: '[It's] a fantastic episode and we had a great time doing it. It was a lovely way out'

Speaking at Comic Con, Mark Gatiss said the speical was 'a Christmas episode without being overtly Christmassy - it's very happy-sad'.

He said: '[It's] a fantastic episode and we had a great time doing it. It was a lovely way out.'

Sherlock star Mark has written nine episodes for the long-running science fiction show, including season 10's Empress of Mars.
She certainly made an impression on The Bachelor's Matty J at the first cocktail party, wearing a daring sheer gown that left little to the imagination.

And ahead of the series premiere on Wednesday, rumoured 'villain' Leah Costa has confessed she went underwear-free below her dress.

The 24-year-old university student told The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday: 'I didn't realise how naked I was until I saw (the trailer).'

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'I didn't realise how naked I was!' The Bachelor's Leah Costa (right) ditched her underwear before meeting Matty J (left) for the first time in THAT risque cocktail party dress

The confident socialite added that she rarely wore underwear on the show.

'I think there was only one week where I did,' Leah admitted.

She added that most of the female contestants skipped wearing undies, perhaps hoping to impress Matty J.

She's certainly not shy! The confident university student added that she rarely wore underwear on the show - and neither did the other female contestants

In a recent trailer for The Bachelor, Leah appears to clash with Jen Hawke, a glamour model and promotions girl, on their first night in the mansion.

'Do I intimidate you?' Jen asked Leah.

'No!' she responded with a confident smile.

Making her mark: In a recent trailer for The Bachelor, Leah (pictured) appears to clash with Jen Hawke, a glamour model and promotions girl, on their first night in the mansion

'I should,' Jen responded as she sipped from a champagne glass.

It seems Leah has close ties within Bachelor social circles, with NW reporting she is friends with Matty's ex, The Bachelorette's Georgia Love.

She also appears to be close with former Bachelorette 'villain' David Witko, having attended several events with him recently.
She's sunning herself with her fiance Oliver Cheshire at the A-list holiday hotspot of the summer.

And Pixie Lott flaunted her sensational figure in a skimpy swimsuit as she partied up a storm at Ibiza's Hard Rock Hotel in a cheeky Instagram snap posted to her account on Sunday.

Showing off some serious skin, the Baby hitmaker, 26, showcased her peachy derriere in a slinky one-piece.

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Cheeky! Pixie Lott flaunted her sensational figure in a skimpy swimsuit as she partied up a storm at Ibiza's Hard Rock Hotel in a cheeky Instagram snap posted to her account on Sunday

The pop princess tossed her blonde locks back over her shoulder and accessorised with flower-framed sunglasses for a funky look.

Pixie has been showing off her collection of swimwear over the course of her sun-soaked weekend with her model fiance and her older sister, Charlie-Ann.

The starlet slipped into another sexy swimsuit when she partied at the White Isle's Blue Marlin beach club on Friday.

Pixie - real name Victoria Louise Lott - flashed a hint of tanned skin in a kooky costume, and covered up with a black crochet kaftan.

Wow: The Baby hitmaker, 26, slipped into another sexy swimsuit when she enjoyed spending time at the Blue Marlin beach club on Friday

Pixie and Oliver were still the picture of romance on their holiday, still looking every inch in the honeymoon period after six blissful years of dating.

The male model popped the question in November 2016 outside St Paul's Cathedral in central London, but the couple are yet to make any solid plans for the wedding.

Pixie gushed about her lover in a recent television appearance on This Morning, where she joined hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on the sofa.

She said: 'He's really good, but we havent planned anything yet.'

'We haven't had a chance! It's been so busy, but hopefully we'll have time to get round to it soon.

'At the moment I'm just in the studio. I'm loving writing and making new music.'

Fun in the sun: The pop princess has been sunning herself with her beau Oliver Cheshire at the A-list holiday hotspot of the summer

Pixie recently discussed her engagement to Oliver in an interview with Paper magazine.

She said: 'When we're away from each other, we're speaking to each other as much as we can - WhatsApp is a godsend - but when I go on trips, I always ask him to come if he's free.'

'He's my best friend, and the amazing thing is the memories we share. We've been together since I was 19, and now I'm 26. We know each other inside out.'

Discussing her engagement, Pixie told MailOnline last year: 'I just burst into tears [when it happened].

'I was so tired and jet lagged as I'd just got back from LA and we'd been at a wedding party the night before. I'd had no sleep, so I just burst into tears, for once I was speechless!'

Madly in love: The couple attended the Global Gift Gala at STK Ibiza on Friday night

Later in the week, Pixie yet again took to Instagram to share one of many funky ensembles - this time as she modelled a quirky T-shirt adorned with the logo for Cadbury Wispa chocolate bars and designed by Henry Holland.

As she smoulered into the camera, while showing off her endless legs in tight denim shorts she added a caption on the snap reading: 'Can't go wrong with a classic @HouseOfHolland @CadburyUK'.

Of the kooky T-shirts, designer Henry said: 'We wanted to make this range a real hit for the great British summer and with all five designs being really unique and different we think there is a great selection here for all fans.

'My personal favourite is the Wispa t-shirt and I cant wait to see everyone wearing these to festivals and events over the next few months.'
They were given their marching orders from the Love Island villa on Wednesday, just days before the final.

But Georgia Harrison, 22, and Sam Gowland, 21, proved the flame they had ignited in Mallorca was still burning as they arrived back in the UK on Monday, hours before the hit show's final.

The young couple, who had hinted a enduring romance could be on the cards as they made their exit, looked truly smitten as they strolled through the airport hand-in-hand before sharing a steamy smooch.

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Romance: Love Island's Georgia Harrison, 22, and Sam Gowland, 21, proved the flame they had ignited in Mallorca was still burning as they arrived back in the UK on Monday, hours before the hit show's final

Sealed with a kiss: The young couple, who had hinted a enduring romance could be on the cards as they made their exit, looked truly smitten as they strolled through the airport hand-in-hand before sharing a steamy smooch

Keeping her flight look casual, former TOWIE star Georgia showcased her toned physique in a ebony crop top which also revealed her taut midriff.

For comfort she donned army print trainers.

The reality star swept her platinum locks up into a low-maintenance ponytail and highlighted her sparkling eyes with a dash of mascara and eyeliner.

She paired this with skintight matching leggings which drew attention to her endless slender pins.

Coupled up: Their appearance comes just hours before the winner of the hit Love Island show is announced on tonight's final

Road to love: The fun-loving couple had their ups and downs, including a troublesome few days in the villa, which saw Georgia accused of lying by the detector test when she said she could see herself in a relationship with Sam

Georgia also revealed her pert derriere as she touchingly touched Sam's face as she leaned in for a sweet kiss as they got to the car.

Her hunky beau donned a navy blue t-shirt which clung to his muscular physique and showcased his many tattoos.

Keeping with the beach vibe, he also wore sparkling white shorts which he paired with glittery black sneakers.

Their appearance comes just hours before the winner of the hit show is announced on tonight's final.

The way they were: The couple got together after Sam sensationally re-entered the villa with lothario Mike Thalassitis

Viewers will watch either Kem and Amber, Camilla and Jamie, Marcel and Gabby or Chris and Olivia become King and Queen of the villa, and scoop a 50,000 prize.

Although Sam and Georgia are out of the running, they took the ousting graciously and with Georgia gushing: 'I didn't expect to come out with someone I like.'

Hugging their fellow islanders goodbye, Georgia admitted she had been expecting to be voted off, telling her friends: 'It was always going to be us guys.

'Don't be upset, we ain't been together as long as you guys. We did well to make it as long as we did!'

The fun-loving couple had their ups and downs, including a troublesome few days in the villa, which saw Georgia accused of lying by the detector test when she said she could see herself in a relationship with Sam.

They got together after Sam sensationally re-entered the villa with lothario Mike Thalassitis
Kim Zolciak and Kenya Moore have been locked in a very public feud for months, but temperatures flared to a boiling point over the weekend.

Just days after Zolciak announced her return to The Real Housewives Of Atlanta, she and Moore had an on-camera battle that was moments away from becoming an all-out physical brawl, TMZ reports.

The fight between the ladies began almost instantly upon seeing each other, the website reports, with Kim declaring that Kenya's new marriage to Marc Daly is fake.

Not peachy: Kim Zolciak (L) and Kenya Moore nearly came to blows during a taping of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta over the weekend

Moore wed her new husband on June 10 in a secret ceremony that shocked fans of the series, who didn't even know she was dating somebody.

Kenya retorted to Kim's jab with a remark of her own, mentioning Zolciak's controversial tweet offering to pimp out her daughter Brielle for John Legend tickets.

In May, Kim tweeted to Legend's wife Chrissy Teigen: 'Sooo ur hubby is comin to ATL may19 & Kash is beyond OBSESSED w him! who does Brielle have to b*** in order to meet him?? LOL.'

Face off: The two fought when Kim made a guest appearance on season nine of the show earlier this year

Zolciak then claims to have heard Moore mention that the tickets were for her 'injured son' Kash, who was mauled by a dog around the time of the tweet.

This sent Kim into a tizzy, say sources, knocking over glasses to get closer to Kenya, having to be restrained by cast and crew members.

Some of those who were on set claim to have not heard Moore's alleged remark about Kash.

Family first: Kim's daughter Brielle rushed to her mother's defense, tweeting: 'kenya is a dumb ugly evil b****' on Saturday

Attack: Fans of RHOA were quick to call Brielle out for not directly tagging Kenya in the post

Kim then left the scene of the fight, said to be genuinely upset over what transpired and not just trying to create drama 'for the show.'

Over the weekend, Kim's 20-year-old daughter Brielle tweeted: 'kenya is a dumb ugly evil b****.'

The comment appeared to be unprovoked, but upon the new details of the weekend fight, make more sense.

Controversy: Kim faced backlash for this post, offering up her 20-year-old daughter in exchange for John Legend tickets

Low blow: Moore brought up the tweet, then allegedly mentioned her 'injured son' Kash (bottom right) who was mauled in the face by a dog, which infuriated Kim

Fan were quick to call out Brielle for not tagging Kenya directly in the post, to which she replied: 'i don't need to! she stalks me and my mom'.

After Brielle's tweet, Moore posted a photo of herself to Instagram with the caption: 'Everywhere you look there are haters dont let them dull your shine or steal your joy. #shine #happy #thatsMrsDalyToYou #whytheystaymad #obsessed #kenyamoore #rhoa.'

Kim and Kenya's feud began at the end of season nine of RHOA, when they attended a housewarming party for fellow housewife Sheree Whitfield.

Happier times: The ladies are seen here during friendlier times in an earlier episode of RHOA

Zolciak was making a guest appearance on the show, having left the series in 2012 after being part of the franchise since it's first season in 2008.

She and Moore began hurling insults at each other that quickly escalated.

'At least I don't look like I've had five kids,' Moore said to the mother-of-six as things picked up steam during the episode that aired in April, but was taped months earlier.

Sour peach: Kim and Kenya's fight quickly escalated and the bad blood between them has continued

'She looks f***ing phenomenal,' Whitfield chimed in defending her friend of 14 years Kim.

'At least I have six kids,' Zolciak quipped back at Moore, who has been open about her struggles to settle down and become a mother.

Then-Housewife Phaedra Parks remarked: 'I know Kim not to be a fight starter, but honey she will try to finish it if you let her.'
Bear About The House: Living With My Supersized Pet

Rating:

Normal For Norfolk

Rating:

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, and the bears and the crocodiles play . . . hang on, thats not right.

Rancher Mike and his cowgirl Val from Minnesota really do share their farmhouse with a buffalo. His name is Cody, he literally weighs a ton and he enjoys snuggling up on their leather couch, like a giant mutant labrador.

Technically, Cody is an American bison, but then hes the size of ten men and hes got horns like broadswords, so if he wants to be called a buffalo, it would be foolish to argue.

Rancher Mike and his cowgirl Val from Minnesota share their farmhouse with Cody the buffalo

The horns do cause problems. Hes too wide to fit through the doorways, but clever Cody has worked out that by tipping his head on one side, he can squeeze through them.

This shaggy bull was one of the stars of Bear About The House (C4), about people with ginormous pets. The bear in question is called Stepan, and he lives in a cage near Moscow with former circus performers Yuri and Svetlana.

Even though Stepan sits up to the table to eat breakfast, hes hardly unique  a performing bear, who earns his keep with film roles and public appearances.

He seems well treated, but hes a working animal.

Cody is different. He behaves like a spoiled spaniel, flopping down on the rug to have his ears tickled. It would be no surprise to discover that he sleeps on the end of Mike and Vals bed.

When he needs a bath, the couple take him to the car wash: Cody likes having his hooves jet-sprayed. And when they need a drink, which you would after washing a buffalo, he joins them at the town saloon.

Cody, who is technically an American bison, is 13 years old and might live in luxury into his 20s

But the weirdest thing, one which film-maker Ross Haley didnt explore nearly enough, is that Mike and Val farm buffalo for a living. They beef them up and despatch them to the slaughterhouse.

Old hat of the night The sun-and-flirting show Coach Trip: Road To Zante (E4) returned with seven young couples partying on a Euro tour bus. But ITV2s hit Love Island makes this format look tame, tired and outdated. Advertisement

Most of their animals are prime steak by the age of three. Cody is 13 years old and might live in luxury into his 20s.

Thats like Cruella de Vil making a fur coat from 100 dalmatian puppies, and keeping the 101st as a lap-dog.

The documentary focused much more on the spurious notion that keeping exotic pets was deadly. The truth is, any animal can be dangerous if it isnt properly cared for.

All the owners here seemed to know exactly what they were doing, though the woman in Melbourne, Australia, who keeps a 15ft saltwater crocodile under sunlamps in her spare bedroom, is clearly on the nutty side of eccentric.

Desmond MacCarthy, tweed-clad custodian of Wiveton Hall, is the loopy laird in Normal For Norfolk, a sort of reality-show sitcom

Nothing wrong with that, of course. Where would we be without our fruitcakes? Thered be no British aristocracy, for a start.

Desmond MacCarthy, tweed-clad custodian of Wiveton Hall, is the loopy laird in Normal For Norfolk (BBC2), a sort of reality-show sitcom. In return, no doubt, for a small stipend, Desmond and his family bumble around their sprawling property, trying to keep the bank manager at bay with the income from a cafe.

This week, they went rat-hunting using a rifle with cumbersome night-sights  trust Desmond to waste money on electronic gadgets when a torch would do better. Then they uncovered a medieval well, a death-trap hidden under a couple of sheets of corrugated iron.

Its undignified, chaotic and very funny. All our suspicions about the in-bred upper classes are confirmed by Desmond and his identical family portraits, each ancestor as barking-mad as the last.

Who needs a buffalo roaming the stately home when you have a squire?
In the Nineties she enjoyed the glitz and glamour of being one of the top supermodels in the world.

But now it seems like Cindy Crawford is most comfortable with the simple things in life.

The 51-year-old beauty took to her Instagram to share a few snaps from her family trip to their lake house in Canada over the weekend.

With tequila tycoon husband Rande Gerber, and model children Kaia and Presley in tow, the family retreated to their ultra-private home just north of Toronto.

Relax! Crawford kicked up her feet on the deck of her lakeside cottage to enjoy a well-deserved break from the hustle and bustle of life in Los Angeles

The 51-year-old supermodel relaxed on a wooden chair, with fishing poles and a surfboard in the distance as she propped her legs up on what looked like a boat.

Wearing a turquoise, blue and grey printed dress with worn-in boots, the toned and tanned Crawford looked completely at ease in the Instagram photo which she captioned: 'Bliss. #LakeLife.'

The family of four consider their secluded Lake Joseph cabin in Muskoka, Ontario to be a 'home away from home'.

Sun-seeker: Youngest child and budding model Kaia Gerber confessed her need for some primping in an Instagram photo captioned: 'get the girl a brush'

Fifteen-year-old daughter Kaia showed off her good genes in a black tank top and sunglasses on social media.

With a rising modeling career, it's no surprise Kaia needed a break before working on the Marc Jacobs' Daisy fragrance campaign, as well as a beauty line for Alexander Wang and Penshoppe.

The beauty has also been featured in Interview, CR Fashion Book, Pop magazine, Teen Vogue and Chrome Hearts magazine, and was a cover girl for Love magazine earlier this year - the spread had been shot by fellow model Kendall Jenner.

Summer job: 18-year-old Presley Gerber maintains the family lawn in an Instagram photo by Cindy, captioned: 'Lakeside chores...'

Up, up and away: the remote Lake Joseph cottage is not accessible by road, leaving the family to really rough it out for a few weeks.

I'm on a boat! Rising model Presley Gerber takes the wheel of his Whaler for a tour of Lake Joseph with a friend

Flying in and out of the cottage during the summer months is a breeze for friends and family.

Between stand up paddle boarding, fishing, boating and tubing on the lake or tanning in the sun, there's no shortage of resources for rest and relaxation around the the compound.

An annual vacation for the Malibu-based clan, their remote island cottage is not accessible by road, leaving the family to really rough it out for a few weeks.

Fire starter: With limited access to the main land from their remote cabin, Rande Gerber snapped this Instagram of Presley, captioned '100% chance of rain 100% chance of fire'
Jennifer Garner was seen spending some quality time with her daughter Violet in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Monday.

The 45-year-old Texas native took the 11-year-old child to breakfast at The Larder At Tavern which offers several baked goods such as croissants and scones.

This comes after her ex Ben Affleck was seen in New York City with his new SNL producer lady love Lindsay Shookus, who he went public with earlier this month.

Close as can be: Jennifer Garner was seen spending some quality time with her daughter Violet in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on Monday

Yummy: The 45-year-old Texas native took the 11-year-old child to breakfast at The Larder At Tavern which offers several baked goods such as croissants and scones

Garner looked toned in her casual attire.

The Dallas Buyers Club star paired a blue striped peplum T-shirt with skinny jeans and black sandals that had a modest one-inch heel.

The Alias vet carried two paper bags from Larder and a cup of coffee.

Not fussy: The Dallas Buyers Club star paired a blue striped peplum T-shirt with skinny jeans and black sandals that had a modest one-inch heel

Violet looked ready for the beach in a print T-shirt, purple striped drawstring shorts and sandal sneakers.

The child, who is fluent in Spanish, carried with her a cup of water and snacked on a baked treat.

The mother-daughter duo were last spotted going to church together in Los Angeles on Sunday. Garner wore a white tank top that matched her mini me's.

Summer attire: Violet looked ready for the beach in a print T-shirt, purple striped drawstring shorts and sandal sneakers

Garner seems focused on being a solid, consistent parent as her ex Ben spends time with his new girlfriend in both LA and NYC.

The ex-wife of Scott Foley has been seen taking the kids - she also has Seraphina and Samue with Ben - to meals, local events and on play dates.

Affleck was seen with Lindsay in New York City last week as the two enjoyed a cozy meal. Lindsay had on a mini dress and her hair down. Both looked to be very happy.

Date night: Affleck was seen with Lindsay in New York City last week as the two enjoyed a cozy meal. They stayed at The Ritz-Carlton

Their hour of power: The mother-daughter duo were last spotted going to church together in Los Angeles on Sunday. Garner wore a white tank top that matched her mini me's

Though outlets like People have reported that Jennifer has been fine as her ex finds new love, Life & Style's sources argue against that.

'Jens never been about getting retribution,' said an insider. 'Thats not her style. But Bens insensitive actions have changed her.'

It was added that she could 'never really trust Ben.'

Still close? The cover girl with Ben on the 4th of July in LA

And it has also been alleged that Ben may have started dating Lindsay as early as 2015.

Jen reportedly confronted Lindsay in 2015 though, but it appeared the SNL producer wasn't interested in backing out of her alleged affair.

Garner has been busy on three new projects.

She has done the voice for the TV series Llama Llama and is also doing the voice for 2018's Amusement Park. She is in post-production on the 2018 film Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda.

At work: (L to R) Affleck, Ezra Miller, Gal Gadot, Ray Fisher and Jason Momoa from Justice League attend the Warner Bros Presentation during Comic-Con at San Diego Convention Center on Saturday

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At first glimpse of Gisele's latest photo shoot, one might think she was announcing the start of a singing career.

But the shots are all part of the 37-year-old stunner's latest ad campaign for Brazilian brand Rosa Cha.

The campaign shows Bundchen holding a microphone to her open mouth as she rocks out in a leather jacket-and-pants set, revealing her enviably toned tum in a revealing tank top.

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Proper rocker: Gisele Bundchen plays the role of a rocker babe in her new ad campaign for Brazilian brand Rosa Cha

Her dark blonde locks are tousled like those of a proper rocker chick as she lip syncs along in the accompanying commercial.

In another setup from the day, she strums a guitar on a chair while wearing a black studded dress, showing off her toned calves in a pair of sky high heels.

The campaign was shot at Electric Lady Studios in New York city in May.

Stunning strummer: Another setup shows the Brazilian-born beauty with a guitar in high heels

Tickling the ivories: This sheer bohemian gown was worn for this shot as she played the piano

The historic studio is known for it's 70's sessions with The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, and Patti Smith.

Though she has never shown musical aspirations, Gisele looked like a natural as she lip synced along to a rock tune.

She still holds the title as the highest-paid model, banking $30.5 million in earnings for 2015 due to lucrative ad campaigns and successful skincare and lingerie lines.

Lip sync battle: Gisele fronts a rock band in New York City for the edgy accompanying TV ad

Convincing: Though she has never shown musical aspirations, she looked like a natural

Gisele was said to be retiring in 2015, but it was later claimed that her announcement was lost in translation.

The catwalker did declare she would be doing less runway shows, as they have less of a payout than ad campaigns.

She just celebrated her 37th birthday with twin sister Patricia on Thursday.

All the right chords: The shoot took place at Electric Lady studios in NYC this past May

Historic: The studio is known for sessions with Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, and Patti Smith

In a message to fans she wrote: 'Thank you all for the love and birthday wishes! Sending each one of you a big kiss and so much love.'

Her husband Tom Brady sent his love a special message on Instagram which read: 'Happy Birthday @gisele this has been such a special year and we all love you more than you could ever know!'

They have two children together, daughter Vivian, four, and Benjamin, seven, in addition to Tom's nine-year-old Jack with actress Bridget Moynahan.

Sultry: Gisele oozed sex appeal during a rooftop concert in her leather jacket and crop top
While he may no longer be a nightly fixture on our television screens, David Walliams has no need to worry.

The comic actor is now a best-selling author and is on course to earn a staggering 17 million this year after selling more books than any other writer in Britain.

Incredibly, the 45-year-old star has also just notched his 100th consecutive week as the countrys best-selling childrens author, beating off competition from Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, teen favourite Stephanie Meyer and the late Roald Dahl in the process.

According to figures publishes in industry bible, The Bookseller, Walliams has sold over 1.3 million tomes this year  a 23 per cent increase on 2016.

According to figures publishes in industry bible, The Bookseller, Walliams has sold over 1.3 million tomes this year  a 23 per cent increase on 2016. He is pictured right with Tony Ross

Topping the half-year author charts for the first time, he has already earned over 6.3 million and statistics show he also tends to generate around 63 percent of his sales in the latter half of the year, meaning he is on course 2016 to make 17 million by the end of December.

The Britains Got Talent star beat Julia Donaldson, writer of The Gruffalo, into second place and Harry Potter creator, Miss Rowling, into third.

Instagram chef Joe Wicks came in fourth on the list whilst Lee Child, who penned the hit Jack Reacher novels, came in fifth with earnings of 3.1 million to date.

Despite his literary success, it is understood Walliams has no desire to focus purely on writing.

Last year the Little Britain comedian, whose transvestite character famously uttered the catchphrase But Im a laydee, generated 7 million in sales for his childrens books

A source said: David is delighted with how his books have been received, and that both parents and children have embraced him as an author.

He loves writing and making kids laugh, and such success is merely the icing on the cake.

David has no plans to give up TV or his charity work though, and will continue to try and do it all.

He has another book out imminently, and is thinking of new ideas all the time.

A source said: David is delighted with how his books have been received, and that both parents and children have embraced him as an author'

Last year the Little Britain comedian, whose transvestite character famously uttered the catchphrase But Im a laydee, generated 7 million in sales for his childrens books.

His titles include Awful Auntie, Gangsta Granny, Ratburger, The Boy In The Dress and Billionaire Boy, whilst sales for the latter two were further buoyed by BBC adaptations.

Similarly Ratburger, about a girl called Zoe whose pet rat is wanted for meat by the evil Burt from Burts Burgers, has been commissioned by Sky and will be aired over Christmas. Sheridan Smith and Walliams himself will star in the one-off special.

Since writing his first illustrated book in 2008, the star  who was an awarded an OBE for services to charity earlier this year - has gone on to enjoy increasing success away from the screen.

In addition to his writing, in 2006 he swam the English Channel and five years later completed a gruelling 140 mile trip of the River Thames, both raising funds for Comic Relief.

Yes, he's got kids reading  but he could cut back the toilet humour

By SALLY MORRIS, Deputy Literary Editor

Glance around any hotel swimming pool or beach this summer, and youll probably see British children hunched over a book by David Walliams.

Whether youre a fan of his writing, or find his black humour distasteful, theres no doubt anyone who can persuade children to reject video games and iPads in favour of a book deserves praise.

Walliams now ranks alongside J.K. Rowling and Julia Donaldson - author of The Gruffalo - in guaranteeing that anything he writes will immediately sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Despite his literary success, it is understood Walliams has no desire to focus purely on writing and will continue his TV and charity work

At a time when celebrities are queueing up to write childrens books (David Baddiel, Julian Clary, Clare Balding, Adrian Edmonson, Madonna and Keith Richards to name but a few), its easy to forget that what marked out Walliams early efforts as being distinctly different.

He had a remarkable ability to combine the sort of slapstick, scatalogical humour young children love, with a deeply felt empathy for the outsider - the child who is different from the crowd, whose family doesnt listen to them, or who is frightened by the illness or death of someone they love.

In his first novel, The Boy In The Dress, published in 2008, a motherless young boy with a macho dad and brother wears a dress to school, and Walliams light-heartedly uses that as a metaphor for daring to be different and expressing oneself against the pressure to conform.

Mr Walliams launched a series of picture books for younger readers, and The Boy in the Dress, Mr Stink, Billionaire Boy and Gangsta Granny have all been adapted for BBC television, while Ratburger has been commissioned by Sky

Its funny, silly and introduces characters who appear regularly in his subsequent stories.

In his second book, Mr Stink, a little girl whose snobbish mother emotionally neglects her in favour of her sister adopts a smelly, homeless tramp who will change not just the family dynamics but teach the Prime Minister a moral lesson.

And in his first number one bestseller, Gangsta Granny, where a young boy helps his dying grandmother pull off a spectacular heist, the underlying message is that old people, whom children often find dull and irrelevant, have life stories of their own to tell.

The underlying message is that old people, whom children often find dull and irrelevant, have life stories of their own to tell

More recently, however, Walliams has come in for criticism from authors such as Anthony Horowitz - who has also written books for children - who complains that he writes down to his young audience, and that his books lack ambition.

Certainly in Walliams case, as so often happens when authors build up a blindly loyal readership (and earn their publishers millions), the books have got longer, are less tightly written, and some of the characters have become one-paced caricatures.

Also, the pages are padded out with long lists of rude words in bigger and bolder type, and the focus on jokes about breaking wind and bogeys can dominate the plot.

Not that any of this has affected his popularity - in fact quite the opposite. Since his debut in 2008, sales of his books have grown by 20-30pc each year, and hes on track to have earned 17 million from them by this Christmas.

Hes launched a series of picture books for younger readers, and The Boy in the Dress, Mr Stink, Billionaire Boy and Gangsta Granny have all been adapted for BBC television, while Ratburger has been commissioned by Sky.

So his kind of puerile humour still seems popular with his age-range, and parents love to hear children laugh out loud while reading.

But its a shame jokes about snot, and burgers made from rats, squeeze out the more thoughtful and moving themes that underpinned the earlier books.
Rebel Wilson has admitted she got through stressful parts of her recent defamation trial by fantasising about kissing heartthrob Liam Hemsworth.

And on Monday, the 37-year-old was in striking distance off the the 27-year-old actor as they filmed scenes on the set of their new film, Isn't It Romantic, in New York.

The pair were joined by Adam DeVine, 33, who also stars in the comedy and is well-versed on working with Rebel in the Pitch Perfect franchise.

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Kissy-kissy: Rebel Wilson has admitted she got through stressful parts of her recent defamation trial by fantasising about kissing heartthrob Liam Hemsworth

Liam, dressed casually in black jeans, white undershirt and blue over shirt, was seen holding an umbrella for himself and his co-stars.

The Australian actor then shot scenes with Rebel's body double, with the pair crossing the screen.

Rebel, meanwhile, was safely rugged up against the wind, rain and cold as her co-stars braved the weather.

Close! And on Monday, the 37-year-old was in striking distance off the the 27-year-old actor as they filmed scenes on the set of their new film, Isn't It Romantic, in New York

Weather issues: Liam, dressed casually in black jeans, had to brave the rain for scenes

Lookalike: The Australian actor then shot scenes with Rebel's body double, with the pair crossing the screen

Well he is cute! In May, Rebel confessed she got through legal proceedings by thinking about the Hunger Games star, confessing: 'I've just been thinking of pashing him and how good it is going to be!'

She was seen wearing a dark, plastic raincoat, with a bonnet over her hair to protect it from becoming wet, as well as an umbrella for extra assurance.

Ever the Aussie, the actress completed her unusual outfit with none other than a pair of purple thongs.

In May, Rebel confessed she got through legal proceedings by thinking about the Hunger Games star, confessing: 'I've just been thinking of pashing him and how good it is going to be!'

Friends: The pair were joined by Adam DeVine, 33, who also stars in the comedy and is well-versed on working with Rebel in the Pitch Perfect franchise

When do they kiss? Kissing scenes between the two Aussie icons do in fact occur in the film, Rebel told waiting media outside court at the conclusion of her trial. 'I get to pash (Liam) in the movie,' Rebel said

Rugged up: Rebel was seen wearing a dark, plastic raincoat, with a bonnet over her hair to protect it from becoming wet, as well as an umbrella for extra assurance

Kissing scenes between the two Aussie icons do in fact occur in the film, Rebel told waiting media outside court at the conclusion of her trial.

'I get to pash (Liam) in the movie,' Rebel said.

'So when I have been feeling really down about the stress of this court case, I've just been thinking of pashing him and how good it is going to be!'

Helpful: Liam, dressed in a white undershirt and blue over shirt, was seen holding an umbrella for himself and his co-stars
She's the model and television presenter who welcomed a baby boy, Jett, last Monday, with husband Dane Rumble.

And Nikki Phillips seems to be lapping up every moment of motherhood, embracing her newborn in a touching picture shared to Instagram on Monday.

The 33-year-old gushed over her adorable tiny tot in the heartfelt snap, after revealing his name on Sunday.

Cute as a button: Nikki Phillips, 33, pressed her forehead against her new son's in a sweet photo shared to Instagram on Monday

Nikki captioned the photo: 'So content, so in love, can't take my eyes off you. My little man.'

She was clearly smitten, adding the hashtags '#blessed #babyboy #mother #love'.

With him wrapped in a grey and white striped blanket, Jett appeared to be enjoying a nap during the photo shoot.

Bundle of joy: Nikki and Dane welcomed their first child last Monday, son Jett Phillips Rumble

Natural light from the couple's coastal home seeped through the window, creating the perfect ambiance for the mother-son photo.

Nikki styled her long blond locks into a high ponytail and was dressed in a grey long-sleeved top.

The new mother had her wedding band on show and flashed two simple earrings.

Joyous event: The New Zealand model and TV presenter confirmed the happy news via Instagram that her first baby had arrived on Monday evening

Jett's birth was something of a miracle for the couple, after Nikki revealed in March she had suffered three miscarriages before his conception.

She had been warned it may be difficult after she was treated for stage three cervical cancer after doctors discovered cancerous cells in 2009.

'We feel extremely blessed and our hearts are exploding,' Nikki wrote in an Instagram post announcing her son's birth last week.
Social media buzz has turned "Sharknado" into one of the most popular film franchises ever made for television

With its airborne sharks, over-the-top gore and endless cheesy cameos from fading stars it ought to have flopped -- but the viral "Sharknado" franchise shows no signs of losing its bite.

A fifth film in five years, "Sharknado 5: Global Swarming," is due for release on August 6, building on social media buzz that has turned the series into one of the most popular ever made for television.

An unabashed homage to the B-movies of Hollywood's Golden Age, the franchise stars "Beverly Hills 90210" alum Ian Ziering and Tara Reid from the "American Pie" films as husband and wife Fin and April Shepard.

Wherever they go, the hapless couple end up doing battle with giant, monstrous great whites that have been sucked into the air in freak storms and deposited on unsuspecting populations.

"Each movie we get to do a different genre. The last movie was a superhero movie. We got to do 'White House Down' with sharks and a space movie in three," Anthony C. Ferrante, who has directed all five installments, told a panel at San Diego Comic-Con at the weekend.

"So this one was an international 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' James Bond movie, and it allowed us to do things we never thought we could accomplish."

The franchise got off to a slow start, with "Sharknado" only managing 1.4 million viewers during its first run. But repeats and all-important social media buzz made it into a cult classic.

- Odd appearances -

Its third airing pulled in 2.1 million viewers, the most-watched repeat of an original movie in the SyFy channel's history.

"Sharknado 2: The Second One" attracted a viewership of 3.9 million, the largest audience ever for SyFy, a unit of NBC Universal.

By the time "Sharknado 4: The 4th Awakens" came around, the series had enough cultural cachet to attract fan favorites like David Hasselhoff, Steve Guttenberg, Jackie Collins and Lou Ferrigno.

The series was also becoming known for some odd appearances -- sometimes way too long to be described as cameos -- by the likes of right wing political commentator Ann Coulter and "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin.

In the meantime the movies have spawned a cottage industry of merchandise, from action figures, comics and video games to the book "How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters" by Andrew Shaffer.

No one was more surprised by the sudden popularity of the series than its stars.

"I remember it was first called 'Dark Skies.' To have that on your resume, it sounds like a good movie," Reid told fans at Comic-Con, many decked out in "Sharknado" costumes and t-shirts.

"Then they told me it was called 'Sharknado' and I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me. I'll never work again.'"

Zierling, meanwhile, said he ordered his agent to get him off the project and joked that he had even considered changing his name so the movie wouldn't appear on his Internet Movie Database entry.

The films have varied in their fortunes with the critics, the first attracting an approval rating of 82 percent on reviews collation website "Rotten Tomatoes."

- Social media buzz -

"Sharknado 4" managed just 17 percent and was described by The Daily Beast as "another piece of dreary detritus", yet it still pulled in almost three million viewers, buoyed by social media.

Reid in particular, with 380,000 Twitter followers and another 192,000 on Instagram, has been a prize asset for the franchise.

"Sharknado" prompted 318,000 tweets during its debut airing -- in an era when social media engagement is as important for TV executives as eyeballs glued to the screen.

"Sharknado 2" became the most social movie on TV ever, with 581,000 tweets -- around ten times as many as for "America's Got Talent," that summer's most popular TV series among Americans.

In "Sharknado 5," which has the tagline "Make America Bait Again," Reid and Ziering are joined by Olivia Newton-John and the Italian model Fabio, who graced the covers of numerous romance novels in the 1980s.

SyFy debuted a new trailer at Comic-Con showing Fin and April trying to save their son, who's trapped in a sharknado churning up the world.

The movie was a truly international production, shooting in the UK, Australia and Bulgaria.

Playing themselves are British Olympic swimmer Tom Daley, "Fantastic Beasts" star Dan Fogler and NBC News anchor Jeff Rossen.

"The studios have two to two-and-a-half years to do a movie. We've done five of these in five years," said Ferrante.

"We started shooting this movie in January and we literally delivered it last night. We went to five countries but we also did in an impressive amount of time -- the way only 'Sharknado' can."
A Moroccan peacekeeper from the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) patrols in Bangui, in 2015

An ambush killed a Moroccan peacekeeper and wounded three others on Sunday in the Central African Republic, the United Nations said, blaming pro-Christian militias for the violence.

"A MINUSCA (peacekeeping mission) military convoy was targeted by anti-Balaka," it said of the clash in the southern city of Bangassou.

The country is struggling to emerge from a civil war that erupted in 2013 following the overthrow of former president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka coalition.

The coup led to the formation of "anti-Balaka" (anti-machete) vigilante units, drawn from the Christian majority, which began to target Muslims. Both sides committed widespread atrocities.

"The attack took place while the Moroccan peacekeepers were escorting water tankers to the river to help resupply the village," the MINUSCA force said Sunday, condemning the assault and sending "condolences to the family, the people and the government of Morocco".

A rebel of the Seleka coalition holds a portrait of ousted Central African President Francois Bozize at one of his pillaged residences in Sassara, some 300 km north of Bangui, in April 2013

Earlier on Sunday, the UN condemned an "attack by anti-Balaka near a cathedral where a number of displaced people are living". Two children were seriously wounded, it said.

On Friday, a patrol of peacekeepers was shot and one of the attackers killed, Herve Verhoosel, spokesman for MINUSCA, told AFP on Saturday, blaming pro-Christian militias once again.

On the same day, a Muslim woman was kidnapped by what is believed to be an anti-Balaka unit and six Christians were held by Muslims. All were released on Saturday following negotiations.

Six peacekeepers were killed in May in the city and surrounding region, which lies around 470 kilometres (300 miles) from Bangui on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Militias are still flourishing given the weakness of the state.

Former colonial power France intervened in 2013 to stop violent Christian-Muslim clashes and formally ended its peacekeeping mission only last month, hailing it a success despite fresh outbreaks of violence.

That leaves mainly the UN's 12,500-strong MINUSCA peacekeeping mission to protect civilians from armed groups.
Manchester United forward Anthony Martial (R) celebrates with midfielder Jesse Lingard after Lingard scored a goal on July 23, 2017 in Santa Clara, California

Jose Mourinho has challenged Anthony Martial to produce the goods on a more consistent basis after the Manchester United frontman caught the eye against Real Madrid.

Martial produced a scintillating weaving run to set up Jesse Lingard's opening goal in United's 1-1 draw against Real in the International Champions Cup at Santa Clara, California, on Sunday, albeit the French international blazed over from the spot in the penalty shootout that followed the draw.

The 21-year-old shone during his impressive debut campaign at Old Trafford under Louis van Gaal two years ago, yet struggled under Mourinho last season -- prompting speculation that he could be on the move this summer.

But after Martial looked back to his best, Mourinho admitted that talent is not the issue for the United forward.

"Obviously, we want more consistency in his talent," said Mourinho. "I think today was positive for him. That's why I left him for 90 minutes on the pitch. He was enjoying it, trying things and it's important in these friendly matches to try things, which he did.

"That's only good for his confidence."

Jesse Lingard of Manchester United scores past Marcelo Da Silva Junior of Real Madrid during their International Champions Cup match, at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on July 23, 2017

On the stroke of half-time, Martial's quick feet saw him leave both Daniel Carvajal and Luka Modric for dead, before squaring the ball across the six-yard box for Lingard to tap home.

It was just reward for Lingard after he was the best player on the pitch during the first half, only a smart save from Keylor Navas keeping out a swerving shot from 25 yards in the seventh minute.

In their first pre-season outing, Real were understandably rusty during the first half, but they improved significantly after Zinedine Zidane changed his entire 11 at the interval and introduced a host of youngsters.

They drew level when Victor Lindelof brought down summer signing Theo Hernandez in the area and Casemiro smashed home the resulting spot-kick.

Zidane said he was "satisfied" with the performance, particularly the contribution of the club's hot prospects.

Real Madrid's Carolos Henrique Casemiro reacts after missing a penalty kick shootout against Manchester United, during their International Champions Cup match in Santa Clara, California, on July 23, 2017

But when asked about the depth of his squad and whether he was chasing a replacement for the departed Alvaro Morata, Zidane was cautious at being drawn over any transfer business.

"I've talked to the president, but we have a roster of 28 players and I'm happy," said the Real boss.

"Ultimately, we will see. We have until August 31, but I have not asked for any (players)."

United won 2-1 in a desperately low quality penalty shootout at the conclusion of the encounter, but it was an injury to midfielder Ander Herrera which was preying on Mourinho's mind afterwards.

The half-time substitute lasted just seven minutes before he was forced off with a rib injury.

"For him to come off, it has to be very painful," Mourinho said. "I want to wait and see what it is but I always say there's no risk in friendly matches. If you feel that something is coming, a little injury, then get off. The result is not important."

Herrera is expected to join Juan Mata on the treatment table when United round off their Stateside pre-season tour against Barcelona, in Landover, Maryland on Wednesday.

- 'Happy with our pre-season' -

But despite a hectic period of five games in the space of 12 days, Mourinho feels the trip has been beneficial.

"We managed to organize the pre-season in a way where we were based in LA for 15 days," he added. "It's fantastic to always be in the same hotel, same training ground. The flights were quite short to go to Salt Lake, Houston.

"Now we go to (Washington) and that's halfway home, almost.

"In terms of jet lag, it's halfway home. These next three days in DC are not a problem. After that, we have two more matches to play in Norway and Ireland. Traveling in the same day, short flights. I'm really happy with our pre-season.

"If Mata and Ander are not a problem in terms of injuries, then it's a perfect pre-season for us."
Syrian patients in the yard of a mental health clinic, the sole such facility in Syria's rebel-held north, on July 6, 2017

At an austere mental health clinic in northern Syria, male patients with shaved heads squat barefoot in a courtyard, some dressed in uniforms and others in T-shirts and tracksuit trousers.

One man screams at those around him, while another laughs to himself. A third sings exuberantly, exposing bare gums missing teeth.

The second floor houses female patients in patterned dresses and flowery headscarves.

Some smile at visitors while others lie motionless on their beds.

One woman is tied to her bedframe.

The horrors of Syria's six-year war have left the country's population with devastating psychological scars, but staff at the only mental health facility in Syria's opposition-held north are doing their best to treat those affected.

Among the patients at the clinic in Azaz, northern Aleppo province, is a 17-year-old girl deeply scarred by the conflict.

"She saw a small child that had been killed and was being eaten by animals," Dorar al-Sobh, one of two doctors at the facility, tells AFP.

Female Syrian patients sit in a ward at the mental health clinic on July 6, 2017

"She was so shocked she lost her ability to speak. Now she can't sleep or eat... She avoids everyone."

A male patient from the neighbouring province of Raqa came back to his bombed-out home to find the lifeless bodies of his wife and six children.

"He has difficulty sleeping... he gets flashbacks and nightmares," says Sobh, 46.

Some cases predate Syria's conflict, but others -- particularly of post-traumatic stress disorder -- have been directly caused by the war.

"Of course, we have seen an increase in cases, especially depression, PTSD and coping disorders," Sobh says.

- 'Tortured and beaten' -

Syrian patients smoke cigarettes in a room at the mental health clinic near the border with Turkey, on July 6, 2017

Nurse Mohammed Munzer recalls receiving patients who had been arrested at the peaceful protests in 2011 that kicked off Syria's uprising.

"They were tortured and beaten, especially on the head. They started to have mental problems," the 35-year-old says.

Others have developed anxieties related to the relentless bombing and violence that has killed more than 330,000 people.

"There are people who can't handle the sound of aeroplanes," Munzer says.

The facility serves nearly 140 inpatients as well as others who come from outside for care.

It was originally set up in Masaken Hanano district on the northeastern outskirts of Aleppo city.

But it was forced to relocate when fighting broke out after rebels entered the city in 2012.

"The hospital was hit in Masaken Hanano, wounding one of the nurses in his hand and handicapping him," facility administrator Mohyiddin Othman says.

Many of the hospital's medical staff fled and left patients behind, some of them wandering the streets.

Local residents, alarmed by the situation, contacted a Turkish medical NGO that worked with local Syrian doctors to transfer the patients.

By 2013, they had been moved first to a facility in western Aleppo province, and then to Azaz with help from charity group Physicians Across Continents.

While Azaz has been periodically targeted by regime strikes, particularly in the early years after the patients were moved to the area, the new hospital has not been hit.

Syrian patients sit in beds on a ward of a mental health clinic, serving some 140 inpatients, on July 6, 2017

That has allowed medical staff to focus on their work, offering residents and outpatients medication, assessments and one-on-one treatment.

At times they struggle to help those in need, such as a man who regularly visited Sobh to seek treatment for depression.

"I asked him once about suicide. He told me he didn't think about it," Sobh said.

"Fifteen days later he shot himself."

- Staff 'psychologically exhausted' -

The hospital also faces shortages of medicine. It receives occasional donations from the World Health Organisation, but often relies on alternatives bought on the local market or in neighbouring Turkey.

The challenges can feel overwhelming, the facility's staff say.

"We are psychologically exhausted," says Sobh.

"Sometimes our patients hit us or curse us... Sometimes we take vacations to distance ourselves from the atmosphere of the hospital for a few days."

Patients queue for food rations at a mental health clinic on July 6, 2017. Facility staff say they are "psychologically exhausted"

The facility's basement is set aside for a kitchen and a cafeteria, where residents queue for food.

Standing at tables or seated on the floor, they eat meals of stew and bread from metal bowls.

The facility is sparsely furnished, with long rows of beds for patients and washing lines hung with blankets.

In one room, a television is mounted on the wall, and patients sit together watching.

The staff also do outreach in the community, hoping to tackle the stigma around mental health issues.

"We try to spread awareness in our surroundings, and through flyers and social media, to explain that people who have mental illnesses are like anyone else who is sick," says Munzer.

Syrian patients sit in a yard at the mental health clinic, which serves people with mental health issues caused by Syria's devastating war, on July 6, 2017

Sobh says the growing need for mental health care has caused a subtle shift in local sentiment.

"The presence of a treatment centre in this area is positive," he says.

"The residents of the area accept it, and it's no longer a sign of weakness."
Afghanistan

At least eight people have been killed and ten wounded after a car bomb rocked western Kabul on Monday, an official told AFP, the latest attack to strike the Afghan capital.

"So far eight dead bodies and 10 wounded have been brought to Kabul hospitals," Waheed Mojtoh, a health ministry spokesman, told AFP.

An official at the interior ministry who asked not to be named said there had been at least 10 casualties but did not give a breakdown of the dead and wounded.

Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said the target of the attack, which came just before 7:00 am (0230 GMT), was not immediately clear.

The neighbourhood is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority who have been targeted many times in the past.

It is also near prominent politician and former warlord Mohammad Mohaqeq's home. Omid Maisom Mohaqiq, a spokesman for the politician, said the bomb had detonated near the first checkpoint approaching the house, "killing and wounding some civilians".

"We assume the car wanted to target Mr Mohaqeq's house but was stopped by guards," he said.

No militant group immediately claimed the blast.

Kabul is regularly rocked by suicide bombs and attacks. A recent UN report showed it accounted for nearly one-fifth of all civilian casualties in the first half of 2017.
The Qatar-based shipping and logistics company has launched a service with two loops and five weekly sailings between Qatar and Oman, according to a recent tweet.



Qatar-based shipping and logistic company Milaha Maritime has initiated a new Qatar-Oman cargo service, according to a recent tweet by the company.

The service, dubbed OQX, runs in two loops with multiple weekly sailings, according to the tweet. Loop 1 sails from Hamad and Mesaieed to Salalah and Sohar twice a week, while Loop 2 sails from Hamad and Mesaieed to Sohar three times a week. Six vessels with unknown capacity levels are utilized on the service.

Last month, multiple Middle Eastern countries broke diplomatic ties with Qatar due to the countrys relationship with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Major ports in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates discontinued shipments to and from Qatar and stopped accepting bookings for Qatar cargo as well.

However, a week later, Maersk Line began accepting bookings for Qatar cargo for transshipment via Salalah in Oman.
Thai police have arrested hundreds of foreign criminals in a "good guys in, bad guys out" policy, as the kingdom looks to shake out crooks based in the country

A gang of 44 people from China and Taiwan have been arrested in Thailand for running an elaborate phone scam that conned $3 million from scores of victims, police said Monday.

Raids on houses in the capital Bangkok and the sleazy resort town of Pattaya snared the well-organised gang, whose targets were mainly based in China.

Police seized homemade sound-proof booths used to call the victims, who were carefully selected for their vulnerability.

"There were about 120 victims of this fraud, which was worth about 100 million (baht) ($2.9 million)," an officer from immigration told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Nineteen of the suspects are from China and 25 from Taiwan.

Posing as police, bank officials or money laundering inspectors the suspects spun stories of financial irregularities linked to the victims' bank accounts.

"They told victims their bank accounts had been frozen due to criminal activity such as drug dealing," Immigration Police Chief Natthathorn Prousoontorn told reporters on Sunday.

They then persuaded the victims to transfer money to clear the cooked-up problems, through other 'officials' working with the gang.

"Each fraudster played a different role... some pretended to be bank officials... some pretended to be police."

The victims lived alone and had no-one to consult before falling for the scam, Natthathorn added.

With porus borders, cheap living and large communities of ex-pats to hide amongst, Thailand has long been a regional hub for crime gangs.

Recently immigration police have arrested hundreds of foreign criminals in a "good guys in, bad guys out" policy, as the kingdom looks to shake out crooks based in the country.
East Timorese line up to vote during parliamentary election in Dili. Turnout was more than 76 per cent.

East Timor is set for another coalition after the two governing parties in Asia's youngest democracy clinched a majority of the votes in a trouble-free contest praised Monday as "remarkable" by observers.

The poll came at a tough time for the tiny, impoverished country, with key oil reserves running dry while the government struggles to resolve a long-running row with Australia over lucrative energy fields.

But despite fears of violence, there were no reports of unrest in the campaign and on the day of the Sunday poll, the first parliamentary election since the departure of United Nations peacekeepers in 2012.

The former Portuguese colony, invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and brutally occupied, gained independence in 2002.

With all votes counted, Fretilin, led by President Francisco Guterres, won 29.66 percent of the vote.

The National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) -- led by independence hero Xanana Gusmao -- had about 29.46 percent of votes, down from 36.7 percent in 2012. Overall turnout was more than 76 percent.

Analysts expect Fretilin and CNRT to continue their coalition in the upcoming government.

Damien Kingsbury, an East Timor expert at Australia's Deakin University, said it remained to be seen if Prime Minister Maria de Araujo, a member of Fretilin, would keep his post at the head of the new government. The presidency is a largely ceremonial role

"The election was quite successful by any international standard and very remarkable for any developing country," he told AFP.

Arya Sandhiyudha, East Timor expert from Jakarta-based think tank Madani Center for Development and International Studies, said the coalition between the country's most influential figures, Gusmao and former Prime Minister and Fretilin secretary general Mari Alkatiri, would ensure stability.

"It is definitely a good thing for East Timor people if these two influential figures have a solid relationship, it will also (have a) good impact for the region" Sandhiyudha said.

Observers added Fretilin and CNRT's offer to voters was similar, with both promising a better economy and international relations.

The parties instead differentiated themselves by their leadership with CNRT suffering from over-reliance on Gusmao, Sandhiyudha said.

The new Popular Liberation Party (PLP) led by former president Taur Matan Ruak secured nearly 11 percent of the vote.

Fretilin and CNRT both won 23 seats in the 66-seat parliament, with PLP securing eight.

Ruak has said he would not join the coalition and criticised the government for focusing too much on megaprojects at the expense of health and education.

Half of the population lives in poverty and the government has struggled to improve the livelihoods of its 1.2 million people.
A Chinese soldier, left, and his Indian counterpart are seen at the Nathu La border crossing between India and China in this 2008 file picture.

China warned on Monday that it will step up its troop deployment in a border dispute with India, vowing to defend its sovereignty at "whatever cost".

The standoff started more than a month ago after Chinese troops started building a road on a remote plateau, which is disputed by China and Bhutan.

Indian troops moved in to the flashpoint zone to halt the work, with China accusing them of violating its territorial sovereignty and calling for their immediate withdrawal.

"The crossing of the mutually recognised national borders on the part of India... is a serious violation of China's territory and runs against the international law," Chinese defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a press conference.

"The determination and the willingness and the resolve of China to defend its sovereignty is indomitable, and it will safeguard its sovereignty and security interests at whatever cost," he added.

Chinese "border troops have taken emergency response measures in the area and will further step up deployment and trainings in response to the situation," he said.

The spokesman did not give any details about the deployment.

India and China have both said they have foreign support for their positions on the conflict.

Bhutan has said construction of the road is "a direct violation" of agreements with China. Bhutan and China do not have diplomatic relations.

India, which fought a war with China in 1962 over a separate part of the disputed Himalayan border, supports Bhutan's claim.

But India should "not have any illusions" that its position will prevail, Wu said.

"The history of the PLA (People's Liberation Army) over the past 90 years has proven that our resolve to safeguard (China's) sovereignty and territory... are indomitable," he said.

"It is difficult to shake the PLA, even more difficult than to shake a mountain."

India and China have vied for influence in South Asia, with Beijing ploughing large sums into infrastructure projects in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Bhutan has remained closely allied to India.
Jason Greenblatt (C), US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, arrives for a news conference in Jerusalem, on July 13, 2017

A top aide to US President Donald Trump was due in Israel on Monday in a bid to ease tensions over new security measures at a highly sensitive Jerusalem holy site, a US official said.

"President Trump's special representative for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt departed for Israel last night to support efforts to reduce tensions in the region," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Further details on his trip were not immediately available.

Greenblatt's visit comes with tensions high over new Israeli security measures at the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Metal detectors were installed at entrances to the site, which includes Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, following an attack on July 14 that killed two Israeli policemen.

Palestinians view the move as Israel asserting further control over the site. They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside.

Israeli authorities say the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the site and emerged from it to shoot the officers.

Clashes have broken out during protests over the measures, leaving five Palestinians dead. On Friday, a Palestinian broke into a home in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and stabbed three Israelis to death.
An Israeli border guard fires tear gas at Palestinian protesters near the Jewish settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank on July 24, 2017

The UN warned Monday that the crisis over new security measures at a volatile Jerusalem holy site must be swiftly resolved, as a top US official arrived in Israel to try to ease tensions.

The crisis, which saw a weekend of deadly violence, was also discussed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II of Jordan, a day after an Israeli guard at its embassy in Amman shot two Jordanians dead after an attack.

UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov's warning and the visit by US President Donald Trump's top aide Jason Greenblatt come after more than a week of tensions over the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the site, which includes the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, after an attack on July 14 that killed two policemen.

"It is extremely important that a solution to the current crisis be found by Friday this week," Mladenov said after briefing the UN Security Council, which met to discuss how to defuse the tension.

Palestinian Muslim worshippers pray outside the Lions' Gate entrance to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City on July 24, 2017

"The dangers on the ground will escalate if we go through another cycle of Friday prayer without a resolution to this current crisis," he said, warning that violence there could spread "beyond the Middle East itself".

Palestinians view the new security measures as Israel asserting further control over the site. They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside instead.

Israeli authorities say the metal detectors are needed because the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the site and emerged from it to shoot the officers.

Clashes have broken out during protests over the measures, leaving five Palestinians dead.

Three Israelis were also killed when a Palestinian sneaked into a house in a West Bank settlement and stabbed them.

- Netanyahu, Abdullah II speak -

Greenblatt met Netanyahu along with US envoy to Israel David Friedman Monday, an Israeli official told AFP.

In Amman, Jordan insisted on questioning an Israeli embassy security guard who according to Israeli officials shot dead a Jordanian attacker Sunday night, killing a second Jordanian at the time as well, apparently by accident.

Zakaria Jawawdeh (C), the father of 17-year-old Mohammed Jawawdeh who was shot dead by an Israeli security guard at the Israeli embassy compound in Amman, receives condolonces on July 24, 2017

Israel said the guard had diplomatic immunity.

He arrived back in Israel late Monday along with the rest of the embassy staff, a statement from Netanyahu's office said, but details of how we was able to return were not given.

It followed a phone conversation between Netanyahu and King Abdullah, who reiterated Jordan's demand that Israel remove all the recent security measures at the Al-Aqsa compound, an official Jordanian statement said.

Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

The king stressed "the need to find an immediate solution and remove the reasons for the ongoing crisis at the Haram al-Sharif compound", the statement said.

The head of Israel's Shin Bet, Nadav Argaman, visited Amman Monday to try to calm the situation, the internal security agency told AFP.

Israeli officials have signalled they may be open to changing the measures at the holy site. Cameras have been installed at entrances in a possible indication of an alternative to the metal detectors.

- 'Playing with fire' -

Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit has accused Israel of "playing with fire" with the new security measures, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called them an insult to the Muslim world.

Arriving back in Ankara late Monday at the end of a trip to the Gulf, Erdogan went further still, accusing Israel of flouting international law.

"Israel is mistaken in the steps it has taken and -- I will say this very openly -- is heading into isolation," he warned.

Friday's main weekly Muslim prayers -- which typically draw thousands to Al-Aqsa -- brought the situation to a boil.

Clashes erupted between Israeli security forces and Palestinians around the Old City, elsewhere in annexed east Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank, leaving three Palestinians dead.

They continued on Saturday, leaving two more Palestinians dead.

Friday evening also saw a Palestinian break into a home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank during a Sabbath dinner and stab four Israelis, killing three.

The Israeli army said the 19-year-old Palestinian had spoken in a Facebook post of the holy site and of dying as a martyr.

The holy site in Jerusalem has served as a rallying cry for Palestinians.

It is in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

Considered the third holiest site in Islam, it is the most sacred for Jews.
General Khalifa Haftar (R), commander of the armed forces loyal to the internationally recognised Libyan government, shakes hands with the head of the UN backed Libyan Presidential Council, Fayez al-Sarraj, in the eastern town of al-Marj in 2016

Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj will hold talks near Paris on Tuesday with Khalifa Haftar, the powerful military commander based in the country's east, the French presidency said.

French President Emmanuel Macron will host the meeting, the presidency said in a statement on Monday.

"France intends, through this initiative, to facilitate a political agreement" between the two rivals as the newly appointed UN envoy for Libya, Ghassam Salame, takes office, the statement said.

Tuesday's talks, which were first reported by France's Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday, would be the second between Sarraj and Haftar in the space of three months after they met in Abu Dhabi in May.

Sarraj this month laid out a new political roadmap for his violence-wracked country, including the scheduling of presidential and parliamentary elections in March 2018.

Political rivalry and fighting between militias have hampered Libya's recovery from the chaos that followed the 2011 uprising that toppled and longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, who was killed in the aftermath.

Sarraj's Government of National Accord has been struggling to assert its authority since it began work in Tripoli in March 2016. Haftar's rival administration based in the remote east has refused to recognise it.

Western intelligence services fear that Islamic State jihadists are capitalising on the chaos to set up bases in Libya as they are chased from their former strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Libya has also become the main springboard for migrants seeking to reach the European Union by sailing to Italy in often flimsy and overloaded boats.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told newspaper Le Monde in June that Libya was "a priority" for Macron and said there was "a security risk because of the trafficking of all kinds, including humans" from Libya.

"In consultation with all its partners, France intends to show its support for the efforts to build a political compromise, under the aegis of the United Nations, which unites... all the different Libyan actors," Monday's statement from the Elysee Palace said.

"The challenge is to build a state capable of meeting the basic needs of Libyans and endowed with a regular unified army under the authority of the civil power.

"It is necessary for the control of Libyan territory and its borders, to fight terrorist groups and arms and migrant traffickers, but also with a view to a return to a stable institutional life."
The Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers in its eight-year insurgency that has left at least 20,000 dead and displaced more than 2.6 million others

Three people were killed in suicide bomb attacks at a camp for those displaced by the Boko Haram conflict in northeast Nigeria, the emergency services said on Monday.

Abdulkadir Ibrahim, from the National Emergency Management Agency, said the blasts happened at about 11:20 pm (2220 GMT) on Sunday, just outside the Borno state capital of Maiduguri.

"Two suicide bombers (a male and a female) detonated their improvised explosive devices at Dalori 1 IDP (internally displaced persons) camp, leading to the death of three IDPs, while 17 others were injured," he said in a statement.

"Another incident occurred at Dalori 2 IDP camp, where a suicide bomber was intercepted, leading to the death of the suicide bomber."

The Islamist militant group Boko Haram has increasingly used suicide bombers in its eight-year insurgency that has left at least 20,000 dead and displaced more than 2.6 million others.

Dalori, which is about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Maiduguri, houses some 50,000 people in makeshift accommodation and has been targeted by bombers before.

On the evening of June 18, two women blew themselves up at Dalori 2, where 10,000 people are living, The attack injured several IDPs but killed only the bombers.

It followed a separate attack at nearby Kofa village, where two women used as human bombs exploded, killing at least 16.

On January 30 last year, at least 85 people were killed when militant fighters stormed and torched Dalori village and tried to gain access to the IDP camps.

Nigeria's military and government maintain the jihadists are a spent force after a sustained counter-insurgency pushed them out of captured territory since early 2015.

But signs remain that the violence is far from over. On Sunday, police in the northern city of Kano said they had arrested five Boko Haram members after a gunfight.

Kano state police chief Rabiu Yusuf said the three men and two women were suspected of planning attacks on markets and places of worship.

The city has seen a lull in Boko Haram activity since a November 2014 gun and suicide attack at the main mosque killed more than 100.

An internal army memo, seen by AFP, also indicated Boko Haram was back in its "Camp Zero" enclave in the Sambisa Forest of Borno, which had been declared cleared in December last year.
Indonesian and Vietnamese vessels have previously clashed in the South China Sea, which multiple Southeast Asian countries as well as China and Taiwan have competing claims over

Four Vietnamese fisherman were shot and wounded by Indonesia's navy over the weekend, authorities said on Monday, the latest clash to erupt over fishing in the hotly disputed South China Sea.

The Vietnamese fishing vessel, which had six sailors on board, was fired at late Saturday, according to an online report by the disaster and relief agency of Vietnam's central Binh Dinh province.

The boat was led back to Vietnam's Con Dao island early Monday morning and the wounded men were rushed to hospital.

"Two seriously injured sailors were sent to the Con Dao district's medical centre and their situation is improving," the report added.

The two others sustained lighter injuries.

Indonesian and Vietnamese vessels have previously clashed in the South China Sea, which multiple Southeast Asian countries as well as China and Taiwan have competing claims over.

In May trawlers from the two nations clashed after the Indonesian coastguard briefly captured Vietnamese fishing boats allegedly operating illegally in its waters.

Jakarta has detained 11 Vietnamese sailors following the confrontation around Indonesia's Natuna Islands, while one member of its own coastguard is still being held by Hanoi.

Both sides then said they had agreed to resolve the incident through diplomatic channels, hoping to prevent further future incidents.
Taliban insurgents have ramped up their offensive across Afghanistan since launching their so-called "spring offensive" earlier this year

At least 35 people were killed when the Taliban attacked a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend, a presidential spokesman said Monday.

"When the Taliban entered the hospital they killed 35, all civilians," spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. "This is a cruel crime against humanity."

He did not elaborate, but unconfirmed reports Sunday claimed that the Taliban had set the hospital alight and killed those inside.

The Taliban have denied the claim, though a spokesman said that parts of the local hospital were damaged in fighting in the area.

It came as the insurgents captured Taywara district in Ghor province after days of fighting, the latest victory by the resurgent militants.

Afghan forces control 59.7 percent of the country, according to a US watchdog's report issued in May after the winter lull in fighting, up slightly from the previous quarter.

But the insurgents have ramped up their offensive across the country since launching their so-called "spring offensive" earlier this year.
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Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner leave Air Force One in Rome on May 23, 2017

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Monday said he had four contacts with Russian officials but denied any collusion to help his father-in-law Donald Trump win the presidency, US media said.

In a statement Kushner released hours before he was to appear before the Senate intelligence committee, he described contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other Russian officials as normal in his former role as the campaign liaison to foreign governments, the Washington Post said.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner wrote.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," he said, according to the Post report.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka, will testify before the Senate intelligence committee on Monday, according to his lawyer, and the House panel on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old billionaire investor working at his first political position was to be asked about his meetings with Russia's ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank and a Russian lawyer -- the latter along with Trump's son Donald Jr.

Kushner plans to submit the 11-page statement for the record.

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.

Sunday, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."
Security forces stand guard outside Israel's embassy in Amman after an 'incident' on July 23, 2017 during which two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli security guard wounded

Jordan said Monday it was looking to question an Israeli security guard who killed two Jordanians at the Amman embassy compound, as Israel insisted he had diplomatic immunity.

A Jordanian government source, who declined to be named, said Israel was "still examining the request" to quiz the guard involved in Sunday's incident, which according to Israeli officials saw a Jordanian attack the guard with a screwdriver.

The security guard shot dead the Jordanian attacker, while a second Jordanian there at the time was also killed -- apparently by accident.

A Jordanian security source named the first dead man as 17-year-old Mohammed Jawawdeh and the second as Bashar Hamarneh, a doctor who was in the residential quarter of the embassy at the time of the incident.

He said the Israeli is the deputy director of security at the embassy.

Israel's foreign ministry said Jawawdeh, who had gone to the compound to install furniture, stabbed the security guard in the back with a screwdriver.

It said as a foreign diplomat the guard was immune from investigation under the Vienna Convention but the Jordanian government source said security forces were seeking Israeli permission to question him.

"Israel is still examining the request," the source said. "There is no need for a diplomatic escalation."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they would seek to find an agreement, vowing to bring the guard home as soon as possible.

"We are holding contacts with Jordanian security and government officials in order to bring the incident to a close ASAP," he said in a statement.

"I assured the security officer that we will see to bringing him back to Israel, we have experience in this."

Jawawdeh's father Zakariya told AFP he wanted "the truth," urging authorities to view CCTV footage from security cameras at the embassy.

"My son has no interest in politics. He does not follow any extremist ideology," he said.

The government source said an initial investigation indicated that Jawawdeh and the security guard "fell out over some dispute which led to a stabbing and a shooting".

Israel and Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty.

But tensions have been high in recent days after Israel put in place security measures at the highly sensitive Al-Haram Al-Sharif mosque compound in east Jerusalem, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the site following an attack nearby on July 14 that killed two of its policemen.

Palestinians view the move as Israel asserting further control over the compound, home to Al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock, and considered Islam's third holiest site.

Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

Israeli measures at the flashpoint site sparked angry demonstrations in Amman on Friday, when thousands took to the streets in a protest called by Islamist movements and leftist parties.
Maldives President Abdulla Yameen took office after a controversial 2013 election run-off

Maldives parliament was shut Monday after President Abdulla Yameen ordered troops to evict legislators and prevent an impeachment of his speaker, the opposition said, in the latest turmoil in the honeymoon islands.

Parliament had been expected to hear a no-confidence motion against the speaker, Abdulla Masheeh, but MPs found their way blocked, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said.

MDP spokesman Hamid Abdul Ghafoor added several opposition MPs broke through the military cordon only to be pepper sprayed and evicted.

The country's exiled main opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed said the eviction was illegal and expressed his concern, his office said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, parliament's gates were padlocked by members of the armed forces and MPs were forcibly prevented from entering the parliamentary compound.

There was no immediate comment from the government.

The opposition this month secured enough support from government defectors to begin impeachment proceedings against the speaker, in a bid to wrest control of parliament from Yameen before presidential elections next year.

The government has repeatedly tried to frustrate these efforts.

It arrested several opposition MPs last week ahead of the vote, and scuttled a past no-confidence bid by raising the number of signatures required for a successful motion.

The first attempt to impeach the speaker in March sparked chaos when Yameen ordered troops to enter parliament and remove dissenting opponents by force.

The political turbulence has seen the international community, including the United States, urging the Maldives to safeguard democracy.

The opposition coalition, led by Nasheed, wants to defeat Yameen at elections next year but faces an uphill battle.

All their key leaders are imprisoned or have fled to avoid a lengthy crackdown on dissent under Yameen's leadership.

The instability has threatened to dent the Maldives' image as a tourist paradise.

Nasheed became the Maldives first democratically-elected president in 2008, but was narrowly defeated by Yameen in a controversial 2013 election run-off.

In 2015, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges that were widely seen as politically motivated. He now lives in exile in Britain.
A general view taken on May 31, 2017 shows the city of Jerusalem with Al-Aqsa mosque compound, scene of renewed Palestinina-Israeli tensions

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation will meet in Istanbul next week for talks on the crisis around Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, after a weekend of violence left eight people dead.

The 57-member pan-Islamic organisation will hold a ministerial meeting on Tuesday in Turkey, which currently holds the OIC presidency, a statement said on Monday.

Israeli authorities installed metal detectors at entrances to the highly sensitive east Jerusalem site, which includes Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of Rock, following an attack on July 14 that left two policemen dead.

"The issue of the Al-Aqsa mosque is a red line," the Jeddah-based OIC said in a statement after a meeting in the Saudi Red Sea city.

"Attacking the al-Aqsa mosque in any way and under whatever pretext will have serious consequence and will lead to instability in the region," it added.

Palestinians view the security measures as a move by Israel to assert further control over the site. They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside.

Israeli authorities say the metal detectors are needed because the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the site and emerged from it to shoot the officers.

Clashes have broken out during protests over the measures, leaving five Palestinians dead. Three Israelis were killed when a Palestinian snuck into a house in a West Bank settlement and stabbed them.

The site in east Jerusalem is considered the third holiest site in Islam and is the most sacred for Jews.
Moninder Singh Pandher (centre) joint accused in a case involving the gruesome deaths of 19 people is escorted to court in Ghaziabad on the outskirts of New Delhi on February 12, 2009

An Indian court sentenced a businessman and his servant to death Monday for the murder of a woman at a mansion dubbed the "House of Horrors", where 18 other victims were found butchered.

Moninder Singh Pandher and his groundskeeper Surinder Koli were found guilty at the weekend of the rape and murder of 20-year-old Pinki Sarkar, whose skeleton was found along with other human remains near Pandher's house outside New Delhi in 2006.

Her murder case was described in court as the "rarest of the rare", a criterion for the passing of the death sentence in India.

"The prosecution presented a watertight case against the accused and the judgement is appropriate," R K Gaur, a spokesman for India's federal Central Bureau of Investigation, told AFP.

Pandher and Koli had been sentenced to death in 2009 for the killing of a 14-year-old girl, but the businessman was cleared by a higher court months later.

The grisly killing spree sparked nationwide outrage as police recovered skulls, bones and the decomposing remains of missing persons from a sewer next to Pandher's home in Noida outside the capital.

Most of Pandher and Koli's alleged victims were children and women from nearby slums who disappeared without trace between 2005 and 2006.

Koli has been sentenced to death for six other murders related to the house, and faces similar charges in nine more instances.

Pandher is facing four more murder charges. Police initially believed he was not aware of the killings but he was later ordered to stand trial for rape and murder.

Investigators said Koli lured victims as young as three from the slums to Pandher's house, where they were raped and murdered before being dumped in nearby drains.

Koli allegedly confessed to raping the corpses of his victims and even eating human remains, believing cannibalism cured impotency, but later retracted his statement.

Police found nearly 70 bags stuffed with human remains in sewers around Pandher's home in a wealthy enclave.

Slum residents living nearby said 40 people, mostly children, had gone missing since 2004 and accused police of ignoring their complaints.

Six police officers were sacked in 2007 for negligence over their handling of the case, prompting the federal bureau to take over the investigation.
This handout photo released by Turkey's presidential press service on July 24, 2017 shows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C) and wife Emine (2L) being welcomed by the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani (2R), at Doha airport

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a brief visit to Qatar on Monday as part of a Gulf tour aimed at defusing a dispute between Turkey's ally Qatar and a bloc of Saudi-led Arab states.

In their first face-to-face talks on the Gulf crisis, Erdogan and Qatari ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani discussed "joint efforts to fight terrorism and extremism... in all forms and sources of financing", and finding a "peaceful solution" to the crisis, state news agency QNA reported.

Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the talks covered "developments in Syria and Iraq, the fight against terrorism... the importance of unity among Muslim countries and the importance of protecting countries' sovereign rights".

Turkey has sided with Qatar in the crisis, the worst to hit the region since the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council was established in 1981.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain suspended diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar over allegations that Doha had too close ties with Iran and supported Islamist extremist groups.

Qatar has denied the allegations.

On Sunday, Erdogan was in Kuwait, which is leading mediation efforts in the crisis, and also in Saudi Arabia, where King Salman hailed the Turkish leader's "efforts in the fight against terrorism and its financing".

Erdogan has voiced support for Kuwait's mediation efforts, a possible indication that Ankara sees the emirate as the key to resolving the crisis.

Qatar's emir said in an address to the nation on Friday that Doha was open to talks with the Saudi-led bloc on condition that his country's "sovereignty" was respected.

His call received a cold reception from the UAE's state minister for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, who wanted Qatar to review its policies.

"Dialogue is necessary, but it should be based on a revision" of Qatar's stance, he tweeted.

Qatar has emerged as Turkey's top ally in the Middle East in recent years, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating over issues including the Syria conflict where the two are staunch foes of President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey is also setting up a military base in Qatar, its only such outpost in the region. It has expedited the process since the crisis began and reportedly now has 150 troops in the emirate.
Sun Zhengcai (C) speaking during the Anhui province opening session as part of the National People's Congress in Beijing in March

The Chinese Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog has launched an investigation into a Politburo member once seen as a contender for a top leadership post, just months before a major political congress.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is investigating Sun Zhengcai, who some 10 days ago was ousted as party chief in the major city of Chongqing, for "serious discipline violation", the official Xinhua news agency said.

Sun is the first serving member of the 25-person Politburo to be placed under investigation since Bo Xilai, also a former Chongqing party chief who was jailed for life in 2013 in the wake of President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign.

Xinhua's brief report did not expand on the accusations nor say whether Sun would remain a member of the Politburo. His replacement as party chief in Chongqing was announced on July 15.

Analysts say the shake-up in Chongqing will have implications for the Communist Party's 19th congress later this year, which will likely cement Xi's position as the most powerful Chinese leader for a generation.

At the gathering, Xi is widely expected to secure a second five-year term.

But all eyes will be on who will depart or ascend to the Politburo's standing committee, the elite group of seven politicians who run the world's second largest economy.

Sun, who was replaced in the city by former Xi aide Chen Miner, had once been tipped for promotion to the standing committee. At 53, he is the youngest member of the Politburo.

- 'Threat' to Xi's agenda? -

Sun, who had kept a low profile, had even been touted as Xi's potential successor, said Simone van Nieuwenhuizen, a Sydney-based researcher and co-author of "China and the New Maoists".

"His downfall signals a growing sense of insecurity among Xi and his followers," van Nieuwenhuizen told AFP.

While the exact reasons for his fall are unknown, "we do know however that Sun had been promoted as a protege of Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao," she said.

"Xi could therefore consider Sun a threat to his own agenda and political ambitions; other proteges of Hu have also previously been held back from seeking higher positions under Xi."

At least four new standing committee members will likely be named at the congress and "Xi is overseeing their selection", said Bill Bikales, head of Bikales Advisors, an East Asian political and economic advisory service.

"Xi Jinping is seizing personal control of the succession process in a way that neither (former president) Jiang (Zemin) nor Hu was able," he said.

"This is unprecedented in the post-Deng Xiaoping decades and has implications for the 20th Congress in 2022 as well," Bikales said, referring to the nation's longtime leader who died in 1997.

As the country's fourth largest city and an industrial metropolis in the southwest of the country, Chongqing is a major post for ambitious politicians.

Bo was rumoured to be part of a network plotting to stop Xi from assuming control of the party in 2012, and Sun was tasked with erasing Bo's influence on the city.

But in February party discipline inspectors publicly rebuked Sun for failing to get the job done, leaving his future in question.

Shortly after replacing Sun, Chen was quoted as saying by a local daily that the city must "resolutely remove the bad impact" of Bo's case.

Sun's downfall has raised Chen's profile.

Chen first worked with Xi in 2002, when the latter became party chief of the eastern province of Zhejiang.

In late 2012 the former propaganda chief's career kicked into overdrive following Xi's ascension to the head of the Communist Party.

Chen became governor of the southwestern province of Guizhou in 2013, adding the title of party secretary in 2015.
Lahore has been hit by significant militant attacks in Pakistan's more than decade-long war on extremism

An explosion claimed by the Pakistani Taliban killed at least 26 people and injured dozens in a busy vegetable market in the Pakistani city of Lahore Monday, officials said.

The powerful blast hit a bustling main road in the south of Lahore and blew out windows in nearby buildings.

"A suicide bomber of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) used a motorcycle bomb to kill dozens of policemen," TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a statement emailed to local media.

"Our message to frontline allies of enemies of Islam is to get out of our way or be ready to suffer this fate," Khurasani added.

Initial police investigations suggested it might be a suicide bomb attack.

"Apparently, according to our initial findings, he was a suicide bomber, who used a motorcycle," deputy chief of police operations for Lahore, Haider Ashraf, told reporters, adding that at least 10 police officers were among the dead.

The city's commissioner Abdullah Khan Sumbul said the blast targeted police.

Senior local administration official Sumair Ahmad Syed put the new toll at 26 dead with over 50 injured. District Emergency officer Ahmad Raza confirmed the death toll, though he put the number of injured at 63.

Pakistan blast

The area was busy with police at the time because officers had been sent to the market to clear stalls that had illegally spilt onto the road.

Provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah said the blast had appeared to target the vegetable market, which was crowded with shoppers.

- 'Deafening blast' -

Eyewitness Sher Dil, who works at an office close to the site of the explosion, said it blew out the windows of his office building.

"I was in my office when it all happened. It was a deafening blast, which shook the entire Arfa Karim Towers," Dil told AFP.

Pakistan's president, prime minister and army chief all issued statements expressing condolences for the loss of life.

Lahore has been hit by significant militant attacks in Pakistan's more than decade-long war on extremism, but they have been less frequent in recent years.

The last major blast in the city was in March last year, when 75 were killed and hundreds injured in a bomb targeting Christians celebrating Easter Sunday in a park.

Bomb attacks have dented optimism that Pakistan's security is improving

But the country was also hit by a wave of attacks in February this year, including a bomb that killed 14 people in Lahore.

In April a further seven were killed in an attack in the city targeting a team that was carrying out the country's long overdue census.

After years of spiralling insecurity, the powerful army launched a crackdown on militancy in the wake of a brutal attack on a school in late 2014.

More than 150 people, most of them children, died in the Taliban-led assault in the northwestern city of Peshawar -- the country's deadliest ever single attack.

It shook a country already grimly accustomed to atrocities and prompted the military to step up an operation in the tribal areas, where militants had previously operated with impunity.

Explosions caused by gas cylinders -- which are used for cooking as well as in cars -- are also common in Pakistan. A blast in Lahore in February was initially thought to be a militant attack, but turned out to be a gas explosion.

Officials have since been cautious about prematurely confirming the nature of explosions.

Lahore, a city of around six million, is Pakistan's cultural hub and the capital of its most powerful province, Punjab.
Young women wave Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah flags as well as an Iranian flag in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil on August 13, 2016

A Kuwaiti Islamist member of parliament on Monday proposed legislation calling for members and supporters of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement be sentenced to up to 20 years in jail.

The draft legislation, submitted to parliament by MP Waleed al-Tabtabai, proposes Iran-backed Hezbollah be classified a "terrorist organisation".

It also stipulates a jail term of between 10 and 20 years for members of Hezbollah and anyone who shows any form of loyalty to the group.

It also proposes jail terms of up to five years for anyone displaying Hezbollah's yellow logo or any symbol associated with the group.

The supreme court in Sunni-ruled Kuwait, which has a sizeable Shiite minority, last month convicted 21 Shiites of forming a "terrorist cell" with ties to Iran and Hezbollah and plotting attacks in the Gulf state.

Kuwait has protested to Lebanon over the alleged training of the cell members by Hezbollah, which has ministers in the Beirut government.

Last week, authorities expelled 15 Iranian diplomats and shut down the military, cultural and trade missions of the Iranian embassy in Kuwait over Tehran's backing of the "terrorist cell".

Iran said the allegation is baseless

Fourteen of the 21 convicted members are on the run. Local media said they fled to Iran by sea.

Around a third of Kuwait's native population of 1.35 million are Shiites.
(FILES) The UN special adviser on Cyprus, Norway's Espen Barth Eide, looks on during a press conference at reunification talks on June 30, 2017 in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana

The United Nations is "not giving up" on efforts to seal a Cyprus reunification deal despite the failure of an international summit held in Switzerland earlier this month, UN envoy Espen Barth Eide said on Monday.

"We were not able to stitch it together to a final deal. That was a blow I think to everybody involved, and the question is what we can do now," Eide told reporters in Nicosia.

He said the process was now in "a cooling off phase".

The Norwegian diplomat returned to the island for his first talks with the rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders of the divided eastern Mediterranean island since UN-mediated negotiations collapsed on July 7 in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana.

"I am here partly to share some of my impressions with the leaders... to hear where they think we stand, where the process is and frankly what they would like us to do," he said after meeting President Nicos Anastasiades, the Greek Cypriot leader.

The Norwegian diplomat said the United Nations has not closed the door on reviving a process than many observers feel has reached a dead end.

"I am not giving up, the UN is not giving up, but at the same time I do not want to create any false illusions, I want to be honest," he said.

He later crossed the capital's UN-patrolled ceasefire line to hold separate talks with Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci.

"I do not see any immediate developments, I havent heard anything here that suggests something will happen in the very near future, there is a cooling off phase going on now," he said after their meeting.

The negotiations between Anastasiades and Akinci broke down after the United Nations failed to broker a compromise deal on a new security arrangement for a post-solution Cyprus.

Greece wanted to end the right of intervention on Cyprus it holds with Britain and Turkey, while Nicosia was also pushing for a withdrawal of Turkish troops stationed on the Mediterranean island and EU member state.

The talks in Switzerland left a UN-led push that ran for more than two years -- the latest in a long list of aborted bids to find an elusive Cyprus settlement -- in limbo.

"Turkey has been clear all the time that they can not except both zero guarantees and zero troops," said Eide.

He said at Crans-Montana that the UN was working towards ending guarantees and intervention rights but some foreign troops would have stayed on the ground.

Both Nicosia and Athens have accused Eide of having been "unprepared" in Crans-Montana and then of not giving a full picture of what happened in the Alpine ski resort.

The eastern Mediterranean island has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded its northern third in response to an Athens-inspired coup seeking union with Greece.

Turkey maintains around 35,000 troops in the north, while Akinci heads a self-declared statelet recognised only by Ankara.
Migrants from Africa rescued by Libya are brought ashore at a Tripoli port on July 24, 2017

Libya's coastguard in two separate operations on Monday rescued at least 278 migrants as they tried to reach Europe, naval officials said.

In one operation, 150 migrants, mostly Africans, ran into trouble when their inflatable boat broke down and began sinking off the coast of Sabrata, 70 kilometres (45 miles) west of Tripoli, Navy spokesman Ayoub Qassem said.

Those aboard included two women and four children, he said.

A rescue mission was launched after a Tripoli coastguard patrol was informed of the boat's plight, patrol commander Colonel Abu Ajela told AFP.

A witness said people traffickers had taken the migrants out to sea and left them there after removing the engine on the inflatable boat and replacing it with another that quickly broke down.

The migrants were brought ashore to a naval base in Tripoli where authorities gave them food, water and medical assistance before handing them over to a detention centre.

Also on Monday, a coastguard patrol from Zawiya port between Sabrata and Tripoli rescued 128 migrants including 14 women, Qassem told AFP.

He said they were rescued by two coastguard vessels including one that had been repaired in Italy and handed over to Libya in mid-May.

"This was its first outing at sea on a rescue mission," he said.

Human traffickers have exploited years of chaos in Libya since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi to boost their lucrative but deadly trade.

Tens of thousands of migrants have resorted to paying people smugglers to help them cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to what they hope will be a better life in Europe.

Since January, more than 100,000 migrants have made the perilous voyage, with around 85,000 arriving in Italy from Libya, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The IOM says this year some 2,360 people have drowned in the attempt.
The truck packed with suspected migrants -- eight of them dead -- were found was parked at this Walmart store in San Antonio

The head of US homeland security says the deaths of nine people inside an overheated truck packed with migrants in Texas shows the "brutality" of smugglers.

The migrants were discovered in the early morning hours Sunday in a truck parked in a Walmart lot in San Antonio, a city that is a two-hour drive from the US-Mexico border. Nine people died and 30 were hospitalized.

In a statement released Monday, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly called the deaths "senseless," and the result of a human trafficking "network of abuse and death."

At least 39 people were crammed in the trailer with a broken refrigeration system, which was parked in the baking Texas heat.

Eight people were already dead when authorities discovered the migrants and one later died at a hospital. All the fatalities were reportedly adult men.

At least 17 others -- including two school-age children -- were in critical condition, suffering from heat stroke and dehydration, authorities said.

"This tragedy demonstrates the brutality of the network of which I often speak. These smugglers have no regard for human life and seek only profits," Kelly said.

"The Department of Homeland Security and its partners in the U.S., Mexico and Central America will continue to root out these smugglers, bring them to justice and dismantle their networks."

Kelly has been to Mexico twice to discuss immigration, human trafficking and the sprawling cross-border drug trade.

Authorities arrested the truck's driver, who federal prosecutors identified as James Mathew Bradley Jr, 60, of Florida. He was in custody and was to be charged Monday in San Antonio.

The migrants were discovered when someone from inside the truck approached a Walmart employee asking for water.

The employee brought water to the truck and then called police, authorities said, adding that they were uncertain how many people might have fled from the truck and were unaccounted for.

Authorities were not releasing the victims' names or nationalities until their families were notified.
A Yemeni girl drinks water drawn from a well on the outskirts of the port city of Hodeida, on July 23, 2017

A high-level UN delegation arrived in Yemen on Monday and is set to visit areas held by both the government and Huthi rebels across the crisis-hit country, a UN source said.

The executive directors of the World Health Organization, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme visited the southern province of Aden, where the government is based, and the rebel-held capital Sanaa, an official said on condition of anonymity.

UNICEF and WHO representatives declined to elaborate on the visit to the Arabian Peninsula country, where war, cholera and looming famine have killed thousands of people and displaced millions.

The three UN officials met Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher for talks on international aid, state news agency Saba reported.

WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the visit aimed to contain "the cholera epidemic which has spread to all provinces", Saba said.

On Sunday, the United Nations warned that two thirds of Yemen's population of 27 million needed humanitarian assistance, with 10 million civilians in acute need of life-saving aid as the country teeters on the edge of famine.

A cholera outbreak has also claimed 1,800 lives and infected more than 370,000 others, according to the WHO and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The ICRC on Monday warned that more than 600,000 Yemenis are expected to contract cholera by the end of the year, and blamed the conflict for bringing the country's health system "to its knees".

War between the Saudi-backed government and Iran-backed rebels in one of the world's most impoverished countries has killed more than 8,000 people and wounded a further 44,500 since Riyadh and its allies joined the conflict in 2015.

A string of vital ports along Yemen's Red Sea coast are blockaded, leaving millions of people with limited access to food and medicine.

Less than half of the country's medical facilities are currently functional.

Seven UN-brokered truces have failed to end the conflict.
President Donald Trump, shown in this June 1 file photo, has warned that if Republicans don't tear up Obamacare, "the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand"

President Donald Trump warned Republicans on Monday that they have one "last chance" to pass the party's health care reforms, as US lawmakers brace for a vote whose fate remained uncertain.

With the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare floundering in Congress, the Senate was expected to vote Tuesday to begin debate on the latest Republican plan, a bid to dismantle the 2010 reforms of Trump's predecessor but delay the actual implementation to allow time for a viable replacement to be crafted.

By any measure it is an iffy proposition, with previous versions having collapsed in recent weeks.

Senate Republican leaders acknowledge they do not know whether there is sufficient support within the party to open debate on the new plan, a sign of Republican division about the impact such reforms might have on millions of American families.

With less than three weeks before the Senate is to leave Washington for its already-delayed summer recess, Trump called on his party to get in line.

"Republicans have a last chance to do the right thing on Repeal & Replace after years of talking & campaigning on it," Trump said on Twitter early Monday.

That followed an ominous -- if ambiguous -- threat Sunday night about what might occur should Congress come up short.

"If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!" he tweeted.

It was not clear if Trump was referring to the prospect that failure to pass health care reform will lead to election challenges against GOP incumbents next year, or hurt American families.

Forecasts by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office for various health reform bills predict that millions of Americans would lose health care if the measures become law. In the case of a bill that repeals Obamacare and provides no replacement, 32 million more people would be uninsured by 2026 as compared to current law, CBO forecast.

With his credibility on the line, Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to help salvage one of his central campaign pledges.

Republicans hold 52 of the Senate's 100 seats. With all Democrats opposed, Trump can afford just two defectors.

But as of last week, three Republican holdouts said they will vote no on the so-called motion to proceed, which opens debate on the legislation.

Trump was to lobby at least one of those senators, Shelley Moore Capito, when he flies Monday to Beaver, West Virginia to attend a Boy Scouts convention.

Several other Republicans have also expressed concerns, but have not said how they would vote.

"I think until the vote is actually on the floor of the Senate, some people may not tell you what they're actually going to do," Senate Republican John Barrasso told CBS talk show "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Once the repeal-only bill is on the floor, it could be amended "in various ways," Barrasso said, including changing it to a repeal-and-replace bill.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia probe for his role on the Trump campaign and undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador, appears under threat of losing his job

US President Donald Trump resumed his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions Tuesday, calling his onetime ally "VERY weak" in pursuing intelligence leaks and for failing to go after former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her email.

Trump's latest Twitter salvo followed a report in the Washington Post that the president and his advisers have discussed replacing Sessions, one of the Republican billionaire's earliest supporters.

"Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails &DNC server) & Intel leakers!" Trump tweeted.

Trump has openly criticized Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing a federal probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to meddle in the 2016 US presidential elections.

Sessions has said he has no plans to resign.

With pressure mounting from the investigation led by former FBI director Robert Mueller, Trump has sought to revive an election year controversy over Clinton's use of a private server to send email while secretary of state.

The White House also alleged last week that the Democrats colluded with Ukraine during the 2016 campaign, adding another twist to the president's counter-offensive.

"Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign - 'quietly working to boost Clinton.' So where is the investigation A.G.," Trump said in another early morning tweet Tuesday.

- 'Beleaguered' -

US presidents normally go to great pains to avoid being seen as influencing ongoing or possible investigations, making Trump's attacks on Sessions all the more extraordinary.

On Monday, Trump took to Twitter to declare his top law enforcement official "beleaguered" as he wondered out loud why Sessions was not investigating Clinton.

"So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?" Trump asked.

Trump has expressed increasing anger with Sessions as his Justice Department's investigations into possible Trump-Russia collusion has quickened.

Last week, he publicly upbraided Sessions for stepping back from issues related to the probe.

Sessions recused himself because of his role on Trump's campaign and because he failed to tell the Senate during his confirmation hearings about contacts he had with the Russian ambassador in Washington.

Trump said he would never have hired Sessions had he known he would recuse himself.

"I think is very unfair to the president," Trump told The New York Times last week. "It's extremely unfair, and that's a mild word, to the president."

- Widening probe -

Trump's eldest son, son-in-law and top aides have become entangled in the widening investigation led by Mueller.

Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and a top White House official, was questioned Monday by a Senate panel about contacts with then Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a Russian financier and a Russian lawyer who offered dirt on Clinton.

Kushner made a statement denying collusion after testifying behind closed doors, insisting the string of undisclosed meetings with Russian officials were "proper."

"Jared Kushner did very well yesterday in proving he did not collude with the Russians. Witch Hunt. Next up, 11 year old Barron Trump!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday.

In May, Trump fired FBI director James Comey over the bureau's investigation into Russia.

That led to Mueller's appointment as a special prosecutor.

The Post report said Trump associates see getting rid of Sessions as part of a potential strategy to fire Mueller and end the Russia investigation.

The website Axios reported that Trump was considering replacing Sessions with another early supporter, Rudy Giuliani, a former New York mayor.

But Giuliani dismissed the report and said Sessions was right to have recused himself from the Russia probe, CNN reported.

Sessions "made the right decision under the rules of the Justice Department," CNN quoted Giuliani as saying as he arrived at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
A Syrian man, pictured in May 2017, rides a horse cart in Maaret al-Numan, in the country's northern province of Idlib, a rebel-held region that has so far resisted any attempt at recapture from the Syrian regime

The jihadist takeover of Syria's key Idlib province raises the prospect that the region could become the next target of the international participants in the country's complex war.

The northern province is one of only two that have fallen from regime control since the war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

Why is Idlib important?

Idlib is the only province in Syria that remains entirely beyond regime control after having been captured in 2015 by an alliance of jihadists and rebels named the Army of Conquest.

It borders Turkey and includes the key Bab al-Hawa border crossing, but also sits alongside Latakia province, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad's government.

The alliance that captured the province was dominated by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and the rebel Ahrar al-Sham, a key Islamist faction backed by neighbouring Turkey and Gulf states.

In the years since the capture, Al-Nusra ostensibly split with Al-Qaeda, renaming itself Fateh al-Sham Front and becoming the backbone of the so-called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) coalition.

Despite their one-time alliance, tensions have been growing for months between HTS and non-jihadist forces in the province.

These have been exacerbated by fears inside HTS, designated a "terror" group internationally, of a plan to push it from Idlib.

How did jihadists seize it?

On Sunday, HTS took control of Idlib city, the provincial capital, after its rivals withdrew.

The shock capture followed a truce after days of fighting between the jihadist faction and Ahrar al-Sham.

But it remains unclear if the truce deal officially handed over the city and large stretches of the province elsewhere to HTS.

Better organised and better armed than its rivals, HTS now controls "more than 70 percent" of Idlib province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

What does this mean for rebels?

Ahrar al-Sham's control is now confined to just a few dozen towns, areas and villages in southern Idlib, a major downgrade of its influence.

"It's pretty debatable whether Ahrar al-Sham even exists any more and it looks like what is left of it is being digested slowly in the stomach acids" of HTS, said Syria analyst Sam Heller of the Century Foundation think tank.

The faction's subjugation comes after a string of major setbacks for Syria's non-jihadist opposition, who have lost large swathes of territory since Russia intervened to bolster Assad's regime in 2015.

"The geographic and political heart of the opposition at this point is in the northwest, and the northwest at this point has just been pretty decisively taken over by this latter iteration of Al-Qaeda," said Heller.

Elsewhere, two other key rebel areas in the south and outside the capital Damascus are now under internationally brokered truce agreements being monitored in part by Russia.

What next for Idlib?

HTS is designated a "terrorist" group by the United Nations, United States, Russia and Turkey.

It is regarded as a jihadist threat second only to the Islamic State group, which is currently facing multiple offensives with international involvement.

Since 2015, Russia has urged opposition supporters to force rebels to part ways with HTS and unite in a fight against jihadists in Syria.

With the lines now clearly drawn on the ground between the former allies, Idlib province could become the next target of an anti-jihadist offensive.

Rumours have circulated for months about a potential Turkish or even Russian attack against HTS in the province.

Analyst Nawar Oliver of the Turkey-based Omran Centre think tank said he did not expect a "major military operation" on Idlib.

"We may see an escalation of coalition air strikes on some HTS positions," he said, referring to the US-led coalition that is currently focused mostly on fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

He said regime ally Russia could also step up its air strikes.

"But the regime will not be able to mount a ground attack now because it is fighting on many fronts. It cannot open a new front right now."

On Monday, activists expressed fears about the possibility of fresh heavy air strikes on the province and the prospect of civilian casualties.

And many civilians on the ground also fear a total jihadist takeover of the province.

During the clashes between HTS and Ahrar al-Sham, the jihadists twice opened fire on demonstrations against their presence, killing one protester.
Veteran opposition politician Raila Odinga was the only candidate to show up at Monday's election debate

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was a no-show Monday at a televised debate ahead of August 8 elections, leaving his main rival Raila Odinga alone to field questions.

Both candidates had initially pulled out of the final debate, but after a change in format Odinga agreed to take part and the moderators were left in suspense until the last minute over whether or not Kenyatta would show up.

This gave veteran opposition politician Odinga 90 minutes to field questions about his policies, attack Kenyatta's government and defend his record during his time as prime minister in a power-sharing government after disputed 2007 polls.

The solo debate comes as several pre-election polls show an extremely tight race between the historical rivals, and it was unclear if the lack of a proper presidential debate would sway voters.

Kenyatta "owed the country a duty to appear, a duty to account for his five years," said Miguna Miguna, a former advisor to Odinga and independent candidate for Nairobi governor, as part of the post-debate analysis.

"I think it was a mistake of monumental proportions. It was a miscalculation, a deliberate or naive misunderstanding of what the president means."

Other analysts said it was an "anti-climax" and agreed it was a boost for Odinga.

An official in Kenyatta's campaign team said: "We don't see value in this thing, it's a debate that will not translate to votes on August 8."

Kenya held its first ever televised presidential debate in 2013, which included both Kenyatta and Odinga. Afterwards, Kenyatta complained that he had been unfairly targeted by moderators.

Odinga is leading a rare coalition of opposition heavyweights, the National Super Alliance (NASA) in his fourth bid to be president.

"I lost once," he said as the audience laughed, in reference to his claim that elections in 2007 and 2013 were stolen from him.

Many observers agree with Odinga's view that the 2007 election was stolen from him, triggering widespread politically-motivated tribal violence which left more than 1,100 dead.

The violence of 2007 looms over Kenya's politics a decade on, and Odinga has already repeatedly claimed there are plans afoot to rig the election.

Another analyst on the post-debate panel said that seeing the two contenders on the same stage discussing issues could have reduced tensions ahead of the vote.
A photo provided by the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA on July 24, 2017 shows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) and Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah before Erdogan's departure to Doha

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said his visit to the Gulf region made a contribution to easing the crisis surrounding Ankara's ally Qatar, but indicated that more time was needed to end the standoff.

Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia and Kuwait at the weekend before heading to Qatar earlier Monday for talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in a trip aimed at defusing the crisis.

Erdogan has voiced support for Kuwait's mediation efforts, a possible indication that Ankara sees the emirate as the key to resolving the crisis.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with their Shiite rival Iran.

Doha denies the claims and has been strongly backed by Ankara throughout the standoff.

The crisis has put Turkey in a delicate position and Erdogan had hoped his visit would help ease a crisis which he had described as not being in "anyone's interest".

"I think that our visit and contacts (in the region) have been an important step on the way to rebuilding stability and mutual confidence," he told reporters at Ankara airport after returning from Qatar.

But he cautioned: "Of course it's easy to demolish something, what is hard is to again rebuild something that has been demolished.

"And in relations between states this takes more time and trouble," he added.

Throughout the crisis Turkey has sought to balance its strategic alliance with Qatar with preserving its own relations with regional kingpin Saudi Arabia.

Crucially, Turkey is in the throes of setting up a military base in Qatar, its only such outpost in the region. It has sped up the process since the crisis began and reportedly now has 150 troops at the base.

Erdogan said the base had come up in the talks in Doha and also praised what he said was Qatar's "positive attitude" in trying to solve the crisis.

Earlier the Qatari state news agency QNA reported that Erdogan and Qatari ruler al-Thani had discussed "joint efforts to fight terrorism and extremism... in all forms and sources of financing", and finding a "peaceful solution".
Google parent Alphabet on Monday reported a quarterly profit of $3.5 billion, in a sharp decline from a year ago, with a massive fine by the European Commission biting into earnings.

The technology giant reported that revenue grew to $26 billion in the recently ended quarter, and that profit would have tallied nearly $6.3 billion if it weren't for a $2.74 billion antitrust fine levied on search engine Google by the European Commission.

The earnings for the quarter fell 28 percent from the same period last year.

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Google's parent company Alphabet says its quarterly profits took a hit because of a $2.74 billion anti-trust fine imposed by the European Union

PICHAI STEPS UP Alphabet announced separately that Google chief executive Sundar Pichai would join Alphabet's board of directors. Pichai is responsible for Googles product development and technology strategy, as well as the companys day-to-day-operations. Advertisement

Revenue was up 21 percent from the same quarter last year.

Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat said the report showed 'strong growth with great underlying momentum,' as the company makes 'focused investments in new revenue streams.'

Alphabet shares slid about 2.9 percent to .$969.03 in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings figures.

Investors have been concerned about what the regulatory trouble in Europe means for Alphabet, which gets most of its money from Google advertising while investing in 'other bets' such as self-driving cars.

Alphabet took in $248 million in revenue and posted a narrowed loss of $772 million in its 'other bets' category in the recently ended quarter.

Google and the EU are gearing up for a battle that could last years, with the Silicon Valley behemoth facing a relentless challenge to its ambition to expand beyond search results.

Brussels has already spent seven years targeting Google, fueled by a deep apprehension of the company's dominance of Internet search across Europe, where it commands about 90 percent of the market.

In a verdict that could redraw the online map worldwide, the EU's top antitrust sheriff Margrethe Vestager in June imposed a record fine on Google for illegally favoring its shopping service in search results.

The EU accuses Google of giving its multitude of services too much priority in search results to the detriment of other price comparison services.

The decision -- if it survives an expected appeal process - could prove to be momentous for Google, as well as for competition law in general.

GOOGLE'S EU BATTLE Google and the EU are gearing up for a battle that could last years, with the Silicon Valley behemoth facing a relentless challenge to its ambition to expand beyond search results. Brussels has already spent seven years targeting Google, fueled by a deep apprehension of the company's dominance of Internet search across Europe, where it commands about 90 percent of the market. In a verdict that could redraw the online map worldwide, the EU's top antitrust sheriff Margrethe Vestager in June imposed a record fine on Google for illegally favoring its shopping service in search results. The EU accuses Google of giving its multitude of services too much priority in search results to the detriment of other price comparison services. The decision -- if it survives an expected appeal process - could prove to be momentous for Google, as well as for competition law in general. The EU is also examining Google's AdSense advertising service and its Android mobile phone software. Advertisement

The EU is also examining Google's AdSense advertising service and its Android mobile phone software.

Alphabet would be wise to diversify, but it just must be careful not to take advantage of its powerful position in online search to gain advantage, noted Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.

Investors will also be watching to make sure this is a one-time fine, because not even a behemoth like Google can take that kind of cash hit each quarter, the analyst said.

'I don't see Google changing its behavior, which means the EU could continue to hit them with excessive fines,' Enderle said.

'The EU does not have a sense of humor when it comes to US companies telling them to take a hike.'
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has launched a legislative effort that aims to designate the Finger Lakes region as a national heritage area.

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., visited Lakeside Park in Watkins Glen Monday to announce her bill that would require the National Park Service to study whether the Finger Lakes should become a national heritage area.

The feasibility study would focus on the region spanning 14 counties, including Cayuga, Cortland, Onondaga, Seneca, Tompkins and Wayne.

Gillibrand called the Finger Lakes "a national treasure." She believes classifying the region as a national heritage area would draw more visitors to the lake communities.

"Thousands of tourists come from around the world to visit the Finger Lakes region to experience the beautiful landscape, rich history and culture and enjoy all that our local businesses have to offer," she said. "Designating the region as a national heritage area would help boost local tourism while conserving and protecting the region's precious natural, historic and cultural resources."

National heritage areas are different than national parks or other sites administered by the National Park Service. While congressional action is required to designate a national heritage area, the burden of supporting these sites isn't solely a federal government responsibility. There are typically public-private partnerships to maintain and promote the areas.

There are 49 national heritage areas in the U.S., including four in New York. The New York sites include the Erie Canalway National Heritage Area and the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area.

Gillibrand touted the economic benefits of a national heritage area. She noted that for every $1 of federal investment national heritage areas receive, it produces $5.50 in government revenue and jobs that support local economies.

The Finger Lakes region already benefits from a multi-billion dollar tourism industry. In the 14 counties that would be included in the feasibility study, tourism generated $2.9 billion in 2015 and supported 59,293 employees.

This is the latest attempt by Gillibrand to secure the designation for the Finger Lakes region. She's introduced the bill in the Senate before, but it hasn't advanced.

The legislation is sponsored in the House by U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, a Corning Republican whose district includes the western Finger Lakes.

"Finding a commonsense approach to preserving our heritage and growing our local economy is vital and the Finger Lakes region should be designated as a national heritage area," Reed said in a statement.
Afghan National Army soldiers were issued pricey uniforms that may have made soldiers easier to spot

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has issued a sharp rebuke after the Pentagon wasted millions of dollars buying the Afghan army a pricey uniform that may have made soldiers easier to spot.

According to a memo released Monday, Mattis told Pentagon procurement officials that the decision to buy the overpriced woodland green camouflage uniforms "serves as an example of a complacent mode of thinking."

"Cavalier or casually acquiescent decisions to spend taxpayer dollars in an ineffective and wasteful manner are not to recur," Mattis wrote in the July 21 memo.

The office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued a report last month saying the Pentagon may have spent as much as $28 million more than necessary when it decided in 2007 to purchase the dark-green camouflage uniforms.

SIGAR also found that a private company held rights to the camo design and that Afghanistan's then defense minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, essentially chose the pattern on a whim.

The proprietary design meant the uniforms cost about 40 percent more than non-proprietary camouflage.

The highly critical SIGAR report also says officials ordered the uniforms without conducting any formal testing or evaluation.

"The purpose of equipping the Afghan National Army is to bolster the Afghan government's capacity to provide for its own security, and ultimately, to help defend our country from terrorist attack," Mattis wrote.

He added that he wanted the episode to serve as a "catalyst" to bring to light wasteful practices.

Lawmakers at the House Armed Services Committee are scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday on the matter.

Mattis is considering whether to send thousands more US troops to Afghanistan to help beleaguered Afghan partners as they struggle to contain a resurgent Taliban.
Trump is pressuring Republicans to repeal and replace his predecessor Barack Obama's health care reforms

Senate Republicans face a do-or-die vote Tuesday to launch a new Obamacare repeal effort, as confusion reigns over what path President Donald Trump's party will take -- and whether they even have the votes to move forward.

On Monday, Trump strongly warned Republicans that they must pass health care reform, taking his party to task and bluntly declaring that "Obamacare is death."

Several measures have been considered but then collapsed in recent weeks.

The latest Republican plan is a bid to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act pushed by Trump's predecessor, but delay the actual implementation of the repeal to allow time for a viable replacement to be crafted.

That bill is highly unlikely to pass in its current form, but the Senate leadership has stressed the importance of at least voting on it in order for changes to then be introduced.

The approach was not flying with some Republicans.

"I don't have a clue what we'll be voting on," said Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican who has long criticized the health care reform process.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has opposed various earlier versions of the legislation, sounded unsure about what bill was being considered Tuesday, or whether she would vote to begin debate on it.

"I would like to know more," she told reporters.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to lay out the path forward Tuesday at a closed-door Republican lunch.

He and other Senate Republican leaders acknowledge they do not know whether there is sufficient support to even open debate on the new plan, a sign of Republican division about the impact such reforms might have on millions of American families.

With less than three weeks before the Senate is to leave Washington for its already-delayed summer recess, Trump took to his bully pulpit and demanded his party get in line.

- 'Obamacare nightmare' -

"Any senator that votes against starting debate is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare," Trump said at the White House, where several "victims" of Obamacare stood as a backdrop to his remarks.

"Obamacare is death," Trump added. "It's gone. And now it's up to us to get great health care for the American people."

Trump has repeatedly grilled fellow Republicans for not following through on their -- and his -- campaign pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare, something he said he aimed to do immediately once in office in January.

Republicans hold 52 of the Senate's 100 seats. With all Democrats opposed, Trump can afford just two defectors.

Senator John McCain, who was convalescing in Arizona following a brain cancer diagnosis, will return Tuesday, his office announced, in yet another sign of just how important the numbers are for this vote.

As of last week, three Republican holdouts said they will vote no on Tuesday's so-called motion to proceed, which opens debate on the legislation.

Trump went to one of their home states Monday, personally lobbying Senator Shelley Moore Capito as the pair attended a Boy Scouts convention in Beaver, West Virginia.

"You better get Capito to vote for it," Trump said, joking that he would fire Health Secretary Tom Price if the Senate vote fails to advance the bill.

- 'Repercussions' -

Several other Republicans have also expressed concerns, but have not announced how they will vote.

"I think until the vote is actually on the floor of the Senate, some people may not tell you what they're actually going to do," Senate Republican John Barrasso told CBS talk show "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Once the repeal-only bill is on the floor, it could be amended "in various ways," Barrasso said, including changing it to a repeal-and-replace bill.

Forecasts by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on various health reform bills have predicted that millions of Americans would lose health care if the measures become law.

In the case of a bill that repeals Obamacare and provides no replacement, 32 million more people would be uninsured by 2026 as compared to current law, CBO forecast.

Some Republicans have expressed concern with how legislation would impact Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and the disabled.

The latest repeal-and-replace bill would roll back an expansion of Medicaid and slash its federal funding.

It would also end the mandate that most individuals have health insurance, and allow states to let insurance companies offer bare-bones plans not allowed under current law.
Former members of the Word of Faith Fellowship church have outlined how leaders of the secretive evangelical sect took control of two branches in Brazil, imposing harsh rules and creating a human pipeline of young laborers who were brought to the United States and forced to work for little or no pay. Here, some ex-congregants offer personal tales of dashed hopes, broken families and arranged marriages.

SHATTERED DREAMS

Growing up in Brazil, Rebeca Melo dreamed of becoming a nurse, so she was thrilled when leaders at her local church said she could travel to the United States to attend college.

ADVANCE FOR USE MONDAY, JULY 24, 2017 AND THEREAFTER-In this Tuesday, May 9, 2017 photo, Thiago Silva speaks during an interview at his home in Marlborough, Mass. Reflecting on his life, the 34-year-old has one regret _ that he didn't leave the Word of Faith Fellowship church sooner. For years, Silva said the church's ministers _ especially founder Jane Whaley _ controlled every aspect of his life. "I didn't live until I escaped," he said. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

That excitement turned to despair after her plane landed in 2009 and she was met by a representative of the mother church, Word of Faith Fellowship, based in rural Spindale, North Carolina.

Word of Faith ministers took her passport and warned her she couldn't talk to her parents, Melo said. She said she worked first as a full-time nanny for a minister and then for no pay at businesses owned by church leaders.

She could attend school, but said lead pastor Jane Whaley told her it was "God's will" that she became a teacher, not a nurse

Melo, who left the church in 2015, said she had little time to study anyway because she had to work up to 16 hours a day.

For years, she said she was beaten and berated, and called a "harlot" or "prostitute."

"I was made to feel useless. I prayed every day that it would get better, but it never did," she said.

Melo, 29, recalled that the minister she lived with once beat her and forced her to live in a storage shed because Melo asked a friend if she could borrow a shirt. Another time, she said, she was punched and choked so badly during deliverance - a practice to expel demons - that she nearly passed out. Her sin: She wanted to leave the church because of the abuse.

"They threaten you a lot," she said. "They say they are going to put you back on an airplane and send you back to Brazil. ... I was halfway through with my studies. I just wanted to get my education and find a way to get out of there."

___=

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

Reflecting on his life, Thiago Silva has one regret - that he didn't leave the Word of Faith Fellowship church sooner.

For years, Silva said the church's ministers - especially founder Jane Whaley - controlled every aspect of his life.

"I didn't live until I escaped," he said, struggling to hold back his tears.

When he arrived in Spindale, North Carolina, on a tourist visa in 2001, he said a church leader immediately made him turn over his passport. Every second of his time was accounted for by the church, he said, and he wasn't allowed to make telephone calls unless they were monitored.

Word of Faith immediately put him to work at companies owned by church leaders working long hours side by side with Americans, with one critical distinction, he said: "The Americans were getting paid. We didn't."

It didn't help that Whaley and other ministers were constantly screaming and berating the Brazilians, Silva said. "We were nothing more than slave labor," he said.

Silva tried to follow church doctrine, believing Whaley was a holy figure. But it eventually got to be too much, he said.

"I just had to leave - for my sanity," he said. "I realized what they were doing was wrong."

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A FAMILY DIVIDED

As a child, Deborah Oliveira and her twin brother believed their father was a bad man. When their parents divorced at age 7, he had left Ministerio Evangelico Comunidade Rhema, a Brazilian church affiliated with Word of Faith Fellowship, a sect based in Spindale, North Carolina.

Oliveira didn't know it then, but church members are expected to totally cut off people who leave the church - even family.

"I grew up hearing that my dad was impure and perverse," said Oliveira, now 26. "Because of the custody agreement, we would see him every Saturday, but we were afraid of him."

Deemed "rebellious" as a teenager, Oliveira said she was forced to live with families of different pastors. After school, she said, she would clean, cook and take care of children that were not hers. For years, she was allowed to see her mother only on Sundays.

Oliveira traveled to Spindale three times, most recently four years ago when she visited her brother Andre, who married a church member and stayed in the U.S. Each time, Oliveira said she stayed in the country for six months on a tourist visa, while being put to work cleaning, sewing and taking care of children.

She hated being in the U.S., she said, but her brother was the only close family she still had.

By her early 20s, Oliveira was increasingly fed up with the church. One day back in Brazil, she called her father, asked him to pick her up and severed ties with the church. She now lives with him and works as a secretary.

"Today, we are learning from each other what all happened those years," she said. "Everything he has told me is the opposite of everything I heard for years."

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PHYSICAL ABUSE

Even as a newborn, there was a glimpse of the control Word of Faith Fellowship would later wield over Felipe Granieri Oliveira and his family: His aunt is Solange Granieri Oliveira, one of the church's pastors, and he says she bullied his mother into naming him Felipe, rather than Andre-Luis as she preferred.

His aunt and her husband later took custody of Felipe because his mother had psychological problems and his father felt unable to care for him and his siblings, but he still remembers his early childhood as fairly normal and happy.

That began to change as Solange and her husband began instituting Word of Faith's more extreme teachings, he said, including meting out public beatings.

Felipe, who left the church in 2015, said his aunt once repeatedly threw him to the floor, and also punched him in the face. He also was labeled a "rebel" for sometimes questioning church teachings.

When he was 11, he said his aunt started to ask him about masturbation, accusing him of pleasuring himself - baffling him, because he didn't even know what it was. She sometimes would ask him about it in front of his classmates, he said, screaming that it was an impurity that needed to be driven out.

Another time, he said he was asked to write a list of his sins. He spent hours detailing them, knowing that if he didn't offer up enough, he would be accused of holding back. He recalls the absurdity of the ordeal: He admitted to ogling women, even though he already knew he was gay.

The Associated Press reached out to Solange Granieri Oliveira repeatedly for comment, but she did not respond.

The disquiet that began at 9 - when Felipe began to disagree with some church teachings - came to a head in his teenage years.

"I didn't agree with anything anyone said. I couldn't have a telephone, couldn't have Facebook," he said. "It was an evolution but it was at 16 that I said, 'This is wrong. When I'm 18, I'm going to leave.'"

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ARRANGED MARRIAGE

When Kim Rooper's daughter began having problems, she sent her to live at the Word of Faith Fellowship compound, hoping it would help. She joined her daughter a couple of years later, moving to Spindale, North Carolina, from Oregon about 1999.

At a Friday night social event, she said, it was decided it was the "will of God" for her to develop a relationship with an Ecuadorian church member who entered the U.S. with a visa.

"During that whole relationship, we would get together with other couples because you weren't allowed to talk to a man alone and we would have dinners and stuff like that," she said.

Eventually, Rooper said, church leader Jane Whaley "thought it was the will of God for us to get married, and that his visa was almost up, meaning he'd have to go back home. At that point, I just wanted to serve God."

Since she had few relationships outside the church, Rooper said she agreed. "I did not love him, but I went along with it because I didn't want to be an outcast," she said.

When it came time to consummate the marriage, however, Rooper struggled.

"I had a hard time because I didn't love him, and nor did I have an attraction to him. Just because we're opposite sexes doesn't mean we always have that attraction," she said.

She said she brought her concerns to Whaley and another minister, who told her she needed to "submit" to her husband.

It was then, she said, that she decided to break with the church. She left in 2002.
SPINDALE, N.C. (AP) - When Andre Oliveira answered the call to leave his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil to move to the mother church in North Carolina at the age of 18, his passport and money were confiscated by church leaders - for safekeeping, he said he was told.

Trapped in a foreign land, he said he was forced to work 15 hours a day, usually for no pay, first cleaning warehouses for the evangelical church and later working at businesses owned by the sect's senior ministers. Any violation of the rules risked the wrath of church leaders, he said, ranging from beatings to shaming from the pulpit.

An Associated Press investigation has found that Word of Faith Fellowship used its two church branches in Brazil to siphon a steady flow of young laborers who came on tourist and student visas to its 35-acre compound in rural Spindale. The Brazilians often spoke little English when they arrived and many had their passports seized.

This Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo shows Ana Albuquerque, 25, during an interview in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Albuquerque traveled to the Word of Faith Fellowship church in Spindale, N.C., from Brazil 11 times over the course of more than a decade, starting at age 5 with her parents. Over time, she said she witnessed so much screaming and shoving to "expunge devils" that she began to see the behavior as normal. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

"They kept us as slaves," Oliveira told the AP. "How can you do that to people - claim you love them and then beat them in the name of God?"

Under U.S. law, visitors on tourist visas are prohibited from performing work for which people normally would be compensated. Those on student visas are allowed some work, under circumstances that were not met at Word of Faith Fellowship, the AP found.

In 2014, three former congregants told an assistant U.S. attorney that the Brazilians were being forced to work without pay, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by the AP.

Jill Rose, now the U.S. attorney in Charlotte, promised she would "take a fresh look at it," according to the recording. But the former members said she never responded when they repeatedly tried to contact her in the months after the meeting.

Rose declined to comment to the AP, citing an ongoing investigation.

Oliveira, who fled the church last year, is one of 16 Brazilian former members who told the AP they were made to work while being subjected to physical or verbal assaults.

Former congregant Jay Plummer, an American, supervised remodeling projects for a church's leader business and confirmed the Brazilians' assertions that the U.S. workers who labored alongside them were paid while they were not.

The revelations of forced labor are the latest in an ongoing AP investigation exposing decades of abuse at Word of Faith Fellowship. Based on exclusive interviews with 43 former members, documents and secretly made recordings, the AP reported in February that congregants were regularly punched and choked in an effort to "purify" sinners by beating out devils.

The church has rarely been sanctioned since it was founded in 1979 by Jane Whaley, a former math teacher, and her husband, Sam. Another previous AP report outlined how congregants were ordered by church leaders to lie to authorities investigating reports of abuse.

The AP made repeated attempts to obtain comments for this story from church leaders in both countries, but they did not respond.

Under Jane Whaley's leadership, the church grew from a handful of followers to about 750 congregants in North Carolina and nearly 2,000 members in its churches in Brazil and Ghana and affiliations in Sweden, Scotland and other countries.

Whaley and her lieutenants travel several times a year to the Brazilian branches, in the southeastern cities of Sao Joaquim de Bicas and Franco da Rocha.

She tells the Brazilian members of her flock that they can improve their lives and relationships with God with pilgrimages to Spindale, according to several of those interviewed.

Some said they also were enticed with the chance to attend college, to learn English, to see a bit of the U.S. Others said they felt they had no choice but to travel to North Carolina.

Perhaps to circumvent the rules against employment, church leaders sometimes referred to the forced labor projects as "volunteer work," according to Brazilians interviewed in both countries.

Many females worked as babysitters and in the church's K-12 school, and many males worked in construction, the former members said. The work included ripping out walls and installing drywall in apartments owned and rented out by a senior church minister, they said.

"It was slave labor," said Rebeca Melo, 29, who grew up in the church in Brazil and visited the U.S. about 10 times.

Whaley's brand of "love" also played a key role in enticing Brazilian males to Spindale - and keeping them there once their visas expired, according to former members of the church.

Ten of those interviewed spoke of male Brazilians obtaining green cards for permanent residency and being able to legally work by being married off to female American congregants.

It is illegal to enter a sham marriage for the purpose of avoiding U.S. immigration laws.

"I can count at least five or six Brazilian guys that moved here to marry an American girl," Melo said. "They would never, ever, ever consider letting you date somebody outside of the church."

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Weiss reported from Spindale and Charlotte, North Carolina; Mohr from Marlborough, Massachusetts, and Jackson, Mississippi; Prengaman from Sao Joaquim de Bicas and Franco da Rocha, Brazil. AP writer Tamara Lush contributed from Tampa, Florida.

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The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate@ap.org

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Follow Weiss on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mitchsweiss

Follow Mohr on Twitter at http://twitter.com/holbrookmohr

Follow Prengaman on Twitter at https://twitter.com/peterprengaman

This Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo shows the Word of Faith Fellowship church in Sao Joaquim de Bicas, Brazil. An Associated Press investigation has found that the church used its two branches in Latin America's largest nation to siphon a steady flow of young laborers who came on tourist and student visas to its 35-acre compound in rural Spindale, N.C. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

This Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo shows a road sign pointing to Sao Joaquim de Bicas, Brazil, a small city about a 45-minute drive from Belo Horizonte. Over the course of two decades, Word of Faith Fellowship absorbed two churches in Brazil, in the southeastern cities of Sao Joaquim de Bicas and Franco da Rocha. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

This undated photo provided in 2017 by a former member of the Word of Faith Fellowship from Brazil shows founder Jane Whaley with children at the church in Spindale, N.C. Members visit the Spindale compound from around the world, but Brazil is the biggest source of foreign labor and Whaley and her top lieutenants visit the Brazilian outposts several times a year, the Associated Press has found. (AP Photo)

In this Tuesday, May 9, 2017 photo, Thiago Silva speaks during an interview at his home in Marlborough, Mass. The former member of the Word of Faith Fellowship said he was excited when he boarded a plane in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte to fly to the church's youth seminar in North Carolina in 2001. He was 18 and expecting to use his tourist visa to meet new people and visit the U.S. He soon learned, he said, that there would be "no happiness." "Brazilians came here for labor. I'm telling you, that's it," Silva said. He called the treatment "a violation of human rights." (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

This February 2016 photo shows Andre Oliveira in Spindale, N.C. When Oliveira answered the call to leave his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil to move to the mother church in North Carolina at the age of 18, his passport and money were confiscated by church leaders _ for safekeeping, he said he was told. Trapped in a foreign land, he said he was forced to work 15 hours a day, usually for no pay, first cleaning warehouses for the secretive evangelical church and later toiling at businesses owned by senior ministers. (AP Photo/Mitch Weiss)

This Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo shows people at the Word of Faith Fellowship church in Sao Joaquim de Bicas, Brazil. An Associated Press investigation has found that Word of Faith Fellowship used its two church branches in Latin America's largest nation to siphon a steady flow of young laborers who came on tourist and student visas to its 35-acre compound in rural Spindale, N.C. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

In this Wednesday, March 29, 2017 photo, Ana Albuquerque explains how she was spanked during an interview in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Bent over a desk, Albuquerque says church founder Jane Whaley and another member repeatedly spanked her with a flat piece of wood while screaming that she was "unclean" and possessed by the devil when she was 16. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
SAN DIEGO (AP) - Ben Affleck is still Batman. The actor shot down rumors that he would be hanging up his cape for the stand-alone Batman film, even though he recently ceded directing responsibilities.

Speaking to a crowd of about 6,500 fans at San Diego Comic-Con, Affleck unequivocally assured the crowd that he is still starring in "The Batman."

On Friday, the trade publication The Hollywood Reporter published a report that Warner Bros. was working on plans to "usher out Affleck's Batman gracefully" and suggested that it might happen before "The Batman." The report threatened to overshadow Warner Bros.' flashy Hall H presentation on Saturday, which was focused on hyping the studio's big superhero mashup film "Justice League," which hits theaters in November.

Ben Affleck speaks at the Warner Bros. "Justice League" panel on day three of Comic-Con International on Saturday, July 22, 2017, in San Diego. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

"Let me be very clear. I am the luckiest guy in the world. Batman is the coolest part in any universe, DC or Marvel," Affleck said. He wanted to knock down the idea that he wasn't committed to the character, even though he won't be directing.

Affleck praised director Matt Reeves' vision and said he would "be an ape on the ground for Matt Reeves." Reeves recently directed "War for the Planet of the Apes."

With the cloud lifted, Affleck and his fellow "Justice League " stars Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller and Ray Fisher were left to talk about the upcoming film, which has had its own fair share of upheaval recently when director Zack Snyder exited for personal reasons and Joss Whedon took over the reshoots and completion of the film.

Neither Snyder nor Whedon were at Comic-Con, although Snyder tweeted Friday that he was sending his best to the "Justice League" team.

The footage focused heavily on Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, who emerged as the clear favorite of the fans in the audience who screamed at every shot of the Amazonian warrior. "Wonder Woman" recently became the highest grossing of the four DC Extended Universe films.

Another person missing from the panel was Superman star Henry Cavill. When a young fan asked the actors if he'll show up in the film, Gadot reassured him. "We can't say much but if you love Superman you're going to be very, very happy," she said.

Warner Bros. also teased a bit of "Aquaman," out Dec, 2018, starring Momoa in the title role. A snippet of footage from the James Wan-directed film, showed fishermen who are quite surprised when something under the water catches on to the hook and starts dragging the boat along. They look underwater to see a fleet of giant ships coasting under the surface.

Momoa also teased that Ocean Master would be the film's main villain, though he laughed that he would likely get in trouble for it.

The studio didn't go past the 2018 slate of films, however.

If Batman and Wonder Woman weren't enough, Marvel Studios is primed to take center stage in Hall H on Saturday evening.

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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr

Gal Gadot, left, and Ray Fisher attend the Warner Bros. "Justice League" panel on day three of Comic-Con International on Saturday, July 22, 2017, in San Diego. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Gal Gadot attends the Warner Bros. "Justice League" panel on day three of Comic-Con International on Saturday, July 22, 2017, in San Diego. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Moderator Chris Hardwick, left, speaks as Jason Momoa holds his Aquaman trident on stage at the Warner Bros. "Justice League" panel on day three of Comic-Con International on Saturday, July 22, 2017, in San Diego. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
Nine immigrants smuggled in a tractor-trailer have died. They were among nearly 40 people found in the back of the truck parked outside a Walmart in Texas in what police are calling a horrific human trafficking case. Many of the several dozen survivors are in dire condition, suffering from heatstroke and dehydration after being trapped in the sweltering truck overnight.

The tragedy has shined a fresh spotlight on the often deadly conditions that desperate migrants endure at the hands of smugglers and human traffickers. Others have died under similar circumstances before:

- Feb. 20, 2017: 13 African migrants suffocated inside a shipping container while being transported between two towns in Libya. A total of 69 migrants, most from Mali, were packed into the container, according to the local Red Crescent branch.

- Aug. 27, 2015: Austrian police discovered an abandoned truck containing the bodies of 71 migrants, including eight children, from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The truck, found along a highway, had crossed into Austria from Hungary.

- April 4, 2009: 35 Afghan migrants suffocated inside a shipping container in southwestern Pakistan. Authorities said that more than 100 people were packed inside the container.

- April 9, 2008: 54 Burmese migrants suffocated in the back of an airtight refrigerated truck in Ranong, Thailand.

- May 14, 2003: 19 migrants died inside a sweltering tractor-trailer while they traveled from South Texas to Houston.

- June 18, 2000: 58 Chinese immigrants were found dead inside a truck in the English port town of Dover. The Dutch truck had transported the immigrants across the English Channel from Belgium. Two people survived.
SANAA, Yemen (AP) - Yemen's president has sacked a governor who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for his ties with al-Qaida.

The presidential decree by Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi was issued on Sunday. Hadi removed the governor of the central province of al-Bayda, Nayef al-Qaysi, and named Salah al-Rassass as his replacement.

Bayda is a known al-Qaida hotbed, and where the U.S. had carried out airstrikes and raids in the past years hunting the group's operatives.

Al-Qaysi was classified by the U.S. as a "specially designated global terrorist" over allegations that he financed the group.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen affiliate is known, has long been seen as the global network's most dangerous branch, and has been implicated in a number of attempted attacks on the U.S. homeland.
YONKERS, New York (AP) - Jason Bartlett, Yonkers Raceway's perennial leading driver, reached 7,000 career victories Sunday.

The milestone number came behind favored trotter I C Caviar in the seventh race.

Bartlett took the 6-year-old Malabar Millennium gelding, making his first start for trainer Richard Banca, past Me the Boss down the backside, then defeated 65-1 outsider Mr. Protab by two lengths in 1 minute, 58.2 seconds.

The 36-year-old Bartlett, a native of Augusta, Maine, has earned $87.7 million in career purses. He began Sunday leading the local drivers in wins (297) and purses ($6.1 million).

Bartlett went through an uncharacteristic dry spell of three wins in 35 races before getting to 7,000.

"Longest three days of my life," Bartlett said, "I'm so happy it's over, and the kids are, too. They were asking me, 'Daddy, do we have to go to the track again?'

"I was talking with my wife (Kristen) the other day," Bartlett added. "We've been down here close to 10 years now, and when I first came, I was around 2,000 wins. It's been a hell of a ride."
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson joked on his visit to New Zealand on Monday that a traditional Maori greeting could be misinterpreted as a head butt elsewhere.

Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union. Topics on the agenda include trade, foreign policy and international security.

He visited the South Island tourist town of Kaikoura, which was struck by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in November that killed two people.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, center, walks during the service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, New Zealand, Monday, July 24, 2017. Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union.(Mark Mitchell/New Zealand herald via AP)

Johnson thanked townsfolk for looking after tourists, including 200 Britons, who were stranded in the town after the quake and for teaching him a Maori greeting called a hongi, in which people press noses together.

"I think it's a beautiful form of introduction, though it might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow," Johnson joked, in a reference to a head butt.

Prime Minister Bill English later said he didn't think New Zealanders would be offended by Johnson's comment.

"A hongi is a fairly unfamiliar ritual to almost anyone else in the world," he said.

Later on Monday, Johnson traveled to Wellington where he unveiled a striking British memorial at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.

Designed by New Zealand film company Weta Workshop, the memorial stands nearly 5 meters (16 feet) and depicts the trunks of a royal oak and an indigenous pohutukawa tree intertwining to form a single canopy.

Johnson said it was his first visit to New Zealand.

"This is the most mind-blowingly, mind-numbingly beautiful country that I have ever seen," he said, adding it was the only landscape he thinks could do justice to the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit," which were filmed in New Zealand.

Johnson is due to travel to Australia on Tuesday.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, center, lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, New Zealand, Monday, July 24, 2017. Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand herald via AP)

New Zealand's Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy, left, and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, right, share a plate of crayfish at Kaikoura, New Zealand, Monday, July 24, 2017. Johnson is in the South Pacific nation for two day visit as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union. (Corin Dann/Pool via AP)

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, third left, stands with New Zealand Governor General, Dame Patsy Reddy, second left, and Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee, to his immediate right, during the service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, New Zealand, Monday, July 24, 2017. Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union.(Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald via AP)

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, center, walks with New Zealand Governor General, Dame Patsy Reddy, left, and Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee, right, during the service at Pukeahu National War memorial Park in Wellington, New Zealand, Monday, July 24, 2017. Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union.(Mark Mitchell/New Zealand herald via AP)

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, right, talks with Weta Workshop founder Sir Richard Taylor at the Memorial at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington, New Zealand, Monday, July 24, 2017. Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union.(Mark Mitchell/New Zealand herald via AP)
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - Scott Blumstein's path to winning more than $8.1 million as the World Series of Poker champion started in the online poker rooms of New Jersey.

While internet gambling has helped Atlantic City's beleaguered casino industry begin to recover, Blumstein credited his online experience with helping him win the biggest prize in poker after he defeated more than 7,000 players to win the series' marquee no-limit Texas Hold 'em main event early Sunday in Las Vegas.

"Two weeks ago, I was just a New Jersey online grinder and nothing's really changed," the 25-year-old with an accounting degree from Philadelphia's Temple University told reporters.

Fans celebrate after Scott Blumstein, bottom center, won the World Series of Poker main event, Sunday, July 23, 2017, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

New Jersey is one of only three states that offer internet gambling, along with Nevada and Delaware. Other states are considering legalizing it, including neighboring Pennsylvania, but there's also a looming threat that Washington could crack down on the industry.

The action online pales in comparison to the state of online poker before the federal government cracked down on offshore sites in 2011, but players in New Jersey can now legally play at all hours of the day.

Pros play multiple games at once, including tournaments and cash games. New Jersey also offers live poker in many of its Atlantic City casinos, with the poker room at the Borgata considered among the top places to play on the East Coast.

"The best way to get better at anything is through repetition and practice," said Blumstein, who lives in Brigantine, next to Atlantic City. "When you play online in New Jersey, it's hard for any live pro to see even close to the amount of hands I've probably seen in the last two years."

Blumstein won about $200,000 in his largest previous cash after winning a $500 tournament at the Borgata last year.

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FOUR YEARS ONLINE

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie legalized internet gambling, including poker, in February 2013, a month before Blumstein turned 21. Online sites backed by the state's casinos began taking bets online in November 2013.

That has helped revive Atlantic City's struggling casino industry, which has seen five of its 12 casinos go out of business in the last three years. Atlantic City's casinos posted their first revenue increase in a decade last year backed by money won from gamblers online.

Only players physically in the state can gamble online, with an electronic fence created by geolocation technology keeping others out.

Players in Nevada and Delaware can play against each other, but New Jersey has yet to reach an agreement with the other states.

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FEDERAL CRACKDOWN?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said he wants to take a second look at a Justice Department ruling authorizing internet gambling, and several measures have been proposed but not enacted.

Christie on Friday signed a measure urging President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress not to ban internet gambling.

In an interview last year with The Associated Press during the presidential campaign, Trump declined to take a position, saying "I have a lot of friends on both sides of this issue."

Las Vegas Sands casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a strong financial supporter of Trump, is one of the leading proponents seeking to stop it.

The bill passed by the Democrat-controlled New Jersey Legislature and signed by Christie says a federal prohibition against internet gambling would negatively impact New Jersey, "dismantling the investments that the state and Atlantic City casinos have already made to implement and regulate internet gaming."

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Associated Press writers Regina Garcia Cano, in Las Vegas, and Wayne Parry, in Atlantic City, contributed to this story.

Scott Blumstein celebrates after winning the World Series of Poker main event, Sunday, July 23, 2017, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Scott Blumstein poses for photographers after winning the World Series of Poker main event, Sunday, July 23, 2017, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - The taxi app Grab has been given an additional $2 billion in financing, revealing the intense competition among car services in Asia that have forced companies like Uber to take a back seat to rivals with extremely deep-pockets.

The latest round of funding comes from Japan's Softbank and China's top ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing. Grab said Monday that it expects another $500 million will come from other existing and new investors. Its last announced cash injection was in September when it raised $750 million led by Softbank, whose chief executive Masayoshi Son is Japan's richest person and a self-styled tech visionary.

Grab is vying to dominate the market for car and motorbike hailing in Southeast Asia, where it competes with traditional taxis and rival apps such as Uber.

A GrabBike driver rides on his motorbike in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, July 24, 2017. Japan's Softbank and China's top ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing are pouring $2 billion into the latest round of financing by cash-hungry Southeast Asian taxi app Grab. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

In Indonesia, the region's biggest economy and most populous country with more than 250 million people, it's in a fierce battle for customers with local app Go-Jek.

Uber lost a pricey expensive fight for control of the market in China against Didi Chuxing, forced to accept a stake in Didi as a consolation prize.

As of yet, however, none none of the apps, including Grab, are profitable. Didi Chuxing itself raised $7.3 billion in June last year.

Anthony Tan, the Malaysian co-founder of Grab and its chief executive, said the support from Softbank and Didi would help Grab build an "unassailable market lead" and also expand GrabPay, its mobile payments business.

The ride-hailing apps are popular with residents of congested Southeast Asian cities, who aside from using them for rides also find them convenient for fetching takeaway food, delivering documents and other tasks.

But they have also faced opposition, with Thailand's government trying to limit their use and taxi drivers in the Indonesian capital Jakarta staging a violent protest last year that snarled traffic for hours.

FILE - In this Nov. 4, 2014 file photo, SoftBank founder and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son speaks during a news conference in Tokyo. Softbank and China's top ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing are pouring $2 billion into the latest round of financing by cash-hungry Southeast Asian taxi app Grab. Grab said Monday, July 24, 2017, that it expects another $500 million will come from other existing and new investors. Its last announced cash injection was in September when it raised $750 million led by Softbank, whose chief executive Son is Japan's richest person and a self-styled tech visionary. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson mingled with robots before meeting with Japanese officials. Johnson visited the Research Institute for Science and Engineering at Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University, where he was introduced to cutting-edge Japanese robots. He beamed when he was approached by the "Wabian 2" walking robot and shook hands with it. University scientists say the robot can run, hop and may even get to carry the Olympic torch for the Tokyo 2020 Games.

In other images from the Asia-Pacific region last week, U.S. and Chinese officials exchanged prickly comments and wrapped up high-level talks without announcing any big breakthroughs on the contentious economic issues that divide them.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas paid a visit to China, where he was greeted by members of a Chinese honor guard at a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

In this Thursday, July 20, 2017, file photo, Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gestures by a humanoid robot at Research Institute for Science and Engineering at Waseda University's campus in Tokyo. Johnson visited the robotics center at the university, which collaborates with the University of Birmingham. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)

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This gallery was curated by Associated Press photo editor Masayo Yoshida in Tokyo.

In this Thursday, July 20, 2017, file photo, a man lights a cigarette on a bench in a shape of a mocked aerial bomb and a U.S. flag outside a fashion boutique selling U.S. brand clothing at a mall in Beijing. U.S. and Chinese officials exchanged prickly comments on Wednesday and wrapped up high-level talks without announcing any big breakthroughs on the contentious economic issues that divide them. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

IN this July 18, 2017, file photo, members of a Chinese honor guard wipe sweat off of their faces before a welcome ceremony for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Tuesday. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

In this Thursday, July 20, 2017, file photo, a member of the Royal Malaysian Police Special Tactical Unit takes part in a drill to prepare for the upcoming Southeast Asian Games at KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur will be the host city of the 29th SEA Games and the 9th ASEAN Para Games on Aug. 19-30. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)

In this Tuesday, July 18, 2017, file photo, a woman carries a handbag and an umbrella are reflected in a puddle of water as she walks out of an underpass tunnel near the Central Business District after a morning downpour in Beijing. Although China's capital is in a semi-dry climate, it receives much of its annual precipitation during the summer months. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

In this Monday, July 17, 2017, file photo, African penguins swim in a water tank placed on the roof of an aquarium in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

In this Tuesday, July 18, 2017, file photo, Kashmiri villagers watch funeral of Showkat Ahmed Lohar, a local militant in Arwani, about 55 kilometers (35 miles) south of Srinagar, India. Indian soldiers and police killed three suspected rebels during a brief gun battle Monday in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, officials said. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File)

In this Sunday, July 16, 2017, file photo, Zimbabwe's Sean Williams tosses his glove as he reacts after being dismissed during the third day's play of the only test cricket match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in Colombo, Sri Lanka. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File)

In this Wednesday, July 19, 2017, file photo, a man pays tribute to late Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo at a downtown park against Victoria Habour in Hong Kong. On the seventh day after Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu's death, a day of significance in Chinese mourning rituals, his wife's whereabouts were unknown and her apartment complex remained under a security lockdown, while supporters congregated around the world to mark his passing in their own ways. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)

In this Tuesday, July 17, 2017, file photo,supporters of CNRT Party have their face and body painted with the party's colors during a campaign rally in Dili, East Timor. Almost two dozen parties are contesting parliamentary elections in East Timor on the weekend that are likely to return independence heroes to power despite increasing frustration in the young democracy with lack of economic progress and warnings the country could be bankrupt within a decade. (AP Photo/Kandhi Barnez, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is expressing his frustration with fellow Republicans, saying they "do very little to protect their President."

In one of several tweets issued Sunday afternoon and evening, Trump said the lack of support happens even with "some that were carried over the line on my back."

Trump's tweet wasn't clear about why he was upset. It came as Republicans in the Senate struggled to come together on a bill to overhaul President Barack Obama's health care law.

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One in Naval Air Station Norfolk, in Norfolk, Va Saturday, July 22, 2017, en route to Dulles International Airport, in Dulles, Va., after attending the commissioning ceremony of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78). (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

On that topic, another tweet from the president was more specific: "If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!"

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for their August recess without passing a health bill.

Trump has had a complicated relationship with the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have continued to be generally supportive of the president, even as his approval ratings have slipped.

Democrats did not escape Trump's twitter rantings as he turned his attention for a moment to the ongoing investigation into Russia meddling in the presidential election. In another missive he wrote: "As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!"

The president also took a shot at favorite targets in the news media: "It's hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!"
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate on Monday confirmed David Bernhardt, a lawyer and former Interior Department official, as deputy Interior secretary, second in command to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

The vote was 53-43. Democrats had criticized Bernhardt, saying he continued to advise a California water district even after he withdrew his formal registration as a lobbyist last year.

Republicans called Bernhardt a capable lawyer with vast experience on issues important to the West, including endangered species, water use and development of public lands. Bernhardt was Interior's top lawyer in the George W. Bush administration.

FILE - In this March 29, 2017 file photo, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaks at the Interior Department in Washington. The Senate is on track to confirm President Donald Trump's nominee for the No. 2 job at the Interior department over Democratic objections. David Bernhardt is a former lobbyist who once sued the department, hardly a fit with Trump's call to drain the swamp. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)

A spokeswoman said Zinke was "excited to have David Bernhardt, a highly-qualified, veteran official, return to the department to help advance 'America First' policy priorities" set by Trump.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Bernhardt's nomination flies in the face of Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp" in Washington of influence peddlers.

"I'm afraid he's not draining the swamp. He's actually helping to fill it," Cantwell said.

The League of Conservation Voters and other environmental and watchdog groups urged senators to oppose Bernhardt's nomination, saying he has long lobbied for the oil and gas industry, mining companies and other businesses regulated by Interior.

"Bernhardt's list of conflicts of interest is extensive and should disqualify him from this position," 150 groups said in a letter to senators.

"Strongly worded press releases issued by special interest groups alleging any wrongdoing are patently false and are desperate attempts to stop the progress that is being made at the department on behalf of the American people," said Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for Zinke.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she thinks Bernhardt "will be a very capable second-in-comand to Secretary Zinke, helping to steer the department in a positive direction."

But Cantwell and other critics said they were concerned over media reports that Bernhardt was working for the Westlands Water District, the nation's largest irrigation district, at the same time he was serving on the Trump transition team. Bernhardt's law firm represented Westlands in four lawsuits against Interior.

At a confirmation hearing in May, Bernhardt told Cantwell he would recuse himself from matters involving Westlands and other clients for at least a year, unless he receives authorization to do so.

"If I get a whiff of something coming my way that involves a client or former client for my firm, I'm going to ... run straight to the ethics office," Bernhardt said.

Cantwell was unimpressed. "I remain concerned about his record on behalf of these corporations at the expense of the environment, his tenure at the Department of the Interior and many other challenges," she said.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said he opposed Bernhardt because of his refusal to support a moratorium on oil drilling off the Florida coast in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

"When it comes to the eastern Gulf, there is no good way to increase offshore production while balancing environmental concerns," Nelson said, noting that the 2010 BP oil spill fouled the gulf region for years.

Nelson helped pass a congressional ban on oil drilling 125 miles off Florida's coast more than a decade ago. The ban is set to expire in 2022 and a number of congressional Republicans and industry groups are in favor of ending it.

Trump signed an executive order in April to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, reversing restrictions imposed by President Barack Obama. Zinke has ordered a review of a five-year offshore drilling plan to boost production.
JERUSALEM (AP) - The Latest on the escalation in Israel and the Palestinian territories over a contested Jerusalem holy site (all times local):

1:35 a.m.

Israel's security cabinet has decided to remove metal detectors set up at the entrance to a Jerusalem holy site which had angered Muslims.

Israeli police officers detain a Palestinian youth outside the Lion's Gate near the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, July 23, 2017. Israel installed new security cameras Sunday at the entrance to a sensitive Jerusalem holy site, as officials began indicating it was considering "alternatives" to the metal detectors at the contested shrine that set off a weekend of violence and raised tensions in the region. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

It announced early Tuesday that "sophisticated technology" will be used instead of the devices. It did not elaborate on when the metal detectors would be removed or what would replace them. Israeli media earlier reported high resolution cameras capable of detecting hidden objects would be the alternative.

It said Israel would boost forces in the area until the plan is implemented.

Earlier Associated Press footage showed heavy machinery and workers heading to the entrance of the site.

Israel erected the metal detectors after Arab gunmen killed two policemen from inside the shrine, holy to Muslims and Jews, earlier this month. The move incensed the Muslim world and triggered violence.

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1:20 a.m.

Associated Press footage shows heavy machinery and workers heading to the entrance to a major Jerusalem holy site as a compromise to defuse the crisis over security measures there appears to be forming.

Footage shows trucks, bulldozers and other vehicles moving toward the entrance of the site, holy to Muslims and Jews, early Tuesday morning.

The area is closed to reporters and reason for the rare traffic is unclear. But it could be part of an emerging compromise to remove the devices.

Signs that the crisis is being resolved came Monday after Jordan's King Abdullah II spoke over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the crisis. Amman administers the holy site via its religious body.

Israel erected the metal detectors after Arab gunmen killed two policemen from inside the shrine earlier this month. The move incensed the Muslim world and triggered violence.

The fate of the site is an emotional issue at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Even the smallest perceived change to delicate arrangements pertaining to the site sparks tensions.

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12:05

A Jordanian news site linked to the kingdom's military says a deadly altercation at the Israeli embassy compound in Amman that sparked a diplomatic standoff was not politically motivated.

Hala Akhbar quoted an investigation Monday by a Jordanian security agency that determined the 17-year-old had attacked the guard with a screwdriver over a dispute about a furniture delivery. The Israeli embassy guard shot and killed two Jordanians after he was attacked.

The incident added to tensions between the allies in a crisis over security measures at a major Jerusalem holy site, which Amman administers via its religious body.

Assumptions at the time of the attack were that it was part of a wave of Muslim outrage over the metal detectors Israel set outside the site, holy to Muslims and Jews, after a deadly Palestinian attack there.

Jordan had insisted the guard could only leave after an investigation.

The Israeli Embassy staff returned safely to Israel Monday night ending a diplomatic standoff.

Israeli media earlier reported a compromise could be underway where the guard is released and the metal detectors removed.

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11:25 p.m.

The Palestinian U.N. ambassador is warning that the Palestinian people will stay in the streets until metal detectors and all other obstacles are removed from the Jerusalem holy site where the Al Aqsa mosque is located.

Riyad Mansour said the Palestinians condemn in the strongest terms the closing of the mosque for the first time since 1969 and demand a return of the status quo.

Muslim religious leaders allege Israel is trying to expand its control at the site, revered by Muslims and Jews, by installing metal detectors under the guise of security, a claim Israel denies.

Mansour told reporters at U.N. headquarters Monday that the Palestinians have ended all cooperation with Israel, including on security issues, over its actions at the site.

He urged the U.N. Security Council, which met behind closed doors Monday to discuss rising tensions stemming from the crisis over the Jerusalem site, to condemn Israel's actions in the strongest terms.

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11:15 p.m.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the staff of his country's embassy in Jordan has returned safely to Israel, ending a diplomatic standoff.

Netanyahu's office said late Monday that among those to return was an embassy security guard involved in a fatal shooting a day earlier.

Jordan had said the guard could leave only after an investigation. Israel said he had diplomatic immunity.

On Sunday evening the guard opened fire on two Jordanians including a 17-year-old who attacked him with a screw driver. Both died.

The incident took place at a residential building for embassy staff.

The return of the embassy staff followed a phone call between Netanyahu and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

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10:55

The U.N. Mideast envoy is warning that the crisis at Jerusalem's holiest site affects millions if not billions of people around the world and has "the potential to have catastrophic costs" well beyond the Middle East.

Nicolay Mladenov urged a de-escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the installation of metal detectors at the site by the time of Muslim prayers on Friday, warning that it is taking place at a time of "political vacuum."

He said that is why it's more important than ever for the international community to focus on helping bring Israel and the Palestinians back to "an environment that is conducive" to negotiate arrangements leading to a two-state solution and "avoids turning the national Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a religious conflict that would be extremely dangerous for the region and beyond."

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10:30 p.m.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Israel is harming not only itself but the whole region with measures it has taken at a Jerusalem holy site, adding that Turkey would not allow Islam's sacred values to be "trampled" on.

Speaking to reporters Monday on his return from a trip to Gulf nations, Erdogan accused Israel of suffering from a "lapse of reason" by equating Muslims with terrorists.

"We invite Israel to act in accordance with the law and with human values," Erdogan said. "With the steps it is taking, Israel is heading toward a mistake and toward isolation."

Turkey has criticized new measures Israel has set up after Arab gunmen earlier this month opened fire from the site, killing two Israeli policemen.

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10:20 p.m.

Jordan's official news agency says King Abdullah II spoke over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the crisis over security measures at a major Jerusalem holy site, which Amman administers via its religious body.

Petra news said Monday night that Jordan's King urged Netanyahu to "remove the causes" of the crisis.

Israel set up metal detectors outside the holy compound after Arab gunmen killed Israeli policemen at the site, holy to both Muslims and Jews. The move incensed the Muslim world and triggered violence.

The fate of the site is an emotional issue at the core of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Even the smallest perceived change to delicate arrangements pertaining to the site sparks tensions.

Petra news did not mention if the issue of an Israeli embassy guard who killed two Jordanians after being attacked by one of them was discussed.

Israeli media has speculated an emerging compromise would see the guard freed and the metal detectors removed.

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10:10 p.m.

The U.N. Mideast envoy is warning that "the dangers on the ground will escalate" if the crisis over Israel's installation of metal detectors at Jerusalem's holiest site isn't resolved by the time of Muslim prayers on Friday.

Nikolay Mladenov told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council behind closed doors Monday that it is "critically important" that the status quo which has been in place at the site since 1967 is preserved.

Muslim religious leaders alleged Israel was trying to expand its control at the compound, which includes the Al Aqsa mosque, under the guise of security, a claim Israel denied.

Mladenov said he urged Security Council members to use their influence with both sides to de-escalate the situation and ensure that the status quo is preserved while security is provided for worshippers and visitors.

He called the latest events "a step backwards," urging the international community to focus on bringing the two sides back to negotiations.

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9:50 p.m.

Israeli media reports the country's Shin Bet intelligence chief met with security officials in Jordan in an attempt to defuse a crisis over a Jerusalem shrine and an Israeli embassy guard who killed two Jordanians after being attacked by one of them.

Media reported Nadav Argaman was in Amman Monday to try and negotiate a deal to end the diplomatic standoff with Jordan that also administers the holy site via its religious body.

According to reports, Jordan will free the guard in exchange for Israel removing metal detectors from entrances to the site.

However Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office later issued a statement saying there was no Jordanian demand linking the issues.

Israel set up the security devices after Arab gunmen killed Israeli policemen at the site, holy to both Muslims and Jews. The move incensed the Muslim world and triggered violence.

A phone call between Jordan's King Abdullah II and Netanyahu is expected later, media reported.

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7:30 p.m.

Israeli media reports high resolution cameras placed around Jerusalem's Old City walls could replace the metal detectors that sparked Muslim outrage after they were set outside entrances to a major shrine.

Channel 2 TV reported Monday the sophisticated cameras can detect concealed objects.

Israel's security cabinet is meeting again Monday night over the issue.

Israel erected the metal detectors after Arab gunmen killed two Israeli policemen from the shrine.

The fate of the site is at the heart of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Even the smallest perceived change to delicate arrangements pertaining to the site sparks tensions.

Palestinians allege the metal detectors are an Israeli attempt to control the Muslim-administered site and launched mass protests that turned violent.

Israel emphatically denies the claims insisting they are strictly meant to stop attacks.

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6:15 p.m.

Israel's U.N. ambassador says he believes the standoff with Jordan over the killing of two Jordanians by an Israeli security guard near Israel's embassy in Amman will be resolved "shortly."

Danny Danon told reporters at the U.N. headquarters in New York Monday that "we are resolving it with the Jordanians."

Jordan reportedly wants to investigate the guard who opened fire and has prevented staff from leaving the premises.

On another flashpoint, Danon said removing metal detectors from a major Jerusalem shrine is being discussed by the government.

He said Israel doesn't want to see weapons brought onto the religious site and noted that metal detectors are used at the Vatican and Mecca.

Danon spoke ahead of urgent Security Council closed consultations on escalating tensions in Jerusalem.

He said the council should demand that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas stop violence, stop paying "terrorists," and stop "Palestinian lies."

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5:25 p.m.

Israel has set up metal railings leading to metal detectors outside an entrance to a major Jerusalem holy site.

The installation of the metal detectors last week had outraged the Muslim world.

The railings seen Monday are of the type used for crowd control, to create orderly lines.

Israeli police declined to comment. A media report has suggested that such railings could be part of an eventual compromise that would enable the removal of the metal detectors.

Israel erected the metal detectors after Arab gunmen killed two policemen from inside the shrine earlier this month.

Palestinians alleged the security devices are part of an Israeli attempt to control the Muslim-administrated site and launched mass protests.

Israel has denied such claims, but has begun considering alternatives amid escalating Muslim protests.

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5 p.m.

A former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency who was at the center of the last major crisis with Jordan says a deal could be reached to pacify Amman as well as cool tensions at a major Jerusalem shrine.

Danny Yatom said Monday that Israel should remove metal detectors from outside the Jerusalem holy site, administered by a Jordanian religious body, in return for Amman releasing Israeli staff.

Israel set up the security devices after Arab gunmen killed Israeli policemen at the site, holy to both Muslims and Jews. The move incensed the Muslim world.

"(The) Jordanians will release our people from the embassy and especially the security officer that shot, and in return we will help the Jordanian Waqf to carry on its role on Temple Mount," Yatom told The Associated Press, adding " We will also take off the metal detector gates."

A shooting at Israel's embassy in Jordan further complicated the crisis.

Jordan wants to investigate the guard who opened fire and has prevented staff from leaving the premises.

Yatom resigned as Mossad chief in the aftermath of a failed attempt to assassinate a leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas Islamic in Jordan.

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1:30 p.m.

Israeli police say a Palestinian assailant has stabbed an Arab citizen of Israel in the neck in central Israel, apparently mistaking him for a Jew.

Police spokesman Luba Samri says Monday's attack was nationalist in nature. She says the 21-year-old attacker is a Palestinian working illegally in Israel. He stabbed the 32-year-old victim at a fast food stand in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva, apparently thinking the man is Jewish.

The attacker then tried to escape but a bystander rammed him with his car and handed him over to police.

The attack comes amid tensions over a sensitive Jerusalem holy site.

In the past two years, Palestinians have killed 45 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist, mostly in stabbing attacks. During that period, Israeli forces have killed more than 255 Palestinians, mostly attackers.

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1:10 p.m.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says an Israeli security guard who shot and killed two Jordanians after one of them stabbed him will be brought home to Israel.

Netanyahu says he has spoken to the guard in question and assured him that Israel has experience in dealing with such situation and would bring him home.

A news website linked to the Jordanian military reported that Jordan is refusing to let the guard leave before he is questioned. The stabber's father says he is demanding justice for his son's death. The guard opened fire after being stabbed with a screwdriver.

The incident sparked a diplomatic standoff and further complicated efforts to resolve an escalating crisis over Jerusalem's most contested holy site.

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12:30 p.m.

The father of a Jordanian youth who stabbed an Israeli security guard near Israel's Embassy in Jordan and was then shot to death says he demands "justice" over his son's killing.

Zakariah al-Jawawdeh tells The Associated Press that his son is a "son of Jordan who was shot on Jordanian soil" and it would be unacceptable for the Jordanian government not to seek justice for this.

The son, a 17-year-old, stabbed the guard with a screwdriver late on Sunday. The guard opened fire, killing his attacker and another Jordanian.

The incident sparked a diplomatic standoff and further complicates efforts to resolve an escalating crisis over Jerusalem's most contested holy site.

The father on Monday denied reports that his son was motivated by tensions at the site. He says his son was unaffiliated with any group.

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12:15 p.m.

A news website linked to the Jordanian military is reporting that Jordan is refusing to let an Israeli security guard who shot two Jordanians near the Israeli Embassy leave the country.

Monday's report in Hala Akhbar says Jordan wants to investigate the shooter and if Israel refuses to allow that, it will take "diplomatic measures."

The report gives the first indication from Jordan on a diplomatic standoff with Israel over the shooting.

The Israeli security guard killed the two Jordanians after being attacked by one of them with a screwdriver late on Sunday. Israel says the guard has diplomatic immunity under international conventions and is in touch with Jordanian authorities on the matter.

The incident further complicates efforts to resolve an escalating crisis over Jerusalem's most contested holy site.

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10:55 a.m.

A senior Muslim cleric says Jerusalem's police chief has met with a lawyer representing the Muslim leadership to discuss solutions to the escalating crisis over a contested holy site.

The crisis erupted last week, after Israel installed metal detectors at the compound following a shooting attack that killed two policemen. Israel's move triggered Muslim protests and claims that it's trying to expand its role at the site, which is also holy to Jews. Israel denied this charge.

Cleric Ikrema Sabri said on Monday that a lawyer for the Muslim leadership met Sunday with Jerusalem police chief Yoram Halevi, and heard a response to Muslim demands.

Sabri says newly installed security cameras, described in media reports as a possible alternative to the metal detectors, were discussed.

The lawyer is briefing Muslim leaders Monday.

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9:45 a.m.

Israel's former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni says she fears that Israel is on the verge of a religious battle with the Muslim world.

Livni says that tactical differences over security measures at a Jerusalem holy site have deteriorated into something far worse and Israel has to stop this.

Linvi told Israel's Army Radio on Monday that "we are a step away from turning our conflict with the Palestinians, and cooperation with Jordan and other Sunni nations, into a pan-Muslim event against the state of Israel."

She says the Israeli Cabinet needs to show leadership to prevent this from happening.

Tensions have been high since Israel set up new measures after Arab gunmen earlier this month opened fire from the site, killing two Israeli policemen. A deadly shooting near Israel's Embassy in Jordan has exacerbated tensions.

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9:20 a.m.

Israeli media are reporting that President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy is on his way to the region to try and defuse a growing crisis over a sensitive Jerusalem holy site.

The newspaper Haaretz says that Jason Greenblatt is expected to arrive on Monday in the Trump administration's first direct foray into the crisis.

Tensions have been high since Israel set up new measures after Arab gunmen earlier this month opened fire from the shrine, killing two Israeli policemen.

Israel says the measures are meant to prevent more attacks but Palestinians allege they are an Israeli attempt to control the Muslim-administrated site and have launched mass protests.

Three Palestinians have been killed in street clashes and a 20-year-old Palestinian stabbed and killed three members of an Israeli family in their home in a West Bank settlement.

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8:45 a.m.

Israel's security Cabinet has reached no decision about the new security measures at a Jerusalem holy site that have set off a wave of violence.

The top decision-making forum met overnight and into early Monday to discuss the latest developments, including an incident in which a security guard at the country's embassy in Jordan opened fire, killing two Jordanians, after being attacked.

The incident is threatening to complicate the crisis over the holy site, which is administered by Muslim authorities under the auspices of Jordan.

Israel set up the new measures after Arab gunmen opened fire from the shrine, killing two Israeli policemen. It says they are meant to prevent more attacks. Palestinians allege they are an Israeli attempt to control the site and have launched mass protests.

Security officials park near the approach toward the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, on Sunday, June 23, 2017, in the aftermath of a shooting that left a Jordanian man dead and an Israeli man wounded. A security official confirmed a Jordanian had been killed and an Israeli wounded, but would not provide further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the incident with the media. (AP Photo/Omar Akour)

An Israeli police officer checks the identification of a Muslim religious man on a main road leading to the Lion's Gate near the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, July 23, 2017. Israel installed new security cameras Sunday at the entrance to a sensitive Jerusalem holy site, as officials began indicating it was considering "alternatives" to the metal detectors at the contested shrine that set off a weekend of violence and raised tensions in the region. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli border police officers stand near newly installed cameras at the entrance to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, in Jerusalem's Old City, Sunday, July 23, 2017. Israel installed the cameras Sunday at the entrance to a sensitive Jerusalem holy site, as officials began indicating it was considering "alternatives" to the metal detectors at the contested shrine that set off a weekend of violence and raised tensions in the region. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinians pray in front of mock metal detectors during a demonstration in Bethlehem, Sunday, July 23, 2017. Israel's minister of public security said Sunday that metal detectors set at the entrance to a major Jerusalem shrine that angered Palestinians could be removed if police have another way of ensuring security there. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

An Israeli police officer takes aim during clashes near the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday, July 23, 2017. Israel's minister of public security said Sunday taht metal detectors set at the entrance to a major Jerusalem shrine that angered Palestinians could be removed if police have another way of ensuring security there. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

Palestinians burn mock metal detectors during a demonstration in Bethlehem, Sunday, July 23, 2017. Israel's minister of public security said Sunday that metal detectors set at the entrance to a major Jerusalem shrine that angered Palestinians could be removed if police have another way of ensuring security there. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - The German auto industry's troubles over excessive diesel emissions are looming larger.

Shares in the three biggest German automakers fell Monday after a newsmagazine report claimed they had colluded for years over diesel technology.

BMW fell 2.8 percent, Daimler 2.6 percent and Volkswagen 2.5 percent. Shares also fell Friday after Der Spiegel published its findings online.

FILE - In this Wednesday, March 15, 2017 file photo, the four ring logo of German car producer Audi is photographed at the headquarters after the annual press conference in Ingolstadt, Germany. German automaker Audi says it will fit up to 850,000 diesel cars with new software to improve their emissions performance, following a similar move by rival Daimler as the auto industry tries to get ahead of public controversy over the technology. Audi, the luxury brand of the Volkswagen Group, announced the voluntary retrofitting program on Friday, July 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, file)

Spiegel reported that employees from Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche had met often since the 1990s and had agreed to limit the size of the tanks holding a urea solution used to reduce diesel emissions of harmful nitrogen oxide. The smaller tanks reduced costs and freed up space in the vehicles, the magazine said.

BMW issued a statement denying that its urea tanks were too small to provide adequate exhaust treatment and said its vehicles' emissions were not manipulated and met legal requirements. BMW's statement said discussions with other manufacturers focused on installing the infrastructure to refill the tanks but it did not further address the inter-company contacts. Daimler and Volkswagen said they could not comment on "speculation."

Officials at the European Union's executive Commission said that they and the German competition authority have received information on the matter, which is currently being assessed by the Commission. The commission said it would be "premature to speculate further."

The report follows announcements last week by Daimler that it is recalling 3 million Mercedes-Benz diesels to improve their emissions performance through an update of engine control software, and by Volkswagen's luxury Audi brand that it was doing the same with 850,000 vehicles. Daimler also said it would speed up the deployment of new engines, while BMW is offering software updates on 350,000 of its older diesels.

The steps come as a way to head off calls to ban diesel vehicles from some German cities where air pollution levels exceed limits. The German government has summoned local officials and auto executives to a "diesel summit" Aug. 2 to both find ways to reduce emissions and ensure that diesel technology has a future.

The auto industry is a major employer, and diesels are also considered one way to meeting goals for lower emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Diesels emit less carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, but emit more nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that harms people's health.

Diesels came under increased scrutiny after Volkswagen admitted to using illegal software that in the U.S. detected when vehicles were on test stands and turned emission controls on so that the cars passed the emissions test. The controls were turned off in everyday driving, improving mileage and performance. Volkswagen has agreed to more than $20 billion in U.S. civil and criminal fines and settlements, and eight executives have been charged.

Separately, five German automakers - Daimler's Mercedes-Benz, Opel and Volkswagen and its subsidiaries Audi and Porsche - last year agreed to recall a total of 630,000 diesel vehicles in Europe after it was found that real-world emissions often exceeded EU emissions standards. In those cases, engine control software turned off emission controls at certain temperatures to avoid engine damage. That was legal but German regulators have questioned whether the use of the exemption was always justified.
LONDON (AP) - The British government plans to make it easier for people to change gender by removing a requirement for a medical diagnosis.

Equalities Minister Justine Greening says people seeking to legally change gender will have to prove they have been in transition for at least two years. But they will not need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria - a requirement seen as intrusive by many trans people.

Greening says the Conservative government wants to tackle "some of the historic prejudices that still persist in our laws."

Suzanna Hopwood of LGBT group Stonewall says the change announced Sunday will help fix a "demeaning and broken" system.

Conservative and Christian groups argue the move will make changing gender too easy.

The plan has to go through consultation and legislation stages before becoming law.
BERLIN (AP) - A man armed with a chainsaw wounded five people at a health insurer's office Monday in the northern Swiss city of Schaffhausen, police said, triggering a manhunt for a suspect described as aggressive and psychologically unstable.

Suspect Franz Wrousis, 51, has two previous convictions for weapons offenses and no fixed residence, authorities said. A dog-walker said she had seen him in the woods near Schaffhausen for the last few weeks.

The attacker wounded two insurance agency employees in their ground-floor office in the old town of Schaffhausen on Monday morning, said Christina Wettstein, a spokeswoman for insurer CSS. Authorities said their lives were not in danger.

This undated images released by the KAPO Schaffhausen shows the alleged attacker who injured several people in Schaffhausen Switzerland Monday, July 24, 2017. An unkempt man armed with a chainsaw wounded five people Monday at an office building in the northern Swiss city of Schaffhausen and then fled, police said. A manhunt was on for him. (KAPO Schaffhausen via AP)

Revising earlier statements, police said one CSS employee was seriously injured and the other was slightly injured. Another three people were slightly injured in the attack, police said, but there was no information on them.

The perpetrator had fled by the time police arrived. Authorities sealed off the city's old town until mid-afternoon but kept up their manhunt.

Swiss police ruled out terrorism.

"This was first and foremost a crime against this insurance agency," senior regional police official Ravi Landolt told reporters, though there was no exact word on the suspect's motive.

"We have information that this man is dangerous, that he is aggressive and, shall we say, psychologically disturbed," Landolt added.

Swiss media reported that Wrousis was a CSS client. Switzerland has a system that requires residents to have mandatory health insurance with private health insurers.

Prosecutor Peter Sticher said Wrousis has two previous convictions for offenses against weapons laws, one from 2014 and 2016. He didn't elaborate or say where they were committed, but said Wrousis has no previous record in the small northern canton (state) of Schaffhausen, near the German border.

Wrousis was previously registered as living in Graubuenden canton, in Switzerland's southeast. He apparently lives mostly in woods, Landolt said.

Police released old photos of Wrousis standing among trees in a green T-shirt and black jeans. They described him as being about 1 meter 90 centimeters tall (6.2 feet) and said he is now partly bald and unkempt.

They later released another photo of Wrousis, which they said was taken immediately before the attack. The image shows him walking along a street in a green jacket carrying a large black bag, which they said may have contained the chainsaw.

On Monday afternoon, police found the Volkswagen minivan with registration plates from Graubuenden that the suspect was believed to be driving. They did not elaborate on its condition or say if anything else was found in it.

Schaffhausen is a city of about 36,000 people north of Zurich.

Therese Karrer, who often walks her dog in woods south of Schaffhausen, said she saw the suspect several times in the last few weeks.

"I talked to him a few times and walked by his car every day with our dog," said Karrer, who lives in the village of Uhwiesen.

Karrer said Wrousis showed up three or four weeks ago in the forest and chatted with her once when he was having breakfast behind his car.

"He may have been a little strange, but he wasn't unfriendly," she said. "I never felt threatened."

The police shut down the old town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, while they search for an unknown man who attacked people, on Monday, July 24, 2017. Swiss police say five people have been hospitalized, two of them with serious injuries, following the apparent attack in the northern city of Schaffhausen. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP)

The police shut down the old town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, while they search for an unknown man who attacked people, on Monday, July 24, 2017. Swiss police say five people have been hospitalized, two of them with serious injuries, following the apparent attack in the northern city of Schaffhausen. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP)

The police investigate in the old town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, where they search for an unknown man who attacked people, Monday, July 24, 2017. Swiss police say several people have been hospitalized, two of them with serious injuries, following the apparent attack in the northern city of Schaffhausen. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP)

The police shut down the old town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, while they search for an unknown man who attacked people, on Monday, July 24, 2017. Swiss police say five people have been hospitalized, two of them with serious injuries, following the apparent attack in the northern city of Schaffhausen. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP)
Christopher Abbott (pictured) was working an off-duty private security patrol early Monday morning in New Orleans when someone shot a round into his car

A New Orleans police officer is recovering from a leg wound after being shot for the third time in his law enforcement career.

Police say Officer Christopher Abbott was working an off-duty private security patrol for the Hurtsville Security and Neighborhood Improvement District around 1:20am Monday morning when someone fired a single round into the privately owned car he was in, hitting him in the leg.

Though he was not technically on duty, Abbott was wearing his police uniform and had lights on his dashboard.

Surveillance footage shows a light grey SUV pulling up beside Abbott's car and briefly stopping before speeding off.

The shooter remains at large. Police have asked for the public's help in identifying the suspect, by releasing surveillance grabs of the SUV, which they say has a missing or shattered rear windshield.

Spokesman Aaron Looney says Abbott, a 25-year veteran of the force, is in good condition.

He was released from the hospital just a few hours after being admitted early Monday morning. He is expected to make a full recovery.

The investigation is ongoing but Police Superintendent Michael Harrison told WWL that it appears Abbott did not return fire.

Scroll down for video

It was the third time in Abbott's career that he has been shot. Above, a look at the scene of the crime early Monday morning

An investigator looks into what appears to be Abbott's private patrol car

Abbott was one of the city's first community policing officers, a group that has helped make the city's housing developments safer, and he also helped found the department's Cops for Kids after-school program.

Abbott is one of about 25 law enforcement officers that work privately with the neighborhood association.

Shelley Landrieu, the neighborhood organization's executive director, told Nola.com he patrols about twice a week. He was about two hours into his nightshift on Monday when the shooting happened.

Archived news accounts show Abbott was on his way to a court appearance in 2001 when he spotted a man with a gun and approached him. The man fired and hit Abbott four times - including twice in the head.

The shooter continued hitting Abbott even after he fell to the ground. It took him years to recover.

New Orleans Police released surveillance footage, showing the shooting, in hopes that someone would identify the suspect's SUV (above)

In 1998, Abbott was wearing a protective vest when he was shot in the chest after stopping a suspect in a public housing project.

The shooter in the 2001 incident, Brandy Jefferson, was convicted and sentence to life in prison. It was unclear whether the shooter in the 1998 incident was arrested or convicted.

Former NOPD commander Marlon Defillo responded to both of the prior shootings and was surprised when he learned that Abbott had been shot for a third time.

'I was surprised. I said, "Not again,"' Defillo told WWL. 'My first thought was, "Is he going to be OK?" This is the third time. And the two previous times I was out there on those scenes, very worried about him. The first time he was shot in Central City. The second time he was shot in the Treme area.'

However, knowing Abbott, Defillo says he's confident he's going to be just fine.

'Knowing Chris, he's going to heal, he's going to recover and he's going to get back in the community,' he said.

Anyone with information about Monday's shooting or the suspect's vehicle is asked to call 504-658-6020.

Crimestoppers GNO is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Abbott's shooter
A school bus aide in the Port Byron Central School District has been charged with rape for having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy, a New York State Police investigator said Monday.

Tessa L. Davis, 25, of Port Byron, was arrested July 18 and charged with felony second-degree rape. Troopers confirmed the arrest on Friday, but did not initially provide further details.

Investigator Anthony Gower said that on July 3, troopers received a complaint about Davis, who worked as a school bus aide for the district through Birnie Bus Service. Upon further investigation, police discovered that Davis had engaged in a sexual relationship with a student.

"It was a three- to four-month relationship that was ongoing between herself and a 14-year-old male," Gower said. "The investigation is ongoing."

Meanwhile, Port Byron Superintendent Neil O'Brien said Davis had worked in the district as a school bus aide in the past, but did not interact with the student through her position last year.

"She did not have any contact with the alleged victim through her role at Birnie Bus last year," O'Brien said.

A spokesperson for Birnie Bus said Davis was hired with the company Dec. 1, 2016, after passing all background checks. No red flags were raised at that time.

"All Birnie employees are subjected to rigorous background checks prior to hire, including this employee involved in this incident," said spokesperson Shawn McGlinchey. "Furthermore, Ms. Davis was under constant supervision by our drivers when in the presence of students, which is normal course of business."

Birnie Bus declined to discuss the status of Davis' employment pending the results of the investigation.

Davis was remanded to Cayuga County Jail in lieu of $5,000 cash bail. As of Monday, she was still in custody and is scheduled to appear in Port Byron Village Court at 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 25.
BERLIN (AP) - Germany says the Turkish government has withdrawn a request for information on nearly 700 companies that were flagged as having business ties with firms in Turkey that are being investigated on suspicion of terror financing.

Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said Turkey's interior minister informed his German counterpart of the move in a phone call Monday. The request was made in May via Interpol.

Plate added that the Turkish minister said there had been "a communications problem," and gave assurances that Turkish authorities aren't conducting investigations in Turkey or in Germany against the companies involved.

On Thursday, the German government increased pressure on Turkey after the jailing of a human rights activist, telling all citizens traveling there to exercise caution and threatening to withhold backing for German investments in Turkey.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The International Monetary Fund upgraded the economic outlook for Europe, Japan and China this year. But the fund left its forecast for global growth unchanged from an April forecast, partly because the United States is unlikely to get much help from tax cuts and higher spending.

In a report out Monday, the IMF kept its expectation for worldwide economic growth at 3.5 percent this year. But it now forecasts 1.9 percent growth for the 19 countries that use the euro currency (up from 1.7 percent in April). The fund expects Japan to grow 1.3 percent (up from the previously expected 1.2 percent) and China to expand 6.7 percent (versus 6.6 percent).

The U.S. economy is expected to grow 2.1 percent, down from the 2.3 percent expected in April when hopes were higher for tax cuts. The Trump administration has vowed to restore U.S. growth to 3 percent a year through a combination of deregulation, tax cuts and infrastructure spending. But the tax reductions and spending program have been stalled by political discord.

The IMF releases its World Economic Outlook report in April and September or October and publishes updates in January and July.

The fund found that confidence and stability have returned to the eurozone, which was rocked by a debt crisis in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Spending, investment and exports are up in Japan. Government stimulus is boosting China's economy, which had steadily decelerating since 2010, but economists worry that subsidized growth isn't sustainable.
NEW DELHI (AP) - Iraq's foreign minister said Monday he does not know whether 39 Indian workers who were abducted by militants in Iraq three years ago are dead or alive.

Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari met with his Indian counterpart, Sushma Swaraj, and other Indian officials in New Delhi. He arrived on Monday for a four-day visit.

"We are not sure 100 percent whether they are alive or not," he told reporters, adding that he couldn't say anything more about their fate.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, right, greets her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari in New Delhi, India, Monday, July 24, 2017. Al-Jaafari is on a five-day official visit to India. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Swaraj had told relatives of the workers last week that they might be held in a prison in Badush, northwest of Mosul, which Iraqi forces have taken back from the Islamic State group. Her statement came after a visit to Iraq by Indian Junior External Affairs Minister V.K. Singh.

India Today, an Indian TV news channel, reported from Iraq that the prison was demolished by the Islamic State group.

The abducted workers, mostly from northern India, had been employed by a construction company near Mosul when militants overran the Iraqi city and seized wide swathes of territory.

Relatives in the northern Indian city of Amritsar said they received phone calls from some of the workers five days after Mosul was captured saying that they were in trouble and needed help.

Around 10,000 Indians worked and lived in Iraq at that time.
NEW YORK (AP) - ABC says Chris Harrison and Sage Steele are returning to host "The 2018 Miss America Competition."

Harrison's other TV duties include ABC's "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette," and the syndicated game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." He returns for his ninth time presiding over the "Miss America" telecast.

ESPN commentator Steele will be making her second appearance as co-host.

FILE - This combination of file photos shows Sage Steele, left, at the 15th annual High School Athlete of the Year Awards in Marina del Rey, Calif., and Chris Harrison at the Hamilton "Behind the Camera" Awards at the House of Blues West Hollywood, Calif. ABC said Monday, July 24, 2017, that Harrison and Steele are returning to host "The 2018 Miss America Competition" that airs live from Atlantic CIty's Boardwalk on Sept. 10. (AP Photos/File)

The 97th "Miss America" pageant will air live from the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Sept. 10 on ABC.
CINCINNATI (AP) - A judge in Cincinnati on Monday dismissed the charges against a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist during a traffic stop, after a county prosecutor declined to pursue a third murder trial in the case.

Hamilton County Judge Leslie Ghiz declined to acquit former University of Cincinnati officer Ray Tensing in the shooting of Sam DuBose, but she dismissed the murder and voluntary manslaughter charges in a way that blocks retrial on those counts.

"It's sort of a note of finality, which is what we were looking for, although we still have the potential for a federal civil rights investigation," defense attorney Stewart Mathews said afterward.

A demonstrator in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing reacts as he marches onto the Newport Southbank Bridge flanked by supporters of Sam DuBose, Monday, July 24, 2017, in Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Two juries couldn't reach unanimous agreement on the state charges, leading to mistrials. County Prosecutor Joe Deters said he felt "badly" about dropping the case but had concluded that he wouldn't be able to get a jury to convict Tensing.

Tensing, now 27, shot the 43-year-old DuBose in the head after pulling him over for a missing front license plate on July 19, 2015. The shooting is among numerous cases nationwide that have called attention to how police deal with blacks, and it highlights the challenges prosecutors face in getting jurors to convict police officers for shooting when they say they're under threat.

Tensing, who was fired after the shooting, testified at both trials and said he feared he was going to be dragged or run over as DuBose drove away.

An expert hired by prosecutors said his frame-by-frame analysis of Tensing's body camera video showed Tensing wasn't being dragged by the car.

DuBose's family and civil rights groups wanted a third trial.

The family also was disappointed with the formal dismissal of the state charges, because it means those charges can't be brought again, DuBose's sister, Terina Allen, said.

The family now hopes federal authorities reviewing the case will determine that DuBose's civil rights were violated and will prosecute Tensing.

"We want them to give Sam some kind of justice," Allen said.

U.S. Attorney Benjamin Glassman said authorities will review evidence from the state court trials to assess whether there are possible federal civil rights offenses that might warrant prosecution.

Mathews said Monday that he hadn't been contacted by federal authorities.

The university reached a $5.3 million settlement with DuBose's family, including free undergraduate tuition for his 13 children.

Later Monday evening, a group of fewer than two dozen people walked quietly across an Ohio River bridge connecting Cincinnati to Newport, Kentucky, to show their support for Tensing. They were followed by about 40 counter-protesters holding signs and chanting their support for DuBose.

A few police officers monitored the events, but no problems were reported.

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Associated Press reporter Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio, and photographer John Minchillo in Cincinnati contributed to this report.

A line of demonstrators, center, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing march onto the Newport Southbank Bridge flanked by supporters of Sam DuBose, Monday, July 24, 2017, in Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A pair of demonstrators, center, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing hold hands as they march across the Newport Southbank Bridge trailed by supporters of Sam DuBose, Monday, July 24, 2017, in Newport, Ky. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A demonstrator, center right, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing, marches across the Newport Southbank Bridge trailed by supporters of Sam DuBose, Monday, July 24, 2017, in Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A pair of demonstrators in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing march across the Newport Southbank Bridge trailed by supporters of Sam DuBose, Monday, July 24, 2017, in Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A line of demonstrators, center, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing march onto the Newport Southbank Bridge, flanked by supporters of Sam DuBose, who was fatally shot by Tensing in 2015, Monday, July 24, 2017, in downtown Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A pair of demonstrators, left, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing march across the Newport Southbank Bridge towards Cincinnati trailed by supporters of Sam DuBose, right, Monday, July 24, 2017, in downtown Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A protestor in support of Sam DuBose, trails a group of demonstrators marching in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing at the mouth of the Newport Southbank Bridge, Monday, July 24, 2017, in downtown Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Ray Tensing, seated, waits for court to begin Monday, July 24, 2017, in Cincinnati while his attorney, Stew Mathews, center, and Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Seth Tieger talk. Tensing is a former University of Cincinnati police officer who was charged with murdering Sam DuBose during a routine traffic stop on July 19, 2015. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Ghiz formally dismissed the voluntary manslaughter and murder charges against Tensing Monday. Two juries couldn't reach unanimous agreement on the state charges, leading to mistrials. (Liz Dufour/The Cincinnati Enquirer via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, disclosed in a statement to members of Congress four distinct interactions with Russians during the presidential campaign and transition period. The 11-page statement provides his first detailed account of meetings over the last year with the Russian ambassador to the United States, a Russian lawyer and a Russian banker.

The encounters:

APRIL 27, 2016, MAYFLOWER HOTEL, WASHINGTON

Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., center, arrives at the committee room on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, July 24, 2017, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner was interviewed by the panel's investigators on Russia's election meddling and possible ties to Trump's campaign. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Kushner described meeting Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a hotel reception before Trump, then a Republican presidential candidate, was to deliver a major foreign policy speech on the campaign trail.

He said Kislyak was one of four ambassadors he greeted with a handshake and pleasantries. He said he thanked the dignitaries for attending and told them that he hoped they would enjoy Trump's speech and the ambassadors, in turn, "expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election."

He said each interaction lasted less than a minute and he never took up any of the ambassadors on their invitations to lunch at their embassies.

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JUNE 9, 2016, TRUMP TOWER, NEW YORK CITY

Though Kushner maintains that he didn't even recall this meeting until recently reviewing his records, this gathering has caused significant headaches for the Trump White House since it was publicly reported on earlier this month.

Kushner said he was invited by his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr., to a meeting at Trump Tower with a person who turned out to be Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. He said he arrived late, heard discussion about Moscow's ban on Americans adopting Russian children and concluded that the meeting was such a "waste of time" that he quickly looked for a way out.

"I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting," Kushner said.

Emails that Trump Jr. released show that the president's oldest son came to the meeting with the expectation that the lawyer would provide negative information about Hillary Clinton. Kushner said he hadn't read or recalled those emails until his lawyers recently showed them to him when reviewing documents to submit to the committees.

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DEC. 1, 2016, TRUMP TOWER, NEW YORK CITY

Kushner said this meeting involved Kislyak and Michael Flynn, who would later become Trump's national security adviser, and lasted between 20 minutes and a half-hour.

In his statement, Kushner denied media reports that said he discussed with Kislyak a secret back-channel for communications.

Instead, Kushner said, Kislyak asked him if there was a secure line for him to convey to Trump administration officials information about Syria that he said was coming from his "generals."

Kushner said that given the importance of Syria and the "ongoing humanitarian crisis," he asked if there was an existing communications channel at the Russian Embassy that Kislyak felt comfortable using to relay information to Flynn.

"The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration," Kushner said. "Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a 'secret back channel.'"

Flynn was forced to resign in February after White House officials said he had misled them about whether he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak in a phone call.

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DEC. 13, 2016, NEW YORK CITY

Kushner said he attended a meeting in New York with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, after being asked to do so by Kislyak.

He said Gorkov introduced himself and provided him with two gifts: a bag of dirt from a village in Belarus where Kushner's grandparents were from and a piece of art from the same location. He said Gorkov discussed his bank and the Russian economy and described himself as friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But Kushner insisted that the meeting had nothing to do with his work as a businessman. He said the men did not discuss sanctions against Russia or anything about "my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind."

"I did not know or have any contact with Mr. Gorkov before that meeting, and I have had no reason to connect with him since," Kushner said.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
CINCINNATI (AP) - The Latest on the dismissal of charges against a white police officer who killed an unarmed black motorist in Cincinnati (all times local):

8 p.m.

A small group of people rallying behind a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist in Cincinnati have walked across a bridge to show their support, while demonstrators who support the slain motorist walked behind them.

A pair of demonstrators, left, in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing march across the Newport Southbank Bridge towards Cincinnati trailed by supporters of Sam DuBose, right, Monday, July 24, 2017, in downtown Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

No problems were reported as fewer than two dozen supporters of former University of Cincinnati officer Ray Tensing quietly walked across an Ohio River bridge Monday evening. About 40 counter-protesters urging "justice" for slain motorist Sam DuBose marched behind them.

A judge earlier Monday formally dismissed murder and voluntary manslaughter charges against Tensing. Tensing's two trials resulted in mistrials after jurors failed to reach unanimous verdicts.

Hamilton County's prosecutor said last week he wouldn't retry Tensing.

Federal authorities are working to determine if there were possible civil rights violations.

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5:40 p.m.

The sister of an unarmed black motorist fatally shot by a white police officer says the formal dismissal of murder and voluntary manslaughter charges is disappointing because it means those charges can't be brought again.

A judge dismissed the charges Monday against former University of Cincinnati Officer Ray Tensing in Sam DuBose's 2015 slaying.

DuBose's sister, Terina Allen, says the family still doesn't understand the prosecutor's decision not to retry Tensing. Hamilton County's prosecutor said last week he dropped the case because he believes it can't succeed. Jurors failed to reach unanimous verdicts in Tensing's two trials.

Allen says the family wants federal authorities reviewing the shooting to prosecute Tensing for "violating Sam's civil rights."

Tensing said he feared being dragged or run over as DuBose tried to drive away.

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11:30 a.m.

The lawyer for a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist in Cincinnati says the formal dismissal of murder and voluntary manslaughter charges brings "a note of finality" after two mistrials.

A judge dismissed the charges Monday. Afterward, defense attorney Stewart Mathews acknowledged that former University of Cincinnati officer Ray Tensing still could face a federal civil rights investigation.

Federal authorities are reviewing Tensing's July 2015 shooting of Sam DuBose during a traffic stop. Tensing, who was fired after the shooting, has said he feared he could be dragged or run over as DuBose tried to drive away.

DuBose's family wanted a third murder trial, but a prosecutor declined to pursue one. The charges were dismissed in a way that blocks retrial on the same counts.

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This item has been corrected to show murder and voluntary manslaughter charges were dismissed, not murder and involuntary manslaughter charges.

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10:35 a.m.

A judge in Cincinnati has dismissed charges against a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist, after a prosecutor declined to pursue a third murder trial.

A Hamilton County judge on Monday declined to acquit former officer Ray Tensing in the July 2015 shooting of Sam DuBose during a traffic stop. But the judge dismissed the murder and voluntary manslaughter charges in a way that blocks retrial on those counts.

Tensing has said he feared he could be dragged or run over as DuBose tried to drive away. Two juries couldn't reach unanimous agreement on the charges, leading to mistrials.

DuBose's family and civil rights groups wanted a third trial. They're now hoping federal authorities reviewing the case will conclude that DuBose's civil rights were violated.

A protestor in support of Sam DuBose, trails a group of demonstrators marching in support of former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing at the mouth of the Newport Southbank Bridge, Monday, July 24, 2017, in downtown Cincinnati. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph Deters declined a third trial against Tensing in the shooting death of DuBose after two juries deadlocked on murder and voluntary manslaughter charges, claiming he does not believe the case can succeed. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Ray Tensing, seated, waits for court to begin Monday, July 24, 2017, in Cincinnati while his attorney, Stew Mathews, center, and Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Seth Tieger talk. Tensing is a former University of Cincinnati police officer who was charged with murdering Sam DuBose during a routine traffic stop on July 19, 2015. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Ghiz formally dismissed the voluntary manslaughter and murder charges against Tensing Monday. Two juries couldn't reach unanimous agreement on the state charges, leading to mistrials. (Liz Dufour/The Cincinnati Enquirer via AP)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency is reporting that the country's border guards have confiscated 30 horses and mules that were carrying weapons and ammunition.

The Monday report quotes the border guards' chief, Gen. Qassim Rezai, as saying the unaccompanied animals and the consignment were confiscated in the northwest of the country. He did not elaborate.

The mountainous remote area in northwest Iran is predominantly Kurdish and close to both Iraq and Turkey's borders. It's the scene of occasional clashes between Iranian forces and militant Kurdish separatists and IS-linked fighters.

Earlier on Friday Iran said its elite Revolutionary Guard forces killed three terrorists, wounded four others and detained one in a clash there. A Guard member was killed and another wounded in the late Thursday clash.
CLEVELAND (AP) - Roger Daltrey's voice may not soar as it once did. But even after 50 years of touring he hasn't lost his teenage spirit.

The Hall of Fame rocker, who has been advocate for teen cancer patients for nearly three decades visited with children, young adults and their families at Rainbow Babies Hospital on Monday. The Who's front man toured the Angie Fowler Adolescent & Young Adult Cancer Institute, which was founded in 2012 to better serve young patients while they undergo cancer treatments and following their release.

"Teenagers for so long have been overlooked," said the 73-year-old, still on the road with longtime bandmate Pete Townshend. "Not nearly enough has been done for them."

Roger Daltrey, lead singer for the English rock band The Who, left, poses with Adam Kirk and his daughter Sawyer McGhee, a cancer patient, in Cleveland, Ohio, on Monday, July 24, 2017. (AP photo/Dake Kang)

For years, teenage cancer patients were hospitalized on pediatric floors or placed with older patients. After consulting with doctors researching treatments and recovery, Daltrey understood the need for teens to have a place of their own, where they could recover in surroundings more suited to their interests and maturity level.

"The light went on in my head with this one," said Daltrey, who first got involved with the Teenage Cancer Trust in in 1989. "I was in the Who when I was 18 years old and without the support of this age group - adolescents and young adults - our business wouldn't be there. The music business is built mostly with this age group. It's an easy way for me to say, 'Thank you.'"

During his visit, Daltrey, whose iconic voice helped make Who songs such as "My Generation," ''Behind Blue Eyes" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" anthems for generations of fans, spent time with young cancer patients who have benefited from their time in facilities like the one at Rainbow Babies Hospital.

Daltrey quickly connected with several of the teens, who eagerly shared stories of being diagnosed and lengthy hospital stays. He had a warm word, hug or handshake for each of them and was happy to pose for photos.

For Adam Kirk, Daltrey's visit was a chance to meet a rock hero. The 40-year-old's daughter, Sawyer, has been fighting leukemia for months and Daltrey's face lit up when he saw the 1-year-old being carried toward him. Kirk came prepared for his meeting, getting Daltrey to sign a well-worn copy of "Who's Next," regarded as the band's signature album.

As he made his way around an outdoor, rooftop garden, Daltrey was approached by another dad who wanted to show his appreciation for the singer's charitable work.

Tyson Stiles presented Daltrey with a musical gift.

While his son, Ryver, spent nearly 300 days in the hospital after being born prematurely, Stiles recorded a short album that included songs he wrote about his son's ordeal.

"I wanted you to have a copy," Stiles said.

"Is it any good?" Daltrey asked.

"No, it's terrible," Stiles quipped as both men laughed.

Later, Daltrey donated a guitar signed by him and Townshend that will be permanently displayed in the Fowler Institute's inpatient unit.

Daltrey also shared memories of his previous visits to Cleveland. He and the Who first came to town in 1967.

"It's a lot different than it used to be," he said. "It was the dirtiest place I'd ever been to in my life. Everything was covered in soot. But Cleveland audiences were some of the best we ever played for."
BUTTE, Mont. (AP) - An Air Force pilot has been laid to rest in his home state of Montana more than 48 years after being shot down during the Vietnam War.

The Montana Standard (http://bit.ly/2vT0Z9D ) reports Air Force Capt. Robert Edwin Holton was buried with full military honors Saturday at Sunset Memorial Park near Butte. A C-130 Hercules, a large military transport plane, flew over the cemetery and tipped its wing.

His remains were excavated from the crash site earlier this year and were returned to Montana on Friday.

Holton was Butte's lone service member missing in action from Vietnam. People have worn MIA bracelets in his honor, some dating back to 1969 - the year his plane went down.

Friend Sue MacPherson put hers on top of Holton's casket so it could be buried with him.

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Information from: The Montana Standard, http://www.mtstandard.com
PAWTUCKET, R.I. (AP) - Toy maker Hasbro said its second-quarter profit jumped 30 percent, thanks to rising sales of Transformers action figures and Monopoly board games. But its revenue was slightly lower than what Wall Street analysts expected, and it reported weaker demand for Easy-Bake ovens and Playskool toys and softer sales in two international markets.

Shares of Hasbro Inc. tumbled more than 9 percent to $105.00 on Monday, but are still up nearly 32 percent so far this year.

Analysts at Jefferies said they were "undeterred" by Hasbro's stock drop Monday, and said they expect the company's earnings to grow in the next couple of years.

FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 15, 2016, file photo, the Monopoly Ultimate Banking Game from Hasbro is displayed at Toy Fair in New York. On Monday, July 24, 2017, toy maker Hasbro said its second-quarter profit jumped 30 percent, thanks to rising sales of Transformers action figures and Monopoly board games. But its revenue was slightly lower than what Wall Street analysts expected, and it reported weaker demand for Easy-Bake ovens and Playskool toys and softer sales in two international markets. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

Hasbro said its Magic card games and Nerf blasters also performed well, while demand for Super Soaker water guns and Baby Alive dolls were weaker. It expects to sell more toys later this year when a My Little Pony movie and the latest "Star Wars" film are released.

The Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based company reported net income of $67.7 million, or 53 cents per share, in the three months ending July 2. That compares with $52.1 million, or 41 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Those results topped Wall Street expectations, with the average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research for earnings of 46 cents per share.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $972.5 million, just below the $973 million analysts expected, according to Zacks.

Although overall international revenue rose 6 percent, Hasbro said sales in the U.K. and Brazil were soft due to economic conditions in those countries. Revenue in the U.S. and Canada rose 16 percent.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on HAS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/HAS

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Keywords: Hasbro, Earnings Report
HONOLULU (AP) - The father of a 6-year-old Hawaii boy who disappeared two decades ago was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for manslaughter, fulfilling a deal with prosecutors that required him to reveal the location of his son's body.

Peter Kema Sr. must serve a minimum of six years and eight months. Though Kema led police and prosecutors to a remote coastal area of the Big Island in April, water and time prevented authorities from finding any remains, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rick Damerville said.

Kema later passed a polygraph test, which said he was telling the truth about where he disposed of the remains and allowed his sentencing to move forward.

Peter Kema Sr., left, appears Monday, July 24, 2017, in Hilo, Hawaii, with his attorney, Stanton Oshiro, for sentencing in the 1997 death of his 6-year-old son, Peter Kema Jr. The father of a 6-year-old Hawaii boy who disappeared two decades ago was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for manslaughter, fulfilling a deal with prosecutors that required him to reveal the location of his son's body. (Hollyn Johnson/Tribune Herald via AP)

Prosecutors believe the child, known as "Peter Boy," was abused and died from septic shock after a festering arm sore went untreated.

Kema declined to speak at his sentencing.

"He didn't apologize or acknowledge his family," Prosecuting Attorney Mitch Roth said.

The boy's mother, Jaylin Kema, was released from jail in April after serving a year for manslaughter. At a hearing last year, she agreed to facts that prosecutors laid out in court about abuse the boy suffered, her failure to get him medical treatment and his eventual death. That was the first official confirmation the child was dead.

The Kemas had long been suspects in their son's disappearance, but prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to charge them until last year, when a grand jury indicted the couple on murder counts.

After Peter vanished in 1997, he became the face of a Hawaii campaign for missing and abused children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Posters and bumper stickers asked, "So where's Peter?"

Peter Kema told authorities that he took his son from the Big Island to Oahu and gave him to someone named "Aunty Rose Makuakane" in an informal adoption. Police could not find a woman as described by Kema or airline records that indicated he had flown there.

Sometime between May and June 1997, the couple's then-4-year-old daughter heard Jaylin Kema calling out for her husband and saw her trying to resuscitate the boy, prosecutors said. The girl later saw her brother in a box, prosecutors said.

In 2005, then-state Human Services Director Lillian Koller released more than 2,000 pages of heavily redacted documents, detailing allegations of abuse suffered by Peter and his siblings at the hands of their father.

The case shows that more needs to be done to protect abused children, Roth said. The prosecutor said he plans to push for legislation that would require a judge to weigh in when parents with a history of abuse want to pull a child out of school. Peter had been taken out of school.

"This is not the final chapter," Roth said. "This is a time that we should be looking at what kind of changes we can make to the system."

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This story has been corrected to show that Jaylin Kema's name was misspelled Jayline.

FILE - This June 6, 2016, file photo taken in Honolulu, shows a bumper sticker Hawaii officials distributed in a campaign for a Hawaii boy who disappeared 20 years earlier. The child, known as "Peter Boy," became the face of missing and abused children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The father of the boy led police to the site Sunday, April 23, 2017, where he said he'd disposed of his son's remains. Peter Kema Sr., is providing information about the location of the boy's body as part of a plea deal. Kema Sr. is scheduled to be sentenced for manslaughter, Monday, July 24, 2017. (AP Photo/Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, File)
KEANSBURG, N.J. (AP) - A Jamaican man who was denied a temporary visa to attend the funeral of his slain 11-year-old daughter in New Jersey says his heart is "torn apart."

Kenroy Smith, talking to WCBS-TV from Jamaica, echoed the sentiments expressed at Monday's service for AbbieGail Smith, who was remembered as Princess Abbie.

"She was my everything," Smith said. "She was my princess. She was my angel."

Smith and AbbieGail's sister, Kennish Smith, were unable to attend the funeral in Keansburg despite pleading with President Donald Trump.

Kenroy Smith was deported after a marijuana arrest in 2001. AbbieGail's sister said she wasn't told why her application was rejected.

The Department of State said it's prohibited from disclosing details about visa cases.

AbbieGail's body was found July 13 in a blanket near her apartment building. Authorities say she was stabbed by an 18-year-old neighbor, who's charged with murder.

Police have not released a motive for the killing. The neighbor is scheduled to appear in court this week.

As AbbieGail's family wept and shared stories of her life, her aunt Sonja Bennett hoped for answers.

"We want to hold your hand and see your face, but you were taken from us and we don't know why," she said.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Records show the head of the Environmental Protection Agency spent weekends in his home state during his first three months in office, frequently flying to and from Oklahoma at taxpayer's expense.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's expense reports from March, April and May were released following a Freedom of Information request filed by Environmental Integrity Project, a non-profit watchdog group.

The records show Pruitt traveled home at least 10 times, typically leaving Washington on Fridays and returning on Mondays. Pruitt was either in Oklahoma or on trips that included stops there for nearly half the days encompassed in the three-month period, costing more than $15,000.

FILE - In this June 2, 2017, file photo, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt looks back after speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. Records show Pruitt spent weekends in his home state during his first three months in office, frequently flying to and from Oklahoma at taxpayer's expense. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman did not respond to emails or phone messages from The Associated Press on Monday seeking comment.

Pruitt, a Republican, served as Oklahoma's attorney general prior to his appointment by President Donald Trump to lead EPA. Married with two children, Pruitt owns a home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There were a couple of occasions where Pruitt traveled on a trip for EPA then paid out-of-pocket to fly to Tulsa before returning to Washington at government expense.

AP reported earlier this year that while Pruitt was in his state job, he was in frequent contact with political donors, corporate executives and industry groups opposed to new environmental regulations enacted under the Obama administration.

He appears to have continued that practice since coming to EPA, including traveling to accept an award from the Oklahoma Well Strippers Association, make a keynote address to a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council and deliver a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers.

EPA records indicate Pruitt also attended "informational meetings" during the trips, which were first reported by The New York Times. Though a trip to Oklahoma might last three or five days, it was not unusual for only one such meeting to be listed during Pruitt's time away from Washington.

An example is Pruitt's reported trip to Tulsa on Friday, May 19, on a flight scheduled to depart Washington at 5:37 p.m. The listed purpose of the trip was an "informational meeting" at the Brainerd Chemical Company in Tulsa. Pruitt's return flight to Washington was scheduled to depart the following Monday morning at 6 a.m. local time.

Records show EPA paid $1,980 for Pruitt's roundtrip ticket on a commercial airline, well in excess of what an economy class ticket typically costs on that route. Federal regulations allow government travelers to fly business class or first class only when no cheaper options are "reasonably available." Pruitt was also reimbursed $127 for meals and expenses, according to the records.

Among the questions to which Bowman did not respond was whether EPA staff or members of Pruitt's full-time security detail traveled with him. She also did not answer questions about the official purpose of specific trips or whether Pruitt flew first class.

A call to the family-owned distribution company's chairman, Mat Brainerd, was not immediately returned. He testified before congressional panels in favor of extending the Keystone XL oil pipeline and against part of the Clean Air Act.

In a statement to the Times, Bowman said: "The administrator's travel, whether to Utah, Michigan or Oklahoma, all serves the purpose of hearing from hard-working Americans about how EPA can better serve the American people."

On a different May trip, records show Pruitt flew to Colorado to give a speech to the Heritage Foundation before buying his own ticket to Tulsa for the weekend and then returning to Washington. On that trip, EPA paid $2,690 in commercial airfare.

The Heritage Foundation, a free-market think tank that receives funding from groups tied to the fossil-fuel industry, paid for Pruitt's hotel room in Colorado Springs, according to his travel form. Though Pruitt's expense report indicates an "ethics form is prepared" to allow the outside group to pick up his hotel tab, a copy of that form was not provided by the EPA.

Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said the records obtained by his group reflect Pruitt's priorities.

"These travel records show that Administrator Pruitt is more focused on cultivating his relationships with industry and conservative political organizations in his home state of Oklahoma than he is on protecting the environment and the public health for the rest of America," said Schaeffer, who served as the head of EPA's office of civil enforcement from 1997 to 2002.

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Associated Press writer Adam Kealoha Causey in Oklahoma City contributed to this story.

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Follow AP environmental writer Michael Biesecker at www.Twitter.com/mbieseck
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Abortion opponents have agreed to a federal restraining order that keeps them from gathering on a patch of sidewalk outside the only clinic still performing abortions in Kentucky.

Last week, a federal judge established a buffer zone to prevent protesters from assembling in front of Louisville's EMW Women's Surgical Center.

Rusty Thomas, director of the group Operation Save America, challenged the restraining order during a Monday hearing. Thomas' group is leading large anti-abortion protests at the clinic this week.

In this Monday, July 17, 2017 photo, Meg Stern, left, and other escort volunteers lined up outside the EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville, Ky. A federal judge issued an order Friday, July 21, 2017, to keep protesters away from a "buffer zone" outside Kentucky's only abortion clinic, which is targeted by a national anti-abortion group. U.S. District Judge David J. Hale issued a temporary restraining order sought by federal prosecutors in a pre-emptive move ahead of vigils by Operation Save America. The order is aimed at preventing abortion foes from impeding access to EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville. . (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan)

The hearing drew a crowd of protesters to the U.S. District courthouse in Louisville on Monday morning, many holding signs or singing Christian hymns. The court hearing was set to continue Tuesday, but the U.S. Attorney's Office announced later that the opponents agreed to let the restraining order continue until its scheduled expiration on Saturday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said in a news release that enforcement of the buffer zone will protect patients seeking access to Louisville's EMW Women's Surgical Center as well as the First Amendment rights of the protesters.

Earlier at the hearing, Vince Heuser, an attorney for Thomas, argued that the buffer zone was "heavy-handed" and kept protesters from exercising their free speech rights.

A clinic volunteer, Patricia Canon, testified that the buffer zone helped patients move into the clinic without obstructions during protests by the group on Saturday.

"It was great," Canon said.

Those inside the courtroom were shown security footage from the clinic. The recording showed patients being dropped off at the curb on Saturday and walking into the clinic with protesters separated from them on either side.

U.S. District Judge David J. Hale issued the temporary restraining order on Friday as a pre-emptive move ahead of the demonstrations. The order was aimed at nearly a dozen anti-abortion activists who were arrested at a May demonstration at the EMW clinic when police said they blocked access to the downtown Louisville clinic.

In this Wednesday, July 19, 2017, abortion opponents with a group called Operation Save America gather during a rally in downtown Louisville, Ky. A federal judge issued an order Friday, July 21, 2017, to keep protesters away from a "buffer zone" outside Kentucky's only abortion clinic, which is targeted by a national anti-abortion group. U.S. District Judge David J. Hale issued a temporary restraining order sought by federal prosecutors in a pre-emptive move ahead of vigils by Operation Save America. The order is aimed at preventing abortion foes from impeding access to EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville. . (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan)
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A federal judge on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump's commission on election fraud to resume collecting detailed voter roll information from the states.

The commission asked states last month to provide publicly available data including registered voters' names, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers, but it later told them to hold off until a judge ruled on a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, in the District of Columbia, denied the advocacy group's request to block the data collection in a ruling that commission vice chairman Kris Kobach called "a major victory for government accountability, transparency and the public's right to know about the integrity of our elections processes."

FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2016 file photo, a ballot box is set for residents to vote at midnight in Dixville Notch, N.H. A federal judge on Monday, July 24, 2017, cleared the way for President Donald Trump's commission on election fraud to resume collecting detailed voter roll information from the states. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

"The commission requested this publicly available data as part of its fact-gathering process, which is information that states regularly release to political candidates, political parties and the general public," said Kobach, the Republican secretary of state in Kansas. "We look forward to continuing to work with state election leaders to gather information and identify opportunities to improve election integrity."

The privacy group had argued that the commission should have completed an assessment of privacy concerns before making the request. The judge found that the group had standing to make that argument but said the commission is not an agency and therefore is not required to do such assessments. The judge also found the group failed to show that its members would be harmed by the data collection.

"The only practical harm the plaintiff's advisory board members would suffer ... is that their already publicly available information would be rendered more easily accessible by virtue of its consolidation on the computer systems that would ultimately receive this information on behalf of the commission," the judge said.

She did not say that any states must comply with the commission's request.

The privacy group said it will be watching closely to see what the commission does next.

"The commission cannot evade privacy obligations by playing a shell game with the nation's voting records," EPIC president Marc Rotenberg said.

Similar lawsuits are pending in Texas, Florida and New Hampshire. The New Hampshire lawsuit, brought by two lawmakers and an American Civil Liberties Union chapter, was put on hold pending the outcome of the Washington case.

Trump, a Republican, created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May to investigate his allegations, offered without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally in 2016. At the panel's first meeting last week, he questioned the motives of states that have refused to comply with the commission's request, suggesting they had something to hide.

Before the commission paused data collection earlier this month, an Associated Press count of states' responses found 17 plus Washington, D.C., didn't plan to provide any information. Election officials in some of those states questioned the commission's intent to search for voter fraud; in some states, the main concern was voters' privacy. Thirty states said they would provide limited information that was considered public already. And some of those states said the commission would have some hoops to jump through such as paying for the data or filling out additional request forms.

Alabama, Hawaii and Idaho had not announced decisions about whether to comply.

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Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Adan Lara Vega said he was told the $5,500 he was being charged to be smuggled into the United States would include an air-conditioned truck ride.

Instead, the 27-year-old Mexican laborer climbed with his friends into a pitch-black, metal tractor-trailer compartment that lacked ventilation - a deadly oven that would claim 10 lives.

"After an hour I heard ... people crying and asking for water. I, too, was sweating and people were despairing," Lara Vega told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Monday from his bed in a San Antonio hospital. "That's when I lost consciousness."

A bottle of water, flowers, candles, and stuffed animals help form a makeshift memorial in the parking lot of a Walmart store near the site where authorities Sunday discovered a tractor-trailer packed with immigrants outside a Walmart in San Antonio, Monday, July 24, 2017. Several people died and others hospitalized after being crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer in the midsummer Texas heat, according to authorities in what they described as an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

By the time he regained it Sunday, he was in the hospital, where his ID bracelet identified him by the last name Lalravega. Mexican consulate and U.S. officials later told AP the correct spelling was Lara Vega.

He told the AP it all started when he climbed aboard the tractor-trailer in the border city of Laredo, Texas, with six friends from the state of Aguascalientes after the group waited nearly two weeks in a safe house.

"The guy we were with in the house told us they'd be putting us in a refrigerated compartment, a refrigerated compartment with air. But that didn't happen," he said.

The trailer was already full of people when the door opened up on a Laredo street. Lara Vega said it was so dark he couldn't see how many there were. A few were children, he said, whose voices he later heard begging for water.

He said the smugglers didn't offer passengers water, and he and his friends hadn't brought any with them. The ride to San Antonio would only be 150 miles (240 kilometers).

Lara Vega said he never saw the driver of the tractor-trailer. He said that when people are being smuggled, they are told not to look at the faces of their handlers - and it's a good idea to obey.

The packed tractor-trailer was found early Sunday outside a Walmart store. As many as eight passengers were dead, and two more would soon die. The driver has been charged in the deaths.

When Lara Vega woke up, he was in a hospital tossing and turning. He said he tried to get up "but I lost my balance and fell."

"I needed to drink a lot of water to get control of myself," he said, recounting his story in Spanish while eating lunch in his hospital bed, cardiac-monitoring sensor still affixed to his bare chest. He was no longer attached to an intravenous drip for rehydration.

Lara Vega, a spare, muscular man with a trim mustache and thick black eyebrows, said all his friends survived as far as he knew, though some were hospitalized. Some have cousins and siblings in San Antonio, he said. A fellow smuggled immigrant was in the hospital bed next to him, but declined to speak with a reporter.

Another passenger on the truck told investigators that he also was from Aguascalientes. Before the trucked reached its final destination, he said, the immigrants were given different colored tape "to identify to the waiting smugglers which group they would be picking up." When the truck stopped, the rear doors were opened and people started swarming out. Six black SUVs were waiting and were filled within a matter of minutes before driving off. The man, identified only by his initials, said he did not see who opened the trailer doors nor did he see the truck driver, according to a criminal complaint filed against the driver.

Lara Vega, who didn't pay the smugglers, said he was hoping for a construction job. This was his second attempt to enter the United States. He said he was deported when he tried three years ago but decided to take another chance because the economy is depressed where he lives with his wife, 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son.

"A person makes decisions without thinking through the consequences," he said, "but, well, thanks to God, here we are."

Lara Vega said he didn't know his legal status. Mexican consular officials say they are providing legal representation for the survivors and that Lara Vega had been visited by one.

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This story has been corrected to show the survivor's name is 'Adan Lara Vega' according to records of U.S. and Mexican officials, not 'Adan Lalravega' as it was spelled on a hospital bracelet.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - More than three years after a coroner declared a teenage girl dead, a Northern California judge is expected to soon decide whether to revoke her death certificate.

In court documents filed last month supporting the family's lawsuit to have the death certificate revoked, retired neurologist Dr. Alan Shewmon said videos recorded by Jahi McMath's family from 2014 to 2016 show the teen is still alive.

Shewmon is a longtime critic of how brain death is defined and has filed similar court papers supporting efforts by McMath's family to undo the death certificate. The family has previously shown video clips of McMath twitching her fingers, which they said showed she still has brain function.

FILE- In this Dec. 23, 2015 file photo, a recent photo of Jahi McMath is shown on a video screen next to her uncle Timothy Whisenton at a news conference in San Francisco. More than three years after a coroner declared the teen girl dead, a Northern California judge is deciding whether to revoke her death certificate. In court documents filed in June 2017, retired neurologist Dr. Alan Shewmon says videos recorded by Jahi McMath's family from 2014 to 2016 show McMath is still alive. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Several doctors, including two hired by an Alameda County court, have said brain-dead patients can still twitch and move slightly.

Doctors at Children's Hospital in Oakland, California declared 13-year-old McMath brain dead in December 2013 after a routine tonsillectomy went awry.

Jahi's mother has previously acknowledged that her daughter's brain is severely and irreparably damaged. But Latasha Spears Winkfield said her daughter is still alive and her Christian belief compels her fight to keep her daughter on life support.

The case adds to the debate over parents' right to choose childrens' medical treatment. The parents of 11-month-old Charlie Gard announced Monday they were dropping their legal fight in London to stop doctors from switching off their baby's life support. They previously resisted, arguing that an experimental treatment could extend and improve Charlie's life.

Lawyers for the California hospital argued in court documents that the family's attorneys have declined to turn over to them the most recent video clips Shewmon said he viewed. The lawyers also said they want copies of the videos so they can independently analyze the footage.

Hospital lawyer Jennifer Still said in a July 6 court filing that "body movements could be easily manipulated."

Still said McMath was "typically covered up with blankets" in videos previously shown by the family, making it impossible to determine if something might have been occurring under the blankets to make the body move.

"Often the camera only shows a convenient angle, such as a close up of her foot or hand," Still wrote.

Still said in an interview Monday that since the family has not subjected McMath to tests accepted by the American Medical Association to determine whether someone is brain dead.

Bruce Brusavich and Andrew Chang, lawyers representing Jahi's family, did not return telephone messages left at their offices seeking comment.

Jahi's family moved her to New Jersey because of that state's only-in-the U.S. law that prohibits doctors from removing brain-dead patients from ventilators over families with religious objections. Court records show that New Jersey Medicaid has picked up some of the cost of McMath's care. Still said she could not disclose the exact amount.

A judge heard arguments on the case July 13 and is expected to rule in the next two months whether to allow the lawsuit to proceed.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Evangelical leaders are rallying around White House senior adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner as he meets with congressional leaders investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A host of Christian leaders, from South Carolina Pastor Mark Burns to Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., have been taking to Twitter and releasing statements voicing their support for Kushner as he spends two days speaking with congressional investigators on Capitol Hill.

"I've known Jared for many years. He's a man of integrity, character, and a great, personal friend," wrote Paula White, a gospel preacher and Trump friend who prayed at Trump's inaugural. "(E)nough-is-enough," she wrote.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Monday, July 24, 2017, after meeting on Capitol Hill behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. blasted the "endless attempts by the media to keep the fake Russia collusion story alive- solely to obstruct the president's agenda" in a statement Monday.

"In Jared Kushner, they've picked the wrong fight. I don't know a more competent person. He is brilliant and he is a man of the highest integrity," Falwell wrote.

Kushner insisted Monday that he had done nothing improper during the campaign as he met with members of the Senate intelligence committee for nearly three hours behind closed doors. He's set to meet with lawmakers on the House intelligence committee Tuesday.

The coordinated statements are the work of Johnnie Moore, an evangelical activist from California, who recently attended a faith outreach meeting at the White House and tweeted a powerful photo of Christian leaders surrounding the president, heads bowed in prayer.

"We've all had it," said Moore, adding that he and other Christian leaders have become close to Jared over the years. Moore said that he decided on Monday morning that he wanted to release a statement and sent a note around to fellow faith leaders asking if they had anything to add.

"We didn't ask permission. They didn't even know we were doing it," he said of the White House. "For us it was personal."

Trump won an overwhelming 80 percent of the white evangelical vote in the November election, and a Pew Research Center survey marking his first 100 days in office found three-fourths of white evangelicals approved of his performance as president, versus thirty-nine percent of the general public.

Kushner, who is an orthodox Jew, acted as a liaison to the religious community, said Burns, the pastor from South Carolina, who served as an opening act at many Trump rallies.

"Jared has been a huge instrument in giving us access to the White House. So this is just us showing our love and support back to him for what he has done for our faith-based community," said Burns.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Monday, July 24, 2017, after meeting on Capitol Hill behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Kenya's leading opposition candidate has debated moderators after incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta turned down an invitation to the presidential debate.

Recent polls show Raila Odinga closing the popularity gap to within four percentage points of Kenyatta. Local media outlets that organized the debate Monday said the president declined to participate in the debate. Kenyatta is increasingly under fire over runaway corruption, insecurity and health, among other issues.

It's Odinga's fourth attempt to become president. He unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to challenge Kenyatta's 2013 win, claiming the system was set up to allow more easily manipulated manual tallying and voting. Kenyatta received a majority of votes to avoid a runoff with Odinga, but he did so by only 4,099 votes out of more than 12.3 million cast.
A now-retired Roman Catholic priest was charged Monday with forcing a 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy to perform oral sex on him while counseling the fourth-grader about misbehaving on a school bus.

The state attorney general's office accused the Rev. John Thomas Sweeney of committing felony involuntary deviate sexual intercourse at St. Margaret Mary Elementary School in Lower Burrell during the 1991-92 school year.

The boy, now 35 and serving in the Coast Guard, told investigators that after the attack Sweeney's secretary gave him milk and cookies, prosecutors said.

Rev. John T. Sweeney, of Greensburg, Pa., right, arrives for an appearance before District Judge Cheryl J. Peck-Yakopec, in Leechburg, Pa., Monday, July 24, 2017. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced that Sweeney was arrested today and charged with involuntary sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony, for a sexual assault committed against a 10-year-old boy. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

"He is a hero for his service," Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. "Today we know him as a hero for coming forward to share his story with us."

Defense attorney Francis R. Murrman said Sweeney, 74, "vehemently" denies the charges, noting they date back some 26 years and the details were only disclosed as Sweeney was being arraigned.

"There's abbreviations in there, there's dates, there's all kinds of allegations," Murrman said. "We don't know if 75 percent of them are accurate, 60 percent of them are accurate or 30 percent of them are accurate."

A grand jury report used to charge Sweeney said that someone made an anonymous complaint to Lower Burrell police about Sweeney in August, shortly before a U.S. marshal who is related to the accuser called them to say the accuser told him Sweeney had abused him.

The unnamed marshal said the accuser was moved to disclose the allegation after watching "Spotlight," a 2015 film about the Boston Globe's investigation of priest abuse.

The accuser told the grand jury in February that Sweeney first lectured him about his behavior, then placed his hands on the back of the accuser's head and assaulted him.

Sweeney told grand jurors he could not remember the name of his secretary "until he was reminded that he recently attended her funeral," the jury wrote. "In fact, evidence was introduced that Sweeney actually conducted Mass at her funeral."

The Greensburg Diocese said Sweeney was removed as pastor of Holy Family Parish in West Newton last year after church officials learned of the allegation.

Sweeney became a priest in 1970 and served in seven western Pennsylvania parishes: in Latrobe, Greensburg, Smock, Freeport, Apollo, Lower Burrell and West Newton.

The diocese said its records indicate Sweeney has not been the subject of any other child sexual abuse complaint.

Sweeney was released on $50,000 unsecured bail.

Lower Burrell, where the elementary school is located, is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh.

The Rev. John Thomas Sweeney, center, waits for his attorney following his arraignment Monday, July 24, 2017, in Leechburg, Pa. Sweeney, a now-retired Roman Catholic priest is accused of forcing a 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy to perform oral sex on him after counseling the 4th-grader about misbehaving on a school bus. Sweeney made no comment to reporters when he turned himself in. (Antonella Crescimbeni/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)

The Rev. John Thomas Sweeney, center, walks into court to be arraigned Monday, July 24, 2017, in Leechburg, Pa. Sweeney, a now-retired Roman Catholic priest is accused of forcing a 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy to perform oral sex on him after counseling the 4th-grader about misbehaving on a school bus. Sweeney made no comment to reporters when he turned himself in. (Antonella Crescimbeni/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)

Rev. John T. Sweeney, of Greensburg, Pa. arrives for an appearance before District Judge Cheryl J. Peck-Yakopec, in Leechburg, Pa., Monday, July 24, 2017. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced that Sweeney was arrested and charged with involuntary sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony, for a sexual assault committed against a 10-year-old boy. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, center, stands in front of St. Margaret Mary's Catholic School in Lower Burrell, Pa., to announce the arrest of the Rev. John Thomas Sweeney, Monday, July 24, 2017. Sweeney, a now-retired Roman Catholic priest is accused of forcing a 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy to perform oral sex on him after counseling the 4th-grader about misbehaving on a school bus. Sweeney made no comment to reporters when he turned himself in. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Rev. John T. Sweeney, of Greensburg, Pa., center, arrives for an appearance before District Judge Cheryl J. Peck-Yakopec, in Leechburg, Pa., Monday, July 24, 2017. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced that Sweeney was arrested today and charged with involuntary sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony, for a sexual assault committed against a 10-year-old boy. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Rev. John T. Sweeney, of Greensburg, Pa., right, arrives for an appearance before District Judge Cheryl J. Peck-Yakopec, in Leechburg, Pa., Monday, July 24, 2017. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced that Sweeney was arrested today and charged with involuntary sexual intercourse, a first-degree felony, for a sexual assault committed against a 10-year-old boy. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Gerard Pique has posted a cryptic message on Twitter which appears to suggest his Barcelona team-mate Neymar has committed his future to the Nou Camp.

Defender Pique posted a picture of himself with the Brazilian on Sunday night, along with the simple message Se queda, which translates as he stays.

Neymars future has come under increasing speculation this summer amid reports that Paris St Germain had agreed to activate his release clause of almost 200million.

Barcelona defender Gerard Pique posted a message on Twitter that Neymar is staying at Barcelona

Contradictory reports in the French and Spanish press had suggested both that the deal is done, and that the Brazilian has decided to stay at Barca.

But Piques intervention is the clearest suggestion yet that the striker  reportedly offered 500,000 per week in Paris  may have called off the world record move.

Pique is a hugely respected figure within the Barcelona dressing room and has made no secret of his desire to run for president of the club once his playing days are over.
James Brokenshire is travelling to Washington to discuss the political crisis at Stormont with US officials.

The Northern Ireland Secretary of State is to hold a series of meetings with Trump administration officials and business leaders over the next three days.

Topping the agenda will be the political situation in Northern Ireland, the need for foreign investment into the region and Brexit.

Northern Ireland Secretary of State James Brokenshire will meet Senator George Mitchell this week in Washington

Mr Brokenshire will be hoping to reassure politicians and business leaders that the region is open for business, despite the lack of an executive.

Speaking ahead of the trip Mr Brokenshire said it is regrettable that his visit takes place against a backdrop of political stalemate in the region.

He insisted however that this was a timely opportunity to brief members of the US administration, who throughout history have done so much to support our efforts in moving forward the political process, on the current situation.

He added: I also want to reassure them that the UK Government is determined to see devolved, power-sharing government restored.

While in Washington Mr Brokenshire will meet with Conrad Tribble of the US State Department, the Vice Presidents national security adviser Andrea Thompson, former senator George Mitchell and various members of Congress to update them on the UK Governments priorities in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Feins Gerry Adams is also in Washington where he will attend a memorial mass for former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness on Tuesday.

The Louth TD said he will also be meeting with political leaders and Irish America to discuss the Stormont talks and concerns over Brexit.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for an attack in the Afghan capital that killed 24 people and wounded 42.

The early morning suicide car bombing targeted a bus carrying employees of the mines and petroleum ministry.

The statement, sent by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said the target of the bombing was the intelligence services and their employees.

City workers clean up in front of a wedding hall in Kabul after the blast (Massoud Hossaini/AP)

He claimed the bus was filled with employees of the intelligence services, but Kabul police chief spokesman Basir Mujahed said the employees worked for the mines and petroleum ministry.

Mujahid said Taliban insurgents had spent the last two months shadowing the intelligence services before carrying out the attack.

The attack happened in a western neighbourhood of Kabul where several prominent politicians live and at rush hour, as residents were heading to work and students were on their way to a nearby private high school, said the spokesman, Basir Mujahed.

The bomber attacked at one of the busiest times of the day, he said. There were traffic jams with people going to work and to the university and schools. Many of the shops had just opened.

The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack (AP)

The bus was completely destroyed, along with three other cars and several shops in the area, he said, adding that children were among the wounded.

In a statement, the Interior Ministry called the attack a criminal act against humanity.

Mondays attack was the second against employees of the mines and petroleum ministry. Last year, a bus carrying the ministrys employees was also targeted in an attack that killed several people.

Once again, these terrorist are attacking civilians and targeting government staff, President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement.
An eight-year-old girl who died after getting trapped under falling logs has been named.

Kayla MacDonald, from Dunbeg, was pronounced dead in an Argyll and Bute forest near the village of Benderloch on Sunday afternoon.

A 12-year-old girl was also injured and airlifted to hospital in nearby Oban before being transferred to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow. Medical staff describe her condition as stable.

Another girl was airlifted to hospital (PA)

Kaylas family said: Kayla was a precious fun-loving eight-year-old who was loved by everyone around her. Kaylas smile would light up a room. She attended Rockfields Gaelic Medium where she was fluent in Gaelic.

Our wee girl loved music and dance as well as doing hair, nails and make up. Kayla has two younger brothers who, along with the rest of her family and friends, will miss her dearly.

A joint investigation between Police Scotland and the Health and Safety Executive will take place to establish the full circumstances surrounding the death. However, it is not being treated as suspicious. A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.

Locals said logging has been taking place in the area with warning signs in place.

Rev Jeffrey McCormick, minister of Ardchattan Church of Scotland, said: There will be a deep sense of sorrow in the community. This will touch people of all sorts of ages, old and young, and will be remembered locally for years to come. Child death doesnt happen often around Argyll  were a thinly populated place.
Arsene Wenger has reiterated his belief that Alexis Sanchez will stay at Arsenal this summer.

The Chile forward is entering the final year of his contract and has been linked with a move away from the Emirates Stadium.

Manchester City and Paris St Germain are reported to be monitoring the 28-year-old, who was supposedly in the French capital to discuss a deal last week.

An update from the boss...https://t.co/SXaUfwuzKH  Arsenal (@Arsenal) July 23, 2017

However, Wenger insists there is no need to sell one of his star players and again suggested he is happy for Sanchez to see out his contract.

My mind has been made up for a while now. I think Ive made it clear a few times that he is not for sale and this is my stance, said Gunners boss Wenger.

Theres always something that comes in. If its not Sanchez then its me, but I think Sanchez has got one year to go and we have no need to make money.

He will be part of the team next year and after that I can understand it. But you dont want to write that but thats a version I can give you.

Alexis Sanchez has reportedly held talks with PSG

We are in a strong financial situation so we want to keep our best players.

You can see there is a fight everywhere to get top players. Man United, Manchester City, all the big clubs. All the clubs have big money.

PSG have also been rumoured to hold an interest in Barcelona forward Neymar, and Wenger doubts the Ligue 1 club can afford Sanchez as well.

Speaking to several national newspapers about PSGs interest in Sanchez, Wenger said: No, I dont think he was in Paris.

Selon Marca, le PSG etudierait un montage financier complexe pour payer les 222 M du transfert de Neymar au Barca https://t.co/7BHPrW0kvc pic.twitter.com/zxRZjKMqsf  L'EQUIPE (@lequipe) July 23, 2017

Paris St Germain cannot get Sanchez so they go for Neymar.

I read LEquipe in the last three to four days and it has moved from Sanchez to Neymar.

You know they are speaking about Neymar, a few days they were speaking about Sanchez. They need a subject to write about.
The biggest rail workers union is calling for an independent inquiry into disastrous job cuts on London Underground following the death of a passenger.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said an improvement notice issued by the rail regulator following the incident at Canning Town in January proved that staffing levels were inadequate.

The ORR (Office of Rail and Road) improvement notice states:  you have failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of risks to your employees, arising from lone working at these locations and you have failed to put in a safe system of work to avoid or control those risks.

@RMTunion calls for Tube job cut inquiry after regulator slaps improvement notice on LU following Canning Town death https://t.co/5BGCDir5iG pic.twitter.com/lHVXQCCgXs  RMT (@RMTunion) July 24, 2017

The ORR report followed the death of a man who fell and hit his head.

A woman had her foot trapped between a train and the platform at the same station in May.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said job cuts in LU in recent years had been disastrous, adding: The issuing of an improvement notice to LU by the ORR is no real surprise to RMT. It was however completely unavoidable.

For over two years before the implementation of the Fit for the Future job cuts programme, RMT senior safety reps were warning the company that their plans for staffing at stations like Canning Town were completely inadequate and would lead to major safety incidents.

Mick Cash described recent job cuts on London Underground as 'disastrous'

The Mayor now needs to set up an independent inquiry into how London Underground were allow to cut so many staff , despite their own safety and legal expectations, and why they routinely and totally ignored legitimate and factually correct concerns and warnings from senior trade union safety reps who themselves are highly experienced operational railway workers.

Brian Woodhead, operations director for London Underground, said: Following a review of staffing levels in consultation with the trade unions, we are now in the process of putting 325 additional new staff members on to our stations.

Safety is our top priority and we will continue to monitor the level of staffing across our network to ensure that our customers are kept safe and receive the best possible level of service and assistance at all times.

Gov policy of hacking back budgets of NR and TfL is dragging Tube and rail in the capital into permanent chaos - @RMTunion @MickCashRMT_GS  Alan Jones (@AlanJonesPA) July 24, 2017

An ORR spokesman said: All employers are required to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which their employees are exposed.

Working alone is not of itself a problem, but employers must acknowledge the risks staff working alone face and put in place measures to ensure such risks are effectively controlled.

At Canning Town and West Ham stations, we could find no evidence that an assessment of such risks had been made and consequently ORR served the improvement notice.
Southampton defender Virgil van Dijk has been left out of the squad travelling to France for a training camp.

Manager Mauricio Pellegrino said last week the Dutchman would not be involved in the trip after the centre-back - subject of aborted interest from Premier League rivals Liverpool earlier in the summer - told him he wanted to leave the club.

Van Dijk has been banished to train on his own and when Southampton published the 25-man travelling party his name was not on the list.

#SaintsFC are taking a 25-man squad to France for a training camp this week. Find out who is involved: https://t.co/I02JZYpU8r  Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) July 24, 2017

Saints are heading to Evian-les-Bains for a training camp and a game against St Etienne on Saturday.

He is not involved with the team because psychologically he is not 100 per cent. If you are not 100 per cent with the team I need to work with the players who are 1,000 per cent to defend Southampton, Pellegrino said last week.

I hope that Virgil can review his feelings because you know that today a player is big business.

The Dutch defender has been training on his own (Adam Davy/PA)

Van Dijk had been targeted by Liverpool but they were forced into an embarrassing climbdown after claims emerged the defender had agreed to join them as the club had not even registered a bid, leading to an apology and public withdrawal of their interest after a complaint was made to the Premier League.

However, the Reds have tried hard to restore their relationship with Saints and Press Association Sport understands they would be interested in reigniting their interest should they be given any indication the player is available, although Saints remain steadfast in their assertion he is not for sale.
A leading Tory activist has said its a possibility that Government plans to make it easier to change gender have been influenced by Education Secretary Justine Greenings sexuality.

Mary Douglas, a spokeswoman for the Grassroots Conservatives campaign group, also criticised the proposals and said many who wanted to go through the process were deeply troubled and suffering from other mental health conditions.

James Chapman, former chief of staff to Brexit Secretary David Davis, wrote on Twitter that Mrs Douglass comments were disgraceful for impugning Ms Greenings motives for updating the legislation.

Justine Greening

Mary Douglas is a member of "Grassroots Conservatives". Quelle surprise! Represents nothing of the party I worked for #mogglodytes  James Chapman (@jameschappers) July 24, 2017

Ms Greening, who is also Equalities Minister, said at the weekend that transgender people will be able to choose their legal sex more easily as part of planned reforms.

On BBC Radio 4s Today programme, host Nick Robinson said Ms Greening had come out as gay last year, and he asked Ms Douglas if she thought the ministers personal experience was having an impact on Government policy.

Disgraceful stuff on @BBCr4today from Mary Douglas impugning @JustineGreening's motives for overdue reform of gender assignment law  James Chapman (@jameschappers) July 24, 2017

Mrs Douglas replied: Its a possibility, but Im not going to suggest anything I dont know. I dont know Justine personally at all.

But the bigger issue here is not who is introducing or considering introducing, but the implications of the policy itself.

Mrs Douglas speaks on family, religion and public life for Grassroots Conservatives, which is not affiliated to the party but draws most of its supporters from Conservative members.

We have launched our #LGBTSurvey! We want to hear from #LGBT people about their experiences & views - tell us here: https://t.co/f2zLjz983H pic.twitter.com/4wLAY3g3ul  Government Equalities Office (@GEOgovuk) July 23, 2017

The groups website says Mrs Douglas is a Tory councillor and a member of the Salisbury Conservative Association.

Mrs Douglas said: It should not be easy to do something as massive as change your gender.

The law is there to protect us, normally from other people but also sometimes from ourselves, and I think many people have really profound concerns about this.

If somebody thinks they have a mismatch between how they think and the way their body is, the question is which should be changed?

Whats interesting I think is many people who have gender dysphoria also have  not all, but many  have other mental health conditions, like depression or drug addiction or  theyre deeply troubled.

It has been proven that when they change their gender, that doesnt solve those issues, so theres an underlying issue here.

.@JustineGreening on #Pride2017 I hope we can use Pride to show how open, tolerant and #LGBT friendly our country is #LoveHappensHere pic.twitter.com/vNRHDpG2nX  Government Equalities Office (@GEOgovuk) July 7, 2017

Mrs Douglas said that while she was not a doctor, she had read medical research which said that wishing to change gender was a mental health issue, adding that that was the medical consensus until very recently and I dont see that anything has changed.

She added: Its certainly not intended to be insulting, but if for example you have someone with anorexia who says I am too thin  too fat, sorry  and you look at them and you go really you are not, its not actually respectful or loving to affirm that person in a belief that is false, that doesnt tie up with reality.
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The Conservative Government will face a general election in about two years time, former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine has predicted.

And the Conservative peer warned that by this point, Theresa Mays administration will be torn apart by leadership speculation and the growing clarity of our weakness in the Brexit talks.

Writing in The Times, he warned that a shift in public mood on Brexit could leave the Conservatives holding the baby as the electorate demands continued EU membership.

Lord Heseltine has predicted a general election in about two years' time

It should be alarming to the Tory leadership that young people joining the electoral roll each year could be worth 1,000 extra votes against Brexit in every constituency, he said.

Downing Street declined to respond to Lord Heseltines comments, which come after reports that 15 Conservative MPs may be ready to sign a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister  well short of the 48 required to trigger a leadership contest.

Describing the May Government as a rabbit frozen in the spotlight, Lord Heseltine said that the partys prospects at the next election depend on its ability to refocus the agenda and govern, with a programme of increased devolution and reforms to education, housing, local government and skills.

He predicted there would be a window of opportunity following autumns elections in Germany for a re-examination of the EUs free movement rules, and said the UK should concentrate on reducing immigration from outside Europe, by intensified policing of the Mediterranean routes and a Marshall Aid-style programme to improve living standards in migrants home countries.

Downing Street declined to respond to Lord Heseltine's comments (PA)

I believe the Government faces an election in about two years, which suits the self-interest of all the opposition parties, wrote Lord Heseltine. The mid-term blues and Brexit will by then change the publics anti-election mood.

The Government will be torn apart by leadership speculation and the growing clarity of our weakness in the Brexit talks.

And he warned: If, as I anticipate, public opinion on Europe moves against Brexit, be sure Labour will change with it. We could be left holding the baby. It will be too late to recognise the danger when the vote of confidence is called.

She f***** up #GE2017, but that does not mean she does not do a great job as #PM with a clear vision for #Brexit. I agree with you. https://t.co/Onxu2wSpfw  Michael Fabricant  (@Mike_Fabricant) July 24, 2017

Veteran Tory backbencher Michael Fabricant said that the party should unite behind Mrs May, even though she f***** up the General Election.

In response to a tweet from a constituent calling for unity behind Mrs May, the Lichfield MP replied: She f***** up GE2017, but that does not mean she does not do a great job as PM with a clear vision for Brexit. I agree with you.

The former whip said there were always a dozen or so disgruntled MPs ready to sign a letter against any PM.
A world-famous British tourist attraction has launched an international company to create similar projects across the globe.

The Eden Project is to open in China, Australia and New Zealand and has plans for the Middle East and North America.

The co-founder of the popular Cornwall attraction has launched the Eden Project International company to turn the proposals into reality.

It plans to establish collaborative Eden Projects with partners across the world, focusing on soil, water, food and biodiversity.

The Eden Project in Cornwall (Ben Birchall/PA)

Sir Tim Smit, who will be executive chairman of the new company, said: Edens mission is to explore our dependence on the natural world, to use that understanding to excite people into delivering transformation where they live and to ask really serious questions about what a great future might look like for all of us.

We want the new Edens to act as a heartbeat for those who feel the same way as we do and to develop in all of them the ability to tell the stories that inspire the people who are their constituency.

The Eden Project, which was built in a disused china clay quarry near St Austell, opened in 2001 and has attracted more than 19 million visitors and generated 1.7 billion for the regional economy.

Eden Project launches new international company to create Edens across the globe https://t.co/pnF1Z447K8 pic.twitter.com/jdfr0OYOMb  Eden Project Media (@eden_media_team) July 24, 2017

The launch of the new company comes after four successive years of consistently healthy trading.

Eden Project executive director David Harland, who has taken up the role of chief executive of the international company, said: This is an incredibly exciting moment for the Eden Project as we seek to work with new audiences across the globe with our vision for a global network of Eden Projects.

New professional jobs will be created both in Cornwall and abroad with Eden in Cornwall acting as our research and development hub for new ideas and innovations.

The new international team will also be responsible for delivering a number of projects in the UK.

Flowers at the Eden Project (Ben Birchall/PA)

In China, the Eden Qingdao will explore the theme of water and its importance for life on earth and construction is due to begin later this year.

The second major project in China is in the historic city of Yanan, famed for being the end of Chairman Maos Long March and north of the Xian, home of the terracotta warriors.

This project will explore the theme of land and soil and its importance for life on earth.

The third Eden Project in China is based at Sheng Lu vineyard in Beijing and aims to create a place to reconnect with nature.

In Australia, there are plans to turn a 15-hectare piece of contaminated land at Hobart port in Tasmania into an Eden Project.

While in New Zealand, a piece of land in the earthquake-damaged red zone in Christchurch has been set aside for another scheme.
MPs in Spains Balearic Islands have banned the killing or harming of animals at regional bullfights.

A majority of left-wing members of the regional parliament passed a Balearic-style bullfighting bill on Monday.

The law also requires anti-doping tests for both matadors and bulls and limits the time each bull spends in the ring to 10 minutes. Alcohol consumption and spectators under the age of 18 have also been banned.

MPs in the Balearic Islands have banned the killing or harming of animals at regional bullfights (Francisco Seco/AP)

Conservatives who opposed the law said promoters will find it virtually impossible to hold bullfights under the new restrictions.

Opponents also said the bill could be at odds with the protection the Spanish Constitution grants to bullfighting as national heritage.

Animal rights group the Humane Society International hailed the move by the islands parliament as a very satisfying victory for compassionate policy-making.
Crystal Palace have completed the signing of Jairo Riedewald from Ajax.

The 20-year-old defender will be reunited with Eagles boss Frank de Boer who gave him his first-team debut at Ajax in 2013.

Defender Riedewald has won three caps for Holland and played against Manchester United in Ajaxs Europa League final defeat last season.

Frank de Boer has raided his former club Ajax

Riedewald told the clubs official website: I am very pleased to be joining Crystal Palace and, after speaking with the gaffer a couple of weeks ago, I was delighted to have the opportunity to come over and play in the Premier League.

TRANSFER: The club announce that Jairo Riedewald has completed his transfer to #CPFC from @AFCAjax_EN#RiedewaldIsOurs pic.twitter.com/JjB2A6cUkx  Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) July 24, 2017

The Premier League is a great competition to be involved in and it is a great opportunity to be working under Frank de Boer once again having been with him at Ajax.

I look forward to meeting my new team-mates and then getting the chance to be out on the training ground and getting ready for the new season.

Riedewald played 93 times for Ajax, scoring three goals, and won the Eredivise title in 2014.

Frank de Boer added: He will be an excellent addition to our squad, Jairo is a young player but already has a lot of experience. I know he is looking forward to playing in the Premier League.
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner has denied that he colluded with Russians in the course of President Donald Trumps White House bid and declared he has nothing to hide.

Behind closed doors, Mr Kushner spoke to staff members of the intelligence committee for nearly three hours at the Capitol, then made a brief public statement back at the White House.

Let me be very clear, he said. I did not collude with Russia nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so.

Jared Kushner arrives on Capitol Hill

Mr Kushner left without taking questions. In an 11-page statement, released hours before the Capitol session, he detailed four contacts with Russians during Mr Trumps campaign and transition.

It aimed to explain inconsistencies and omissions in a security clearance form that have invited public scrutiny. In the statement, Mr Kushner said that none of his contacts, which included meetings at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador and a Russian lawyer, was improper.

Mr Kushner arrived on Monday morning at a Senate office building, exiting a black sport utility vehicle and greeting photographers with a grin and a wave. When he left, he responded to shouted questions, saying the interview went great.

The president's son-in-law declared he has "nothing to hide" (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

In speaking to Congress, Mr Kushner  as both the presidents son-in-law and a trusted senior adviser during the campaign and inside the White House  became the first member of the presidents inner circle to face questions from congressional investigators as they probe Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible links to the Trump campaign.

He is to meet with politicians on the House intelligence committee on Tuesday.

Mr Kushners appearances have been highly anticipated, in part because of headlines in recent months about his interactions with Russians and because he had not personally responded to questions about an incomplete security clearance form and his conversations with foreigners.

I have shown today that I am willing to do so and will continue to cooperate as I have nothing to hide, he said in the statement.

Jared Kushner denies that Russians finance any of his business interests in the private sector (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

The document provides for the first time Mr Kushners own recollection of a meeting at Trump Tower with the Russian ambassador to the US to talk about secure lines of communications and, months earlier, of a gathering with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information to provide about Hillary Clinton.

In the document, Mr Kushner calls the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya such a waste of time that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

Emails released this month show that the presidents son, Donald Trump Jr, accepted the meeting with the idea that he would receive information that could help Mr Trumps campaign. But Mr Kushner said he had not seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

Mr Kushner said in his statement that Mr Trump Jr invited him to the meeting. He said he arrived late and when he heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions, he texted his assistant to call him out.

Mr Kushner is married to Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka (Andrew Harnik/AP)

No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted, he said.

Mr Kushner also denied reports he discussed setting up a secret back-channel with the Russian ambassador to the US.

But he did detail a conversation with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in December at Trump Tower in which retired US army Lt Gen Michael Flynn, then-incoming national security adviser, also attended.

During the meeting, Mr Kushner said he and Mr Kislyak talked about establishing a secure line for the countries to communicate about policy in Syria.

Mr Kushner said that when Mr Kislyak asked if there was a secure way for him to provide information on Syria from what Mr Kislyak called his generals, Mr Kushner asked if there was an existing communications channel at the embassy that could be used to convey the information to Mr Flynn.

The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Nothing else occurred, the statement said.
Swansea have rejected a second bid from Everton for playmaker Gylfi Sigurdsson, Press Association Sport understands.

The Welsh club turned down an offer for the Iceland international believed to be worth 40million from the Toffees earlier this month.

It is now thought Everton have tabled a new bid of around 40million with potential add-ons that could take a final package closer to 45million. That, however, remains short of Swanseas valuation of the player and the Liberty Stadium outfit are thought to be holding out for 50million.

Gylfi Sigurdsson joined Swansea from Spurs in 2014 (Martin Rickett/PA)

Sigurdssons future has been the subject of speculation throughout the summer with reports claiming Leicester were also interested in the 27-year-old.

The former Tottenham midfielder did not travel with the Swans squad for their pre-season tour of the United States with the club reporting he was not in the right frame of mind.

Owners Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien also issued a strongly-worded statement saying they would not sell unless they received an acceptable offer.

 We have arrived back safe in the U.K. ...



Thanks for all the support #StatesideJacks  pic.twitter.com/dUxpjtYhXa  Swansea City AFC (@SwansOfficial) July 24, 2017

We will not be bullied or forced into a decision until a club meets our valuation of the player, no matter whether they believe they have an agreement with the player, it read.

Sigurdsson was instrumental as Swansea preserved their top-flight status last season. He scored nine league goals and had 13 assists, earning the clubs player of the year award for a second successive season.

Sigurdsson joined Swansea from Spurs in 2014 after an indifferent two-year spell at White Hart Lane. He had previously played for the Swans on loan from Hoffenheim.
By Ian Simpson

July 23 (Reuters) - California authorities battling a massive wildfire near Yosemite National Park lifted evacuation orders on Sunday for more residents but said firefighters may need almost two more weeks to fully contain the blaze.

The Detwiler Fire was 45 percent contained, a slight improvement from Saturday, after burning 76,250 acres (30,857 hectares) and more than 130 structures, including 63 homes, since it broke out on Monday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

Evacuation orders were lifted by midday Sunday for much of the historic gold rush era town of Coulterville and nearby areas as firefighters completed firelines to contain the blaze, Cal Fire said in a statement.

More evacuation orders were lifted for residents of nearby affected areas on Sunday evening.

About two-thirds of the 5,000 people who had been ordered to leave their homes have been allowed to return, Scott McLean, a Cal Fire spokesman, said by telephone.

The almost 4,800 firefighters battling the blaze expect to contain it fully by Aug. 5, with temperatures forecast to top 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) this week complicating the fight, he said.

"Hopefully we'll see it (contained) before then," McLean said. "We're making pretty good progress."

There have been no injuries reported from the Detwiler fire, named for the road where it erupted. Its cause is being investigated.

Yosemite National Park has remained open as the fire has burned to the west, but smoke has clouded the views of its world-famous landmarks.

The Detwiler Fire is one of 35 large fires in the United States, almost all in the west, the National Interagency Fire Center said on its website.

Montana Governor Steve Bullock on Sunday declared a fire emergency because of wildfires burning across the state, fed by high temperatures and drought. Montana's Lodgepole Complex fire expanded to about 226,000 acres (91,460 hectares) and was uncontained on Sunday, the fire center said.

The order allows Bullock to mobilize more state resources and the Montana National Guard in the fight against the fires, which have destroyed more than 10 homes so far. (Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington and Chris Michaud in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Nick Macfie)
By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM, July 24 (Reuters) - An Israeli embassy security guard shot dead a Jordanian who attacked him with a screwdriver at Israel's embassy compound in Amman and a second Jordanian also died, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The incident had potential to cause a rift in already tense Israel-Jordan relations, because Jordan wanted to question the Israeli guard, who was lightly injured, but Israel said he had diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention.

Tensions have escalated between the two countries since Israel installed metal detectors at entry points to al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after two Israeli policemen were shot dead by three Arab-Israeli gunmen near the site on Friday.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry statement said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also the foreign minister, had spoken to the security guard and to ambassador Einat Schlein and stressed that the guard had immunity from questioning and prosecution.

The incident took place as furniture was being replaced at the staff residence. The statement said the second Jordanian who died was the property owner.

It did not specify the whereabouts of the embassy staff. The Jordanian capital is a short distance from a border crossing that leads via the occupied West Bank to Israel.

Israel had imposed a ban on reporting Sunday's incident and only broke its silence early on Monday morning. Israel Radio said the ban had been imposed because Jordan wanted to question the security guard but Israel said he had diplomatic immunity.

Relations had been cemented in a peace deal in 1994 but reached crisis point three years later when Mossad intelligence officers tried but failed to assassinate senior Hamas official Khaled Meshaal in Jordan.

Ties recovered after Israel delivered the antidote for the poison with which Meshaal had been injected. The Mossad chief at the time resigned and the two agents who carried out the failed plot were arrested and held in Jordan, but later freed.

The fortress-like embassy in the affluent Rabae district of Amman is protected by Jordanian gendarmes. It has long been a flashpoint of anti-Israeli protests at times of turmoil in the Palestinian territories.

Violence against Israelis is rare in Jordan, a tightly policed country that is also a staunch regional ally of the United States. It also shares a long border with Israel. (Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Suleiman al-Khalidi in AMMAN; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Paul Tait)
BUCHAREST, July 24 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Monday.

DEBT TENDERS

Romanian debt managers tender 700 million lei ($178.73 million) worth of April 2023 treasury bonds and 1 billion lei ($255.32 million) worth of one-year bills.

OTP/BANCA ROMANEASCA

Hungary's OTP Bank has agreed to buy Romania's Banca Romaneasca from the National Bank of Greece (NBG), two sources with knowledge of the deal told Reuters on Friday, continuing OTP's acquisition drive in central and eastern Europe.

NUCLEARELECTRICA

Romania's second nuclear reactor at the Cernavoda power plant on the river Danube was reconnected to the national power grid on Sunday after being offline since Saturday, its owner Nuclearelectrica said.

NEIGHBOURS

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that Budapest would defend Poland as the European Union threatens Warsaw with sanctions over its plans to extend government control over its courts.

DIGI

Cable and internet provider DIGI Communications N.V. said on Friday that its Hungarian subsidiary has signed an agreement to buy Hungarian telecommunications operator Invitel Tavkozlesi Zrt.

The company will pay 140 million euros, subject to further price adjustments, and the deal could be completed by March 14, 2018.

CEE MARKETS

The zloty fell half a percent on Friday, underperforming the region's other currencies as Poland's standoff with the European Union over a judicial reform bill and anti-government protests at home weighed on local markets.

HEALTHCARE SHORTAGES

The Romanian Arges County Hospital has suspended oncology hospitalizations for three months because of a shortages of doctors. Ziarul Financiar

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TOKYO, July 24 (Reuters) - Japan on Monday launched a scheme to promote "telework", or working from home, in an effort to ease congestion when Tokyo hosts the 2020 Olympics, as well as soften a notoriously rigid work culture.

Almost 930 companies, including Suntory Holdings, Ajinomoto Co, and Tokyu Construction Co are participating in "Telework Day," to be held on July 24 each year from now until the Olympics opening ceremony set for July 24, 2020.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has introduced policies to shorten working hours, raise contract workers' pay, and curb abuse of labour laws. Telework could be another way to reform working practices that some say are behind the times.

"Once the Olympics start it will be hard to get to work, so we are doing this as an experiment," said Takashi Kozu, 61, president of the Ricoh Institute of Sustainability and Business.

"The lifestyles of younger generations are changing, so firms should offer alternative work styles to maintain employees' incentive."

Kozu said he worked from home on Monday morning, planned to attend an off-site meeting in the afternoon and would not show up in the office until early evening.

Telework is more common in other countries, especially in the information technology sector, where employees regularly use teleconferencing or log on from the neighbourhood cafe.

But it has been slow to catch on in other industries in Japan, partly because firms have put a lot of emphasis on being physically present at the office, often for 12 hours or more.

But Japan, Inc. is starting to change its ways and introduce more flexible work hours. As the population ages, the labour force is shrinking at an alarming rate, and a hard-driving work culture makes it difficult to attract and retain workers.

Some companies are starting to realise that long, inflexible hours of work actually keep labour productivity low.

In some cases Japan's working culture can be fatal, and it is not uncommon for workers to commit suicide or suffer a stroke because of excessive hours.

"We are doing this for the Olympics, but the long-term goal is to have more humane working conditions," said Hiroshi Ohnishi, a planner at the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, which is promoting "Telework Day."

"In the past, working long hours was considered a virtue, but this thinking will not hold up in the future." (Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
BEIRUT, July 24 (Reuters) - Lebanese Hezbollah launched attacks against Sunni jihadist militants on Monday as part of an offensive to drive them from their last foothold along the Syria-Lebanon border, a military media unit of the group said.

Forces of the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group advanced from several directions against militants in the Wadi al-Kheil area of Juroud Arsal, a barren mountainous border zone which has served as a base for jihadists.

The offensive, launched on Friday by Hezbollah and the Syrian army, has so far focused on militants from al Qaeda's former Syria branch, previously called the Nusra Front.

The Hezbollah media unit has reported rapid advances against Nusra fighters. The next target will be territory held by Islamic State militants, local media have reported.

The Syrian army and Hezbollah recaptured the area around the town of Fleita on the Syrian side of the border on Sunday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

The offensive has so far killed 19 Hezbollah fighters and more than 130 Sunni militants, according to a security source.

Hezbollah has played a critical part in previous campaigns against Sunni insurgents along Lebanon's border, part of its wider role backing President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war.

Hezbollah's role has drawn criticism from its Lebanese political opponents, including Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who is a Sunni. (Reporting by John Davison; editing by John Stonestreet)
BEIJING, July 24 (Reuters) - China's gasoline exports to North Korea fell in June from a year earlier, but were up strongly from the previous month, data showed on Monday, after state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) suspended sales amid pressure on Pyongyang to rein in its nuclear and missile programmes.

Exports of gasoline to North Korea at 8,262 tonnes were down 30 percent from June last year, but jumped 58 percent from May, according to the General Administration of Customs.

China's imports of iron ore from North Korea in June fell 9.9 percent to 224,059 tonnes from the same period last year, and were down 4 percent from May, the data showed.

China bought no coal for a fourth month after Beijing halted coal shipments in February. (Reporting by Muyu Xu and Josephine Mason; Editing by Richard Pullin)
CAPE TOWN, July 24 (Reuters) - The number of poached rhinos in South Africa decreased by 13 animals to 529 between January to June compared with the same period last year, a downward trend welcomed with "cautious optimism" by the government on Monday.

Rhino poaching in South Africa surged from 83 in 2008 to a record 1,215 in 2014 to meet burgeoning demand in newly affluent Asian countries such as Vietnam, where their horns are prized as an ingredient in traditional medicines.

South Africa has more than 80 percent of the world's rhinos, with about 18,000 white rhinos and close to 2,000 black rhinos. It has countered poaching by increased activity by park rangers and tougher jail sentences.

"As we have always stated, these declining numbers do not mean we can proclaim victory. Nevertheless, the downward trend is being established, which is cause for cautious optimism," environment minister Edna Molewa told a media briefing.

A total of 243 rhino carcasses were found in the Kruger National Park, which has traditionally borne the brunt of rhino poaching, down from 354 in January-June last year, but the decrease in Kruger was mostly offset by increased poaching elsewhere. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by James Macharia and Robin Pomeroy)
BERLIN, July 24 (Reuters) - Turkey has formally withdrawn a request for German help in investigating nearly 700 German firms suspected of backing terrorism, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Monday, removing a major irritant in frayed ties between the two NATO allies.

Turkey's interior minister told his German counterpart in a telephone call on Monday that Ankara's submission of the list through Interpol stemmed from "a communications problem," spokesman Tobias Plate told a regular government news conference.

"(The interior minister) underscored that there were no investigations against German firms by Turkish authorities in Turkey or in Germany," Plate said.

A spokeswoman for the economy ministry told reporters that further measures regarding Turkey were still being examined. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Paul Carrel)
BERLIN, July 24 (Reuters) - The German government continues to watch judiciary reforms in Poland carefully, a government spokesman said on Monday, noting the Chancellor Angela Merkel had made clear the importance of an independent judiciary during a visit to Warsaw in February.

Spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer declined to comment on a decision by Polish President Andrzej Duda earlier Monday to veto two of three judicial reform bills passed by parliament that have drawn sharp criticism from the European Union.

But she said the German government "expressly supported" the work of the EU Commission in assessing developments in Poland, with the EU due to look at recent laws on Wednesday. She said the latest developments "could offer a chance for the Commission and Poland to reenter discussions." (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Paul Carrel)
By Natalia Zinets

KIEV, July 24 (Reuters) - Ukraine's central bank is to ask the Auditing Chamber of Ukraine to delist the local unit of PwC, a move that would effectively strip the global accounting firm of the ability to audit companies in the country.

The move on Monday comes days after the central bank withdrew PVC's right to audit Ukrainian banks, as punishment for what the central bank says was PwC's failure to flag risky lending practices at the country's largest lender, PrivatBank.

PwC audited PrivatBank, which Ukraine took over in December after finding a capital shortfall of more than $5.5 billion.

The local unit of PwC said it had received no official notification of the central bank's recommendation to the auditing chamber.

"Nor have we seen any grounds the (central bank) believes it may have for such recommendations," it said in an email.

Last week PwC said it would try to reverse the decision to ban it from auditing banks, which it said was unjustified.

The central bank said in a statement on Monday that PwC had signed off on "unreliable information about the financial and economic activities of PJSC CB PrivatBank, in particular, the amount of credit risk and regulatory capital".

It said asking the Auditing Chamber to remove PwC from its registry was a logical next step following last week's ban.

"We will defend our interests using all means. We remain committed to the Ukrainian market and all our clients in Ukraine," PwC said in its email.

PrivatBank's nationalization was the culmination of a swingeing clean-up of Ukraine's financial system, backed by the International Monetary Fund. Dozens of lenders have closed since a pro-Western government took office in 2014.

The central bank estimated that 97 percent of PrivatBank's corporate loans had gone to companies linked to its shareholders, who include the tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, Ukraine's second-richest man according to Forbes magazine.

Ukraine earlier in July started legal action to recover the loans made by PrivatBank, while Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau has also launched a probe.

PrivatBank's nationalization has so far cost taxpayers $4.3 billion, but an Ernst and Young audit of the lender's 2016 annual report showed additional funds worth $1.5 billion were needed to meet capital adequacy requirements.

That would be a further burden on Ukraine's already strained public finances and would mean more has been spent on recapitalizing PrivatBank since December than the annual defence budget amid a conflict with Russia-backed rebels. (Writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Patrick Graham and Louise Heavens)
NAIROBI, July 24 (Reuters) - Kenya Airways said on Monday one of its aircraft was damaged when a tow truck that was going to pull it from a parking bay hit the plane's body and engine.

The Boeing 737-800 was preparing to fly out of Nairobi to Johannesburg on Sunday evening when the incident happened.

"The incident involving an airport tow truck happened during push back of the aircraft from the bay damaging part of its fuselage and engine. Kenya Airways would like to confirm that there were no injuries," it said in a statement.

Kenya Airways has been trying to return to profit after tourist arrivals fell four years ago following a spate of attacks by Islamist militants.

The airline, partly-owned by Air France KLM and the Kenyan government, said last week it would seek shareholder approval in August to reduce its debt exposure to 51 billion shillings from 242 billion shillings ($2.33 billion) in a deal involving some Kenyan banks, other lenders and aircraft lessors.

Last month, parliament approved a government proposal to guarantee $750 million worth of debt owed by the airline as part of a broader financial restructuring. ($1 = 103.7500 Kenyan shillings) (Reporting by George Obulutsa. Editing by Jane Merriman)
MOSCOW, July 24 (Reuters) - Russia deployed its military police in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus on Monday to try to enforce a de-escalation zone it said it had agreed with the Syrian opposition.

The Syrian military declared a cessation of hostilities on Saturday in the rebel-controlled region near the capital.

The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement on Monday that its military police had set up two checkpoints and four observation posts in the area.

Military police had also been deployed to try to enforce a different de-escalation zone in southwest Syria on Friday and Saturday, it said in the same statement, saying two checkpoints and 10 observation posts had been set up there.

"Thus, thanks to measures taken by the Russian Federation, we have managed to stop military action in two of Syria's most important areas," the defence ministry said.

Talks on creating a new de-escalation zone in the province of Idlib were continuing, it said. (Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Alexander Winning)
July 24 (Reuters) - Crystal Palace have signed Ajax Amsterdam defender Jairo Riedewald on a five-year contract for an undisclosed fee, the Premier League club announced on Monday.

The 20-year-old Dutch international will be reunited with former Ajax manager Frank de Boer, who took over at Selhurst Park last month following the departure of Sam Allardyce.

British media reported the transfer fee for the versatile Riedewald, who is primarily a centre half and has three caps, was close to 8 million pounds ($10.42 million).

"I am very pleased to be joining Crystal Palace and after speaking with the gaffer (manager) a couple of weeks ago I was delighted to have the opportunity to come over and play in the Premier League" he told the club website (www.cpfc.co.uk).

Riedewald played 93 times for Ajax, scoring three goals, and won the Eredivisie title in 2014 under De Boer, who said: "He will be an excellent addition to our squad, Jairo is a young player but already has a lot of experience."

($1 = 0.7678 pounds) (Reporting by Christian Radnedge; editing by Ken Ferris)
New Delhi, (Hindustan Times) -

India contributes 33 per cent of the total number of child brides in the world with nearly 103 million Indians married before they were 18, said a report released on Friday.



An estimated 85.2 million of the 103 million were girls, said the ActionAid India report, Eliminating Child Marriage in India: Progress And Prospects, released by actor-activist Shabana Azmi.



At 103 million, the number of child marriages is more than the total population of Philippines (100 million) and Germany (80.68 million), stated the report, analysing data from Census 2011.



Of every 28 girl child marriages occurring per minute in the world, more than two take place in India. Elimination of girl child marriages can help avoid 27,000 neonatal deaths, 55,000 infant deaths and 1,60,000 child deaths, it said.
The Megapolis and Western Development Ministry announced that it had submitted a proposal to the government to build an airport within the Colombo Port premises.

The ministry believes that if this project becomes a reality, it would be the strongest port in the region.

Minister Champika Ranawaka said if the proposal is implemented within the next 10 years, the people would capable to airlift from the Colombo Fort without going to Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA).

He also said the Eastern and Western terminals would be built within next five years making the Colombo harbour the strongest port in the region. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
Sri Lankas unit trust fund industry, once on the brink of collapse due to the possibility of higher taxes being slapped, has made a sharp pick up in assets under management (AUM), much to the joy of the fund managers, recent data showed.



Sri Lankas unit trust industry, which thrived under the protection of a host of tax exemptions and lower taxes, saw a sudden exodus of funds under management in March this year as investors panicked amid speculations of tax exemptions on the industry being removed.



Mirror Business in an earlier report exclusively revealed this phenomenon, where the AUM of the five largest funds suddenly fell almost 50 percent from Rs.53. 2 billion to Rs. 27.6 billion during the three months to March 31, 2013.



Sri Lankas unit trust fund industry has an AUM of little over Rs.100 billion.



Assetline Income Fund, Sri Lankas single largest unit trust fund managed by Assetline Capital Private Limited, which had AUM of Rs. 27.6 billion by the end of 2016 lost as much as Rs.20 billion AUM during the three months to end up with just Rs.7.7 billion AUM by the end of March 2017.



However, this funds AUM picked up sharply during April to Rs.23.6 billion and further up to Rs.24.0 billion in May as the investor fears over the new taxes appeared to have allayed as the government failed to bring the proposed taxes with effect from April 1 as speculated.

Apart from Assetline Income Fund, which is an open ended money market fund, several other large unit trust funds have also to rebuild their fund size. Although the fears over the new taxes have dissipated, the joy might be short lived because it is uncertain whether the government has already included the proposed yet unimplemented taxes in the new Inland Revenue Bill which could become law within few weeks.



The budget 2017 proposed to remove withholding tax exemption on dividends received by corporate unit holders and profits earned by the unit trust company, making them liable for 14 percent income tax as opposed to the exiting 10 percent and to make the redemption of units liable for tax, which was hitherto exempted.



The new Inland Revenue Bill, which was drafted behind closed doors to appease the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is likely to bring in the much controversial capital gains tax and has removed almost all other tax exemptions, holidays and concessions, the opposition law makers charged.

The proposal to remove the exemption of withholding tax on dividends received by a corporate unit holder was particularly targeted at those corporate, who circumvent the tax net by way of investing in unit trusts.



In Sri Lanka corporates own over 80 percent of the Rs.100 billion AUM of the unit trust industry while only the balance 20 percent is owned by individual unit holders.



To put things in perspective, there are no more than 40,000 unit holders in Sri Lanka for a population of 21 million.
Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are two countries that continue their friendly relationship for a long time in the economic and political areas, especially as members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) dedicated to South Asian cooperation. Recently, President Maithripala Sirisena visited Bangladesh further strengthening the bilateral ties between the two nations.



It is of the importance that attention was paid to triple the bilateral trade, which values at US $ 142 million and has potential to be boosted. For this purpose, there must be mutual understanding economically and politically between the two countries, in addition to the free trade agreement (FTA), for which two high commissioners had discussions a few months ago.



Bangladesh is also a country that exports apparel to the global market but has not been able to secure GSP Plus that Sri Lanka currently enjoys, mainly due to the labour rights issues in Bangladesh. Hence, we are able to export apparel to the European market at cheaper rates than Bangladesh can.



However, the cheap labour in that country has been the main attraction for apparel investors to come to the country. It is labour in Sri Lanka that is no longer cheap and the apparel industry has been suffering from the lack of sufficient labour, which has to be considered a key factor for boosting apparel exports by tapping GSP Plus.



Even though it is also an agricultural economy like ours, its economy has taken roots into other areas such as the pharmaceutical, apparel, shipbuilding, steel and leather industries, information technology and finance sector backed by its rural economic model with one of the best-performing stock markets in Asia during the period from 2009 to 2010, until it crashed in 2011.



According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Bangladeshs gross domestic product (GDP) growth accelerated to 7.1 percent in 2016 from 6.6 percent in 2015, when Sri Lankas economic growth in 2016 was at 4.4 percent, lower than 4.8 percent in 2015.



Sri Lanka imports from Bangladesh pharmaceutical products, electrical machinery and equipment, edible vegetables and roots, apparel and clothing accessories, iron and steel, textile fibres, chemicals, sacks and bags, toilet and facial tissues, cellular phones and bicycle parts, when Sri Lanka exports to Bangladesh textiles and textile articles, enzymes, chemicals, minerals, plastics, rubber products, paper products and tea.



Even though the goods are traded at a significant level, the emphasis has to be given to increase the trade volume and further diversify the product range benefitting both countries.



What is the most important under these circumstances is that for the past few years, the Sri Lankan blue chips have been keeping an eye on the market in Bangladesh and investing in banking, energy and apparel industries, the key areas of an economy. It is reported that the Bangladeshi businesses were also invited to invest in Sri Lanka during the presidents visit.



Two countries are also planning a trade deal and a special economic zone. Moreover, two nations signed 12 agreements covering economic co-operation, quality standards, agriculture, information technology, radio and television, shipping, setting up a Foreign Service officers training centre and a deal on an apparel firm.



It is obvious that these agreements signed during the visit will create good market opportunities in the future, which the business communities from both countries have to be prepared to harness. In my opinion, signing an FTA will pave the way for strong trade relations, establishing its role as a friend, trading partner and neighbour in the South Asian region.



(Amila Muthukutti is an economist who has widely published covering the areas of economics and business management)
Bangladeshs leading business conglomerate The Gemcon Group, has retained the services of MTI Consulting for a strategic cross-border M&A assignment, aimed at bringing in domain-specific expertise into the Bangladesh market, along with strategic equity injection.



Gemcon operates in the areas of Retailing (the Meena Bazaar supermarket chain) Engineering (into major civil engineering projects and the largest manufacturer of Spun Pre-stressed Concrete), Organic Tea, Education (University of Liberal Arts), Retail, Exports (Seafood) and Real Estate (Gemcon).

At a recent briefing in Dhaka Dr. Kazi Ahmed (Executive Director of the Gemcon Group) expressed a high level of confidence in the growth of the Bangladesh economy and the consequent opportunities for this diversified group, both locally and internationally.



For us to achieve quantum growth, we need to bring in best practices from diverse international markets to supplement our local domain expertise. We have been working with MTI Consulting for the last 14 years in Bangladesh and now we are reaching out to MTIs fast growing international network, said Dr. Anis Ahmed.



MTI Corporate Finance is the corporate finance arm of MTI Consulting, a boutique strategy consultancy with a network of associates across Asia, Africa and Middle East. MTI Corporate Finance provides a comprehensive range of services, including due diligence, feasibility studies, funding new businesses or capitalization of existing ones  from IPOs to private placement facilitation, M&A facilitation, and advisory on governance, compliances and risk management.

Dr. Kazi Anis Ahmed, Executive Director of the Gemcon Group (second from left) with MTI CEO Hilmy Cader, MTI Bangladesh Country Managers Saima Mazhar and MTI Business Analyst Maruf Sakar



MTI Consulting set up their Dhaka-based operations in 2015 and has impressive track record in Bangladesh, having worked with many local conglomerates and industry verticals.
"The government should address their genuine grievances, if there are any. However the problem is much of those grievances are a function of shameless self-centred doctors and a dogmatic view on free education held by university students"

In the recent history of this country, repeated failure by successive governments to address proactively incipient threats and peripheral grievances had allowed them to mushroom, which later compelled the beleaguered governments to respond with knee-jerk overly violent means. That happened in 1971, 88-89 and during the rise of Tamil separatism and later terrorism in the early 80s. History is threatening to repeat itself. There are reports of an alleged abduction attempt of Medical Faculty Students Action Committee (MFSAC) convener Ryan Jayalath. Activists claim Mr Jayalath, who has five police warrants against him successfully tricked the abductors and fellow campaigners preventing officials from arresting another chap who pretended to be Jayalath. Then the would-be abductors had left the scene in a white van.

In the first place, Mr Jayalath should not have been subjected to an abduction attempt; instead he should be arrested for absconding court which has issued five arrest warrants on him to date.

Second, the police need not act coy if an arrest attempt was foiled by the other activists who were present there, provided that the arrest was meant to be conducted within the legal remit. Instead, it should file charges against those who obstructed its officers from carrying out their duties.

Third, if the police or any other legal arm of the State, most likely the CID, had acted arbitrarily in the recent blotched arrest of the student activist, then it is a problem. It was this penchant to act extra judicially that resulted in overall de-legitimization of State institutions and gradual brutalization of society. Extra judicial measures rarely pay off. Instead, they galvanize the protesters. If extra judicial means are to be successful, they ought to be escalated well beyond morally acceptable limits, extracting a heavy cost on the social fabric which in effect brutalizes society. Stability achieved through those means, as we did in 1989, is a hollow one.

"Recent strikes and protests have another sinister connotation. They challenge the very legitimacy of the countrys courts. Students are taking to the streets with manifest contempt to court orders banning such protests"



All that happened in the past because then governments failed to address the problems when they could have done so easily  though the intransigence of nihilistic insurgent groups such as the JVP was partly a reason that produced a ruthless State reaction. Sri Lanka would not go along that path again, for there has been a greater deal of empowerment and enlightenment of even the most dispossessed sections of youth thanks to social and economic forces unleashed by free markets and globalization. So there will be fewer foot soldiers for those anarchic campaigns. However, even a few can cause enough social instability and anarchy, clogging up streets in Colombo on weekly protests.

The government should address their genuine grievances, if there are any. However the problem is much of those grievances are a function of shameless self-centred doctors and a dogmatic view on free education held by university students. That would mean there may not be a compromise. Yet the government should implement meaningful recommendations of the Sri Lanka Medical Council such as gazetting the minimum requirements for medical education, which the government is holding back for some unknown reason.

Ryan Jayalath



However, streamlining and regulating private medical education in this country would not end these protests, because they are held against the very idea of private education. If the government gives in, they will morph into a larger campaign against all forms of other privately funded higher education and over time to an opposition to economic reform agenda of the government. If the government gives up, as successive Sri Lankan governments have done in the past, it would be the wider Sri Lankan public who would be stripped of their chance for prosperity. Economic transformation in countries at our level of social economic conditions would not happen without causing a certain degree of physical and physiological displacement to some segments of the public. Alberto Fujimori, Perus now disgraced former president (whose policies nonetheless helped uplift millions of poor) called them a shock therapy. Recent strikes and protests have another sinister connotation. They challenge the very legitimacy of the countrys courts. Students are taking to the streets with manifest contempt to court orders banning such protests. A Satyagraha in the Lipton Circus that was held despite a restraining order by the Court was dispersed yesterday. Doctors are launching strikes despite Court orders restraining such actions. Once certain groups begin to challenge the Court, others will follow suit, leading to gradual de-legitimization of independent institutions. The governments inability to confront a subversive campaign threatens the very independence of those institutions that are the cornerstones of our democracy. Such challenges should not be tolerated.

"In the first place, Mr Jayalath should not have been subjected to an abduction attempt; instead he should be arrested for absconding court which has issued five arrest warrants on him to date"



If S.B.Dissanayake could be jailed for contempt of court, the same law should be applied evenly to others as well.

Those protests are no longer a peripheral issue. They have become a national problem in the eyes of many Sri Lankans. If the government fails to pacify a rather modest current situation, it is mind boggling to think how it would resolve greater challenges that it would meet in the future on the path to constitutional and economic reforms.

Students who are paid their Mahapola scholarships obstruct public traffic; universities which ought to conduct yearly and semester exams postpone them, effectively giving time and space for protests; doctors whose tax files are often suspect blackmail the government through work stoppages. A proactive and practical government has a lot of strings to pull to end this mayhem, rather than resorting to blotched abductions



Follow Ranga Jayasuriya @RangaJayasuriya on Twitter
President of CA Sri Lanka Lasantha Wickremasinghe and Chairman of the IRCSL Asite Talwatte explain the contents of the A Supplement to A Preparers Guide to Integrated Corporate Reporting to Richard Howitt, Chief Executive Officer of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) during the launch in Colombo

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (CA Sri Lanka) in collaboration with the Integrated Reporting Council of Sri Lanka (IRCSL) recently launched A Supplement to A Preparers Guide to Integrated Corporate Reporting in the presence of Richard Howitt, Chief Executive Officer of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).



The supplement aims to provide implementation assistance on the workings of the guiding principles to corporates engaged in integrated reporting covering; connectivity of information, stakeholder relationships, materiality, conciseness, reliability and completeness, consistency and comparability.

Integrated reporting is gaining popularity worldwide as a secondary reporting framework which requires disclosures relating to many areas, such as human capital, intellectual capital, issues material to the

organization, etc.



These areas of disclosure are not captured by the traditional financial reporting requirements. Therefore investors and providers of financial capital are not aware of information which is very important to their decision making. Several companies, including top corporate in Sri Lanka have begun embracing the integrated reporting framework.
Cambio Software Engineering launched their Cambio Learning Centre with a view to providing final year IT graduates with practical knowledge and skills required to be industry-ready when they enter employment.



The learning centre is set up with a vision to empower the future generation of IT students with practical knowledge and skills required to be successful in the industry in addition to their theoretical training at the universities. At Cambio Software Engineering the programme is aimed to transform individuals from students to professionals with a motto of Collaborate, Innovate, Accelerate. They look towards providing students with a stepping stone to launch their careers. At Cambio Learning Center Sri Lanka, students will be able to expand on their current knowledge base through hands on work during the sessions and also get insights into new emerging trends in the industry. The combination of academic knowledge, hands-on experience and an understanding of the direction of the industry will enable participants to start their careers with a firm foundation.



Cambio Healthcare Systems Sri Lanka Software Engineering General Manager Dharshana Jayawardena says We are proud to initiate this learning centre as it will help the IT graduates to enter the employment stream with a firm foundation. With their knowledge gained at the university, the courses offered by the CLC will give them a greater understanding of work place requirements and demands as we will take a very practical approach in training. We hope this will have a positive impact for the Sri Lankan IT industry by preparing graduates from our universities into industry-ready professionals.



Final year IT students from local universities would be nominated and enrolled in different courses and each week they will get to work with experts in respective areas, learn new techniques and apply them during the workshops with the help of mentors as well as practice further as homework assignments.
The 13th of August 2017 will see famed management development consultant, Mr. Deepal Sooriyaarachchi introduce his latest program called Success Siksha. The program, which has been specially created for Managing Directors and CEOs of mid-sized companies, will be held at the Hotel Galadari. Organized by Inspire Oneand supported by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Chambers and the Sri Lanka Printers Association, the workshop will provide a unique opportunity for its participants to revisit, review and reflect upon their business strategies, methodology, the means by which to inspire employees to follow the set plan and how to manage their busy lives, under the guidance of Mr. Sooriyaarachchi.

Over the last few years following my retirement from full-time work, I have been working with a large cross section of medium and large business enterprises, and especially with MDs and company owners. Currently they struggle to convert their business from being Informal to Formal, from Person Dependent to Process Dependent, without loosing the entrepreneurial spirit of the enterprise. I conceptualized this program taking in to account these specific challenges, stated Mr. Sooriyaarachchi.

Success Siksha, is structured upon four themes  Strategy, Execution, People and Self, and is made up of rich content made up of local as well as international examples and insights. Mr. Sooriyaarachchi will also use case studies and interactive activities in order to make the program more interesting and memorable. Before the workshop on the 13th, Mr. Sooriyaarachchi plans to offer a leadership program for the same audience based on the concept of the Leadership Code expounded by the RBL Group. The participants will also be able to avail themselves of the opportunity to be mentored by Mr. Sooriyaarachchi.

Having conducted management and people development programs in eleven countries across five continents, Mr. Sooryaarachchi serves as a consulting partner of Results Based Leadership Organization of USA, which is known for conducting cutting edge leadership development programs across the globe. He takes a keen interest in blending Asian Wisdom with modern day management practices plays a leading role in introducing practices such as mindfulness to business executives. Mr. Sooriyaarachchi has pioneered the promotion of management concepts in Sinhalese, especially by way of his book series, Sinhalen Business and has also authored fifteen books that have been published in Sri Lanka and overseas.
East West Properties PLC, one of the oldest real estate developers in the country, last week commenced commercial operations of its hotel constructed in Weligama Bay, a stock exchange disclosure by the company said.



The 198-bed, 5-star property named Marriot Resort & Spa is so far the first and the only hotel managed by the international hotel chain, Marriot, in Sri Lanka.



The project had been East West Properties main project for the past 6 years, and its opening has been delayed by over two years from March 2015.



The development of the estimated 350,000 square feet hotel was carried out by Weligama Hotel Properties Limited, a subsidiary of East West Properties PLC, the holding company for many diversified businesses such as commercial warehousing, land leasing, engineering and construction, ready mix concrete and media.



Although the company did not disclose how much it invested in total by the completion of the project, the estimated investment of the hotel was little over Rs.5.0 billion out of which Rs.3.5 billion had been spent by March 31, 2016, according to the companys annual report.



Marriot Resort & Spa is not the only hotel owned by East West Properties PLC as it earlier owned 97 percent of Ceylon Continental Hotel, which Nahil Wijesuriya, the companys charismatic founder Chairman held for two years before selling it for thumping capital gains soon after the end of the war in 2009. However Marriot Resort & Spa was the companys first hotel outside Colombo.

Marriot Resort & Spa targets tourists mainly from India, China and the Europe.



Wijesuriya, an entrepreneur and a real estate magnet, at the beginning of the project said he wanted to build at least another five hotels managed by Marriot International.



The company has properties across many prime locations in Colombo and outside with a total value of Rs.5.5 billion.



This is besides the lease hold property valued at Rs.28 million and investment property valued at Rs.87 million.



The groups long term liabilities stood at Rs.3.8 billion and also had a bank overdraft of little under Rs.210 million as of March 31, 2017.
Participation at this promotional event offered Sri Lankan educational institutes an ideal opportunity to meet and discuss with Nepalese students and their parents for enlisting students from Nepal in their programmes of studies

The Export Development Board (EDB) is facilitating the Sri Lankan educational services exports sector, participating in the 11th ECAN Education Fair held in Nepal from 20th  23th of July, providing information, co-ordination and financial assistance under the EDB Market Development Assistance Programme.



A number of Sri Lankan education institutes, some of whom are members of Sri Lanka Association of Non State Higher Education Institutes (SLANSHEI) participated at this exhibition, which is a prominent educational promotional event in Nepal. Statistics indicate that Nepal has a higher annual student turnout seeking educational opportunities abroad.



Participation at this promotional event offered Sri Lankan educational institutes an ideal opportunity to meet and discuss with Nepalese students and their parents for enlisting students from Nepal in their programmes of studies and, exchange ideas at the one to one meetings with Nepalese educational authorities on matters of mutual benefit.



The EDB has identified the educational services as a sector with a great potential for development to be a major export service from Sri Lanka.



EDB has successfully organized in the Maldives which is a key sought after market for the Sri Lankan Education Services Sector, its first ever Sri Lanka education services promotional programme in overseas in 2014, followed by a second such promotional in 2015, with participation of 14 and 24 Sri Lankan educational service providers respectively.



The EDB has been exploring possibilities in other potential markets too and drawing from views expressed by associations such as the SLANSHEI and other interest groups, is making plans to venture into some identified markets in the Middle East and the East Asian region.



The high level of standards maintained by educational providers in Sri Lanka in both teaching faculties and the programme of studies at internationally competitive rates are among the key attributes helping Sri Lankan Educational Sector to attract students from overseas.
By Zahara Zuhair

As efficiency in border procedures is a critical factor that determines international competitiveness, implementing most of the provisions in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) for Sri Lanka is very critical, the Import Section of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce said recently.



They said that it would improve the countrys import-exports trade and improve the much expected Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows.



We have a new hope with the WTO trade facilitation measures coming into force in February this year. Under the WTO agreements Sri Lanka is committed to implement series of trade facilitation measures committed to WTO under A,B, and C categories.



Accordingly, DG Customs and DG Commerce as co-chairs are driving this national agenda which is a high priority for the trade, which will be a game changer for the countrys international trade, Import Section of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Outgoing Chairman Dinesh de Silva said at their 82nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) held last week.



Sri Lanka is a signatory of the WTO TFA, where multilateral trade was agreed in 2013 and came into force February this year.



It came into force with the ratification by two-thirds of WTO members and some estimates suggest that implementing trade facilitation reforms can bring bigger benefits for global businesses than tariff liberalization.



TFA contains provisions for the expediting the movement, release and clearance of goods, including goods in transit.



Sri Lanka has already submitted its category A commitments.



As Sri Lanka wants to plug into global value chains and become the best logistics hub in the South Asian region, efficiency in border procedures would play an important role in its success, de Silva stressed.



However, he said the countries that earlier lagged behind Sri Lanka have now overtaken the island nation in this respect, because they did not wait for the WTO TFA, but initiated reforms early on their own as they knew it was important for them to succeed in international markets and to attract FDIs.

Sri Lanka wanted to become the Singapore in South Asia for a long time. Singapores success apart from many other factors is improving efficiency in doing business, which resulted in reducing time cost in that country. With those efforts, Singapore is ranked number one in worlds trade facilitation and in almost in all international key performance indicators (KPI), he said. Meanwhile, he stressed the need for the government to create a conducive business environment for the private sector, mainly in two areas. First is to have the required legislation in place to suit the modern-day business, namely the enactment of the new Customs Law, Import and Export Control Act, Exchange Control Act, Sri Lanka Ports Authority Act and the full implementation of the Electronic Transaction Act. Secondly, to maintain consistency in all international trade related policies, which will build confidence and predictability in making business decisions and operations.



With these two main enablers, our international trade would grow beyond doubt. These initiatives will directly help Sri Lankas global ranking in terms of business efficiency and ease of doing business. This needs urgent attention by the authorities as we need to move up from the low rankings, he said.

Currently, Sri Lanka is ranked 110th place in the Doing Business Index of the World Bank among 190 economies compared to being in the 85th place in 2013, losing 25 places. The index noted that Sri Lanka on average takes 76 hours on average to comply with export documentary requirements compared to 11 hours in Thailand, 38 hours in India and 50 hours in Vietnam.



He noted that between 2014 and 2016, the countrys global ranking in terms of business efficiency, transparency of border administration measured by the Global Trade Enabling Index, went down by ten places from 87th to 97th out of 136 countries.



de Silva said that it is important to move the economy towards e-commerce and digitization, as global e-commerce is growing leaps and bounds, particularly among emerging markets.
A Tamil widow, who has said 10 of her relatives were massacred by Sri Lankas police in 1986, has lodged a complaint with Northern Irelands Police Ombudsman after Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) links to Sri Lankas security forces emerged, the Irish Times reported today.

It said senior Sri Lankan police officers had visited Belfast in 1983 to see at first hand the roles of the police and army in counter-terrorist operations, according to secret British government files.

The visit happened months after the Special Support Unit, an elite RUC police commando team, shot dead six men in Co Armagh in one of the most controversial episodes of the Troubles.

Sri Lankan police set up an almost identical commando unit shortly afterwards, called the Special Task Force. The complainant, who cannot be named for safety reasons, says the Special Task Force was responsible for the murder of my family in 1986.

Both the RUC and Sri Lankan units consisted of heavily armed police officers who underwent Special Forces training, the article said.

The complainants lawyer, Darragh Mackin said the Special Task Force would not have acquired the paramilitary characteristics of the Special Support Unit without the engagement between the RUC and the Sri Lankan Police.

Vairamuttu Varadakumar, director of the Tamil Information Centre, welcomed the development. We support the complainants efforts to seek accountability for the brutal violence against their family, he said.

He said his organisation, which has documented violence against Tamil people for 35 years, was painfully aware of the murders, rape, disappearances and torture of the Tamil people at the hands of the Special Task Force.

Declassified files found at the UK National Archives show that civil servants privately harboured fears about these police units before the shootings even took place.

The article further said a CIA report, written around the time that the complainants family members were killed, was highly critical of Sri Lankas Special Task Force.

US intelligence staff were concerned that a common STF tactic when fired upon while on patrol is to enter the nearest village and burn it to the ground.

Mr Mackin has told the Police Ombudsman that the level of indiscriminate killing perpetrated by the unit against Tamils amounted to genocide.

A spokesperson from the ombudsman has said they have received a complaint relating to the actions of police officers in the 1980s and it is now being considered.
Saturdays shooting incident, in which a police officer was killed, showed the breakdown in the law and order situation in Jaffna today, National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages Minister Mano Ganesan said.

He said the IGP and the other senior police officers in charge of the region should take responsibility for the shooting and said immediate action should be taken against the culprits.

Meanwhile, the minister criticized the police spokesman for his statement that the shooting was not planned.

The spokesman said the incident was neither planned nor the judge was targeted. He said some drunken men had suddenly snatched a gun from a police officer and fired shots at the others. If snatching a weapon of a police officer is not planned, then is it a normal occurrence? This is a joke, he told journalists at his ministry.
Motorists were seen queuing up at filling stations in Colombo and other parts of the country to refuel their vehicles due to the strike planned by petroleum workers from midnight today.

The workers of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) said they would launch a strike as a protest against the lease of oil tanks in Trincomalee to India.

Video by RM


Its visible that the city worst hit by dengue in the country is Negombo. Director General Health Services of Western Province Dr. Ahemed Fareed told Daily Mirror that plans have already been carried out by the health authority to initiate new programs and control the spread of dengue in the Western Province, especially in Negombo.



Dr. Fareed said that the health authority has deployed 50 labourers to Negombo and 40 to Colombo to clean up drains and assist hospital staff. At the same time, we have established new dengue control units in the Western Province.

At the same time, unless we get used to dumping dirt at appropriate places, we might not care much about dumping garbage at allocated places Dr. Ahemed Fareed

The current situation is pathetic- Dr. Ahemed Fareed

Most number of cases has been reported in May and June due to the inclement weather condition experienced from April till the end of May. Its clear that rain has been one of the core reasons for the rapid prevalence of the dengue infection. Apart from the consequences of rain, the garbage issue also has made a massive impact on the spread of dengue. When the garbage disposal process isnt carried out properly, the larvae of dengue can survive with ease. Its we who set the background for the mosquitoes to greed their grounds as we lack concern regarding the disposal and segregating of muck collected in our houses. At the same time, unless we get used to dumping dirt at appropriate places, we might not care much about dumping garbage at allocated places. If you dont pay attention to this matter, you will have to face the consequences. Therefore, its really essential to be mindful and take precautions, so that the prevailing situation of dengue doesnt worsen, he added.

The current situation of dengue is indeed pathetic, when we examine the latest updates regarding patients. The Epidemiology Unit told Daily Mirror that there have been 103,114suspected dengue cases reported since 2017 from all over the country. Out of this figure 275 deaths have been reported so far. Approximately 43.67% of dengue cases were reported from the Western Province.

The Western Province has recorded 45,030 cases so far this year, the most number of cases when considering all provinces. Consultant community physician at the National Dengue Control Unit, Dr Preshila Samaraweera told Daily Mirror that the main reasons for this are the huge piles of garbage which have been rotting for weeks along with drains not being cleaned.



Colombo statistics bloated unnecessarily

A number of hospitals are loaded with dengue patients, especially the Negombo Base Hospital because the area is now under the spotlight for dengue. Although a substantial number of cases has been reported from Colombo, Negombo is deemed to be the city most severely affected by dengue. The reason for this is because when most of the people from rural areas come to Colombo to take treatment for dengue, these statistics are added to the list of patients in Colombo. Thats why the number of dengue cases is considerably high in Colombo, she said.

With the rapid increase of dengue patients, we will be granted two temporary additional wards which are being built for the in-house dengue patients Dr Preshila Samaraweera

Meanwhile, there has been congestion in some hospitals especially in the Negombo Base Hospital. This is due to the inadequacy of beds in relation to the number of in-house patients at the hospital, the Director of Negombo Base Hospital Nilanthi Pathirana told Daily Mirror.

There are nearly 4,500 patients and 12 deaths have been reported so far from the Negombo Hospital. Although, there are nearly 800 dengue in- house patients now in the Hospital, the beds remaining are only 569. The following information illustrates the number of cases reported since January 2017 in Negombo, she said.

"There are nearly 4,500 patients and 12 deaths have been reported so far from the Negombo Hospital"



Jan -123, Feb - 95, March - 129, April - 218, May  467, June  1884 and July-934

She mentioned that the issue has emerged following the ongoing construction of the main building of the hospital which will be completed soon. She nevertheless stated that the situation seems to be under control as the Out Patient Department (OPD) is sufficiently geared to treat a considerable number of dengue patients.

With the rapid increase of dengue patients, we will be granted two temporary additional wards which are being built for the in-house dengue patients. This is an initiative of the Army present at the Negombo Hospital premises. When the President paid a sudden visit to the hospital, he had noticed that the institute lacks sufficient facilities to accommodate in- house patients. The President had then instructed the current Chief of Defence Staff and former Commander of the Sri Lankan Army, Crishanthe De Silva to look into the matter and take necessary measures. Even though there is a problem at present for patients to find accommodation, we try our level best to mitigate the inconvenience caused and supply a possible service to the people, she added.

Confidential sources revealed that10 doctors and 20 staff members of the Negombo Hospital have been affected by dengue. Besides, this situation depicts the real gravity of dengue in Negombo city. However, when we contacted Dr. Lakkumar Fernando and inquired about this situation, he totally denied these facts. He said that there are only 3 doctors who were affected by dengue. Director General of Health Services of Western Province Dr. Ahemed Fareed also said that a lesser number of doctors and staff members suffer from dengue, both in Negombo as well as other regions.

The following table denotes the number of patients reported month wise in 2017.
Number of members elected to 336 Local Government bodies under the new electoral system will be doubled while the number of Local Government bodies will be increased by one Pradeshiya Sabha the Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister Faiszer Musthapha said yesterday.

Accordingly the number of members to be elected to the Municipal Councils, Urban Councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas is to be increased to 8,825 from the current 4,486, and the new number of Local Government bodies will be 336.

Under the newly introduced Local Government Electoral (Amendment) Act no. 22 of 2012 more than 2,200 women members representing 25% of the total number of elected members are expected to be elected and a new Pradeshiya Sabha will be established at Millennia.

I expect party leaders will approve the amendments to the Act at the next session of Parliament enabling the government to conduct Local Government polls in this year. We will have to go for the polls before November as the Elections Department is scheduled to conduct GCE O/L examination during this time. The Elections Department also needs a minimum 65 days to conduct polls since the Gazetting of the Local Government election, Minister Musthapha added.

The delimitation commission report released in August 2015 following passing of the Act in 2012 was full of errors, mistakes and inconsistencies and was vehemently opposed by minority parties as well as the SLFP and the UNP. If we are to conduct Local Government polls under the new electoral system, we should have first rectified the blunders that had been made by the Delimitation Commission in addition to finalizing the marking of boundaries of Local Government bodies. That is why I appointed the five member official committee headed by Asoka Peiris to look into the issue with the consent of all political parties, Minister Musthapha emphasized.

If the government postponed the Local Government polls accordingly, the elections to 23 Municipal Councils, 41 Urban Councils and 272 Pradeshiya Sabhas will have to be held on a same day as all current Local Government bodies numbering 335 would have completed their term of office by then.

Many Local Government bodies completed their term of office on March, 31, 2015, some others on July 31st of that year and few others on October 16, 2015. Another few Local Government bodies completed their term of office on August 24, 2013 and they are being run under special commissioners or Secretaries.

All Local Government bodies in the Western Province, including the Colombo, Kotte- Sri Jayewardenepura, Dehivala  Mt. Lavinia, Negombo and Gampaha completed five year term on October. (Sandun A Jayasekera)
Public Enterprise Development Minister Kabir Hashim who was the chief guest at the first Annual General Meeting of the Executive Association of SriLnkan Airlines lighting lamp held by a dancer to mark the official opening of the event

Pic by Pradeep Dilruckshana

By Chandeepa Wettasinghe

The Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will soon take a decision on the restructuring of the state-run national carrier SriLankan Airlines over the next couple of months, following the submission of recommendations by a Cabinet committee this week, amid efforts to find a partner to manage the debt-ridden and loss-making airline.



By 31st of July, we have to give an internal restructuring plan to the Prime Minister, basically looking at what we have to do internally with SriLankan.



Irrespective of whether we are getting a partner or not, we need to move forward, Public Enterprise Development Minister Kabir Hashim told Mirror Business.

Hashim was talking to reporters on the sidelines of the first Annual General Meeting of the Executive Association of SriLankan Airlines held this weekend in Colombo.



What we are basically asking the board to do is to let us know how we are going to cut losses, how were going to rationalize the fleet, and how were going to reconfigure aircraft, Hashim added. SriLankan Chairman Ajith Dias said that the board of management has already submitted the restructuring plan.



The reason for the formulation of a restructuring plan was due to the numerous delays in finding a management partner. The initial aim was to find a partner by January 2017, which was delayed till June 2017, with multiple international firms flaking out of entering into an agreement with the government.



Due to the delays in selecting a suitable business partner, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management has appointed a high-level committee to study all the options available for the restructuring of SriLankan Airlines, the countrys General Treasury said in a report this month. Hashim noted that the most important proposals from the report submitted by the SriLankan Board are being selected. They (the board) have given a plan but were now focusing tightly on what are the key things which have to be implemented over the next couple of months, Hashim said. SriLankans operational losses widened to Rs.28.14 billion in 2016 from Rs.12.62 billion in 2015. The operational losses for the first four months of 2017 were Rs. 9.52 billion. Although this may suggest a trend of reaching losses similar to 2016, the figures now include Mihin Airs operations. Last November, the airline had to absorb the loss making budget airline Mihin Air, which was started by the previous regime. Further, the airline was the most affected by the restriction of flight operations to the main airport in Katunayake for three of those months due to runway renovations.



The airlines top management was recently heavily criticized by the cabinet for not turning in a better performance. By the end of April, the airlines accumulated losses were Rs. 170 billion, and the companys net worth was a negative Rs. 116 billion. Bank borrowings amounted to Rs. 91.59 billion, with Treasury guarantees amounting to Rs.29.92 billion and US$ 210 million. Around Rs.130 billion in losses were accumulated during the past regime through nepotism, corruption and mismanagement, which cancelled a lucrative management and equity sharing contract with Emirates in 2008.



Despite an investigation and a published report, there are allegations that some who were complicit in these affairs are still employed at the airline. Dias had earlier this year brushed aside the report as going into personal details, which the management should not get bogged down in.



Meanwhile, Hashim implored the members of the Executive Association of SriLankan Airlines to get their act together to make the airline profitable. The association too appears to want to contribute, since its theme for this year is to Transition from a blame culture to a problem-solving culture. However, Hashim also acknowledged that progress has been made.



In the last one and a half to two years since I took over, despite not being able to achieve the targets set, there has been progress, and any amount of progress is progress, he said.

Govt. in talks with 3 major airlines

The journey to find a management partner for SriLankan is entering a new chapter, with the government set to conduct negotiations with three major airlines over the next few days.

In the next few days there will be a few parties talking to the committee. We will begin to negotiate with a few people and see how it goes, Hashim said.



The committee comprises of Hashim, Special Assignments Minister Sarath Amunugama and Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrama.



There are three airline companies, major ones talking to us.

I dont want to tell the names because they dont like that, Hashim said. He confirmed that business tycoon Harry Jayawardena, who is the local agent for Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, is in the running. They said that they are interested. We wrote back, from the ministry. We are ready to talk to them, but after that they havent come back to us. So were waiting to see, Hashim added.
Two suspects had been arrested by the Police in connection with the shooting incident in which a gunman opened fire at Jaffna High Court Judge M. Ilanchezhiyan and his security detail at Nallur in Jaffna on Saturday, killing a police sergeant.

Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara said according to the initial investigation, it was revealed that the shooting was unexpected incident but not a pre-planned attacked.

The 51-year-old Police sergeant Sarath Premachandra was killed and Police Constable Wimalasiri was injured in the shooting.

SP Gunasekara said Jaffna High Court Judge M. Ilanchezhiyan, who is a member of the trial-at-bar that is hearing the gang rape and murder of Vidya in Jaffna, his driver and constable Wimalasiri were traveling in a car at the time of the incident, when sergeant Premachandra was escorting in front of the car in a motorcycle providing security.

The Sergeant got off the motorcycle at Nallur to clear the road as there was traffic congestion in the area caused due to an argument among a group of drunk individuals.

Suddenly one of the drunken man had grabbed a pistol of the Sergeant and had shot at him.

Police Constable Wimalasiri, who was in the car had then get off and opened fire at the gunman.

However, the Constable was also injured in the shootout and the gunman had fled the scene.

The judge escaped unhurt as the bodyguards prevented the judge from getting off the vehicle.

The injured policemen were admitted to the Jaffna General Hospital for gunshot injuries and Sergeant Premachandra, who was a father of two, succumbed to injuries early this morning.

The Police arrested the two suspects at the scene in connection with the shooting and investigations revealed the suspects were brothers and a relative of the main suspect in the shooting.

SP Gunasekara said the Police had deployed several teams to arrest the main suspect and ruled out the claims that the Judge was targeted by the gunman.

Northern Province Senior DIG Roshan Fernando is leading the investigations. (Darshana Sanjeewa)
A 24-year-old man who had been produced before Galle Addl. Magistrate Asanga Hettiwatte and was released on a cash bail of Rs. 15,000 and personnel bail of Rs.1 million with sureties each.

The man was taken into custody by the National Child Protection Authority for allegedly raping of a 15-year-old Sri Lankan origin Australian in Australia, where she first lodged a complaint.

The suspects passport was impounded pending further investigations.

The suspect, Ayesh Kaushalya De Silva (24), a student of an Australian university had been in love with the girl, sources said.

The victim, on June 15, 2017 made a complaint to Australian Police that she was raped by the suspect in November 2004, when she was holidaying in Sri Lanka and that she was 15- years-old at the time of the incident.

However, the suspect had returned to Sri Lanka immediately after her complaint to the Australian Police, followed by the victim, who made another complaint to the National Child Protection Authority in Sri Lanka.

Attorneys-at-Law P.K.L. Bandara and Ranjith Narangoda, appearing for the suspect told court that the two families had been in close association and that the girl had made a false complaint against her lover, who failed to fulfill her request for Rs. 20 million.

The case was postponed for October 25, 2017.(D.G. Sugathapala)
n June 16, 2017, Chinese road construction workers accompanied by Chinese troops began moving into the tri-junction of Doko-Lam where the borders of the three countries  India, China and Bhutan meet. Chinese authorities claim they were in the process of constructing a road within their territory.



The Chinese workers had also demolished an old bunker used by the Indian army at the tri-junction in Sikkim, after the Indian army refused to comply with a Chinese demand.

China claims that Indian soldiers had crossed the boundary and interfered with its road construction activities.

The entry of Indian troops into the disputed site led to jostling (chest bumping) between troops of the two countries, but did not escalate into a worse confrontation such as an exchange of blows or an exchange of gunfire.

Despite strongly worded statements, emanating from both sides it is unlikely the confrontation will escalate into armed confrontation.

India resumed trade with China in 1978. By 1984 the two sides signed a Most Favoured Nation Agreement. In 2000 trade volume between the two countries stood at US$3 billion.

Today, China is Indias largest trading partner, having, in 2008, displaced the US which used to be its biggest partner. According to a news release by the Indian High Commission in Beijing, India-China trade in the first four months of 2017 increased by 19.92% year-on-year to US$26.02 billion. Indias exports to China increased by 45.29% year-on-year to US$5.57 billion while Indias imports from China saw a year-on-year growth of 14.48 % to US$20.45 billion. In 2016, India was the 7th largest export destination for Chinese products.

There is little chance then for the two countries, so economically dependent on each other, to allow the confrontation go beyond anything verbal. It may also seem surprising the verbal confrontation has continued into its fifth week with seemingly no end in sight. Perhaps, this should not be surprising.

While attention has been focused on Chinas growing claims in East Asias South China Sea and its disputes with Japan, Vietnam the Philippines, etc, for some time India has watched Chinas expansion of influence in South Asia with growing unease.

China has been literally encircling India via a network of strategic maritime centres in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives thus creating a security dilemma for India in the Indian Ocean region.

The new road which India and Bhutan claim encroaches on Bhutanese territory and close to the Indian territory known as the chickens neck -- a thin sliver of land -- which if any untoward military action took place, could effectively cut India off from its northeastern states as Chinese troops would now be literally breathing down Indias neck, which in turn has roused Indian suspicions and fears.

The Guardian quotes Ashok Malik, a fellow at the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation as saying, This in fact is a provocative gesture which makes the defence of Doklam virtually the defence of India

The Chinese government however insists that its naval strategy is entirely peaceful in nature and is only for the protection of regional trade interests.


The prevailing situation regarding dengue in Sri Lanka will definitely have an effect on Sri Lankas tourism industry. The island attracts visitors from other countries by virtue of its biodiversity and strategic location. When examining the impact on the tourism industry, Director of Public Relations at the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, Dushan Wickramasuriya, revealed that there is some sort of an indirect impact on the Sri Lanka tourism industry due the present dengue epidemic. He said that as a result there has been a considerable decline in the arrival of foreigners since May. The Monthly Statistical Bulletins, which offer information regarding tourist arrivals and hotel occupancy, provides the following information for the period between January to June 2017

The data released by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) reveals that Sri Lankas tourist arrivals declined in March by 2.5 percent compared to the same period last year. Wickramasuriya further stressed that the reason for the decline in the arrival of foreigners doesnt only depend on dengue alone, but it has been one of the core grounds for the drop in the number.

Tourism Minister, John Amaratunga told Daily Mirror that the country hadnt been able to record the expected tourist arrivals during the month of June mainly due to the floods, dengue outbreak and the garbage crisis.

"If you need emergency medical assistance during your trip, dial 011 2691111 and ask for an ambulance"

The dengue epidemic itself didnt adversely affect the tourism arrivals this month. When the flood situation was on the surface, there was a considerable decline in the arrival of foreigners. But now the floods are over. Even dengue is now on the decline, so we are confident that tourist arrivals will receive a boost and we will be able to achieve our targets, Amaratunga said.

He added that tourist arrivals established a record last year with the figure reaching 2 million. The authorities are expecting an additional 2.5 million tourists to arrive this year.

The United Kingdom High Commission declared that the UK Government has issued a health advisory to visitors from the UK ensuring that their people are secure from the prevailing condition of dengue. This kind of travel advisory indicates that dengue in Sri Lanka is pathetic. The travel advisory is as follows as: All regions of Sri Lanka experience outbreaks of the mosquito-borne dengue fever.

Tourism Minister, John Amaratunga told dailymirror that the country hadnt been able to record the expected tourist arrivals during the month of June mainly due to the floods, dengue outbreak and the garbage crisis

103,114 suspected cases of dengue fever have been reported between January and July 2017 compared to 55,150 cases reported for the year 2016. You should take steps to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes. If you need emergency medical assistance during your trip, dial 011 2691111 and ask for an ambulance. You should contact your insurance/medical assistance company promptly if you are referred to a medical facility for treatment.



Dengue hasnt caused damage yet - sltpb Chairman

Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB), Udaya Nanayakkara, pronounced that the existing dengue situation hasnt affected the tourism industry.

I admit that the dengue issue in Sri Lanka is extremely serious. But with regard to tourism, the prevailing circumstances pertaining to dengue havent yet cased any damage or loss to the tourism industry in SL, he said.

He revealed that although there is a general tendency to see a drop in foreigners this season, he didnt see dengue to be the reason behind this. He nevertheless said that this situation will change by September and more foreigners will be arriving in Sri Lanka.

When contacted, Hoteliers Association President Sanath Ukwatta, said that there has been a substantial decline in the arrival of foreigners in connection with some of recognized hotels in Sri Lanka like Gall Face Hotel, Mount Lavinia Hotel and Cinnamon Grand Hotel. On the hand, one of the directors of Galadari Hotel said that they are conducting their work without a hitch and they arent experiencing a decline in foreigners.

"103,114 suspected cases of dengue fever have been reported between January and July 2017"

Negombo Worst hit tourist city!
Sri Lanka is preparing to be part of the Ramayana circuit planned by India for tourists, the Deccan Herald reported today quoting Tourism Development Minister John Amaratunga.

The Indian government is identifying places connected with the Ramayana, while Sri Lanka has already identified 71 locations across the island for inclusion in the circuit, the news article said.

The Ramayana describes how Sita, Ramas wife, is kidnapped by Ravana and taken away to Sri Lanka. Hanuman then launches a grand operation building a stone bridge across the sea to rescue her.

Minister Amaratunga has told Deccan Herald that Sri Lanka has appointed a committee to identify more places.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the 99th edition of the India International Travel Mart, organised by Sphere Travelmedia and Exhibition, which concluded on Sunday.

He said the government had entered into an agreement with the Indian government to create a full circuit.

We are closely working with various Indian state governments to link all places. The two countries share a 5,000-year-old relationship, he said.

Excavation is on for more places described in the Ramayana. "We aim to complete the entire circuit by the end of this year. Just like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we look at Sri Lanka and all south Indian states as one unique unit, housing the maximum Ramayana spots, he said.

The two governments are also working closely on the Buddhist circuit. The spots Buddha visited in Sri Lanka are not well known, said V. Krishnamoorthy, Deputy High Commissioner, Sri Lanka.

He said Sita stayed at Sita Vyasa in Sri Lanka, and was taken to Ussangoda. More than 320,000 tourists from south India visited Sri Lanka last year and a similar number of Sri Lankans visited India, he said.

(Pic courtesy The Hindu)
Police are searching for a man who killed a 42-year-old Sri Lankan in Limassol in the early hours of Monday morning.

According to CID officer Ioannis Soteriades the victim was found in the flat of a relative on the sixth floor of an apartment building on Michal Michaelides Street, off Makarios Avenue.

According to police, when the bell rang, the victim answered the door and was stabbed with a knife. He died from the wounds while the attacker immediately fled the scene.

Police sealed off the area and started investigations with the aim of tracking down the man who escaped, who according to witnesses is also Asian and lives in a nearby building.

The suspect seems to also be Asian and we know only his first name. Efforts are underway to find out his full details so we can find and arrest him, Soteriades said.

He said the victim and the suspect seem to have known each other but the motives behind the murder have not get been worked out.(Cyprus Mail)
"Within 20 years, Sumitra Peries became our most accomplished editor. In the movie industry there is almost, always a discrepancy between craftsmanship and imagination"

In Vaishnavee, Yashoda Wimaladharma does what Gamini Fonseka did more than 20 years ago in Loku Duwa: divert the story to an entirely different mood and terrain. Fonseka did it rather effortlessly, since a man who was depicted as the hero (and our hero) for over 30 years, couldnt just be depicted as a beastly womaniser without jolting the audience. What could hence have been a weakness on the directors and the editors part, therefore, proved to be the best point about the movie. Fonsekas intrusion into the story isnt forced, or compelled artificially. As the father of the protagonists friend, he was expected. He is as hilarious as he is dislikeable, though not quite empathetic: a near-perfect culmination to a near-perfect career.

What Fonseka achieved in Loku Duwa, Yashoda tried to achieve in Vaishnavee. But the director, Sumitra Peries, intended something different. The first half of Vaishnavee is about the innocence of its locale and characters. The second half turns the tables on everyone, including our protagonist, Osanda, and his cousin, Ruchira, when Yashodas unnamed puppet-come-alive starts terrorising them. As I noted in my review, Yashoda is by default an actress who can convey both empathy and coldness, sometimes at once. But one senses an incongruity in Sumitras movie, partly owing to her. We never properly understand her intentions, and her passing remark right before the story closes (that love cant be taken for granted) is at best vague.

"The fact that her best work, Sagara Jalaya, was unnoticed when it was first released spoke a lot about who was being selective and unfair by her"



Some of the best movies are born from moral simplification. The morality of Vaishnavee is rooted in Osandas feelings of hurt at being rejected by his betrothed, who elopes with another man. What complexity we are given, as viewers, we get through his impulse to carve what he liked about his betrothed into a puppet: in effect, he is using the puppet to visualise what he could not get from the woman he was to marry. So when that puppet does come alive, she is as confused as we are as to why Osanda does not take to her. And so she does the inevitable. She taunts him. Its the kind of moral simplification that the most discerning artists go for in their later careers. With Vaishnavee, Sumitra has hence joined Ray, Kurosawa, and John Ford.

Elegantly composed, indulgently shot, the movies of Sumitra Peries have never been reviewed with the frame of reference they deserve. Critics have pigeon-holed her, either as a feminist film maker or as her husbands wife. Even the writers of that otherwise ambitious book, Profiling Sri Lankan Cinema, end up condemning her on the basis of feminist ambitions she probably wasnt even aware of. By categorising her as a womans director, they rationalise her artistic failures as failures of intention and ambition. The fact that her best work, Sagara Jalaya, was unnoticed when it was first released spoke a lot about who was being selective and unfair by her.



I think Sumitras greatest achievement has been her ability to transform popular fiction into serious cinema. By serious I am not pigeon-holing her; I am merely suggesting that when compared to the emotional hysterics of Leticia Boteju, Edward Mallawarachchi, and (to a lesser extent) Karunasena Jayalath, her movies are more composed. There are sequences of astonishing power which are held back so poignantly that they can only belong to the cinema: Vasanthi Chathurani bemoaning her cruel destiny at the end of Gehenu Lamayi, Ravindra Randeniya murdering his lover (Geetha Kumarasinghe) and her daughter in Maya, and Geetha discovering her lovers duplicity in Loku Duwa. Watching these makes one realise that her foray into the movies was informed, not by the romanticism of Renoir (as with her husband), but by the austerity of Bresson and Dreyer, particularly the latter.

Sometimes however, she gives into what can only be described as a tendency to overindulge. One sees it in Gehenu Lamayi (the last half-hour), Ganga Addara (Nirmalas wedding), Yahalu Yeheli (Mudithalatha grappling with her cousin on a stack of hay), and Loku Duwa (towards the end). One does not see it in Sagara Jalaya, because its her least imperfect movie: consequently, even in sequences which might have been overindulgent by the standards she set for her other work (like the final confrontation between Heen Kella and her sister), we are subtly made to forget how overwrought they are. In that sense Loku Duwa was a sequel of sorts to Sagara Jalaya, since both are about women as hard-done-by fighters (unlike Mudithalatha from Yahalu Yeheli, who could only be depicted as a fighter by manipulating the narrative).

"Critics have pinned her down as a womans artist, forgetting that her movies arent about women, rather about women trying to be more than who they are"



Critics have pinned her down as a womans artist, forgetting that her movies arent about women, rather about women trying to be more than who they are. To be sure, they are sometimes subservient to a largely patriarchal world, but even then they aspire for more than they have. In that sense, Kusum in Gehenu Lamayi is more rebellious than her sister Soma (Jenita Samaraweera), who dreams of life in the movies. She falls in love with a man she is cautioned against marrying (owing to her social standing), and in the subsequent clash between her desire and insecurity, we come across our cinemas first real tragic female figure, overshadowing even her sisters tragedy, which we anyway expected given her hubris.

Sumitra Peries came to the movies as a director in the eighties, when a veritable onslaught of directors and actresses and scriptwriters ensured that women would be depicted as the fighters they had been told not to be all their lives. These actresses came in a particular order; Nadeeka Gunasekara, Swarna Mallawarachchi, Anoja Weerasinghe. But there was a contradiction in some of the movies which featured them. Fearless, daring, and frequently aggressive, they were represented as harbingers of intense, sometimes forced eroticism, which repelled us from them. (A case in point was Tissa Abeysekaras Mahagedara, where Geetha Kumarasinghe, who was supposed to awaken our moral conscience, actually nauseated us, thereby making hypocrites of us all.) Even in otherwise landmark and frank productions like Hansa Vilak and Thunweni Yamaya, the eroticism was intellectualised, not felt.

None of Sumitras movies depicts sex, but what eroticism there is, she doesnt nauseate us to the point of titillation. After the unforgiving violence of Duwata Mawaka Misa, she returned to form with Sakman Maluwa, where love is no longer expressive, complicated, repelling. On the contrary, her later work, right until Vaishnavee, is morally both simple and profound, simple because her craftsmanship comes through effortlessly, and profound because even her most banal sequences enchant us. Given that its her most recent movie, Vaishnavee indicates the latter point well: its characters, like Osandas father and grandmother, are defined in clear-cut, empathetic terms. They are not overwrought simply because she doesnt need them to be. She has reached that place where a director can go on shooting a character talking, talking, and talking in a static, square frame while retaining the audiences interest.

"Its a truism that can be sustained anywhere that directors, unlike novelists, painters, and composers, tend to become more frenzied as the years pass by"



Not surprisingly, the contradiction that makes up even the most sincere womans director doesnt come through in her movies. I was taken aback by Vijaya Kumaratungas impulsive rape of Swarna Mallawarachchi in Kadapathaka Chaya, for instance, but while I was intrigued by how crudely and carelessly it was edited, I wasnt exactly moved. It was manifestly better in Dadayama, particularly the first seduction scene by Ravindra Randeniya in the hotel, and horrendously out of pitch in Maruthaya, Vasantha Obeyesekeres worst movie. Our feminist film makers, for me at least, have sustained that aforementioned contradiction in nearly all their movies, which can be taken as a sign of their irrationality or indiscipline depending on how you look at them. (Which is why Obeyesekeres Palagetiyo remains the only film of his that honestly depicted the problem of eroticism versus class discrepancies).

Its a truism that can be sustained anywhere that directors, unlike novelists, painters, and composers, tend to become more frenzied as the years pass by. This is especially true of continental directors: Tarkovsky, Bresson, Resnais, Antonioni. They hold on to their cinematic style, often adamantly (because after all they think thats the only style that matters). Sometimes this works, often it does not, which is why the later Bresson is not as great as the early Bresson and why the later Resnais is more bearable, and in some respects better, than the early Resnais. Sumitra belongs to the former category. By making her world so profoundly uncomplicated, she justifies her act of hanging on to a composed style of film making grossly out of place in an industry where careless, disjointed editing has run riot. And she succeeds.

Within 20 years Sumitra Peries became our most accomplished editor. In the movie industry there is almost always a discrepancy between craftsmanship and imagination. Sumitra didnt fall into that discrepancy. When I talked with her not too long ago, she compared the act of editing, and even directing, to writing (what I do): There are enough and more words one can pen down, but to make them cohere well is something only a stylist can achieve. Being that stylist was never a problem for her: her challenge was to combine it with imagination. If the past 30 years is anything to go by, and considering the way she has been pigeonholed by critics, she has stood up to that challenge in a way no other technician-turned-artiste here has.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday reiterated that Sri Lanka should establish a process of accountability that will gain the trust and the confidence of the victims of the war.

Issuing a statement on the anniversary of Black July, Prime Minister Trudeau said Canadians join Canadians of Tamil descent and members of the Tamil community to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the events of Black July.

As we pause to reflect on the dark days of the Sri Lankan Civil War, we must continue to work to heal the wounds of all those who suffered. We welcome international efforts underway to achieve long-term reconciliation and peace for all Sri Lankans, but we reiterate the need to establish a process of accountability that will have the trust and the confidence of the victims of this war, he said.

The Premier said Canadas cultural diversity is one of their greatest strengths and sources of pride.

As we mark the 150th anniversary of Confederation, let us take the time to recognize the contributions of all who have made Canada their home regardless of their cultural, religious or linguistic backgrounds. On behalf of the Government of Canada, I extend my deepest sympathy and support to all those who have suffered immeasurable loss during the Sri Lankan Civil War, he said.

He said anti-Tamil pogroms were carried out in Colombo and other parts of Sri Lanka resulting in thousands of deaths and the displacement of countless victims between July 24 and 29 in 1983.
When Kashmirs unarguably daring politician Abdul Ghani Lone was assassinated 15 years ago, widespread condemnation followed the massive grief and shock.

Not too long after, it became known that a militant of downtown Srinagar was involved in this murder. And when the accused militant was killed by the forces, he was interred in the same Mazar-e-Shuhda at Eid Gah in Srinagar where Lone was. And perhaps, with the same reverence as Lone saheb was!

The Hurriyat, who had mourned Lones death with shrieks and sobs, paid rich and glowing tributes to their colleagues purported assassin. This is how the incongruity in their thoughts and actions can be described.

Their politics, if it can be termed as politics, is a cycle of deja vu.

The recent attack on the Amarnath pilgrims adds another gory chapter to the battered history of Jammu and Kashmir. It was not only an assault on our guests but on the tolerant Kashmir society.

To remain relevant, these regressive elements are always in search of soft civilian targets to inflict hurt and force a disproportionate reaction from individuals in the state. It is a win-win situation for them to throw the Valley into chaos.

This is sad and what is even more unfortunate is the legitimacy they get from certain quarters for their abominable actions. The savages inflicted irreparable damage to the basic tenets of religion and humanity.

But Kashmiriyat became a misnomer of sorts more than a decade ago when the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits occurred, and whatever little remains continue to die with each new innocent killing.

The ideology of hate, divisiveness and bigotry, which is propagated and enforced through Pakistans gun, has made Kashmirs ethos and plurality its first target.

Mutual respect in political and religious thought was ingrained in Kashmiri society but today we have reached a stage where we brush aside the crimes committed in the name of an intangible movement.

People of India should be unambiguous in their reaction to this madness, the way Kashmiris are! Photo: India Today

A section of the society, who are a vocal minority and force into silence a silent majority, justify these atrocities by resorting to whataboutery, if not outright sophistry and shameless manipulation.

What people of Kashmir exhibited at the time of this tragedy throws up a challenge for people of the country. If the Kashmiris stood up and gave their opinion so loud and clear, people of the country should also stand up and show that they care.

For the political leadership of the country, political maturity and foresightedness demand they acknowledge this and listen to the people of Kashmir. Moreover, without mincing words, may I say that there are incidents happening in the country which are no less fatal than that of the Amarnath pilgrims.

Attacks on people, motivated by frenzied communal elements, have the same message and impact everywhere - be it Kashmir or Kanyakumari. People of India should be unambiguous in their reaction to this madness, the way Kashmiris are!

Back home, no doubt that protesting against the forces whose ideology and actions are atrocious is not easy and mere condemnations wont work; people have to rise against this macabre menace of terror and violence more forcefully, before it devours everybody around.

We cant keep on glorifying the gun on the one hand, and denounce it on the other as per convenience. A clear line has to be drawn and we have to understand that by being apologists of terror we are not serving the cause of Kashmir. Let there be equal criticism and accountability of the Pakistani gun and bullet.

Lets be honest to ourselves and dispassionately analyse whether violence has served us any purpose. What did Kashmir achieve by romanticism of the gun as a means to aazadi, except the unprecedented loss of lives and destruction? When our young men again take up the same means, why cant we be honest and tell them that this is the path to destruction?

Those espousing the cause of freedom are legitimising the mobs on the streets without knowing it may devour them too in the near future. The attack on the Amarnath pilgrims is not the doing of the actual perpetrators alone; those who romanticise the gun, pat our young boys who wield the gun rather than the pen and book, while themselves pursuing their white colour careers are equally responsible.

What makes for emotional pieces in the press makes for emotional scenes around the corpse of a young Kashmiri whose life was wasted.

With reference to the Amarnath incident, while Kashmiris have rejected religious bigotry and repulsed religious violence, people of the country should also reject and repulse violence committed in the name of religion.

And the political leadership, particularly those at the helm, should acknowledge this brave and bold message from Kashmir by taping the trend of religious violence happening sporadically in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to celebrate the completion of the Sardar Sarovar Dam by holding a grand Narmada aarti along with 2,000 priests and chief ministers of 12 BJP-ruled states. Sardar Sarovar, the dream project for modern India, will be a nightmare for 40,000 families  something that will affect the entire ecosystem of the Narmada valley and wipe out the age-old civilisation of the world.

The question we ought to ask: Wont the forceful eviction of thousands of adivasis, farmers and others from their villages without rehabilitation and resettlement leave a blot on our democracy?

Here are the main issues at stake. Know more about the problem in 10 points:

1. The tragedy: The completion of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on Narmada to 139 metres high will raise the water level by 55 feet, while with the 122-metre-high dam in 2013 itself water had gushed into villages and caused submergence of hundreds of houses.

Can anyone survive when this happens? The dam will affect 244 villages and one township due to its reservoir spread over 40,000 hectare in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat as long as up to 214 km.

The dam will affect 244 villages and one township due to its reservoir spread over 40,000 hectare in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. (Photo for representational purpose)

Out of the 192 villages and one township falling in Madhya Pradesh, at least 150 villages are in the plains, with highest density of population including various occupational categories such as farmers, labourers, potters, fish workers, boatmen, shopkeepers and various artisans to small-time entrepreneurs. The adivasis on the hilly areas are the communities living on the agricultural land as well as forest and fish. The whole area and village communities that will be affected are scheduled tribe where the provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 or PESA should be applicable.

2. Entitlements: The resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) of the Sardar Sarovar-affected families is governed by the provisions of the Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal Award (NWDTA), the policies of the respective states and the two main judgments of the Supreme Court of India (2000 and 2005).

The landholders would get a minimum of two hectares of land, if they are severely affected while the landless, as per the action plan (1993 onwards) submitted before the apex court, would get a source of livelihood with a special fund and through a special agency.

3. Resettlement: The governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat resettled more than 14,000 families with land, while Madhya Pradesh has allotted land to hardly 53 families in its own state.

As per the Tribunal, Gujarat had to give land to 5,500 families from Madhya Pradesh, and 777 families from Maharashtra while the rest of the oustees chose to resettle in their own state.

The Madhya Pradesh government decided to give cash in lieu of land, against the law, that is, Tribunal Award and Supreme Courts judgments (2000 and 2005) which led to fake registries, scams and derailment of policy depriving thousands of families of their due entitlements in rehabilitation.

4. Corruption: The huge corruption in various aspects of rehabilitation of the displaced in Madhya Pradesh was investigated by the Madhya Pradesh High Court-appointed Justice Jha Commission, which had submitted a 2,000 page report. However, the high court was prevented from opening the report by the apex court and instead asked to hand it over to the government of Madhya Pradesh, which was then asked to initiate action.

However, no appropriate action on the basis of the recommendations has been taken as of yet. The Supreme Court stopped the government from acting against the oustees while the Jha Commission has held the officials of the Narmada Valley Development Authority and the agents (about 400 named) as responsible.

5. Irregularities: As a result, many farmers got caught up in a scam involving fake registries (land-based for farmers, and livelihood-based for the landless, fishermen, labourers, potters). While the resettlement sites are without those two hectares of land and the landless without alternative livelihood, hundreds are yet to get plots for houses and thousands of others not able to build their houses at the resettlement sites which lack even basic amenities due to neglect and massive corruption over the years.

This is obvious from the fact that 40 engineers-officers were sacked due to corruption in construction works at all R&R sites in Madhya Pradesh, after the CAG report and during the case of Narmada Bachao Andolan before the high court, Jabalpur bench. The 2,000-page report by the Justice Jha Commission incorporated a technical report by the MANIT, Bhopal and IIT, Mumbai bringing out the totally unlivable conditions at the R&R sites and corruption involved. No work was carried out since then till the Supreme Court order of February 8, 2017.

The Sardar Sarovar gates have been closed since June 17, and its claimed that this has been done with due diligence and approval by the R&R sub-group and environment sub-group.

6. Maharashtra: In Maharashtra, while hundred of families are yet to get land and house plots, a few hundred others are yet to be declared as project-affected. Some who are supposed to get forest rights and land measurement to work on amenities are still waiting in the R&R sites even as more sites are lack irrigation and basic amenities. The state, however, has hidden all this and reported false compliance. The adivasis in the hills and those at the sites are facing serious problems.

7. Gujarat: The relay fast by the oustees of our state since the July 15, 2016, was withdrawn after one year, prior to the visit of the PM, on assurance from the Gujarat government, but no action has been done on ground yet (on their demand for completing rehabilitation and "no to taking back land after 20 years"). Gujarat is ready and has begun taking back lands allotted to hundreds of adivasis, after 15-20 years.

8. The governments lie: Sardar Sarovar gates have been closed since June 17, and its claimed that this has been done with due diligence and approval by the R&R sub-group and environment sub-group. However, that is based on false claims and fake figures. There are not less than 40,000 families in the submergence area of Madhya Pradesh itself. All of them would get drowned and devastated, along with their farms and houses, schools, shops, brick kilns, enterprises, temples, mosques and all religious places, huge number of cattle and big trees, the green cover for Narmada.

You can well imagine what would be the fate of these lakhs of people and the generations-old communities.

9. Our belief: This is nothing else but political expediency of the Narendra Modi government (at Centre) and the Shivraj Singh government in Madhya Pradesh, all out and ready to benefit the corporate in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. This is in violation of legal rights, including Supreme Court judgments since 2000, besides an impingement upon right to life.

This must be immediately challenged and stopped. Don't close the dam gates without comprehensive resettlement and rehabilitation for the project-affected families.

No force should be used against those sacrificing for development, their rights must be respected.

Each of the project-affected families, including the landless, must be rehabilitated as per eligibility and benefits granted by the law, policy and action plans submitted to the apex court.

All resettlement and rehabilitation sites should be ready with civic amenities as per tribunal award and R&R policy.

No impoundment affecting any family before complete rehabilitation should be permitted.

The project, its impacts and feasibility of just rehabilitation must be reviewed to find a reasonable way out.
Florida Foot Doctor explains how Mortons Toe causes knee pain

A foot doctor, who specializes in a foot care, foot specialist (Podiatrist), of Panama City Fl, Dr. Burton S. Schuler is a leading expert on the medical condition known as the Mortons Toe. He is the author of the new book about the Mortons Toe (Long Second Toe), Why You Really Hurt: It All Starts In The Foot. He feels that knee pain is often caused by the Mortons Toe (Long Second Toe). Schulers feel that the Mortons Toe, (Long Second Toe) is among the most overlooked reasons for why one gets pain in and around the knee joint., because it causes one to need advanded foot care

Dr. Schuler says:

Knee pain is a form of arthritis that is often caused by a Mortons Toe (Long Second Toe) Over a period of years, due to pronation, a Mortons Toe (Long Second Toe) can cause many abnormal strains to the knee joint, resulting in many painful problems. This wear and tear inside the knee joint causes a breakdown of the joint cartilage to occur, but it can all start from improper foot care .

Dr. Schuler further states: Knee pains can also be caused by the irritation of the muscles around the knee. It is well established that Mortons Toe can be an underlying cause for these painful muscle problem by causing a condition known as Myofascial Pain Syndrome. In this condition, any muscle in the body, including the ones around the knee, can be aggravated and become very painful. Exactly the Gluteus Minimus and the Vastus Medialis muscles are responsible for this problem around the knee. The good news most of these knee problems, can be treated easily with a simple toe pad

Morton's toe
Times can be challenging for some families in rural Nebraska.

Many communities have members who are struggling and don't know where their next meal is coming from.

In an attempt to give back to the communities, the Farmers Cooperative decided to make donations to 15 local food banks for a grand total of $38,500 donated.

The cooperative first began collecting donations from employees at their annual Christmas parties with silent auctions and raffles. These donations were then matched dollar-for-dollar by the company.

Land OLakes, a partner in this project, then matched the total amount given from Farmers Cooperative. A final donation of up to $500 was made by the Feed America Program, Invest an Acre. The CHS Foundation also donated directly to local schools' backpack programs.

In total, the Beatrice Community Food Pantry received $2,500 and the Wymore Food Pantry received $1,500 this past year to help families in need.
Since then she has metamorphosed into a specialist on New Zealand literature and New Zealand studies. Her career at Victoria was interrupted by periods living overseas, where she worked at the universities of New South Wales and Sydney and became interested in Australian literature, which is still part of her research.
BOZEMAN  Angela Des Jardins has worked for more than three years to experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that she wants to share with as many folks as possible  the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse.

If you dont do it, you might really regret it later, Des Jardins said.

Des Jardins is the director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium at Montana State University in Bozeman. In that role she has helped to coordinate the Eclipse Ballooning Project, in which 55 teams from across the country will capture the first aerial video of the eclipse from high-altitude balloons and live-stream the footage to NASAs website.

So even if you cant take time off from work to drive to nearby Wyoming or Idaho to view the eclipse in person, Des Jardins and her ballooning crew has your back. Even if you miss that, you can always watch it later.

Were going to be recording everything, she said.

What?

During a total solar eclipse, the moon aligns perfectly with the sun and obscures it entirely, but only within a 70-mile wide path. On Aug. 21 that path will cruise from Oregon to South Carolina. During the eclipse the moon will completely block the sun for about two minutes, producing the most dramatic effect.

NASA calls it one of natures most awe-inspiring sights.

The last total solar eclipse that was visible from the contiguous United States occurred on Feb. 26, 1979.

Its kind of a deep twilight, with basically a 360-degree sunset, Des Jardins said. Some of the brightest stars will come out.

The suns violent atmosphere, called the corona, will become visible as a ring around the moon, which is an amazing thing to be able to see.

The next total solar eclipses wont take place until 2024 and 2045. Recognizing the rarity of the event, folks have booked up motel rooms and Airbnbs months, if not years, in advance. Any rooms still available are going for outrageously high prices. In Jackson, Wyoming, the Snow King Resort is renting out indoor camping spots in an attempt to accommodate additional visitors since the mountain resort town is in the path of totality.

Driving to the dark

If you are game for a drive, there are plenty of spots along the eclipses path to view the event. Public lands abound in Wyoming and Idaho and maps can give you a rough idea of where to go.

You have to take precautions, though. Don't look at the eclipse with your sunglasses. That can cause permanent eye damage. Looking at the eclipse through your camera can ruin it. It is OK, however, to look at the eclipse or photograph it during the moment of totality, that period when the moon completely blocks the sun.

Glasses to view the eclipse are inexpensive and available online. Its important to purchase glasses that comply with international safety standard ISO 12312-2, Des Jardins said. Don't look through a telescope or binoculars with those glasses on, though, as those magnifying devices will concentrate the sun's rays. Information about obtaining free glasses at MSU can be found at www.coe.montana.edu/eclipse/viewing.html.

If you are in the Bozeman area, where viewers will see a partial eclipse in which the moon will obscure 95 percent of the sun, it will be necessary to wear protective glasses during the entire eclipse. Starting at 10 a.m. on Aug. 21 in front of the MSU Library, members of the MSU Physics Department will distribute glasses and will also have solar telescopes and other special viewing equipment. In Bozeman the partial eclipse will begin at roughly 10 a.m. and will peak at 11:36 a.m.

Where

The path of totality includes a tiny and remote corner of southwestern Montana, as well as Idaho Falls and Rexburg in Idaho and Jackson, Thermopolis and Casper in Wyoming. If you go, be prepared for crowds and traffic and bring plenty of water and food, Des Jardins said. Cellphone service may be temporarily unavailable due to high demand.

If driving and crowds dont sound fun, check out the aerial video that MSU and 54 other teams will livestream using high-altitude balloons. They will all launch helium-filled balloons to carry cameras to an altitude of more than 80,000 feet to capture the video.

Its a space-like perspective, said Des Jardins, who initiated the project in 2014. From that height you can see the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space.

From space

Youll get to feel like youre looking down on planet Earth, she said. It will invoke wonder and curiosity about whats happening, the special alignment that has to happen for the shadow to move across the Earth.

The video from all the teams will be livestreamed to NASAs website. During the eclipse, the MSU homepage will link to a livestream transmitted from one of the MSU teams three balloons, which the team will launch from the Rexburg, Idaho, area.

The livestream is meant to complement viewing the eclipse directly, not replace the experience, Des Jardins said. She recommends viewing the livestream during the hour before or after the local peak of the eclipse. Teams will be livestreaming from more than a dozen balloons in Oregon and Idaho before the eclipse peaks in Bozeman.

The Museum of the Rockies will show the Eclipse Ballooning Project livestream at the Taylor Planetarium. Doors open at 10 a.m. and normal admission charges apply. Eclipse glasses will also be available for purchase.

Get to it

Regardless of how or where people view the eclipse, Des Jardins is encouraging everyone to take the time to experience the extraordinary happening.

There will be something special about seeing it with your own two eyes, she said, but there will also be something pretty profound about seeing those images looking down on the planet.
A man who faked the installation of a fire sprinkler system at Montana State University Billings paid more than $30,000 in restitution before he was sentenced Monday.

Dustin James Jensen, 33, received an eight-year suspended sentence to the Montana Department of Corrections for felony theft by embezzlement.

The hearing was held in Yellowstone County District Court before Judge Gregory Todd.

Jensen was a foreman for IT&M Co., which was contracted to install a sprinkler system at the MSUB library last summer. The company won the bid for $70,553.

After Jensen and an apprentice finished the job, an MSUB facilities employee found that the sprinkler heads were installed in the ceiling, but no pipes connected the sprinklers to a water source.

That left the library with no working sprinkler system.

An investigation found a salvage receipt, which included Jensen's drivers license, for a sale of 2,540 pounds of pipe for $82.55.

The replacement work for the sprinkler job at MSUB cost $5,371.

At Monday's hearing, Jensen apologized for the additional work that needed to be done. Both the prosecutor and Jensen's defense attorney acknowledged that he'd already paid $30,128 in restitution.

The sentence followed a plea agreement reached earlier this year.
A 480-acre solar farm planned for Billings has been dealt some challenging terms by Montanas Public Service Commission.

MTSUN solar farm, planned for the hills northwest of Billings, will have to move forward with a 10-year contract and a price of $20 a megawatt hour for its electricity. Montanas PSC finalized the contract and rate last Friday.

The solar farms developer, Mark Klein, said the project isnt workable under those terms. Hell have to persuade the PSC to reconsider, or abandon what would be Montanas largest solar project.

We certainly cannot move forward at the current rate, or 10 years, Klein said Monday. We disagree with the order and we will do what we have to. We will use all of our resources available to help the commissioners understand that the order as is, doesnt work for us. We are committed to building the project.

MTSUN had originally sought a much higher rate based on what it would cost NorthWestern for the energy and capacity. Under federal law to promote development of alternative energy resources, MTSUN qualifies for a contract and a fixed price from the utility.

States are required to set a price and contract lengths to promote alternative energy resources under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or PURPA, which has been on the books since the energy crisis of the 1970s. That law promotes energy conservation, while also encouraging an increase in energy supply, including through renewable energy sources.

Energy producers say the short contracts, which the PSC adopted in June, make getting project financing difficult.

At 480-acres, MTSUNs 80-megawatt development along Alkali Creek Road would be the largest solar farm in the state, generating enough electricity to power about 14,400 homes. Its to be built on state trust land. Developers signed a lease with the state last September.

The project, expected to be operational by the end of 2018, will cost up to $110 million and employ 190 people during its construction. The property taxes in 2019 are expected to be $1.2 million to $1.6 million. The state will receive $240,000 of those taxes, with Yellowstone County getting the rest.

The electricity taxes on the property are about $32,000 a year.
Catherine Clarke Coiner, 55, a life-long resident of Charlottesville, died on Thursday, July 20, 2017, surrounded by family, at Martha Jefferson Hospital, after a brief, intense illness. The first daughter of Preston and Julie Coiner, she was born in Charlottesville during an ice storm and power-outage on December 17, 1961. But, we'll resist saying, "It was a dark and stormy night." It was also the day telephone numbers changed from 5 to 7 digits. Catherine was preceded in death by her father, Preston. Like her father, Catherine had a thorough knowledge of Charlottesville history, especially that of Thomas Jefferson. For the past 14 years, she worked on bringing Jefferson's prolific writings to the public eye through her work at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. In family games of Trivial Pursuit, she was a daunting opponent because of her encyclopedic knowledge of history and culture. Cathy quickly embraced her role as an energetic aunt to Jakob and Julianna, often taking each of them on individually tailored adventures. They eagerly awaited their turn to have an afternoon of exploration with their doting Aunt Cathy. For Cathy, family time was the most important time. She was a 2014 graduate of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton. Cathy was a voracious reader and avid writer, especially of short stories. Her interest in writing led her to be a founding member of WriterHouse. Aside from her professional and academic interests, she was passionate about issues of social justice and put her philanthropic tendency to good works. She is survived by her husband and soulmate, Brent Hosier; mother, Julie of Charlottesville; sister, Sharon and her husband, David, of Baltimore and their children, Jakob and Julianna; sister-in-law, Susan of Richmond; and brother-in-law, James of Arlington. Catherine is survived by her loving cousins, Michael, Debbie, Karen, Susan, and Ashley, all of Charlottesville, Jimmie of Chesapeake, Lisa, Roger, and Joey of Georgia, and Adam and Anna-Bess of Germany, along with all of their families. Her family would like to acknowledge the nurses, respiratory therapists, and doctors of the ICU who went to extraordinary measures to give Catherine the best chance of recovery. The morning she was admitted to the hospital, she made sure to announce to the attending staff, "I just want you all to know, that I am not under investigation!" Even in the middle of crisis, she was abreast of current events, flavoring them with wit at the most unexpected moments. The familyreceived visitors from2until 4 p.m. Sunday, July 23, 2017, at Hill and Wood, 201 N. First St.A private memorial will be held at a later date. Catherine's cremains will be scattered among the many places she lived and loved. In lieu of flowers, Catherine would appreciate memorial donations be made to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, P.O. Box 937, Verona, VA 24482-0937, a favorite charity of hers. Condolences may be sent to the family at www.hillandwood.com.
The future of two important downtown properties  one already in place, the other on the drawing board  could be shaped during Mondays Billings City Council meeting.

The 6:30 p.m. business meeting will be held in council chambers at City Hall, 220 N. 27th St.

Decisions about extending a One Big Sky Center deadline and $3.5 million in requested Tax Increment Financing money for the expansion and repair of the Alberta Bair Theater will be the councils final two business items Monday.

As part of the One Big Sky Center development, the council must decide whether to extend a memorandum of understanding between the developer, MontDevCo, and the city. The developers have requested an extension from July 31 to Jan. 8, 2018, to allow the projects new managing partner, Hammes Company of Madison, Wis., the time to study the project in depth to determine its size and scope.

Staff recommends the council approve the extension.

The Alberta Bair Theaters TIF request is part of an $11 million campaign to repair and expand the city-owned theater at 2720 Third Ave. N.

In a memo to the council, City Administrator Tina Volek explained that the TIF funds would be used to install an elevator and construct accessible restrooms to conform with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The TIF allocation would also cover the cost of moving the sidewalk around the theater to parts of Third Avenue North and N. Broadway that the city vacated last year as well as upgrading the theaters facade and stabilizing the structure.

The theater estimates it has a more than $4 million impact on the Billings economy annually. During the 2015-16 season, it held 84 events attended by more than 84,000 people, including nearly 9,300 from outside Yellowstone County. The theater has 10 employees and more than 100 volunteers.

Staff recommends approval of this request as well.

Following public hearings, the council is also scheduled to make a pair of land-use decisions Monday.

The first is a zone change request  from Planned Development and Residential Multi-Family to Residential Professional  on 1.12 acres at the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue North and N. 25th St. Staff and the citys Zoning Commission recommends the council approve the request.

Wyeth Friday, planning and community services director, said that the zoning change would make the land easier to develop as a professional office or clinic development along a main Billings corridor.

The second is a special review to allow construction of two four-unit multifamily buildings at 422 Roxy Lane in the Billings Heights. According to Friday, since 1997, properties in the R-60 zone proposed for a multifamily dwelling require special review approval.

The Zoning Commission voted earlier this month to recommend approval.

Consent agenda

Mondays consent agenda includes these items of business:

 The council is being asked to reject all bids to demolish the Rose Park pool operations building and instead include demolition in the overall construction documents to be re-bid as a single package following the conclusion of the current swimming season.

 Public Works seeks approval of a near-$2.7 million contract with HDR Engineering to design a drop-off facility and maintenance building at the landfill.

 Airport officials seek council authorization for a 10-year lease with the Transportation Security Administration for office space. The lease guarantees nearly $700,000 in rent over the first five years. The councils also being asked to approve a hangar lease agreement with the U.S. Department of Agricultures Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services. That lease will bring the city nearly $300,000 over the first five years of the agreement.

 Four probationary police officers have served a year on the force  Moses Richardson, Tracy Icard, Steven Gaertner and Daniel Shreeve. Under state statute, their names are being submitted to the council for confirmation.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock signed an executive order Sunday declaring a fire emergency in the state.

The largest area burning in the state is the Lodgepole Complex, which includes three fires that have burned 226,000 acres and destroyed about a dozen homes in northeastern Montana. The fire has also consumed ranch land and depleted hay supplies. Fences were either destroyed or cut by landowners in an attempt to save cattle.

Bullock was briefed by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and Disaster and Emergency Services at the Department of Military Affairs. He also spoke with Rick Connell, the Incident Commander at the Lodgepole Complex area.

The declaration allows Bullock to mobilize additional state resources and the Montana National Guard to combat the fires, as well as access money from the state's general fund to meet the contingencies and needs that may arise from them.

Montana could struggle to pay for fires this year because the Legislature, after a winter with plenty of snow, voted to tap the roughly $65 million fire fund by up to $30 million to bolster a struggling budget.

Some lawmakers last week expressed worry there would not be enough money in the fund. The Department of Natural Resources said it has spent somewhere between $5 million and $10 million on fires already this summer.
New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has given in-principle approval for the sale of the government's 51.11 per cent stake along with the management control of HPCL to the ONGC, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) will continue as a public sector undertaking after Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) acquires its stake, the minister said in the Lok Sabha.

"The proposed acquisition in the oil sector will create a vertically integrated public sector oil major company having presence across the entire value chain. "This will give ONGC an enhanced capacity to bear higher risks, take higher investment decisions and to neutralise impact of global crude oil price volatility," Pradhan said.

The minister was making a statement in the House regarding the sale of the government's existing stake of total paid up equity shareholding in HPCL to ONGC.
RAWLINS  Inmates peered from their cells through slender windows as the prisons facilities manager pointed to spiderweb cracks in the glass, the same glass that separates the prisoners common area from the hallway and the hallway from the guards control room.

In an activity room just down the hall, the manager, Jeff Heier, pointed out a large gap where a wall is splitting. He stuck his hand inside to show how wide it had become and pulled out a chunk of concrete, sharp on the edges.

Anything can be a weapon, remarked Major Ethan Remacle, who leads the prisons security.

Jagged rocks are just one of the security concerns at the states only high-security correctional facility as buildings slowly shift on unstable soils. Doors dont always latch. At least one office is no longer occupied due to safety concerns. Alarms dont always ring when an emergency door is breached. Telephone lines from command rooms are severed or crushed as the buildings move. In just one housing unit, 74 panes of glass are cracking. Leaks in the electrical room  which supplies power to the entire facility  are increasingly concerning. Inch-wide cracks in floors and walls become good spots to hide contraband.

Every day, staff at the Wyoming State Penitentiary make adjustments to keep the 16-year-old facility operational and safe for its employees and the 690 inmates who live there.

They adjust latches and shave doors, which hang crooked in their frames. They prop up ceilings. They build small ramps when the gap between one floor and the next becomes too large. They repair the wiring that powers the barred sliding doors. They reapply sealant as its sucked into voids between separating floors and walls.

The prison is making repairs as each immediate need presents itself, said Warden Michael Pacheco. Every area of the institution has issues, though some are worse than others.

The building is safe, he said. But concerns about security are growing. The Department of Corrections now looks to lawmakers to decide whats to be done.

We will keep that thing operational until we cant anymore, Pacheco told reporters after a tour of the prison Monday. But a decision has to be made.

An old issue

Its not the first time the state has dealt with structural concerns at its largest prison.

Within sight of the current prison is its predecessor, a complex of squat, tan buildings surrounded by overgrown bushes. The Department of Corrections was forced to abandon the previous structure, called the North Facility, after only 20 years when it became unsafe due to a variety of structural issues, including poor drainage and soils that swell and shrink in response to moisture.

State government officials decided to then build the new prison a quarter of a mile away. A 1997 report on the soils at the prospective site noted that the site appears suitable for proposed construction but expansive bedrock and soils will require particular attention in the design and construction, according to a state summary of the construction.

Inmates first moved into the main building of the prison in 2001, though construction on additional buildings continued until 2009. The prison was supposed to last at least 50 years. After only a few, however, facility staff started to notice that something wasnt right.

First, they noticed cracked windows. Then they discovered fissures on the exteriors and in the gym. The prison has been monitored, evaluated and repaired continuously since 2011. The staff maintains a spreadsheet of all the issues as well as photos tracking the progress. When asked on Monday how big the spreadsheet is, staff members simply laughed.

Along with daily maintenance to walls, windows and doors, corrections staff members have focused on repairs to two areas: the gym and the electrical room.

A temporary plywood wall blocked off a section of the gym Monday. Two-by-fours held up a wall in one of the corners, where a level duct-taped to the wall continued to monitor shifts. Cracks spidered away from the gap in the wall, each marked by the exact time they were noticed. In once case, a fissure expanded more than a foot in a six-minute period.

We were watching them move at one point, Heier said.

A sturdy pole held up the ceiling outside the electrical room, which directs power to the entire facility. Previously, one side of a heavy beam crashed through that area of the ceiling because the cinderblocks that held it werent properly constructed to hold its weight. Chunks of concrete weighing up to 4 pounds fell with the beam, staff said.

As the ceiling inside the electrical room shifts, fireproofing material continues to crack and fall. Steel beams that cross the space near the ceiling have bowed under the pressure. The roof occasionally leaks  an obvious hazard in a room of electrical equipment. If the electrical equipment were compromised, all power would be lost. Doors wouldnt open. Cooking appliances wouldnt work. Feeds from security cameras would go dark.

We would lose everything if we lost this room, Heier said.

Competing proposals

To prevent that catastrophe, lawmakers authorized $7 million in 2016 for immediate repairs, including work on the gym and the electrical room, which is being reconstructed in a separate prefabricated building outside of the facility.

But lawmakers acted less swiftly when confronted with the real questions: To rebuild or to repair? And if repairs are the right choice, how much are they willing to spend?

Those are tough questions at a time when revenue shortages caused by downturns in the energy sector are forcing the state to eliminate services and staff. And so, lawmakers looked to the experts.

In December 2014, the state asked an engineering firm, Martin/Martin Wyoming, to investigate the issues at the prison and estimate costs for rebuilding or repairs. For more than a year, the firms engineers reviewed documents and evaluated the facility. A task force created to review the issues at the prison recommended that lawmakers during the 2017 legislative session approve $87 million in repairs as outlined by Martin/Martin.

Legislators instead ordered a review of the Martin/Martin report, created a savings account for a future decision and authorized up to $15 million in spending from the rainy day fund for emergency repairs. The Department of Corrections also signed a contract with a private prison company that would provide housing for inmates should they be forced out of the prison.

Martin/Martin found that the structural issues are caused by primarily unstable soils that swell and shrink in response to moisture. The firm proposed four options, including rebuilding the prison at a new site, but legislators focused on one: an $87 million package of extensive repairs expected to keep the facility operational for the remainder of its 50-year lifespan.

Its not intended to be a Band-Aid, John Lund, the lead engineer on the project, told members of the Joint Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

Lund also said he personally believed the best option was to rebuild the prison at a different site. A construction company that has been working on projects at the prison estimated a new prison would cost about $173 million to construct, not including the price of the land.

But those at the second engineering firm, WJE Associates, came away with a different diagnosis during their two-month review  and a cheaper solution.

According to the firms report, the structural movements at the South Facility, where most inmates live, are caused by uplifts farther beneath the surface that are slowing and could stop in the near future.

Their recommended repairs are far less extensive than those proposed by Martin/Martin and cost only $7.5 million.

Both firms, however, agreed on one issue. The prisons drainage and grading issues need to be addressed immediately. The ground outside the facilities slopes toward the buildings, sending water into, instead of away from, the area.

The one area where we are absolutely in agreement, where we are in lockstep, is that water is the enemy, said one of WJEs engineers.

The members of Joint Appropriations appeared to take that to heart when they decided Tuesday to recommend to Gov. Matt Mead that he approve funding to fix the facilitys drainage and grading as well as immediate repairs to damaged doors and glass panes. To do so, they will combine recommendations from both WJE Associates and Martin/Martin.

This is a mechanism to take care of the immediate problems, said Rep. Bob Nicholas, R-Cheyenne, who chairs the committee. We may be back here doing this again next year.

Broader issues

Department of Corrections Director Bob Lampert said Thursday that the decision will allow the prison to remain safe and operational for the time being.

If our repair and mitigation efforts prove inadequate in the long-run, the Legislature will then have to consider either funding a more aggressive level of mitigation for the existing facility or paying for a replacement facility in Rawlins, he said in an emailed statement.

But he reminded lawmakers Tuesday that he cant afford to lose a prison bed due to a growing number of people in the states corrections system.

Incarceration rates in Wyoming have risen drastically in the past few decades  from 114 people incarcerated for every 100,000 residents in 1980 to 407 people in 2016, Lampert told legislators.

In the same period, he said, the number of reported crimes has dropped by nearly half. But average sentence lengths have grown, as have average lengths of stay in prisons. By 2020, he estimates that the states five correctional facilities will be at capacity.

Despite the growth, Mead has asked the department to make budget cuts, which ultimately meant staff cuts from the state penitentiary, the freeze of other positions throughout the agency and reduced funding for substance abuse treatment programs. A rising percentage of probationers and parolees are becoming incarcerated for violations involving drugs and alcohol, he said.

None of the best practice solutions to substance abuse treatment are being provided, he said.

Lampert presented the Joint Appropriations Committee with two options: pay for more beds or expand alternative sentencing options and improve services that keep probationers and parolees from incarceration.

Unless public policy changes ... were going to have to be ready to build more beds, he said.

The continuous maintenance at the penitentiary has also stressed limited staff resources. The prison currently pays a staff of 308  substantially less than the 427 funded positions at the facility in 2003.

Not only are staff members spending their days making repairs, but they also have to allocate employees to monitor and protect contract construction workers. As of May 31, he had spent $2.4 million in overtime pay for workers at the prison  about $448,000 more than was budgeted to last the entire year.

Im not an alarmist, but staffing is becoming a more critical issue than some of the repairs to the building, he said.

The unanswered question

One question hovers over the controversy: Whos to blame?

The Wyoming Attorney Generals Office is investigating the construction and design of the facility to see if any of the contractors are liable. Attorney General Peter Michael said Friday that his office continues to investigate potential claim issues regarding the prison. He declined to provide and updates on the process, citing attorney/client privilege. Lampert previously told lawmakers that the prison wasnt constructed exactly to design.

Legislators attempted to address the issue at the meeting Tuesday. One asked Lund, the engineer from Martin/Martin, who made the decisions that fated the prison.

Ive not really found a clear answer to that, Lund said.

He said it could have happened when management of the project was outsourced to a private company.

It appears there was an incentive for the third party to keep costs down and expedite construction, Lund said. I think the state lost some oversight when they did that.

It also appears that some recommendations to mitigate that movement were not followed during construction, according to the firms report. For example, the firm found that builders failed to correctly install some concrete slabs and didnt construct critical empty spaces that the expanding soils could fill without impacting the structures. The report also noted that in some cases the recommended solutions were simply not pursued.

Structurally-supported ground level floors were discussed in the geotechnical report, but were not selected for use at the WSP, the report states. Properly designed and constructed structural ground level floors would have greatly reduced or eliminated the damage from floor slab movement.

Regardless of faults in design or construction, Lund said, the state knew all along the dangers the site posed.

The risks of movement at this site were pretty clear when it was built, Lund said. It was a risk that was taken that hasnt turned out well for the state.
Mumbai: After recording a sharp 1.8 per cent fall in shares in 2017, Indias largest oral care brand Colgate Palmolives global CEO, Ian Cook, turned to look at Baba Ramdevs Patanjali while stressing on the need to identify and respond to changing consumer preferences.

According to an article in Economic Times, Cook said that consumer trends tend to be premium price oriented and firms need to respond to them by specifically churning out products that meet those demands. He went on to give the example of Patanjali that answered the call of herbal, Ayurvedic products in India. Patanjali in India takes a very nationalist view of its business, Cook told investors on Friday.

Ramdevs Patanjali evolving into a Rs 10,000 crore giant in less than 10 years is a proof of the shift in consumer preference to Ayurvedic products. The homegrown brand reportedly caused disruptions in the market.

Colgate Indias share in the Indian toothpaste market fell by 1.8 per cent in 2016 with sales volume falling 4 per cent. Colgate had a market share of 55.6 per cent in toothpaste and 47.3 per cent in the toothbrush category in 2016. Patanjali was able to challenge Colgates dominance while being present in only two lakh traditional retail stores as against the formers presence in more than five million stores.

Responding to the call of Ayurveda, Colgate in 2016 rolled out its first ayurvedic brand Cibaca Vedshakti, to compete with Patanjali's Dant Kanti toothpaste. And in the end, the winner over time in these clashes are going to be the companies that best understand the consumer and serve them offerings that they want over time and of course thats what we all resourced and focused on doing, Cook said.

Domestic brands like Hindustan Unilever, Dabur also came out with their versions of ayurvedic personal care products. Such home-grown brands make up nearly 79 per cent of the personal care market in India.

According to a Nielsen study, Consumers are drawn to Indian brands when it comes to naturals, under the assumption that manufacturers of these brands use common kitchen ingredients, making it safe for consumption and less likely to result in side effects or allergies.
Philip Morris and ITC did not respond to requests for comment. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The state government in India's capital told Philip Morris International Inc and other tobacco companies on Saturday to remove all advertisements from tobacco shops in the city, warning them of legal action if they do not comply.

The order, sent by Delhi state's chief tobacco control officer S. K. Arora, comes days after Reuters reported that Philip Morris was promoting Marlboro cigarettes, the world's best-selling brand, by advertising them at tobacco shops and distributing free cigarette samples. Government officials say such tactics flout the law.

The strategy was laid out in hundreds of pages of internal Philip Morris documents reviewed by Reuters that cover the period from 2009 to 2016.

Indian officials have previously said tobacco advertising using brand names or promotional slogans is illegal under the country's Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and its accompanying rules. But Philip Morris and India's leading cigarette maker ITC Ltd say they comply with regulations and that the law allows advertising inside a kiosk.

Arora said the federal health ministry had told him that all brand advertisements, irrespective of where they were placed, were not allowed in the country.

Philip Morris and ITC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Tobacco companies have continued to advertise at sale points despite repeated warnings from the Delhi state government in recent years. Philip Morris has been paying a monthly fee to some tobacco vendors to display the company's colorful advertisements, the Reuters investigation found.

Arora also told Reuters he "will investigate and conduct raids" to check on distribution of free cigarettes at social events. "If violations are found, action as per law will be taken," Arora said.

India enacted its national tobacco control law in 2003 and has since added rules to strengthen it, but government officials say companies get away with violations because law enforcement is weak.

The federal health ministry on Friday said it planned to seek an explanation from Philip Morris and other tobacco companies about their marketing practices following the Reuters investigation that was published earlier this week. Philip Morris and ITC did not respond to requests for comment.
These are tough days for Jet Airways as it is under monetary pressure.

Mumbai: Jet Airways has asked junior pilots to furnish surety bonds worth up to Rs 1 crore and serve the airline for at least five to seven years, union sources said.

The development comes at a time when many of its junior pilots have been asked to take 10 days off every month, a move that would result in up to 30 per cent pay cut, as part of cost saving measures.

Sources at the National Aviators Guild (NAG), the pilots' union of Jet Airways, said the bond requirement has been communicated to the junior pilots. These pilots have been asked to furnish surety bonds worth Rs 1 crore and the development also comes as the airline has "unilaterally" decided on salary cuts for them, sources told PTI.

"No new bonds (have been) asked for. It is just a pattern that has been introduced," a Jet Airways spokesperson said. He was responding to a query whether the airline has asked its trainee pilots to sign a bond amount of up to Rs 1 crore.

The spokesperson was also asked the junior pilots have to serve the airline for 5-7 years and face encashment of the bond in case of failure to serve that tenure. Sources at the NAG said plans to meet the airline management this week to discuss the pay cut proposal as it has been done in a unilateral manner.

Jet Airways has more than 200 junior pilots, including those undergoing training.

"As an interim measure, we shall be offering you a Lifestyle Work Pattern which entails 10 days block off per month with the appropriate remuneration... This will be effective from August 1, 2017," the carrier said in a letter to many junior pilots last week.

The NAG would be taking up the matter with the management soon, sources added. On July 20, Jet Airways said that certain developments in the market, including that in the Gulf region, as well as its continued efforts to enhance internal efficiencies, have resulted in the review of network, fleet and crew utilisation.

Consequently, as a proactive measure, the company has made interim alignments to its crew work patterns, which will be reviewed in future, in line with network growth, the spokesperson had said.
Company had posted a net profit of Rs 43.8 crore for the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

New Delhi: Diageo-owned United Spirits today reported a 43.6 per cent jump in its standalone net profit at Rs 62.9 crore for the quarter ended June. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 43.8 crore for the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

Total income from operations stood flat at Rs 5,847.7 crore for the quarter under review as against Rs 5,877.2 crore in the same period a year ago, United Spirits said in a filing to the BSE. The company said sales were impacted due to ban of liquor near highways and one-off impact of operating model changes.

United Spirits CEO Anand Kripalu said: "Performance in the first quarter, as expected, was impacted by the highway ban, which led to lower consumption due to a reduced number of retail outlets. We have also witnessed destocking by customers."

"Despite the regulatory challenges, the long-term consumer opportunity remains strong in spirits. We continue to focus on our strategic priorities to capture this opportunity... and achieve our medium-term ambition to grow top line by double digits and improve margins to high teens," he added.
Mumbai: Despite increasing number of students not paying back their loans spiking NPAs to over 10 per cent, lending continues for higher education with the

disbursals topping Rs 20,000 crore in fiscal 2017, according to a report.

Banks and other lenders together disbursed around Rs 20,000 crore in education loans in FY17, up from around Rs 17,000 crore a year ago, while total outstanding grew 1.6 per cent to Rs 81,600 crore.

Non-performing assets (NPAs) within the education loan book of the system ballooned 21 per cent in the reporting year, spiking the NPA ratio to 10.2 per cent as of March 2017, said a report by credit information company Crif High Mark.

The state-run banks dominate the space with a 90 per cent market share, both in value and volume, while non-banking lenders target the over Rs 10-lakh segment, which has low asset quality concerns.

Among the states, the NPA situation in Tamil Nadu and Kerala is of "concern", with Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Kancheepuram, Thiruvallur, Trichy, Alapuzzha, Thanjavur and Erode witnessing higher NPAs, the report said. It can be noted that virtually all the other segments in retail lending, excluding agriculture -- considered resilient and a refuge for banks in face of high NPAs in their corporate loan books -- have shown very low NPAs.

Illustrating a jump in the cost of education, the average ticket has now moved up to Rs 6.8 lakh, which has more than doubled from Rs 3.25 lakh five years ago, it said. A greater 65 per cent of loans are in under the Rs 4-lakh bracket, while 20 per cent are in the Rs 4-10 lakh bracket, said the report.

The top six states for educational loans are Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, according to the report, which also said these states constitute for 66 per cent of the overall book, down from 70 per cent two years ago.

Tamil Nadu alone constitutes for 24 per cent of the over Rs 81,600 crore portfolio, it said. On a city-wise break-up, higher average ticket sizes of Rs 9-10 lakh are in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi, while Ernakulam, Thane and Vishakapatnam have seen high disbursements in the last six to 12 months.

Generally, ticket sizes have bee found to trend higher in the first two quarters of every fiscal, which indicates a higher demand from foreign education aspirants. It can be noted that the RBI has been highlighting the pitfalls in the student loans and the then Governor Raghuram Rajan had flagged issues in May 2016.

"We have to be careful that student loans are repaid in full by those who have the means, while they are forgiven in part for those who fall on bad times or those who take low-paying public service jobs," he had said.
New Delhi: Foreign direct investment (FDI) grew by 23 per cent to USD 10.02 billion during April-May this fiscal, Parliament was informed today.

In 2016-17, the foreign fund inflows aggregated at USD 60.08 billion, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. She said that to promote FDI, the government has put in place an investor-friendly policy.

"Except for a small negative list, most sectors are open for 100 per cent FDI under the automatic route," she added.

The minister also said that after abolition of the foreign investment promotion board, the work of monitoring of the compliance of conditions, including the past cases approved by erstwhile FIPB has been assigned to the concerned administrative ministries.

In a separate reply, Sitharaman informed that India has received USD 182.4 million FDI in food products during April- May period of this fiscal. In food processing industries, foreign players have invested USD 187.9 million during the period.

As per the FDI policy, FDI up to 100 per cent, under the automatic route, is allowed in food processing industries.

Further, 100 per cent FDI under government route for retail trading, including through e-commerce, is permitted in respect of food products manufactured and/or produced in India.
Employees of IT start-ups and small industries can claim provident fund and social security benefits under various provisions of labour laws, said Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya.

New Delhi: Employees of IT start-ups and small industries can claim provident fund and social security benefits under various provisions of labour laws, Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said in Parliament on Monday.

"The workers of IT start-ups and small scale industries may avail of benefits of provisions of the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, the Employees' State Insurance Act and social security schemes under the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act depending on eligibility," Dattatreya said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

He was responding to a question on social security and welfare of workers in these sectors.

The government has launched Atal Pension Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana for all citizens, he said. These schemes are specifically targeted towards unorganised workers to give them comprehensive social security.

In a separate reply, Dattatreya said the ministry is implementing the National Career Service (NCS) project in mission mode to transform the National Employment Service to provide job-related services.

Job-seekers and employers can register with NCS, match jobs, get career counselling as well as vocational guidance. "The scope of the NCS project was enhanced during 2016-17 to include a component for providing part funds for improving the infrastructure in employment exchanges for organising job fairs," he added.

Nearly 540 job fairs were organised under NCS last fiscal, Dattatreya said further.
Bengaluru: IT, BT and tourism minister Priyank Kharge on Monday said that the states two major technology events, Bengaluru ITE.biz and Bengaluru India Bio for 2017 will be held together for the first time on from November 16 to 18 at the Bengaluru Palace.

The 20th edition of this mega event is aimed at focusing on the theme, Ideate, innovate, and invent.

From the last years ITE.biz event, I realised that there was a huge void in skill sets for emerging technologies. The government of Karnataka has setup various center of excellence in the past 7 months to ensure that skills are developed much faster than any other state, said Mr Kharge.

Having built the centre of excellence for Inte-rnet of Things (IoT), the Karnataka government now plans to build centres for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning and big data.

Kiran Mazumadar Shaw, Biocon CMD and the chairperson of Karnatakas Vision Group on Biotechnology, said, Karnataka has taken the lead in creating this mega event, which is a combination of IT and biotechnology.

The time has come for us to recognize the convergence of technology. She said the summit will be showcasing many aspects of the technology sector.
New Delhi: Shares of ITC gained 2.4 percent in the morning trade on Monday as the cigarette major hiked select product prices following Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council hiked cess to pre-GST level.

As per the reports, ITC hiked Gold Flake Kings and Classic Rich prices to Rs. 300 per 20 pack each while Navy Cut Filter price increased to Rs. 188 per 20 pack.

The company increased cigarette prices of its three brands effective July 18, reports the MoneyControl quoting sources of Cogencis.

However, the price hike is taken across keeping the competitive intensity in mind.

It added that the weighted average price hike is around seven to eight percent, which the research believes will compensate for increase in cess.

Earlier on Tuesday, the stock price lost 13 percent, especially after the GST Council on July 17, reviewed the compensation cess rates in cigarettes and raised tax by 10-14 percent for all cigarette lengths other than the King Size (KSFT) segment wherein the tax increase is around 23 percent.
John Abraham is rather excited as he awaits the release of his next movie, Parmanu  The Story of Pokhran, slated to release by the end of the year.

The film is about the second nuclear explosion carried out by former president APJ Abdul Kalam during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government rule, and is said to be one of the biggest failures of the American agency CIA.

Vajpayeeji was the Prime Minister then, and he had declared that we will not be the first users of the bomb, says John. And he said that we will not use it on anybody. If you see the film youll understand.

John and the team of Parmanu shot the movie at actual locations at Pokhran in Rajasthan. We did shoot in Pokhran, and the people there were very nice and co-operative. We wanted to shoot in actual locations, and we got permissions from the ministry of defence for the same, he adds.

John, however, is as secretive about his character in the movie, as the nuclear tests carried out. The film is not an overtly patriotic movie at all. It has been made as a thriller, so I cannot reveal my character to you. No, Im not a member of the defence forces, but you will know when the first look of the movie is out, he smiles.
Vijay Sethupathis benevolent nature comes to light yet again. As he is rocking on the career front with his recent film Vikram Vedha, young social activist and documentary filmmaker, Divya Bharathi, who rose to fame with her documentary Kakkoos, disclosed how the actor called and appreciated her efforts besides undertaking the cost of postproduction.

The film revealed the brutal reality of manual scavenging and caste-based discrimination prevailing in the society.

Divya, who has been selected for the Periyar Socrates Award for her documentary piece in the year 2017, praised Vijay Sethupathi in a Facebook post. After describing how she watched Vikram Vedha at an ordinary theatre in Madurai (as she could not get tickets in multiplexes), and about the audiences rousing response to the actors performance, she revealed Vijays benevolent act.

She wrote, After watching the trailer of Kakkoos, Vijay Sethupathi had called me and discussed at length the politics surrounding the continuance of manual scavenging despite courts banning it. He also said he wanted to help me in some way. He paid Rs 30,000, the post-production cost of the documentary.
Photos showed the elephants in distress, barely keeping their trunks above water in the deep seas about one kilometre off the coast of Sri Lanka (Photo: AFP)

Colombo: Two young elephants washed out to sea were saved from drowning Sunday by the Sri Lankan navy in the second such incident off the island in as many weeks.

The navy said the pair of wild elephants were brought ashore after a "mammoth effort" involving navy divers, ropes and a flotilla of boats to tow them back to shallow waters.

Photos showed the elephants in distress, barely keeping their trunks above water in the deep seas about one kilometre off the coast of Sri Lanka.

"Having safely guided the two elephants to the shore, they were subsequently released to the Foul Point jungle (in Trincomalee district)," the navy said in a statement.

"They were extremely lucky to have been spotted by a patrol craft which called in several other boats to help with the rescue."

Two weeks ago, the navy mounted a similar operation in the same region to save a lone elephant washed eight kilometres (five miles) off the Sri Lankan coast into the deep waters of the Indian Ocean.

Navy officials say the animals were likely swept out while crossing shallow lagoons in the region.

They are not the only wildlife to encounter trouble in the biodiverse island.

In May, the navy and local residents saved a pod of 20 pilot whales that became stranded in Trincomalee, a natural harbour that is popular for whale watching.

The waters around Trincomalee, which were used by Allied forces as a staging post during World War II, have a high concentration of blue and sperm whales, while the surrounding jungles have herds of wild elephants.
Men slide in the mud during the Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon Beach in Boryeong, South Korea, Saturday, July 22, 2017.(Photo: AP)

Revellers danced and wrestled on Friday in South Korea's capital of mud, kicking off a nine-day festival expected to lure millions of people to this quaint coastal city.

Boryeong, which is hosting the 20th annual Mud Festival about 190 km southwest of the capital, Seoul, says its mud has special powers to refresh the skin and soothe the soul.

Besides pitching skincare products made from nearby mudflats, the festival also gives visitors the chance to play in tonnes of the greyish goo at mud wrestling pits, mud slides and mud baths.

"I'm having a great time right now. I love it," said Joshua Parrish, an American soldier based in South Korea.

The festival is a major boost to the local economy. Organizers said four million people, including 439,000 foreigners, flocked to the city last year. This year's event runs to July 30.
Asked about plans for a four-legged addition to the White House, Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Melania Trump, said in a statement: "The first family is still getting settled so there are no plans at this time." (Photo: Pixabay)

Washington: Politically ambitious pups and kittens: Put your resumes aside.

The job of first pet - an enviable White House gig with luxurious live-in privileges, after-hours access to the president and guaranteed positive press coverage - is not currently available.

That's because President Donald Trump is not looking for a fluffy sidekick at the moment. Asked about plans for a four-legged addition to the White House, Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Melania Trump, said in a statement: "The first family is still getting settled so there are no plans at this time."

If Trump stays pet-free, he will be breaking with a long held tradition of presidential pet ownership.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's had his beloved terrier Fala. President George H.W. Bush's English springer spaniel Millie was featured on "The Simpsons." When President Barack Obama's family acquired their Portuguese water dog Bo, it was big news.

"In the modern-day presidency, almost all of them have had a pet," said Jennifer Pickens, a White House social expert who wrote "Pets at the White House." Still, she noted, "all didn't necessarily have them at the beginning of the administration."

Power and pets have long gone hand in hand.

"For some reason people in power, they end up suffocating different opinions and dominating their staff, but they in some ways long for someone who will speak up to them, and a pet will," said Doug Wead, a former George H.W. Bush administration staffer who wrote books on presidential children and the 2016 campaign.

Wead noted that political pets can sometimes be used for, well, politics. He recalled an event after Millie had puppies that was "carefully choreographed so guests could see all these little puppies."

"It was calculated like a state dinner," he said.

While there have been notable pets in the White House for generations, Millie was the first modern White House dog, said Pickens. She added that Barbara Bush was the first one to "use the pet as a tool to reach out."

The former first lady wrote "Millie's Book: As Dictated to Barbara Bush," which reached the number one spot on the New York Times nonfiction best seller list in the fall of 1990. The newspaper's description: "The memoirs of the English springer spaniel who lives in the White House."

Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1998 followed Bush's lead, with a children's book about family dog Buddy and cat Socks. "Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets" featured photographs of the pets, details on their habits and more than 50 letters from children to the pets.

During President George W. Bush's administration, when the White House was closed for tours after 9/11, the administration tried to connect with the public through videos. Among them was the "Barney Cam" series of short videos featuring the Scottish terrier having adventures in the West Wing, with cameos from the first family and White House staff.

When he declared victory in the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama told his daughters: "You have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House." Several months later, Bo joined the family, a gift from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Bo quickly became a household name, appearing on morning television shows and in videos promoting the White House Easter egg roll.

Some notable pets belonged to first kids, including Amy Carter's Siamese cat Misty Malarky Ying Yang and Caroline Kennedy's pony Macaroni. The Kennedy family had a veritable menagerie of pets, complete with dogs, cats, birds, hamsters and a rabbit named Zsa Zsa.

Going back in White House history, some presidential pet stories get more outlandish. According to the Presidential Pet Museum website, President Martin Van Buren was given a pair of tiger cubs that he donated to a zoo and President John Quincy Adams was presented an alligator.

While Trump has not embraced presidential pet ownership, Vice President Mike Pence has picked up the slack. The Pences have a bunny, Marlon Bundo, and a cat named Pickles. Another cat named Oreo recently died. And they just added two more pets to the household - puppy Harley and cat Hazel. They also installed a beehive.

Pickens said she doesn't know that it matters if Trump gets a dog, but she said they are "effective tools to connect with the American people and I think pets help humanize the presidency."

Of course, while pet ownership can provide personal and political perks, it can also go wrong. Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was dogged by criticism for admitting that during a 1983 family vacation, he strapped his Irish setter - in a pet carrier - to the roof of his car for a 12-hour drive from Boston to Canada.
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Police has arrested 20 persons in connection with the mob lynching of DSP Mohd Ayub Pandith in Srinagar in June, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, Munir Khan said in Srinagar on Monday.

A militant involved in the killing of the police officer was shot dead in an encounter with security forces on July 12, the IGP said addressing a press conference on the status of the investigations in the case.

Pandith was lynched outside Jamia Masjid in Nowhatta area of the city on June 22. The IGP said the investigation in the case is still on and more arrests are likely to take place.

"So far 20 accused have been arrested and one more, a militant identified as Sajad Ahmad Gilkar, was killed in an encounter with the security forces in Redbugh area of Budgam on July 12, Khan said.

"The investigation of the case is going on at a fast pace and some more arrests are expected which will lead to the completion of the investigation and the case will be submitted for judicial determination, He said.

Khan said the police is making vigorous efforts to identify the remaining assailants involved in the crime, while recovery of other evidences related to the commission of the crime is underway.

"The important pieces of evidence including an iron rod, by which the officer was hit, his identity card, service pistol (in a damaged condition) and his cell phone have been recovered, he said.

The IGP said it was encouraging to note that people came forward to provide valuable information which led to a substantial headway in the investigations.

"Unlike other cases, there was widespread condemnation by a cross-section of the society.

General public and eyewitnesses voluntarily came forward to render assistance in the investigation and provide valuable information. This led us to the right conclusion and the right line of investigation, He said.

Khan said in the initial phase, three persons were arrested and questioned which led to subsequent arrests and recovery of evidence. Stitching together the sequence of events which led to the lynching of the officer, the IGP said during investigations it surfaced that a group of hooligans came out of the mosque raising slogans in favour of militant commander Zakir Musa and supposedly to welcome chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

"Four miscreants saw the DySP, who was coming out of the mosque after checking the deployment for access control duties, called him and questioned him. They asked for his identity card which he refused to give. The hooligans started heckling the officer and the number of miscreants swelled. The officer fired some shots from his service rifle below the waistline causing injury to three assailants who were in the immediate proximity and were heckling him. However, the mob continued to beat him which resulted in his death, Khan said.

He said it took time to identify the slain officer as "he was defaced and disfigured". Rejecting the charge that there was any kind of dereliction of duty on the part of police officials present in the area, the IGP said, "It seems the slain officer had not liaised with the officers of the police station concerned".

Asked whether Mirwaizs supporters were involved in the incident, Khan said the probe is still on. He said "Everyone who needs to be questioned, would be questioned" in response to a query whether Mirwaiz would be questioned in connection with the case. He said the slain officer was there to protect everyone praying at the mosque including Mirwaiz.
Police believe the girl was attacked in a gap of one hour when she was home-alone (Representational Image)

Chennai: A 14-year-old Class IX girl was found raped and murdered in her house in Alathur village near Tiruporur in Kancheepuram district late Sunday evening. It was on returning from a relatives house that her brother and sister found the body of the girl, with her throat slit.

Police confirmed that there was enough evidence to show that the girl was sexually assaulted before the killer murdered her. Her dresses were not in place and other evidence indicated sexual assault, said an officer who visited the scene of crime.

The victims mother, who works in the housekeeping wing of a private hospital, had left for night duty at around 6 pm. The victims elder brother and young sister had returned around 7.15 pm when they found their sisters half naked body in a pool of blood on the floor.

The thin-framed girls body with her top partially removed - was found with the hip placed on a pillow, police noted. It looks like the rape and murder happened between 6 pm and 7 pm when the girl was alone at home.

Police said that the possibility of a person known to the family committing the crime is high, as he must have aware that the girl is alone between 6 and 7 pm. Police sniffer dogs and forensic experts are being asked to assist the murder probe, police sources said.
Chennai/Ramanathapuram: A 60-year-old Pakistani national, who was staying in a lodge in the coastal district of Ramanathapuram without a passport and other travel documents was arrested on Saturday. He had at least four fake Aadhaar card copies with him.

The arrest comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Rameswaram to inaugurate a memorial for the former president, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on July 27.

The person was identified as Mohammed Yunus, from Karachi. He was arrested from a lodge in Ervadi, police said. He was carrying Rs 2,500 in Pakistani currency and Rs 3,000 in Indian currency. He is a narcotics dealer, who posed as a businessman dealing in nuts, police disclosed.

Pakistan national entered India on illegal ferry, forged Aadhaar

During interrogation, it came to light that he had come to Tamil Nadu illegally by a boat from Sri Lanka in the month of May and visited Ramanathapuram, Madurai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Ajmer. After travelling to several places in trying to procure narcotics he had reached Ervadi, from where the police picked him up on Saturday.

Two others from Ervadi, identified as Syed Abu Thahir and Abdul Aziz, who had allegedly promised to help him in procuring narcotics, were also arrested by police.

The Pakistani national was produced before a magistrate at his residence in Paramakudi and was remanded to judicial custody. He is being moved to the Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai, sources added.

Police said the man spoke fluent English, Hindi, Urdu and Sinhalese. He had his schooling till class IV in Sri Lanka, as his parents, who are from Karachi, were living there. Later they shifted to Pakistan. Some narcotics cases have been booked against Mohamed Younus in Sri Lanka.

This time, during his visit to India, he was supposed to procure two cases of brown sugar from an agent in Ahmedabad. Yunus reached Ammapattinam beach in Pudukottai district on May 2 using an illegal ferry. From there, he travelled to various places in India and returned without the contraband. It appears the agent in Ahmedabad had failed to deliver narcotic consignments and so asked him to travel back. He was waiting for his Sri Lankan agent to arrange an illegal ferry to get back to the island nation, a source here said.

His photograph has been pasted on somebody elses Aadhaar cards and he had photocopies of such Aadhaar cards police said adding that a Sri Lankan in Chennai had helped him to get such duplicate cards. He has been booked under various IPC sections for cheating, forgery, for fraudulently forging a genuine document and impersonation and 420 for cheating. He was also booked under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act 1946 and 3 (a), 6 (a) of the Passport (entry to India) Rules 1950 for illegally entering into the country. Police are also looking into his possible involvement in arms smuggling as drugs and arms, in most cases, will have same players and use same routes.
Hyderabad: Five Nigerians and a woman from Vijayawada were arrested by the Rachakonda police in another major drug bust on Monday. While one of the arrested is the president of the Association of Nigerian Nationals in Hyderabad, two of them are students of Nizam College. Police allege that the gang is also involved in human trafficking, supplying Nigerian women for the flesh trade in India.

Police say they have seized huge quantities of cocaine, brown sugar, amphetamine and ganja from their possession.

The arrested persons are Palaparthi Sangeetha, 35, John Okorie, 26, and Okereke Cyril Anezi, 31, both students of Nizam College, Ojukwu Cosmas, 30, John Paul Oneybuchi, 34, and Ogunka Henry Okechukwu, 31. Police are also on the lookout for another member of the gang, Gabriel.

Gang has links in Goa, Mumbai, Chennai

Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that on Sunday night, Sangeetha and John were caught at LB Nagar bus stop and a huge quantity of ganja and cocaine was found on them. During questioning, Sangeetha revealed that she came into contact with Cosmas some months ago through Facebook and since then they have been living in the same flat in Sun City in Badlaguda.

Cosmas came to India in 2012 on a business visa, and stayed on illegally after his visa expired. He became a drug peddler and has links with suppliers operating from Goa, Mumbai and Chennai.

Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat inspecting the drugs seized from the Nigerians. (Photo: DC)

He has been procuring cocaine, brown sugar and amphetamine tablets from one Gabriel and supplying to his customers through his friends John, Henry and others. On his instructions, Sangeetha was also supplying drugs, said the Commissioner.

He said more persons may be involved and they are consulting the DRI and the Excise department for more information.

A police source said that at the instance of Cosmas, Sangeetha also got involved in human trafficking.

Police say that John Paul and Henry also came to India on business and visit visas and are staying illegally. Cosmas was selling cocaine for `20,000 per gram. He told police that he and others were given shelter by Okereke Cyril who is the president of the Associatoin of Nigerian Nationals in Hyderabad.

Cyril lives in a rented flat owned by Rasheed Khan, an assistant libr-arian at the National Institute of Rural Devel-opment, who did not inf-orm the Foreigner Re-gional Registration Offi-ce that he was renting his flat to foreign nationals.

Though Cyril knew that his friends were into drug peddling and human trafficking, he gave them shelter. We will also take action against Mr Rasheed Khan for not following government guidelines in renting out his flat to foreign nationals, the commissioner said.

John Paul was arrested by the Goa police on an earlier occasion for drug peddling and staying on illegally and was sentenced to jail for three months. After serving his sentence, he moved to Hyderabad.

Vijayawada woman helped gang

Palaparthi Sangeetha, a Vijayawada based former BPO employee, shifted to Hyderabad after her husband passed away.

Through a common friend, she came into contact with the Nigerians and became a drug peddler. The gang used her account to collect payments from customers. After Sangeetha and her Nigerian boyfriend were caught with cocaine and ganja and interrogated, police discovered that they and their Nigerian friends were into supplying drugs and human trafficking. Sangeetha met Ojukwu Cosmas in January 2017 through a Sudanese friend.

At the instance of Cosmas, she started drug peddling and also got involved in supplying girls. She also opened an account in a State Bank of India branch in her name, which was used by all the gang members to collect money from clients to whom they supplied drugs and Nigerian girls. In the past six months, the account has seen a turnover of lakhs and we are verifying the details of the persons who paid them, officials said. Police also found close to 200 contacts in each of the suspects' mobile phones and it is suspected that they could be the clients for drugs and girls.
Amarnath pilgrims who were injured in Monday's terror attack at Anantnag in J & K, being brought by an IAF plane, at the airport in Surat on Tuesday. (Photo: PTI)

Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir BJP on Thursday demanded a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the July 10 terror attack on Amarnath pilgrims in which seven people were killed and 19 injured.

J&K BJP spokesperson Anil Gupta said that an NIA probe becomes all the more necessary in view of the inputs on public domain.

The local police has reportedly held Lashkar terrorist Abu Ismail responsible for carrying out the attack with the assistance of local Hizbul Mujahideen cadre.

"There is adequate suspicion of Pakistan and PoK-based international terrorist Syed Salahuddin, Chairman of United Jihad Council (UJC), also being involved in masterminding the terror attack," he said.

He claimed that the role on sleeper cells of the Lashkar-e-Taiba or the Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence operating outside the state cannot be ruled out.

"Keeping in view the involvement of not only the terrorists but many other hidden hands, it becomes imperative that the investigation is entrusted to a specialised agency like the NIA," Gupta said.
The Supreme Court has fixed the matter for hearing on July 28, and said the medical report be filed in a sealed cover before it and asked the counsel for the rape victim to provide her address to the member secretary instantly. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and others on a plea seeking its permission to allow a 10-year-old rape survivor to terminate her 26-week-old pregnancy.

A bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud asked the member secretary of Chandigarh Legal Services Authority to assist it as an amicus curiae and get the rape survivor examined by a board of doctors on July 26.

The bench also said the medical board will have to examine the aspect whether if they allow the girl to abort the foetus, then what could be the possible risk on her life.

It has asked the member secretary to ensure that the rape survivor and one of her parents are accorded proper transportation facility for her examination at PGI, Chandigarh.

The court has now fixed the matter for hearing on July 28, and said the medical report be filed in a sealed cover before it and asked the counsel for the rape victim to provide her address to the member secretary instantly.

The PIL was filed after a Chandigarh district court on July 18 refused to let the girl undergo the abortion after it was confirmed that she was 26-weeks-pregnant.

Courts allow medical termination of pregnancy up to 20 weeks under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and can make an exception if the foetus is genetically abnormal.

The petition, filed by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, has also sought appropriate guidelines be framed by the top court to set up a permanent medical board in each district of India for expedient termination of pregnancies in exceptional cases involving child rape survivors under the best possible medical facilities.

"Medical experts have categorically opined that if the 10-year-old rape survivor is forced to give birth through normal delivery or C-section, it may be fatal to the life of the girl as well her child," the petition filed through advocate Kedar Nath Tripathy had said.

The petition had also sought direction to the Centre to amend Section 3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, so as to permit termination of pregnancies of more than 20 weeks, particularly involving child rape survivors after obtaining requisite opinion from a permanently constituted medical board.
The Bismarck School Board is considering giving Northridge a facelift.

Students eat lunch in the basement of the building, without windows, and use computers located in a corner basement room. The school, which has seen the construction of three additions since it was built in 1954, also lacks a good ventilation system and an elevator.

A committee of local residents and school administrators met earlier this year to discuss space issues at the district's 16 elementary schools. Some solutions were suggested for the Bismarck School Board to consider, but there was no agreement on what to do with Northridge, which is anticipated to have an enrollment of 436 students in the fall.

The committee primarily wrestled with funding: How much should be spent to fix Northridge? And when should upgrades be made? Suggestions, lacking consensus, were submitted to the school board.

To clarify what repairs are needed at Northridge and the cost, the board will hire an architect to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the school, which board members, district administrators and community members toured Wednesday.

"I think what we saw is a beautiful, beloved school building that is wearing out underneath the seat of the people who live, learn and play there everyday," said Bismarck Public School Superintendent Tamara Uselman.

The tour group visited old custodial apartments located on the west side of the building that used to be space for speech language specialists. The rooms lack a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system and have been deemed unusable. The district stopped using the apartments within the past couple years, according to Uselman.

Some updates have been made, including a buzzer system and camera in the front entrance for added security. The school's parent-teacher organization also recently raised more than $87,000 to replace the old playground equipment that was found to be unsafe.

But more work needs to be done. A room called the "lower gym," located in the basement, contains the student's a computer lab, but Uselman said an attempt is being made to move the computers into the classrooms.

"It's problematic space to have students in, as you could see," she said. "Safety is my first concern, and, while I don't see that as an unsafe place, it certainly is not an attractive learning environment."

Uselman declined to comment on whether she thinks some of the areas at Northridge may have adverse effects on students, but did say she believes natural light makes a difference in learning.

"In the design of the new school buildings, natural light was a demand," she said. "Certainly, that basement corner of Northridge lacks natural light."

At the board's July 10 meeting, members unanimously decided to seek requests for proposals for an architect to assess the school's needs.

"The building definitely needs to be updated," said board President Karl Lembke, who attended Northridge when he was a kid."The district, from my standpoint, needs to bring that building up to speed."

Any funding for upgrades to the school, 1727 N. Third St., would come from the district's building fund, which includes $4.5 million a year for elementary schools.
BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi said, "When heads of states get involved in corruption then that's a huge thing." (Photo: File | PTI)

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday said the 'genie' of Bofors case will continue to haunt Congress until a proper investigation is conducted.

"The genie of Bofors is back again and the basic issue remains that the investigation which should have been taken place had not taken place yet. In fact, everybody collaborated to scuttle the investigation. It is for everyone to see that the skeletons will keep coming out till they have a decent burial. The decent burial of Bofors has not happened at all," BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi said.

"The documents which were received by the Swiss Banks were never worked at, bail applications were moved and unfortunately the bails were granted without looking at the law. In the absence of decent burial, as I said, the genie will keep coming back," Lekhi asserted.

She further said the big ticket of corruption which this country saw in the age of television channels, needs to be buried decently and people who accepted the bribe, its trail needs to be found.

"When heads of states get involved in corruption then that's a huge thing," Lekhi added.

Earlier on Monday, pandemonium reined in the Parliament when the Opposition trooped into the wells of both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to protest against the Centre's recent actions with regard to the Bofors Gun Case, frequent incidents of mob lynching arising out of the ban on cow slaughter and the National Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET).

The Parliament witnessed uproarious scenes and disruptions as the opposition cornered the government on several issues and also sought a discussion on farmer suicides.

In the Lok Sabha, the opposition disrupted Question Hour by raising slogans against the government over incidents of cow vigilantism. The ruckus continued for over an hour.

Some the protesting members also threw papers at Speaker Sumitra Mahajan as the treasury benches countered the opposition over questions related to mob lynching and Bofors scam allegations.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge questioned the Speaker as to why his adjournment motion on mob lynching and cow vigilantism was rejected? He pointedly asked that when the country is facing incidents of lynching and attacks on Dalits, minorities and women, it was a clear case of failure on the part of the government to protect marginalized sections of society.

Union minister and BJP leader Ananth Kumar countered and retorted by saying the country worships the cow and the cow must be protected. He said any crime happening in the name of cow would not be tolerated.

This statement caused pandemonium and led Speaker Mahajan to adjourn proceedings on the House till 2:00 pm.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan then proceeded to suspend six Congress MPs for five working days citing unruly behavior.

The opposition also raised objections to a six-member sub-committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on defence looking into non-compliance of certain aspects of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report of 1986 on the Bofors howitzer gun deal.

A majority of the members of a parliamentary sub-committee have asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to move the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court's 2005 order quashing proceedings in the Bofors case.

CBI Director Alok Verma and Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra were among the officials who appeared before the panel headed by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab last week and faced questions from members of the sub-committee on defence attached to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on why the premier investigating agency did not approach the Supreme Court after the Delhi High Court dismissed proceedings in the case in 2005.

The Bofors scandal relating to alleged payment of kickbacks in procurement of howitzer artillery guns had triggered a massive political storm and led to the fall of the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989.

The CBI wanted to approach the Supreme Court in 2005 after the Delhi High Court quashed the Bofors case, but it was denied permission by the then UPA government.

In the Rajya Sabha, opposition MPs from Tamil Nadu and West Bengal demanded answers on the NEET and took their protest into the Well of the House.
Chennai: Following the reporting of four chain snatching incidents - in which the victims lost a total of 19 sovereigns of gold worth over Rs. 4 lakh - in Mylapore, Teynampet and neighbouring areas on Saturday, the city police released the CCTV pictures of suspects and are seeking details from the public to trace them.

According to the police, a ten-sovereign chain was snatched from Jacqueline, a private school teacher at Mandaveli, a three-sovereign chain from Usha at Teynampet on Saturday while chains of 3-sovereigns each were also snatched from Alamelu of Venus Colony, Alwarpet and Banu, a school teacher from Royapettah.

Police have taken CCTV footage of the suspects. Police have taken the motorbike registration numbers and have launched a hunt for the duo. Any information on suspects can be passed on to the inspector on phone number 9498133566.

Similarly, the Thirumangalam police have also released two pictures of chain snatching suspects from grabs of CCTV footage. Another senior police officer said that two chain snatching incidents were reported in Thirumangalam on June 29. In both the incidents, the same bike registration number was seen. In this, both the men were clad in full sleeve shirts and the riders were wearing helmets, police said. The officer said, if the public spot the same men anywhere, they could inform the inspector on phone number 99403 22999.
Responding to the allegations, NDA Vice President candidate M Venkaiah Naidu said, "Some people went to court, and the court has also dismissed it. I feel really sorry that they could stoop down to this level in this election also." (Photo: File | PTI)

New Delhi: The Congress on Monday sought to embarrass NDA vice presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu by raising the issue of alleged irregularities in land deals involving him and his family members and demanded answers since he always spoke of transparency and probity.

Accusing Naidu of land grab in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district that was reserved for the poor, destitute and landless, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Naidu was "forced" to return this land after public protests and political pressure.

Responding to Ramesh's allegations, Naidu, until recently Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Urban Development, said all these things have been answered and mentioned earlier.

"Some people went to court, and the court has also dismissed it. I feel really sorry that they could stoop down to this level in this election also," he told reporters.

Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar said whatever allegations Ramesh has tried to level are "baseless and unsubstantiated."

Ramesh did not give any proof to back up his allegations beyond giving the sequence of events allegedly involving Naidu and his family members.

At a news conference in the national capital, Ramesh also alleged that on June 20, 2017, the Telangana government issued a "secret order" exempting the "Swarna Bharat Trust" of Naidu's daughter from paying development charges of more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.

The Congress leader alleged further that in July 2014, the Telangana government placed an order of Rs 271 crore without inviting tenders for purchase of vehicles for the police from two car dealers - Harsha Toyota owned by Naidu's son and Himanshu Motors owned by Telangana chief minister's son.

"Is it not a fact that such an order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating a tender?" he asked.

Ramesh also said the Supreme Court on April 6, 2011 quashed the allotment of 20 acres of land to "Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust" of which Naidu was chairman.

He said the Supreme Court also passed strictures against the Madhya Pradesh government in alloting this land in Bhopal on September 25, 2004.

"I think it is incumbent upon Venkaiah Naidu, it is incumbent upon the BJP to provide satisfactory answers, the nation wants to know," he said.

He said Naidu is a senior, experienced and articulate leader and a candidate for the post of vice president for BJP and he should explain to the country and answer the questions raised by the Congress party.

"Naidu has been a great champion of transparency, accountability, integrity and probity in public life, apart from being a master player with words and a poet of sorts. In the same spirit we are asking these questions," he said.

"Those holding the highest public offices must fully disclose their 'interests' as also 'special treatment' in the shape of state largesse for themselves and for their kith and kin," he said in his written statement.

Asked if he was alleging corruption by Naidu, Ramesh did not answer and instead demanded answers from Naidu and the BJP.
n Consumer activists are upset with the government for failing to set things right in the last three years after coming to power (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Telugu states accounted for just four per cent of the total complaints registered with National Consumer Helpline  1800-11-4000  between February and June 2017. While TS stood at 12th place in complaints filed with the NCH, AP was at 17th. Most complaints filed were against e-commerce, telecom, consumer electronic, banking and consumer durable sectors.

Lack of awareness amongst people on consumer rights and the poor consumer grievance redressal mechanism existing in the state are cited as the main reasons for fewer complaints being made as compared to other states. Over the years, the state governments have always turned a blind eye to consumer issues.

The National Consumer Helpline had received over 1.8 lakh complaints, of which AP and TS together account for only 7,000. Though there are consumer affairs, legal metrology, food and civil supplies departments in the state, the helpline handles only civil supplies activities.

The state departments hardly take up activities or meetings on consumer affairs, not even once a year, as officials and staff are busy monitoring the public distribution system that covers over two crore beneficiaries.

It also looks into procurement of food grains in the kharif and rabi seasons from farmers. There are no full-fledged officials or staff for consumer affairs and this is always handled by in-charge officials whose monitoring is mainly namesake.

Even minister Etala Rajender has no time to deal with consumer affairs as he keeps himself busy with mostly finance and civil supplies issues.

Infographic

The consumer affairs department needs to be strengthened to address consumer related issues. We cannot expect in-charge officials along with their scanty staff to perform better and address consumer related issues. The issue of consumer affairs has been neglected by the governments in undivided AP for 60 years, he said.

The government is trying to resolve the issue by recruiting staff, he said. Things are now coming back on track. Two years back we started a toll-free number that lodged consumer related complaints. However, the scarcity of staff still plagues the department, Mr Rajender said.

Consumer activists are upset with the government for failing to set things right in the last three years after coming to power.

For the state government, consumer affairs means just holding an annual meeting on National Consumer Day on December 24. Ministers and officials attend the meetings and give lengthy speeches on the need for creating awareness on consumer rights and ask consumers to file complaints against errant manufacturers. But no concrete steps are taken at ground level to achieve these objectives, said Mr B. Sudarshan Goud, a consumer activist.

1,80,920

Number of complaints received by National Consumer Helpline.

(February-June 2017)

1,41,037

Number of complaints disposed.
The investigation revealed that the conspiracy had been in operation since the month of July, 2015. (Representational Image)

Thiruvananthapuram: Few residents of Kerala are reported to have joined the ISIS terror outfit, sources state.

Sources add that the suspects have gone to Syria to join the outfit, although the number of how many people have left is yet to be ascertained.

Earlier this year, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested two people in connection with the criminal conspiracy hatched within and outside India, with the intention of furthering the objectives of the Islamic State(IS) and for joining and supporting the organization.

Accused Abdul Rashid Abdulla, resident of Kasaragod district and Yasmeen Mohammad Zahid, resident of Sitamarhi district, Bihar were booked under under sections 120-B and 125 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), besides sections 38, 39 and 40 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967.

The NIA probe has established that accused Abdul Rashid was the main conspirator behind the offence of motivating youth, hailing from Kasaragod district to exit from India along with their families, to join the terrorist organisation.

According to officials, Rashid had conducted classes at Kasaragod and other places in support of the terrorist organization and its ideology of violent jihad.

He motivated another set of 14 co-conspirators, including another arrested accused Yasmeen Mohammed Zahid, to join the proscribed organization and plan for Hijrah to the Caliphate announced by the ISIS.

The investigation revealed that the conspiracy had been in operation since the month of July, 2015.

Zahid was intercepted at the New Delhi International Airport on the July 30, 2016 while she was trying to exit India for Kabul, Afghanistan, along with her minor child, with the intention of joining her co-conspirator Abdul Rashid, in the territory under the control of ISIS in Afghanistan.

According to the investigation conducted by the agency, it has established that Rasheed had raised funds for the terrorist organization and transferred such funds to Yasmeen, who utilized it for her activities with the intention of supporting the terrorist organization.
Chennai: Having come under tremendous pressure from opposition parties and students, the Tamil Nadu Government on Sunday rushed a high-powered delegation consisting of five senior ministers to New Delhi to exert pressure on the Union Government to exempt students from the state from appearing before NEET.

Senior ministers P. Thangamani, S.P. Velumani, C. Ve. Shanmugam, C Vijayabhaskar and K.P. Anbazhagan rushed to the national capital on Sunday night, while Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami would travel to New Delhi on Monday night.

The ministers are expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, health minister J.P. Nadda and Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad over the next two days and explain the state government's stand on Neet.

CM will attend president inaugural

The Ministers would ask the Prime Minister and Ministers to expedite Presidential assent for the state-specific amendment to the Neet legislation seeking exemption for students from the state.

Mr Palaniswami, who will attend swearing-in of Ram Nath Kovind as President on Tuesday, is also expected to meet Mr Modi and urge him to intervene in the issue. The state government has been caught in a quandary on medical admissions after the Madras High Court struck down its order reserving 85 per cent of medical seats to students who graduated under the state board syllabus.

Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu have been accusing the government of ignoring the rights of the students. A delegation of state ministers and MPs had met Mr Modi last week on the same issue, but there has been no improvement since then.
While the helicopter was on its way, district officials informed that one of the women had already delivered twins and needed to be airlifted immediately. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)

Ahmedabad: The Indian Air Force on Sunday safely evacuated a woman and her new-born twins and another pregnant woman from Nana Matra village in Vinchia tehsil of Rajkot district of Gujarat which was flooded due to heavy rains.

The village had been cut off from rest of the district due to the floods.

As soon as a message about need to evacuate two women who were in critical condition and `about to deliver' was received at 4.30 pm, a Chetak helicopter was sent from Jamnagar, said Defence spokesperson Abhishek Matiman in a release.

While the helicopter was on its way, district officials informed that one of the women had already delivered twins and needed to be airlifted immediately.

"By 1715 hrs the Chetak was already overhead looking for a safe patch to land. The mother, with her new-born twins and an attendant were instantaneously put into the aircraft and flown out to safety....The aircraft landed at Jasdan helipad where they were handed over to the medical team already waiting," it said.

The helicopter then returned to Nana Matra, this time picking up the other pregnant woman who was bleeding profusely. She was flown across the river where a medical team was waiting with an ambulance, it said.

Incessant rains have been lashing Gujarat for the last two days.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj shakes hands with his Iraqi counterpart, Ibrahim al-Jaafari before a meeting in New Delhi (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Iraq Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday he was not sure about fate of 39 missing Indians, who were held captive by Islamic State in Mosul.

He said there is no report about them whether they are dead or alive and added that the Iraqi government is doing its best to locate them.

"We're not 100 percent sure whether they're alive or not, we don't know. We are going to do our best, but till now we cannot say anything about their fate," al-Jaafari said.

"We will do our best in order to find those 39," he added.

Earlier, the Iraq Embassy in India informed that search operations are underway to locate the 39 missing Indians, and assured there is a high level coordination between concerned Iraqi and Indian authorities to locate them.

The Government has already sent two high-level senior delegations to Iraq to follow up on this matter.

Sushma Swaraj, along with Ministers of State (MoS') for Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) MJ Akbar and Gen (Retd) VK Singh, met families of 39 Indians who have been missing in Iraq since July 16, 2014.

She said "Indian authorities have been informed that the missing Indians were last located in a prison in Badush, so as soon as the area is cleared, further developments would be reported".

Sushma had assured, "Once fighting stops in Badush and the area is cleared, we can probably find out about the whereabouts of the missing nationals".
Meanwhile, Mr Vinay Kumar is expected to submit the preliminary inquiry report to the government in a day or two.

BENGALURU: Senior officers of the Prisons Department have admitted before members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the legislature that special privileges were indeed extended to AIADMK leader V.K. Sasikala and multi-crore stamp paper scam kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi inside the Parappana Agrahara Central Jail, PAC sources told Deccan Chronicle.

The prison officials, who appeared before the committee on Friday, admitted that both the convicts received special treatment and that Ms Sasikala had a passage and five rooms entirely for herself. Former minister and senior BJP leader R. Ashok is the chairman of the committee, which is reviewing prison reforms in the state.

The irregularities came to the fore last week when former DIG (Prisons) D. Roopa Moudgil submitted a report to the Home Secretary and other four departments, accusing former DIG&IGP (Prisons) H.N. Satyanarayana Rao of receiving Rs 2 crore as kickback to extend special privileges to Ms Sasikala. Following the accusations, the state government had ordered a high-level inquiry under Vinay Kumar, a retired IAS officer.

The PAC has, however, asked both ADGP (Prisons) N.S. Megharikh and DIG (Prisons) H.S. Revanna, who have replaced Mr Rao and Ms Moudgil in the prison, to submit a detailed report.

So far, the allegation regarding special treatment meted out to Sasikala and Telgi, as mentioned in the report submitted by Roopa turns out to be true. Our committee has directed the senior officials to identify those jail officials who are involved in the irregularities, a committee member told Deccan Chronicle.

Meanwhile, Mr Vinay Kumar is expected to submit the preliminary inquiry report to the government in a day or two.
Dileep being taken back to Aluva sub jail after Angamaly judicial first class magistrate court rejected his bail plea on Saturday. (Photo: DC)

Kochi: The High Court on Monday rejected the bail plea of actor Malayalam actor Dileep, arrested for conspiracy in the abduction and molestation of a renowned actress.

The actor has already served 10 days in jail and had approached the High Court after the Angamaly Judicial First Class Magistrate court had rejected his bail plea.

The lower court had rejected the argument of the actor's counsel that there was no material evidence to implicate him and that the whole case against him was built on the basis of statement of main accused and "criminal" Sunil Kumar aka Pulsar Suni.

The prosecution opposed the bail plea strongly saying that the investigation is progressing in the right direction and that allowing him bail at this crucial juncture would affect further evidence collection, including the original phone and memory card used to record the assault of the female actor on February 17 last.

However, the SIT sources said the cops wanted to interrogate the actor again after arresting his manager Sunil Raj aka Appunni, who is currently in hiding.

According to them, Appunni "knows too much" and their joint interrogation would bring out the conspiracy part.

Sources said the actor's non-cooperation was not helping the case so far and the cops plan to question him with more evidence and along with his personal side.

The police also fear that upon granting bail, the actor could influence witnesses and also tamper with the evidence.

On February 17, the actress was abducted and molested by unidentified men when she was returning home from a shoot in Ernakulam district in Kerala.

The incident took place when the men stopped and hijacked her car near Athani in Angamaly. The actress was molested in a moving car till they reached Palarivattom, which is roughly 25 kms away. The accused men got down at Palarivattom and fled in another car.

The gang also took video and photos of the actress while threatening her of dire consequences inside the running car. The police have registered a case of kidnapping and molestation.

Last month, Dileep was questioned for close to 13 hours after the claimed that he and his director friend Nadirshah were being blackmailed for 1.5 crore by the kidnappers that incuded Pulsar Suni, the main accused. On several occasions, Suni was reportedly spotted on the sets of Dileeps films and the duo has reportedly known each other for years. Last week, Pulsar Suni told reporters, A big shark will fall, after his second jail sentence.

Police were reportedly informed that Suni was paid to attack the actress. Kerela police have also raided a boutiqueLakshyaowned by Dileeps wife in search of criucial evidence after the main accused took the actors name in his confession.
Righteousness comes easily in these polarized times. We all have reasons for our opinions, and we tend to be surrounded by people who hold similar ones. The more we talk politics, the more confident we can become that were right.

President Donald Trump, of course, has aggravated the situation. He is alarmingly different from any previous president, which makes his critics more committed to opposing him. His supporters, meanwhile, feel disrespected by every institution from the Republican Party to the mainstream media.

As a result, the Trump era is coarsening our discourse. Too often recently I have watched people I respect spiral from a political discussion into a nasty, personal argument.

So I have a suggestion. By all means, Trumps opponents should continue to fight  for health care, civil rights, the climate and truth itself. But there is also a quieter step thats worth taking no matter your views, for the sake of nourishing your political soul.

Pick an issue that you find complicated, and grapple with it. Choose one on which youre legitimately torn or harbor secret doubts. Read up on it. Dont rush to explain away inconvenient evidence.

Then do something truly radical: Consider changing your mind, at least partially.

Doing so will remind you that democracy isnt simply about political force. It also depends on inquiry and open-mindedness. The spirit of liberty, as Judge Learned Hand wrote, is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right. Imagine what this country would be like now if people hadnt been willing to change their minds in the past.

Todays polarization  in which left and right are more cleanly sorted  pushes us to double down on all of our views, even the ones we doubt. Opinions, psychologist Steven Pinker told me, have become loyalty badges for ones tribe.

In response, Ive decided to devote part of my summer to thinking through vexing issues. I have steered clear of those where I find the evidence overwhelmingly on one side.

Ive chosen three issues that feel trickier.

 Immigration. America is the worlds strongest country thanks in no small part to embracing ambitious, hard-working immigrants. But an anti-immigration backlash just helped elect a president, which calls for some reflection.

Its possible that the country would benefit from a different policy  one like Canadas, which admits more people based on skills and fewer based on family ties. That combination could lift economic growth and reduce inequality. It is worth consideration for the political left, center and right.

I recommend the immigration chapter in a new book by legal scholar Peter Schuck, One Nation Undecided: Clear Thinking About Five Hard Issues That Divide Us. Im also rereading research on the upward mobility of recent immigrants to see if its less encouraging than Id like.

 Abortion. The trade-off in the abortion debate is agonizingly basic: A womans right to control her body versus a fetus right to live. Im trying to think about the uncomfortable parts of both sides.

Why do many abortion opponents have a change of heart when the decision involves themselves or someone they love?

And why do some advocates of abortion on demand deny the creeping, technology-driven risk of eugenics? I dont want to live in a society in which fetuses deemed imperfect are routinely eliminated.

 Education. There is no other issue Ive spent more time debating with readers. To me, the evidence shows that charter schools and other reforms have brought important progress, especially for poor children. Many readers feel differently.

Im confident we could each learn from the other, about whats working and what isnt, in charter schools, traditional schools and other areas.

Whatever your position on these three issues, there is no shortage of others to consider: Tax reform. Trade. Minimum wage versus tax credits versus universal basic income. Obamacare versus single payer.

As in the past, the only way the country is going to make progress on hard issues is if a substantial number of people change their minds. By questioning your own beliefs, you may discover a better answer.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan announced her order as soon as the House met at 2.00 pm following an adjournment. (Photo: File | PTI)

New Delhi: Six Congress members from the Lok Sabha were suspended for five days by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday on the ground of "highly unbecoming" conduct during their protests over the lynching issue that "undermined the Chair's dignity".

Mahajan announced her order as soon as the House met at 2.00 pm following an adjournment.

She said she was constrained to name Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M K Raghavan for their improper behaviour.

In her order, she said all these members had torn official papers and thrown it towards the Chair, prompting members of the treasury benches to shout "shame, shame".

Some of these members had picked up papers from the Lok Sabha secretariat staffers' table and had torn and thrown them, Mahajan said.

She said all this had happened despite her agreeing to a discussion on the issue of alleged atrocities against Dalits and Muslims.

Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and a few other members had raised the issue of atrocities and she had allowed them to speak, Mahajan said.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar had also agreed to a discussion on the issue, but despite that many members stormed the Well, she said while pronouncing the order.

They did not stop despite her repeated requests to them to return to their seats and instead, indulged in improper conduct, she said, while adjourning the House till 2.30 pm.

As she pronounced their suspension, many Congress members again trooped into the Well, with K C Venugopal being heard telling her that she should suspend all Congress members. Congress President Sonia Gandhi was also present in the House.

When the House reassembled at 2.30 pm, Congress members were joined by the Left in protesting against the suspension, prompting Deputy Speaker M Thambi Durai to adjourn the House for the day.
The arrested Separatist leaders from Srinagar, arrested by the National Investigating Agency, will be brought to Delhi on Monday for further proceedings. (Photo: File/PTI)

Srinagar/New Delhi: Seven people including Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, were arrested on Monday by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, officials said.

Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who had put him in preventive detention immediately after the festival of Eid earlier in July.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the NIA from the Valley, officials engaged in the operation said.

The NIA also arrested Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, they said.

The others arrested are Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate', they said.

The houses of those arrested had been raided by NIA sleuths in June.

Shah is perceived as an influential force in the Tehrek-e-Hurriyat.

Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Dukhtaran-e-Milat.

The raids were part of the NIA's efforts at clamping down on separatist groups allegedly receiving funds for subversive activities in the Valley.

The NIA had recovered account books, Rs 2 crore in cash and letterheads of banned terror groups, including of the LeT and HM, from the raids.

The NIA investigation also seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, including those who masterminded the throwing of stones at security forces, burnt down schools and damaged government

establishments.

For the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s, a central probe agency had carried out raids in connection with the funding of separatists.

In 2002, the Income Tax department had raided the establishments of some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.
know the norms: It is available to accused who are charged with offences other than those punishable with death or imprisonment exceeding seven years.

Hyderabad: Plea Bargaining, which was introduced into the Indian criminal justice system in 2006 to quickly reduce the number of under trial prisoners and increase the number of convictions, has failed to yield results due to lack of interest among prosecutors and awareness about it among people.

Plea bargaining can be defined as pre trial negotiations between the accused and the prosecution during which the accused agrees to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions by the prosecution.

Over 11 years after the Plea Bargaining Law came into force, only some 500 cases have been settled through it in the country. In fact, in AP and Telangana, there has been no case of plea bargaining so far.

Plea Bargaining has, however, proved an effective tool for speedy disposal of cases in the US, Germany, Guatemala, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, France and Italy.

In the US, plea bargaining is available even in murder cases. Peggy Sue Thomas, a former Miss Washington, for instance, accepted a plea bargain in 2013, one week before she was to stand trial on a first-degree murder charge.

Cornell Hull, accused of shooting to death Jason Stovall and attempting to kill the latters girlfriend, also entered a guilty plea in a capital murder case in Hot Spring Circuit Court in the US.

A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge re-affirmed a plea deal on June 15, 2017 that allows Indian-American Abhi-shek Gattani, a former Silicon Valley CEO, to serve only 13 days in jail for allegedly abusing his wife for over a decade.

Jurists say one of the reasons why plea bargaining has not worked in India may be the exce-ssive caution that trial courts exercise in accepting such pleas.

Legal experts say the basic idea of plea bargaining is that the accused can bargain for lesser punishment by accepting guilt as soon as police files the charge sheet and before the trial begins.

When the accused opts for plea bargaining bef-ore commencement of trial, the court grants time to the accused and the prosecution to work out a mutually satisfactory disposition of the case, which may include the accused paying the victim compensation and other legal expenses incurred during the pendency of the case.

Where a satisfactory disposition of the case is worked out, the court disposes off the case by sentencing the accused to one fourth the punishment provided for the offence.

Once the court passes an order in a case of plea bargaining, no appeal can be made against the order in any other court.
Kurnool: All my stocks are buried under this mound of mud. It includes gold ornaments, silver, and other materials that had been pawned. My life is lost. said a 50-year-old whose three-storied shop-cum-house was razed. This is the story of one of the victims of administrative excesses in the state of AP. The tales of others are yet more poignant.

Nandyal bears the look of town devastated by war or disaster. The debris on the arterial roads and the mounds of mud and building material that are strewn around seem to suggest that an earthquake must have hit the town. Hawkers, the owners of small shops, and business establishments selling clothes, gold, groceries, pesticides, seeds, and farm equipment are the worst hit.

Ten DSPs, 23 circle inspectors, 86 SIs, 254 ASIs, 654 constables, 6 platoons of AR personnel, 3 platoons of APSP, 6 special party teams and 300 home guards were on duty on Saturday and Sunday while the Chief Minister toured the poll-bound constituency. The damage to property worth hundreds of crores was to facilitate the smooth flow of automobiles. Accor-ding to Bojja Dasarath Reddy, a Nandyal-based activist, what was called a road widening exercise by the civic authorities, landed a blow to the livelihoods of thousands of small traders. 800 shops and 100 houses were razed in the exercise.

A group of shop owners who lost their properties said that their businesses had come to an end in the name of beautification. What is the use of beauty? We want a livelihood, said one of the victims. He said that the police had been threatening to foist cases against them.

Desam Sulochana, the Chairperson of Nandyal Municipality, said that she was shocked at the inhuman way in which property demolition was done. Admitting that there had been a municipal resolution to facilitate road widening, she said that it had conveniently been implemented without giving any notice to those affected. Neither was any compensation offered before carrying out the demolition. It was a jungle raj with administrative over-enthusiasm, she said.

Byreddy Rajasekhar Reddy, the president of the Rayalaseema Parir-akshana Samithi, said that though Tourism Minister Bhuma Akhi-la Priya had called it her father Bhuma Nagi Reddys unfinished agenda, the district administration had totally goofed it up.

Desam Sulochana said that District Collector S. Satyanarayana had tricked the entire Municipal Council and taken them for a ride. She said that the District Collector had told the Municipal Council that the affected people would be given three days notice to vacate the premises and shift their belongings. However, the Collector had issued demolition orders as soon as the meet had ended. She asked why the bulldozers and earth movers had already been stationed if the Collector had intended to give people three days notice.

Ansar Basha, a shop owner who lost property, said that the administration of Nandyal had demonstrated how urban encroachments could be handled. With minimum resistance from the opposition party, the government carried out the demolition with clinical precision. 160 bulldozers, 150 poclains, 200 police men and all the municipal administrators of Kurnool district had camped at Nandyal to help widen roads by demolishing buildings. Constructions in and around Gandhi Chowk, Old Town, Kalpan Centre, Srinivasa Centre, the area near State Bank of India, Bala Lodge area, the Nagalingeshwara Swamy Temple, Best Bakery area, Ramnath Theatre area, Khaleel Theatre, Raj Theatre complex, Padmavathinagar Arch, both sides of the Tekke area, Taluk Office area, and Srirama Theatre area were demolished.
After releasing the fourth volume of selected speeches of the President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "Whenever I would discuss official matters with President Pranab Mukherjee he would guide me and offer constructive feedback." (Photo: ANI | Twitter)

New Delhi: Describing Pranab Mukherjee as extremely knowledgeable and simple, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the guidance he received from the outgoing president will help him immensely.

"Whenever I would discuss official matters with President Pranab Mukherjee he would guide me and offer constructive feedback," he said after releasing the fourth volume of selected speeches of the President.

Mukherjee is extremely knowledgeable and extremely simple, the prime minister said, adding that under him, the Rashtrapati Bhavan became a 'Lok Bhavan'.

"The guidance I received from President Pranab Mukherjee will help me immensely. I am sure those who worked with him feel the same," the prime minister said.

Mukherjee completes his five-year term on Monday. President-elect Ram Nath Kovind, former Bihar Governor, will assume office from Tuesday.
Hyderabad: Future Perfect KTR, a book on K.T. Rama Raos journey in the last three years since he took over as a minister in the state Cabinet, was released on Monday coinciding with his birthday. Mayor Bonthu Rammohan, MLC Karne Prabhakar and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

This book has been penned by Konatham Dileep, director, digital media cell of the IT department. The book was originally scheduled to be released by MP K. Kavitha. However, she was asked by the Chief Minister to be present in New Delhi to bid farewell to outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee. Explaining reasons for writing the book, the author said that Telangana, a state that is just three years old, was taking baby steps and it was necessary to document this journey. This book is an effort to document the journey of the government and the minister in the last three years, he said.
According to SIT officials, Navdeep told them that he collaborated with an event management firm recently and that might have been why his mobile number was with the accused person.

Hyderabad: The Special Investigation Team questioned film actor P. Navdeep on Monday on his links with Calvin Mascarenhas and with a pub which is allegedly run by him.

Navdeep, however, said that he had no partnership in any pub. The actor had been called for questioning after officials found his name stored in Mascarenhass phone.

According to SIT officials, Navdeep told them that he collaborated with an event management firm recently and that might have been why his mobile number was with the accused person.

Sources in the SIT said that Navdeep co-operated with the interrogation which lasted for 12 hours.

The actor, however, had refused to give the samples of hair, nails and blood, and asked the officials to use proper channels to get them.

The SIT will question art director Dharma Rao alias Chinna on Tuesday.

The SIT says Chinna is a key member in Puri Jagannaths group. The officials will grill Chinna on Puri Jagannath's role in drug consumption and the information about the drug suppliers.

Lawyer: Calvin has no role in actors getting notices

The lawyer representing Calvin Mascarenhas, the key accused in the major drug case currently under investigation, says that his client is innocent and has been framed.

Revanth Rao Gopalaswamy told the media on Monday that Calvins case has nothing to do with the notices served to Tollywood actors. The notices were served on July 13, while Calvin was interrogated on July 15 and July 16 in the custody of the excise sleuths. So there is no link between his interrogation report and the notices served to film personalities. I am talking now as Calvin is in jail and not in a position to defend himself in the media.

He said he would be filing a bail plea later. He said jail officials are not giving him access to his client. Once I get access and take instructions from my client, I can take further legal action, he said.

He said that officials have shown commercial quantity of drugs in the alleged panchanama, which is false. Calvin is a responsible person. It is not true that he went to Bangkok. He never went out of the country and his passport has expired. What is appearing in the media is different from what the remand report and the panchanama in our possession say.

He said that a copy of the interrogation report and any documents filed by investigators have to be shown to the defence counsel, but this has not been done.

Meanwhile, Excise wing enforcement director Akun Sabarwal said, regarding the possible arrest of Tollywood personalities, that it is too early to answer that. We will take a decision based on evidence available.
The CAG report, Report No 6 of 2017, is a severe rap on knuckles for the Forest Department over virtually all aspects of its management of the states forest resources and the care-taking of its fauna.

Bengaluru: The Comptroller and Auditor General has accused the state Department of Forests of fudging facts regarding its management of National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries in the state.

The CAG has made this damning indictment in its latest report on the performance audit of Administration of National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries in Karnataka.

The CAG report, Report No 6 of 2017, is a severe rap on knuckles for the Forest Department over virtually all aspects of its management of the states forest resources and the care-taking of its fauna.

The report has noted that as per National Tiger Conservation Authority, of the 26 tigers poached in the country during 2011-16, nine were from Karnataka. However, the details furnished by the Forest Divisions indicated only one case of tiger poaching during the same period.

A total of 50 road-kills were recorded during the five year period in the 14 sampled Protected Areas of which no recordings were noticed in five Protected Areas. This stood in sharp contrast to the fact that a 45-day monitoring by the Kudremukh Wildlife Division indicated 1,338 road-kills, the report stated.

In and around six Protected Areas, 51 resorts and hotels and 50 homestays were operating, out of which, 44 resorts/hotels and 15 homestays had not received Forest Department approval, the report stated.

Of this, four resorts were located in the elephant corridor and five resorts/hotels were found to be functioning inside enclosures contrary to Wilderness Tourism Policy. A coffee plantation located inside Biligiri Ranganathaswamy Temple (BRT) Tiger Reserve was operating beyond the lease period, the report noted.

And what is even worse, the encroachment of forests in Karnataka, which only 19% of its area under forests, against the national average of 21%, is only increasing.

The encroachment of forests in Karnataka increased from 42,518 acres to 2,04,442 acres between 1995 and 2014. In 14 selected Protected Areas, 4,393 families have encroached upon an area of 9,524 acres as of March 2016, but only 1,384 forest offence cases were booked. In respect of Bandipur and Nagarahole Tiger Reserves, it was noticed that extent of encroachment was short reported by 1,686 and 148 acres respectively, CAG has noted.

Though an action plan had been submitted to High Court of Karnataka to evict encroachments to an extent of 1,041 acres by July 2015, the encroachment cleared was just 469 acres. Against a total of 2,510 applications received for rehabilitation/relocation in four Protected Areas, only 1,357 families had been rehabilitated. The delay in rehabilitation in Bhadra Tiger Reserve was mainly on account of non-availability of funds.

The countrys top auditor noted that for the forest fires which occurred during 2012 in Bandipur and Nagarahole Tiger Reserves, the burnt area assessment done by the divisions was very conservative as compared to the reported assessment of Principal Chief Conservator of Forests.

Similar under-assessments were also observed in Nagarahole Tiger Reserve during 2014 where the initial assessment of 60 hectares was later enhanced to 179 hectares based on ground truthing. The revised assessment was almost equal to the satellite based assessment of 172 hectares.

Administration of National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries in Karnataka, being an important activity for better maintenance of Protected Areas, was not given adequate importance. In respect of permissions accorded for research/studies inside Protected Areas, as against 129 permissions including 18 ongoing projects, reports were received in respect of only nine projects. Though data on some species such as tiger, elephants, leopard and lion-tailed macaque were available, the Protected Areas did not have data on other lesser known mammals, the report noted.

In a veiled questioning of the priorities of the Forest Department, CAG noted that the forest area per personnel was higher for other Protected Areas than the Tiger Reserves. Out of 401 arms supplied to staff in Protected Areas, 156 were not functional and out of 1,187 wireless sets supplied, 355 were not functional.

Though invasive alien weed species like Lantana camara, Parthenium, Eupatorium, Chromolaena odorata had become major threats in six Protected Areas, no major initiatives were taken to address the problem, it noted.

Human Wildlife Conflicts continued to be a major concern and the mitigation measures undertaken by the Forest Department did not have any major impact. Elephants require large feeding ranges and use specified migration paths for movements which are affected by fragmentation. The increased agricultural/ developmental activities also contributed to Human Wildlife Conflicts. To reduce such events and as a long term measure, corridors connecting forests is the need of the hour. Five such corridors were identified for strengthening in the Western Ghats-Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve region, more than a decade ago, but their strengthening had not fructified, the report stated.

The report for the year ended March 2016 has been prepared for submission to the Governor of Karnataka under Article 151 (2) of the Constitution of India for being laid before the State Legislature.

Wide off the mark
New Delhi: The Centre on Monday informed the Supreme Court that no final decision had been taken by the government on the release of genetically modified (GM) mustard though the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee under the ministry of environment had granted approval for testing in fields.

A bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud hearing a petition filed by environmentalist Aruna Rodrigues seeking prohibition of open field trials and commercial release of GM mustard, told the additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta that considering the huge impact on release of GM mustard, either the government should take a decision not to release it or the court would be constrained to do so.
The AIADMK leaders met Sasikala in the room with the meetings going on for well over 2 hours every time.

Bengaluru: In a leak that could finally nail the prison security official who facilitated the special privileges that were accorded to not just the star prisoner VK Sasikala, serving a 4 year jail term at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison, but other VIP inmates, jail officials and staff through an anonymous letter have revealed damning details about the misuse and abuse of power by senior jail authorities.

The officials in the letter - a copy of which was made available to Deccan Chronicle - have not only laid out the special privileges being extended to the jailed AIADMK leader V Sasikala but also to jailed IAS officer Gangaram Baderia, SC Jayachandra, the chief project officer of the State Highway Development Project, Veerendra TGS and the real estate conman Sachin Nayak and his wife Disha Choudhry.

Most importantly, the letter names Sub-Inspector PSI Gajaraj Makanur attached to Karnataka Industrial Security Force, who allegedly acted as a conduit between AIADMK leaders and tainted jail authorities in getting Sasikala all the jail perks. He is accused of doing the same for other VIP inmates.

The PSI Gajaraj Makanur is in-charge of the visitors inspection section on the jails main gate, and it was he, who let the AIADMK leaders including MPs and MLAs meet Sasikala at the former jail chief superintendent Krishna Kumars office - not the visitor's gallery - well after the prison was closed to visitors.

The AIADMK leaders met Sasikala in the room with the meetings going on for well over 2 hours every time. Makanur, the letter states ensured that none of the entry or exit were recorded in the entry register.

The officials also claimed that the Deputy General Secretary of the AIADMK TTV Dhinakaran who is the nephew of Sasikala, Ilavarasis son Vivek, AIADMK Karnataka state secretary V Pugalendi and Sandil visited the jail every day after 7 pm to meet Sasikala, when the rule books specify that all visitors must exit the prison by 5 pm.

The AIADMK functionaries communicated only with Makanur who was their pointperson on Sasikala and Ilavarasi, both for information on their well-being and timing of visits, the letter further states.

The PSI allegedly had a separate room inside the prison where he stored fresh vegetables and other essentials which were used in Sasikala's private kitchen.

The officials claimed that Sasikala's kitchen also had a refrigerator which they hid when former DIG (Prisons) D Roopa Moudgil visited her cell.

According to the officials, Makanur worked hand in glove with the senior jail officials and they also are alleged to have received their share of the payoffs regularly. These revelations have substantiated the allegations of Roopa who in her report last week had raised the special privileges being given to Sasikala, which have been strenuously denied by officials.

Makanur, the broker?

According to the letter, the Rs 2 crore kickback deal to ensure a comfortable stay for Sasikala inside the jail was brokered by Makanur with her nephew TTV Dhinakaran.

With the help of Makanur, Dhinakaran met jail superintendent Krishna Kumar to strike the deal. The letter states that he allegedly gave the money to Krishna Kumar in the presence of Makanur and VC Prakash, the purported aide of former home minister G Parameshwar.

Krishna Kumar then handed over the money to former DIG & IGP H N Satyanarayana Rao, the letter stated.

Rao could not be reached for comment.
There has been some handwringing in the press about what effects Marsys Law may have here in North Dakota. Too little attention, however, has been paid to the positives: under Marsys Law, crime victims in North Dakota will have constitutional rights they can depend on to keep them better informed and more involved in our complicated criminal justice process.

I do want to address some of the claims Ive seen from Marsys Laws critics. First, I expect that we may have to invest additional resources to ensure that all victims are informed about the proceedings in their case. The voters made it clear that they consider this a high priority. That said, there is no indication that there will be as large of price tag here given the SAVIN system is already in place to assist with notifications.

Second, public information of a crime will remain public, which includes identifying information. However, if a victim affirmatively asks for otherwise non-public personal or identifying information to not be released, Marsys Law protects that. This is particularly important in sex abuse cases.

North Dakotans passed Marsys Law by 62 percent. And we are already seeing the benefits playing out. Most recently, in the Russell Braun child-rape case where the family was given a chance to make victim impact statements as part of Marsys Law. Giving victims the right to be heard in these settings helps bring some comfort amid unimaginable circumstances.

Ultimately, there will always be a handful of people who dont agree that crime victims should have constitutional rights. Fortunately, they are in the minority, and most of us can agree that crime victims should be treated with dignity and respect.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine in Chandigarh to examine a 10-year-old child rape victim, on July 26, who is into her 26th week of pregnancy, and submit a report whether the pregnancy can be terminated or not.

A bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked the member-secretary of the Legal Services Authority of Chandigarh to visit the girls parents and take the child to the hospital on Wednesday for examination.

He was also asked to submit a report to the court in a sealed cover on July 28 whether the health of the child would be adversely affected if she was allowed to continue the full term of pregnancy or the foetus could be aborted.

The bench passed this order after advocate, Alakh Alok Srivastava, took the childs plight to the court seeking its intervention after the doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy, caused after being repeatedly raped by her own uncle in Chandigarh.

According to the petitioner the doctors treating the girl are of the view that her pelvic bones are not fully developed due to her tender age and, therefore, tolerating a full-term pregnancy at this tender age is very risky.

According to the petition the parents of the girl who are very poor had earlier approached the Chandigarh District Court for permission to terminate the pregnancy but the trial court on July 18, dismissed their plea. Termination of pregnancy beyond the 20 weeks period is an offence in India, punishable with punishment ranging from three to seven years.

The petition quoted one Dr Umesh Jindal, a gynaecologist and a member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine that the pregnancy of the said girl should be terminated in the peculiar facts of the instant case to save her life.

The petition also urged the Supreme Court to frame guidelines for setting up a permanent mechanism and for constituting permanent medical boards at each district for expedient termination of pregnancies beyond 20 weeks in exceptional cases particularly involving child rape survivors under the best possible medical facilities.
Hyderabad: Having announced financial assistance of Rs 4,000 per acre for every farmer in Telangana state from the next Kharif season in June 2018, the government is now keen to encourage rich farmers not to avail of the scheme, which will place a heavy burden on the state exchequer.

Hard reality kicked in when the agriculture department conducted a survey of agriculture landholdings between May and July to assess the number of beneficiaries.

The survey found that there are over 1.24 crore acres which would come under the subsidy scheme. Estimates put the total subsidy the state will have to bear at Rs 11,000 crore per year.

The government is now considering a proposal to launch a Give Up Subsidy scheme, along the lines of the Centres LPG cylinders scheme, to reduce its burden.

Many netas eligible to claim farm subsidy

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had assured that all farmers irrespective of their social status, income, and extent of land holdings are eligible for the scheme.

Under the scheme, the government extends Rs 4,000 per acre in both Kharif and Rabi seasons, which would mean that each farmer would get Rs 8,000 per acre a year.

The irony is that several influential and wealthy persons own farmland, such as ministers, MLAs, MLCs, MPs, IAS and Group-I officers, all of whom are eligible to claim the financial assistance under the scheme!

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao himself owns an 85-acre farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, which too was enrolled in the recent survey conducted by the agriculture department.

The Chief Minister thus becomes eligible for a handout of Rs 3.40 lakh in each of the two seasons every year.

Similarly, almost all the ministers, MLAs, MLCs, MPs and businessmen and top level officials like IAS, IPS, Group-I officers etc hold significant extent of farmlands on the citys outskirts or in neighbouring districts or elsewhere in the state, which too are enrolled for the scheme.

Senior officials of the agriculture department hasten to add that giving up the subsidy will be voluntary, but admit that so far no one has expressed a willingness to give up the subsidy.
About six lakh survey numbers of various landholdings in TS are stuck in disputes following the death of the landowners.

Hyderabad: About six lakh survey numbers of various landholdings in TS are stuck in disputes following the death of the landowners. The government has received multiple claims of ownership over these lands, forcing it to keep the ownership rights on these survey numbers for decades. Another three lakh survey numbers remain untraced, bringing the pathetic maintenance of revenue records in state to the fore.

Due to absence of written wills of landowners, there are several claimants to these properties. In some cases, the owners have sold the lands but the transactions took place on plain paper which his /her successors refuse to honour terming them fake. The revenue department is gearing up for a special three-day drive in August to set right the land records along the lines of the Intensive Household Survey conducted in August 2014.

However, the governments decision to engage the services of untrained staff so that this special drive can be completed in three days is causing apprehensions among the various claimants and landowners that the exercise will lead to more litigations rather than resolving the existing ones. The revenue department had obtained the data on all survey numbers in the state after the Miyapur land scam surfaced in June.

The compilation of data revealed that there are 74.55 lakh survey numbers of landholdings in state. However, the web-land portal launched by the government to digitise land records shows only 29 lakh survey numbers, a huge gap between manual and digitised records. Deputy Chief Minister Mohd. Mahmood Ali, who also holds the revenue portfolio, said, The special drive has been planned in August to rectify all land records. Once the special drive is completed, there would not be any scope for land litigations in the future in TS.

Mr Mahmood Ali said the existing land records are based on survey done by the Nizam government in 1930s due to which land disputes have increased manifold over the years. He added that all survey numbers will be linked with Aadhaar to avoid duplication in future. Meanwhile, revenue employees associations are requesting the government to utilise the vast experience of retired revenue staff instead of engaging unemployed or untrained staff to complete the special drive to streamline the land records faster.

Land is a complicated subject. With the real estate boom, land values have increased sharply in all districts. There were large-scale encroachments and other irregularities. It requires expertise and experience to ascertain the actual boundaries of each survey number And if any errors creep in again due to inexperienced staff, it will further complicate land records in the future, said G. Shiva Shankar, association president.
It is learnt from the investigation officers that they are yet to collect the statements of the girl and Sarath.

Thrissur: Police team investigating into the alleged custodial torture of the Dalit youth who committed suicide after being released from police custody has not yet collected the statements of the two key witnesses.

The deceased Vinayakan,19, of Engandiyur was picked up from the road by Pavaratty Police last Monday along with his friend and neigbhour, Sarath, while Vinayakan was speaking to his girl friend.

After the alleged police torture, Vinayakan, was released the same day and he was found hanging in his bed room the next day.

It is learnt from the investigation officers that they are yet to collect the statements of the girl and Sarath.

Sarath had earlier said that Vinayakan was subjected to severe police torture in police custody and the cops wanted the duo to admit that they were chain snatchers.

"We have not yet received the post mortem report. But from the information we got from the doctors who conducted the postmortem there are no such proof in the report to show that the youth was subjected to custodial torture. There are two contusions on the head of the deceased which could be caused by a small blunt force and slight disorientation of tissues on breast nipples," investigation officer Valappad CI CR Santhosh told DC.

The investigation officers are of the opinion that as the postmortem report did not hint at any possible custodial torture, the statements of Sarath and the girl friend of the deceased would not be of much relevance in the case.

Legal experts are of the opinion that there was no point in the police delaying recording of the statements. "The torture can be of both physical and mental. It is surprising that the police have not yet recorded the crucial statements citing that there was no proof of custodial torture in the post mortem report," lawyer and DCC vice-president Joseph Tajet, said.
The van parked on the roadside on being set right after it toppled (Photo: DC)

Chennai: A class seven student was killed and her nine-year-old younger sister suffered grievous injuries after they were flung out through the open door of a van that toppled near Vandalur, 30 km off the city, on Monday morning.

Eleven other school children survived the accident with injuries, police said. The accident happened around 7:45 am near Vengambakkam koot road along the Vandalur-Kelambakkam road. Thirteen school children of Velammal Vidhyashram in Mambakkam were ferried in the private van hired by parents of the wards, police said.

The children were mostly from areas in and around Urapakkam. The driver of the vehicle had attempted to overtake a truck when the side of the vehicle brushed with the truck. To avert from the truck, the driver had swerved right and the vehicle ran into a trench by the roadside and toppled, a police officer said. In the melee, two children, G, Nethra Sri (13) and her younger sister, G, Roshini (9) who were seated close to the door, were flung out of the door.

Passersby rushed to the aid of the children before police could reach the scene and the heavily injured sisters were taken to Chettinad Medical College Hospital in Kelambakkam. Nethra Sri was declared brought dead while Roshini is being treated for her injuries at the same hospital, police said.

The injured students are being treated at Tagore Medical College Hospital. The driver, Karthik (23) of Kolapakkam fled the scene, abandoning the vehicle fearing mob justice. He, along with the van owner, Nityanandham of Oonamanchery was arrested by the Chromepet Traffic Investigation wing.
Chennai Corporation conducts medical camp at the college on Monday (Photo: DC)

Chennai: Around 50 students of the Quaid-e-Millath Government College for Women fell ill on Sunday night after consuming dinner at the hostel, in a suspected case of food poisoning.

The girl students complained that they found a dead lizard in the food that they consumed on Sunday night.

The students were immediately rushed to the Royapettah Government Hospital where they are bein treated.

While few students complained of diarrhoea, several others had nausea, doctors treating on the students said, adding that the condition of the students was stable.

Doctors said food poisoning could be the reason for the students falling ill, but refused to go into details.

Meanwhile, officials from the Greater Chennai Corporation and Food Safety Department visited the college to collect samples of the food for testing.
New Delhi: The Congress is struggling to persuade RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav for asking his son Tejashwi Yadav to step down as Bihar deputy chief minister - a precondition set by chief minister Nitish Kumar to keep alive the grand alliance in the state, sources said.

Despite the pressure mounted by the Congress, Lalu Yadav has ruled out Tejashwi Yadavs resignation and indicated that the Congress should first get rid of its own scam-tainted Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, sources said.

Kumar wants Tejashwi Yadav, whose name has surfaced in graft cases, to quit the Bihar cabinet to uphold probity in public life.

Sources said that Kumar has in a series of meetings with top Congress leaders, including party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, said that he will not let the Bihar grand alliance go the same way as UPA II, which was plagued by allegations of corruption.

Kumar, who met Gandhi on Saturday, is understood to have told him that he wanted Tejashwi Yadav to explain to the people his defence on the corruption charges against him.

The Bihar chief minister met Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday last week but was not satisfied with his response to the corruption charges.

The Congress and a section of the JD(U), led by senior leader Sharad Yadav, are in hectic talks to save the grand alliance in Bihar, which has come under a strain since Kumar broke ranks with the Opposition to support NDA presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind.

However, Kumar maintained that his support to Kovind was a one-time affair and supported the Oppositions vice-presidential candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi for the August 5 poll.

Sources said that Kumar does not want his government to acquire an image similar to that of UPA-II in which Manmohan Singh was perceived to be an honest head, surrounded by many scams.

Recently, raids were conducted by both the CBI and the ED at properties belonging to Lalu Yadav and his family members.
Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah kept the tirade going against fascist and pro-Hindutva forces in the state asserting that they were responsible for the dangerous situation in which we live in today. The violence sensitive Dakshina Kannada district had witnessed communal unrest in recent weeks leaving two youth dead.

In his address at the B.R. Ambedkar International Conference which concluded on Sunday, the Chief Minister spoke on issues related to minorities in the state.

The presence of Pro-Hindutva forces is a matter of concern for vulnerable youth from the minorities, he said adding, orchestrated efforts are being made to disturb peace by triggering communal enmity and misleading the younger generation.

Mr Siddaramaiah also spoke on the need to ensure higher education to all women and said this would create equal opportunities irrespective of gender across industries. Women are being denied basic education for a long time and this has led to inequality based on gender, he said adding that the situation is however gradually changing and cited the presence of 102 women corporators in the 198-seat BBMP.

On the plight of Devadasis in the state, the Chief Minister said that the Jayamala committee report will be considered and will be out in the public domain soon.

He promised that grievances related to the employment assurance scheme will be looked into with all seriousness.

On the importance of the caste census, the report of which is yet to be published, he said A caste census is essential to determine whether the government is efficiently reaching out to everyone in society. Such information will help us formulate all-inclusive policies. On the murder of writer M.M. Kalburgi, the Chief Minister said that the probe was still on but the culprits have not been found yet. With the CBI probing the matter, we are making honest efforts to ensure justice in this case, he said.
Vijayawada: Discussions in political circles these days are centred around why Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu did not personally meet Mr Venkaiah Naidu to greet him on being selected as the NDAs Vice-Presidential candidate last week. Both Mr Venkaiah Naidu and the CM used jointly attended even small events.

The CM was scheduled to greet Mr Venkaiah Naidu immediately after he was nominated by the NDA, but cancelled it with equal alacrity.

According to TD and BJP sources, Mr Venkaiah Naidu had himself asked the CM not to come to Delhi as their cordial relations was said to be one of the reasons for his exit.

Their friendship extended beyond party affiliations. It only grew stronger after Mr Chandrababu Naidu became CM again.

This gave rise to allegations of a caste angle to their friendship. After bifurcation, AP needed the Centres support and Mr Venkaiah Naidu played a key role on this front. Mr Venkaiah Naidu even faced allegations that he was acting like a TD leader, rather than a BJP leader and that he was protecting TD interests.

There was also criticism that in state politics Mr Venkaiah Naidu had criticised the YSRC, instead of acting like a national party leader. He was seen to support defections from the YSRC to the TD.

A BJP leader said information of the relationship had reached the RSS, which led to Mr Venkaiah Naidus exit. It was learnt that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah had also come to this decision, after confirming the allegations. This led to Mr Venkaiah Naidu requesting the CM not to meet him personally at this time.

A TD leader said the CM was scheduled to attend the swearing-in of Mr Venkaiah Naidu as Vice-President.
In Kashmir, even senior politicians occasionally say things in order to remain relevant. Such outbursts are generally tilted against the Centre. Part of the reason is that they believe such a stance would go down well with the public in an area where alienation is high, and sympathy for next-door Muslim Pakistan not unknown in pockets that usually get mixed up in supporting insurgent behaviour. Sometimes, there may be another reason  the perception of threat from the gun, or a political leaders sense of being targeted by terrorists. To appease such elements, an anti-India observation may be made. We cannot be sure which was the case when former chief minister Farooq Abdullah recently advised that either the US or China could be asked to mediate to settle the Kashmir question with Pakistan.

It was surprising that such a seasoned political leader should be saying something so amateurish which is contrary to the long-settled Indian view that India and Pakistan must discuss any problems between them  including Kashmir  bilaterally, and not seek third-party mediation, including that of the UN (in the light of experience). This understanding is at the heart of the 1972 Simla Agreement and the 1999 Lahore Declaration, although from time to time Pakistan pretends these do not exit and gives an open call for foreign mediation. Domestically embattled Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif, in fact, made the same appeal to the international community recently. By implication, then, Mr Abdullah is guilty of peddling the Pakistani line (in respect of which the Chinese were recently solicitous, confronted with a military standoff with India in the Doklam area).

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was quite right to put Mr Abdullah right. Omar Abdullah, the senior Abdullahs son and also a former CM, criticised Mr Gandhi on Twitter, defending his fathers right to free speech. It will be interesting to see if the younger Mr Abdullah will shoot a bolt at Mehbooba Mufti, the current CM, also. Unlike Mr Gandhi, she is as homegrown a Kashmiri as the Abdullahs, and therein lies the significance of her repartee to the senior Mr Abdullah. The CM referred to the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration. Expressing herself graphically, she pointed out that wherever the US had intervened  she mentioned in this context Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria  had proved to be thumping disasters. For months, Ms Mufti had done or said things that were unhelpful or unpopular. But what she has said now are wise words. Not only should Mr Abdullah take note, but also Pakistan. Islamabad needlessly makes a noise about foreign intervention but well knows what the result of that might be. If Pakistan can rid itself of military rule, it can be sure that bilateral talks will bear fruit.
GRAND FORKS  Patrons at a popular downtown Grand Forks establishment were reportedly showered with broken glass after a man allegedly set off a large firework inside the bar early Sunday morning.

A Crookston man was restrained by staff at The Loft Bar and Grill on DeMers Avenue in Grand Forks after police say he detonated a large firework in the middle of the bar in the midst of several customers.

Police were called shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday, according to a press release, and arrested 20-year-old Isaiah Ramirez of Crookston, who was being held by bar bouncers.

The bar had moderate damage inside, police say, and some patrons were reportedly hit with flying glass during the explosion. No one claimed injuries from the glass, though some were struck by debris, according to Sgt. Duane Simon.

Dozens of customers were in close proximity to the firework when it went off, according to a police incident report. The ceiling was damaged in the explosion, which occurred near the windows overlooking North Third Street. Two windows were cracked and the ceiling also experienced damage, per the report.

Police arrested Ramirez on suspicion of endangering by fire or explosion, criminal mischief, providing false information to law enforcement, disorderly conduct, minor in consumption of alcohol and minor on liquor premise.

He will likely be formally charged and make an initial court appearance Monday.
The peremptory beef ban imposed on the country has severely polarised Indian society and alienated its minorities. Self-styled protectors of the faith from amongst extremist elements in the majority community have organised vigilante groups of gau rakshaks (literally defenders of the cow) and taken to the streets, setting up illegal check posts to barricade roads and stop vehicles carrying cattle, assaulting the occupants if they happened to be members of the minority community. They were suspected of conveying cattle for purposes of slaughter. Anyone seen or caught skinning a dead cow was, of course, assaulted and often critically injured or killed. The attackers remained unmindful of the fact that the unpleasant age-old task was performed by persons from the economically-backward classes  both Hindu as well as Muslim, who have lived in harmony. This has created a dangerous divisive situation in the country, most noticeably in the Hindi-speaking heartland, which, ironically, has also earned the derisive nickname of the cow belt. Adding to the current tensions are the traditional groups of kawariyas, who undertake annual pilgrimages chanting the name Lord Shiva to offer water at selected Shiva temples  again an age-old tradition, which has often left motorists fuming at the traffic jams it creates.

However, these age-old customs and traditions are now, whether deliberately or unconsciously, ratcheting up communal tensions, contributing to the growth of a divisive and potentially dangerous political environment, which unless firmly checked and controlled can become dangerous for national security. In the ultimate nightmare, a Dr Strangelove type contingency may contaminate police, paramilitary forces and even the ultimate Bharat rakshaks, the defence forces. An environment has been allowed to build up which has to be reined in with a firm hand before the social and cultural fabric of the country is permanently damaged. The political class must understand that it is never too early to dismount the tiger. But of what is something of even more critical concern is the possibility of the pernicious beef controversy drip-feeding into the armed forces. The armed forces are the very last bastion of the countrys composite identity and its national integrity. The Indian soldier today, whether an officer or a jawan, is a reasonably intelligent and educated young man of any religious persuasion, coming from any part of the country and speaking a variety of languages.

Historically, in a duel-prone pre-Victorian Army, the British had first enforced an internal diktat which prohibited the discussion of politics, women and professional matters (disdainfully categorised as shop) in officers mess during long, hot and stupefyingly boring dinner nights, especially in India. And with good reason because coupled with a traditionally heavy intake of alcohol these were the issues on which officers and gentlemen were most likely to fall out, find themselves choosing their weapons and facing each other, usually at dawn. In their colonial wisdom, the British in India maintained the same customs and traditions in the Indian Army. This used to be the norm in the Indian Army post-Independence. But times have changed, particularly now. With 24x7 media coverage, the gau rakshak phenomenon and its attendant high-pitched rhetoric has infiltrated officers mess, clubs of non-commissioned officers and regimental cookhouses in military bases and, most significantly, military households.

It is an extremely dangerous situation, because it directly or indirectly sets up the armed forces as targets for hostile psychological warfare by adversarial intelligence agencies, to attempt infiltration of our armed forces, to try and provoke disaffection within the Army, specially targeting soldiers from minority communities. After all, one of the triggers for the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 by troops of the East India Company were the rumours of cartridges required to be greased with animal fat, which went against religious faith and beliefs of the troops which were required to handle them. Let the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh put their money where their mouth is. Let them take the religious frenzy of gau rakshaks away from Ram Janmabhoomi, and wanton assault and killing of innocent passersby who happen to be from the minority community. Let them turn the sevaks into real dharma yoddhas, fidayeen fighters who will carry out attacks across the Line of Control against the Pakistan Army, and the Inter-Services Intelligence, and inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir at Muridke and Muzaffarabad. Let swayamsevaks of the RSS become messengers of doom for the Pakistan Army, who are sleeping comfortably across the Line of Control, inside Pakistan?

Can the RSS-Vishwa Hindu Parishad, usually so vocal in propagating the idea of Hindu rashtra, turn their energies towards creation of Hindu suicide bombers from the assorted gau rakshaks, Hindu sena and vahinis strutting about inside the safe confines of the Indian state? If willing material is indeed available inside India, personnel and training facilities should not be a problem. That is if these gau rakshas are indeed serious to practice what they preach, but not within the safety of India. These fidayeens could give the Pakistan Army a dose of their own medicine. The Pakistan Army and their terrorist subsidiaries must not be allowed to sleep in peace at their homes. Theres immense potential, but can the RSS and VHP do it? As the Americans say: Put up, or shut up!
In saliva, scientists have found hints that a ghost species of archaic human may have contributed genetic material to ancestors of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa today. The finding comes from a University at Buffalo-led research project that examined the evolutionary history of MUC7, a gene that codes for an important salivary protein of the same name. Credit: Bob Wilder/University at Buffalo.

In saliva, scientists have found hints that a ghost species of archaic humans may have contributed genetic material to ancestors of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa today.

The research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that sexual rendezvous between different archaic human species may not have been unusual.

Past studies have concluded that the forebears of modern humans in Asia and Europe interbred with other early hominin species, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. The new research is among more recent genetic analyses indicating that ancient Africans also had trysts with other early hominins.

It seems that interbreeding between different early hominin species is not the exception  its the norm, says Omer Gokcumen, PhD, an assistant professor of biological sciences in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.

Our research traced the evolution of an important mucin protein called MUC7 that is found in saliva, he says. When we looked at the history of the gene that codes for the protein, we see the signature of archaic admixture in modern day Sub-Saharan African populations.

The research was published on July 21 in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. The study was led by Gokcumen and Stefan Ruhl, DDS, PhD, a professor of oral biology in UBs School of Dental Medicine.

A tantalising clue in saliva

The scientists came upon their findings while researching the purpose and origins of the MUC7 protein, which helps give spit its slimy consistency and binds to microbes, potentially helping to rid the body of disease-causing bacteria.

As part of this investigation, the team examined the MUC7 gene in more than 2,500 modern human genomes. The analysis yielded a surprise: A group of genomes from Sub-Saharan Africa had a version of the gene that was wildly different from versions found in other modern humans.

The Sub-Saharan variant was so distinctive that Neanderthal and Denisovan MUC7 genes matched more closely with those of other modern humans than the Sub-Saharan outlier did.

Based on our analysis, the most plausible explanation for this extreme variation is archaic introgression  the introduction of genetic material from a ghost species of ancient hominins, Gokcumen says. This unknown human relative could be a species that has been discovered, such as a subspecies of Homo erectus, or an undiscovered hominin. We call it a ghost species because we dont have the fossils.

Given the rate that genes mutate during the course of evolution, the team calculated that the ancestors of people who carry the Sub-Saharan MUC7 variant interbred with another ancient human species as recently as 150,000 years ago, after the two species evolutionary path diverged from each other some 1.5 to 2 million years ago.

Why MUC7 matters

The scientists were interested in MUC7 because in a previous study they showed that the protein likely evolved to serve an important purpose in humans.

In some people, the gene that codes for MUC7 holds six copies of genetic instructions that direct the body to build parts of the corresponding protein. In other people, the gene harbors only five sets of these instructions (known as tandem repeats).

Prior studies by other researchers found that the five-copy version of the gene protected against asthma, but Gokcumen and Ruhl did not see this association when they ran a more detailed analysis.

The new study did conclude, however, that MUC7 appears to influence the makeup of the oral microbiome, the collection of bacteria within the mouth. The evidence for this came from an analysis of biological samples from 130 people, which found that different versions of the MUC7 gene were strongly associated with different oral microbiome compositions.

From what we know of MUC7, it makes sense that people with different versions of the MUC7 gene could have different oral microbiomes, Ruhl says. The MUC7 protein is thought to enhance the ability of saliva to bind to microbes, an important task that may help prevent disease by clearing unwanted bacteria or other pathogens from the mouth.

In addition to Ruhl and Gokcumen, the research team included Duo Erica Xu, the studys first author and a UB PhD student in biological sciences; Pavlos Pavlidis, PhD, and Nikolaos Alachiotis, PhD, of the Foundation for Research and Technology  Hellas in Greece; Colin Flanagan, a UB undergraduate who has completed his degree in biological sciences; Ran Blekhman, PhD, of the University of Minnesota; and Michael DeGiorgio, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University.

The research was funded primarily by the University at Buffalo Research Foundation, with additional support from InnovCrete and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

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Prof Rao, 85, was handpicked by his mentor, the late Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India's space endeavour, to shape the satellite technology programme in 1971.

Brilliant, soft-spoken and yet with a measure of grace and confidence that set the truly great men apart from the ordinary - Prof. U.R. Rao was that rarest of men, a scientist who understood history and culture as much as he did science and space. B. R. Srikanth pays tribute to the man who knew Mars and loved Venus!

He was the only Indian space scientist to be inducted into the Hall of Fame by two global entities-the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) and the Society of Satellite Professionals International: This extraordinary honour sums up best the unparalleled contribution of Prof Udupi Ramachandra Rao, former chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), who played a pivotal role in transforming the space agency into a global major, until just before his demise in Bengaluru on Monday.

Prof Rao, 85, was handpicked by his mentor, the late Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India's space endeavour, to shape the satellite technology programme in 1971. Prof. Rao not only piloted the design, fabrication and manufacture of more than 20 satellites beginning with the country's first satellite, Aryabhata, in 1975 but was equally instrumental in promoting the application of space technology for broadcasting, meteorology, disaster warning, remote sensing and education.

Some of his pioneering efforts in application of space technology helped usher in the concept of integrated management of natural resources for sustainable development.

While he accelerated development of rocket technology simultaneously, the physicist in him made sure that he left an imprint even on recent missions to Moon (Chandrayaan-I) and Mars (Mars Orbiter Mission) by picking instruments best-suited for indigenous studies.

In short, he steered ISRO through its long journey from a bullock cart test-ride for APPLE satellite in 1981 to Mars a couple of years ago. His last and latest recommendation as Chairman of Advisory Committee for Space Science (ADCOS): an outing to Venus, the brightest and hottest planet of the solar system, to understand the evolution of the world.

Acknowledged the world over

Globally he was acknowledged for his expertise and co-authored papers with the likes of the late Sir Arthur Clarke and served in various capacities as Chairman of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN-COPUOS), Chairman of UNISPACE-III Conference and Chairman of the 30th International Antarctic Treaty Consultative Committee Meeting in New Delhi in 2007. He also had a role in design and development of instruments for NASA's Pioneer and Explorer satellites during his stint in MIT where he collaborated with a team from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena.

Guide and mentor

"He was a scientist-administrator who pursued his interest in X-ray astronomy and atmospheric Physics as he rose in his career and guided a number of students on research projects and papers," reminisced Dr R Aravamudan, former director of ISRO's Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bengaluru, a facility set up by Prof Rao for design and manufacture of satellites.

The perfectionist

Prof Rao was a perfectionist who wanted everything to be completed quickly according to Dr A S Kiran Kumar, Chairman, ISRO. "At times, he wanted to do things all by himself. I remember that he picked up the soldering rod to fix a glitch which was discovered before the launch of Bhaskara satellite in erstwhile Soviet Union," he told Deccan Chronicle.

Published 360 papers

His decade long stint as Chairman of ISRO did not deter him from publishing more than 360 scientific and technical papers in national and international journals on cosmic rays, interplanetary physics, high energy astrophysics, space applications and satellite and rocket technology. He also authored many books, including "Physics of the Communication", "Space and Agenda 21 - Caring for the Planet Earth" and "Space Technology for Sustainable Development".

From garage to Galaxy

Prof Rao, who put together a team of scientists and engineers to commence work on the satellite programme in a tin shed in Peenya Industrial Area in 1970s, also employed a novel technique to test whether APPLE satellite could endure electromagnetic interference: A bullock cart was used to move the satellite around during the test.

A crucial test during his decade-long tenure as Chairman, ISRO, came when some powerful bureaucrats in New Delhi suggested to the late Prime Minister Mr Rajiv Gandhi that ISRO's headquarters should be moved to New Delhi.

"I told Mr Gandhi that I will rather quit than allow the headquarters to be moved to Delhi because our satellites are built in Bengaluru, and most experts are here in IISc, NAL and HAL. He said that's not necessary and allowed us to continue here," he told this newspaper during a recent interview.

Explaining the universe

Prof Rao steered ISRO through its long journey from a bullock cart test-ride for APPLE satellite in 1981 to Mars a couple of years ago. His last and latest recommendation as Chairman of the Advisory Committee for Space Science (ADCOS) - an outing to Venus, the brightest and hottest planet of the solar system, to understand the evolution of the world.

Man of steel opposed flyover

He was equally candid when Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah shared his plans to build a steel flyover that would have blocked the views from the Nehru Planetarium of the sky and the space that he had put his imprint on. Wagging his finger at the chief minister he said " the children who come to the planetarium cannot be deprived of views of the skies, I cannot let that happen."

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Professor U.R. Raos visionary attribute is mirrored by the fact that he addressed futuristic concepts like the colonisation of Mars, after meeting societal needs of a developing nation like India. His co-author on the subject of colonisation was none other than the celebrated science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke. That apart, he also advocated a manned mission, reasoning that 50 years from now, other countries will start exploring the Moon and Mars for resources. Will his colleagues live up to his vision? B.R. Srikanth pays tribute.

An inspirational personality with an excellent degree of professionalism, Prof U R Rao put behind a couple of failures in the nascent years of Indian space programme to encourage his colleagues to raise the bar rather than rest on past laurels. He put behind a couple of setbacks to health as well, a paralytic stroke, issues with heart, even a bought o jaundice a couple of months ago, to head to Antriksh Bhawan even on holidays-either to chair meetings or read up scientific papers. He retired as Chairman of ISRO 23 years ago, but made it a point to be the first to arrive in office, and leave late in the evening. He would be on hand for a quick word on advise on any problems plaguing satellite and rocket scientists alike and make it a point to travel to Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota Range for witness all flights of PSLV and GSLV, and praise his colleagues for successful mission.

Prof Rao, however, made no bones when recognition of his contribution to the space programme came a tad late with the Union government bestowing Padma Vibhushan award in January 2017. He remarked sarcastically that he expected the government to announce the award posthumously! As one of Indias most celebrated scientists, he could not cloak his disappointing over the delay in the government according him due recognition.

His pioneering work in satellite technology without doubt eclipses his significant contribution to development of rocketry. He accelerated the development of ASLV though the programmed endured a couple of failures. Prof Rao asked me to chair an external committee to probe these failures with experts from various institutes. It took us a year to figure out the problem. Once the modifications were made to overcome the failures, the subsequent flights were successful, says Prof Roddam Narasimha adding he just did not stop working (post retirement in 1994). He could not because of the things had wanted to do for the country.

Prof Raos successor Dr K Kasturirangan, who described Prof Rao as the father of Indias satellite programme, spoke of the awe-inspiring effort of the legendary scientist to built ISROs Satellite Centre (ISAC) from within the confines of a shed in Peenya Industrial Area to a state-of-the-art facility with 2500 engineers and scientists who have fabricated a variety of satellites as well as probes to Moon and Mars.

He was very dynamic and extraordinary visionary, he said. Its such dynamism and vision which helped the countrys space agency join an exclusive league with successful outings to Moon and Mars.

When Prof escaped kidnap attempt

One morning in 1992, Prof Rao, who was Chairman, ISRO, was stunned into silence when he got a call from Commissioner of Police R Ramalingam. For, the top cop explained to Prof Rao how he escaped a kidnap attempt, perhaps by providence or an intervention from outer space, by G Narayana Gowda, president of Kannada Rakshana Vedike and his supporters. He had arrived at his office oblivious of the drama outside his residence in upscale Indiranagar an hour earlier. Mr Ramalingam told Prof Rao how Mr Narayana Gowda and his supporters had tailed him for almost a month and even followed him to a facility of the space agency near Tirupati and back to Bengaluru as they wanted to whisk Prof Rao away, hold him to ransom and gain international prominence for kidnapping Chairman of ISRO.

The conspiracy came a cropper as an informant among the group tipped off Mr Ramalingam the previous night, prompting him to post police officers dressed as men heading for a wedding, near Prof Raos residence. When Prof Raos Ambassador car did not arrive at 8-30 AM, Mr Narayana Gowda and his men decided to barge into Prof Raos residence, armed with crowbars and machetes. They were, however, nabbed by the posse of police officers at the gate and dragged away to the local police station where they spilled the beans about their plan to hold him hostage. He was advised to appoint an armed personal security officer and to not travel without adequate security. I dont know what happens en route to office or home because I either read files or a newspaper, was Prof Raos reaction when asked about the abduction attempt.

AS Kiran Kumar, Chairman, ISRO

His (Prof Rao) contribution to space science and technology in our country is phenomenal. One can see his imprint on all types of satellites-whether they are communication and meteorology or remote sensing satellites. He came across as a person who wanted things to happen quickly and did not mind doing them all by himself as we once watched him pick up a soldering rod to fix a snag which was noticed during testing of Bhaskara satellite before its launch by a Soviet rocket. His intellectual capability was phenomenal as he demonstrated his expertise in diverse areas.

Dr R Aravamudan, former director, ISRO Satellite Centre

He was a full-time scientist. He retired in 1994, but he would not sit at home. In fact, we had reserved a room for him in the headquarters. He would be there before anyone else. He would walk in at 8.30 every morning and read up scientific papers, research. He would go home only by 5 PM. His mind was always on Science.

Prof Rao with late Prof Satish Dhawan

Dr K Kasturirangan, former chairman ISRO

I owe much to him (Prof Rao) for the present status I enjoy in the country. I should say I was most privileged to work with him and my own career got a real boost. Prof. Rao played a pioneering role in developing India's satellite capability. He had to develop human resources right from a scratch and technologies that ISRO was not familiar with during the times when industrial base was also poor. Against all these odds, he led a team, built Aryabhata satellite in 36 months, a record. Then onwards, he headed space activities in ISRO, whether it's 'Bhaskara' (satellite) or IRS (Indian Remote Sensing)...things of that kind. All these were products of his vision to build satellite capability of the country on a scale which is what is being felt today.

Prof Roddam Narasimha, former Member, Space Commission

He was a pioneer in satellite programme though he initially worked out sheds in Peenya Industrial Area but his involvement in satellites continued till the end. Last week, he was scheduled to chair a meeting but he could not come because of poor health. He was a scientist at heart and promoted projects which involved scientific studies. He came from a generation which felt that India should lead the rest of the world in space technology.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Saddened by demise of renowned scientist, Professor UR Rao. His remarkable contribution to Indias space programme will never be forgotten.

'Colonisation of Mars will take us 500 years'

Prof Raos first priority was to provide bread and butter or solve societal issues and make available basic facilities : provide facilities like communications to connect remote areas, state-of-the-art met forecasts, distance education, and management of natural resources through space technology. With a constellation of INSAT multi-purpose satellites and IRS (remote sensing) satellites in place, Prof Rao egged his colleagues to embark on ambitious projects like exploration of other planets and an Indians outing into space onboard an indigenous rocket. His argument: The question of how soon a manned flight could blast off from the spaceport at Sriharikota or when an Indian could head to Mars would be difficult to estimate, but ISRO should develop the know-how as human colonies on Moon and Mars could be a reality by 2030. There is no choice but to embark on a manned mission because 50 years from now other countries will start exploring them Moon and Mars for resources, and we cannot sit here and buy those resources from others. There are no short-cuts. We must have a very clear idea about how we must proceed as a nation though some people will raise questions about the cost of such missions. Of course, we must prove the reliability of GSLV as otherwise a single mishap in space will set off an outcry about the programme, he told this correspondent during a recent interview.

He also believed that Mars was the best planet to be colonised in the next 100 or 500 years. The late Sir Arthur Clarke and I presented a paper a couple of years before his death on colonisation of Mars. My great friend felt this could happen in the next 100 years, but I think it may take 500 years. Landing will happen quickly, but colonisation means we must build an atmosphere just like we have over the Earth, and build a greenhouse to reduce the difference between day and night temperatures. I think colonisation is necessary as we are running out of resources like oil and iron ore and must look for them on the Moon and Mars. Of course, we must bring down the cost of space transportation, was how he summed up the need to develop new colonies, and explore them for resources.

And with ISRO reaching Mars in the first attempt, he set the bar higher for his colleagues, suggesting an outing to Venus, and a second visit to Mars a couple of years later, all to unravel mysteries about birth and evolution of the world. Our papers (based on data from these missions) must be world-class. Otherwise, theres no point in spending on these missions, was the explanation about him being fastidious in selection of instruments for each of these outings.

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A conglomerate of technology companies including Alphabets Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft has stood up with Apple in its fight against chipmaker Qualcomm.

According to a report by the Reuters, the Computer and Communication Industry Association, of which, Google, Samsung, Intel, Facebook, Uber, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and more are members, has aligned itself against Qualcomm in its legal dispute with Apple by calling on regulators to reject Qualcomms bid to ban the import of iPhones.

The group has also filed comments with the US International Trade Commission, arguing that barring Apple from importing foreign-assembled iPhones that use Intel chipsas Qualcomm has requestedwould cause significant shocks to supply for phones and would hurt consumers.

Apple is not a member of the Computer and Communication Industry Association.

Qualcomm supplies processor to Apple, which helps iPad and iPhones connect to cellular data networks for operations. The two has now been involved in months-long disputes over patent infringement around making iPhone work better without draining battery. Qualcomm has filed a complaint with the US ITC seeking to ban Intel-powered iPhones, asserting that they use technology that violates the companys patents.

CCIA President and CEO Ed Black in a statement said, Qualcomm is already using its dominant position to pressure competitors and tax competing products. If the ITC were to grant this exclusion order, it would help Qualcomm use its monopoly power for further leverage against Apple, and allow them to drive up prices on consumer devices.

Whats at stake here is certainly the availability of iPhones and other smartphones at better prices. But even more critical is the principle of open competition that has been historically important to US economic success. The ITC has a choice whether to further reward anti-competitive behaviour  or to reject this anti-free market, anti-consumer request, he added.

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Till fairly recently, Virtual Reality  the computer simulation of 3-D imagery which immerses users and let them control it  and Augmented Reality  enhancing the physical world with simulated sound, video and graphics  were out-of-reach options. After the first wave which included the flop Google Glass and the insanely-priced Oculus, things became more sensible; but the equipment was  literally  heavy handed. Now in recent weeks, the technology is finally trickling down to the rest of us, on the one must-have device, the smart phone.

Last week, Asus brought the Zenfone AR to India  the world's first smartphone that is both VR and AR-ready. It does this by cannily enabling two technologies from Google: the phone works with the recently launched Google Daydream View VR headset. It also incorporates the Tango standard to make it ready for Augmented Reality. This means it can track motion, gauge distances and establish one's precise position in the physical world.

The phone achieves this with a Tricam system of three rear cameras: a standard 23MP high resolution camera, augmented with another for motion tracking and a third for depth sensing. Together they enable the Zenfone AR to keep track of its location as the user moves it in a three-dimensional space. The phone augments the depth camera with infra red laser (as in a TV remote) and converts the time taken to hit an object and bounce back, into distance.

For true AR, you need superior image display and audio  and this phone provides, with a 5.7-inch better-than-2K HD super AMOLED display (1440 x 2660 pixels) and theatre-quality DTS sound. AR imagery calls for heavy number crunching and the phone has huge memory to do it  8GB. The 128GB of storage, you can expand to 2TB, more than what most desktop PCs offer. The Qualcomm quad Snapdragon processor is optimized for AR/VR and the operating system is the latest Android 7.0. The dual SIM 4G LTE phone has all its muscle power in the rear: the front camera has a fairly standard wide angle 8MP lens.

We put the Zenfone AR through its AR paces with some typical use cases for work and play. We could measure the precise dimensions of furniture; 'insert' 3-D images of a new sofa and see exactly how it would look in an existing room. Only handful of free apps to do all this, are available at the Google Tango website. But we can expect to see a lot more in the Play Store as more devices are AR/VR ready. As of now other than the Asus Zenfone AR, only the Lenovo Phab 2 works with Tango. Other Daydream VR-ready phones are Moto Z and Google's Pixel phone. Samsung Galaxy S8 is slated to get a software update that will also qualify. But Zenfone AR is the only device today, that is both AR and VR-ready to the Daydream-Tango standards.

In the months, to come we can expect a growing list of handsets to offer owners the ability to slip away into a seamless world, switching at will between the real and the virtual. Here's to interesting  if confusing  times!

IndiaTechOnline

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You might have often considered why the touch screen phones of today are called smartphones. Surely, they are capable of doing tasks that were only possible on computers before their advent and have made our lives a lot easier. But, apart from that, they also manage to collect and process a lot of data in the background; the data that makes it possible for the all the other apps to work in peace.

We are not discussing the data that the OS collects and initializes to adapt to your computing habits. Apps on your phone need a lot of telemetry data from the real world to make a lot of apps work properly. Therefore, manufacturers have to embed a lot of sensors in a smartphone to help them make your life a lot easier, some of which are very important for some of the necessary services from the phone.

First of all, theres the Accelerometer sensor which is responsible for letting the smart algorithms understand how fast you are moving towards a particular direction. The sensor consists of microscopic crystal elements that get stressed during a movement, which is then used to tell the onboard processor that how fast you are going in the real world. Thank this sensor the next time for switching the screen from portrait to landscape mode or calculating your speed on the move.

Up next is the Magnetometer sensor which detects the way you are pointing on the globe. This sensor deals with magnetic fields and alters the voltage accordingly to let Google Maps know the direction you are standing. This sensor is also the reason behind those cool compass apps that come to help while you scaling uncharted territories.

360-degree videos/photos are the fads these days and your phones Gyroscope sensor plays a primary role is letting you scroll through the world surrounding your VR headset. Smartphones use a Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) gyroscope to help you turn your car in Asphalt 8 by simply tilting the device.

This is how you control your souped-up racecars in smartphone games.

Your smartphone is smart enough to know your position on the globe  thanks to Global Positioning System (GPS). Without this sensor, your OLA or UBER cabs cannot figure out your location in a busy metropolitan city. GPS utilises satellites hovering a few kilometres above the earth to pinpoint your exact location on the globe. Of course, if you are inside a building or its raining, GPS puts it hands up as it needs clear line-of-sight communication. These days, smartphones are embedding chips that support the Russian GLONASS and Chinese Beidou apart from the American GPS.

GPS is your Google Maps' lifeline.

Data security on smartphones has become a prime concern, to which a Fingerprint sensor comes to the rescue. We generally find capacitive sensors to read fingerprints, which utilises the ridges on your fingertip to alter the charge in a tiny capacitor embedded in the sensor to detect unique patterns. These days, ultrasonic sensors are also in use  they utilise ultrasonic waves to read fingerprints. Vivo has recently shown-off a concept with the ultrasonic scanner placed underneath the display.

Vivo's ultrasonic fingerprint scanner.

You also have the Proximity sensor beside the earphones to switch off the display while you are talking to someone. This sensor utilises an infrared LED to emit infrared light which is detected by a light detector, thus collecting data for the phone to put the display to sleep.

Theres the Auto Brightness sensor that has the sole task of measuring ambient light and telling the phone to adjust the brightness accordingly so that it doesnt feel awkward to have your face brightly lit in a dark theatre while you are checking messages.

Selected smartphones, like the iPhones and the Samsung flagships, also have the luxury of a Barometer which, as the name suggests, measures atmospheric pressure and is helpful in detecting altitude or weather changes.

Some recent smartphones from Samsung  the deceased Galaxy Note 7 and the popular Galaxy S8, have been flaunting iris scanners too. These read the iris of your eye, which is unique to an individual, for verification purposes.

Samsung's iris scanner on the Galaxy S8.

One important fact to know is that all of the above-mentioned sensors work in tandem to keep the system working. For example, Google Maps requires all of these to help you navigate through the concrete labyrinths of today. However, with technology always gliding higher than before, we can expect more sensors to become a part of the latest smartphones. All we need to do is thank the people behind these sensors the next time we are utilising our smart apps.

(with inputs from Gizmodo)

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Washington: Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Monday said he had four contacts with Russian officials but denied any collusion to help his father-in-law Donald Trump win the presidency, US media said.

In a statement Kushner released hours before he was to appear before the Senate intelligence committee, he described contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other Russian officials as normal in his former role as the campaign liaison to foreign governments, the Washington Post said.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner wrote.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," he said, according to the Post report.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka, will testify before the Senate intelligence committee on Monday, according to his lawyer, and the House panel on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old billionaire investor working at his first political position was to be asked about his meetings with Russia's ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank and a Russian lawyer -- the latter along with Trump's son Donald Jr.

Kushner plans to submit the 11-page statement for the record.

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.

Sunday, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."
US President Donald Trumps tweets came as Republicans in the Senate struggled to come together on a bill to overhaul President Barack Obamas health care law. (Photo: File)

Washington: President Donald Trump expressed his frustration with Republicans on Sunday, saying they do very little to protect their President.

In one of several tweets issued in the afternoon and evening, Trump said the lack of support happens even with some that were carried over the line on my back.

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

Trumps tweet wasnt clear about why he was upset. It came as Republicans in the Senate struggled to come together on a bill to overhaul President Barack Obamas health care law.

On that topic, another tweet from the president was more specific: If Republicans dont Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for their August recess without passing a health bill.

Trump has had a complicated relationship with the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have continued to be generally supportive of the president, even as his approval ratings slip.

Democrats did not escape Trumps twitter rantings as he turned his attention for a moment to the ongoing investigation into Russia meddling in the presidential election. In another missive he wrote: As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!

The president also took a shot at favorite targets in the news media: Its hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!
Kabul: An Afghan government spokesman said a suicide car bomb exploded in a western neighbourhood of Kabul. An official said that 24 people were killed while 42 others were wounded in the attack.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said the explosion early Monday morning was a suicide car bomb but he couldn't immediately say whether there were further casualties. Several prominent political leaders, such as Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq, live in western Kabul.

The area has been the scene of several attacks including the suicide attack that killed prominent Shiite Muslim cleric Ramazan Hussainzada last month. Hussainzada was also a senior leader of Afghanistan's Hazara community.
SPIRITWOOD  The North Dakota Soybean Processors LLC is continuing sets of investor information meetings to attract $60 million in equity for a $287 million project near Spiritwood but is planning more through August, and perhaps beyond, officials say.

The company has found "sincere, enthusiastic" response, especially when promoted by a local champion, says interim board chairman Bruce A. Hill, of Worthington, Minn. The self-imposed deadline for raising the equity is Aug. 31. Starting Sept. 1, the share prices will go up, with the same goal.

"We're doing alright, but we need to get more information out to the people," says Hill, who also is chairman of the board for Minnesota Soybean Processors of Brewster, Minn., which is investing in the project and would manage it.

NDSP has put its plan in front of about 500 "accredited" potential investors at about a dozen meetings so far, Hill says. To be accredited, a net worth of $1 million or annual income of $200,000 is required. The minimum investment is four shares at $10,000 each, or $40,000.

If the equity drive is successful and "breaks escrow," the company can start a ground-breaking in August for a possible start-up in the spring of 2019. If they don't, the cost of shares would go to $10,500 per share at the end of August and the equity drive would continue. If the goal still isn't reached by March 31, 2018, the company has to make decisions about whether the project goes forward, he acknowledges.

Besides the $60 million in "private equity," NDSP has gotten $6 million in "seed money" start-up funds from MnSP, the cooperative of Brewster. MnSP plans to buy an additional 6,000 shares or $60 million in shares. MnSP will operate the facility and market the products. The fundraising effort with farmer-investors has run into some uncertainty about crop production in a drought year, as well as a slumping commodity market, officials say.

"One point we'd like to get across to guys is we understand there's hardship for the drought, but this is a long-term project  a value-added thing for their own operations," says Jay Myers of Colfax, who is a member of the seven-member interim board. Two of the board members are from North Dakota and five from the MnSP board. Claude Richard of Fargo is the other North Dakota board member.

Myers says investors should consider that North Dakota allows a tax deduction of 30 percent for value-added ag investments, cutting the cost of a $40,000 investment to $28,000.

Farmers or ranchers affected by drought can look into the Value-Added Agriculture Equity Loan Program (nickname ENVEST), a program of the Bank of North Dakota for purchasing shares in ag processing plants. It offers a buy-down of up to 4 percentage points of interest, with a buy-down limit of $20,000 per borrower.

42 million bushels

If built, the plant will be another part of the Spiritwood Energy Park Association. SEPA is an industrial park that already includes a barley malting plant and a coal-to-electricity power plant. The soy plant will inhabit 80 acres just south of a corn ethanol plant that uses steam from the power plant.

The North Dakota plant is expected to employ 55 to 60 people as it expands.

Promoters say North Dakota is an ideal location for the volume of beans grown in the state, as well as access to Pacific Northwest markets for both meal and oil products  specifically food grade oil. Many people in the Pacific Northwest produce vegetables and use oils to blanch or fry those products, including processed potatoes, MnSP officials say.

The Spiritwood plant could provide value-added services to customers  vendor-managed inventories and just-in-time logistics that plants farther south and east would have a difficult time matching.

Hill says the availability of soybeans as well as the steam energy from Spiritwood station, the electrical generation plant operated by Great River Energy, bode well for the company's future in North Dakota. The project also has mainline rail access on the BNSF Railroad.

It would consume about 42 million bushels of soybeans a year. That's about the current annual production of Stutsman, Barnes and LaMoure counties. It would make soy oil for the food and biodiesel markets, as well as soy meal for the animal feed market. As planned, the plant would produce 35 million gallons per year of biodiesel fuel, consuming about half of all of the crude soybean oil at the plant.

Market arm

In 2016, MnSP formed Northern Ag Commodity Consultants as a wholly-owned subsidiary of MnSP.

"This company is designed to perform marketing and risk management functions for not only our company here in Brewster, but also our proposed plant in North Dakota, as well as other companies, leveraging our current market access in meal and oil to other products we don't actually produce here from soybeans," Hill says.
German broadcasters NDR and WDR and newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said they had interviewed Linda W in the infirmary of a military complex in Baghdad and she told them she wanted to leave. (Photo: Facebook)

Berlin: A German teenager who joined ISIS is now being held in detention in Iraq and says she regrets joining the terrorist group and just wants to come home to her family, media reported on Sunday.

Der Spiegel magazine reported on Saturday that four German women who joined ISIS in recent years, including a 16-year-old girl from the small town of Pulsnitz near Dresden, are being held in an Iraqi prison and receiving consular assistance.

Lorenz Haase, senior public prosecutor in Dresden, said he could confirm the teenager, named only as Linda W, had been "located and identified in Iraq" and was receiving consular support but could not say anything on her exact circumstances.

German broadcasters NDR and WDR and newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said they had interviewed Linda W in the infirmary of a military complex in Baghdad and she told them she wanted to leave.

"I just want to get away from here," she was quoted as saying. "I want to get away from the war, from the many weapons, from the noise."

She added: "I just want to go home to my family."

The media outlets said the teenager had told them she regretted joining ISIS, wanted to be extradited to Germany and would cooperate with authorities.
A relative of the 27-year-old drove his body to a graveyard near the family home in East London recently where he was buried without any rites or mourners, the Sunday Mirror reported. (Photo: AP)

London: The Pakistani-origin terrorist behind the London Bridge terror attack, Khuram Shazad Butt, has been buried in secret after a number of cemeteries in the UK refused to accept the body, a media report said on Monday.

A relative of the 27-year-old drove his body to a graveyard near the family home in East London recently where he was buried without any rites or mourners, the Sunday Mirror reported.

"The family are distraught with what he did but he is still their son and brother. His mother is not in a good way health-wise after what has happened so it was decided she should not attend," the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

The family feared any ceremony could be too traumatic and draw negative attention.

Butt's friends and associates were not notified of the burial.

Butt was the ringleader of the attack in London Bridge and nearby Borough Market last month.

He and two others drove a van into pedestrians before stabbing and slashing revellers enjoying a night out.

Seven victims died, dozens were hurt and Butt and the two other terrorists were shot dead.

Butt became radicalised after watching hate preachers on YouTube before becoming linked to Al Muhajiroun, the banned extremist group whose leader, Anjem Choudary, is in jail and now moved to an isolation unit.
The Mi-17 is widely used across the world due to its reliability and ability to operate in all climates and could be used by the provincial government to transport cargo or passengers or as an emergency response aircraft. (Photo: AFP/Representational)

Moscow: Pakistan has received a Russian-made Mi-171E non-combat helicopter, the second such chopper delivered to the country this year, indicating growing ties between Islamabad and Moscow, a media report has said.

The Mi-171 is a civilian variant of the Mi-17 military cargo helicopter, which is already in service in the Pakistan army. The second helicopter was ordered by Pakistan's restive Balochistan province.

"I am confident the convertible Mi-171E handed over to the customer will perform decently when accomplishing any missions, whether in passenger and freight carriage or in medical, search and rescue operations," Chief Executive Officer of Russian Helicopters Andrei Boginsky was quoted as saying by the Russia's TASS news agency.

In the case of a medical emergency, the chopper can be used as an ambulance as it has the capacity to carry 14 stretchers if seats are replaced.

Russian Helicopters made the helicopter supply contract with the government of Balochistan province in December 2016.

The helicopter was built in the convertible option. The helicopter cabin can be converted from a freight one to a VIP cabin with 13 seats and a flight attendant at customer's option within the short period.

Mi-171E can carry up to 27 passengers and up to four tonnes of cargo inside the cabin or on the external suspension in its transport version. Three points for direct deployment provide quick landing of paratroopers and rescuers when the helicopter is hovering, it said.

The Mi-17 is widely used across the world due to its reliability and ability to operate in all climates and could be used by the provincial government to transport cargo or passengers or as an emergency response aircraft.

Russian Helicopters has sold Mi-171E helicopters to several countries, including China.

In March, for the first time, a high-level Russian military delegation had visited Pakistan's restive tribal region along the Afghan border to get first-hand information of the situation in the former strongholds of the terrorists.

Balochistan has also been facing insurgency by Baloch nationalists and Islamist terrorists.

Earlier this year, on February 13, a blast took place near the Saryab Bridge in Karachi killing two personnel of the bomb disposal squad and leaving 11 injured.
Police shut down the town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, while they search for an unknown man who attacked people. (Photo: AP)

Geneva: A man armed with a chainsaw injured at least five people in Switzerland on Monday and is on the run after a rampage that police said was not "a terrorist act".

Authorities were first alerted about the attack in the old quarter of Schaffhausen at 10:39 am (0839 GMT), the ATS news agency said.

Police officers, ambulances and helicopters then rushed to the scene and sealed off the area, evacuating businesses and pedestrians, according to multiple media outlets.

"For now, there are five people injured two seriously and three lightly," Schaffhausen police spokeswoman Cindy Beer said in a video clip posted on the Blick news site, adding that all the victims had been hospitalised.

Witnesses, including a local shop manager, told Blick the attacker was wielding a chainsaw.

The attacker has been identified and is believed to be on the run in a vehicle, ATS said, citing the police. According to the agency, police have said the attack was not "a terrorist act."
The Shiite militias stepped into a vacuum when the Iraqi army largely dissolved after ISIS overran Mosul and pushed within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of the Iraqi capital. (Photo: Representational/File)

Najaf (Iraq): In the wake of victory against the Islamic State group in Mosul, Iraq's political, religious and military leaders are debating the future of the country's powerful Shiite militias the tens of thousands of men who answered a religious call to arms three years ago and played a critical role in beating back the extremists.

Some are demanding the mostly Iranian-backed forces be disbanded but the militias say their sacrifices on the battlefield and the fact they were sanctioned by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi have earned them a permanent place in the hierarchy of Iraq's security forces.

The Shiite militias stepped into a vacuum when the Iraqi army largely dissolved after ISIS overran Mosul and pushed within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of the Iraqi capital.

Shiite Sheikh Fadil al-Bidayri was among the clerics at an emergency meeting in the holy city of Najaf in June 2014, when Iraq's Shiite religious elite led by the country's top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a call to arms as a last-ditch effort to protect Baghdad.

Tens of thousands of men, many of them members of the long-established Shiite militias with close ties to Iran, answered al-Sistani. In the days that followed, Iraq was flooded with training, money and weapons from Tehran.

Billboards praising the groups depicting Iraqi and Iranian paramilitary leaders side by side popped up across Baghdad, alongside posters of martyrs honoring the fallen.

The government-sanctioned groups became known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, known as Hashed al-Shaabi in Arabic.

Although the Shiite militias did not play a central role in the battle for the city of Mosul itself, they moved into the deserts held by ISIS west of the city, massing around the town of Tal Afar and taking a border crossing between Iraq and Syria.

They also took control of highways bisecting the Sunni heartland in western Iraq and used as vital military and civilian supply lines.

In past fights against ISIS, including the operation to retake for the cities of Tikrit and Fallujah, the Shiite militias were accused of sectarian killings and other abuses against minority Sunnis. They acknowledge some abuses may have occurred but say those responsible have been disciplined.

Over the past three years, as the military fight against ISIS in Iraq pushed the extremists back, Iran's influence in the country grew.

"We always knew that Iran would use this (call to arms) to increase its own power in Iraq, but we had no other choice," said al-Bidayri, recounting the meeting in Najaf and the panic-filled days after the 2014 fall of Mosul.

Al-Bidayri says now that Mosul has been retaken and the Iraqi military has been partially rebuilt, he believes the Shiite militias should be disbanded, to curb Iranian influence in Iraq and reduce sectarian tensions.

The elderly sheikh, like much of Iraq's religious establishment in Najaf, is a staunch nationalist and wary of Iran's growing influence.

"From the very beginning Iran used every opportunity to get involved in Iraq," al-Bidayri said. "Each time they used the protection of the Shiite people as an excuse."

Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also called for the militias to disband during a March anti-government rally that saw thousands of his supporters fill the streets of Baghdad.

According to the 2017 Iraqi budget, the government-sanctioned Popular Mobilization Forces now number about 122,000 fighters. The umbrella is dominated by Shiite militias but also includes Sunni and Christian groups.

"The Hashed (Shiite militias) will remain . and our relationship with Iran will remain," said Hadi al-Amiri, a senior leader of the Badr Brigade, one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite militias.

Al-Amiri said ISIS' insurgent capabilities will pose a long-term security threat to Iraq after the military fight against the group is concluded.

Iraq's prime minister has also repeatedly professed his backing for the Popular Mobilization Forces, telling reporters at a press conference last week that they "must remain at least for years, as the terrorism threat still exists."

When asked if the Shiite militias would play a role in the fight for Tal Afar or move into Syria, Ahmad Ghanem, a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces training at a camp in Najaf said "we are waiting for instructions ready to move wherever they order us."

As the conventional fight against ISIS winds down, it's unlikely Iraq's existing security forces will be able to absorb all the militia factions.

"If you add up all of the demands from all the different factions and militia leaders, and then you look at how much actual power and money Iraq has to distribute to them, their claims are like 250 percent of whatever pie there is to be divided," said Nathaniel Rabkin, managing editor of Inside Iraqi Politics, a political risk assessment newsletter.

Rabkin said he doubted the groups would be content with patrolling rural areas or hunting so-called ISIS "sleeper cells."

"They want to have real power and control," Rabkin said. "So I think there's going to be a lot of disappointed people with small to medium-sized militias running around Iraq six months to a year from now."

On the outskirts of Najaf, graves of militiamen who died battling ISIS have swelled among the plots in Wadi al-Salam, the well-known Shiite graveyard that is also the world's largest.

Garlands of plastic flowers adorn headstones bearing the crests of the most powerful militia groups: the Badr Brigades, Saraya Salam and Kataib Hezbollah.

Abdullah Abbas, a thin 18-year-old from Najaf, guarded a plot of graves of Katib Imam Ali fighters, a small militia closely tied to Iran and active both in Iraq and Syria. In 2013, he left school at age 14, to become a fighter.

The militia at the time mainly fought in Syria where it propped up President Bashar Assad's government. Since then, he has bounced between Syria and Iraq.

Abbas said that if the government decides to dissolve the Shiite militias, he could easily find better paying work as a laborer. But he admitted he couldn't imagine life without the purpose and prestige of being a militia fighter.

"I don't think a normal life is an option for me now," he said, shaking his head. "I can't imagine going back to what it was like before."
Doha: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Doha on Monday as part of a Gulf tour aimed at defusing a dispute between Turkey's ally Qatar and neighbouring Arab states.

Erdogan was greeted by Qatari ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in Doha ahead of their first face-to-face talks on the Gulf crisis, state news agency QNA reported.

Turkey has sided with Qatar in the crisis, the worst to hit the region since the 1981 establishment of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain suspended diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar over allegations that Doha had too close ties with Iran and supported Islamist extremist groups.

Qatar has denied the allegations.

Erdogan held talks on Sunday in Kuwait, which is leading mediation efforts in the crisis, and Saudi Arabia, where King Salman hailed the Turkish leader's "efforts in the fight against terrorism and its financing".

Erdogan has voiced support for the mediation efforts of Kuwait, a possible indication Ankara sees Kuwait as the key to resolving the crisis.

Qatar's emir on Friday said he was open to talks with the Saudi-led bloc on condition the emirate's "sovereignty" was respected.

His call received a cold reception from the UAE's state minister for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, who wanted Qatar to review its policies.

"Dialogue is necessary, but it should be based on a revision" of Qatar's stance, he tweeted.

Qatar has emerged as Turkey's number one ally in the Middle East in recent years, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating over issues including the Syria conflict where the two are staunch foes of President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey is also setting up a military base in Qatar, its only such outpost in the region. It has expedited the process since the crisis began and reportedly now has 150 troops in the emirate.
Foreign policy observers feel that China is accusing India of disturbing the peace at the Sikkim border to hide the Chinese unilateral aggression. (Representational image)

Beijing: China said on Thursday that diplomatic channels with India remained "unimpeded" to discuss the military standoff in Sikkim sector but reiterated that the withdrawal of the Indian troops from Doklam area is a "precondition" for any meaningful dialogue.

"Our diplomatic channel is unimpeded," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, confirming talks between Indian and Chinese missions to resolve the standoff.

Lu, however, reiterated that "the withdrawal of the Indian border personnel is the precondition for any meaningful dialogue and communication between the two countries".

In New Delhi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the matter can be resolved through talks.

"We are willing to talk, but both sides have to first take back their armies," she told the Rajya Sabha.

The minister said the boundaries between India and China are yet to be finalised and the two countries will do that bilaterally through discussions, while the same between China and Bhutan too will be done through bilateral talks. She accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China.

Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face- off for over a month after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from constructing a road near the Doklam plateau, fearing it may allow China to cut India's access to its northeastern states.

India has conveyed to China that the construction of the road would represent a significant change of status quo with serious security implications for New Delhi.

India and China share a 220-km-long border in Sikkim. Lu claimed that the incident makes it clear that "Indian border personnel illegally trespassed into China's territory."

The standoff is expected to figure prominently during the visit of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to Beijing for the meeting of NSAs from BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - countries from July 26-27.

Chinese officials say while there may not be a formal meeting between Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, there can be informal talks between the two officials, who are also the Special Representatives of their countries for the border talks.

Both countries have so far held 19 rounds of talks. Earlier this month, China had refused to acknowledge that Chinese President Xi Jinping even met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany as the standoff continued.

India's Ministry of External Affairs, however on Thursday said that the two leaders met and discussed a "range of issues".
The prime ministers lawyers had initially denied that Sharif was the chairman of any offshore company. (Photo: File)

Islamabad: Pakistans embattled Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has admitted before the Supreme Court, hearing a money laundering case against him, that he had obtained a permit to work in a company in the UAE while rejecting the allegation that he had concealed his employment.

In a written reply submitted in the apex court on Saturday through his counsels Khawaja Haris, Amjad Pervaiz and Saad Hashmi Sharif said his employment with the Capital FZE and obtaining of work permit for it had been mentioned in his nomination papers submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) during the 2013 general election.

A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted by the apex court to probe the offshore business dealings of the Sharif family in 1990s in its report said that the prime minister was the chairman of Capital FZE and he had also obtained a work permit from the UAE government for the purpose.

The prime ministers lawyers had initially denied that Sharif was the chairman of any offshore company.

In his fresh reply, Sharif said the Supreme Court that his son, Hassan Nawaz, was the owner, director & secretary and the authorised signatory of the Capital FZE. Nawaz Sharif is not a shareholder, or director or secretary of Capital FZE, according to the reply.

The premier was only a ceremonial office holder in 2007 when he was in exile and had nothing to do with the running of the company or supervising its affairs, it said.

The Iqama (work permit) and the prime ministers employment with the Capital FZE is reflected in the copies of his passport annexed with the nomination forms submitted to the ECP before 2013 election.

Being no separate column in the nomination forms for any such information to be provided by the candidate contesting the election Nawaz Sharifs passport copies were annexed, the reply said.

A six-member JIT was set up in May by the apex court with the mandate to probe the Sharif family for allegedly failing to provide the trail of money used to buy properties in London in 1990s.

The JIT has recommended that the reports Volume-X should be treated as confidential as it contains the details of correspondence with other countries.

So far Sharif has refused to quit, calling the investigators report a compilation of allegations and assumptions.

The apex court is likely to announce its verdict in the sensitive Panama Papers case against Sharif in the coming week.

Sharif and his cabinet members have been alleging for weeks that conspiracies are being hatched to oust Nawaz Sharif.

They openly blamed the military establishment and judiciary behind the plot for Sharifs ouster.
Early in June, according to the Chinese interpretation of events, Indian guards crossed into China's Donglang region and obstructed work on a road on the plateau. (Photo: PTI/Representational)

Beijing: China's defence ministry on Monday warned India not to harbour any illusions about the Chinese military's ability to defend its territory, amid a festering border dispute.

China said it would step up its troop deployment in the border dispute with India, vowing to defend its sovereignty at "whatever cost".

The stand-off on a plateau next to the mountainous Indian state of Sikkim, which borders China, has ratcheted up tension between the neighbours, who share a 3,500-km (2,175 mile) frontier, large parts of which are disputed.

"Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the People's Liberation Army is hard," ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a briefing, adding that its ability to defend China's territory and sovereignty had "constantly strengthened".

"The crossing of the mutually recognised national borders on the part of India... is a serious violation of China's territory and runs against the international law," Wu Qian told the media.

"The determination and the willingness and the resolve of China to defend its sovereignty is indomitable, and it will safeguard its sovereignty and security interests at whatever cost," he added.

Chinese "border troops have taken emergency response measures in the area and will further step up deployment and trainings in response to the situation," he said.

The spokesman did not give any details about the deployment

Early in June, according to the Chinese interpretation of events, Indian guards crossed into China's Donglang region and obstructed work on a road on the plateau.

The two sides' troops then confronted each other close to a valley controlled by China that separates India from its close ally, Bhutan, and gives China access to the so-called Chicken's Neck, a thin strip of land connecting India and its remote northeastern regions.

India has said it warned China that construction of the road near their common border would have serious security implications.

The withdrawal of Indian border guards was a precondition for resolving the situation, Wu reiterated.

"India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," Wu said, adding that the military had taken emergency measures in the region and would continue to increase focused deployments and drills.

"We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquillity," he said.

Indian officials say about 300 soldiers from either side are facing each other about 150 metres (yards) apart on the plateau.

They have told Reuters that both sides' diplomats have quietly engaged to try to ensure the stand-off does not escalate, and that India's ambassador to Beijing is leading the effort to find a way for both sides to back down from confrontation without losing face.

Chinese state media have warned India of a fate worse than the defeat it suffered in their brief border war in 1962.

This month, state media said China's military had carried out live fire drills close to the disputed area.
During National Security Advisor Ajit Dovals visit, issues like resolving the row at the Dokalam area in Sikkim will be discussed. (Photo: PTI)

Beijing: China on Monday put a question mark on meeting between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi to discuss the Sikkim standoff. Doval is scheduled to visit Beijing between July 27 and July 28.

Beijing has maintained its stand of no dialogue between the two neighbours until India withdraw its troops from Doklam area, according to a report in Hindustan Times.

Doval is visiting China later in July for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in Beijing. Doval was expected to hold a meeting with his Chinese counterpart to discuss the Sikkim standoff between the two nations.

However, Chinas foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang on Monday said that talks between India and China on the Sikkim row is unlikely.

On bilateral meetings, I do not have the relevant information right now. As far as we know, in previous meetings, usually it is arranged for the heads of delegations to hold meetings to exchange views on bilateral relations and other international issues, Lu said.

The crux now is Indian border troops illegally stayed on Chinas territory. Once again, we urge India to pull back to the Indian side of the boundary. I want to stress that this is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides, Lu said.

Despite mentioning the fact that China and India have a smooth diplomatic channel, the spokesperson said, India has the responsibility for initiating dialogue on the standoff, which has entered its second month.

China hopes to maintain peace and stability of border areas but China will not make any compromise on sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said. The responsibility for this incident lies completely with India and we hope India can get a clear understanding of the situation and can take swift and correct measures to avoid escalation of the situation.

Earlier in June, the tri-junction disputed Doklam area between India-Bhutan-China is claimed by Beijing as their territory; however, the area belongs to the Himalayan state.

The two sides' troops then confronted each other close to a valley controlled by China that separates India from its close ally, Bhutan, and gives China access to the so-called Chicken's Neck, a thin strip of land connecting India and its remote northeastern regions.

India has warned China that construction of the road near their common border would have serious security implications.
Armed with gallon Ziploc bags and a pick axe, state mineral researchers are sampling North Dakota coal to make a model for finding rare earth elements in the states coal seams.

The researchers have been working on the project since 2015, taking 472 samples at 60 sites across the Little Missouri Badlands.

Rare earth elements include valuable materials, including europium, holmium and scandium, and are used in a multitude of modern technology  magnets, hard drives, batteries and lasers  with about 90 percent of the worlds supply controlled by China. This foreign dependence is driving industry to look closer to home.

It has helped that North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources geologists  Ed Murphy, Ned Kruger and Levi Moxness  already knew where to look as a result of their experiences from previous projects. The researchers sampled the region where uranium mining historically took place, mostly in the 50s and 60s, in western North Dakota.

Decades ago, companies needed a federal allotment to mine uranium, said Murphy, the state geologist. When the allotment requirement was lifted, companies were able to mine it anywhere. With the high cost of transportation from North Dakota, the nine to 16 mines in the state closed.

But industry could find value there again.

The researchers picked coal from surface seams along Badlands buttes.

You can just walk up the slope and target the coals, Murphy said.

Of the samples taken, 19 met the industry profitability standard of 300 parts per million, said Kruger, subsurface geologist.

It seems to be kind of hit and miss, he said of the concentrations that are often variable within a seam.

But after taking samples from a wide area, Kruger said trends were found with higher concentrations in the thinner coal seams and higher concentrations at the top or bottom of the seams. Once that was discovered, the averages went up.

The thickest seam sampled was 18 feet. Most coal seams at the state's commercial mines are 7 to 15 feet thick on average. But because of the elements concentration on the outside edges of the seams, it could be easy enough to separate them out. The researchers have been analyzing the data for about three weeks in order to devise a model for exploration.

We know a lot more than we did two years ago, Murphy said.

The study received one-time funding from the Legislature during the 2015-17 biennium. Originally, it was to include 100 samples, but, after finding success, it was expanded to its current level and given $110,000 in funding.

The researchers plan to publish their results this fall.

We still have more work to do, Murphy said.

With the first round of sampling out of the way, the researchers know where to target next to gather more comprehensive data. They will go laterally, focusing on about a dozen sites where high concentrations were found, to see how much the concentrations change along the seams.

They hope to receive a portion of U.S. Department of Energy funding to do this and determine economic feasibility, according to Murphy.

They plan to work with industry on a project to be overseen by Microbeam Technologies, Inc. developing low-cost analysis techniques that would fit into typical mining practices. The project would cost nearly $500,000 and is seeking $224,000 from the North Dakota Industrial Commission through the state's Lignite Research Fund.

So far the DMR geologists have found all of the elements in every sample but they particularly hope to find concentrations of heavy elements, which are worth more. Where they have found higher concentrations, the ratio has been at least 1:1, some higher, with 2.7:1 being the highest, Kruger said.

The estimated cost of the second phase is $50,000, according to Murphy, who said the model on which theyre working might be enough to send companies digging or they may choose to wait to see if theres lateral consistency in their results for phase 2.

Murphy said they plan to have a report for phase 2 within a year.
If you browse through the latest headlines about the now month-long border stand-off between India and China, you might think the Asian rivals are teetering on the brink of an armed conflict.



The rhetoric is full of foreboding and menace. A Delhi newspaper says China is warning that the stand-off could escalate into full-scale conflict. Another echoes a similar sentiment, saying China stiffens face-off posture.



In Beijing, the state-run media has begun reminding India of its defeat in the 1962 war over the border, digging out old reports and pictures of the conflict. Global Times has been particularly bellicose, first accusing India of undermining Bhutans sovereignty by interfering in the road project, and then declaring that if India stirs up conflicts in several spots, it must face the consequences of all-out confrontation with China.



The latest row erupted in mid-June when India opposed Chinas attempt to extend a border road through a plateau known as Doklam in India and Donglang in China.



The plateau, which lies at a junction between China, the north-eastern Indian state of Sikkim and the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, is currently disputed between Beijing and Bhutan. India supports Bhutans claim over it.



India is concerned that if the road is completed, it will give China greater access to Indias strategically vulnerable chickens neck, a 20km wide corridor that links the seven north-eastern states to the Indian mainland. And since this stand-off began, each side has reinforced its troops and called on the other to back down.



There is a dreadful sense of deja vu about the way the stand-off appears to be escalating. This is not the first time the two neighbours who share a rocky relationship have faced off on the ill-defined border, where minor incursions by troops have been common. The region saw armed clashes between China and India in 1967, and a prolonged stand-off and build-up of troops along the border in Arunachal Pradesh in 1986-87.



Delhi believes that Beijing is testing India's commitment to Bhutan in the latest stand-off, writes analyst Ajai Shukla. China has always been galled by this close relationship, which has withstood sustained Chinese pressure to divide it, he says.



This time, China has upped the ante against India. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that Indian forces should leave the area to avoid an escalation of the situation.



Indian analysts believe Chinas warnings cannot be ignored. In general, the Chinese pattern of use of force has been to prepare the ground with adequate statements and warnings. Hence, I think we should not take them lightly or see it as a bluff, a China expert told me.



In 1962, the state-run news agency Xinhua warned well in advance that India should pull back from the brink of war. During the Korean War in 1950 which pitted the US and its allies against the USSR, North Korea and communist China, the Chinese warned the US through India that if they crossed the Yalu River, the Chinese would be forced to enter the war.



To be true, this doesnt mean that China is girding up for war. As things stand, both sides can share some blame for the stand-off in what is a strategically an important area.



In 2012, India and China agreed that the tri-junction boundaries with Bhutan and Myanmar would be finally decided in consultation with these countries. Until then, the status quo would prevail. India believes China violated the status quo by building the road. Indian troops were sent to resist their Chinese counterparts in the area only after Bhutan, which has close ties with India, requested India to help.



China insists Indian troops invaded Doklam to help Bhutan, and it was a violation of international law. Lu says India should not take trespass as a policy tool to reach or realise their political targets.



Some analysts say India possibly made a mistake by openly conflating the building of the road with talk of potential serious security implications for India.



I agree that there were security concerns, but it was wrong for India to voice them strongly. We could have just said that China had breached the status quo. By overplaying the security angle, we may have scored an own goal, and the Chinese are exploiting it, an analyst told me.



Disputed region



He has a point. Long Xingchun, an analyst at a Chinese think-tank, says a third countrys army could enter the disputed region of Kashmir at Pakistans request, using the "same logic" the Indian army has used to stop the Chinese troops from building the road in Doklam. Even if India were requested to defend Bhutans territory, this could only be limited to its established territory, not the disputed area.



Clearly, for the stand-off to end, all three sides need an agreeable solution without losing face. As China hardens its position, many believe that finding a three-way, face saving solution would be tricky and time consuming. Relations between the two countries are also at their lowest ebb in many years.



Both sides possibly passed up an opportunity to resolve the crisis earlier this month when a potential meeting between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg did not happen. India said a meeting with Mr Xi had never been on Modis agenda; and Chinas foreign ministry had said the atmosphere was not right for a meeting.



Theres another window of opportunity coming up. Indias influential National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is to visit Beijing for a meeting of Brics nations later this month. Doval, who is also the special representative for the India-China border, is likely to meet his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.



Both sides have made it a prestige issue. But diplomacy is all about keeping things going in difficult circumstances, a former diplomat says.



Despite the deteriorating relationship, a war is unlikely to break out. I dont think either side wants an armed conflict. Nobody is interested in a war. Nothing in the [stand-off] area is worth a conflict. But both sides see their reputations at stake and that could lead to a prolonged stand-off, Srinath Raghavan, a senior fellow at the leading Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research think-tank told me.


A CRPF company commander was allegedly thrashed by his subordinates following death of their colleague due to illness in Anantnag district of Kashmir, a police official said today.



Khupmani Misall of 28 Battalion CRPF, posted at Qaimoh, was taken ill on Saturday night, the official said.



He said Misall was taken to the CRPF Unit hospital at Anantnag, where he died.



The death of the jawan angered his colleagues who allegedly thrashed their company commander for not allowing Misall to be taken to the nearest health facility, which caused delay in timely medical attention to him, the official said.



He said they have not received any complaint from the CRPF in this regard so far. Inquest proceedings have been initiated to ascertain the jawan's cause of death.



A CRPF spokesman said an inquiry has been ordered into the entire incident including the alleged thrashing of the company commander by his subordinates.



"Once the inquiry is completed, action, as warranted under rules, will be taken," he added.



The incident comes close on the heels of Army men allegedly thrashing and injuring seven police personnel at Gund in Sonamarg and ransacking the police station also.



While the Army has downplayed the incident as a minor altercation, the state police has asked the Army to take action against the erring soldiers.




Women employees of the central government can now lodge complaints of sexual harassment at workplace online.



Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday launched a web portal, SHe-Box for this, saying its scope will soon be widened to enable women employees in private sector as well.



To begin with, central government women employees can file complaints (at the portal). But, we are going to widen the ambit to include the private sector as well. We just need to make a few changes in our online interface. Once it is done, employees from private companies will also be able to lodge complaints, she said.



The ministry will also soon set into motion a nationwide survey to assess and understand the extent and magnitude of the sexual harassment of women at the workplace.



There are some surveys, which give the extent of sexual harassment of women at the workplace. However, the WCD ministry will carry out a national-level survey to assess and understand the magnitude of the problem, Maneka said, after launching the portal.



SHe-Box, which stands for sexual harassment electronic box, is hosted on the website of the WCD ministry.



The ministry decided to host an online complaint registration portal for women employees to ensure effective implementation of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.



The complaints to be lodged at SHe-Box will immediately be forwarded to the internal complaints committee (ICC) of the respective departments of the central government for action as prescribed under the act. The complainant can track the status of her complaint on the portal.



Maneka instructed her officials to make the portal as interactive as possible. The portal should offer a list of follow-up details so that the employee gets to know the exact status of the complaint, she told the officials.



A ministry official said the idea behind hosting SHe-Box is to ensure a speedy disposal of complaints of sexual harassment by the ICC of the respective departments.



"If the ICC is working, then we are out of the picture totally, Maneka said, indicating that the WCD ministry will also closely monitor the progress made on the disposal of complaints.


But this year, those attempting NEET in Bengali or Tamil got question papers that were entirely different, he said, adding that 40,000 of the 56,000 students who wrote the exam in Bengali or Tamil had "disastrous" results.



He also raised the issue of a report that NCERT wants Rabindranath Tagore out of school testbooks.



The HRD Ministry has a lot to explain on the issue, he said.



"NEET exam is not a West Bengal issue. It is a federal issue," he said.



He was joined by AIADMK members who demanded scrapping the applicability of NEET to Tamil Nadu.

A Navaneethakrishnan (AIADMK) said a uniform NEET syllabus should be introduced first.



Both TMC and AIADMK members wanted the government to respond, but with no word coming from treasury benches, they rushed into the Well of the House raising anti-NEET slogans.



Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said he had allowed Drek O'Brien to speak because he had given a notice under rule 267 that seeks suspension of listed business to take up discussion on the issue, and allowed the AIADMK members to mention and the issue has been understood.



"Now go back to your seats," he said.



Reacting to the issue, Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said the issue was under examination of the government. "We are looking into the matter," he said.



Members then returned to their places and the House resumed normal functioning thereafter.



Members of the TMC and AIADMK in the Rajya Sabha today expressed grave concern over the issue of different questions papers being given to students attempting the common medical entrance examination in regional languages in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Derek O'Brien (TMC) said till 2013, the English question paper for medical entrance examination, NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), used to be translated into regional languages.
The electoral battle for Vice President's post took an acrimonious turn on Monday as Congress accused NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu of grabbing land meant for poor and favouring his children.



Naidu, on his part, described the allegations as "entirely false" and said it was evident that these issues have been referred to a few days before the Vice Presidential elections "clearly reflecting on the political motives and the mischievous intentions".



Releasing four questions to Naidu, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said those holding the highest public offices "must fully disclose" their interests as also "special treatment in shape of State largesse for themselves as well as kin and kith".



In a statement released by the Congress, Ramesh accused Naidu was accused of grabbing 4.95 acre of land in Andhra Pradesh reserved for the poor. "Is it not a fact that on August 17, 2002, Naidu was forced to return this 4.05 acres of land after public embarrassment and accusations of wrong doing?" according to the statement.



Another allegation was that Naidu's son, who is into automobile business, was favoured by the Telangana government in a Rs 271 crore contract to sell vehicles to police along with state Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao's son."Is it not a fact that such an order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating tenders?" he said.



The Swarna Bharat Trust run by Naidu's daughter was also on the firing line as Congress accused him of getting charges of over Rs two crore waived off by Telangana government. "Is it not a fact that such an exemption has no precedent and it has been done because his daughter is the Managing Trustee of this organisation?"



In the statement, Ramesh also raised the quashing of allotment of 20 acres to Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust in Madhya Pradesh. The land was allotted in 2004 by the state government. "Is it not a fact that Supreme Court quashed this allotment on6 April 2011 in a PIL and passed stringent strictures of political favouritism and cancelled the allotment?" he said.



Reacting to the allegations that were "responded to in the past", Naidu said, "this is a clear evidence of the sense of hopelessness and political bankruptcy of the Congress. I am a product of a political party and culture that always placed the highest premium on probity in public life and always lived by those standards."



On his daughter's Trust, he said Telangana government itself had responded noting that it was not the first and the last to be given such exemption. He said his son's Harsha Toyota, as a dealer, never directly dealt with the state government but it was Toyota, which offered to supply vehicles.



He also said he was ex-officio chairman of the Trust in Madhya Pradesh and had no role in land allotment. He said the charges of land grab were dismissed by courts.
Actress Charmee Kaur, who was summoned by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in connection with the ongoing probe on Drug racket, has filed a writ petition in the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad on Monday seeking protection from the alleged coercive interrogation methods adopted by the SIT. Charmee was supposed to attend the SIT questioning on Wednesday.



Charmee in her petition filed against, Principle Secretary, Commissioner of Prohibition and Excise Department, Director of Enforcement and the Superintendent of SIT urged the court to permit her lawyers at the time of examination that too in the presence of women officers. She further pleaded the High Court to protect her from giving involuntary self incriminating answers and also direct the excise officers to follow Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India by not taking compelled testimony from her including both physical and psychological compulsions and also collecting the blood, hair and nail samples by way of coercion.



Terming the ongoing media tirade against her as malicious, malafide and false propaganda, she said that she has been victimized damaging her reputation and unnecessarily connecting her with the unconnected issues. She submitted to the court that she came to know that during questioning the SIT has subjected the summoned persons to scandalous questions, coercion and threat.



Meanwhile the SIT has resumed questioning of Tollywood stars on Monday. Actor Navdeep is being questioned at the Abkari Bhavan on his connection with the main accused Calvin, and the role of his Pub in spreading the drug culture.
A Bihar district magistrate was mired in controversy after he asked a villager to sell his wife if he did not have money to construct a toilet at home.



Kanwal Tanuj, Aurangabad DM, reportedly made this comment while addressing a group of 500 villagers at Jamhor block in the district during Swachhta Mahasabha  a programme aimed at creating awareness against open defecation.



Though the IAS officer later denied having made such a comment, a video has gone viral, which shows Tanuj apparently losing his cool when the villager asked him for an advance payment to construct the structure. We are poor people. We dont have money to build a toilet. Kindly give us the amount in advance, the villager interrupted Tanuj.



If you dont have the money, go and sell your wife or auction her, the angry DM retorted to the unidentified villager.



The officer said due to lack of toilets, women get raped and harassed when they go out to relieve themselves.



It takes only Rs 12,000 to construct a toilet. Is Rs 12,000 more than your wifes dignity? Can you let your wife be raped just because you say you dont have Rs 12,000? Tanuj lashed out at the villagers, most of whom were believed to be Dalits.



The district administration had organised the programme to create awareness among rural people about the Centres Swachh Bharat Abhiyan as well as Nitish Kumars toilet in every household scheme  one of the seven resolutions he adopted after becoming the chief minister of Bihar in November 2015.



Under the scheme, the government provides Rs 12,000 each to a family to build a toilet. The amount is reimbursed to the beneficiary after verification and recommendation of the village chief concerned.


"I don't have relevant information you mentioned right now. As far as we know during the previous meetings the host countries arranged for the heads of the delegations to hold bilateral meetings in which they exchanged views on bilateral relations, BRICS cooperation and multilateral affairs," Lu said when asked whether there would be a bilateral meeting between Yang and Doval.



Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from July 27-28. Both Doval and Yang are Special Representatives of the two countries in the boundary talks.



External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, while replaying to a question about Doval's schedule in Beijing, had last week said that if there are any further developments in his programme then the media will be informed.



Asked whether the Doklam standoff will figure in the BRICS NSAs' meeting since the agenda included discussion on regional hotspot issues, Lu said, "China and India enjoy smooth diplomatic channels".



"The Indian border troops illegally crossed into China's territory. We once again urge India to pull back its troops to the Indian side of the boundary. I want to stress again that this is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides," he said.



Lu also declined to comment whether the BRICS NSAs would call on Chinese President Xi Jinping or Premier Li Keqiang, saying that he has no information on it.



The tradition of the previous BRICS NSA meetings has been that it was followed by a meeting with the top leaders of the host country.



In his briefing, Lu said Doklam standoff is like no other between India and China.



Last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had told Rajya Sabha that China intends to unilaterally change the status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to India's security.



She had said there was a written agreement between India, China and Bhutan in 2012 that the three nations will together decide on the boundaries at the tri-junction point.



She also accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China.



The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area near the Bhutan tri-junction has dragged on for the past four weeks. It started after a Chinese Army's construction party attempted to build a road.



Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam while China claims it as part of its Donglang region.



Of the 3,488-km-long India-China border from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in the Sikkim section.



Amid the Sikkim standoff, China today hinted that a bilateral meeting between State Councillor Yang Jiechi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval could take place on the sidelines of a BRICS NSAs' meet here this week.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, during a briefing, left the door open for talks between Doval and Yang by saying that he cannot confirm it but in the past meetings of BRICS NSAs, the officials have held bilateral meetings.
The FTII has suffered huge losses as its students did not complete their courses on time and occupied hostel rooms beyond the allotted period, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said.



In its report to Parliament, the CAG said the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) suffered Rs 11.83 crore losses between 2010 and 2016 as it could not charge the students additionally for extended terms or hostel stay.



The FTII failed to ensure that the students enrolled in its prestigious diploma courses complete them within the prescribed duration. Hence, a large percentage of enrolled students continue to be on the rolls of the institute, the CAG noted.



Pressure on infra

The situation put high pressure on the institutes limited infrastructure and denied an opportunity for aspirants, the CAG noted. It held the audit in June 2016 for the period between 2010-11 and 2015-16.

The FTII offers diploma courses of varying duration in film and television streams.



We noted that between 2008 and 2012, out of 352 seats available for the six long duration diploma courses with a scheduled completion time of two and three years, 315 students were admitted, the national auditor said.



Of these, 212 students (67.30%) were still on the roll as on March 31, 2016, as they were yet to complete the academic activities and projects.



This also consisted of 94 students (44.34%), 49 of whom enrolled in the 2008 batch and 45 in 2000- who overstayed by three years.



There were no rules to extend their tenures or any approvals sought from academic or governing councils.



As a result, students continued to be on the academic rolls and occupied hostel accommodations without paying, the CAG noted.
Baghdad on Monday told New Delhi that it had no information whether the 39 Indians, who had been kidnapped by Islamic State terrorists from Mosul in northern Iraq three years ago, were still alive or not.



External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj hosted Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who told journalists that his government was making its best efforts to know what happened to the 39 Indians after they had been kidnapped by the IS militants in June 2014.



We don't know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts, Jaafari, who is on his maiden official visit to New Delhi, said after meeting Swaraj.



External Affairs Minister was expected to make a statement in the Lok Sabha at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, but the House got adjourned at 2:30 p.m. due to ruckus by opposition MPs over lynching of people by cow-vigilantes.



His remark came at a time when the BJP-led Government drew flak from the opposition Congress for not being able to get credible information about the Indians missing in Iraq. Swaraj has been particularly targeted by the Congress, which said that it would seek to move a privilege motion against External Affairs Minister for misleading the people, nation and Parliament on the Indian hostages of the IS.



Swaraj came under attack after the latest clue she received about the Indians kidnapped in Iraq three years ago proved to be a red herring. New Delhi was pinning its hope on a report that the 39 Indians, mostly from Punjab, had been lodged in a prison still under control of the terrorist organization at Badush in Nineveh Governorate of the war-ravaged country. The recent media reports, however, made it clear that the jailhouse in Badush, nearly 25 kilometers northwest of Mosul, had already been razed.



Prem Singh Chandumajra, an MP of the BJP's ally Shiromani Akali Dal, too raised the issue in Lok Sabha and demanded that External Affairs Minister should tell the truth about Indians kidnapped in Iraq. He said that Swaraj should make it clear whether it had been a failure of the intelligence agencies, or India's diplomatic relations with Iraq and other countries had failed.



Pratap Singh Bajwa, a Congress member of the Rajya Sabha, recently said that he would move a privilege motion against External Affairs Minister, who, according to him, had lost all credibility after failing to provide correct information to people about Indians kidnapped in Iraq.



V K Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, visited Iraq, soon after Prime Minister of the West Asian country, Haider al-Abadi, on July 10 announced that Iraqi Army had liberated Mosul from the Islamic State - three years after it had been taken over by the terrorist organization in June 2014. After his return, he and Swaraj on July 16 had a meeting with the members of the families of the 39 kidnapped Indians. Swaraj told journalists after the meeting that Singh had been told by sources during his visits to Iraq that the kidnapped Indians might be in a jail in Badush, where Iraqi Army was still engaged in firefights with the IS terrorists.



The recent media reports from Iraq however made it clear that the Iraqi Army had already taken over Badush from the IS in March itself and the prison had been largely razed due to the war.
Ram Nath Kovind will be sworn in as India's 14th President on Tuesday at a ceremony inside Central Hall of Parliament.



Chief Justice of India J S Khehar administered the oath of office and secrecy to Kovind after he arrives in Parliament along with outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee in a ceremonial procession from Rashtrapati Bhavan. The function in Parliament would start at 12:15 PM.



Kovind, who won the Presidential polls held on July 17 against joint Opposition candidate Meira Kumar, is likely to visit Raj Ghat, the memorial of Father of the Nation before he assumes office.



As per procedure, the President-elect will first arrive in Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt and from there he and Mukherjee go in a ceremonial cavalcade for the swearing-in ceremony. They will travel in the same car.



In Parliament, they will be received by Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and escorted to the Central Hall.



After Kovind takes the oath, a 21-Gun Salute will be fired. The President will then deliver an address. On the conclusion of the Ceremony in Central Hall, the President will leave for Rashtrapati Bhavan where an inter-services guard of honour will be given to him in the forecourt and courtesies will be extended to the outgoing President.



Mukherjee will then take Kovind around the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Once this is over, Mukherjee will be dropped off at his new residence at 10, Rajaji Marg.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said plurality and tolerance makes the country special and one cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion while batting for freeing public discourse from all forms of violence.



Delving on the soul of India that resides in pluralism and tolerance, he said our country is not just a geographical entity but it carries a history of ideas, philosophy, intellect, industrial genius, craft, innovation and experience.



In his address to the nation on the eve of demitting his office, Mukherjee said the creation of an inclusive society has to be an article of faith as Mahatma Gandhi saw it where every section of our population lived in equality and enjoyed equal opportunity.



Plurality of our society has come about through assimilation of ideas over centuries. The multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special. We derive our strength from tolerance. It has been part of our collective consciousness for centuries, he said.



Noting that there are divergent strands in public discourse, he said, We may argue, we may agree or we may not agree. But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion. Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away.



However, he lamented that every day, one is seeing increased violence. Arguing that only a non-violent society can ensure participation of all sections of the people in the democratic process, he said, At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust. We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal.



While remembering the five years in office, Mukherjee left it to the critical lens of history to judge him.



The President said he was conscious of his responsibility and he learnt from his interactions with people and travels across the country.



These interactions kept me focused and inspired. I strove hard. How successful I was in discharging my responsibilities will be judged, over the time, through the critical lens of history, he said.



The President said for the past 50 years of his public life, his sacred text has been the Constitution, his temple the Parliament and his passion has been to serve the people of India.



In his speech, he also touched upon his pet theme of education, which he said is the alchemy that can take India to its next golden age. He emphasised the need for upgrading higher institutions of learning to world-class levels.



Our education system must accept disruption as a norm and prepare our students to manage and build upon the disruptions. Our universities should not be a place for rote-memorising but an assembly of inquisitive minds. Creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper have to be promoted in our institutions of higher learning, he said.


The numbers didnt add up. Even as Earth grew warmer and glaciers and ice sheets thawed, decades of satellite data seemed to show that the rate of sea level rise was holding steady  or even declining. Now, after puzzling over this discrepancy for years, scientists have identified its source: a problem with the calibration of a sensor on the first of several satellites launched to measure the height of the sea surface using radar.



Adjusting the data to remove that error suggests that sea levels are indeed rising at faster rates each year. The rate of sea level rise is increasing, and that increase is basically what we expected, says Steven Nerem, a remote-sensing expert at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA who is leading the reanalysis.



Steven presented the as-yet-unpublished analysis recently at a conference sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme and the International Oceanographic Commission, among others. Stevens team calculated that the rate of sea level rise increased from about 1.8mm per year in 1993 to roughly 3.9mm per year today as a result of global warming. In addition to the satellite calibration error, his analysis also takes into account other factors that have influenced sea level rise in the last several decades, such as the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 and the recent El Nino weather pattern.



Reasons behind the rise



The results align with three recent studies that have raised questions about the earliest observations of sea surface height, or altimeter, captured by the TOPEX/Poseidon spacecraft, a joint USFrench mission that began collecting data in late 1992. Those measurements continued with the launch of three subsequent satellites. Whatever the methodology, we all come up with the same conclusions, says Anny Cazenave, a geophysicist at the Laboratory for Studies in Space Geophysics and Oceanography in Toulouse, France.



In an analysis published in Geophysical Research Letters in April, Annys team tallied up the various contributions to sea level rise, including expansion resulting from warming ocean waters and from ice melt in places such as Greenland. Their results suggest that the satellite altimeter measurements were too high during the first six years that they were collected. After this point, scientists began using TOPEX/Poseidons backup sensor. The error in those early measurements distorted the long-term trend, masking a long-term increase in the rate of sea level rise.



The problem was first identified in 2015 by a group that included John Church, an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales, Australia. John and his colleagues identified a discrepancy between sea level data collected by satellites and those from tide gauges scattered around the globe. In a second paper published in June in Nature Climate Change, the researchers adjusted the altimeter records for the apparent bias and then calculated sea level rise rates using a similar approach to Annys team. The trends lined up, John says.



Tide gauge data



Still, Steven wanted to know what had gone wrong with the satellite measurements. His team first compared the satellite data to observations from tide gauges that showed an accelerating rate of sea level rise. Then the researchers began looking for factors that could explain the difference between the two data sets.



The team eventually identified a minor calibration that had been built into TOPEX/Poseidons altimeter to correct any flaws in its data that might be caused by problems with the instrument, such as aging electronic components. Steven and his colleagues were not sure that the calibration was necessary  and when they removed it, measurements of sea level rise in the satellites early years aligned more closely with the tide gauge data. The adjusted satellite data showed an increasing rate of sea level rise over time.



As records get longer, questions come up, says Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist who heads NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA. But the recent spate of studies suggests that scientists have homed in on an answer, he says. If sea level rise continues to accelerate at the current rate, Steven says, the worlds oceans could rise by about 75 cm over the next century. That is in line with projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2013. All of this gives us much more confidence that we understand what is happening, John says.



The New York Times


The Galapagos is an archipelago of three main islands, six smaller ones and several hundred rocky islets located about 1,000 km west of Ecuador on the South American coastline; the archipelago straddles the equator, and lies at the confluence of four major ocean currents. The islands are a product of some of the most active volcanic activity on the planet. Volcanic eruptions still continue; in the last 200 years, over 60 eruptions have been recorded from the islands. The islands are in a state of constant flux, some continue to move, and some sink, while others are in the process of being formed.



For a naturalist, the Galapagos Islands are the ultimate mecca the revered land and its inhabitants that helped Charles Darwin put forth the theory of evolution. The relatively small size, largely pristine nature and isolation make the Galapagos Islands a living biological laboratory. And science has not stopped here with Darwins theory of evolution. Path-breaking research still continues on the islands through various studies that are being conducted here in fields such as volcanology and marine biology. The Islands does indeed have a very odd assortment of wildlife, more so because over hundreds of years, animals and plants found here have arrived from the mainland through various means of dispersal. And only those that could adapt to its harsh geographic conditions have survived.



We arrive on the island of Santa Cruz, which is the most central of the five inhabited islands. For the last 25 years, the town of Puerto Ayara on this island has become the main hub for tourists. The Galapagos National Parks headquarters and the Charles Darwin Research Centre are located here. A twohour boat ride takes us to Isabela Island, where we perhaps experienced a fraction of what Charles Darwin may have witnessed almost 200 years ago.



A peek into Darwins Galapagos



Hundreds of marine iguanas were sunbathing on the boardwalk. They simply would not move. The endemic marine iguana, is quintessential Galapagos. These black iguanas feed exclusively on marine algae and can be found lying in hundreds on black lava rocks, to absorb as much of the sun as they can. There are also two endemic species of land iguana on the islands. This yellow-orange iguana can reach up to 13 kg and more than one metre in length. It is a sight to behold as the iguana holds on to the cactus and chomps on it.



On the beach lay several sea lions, quite undeterred by human beings. They seek body contact and hence are found in large groups on beaches. They can be quite endearing to watch, as they lie on the beaches and swim in the water! I was motivated to go kayaking just to see the penguins. The idea of penguins at the equator sounds absurd, but they do exist. The Galapagos penguin is the third smallest penguin in the world and stands at about 30 cm tall. Penguins usually make burrows in soft peat, but in the absence of this, on these islands they have taken to living in caves and crevices in the coastal lava.



The lava rock islands provide the ideal habitat for the famous mascot of the islands, the blue-footed booby. This bird is famous not so much because it is rare but because it is entertaining. Its courtship, where the male of the bird performs a dance, is indeed worth a watch. It is also very dangerously tame.



But the celebrity animals here are indeed the giant tortoises. As their name suggests, these giant reptiles weigh up to 270 kg, with the carapace length of 1.22m. Once, there were estimated to be over 2,00,000 tortoises, with probably 14 sub-species, distributed on the islands. Today, less than 17,000 survive. The tortoises are found on what used be farming land, and are now protected by the owners who allow tourists to view them. It is almost unreal to observe these huge animals, peacefully grazing on the one-time farmlands.



When tourism poses a threat



Spectacular, fantastic, overwhelming, fabulous are all terms that aptly describe these islands. But is the sun setting on these islands? The stakes are very high and the major cause for concern is the increasing number of tourists. From just about 40,000 tourists in 1990, the number has grown to 2,24,755 in 2015. More tourists means greater disturbance to wildlife, greater need for supplies from the mainland and greater amounts of garbage.



The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) declared the islands a World Heritage Site in 1979, but put them on the danger list for precisely this reason. Although, they were taken off the Danger List in 2010, the number of tourists continues to grow. The Galapagos now attract almost 30,000 people from the mainland in search of employment.



Tourism on the islands contributes significantly to the countrys economy. But what kind of tourism? We took trips where guides encouraged tourists to take selfies with wildlife. The biggest threat comes from the fact that the wildlife species on these islands even today are very tame. One can quite literally walk up to a nesting bird and it will not move. All the more reason for better regulated tourism. Introduced fauna and flora are also one of the biggest threats to the islands. Animals such as the goats are proving to ring the death knell for the endemic island fauna.
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and senior advisor of President Donald Trump, today flatly denied colluding with Russia during the 2016 election, saying he had no "improper" contacts with the Russian officials.



Giving a detailed explanation, Kushner in an 11-page statement said he hopes that that he has been able to demonstrate the entirety of his "limited contacts with Russian representatives during the campaign and transition".



Kushner's statement came hours before his meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee staff. "It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defence. I have tried to focus on the important work at hand and serve this President and this country to the best of my abilities," Kushner said.



"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," Kushner said.



Kushner said that the record and documents he provided to the committee shows that he had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable.



The president's son-in-law said over the last six months, he made every effort to provide the FBI with whatever information was needed to investigate his background.



Kushner said in the week before the inauguration, amid the scramble of finalising the unwinding of his involvement from his company, moving his family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from his outside positions and complete his security and financial disclosure forms, people at his New York office were helping him find the information and organise it, review it and put it into the electronic form.



"They sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed. At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known). Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017," he explained.



That evening, Kushner said, when his team realised the form had been submitted prematurely, they informed the transition team that they needed to make changes and additions to the form.



The very next day, January 19, 2017, they submitted supplemental information to the transition, which confirmed receipt and said they would immediately transmit it to the FBI.



"The supplement disclosed that I had "numerous contacts with foreign officials" and that we were going through my records to provide an accurate and complete list. I provided a list of those contacts in the normal course, before my background investigation interview and prior to any inquiries or media reports about my form," he said.



"It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians. That is not the case," Kushner said.



"In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted. The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form. These included meetings with individuals such as Jordan's King Abdullah II, Israel's Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso and many more. All of these had been left off before," said the top presidential aide.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has kicked up a row with his reported remark that he would "hang officials upside down" if there were delays in clearing routine revenue matters.



Chouhan purportedly made the controversial statement while addressing a meeting of the BJP's state executive committee here on Saturday.



The chief minister he would "hang officials upside down" if he found that revenue matters not under dispute were pending for more than a month.



He made the remark when a party leader from Bundelkhand region raised the issue of revenue matters pending for long, and sought Chouhan's intervention to cut delays.



While the Congress slammed Chouhan for using harsh words to warn officers, BJP leaders neither confirmed nor denied the statement though they maintained the CM talked about taking tough action against officials who delay clearing files without any valid reason.



"The chief minister is serious about farmers' issues. He talked about taking tough action against those who delay disposal of revenue cases of farmers," state BJP spokesman Rajnish Agarwal told PTI when asked about Chouhan's controversial remark.



The opposition Congress accused Chouhan of shifting the blame for his government's "failures" to bureaucrats.



Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a statement that the chief minister's strong words against officials showed his desperation.



"There is rampant corruption in the revenue and agriculture departments. Farmers are in trouble because of the wrong policies of the BJP government, but the CM is trying to escape responsibility and blame officials for the current state of affairs," said the Lok Sabha MP from Guna.



Some officials have been working with Chouhan for the the past 11 years. The CM is now blaming them for his "failures" as his support base is shrinking after the farmers' agitation last month, Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh told reporters.
Deputy Commissioner Richard Vincent DSouza visited Baradi village in Nelyahudikeri gram panchayat and discussed on waste disposal with the gram panchayat members and local residents.



Demanding scientific disposal of garbage, residents of Nelyahudikeri had staged a bandh recently. In this background, the DC visited the village to identify land for waste disposal.



Local resident and coffee grower K A Bopaiah said that the land for waste disposal would be given, provided the district administration repairs the road at Baradi.



The DC promised to look into the technical glitches in repairing the road and finalise the land for waste disposal within 15 days.
With India having joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), an additional weight to the group appears to have emerged, although it may be irritating the policy makers both in China and Pakistan. While Pakistan has also been inducted into the organisation along with India, that does not worry New Delhi.



Notwithstanding the fact that China-Pakistan axis will not permit India to avail the due benefits accruing from the organisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not yet lost his solemn expectations with the organisations gradual expansion which may result in wider participation and greater democratisation of the grouping, thereby making it more accountable, responsible, responsive, transparent and task-oriented.



In fact, the SCO  originally constituted as the Shanghai Five in 1996  is an inter-governmental organisation comprising of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. With Uzbekistan joining the organisation in 2001, it assumed a new nomenclature after renaming itself as the SCO in Shanghai in 2001. In addition to the six member states, now both India and Pakistan have joined the organisation. Other than these, there are four observer nations and six dialogue partners.



Earlier, the six member states occupied territory that accounted for three-fifths of the Eurasian continent having a population of 1.5 billion  a quarter of the worlds population. The SCO is a group originally meant to establish and spread Russias sphere of influence in Central Asia and also a Eurasian counter to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.



Added with it is the recent Chinese grand strategy called Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road initiative together characterised Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a platform being used by China to promote President Xi Jinping's effort to counter the US policy of Asian rebalance. The aim is to involve Central Asian countries, mostly adversely affected by the onslaught of radical Islamists terror, to work for regional connectivity and progress.



Though the organisation was initially formed as a confidence-building mechanism to demilitarise borders with increased military-strategic and counter-terrorism cooperation and intelligence- sharing thereof, its goals and agenda have since considerably expanded. They now include intensified focus on regional economic initiatives like the recently announced integration of the China-led Silk Road Economic Belt, the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, and other political and socio-cultural measures being taken to forge common feelings of unity and solidarity in the region.



While some experts say the organisation has emerged as an effective anti-US regional bulwark in Central Asia to advance Chinas strategic-hegemonic goals, others are apprehensive of likely frictions among its members which may preclude the prospects of a strong and unified SCO.



As laid out in its charter, the organisation functions as a forum to strengthen confidence and establish friendly and cordial relations among member states. The SCO has two permanent headquarters, the secretariat in Beijing and the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), in the Uzbek Capital at Tashkent.



One of SCOs primary objectives is promoting cooperation on security-related issues, namely to combat the three evils of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. While the organisation resolves issues by arriving at decisions based upon consensus, the member-states are expected to strictly uphold the core principles of peaceful existence, non-aggression and non-interference in each others internal affairs.



Indeed, the SCOs regional influence is gradually spreading all over the world, writes Richard Weitz, senior fellow and director of the Centre for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute. Member states penchant for pursuing micro-agendas also undermines group cohesion and sows mistrust, says Matthew Crosston, professor and director of the International Security and Intelligence Studies Programme at Bellevue University.



Nonetheless, the raison-detre of the organisation forecloses all mutual bickering at ground level because they are suffering the same agony and trauma in their routine course.



While Modi assumed full membership of the organisation, having a covert agenda to pre-empt Chinas rising influence and hegemony in Central Asia and beyond, this attitudinal change in India towards China after initial boycott of the BRI summit in Beijing is a meticulous strategy to establish Indias pre-eminence vis-a-vis China, besides ensuring cordial relations with all partner nations in the region.



Since India is well-aware of Beijings designs to use the SCO to promote its ancient Silk Route Grand Strategy passing through the region, it has now realised that boycott does not serve any purpose. Indias current strategy is now to become a member of the organisation and work from within the system to secure its own interests and also of the region, besides counter-balancing Beijing and also keeping Islamabad under pressure.



Indian diplomacy



"How we use our entry into the SCO will depend on the deftness of Indian diplomacy. It will certainly raise India's profile in Central Asia, says Nandan Unnikrishnan, an expert on Russia and Central Asia at Observer Research Foundation.



Despite these challenges, the SCO has nevertheless enlarged its mandate in recent years wherein India as a founder-member of the Non-aligned Movement and also being a prominent peace-loving power in South Asia can contribute constructively in as diverse fields as peace, progress, harmony and development and regional security and stability.



While extending economic and technological assistance for development of infrastructure, New Delhi can effectively work with the cooperation of other members of the SCO for effectively wiping out terrorism and Islamist fundamentalism in the region.



Other organisational priorities are initiatives to deepen economic and energy cooperation, including establishing a bloc-wide development bank as the two South Asian nations join, the prospects for a SCO Development Bank may improve. Other organisational priorities are initiatives to deepen economic and energy cooperation, including establishing a bloc-wide development bank.



While handling China and Pakistan is undoubtedly a horrible nightmare for India, working together in the organisation may find some common meeting ground which will be fruitful for the organisation because nothing is beyond human endeavour.



(The writer is Professor, UP Rajarshi Tandon Open University, Allahabad)
Tata Elxsi, the 28-year old product engineering and design (E&D) firm with a market capitalisation of Rs 5,203 crore is likely to be merged with Tata Consultancy Services very soon, say sources familiar with the matter.



According to company sources, Tata Elxsi is surviving as a standalone entity because of the influence of its Chief Executive Officer Madhukar Dev within the Tata Group. He already got three extensions and will retire next year and after that the merger will happen, a source said.



Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran in a recent interaction with a media house in New York said the Tata Group is already a $100 billion group and to get to the next level it needs scale.



We cant do it with multiple small companies. We need top companies. I am not saying specifically that all companies need to be No 1 or 2 in their sectors, but we need to have top companies, Chandrasekaran said.



Dev, who turns 63 this year and has worked at Tata Elxsi for a quarter century, helped the companys turnaround journey after the global recession by building a culture of engineering and design in India.



When contacted, Tata Elxsi said the company will not comment on media speculation. The company has offices in Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Trivandrum, Kolkata and Chandigarh. The company has divisions like Embedded Product Design, Industrial Design, System Integration and Professional Services and Visual Computing Labs.



Talking to DH, an analyst said Devs phenomenal leadership helped the company to grow its revenues from Rs 415.9 crore in FY11 to Rs 1,075 crore in FY16.



During the same period profit grew nearly five times, from Rs 32.5 crore to Rs 154.8 crore. It's market capitalisation is less than 1% of the m-cap of 14 listed Tata companies, said the analyst.



Besides automotive to consumer durable, Tata Elxsi is also involved in E&D activities in telecommunications, electronic devices, and big data, power sector and healthcare. Dev during a result announcement last year had said that nearly 25% of revenues of the company comes from JLR and Tata Motors.



Tata group took the name Elxsi in Tata Elxsi from a supercomputer startup born at Stanford University in the 1970s. The Elxsi super-computer architecture was based on the ECL (emitter-coupled logic) semiconductor technology. Elxsi had two early adopters in India, Tata Motors and TCS.



When the Tatas wanted to bring Elxsi to India and applied for a government licence in the 1980s and thus Tata Elxsi was born.



Besides TCS, the group also owns Tata Interactive Systems, which sells computer-assisted learning products, and an outsourcing provider Tata Business Support Services in the technology space.


The city police have named N R Santosh, the personal assistant of BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa, as the prime suspect in the attempt to kidnap case.



According to the police, Santosh was the mastermind behind the attempt to kidnap Vinay Bidre, the personal assistant of Opposition leader in the Legislative Council K S Eashwarappa, in May. A case has been registered at the Mahalakshmi Layout police station.



At the sessions court on Monday, where Santoshs anticipatory bail plea was heard, public prosecutor Nagappa asserted that Santosh, who seems to be the mastermind in the case, is the prime suspect and he should not be granted anticipatory bail, said police sources. The sources said that investigations and interrogation of the hired suspects in the kidnap attempt case have revealed the presence of a CD which is being verified, added police sources.



All the arrested suspects Prashanth, Kishore, Selvam, Aiyappa and Aravind and co-accused Rajendra Urs, who secured bail recently, have mentioned Santoshs name during interrogation, the police added.

On July 15 midnight, the police visited Yeddyurappa's house looking for Santosh, but they could not find him.
The state government has waived the loans availed for Ashraya Housing scheme. The officials should see ensure that the benefit reaches the needy, said Moodbidri MLA K Abhayachandra Jain.



He was chairing the monthly KDP meet at the Taluk Panchayat in Mangaluru on Monday.



He directed officials to distribute title deeds to people who have been sanctioned houses. The tahsildars should direct the panchayat development officers to distribute the title deeds to the eligible within one month the MLA said, stating that preference should be given in the sanctioning of houses to those who had applied long back. There is no provision to carry out new constructions. Applications received under 94 CC under Karnataka Land Revenue Act should also be cleared, said the legislator.



Jain further said that the work towards Moodbidri Krishi Seva Kendra is not progressing although both the land and the funds have been sanctioned for the Kendra. The Panchayat Raj Engineering Subsection assistant executive engineer said that there is a need to include the taluk assistant agricultural directors office in the building plan of the Seva Kendra as Moodbidri will be upgraded with taluk status. An estimation will be drawn towards the same. Moodbidri Taluk Panchayat building is in progress, he said.



The MLA also told the drinking water and sanitation assistant executive engineer to complete the pending works related to drinking water supply under the task force grants. Each constituency has been sanctioned Rs 40 to 50 lakh. The works should be carried out on war footing as it will not be possible to provide connections to half done works, he said.



Mangaluru Taluk Panchayat president Muhammed Monu and vice president Poornima Ganesh were present.
Superintendent of Police K T Balakrishna said that the new beat system in Karnataka would be replicated all over the country as the Central government foresees a beginning in establishing a warm rapport between public and police.



He was speaking at the inaugural ceremony on the beat system in Udupi town police station limits and also interaction with the public.



The police head said that the new beat system is a revolutionary step taken by the state government and would be the smallest unit where pubic contact is developed. The improved version of the existing beat system would involve all police officials right from the lower cadre. Moreover all the staff members are equally accountable for the work assigned. The police should always discharge their duties keeping the public in confidence, Balakrishna reminded.



The new system was initiated on April 1 and practically implemented from April 2. The added advantage of the new system is that the public are also a part of the law and order maintenance system where the responsibilities discharged would not be from one side  rather it is both-sided. The boundaries for beats have been increased into five in each jurisdiction. Every police staff member would be accountable for each transaction of duties held under the system, said the superintendent.



Asserting that the remote areas would be tough terrain for the police to reach to maintain law and order, the police head said that it is the new system that would ease the problems and ensure efficiency in the system even in the remote area. One beat area would cater to the needs of a maximum of 50 people. There are nearly 13 lakh beat committees set up all over the state.



Constables, who are the lower cadre in the Police Department, make for 90% of the force. The innovative system would, however, also make the constables prominent, with their superiors giving them a sense of pride and dignity. The beat committee and the jurisdiction set up would be same for the entire year, but would be changed in the consecutive year.



Major responsibility

Social activist Vishu Shetty said that the police should effectively work to maintain peace in society, especially since communal incidents are spreading like wildfire.



In the backdrop of such circumstances, police have a major responsibility and the action taken should not harm either of the parties. It should instead aim at punishing the guilty with unbiased approach, he stressed.



Former CMC president Yuvaraj said that involving the public in the beat system is truly commendable. It is the easiest way to understand the geography of the crime in each jurisdiction with the involvement of the local public, he explained.



Citizens demanded that the police should be soft towards people who approach them and offer the citizens all required information. The public should be treated with dignity and the police should not behave rudely with them, they added.
Prof U R Rao, internationally renowned space scientist who made original contributions to the development of space technology in India and its extensive application to communications and remote sensing of natural resources, had his origin in the village of Muduadmaru in Admaru in Ucchila.



U R Rao was born in Admaru. His parents were Lakshminarayana Acharya and Krishnaveni Amma. He had his primary education in Adamaru. He completed his secondary education from the Christian High School, Udupi. He completed his BSc in the Government Arts and Science College, Anantpur, MSc from Benaras Hindu University and PhD at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad under the guidance of Dr Vikram Sarabhai.



The family of U R Rao left the temple town when he was young. They went to Ballari in 1944 as Raos father was a cook. The family originally resided in Muduadmaru and after the high school education of U R Rao, the family house was sold. The father of the scientist had returned to Korangrapadi and remained as agriculturist until his death in 1978. The scientist lost his mother in 1979. Rao had his last interaction with his ancestors during his visits after the deaths of his parents.



He, however, visited the Sri Krishna Temple whenever he paid visit to Udupi.



Raos death is a huge loss to the world, especially to the world of research and science, said the Pejawar Mutt seer Sri Vishwesha Theertha Swami. The seer said Rao had plans to talk to him when he was suffering from a brief illness. Fate, however, had decided the destiny and I could not talk to him forever, the seer lamented.



District In-charge Minister Pramod Madhwaraj expressed his condolence for the departed soul and termed it as the huge loss to the country.
Flood waters swept several places on Monday, killing two in Rajasthan and forcing Gujarat to declare a high alert.



The situation in flood-ravaged Assam improved considerably as the swollen Brahmaputra and Barak rivers, along with their tributaries, started flowing below the danger mark at most places.



In West Bengal, lowlands in Birbhum, Purulia, West Midnapore and Hooghly districts were inundated.

With the meteorological department predicting more rain in the Gangetic region of the state in the next 24 hours, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a monitoring meeting with senior officials at the secretariat on Monday.



Rain lashed Kolkata through the night, inundating thoroughfares and choking traffic.



In Odisha, the formation of a low-pressure area is likely to bring very heavy rain and thundershower on Tuesday, along with high-speed surface winds.



The state government has dispatched one Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force team each to the northern Keonjhar and Bhadrak districts, as overflowing rivers pushed several places to the brink of floods.



The levels of the Baitarani, Subarnarekha and Budhabalang rivers have been rising steadily following heavy rainfall in most parts of the state over the last couple of days.



The state government has already sounded an alert about possible floods in Keonjhar, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh, after the IMD forecast extremely heavy rainfall.

Rain pounds Gujarat



North Gujarat, especially Banaskantha district, received heavy rain since Sunday night.



It has rained between 4 inches and 14 inches in the last 24 hours in the district and as many as 1,800 people had to be evacuated from the area, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said. With this, over 8,000 people have been evacuated to safety in the state in the last three days.



Though no casualties were reported from Banaskantha, the total deaths in rain-related incidents so far touched 72, with seven deaths in the last four days. Over 900 cattle have either been washed away in the rain or have died.



As many as 128 roads were shut for vehicular traffic, 123 villages have no electricity and several trains passing through North Gujarat to Kutch district remained suspended as tracks were washed away in many places.
The Centres proposed code of ethics for pharmaceutical companies has several loopholes, which could be exploited by drug companies to continue their indirect influence on a large section of doctors.



Framed under the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, the yet-to-be-notified code seeks to break the existing nexus between doctors and drug firms, which push for their products in violation of medical ethics.



The Essential Commodities (Control of Unethical Practices in Marketing of Drugs) order 2017 has provisions prohibiting sponsorship by pharmaceutical companies and the common practice of doctors receiving expensive gifts from medical representatives.



It also seeks to bar companies from sponsoring the travel, accommodation and food expenses for doctors and their family members in India and aboard in the garb of attending seminars and continuing medical education and scientific meetings. There is a strict no on companies handing out cash cards and gift hampers to doctors and their family members.



The companies can fund seminars organised by medical associations, provided these associations maintain a register of the sponsorships for government scrutiny. The register is to be maintained for three years.



The proposed code envisages appointment of an ethics compliance officer of the rank of a joint secretary to oversee such malpractices.



It is one of the loopholes. There is no monitoring system to check malpractices, said Dr G S Grewal, who is based in Ludhiana. Grewal is also former president of the Punjab Medical Council.



While the Medical Council of India has an existing code for doctors, known as the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002, the new code is meant for pharmaceutical companies.



However, even the MCIs ethics code for doctors is poorly implemented.



The new code keeps the booming medical device industry outside its ambit, which has been opposed by doctors. Though it lists financial penalties and seizure of stocks as punishment for violating marketing codes, it is not clear how these punishment provisions would be implemented.
The biological parents of a newborn girl spent a harrowing time for over six months after being separated from their baby who remained in an orphanage all this while.



The parents knew their child was in the orphanage, but the authorities insisted they need to establish their claim as parents of the baby girl. The resulting logjam kept the baby away from the mother for months.



Finally, a DNA test was conducted which proved the credentials of the couple as parents of the baby girl Suman (name changed). Suman, however, is with her Delhi-based parents now. The mother of the baby, too, shares the blame for the mess.



Suman was born in Amritsar in October last year which is when the womans mother-in-law reportedly launched a tirade for giving birth to another baby girl. Unable to face the abuse, the mother decided to abandon her baby. She went to an orphanage in Amritsar, left her baby in a cradle outside and walked away.



On her return home, she narrated the entire incident to her husband in New Delhi, who quickly packed his bags and headed for Amritsar.



An argument ensued, followed by a sense of deep remorse. The next day the couple went straight to the orphanage to claim their baby.



They expressed regret saying the decision was taken in haste. But the authorities asked them to prove their identity as parents of the baby girl, without which they would be unable to hand over the child.



Since no one saw the mother leaving the child in the cradle, the authorities cited legal complexities that went against handing over the baby.



They were right in their own way, but little did the couple realise that one hasty decision would lead to a long period of separation from their child.



Midway through their pursuit to reclaim their child, Suman fell ill and was shifted to a hospital in Ludhiana where a charitable trust spent Rs 2.6 lakh on her treatment. Finally, a DNA test established that the couple were parents of Suman, who is now out of the orphanage.
The Centre will take a decision on the states demand to denotify national highways and declare them as district roads to allow liquor shops to function only after studying the recent Supreme Court order, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Monday.



Though the Supreme Court in its recent modified order allowed the states to denotify highways if they come under the city limits, the government is yet to get the judgement copy. After getting the copy we will take a call on it, Gadkari told DH.



Several states have requested us to denotify national highways and declare them as district roads. We want to know what exactly the judgement says, he said.



Though the state can denotify a state highway and declare it as a district road, for national highways, the Ministry of Road Transport has to take a decision, he said.



Recently, the Supreme Court, while hearing a petition challenging the Chandigarh administrations decision to denotify certain stretches of highways, said states can denotify highways and declare them as district or municipal roads if they are in city limits.



The judgement has brought relief to several liquor shops, bar and restaurants on highways passing through Chandigarh.
Moneylending has been taboo for most of human history, notes Alex Mayyasi. So how did usury stop being a sin and become respectable finance?

Today, a banker listening to a theologian seems like a curiosity, a category error. But for most of history, this kind of dialogue was the norm. Hundreds of years ago, when modern finance arose in Europe, moneylenders moderated their behaviour in response to debates among the clergy about how to apply the Bibles teachings to an increasingly complex economy. Lending money has long been regarded as a moral matter. So just when and how did most bankers stop seeing their work in moral terms?

[]

Judeo-Christian religions cemented the usury taboo. The Old Testament reads: Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, and the Book of Luke advises: [L]ove ye your enemies: do good, and lend, hoping for nothing thereby. In the 4th century CE, Christian councils denounced the practice, and by 800, the emperor Charlemagne made the prohibition into law. Accounts of merchants and bankers in the Middle Ages frequently include expressions of anguish over their profits. In his Divine Comedy of the 14th century, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri put the usurers in the seventh circle of Hell; in the case of Reginaldo Scrovegni, one Paduan banker singled out by Dante, his son ended up commissioning a chapel painted with frescoes by Giotto to expiate the familys sin. Over the ensuing centuries, the philanthropy and patronage of other Italian Renaissance families such as the Medicis was partly inspired by guilt about how theyd profited from charging interest.
The family of Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav  who was the first Indian to bag an individual medal in the Olympics  has decided to auction his bronze medal because of the failure of the Maharashtra government to honour its commitment of opening a wrestling academy at Goleshwar in Karad taluka of Satara district.



Besides, the Jadhav family and the villagers are unhappy that Khashaba Jadhav had not been conferred with any of the Padma awards.



Jadhav (1926  1984), popularly known as Pocket Dynamo, won a bronze medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics at Helsinki in Finland.



It was exactly 65 years ago, on July 24, 1952, that he bro-ught laurels for the country.



It is unfortunate, but we have decided to auction the medal. Let the government decide the right price, his son Ranjit Jadhav told DH.



He also plans to go on a hunger strike, along with other villagers, on the eve of the 70th year of Independence, from August 14.



Ranjit said it was the government which proposed a wrestling academy and now it is turning a blind eye.

It should say if that is not happening, he said, adding that the wrestling academy at Goleshwar was proposed in 2009. We have corresponded with the Congress-NCP Democratic Front government as well as the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance government, but nothing seems to be happening. We have to look at the importance and achievement. His was the first individual medal by an Indian in Olympics. It was 44 years later that Leander Paes won the second individual medal, a bronze, in 1996. So far, we have 15 individual medals in Olympics, in a country with over 130 crore population, he said, adding that Jadhav is an inspiration for future wrestlers.
The Congress has distanced itself from the state governments controversial stand on the demand for according a separate religion status to the Lingayat-Veerashiva community.



Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) working president Dinesh Gundu Rao on Monday told reporters that the party has nothing to do with the issue. The Congress has not taken any stand in this regard. Some religious leaders of the community have requested the government to give a religion status to their community. It is between those community leaders and the government.



Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has reportedly said that his government will recommend to the Centre to accord religion status to Lingayat-Veerashiva community if there is consensus among the community leaders. BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa has reportedly accused the chief minister of dividing people on caste lines.



This apart, Gundu Rao accused the BJP leaders of spreading communal hatred in Dakshina Kannada district for political gains. As many as 279 murders have been reported in the district since 2007. Of these, about 70% of them have happened this year. Most of these cases are reported in and around Kalladka, he said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should first take action against party MPs Shobha Karandlaje and Nalin Kumar Kateel, in this regard.



Shobha Karandlaje stages protests only if Hindus are attacked and remains silent when people belonging to the minority communities are killed, he charged.


Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday laid the foundation stone for a 2.4-km-long flyover from Kendriya Sadan in Koramangala to Ejipura Main Road junction.



To be built at a cost of Rs 204 crore, the flyover will be a four-lane road. By constructing three main and four small junctions along the way, the signal-free corridor is expected to save about 30 minutes of travel time for motorists.



Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said Bengaluru had over 60 lakh vehicles and the construction of the flyover would help decongest roads.



Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said: About 15,000 vehicles pass through this route every day and motorists will be able to save 30 minutes once the flyover opens. The flyover will have a cycle track along with a footpath.



The flyover project, which received budgetary allocation in 2016-17, is expected to be completed by January 2019. The work is expected to take 18 months, Reddy said.



Mayor G Padmavathi said the flyover would be the longest free expressway in the city after Sirsi Circle flyover.



Besides laying the foundation stone for the signal-free corridor, the chief minister also initiated a number of development projects in BTM Layout Assembly constituency which is represented by Reddy. A total of Rs 625 crore has been allocated for these projects.



A park at Mestri Palya, Koramangala, will be built at a cost of Rs 7 crore. Around 950 houses will be built in Adugodi, Rajendra Nagar, MK Colony, Sudduguntepalya and Siddhartha Nagar for people living in slums. A grant of Rs 255.54 crore has been sanctioned for asphalting 300 kilometre of roads in prominent wards of the city.



Siddaramaiah, who also holds the Finance portfolio, said there was no financial discipline in budgetary allocations earlier. But we have made the rules strict. We are able to carry out our work and perform better since the money is not going waste, he said.



Madiwala has received special focus under the development projects in BTM Layout constituency. The works include construction of shops in Madiwala market at a cost of Rs 21 crore, development of lakes (Rs 25 crore), construction of a dialysis centre (Rs 2.5 crore), library (Rs 80 lakh) and cardiac surgery centre (Rs 1.8 crore).
The state government has set up Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) office where people can lodge complaints against builders and developers.



The office is located on the ground floor of the Karnataka Housing Board building in Cauvery Bhavan on K G Road.



Consumers can lodge complaints against any delay in handing over or registration of flats and sites by builders and developers. One can also lodge a complaint online on rera.karnataka.co.in or at housing.kar.nic.in



Real estate developers and agents can contact info.rera@karnataka.gov.in for any information and registration, said a release issued by the government.



Those who are involved in realty sector should register at RERA office. This apart, they should compulsorily publish complete property details on their website in a transparent manner so that consumers can get redressal of their grievances.



The portal also has the facility of making payments through Karnataka Khajane-II. Users of the RERA portal will get a link on the payment page directing them to k2.karnataka.gov.in.



The state government on Monday created a web portal - rera.karnataka.gov.in - for registration of real estate projects, real estate agents and complaints by buyers as per the RERA Act.
To accelerate international trade from the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), its operators and cargo partners have completed a three-month run of a bonded trucking service from Tiruppur, the country's knitwear capital, to the airport here.



Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), in collaboration with its cargo partners  Menzies Aviation Bobba Bangalore Pvt Ltd (MABB) and Air India SATS Airport Services Pvt Ltd (AISATS)  had embarked on this project in April 2017.



The project is designed to enable exporters from Tiruppur and surrounding areas to freight their consignments through KIA via road in an efficient, safe and highly process-driven manner.



A dedicated feeder road that will connect cargo has been introduced to maintain lowest possible trans-shipment time.



The cargo will be moved via purpose-built truck docks to achieve a quick turn-around. This feeder service is expected to ensure that air freight reaches its ultimate destination quickly and efficiently.



Since air freight is time-sensitive, the new route could enable exporters to save approximately 20 hours in the overall transit cycle, a BIAL release said.



Over a period of time, BIAL has proposed to extend the project to other manufacturing clusters such as Coimbatore, Vaniyambadi and Ambur.



BIAL president, Airport Operations, Hari Marar said cargo business at KIA has seen a phenomenal growth in the past year.



To sustain this in the long term, we are committed to creating a robust ecosystem that supports and propels the growth of not just Karnataka, but the entire south Indian region in the global cargo supply chain, he said.
Chinese Navy Trains In Baltic and Visits Greece



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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/us/usc-medical-school-dean-drugs.html?module=WatchingPortalion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=21&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F07%2F22%2Fus%2Fusc-medical-school-dean-drugs.html&eventName=Watching-article-click



The Los Angeles Times reported that he was seen on videos apparently smoking methamphetamine and consorting with addicts and criminals.





CALIFORNIA An overdose, a young companion, drug-fueled parties: The secret life of a USC med school dean http://www.latimes.com/ http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-usc-doctor-20170717-htmlstory.html Sarah Warren met Puliafito in early 2015. He is highly regarded in the field of ophthalmology and regularly addresses doctors at national conventions and training seminars. Over the last decade, he has coauthored more than 60 medical journal articles on retinal disease and other topics. Since 2008, he has served on the governing board of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the state agency that oversees stem cell research. It was a tip about the incident in the Pasadena hotel that led The Times to discover Puliafitos other life. Just before 5 p.m. on March 4, 2016, an employee of the Hotel Constance, an upscale Colorado Boulevard landmark, called 911 to report that a guest had suffered an apparent overdose. The hotel employee transferred a Fire Department dispatcher to a third-floor room. A man answered, identified himself as a doctor and said his companions condition was not serious, according to a recording of the call. My girlfriend here had a bunch of drinks and shes sleeping, he told the dispatcher. Asked whether the woman had taken anything else, he replied, I think just the alcohol.

Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Get the Morning Briefing by Email What you need to know to start your day, delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.

One woman told The Times that he was with her when she overdosed in a hotel room and that he had taken her to his campus office to use drugs. The woman, Sarah Warren, who worked as a prostitute, said they were constant companions after meeting in early 2015.

He resigned as the dean of the medical school less than a month after Ms. Warren overdosed. The Times, citing the Keck website, reported that he continued to accept new patients at campus eye clinics after his resignation.

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A renowned eye surgeon responsible for several breakthroughs in ophthalmology, Dr. Puliafito led aggressive fund-raising efforts that garnered more than $1 billion for the medical school.

The university also announced on Friday that it had hired Debra W. Yang, a partner at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and a former member of the Los Angeles Police Commission, to investigate the doctors conduct and the universitys response.

Our priority now is to obtain a clear picture of exactly what happened and to ensure the well-being and trust of our students at U.S.C., the patients at the Keck School and our entire university community, the university said in an email on Saturday.

On Tuesday, a day after The Los Angeles Times published its report, C. L. Max Nikias, the university president, wrote in an open letter that Dr. Puliafito had been placed on leave and could not treat patients.

We are concerned about Dr. Puliafito and his family and hope that, if the articles assertions are true, he receives the help and treatment he may need for a full recovery, he wrote.
The family of "kind and loving" 15-year-old Leah Kerry, who died after taking drugs in Newton Abbot, has paid a touching tribute which urges others to "make better and safer choices."

The popular teenager was found unconscious in Bakers Park in Newton Abbot, in the early hours of Saturday July 15 after taking what was reported to be a new psychoactive substance, formerly known as 'legal highs.'

Today, a powerful and poetic statement has been released by the family. It includes a message for other teenagers to "not make the same mistakes she did."

The statement reads: "The sudden and tragic passing of our beautiful Leah has been the most painful experience that we have all ever had to endure. Leah was a kind and loving daughter, sister, niece, cousin, grand-daughter and great grand-daughter her loss has had a profound impact especially on her parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, grand-parents and her younger brother who is struggling to adjust to a future without his big sister.

"Leah was a delightful strong-willed, caring and compassionate child and had developed into a courageous and confident young women; who was ready to take on the world. Leah had really started to engage in her education and for the first time since leaving primary school, felt very well accepted and supported by her school setting in Salisbury.

"She had a real love of expensive make-up products and ambitions of following her dreams of doing make up and beauty professionally. This was a talent that she had already mastered on herself, Leah loved to look nice, she would never leave the house without her Jeffrey Star Highlighter being over zealously applied and she shimmered and shone her way through her life.

"Leah lit up any room she walked into with her incredible personality, sense of humour, striking looks and demeanour, those who know her will ache to hear the words "You allriiight" one last time.

"Leah was blessed in that while living in Torquay for the majority of her life she made lifelong friends and she was able to maintain these friendships even though we had relocated to Wiltshire at the start of 2015. As well as forging treasured new friendships in Wiltshire, Leah regularly returned and spent time with local friends; Leah was at her happiest when she was with her friends.

"Leah had the benefit of good information and advice from many different sources at various intervals of her adolescent life, Leah was well aware of the nature of different illicit substances and the risks attached. Sadly, despite being well aware of the risks, she thought she was invincible and she rolled the dice and has paid the ultimate price.

"If there are any young people who have known Leah, or who have heard about her story, I would urge them on Leah's behalf to not make the same mistake and to make better and safer choices when out in the community.

"If even one young person decides to reduce their risk taking behaviour and not take these dangerous NSP tablets, then Leah's death has not been in vain.

"I would also ask the Government to place the dangers of psycho active substances at the top of their agenda for discussion on the back of their Drugs Strategy for 2017 which was only published the day before Leah died. It's so shocking that a 15-year-old girl who is socialising with other 15-year-old peers is able to easily have access to a drug so strong that it could lead to her death in the way that it did.

"It has proven to be very comforting to read all the lovely comments about Leah and how she has touched so many people's lives and how deeply she will be missed by so many.

"I would like to thank the community and especially her friends both is Wiltshire and in Torquay for all their support. Leah was with her Mum and Dad when she sadly died, we would like to thank Torbay Hospital Accident and Emergency Staff and the Paramedics involved who tried so tirelessly to help Leah; I know this was traumatic for all involved."

The statement finishes with a line from Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond: "You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon"

The detective leading the investigation Det Supt Ken Lamont said: "There are many different brands of NPSs out there, but the one thing we have seen time and time again is no matter the brand, be it Spice or N-Bomb, these substances can kill and we have another tragic case on our hands.

He added: "The law changed in May 2016, they are no longer 'legal highs', NPSs are illegal and so is the selling and distributing of these drugs. That is why this is a criminal investigation."

The investigation into her death continues.
The images show the Nokia 8 from multiple angles and lines up with previous leaks and renders of the companys upcoming flagship smartphone

Leaks related to the Nokia 8 seem to be popping up left right and center. A few days after the webpage for the phone briefly went live on the company official Chinese website, a Baidu user has posted photos of a Copper-Gold unit of the smartphone. The photos show the device from all angles and lines up with previous leaks. At the back is the vertically stacked dual-rear camera setup with the Nokia branding below it. At the front is the display with a home button, flanked by two capacitive buttons. The home button will most likely double as a fingerprint sensor. The top houses the 3.5mm audio jack, while at the bottom is the USB Type-C port, microphone and the speaker grill. Nokia already has copper coloured variants of its new Android powered devices. The company is offering a copper coloured version of the Nokia 6 in the US in partnership with Amazon.

The Nokia 8 is tipped to be unveiled on July 31 and is expected to be powered by Qualcomms Snapdragon 835 platform. The device is tipped to sport a 5.3-inch QHD display with two 13MP cameras at the back. Besides a Copper-Gold variant, the device is said to be available in Blue, Steel and Gold-Blue colour variants. The price of the device is not yet known, but it is expected to be around EUR 589 (approx. Rs 43,500).

Alongside the Nokia 8, the company might also announce an entry-level smartphone. Dubbed the Nokia 2, the device is tipped to feature on-screen Android buttons, and may be powered by Qualcomms Snapdragon 212 platform.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will use the company's own ISOCELL dual rear camera system with optical zoom for both lenses. The handset is rumoured to be the most expensive smartphone yet from Samsung.

Samsung will launch its flagship Galaxy Note 8 smartphone with S Pen and improved Bixby assistant on August 23. The handset is expected to be Samsung's most expensive smartphone yet and will go on sale in September. The headlining feature of this year's Galaxy Note series device is expected to be the dual rear camera setup and now analyst Ming-Chi Kuo shared more details about the setup.

According to KGI Securities' Ming-Chi Kuo, the Galaxy Note 8 will sport a dual rear camera system with a combination of 13MP and 12MP image sensors. Kuo notes that the 13MP sensor will serve as the regular wide-angle camera, while the second 12MP sensor will offer telephoto support. He also adds that both the sensors are built by Samsung itself and will feature optical image stabilisation.

At MWC Shanghai last month, Samsung unveiled a new dual rear camera system under its ISOCELL imaging brand. "Samsung ISOCELL is a brand that represents the essence of our leading pixel technologies. We expect the ISOCELL brand to help consumers easily acknowledge and confide in camera performance as well as overall quality of the device," said Ben Hur, Vice President of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics at the time of launch.

Samsung is reportedly adopting a dual camera system similar to Apple's iPhone 7 Plus. While the iPhone 7 Plus offers 2x optical zoom, the Note 8 is said to offer 3x optical zoom. While 3x optical zoom sounds like getting even closer to the subject, it needs to be seen what focal length the new sensors support. For the record, Apple's telephoto lens offers 56mm focal length while OnePlus 5's telephoto lens offers only 36mm zoom.

The Galaxy Note 8 could be the first smartphone to use this new dual camera system and could hold an edge over the competition by offering optical image stabilisation. The Galaxy Note 8 is rumoured to feature a 6.3-inch Quad HD+ Infinity Display design and will be powered by either Snapdragon 835 or Exynos 8895 SoC. The handset is tipped to launch with 6GB RAM and option for either 64GB or 128GB internal storage. The Galaxy Note 8 is also rumoured to introduce an improved S Pen with support for translation features. The handset is expected to be priced at around 999 (around Rs 72,000) and hit retail stores in September.
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Who doesnt want to be lucky?

Every culture, in their search for special lucky charms, has their own symbols that they believe will bring them good fortune.

There are tons of Chinese words and phrases that mean lucky, auspicious, or happiness:  (jixiang ruyi),  (Xiqiyangyang),  (fuqi), (jili), just to name a few. (jixiang) can be translated into auspicious, and you can easily find the word (Xi) in weddings and (fu) in couplets in almost every house in China! In fact, you can hear lots of these lucky words especially on Chinese New Year, when people wish good luck to their family and friends.

Today, lets take a look at five Chinese lucky aspects that are seen as bringers of good fortune in Chinese culture. We will discover lucky colors, animals, puns, and numbers. We will also help you know how to express and understand these lucky images in Mandarin.

1. The color Red ( / hongse)

Red is seen as a national color. The preference for red is deeply rooted in Chinese culture; it represents power, status, and confidence to ancient Chinese royalty, while to ordinary people, red means happiness, wealth, prosperity, and good luck.

The traditional Chinese wedding ( / Hunli) dress and decorations are all in red since weddings represent happiness. Also, you can see double Xi (, or  / shuangxi) red papercuts taped everywhere during the wedding, even in the newlyweds room!

Nowadays, however, Chinese weddings tend to be more western. Brides may wear a white dress instead of traditional red ones, but red is still an important element. Its a norm, for example, that the guests invited to the wedding would give out red envelopes (/ hongbao) to the newlyweds. The amount of the money in red envelops should also be an even number that includes six or eight (more on lucky numbers later).

If youve ever visited a Chinese-speaking country, you may notice there also are long red papers taped along the doors with Chinese words on them. These long red papers are called Spring Festival couplets, or  (chunlian) in Chinese. The sentences on the couplets vary, but they pretty much all express wishes for a happy, prosperous, and safe year. They often sound like blessings (expressed as phrases or words) such as safety ( / pingan), good wishes ( / ruyi), or family happiness ( / quanjiafu).

2.Dragon ( / long)

We know that in many western countries, dragons are portrayed as evil, feral, and cruel monsters. In western movies or artwork, dragons are usually villains, trying to kill people by breathing fire on them. However, in Chinese culture, dragons have a totally opposite image.

In the Ancient East there is a dragon, her name is China.

In the Ancient East there is a group of people, they are all the heirs of the dragon.

The classical Chinese song The Heirs of the Dragon ( / long de chuanren) shows the Chinese peoples reverence toward dragons; they see themselves as descendants of dragons. Dragons in Chinese culture represent the greatest royalty, strength, prosperity, and auspiciousness. The ancient Emperors of China were identified as the sons of dragons.

You may have heard of the 12 Chinese zodiac signs, in which the Dragon is one of them. Although dragons are imaginary creatures, their images and values mean a lot to Chinese people. The concept of dragons still deeply influences modern Chinese culture. As an example, the birth rate in every Dragon year always increases and is relatively much higher than other zodiac years. The reason is that parents always want to have dragon babies, born during the Year of the Dragon. Whats more, people just love the word dragon ( / long)! It has become a popular name, especially for boys. For instance, famous Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chans stage name is Sing Long (), and Bruce Lees is Lee Siu Long ().

3. Tortoise ( / wugui)

The tortoise or turtle is known as a long-lived animal, so it has an image of both longevity ( / changshou) and also auspiciousness. As you can see in the Chinese-featured animation film Kung Fu Panda, the character Master Oogway is super old and intelligent, and is highly respected by others.

There are Four Benevolent Animals( / Si Ling) in Chinese culture, which includes the Qilin (/ qilin), the Dragon, the Turtle, and the Phoenix (/ fenghuang). Interestingly, among these four benevolent animals, only the turtle is an actual animal, while the others are imaginary.

In addition to longevity, turtles are believed to have spiritual powers, and since they can live in both water and on the land, they are considered practical and closer to ordinary people. Its also common for Chinese fortune tellers to use turtles shells to practice divination.

4. Chinese Puns

In the Chinese language, there are loads of interesting homophonic or double-entendre words. Chinese people love to use these puns in their daily lives, and it has become an important part of the culture. In particular, people love to take homophonic meanings and connect them as lucky words.

For example, during Chinese New Year, there are many lucky words and blessings all around. One of the lucky phrases,  (Nian nian youyu), means the hope to have surplus wealth or good things every year.  (yu) means surplus, and has the same sound as  (yu), which means fish. Therefore, to have fish on the table for meals during Chinese New Year means greater luck.

This is the same for  (tuanyuan), meaning a reunion of loved ones. The word  (yuan) means circle or round, so in Chinese culture, dining tables are usually round tables. To celebrate New Year, Chinese family members would thus have a reunion meal called  (tuanyuan fan). Also, the fruit orange ( / juzi) has similar sound to luck (/ ji), so you will often find oranges on the table during Chinese festivals.

5. Lucky number

Just like the lucky 7 in western culture, Chinese culture has lucky numbers, too. 6 and 8 are commonly recognized as good numbers. Why? Its all about homophones again.

The Chinese pronunciation of six ( / liu) sounds like flow( / liu), so the blessing phrase  (Liuliu da shun) means everything flows smoothly. Eight in Chinese,  (ba), rhymes with  (fa), which means prosperity and wealth. Therefore, its popular among companies or individuals to apply for phone numbers or car license plates to include the number 8.

9 is also seen as a lucky and auspicious number as. Nine, or  (jiu) in Chinese, has a similar sounding phrase:  (Zhang chang jiujiu), which means forever, ever-lasting, and longevity. Therefore, its common to see people prepare 99 roses to give to their lovers, which symbolizes ever-lasting love.

To sum up, there are many aspects and interpretations for good luck in the Chinese culture. They are mostly derived from ancient times and still take on an important role in peoples daily lives today. The lucky colors, numbers, animals, traditional customs, or use of language, are quite unique and interesting, and they contribute to the cultures charm.

Heres wishing you good luck!
Federal lawmakers pressed Federal Communications Commission nominees Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel, along with current Chairman Ajit Pai, on their support for the future of the federal E-Rate program and their positions on net neutrality at a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

Were studying, obviously, ways to improve the program, said Pai, a Republican, when asked by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., whether the FCC planned to decrease funding or make programmatic changes to the E-Rate. The program helps schools and libraries pay for telecommunications services, including high-speed internet access.

Neither Carr, also a Republican, nor Pai would say that funding cuts were off the table.

I have an open mind as to what the budget numbers should be, said Carr, in response to Markeys questioning about a possible decrease in E-Rate funding.

Markey said that it was troubling to not receive a commitment from Carr or Pai to funding for E-rate, a program he called a democratizing force.

While E-rate and net neutrality featured prominently in the hearing, lawmakers also focused on rural broadband deployment, questioning the nominees on access for consumers and business owners.

Carr, a first-time nominee, currently serves as the FCC general counsel and was a former legal adviser to Pai during his term as a commissioner at the FCC. Pai was named as FCC chairman by President Trump earlier this year, and the assumption is that he will challenge many of the policies put in place by the FCC during the Obama administration.

Ranking committee member Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., asked Carr whether the FCC would wait until the coming year, when comissioners could review the results of E-Rate modernization efforts, before making any changes to the program.

The nations students, and the teachers, and the libraries are going to hold us accountable for any changes if we roll back the E-rate program, said Nelson.

Carr said he did not have a pre-ordained view of the future of the program.

I will not be making or casting a vote to change a program until we get information about whether its working or not, Carr said.

In 2014 the FCC voted to increase the annual funding for the E-rate from $2.4 billion to $3.9 billion, as part of a broad modernization of the program. The E-rate is funded through through fees on telecommunications providers, which are passed on to consumers. Pai voted against the E-Rate modernization as a commissioner in 2014 and has publicly advocated for overhauling of the programs application requirements and funding distribution formulas. Under his leadership, the FCC also rescinded a report documenting the programs successes .

If confirmed, the appointments of Carr and Rosenworcel would return the agency to its full strength of five commissioners and result in a 3-2 Republican majority on the panel. A Republican-majority FCC could make it easier for Pai to make changes to the E-Rate, net neutrality, and other policies that he envisions.

Nelson questioned Carrs ability to operate independently as a comissioner, given that Carr will be working alongside Pai, his former boss. Carr pledged that he was committed to independence and said that he believed the agency worked best when it operated in a bipartisan, consensus-based manner.

Rosenworcel, a Democrat who served on the commission from 2012 through January of this year, lauded the E-Rate as absolutely vital and pledged she would not vote to reduce the programs funding as a commissioner at the agency. Rosenworcel voted for E-Rate modernization in 2014 , and defended commissions revamping of the program.

Reforms were put in place in 2015, and promises were made to every school and library in this country that E-rate dollars would be available to them, she said, and I want to make sure that that promise is kept.

Though they did not address the specifics of E-rate funding, Carr and Pai both voiced their support for the programs overall mission. For years Ive said the E-rate is a program worth fighting for, Pai told the lawmakers.

When Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, asked if they would commit to keeping the broad structure of the E-rate program in place, Carr, Pai, and Rosenworcel all responded that they would.

That did not reassure education advoacy organization Common Sense Kids Action. In a statement this afternoon, CEO and founder James P. Steyer said the organization was extremely disappointed and concerned that Carr and Pai did not make a more specific pledge to not cut E-rate funding.

We cannot afford to go backwards when it comes to our countrys commitment to wiring every classroom and are encouraged that at least five senators raised concerns about E-Rates continuity at todays hearing.

Tamping Down Investment?

Net neutrality also took a front seat at the hearing.

The issue has become the focus of heated public debate since Chairman Pai announced in April plans to roll back FCC regulations approved in 2015 that were designed to prevent internet service providers from prioritizing certain content while throttling, or slowing down, the delivery of other content.

This May, the FCC put forward a notice of proposed rulemaking re-evaluating those regulations, which reclassifed broadband service as subject to regulations under Title II of the Communications Act and section 706 of the Telecommunications Act. Regulations approved by the agency blocked internet providers from creating of fast lanes for delivering internet content, and from degrading or slowing other content.

Pai has said that the Title II regulations are federal overreach, and that they place burdensome restrictions on ISPs that will discourage innovation. During the hearing, Pai said that the regulations might be dampening infrastructure investments from ISPs.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah criticized the 2015 Open Internet Order, which placed ISPs under Title II regulatory framework, calling it a perfect example of the instrusive, heavy-handed government regulation causing delay in the industry.

But Markey noted that none of the top ISPs have reported that Title II regulations have slowed investment in broadband. Since these net neutrality rules have been in place, the internet has thrived, said Markey.

School administrators and librarians have voiced concerns that the rollback of net neutrality would limit access to online educational content, including open educational resources.

Critics of Pais effort say larger companies may be able to pay for faster internet speeds, leaving smaller companies and nonprofits at a disadvantage when trying to to deliver material to students. Ed-tech advocates have noted that schools ability to stream online content is already hamped by a lack of reliable, fast internet connectivity and the inability of many students to work on the same online programs at once.

The FCC has been taking public comment on the proposal to revoke net neutrality in hopes to make the decision an open process, said Pai.

The outpouring of public response shows the level of passion and interest in this issue, said Carr. For this reason, he said, comments need to be taken into account.

Committee Chairman Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., asked how the FCC planned to weight comments that may be fake or abusive. He said that over one million comments on the FCC site came from international filers, including over 300,000 from Russia.



Later in the hearing, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., voiced her concern that her constituents real comments would not be addressed if the FCC disregarded many of the comments as spam.

Pai assured Cantwell that he would consider comments from business owners, web developers, and consumers. The decision on net neutrality will be only be made after careful consideration of all the evidence collected by the agency, he said.

Outside of discussion of the E-Rate and net neutrality, much of the hearing focused on broadband deployment, with a focus on rural access and affordability. Lawmakers questioned the nominees on the steps the FCC would take to close the urban-rural digital divide, an issue Pai has identified as one of his top priorities since his appointment as chairman of the agency. Senators also asked the appointees about the development of spectrum and 5G technologies.

Photo: Federal Communication Commission Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel takes her seat before the start of their open hearing and vote on Net Neutrality in Washington, in 2015. --Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP-File

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Haleakala National Park in Hawaii has started requiring reservations to drive up to Maui's tallest peak to see the sunrise.



By LINDSAY WHITEHURST

Associated Press

From http://www.hawaiiactive.com National Park Service rangers struggle to cope with overcrowded tour buses and alleviate damage to Zion's natural wonders, including soil erosion and human waste near trails.





SALT LAKE CITY  It would be a first for a U.S. national park: requiring reservations to get in. But it's an option that Zion National Park is considering to manage an overwhelming surge of visitors to its sweeping red-rock vistas and canyons in Utah.





. . .
Andersen Construction

Photos by Andersen Construction [enlarge]

Andersen Construction has moved into new offices on the fifth floor of Georgetown Squared, or G2, at 5601 Sixth Ave. S.

The 21,000-square-foot space has a mix of collaborative work areas, lounges, private offices and conference rooms. There are offices for administration and management staff, and flex space for the firms other 120 Seattle-based employees.

The space has skylights, floor-to-ceiling windows and four atriums. The center atrium houses the primary kitchen and lounge.

Future plans include two rooftop decks.

Many elements were built and designed by Andersen employees, including sliding steel doors, wood tables and a concrete bar top.

Wood from Andersens yard was reclaimed for the walls, and brick is used throughout.

Tenant, contractor: Andersen Construction

Architect: BCRA Architects

Interior design, branding and signage: Andersen Construction marketing team





Do you have photos of recent projects? Share them with DJC readers. Send high-resolution images and information to lisa.lannigan@djc.com.





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Struggling Sears has sold two local stores to LLCs controlled by California-based Merlone Geier Partners, according to King County records. Brokers weren't announced.





. . .
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LOS ANGELES (AP)  The father of fashion models Bella and Gigi Hadid has been fined and given community service for illegally building a gigantic mansion in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Times reports that real estate developer Mohamed Hadid was sentenced Thursday to 200 hours of service, fined $3,000 and ordered to pay the city more than $14,000 to cover building department costs.





. . .
Its July, which means its time for the changing of the guard at De Montfort Students Union (DSU). The elected incoming officers officially have their feet under the table and are approaching the end of their first month in office. But what will they be doing to represent students at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) over the next academic year? In this opening story of a series focusing on DSU, we catch up with the new Vice President Welfare and Community, Jessica Okwuonu.

I just want to make people happy, said Jessica Okwuonu a student who struggled to express a smile herself during a testing first year at De Montfort University, Leicester (DMU).

Three years on she could do nothing but smile as she beamed with sheer delight of winning over the electorate of 24,000 DMU students to become De Montfort Students Unions (DSU) new Vice President Welfare and Community. Im so proud, she said.

Jessica, an Information Communication Technology BSc (Hons) graduate opened up about failing her first year, but thanks to the superb support services DMU has to offer, was able to turn things around and come back stronger.

Now, in her new role, shes committed to ensuring other students dont feel the same as she did and are fully aware of everything on offer here that will help students avoid any obstacles that fall in their way.

She said: I met others going through the same as me, who needed support, but they had no idea where to go.

It got me thinking about how many others could be in the same position as me, but dont speak out and have no way of knowing that they can speak out.

I ran in the elections for this role because I want students to know that their voices can be heard and that there are people here who can support them.

Jessica has had a lot of experience of working in this field over the years and it is something she is extremely passionate about influencing.

Working in schools with DMU Square Mile, heading up a project called Cheek2Cheek aimed at making people smile, offering kind gestures and offering mental health advice, Jessicas done it all, but shes not finished just yet.

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I love working with people and making them smile, she said.

Ive given people who are struggling my number and supported them where I can, even if that means going out at 2am in the morning if they just need someone to talk to.

I want to bring positivity to the role and ensure students feel comfortable to come and chat to me for advice or point them in the right direction of other services.

Before I came to Leicester, I lived in London and worked around getting youths off the streets and into rapping or other art forms to give them a better standard of life and enjoy themselves, which was so rewarding.

Jessica will follow in the footsteps of Keira Rounsley who has held the position at DSU for the past two years and has worked relentlessly for the benefit of DMUs student body.

With key successes around housing, #DMUpride and DMUs Equality and Diversity strategy, Jessica will now take Keiras place on important committees which will shape future initiatives to support student wellbeing.

Not only that, but alongside the other executive officers, she will represent students on faculty board meetings, ensuring DMUs academic service remains gold standard.

(Above) Jessica gets on stage to present an award at May's DSU Awards ceremony at Leicester City's King Power Stadium.

So what will Jessica be working on?

I want to work with the university to find areas on campus you can sit down in to study and relax and are accessible 24 hours, especially close to exams and deadlines.

Im also keen to look at BME mental health and raising the awareness of services available for those students.

One of the other big things I want to work towards is letting students be aware of how they can live on a budget. My parents taught me that when I was growing up and money saving is a big issue for students who dont have a lot of money in the first place.

So, I want to educate them on how to spend their money wisely.

Im pretty confident that I can build on a good relationship between DSU and the university and together I believe we can achieve our objectives of providing a safe, accessible and healthy DMU.

Jessica, who went through so much difficulty to complete her studies, graduated last week. Securing her prestigious new role alongside the certificate shes worked so hard for just proves that no matter what barriers you face at DMU, people are always there to help you break them down.

Follow Jessicas time in office on the DSU website and get in touch with her on Twitter.

READ MORE: Head to DSU's website for their introduction to their new Vice President Welfare and Community.
Supporting mothers in the first years of a childs life has benefits to those children that ripple outward for years, particularly for boys.

Researchers led by Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman re-examined the data gathered on mothers and children who participated in the Nurse-Family Partnership , a home-visiting program that connects medical professionals and women in their first pregnancy. The nurses in the program offer prenatal counseling and then visit the families periodically until the children turn 2. The report was published online by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Among the findings:



The program had a positive effect on birth weight in boys;



By age 2, researchers could see improvements in home environment, parenting attitudes, and maternal mental health for the parents of both boys and girls;

By age 6, boys and girls both showed cognitive benefits, while girls showed early socio-emotional skills improvement;

By age 12, boys showed continuing cognitive benefits. For girls, the benefits were much weaker at this age.

This study is one of the first to tease out some of the underlying reasons behind why the program helps children, said Maria Rosales-Rueda, one of the studys authors. Mothers matter a lot, she said.

The interactions with the nurses helped mothers with their parenting skills and reduce maternal anxiety, the researchers found. The nurses also encouraged mothers to reduce smoking, drinking and illegal drug use, which may have led to the higher birth weights of boys who were studied.

Policymakers attention has been focused on expanding preschool and these findings, while focused on interventions earlier in a childs life, should be seen as complementing those efforts, said Rosales-Rueda, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of California-Irvine.

Preschool is super important, school is super important, because children spend a lot of time at school, she said. But children spend a lot of time with their families and their parents as well.

The analysis was based on more than 700 women in the Memphis area who were evaluated between 1990 and 1993. Almost all of the participants in this study were were black, unmarried, and low-income. About two-thirds were under the age of 18.

In addition to prenatal support and parenting skills, the nurses in the partnership also helped mothers establish goals about work, education, and future pregnancies.

The fact that boys appeared to benefit more from the program matches other research in the field, including a 2016 study of a North Carolina early-intervention program . Boys are more susceptible to influences in utero, so improving the health of the mothers may account for the positive effects on boys. The fact that the effects lasted so long for boys is in contrast to some studies of preschool interventions, whose benefits have been shown to fade out over time.

The release of this paper comes at a time when early-learning advocates are pushing to renew federal funding of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program . Originally funded through the Affordable Care Act, MIECHV provides money to states to help pay for home-visiting programs, and the Nurse-Family Partnership is one of several home-visiting models that are funded through the federal program. Other home-visiting programs use trained counselors who are not nurses. Some work with families until a child enters kindergarten, rather than stopping at age 2. But all have the goal of getting children and families off to a strong start by focusing on teaching parenting skills.

The findings from these studies show there is a huge amount of development that takes place in birth to age 2 and beyond, Rosales-Rueda said. Theres a window of opportunity for investment.

Photo courtesy of the Nurse-Family Partnership
World's first full-scale floating wind farm being built off north-east coast of Scotland

The world's first full-scale floating wind farm being built off the north-east coast of Scotland, will allow harvesting of wind power in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines.

The Peterhead wind farm off Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, called Hywind Scotland, is using revolutonary technology to bring power to 20,000 homes.

According to Norwegian manufacturer Statoil, the output from the turbines is expected to equal or surpass generation from current turbines.

Statoil hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the US west coast, where waters ran deep.

"This is a tech development project to ensure it's working in open sea conditions. It's a game-changer for floating wind power and we are sure it will help bring costs down," Leif Delp, project director, Hywind Scotland told BBC.

So far, one giant turbine has already been moved into place, while four are now ready to move in from a Norwegian fjord.

By the end of the month they would have all been towed 15 miles (25km) off Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, where they will float upright like giant fishing floats.

While the turbines are currently very expensive to make, Statoil believes that in the future it will be able to dramatically cut costs in the same way that manufacturers already had for conventional offshore turbines.

Meanwhile, Scotland has been able to set a new record for wind power production in the first half of the year, according to an independent conservation group.

According to analysis of WWF Scotland data, provided by WeatherEnergy, wind turbines provided around 1,039,001MWh of electricity to the National Grid during June.

According to renewable energy figures, power generated last month is enough to supply the electrical needs equivalent to 118 per cent of Scottish households or nearly 3 million homes.
Irelands decision-makers must develop plans to address a range of scenarios, the Patrick MacGill Summer School and Arts Week was told last week.

Dr. Conor Skehan of the School of Spatial Planning at DIT said he was trying to plead with government not to make one plan, but to make many plans that will be resilient under a range of scenarios.

We need multiple plans that are resilient under multiple strategies, said Dr. Skehan, chairperson of the Housing Agency, adding, We need to remember how little control we have over the factors that will drive us into that future.

Almost all of them are out of our control except for one - governance, he said.

Dr. Skehan was part of the panel, Strategic Planning for this Country Is More Vital than Ever, with John Moran of the private consultancy RHH International and former secretary-general of the Department of Finance; and Mary Rose Burke, CEO of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, at the summer school last Thursday afternoon.

Dr. Skehan said accepted beliefs that Dublin is the problem, that the city is taking jobs, money, people and investment, are myths and said a national planning framework that promises balanced regional development to counterbalance Dublin is also a myth.

He said to say something is wrong in Ireland because the country has one large city, Dublin, and a series of smaller cities, is also a myth. Rather, he said, it was a completely normal type of urban distribution to the rest of Europe.

We are a normal country dealing with normal issues, Dr. Skehan said.

He added, What we really need to be doing is addressing the real issues and not the myths.

In her remarks, Ms. Burke said, More than ever we do need to plan strategically to secure the well-being of future generations.

She called urbanisation, an overwhelming trend around the world, saying, We need to embrace it.

Ms. Burke said with a realistic national plan, wisely managed, rural Ireland can still thrive within that sphere, recognising the population that is choosing to live in rural areas is declining. We must recognise the importance of the national capital, she said, adding that rural Ireland depends on the capital city to generate the income that provides for rural services.

The writer Patrick MacGill often wrote poignantly of his life in Donegal, Ms. Burke said. Like so many others he left his native land and did not return, she said. She said we need to ensure, Donegals next Patrick MacGill has no such need to leave his country.

Mr. Moran said he believed that we have not done a good enough job about subordinating individual rights to the common good. Property owners and car owners hear their voices heard more than that of the common good, he said.

He asked the audience what the last big transformative project in Ireland was and said, the Port Tunnel and Dublin Luas, are hardly up there with the worlds great infrastructure projects.

Mr. Moran said when he flew into Donegal Airport last week he saw how beautiful the county is, but as the plane drew closer to the land, he could see how it had been destroyed by one-off housing.

When will we be honest enough to call out that this is unsustainable planning and we cannot afford it? he asked.

I have not said we should shut down rural Ireland, he said. We need to find a way to develop it that is much more sustainable.

The public should demand more of our leaders than fixing our local pothole or opening our local garda station, Mr. Moran said.

He said it was time to start dreaming in Ireland of affordable housing, of fast trains connecting Irish cities, of hosting one of Europes best health systems. He said Ireland needs to plan for how to welcome newcomers to the island and for the country to become not just the best place to do business but the best place to live.

Speaking later, Mr Moran said, We do need to demand better.
Indictments have been returned against a Dothan couple arrested in March for allegedly operating a puppy mill in the city.

Le Ngoc Pham of Dothan has been indicted on 65 counts of second degree dog/cat cruelty and 16 counts of cruelty to animals.

Hoan Cong Nguyen has been indicted on 65 counts of second degree dog/cat cruelty and 16 counts of cruelty to animals.

Nguyens case is set for arraignment on Sept. 6. The initial trial date is Nov. 13.

Phams case is set for arraignment Aug. 16. His initial trial date is set for Sept. 18.

Cruelty to animals is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by a sentence one year or less and an escalating fine based on subsequent convictions.

A person commits the crime of second degree dog/cat cruelty when,  in a cruel manner, overloads, overdrives, deprives of necessary sustenance or shelter, unnecessarily or cruelly beats, injuries, mutilates, or causes the same to be done to a dog or cat. It is also a Class A misdemeanor.

Overall, 69 dogs and 16 birds were recovered after police responded to a report of mistreated animals in Dothan. One French Bulldog puppy had to be euthanized.

The following breeds/types of animals were recovered: 21 bulldogs, 19 terriers, nine Pomeranians, two Chihuahuas, one golden retriever, 17 mixed breed dogs, 12 blue macaws and four red macaws.

District Judge Benjamin Lewis ordered the couple to pay for the cost of upkeep for the animals as long as they remained in the custody of the City of Dothan or the Big Bend Wildlife Sanctuary.

Police believe the animal operation took place for two years before it was discovered.

- This story was corrected July 25, 2017, to correct that neither defendant was charged with fist degree dog/cat cruelty
Ford's next-generation Fiesta city car is in doubt for Australia following a new focus for the blue oval.

The brand has unveiled a replacement for the smallest car it sells in Australia, bringing new looks and updated tech to the compact hatch.

But the car is in doubt for Asian markets including Australia, which has not confirmed plans to import the car.

Robert Stiller, head of Ford's light car program, told Romanian reporters in July that the Fiesta's footprint will shrink in coming years.

"The previous model was a global Ford product, and with the new generation, we are targeting only Europe, the Middle East, and Africa," he says.

"In North America, especially the US, China, and Latin America, the demand for such [subcompact] vehicles is declining, and we are reacting accordingly."

Asked whether the next-gen Fiesta will come to Australia, a local spokesman for the brand said "the current model will remain on sale for the foreseeable future".

Ford Australia president Graeme Whickman has refused to publicly confirm plans for the new model, telling motoring industry journal GoAuto that Ford will discuss the model "when we're ready".

City cars such as the Fiesta have dropped in popularity, with sales diving by more than 13 per cent for the year to date, following a decline of 15 per cent in 2016.

Buyers in the once-popular segment seem to be switching to light SUVs such as the Ford EcoSport or Mazda CX-3, along with small cars such as the Ford Focus and Hyundai i30 often available for less than $20,000 in automatic form.

The problem is that Australia's current-gen Fiesta is built in Thailand, a closer - and cheaper - source than Ford's German plant.

It's possible that the new Fiesta may arrive only in hot hatch ST form, something Volkswagen and Renault tried with the Scirocco and third-generation Clio.
The International Fund for Ireland has today confirmed 225,864 to two projects in County Louth.

The projects are supported through the Peace Impact and Personal Youth Development Programmes.

The Peace Impact Programme aims to address issues related to the legacy of conflict and also engage with young people who are more at risk from being attacked or recruited by armed gangs.

155,464 of the funding will be given to Dundalk Youth Centre to extend a cross-border and cross-community youth leadership project for two-years.

This joint project between Dundalk Youth Centre and the Ti Chulainn Centre in South Armagh has already engaged more than 50 young people through a peer leadership programme and will now offer cultural diversity and leadership skills to approximately 100 more young people from both communities.

The second project to receive funding in Louth is the Ardee & District Community Trust, through the Personal Youth Development Programme.

The Personal Youth Development Programme provides opportunities to build resilience and self-confidence and improve education and employment prospects.

70,400 will be given to the Trust for The New Leaf Programme, a 12-month initiative that will engage with 12 early school leavers and young people aged 16-24 from the mid-Louth rural region of Ardee, Dunleer and Tallanstown.

The scheme will provide mentoring, good relations and personal development training and identify personalised skills training opportunities.
Online small business loan provider Prospa has become the first fintech company to win Telstras NSW Medium Business Award, with co-CEO Beau Bertoli stating that the accolade shows fintech is no longer just some startup idea. Bertoli, who founded Prospa with Greg Moshal in 2011, spoke to Dynamic Business about the five-year-old companys victory at the 2017 NSW Telstra Business Awards.

DB: What does the win mean for Prospa and how useful was the experience?

Bertoli: We were a Telstra Business Awards finalist in 2015 and 2016, which was very encouraging but it meant there was room for improvement. Were pumped to have taken out the crown this year  third time lucky! Not only does the win help differentiate us from the market, it generates credibility for our nous and what were doing as an organisation. The great thing about the process is that it has allowed us to deep dive into our business, reflect on our business model and benchmark ourselves against the best of the best.

With a few hundred questions to answer, the submission was something like 60 pages, so we undertook a very detailed analysis of how were tracking as a business. In fact, around 40 people from across Prospa were involved in the exercise.

While were very excited by the teams achievement, we certainly wont rest on our laurels. The feedback from the judges was very positive but one of the areas we must keep working on is scaling to meet the growing needs of Australian business owners. We believe Prospa can be many, many times bigger than it is today weve got a long way to go. At the same time, we feel like every day has to be day one  how do you think and operate like youre in the early stage of your business?

DB: How does it feel to be the first fintech winner in your category?

Bertoli: As one of the pioneers in Australian fintech, its a huge achievement  it puts the sector on the map. Theres been a lot of activity in fintech, with huge investments made and the launch of many startups, but its still an industry in its infancy, especially when you consider the size of Australias financial services sector, which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. However, the win is a statement that fintech is no longer just some startup idea  its now a mainstream cause, its here, its happening. We hope the win is something fintech companies can rally behind and that makes them think, Hey, we really can build not just a great business in finance but a business thats the best of the best across all industries.

DB: Can you identify a defining moment in your companys growth trajectory?

Bertoli: Although were not in the startup stage anymore, we believe that moments still yet to come! Weve supported around 12,000 business owners, injecting more than $400m into the Australian small business economy, but there are over 2 million small businesses across Australia, so that aha, weve made it moment is, for us, a long, long way off.

DB: What key factors have accounted for the success Prospa has enjoyed?

Bertoli: Identifying the keys to success isnt the hard part, the execution is. When it comes to the factors that have helped us, first and foremost is our team. Weve focused on creating a great culture, attracting and retaining the greatest people we can find in the market and making sure those people come together for a clear purpose  for us, thats changing the ways small businesses experience finance.

The second factor is product and go-to-market excellence. By that I mean, weve made sure we understand our customers and their challenges really, really well and were able to design products that solve their problems and help them run and grow their businesses. Weve also put a lot of effort and energy into finding smart ways to reach customers of all shapes and sizes, across different parts of the country. In fact, Prospa is very representative of the overall small business economy because of our broad product appeal. Our customers hail from all different industries, from retail and hospitality through to trades, professional services and health, in both regional and metro areas. Typically, our customers turnover up to $2m a year but weve also supported businesses in the $2m to $20m annual revenue bucket.

Another key ingredient in our success is the fact that we have the capital to support the nations many small businesses. As a loan provider, weve been very good at finding and accessing capital, both in terms of equity to help run and grow the business and the debt we use to lend out. Weve raised $200m of debt and equity combined. Thats been a major achievement for us and is a lot more funding than the rest of the market has been able to bring together.
A new report that summarizes 15 years of research on North Carolinas Pre-K program finds that the learning gains students make through the program carry on well into elementary school.

What we found ... is that children who attended the program look better in terms of performance than children who didnt attend the program, said Ellen Peisner-Feinberg, a senior research scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the principal investigator on this project.

The program, known as NC Pre-K, is free for 4-year-olds, and 90 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Students from higher-income families are also eligible to attend if they have other risk factors such as a disability or limited English proficiency. The program also accepts the children of active military members. It started in the 2001-02 school year when it was known as More at Four.

Benefits Through 3rd Grade

Researchers with the institute have been studying the program since it began. They found that students who attended scored higher on end-of-grade tests in reading and math in 3rd grade than students from low-income families who had not attended. And, when compared to all students, these students scored closer to their more affluent peers.

Theres still some achievement gap in terms of income in this country, and I think one year of pre-K does not completely erase that achievement gap, said Peisner-Feinberg. But there certainly was evidence that it was starting to help.

The researchers also found that these students had better language, literacy, and math skills going into kindergarten than their peers with similar economic backgrounds who had not attended the program. At the end of kindergarten, these students also had better math and executive function skills.

The students who made the most gains were those with limited English proficiency. The researchers also found that the program had a lot of success with dual-language learners.

These children make gains not only in skills in English but also in most of the skills that weve measured in Spanish as well, even though the language of instruction in these classrooms is English, said Peisner-Feinberg.

So what makes NC Pre-K so effective?

Peisner-Feinberg points to strong program guidelines related to classroom practices, which have remained consistent over time. She also cites strong teacher qualifications. More than 99 percent of the teachers in the program have bachelors degrees or above, and more than 85 percent hold a birth-to-kindergarten license.

Those are very high numbers compared to what you see on average, particularly when you look at private settings in other kinds of pre-K programs, said Peisner-Feinberg.

More than 350,000 students have participated in the program since it began.

Related stories:

for the latest news on policies, practices, and trends in early childhood education.
West of the Mississippi River seems best and the Northeast gets the least when it comes to where more students will be showing up to public schools throughout the next decade, according to the latest enrollment projections from the U.S. Department of Education.

States in the South will see student enrollment jump by 8.3 percent by 2026, and the West should grow by about 4.3 percent, data from the National Center for Education Statistics projects. States in the southeastern corner of the country fare well in general.

The largest student enrollment increase is slated to take place in the District of Columbia, at 42 percent. Further west, North Dakota is poised to see the second largest boost in enrollment, at 28 percent.

Roughly speaking, the states in the Northeast and Midwest could see drops in overall student enrollment accelerate even faster than they did post-recession. The Northeast saw its student enrollment decrease by 1.4 percent from 2009 through 2014, but that is estimated to widen to a 5 percent reduction between 2014 and 2026.

The Midwest will see its rate of student enrollment decline triple, from a 1 percent dip between 2009 and 2014 to a 3 percent decrease by 2026. Both Connecticut and New Hampshire are tied for states likely to see the largest dip - at 14 percent each.

Whats Causing Fluctuations in Student Enrollment?

William Hussar, an economist at NCES who co-authors an annual report on enrollment projections and has studied enrollment data for 30 years at the department, said his agencys figures are chiefly based on what student enrollment has looked like recently in schools, and less on what general population data could prognosticate.

In other words, the projections dont heavily take into account birth or mortality rates that others might use. The NCES taps into some U.S. Census Bureau data for its national projections, and in recent years, partnered with IHS Global Inc. to help sharpen its state-level projections.

The projections matched the population trends that states at both ends of the NCES projections have noticed. Education leaders in the District of Columbia and North Dakota are elated at whats forecast for their public schools.

Over the past 10 years, the District has been committed to education reform and ensuring every student has access to a high-quality education, said Shayne Wells, a spokesman for Jennifer Niles, the citys deputy mayor for education.

The shift toward year-over-year enrollment growth is a dramatic change for Washington, where for decades the public schools experienced major declines as charter schools proliferated across the city and higher-income families sent their children to private schools.

Wells cited some bullet points of pride in bringing in families including more than 4,000 students who are enrolled in the citys extended-year schools and roughly 400 students who went on study abroad trips this summer. We continue to make critical investments in our students success and closing the achievement gap.

North Dakota state school superintendent Kirsten Baesler said the states student enrollment projections match that of the federal government, which could be tested in the future by some grim economic forecasts amid high prices for oil and agricultural products.

Even though we have had a downturn, many families that have moved here have chosen to stay here because of the quality education that their children are getting in our public schools, Baesler said. Anecdotally, Ive heard comments throughout the state, and especially when I go to western North Dakota, that our public schools here are equal to, or better than, any private school that their children were attending in their previous community.

With a forecasted drop of 14 percent in the next decade in Connecticuts schools, demographers in that state say the projection lines up with decreasing birth rates there.

Michael R. Howser, the director of Connecticuts State Data Center, said that while his center does not provide district or school enrollment projections, the NCES numbers match their forecast for the state by 2025. Howser said the trend is due largely to the low fertility rate for Connecticut combined with a low net migration rate for the state.

The centers associate director, Steve Batt, also cited data showing that four of the five states with the greatest projected decline in school enrollment, according to the NCES, are in New England so the Education Departments projections are no coincidence. Connecticuts population aged 5-19 was 17 percent smaller in 2010 than in 1970, and is expected to decline another 12 percent between 2015 and 2025, Batt said.

Hussar, with NCES, stressed that states with smaller overall student population counts, such as North Dakota, can make a dramatic percentage jump. So while that boost may challenge their systems to keep up with growth, it doesnt mean those states are seeing the biggest increases in actual numbers of students. For example, between 2014 and 2026, North Dakota will add 30,114 students, whereas Texas will add 714,635 new pupils, the projections found .

Margins of error can vary widely, as reported on the agencys site, as Hussar said the projections are purely based on what they are seeing in schools now and dont surmise what could be causing the changes, or what may come in the form of economic booms or recessions at the state or national level.
CORRECTED

Washington

On a sweltering summer day here, about 200 teachers and other public school supporters gathered at the Washington Monument to protest the Trump administrations education policy agenda, including $9.2 billion in proposed funding cuts.

We want equitable public education, we want meaningful inclusion, we want more time to teach and less time testing, we want the kind of school funding that invests in the schools our students deserve, and we want the right for all workers to organize and belong to a union, said Mary Catherine Ricker, executive vice president of the American Federation of Teachers.

About a dozen other sister marches for public education were scheduled to be taking place at the same time in cities including Austin, Texas; Detroit; and Miami.

Indeed, the group was dedicated, with most people remaining in the open field under the blistering sun for more than an hour of speeches during the pre-march rally. But compared to the massive crowds gathered for the Jan. 21 Womens March and even the April 22 March for Science , which gathered many teachers, the turnout looked somewhat paltry.

Im here because Im from a high-poverty, high-minority school and I see the detrimental impact of the Betsy DeVos defunding of education and the anti-immigration laws that Donald Trump is bringing forth, said Tina Bujno, a reading remediation teacher at Falling Creek Middle School in Chesterfield, Pa., who came down to the rally and march with her mother, a former public school bus driver and cafeteria worker, and two nieces.

President Trumps aggressive stance on immigration has been particularly worrisome, Bujno said. We have students who are afraid to come to school, afraid that when they go home their parents might be deported, or afraid they might be deported. Its really scary, she said.

A Right for Everyone

The other speakers included : Rebecca Cokley, former executive director of the National Council on Disability; Sanna Abrar, a senior policy fellow at United We Dream, an advocacy organization for immigrant youth; and Bob Bland, co-chair of the Womens March.

Mark Daugherty, an 8th grade science teacher at Stone Middle School in Centreville, Va., attended with his daughter, Katie, a junior at George Washington University. Everything that the current administration is proposing is completely the opposite of what we should be doing, he said. This administration seeks to treat education as a business. ... And because the product is long-term, its not valued. [Its not seen as] something that turns a profit.

Katie, an international affairs major who was holding a sign calling education an issue of national security, chimed in. Public education is a right for everyone. Its something we need more than ever to combat cyclical poverty and economic inequality, she said.

The rally culminated with a speechand a couple of songsfrom a guitar-clad National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia . After a rendition of the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young song, Teach Your Children, Garcia reiterated her demand that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos answer questions she avoided at her confirmation hearing. Will any federal money going to ... private schools be held to the same transparency and accountability [as public schools]? Will we get to know how they spent our public dollars? she asked. And are you planning on supporting the civil and human rights of every blessed student?

The crowd clapped and cheered as Garcia went on. You know that weve already got her answer, havent we? she said. We know what theyre planning on cutting from our most vulnerable children.

Soon after, the crowd organized to begin marching in the 92-plus degree heat. (Some seemed in disbelief. Are we really doing this? one participant joked.)

As they headed toward the toward the Department of Education, the marchers could be heard chanting, This is what democracy looks like and Education not deportation.

Image: Educators and other advocates raised their hands to show their support for public education while gathered on the National Mall July 22 to protest President Trumps proposed funding cuts. Liana Loewus for Education Week.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post mischaracterized Rebecca Cokleys position. As of July 7, she is the former executive director of the National Council on Disability.

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In a fiery speech, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, condemed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos school choice proposals, calling them only slightly more polite cousins of segregation.

She told teachers at the AFT Teach Conference in Washington that the country is facing the result of an intentional, decades-long campaign to protect the economic and political power of the few against the rights of the many. It has taken the form of divisionexpressing itself as racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, and homophobia, she said. And its intentions are often disguised. For example, take the word choice.

DeVos and President Donald Trump have proposed major school choice initiatives in their education budget proposal, including a $270 million investment in a program to research and promote school vouchers and $1 billion in Title I funding that would be earmarked as grants designed to promote public school choice. Those initiatives are not included in the Houses education budget plan that was just passed by the House appropriations committee . The House bill would cut $2.4 billion from the Department of Educations budget; less than the $9.2 billion reduction proposed by the president .

What better way to pave the path to privatize education than to starve public schools to the breaking point, then criticize their shortcomings, and let the market handle the rest? All in the name of choice, Weingarten said. Thats how a democracy comes apart.

A new policy brief, referenced by Weingarten in her speech, highlighted examples of how school vouchers were deployed during the Jim Crow era to perpetuate segregated school systems . As my colleague Arianna Prothero wrote, current voucher programs are not race-based and are often geared toward helping low-income students afford private school tuition. But the briefs authors wrote that even these current programs could exacerbate racial and socioeconomic segregation, which Weingarten echoed in her speech.

Vouchers, she said, fail most of the children they purportedly are intended to benefit.

After her remarks, the Center for Education Reform, a school choice advocacy organization, issued a statement calling for Weingartens resignation. Her characterization of school choice, CEO Jeanne Allen said, is a deeply offensive, highly inflammatory insult to all the parents and peopleof all races, backgrounds, and regionswho have worked to bring options, opportunities, and reforms to an education system that has failed them for generations.

Teachers, Allen continued, should consider whether this is the type of language and leadership they want as being representative of their views and voice.

In a series of tweets , DeVos pushed back against Weingartens criticism of DeVos position that public money should be invested in individual students.

"[AFT has] made clear that they care more about the system than about individual students. They are saying education is NOT an investment in individual students. And they are TOTALLY wrong, DeVos wrote. What, exactly, is education if not an investment in students?

This isnt about school systems. This is about ind. students & families. Schools are at the service of students, not the other way around. -- Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVosED) July 20, 2017

In April, Weingarten and DeVos met to tour a rural Ohio district together . It was the firstand so far, onlytime theyve spent time together. In a press briefing after her speech, Weingarten said during that school visit, DeVos kept bringing up school choice.

I frankly think my impressions of her have changed for the worse since that trip, she said.

Since then, she said, DeVos asked Weingarten to visit a school with her. Weingarten said she accepted, and their officers went back and forth trying to set a dateuntil DeVos pulled out of communications. The two have not been in touch since, Weingarten said.

She kept saying, I want to find common ground. Her staff kept saying she wants to find common ground. Im like, fine. I have a judiciary obligation [to meet with her], she said.

But, Weingarten continued, dont do a photo op with me. Thats not who I am. We are dead serious about trying to make schools better for kids. ... Ill go anywhere and meet with anyone to make things better, but dont pretend and [then] do exactly what you want to do to undermine public education.

Earlier this month, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the president of the National Education Association, said there would be no photo op between the NEA and DeVos . She told my colleague Stephen Sawchuk that there is no reason to trust this woman . There is no reason to trust how they would characterize a meeting with me.


Joint workshop in Ramallah marks first step of new cooperation

Strengthening the Palestinian banking sector by transferring skills and exchanging know-how, the Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA) and the EBRD held their first joint workshop in Ramallah in the West Bank.

The workshop focused on the banking products needed to support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the West Bank and Gaza and achieve the objectives and requirements of financial inclusion.

The event was opened by PMA Governor Azzam Shawwa and EBRD First Vice President Phil Bennett, who both expressed the importance of coordinating this workshop in order to discuss ways of enhancing the Palestinian banking sector and offering new products to SMEs that enable them to grow further.

The workshop was an important first result of the EBRDs newly established activities in the West Bank and Gaza, they said.

PMA Governor Shawwa, thanking the EBRDs Board of Governors for their decision on EBRD investment, said: The Banks investment in the Palestinian economy will be reflected positively in an increase in SME financing and will encourage the private sector.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises play a crucial role in the domestic economy, representing about 95 per cent of economic output.

The Governor said the PMA was working to overcome obstacles that limit access to funding sources, by granting incentives to banks and other lenders to increase the scale of lending.

The credit portfolio in this sector rose by 160 per cent between 2013 and the first quarter of 2017 to around US$ 1.3 billion.

The Governor said that growth in the SME sector would contribute to an increase in the penetration rate for bank accounts. This currently stands at 36 per cent. The PMA and partner institutions aim to raise it to at least 50 per cent by 2025.

EBRD First Vice President Bennett said: We are very pleased to host this first event with the Palestinian authorities to exchange views and knowledge with the business community. We look forward to developing our activities in the West Bank and Gaza and we aim to accelerate access to finance for SMEs, which are the backbone of the local economy and a source of much-needed employment.

The workshop included a panel discussion that highlighted the EBRDs financial products such as credit lines, the trade finance programme, equity, and business advisory services for SMEs. The event also included some of the EBRDs clients in Jordan, who shared their experience of working with the EBRD in the banking and SME sectors.

In addition, Heike Harmgart, EBRD Head of Jordan, West Bank and Gaza, highlighted the Banks successful experience of working in Jordan during the past five years and the importance of providing improved access to finance for SMEs.

At the EBRDs 2017 Annual Meeting in Cyprus in May, the Banks Board of Governors approved the engagement of the EBRD in the West Bank and Gaza to support the development of the economy with investments through a trust fund.
Federal agencies already under the gun to modernize their information technology capabilities have a new set of standards to meet as a result of an executive order President Donald Trump issued this spring. The directive not only will affect agency managers in their IT operations and acquisition activities, but also will have a significant effect on IT vendors.

The Trump initiative adds another important piece to the U.S. federal IT modernization puzzle, said Katell Thielemann, research vice president at Gartner.

Various parts of the executive order will have a direct impact on the U.S. federal market, she wrote in an 18-page briefing on the program.

A key element of the order is that responsibility for cyberprotection has been elevated to the level of cabinet officers and the heads of various agencies rather than residing with their IT or cybersecurity officers.

The President will hold heads of executive departments and agencies accountable for managing cybersecurity risk to their enterprises, reads the executive order, Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure, issued on May 11.

Agency heads will be held accountable to the president for implementing risk management measures commensurate with the risk and magnitude of the harm that would result from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction of IT and data, it states.

Call for Swift Action

The order requires agencies to comply immediately with several specific mandates:

Each agency shall use the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or any successor document, to manage the agencys cybersecurity risk. The framework was developed by NIST generally for private sector use and has been widely adopted not only by critical infrastructure companies but also by a wide range of businesses.

Agency heads shall show preference in their procurement for shared IT services, to the extent permitted by law, including email, cloud and cybersecurity services.

Agencies must deliver a report by early August on their cyber-risk mitigation and acceptance choices, as well as their plans to implement the NIST framework. After reviewing the reports, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and Budget must submit a joint plan for the cyberprotection of the executive branch enterprise by early October.

The emphasis on executive branch enterprise is a clear statement of policy that cybersecurity protection now is considered a government-wide goal, versus isolated agency efforts.

The executive order also links cyberprotection to the goal of moving faster to modernize federal IT operations in general.

Effective immediately, it is the policy of the executive branch to build and maintain a modern, secure, and more resilient executive branch IT architecture, says the executive order.

To advance IT performance, the order requires the director of the American Technology Council to provide a report to the president, also by early August, regarding modernization of federal IT.

The White House established the ATC prior to issuance of the executive order to coordinate the vision, strategy, and direction for the federal governments use of information technology and the delivery of services through information technology.

As a follow-up to creating the ATC, President Trump met with 18 tech industry leaders last month.

While the order embodies many new and upgraded standards, the overall goal represents significant continuity with prior efforts, and builds upon Obama administration policies rather than deviating sharply, DLA Piper attorneys Sydney M. White and Jim Halpert note in an online post.

Marketing Modifications

Still, the Trump initiative will require IT providers to significantly adjust their marketing efforts.

For example, vendors should clearly articulate  risk management positioning and governance enabling solutions, along with targeting the main groups of federal stakeholders, Gartners Thielemann advised, including influencers, procurers, enterprise agency end users and mission agency end users.

IT providers who support the federal enterprise IT environment should lead an assessment of  offerings through a cloud-based digital platforms lens, she suggested.

Vendors should evaluate the implications of emerging enterprise shared services moving to centralized digital platforms, Thielemann recommended.

Vendors may have to make more investments to enhance their offerings to meet the upgraded goals, although IT vendors already have to make investments they would not normally have to make elsewhere in order to pursue the federal market, Thielemann noted.

These investments are not for the faint of heart, so IT vendors are making continual strategic trade-offs with regard to the level of investments they are willing to make, she told the E-Commerce Times.

Such investing is a continuous process among contractors already in the market, noted John Slye, research analyst at Deltek.

Most experienced vendors and service providers are aware and have been addressing these concerns out of necessity, and anything that adds rigor and review to services or products adds effort and cost, he told the E-Commerce Times.

However, companies new to the federal market may need to put more into product development efforts for government customers.

The reports required by the directive, coupled with additional action from NIST, could lead to additional requirements on government contractors, suggests an analysis by Eric Crusius and Norma Krayem at law firm Holland and Knight.

Certainly, the emphasis on shared services could further direct changes to how the government obtains IT services from contractors and a focus on federal IT modernization provides a series of opportunities for contractors as well, they wrote.

Providers who specialize in exclusively offering cyberprotection products and services are in a good position to benefit from the Trump policies and many already have, Thielemann reported.

The Trump initiatives on cybersecurity and associated IT modernization are in line with recent federal agency moves that recognize that standard government practices actually may hinder timely acquisition of cybersecurity offerings, she noted.

Several federal organizations have also realized that the unique federal rules of engagement when it comes to market positioning and procurement approaches can be a deterrent for cybersecurity vendors with commercial pedigrees. They are responding by looking for ways to attract them to the market faster, Thielemann said.

Special Programs and Cloud IT

The Defense Innovation Unit Experimental program (DIUx) has been created to serve as a bridge between Defense Department components confronting major security challenges and private sector companies at the cutting edge of technology.

DIUx offices have been established in Californias Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin, Texas, to promote dialog with the private sector. In addition, the General Services Administration has set up Special Item Numbers, or SINs, for cybersecurity products to accelerate acquisition, Thielemann noted.

The Trump cybersecurity initiative likely will spark a much greater degree of interest in shared services, for which cloud technology is the most visible vehicle.

The linking of shared services with modernization is opening the route to cloud-based government digital platforms, Thielemann said, noting the commitments of major players such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in the federal market.

This cybersecurity aspect has been a theme that has evolved in parallel with agency efforts to achieve efficiencies and increase the effectiveness of their IT infrastructure and applications through cloud, and so forth. A few years ago, one question with the feasibility of the cloud was whether it could be secure, said Delteks Slye.

Now we are hearing how cloud is an avenue to vastly improve security, he continued. It comes down to the implementation and how cloud services have matured. The cost, complexity, and time it takes to modernize many legacy systems makes placing those systems in a cloud environment with a security layer in front of it an appealing option. So security has become a selling point. for many cloud advocates.
Hyperloop One on Wednesday announced that it had conducted a successful first test of a specially designed vehicle to travel in a vacuum environment. In the test, which took place earlier this year, the company achieved controlled propulsion and levitation of a Hyperloop One vehicle at 70 mph on a 315-foot test track in the Nevada desert. The test vehicle reached nearly 2Gs of acceleration during its brief 5.3 second test run on the specially built track.

A comparison has been drawn between the Hyperloop accomplishment and the Wright Brothers first test flight in December 1903. Just as brief as the Hyperloop One test, it is recognized as one of the key events in the evolution of manned flight. However, it took several years before airplane technology was refined and developed enough to move beyond the test stage.

Hyperloop Ones vehicle test also represents a small step toward a potential giant leap to levitated transportation. The company was quick to note that history wasnt made by the event itself, but by the people responsible for making it happen. The startup had the support of nearly 200 engineers, machinists, welders and fabricators, who all worked together to reach a common goal.

The next step will be to conduct a wider test of the system at the companys DevLoop site, which utilizes almost 1,000 feet of the linear motor in a 1,640 foot long tube.

Hyperloop Ones DevLoop Test Track in Nevada

The DevLoop is capable of reducing the air pressure to the equivalent of 200,000 feet above sea level, which could allow the Hyperloop One to travel at speeds of 250 mph.

The newly unveiled XP-1 pod (pictured above), which will be tested at the DevLoop facility. The XP-1 pod is constructed with lightweight carbon fiber and aluminum around the levitating chassis.

Musk Concept

The Hyperloop transportation concept owes much to the work of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who in a 2013 white paper described his vision of a high-speed, mass-transit system. Musk proposed utilizing pods that would coast on an a cushion of air. He claimed that such a system would be safer, faster and cheaper than existing methods of transportation.

However, Musk is not involved with Hyperloop One, and the companys founders have been quick to note that they made substantive technical modifications to Musks concept. In addition, the company has opted not to pursue a San Francisco to Los Angeles corridor route, which Musk had favored, for the first Hyperloop system.

Hyperloop One currently is developing both passenger and cargo systems for potential use in the United States, parts of Europe and the Middle East. The companys goal is to have a fully operational line running by 2020, but it is unclear if its Kitty Hawk moment truly marks the beginning of its road to that destination.

The Wright Brothers Kitty Hawk was a test of concept, not a practical vehicle  and at this phase, so is Hyperloop, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Before Kitty Hawk, the idea of heavier-than-air flying was debated. After, it was whether it could be made practical  not whether it would work, he told TechNewsWorld.

We now know it works, Enderle said of Hyperloops tech. We dont yet know if it is practical  though we are arguably closer than we were with that initial plane, which didnt look practical at all.

The Jump to Hyperspeed

The Hyperloop One test could be good for getting news coverage and convincing people that the technology is possible, but even if it is not quite as experimental as the Wright Brothers first plane, its practicality is far from being established.

The test of this technology is really interesting, but it wont be enough to usher in a new transportation age, cautioned Roger Kay, principal analyst at Recon Analytics.

The probability that it ever will replace existing forms of transportation is relatively low, Enderle suggested.

MagLev was far more practical out of the box, he pointed out, but it never achieved mass adoption.

The problem, in part, is that it would require a massive investment in the technology.

This test was done to get funding, but when you think of the investors  there arent any, Kay told TechNewsWorld. Even with funding, they would need to get concessions from local government, and then the costs go up.

Use Cases

Even if the funding hurdle could be cleared, there is the issue of whether creating new infrastructure would be practical, given what already moves via trucks or existing rail lines.

Hyperloop isnt great for freight. It requires a vacuum, which creates both safety and cost issues. While faster, cheaper aircraft already has broader applications, Enderle said.

On a positive note, it is an intriguing technology that holds potential for ferrying passengers over long distances, suggested Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

However, this is the combination of a new technology and infrastructure project, which means astronomical costs and unimaginable regulatory red tape, he told TechNewsWorld. I doubt that anyone, including those in the company, can accurately predict the final cost or schedule of a single project. They just have to expect cost and schedule overruns.

Addressing the Vulnerabilities

Even smaller problems  such as if a pod were to get trapped due to mechanical failure  could become serious issues that would require backup plans.

This is no different than other mass transit options like subways and high-speed trains, said McGregor. In the end, the cost must justify the investment relative to other options, and only time will tell if this can be achieved.

Perhaps the thorniest issue that Hyperloop One needs to overcome is how to deal with geopolitical ideologies and protect its system from a terrorist attack.

An elevated tube could make a very inviting target for a radical group, and it might not be too difficult even for a lone actor to do considerable damage to a costly piece of equipment.

Of course, all forms of transportation are exposed to attacks like this, so I dont see this necessarily as a deal breaker, particularly because it would likely go in with far better monitoring and have far fewer problems related to aging tracks initially, Enderle said.

Yet a high-profile crash resulting either from a terrorist attack or an accident could derail this project.

As the Hindenburg showcased, one strategic catastrophic accident could kill it, said Enderle. It is too early to say it will fail, but the path to success is long, and [Hyperloop One] faces a number of critical technical and competitive challenges.
Intoxicated by Tech? Washington Passes Mobile Device DUI Law

We all know our mobile devices can affect our attention spans, but what about our sobriety? Well, a new law in Washington State plans to treat cell phones as an intoxicating substance, banning the use of any electronic device while driving, even if you're stopped at a traffic light.

Referred to as a DUI-E, offenders can be nailed with a $136 fine for a first offense, and $234 for any subsequent offenses within five years. Here's a look at the latest effort to crack down on distracted driving.

Drunk With Distraction

Washington Governor Jay Inslee was explicit in comparing cell phones to alcohol, saying the bill is called "electronic driving while impaired" for a reason. "When you are driving with a cell phone," Inslee said, "you are a more dangerous driver than if you are driving drunk with a .08 blood alcohol level." And there are plenty of studies to back him up.

Fox News reports a 32 percent increase in deaths attributed to distracted driving from 2014 to 2015. And Inslee is hoping that the new DUI-E statute has the same impact as the "click it, or ticket" seatbelt campaign that has estimated 95 percent compliance rate in the Evergreen State.

Hold My Calls

The Seattle Times has the details of the statute, which bans using any handheld devices from behind the wheel, including for messaging, social media posting, photography, or other data use. This includes while stopped at a red light and watching video on a dashboard-mounted device. And officers are permitted to pull over anyone they see using a handheld device, typing, or watching video.

There will be a six-month grace period during which officers will hand out education cards instead of tickets. And there are exceptions in the law for phone calls to 911 or other emergency services so long as the driver pulls out of the traffic lanes and stops somewhere the vehicle "can safely remain stationary."

Washington residents might want to check with a criminal attorney to see exactly what's allowed on the state's roadways.

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New research is stirring fierce debate over the use of sign language among young deaf children who use surgical implants that create a sense of sound.

The study , published in the journal Pediatrics, suggests that the long-term use of sign language holds back the speech and reading skills of children who use devices known as cochlear implants. These implants bypass damaged parts of the ear and send electrical impulses directly to a users auditory nerve.

Supporters of sign language, on the other hand, say that a visual language is an essential foundation of literacy for deaf children, even for those who use cochlear implants.

Pediatrics has published a flurry of critical responses to the study since it was published in June. The lead author has added her own lengthy counter-response, addressing what critics say were the weaknesses of the studys design. Outside of the research realm, parents of deaf children are hashing out the findings on social media and comparing them to their own experiences.

Hendi Crosby Kowal, whose daughter Grace, 15, is among the children studied for the Pediatrics report, communicates with her daughter almost entirely through spoken English. But before Grace received her implant at the age of 11 months, Kowal said she used sign languageand she doesnt regret it.

It was really good to feel like I was doing something with her until she could access sound, she said. The study, she said, seems to discourage that.

For Carol Katarsky, a Philadelphia mother of a 3-year-old son with cochlear implants, the findings offered a sense of relief. She said she has felt some pressure to use sign language with Nicholas, who received his cochlear implants a day after his 1st birthday. But she had struggled with learning the complex visual language, and within a few months of the implants activation, Nicholas stopped signing. His mother followed his lead.

If the only deaf person in the family doesnt want to sign, I dont see a lot of benefit to spending a lot of time with it, she said.

And in her sons preschool, which focuses on developing listening and spoken language skills in deaf children, she said its her sense that children who focus solely on oral language master it better than parents who use a mix of oral communication and sign language. Katarsky is not against the use of sign language, however.

I feel like a lot of trouble could be avoided if people were saying, This is whats best for me. It doesnt mean thats whats best for everyone, she said.

Learning a Language

Every year, around 10,000 children in the United States are born with some level of hearing loss, most of them to hearing parents. The majority of those parents opt for cochlear implants for their children with severe or profound deafness. While the devices are approved for use in children at 1 year old, some surgeons are performing cochlear implant surgery in children several months younger.

The study followed nearly 100 children nationwide who received cochlear implants between 2002 and 2004. They were divided into three groups: one group whose parents never used sign language with them; a second group whose parents reported using sign language for up to a year after the cochlear implants were activated, and a third group who said they used sign language for three years after their child received implants.

The study found that 70 percent of children without sign language exposure achieved age-appropriate spoken-language skills, compared with 39 percent of those exposed to sign language for three or more years.

All of the groups had reading comprehension scores that were on par with hearing children while they were in early elementary grades. In later elementary grades, however, children without sign language exposure had a statistically significant reading advantage over children in the long-term sign group.

The differences between visual language and oral language could be the reason, said the studys lead author, Ann Geers.

How Does a Cochlear Implant work?

A cochlear implant is a biomedical device that provides a sense of sound to people with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and others play key roles in teaching users how to maximize their use of the devices. The device, which is surgically implanted in the cochlear, or auditory, nerve, includes: - A microphone, which picks up sound from the environment. - A speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone. - A transmitter and receiver-stimulator, which receive signals from the speech processor and converts them into electric impulses. - An electrode array, which is a group of electrodes that collects the impulses from the stimulator and sends them to different regions of the auditory nerve. Source: The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

Lots of literature has come out saying that if you can get sign in very early, it will help bootstrap spoken-language acquisition, said Geers, a research professor and developmental psychologist at the University of Texas in Dallas. It just didnt come out that way in practice.

Parents who are signing frequently with their children may not be providing them all the auditory stimulation they need to maximize the use of their cochlear implants, she suggests. Unlike putting on a pair of eyeglasses, using a cochlear implant does not confer an instant benefitit requires continuing speech and auditory therapy for children to make the most out of the devices.

The study does not focus on children who have deaf parents, who presumably use sign language fluently. For children who have hearing parents, its understandable that parents want you to grow up with the language they use, and they want you to join their society, Geers said. Its achievable for most kids, if you start early enough.

Peter C. Hauser, a deaf clinical neuropsychologist, said that Geers and her colleagues are making unjustified and sweeping conclusions in the study that run the risk of depriving children of language.

Too often, we see parents, educators, and medical professionals being overly optimistic that a deaf child will learn speaking and listening skills, said Hauser, who is the director of the Center on Cognition and Language at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The institute is housed at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

Some children do develop speech and language skills with cochlear implants, Hauser said. Others, however, do not. And when educators and professionals then suggest learning a sign language, it is often too late, as the language acquisition critical period is passed. The child will end up having some non-native language difficulties that has long-term consequences on their education and well-being, Hauser said.

Literacy at the Forefront

Hauser and other critics of the study also noted that it did not attempt to measure parents facility with sign language. In the study, all types of sign language were grouped together, including American Sign Language and a number of variants that may use fewer words and simpler, or no, grammar. If parents have rudimentary signing skills, that could play a role in how well their children are gaining spoken English and literacy skills, Hauser said.

Geers said that the point of the study was to meet parents where they are, and that sign language proponents have argued that any use of sign language can be helpful for children. Her findings suggest otherwise, she said, though short-term signing doesnt appear to be detrimental. But the goal should be to have children focus on the face and mouth, not the hands, she said.

If parents just focus on learning how to stimulate spoken language in their child, these kids seem to be learning to talk faster, they seem to be learning to hear speech at a faster rate, and its easier for people to understand them, she said.

The studys findings arrive when language and literacy acquisition are at the educational forefront. The Thirty Million Words Initiative , an advocacy effort built around getting more parents to have meaningful conversations with their children, is directed by Dr. Dana Suskind. Her interest in the issue was driven by her work as a cochlear implant surgeon. Another grassroots effort, Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids, or LEAD-K , is working to ensure deaf children are exposed both to American Sign Language and to English.

Not all parents see speech acquisition as a primary goal, even if their children use implants.

Jennifer Redmore, who lives in Binghamton, N.Y., has a 5-year-old daughter with cochlear implants. After misdiagnoses as a baby, her daughter Ann received her implants at 27 months. Ann uses American Sign Language as her primary mode of communication, with her local school district providing speech therapy and an interpreter at the Catholic school she attends.

Redmore has an unusual perspectiveher own mother is postlingually deaf, meaning that she lost her hearing after she learned to talk. For her, Anns speech development is important, but not as important as gaining access to language and literacy.

I dont think theres a downside to being bilingual, Redmore said. We always felt that communication and language and literacy are what are important for Ann and for us, and speechwell get there.

Grace Kowal, one of the children tracked through the study, could be a poster child for early intervention. Though she used sign language as a toddler, she was enrolled as a child in a private Washington, D.C., school, the River School, which provides a rich auditory environment for young children with cochlear implants. About 10 to 15 percent of the student body has hearing impairments, and the rest have typical hearing. The program served as a total immersion program for speech and hearing.

There, she learned that it was completely normal for you not to be able to hear as well as your peers. It let me accept myself as I was. And it also taught her how to advocate for herself.

Grace, a lacrosse-loving rising 10th grader, is fully mainstreamed in her public District of Columbia high school, and her speech and literacy is on par with, or exceeds, that of her hearing peers.

But, she said, I hope the Pediatrics article doesnt persuade parents not to sign with their kids.
Sharpen those No. 2 pencils: States that pick up the cost of college-entrance exams for all students can boost four-year college enrollment among low-income students, new research suggests.

In effect, a mandatory entrance-exam policy helps remove one of the hurdles standing between those students and the track to a college degree.

The college-application process is complicated, and the only reason a lot of us go through it is because of parents and guidance counselors, said Joshua Hyman, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut, who conducted the study. This exam is a gateway to four-year colleges.

The research would seem to support the steady trend in states toward adopting the tests since the early 2000s, though that progress is uneven; Missouri just announced it would no longer administer the ACT.

About half the states now require all high school students to take the ACT or its main competitor, the College Boards SAT.

Natural Experiment

For years, researchers have lamented the barriers faced by capable low-income students who nevertheless dont go to college, or go to less-selective schools than they qualify for, compared with wealthier students.

Entrance exams are one of the more obvious examples of how some of the obstacles can affect students differently. Rich students can drop thousands on private tutors or Princeton Review-type services to boost their scores, while their less-advantaged peers scrounge up fees for the exam and bus fares to testing centers.

The new research, which appears in the summer edition of the peer-reviewed journal Education Finance and Policy, illuminates the sheer size of the college-mismatch gap. Drawing on records from some 700,000 Michigan high school juniors between 2003-04 and 2007-08, Hyman found that for every 100 needy students who took the ACT in that state, nearly 50 other such students who didnt take it would have scored at a college-ready level.

Economists tend to favor random-assignment experiments to measure policy impact. Michigans statewide ACT policy, begun in 2007, made that impossible, so Hyman used the next best thing: a natural experiment.

He compared the scores of students attending high schools that doubled as ACT testing centers with those attending high schools that didnt serve as testing centers before and after the policy went into effect. The goal was to look at the impact on students most likely to be affected by the policy.

Overall, the policy increased the probability that students would enroll in college by about 2 percent. But students at schools with higher poverty rates increased their college-enrollment rates by 6 percent, and those students who had a low to middling probability of taking the ACT before the policy took effect saw their rates improve by 5 percent afterward.

The enrollment gains were also concentrated in four-year colleges, not community colleges or two-year programs.

Is It Cost Effective?

Although the study uses Michigan data, theres reason to believe that the effect could transfer to other states. A 2015 study on a mandatory-SAT policy in Maine using a similar methodology also found higher college-enrollment rates as a result.

Even though the effects of such a policy are fairly modest, its an extremely cheap one to put into place.

The ACT typically costs $46 per student, though ACT Inc. discounts that for the states it works with. At a macro level, thats much less costly than, for example, the $21,000 in student financial aid that on average it costs to induce a student to enroll in college.

The state-level policies are also a boon for business, ACT officials acknowledge, though they stress that the benefit to individual students is incalculable.

If we impact just a student here, a student there, is that significant enough? said Paul Weeks, ACTs senior vice president for client relations. Well, it is for their families.

Perhaps, but some researchers suggest mandatory-testing policies could still be improved by means testing, so that theyre better tailored to students who need the assistance, rather than those whod take the exam anyway.

Some teachers who support equity and access nevertheless worry about the collateral impact of such policies on teaching and learning.

Are we creating a culture in which testing is paramount? said Patrick Sprinkle, a U.S. History and government high school teacher in New York City. I worry this policy nudges colleges to emphasize testing even when we know the anxiety and stress testing creates for the young people we serve.

New York state does not currently require students to take either the SAT or the ACT, but New York City does pick up the cost of the SAT.

Still, parents, teachers, and students often find value in the entrance exams that they dont in other assessments, noted Venessa Keesler, a deputy superintendent in Michigans education department. They often say, Its the only part of this assessment thing you make us do that matters, she said. Its data thats meaningful for people.

Hyman agrees that mandatory-exam policies arent anything like a silver bulletjust a small piece of the college puzzle dropping into place. Many other college-access barriers remain, such as high remediation rates among low-income students, cultural obstacles once theyre on campusand, of course, the sticker shock of tuition.

The policy is only reducing one of the barriers of applying to a four-year college, he said. It isnt making college any cheaper, either.
The Standing Rock protesters were an unprecedented coalition of indigenous peoples, veterans, and activists of every stripe, and they faced down vicious mercenaries who targeted them with "anti-terrorist" tactics.

But the oil industry and its authoritarian pals didn't just buy muscle, they also bought ideas: hiring firms like Delve and Off the Record Strategies to secretly develop talking points and coordinate PR strategy to discredit the water protectors.

These PR firms worked with DCI Group  a GOP PR favorite  who created an astroturf organization called the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN) (now called Grow America's Infrastructure Now, or GAIN).

Significantly, the PR apparatus mobilized to discredit the water protectors cut its teeth selling America on George W Bush's Iraq invasion. For example, Off the Record principle Mark Pfeifle was GWB's communications advisor for justifying the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's just the tip of the iceberg: the rogues' gallery of PR flacks who worked to justify the poisoning-at-gunpoint of the Standing Rock water supply are a who's who of GWB-era dark arts practitioners, and leaks of their talking points documents show that they originated the fake news that the right-wing press circulated about the water protectors.



Pfeifle, who heads Off the Record Strategies, specializes in "damage control," according to a 2005 Baltimore Sun story profiling the Bush White House communications strategy to fend off domestic critics of the Iraq War. "Pfeifle's specialty is damage control. And at the moment, there is more than enough damage surrounding Bush," The Sun wrote of the campaign Pfeifle co-ran with the host of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Nicolle Wallace, who then was a top communications advisor to President Bush. "With public alarm about the war mounting and public trust of Bush plummeting, the White House has gone on the defensive with a public relations push designed to discredit his opponents. The operation has all the trappings of a political campaign  including rapid-response statements targeted at opponents, using carefully compiled research." Pfeifle isn't the only person with ties to the Iraq War who did public relations for Dakota Access. James "Spider" Marks led intelligence-gathering for the 2003 "shock and awe" campaign for Operation Iraqi Liberation. Today, he serves as a consultant to Energy Transfer Partners and sits on the advisory board of TigerSwan, the company's private security firm and a funder of the National Sheriffs' Association. With a tagline of "Private Council/Public Results," Off the Record Strategies does all of its business behind the scenes and rarely issues public comments. "If we told you exactly what we do, we'd have to go on the record," reads its website. "We're strategic counselors with decades of high-level experience and a no-holds-barred approach to meeting  and exceeding  our client's needs through personal and confidential service."

Emails Show Iraq War PR Alums Led Attempt to Discredit Dakota Access Protesters

[Steve Horn and Curtis Waltman/Desmog]
This 20-minute documentary is definitely worth a watch. It follows Burning Man's fascinating history from its "humble countercultural roots on San Francisco's Baker Beach" to "the world-famous desert convergence it is today." If you've ever been to the big event in the Black Rock Desert, I guarantee it'll give you a greater appreciation and understanding of it.

The film, titled City of Dust: The Evolution of Burning Man, was created by Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada for its current exhibition of the same name.

Never-before-seen photographs, artifacts, journals, sketches, and notebooks reveal how this temporary experimental desert city came to beand how it continues to evolve.

The show is open now until January 7, 2018 and boasts an impressive roster of speakers and events including talks with Burning Man co-founders Marian Goodell, Larry Harvey, Michael Mikel and Harley K. Dubois.

After the exhibit ends in Reno, it heads to Washington, D.C. to be housed at Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery for its "No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man" show from March 30 through September 16, 2018.

photo by Stewart Harvey

Previously: Eat Fuck Kill, the legend of the playa's first meme
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Serious crash closes Laxey road

The police say a road will be closed for several hours following a serious crash in Laxey earlier.

The emergency services are dealing with the incident, which happened near the Fairy Cottage Filling Station this morning.

The coast road is closed from Church Road to Captain's Hill, and is expected to stay shut for a considerable time.

Officers are urging members of the public to avoid the Lonan area and use the Creg ny Baa back road to access Laxey from Douglas.
Looking at the world through the eyes of the Web
Shades of quickly fading blue  the decline of the Tory tradition in Canada since the 1980s (Part Eight) By Mark Wegierski

It could be argued that one of the reasons for the comparative success of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in Canada, is that it has to some extent acknowledged, albeit in a skewed sense, some of the major social and national instincts of the country. It is probably the NDP's occasional lip-service to community and nation that allows it to gain the support of far more "average people" than it would otherwise have. In earlier articles, it had been discussed how the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF)  the precursor to todays ultra-politically-correct NDP  while ferociously fighting for the working majority  had indeed mostly upheld traditional notions of nation, family, and religion. Especially in those earlier decades, there were considerable numbers of so-called social conservatives of the Left  typified by such figures as John Ruskin (the nineteenth century cultural critic), William Morris (the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement of traditional aesthetic revival), Jack London, and George Orwell, among others. Christopher Lasch, one of the most prominent critics of late modernity, had identified himself as a social democrat. The most politically prominent representative of this tradition in Canada was probably Eugene A. Forsey, a labour union adviser and constitutional scholar. In the age of a pre-totalitarian and pre-politically-correct Left, John Ruskin could say with some confidence  I am a Tory of the sternest sort, a socialist, a communist. The more intellectually and culturally robust social democratic thinkers (as we have seen in the example of Gad Horowitz), were greatly aware of the real lineaments of what has been termed the crisis of late modernity and were to some extent willing to work alongside what remained of the conservative traditions of their respective countries (such as, for example, the Tory tradition in Canada). It could be argued that most of modern socialism is but a pale and weak reflection (in a rather skewed and secularized form) of the great philosophico-religious systems that have constituted virtually every society in existence before the arising of the so-called Enlightenment. Nevertheless, socialism may contain certain restorative possibilities. Despite the rapid advance of Enlightenment concepts among various philosophes and savants, it should be noted that the truly catastrophic social and cultural consequences of late modernity for most Western societies had only been concretely instantiated in the aftermath of the 1960s revolutions. It may be noted that until that period most belief-systems  regardless of where they were on the political spectrum  were, to a large extent, socially-conservative. Although it is accusatorily said today that a tendency like Nazism had also supported so-called family values -- the Nazi regime was clearly so extreme, so vicious, so violent that it certainly cannot be considered as symptomatic of any kind of conservatism. Nor is its ostensible championing of the (German) working classes to be taken as indicative of representing socialism. Like Soviet Communism -- but unlike most forms of social democracy -- Nazism existed outside Western traditions of ordered liberty. Today, it can be seen that some of the Sixties ideas have been carried so radically forward in a relentless dynamic, that some politicians and intellectuals considered as highly progressive during the Sixties period itself, might now have some qualms about them, or even find them rather repugnant. Such reflective traditionalists as J.R.R. Tolkien had also realized that the motivations of many of the young people in the Sixties were considerably idealistic. It could be argued that the young people were usually twisted in bad directions by a combination of opportunistic corporations that promoted antinomianism and consumptionism, and professional left-wing agitators that pushed what later became called political correctness. Most of modern socialism could be seen to have arisen in a desperate attempt to re-assert that spirit of community and the collective which liberal capitalism has so thoroughly eroded through the political and industrial revolutions of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their subsequently unfolding social, political, cultural, and technological consequences. To be continued. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home
Innocent people are rarely executed By Rachel Alexander

Whether you agree with the death penalty or not, it is a misnomer that many innocent people have been executed in America in modern society. Instead, some people were executed where it was discovered later that the prosecution made mistakes, someone else came forward to dispute some of the evidence or similar. This resulted in a wrongful conviction, which is not the same thing as being found innocent. The Death Penalty Information Center, which subtly opposes the death penalty, admits, There is no way to tell how many of the more than 1,450 people executed since 1976 may also have been innocent. The site identifies 13 cases after 1976 where exculpatory evidence emerged after someone was executed. However, none of the evidence necessarily proves that the 13 men profiled were innocent. Barbara O'Brien of Michigan State University College of Law, the co-author of a 2014 study which claimed that 4.1 percent of those sentenced to death are innocent, admitted the study was merely a scientific estimate of the rate of innocence (emphasis added). An article in Newsweek observed that the study required some inventive math. A paper published by the National Academy of Sciences about the same time acknowledges, The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. While it is disturbing that exculpatory evidence has been discovered after someone was executed, it is still not the same thing as proving they were innocent. Part of the problem is anti-death penalty activists are so zealous they only provide part of the picture. They dont present you with the prosecutions key evidence. Unfortunately, prosecutors are so boxed in with legal ethical rules that they have little way of responding and getting their side out. It doesnt stop there. Death penalty opponents have gone so far as to destroy the career of a prosecutor  getting him wrongly disbarred over a death penalty case  in order to keep up their ruse that there are numerous innocent people being executed. If anything, the legal system errs on the side of letting someone guilty off the hook. Two-thirds of those sentenced to death end up having the judgment overturned. Defendants awaiting execution are eight times more likely to be exonerated than other defendants, because their crimes and prosecutions are scrutinized so closely. This doesnt negate the fact that a few innocent people were wrongly executed during the earlier part of this century, when technology wasnt as advanced and racism was prevalent against black defendants. The state of South Carolina pardoned two innocent black men posthumously in 2009 who were wrongly executed. Thomas and Meeks Griffin were electrocuted in 1915 for murdering a white Confederate War veteran. It was discovered after their execution that the man who actually committed the murder provided perjured testimony, blaming the Griffin brothers. This also doesnt negate the fact that the death penalty can be unequally applied due to factors such as co-defendants agreeing to testify against each other or accepting plea agreements. In Arizona, Patrick Bearup sits on death row for a murder he was not directly involved in. One of his co-defendants, who actually shot the victim, took a plea deal for second degree murder and avoided execution. Perhaps the reason anti-death penalty activists are so misleading on this topic is because questioning the death penalty on other merits doesnt get them very far. The death penalty acts as a deterrent, preventing future murders. When executions increase, murders go down. Due to all the appeals, a death penalty defendant spends a long time on death row and costs taxpayers more than life imprisonment. It is true that life in prison is also pretty miserable. But these are not key arguments in the death penalty debate. The death penaltys primary purpose is to deter future murders. Death penalty opponents deliberately try to shift the focus away from deterrence, because it is the most powerful argument in favor of it. Opponents also try to discredit studies showing that deterrence works. But no matter how they try to dress up their argument with fancy statistics that can be doctored, does anyone really believe that the possibility of execution doesnt deter some people from committing violent crimes? Dont expect these zealous anti-death penalty activists and the complicit left-wing media to track what happens to defendants who are exonerated from the death penalty for wrongful convictions. If any of them commit additional crimes, it wont make front-page headlines on the fake news. Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, and other publications. Home
My Pilgrimage, Chapter Twenty-Three: King Cohen By Michael Moriarty

This week, my wife and I are off to Montreal to celebrate the life of Larry Cohen. He creates horror movies. The title of the celebration is: King Cohen! Or, as he himself describes his films, shock shlock. Did four and a half Shock-Shlocks with him. The half was an hour long television episode. My actors life on earth in the eighties could be easily summed up as The Cohen/Clint Eastwood Decade. I think, in retrospect, it was a very healthy and most beneficial ten years. Neither Mr. Cohen nor Mr. Eastwood are typically Hollywood. I never liked Hollywood from the first moment I entered it. And Hollywood really never liked me. Despite my efforts to be what most American actors are expected to be, a Liberal?! I failed completely. Neither the Catholic nor the Liberal that some people wanted me to be, I found the Liberal, Progressively imprisoning ideology a suffocating, tyrannical straight-jacket. My seemingly destined encounter with the Clinton Administration and their Attorney General, Janet Reno, made me an instant, political Independent. Once Ira Glasser, then head of the A.C.L.U., informed me that as a result of my questioning a Liberal Administration about anything, I would be ostracized by the entire Eastern Seaboard and Hollywood. As a result, I also felt obliged to leave my own country. With one more, two-term Bush Presidency and the Obama Nation still to come? Thank God I left. Given the similarly insane administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, my dual citizenship, in both Canada and the United States, has become the perfect solution to the oncoming, all-threatening ambitions of what is described as The Progressive New World Order. Im rooting for President Donald Trump because hes the only man in America strong enough and bold enough to question the last forty years of American Presidencies. With the exception of President Ronald Reagans sterling years as Chief Executive of the most powerful nation in the world, the other Presidencies, ever since the profoundly tragic and, to this day, unsolved assassination of President John F. Kennedy, are, yes, a Larry Cohen Horror Show of terrifyingly corrupt, bipartisan clowns. No, I dont want The Progressive New World Order. I want America Great Again! And Canada back in the hands of men like Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Meanwhile, I ponder the prospect of Montreal and The Tribute to King Cohen. I havent appeared in public for so long, Im really not sure what to say. I hope, however, that I can, at some time in the three days Ill be at the film festival, able to say: Im going to keep my contributions short

because it is Larrys celebration

and I am very grateful

to have been invited! It gives me the opportunity

To see one of my favorite appearances

In

Q THE WINGED SERPENT What Ill have to say after that wont be too long but it will be my tribute to Larry Cohens achievement as one of the few, truly renegade filmmakers of Hollywood. Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty. Home
A growing body of research on the use of ancestral protein resurrection has been published in recent years to address a variety of issues on protein evolution and protein engineering. In a study published in Nature Communications, an International team of scientists has demonstrated the high potential of this evolutionary approach to endow new activities into ancient enzymes.

Specifically, the study suggests a mechanism for the emergence of primordial enzymes and shows that resurrected ancestral enzymes make much better scaffolds for engineering of novel enzyme functions.

Enzyme activity is determined by the structure of a particular region of the protein called the active site. The generation of completely new active sites capable of enzyme catalysis is, arguably, one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in molecular biology.

Rational and modern design approaches to this problem have been developed, using complex computational methods but without conclusive results. Indeed, protein engineering studies often suggest that the emergence of completely new enzyme active sites is highly improbable.

Many years ago, Roy Jensen (currently at the University of Kansas Medical Center) proposed that primordial enzymes were capable of catalyzing a diversity of reactions. Based on this work, a team of scientists from the University of Granada (Spain), the University of Uppsala (Sweden), the Instituto de Quimica Fisica Rocasolano (Madrid, Spain), the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) and with data collected at the ESRF, the European Synchrotron, located in Grenoble (France), explored and tested these notions using resurrected Precambrian -lactamases as scaffolds for the engineering of completely new active sites. Precambrian -lactamases are proteins approximately 3 billion years old. If we simplify, the scientists did for these proteins what the scientists in Jurassic Park did for dinosaurs: bring ancient forms back to life, so that they can be studied to better understand how complexity in species comes about.

How is it possible to resurrect ancestral protein? Proteins are made from various combinations of amino acid building blocks, with a nearly endless variety of complexity and function. Researchers have compiled large databases full of the proteins sequences. By comparing today's sequences to each other within an evolutionary framework, scientists can reasonably infer the sequence of an ancestral protein from which the modern versions descended using models of sequence evolution.

 The properties of these ancestral proteins (Precambrian -lactamases) confer high structural stability and promiscuous enzymatic activity, meaning that they are capable of reacting with a variety of substances. These properties support the biotechnological potential of Precambrian protein resurrection because both high stability and enhanced promiscuity are desirable features in protein scaffolds for laboratory directed evolution and molecular design. explains Valeria A. Risso, first author of the paper, from the University of Granada.

Using these resurrected Precambrian proteins, the team demonstrated that a new active site can be generated through a single hydrophobic-to-ionizable amino acid replacement that generates a partially buried group with perturbed physico-chemical properties. We have found that a minimalist design to introduce a de novo activity (catalysis of the Kemp elimination, a common benchmark in de novo enzyme design) fails when performed on modern -lactamases but is highly successful when using the scaffolds of hyperstable/promiscuous Precambrian -lactamases.  underlines Eric A. Gaucher, from the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Georgia Institute of Technology.

For their experiment, the team used three structural biology beamlines at the ESRF, the European Synchrotron in Grenoble (France): ID29, ID23-1, and the fully automated  hands-off  beamline MASSIF-1, as well as the Xaloc beamline at Alba, the Spanish synchrotron. "Three-dimensional structural information derived from the data obtained at the ESRF was essential for the interpretation of the work, as it led to a high-resolution structure of the new active site and provided conclusive evidence of the role of protein re-organisation in the emergence of the new function" explains Jose A. Gavira, corresponding author, from the University of Granada.

Picture of ID23-1, one of the ESRF beamlines where the experiments were carried out. @ESRF/P.Jayet

This study confirms the potential of ancestral reconstruction as a tool for protein engineering. We provide experimental and computational evidence that laboratory-resurrected ancestral enzyme will make much better scaffolds for new function engineering due to its high stability and dynamics features.  says Jose M. Sanchez-Ruiz.

The innovative combination of bioinformatics, computational biology, structural biology and biophysics allowed researchers to delve deep into evolutionary time, and change the course of an enzyme's evolutionary potential. "Learning more about primordial life, and how it can be re-manipulated, will open up a lot of new avenues for science, and shed light on the puzzle of how complex biological systems evolve at the most fundamental molecular level" underlines Lynn Kamerlin, corresponding author, from the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University.

Reference

Risso, V. A. et al. De novo active sites for resurrected Precambrian enzymes. Nature Communications. 8, 16113 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms16113 (2017).

Additional information

This work was supported by Feder Funds, Grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and benefited from financial support from the European Research Council and NASA.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Embattled Zanu-PF National Political Commissar Saviour Kasukuwere yesterday indicated that he imposed candidates in Harare before apologising to the province.Kasukuwere is under fire for imposing Ronald Chindedza in the Norton by-election which he went on to lose to independent candidate Mr Temba Mliswa last year.Kasukuwere made the admission while addressing Zanu-PF supporters in Mbare during an inter-district conference.In a veiled attack on Zanu-PF Harare East legislator Terence Mukupe, who has used social media to expose Kasukuwere's alleged shenanigans in ward 46 local authority elections, the national political commissar threatened to deal with him in the forthcoming general elections."Zvichatipa kuti tiite review, ndakazozviona. Nyaya yekuregerera vanhu vachipinda muparty vasina macredentials is dangerous muparty. In fact, let me say to Harare I am sorry. Ndakakuregererai ndichiti aaa anehunhu aaaa. Ndakairasa," said Kasukuwere."Vamwe makauya kuZanu-PF nezuro, wotobva woita kunge wagara kwe20 years. Wotomhanya kunge peacock. Urikutamba munin'ina. Hapana zvaunoita. We will teach you a lesson in politics."Mukupe has been exposing Kasukuwere for reportedly trying to impose candidates in the ward."Some of the MPs have also become a nuisance. Munogara nemuromo everyday you attack Government policies. You attack Government programmes to satisfy your egoistic intention. Hazviite. Stop those egoistic tricks," said Kasukuwere. "Kungoti kumuka kuseni regai ndituke musangano. Nyaya yesocial media yamurikutamba nayo, maelections arikuuya. Politics dzakawoma, dzinodzika, dzinonyudza,-PFavira ngoma munin'ina, husiku hurefu, paChikorekore," said Kasukuwere.Ironically, Kasukuwere's ally and fellow Politburo member Professor Jonathan Moyo has used social media to relentlessly attack Government's Command Agriculture.This is despite the fact that President Mugabe has commended the massive maize production programme as "beautiful".Speaking at the same occasion, Sydney Sekeramayi, who was guest of honour, rapped party cadres who abuse the name of the First Family by putting stickers on their vehicles emblazoned with her pictures.He said anyone with a vehicle with such stickers should register it at the party head office."They should be registered at the party headquarters. Some of them have been committing crimes. They hold illegal roadblocks. They refuse to pay toll fees. Others claim to be soldiers. We want that addressed," said Sekeramayi, who is also Minister of Defence.He implored party cadres to address their differences amicably.Zanu-PF Harare provincial acting chairperson, Charles Tawengwa lashed out at those who attempted to remove him from office last week.Politburo last week reversed an attempt by Justice Zvandasara and some individuals to remove Tawengwa as provincial chairperson for Harare Province."This was not a removal as such. That was a coup. Let us follow party procedure. It was just a handful of people who met under a tree and held an illegal meeting and claimed they had removed me," said Tawengwa.
In retaliation to the EUs inaction on the redistribution of migrants across the bloc, Italy is considering introducing temporary visas that would allow migrants to travel across the EU. Italy has for long been complaining that the other EU member states are not sharing the burden of the huge number of people crossing the Mediterranean. Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Mario Giro thus warned that his country was in a tug of war and the visas were an option despite the fact that the government had earlier said that it was not considering them.

Although Mr. Giro said that the Italian government wanted to avoid unilateral gestures, he also added that that Italy was against the EU law that keeps migrants in their country of arrival. We dont accept being turned into a European hotspot, or feeling guilty because we rescue people, so deciding what to do with the migrants who arrive is everyones responsibility, he added. Rome has in the past angered many EU governments with a decision to offer residence permits to migrants in 2011 when North Africa was going through a series of popular uprisings.

According to Enzo Bianco, mayor of the Sicilian port town of Catania where 10,000 migrants have been rescued off the coast of Libya this year, issuing visas again would irritate EU countries but also push them towards concrete steps to help his country. We are allowed to use these tools, and its a good thing to remind Europe of its duty to be more responsible, Mr. Bianco commented. This year, Italy has accommodated more than 93,000 migrants coming mainly from sub-Saharan Africa and Bangladesh, marking a 17-percent increase on the same period last year.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Manal al-Sharif, Leading Womens Rights Activist, Saudi Arabia



EUBULLETIN talked in an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Manal al-Sharif, a writer, blogger and leading womens rights activist in Saudi Arabia, who was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Theres no actual law against women driving in Saudi Arabia  but its forbidden. In May 2011, Manal al-Sharif decided to encourage women to drive by doing so  and filming herself for YouTube. During a second turn at the wheel, she was arrested. Nine days  and a groundswell of protest  later she was released from jail. An information technology consultant, Al-Sharif remains active in the women rights movement. She has broadened her campaign to focus on guardianship annulment and family protection as well as driving rights, and has founded several groups throughout Saudi Arabia with the title My rights, my dignity.

EUBulletin: As a leading womens rights activist born in Saudi Arabia, you are known globally for your campaign to grant women the right to drive in Saudi Arabia. What role do the traditional values and culture within the Saudi society play in suppressing womens rights in your country?

Manal al-Sharif: In the Gulf, we come from tribal societies, so we have a chief of a tribe, and it is usually the men of the tribe who talk to him while women have no voice. And the chief of the tribe has a contact with the prince of the area where we are  we have 13 areas  and then these princes have a contact with the king. So, you can see that women are socially excluded from this rigid social structure.

EUBulletin: And what about the Muslim religious leaders? Should it not be mainly them who could play the important role in encouraging the empowerment of women in Saudi Arabia while also gradually dismantling the deeply entrenched patriarchal system?

Then, of course, you have the religious leaders who are the most powerful people in Saudi Arabia because they have the direct contact with the king, they dont have to go through the hierarchy to talk to him  you just go to the king because you are a religious leader. And it is those religious leaders that are our problem really. The spread of hate speech, the spread of the message that women are minors, that they should be treated like children all their life, the spread of their version of Islam  it is their interpretation of Islam that is really harming us.

So, even the woman who wants to submit to Islam, she cant go and work in a place with men because she will always see herself like she is a sinner. They made me feel like I was a sinner all the time when I worked (editors note: as the only woman) with men at Aramco, the Saudi state oil company. So, there is this agony you go through and these religious people are always watching you, they are always targeting women, always targeting the guardianship system, but they dont target the major issues like poverty, like women who have been deprived of their rights, of their children. They always target things like that you have to cover up, they always target these things that have nothing to do with social change.

EUBulletin: Saudi Arabia has often been criticized in Europe and the United States because it is seen as the worlds largest source of funds and promoter of Islamic Terrorism, Salafist and Wahhabi Jihadism that form the ideological basis of Islamist terrorist groups such as al Quaeda, Taliban, ISIS and others. Are you concerned that Saudi version of fundamentalist Islam has found some fertile ground in traditionally moderate Muslim societies like Indonesia?

Manal al-Sharif: It is unbelievable that the Saudi or the fundamentalist Islam has had a huge influence especially in Indonesia and Malaysia. While Saudi Arabia has now been in the process of gradually, though slowly, giving up on being too extremist and being way too conservative, on the other hand, these traditionally moderate and tolerant Muslim societies that were earlier really open are now adopting our fundamental version of Islam that we are now trying to give up.

This is happening especially in Malaysia and Indonesia. You know how much Saudi money have been invested in these countries to build mosques because the Saudis see themselves as the servants of Islam, and, of course, we have Iran, they are our rivals, we have to compete with Iran to push our version of Islam. But our version of Islam is very violent, the fundamentalist Islam  when I was following this fundamentalist Islam, I lived like in agony, because everything is haram, everything is forbidden.

EUBulletin: You have tried to instigate the change in Saudi Arabia by working from the grassroots level. But what can civil society activism achieve under authoritarian rule like the one that exists in your country?

Manal al-Sharif: When you live in dictatorship countries  well, most Muslim countries are backward because we live in dictatorships. Look at the Gulf, we are all authoritarian monarchies, Egypt is a dictatorship, all these countries But the interesting thing is that it always depends on the leaders because if the leader says that women will have this or that right, they will have it. This is the interesting thing when you live in a dictatorship or a monarchy. Because we dont have a real devolution that leads the social change, any movement from the grassroots movement that tries to instigate a change in the society is really oppressed, really badly, badly, badly oppressed. And they do the opposite  even if they give you a few rights, they will just take it away because how dare you to ask for some basic rights when you live in a dictatorship or a monarchy.

EUBulletin: But women in Saudi Arabia were allowed in 2015 to vote and run in municipal elections for the first time. Do you see this as an important step in the right direction?

Manal al-Sharif: Well, its always up to his holiness, his majesty, I mean the king, his excellency, the president, to give woman the right to vote or the right to be elected into the parliament. But this is not going to bring a really, really big change in our society. Saudi women dont have jobs and dont have any political representation, we cannot even vote for the people in the Council in the municipal election, half of whom are appointed by the king and the other half he has to approve it. If I am going to apply, nobody is going to approve me to apply, no one will vote for me.

Its huge, believe me, its so frustrating to live in such a dictatorship or a monarchy. Like in Saudi Arabia when they allow women to be elected to the Advisory Council, being appointed by the king, it was actually just a part of their propaganda. Every time these female members bring their project aiming at womens empowerment to the Advisory Council and they want to talk about it, they shut them down. Actually, they punish them too  like this woman appointed to the Advisory Council said we should discuss women driving, why all these years women have not been allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, and they shut her down.
Donald Trumps election raised expectations for change in the U.S.-Russia relationship. During the campaign, he had spoken highly of Vladimir Putin and said he would bring relations with Russia out of their post-Cold War nadir. Six months into the Trump administration, however, little has changed. Instead, the White House labors under a cloud of allegations about possible collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russians.

Secretary of State Tillerson quickly emerged as President Trumps point-person on relations with Moscow. He described a step-by-step approach: try to take the edge off tensions, make progress on smaller questions, and then move to more challenging issues. He reportedly told Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov that the Ukraine-Russia conflict posed the largest impediment to restoring a more normal relationship.

Seeing no early change in Washingtons policy, and unhappy about U.S. actions such as the cruise missile strike on Syria and imposition of additional sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin nevertheless waited, investing its hopes in a face-to-face encounter between Trump and Putin. If the White House wanted an earlier meeting, in the event it held off until the G20 summit in Hamburg. That gave the U.S. president time to check important boxes, meeting the leaders of NATO, China and Ukraine before sitting down with Putin.

In Hamburg, the two presidents discussed the predicted issues: Ukraine, Syria and North Korea. Just before the meeting, Tillerson indicated a readiness to engage more actively in finding a solution to the Ukraine-Russia conflict and announced a special envoy. The presidents agreed on a ceasefire in southern Syria. Otherwise, they announced no major breakthroughs (and none was expected). Trump raised Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, which Putin unsurprisingly denied. The presidents agreed on a joint cyber security working group.

Russian officials portrayed the meeting as a success. If nothing else, it showed that Putin had come a long way from the 2014 G20 meeting in Australia, when he left early after being pointedly snubbed by other leaders. As to election hacking, Putin and Lavrov claimed that Trump had accepted Putins denial. Putin said the cyber group would end speculations about Russian election interference.

Trump avoided a post-summit press briefing, an unfortunate decision that let Putin set the spin. White House officials were slow to contradict Russian allegations that Trump had accepted Putins denial of election meddling. In a post-meeting tweet, Trump himself undermined assertions that he had forcefully protested the interference.

While a working group to discuss rules of the road for cyber activities, including prohibited cyber actions, could have been useful, the working group as described by Putin made little sense. U.S. officials did not present a different view, and Trump quickly backed away from the idea.

In post-meeting press appearances, Putin subtly complimented Trump, in ways that appeared designed to appeal to the American presidents ego. That suggests the Kremlin has not given up on Trumpand that Putin may believe that he can manipulate him. (The one-on-one discussion on the margins of the G20 dinner, a discussion that the White House did not disclose until word leaked, may reinforce Putins belief.)

Trump returned to Washington to new revelations about his sons contact with Russians and offers of derogatory Russian government information on Hillary Clinton. The collusion investigation will take months and continue to cast a shadow over the White House and its Russia policy. Any agreements with Moscow will come under microscopic scrutiny to determine whether they entail inappropriate concessions.

The focus on the U.S. approach toward Russia now will shift back to Tillerson. He reportedly has a three-part strategy: push back when Moscow overreaches or commits aggressive acts, cooperate where interests converge, and strengthen strategic stability. That is a sensible policy. In implementing it, Washington should consider the following steps:

Promote contacts between Secretary of Defense Mattis and the Russian defense minister and a NATO-Russia military-to-military channel to discuss steps to avoid accident or miscalculation when NATO and Russian military units operate in close proximity in/near Europe. Neither side needs the crisis that would result from a mid-air collision between a Russian and NATO aircraft.

Engage with Ukrainian, Russian, German and French officials on ending the Ukraine-Russia conflict in eastern Ukraine, but understand that progress requires that Moscow decide it wants a settlement, not a simmering conflict to put pressure on and destabilize Kyiv. There is no evidence that the Kremlin has made that decision. In the meantime, work with the European Union to keep the sanctions pressure on Russia.

Continue discussions on Syria but with limited expectations. At this point, U.S. and Russian goals in that strife-torn country differ too greatly to enable major cooperation.

Launch the strategic stability talks. Among other things, they could provide a venue for discussing ways to preserve the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The talks also might address extending the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty for five years beyond its 2021 expiration date. That could be an early achievable, and U.S. military support for extension would insulate the White House from criticism that it was a give-away.

Resurrect the idea of a cyber working group, but the purpose should be clearly set out as defining impermissible cyber activities, and the U.S. side should use that forum to stress that any repetition of Russias 2016 interference would have significant consequences.

Restoring a more normal U.S.-Russia relationship will require patience and hard work. It will require a readiness on both sides to alter policies that have brought relations to their current low point. And it will require some deft White House management of politics in Washington. In this difficult environment, expectations for rapid progress should remain modest.



The opinions articulated above represent the views of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Leadership Network or any of its members. The ELNs aim is to encourage debates that will help develop Europes capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security challenges of our time.
Americans love to telecommute. 34 percent of Americans work at least 4 days a week from home. Only 4 percent of Japanese work from home at least one day per week. The Japanese government wants this to change. Why? Two big reasons: To increase productivity and to prepare for the influx of visitors for the 2020 summer Olympics.

Quartz reports:

The reasons behind the governments push for telecommuting are also gaining urgency. Japan has long had a productivity problemits workers spend among the most hours in the office in the world but are not particularly productive(paywall). Its workforce is also shrinking. But the recent death of an employee at Japans largest advertising company allegedly due to overwork, and a grave childcare crisis, are putting more pressure on Abes government to address corporate Japans problems.

To keep reading, click here: In Japan, Working From Home Is a Government Supported Activity
Crude oil is likely to rally after the recent steps taken by OPEC. Additionally, the drop in rig count last week shows that the US shale oil drillers are unlikely to continue adding oil rigs if crude oil prices remain low.

Saudi Arabia leads with a promise to cut exports next month

Though OPEC has been steadfast in its production cuts, a similar reduction is not seen in their exports. The OPEC members continue to export sufficient oil to their clients, due to which the inventory levels are reducing very slowly.

However, Saudi Arabia has decided to cut exports in August to 6.6 million barrels per day (bpd), about 1 million bpd lesser than the previous years levels.

"This is the Saudis saying they view the current market conditions as too weak and they are actually delivering," said SEB commodity strategist Bjarne Schieldrop, reports Reuters.

Along with the cut in exports, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih also said that, if necessary, OPEC and non-OPEC partners will extend the current deal to cut production by 1.8 million bpd beyond March.

Nigeria agrees to cap production

In todays meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC ministers, Nigeria has voluntarily agreed to cap production once it reaches 1.8 million barrels of production, according to Reuters.

Nigeria and Libya have increased their production in the past few months, which has delayed the rebalancing efforts. However, if OPEC can convince both these nations to cap production, it will give a big boost to oil prices.

Moreover, the US shale oil rig count decreased for the second week since January, according to data by Baker Hughes. After averaging 2 rigs in the past four weeks, the rig count decreased by 1 in the week ending July 21. This shows that the lower oil prices are affecting the shale oil drillers.

All the above events point to a tightening oil market, which should boost crude oil prices higher.
One year is a lot of time! So many things change, one cannot be expected to pause his life story for a year.



I can list probably a thousand things here, job change, kids school plans, etc. I guess they would receive a lot of change in circumstance notification from aspirants. Many people are reluctant to switch jobs fearing a job verification is waiting to happen. Besides, what about PCC & Medicals? IED is another factor! It gives so less time to react provided they waive off IED..



The above views are not to discourage anyone reading this. However, be warned of the new realities!
You can, but you run the risk that an invitation could be a long time coming depending on how long the queue in front of you may be. Depending on what's delaying you from applying for your current invitation, you may be better off pushing through to get your application submitted before Aug. 20th.
News / National

by Simbarashe Sithole

Additional Update









Several people were burnt beyond recognition this afternoon along Mvurwi-Centenary highway.Sources privy to the development allege a Nissan Caravan kombi collided with a Honda before the vehicles went up in flames.Doctors are busy attending to the seriously injured at Mvurwi hospital in order to ferry them to Parirenyatwa group of hospitals.The place has become a black spot following a nasty accident that happened on the same spot some months ago.Police said they are still investigating the matter .Eleven people are feared dead in a horrific accident, three are said to be police officers from Centenary police station who were travelling in a private car with one suspect.More to follow...
On further reflection, I'm feeling like it's hard to be one of the very first guinea pigs for the profession artistique rubric under the passeport-talent. Things are still contradicting and no one at the prefecture even knows much about this visa. I'm thinking it may be better/clearer to apply for the APS (autorisation provisoire de sejour) first to give me another year before having to apply for the passeport-talent. This could give them enough time to work out the kinks of this new visa and also give me even more time to make my dossier even stronger.



It shouldn't be a problem to go from APS status to eventually applying to the passeport-talent, right?



Is it harder to get APS if you apply having graduated with a diplome that is an equivalent to a masters in the arts as opposed to a masters in like, science or business ?



One potential concern I can foresee with waiting a year is that I'm leaving the north and moving to Paris shortly. I wanted to do the passeport-talent visa from here in the north since I've been told it's usually simpler to do it outside of Paris and also my school has a very strong reputation in the north. Apparently this carries a lot of weight with the regional prefecture according to past graduates from my school who received the competences et talents visa.



But on the other hand, all the offers for exhibitions and potential collaborations I am getting are actually coming from Paris anyway. Maybe it's ok to get the APS here in the north and then eventually apply for the passeport-talent from Paris. I don't know...there are so many professional artists in Paris, maybe I'm really losing a great advantage by not applying from the north where there will be no doubt less professional artists applying for it.



Anyone have also thoughts on what difference the region you apply from for the passeport-talent (or the competences et talents) could make ?
Ten people found in a trailer at a San Antonio Walmart have died and authorities believe at least eight of them suffered from heat-related illness. Moreover, local fire officials indicated some of the 29 others found in the trailer could suffer brain damage and other organ failure as a result of prolonged heat exposure.

While we don't yet know how long the passengers were in the un-air conditioned tractor trailer, evidence suggests that the heat inside the enclosed area could have had catastrophic effects.

Jan Null, a meteorology professor at San Jose State University who tracks U.S. child deaths in vehicles on his website, www.NoHeatStroke.org, told the Associated Press that 101 degrees in San Antonio could have risen to 120 in 10 minutes. He notes that could have escalated to 130 degrees in 20 minutes.

It's at least a two-hour drive from the Mexico border to San Antonio.

Heat exhaustion begins when the body's temperature reaches a little more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Johns Hopkins University. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that around 107 degrees cells start to die and organs can begin to fail. Null added the humidity in the trailer would have added to the danger because it wouldn't allow perspiration to evaporate, which is the body's way of cooling itself.

Paramedics on the scene found survivors had heart rates of about 130 beats per minute, said San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood. The heart rate of a resting adult ranges from about 60 to 100 beats per minute, according to the Mayo Clinic. Hood also noted the survivors' skin was hot to the touch.

Border patrol agents have warned against the dangers of smuggling migrants in extreme temperatures and enclosed spaces where temperatures can rise quickly. Doing so could lead to dehydration, heat stroke and even suffocation.

While border heat-related deaths were not available, U.S. Border Patrol said deaths along the Texas border rose from 2015 to 2016. Laredo saw 57 border deaths in 2015 and 68 in 2016, while deaths in the Rio Grande Valley rose from 97 to 130 in that time.

According to the National Weather Service, Texas had six heat-related deaths in 2016, including three that occurred in vehicles.

The three deaths were second only to Georgia, which had four. In 2016, Texas tied for third in state heat-related deaths. Overall in 2016, heat-related deaths in vehicles comprised 11.7 percent of all heat-related fatalities in the United States. However, in the last 30 years more people have died from extreme heat than any other weather fatality.
Speaking at a San Antonio Trial Lawyers Association luncheon earlier this month, high-powered attorney Mikal Watts recounted the federal raid at his law firm in 2013, his subsequent indictment, trial and exoneration on charges that he made up fake clients to sue BP over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

A large screen off to Watts right trumpeted the title of his presentation, Skinned Alive: An innocent mans persecution by the U.S. Department of Justice. Watts contends the charges against him, his brother David and a paralegal were politically motivated. The Democratic mega-donor most notably hosted a $38,800-a-plate fundraiser in 2012 at his Dominion estate for President Barack Obama.

Watts is a highly successful local trial lawyer whose firm has won more than a combined $4 billion in settlements and jury verdicts against some major corporations, including Ford Motor Co. and the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. over the Explorer SUV rollovers. He said hes convinced he was put through his own criminal case so that I would be prepared to counsel my friend.

That friend is state Sen. Carlos Uresti, who in May was indicted on fraud- and conspiracy-related charges in two separate cases. A federal judge recently ruled that Watts cant represent Uresti in one of the cases because he has a conflict, but Watts intends to challenge the ruling.

More Information Quick facts on Mikal Watts What is your morning routine: I get up at increasingly early hours. This morning at 4. I go into my office at the house and I work for four hours. See my wife for a little bit, then go to work. What book are you reading: "December 1941: 31 Days that Saved America and Changed the World" by Craig Shirley. What is your favorite restaurant: Soluna. What was your first paid job: Busboy at the Torch Restaurant in Corpus Christi. I was 14 years old. I lied and said I was 16. What is your passion or hobby outside of work: It used to be politics. Right now it's a young man named Caleb Michael Miller, who is my grandson. So when I'm not working, I'm usually playing with Caleb. If you had to pick a different career, what would it be: Probably politics. I think being in state government as a lieutenant governor would be a heck of a way to help the people of Texas. See More Collapse

Watts, a partner in the firm Watts Guerra who turned 50 last Monday, sat down with the San Antonio Express-News before he spoke to the lawyers group. Heres an edited transcript of the interview:

Q: The law seems to be in your familys blood. Your father is a retired insurance subrogation lawyer, your mother is a state district judge in Corpus Christi and your brother Guy is a partner in your firm. Was a career in law a foregone conclusion for you?

A: I was kind of bred to be one. By age 16, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. I saw a Peter Jennings World News Tonight story about one of the Pinto verdicts. A lawyer in Corpus Christi named David Perry had taken a $106.2 million verdict against Ford. I looked at the screen and said, Thats what I want to do. I want to make cars safer and products safer. Thats exactly what I ended up doing.

Q: Why dont you advertise on TV like Thomas J. Henry or Wayne Wright?

A: I dont have to. Ninety-five percent of my cases are referred to me.

Q: If you were to advertise, what would be your TV persona? Keep in mind that Jim Adler already has taken The Texas Hammer.

A: The Bald One. I dont think youll ever see me in a TV advertisement.

Q: Why do you think you were indicted in the BP case?

A: I think I was indicted because a rogue prosecutor wanted a notch on his belt. There were some people that ripped me off, but that wasnt going to get that prosecutor that notch on his belt that he wanted, so he tried to create this big conspiracy that wasnt and take down one of the most prominent trial lawyers in the United States.

Q: Why did you represent yourself in that case even though youre not a criminal defense lawyer?

A: Their theory was that I made up BP lawsuits in order to get on a plaintiffs steering committee to make money. I felt like the best defense against that theory was to show a jury on a day-to-day basis that I was not some tomato-can lawyer that needed to make up stuff to get (in) a position of prestige. Rather, show them on a day-to-day basis that I was a real trial lawyer that knew how to handle myself in court. I cross-examined every witness. It also helped that I had Mike McCrum representing my brother. I tried my very best to do exactly what he told me to do, although hed probably disagree with that. It helped to have Mike McCrum as a backstop to keep me from messing up.

Q: When you decided to represent yourself, how many times did you hear, A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client?

A: More times than you could ever shake a stick at. Not only did everybody think I was screwed, they thought I was off my rocker. I was very concerned about the reaction of my peers, all of whom thought it was crazy. But it made a great deal of sense to me, so we decided to do it.

Q: Just before the jury came back with its verdict, how confident were you that youd be found not guilty?

A: I was 100 percent confident when we started. I was 99 percent confident when we ended. But when the jury was called out by the judge, and Judge Louis Guirola, Jr. said, Mikal Watts, stand and face your jury, and youve got to go 66 (criminal counts) out of 66 to avoid going to jail, you lose a lot of bravado in a hurry and the knees start knocking. It was a terrifying experience. The downside risk of anything going wrong is so extreme: Youll never be a lawyer again, you go jail for something you didnt do. It was a horrific experience, but at the same time it was the most amazing example of justice that Ive ever seen. For a jury to be able to exonerate four innocent people and at the same time convict two others, it was beautiful thing. That jury got it right. They did the right thing. I was proud of the jury system that day, although I was disgusted by the prosecutors.

Q: What was that moment like when you heard not guilty 66 times?

A: When it was finally over, and there were 198 not guilty verdicts in a row, there was just this cathartic release of adrenaline and you start crying like a baby just cuz of relief. And then you turn around and you see 50 to 70 members of your family and friends weeping like schoolchildren.

Q: I thought your family had a rule, no crying in the courtroom?

A: Yeah, I think that rule got violated by everybody in the courtroom. It was very, very emotional moment. Its still surreal to me that that prosecution even happened because we knew we didnt do it. But it terrifies me on behalf of others, including my friend Carlos Uresti, who I know didnt do this and hes going to have to go through the same process. So I think the one good thing about me going through that is that I can guide him not only as his friend and attorney but as his counselor, and hes knows that I know what Im talking about.

Q: What toll did your criminal case take on you?

A: I gained 50 pounds. I didnt care about my health. I worked 17 hours a day.

Q: On your case or other cases?

A: On my case. The minute I got indicted, my law partner Frank Guerra  instructed me that he was firing me from every other case in the office except one that I lobbied to keep. And I worked 15 hours a day for nine months straight on the United States versus Mikal Watts. As as he said, theres only one thing we cant afford and thats a guilty verdict.

Q: What was the biggest impact the trial had on your wife, Tammy, and your kids?

A: It was an amazing revitalization of my marriage. To have your wife have your back from the very start, and never to have to convince you family that you didnt do it because they knew you didnt do it, was extremely gratifying. That woman had over 100 people at the Oak Hills Church praying around the clock during that trial. The pastor Max Lucado was praying for this juror. The other pastor Randy Frazee, whose son testified for me, was praying for somebody else. Every juror had their own person who was praying around the clock.

Q: Did the trial give you a new perspective on your profession?

A: It did. I spent 26 years doing nothing but civil litigation and Ive loved it. I think Ive helped a lot of people. Ive taken a lot of defect out of a lot of vehicles. We drive cars that I view are safe because of litigation that I did, along with hundreds of other good lawyers. But I never gave a damn about the criminal justice system. Its not that I didnt care, I just wasnt exposed to it. Now I am terrified about whats happening to good citizens of the United States when their government decides to go after them. I think its a completely stacked deck designed and structured to be fair to only one side, the prosecution. And I think it is rife with potentials for error, which is why we are convicting people of capital murders that didnt commit them. It is only as just as the least just prosecutor in the system. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unjust prosecutors in the system, which makes the potential the potential for error in the criminal justice system exceedingly likely.

Q: Whats tougher, keeping yourself out of prison or keeping your friend, state Sen. Carlos Uresti, out of prison?

A: Whats tough is to watch a friend go through an unjust process, to have 20 years of public service thrown in the trash can as hes convicted in the court of public opinion, not only by his hometown newspaper but also by all of the press. People love a good criminal story and we love to convict people before their trials.

Q: Why did Sen. Uresti want you to defend him given your limited criminal defense work?

A: Youd have to ask him. But I think he knew that I try a lot of cases. Im comfortable in the courtroom and will try his case. And I believe that he believes, just as I do, that when the truth is communicated to this jury, that he will walk out of that courtroom a free man, not once, but twice, and, if necessary, as many other times as the prosecution wants to try to unjustly indict him and accuse him of things he did not do.

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Q: Are you expecting other indictments against Sen. Uresti?

A: I dont know. I cannot justify the indictments that have been handed down thus far. So it would not surprise me if prosecutors decide to throw more spaghetti up on the wall in an effort to get some jury, sometime, to say that its going to stick. If it takes one time, if it takes three times, hell run the table because he hasnt done anything wrong, and well be able to show that.

Q: But in the Reeves County case, one of the defendants  former county judge Jimmy Galindo  already has pleaded guilty. You dont seem concerned.

A: Im not concerned in the slightest about Jimmy Galindo. Jimmy Galindo is a man who did not pay taxes, did not even file tax returns for 12, 13 years in a row. He failed to file tax returns willfully 13 years in a row. He was facing five years in prison for each one of those. So hes looking at life in prison. He is ready, willing and able to lie about something that did not happen to save his own ass. Well be able to show that that is not grounded in truth or reality, and that he copped a deal solely so that the prosecutors would agree that his sentences for 13 years of failing to file tax returns didnt get stacked one after the other. And so hes going to go in and say whatever they want him to say so that he can throw himself at the mercy of these prosecutors in their attempt to go get them a state senator and a big notch on their belt.

Q: Weve talked how youve billed Sen. Uresti for your legal work but have not been paid. Isnt it risky not to take a big retainer in this case?

A: Theres not a big retainer to be had. But these criminal cases cant wait. They get set for trial quickly. Theres a lot of work that needs to be done. But Carlos Uresti is a man of his word and when he says that once he can, he will pay me, I believe him. Im not doing this case for the money. Im doing it to help a friend who I believe does not deserve to be the subject of this prosecution.

Q: In a sworn affidavit in May, you disclosed your firm had reached more than $1 billion in settlements from hundreds of cases involving automotive and tire defects primarily against Ford and Firestone. You made it sound like it got to the point where all you had to do was draft a letter saying you were going to sue and they would cut you a check to avoid going to court. Is that about right?

A: Between 2002 and 2006, (Arkansas lawyer) Tab Turner and I traveled to Detroit and Akron (Ohio) between six and 10 times a year with nothing but notebooks of police reports, photographs of tires and Ford Explorers and damage information. We settled hundreds, upon hundreds of serious catastrophic injury cases, death cases. The reason is they were repeats of the same case that we had already proven, and that was that Firestones tires were defective, the Ford Explorer rolled over defectively, and they knew we could prove it over and over and over again.

Q: Besides your own criminal case, what would you say was your biggest win in the courtroom?

A: My next trial. I represent 55,000 corn farmers against Syngenta (accused of bungling the launch of a genetically modified seed, causing U.S. corn prices to collapse). Ive had a lot of really big verdicts but I think this next one is going to be the biggest one yet. I think the facts are horrific against Syngenta and very much in favor of the farmers. That trial will be in Minneapolis starting Sept. 11. But the ones Im most proud of are the automotive-defect ones because it showed up in safety improvements in the cars with lightning speed after those verdicts.

Q: What was your biggest courtroom defeat?

A: Oh, man. Any good trial lawyer will admit there have been plenty of em. The lawyer that says Ive never lost a case hasnt tried enough of em. Ive lost plenty of cases, because real lawyers dont just take the easy ones, they take the difficult ones, as well. There is a gentleman here in town  who was rendered a quadriplegic in a General Motors SUV. I tried it right here in San Antonio in 2003 and we lost. That was a tough loss knowing that you have a guy who you love whos going to be a quadriplegic the rest of his life, who didnt get access to the resources he needed to take care of himself.

Q: Were you involved in the Syngenta case in Kansas where the jury recently returned a $218 million verdict?

A: Were working together with four guys who are the Kansas class-action lawyers. We have a joint prosecution agreement with them. Were all working on the larger case together. But after my trial, which was originally set in April, got bumped to July, the one I just settled, they went first and they took a $217.7 million verdict, which Im thrilled about. Now were working together for the case that I will try in Minnesota, which I anticipate will result in a larger verdict than that.

Q: Are there certain civil cases you will not take?

A: I do a fair amount of litigation for Valero, and have for 15 years. When I agreed to represent them, we agreed that I did not feel comfortable representing a corporation against someone who is injured or killed. Fortunately, when you have a good company like Valero, that happens exceedingly rarely.

Q: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said on an earnings call July 14 that we have become one of the most bureaucratic, confusing, litigious societies on the planet. What do you have to say about the litigious part?

A: Jamie Dimon has some gall, particularly in the same year that Wells Fargo ripped off millions of its customers, created fraud. I would say Jamie Dimon has some gall, when he and his fellow Wall Street Bankers committed the most giant fraud in United States history, costing the American people $19 trillion of their net worth back in 2008. Caused your and my 401(k) to become a 201(k) and not one of them got sent to jail for it. If any industry needs litigation to keep it honest, its the Wall Street banking industry. We all learned that back in 2008 when they blew up our economy and came to the government with their hands out asking for a $750 billion handout, which is precisely what they got.

pdanner@express-news.net

Twitter: @AlamoPD
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Companies in Asia are growing tired of employees broken hearts bleeding into their work the next day and are granting breakup leave to allow them time to grieve a lost love.

A Philippine digital advertising agency, IdeaXMachina, has added the leave, an annual dating allowance and up to $3,000 for a wedding to its benefits package, according to Philippine news outlet GMA News and CNN Philippines. IXM even tries to help its employees get back into the dating scene by reimbursing them for dating services such as Tinder and eHarmony.

IXM CEO and founder Clemente Domingo III wants to foster creativity in his staff and make the workplace more appealing to millennials, he told GMA.

Japanese marketing business Hime & Co. offered breakup leave as far back as 2006. According to Reuters, Himes plan was adjusted for age, giving employees 30 and older up to three days off for a breakup and younger workers one or two days.

Women in their 20s can find their next love quickly, but its tougher for women in their 30s, and their breakups tend to be more serious, CEO Miki Hiradate told Reuters in 2008.

Few bosses approve of curling up with a quart of chocolate ice cream in your cubicle, and co-workers probably dont appreciate quiet sobs at your desk or angry phone calls in the break room.

But the idea hasnt yet caught on in the U.S., where American companies are less sympathetic and parental leave still isnt a national standard.

Karen Hopkins, president of the Hopkins Group, a human resources consulting firm in Dallas, said she has never come across an American company implementing such a practice. However, she said more companies are moving toward offering general paid time off, which employees could choose to use to deal with a bad breakup however they see fit.

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They could take their paid time off and soothe their broken heart, Hopkins said

Some think it might be a good idea for all involved for the recently dumped to take a day off for some heartbreak leave  without needing to fake a cough to call in sick.

Sally Wright, a consultant who has worked with the American Psychotherapy Association, told Forbes in 2010 that situations involving relationship breakup are every bit as mentally and emotionally taxing as those which are characterized as acceptable reasons. In fact, they are often more difficult to deal with.

jpound@express-news.net

Twitter: @jesserpound
News / Press Release

by ARTUZ

The Amalgamated Rural Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe, (ARTUZ) has appointed Oluwatobi "Tobi" Aderotoye as our Washington DC ARTUZ goodwill ambassador.Tobi will be responsible for mobilising learning material for rural learners in Zimbabwe and help promote the brand of ARTUZ in America.Tobi is a first generation Nigerian-American with a passion for advocacy. As a student at the illustrious Howard University, she currently majors in both Chemistry and Political Science, while minoring in Biology and Mathematics with the aspirations of one day being an international medicine physician, particularly within regions of the black diaspora. Alongside practicing medicine, Tobi hopes to work on healthcare and medical policies in the near future all in hopes of bridging the gap of quality medical care for all people no matter their geographic location and/or socioeconomic status.As an ambassador, Tobi is committed to ensuring various learning materials are accessible for students all over the continent of Africa.
Local, state and U.S. officials voiced sympathy after several migrants died and more than two dozen others were taken to area hospitals as the result of what law enforcement called a horrific case of human smuggling.

Speaking hours after Sundays incident, before the deaths of two hospitalized migrants pushed the death toll to 10, some argued that the discovery demonstrated the need to secure the border and pass comprehensive immigration reform, while others simply expressed condolences.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg: We are still learning about the tragic events that unfolded on our doorstep overnight, which shines a bright light on the plight of immigrants looking for a better life and victims of human trafficking. As we work to coordinate a humanitarian and legal response to this terrible tragedy, I find comfort in the compassionate response of our first-responders, our local medical professionals and the outpouring of support from our community.

City Councilman Rey Saldana: It should sadden us all that eight people took their last breath, and dozens more are being treated with serious symptoms of heat exhaustion and dehydration due to a tragic situation that often goes unnoticed.

Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller: There are no words to convey the sadness, despair and, yes, even anger we feel today at learning of the completely senseless deaths  This is an incomprehensible tragedy. We pray for these victims and all victims of human smuggling and trafficking; that this monstrous form of modern slavery will come to a quick and final end.

Richard L. Durbin, Jr., U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas: The South Texas heat is punishing this time of year. These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters. Imagine their suffering, trapped in a stifling trailer in 100-plus degree heat.

Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan: By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished  These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle, as last nights case demonstrates.

Gov. Greg Abbott: The loss of these lives is heartbreaking. Human trafficking is an epidemic that Texas is working to eradicate. To that end, Texas will continue to provide protection for the victims who have been robbed of their most basic rights and bring down the full weight of the law for the perpetrators of this despicable crime.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick: Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims of this horrible tragedy. I have been saying for years no one should have to die to come to America. We need a secure border and legal immigration reform so we control who enters our country and they can come here in dignity. No one should have to risk their life, or lose it, to get here and then live in the shadows.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas: Border security will help prevent this Texas tragedy  Compassion is called for. But lawlessness ensures cartels will continue to profit from these tragedies. Status quo is not compassionate.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio: The smugglers responsible for the incident, who showed no regard for the lives of the people they were transporting, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

U.S. Rep Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin: Horrific scene overnight in San Antonio where a human smuggling attempt turned deadly. Prosecute smugglers, pray for survivors and the victims' families, stop the hysteria, reform our broken immigration system.

State Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio: This mornings horrific discovery and reckless disregard of those involved in the criminal act of human trafficking is a brutal reminder that comprehensive immigration reform would reduce horrible tragedies like this one. This global issue is senseless, disappointing, tragic and preventable.

State Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio: People risking everything for a better life. Heartbreaking.

State Rep. Tomas Uresti, D-San Antonio: The news today that at least 8 people were found dead in a tractor-trailer in San Antonio is absolutely tragic. My prayers are with the victims and their families, and I hope those who are hospitalized make a full recovery.

State Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio): Our prayers are with the victims & their families who lost their lives in search of the #AmericanDream.

RAICES, a nonprofit agency that provides legal services to immigrants, also released this statement: RAICES mourns this tragic loss of life. We hope and pray for the survivors to recover quickly and find peace, safety, and justice. This heartbreaking situation highlights the lengths that migrants will go to seek refuge in the United States. We value, honor, and respect migrant lives.
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Answering a 911 call about people in trouble at a Walmart parking lot early Sunday, San Antonio police and firefighters opened a sweltering trailer to find a listless stack of overheated, exhausted bodies, among them eight dead, 17 near death and still more in severe heat distress.

One man in critical condition died later Sunday, bringing the death toll to at least nine and making it the deadliest case of human trafficking involving a locked trailer in a decade. Some of the survivors may have brain damage because of the extreme heat in which they suffered.

It was pretty obvious. They were very hot to the touch, Fire Department spokesman Joe Arrington said. Theres the potential for irreversible brain damage if its not treated fast enough. Brain damage, organ failure and other system issues.

Federal authorities Sunday charged the driver of the rig, James M. Bradley Jr., 60, of Kentucky with human trafficking for his alleged role in what U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin called an alien smuggling venture gone horribly wrong. Bradley was being held in a federal jail in San Antonio and is expected to make his first court appearance today.

Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said there may have been more than 100 people in the trailer at one point, with some children as young as 10. Officers found 39 immigrants at the scene, including the nine who died. Surveillance video showed people driving up to the trailer in different vehicles several times Saturday evening and taking away some of those inside the trailer, officials said.

At least some of the immigrants who died were from Mexico, along with several young survivors, according to Consul General Reyna Torres Mendivil in San Antonio, who spoke at a small vigil in front of San Fernando Cathedral on Sunday night to honor the dead and pray for the survivors. A Guatemalan Foreign Ministry spokesman said two of the survivors crossed at Laredo, where they boarded the truck that ended up in the Walmart parking lot.

The discovery Sunday morning came amid an ongoing, tense national debate about comprehensive immigration reform and President Donald Trumps call to strengthen security with an expanded wall along the Mexican border.

Immigrant advocates and critics almost immediately condemned the situation, but each painted it as a reason to support his cause.

We need a secure border and legal immigration reform so we control who enters our country and they can come here in dignity, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a strong supporter of the recently passed sanctuary cities bill, which allows local law enforcement officers to question detainees about their immigration status. No one should have to risk their life, or lose it, to get here and then live in the shadows.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who opposes the sanctuary cities law, talked about a humanitarian response.

As we work to coordinate a humanitarian and legal response to this terrible tragedy, I find comfort in the compassionate response of our first responders, our local medical professionals and the outpouring of support from our community, the mayor said. Our response should serve as a lesson to the world that San Antonio will not turn its back on any man, woman or child in need.

First-time trip

Bradley was driving for Pyle Transportation of Iowa, but the company owner said he wasnt authorized to be carrying any cargo yet.

Brian Michael Pyle said Bradley lived in Kentucky and was making his first trip for the company.

This is terrible, Pyle said of the immigrant deaths.

He said Bradley was an owner-operator with Pyle: Its our trailer, but his truck.

Its a common thing in trucking, Pyle added. It had my name on the side, and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel, you know.

Pyle and another company official, Tom Colton, said they did not know what Bradley was hauling but that he was not authorized to be transporting any cargo.

He gets dispatched through us, but he shouldnt have been loaded, Colton said, adding that Bradley had told the company that he was relocating to San Antonio.

Meanwhile, Walmart spokesman Randy Hargove was quick to point out that neither Bradley nor the truck had any association with the retail giant and that store policy prohibits overnight parking in its lot.

He said the Walmart where the truck was parked closes at midnight.

This is a very sad situation, and were doing everything we can to assist the authorities, Hargrove said.

A spokesman for the Guatemalan government told the Associated Press that two of the survivors were from that country, a 17-year-old and a 23-year-old from San Marcos and Huehuetenango. The two were hospitalized for dehydration. Guatemalan authorities spoke with the two survivors and their families and said the men reported crossing the border at Laredo, where they boarded the truck. They said they were bound for Houston but were left in San Antonio.

The Guatemalan authorities also said there was a third Guatemalan man who was traveling with the two, but his whereabouts were unknown Sunday.

Breaking the law

U.S. Attorney Durbin vowed to work with the Homeland Security Investigations and the local responders to identify those who were responsible for this tragedy.

All were victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo, Durbin said in a statement. The South Texas heat is punishing this time of year. These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters. Imagine their suffering, trapped in a stifling trailer in 100-plus-degree heat.

The tractor-trailer was parked at a back corner of the Walmart parking lot at 8538 S. Interstate 35, near Texas 16 on the Southwest Side.

Were very fortunate that there werent 38 of these people that were all locked inside that vehicle dead, Fire Chief Charles Hood said, noting that they didnt have any water. The truck was loaded with people.

Police Chief William McManus urged residents to be vigilant.

This is not an isolated incident, McManus noted. This happens quite frequently. Fortunately, we came across this one. Fortunately, there are people who survived. But this happens all the time.  It happens late at night, under darkness because they dont want to be discovered, obviously, but anybody who sees anything like this, people being transferred out of the back of a trailer or being transferred from some vehicle to another vehicle, then they need to call 911.

No names or ages of the deceased or survivors were released Sunday; causes of death will be determined by the Bexar County medical examiners office.

Officials said the trailer the immigrants were in has the capability of being refrigerated but that the cooling system wasnt working. Experts estimate that the temperature inside the closed-in trailer could have reached far beyond 100 degrees  even overnight.

At just 80 degrees outside, the temperature inside a closed vehicle can reach 115 degrees in a half-hour, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jason Runyen. San Antonio reached Saturdays high of 100 degrees at 6 p.m. and the temperature remained in the 90s well into the night.

McManus said police were alerted by a Walmart employee who was approached by someone in the trailer who asked the employee for water. The employee called for help, bringing in police and EMTs.

The survivors were taken to area hospitals for treatment. University Hospital and San Antonio Military Medical Center received 17 people with life-threatening injuries, police said, and 13 victims were taken to five other area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.

Engine 25 was the first to arrive, at 12:26 a.m. Sunday, Hood said, and firefighters started helping people out from the back of the trailer.

Our paramedics and firefighters found that each patient had heart rates over about 130 beats per minute and were very hot to the touch, Hood said.

Early Sunday, the Police Departments Eagle helicopter could be seen repeatedly circling over the parking lot and the adjacent wooded area for around 20 minutes, searching for other possible survivors.

Officials said later that one immigrant was found hiding in the brush adjacent to the parking lot.

Throughout the morning, several onlookers stopped to examine the scene, taking pictures and commenting on the horrific deaths as some shoppers showed up, baffled by the crime tape.

Homan, the acting ICE director, said that as long as he leads the agency, there will be an unwavering commitment to use law enforcement assets to put an end to smuggling.

By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished, Homan said in a statement. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations works year-round to identify, dismantle and disrupt the transnational criminal networks that smuggle people into and throughout the United States.

These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle, as last nights case demonstrates. I personally worked on a tragic tractor-trailer case in Victoria, Texas, in 2003 in which 19 people were killed as a result of the smugglers total indifference to the safety of those smuggled and to the law.

Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller expressed deep sorrow and said Catholic Charities, one of the citys primary refugee assistance agencies, is ready to help the city provide whatever assistance is needed to reconnect the survivors with their families.

We will do anything possible for these brothers and sisters and their families, Garcia-Siller said.

Nirenberg echoed a similar sentiment.

The reality is there are many families who have lost their loved ones today in our city, and thats a tragedy no matter how you look at it, Nirenberg said.

Staff Writer Nicole Bautista and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
There were no reports of any injuries

By Diego Flammini

Assistant Editor, North American Content

Farms.com

A barn fire near Delaware, Ont. caused an estimated $1 million in damages Friday evening.

Firefighters from Middlesex Centre and Strathroy-Caradoc responded to the blaze at Belvoir Estate, a 300-acre farm on Gideon Drive, around 8:00 p.m. In total, about 40 firefighters and 11 fire trucks battled the blaze.

Members of the Middlesex County detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) were also on scene.

Belvoir Estate is associated with the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Association of Canada. The farm provides equine programs for those experiencing PTSD.

When firefighters arrived, the barn was engulfed in flames. They managed to keep the fire from spreading to other buildings on the property.

the fire was contained to a barn located at the rear of the property, an OPP release said on Friday. No persons or animals were present at the time of the fire. The barn contained bales of hay and some farm equipment.

Damages are estimated at $1 million, Mark Rennison, district fire chief for Middlesex Centre Fire, told AM980. He added the cause of the fire is being investigated and the Ontario Fire Marshal is not attending the scene.

This recent fire serves as a reminder for farmers to ensure all fire safety precautions are in place.

Middlesex Centres Fire Service continues to encourage farm owners and workers to become more fire safe by creating evacuation plans for buildings containing animals, having employees trained in fire safety and proper building and machine maintenance, according to a Middlesex Centre Fire release obtained by AM980.

OMAFRAs publication, Reducing the Risk of Fire on Farm, provides prevention strategies and maintenance tips to help reduce the possibility of barn fires.
Choosing A Watch Winder For Your Rolex

Make Sure Your Rolex Is Always Ready For Action With These Pro Winders

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

There are several items most men aim to own in their lifetimes. A high-end Swiss watch usually ranks high on the list. Not just any watch, however  more often than not the object of desire is a Rolex. The name is synonymous with luxury and prestige, a universal symbol of success and permanent style. As a name, it has earned iconic status over time backed by an unshakable dedication to craftsmanship and utter practicality and is frequently cited as the brand with the best reputation in the entire world. And thats not mere marketing.

If youre lucky enough to afford a Rolex in the first place then youve obviously achieved some measure of success. However, its an unfortunate fact that most men dont realize that there is some maintenance involved in owning one. Would you buy a Ferrari and then never wash it or change the oil? Of course not. In addition to servicing it every five years (on average), there are other things you can do to make sure your Rolex stays in mint condition and becomes an heirloom worthy of passing down to your children.

A watch case is obviously a better bet than just throwing it in a drawer. But a watch winder is a more intelligent solution as it will not only preserve your timepiece from scratches and dust but will also keep it running properly as well as set to the correct time and date. Look for one with a solid case and silent motor capable of running long enough to keep the watch up to speed and functioning smoothly. The best ones will even allow you to set the turns per day (TPD).

Why Should You Own A Rolex?

A Rolex is a powerful status symbol and there will always be some men who buy one simply to convey a message to other people. However, that shouldnt be your primary reason for purchasing one. Instead consider the personal satisfaction youll get from owning something beautifully made that will last a lifetime, always function properly and never leave you wishing youd gotten something better  you already have the best.

As Paul Altieri, founder of online Rolex boutique Bobs Watches and one of the worlds top Rolex collectors puts it, Maybe you admire men like JFK, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen who owned Rolex watches that became part of their personas. Maybe you want the ultimate diving watch  the Rolex Submariner  because youre into adventure sports, or maybe you just like the look of it given that its the best watch design ever created.

As Altieri notes, Of course it makes a statement about what kind of man you are, but buy a Rolex for the man you hope to be, not just the one you want others to admire. If it also helps you get the best table at a fancy restaurant, so much the better. Yes, this has been known to happen. However, if you turn out not to be the person your watch says you are it could cause problems down the line.

Why Buy A Watch Winder For Your Rolex?

A couple of reasons come to mind. First is convenience, as a watch winder will regulate the power in the movement of the Rolex by constantly rotating the watch. It can keep your automatic watch wound even when its not being worn, while keeping the lubricants of the device flowing to prevent oil from congealing. If you own multiple Rolexes a winder with more than one cup can keep them all ready to be worn at any time. Keep in mind Rolexes are designed to wind in both directions.

Secondly, a watch winder can be just as much of a decorative item as a functional one. Whether its housing just one or several watches, the device provides your high-priced wrist wear a platform to shine as guests and spectators admire it, should you choose to let them. Most watch winder builders furnish their creations with quality materials to complement the premium appearance of the timepieces inside.

Additional features are quite common on modern watch winders too. This can consist of specialties like optional fast-winding or sleep functions. Both are useful options for the dedicated Rolex wearer. Extra storage slots can be found on some models, storing extra links for your watch band, specially ordered dials or other accessories. Here are the best ones you can buy at various price points:

Swiss KubiK Watch Winder

Over 18 months of research and development went into the design of the Swiss Kubik winder. It is made in Switzerland especially for fine Swiss watches, of which Rolex is the ultimate example. This is a fairly basic model but it allows the beauty of the watch to shine through. The hand-stitched leather covering the exterior is a nice touch, and it has a USB interface allowing for personalized programming.

$875.00 at Amazon.com

Orbita Sparta Bold Black Single Watch Winder

Revered for its battery efficiency, silent operation, and ingenious design, the Sparta favors performance over flash. Orbitas patented Rotorwind Movement mans the mechanical ship  swinging and oscillating your Rolex as opposed to rotating it. This can trigger a 10-minute cycle with an estimated 900-950 TPD or 15-minute cycle with 750 TPD  depending on preference. Thanks to the winders unique construction, the machine uses little battery life, therefore conserving power for longevity.

$250.75 at Amazon.com

Rapport Tetra Single Watch Winder

Available in two highly polished veneers, the wood-cased version of the Tetra Mono remains a consumer favorite thanks to its rich appearance. The brushed aluminum plate on the front adds more pop to your Submariner when placed on the soft black leather holder. Its even fully adjustable to accept all sizes of watch strap or link bracelet. Enjoy programmable winding modes through the controls on the back of the unit.

$674.10 at Amazon.com

Wolf Heritage Single Winder With Cover and Storage

Value engineered to offer high quality at an affordable price, this single-winding cube is the essence of efficiency and style. Intermittent rotation with pause functionality and pre-programmed sleep phases ensure the winder's mechanism operates smoothly for years on end. Theres also an optional 12-hour delay setting. Silent nylon gears are built into the winder for noise-free operation. The extra storage compartment for two Rolexes completes the package.

$225.00 at Amazon.com

Scatola del Tempo Rotori 6RT Watch Winder

Now for something more extravagant, from Scatola Del Tempo, creator of the original watch winder. Lets say you have six Rolexes. This is the winner that suits them all. Finished in tanned leather with silk inserts, its rotors are equipped with high precision micro-motors commanded by a microprocessor and can rotate the watches clockwise or anti-clockwise as you prefer.

$6,520.00 at Amazon.com

Volta Cambridge Watch Winder

One of our favorite watch winders for a comprehensive collection. This winder practically features a natty carbon fiber finish. Control everything through the LCD control screen on the inside of the winder, plus utilize the special speed-winding option for instant resurrection when your watch dies. A sleep mode comes programmed into the winder to simulate the daily use of the watch wearer, while saving energy during the night or weekends. In addition, Volta manufactures each winder with its own serial number, adding a touch of exclusivity to your already elite collection.

$1,270.75 at Amazon.com

Belocia Triple Automatic Watch Winder

This three watch winder makes a great design note for your desk or study, thanks to the ebony wood piano finish. A reliable and silent motor powers five-timer options: 650, 900, 1200, 1500, and 1800 TPD, with intermediate rest cycles to eliminate potential stress on watch movements. Programming is straightforward with an easy-to-read LCD screen and basic commands. Its a pretty smart and super-affordable buy for the Rolex freshman looking maintain his opulent image.

$249.95 at Amazon.com

Orbita Siena Dual Watchwinder

The burled walnut or teak veneer on this beauty displays your Rolexes like works of art, along with the soft-touch rich suede interior and beveled glass viewing panel. Orbita made the Siena battery-operated, but dont let that scare you  it will run for a solid five years before any battery replacements are necessary and it does away with messy-looking dangling power cords.

$1,100.75 at Amazon.com

Wolf Roadster 8 Piece Winder

Another masterpiece from Wolf. With the looks and quality of high-end Scandinavian stereo equipment, this is the highest capacity winder on this list, with space for eight timepieces. It features an ebony Macassar faceplate, two winding modules, three-piece watch storage, a travel case, and locking glass cover. Not too shabby.

$1,917.99 on Amazon.com

Orbita Tourbillon 3

The most striking winder on the list is a piece of horological sculpture in its own right, with a crystal glass sleeve and exposed circuitry letting the timepieces take center stage. A photo-optic system counts each cylinder rotation and automatically advances the rest position 30 after each rotation negating errors caused by gravity. This winder comes with a two-year warranty.

$2,545.75 at Amazon.com

Related Reading

Keep Your Automatic Watch Perfectly On Time With These Slick Winders

Your Handsome Timepiece Collection Deserves An Equally Handsome Case

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The goal is to go to the UK next year to see what goes on over there and I want to get into a bit more show shearing, he said.
Charlize Theron doesn't want a famous boyfriend.

Charlize Theron

The 'Atomic Blonde' actress previously dated actors Stuart Townsend and Sean Penn but she admitted she is keen to romance someone who isn't in the public eye, though it can be "tough" to meet people outside of Hollywood.

She said: "I hope not to. I really hope to meet somebody out of this f**king business. It's hard though, it's tough."

And the 41-year-old actress also laughed off recent speculation linking her with Halle Berry's former boyfriend Gabriel Aubry, insisting they have only briefly met once because her son Jackson, six, and his daughter Nahla, nine, go to the same school.

Speaking on 'Watch What Happens Live', she said: "No! I've never met him. I met him for like three seconds, like, passing I was just like, 'Hi!' because our kids go to the same school."

When she isn't working, Charlize - who also has a 23-month-old daughter, August - loves watching 'The Bachelorette', but doesn't think any of the guys are a good enough match for Rachel Lindsay.

She insisted: "None of them. I am such a fan of her. I think she's incredible, she is smart, she is sexy, she is beautiful. She needs to get off that show and she needs to have a good friend set her up."

The blonde beauty recently revealed she had been on an "incredible" date with a mystery man.

She said: "I went on a date maybe, like, a month ago. I had a great date, I've got to tell you. I had an incredible date. This guy really impressed me.

"We went for a nine-mile hike in the middle of the night. It was a full moon. But I was really impressed. It was fun.

"I'm not going to say where we met, but we ended up going for a walk ... It was just really fun. He was super-funny.

"I think he's just a really cool dude. It was super private ... that's what made it so much fun, too."

by Charlotte Hough for www.femalefirst.co.uk


I never thought I would speak about my grandfather, and the things he did, on stage.

Sofie Hagen

Sure, maybe when Im forty years old, Id think. When it is all in the past, when I do not see his eyes in every elderly mans face, when there are not smells, tastes and fabrics that remind me of him. When my grandmother has passed away and there is no risk of her finding out the harrowing repercussions of a decision she made before I was even born. And most importantly: When he is dead. Because maybe then I will be able to fully let go and process it.

I am writing this because it did not turn out that way. It is 2017 - my grandmother and my grandfather are still alive. They are currently sitting in their house in the South of Denmark, probably enjoying a morning coffee, discussing which of their mates have died recently. They have no idea that I talk about them on stage every night, that I have spent the last year wrecking my brain trying to figure out why she did what she did and why he did what he did, and they have no idea that I am laying their lives out there for journalists to phrase and my life out there for reviewers to give a star-rating.

I have had to add a trigger warning to the show. My life story is triggering. Maybe that is how I justify telling audiences details about the lives of my grandparents. Maybe I just do not care any more. Maybe this is the one thing he taught me to perfection: How to be devoid of empathy. A mixture of that and my grandmothers sense of humour, which has been so important for her self-understanding and survival, makes an Edinburgh show.

Last November I went to confront him. I am not sure if you are meant to confront your tormentor in such a way. But I believe in vengeance. Not that it is useful, healthy or constructive, but I believe that it feels good in the moment and if I did not love momentary pleasure, I would not have become a comedian.

I did not go to confront him to write an Edinburgh show. As I said, I never thought I would speak about him on stage. Then November happened and after that, all I could think and speak about was him. Talking about anything else would feel odd - and I knew that once I had spoken about him on stage, I could close his casket.

In a way, I will be doing him a favour. He needed to feel important and that need nearly destroyed a person. And now he is important - his name is already being written in newspapers, as part of reviews, as part of articles about me and this show. It is hilariously ironic - had he not needed complete control, he would never have lost control of how his life story was to be told. And I feel no empathy towards him, for I am my grandfathers granddaughter.

See Sofie Hagen: Dead Baby Frog at the Bedlam Theatre throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 2nd to 28th August. For tickets visit www.edfringe.com
Jessica Chastain has been announced as the new face of Ralph Lauren's latest fragrance.

Jessica Chastain

The 40-year-old actress has joined forces with the American fashion house to star in the brand's campaign for their new perfume titled Woman, which marks their first scent in almost 10 years.

And the company teased the news of their eau de parfum on social media.

Alongside one image shared on Instagram, which was a close-up image of a woman in a tailored suit perched on a chair, it read: "Timeless elegance, modern ease. The face of Ralph Lauren's new eau de parfum, Woman, will be unveiled tomorrow. (sic)."

The brand also uploaded an image of a quote that read "I am the designer of my own dreams."

And the post was captioned: "The spirit of Woman by Ralph Lauren (sic)."

A short clip from the campaign, which simply captures flowers in a kaleidoscope-like motion, was also posted on the label's photo-sharing site. The footage was captioned: "Modern femininity, captured in the essence of tuberose, defines the new fragrance, Woman by Ralph Lauren. (sic)."

Jessica has yet to share any news about her latest venture as she has recently been without internet connection whilst she travelled around Africa.

One image of the flame-haired beauty at the Hwang National Park in Zimbabwe, read: "Sometimes being without Wi-Fi, cell service, Instagram, Twitter, and emails is exactly what you need.

I loved staying in Zimbabwe. I loved seeing the animals and being a visitor in their home. (Yes that includes huge spiders but it was a fair trade off for BABY ELEPHANTS.)

There were no ovens and all the cooking was on the fire! Delicious. Loved our guide, Spike. Unparalleled knowledge of wildlife and nature. GL & I loved sitting by the fire and learning about the constellations above us. #hwangebushcamp #premiertoursAF (sic)."
Craft 'n' Crop Creatives Group at Heritage House Arts & Civic Center is held the first Thursday of the month from 6-9:30 p.m. and the next one will be Aug. 3.

Craft 'n' Crop is a relaxed artist/crafter mixer designed for creatives of all "stripes."

Participants each bring a potluck dish to share for dinner and then work on their various individual projects (any format -- scrapbooks, bead looms, and clay sculptures are but a few of the materials seen in the past) while sharing conversation and positive feedback.

There is no agenda and no structure, so attendees are free to come and go as their schedules require.



For those not currently working on anything, but would like to hang out with fellow creatives, the August Craft n Crop at Heritage House is extending an open invitation to all local crafters to join in a mass effort to send some crafted love to our troops overseas. The group recently began a project with the local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and hope to finish a couple of special projects to send to our soldiers and sailors overseas.

Participants will be completing the stuffing of and sewing up of numerous mini hearts which will travel with the troops. The hearts are designed to be small enough to be easily carried in the breast pocket so as to remind the troops that people are thinking of them back home.

Once the mini-hearts are completed, participants will embark on its next soldier and sailor-related project -- creating miniature tree skirts to accompany miniature Christmas trees which will be shipped out this fall in time for the holidays. There will be a "no-sew" pattern that can be used, or crafters may get as fancy as they like with the tree skirts. Pinking shears are needed for working on the no-sew tree skirts.
Set to be the hit comedy of the summer, new rom-com The Big Sick comes from producer Judd Apatow and stars the brilliant Zoe Kazan as graduation student Emily, alongside Silicon Valley star Kumail Nanjiani as aspiring comedian Kumail. The pair connect after one of Kumails comedy sets, but what they think would be a simple one-night-stand turns into something much bigger, further complicating the life expected of Kumail by his traditional Muslim parents.

Zoe Kazan and Kumail Nanjiani in The Big Sick

Today, we can bring to you a brilliant, exclusive chat with Zoe Kazan as she opens up about her character, why she joined the cast of The Big Sick and more. Find out what she has to say below

Who is Emily in your own words?

Emily is a woman in her late 20s who is a grad student at the University of Chicago studying psychology. She is recently divorced  she got married young. And while she's not really looking for a boyfriend, she meets this wonderful guy, Kumail, and they start to fall in love despite their best intentions...

What was it about the material that attracted you to this project?

I had never seen this story told before, and that sounds like a line but it's true  I'd never seen this on film and I wanted to be part of putting that into the world. Then then when I met everybody, and I auditioned for it, I felt a special kind of chemistry happen in the room. I really felt it was the right match.

You're one of the leads, but you're in a coma for the entire second act. Was this a challenge for you?

Part of what that meant was telling the whole story of the relationship between Kumail and Emily in many fewer scenes  essentially, we don't get a second act, we have a first act and a third act, and so it meant that every scene had to do as much work as possible. We had a long improvisatory rehearsal process, and some of those improvs became folded into the script. But during that process, I kept asking myself What is this scene doing? Is it doing all the work that it can in terms of showing their closeness, their sense of humor? I just kept asking those kinds of questions and Kumail and Emily, as writers, really rose to meet them.

You're telling a story based on truth. While Kumail was obviously present during the shoot, how did you rely on (co-writer) Emily Gordon to help tell this story?

Emily was on set almost every day. I had already been cast when I first met her, and I realized immediately that we're a lot alike. I felt very (comfortable) with her, she was someone I could have already been friends with. It simplified things because it made me feel like I didn't have to do an imitation, I could just be myself and bring myself to the material. Emily also has the most beautiful, infectious laugh, and she laughs very easily. One of her charms is that easy laugh, and I wanted to bring that into the movie.

You create terrific chemistry with Kumail Nanjiani in this movie  were you familiar with his work prior to filming?

I knew his work  I'd seen him on Silicon Valley and I watched some of his stand-up online. I didn't know him personally. But I felt good chemistry happening in the room with him (during rehearsals).

What do you think Kumail's gifts are as a performer?

He feels things really deeply and he's fiercely intelligent. He's not sentimental or gentle in his comedy but his comedy is not hard either, there's something empathic and loving in it, even tender. I think that's really unusual, it's a very potent combination.

Talk about working with Ray Romano and Holly Hunter, who play your parents in the movie. There's so much openness and warmth in this close-knit relationship...

They're wonderful to work with. One of the nice things about this movie is that we're all in our thirties or older, there's nobody in the cast who is completely green to performing. We've all been working at this for a long time. Even though Ray has done less dramatic work and Holly has done less comedic work, we all know how to work. So there was this roll-up-your-sleeves enthusiasm on set, with everybody being gung-ho for whatever a given day's challenge was going to be. Holly is one of my great heroes, and to work with her was an extraordinary privilege. I'll never forget it. Ray is someone I grew up watching on T.V. so there's something so surreal about getting to be in the room with people like that. They're also people who don't carry around a tremendous amount of ego with them, I think that helps.

You're a writer yourself  what about the script resonated with you?

The individual nature of the story felt so potent  again, I had never read anything like it before. I loved, and continue to love, the difference in tones and the characters balance. It's a very serious situation they're in, but it's this light comedy. It's not a dark comedy at all, it's very loving and light. That just felt unique to me, and it was all there in the writing. I also loved this window into a Pakistani-American family, the way that family loved each other, and the way they tried to come to a new understanding of each other. I found it deeply moving, and I find it moving now to hear people respond to it and feel a sense of identification.

The Big Sick hits cinemas across the nation on July 28, 2017.
Guns N'Roses are "excited" about their new album.

Guns N' Roses

The 'Welcome to the Jungle' hitmakers have been rumoured to be working on a follow-up to 2008's 'Chinese Democracy' and guitarist Richard Fortus says the group - which also currently comprises Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagen - are in the best place they've been in since he joined in 2002.

He told the St Louis Dispatch about the record: "Everyone is excited about it. There's a really magical thing now with the band. It feels like a new band. It feels like the best version since I joined, and it's the most fun for me. There's so much excitement around it."

Before joining Guns N'Roses, the 50-year-old musician had worked with the likes of Rihanna, Thin Lizzy, and The Psychadelic Furs and was on tour with Enrique Iglesias when he got a call from his friend, the group's then-bassist Tommy Stinson, about the possibility of landing his "dream" job.

He recalled: "Enrique was huge, and it was great.

"We were doing three nights at Albert Hall in London. He was at the peak of his game, and the band was killer, but I didn't want to continue touring with Enrique.

"There's a big difference between pop music and playing in a rock band... I was eager to get into a rock band again.

"I was excited - I was always down to do anything with Tommy. And they were like a dream band. They flew me to LA and had a car waiting to take me to the audition. I hung out with Axl (Rose), talking and listening to music, then flew to Ireland to pick up the rest of the (Iglesias) tour."
Montana Brown claims she was "encouraged to be bitchy" by 'Love Island' producers.

Montana Brown

The 21-year-old graduate - who was booted off the show on Sunday night (23.07.17) alongside her boyfriend Alex Beattie - admits she is "guilty" of saying some things "in the heat of the moment".

She said: "We were all encouraged to be bitchy. It was in the heat of the moment and I have been guilty of saying some things."

And now herself and Alex aren't eligible to win the 50,000, Montana wants to see Kem and Amber take the prize money.

Asked who she is rooting for to win, she said: "Amber has been through hell and back from the start. [Her and Kem] are only going to go from strength to strength."

Whilst Alex wants Olivia and Chris to take the crown, he added: "Together, they are wicked."

Meanwhile, Alex insists the pair are going to "play it by ear" when it comes to their romance out of the villa.

Alex told the Daily Star: "We are going to play it by ear. It will be strange out there. We will spend a lot of time with each other."

And Montana has defended having sex on screen, insisting she and Alex weren't the couple who were at it the most.

Speaking about her on screen antics, she added to The Sun newspaper: "For anyone who's said that we had the most sex in the villa - that's not strictly true. Kem and Amber had the most sex in the villa - without a doubt.

"The trouble was our bed was in the middle of everyone else's so it was really obvious when we were at it. Amber and Kem's bed was right at the end of the row - they got lucky being that far away.

"I was right in the middle. I did feel bad, as there were two couples either side of us but oh well. I was completely entitled to do what I wanted to do."
The first presentation of an experimental Study Abroad course is complete, with Ferris State University students and faculty expressing great satisfaction with Social Work 390, International Engagement in Haiti, offered by that College of Arts, Sciences and Education department.

Assistant Professor Rita Walters said eight students, and Social Work Associate Professor Dawn Fox, joined her on a 10-day exploration of Haitian culture, education, health care and history, June 9-18.

We brought in guest speakers, prior to our starting the Study Abroad experience, so our participants would have an understanding of what they would find in Jacmel and other areas of Haiti, Walters said. About the only thing we hope to change is the timing of our visit, as by touring this region in mid-June, we dealt with some very hot days.

Walters worked with Unique Helping Hands International, a nonprofit organization based in Florida, to arrange their tour of health care and government facilities, as well as parochial schools and a mission house operated by the Daughters of Mary. Students also toured a Haitian university and completed approximately 20 hours of direct service learning with school children.

A final report is being developed, which will recommend continuing with the second year of this experimental course, Walters said. We have great hopes that the Academic Senate will approve SWCK 390 becoming a Study Abroad course.

Taylor Sheeley, one of the eight students who traveled with Walters to Haiti, is entering her final semester before graduating from the Social Work program. She described her Study Abroad experience as life-changing.

I am struck by the kindness of the people and their thankfulness for everything we could offer or do for them, Sheeley said. It makes me consider what I can do, for the good of others, with everything that I have.

Sheeley, of Fountain, Michigan, said she and other classmates were well informed about what Haiti would present in terms of socio-economic conditions, but they had not anticipated the natural beauty they discovered in the countrys rural areas.

As we went around, we were struck by the mountains that separated these towns, Sheeley said. They were certainly different than the climbing hills around West Michigan. Since we were traveling by bus, some trips took longer than expected, due to changing road conditions, which meant we took the long way around to complete our travels.

Sheeley said her Study Abroad experience has caused her to give greater consideration for her career plans, which included returning to northwest Lower Michigan to begin her career.

I cant wait to go back to Haiti, Sheeley said. It has changed my perspective on what I might do with my degree. I am now considering pursuit of a Doctorate of Social Work, so that I might become a medical social worker.

Walters has submitted a report to the Department of Social Work on the Study Abroad class, and is thankful to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion for their support of this effort, along with the Office of International Education.

The OIE has welcomed us, for a presentation on our trip to Haiti, Walters said. We are glad to share what we learned there with any interested group on campus.





PHOTO CAPTION: Assistant professor of Social Work Rita Walters meets with students of a parochial school, during Ferris State Universitys first offering of an experimental Study Abroad class, Social Work 390, International Engagement in Haiti. Walters led a group of eight students and a fellow faculty member from June 9-18.
The National Retail Federation has urged Congress to reject a proposed border adjustment tax that would drive up the price of imported merchandise, saying the measure would force consumers to pay the cost of lowering taxes for large corporations. NRF is the worlds largest retail trade association with members from the US and more than 45 countries.The solution for reducing the corporate tax rate should not be to shift the tax burden to individuals and families through the imposition of a consumption tax, NRF senior vice president David French said. Since the overall purpose of pro-growth tax reform should be to improve the standard of living of the American people, it would be counterproductive to include a consumption tax in that plan.

The National Retail Federation has urged Congress to reject a proposed border adjustment tax that would drive up the price of imported merchandise, saying the measure would force consumers to pay the cost of lowering taxes for large corporations. NRF is the world's largest retail trade association with members from the US and more than 45 countries.#

Frenchs comments came in a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, which held a hearing on how tax reform would affect individuals and families. The hearing was part of a series of sessions on how reform would affect small businesses.French said the 20 per cent border adjustment tax on all imported goods that would be created under the Better Way tax reform plan proposed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Ways and Means Committee chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, would effectively move the United States toward a consumption tax structure rather than the current income tax structure.French said NRF members would have to raise prices approximately 15 per cent to break even under the new tax, and that NRF estimates show the average family could pay up to $1,700 more each year.Hardest hit would be low and middle-income consumers, especially those on a fixed income, French said.Congress should reject the BAT proposal and focus on reform of the existing income tax system by eliminating deductions and exemptions that benefit only a few industries and using the revenue saved to reduce rates for all businesses, he said.The retail industry is a strong proponent of income tax reform, French said. We believe that income tax reform that lowers the rates and broadens the base can provide economic growth for the economy as a whole and can be good for the American consumer.  We urge you to reject the border adjustment tax and adopt an income tax reform proposal that does not shift the tax burden to consumers.The United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world and NRF has led the retail industry in seeking comprehensive tax reform. Retail benefits from few of the tax breaks that lower tax bills for other industries, and most retail companies pay at or close to the full 35 per cent. (SV)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The Tiruppur Exporters' Association (TEA) has urged the state government of Tamil Nadu for the announcement of textile policy for the state. The policy will boost investment and will help in the growth of the textile industry including exports, said the association in a representation made to Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.

States such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan and Odisha already have the policy and are attracting investments.

The state textile policy should provide 8 per cent interest subsidy/10 per cent capital subsidy to modernisation or expansion of garment units, said TEA in a statement. Tamil Nadu government should also give incentives for setting up of technical textiles units in the state. It has also sought for the support of the textile department of the state for development of the technical textiles units.

The Tiruppur Exporters' Association (TEA) has urged the state government of Tamil Nadu for the announcement of textile policy for the state. The policy will boost investment and will help in the growth of the textile industry including exports, said the association in a representation made to Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.#

TEA has asked for announcement of 25 per cent capital subsidy for setting up of Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) and also Individual Effluent Treatment Plant (IETP) in the state. Further, they have also requested for power subsidy at 25 per cent to reduce the cost of treatment and processing charges for ETP. Further, the government should also install a separate power station in Tiruppur for the growth of the knitwear sector. The state government should help the Centre in the setting up new textile parks and textile processing parks.

With Tamil Nadu Knitwear contributing 60 per cent of the country's knitwear production, the association has urged for Knitwear Board which can act as a catalyst for growth of this industrial segment.

The association has also requested the state government for reduction of GST rate for job work operations to 5 per cent from 18 per cent and 12 per cent rate on manmade fibres instead of 18 per cent. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Spinning mills in Tamil Nadu are seeking stronger partnership with cotton growing states of Telangana and Maharashtra, to meet their requirements of more than 1 crore bales of cotton annually. Under an initiative taken by the Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF), 25 member ginners from Maharashtra and Telangana recently visited 12 member spinning units in Coimbatore region.

The visiting ginners discussed advantages for them as well as the mills by forging a partnership with managing directors of spinning mills in Tiruppur, Dharapuram, Annur, Sathy, and Kangeyam.

The visit helped ginners understand the user industry needs and changing requirement of trade, and the trade dynamics from user point of view. They also discussed the next year cotton trend and purchase plans, and evaluated a strategy to focus more on contamination controlled cotton, according to an ITF press release.

Spinning mills in Tamil Nadu are seeking stronger partnership with cotton growing states of Telangana and Maharashtra, as these mills need more than 1 crore bales cotton in a year. Under an initiative taken by Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF), 25 member ginners from Maharashtra and Telangana recently visited 12 member spinning units in Coimbatore region.#

It is for the first time that the textile industry is looking for close partnership with ginners to improve quality of Indian cotton. It started with 35 of the 400 ITF member mills coming together to jointly purchase cotton. It is because raw material (cotton) cost is the major factor in spinning mills manufacturing cost, often ranging from 60 per cent to 70 per cent. So, even one per cent savings by way of good quality, better pricing, or timely purchase can help the spinning sector reduce its cost of manufacturing. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The US and Malaysia recently met under their Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) to discuss ways to further strengthen trade relations and promote free, fair and balanced trade. The US is holding talks with key trading partners across Asia, reflecting the priority Trump administration places on deepening trade ties with countries in the region.

During the meeting, the US and Malaysia agreed to work together to address outstanding issues, including by establishing working groups related to goods, intellectual property, financial services, labour, and the environment. In addition, US officials met with US stakeholders in Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The meetings were chaired by assistant US trade representative Barbara Weisel and ministry of international trade and industry secretary general J Jayasiri. Additionally, the delegation for the US included officials from USTR and the departments of state and commerce. US officials also met with Bank Negara Malaysia.

The US and Malaysia recently met under their Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) to discuss ways to further strengthen trade relations and promote free, fair and balanced trade. The US is holding talks with key trading partners across Asia, reflecting the priority Trump administration places on deepening trade ties with countries in the region.#

In 2016, the US had a nearly $25 billion goods trade deficit with Malaysia. US good exports totalled $11.8 billion, and its goods imports from Malaysia totalled $36.6 billon. In 2015, US services exports to Malaysia were $2.9 billion and US services imports were $1.8 billion. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. (HLX) reported that its net income for the third quarter of 2017 declined to $2.3 million or $0.02 per share, from $11.5 million, or $0.10 per share for the same period in 2016. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.02 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items. Owen Kratz, President and Chief Executive Officer of Helix, said, 'Our third quarter results were negatively impacted by some operational downtime experienced by the Well Enhancer in the North Sea and some idle time on the Q5000 between projects. These negative impacts were partially offset by improvements in our Brazilian well intervention operations for the quarter with the Siem Helix 1 completing its first full quarter of operations.' The company said it continues to expand operations in Brazil as the Siem Helix 2 is currently expected to commence commercial operations late in the fourth quarter. Net revenues for the quarter rose to $163.26 million from $161.25 million last year. Analysts expected revenue of $168.2 million for the quarter. 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.
A man wanted for a murder in Ohio has been taken into custody at a residence in Ooltewah.

Frank Charles Mosier, 30, was charged Friday with a 2016 slaying during a robbery.

Authorities on Sunday afternoon got word that Mosier was at 9133 Pleasant Lane, which is off Ooltewah-Georgetown Road. Multiple deputies went to the residence after reports that Mosier was armed and dangerous.

The owner granted permission for a search of the residence, and Mosier was located hiding in the basement.

Officers gave loud commands for him to get to his knees and put his hands behind his head. He was taken into custody after struggling with officers. He pulled his arms away and kept moving his legs until he was handcuffed and placed in a police vehicle.

A plastic baggie containing 3.7 grams of crystal meth fell out of his pocket. He also had a used hypodermic needle and a metal spoon.

He was charged with possession of meth, possession of drug paraphernalia and resisting arrest.

Authorities said Mosier shot and killed 22-year-old Brandon Blackburn in the Broadway-Slavic Village neighborhood in Cleveland on April 1, 2016. The victim was shot in the head during a robbery. His body was found in a minivan.

Mosier, who is from Kent, Ohio, has three robbery convictions, including one in Kent in 2005 and two in Brooklyn in 2016, according to Cleveland.com. He served four years in prison on the initial conviction.

In one robbery, he kicked an employee in the head, knocking him to the ground. He kicked the employee in the head several more times before fleeing.

He got two years probation for those robberies.

Bond was set at $650,000 on the local charges.
Global food and beverage company, Retail Food Group Limited (RFG, the Company or Group), is making waves in international markets, having announced its entry into the Scandinavian market via the grant of Swedish Master Franchise rights for Australia's largest speciality donut retailer, Donut King.

BC Food Beverage AB, representing a firm of experienced Swedish businessmen, has secured the Master Franchise rights and plans on establishing its first Donut King outlet in the Uppsala region before Christmas 2017. The firm is extremely confident that Donut King's warm cinnamon donuts and espresso coffees will be well received within the Swedish market, with many sub-franchise enquiries having already been received.

RFG Chief Executive International, Mike Gilbert, noted that Scandinavia had been identified as a key growth market for the Donut King Brand System, and the Company was pleased to be joining forces with a strong and experienced Master Franchise Partner.

"During the past three decades, Donut King has evolved into Australia's largest specialty donut and coffee destination, treating over 20 million customers per year to its world-famous cinnamon donuts and wide range of speciality treats. Donut King has also built a loyal customer following amongst a number of international markets, and we feel the time is now right to introduce the brand within Scandinavia," he said.

Mike said interest in sub-franchising within the region is already proving strong, with the team fielding enquiries for new outlets, ahead of the first store even opening.

"RFG has been conscious to partner with robust Master Franchisees capable of applying sufficient resources, expertise and resolve to ensuring the successful entry of Donut King into new territories. BC Food Beverage AB satisfies each of these pre-requisites and we have every confidence of the Brand's success in Sweden under its stewardship."

RFG is Australia's largest multi-brand retail food franchise owner, developer and manager, with a network of more than 2,500 outlets across 12 Brand Systems, including Donut King, spanning 80 licensed international territories.

Mr Gilbert noted that growing international penetration of RFG's Brand Systems within new territories, principally by partnering with robust Master Franchisees who share the Company's vision, remains a focus for the Group.

"This model provides the Company and local partners with the opportunity to forge sustainable partnerships to successfully develop RFG's Brand Systems internationally, whilst drawing on the Group's more than 30 years' experience in retail food franchising."

"Our franchise partners enjoy the benefits of working with Australia's largest multi-food franchisor every day, dealing with our expert management teams, enjoying supply benefits from increased scale and gaining access to best-in-class initiatives," Mr Gilbert said.

About Retail Food Group Limited

RFG owns the Donut King, Brumby's Bakery, Michel's Patisserie, bb's Cafe, Esquires, Gloria Jean's Coffees, It's A Grind, The Coffee Guy, Cafe2U, Pizza Capers Gourmet Kitchen and Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar franchise systems. As well, Retail Food Group is a global coffee specialist with an integrated approach to sourcing, roasting and distributing high-quality coffee. Combining passion with expertise, the Company creates an unforgettable experience, from crop to cup, through its suite of coffee brands. RFG is looking to partner with Master Franchise candidates who share its vision for delivering exceptional products and service within international markets. Enquiries should be directed to Olivia Palmer at rfginternational@rfg.com.au.

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Contacts:

Retail Food Group

Annie Lyon, 0431 306 727

Corporate Communications Manager

annie.lyon@rfg.com.au
In Phase 1/2a APPROACH study, HIV-1 antibody response observed in all healthy volunteers

Mosaic-based vaccine regimen is designed to elicit an immune response against a wide variety of HIV subtypes prevalent worldwide

Positive clinical and preclinical results inform selection of lead mosaic HIV vaccine regimen for further evaluation in Phase 2b proof-of-concept study

Johnson Johnson today announced encouraging first-in-human clinical data for an investigational HIV-1 vaccine regimen in development at its Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies.In an oral presentation of the early stage Phase 1/2a APPROACH study at the 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017), the "mosaic"-based vaccine regimen from Janssen Vaccines Prevention B.V. (Janssen) appeared to be well-tolerated and elicited HIV-1 antibody responses in 100% of healthy volunteers (n=393).

"Finding a preventive vaccine has proven to be one of the biggest scientific challenges in the 35-year quest to end the HIV pandemic. A successful preventive vaccine for HIV will need to provide broad protection against a wide range of viral strains," said Professor Dan Barouch, Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a key collaborator for APPROACH. "These promising, early-stage results suggest that these vaccines utilizing mosaic immunogens should be evaluated further for their potential ability to achieve this historic goal."

Significant progress has been made in the global battle against HIV/AIDS, including the development of critical antiretroviral treatments and HIV prevention tools, yet the disease remains one of the greatest global health threats of our time. An estimated 37 million people are currently living with HIV-1 globally, and nearly 2 million people become newly infected each year. An effective HIV vaccine is elusive due to the unique properties of the virus including its genetic diversity and ability to mutate rapidly.

Mosaic-based vaccines contain immunogens created using genes from different HIV subtypes responsible for HIV-1 infections worldwide. These immunogens are delivered through viral vectors, including Janssen's AdVac technology based on adenovirus serotype 26 (Ad26). The viral vectors are combined with other components such as soluble proteins to form mosaic-based prime-boost vaccine regimens that first prime and then boost the immune system, with the aim of producing stronger and longer-lasting immunity to HIV.

Paul Stoffels, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson Johnson said, "In recent years, a new optimism has emerged that we will find an effective HIV vaccine in our lifetime. The results from today's study add to that belief and we look forward to advancing to the next stage of clinical development as quickly as possible."

In pre-clinical studies, regimens incorporating mosaic vaccines demonstrated protection against infection with an HIV-like virus. The most effective prime-boost regimen in these studies reduced the per-exposure risk of infection by 94 percent and resulted in 66 percent complete protection after six exposures.

Based on immunologic responses observed in APPROACH, as well as protection observed in pre-clinical studies, a lead HIV-1 vaccine regimen comprising Janssen's Ad26 mosaic candidate and the Clade C gp140 soluble protein has been selected as the basis for further evaluation in a potential Phase 2b proof-of-concept efficacy study. Should this study move forward, Janssen and its global partners anticipate initiating this investigation in southern African countries in late 2017 or early 2018.

About the APPROACH Study

APPROACH (HIV-V-A004/NCT02315703) is a multi-center, randomized, parallel-group, placebo-controlled, double-blind Phase 1/2a study in 393 healthy HIV-uninfected adults in the US, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa and Thailand. It is evaluating the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of various mosaic-based, prime-boost vaccine regimens for HIV-1. These vaccine regimens contain two prime doses of the mosaic viral vector Ad26.Mos.HIV and two boosts of either Ad26.Mos.HIV, MVA-Mosaic and/or different doses of the soluble protein Clade C gp140 adjuvanted with aluminum phosphate. Vaccination schedules have been completed for all study participants and 12-month follow-up after the 4th dose is underway.

Results presented at IAS 2017 suggest that all vaccine regimens appeared to be well-tolerated. Injection site pain, headache and fatigue were the most common reported adverse events. The primary analysis post 3rd vaccination showed that most active vaccine regimens elicited antibody responses in 100% of study participants. Antibody titers against autologous Clade C and heterologous cross-clade Env antigens increased in groups boosted with gp140 protein, irrespective of vector. After the 4th vaccination, humoral and cellular responses further increased.

The APPROACH study was sponsored by Janssen with support from partner organizations including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC); the United States Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF); the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Ragon Institute; the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI); and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN).

About Janssen's HIV Preventive Vaccine

Janssen's HIV-1 AdVac-based vaccine regimen, along with the company's investigational Ebola and inactivated polio vaccine candidates, utilize Janssen's PER.C6 production cell line technology, which has the potential to reduce costs by increasing vaccine production at lower reactor volume.

Since 2005, Janssen Vaccines Prevention B.V. has been participating in the NIH-supported Integrated Preclinical/Clinical AIDS Vaccine Development (IPCAVD) program under grants AI066305, AI078526 and AI096040. Janssen's HIV vaccine program has also received funding from the United States Military HIV Research Program and the Ragon Institute.

Please visit www.jnj.com/HIV for further details on the breadth of HIV science being presented by Johnson Johnson companies and its partners.

About Johnson Johnson

Caring for the world one person at a time inspires and unites the people of Johnson Johnson. We embrace research and science bringing innovative ideas, products and services to advance the health and well-being of people. Our approximately 126,400 employees at more than 230 Johnson Johnson operating companies work with partners in health care to touch the lives of over a billion people every day, throughout the world.

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 @JanssenGlobal.

Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, regarding development of a potential preventive vaccine for HIV. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Janssen Vaccines Prevention B.V. and/or Johnson Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: challenges and uncertainties inherent in product research and development, including the uncertainty of clinical success and of obtaining regulatory approvals; uncertainty of commercial success; manufacturing difficulties and delays; competition, including technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges to patents; product efficacy or safety concerns resulting in product recalls or regulatory action; changes in behavior and spending patterns of purchasers of health care products and services; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; and trends toward health care cost containment. A further list and descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Johnson Johnson's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 1, 2017, including under "Item 1A. Risk Factors," its most recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including under the caption "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements," and the company's subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at www.sec.govwww.jnj.com or on request from Johnson Johnson. None of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies or Johnson Johnson undertakes to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events or developments.

Ends

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Contacts:

Johnson Johnson

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Ronan Collins

+47 488 42500

Rcollin5@its.jnj.com

or

Katie Buckley

+ 44 797 195 6179

Kbuckle8@its.jnj.com

or

Gavin Hart

+1 917 686 9221

Ghart9@its.jnj.com

or

INVESTOR RELATIONS:

Lesley Fishman

+1 732 524 3922

or

Joseph J. Wolk

+ 1 732 524 1142
Videos under one minute of how-tos, educational or informative content, as well as product demos were top ranked with survey respondents, 50 percent of whom increased their digital video consumption in 2017

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --Wibbitz, the leading AI-powered video creation platform, today released the findings from its latest study, Video For Business: Content Consumption Trends, analyzing how and where consumers are motivated to consume video in addition to the type of content they prefer. In late 2017, Wibbitz surveyed over 1,000 people finding that among various business use cases inclusive of how-to videos, educational or informational videos, product demos, and reviews and testimonials, 51 percent of viewers prefer how-to videos. The finding underscores a key tenet of content marketing, which is delivering value and actionable information to consumers. This statistic confirms business video as an emerging format for customer communications that can reduce service and support-related activities.

Additional insights from the study include data on overall consumption trends that support the importance of businesses creating multiplatform video strategies for 2018 and beyond:

65 percent of respondents engage with videos by sharing, commenting, or liking, with 10 percent engaging with nearly every video they watch.

Over 40 percent of millennial and Generation X respondents listed Facebook as their preferred platform for video content. More than half of millennials ranked Snapchat as their second favorite platform, whereas 30 percent of Generation X respondents prefer Instagram second to Facebook.

Mobile devices were the most common platform for consuming video content (31 percent) over desktop (26 percent) and streaming devices (25 percent).

38 percent of respondents prefer short-form videos - defined as under one minute in length - emphasizing the importance for businesses to create shorter, more engaging videos.

"In the coming years, the majority of internet traffic will be video, therefore, it's critical to understand how and where consumers access video, in addition to the types of content they prefer to consume. With this knowledge, businesses are better equipped to consistently deliver beautiful and engaging video content," said Zohar Dayan, CEO and Co-Founder, Wibbitz. "The data gathered in this report conveys a powerful message that video is the future of online storytelling not just for publishers, but brands as well. It represents a clear choice for brands as they seek to unlock new ways to connect and resonate with consumers."

Wibbitz provides an automated video creation platform enabling businesses to deliver high-quality video content across all platforms. By leveraging AI and automation to power video creation, businesses are able to quickly integrate beautiful video stories into their strategies and improve their customer relationships as a result.

About Wibbitz

Wibbitz is an AI-powered video creation platform that leverages patented text-to-video technology to streamline production of original short-form videos across multiple platforms. Wibbitz supports video creation for over 400 publishers and brands, helping to increase audience engagement and ad revenues across desktop, mobile, and social media. Partners include Reuters, CBSi, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Weather Channel television network, USA Today Sports, and Time Inc. Wibbitz was founded in 2011 and has offices in NYC, Tel Aviv, and Paris. For more information visit www.wibbitz.com and follow @wibbitz.

Media Contact:

Kate Gundry

Pluck

press@wibbitz.com

617-797-5174

Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635569/Wibbitz_Survey_Video_Content_Consumption_Trends.mp4

Logo -https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635512/Wibbitz_Logo.jpg
DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / January 2, 2018 / North American Cannabis Holdings, Inc. (OTC PINK: USMJ) today announced entering into negotiations to acquire operations in California. The negotiations are intended to expand the North American Cannabis Holdings strategy underway in Canada into California. As of January 1st, 2018, California has legalized recreational marijuana and Canada is scheduled to have legal recreational marijuana in July of this year. North American Cannabis Holdings, in conjunction with its sister company, Puration, Inc. (OTC PINK: PURA), has published an online presentation providing an update on the two companies' coordinated efforts to be prepared for operations in Canada in conjunction with Canada's upcoming nationwide recreational marijuana legalization. North American Cannabis Holdings is in ongoing acquisition negotiations that include a role where Puration would provide its extraction expertise. Puration has separately announced introducing Cannabis infused beverages in Canada. The presentation is available online at aciconglomerated.com:

McDonald's of Dispensaries; Sun Maid Raisins of Growers; Splenda of Extracts

Learn more about USMJ, its parent company, ACI, and ACI's other holdings to include PURA by visiting: http://www.aciconglomerated.com/

Disclaimer/Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies' contracts, the companies' liquidity position, the companies' ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

ACI, USMJ and PURA contact info:

Steven Rash

info@aciconglomerated.com

+1-800-861-1350

https://www.aciconglomerated.com/contact/

SOURCE: North American Cannabis Holdings, Inc.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 08/30/17 -- Denison Mines Corp. ("Denison" or the "Company") (TSX: DML)(NYSE MKT: DNN)(NYSE American: DNN) is pleased to report the intersection of new high-grade unconformity-hosted uranium mineralization in drill hole WR-689D3 approximately 250 metres along strike to the northeast and 200 metres up-dip of the Gryphon deposit, on the Company's 60% owned Wheeler River project. Preliminary radiometric equivalent probe results ("eU3O8") from drill hole WR-689D3 are highlighted by an interval of 5.0% eU3O8 over 4.7 metres, including 8.5% eU3O8 over 2.7 metres, from mineralization occurring immediately above the sub-Athabasca unconformity that is comprised of massive to semi-massive uraninite (pitchblende) associated with hydrothermal hematite and clay alteration.

Denison is also pleased to report that a further ten drill holes have been completed within the D series of mineralized lenses, which occur entirely outside of the current resources estimated for the Gryphon deposit. The results continue to exhibit thick high-grade mineralized intervals as drilling focuses on expanding mineralization outwards, on an approximate 25 metre drill spacing, from the previously released results in drill holes WR-641 (5.3% U3O8 over 11.0 metres) and WR-633D3 (1.3% U3O8 over 3.0 metres, plus 3.3% U3O8 over 13.5 metres, and 6.2% U3O8 over 2.5 m).

Today's news is highlighted by the following:

-- Discovery of new high-grade unconformity-hosted mineralization in drill holes WR-689D3 (5.0% eU3O8 over 4.7 metres) and WR-690D3 (1.2% eU3O8 over 1.4 metres) immediately up-dip of previously intersected basement mineralization that includes drill hole WR-507D2 (19.30% U3O8 over 1.0 metre) and drill hole WR-646 (6.20% U3O8 over 2.5 metres). -- The mineralization occurring at the unconformity is open along strike in both directions, and together with the high-grade mineralization previously discovered in the upper basement has been termed the "E series" of lenses, representing a new high priority target area for resource expansion -- A further ten drill holes have been completed within the D series lenses, with results continuing to include thick and high-grade mineralized intervals, as drilling expands the mineralized zone outwards from drill holes WR-641 and WR-633D3. Detailed results from the latest drill holes are provided in Table 1, and include the following highlights: -- 4.8% eU3O8 over 3.7 metres in drill hole WR-694 -- 3.8% eU3O8 over 3.7 metres in drill hole WR-690D2 -- 2.0% eU3O8 over 5.2 metres in drill hole WR-657D1 -- 6.4% eU3O8 over 1.0 metre in drill hole WR-690D1 -- Two drill holes testing for an extension of mineralization outside and near the fringes of the current resources estimated for the Gryphon Deposit's A series lenses successfully intersected high-grade mineralization: -- 1.5% eU3O8 over 4.6 metres in drill hole WR-638D4 -- 1.3% eU3O8 over 3.6 metres in drill hole WR-682D1 -- Six additional infill and delineation drill holes have been completed on the Gryphon Deposit's A, B and C series lenses. Detailed results from the latest drill holes are provided in Table 2, and include the following highlights: -- 1.3% eU3O8 over 21.8 metres in drill hole WR-572D1, including 3.9% eU3O8 over 5.3 metres -- 5.8% eU3O8 over 5.4 metres in drill hole WR-564D3 -- 1.8% eU3O8 over 3.9 metres in drill hole WR-564D3

David Cates, Denison's President and CEO, commented, "The notable high-grade mineralization intersected at the unconformity, immediately northeast of the Gryphon deposit, presents our Saskatoon based exploration team with a new and exciting target for additional exploration - with the potential for further drilling to continue to expand resources at Gryphon. Coupled with a steady stream of impressive high-grade intersections within the basement-hosted D series lenses, the prospect of significant growth in our estimate of resources for the Gryphon deposit continues to increase as we work towards completing an updated resource estimate following the completion of the summer drilling program."

Emergence of the E Series Lenses

The E series lenses, previously reported in several instances as mineralization along the A or B series plane, occur as a series of closely spaced stacked lenses at or immediately below the unconformity (within the basement) approximately 50 metres along strike to the northeast and 50 to 200 metres up-dip of the current resources estimated for the Gryphon deposit. Collectively the E series lenses measure approximately 350 meters along strike (southwest to northeast) and up to 40 meters along dip (moderately toward the southeast), with individual lenses varying in interpreted true thickness from approximately 1 to 3 metres.

The discovery and initial delineation of the mineralization comprising the E series lenses was a result of drill holes designed primarily to test for D series mineralization, which occurs deeper in the basement. These drill holes resulted in a series of mineralized basement intersections near the unconformity, which include the following previously reported results (see Denison's Press Releases dated May 26, 2016 and November 17, 2016):

-- 19.30% U3O8 over 1.0 metres in drill hole WR-507D2 -- 6.20% U3O8 over 2.5 metres in drill hole WR-646 -- 1.61% U3O8 over 1.0 metres in drill hole WR-671 -- 1.38% U3O8 over 1.0 metres in drill hole WR-675

The new unconformity mineralization intersected in WR-689D3 and WR-690D3 is located in sandstone 'wedges' produced as a result of reverse faulting of the basement units below. The unconformity-hosted mineralization is interpreted to be the up-dip unconformity expression of the previously discovered basement lenses and are assumed to be continuous to semi-continuous in nature. The mineralization remains open along strike in both directions along the unconformity to the northeast and southwest where similar geologic settings exist with mineralized basement intersections below.

A significant zone of structural disruption, bleaching and clay alteration, including dravite, was noted immediately overlying the mineralization within the sandstone in drill holes WR-689D3 and WR-690D3. These features are typical of high-grade unconformity-hosted uranium deposits such as Phoenix, which occurs approximately 3 kilometres to the southeast on the Wheeler River property.

Future exploration of the E series lenses will focus on evaluating the continuity of the basement lenses as well as their unconformity expression using drill orientations and spacing appropriate to the style of mineralization being tested and evaluated.

Continued Expansion of the D Series Lenses

The summer 2017 drilling within the D series lenses has focussed on testing around drill holes WR-641 (5.3% U3O8 over 11.0 metres) and WR-633D3 (1.3% U3O8 over 3.0 metres, 3.3% U3O8 over 13.5 metres, and 6.2% U3O8 over 2.5 m) on an approximate 25 metre spacing, with the objective of adding indicated or inferred resources to the Gryphon deposit. The summer 2017 results, as provided in Table 1, include thick and high-grade intersections in all directions, which indicate continued expansion of this high-grade mineralization. The mineralized zone remains open in numerous areas and now occurs over an area of approximately 70 meters along strike and 200 meters along dip, with interpreted true thicknesses varying between approximately 2 and 20 metres.

To date, the delineation drilling within the D series lenses (on a 25 metre spacing), has only tested approximately 50 to 70 metres of strike length within the D series plane. A further approximate 250 metres of known D series lenses strike remains to be evaluated at this tighter drill spacing. Furthermore, the D series lenses remain completely open to the northeast and southwest.

Additional Extension of the A Series Lenses

Drill hole WR-638D4, which was primarily designed to test for D series mineralization, intersected 1.5% eU3O8 over 4.6 metres indicating further expansion of the A series lenses in the up-dip direction. This result builds on previous expansion drill results for that area, which include 1.7% eU3O8 over 8.6 metres in drill hole WR-582D3 (see Denison's Press Release dated July 24, 2017).

Drill hole WR-682D1, which was completed approximately 25 metres down-dip of the current resources estimated for the A series lenses, intersected 1.3% eU3O8 over 3.6 metres. This result indicates further expansion of the A series lenses in that area.

A, B, and C Series Infill and Delineation Nearing Completion

Infill and delineation drilling at Gryphon continues, with the objective of bringing the inferred resources estimated for the deposit to an indicated level of confidence. In total, 38 infill and delineation drill holes have been completed with a further four holes remaining.

The results within the A and B series lenses continue to show good consistency with the current inferred block model. Most notable is the result in drill hole WR-572D1, which returned a mineralized interval of 1.3% eU3O8 over 21.8 metres, including 3.9% eU3O8 over 5.3 metres, which represents a significant expansion of the mineralized extents of the A and B series lenses in the central portion of the deposit, indicating potential for resource growth in that area of the deposit.

Although drilling has confirmed the continuity of mineralization along the C series plane, the grades returned from preliminary radiometric equivalent probe results have been lower than what was expected when compared to the current inferred block model. This possibly suggests a different structural control on the C series lens mineralization and further infill drilling is expected to test this scenario.

Illustrative Figures

A plan map of the Gryphon A, B, C, D and E series lenses is provided in Figure 1. The inset on Figure 1 shows a schematic cross section of the A, B, C, D and E series lenses and their respective inclined longitudinal section windows (as shaded rectangles). Figures 2 to 6 provide inclined longitudinal sections of the Gryphon A, B, C, D and E series lenses respectively.

The mineralized lenses which occur in the A series plane, immediately below the unconformity, and along strike to the northeast of the Gryphon deposit have now been designated E series lenses and coloured purple. The modelled mineralized lenses shown in Figures 1 to 6 are defined using a 0.05% U3O8 grade shell and minimum thickness of two metres and have been updated following receipt of the winter 2017 assay results. There is no certainty that the modelled mineralized lenses shown will constitute future mineral resources and they may be subject to modifications as further drilling data becomes available.

Further details regarding the Gryphon deposit and the current mineral resource estimates are provided in the NI 43-101 Technical Report for the Wheeler River project titled "Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Wheeler River Uranium Project, Saskatchewan, Canada" dated April 8, 2016 with an effective date of March 31, 2016. A copy of this report is available on Denison's website and under its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml.

Detailed Radiometric Equivalent Probe Results

The following tables provide the radiometric equivalent probe results from the additional 17 drill holes completed during the summer 2017 exploration program at Wheeler River.

Table 1: Radiometric equivalent probe results for drill holes targeting the Gryphon D and E series lenses

From Length eU3O8(%) Lens Section Drill Hole (m) To (m) (m)5 (1,2,4) Designation(6) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5175GP WR-694 566.3 567.3 1.0 0.11 E Series and 571.5 572.5 1.0 0.10 E Series and 708.5 709.5 1.0 0.27 D Series and 717.8 720.5 2.7 0.62 D Series including(3) 719.4 720.4 1.0 1.0 D Series and 722.8 726.5 3.7 4.8 D Series including(3) 723.0 725.5 2.5 7.0 D Series and 727.1 728.1 1.0 0.10 D Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5200GP WR-689D2 545.8 547.2 1.4 0.32 E Series and 564.8 565.8 1.0 0.46 E Series and 628.3 629.3 1.0 0.28 A Series and 675.0 676.0 1.0 0.23 D Series and 679.8 680.9 1.1 1.0 D Series and 686.9 689.4 2.5 0.55 D Series including(3) 688.3 689.3 1.0 1.1 D Series and 694.0 695.0 1.0 1.2 D Series and 697.8 698.8 1.0 2.3 D Series WR-689D3 538.5 540.8 2.3 0.44 E Series and 547.4 552.1 4.7 5.0 E Series including(3) 548.9 551.6 2.7 8.5 E Series and 565.4 566.4 1.0 0.20 D Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5225GP WR-690D1 617.8 619.2 1.4 0.17 A Series and 695.2 697.2 2.0 0.48 D Series and 717.9 719.9 2.0 1.5 D Series including(3) 717.9 718.9 1.0 2.8 D Series and 724.0 725.0 1.0 6.4 D Series WR-650D1 671.1 672.2 1.1 0.30 A Series and 676.1 677.1 1.0 0.21 A Series WR-690D2 565.5 567.0 1.5 0.88 E Series including(3) 565.9 566.9 1.0 1.2 E Series and 664.7 665.7 1.0 0.20 D Series and 668.5 669.5 1.0 0.11 D Series and 686.4 687.4 1.0 0.53 D Series and 694.4 695.4 1.0 0.10 D Series and 700.9 701.9 1.0 0.57 D Series and 711.0 714.7 3.7 3.8 D Series including(3) 711.2 714.5 3.3 4.2 D Series and 717.9 721.4 3.5 0.36 D Series WR-690D3 558.8 560.2 1.4 1.2 E Series including(3) 559.1 560.1 1.0 1.6 E Series and 573.0 574.0 1.0 0.75 E Series and 656.9 657.9 1.0 0.12 D Series WR-654D1 723.9 725.8 1.9 0.70 D Series including(3) 724.6 725.6 1.0 1.0 D Series and 733.0 734.0 1.0 0.12 D Series and 738.8 739.8 1.0 0.11 D Series and 745.2 746.4 1.2 4.3 D Series including(3) 745.4 746.4 1.0 5.1 D Series and 760.5 761.5 1.0 0.18 D Series WR-638D4 710.6 715.2 4.6 1.5 A Series including(3) 712.4 715.0 2.6 2.5 A Series and 771.5 774.3 2.8 0.69 D Series including(3) 772.4 773.4 1.0 1.3 D Series and 776.5 777.5 1.0 0.46 D Series and 786.1 787.9 1.8 3.3 D Series including(3) 786.7 787.8 1.1 5.1 D Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5250GP WR-657D1 567.1 568.6 1.5 0.22 E Series and 587.0 588.0 1.0 0.12 E Series and 708.2 713.4 5.2 2.0 D Series including(3) 708.6 711.7 3.1 3.1 D Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes: 1. eU3O8 is radiometric equivalent U3O8 from a calibrated total gamma downhole probe. eU3O8 results are preliminary in nature and all mineralized intervals will be sampled and submitted for chemical U3O8 assay. 2. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 0.1% eU3O8 unless otherwise indicated. 3. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 1.0% eU3O8. 4. Composites are compiled using 1.0 metre minimum ore thickness and 2.0 metres maximum waste 5. As the drill holes are oriented steeply toward the northwest the true thickness of both the basement and inconformity mineralization is expected to be approximately 75% of the intersection lengths (the basement mineralization is interpreted to dip moderately to the southeast and the unconformity mineralization is interpreted to be flat- lying). 6. Drill holes targeting the D and E series lens mineralization, in some cases, also intersect mineralization in the A and/or B and/or C stratigraphic horizons outside of the Gryphon resource area.

Table 2: Radiometric equivalent probe results for Gryphon deposit A, B, C infill, delineation and expansion drill holes

From Length eU3O8(%) Lens Section Drill Hole (m) To (m) (m)(5) (1,2,4) Densignation(6) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4925GP WR-572D2 649.6 655.8 6.2 0.41 A Series including(3) 654.5 655.5 1.0 1.3 A Series and 690.3 691.3 1.0 0.55 B Series and 703.8 706.4 2.6 0.25 C Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4950GP WR-682D1 728.7 729.7 1.0 0.14 A Series and 758.6 759.6 1.0 0.12 A Series and 761.6 765.2 3.6 1.3 A Series including(3) 763.0 764.4 1.4 2.8 A Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4975GP WR-572D1 631.3 632.3 1.0 0.15 A Series and 638.2 639.2 1.0 0.10 A Series and 639.5 661.3 21.8 1.3 A Series including(3) 650.7 651.9 1.2 2.5 A Series including(3) 654.9 660.2 5.3 3.9 A Series and 682.8 691.4 8.6 0.48 B Series and 687.6 688.6 1.0 1.7 B Series and 690.2 691.2 1.0 1.2 B Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5025GP WR-564D2 720.5 721.5 1.0 0.37 A Series and 730.7 732.4 1.7 0.38 A Series and 735.5 739.4 3.9 1.8 A Series including(3) 737.0 739.0 2.0 3.2 A Series and 757.7 758.7 1.0 0.22 B Series WR-568D2 755.7 757.7 2.0 0.20 C Series WR-564D3 707.1 708.1 1.0 0.18 A Series and 713.4 714.4 1.0 0.14 A Series and 716.3 721.7 5.4 5.8 A Series including(3) 717.9 720.7 2.8 11.0 A Series and 741.4 746.8 5.4 0.61 B Series including(3) 741.7 742.7 1.0 1.04 B Series including(3) 745.4 746.4 1.0 1.36 B Series and 749.7 750.7 1.0 0.16 B Series and 757.9 763.1 5.2 0.30 C Series and 767.3 768.3 1.0 0.36 C Series and 770.4 771.4 1.0 1.5 C Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5075GP WR-568D1 728.1 734.2 6.1 0.17 A Series and 739.9 743.9 4.0 0.16 B Series ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes: 1. eU3O8 is radiometric equivalent U3O8 from a calibrated total gamma downhole probe. eU3O8 results are preliminary in nature and all mineralized intervals will be sampled and submitted for chemical U3O8 assay. 2. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 0.1% eU3O8 unless otherwise indicated. 3. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 1.0% eU3O8. 4. Composites are compiled using 1.0 metre minimum ore thickness and 2.0 metres maximum waste 5. As the drill holes are oriented steeply toward the northwest and the basement mineralization is interpreted to dip moderately to the southeast, the true thickness of the mineralization is expected to be approximately 75% of the intersection lengths. 6. Drill holes targeting the A, B and C series lens mineralization, in some cases, also intersect mineralization in the D and/or E stratigraphic horizons outside of the Gryphon resource area.

Qualified Persons and Data Quality

Dale Verran, MSc, P.Geo, Pr.Sci.Nat., Denison's Vice President, Exploration, who is a Qualified Person in accordance with the requirements of NI 43-101 has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this release. The Company currently reports preliminary radiometric equivalent grades ("eU3O8"), derived from a calibrated downhole total gamma probe, during its exploration programs and subsequently reports definitive assay grades following sampling and chemical analysis of the mineralized drill core. Radiometric equivalent probe results are subject to verification procedures by qualified persons employed by Denison prior to disclosure. For further details on the total gamma downhole probe methods employed by Denison, QAQC procedures and data verification procedures please see Denison's Annual Information Form dated March 23, 2017 filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).

About Wheeler River

Wheeler River is the largest undeveloped high-grade uranium project in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin region, in northern Saskatchewan. The project is a joint venture between Denison (60% and operator), Cameco Corp. ("Cameco") (30%), and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited ("JCU") (10%), and is host to the high-grade Gryphon and Phoenix uranium deposits discovered by Denison in 2014 and 2008, respectively. The Gryphon deposit is hosted in basement rock and is currently estimated to contain inferred resources of 43.0 million pounds U3O8 (above a cut-off grade of 0.2% U3O8) based on 834,000 tonnes of mineralization at an average grade of 2.3% U3O8. The Phoenix unconformity deposit is located approximately 3 kilometres to the southeast of Gryphon and is estimated to include indicated resources of 70.2 million pounds U3O8 (above a cut-off grade of 0.8% U3O8) based on 166,000 tonnes of mineralization at an average grade of 19.1% U3O8, and is the highest grade undeveloped known uranium deposit in the world.

On April 4th, 2016, Denison announced the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the Wheeler River Project, which considers the potential economic merit of co-developing the high-grade Gryphon and Phoenix deposits as a single underground mining operation. The PEA returned a base case pre-tax Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 20.4% based on the current long term contract price of uranium (US$44.00 per pound U3O8), and Denison's share of estimated initial capital expenditures ("CAPEX") of CAD$336M (CAD$560M on 100% ownership basis). Exploration results from the subsequent drilling programs have not been incorporated into the resource estimate or the PEA. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. On July 19th, 2016 Denison announced the initiation of a Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") for the Wheeler River property and the complimentary commencement of an infill drilling program at the Gryphon deposit to bring the inferred resources to an indicated level of confidence.

As previously announced on January 10, 2017, Denison has entered into an agreement with its Wheeler River Joint Venture partners, Cameco and JCU, to fund 75% of Joint Venture expenses in 2017 and 2018 (ordinarily 60%) in exchange for an increase in Denison's interest in the project to up to approximately 66%. Under the terms of the agreement, Cameco will fund 50% of its ordinary 30% share in 2017 and 2018, and JCU is expected to continue to fund its 10% interest in the project.

About Denison

Denison is a uranium exploration and development company with interests focused in the Athabasca Basin region of northern Saskatchewan, Canada. In addition to its 60% owned Wheeler River project, which hosts the high-grade Phoenix and Gryphon uranium deposits, Denison's exploration portfolio consists of numerous projects covering approximately 359,000 hectares in the Athabasca Basin region, including 340,000 hectares in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin. Denison's interests in Saskatchewan also include a 22.5% ownership interest in the McClean Lake joint venture ("MLJV"), which includes several uranium deposits and the McClean Lake uranium mill, which is currently processing ore from the Cigar Lake mine under a toll milling agreement, plus a 25.17% interest in the Midwest deposit and a 63.63% interest in the J Zone deposit on the Waterbury Lake property. Both the Midwest and J Zone deposits are located within 20 kilometres of the McClean Lake mill.

Denison is also engaged in mine decommissioning and environmental services through its Denison Environmental Services division and is the manager of Uranium Participation Corp., a publicly traded company which invests in uranium oxide and uranium hexafluoride.

Follow Denison on Twitter @DenisonMinesCo

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information", within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar Canadian legislation concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of Denison.

Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes", or the negatives and/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". In particular, this press release contains forward-looking information pertaining to the following: exploration (including drilling) and evaluation activities, plans and objectives; potential mineralization of drill targets; the estimates of Denison's mineral resources and the results of its PEA; and Denison's percentage in its properties and its plans and agreements with its joint venture partners, as applicable; and Denison's percentage in its properties and its plans and agreements with its joint venture partners, as applicable. Statements relating to "mineral reserves" or "mineral resources" are deemed to be forward-looking information, as they involve the implied assessment, based on certain estimates and assumptions that the mineral reserves and mineral resources described can be profitably produced in the future.

Forward looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made, and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Denison to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Denison believes that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be accurate and may differ materially from those anticipated in this forward looking information. For a discussion in respect of risks and other factors that could influence forward-looking events, please refer to the factors discussed in Denison's Annual Information Form dated March 23, 2017 under the heading "Risk Factors". These factors are not, and should not be construed as being exhaustive. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking information contained in this press release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Any forward-looking information and the assumptions made with respect thereto speaks only as of the date of this press release. Denison does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this press release to conform such information to actual results or to changes in Denison's expectations except as otherwise required by applicable legislation.

Cautionary Note to United States Investors Concerning Estimates of Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources: This press release may use the terms "measured", "indicated" and "inferred" mineral resources. United States investors are advised that while such terms are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission does not recognize them. "Inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. United States investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of measured or indicated mineral resources will ever be converted into mineral reserves. United States investors are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource exists, or is economically or legally mineable.

To view Figures 1 through 6, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1101638_Denison_figures1.pdf

Contacts:

David Cates

President and Chief Executive Officer

(416) 979-1991 ext. 362



Sophia Shane

Investor Relations

(604) 689-7842



Follow Denison on Twitter

@DenisonMinesCo




A pair of court rulings has shot down challenges by a range of solar manufacturers related to the details of 2014 import duties on solar products from China and Taiwan.The anti-dumping and anti-subsidy (CVD) rulings in 2012 and 2014 which imposed tariffs on solar products from China and later Taiwan were highly unpopular with a wide swath of the global solar industry, including those manufacturers who used components imported from the two countries. But while the duties themselves are hard to challenge in court, solar companies have taken aim at a series of scoping rulings by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) which strictly defined the solar cells and modules to which the tariffs applied. This challenge officially came to an end last Friday, with Judge Claire Kelly of the Court of International Trade upholding DOC's scoping rules in two separate decisions. These found that while modules made with Taiwanese cells should be subject to duties no matter where the final assembly took place, that tariffs should also apply to any solar modules whose final assembly was in China, no matter where the components came from. This may be the broadest scope possible under the trade rulings, and is a departure from the previous "2 out of 3" rule. This rule stated that for such modules to be considered made in China, that a substantial portion of the parts - two out of three components - would need to have been produced there. The 2 out of ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - QEP Resources, Inc. (QEP) announced its subsidiary, QEP Energy Company, has entered into two definitive agreements to sell natural gas assets in southwest Wyoming for combined proceeds of $777.5 million. The first agreement provides for the sale of all of QEP's assets in the Pinedale Anticline field in Sublette County, Wyoming, for a purchase price of $740.0 million to Pinedale Energy Partners, LLC, an affiliate of Oak Ridge Natural Resources, LLC. In a separate deal, the company closed the sale of certain non-core natural gas assets in southern Wyoming to an undisclosed buyer on June 30, 2017. The purchase price was $37.5 million. Chuck Stanley, CEO of QEP, stated: 'As we continue to evolve as a company, these transactions are a necessary next step in simplifying our asset portfolio and delivering significant financial proceeds that will further strengthen our balance sheet and help fund future development projects and acquisition opportunities.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/24/17 -- Total Energy Services Inc. ("Total") (TSX: TOT) will conduct a conference call and webcast following the release of its financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2017. The financial results will be released prior to the conference call. Daniel Halyk, President and CEO, will host the call.

Open to: Shareholders and other interested persons Date: August 11, 2017 Time: 9:00 a.m. (Mountain Time) Call: (800) 806-5484 or (416) 340-2217 Passcode: 7958945#

A live webcast of the conference call will be accessible on Total's website at www.totalenergy.ca by selecting "Webcasts".

Shortly after the live webcast, an archived version will be available on Total's website. A recording of the conference call will also be available until September 11, 2017 by dialling (800) 408-3053, passcode 5805165#.

Total is a growth oriented energy services corporation involved in contract drilling services, rentals and transportation services, well servicing and the fabrication, sale, rental and servicing of natural gas compression and process equipment. The common shares of Total are listed and trade on the TSX under the symbol "TOT".

The Toronto Stock Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved of the information contained herein.

Contacts:

Total Energy Services Inc.

Yuliya Gorbach

Vice-President Finance and Chief Financial Officer

(403) 216-3920

investorrelations@totalenergy.ca

www.totalenergy.ca




According to the Complaint, during the Class Period, CenturyLink made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: that the Company's policies allowed its employees to add services or lines to accounts without customer permission, resulting in millions of dollars in unauthorized charges; that revenues were unsustainable and the product of illicit conduct; that such conduct was likely to subject CenturyLink to heightened regulatory scrutiny; and that as a result of the above, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. Following this news, CenturyLink's stock price fell materially, which harmed investors according to the Complaint.

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.
Dow Schofield Watts Angels, a Leeds, UK-based new business angel network which aims to boost investment in the technology sector of North of England, has attracted over 50 potential investors and almost 40 companies within its first month.

Similar to those in Scotland and Cambridge, the network is now targeting 5m of investment into high-growth tech businesses over the next three years. The network brings together early-stage companies with experienced entrepreneurs who can provide investment, mentoring and support.

Led by David Smith of independent advisory firm Dow Schofield Watts, it was launched in June with support from a number of high-profile Northern entrepreneurs including Bill Ainscough of Wainhomes, Nick Bate of SSP Holdings and Nasstar, Richard Law of GB Group and Zuto, Peter Mansfield of Deko and Call Credit, and Anthony Molloy of Daisy Group.

Since then, it has received over 50 applications from potential investors and almost 40 requests for funding from early-stage technology firms.

FinSMEs

24/07/2017
Daniel Palmer, Becky Palmer, and family Daniel Palmer and family Daniel Palmer, Becky Palmer, and family Left to Right, Todd Smith, Catherine Smith, Becky Palmer, Daniel Palmer, Cheryl Beach, Connie Woody, Marty Woody Previous Next

Corporal Daniel Palmer (USMC ret.) proudly served with the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.

In 2010, while on patrol in Marjah, Afghanistan, his life changed forever when Cpl. Palmer stepped on an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). As a result of the blast, he lost his right leg and sustained other life-altering injuries. Chattanooga-based Honoring the Sacrifice Foundation surprised the Palmer family when they presented him with a gently-used 2013 Toyota Sienna.

According to Honoring the Sacrifice Board President Todd Smith, this van will provide much needed, safe and reliable transportation for Cpl.



To learn more about the Honoring the Sacrifice Foundation, go to its web site atwww.honoringthesacrifice.org.
New Delhi: Post demonetisation, there has been a visible channelising of money towards financial assets like insurance and mutual funds, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said on Saturday.

"It will take us many years to understand the outcome of demonetisation. I sense that in financial assets, something has changed as black money transactions are now not easy," Acharya said at the Delhi Economics Conclave 2017 here organised by the Finance Ministry.

"Insurance premium collection is on rise since November. If it continues, it will change the valuation of financial assets," he said.

There has been a non-linear shift since November-December last year, the Deputy Governor noted.

Bond holding is not attractive for tax evasion, he said.

According to Acharya, people earlier a very clear intention to invest black money in real estate and gold.

He said it would take many years to understand the real outcome of the 8 November, 2016 demonitisation.

However, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff, who is presently at the Harvard University, pointed out that demonetisation was flawed in that it phased out high denomination notes overnight.

"Indian demonetisaion was flawed in some respect. My book, 'The Curse of Cash', argues for taking five-seven years to phase out big bills. India did this almost overnight," he said.

Few people realise that it takes six months to one year to print a new currency supply due to technical difficulties in producing counterfeit resistant currency.

India's biggest problem was that it did not have nearly enough new notes in hand to exchange the old ones, Rogoff said.

"My recommendation is to very gradually over 5-7 years eliminate large denomination notes. It is important to move slowly, so to avoid collateral damage," he said.

He argued that some countries had approached demonetisation in a better way like Europe phasing of 500 euro notes, Singapore's discontinuation of $10,000 notes and Australia on discontinuing $100.

However, the Harvard professor said it will take years to judge the full impact of India's demonetisation move in accelerating electronic payments and the larger picture is that the government has done much to promote financial inclusion.

"The basic idea is to make it more difficult for people to carry out large scale transactions in cash for purposes of crime and tax evasion. The case for limiting use of cash is not a moral question but one of regulatory balance. It is important to be able to retain cash for privacy. The question is scale," he said.

"Indian demonetisation might yield long-run benefits but also shows things to avoid," he added.

Supporting government's Aadhaar initiative, Rogoff said that in advanced economies, mandatory biometrics, identification is not likely given concerns about privacy.
New Delhi: Business confidence for the July-September quarter declined 13 percent over the last year as companies are seeing some "teething issues" on their road to compliance with the new GST regime, says a report.

The Dun and Bradstreet Composite Business Optimism Index stood at 72.1 during July-September of 2017, down 13.3 percent from the same period last year.

"Given the scale of the changes, our respondents are factoring into their scores teething issues in the short run, learning the intricacies of the new tax regime, adjusting to the input tax credit and logistics of the GST system," said Manish Sinha, Managing Director  India, Dun and Bradstreet.

While bigger companies are largely ready for the transition, the same cannot be said for SMEs.

"These issues during the survey period could have played a role in dampening business confidence. Further, concerns related to future demand conditions and weak new investment demand could have also operated as binding constraints on business sentiment," Sinha added.

Four out of the six optimism indices have registered a decline over the year-ago period. The score on volume of sales, net profits, new orders and selling prices has declined compared to July-September 2016.

He further noted that short-term issues surrounding GST implementation should fade over the course of the year and production processes would get aligned with the new framework that would help in reviving business confidence since benefits from the GST regime boost the economy's growth and rating prospects.

"Going forward, the progress of monsoon will also be critical in shaping business sentiment and influencing the pace of rural demand," he added.

The index measures the pulse of the business community and is arrived at on the basis of a quarterly survey of business expectations.

For calculating the composite Business Optimism Index (BOI), each of the six parameters -- net sales, net profit, selling prices, new orders, inventories and employee levels -- is assigned a weight. The parameter weights are then applied to these ratios and the results aggregated to arrive at the index.
Mumbai: The cheap 4G handset offer from Reliance Jio is "likely" to help the company add 100 million more subscribers and take its revenue market share to 10 percent by 2018 and help reverse the falling industry revenue trend, says a report.

"Reliance Jio's plan to introduce a cheap 4G handset from September will accelerate Internet adoption and should help reverse the recent decline in telcos' revenue," Fitch said in a note on Monday.

"The cheap handset would add 3-4 percent (or around US $950 million) to annual industry revenue if adopted by at least 100 million subscribers, which appears likely," the report said.

RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani had last weekend told shareholders that the company would introduce handsets with an "effective" price of Re 0 where the customers will have to pay a refundable deposit of Rs 1,500 to get a smartphone with an 4G connection.

Fitch said the handset will attract first-time 4G users and help Jio gain revenue market share. Jio handset is likely to quickly replace 2G handsets in rural areas, where smartphones had previously been out of reach for many potential customers, it said, adding the country's Internet-adoption rate is among lowest in Asia-Pacific on high prices and a lack of fixed-broadband networks in rural areas.

The agency said the industry revenue declined 15.6 percent on a year-on-year basis to US $6.1 billion for the March 2017 quarter and added that the monthly tariff of Rs 153 is 50 percent above the current average revenue per rural user which should help industry revenue.

"Jio is likely to boost its revenue market share from 3-4 percent to over 10 percent in 2018. We expect most of this increase to come from new revenue generated by the expansion of the 4G market," it said.

The monthly tariff will impact revenue market share of incumbents such as Bharti Airtel, but the older companies can also benefit through this as Jio's moves can help raise data usage and average spending across the market.

Despite this move, the agency retained its negative outlook on the sector, which has been impacted hugely by the entry of Jio.

"Jio is likely to roll out other offers to increase its subscriber base over the next two years, and incumbents are likely to continue to respond with price cuts, discounts and promotions of their own," the report said, adding Jio's revenue market share is lower on aggressive pricing.

(Disclosure - Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)
The evidence that the noble-sounding Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, popularly known at the RTE Act, is a flawed and ineffective piece of legislation keeps on mounting.

As if the Annual Status of Education Report 2016 (ASER 2016), published by Pratham, showing that attendance as well as learning levels had deteriorated since the Act came into force werent enough, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the implementation of the Act not only confirms this, but also outs an open secret  the irregularities and corruption that the Act gives rise to.

Of course, it doesnt use the 'C' word but the signals are pretty clear to any discerning person used to the ways of babudom. The report also confirms the ASER findings and shows that the Act may not be getting all children into school, which is why it was legislated in the first place.

The fact that the RTE Act has given rise to new sources of corruption  recognition/de-recognition of schools, compliance with infrastructure norms and reimbursement of fees for students from poor backgrounds  is well-known. It just wasnt spoken about openly. But it can no longer be brushed under the carpet now.

Take the issue of reimbursement. Section 12 of the Act requires private unaided recognised schools to reserve 25 percent of seats for students from economically weaker sections. They are to get reimbursed for this. The CAG report points to several cases of excessive or irregular reimbursements.

In Bihar, a total of Rs 1.18 crore was reimbursed to 90 unrecognised schools. In Madhya Pradesh, 303 unrecognised schools were reimbursed Rs 1.01 crore. In Karnataka, 124 schools were reimbursed Rs 80 lakh in excess; the reimbursement covered expenditure heads that were not allowed. In Uttarakhand, Rs 19 lakh was reimbursed to 14 madarsas though schools imparting religious education are not covered by the Act. Could all this have not happened without palms being greased?

Sure, thats really loose change, compared to the levels of corruption one is used to hearing about. But, one, these just relate to the selected districts in states that the CAG audited and, two, the trivial amounts do not  and should not - detract from the fact that RTE Act is encouraging corruption.

There were also cases of schools who should have been reimbursed not getting their money because they had reportedly not completed the necessary paperwork. In both Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, the CAG found the amount irregularly lying in the savings bank accounts of the relevant authorities. Talk to schools across the country and there will be a flood of stories about how reimbursements are delayed or denied if there are no kickbacks.

The CAG report found many instances of schools continuing to function without recognition. In two districts of Chhattisgarh, for example, 70 schools had been recommended for de-recognition; only 12 had been de-recognised. In the audited districts of Gujarat, 2,502 schools and in Kerala, 1,666 schools were functioning without recognition. In one district of Uttarakhand 109 schools were functioning without recognition. Is this possible without money exchanging hands?

One of the conditions for recognition is compliance with certain stipulated infrastructure and pupil-teacher ratio norms. Thousands of schools have been shut down for not complying with these provisions.

According to data from the National Independent Schools Alliance, over 4,000 schools were shut in 2015 and another 3,300-odd in the January-October 2016 period (the last period for which data is

available).

Does that mean all recognised and government schools adhere to the norms? This is what the CAG report found: in Chandigarh a government school building had major cracks in the beams, making it

unsafe; in Tripura one school was functioning from an anganwadi centre since 2004, and another was functioning out of a bamboo shed; in Puducherry, 17 schools did not have a playground, in another classes were being held in a dilapidated kitchen; in Tamil Nadu, schools were being run in dilapidated buildings, in building with asbestos roofs and in one, classes were being held in the corridors. In Uttar Pradesh, 105 schools had no buildings and 403 were being run in dilapidated buildings.

The RTE stipulates a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:30 within three years of the Act coming into force. So, by March 2013, all schools should have had one teacher for every 30 students. The Act also bars single-teacher schools. This is supposed to ensure students get better attention and learning levels improve.

The reality: the CAG report shows that these norms were not being followed in several states. In Chattisgarh in 2015-16, 14 percent primary schools and 15 percent upper primary schools had an adverse pupil-teacher ratio. In Bihar, the ratio was in the 50-60 per student range. In Andhra Pradesh, 16 percent upper primary schools and 5 percent primary schools had an adverse pupil-teacher ratio.

Single-teacher schools functioned in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu - with the number ranging from a low 1 percent in Bihar to 14-15 percent in Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

If it has failed in all this, has the RTE Act succeeded in its main objective  ensuring that all children go to school because it is their fundamental right to do so? Well, mining data from the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), the CAG report shows that the net enrolment ratio (NER) in primary education (Class 1-V) has declined steadily from 96 percent in 2012-13 to 87.3 percent in 2015-16. (The NER is the enrolment in a state of education as a percentage of children in the relevant school age range). The NER in upper primary (Class VI-VIII) also fell steadily from 73.7 percent in 2012-13 to 72.48 percent in 2014-15, though it has gone up to 74.74 percent in 2015-16.

But how will governments get children into school when they dont know how many are out of school? The CAG report also shows that most state governments are clueless about the number of children in the zero to 14 years age group, those attending schools, those not in schools. Rule 10 of the RTE Rules requires state governments to conduct regular household surveys to get this information. However, 21 states had not done so.

Ensuring universal elementary education is an ideal that every country must strive towards. Indias record in this is way behind many smaller economies. It is ranked 135 in education index of the World Banks Human Development Index, below Tajikistan, Vanuatu, Guatemala, Guyana and Kyrgyztan, to name a few. The education index is calculated using the mean years of schooling ad expected years of schooling. The mean years of schooling in the case of India is 6.3 against 10 in Tajikistan and Kyrgyztan and 8.4 in Guyana. This cannot be the springboard for sustained higher growth rates with this record.

The Right to Education is not the, well, right way to ensure a sound foundation for an educated society. Critics had always pointed out that all it does is perpetuate inspector raj and concomitant corruption in education. The CAG report confirms this.
Mumbai: Leading the charts, Maharashtra has emerged as one of the most dynamic states contributing towards skill development in the country.

According to the data for various programmes managed by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), as on 30 June, Maharashtra has trained over 10 lakh people across 40 sectors since 2011.

"Skill India mission is a positive step towards creating a skilled and employable workforce, providing better career opportunities to the youth across India. In a recent trend analysis, Maharashtra has emerged as a hub for skill training," NSDC Managing Director and CEO Manish Kumar said.

Maharashtra government has planned to equip 4.5 crore people with employable skills by 2022, as a part of the overall plan of the government.

According to figures, Maharashtra is leading with cumulative training of over 10 lakh employable workforce in the age group of 15-59 years.

Textile and apparels, banking and finance, IT and ITES, textiles, electronics, hardware, beauty and wellness, telecom, gems and jewellery were amongst the top sectors in the state to train for skilling.

Complying with the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), these trainings were executed by private institutions affiliated under the Skill India Mission.

Bridging the skill gap, 75 percent of the trainings were imparted by partners funded by NSDC, it added.

In the last one year, nearly three lakh people have been trained and 45 percent have received employments, it revealed.

The data also showed a positive sign of development in the state, with women comprising 60 percent of the skill trained.

Further, it said Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are the other two prominent states, which have contributed significantly to skilling people across the country.

More than 8.5 lakh people were trained in Uttar Pradesh followed by Tamil Nadu, which has empowered 8.45 lakh people with skill training, across over 1,900 job roles, based on the industry defined standards.
Madhur Bhandarkar's Indu Sarkar seems to have become the flag bearer for films mired in pre-release woes. It's had more than its fair share of controversies  pertaining to the content and treatment  in the days leading up to its theatrical release. Now, theatre owners have come forward and sought government protection during the film's release, according to a recent report by Deccan Chronicle.

Recently, a woman claiming to be the biological daughter of Sanjay Gandhi, son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, approached the Bombay High Court seeking a stay on the film. Before this, the Congress had protested against the film receiving clearance from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), following which, the CBFC asked Bhandarkar to approach the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal. The FCAT will review the film this week, as per the DC report.

Read on Firstpost  Indu Sarkar: CBFC directs Madhur Bhandarkar to approach FCAT after Congress protests

Nitin Datar, president, Cinema Owners and Exhibitors Association of India (COEAI) told Deccan Chronicle, "We have decided to ask the government for security cover to those cinemas which choose to screen the film. If they are unable to safeguard the theatres, we intend to ask government to compensate for damages in the event of unruly elements trying to create problems. We will see what the situation is like after the film is cleared, but the safety of cinemas and audiences is uppermost on our minds. The situation is growing from bad to worse for cinemas and we dont want to take any risks. Madhur Bhandarkar has got protection from the government, but what about the exhibitors? They are the ultimate sufferers."
We all know how life makes surprising twists and turns, taking us to places we never imagined via routes we couldnt have expected. Its almost like asking the question, How do I get to? and getting the reply, You cant get there from here  you have to go somewhere else first.

The path for my career as a writer and editor, for instance, has hardly followed a straight course. Including my college studies, it took me from New Jersey to Houston, Texas; to Columbus, Ohio; to suburban Philadelphia; back to Columbus; then back to Houston; and finally, to Chattanooga, Tenn. It turned into a scenic route no one at AAA or a GPS would have plotted for me.



I was reminded of this while listening to a song by Casting Crowns called, Just Be Held. The lyrics include the refrain, Your worlds not falling apart, its falling into place. Whenever were in the midst of major, unanticipated and unwanted changes, or confronted by times of great hardship or adversity, we can easily buy into the idea that our world is falling apart. But falling into place? Not so much.



And yet, with the wonderful, 20:20 clarity of hindsight, its heartening when we discover that what seemed falling apart at the time was indeed part of Gods grand scheme for making things fall into place. At times, we overuse Romans 8:28, casually applying it like ointment for the wounds life inflicts. But we cant overstate its truth: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.



Its like the Lords way of saying, You may think things are falling apart  but Im using circumstances so that your world will eventually fall into place.



When were young, it might be a romance that ends abruptly, leaving us feeling shattered. Hopes may be dashed when a young persons college of choice fails to extend an invitation to enroll. It could be a much-hoped-for job offer that never comes, or being out of work due to corporate downsizing or other factors beyond ones control. A devastating medical diagnosis that can turn formerly serene lives into seemingly endless chaos. Or after managing to juggle finances from month to month, suddenly finding the pay ends long before the month does.



Many other events can flip lives upside-down. Everything seems to be falling apart, placing us on the brink of despair. At such times, it helps to remember that what appears to be falling apart from our limited perspective could be neatly falling into place  from Gods point of view.



When our lives feel like the light at tunnels end has burned out, in the words of Casting Crowns Just Be Held, we need to remember: So when youre on your knees and answers seem so far away, youre not alone; stop holding on and just be held.



One of my favorite words in the Bible is behold. Its what the angels used when they announced the birth of the Christ child to the shepherds. Its a biblical way of saying, Hey, listen up! So, when life takes a sudden turn, leaving you disoriented and dismayed, remember:



Behold! Let yourself be held by the One youre beholding.

----Robert J. Tamasy is a veteran journalist, former newspaper editor and magazine editor. Bob has written hundreds of magazine articles, and authored, co-authored and edited more than 15 books. These include the newly re-published, Business At Its Best, Tufting Legacies, The Heart of Mentoring, and Pursuing Life With a Shepherds Heart. He edits a weekly business meditation, Monday Manna, which is translated into more than 20 languages and distributed via email around the world by CBMC International. To read more of Bob Tamasys writings, you can visit his blog, www.bobtamasy.blogspot.com, or his website (now being completed), www.bobtamasy-readywriterink.com. He can be emailed at btamasy@comcast.net.
The Kerala High Court denied bail to Mollywood superstar Dileep on Monday, 24 July 2017, in connection with the alleged abduction and assault of a popular Malayalam actress dating to February this year.

With this, not only is Dileep looking at his two-week jail stay being prolonged, but also the loss of his stardom.

Dileep functioned almost as a one-man industry in Mollywood, making it difficult to oust the actor, producer, distributor and theatre owner from the business. However, the Kerala HC's observation that there is prima facie evidence against Dileep, has already damaged his career as an actor.

Kerala High Court rejects Dileep's bail plea in Malayalam actress assault case: 'Proof that actor is kingpin of crime'

While those in the legal fraternity point out that denial of bail should not be taken as the court's verdict, as a celebrity whose career depends on his public reputation, Dileep would find it very difficult to stage a comeback. The mood of the public has been against him and in recent days, has become even more pronounced. The Kerala Police's claim, of having enough evidence against Dileep in the alleged conspiracy to attack the actress, seems to have been validated.

At this juncture, fans and supporters of Dileep will find it difficult to criticise the police's investigations. Any argument through the mainstream press or social media about Dileep's innocence would have few takers at this point. And with reports about a PR company (or companies) being hired by Dileep's team to help defend him on social media being looked into by the police, any support for the actor on these channels would not go un-scrutinised.

Public personalities, like independent MLA PC George who had earlier defended Dileep, are likely to withdraw their support after this latest High Court order.

Dileep dejected?

Local reports have said that after the Kerala HC denied Dileep bail, the actor seemed dejected as his lawyers had expressed confidence in getting a ruling in his favour. The court, while rejecting the bail application, observed that the alleged crime is a serious one. It further accepted the prosecution's argument that if granted bail, the accused might destroy evidence.

Now it is not known how long Dileep will have to stay in jail. As the investigations are still continuing, it is likely that the prosecution will oppose granting him bail before the process is complete. Dileeps manager Appunni, who is wanted by the police, is missing.

Those following the case say police may request custody of Dileep  once they arrest Appunni  to question the duo together. Although Dileep has the option to move the division bench of the High Court or Supreme Court of India for bail, it is time-consuming and if he fails to get bail there, it would further dent his image.

Meanwhile, the situation is getting more complicated for Dileep as other investigating agencies  like the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department  have started looking into his assets. The Kerala Revenue Department is already investigating allegations that the actor's property, D Cinemas in Chalakkudy, Thrissur district, is part of a land grab. The Kerala Lokayukta has served a notice to Dileep over the issue. Dileeps shows organised overseas have also come under the authorities' scanner and the actor will have to provide details of his income to the investigating agencies.

Legal experts pointed out that there is no need for Dileep to lose hope if he is innocent, as the court generally considers the gravity of the charge and prima facie evidence in a case, when deciding on a bail application. If the charge is serious and investigations in the case are ongoing, then chances of receiving bail are very low. Dileep will have a chance to prove his innocence once the trial begins.

Impact on Malayalam film industry

Producers of three Malayalam films with Dileep playing the lead role, which are in different stages of production, will have to bear their losses. It is unlikely that they will be able to release their completed films  or complete those that are in different stages of production.

Dileep  like any accused under Indian law  must be presumed innocent unless the court returns a verdict of 'guilty'. As the investigations continue, there are chances of further twists and turns being revealed. The statement of Congress MLA PT Thomas, who was among the first to call the police after the assault of the actress took place in February, could be crucial. On Monday, 24 July, Thomas' car came under attack. There are also rumours of a gangster connected with the drug mafia being involved in the actress' assault. The police have also not yet recovered the original mobile phone that was used to record the assault on the actress. So how the case will add up once all the evidence is in, remains unclear.

What is clear, is that Dileep will not emerge from this scandal unscathed.
Heart pounding.

That was the second episode of season seven of Game of Thrones for you.

If the premiere episode of this latest season seemed a little too slow-paced for your liking, then this follow-up amped the action right back up.

And such action  albeit not the kind that one might have anticipated!

Dragonstone  episode 1 of Game of Thrones season 7  was named for Daenerys Targaryen and her long-awaited homecoming.

Game of Thrones season 7, episode 1 recap: Winter is here, and so are the Starks

Along with that, it also showed us what our favourite Westerosi lords and ladies were up to: Arya was carrying out mass murder of the Frey family, Sansa and Jon were squabbling like regular siblings, Cersei and Jaime were squabbling like not-so-regular siblings, Samwell Tarly was cleaning out chamberpots and latrines at the Citadel (and in a Harry Potter-ish nod, sneaking into the restricted section of its library), and Euron Greyjoy was promising to bring Cersei a 'gift' that would assure her of his honest intentions. What would that gift be? Long-forgotten Gendry jumping out of a cake, as New Yorker wondered in its review?

Well, no.

The answer to that question comes at the very end of episode two, called 'Stormborn'  also in Daenerys' honour.

(Spoilers ahead.)

We start off at gloomy old Dragonstone, where a storm is raging  much like the one during which Daenerys was born, as Lord Varys reminds her. Dany uses this as an opportunity to question where Varys' loyalties really lie, setting up a speech from the Lord of Whispers that comes close (but not quite) to that 'Chaos is a Ladder' exchange with Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish all the way back in season three.

The scene then shifts to a meeting  the first of many significant ones through this episode  that will set up that epic moment fans are waiting for: the Jon-Dany meet-up.

Melisandre  she of the red robe wearing, flame vision seeing, child sacrificing ways  has found her way to Dany's throne room. Here, she tells Dany of the 'long night' and the 'prince or princess who was promised (big reveal: High Valyrian doesn't have a gender-specific word for prince/princess), who will bring the dawn'. Cue the mention of Jon Snow  King in the North  who Tyrion also vouchsafes for. An owl  sorry, one means a raven!  is promptly dispatched, asking Jon to present himself at Dragonstone.

Meanwhile, what is Jon up to, apart from fondly reminiscing about Tyrion with Sansa once he receives the missive from Dragonstone? He must convince his fractious bannermen (and women) that seeking an audience with Dany would be in their best interests. 'They have dragon glass  a whole mountain of it!' (Sam's letter from the Citadel has reached him by now.) 'They have three dragons, and therefore dragon-fire!' Since the North doesn't seem too willing to let go of their King despite these highly persuasive arguments, Jon does what he usually does in these situations  reminds them that they chose him to rule and he's made his decision.

Winterfell Jon bequeaths to the care of Sansa  but not before an altercation with Littlefinger that had us very, very worried. Lord Baelish has been far too content in recent times to skulk about by the sidelines, while casting meaningful glances at Sansa (whose propensity for doing her hair in the style of Cersei circa seasons 1-5 has caused the internet to fret about her trajectory). With Jon out of the way, will this be when Littlefinger makes his move? From the way he's looking at Sansa (much like we look at our screens when GoT is playing), that's very much in the realm of possibility.

Also in the realm of possibility  a Sansa-Arya reunion! She may not get to meet her beloved brother Jon, who's left Winterfell for the rocky shores of Dragonstone, but Arya will certainly run into Sansa once she reaches home. The change in course (last heard, she was telling a group of Lannister soldiers  one of whom looked remarkably like a ginger-haired Cheshire cat  oh wait, that was Ed Sheeran  that she intended to go to King's Landing to kill Cersei) comes about because of a reunion with her old friend Hot Pie, who is engaged in making hot pies (the two friends then exchange notes on pie-making, although Arya's choice of filling  murdered Freys  is perhaps not what Hot Pie usually works with). Hot Pie gives her the good news: 'The Boltons are dead! Jon Snow is King of the North!'  and Arya promptly rides off for Winterfell. But not before she meets her long-lost direwolf Nymeria, in the woods. Will good things happen for Arya at last?

Maybe so, but certainly not for Samwell Tarly, who seems to be destined for a life of grossness at the Citadel while he trains to be a maester for the Night's Watch and provide help and hope to his friend Jon Snow, as the case may be. His particularly gruesome task in this episode is to help clean up Jorah Mormont's greyscale  which means we get subjected to some wonderfully retch-inducing footage of skin being gouged out with a knife. On the upside  Sam may have found a cure for Ser Jorah's condition! (Could we possibly have Sam meet Hermione,/maybe with some nifty time turning-worlds colliding-authors collaborating twist of fate? They'd get along famously we're sure.)

Watch here  Game of Thrones season 7 episode 3 trailer: 'The Queen's Justice' sets up that epic Jon-Dany meeting

Before we forget ourselves, here's the other important stuff from Stormborn. Dany holds counsel with her allies  Yara Greyjoy, Ellaria Sand and Lady Olenna Tyrell  and lays out her battle plan. On the map at least, it seems to be quite the winner. Alas, the best laid plans of the noblest houses seldom come to pass in the Seven Kingdoms.

On their way to gather up the Dornish army for a siege of King's Landing, Yara and Theon are attacked by their uncle/nemesis, Euron Greyjoy. That gift he promised Cersei  we now know what it is (and it's definitely not Gendry, or cake). As he lays waste to Yara's crew and ships and the Sand Snakes, his men hustle along Ellaria from her cabin onto their waiting warship. The future does not look very bright for Ms Sand  quite apart from being a Targaryen ally, there's the little matter of her having poisoned Cersei's daughter Myrcella. Oh Ellaria. Septa Unella might tell you a thing or two about crossing swords with (or ringing bells at) Cersei.

Cersei currently isn't too occupied with thoughts of Ellaria though. She's traipsing about the basements of the Red Keep, with her favourite maester (Qyburn) in tow, as they discuss solutions to a pressing threat: Dany's dragons. Even as wild theories suggest themselves to the viewer's mind  dragons raised from the dead a la the Mountain? More wildfire?  Maester Qyburn unveils a more prosaic weapon: heavy duty artillery. Ooh, that does not look good for Drogon and his siblings.

So all in all, Stormborn hasn't been a win for Dany. Two of her allies are already down for the count, her dragons could be in trouble, and the weather sucks. On the bright side  she seems to be bonding well with Lady Olenna and Jon's on his way. We can't wait to see how that plays out.
In what may come as a major setback to Malayalam actor Dileep, the Kerala High Court on Monday refused to give him bail in the case of alleged abduction and molestation of a popular Malayalam actress in February.

The prosecution opposed the bail plea claiming they have strong evidence against the actor. Dileep is facing charges of criminal conspiracy in the molestation case. However, the Malayalam superstar pleaded innocence and claimed he was being framed in the case. The actor has been booked under several IPC Sections, including 376-D (gangrape), 366 (kidnapping), 212 (wrongful confinement), 120-b (criminal conspiracy).

Opposing the bail plea, Manjeri Sreedharan Nair (Director General of Prosecution) had claimed that evidence gathered by the investigation agency had established that Dileep was the "kingpin" of the crime.

Nair had informed the court that Dileep had given the prime accused Sunil Kumar (alias 'Pulsar' Suni) Rs 10,000, and an additional Rs 1 lakh was reportedly deposited in Suni's mother's account to commit the crime, according to another Manoramaonline report.

It was on 20 July that the actor's bail plea had come up before the high court after the trial court refused him bail. The court had then reserved the judgement after hearing the bail application and the arguments from both sides. On Monday, the court refused the bail.

Dileep's 14-day judicial custody would end on Tuesday. He would be produced before the magistrate. The prosecution argued that Dileep being a high profile celebrity with lot of influence could play tamper with evidence if given bail. They had presented 19 pieces of evidence, including scientific ones, before the court to nail Dileep. Last week, the police probe team voiced confidence that it has enough evidence against Dileep.

AV George, Superintendent of Police and one of the key officials behind the probe said they would not have arrested the actor without evidence. Dileep was presently housed at the Angamaly sub-jail near his hometown Aluva as a remand prisoner.

He was arrested on June 10. The next day he was remanded to 14-day judicial custody for conspiring in the abduction and molestation of a popular actress in February in Kochi. The police had earlier arrested the prime accused Pulsar Suni and his accomplices a week after the incident.

Dileep's manager Appunny and actor-turned-director Nadir Shah were also questioned along with Dileep in June.

Appunny is on the run. He has moved an anticipatory bail which would come up for hearing later in the week.

Dileep was arrested in connection with the abduction and assault of an actress.

t was earlier reported that Kerala High Court has posted the bail hearing case of Malayalam superstar Dileep for 24 July. Now, the high court has denied bail to the actor which means that Dileep will remain in police custody.

With inputs from agencies
Kerala police has arrested Kiran Kumar, a production executive from Ottappalam, after Malayalam actress Mythili filed a complaint against him for posting inapprorpiate photographs of her on social media sites, according to a Times of India report.

The police has reportedly confirmed that Kumar has been arrested post the complaint that was filed by the Mollywood actress. The two have been friends since 2008. However, Mythili ended their relationship once she got to know that Kumar was married and had a family.

Kumar allegedly blackmailed Mythili and started demanding money from her (a reported sum of Rs 75 lakh according to a News Minute report). He then reportedly started threatening to upload inappropriate photographs of the actress from back when they were in a relationship together, if she refused to meet his demands, according to a report by India.com.

Initially, ignoring these demands, Mythili turned a deaf ear to Kumar's threats. However, the production executive made good on his ultimatum and posted several inappropriate photographs of the actress online, which instantly went viral and got all the wrong kind of attention. The pictures were circulated on Facebook and Whatsapp, after which Mythili felt it was time to lodge a police complaint.

Preliminary inquiry revealed that a few other people were also involved in spreading the photographs on social networking sites. They would also be arrested," said Ernakulam Assistant Commissioner K Laljy according to the same India.com report

Kumar has been booked under sections 354 (assault or use of criminal force on a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66 (A) of the IT Act according to the same News Minute report.
Kollywood actor Dhanush recently walked out of an interview with an anchor from the TV 9 Telugu channel while he was promoting his upcoming movie with Kajol titled Vellai Illa Pattadhari 2 aka VIP 2. The actor was directly asked probing questions about the Suchitra leaks controversy that he had been embroiled in earlier this year, resulting in Dhanush storming out in between the interview, according to a report by The Indian Express.

In the last week of February 2017, a major controversy rocked Kollywood when popular RJ Suchi (Suchitra Karthik) alleged that she had been manhandled by actor Dhanush's team.

The talk over the incident had just begun to die down, when in a fresh twist, private photos  of Dhanush, his friend Anirudh Ravichander (the 'Kolaveri Di' composer), and actresses Andrea, Hansika Motwani, and Trisha Krishnan  were shared on Suchitra's Twitter account.

In the video of the controversial interview that was released by the channel, we see the interviewer ask Dhanush about the "the kind of mental agony" he underwent, to which Dhanush immediately replied "who said I went through mental agony?".

The lady that interviewed him went so far as to ask if his "family life was at stake?". The actor initially looked like he had been caught off-guard. However, that feeling soon changed to anger as Dhanush parroted the ridiculous personal questions that the host was relentlessly asking, before angrily storming off as he claimed that this was "a very stupid interview".

Before dipping her feet into the Suchi leaks question, the interviewer asked Dhanush about his take on the drug scandal that had rocked the Telugu film industry lately, to which he replied that his general knowledge was "zero". The interviewer then moved on to asking about the "allegations" against the actor, and the "videos" that were leaked. The host straight up asked about Suchi leaks and a very baffled, getting angrier-by-the-second Dhanush kept trying to steer the conversation back to "cinema" and VIP 2.

A little while later, Dhanush returned to complete the interview, and this time the conversation revolved strictly around cinema and his upcoming movie.

VIP 2 is slated to release on 28 July.

Watch Dhanush's interview with TV 9 Telugu here



(Also Read: RJ Suchitra tweets Dhanush, Anirudh Ravichander's private photos: What's the story behind #SuchiLeaks)
A National Investigation Agency (NIA) court rejected Kerala's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman Abdul Nasser Madani's plea seeking permission to attend his son's wedding in Thalassery, reports said.

The PDP, however, isn't very happy with the decision. According to Manorama Online, the PDP has called for a hartal in Kerala to be held on Wednesday in protest of this court order.

Madani had submitted the bail plea in order to attend the wedding of his son Umar Mukhthar to be held at Thalassery on 9 August.

According to Matrubhumi, the hartal was announced by PDP state working chairman Poonthura Siraj in a press conference on Monday.

Manorama Online stated that the court has allowed the leader to stay in Kerala from 1 to 7 August. The PDP chairman had sought permission to be in Kerala from 1 to 20 August to also meet his mother who is sick.

A political leader from Kerala, Madani is allegedly linked to several terror activities in India. According to a 2010 report of Hindustan Times, Madani was first arrested on April 8 2000, in connection with the 1998 Coimbatore bombings which had killed 60 people. Madani was imprisoned for eight years, but was released on August 1, 2007 after being acquitted of all charges, the report said.

Madani formed PDP in 1992 after the demolition of Babri Masjid in order to bring Muslim Dalits in the state together.

In June 2009, Madani was charge-sheeted in the 2008 Bangalore blast case, and arrested a year later by the Karnataka police. According to The Times of India, he is suspected to have played a crucial role in explosions in Surat, Mumbai and Delhi. According to Hindustan Times, he is also suspected to have links with banned terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.

With inputs from PTI
Lucknow: A forum working for farmers' welfare in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday demanded the formation of a 'kisaan aayog' in order to assuage the plight of farmers.

Addressing a gathering of farmers in Sitapur's Para village, Shekhar Dixit, head of Rashtriya Kisan Manch, on Saturday said that formation of a farmers commission was the only viable solution to ensure their welfare.

"The problems and plight of farmers will virtually remain the same, unless and until a kisan aayog with constitutional powers is set up," Dixit said.

He said the commission would "save" the agriculture sector.

"Otherwise, Mandsaur-like situation may occur elsewhere in the country," Dixit warned.

Six persons were killed and as many injured in the police action during the farmers stir in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh, last month.

On Wednesday, the Opposition parties had cornered the government in Lok Sabha over the issue of farmer suicides across the nation.

Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh had then insisted that the number of suicides by the farmers have come down in the last two comparative years of 2015 and 2016.

Citing figures of the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), he said in 2015, the number of suicide cases was 12,602 which declined to 11,458 in the successive year.

"The government has taken various measures to double their income by 2022 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is himself monitoring this endeavour," Singh had said in his reply.
Amid deteriorating China-India ties, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is all set to visit China even as Beijing continues to ratchet up its rhetoric against New Delhi on the Doka La standoff.

Doval, who will be travelling to Beijing to attend a BRICS meeting on 27 and 28 July, will be the fourth Indian emissary to be engaging with the Chinese since the tri-junction dispute broke out at the India-China-Bhutan border, spurred by the dispute over a road being built by China. Human resources development minister Prakash Javadekar, minister of state for tourism Mahesh Sharma and health minister JP Nadda have visited China for BRICS-related meetings earlier this month, according to Livemint. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, came face to face with Chinese president Xi Jinping at the BRICS leaders meeting.

However, none of the interactions were as closely watched as Doval's strategic visit, which analysts noted could cool off the increased hostilities.

Ma Jiali, a Chinese analyst who specialises in India-China studies, said: "China would lodge solemn representation with the Indian side during Doval's visit, hoping it could take measures to ease the tension. India may make some requests as a bargaining chip for its pulling out troops," according to Business Standard. Indian side too will keenly watch Doval's visit, as the border standoff escalates in the Northeastern state of Sikkim and the domestic politics warms up around the issue.

However, there's much more underlying importance attached to the NSA's visit than meets the eye, given the stakes involved.

China's unprecedented behaviour

This is not the first time that China and India have come eyeball to eyeball on border disputes. However, the current dispute marks a decisive departure in Chinese behaviour from earlier conflicts (except in 1962, when a full-fledged war broke out). As this Firstpost article argues, China has preferred to settle previous skirmishes through dialogue. This time, however, it has made troop withdrawal a precondition, snubbing Indian efforts to proceed towards a resolution through diplomatic back channels.

China has been insisting that the situation this time "is different" because India has apparently violated its sovereignty by trespassing into 'Chinese territory' across a boundary line that is delimited and settled, unlike the undefined boundary line that loosely represents the LAC.

"This is totally different from the undefined boundary in the east, the middle and the western part. According to the 1890 convention, the Sikkim section has been defined and both China and India have recognised this," Beijing had said.

Besides, the fast escalating rhetoric, thanks to the media on both sides baying for blood, has altered public perception on both sides in a way that political leadership will have domestic repercussions on mind, in case either decides to blink first.

This is also one of the rare occasions in a long time, when the state-run Chinese media and the People's Liberation Army has gone as far as warning India of an all-out war.

High stakes involved

As Doval has pointed out himself in the past that China's military is much more stronger than India; de-escalation of situation is paramount to India's interest. Besides, the already complicated long-standing boundary dispute between the two nations will slide back to square one, in case the relations sour to such an extent. And, as this Firstpost article argues, that there will be huge military and economical repercussions in case of a war for both nations, no matter whichever side wins.

The Chinese side has not only been talking empty rhetoric, but reports suggest that Beijing has also been mobilising troops in Tibet.

In such a scenario, it becomes tantamount that Doval's visit at least lays the groundwork for a dialogue channel as the two nations negotiate their concerns and differences. Besides, Doval, who is also the Special Representative for the India-China border talks, is in the right place to soothe frayed ties.

"Dovals visit is a major opportunity for the two sides to scale down the temperature on the border. He is best placed to achieve the outcome that would satisfy both sides," the Livemint article quoted Harsh Pant, a professor of international relations at the London-based Kings College, as saying.

Doval's hardliner stand on China raises concern

The NSA's views on China come across with some clarity in what has popularly come to be known as the Doval doctrine, (a compilation of his rare public interactions)

The NSA has, on previous occasions, shown a preference for military solutions over ceding ground in compromises. When India's traditional policy in handling border disputes with its neighbours has propagated a defensive approach, it was Doval who pitched the concept of defensive-offensive and offensive foreign policy.

"I would like to develop our relations to such an extent till the time our territorial and integral sovereignty ... we would not able to compromise on it," Doval said.

While Doval's visit to China is being welcomed in China, the NSA's hardline stance on China may come to haunt him during the talks.

The NSA has been especially vary of the 'bottomless territorial hunger.' His views and his reservations about China both gain importance in these times, as the NSA's visit to Beijing could be a make-or-break situation on the ongoing border stalemate.

It will be interesting to see whether Doval sticks to his hardliner approach towards Beijing at a time when China too shows no inclination to compromise. However, if the NSA fails to make significant progress, the consequences may have massive implications for India's geo-political security and the fragile relations with China. As Ma, the Chinese expert also pointed out that if the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the issue, the China-India ties would be severely damaged.
New Delhi: As many as 50 youths in Jammu and Kashmir have joined militant ranks, mostly of Hizbul Mujahideen, so far this year, a home ministry official said.

"Fifty youths in Jammu and Kashmir have joined militant ranks in the first six months of 2017. Most of them have joined Hizbul Mujahideen and belong to south Kashmir," the official said.

More than 50 percent of around 220 active terrorists in Kashmir are Pakistani nationals, another home ministry official said.

According to the home ministry's statistics, 88 Kashmiri youths joined militancy in 2016, the highest in the last six years.

In 2010, 54 Kashmiri youths joined militant ranks. The number came down to 23 in 2011. It further dipped to 21 in 2012 and to 16 in 2013.

The ministry's statistics revealed that 115 terrorists have attempted to enter Jammu and Kashmir from across the border so far this year; 19 of them managed to sneak into the Indian territory.

The data showed that 370 infiltration attempts were made in the state in 2016 in which 119 terrorists entered the country.

In 2015, 121 terrorists attempted to enter the country but only 33 could do so. In 2014, 222 terrorists tried to cross over into the country, but only 65 could do it.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday expressed unhappiness over the probe into the death of an inmate of Byculla prison, saying the Mumbai Police's crime branch is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that it is seen as an "accidental death".

Manju Shetye (45), an inmate of the Byculla women's prison, who was serving a life sentence, died at the government-run JJ Hospital on 23 June night, sparking off a huge protest by over 200 inmates of the prison.

While the inmates alleged that she was assaulted by jail officials, the prison authorities on Monday informed the high court that she died after falling in the toilet.

"Till date, you (crime branch) have left no stone unturned to see to it that it is seen as an accidental death. How can you treat this as accidental death? We have no words to say about your carelessness," a division bench of justices RM Savant and Sadhana Jadhav said.

The high court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Pune resident Pradeep Bhalekar, who has sought that the probe into the death be transferred to an independent agency. The court was also irked with differences in the post-mortem report and death information certificate issued by a doctor of the JJ Hospital.

"The post-mortem report observed injuries on the body of the victim. But the certificate issued by one Vishwesh Rote, doctor of JJ hospital, says 'no obvious external injuries noted'," the bench noted.

"Prima facie we find that the postmortem report and the certificate do not gel. The crime branch should immediately record the statement of the doctors to get a clearer picture," Justice Savant said.

The court, after perusing affidavits filed by the police and jail authorities, said it was not satisfied with the manner and the direction in which the investigation was moving.

"We are not at all happy with the investigation. You (crime branch) should be taking it seriously. Are you shielding someone? Is this how you treat all other cases too?" Justice Jadhav said."This is not just about the death of one person. It is in the larger interest of the society. People are losing faith in the authorities," the judge observed.

The bench directed the crime branch to complete the recording of statement of witnesses and doctors concerned expeditiously and file a status report on 31 July, when the matter will be heard again.
Here is the latest jail booking report from Hamilton County:

ARMOUR, NEAL LAVON

172 SIGNAL HILLS DRIVE CHATTANOOGA, 37405

Age at Arrest: 42 years old

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County

BURGLARY (GENERAL CATEGORY)

---

BEAM, KENNETH HOWARD

2614 LYNDON AVENUE APT A 4 RED BANK, 37415

Age at Arrest: 49 years old

Arresting Agency: Red Bank

ASSAULT ( SIMPLE )

ASSAULT ( SIMPLE )

EVADING ARREST

---

BECKETT, JEREMIAH R

HOMELESS CHATTANOOGA, 37411

Age at Arrest: 37 years old

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

---

CAGLE, MICHAEL W

HOMELESS CHATTANOOGA, 37402

Age at Arrest: 64 years old

Arresting Agency: UTC

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

---

CAPERTON, GEORGE

3726 LOWERY ST.

ATHENS, 373033118Age at Arrest: 55 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaPUBLIC INTOXICATION---CARLUCCIO, RICHARD ALEXANDER214 MARSHALL AVENUE CHATTANOOGA, 37415Age at Arrest: 40 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyPUBLIC INTOXICATIONAGGRAVATED CRIMINAL TRESSPASSFAILURE TO APPEAREVADING ARRESTVANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF---CLARIDY, ELENA NICHOLE140 LEWIS ST APT B SODDY DAISY, 37379Age at Arrest: 31 years oldArresting Agency: Soddy DaisyVANDALISM (UNDER $500)---CONNER, JAMES WALLACE1255 HUDLOW LANE DUNLAP, 37327Age at Arrest: 28 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyBooked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)---COOPER, ALLEN BERNARD4322 SHERRY LANE HIXSON, 37343Age at Arrest: 31 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSEDRIVERS TO EXERCISE DUE CARELEAVING SCENE OF ACCIDENT (PARKED VEHICLE)FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY---COPELAND, DONYEAL SHAWTAY304 LAWS AVENUE CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 38 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyROBBERY (ATTEMPT)---FOSTER, JONATHAN CLEVE522 EAST 52ND STREET CHATTANOOGA, 37410Age at Arrest: 34 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaPOSSESSION OF COUNTERFEIT CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE---GARCIA-DELEON, JULIO DERLIN3113 E 45TH ST CHATTANOOGA, 37407Age at Arrest: 18 years oldArresting Agency: Tenn Highway PatrolDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE---GARRETT, MATTISHA2 E 11TH ST CHATTANOOGA, 374022721Age at Arrest: 32 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaCRIMINAL TRESPASSING---GIL, CARLOS RAMON7701 WIMBERLY DRIVE CHATTANOOGA, 37416Age at Arrest: 50 years oldArresting Agency: CollegedaleBooked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)---GOINS, BRIANNA LEA1263 STONESTHROW WAY SODDY DAISY, 37379Age at Arrest: 24 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDISPENSINGALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE---HATFIELD, BRANDON SCOTT11735 BACKVALLEY RD SODDY DAISY, 37379Age at Arrest: 35 years oldArresting Agency: Soddy DaisyFAILURE TO APPEAR---HAYES, DEVIN ATHEN3900 WILEY AVE EAST RIDGE, 374122130Age at Arrest: 27 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaASSAULT ON E.M.S.ASSAULT ON E.M.S.ASSAULT ON POLICEASSAULT ON POLICERECKLESS ENDANGERMENTRESISTING ARREST OR OBSTRUCTION OF LEGAL PROCESSEVADING ARRESTDISORDERLY CONDUCTIMPROPER TURN (MOTOR VEHICLE)SPEEDINGRECKLESS DRIVINGDRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCEIMPLIED CONSENT LAW - DRIVERSOPEN CONTAINER LAWVIOLATING AUTO REGISTRATION LAWDRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSEDRIVING ON ROADWAYS LANED FOR TRAFFIC, VIOLATIONDRIVING LEFT OF CENTER LINENO PROOF OF INSURANCEASSAULT ON POLICE---HERSTON, GABRIELLE GENIE-MARIE407 A BENTON LANE SODDY DAISY, 37379Age at Arrest: 18 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyTHEFT OF PROPERTY---HICKMAN, HAKEEN O3220 GLEASON DR APT #52 CHATTANOOGA, 37402Age at Arrest: 28 years oldArresting Agency: East RidgeDOMESTIC ASSAULTVIOLATION OF PROBATION (DOMESTIC ASSAULT )---HINDMON, ERIC UNDERWOOD216 SOUTH MOORE RD CHATTANOOGA, 37421Age at Arrest: 36 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaPUBLIC INTOXICATIONCONTROLLED SUBSTANCES SCHEDULE IV---HOLLAND, ERIC CHARLIE1802 WILCOX BLVD CHATTANOOGA, 37406Age at Arrest: 33 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDOMESTIC ASSAULTAGGRAVATED BURGLARY (OCCUPIED HABITATION)VANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF---HUNT, SHERRI LETAY3424 HUGHES AVE. CHATTANOOGA, 37410Age at Arrest: 24 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSEFINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY---JACKSON, BRIAN KEITH315 HILLVIEW DRIVE CHATTANOOGA, 37405Age at Arrest: 22 years oldArresting Agency: Red BankPOSSESSION OF METH (SELL, DEL. OR MANUFACTURING)DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE---JAMES, CALVIN4009 FAGAN ST. APT A CHATTANOOGA, 37407Age at Arrest: 33 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaSIMPLE POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA---JAMES, DEONTE JEREL719 LARKIN AVE CHATTANOOGA, 374112116Age at Arrest: 23 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaAGGRAVATED ASSAULT (DOMESTIC)---JONES, KIVIETTE C3914 DAHLIA ST. CHATTANOOGA, 37421Age at Arrest: 39 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE---LACY, DERRICK ANDREW1703 EAST 12TH CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 34 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaVANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEFVANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF---LEFFEW, SABRINA JEAN15920 POOL ROAD SALE CREEK, 37373Age at Arrest: 33 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyVIOLATION OF PROBATION---LLOYD, PATRICK EARL9413B HIXSON PIKE SODDY DAISY, 37379Age at Arrest: 41 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyDOMESTIC ASSAULT---LONG, ISHMIAL NATHANIEL1800 FEDERL STREET CHATTANOOGA, 37402Age at Arrest: 33 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaASSAULT---MENDOZA, LUIS TOMAS1507 WILLOW ST. CHATTANOOGA, 37408Age at Arrest: 29 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDOMESTIC ASSAULTTHEFT OF PROPERTY---MIGUEL, TOMAS MATIAS1125 MCBRIEN ROAD APT A EAST RIDGE, 37412Age at Arrest: 18 years oldArresting Agency: Tenn Highway PatrolPUBLIC INTOXICATIONDISORDERLY CONDUCT---NELOMS, CARMEN DANELLE900 COUNTY ROAD 950 CALHOUN, 37309Age at Arrest: 27 years oldArresting Agency: Tenn Highway PatrolPOSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCEPOSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCEPOSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIADRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE---SANDERS, SHAWN ROSS2 ABELIA LANE CHATTANOOGA, 37405Age at Arrest: 31 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaAGGRAVATED DOMESTIC ASSAULT---SMITH, LAMARCUS QUINTEZ302 TUNNEL BLVD CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 22 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaFALSE REPORTSEVADING ARRESTPOSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE---STAMPER, YOLANDA FAYEHOMELESS CHATTANOOGA,Age at Arrest: 43 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaAGGRAVATED ASSAULT---STERL, ALLIE MADSON18 CROSSMAN DRIVE RINGGOLD, 30736Age at Arrest: 18 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaTHEFT OF PROPERTY---SUMMEROW, GEORY DWIGHT712 E 49TH ST CHATTANOOGA, 37410Age at Arrest: 45 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaCRIMINAL TRESPASSING---TOMLINSON, ADAM WAYNE322B CAMP JORDAN RD CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 38 years oldArresting Agency: East RidgePOSSESSION OF METH (SELL, DEL. OR MANUFACTURING)FAILURE TO APPEAR---TURNER, WILLIAM EDWARD9114 BRAMLETT ROAD HARRISON, 37341Age at Arrest: 34 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyPOSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA---USHER, FRANK OLIVER101 N HOWELL AVE CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 26 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaEVADING ARRESTDRUGS GENERAL CATEGORY FOR RESALEPOSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCEPOSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIADRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSEFINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY---VAUGHN, FELICIA RENEE430 BOOTH RD CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 26 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaDOMESTIC ASSAULT---WARE, ALEXANDER SOLOMON300 WEST 6TH STREET CHATTANOOGA, 37406Age at Arrest: 29 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaPUBLIC INTOXICATION---WARE, DEON DEWAYNE400 N SEMINOLE DR CHATTANOOGA, 37411Age at Arrest: 20 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaTHEFT OF PROPERTY---WATKINS, NATHAN FARYME839 KEITH VALLEY ROAD SE CLEVELAND, 373238349Age at Arrest: 25 years oldArresting Agency: ChattanoogaPUBLIC INTOXICATION---WILLIAMS, REGINALD GERALD703 DODSON AVENUE CHATTANOOGA, 37406Age at Arrest: 29 years oldArresting Agency: Hamilton CountyCONTEMPT OF COURT

Here are the mug shots:

ARMOUR, NEAL LAVON

Age at Arrest: 42

Date of Birth: 05/03/1975

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

BURGLARY (GENERAL CATEGORY) BECKETT, JEREMIAH R

Age at Arrest: 37

Date of Birth: 03/28/1980

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT CAGLE, MICHAEL W

Age at Arrest: 64

Date of Birth: 12/06/1952

Arresting Agency: UTC



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

CARLUCCIO, RICHARD ALEXANDER

Age at Arrest: 40

Date of Birth: 01/09/1976

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

BURGLARY CLARIDY, ELENA NICHOLE

Age at Arrest: 31

Date of Birth: 12/06/1985

Arresting Agency: Soddy Daisy



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

VANDALISM (UNDER $500) CONNER, JAMES WALLACE

Age at Arrest: 28

Date of Birth: 07/24/1988

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

COOPER, ALLEN BERNARD

Age at Arrest: 31

Date of Birth: 11/18/1985

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

DRIVERS TO EXERCISE DUE CARE

LEAVING SCENE OF ACCIDENT (PARKED VEHICLE)

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY COPELAND, DONYEAL SHAWTAY

Age at Arrest: 38

Date of Birth: 02/11/1979

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

ROBBERY (ATTEMPT) FOSTER, JONATHAN CLEVE

Age at Arrest: 34

Date of Birth: 12/22/1982

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

POSSESSION OF COUNTERFEIT CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE GARCIA-DELEON, JULIO DERLIN

Age at Arrest: 18

Date of Birth: 04/12/1999

Arresting Agency: Tenn Highway Patrol



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE





GARRETT, MATTISHA

Age at Arrest: 32

Date of Birth: 07/15/1985

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

CRIMINAL TRESPASSING GIL, CARLOS RAMON

Age at Arrest: 50

Date of Birth: 10/27/1966

Arresting Agency: Collegedale



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Booked for Previous Charges or Other Reason(s)

GOINS, BRIANNA LEA

Age at Arrest: 24

Date of Birth: 07/07/1993

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DISPENSINGALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE HATFIELD, BRANDON SCOTT

Age at Arrest: 35

Date of Birth: 10/11/1981

Arresting Agency: Soddy Daisy



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

FAILURE TO APPEAR HAYES, DEVIN ATHEN

Age at Arrest: 27

Date of Birth: 03/05/1990

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

ASSAULT ON E.M.S.

ASSAULT ON E.M.S.

ASSAULT ON POLICE

ASSAULT ON POLICE

RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT

RESISTING ARREST OR OBSTRUCTION OF LEGAL PROCESS

EVADING ARREST

DISORDERLY CONDUCT

IMPROPER TURN (MOTOR VEHICLE)

SPEEDING

RECKLESS DRIVING

DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

IMPLIED CONSENT LAW - DRIVERS

OPEN CONTAINER LAW

VIOLATING AUTO REGISTRATION LAW

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

DRIVING ON ROADWAYS LANED FOR TRAFFIC, VIOLATION

DRIVING LEFT OF CENTER LINE

NO PROOF OF INSURANCE

ASSAULT ON POLICE HERSTON, GABRIELLE GENIE-MARIE

Age at Arrest: 18

Date of Birth: 10/03/1998

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

THEFT OF PROPERTY HICKMAN, HAKEEN O

Age at Arrest: 28

Date of Birth: 04/24/1989

Arresting Agency: East Ridge



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

VIOLATION OF PROBATION (DOMESTIC ASSAULT ) HINDMON, ERIC UNDERWOOD

Age at Arrest: 36

Date of Birth: 06/26/1981

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

PUBLIC INTOXICATION

CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES SCHEDULE IV HOLLAND, ERIC CHARLIE

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 02/24/1984

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT

AGGRAVATED BURGLARY (OCCUPIED HABITATION)

VANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF HUNT, SHERRI LETAY

Age at Arrest: 24

Date of Birth: 10/14/1992

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE

FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

JAMES, CALVIN

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 08/31/1983

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

SIMPLE POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA LACY, DERRICK ANDREW

Age at Arrest: 34

Date of Birth: 05/17/1983

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

VANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF

VANDALISM/MALICIOUS MISCHIEF LEFFEW, SABRINA JEAN

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 08/28/1983

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

VIOLATION OF PROBATION LLOYD, PATRICK EARL

Age at Arrest: 41

Date of Birth: 12/22/1975

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

DOMESTIC ASSAULT LONG, ISHMIAL NATHANIEL

Age at Arrest: 33

Date of Birth: 07/05/1984

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

ASSAULT MIGUEL, TOMAS MATIAS

Age at Arrest: 18

Date of Birth: 02/05/1999

Arresting Agency: Tenn Highway Patrol



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

PUBLIC INTOXICATION

DISORDERLY CONDUCT MOSIER, FRANK CHARLES

Age at Arrest: 30

Date of Birth: 08/07/1986

Arresting Agency: Hamilton County



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

POSSESSION OF ICE METHAMPHETAMINE FOR RESALE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

RESISTING ARREST OR OBSTRUCTION OF LEGAL PROCESS NELOMS, CARMEN DANELLE

Age at Arrest: 27

Date of Birth: 11/12/1989

Arresting Agency: Tenn Highway Patrol



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

DRIVING ON REVOKED, SUSPENDED OR CANCELLED LICENSE SANDERS, SHAWN ROSS

Age at Arrest: 31

Date of Birth: 10/02/1985

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

AGGRAVATED DOMESTIC ASSAULT STAMPER, YOLANDA FAYE

Age at Arrest: 43

Date of Birth: 02/06/1974

Arresting Agency: Chattanooga



Last Date of Arrest: 07/23/2017

Charge(s):

AGGRAVATED ASSAULT
New Delhi: The Delhi Congress will launch a week-long anti-GST campaign on 30 July at all the major markets of the city, intensifying its agitation against the "wrong implementation" of the new tax regime, it said on Monday.

It will stage demonstrations at all the 42 major markets across Delhi to "raise awareness on the adverse effects" of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the people, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said at a press conference.

He claimed that the implementation of GST in its present form by the Narendra Modi government had "adversely affected" the small and medium traders as well as consumers.

Treatment in hospitals would become costlier and education expenses would also go up under the new tax regime, which was rolled out on 1 July, claimed the Congress leader.

The cost of building houses would increase by one-thirds, the tax on sale of old vehicles would go up by 43 percent and prices of fertilisers would also witness a rise, he claimed.

"Wrong implementation of GST will not only put an additional tax burden on the people, but also lead to price rise and large-scale unemployment," said Maken.
Amid a festering border dispute, China's defence ministry on Monday warned India not to harbor any illusions about the Chinese military's ability to defend its territory.

"Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the People's Liberation Army is hard," defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a briefing, adding that its ability to defend China's territory and sovereignty had "constantly strengthened". Wu made this assertion ahead of this week's National Security Advisors' (NSA) talks to resolve the standoff.

The standoff on a plateau next to the mountainous Sikkim, which borders China, has ratcheted up tension between the neighbouring countries, who share a 3,500-km frontier, large parts of which are disputed.

Early in June, according to the Chinese interpretation of events, Indian guards crossed into China's Doka La region and obstructed work on a road on the plateau.

The two sides' troops then confronted each other close to a valley controlled by China that separates India from its close ally, Bhutan, and gives China access to the so-called Chicken's Neck, a thin strip of land connecting India and its remote northeastern regions.

India has said it warned China that construction of the road near their common border would have serious security implications.

"The withdrawal of Indian border guards was a precondition for resolving the situation," Wu reiterated.

He urged India to immediately withdraw all troops that have "illegally" entered China, stating that the nation would defend its territorial sovereignty "at all costs".

"The Chinese border troops have taken initial counter measures at the site and will step up targeted deployment and training," Xinhua news agency quoted Wu, as saying.

"India should not leave things to luck and not harbor any unrealistic illusions," he said, adding that the military had taken emergency measures in the region and would continue to increase focused deployments and drills.

"We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquility," Wu said.

He also added that the Chinese Army in the past 90 years had demonstrated "its increasing capacities and unshakable determination" to "safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity".

The borders of India, Bhutan and China meet at Doka La, which holds strategic importance to all the three nations. China calls Doka La its own territory but India and Bhutan call it Bhutanese territory.

Indian officials have said that about 300 soldiers from either side are facing each other about 150 meters apart on the plateau. They told Reuters that both sides' diplomats have quietly engaged to try to ensure the standoff does not escalate, and that India's ambassador to Beijing is leading the effort to find a way for both sides to back down from confrontation without losing face.

It's our pre-condition & basis for solving situation.Peace of entire region depends on peace of border region: China's Defence Ministry Spox pic.twitter.com/VizLQiM1AJ  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

Wu's comments came as NSA Ajit Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from 27-28 July during which he is expected to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi. Both Doval and Yang are special representatives of the two countries in the boundary talks.

Chinese officials say while there may not be a formal meeting between the two officials, keeping with Beijing's public position that no talks will be held without India withdrawing troops, they could hold discussions on the sidelines to end the deadlock.

Chinese state media have warned India of a fate worse than the defeat it suffered in their brief border war in 1962. In July, Chinese state media said their military had carried out live fire drills close to the disputed area.

Both Indian and Chinese armies are eyeball-to-eyeball at Doka La. However, India says it wants to resolve the issue diplomatically.

Last week, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj told Rajya Sabha that China intends to unilaterally change the

status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to India's security.

She had said there was a written agreement between India, China and Bhutan in 2012 that the three nations will together decide on the boundaries at the tri-junction point.

She also accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China. Swaraj also said that India was not "unreasonable" on the issue and all nations were with it.

With inputs from agencies
New Delhi: India faces a "real danger to freedom of expression", says Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a veteran journalist, who quit as editor of Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) after he was asked by the trust that manages the internationally respected journal to withdraw two articles critical of the government for favouring the Adani business group.

"I do believe that in India, there is real and present danger to freedom of expression, which you and everybody know is a fundamental right of every citizen" guaranteed by the Constitution, Thakurta told IANS in a chat over the circumstances that led him to quit the academic journal, known for its strong editorials, scholarly pieces and political commentaries.

The editor resigned on 18 July, minutes after his meeting with the directors of the Sameeksha Trust  economist Deepak Nayyar, who is chairman, historian Romila Thapar, sociologist Dipankar Gupta, former bureaucrat DN Ghosh, Ambedkar University vice-chancellor Shyam Menon, and ex-CSDS director Rajeev Bhargava  that runs the journal.

Thakurta, a well-known business journalist and political commentator, took over as the editor in January last year, succeeding C Rammanohar Reddy, who ran the journal for 12 years.

He said the magazine had received a notice from the Adani group that sought an unconditional withdrawal of the two "defamatory and harmful" articles co-authored by him.

Thakurta had published the Adani notice and a reply on the magazine website alongside the latest article.

The trustees, he said, took "great umbrage" to his decision to engage a lawyer to represent the trust without seeking prior permission that was dubbed "an act of grave impropriety".

He said he conceded to a procedural error "for which I apologised".

But the chairman then asked him "to pull down the articles...right now" together with the notice from the Adanis and also the reply, he said. Thakurta said he got the article pulled down, but also immediately submitted his resignation.

Sameeksha later issued a statement saying Thakurta had breached their trust "in taking a unilateral decision on a matter where any decision could be taken only by... the governing board".

It said his resignation was accepted but remained silent on Thakurta's claim that he was ordered to withdraw the articles, maintaining that "there is no question of the Sameeksha Trust, an independent non-partisan institution, bowing to external pressures of any kind. It never has".

When contacted, trustees Gupta and Thapar refused to speak further on the issue.

Thakurta said he tried arguing with the trust that what the Adanis had sent was just a legal notice but then in any civil or criminal defamation case "truth is the best defence".

"I stand by each and every sentence, each and every line, each and every observation made in that article. I have done my due diligence," said the journalist who has been writing on political economy for the past four decades.

He said he was not "personally disappointed or unhappy" over what happened because he had done his duty.

"If I cannot play the role of an antagonist, if not an adversary, to those in power  be they politicians, bureaucrats or corporate captains  then I am failing to perform my duties and obligations as a journalist. It is not my personal battle, it's a battle which has wider social and political ramifications."
Ahmedabad: Torrential rains pounded parts of north Gujarat on Monday, with overflowing reservoirs and rivers causing floods in Banaskantha and Patan districts, prompting the government to put the state on high alert.

Army, IAF and NDRF teams have been called in for rescue and relief operations. About 2,200 people have been shifted to safer places and over 460 others rescued.

In Banaskantha district, the highest recorded rainfall (342 mm) was in Dantiwada, followed by Palanpur (255 mm), Amrigadh (246 mm) and Dhanera (216 mm).

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani conducted review meetings of the situation.

He said the large inflow of water into rivers and dams in the two districts due to heavy rains in neighbouring Rajasthan made the situation worse.

Rajasthan's Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts received rains, causing floods and leaving several people marooned.

Rupani said rescue teams are ensuring that all people living in the low-lying areas are safely relocated.

"Banaskantha and Patan districts are hugely affected due to heavy rains in north Gujarat and Rajasthan. Dantiwada and Sipu dams are overflowing and due to the release of water from the dams, people living in low-lying areas have been shifted to safer places," he said.

So far, 1,526 people in Banaskantha, about 500 in Patan, and over 200 in Kalol in Gandhinagar have been shifted.

The administration is making arrangements for the distribution of food packets for affected people, the chief minister said.

"As many as 462 people have been rescued in the affected areas and the state has been put on high alert due to the heavy rains," Rupani said.

The government has also decided to postpone the Narmada Mahotsav and also deferred till August 6 the Heritage Festival to be held in Ahmedabad.

According to the chief minister, in order to carry out the rescue and relief operations, more teams of the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) have been pressed into service.

Three helicopters of the Air Force have been kept ready in Deesa town in Banaskantha. One Army column has also been called in from Dhrangdhara.

Rupani said senior government officials have been deployed to oversee the relief and rescue operations.

"Sipu dam received 1.16 lakh cusecs water, and Dantiwada received 1.5 lakh cusecs," Rupani said.

As the dams overflow, water is being released, because of which people living in around 100 villages located in low-lying areas are being shifted, so that they are not hit when the water is released, Rupani said.

The water level of Banas and Sidhpur rivers is also going to rise, so relocation of affected people is being undertaken, he said.
The battle of nerves between India and China continues with neither side willing to blink and preparing for the long haul in Doka La.

Will this mean that India-China bilateral ties will come to a halt? Unlikely. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be in Beijing on 27-28 July for a BRICS security meet. Whether Doval and Chinas state councilor Yang Jiechi, who is hosting the event, will sit down to resolve the current face-off is not known. Another possibility is that both sides will merely reiterate their position.

All through the Doka La crisis, which began on 16 June, no visits have been cancelled. At one time, there were five senior BJP leaders in China. So concerns about the BRICS summit to be held in China or any other major event is, for now, redundant.

Ties have not been hit at that level. However, there is always the possibility that things could turn ugly, as a powerful China now is much more assertive in its neighbourhood than it was ten or twenty years ago. Pressure by the US government  for both nations to resolve the dispute quickly through talks  will not make much of a difference as both consider this a strategic issue.

Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran recalled the India-China face-off in Sumdorong Chu/Wangdung area, which began in 1986 and continued for a decade. When India responded in kind to Chinas aggressive posture, matters cooled down. During this period, despite tension on the border, Rajiv Gandhi undertook a historic trip to China in 1988, the first by an Indian prime minister since relations went into deep freeze in 1962. The trip was hugely successful and began the process of normalisation.

But in June 1986, the situation was tense. People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were seen building permanent structures in Sumdorong Chu. The Chinese, in their usual style, claimed the area in the North East Frontier Agency (Arunachal) as their territory. Despite Delhis protests, China went one step further and built a helipad there. India too rushed forces to the area and there was subsequent build-up on both sides of the border. A new war between India and China seemed to on the horizon as Beijing took a tough stance.

India reinforced its positions and was able to establish a post by going around the Thagla range. This was just around 10 meters from the position taken up by the Chinese. Army chief General Sundarji was in charge. He airlifted an army brigade to Zimithang, an Indian helipad. Operation Falcon as it was called, surprised the Chinese. However, while the situation at the border remained tense, relations between India and China continued to improve.

Whether history will repeat itself is difficult to predict. Shyam Saran said that China had earlier too "been nibbling at the Doka La plateau" sending in graziers to the disputed area, and Chinese soldiers were making repeated forays. However, past incursions did not result in a stand-off because the PLA patrols would leave after some time. "What is new this time is that the Chinese have now made their intention clear of establishing a permanent presence in the area. PLA construction teams are engaged in building a road. He added, "China was surprised by Indias unanticipated action.

The PLA did not think that India would go into Bhutanese territory to stop them. Beijings intentions, according to the Shyam Saran, is to further shrink Indias periphery. By going into Bhutanese territory, China wanted to tell Thimphu that it was time to recognise Chinas status as a big power. Bhutans reliance on India goes against Beijings ongoing plans to play footsie with Delhis neighbours. It is doing so in Nepal, Sri Lanka and even Bangladesh.

Both countries have dug in their heels. China now is making noise about Bhutanese sovereignty and questioning Indias stand on behalf of another country. China is possibly irritated that Bhutan is the only country in the neighbourhood which has stood steadfastly with India. The Himalayan kingdom also boycotted the mega meet hosted by President Xi Jinping on the One Belt One Road initiative (OBOR).

According to the former foreign secretary, it would not be easy to wean Bhutan away from India as the two countries have excellent political, economic and strategic relations. The red lines have been drawn. China made its position clear from the outset. Indian soldiers had to return to the Indian side of the boundary. Chinas ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui, reiterated the Chinese position by saying: The first priority is that the Indian troops unconditionally pull back to the Indian side of the boundary. That is the precondition for any meaningful dialogue between China and India.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj spelled out Delhis views in Parliament. "If China unilaterally changes the status quo at the tri-junction point, then that is a direct challenge to our security. Their demand is that we should withdraw our troops from there. We want that, if we are having a conversation, if we want to have talks, then both should withdraw their armies. From our side, there is no unreasonable demand.

Who will blink first remains to be seen.
Iraq's foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari will be on a five-day visit to India, starting Monday. While geo-political and economic affairs will be a part of the bilateral talks with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, the Iraqi foreign minister's visit is also expected to help efforts to locate the 39 missing Indian labourers who were kidnapped in Mosul three years ago.

Al-Jaafari's visit comes days after Sushma announced that the 39 Indian labourers, mostly from Punjab, are believed to be in a jail in Mosul that was freed from the Islamic State earlier in July.

Sushma will hold extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari over the issue on Monday.

As liberation of Mosul brightened chances of information about the kidnapped Indians, Swaraj, in a meeting with the relatives of 39 labourers last week, had said that they might be languishing in a jail in Badush in northwest of Mosul where fighting was going on.

Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh was also sent to Iraq days after the Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi announced victory in the fight to liberate Mosul.

Swaraj had told the family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources had told Singh that the kidnapped Indians were deployed at a hospital construction site and then shifted to a farm before they were put in a jail in Badush.

It is expected that al-Jaafari's visit may bring fresh information about the kidnapped Indians, mostly from Punjab.

Meanwhile, Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that Swaraj will make a statement on the status of the 39 missing Indian labourers at 5 pm on Monday.



Energy supply and economic issues also to be discussed

After meeting Swaraj at the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan, the Iraqi foreign minsiter will meet Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan at Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shastri Bhawan. At 4.30 pm, Jaafari will meet outgoing vice-president Hamid Ansari.

According to Financial Express, the Iraqi foreign minister will visit Mumbai on Wednesday, where he is expected to meet the business community. Al-Jaafari will return to New Delhi, before leaving for Baghdad on 28 July.

Iraq is a major energy market, being the second-largest supplier of crude oil to India (over 37 million metric tonnes during 2016-17). Although the economic and trade relations between India and Iraq have slowed down after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, yet the bilateral trade between the two countries amounted to $13 billion in 2016-17. In addition to crude in bulk, India also imported small quantities of commodities like raw wool and sulphur from Iraq.

Indian exports to Iraq consist of cereals, iron and steel, meat and meat products, pharmaceutical products, agro chemicals, cosmetics, rubber manufactured products, paints, gems and jewellery, ceramics, manufactures of metals, machine tools, electrical machinery and instruments, transport equipment, electronic goods, handicrafts,sugar, tea, garments.

There is also deep-rooted cultural and religious ties between India and Iraq. Shiiite pilgrimages of Najaf and Karbala are visited by thousands of Indian Shias every year.

With inputs from agencies
Mumbai: Jet Airways has asked junior pilots to furnish surety bonds worth up to Rs 1 crore and serve the airline for at least five to seven years, union sources said. The development comes at a time when many of its junior pilots have been asked to take 10 days off every month, a move that would result in up to 30 per cent pay cut, as part of cost saving measures.

Sources at the National Aviators Guild (NAG), the pilots' union of Jet Airways, said the bond requirement has been communicated to the junior pilots. These pilots have been asked to furnish surety bonds worth Rs 1 crore and the development also comes as the airline has "unilaterally" decided on salary cuts for them, sources told PTI.

"No new bonds (have been) asked for. It is just a pattern that has been introduced," a Jet Airways spokesperson said. He was responding to a query whether the airline has asked its trainee pilots to sign a bond amount of up to Rs 1 crore.

The spokesperson was also asked the junior pilots have to serve the airline for 5-7 years and face encashment of the bond in case of failure to serve that tenure. Sources at the NAG said plans to meet the airline management this week to discuss the pay cut proposal as it has been done in a unilateral manner.

Jet Airways has more than 200 junior pilots, including those undergoing training.

"As an interim measure, we shall be offering you a Lifestyle Work Pattern which entails 10 days block off per month with the appropriate remuneration. This will be effective from August 1, 2017," the carrier said in a letter to many junior pilots.

The NAG would be taking up the matter with the management soon, sources added.

On 20 July , Jet Airways said that certain developments in the market, including that in the Gulf region, as well as its continued efforts to enhance internal efficiencies, have resulted in the review of network, fleet and crew utilisation.

Consequently, as a proactive measure, the company has made interim alignments to its crew work patterns, which will be reviewed in future, in line with network growth, the spokesperson had said.
New Delhi: The air of the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus, which was at the centre of a controversy for alleged anti-India slogans in 2016, was filled on Sunday with a patriotic spirit as the varsity observed 'Kargil Vijay Diwas'. JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said the varsity has asked Union ministers to help them procure an army tank which can be put up on display in the campus so that students can be reminded of the sacrifices and valour of the soldiers.

The ceremony started with the JNU faculty and students along with the kin of Kargil martyrs and members of Veterans India, a body of ex-servicemen, holding a march with a 2,200-feet-long tricolour and paying tributes at the Wall of Heroes  located in JNU's convention centre where 21 portraits of Param Vir Chakra awardees are exhibited.

The programme also witnessed a performance by the army band. At the event, female family members of soldiers who died fighting in the Kargil war were felicitated.

Vice Chancellor Kumar termed the programme "historic" and said it was an important day to remember the sacrifices made by the army and other security forces for the country.

Lauding the initiative taken by the university, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, said JNU created history on Sunday by organising 'Tiranga March', setting up Wall of Heroes and by raising slogans of "Bharat Mata ki Jai" and "Vande Mataram".

He said, "In no other country, is the army being questioned. As India is a democracy, some powers dare to show India in poor light. May God give such people better sense".

Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh was also present at the event. "The outside forces never succeeded with their powers. They became successful only when an insider helped them out. The Indian veterans have been trying to instill the spirit of unity in every Indian heart," the former army chief said.

He added that Indian soldiers work with the feeling that the nation is above all and there is no division within the army on the grounds of religion, caste and community.

He said the Indian Army is the best in terms of observing human rights. Veterans India's Maj Gen GD Bakshi spoke of how Indian soldiers guard the nation's treacherous borders with Pakistan in extremely inhospitable weather conditions in Kashmir.
Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) M Jagadesh Kumar on Sunday asked Union ministers to help the university procure an army tank which can be put up on display in the campus, so that students can be reminded of the sacrifices and valour of soldiers. He was speaking at an event to mark 'Kargil Vijay Diwas', where minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, "In no other country, is the army being questioned. As India is a democracy, some powers dare to show India in poor light."

Kumar, however, has defended his statement by saying the tank will represent JNU's strong association with India's defence institutions.

If we have a de-commissioned tank in JNU, it is only to show our strong & close association with defence institutes of the country: VC, JNU pic.twitter.com/x0nZ5t7Vn7  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

Ever since Kumar took office on 27 January, 2016, JNU has found itself in the news for all the wrong reasons, fairly consistently, through these 18 months, with the vice chancellor not missing from the headlines either.

Only last week, a group of students, including members of the JNU Students' Union (JNUSU), staged a protest against disciplinary action taken against their classmates for alleged "acts of activism". The administration has issued an order stating that around 10 students will not be allowed to register for the new academic session, Hindustan Times reported.

The students burnt the order and condemned the "autocratic and authoritarian" regime at the university, the report added. Among the students barred from registering for the next semester were JNUSU members and Umar Khalid.

Umar Khalid, along with a few others, first rose to prominence after the media onslaught JNU witnessed in February 2016 under Kumar as the vice-chancellor. During the incident, police conducted raids in the campus and students' hostels, media vans flocked the university gates, sedition charges were slapped on many student leaders, who were declared guilty of raising slogans against the country by the college administration, and JNU came to be blamed as an institution that sprouted anti-nationals.

In an interview with The Indian Express, when asked if the 9 February incident could have been handled better, Kumar said, "We considered the 9 February incident as an internal issue and we dealt with it in a similar way. We are capable of facing our internal challenges without any interference."

A few months ago, Najeeb Ahmad, a student of the university, mysteriously disappeared from the campus after repeated assaults on him by a group of ABVP activists. Facts of the case are still largely unclear, and protests by JNU students to force authorities to take action on the matter have been clamped down. On 17 July, the CBI asked for more time to investigate details behind Najeeb's sudden disappearance. The Delhi police was handling the case earlier after which they handed it over to the central agency.

When the incident was initially reported to the administration, no action was taken against the alleged culprits. Moreover, the original report by the Proctors office, which mentioned violence by those who attacked Najeeb and recommended strict punishment, was reportedly manipulated and changed by Jagadesh Kumar. Two proctors have also resigned since the incident. When asked about the allegations, Kumar merely said, "The administration works as a team through consultations and takes a collective decision. Faculty members holding administrative positions may choose to not be part of administration at different times and focus on other pursuits," according to The Indian Express.

JNU also recently invoked a university statute to ban events at the administrative block, where most events and protests usually take place. Kumar did not explain the rationale behind the move, and only said, "The university functioning is governed by its statutes, regulations and rules. All sections of the university community must respect and follow them."

Kumar is also known for his pro-government views on political subjects. Before taking office as the JNU Vice-Chancellor, Kumar, who was associated with Vijnana Bharti  an RSS wing involved with the Swadeshi Science Movement  has even been accused of acting on directions from the BJP and for his affiliation with the Sangh, according to PTI.

In March, Jagadesh Kumar fell prey to trolls on social media after he took to Twitter crediting Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in Uttar Pradesh to development and inclusivity.

People of India have once again demonstrated overwhelmingly that we stand for development and inclusivity.  M. Jagadesh Kumar (@mamidala90) March 11, 2017

Given his history, it is perhaps not entirely surprising that Kumar, who has been widely criticised for suffocating dissent inside JNU, insists for a public display of an army tank in the campus.
The arrest of a range of Hurriyat leaders on Monday signals a hardening of the Centre's stance. It appears that a decision has been taken at the highest level to show no quarter in the face of an extremely ominous triad of challenges, which includes China, Pakistan, and Kashmiri separatists.

Those arrested are mainly from the Geelani camp, including his son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Fantoosh. The most prominent of those arrested is Naeem Khan, whose revelations in a sting operation set the stage for the NIAs investigations.

The other two prominent figures in the trio of 'separatist leaders have not been spared. Shahid-ul Islam, a very close aide of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was arrested too. So was Farooq Dar, alias Bitta Karate, who has been a prominent member of the JKLF, which is led by Yasin Malik. The screws are thus being tightened on all the factions of the main separatist conglomerate. It is possible that the independent MLA from Langate, (engineer) Rashid Ahmed might also be in the sights of investigators.

Those who conducted the sting interviews of Naeem, Bitta Karate and another minor separatist had also interviewed Rashid. The legislator evaded their trap by telling the interviewers that he did not need their money.

Rashid has upped the ante recently. In a statement issued over the weekend, he explicitly called for a plebiscite and for third party intervention by countries such as the US and China. The statement, which targets Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and the Centre with strong rhetoric, went viral and was extremely popular in Kashmir.

Crucial pressure points

It appears that the pressure which the Government of India exerted through the NIA investigations were used to ensure that the GST Act was implemented in the state. A statement from Geelani helped to smooth the way for that. For weeks, his associates had not been interrogated by the NIA since they were detained by the J&K Police.

The investigations also contributed to ensuring that the first anniversary of militant commander Burhan Wanis killing on 8 July 2016 passed off relatively calmly. Many had feared that it would become the trigger for another period of mass unrest such as followed for four months after Burhan was killed. Some analysts might have hoped that the Centre would use the pressure exerted through the investigations to bring the 'separatist leaders in line.

Hardline decision

Now that they have been carried out, the arrests show that the government has decided to push forward its hard line. Sources say that Union home minister Rajnath Singh had told the chief minister when she met him about ten days ago that the government would not go easy on the separatists.

A range of leaders in the Kashmir valley had nevertheless got the impression that the stage was being set for talks between India and Pakistan on one hand and between New Delhi and a range of Kashmiri leader on the other. They appeared confident that the Government of India would turn flexible in the face of the obvious Chinese threat.

A range of Kashmiri `leaders seemed to be hopeful that talks would ensue, even though Pakistan had made it clear early this month that it was unwilling to engage with India unless Kashmiri separatists too participated in the talks, a scenario India was very unlikely to accept.

This hope-filled environment regarding talks was a major reason why there have been few dramatic militant encounters since the attack on Amarnath yatris. Some prominent separatist figures indicated that not only the trio of Hurriyat leaders but militant groups too were on board, which could only indicate that Pakistan had given them all the thumbs up.
A series of meetings focused on "Community Choices" begins Monday for the White Oak Mountain area.

"During public feedback gathered in the spring of 2017, local planners learned that preserving rural character while accommodating growth is a concern and one of the biggest challenges for this area. Upcoming meetings for Area 12 - the White Oak Mountain Area Plan (the eastern portion of Hamilton County near East Brainerd and Ooltewah) will be held in various locations. Please plan to attend one of the following meetings," officials said.

Each meeting will focus on a different part of the community as described below. All meetings will be from 6-8 p.m.

For more information on this planning initiative, call 423-643-5900, go to the Regional Planning Agency website at chcrpa.org for newsletter sign-ups and updates, or email pglaser@chattanooga.gov.

Meeting 1 - Focus Area: Ooltewah-Georgetown Road / Lee Highway (Hwy 64) / Old Ooltewah

Monday, July 24

at Cambridge Square

9453 Bradmore Lane

Ooltewah, TN 37363



Meeting 2 - Focus Area: Apison / East Brainerd Road / Ooltewah-Ringgold Road / Parkers Gap

Thursday, July 27

at Tri-Community Fire Department  Station # 3

11115 Park Place, Apison, TN 37302



Meeting 3 - Focus Area: Summit / I-75 & Apison Pike / Standifer Gap Road / Ooltewah-Ringgold Road

Thursday, August 3

at Mt. Summit of Peace Church

4821 Pattentown Road

Ooltewah, TN 37363


Lok Sabha members from the treasury benches on Monday raised a demand to reopen investigation into the alleged Bofors guns scam.

While several members from the treasury benches were seen demanding a discussion on the issue, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member from New Delhi Meenakshi Lekhi said there were documents pertaining to discussions between then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme which proved a quid pro quo.

Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police official who led the investigations, has been reported as saying Rajiv Gandhi and Palme discussed the details of a financial quid-pro-quo before the Bofors gun deal. under which Bofors would pay money to a foundation in Sweden to make it easier for payments to be made to Indians and others.

"According to Lindstrom, the documents related to that discussion are still somewhere with the government. To say that it is an old case and it should be forgotten is wrong, because when old issues are not settled, their ghosts return to haunt," Lekhi said.

BJP's Nishikant Dubey also raised the issue.

"The CBI should open and re-investigate the case. CBI had sought permission earlier as well, but he UPA government did not allow them," Dubey said.

The Bofors issue came in focus again recently after a parliamentary panel suggested that the case of irregularities in purchase of Bofors guns should be reopened as there were many "loopholes" in the investigation in past.

The CBI has said it can re-investigate only if a court or government order was issued.

The alleged corruption in the Bofors gun deal had created a scandal in 1989, leading to the fall of the government under Rajiv Gandhi.

A six-member Parliamentary Accounts Committee's subcommittee on defence was looking into non-compliance of certain aspects of the CAG report of 1986 on the deal.
Mumbai: Opposition Congress and NCP tried to disrupt the proceedings of the Maharashtra Legislative Council on the first day of the session on Monday, raising slogans against the BJP-led state government over their demand for unconditional loan waiver for farmers.

The Leader of Opposition Dhananjay Munde raised the issue of farm loan waiver as soon as the proceedings began.

He alleged that the government has not been able to implement the loan waiver even a month after making an announcement about it. The government should announce unconditional loan waiver for farmers.

"Even the aid of Rs 10,000 has not yet been distributed among farmers. This is nothing but mockery," he alleged.

The NCP leader claimed that in the last two-and-a-half years, over 11,000 farmers have ended their lives, which forced the state government to announce the loan waiver scheme.

"Unfortunately, farmers' suicides have not stopped even after the loan waiver announcement. Thus, there is no other way but to provide an unconditional loan waiver," he said.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had last month announced the loan waiver of Rs 34,022 crore for farmers.

On behalf of the state, Leader of the House and minister Chandrakant Patil told the House that the government stood behind farmers and would do whatever was necessary for their well being.

"This government is flexible and not rigid. We are open to receiving suggestions on the issue of loan waiver. Therefore, earlier we had even updated our government resolution (GR) by adding new and acceptable suggestions that we had got. We are ready to do so even now," Patil said.

However, the opposition members continued to shout slogans against the government and demanded that unconditional loan waiver is provided to farmers immediately.

Later, the House adopted the condolence motion of Shivajirao Girdhar Patil, Bhiku Daji Bhilare and Baburao Dharwade.

The House was then adjourned for the day.
Moscow: Modern avionics and systems may make flying a fighter easier, but also lead to more complex tasks at hand, says the lead test pilot who flew the new generation MiG-35 fighter at MAKS Aerospace Exhibition in Moscow.

Flying in the public gaze for the first time, the MiG-35, a 4++ jet, performed complex manoeuvers, including loops and vertical climb, with seemingly consummate ease.

Asked about the aircraft, lead test pilot Mikhail Belyaev, who has been awarded the Star of the Hero of Russia, the highest honorary title of the Russian Federation, said it's similar to the MiG-29 that the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy operate, but much more advanced.

"There is new electronic equipment and new weapon systems. It is equipped with a range of air-to-air, air-to-land and air-to-sea missiles," Mikhail told IANS on the sidelines of the air show.

Comparing it to the MiG-29, he said: "It has a new airframe, fly-by-wire controls, a glass cockpit and night vision goggles. It is also capable of air-to-air refuelling."

Asked if it was easier to fly the MiG-35 compared to the MiG-29, he said: "For a MiG-29 pilot, the basics are same, but it would take some time to adapt. Modern warfare is more complicated. As the fighter jets become more advanced, so do the tasks assigned."

"The new equipment makes it easier to fly, but then, more challenging combat tasks are given. New tasks arise from existence of this aircraft; more complex combat tasks can be achieved."

Towards this were some of the manoeuvres performed: A vertical climb soon after takeoff to demonstrate engine strength and a Nesterov loop, a barrel roll and a complex tail slide to demonstrate engine capability and high angle of attack, among the other strengths of the aircraft.

The aircraft is also equipped with a version of the Phazotron Zhuk AESA radar that is capable of simultaneously detecting and tracking up to 30 aerial targets at up to 160 kilometres away. It is also capable to simultaneously engaging up to six aerial and four surface targets.

The MiG-35 also carries a forward-looking opto-electronic system. Equivalent in its performance to the systems installed on Western fifth-generation fighters, it supports operations during both day and night, including in beyond-visual-range scenarios.
New Delhi: The Congress on Monday attacked NDA's vice presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu over issues of transparency and probity, alleging that the Telangana government had placed a direct order for purchase of vehicles with a company belonging to his son and had granted exemption from Rs 2-crore charges to a trust in which his daughter was a managing trustee.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh posed four questions to Naidu and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying it is mandatory for them to answer the queries as they have spoken of transparency, accountability and honesty.

He said prime minister Narendra Modi has often stated that there was zero tolerance for corruption and wrongdoing.

Ramesh said the Telangana government had issued an order in June this year which "exempted the Swarna Bharat Trust of Naidu's daughter from paying various charges amounting to more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority".

"Is it not a fact that such an exemption has no precedent and it has been done because his daughter is the managing trustee of the organisation," Ramesh asked.

Earlier in July 2014, the Telangana government had placed an order worth about Rs 271 crore for the purchase of police vehicles from two companies Harsha Toyota owned by Naidu's son and Himanshu Motors owned by the son of Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

"Is it not a fact that such an order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating a tender?" Ramesh asked.

He said that Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust with Naidu as its chairman was allotted 20 acres of land in Shahpura, Bhopal, valued at a few hundred crore rupees in September 2004 and the lease deed was registered in January 2007.

"Is it not a fact that this land was allotted by BJP government of Madhya Pradesh for a pittance of a one-time premium of Rs 25 lakh and a yearly rent of one rupee? Is it not a fact that even the 'land use' was changed from 'residential and forestry' to 'commercial' as an act of favouritism by BJP government?" Ramesh asked.

The Congress leader alleged that all this was done without inviting an application in public domain in a "completely arbitrary and whimsical fashion".

"Is it not a fact that Supreme Court of India quashed this allotment on 6 April 2011, in a PIL and passed stringent strictures of political favouritism' and cancelled the allotment of land?" he asked.

Ramesh alleged that Naidu was accused of grabbing 4.95 acres of land in Andhra Pradesh reserved for the poor and the destitute.

"Is it not a fact that on 17 August, 2002, Naidu was forced to return this 4.95 acres of land after public embarrassment and accusations of wrongdoing?" he asked.
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A demand was also made in the Lok Sabha by a Congress member for repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from north eastern states like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley introduced a bill to repeal SBI (Subsidiary Banks) Act and State Bank of Hyderabad Act following the merger of five associates with the parent SBI.

Chants of "band karo, band karo mob lynching band karo" and "Gundagardi nahi chahiye" echoed in the Lok Sabha as Union Minister of State, Commerce & Industry Nirmala Sitharaman tried to answer the MPs' questions, raising her voice above the din.

The Congress party on Monday, gave notice to raise the issue of mob lynching in Lok Sabha. However, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan refused to allow a discussion before the Question Hour. The Opposition leaders then started raising slogans in the House, demanding the government to put an end to mob lynchings in the name of cow vigilantism.

"Uttar Pradesh government has raised the prices of sand and construction material so much that the farmers are facing a situation of emergency. They can't even build kuccha borders and huts," Vishambhar Prasad Nishad of the Samajwadi Party said.

The Opposition is raising slogans in the House against the increased incidents of mob lynchings, after the Speaker told them that the notice will only be taken up after the Question Hour.

Taking a tough stance against a belligerent Opposition, raising slogans in the House, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that she will not allow the Question Hour to be disrupted by the Opposition's adjournment notice.

"Swaraj had told the family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources had told Mr Singh that the kidnapped Indians were deployed at a hospital construction site and then shifted to a farm before they were put in a jail in Badush," a NDTV report said.

Quoting media reports that the prison where Indian youths kidnapped in Mosul were held is in ruins, Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa, said that Swaraj had "lost all credibility". The party is also planning to move a privilege motion against the external affairs minister, India Today TV reported.

The Speaker told him that she has rejected the Adjournment notice because the issue could be raised through other means and the proceedings of the House need not be disrupted.

Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge stood up on his seat as ministers were seeking leave to introduce bills in the House. He told Speaker Sumitra Mahajan that the Opposition was not being given a chance to speak. Kharge was apparently upset as the Speaker had dismissed the adjournement motion.

The Speaker, however, said that she was not denying a debate but an adjournment motion was not needed.

As Kharge was requesting Speaker to allow the adjournment motion in Lok Sabha, TMC's Saugata Roy stood up in support of the Congress MP, urging the speaker to grant permission to hold a discussion on mob lynchings.

Ram Gopal Yadav drew the Rajya Sabha's attention to the condition of the crematorium ghats of the Ganga river in Benaras. The MP asked the Union water resource minister Uma Bharti to tell the House, by when can the situation of the heavily polluted river be improved.

Answering questions over the drinking water issues, rural development minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that the government is looking at different ways of utilising drinking water across the country.

The Upper House of the Parliament is discussing a bill on establishing the Footwear design and development Bill. While discussing the issue, the question of Dalits being atatcked by cow vigilantes came into discussion. Howvever, it did not lead to a major disruption in the House.

While talking about the Footwear Designing and Development Bill in the Rajya Sabha, Opposition leaders blamed the rising incidences of cow vigilantism across India for decline in leather business.

She said all this had happened despite she agreeing to a discussion on the issue of alleged atrocities against Dalits and Muslims.

Some of these members had picked up papers from the Lok Sabha secretariat staffers' table and had torn and thrown them, Mahajan said.

In her order, she said all these members had torn official papers and thrown it towards the Chair, prompting members of the treasury benches to shout "shame, shame".

She said she was constrained to name Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M K Raghavan for their improper behaviour.

"Some banks too are not taking those coins", even though they are issuing them, he said. In an apparent dig at the government's November 8, 2016 decision to scrap old Rs 500/1000 notes, the JD(U) member said the coins should be taken back in the "second phase of demonetisation".

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Ali Anwar Ansari Janata Dal (U) said the people, especially the poor, were facing lot of difficulty due to non-acceptability of these coins.

Coins of Rs 1, 2 and 10 are not being accepted by shopkeepers and even by banks in several parts of the country, a Janta Dal (United) member said in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Picking up files of official papers from the table is an official crime, says Speaker

D Raja says there could be turbulent times ahead if the issue is not resolved as the fishermen are constantly agitating in Rameshwaram. "You need to spell out what is the thinking of the government," says D Raja. He adds, the government needs to decide what it will do in case of movement of Indian vessels into Sri Lankan water. - Rajya Sabha TV

The bill has been withdrawn as the government seeks to redraft it with further amendments to the Act, junior Ministry of Human Resource Development Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey said while withdrawing the legislation in the Upper House.- PTI

The government on Monday withdrew from the Rajya Sabha a bill to amend the Architects Act, 1972 which provides for registration of architects.

A year has passed and the rights of lakhs of families are under severe threat because of the way in which rules of the Campa law are being imposed. The rules should be made available to public debate before being finalised.

They picked up files from the table. Those are official papers. Doing that is a crime: Sumitra Mahajan, Lok Sabha Speaker

Picking up files of official papers from the table is an official crime, says Speaker

D Raja says there could be turbulent times ahead if the issue is not resolved as the fishermen are constantly agitating in Rameshwaram. "You need to spell out what is the thinking of the government," says D Raja. He adds, the government needs to decide what it will do in case of movement of Indian vessels into Sri Lankan water. - Rajya Sabha TV

The bill has been withdrawn as the government seeks to redraft it with further amendments to the Act, junior Ministry of Human Resource Development Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey said while withdrawing the legislation in the Upper House.- PTI

The government on Monday withdrew from the Rajya Sabha a bill to amend the Architects Act, 1972 which provides for registration of architects.

A year has passed and the rights of lakhs of families are under severe threat because of the way in which rules of the Campa law are being imposed. The rules should be made available to public debate before being finalised.

The Parliament will meet on the sixth day of the Monsoon Session, with the government keen on pushing through key legislation, while the Opposition is likely to take the BJP-led government to task on issues like agrarian crisis and cow vigilante groups.

Monday's agenda include Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which will be introduced by finance minister Arun Jaitley. The minister on Friday, introduced a bill to repeal SBI (Subsidiary Banks) Act and State Bank of Hyderabad Act following the merger of five associates with the parent SBI, which will be debated for passing on Monday.

"After the acquisition of the subsidiary banks by SBI, the subsidiary banks have ceased to exist and, therefore, it is necessary to repeal the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959 and the State Bank of Hyderabad Act, 1956," the statement of object and reasons of the State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill 2017 said. Lok Sabha also passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017 on Friday.

Legislative business has taken a hit in the ongoing stormy Monsoon Session amid fiery debates and repeated adjournments. The Opposition has been creating a ruckus in the Parliament over issues like farmer crisis and increase in the incidents of mob lynchings. With two of the 19 sittings scheduled in this session already a near washout, the government is trying hard to push through key bills, from a total 34 bills lined up for passing in the Monsoon Session.

Expressing concern over the dwindling number of working days in Parliament, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury has called for enacting a law to ensure there is at least 100 days of active presence of members in the House.

"In the last 2-3 years, Parliament sittings were not held for more than 60 to 70 days (in a year). In such a scenario, how the government will be held accountable?" the 64-year-old Left leader asked. "In contrast, the British Parliament sits for 200 days in a year," he noted.

This will make sure that the government of the day is held accountable for its actions and policies, and members get enough time to deliberate on key issues, the Rajya Sabha member said on Sunday night.
The Narendra Modi government seems to have put a lid on Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) during its three-year tenure.

Official figures point towards a steady decline in the number of casualties suffered by security forces in the districts affected by LWE. Though it is little comfort that civilians and security personnel continue to die as a result of Naxal insurgency, these figures raise hopes of a solution.

According to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) data accessed by Firstpost, there has been a steady decline in the number of Maoist attacks across the country since 2014. While 2,213 such incidents were reported in 2010, it came down to 1,048 in 2016  a 111 percent decline.

Left Wing Extremism (2010 - 2017): Incidents-Deaths-Encounters YEAR INCIDENTS Maoists Killed Security Personnel Died Citizens Died 2010 2213 172 285 270 2011 1760 99 142 469 2012 1415 74 114 301 2013 1136 100 115 282 2014 1091 63 88 222 2015 1089 89 59 171 2016 1048 222 65 213 ** 2017 617 98 38 123 * Source: MHA ** As on 30.06.2017

Currently, 106 districts in 10 states that comprise the Red Corridor are the worst affected. However, according to the latest MHA report, in 2016, incidents of Maoist violence have been reported in only 68 districts. Of this, 90 percent of the cases were from 35 worst affected districts in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha and Telangana.

Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Rajnath Singh have emphasised zero tolerance policy for terrorism and LWE. The Centre has adopted a multi-pronged approach comprising operational tactics by security forces, development projects in Naxal-prone areas, ensuring the rights of tribals, building up para-military forces and intelligence sharing between the forces and local police. All these factors have led to a decline in Maoist attacks and fewer deaths of security personnel and civilians, while the more and more Maoist cadres have been killed," an MHA official says.

The report also claims that there has been a sharp rise in the number of Maoists surrendering. While only 570 Maoists surrendered in 2015, 1,442 and 911 Maoists surrendered in 2016 and 2017 (as of 30 June) respectively.

There has been a decline in attacks, with more cadres surrendering. This is all because of the pressure created by CRPF, BSF and special task forces like COBRA, Grey Hound and their frustration. Many have found themselves disillusioned by the ideology, said counter-terrorism analyst Anil Kamboj.

Initiatives by Centre to counter LWE

Number of battalions in Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) have increased since 2014. In 2014, 105 battalions were deployed in Red Corridor, but now 119 battalions have been deployed.

To expedite intelligence gathering process and reduce timing, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) base has been shifted from Hyderabad to Bhilai in Chhattisgarh.

A fleet of additional MI-17, V-5 and Dhruv choppers of the Indian Air Force and BSF has been deployed in LWE zones.

Between 2014 and 2017, construction of 1,504-kilometre road has been completed for better connectivity with areas that are vulnerable to Naxal attacks.

The Centre, under Universal Service Obligation Fund, approved Rs 3,567 crore in 2014 for installation of 2,199 mobile towers: Of which 2,187 towers are operational.

After the killing of 37 CRPF personnel in two Maoist ambushes this year, the central government decided in May to shift the strategic anti-Naxal operations command headquarters of the CRPF, headed by an ADG-level officer, from Kolkata to Chhattisgarh, a state hit by Naxal violence. This was done to tighten the government's grip. During the UPA regime, this headquarters was shifted from Raipur to Kolkata due to logistical issues.

Since 2010, there was a huge increase in the number of attacks on security personnel. Now, with the command back in Raipur, it will be easier to exercise control on the problem and take decisions a lot quicker, a senior CRPF official said.

Besides development projects, the Centre allocated Rs 675 crore under security-related expenditure fund to counter Maoist insurgency.

Centre provides funds to Maoist-hit districts to strengthen security operations and for development, but it is the responsibility of state governments to ensure proper utilisation of funds and execution of projects. Despite noble intentions, many a time, very few things are implemented on the ground, which defeats the Centre's hard work. There is also a need to generate employment among the youth in districts affected by LWE in order to stop them from joining the cadres, added Kamboj, who has led anti-Naxal operations.
On Sunday, NDTV accused some media outlets of misreporting a recent Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) order which upheld a tax demand raised on $150 million investment by a US television network in NDTV in 2008.

On Sunday, Deccan Chronicle reported that the ITAT ruling stated that the Ministry of Corporate affairs had, in 2009, colluded with NDTV founder Prannoy Roy and hid certain information related to shell companies set up by the news media firm to launder Rs 642 crore.

The ruling stated that NDTV and its promoters laundered around Rs 1,100 crore during 2007 to 2010 and that the tax appellate authority confirmed that Rs 642 crore out of the total amount of laundered money was black money, Deccan Chronicle reported.

According to a report in DNA, the ITAT order, which ran into 385 pages, stated: "The real nature of the transaction was actively and deliberately concealed under a thorough, methodical and calculated planned strategy".

After analysing the various subsidiaries and internal mails, ITAT documents suggested that NDTV made a "conscious, deliberate and well-planned attempt to conceal particulars of income," DNA reported.

NDTV states in its press release: "These media reports are quoting from a press release by the Income Tax Department which not just distorts the verdict, but outright lies about it. NDTV is appealing in the Delhi High Court against the verdict."

NDTV added: "We also reiterate that contrary to what the malevolent press release of the I-T Department says, the ITAT has refused to accept the allegation of the I-T department that there was any money-laundering by NDTV or Dr Prannoy Roy (this is clearly mentioned in para 103 of its judgment). In fact, in its order, ITAT specifically recognises that the funds invested were indeed from NBC. The verdict states 'the money was from Universal Studios" (a 100% subsidiary of NBC). So any claims that charges of money-laundering have been accepted by the tribunal are false and agenda-driven."

With the ITAT's 14 July order upholding the tax demand, penalty proceedings are likely to commence shortly. In a stock exchange filing, NDTV said it was surprised at ITAT dismissing the appeal it had filed against the tax demand.

"It is important to note foremost that the ITAT has accepted that there was no round-tripping or money laundering, as was alleged by Income Tax Department," it said. The tax department had alleged that the media group had sought to evade income tax amounting to Rs 218.30 crore chargeable on investment of Rs 642.54 crore. The I-T department, subsequently, had sought a penalty of Rs 436.8 crore (at the rate of 200 percent of tax evaded.)

The I-T department had confirmed that Section 69A of Income tax Act (dealing with 'unexplained money' addition] was invoked against the media company. It upheld that "transaction used principally as a devise for the distribution/ diversion of sum" to NDTV and that "the beneficial owner of the money is the assessee".

NDTV , however, said: "Surprisingly, the ITAT has dismissed the appeal filed by the company as not being maintainable but at the same time adjudicated the appeal filed by the Income Tax Department (ITD) against the same assessment order... It is inconceivable how appeal filed by the ITD against the assessment order is maintainable before the ITAT but the company's appeal emanating from the same order is not maintainable."

"Surprisingly, the ITAT has upheld the addition under Section 69A of the Act, purely on conjectures and surmises, ignoring the evidence adduced by the company including the annual reports of the investors," it said. NDTV said, "The legal advice received is that a consistent view has to be taken and it appears that the order had been passed in a haste and the above inconsistencies have arisen because of a hurried order."

"We have been advised that Section 69A of the Act is applicable only when money is found in possession of a taxpayer but not accounted for in the books of accounts. However, the said section has no application in the present case since admittedly, investment made by NBC Universal (admittedly t hen subsidiary of the GE Group) through its step down subsidiary, Universal Studios International BV, was duly recorded in the books of accounts of the company's subsidiary, viz, NDTV Networks International Holdings BV," it said. Stating that it will continue to fight the "misguided case" made by I-T Department, NDTV said it is "exploring all options available to it in accordance with law."

With inputs from PTI
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested seven Kashmiri separatist leaders from Hurriyat Conference on Monday in relation to the terror funding case.

NIA arrests seven seperatist leaders in terror funding case pic.twitter.com/Pi7isZLwFI  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

According to CNN-News18, while six Hurriyat members were arrested from Srinagar and one was nabbed from Delhi. Among those arrested, six of them including Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah (also known as Altaf Fantoosh), Geelani's close aides Naeem Khan, Merazuddin Kalwal and Pir Saifulla, Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar, and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq's close aide and spokesperson Shahid-ul-Islam were arrested in Srinagar. They will be brought to New Delhi on Monday, IANS said.

Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate' was arrested in Delhi. The report added that further arrests can be made as these are part of an ongoing investigation, PTI said.

Bitta Karate arrested in Del;Naeem Khan,Altaf Funtus,Ayaz

Akbar,Pir Saifulla,Merazuddin Kalwal&SU Islam being brought to Delhi frm Srinagar  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

According to Times Now, NIA has held several raids in the residences of Hurriyat leaders over the past few months.

NIA sleuths had raided Shah's Srinagar house in June along with the premises of Shahid-ul-Islam and businessman Zahoor Watali, PTI had reported. Son-in-law of Geelani, Shah is perceived to be influential in the policies of the Tehrek-e- Hurriyat. The Jammu and Kashmir Police had put him in preventive detention immediately after the festival of Eid earlier this month.

PTI also added that Hafeez Saeed, Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has also been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Dukhtaran-e-Milat.

The NIA crackdown in Srinagar on Hurriyat leaders aims to reveal how funds were being sourced by Pakistan-based terror outfits including the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) to disruptors in the Valley. The state witnessed a seven-month-long unrest after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander Burhan Muzafar Wani, in July last year.

CNN-News18 says that sources in the NIA believe that local hawala operators from Delhi and Haryana were being used by terrorist organisations and other non-state actors to operate in Kashmir. Media sources say that the NIA FIR named Geelani as well. He has been summoned but hasnt appeared before the enforcement directorate. A show cause notice has been sent to the leader. Other Hurriyat leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik are also reportedly involved in the terror funding case.

The NIA has also linked the seizure of 25 kg of contraband in the Uri sector to the anti-India activities in the Valley. The drug money would allegedly be used to fund stone pelters and other agitators to foster unrest in regions in Kashmir.

According to IANS, the main charge by NIA in the FIR is that the violence in Kashmir is not spontaneous, but it was part of a grand scheme hatched in association with terror outfits in Pakistan to destabilise Jammu and Kashmir. The hawala traders would pass on currency to Hurriyat leaders, who would send it to protesters to hold violent agitations.

The IANS reports that all the arrested individuals will be brought to Delhi for further investigations. The NIA Inspector General, Alok Mittal says that the six arrested in Srinagar were brought to Delhi and all the seven accused will be produced in the court in Delhi on Tuesday. "Evidence collected so far clearly proves financial trail as well as direct link between terror activities and funding of terror activities," he added.

Evidence collected so far clearly proves financial trail as well as direct link b/w terror activities & funding of terror activities: NIA IG pic.twitter.com/d3pD0FLaqF  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

"Evidence collected so far clearly proves financial trail as well as direct link between terror activities and funding of terror activities," he added.

The Hurriyat leadership has called the NIA crackdown "revengeful and arbitrary." They have called for a 'Kashmir Bandh' in the Valley on Tuesday in reaction to these arrests.

With inputs from agencies
A CBI court on Monday convicted businessman Maninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surender Koli to death in the Nithari serial rape and murder case, IANS said.

According to the news agency, special Judge Pawan Kumar Tripathi gave the ruling after finding them guilty of rape, murder, abduction and criminal conspiracy over the killing of a 20-year-old woman.

The case, the eighth of the several lodged in the serial rape-murders, was registered by the CBI under sections 302, 376, 364, 201 and 120(B) of the IPC on 29 December, 2006.

On Saturday, Tiwari pronounced the judgment and held the two guilty. Both Koli and Pandher, who were present in the court were taken into custody.

The court took stock of the arguments from prosecution lawyer JP Sharma who argued that scientific evidence has proved that Koli abducted, killed and raped the woman and tampered with the evidence.

On 5 October, 2006, the woman was returning home from work and passed by the road outside the D-5 residence of Pandher. Koli after killing her, beheaded her and threw the skull behind the house, which was recovered by the CBI.

The DNA of the skull matched with the parents of the deceased. Her clothes, which were recovered from Koli, were identified by the parents. Pandher was involved in the conspiracy of the crime, the court ruled.

Defence lawyer Devraj Singh contradicted the prosecution's argument and said that on the date of crime Pandher was not present at the crime spot. He said that it has been proved that on that date of the crime, Pandher was in Dehradun. However, after taking stock of arguments from both sides the court held them guilty.

The gruesome cases came to light in 2006 when the police discovered the skulls and bones of 16 persons, mostly children, from near Pandher's house in the Noida village of Nithari.

Earlier, many children had gone missing from the nearby slums of Nithari and their parents alleged that the police had ignored their complaints.

It was alleged that Koli would lure the children to the house, offering them sweets and chocolates, murder them and have sex with the corpses. He was also accused of cannibalism. He would throw the bones and other belongings into a ditch behind the house.

With inputs from IANS
Iraq's foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday said that his government has no substantial evidence whether the 39 Indians that the Islamic State had kidnapped in 2014 are alive or dead, ANI reported.

Have no substantial evidence that they were killed/still alive, can't give anything in that regard: Ibrahim al-Jaafari on 39 missing Indians pic.twitter.com/ERzkIv0jBV  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

Al-Jaafari who is on a five-day visit to India, starting Monday, however, said that his government is trying their best to trace the 39 Indians who were earlier believed to be trapped in Mosul's Badush jail.

According to The Indian Express, there were reports on Saturday claiming that the prison was reduced to a rubble during the fighting between the Iraqi coalition forces and Islamic State.

Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh, was sent to Iraq days after the Iraq's prime minister Haider al-Abadi had officially announced victory in the fight to liberate Mosul.

Swaraj had told the family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources had told Singh that the kidnapped Indians (mostly from Punjab) were deployed at a hospital construction site and then shifted to a farm before they were put in a jail in Badush.

Al-Jaafari, is on a visit to India from July 24 to July 28, to discuss bilateral relations between India and Iraq met external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday
A comprehensive national search for the next chief executive of The Company Lab (CO.LAB) has successfully concluded, with former Maryland native and new Chattanoogan Marcus Shaw assuming the role effective Monday.

Mr. Shaw is the former senior director of business development and partnerships for Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), a D.C.-based nonprofit that helps build diversity and leadership pipelines for corporate institutions, nonprofit organizations and government agencies. While there, he significantly grew MLTs partnerships with Fortune 500 partners and led the proposal for an entrepreneurship development program focused on women and minorities. Shaw is also the founder of a boutique consulting company that specializes in working with startups and small to medium-sized businesses. Through this enterprise, he has advised a number of companies on commercialization and capital raising.



Marcus has an extraordinary range of experience dealing with the issues that face entrepreneurs, said Rick Hitchcock, chair of the CO.LAB board of directors. The board is confident that, under Marcus leadership, CO.LAB will dramatically increase its capacity to help entrepreneurs imagine, build and grow successful startup businesses.



Mr. Shaws professional background includes 10 years working in equity research and investment management, as well as serving as the head of tech, media and telecom research at a D.C.-based investment advisor focused on policy and regulated industries, among other positions of leadership. His extensive experience working in the investment world will enable him to provide key insights to high-growth startups working to raise capital and commercialize their products regionally, nationally and globally.

The national network of corporations, VCs and government program officers Mr. Shaw has cultivated throughout the years is another critical asset he brings to Chattanoogas startup community. In addition, he has dedicated much of his career to talent development and retention, with a particular focus on unlocking the potential of diverse individuals.

Chattanooga is an extraordinary entrepreneurial environment where Main Street businesses and high growth, venture-backed businesses can develop in tandem, said Mr. Shaw. CO.LAB will help entrepreneurs build businesses that promote inclusive economic growth in Chattanooga and expand the citys impact in the global innovation discussion.

Over the next few months, Mr. Shaw will lead a comprehensive strategic planning process to identify key priorities and opportunities to move CO.LAB into its next phase of service to the entrepreneurial community. Working with CO.LABs board of directors and other stakeholders in Chattanoogas entrepreneurial success, Mr. Shaw will steer the organization toward evolving opportunities and needs in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.

In transitioning into his new role, Mr. Shaw will take the reins from Jack Studer, who has served as the organizations interim chief executive since October 2016.

We are very grateful for the leadership Jack Studer has provided as CO.LABs interim chief executive while we undertook a national search, said Mr. Hitchcock. Jack has contributed a great deal to Chattanoogas startup community, and we look forward to continuing to work with him to improve opportunities for Chattanooga entrepreneurs.

Moving forward, Mr. Studer will continue to support Chattanoogas startup community through various community roles, including by continuing to serve as a partner at Chattanooga Renaissance Fund, which regularly provides guidance and resources to CO.LAB.

"Chattanooga's startup scene will benefit immensely from the leadership and experience Marcus will bring to his new role as executive director of CO.LAB," said Mr. Studer. "His background in the investment realm and his track record for helping startups through the various stages of maturity position this organization to meet critical, growing needs in the local startup environment."

Members of the public are invited to connect with Mr. Shaw at a Meet & Greet event held on the fifth floor of the Edney Innovation Center on Aug. 3. The event will take place from 5:30  7:30 p.m. Light hors doeuvres and beverages will be served.

Mr. Shaw relocated to Chattanooga in the summer of 2016 with his wife  a board-certified dermatologist  and their two children. He earned a bachelors degree in Mathematics from Morehouse College and a bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He subsequently earned an MBA from Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business. Mr. Shaw started his career as a network engineer with IBM and is currently a member of the Minority Alumni Advisory Board at Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business.
As the ongoing India-China standoff in the Doka La region in Northeastern part of the country continues for the second month, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is all set to travel to Beijing to attend a BRICS NSA summit on 27 and 28 July. "As far as visit of the National Security Advisor to China for the meeting of BRICS NSAs is concerned, I can confirm that he will be visiting. The visit will take place on 27 and 28 July," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

Asked whether Doval will have any bilateral meeting with any Chinese leader or the Special Representative for boundary talks on the sidelines of the meeting of NSAs from BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Baglay did not give a direct reply. "We will keep you informed as and when there are developments," Baglay said.

The visit comes days after external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj addressed the Monsoon Session of the Parliament over the ongoing border stand-off in the Doka La area of the Sikkim sector, which began over two months ago after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the disputed area.

Expounding upon the issue, Swaraj added that the status quo on Sikkim border was not altered by India, but China. "China has unilaterally tried to change the status quo at the tri-junction and that is a threat to our security. We are willing to talk, but both sides should take back their armies to the original position. We are involved in a tri-junction this time and it's directly related to us, if China will change that...that is threat to our security," Swaraj said.

"Saare desh humare saath hain aur sabhi desh samjh rahe hain ki bharat ne jo apna mat rakha hai woh galat nahi hai (All countries are supporting us and they understand that Indias viewpoint on the issue is not incorrect)," Swaraj said.

Chinese welcome visit

Chinese analysts have welcomed the Doval's meeting with his counterpart Yang Jiechi, claiming that the meeting may help ease prevailing tensions on the border. Ma Jiali, a research fellow at the China Reform Forum thinktank, said Doval's visit may be key and would serve as an opportunity to ease India-China tensions.

"China would lodge solemn representation with the Indian side during Doval's visit, hoping it could take measures to ease the tension. India may make some requests as a bargaining chip for its pulling out troops," Ma, who specialises in India-China studies, told Global Times on Sunday.

Doval-Yang already into resolving issue

Both Doval and Yang are also the Special Representatives for India-China boundary talks. The two sides have held 19 rounds of boundary talks to resolve their differences.

Chinese officials say Doval and Yang may have informal talks to resolve the standoff in Dokalam in the Sikkim sector. Analysts, however, cautioned that if the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the issue, the China-India ties would be severely damaged.

Doval doctrine and China

While Doval's visit to China is being welcomed in China, the NSA's hardline stance on China may come to haunt him during the talks.

His rare public interactions, since he assumed office of NSA, have revealed that Doval prefers depending on military solutions over ceding ground in compromises. When India's traditional policy in handling border disputes with its neighbours has propagated a defensive approach, it was Doval who pitched the concept of defensive-offensive and offensive foreign policy.

Doval's stance over border disputes with neighbouring nations can be gauged through his Nani Palkiwala Memorial Lecture, 2014 and the Lalit Doshi Memorial Lecture, 2015.

Answering a question about tackling China's growing might, Doval conceded that China's military is much more stronger than India, even as the former Intelligence Bureau director hailed India's missile technology. He said that it was tough for India to match China's might in the next fifty years, but he advocated ramping up missile technology to target China's economic installations, which he said were the Dragon's only vulnerable spot.

Doval's past comments on China's 'bottomless territorial hunger' assumes importance in these times, as the NSA's visit to Beijing could be a make-or-break situation on India-China border stalemate.

India-China relations right now

While the border stand-off continues, bilateral relations between India and China have not deteriorated as much as it is being described in the national media of both the nations. As this Firstpost article argued, after the Doka La crisis, none of the bilateral visit have been cancelled. In fact, while the border standoff ensued, media reported five senior BJP leaders visited China during that time.

However, the article also noted that there is always the possibility that things could turn ugly given China, as a neighbour, is more powerful and assertive than it was ten or twenty years ago. Pressure by the US government  for both nations to resolve the dispute quickly through talks  will not make much of a difference as both consider this a strategic issue, the article added.

With inputs from agencies
Jammu: The Pakistan Army is resorting to intensified shelling across the Line of Control in Jamuu and Kashmir as part of its support to Lashkar-e-Taiba's "Year of Kashmir" campaign, said a senior Indian Army official on Monday.

The month of July has seen greater ceasefire violations, which resulted in killings of 11 people, including nine soldiers and injuries to 16 others besides dislocation of thousands of people from the border areas of the state. Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which was known as Lashkar-e-Taiba earlier and which has now renamed itself as Tehreek Azadi Jammu and Kashmir (TAJK), had declared 2017 earlier as the Year of Kashmir.

The campaign is aimed at making the LoC look "more active to highlight the Kashmir issue." The security agencies attributed Pakistan Army's support to JuD's campaign while pointing out the spurt of incidents of cross-LoC shelling and firing by them in July.

Amid one of the worst fatalities in recent times, the month also saw over 110 livestock falling prey to the incidents of shelling and firings by Pakistani Army in which nearly 35 structures, including over two dozen houses were damaged along the LoC in Rajouri district alone.

In the wake of repeated firing and shelling by Pakistan, over 4,000 people from borders areas had to be shifted to safer places in the district. "The month has seen greater ceasefire violations along LoC in the state. The aim was to engineer infiltrations and push in more and more militants in Jammu and Kashmir," said a senior army officer, alluding to Pakistan Army support to "Year of Kashmir" campaign and adding that Indian forces too aptly retaliated to the shelling by Pakistani Army.

On 21 July, 28-year-old rifleman Jayadrath Singh was killed when Pakistan Army resorted to firing at Indian Army posts in Sunderbandi sector of Rajouri district. Singh belonged to village Bhagwanpur of Saharanpur district in Uttar Pradesh. He is survived by his wife Mamta Devi.

A juniour commissioned officer, Subedar Shashi Kumar, who was grievously injured in an unprovoked ceasefire breach by Pakistan in Naushera on 18 July, died at Udhampur Command Hospital on 19 July.

Subedar Kumar was a native of Galon village of Hamirpur district in Himachal Pradesh. He is survived by his wife Santosh Sharma and children. The 18 July ceasefire violations by Pakistan also saw two army jawans, Sepoy Jaspreet Singh, 24 and Rifleman Bimal Sinjali, 21 killed in Naushera and Nowgam sectors of Rajouri and Kupwara districts respectively.

Eight people including 5 jawans had suffered injuries that day. "More than 110 livestock were reported dead and two dozen houses damaged. A total of 35 structures including private houses,

government buildings including schools, were damaged in recent mortar shelling in Nowshera," said Rajouri Deputy Commissioner Shahid Iqbal Choudhary. On 18 July, Pakistani troops also targeted school children, shelling their schools and trapping 217 of them in in 3 schools in Kadali and Seha areas of Rajouri near the LoC for 6 hours. The army and state police, however, rescued and evacuated them to safer places in bullet-proof vehicles along with other people totalling 261.

Earlier on 17 July, one army jawan and a girl were killed when the Pakistan Army violated ceasefire twice in two sectors and resorted to firing at Indian Army posts and civilian areas

in Rajouri and Poonch districts.

The victims were identified as 37-year-old Naik Muddasar Ahmed of militancy-infested Tral belt of South Kashmir and 9-year-old girl Sajada.

On 15 July, another jawan, Lance Naik Mohmmad Naseer, 35 was killed and yet another injured in Pak shelling along the LoC in Rajouri district. Two other jawans, Lance Naik Ranjit Singh and Rifleman Satesh Bhagat, both of Jammu, were killed along LoC on 12 bJuly, in Pakistani firing in Keran sector of North Kashmir sector.

Four days earlier on 8 July, jawan Mohmmad Showkat, who was on leave, was killed along with his wife, when his house was hit by a Pakistani Army's mortar shell in Poonch sector. Four people were injured.

The officials said there have been 23 incidents of ceasefire violations, one attack by Pakistan's notorious Border Action Team and two infiltration bids by Pakistan-backed militants in June in which 4 people, including 3 jawans were killed and 12 injured.

On 29 June, two Indian Army jawans were injured when Pakistani troops fired from small arms and shelled mortars on forward posts and civilian areas along the LoC in Poonch district. Even on the occasion of Eid-ul Fitr on 26 June, the Pakistani Army had fired small arms and automatic weapons and shelled mortars along the LoC in Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri.

On 22 June, in the third such attack this year, a team of Pakistani special forces sneaked 600 metres across the LoC into the Poonch sector and killed two Indian jawans, but lost one Border Action Team (BAT) member in retaliatory action.

It had carried out the attack at around 2 pm on an army patrol party in the Gulpur belt of Poonch on 22 June under heavy cover fire by Pakistani troops. In the firefight, two Indian soldiers, Naik Jadhav Sandip, 34, of Aurangabad and Sepoy Mane Savan Balku, 24, of Kolhapur were martyred.
New Delhi: Sitting on the verandah of his home in Delhi, Pranab Mukherjee, then a young MP, saw horses from the Rashtrapati Bhavan pass by and jokingly told his sister that he would like to be a presidential horse in his next birth.

Indulgent as ever, Annapurna Banerjee, older to him by 10 years, prophesied that he would be president in this life itself.

Today, president Pranab Mukherjee's last day in office is the culmination of that prophecy for a man known as the quintessential man Friday of the Congress, rewarded as president yet not trusted enough to be prime minister.

And the horse vignette from an interview that Banerjee gave could illustrate what is a fitting end note to a remarkable five-decade political career  some dreams do come true.

India's 13th president will step down on Tuesday for Ram Nath Kovind, a long way from the reluctant schoolboy of West Bengal's Mirati village who grew to be one of India's most respected politicians.

It all started when Indira Gandhi spotted him during a by-election in Midnapore where he was VK Krishna Menon's election agent. His astute management saw Menon, a Malayali contesting in West Bengal as a candidate of Congress' rival faction Bangla Congress, win by a huge margin.

Impressed with his political acumen, Gandhi brought Mukherjee into the Congress and initiated his parliamentary journey through the Rajya Sabha in 1969.

There have been many firsts since then for the 81-year-old, fondly known as Pranab Da.

He became India's youngest finance minister of India in 1982 at the age of 47. From 2004, he went on to head three crucial ministries  External Affairs, Defence and Finance  and became the first occupant of the Rashtrapati Bhavan to have this distinction.

He will also go down in the history as the only non-prime minister who was the leader of the Lok Sabha for eight years.

Known for his political acumen and ability to form consensus across party lines, Mukherjee was heading 24 of 39 GOMs (groups of ministers) when he became president in 2012. Between, 2004-2012, he had chaired 95 GOMs.

That is why friends and rivals will agree that there was enough politics left in him when he accepted his retirement from active politics in the form of the presidency.

It's a mixed bag legacy for the politician who won his first election in 2004 from Jangipur in West Bengal.

Mukherjee's lasting contribution as finance minister, for instance, includes the introduction of an egregious tax change  a retrospective amendment to the Income Tax act that targeted Vodafone and allowed closed tax cases to be reopened. That amendment shook foreign investor confidence in India as a safe investment destination, experts say.

A tough taskmaster, avid reader and history aficionado, Mukherjee has ensured that he leaves his mark on the presidency.

He has made it easier for common people to visit the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The long-neglected Durbar Hall was given a fresh lease of life with Mukherjee ensuring that important events were held under its dome that had pigeons nestling in it.

The library was renovated. Books, including some rare ones, were catalogued and researchers were given access.

The impressive presidential palace also opened its gates for writers, artists, innovators, scientists and students through an in-residency programme

Author Amitav Ghosh, who spent four days in Rashtrapati Bhavan as part of the programme, described the initiative as an attempt at "democratising an essentially profoundly undemocratic building".

Mukherjee is known to have generously shared his experience with others, cutting across party lines.

Prime minister Narendra Modi called him a father figure who hand-held him through the maze of national governance after he became the prime minister in 2014.

Somewhat controversially, Mukherjee's presidency saw him turn down several mercy petitions, including those of Yakub Menon, Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru.

In the last five years, Mukherjee has often spoken out on headline issues.

After the infamous Nirbhaya rape case, for instance, he cautioned society to reset its "moral compass".

He also termed universities as "bastion of free thinking" and "reasoned debate" in the backdrop of media onslaught on JNU and DU students.

And in his farewell speech on Sunday, he cautioned the government against using the ordinance route to bring in a law, saying it should be used only in a compelling situation and not taken recourse to in monetary matters.

As he prepares for retirement, friends and family say he has always been a workaholic.

When his wife of 58 years Suvra Mukherjee passed away in 2015, Mukherjee took refuge in his work and was back in office within four hours of attending her last rites.

Blessed with a photographic memory, Mukherjee gives credit to his mother  and to his childhood days when he would recount the day's happenings to his mother.

What will the people's president do after he leaves office?

"I will melt into the masses" was his prompt response at a conference earlier in the year.

The old order changeth, yielding to the new. But melting into the masses may not be as easy as Pranab Da imagines.
RSS activist Dinanath Batra shot himself in the foot on Monday, making sensational recommendations to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), asking the group to review some portions of school textbooks.

The Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, headed by Batra, sent five pages of recommendations. What did they ask for? As per a report in The Indian Express, he wanted no words in English, Arabic or Urdu in school textbooks. No excerpts from MF Husain's autobiography and Rabindranath Tagore's writings. Mentions of the BJP as a "Hindu" party and the National Conference as "secular" to be wiped out entirely. A paragraph that links the Ram Temple debate with the rise of BJP and Hindutva politics should be removed.

Batra received flak on social media after his list of demands went viral on Monday. A furious Sitaram Yechury called the requests "an insult to India".

Slamming the BJP-RSS ideologue, the Union minister also said, "By attacking Tagore, Urdu and other vital symbols of rich, Indian culture, RSS ideologues are again demonstrating how anti-India they are."

However, should one be surprised to see the list? It's far from the first time Batra has said or written something controversial and scandalous.

Batra has, for a while, been on a course to 'Indianise' the education scene. The self-proclaimed historian, whose books are now being taught in Gujarat schools, has written against the celebration of birthdays with cakes and candles, because "it is a western practice". In one of his texts, he also wrote, "Instead, we should follow a purely Indian culture by wearing swadeshi clothes, doing a havan and praying to ishtadev (preferred deity), reciting Gayatri Mantra, distributing new clothes to the needy, feeding cows, distributing prasad and winding up the day by playing songs produced by Vidya Bharati."

In another book, Batra said he does not believe that India's neighbours should be recognised as separate countries. In a book titled Tejomay Bharat (Shining India), he argued that the Indian map should include "countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Burma", as they're all a "part of Akhand Bharat".

Batra's "moral education" books are already prescribed as compulsory reading in government schools in Gujarat. He has actively advocated the teaching of Sanskrit to students, along with an emphasis on their respective mother tongues ("with 20 percent for Sanskrit"), with Hindi as a second language.

In one of his writings, he said, "Undivided India is the truth, divided India is a lie. Division of India is unnatural and it can be united again."

Back in 2014, he had objected to NCERT textbooks for being "misleading" and "full of flaws". Batra had said at the time, "The condition of Hindi books is even worse. Have you heard of Hindi books having English poems? There are 180 English words, 170 Urdu words, even Persian poems have been included. We are agitating against those books."

He also picked on how NCERT textbooks represented Hindu epics. "They say they are fiction. Ramayana is history. They are great books. They are not myths. They are history," he had said in an interview with Firstpost.

Speaking to IANS the same year, Batra had said, "English poems (in Devanagri script) and Persian couplets in Hindi are there in the school books. It is a distortion of Hindi language."

However, state governments have always appeared to be in favour of Batra and his suggestions. In 2016, the BJP government in Haryana introduced six books by the RSS ideologue in the state schools. While it revived a debate on the saffronisation of education, Batra continued to defend his writings. "Those who make such charges are unaware of the great Indian values, culture and tradition," he had said.

Before the books were out, when Batra was asked if controversial content from the Gujarat textbooks had made their way into books meant for Haryana schools, he told The Indian Express, "You can call it whatever you want but I'll write whatever evokes nationalism in children."

With inputs from agencies
Senior prison officials have confirmed that special privileges were extended to AIADMK (Amma) leader VK Sasikala inside the Parappana Agrahara Central Jail in Bengaluru, according to media reports.

Officers of the prisons department have admitted before members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly that these privileges were extended to Sasikala and multi-crore stamp paper scam kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi inside the jail, Deccan Chronicle reported. The officials also admitted that Sasikala had a passage and five rooms entirely for herself.

So far, the allegation regarding special treatment meted out to Sasikala and Telgi, as mentioned in the report submitted by (DIG) Roopa turns out to be true. Our committee has directed the senior officials to identify the jail officials who are involved in the irregularities, Deccan Chronicle quoted a PAC member as saying.

The report added that PAC has also asked both ADGP Prisons NS Megharikh and DIG HS Revanna, who have replaced Rao and Moudgil in the prison respectively, to submit a detailed report.

The PAC is headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and former home minister R Ashok, who has asked the prison officials to submit a report within 15 days, according to India Today.

The irregularities came to the fore earlier in July when former DIG Prisons, Bengaluru D Roopa Moudgil submitted a report to the home secretary and four other departments, accusing former DIG and IGP of Prisons HN Satyanarayana Rao of receiving Rs two crore as bribe to extend the special privileges to Sasikala.

"Sasikala has given Rs one crore bribe to Rao and another Rs one crore was distributed among officials, including warden of the central jail, where she is serving 4-year sentence in an illegal wealth case, for allowing her special privileges," DIG Roopa Moudgil's report allegedly said. "As a reward for bribing the prison authorities from Rao to jail warden, Sasikala gets special menu daily, cooked by special chefs in a special kitchen near the women's cell," Roopa is said to have mentioned in the report.

This was followed by a major backlash against Roopa as senior officials claimed that it was inappropriate to approach the media regarding the issue. "I have served a memo to her (Roopa) seeking explanation and evidence to prove her wild allegations. She has not given any report to me or the government against me or other jail officials," Rao had initially said.

Days after the submission of the report, Roopa was transferred to another department in Karnataka Police. DGP Prisons Sathyanarayana Rao was also transferred last week with immediate effect.

Sasikala has been lodged at Bengaluru's Parappana Agrahara central jail since her conviction in February in a disproportionate assets case along with her two relatives, VN Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, all serving a four-year jail term.

With inputs from agencies
In what is turning out to be another long drawn out case of violence, the investigation into the rape and murder of a 16-year-old in Shimla took a new turn on Sunday as the Central Bureau of Investigation decided to re-examine the body of an accused who died in police custody six days ago. The incident occurred early in July, but it took a long while for authorities to take action.

On 5 July, when the school-girl had not returned home, a search was undertaken by locals, until her body was found dumped in a nearby forest the next day. "There were cigarette burn scars on her body. She was subjected to inhuman treatment before she was murdered," India Today quoted the victim's uncle and sister as saying.

"On a complaint lodged by her father with police station Kotkhai, district Shimla, the FIR was registered against unknown persons," CBI spokesperson RK Gaur said about the case which has been filed under sections 302 (for murder) and 376 (for rape) of IPC, and section 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

It took more than a week for the police to arrest the six accused. "In this case, we had no witness and no CCTV footage. Even most of the evidence at the crime spot was washed away by rains. We have now gathered sufficient human and technical evidence," inspector general Zahur H Zaidi said.

But alleging that the real culprits were not arrested as they belonged to influential families, public demonstrations were staged across Shimla on 15 July where people demanded that lapses in the investigation should be corrected. The Congress also joined the clamour for justice. Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu said there certainly was some "negligence" in the police probe.

An irate mob allegedly roughed up the Shimla superintendent of police, damaged his vehicle and also those of the sub-divisional magistrate and station house officer of Theog, who took shelter inside the police station to escape violence.

The Himachal Pradesh unit of BJP then urged Governor Acharya Devvrat to dismiss the Virbhadra Singh-led Congress government in the state alleging that the law and order situation had worsened.

The events took a drastic turn when one of the accused Suraj Singh succumbed to injuries caused during a scuffle in the lock-up with another accused Rajendra Singh, police said. His death triggered violent protests in Kotkhai last week. The same day, Himachal Pradesh High Court ordered the CBI take over the investigation.

Public outrage soon forced the state government to act against officials involved in the investigation. Within hours of the state high court entrusting the investigation of the case to CBI, the government transferred IGP Zaidi, who was heading the special investigation team (SIT), additional SP Bhajan Dev Negi, who was a member of the SIT, along with Shimla SP DW Negi, according to The Times of India.

CBI has now registered two FIRs on Saturday in the gang-rape and murder of the victim and the custodial death of the accused, after taking over the cases from the state police, and begun probe into the cases. The agency also constituted a SIT to be headed by a superintendent of police of the agency.

Various Nepalese associations, active in Himachal, have asked the district administration to release Surajs body, but it is unlikely that the CBI will release the body soon as forensic experts have been called for a re-examination. His body has been lying in the morgue in Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) since Wednesday, where doctors had conducted an autopsy and confirmed the death by injuries, Hindustan Times reported.

So far, no one has come to take the body, a doctor at IGMC said, requesting anonymity.

"The accused are roaming freely. The police has failed to arrest the actual perpetrators. Initially, the police had said it was a high profile case. But, when people mounted pressure, they arrested four labourers and a local, after 10 days," India Today quoted the victim's mother as saying.

The victim's family has refused to accept the police theory of rape and murder. The family now hopes that the CBI will do justice to the victim.

With inputs from agencies
The recent standoff between India and China over the Doka La area is one of the many tactical attempts by China at a strategic containment of India. Within the larger regional picture, after having made inroads into Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh, China has now targeted Bhutan which appeared to be the last man standing in the immediate neighbourhood of India. It is not surprising, therefore, that China decided to unilaterally change the status of a disputed tri-junction; a move that is possibly intended to test the strength of India-Bhutan relations as well as to undermine the status of India as a second pole to China in South Asia.

Chinas recently announced One Belt One Road (OBOR) programme is pitched as an economic initiative aimed at improving transport, communication and other infrastructural facilities in the South Asian region. The OBOR project, however, cannot be viewed in isolation, without taking into consideration the political motives attached to it.

A symbol of Chinese imperialism, OBOR is aimed at strengthening China president Xi Jinpings position as the head of the ruling Communist Party of China, therefore, Jinping has attached his personal reputation to its success. Besides, the project also aims to achieve multiple foreign policy goals, including positioning China as a regional hegemon in Asia by stamping out any potential balancing efforts by countries like India and Japan. What is noteworthy here is that while Japan has indicated its willingness to cooperate with the Chinese on the OBOR project, it is India that has decided to boycott the project citing concerns relating to sovereignty and territorial integrity. Willingly or not, Indias position against the OBOR project has positioned it as a potential balancer to Chinas hegemonic designs in the region. Jinpings frustration at Indias firm stance on the issue, and the rise of India as a potential second pole in South Asia are, therefore, at the bottom of the recent face-off between the two countries in Doka La.

While the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is at the centre of this disagreement, it is also the inroads that China has been making into countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, that has set off alarm bells in India. The nature of Chinese investments in these countries has put a big question mark over the underlying intentions of Chinese designs in the region. The development of the Gwadar port in Pakistan, Hambantota port in Sri Lanka and Kyaukpyu port in Myanmar are interesting cases in point. The trajectory of development of the three port projects and their ultimate end result is too similar for any of this to be a mere coincidence.

The Gwadar port was developed using Chinese assistance of more than $200 million. The project was then declared a commercial failure, following which, in April 2017, the port was leased out to a state run Chinese firm for 40 years.

The Hambantota port project in Sri Lanka saw a debt-equity swap under which the Chinese have been granted a shareholding of 80 percent. China is meanwhile demanding about 85 percent share in the Kyaukpyu project in Myanmar.

The economies of scale of each of these projects make them financially unviable and will eventually turn them into Chinas strategic assets in the region.

With a strategic port each to the west, east and south of India, along with multiple other assets being created under the garb of OBOR, Chinas strategic containment of India may not remain a far-fetched idea.

India is also acutely aware of Chinas meddling into the political affairs of Nepal. While Indias mishandling of its bilateral relations with the country were fundamental in providing a foot in the door to the Chinese, the Chinese investments have now outpaced Indias contribution to Nepal.

Bhutan, on the other hand, remains the only country unaffected by the Chinese designs in the region and the recent conflict over Doka La was aimed at changing this status quo. By creating trouble on Bhutans borders, China has attempted to undermine Indias support for its immediate neighbours. Had India backed out of the situation, the move would have underlined the futility of Indias might, put a question mark over its status as a reliable partner and opened a door for the establishment of bilateral relations between Bhutan and China, thus completing the containment of India in its neighbourhood. Attempting to kill two birds with one stone, Chinas moves in Doka La, therefore, have wider strategic connotations.

Indias response to the Doka La crisis must, therefore, take into consideration the larger dynamics of power play between the two countries in South Asia.

The manner, in which the Indian forces have been able to hold the Chinese for over a month now, already gives the Indian side a psychological edge. That India was able to stand up to a rising hegemon for the interest of its immediate neighbour lends greater credence to its position as a reliable partner. Besides, Chinas threatening posturing in Doka La has been self-defeating at best, for its previous claims of 'peaceful rise' and 'benevolent hegemony' have come under scanner.

Not only did China violate its commitments made under the treaties of 1988-89 and 2012, it also served to threaten the territorial sovereignty of a tiny country by flexing its military muscles. This is similar to how China has operated in the South China Sea region, where its muscle flexing has endangered the sovereignty of other smaller countries in the region.

More than the battle of military forces, the recent stand-off between the two countries is a battle of narratives. While China has sought to play the victim in the face-off, the diplomatic posturing maintained by India over the issue, combined with the war mongering by the Chinese media has subtly highlighted the nefarious designs of Chinese hegemony in the region. To its credit, India has been able to successfully control the jingoism on its side.

Any further stretching of this face-off will weaken Chinas position. While India will need to press firmly for a diplomatic resolution to the issue, any move to unilaterally back out will amount to a psychological victory for the Chinese. Not only will this encourage more such violations in the future, it will also position India as a permanent second fiddle to China. To effectively balance China in South Asia, India will, therefore, need to hold its ground this time. Otherwise, it will have to permanently live in the dragons shadow.
Kanwal Tanuj, district magistrate of Bihar's Aurangabad, went a step too far while promoting the Centre's Swachh Bharat mission. Tanuj, while urging locals to ensure there are enough toilets in Jamhore village, said men who cannot afford to build toilets should sell their wives.

'If you can't build toilet for your wife, then sell her': Aurangabad DM sparks controversy Read @ANI_news story | https://t.co/hV9OlCiPij pic.twitter.com/Maq7yNQDwq  ANI Digital (@ani_digital) July 23, 2017

A report on the news agency ANI said Tanuj was trying to impress upon villagers the importance of sanitation facilities. But while he may have wanted to make a point about the importance of building toilets, his argument took a misogynistic tone as he tried to link the issue with the dignity of women.

"Due to lack of toilets, women get raped and harassed. It only costs Rs 12,000 for the construction of a toilet. Is Rs 12,000 more than anyone's wife's dignity? Who can let his wife get raped for Rs 12,000?" Tanuj asked.

"If this is your mentality, then go and sell your wife. Those who cannot build toilets should sell or auction their wives," he added.

This statement came as he was responding to queries from the villagers, according to a report on India Today. A villager reportedly said, "Sir, I don't have the money to build a toilet."

"I will talk to you. If that is the case, then go and sell your wife. If this is the mentality you have, then go and sell your wife. So many people talk about advance payment, they get advance and then spend it on useless things," India Today reported Tanuj as saying.

Tanuj was spreading awareness about the 'Shauchalay Nirman' and 'Ghar Ka Sammaan' schemes, under which the Bihar government provides an aid of Rs 12,000 to a beneficiary to build toilets at home to end the menace of open defecation.
Kolkata: Two people have been detained outside West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's house in Kolkata on Monday for allegedly carrying arms, the state police said.

"Sundari Singh Sardar and Sujat Singura, both residents of Purulia district's Baghmundi, have been detained from outside the Chief Minister's house here in Kalighat area," a police officer said.

According to police sources, illegal arms were seized from the two persons.

They are being questioned by the police to find out why they were roaming near the Chief Minister's residence with illegal weapons.
On Monday, India lost one of its key space scientists, former ISRO chairman Udupi Ramachandra Rao. He was 85 when he breathed his last at his Bengaluru residence.

Rao, who nurtured a passion to take India to Mars, looked forward to the country's maiden launch to Venus. We take a look at the story of one of the main architects of India's space programme.

Early years

Born in Adamaru village near Udupi, Rao completed his Bachelors in Science from Madras University, MSc from Banaras Hindu University and PhD from Gujarat University under the guidance of Dr Vikram Sarabhai.

He taught at MIT and University of Texas at Dallas, before returning to India in 1966 as a professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

Contribution to the Indian space scene

Rao initially worked as a cosmic ray scientist under Sarabhai. In the late 60s and 70s, Rao was working on satellite payloads and development of satellite technology with Sarabhai, reported International Business Times.

He played an instrumental role in several of ISRO's projects, including the successful launch of Indias first satellite Aryabhata in 1975.

In a Livemint interview, Rao dubbed the project his "turning point".

"The biggest challenge was that no one had any idea what a satellite was. I had some experience, none of the other people did," he said, recalling the process behind the launch.

Serving as ISRO chairman

Rao, who held several top positions over the years, including many foreign universities, served as the chairman of ISRO from 1984-1994. For his services, he was conferred the Padma Vibhushan in January 2017, reported Deccan Herald. He was previously awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1976.

He was serving as the chairman of the governing council of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad and the chancellor of the Indian Institute of Science and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram.

After taking charge as chairman of the Space Commission and secretary of Department of Space in 1984, Rao accelerated the development of rocket technology which led to the successful launch of Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) rocket and the operational Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launch vehicle, which can launch 2 ton class of satellites into polar orbit, his profile on the space agency's website reads.

He also initiated the development of the Geo Stationary Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and the development of cryogenic technology in 1991.

Renaissance man

For his immense contribution to development of India's space technology, Rao received many awards over the years. He was awarded an honorary degree from over 25 universities, according to a report in The Times of India.

He published over 350 scientific and technical papers covering cosmic rays, interplanetary physics, high energy astronomy, space applications, satellite and rocket technology and authored many books.

The former ISRO chief became the first Indian space scientist to be inducted in the prestigious Satellite Hall of Fame in Washington DC in 2013 and in International Astronautical Federation (IAF) into its Hall of Fame in Mexico's Guadalajara.

With inputs from agencies
A former Chattanooga postal supervisor from Hixson who was caught up in a sex sting was sentenced on Monday in a child porn case after he said he was guilty of "being stupid."

Jason Wesley Ford, 39, had been on house arrest for 17 months and will stay in that status for another 18 months while avoiding prison under the order from Federal Judge Sandy Mattice.

He will be on supervised release for five years after going off house arrest. He is not allowed to use the computer.

Ford told the judge, "I'm here because I'm stupid. I did a stupid thing."

He said he "was not trolling" for young girls, but had the misfortune of running into not one, but two, undercover officers on the Internet. He said he suspected that the persons he was into contact with were not really minors. He said that is why he asked for them to send him their nude photo.

Prosecutor Terra Bay noted that Ford also sent a photo his genitalia to the alleged minor. No nude photos were ever sent to him.

Ford said he had met other adults on the meetme.com site and had consensual sex with them.

He noted that the site is for adults only. In fact, one officer was kicked off meetme.com by its site administrator after she said she was almost 15.

During the chat with the officer, Ford said he was "looking for some fun," had worked at an adult bookstore, and still had "access to some toys."

After Ford inquired about a photo, the officer said she would have her friend help her, saying she was "the sexy one." Ford replied, "Mmmm nice. . . she is sexy too? Will she be involved? Send me a clean picture of her and you please."

Ford said he wanted her to "prove that you are not a cop."

He said, "I'm not going to jail for anyone (LOL)."
New Delhi: Two separate inquires have been ordered by the home ministry into the death of a CRPF man in Jammu and Kashmir due to alleged negligence by his superior, who reportedly did not allow the sick jawan to be taken to the nearest medical centre.

A home ministry spokesperson said the CRPF will conduct a court of inquiry into the entire incident in which the company commander of the force was allegedly thrashed by his subordinates following death of their colleague due to illness in Anantnag district.

Separately, the director (medical), who heads the medical wing of the ministry, has been dispatched to Kashmir where the incident had happened.

The director (medical) will look into the possible medical negligence and whether there was deficiency in providing early treatment to Khupmani Misall, who was posted with 28 Battalion of CRPF at Qaimoh in Anantnag district, the spokesperson said.

Misall was taken to the CRPF Unit hospital at Anantnag after he fell ill on Saturday, where he died.

The death of the jawan angered his colleagues who allegedly thrashed their company commander for not allowing Misall to be taken to the nearest health facility, which caused delay in timely medical attention to him, a police official said in Srinagar.
Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government will soon launch 'Pink' air-conditioned buses exclusively for women, an official said on Monday.

The Union government's Ministry of Women and Child Development has sanctioned funds for the 50 buses from its 'Nirbhaya Fund'. The staff, including conductor in these buses will be women, the official added.

A presentation for these buses was made before ministry officials on 21 July by the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) authorities.

The ministry has mandated the state government to buy the buses and also to purchase and install CCTV cameras in the other 12,500 buses owned by the UPSRTC. The buses will have panic buttons installed for emergencies.
New Delhi: Two days before he demits office, President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday went down memory lane as he delivered his farewell speech, recalling his first day as a member of Parliament as well as his past associations.

"With a sense of gratitude and a prayer in my heart, I take leave of you. I leave with a sense of fulfilment and happiness of having served the people of this great country through this institution  as their humble servant," he said in his address to members of both the houses at the Central Hall of Parliament.

"As I retire from the office of the president of the republic, my association with Parliament also comes to an end. I will no longer be a part of Parliament of India. It will be with a tinge of sadness and a rainbow of memories that I will be leaving this magnificent building today," he added.

Reminiscing about his association with Parliament, he said, "When I first entered the portals of this hallowed institution 48 years ago, I was 34 years old. In July 1969, I came to Parliament as member of the Rajya Sabha, representing one of the six seats from West Bengal. My election to the Rajya Sabha took place on 4 July, and the first session I attended was on 22 July," said Mukherjee.

"Since then, for the last 37 years, I have served as a member of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Of these, I served five terms as a member of the Rajya Sabha  four times elected from West Bengal and once from Gujarat. And two terms in the Lok Sabha," he added.

He said that his long innings in Parliament was both instructive and educative. "I entered Parliament at a time when the Rajya Sabha was full of experienced parliamentarians, leaders of the freedom movement, many of whom were brilliant speakers  MC Chagla, Ajit Prasad Jain, Jairamdas Daulatram, Bhupesh Gupta, Joachim Alva, Mahavir Tyagi, Raj Narain, Bhai Mahavir, Loknath Mishra, Chitta Basu, and many others," he recalled.

"In fact, Bhupesh Gupta was truly a legend in the Rajya Sabha. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's son Dahyabhai Patel, and daughter Maniben Patel represented the Swatantra Party in Parliament," he added.

"PV Narasimha Rao, the oration of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, cryptic one-liners of Madhu Limaye and Nath Pai, wit and humour of Piloo Modi, poetic discourses of Hiren Mukherjee, razor-sharp repartee of Indrajit Gupta, calming presence of Manmohan Singh, mature advice of LK Advani, and passionate support of Sonia Gandhi on social legislations," Mukherjee reminisced.
The Women and Child Development ministry launched an online platform to enable women employees of the central government to file complaints related to sexual harassment at the workplace on Monday.

"We are also going to soon conduct a national survey to assess the nature and magnitude of sexual harassment at the workplace," Union minister Maneka Gandhi said after launching the portal at her office here.

The WCD minister also instructed officials to make the SHe-box' (sexual harassment electronic box) as "interactive" as possible. "To begin with, central government women employees can file complaints, but we are going to widen the ambit to include the private sector as well," she said.

The decision to host an online platform for sexual harassment cases was taken by the WCD ministry last October after the ministry received complaints from women employees from various ministries.

The e-platform will be hosted on the WCD ministry's website and the complaints will then be taken up with the respective ministries or departments.

"We just need to make a few changes in our online interface. Once it is done, employees from private companies would also be able to lodge complaints," Gandhi added.

The decision to host an online platform for sexual harassment cases was taken by the WCD ministry last October after the minister received complaints from women employees in various ministries.
With the Bofors issue set to rock the nation again, the Indian National Congress may not be able to blame the BJP alone. Only a few days ago, a sub-committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had agreed that the case needed to be looked into again.

Lok Sabha members from treasury benches on Monday demanded to reopen the investigation into the alleged irregularities in the Bofors gun case.

It may be mentioned that while PAC is headed by senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Mallikarjun Kharge, its sub-committee does not have any members from Congress due to lack of numbers in the Lok Sabha.

BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi raised the issue of the Bofors scandal, demanding opening of the 'boxes'. She said that the 'ghost of Bofors' would continue to haunt the Parliament. She said that there were documents related to discussions between Rajiv Gandhi and the then Swedish prime minister Olof Palme which proved a quid pro quo.

Bofors scam resurfaced in the Parliament, after a sub-committee of PAC suggested that Bofors case should be reopened.

Another BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who is a member of the PAC sub-committee, also raised the issue.

"The CBI should open the case and reinvestigate the case. The CBI had sought permission earlier but UPA government didnt allow," Dubey.

In response to BJPs allegations, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi told reporters at the Parliament, "They (BJP) have been responding for the last 30 years, let them continue to do so for another 30 years."

But Congress needs to keep one thing in mind. This time its not BJP alone, which is demanding reopening of the Bofors case, but a PACs sub-committee as well. And the committee has handed a weapon to the ruling party through its suggestion to reopen the Bofors case.

Monday was not the first time that the ghost of Bofors scam tried to scare Congress in the Parliament. Even during the Monsoon Session in August 2015, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj had launched a scathing attack against Rahul. She said that the Congress government led by his father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had helped Bofors-accused and alleged middleman Ottavio Quattrocchi and Bhopal gas leak accused Warren Anderson, the chief of Union Carbide, flee from India. In the Bhopal Gas Tragedy  worlds worst industrial disaster  more than 15,000 people had died in Bhopal in 1984.

Rahul had then remarked, "For 30 years, the BJP has lied about my father."

What did the PACs sub-committee say?

A six-member sub-committee of PAC  Committee on Non-compliance and Civil Matters  which has been examining pending reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had asked the CBI on 13 July as to why the infamous Bofors payoff case should not be reopened.

The PAC sub-committee comprised six non-Congress Members of Parliament including three BJP leaders Nishikant Dubey, Ajay Sancheti and Shivkumar Chanabasappa Udasi, Bhatruhari Mahtab from BJD, Dr Ponnusamy Venugopal from AIADMK, and Gajanan Kirtikar from Shiv Sena.

The sub-committee that looks after the non-compliance by the ministries/departments in timely submission of action taken notes (ATNs) on the non-selected audit paragraphs, took cognisance of the long delay in acceptance of the ATN.

The case before the panel was related to two CAG reports of 1989 and 1990.

Why Congress will find it difficult to defend?

In the absence of any Congress MP, the sub-committee headed by BJD leader Mahtab took an astute move. And the day, the sub-committee suggested reopening of the Bofors case, it virtually cornered the Congress. The sub-committees suggestion has given strength to BJP to fire fresh salvo at Congress that has no representation in the PAC sub-committee due to lack of numbers in the Lok Sabha. It was decimated to a total strength of 44 in the 2014 General Elections to Lok Sabha and does not hold much weight as a consequence.

Will Rahuls mere rhetoric help the oldest party of India defend itself in the most infamous kickbacks case ever? Only time will tell.
Chandigarh: The Punjab Congress has urged the Centre to take up with the Canadian prime minister a case pertaining to threat issued by pro-Khalistani elements to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in April.

About two months back, videos had surfaced purportedly showing men, suspected to be based in Canada, giving threats to the chief minister at an event in British Columbia's Surrey on 22 April.

Leaders of the Congress party in Punjab alleged that a "cover-up" in the Canadian government's decision to close its probe into the "brazen threats" issued by the pro-Khalistanis against Singh.

"The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) should seek the Canadian prime minister's intervention to ensure that those guilty of using the country's soil to issue open and violent threats to the Punjab chief minister are not allowed a free run," state party leaders Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria and Ramanjit Singh Sikki said in a joint statement.

They demanded to know the status of the case filed by the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) against the chief minister to prevent him from visiting Canada.

"The Punjab Congress has called for activation of all international diplomatic channels to put pressure on the Canadian government to take necessary steps to check the proliferation of anti-India forces on their soil," the leaders said.

Canada should be asked to reopen the case and get it independently investigated in the interest of justice and fair play, and to ensure that its land is not used for divisive propaganda and spreading hatred, they said.

"It is evident that a proper inquiry had not been carried out with respect to the formal complaint, reportedly, lodged by the Indian High Commission in Ottawa to Global Affairs-Canada," the leaders of the state Congress committee said.

They recalled that Amarinder was forced to cancel his Canada visit in 2016 following the complaint and case lodged against him by the SFJ on "frivolous" grounds.

Canada should take strong steps to prevent such "frivolous" cases against Indian leaders, especially when these were obviously aimed at playing into hands of anti-India forces like the ISI to embarrass India and project a wrong image of the country, the leaders said.
Ahmedabad: Following the sudden exit of Shankersinh Vaghela, the Gujarat Congress has called a high-level meeting of its core committee members on Tuesday to discuss the issue of Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly.

During the meeting, the party would pass a resolution empowering the Congress high command to decide the next LoP, as Monsoon Session is expected to be held in October, barely months before the Assembly polls, expected to be held in December, said senior Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar.

Till the new LoP is decided by the party high command, senior Congress MLA Mohansinh Rathwa, who is already serving as the deputy LoP, has been given the charge of LoP, said Parmar.

Rathwa, a tribal leader, is an eight-time MLA who represents Chhota Udepur seat.

"As our LoP Shankersinh Vaghela has resigned from the post, senior MLA and Deputy LoP Mohansinh Rathwa has been given the charge till the new LoP take over" Parmar told PTI.

"We have called a meeting of our core committee members tomorrow to discuss the issue of LoP. In that meet, we will pass a resolution to hand over the powers of deciding the next LoP to the high command. The state unit will accept whatever decision the high command takes about LoP," said Parmar.

Since it is mandatory to call the Assembly session within six months of the completion of previous session, it is likely that the next Monsoon session will be called in September or October, as the previous Budget session ended in March this year, he said.

"If Assembly polls are declared earlier, the state government may not call the Monsoon session in September-October. If polls are declared in December, than the House may meet" he added.

Vaghela, who had announced to quit the Congress three days ago, resigned as the LoP and sent his resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday.
Who contributed more to parliamentary life  Indira Gandhi or Sharad Pawar? The parties they belonged to  Congress and NCP respectively  are both adamant that their leaders would top the list, and are both unwilling to cede any ground in this regard. So much that it has created an our-leader-is-taller-than-yours spat between the two parties.

Certainly, neither party should have involved Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, for asking him to rank their leader higher reeks of pettiness. And a national leader cannot be superseded by a state leader. But considering Congress wrote to Fadnavis and asked him to protect the former prime minister's status shows how unsure the party is.

The unseemly spat was triggered in the Monsoon Session of Maharashtra state legislature, where a motion lauding leaders for their parliamentary contributions will be introduced on 5 August. Congress demanded Indira Gandhi be the first name on the list, since it is her birth centenary this year. Usually whenever such a quarrel takes place, common practice dictates usage of surnames and to go in an alphabetical order.

Even by this method, Indira Gandhi would take precedence over Sharad Pawar, since 'G' and 'I' are ahead of 'P' and 'S'. The matter, one would have thought, was settled.

But the NCP said Sharad Pawar, who has completed half a century of life in politics, should get the nod. Pawar was first elected to the legislature in 1967  that is, he started out when Indira Gandhi was already 50-years-old. But Pawar has since been an MP and the chief minister of Maharashtra several times over. NCP is perhaps suggesting that Pawar be given preference over Gandhi because he is Maharashtra's homegrown politician.

Pawar is no doubt among the tallest leaders Maharashtra has produced, and has contributed a lot to the country  and though many would suggest he hasn't done enough, that is subjective. He has also retired from politics by not contesting for a Lok Sabha seat, instead going to the Rajya Sabha, and continuing to lead his party from there, without whom it would be in worse shambles.

Pawar could have become prime minister of India. My personal belief is that he was positioning himself as a prime ministerial candidate, and meant to jockey-up in New Delhi's scale of acceptance as a "powerful person", but never actually went for the kill. His former acolyte Suresh Kalmadi, now a disgraced Congressman, even held a press meet in the capital to indicate Pawar's possible bid. But nothing more came of that performance.

When compared to Gandhi, who did become prime minister, Pawar never was, and is unlikely to either. Gandhi was in the higher realm of the Order of Precedence of the Government of India, which dictates the President at the head, Vice-President in second place and the Prime Minister in third place. Pawar, either as a Union minister or chief minister, would come at seventh spot.

Meanwhile, another person who will be honoured by the legislature with a mention in the list for parliamentary contribution is Ganpatrao Deshmukh of the Peasants and Workers Party, a Left-of-Centre body. He has been in politics since 1962, which means longer than Pawar by five years, and has won the Sangola Assembly seat 11 times but was a minister only once. He's lost only twice, and not even his bitterest rivals would complain about him. Perhaps the cleanest politician, Deshmukh is a quiet and soft-spoken leader and his virtue has been his work in Sangola in Solapur. He is not the likes of leaders who would force himself to be ranked above one or the others.
CHI Memorial and The Chattanooga Heart Institute are the first in the Chattanooga region to offer MitraClip  a breakthrough technology for people who suffer from mitral valve regurgitation but are too high risk for surgical valve repair or replacement. MitraClip therapy is the worlds first transcatheter mitral valve repair  meaning no surgical incisions are needed to deliver this life changing therapy, officials said.Sometimes called a leaky valve, mitral valve regurgitation is a condition that affects the mitral valve, located between the left chambers of the heart.Heart valves work like one-way gates, allowing blood to flow in one direction between the chambers of the heart and then on to fueling your brain and other parts of your body. When these gates dont close properly, blood can flow backwards (or regurgitate) making the heart work harder to push blood through the body.We needed a therapy for mitral regurgitation that was much less invasive than open heart surgery  specifically for people who were too high risk for an open surgical procedure, says Samuel Ledford, M.D., cardiologist at The Chattanooga Heart Institute. MitraClip is still done under general anesthesia, but theres no incision of the chest or stopping the heart. We go in through the leg, through blood vessels to the heart, and clip the leaflets of the mitral valve together. This helps stop the backward flow of blood and dramatically improves shortness of breath, fatigue and other symptoms of heart failure that prevent people from doing the things they love."People with mitral regurgitation may not realize they have the condition, because its often mild and progresses slowly. Its often suspected when your doctor hears a heart murmur. Elderly people may not realize they suffer from the condition since they attribute their feelings of breathlessness and general decline to old age or other health issues."When left untreated, mitral regurgitation continues to worsen  leading to complications including atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and pulmonary hypertension or high blood pressure in the arteries leading to the heart and lungs."If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with severe mitral valve regurgitation and are not a candidate for open heart surgery, MitraClip may be an appropriate therapy. MitraClip is FDA approved only for patients who are considered too sick for surgery. CHI Memorials MitraClip team  including cardiac surgeons, imaging cardiologists, interventional cardiologists, and nurse navigators  work together to determine what treatment is right for you based on your current health condition and the presence of one or more surgical risk factors," officials said.We have a strong collaboration between cardiac surgery and cardiology where we work together to determine the best course of treatment, and that team-based approach allows us to work closely together and offer advanced treatments that were not available just a short time ago, says Allen Atchley, M.D., cardiologist at The Chattanooga Heart Institute and chief of cardiac services at CHI Memorial. The Chattanooga Heart Institute is committed to providing the most cutting-edge treatments for cardiac conditions and improving the quality of life for people in the Chattanooga region.Unlike surgery, MitraClip doesnt require opening the chest or stopping your heart. Most people who receive MitraClip spend one night in the hospital and are released to home the next day. Although you may feel better immediately after the procedure, doctors recommend taking it easy for five to seven days to allow the site where the catheter was inserted to heal properly.For more information or to schedule an appointment for an evaluation, call CHI Memorials MitraClip Valve coordinator at 423-495-4327.
Thiruvananthapuram: A court Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala on Monday posted the bail hearing of Congress MLA M Vincent, arrested in a sexual harassment case, for Tuesday.

Vincent was arrested on Saturday, a day after being charged with sexual harassment and stalking of a 51-year-old woman, who attempted suicide earlier in the week.

The police plea seeking custody of the legislator for five days for further questioning was also posted for Tuesday.

Since Saturday, the legislator has been remanded to judicial custody at the Neyattinkara sub-jail, located in the city's outskirts.

Vincent's counsel on Monday pointed out that the prosecution has not provided the necessary details for it to study the case. Following which, the court postponed the hearing.

The court also asked Vincent to be produced before it.

On Saturday night the court had sent him to 14-day's judicial custody.

This is the first time a sitting legislator in Kerala has been arrested on such charges.

Before being arrested, Vincent, a first-time legislator, was grilled for over two hours by a police team.

The woman's husband had filed a complaint with the local police station near here accusing the legislator of threatening and harassing his wife on the phone.

Vincent, who represents Kovalam Assembly constituency, said he has done no wrong and claimed he was a victim of political conspiracy.

The case surfaced after the woman attempted suicide by consuming an excessive dose of sleeping pills on Wednesday.

She was rushed to a hospital in the city suburbs and was saved.

The police had earlier taken the statement of the woman.

The woman told the media on Saturday that she has been facing severe mental harassment from the legislator, who had misbehaved with her on two different occasions.

But a sister of the victim and Vincent's wife support the legislator's claim. They have given him a clean chit.

"This lady is known to us and on numerous occasions she has called on my mobile asking the phone to be given to Vincent. This has been a planned exercise with political overtures led by the CPM to trap my husband," said the legislator's wife.

Top Congress leaders, including former chief minister Oommen Chandy, visited Vincent's house on Monday.

"You can even ask any child here, everyone knows the truth in this case," said Chandy when asked whether Vincent was innocent.

The Congress party on Sunday decided to suspend him from the post of party secretary, but later decided to wait till the court found out the truth in the case.

The Congress party leadership and the Congress-led UDF will meet in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday to discuss the issue.
Imphal: Manipur Congress president TN Haokip on Sunday scotched rumour about his joining the BJP started in the social media.

Haokip's face appeared in a poster pasted on a wall in Imphal, which triggered immediate speculation by the social media that he was joining the saffron party.

An annoyed Haokip, a former Speaker of the Manipur assembly, called a press conference to deny the speculation and said that he would approach the cyber crime department of the police and move court, if necessary.

"My personal integrity is not for sale," he said adding as long as he was in active politics, he would stay with the Congress.

A "huge conspiracy is under way" to tarnish his image, he alleged saying that several other Congress leaders of the state weer also being 'targeted by its rival'.

Haokip, however, said that "his friend" and chief minister N Biren Singh might not be aware of this "possible conspiracy".

"BJP has been indulging in both money and muscle power to capture power in neighbouring states," he alleged.

No senior BJP leader was ready to talk about the issue, but party sources revealed that Haokip's face was printed in the poster by mistake.
Parliament will meet on the sixth day of the Monsoon Session as key bills, including The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, are listed for discussion and passing, even as the Opposition is keen to further rake up the issue of farm crisis.

In Lok Sabha, four bills will be tabled for discussion, apart from statements by Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and Minister of Steel Vishnu Deo Sai.

Pradhan will brief the Lower House on the strategic sale of Government of India's existing 51.11 percent shares in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), while Sai will speak about the status of implementation of the recommendations contained in the 29th Report of the Standing Committee on Coal and Steel.

The legislative business lined up for Monday will include crucial Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Central Road Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016, and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

In Rajya Sabha, four bills are scheduled to be discussed, with the ministers moving to pass the bill. The days agenda indicates that Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Footwear Design and Development Institute Bill, 2017, Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017, and Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017 will be debated in the Upper House on Monday.

Legislative business has taken a hit in the ongoing stormy Monsoon Session amid fiery debates and repeated adjournments. The Opposition has been creating a ruckus in the Parliament over issues like farmer crisis and increase in the incidents of mob lynchings. With two of the 19 sittings scheduled in this session already a near washout, the government is trying hard to push through key bills, from a total 34 bills lined up for passing in the Monsoon Session.

Expressing concern over the dwindling number of working days in Parliament, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury has called for enacting a law to ensure there is at least 100 days of active presence of members in the House.

"In the last 2-3 years, Parliament sittings were not held for more than 60 to 70 days (in a year). In such a scenario, how the government will be held accountable?" the 64-year-old Left leader asked. "In contrast, the British Parliament sits for 200 days in a year," he noted.

This will make sure that the government of the day is held accountable for its actions and policies, and members get enough time to deliberate on key issues, the Rajya Sabha member said on Sunday night.
New Delhi: Work is underway to frame a new law for cleansing the Ganga and the various initiatives taken to clean the river will start showing results next year, the government told the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Responding to questions, Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati said the draft of the new law has been submitted to her ministry and discussions on it are underway.

She said cleaning of the river was a gigantic task and it was not like rivers Thames or Rhine, where people do not take bath.

In Ganga, about 20 lakh people bathe every day and 60 crore people every year, the minister said, drawing a contrast with the foreign rivers.

At the same time, she assured the members of the Upper House that various initiatives taken by the central government for Ganga river cleaning will start showing results in 2018 as promised earlier.

"Our Ministry proposes to bring a new Ganga Act. Discussions are underway on bringing the new Ganga Act. The Act has been submitted to the (Water Resources) Ministry by a committee headed by Justice Girdhar Malviya and discussions are underway on it. It will be shared with states before," she said.

"When a road project starts, it takes 2-3 years for getting various clearances and the road is constructed in 1-1.5 years. In 2018, the results for Ganga will start showing. We have made enough preparations in this regard," she claimed.

A ruling BJP member, however, sought to embarrass the government in the House by saying that when plans are made "in the air" then the desired results cannot be achieved.

Basawaraj Patil asked the Minister of State for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sanjeev Kumar Balyan whether any experiment has been done to develop any river, before taking up the big and ambitious project for developing river Ganga.

"If plans are formulated in the air, then you do not get the desired results," he told the Minister, much to the amusement of opposition members who took a swipe at the government by loudly chanting 'hawa mein' (in the air).

The government had earlier formed a committee to prepare the draft of the new Ganga law, which aims at expediting implementation of 'Namami Gange' programme and lay down guidelines to rid the holy river of silt and pollutants.

The committee was headed by Justice (Retired) Girdhar Malviya, which has since prepared the draft and submitted it to the ministry which is examining it further.

The committee was entrusted with the responsibility of preparing the draft law that should have provisions to ensure cleanliness and uninterrupted flow of Ganga.

Bharti said Rs 20,000 crore had been earmarked for Ganga rejuvenation plan and the government will spend Rs 8,000 crore for completing old projects and Rs 12,000 for carrying out new projects envisaged.

She said one cannot alter Benares ghats including the crematoriums there, which are ancient cremation spots and the High Court has given some directions on this behalf.

Bharti said there are some things where there should be minimum government interference.

She also demanded a discussion on the river Ganga and sought to present the report card of her ministry before the House.
New Delhi: The opposition on Monday disrupted the Question Hour in the Lok Sabha by raising slogans against the government over incidents of cow vigilantism, but unlike previous occasions, the proceedings were not adjourned even as the ruckus continued for over an hour.

As soon as the House took up business after obituary references, members belonging to Congress, TMC and RJD came to the Well raising slogans demanding suspension of the Question Hour to discuss the alleged incidents of lynching by cow vigilantes in different parts of the country.

However, the speaker ruled out suspension of the Question Hour and asked the members to go back to their seats.

"Discussions will not be stopped. Question Hour will not be stopped. This is not the way. I have not stopped any discussion on any issue. Discussion is open but only after the Question Hour. Don't disturb the House. You have to mend the ways," she said amidst sloganeering by the opposition members.

Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who had served an adjournment motion, claimed that people were being lynched but the "government is sleeping" and demanded an immediate discussions on the issue of the alleged lynching incidents by cow vigilantes.

The opposition members raised slogans like Gau Raksha Ke Naam Pe Hatya Bandh Karo (Stop killing people in the name of protecting cows), Khoon Kharaba Bandh Karo (Stop all killings), Desh Ko Todne Nahi Denge (We will not allow to divide the country) besides others.

Interestingly, even as TMC members were indulging in sloganeering along with the Congress MPs, one of their (TMC) members  Ratna De Nag  asked two supplementary questions and one relating to pension benefits for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya teachers was taken up for discussion by the House.

Soon thereafter, other members of the TMC returned to their seats. RJD member Jaiprakash Narayan Yadav too went to his seat, while the Congress MPs continued to shout slogans through the entire Question Hour period. At one point of time, they even sat in the Well raising slogans.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi was seen talking to party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia who conveyed her directions to the fellow members raising slogans in the Well. Kharge was seen offering ayurvedic throat drops to Congress MPs shouting slogans. Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar urged them to return to their seats and said government was ready to discuss any issue and would not "run away".
New Delhi: The Parliament on Monday gave its nod to a bill that seeks to upgrade the law related to maritime claims, arrest and detention of ships and extends the jurisdiction of trials to various courts across the country.

The Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims), 2017 seeks to repeal laws such as the Admiralty Court Act, 1861, the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890.

The bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha by a voice vote. It had been passed by the Lok Sabha in March this year.

Moving the bill for consideration and passage, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways and Shipping Mansukh L Mandaviya said the maritime admiralty laws in India remain old and need to be changed in line with the changes affected globally.

He said the government was attempting to bring clarity in law through the proposed legislation.

Highlighting the importance of maritime trade, the minister said 95 percent of the overall exports and imports from India are through the maritime route and 33,000 ships come to the country's shores every year.

Mandaviya said the government was also considering developing new ports in West Bengal, Odisha and Karnataka.

Investments to the tune of Rs 8 lakh crore are needed in the coming years to generate employment and boost India's shipping industry, the minister said.

The earlier legislations came into force during the colonial era when India had only three major ports  Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. Therefore, at present, matters related to admiralty can be decided only by the High Courts of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, even though there are 12 major ports and 205 minor ports in India.

However, the minister informed that the bill extends this to the High Courts of Karnataka, Gujarat, Orissa, Kerala, Hyderabad and any other High Court notified by the central government.

D Bandopadhyay of Trinamool Congress, while supporting the bill, said it is important to look into environmental aspects and see that speedy action is taken in case of maritime accidents releasing toxins.

Kahkashan Perween of the JD(U) also supported the bill, saying it will strengthen laws related to maritime claims.

K Somaprasad of the CPM said the passage of the bill will fulfil a long-standing demand of the legal maritime community.

AV Singh Deo of the BJD said it was a welcome legislation as there are 12 major ports and 205 minor ports in the country at present but only three High Courts tasked with civil matters of admiralty jurisdiction.

V Vijayasai Reddy of the YSRCP also extended his support to the bill, saying its enactment was long overdue.

D Raja of the CPI said the bill was needed as India was an emerging maritime superpower.
Kohima: The Naga People's Front (NPF) has decided to move court seeking disqualification of 36 NPF legislators in the wake of new chief minister TR Zeliang winning the floor test in the Assembly and forming government.

The petition will be filed on Monday in the Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court, said NPF legislators supporting former chief minister Shurhozelie Liezietsu. They announced it during an interacting with a section of media-persons at the chief minister's official residence in Kohima on Sunday night.

MLA Kuzholuzo Azo Nienu said the 10 NPF legislators with Liezietsu had challenged the decision of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) Speaker Imtiwapang Aier in recognising Zeliang, an expelled member of NPF, as the whip on 18 and 20 July , before the two Assembly sittings were held for the floor test. He expressed surprise that on both occassions, the speaker did not respond to their letters and also did not cite any reason for not accepting the whip issued by Kiyanilie Peseyie as authorised by NPF president Liezietsu for the sessions.

On the confusion about appointment of chairman of the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN), Azo said, "His appointment as chairman of DAN will continue as the alliance partners comprising NPF, BJP, NCP and JD(U) has been endorsed."

"The alliance partners have not withdrawn their support signed on 10 July last, and unless they withdraw I will continue to be the chairman," he said. MLA Chotisuh Sazo, who is also a former NLA Speaker, said during the present crisis the Speaker should have accepted the whip issued by NPF party and not the whip issued by NPF Legislature Party.

"NPF is the registered party and recognised by the Election Commission of India while NPF Legislature Party is not a recognised party," he said. "As per NPF Constitution Chapter 5 Section 10 clearly mentions that the president of the party is authorised to promulgate ordinance on all its members, including the legislators," he said.

He also said that as per the Tenth Schedule Para 2 (1)(b) clearly mentions that a political party is to give direction to its members, whether vote in favour, against or abstain the floor test.

"The NPF party had appointed MLA Kiyanielie as the chief whip in November 2014, which has not been withdrawn by the party nor revoked by the Assembly," he said.

"So we have decided to challenge the matter in the court and file the petition by tomorrow (Monday)," he said. Sazo said once the judgement is out, the 36 NPF legislators who vote against the NPF whip will be liable of disqualification from the Assembly. "Unless condoned by the party within 15 days, they will be disqualified from the Assembly," he said.

MLA Yitachu said that many of the legislators supporting Zeliang have been misguided on the entire episode. He also informed that NPF has taken the matter to the Supreme Court while hearing has been listed for Monday.

Meanwhile, NPF continued suspending its dissident legislators. Kezong Chang, who had been inducted as a minister in the Zeliang Cabinet on Saturday, was Sunday suspended by the NPF party.

With his suspension, altogether 11 legislators with Zeliang have been suspended till date while 20 are expelled.

"Kezong Chang, MLA and member of NPF Party ceases to be primary and active member of the Party but shall continue to be bound by the whip of the NPF on the floor of NLA as per judicial decision of the apex court," stated a suspension order issued by NPF Working President Huska Yepthomi.
In her piece for The Indian Express, columnist Tavleen Singh raised a pertinent question. Looking at BJP's pan-India rise, the shifting of power equation and the frequent chest-thumping by senior leaders on the "absolute certainty" of a second term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she asked whether the triumphalism could be misplaced.

She offered anecdotal logic. "The more I have heard this said, the more I am reminded of the summer of 2004 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee seemed invincible. Just before the election results, I remember being asked by CNN if there was any chance of Sonia Gandhi springing a surprise, and me recklessly declaring that there was none. We know what happened."

The question is interesting primarily because we have still not fully understood the reasons behind Vajpayee's unexpected loss. Most conventional explanations about the NDA ignoring its base or 'India Shining' backfiring as a campaign slogan do not adequately capture the turn of events. Vajpayee was riding a wave of confidence and the party's internal assessments had favoured early elections.

There is not an iota of doubt that Vajpayee's shock defeat reset Indian politics to a socialist median with far-reaching implications. A Congress government fronted by "free-market hero" Manmohan Singh and led by Sonia Gandhi summoned the ghosts of India's socialist era, but eventually paid the price for this. The repercussions of that defeat still linger, with even Modi's ostensibly Right-of-Centre government struggling under its shadow. Socialism champion PM Modi has buried CM Modi's 'business friendly' credentials six feet under the ground.

Be that as it may, the question central to this piece is how likely is it for Modi to suffer Vajpayee's fate. Is there a possibility of Congress making a return in 2019, albeit propped by an alliance of varied interests? Let us approach the question from three angles: Opposition's ability to remain united and offer a counter-narrative; BJP's hegemonic rise under Modi and Amit Shah; and the prime minister's mass appeal.

Between 2004 and now, Congress has undergone more of a transformative change than BJP has. It is now an apparition led by a dynast who has failed to step up. An unwell Sonia Gandhi may well be ready to hand over the family business to her son, but nothing in Rahul Gandhi inspires confidence. As Congress grapples with a million mutinies and a rapid erosion of its mass base, Rahul comes across as a flippant politician, the most serious flaw in a leader.

For instance, addressing a farmers' rally in Rajasthan on Wednesday, the Congress vice-president blasted the government for refusing to discuss the farmers' distress in Parliament, the very day that agitation and sloganeering over the agrarian crisis forced adjournments of both houses. The government, it appears from media reports, was ready to answer "all questions" from the Opposition under Rule 193. The Speaker had stressed that a debate was scheduled for later in the day, but Opposition leaders from Congress, NCP, TMC, Left, RJD and National Conference  who had been interfering with proceedings by running repeatedly into the Well, ultimately staged a walkout.

So either the Congress vice-president wasn't aware of the House proceedings or he decided to anyway press ahead with the rhetoric no matter how ridiculous it makes him appear.

Umm... On the day that the Lok Sabha discussed 'agrarian crisis' for hours. Might've been better to have participated ?? pic.twitter.com/q7Juq9wpMv  Baijayant Jay Panda (@PandaJay) July 20, 2017

This cognitive dissonance is symptomatic of a party gripped with panic. On the organisational side, it sways between centralised decision-making and a free run to local power centres; it tramples on the egos of senior leaders and fails to retain talented ones. On the ideological side, it has failed to counter BJP's "nationalism" narrative, appearing far too often on the wrong side. Here, Congress' biggest problem is that it needs to restore the sanctity of a "secularism" debate. Right now the word is discredited beyond repair.

As far as Opposition unity is concerned, Modi is in a better position compared to Vajpayee. The subaltern movement was enjoying high noon in the early part of the millennium and Mayawati was in firm control of the Dalit narrative. That she now has to stage a resignation drama in the Rajya Sabha to reclaim her base speaks volumes about the shifting of sands that has taken place. Mayawati's fall isn't just the fading away of a Dalit leader, it is the biggest symptom yet of the changes that took place among the subaltern underclass since the '90s, which one of the tallest Dalit leaders failed to appropriate.

The assertion of identity has given way to a search for economic opportunities, which the BJP has been able to tap through social engineering and careful messaging. BJP has split Mayawati's base and carved its own niche, a project that is likely to gain more force with Ram Nath Kovind's ascension to the presidency.

At the other end, Mulayam Singh Yadav is now a rebel in a party he founded, while Lalu Prasad Yadav's transgressions are catching up with him and his progeny; Nitish Kumar, one of the tallest Opposition leaders, is cleaved between saving his government and protecting his image; and Naveen Patnaik is feeling the heat in Odisha. In the South, the BJP has emerged as a major player by gaining strength in Kerala and smelling an opportunity to break the AIDMK-DMK duopoly in Tamil Nadu. Except Mamata Banerjee in the East, none of the Opposition leaders appear to be comfortable.

And while the Opposition is struggling to stay relevant in national politics, BJP has substantially gained in strength compared with what it was during the Vajpayee-Advani era. The party of the elite upper classes is now claiming the pro-poor mantle. Modi and Shah obviously feel that this spread will give them better insurance against future uncertainty, and both have moved aggressively to recast the party's core base. In fact, there are murmurs among the trading community that the BJP has abandoned them  a result of the rapid formalisation of the economy hastened by demonetisation and GST  but a lack of options might end up serving BJP's cause.

Finally, while well-being, security, infrastructure, policies, implementation and governance are all important determinants during an election, we tend to underestimate the importance of communication. And it is here that Modi scores big. He is the most talented politician among his peers and his communication skills and strategies are second to none. It is difficult to imagine any other leader pulling off as disruptive a stunt as demonetisation and yet come out largely unscathed.

Early signs indicate that even GST might not be as disruptive a change as was feared, though the last word on this has not been heard yet. Short point is, Modi has grasped the truth better than any of his peers, that sustained communication with the masses (talking and listening to them and not just talking down at them) provides a surprising leeway for mistakes.

This could explain why Modi government in its third year retains the trust of 73 percent Indians  the third highest in the world after Indonesia and Switzerland.

Using social media and his monthly radio programmes, Modi has remained in constant touch with the people throughout his tenure, and has relentlessly worked on his communication strategy  frequently co-opting technology to serve his purpose.

As Arun Jaitley said recently during the launch of a book on the prime minister's Mann Ki Baat programme, "Merely giving an interview to half a dozen TV anchors or addressing a ritual or a press conference in Vigyan Bhawan is not the art of communication. Do you have the ability to go above their heads and talk to the people directly? I think his (Modi's) experience in Gujarat, particularly from 2001 and 2002 onwards, helped him replicate that example, that talk to the people directly over the heads of over a half a dozen people who thought that they have sole monopoly in conveying and communicating."

So, we find people are far more receptive to Modi's radical ideas, far more willing to forgive his mistakes, and ready to give him a longer rope than they would give to his rivals  a puzzle which the Opposition could never really crack. It is always hazardous to prophesise on politics and it is possible that we could be wrong again. But a combination of these factors suggest that Modi may retain power in 2019.
Mumbai: Leader of opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde on Sunday alleged that almost every state department is mired in corruption.

The NCP leader added that his party was going to corner BJP over corruption in different departments during the monsoon session that begins on Monday.

Munde along with state party chief Sunil Tatkare, former speaker Dilip Walse Patil was addressing reporters in Mumbai.

"The BJP-Shiv Sena government is completing three years and during this period there have been several suspicious decisions taken in different departments. Almost all the departments of the state government are mired in corruption and we are going to raise it during the session," said Munde.

He said on schemes like farmers loan waiver, construction of Shivaji memorial there have been more talk than action. "No farmer has benefitted so far from the loan waiver but Rs 36 lakh have already been spent on its advertisement. Farmers have realised that the loan waiver scheme is misleading and state has no intention to address it properly," he said.

"We are also going to raise the issue of alleged irregularity in the urban development department. We also demand that the Chief Minister should make a statement over it," Munde said.

He also criticised Shiv Sena for constantly changing its stand on issues like farmers' loan waiver or Samruddhi Mahamarg (Mumbai Nagpur expressway).

"The party criticises the issues then joins hands with BJP again  it is nothing but shows the double standards of Shiv Sena," he said.
New Delhi: The Congress on Monday sought to embarrass NDA vice presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu alleging irregularities involving him and his family in land and some other matters and demanded answers especially since he spoke of transparency and probity.

Accusing Naidu of land grab in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district that was reserved for the poor, destitute and landless, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Naidu was "forced" to return this land after public protests and political pressure.

In a point-by-point rebuttal of Ramesh's allegations, Naidu, until recently Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Urban Development, said they are entirely false and politically motivated as the Congress leader has raised the issues which were responded to in the past.

"It is evident that these issues have been referred to a few days before the election to the post of vice president of India clearly reflecting on the political motives and the mischievous intentions. This is a clear evidence of the sense of hopelessness and political bankruptcy of the Congress Party," Naidu said in a written statement.

Naidu earlier told reporters that he felt "really sorry" that the Opposition Congress could stoop down to this level by levelling the allegations just days before the vice-presidential polls.

Union minister and senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar said whatever allegations Ramesh has tried to level are "baseless and unsubstantiated."

Ramesh did not give any proof to back up his allegations beyond giving the sequence of events allegedly involving Naidu and his family members.

At a news conference in New Delhi, Ramesh also alleged that on 20 June, 2017, the Telangana government issued a "secret order" exempting the 'Swarna Bharat Trust' of Naidu's daughter from paying development charges of more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.

The Congress leader alleged further that in July 2014, the Telangana government placed an order of Rs 271 crore without inviting tenders for purchase of vehicles for the police from two car dealers  Harsha Toyota owned by Naidu's son and Himanshu Motors owned by Telangana chief minister's son.

Ramesh also said that the Supreme Court on 6 April, 2011 quashed the allotment of 20 acres of land to "Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust" of which Naidu was chairman.

He said the Supreme Court also passed strictures against the Madhya Pradesh government in alloting this land in Bhopal on 25 September, 2004.

"I think it is incumbent upon Venkaiah Naidu, it is incumbent upon the BJP to provide satisfactory answers, the nation wants to know," he said.

He said Naidu is a senior, experienced and articulate leader and a candidate for the post of vice president for BJP and he should explain to the country and answer the questions raised by the Congress party.

"Naidu has been a great champion of transparency, accountability, integrity and probity in public life, apart from being a master player with words and a poet of sorts. In the same spirit we are asking these questions,"he said.

"Those holding the highest public offices must fully disclose their 'interests' as also 'special treatment' in the shape of state largesse for themselves and for their kith and kin," he said in his written statement.

Asked if he was alleging corruption by Naidu, Ramesh did not answer and instead demanded answers from Naidu and the BJP.

In his statement, Naidu said the issue of land grab was raised by the local Congressmen as early as in 2002 and even moved the courts and the charges of land grabbing were dismissed.

On exemption from paying development charges by the 'Swarna Bharat Trust', he said when this issue was raised by the media, the Government of Telangana in their rejoinder dated 23 July clarified that it was not the first and the last to be given such a benefit.

The Telangana government in fact gave details of several other organizations given such exemption including those granted such exemption by the Congress governments in the state.

The government has also clarified that there was nothing in law that prevented it from giving such exemptions.




Zion Assembly Church of God will have a visit from Bishop L. W. Carter on their Sunday morning service at 11 a.m. Bishop Carter is the National Overseer of the United States for Zion Assembly Church of God. This will be his first visit to the Cleveland church since the appointment of new pastor, Anton Burnette.We cannot wait for Bishop Carter to minister at our church. He is a pillar in Zion Assembly and a powerful minister of the Word of God. We invite the entire Cleveland community to come and be part of this service on Sunday, said Pastor Burnette."Bishop Carter has an extensive ministerial background throughout the world and in the Cleveland area.Since his conversion in 1969, he has worked tirelessly in promoting the Gospel message as a pastor, Bible Training Institute instructor, director of various auxiliaries, and as state and national overseer in several locations," officials said.I have always had a special place in my heart for Cleveland, Tn. I have poured out my heart in preaching to this community for much of my life. I am looking forward to ministering at the headquarters church of Zion Assembly. I hope to see old friends and desire to make new ones, said Bishop Carter.Zion Assembly Church of God is located at 5512 Waterlevel Hwy. Services times are Sunday 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. In-depth adult Bible study is scheduled each Sunday morning at 10 a.m., as well as classes for all ages.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's cabinet meeting in Patna on 26 July could turn out to be a crucial date in Bihar's political calendar. The date has assumed lot of significance, at least that's the way Janata Dal (United) insiders are viewing it.

A cabinet meet should otherwise not strike any alarm bell. In ordinary circumstances it's a routine weekly affair where the cabinet, chaired by the chief minister, meets to discuss and decide on various policy matters. Nitish usually meets his cabinet colleagues on Tuesday, but since he is going to be in New Delhi for the swearing in ceremony of President-elect Ramnath Kovind as the 14th President of India, the meeting has been scheduled on Wednesday and the official agenda is to deliberate on the list of business for the upcoming Monsoon Session of the Bihar Assembly, which begins on 28 July.

To follow live updates, click here.

But then these are not ordinary times in Bihar. The schism between ruling coalition partners  RJD and JD(U)  is growing by the day over corruption charges against both sons of Lalu Prasad Yadav  Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and cabinet minister Tej Pratap Yadav. JD(U) sources have been indicating that Nitish is in no mood to compromise on corruption issues and is not likely to strike any bargain with RJD over the matter. He is also not happy with Congress's (also part of the Bihar Mahagathbandhan) tacit support to Lalu and his family over corruption allegations.

A JD(U) leader said, "Congress' stony silence on the corruption issue has also to be noted. The party is neither concerned about corruption charges against its own chief minister in Himachal Pradesh, Vibhadra Singh nor alliance partner Lalu. Under these circumstances the business can't be as usual for us in the coalition. We can't put blinkers on our eyes. Nitish's stated policy on corruption is of zero tolerance."

Nitish is said to have reminded Rahul Gandhi whom he met recently in New Delhi about his draft ordinance-tearing act against the UPA government. In September 2013, Rahul had made a surprise appearance at a press conference at the Press Club in Delhi and trashed an ordinance which would have favoured the likes of Lalu even if they were convicted by a court of law. "I'll tell you what my opinion on the ordinance is. It's complete nonsense. It should be torn up and thrown away. That is my personal opinion," Rahul had then said.

Nitish was obviously insisting that the Congress vice-president takes a categorical stand on corruption charges against the RJD leaders. If one looks at it from another way, it would appear that Nitish was also forewarning Rahul that in case the alliance partners  RJD and Congress  didn't take required steps then the JD(U) should not be blamed for breaking the coalition.

The Opposition BJP has made it clear that it would take up Tejashwi's benami property and shell company charges in a big way and corner the Nitish government in the upcoming Monsoon session of the Bihar Assembly.

There is great deal of private talk in the informed circles of JD(U) in Bihar that Nitish might make a pre-emptive strike before the Monsoon Session of the Bihar Assembly, and it could be as early as on Wednesday when he chairs his cabinet meet.

On 16 June, 2013, after holding a cabinet meeting, Nitish had sacked all 11 BJP ministers from his government and urged the governor to convene a special session of the Assembly to prove his majority. By then JD(U)-BJP relations had ebbed  Nitish was uncomfortable with the advent of Narendra Modi on the national scene and BJP was peeved at Nitish's uncompromising stand on this new reality. The BJP ministers boycotted the cabinet meeting and Nitish retaliated by unilaterally sacking them. Then the JD(U) had 116 MLAs (only six short of majority mark), the BJP had 91, and the RJD had 22 in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.

Will July-end of 2017 find a parallel in June 2013? According to JD(U) sources things are moving fast in that direction. Nobody can say with surety as to how the future would unfold and when would Nitish pull the strings, but it is being suggested that he is in no way going back from his own words on corruption, and cause damage to his own image that he has earned through decades of hard work. Mark JD(U) spokesman Sanjay Singh's words: "The moment you all have been waiting for will arrive."

There could be two possibilities here: first, Nitish sacks Tejashwi and Tej Pratap the way he sacked BJP ministers? In past he has sacked four ministers on corruption and criminality charges. The question is if he sacks Lalu's political heir, will RJD continue supporting him?

Second, Nitish may write a fresh chapter by resigning himself? He is known for resigning if he is placed in adverse situations. He resigned as a railway minister after the Gaisal train accident in 1999, then as chief minister when he couldn't muster majority support in 2005, and again in May 2014, when JD(U) badly lost the parliamentary election. If he resigns now, for the third time as chief minister, the coalition government would automatically go. It will then unleash realignment of political forces in the state and at the Centre.

The 243-member Bihar Assembly has 80 MLAs from RJD, 71 from JD(U), 27 from Congress, 53 from BJP. Even if the RJD gets support of Congress it will be 15 short of the halfway mark. Meanwhile, the state unit of BJP has already declared that if needed it would extend outside support to Nitish.

According to sources in JD(U), senior leader Sharad Yadav is trying to play the peacemaker between Lalu and Nitish. He is of the opinion that the coalition must be saved at any cost. In fact, his views are similar to that of Congress and RJD. Two days ago Nitish drove to Sharad Yadav's residence in Delhi and it is not known what transpired there but it's assumed that this issue figured prominently in the discussion.

Nitish would be back in Delhi on Monday night and would be at the Rashtrapati Bhawan to witness the change of guard. He has excellent personal relations with outgoing president Pranab Mukherjee and incoming president Ramnath Kovind.

A day later on his return to Bihar, the scene of action would shift to Patna.
Lucknow: Opposition members on Monday boycotted the proceedings of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly for the third day, accusing the Leader of the House (Yogi Adityanath) of not taking any initiative to end the deadlock.

Instead of participating in the proceedings of the House, members of the Samajwadi Party, the BSP and the Congress sat in the Central Hall and ran a parallel "House".

The opposition has accused the treasury benches of threatening them and using unparliamentary language.

"The government is not serious on the issue being raised by the opposition. No attempt has been made by the Leader of the House (Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath) to end the deadlock and run the House. To mark our protest, we sat at Central hall and I was made Leader of the House, while Ram Govind Chowdhury was leader of opposition and Lalji Verma was made Speaker," Congress Legislature Party leader Ajay Kumar Lallu told PTI.

The Opposition leaders also condoled death of BJP MLA Mathura Prasad Pal and said it was unfortunate that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was not present in the House for condolence resolution.

"It has been a tradition that Leader of the House reads the resolution but chief minister was not present and it was read by parliamentary affairs minister Suresh Kumar Khanna," he said adding that opposition's protest will continue.

Instead of discussion on issues related to law and order, farmers, unemployment raised by opposition, the government is "threatening" members and this will not be tolerated, he said.

In the previous regime when BJP member Upendra Tiwari sat on a dharna, the then-parliamentary affairs minister Azam Khan, senior minister Shivpal Yadav and Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey had reached out to him and got the dharna lifted, he said, adding the present government did not want to run the House with opposition.
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President Pranab Mukherjee gives a final address to nation, says he has always treated the Parliament as his temple, and the Constitution as the sacred text.

Gandhiji saw India as an inclusive nation, where every section lived in equality. Financial equality should be at the forefront. The last person in the line should also get what he came for.

Tried to create a happy and humane society, says Pranab Mukherjee

The guidance I received from President Pranab Mukherjee will help me immensely. I am sure those who worked with him feel the same: PM Modi

President Pranab Mukherjee gives a final address to nation, says he has always treated the Parliament as his temple, and the Constitution as the sacred text.

How successful I was in discharging my responsibilities will be judged, over time, by the critical lens of history #PresidentMukherjee

'Critical lens of history' will judge me, says Pranab Mukherjee

Gandhiji saw India as an inclusive nation, where every section lived in equality. Financial equality should be at the forefront. The last person in the line should also get what he came for.

During my five years in Rashtrapati Bhavan, we tried to build a humane and happy township #PresidentMukherjee

Tried to create a happy and humane society, says Pranab Mukherjee

Power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society: #PresidentMukherjee pic.twitter.com/VbFohee55H

On Monday, Pranab Mukherjee will address India on the eve of demitting office. The outgoing president's address will be broadcast from 7.30 pm on the national network of All India Radio (AIR) and telecast over all channels of Doordarshan in English followed by Hindi versions.

Mukherjee's farewell ceremony was held on Sunday and was attended by all MPs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also in attendance. The programme began at 5.30 pm. It was addressed by the Speaker of Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan, and vice-president and chairman of Rajya Sabha Hamid Ansari.

In his farewell speech, the president recalled Indira Gandhi and praised Narendra Modi.

Mukherjee remembered the time he started his political journey:

When I first entered the portals of this hallowed institution 48 years ago, I was only 34 years old. In July 1969, I came to this Parliament as a member of Rajya Sabha representing one of the six seats from the State of West Bengal. My election to Rajya Sabha took place on 4th July and the first session I attended began on July 22nd, 1969.

Further, he remembered his mentor Indira Gandhi:

My career as a Parliamentarian was no doubt mentored by Shrimati Indira Gandhi. Her steely determination, clarity of thought and decisive actions made her a towering personality. She never hesitated to call a spade a spade.

Eighty one-year-old Mukherjee was received by Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar at Parliament for the farewell ceremony.

Ansari lauded Mukherjee for his "unshakable belief in the idea of India" and said he often appealed to the people to re-dedicate themselves to the democratic values of the country. "He brought great distinction and dignity to the top office. His views on national and international issues have enhanced the stature of the office," Ansari said.

During the ceremony, Mukherjee was gifted a book that contained the signatures of Narendra Modi, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha Thambidurai, and deputy chair of Rajya Sabha PJ Kurien.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted a farewell dinner for the president. Mukherjee, who is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, was given a farewell by the Chiefs of Staff Committee on Friday.

In a simple function held at the Manekshaw Centre, the president interacted with senior military officers.

In his address at the function, Mukherjee extended his best wishes to all members of the armed forces and their families. Moreover, he paid tributes to the martyrs and their families for their sacrifices for the country.

The banquet was attended by Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, along with the service chiefs and other senior officers.
The Parliament met on the sixth day of the Monsoon Session on Monday, where a slew of legislations were passed despite persistent disruptions. While the Centre seemed keen on passing key bills, the Opposition, much like the initial days of the proceedings, took the BJP-led government to task on issues like mob lynching across India and demonetisation. This time, the BJP seemed to have fought back as well, with the ruling party members demanding a reopening of investigations into the Bofors scam. Here is an overview of all the legislations passed and issues raised in the two houses.

Rajya Sabha

Uma Bharti says Ganga Act in the works, BJP leaders embarrasses government

Responding to questions related to cleaning of the river Ganga, water resources minister Uma Bharati said that the draft of the new law has been submitted to her ministry and discussions on it are underway.

A ruling BJP member, however, sought to embarrass the government in the House by saying that when plans are made "in the air" then the desired results cannot be achieved. The Minister of State for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan made this comment when he was asked about 'ambitious projects' related to the development of river Ganga.

"If plans are formulated in the air, then you do not get the desired results," Balyan said, much to the amusement of Opposition members who took a swipe at the government by loudly chanting 'hawa mein' (in the air).

Reporting of expunged remarks to be referred to privileges committee

Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien indicated that the distortion and reporting of expunged remarks of a Samajwadi Party MP by certain media houses may be referred to the privileges committee.

He made the remarks after KTS Tulsi (nominated) said that 50 lawmakers from 12 parties have signed and given a notice under rule 188 for breach of privilege by certain media houses for twisting and distorting of the remarks by Naresh Agarwal (SP).

"We welcome criticism, but not in a manner of distorting views and presenting them in a fashion that tantamount to defaming," the MP said, adding, "The matter should be referred to the privileges committee."

Last week, Agarwal had made controversial comments on certain Hindu gods which the Chair had expunged from records immediately and asked the media not to report them.

Maritime Admiralty Bill passed

The Parliament gave its nod to a bill that seeks to upgrade the law related to maritime claims, arrest and detention of ships and extends the jurisdiction of trials to various courts across the country. The Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims), 2017, seeks to repeal laws such as the Admiralty Court Act, 1861, the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890. The bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha by a voice vote.

Concerns raised over Rohingyas in Jammu and Ladakh

Veteran journalist and nominated member Swapan Dasgupta expressed concern over the reported influx of Rohingya refugees in Jammu and Ladakh saying it was a matter of national security.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, he said there was a "vicious" ethnic conflict and civil war going on in Myanmar, but since it was an internal affair of a friendly neighbouring country, "we refrain from commenting on it". "But it's curious and somewhat inexplicable as to why there should be so many Rohingyas who have migrated to Jammu and to Ladakh," he added.

He further said that "we have seen" evidence of Rohingya involvement in the blast in Bodh Gaya, and in October 2016, that one of the two militants killed in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir, turned out to be from Myanmar.

Israeli PM's reported remarks on Modi raised

The reported remarks of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the reasons prime minister Narendra Modi gave for skipping Palestine during his recent visit to the Jewish state was also raised in the House by the Congress.

Congress leader Anand Sharma gave a notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of listed business of the day to discuss the subject, said it was the prime minister's prerogative to visit any country, and he had delinked his visit to Israel with Palestine.

Modi visited Israel from 4 to 6 July but skipped Palestine, departing from the convention of Indian leaders visiting both countries on the same trip.

Sharma said an audio released by a reputed Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated that the prime minister, during a closed-door session with leaders from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, had told them that Modi chose the Jewish state to get technology and water and, in the process, ignored Palestine.

India, the Congress leader said, has always stood in solidarity with Palestine. As the Congress members sought a response from the government, Kurien said that he was not blocking the government from responding but at the same time, he cannot direct them to do so. "It is up to the government whether to respond or not," he said.

JD (U) leader's demonetisation dig

Coins of Rs 1, 2 and 10 are not being accepted by shopkeepers and even by banks in several parts of the country, a Janta Dal (United) member said in the Rajya Sabha. Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Ali Anwar Ansari (JD-U) said that the people, especially the poor, were facing a lot of difficulty due to non-acceptability of these coins. "Some banks too are not taking those coins", even though they are issuing them, he said. In an apparent dig at the government's 8 November decision to scrap old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, the JD(U) member added that the coins should be taken back in the "second phase of demonetisation".

NEET paper issues in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu raised

Members of the TMC and AIADMK in the Rajya Sabha expressed concern over the issue of different question papers being given to students attempting the common medical entrance examination in regional languages in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Derek O'Brien (TMC) said till 2013, the English question paper for the medical entrance examination, NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), used to be translated into regional languages.

But this year, those attempting NEET in Bengali or Tamil got question papers that were entirely different, he said, adding that 40,000 of the 56,000 students who wrote the exam in Bengali or Tamil had "disastrous" results. Reacting to the issue, health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said the issue was under examination of the government.

The government withdrew from the Rajya Sabha a bill to amend the Architects Act, 1972, which provides for registration of architects. The bill has been withdrawn as the government seeks to redraft it with further amendments to the act.

The logistics of the Polavaram project were also discussed. "Over one lakh people are affected by the Polavaram project and their rehabilitation was being envisaged," the government said. Balyan said that the estimated cost of the Polavaram irrigation project was Rs 16,010.45 crore at the 2010-11 price level and the Centre would sanction funds as per the 2014-15 cost estimates.

The Congress and the DMK also demanded that a bill aimed at bringing radical reforms in the transport sector should be referred to a Select Committee of the House for proper scrutiny. The Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill 2017, passed by the Lok Sabha last year, was listed in the legislative business for the Upper House during post-lunch session. However, it could not be taken up in the absence of transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari. The bill aims at bringing radical reforms in the transport sector for issues like heavier fines for traffic rules violation, improving the licensing system, protecting good Samaritans and checking bogus vehicle theft cases.

The fatal assault of murder convict Manjula Shetye inside Byculla jail of Mumbai by jail officials also figured in the Rajya Sabha, with members demanding setting up of a committee to go into the conditions of jails across the country.

Lok Sabha

BJP members demand to reopen of Bofors probe

Ruling BJP MPs demanded reopening of the investigation into the Bofors kickback scandal after a fresh media report suggested a financial quid pro quo before the gun deal was signed in March 1986.

Meenakshi Lekhi and Nishikant Dubey, both BJP members of the Lok Sabha, sought a probe since the year 2005 to establish whether illegal payments were made for buying the guns.

India had in March 1986 signed a deal to buy 410 155mm guns. It is alleged that bribes up to $10 million were paid for the deal.

Opposition demands discussion on cow vigilantes, six Congress MPs suspended for causing 'grave disorder'

Six Congress members were suspended from the Lok Sabha for five days by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for causing "grave disorder" by storming the Well, tearing papers and throwing them towards the Chair during their protests over the lynching issue.

Ordering their suspension amid noisy protests by Congress members and counter-slogans of "shame, shame" from the BJP benches, the Speaker said the conduct of Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and MK Raghavan was "highly unbecoming" and had undermined the Chair's dignity.

Members of the Congress and some other opposition parties were in the Well raising slogans against the government and protesting lynching incidents in the name of cow protection almost since the House assembled in the morning and took up the Question Hour.

However, after some time, only the Congress members remained in the Well and the ruckus continued during the Zero Hour in the afternoon, forcing an adjournment till 2.00 PM.

She pronounced her order as soon as the House reassembled at 2 pm and again adjourned it till 2.30 pm due to noisy protests by Congress members that followed. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi was present in the House at that time.

When the House again met at 2.30 pm, Congress members were joined by the Left in protesting the suspension, prompting Deputy Speaker M Thambi Durai to adjourn the House for the day.

India's trade deficit with China is a matter of concern: Nirmala Sitharaman

"Trade deficit with China is a matter of concern. We are discussing the issue with China for greater access for Indian products and services in the Chinese market," commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman said during Question Hour.

Sitharaman said even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised the issue with the Chinese authorities at the highest level and the government was working to reduce the trade deficit with China.

Arun Jaitley introduces bill to replace Banking Regulation Ordinance

A bill to authorise the Reserve Bank of India (RBI )to direct banking companies to resolve the problem of stressed assets was introduced in the Lok Sabha by finance minister Arun Jaitley.

The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, seeks to amend the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and replace the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017, which was promulgated in May this year.

The measure allows the RBI to initiate insolvency resolution process on specific stressed assets. The RBI would also be empowered to issue other directions for resolution, appoint or approve for appointment, authorities or committees to advise the banking companies for stressed asset resolution.

Moving on fast-track, the RBI had in June identified 12 large loan defaulters who account for 25 percent of the total bad loans in the banking sector. Actions under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code has already begun in certain cases, including Essar Steel, Bhushan Steel and Bhushan Power and Steel.

Bill to divert 2.5 percent proceeds of Central Road Fund to national waterways introduced

The government introduced a bill providing for allocation of about Rs 2,000 crore from Central Road Fund (CRF) for developing national waterways. The Central Road Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2017 to further amend the Central Road Fund Act, 2000 was moved by Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan in absence of Gadkari.

The bill seeks to amend the Central Road Fund Act, 2000, to allocate 2.5 percent of the proceeds of CRF for development and maintenance of NWs and a reduction in the share provided for the development of national highways. CRF is made up of cess on petrol and high-speed diesel. The cess, at present, is at Rs 6 per litre.

Shiv Sena MP Chandrakant Khaire said that India should give a "befitting reply" to Pakistan for terror attacks in this country, like the recent one on Amarnath pilgrims in Kashmir. Raising the issue during Zero Hour, he said the killing of 8 pilgrims in the 10 July terror attack in Anantnag showed that there was a "security failure". He added that the government should ensure the safety and security of the Amarnath pilgrims.

With inputs from agencies.
Ever the canny politician, President Pranab Mukherjee made sure that his farewell address to the Members of Parliament would be remembered.

The outgoing president spoke on the contentious issue of ordinances, stating that in his opinion, they ought to be used in special circumstances.

Let us examine what ordinances are and how the Centre has used this power over the years.

What are ordinances?

They are temporary laws decreed by the president on the advice of the government under Article 123 of the Constitution. They are implemented in cases where "immediate action" is needed and the Parliament is not in session.

A list of the ordinances passed from 2003 onwards can be accessed here.

First blood

The first ordinance the Centre passed was to make way for Nripendra Misra as the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary. The move raised questions on the propriety of the government tinkering with a long-standing law to get a man of their choice into the high-profile position.

Misra was the head of TRAI from 2006 to 2009 and the TRAI Act, 1997 prohibited him from being in the employ of the Centre. An ordinance was used to override this provision.

Another controversial ordinance was the Uttarakhand Appropriation (Vote on Account) Ordinance, 2016 as the Budget Session of Parliament was specifically prorogued to allow the government to issue the ordinance. A bill to replace the ordinance was later passed by Parliament.

Early in his term, experts thought that Modi was sending the message that reforms will be pushed through even outside of the usual legislative mechanism.

Ashok Malik, a New Delhi-based political analyst and columnist was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying: He is telling them I am serious about these reforms. I am staking my political credibility on them, this was my agenda and I am working on it .

The report also aired the views of the policy's critics, as it quoted Sanjay Kumar, director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies as saying, His message is he is doing this in the name of development. But the common man does not understand that you dont need to bring out ordinances for such issues. Passing too many bills through ordinances erodes parliamentary process, where the merits and drawbacks of a bill are debated in Parliament."

One particular law which the government has tinkered with using the ordinance route is the Enemy Property Act, 1968 which was amended no less than five times in 2016.

NDA vs UPA, UPA-II

The Modi government hasn't shied away from using ordinances to push through policy. In 2016, it enacted 10 ordinances. In 2015, it passed nine ordinances. In fact, since it took office on 26 May, 2014, it has promulgated 30 ordinances. Since it took power, it has averaged 10 ordinances a year.

The NDA government's record compares unfavourably to both UPA-I and UPA-II regimes, which averaged seven and five ordinances a year respectively.

Cause for concern?

Ordinances need to be treated cautiously as they are an extra-ordinary power. They are not a way to bypass Parliament, but are to be used only in dire need. While the uptick in the number of ordinances by the government is not alarming, however, the pattern may be cause for concern, especially in the case of Uttarakhand, where the government sees it as just another tool in its kit. However, the overuse of such a power should be discouraged as it would be detrimental to the balance of power between the legislature and the executive.
One of the highlights of outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee's farewell speech was his remarks on the perils of ordinance raj. Mukherjee isn't a great admirer of governments'  be it UPA or NDA  pushing legislations through ordinance route in the name of reforms agenda and, thus, skipping the democratic process of discussion and debate.

This is what Mukherjee said in his speech.

"I am firm in the opinion that the ordinance route should be used only in compelling circumstances and there should be no recourse to ordinances on monetary matters. Ordinance route should not be taken on matters which are being considered or have been introduced in the House or a committee of the House. If a matter is deemed urgent, the concerned committee should be made aware of the situation and should be mandated to present its report within the stipulated time."

Mukherjee is bang on when he says that ordinance route should be only sought as the final resort in a democracy while framing a law. The true spirit of democracy lies in the 'debate, discussion and dissent' in Parliament and lawmaking should be a final product of all these processes. Words are fine, but the problem is with a lack of connect in his words and actions as we know it.

His stints, both as the President of India during Narendra Modi-government and as a Union minister in various ministries as part of the UPA-government (I and II) do not really give us any evidence that Mukherjee worked in an effective manner to discourage dominance of ordinance raj.

First of all, as a President, there is no record of Mukherjee returning any ordinance either during the UPA or the NDA term. The Constitution offers the power to President to return an ordinance if he feels it requires modification. But, once the ordinance is sent to him for the second time, the President has to give his permission to promulgate it. But, returning the ordinance recommendation would have sent a strong signal to the government of the day about its duty to discuss and debate.

It is an intriguing question why, despite having such firm views on ordinance raj, there is no formal record of Mukherjee choosing to return ordinances even when the Narendra Modi government was on an ordinance spree. At one point, this government issued as many as seven ordinances within a fortnight in 2015, including certain not-so-urgent ones like the amendment to Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

In some cases, Mukherjee is reported to have raised questions with the government about the urgency of issuing a certain ordinance. However, he has never used presidential power to make a formal statement unlike one of his predecessors, K R Narayanan, who, in 1998, returned a Cabinet resolution seeking the imposition of President's rule in Bihar and the suspension of the Assembly in the state. But, to be clear, this was no ordinance-like scenario.

Narayanan had asked the then Vajpayee-government at the Centre to reconsider its decision. Even when Mukherjee says there should be 'no recourse to Ordinances on monetary matters, he okayed the demonetisation ordinance named as the Specified Bank Notes Cessation of Liabilities Ordinance, holding these notes after 31 March deadline would be a criminal offence. Modi-government's ordinance spree, which was duly facilitated by the President's office, even irritated the Supreme Court, which, in January, 2017, placed restrictions on the powers of the government to legislate through ordinances, ruling that ordinances cannot be promulgated repeatedly without being placed before the legislature.

"The question of whether any rights, liabilities, obligations would survive an ordinance which had ceased to exist, would have to be tested against public interest and constitutional necessity," the court had then said, further saying ordinances are subject to judicial review.

Secondly, as part of the UPA-government in the capacity of minister of finance, external affairs and defence, Mukherjee, arguably too, was a party to the making of a number of ordinances. According to this report in The Hindu, the Manmohan Singh government during UPA-I (2004-09) issued 36 ordinances and UPA II (2009-14), with better numbers, issued 25. It averaged to six times a year in its 10-year term. Mukherjee was associated with these ordinances both, as part of the government and later in the capacity of President. The Modi government brought in 28 ordinances so far, all okayed by President Mukherjee.

On Sunday, Vice President Hamid Ansari said Mukherjee had told Governors and Lieutenant-Governors that their role was "mainly confined to giving advice to the Chief Minister as there cannot be two functional executive authorities in a state", reported The Indian Express. That is true since in Indian democracy, President's power is rather limited compared with other countries like United States. But, the constitution certainly offers the President the right to express formal dissent on government proposals.

Regardless of Mukherjee's passionate remarks, he too is a party to the making of grand ordinance raj in India in one capacity or another. Mukherjee, as President, could have set a strong example by exercising his Constitutional powers (as mentioned earlier there is no record of any such action), when he felt the UPA or NDA is crossing the line. Back in UPA days too he could have persuaded the then government as a senior Congress leader not to bypass the legislative process. Mere rhetoric makes news headlines but has hardly succeeded in making lasting changes in a democratic system.
Ahmedabad: Veteran leader Shankersinh Vaghela, who quit the Congress on Friday, resigned as Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly on Sunday. He sent his resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

In his letter shared with the media, the former chief minister alleged that he was forced to take this "tough decision" as some Congress leaders were conspiring against him ahead of the Assembly polls, expected to be held in Gujarat in December.

On 21 July, Vaghela on his 77th birthday had announced to quit the Congress at a public gathering of his supporters.

Vaghela, who joined the Congress in 1998, claimed that just like some Congress leaders conspired against him in 2009, when he lost Godhara (Panchmahal) Lok Sabha seat, similar attempts were made to oust him from the party in recent times.

"As I can see right now that once again history is repeating itself, as a well-planned conspiracy within the party is at work for ousting me during the forthcoming elections. Hence, I strongly feel that I should not remain in the party at the cost of my dignity and self-respect," he said in the letter.

Vaghela said since he has also decided to resign as the sitting Congress MLA of Kapadwanj seat, he will submit his

resignation to the Gujarat Assembly speaker in the coming days.

In his 'farewell' speech on Friday, Vaghela announced he would resign as MLA on 15 August, after the Rajya Sabha polls, to be held on 8 August.

In the letter, Vaghela thanked Gandhi for making him Union minister in the UPA-1 government.

Venting his anger on the Congress, Vaghela claimed he was left with no other option but to resign as his suggestions for the upcoming Assembly polls were not accepted.

On Friday, the former RSS leader, who left the BJP 20 years ago and later joined the Congress, also announced that he will not join any political party, not even the BJP.

Though he refused to divulge details about his future plans, he maintained he is not retiring from public life.

Vaghela had been at loggerheads with the Congress leadership for quite some time over his demand that he be projected as the chief ministerial face in the poll-bound state.

He had been contending that if he was projected as the chief minister candidate in the polls, the party would be able to take on the BJP effectively in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state.

My resignation letter to Madam Sonia Gandhi. pic.twitter.com/3CqPvLguq7  Shankersinh Vaghela (@ShankersinhBapu) July 23, 2017

Vaghela's move comes close on the heels of the Congress failing to muster its entire strength in the presidential election held on 17 July.

Congress-backed candidate Meira Kumar could garner only 49 votes against the party's strength of 57 in the state assembly.
New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended six Congress MPs for five consecutive sittings for improper conduct after they tore up papers and threw them towards her podium.

The six MPs - Gaurav Gogoi, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ranjit Ranjan, Sushmita Dev, MK Raghavan and K Suresh - would have to remain out of the lower House for the whole of this week.

During Zero Hour, as the Congress MPs were protesting demanding a discussion on attacks on Dalits and Muslims by cow vigilantes, the six MPs tore up the papers and threw them in the air and towards the Speaker's podium.

"This conduct is not right. It is highly unbecoming and against the rules of the House which seeks to undermine the dignity of the House," Mahajan said.

She said the members were "wilfully obstructing" the House and had caused disorder. She announced their suspension under rule 374 A for "five consecutive sittings".
Mumbai: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being on a "centralisation spree" as he criticised demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Thackeray, whose party is a constituent of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre and in Maharashtra, said reforms are a must, "but one should pause" to review their impact.

In an interview to Sena mouthpiece 'Saamna', he said that going by government advertisements, one would get a feeling that everything was hunky-dory, but one should check the ground reality.

Talking about the GST which was rolled out on 1 July and the Sena's reservations on it, he said, "Should we centralise or decentralise? Rajiv Gandhi had introduced autonomy through the Panchayati Raj when he was the prime minister. Narendra Modi has taken away the autonomy and is on a centralisation spree."

Thackeray said if governance depends "only on the will of whoever is the prime minister", then does India really have a democracy?

"Do people's views have any value?....Reforms are a must, but one should also pause from time-to-time and review their impact," he said.

"I read somewhere that 15 lakh people lost their jobs in the four months after demonetisation. It means 60 lakh families were affected. It happened only due to the notes ban (demonetisation). What happened to those who lost their jobs is the government's responsibility," he added.

Referring to the Centre's initiatives aimed at job creation such as 'Start-up India' and 'Make-in-India', Thackeray wondered how did one reconcile them with demonetisation and its effects.

He also said the Shiv Sena would not shy away from "exposing" the BJP-led Maharashtra government, if it failed to implement the loan waiver scheme in the state properly.

Claiming that the Shiv Sena was the first to raise the issue of farm loan waiver when Sharad Pawar was the Union agriculture minister, Thackeray said, "Maharashtra was at the top in farmer suicides and unfortunately, it is still there. This was not an area where we should have been at the top."

Thackeray said he had asked Shiv Sena workers to beat drums outside banks (as part of an agitation) and make them display the list of beneficiaries of farm loan waiver.

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had, on 24 June, announced a loan waiver to the tune of Rs 34,022 crore following a statewide agitation by farmers.

On 9 July, Fadnavis had said the entire debt of around 36 lakh farmers in the state would be waived.

Thackeray said, "The state had said the entire loan of 36 lakh farmers would be waived, while 89 lakh farmers would benefit from the scheme. I want to see their names."

Reminding the state government of its proposal to give Rs 10,000 to every farmer till the loan waiver scheme was worked for buying seeds and fertilisers, he claimed that only around 2,500 people had received the payments, even though more than a month had passed since the announcement was made.

Thackeray asked, "If this is not chaos, then what is?"

He claimed that no bank had so far received clear instructions about how to grant waiver.
Mumbai: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday said India had failed to get international support on its issues with Pakistan and China despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi making friends with world leaders.

Thackeray, whose party is a constituent of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre and in Maharashtra, also said it would be an injustice to the nation if the senior ally remained embroiled in elections and internal politics.

"What has happened which caused a severe unrest in Kashmir and has made the dragon (China) our enemy? Are we lacking somewhere? The PM roams around the world and has made many friends. Then, why is it that nobody is openly supporting us against these enemies?" Thackeray asked in the second part of his interview to Sena mouthpiece Saamana.

"The BJP might be considering the Shiv Sena as its number one enemy. That is why may be, Pakistan and China have been ignored? If they feel the Sena is a bigger enemy than these two nations, it is their misfortune, not mine," he said.

There has been nearly a month-long border standoff between India and China in the Sikkim sector, which is seen as part of Chinese coercive tactics to change the status quo.

India has taken a strong stand against such a Chinese move.

According to Thackeray, China's strength cannot be ignored and India needs to make efforts to match it.

"If the ruling party remains stuck in elections and internal politics, it will be an injustice to the nation...You can win elections anytime, you have even won them. But, a war is a war and there is China on the opposite side," he said.

"On one hand, they (the BJP) have been able to get back Kashmir from Pakistan and on the other hand, China is trying to expand," Thackeray said.

The environment in the country isn't good now, the Shiv Sena chief said, referring to the issue of gau rakshaks and instances of them resorting to violence.

"On how many fronts will you be able to fight at the same time?" he asked.

Asked on his interaction with Modi during the NDA meet held before the presidential polls, Thackeray said the prime minister welcomed him with a lot of affection.

The PM requested him to sit with him to eat and affectionately asked about the wellbeing of his family members. Modi even spoke to him in Marathi, the Sena leader said.

In the first part of the interview published on Sunday, Thackeray had accused the prime minister of being on a "centralisation spree" as he criticised demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST).

He had said reforms are a must, "but one should pause" to review their impact.

The Sena leader also said that going by government advertisements, one would get a feeling that everything was hunky-dory, but one should check the ground reality.
The Samaritan Centers Stock Their Lockers, a program that allows students kindergarten through 12th grade to receive a backpack-full of school supplies, kicked off on Monday with a special visit from Stewart Payne and his Readmobile from Read 20.Mr. Payne spent time reading to children in the Centers Farrow Community Corner, now transformed into a Dr. Seuss-themed school supply store. As Mr. Payne read to younger children, their siblings shopped for their favorite colors and styles of the supplies from their school supply list.In 2017, the Samaritan Center provided supplies for 315 kids.This year, the goal is to help 350.The program runs from July 24 through Aug. 11. Appointments can be scheduled Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.For more information about the program, visit stocktheirlockers.com The Samaritan Center serves the eastern third of Hamilton County, and all living in that area who need assistance with school supplies are encouraged to call the Samaritan Center at 423-238-7777 to make an appointment for evaluation. Once qualified, they can set up a second appointment when they can bring their children to pick out their own supplies, fulfilling their schools required supplies list.
Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly was on Monday adjourned till 26 July after paying condolence to sitting BJP MLA Mathura Prasad Pal, who died after prolonged illness.

After the House paid condolence to Pal, a BJP MLA from Sikandra constituency in Kanpur Dehat, Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit adjourned the House.

There would be no sitting of the House as decided by the business advisory committee, he said.

Pal, 72, who was suffering from cancer, was on his way to Delhi for treatment when he died near Mathura on 22 July.

Pal had recently come to the UP Assembly on a wheel chair to cast his vote in the presidential poll.
New Delhi: The NDA's vice-presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday dubbed the allegations of irregularities against him and his family members by the Congress as "entirely false" and "politically motivated".

Naidu, until recently Union minister for information and broadcasting and housing and urban affairs, said the issues which were raised by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh have been already "responded" in the past.

"It is evident that these issues have been referred to a few days before the election to the post of Vice-President of India clearly reflecting on the political motives and the mischievous intentions," Naidu said in a statement, giving a point-by-point rebuttal of the allegations.

It is a "clear evidence of the sense of hopelessness and political bankruptcy" of the Congress party, he added.

On exemption from paying development charges by Swarna Bharat Trust (SBT), run by his daughter, Naidu said when this issue was raised by the media, the Telangana government in its rejoinder dated 23 July, 2017 clarified that SBT was "not the first and the last" to be given such exemption.

"In fact (it) gave details (of) several other organisations given such exemption including those granted such exemption by the Congress governments in the state," he said.

Naidu said the Telangana government also said that the trust was given exemption with a view to encourage it in doing social services.

He was responding to Congress leader Ramesh's allegation that on 20 June, the Telangana government issued a "secret order" exempting the SBT from paying development charges of more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.

On the issue of land grab in Nellore district which Ramesh alleged that Naidu was forced to return later, the vice-presidential nominee said the matter was raised by local Congressmen as early as 2002 and even moved the courts and the charges of land grabbing were dismissed.

On supply of vehicles by two car dealers, one of them owned by his son, to the Telangana government allegedly without floating tenders, Naidu said, "I have scrupulously kept myself away from the business and other pursuits of my children."

He said Harsha Toyota, owned by his son, as a dealer "never directly dealt" with the state government in the procurement of vehicles and no supply order was placed on the firm.

Naidu said the parent company Toyota offered to supply vehicles as desired by the state government and the supply order was placed on parent company and payment was also made to them.

On the issue of allotment of land by the then Madhya Pradesh government to Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust (KTMT) in 2004, Naidu said, "In my capacity as the BJP national president, I was the ex-officio chairman of this trust and had no role in the allotment of land."

"Isn't it a fact that several trusts were similarly allotted land by various governments including the Congress governments?" he asked.

Ramesh had said that the Supreme Court on 6 April, 2011 quashed the allotment of 20 acres of land to KTMT of which Naidu was chairman.

He said the Supreme Court also passed strictures against the Madhya Pradesh government in allotting this land in Bhopal on 25 September, 2004.

Dismissing the allegations, Naidu said that he was a "product of a political party and culture" that always placed the "highest premium" on probity in public life and always lived by those standards.
Dubai: More than half of the nearly 100 Indian sailors stranded on ships in the UAE's waters for several months have returned home, the Indian consulate general has said.

As of 1 July, a total of 97 Indian sailors were languishing aboard 22 ships in the UAEs waters for several months.

Indian Consul General in Dubai Vipul on Sunday said that 53 of them had been sent back home so far.

"With the help of the FTA (the UAE's Federal Transport Authority) and by taking up issues directly with owners and agents, we have sent back 53 sailors," he was quoted as saying by the Gulf News.

The sailors who have been sent back were from following vessels  Sharjah Moon: 6 sailors, Iba: 6, Rojean: 11, Spirit: 9, Inchon: 3, Enjaz II: 3, Salem: 3, Sea Patrol: 3, Jude: 3, Shaker II: 2, Ocean Grace: 1, Ayah: 1, Sanad One: 1 and Sea Safe: 1 sailor.

Five Indian sailors from MV Sharjah Moon, who left on Saturday, were the latest to fly home after persistent efforts of the Indian mission in collaboration with local authorities, missions of flag countries like the Panama consulate and ship-owners, the daily reported.

The Indian consulate general had said that the sailors had not been paid their salaries for about 6-12 months and the owner of the ship was refusing to cooperate.
Anthony Scaramucci, named Donald Trump's new White House communications director, is a millionaire former hedge fund investor who shores up the stable of bankers in the president's inner circle.

It is the first administration role for the 53-year-old Republican fundraiser with telegenic looks who has long been an articulate surrogate for the president and who was first named to his transition team last November.

The son of a middle-class Italian-American family from Long Island, Scaramucci cut his teeth in high finance at Goldman Sachs, the leading investment bank for which several senior Trump allies once worked. Nicknamed "Mooch" on Wall Street, the always slick and dapper Scaramucci spent seven years at the bank before co-founding investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold in 2001.

In 2005, he founded global investment firm SkyBridge Capital, which for years ran a prominent annual conference in Las Vegas, which united the great and good of finance, international politics and the celebrity world.

Making no secret of his desire to join the Trump administration, the Harvard and Tufts-educated Scaramucci moved to avoid any potential conflict of interest by announcing in January that he had sold his stake in SkyBridge.

He was named in a CNN article in June which was later retracted and led to the resignation of three journalists  that claimed Congress was investigating links between Trump's administration and a Russian investment fund. His tough response to the article reportedly won the admiration of his new boss.

In public, he cultivates a polite and friendly persona, an agile figure on television as a former Friday night host of "Wall Street Weekly" on Fox Business, and as a former contributor at CNBC. Reportedly respected by Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, he was the sole emissary from Trump's transition team at the World Economic Forum in Davoslast January.

Having initially raised funds for the president's early Republican rivals Scott Walker and Jeb Bush in last year's election, he later joined Trump's national finance committee and his transition team in November 2016.

In 2012, he was national finance co-chair of the Republican nominee Mitt Romney's failed presidential run in 2012. He is the author of three books: "The Little Book of Hedge Funds," "Goodbye Gordon Gekko"  the greed-obsessed fictional tycoon played by Michael Douglas  and "Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole: How Entrepreneurs Turn Failure into Success."

Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci pledged to begin "an era of a new good feeling" and said he hopes to "create a more positive mojo." He also promised to crack down on information leaks and pledged to better focus the message coming from the White House.

To that end, Scaramucci suggested changes to come, noting: "I have in my pocket a radio studio, a television studio, and a movie studio. The entire world has changed; we need to rethink the way we're delivering our information."

"If you decide to be an entrepreneur, the number one thing that you have to have in your personality is grit and perseverance," he said in a video posted to his official Facebook page to promote the book last year. Skills that might come in useful for his new job.

Trump announced Friday that Scaramucci  a polished television commentator and Harvard Law graduate  would take over the administration's top messaging job. The appointment came as the president contends with sinking approval ratings and struggles to advance his legislative agenda. The president has also been frustrated with the attention devoted to investigations of allegations of his election campaign's connections to Russia.

He won't be behind a podium at the White House, but it's unlikely Sean Spicer will disappear from television.

Spicer quit as White House press secretary on Friday, ushered out with the wish that "I hope he goes on to make a tremendous amount of money" from Anthony Scaramucci, President Donald Trump's new communications director.
Damascus: Some 50 militants with the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front were killed in an explosion in Syrian city of Idlib, media reports said.

On Sunday, the cars, loaded with ammunition, went off near a gathering of Nusra militants, with no further information indicating whether the bombings were planned or accidental, Xinhua news agency reported.

The cars belong to the rival Ahrar al-Sham movement, which lost dominance of Idlib earlier in the day to the Nusra Front, or the Front for Liberating the Levant, following infighting between both groups.

Their infighting has recently flared in Idlib, which is largely under the Nusra's control, with Ahrar al-Sham's reported withdrawal from the city, pan-Arab Mayadeen TV reported.

The Nusra Front is designated as a terror group by the international community and the United Nations, and was excluded from any deal along with the Islamic State group.

The battles against Nusra have pushed several rebel groups previously allied with it to withdraw amid reports that Ahrar al-Sham has joined the alliance with the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army.
Beijing: China on Monday defended its repatriation of North Koreans who have escaped across its border after a United Nations envoy voiced concern about increasing detentions and expulsions.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said last week he had shared his concerns with Chinese officials in recent months.

But foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday that "the persons who illegally trespassed into China are not refugees" and would be handled according to "international law and humanitarian need". "We hope relevant people can abide by principles in the UN charter to respect normal law enforcement on the Chinese side," Lu told a regular press briefing.

Ojea Quintana said on Friday he was "alarmed by a surge in detentions and forced repatriations of North Koreans" who are caught in China after making it across the border.

The envoy said he had reminded Chinese authorities of their obligations under the 1951 refugee convention as well as relevant parts of the UN system. "I urge them again to address this problem by giving special protection to DPRK (North Korea) citizens who transit through China's territory," he said in Seoul.

If forcibly returned, North Korean defectors are at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention, torture or other ill-treatment, enforced disappearance and execution, according to Human Rights Watch.

"Women continue to be especially vulnerable to violent practices when they are sent back. Strip-searches, cavity inspections, verbal abuse and sexual violence are still known to happen in holding centres near the border with China," Ojea Quintana said.

Human Rights Watch said in June, citing activists and family members, that at least 51 North Koreans had been detained in China since July 2016, including a baby born in detention, four children and three elderly women in frail health.

Based on their information, the rights watchdog said it believed that at least 13 of the North Koreans had already been forcibly returned, while the others remained in China for now.

The Demilitarised Zone dividing the Korean peninsula is one of the most heavily fortified places in the world. Almost all North Korean defectors intending to reach South Korea cross first to China and then on to a third country before travelling to Seoul.

The number of North Koreans escaping to the South declined sharply in the first half of this year as Pyongyang strengthened controls on its border with China, Seoul officials said in July.

In the six months to June, 593 Northerners entered South Korea, down 20.8 percent from the same period in 2016, statistics compiled by Seoul's Unification Ministry showed.
Beijing: China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) will hold war games instead of usual military parade to showcase its military might on the world's largest standing force's 90th anniversary next week, a media report said on Monday.

President Xi Jinping, who is also the overall commander of the 2.3 million-strong army, has ordered war games over military parade to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA on 1 August, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Xi is expected to attend the drills in full battle uniform, it said.

He will be the special guest at China's biggest annual war games at Asia's largest military training base, the Post quoted officials as saying.

President Xi will make his first known visit to the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base, 400-kilometre northwest of Beijing in Inner Mongolia, to observe war games involving cyber-warfare, special troops, army aviation and electronic countermeasures, the daily said quoting PLA sources.

"There had been speculation the anniversary would be marked by a parade in Beijing, but Xi, who as chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), has been pushing the PLA to modernise, will instead be guest of honour at Zhurihe to see how that effort is progressing," it said.

"There will not be a military parade on Tiananmen Square in Beijing on 1 August as rumoured, but a full-scale, head-to-head military manoeuvre in Zhurihe to celebrate the armys birthday," a military insider told the Post, adding that Xi would observe the war games from the bases command centre.

He said a squadron of Chinas first stealth fighter, the J-20, which went into service with the PLA Air Force in March, was very likely to feature.

"All participant units will grab this opportunity to show off state-of-the-art development," he said.

"The full-scale military manoeuvre will test the PLAs capability to integrate and coordinate land forces, army aviation, the newly established rocket force, strategic support units and logistics between different troops, with more hi-tech weapons being displayed," the official said.

The planned war games coincide with over a month-long standoff between Chinese and Indian troops in the Doka La area in the Sikkim sector.

Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face-off in the disputed area in the southernmost part of Tibet in an area also claimed by Indian ally Bhutan after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the area.

Besides Doka La, China is also concerned by the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile by the US in South Korea despite its opposition.

"The war games this year were supposed to be the biggest ever to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA, but developments on Chinas borders, such as the current military stand-off between Chinese and Indian troops in the Himalayas and Pyongyangs missile tests, may affect its scale," the daily quoted the military insider as saying.

The PLA was founded on 1 August, 1927 when the Communist Party of China (CPC) under the leadership of Mao Zedong carried on with his national liberation movement.

It is one of the rare national armies which still continues to function under the leadership of the CPC and not the Chinese government.

Xi heads the Central Military Commission (CMC) which is the overall command for the PLA.

Xi who heads the CPC, the presidency besides the military, has emerged as the most powerful leader holding all the three posts from the first day he came to power and carried out major reforms of the military as part of his plans to make it most modern force.

The massive drills has been kept as a secret as the PLA which held a media briefing here today on its 90th anniversary celebrations has not announced the programme of celebrations.

The biggest military parade in China's modern history was held in Beijing on 3 September, 2015, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war.

"There is no sign any military parade will take place in Beijing because so far we have not seen any marching training inside or outside the capital," Beijing-based military expert Li Jie told the Post, adding that such training always started several months before a parade.

Retired PLA major general Xu Guangyu said live war games could be part of the PLA's birthday celebration.

Xu said the unscripted manoeuvres at Zhurihe would add authenticity to the army's training because the encounters would be closer to actual battles.

Macau-based military commentator Antony Wong Dong said that based on video footage and reports provided by state media, the scale of war games in Zhurihe had been closer to real battles in recent years, indicating the PLA ground forces determination to abandon its previous single force operation and move to joint operation involving different units.
Washington: President Donald Trump has expressed his frustration with Republicans, saying they "do very little to protect their President".

In one of several tweets issued on Monday, Trump said the lack of support happens even with "some that were carried over the line on my back."

Trump's tweet wasn't clear about why he was upset. It came as Republicans in the Senate struggled to come together on a bill to overhaul President Barack Obama's health care law.

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

On that topic, another tweet from the president was more specific, and talked about repercussions if Republicans don't "repeal and replace the disastrous ObamaCare".

If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for their August recess without passing a health bill.

Trump has had a complicated relationship with the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have continued to be generally supportive of the president, even as his approval ratings slip.

The president also took to Twitter to lash out at favorite targets in the news media, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

It's hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

Trump began his series of tweets on Monday morning with a tweet about the probe investigating Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election.
Washington: US president Donald Trump on Monday slammed his own attorney general for not probing the alleged links his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton had with the Russians during the last year's presidential polls.

Over the past week, Trump has been attacking attorney general Jeff Sessions for his decision months ago to recuse himself from the investigations into possible connections between Trump's campaign and Russia.

In March, Sessions had announced that he would recuse himself from investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, including those into Russian interference in the electoral process.

Trump had said in an interview with The New York Times last week that he would not have appointed Sessions if he had known the attorney general would recuse himself, as he considers the decision "very unfair to the president."

Sessions, a former senator from Alabama, supported Trump from the early days of his candidacy and became a trusted adviser.

He had said last week that he will stay in this position as long as it is appropriate.

The new White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Sunday said that the president has full confidence in Sessions.

Trump, who has 34.4 million followers on Twitter, fired a series of tweets on issues close to him.

"So why aren't the committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered attorney general, looking into Crooked Hillary's crimes and Russia relations?" Trump asked in a tweet.

So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

In one of the tweets, he was critical of his own lawmakers in the Congress expressing his frustration over the failure of his health care bill to get through the legislative process. "Republicans have the last chance to do the right thing on Repeal and Replace after years of talking and campaigning on it," Trump tweeted.

Republicans have a last chance to do the right thing on Repeal & Replace after years of talking & campaigning on it.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

Trump said after more than a year of an investigation against him there is zero evidence found about his campaign having a connection with the Russians.

"After one year of investigation with zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that Democrats should blame us, not Russia," he said.

After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that "Democrats should blame ourselves,not Russia."  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

Schumer, the Senate minority leader, in an interview with The Washington Post over the weekend, said that Hillary Clinton had herself to blame if she lost to somebody who has 40 percent popularity. "When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don't blame other things - Comey, Russia - you blame yourself," Schumer said. Trump in another tweet gave another meaning to him "drain the swamp" election slogan. "Drain the Swamp should be changed to drain the sewer -it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!," he said.

Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer - it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

"Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into Russia, spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!" Trump tweeted.
Paris: A poll has shown that the popularity rating of France's new president Emmanuel Macron has slumped 10 points to hit 54 percent over the past month.

While Macron has made a strong start on the world stage and won a solid majority in parliament, his first three months in power have not been completely trouble-free. He was widely criticised by opponents and the press as heavy-handed after a row over budget cuts that ended with the resignation of a highly-regarded military chief.

The 39-year-old leader has also backed a controversial bill to toughen France's security laws that includes measures some rights groups have branded as draconian. His majority in parliament has drawn concern, with opponents and several newspapers expressing concern over the concentration of power in the presidency.

According to an Ifop poll carried out for Journal du Dimanche newspaper, the number of French people satisfied with his performance fell 10 points from 64 percent in June.

Macron's prime minister Edouard Philippe marked an eight point drop to hit 56 percent of French people happy with him, said the poll of 1,947 adults carried out from 17 to 22 July.

France's youngest-ever president, who has sought to project an image of authority since taking office in May, made clear during the row with the military boss that he would brook no insubordination as commander-in-chief.

The leftist Liberation newspaper said Macron's "little authoritarian fit" could be a sign he was drunk on power and said it was time for him "to grow up a bit".

A relative newcomer to politics who won election on a tide of disaffection with mainstream politics, Macron has enjoyed a honeymoon with voters, drawing particular praise for standing up to US President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe, and Textile Corporation of America Inc. officials on Monday announced the company will locate its headquarters and manufacturing facility in Pikeville.





Textile Corporation of America will invest approximately $27.1 million and create 1,000 new jobs in Bledsoe County, representing the largest private investment in Bledsoe Countys history.





We want to welcome Textile Corporation of America to Tennessee and thank the company for locating its new operations here, creating 1,000 jobs in Pikeville and making this historic investment for not only Bledsoe County but Tennessee as a whole, Governor Haslam said.





A leading textile manufacturer, Textile Corporation of America utilizes state-of-the-art plants and machinery to produce quality industrial and institutional textile products including apparel, bedding, healthcare, hospitality, and kitchen linens. Textile Corporation of America will locate its headquarters and manufacturing facility in the Bledsoe County Industrial Building in Pikeville. The existing building is 186,000 square feet, including offices, and sits on 16 acres.





The leadership team of Textile Corporation of America has both an unparalleled experience in manufacturing textiles around the world for the past four decades and an unwavering commitment to restoring Americas historic place as a global manufacturing center.





Last week, Governor Haslam announced that Tennessees unemployment rate for June was the lowest in recorded state history. At 3.6 percent, Junes rate declined from the revised rate of 4.0 percent in May. Meanwhile, U.S. jobless rate increased to 4.4 percent in June from 4.3 percent in May. Bledsoe Countys current unemployment rate is 4.5 percent.





Tennessees unemployment rate wouldnt be where it is today if it werent for the many outstanding companies that choose to call Tennessee home, Mr. Rolfe said. While we are certainly proud of the decline in our unemployment rate, we know there are areas of our state where Tennesseans struggle to find jobs. Textile Corporation of Americas commitment to create 1,000 jobs in Bledsoe County, a Tier 4 Distressed county, will have an incredible impact on the community and surrounding area. We appreciate the companys investment in our state and look forward to building a lasting partnership in the future.





I could not be happier that my home state of Tennessee is leading the renaissance of American manufacturing with the announcement of this facility today, Chattanooga businessman and Textile Corporation of America owner Ed Cagle said. We are proud to call Pikeville, Tennessee home to our new mill. Millions of dollars of investment and the creation of a thousand jobs will be transformative to this county and region."





Local officials thanked Textile Corporation of America for its investment and new jobs in Bledsoe County.





This is an exciting time for Bledsoe County, Bledsoe County Mayor Gregg Ridley said. As mayor of a Tier 4 economically distressed county, getting 1,000 local jobs is a pivotal moment in time for our citizens and an answer to many prayers. I welcome Textile Corporation of America to our community and trust they will experience many years of prosperity.





We are so excited about the recent news for our town and county. It has been a long time coming and we want to thank everyone for their hard work and not giving up on bringing jobs to our area, Pikeville Mayor Philip Cagle said. We look forward to working with our new friends and for a long successful journey. We are thrilled for the future of our town and the jobs that this company is bringing to Bledsoe County and the surrounding counties.





Congratulations to Textile Corporation of America on its decision to locate a new facility in Pikeville, Tennessee, John Bradley, TVA senior vice president of economic development, said. TVA and Sequachee Valley Electric Cooperative are privileged to partner with the State of Tennessee, the City of Pikeville and Bledsoe County to help companies create new jobs and prosperity in the community.





Pikeville and Bledsoe County are represented by Sen. Paul Bailey (R  Sparta) and

Rep. Ron Travis (R  Dayton) in the Tennessee General Assembly.
Tehran: Iran and Iraq on Monday signed deals aimed at boosting military cooperation during a visit by Baghdad's Defence Minister Irfan al-Hayali to Tehran.

In a memorandum of understanding signed by Hayali and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Dehghan, the neighbours agreed on a "wide range of military and defence cooperation" including the "fight against terrorism and extremism," state news agency IRNA reported.

Hayali, who was leading a military delegation, also met separately with parliament speaker Ali Larijani and Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Larijani and Shamkhani emphasised the importance of "unity".

"Iran supports the unity of all groups and ethnicities in Iraq," the state broadcaster's website quoted Larijani as telling Hayali.

Larijani also underlined the importance of preserving Iraqi unity "because if it wasn't for the emergence of political differences, the (Islamic State group) would not have been able to penetrate there".

The Iraqi minister acknowledged Iran's help in the fight against Islamic State and also stressed the importance of unity.

Iraq's Kurdistan region has announced it will hold an independence referendum in September.

"We will not let any political side disintegrate Iraq," Hayali said.

In his talks with Hayali, Shamkhani warned that "secessionist approaches can become a platform, to prepare the ground for insecurity and instability".

Tehran has been a key supporter of Baghdad in its fight against Islamic State and has provided Iraq with financial and military help.

Iran has its own Kurdish population along its borders with Iraq and Turkey, and does not want to see Iraq's Kurdish region become an independent state.
Washington: Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Monday said he had four contacts with Russian officials but denied any collusion to help his father-in-law Donald Trump win the presidency, US media said.

In a statement Kushner released hours before he was to appear before the Senate intelligence committee, he described contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other Russian officials as normal in his former role as the campaign liaison to foreign governments, the Washington Post said.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner wrote.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," he said, according to the Post report.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka, will testify before the Senate intelligence committee on Monday, according to his lawyer, and the House panel on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old billionaire investor working at his first political position was to be asked about his meetings with Russia's ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank and a Russian lawyer - the latter along with Trump's son Donald Jr.

Kushner plans to submit the 11-page statement for the record.

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.

Sunday, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."
Jerusalem: Israel sent extra troops into the occupied West Bank on Saturday and its police broke up a crowd of stone-throwing Palestinians in Jerusalem as international concern mounted over the deadliest outbreak of violence between the two sides for years.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said one Palestinian was killed during a separate clash outside the city, taking the death toll from the past two days to seven. It did not provide details of how he died.

Three Israelis were stabbed to death on Friday while eating dinner in a West Bank settlement. Hours earlier, three Palestinians were killed in violence prompted by Israel's installation of metal detectors at entry points to the Noble Sanctuary-Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem's walled Old City.

Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations  the so-called Quartet of Middle East peace mediators  said in a joint statement they were "deeply concerned by the escalating tensions and violent clashes taking place in and around the Old City of Jerusalem", and called for restraint on all sides.

Diplomats said the UN Security Council would meet to discuss the situation on Monday. Sweden, Egypt and France requested the meeting to "urgently discuss how calls for de-escalation in Jerusalem can be supported", Sweden's Security Council coordinator, Carl Skau, posted on Twitter.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the suspension of all official contact with Israel until it removed the metal detectors at the holy compound in Jerusalem, where Muslims pray at Al-Aqsa mosque. He gave no details, but current contacts are largely limited to security cooperation.

Israel's security cabinet was due to convene on Sunday and is expected to discuss alternative security measures that could be used to replace the metal detectors, according to two Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

West Bank Raid

In Jerusalem, Israeli police said they used riot gear to disperse dozens of Palestinians who threw stones and bottles at them. Television footage showed police throwing stun grenades and using a water cannon to break up the crowd.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces raided the home of the Palestinian attacker who fatally stabbed the three Israelis and wounded another on Friday, the military said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the attacker's brother was arrested and that security forces were restricting movement of Palestinians from his village.

The stabbing victims were from the fenced-in West Bank settlement of Neve Tsuf. The attacker, Omar Alabed, who invaded their home, was shot and taken to a hospital for treatment, the military said.

Alabed posted a note on Facebook prior to the attack, writing: "I am going there and I know I am not going to come back here, I will go to heaven. How sweet death is for the sake of God, his prophet and for Al-Aqsa mosque."

Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman met with senior commanders in the West Bank to assess the situation and said the attacker's home would be promptly demolished, in line with Israeli policy. He called on Abbas to condemn the attack, describing it as a "slaughter".

Palestinian worshippers had clashed with Israeli security forces before Friday's attack. Tensions had mounted for days as Palestinians hurled rocks and Israeli police used stun grenades after the detectors were placed outside the sacred venue, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinians died of gunshot wounds in two neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, some distance away from the epicentre of tension. It later reported a third Palestinian fatality

Israel decided to install the metal detectors at the entry point to the shrine in Jerusalem about a week ago after the killing of two Israeli policemen stationed there.
Moscow: Chinese and Russian commanders conducted a simulation exercise in Kaliningrad province for the ongoing joint military drills code-named "Joint Sea 2017" in the Baltic Sea.

In the hours-long exercise on Sunday, two tactical assault groups, consisting of mixed warships from the Chinese and Russian fleets, simulated details of the drills on a map including ship-to-sea firing by secondary cannons, air defense, joint landing and inspection, maritime search and rescue, underway replenishment and other subjects.

"The simulation exercise was conducted for two purposes, namely, making commanders at all levels more familiar with the procedures and subjects of the drills, as well as enhancing coordination and tacit understanding between commanders of the two countries," Xinhua news agency quoted Wang Xiaoyong, deputy captain of a destroyer detachment of the Chinese Navy, as saying.

During the drills, the participating air forces and sea forces will be deployed through unified guidance by a joint directing center, a joint headquarter and a tactical command post, which are formed by commanders from both countries.

The Joint Sea 2017 drills, which kicked off on Saturday and will last until 28 July, aims to carry out joint rescue missions and ensure maritime economic activities.

The Chinese fleet consists of one destroyer, one frigate, one supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines. The Russian side includes one frigate, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and marines.

Chinese and Russian navies will conduct a variety of joint exercises and attend the parade in St. Petersburg on the occasion of Russia's Navy Day.
A car bomb exploded in western Kabul on Monday, killing at least 27 people, according to AFP. Another 41 people were injured in the attack, Associated Press said.

According to the Associated Press, eyewitnesses said the suicide bomber seemed to target a minibus. This is the third major attack in the last two months. The western part of Kabul is home to many Shia Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority which was hit hard a year ago in a strike which killed dozens. That was the first time claimed responsibility for an attack in the heart of Kabul.

On 31 May, a massive truck bomb in the capital left at least 90 people dead and more than 450 others wounded in one of the worst extremist attacks since the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan in 2014.

The bomber drove into Kabul's heavily guarded diplomatic quarter during the morning rush, leaving behind bloody chaos and destruction. Most of the casualties were civilians, including women and children, but the dead also included Afghan security guards.

While no one officially claimed responsibility, the suspicion was that the Islamic State, which is slowly gaining ground in the war-ravaged country, was reponsible.

The Taliban also denied involvement in the attack and condemned the killing of civilians.

"This blast has nothing to do with the Mujahidins," the Taliban said in a statement released by their spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid. He added that the Taliban never carry out such attacks, reported Efe news.

"The Islamic Emirate (as the Taliban call themselves) condemn those blasts carried out against civilians and in which civilians suffer casualties without a clear target," the statement said.

Earlier in May, the Islamic State attacked an armoured NATO convoy in Kabul, killing at least eight people and wounding 28, including three coalition members.

The explosion, which came during morning rush hour on a busy road near the US embassy and NATO headquarters, killed "mostly" civilians, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP.

First emerging in 2015, the Islamic State overran large parts of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, near the Pakistan border, but their part in the Afghan conflict had been largely overshadowed by the operations against the Taliban.

Captain Bill Salvin, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan, said the local Islamic State presence peaked at between 2,500 to 3,000 but that defections and recent battlefield losses had reduced their number to around 800. "We have a very good chance of destroying them in 2017," Salvin told AFP recently.

Afghan forces have been straining to beat back the Taliban insurgents since US-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in December 2014.

With more than one third of Afghanistan outside of government control, civilians also continue to bear a heavy brunt, with thousands killed and wounded each year and

children paying an increasingly disproportionate price, according to UN figures.

With inputs from agencies
New Delhi: India on Monday strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Kabul in which 26 people were killed and said the perpetrators and supporters of such heinous acts need to be brought to justice.

"We strongly condemn the dastardly terrorist attack in Kabul city today (Monday) resulting in loss of innocent precious lives. India stands in solidarity with the people and the government of Afghanistan," the external affairs ministry said.

Forty-one people were also wounded when a car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees through a Shia neighbourhood in Kabul.

The MEA said the continuing terrorist violence in Afghanistan is violation of the basic rights of the people of the country and meant to undermines efforts to build a peaceful, prosperous, stable and united Afghanistan.

"The perpetrators and supporters of such heinous acts need to be brought to justice. The safe havens and sanctuaries to terrorists must end," it said.
Lahore: A powerful suicide blast near residence-cum-office of Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in Pakistan's Lahore city on Monday killed at least 20 people, including policemen, and wounded 30 others.

Lahore police chief Captain (R) Amin Wains said the "target of blast was police".

He also confirmed that it was a suicide blast.

According to Rescue 1122, at least 20 people including policemen have been killed in the blast.

"Police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the chief minister's Model Town residence, when a powerful blast took place," Rescue 1122 Deeba Shahnaz told PTI.

Rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital. An emergency was declared in city hospitals.

"The condition of several injured is stated to be critical," the official said.

The chief minister was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.
Lahore: At least 26 people, including policemen, were killed and 57 others injured on Monday when a suspected suicide bomber targeted police personnel deployed near residence-cum-office of Pakistan's Punjab province chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore.

"Police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the chief minister's Model Town residence, when a powerful blast took place," Rescue 1122 Deeba Shahnaz told PTI.

Lahore police chief Captain (R) Amin Wains confirmed that it was a suicide blast and the "target was police".

The chief minister, who is also the brother of prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.

The Punjab government confirmed that 26 people were killed and 57 others injured in the blast. One sub-inspector, 1 ASI and 6 Constables were among dead, it added.

Rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital. An emergency was declared in city hospitals. "The condition of several injuries is stated to be critical," Shahnaz said.

"29 injured persons are being treated at Lahore General Hospital, 9 in Jinnah and 18 in Ittefaq hospital," the official Twitter account of the Government of Punjab tweeted.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast.

Citing police sources, the Geo News reported that a suicide attacker targeted police personnel deployed at the site. The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed.

"We are collecting evidence and this could be a suicide bombing. The death toll includes police and civilians," DIG Operations Haider Ashraf was quoted as saying.

Prime minister Sharif strongly condemned the blast and directed officials to provide best possible medical treatment for the injured.

"No words can express the grief which grips my heart right now. The blast destroyed many families, but terrorists can never destroy our resolve," chief minister Shahbaz Sharif said.

"Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins!" he tweeted.

Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah said terrorism can not be ruled out as the motive behind the explosion. He added that security forces are conducting their investigations.

Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, has witnessed several terror attacks in recent years.

In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahore's Bedian Road.

In February, a suicide bomber killed 14 people, including senior police officers, near the Punjab Assembly.
The human rights situation in some of Myanmars states is deteriorating, with reports of the use of human shields by the armed forces, while the situation of Rohingyas has become more complicated, a United Nations (UN) investigator said on Monday at the end of a 12-day official mission to the country.

Concern was growing over a worsening situation in Kachin and Shan states in Myanmar with the lack of access for international organisations, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee said at the conclusion of her visit to the country between 10 July and 21 July held at the invitation of Myanmar's government.

I was particularly dismayed to learn that the situation in northern Shan State is deteriorating, with reports of increasing conflicts, more alleged rights violations by security forces and armed groups, and inadequate assistance for civilians.

There have been numerous reports of killings, torture, even the use of human shields by the armed forces, allegedly in some cases accompanied by threats of further violence if incidents are reported, Lee said.

The general situation for the Rohingyas has hardly improved since her last visit earlier in 2017 and has become further complicated in the north of Rakhine.

There also appear to be incidents of Rohingya being targeted by unknown assailants for applying to be verified as a citizen, as well as village administrators and other Muslims targeted for being collaborators for working with the authorities, leaving many Rohingya civilians terrified, and often caught between violence on both sides, Lee says.

The UN expert, who visited Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw as well as parts of Rakhine, Shan and Kayin States, says she was denied meetings with the Myanmarese commander-in-chief and representatives from the ministries of defence, home affairs, transport and communication, and religious affairs and culture.

Lee alleged that the government wanted an assurance from her that she will not undertake any activities that are to do with the UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar, the mandate for which was established through a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution in March. Expecting such an assurance is an affront to her independence as a UN expert, Lee said.

The mandates of the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar and the UN fact-finding mission on Myanmar are separate. The Myanmarese government had recently denied visas to the members of the UN fact-finding mission.

While welcoming information on the recent release of 67 children and youth from the Tatmadaw  the Myanmar armed forces  in June, there reportedly has been an increase in forced recruitment and abductions by the several ethnic armed groups operating in the Shan state as well as by various militias.

While I was not able to visit this time, I understand the situation in Kachin State is also extremely serious, with no access for the UN to non-government controlled areas for over a year and concerning developments in Tanai township, Lee said.

In Kayin state, the UN expert was shocked to hear that in some cases farmers must still pay tax on land which was confiscated from them and in some other cases they are given the offer to buy back their own land at an inflated rate.

Many of the tens of thousands of individuals displaced in the Thai-Myanmar border area are reportedly still afraid to return due to landmines and militarisation but face an increasingly precarious situation with assistance being reduced where they are now, Lee said in her statement.

Around 120,000 internally displaced people from the Rakhine state were still living in camps after fleeing their homes, and there was little prospect of a long-term solution. Some people were told they would be in the camps for three days, but this has turned into five long years, she added.

In Kyaukphyu, the slow citizenship verification process is confining Kaman Muslims family members to Kyauk Ta Lone camp while their Buddhist family members have the freedom to choose where to live.

Communities living around three Special Economic Zones  in Kyaukphyu, Dawei and Thilawa  have relayed experiences of land confiscation with little or no consultation or compensation and with efforts to seek redress often gone unanswered. Lee says that she has heard similar stories in other parts of the country revealing it to be a truly nationwide problem.

We are told not to expect Myanmar to transition into a democracy overnight, that it needs time and space.

But in the same way, Myanmar should not expect to have its close scrutiny removed or its special monitoring mechanisms dismantled overnight. This cannot happen until there is real and discernible progress on human rights, the UN human rights envoy argued.

Lee also appealed to ASEAN to take a non-indifference stance to assist Myanmar in its journey to full transformation to a fully democratic society.

This is Lees sixth official visit to Myanmar and the third since the new government came to power. Her term was extended by the UNHRC in March this year, the mandate for a UN special rapporteur on Myanmar was established as early as 1992 by the UNHRCs predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights.

In 2015, nationalist Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu had called Lee a whore after she questioned draft laws that many argued would discriminate against women and non-Buddhists  drawing international flak from many countries as well as condemnation from the UN.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Monday summoned India's Deputy High Commissioner JP Singh after one civilian was killed and three others injured in alleged ceasefire violations along the Line of Control by Indian troops.

The Foreign Office claimed that Indian forces resorted to "unprovoked firing" on Leepa Sector on 21 July which killed Umair (12) and injured three civilians in Gheekot village.

The Director General (SA & SAARC), Dr Mohammad Faisal, summoned Singh and "condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations by the Indian occupation forces," it said.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws," Faisal said.

He urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 ceasefire arrangement; investigate this and other incidents of ceasefire violations; instruct the Indian forces to respect the ceasefire, in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the LoC.

This was the third ceasefire violation by the Indian forces in the past four days, the Foreign Office said.

It alleged that despite calls for restraint, India continues to indulge in ceasefire violations.

In 2017 to date, Indian forces have carried out 618 ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary, it claimed.

Faisal also urged India to permit United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to play its mandated role as per the UN Security Council resolutions.

According to the UN Security Council mandate of 1971, UNMOGIP observes and reports on ceasefire violations along and across the LoC and the Working Boundary between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as reports developments that could lead to ceasefire violations.

India maintains that UNMOGIP has outlived its utility and is irrelevant after the Simla Agreement and the consequent establishment of the Line of Control.
Mayor Andy Berkes Council on Disability invites the community to a celebration on Wednesday commemorating the anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It will be held from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at Miller Plaza Pavilion, 850 Market St.

The Mayors Council on Disability is part of an initiative created to help make Chattanooga more accessible to everyone regardless of their ability and to empower individuals with disabilities to achieve economic self-sufficiency, independent living, and inclusion and integration into all aspects of society.

The Mayors Council on Disability is supported by the city of Chattanoogas Office of Multicultural Affairs, which aims to cultivate an environment of understanding, respect, and equality of rights for the diverse cultural populations of Chattanooga, and works toward eliminating discriminatory practices in Chattanooga based on race, religion, national origin, age, sex, disability, or ethnicity.

The celebration on Wednesday will recognize 27 years since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was enacted on July 26, 1990, and prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. The city of Chattanooga does not permit discrimination on the basis of physical or mental disability in admission to, access to, or operations of its programs, services or activities. In addition, the city of Chattanooga does not discriminate on the basis of disability in its hiring or employment practices.

The ADA Celebration in Chattanooga is sponsored by CARTA, The Big Chill and Carrabbas Italian Grill.

For more information visit http://www.chattanooga.gov/multicultural-affairs
Dubai: Turkey's president on Monday urged Qatar and Arab countries isolating it to negotiate an end to the crisis dividing them as he wrapped up a two-day Gulf tour.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in a brief statement that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced his support for mediation efforts being led by Kuwait and said initiatives were underway to resolve the crisis through dialogue should continue.

Erdogan traveled to Qatar on Monday for talks with Qatari emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who has said Qatar is open to dialogue so long as it respects his country's sovereignty.

Earlier, Erdogan met with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which leads an anti-Qatar bloc that includes the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, before holding talks with the emir of Kuwait.

The quartet cut diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar in early June, accusing it of supporting extremists. Qatar strongly denies the allegation and sees the dispute as politically motivated.

Erdogan's Gulf trip follows visits aimed at defusing the crisis by the top diplomats of Britain, France, Germany and the United States, underscoring the depth of concern the crisis is causing well beyond the region.

Turkey has built increasingly close ties with Qatar in recent years, including opening its first military base in the Persian Gulf there last year.

New Turkish troops have arrived since the Gulf rift erupted, raising fears of an escalation with the countries seeking to isolate it. The anti-Qatar quartet included expelling the Turkish troops as one of its list of demands to resolve the dispute.
Sri Lanka's main Tamil party TNA has demanded concrete action from President Maithripala Sirisena on disclosing the whereabouts of their relatives who are still missing eight years after the end of the country's nearly three-decade-long civil war.

In a letter to Sirisena, main Tamil party leader Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the leader of the Opposition R Sampanthan demanded the government disclose names of all the detainees and the places where they were being held besides allowing their relatives to visit them.

He said the issue of missing persons was a "serious issue" and relatives of the disappeared persons in the north and east had called for revealing the names of all those held in custody when they met Sirisena at a previous meeting.

Referring to the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) which is due to become operational soon, Sampanthan said he wished the issue of the missing persons would be credibly dealt to ensure relief for the families.

Sirisena signed a gazette on the OMP last week, paving the way to set up an office to trace around 20,000 people still missing due to the civil war.

The OMP was set up as a response to UN Human Rights Council's resolution which called for credible international mechanism to probe the alleged war crimes committed during the last phase of the civil war. The UN has lauded Sri Lanka for setting up the OMP, terming it a "significant milestone" for all searching for their loved ones.

The government now faces pressure to make the OMP operational and nominate and appoint its members soon. According to the government estimates, around 20,000 people are still missing due to various conflicts including the 30-year-long separatist war with Lankan Tamils in the north and east which claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which led the separatist war for a separate Tamil homeland, was finally crushed by the Lankan military in 2009 with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Istanbul: Seventeen employees of a Turkish Opposition newspaper went on trial on Monday accused of supporting a terrorist group, a case seen by government critics as a further sign that freedom of expression is under attack.

"Journalism is not a crime," chanted several hundred people gathered outside the central Istanbul court to protest against the prosecution of writers, executives and lawyers of the staunchly secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper.

The hearing coincides with an escalating dispute with Germany over the arrest in Turkey of 10 rights activists, including one German, as part of a crackdown since last year's attempted coup against president Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish prosecutors are seeking up to 43 years in jail for the paper's staff, including some of Turkey's best-known journalists, who are accused of targeting Erdogan through "asymmetric war methods".

"According to the government, everyone in opposition is a terrorist, the only non-terrorists are themselves," Filiz Kerestecioglu, a member of parliament from the pro-Kurdish HDP opposition party, told reporters ahead of the trial.

According to the 324-page indictment, Cumhuriyet was effectively taken over by the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed for the failed putsch last July, and used to "veil the actions of terrorist groups".

Gulen has denied any involvement in the coup.

The newspaper has called the charges "imaginary accusations and slander". Social media posts comprised the bulk of evidence in the indictment, along with allegations that staff had been in contact with users of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by Gulen's followers.

Rights groups and Turkey's Western allies have complained of deteriorating human rights under Erdogan. In the crackdown since last July's failed coup, 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial and some 150,000 detained or dismissed from their jobs.

As part of the purge some 150 media outlets have been shut down and around 160 journalists are in jail, according to the Turkish Journalists' Association.

The crackdown has strained Turkey's ties with the European Union, but reaction from the bloc has been restrained because it depends on Turkey to curb the flow of migrants and refugees into Europe.

However, Europe's leading power, Germany, has stepped up pressure in recent days, threatening measures that could hinder German investment in Turkey and reviewing Turkish applications for arms deals.

Turkish authorities say the crackdown is justified by the gravity of the coup attempt, in which rogue soldiers tried to overthrow the government and Erdogan, killing 250 people, most of them civilians.

Cumhuriyet is accused of writing stories that serve "separatist manipulation".

The newspaper's editor Murat Sabuncu and other senior staff have been in pre-trial detention since being arrested in November.

Other defendants include well-known columnist Kadri Gursel and Ahmet Sik, who once wrote a book critical of Gulen's movement. Former editor Can Dundar, who is living in Germany, is being tried in absentia.
Amman: Two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli seriously wounded in a shooting Sunday at the Jewish state's embassy in Amman, a security source said.

"The first Jordanian, 17-year-old Mohammed Jawawdeh, succumbed to his injuries at the scene. The second, Bashar Hamarneh, a doctor who was in the residential quarter of the embassy at the time of the incident, died of his injuries after midnight in hospital," the security source said.

The injured Israeli is "deputy director of security at the Israeli embassy and is still receiving treatment in hospital," the source added.

Police earlier said one person had died and two were injured in the incident in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of Amman.

They said in a statement they were "informed late evening (Sunday) of a shooting at a residential building inside the compound of the Israeli embassy".

Police deployed to the scene and surrounded the area, the statement said, adding that the two Jordanians had gone into the building to carry out "carpentry work".

An investigation into the shooting was still underway, the police said.

The security source told AFP the casualties were the result of an unspecified "incident".

Jordanian security forces deployed in the streets around the embassy, an AFP correspondent said.

Israel and Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty, but tensions have been high in recent days after Israel put in place security measures at a highly sensitive holy site in annexed east Jerusalem.

On Friday, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets of Amman after the weekly prayer to denounce the Israeli measures at the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

A crowd estimated at more than 8,000 turned out for a demonstration called by Islamist movements and leftist parties.

Israel shut off the mosque compound on 14 July after Arab Israelis attacked and killed two police officers nearby.

Violence flared between Israeli security forces and Palestinians who are demanding that Israel remove metal detectors installed outside the site after the attack.
Kiev: The US special envoy to the peace talks in Ukraine said that the ongoing fighting in the east of country should be regarded as a 'hot war' instead of a 'frozen conflict' and blamed Russia for its role in the hostilities.

The State Department's Kurt Volker, a career diplomat and former aide to US Senator John McCain, made these remarks on Sunday during a news conference in Kramatorsk, a government-controlled city in the north of the mainly separatist-held region of Donetsk, Efe news reported.

"This is not a frozen conflict, this is a hot war, and it's an immediate crisis that we all need to address as quickly as possible," Volker said.

Asked whether the conflict was a result of Russian aggression or Ukrainian internal factors, he sided with the former explanation. "We've seen what's happened, we understand the way this conflict has begun, we understand the way it is being managed today, and that's why it's important that the United States become more engaged," he said.

Volker said he was preparing a set of recommendations on how the US could better engage with the stalled peace process.

The conflict erupted in 2014, when Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russian insurgents took up arms against the Kiev government in the eastern areas of the country. Over the past week, 12 persons have been killed in skirmishes throughout the Donbass region, in what constituted yet another violation of the 2015 ceasefire agreements signed in Minsk.

Volker, a Russia hawk who served as US ambassador to NATO, was appointed by State Secretary Rex Tillerson on 7 July to the special envoy role.

According to the UN, more than 10,000 people have died in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk during the three years since the conflict's outbreak.
On Friday, Sean Spicer became the latest casualty of the Donald Trump presidency, as the White House press secretary resigned protesting a major shake-up of Trump's scandal-tainted administration, even as pressure mounted from a broadening investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

Spicer quit after Trump named Anthony Scaramucci, a Wall Street financier and one-time critic, as the new White House communications director  a role Spicer had eyed for himself. Spicer was then replaced by deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Spicer's resignation marked an escalation of tension within an administration that has seen its legislative agenda falter at the same time it was buffeted by an investigation into alleged collusion with Russia.

Immediately after this came another blow, when Mark Corallo  who was coordinating the Trump legal team's public response to the Russia crisis  told AFP that he, too, had stepped down.

These are the latest in a long line of resignations and firings that have marked the six months of the Trump presidency. Here's a complete list:

The spate of firings started as early as Day 10 of the Trump administration, when Trump fired Sally Yates. Yates, the acting attorney general, was a holdover from the Barack Obama administration, but she earned Trump's ire, a little over a week after Trump taking charge, after she ordered justice department attorneys not to defend his controversial executive order on immigration and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. The White House also called Yates "weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration", and said by not enforcing the order, she had "betrayed the Department of Justice".

Two weeks later, on 14 February, Michael Flynn's increasingly worrisome relationship with Russian officials cost the National Security Advisor his job. Flynn was fired after it was revealed that he had lied to Vice-President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia. In his resignation letter, Flynn said he held numerous calls with the Russian ambassador to Washington during the transition, and gave "incomplete information" about those discussions to Pence.

On 11 March, Trump asked then US attorney general Jeff Sessions to ask 46 US attorneys to resign, among whom was Preet Bharara, an Indian-American lawyer known for his crusades against corruption. He refused to quit, following which he was fired. Though the decision to fire Bharara was met with shock in several circles, the White House called it "standard operating procedure". "This is a standard operating procedure for a new administration around this time to ask for the resignation of all the US attorneys," the White House said.

The period after Bharara's firing could have been among the calmest in the Trump presidency  there wasn't another firing for another two months! However, the next name on the list is perhaps the most high-profile of them all  FBI Director James Comey, who was investigating links of the Trump administration and his election campaign team with Moscow. His successor has yet not been named. In a letter to Comey, who was often lauded for his independence, Trump said that the dismissal was necessary to restore the public's trust and confidence.

The next person out of Trump's revolving door was Mike Dubke, who resigned as the White House communications director on 30 May. Dubke, a veteran Republican Party strategist, offered no reasons for his resignation, and the transition was conducted without any acrimony. "It has been my great honour to serve president Trump and this administration. It has also been my distinct pleasure to work side-by-side, day-by-day with the staff of the communications and press departments," Dubke wrote in an email.

The list doesn't as yet include Sessions himself, who was once very close to Trump but their relations have soured in recent weeks. After Sessions recused himself from investigations into Trump's alleged ties with the Kremlin, Trump said he wished he had never hired him. "How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, 'Thanks, Jeff, but I'm not going to take you,'" Trump told The New York Times.

"I think (it) is very unfair to the president," Trump said. "It's extremely unfair, and that's a mild word, to the president."

And though Sessions initially appeared determined to stay on, it would be to nobody's surprise if the next name on this list is his.
The United States is one of the worlds leading destinations for globally harvested seafood. Estimates indicate that more than 80 percent of the seafood consumed annually in the United States is imported.

We work with various international organizations to protect and conserve global marine resources. This means that in addition to national laws, we enforce international laws, treaties, and agreements that the United States signs as they relate to areas under our jurisdiction.

NOAAs Office of Law Enforcement prioritizes efforts with foreign countries, federal partners, and non-governmental organizations to detect and prevent IUU fish and fish products from entering U.S. markets. We bring to justice those who seek to profit from this activity. In support of this priority, our International Operations Division leads a multi-faceted approach that includes:

Monitoring imports into the United States, as well as seafood products in global trade

Partnering with other federal and state law enforcement agencies to combat IUU fishing and seafood fraud throughout the United States

Engaging in multilateral and bilateral discussions with international partners to create enforceable provisions to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and develop cooperation and collaboration in detecting, deterring, and interdicting IUU fishing activity and trade

Supporting broad and effective global implementation of the Port State Measures Agreement

Providing technical assistance to global partners, with emphasis on major exporters of seafood to the United States, to assist in developing the fisheries enforcement capacity to detect and interdict IUU fish and fish products before they enter the global market

Educating the public, consumers, and international audiences about the impacts of IUU fishing and fishing-related activities

Learn more about Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing

Working Internationally with Law Enforcement Partners

NOAAs Office of Law Enforcement relies on cooperation and partnerships at home and abroad in the protection and conservation of global marine resources. At home, OLE has forged critical partnerships to coordinate counter-IUU fishing assistance in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Along with other NOAA offices, we partner with:

State and territorial law enforcement partners

U.S. Coast Guard

Department of State and its International Narcotics and Law Enforcement division

U.S. Agency for International Development

Department of Defense

Beyond our borders, international partnershipsboth formal and informalplay a critical role in our efforts to combat IUU fishing.

Information Sharing and Cooperation

NOAAs Office of Law Enforcement continually works to increase our collaboration with international partners. These activities include information sharing, joint law enforcement operations, technical assistance to increase fisheries enforcement capacity, and participation in meetings between two or more countries.

Examples of international cooperation and information sharing:

Participating in International Regional Fisheries Management Organizations

NOAAs Office of Law Enforcement represents the United States on numerous regional fisheries management organizations. We serve on U.S. delegations to annual and intersessional meetings to provide enforcement expertise on compliance issues and the development of new conservation and management measures. Some larger commissions we participate in include:

Implementing the Port State Measures Agreement

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter, and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing seeks to prevent IUU fishing through the adoption and implementation of effective port state measures. These measures are a means of ensuring the long-term conservation and sustainable use of marine life. NOAAs Office of Law Enforcement is the primary agency responsible for implementing the Agreement, in coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Learn more about the PSMA and OLEs work to implement it

Capacity Building and Technical Assistance

The international community consistently seeks NOAAs Office of Law Enforcements expertise in environmental crime, criminal investigations, the fishing industry, vessel monitoring systems, and case management. Much of our international work focuses on combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing through capacity building and technical assistance to international partners and agencies through government to government interactions.

Learn more about our efforts to combat IUU fishing
The Cleveland City Council, with scant public notice, voted 4-2 on first reading on Monday afternoon to approve one of the largest property tax increases in the city's history.

Richard Banks, Bill Estes, Tom Cassada and Vice Mayor Avery Johnson voted for a 46-cent property tax boost.

Opposed were Charlie McKenzie and David May.

Dale Hughes and Mayor Tom Rowland were absent due to illness. The mayor is not a voting member of the council, but he can veto actions.

The final vote is expected in August.

The new certified tax rate (after the recent reappraisal) is $1.60. The increase moves that to $2.06 per $100 of assessed valuation.

Vice Mayor Johnson said the city perhaps years ago should have been passing small tax increases rather than catching up all at once. He said, "It's a hard decision, but we can't keep holding off. We are getting behind on a whole lot of things."

Councilman Banks said, even with the new rate, that Cleveland will have one of the lowest tax rates of cities across the state that operate school systems.

The increase, among other things, will help the city build a new Candies Creek Cherokee Elementary School on Georgetown Road, it was stated. Work on the school is set to start soon.

It also will boost fire and police as well as emergency personnel, it was stated. Councilman Banks said Cleveland has an increasingly serious gang problem.

He noted that he is friends with almost all of the nine citizens who spoke against the hike. He said, "We're at a crossroads in Cleveland."

The increase is also to be used to man a new fire station and improve several busy intersections.

Officials said Cleveland citizens had outlined desired improvements in a series of public meetings and in a survey.

Several members of the audience said they did not oppose an increase, but said this was too much at one time.

One speaker said it was a 28 percent increase. He said the effect on him was worse since his property values went up significantly under the reappraisal. He said he would have to raise rents about $20 a month to try to keep up, but he said that may cause some renters to leave. "This really hits at a bad time," he said.

Gray Epperson projected the increase would cost him some $10,000.

Tom Robertson said, "Every little bit affects the small business operator." He said of city services and infrastructure, "I think it's fine just as it is."

Tucker Duncan said voters in the next election would pay attention to who supported the tax increase.

Joe Mason, the chief financial officer for the properties of the county's largest landowner, Allen Jones, said he can only raise rents 2-3 percent a year. "It will take 12 years before we can recoup this," he said. He added, "The problem is you are doing it all at once."

He asked if any of the money was going to salaries. City Manager Joe Fivas said it would help the city meet ongoing annual step increases for a pay plan approved last year. He said this year's employee increases would be 3.5 percent.
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Chattanooga Police said they found Michael Wade Hensley with a large cache of meth, a loaded handgun and $23,134 cash after being summoned to a motel near Hamilton Place Mall last Wednesday.

Police said they believe that Hensley, 41, was the supplier for a 36-year-old Rossville man who died of an overdose on June 29.

Hensley is now facing federal charges of possession of meth for resale.

Management at the Hampton Inn said Hensley had rented two rooms and they were having trouble getting him to leave. They said he had had to move from one room to another, and they found syringes and drug paraphernalia in the room he vacated. Hotel officials also did a search on the Internet and found that Hensley had prior arrests for large amounts of drugs and possession of weapons.

Police said they were familiar with Hensley, saying he had been involved in cases involving large quantities of meth.

Officers stood by as Hensley was again asked by hotel management to leave. After he finally walked out, he was stopped by detectives.

A search turned up a loaded 9 mm pistol and a bag of meth. Hensley would not allow a search of one of the rooms. After getting a search warrant, officers found 876 grams of meth in the room along with the cash as well as 8.6 grams of marijuana and a large variety of prescription pills. They also found additional loaded weapon magazines.
This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices.
A second person has tested positive for the norovirus after eating at a Chipotle (NYSE:CMG) restaurant in Virginia, a health official said Monday. The person had eaten at the restaurant, which was closed for a time following the reported outbreak.

David Goodfriend, director of the Loudoun County Health Department, said a second confirmed case would give a strong indication norovirus was behind the reported illnesses.

Chipotle reopened the location Wednesday after a "complete sanitization." It noted its procedures to deal with the issue quickly and said its food was safe to eat. Its stock nevertheless fell, underscoring its vulnerability following past food scares.

The companys stock was down less than 1% during the trading session Monday.

Norovirus is a leading cause of illnesses from contaminated food.

Goodfriend says some of those sickened were Chipotle employees. Officials planned to release more information later Monday.

This isnt the first time Chipotles customers have taken ill. In 2015, widespread salmonella, norovirus, and E. Coli outbreaks, including one instance where more than 120 Boston College students were affected, drove customers away from dining at the restaurant chain.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed a law Friday making New Jersey the third state to raise its smoking age to 21.

Christie cited the strain on the health care system caused by tobacco-related illnesses. He also noted his mother died from the effects of smoking.

"By raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products to 21, we are giving young people more time to develop a maturity and better understanding of how dangerous smoking can be and that it is better to not start smoking in the first place," Christie wrote.

Previously, the age was 19. The restriction applies to tobacco products and electronic smoking devices. Christie vetoed a similar measure last year.

Hawaii and California are the only other states where the smoking age is 21. A bill raising the age in Maine from 18 to 21 is awaiting Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who has not said whether he will sign it.

Reports show smoking causes about $4 billion in health care costs to New Jersey each year, said Democratic Sens. Richard Codey and Joseph Vitale, co-sponsors of the bill Christie signed into law. That amount doesn't include costs related to secondhand smoke or smokeless tobacco use, they said.

"Data surveys show that if individuals aren't smokers by 21 years of age, they will most likely not start later in their lives," Vitale said. "Making it harder to buy cigarettes by raising the age to legally purchase them in New Jersey will help prevent our youth from becoming lifelong smokers and suffering the long-term effects of the habit."

___

Associated Press writer Marina Villeneuve in Augusta, Maine, contributed to this report.
Arconic Inc., the U.S.-based company that manufactures building panels that investigators say may have played a role in a deadly London apartment fire, said Monday it will no longer sell the panels for use in high-rise buildings due to concerns about how they are installed.

Arconic Inc. is continuing to work with investigators to determine what caused the flames to spread so rapidly at Grenfell Tower on June 14, interim CEO David Hess told investors during an earnings call. At least 80 people died in the blaze.

"Cladding systems contain various components selected and put together by architects, contractors, fabricators and building owners, and those parties are responsible for ensuring that the cladding systems are compliant under the appropriate codes and regulations," the company said in a news release Monday.

About 12 days after the blaze, the company announced it would discontinue making its Reynobond PE panels available for high-rises.

That decision was made out of "an abundance of caution as Arconic does not control the ultimate design and installation of the final cladding system," the company said.

"We extend our deepest sympathies to those who have lost so much," Hess added Monday.

Despite its connection to the London tower fire, Arconic beat analyst estimates with $3.26 billion in second quarter revenue, according to a press release Monday. Earnings per share totaled $0.32, also topping projections.

An Associated Press review this month found that some building owners in the U.S. were unaware that the same Reynobond panels, which feature a polyethylene core, were used on their buildings as well. Polyethylene is combustible, according to federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In many cases, building owners and regulators did not know the product was used on their structures, or exactly how it was applied. In several cases, old building records had been destroyed.

Among U.S. buildings that used this cladding is the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel, which towers than 30 stories over the city's harbor; the Cleveland Browns' stadium; and a school in Alaska, according to Arconic brochures.

Cleveland city officials denied last week that FirstEnergy Stadium posed a danger to the public. The Cleveland Browns declined to provide a separate comment.

The portions that caused the tragedy and caused the failure in London are the combustible insulation panels as part of the system and the way that system was installed. The reality of the matter is that these are not installed at the same matter at all here at FirstEnergy Stadium, Vanover said a press conference.

No one has declared any of the U.S. buildings unsafe, nor has the U.S. government ordered widespread testing of building panels that British authorities ordered after the London catastrophe.

But in the wake of the London fire, samples were collected from the exterior of the hotel in Baltimore, and test results are expected soon, a Marriott spokesman has said.

Arconic has corporate offices in Pittsburgh and New York. Its Reynobond product has been on the market since it was first produced in 1989 at the company's manufacturing plant in Eastman, Georgia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
General Motors (NYSE:GM) is expected to report weaker second-quarter earnings on Tuesday amid a slowdown in U.S. auto sales. Even as SUVs remain a hot segment, slow-selling passenger cars are likely to get attention as well, thanks to recent rumors that GM is considering big changes to its future lineup.

GM will be the first of Detroits Big Three automakers to report second-quarter results, with Ford (NYSE:F) and Fiat Chrysler (NYSE:FCAU) scheduled to post earnings on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. In recent quarters, GM has capitalized on robust sales of its lucrative SUVs and pickup trucks while cutting less-profitable sales to rental fleets, overcoming an industry-wide sedan slump.

For the three months ended June 30, Wall Street expects GM to report adjusted earnings of $1.69 per share on revenue of $40.15 billion, down from the $1.86 per share in earnings and $42.4 billion in revenue reported a year ago.

Automakers have reported softer demand for new vehicles in the U.S., largely due to a persistent decline among passenger cars. Light trucks, including SUVs, crossovers, trucks and vans, are up 4.6% through June, according to Autodata. Sales of passenger cars have tumbled 11.4%, shrinking to 38.1% of the total market.

The rapid consumer shift from cars to crossovers has led to production cuts across the industry. GM, whose vehicle inventory hit a 10-year high of 105 days in June, recently extended a shutdown at its factory in Orion, Michigan, amid slower sales of the Chevrolet Sonic. The plant also builds the new Chevy Bolt electric vehicle.

In the coming years, GM could make more drastic cuts to its lineup, according to a Reuters report on Thursday. The report said United Auto Workers representatives are talking to GM about the impact that slowing U.S. sales could have on factories, particularly ones that focus on building small cars.

GM is said to be reviewing the status of six models that could be scrapped from the automakers product portfolio after 2020: the Chevrolet Volt, Chevrolet Impala, Chevrolet Sonic, Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6 and Cadillac XTS. GMs Hamtramck plant in Detroit builds four of the models in question.

GM declined to comment on future production speculation. Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen publicly denied the report, telling auto website Jalopnik that Cadillac has absolutely no plan to phase out the CT6.

Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader, said it wouldnt be a surprise if GM and its rivals are reconsidering large sedans, which now account for just 2% of U.S. auto sales. The Impala, LaCrosse and XTS, like competing full-size sedans, have lost buyers to midsize options and crossovers. Small cars like the Sonic have already been targeted with production cuts.

SUVs and crossovers are a lot more popular than cars. We dont see that trend ending anytime soon, Krebs said. Every automaker is looking at this. They are looking at their product portfolios and how much manufacturing capacity is dedicated to cars versus other products in their line.

Shares of GM fell 0.7% to $35.82 on Monday. The stock is up 2.8% since the start of 2017, trailing the broader S&P 500s 10.4% gain.
Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) said Monday it returned to profitability in the second quarter, as drilling activity in North America continued to rebound.

The oilfield services providers North American revenue jumped 83% to $2.77 billion on strength in pumping and well construction. Halliburton also said its margins in the region rose to double digits on a percentage basis.

Overall, I am confident about Halliburtons ability to grow North America margins, and continue to maintain the run rate for our international business, said Halliburton President and CEO Jeff Miller.

The results mirror Schlumbergers (NYSE:SLB) quarterly report on Friday. The worlds largest oilfield services provider said it rapidly deployed its idle oil-drilling equipment in North America, responding to growing demand from energy producers.

Oilfield services companies, which supply equipment and technology to energy producers, have benefited from accelerated U.S. shale activity. Domestic oil companies are pumping more crude amid stronger pricing and lower production costs. The U.S. rig count stood at 950 at the end of last week, up 488 rigs compared to the same time last year.

In the second quarter, Halliburton earned net profits of $28 million, or 3 cents per share, compared with a year-ago loss of $3.21 billion. Adjusted earnings were 27 cents per share, well above Wall Streets estimate of 18 cents. Revenue grew 29% to $4.96 billion.

Halliburton booked a $3.5 billion charge in the second quarter of 2016 to cover the termination of its proposed Baker Hughes acquisition.

Shares of Halliburton slipped 3.4% to $42.89 in recent trading.
Online health publisher WebMD Health Corp said on Monday it agreed to be bought by private equity firm KKR & Co in a deal valued at about $2.8 billion.

The deal brings together WebMD's websites, such as WebMD.com, Medscape.com and MedicineNet.com, and those owned by KKR unit Internet Brands Inc, including DentalPlans.com and AllAboutCounseling.com.

KKR will pay $66.50 per share, a premium of 20.5 percent to WebMD's Friday closing price. WebMD's shares were trading at $66 before the opening bell.

Reuters reported on Sunday that KKR was nearing a deal to buy the online health information provider.

Founded in 1996, WebMD has grown into one of the most popular health websites for consumers and medical professionals, attracting more than 70 million monthly unique visitors in 2016, according to analytics company comScore Inc.

WebMD also owns medical news and education brand Medscape, which accounted for around 60 percent of its advertising revenue in 2016.

The New York-based company said in February it would explore its options, after a slowdown in advertising paid for by pharmaceutical companies.

The deal, approved by the WebMD board, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC is WebMD's financial adviser, while Shearman & Sterling LLP is its legal adviser.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is Internet Brands' legal adviser. (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
Saudi Arabia vowed to cut its August oil exports by nearly 1 million barrels per day, the latest move by OPEC to reduce a global oversupply and boost oil prices.

Khalid al-Falih, Saudi Arabias energy minister, said the country will cap oil exports at 6.6 million barrels per day next month. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which held a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Monday, could also extend their current production cuts beyond next March.

Also at the meeting, Russias energy minister called on other oil-producing nations to comply with promised cuts under an agreement forged by OPEC.

OPEC and some non-members such as Russia agreed last year to cut oil production by a combined 1.8 million barrels per day. However, U.S. production has accelerated in 2017, largely offsetting the impact of OPECs retreat. Prices have trended downward as a result. In recent weeks, oil has slipped below $50 a barrel.

U.S. oil futures were up 1.4% at $46.40 a barrel in recent trading. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 1.3% to $48.68.

Russian energy minister Alexander Novak complained that "some countries are not yet fully implementing" the cuts.

"Despite the high level of compliance with the agreement, we insist on all countries fulfilling their obligations 100 percent," Novak said, in comments reported by Russian state news agencies.

Novak added that he would be open to tighter monitoring of output, and a possible extension of the cuts beyond their scheduled end in March 2018.

The International Energy Agency has estimated that compliance with the OPEC output cut fell to 78 percent in June, from 95 percent the previous month.

Beyond high U.S. output, oil prices have also been pressured by production increases in OPEC members Libya and Nigeria, which have exemptions from the cuts due to political instability.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, detailed four meetings he held last year with Russian officials in a statement on Monday in which he also said he "did not collude" with Moscow during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.

Kushner, who met behind closed doors with Senate Intelligence Committee staff, issued a written statement before that session that gave the fullest account to date of his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign and the presidential transition.

Kushner, like Trump a businessman, portrayed himself as someone who was new to politics when he became a top adviser to his father-in-law's campaign and was often so frantic fielding phone calls and emails that his recollections of some meetings was somewhat hazy.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," he said. "I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector."

The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of several congressional panels investigating the Russia matter, along with a federal criminal probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Speaking at the White House after the meeting, Kushner said all of his actions were proper and occurred within a "very unique campaign."

Kushner said Trump prevailed over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in November 2016 because he ran a "smarter campaign" and that to suggest otherwise "ridicules those who voted for him.

The Republican president, who has called the Russia probes politically motivated, lashed out at the investigations in Twitter messages on Monday. Trump has been dogged by allegations that his campaign aides worked with Russia, which U.S. intelligence agencies have accused of interfering in the election. Moscow has denied any meddling, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Moscow.

Kushner arrived with prominent white-collar defense lawyer Abbe Lowell for the meeting with Senate staffers, which lasted about 2-1/2 hours.

In his written statement, Kushner said he first met Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in Washington in April 2016 and shook hands. He said he did not recall phone calls with Kislyak between April and November 2016, as reported by Reuters in May, had found no evidence of the calls in phone records and was skeptical they took place.

EXCHANGE OF GIFTS

Kushner said he met after the election, on Dec. 13, with Sergei Gorkov, the head of Russian state-owned Vnesheconombank, because of Kislyak's insistence and because the Russian had a "direct relationship" with President Vladimir Putin.

Kushner said that "no specific policy issues" were discussed.

Sanctions imposed by Democratic former President Barack Obama's administration were not discussed nor were Kushner's business activities, Kushner said. Vneshekonombank is under U.S. sanctions.

"He introduced himself and gave me two gifts -- one was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village," Kushner said.

He said he did not have any contact with Gorkov before the meeting nor had he been in contact with him since.

'NEED EXCUSE' TO LEAVE MEETING

Members of the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees have said they want to hear about a June 2016 meeting involving Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

The younger Trump has released emails that showed he welcomed the prospect of receiving damaging information from the Russian government about Clinton.

Kushner and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort were also at the meeting but Kushner described it as a waste of time.

"I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.'"

He said no part of the meeting he attended "included anything about the campaign" and he had no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted. He said an email from Trump Jr. before the meeting was "on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time."

BACK CHANNEL

Kushner was expected to face questions about reports he tried to set up a secret back channel to Moscow, as well as other contacts with top Russian officials and business leaders.

He said that in a Dec. 1 meeting with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador asked if there was a secure line in Trump's transition office to facilitate a discussion with Russian generals about Syria, and Kushner replied there was not.

Kushner said he asked if the Russians had an existing communications channel at the Russian Embassy that could be used to transmit information to the transition team, but Kislyak indicated that was not possible and they agreed to follow up after the inauguration.

"Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a 'secret back channel.' I did not suggest an ongoing secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office," Kushner said.

Kushner did not initially disclose any meetings with Russians on forms he filed to get a government security clearance. He has since revised those forms several times.

He said the forms were initially submitted prematurely in error and omitted all foreign contacts he had had, not just those with Russian officials.

Kushner is also scheduled to address the House intelligence panel on Tuesday.

(By Jeff Mason and Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Eric Walsh and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Alison Williams, Jeffrey Benkoe and Frances Kerry)
As Donald Trump Jr. prepares to meet with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, hes turning to a lawyer who has deep connections inside Washington's sprawling investigatory apparatus for help.

FOX Business has confirmed that Karina Lynch, longtime legislative and regulatory attorney with the Washington, D.C. law firm Williams & Jensen PLLC, joined Trump Jr.s legal team last week, just days ahead of his planned testimony before the Judiciary Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Lynch had an immediate impact: She helped negotiate Trump Jr. a private interview in front of the committee instead of a public testimony, FOX Business has learned.

Trumps lead attorney, Alan Futerfas, confirmed Lynch was brought on board last week. When asked why they chose to recruit her, he said shes wonderful and has a lot of Washington, D.C. experience. Lynch also confirmed she would be joining the team in an email to FOX Business.

Indeed, prior to working with Williams & Jensen, Lynch spent five years on Capitol Hill where she served as counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under the chairmanship of Susan M. Collins, R-Maine.

Prior to her work with Collins, she served as investigative counsel to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who now chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort were originally called to publicly testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was discovered they had an undisclosed meeting during the 2016 presidential campaign with a Russian lawyer and a former Soviet Union counterintelligence official.

President Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, was also present at the meeting. His attorney could not be reached for comment.

In a statement on Friday, Senators Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the leading Democrat on the committee, announced they would meet with Trump Jr. and Manafort privately after their attorneys agreed to negotiate to provide the committee with documents and be interviewed by committee members and staff prior to a public hearing.

A spokeswoman for Grassley did not return calls for comment.

An attorney for Manafort could not be reached for comment.
Video: Ald. Maldonado Argues With Police At Shooting Scene, Asks To Be Driven Around Closure

By Stephen Gossett in News on Jul 20, 2017 4:11PM

Footage from a cop's bodycam shows an angry Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th) arguing with officers and asking to be driven by police after he comes upon a road closure where investigators were working the scene of a shooting. Maldonado in the video says an officer was rude to him, while another cop is seen twice asking the alderman if he's seeking "a special favor."

The video, obtained by CBS Chicago, shows the alderman confronting police at the shooting scene in the 3000 block of West Wabansia Avenue on Saturday, June 17.

In the video, Maldonadowho is filming the scene and says he has his children in his vehicleis heard asking which routes he should take to get around the closure. When an officer begins to reply, Maldonado interrupts him, saying that another officer had refused to give an answer and was "very smart ass."

After two officers then briefly discuss how far the closure extends on one street, Maldonado says, Can anybody drive me to my house?

Now, is that a special favor you're asking for as an alderman? asks an officer.

No, I am asking as a citizen, Maldonado says.

Later in the clip, Maldonado asks, What would you do if you were in your neighborhood with your kids... in the same situation?"

I wouldnt interfere with officers who are in the middle of an active crime scene investigation, replies an officer.

An officer later says that Maldonado specifically highlighted his office when he arrived. "From the moment you walked up, you announced who you were, you didn't say I'm a citizen...," he says. "You've made quite sure to inform us that you're an alderman, so are you looking for a special favor as an alderman?"

This is why the police department is in such bad shape with citizens, Maldonado replies, adding that an initial encounter with another officernot seen on the videowas not the nicest."

At one point, one officer offers to escort Maldonado, which the alderman apparently declined. "Is your house close?" the officer says. "Id be more than happy to walk you to your door," he says.

Maldonado filed a complaint against the officers over the confrontation, according to the Chicago Police Department.

A CPD spokesperson told Chicagoist via email that the matter is still under investigation:



"Anytime a street is blocked due to police activity, officers work to provide drivers with alternate routes so they can get where they need to go without disrupting a crime scene. On June 17 officers were securing a crime scene when they were approached by Alderman Maldonado. They offered routes to get him home given the road closure, and offered to escort him there as well. Afterwards, the Alderman alleged the officers were rude to him and CPD is currently investigating the complaint to ensure it was handled appropriately, as we would always do."

Ald. Maldonado did not immediately return a request for comment. This post will be updated as necessary.
The Seattle City Council passed a new tax on the wealthiest residents of the city. But, there is mounting opposition to the measure, with some even calling into question the legality of the new tax.

This tax is illegal and its also unnecessary and its also limiting opportunities for everybody in Seattle and Washington state. So thats why weve created the Opportunity for All Coalition, Madrona Venture Group Managing Director Matt McIlwain told the FOX Business Networks Ashley Webster.

When asked why he claims the tax is illegal, McIlwain responded, Well, cities are part of states and this state has both a constitution and statutes. We have a 1984 law that prohibits local jurisdictions from creating an income tax.

According to McIlwain, the tax is unnecessary because the state is already benefiting from economic growth.

But more importantly, is the issue around opportunity, because were seeing such incredible investment and creation of job opportunity and economic growth, thats why our tax revenues are growing so much in this state.

The challenges to the citys new tax could face a long, slow legal process though.

Its at a very early stage. We are talking to a number of plaintiffs that are concerned about this and were really at the beginning of the process and we expect its going to take several months, if not years, to sort this out in the courts, but were quite optimistic.
Just when you thought that you were dealing with an episode that wouldnt deliver on the action, Game of Thrones pulled a rabbit out of its hat in the final moments of Season 7, episode 2. As the first pawns are moved in the inevitable war for Westeros, fan favorite characters were taken to task in almost every conceivable way.

The episode opens where the premiere left off, at Dragonstone with Daenerys Targaryen holding court with her new allies. Her first order of business was to both thank Varys for brokering the alliance between the Tyrell family and the Dornish. She then brings up the elephant in the room, that time back in Season 1 when he orchestrated an assassination attempt against her. Varys has always been a figure to play a key role in many of the largest factions in the world, but he has always maintained that he does whats best for the realm. He insists to his queen that his loyalty is not based on blind devotion to her, but rather an understanding that shes the best hope the people of Westeros have for a ruler.

As long as I have eyes, Im going to use them, he says.

The speech seems to work, and the queen pardons his past indiscretions on the condition that, if she ever becomes a ruler unfit of his loyalty, hell tell her to her face rather than conspire behind her back. Varys agrees, a promise that is immediately tested with the arrival of the red priestess Melisandre. Daenerys used the priests of the Lord of Light to help stabilize things in Mereen, so she was willing to listen. Two key pieces of information were told to her. The first is that the prince that was promised in the prophecy to stop coming darkness doesnt necessarily have to be a prince. Second, that she and Jon Snow play a big part in whatever is to come.



GAME OF THRONES MORE POPULAR THAN PORN?



Daenerys decides that shell send her Westeros armies, The Tyrells and Dornish, to attack Kings Landing so as not to fuel criticism about foreign invaders. The Dornish will go with the Greyjoys south and attack, while the Tyrells attack from the North. As for her foreign army of savages that the Lannisters are warning people left and right about, theyll take the Lannister stronghold of Casterly Rock. With the plan in motion, she makes one more call, to summon Jon Snow, the King in the North, to come to Dragonstone and bend the knee.

Immediately, her raven doesnt sit well with Jon and Sansa back in Winterfell. Sansa believes its a trap, but Ser Davos notes that an ally with fire-breathing dragons is a good friend to have in a war with white walkers. It isnt until he receives another raven from Samwell Tarly that he finds a motivation to go to the meeting, despite the risks. Dragonstone was built on a mound of dragon glass, one of few substances that can kill a white walker. It takes some convincing of the northerners, though. He didnt even have the support of the young Lady Mormont, who usually convinces people to follow Jon with ease. It becomes clear that a hatred of Targaryens remains within the Northern ranks after Roberts Rebellion. It isnt until Jon decrees that hell leave Sansa, the last (known) Stark to rule the North in his absence, that the people agree. With that, a meeting between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen is set in stone after years of anticipation.

Meanwhile, back at the Citadel, Sams discovery of the dragonstone deposit isnt his only academic achievement of late. He helps treat Jorah Mormont, who was ordered by the dragon queen to fix his greyscale. Hes posing as another person, but when Sam realizes that hes the son of his former Lord Commander, Jeor Mormont, he goes above and beyond to help him. He thinks hes found a cure, but its not sanctioned by the archmaester. Hes last seen flaying the rots off the knights skin in one of the more painful-looking sequences in the show.

'GAME OF THRONES' CRASHES HBO GO SERVERS

The episode then finds Arya Stark in a familiar location, the tavern where her friend Hot Pie works. She doesnt seem to be in the mood to reveal too much to him herself, but he ends up helping her by revealing that her brother, Jon, had won the Battle of the Bastards and was now ruling both Winterfell and the north. With that, she rides north and abandons her trek south to kill Cersei. However, shes later set upon by a pack of wolves, led by none other than the pet direwolf she had to set free years ago, Nymeria. She reaches out her hand and asks the pet she raised to follow her home, but the wolf refuses and leaves her.

Its not you, she says.

Perhaps the young Stark isnt feeling enough like a wolf to finish her journey home after all.

At this point, if youre a Game of Thrones fan that isnt all that interested in the politics and world-building, you were probably ready to write this whole episode off. Fortunately, if that is your style, youd have been wrong to do so too early.

Yara, Theon and the Dornish leader Ellaria Sand are following orders to hit Kings Landing from the south. Things were literally smooth sailing when a sudden attack hit them in the night. The group find themselves on deck facing their uncle, Euron Greyjoy, who is crippling their fleet. He boards their ship and starts cutting down their men left and right. Ellarias precious Sand Snakes were no match for the might of Euron, who promised to deliver Cersei Lannister a marriage proposal present. Who better than the woman who killed her daughter?

The fight is brutal, fiery and a huge blow for the good guys as Eurons forces overtook Yara and her fleet. The soon-to-be queen of the Iron Islands fought bravely, but eventually got taken by her uncle. Theon, who previously swore to be her protector, was given the choice to fight Euron for his sister or flee. He took the latter option. With another seemingly irredeemable act behind him, the episode ends with Theon stranded in the middle of the ocean as his abandoned sisters fleet burns around him.
Kim Kardashian has been out and about in recent days wearing barely there outfits. And she's not the only one. Sisters Kylie and Kendall Jenner have been posting revealing pictures, as have Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian.

Meanwhile, mom Kris Jenner has been sharing sexy photos of her daughters.

The influx of seductive snapshots come while the Kardasians and Jenners have yet to publicly acknowledge brother Rob Kardashians scandal with ex-fiancee Blac Chyna.

BLAC CHYNA AND ROB KARDASHIAN DRAMA: A TIMELINE OF EVENTS

Celebrity crisis experts say the sisters scantily clad get-ups are may be an attempt by the media savvy stars to distract the public from one of their familys worst humiliations yet.

The best form of crisis management sometimes is to say or do nothing -- something we aren't used to when it comes to the Kardashians, Kevin Blatt, celebrity crisis expert, told Fox News.

Blatt noted that while the family tends to spin everything from Kims sex tape to Lamar Odoms tragic overdose into, a Keeping Up with the Kardashians storyline its possible that the Rob and Chyna situation is different.

Chyna was granted a temporary restraining order against her ex after he posted explicit images of her online. She also accused him of being physically violent with her.

They most likely won't address this scandal because of the severity of the new revenge porn law, said Blatt, referencing California's law regarding non-consensual pornography.

While wearing sexy outfits could help the public momentarily forget about Robs legal woes, its simply a Band-Aid for a messy public problem according to Scott Pinsker, a crisis communications expert.

Crisis communications is the art of redirecting the narrative. To perform it effectively, you need to offer a credible counter-explanation that supplants a negative storyline," Pinsker told us.

BLAC CHYNA, ROB KARDASHIAN AT RISK OF LOSING CUSTODY OF DAUGHTER DREAM?

He thinks the sexy pics are just a temporary solution.

Distracting the public with sexy photos might work in the short-term, but its not an effective long-term strategy for the Kardashians," he said. "Eventually, youve got to address the elephant in the room. What I suspect is now happening is, the familys lawyers are still hashing-out the best defense and legal resolution, and this is paralyzing their PR efforts. So in that context, you can understand why the Kardashian ladies are filling the vacuum with sexy photos.

And Andrew Ricci, a vice president at crisis communications company LEVICK, said he expects that the Kardashians will address the scandal with Rob... eventually. In the meantime, Ricci doubts the sisters' social media posts will make a difference.



I hope they are savvy enough to understand that their outfits are not going to distract from Robs misconduct, but I think theyve also become savvy enough to never let a good crisis go to waste," he said. "Any attention that they get, whether its from a good event or a bad one, will be funneled straight back into the provocative tactics that have always worked for them.
Before he was serving up sophisticated Southern cuisine, native Louisianan John Besh served his country in the United States Marine Corps for six years.

Today, Besh owns seventeen restaurants across Louisiana, thirteen of which are in New Orleans.

Named as one of the Top 10 Best New Chefs in America by Food & Wine and winning the James Beard Foundation Award in 2006 for Best Chef (Southeast), Besh says his experience in the Marines, which started at the age of seventeen, helped him cultivate his culinary skills and run his restaurants with an entrepreneurial spirit and a give-back attitude.

FLORIDA RESTAURANT HELPS PULL OFF A SURPRISE HOMECOMING FOR DAD

In 2011, Besh established his non-profit, The John Besh Foundation, to protect and preserve the culinary heritage of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region by providing culinary scholarships and micro-loans to minorities in the area. Through his Chefs Move! Scholarship program, Besh sends scholarship winners to New York Citys International Culinary Center, under the condition that they promise to return to New Orleans to work in the restaurant business for at least two years. His non-profit also assists farmers located within a 200-mile radius of New Orleans.

Besh frequently gives back to the military, too, as he credits the Marine Corps for helping him for his career as a chef.

Fox News: Tell us about your experience serving in the military.

Besh: As the son of a fighter pilot, I was raised with a keen sense of service to our nation. With an appreciation of patriotism and a thirst for adventure, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps just after graduating from high school. I served both in active duty and reserves from 1986-1992. I was an Infantry Squad Leader and Non-Commissioned Officer serving in combat in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and surrounding areas during the Desert Storm and Shield campaigns. I served in the 1st Marine Division, the 4th Marine Division, and I Marine Expeditionary Force.

How did your service in the U.S. Marine Corps help shape your career?

It instilled in me a sense of leadership, mission, focus, organization skills, and selfless service, which has become the hallmark of the Besh Restaurant Group. Combat also gave me a perspective that allows me to keep everything in context by not sweating over the small stuff, leading a team focused on serving others from the heart, and making those happy who walk through our restaurants doors.

How was the transition from military life to civilian life? Did anything help ease the transition?

After combat, it took a little getting used to the cushy life. But I adjusted well by having those who had been there for me in my life prior to the military mentor me and support me.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Tell us about some of your initiatives that give back to the U.S. military.

I give back to the USMC and veteran communities. The John Besh Restaurant Group hosts a free street party for the Marine Corps Birthday every November, where thousands of warriors from ages 18 to 90 come together to celebrate our brotherhood over food and drink.

As a Marine, Im proud to have partnered with Arkel International, the emergency reconstruction specialists, where we prepared quality ready-to-eat meals for distribution to thousands of emergency response teams, as well as to strategic operations in the U.S. and around the world.

In the past, I've been active with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, the oldest and biggest donor of need-based scholarships for military students, as well as the UDT-Seal Association, which offers scholarships to the children of fallen warriors. Ive also given back to the Delta Veterans Foundation, which helps with the transition of wounded warriors into civilian life.

Ive worked with the Wounded Warrior Project and USOs partnership with Jeep for their Operation SAFE Return campaign to create family centers for the loved ones of wounded warriors as they get medical care.

Why is community service so important to you?

Besh: Its the visceral part of my being, believing that we are all placed on this earth to serve one another. It's what we do as warriors, and it's what I do as a husband, father and chef.

GORDON RAMSAY REALLY HATES THESE AMERICAN FOODS

When did you know you wanted to be a chef?

By a very young age I already knew I wanted to be a chef. My family would hunt and fish growing up and wed cook everything we brought home. I fell in love with how food brings happiness to others.

Being from Louisiana, what are some of your signature dishes?

The older I get, the more I revert back to those dishes of my childhood, such as the big pots of seafood gumbo, jambalaya, court-bouillon, etouffee, and delicious country goods found in Louisiana.

Tell us about your non-profit, the John Besh Foundation.

The mission of the John Besh Foundation is to sustain our culture through minority culinary scholarships by our John Besh & Bride Mayor Chefs Move! Scholarship Program and our Milk Money initiative, which provides micro-loans for local food producers.
Hundreds of sheep in a herd belonging to a farmer in Couflens in the southwest of France have plunged to their deaths in what appears to be a bear attack on one of the sheep.

As the Guardian reports, the attack on one is believed to have frightened the 209 others, who sailed over a 650-foot cliff in an apparent bid to flee.

That cliff sits on the border with Spain, and most of the recovered bodies  169  were found in the Spanish village Lladorre; the rest ended up on the French side of the border.

Bear fur was found on one of the bodies, and the Local reports that an analysis of it does point to a bear prompting the scare, which came almost exactly a year after more than 130 sheep died similarly.

The French government, which has been reintroducing brown bears to the Pyrenees for the last 20 years or so after hunters completely depleted the native population, will compensate the farmer.

A local branch of the French farmers' federation is furious nonetheless. Sheep breeders have previously protested the presence of bears and wolves, which they say threaten their flocks and livelihood.

The current estimate suggests there are 35 brown bears inhabiting the Pyrenees. Last year, one was found with a gunshot wound to the chest in northern Spain, though it enjoys protected status there.

(In related news, protesters slaughtered a sheep at Auschwitz in March.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: "Bear Panics 200 Sheep, and They Jump to Their Deaths"
David Knowles was leading a class on CPR when he suddenly felt weak and dizzy. As the retired UK nurse lay on the floor, he realized he had little time to tell his students what to do before he passed out, the BBC reports.

The group "had asked for a demonstration," Knowles says, and they thought they were getting one. When they learned this was no drill, "the whole group was up on its feet, looking like they weren't doing very well, either," Knowles tells Inside Edition.

5-YEAR-OLD HEART TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT WHOSE BASEBALL FANDOM WENT VIRAL DIES

As the 77-year-old, who took his own pulse during the incident, started to "get a bit foggy," he instructed student Karol Chew to call an ambulance and take out his false teeth.

Knowles knew he was having a heart attack and had to stay awake but, he adds, "I couldn't really get stirred up about it." Chewa former nurse who was taking the class to brush up on her skillsbegan performing CPR after her teacher stopped breathing.

"It really got bizarre, the whole thing," Knowles says. He came to briefly when the paramedics arrived, "but the next thing I remember is waking up in [the] hospital, two and a half weeks later," Knowles tells the BBC.

He fell into a coma and later suffered another heart attack, per the Independent. The incident in front of his students took place in February.

MAN GETS MASSIVE KELOIDS REMOVED FROM NECK IN LIFE-CHANGING SURGERY

The local ambulance service for which Knowles volunteers says that if he'd been stricken before his students had arrived, he likely would have died. After five weeks in the hospital, Knowles was sent home to his wife, Nova, and doctors say he's making excellent progress.

"I feel a lot better," he tells Inside Edition. (Did workplace bullying trigger a fatal heart attack?)

This article originally appeared on Newser: CPR Student Saves Teacher Having a Heart Attack
A Marine veteran and his bomb-turned-service dog are in the midst of completing their final mission together, after a veterinarian told Cpl. Jeff DeYoung that his trusted pooch has just weeks left to live.

DeYoung and Cena were first introduced after a personality test paired them together in 2009. They deployed to Afghanistan together where they were charged with walking in front of infantry units to patrol the area for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), Fox 17 reported. While DeYoung retired in 2013, Cena completed two more tours with different handlers, but they reunited in 2014.

MAN GETS MASSIVE KELOIDS REMOVED FROM NECK IN LIFE-CHANGING SURGERY

DeYoung adopted Cena, who became his service dog after he started suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, Fox 17 reported.

I started noticing that going out in public was easier, less anxious, I could do more things when I had him once again by my side, DeYoung told the news outlet.

But last week, DeYoung noticed Cena was having trouble putting weight on his back leg, which doctors eventually diagnosed as bone cancer.

To be frank, I hid under the desk in the vets office, I threw my phone against the wall and the vet had to leave the room until I could compose myself, DeYoung told Fox 17.

5-YEAR-OLD HEART TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT WHOSE BASEBALL FANDOM WENT VIRAL DIES

With just weeks left together, DeYoung is determined to make lasting memories with his loyal pooch. Hes currently in search of a Jeep Wrangler to borrow so the pair could enjoy a ride with the top down. Hes also hoping for a hand salute as Cena makes his way into the vets office on his final day. A GoFundMe page to help cover the cost of a headstone was started in his honor, and DeYoung is hoping to secure a burial plot at the war dog memorial in Lyons, Michigan.

We walked in front of the group that we served with and everything that they faced, we faced first, DeYoung said of his time overseas with Cena. Overseas it was me and him against the world.
With the U.S. Senate still working on critically important legislation to replace the collapsing ObamaCare law, President Trump is focused on making sure that the American Dream is obtainable now and for future generations. Already, he has proven to be the greatest advocate for America, its proud citizens, and our working men and women since President Reagan.

One of the reasons Donald Trump ran for president in the first place was that he realized our leaders in Washington had forgotten about American jobs, American workers and American security. Hardworking American taxpayers were fed up with politicians in D.C. focused on seemingly everything but them.

President Trump carried states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania because he convinced voters that he would put their interests and our nations interests above all else. And thats exactly what he is doing.

The optimistic message of ushering in a new era of American exceptionalism begins and ends with American job creation.

The Trump administration is working hard to promote American entrepreneurship and American businesses large and small.

Last week, for example, the White House hosted companies from all 50 states that make their products right here in the United States of America, providing good jobs for American workers. This Made in America initiative launched by President Trump should be a priority regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.

Since his first day in office, President Trump has worked to help American job creators, mindful of the wise observation by the late Republican Congressman Jack Kemp of New York that you cant have employees without employers.

By rolling back scores of overly burdensome and unnecessary government regulations enacted by the Obama administration, President Trump is greatly incentivizing hiring.

The president also understands the importance of opening up Americas vast untapped domestic energy resources for exploration and production. This type of comprehensive energy policy will create many thousands of American jobs and reduce our trade deficit with foreign nations. It is decades overdue.

There is widespread agreement that nothing will stimulate job creation more than major tax relief and reform. American businesses must be freed from excessive taxation in order to compete with businesses around the world.

Dramatically reducing the high U.S. tax burden will help to accomplish this. The presidents plan would slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. Job creators yearn for the certainty that taxes are going down and wont be raised. Individual tax rates must also be lowered and our tax code must be simplified.

True to his promise on the campaign trail, President Trump is calling for consolidating the individual tax brackets from seven to three and setting the new brackets at 35 percent, 25 percent and 10 percent. President Trump will fight for the working men and women of our nation to get this done.

A robust tax reform plan must be taken up as the top priority for this Congress and signed into law by President Trump later this year. Americans heard this campaign promise from Republicans and then elected Republican majorities in the House and Senate to make the promise a reality. Every American will benefit from this enormous pro-growth reform measure.

Im hopeful that some Democrats in the Senate who represent states carried by President Trump in 2016 will join with him and Republicans to support tax reform. These include Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Bill Nelson of Florida, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. Their constituents all deserve common-sense tax relief.

By supporting tax reform, these Democrats would send a message that they are listening to their constituents and putting the nations best interests ahead of party loyalty, rather than just taking orders from the left to obstruct the presidents agenda.

Throughout the eight years of Barack Obama and during the failed candidacy of Hillary Clinton, Democrats lost their way.

To millions of frustrated Americans in the Rust Belt looking for work, it seemed like Obama and Clinton were focused on helping Manhattan and Hollywood elites, the international community and illegal immigrants instead of them. Under President Trump, the American worker will no longer be left behind.

With his America First agenda, President Trump is striving to make 2017 the year that will be remembered as a turning point when the forgotten men and women in America were finally given the opportunity they deserve. And if theres one thing that should bring people together in Washington to get things done its the backbone of America: the proud American worker.
Lets assume President Trump decides the Iran Deal is not a good thing for the United States, which is becoming clearer every day, and he wants to exit. What can he actually do? The answer is: Pretty much anything he wants. Because President Obama flagrantly refused to treat this treaty as a treaty, it has very little legal standing. If he is willing to take the political and diplomatic heat, President Trump could take it out onto the West Lawn at the White House, douse it with lighter fluid and burn it.

If he chooses a more conventional method, he has several options and requirements both domestically and at the UN, where President Obama expanded the Joint Coordinated Plan of Action (JCPOA) into a UN Security Council resolution.

One option is to declare that an agreement this important deserved to be done in accordance with the Constitution. He can submit it to the Senate for their advice and consent and then see if 67 Senators want to sign on. They wont, because they know this deal is a debacle. They punted via filibuster and didnt even vote when it came up under the Corker-Cardin act which was designed to give a fig leaf of Congressional oversight.

This option has two major pluses: it remedies a bad piece of executive overreach by President Obama in pretending an obvious treaty was not one to avoid a Senate vote; and it also involves Congress in the decision to withdraw from the deal. Since this will be a provocative and in some ways dangerous move, it would be important to have as much U.S. cohesion as possible to show a strong front to the world.

It will be dangerous to withdraw from the deal. But failing to withdraw will leave the Iranians on a glide path to full nuclear capability and that is a much more dangerous prospect.

This or any other repudiation of the deal by President Trump would still leave the UN Security Council Resolution UNSCR 2231 intact. But there is a mechanism in the resolution that allows the U.S. to state Iran has not complied with the deal and then use our veto to stop any pushback against that claim. If we hold fast, then the sanctions on Iran that have only been suspended snap back into place.

A second option is to pressure Iran in ways that ultimately lead them to withdraw. Iran has been acting in bad faith all along. They got their reward in cash from the Obama administration and removal of sanctions, but never really meant to stop their goal of becoming a nuclear power. If the deal becomes inconvenient, theyll walk away themselves.

The Iranians seem to be starting down that road on their own. They just brought a list of their complaints about U.S. non-compliance to the JCPOA commission tasked with hearing disputes. It is a stunning act of chutzpah for Iran to be the onecomplaining, but it may offer a way for the president to let them talk themselves out of the deal. That would free us to put actual pressure on them.

The main impediment to President Trump acting on his promises and good instinct to get us out of this awful deal is the collective inertia of his cabinet to leave it in place. The State Department is heavily invested in it, and several other senior leaders have urged him not to withdraw. But the president rightly believes this deal is bad and dangerous, and told them he did not want to certify Iran as compliant again and assigned other advisers to work the issue.

It will be dangerous to withdraw from the deal, as Iran will almost certainly react in troubling ways. But failing to withdraw will leave the Iranians on a glide path to full nuclear capability and that is a much more dangerous prospect.
The law is common sense. Yet, it is created by lawmakers who seem to be lacking any sense at all. Many of them do not understand their own laws.

Nancy Pelosi recently proved this point. The House Minority Leader held a news conference, surrounded by like-minded Democrats, during which she declared that Donald Trump Jr. had broken campaign laws when he met with a Russian lawyer during last years presidential campaign to obtain negative information on the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Here is what Pelosi said:

This is a campaign violation: soliciting, coordinating, or accepting something of value --opposition research, documents, and informationfrom a foreign national. Plain and simple.

In truth, it is plain and simple that Pelosi is wrong. And so are many others who have joined the chorus of condemnation based on laws they have surely never read. Allow me to help them out.

The Federal Election Commission is the independent regulatory agency which enforces campaign laws enacted by Congress. On its government website, the FEC makes it clear that it is perfectly lawful for foreign nationals to be involved in American political campaigns:

Even though a foreign national cannot make campaign contributions, he or she can serve as an uncompensated volunteer for a campaign or political party.

The Commission goes on to explain that foreigners are allowed to attend campaign strategy meetings and events. They are allowed to contribute ideas, information, and even advice. They are allowed to open their mouths and speak.

None of this is considered to be a donation or anything of value under the campaign statutes, as some Democrats and many in the media allege. To the contrary, the Commission specifically states, an individual may volunteer his or her personal services to a campaign without making a campaign contribution.

The same language is found in both the Federal Election Campaign Act (52 USC 30101 8-B) and the Code of Federal Regulations (100.74):

The value of services provided by any individual who volunteers on behalf of a candidate or political committee is not a contribution.

Why are foreigners on American soil allowed to volunteer their services and provide information to political campaigns in U.S. elections? The reason should be obvious the Constitution.

The First Amendment gives Americans the freedom to associate with whomever they want, including Russians. It gives people the freedom to exchange ideas and information , even with Russians. As long as the information is neither stolen nor classified, there is no crime. There is no civil wrong.

We do not criminalize free speech and free association in America. Yet, there is this false mentality that all Russians are boogeymen. And talking to them is somehow a crime. It is not. The founders of our Constitution would be mortified at that notion.

One commentator recently said, Donald Trump Jr. had an absolute duty to notify the FBI. Why? Where is that law or duty written? If it is not a crime to exchange information with a Russian, why should the FBI be notified? Why would FBI agents be interested in legal activity? Trust me, they are not. Even if a citizen learns of a crime, there is no affirmative duty imposed by law to report it to law enforcement.

Talking with a Russian and gathering information is not a crime. Yet Pelosi and others allege that the presidents son may also be guilty of conspiracies to commit espionage and defraud the government.

As explained in an earlier column , the Trump Jr. meeting is not treason because we are not at war with Russia. It is not collusion in any criminal sense, because that only applies to anti-trust cases. It is not conspiracy to defraud the government, because the statute requires deceit and dishonesty. And it is not a violation of election laws, because foreign nationals are specifically permitted to volunteer personal services and information to political campaigns. As for espionageseriously? What U.S. secrets or classified information is Pelosi talking about?

Democrats and even some Republicans, like Gov. Chris Christie, are perpetuating the myth that laws must have been broken without ever knowing or studying the law. And many in the media are so ignorant of basic laws and oblivious to the Constitution, they are complicit in misinforming the public.

Rarely do we see a reporter or anchor ask a lawmaker the tough, challenging question, What laws, specifically, have been broken? Can you identify a precise statute? The answer would be a deafening silence.

Our Constitution was never intended to embody a political point of view. It was made for people of fundamentally differing views. Unfortunately, those in Washington who should know that do not.

And the media, which owes its existence to that esteemed document, seem to have forgotten its precious guarantees of freedom.
Permanent Records, One Of Chicago's Great Record Stores, Is Closing

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 24, 2017 6:00PM



Permanent Records

Permanent Records, one of our very favorite record stores in Chicago, is closing after more than ten years in business.

The owners will focus their attention on their L.A. outpost, including relocating some key staff, said co-owner Lance Barresi in an email sent to list subscribers on Monday morning. The last day of operation at the Ukrainian Village shop (1914 W. Chicago Ave.) will be Sunday, Sept. 17.

Two reasons for the closing were mentioned in the announcement: The rigors of travel between the West Coast and Chicago and the Chicago store's expiring lease (at the end of September):



"This was a very difficult decision for all of us, especially for [co-owner] Liz [Tooley] and I, but we believe that we will be a much stronger team all together in the same city. Its been nearly 6 years since Liz and I left Chicago and its been a difficult transition, but we are firmly planted and motoring in LA now and we no longer have time to travel to Chicago on a regular basis. With our lease coming up and a long-term decision to make, we came to Dave and Robert with an opportunity to move to LA and they accepted. Were very excited to have the crAe back together again, ripping and tearing in sunny Southern California. That said, we are all very sad to leave Chicago, the starting point of our most excellent adventure."

The team plans to relocate its leftover inventory to the L.A. store, but it did float the idea of selling the business as is, if any record-store angels care to swoop in. Please? "So if youve ever considered owning a record store in Chicago and/or buying the entirety of our inventory, now is the time to step up and say something," Barresi wrote.

"Overall, this should be viewed as a positive move for Permanent as a whole, not a setback," the statement reads. But it's hard to feel great right now. Especially when it came to krautrock, kosmische and wooly old art rock, garage and experimental, Permanent was second to none in Chicago. And some of the reissues they dug up over the years (VCSR, Bil Vermette, so many others) still sound way ahead of their time. Hopefully that mission carries on from California.
On the second anniversary of President Obamas nuclear deal with Iran, which President Trump sharply criticized during his campaign for the White House, the Trump administration has signaled its strong and continuing displeasure with Irans hostile and dangerous behavior.

The State Department announced new sanctions Tuesday on 18 Iranian entities and individuals for their support of Irans ballistic missile program or military purchases by the nations Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Although the Trump administration certified that the Islamic Republic continues in compliance with the letter of its agreement to limit its nuclear weapons program, the State Department said Iran is violating the spirit of the agreement. It said the U.S. remains deeply concerned about Irans malign activities across the Middle East which undermine regional stability, and prosperity.

The rhetoric sounds good and is a welcome change from the repeated lame excuses the Obama administration made for Irans destabilizing behavior. But the tough talk is deeply unserious unless we go further to constrain and ultimately depose the Mullahs ruling Iran.

Here are five additional actions the Trump administration should take quickly to more effectively counter the grave danger Iran poses to its neighbors, to our own nation and to much of the world:

First: Admit we have no basis for confidence that Iran has halted its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, even if the Islamic Republic is technically in compliance with the limited restrictions imposed by the nuclear deal.

The ability of our intelligence agencies to monitor what is going on in Iran is very limited, especially when critical work is being done in underground facilities.

We have never determined how much weapons-grade uranium Iran has produced. Nor is the amount of fissionable material the limiting factor in the size of a nuclear arsenal, since the more sophisticated the weapon the less of that material it uses.

We do know that Irans long-range missile programs are advancing at breakneck speed and that its nuclear program is focused on miniaturizing warheads. We cant be complacent about this, as we were with North Korea until it was too late.

Second: Since the Islamic Republic was born and lives by its belief in death to America, the U.S. objective should be to limit the military, political and economic resources by which Iran can harm us  and ultimately to knock the oppressive regime out of power and restore freedom and human rights to the Iranian people.

Because the nuclear deal was never ratified by the U.S. Senate and is mere agreement rather than a treaty, it places our nation under precisely zero legal obligation to anyone. Nor does it restrict our freedom of action, to be pursued as circumstances permit.

Third: Realize that since some U.S. policies foster Irans power, much can be accomplished by changing those policies. For example, we should support efforts of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to force tiny Qatar to give up its alliance with Iran and its support of terrorist groups  actions that would deal a serious blow to Iran.

We should also make clear to the government of Lebanon that if the Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces that now dominate Lebanon again attack Israel we will not restrain Israel from defending itself and striking back hard. This will reduce the chances Hezbollah and Iran will launch another war against the Jewish state.

The U.S. government could also undercut Irans power by abandoning the illusion that Iraqs government is anything other than a Shia entity tied to Iran, and by asserting our support for the Kurds and Turkey against the Iran-Iraq alliance.

Fourth: Realize that Russia is an important player, and that Iran cannot and will not stray too far from Russias interests. Russias concrete, limited ambitions do not include suffering on Irans behalf. U.S. diplomacy can leverage Russias major interests regarding the United States to limit Russian actions supporting its lesser interests regarding to Iran.

Fifth: Iran itself is even more vulnerable to U.S sanctions than it was when the nuclear deal was made two years ago. The agreement lifted Irans economy from its dire state. But the bulk of the new wealth has gone to weapons, foreign adventures, corruption and other inefficient investment bringing little benefit to the Iranian people. Were harsher sanctions to bite now, they might well produce a revolution.

All we need is sufficient courage to impose broad sanctions on a secondary basis. That is: no U.S. entity will be allowed to deal with any entity anywhere that deals with the sanctioned part of Irans economy  banking and money transfer, energy, food and all manner of parts for industrial equipment.

Our foreign policy establishment would object to this as far too drastic action. But President Trump should press forward.

The last two years have shown that President Obamas efforts to change the Iranian governments behavior by playing nice have been a dismal failure.

President Trump should act to bring the dangerous Iranian regime to its knees.

Angelo M. Codevilla is professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University.
Even the Mean Girls werent this mean.

Just moments after President Trump promoted Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the role of White House press secretary, she was attacked by a swarm of woman-hating liberals.

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First, the propagandists at The New York Times and MSNBC questioned Sanders character and called her a liar, but now journalists are attacking her physical appearance.

Ira Madison, III, of The Daily Beast, likened Sanders to a drag queen in a hateful posting on Twitter.

Butch queen first time in drags at ball, he tweeted to his followers  along with a photograph of the press secretary.

Madison is the same journalist who cracked a racially-charged joke about Attorney General Jeff Sessions Asian-American granddaughter during his confirmation hearings. His tweet implied Sessions had borrowed her from a Toys-R-Us store so that he could use her as a political prop. Madison later apologized and deleted the tweet.

And he also penned a disgusting attack on Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson  wondering if his rule in the Trump White House was going to be house or field.

Hollywood was especially unkind to Sanders.

I fetl like Sarah Huckabee Sanders left and right eye switched places or something, comedian Akliah Hughes wrote on Twitter.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders looks like every woman eating lobster on a cruise ship, Family Guy writer Damien Fahey tweeted.

Could you imagine the hellfire and brimstone that wouldve rained down had a journalist or comedian made similar remarks about former first lady Michelle Obama?

The outrage over the attacks on Sanders has been limited to a few conservative publications and this column.

There has been no outcry from the feminist movement or female news commentators or enlightened liberals.

Its as if the Nasty Woman crowd pulled their p---y hats over their eyes and ears  hoping to tune out the anti-woman hate spewing from the left.

The same thing happened when Saturday Night Live skewered her in a deplorable body-shaming sketch.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media spent the weekend attacking the newly-appointed White House communications director for what they perceived to be sexist comments directed at Sanders.

Anthony Scaramucci told CNNs Jake Tapper that hes only asked one thing of Sanders.

Sarah, if youre watching, he said, I love the hair and makeup person that we had on Friday, so Id like to continue to use the hair and makeup person.

Critics pounced and accused Scaramucci of making comments regarding Sanders personal appearance. That was clearly not the case  but it did not seem to matter to the mainstream media.

His comment generated headlines in the Washington Post, The Hill, Newsweek and the list goes on and on and on.

And yet those same news outlets ignored The Daily Beast smear. Its the kind of double standard conservative women have come to expect from the mainstream media.

Kellyanne Conway offered some sound advice to Sanders on Sunday  suggesting she ignore the jackals and hyenas attacking her.

[The] irony of modern feminism is that they look right past sexist comments said about conservative women, definitely pro-life women like Sarah and me, she told Fox & Friends.

Some might call Madison a thug or a bully or a small-handed guttersnipe who gets his jollies by smacking around women with cheap, misogynistic words.

And they would not be incorrect.

But if its all the same  Ill just call him a sexist pig.
Knowing they need a positive agenda, Democrats have spent months preparing to offer more than blind resistance to virtually everything President Trump does or says. After countless focus groups and consultations with all of the partys ideological grouplets, party leaders unveiled a new slogan Monday they hoped would rival Trumps famous Make America Great Again.

The new Democratic slogan is significantly less great and more wordy: A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future. And in a bit of terrible timing, top Democrats announced their new slogan just as cable news networks were giving live coverage to presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who spoke at the White House to deny improper actions involving Russia.

Like a faulty rocket, the Democratic slogan never got very far and quickly fell to Earth.

Vox congressional reporter Jeff Stein notes that a Democratic member of Congress told him the slogan was the result of months of polling and internal deliberations among the House Democratic caucus." But if thats true, youd think they would have figured out the new slogan is strangely similar to the current pitch for Papa Johns Pizza: "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. Papa John's."

Democrats who are veterans of Barack Obamas two successful presidential races were quick to heap scorn on what one called the rhetorical equivalent of a soggy, tasteless slab or pizza dough.

If your slogan uses a colon or a comma, back to the drawing board, tweeted Jon Favreau, the former head of speechwriting for President Obama.

Fire every consultant involved, added Jon Levitt, another former Obama speechwriter.

To make matters worse, within days of unveiling a preliminary version of the slogan, it was learned it had also been lifted in part from a May 24 USA Today op-ed by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who was Hillary Clintons running-mate last year and helped take the Democratic Party into an historic and unexpected defeat.

Kaine summarized his message in his USA Today piece as: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages, and called this a pro-growth economic message that is true to who Democrats are.

Its certainly true that even with the stolen slogan, the new Democratic message is an improvement over Hillary Clintons vapid 2016 race (where her slogan, Stronger Together, was notably weak). The new slogan contains some valuable insights on how to make job training programs more relevant and encourage apprenticeships. But too much of it is a series of warmed-over excuses for higher government spending on dubious programs and pump priming.

The Democratic proposals will lead many independent and moderate voters to conclude the new slogan is trying to sell them on the policy equivalent of a mediocre slab of pizza slathered with 40-year-old ingredients and precious little meat. Theres just not that much of a market for a stale product like that.

Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928 on a slogan of A chicken for every pot. Will the Democrats next try updating that to A pizza for every plate?
A reflective Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered something of a lament Saturday night for the polarized state of national politics, speaking to a theater audience following a play about her late friend and ideological sparring partner, Justice Antonin Scalia.



The court's senior liberal justice was on hand at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., for a new run of The Originalist, named after Justice Scalia's method for interpreting the Constitution according to its perceived original meaning. The play centers on a fictional relationship between the conservative lion and a self-described "flaming liberal" law clerk, whom Justice Scalia hires to keep his debating skills sharp.

The law clerk comes to grow fond of Justice Scalia even as she dislikes many of his views. The clerk also comes to detest rigid liberal and conservative fault lines that can dominate debate in the U.S.

"I love this play and the idea behind it that people with very different views on important things can genuinely like each other," Justice Ginsburg said during a question-and-answer session after the show.

PENCE: TRUMP'S TRIUMPHS ARE MANY AFTER JUST 6 MONTHS

The 84-year-old Justice Ginsburg said she and Justice Scalia, who died last year, found common ground more often than most people realize, even as they jousted fiercely on hot-button constitutional cases.

The justice also spoke longingly of the days when nominations to the Supreme Court didn't spark the all-out partisan combat that defines the process now, noting her own 96-3 Senate confirmation vote in 1993 and Justice Scalia's 98-0 vote in 1986.

AS SENATE STRUGGLES TO GET 50 VOTES, IS 40 THE NEW 60?

Justice Ginsburg fondly singled out Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, saying he was her biggest supporter in the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time of her nomination. The senator, she said, still invites her to speak to Utah audiences, which she will do later this month.



"My hope is in my lifetime we will get back to the way it was," Justice Ginsburg said.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer predicted Sunday that a "cataclysm" could be triggered if President Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller or pardons himself.

The high-ranking senator from New York made the comments on Sunday during an interview on ABCs This Week despite Trumps lawyers saying on the same program that pardons are not being discussed.

"It would be one of the greatest, greatest breaking of rule of law, of traditional democratic norms of what our democracy is about," Schumer said. "It would cause a cataclysm in Washington.''

A sitting president may have constitutional power to grant pardons but Trumps legal team claims they have not discussed it with him.

"We're not researching the issue because the issue of pardons is not on the table,'' Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's personal attorneys, said on ABC. There's nothing to pardon from.''

The president and his inner circle are facing Congressional and FBI investigations for possible collusion with Russia in its interference with the 2016 presidential election. Mueller is also examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump's businesses as well as those of his associates, a person familiar with the probe said.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Trump suggested that Mueller would be crossing a red line if he looked into the allegations. He also mentioned pardons in a series of tweets on Saturday.

The president also suggested on Twitter that Mueller and his legal team have conflicts of interest of their own, because of donations made to Democratic candidates.

Trumps incoming White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said on Fox News Sunday that the president brought up the issue of pardons in the Oval Office recently, but that he does not need to use it.

"There's nobody around him that has to be pardoned,'' Scaramucci said. He was just making the statement about the power of pardons.''

Sekulow also said on Sunday that Trump's legal team is monitoring potential conflicts even though they have not made an issue with the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein appointing Mueller after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation.

"We're going to be constantly evaluating that situation,'' Sekulow said on ABC. "And if an investigation were to arise and we thought that the conflict was relevant, we would raise it without question.''

Click here for more from SFGate.com
Members of President Trumps presidential campaign -- including son Donald Jr. and adviser Jared Kushner -- are set to talk this week before the Senate about Russias involvement in the 2016 White House race.

Their scheduled meetings is the last development in numerous investigations into the extent to which Russian officials meddled in last years race an whether Trump associates colluded with them.

And as investigations continue, Trump on Saturday added to the speculation that hell try to end them or protect himself and associates by stating that he has "complete power" to issue pardons.

"While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS," the president tweeted Saturday morning.

The comment follows a recent Washington Post story stating Trump has inquired about the authority he has as president to pardon aides in connection with the investigations -- including several on Capitol Hill and separate ones by the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump maintains that no crimes have been committed and has urged authorities to prosecute those who have leaked information about the probes.

On Sunday, new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci acknowledged that Trump indeed brought (pardons) up in the Oval Office but said the president doesnt need to pardon himself.

And the reason doesn't need to pardon himself is that he hasn't done anything wrong, Scaramucci told Fox News Sunday.

On Saturday night, Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's attorneys, said the president has not discussed the issue of pardons with his outside legal team.

Donald Trump Jr., the presidents eldest son; Kushner, Trump son-in-law and a White House adviser; and former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort are scheduled to appear before Senate committees investigating Russian meddling.

Kushner is set to speak Monday to the Senate Intelligence committee in an expected closed-door meeting.

Trump Jr. became a focus of the investigations after it was revealed that he, Kushner and Manafort met with Russian representatives at Trump Tower in June 2016.

He later released email exchanges concerning the meeting on Twitter, after learning that The New York Times was about to publish them.

Trump defended his son in another tweet Saturday, saying he "openly gave his e-mails to the media & authorities whereas Crooked Hillary Clinton deleted (& acid washed) her 33,000 e-mails!"

This week has the potential to deliver the most high-profile congressional testimony involving the Russian meddling probes since former FBI Director James Comey appeared in June.

Trump Jr. is scheduled to appear Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee along with Manafort, according to a witness list released by the panel.

The three men will almost certainly be asked about their attendance at a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer. That gathering was arranged via emails that advertised it would reveal damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

The lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, said last week that she was ready to testify before the Senate and "clarify the situation."

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence panel, has said Veselnitskaya has yet to be invited to testify but that he wants to hear from her.

Warner said "it's still being worked out" whether some of his committee's more high-profile witnesses, including Trump Jr. and Manafort, should testify publicly or privately.

The Senate and House intelligence panels conduct most of their interviews in private, but occasionally hold open hearings.

Warner said Trump Jr. has "no security clearances that I am aware of, so he should be able to testify in public."

Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary panel, said last week that he's been talking to Trump Jr.'s lawyer and "didn't get any pushback" when suggesting he testify this week.

Grassley had said he would subpoena the witnesses if necessary.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Anthony Scaramucci rose through the financial ranks of New York, ardently defending Wall Street and founding a global hedge fund to eventually wind up as the White House communications director.

But his latest project only lasted a little over 10 days.

Scaramucci was tapped as the next communications director for the White House on July 21. But by the afternoon of July 31, Scaramucci already was removed from his position.

Mr. Scaramucci felt it was best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team, the White House said in a statement. We wish him all the best.

The ascension of the Goldman Sachs alumnus to the Trump administration created turmoil in the White House and resulted in the resignations of Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly was sworn in as President Donald Trumps new chief of staff Monday morning, just hours before Scaramucci left his position.

Read on to find out more about Scaramucci, known to friends as The Mooch.

Financier

Named Wall Streeter of the Year by Yahoo Finance in 2016, Scaramucci founded and co-managed SkyBridge Capital, a group of hedge funds with a reported $11.8 billion in assets.

Hes also hosted a variety of financial conferences and programs, including Fox Business Networks Wall Street Week and the glitzy SALT Conference, an annual gathering of prominent financiers and politicians.

RESIGNATIONS, CHANGES ON TRUMP LEGAL TEAM

Scaramucci, 53, sold his SkyBridge Capital in January in preparation for a role in the Trump administration. The price of the sale was not disclosed, but the firm was thought to be valued at more than $200 million, the Financial Times reported at the time of the sale.

Fundraiser

A Republican in New York, Scaramucci has donated to politicians in his party for a long time  but Trump, a fellow wealthy New Yorker, didnt catch his eye right away.

Scaramucci initially backed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and then former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

While he was supporting Walker, Scaramucci said he was a team Republican but had a difficult time communicating with Trump.

When I talk to Donald and he talks to me, I guess we dont understand [each other], Scaramucci told Fox Business Network in 2015. I may need to get an interpreter in the room to talk to Donald.

SCARAMUCCI ACCEPTS CNNS APOLOGY FOR RETRACTED RUSSIA STORY

Ultimately, the Long Island native kept his promise to support the Republican presidential nominee and threw his full support behind Trump, eventually serving on his transition team.

At the SALT Conference in May, Scaramucci contended that he is ready to serve in the current administration.

And so, to the extent the president needs me, I will be available to him, Scaramucci said then.

I remain loyal to the president and to the cause, he added.

On Friday, White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway sang Scaramuccis praises, saying that he has been an incredible asset to President Trump during the campaign, transition and now.

Scaramucci made headlines in 2010 when he asked Obama during a televised town hall meeting when he was going to stop whacking at the Wall Street pinata.

Scaramucci has also contributed to scores of Democratic politicians, including Obama.

Spokesman

In his first weekend as the communications director for the White House, Scaramucci gave interview after interview and promised its time for the Trump administration to hit the reset button with the press.

Scaramucci told Fox News Sunday that he wanted to bring an era of a new good feeling and hopes to create a more positive mojo in his new role. He also promised to crack down on information leaks and pledged to better focus the message coming out of the White House.

As far as Im concerned, there will be a new start for everybody on the team, he said.

On the Russia stories, Scaramucci said that a "two-pronged approach" was needed, saying that "in some ways we want to deescalate things and have there be a level of diplomacy. In other ways, we want it to be very hard-hitting and war-like."

Scaramucci also told CNN Sunday that an unnamed person told him that "if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those e-mails, you would have never seen it."

He then said he was quoting the president, adding that "he basically said to me, hey, you know, this is  maybe they did it. Maybe they didn't do it."

A person thats going to be super, super tough on Russia is President Donald J. Trump, Scaramucci said.

Scaramucci also deleted some of his old tweets that had resurfaced in the wake of his new appointment.

Those tweets showed that Scaramucci was often at odds with Trump during the campaign  and one even praised Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her competence.

Other tweets expressed support for stronger gun laws, which he tweeted about in August 2012. In May 2016, he expressed displeasure with individuals who believe climate change is a hoax. Trump has at times referred to global warming as a hoax.

When it comes to Trumps tweets, Scaramucci told CBS Face the Nation that if he thinks its helpful to him, let him do it.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump said he does have a right to pardon himself, but maintained he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

"As have been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?" Trump said in a June 4 tweet, saying the Russia investigation "continues into" the midterm elections.

Trump first gave constitutional scholars a reason to engage in what one called their favorite parlor game  arguing over whether a president can self-pardon  with a tweet last year.

While all agree the U.S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us, Trump tweeted in July 2017.

The Washington Post reported last year that the president had been asking advisers about his ability to pardon aides, family members and himself as special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into possible collusion with Russia during the presidential election continued. Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's attorneys, has said Trump "probably" has the ability to pardon himself but doesn't plan to do so.

Whether a president has the ability to issue a self-pardon is a favorite topic for lawyers to debate as there is really no clear resolution, Jonathan Turley, a legal scholar and law professor at George Washington University, told Fox News.

Read on for more on the debate.

A president could make a good-faith case for self-pardon

Turley has argued in multiple columns and on his own blog that while the Constitution should bar self-pardons, it doesnt.

The language of Article II is quite explicit in giving the president a pardon power over federal offenses with the only exception related to impeachments. Donald Trump can certainly make a good-faith textual case for the right to self-pardon, Turley told Fox News.

Turley added that he objects to those who are claiming clarity in the argument.

The fact that there is no clear answer after so many debates reflects the difficulty of the question, he said. The text would seem to support a self-pardon while there are good-faith arguments that it would contradict underlying values of the constitution.

HOW DO PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS WORK?

And while he said that it shouldnt work, Michigan State Law professor Brian Kalt argued on his blog that a president can certainly try to self-pardon.

The reason for uncertainty is that no president has ever tried to pardon himself, so no court has had the opportunity to decide the question, Kalt said. Until a president purports to pardon himself, and until a federal prosecutor tries to prosecute him anyway, we cannot know what the courts think about this.

A presidential self-pardon should not be regarded as valid

While a court hasnt ruled on the constitutionality of self-pardons, the answer is pretty evident, according to Richard Primus, a legal scholar and law professor at the University of Michigan.

I think its pretty clear that theres a right answer, and that answer is self-pardon should not be regarded as valid. A power to self-pardon would violate the basic rule-of-law principle that no person should be allowed to adjudicate his own case, Primus told Fox News, adding that a pardon by its nature might require two parties.

Its really hard to imagine asking the Framers, Hey, do you think the most powerful person in the government youre creating should be able to break laws and then let himself off the hook? and having the Framers answer, Yes, he should be able to do that, Primus continued.

Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, told Fox News that the definition of the word pardon gives him pause when it comes to the idea that a president can self-pardon.

What drives my view is the meaning of the word pardon  forgiveness, to forgive someone else, he said.

WHO IS JACK JOHNSON AND WHY WOULD TRUMP PARDON HIM?

Painter said that giving the president the ability to self-pardon could allow for him to commit any crimes he wanted in office and then pardon himself before he left office.

Why in the world would the Founders want that in the constitution, Painter said.

Kermit Roosevelt, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, agreed that the president doesnt have the authority to pardon himself, citing the rule against political self-dealing.

Constitutional silence about something so obviously problematic should be read to indicate its not allowed, Roosevelt told Fox News.

He said its unlikely that the Supreme Court would take up the issue.

The only way that could happen would be if the president did try to pardon himself (unlikely in my view) and then a prosecutor indicted him (also unlikely, at least until hes out of office) and then the president raised the pardon as a defense, Roosevelt added.

Should a president self-pardon?

While constitutional scholars might disagree on the legality of self-pardons, Turley said that all should be able to agree on one point  self-pardons are inherently abusive and ignoble.

No president in history has used this power to pardon himself  not Andrew Johnson, not Richard Nixon, not Bill Clinton. It would be a truly ignoble, historical moment for Donald Trump to use this type of power, Turley said.

Dr. David Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University, pointed to Nixons scandal-ridden presidency when asked if Trump could self-pardon.

The abiding rule, repeated many times, was that the president is not above the law, Woodard told Fox News. By that, I think that official power might have been legal  but it proved to be politically suicidal.

The difference between public power and political responsibility makes some actions impossible, Woodard added.
Congressional Democrats, with a new slogan in hand, launched a public campaign Monday to rebrand themselves in the wake of 2016 election losses that handed total control of Washington to the Republicans.

"We are back," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference in Berryville, Va. Democrats will show the country we are the party on the side of working people.

As Democrats tried to rebrand as the party offering "a better deal" for voters, Republicans panned the effort as little more than "recycled" talking points. Their new slogan -- formally titled A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future -- also has faced criticism from Democratic speechwriters.

But many Democrats are now acknowledging their party failed to communicate a winning message to voters last year, and the broader point behind Monday's relaunch is to focus more on jobs and other kitchen-table issues.

New York Sen. Schumer was joined at Monday's event by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, and other rank-and-file Democrats from the House and Senate.

DEMOCRATS' NEW SLOGAN MOCKED

We must have a strong middle class, Pelosi said. Essential to the strength of the middle class is the financial stability of the working family. And essential to that are bigger paychecks.

Democrats held the event in GOP Rep. Barbara Comstocks district, a seat that's a top target in the party's bid to retake the House next year.

Their new slogan follows months of internal debate and analysis involving polling and focus groups. Democrats want to focus on three objectives: increasing Americans wages and creating millions more good-paying jobs; lowering the cost of living for families through efforts like reducing the cost of prescription drugs; and building a better economy by providing better work training and educational opportunities.

Washington Republicans were quick to attack the party makeover.

"After losing to Republicans at the ballot box year-after-year, this is the best they have to offer?" asked Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. "Todays recycled Democrat talking points do nothing to change the fact that the far-left has taken hold of the Party and continues to push a message of more resistance and obstruction.

The RNC was hardly the first to mock the effort.

After an earlier and abbreviated version of the new slogan leaked on Thursday, Twitter users mocked the similarity to the tagline for Papa John's pizza, "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza."

And on Monday, before Democrats announced the changes, a Republican-aligned super PAC launched an ad campaign that targets Pelosi and argues her party remains mired in the same, old liberal ideas.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, which is behind the digital ad titled Resistance, focuses on Pelosis San Francisco congressional district and 12 other Democrat-leaning districts that President Trump won last fall.

All 435 House seats are up for reelection in 2018.

The Democrats are the party of the resistance, the narrator says in the 33-second ad that includes images of window-smashing and other protester-driven violence surrounding the inauguration.

Radical extremists who destroy buildings, burn cars and divide America. Hollywood celebrities who are blinded by their hatred of the president. Nancy Pelosi and the Washington Democrats answer to them.

SCHUMER TELLS CLINTON, 'BLAME YOURSELF'

Schumer acknowledged on Sunday that Democrats were partially to blame for Americans not knowing what the party stands for.

"When you lose an election with someone who has, say, 40 percent popularity, you look in the mirror and say what did we do wrong? he said on ABCs This Week. And the number one thing that we did wrong is we didn't have -- we didn't tell people what we stood for."

However, Congressional Leadership Fund leaders say the message continues to advance the same, old liberal ideas including single-payer health care, tax increases and military cuts, despite all of the poll testing.

Democrats have already proposed a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan, a $15 minimum wage and paid family leave legislation.

Other congressional Democrats helping push the better deal message are Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had four separate contacts with Russian individuals during the campaign and subsequent transition. He now insists in sworn, congressional testimony that he "did not collude" with anyone connected to the Kremlin.

But Kushner did accept dirt from the Russians. Literally.

Kushner left a Dec. 13 meeting with Sergey Gorkov, a banker who had "a direct line" to Putin, bearing gifts. Not only did Kushner accept a piece of art from Belarus where his grandparents grew up, he also received a ceremonial "bag of dirt" from their village.

Kushner has come clean about that meeting after the New York Times reported on a separate June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer two weeks ago between the president's son-in-law, eldest son, and former campaign manager.

Click for more from The Washington Examiner.
Robbers Are Knocking Cyclists Off Their Bikes On The 606, Police Warn

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jul 24, 2017 5:18AM



The 606. Photo by Braden Nesin/Chicagoist

Police are warning West Side community members about a rash of attacks on The 606 in which robbers knocked cyclists off their bicycles as they rode by on the elevated trail and, in at least one case, beat the cyclist and demanding he give them his belongings.

In at least three incidents, two black men were allegedly attacking cyclists riding along the trail at various times of day in the evening, late night and early morning hours, on the far western portions of the trail:

The first incident took place July 2 at 1:15 a.m. at 3510 W. Bloomingdale Ave.; the second on July 22 at 5:29 p.m. at 3300 W. Bloomingdale Ave.; the third took place Sunday at 4:30 a.m. at 1850 N. Ridgeway, where the trail ends, according to a police alert. In that most recent incident, the robbers were armed with a small black handgun, and they beat the cyclist after knocking him off his bike, and demanded some of his belongings. In the first two incidents, police say the cyclists were injured from being knocked from their bikes.

The robbers were described in the police report as two black men, one of whom was "wearing a black 'doo-rag,' brown long-sleeved shirt and black shorts" and one "with short hair, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans."


A federal judge on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump's commission on election fraud to resume collecting detailed voter roll information from the states.

The commission asked states last month to provide publicly available data including registered voters' names, birth dates and partial Social Security numbers, but it later told them to hold off until a judge ruled on a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, in the District of Columbia, denied the advocacy group's request to block the data collection in a ruling that commission vice chairman Kris Kobach called "a major victory for government accountability, transparency and the public's right to know about the integrity of our elections processes."

"The commission requested this publicly available data as part of its fact-gathering process, which is information that states regularly release to political candidates, political parties and the general public," said Kobach, the Republican secretary of state in Kansas. "We look forward to continuing to work with state election leaders to gather information and identify opportunities to improve election integrity."

The privacy group had argued that the commission should have completed an assessment of privacy concerns before making the request. The judge found that the group had standing to make that argument but said the commission is not an agency and therefore is not required to do such assessments. The judge also found the group failed to show that its members would be harmed by the data collection.

"The only practical harm the plaintiff's advisory board members would suffer ... is that their already publicly available information would be rendered more easily accessible by virtue of its consolidation on the computer systems that would ultimately receive this information on behalf of the commission," the judge said.

She did not say that any states must comply with the commission's request.

The privacy group said it will be watching closely to see what the commission does next.

"The commission cannot evade privacy obligations by playing a shell game with the nation's voting records," EPIC president Marc Rotenberg said.

Similar lawsuits are pending in Texas, Florida and New Hampshire. The New Hampshire lawsuit, brought by two lawmakers and an American Civil Liberties Union chapter, was put on hold pending the outcome of the Washington case.

Trump, a Republican, created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May to investigate his allegations, offered without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally in 2016. At the panel's first meeting last week, he questioned the motives of states that have refused to comply with the commission's request, suggesting they had something to hide.

Before the commission paused data collection earlier this month, an Associated Press count of states' responses found 17 plus Washington, D.C., didn't plan to provide any information. Election officials in some of those states questioned the commission's intent to search for voter fraud; in some states, the main concern was voters' privacy. Thirty states said they would provide limited information that was considered public already. And some of those states said the commission would have some hoops to jump through such as paying for the data or filling out additional request forms.

Alabama, Hawaii and Idaho had not announced decisions about whether to comply.
President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner on Monday denied any collusion with Russia and called the meeting he and the president's eldest son attended with a Russian attorney a "waste of our time," in a rare written statement released as he met with congressional investigators.

In the statement to committees released early Monday morning, Kushner, a White House adviser, laid out his dealings with foreign leaders and said none constitute campaign collusion.

I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government, reads a section of his statement. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form [security clearance], above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.

READ THE FULL KUSHNER STATEMENT

Kushner met with Senate Intelligence Committee investigators Monday morning behind closed doors, in the first of several private sessions Hill committees are holding with Trump associates. The committees are investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion by Trump associates.

Kushner, in his statement, detailed four contacts he had with Russians during the presidential campaign and transition.

With respect to my contacts with Russia or Russian representatives during the campaign, there were hardly any, he said in the statement. He recalled when he was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington in April 2016, when his father-in-law delivered a speech on foreign policy and he was introduced to four ambassadors at the event, which included then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trumps speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to Americas foreign policy, Kushner recalled. The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.

Kushner denied reports he took two calls with Kislyak between April and November 2016.

I had no ongoing relationship with the ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then. In fact, on Nov. 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian ambassador, he said.

In the statement, Kushner detailed the June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, news of which emerged ealier this month and gave new momentum to Democrats' claims the Trump administration secretly worked with the Kremlin to game the election.

I arrived at the meeting a little late. When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting, he recalls in the statement. Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.'

I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since. I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently.

Emails released this month show Donald Trump Jr. accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until he was recently shown them by his lawyers. Kushner says in his statement that Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and a top adviser, on Monday strongly denied having colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign -- reading a brief statement to reporters after meeting with Senate investigators.

Let me be very clear: I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so, Kushner said in a three-minute statement.

Kushner maintained that "all my actions were proper," while also delivering a message to his father-in-law's detractors.

"Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign. That is why he won," Kushner said, speaking outside the White House.

Kushner maintained he has been forthcoming with congressional investigators regarding his role in the campaign.

"Since the first questions were raised in March, I have been consistent in saying, I was eager to share any information I had," Kushner said. "With the investigating bodies, and I've done so today. The record and documents I have voluntarily provided will show that all of my actions were proper and ocurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign."

He spoke after sitting down with Senate Intelligence Committee investigators for about three hours behind closed doors.

Kushner also called the meeting he, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and the presidents eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., attended last year with a Russian attorney a waste of our time. Kushner made that comment in a rare written statement released ahead of his Senate meeting.

The 11-page statement provided his first detailed account of meetings over the last year with the Russian ambassador to the United States, a Russian lawyer and a Russian banker.

Kushner is set to face members of the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday in another closed-door session. The committees are looking into Russias meddling in the 2016 elections and possible collusion by Trump associates.

Kushner was grinning as he left the Monday meeting and surrounded by security. A protester tried to hand Kushner a Russian flag but security stopped him.

Trump Jr. and Manafort are also expected to speak to Congress in the coming weeks about their involvement. In the interim, the pair, through their attorneys, have agreed to provide a Senate committee with documents and be interviewed by members and staff prior to a public hearing.
President Trumps tough criticism of Special Counsel Robert Mueller signals a renewed effort to challenge his investigators credibility over their track record of pro-Democratic political donations and other associations.

There is no shortage of examples to fuel the president's case.

Of the 15 attorneys currently on staff for Mueller, at least seven have donated to Democratic candidates and campaigns, including Trump's 2016 rival Hillary Clinton. The rest have not made political donations, according to federal records; and none of the attorneys on Muellers roster donated money to Trump.

This is just a witch huntits all a hoax, White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox & Friends last week after Trump criticized Mueller in a New York Times interview. People should know what folks past motivations, and their political motivations arethese werent minor donations, these were significant donations by members of that team.

Conway said the donations are relevant information for people to have.

Multiple reports in recent days have detailed a special counsel investigation digging deep into Trump associates dealings, prompting a range of public responses from the Trump administration. The president went so far over the weekend as to declare he has complete power to pardon. But in the near-term, expect to hear more about the political affiliation of Muellers attorneys.

They clearly wanted the other person to win. Now, whether that prejudices them in one way or another remains to be seen, but it is relevant information for people to have, Conway said.

Heres a snapshot of some of the attorneys on Muellers team and their political contributions:

James Quarles

Quarles is a former partner at WilmerHale and former assistant special prosecutor for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Quarles had made significant donations to Democratic candidates, including former President Barack Obama and Clinton. Most recently, in October 2016, Quarles donated $2,700 to Clintons presidential campaign. Quarles also donated over $7,000 to Obama over the last decade. Quarles did, however, donate $2,500 to former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, in 2015.

Jeannie Rhee

Rhee is a former partner at WilmerHale who also served in the Office of Legal Counsel and as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. At WilmerHale, Rhee focused on representing people in government investigations including white-collar criminal probes and criminal and civil fraud matters. Rhee donated a total of $5,400 to Clinton, combining donations from 2015 and 2016. Rhee also donated a combined $4,800 to Obama in 2008 and 2011. Rhee also has contributed smaller amounts of money to the Democratic National Committee and other Democrats running for Congress.

Andrew Weissmann

Weissmann served as general counsel at the FBI and was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Weissmann is a veteran Justice Department prosecutor. He was the deputy, and then leader, of the departments task force that investigated and prosecuted Enron executives in the energy giants collapse. Weissmann donated a combined $2,300 to Obamas campaign in 2008. In 2006, Weissmann contributed at least $2,000 to the DNC.

Andrew Goldstein

Goldstein is an attorney on detail from the Southern District of New York, where he had worked under U.S. Attorney Preet Bhararauntil Bharara was fired along with other U.S. attorneys by Trump.

Goldsteins old boss has become a prominent Trump critic since his firing and has been particularly outspoken over concerns that Trump may be gearing up to get Mueller fired. In a tweetstorm last week, Bharara openly wondered, If Mueller is fired, how much obscene & horses-t character assassination will Trump & allies level against this honored military vet? He added if that happens, do Trump & allies realize he will forever appear guilty of a crime even if the Special Counsel may not have found one?

Bharara also praised Goldstein as Best of best in every way. Fair, tough smart, after he was brought on by Mueller.

Goldstein contributed a combined $3,300 to Obamas campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

PROSECUTOR FROM TRUMP CRITIC'S OLD OFFICE JOINS MUELLER PROBE

Elizabeth Prelogar

Prelogar is an appellate attorney on detail from the Office of the Solicitor General. Prelogar donated $250 to Clinton in 2016 and $250 to Obama in 2012.

Brandon Van Grack

Van Grack is an attorney on detail from the National Security Division of the DOJ. Van Grack donated $286 to Obama in 2008.

Rush Atkinson

Atkinson is an attorney on detail from the Criminal Divisions Fraud Section of the DOJ. Records show that Atkinson donated $200 to Clintons campaign in 2016.

Zainab Ahmad

Ahmad is a U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York. She has worked extensively on counterterrorism cases. Records show that Ahmad has not made any political donations.

Michael Dreeben

Dreeben is an appellate attorney on detail from the Office of the Solicitor General. Records show he has made no political donations. Dreeben has represented the federal government in a range of cases -- including on the police use of GPS tracking to monitor potential suspects, and whether former Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell crossed the line in performing favors for a wealthy supporter who provided gifts to McDonnell and his wife.

Adam Jed

Jed is an appellate attorney on detail from the Civil Division of the DOJ. Records show he has made no political donations.

Jeds notable casework includes arguing in defense of then-secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius in 2014 in the Supreme Court case of Little Sisters of the Poor v. Sebelius. The case challenged the contraceptive insurance requirement under ObamaCare. Jed also argued, before the Supreme Court, to strike down the definition of marriage between a man and a woman in the Defense of Marriage Act in the United States v. Windsor.

Aaron Zebley

Zebley is a former partner at WilmerHale, who previously served with Mueller at the FBI as chief of staff. Zebley served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Records show he has made no political donations.

Aaron Zelinsky

Zelinksy is an attorney on detail from the District of Maryland. Records show he has made no political donations.
There has never been a White House spokesman as famous as Sean Spiceror one subject to as much mockery.

And yet in many ways he was in an impossible job.

Spicers resignation on Friday, which had been regularly predicted for months, ends a difficult tenure in which he was caught in the crossfire between a president who distrusted the press and journalists who had little sympathy for Donald Trump.

Spicer made some mistakes, and the briefings got too heated at times. He told me several times that he viewed this as a combination of journalistic grandstanding, media bias and a search for sensationalism.

Many reporters, though, viewed Spicer as unnecessarily combative and often evasive, escalating the tension level in briefings that became a highly rated reality show.

But as most of the briefings were moved off camera, and most were handed off to Sarah Huckabee Sandersnow the new press secretarySpicers star seemed to dim.

Trump wanted Spicer to stay, but he didnt want to report to the new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci. And given the rockiness of the past months, thats understandable.

Still, the middle-school tone of this na-na-na-na-hey-hey New York Times editorial, reveling in Spicer's coming departure, is just remarkable.

It was easy for outsiders to bash Spicer, and to think of him in Melissa McCarthy terms. He had been in a state of combat with the White House press corps since his first day, when he delivered a stinging lecture about holding the media accountable triggered by the flap over the size of the inaugural crowd.

But in this and many other matters, he was following the orders of a president who watched the briefings, sent him notes and critiqued him afterward.

Sometimes Spicer was effective in driving the White House message. At other times he got tangled up in semantic arguments (whether the executive order could be called a travel ban), had to defend presidential claims (on Obama wiretapping), or said things that were later undercut by Trump.

But Spicers problem, as the former RNC spokesman brought in by Reince Priebus, is that he had no previous relationship with the president.

Anthony Scaramucci doesnt have that problem. He has been friends with Trump for years. And as a wealthy former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge-fund manager, he has Trumps respect.

What Scaramucci doesnt have is Washington experience. Judging by his debut at the podium, where his brash, humor-infused style played well, he may be able to make the transition. And I know from my interviews with him that he respects journalists, having played one on TV (briefly serving as host of Foxs Wall Street Week).

But Scaramucci still has to figure out such matters as whether to bring most of the briefings back on camera. That will put a Spicer-like spotlight on Sanders. But it would also mean the White House could get back to using television to get its message out and more openly engaging with reporters.

Maybe the new communications guru can even persuade his boss to hold more news conferences.
Jared Kushner got out ahead of the story before sunrise.

Knowing there would be saturation coverage of his closed-door Senate testimony in the Russia investigation, the presidents son-in-law today gave the press an 11-page statement with this bottom-line declaration: I did not collude.

Since the hearing was conducted in secret, Kushner had to know he would be vulnerable to selective leaks. So the senior White House official helped frame the media narrative, with some stories on his prepared testimony posting as early as 6 a.m.

His team also wanted to be transparent with the public, so they were playing to a broader audience than just the Intelligence Committee members.

That doesnt mean everything he said should be taken at face value. But its worth examining his statement in depth. Given that hes represented by Abbe Lowell, one of Washingtons toughest criminal lawyers, we can be sure that this statement was meticulously prepared.

Perhaps most important, it provides a different perspective on some of the accusations against him. And since Kushner doesnt appear on televisionI am not a person that has sought the spotlightthat perspective has been lacking in the Russia coverage.

Despite his camera-shy style, Kushner knew the television beast would have to be fed. He read a statement on the White House driveway after his Hill appearance, saying he hadnt colluded and had no improper contacts with anyonea clear concession to TV's need for video that will play in a loop every time the story is covered.

The statement provides plenty of details. Take the campaign meeting with Russians that was arranged by Donald Trump Jr. Kushner says he never saw the email chain in which an intermediary told the presidents son that the Russian government wanted to convey damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Says Kushner: I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting. And he did leave early.

On the uproar over his back channel conversation with Russias ambassador after the election, Kushner says he didnt make the suggestion. He says Sergey Kislyak wanted generals to talk to him about Syria asked if there was a secure line in the transition office. Since the answer was no, Kushner says he asked whether Kislyak had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could usea request that went nowhere.

Now that may have been a misstep or simple naivete. But it counters the prevailing media narrative that Kushner floated the idea because he had something to hide.

Less clear is why, after turning down two subsequent invitations from Kislyak, Kushner agreed to his request to meet with Russian banker Sergey Gorkov, whose financial institution is under U.S. sanctions.

Perhaps the weakest part of Kushners argument is that he left these and other contacts off his security clearance form because of a miscommunication that led to a premature filing. On the other hand, Kushner left out all his other foreign contacts, which would make no sense unless there was a staff screwup.

The statement also adds the context that Kushner was in the middle of a fast-paced campaign with thousands of meetings and interactions, and he was a real estate developer and newspaper publisher who had never worked on a campaign. In fact, he says he forgot Kislyaks name after their first, brief meeting after a Trump speech at Washingtons Mayflower Hotel.

Kushner is still on the hot seat, and as a Trump family member he has a big target on his back. But he showed a recognition today that this is a media battle as well as a legal and political one.
The Senate will move forward with a key vote this week on a Republican health bill but it's a mystery what exactly they will be voting on.

It is not yet known whether the legislation will seek to replace President Obama's health care law or simply repeal it.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said Sunday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will make a decision soon on which bill to bring up for a vote, depending on ongoing discussions with GOP senators. Thune sought to cast this week's initial vote as important but mostly procedural, allowing senators to begin debate and propose amendments.

But he acknowledged senators should be able to know beforehand what bill they will be considering.

Both versions encountered opposition from enough GOP senators to doom the effort, but McConnell, R-Ky., is making a last-gasp attempt this week after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for the August recess without sending him some kind of health overhaul bill to sign.

Some senators told The Wall Street Journal that McConnell told them that they would find out before any vote if they will be asked to repeal and replace.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who called the bill a porkfest in an interview said that the current legislation will not work.

I think it keeps the fundamental flaw of ObamaCare, the death spiral will continue and were going to subsidize it, Paul, the Kentucky Republican, told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures.

McConnell, was making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation, cannot afford to lose any more than two Republican votes, The Journal reported.

President Trump tweeted on Sunday, "If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!"

Trump has had a complicated relationship with the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have continued to be generally supportive of the president, even as his approval ratings slip.

Theres less money from the government going to poor people, but theres more money from the government going to rich people who run insurance companies, Paul explained. I think when voters find out that Republicans gave billions of dollars to rich insurance companies and took money away from poor people getting Medicaid, I think thats a disaster.

Still, at least two Republican senators Sunday appeared to reaffirm their intention to vote against the procedural motion if it involved the latest version of the GOP's repeal-and-replace bill.

Moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she continued to have concerns about reductions to Medicaid and criticized the Republican process, saying lawmakers were being unfairly kept in the dark. Under McConnell's plan, 22 million more people would become uninsured by 2026, many of them Medicaid recipients. She wants to hold public hearings and work with Democrats.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
A Republican-aligned super PAC is trying to knock down Democrats official effort Monday to rebrand themselves as a better deal -- launching an ad campaign that targets House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and argues her party remains mired in the same, old liberal ideas.

The Congressional Leadership Fund is behind the digital ad campaign, which is titled Resistance and targets Pelosis San Francisco congressional district and 12 other Democrat-leaning districts that President Trump won last fall.

All 435 House seats are up for reelection in 2018.

The Democrats are the party of the resistance, the narrator says in the 33-second ad that includes images of window-smashing and other protester-driven violence surrounding the inauguration.

Radical extremists who destroy buildings, burn cars and divide America. Hollywood celebrities who are blinded by their hatred of the president. Nancy Pelosi and the Washington Democrats answer to them.

SCHUMER TELLS CLINTON, 'BLAME YOURSELF'

On Monday, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will lead an event in Virginia to announce the better deal agenda, following party leaders acknowledging they lost to Trump in large part because voters didn't know what the party stood for.

They intentionally are heading outside Washington to host the event in the district of GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock, whom they hope to defeat next year.

The new message -- formally titled A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future -- follows months of internal debate and analysis of polling and focus groups. (After an earlier and abbreviated version leaked on Thursday, Twitter users mocked the similarity to the slogan for Papa John's pizza, "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza.")

Schumer acknowledged on Sunday that Democrats were partially to blame for Americans not knowing what the party stands for.

"When you lose an election with someone who has, say, 40 percent popularity, you look in the mirror and say what did we do wrong? he said on ABCs This Week. And the number one thing that we did wrong is we didn't have -- we didn't tell people what we stood for."

However, Congressional Leadership Fund leaders say the message continues to advance the same, old liberal ideas including single-payer health care, tax increases and military cuts, despite all of the poll testing.

The simple truth is that a Democrat is someone who is beholden to Nancy Pelosi, wants to raise your taxes, is blinded by their hatred of the president, and regularly loses elections, said Cory Bliss, the political action committees executive director.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A top Senate Democrat called Monday for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to testify, again, as part of the probe into Russian meddling and potential collusion with the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote to Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, requesting Sessions appearance after reports of substantive conversations last year on President Trumps policy plans between Sessions and now-former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

If this is true, it would be directly contrary to the testimony that Attorney General Sessions gave  under oath  before the Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings, Feinstein wrote, adding it would be directly contrary to Sessions statements that he did not recall any discussion with the Russian Ambassador, or any other representative of the Russian government, regarding the political campaign on these occasions or any other occasion.

Feinstein urged Grassley to consider bringing Sessions before the panel, as Judiciary has the primary jurisdiction and responsibility for conducting oversight jurisdiction of the Justice Department.

I have requested the intelligence intercepts from Ambassador Kislyaks transmissions and believe that they raise additional question about the Attorney Generals discussions concerning Russia during the past year, Feinstein wrote.

"As Chairman Grassley told reporters last week, he is interested in holding the committees regular Justice Department oversight hearing sometime this fall," Grassley's Press Secretary Taylor Foy told Fox News. "Ideally, the Attorney General would at least be able to have his team in place before such a hearing, so we could get a complete picture of how the Department is functioning with a full staff. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats have insisted in dragging out the confirmation process for Justice Department nominees at nearly every turn."

Sessions already testified before a different Senate panel. On June 13, the attorney general appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is leading its own, independent Russia probe. Sessions denied any collusion with the Russians and called such allegations a lie.

I have never met with or had any conversations with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign in the United States, Sessions said in his testimony. The suggestion that I participated in any collusion, that I was aware of any collusion, of the Russian government to hut this country which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process, is an appalling and detestable lie.

JEFF SESSIONS DENIES 3RD MEETING WITH RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR

Sessions has been on defense in recent days after the president told The New York Times that Sessions recusal from overseeing the FBIs Russia probe was very unfair to the president, and that he might not have hired Sessions for attorney general had he known he would do so.

The president tweeted early Monday criticizing congressional panels and Sessions:

"So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?"
President Trump, ahead of a key Senate vote, urged waffling Republican lawmakers to follow through on vows to repeal ObamaCare -- warning inaction is not an option and describing the 2010 health law as a big, fat, ugly lie.

Trump said Monday theres still time to do the right thing, claiming the Senate bill will provide emergency relief and truly great health care.

A test vote on Republican health care legislation is expected Tuesday.

Speaking from the Blue Room in the White House, Trump hurled multiple insults at the health care law of the land. He said the first rule of medicine is to do no harm but that the Affordable Care Act has caused nothing but pain.

"The American people have waited long enough," he said. "Now is the time for action."

While slamming Democrats, Trump also called out Senate Republicans in his seven-minute speech and said they "have not done their job."

Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted, "Republicans have a last chance to do the right thing on Repeal & Replace after years of talking & campaigning on it."

And on Sunday, Trump said if Republicans fail to pass legislation to roll back his predecessors health care law, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!

To be sure, Trump has had an uneven approach to health care -- at times saying it should implode while reversing course last week and telling Republican lawmakers to skip their August recess to work on the legislation.

Then, he seemed to politically threaten at least one holdout by suggesting inaction might put his Senate seat on the line. During a meeting with GOP senators last week, Trump threw a verbal jab at Nevada Sen. Deal Heller, who was sitting to his right.

Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesnt he? And I think the people of your state, which I know very well, I think theyre gonna appreciate what you hopefully will do, Trump said. Any senator who votes against starting debate is really telling America that youre fine with ObamaCare."

Heller said in June he would oppose the first version of the Senates health care bill.

Senate Republicans are expected to hold another vote on health care this week but theres some confusion as to what legislation they would be voting on or how it would affect millions of Americans whose access to health care has been in limbo for months.

Senate leaders are expected to hold a procedural vote Tuesday -- on something. The White House and Republican leaders have been vague on whether the legislation will seek to replace former President Barack Obamas health care law or simply repeal it.

Vice President Pence said Monday that help is on the way and told Americans President Trump hears you and is fighting for you.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Sunday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will soon decide which health care bill to bring up for a vote.

Senate Republicans are considering legislation that would repeal and replace Obama's law, and a separate bill that would simply repeal "Obamacare" with a two-year delay for implementation to give Congress more time to agree on a replacement.

Both versions encountered opposition from enough GOP senators to doom the effort, but McConnell is making a last-gasp attempt after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for the August recess without sending him some kind of health overhaul bill to sign.

In the Senate, Republicans hold a 52-48 seat majority. They can only afford to have one of their senators defect and still prevail on a health bill, assuming that Republican Sen. John McCain remains in Arizona, where he's being treated for brain cancer. Democrats are standing united in opposition.

Thune said no matter the outcome of the upcoming vote, senators would continue working to pass health legislation no matter how long it took.

At least two Republican senators Sunday appeared to reaffirm their intention to vote against the procedural motion if it involved the latest version of the GOP's repeal-and-replace bill.

Moderate Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she continued to have concerns about reductions to Medicaid and criticized the Republican process, saying lawmakers were being unfairly kept in the dark. Under McConnell's plan, 22 million more people would become uninsured by 2026, many of them Medicaid recipients. She wants to hold public hearings and work with Democrats.

"We don't know whether we're going to be voting on the House bill, the first version of the Senate bill, the second version of the Senate bill, a new version of the Senate bill, or a 2015 bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act," Collins said. "I don't think that's a good approach to replacing legislation that affects millions of people."

Conservative Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said he would only support a repeal-only bill. That version would reduce government costs but lead to 32 million additional uninsured people over a decade. At least three senators including Collins have previously expressed opposition to that plan.

"What are we opening debate to? Last week, Senate leadership said it would be a clean repeal ... and I think that's a good idea," Paul said. "The other alternative is the Senate leadership bill that doesn't repeal ObamaCare, is ObamaCare light and is loaded with pork. ... I'm not for that."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
15 Of Our Favorite Events In Chicago This Week

Art, films and music keeps us going this week in Chicago.



MONDAY JULY 24

MILLENNIUM PARK MUSIC SERIES: Amadou and Mariam met at the Institute for Young Blind in Mali and went on to create melodic and bluesy African pop that appeals to the masses. Theyve collaborated with the likes of Manu Chao, Blur/Gorillazs Damon Albarn, Somalian rapper K'Naan and Keziah Jones, and theyll play the Pritzker Pavilion stage for free at 6:30 p.m. Native American hip hop artist Frank Waln will also play.



TUESDAY JULY 25

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS: The Tony Award-winning musical from director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon opens at Oriental Theatre on July 25. An American in Paris joins ballet and broadway as an American soldier and a mysterious French girl look for a new beginning in the aftermath of war. The musical runs through Aug. 13. Tickets start at $27.

DON'T CALL THEM GRUNGE GODS: The Melvins' latest A Walk With Love & Death is a "double album" in that it combines two new works, Death (a more traditional Melvins work) and Love ( an experimental soundtrack to a short film the band is creating). So we honestly have no idea what to expect from the band when they play Metro on Tuesday night, aside from the knowledge that The Melvins have built a career of creating arresting live spectacles out of the unexpected. So strap in and enjoy the ride.

MILLENNIUM PARK FILM SERIES: Howard Beale is mad as hell and not going to take this anymore. The 1976 film Network showed how the rant of an angry anchorman could boost ratings, but with potential ethical consequences. The film eerily reflecting todays news and political climate more than 30 years later, begins at 6:30 p.m. on Pritzker Pavilions 40-foot LED screen.

MACCA'S BACK: Paul McCartney returns for a two-night stand this week at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre on July 25 and 26. We've seen Sir Paul play a number of times over the last couple of years and are consistently surprised at how great his live shows remain, bursting with energy and giving new life to songs decades of years old.



WEDNESDAY JULY 26

ACTIVATE ALLEY: The downtown ACTIVATE art event is back with another edition in the Chicago Theatre Alley from 5 to 10 p.m. This months theme is Wasteland: Dispose and Discover exploring the alley as a space where we dispose of unwanted stuff, but also discover valuable discarded objects. Register in advance for a complimentary drink ticket. Free.

MISS SPOKEN: The lady-centric live lit show Miss Spoken takes on Mistaken Identity for this months show at Gallery Cabaret at 7 p.m. Readers include Bea Cordelia, Brooke Allen and Kim Nelson. Entry is a $5 suggested donation.

GHOSTBUSTERS AT PARK AT WRIGLEY: Who you gonna call? The original 1984 Ghostbusters is tonights Music Box Movie at the Park at 7 p.m. Before the outdoor film screening outside Wrigley Field, snap a photo with the Windy City Ghostbusters, the Gatekeeper, Keymaster, Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Inflatable Slimer. Free.

ROCK OUT FOR KT'S KIDS: Little in this world feels better than seeing a really good show while also knowing you're donating to a really good cause. So if you want to feel those two things simultaneously, we've got you covered because Local H is playing a benefit for KT's Kids at Liar's Club on Wednesday night. Seeing Local H at Liar's Club is always an over-the-top good time, and KT's Kids is a cause worth supporting, so everyone wins with this one.



THURSDAY JULY 27

NEWBERRY LIBRARY BOOK FAIR: The Newberry Library Book Fair is like Christmas for bookworms. One of the largest used book sales in the country, the independent library has more than 120,000 used books, movies, records and more for sale this Thursday through Sunday. Admission is Free.

FIESTA DEL SOL: Pilsens Fiesta del Sol is the largest Latino festival in the midwest, with family values at heart. The alcohol and tobacco-free festival still has plenty of fun, with live music, a carnival and civil rights and community activities all weekend.



Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! image via DCASE.

WAIT WAIT...LIVE: The NPR show that quizzes contestants on the weeks news comes to Pritzker Pavilion for a special live show. Join host Peter Sagal and Judge and Scorekeeper Bill Kurtis from 7 to 9 p.m. with a panel of comedians, humorists and journalists, listener contestants and a special celebrity guest for Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Free.

MURDER MYSTERY DINNER: Carnivale hosts an interactive dinner theater experience this Thursday with Crime & Punishment: A 1920s Murder Mystery from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Attempt to solve the whodunit filled with deceptive mafia and jilted lovers while enjoying a three course meal featuring Ropa Vieja, Peruvian Chicken and more. Tickets are $65.

CHEF COLLAB SERIES: Boefhaus Chefs Brian Ahern and Jamie Finnegan join Travelle Kitchen + Bars Ricardo Jarquin for the next installment of The Langham restaurants "Chef Collab" Series at 6 p.m. The five-course family-style dinner begins with a cocktail hour meet-and-greet where guests have the opportunity to chat with the chefs. Tickets are $65. Call 312-923-7705 to reserve a spot.



FRIDAY JULY 28



Image courtesy of Chicago Dance Crash.

DANCE CRASH: Take a trip to the other side of The Land of Oz during Chicago Dance Crashs latest production, The Bricklayers of Oz. Munchkinlands bricklayers and laborers star in this street tale that imagines life for second-class citizens of a magical world. The family-friendly production opens this Friday and runs through Aug. 5. Tickets are $25 for adults, $15 for children 12 and under.


The White House indicated Sunday that President Trump would sign a sweeping Russia sanctions measure, which the House could take up this week, that requires him to get Congress' permission before lifting or easing the economic penalties against Moscow.

Lawmakers are scheduled to consider the sanctions package as early as Tuesday, and the bill could be sent to Trump before Congress breaks for the August recess.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the newly appointed White House press secretary, said the administration is supportive of being tough on Russia and "particularly putting these sanctions in place."

"We support where the legislation is now, and will continue to work with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved," Sanders said on ABC's "This Week."

The legislation is aimed at punishing Moscow for meddling in the presidential election and its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats announced Saturday that they'd settled lingering issues with the bill, which also includes stiff economic penalties against Iran and North Korea.

The sanctions targeting Russia, however, have drawn the most attention due to Trump's persistent push for warmer relations with President Vladimir Putin and ongoing investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign.

"North Korea, Iran and Russia have in different ways all threatened their neighbors and actively sought to undermine American interests," according to a joint statement by California Republicans Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, and Ed Royce of California, the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman. The bill the House will vote on, they said, "will now exclusively focus on these nations and hold them accountable for their dangerous actions."

Sen. John Thune on Sunday said Trump should sign the bill.

This is a bill that will go to the presidents desk, and he should sign it into law, Thune, R-S.D., a member of GOP Senate leadership, told Fox News Sunday. The administration will come to the conclusion that Congress has: We need to sanction Russia for meddling in the election. Its in the presidents best interest.

Thune spoke after House and Senate negotiators said Saturday that they had agreed on a sanctions package, imposed because of Russia meddling in the 2016 White House race and for its military actions in Syria and neighboring Ukraine.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly this spring in support of its measure. The congressional negotiations agreed, despite the House making changes to the Senate bill, including rolling the Russian sanctions into a bill that includes sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

The House is set on Tuesday to formally introduce its measure.

Another major sticking point was the measures congressional review, which could be used if Trump attempted to veto or ease or end the sanctions against Moscow, considering the presidents push for warmer relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The negotiators from both parties opted to keep the sanctions review due to wariness over the relationship between Trump and Putin.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps much-hyped race against a great white shark finally aired on Sunday night.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!

The competition was featured in Discoverys Phelps vs Shark: Great Gold vs Great White, as part of its famous Shark Week summer programming.

In the end, Phelps was able to swim 100 meters off South Africa in 38.1 seconds -- but the shark won with a time of 36.1 seconds.

However, he wasn't actually racing next to the shark. Discovery Channel staffers calculated the great white's time and compared it to Phelps' performance, according to SI. On the broadcast, an image of a shark was superimposed over the Olympic swimmer.

The swimmer earlier told Fox News the challenge was probably the hardest race Ive ever had.

Ahead of the Sunday night event, Phelps told ABC News' "Good Morning America," We're not in the water at the same exact time. I think that's the one thing we all - we want everyone to know  I was safe, which was number one. I had 12 to 14 divers underneath me when we were doing the race.

MICHAEL PHELPS SAYS GREAT WHITE WAS TOUGHEST FOE EVER

Phelps wore a wetsuit that was 1 millimeter thick, as well as a monofin -- which essentially acted as a tail. I dont like taking silver medals, but Ill take one to a great white, he said during the Discovery program.

Phelps tweeted Sunday, Rematch? Next time.. Warmer water.
Expectations are so high for the upcoming high-end iPhone that it is being heralded as a milestone in iPhone history.

In an investor note, investment bank Morgan Stanley described it as [t]he most meaningful feature and technology upgrades in iPhone's history.

Some of these watershed technologies include OLED displays, wireless charging, and 3D sensors for AR, Morgan Stanley added, referring to Apples first adoption of an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display and hardware to support augmented reality, often abbreviated as AR.

OLED technology is considered the future of smartphone displays because image quality is beginning to surpass that from liquid crystal displays that Apple has traditionally used on the iPhone. Augmented reality, which combines virtual reality with the real world, is considered a technology where Apple can lead.

To support AR, rumors point to a vertical dual camera on the back of the phone. And the front-facing camera may integrate advanced 3D sensing.

SMART SPEAKER REVOLUTION: WHY WE'LL HEAR MUCH MORE FROM THE AMAZON ECHO

Rumor frenzy sows confusion: the case of the unknown ID sensor



ID sensing technology is shaping up to be a defining element in the iPhone 8. Problem is, no one seems to know for sure where or what the ID sensor will be.

For example, some recent rumors pit facial recognition against Touch ID built into the phones edge-to-edge display. Rumors suggest Touch ID will either be built into the display or eliminated entirely in favor of facial recognition technology, said MacRumors.

Other rumors put the Touch ID on the back of the phone (a la Google Pixel phone) or integrated into the power button.

What is probable



Probably the single most striking aspect of the iPhone 8 (or whatever Apple chooses to call it) will be the large OLED display (possibly 5.8 inches) covering the entire front of the phone from edge to edge.

Due to elimination of the sides (also known as bezels) found on the iPhone 7, the overall size of the phone may be smaller than the current 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus and possibly closer to the size of the 4.7-inch iPhone 7.

A new A11 processor, Apple's most powerful chip to date, is also likely.

LEAKED IPHONE 8 DESIGN HAS A BIG SURPRISE



Timing



Increasing evidence OLED iPhone launches in October, rather than September, Morgan Stanley, referring to the high-end flagship as the OLED iPhone, said in its note last week. We believe it's reasonable to assume the new, higher priced OLED iPhone ships in October rather than September."

Price

Think Apple phones can't get any more expensive? Get ready for more.

These new technologies that Apple may try to pack into the new iPhone means a big price tag, possibly $1,000 or more.
A train passenger in England is making headlines for gifting his fellow rider with cash, but the story isnt quite as pleasant as it sounds.

Leslie Gilmer, 69, was recently found to be guilty of assault by beating after forcibly stuffing a 10-pound note into another mans mouth aboard a train from London to Exeter.

According to The Telegraph, Gilmer became upset with fellow passenger Peter Ellis after Ellis admonished Gilmer for sneaking into the first-class section to steal food and wine on five separate occasions during a train trip in November 2016. Shortly afterward, Ellis claims Gilmer returned to the first-class section, grabbed Ellis by the head and stuffed the money into his mouth.

HARRY POTTER TRAIN ATTRACTION IS GETTING TOURISTS IN TROUBLE

"I felt an object being pushed into my mouth, Ellis, who himself is employed as a personal injury barrister, recounted at the trial. I smelt stale alcohol. The defendant's speech was not coherent but he said 'Eat this you ----."

Gilmer, however, claimed that he never intended to steal any of the items he took  and further, that he never stuffed any money in Ellis mouth.

I had every intention of paying for [the snacks], Gilmer told the court. I was confronted by Ellis who said 'Why was I stealing?'

He was calling me a thief, Gilmer added. That's when I confronted him and said, How dare you say I am stealing food. He advised me he was a barrister and I said, In that case I will see you in court."

The Telegraph also reported that Gilmer claimed to have simply dropped the money into Mr. Ellis lap, although the magistrates overseeing the trial werent buying it.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Gilmer was found guilty of assault by beating, and ordered to pay a total of 1,740 pounds ($2,266) in fines and restitution, 250 of which ($325) went to Ellis.

Needless to say, Gilmer was not pleased with the outcome.

I wouldn't give the three magistrates a job in a car wash, he was quoted as saying on his way out of the courtroom.
United Airlines flight 898, which left from Houston for New Orleans on Sunday, was forced to return to Houston after a "disruptive customer" made a sprint for the cockpit, United confirmed in a statement to Fox News.

The disturbance started when the passenger began yelling and banging on the walls of the plane roughly halfway into the flight, reports KTRK.

I hear (her) screaming, We are all protected and loved! We are all protected and loved! This plane is going to land beautifully and kindly! said United passenger Julian Markowitz, who spoke with KTRK.

In an instant, she stands up, bolts to the aisle and started springing towards the cockpit, added Markowitz.

SEVERE TURBULENCE SENDS THREE UNITED PASSENGERS TO THE HOSPITAL IN HOUSTON

As soon as she started running, I stand up and ask the flight attendant, Can I help you with this? Do you need help? She said go for it, so I gently pushed the flight attendant out of the way and started sprinting after the woman myself.

Markowitz wasnt the only passenger who responded to the womans odd behavior. In total, he said it took five men to subdue the woman, including one off-duty pilot who was seated among the passengers.

She was in a very psychotic state. She was very aggressive, Markowitz told KTRK.

As they held the unruly passenger down, flight attendants provided them zip-tie handcuffs to restrain the womans wrists and ankles, in order to keep her down for the remainder of the flight back.

As Markowitz remembers, I sort of smiled to give everyone the sense that everyone is fine, the situation was under control.

Upon landing back at Bush Intercontinental Airport, police reportedly took custody of the woman.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

The airline has since issued a statement thanking its passengers and crew for handling the situation.

United flight 898 from Houston to New Orleans returned to Houston due to a disruptive customer. The flight landed safely, and law officials met the aircraft upon arrival, said United in a statement obtained by Fox News. We thank our customers for their patience, and our crew for their professional actions."
The death toll in what police called a horrific human trafficking case -- eight men died inside a sweltering 18-wheeler parked outside a San Antonio Walmart -- reached nine on Sunday.

James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, from Clearwater, Florida, was taken into custody, federal prosecutors said. No immediate charges were filed.

One additional man died at the hospital, according to Liz Johnson, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE had announced 10 were dead before revising the number to nine.

A total of 39 people had been inside the tractor-trailer, including at least four teenagers, Fox 29 reported. Twenty people were taken to area hospitals in critical condition, and another eight had less critical injuries.

"Were looking at human trafficking crime here this evening, Police Chief William McManus said, adding that it was "a horrific tragedy."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is also looking into the incident.

A store employee first alerted police after being approached by someone from the truck who was asking for water. The vehicle did not have a working air conditioning system when it was found, authorities said.

"They were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water," San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said in a news conference. "It was a mass casualty situation for us."

The National Weather Service said the temperature in San Antonio hit 101 degrees just before 5 p.m. Saturday and didn't dip below 90 degrees until after 10 p.m.

According to police, surveillance video from the store showed "a number of vehicles" picking up people who survived the trip that were inside the trailer. Some people fled into the woods, prompting police to search the area in the morning.

The origin of the truck is still unknown. Investigators gathered evidence from the truck on Sunday, which had an Iowa license plate but no other markings.

Thomas Homan, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director, said in a statement: "By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished."

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations works year-round to identify, dismantle, and disrupt the transnational criminal networks that smuggle people into and throughout the United States. These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle, as last night's case demonstrates," Homan said in the statement.

U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin, Jr. also called Sunday morning's incident "an alien smuggling venture gone horribly wrong."

"All were victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo," Durbin said, adding that the Justice Department will be working with Homeland Security and local responders in the investigation.

Other cases of human trafficking in the United States have led to more deaths. In May 2003, 19 immigrants who were being transported from South Texas to Houston inside a sweltering tractor-trailer died.

Click here for more from Fox 29.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Some of the people found packed in a sweltering 18-wheeler parked outside a San Antonio Walmart included Guatemalans and Mexican nationals, officials with both countries said Sunday, as the first details about the deadly alleged human-trafficking case started to emerge.

Eight men were found dead in the truck and one man died later at the hospital, according to Liz Johnson, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some 17 people were considered in "life-threatening" condition, The Associated Press reported. ICE had announced 10 were dead before revising the number to nine.

James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, from Clearwater, Florida, was taken into custody and is due in court Monday, U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr. said. He did not say whether Bradley was the driver of the truck, although investigators said earlier that the driver was in custody.

A criminal complaint will be filed in federal court in San

Antonio on Monday morning. It is anticipated that Bradley will have an initial appearance shortly after that time, reads a statement from the Attorneys Office.

Mexican nationals were among both the survivors and the dead, Mexican Consul General in San Antonio Reyna Torres said, without giving a specific number. Torres said the consulate has been in contact with relatives both in Mexico and in the U.S.

Guatemala's foreign ministry, meanwhile, said at least two Guatemalans were on the abandoned rig.

The two male survivors told Guatemalan consulate officials that they crossed the border by foot at Laredo and boarded the tractor-trailer, according to Tekandi Paniagua, communications director for the foreign ministry. The pair told officials their final destination was Houston, Paniagua added.

"This tragedy demonstrates the brutality of the network of which I often speak. These smugglers have no regard for human life and seek only profits," Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said Sunday night. Walmart released a brief statement Sunday saying it was doing what it could to help investigators.

A total of 39 people had been inside the tractor-trailer, including at least four teenagers, Fox 29 reported. Paramedics rushed as many as 20 people to hospitals in critical condition, with others facing less critical injuries.

"Were looking at human trafficking crime here this evening, Police Chief William McManus said, adding that it was "a horrific tragedy."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is also looking into the incident.

A store employee first alerted police after being approached by someone from the truck who was asking for water late Saturday or early Sunday. The vehicle did not have a working air conditioning system when it was found, authorities said.

"They were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water," San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said in a news conference. "It was a mass casualty situation for us."

The National Weather Service said the temperature in San Antonio hit 101 degrees just before 5 p.m. Saturday and didn't dip below 90 degrees until after 10 p.m.

According to police, surveillance video from the store showed "a number of vehicles" picking up people who survived the trip that were inside the trailer. Some people bolted into the woods, prompting police to search the area in the morning.

The origin of the truck is still unknown. Investigators gathered evidence from the truck on Sunday, which had an Iowa license plate but no other markings.

Thomas Homan, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director, said in a statement: "By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished."

Click here for more from Fox 29.

Fox News' Jake Gibson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Arizona emergency crews on Monday rescued 17 hikers -- including a 4-year-old boy -- who had been trapped in a canyon after flash floods swept through the area, with the first responders helping to avoid another flooding catastrophe in the state like the one that devastated a family the weekend before.

A Pima County Sheriff's Department helicopter rescued the last two hikers Monday morning after they spent the night in the canyon at Tanque Verde Falls, located outside of Tuscon. The other 15 hikers were airlifted out or walked to rescue teams the night before.

Search and rescue teams dropped food, water and blankets to the remaining hikers as they waited for raging waters to subside. The hikers were on a cliff surrounded by water.

"It takes time for the water to flow from the mountain down to the valley, and when it does it can be swift and deadly," Pima County sheriff's deputy Cody Gress said. "All too often, hikers decide to hike just after it rains because the air temperature is cooler, not realizing they are walking into areas which are at an increased risk for flash flooding."

The sheriff's warning is a stark reminder of the dangers of flash flooding. Ten members of a family were killed, including three children, when the group was caught in a flash flood at a popular swimming hole near Payson, about 100 miles northeast of Phoenix.

Four people survived the incident.
An 18-year-old woman has been arrested in California on suspicion of causing a deadly crash that was recorded live on Instagram.

Obdulia Sanchez was booked into the Merced County Jail on suspicion of DUI and vehicular manslaughter after Friday's crash that killed her 14-year-old sister, Jacqueline Sanchez of Stockton, and badly injured another 14-year-old girl.

Investigators are looking into a graphic video that may have been filmed by Obdulia Sanchez before, during and after the fatal crash. The live video, originally posted to Instagram, was went viral on social media, according to Fox 40.

I f------ love my sister to death. I don't give a f---. We about to die, Sanchez can be heard saying in the video. This is the last thing I wanted to happen to us but it just did. Jacqueline, please wake up. This is the last thing I wanted to happen.

I killed my sister, but I don't care. I killed my sister. I know I'm going to prison, but I don't care. I'm sorry baby. I'm a hold it down....rest in peace sweetie."

The California Highway Patrol said Sanchez was driving the car under the influence when it veered onto the right shoulder of a road about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco. She over-corrected, causing the vehicle to swerve across lanes, crash through a wire fence and overturn into a field causing Jaqueline to die upon impact.

"She was in the back seat of the vehicle and allegedly unseatbelted, and upon the vehicle rolling over, it ejected her and killed her," Sheriff Vern Warnke said to ABC 30. Family members confirm the video was shot by Obdulia to the TV station. They also said that Jacqueline was supposed to celebrate her Quinceanera (15th birthday) on Sunday.

An unidentified 14-year-old girl from Fresno was also in the car and was badly injured.

Sanchez is now in the Merced County Jail on charges of vehicular manslaughter while under the influence and DUI.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
A Detroit-area councilmans son shot a suspected drug dealer to death this weekend using a rifle he concealed in a garbage bag, police said.

Joseph Pruneau, 33, the son of River Rouge City councilman Mark Pruneau, was charged Monday in the shooting death of Robert Cook, 59, Fox 2 Detroit reported.

Pruneau allegedly rode his bicycle to Cook's home with a rifle on Friday and opened fire when Cook let him into his house.

Cook was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead later that night. Meanwhile, Pruneau fled the scene on his bike, officials said.

SAN ANTONIO TRAILER DEATHS: DRIVER CHARGED AFTER 10 DIE IN SWELTERING TRUCK

Police caught up with Pruneau soon afterward, however, and arrested him.

Pruneau was charged with murder and felony firearm. He was expected to be arraigned Monday.

Click here for more from Fox 2 Detroit.
PG One [Photo/CGTN]

"Do you have freestyle?"

That's the buzz word in China these days. The catchphrase came from "The Rap of China", the country's first talent show that centers on hip-hop artists, many of them previously underground.

With hundreds of millions of views since its launch in late June, the show has quickly put these artists, as well as the music genre, into the limelight.

PG One, just 23 years old, is one of the contestants that quickly rose to stardom after the show went on air.

The former underground battle MC had already had a modest following before, but after he rapped about Chinese hip hop and his own flow in his segment, his life changed.

PG One told CGTN: "Before, when my relatives asked what I do, 'hip-hop' only made them puzzled. Now, they say I'm cool. And we are recognized everywhere."

He also said, "We've been doing hip hop for quite a while now, but it's all underground. Standing on this stage, we get to show Chinese hip hop. That it's just as good. I feel the door has opened for us."

His fellow hip-hop artist BrAnT B, just 19, echos: "Clubs are playing our music now... And it's good to see everyone, including foreigners, swaying to our beats."

PG One, BrAnT B and the rap group they both belong to have now landed a record deal.

Their rise of fame may be sudden, but many in the industry also say that less than two decades since hip hop's introduction  via artists from Taiwan  it's only a matter of time before the music hits it big.

And the show "The Rap of China" says that time is now.

For the musicians, they say they're sticking to this genre because the music born on the American streets is also close to their hearts.

Chen Wei, senior vice president of iQIYI and chief producer of "The Rap of China", told CGTN: "We think it is on the threshold of becoming really big and mainstream. So we think we can give it a bit of a push and let Asia, and the world, know that, hey, we've got great, rising Chinese hip hop. And we did just that."

Chen says he had a rough idea of the show's success when he realized that everything hip is also everything hip hop.

He said: "In China today, hip hop culture is synonymous with fashion, and it's synonymous with the whole 'It' culture. That's one special thing about China's hip hop."
Japanese authorities say they're wrapping up their investigation into last month's collision of a freighter and a U.S. naval destroyer without any verdict into what caused the accident, which left seven Navy sailors dead.

The container ship and most of its crew were allowed to leave Japan and coast guard officials said they don't expect charges to be filed. A spokesman for the company that owns the freighter said Monday that the captain and some crew members had voluntarily stayed behind.

The U.S. military holds the right to investigate its naval vessel and has not cooperated with Japan's investigation.

Both U.S. and Japanese officials haven't said whether crew members from the USS Fitzgerald were thought to be responsible for the crash.
President Trump's son-in-law and key adviser Jared Kushner released a rare public statement Monday ahead of expected Congressional testimony, denying that he colluded with Russia during Trump's campaign and calling the meeting hehad with a Russia-linked attorney a "waste of our time."

In a prepared statement to the committees obtained by Fox News, Kushner laid out his dealings with foreign leaders and said none constitute campaign collusion.

I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government, reads a section of his statement. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form [security clearance], above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.

Kushner detailed four contacts he had with Russians during the presidential campaign and transition.

Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time ..."  Jared Kushner

With respect to my contacts with Russia or Russian representatives during the campaign, there were hardly any, he said in the statement, before recalling when he was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington in April 2016, when his father-in-law delivered a speech on foreign policy and he was introduced to four ambassadors at the event, which included then Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trumps speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to Americas foreign policy, Kushner recalled. The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.

Kushner denied reports he took two calls with Kislyak between April and November 2016.

I had no ongoing relationship with the ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then. In fact, on Nov. 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian ambassador, he said.

In the statement, Kushner detailed the June 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer, news of which emerged ealier this month and gave new momentum to Democrat claims the Trump administration secretly worted with the Kremlin to game the election.

I arrived at the meeting a little late. When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting, he recalls in the statement. Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting."

I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since. I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently.

Emails released this month show Donald Trump Jr. accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until he was recently shown them by his lawyers. Kushner says in his statement that Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting.

The release of the statement comes just hours before he is to be interviewed by a Senate committee investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion by Trump associates.

The interview with the Senate intelligence committee will be behind closed doors.

The Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.
The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Justine Damond was put on an accelerated police cadet program that required only seven months of training, a nontraditional route that aims to help those who have a college degree enter law enforcement.

Mohamed Noor, 31, shot Damond, 40, after she called 911 to report a sexual assault behind her home. When she approached the drivers side of the squad car, Noor fired from the passenger side, across his partner, killing Damond.

MINNESOTA POLICE OFFICER WHO SHOT, KILLED AUSTRALIAN WOMAN OFFERS CONDOLENCES

The Minnesota Police Department has been under fire since the July 15 shooting. Many have questioned Noors experience and training after only graduating in 2015. However, former Police Chief Janee Harteau, who resigned last week, stood by Noors training.

We have a very robust training and hiring process, Harteau told reporters at a news conference last Thursday. This officer completed that training very well, just like every officer. He was very suited to be on the street."

But others believe the fast-track program could leave officers ill prepared handle real-world police scenarios.

The cadet program is rigorous, no doubt, James Densley, a criminal justice associate professor at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, told the Star Tribune, but it is also an immersive paramilitary experience, taught by practitioner faculty without advanced degrees, and I suspect it leaves students with a limited view of the profession.

MISSING ALABAMA BOY, 2, FOUND DEAD IN POOL

Nate Grove, the head of the State Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (which controls police training and sets objectives) said that the nontraditional routes are no less rigorous in Minnesota than the traditional ones. The Peace Officer Licensing Examination includes 275 questions and takes about two to three hours to complete.

Damond's shooting death has been ruled a homicide by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office.
A toddler who disappeared during a wedding reception was found Sunday at the bottom of a murky pool -- hours after officials initially searched the pool and surrounding area.

The Birmingham Police Department told FOX 6 News that 2-year-old Marquavis Threat's was last seen after midnight Sunday, during a wedding reception in east Birmingham. He was found hours later in the pool.

Lt. Sean Edwards told FOX 6 the homeowners initially did not want investigators to enter the house.

"There was a little hesitation," he said. "Cooperation wasn't there 100-percent initially."

Several people were being questioned by police in connection with the death, officials said.

Read more from FOX 6 News.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer predicted Sunday that a "cataclysm" could be triggered if President Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller or pardons himself.

The high-ranking senator from New York made the comments on Sunday during an interview on ABCs This Week despite Trumps lawyers saying on the same program that pardons are not being discussed.

LAST-GASP EFFORT?

The Senate will move forward with a key vote this week on a Republican health bill but it's a mystery what exactly they will be voting on.

It is not yet known whether the legislation will seek to replace President Obama's health care law or simply repeal it.

GREGG JARRETT

The law is common sense. Yet, it is created by lawmakers who seem to be lacking any sense at all. Many of them do not understand their own laws.

Nancy Pelosi recently proved this point. The House Minority Leader held a news conference, surrounded by like-minded Democrats, during which she declared that Donald Trump Jr. had broken campaign laws when he met with a Russian lawyer during last years presidential campaign to obtain negative information on the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

TALIBAN CLAIM SUICIDE BOMBING

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for a horrific attack in the Afghan capital that killed 24 people and wounded 42.

A statement released to the media by the Taliban says they carried out the suicide car bombing. The early morning attack targeted a bus carrying employees of the mines and petroleum ministry.

COMING UP ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL

12:30 PM ET: Former Attorney General Eric Holder delivers keynote remarks during the Clarence Mitchell Memorial Luncheon at the NAACP Convention. Watch live on FoxNews.com.

6 PM ET: President Trump remarks at the National Boy Scout Jamboree. Watch live on FoxNews.com and Fox News Channel

COMING UP ON FOX BUSINESS

6 AM ET: Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, former CIA senior intel officer, will be on Mornings with Maria

11:15 AM ET - Dana Loesch, NRA spokesperson, will be a guest on Varney & Company

NOON: Tevi Troy, former HHS deputy secretary, will appear on Cavuto: Coast to Coast
New signs in Manchester, N.H. are asking people to stop giving money to panhandlers.

Often standing at busy intersections, panhandlers put themselves in the heart of traffic with a sign asking people to help them by donating spare change or a few bucks. But police say this is dangerous and the unsafe behavior needs to stop.

Manchester Police Chief Nick Willard tweeted a photo of the new signs posted around town Monday, which ask people to donate to a local charity instead of giving money to these people.

The picture even has a woman with a cardboard sign standing next to one of the news warnings.

"Your generosity could l lead to a fatality," the sign reads.

The sign also has a list of a few local charities you could support.

Willard also offered a look at similar signs in New York City that discourage panhandling.

Click for more from Fox 25 Boston.
An Iredell County man is being held on a $1 million bond after he sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl and injured her to the point she will need surgery, police said.

The Iredell County Sheriff's Office was called to Olin Loop Road on Saturday, July 22 in reference to a possible sexual assault.

Upon arrival, deputies found a 7-year-old girl who they said had obvious injuries consistent with a sexual assault. Detectives conducted an interview with the mother of the child and learned that she has four children, two with the suspect, Brentley Jason Byers.

The mother stated that she had left home around 7 a.m. Friday, July 21 to go to work and didnt return until around 1 p.m. Saturday, July 22.

TEXAS POLITICIAN BLAMES TRUCK DEATHS ON SANCTUARY CITIES

She told deputies that when she arrived home, she found her 4-year-old girl sitting in a chair in the living room with blood on her and Byers asleep on the couch. The 4-year-old told her mother that Byers, the person she refers to as her father, did this to her.

The sheriff's office said it was determined that Byers was left with all four children but another family member had come by late on Friday and picked up two of the kids. Indications were that the crime occurred during the night when only two small children and Byers were home.

Click here for more from Fox 46.
Several homes were destroyed, roofs were ripped off of buildings and thousands of people were left without power after a violent storm system unleashed a possible tornado early Monday morning on Marylands Kent Island.

Queen Annes County officials said approximately 8,000 residents were left without power and residents were being asked to shelter in place after the storm.

Aerial images over Kent Island showed several homes had been completely leveled and others sustained extensive damage. Elsewhere, downed trees littered backyards and boats were blown from the water onto dry land.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which connects the island to central Maryland, was temporarily closed because of the storm.

Only minor injuries were reported, officials said. One person was treated at a local hospital and released.

Route 8 into Kent Island was currently closed to traffic except for residents.

The National Weather Service on Monday was still investigating the storm system and had not yet classified it as a tornado, according to Fox 5, which reported the highest winds occurred around 1:30 a.m. at 68 miles per hour.

Officials also said schools on Kent Island would be closed Monday and Centreville Middle School would be used as a shelter.

Click here for more from Fox 5.
A California professor is facing a backlash over a social media rant in which he calls Sen. John McCain, who is battling a brain tumor, a war criminal.

KGTV reports that those who have criticized San Diego State University professor Jonathan Graubart for his comments include students enrolled at the college.

I find myself annoyed at the groundswell of good wishes for John McCain after his diagnosis of glioblastoma and have been thinking through why," Graubart wrote on Facebook Friday, the same day McCain went public with the illness.

Graubart then made an analogy about elite lives and ordinary lives and circled back to McCain.

McCain is a war criminal and, more to the point, someone who as a politician has championed horrifying actions and been lousy on state commitment to public health," the professor said. "So dying or not, he's a risible public figure (I have no idea what he is like on the personal level and don't care).

Graubart concluded by saying, But ultimately what troubles me is the urge to send such well wishes to an utter stranger as it reinforces the notion that some lives are more important than others. There are lots of people with glioblastoma and who have died from it (including my mother 20 years ago).

McCain's doctors found the tumor after the senator underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye.

SDSU student Ben Dilbeck told the station Graubarts comments were shocking.

I would never wish cancer upon my worst enemy and then to be annoyed by people just wishing you the best for having cancer, I just thought it was totally inappropriate, he said.

The station also interviewed former SDSU student Colby Tunick who read what the professor wrote while in Prague.

I think I was a little disturbed, to be quite honest, Tunick told the station, via Skype. "You may disagree with someone politically, morally, philosophically, but you dont wish someone harm.

He also said he wasnt surprised about the post.

He has told me that he thinks its his job as an academic to stir controversy and he normally does that through Facebook," Tunick said.

But some people defended Graubart, saying hes entitled to speak his mind. They described him as a man of integrity and intelligence.

The College Republicans of SDSU, a student group, posted a statement on social media Sunday condemning Graubarts remarks.

As an academic authority at SDSU, Dr. Graubarts sickening lack of respect toward Senator McCain will not be tolerated by our organization and should not be tolerated by university administration, the statement said.

An SDSU spokesperson told KGTV the university does not have a social media policy for faculty and staff.

As a public institution, we do not and cannot regulate the private speech of students, faculty or staff, the spokesperson said. However, that should not imply the universitys endorsement of any particular viewpoint.

Graubert issued a statement to Fox News explaining his post.

"It bears emphasis that this was on my personal Facebook post, which rarely gets many readers, even for the ones I make public," he said. "Hence, I was not writing it with a large public in mind and therefore this was written in an off-the-cuff manner, rather than with careful deliberation."

Graubarts SDSU bio says his specialty as a professor are the areas of international relations and international law. It says he is a former San Francisco lawyer who worked in the Treasury Department when Ronald Reagan was president.
The man accused of allowing 10 people to bake to death inside a sweltering trailer Sunday was charged on Monday with a slew of offenses related to the botched smuggling mission -- and if convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Federal authorities charged the alleged driver of the tractor-trailer, James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Fla., with transporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

A complaint filed Monday accuses Bradley of driving a trailer packed with illegal immigrants for "commercial advantage or private financial gain," which carries the possibility of the death penalty or life in prison.

According to federal prosecutors, officials responded to the Walmart store around midnight Sunday, and found several people "standing and lying in the rear of the trailer" while Bradley was in the cab. Bradley told officers he only discovered people in the trailer "when he exited the vehicle to relieve himself," and attempted to administer aid to them.

During questioning, Bradley said he was traveling from Laredo to San Antonio, after having the tractor-trailer washed and detailed at a truck stop near Laredo, around 150 miles away, officials said. Bradley told authorities he was taking the trailer to Brownsville to deliver it to someone who had purchased it.

When he stopped at the Walmart, Bradley told investigators he heard banging and shaking in the trailer, and was surprised "when he was run over by Spanish people and knocked to the ground, according to the complaint.

Bradley said he knew the trailer's refrigeration system did not work, and that the four vent holes probably were clogged, according to officials. In addition, Bradley said he called his wife, but he did not call 911 from the Walmart parking lot, prosecutors said.

When interviewed by officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, several people taken from the trailer described how they were smuggled across the Rio Grande River near Laredo at different times and as part of different groups.

"They were harbored in one or more stash locations, and on Sunday, the groups were assembled in the trailer," according to the complaint. One person told authorities his group of 24 had been in a "stash house" in Laredo for 11 days before being loaded into the trailer.

"To maximize their criminal profits, these human smugglers crammed more than 100 people into a tractor trailer in the stifling Texas summer heat resulting in ten dead and 29 others hospitalized," Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said in a statement.

A survivor of the trip told the Associated Press that he lost consciousness because he was dehydrated and sweating profusely. He said when he woke up, he was on a San Antonio hospital bed.

Adan Lalravega, 27, said people cried and pleaded for water and that he heard children' voices whimper in the desperate humanity. He said he was told by smugglers, who charged him $5,500 for the trip, that hed be riding in air conditioning. He and his six friends were picked up in a safe house in Laredo, Texas.

The trip from Laredo to San Antonio is about two hours and Lalravega says he and his friends got in the trailer between 10 and 11 p.m. He says he never saw the truck driver and was never offered water.

Officials feared the death toll could still rise, because nearly 20 others rescued from the truck were in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

Spokesman Don Finley at University Hospital in San Antonio says two of the seven patients who arrived there Sunday have been discharged. Finley says four men and one woman remain at the hospital, in conditions ranging from good to critical. At the San Antonio Military Medical Center on the Fort Sam Houston Army post, spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez says all five patients admitted to the hospital Sunday remain in treatment.

Spokeswoman Patti Tanner says none of the patients admitted to various Baptist Health System hospitals in San Antonio have been discharged.

TEXAS' LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR BLAMES TRUCK DEATHS ON SANCTUARY CITIES THAT 'ENABLE HUMAN SMUGGLERS'

Mexican nationals were among both the survivors and the dead, Mexican Consul General in San Antonio Reyna Torres said. Torres did not give a specific number, but said the consulate has been in contact with relatives both in Mexico and in the U.S.

Guatemala's foreign ministry, meanwhile, said at least two Guatemalans were on the abandoned rig. The two male survivors told Guatemalan Consulate officials they crossed the border by foot at Laredo and boarded the tractor-trailer, according to Tekandi Paniagua, communications director for the foreign ministry. The pair told officials their final destination was Houston, Paniagua added.

"This tragedy demonstrates the brutality of the network of which I often speak. These smugglers have no regard for human life and seek only profits," Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said in a statement Sunday. Walmart released a brief statement Sunday saying it was doing what it could to help investigators.

The U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations was leading the investigation, with support from the San Antonio Police Department and San Antonio Fire Department.

A store employee first alerted police after being approached by someone from the truck who was asking for water early Sunday.

"They were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water," San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said in a news conference. "It was a mass casualty situation for us."

The National Weather Service said the temperature in San Antonio hit 101 degrees just before 5 p.m. Saturday and didn't dip below 90 degrees until after 10 p.m.

The Border Patrol has reported at least four truck seizures this month in and around Laredo, Texas. On July 7, agents found 72 people crammed into a truck with no means of escape, the agency said. They were from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Read more from FOX 29.

Fox News' Jake Gibson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
A portrait of Jane Austen.

Jane Austen's oeuvres have been grabbing Chinese readers' attentions for decades now. And as the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of her death earlier this week, Chinese fans recall their first encounter with the English novelist.

Meng Qingtao, a 26-year-old media worker, said his most favorite book of Austen is "Pride and Prejudice". He discovered the author after watching a movie adaptation of the novel in one scorching summer afternoon in 2009.

"At the time, I was busy with studies at high school but I was touched by the female protagonist in the romantic story and I got hooked on Jane Austen."

Later, he was introduced to another work of Austen that made it to the big screen "Sense and Sensibility," which was directed by Ang Lee and starred Anne Hathaway.

Meng said Austen's stories were filled with critical realism and satirized the seemingly insurmountable social ladder barricades for marriage seekers in the British society at the time. Still, those hurdles could give way to love eventually.

"I feel that the most appealing part of her novel is the emotional depiction of the protagonist  delicate and tender such as Elizabeth in 'Pride and Prejudice'. Austen presents the figure as a character of high self-esteem and unwilling to compromise, which is timeless".

Asked why Jane's books are so popular in China, Meng said a part of the modern Chinese society could not do without "literary youth". Their aspiration for literature and art matches their cravings for daily coffee, indispensable but simple.

"From libraries to bookstores, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf or George Orwell are neatly placed on shelves and recommended for students to read after class. Though Jane Austen was not widely read like Shakespeare, it's a fact that she has been recognized and celebrated by readers." Meng added.

One hundred years of Jane Austen in China

In 1917, the first Chinese monograph entitled Brief Profiles of Famous Western Novelists by Wei Yi, a Chinese translator, mentioned Jane Austen, marking the first notion of the British author in the minds of the Chinese audience.

In 1935, two Chinese versions of Pride and Prejudice were published, one by Peking University Press and the other by Shanghai Commercial Press.

In 1996, China joined the World Copyright Treaty, and the unauthorized trslation of modern and contemporary writers ceased while those of classic writers like Jane Austen thrived.

In 2017, a six-volume collection of Austen's literary repertoire was published by the People's Literature Publishing House, with illustrations from Hugh Thomson.

Throughout 41 years of her life, Jane Austen wrote six novels including the prestigious "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility".

Austen's novels have in a way anticipated the evolution towards modern society, especially as they revealed marriage aspirations from a female perspective.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick railed against sanctuary cities on Sunday after at authorities in his state discovered eight people dead inside a sweltering tractor-trailer in a San Antonio Walmart parking lot and about 17 others in critical condition. Two additional victims later died at the hospital, bringing the death toll to 10.

Patrick, a Republican, posted on Facebook that the tragedy is why he pushed a bill to ban sanctuary cities.

"Sanctuary cities entice people to believe they can come to America and Texas and live outside the law. Sanctuary cities also enable human smugglers and cartels. Today, these people paid a terrible price and demonstrate why we need a secure border and legal immigration reform so we can control who enters our country. We continue to pray for the families and friends of the victims," he posted.

Authorities were called to the parking lot late Saturday or early Sunday and found eight people dead inside the truck. Two additional victims died at the hospital, officials said.

The victims "were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water," San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. Authorities would not say whether the trailer was locked when they arrived, but they said it had no working air conditioning.

It was just the latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in tragedy. In one of the worst cases on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

Based on initial interviews with survivors of the San Antonio tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at one point in its journey, ICE acting Director Thomas Homan said. Officials said 39 people were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination.

Four of the survivors appeared to be between 10 and 17 years old, Homan said. Investigators gave no details on where the rig began its journey or where it was headed.

But Homan said it was unlikely the truck was used to carry the immigrants across the border into the United States. He said people from Latin America who rely on smuggling networks typically cross the border on foot and are then picked up by a driver.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute," Homan said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, was taken into custody and would be charged on Monday in federal court. The local U.S. Attorney's Office wouldn't say whether Bradley was the alleged driver of the truck who was arrested. It was not immediately known whether Bradley had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department stepped in to take the lead in the investigation from San Antonio police. Department Secretary John Kelly said the incident demonstrates the brutality of smuggling organizations that "have no regard for human life and seek only profits."

The truck had an Iowa license plate and was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa. A company official did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.

San Antonio is about a 150-mile drive from the Mexican border. The temperature in San Antonio reached 101 degrees on Saturday and didn't dip below 90 degrees until after 10 p.m.

The tragedy came to light after a person from the truck approached a Walmart employee and asked for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, said McManus, the local police chief.

The employee gave the person water and then called police, who found the dead and the desperate inside the rig. Some of those in the truck ran into the woods, McManus said.

Investigators checked store surveillance video, which showed vehicles arriving and picking up people from the truck, authorities said. Walmart released a brief statement Sunday saying it was doing what it could to help investigators.

Bob Libal is executive director of Grassroots Leadership, an Austin-based nonprofit that supports more liberal immigration policies.

"These tragedies are compounded when it's incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive and we push migration into the hands of illicit actors," Libal told The AP in a phone interview. "Everyone's thoughts today should be not in politicizing it but in making sure that everyone who survived this ordeal is treated with respect and get the protection they need."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
The U.S. is set to conduct another missile defense test this weekend, with the latest exercise based on a remote Alaskan island and coming amid the growing ballistic missile threat from North Korea.

A notice put out by the U.S. Coast Guard last week warns of hazardous operations, saying The Alaska Aerospace Corporation is conducting a rocket launch from the Kodiak Narrow Cape Launch Facility, located on Kodiak Island, Alaska. They are warning vessels to steer clear of several areas between Alaska and Hawaii during the launch which is scheduled for July 29.

The U.S. military is set to conduct a test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile shield at the Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska "soon," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told Fox News on Monday.

What is unimaginable to me is allowing a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colo. My job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesnt happen.  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford

Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Logan declined to comment on the plan or its connection to the ongoing threat from North Korea. The U.S. has conducted a spate of successful missile intercept tests in recent months as Pyongyang has executed offensive missile testing.

We continue to monitor North Korea, but are not going to comment on matters of intelligence, Logan told Fox News.

On July 11, the U.S. test-fired its THAAD anti-ballistic missile system from Kodiak Island, successfully intercepting a target missile launched from an Air Force Cargo plane north of Hawaii.

That test took place one week after North Korea test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) on July 4. That was the regimes most successful test, leading to the concern that it has the capability to reach the United States.

THAAD is used to intercept short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. It does not target intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S. has a perfect record on launches, hitting 14 out of 14 targets.

"I couldn't be more proud of the government and contractor team who executed this flight test today," said Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves after the successful test. "This test further demonstrates the capabilities of the THAAD weapon system and its ability to intercept and destroy ballistic missile threats. THAAD continues to protect our citizens, deployed forces and allies from a real and growing threat."

THAAD systems have been placed in Guam and South Korea to counter missile threats from North Korea, whose leader, dictator Kim Jong Un, has become increasingly belligerent in recent months.

Kim Jong Uns regime is tied to nuclear program, and what I can tell the American people today is North Korea is capable of launching a limited missile attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford said Saturday. He was answering questions at the 2017 Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colo. He went on to say The United States military can defend against a limited North Korea attack on Seoul, Japan and the United States.

Regarding possible military options against North Korea, he said that would be horrific and that the loss of life would be unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes.

He did concede It is not unimaginable to have military options on the Korean peninsula, saying What is unimaginable to me is allowing a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colo. My job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesnt happen.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson at the Pentagon contributed to this report.
A manhunt was under way on Monday for a chainsaw-wielding attacker who wounded five people -- one seriously -- at a health insurer's office building in Switzerland.

The attacker entered the building in Schaffhausen, 23 miles north of Zurich, about 10:40 a.m. local time, wounding several employees. Police initially said two people had been seriously injured but later corrected the statement.

A shop owner in the area told local news site Blick a man with a chainsaw was walking through the streets terrorizing shoppers. The attacker fled the scene by the time police arrived, but officials identified the suspect as Franz Wrousis, 51, who has two previous convictions for weapon offenses.

Police released photos of Wrousis and described him as a bald man with an unkempt appearance. Wrousis previously registered himself as living in Graubuenden in southern Switzerland.

On Monday afternoon, police discovered the Volkswagen they believed Wrousis was driving. It wasn't immediately clear if investigators found significant evidence in the vehicle.

Police said the attack "is not a terrorist act," but warned residents to avoid the suburban town as they searched for Wrousis.

"This was first and foremost a crime against this insurance agency," senior regional police official Ravi Landolt told reporters, though there was no exact word on the suspect's motive.

"We have information that this man is dangerous, that he is aggressive and, shall we say, psychologically disturbed," Landolt added.

Therese Karrer, who often walks her dog in woods south of Schaffhausen, said she saw Wrousis several times in the last few weeks.

"I talked to him a few times and walked by his car every day with our dog," said Karrer, who lives in the village of Uhwiesen.

Karrer said Wrousis showed up three or four weeks ago in the forest and chatted with her once when he was having breakfast behind his car.

"He may have been a little strange, but he wasn't unfriendly," she said. "I never felt threatened."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A 10-year-old girl who says she was raped and impregnated by her uncle is trying to win permission from India's Supreme Court to abort the child, with the girl's parents claiming her body isn't developed enough to carry the baby.

India's Supreme Court agreed to allow doctors to examine the girl, who is 26 weeks pregnant, the BBC reported. Indian law forbids women to have an abortion when they are more than 20 weeks pregnant unless doctors say the mother's life is in jeopardy.

Doctors at Chandigarh's Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research will examine the girl on Wednesday. They are set to assess which carries the greater risk: carrying the baby to term or having an abortion.

ABORTION ACTIVISTS FEEL THE PRESSURE AMID STATE AND FEDERAL MOVES TO DEFUND CLINICS

The girl claimed her uncle raped her several times in the last seven months. Her parents only recently found out their daughter was pregnant when the girl complained about stomach pains, the BBC reported. The uncle, who was not identified, has been arrested.

A district court turned down the parents' petition to allow their daughter to have an abortion last week even though doctors who already examined the girl have declared her pelvic bones are not fully developed enough to safely carry a child.

The family's lawyer said the baby and mother were at "very serious risk," regardless if she has a natural birth or a cesarean-section.

INDIAN GIRL, 10, GRANTED ABORTION AFTER RAPE

In May, a panel of doctors allowed another 10-year-old girl to have an abortion. She claimed her stepfather had raped her.

India's tough abortion law has been in place since 1971. It was first passed to prevent illegal and unsafe abortions -- when expecting mothers would abort their child after undergoing fetal gender testing.
After telling protesters to "shut up" near the start of his State of the Nation speech, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte again warned drug dealers in his country they would face "jail or hell."

The fiery and unpredictable Duterte initially faced off against thousands of protesters who showed up to demonstrate during his speech to Congress on Monday.

The protesters demanded Duterte deliver on promises made in his first State of the Nation speech last year and interrupted him by shouting we want peace talks! To which he responded: Shut up first. I dont want to face you if you are like that.

The government recently halted preliminary peace talks with communist rebels after attacks on Philippine security forces last week.

PHILIPPINE CONGRESS MARTIAL LAW IN SOUTH AMID SIEGE

Some lawmakers protested Duterte as well, including one wearing hand painted clothing with messages about Martial Law. Duterte won congressional approval on Saturday for an extension of Martial Law in the south of the country where the government is dealing with pro-ISIS militants. Other protesters wore beading with the words Regular Jobs Now."

Duterte reiterated his plea for Congress to re-impose the death penalty for drug offenders and other criminals, and said he would not stop his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs.

"The fight will not stop until those who deal in (drugs) understand that they have to stop because the alternatives are either jail or hell," he said.

PHILIPPINES CANCELS TALKS WITH COMMUNIST REBELS AMID ATTACKS

Duterte also addressed the United States in his speech by demanding America give back three church bells that were seized more than a century ago in the Philippine village of Balangiga.

"Give us back those Balangiga bellsThey are part of our national heritage ... return it to us, this is painful for us, Duterte said in the speech at the House of Representatives -- with the U.S. ambassador in attendance.

Duterte is the Philippines 16th president and the annual State of the Nation speech was only his second during his non-renewable term 6-year term.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The latest round of violence that has plagued the region for more than a week has spilled over into neighboring Jordan, and could further complicate international efforts to lower tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land.

On Sunday, an Israeli security guard shot and killed two Jordanians at an Israeli diplomatic apartment in Amman. Jordanian officials want to question the Israeli security guard who says he was stabbed by one of the two men.

The attacker was reportedly Mohammad Jawawdah, a 17-year old carpenter working at the apartment who used a screwdriver to stab the Israeli guard.

AMID FLARING TENSIONS, ISRAEL INSTALLS CAMERAS AT HOLY SITE

His father told the Reuters News agency his son did not have any militant links.

My son was not a troublemaker or a terrorist and he did not belong to any political parties, said Zakaria Jawawdah, whose family has Palestinian roots.

According to Israeli officials, the second Jordanian was the apartment landlord and was inadvertently shot.

The deadly shooting comes as President Donald Trump has sent his Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt to the region to help calm tensions that have erupted over Jerusalems holiest site.

The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary. The long contested compound is the holiest site in Judaism and the third most sacred spot in Islam.

JERUSALEM VIOLENCE LEAVES THREE DEAD, CLOSE TO 400 INJURED

Since 1967, it has been governed by a fragile pact known as the Status Quo agreement. Under this deal, two Islamic shrines  the Dome of the Rock and the al Aqsa Mosque  are maintained by Jordanian religious authorities, known as the Waqf.

Israel installed metal detectors at the Muslim entrance to the shrine after three Arab Israeli gunman launched an attack from it and killed two Israeli police officers.

The move set off large protests by Palestinians who vowed to resist the new security measures.

The Palestinian people took a decision to fight against this apartheid movement that separates between the people and its mosque, said Amira, a Palestinian.

TWO OFFICERS KILLED IN JERUSALEM'S HOLIEST SITE, POLICE SAY

Muslims viewed this installation of metal detectors as a unilateral step that violates the Status Quo agreement, and an effort by the Israeli government to seize control of the religious site.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied this is the aim of his government, insisting that the metal detectors have been installed to provide security at the holy site.

Fridays violence left hundreds of Palestinians injured and at least three dead. Later in the day, a Palestinian snuck into the West Bank Israeli settlement of Halamish and stabbed four Israelis, killing three.

The Associated Press and the Reuters News agency contributed to this report.
What is coolsculpting? How to get desired results? If you are confused about the treatment,
RIXEYVILLE  Beulah Baptist Church parishioners received a wealth of information about the importance of voting, life insurance, estate planning and preparing a final tribute to a loved one.

About 85 worshipers filled the church on Eggbornsville Road during Sundays Friends & Family Day, which featured a casual setting of several church goers donning purple t-shirts with the words Straight Outta Beulah written on the back.

Before introducing Justin Fairfax, who is the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Beulah pastor Kenneth Pitts reminded the crowd that Beulah Baptist Church doesnt endorse any particular political party or candidate.

Today is an information day. When we get more information, it makes for a better church, said Pitts. When we are informed then we can go out and spread the gospel. Its up to you to make an informed decision about who you are going to vote for based on what the candidate is offering you.

Before speaking, Fairfax, a 38-year-old lawyer, took the time to shake hands and briefly chat with everyone as he made his way up and down both aisles of the church.

Fairfax said hes the second African American candidate to seek the lieutenant governor seat since former Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder did so more than 30 years ago. Wilder was the first African American elected as Virginias lieutenant governor serving from January 1986 until January 1990 and serving as Governor of Virginia from January 1990 to January 1994.

A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native and youngest of four children, Fairfax was raised in inner city Washington, D.C. and describes his family as having little money, but was rich in love and spiritually. He recalls his neighborhood transforming from a close-knit middle-class community to one ravaged by a growing drug epidemic, increasing violence and dwindling economic opportunities.

You all remember what D.C. what like then. It was a tough place to grow up. It was the murder capital of the country. I lost so many friends to gun violence, drugs, to a broken criminal justice system and to a lack of opportunity in education. But even in the midst of that storm, God held us tight and with the help of my family, church, neighbors, friends and in some cases complete strangers, my mom was able to send all four of her children to college and two of us to law school, Fairfax shared with the congregation. We did not have a lot of money, but we had faith and hope.

Fairfax added that he was surrounded by spiritual wealth.

When people give you that kind of spiritual wealth, you cant simply sit back and enjoy a comfortable situation. You have to fight. And the same way people fought for me, I will fight for you, promised the married father of two.

Fairfax added that hes traveled 40,000 miles around the state to share his message to fully fund schools, make college affordable for everyone and make sure that everyone gets health care.

Fairfax is a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and federal prosecutor, who served as deputy of the Major Crimes & Narcotics Unit as a member of the Human Trafficking Task Force.

Fairfax said Virginia is No. 1 when it comes to the school-to-prison pipeline, which illustrates the increasing encounters students have with the juvenile and adult criminal systems. According to the togetherrva.org/news website, six students for every 1,000 were referred to law enforcement nationally in 2016, but Virginia nearly tripled the national rate with an average of 16 referrals for every 1,000 students.

That has to change, Fairfax urged. We have made it clear that we want to destroy and break that school-to-prison pipeline. Our mission is for everyone to dream big and that everyone should have opportunities no matter where they start or who they love or how much money their family has.

Fairfax, who owns a dental practice in Northern Virginia with his wife, urged the congregation to get out and vote in November.

We need your help, prayers, support and encouragement. There is a time for spiritual revival in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We can create a better future for our children, concluded Fairfax.

On June 13, Fairfax defeated fellow Democrats Susan Platt and Gene Rossi in the primary election with 49 percent or 252,400 votes. Hell face Jill Holtzman Vogel, who also won in June with 42.7 percent or 151,998 votes during the Republican Primary over Bryce Reeves and Glenn Davis. Fairfax and Vogel will face off during the gubernatorial election on Nov. 7.

Fairfax received scholarships to Duke University where he graduated with a bachelors degree in public policy studies and he received his law degree from Columbia Law School.

Kienta Tibbs, co-owner and director of Tibbs Funeral Home & Cremation in Culpeper, also spoke on Sunday, urging the congregation to think about obtaining insurance.

Ive found over the past few years that a lot of families are coming in with insurance policies and its not enough to cover the funeral bill which then puts the strain on the other family members left to cover the difference, said Tibbs, who estimates the average funeral costs between $7,000 and $10,000. Also, make sure you have a beneficiary.

Tibbs, who co-owns the business with her husband, Jeff, said shes practiced in the funeral service industry for 17 years before opening her business in Culpeper earlier this year; and her goal is to provide excellent customer and funeral services to everyone in the community.

Johnny Johnson, owner of Horizon Funeral Home in Culpeper, agrees with Tibbs, stating the importance of insurance.

Make it easier on your family and purchase insurance, suggested Johnson, who had 27 years as a mortician with the military before opening Horizon in 2009.

Culpeper attorney Katherine Charapich, who was also part of Sundays panel, recommended preparing for the future. She handles estate planning, elder and business planning at her downtown Culpeper office.

Around my conference table, we cry a lot because life comes at us fast. There are often life-altering events that plans are not well prepared for, Charapich said. My motto is Protecting the stewardship of your God given assets.

Charapich shared a few guidelines about estate planning: Make sure wills are up-to-date, consider a trust, have advance medical directives in place and make someone your financial power of attorney.

Take care of you, put a plan in place while you have a sound mind, she suggested.

Buster Nelson, an insurance agent for State Farm in Fredericksburg with 34 years experience, talked to the crowd about the importance of life insurance. He also told people to avoid those GoFundMe pages.

Life insurance creates an immediate estate, Nelson said. If you have life insurance and you die, that insurance company will write you a check for $10,000. And no matter who you owe, they cannot touch that life insurance money. It will go directly to the beneficiary.

Following Sunday's event, the congregation hosted a barbecue-style cookout with food, fellowship and fun in the backyard.
President Xi Jinping has spoken of positive changes and stronger momentum in China's economy, while calling for measures to implement supply-side structural reform and defuse major risks.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks at a symposium Friday attended by representatives of non-Communist parties and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, as well as non-party personages.

Commenting on the country's economic development in the first half of the year, Xi said the economy maintained steady growth with a positive outlook, deepened structural adjustment, and better-than-expected performance in major indicators.

The macro-economy is more stable, and people's lives are getting better, the president said.

He noted positive changes are taking place in the economy, saying the fundamentals of economic and social development are sound.

There are substantial changes in the relations between economic supply and demand, while companies' expectations and market confidence are improving gradually, Xi said.

The momentum of economic development is getting stronger in China, which plays a significant role in driving the global economic recovery, according to the president.

Meanwhile, Xi said China should stay sober-minded to properly address problems in its economy.

Authorities should "maintain strategic focus" and "do the right things at the right time," the president urged.

He called for moves to resolutely implement supply-side structural reform and defuse major risks in a proper manner, while stressing balance between maintaining economic stability and seeking progress.

Stability is the keynote, and progress should be pursued on the precondition of keeping overall stability, Xi said.

However, that does not mean authorities should stay in a state of inertia or seek stability in an aggressive or mechanical way, the president noted.

Instead, they should make a difference while walking a fine line with good timing, he said.

Xi thanked the representatives for their support in the country's policy making, and called on them to mobilize all parties and resources and jointly contribute their wisdom to the building of a moderately prosperous society.

Li Keqiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan and Zhang Gaoli, who are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also attended the symposium.
Heather Oljey is an early bird when it comes to doing back-to-school shopping for her three boys.

The Stafford County mom of 11-year-old twins and a 13-year-old said that she likes to look for deals as soon as her sons school supply lists are posted.

Theres something about getting new school supplies that makes me all giddy! Oljey, a member of the Fredericksburg Area Mothers of Multiples Club, wrote in an email. I also dont waste whatever comes back home from the year before, unused. I hate to see composition notebooks that are barely used, get thrown away.

Shes not alone. More families were expected to tackle their back-to-school lists early this year with 27 percent beginning two months before the beginning of school, according to the National Retail Federations 2017 Back-to-School and College Trends survey. Thats a 22 percent increase over 2016.

The study also found that of those who start shopping early, 60 percent say they are trying to spread out their budgets, 48 percent dont want to miss out on sales and 43 percent want to avoid crowds.

Stephanie Stewart, publisher of Macaroni Kid Fredericksburg, said that she prefers to pick a few things up from the supply list Battlefield Elementary sent home with her son Hunter, 7, every time she shops.

A lot of places have everything out right now, she said. I try to wait for tax-free weekend to buy the bulk of it. A lot of times stores will have sales in conjunction with tax-free weekend. Right before school starts, I check the list to see what else he needs.

Stewart will also be buying for her 4-year-old daughter, Abby, who will be going to preschool at the Ron Rosner Family YMCA in Spotsylvania County. Shell probably pick up some things for her at discounters such as Gabes and Marshalls or at the Weecycled Wardrobes consignment sales. The next one is Aug. 2527 at the Fredericksburg Field House.

The NRF study also found that 21 percent of back-to-school shoppers will wait until the last week or two before school starts, about the same as last years 22 percent.

Leigh Ann Van Doren, owner of Fredericksburg Parent, said that shell probably do some back-to-school shopping for daughters Jamie, 16, and Tabitha, 19, during tax-free weekend, which is Aug. 46 in Virginia. But shell probably wait until the week before school starts to finish, especially since she doesnt have the school supply list from Stafford Senior High School yet.

Its definitely a harrowing experience, said Van Doren. Every time I would try shopping earlier, it would not be the right stuff.

According to the survey, back-to-school shoppers plan to spend $10.2 billion on clothing (purchased by 95 percent of respondents), $8.8 billion on electronics such as computers or calculators (60 percent), $5.6 billion on shoes (93 percent) and $4.9 billion on school supplies such as notebooks, folders, pencils, backpacks and lunchboxes (97 percent).

The last time spending was this high was in 2012, a reflection of low unemployment, higher wages and increased consumer confidence, said Ellen Davis, NRFs senior vice president for research and strategic initiatives, in a recent media conference call.

Parents say they will spend an average of $238.89 on clothing, $204.33 on electronics, $130.38 on shoes and $114.12 on school supplies, according to the study. For parents of grade school students, that amounts to about $15 more per family.

Thats not an unreasonable expectation for families, said Davis.

Michelle Patrick of Spotsylvania County said that shell spend more on back-to-school clothing this year because her 16-year-old twin daughters, Taylor and Jordan, have grown so much. The girls, rising juniors at Massaponax High School, will each get a new pair of Converse sneakers, a few jeans and tops, and a dress to wear on the first day of school.

Their birthdays are in November, so thats when well shop for more winter clothing, Patrick said. They normally can wear summery stuff through October.

When it comes to where parents will buy, the NRF study found that theyre shopping across a variety of retailers: 57 percent will shop at department stores, 54 percent at discount stores, 46 percent each at clothing stores and online, and 36 percent at office supply stores. For those shopping online, 91 percent plan to take advantage of free shipping and 54 percent will buy online and pick up in-store.

Patrick said that shell probably buy most of her twins clothes during tax-free weekend. The girls like to shop at Hollister and American Eagle for clothes, and Walmart or Target for school supplies. Patrick will also go online to order the Nikes they need to play volleyball because they arent available locally.

For the first time, the NRF survey asked consumers what types of electronics they plan to purchase. Among electronics shoppers, 45 percent said they would buy a laptop computer while more than a third plan to purchase a tablet (35 percent) or a calculator (35 percent). One in four plan to purchase electronic accessories such as a mouse, flash drive or charger.

Patrick said that her twins will need a Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus Graphing Calculator, which Amazon listed recently for $96. It had been $105.99.
New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. Hunt said Monday he was scrapping almost all the tax cuts announced last month by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and also signaled that public spending cuts are on the way. It was a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets spooked by fears of excessive government borrowing. The move raises questions about how long the beleaguered prime minister can stay in office, though Truss insisted she has no plans to quit. She vowed to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, but many in the party want her gone.
On the final day of the Yates family reunion, they came to the place that might have signified the end of it all.

Just inside the iron gates of the Masonic Cemetery, nestled in the heart of Fredericksburg and shaded by branches as abundant as those on the family tree, they selected from a table the boxed lunches marked with their names.

There was Julia Yuhasz of Charles Town, W.Va., and Julia Weir of Carlisle, England, a common name plucked from the family tree. There was Henry Stanford of Suffolk, England, and his 19-year-old son Francis, whod flown in from Australia, and a family of four from Nairobi, Kenya. There was Thomas Yates Savage of Fredericksburg, an attorney who regularly walks past the final resting place of Charles Yates, the man whom they now paid tribute.

They set out folding chairs and spread out a blanket and crossed their legs on top of a pair of tombs. As they dined with the dead Sunday, a harpist playeda fitting soundtrack for a reunion held a handful of times a century.

What, some of them wondered, might Charles Yates have thought of this? The British-born descendant of kings settled in Fredericksburg two dozen years before the war for American independence, a cause hed aided at risk to his own life. He was a successful farmer and businessman whod freed his loyal slaves at the end of the Revolutionary War and helped establish a school in the city for disadvantaged children.

But hed had no wife and no children of his own. That meant no heirs to inherit the land and fortunes hed amassed. It meant, perhaps, that his legacy would end with his death.

Borrowing a son

Charles Yates had a brother back in Cumbria, England, with three sons of his own.

He asked his brother to sort of lend him one, 13-year-old Rosiland Weir of England explained in a presentation at Central Rappahannock Regional Library in Fredericksburg Saturday morning.

The Yates family descendants had gathered there to learn a little more about themselves. Name tags helped them identify each other.

It was a lot to ask, Charles Yates conceded in a letter in 1787. I know many objections may be made by the mother.

Four years later, Charles Yates asked again. He was 64 now. Time, he believed, was of the essence.

The family agreed. They would send 13-year-old John Yates to that infant nation across the Atlantic.

John Yates set sail for America from Liverpool in June 1792. The voyage took three months.

By contrast, said Rosiland Weir, the journey had taken her just eight hours.

John Yates brought a manservant, a goat, a dog named Plato, two small trunks and lock of his mothers hair.

He arrived in Norfolk on Sept. 3, 1792. From there, he sailed up the Rappahannock, stopping in Port Royal where he sent a letter home. He described a wooded country broken only by the river and a field of Indian corn he could see from his schooner.

I have already found the heat very disagreeable, he wrote.

A few days later, John Yates reached his final destination of Fredericksburg.

What the giving you up cost your mother and I words cannot describe, his father wrote.

John Yates would not see either of them again.

A lasting legacy

In letters now nearly as old as the nation, the boys anxious mother dispensed timeless advice:

Avoid all vulgar expressions. Keep yourself clean and washed and combed. Tend to your teeth. Avoid hairbrained and dangerous enterprises.

She warned him to stay clear of cities experiencing outbreaks of yellow fever and chided him to write more often.

I must request you to pay attention to grammar and spelling, she wrote in one letter.

Avoid cockfighting, horse racing and gambling, she wrote in another.

Thomas Yates Savage, the Fredericksburg attorney, read from a collection of them at the library on Saturday.

Savage organized the reunion. This was only the second Yates family gathering in his lifetime; the last had been 25 years before.

Theyd all met in West Virginia then, the place John Yates would eventually settle after attending present-day Princeton University and the College of William and Mary. (Hed gotten kicked out of the latter after dueling with a classmate.)

But Fredericksburg was the place where John Yates became, by any measure, an American, and where some of his descendants would find their way back. Others would return to England.

Wouldnt it be nice, Savage had thought, to mark the 225th anniversary of John Yates arrival in Fredericksburg with a reunion here. The younger generation could go tubing on the same river that delivered him.

John Yates would not return to England until 185159 years after he left. He died there after a month-long illness.

By then, hed had five children of his own. Those who gathered in the Masonic Cemetery Sunday descended from them.

Charles Yates legacy lived on.
A Fredericksburg man who was arrested last year when he showed up for sexual activity with a teenage girl was ordered Monday to serve two years in prison.

Gregory Frank Lagiovane, 52, had previously pleaded guilty in Stafford Circuit Court to two counts of electronic solicitation of a minor and having consensual sex with a minor.

Judge Michael Levy sentenced him to a total of 16 years with all but two years suspended.

According to the evidence presented by prosecutor Ryan Frank, Lagiovane met the girl in 2015 on an adult website. She told Lagiovane she was 16 but she was actually 15.

In May of 2015, court records show, Lagiovane went to the girls home in Stafford and had sex with her. Her parents learned of this incident well after the fact and contacted the Stafford Sheriffs Office.

Detective Darryl Wells took over the girls online account and continued communications with Lagiovane and eventually arranged for Lagiovane to return to the girls home for a type of sexual activity they had not engaged in the first time.

On Sept. 8 of last year, Wells, still pretending to be the girl, sent Lagiovane a text saying she had skipped school and asking him come over. Lagiovane arrived a short time later with condoms and a lubricant, and was taken into custody by waiting police.

In court records, Lagiovane said he made an awful, awful decision and apologized for the pain and embarrassment hed caused the girl, his friends and his family.

Attorney Ghislane Storr-Burks represented Lagiovane.
A love triangle and some jailhouse snitching will apparently be at the heart of the prosecutions case against two men accused in the December 2015 slaying of Spotsylvania County resident Heather Ciccone, court records indicate.

Ciccone, 21, was found slumped over the steering wheel of her 2010 Kia late Dec. 5, 2015, in a strangers driveway on Piney Branch Road. She had been shot in the back of the head.

Joshua Christopher Williams, 29, of Spotsylvania and Jonathan Julian Vejarano, 28, are both charged with first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the slaying. Their five-day trials had been set for next month, but are now scheduled to start Oct. 23 in Spotsylvania Circuit Court.

The Spotsylvania Sheriffs Office investigated the slaying for 15 months before arresting Williams and Vejarano. Until recently, almost no information had been released regarding what led to the arrests and nearly all of the numerous search warrants associated with the case were sealed.

But in an unsealed affidavit for a search warrant filed in Circuit Court last week, Detective Donnie Reid wrote that an inmate in the Rappahannock Regional Jail called police at some point in the investigation and claimed that Vejarano had repeatedly said that he shot and killed Ciccone and that Williams had told him to do it.

Reid wrote that he and another detective went to the jail and found several inmates who backed the first inmates story.

The affidavit also states that Williams and Ciccone had a romantic relationship. Williams live-in girlfriend at the time and the mother of his child, Danielle Long, found out about the relationship, according to the records.

In the months prior to Ciccones slaying, Reid wrote, Long was constantly threatening Ciccone on social media and calling her on the phone, saying such things as she was going to kick your [expletive] and physically harm her. Long has not been charged in connection with Ciccones slaying.

Phone records show that Ciccone and Williams were communicating up to and on the night of her death. Reid alleged that Vejarano is a close associate of Williams and at the time was dealing drugs for him.

The search warrant allowed police to search a cellphone that was seized from Williams at the residence on Cleveland Court that he shared with Long. Reid wrote that the phone may contain information about Ciccones slaying and show a connection between Williams and Vejarano.
International attendees enjoy dairy products made in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region during an exhibition promoting the region's socioeconomic and cultural development on July 21. [Photo by Guo Yiming/China.org.cn]

North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region held a promotional event to present its socioeconomic and cultural development globally in Beijing on July 21 in the run up to its upcoming 70th anniversary celebration.

The event, co-organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the People's Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, showcased major milestones since the establishment of the region under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1947 through an exhibition including photos, industrial and agricultural products, cultural heritages and ethnic costumes.

In his opening remarks, the Foreign Minister Wang Yi recognized the huge achievement made by the people of various ethnic groups in Inner Mongolia, the country's first autonomous region of minority nationalities.

Wang particularly mentioned the two "business cards" of Inner Mongolia, i.e. its open trade both historically and in modern times as well as its ecological and green development in the desertification-prone landscape.

He called for people around the world to come and explore the magnificent region.

John McKinnon, New Zealand's ambassador to China, said that New Zealand has many links with Inner Mongolia as he outlined existing connections and similarities in areas including the dairy industry and animal husbandry.

He also foresees a big step forward in the region's tourism potential and hopes that the two sides can expand interaction and exchanges under the Belt and Road Initiative.

More than 500 people including diplomatic envoys and representatives in China from almost 130 countries, international organizations, Chinese and foreign experts and scholars, delegates from industrial and commercial sectors, as well as journalists attended the event.

Bordering Mongolia and Russia, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region covers an area of 1.18 million square kilometers of which the majority is grasslands. Its main strength lies in dairy production, animal husbandry, agriculture, tourism, new energy and mineral resources.
Speakers: Senior Colonel Lu Yu, deputy director-general of the Legislative Affairs Office, the General Office of the Central Military Commission (CMC); Major General Zhou Shangping, deputy director-general of the Operations Bureau, the Joint Staff Department of the CMC; Senior Colonel Zhang Chengwen, deputy chief of the General Office, the Political Work Department of the CMC; Senior Colonel Wu Qian, deputy director-general of the Information Office of the Ministry of National Defense and its current spokesperson Chairperson: Hu Kaihong, spokesperson of the State Council Information Office Date: July 24, 2017

Hu Kaihong:

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to today's press conference. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA, having gone through 90 years of glory, will celebrate on August 1. Today, we are delighted to invite Senior Colonel Lu Yu, deputy director-general of the Legislative Affairs Office of the General Office of the Central Military Commission (CMC); Major General Zhou Shangping, deputy director-general of the Operations Bureau of the Joint Staff Department of the CMC; Senior Colonel Zhang Chengwen, deputy chief of the General Office of the Political Work Department of the CMC; and Senior Colonel Wu Qian, deputy director-general of Information Office of the Ministry of National Defense and its current spokesperson, to introduce various aspects of the construction and development of the PLA. They will also answer some of your questions. Now, let's welcome Senior Colonel Wu Qian to give his briefing.

Wu Qian:

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, good morning.

The PLA has gone through 90 years of glory and great endeavor. During those 90 years, under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the PLA has made an indelible historical contribution to the great liberation of the Chinese people, to China's socialist construction and reform, safeguarding State sovereignty, security and the interests of national development, and to the cause of world peace and progress of humanity. The PLA is known in the world as a mighty, civilized force for peace.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the PLA has resolutely abided by the decisions and instructions of the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission (CMC), earnestly studied and implemented the content of President Xi Jinping's important speeches, in particular his important exposition on national defense and army building. In pursuing the Party's vision of a strong army under the new situation, we are making great efforts to enhance the PLA's political awareness, intensify the study and application of the Party's innovative theories, and cultivate a new generation of revolutionary service personnel who are faithful, competent and courageous with outstanding moral integrity. We are making efforts to enhance the consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, uphold the leadership core, and keep in alignment. We are also making efforts to creatively improve our political work. In this way, we can ensure that the PLA's development is always moving in the right direction politically. Focusing on combat readiness and effectiveness, and guided by the military strategy under the new situation, we have established a fine fighting capability standard, expanded and intensified preparations for any military struggle, improved, in particular, the joint operational command, and modified military training to be more realistic and practical. We have comprehensively built a modern logistics capability, capitalized on science and technology to boost military development, implemented the strategy of civil-military integration, cultivated high-caliber people able to undertake the responsibilities of building a fine army, and steadily improved our war-fighting capability. We are comprehensively carrying out reforms to advance army building, concentrating on addressing institutional impediments, structural constraints and policy-related problems, setting up the framework of the new military system, optimizing the size and constitution of the PLA, and working towards major breakthroughs in important fields and key aspects. We have thoroughly advanced the rule of law in the PLA, unswervingly upheld discipline and fought corruption, facilitated the "three fundamental transformations" of the means of military administration, nurtured greater faith in and awareness of the rule of law among all service personnel, and improved the military legal system with Chinese characteristics, so as to press ahead defense and military development governed by the rule of law. The PLA continues to actively expand exchanges with foreign military forces, and has participated in a range of international peacekeeping, blue-water escort and humanitarian relief operations, thus showing a positive image and strong commitment of a military force from a major country. As our national defense and army building makes historical progress and takes on a new look, the PLA is striding further down the path of army building with Chinese characteristics.

Looking back, the Party has been leading the people's army through the years of magnificent revolution, construction and development. The many remarkable feats are immortalized in history, and its brilliant achievements renowned around the world. Looking into the future, the people's army, under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core, will make great strides in building a prosperous country and a strong army. PLA men and women, committed to socialism with Chinese characteristics, and following the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development, will thoroughly study and implement the contents of President Xi's important speeches, especially the important exposition on national defense and army building, and endeavor to realize the goal of building a world-class army. We will waste no time in advancing national defense and military modernization, resolutely safeguard State sovereignty, security and development interests, staunchly support the realization of the "two centenary goals" and the Chinese dream of great national renewal, and look forward to the 19th CPC National Congress with high spirit and morale.

Hu Kaihong:

Thank you. Now, the floor is open to questions. Please identify the media you represent before raising a question.

CCTV:

It is generally known that the PLA has received overall political training since the military political work conference in Gutian three years ago. Could you brief on the efforts made in strengthen the army's ideological and political development since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC)? Thank you.

Zhang Chengwen:

I will answer your question. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, Chinese President Xi Jinping has, with his strategic outlook for the cause of military consolidation and national rejuvenation, envisioned the progress of military forces under political guidelines for the new course. The military work conference in Gutianat the end of 2014, in particular, marked the refreshing of political strategies for building the army in changing situations and ushered in a new scenario for the Party to lead the armies with consolidated thoughts and strong political awareness.

Recognize the important role of political work in the army building stressed by President Xi, the PLA is endeavoring to build a world-class army by bearing in mind the construction of invincible military forces, complying by the essence of the conference in Gutian, upholding the power of the central authority, the leading core, and the mechanism with which the responsibilities of the army are assumed by the military chief, safeguarding the CPC's absolute command of the troops and deepening our knowledge with President Xi's important speeches and strategies of state governance. We'll give full play to competent military officers and will never slacken the efforts to deepen the fight against corruption in the army so that a new generation of PLA can be grown with the loyalty and faithfulness required for a well-disciplined and highly-responsible army.

The past few years have witnessed fundamental changes in military development, following improved political settings, a revamped image of the PLA and surging morale and confidence that have increased the devotion to the army. So to speak, it is in the five years after the 18th CPC National Congress that the political environment has been cleaned, military construction has turned positive and the political work in the army has regained esteem with an improved image. It is also the five-year stint where the PLA has been disciplined and outfitted for a renewed image that has justified its spearhead role. The past five years also manifested President Xi's underlined political strategies for the future course of the PLA.

Phoenix TV:

We know the armed forces are now engaged in deepening reform. However, some people hold that the time of reform is also a vulnerable time. How can we maintain combat readiness, especially in the time of the adjustment of the layout of our combat troops, and will the combat readiness be affected during the period?

Zhou Shangping:

I would like to answer the question. It is known that maintaining constant combat readiness is a basic requirement of any armed force in order to ensure its fighting capabilities to achieve victory. The main aim of this reform is enhancing the preparedness for war and capabilities in war, by straightening out command relationships, optimizing the organizational structure and enriching the overall level of the combat forces. According to the decisions and instructions of President Xi Jinping and the Central Military Commission (CMC), the CMC works out an implementation plan that is capable of adjusting the combat troops step by step and introduces a series of measures for improving combat readiness, maintaining sufficient troops on duty, organizing spot tests of combat readiness and strengthening sea and air patrols, far-sea training and trans-regional joint maneuvers.

The armed forces are maintaining constant combat readiness that means ensuring the troops are ready to assemble at the first call and are capable of fighting and winning. We are capable of dealing with a diverse range of security threats, resolutely safeguarding China's sovereignty, security and development interests. Thank you.

CRI:

The PLA now is stressing the promotion of rule of law and enforcing strict discipline. My question is, what transformation will it bring to PLA's traditional administrative methods, and how will the transformation be achieved? Thanks.

Lu Yu:

I will take this question. President Xi stressed that in further promoting the running of the armed forces with strict discipline and in accordance with the rule of law, we should change the administrative means according to rule of law and realize the "three fundamental transformations",which refer to a working mode shift from purely relying on administrative order to administration according to rule of law; from working based on habits and experience to working based on regulations, laws and system; and from sudden, campaign-like work to dealing with business according to rules and regulations. The entire PLA will unswervingly implement President Xi's instructions, speeding up the transformation of means of leading and directing, making great efforts to advance institutional innovation, institutional leadership and guidance, and institutional regulation, so as to promote realization of the "three fundamental transformations." The three main aspects are:

First, enhancing the leadership command system in accordance with the rule of law. On the basis of the principle of that decision-making power, executive power and supervisory power can interact and be coordinated, the PLA designed and set up various institutions in a scientific way, allocated powers in a reasonable manner, concentrated efforts on strengthening centralized and unified leadership of the Central Military Commission, re-defined the fundamental functions of the military commission organs, promoted the legalization of the administrative mode and operation mechanism, and realizeda significant transformation of the means of military administration.

Second, insisting on propelling all work in accordance with the thought and means of rule of law. Officers at all levels should adapt themselves to the new system, reinforce and enhance their conceptions and willpower to guide and implement the work according to the law, persist in resolving problems and conflicts emerging during the process of army building and reformaccording to the law, create a denser environment for the rule of law where everyone does things and solves problems within the law.

Third, we must promote the formation of a good working mechanism according to law. On the basis of standardization,procedure and meticulous management, the PLA needs to enhance its rules of procedure for decision-making and guidance as well as using its rights and powers to handle affairs. The good situation where the Party committees make decisions based on law, organs issue instructions based on law, the army acts in missions based on law, and soldiers and officers carry out their duties based on law is now taking shape.

CNN:

Last weekend, Chinese warships appeared in waters off Queensland of Eastern Australia, which was perceived as being an action monitoring an ongoing joint military exercises between Australia and the United States. Local officials described this as an unfriendly and provocative move. Prior to this, we also noticed that Chinese naval vessels crossed the English Channel to conduct military exercises with their Russian counterparts. In addition, when the United States was testing the "THAAD" anti-missile system, a Chinese warship appeared in waters off Alaska. What is the motivation of China behind this series of high-profile actions? What kind of signal is China sending to the international community? Is this a new normal for the international community to accept in the process that China builds its "Blue-Water" navy? Thank you.

Wu Qian:

Let me start by saying that I do not think there is any high-profile action regarding the Chinese military. As I have mentioned just now, the PLA is actively expanding its military communications network, and widely participating in international peacekeeping, open sea escort, humanitarian aid and disaster assistance, which embodies the image and responsibilities of the military arm of a major country.

I would also like to stress that in non-territorial waters, Chinese warships, just like warships of other countries, have the right to freedom of navigation. Thank you.

CNR:

Can you give us more information of the progress made since the new joint battle command agencies were established more than one year ago?

Zhou Shangping:

I will take your question. According to the decisions and instructions of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and President Xi Jinping, and as per the requirement to establish joint battle command agencies that are absolutely loyal, resourceful in fighting, efficient in commanding and courageous and capable of winning wars, and a battle command system that applies in both peacetime and wartime, operates as a normality, has a clear focus and works efficiently, the PLA has created a two-tier "the CMC-theatre commands" joint battle command center and a three-tier "the CMC-theatre commands-troops" battle command system. It has also improved supporting rules and regulations as well as operational mechanisms.

Over the past more than one year, by fully carrying out the military strategic guideline for the new period, the two-tier command center have focused on studying its core function of fighting and commanding battles, significantly enhanced its joint battle command capability, grasped real-time information about border, and coastal and air defense, and efficiently coped with all kinds of emergencies, hence playing its due role in maintaining China's sovereignty, security and development interests, and the stability of the overall strategic situation.

Thanks.

China News Service:

We've noticed that when geological disasters such as earthquakes or landslides happen in China, PLA soldiers will always rush to the affected areas for emergency services. My question is, over the past 90 years, what has the PLA achieved through its political work to ensure that the army can win the popularity and support of the general public?

Zhang Chengwen:

Let me answer your question. Since the establishment of the PLA, we have laid great emphasis on ideological and political work, which has played significant roles in making the army grow from small to large, from weakness to strength and achieved victory after victory.

Germinated in the Great Revolutionary period of 1921 to 1927, the political work of the PLA was established in 1927 and laid its foundation in 1929 during the Gutian Meeting. During the long-term revolution, construction and reform process, it has been enriched and developed into a set of fine traditions, including the cardinal principle and system of "the Party commands the gun," the fundamental purpose of "serving the people wholeheartedly," the ideological line of "seeking truth from facts," the working style of the mass line, the practice of arming officers and soldiers with scientific theory, offering services to guarantee the smooth operation of the central task of the Party and the army, selecting and appointing cadres in a fair and candid way, adhering to the unity between officers and soldiers, promoting democracy, implementing strict disciplines consciously, making arduous efforts and selfless devotion in our work, and insisting on Party members taking the lead and so on.

All these fine traditions, being the fundamental rules and content of the political work of the PLA, are cast with the blood and lives of our revolutionary predecessors and we should carry forward them generation after generation.

India Today Group:

Can you share some details on the recent military exercises held by the Western Theater Command in Tibet, and the latest situation in the Doklam area where there is a standoff with India?

Wu Qian:

In mid-June, when the Chinese frontier forces were building roads in the Doklam region, Indian troops crossed into China's territory, and obstructed the Chinese side's normal activities. The Doklam region belongs to China. The Chinese side's activities were within China's sovereignty, and were fully just and lawful. The Indian troops crossed the determined boundary between the two countries. Their activity greatly undermined China's sovereignty and severely breached international law.

China is resolute in safeguarding its territory and sovereignty. No efforts will be spared in this regard. The Chinese troops have taken emergency countermeasures and they will make further deployments as well as undertaking further military drills accordingly.

We urge India to immediately withdraw the troops that crossed the border. Only on this basis can we seek a solution to the incident. Maintaining peace in border areas is key to regional peace and stability. It serves the fundamental interests of the two countries and the two peoples. Therefore, we demand India to correct mistakes, stop provocative acts, and work with us to maintain peace and stability in border areas.

I would like to remind India to stop counting on luck or to hold onto unrealistic dreams. Since the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army 90 years ago the PLA has never ceased improving its ability to safeguard the country. We are determined to safeguard China's sovereignty and territory, and no one can defeat us.

China Daily:

In recent years, Chinese military forces have engaged in an increasing number of foreign exchange activities in a wider range of areas. Could you tell us the achievements that Chinese military forces have made in this regard?

Wu Qian:

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese military forces have entered a new era in military diplomacy.

Our diplomatic activities have become increasingly active, pragmatic and self-motivated. We have made further progress in maintaining stable relationships with big countries; we have deepened communication with neighboring countries; we have further consolidated relations with developing countries. Through international military exchange and cooperation activities, we have gained a bigger say in the world when participating in global governance. We have also efficiently fulfilled our international responsibilities, and made new contributions to world peace and development.

Fruitful results have been achieved in the past, and the future is even brighter. We will make more endeavors to enhance international military cooperation, and build the Chinese army into a world-class army.

Southern Metropolis Daily

August 1 of this year marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). It is said that relevant military parades and celebrations will probably be held during the period. Would you like to confirm it? Thank you.

Wu Qian:

With regard to the question you have mentioned, we will release relevant information in due course. Thank you.

Xinhua News Agency:

The PLA is being engaged in a grand military reform known as the "most important reform in Chinese history." Could you please give us a brief introduction to the latest progress and achievements in the reform of China's defense and army building? Thank you.

Wu Qian:

I would like to take your question. Under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, the Central Military Commission (CMC) and President Xi Jinping, China is pushing forward the reform of national defense and the PLA in a planned and step-by-step manner, and we have made significant breakthroughs in some major areas and key links.

Taking the reform of the leadership and command system as the first step, the PLA have set up a new command operations pattern, in which the CMC is the highest policy-making body responsible for the overall strategic development of the PLA; the battle zones are only responsible for combat training and combat command of the troops under their jurisdiction; and all services are only responsible for army building and won't intervene in specific command matters. This approach has realized a historical change in the PLA's organizational structure.

Under this process, we have set up the framework of the new military system involving optimizing the size and constitution of the PLA, and carried out the reform of military academies, research institutions and training institutions. In addition, the work related to transferring and organizing troops from one unit to another is progressing orderly. As soon as all the reforms are completed, the PLA will be more capable, more scientific and more optimized.

The adjustment and reform of military policies and systems is also advancing steadily. We have introduced the supporting policies and systems in the fields of military human resources and logistics. Moreover, we also have taken substantial measures in implementing the strategy of civil-military integration. The CPC Central Committee has decided to set up a central civil-military integration development committee to further strengthen the centralized and unified leadership in the development of civil-military integration and to accelerate the integration to boost a development framework featuring complete elements, multi-fields and high benefit.

Thank you.

China Global Television Network (CGTN):

An advanced country in the world is observed as one governed by laws and a modern military force must also abide by the rule of law. However, certain officers have violated Party disciplines and military regulations as is evidenced by the rise of corruption. Therefore, could you please tell us how the army has pressed ahead with law-based governance since the 18th CPC National Congress? Thank you.

Lu Yu:

I would like to answer your question. President Xi has stressed that strict law-based governance has always worked as a solid foundation to reinforce military development and acted as a fundamental strategy for the Party to build and run the army.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the entire PLA has adhered to the strategies envisioned by President Xi in view of law-based military discipline, complied to the deployments following the decisions of CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission, enhanced the faith and awareness of the rule of law, changed the management mode in accordance with law, accelerated the construction of a military legal system with distinctive Chinese features and fortified the level of rule of law in national defense and military construction.

The following four points support this.

First, the military legislation launched to rule the military troops are gauged by its effectiveness for whether it can enhance the strength of military forces. Military officers and soldiers have anticipated and developed necessary legislation which is indispensable for reform and the potential preparation for action. The portfolio of military laws and regulations with distinctive Chinese features has continued to be improved. Over the past five years, the country has mandated three military laws, 53 codes and more than 800 rules.

Second, there are three fundamental changes to accelerate the reform of military discipline. In accordance with the rule of law, the leadership and instruction methods have pressed ahead with changes and military construction and reform have developed smoothly along the course of legal governance. A good situation is taking shape as the Party committee, authorities, soldiers and officers assume their duties in accordance with the law.

Third, the enforcement of military laws and regulations have been constrained and supervised to oversee the exercise of power. Combining diverse oversight measures can strengthen military discipline, enhance law enforcement, exert strong influence over the army and maintain a zero tolerance to any violations, in order to make laws and regulations as unbroken vows.

Fourth, we constantly strengthen the faith and enhance the awareness of the rule of law of soldiers and officers. The officers, as a minority, have been given full play to press ahead with legal education by holding events inside the military camps and by arousing the interests of the military staff to study and to act in accordance with the law.

Looking back on the achievements made during the past five years, law-based military developments containing distinctive Chinese features and the guidelines of President Xi's strategic thoughts has accelerated into the fast lane. To rule the military forces by law has, therefore, opened up a new historical chapter and marked a new journey of the military's legal development.

Reuters:

It was reported that the Vietnamese government authorized mineral rights to be released for some foreign petroleum companies in the South China Sea region. Can you offer some relevant information on this? Is the Chinese People's Liberation Army preparing to strengthen work in the relevant sea areas? The second question, some reports have said that a Vietnamese fishing boat was damaged by Chinese naval vessels. Can you confirm this? Thank you.

Wu Qian:

China has sovereignty over Nanhai Zhudao and their surrounding waters and the sovereignty has a sufficient historical and legal basis. The Chinese People's Liberation Army undertakes its responsibilities in safeguarding China's sovereignty, security and development interests. About your specific questions, I don't have any information.

Shenzhen TV:

The 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army is on August 1. According to the custom that "large-scale celebrations are held every 10 years, with smaller-scale celebrations every five years", at this important juncture of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, what commemorative activities will be held by the PLA? Thank you.

Wu Qian:

Last Friday, we held one such commemoratory activity, an exhibition marking the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army. About other activities, we will release relevant information in due course.

New York Times:

The Korean Peninsula is an international hotspot about which everyone is concerned, especially when the further development of nuclear weapons by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea recently has stoked up regional tension. In regard to this situation, if there are military conflicts or even wars on the peninsula, what will be the response of the Chinese army? Thank you.

Wu Qian:

This is a hypothetical question, and it is not appropriate to answer it here. I can say that China is committed to realizing denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula, and settling the nuclear issue through dialogues and consultation in a peaceful manner. Thank you.

Hu Kaihong:

Today's press conference ends up here. Thank you all.

By Li Xiaohua, Chen Xia, Li Jingrong, Zhang Rui, Wu Jin, Yuan Fang, Li Huiru, He Shan, Zhou Jing, Mi Xingang, Gao Zhan, Zhang Jiaqi, Cui Can
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U.S. President Donald Trump [Xinhua]

Not a day goes by that one cannot find an article blaming some hidden dark forces behind unsubstantiated allegations of hacking and collusion in the U.S. electoral system, by some shadowy foreign entity.

The latest occurrence was of course in Foreign Policy, which talked darkly of Russian hackers hacking some state department officials emails. The tone is familiar. An unnamed official complained that he or she has been hacked. No name or further corroboration was given, for "official secrecy." The department itself didnt confirm or deny anything. It is essentially a journalist telling us a story, without any evidence.

This isnt new. In fact it has been a pattern of the anti-espionage hysteria since Trump won. Note, I am saying anti-espionage hysteria, and not anti-Russian, as it is not only tied up to Russia. Chinese academics are not allowed into space sectors, because apparently all Chinese residents are "agents." For any normal rational individual, the questions that would come to mind are these:

Who leaks these stories to the media and to what purpose? Why is there never any evidence presented and should we just believe the words of the intelligence agencies as words of God  especially when their record of predictions and analysis gave us the Iraq war, Libya and Syrian chemical weapons?

For anyone studying intelligence operations, it is obvious that foreign influence doesnt work like that. There is literally no evidence as to whom the hackers may be receiving their orders from, wherever they may be based. Then comes the question that if they are indeed under orders, whether those who are giving the orders are rogue elements within Russian intel, or is it an official operation. Similarly the questions may arise if there are rogue elements within American intelligence which are "resisting" against a perceived detente with Russia.

Questions remain. For all the news reports and the hysteria, there are three questions which were never answered properly. First, how much Russian interference was there in the U.S. election cycle? All we know is of a joint report by the intelligence services presented to a select few people in the U.S. Senate, the content of which is still hidden from public or even the media.

In essence it is purely a report based on conjecture and analysis of the intelligence of the United States. No evidence is presented in any form, whatsoever to anyone, where an independent verification could be done of the contents. Compare this to the situation when Russian intel caught Victoria Nuland talking of a Ukrainian putsch. The next day, all of it was out in the open having been leaked by the media. If indeed Russian top policy makers are involved in this operation against the United States, why is that not out in the public "leaked to the media?"

Much has been made of Donald Trumps son meeting Russian businessmen and lobbyists. Hillary Clintons team also met Ukrainian government officials to dig dirt on Trump. In fact the British former spy Chris Steele was himself contacted by Clintons team for that purpose. The U.S. is the only country which allows public lobbying before elections, and its baffling that no one realized foreign governments would take advantage of the system. Not to mention, historically U.S. lobbyists and firms "helped" foreign politicians, including those of East Europe and even Yeltsin. This is all a circle.

The point is this. There is without doubt foreign influence in elections. This has been the case historically. The entire Cold War was riddled with such, including in the most famous case, Soviet funding of anti-nuclear NGOs in the 80s. But nonetheless, the effect of such had been negligible. Even in this election, there is no tangible evidence that the vote count changed due to Russian influence.

Unfortunately, this is all hogwash. The reason why Trump won, or why Brexit happened is economic and social. The Anglo-Saxon world is riddled with the internal contradictions of the neo-liberal economic system, which on one hand has invited millions of foreigners, and on the other hand, impoverished the domestic working class.

Theres a curious article in the Financial Times, about a statue of Engels being relocated from Ukraine to Manchester, where Engels first started to document post-Industrial Britain. It is a symbolic act of our times, and unless the major Western problems of economic inequality and mass migration from the Middle East and Africa in return of endless foreign intervention are stopped, no amount of hysteria about foreign interference will solve the structural rot of the system.

Those living in the bubbles of media and academia, believing everything that comes out of their state intelligence apparatus without any skepticism, should rather go out and talk to common people in their own countryside.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
The UK could be at threat of civil unrest if policymakers drive a wedge between farm support and food production after Brexit, a farming leader has warned.

Farmers Union of Wales president Glyn Roberts has accused politicians of losing sight of the vital role farmers play in feeding the nation.

Speaking at the Royal Welsh showground, where he will meet Defra secretary Michael Gove today (24 July), Mr Roberts expressed concern that there was too much emphasis on environmental policies at the expense of food production.

Unless people have food, there will be civil unrest, he suggested.

See also: Subsidies must be earned after Brexit, Gove tells farmers

Mr Roberts also commented that Mr Goves recent speech on the future direction of farm subsidies did not reference the significance of the people who live and work in the countryside.

He spoke about the importance of nature and conservation, but I couldnt see anything in that speech that supported the conservation of people.

Unless there are people in the countryside, there is no countryside. Mr Gove is losing sight of the importance of people and food production.

Challenge

Mr Goves vision will also be challenged by NFU Cymru. The unions president, Stephen James, is due to meet the secretary of state at the Royal Welsh Show.

Mr James said he had reservations about the content of Mr Goves speech, in which farmers were warned they would have to earn their subsidies by delivering benefits for the environment and rural life after Brexit.

He appears to be suggesting that future agriculture policy has to make a decision between supporting food production or protecting and enhancing the environment.

Mr James said it was entirely possible to have a policy that fully integrated food production with maintaining and enhancing the environment and climate change obligations.

Without domestic food production, food security would be undermined because the UK would need to rely on imports.

Mr James said future policies must be directed at the active farmer  those who produce agricultural products.
WREN RYAN CLARY Free Access Zach and Erica Clary of Gaffney announce the birth of their daughter, Wren Ryan Clary, born August 17, 2022. Wren has a sister, Reese. Grandparents are Eric and Teresa Bennett...

Fresh fruit and veggies for Thanksgiving Free Access Families can receive a box of fresh fruits and vegetables just in time for the Thanksgiving holidays. FoodShare Cherokee provides opportunities for all residents to order fresh food boxes every...

Museum, Limestone collaborating on textile history program Free Access The Cherokee County Museum is partnering with Limestone Universitys communications class and local educator Tim Lipsey to conduct a history program on textiles. If you or your family has worked...
Putuo Mountain, sitting on a small island of Zhoushan Archipelago, is one of the greatest Buddhist mountains in China. As it is a sacred place of Avalokitesvara, or Bodhisattva Guanyin, travelers can easily absorb the unique culture through the sculpture, books, drawings, stone carvings and architecture style which can be found there. There are more than 200 temples on the mountain, with Puji, Fayu and Huiji being the largest and most famous. Every year on the 19th day of the second, sixth and ninth months (believed to be the Birthday, Bodhi Day and Leaving Home Day of Guanyin) in the traditional Chinese calendar, thousands of believers and visitors go to Putuo to celebrate and pray.[China.org.cn]

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New director named for foundation

Samaritan Health Services recently promoted Taylor Gilmour to director of the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation.

Gilmour is collaborating with hospital administration and the Samaritan Office of Philanthropy to implement development plans. She also oversees central foundation operations and the local fundraising team.

Gilmour joined Samaritan in 2014, following service as director of operations for the Providence Alaska Foundation  Anchorage. Since that time, she has been operations director of the Samaritan Health Services Foundation Central Office. She earned a bachelors degree from Oregon State University and is a graduate of Leadership Corvallis.

Local contractor wins award

Mid-Valley Commercial Construction recently received the Outstanding Project of the Year from the Northwest Wall and Ceiling Bureau for its work on the redevelopment of the cafeteria and music rooms at South Albany High School.

The award, given for the best project in the Renovation/Restoration category, was presented to company owners Rick Martin and Jesse Vigil at the NWCB Annual Trade Show and Convention in Coeur dAlene in May.

In addition, MVCC was awarded the Peoples Choice Award for the same project. Mid-Valley was responsible for the drywall, acoustical ceilings, wood ceiling clouds and acoustical wall panels on the project. SAHS was damaged in an arson fire in 2015.

MVCC, headquartered in Albany, is a locally owned and operating union subcontractor focusing on commercial interior/exterior framing, drywall, taping, acoustical ceilings and insulation. The office is at 7101 Supra Drive in Albany, and the phone number is 541-497-2577.

Real estate franchise ranked among top brokerages

RE/MAX Integrity recently ranked among the top 50 real estate brokerages nationwide in analysis based on closed transactions per agent, with data from the 500 top firms in the 2017 REAL Trends 500 survey.

RE/MAX Integrity is a locally owned and operated RE/MAX franchise. The brokerage outperformed all other RE/MAX franchises in the Pacific Northwest. The firm has six offices and 275 agents providing real estate listing and sales services in Albany, Corvallis, Salem, Eugene, Grants Pass, Medford and surrounding regions. All RE/MAX Integrity offices are led by non-competing Principal Brokers.

Now in its 30th year, the REAL Trends 500 ranks performance of the top residential real estate brokerage firms in the country. Agents affiliated with RE/MAX regularly average double the number of transaction sides per agent when compared with competitors. RE/MAX agents averaged 17.2 transaction sides among 2017 REAL Trends 500 qualifiers (1,705 firms that closed at least 500 transaction sides each) while agents working with competitors averaged 7.8.

OSU professor finishes term as society president

Andy Klein, professor in the Oregon State University School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, finished his term as president of the American Nuclear Society at the ANS annual meeting held last month in San Francisco.

Klein is a longtime Oregon resident, first appointed to OSU in 1985. He closed out his tenure at the helm of ANS at a critical time in the national debate on nuclear technology. While California plans to shut down its last operating nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon, Corvallis-based NuScale Power submitted its application license for a small modular reactor design that it believes will transform the commercial nuclear market.

While the United States faces criticism for its decision to abandon the Paris climate accord, nuclear, and increasingly environmental, advocates are petitioning policymakers and stakeholders to reconsider the carbon-free emission benefits of nuclear power. These benefits give pause to shuttering the few remaining nuclear units operating in the West and give encouragement to the enrollees of nuclear science and engineering programs such as OSUs.

Captain graduates from FBI academy

Linn County Sheriffs Office Patrol Commander Kevin Guilford recently completed a 10- week session from April through June at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

Guilford and 227 other law enforcement professionals attended the 268th Session of the National Academy, which consisted of men and women from 47 state agencies, law enforcement organizations from 24 international countries, five military organizations, and seven federal civilian organizations.

Law enforcement employees must go through a competitive process before being selected for this honor. This process included a nomination by Linn County Sheriff Bruce Riley; interviews of Guilford and co-workers to determine his leadership skills and abilities; a background check; a determination of physical fitness; and the support of former National Academy graduates within the candidates organization.

Guilford has 23 years of law enforcement experience, starting as a reserve deputy with the LCSO in 1994. Guilford was hired for full-time employment in 1995 as a deputy working Mill City. He has since worked as a D.A.R.E. officer, marine deputy, defensive tactics instructor, dive team member, reserve coordinator, patrol sergeant and patrol first sergeant.

DCA board elects new members

New board members were elected at the Downtown Corvallis Associations June 21 membership meeting.

New board members are Rachell Hoffman, IOOF; Vern McDonald, Hospitality Mortgage; Sonia Ruyts, Stash; and Jason Smith, Studio Cloud 9. They join ongoing board members: Frederick J. Edwards, president; Greg Teune, Holiday Inn Express, vice president; Christine Hackenbruck, Corvallis Fall Festival; Lu An Carone-Rhodes, Running Princess Apparel; Steve Hessel, downtown property owner; Randy Joss, KEZI 9; and Jennifer Moreland, Corvallis Advocate.

The board will hold a goal-setting retreat on Wednesday.

Financial advisor announces retirement

Ralph Scariano, a financial advisor in the Albany office of Edward Jones, recently announced his retirement after 36 years of service with the financial services firm.

Edward Jones, a Fortune 500 company, provides financial services for individual investors in the United States and, through its affiliate, in Canada. Every aspect of the firms business, from the types of investment options offered to the location of branch offices, is designed to cater to individual investors in the communities in which they live and work. The firms 15,000-plus financial advisors directly work with more than 7 million clients.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity held its first official meeting last week, so this is a good time to remind you about what appears to be the commission's true agenda.

First, a reminder about the commission: This is the group installed in the wake of unproven claims from President Donald Trump that millions of votes in the November election were illegally cast  and that Trump would have won the popular vote were it not for those votes.

Trump himself stopped by the commission's initial gathering, at which he took the opportunity to attack state officials (presumably including Republican Secretary of State Dennis Richardson of Oregon) who have declined, and properly so, to release the voter registration information that the commission has requested.

If any state does not want to share this information, one has to wonder what theyre worried about, Trump said. The New York Times and other media outlets have noted the irony of this statement, coming from a president who steadfastly has refused to release his tax records, so we need not dwell on this.

But let's reflect some more on that request for voter information that the commission issued a few weeks ago, only to have it immediately spurned by election officials in more than 20 states.

The commission's vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (a longtime advocate for tighter voting regulations) asked state election officials to turn over the voter registration data as part of the commission's efforts to search for evidence of election fraud. In addition to election information such as voters' names and party affiliations, the commission sought a variety of personal information, including birth dates, felony conviction records, voting histories for the past decade and the last four digits of all voters' Social Security numbers.

Election officials in more than 20 states said that wasn't going to happen. In Oregon, Richardson said the commission could get the same information as anybody else  assuming it would be willing to pay the same $500 fee that everyone else seeking the information has to pay. But Richardson said additional information would not be forthcoming, because state law dictates that Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers and other data requested by the commission is confidential.

In a letter to Kobach, Richardson added that there is "very little evidence of voter fraud or voter registration fraud in Oregon." And he suggested that other states follow Oregon's lead and set up a vote-by-mail system  good advice in part because a vote-by-mail system would be very difficult to hack and leaves behind a paper trail.

Richardson isn't alone among state election officials and experts in his assessment of the extent of voting fraud in the United States: The consensus is that it is not at all as widespread as Trump and his backers have said it is. It is certain, however, that part of why this is a big deal for Trump is continued resentment that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

It is almost as certain where the work of the commission is headed: toward efforts to make it more difficult to register and vote. It's the wrong answer to the wrong question: We should be working to modernize voting machines and safeguarding election systems against hacking.

And any national effort to make it harder to register and vote runs counter to Oregon's longstanding efforts to clear away obstacles to the franchise. It's a shame that we'll spend any time at all trying to restrict something so fundamental to our democracy. (mm)

Correction

An editorial in Thursday's edition about House Bill 2004, which would have strengthened protections for renters, incorrectly reported how far the bill proceeded in the Legislature before stalling in the Senate. The bill had been approved by a pair of Senate committees, but never came to a vote in the full Senate.
 Flash

The urgent meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Jerusalem, originally scheduled on Wednesday, will be postponed till Thursday, the Arab League (AL) announced on Sunday.

AL spokesman Mahmoud Afifi said that meeting, to be held at the AL headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, was postponed "to ensure the participation of the largest number of Arab foreign ministers."

He said the decision was taken upon contacts made around the clock, adding that coordination was made with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which agreed to hold its own ministerial meeting to address the same issue next week.

The meeting of Arab foreign ministers will discuss Israeli aggression on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, Afifi said in an statement earlier Sunday.

He said the meeting was requested by Jordan and supported by several Arab states to address "the latest Israeli aggressions and measures in Jerusalem and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque shrine."

Tensions between Israel and Palestinians have been rising since July 14 when Israel installed checkpoints and metal detectors at the entrances of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after three Israeli Arab gunmen shot dead two Israeli policemen near the site. The three were later killed by the Israeli police.

Since then, clashes have been erupting between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters at the gates of the mosque compound and elsewhere in West Bank.

In clashes on Friday, Israeli security forces killed three Palestinians and injured hundreds of others.

The AL has repeatedly condemned the Israeli practices at Al-Aqsa Mosque as a blatant breach of the right of worship and violation of relevant international laws and UN resolutions. Muslim countries denounced the Israeli measures as an attempt to alter the status quo and claim further control of the holy site.

The recent Israeli measures led to new tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for decades, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel is blamed by the international community for the current deadlock of the peace process because of its settlement expansion policy, which is rejected even by the United States, its strongest ally.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known by Jews as the Temple Mount, is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews. It has been a flashpoint site for Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past decades since the 1967 Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital city uder the UN-proposed two-state solution.
Beuel and Bonn city center : Bonn police arrest alleged bike thieves

Police arrested two alleged bicycle thieves on the weekend, one of them in Beuel and one in Bonn city center. Alert citizens made police aware of the two men.

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On Sunday evening at around 6:50 pm, police say a person was attempting to steal a bicycle locked up in front of the Beuel train station. Passers-by watched the suspect as he took a cutting device from a plastic bag and tried to cut the bike lock with it. After the witnesses called police, a police patrol arrived and took the 36-year-old suspect into custody, seizing his cutting tool. The man had no known previous criminal record, according to police.

Already on Saturday evening, police reported taking another alleged bike thief into custody. At around 10 pm in Bonn inner city, witnesses observed a suspicious person in another attempt to steal a bicycle. The bike was parked in the area of Rathausgasse. A police unit was alarmed and they found an 18-year-old crouched down and working at the bike locks. One of the locks had already been cut. The alleged culprit was under the influence of alcohol.

Police seized the lock cutter and took the suspect into custody. The man was already known to police from previous offenses involving violence and property violations and narcotics violations.
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A welcome ceremony is held for the visiting Chinese naval fleet at Piraeus port, Greece, July 23, 2017. A Chinese naval fleet arrived on Sunday at Piraeus port for a four-day friendly visit to Greece, conveying a message of friendship and cooperation.(Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

A Chinese naval fleet arrived on Sunday at Piraeus port for a four-day friendly visit to Greece, conveying a message of friendship and cooperation.

Missile destroyer Changchun, missile frigate Jingzhou and supply vessel Chaohu docked at Piraeus, Greece's largest port, receiving a warm welcome by Greek and Chinese officials, and more than 1,000 Chinese living in Greece, as the Philharmonic band of the Municipality of Piraeus performed.

"I want to welcome you and your ships in the port of Piraeus. The recent relationship between our countries is in a very high level due to commercial and cultural cooperation and we are looking forward to be better," Commodore Georgios Agrafiotis, Commander of the Naval Command of Aegean, said during the welcome ceremony, as the crowd was waving Greek and Chinese national flags.

"The Naval Task Group 150 of the Chinese People's Liberation Army departed from Shanghai on April 23 and during the mission we will conduct maritime training and goodwill visits to Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania," said Rear Admiral Shen Hao, Commander of the Chinese navy fleet, while addressing the event.

The Chinese officer expressed confidence that the good will port call in Greece will help further advance bilateral cooperation, receiving the warm applause of the crowd.

The Escort Task Groups of the Chinese Navy have been offering protection to Greek commercial ships since 2008, while the Greek Navy has helped the Chinese side evacuate overseas Chinese from war-torn areas in recent years, Gao Wenqi, Charge d'Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Greece, noted, delivering a speech during the ceremony.

As this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Greece, the visit of Task Group 150 will reinforce the friendship between the armed forces and ties between the two countries and peoples, he said, highlighting that Piraeus is a great example of win-in bilateral cooperation in recent years, since Chinese giant COSCO Shipping has taken over the management of Piraeus Container Terminal and Piraeus Port Authority.

"The Piraeus port, which the Task Group 150 is visiting, is a pearl of the Mediterranean, the pride of Greece, the lodestar of China-Greece cooperation, and a place where our joint dreams come true," Gao Wenqi stressed.

"China and Greece are promoting the China-Europe Land-Sea Express Line in which Piraeus is a key port. Our two ancient nations, inheritors of illustrious civilizations, are marching hand-in-hand towards their common goal of rejuvenation," the Chinese diplomat added.

Two Greek girls from the Hellenic-Chinese Centre for Entrepreneurship dressed in ancient Greek costumes greeted Rear Admiral Shen Hao with olive branches as a symbol of peace and cooperation, after the impressive performance of martial arts by young students of an Athens Kung Fu Art Shaolin school.

After the ceremony the Greek Navy officers, Chinese embassy officials and overseas Chinese in local communities visited the ships which will depart Piraeus on Wednesday.
Article

Protecting the worlds oceans  an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy

The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs.
bayonel3 at 24-07-2017 10:49 AM (5 years ago) (m)

Kano State Commissioner of Police, Rabiu Yusuf, yesterday, disclosed that one of the Boko Haram suspects, who allegedly engaged the Police in a gun battle in Kano, was dismissed from the Nigeria Air Force. Yusuf said the dismissed officer escaped with gunshot wound from the Gaya, Unogo Local Government Area clash. The Police Commissioner added that five suspects were later nabbed at a hideout, where they were plotting an attack.

Kano State Commissioner of Police, Rabiu Yusuf, yesterday, disclosed that one of the Boko Haram suspects, who allegedly engaged the Police in a gun battle in Kano, was dismissed from the Nigeria Air Force. Yusuf said the dismissed officer escaped with gunshot wound from the Gaya, Unogo Local Government Area clash. The Police Commissioner added that five suspects were later nabbed at a hideout, where they were plotting an attack. He said one of the suspects confessed to the Police about the planned launch of series of attacks on places of worship, public gathering and other strategic places of interest.

Yusuf said the suspects were arrested following an active intelligence indicating that the remnant of terrorists group, who escaped from Sambisa Forest were regrouping in some states in the North, including Kano.

The Police boss said: The suspects arrested are Abba Mohammed of Niger Republic, 20; Usman A. Buhari, 23, of Borno State, and Iliyasu Abdullahi, 46, Gezawa Local Government Area of Kano State. Two heavily pregnant women were also arrested. They are Aisha Yau, 25, and Ladidi Yunusa, 27, both of Kwarna Hudu Quarters in Nassarawa Local Govern-ment Area of Kano.Exhibits recovered from them include one AK-7 rifle, No. 58008821; 49 live ammunition; four magazines, four pieces of IEDS, two sets of Air Force uniform.

Others are four caps of Air Force Uniform, one hand smoke, one military boot, one set of camouflage uniform, one Volkswagen motor vehicle key, one laptop, one i-Pad, some pictures of the suspects in military uniform and some operational black masks. He said one of the suspects confessed to the Police about the planned launch of series of attacks on places of worship, public gathering and other strategic places of interest.Yusuf said the suspects were arrested following an active intelligence indicating that the remnant of terrorists group, who escaped from Sambisa Forest were regrouping in some states in the North, including Kano.The Police boss said: The suspects arrested are Abba Mohammed of Niger Republic, 20; Usman A. Buhari, 23, of Borno State, and Iliyasu Abdullahi, 46, Gezawa Local Government Area of Kano State. Two heavily pregnant women were also arrested. They are Aisha Yau, 25, and Ladidi Yunusa, 27, both of Kwarna Hudu Quarters in Nassarawa Local Govern-ment Area of Kano.Exhibits recovered from them include one AK-7 rifle, No. 58008821; 49 live ammunition; four magazines, four pieces of IEDS, two sets of Air Force uniform.Others are four caps of Air Force Uniform, one hand smoke, one military boot, one set of camouflage uniform, one Volkswagen motor vehicle key, one laptop, one i-Pad, some pictures of the suspects in military uniform and some operational black masks.

Post Reply I scour the world wide web to bring you interesting stories from around the globe. [email protected] Posted: at 24-07-2017 10:49 AM (5 years ago) | Hero
clarajancita at 24-07-2017 03:08 PM (5 years ago) (f)

A burglar in the South-south part of Nigeria has seen his 'day of reckoning' after a field day of crime and lawlessness. A suspected thief met his waterloo after breaking into a house in Benin, Edo State through the roof on Saturday night in a failed attempt to steal. The culprit who had no idea that the owners were around, was caught and thoroughly beaten before being handed over to the police. Recovered from his were a hammer, torch light and a gun. The young man begged for mercy constantly but his pleas fell on deaf ears



Watch the video of his interrogating below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSTxRlTfiZs&feature=youtu.be

A burglar in the South-south part of Nigeria has seen his 'day of reckoning' after a field day of crime and lawlessness. A suspected thief met his waterloo after breaking into a house in Benin, Edo State through the roof on Saturday night in a failed attempt to steal. The culprit who had no idea that the owners were around, was caught and thoroughly beaten before being handed over to the police. Recovered from his were a hammer, torch light and a gun. The young man begged for mercy constantly but his pleas fell on deaf earsWatch the video of his interrogating below:

Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 24-07-2017 03:08 PM (5 years ago) | Hero
Tonto Ex, Churchill Set To Donate Life Saving Ambulance & Other Gadgets To The Nigeria Fire Service

clarajancita at 24-07-2017 04:53 PM (5 years ago) (f)

Tonto Dikehs ex-husband and chairman, Big Church Foundation plans to set yet another magnanimous milestone by donating an ambulance and other gadgets to the Nigeria Fire Service on Tuesday, 25th July 2017.

Tonto Dikehs ex-husband and chairman, Big Church Foundation plans to set yet another magnanimous milestone by donating an ambulance and other gadgets to the Nigeria Fire Service on Tuesday, 25th July 2017.

The presentation will be graced by the President of Big Church Foundation. This charitable endeavor comes as a fulfillment of the promise made by the Chairman of the Big Church Group, Dr Olakunle Churchill during a recent visit to the Federal Fire Service some weeks back.

The presentation will be graced by the President of Big Church Foundation. This charitable endeavor comes as a fulfillment of the promise made by the Chairman of the Big Church Group, Dr Olakunle Churchill during a recent visit to the Federal Fire Service some weeks back.

Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 24-07-2017 04:53 PM (5 years ago) | Hero

benosky4 at 24-07-2017 05:01 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Weldone bro, but we rarely have fire incident here unlike UK. #MyVerdict. Posted: at 24-07-2017 05:01 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Weldone bro, but we rarely have fire incident here unlike UK. Reply

tegonwa at 24-07-2017 05:02 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Oh Churchill,that's Very Philanthropic Of You.I Know That Madam Tonto Would Be Somewhere Reading This And Salivating.I Hope She Swallows Her Pride And Return To You.I Remain Hopeful And Not Hopeless. Posted: at 24-07-2017 05:02 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Oh Churchill,that's Very Philanthropic Of You.I Know That Madam Tonto Would Be Somewhere Reading This And Salivating.I Hope She Swallows Her Pride And Return To You.I Remain Hopeful And Not Hopeless. Reply

crocatum at 24-07-2017 05:04 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Let them donate to their marriage also Posted: at 24-07-2017 05:04 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Let them donate to their marriage also Reply

ruthie at 24-07-2017 05:13 PM (5 years ago)

(f) KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK..ALTHOUGH HE HAS BAD JUDGEMENT IN PICKING HIS WOMEN..AT LEAST THIS ONE, HE GOT RIGHT..CHARITY Posted: at 24-07-2017 05:13 PM (5 years ago) | Hero KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK..ALTHOUGH HE HAS BAD JUDGEMENT IN PICKING HIS WOMEN..AT LEAST THIS ONE, HE GOT RIGHT..CHARITY Reply

james987 at 24-07-2017 05:17 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Churchill well done. While your ex dey make noise at every given opportunity.. You keep calm dey do your things.. Before ever you marry her,we know her ways.. No mind her. Posted: at 24-07-2017 05:17 PM (5 years ago) | Hero Churchill well done. While your ex dey make noise at every given opportunity.. You keep calm dey do your things.. Before ever you marry her,we know her ways.. No mind her. Reply

victorstic1 at 24-07-2017 05:27 PM (5 years ago)

(m) CHAI SEE COMMENTS THATS HUMAN BEING FOR THEY ARE NEITHER HERE NOR THERE Posted: at 24-07-2017 05:27 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac CHAI SEE COMMENTS THATS HUMAN BEING FOR THEY ARE NEITHER HERE NOR THERE Reply

euwilliams at 24-07-2017 07:58 PM (5 years ago)

(f) Nigerians kill and die, today he is a good man, tomorrow he is a bad man. Where are they? Posted: at 24-07-2017 07:58 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Nigerians kill and die, today he is a good man, tomorrow he is a bad man. Where are they? Reply

pricklong at 24-07-2017 08:21 PM (5 years ago)

(m) Hushpuppi cannot see this only to buy drinks at clubs Posted: at 24-07-2017 08:21 PM (5 years ago) | Gistmaniac Hushpuppi cannot see this only to buy drinks at clubs Reply
 Flash

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday that there has been no territorial dispute in the Doklam area.

Last month, Indian border troops crossed the China-India boundary at the Sikkim section and entered Chinese territory, obstructing normal Chinese border troop activity in Doklam.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop reportedly said, "My understanding is that this is a long-term dispute ... Australia's position is that territorial disputes should be resolved peacefully between the claimant countries."

"It is right to say that territorial disputes should be resolved peacefully, but I must point out that such a saying is not applied to the situation in Doklam because there has been no territorial dispute at all at the site where the incident takes place," spokesperson Lu Kang said.

The Sikkim section of the China-India boundary has been demarcated, which is recognized by both China and India, Lu said.

The trespass of India border troops took place at the defined Sikkim section of the China-India boundary. It is different in nature from previous frictions and stand-offs between the two sides at undefined sections of the China-India boundary, Lu said.

"China is willing to maintain peace and stability of the China-India boundary, but China will not make compromises regarding sovereignty," the spokesperson said.

Lu said the Indian side is fully to blame for the incident, urging it to avoid any escalation of the situation.
Taliban abduct several, kill seven civilians in southern Afghanistan

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 22, 2017 4:25PM

The Taliban militants have killed at least seven abductees after kidnapping dozens of civilians in southern Afghanistan, security sources say.

The sources said the abducted civilians were killed in the militancy-riddled southern province of Kandahar.

Militants have kidnapped more than 70 civilians across the troubled region since Friday.

Afghan government forces have launched an operation to free the hostages, who remain in Taliban captivity.

In recent weeks, Taliban have intensified a campaign of kidnapping and killing civilians across various regions of the war-ravaged country.

On July 12, Afghan authorities recovered the bullet-riddled bodies of seven passengers kidnapped by militants a day earlier in the country's west.

The passengers were abducted in Farah province in an attack blamed on the Taliban militant group. Six civilians and one police officer were among those killed.

Highways in Afghanistan passing through militancy-prone areas have become exceedingly dangerous, with the Taliban and other armed groups frequently kidnapping or killing travelers.

In April, Taliban announced the start of its annual spring offensive against Afghan security forces and US-led foreign troops across the country. The militant group has stepped up offensives in various parts of Afghanistan over the past few months.

Insecurity has gripped Afghanistan since 2001, when the United States and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops.

Over the past 16 years, the Taliban militants have been conducting terrorist attacks across the country, killing and displacing civilians. In addition, the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq, has recently managed to take recruits from Afghan Taliban defectors.

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Strikes Continue Against ISIS in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, July 23, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 17 strikes consisting of 29 engagements, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 10 strikes consisting of 10 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, a strike destroyed 12 ISIS oil storage tanks.

-- Near Raqqa, nine strikes engaged seven ISIS tactical units, destroyed eight fighting positions and a mortar system and damaged two supply routes.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted seven strikes consisting of 19 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Beiji, a strike destroyed two ISIS tactical vehicles and a vehicle.

-- Near Qayyarah, three strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed an ISIS-held building.

-- Near Rawah, a strike destroyed three ISIS boats.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes destroyed four ISIS supply caches, three ISIS-held buildings, two vehicle-borne-bomb facilities, a vehicle, a logistics node, a command-and-control node, a front-end loader and a fuel depot.

July 21 Strikes

Additionally, six strikes were conducted in Syria and Iraq on July 21 that closed within the last 24 hours.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, Syria, a strike destroyed 11 ISIS oil stills.

-- Near Raqqah, Syria, three strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units and destroyed six fighting positions.

-- Near Kisik, Iraq, a strike suppressed an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Tal Afar, Iraq, a strike destroyed four ISIS tunnel entrances.

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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U.S. Doesn't Have Luxury of Choosing Challenges, Dunford Tells Aspen Crowd

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2017  While Russia remains the greatest nation-state threat, the United States doesn't have the luxury of singling out one challenge, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado last night.

NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford if he still believed Russia was the biggest threat facing America -- a statement he made two years ago in his confirmation hearings.

"From a state actor perspective, it is Russia," Dunford said. He said this was due to Russia's military modernization program, its nuclear and cyber capabilities and its actions in Georgia, Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

"I would quickly add that we don't have the luxury today of singling out one challenge," the chairman said.

Dunford believes this is the most volatile time in world affairs since World War II, and Russian actions do not help. "I think from an aggregate capacity and capability perspective, Russia is the most capable state actor we face," he said. "But we have other challenges -- North Korea, from a sense of urgency perspective, would be our number one challenge. We are certainly dealing with malign challenges from Iran on a daily basis.

"Clearly the fight against violent extremism is one that we are completely engaged with, and we have security challenges in the Pacific with a rising China as well," the chairman continued.

The U.S. military must be able to deter nuclear attack from Russia and increase conventional capabilities so Russia is not tempted to challenge the United States and its allies. Dunford noted that maintaining the strength and effectiveness of the NATO alliance is also critically important in deterring Russia's actions.

But Russia generally stops short of conflict. The chairman calls this strategy adversarial competition. "It has a military dimension, but it falls short of armed conflict," he said. "That's where Russia integrates cyber capabilities, information operations, unconventional operations to advance their interests on a routine basis and we have to compete in that environment as well."

Middle East

Mitchell also grilled the chairman on Syria, Iraq and the greater battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Dunford noted that two years ago there were 200 partners on the ground inside Syria. "Tonight, we have over 50,000 Syrians on the ground taking the fight to ISIS, and about half of them are Arabs and half are Kurds," Dunford said. "[These Syrian Democratic Forces] are the ones who have taken back this wide swath of land in Northeast Syria and really put us in a position where ISIS in Syria will no longer be in possession of ground."

Indigenous forces -- with help from the coalition to defeat ISIS -- have given the lie to the physical caliphate that ISIS leaders proclaimed.

Turkey, an important NATO ally, does not like an armed Kurdish force in Syria, and Dunford noted that he has visited Turkey 12 times in the last year and held further discussions with his colleague in Ankara on a number of other occasions. The Kurds in the SDF are a source of friction with Turkey, he acknowledged, "and we are doing all we can to mitigate their concerns, not only about how we are going after ISIS in Raqqa and the Euphrates River Valley, but the long term relationship we have with Turkey."

"I will tell you that any political and military solution in Syria is going to be completed with full recognition of Turkey's long-term interests are from a security perspective," the chairman added.

Iraqi forces are moving to cement their victory against ISIS in Mosul and have already announced plans to launch campaigns against ISIS in Tal Afar, Huwayjah and Qaim.

Dunford expects ISIS will switch to guerilla-type attacks to try to undermine the government.

Isolating ISIS

He is also concerned that foreign fighters, who volunteered to fight for ISIS, could return to their home countries and attempt to carry on with the battle. "We think somewhere between 30,000 and 45,000 foreign fighters have been to Iraq and Syria over the years," he said. "We do not what them to go back from whence they came."

With that in mind, the coalition has established a information-sharing base in the Middle East to exchange information and intelligence. More than 20 countries now participate in the effort, he said.

The strategy now is to sever the links connecting ISIS. Three things connect these groups: foreign fighters, the flow of resources and money, and the ideology, Dunford said. The strategy is working, the chairman said. As of 15 months ago, more than 1,500 foreign fighters crossed the Turkish border every month. Today, that number is less than 100.

South Asia Strategy

Dunford discussed the proposed South Asia strategy as it relates to the American effort in Afghanistan. "I do believe additional forces for the Afghan security forces would make them more competitive," he said.

He noted that when he commanded the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan he started with 140,000 troops, who were "on the ground fighting the fight. When I left we had 28,000 U.S. forces on the ground, and today we have 8,700 forces on the ground," he said.

Afghans have taken significant casualties and there are some areas where they need help: most notably in air support, combined arms combat, command and control and intelligence. "Additional forces would help," he said.

He said the reason Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has not made his decision on additional forces for the effort is because he wants to get the greater strategy correct. The strategic framework looks at the area from New Delhi to Teheran with particular attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the general said.

Dunford praised an Army initiative to create security force assistance brigades, which will be specially equipped to train indigenous forces.

There will be no artificial timeline for operations in the region, he said. "One of the things we learned was when you put artificial timelines on things is they seldom obtain," the chairman said. "The conversations we have now are what are the condition when we can transition our mission."

He noted that anywhere where the United States has vital national interests -- such as Afghanistan -- there will be an enduring U.S. political, economic and military presence. The size of these presences will shift as conditions change, but they will be present, Dunford said.

Placing an artificial timeline on operations is not good for the confidence of the Afghan people, and, he said, it caused hedging behavior in the region as well. "It undermines our cooperation with Pakistan if they don't believe we will be there long enough to establish security and stability," the chairman said.

North Korea

The most immediate concern is North Korea, its nuclear program and its efforts to build delivery systems for those weapons, he said. "Kim Jong Un's regime is tied to nuclear program, and what I can tell the American people today is North Korea is capable of launching a limited missile attack," Dunford said. "The United States military can defend against a limited North Korea attack on Seoul, Japan, and the United States."

The chairman argued that right now, the best approach is through diplomatic and economic realms. He said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is trying to tighten the noose around North Korea. Economic pressure should cause North Korea to initially freeze and then cap their nuclear weapons program and eventually denuclearize, Dunford said.

"Many people have talked about military options [against North Korea] with words like 'unimaginable,'" he said. "I would shift that slightly to 'horrific.' It would be a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes. Anyone who has been alive since World War II has never seen the loss of life that could occur if there is a conflict on the Korean peninsula.

"It is not unimaginable to have military options on the Korean peninsula," he continued. "What is unimaginable to me is allowing a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado. My job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn't happen."

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Chairman Emphasizes State Department's Importance to Defense

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2017  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff emphasized the importance of foreign policy to the military during remarks at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, last night.

Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford also spoke of the need for members of Congress to get to know U.S. service members and the role Arizona Senator John McCain has played on the national stage. Andrea Mitchell, NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent, was the moderator for the wide-ranging talk.

The general said that when he was a young Marine, he didn't have an appreciation for the work of the State Department's Foreign Service Officers. "I sit here now with a great deal of humility, because there is not actually not one challenge that we confront in the U.S. military that can be solved militarily," he said.

"They can only be solved within a good framework of foreign policy," Dunford said. "Whether it is Afghanistan or what's going on in the Middle East, we can have the greatest military in the world  but if we don't have clarity in our political objectives, if we haven't properly resourced the State Department, if our foreign policy and allies aren't strong, we will never been successful."

He sees the Defense Department as serving in support of the State Department. "There is a reason the Secretary of State is the first among equals in the cabinet -- because [that person] is the architect of our foreign policy and that is what is going to determine our success as a nation," the chairman said.

U.S. foreign policy is balanced among four areas: diplomacy and politics, economy, military and intelligence. The most important of those four is the political relationship, he said, adding, "that's the framework in which all of the economic, military and intelligence [activities] take place."

Closing the Civil-Military Gap

Mitchell noted to Dunford that the number of veterans in Congress has dropped and wondered if that troubles him. While there is a civil-military gap, the chairman acknowledged, he also believes it can be closed. "I think it is important for our political leaders to get to know our men and women in uniform, see what they are doing around the world, visit them in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Africa and the Middle East, and that's how you close the gap," he said.

"What's most important is they learn to appreciate the extraordinary quality that we have, and they also understand the impact of the decisions we make in Washington and how those decisions affect places like Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.

McCain an Architect of Foreign Policy

Mitchell also asked about Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who is battling cancer. Dunford noted that he first testified before McCain in 2005 or 2006. "Certainly when I've deployed he has been a routine visitor," the general said. "Every Fourth of July, Chairman McCain has been there [overseas]."

McCain's knowledge and status are respected throughout the world, Dunford said. "He has such status around the world that he speaks on behalf of our nation when he engages," the general said. "There is not a world leader that wouldn't drop what they are doing to see Senator McCain when he goes over with a congressional delegation."

This is important for the Congress controls the funds and resources necessary for U.S. foreign policy including military operations. "Senator McCain provides a very stabilizing influence when he talks to leaders in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Asia and so forth about U.S. foreign policy," the chairman said. "Over the last decade, he has been one of the architects of U.S. foreign policy."

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Egypt kills 8 from Hams, nabs others in anti-militant operations

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 5:28PM

Egypt's Interior Ministry has announced the death of eight more suspected militants in an operation south of the country while security forces arrest others in east and west of capital Cairo.

The ministry said in a statement on Sunday that the slain militants were members of Hams, a militants group that the government has associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned political party.

It said the militants were operating in a training camp in a southern desert region. Hams on Friday claimed last week attacks on police forces in Fayoum, southwest of Cairo, which killed one officer and injured three others. The group has denied any links to Brotherhood.

The Interior Ministry said five other militants were arrested in a separate operation in Giza and Sharqiya regions. It added that forces had recovered automatic rifles, ammunition and supplies from a camp in Fayoum.

Egypt has been beset by militant attacks in the rugged Sinai region in the northwest and in the mainland since a military-led overthrow of former President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. Morsi's successor, former military chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is thought to have led the popular coup four years ago, has failed in his promises to root out militancy.

Right after taking office in 2014, Sisi's government outlawed Brotherhood, the oldest and most popular political party in Egypt. Tens of thousands of the party's supporters, including Morsi and other senior members, have been caught in the wheels of a crackdown which rights campaigners say has unjustly targeting the dissent and has exacerbated the country's security problems.

In a bid to counter rising attacks by a branch of Daesh Takfiri group in Sinai, Sisi on Sunday watched the inauguration of a sprawling military camp northwest of Egypt. Senior leaders from Arab countries of the Persian Gulf attended the ceremony to open the Mohamed Naguib military base at El Hammam City which officials said was the largest in the Middle East and North Africa region.

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Police search for kidnapped villagers in southern Afghanistan

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 4:58PM

Afghan security forces have launched a major search operation for some 30 villagers still missing two days after a mass kidnapping blamed on the Taliban militants in the country's troubled south.

Zia Durrani, a police spokesman in the southern province of Kandahar, said on Sunday that about 30 people were released on July 23 but around 30 others were still missing.

Some 70 people were abducted on Friday from their village near a main road in the militancy-riddled region. At least seven of them were found dead the following day alongside the highway from the city of Kandahar to Tarinkot in Uruzgan province.

It remained unclear why the villagers were seized. Some officials, however, suggested that Taliban had abducted or killed them for suspected cooperation with the government in Kabul.

In recent weeks, Taliban have intensified a campaign of kidnapping and killing civilians across various regions of the war-ravaged country.

Highways in Afghanistan passing through militancy-prone areas have become exceedingly dangerous, with Taliban and other armed groups frequently kidnapping or killing travelers.

Afghans flee villages in Kandahar

On Sunday, dozens of families from the affected area who arrived in Kandahar city blamed the militants for forcing them out of their villages.

"The Taliban came to our villages at midnight and accused us of supporting the government, they warned us to either leave or they will burn us and our houses," AFP quoted a woman who was among the displaced.

In a statement released on Sunday, Taliban denied involvement, while confirming they had attacked police checkpoints in the troubled region.

"Our mujahideen killed a number of local police and pro-government militias there, also capturing 17 suspects who were later released after interrogation. We have not killed or kidnapped any civilians," the statement said.

Taliban overruns two districts

Elsewhere in the war-ravaged country, Taliban overran two district centers in the northern province of Faryab and the central province of Ghor.

According to provincial police spokesman Abdul Karim Yourish, in Faryab the militants overran Kohistan district center after an overnight attack triggered hours of fierce fighting. Yourish said Afghan government forces had retreated two kilometers from the area.

Meanwhile, provincial governor spokesman Abdul Hai Khatibi in Ghor confirmed that militants had seized Taywara district early Sunday after days of clashes with Afghan troops. The Taliban militants reportedly torched the district hospital and killed a number of doctors and patients there.

Insecurity has gripped Afghanistan since 2001, when the United States and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops.

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600,000 Yemeni people could contract cholera by end of 2017: ICRC

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:4PM

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that about 600,000 people in the war-torn Yemen could contract cholera by December this year, a figure which almost equates one in every 45 people in the 27.5-million-strong country.

The ICRC's striking news on Sunday came as the relentless bombardment of the impoverished country by Saudi Arabia's warplanes has not only brought Yemen's healthcare system on the verge of total collapse but also taken a heavy toll on the country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.

According to the ICRC's statement, the highly contagious disease is "a direct consequence of a conflict that has devastated civilian infrastructure and brought the whole health system to its knees."

Both the ICRC and World Health Organization (WHO) have already announced in their recent reports that over 370,000 people across the country had caught cholera and 1,800 others had lost their lives after succumbing to the infectious illness since late April in Yemen's second cholera outbreak in less than a year.

Caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, cholera infection first became epidemic last October and spread until December when it dwindled, but only to worryingly resurface again less than three months ago.

Since March 2015, Yemen has came under heavy airstrikes by Saudi fighter jets as part of a brutal campaign against the Arabian Peninsula country in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

The relentless aerial aggression has put well more than half of all health facilities in Yemen in a state of complete or partial shutdown. Furthermore, there are critical shortages in medical staff in over 40 percent of all districts, according to Yemen's Health Ministry.

Nearly 3.3 million Yemeni people, including 2.1 million children, are currently suffering from acute malnutrition. Latest tallies show that the war has so far killed over 12,000 Yemenis and wounded thousands more.

On Saturday, the International humanitarian agency Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) raised alarm at the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, calling the situation a "shame on humanity."

"Sixty percent of the country is food insecure and over half the population is unable [to access] safe drinking water," said the NGO in its statement, adding "Many areas in Yemen are just one step away from a famine situation."

The US and the UK have been providing the bulk of the military ordnance used by Saudi Arabia in the war. London has licensed 3.3 billion pounds worth of weapons since the beginning of Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen in March 2015.

Washington also sealed a multibillion arms deal with Riyadh when US President Donald Trump made his maiden visit abroad in May. The deal, which is worth $350 billion over 10 years and $110 billion that will take effect immediately, was hailed by the White House as a significant expansion of the security relationship between the two countries.

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Taliban overrun two districts in Afghanistan: Reports

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 10:22AM

The Taliban militants have reportedly taken control of two districts in Afghanistan after heavy clashes that claimed the lives of at least eight police officers.

Abdul Karim Yourish, a provincial police spokesman, said the first assault took place on the Lawlash District government headquarters in Afghanistan's northern Faryab Province under the cover of darkness late on Saturday, leaving two police officers dead.

Local officials confirmed the district's fall to the Taliban on Sunday and said that security forces were battling the militants to recapture the area.

The Taliban also separately stormed a second district headquarters in the western Afghan Ghor Province and killed six policemen.

Mohammad Mustafa Moseni, the provincial police chief, said his forces retreated after the militants launched multiple assaults on the Taywara district headquarters.

Reports said security forces and local residents in the area, including a member of parliament, were still under siege by the Taliban.

Search operation launched for kidnapped villagers

Meanwhile, Afghan security forces launched a search and rescue operation in the southern province of Kandahar on Sunday, two days after at least 70 civilians were kidnapped by suspected Taliban militants.

Provincial police spokesman Zia Durrani said the bodies of at least seven of the abductees had been found near the city of Kandahar.

Around 30 people were released, while 30 others were still missing and their fate remained unclear, he added.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the abduction, but police suspect that Taliban militants were behind the kidnapping.

Insecurity has gripped Afghanistan since 2001, when the United States and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington's so-called war on terror. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops.

Over the past 16 years, the Taliban militants have been conducting terrorist attacks across the country, killing and displacing civilians. In addition, the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq, has recently managed to take recruits from Afghan Taliban defectors.

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Hezbollah fighters retake 2 key Arsal areas, kill dozens of terrorists

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 8:58AM

Fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement have managed to reclaim control over two strategic areas in the highlands of Arsal on the Syrian border, killing dozens of Takfiri elements operating in the region.

The media bureau of Hezbollah Operations Command announced on Sunday the recapture of the Wadi al-Owaini and Shubat al-Qala'a areas.

It also reported that 46 members of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, had been killed in Arsal highlands, and 23 others in Flita barrens in Syria's Qalamoun Mountains over the past three days.

The Hezbollah fighters, backed by Lebanese and Syrian army, launched an operation to dislodge terrorists from the Lebanese-Syrian border on Friday.

On Saturday, Hezbollah made a series of new advances, the details of which are expected to be announced later in the day.

The Lebanese army said in a statement that Ahmad al-Fliti, the former deputy mayor of the border town of Arsal, was killed while on a mediation mission with militants.

The official was slain due to shelling by "the terrorist organization of the al-Nusra Front," it added.

Arsal was hardly hit by the spillover of the Syria crisis in 2014, when militants managed to overrun the town for a brief period.

Thousands of Syrian refugees live in informal camps in Arsal after having fled the foreign-sponsored militancy in their home country.

Hezbollah members have fought for years alongside Syrian army troops against militants wreaking havoc in the Arab country.

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CARE: Yemen situation 'absolute shame on humanity'

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 8:8AM

International humanitarian agency Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) has voiced alarm at the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, calling the situation a "shame on humanity".

"We are now in the 21st century and the current situation is an absolute shame on humanity," the head of the NGO Wolfgang Jamann told reporters on Saturday after a five-day visit to the country.

"Sixty percent of the country is food insecure and over half the population is unable [to access] safe drinking water," he said.

"Many areas in Yemen are just one step away from a famine situation," the body's CEO said, urging the international community to "end the suffering".

Ravages of war

He also touched on the massive bloodshed and destruction which has been plaguing the country since Saudi Arabia began bombing the country in 2015.

More than 12,000 people have died, and much of the country turned into death traps for civilians since the onset of the invasion, meant to restore Yemen's former Saudi-allied government. More than 44,500 people are estimated to have been wounded.

The US and the UK have been providing the bulk of the military ordnance used by Saudi Arabia in the war. The UK has licensed 3.3 billion pounds worth of weapons since the beginning of Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen in March 2015.

The US also sealed a multibillion arms deal with Saudi Arabia when President Donald Trump made his maiden visit abroad in May. The deal, which is worth $350 billion over 10 years and $110 billion that will take effect immediately, was hailed by the White House as a significant expansion of the security relationship between the two countries.

"Thousands of civilians have died since the start of the conflict and millions more have been displaced inside the country," Jamann said.

Yemen is currently in the grip of a cholera outbreak that has killed 1,828 people since it erupted in late April. On Friday, the World Health Organization said the number of suspected cholera infections in the Arab world's most impoverished country had risen to nearly 370,000 as of July 19.

The charity Oxfam, on the other hand, said the number of suspected cases of cholera could rise to more than 600,000, making the epidemic "the largest ever recorded in any country in a single year since records began."

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Poland presses ahead with judicial overhaul despite opposition

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:43AM

Poland's ruling party has approved a controversial overhaul of the country's Supreme Court despite mass protests at home and mounting pressure from its Western allies against the move.

On Saturday, senators from the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party approved a bill that would give the justice minister the power to appoint all the judges at the Supreme Court.

The reform bill now needs to be signed by President Andrzej Duda.

The development came amid mass protest rallies across the country coupled with objections by the European Union (EU) and the United States.

Critics say the reforms, which they claim is in violation of the Polish constitution, will undermine the independence of the Supreme Court.

The PiS's plans to overhaul the Supreme Court and judiciary and further plans to expand its powers in other areas such as the media have sparked one of the biggest political conflicts and provoked a crisis in its international relations.

Opposition at home

Tens of thousands of protesters across Poland have held candle-lit vigils daily since Wednesday, demanding that President Duda reject the bill.

Peaceful demonstrations against the bill continued on Saturday evening in dozens of cities, including the capital, Warsaw, Krakow, and Poznan.

Hundreds of protesters also gathered near the Warsaw villa of PiS head Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Opposition abroad

The EU's executive branch on Wednesday gave Poland a week to shelve the judicial reforms  which Brussels says would put courts under direct government control  or risk sanctions.

"Today, the strategic direction toward the West that we had chosen is being reversed," said European Council President Donald Tusk, who is himself a Polish and a former prime minister of Poland.

The US State Department said in a statement that Poland had to ensure that reforms did not violate its constitution and "respect the principles of judicial independence and separation of powers."

In neighboring Germany, Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the independence of Poland's judiciary was at risk, adding that he welcomed the consideration of sanctions by the European Commission.

"Those who show so little respect for the rule of law run the risk of isolating themselves politically," he warned in German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

So far, only Poland's fellow eurosceptic government in Hungary has said that it will stand by Warsaw against the threat of EU sanctions.

The PiS says the changes are needed to ensure that courts serve all Poles, not just "elites."

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Trump boasts about US military might in commissioning new aircraft carrier

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 2:16AM

US President Donald Trump boasts about the rebirth of his nation's military power while commissioning the country's newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, referring to it as "a 100,000-ton message to the world" of American military might.

"Wherever this vessel cuts through the horizon our allies will rest easy and our enemies will shake with fear because everyone will know that America is coming and America is coming strong," Trump said on Saturday in an address during the official commissioning of the state-of-the art warship named after the 38th US president, AP reported.

Trump spoke aboard the $12.9 billion warship at the huge naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, criticizing what he described as a lack of investment in new military technology and "a shortfall in military readiness" under the previous administration of Barack Obama.

He further called on the nation's Congress to approve higher military spending to facilitate the manufacture of "the best equipment. He also urged the legislative body "to do its job and pass the budget," which increases funding for the military.

Trump also stated that there has been "a shortfall in military readiness" and decried "a very, very bad time" for the military" in previous years.

Trump, who was joined by his Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, went on to hail the next-generation aircraft carrier as symbolic of a new era when "everyone will know that America is coming and America is coming strong."

Construction of the warship began in 2009 and was to be completed by September 2015 at a cost of $10.5 billion. The US Navy blames the delays and budget overruns on the ship's state-of-the-art systems.

Former defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were among a host of officials attending the commissioning ceremony.

Trump flew to the aircraft carrier on the Marine One helicopter, accompanied by his chief of staff Reince Priebus, adviser Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

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Yemen targets Saudi oil refinery with ballistic missile

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:38AM

Fighters of Yemen's Ansarullah movement have launched a retaliatory ballistic missile attack on a Saudi oil facility in the kingdom's western Yababu province.

According to the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network on Saturday, Yemeni forces used a Scud-type Borkan-2 (Volcano-2) in the attack.

Meanwhile, the director of the global relief foundation Care International has called on Saudi Arabia to remove is blockade on Yemen.

Wolfgang Jamann made the announcement during a five-day trip to the impoverished country.

"We are now in the 21st century and the current situation is an absolute shame on humanity," he said.

He said that the situation in the war-torn country is much worse than expected.

"60 percent of the country is food insecure and over half the population is unable (to access) safe drinking water. Many areas in Yemen are just one step away from a famine situation," he stressed.

He further called on the international community to intervene before it's too late.

"Thousands of civilians have died since the start of the conflict and millions more have been displaced inside the country," he added.

Saudi Arabia has been leading the campaign against Yemen to reinstate the former government and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The campaign has seriously damaged the country's infrastructure. Local Yemeni sources have put the death toll from the Saudi war at over 12,000, including many women and children.

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Taliban Seize Control Of Two Districts In Afghanistan

July 23, 2017

Afghan officials said the Taliban have seized control of two districts in northern and central Afghanistan, though the Defense Ministry maintained that fighting was still ongoing.

Abdul Karim Youresh, spokesman for the police chief of Faryab Province, said the militants seized Kohistan district, including the government headquarters, early on July 23.

Mohammad Mustafa Mohseni, the provincial police chief of Ghor Province, said Taywara district fell late on July 22 following clashes with militants. Officials said Taliban militants killed several doctors and patients in a Taywara hospital.

The Taliban said in a statement that they had captured both the Kohistan and the Taywara districts.

The Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said the districts had not fallen, insisting that government forces were still locked in fighting with the militants.

Youresh said two police officer were killed in the clashes in Faryab, which has been the scene of repeated fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters seeking to expand their reach in the area.

He said security forces and police were battling the militants in eight districts in the province, located on the border with Turkmenistan.

Meanwhile, Moheseni said at least eight police were killed in fighting against the militants in Ghor, an impoverished, remote province in central Afghanistan.

The Taliban are engaged in fighting with security forces in the northern province of Baghlan, temporarily closing a key highway between the capital, Kabul, and northern Afghanistan.

News agencies cited local officials as saying on July 23 that Taliban militants killed several people in a Taywara district hospital, stalking the hallways in search of Afghan security personnel.

The reported death toll at the hospital ranged from four to 12. The Associated Press cited a provincial health official as saying that he received reports that the militants killed patients they believed were police or military personnel.

With reporting by Tolo News, Pajhwok, AP, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-seize-hqs -northwestern-afghanistan/28633283.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. General: Russia Just One Of Many Security Threats Facing Country

RFE/RL July 23, 2017

The top U.S. military officer has told a security conference that Russia is the "most-capable state actor" that the United States faces, but it is just one of many security challenges in today's environment.

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on July 22 at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado that "Russia...is one of the threats that we face right now, and is the one that is the most militarily capable."

But he added that "we don't actually have the luxury today of singling out one challenge."

"Obviously, North Korea today from a sense-of-urgency perspective would be our no. 1 challenge," he said.

"We're certainly dealing with a malign influence from Iran on a daily basis. Clearly, the fight against violent extremism is one we're completely engaged with. And we have some security challenges in the Pacific," including "the rise of China."

When asked how the United States can push back against Russia for "continuously challenging" the West in Ukraine, its actions in Syria, and its "buzzing" of U.S. warplanes, Dunford said that in dealing with Russia, "first and foremost, we have to be able to deter nuclear war, so we have a nuclear deterrent."

He also cited maintaining capabilities for conventional military defenses and the need for "allies and partners," emphasizing relationships with other NATO members.

But he said the United States must also be prepared to deal with threats from Russia in nonmilitary matters as well.

Russia's "adversarial competition" also involves cybercapabilities and "information" and "unconventional" operations, he said.

Dunford said he had "no reason" to question the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the U.S. presidential election.

President Donald Trump has often expressed doubts about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

In regard to Syria, he said Russia and Iran have "divergent long-term political objectives" in the country and the longer the conflict drags on, the more those divergent objectives will be "exposed."

"It's fair to say Russia and Iran are competing for influence in Syria," he said in reference to their dealings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.

"That marriage of the Syrian regime, the Russian Federation, and Iran is not one that will endure."

"What Iran wants in the region is different from what Russia wants.... It's hard to reconcile those perspectives," he said.

He played down reports that it was a "foregone conclusion" there would be undue Iranian influence in Iraq, with one report calling it a proxy state of Iran.

"I've been in Iraq for a couple of years. It has not been my experience that it's a foregone conclusion," he said.

"I think there's a pretty solid strain of Iraqi nationalism in Iraq," he said, while acknowledging they share a border and many similar cultural, religious, and economic interests.

"Our continued support for Iraq to have a solid political arrangement...allows it to be independent," and having independent security forces is a key, he said.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/dunford-russia-iran- iraq-north-korea-china-terrorism -extremism-security/28633027.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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Erdogan: Qatar Crisis Not In 'Anyone's Interest' As Gulf States' Tour Begins

RFE/RL July 23, 2017

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has embarked on a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and ally Qatar amid a regional crisis, saying no country had an interest in prolonging the situation.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other countries broke all diplomatic and commercial ties with Qatar over the Gulf nation's alleged funding for Islamic extremists and its close ties to regional rival Iran.

Qatar denies the allegations, but says it is ready for talks to resolve the crisis so long as the nation's sovereignty is respected.

Erdogan is scheduled to meet Saudi Arabia's King Salman on July 23 before heading to Kuwait, the country currently mediating in the crisis.

He is expected to finish his trip in Qatar on July 24.

"No one has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore," said Erdogan on July 23 before leaving on the two-day trip.

He accused "enemies" of seeking to "fire up tensions between brothers" in the region.

Erdogan also said Riyadh -- as the "elder statesman in the Gulf region" -- has to play a "big role" in solving the crisis, although he was careful not to explicitly criticize the kingdom.

International attempts to resolve the crisis, including with U.S. involvement, have so far failed.

Since the crisis erupted in June, Turkey has sent troops to Qatar and continues to ship food to help the small Gulf nation.

Qatar holds strategic importance for Turkey, which established a military base in the oil-rich nation after a 2014 agreement. Ankara says as many as 1,000 soldiers could eventually be stationed there.

The two countries also are believed to support Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, seen by Gulf countries as a threat to their rule.

Based on reporting by dpa and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/erdogan-visit -gulf-states/28633276.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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Walesa Joins In Protests Against Controversial Judicial Legislation In Poland

RFE/RL July 23, 2017

Lech Walesa, the former Polish president and leader of the opposition to communist rule, joined protests against plans to put the judicial system under the ruling party's political control.

The 73-year-old Walesa on July 22 told a crowd in the northern city of Gdansk to use "all means" to protect their democracy.

"Our generation succeeded in putting Poland back on track and ensuring the separation of powers," he said, referring to Poland's transition to democracy in the 1980s. "We cannot allow anyone to destroy that."

Protests in cities throughout the country have mounted since Poland's Senate on July 22 defied the European Union and approved legislation giving political leaders substantial control over the court system.

The legislation calls for firing current Supreme Court judges, except those approved by the president, and it gives the president power to regulate the courts.

EU leaders have criticized the bill for impairing judicial independence and threatening the rule of law.

The bill sponsored by the nation's populist ruling party now only needs the signature of President Andrzej Duda within 21 days to become law. Duda has adhered to the ruling party line up to now.

On July 22, presidential spokesman Krzysztof Lapinski said Duda sees some flaws in the legislation, but he did not say whether the president would reject the bill or seek the opinion of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Warsaw, Krakow, and other cities to urge Duda to reject the legislation.

Many of the protesters in the capital marched to the Supreme Court, where people held candles and sang the John Lennon song Imagine.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law and Justice party, argues that the judiciary still functions as it did during the communist era and harbors many judges from that time. Communist rule ended in 1989.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and The Guardian

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/walesa-joins- protests-judicial-legislation- poland/28633267.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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King Salman Relief Center provides assistance to Yemen worth $ 615 million

Saudi Press Agency

Sunday 1438/10/29 - 2017/07/23

Riyadh, 29 Shawwal,1438 AH, 23 July,2017 , SPA -- King Salman Center for Relief and Humanitarian Aid has provided for brothers in Yemen since it was launched by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud a number of projects amounted to 139 different projects for the Yemeni governorates in various fields including relief, humanitarian aid, shelter, agriculture and water programs in collaboration with 84 national and local partners, focusing on children and women projects and support for Yemeni refugees in Djibouti and Somalia with an amount of US $ 615,839,175.

Food and shelter security projects and camp management and coordination have reached 48 projects with an amount of US $ 241,433,526, benefiting 21 million people, while the number of partners reached 26 and education, protection and early recovery programs reached 18 projects valued at US $ 78,846,277 benefiting 3,915,336 beneficiaries through 13 partners.

In the field of health, nutrition, water and environmental sanitation, the Center provided 63 projects with $ 239,048,402, and number of partners in the program reached 42.

In the field of emergency communications and logistics projects and support and coordination of humanitarian operations, the Center allocated 10 projects to this aspect, benefiting 15,112 beneficiaries through four partners, with an amount of $ 56,510,970 .

A number of heads of state, community leaders, international and regional organizations working in the fields of relief and humanitarian services and visitors to the Center expressed their thanks and appreciation for the role being played by the Center in providing services in a professional manner.

-- SPA

12:11 LOCAL TIME 09:11 GMT

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Taliban Captures 2 Districts in Central Afghanistan

By Ayaz Gul July 23, 2017

Heavy fighting is raging in central Afghanistan where officials say the Islamist Taliban has captured two key district headquarters and is assaulting government outposts in nearby areas.

Insurgents stormed Taywara district in Ghor province early Sunday, after seizing control of the border district of Kohistan in the adjoining northern province of Faryab, according to Afghan and Taliban officials.

Ghor's governor Nasir Khazay told VOA thousands of Taliban fighters participated in the pre-dawn attack on Taywara and faced strong resistance from Afghan forces before overrunning it.

A government spokesman in Faryab told VOA around 700 Taliban insurgents overnight attacked Kohistan and swiftly captured key installations, including the police headquarters, before establishing control over the entire district.

Abdul Karim Youresh said that as many as 200 Afghan security forces have been cornered in a remote village in the district also known as Lawlash, and urgently need reinforcements.

Insurgents are attacking government positions in eight other districts of Faryab, according to Afghan media.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed rebels inflicted heavy casualties on government forces and killed dozens of them in the fighting for the control of the two districts.

It was not possible to independently verify the claims and Afghan officials would not discuss casualty details saying clashes were still underway in the area.

Taliban insurgents have also besieged the Khanabad district of the northern Kunduz province. Afghan officials, meanwhile, have confirmed insurgents ambushed and killed at least 35 Afghan forces in the neighboring northeastern Badakhshan province Friday.

Clashes are also raging in volatile southern Helmand province where an American drone strike mistakenly killed at least 15 Afghan security forces during Friday's clashes in the Gereshk district.

The Taliban has intensified insurgent activities across the country as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is about to complete its much-awaited comprehensive review of Afghan policy.

The new policy may involve intensified U.S. military operations, including the addition of several thousand troops, to enable Afghan security forces reverse insurgent gains.

At the start of this year's fighting season, the Afghan government was in control of less than 60 percent of territory while the Taliban controlled or influenced the rest, according to U.S. military assessments.

The Trump administration is also expected to take a tougher posture towards neighboring Pakistan that Washington blames for the military stalemate in Afghanistan.

U.S. military officials maintain Taliban insurgents and their dreaded ally, the Haqqani network, are using sanctuaries on Pakistani soil to sustain the Afghan insurgency. Islamabad denies the charges.

On Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that the Pentagon has withheld 50 million dollars in military assistance to Pakistan because the country was not taking enough action to counter activities of Haqqanis.

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Trump's Position Uncertain as US Congressional Leaders Reach Accord on Russia Sanctions

By Ken Bredemeier July 23, 2017

The U.S. Congress is moving toward adoption of new sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, but it was unclear Sunday whether President Donald Trump would sign the legislation.

Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, told CNN, "You've got to ask President Trump. My guess is he's going to make that decision soon."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC News "the White House supports where the legislation is now."

Key Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached accord Saturday on the measure, which does not include changes Trump wanted to make it easier for him to lift penalties against Moscow.

The House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday, while the Senate has already overwhelmingly approved its version, but would have to concur with the House bill before it could be sent to Trump for his signature.

Investigations

Trump has been largely dismissive of numerous investigations underway in the U.S. about Russian meddling in the election aimed at helping him win. But the legislation would require him to submit a report to Congress explaining his reasons for wanting to ease or terminate sanctions against Moscow, such as returning diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York that former President Barack Obama shut in December in response to the election interference.

Congress would have at least 30 days to hold hearings and then vote to approve or reject Trump's easing of sanctions.

Scaramucci, reflecting Trump's views, said, "The Russia thing is a complete bogus and nonsensical thing."

Scaramucci, named Friday as one of Trump's top advisers, said the president remains uncertain whether Russia hacked into computer files at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington and then released thousands of emails through the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks to damage Trump's challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Numerous congressional panels are interviewing Trump campaign aides about possible links to Russian interests. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a criminal probe whether the Trump campaign illegally colluded with Moscow and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director who was heading the Russia probe before Mueller took over.

Procedural issues

On Saturday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they had reached an agreement that fixed lingering procedural issues, as well as adding the sanctions against North Korea to the bill approved by the Senate.

The House legislation will be considered under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage, meaning it would pass with a veto-proof majority.

Approval of the bill will likely occur before Congress' August recess, a rare bipartisan effort in the politically fractious Washington.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement, "The bill the House will vote on next week will now exclusively focus on these nations and hold them accountable for their dangerous actions."

Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, echoed the Republicans' statement, saying the bill "will hold Russia and Iran accountable for their destabilizing actions around the world."

With the sanctions legislation, Congress is seeking to punish Russia not only for its meddling last fall in the U.S. election, but also for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed the U.S. election interference, a claim Putin has rejected.

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Venezuela's Opposition Calls 2-Day National Strike

By VOA News July 23, 2017

Venezuela's opposition announced a two-day national strike this week aimed at pressuring President Nicolas Maduro to cancel a controversial July 30 election for a new congress.

"We are calling out the entire people, all groups in society, for a 48-hour strike" on Wednesday and Thursday, lawmaker Simon Calzadilla said.

Calzadilla said a protest march on Friday, following the strike, will demand that Maduro officially scrap the vote,

The president, however, remains defiant in the face of ever-increasing protests and international pressure.

"The imperial right wing believes it can give orders to Venezuela," Maduro said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose economic sanctions on Caracas unless the vote is aborted.

"The only ones who give orders here are the people," Madura said during his weekend television commentary, broadcast late Saturday. "This time next week (on Sunday) Venezuelans will be voting for a Constituent Assembly."

Protesters in Caracas marched toward the embattled nation's supreme court Saturday, chanting slogans denouncing Maduro's plan to rewrite the constitution. National Guard troops used tear gas in at least one location, blocking protesters with clouds of white gas and rows of officers on motorcycles.

A 23-year-old violinist who has become a symbol of anti-government protests in Venezuela, Wuilly Arteaga, was hit in the face and injured during clashes between protesters and security forces.

Speaking from a hospital in Caracas, Arteaga said, "No matter what, we will continue to fight." He gained fame for playing his instrument in the middle of ongoing violent clashes in the Venezuelan capital.

Violence during four months of anti-government unrest has taken more than 100 lives, injured thousands, left hundreds in jail and further damaged an economy in its fourth year of a debilitating decline.

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Chinese air force's fighter units become strong contingent: expert

People's Daily Online

(CNTV) 11:08, July 23, 2017

Ahead of the 90th anniversary of the formation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), military experts have been discussing the development of the various divisions over the years.

China's air force, which was non-existent when the PLA was first formed in 1927, has grown to become one of the major components of China's Defense sector.

Chinese air force expert Wang Mingliang says Chinese-developed air technology has seen significant advancements in China's air force in recent years.

"Before we carried out the transformation, which was before the 1990s, our fighters were mainly the first generation fighters. But now the scale of our third generation fighters taking the lead gives us a major advantage. We not only have the third-generation fighters but are moving forward to the fourth generation. We also have new types of surface-to-air missiles, new types air-to-air missiles and a series of other new weapons, including new types of unmanned aerial vehicles. We have now mastered these state-of-the-art achievements in the military aviation field," said Wang.

The PLA air force began developing during the Korean War from 1950.

Today, the J-15 fighter jet, which is China's first carrier-based fighter jet, is considered one of the most advanced military aircraft in the world.

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China-Russia naval exercise begins in Baltic Sea

People's Daily Online

(CNTV) 11:06, July 23, 2017

China and Russia have started their large-scale naval drills dubbed "Joint Sea 2017" in the Baltic Sea. The exercises will involve jets, helicopters and vessels.

The Chinese Navy is represented by one of its most advanced missile destroyers, the Hefei, as well as missile frigate Yuncheng and the Luomahu supply ship. CGTN's Daria Bondarchuk reported the two countries want to increase cooperation and efficiency in protecting security at sea.

According to the report, the naval forces of the Chinese People's Liberation Army arrived in Russia on Friday. A welcoming ceremony was held in Baltiysk in northern Russia. The Chinese and the Russian navies are set to hold a series of drills as part of the "Joint Sea 2017" exercise program. A dozen vessels of different classes, as well as some 10 aircraft and helicopters from both sides are scheduled to take part in the first leg of the drills throughout next week.

The Joint Sea naval exercises were held for the first time in 2012. This year they will stretch into autumn. In September the second phase of the navy drills will begin in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan.

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Russia, US & Germany Duke It Out for Lucrative Indian Armored Vehicle Contract

Sputnik News

21:29 23.07.2017(updated 23:22 23.07.2017)

India's Financial Express newspaper has reported that a decision on the country's long-delayed Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicle (FICV) project could be reached by the end of the month. Russian observers say Moscow has a good chance of winning the contract, but doing so will require sharing the defense industry's latest armored vehicle technology.

A source told Financial Express last week that the Defense Acquisition Council, India's main arms purchase decision-making body, would make a decision on whether or not to reissue their statement of interest in the FICV program before the end of July.

The newspaper explained that several Indian companies, including L&T, Mahindra Group, Tata Motors, Bharat Forge and Reliance Defense were in the running for the $7.5 billion, 2600+ vehicle defense order. Possible foreign partners include Russia's Rosoboronexport, General Dynamics, and Germany's Rheinmetall Group.

The Indian FICV project envisions the local design and production of air-transportable infantry fighting vehicles, most of them in tracked variant, although some are expected to be produced in a wheeled version as well.

The new vehicles are meant to replace the 1,400 Soviet-designed BMP-1 and BMP-2 IFVs currently in service with the Indian ground forces. The FICV project calls for a crew of three, and the ability to carry up to eight infantrymen. The design is also expected to minimize losses from mine and IED explosions.

In addition to Russian, US and German companies, Delhi has already engaged in negotiations with French, Israeli, South Korean and British companies on the FICV. When it was originally unveiled in 2009, the FICV project was meant to be entirely homegrown. However, Indian companies showing interest in the contract quickly started talk of partnerships with foreign companies. Mahindra Defense Systems partnered with the UK's BAE Systems, while Tata Motors partnered with Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.

In 2012, media reported that Russia had proposed selling India localization rights to the BMP-3. In late 2013, it was reported that Delhi would not abandon the FICV project in favor of a licensing agreement with Moscow. However, since then the project has been repeatedly frozen and restarted, with the Indian Defense Ministry seemingly unable to find a suitable design for its new IFV.

Russian defense experts believe Moscow has a good shot of participating in the FICV project, since Russian armored vehicle builders have considerable experience with both tracked and wheeled armored vehicle designs.

Weapons export specialist Andrei Frolov told Russia's Svobodnaya Pressa newspaper that based on his conversations with Russian armored vehicle builders in contact with Indian officials, "it can be concluded that Delhi is not interested in the purchase of armored cars, including the BMP-3, but plans to establish production on its own territory."

"Furthermore," he noted, "the armored fighting vehicle must be created in a design bureau in India, and because local designers don't have the necessary resources, their industrial groups turn to cooperation with foreign firms which have the relevant experience."

Delhi, according to Frolov, considers the BMP-3 to be a worn-in design that's unsuitable for the technology boost intended to be provided by the FICV project. They must be made to realize, however, that "the creation of a modern infantry fighting vehicle is a complicated business. For example, in Russia, the implementation of the new Kurganets-25 projectinvolved dozens of enterprises. In India, for this to be accomplished, new factories will have to be created."

As far as the competition goes, Frolov suggested that the German option is probably too expensive, with Rheinmetall Group's Puma IFV coming in at a cost of about $7 million euros apiece in its German iteration. As for the Russian option, the main weak point of the Kurganets-25 (tracked) and Bumerang (wheeled) IFVs is that they have not yet been broadly adopted into the Russian armed forces, according to the analyst.

The US too has a decent shot at the contract, Frolov said, even if they may end up getting chosen based on political considerations. US defense firms have the added benefit of the fact that Indian companies are already cooperating with them on defining their new IFV concept.

Asked why the FICV project has been suspended and resumed so many times, Frolov explained that the problem lies in the fact that new IFVs seem to be a low priority for Delhi, compared to other weapons systems at least. "They would like new planes and submarines [too], but don't have enough money for everything. Notwithstanding the fact that their park of IFVs is outdated, this issue is still not a priority for them. It's obvious that before they create the production base for armored vehicles, several more years will pass; the whole park cannot be renewed overnight."

Vladimir Shvarev, deputy director of the Moscow-based Center for the Analysis of World Arms Trade, also believes that Russia has a good chance of participating in the FICV project, if it is ever finalized.

"The program has been stalled for quite some time now," the expert stressed. "The main reason is that the Indian Defense Ministry cannot formulate the finalized requirements for their armored vehicle."

"Furthermore," Shvarev recalled that earlier this month, "media reported that the Ministry of Defense, bypassing tender procedures, voiced its intention to give two state enterprises  the Ordnance Factory Board and Bharat Electronics a project for the modernization of 693 Sarath IFVs the localized version of the Soviet BMP-2. Some of those vehicles were delivered from the USSR, while about 1,250 have been assembled in India. The value of the modernization contract is estimated at $371 million."

Ultimately, Shvarev suggested that on the one hand, the modernization project is a logical decision, given the outdated condition of the country's park of IFVs. "On the other hand, modernization is likely to again push the design of the prospective vehicle off another several years," he said.

 Sputnik

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Iran launches line for mass-production of missile

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 22, 2017 10:6AM

Iran has inaugurated the mass production line of the domestically-developed, long-range Sayyad (Hunter) 3 missile.

Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, and Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, the commander of the Iranian Army's Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base, participated in the inauguration ceremony on Saturday.

During the ceremony, some of the projectiles, which have been indigenously designed and produced by experts at the Defense Ministry's Aerospace Industries, were also handed over to the Air Base.

The Iranian defense chief said the missile could fly as far as 120 kilometers, and reach an altitude of 27 kilometers. It has been designed to counter aerial threats within medium and long ranges, he added.

"Sayyad 3 missile has been designed based on the world's latest technologies," Dehqan noted.

The missile, he said, "can engage different types of threats, such as radar evasive fighter planes, unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, helicopters, as well as various types of modern aircraft of high maneuvering capabilities and speed... within the sphere of its operation."

He said Sayyad 3 had been fitted with combined maneuvering capability, advanced surveillance apparatuses, infrared capability, and state-of-the-art features against electronic warfare tactics.

Esmaili announced that the missile "joins the country's Integrated Air Defense System today."

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Iran not to accept any offer for resumption of talks on JCPOA

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 23, IRNA -- Head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi underlined that Iran will never yield to any re-negotiation on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Boroujerdi said the US should fully abide by the JCPOA.

He said none of the negotiation parties to Iran in the JCPOA case are ready to accept the US' offer for re-holding talks.

Boroujerdia then called Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's comment that the JCPOA is not a mutual agreement to be abandoned or on which to hold talks again.

The lawmaker was referring to the US President Donald Trump's claim on talking on the JCPOA again and such it is sort of cunning  an illogical move.

"When a document is signed by all the negotiating sides after months and when the UN Security Council confirms it by re-issuing resolutions, it would be meaningless to hold talks on it again. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not accept such illogical proposal."

Also referring to recent talks between Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi and the Group 5+1 at the 8th JCPOA Joint Committee session in Vienna, Boroujerdi said, 'In those talks, the US was virtually isolated and left with no option, but fully abiding by the JCPOA."

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Iran, Iraq ink MoU to boost defense cooperation

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 23, IRNA -- Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and his Iraqi counterpart Major General Erfan al-Hiyali here on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on defense and military cooperation.

The two sides agreed on a wide range of defense and military cooperation in different fields.

The expansion of cooperation and sharing experiences in the fields of fight against terrorism and extremism, border security, training, logistics, technical and military supports were included in the MoU.

Following signing ceremony, the two ministers held a press conference and underlined deepening and expanding of defensive cooperation between the two countries.

Major General al-Hiyali, heading a high-ranking Iraqi defense delegation, arrived in Tehran on Saturday at invitation of Brigadier General Dehqan.

The Iraqi Defense Minister is scheduled to meet other top Iranian political and defense officials.

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Iran will not agree to renegotiate JCPOA: Senior MP

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 4:38PM

A senior Iranian lawmaker says the Islamic Republic will by no means agree to holding fresh talks on a landmark nuclear deal it signed with the P5+1 group of countries in 2015.

"When a document is signed by all the negotiating sides after months of negotiations and the United Nations Security Council also adopts a resolution to endorse it, it will be meaningless to hold new talks on it," Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Sunday.

He added that the United States must completely implement the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Iranian lawmaker added that earlier comments by US President Donald Trump about possible ways to renegotiate key terms of the JCPOA were among instances of Washington's violation of the deal, describing Trump's comments as an illegal move.

Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - plus Germany signed the JCPOA on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16, 2016.

Under the agreement, limits were put on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all nuclear-related bans against the Islamic Republic.

The UN Security Council later unanimously endorsed a resolution that effectively turned the JCPOA into international law.

The US president has been a critic of the JCPOA signed under his predecessor, Barack Obama, calling it a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated," and vowing to scarp or renegotiate it.

Addressing a sit-down with a small group of American journalists on July 19, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected any attempts to renegotiate the JCPOA.

"It would be extremely dangerous to even contemplate reopening these negotiations, because now we all go into any possible negotiations with even higher expectations," Zarif said, adding, "It was complicated enough to reach this deal already, and it would be impossible to reach another deal."

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Iran, Iraq sign MoU to boost defense, military cooperation

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 12:35PM

Iran and Iraq have signed a memorandum of understanding to boost defense and military cooperation in a variety of fields.

The agreement was inked by Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and his Iraqi counterpart, Erfan al-Hiyali, in Tehran on Sunday.

According to the MoU, Tehran and Baghdad will strengthen cooperation, exchange experience in the fight against terrorism and extremism, improve border security, and provide the two countries' military forces with training, logistical, technical and military support.

Speaking at the ceremony held to sign the agreement, Dehqan said while terrorist groups, especially Daesh, were committing crimes in Iraq, cooperation between the two countries resulted in great achievements.

He added that more serious cooperation was necessary to prevent the emergence of terrorist groups in Iraq and across the region.

"The signed MoU will set a framework for future cooperation and we hope that it would prepare the ground for serious and effective measures [in this regard]," Dehqan said.

The Iraqi minister, for his part, said the agreement was signed in line with the two countries' common interests.

Heading a delegation, Hiyali arrived in Tehran on Saturday at the official invitation of the Iranian defense minister. Later in the day, the two defense chiefs held talks on different issues.

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US violation of nuclear deal won't go unanswered: Iran official

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 7:43AM

A senior official says Iran will respond to any failure on the part of the US to meet its commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement, to which Washington is a signatory.

Ali Akbar Velayati, the senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, made the remarks after a meeting with China's Special Envoy for Syria Xie Xiaoyan in Tehran on Saturday.

"Undoubtedly, the US breach of the JCPOA won't go unanswered," he said, referring to the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

He said the supervisory committee on the implementation of the nuclear accord would discuss the US non-compliance and make a collective decision after hearing the results of the eighth meeting of the Iran-P5+1 Joint Commission in Vienna this week.

The nuclear agreement was inked between Iran and the P5+1 countries  namely the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany  in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016.

Under the deal, which was later endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution, limits were put on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of all nuclear-related bans imposed on the Islamic Republic, among other things.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, which took over in January 2017, one year after the JCPOA came into force, has however slapped sanctions on Iran over its missile program in violation of the nuclear deal.

Kuwait downgraded Iran ties under Saudi pressure

Elsewhere in his comments, Velayati said Kuwait's recent move to downgrade its ties with Iran came under Saudi, US and Israeli pressure.

"It is in the interest of the Kuwaiti government and nation to manage their relations with Iran based on good neighborly relations," rather than endangering the country's national interests under pressure from the Saudis and others, he said.

On Thursday, Kuwait shut down the Iranian cultural mission and ordered the Iranian ambassador to Kuwait City and 14 other Iranian diplomats to leave the country, according to local media reports.

The decision came after Kuwait convicted a group of men, claiming they were spying for Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah - charges both Tehran and the resistance movement have rejected.

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Larijani: Iraq should defend own territorial integrity

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 23, IRNA -- Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that the Iraqi government should defend its territorial integrity by preserving political unity to have a more powerful, safe and democratic country in the future.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Iraqi Defense Minister Erfan al-Hiyali.

Hailing Iraq's achievements in fighting terrorism, Larijani said that despite its heavy costs, fighting Daesh immuned Iraq from recurrence of similar incidents in the future.

Certain states which are not Iraq's allies saw discord in the country and are proposing partitioning of the war-torn region, he noted.

The speaker added that Israel do not want establishment of peace in the region, noting that protection of security in Iraq is necessary.

Cautioning about penetration of terrorists, he said: 'Iran would continue its support for the neighboring and friend countries.'

Iran supports unity of all ethnic groups and sects in Iraq and will side with the Iraqi people and government for reconstruction of the country, Larijani added.

He said that all ethnic groups in Iraq should participate in the politics and governance of the country and do not permit the enemies to interfere in their fate.

The speaker pointed to the role of political differences in penetration of Daesh in Iraq and called for promotion of parliamentarian and economic relations between the two states.

Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and his Iraqi counterpart here on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to broaden defense and military cooperation.

Expansion of cooperation and sharing experiences in the fields of fight against terrorism and extremism, border security, training, logistics, technical and military supports were included in the MoU.

Major General al-Hiyali, heading a high-ranking Iraqi defense delegation, arrived in Tehran on Saturday at the invitation of Brigadier General Dehqan.

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Iran cautions Iraq on secessionist approaches

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 23, IRNA -- Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani cautioned Iraq on the secessionist approaches in the country, adding that it can be manipulated by the greedy Iraqi enemies and prepare the ground for making unrest and instability there.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Iraqi Defense Minister Erfan al-Hiyali.

During the meeting, Shamkhani praised Iraqi people, Army and popular forces' resistance against terrorist groups.

Close military, security and cultural cooperation to counter terrorism among countries fallen victim to terrorism in the region is an inevitable necessity, he added.

Shamkhani said that cooperation among countries that are victims of terrorism can deter revival of terrorist rings and would prevent foreign military intervention in the region under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

While the US officials and their coalition declared that the re-capture of the occupied lands from Daesh needs seven years, following the guidelines of the religious leaders Iraqis liberated the occupied lands in a short period of time, he noted.

Shamkhani said that territorial integrity and national unity of Iraq guarantees stability, security and interests of all Iraqi sects and ethnic groups.

Iranian government and people like always would continue support for the Iraqi armed forces and would assist Baghdad to eliminate terrorist threats, establish peace and security and re-construct the war-torn region, he added.

Shamkhani referred to regional developments, in particular recent Zionist regime crimes in al-Quds, and noted that the Palestinian people's uprising in Al-Aqsa mosque was a heavy blow to certain regional counties' conspiracies and their efforts to normalize relations with the occupying forces.

He emphasized boosting unity and solidarity among Muslim countries and their reliance on common Islamic teachings.

Today, the Islamic world is facing a very dangerous threat which is far dangerous than the danger of Takfiri groups, Shamkhani said, noting that magnifying the issue of Takfirism should not lead to marginalization of the Palestinian issue.

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Separate bomb attacks claim eight lives across Iraq

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 5:53PM

At least eight people have lost their lives and several others sustained injuries when two separate bomb attacks targeted security personnel and residential neighborhoods in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala as well as the embattled western province of Anbar.

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said three policemen were killed when a car bomb exploded in the city of Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of the capital Baghdad, Arabic-language al-Mayadeen news network reported.

The source added that a captain was among the slain policemen.

Separately, five civilians were killed and nine others wounded when an improvised explosive device went off northwest of Baqubah city, located some 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for Sunday's deadly attacks, but such assaults bear the hallmarks of those carried out by Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), a total of 415 Iraqi civilians lost their lives, and 300 others were injured as a result of acts of terrorism and violence across Iraq in June.

The UN mission, however, did not mention the number of Iraqi police forces, who were killed or sustained injuries in the violence.

A large number of the fatalities were recorded in the troubled northern province of Nineveh, where 289 civilians were killed and 93 others wounded.

The central province of Salahuddin had 31 people killed and 34 injured. Another 24 people lost their lives and 26 suffered injuries in Babil Province.

The capital province of Baghdad saw 22 people killed and another 88 injured.

Gruesome violence has plagued the northern and western parts of Iraq ever since Daesh terrorists mounted an offensive there more than two years ago, and took control of portions of Iraqi territory.

Iraqi army soldiers and pro-government fighters from Popular Mobilization Units, commonly known by the Arabic word Hashd al-Sha'abi, are engaged in joint opeartyions to win back militant-held areas.

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White House Signals Support For New Russia Sanctions Bill

RFE/RL July 23, 2017

The White House says it is open to new legislation that would slap new sanctions on Russia and limit U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to ease or lift them by himself.

The comments by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a July 23 television interview came a day after Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Washington said they had reached agreement on the legislation, which Trump administration officials had originally objected to.

"We support where the legislation is now and will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved," Sanders told ABC's "This Week" program.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to improve ties with Moscow, triggering bipartisan concern in Congress that he could lift or ease sanctions punishing Russia for its 2014 seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.

So far the Trump administration has shown no indication it intends to lift Ukraine-related sanctions targeting Russia, which denies providing weapons and personnel to separatists in eastern Ukraine despite evidence of such support.

The bill, which also includes sanctions against Iran and North Korea, is set to be considered in the House of Representatives as early as July 25.

The Senate will also have to vote on the new bill, which would require Trump to send a report to Congress outlining why the administration wants to suspend or terminate any sanctions. Lawmakers would then have one month to decide whether to allow such a move.

Trump's new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, said the president had not yet decided whether he would sign the bill.

"My guess is...that he's going to make that decision shortly," Scaramucci told CNN in an interview.

A refusal by Trump to sign the bill would likely trigger political backlash in Washington given the ongoing FBI and congressional investigations into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election and contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials.

But two senior U.S. senators -- John Thune (Republican-South Dakota) and Ben Cardin (Democrat-Maryland) -- said on July 23 that the legislation would like pass in the Senate with enough support to override a possible veto by Trump.

The U.S. president took to Twitter on July 23 to again decry what he called a "phony Russian witch hunt," referencing his defeat of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

U.S. intelligence agencies assess that the Kremlin ordered a hacking and propaganda campaign aimed at hurting Clinton's campaign.

"As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!" Trump wrote on his Twitter feed.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and The New York Times

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/udpates-with/28633743.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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Syrian army declares cessation of operations east of Damascus

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 22, 2017 2:44PM

The Syrian military has announced the cessation of hostilities between foreign-sponsored terrorist groups and government forces in parts of Eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus, after Russia reached an agreement with the militants on the boundaries for a de-escalation zone there.

The General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces said in a statement carried by state TV that all combat operations will stop as of Saturday 12 p.m. local time (0900 GMT), but warned that army forces will retaliate against any attack by militants.

Earlier in the day, Russia's Defense Ministry stated that an accord had been struck with anti-Damascus extremist groups on the boundaries for a de-escalation zone for Eastern Ghouta.

The ministry statement did not provide further details, but said the agreement includes the zone's borders as well as routes for delivery of humanitarian aid and free movement of civilians.

It added that the agreement was reached during talks in Cairo, with Egyptian mediation.

Russia, with backing from Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran, brokered the deal for establishing de-escalation zones in mainly militant-held areas of Syria during ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital city of Astana in May.

The plan, which came into effect at midnight on May 5, calls for the cessation of hostilities between militant groups and Syrian government forces.

It covers the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, northeastern areas of the western coastal province of Latakia, western areas of Aleppo province and northern areas of Hama province.

It also applies to the Rastan and Talbiseh enclave in Homs province, Eastern Ghouta district in the northern Damascus countryside as well as the militant-controlled southern part of the country along the border with Jordan.

Militant groups agree to end days of bloody fighting in Idlib

Meanwhile, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday that calm has prevailed across the militant-held northwestern province of Idlib since sunset Friday after Ahrar al-Sham terrorists and al-Qaeda-linked Tahrir al-Sham Salafists concluded an agreement.

The Britain-based group added that four days of fighting between the two militant groups left 92 people dead, including 15 civilians.

Syria has been fighting different foreign-sponsored militant and terrorist groups since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated last August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the crisis until then.

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Explosion kills 11 in Syria's militant-held city of Idlib

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 6:15PM

Nearly a dozen people have been killed in a massive explosion that rocked the militant-held city of Idlib in northwestern Syria, purportedly targeting a gathering of members of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

The blast was caused by detonating an explosive-laden car on Sunday, a few hours after the Takfiri terrorist group managed to push its rival group, the Ahrar al-Sham, from the terror-stricken city.

According to local sources, the huge blast killed at least 11 people and inflicted injuries to 34 others.

Two civilians, including a child, were among the dead.

According to local sources, the truck belonged to Ahrar al-Sham and the blast was reportedly carried out in revenge for its defeat against the more powerful Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which is reportedly in full control of the city now.

Syria has been fighting different foreign-sponsored militant and terrorist groups since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated last August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the crisis until then.

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Syrian army soldiers, allies gain more ground in battle against Daesh

Iran Press TV

Sun Jul 23, 2017 4:55PM

Syrian government forces, backed by allied fighters from popular defense groups, have made fresh advances against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group across the war-ravaged Arab country.

Syria's official news agency, SANA, reported that Syrian Army fighter jets had bombarded Daesh positions and gatherings on the outskirts of the troubled northeastern city of Dayr al-Zawr, located 450 kilometers northeast of the capital Damascus on Sunday, killing and wounding scores of the terrorists.

A large number of Daesh Takfiris were also killed and injured when Syrian army units and their allies engaged in heavy clashes with them on southern outskirts of Dayr al-Zawr as well as the area surrounding Dayr al-Zawr Airport.

The clashes reportedly coincided with airstrikes on the hills south of Dayr al-Zawr, where a pickup truck equipped with a machine gun, and a number of terrorists' hideouts were destroyed.

Separately, a young man set fire to a Daesh media center in Hatla village southeast of Dayr al-Zawr.

Unnamed military sources also confirmed that Saleh Mohammad al-Khaleif, a high-profile member of Daesh, has also escaped to the eastern countryside of Dayr al-Zawr, taking huge sums of money with him.

Elsewhere in Sabkha village east of Daesh-held northern city of Raqqah, Syrian army troops managed to regain control over an oil field.

Syria has been fighting different foreign-sponsored militant and terrorist groups since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated last August that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the crisis until then.

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Israel Opposes Iranian Presence in De-Escalation Zone in Southern Syria

Sputnik News

16:15 23.07.2017

The Israeli army rejects any Iranian presence on the Syrian border with Israel and will work on this issue according to the decisions made by the political leadership, according to a spokesman for Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

TEL AVIV (Sputnik)  Israel opposes the Iranian presence near its border in de-escalation zone in the southern regions of Syria, a spokesman for Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told Sputnik Sunday.

In early July, a de-escalation zone was established in the southwestern part of Syria in the districts of Deraa, Suweida and Quneitra. On Saturday, an agreement on the Eastern Ghouta deescalation zone near Damascus, north of the southwestern zone, was signed. Secretary of the opposition Popular Diplomacy Movement Mahmoud Afandi told Sputnik that the monitoring of the zone was likely to be carried out by the United States and Russia without Iran.

"The Israeli army's position on the ceasefire in southern Syria follows the political position of the Israeli government We reject any Iranian presence on the border with Israel and will work on this issue according to the decisions made by the political leadership," head of the IDF Spokesperson's Arabic desk Avichai Adraee said.

The representative of the army added that the country, in respect of the Syrian crisis, adheres to the principle of non-interference and does not support either side, but reserves the right to act in case of attempts to cross the "red lines" established by Israel with regard to its security.

"The red lines that Israel has established in connection with security, attempts to transport weapons and advanced combat systems for the Hezbollah movement. We are instructed to act in these cases," Adraee explained.

The agreements on the order of functioning of the Eastern Ghouta deescalation zone in Syria were signed following the talks held in Cairo by representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry and the Syrian opposition, mediated by the Egyptian side. The first humanitarian convoy in the de-escalation zone and the evacuation of the wounded are planned in the coming days. The documents were signed as a result of development of previous agreements reached at the Astana talks in early May.

 Sputnik

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Autumn Mitchell has only just graduated from the Stanley-Boyd High School. In 15 years, look for her in a white lab coat in the halls of a hospital in Eau Claire.

The 18-year-old Boyd native, who plans to become an anesthesiologist, made the journey to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in July to participate in the National Youth Leadership Forum-Medicine.

The program selects 3,500 high school students from around the world to participate each year at campuses around the United States, according to a spokeswoman for the program. For nine days, students are immersed in the world of working doctors, nurses and biologists, learning basic medical procedures, shadowing doctors and getting a taste of life as a medical student.

Mitchell, a future freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, says there are several women in her circle who helped her get to Chapel Hill: her mother Janelle Mitchell, a surgical technologist at Mayo Clinic Health System-Eau Claire, and Mary McIntire, a science teacher at Stanley-Boyd High School.

Through my mom, Ive had way more experience in the medical field than I would have had otherwise, Mitchell said. After growing up with a parent working at hospitals, she shadowed eight different doctors at area clinics, but nothing clicked until she met HSHS Sacred Heart Hospitals resident anesthesiologist, Dr. Deborah Johnson.

As soon as I shadowed her, I knew thats what I wanted to do, Mitchell said.

Mitchells high school teacher, Mary McIntire, says she only nominates students she thinks are capable of handling the rigorous program. This year, Mitchell was her only pick. Autumn has a good heart. Shes a thinker. She respects herself and her future. Shes going to do great things, McIntire said.

Mitchell plans to major in biology at UW-Eau Claire, attend medical school in Minnesota or Madison and then go to work for a hospital.

I just want to help people, Mitchell said. Im just trying to make someones life better.
The End is Near: Syrian Army Intensifies Its Grip of Steel on Daesh

Sputnik News

14:46 23.07.2017

The Syrian Army has regained control over the settlement of al-Dakhilah and the As-Sabhavi gas field located about 18 miles south of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Daesh terrorist group, a Syrian military source told Sputnik.

Speaking to Sputnik, a Syrian military source said that militants from the Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/IS) terrorist group were driven out of the settlement of al-Dakhilah and the As-Sabhavi gas field located about 18 miles south of the city of Raqqa in northern Syria.

"The units of the Syrian Arab army regained control over the settlement of al-Dakhilah, the well of as-Sabhavi and the gas field of the same name in the southern vicinity of Raqqa. A large number of members of the IS terrorist group were eliminated," the source said.

The retaken territories are expected to allow government troops to quickly reach the bank of the Euphrates River and continue the offensive in the direction of Raqqa, the so-called "ISIL capital."

Syrian forces, including combat units under the command of Gen. Suheil al-Hassan, have already managed to regain control over about 20 oil wells as well as a number of gas and oil fields located both in the province of Raqqa and in the western part of Deir ez-Zor province.

On Thursday, US special presidential envoy Brett McGurk said that the Daesh terrorists that remain in the Syrian city of Raqqa have been surrounded and that about one third of the city has already been cleared.

He added that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-led coalition partners on the ground, were advancing on Daesh militants from four directions.

Last week, US Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel said the operation to liberate Raqqa is likely to take months to complete, as the terrorists had years to prepare for the battle and will fight aggressively.

"We would expect they are going to fight harder and more aggressively than they are, and a large part of that is going to be exploited again. So, I think it is going to be a challenging fight and it will take months." Votel said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times.

The CENTCOM commander also noted that the US-backed forces fighting in Syria are not supported by the government there, while the US partners in Iraq are.

"They don't have all the trappings of a big army," he added.

On July 4, the Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by the US-led coalition, breached the Old City wall in Raqqa, advancing into its most heavily fortified enclave and overcoming the defenses of the terrorists.

The SDF launched the operation to reclaim Raqqa on June 6, more than three years after Daesh declared the city their capital.

 Sputnik

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U.S. Envoy Says 'Astonishing' Number Of Cease-Fire Violations In Ukraine 'Hot War'

Christopher Miller July 23, 2017

The new U.S. special envoy for Ukraine peace negotiations said he was stunned by the number of cease-fire violations in the ex-Soviet nation's war-torn east after making his first visit to the region.

Kurt Volker, who was recently appointed as Washington's point man for talks on ending the war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, made the comment in a July 23 interview after spending the day at the front lines of the conflict.

"The level of cease-fire violations on daily basis is astonishing," Volker told RFE/RL by telephone from a train bound for Kyiv, where he was set to hold talks with Ukrainian officials the following day.

Volker's assessment came hours after he told a news conference in Kramatorsk, the headquarters of Kyiv's military operation against the separatists, that Ukraine is locked in a "hot war" whose origins he blamed on Moscow.

"This is not a frozen conflict, this is a hot war, and it's an immediate crisis that we all need to address as quickly as possible," Volker told reporters in the government-controlled eastern city.

Asked later during the news conference whether the United States understood that Russian "aggression" was to blame for the situation and not a "civil war," Volker answered in the affirmative.

"We've seen what's happened, we understand the way this conflict has begun, we understand the way it is being managed today, and that's why it's important that the United States become more engaged," Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, said.

Volker's visit to eastern Ukraine was his first to the region since his appointment in early July as Washington's special representative on negotiations to bring an end to the conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 since April 2014.

Kyiv, the United States, the EU, and NATO accuse Russia of backing the separatists with weapons and personnel. Moscow rejects the accusation despite substantial evidence of such support.

A cease-fire deal signed in February 2015 in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, has failed to end the violence, which has recently flared up. Both Ukraine and the Russia-backed separatists accuse each other of violating the deal.

Volker told RFE/RL that the recent spike in hostilities, in which at least nine Ukrainian soldiers were killed over the previous 72 hours, were of particular concern.

Earlier on July 23, Volker visited the government-controlled town of Avdiyivka near the front line, wearing a tan bulletproof vest and helmet for part of the trip.

He told RFE/RL that it was "shocking" to see the walls of apartment buildings where civilians still live "blown out" by direct artillery strikes.

He said he was most shocked by the human cost of the war, which he discussed with school teachers who have endured years of fighting, and a man who "lost his legs and had his hands blown off" when a shell exploded on the street where he was walking.

Volker said he also talked about the impact the war has had on the local economy, meeting with a man whose business was taken over by Russia-backed forces in the eastern city of Donetsk, forcing him to flee.

In a video released by the Ukrainian military on July 23, Volker was shown arriving by helicopter at its operations in the east and speaking with military officials there.

Asked if he plans to visit the other side of the front line, Volker told locals and the media on July 23 that he plans "to meet a Russian counterpart at some point."

"I think that meeting with the Russians is what we need to do in order to gain the perspective -- the strategic perspective -- over how to resolve this," he said.

The U.S. State Department said on July 21 that during his visit to eastern Ukraine, Volker would "meet with those who have been affected by Russian aggression" and "discuss the importance of security and safety for all Ukrainians."

He was set to meet Ukrainian officials in Kyiv on July 24 "to discuss the path to restoring Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," the State Department said.

Following his stopover in Kyiv, Volker is set to travel to Paris to meet with French and German officials on the Minsk accords, which were brokered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande.

From there he heads to Brussels to meet European Union and NATO officials to discuss resolving the Ukraine conflict.

Volker told RFE/RL that his appointment, his visit to eastern Ukraine, and his upcoming visits to France and Brussels is "a response to the need" for the United States to play a greater role in the Ukraine peace process.

Despite U.S. President Donald Trump's stated desire to improve ties with Moscow, his administration has maintained the punitive measures targeting Russia for its actions in Ukraine that began under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

The Obama administration hit Russia with several waves of sanctions over its seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and subsequent backing of the separatists.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Washington, meanwhile, say they have reached agreement on legislation that would allow new sanctions targeting Moscow -- as well as Iran and North Korea -- and would limit any possible effort by Trump to ease sanctions against Russia.

The Republican-led House of Representatives is set to vote on the bill as early as July 25. The legislation would require the White House to obtain permission from Congress before easing or lifting sanctions against Russia.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-special-envoy- blames-russia-for-hot-war-eastern -ukraine/28633649.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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French English

Valneva Receives FDA Fast Track Designation for its Lyme Disease Vaccine Candidate VLA15

Lyme disease is the fastest growing vector-borne infectious disease in the United States, according to the CDC;



Currently, there is no vaccine available to protect humans against Lyme disease and VLA15 is the only candidate in clinical development;



Valneva recently completed Phase I subject enrollment and expects to announce first results in Q1 2018;



The Company aims to accelerate VLA15's development and plans to initiate a Phase II trial in Q1 2018;



Fast track designation may offer a faster way to market approval through frequent interactions with the FDA

Lyon (France), July 24, 2017 - Valneva SE ("Valneva" or "the Company"), a fully integrated, commercial stage biotech company focused on developing innovative lifesaving vaccines, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for its Lyme disease vaccine candidate VLA15.

Fast Track designation is granted by the FDA to products that are under development for serious conditions and have the potential to fulfill an unmet medical need. It is designed to facilitate the clinical development and expedite the review of new drugs and vaccines with the intention to accelerate the availability of promising products on the market.

Thomas Lingelbach, President and CEO of Valneva commented, "Lyme disease affects an increasing number of people each year, many of whom have to live with long-term sequelae that are not only extremely difficult to treat but also represent a heavy health economic burden. We feel privileged to advance the only active clinical stage Lyme vaccine candidate to date and are looking forward to working closely with the FDA and other authorities to facilitate the development towards approval."

Valneva recently completed subject enrollment for the ongoing Phase I study of its Lyme disease vaccine candidate. The study is being conducted at three sites - two in the U.S. and one in Europe (Belgium) - combining approximately 180 subjects aged between 18 and 40 years. The primary objective of the observer-blind, partially randomized, dose escalation study is to evaluate the vaccine candidate's safety and tolerability profile at different dose levels and formulations. Immunogenicity, measured by observing IgG antibodies against the six most prevalent serotypes of Lyme borreliosis in the US and Europe present in the vaccine, will also be monitored for different dose groups and formulations at different time-points.

Given the steady increase in the incidence of the disease and its spread to new territories, Valneva is committed to accelerate the development of VLA15 as a novel prevention against such a high-priority medical need. As such, the company plans to initiate Phase II as early as the first quarter of 2018.

Pre-clinical data showed that Valneva's vaccine candidate had the potential to provide protection against the majority of Borrelia species pathogenic for humans.

About Lyme disease

Lyme disease (LD), also known as Lyme borreliosis, is an infectious disease caused by Borrelia bacteria which are transmitted to humans by infected ticks. Early symptoms of Lyme disease (such as a gradually expanding erythematous rash called Erythema migrans or more unspecific symptoms like fatigue, fever, headache, mild stiff neck, arthralgia or myalgia) are often overlooked or misinterpreted. When treatment for LD is delayed or inadequate, infection with Borrelia can lead to serious complications involving the joints, heart and central nervous system. Each year, an estimated 300,000 US citizens and 85,000 Europeans develop Lyme disease. It was diagnosed as a separate condition for the first time in 1975 in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

About VLA15

VLA15 is a new hexavalent, protein subunit-based vaccine candidate targeting the Outer Surface Protein A (OspA) of Borrelia, the most dominant protein expressed by the bacteria when present in a tick. By targeting the most prevalent serotypes of Borrelia and blocking the transmission of these Lyme-causing bacteria from the tick to the host, the vaccine has the potential to protect from Borrelia infection in the U.S., Europe, and potentially worldwide. The target indication for Valneva's vaccine candidate is the active prophylactic immunization against Lyme disease in children and adults. The global market for a vaccine against Lyme disease is estimated at approximately 700 - 800 million annually.

About Valneva SE

Valneva is a fully integrated, commercial stage biotech company focused on developing innovative lifesaving vaccines.

The Company seeks financial returns through focused R&D investments in promising product candidates and growing financial contributions from commercial products, striving towards financial self-sustainability.

Valneva's portfolio includes two commercial vaccines for travelers: IXIARO/JESPECT indicated for the prevention of Japanese encephalitis and DUKORAL indicated for the prevention of cholera and, in some countries, prevention of diarrhea caused by ETEC. The Company has proprietary vaccines in development including candidates against Clostridium difficile and Lyme Borreliosis. A variety of partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies complement the Company's value proposition and include vaccines being developed using Valneva's innovative and validated technology platforms (EB66 vaccine production cell line, IC31 adjuvant).

Valneva shares are tradable on Euronext-Paris, the Vienna stock exchange and Deutsche Borse's electronic platform Xetra. The Company has operations in France, Austria, Great Britain, Sweden, Canada and the US with over 400 employees. More information is available at www.valneva.com.

Contacts Valneva SE



Laetitia Bachelot Fontaine



Head of Investor Relations &



Corporate Communications



T +33 (0)2 2807 1419



M +33 (0)6 4516 7099



investors@valneva.com



Nina Waibel



Corporate Communications Specialist



T +43 1206 201 149



M +43 6768 455 6719



Communications@valneva.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the business of Valneva, including with respect to the progress, timing and completion of research, development and clinical trials for product candidates, the ability to manufacture, market, commercialize and achieve market acceptance for product candidates, the ability to protect intellectual property and operate the business without infringing on the intellectual property rights of others, estimates for future performance and estimates regarding anticipated operating losses, future revenues, capital requirements and needs for additional financing. In addition, even if the actual results or development of Valneva are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this press release, those results or developments of Valneva may not be indicative of the future. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by words such as "could," "should," "may," "expects," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "aims," "targets," or similar words. These forward-looking statements are based largely on the current expectations of Valneva as of the date of this press release and are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievement expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. In particular, the expectations of Valneva could be affected by, among other things, uncertainties involved in the development and manufacture of vaccines, unexpected clinical trial results, unexpected regulatory actions or delays, competition in general, currency fluctuations, the impact of the global and European credit crisis, and the ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection. In light of these risks and uncertainties, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements made in this press release will in fact be realized. Valneva is providing the information in these materials as of the date of this press release, and disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
NEW ORLEANS, July 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (KSF) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until September 19, 2017 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE:LXK), if they purchased the Companys securities between August 1, 2014 and July 20, 2015, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.



What You May Do

If you purchased securities of Lexmark and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit http://ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-lxk to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by September 19, 2017.

About the Lawsuit

Lexmark and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

The alleged false and misleading statements and omissions include, but are not limited to, that: (i) there were significant declines in demand and growth for the Companys supplies business; (ii) supplies revenue growth was not caused primarily by demand, but by advance buying ahead of scheduled price increases; (iii) this buying practice resulted in excessive inventory levels at its wholesale distributors; and (iv) as a result of the foregoing, Lexmarks financial statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.



About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

KSF, whose partners include the former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana.

To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com.
Deb Merricks was hooked on Esther the Wonder Pig, an internet sensation among animal lovers, as soon as she saw her page on Facebook.

I thought she was hilarious, Merricks said.

She then bought Esthers book, Esther the Wonder Pig: Changing The World One Heart at a Time to learn more about her and her human dads, Steve Jenkins and Derek Walker.

Esther was adopted by Jenkins in 2012, having been told she was a micro piglet.

Jenkins knew his partner, Derek Walker, wouldnt be wild about the idea, but he did it anyway, according to Esthers website.

That decision changed their lives forever.

It turned out she wasnt a micro pig at all but a full-sized commercial pig, who grew to 600 pounds within three years.

When it became clear that Esther needed more space, they made another life-changing decision and bought a farm in Campbellville, Ontario, Canada, on which they opened the Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary. There they care not only for Esther but for other farmed animals in need.

The farm sanctuary is dedicated to rescuing abused, neglected, and abandoned farmed animals with goals to provide safe, life-long homes for all the animals and to educate the public about the true nature of farmed animals, according to the website at www.happilyeveresther.ca.

Esther has more than 1 million followers on Facebook.

I found it to be a fascinating story of compassion, patience, tolerance, change and growth. Not only for Esther, but the dads, Steve and Derek, as well, Merricks said.

Winning the raffle

Merricks then entered a raffle for a trip for two to Esthers fifth birthday party at the sanctuary. The trip included airfare, three nights in a hotel, a rental car and spending money.

There were just over 1,200 entries from more than 28 countries, and, fortunately for me, I won! Merricks, of Pittsylvania County, said.

A friend, Cheri Hartmann, of Farmington, New York, also joined her on the trip. The two women have been friends for more than 10 years and have worked together for the last two and a half. Cheri said she thinks of Merricks as a sister and loves traveling with her.

When Merricks discovered Esther and her story, she shared it with Hartmann and they both became fans.

Trip of a lifetime

Merricks flew to Toronto from Greensboro, North Carolina, on June 30. She did a bit of exploring in Toronto until Hartmann arrived later that evening.

The next day, July 1, was not only Esthers birthday but also Canadas 150th birthday.

It was nice to see all of the Canadian flags flying or posted in peoples homes and businesses. All of the businesses were closed, even Wal-Mart, Merricks remembered. It reminded me of when I was a kid and all the stores would close for a holiday.

After a 30-minute drive to the sanctuary, they were excited to arrive.

Merricks said after opening the gate to drive onto the property, it was like she had been hit with magical fairy dust.

This is a farm, mind you, but the place was pure enchantment. A feeling of warmth, happiness and calm just hits you, she said. Derek and Steve are two of the kindest people I have ever met. To see them interact with the animals living out their lives on the farm is inspiring. Most of the people at the party were workers and volunteers on the farm and their families. They were the happiest people I have ever met.

After meeting and talking with everyone, Esther made her grand entrance in a tutu.

She looked divine. We all sang Happy Birthday to her, and she devoured her cake and entertained us to everyones delight, she said. She is a very big, beautiful piggy and so very smart. I was in pig heaven to say the least.

After taking a dip in her pool, Esther retired for the evening.

It was so obvious Esther loves her dads. She has a playfulness and intelligence about her that is amazing. Her eyes just draw you in, Merricks said. She is quite the ambassador for pigs.

Merricks said she has always loved animals and always had a stuffed animal with her as a child. Currently, even though she has a job that requires her to travel a lot, she also volunteers for the Danville Area Humane Society.

A happy day

I have been forever changed because of my trip to Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary; meeting Esther, Derek and Steve and the other animals that call (the sanctuary) home; the workers and volunteers; and the benefactor of this unbelievable experience, said Merricks. It was like visiting the enchanted forest . . . absolutely magical. There is magic in kindness and the people there understand that. The world needs to learn from these two men and this pig.

Hartmann shared Merrickss delight at meeting Esther and being at the farm.

Meeting everyone at the sanctuary was the best part of the trip for me, Hartmann said. They are truly a committed group. They understand that not everyone is going to be inspired to go vegan, but they want to make people aware the animals we consume are not without worth. If they can get one person to commit to decreasing their meat consumption, then that is one less animal that will end up in the slaughterhouse.

She said the most moving part, though, was taking the picture with Esther.

Everyone there was so happy to be able to share this day, she said. I know that Deb was so pleased to be there with Esther and her dads. It was a perfect day.
VANCOUVER, July 24, 2017 /CNW/ - Mirasol Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: MRZ, OTCPK: MRZLF "Mirasol") is pleased to announce that it has defined three large-scale porphyry Cu-Mo-Au targets, and also expanded its claim holdings, at its 100% owned Rubi Project ("Rubi") situated adjacent to the giant El Salvador copper mining district in northern Chile.

Rubi (Figure 1) lies at relatively low elevation within 20 km of El Salvador and Portrerillos porphyry Cu-Mo-Au mines, with highly favourable infrastructure advantages such as year-round access, adjacent townships with a trained mining workforce, nearby roads, power, water grid and an operating mill and smelter.

Rubi has a prospective geological setting centered on structural intersections with the Domeyko Fault System, a through-going regional-scale structure and the Ojos del Salado trans-orogen structure, interpreted to have influenced the emplacement of the near-by giant El Salvador and Potrerillos Cu-Mo-Au deposits.

Mirasol has systematically consolidated claims holdings at Rubi over the past 12 months and has expanded the claim area to a total of nearly 26,000 ha.

Mirasol recently completed field evaluation and targeting programs at Rubi identifying three large-scale Cu-Mo-Au targets at the Lithocap, Zafiro, and Portezuelo prospects (Figure 1). The targets were defined by integrated analysis, including re-logging of drill holes and the re-interpretation of geophysics and geochemistry from previous Joint Venture (JV) partner exploration at Rubi. This was combined with recent Mirasol geological mapping, rock chip sampling and target vector modelling from field-based measurements of alteration minerology.

"The company has rapidly built a portfolio of quality copper targets at Rubi and at its recently announced Odin project located 35 km north of BHP's Escondida Mine. These and other recently staked copper projects strategically position Mirasol in the premier copper belt of northern Chile." stated Stephen Nano the company's CEO and President.

Lithocap

The Rubi Lithocap ("Lithocap") target (Figure 2) covers a 3.5 km by 2.0 km area centred on a large, deeply weathered, advanced argillic alteration zone, surrounded by thin gravel cover. Geochemically barren Lithocap alteration zones of the type seen at Rubi can form above or adjacent to large porphyry copper deposits.

At Lithocap, previous explorers have drilled peripheral to, but not beneath or adjacent to the post-mineral gravel covered western edge of the anomaly. New Mirasol mapping and re-logging of previous drill holes has defined veining and brecciation with anomalous Cu and Mo mineralization and alteration patterns that vector toward potentially concealed porphyry mineralization to the north and north-west of the previous drill holes. The southern edge of Lithocap was "clipped" by a previous JV partners IP geophysical survey, which identified a large open-ended chargeability anomaly extending from 200 m to more than 400 m depth beneath the cap.

This pattern suggests the presence of a deep weathering profile overlying a buried source of the chargeability anomaly, which may indicate the presence of sulphide(s) in the unoxidized basement rocks. This type of deep weathering in porphyry environments in northern Chile is often conducive for the development of supergene enriched Cu mineralization as at the nearby El Salvador mining district.

Zafiro

The Zafiro prospect (Figure 3) features a 2.8 km by 2.2 km gravel covered area characterized by a subtle circular magnetic high surrounded by an incomplete, doughnut-shaped magnetic low. This magnetic signature may be indicative of a large gravel-covered intrusive with an alteration halo. The gravel cover in this area ranges from approximately 25 m to more than 200 m in thickness concealing the central target area. However, a large canyon 1 km to the north of the target cuts through the gravel profile exposing the basement rock. Mirasol's stream sediment sampling of gullies that traverse this area have returned widespread strongly anomalous Cu up to 1,030 ppm (0.1%), suggesting either an "exotic" source of copper in the gravels and / or a primary porphyry source for the Cu in the gravel-covered basement of the Zafiro prospect.

Reconnaissance mapping of the basement rocks in the area of the stream sediment anomalies has identified pervasive propylitic and advanced argillic alteration and zones of breccia and quartz-carbonate veins and stock-working that have returned strongly anomalous Cu-Mo-Pb-Zn (Au-Ag-Sb) rock chip assays. These types of alteration and mineralization may be found in the halo to porphyry copper deposits and suggest a vector to the south under gravel cover, which supports the concept for a concealed porphyry in the area of the Zafiro prospect.

High grade "exotic" copper or a supergene enriched porphyry are both attractive exploration targets at the Zafiro prospect. Significant ore bodies of these types of mineralization occur at the nearby El Salvador mining district.

Portezuelo

At the Portezuelo prospect (Figure 4), the 4.5 km by 2.7 km target area is characterized by relatively thin gravel cover and intermittent outcropping. Analysis of Mirasol and previous JV partner data shows widespread anomalous Cu and Mo in soils, spatially associated with an oval-shaped magnetic feature that may represent a partially gravel-covered intrusive complex. Strongly oxidized, porphyry-like stock-works and sheeted veining with anomalous Mo and Cu, is locally exposed in road cuts and has been recently identified by Mirasol outcropping in creek beds in the north of the target area.

A limited number of reverse circulation (RC) holes from prior operators were drilled into the southern part of the Portezuelo target prior to Mirasol staking these claims. The holes are estimated to have been drilled in the late 1980's to early 90's. The assays for these drill holes are not available to Mirasol, however sampling of residual RC chips on the drill pads returned anomalous Mo and Cu assays. Reconnaissance mapping and sampling to the southwest of the target has identified a multi-kilometre long zone of Au-Ag base metal veinlets that may represent a style of polymetallic mineralization commonly developed in the halo surrounding a porphyry centre. No systematic geological mapping, rock chip sampling or electrical geophysics has yet been undertaken at Portezuelo by the Company or its previous JV partners. Mirasol believes this large prospect warrants detailed exploration to define drill targets.

Mr. Nano added: "Mirasol's Rubi and Odin projects have received strong interest and we are actively seeking JV partners to drill test and develop these projects".

Stephen Nano, Vice President of Exploration for the Company, a Qualified Person under NI 43-101, is responsible for the technical content of this release

Information on the Inca Trail:

Remnants of the Inca Trail are recorded over a 30,000 sq km area of western South America. A strand of the trail network passes in proximity to the El Salvador mine and the Inca de Oro mine development near the Rubi Project. A 7.6 km segment of the trail, passes through the Rubi Project.

Where preserved at Rubi the trail in seen as 2 to 3 m wide earth path. The exploration targets identified by Mirasol in this news release are separated from the Trail. Mirasol and its previous Joint Venture partner engaged independent Archaeological consultants to survey the Trail marking its location and to recommend preservation protocols to safeguard the Trail.

In 2014 Mirasol's joint venture partner drilled tested a series of targets at the Rubi project operating under the Chilean exploration drilling permitting call a "carta de pertinencia". As part of the permitting process the archaeological report was presented to the Chilean environmental and cultural authorities who ratified the drill program and the procedures to preserve the Trail.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control of the Rubi exploration program:

All exploration on the project was supervised by Mirasol CEO Stephen C. Nano, who is the Qualified Person under NI 43-101. Mirasol applies industry standard exploration sampling methodologies and techniques. All geochemical rock and drill samples are collected under the supervision of the company's geologists in accordance with industry practice. Geochemical assays are obtained and reported under a quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) program. Samples are dispatched to an ISO 9001:2008 accredited laboratory in Chile for analysis. Assay results from surface rock, channel, trench, and drill core samples may be higher, lower or similar to results obtained from surface samples due to surficial oxidation and enrichment processes or due to natural geological grade variations in the primary mineralization.

Forward Looking Statements: The information in this news release 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. Mirasol disclaims any obligations to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Mirasol Resources Ltd.
Vancouver, July 24, 2017 - Fjordland Exploration Inc. (TSXV: FEX) announces that it plans to raise up to $1,200,000 through a non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") consisting of flow-through units ("FT Units") at a price of $0.125 per FT Unit and non flow-through units ("Units") at a price of $0.10 per Unit, at the option of the subscriber. The Private Placement is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval and all securities will be subject to a four month hold period.

The Company proposes to use the proceeds of the Private Placement as follows: $700,000 to complete a drill program on the South Voisey's Bay Ni-Cu-Co Project, Labrador, $200,000 to complete a drill program on the Milligan West Cu-Au Project, British Columbia and $300,000 for working capital and general corporate purposes. Further project details can be found on the Company's website at https://www.fjordlandex.com.

Each Unit and FT Unit will consist of one common share of the Company (the "Common Shares") and one-half of one share purchase warrant (the "Warrants"). Each whole Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional Common Share at a price of $0.20 per Common Share for 18 months following the closing date of the Private Placement. The Common Shares issuable on exercise of the Warrants will be non flow-through for the Units and for the FT Units. A finder's fee of 8% cash and 8% finder warrants (the "Finder Warrants") may be payable on a portion of the financing, with the Finder Warrants having the same terms as the Warrants.

The expiry date of the Warrants and Finder Warrants is subject to acceleration such that, should the volume weighted average price of the common shares of the Company exceed $0.40 for ten consecutive trading days, the Company may notify the holder in writing that the Warrants and Broker Warrants will expire 20 trading days from receipt of such notice unless exercised by the holder before such date.

In addition to any other exemptions available, participation in the financing is also open to existing shareholders of Fjordland who as of the close of business on July 24, 2017 ("Record Date"), hold common shares of Fjordland (and who continue to hold common shares of Fjordland at the time of closing), pursuant to the prospectus exemptions set out in B.C. Instrument 45-534 and in similar instruments in other provinces of Canada. The Company confirms there is no material fact or material change related to the Company which has not been generally disclosed.

Any existing shareholder who wishes to participate in the Private Placement is asked to please contact Janice Davies, Corporate Secretary of the Company at (604) 506-2099 or by email to: janice@jdconsulting.ca to receive subscription documentation and instructions. The Offering will remain open to existing shareholders until

August 15, 2017

Subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and the consent of all warrant holders, the Company proposes to re-price the following outstanding warrants:

700,000 at $0.25 expiring Oct 23/17

360,000 at $0.25 expiring Oct 31/17

342,224 at $0.25 expiring Jan 6/18

504,300 at $0.75 expiring Sep 27/17

All warrants will be re-priced to $0.15. The warrants terms for each warrant are to be amended to include an accelerated expiry clause, as required by TSX Venture Exchange policy, such that the exercise period of the warrants will be reduced to 30 days if for any 10 consecutive trading days during the unexpired term of the warrants the closing price of the company's shares is $0.19 or more. Any insiders of the Company who participated as to more than 10% in the financing in which the warrants were issued will be subject to a limit of 10% of their holding on a pro rata basis in accordance with regulatory policies.

About Fjordland Exploration Inc.

Fjordland Exploration Inc. is a mineral exploration company that is focused on the discovery of large scale potentially economic deposits located in Canada. For further information visit Fjordland's website at www.fjordlandex.com

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

"Richard C. Atkinson"

Richard C. Atkinson, P.Eng.

President & CEO

For further information, please call:

FJORDLAND EXPLORATION INC.

Richard C. Atkinson, President and CEO

1-604-805-3232

info@fjordlandex.com

www.fjordlandex.com

Some statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information. 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 without limitation the completion of planned expenditures, the ability to complete exploration programs on schedule and the success of exploration programs.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.



Not for dissemination in the United States or through U.S. newswires


TORONTO, July 24, 2017 - CobalTech Mining Inc. (TSX VENTURE: CSK) (FRANKFURT: 9BN1) (WKN: A2DG59) (OTC PINK: BNCIF) (the "Company" or "CobalTech"), reports that as a result of a review by the British Columbia Securities Commission ("BCSC") we are issuing the following news release to clarify our disclosure.In its January 2017 Fact Sheet and Presentation the Company disclosed a historic tonnage and grade estimate for the stockpiles on the Duncan Kerr Property (the "Property") as well as production estimates and projected operating costs. The Company acknowledges that such disclosure was not compliant with NI 43-101 since it was not supported by a technical report in accordance with NI 43-101. The Company has removed the Presentation from its website and has amended its Fact Sheet to remove such language.In its Presentation, the Company provided disclosure of a historical estimate without providing all of the information required by NI 43-101. The Company has previously filed a NI 43-101 technical report dated November 23, 2016 entitled "NI-43-101 Technical Report on the Duncan Kerr Property" (the "Technical Report"). Item 14 of the Technical Report states that there has not been sufficient work on the Property to undertake a mineral resource estimate. The Company does not have a current mineral resource for its Duncan Kerr Property and therefore acknowledges that such disclosure was not appropriate. As stated in previous news releases and the Technical Report "it is important to note that 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 mineral reserves. There has been no review of the methods and results of this historical resource estimate by a Qualified Person."CobalTech did not identify a Qualified Person on its website, Presentation and Fact Sheet with respect to technical information disclosed therein. CobalTech has removed the Presentation and has now prepared its website disclosure and Fact Sheet under the supervision of a Qualified Person and has identified and disclosed such review and the name of the Qualified Person and their relationship to CobalTech. The Company will include the required QP statement on all future disclosure.Antoine Fournier, P. Geo., M.Sc., the Vice President of the Company is the Qualified Person of the Company, as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and he has prepared and reviewed the technical information on this press release.ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD(signed) "Bruce Bragagnolo"Bruce Bragagnolo, Chief Executive Officer CobalTech Mining Inc. is a North American cobalt company with assets in Cobalt, Ontario, Canada, an area known for its geological setting responsible for unique mineralization composed of quartz-carbonate veins enriched in silver-cobalt-nickel-bismuth-arsenic.Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.Some of the statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "intends", "is expected", "potential", "suggests" or variations of such words or phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information are not historical facts and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control. Actual results and developments are likely to differ, and may differ materially, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by law.Mr. Bruce Bragagnolo, CEOTelephone: (604) 417-9517Email: info@cobaltechmining.com
California's new budget expanded the state's Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), providing access to the benefit for an estimated 1 million more low-income residents. Other states are looking at creating state EITCs or expanding existing ones. The results of a recent experiment can guide governments looking for ways to better reach eligible individuals and encourage them to take up this benefit and other forms of aid for which they are eligible.The federal EITC, conceived as an incentive for low-income Americans to work, has been around for more than 40 years. But as with other public-benefit programs at all levels of government, it suffers from notoriously low take-up rates. Nearly a quarter of those eligible for the federal EITC fail to claim their benefits, which amount to 33 days of extra income on average per recipient. This means that approximately 7 million individuals are losing out on an average of about $1,100 each. This missed benefit could make a real difference to the low-income Americans eligible for the EITC, who on average earn about $14,000 a year.The credit's complex structure may be partly to blame for its underutilization. A lack of concise information from the IRS explaining this structure, and the credit's further dependence on individual income, marital status and number of children, can make it challenging for families to calculate how much credit they should expect to receive.Low take-up is a pressing policy issue with non-trivial costs including over-reliance on other social programs. Yet researchers have found that simple, low-cost tweaks can go a long way toward increasing benefits usage.Working in collaboration with the IRS, Saurabh Bhargava of Carnegie Mellon University and Dayanand Manoli of the University of Texas at Austin tested multiple strategies in a randomized evaluation to encourage more eligible individuals to claim their EITC. Every year, the IRS sends out reminder notices and worksheets to anyone who files a tax return but does not claim their EITC despite appearing eligible. Individuals who sign and complete the worksheet -- typically fewer than half of those who receive it -- are sent a benefit check within three months.Bhargava and Manoli followed up with those who didn't respond to the IRS reminder with another letter several months later, again explaining the EITC and offering a worksheet to complete and return. They tested multiple versions of the letter, sending some that were similar to the standard, complex IRS reminder and others with a simple and concise message. Some letters also included the amount of the benefit participants might expect to receive or messages aimed at de-stigmatizing the receipt of social benefits.The study found that simply reminding individuals about the EITC multiple times can significantly increase take-up. Overall, 22 percent of those who received the second reminder responded to it. But how this information was delivered made a big difference. Twenty-three percent of those who received reminders in simplified language claimed their EITC, compared to only 17 percent of those who received reminders with the standard complex information. The highest response rate, 31 percent, came when the amount of the expected benefit was included -- regardless of the displayed amount. Importantly, response to the complex mailings was lowest among the poorest individuals in the sample.Low take-up of social benefits is hardly exclusive to tax credits, and the EITC's take-up rate actually compares favorably with other major federal programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The EITC study demonstrates that increasing take-up does not need to be a resource-intensive endeavor -- that simple and low-cost solutions such as simplifying forms or clarifying benefit amounts can be highly cost-effective.Based on the study's findings, the IRS redesigned its EITC reminder notice, simplifying the information and displaying potential benefit amounts. (An example of the current, updated notice can be seen below.) This inexpensive marketing intervention is not only easily scalable but also a potentially more effective strategy for improving benefit take-up among high-priority groups than traditional -- and sometimes controversial -- program incentives such as offering financial bonuses to individuals who sign up.Beyond the issue of improving take-up of social benefits, this study demonstrates that on a policy issue with politically charged, viable arguments on both sides, rigorous research can provide a path to program management that makes a real difference in people's lives.
Frances Russo-Avena won't ever forget her son screaming for help.It was January and a family friend staying with them overnight began making a gurgling, snoring noise. Her son tried unsuccessfully to wake the friend, then realized he was overdosing."It was the most frightening experience in my life," said the nurse, who has spent much of her career in the emergency room and school nurse's office in Red Clay Consolidated School District.Russo-Avena, however, had naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug that has saved the lives of thousands of Delawareans, including her house guest that night in January. After administering two doses of naloxone, more commonly known by the brand name Narcan, through the intranasal spray, he came to and survived.Paramedics who arrived nearly 25 minutes later to their New Castle County home told her that was their fourth or fifth overdose that night.The signing of Senate Bill 48 by Gov. John Carney on Thursday in Dover allows anyone to walk into a participating Delaware pharmacy and purchase naloxone from a pharmacist so the overdose antidote can be kept bedside, as Russo-Avena's was, or in a first-aid kit.
Local and state government agencies from Oregon to Connecticut say they are using a Russian brand of security software despite the federal governments instructions to its own agencies not to buy the software over concerns about cyberespionage, records and interviews show.The federal agency in charge of purchasing, the General Services Administration, this month removed Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab from its list of approved vendors. In doing so, the agencys statement suggested a vulnerability exists in Kaspersky that could give the Russian government backdoor access to the systems it protects, though they offered no explanation or evidence of it. Kaspersky has strongly denied coordinating with the Russian government and has offered to cooperate with federal investigators.The GSAs move on July 11 has left state and local governments to speculate about the risks of sticking with the company or abandoning taxpayer-funded contracts, sometimes at great cost. The lack of information from the GSA underscores a disconnect between local officials and the federal government about cybersecurity.Interviews suggest that concerns in recent months from Congress and in the intelligence community about Kaspersky are not widely known among state and local officials, who are most likely to consider purchasing the Russian software. Those systems, while not necessarily protecting critical infrastructure, can be targeted by hackers because they provide access to troves of sensitive information.U.S. intelligence chiefs in May told a Senate panel that they wouldnt use the companys software during a broader hearing investigating Russias alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election. It was not the first time Congress had heard that message: A former U.S. official told The Washington Post that congressional staff was advised by law enforcement in late 2015 to stop meeting with Kaspersky representatives over national security concerns.People need to know that they can trust software updates, said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a digital advocacy group. About the GSAs decision, he said: We need more public information.In the weeks since Kasperskys delisting, The Post found that it continues to be used on government computers in jurisdictions ranging from Portland, Ore., to Fayetteville, Ga., where an official said they have a year-to-year contract.
Are body cameras working? How well-trained are patrol officers? What can be done to improve public trust in the force and to better combat the city's rising crime?Minneapolis' new interim police chief, Medaria (Rondo) Arradondo, will face all of those urgent questions as he begins guiding the 800-officer department through one of the most trying times in its history.Arradondo, 50, succeeds Janee Harteau, who resigned Friday at the request of Mayor Betsy Hodges amid the uproar over last weekend's shooting death of Justine Damond by a city patrol officer. Damond had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault near her southwest Minneapolis home and was shot when she went out to talk to police.Arradondo would be the city's first black police chief if he wins the job permanently, which requires the approval of the City Council's Executive Committee."He's been on the ground helping us do this work and make these changes over time," said Hodges, whose disagreements with Harteau played out in the public eye.In a contentious city election year, residents and council members will be watching to see if Arradondo -- a 28-year Minneapolis police veteran -- can make the dramatic changes being demanded of the department, including less use of force and greater use of body cameras. Rank-and-file officers would like to see a boost in morale. There also is a push for more accountability over officer misconduct and the need to rebuild some neighborhood relationships."I think sometimes there has been fear of criticizing the department because it's perceived as not supporting the people who are there every day working to protect our community. And we just need a chief who can articulate that it's both," Council Member Lisa Bender said.Arradondo, who declined an interview request Saturday, joined the Minneapolis Police Department in 1989 as a patrol officer on the North Side and quickly climbed to leadership positions.After a stint as head of internal affairs, he was named inspector of the First Precinct, seen as a steppingstone to the department's front office. Before being named assistant chief earlier this year, he was Harteau's chief of staff, acting as her intermediary with community and business leaders.Police Federation President Lt. Bob Kroll, a frequent critic of Harteau, said that he looks forward to working with Arradondo, calling him an "effective communicator.""I've got great hopes for him," Kroll said. "The officers like him, and he's got knowledge and experience."The two leaders have a complicated history. Kroll was mentioned in a 2007 discrimination lawsuit brought by Arradondo and four other black officers accusing then-Chief Tim Dolan of creating a racially hostile environment. Kroll says the men have since patched up their differences.In some ways, Arradondo is expected to continue the work of transforming the department into the 21st-century police force that was started by Harteau, who introduced body cameras and mandated implicit-bias and procedural justice training for all officers. Harteau, who also overhauled the department's use-of-force policy, declined to comment Saturday.Arradondo will have to balance his new responsibilities with trying to tamp down crime -- which, while still near historic lows, has risen in 2017. Violent crimes such as homicide and rape are up about 4 percent compared to this time last year. Property crimes have seen bigger increases in the same period, rising about 20 percent.Overall, crime has jumped roughly 16 percent, from 10,932 reported incidents in 2016 to 12,717 this year.Several council members have said they would like Arradondo to hold the interim job until after the November election, allowing the next mayor to choose a chief. At least one council member -- Linea Palmisano -- has said candidates from outside the department should be considered.The job demands someone "who holds officers accountable, that is a strong communicator and works well with civilian leadership, who is responsive and accessible," said Council Member Andrew Johnson.Council President Barb Johnson said Arradondo "has been asked over the years to be kind of a peacemaker and does that very well and takes on some very tough tasks."Of her expectations for the next chief, she said: "I hope that there's a continued direction in improving police-community relations, obviously." She also believes it's time to reevaluate training and hiring practices.Johnson opposes hiring Harteau's successor from outside the department. "I've never been happy with the results that we've had when we've had chiefs from the outside," she said.Council Member Alondra Cano suggested the new chief hold quarterly meetings with the council. She said Harteau sought to reform the department but failed to forge deeper relationships to make the reforms succeed."It goes above and beyond training," Cano said. "We're not asking the right questions yet. And we're not digging deep to figure out how to turn this around."Protesters who interrupted Hodges' news conference Friday at City Hall expressed anger at Arradondo's appointment."We understand that Chief Arradondo looks like us, but he's not one of us," said longtime activist Mel Reeves.Council members will be watching to see how Arradondo navigates the challenges ahead."We should not add one dollar to the police department that isn't explicitly about reform, that isn't explicitly about how we're going to change policing," Bender said.
Description

GIS  24 July 2017 : A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) providing for the training of both Mauritian and international students in Nursing and Paramedical fields was signed on 21 July 2017 in Port Louis between Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd and the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life.

Under the MoU, a diploma course in nursing will be conducted by Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd in Pamplemousses in collaboration with the Central Nursing School and the Mauritius Institute of Health. The awarding body will be the Mauritius Institute of Health. The course will start in September 2017.

The Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun, and the Minister of Health and Quality of Life, Dr Anwar Husnoo, were present at the signing ceremony. Both Ministers hailed the event as an important collaborative step in developing trained manpower to work in the various health setups, whether locally or abroad.

The necessity to have high-end skilled manpower for key sectors as well as emerging areas of the economy was highlighted by Mrs Dookun-Luchoomun. She recalled that Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd had already entered into MoUs with international institutions namely Le College Communautaire du NouveauBrunswick of Canada and Waikato Institute of Technology of New Zealand for high-quality training programmes targeting local students.

She recalled that while previously nursing training programmes conducted by the Central Nursing School were meant to train future public nurses, the Diploma Course offered by Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd will cater for both public and private sectors demands. Training courses for medical technicians are in the pipeline and the door will be opened to students from abroad too, announced Mrs Dookun-Luchoomun.

For his part, the Minister of Health and Quality of Life welcomed the initiative which will contribute to the enhancement of health services in Mauritius through the provision of skilled manpower. Dr Husnoo pointed out that it is crucial for human resources to acquire expert knowledge and know-how so that they are employable and empowered to contribute to the public and private health sectors. He stated that a first batch of 60 students will soon be recruited to follow the three-year course.

Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd is a body corporate established under the aegis of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research with the objective of running training programmes to serve the emerging needs of Mauritius for a qualified and skilled human resource at middle-professional level.
Description

GIS  24 July 2017 : Some 300 drop-out school girls aged between 13 and 18 will join the Goal Programme, a capacity-building intervention which aims at addressing three levels of personal, social and economic empowerment of adolescent girls using sport and life skill education so that they can make informed life choices.

This joint initiative of the Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare and Standard Chartered Bank (Mauritius) Ltd was officially launched this morning at the Floreal Women Empowerment Centre.

At the launching ceremony, the Minister of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, Mrs Fazila Jeewa-Daureeawoo, urged young girls to avail of the opportunity provided by the Goal project to grow stronger and carve a place for themselves in society. Life does not end just because you dropped out of school; you have to believe in your potential and ability to succeed, the Minister told participants.

Speaking on the critical time of adolescence, the Minister stressed the importance of having a life objective as well as adequate information and knowledge so as to make good choices. Adopting the right values, putting in efforts, learning from ones mistakes and not repeating them along with discipline and determination were the advice given by Mrs Jeewa-Daureeawoo to participants. Life is beautiful, your future lies in front of you if you work hard and dedicate yourself to your objective, she said.

For his part, the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank (Mauritius) Ltd, Mr Mathieu Mandeng, highlighted that the Goal programme is geared towards empowering and equipping adolescent girls with the confidence, knowledge and skills they need to be integral economic leaders in their families, communities and societies. Underlining the necessity of investing in girls, Mr Mandeng recalled that educating girls and giving them the tools to shape their own future have an incredible multiplier effect on economic growth, positively affecting GDP growth rates up to 23% per capita.

The Goal Programme was launched by Standard Chartered Bank in India in 2006 as a leading education programme that provides financial literacy, life skills and employability training to low-income adolescent girls. It initially targeted 70 participants. To date, it has reached 285 000 girls across 24 countries.

In Mauritius, the Gender Unit of the Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare is implementing the programme as it is aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 5: "Achieve gender equality and empower women and girls. The programme, to be run over nine weeks in 15 Women Empowerment Centres, will focus on four modules namely: Be yourself; Be Healthy; Be Empowered and Be Money Savvy.
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(TNS) -- Portland's tech scene grew modestly more diverse last year, according to a city-funded study out Thursday, but there are signs the industry is looking beyond its historically narrow pool of job candidates to fill open positions.Oregon's tech sector, like the industry nationwide, is overwhelmingly white and male. That effectively excludes a growing share of an increasingly diverse population from some of the most lucrative jobs available.The city of Portland and nearly two dozen of its largest tech companies conceived a " diversity pledge " two years ago in an effort to broaden the industry's workforce.Thursday's study found tech workers of all demographic groups say their companies provide a welcoming work environment, but it found that white men were more likely to say that than other groups."We're moving in the right direction but we still have a lot of work to do," said Jared Wiener, the software industry liaison for Portland's economic development agency. He said it's important that the city's tech sector be inclusive, and that a broader pool of workers can help address the industry's chronic shortage of skilled workers.Thursday's study is the second annual survey of the 22 Portland tech firms that made the pledge to diversify their workforce. Findings include:Gender: 55 percent of participating companies' employees are male, down from 60 percent a year earlier. But men hold nearly three-quarters of technical jobs, which typically pay the best. By comparison, 52 percent of workers across all Portland industries are men.Race: 81 percent of the survey respondents' employees are white, compared with 86 percent in 2016. Overall, 81 percent of Portland workers are white.Age: 85 percent of the companies' employees are under age 45, compared with 87 percent the prior year. The survey didn't offer comparative ages across Portland industries, but tech companies have long favored younger workers Portland paid $10,000 for the survey, conducted by DHM Research, and has budgeted as much as $3,000 more to provide each company with data on their own performance.Tech companies and industry observers have offered a number of explanations for the lack of diversity: Until recently, the vast majority of engineering students were white males, and institutional biases have prompted companies to hire people who resemble people they've hired before.Additionally, some female tech workers and others from underrepresented groups say they have found the industry unwelcoming, either because of cultural insensitivity or because of outright harassment.There have been signs of change within Portland's industry in the past year. Both AWS Elemental and Puppet, two of the city's largest tech companies, have hired diversity managers, and another major employer, online banker Simple, is hiring for the same position.And last spring, the Technology Association of Oregon named Ruby Receptionists chief executive Jill Nelson its first female tech executive of the year . Monica Enand, chief executive of Portland legal technology firm Zapproved, served as master of ceremonies."Our participation in the Diversity Pledge has had a profound impact on Zapproved's culture and hiring practices. It has helped us grow a more diverse and dynamic culture," said Enand, who also founded the legal technology firm, in a written statement. "Our awareness and regular discussions about inclusion of people of color and underrepresented genders is good not only for our company but also for our community as a whole."
(TNS) - As Congress works out the differences in several bills to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program, a local flood insurance expert says lowering the number of properties that put in repeat flood claims is a top priority.Joe Rossi, chairman of the Marshfield and Massachusetts coastal coalitions, said 150,000 buildings across the country are considered problem structures. He said those homeowners need mitigation help to elevate their properties."We're going to pay for these properties either with claims through the program, with taxpayer dollars or with mitigation. We can pick," said Rossi, who was recently appointed to a task force the Federal Emergency Management Agency created to improve the claim process. "Mitigation saves a ton of money."The Federal Emergency Management Agency defines a "repetitive-loss property" as having two or more claims of more than $1,000 over 10 years, and "severe repetitive-loss property" as having at least four claims of more than $5,000 each, or at least two claims totaling the structure's current value.Nationwide, 11,000 severe repetitive-loss properties exist, and their numbers continue to grow, in part because of the effects of climate change and ongoing development.Scituate has at least 500 repetitive-loss properties  more than any other community in Massachusetts, according to the state office of Coastal Zone Management. Some homeowners bought their properties without understanding their risk and storm-damage history, since state law doesn't require property sellers to disclose past storm damage or flood insurance claims.The extreme cases are only a fraction of the flood program's 5 million active policies, but they historically have accounted for about 30 percent of its claims, Rossi said."These properties give the program a bad name, when the program was designed so no one could be labeled non-renewable," he said. "The rates for these structures are significantly higher; they don't get off scot-free. There are penalties."Massachusetts usually operates in the black within the National Flood Insurance Program, which homeowners with federally backed mortgages who live in high-risk flood zones are required to pay into. But the program as a whole, which must be reauthorized by the end of September, is nearly $25 billion in the red.On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are scrambling to overhaul the half-century-old program. Allowing it to lapse would risk disrupting the buying and selling of homes in flood-prone areas across the country.Data show that some of the worst and most frequent flooding has occurred along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas. Houses along the Mississippi River have repeatedly been deluged. And the Atlantic coast from Miami to Boston faces perpetual  and escalating  threats. Although there are certainly beachfront mansions affected, many homes belong to working-class Americans.A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists forecasts that in the next two decades, nearly 170 U.S. coastal communities will face chronic inundation, defined as flooding at least 26 times a year. That's almost twice as many at-risk locations as today.Critics have argued that although the program was intended to encourage smarter development, its current design too often bails out people in flood-prone areas. In short, it incentivizes staying put, rather than moving to higher ground, and has had only limited success in discouraging development in questionable areas.Rossi said the main priorities of all bills being considered are affordability, sustainability, mapping, mitigation and participation from private insurers. A bill before the Senate, for example, directs communities with significant numbers of repetitive-loss properties to develop mitigation plans, provides funding for pre-disaster mitigation, preserves funding for updated flood mapping and has provisions to encourage flood risk disclosure."For every dollar spent on mitigation, you save five in disaster funds, so it's worth spending the money," Rossi said. "It's an insurance program  we have to expect there will be losses. So we want to fix the problem, but we don't want to overcorrect it."Figuring out how to tackle the program's problems remains complicated and politically fraught. Lawmakers must decide whether to raise rates  and by how much  on the roughly one in five homeowners who pay below-market premiums mandated by Congress. Raising premiums to reflect true flood risk could shore up the program's finances; it also could mean sharp premium hikes and a public backlash over affordability.The same dilemma occurred when homeowners started feeling the effects of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, which eliminated flood insurance subsidies and caused premiums to soar. A relief act later repealed some of the most devastating provisions of Biggert-Waters.Some on Capitol Hill are pushing for more private firms to enter the flood insurance market  an idea Wright, the administrator, said he supports  although critics worry that companies could cherry-pick the least-troubled properties.Congress created the flood insurance program in 1968 because the costs of disaster assistance were escalating and private insurers had largely abandoned the market. The program also provides grants to help mitigate vulnerable properties, either by elevating them or in some cases buying out homeowners and tearing their structures down.In 2006, Scituate sent out letters to all repetitive-loss properties announcing a new program to encourage homeowners to elevate their homes. In this program, FEMA pays up to 75 percent of the costs, up to $40,000 for any property. Within just two years, the town had used federal dollars to help elevate about 50 homes.A House committee last month passed legislation to overhaul and reauthorize the program. If adopted, it would compel communities with persistent flooding problems to develop plans to reduce them and would require more transparency about a property's flood history.The Senate is also trying to strengthen the program by better funding flood mitigation projects, promoting the use of high-resolution mapping technology and encouraging private insurers to enter the market.Material from Brady Dennis of The Washington Post was used in this report. Jessica Trufant may be reached at jtrufant@ledger.com.2017 The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Mass.Visit The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Mass. at www.patriotledger.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Millennials make up about one-third of the current American workforce, but those numbers don't quite hold up in government. That fact, coupled with the public sector's well-documented retirement wave problem, explains why recruitment and retention always rank near the top of priority lists of state and local chief information officers.We took to the streets to ask young people oriented toward technology if a government job appeals to them. Then we asked state CIOs whether their perceptions are in line with reality. Here's what both groups had to say.
It's your data. Your privacy. Your choice.That was the message Assemblyman Ed Chau, D-Monterey Park, delivered last week to a state Senate committee examining legislation that would limit what Internet service providers in California could do with customer data.People should be in control of their own personal data. And that privacy should not be a luxury reserved for those who can afford it, Chau said of his bill.His measure, AB 375, would require ISPs to allow customers to give their consent for the use, sale and sharing of their personal information. It would also prohibit so-called pay-for-privacy practices and ban penalties on customers who do not consent to unnecessary uses.The bill is an attempt by Chau to build upon Internet privacy rules proposed at the federal level last year by the Federal Communications Commission but blocked this spring by Congress  a move Chau described as a betrayal of every Californians right to privacy.Chaus effort has drawn praise from consumer and privacy advocates but criticism from business and ISPs, including cable and telephone companies who argue that they have a vested interest in protecting their customers privacy and providing a service they can trust.There is no existing gap today in privacy protections for consumers, said Bernie Orozco, vice president of governmental affairs for the California Cable and Telecommunications Association. We have all committed to protecting our consumers privacy.There is also a dispute on whether state and federal law already provides the protections Californians need when it comes to their online personal information, and both sides sought to make their case Tuesday before the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communication Committee.Jon Leibowitz, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission who testified in opposition, described Chaus bill as well-intentioned, but one that does nothing to protect user privacy."Specifically, he argued that the FCC already has the statutory authority it needs to bring cases against ISPs if they do not protect customer information or engage in unjust or unreasonable practices. In California, the attorney general can hold ISPs accountable for unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business acts or practices against companies that break their commitments to customers or those that share sensitive data.If an ISP violates its privacy commitments or if it just decides to drop privacy commitments entirely and sell consumer information to the highest bidder, it would be in violation of existing law, Leibowitz said.Supporters of Chaus bill and the blocked FCC rules say consumers want and deserve more explicit laws governing the use of their personal information, especially because many internet users have just one or two providers to choose from when shopping for a broadband provider.Scott Jordan, the former chief technology officer for the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration, said the commissions rules received more than 250,000 comments, largely in support because consumers were frustrated with their lack of control.Nineteen other states have taken steps to enact the privacy rules, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of more than 25 civil rights, consumer advocacy, technology and nonprofit groups that support Chaus bill.California lawmakers appear poised to add the nations most populous state to the list, citing the unique ability of ISPs to track a persons online browsing and location. The energy committee approved Chaus bill by a 9-1 vote.This can reveal highly sensitive information about you, including personal or sexual activities, political or religious interests, health or financial problems, and more, said Chau, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. Coupled with your cellphones geotechnology, this trove of data about you can include where you go and what you do all day every day.And that, Chau added, should make us all more than just a little bit nervous.
Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher can imagine Ferrari deciding to keep Kimi Raikkonen on board next year.

While the Italian team is not ready to commit to the Finn for 2018, there are reports Sebastian Vettel is making a new deal for the 37-year-old a condition of his own contract extension beyond this season.

Schumacher, 42, raced against Raikkonen in his own F1 career and told Finland's Ilta Sanomat: "In terms of talent I think Kimi is brilliant.

"He is already a world champion but is certainly able to achieve more," the German said while overseeing his kart team in Finland.

"When you take into account his age, he's doing a great job," Schumacher added. "I think Ferrari has been smart to keep him as a driver.

"This year he has a good car, but Sebastian Vettel has been stronger. I think it's ideal for Sebastian, but Kimi is still able to win races. We'll see what happens next season," he said.

Schumacher also said he is enjoying watching F1 as a spectator this year.

"It has to be said that F1 has become very interesting now that Ferrari and Mercedes are fighting each other," said the former Williams driver.

(GMM)
The pilot solution at the Mercedes-Benz Museum parking garage is the first infrastructure-based solution for a fully automated valet parking service in real conditions, with and without drivers at the wheel. From early 2018, visitors will be able to experience the convenient service for themselves in the museums garage, and save the time they would have spent parking.

Bosch and Daimler are demonstrating automated valet parking at the Mercedes-Benz Museum parking garage in Stuttgart. With a command from a smartphone, drivers can now automatically park cars in their assigned spots without having to monitor the vehicles movements.

Autonomous driving will be with us faster than many realize. Driverless parking at the museum impressively demonstrates how advanced the technology already is. Dr. Michael Hafner, the head of automated driving and active safety development at Mercedes-Benz Cars

Using a smartphone, anyone can book a car by app. The vehicle autonomously drives up to the pick-up area. Returning the car is just as easy: the customer leaves the vehicle in the garages drop-off area and returns it using the smartphone app. Once the parking garages intelligent system has identified the vehicle, the car starts and is guided to an assigned space.



Cars proceed without a driver to an assigned parking space in response to a command issued by smartphone, without any need for the driver to supervise the maneuver. Driverless parking is made possible by an intelligent multi-story parking garage infrastructure from Bosch in conjunction with the vehicle technology from Mercedes-Benz. Click to enlarge.

This driverless parking is made possible by the interplay between intelligent parking garage infrastructure supplied by Bosch and Mercedes-Benz automotive technology. The sensors installed in the parking garage monitor the driving corridor and its surroundings while guiding the vehicle. The technology in the car safely converts the commands from the parking garage infrastructure into driving maneuvers and, if necessary, stops the vehicle in good time.

The sensors for the parking garage infrastructure and the communications technology come from Bosch. Daimler is providing the privately owned museum parking garage and pilot vehicles. Together with Bosch, it will define the interface between infrastructure and the vehicle, and make the necessary modifications to the vehicles sensor technology and software.

The premiere will be followed by an intensive testing and start-up phase. From the start, the project has been overseen by local agenciesthe Stuttgart regional administrative authority and the state of Baden-Wurttembergs transportation ministryand experts from TUV Rheinland with the aim of assessing the operating safety of the automotive and parking-garage technology. The regulatory authorities must issue their final approval before driverless parking can be offered to customers, and the public can use automated valet parking, at the Mercedes-Benz Museum parking garage for the first time worldwide in early 2018.

In this way, Bosch and Mercedes-Benz will gain experience in how users deal with automated valet parking. Existing parking garages can be retrofitted with the infrastructure technology. For parking garage operators, driverless parking will mean more efficient use of the parking space available: the same amount of space can accommodate up to 20% more vehicles.
Many of the president's tweets go far beyond impulsive and ill-advised. They're reckless and irresponsible.

I'll cite just three recent examples, one from early today:

"So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?"

The "beleaguered A.G.," of course, is Jeff Sessions. He is "beleaguered" by President Trump himself, who expressed regrets last week about appointing him.

Now he's asking (in a tweet) why Sessions isn't investigating Hillary Clinton. Sort of, as if, he might fire Sessions and replace him with somebody tougher and meaner unless "Crooked Hillary" is prosecuted PDQ.

But prosecute her for what? "Crimes & Russia relations," tweets Trump.

The president of the United States is publicly declaring that the former presidential candidate, secretary of state, senator and first lady is guilty of crimes ... before she's charged. Why doesn't he just send someone out to arrest her and save the expense of an investigation?

It's not only Clinton is this position. Saturday he tweeted this:

"So many people are asking why isn't the A.G. or Special Council looking at the many Hillary Clinton or Comey crimes. 33,000 e-mails deleted?"

Again turning up the heat on Sessions but including "Comey crimes."

That's James Comey, the FBI director whom Trump fired because of the Russia investigation. Comey, for the record, has not been charged with any crimes, let alone convicted. He was highly respected within the agency by rank-and-file professionals who probably don't appreciate their former boss being branded as a criminal by the president. Does Trump think he can command respect by engaging in this kind of slander? And since when has it ever been appropriate for a president to call any American citizen a "criminal" when no legal process to make such a determination has occurred?

Finally, also Saturday, there was this outright lie:

"The Failing New York Times foiled U.S. attempt to kill the single most wanted terrorist,Al-Baghdadi.Their sick agenda over National Security"

The truth is here.

This level of recklessness by the president is dangerous for our country.
GREENSBORO  Police are investigating an armed robbery at a store Sunday night.

At 9:21 p.m., officers were sent to Seth Mart at 1601 Lees Chapel Road in reference to a commercial robbery. Employees told officers that they were loading boxes into a vehicle after they closed the store when they were approached by an unknown subject armed with a firearm, demanding money.

The robber ordered the employees back into the store where he removed an undisclosed amount of cash from the register. He was last seen traveling on foot, in a northern direction behind the building.

The robber was described as a black male who is 5 feet 8 inches tall. He was last seen wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, a black ski mask, dark glasses and armed with a pistol.
RALEIGH  A former North Carolina district attorney charged with failure to discharge the duties of his office will wait another week to face a judge.

Former Person/Caswell County District Attorney Wallace Bradsher was expected to appear on that charge Monday in Wake County Superior Court. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the case won't be heard now until Aug. 3.

Bradsher and former Rockingham County District Attorney Craig Blitzer were forced to resign from their elected positions earlier this year amid a State Bureau of Investigation probe into their office.

At the request of Superior Court Judge Joe Crosswhite, SBI agents spent 11 months and 880 hours investigating claims that Bradsher and Blitzer had schemed to allow Blitzer's wife, Cindy Blitzer, to collect an unearned $48,000 salary working as an investigator for Bradsher while she instead took nursing classes at South University in High Point.

Craig Blitzer pleaded guilty for his involvement in that alleged scheme last week and paid back the $48,000 to the state. The plea deal allowed his wife to escape charges but he has to agree to testify against Bradsher, cooperate with a subsequent whistleblower lawsuit and aid in an investigation by the N.C. State Bar.
WENTWORTH  Rockingham County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Ed Wilson recused himself Monday from future hearings involving prominent Eden businessman Mickey Snow.

The Eden Police Department charged Snow in 2015 with 26 counts of promoting prostitution with a minor, statutory rape, patronizing a prostitute who is mentally disabled, patronizing a prostitute and second-degree forcible sexual offense for his alleged involvement in the prostitution of two mentally disabled teenage girls by their mother.

Snows criminal defense attorney, Seth Woodall of Eden, said Wilson had removed himself from a parallel civil case involving Snow and the victims. He said it made sense for Wilson also to remove himself from the criminal case.

Judge Wilson had been law partners with an Eden attorney that represented Mickey, and that caused a perceived conflict, Woodall said. The conflict might not actually exist, but because of the perceived conflict, Judge Wilson thought removing himself from the case would be most appropriate.

The case against Snow left Rockingham County residents enthralled after he led officers on a global manhunt until he was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, by the Royal Thai Police.

He is the only person charged in the prostitution ring not to have pleaded guilty. The girls mother, Teresa Vanover, along with Donnie Carter, Everette Ferris and Thomas Tommy Woodall did so last summer and are serving multiyear sentences.

Snows case has been stagnant since February, when former Rockingham County District Attorney Craig Blitzer canceled a scheduled trial with no explanation.

Rockingham County District Attorney Tom Keith, who was appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper after Blitzer resigned March 10 because of a criminal investigation into his office, said he plans to bring Snows case to trial before the end of the year. He said he and the defense team plan to start filing pre-trial motions as early as next month.

Wilson told prosecutors and Woodall on Monday that he would contact the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts to have an emergency judge appointed to the case.

Keith said having one judge hear all the motions in both the civil and criminal cases would benefit everyone, especially if the case goes into 2018.

Meanwhile, Snow remains free from the Rockingham County Jail on a $25 million bail.

Prosecutors filed a bond motion to be heard next Monday to update the conditions of Snows release.

Court officials recently learned that there are two versions of Snows bond requirements in his court file. One of them requires him to be on electronic monitor, only to travel to and from his home and work and to file a motion anytime he wants to travel outside of those stipulations.

A more recently filed motion only states that he needed to post the $25 million without any other stipulations.

Keith said the filed motions updates the conditions to match the original bond requirements, to which his legal team has been adhering.

Snow has traveled outside of North Carolina to visit the Mayo Clinic in Florida for an unknown malady on several occasions this year, and his defense team filed a motion to allow for each of those trips.

Woodall said the defense team plans to come back with their own bond motion before Monday, but he did not know the details he planned to include.
Bush Brothers & Company voluntarily recalled several 28 ounce cans of beans Saturday because of a problem with the side seams on the can.

The recall includes cans of Bush's Brown Sugar, Hickory Baked Beans, Country Style Baked Beans and Original Baked Beans.

The company released a statement that blamed the recall on a temporarily quality issue involving a can supplier. The company stated that the problem is corrected and no other products were affected.

No illnesses have been reported because of the faulty can. Despite that the company urges customers to throw out the affected products regardless of whether the beans look or smell okay.
Anthony Scaramucci confirmed yesterday what everyone's known:

President Trump's Russia denials are all about Trump.

"The mainstream media position on this, that they interfered in the election," the new White House communication director told CNN. "It actually in his mind, what are you guys suggesting? You're going to delegitimize his victory?"

That's exactly why Trump won't accept the conclusions, not of the mainstream media but of U.S. intelligence agencies, that Russia tried to influence the election in his favor.

Incredible. This was an outrageous act by a hostile foreign power, which will continue such attacks as long as it can get away with them, and all Trump cares about is the legitimacy of his election victory.

What about the national interest? Apparently, that's not in the president's mind. He just wants credit for running a great campaign.

But he could be persuaded, Scaramucci added. CNN reports:

"Scaramucci said he intended to review the intelligence community's evidence once he had his security clearance and pledged to give Trump his personal thoughts on the conclusions. He said Trump would make up his own mind in time and that if Trump believed Russia was responsible for the 2016 efforts and a threat to future elections, he would act."

Terrific. Scaramucci will share his thoughts with the president, which no doubt will carry more weight than whatever the experts at the CIA, FBI and NSA have to say.

Except this guy sounds like someone who will tell Trump only what Trump wants to hear, judging from his expressions of love and admiration for the president.

Jared's story

On a more positive note for the White House, Jared Kushner's statement today strikes me as mostly credible. I have difficulty with his contention that he didn't read the emails leading to the June 9, 2016, meeting with a bunch of Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton and his explanation of the "back channel communications with the Russians" story, but overall we may have an unusual amount of honest information from Trump World.

Pardon me

Then again, it's back to form on the topic of pardons.

One of the president's lawyers, Jay Sekulow, denied reports of pardon discussions in the White House:

I want to be clear on this, we have not, and continue to have not, conversations with the President of the United States regarding pardons, Sekulow told ABC News. Pardons have not been discussed and pardons are not on the table.

Contradicting that, Scaramucci told Fox News:

"Im in the Oval Office with the president last week, were talking about that. He brought that up, he said but he doesnt have to be pardoned."

That confirms the rule that it's foolish to believe everything coming out of the White House.
Lou Ursone / Contributed photo

Pippin will open at Curtain Calls Kweskin Theatre in Stamford with a special twist. The Summer Youth Theater production will have two actors share what is usually one major role.

Connecticut composer Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the music and lyrics for this Tony Award-winning show, gave the troupe permission to switch things up. Pippin will be on stage Wednesday, Aug. 2, through Saturday, Aug. 12.
Rachel Platten had an international hit with Fight Song, the 2015 anthem with its message of never giving up, which sold 2 million copies in the United States alone.

Meanwhile, Platten, also known for Stand by You, is holding fast to her own dreams. The 36-year-old star has a new album on the way, and will perform at the Alive@Five concert series at Stamfords Columbus Park on Thursday, July 27. She shared more via email.

Q: I fell for Fight Song the first time I heard it, and immediately Googled it to find out who was singing. Can you share more about that tune?

A: It was scary to pursue art in a bubble (before that hit). But after its humongous success, which Im so grateful for, it was a confirmation that it was safe to be me. I didnt have to change who I was to be that kind of artist, other than what was coming from my heart. The song is a thank-you to my fans for allowing me to express myself for exactly who I am.

Q: What can your audience expect in Stamford?

A: I will absolutely do a couple of songs from the new album. I cant tell you the titles yet, as it hasnt been released yet, but I will be ... telling some stories of these new songs. Whenever I put on a show I try to make it the most special experience for all those involved, and make it a humongous party. ... I want everyone leaving the concert feeling completely filled up, like its a reminder of the fact that were all connected. ... I try to make my shows a ton of fun. I try to run out to the crowd, do some dance contests and giveaways. My band is really fun to watch and engaging; its like five parties on stage.

More Information Alive@Five Festival, Columbus Park, Stamford. Enter through single main entrance on Main Street at Atlantic Street with multiple entry portals. Thursday, July 27, at 5 p.m. $15. Over 21 only. No re-entry. 203-348-5285, stamford-downtown.com See More Collapse

Q: You grew up in Boston where you played classical piano and harmonized with your family, singing pop songs by artists from Sam Cooke to The Beatles. Then you majored in international relations in college, lived in New Yorks Greenwich Village and spent years performing in clubs and coffee shops. What kept you going before Fight Song finally broke through?

A: I often considered giving up. ... There were moments where I felt completely hopeless and it was crazy to keep trying cause I was broke, living in the village, carrying my huge keyboard up and down the stairs to just play three hours for five people. I have a lot of journals from that time that I like to look back on, and I am stricken by how even though I dump out all the stress and pain of the day, at the end of each entry I wrap myself back up to hope. I find a way to believe again. ... Im an eternal optimist no matter how hard things are. ... I also played a lot in (a) hospital and did charity work. It often reminded me that I made a difference and an impact even if it was small, one person at a time.

lkoonz@newstimes.com; Twitter: @LindaTKoonz
GREENWICH  A Greenwich resident is putting his non-profit organization to work to help the family of a woman fighting deportation to Guatemala.

Nury Chavarria of Norwalk was due to be deported last week but instead sought and received sanctuary at a New Haven church, where she remains while politicians and others work to keep her in Connecticut.

Greenwich resident Joe Kaliko, co-founder of the Needs Clearing House charity, said he is hoping to raise funds from the community that would go directly to her family.

This is not a political stand for us in any way, Kaliko said. I believe in the need to protect the borders, but in this case, there needs to be a consideration of the mitigating circumstances... there are children involved, including a special needs child. That really troubled me.

Chavarria, who first came to America at the age of 19 in 1993 while seeking asylum from upheaval in Guatemala, had been given a stay by the United States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency in 2010 and had renewed it yearly.

But last month, she was told she would have to return to Guatemala as part of President Donald Trumps immigration policies. The policies have been heavily criticized by Connecticut elected representatives, including Gov. Dannel Malloy.

She is the sole provider of four children in Connecticut, including a son, Alvin, with cerebral palsy.

She has a 9-year-old and a 21-year-old with cerebral palsy. These young people depend on her. She didnt seem to have done anything wrong. She seems to be a law abiding citizen and there are children involved here, Kaliko said. Justice is supposed to be blind, but this looks like a case to me where justice is too blind and there are mitigating factors that are not being taken into account.

The Needs Clearing House is a registered nonprofit that connects people in need with resources. Kalikos charity has provided money, furnishings, clothing and job help to local individuals and groups since its inception in 2014.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has pledged his support to Kalikos effort. A Greenwich resident, he and Kaliko have teamed up on several Needs Clearing House projects in the past. Blumenthal was one of several Connecticut politicians who spoke out on Chavarrias behalf.

We are working together as a delegation in this effort, Blumenthal said. We believe the law should be respected and people should obey the law, but she is a victim of a fundamental miscarriage of justice and deserves the chance to seek asylum and have her case reviewed to the fullest and fairest consideration.

On Monday, Chavarrias attorney, Glenn Formica of New Haven, said that his client was holding up despite the circumstances and remains in the churchs basement wearing an ankle tracking bracelet so ICE knows where she is.

We are looking at some additional legal actions that may give her an opportunity for an additional stay, Formica said.

A request for comment from ICE was not returned.

For more information about Kalikos effort and how to donate, visit www.theneedsclearinghouse.org under the projects section.

Kaliko pledged that every cent donated would be going to the family.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
GREENWICH  Greenwich residents concerned about the potential development of a high speed rail line through town will get an update on Wednesday.

The meeting, which was put together by the Greenwich Preservation Trust, will be in Town Halls Cone Room at 1 p.m. Greg Stroud from the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation will be the guest speaker.

The Wednesday meeting is intended as an informational meeting for regional officials and organizations, Stroud said on Monday. Its basically a short overview of the larger plan, with an introduction to tier two of the project and the way forward. We are hoping for a lively question and answer session.

As he said during a May meeting about a plan to add high-speed rail along the East Coast, Stroud called the construction a disruption throughout the state and a threat to Greenwichs historic neighborhoods.

Rather than coming down to Fairfield County and telling people what to do, we'd like to work with communities in the region to help inform their engagement with the issue moving forward, and best address their needs, Stroud said.

An East Coast high-speed rail plan is still in its design phase with no announced plans to go forward. Stroud said he hoped the Federal Railroad Administration would hold a public meeting within Fairfield County about the project.

The proposal to build a raised high speed rail track to connect Boston and Washington, D.C., is through a federal and state partnership, NEC Future, which looks at ways to modernize high speed rail travel in the corridor. It would not use the current commuter train tracks, instead place the track above the current rail and interstate highway system.

Critics worry that if the plan is approved and follows Interstate 95, the rail route would go through Greenwichs private property including historic sites like the Bush Holley House, which is in Cos Cob by the I-95 bridge.

Members of the Greenwich Historical Society who appeared at the May meeting expressed concern about what the elevated rail line would mean to the site, which is in the middle of a major expansion and renovation.

In January 2016, Stroud formed SECoast, a non-profit, non-partisan group to fight against the project and advocate for historic preservation.

I'd love to offer the public a magic bullet, but the reality is that this plan will likely hang over the region for years to come, Stroud said. So, the first step, I think, is asking the right questions, and working to maintain flexibility in transit planning moving forward. Unfortunately, impacted communities in Fairfield County have lost a great deal of leverage in their ability to prevent or markedly change this project.

State Rep. Fred Camillo (R-151st) sent out a notice via email to his constituents Monday urging them to attend the meeting. Camillo said he and State Reps. Livvy Floren (R-149th) and Michael Bocchino (R-150th) would be at Wednesdays meeting along with First Selectman Peter Tesei.

Even though this is federal in nature, we are working hard to get whatever information we can obtain and will get that information out when receive it, Camillo said.

While the concept is, I believe, a very positive one, the local negative ramifications may far outweigh any transportation and environmental benefits, Camillo said. We remain in the dark at this stage, but the local meeting on Wednesday should be the start of a wider and more coordinated effort to protect local neighborhoods and historic venues.

More information about SECoast is available s online at www.secoast.org.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
Summerhills owner advertised one of her cocktails in front of faux bullet holes. Photo: Courtesy of Summerhill

On Saturday, residents of Crown Heights held an open forum outside the controversial new bar and sandwich shop Summerhill. Owner Becca Brennan fanned the flames of gentrification and cultural appropriation in the neighborhood, after glibly advertising a wall riddled with bullet holes and 40-ounce rose in paper bags. Summerhill was open for business during the protest, with Brennan herself making drinks and, reportedly, a dozen or so customers inside. But after such a visible and heated backlash, it seems unlikely that the bar will be able to continue long with business as usual.

During the forum, various residents took turns sharing their feelings about Summerhill. One unidentified man, Gothamist reports, said, Im a resident of Crown Heights. Im a black man. Im offended that people are marketing our hurt, our pain, our struggle. Speaking to accusations that Brennan is profiting off of the majority-black neighborhoods difficult history, longtime resident Toya Lillard said, People of color are not props or backdrops.

A list of demands was presented to Brennan by the protesters, including a public apology, removal of the bullet holes, and attendance at Crown Heights Tenant Union meetings. Two publicists worked the crowds, taking notes and passing out copies of a version of a statement that was released to media outlets on Friday. But Brennan herself did not interact with the crowd. Chants of Bye, Becky were shouted, and the organizers reportedly are no longer interested in working with Summerhill. Instead, the organizers say theyll continue showing up outside the bar to talk about issues of concern.

Not everyone present over the weekend was there to protest. Gothamist reports that a black man who identified himself as a Summerhill cook took the podium, noting the white people in the crowd, and said, Its the gentrifiers going off on a gentrifier. The publication also quoted a commercial landlord and nearly 30-year neighborhood resident, Frank Morris, who called the outcry hogwash and said of Brennan, [S]he has young black kids here every day helping them with their homework, young black kids cleaning her windows, and black people coming in here and having a good time. Protester and local business owner Tracey Reid, who is a tenant of Morriss, shot back that he rented her a store for 18 years without heat or hot water.

Restaurants have long been at the center of the gentrification conversation, prompting there goes the neighborhood refrains when places selling trendy brunch dishes and $6 lattes crop up. Eddie Huang took chef Marcus Samuelsson to task in the Observer, pillorying his memoir for its take on Harlem and saying of his restaurant there, Red Rooster, that his talk of elevating soul food is an absurd joke. But that was a year and a half after the restaurant opened, and Huang was accusing Samuelsson of acting like he was bringing something to a neighborhood that was doing just fine without him. Summerhill, meanwhile, engaged in a high degree of thoughtless cultural co-opting and is now defined by that.

This backlash has also happened at the same time as similar protests aimed at a cafe, Weird Wave, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Like Crown Heights, the historically Hispanic community is experiencing rapid gentrification. Last Wednesday, after weeks of protests, the cafe was vandalized and its front door smashed by an unidentified individual. Then over the weekend, it was vandalized again, when one of its front windows was broken. Its not clear, as of yet, if either incident is linked to the protests. But the owners of Weird Wave tell the Los Angeles Times that theyve seen a surge in business, attributing this to media attention. Questions of responsibility toward these communities aside, though, Weird Wave didnt offend with insensitive-at-best advertising. There are no bullet holes in its walls. It seems unlikely that Summerhill will be so lucky. Its been marked, before it can establish a reputation for anything else, as an embodiment of clueless cultural insensitivity and New Yorks out-of-control gentrification.
Hot chicken pakoras from Chauhan Ale & Masala House in Nashville. Photo: Ron Melville

When chef Vishwesh Bhatt was planning the menu for the restaurant Snackbar, in Oxford, Mississippi, he immediately thought about the foods he ate growing up: collard greens, okra, pickles, and black-eyed peas  all staples of the American South. But Bhatt was raised in Ahmedabad, in west India. He says that when he moved to Mississippi in his 20s, he quickly noticed the similarities between the cuisines of his old home and his new one. The ingredients, Bhatt explains, were exactly the same, just presented in a slightly different way.

At Snackbar, which opened in 2009, he was able to finally explore that connection further: He experimented by seasoning fried okra with chaat masala, and offered dishes like garam masala succotash, quail tikka masala, and black-pepper-fried catfish. It totally resonated with guests, he says, and it was foreign to neither of us.

From an historic and geographic standpoint, the pairing of these cuisines makes a lot of sense: Warm climates make it easy to grow crops like okra, chiles, and rice. And in the late 18th century, at least according to lore, former British colonists from the British East India Company settled in the American South, in turn leading to the invention of dishes like Country Captain chicken, a stew built around the complex flavors of the spice blend garam masala.

In other parts of the American South, chefs have made discoveries similar to Bhatts, combining the culinary traditions of their Indian heritage with the regional particulars of the southern setting, producing food that is both astonishingly original and deeply appealing.

Take hot chicken. In the hands of Maneet Chauhan, chef/owner of Chauhan Ale & Masala House, in Nashville, the bird is dredged in ginger, garlic, garam masala, Kashmiri chiles, and chickpea flour, then fried into a hot chicken pakora. Inspiration, for her, arrived in the form of the classic southern meat and three (a meat served with three side dishes). I thought, This is just like a thali. There is a protein, there is a starch, and there are some vegetables. So I started translating, and making an interpretation of what the food of this city was, through my lens. She even does her own chefs-choice meat and three at the restaurant, with sides like raita and daal. Both cuisines are taking these pedestrian ingredients found in their environment, and elevating them through spices, she says. Its this translation of love through food  theyre the kind of cultures where you say, I cant have another bite, and yet another serving ends up on your plate.

Quail tikka masala at Snackbar in Oxford, Mississippi.

From My Two Souths, Kerala fried chicken and low country rice waffles. Photo: Evan Sung

This kind of fusion  which is built on the idea of harmony between the cooking styles, instead of mashing-up disparate elements  is on display at an impressive number of restaurants: Pondicheri in Houston serves fried chicken thats marinated in yogurt masala; Chai Pani, which has locations in Asheville and Atlanta, makes chili cheese fries with paneer, cilantro, and tomato chutney; Nasha, in Austin, offers a tikka con queso.

Also in Austin, where barbecue is a religion unto itself, Deepa Shridhar runs a pop-up dinner series called Anjore. And shes working on her own version of Texas barbecue, a low-smoked brisket rubbed with fermented chiles, sugar, and chai. Usually when you think Indian and barbecue, you immediately go to tandoori, but I wanted to go a bit deeper than that, she says. Both India and Texas have a lot of smoky, deep, dark flavor profiles in their cuisines, so barbecue works as a connective tissue.

The connections, Shridhar says, are about more than than simple similarities in ingredients. This deep sense of hospitality really rings true in both cultures, she says. Everything we do  both as Indians and Southerners  is so rooted in tradition. She adds that she found it easy to meld the two cuisines, as both have complicated flavors, but not a lot of fuss. We do put in some effort to make dishes look visually pleasing, but the rule of thumb is generally, if it tastes good, thats what matters before everything else.

Snackbars okra chaat.

As seamless as the pairing can be, it also marks a definite change in the way Indian chefs and owners approach American diners. As recently as the late 90s, Indian restaurants opening in the U.S. were designed less to reflect the heritage of the chef, and more to simply appeal to generalized Western tastes. It was a business. It wasnt a craft, it wasnt a profession, Chauhan says. Now, though, We are taking being a chef as a profession. People like me are proud of the cuisine we have grown up with, but we have also found a home in the South. We want to relate our food to that experience.

Shridhar, who moved to the U.S. from Pune in west India when she was 4, agrees. I am Indian-Texan, its not even something I hesitate on, she says. I have these two identities, and denying either of those in my cooking seems wrong and inauthentic.

Embracing, and combining, that heritage is also the basis for the cookbook My Two Souths. Asha Gomez wrote the book as a result of growing up in Kerala and living in Atlanta. She also hosts a regular dinner series where one of her most popular items is catfish pickle thats marinated in turmeric, Kashmiri chili powder, brown sugar, and vinegar. I was visiting Mississippi, Gomez says, and I realized that pickling was a strong tradition that Indians and southerners both had in common.

Between 2000 and 2010, the Indian communities of Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky grew by more than 80 percent, according to New America Media, and if that staggering growth  not to mention the effusive praise for this style of cooking  is an indication, hot chicken pakoras and okra chaat could just be the jumping-off point to a much richer cultural melding. Food is an evolution. My cooking is a progression of who I am as a person, and the places I have been fortunate enough to call home, Gomez says. I hope that 20 years from now my son is making corn bread with cardamom, and it feels more like the norm.
HMD unveiled three Android smartphones back in February - the Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6. Four long months later the phones finally started appearing on shelves. The latest market to get them is Australia, where retailer JB Hi-Fi has the three phones are up for sale.

The Nokia 3 costs AUD249 ($198) and is available in two colors - Silver or Black. The phone is the entry-level one and comes with a MediaTek MT6737 chipset with a quad-core CPU.

Next in line is the Nokia 5. It can be purchased only in Black for AUD329, which is the equivalent of $261. The 5 comes with Snapdragon 430 and 2GB of RAM.

The most capable of the three is the Nokia 6 (for now). It costs AUD399 (about $317). You can get it in either Black or Silver. It still has the same entry-level Snapdragon 430, but at least it has 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage. The camera has a 16 MP sensor and f/2.0 lens.

Source
Published on 2017/07/23

Discover which Korean city is the best for solo travelers, 10 Magazine tracks the differences between American and Korean college life, Dangdong in China may be the best place to see North Korea, and CNN Travel has 50 reasons why Seoul is one of the greatest cities.

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"COLLEGE LIFE IN AMERICA VS. KOREA"

10 Magazine produces some great articles for English-speakers and foreigners looking to explore Korea. In this article, Sohwi Lim, a student at Syracuse University in Upstate New York, tracks some of the differences between studying at an American college and a Korean one: "Whether it's from fashion to school studies", writes Sohwi, "there is a myriad of differences that shows not all student life is created equal when it comes to college life in Korea and America". Have you spent some time studying in Korea? Let us know what your experiences have been like in the comment section below...

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"Want to see North Korea? Head to Dandong, China"

Want to catch a glimpse of the 'Hermit Kingdom' without crossing the border? Sure, there's the infamous DMZ to visit, but China's Dandong offers great views into North Korea, too. "Using binoculars from the top of the [Great] wall, you can see for miles into North Korea, as well spot an air force base where a mysterious North Korean warplane took off before crashing in China". From here, the North is just "a stones throw away". Best visit during the day, however, because at dusk "Dandong lights up the skyline while the North Korean side remains eerily dark and quiet".

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"50 reasons why Seoul is the world's greatest city"

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Gruppo Campari sells Carolans and Irish Mist for $165mn

By Jo Gilbert

Gruppo Campari is selling the Carolans and Irish Mist brands to American company Heaven Hill Brands.

The $165mn deal will see the US spirits distributor acquire Carolans Irish Cream and Irish Mist liqueurs and whiskey trademarks, as well as inventory and production assets.

However, Gruppo Campari will continue to distribute the Carolans and Irish Mist brands in the international markets outside the US, in a multi-year exclusive distribution agreement with Heaven Hill.

Bob Kunze-Concewitz, Gruppo Camparis CEO said today that the sale of Carolans and Irish Mist is the largest disposal ever completed by the company.

In the fiscal year ending December 31, 2016, Carolans and Irish Mist totalled net sales of 34 million, representing approximately 2% of Gruppo Campari net sales for FY2016.

The United States is the brands core market, accounting for 70% of the 2016s sales.

The two brands were acquired by Gruppo Campari in 2010 as part of a larger portfolio which also included Frangelico - a key acquisition for the Milan-headquartered multi-national.

Carolans is the second-largest selling Irish cream whiskey liqueur worldwide.

Irish Mist Liqueur is a blend of Irish whiskey, honey and aromatic spices.

Heaven Hill Brands is Americas largest independent family-owned and operated distilled spirits company and is headquartered in Bardstown, Kentucky.

The company is the overall sixth-largest supplier in the US and has currently owns the second-largest inventory of Bourbon in the world.

CEO Kunze-Concewitz said: With this transaction, we continue to streamline our non-strategic portfolio and further increase our focus on our priority spirit brands, particularly in our largest and core US market. Moreover, thanks to this disposal, we can further accelerate in the reduction of our financial indebtedness. Since the beginning of 2016 we have divested non-strategic assets for a total value of approximately 260 million.
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Canada pipeline cleared for repairs after serious 2016 oil spill

On July 21, Husky Energy said it had been granted permission to repair a section of pipeline that leaked 225,000 litres of crude in Saskatchewan in July 2016. At least 200,000 litres of oil and chemicals leaked into the North Saskatchewan River after the incident, resulting in the closure of the water supply systems of several downriver communities for almost two months.

Stock image

Husky was criticised for its slow response to the spill, only shutting down the pipeline 10 hours after leak-detection systems indicated pressure anomalies.

Husky CEO Robert Peabody said that the company would be applying lessons learned from the spill on the rebuild. He said the leak detection systems had worked but had not given unambiguous message. The company now plans to include more monitoring equipment that will measure ground movement, as well as add thicker and higher grades of steel pipe to the repaired section.

The planned extra equipment for the section, including fibre optic cables to detect pipeline and ground movement, will help make it clear when a spill has happened. Regulators will assess the new leak prevention systems before allowing the pipeline to reopen.

Huskys investigation determined the pipeline buckled because of ground movement. The company said it accepted full responsibility, had spent C$107 million on cleanup operations, and was using what it had learned from the incident to improve operations.

Meanwhile, a Saskatchewan First Nations lawsuit lays part of the blame for the Husky Energy pipeline spill on the provincial governments failure to prevent it from happening. The suit lodged by the James Smith Cree Nation claims that had a series of pipeline safety recommendations handed down five years ago been implemented, the leak might not have happened.



Saskatchewan provincial auditor Judy Ferguson also concluded last month that the Ministry of Energy and Resources had implemented only four of seven recommendations put forward in 2012 and designed to bring it into compliance with the law, and was not doing enough to effectively regulate pipelines.


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(Reuters) International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) said a plan to restructure US$3.3bn of its debt won approval from creditors holding 93.9% face value of the affected credits. Claimants with 94.1% of the principal amount cast votes, the state-run bank said in a statement on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Two-thirds support was needed for the plan to be adopted. IBA creditors include domestic state oil fund Sofaz, commodities trader Cargill, Italian lender Intesa Sanpaolo, Germanys Commerzbank and Bayerische Landesbank and Frances Societe Generale. Several big asset managers are holders of its Eurobond.

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TWO direct trains between Henley and London are to be axed in the autumn.

From September 4, the 7.42am service from the town to Paddington and the 5.11pm return journey will be removed from Great Western Railways timetable.

Instead of the 7.42am train, which takes 45 minutes, there will be a new service leaving Henley at 7.38am requiring a change at Twyford, which will have a total journey time of 43 minutes.

However, no similar replacement is to be introduced in the evenings.

Not only is the 5.11pm direct train being scrapped, but so is the earlier 5.06pm service which, despite a change at Twyford, has a faster journey time of 37 minutes compared with an hour for the 5.11pm, which makes more stops along the way.

Instead, two indirect trains are being introduced at 4.25pm and 4.36pm. Both will take more than an hour and the latter requires two changes, one at Reading and a second at Twyford.

This leaves just two direct services between the capital. The 7.08am outward train, which arrives at 7.54am, and the 7.05pm return service, which takes 52 minutes, are unaffected.

The changes follow an earlier alteration to the timetable on May 21, in which the 6.10pm direct train from Paddington to Henley was scrapped. A half-hourly off-peak service was also introduced on the Henley branch line, replacing the old 45-minute shuttle service, which offers faster travel for Henley, Shiplake and Twyford residents but leaves Wargrave with only an hourly service during off-peak hours.

This prompted complaints from Wargrave residents who say it is often delayed, leaving passengers with little time to board connecting services.

It is understood that all direct trains are to be axed by the end of the year as the Great Western line between London and cities including Oxford is being electrified.

When this is completed, new high-speed electric units will operate on the line while the slower diesel carriages, which run on the Henley branch line and the direct London services, are expected to be taken out of action.

Neil Gunnell, of commuter group Henley Trains, said it could ultimately prove beneficial as long as branch line trains arrived in time to make connections and enough seats were available.

He said: I suppose one question for Henley will be getting a seat at Twyford. Were really lucky at the moment with the direct trains because we just get on and sit down. A connecting train at Twyford will have called at other stops like Reading so theres potential for them to be quite busy.

However, I think we have to stay positive. In the long term this is going to be a better-spread timetable and should ultimately lead to a more regular and reliable branch line service.

This should ultimately be seen as a rejigging of the timetable and not a cut. Were keeping an eye on these interim changes, and indeed checking that they are heading to a longer term plan which, when last seen some time ago, included an additional service in the morning rush hour to Twyford and beyond.

I would ask people to bear with us while we do that in the background. Speculation is a fine guessing game but well endeavour to determine what is actually happening.

Patrick Fleming, of Henley Branch Users Group, said: Were keeping a very close eye on this and have been in discussions with GWR about it for some time. Were very concerned about the potential loss of amenities.

Our biggest concern is journey times and, at the moment, it looks as though the journey times in the morning are being preserved. GWR is promising to maintain its commitment to this but we dont know what the next franchisee may think.

Philip Meadowcroft, of Wargrave User Group, said: This is what weve been fearing since the group was started. I dont think the people of Henley will be very amused when theyre having to wait on cold nights at Twyford for trains where they might not get a seat. It could cause quite a ruckus.

The current timetable is as follows: Current mornings from Henley: 6.36am (change at Twyford, 50 minutes), 7.08am (direct, 46 minutes), 7.42am (direct, 45 minutes), 8.27am (change at Twyford, one hour and four minutes).

Current evenings from Paddington: 5.06pm (change at Twyford, 37 minutes), 5.11pm (direct, one hour and two minutes), 5.18pm (change at Twyford, 55 minutes), 6.05pm (change at Twyford, 40 minutes), 6.47pm (change at Twyford, 39 minutes), 7.05pm (direct, 52 minutes).

Mornings from September 4: 6.36am (change at Twyford, 50 minutes), 7.08am (direct, 46 minutes), 7.38am (change at Twyford, 43 minutes), 8.25am (change at Twyford, one hour and six minutes).

Evenings from September 4: 4.25pm (change at Twyford, one hour and 18 minutes), 4.36pm (change at Reading, then Twyford, one hour and seven minutes), 5.18pm (change at Twyford, 55 minutes), 6.05pm (change at Twyford, 40 minutes), 6.47pm (change at Twyford, 39 minutes), 7.05pm (direct, 52 minutes).
PLANS to move Goring Primary School remain unlikely to become part of the villages neighbourhood plan, say volunteers who are writing the document.

The Diocese of Oxford, which runs the Church of England primary in Wallingford Road, has proposed relocating it to a new 6.5million base on farmland north of Springhill Road.

Governors say homes could go on the old site so it should be included in Gorings draft neighbourhood plan before it goes to a referendum this autumn.

The document, which a steering group is writing under parish council supervision, will name the sites where 86 new homes should go to meet Government quotas by 2027.

At a full council meeting last Monday, the groups co-chairman David Wilkins claimed the schools plan might not be ready for serious consideration before the referendum.

He said: We appreciate that the governors are acting for the good of their pupils but we have a wider view and must look out for the good of the village. Those two things dont always align.

The proposal is far from complete... everyone can agree the current school facilities arent as good as they might be but the document lacks the level of substance we clearly explained was needed some time ago.

The neighbourhood plan must be finalised as soon as possible if we are to protect the village from unwanted development.

The new school would initially be as big as the current one, which houses up to 212 pupils, but could expand to 318 places.

The old site would be redeveloped into 34 flats while 56 new homes would also go on the new school site while a further 46 would go on another field on the other side of Wallingford Road.

Both are owned by the Hildred family, which is working with developer McAdden Homes.

Governors argue the school is oversubscribed and potential new pupils are being turned away while the Sixties buildings are dilapidated and would be uneconomical to refurbish.

The county council says more work is needed to assess whether the plan is viable.
FOUR women from Henley who founded a company to help small businesses say they want to build a community for the creative people of the town.

Sarah Gilbert, Jo Harris, Joanna McGinn and Nicola Nott started the Creative Duck in March and have since held two successful talks from local business owners.

As well as speakers, the company organises workshops for business owners and those looking to start their own company. They are given tips on issues such as marketing and photography and provide a place to meet others.

The company aims to help business owners learn new skills, exchange ideas and to support one another.

The four women all had successful careers prior to moving to Henley and still run several of their own projects.

Mrs Gilbert, 38, grew up in Shiplake, attending the village primary school, before moving on to Gillotts School in Henley and The Henley College.

She says she always wanted to work in the creative industry and started a four-year course in marketing at Northumbria University in 1999 after a year travelling to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the USA.

After graduating, she worked for agencies in London, dealing with companies such as Sony Eriksson in the capital.

In 2007 she took a year off to travel around China, Australia, New Zealand, Bangkok, Mexico, Bermuda and the USA with her boyfriend Graeme who proposed in Bermuda.

Soon afterwards Mrs Gilbert retrained as a teacher and taught at Cookham Primary School for five years.

She said: I loved the creative side of working with young people when you ignite their imagination and get that lightbulb moment where they understand things. When I started having my own children I realised the importance of getting them to learn by doing all the stuff that Id done.

Mrs Gilbert has three children, Joe, six, Amber, four, and Sid, one, and when the last came along she left teaching and began Box of Smiles, a business which makes small personalised gift boxes for babies and mums, from her home in St Andrews Road.

Miss Harris, 42, was born in London but grew up in Shiplake and Wargrave.

She admits it took her a long time to work out what she wanted to do, as she travelled in Asia and worked in London in property management before deciding she wasnt happy and began pursuing her childhood love of illustrating. She studied illustration at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham, where she ended up teaching a life drawing class, and sold her flat in London before deciding to move to Henley, where many of her old friends still lived.

Miss Harris then launched Boo Dillon Illustration, and founded the Henley School of Art last year, all while working during the day at Bagatelle Toys in Bell Street.

Mrs McGinn, 38, grew up in the Wirrall and had an interest in fashion and travelling as a youngster. She studied French, Spanish and Italian at Durham University, which allowed her to spend years abroad working in Italy, Peru and France.

She did a postgraduate course in journalism at the London College of Fashion in 2003 and her first job was at Bolz magazine in London.

That was an eye-opener, Mrs McGinn recalled. I was a dogsbody working with PRs, taking back samples and getting on buses to find random places but getting to write. It was a brilliant experience.

She later worked at trend forecaster WGSN and became Europe correspondent, allowing her to travel to cities such as Milan, Paris, and Rio de Janeiro covering shows and writing city guides.

Mrs McGinn married husband Mark in 2010 and after having her first child Milo, now six, she went part-time.

The family moved to Henley in 2011, first renting in Friday Street before buying a home in Wilson Avenue.

She had her second child Anya, three, and now runs an afternoon tea hire company called Mrs Mins Vintage with her sister Louise. The company, inspired by Mrs McGinns love of collecting vintage china while travelling, now offers a collection of china and homemade cakes for events, as well as supplying local companies such as Athlete Services in Greys Road car park.

Ms Nott, 38, is from Gloucester and studied textile design at Nottingham Trent University. While she was there she did a three-month internship in New York with Thierry Mugler and, after graduating, she went on to work for Burberry and French Connection in London.

She took a year out in 2008 to travel to central and South America, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and India with partner Steven Heywood, who is head of technical sales at Henley investment company Invesco Perpetual.

She returned to Burberry for another seven years but resigned last year.

Ms Nott has two young sons, Eli, four, and one-year-old Fredrick. They moved to Henley last year, renting in New Street before buying in Berkshire Road.

She said: Every weekend theres something different that makes us think we are very lucky to be living here. Theres always something going on and it completely suits our lifestyle.

The idea for the Creative Duck first came about when Mrs Gilbert and Miss Harris met at Bagatelle two years ago.

Mrs Gilbert, who was buying presents at the time, said: We both live in Henley and are from creative backgrounds and we talked about an idea of setting up something.

Miss Harris added: I found that so many people would come in who did creative things in their sheds but didnt know how to market or make websites. What they needed was an outlet to help them and the community grow. Sarah and I were texting for a year and a half before she rang one day and said it was time.

Mrs Gilbert said: About four months ago I decided I needed a new project and it was a good time as my third child was getting easier and Box of Smiles was taking off.

Jo asked me to come round and I blurted out everything I had in my head. It was a creative place for small businesses and individuals to learn collaboration and support each other. We knew there was a demand for it.

They recruited Mrs McGinn and Ms Nott, who Mrs Gilbert knew through their children, and came up with the name to give the project a link to the river.

Mrs Gilbert said: We are putting on talks that people are asking for, we are not charging a lot for them, its just covering costs. They are informal but informative.

Mrs McGinn added: Sarah and I have our own businesses and there are some things you just dont know. She can ask me to read this for her or I can ask for advice on packaging. Everyone has a skill and can fill a knowledge gap.

They held their first talk in June, when speaker Aspen Weatherburn told more than 60 guests about her business Hello Henley, which helps businesses use social media to promote themselves to customers.

The event, which saw Ms Weatherburn interviewed by BBC journalist Sophie van Brugen and then answer questions from members of the audience, sold out in three days and the women say they were surprised by the reaction.

Ms Nott said: We were going to do the first event at the art school but we had such a fantastic response that we moved it to Hotel du Vin. We thought we might get 20 people but we sold out of 60 tickets.

Mrs Gilbert added: Lots of people told us they needed the event. It was nice to have drinks before and after to chat. Some ladies in Sonning had a cupcake business and needed a graphic designer. They found one at the event so that was great. Henley has a fantastic array of talent so lets give it a forum.

Miss Harris added: I think people were thirsty for it. The creatives of Henley are all in one room and meeting each other. The collaborative aspect is boundless.

A second talk was held on Monday with photographer Kathryn Fell at Miss Harriss art school in Hart Street. Mrs Fell, whose real name is Kathryn Willis, will be talking again tonight (Friday), while in September business mentor James Malone will be appearing at Hotel du Vin.

The women say they are excited about the upcoming talks and have lots more ideas of how to expand the company.

Mrs McGinn said: Its about getting experience, knowledge and advice. Some are workshops and some are talks with a question and answer session.

Ms Nott added: Its not for profit, we are doing it for education and the good of the community. We will hopefully be inviting people who have made success like shop owners who can form a panel. Its bringing in successful local people.

If money was no object we would love to have a workspace in Henley where you can go for a coffee and a pop-up space to sell what we have made. We all have our own projects and families.

Miss Harris said: I really want to build a community in Henley to have things like an art festival as it is built around a really strong artistic community. Its all there, it just needs a bit of oomph and support.

Mrs Gilbert said: We have lots of ideas, weve been trialling surgery sessions where you have a small business around the table with a problem and we present them with ideas. Its something we are looking to carry on.

We will grow it with demand and people want to come and help us too, its been lovely. Its been exciting so far and I hope it will carry on.

For more information or to book tickets visit www.thecreativeduck.co.uk
A FLEET of 15 boats used to rescue soldiers from Dunkirk during the Second World War took to the river in Henley for the annual Thames Traditional Boat Festival.

The crafts were part of the Dunkirk Little Ships, a group of private boats which travelled from Ramsgate to Dunkirk in 1940 as part of rescue mission Operation Dynamo, and took part in a display at the three-day festival last weekend.

They now belong to the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, which was founded in 1967, and paraded past thousands of spectators on the banks of Fawley Meadows, off Marlow Road.

They included Tom Tit, a 40ft motor yacht which was famously stolen from Ramsgate harbour in June 1940 by brothers Ron and Alan Tomlinson so they could take it to Dunkirk to aid in the rescue mission.

They successfully ferried hundreds of soldiers between the beach and big ships 16 times before returning to Britain, where they expected to be arrested. Instead, they were congratulated by naval officers.

Another ship, Aberdonia, played wartime music through speakers as it passed spectators, while Goring resident John Calvert took part in his motor yacht LOrage. The craft, previously known as Surrey, was owned by television presenter and Henley resident Raymond Baxter before Mr Calvert restored it.

The Little Ships helped rescue more than 300,000 British and French soldiers from the French beach and three of those which took part over the weekend feature in a new blockbuster film on the mission called Dunkirk, which was directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Tom Hardy and Harry Styles.

There was also a parade by Dunkirk veterans on Saturday, who were joined by the Sea Cadets band on the sites central bridge.

The Little Ships were joined by more than 200 other boats for the festival, including canoes, punts and amphibious cars.

However, a First World War torpedo boat, the last remaining craft of its kind, was forced to pull out of the event after hitting a bridge in Bristol while being transported to the event on Friday.

Commodore Tony Farncombe, of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, who took part in the parade with his boat Wanda, said: Weve been going to this event for a number of years and Ive always enjoyed it. The revised version has gradually increased interest and now its not just the boats, there are other things there to enjoy.

We enjoyed doing the flypast, particularly on Sunday when members of the Navy got on board the boats and gave a salute and three cheers to the organisers and then the association. Everybody on the bank stopped and listened, it was a spectacular scene to see.

Mr Farncombe, who lives in Kent, says members of the association also attended the premiere of the new film last week and events like that and the festival were helping the story of Dunkirk to be remembered.

He said: Over the last few years Dunkirk has become more in the public consciousness, they are starting to talk about it more in schools and children ask us questions.

Its about building up interest from the public and the film is really going to help bring it to attention.

The Queens royal barge, Gloriana, was at the festival every day and took part in rowpasts on Saturday and Sunday powered by members of local rowing clubs.

The rowers raised their oars as a sign of respect as they passed the commentary booth on the final stretch of the course, before mooring up to let passengers off.

Other vessels on display included a Victorian steam cruiser, tugs and working boats and a flotilla of steam-powered craft, many of whom blew their whistles as they passed spectators on the bank.

A fleet of French canoes took part in a display on Sunday as they paddled up the river before manoeuvring around a buoy, while several punts also rounded the obstacle while travelling down the course.

One canoeist even had to rescue the hat of a passenger from the boat in front after it toppled off while they were completing the manoeuvre.

A procession of amphibious cars, including military models and a converted campervan, took to the water on Sunday. Among them was Lyndon Yorke, who has also taken part in the annual Chelsea Fringe Henley floral flotilla in his Dutton Surf car, Platypus. Mr Yorke was followed by Tim Dutton, founder of Dutton Cars, which provides kits to convert cars into amphibious vehicles.

Dozens of people also gathered on the southern end of the site to watch the cars emerge from the water, cheering when the vehicles successfully negotiated the ramp on to the bank.

On dry land, there was an exhibition of vintage and classic cars and motorbikes, while in the air there were fly-pasts by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which this year included an American Douglas C-47 Dakota transport plane, and biplanes and triplanes from the Great War Display Team.

Thousands of people watched the action from the bank, despite rain on Saturday putting some spectators off. Others moored their own boats up or travelled up and down the river during the weekend. Many had dressed in old-style clothes, while one woman was ferried down the river in a rowboat by her companion while wearing a Victorian-era dress and holding a parasol.

Luscombes at the Golden Ball in Lower Assendon had a stall serving fish and chips and other meals while the Time For Tea mobile vintage cafe, which is based in Henley, sold cakes and hot drinks.

There were also stalls by local boatbuilders and marinas including Henwood and Dean in Henley and Val Wyatt Marine in Wargrave, while cyclists on old-style bicycles including a Penny Farthing took part in displays around the site.

Hobbs of Henley ran a free river shuttle service from the town centre to the festival site and back for ticket holders, while there were parties on Friday and Sunday night with performances by local artists. The festival is now in its 38th year but was previously known as the Thames Traditional Boat Rally until 2014, when it was called off due to flooding on the meadow at the start of that year.

It was revived under its current name in 2015 by a new organising committee led by Lady McAlpine, of Fawley Court. Last year, there were more than 15,000 visitors.

Lady McAlpine, who attended the event with her husband Sir William and their pet Labradors, said this years event was the best since it was revived three years ago.

She said: It was absolutely brilliant. I was doing the swan upping on Tuesday and every boat we went past was waving and shouting great festival!. The rain on Saturday will have affected numbers and trade figures so thats depressing but it really picked up on Sunday.

We finally got the layout right and had lots of good boats. The illuminated parade on Saturday night was a hoot and the new members enclosure worked well. I think weve finally cracked it, its taken us three years and it will just improve now.

Festival organisers handed out more than 30 awards, with new patron Sir Steve Redgrave presenting the prizes at a ceremony on Sunday evening. They included awards for each category of boat, as well as the best illuminated display and an overall award for the best boat.
A HENLEY Rowing Club athlete has been competing for the USA Rowing Junior U19 national team.

Gillotts School pupil Sophia Hahn, a womens J16 rower, has represented the USA at the CanAmMex Regatta, held at Elk Lake in Victoria City, British Columbia, Canada, earlier this month in the eight and coxed four events.

The USA team won two gold medals against fellow U19 national teams from Canada and Mexico.

Last weekend the crew competed in the USA Rowing Club Nationals Regatta, held at Lake Harsha in Bethel, Ohio, USA, in which they won two silver and a bronze medal in the coxed four and two coxed eight events.

More than 2,100 athletes in 1,750 boats from 115 clubs and US Rowing Junior Development and High-performance Camps participated in this event.
Three cousins who caused 1,000 worth of damage to vans they tried to break into in an apartment complex were caught by gardai as they left the scene.

Michael Gavin (19), John Gavin (20) and Terence Mongan (19) left the vans with holes punched in the doors after trying to force them open with screwdrivers.

Dublin District Court heard each man was recently married.

The Gavins, both of Moyne Park, Moyne Road, Baldoyle, along with Mongan, of The Courtyard, Twin Oaks, Bailie- boro, Co Cavan, pleaded guilty to criminal damage.

Judge Kathryn Hutton gave John Gavin a three-month suspended sentence, put Mongan on a one-year probation bond and dismissed Michael Gavin's case under the Probation Act.

Convictions

The court heard the incident happened at Burnell Apartments in Clarehall last January 11. Gardai responded to a call from security that three men were trying to gain entry to two locked vans.

On their way, gardai stopped a vehicle in which the three accused were passengers.

CCTV footage showed them damaging the rear doors of the vans.

Michael Gavin had no previous convictions.

He had worked buying and selling cars with his father but was not working at the moment, his solicitor Steph O'Meara said. He had got married in January.

John Gavin had six prior convictions, was married in November and had a young child.

Mongan had one previous conviction, was married in November and his wife was expecting their first child.

The accused men had made a "foolish decision which they regret", Ms O'Meara added.
Wife-killer Joe O'Reilly's long-term love Nikki Pelley has been maintaining weekly visits and regular phone calls with the convicted murderer - despite rumours of a break-up earlier this year.

The Sunday World snapped Pelley visiting O'Reilly at the weekend, exactly 10 years on from his conviction for the brutal murder of his wife and mother of his children, Rachel O'Reilly.

Pelley travelled almost every week to see the murderer in the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise, where O'Reilly was held until he was transferred to Arbour Hill in 2013.

It was recently claimed that O'Reilly's relationship with Pelley, an advertising executive, had ended.

Rumours

It was believed the romance was brought to an end after O'Reilly (43) lost his chance of a final appeal against his conviction in November, and Pelley ended things after all hope of him getting out disappeared.

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However, in April, the Herald revealed that, despite the rumours, Pelley was still visiting her man and she was photographed on a weekend visit.

When approached outside the prison at the weekend, she refused to say whether she believed he was innocent.

However, sources have said O'Reilly has maintained his innocence to Pelley and his family.

The pair began a secret affair six months prior to the horrific murder.

During the 20-day trial, Pelley admitted having a "sexual relationship" with O'Reilly while he was married to Rachel.

"We talked about things. We talked about our future," she said at the time.

Although she was never a suspect for the crime, she was arrested twice on suspicion of withholding information that could have been relevant.

Pelley told the court that one of the words O'Reilly had called Rachel was a "wasp".

O'Reilly has always denied any involvement in the murder, but details of the crude emails sent by him revealed that he talked about how his greatest fear was becoming "Mr Weekend Custody".

The badly-beaten body of Rachel was found in the bathroom of her home by her mother.

Before he was charged with the brutal killing, O'Reilly had appeared on The Late Late Show to talk about Rachel's death.

Rachel died due to blunt-force trauma to the head, inhalation of blood, skull fracture and brain contusion.

O'Reilly later lost an appeal against his conviction, and in May 2015 the Court of Appeal refused his application to have his conviction declared a miscarriage of justice.

O'Reilly is now understood to be taking his case to the European Court of Justice in a final bid to have his conviction overturned.

Speaking to the Herald, Rachel's mother Rose (75) said she hopes she is long dead when O'Reilly is let out of prison.

"The only thing I hope is that I'm dead when he gets out," she said.

Rose and her husband, Jim, believe the stress of the tragedy caused the brain tumour that led to the death of Rachel's sister Ann.

"Her whole world was knocked upside down and he caused it," Rose said.
A prison officer who mounted an "evil and sadistic" poison pen campaign against the son of murdered Brian Stack has successfully appealed against his one-year jail sentence.

John Cooney (57) admitted sending letters to jail chief Austin Stack, pretending to be an IRA member and telling him his father deserved to suffer.

Mr Stack was among 13 prison staff sent hate mail.

Judge Cormac Dunne gave Cooney a 20-month sentence in February, the last eight months of which were suspended.

However, Cooney appealed against that sentence and his case was re-heard by the President of the Circuit Court, Judge Raymond Groarke, who allowed the appeal and ordered Cooney to carry out 240 hours of community service in lieu of the jail sentence.

Mr Stack's father, Brian, who was Chief Prison Officer at Port- laoise Prison, was shot by the IRA in 1983. He suffered brain damage and died 18 months later.

Mr Stack had said he felt "re-traumatised" by the letters.

Separately, a female prison worker was told by Cooney in a letter that she had cancer because of "promiscuous conduct". Another officer was sent an obscene 40th birthday card.

Cooney, of Colthurst Road, Huntington Glen, Lucan, admitted nine charges of sending indecent, obscene or menacing letters and five of harassment between 2011 and 2015.

Previously, governor Austin Stack told Dublin District Court that he began receiving letters when gardai began making headway in the investigation into his father's murder.

Vile

The first arrived at his workplace in Wheatfield Prison. The others followed months later.

The author pretended to be from the IRA, but it became obvious that he had worked with him in St Patrick's Institution.

The letters stated that Mr Stack's father "deserved to be in pain" for the 18 months before his death. The author wrote that it was a waste of state money for gardai to be investigating his father's death.

"It was vile stuff, like my father deserved to linger, he deserved what he got, he was a bad man," said Mr Stack.

"I was watching my back. I thought, 'Is this person working with me? Am I being followed home?' I didn't know who I could trust."

He said he did not tell his mother about the letters because it would have "destroyed her".

Paul Finnegan, defending, said Cooney accepted his behaviour was "an utterly unacceptable, unwarranted and inexcusable trespass on the lives of these people who were going about their work".

The court heard that Cooney's father had died, his mother was in a rest home and he was on bad terms with one of his brothers.

Cooney had made one unsuccessful attempt to get promotion in 1998 and believed the promotion procedure in the prison service were flawed.

Judge Dunne said the letters had given Cooney "some sort of sadistic, cruel release or pleasure in the discomfort of others".

Cooney said the letters became an addiction as he felt a release of his frustrations.
Thousands will mourn as the funerals take place today for the three victims of the road tragedy at Ardee, Co Louth, on Friday.

Services for Margaret McGonagle (69) and her daughter Mairead Mundy (37) will be held at 11am in the Church of Saint Joseph and Saint Conal, Bruckless, Co Donegal.

Then, at 2.30pm, the funeral Mass will start in the same church for the third victim, mother-of-four Racheal Battles (39). All will be buried in the adjoining cemetery.

The church is so small that the grounds and the car park are expected to be thronged with mourners unable to join the congregation inside.

Losses

So much sorrow poured over Donegal that traffic had to be steered away from neighbouring homes in a five-house estate when the wakes started.

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A shuttle bus service operated from the local national school to the two wake houses, after the bodies were transferred from a funeral home in Ardara.

Mourners included Racheal's four children and Mairead's only child, Caoimhin O'Neill (13), whose dad also died tragically eight years ago.

Close family friends are helping Caoimhin deal with three heart-breaking losses - first his father, architect Declan O'Neill, in 2009, and last Friday his mother and grandmother.

The 13-year-old, who only just made his Confirmation, took to Facebook to say a final farewell to his loving mum.

"R.I.P Mammy Nanny and Racheal fly high God bless GBNF [gone but never forgotten]," he wrote.

Parish priest Fr James Sweeney will officiate at the funerals, after what he has described as one of the worst tragedies he has dealt with in his 32 years as a priest.

"The whole community is still stunned," Fr Sweeney said.

"There is still disbelief and shock. Personally, I am coming to terms with having to officiate at three funerals in two services as best as I can.

"These things are never easy, but you face up to it as best as you can."

Barry Gallagher, who runs the post office in Bruckless, received a call at 4.30am last Friday about the tragedy and he and his partner rushed to Racheal Battles' home to be with her 20-year-old and 14-year-old sons.

"I was stunned initially when I heard the news. I thought the best thing to do was to visit the house," Mr Gallagher said.

"My partner was godmother to one of the two boys and we went to the home to see they were OK. There has been a strong connection between Racheal and my partner for quite a number of years."

Racheal, a native of Ardara, cared for her grandmother Ellen Cassidy, who was in short-term respite. She was looking forward to returning to the house on Racheal's return.

Mr Gallagher had also known Margaret McGonagle and Mairead Mundy for most of his life.

He recalled that Mairead worked in Baskins Cafe in nearby Dunkineely.

The most famous customer Mairead would have served in Baskins is Sarah Jessica Parker, of Sex and the City, who has a holiday home in the area.

Sympathies

Baskins sympathised with the grieving families in a Facebook message: "We are deeply saddened on the loss of our work colleague and friend, Mairead, along with her mum Margaret and friend Racheal.

"We extend our sympathies to all the families involved in this terrible tragedy.

"Mairead you will be sorely missed here, by all at Baskins Cafe. May they rest in peace."

Margaret McGonagle lived most of her adult life in the Bruckless area but she was a native of Sligo town, from the well-known McKenna family in St Brigid's Place.

Her father, Anthony 'Gully' McKenna, was on the Sligo Rovers team that won the Junior Cup in 1929.

The women died in a collision on a road described locally as "a death trap" when returning home from Dublin Airport after a dream holiday in Turkey.
After Parrott's lead disappears, Trone takes 6th District race

Republican state Del. Neil Parrott conceded on Friday after close race. Trone to return as congressman for 6th District.
NEWTON  After spending a quarter century writing a three-volume, definitive history of Catawba County, Gary Freeze is convinced theres something about the county that makes it exceptional, but is unable to say precisely what that something is.

There are many theories, but the mystery remains, said Freeze, a 64-year-old professor of history at Catawba College in Salisbury.

Over the years, Freeze has studied and chronicled the countys geography, natural resources, ethnic makeup, genealogy, cultural heritage, politics, and economic progress and setbacks.

What makes this county so special seems to be a combination of its people and places, but I still have a hard time putting my finger on it, Freeze said. I suppose you could call it a wonderful mystery.

Freeze, probably best known in this area as the author of the three-part The Catawbans historical series, has also written other books about local history, and is a sought-after speaker at area libraries, churches, historical gatherings and genealogical events.

If theres anyone who should be named an honorary Catawba County citizen, its Gary Freeze, said Sylvia Ray, a longtime area journalist and county historian.

I love people who love Catawba County, and Gary loves this county.

An Iredell County native, Freeze grew up just across the Catawba River in Troutman, on the familys dairy farm.

He originally planned on a career in journalism, and held positions at the Statesville Record & Landmark and later at the Daily Tar Heel at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. He graduated in 1975 with an undergraduate degree in American Studies. He returned to the Statesville newspaper, where he copy edited Homer Keevers columns about Iredell County history.

In 1976, Freeze worked with the Iredell County Bicentennial Commission, a job he said inspired him to pursue his growing interest in North Carolina history.

Freeze returned to UNC Chapel Hill in 1977 and earned a masters degree in history. He later got a Ph.D in history at UNC Chapel Hill and taught there and at N.C. State University. He was also state historian Bill Powells last teaching assistant at Carolina.

In 1990, Freeze was teaching at Erskine College in Due West, S.C., when Powell was offered an opportunity to write a comprehensive history of Catawba County. Powell turned down the offer, and recommended his protege for the job.

It was the beginning of what Freeze considers the project of my life.

Freeze originally saw the Catawba County history as a single-volume work that would take about three years to complete.

Instead, the project took more than 20 years to finish and encompasses three volumes: The Catawbans: Crafters of a North Carolina County, 1747-1900; The Catawbans: Pioneers in Progress, Volume 2, which continues an examination of the county until 1947; and The Catawbans: Boomers and Bypasses, which covers the period 1947 through the mid-1990s. The first two volumes were sponsored by the Historical Association of Catawba County. The third volume was sponsored by Catawba County. All three volumes are available through the Historical Association.

Freeze said he has always been a community historian, and that having the opportunity to dive deeply into Catawba County history was an amazing opportunity.

As far as Freeze can determine, no other county study like this one has been done anywhere in the United States.

Sidney Halma, former executive director of the Historical Association of Catawba County, said Freeze successfully combines high academic standards with engaging storytelling in the three volumes.

Its a definitive history, Halma said. Gary has achieved a much broader perspective than is typical in local histories.

Freeze said he was determined to include all sorts of people in the books, not just the rich and powerful, and that he wanted to create a realistic depiction of the countys history, not just a rosy picture that glossed over unpleasant truths.

Short of libel, I feel like Ive told a comprehensive story of Catawba County, he said.

Ray said Freeze has done that and more.

Hes telling our story, she said.

Among Freezes other books of local history are She is Not Yet Finished: A History of Newton, N.C., and Carolina Arcadia: The Story of the Sparkling Catawba Springs.

Freeze and his wife, Susan DeCamp Freeze, live in Salisbury near the Catawba College campus. They have two adult sons  Matt and Mark  and a granddaughter.

Known by his students for his dynamic, hands-on approach to teaching, Freeze has been named Catawbas Teacher of the Year. He is a recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of the highest achievements for service given in the state.

Freeze is currently at work on a textbook and on The Hidden History of Mayberry, based in part on the classic Andy Griffith television show.

A great believer in the value of studying history, Freeze said that while the past doesnt exactly repeat itself, there are historical patterns that are well worth noting.

Examining those patterns can help us understand who and where we are, he said.
COLUMBUS  A 42-year-old Columbus man is headed to state prison for a series of methamphetamine deals, but first hell spend time in a federal lockup in Oklahoma for a previous drug conviction.

Platte County District Court Judge Robert Steinke sentenced Shane Luther to two to four years in a Nebraska prison for a string of meth sales in local business parking lots that were recorded by an undercover police informant in February.

Luther pleaded no contest to three charges of delivery of an extremely hazardous controlled substance (meth) in June after accepting a plea agreement from the prosecution. All of the charges are Class II felonies, each carrying a maximum penalty of 50 years imprisonment. The judge gave Luther credit for 117 days served in jail since his arrest.

The state prison stint will come after the U.S. Marshals Service returns Luther to federal prison in Oklahoma, where he will spend 24 to 30 months serving a sentence for a probation violation.

Steinke noted the strong family support Luther had during the sentencing hearing.

You havent supported them, youve failed them, Steinke told the defendant. Think about them and their futures before going back to your old ways."

A Columbus Police report details Luther meeting the informant, equipped with a digital recording device, for three separate drug transactions from Feb. 10-14 at local business parking lots.
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The makers of Ajay Devgn-Emraan Haashmi-starrer Baadshaho are all set to release the song featuring Sunny Leone, Piya More. The two also had a Twitter chat where they talked about the upcoming song.

Sunny Leone makes a guest appearance in a Baadshaho song.

Emraan will be paired with Sunny for the first time in the song.

Emraan Hashmi stars in the film which is set with Emergency as the backdrop.

Emraan began the conversation when he shared his picture from the song and wrote, Sharam Aur Main Toh Ek Sentence Mein Nahi Aate. Do Youll Agree? Sunny replied to him adding that innocence and Emraan, too, cannot be paired together.

Sharam Aur Main Toh Ek Sentence Mein Nahi Aate. Do Youll Agree? @Baadshaho pic.twitter.com/v8FDb7Fa5C  emraan hashmi (@emraanhashmi) July 24, 2017

Talking about being featured with Leone for the first time, Emraan said earlier, Sunny is a thorough professional. I segregate actors into two types  ones who are constantly fussy about everything on the sets, and the others who are okay with everything, without any fuss. I think she comes under the second category. It was an absolute joy shooting with her, since shes a much better dancer than I am.

Baadshaho is a thriller set in the 1970s in India, during the Emergency and features an ensemble cast that includes Ajay, Emraan Hashmi, Vidyut Jammwal, Ileana Dcruz, Esha Gupta and Sanjay Mishra.

With this film, director Milan Luthria and Devgn are back together for the fourth time. Their last cinematic outing together was Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai (2010).

Produced by Bhushan Kumar, Kishan Kumar and Luthria, the film will release on September 1.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has stressed on digitisation of film-related content for preservation of the legacy of Bengali cinema.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and actor Prosenjit Chatterjee during a programme organised on the death anniversary of legendary actor Uttam Kumar in Kolkata on July 24. (IANS)

From Tapan Sinha to Rithwik Ghatak others... (content) should be digitised to protect archives, she said at a programme to announce the Mahanayak Samman Awards on Monday, referring to the establishment of an archive, library and museum in a cinema centenary campus in the city.

Banerjee said a film city is coming up in eight to nine months. We have formed a committee for television industry as well as the film industry. Veteran actress Sabitri Chatterjee has been made the chairperson of the International Kolkata Film Festival Committee. A new studio will be set up for the shooting of telefilms. We have to attract filmmakers from outside to come to Bengal to make films. Bengal will also have to win Bollywood and Hollywood.

We will register 80,000 additional folk artistes under Lok Prasar Prakalpa, taking the total number of beneficiaries to 1.8 lakh, she added.

Mamata Banerjee and Prosenjit Chatterjee during a programme organised on the death anniversary of legendary actor Uttam Kumar. (IANS)

Lauding the artistes of Bengal, she said: As long you live, no one can touch culture, no one can touch harmony.

The awards were instituted in 2012 in the memory of Bengali matinee idol Uttam Kumar who is revered in this part of India as Mahanayak (Great hero).

The Lifetime Achievement award was conferred on actress Shakuntala Barua.

The other recipients in various categories include Prosenjit Chatterjee, Nusrat Jahan, Arindam Sil, Bickram Ghosh, Soumik Halder and Padmanabha Dasgupta.

Suparnokanti Karati for Bisarjan and Shiboprasad Mukhopadhyay for Praktan were also among the awardees for Best Film and Best Producer categories.

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Rishi Kapoor lashed out at director Anurag Basu after the lukewarm response to son Ranbir Kapoors new film, Jagga Jasoos. Calling him irresponsible, the actor said that Basu fails to complete films on time. In an interview with Mid-Day, Rishi Kapoor also slammed music composer Pritam.

Till Wednesday, Anurag Basu was still mixing the film. Can you imagine that? Pritam (composer) probably delivered the music only a week before. What can you say? You dont take an opinion from anybody. Todays filmmakers are doing this with everybody. They dont show their films before release to take opinions, and treat it as though theyre making a nuclear bomb. I didnt hate or love the film. I only felt it needed to be abridged by 20 minutes. But who is going to give that opinion to them? I totally agree with Ekta (Kapoor) when she threw him out from her film. He had problems with Rakesh Roshan while working on Kites (2010). Hes such an irresponsible director that he doesnt complete the film. It was supposed to release three times in the past two years, but it kept getting delayed.

Asked about why the film wasnt released in some international markets on time, Rishi Kapoor again blamed Basus delays. It did not release in Singapore because you have to deliver it five days in advance. It did not release in the Gulf on Thursday because it was only delivered to them on Thursday. This is unreasonable and irresponsible. You may be thinking you are making the Taj Mahal, but you are supposed to make it ready on time. Even Pritam delays his submissions. [It was later promoted as] a kids film. But, a kids film also has to release at the right time, like during the school vacations. At that time too, Anurag Basu wasnt ready. Theres economics and maths involved. Everything is not just about creativity.

You may be the biggest director in the world, he said, but nobody would like to work with you because you are irresponsible. There is somebody elses money involved in this. I trusted you, and this is what you give us? Ranbir hasnt held back on spending money on it. You even threw Govinda out of the film. If you dont want Govinda to work in your film, why did you ask him in the first place?

Jagga Jasoos released on 14 July. It has so far made Rs 45 crore. According to a Forbes report, the film recorded one of the worst Friday-to-Friday drops of all time, plummeting 85% on its second Friday. The troubled films relatively large Rs 110 crore budget also poses a problem in the studios plans for a sequel.

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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will head a 3-member ministerial panel to oversee and expedite the sale of government stake in oil refiner HPCL to explorer ONGC, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) will remain a public sector unit with a separate board and brand identity post Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) acquiring governments entire 51.11 % stake, which at current prices is valued at about Rs 28,800 crore.

Post-merger all refining units of ONGC will be accumulated under HPCL, making it Indias third largest oil refiner after Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Reliance Industries, Pradhan said.

Making a statement in the Lok Sabha, he said the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had on July 19 given in-principle approval for strategic sale of the governments existing 51.11 % stake in HPCL to ONGC along with the transfer of management control.

For overseeing this transaction, CCEA approved setting up of an alternative mechanism, headed by Finance Minister, which will help in taking quick decision with regard to the timing, price, terms and conditions and other related issues, he said.

Pradhan and Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari will be part of the ministerial panel.

Stating that the merger will be completed within the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2018, Pradhan said valuations and other modalities of the state will be strictly driven by the market regulator SEBI rules.

Valuation and transaction advisers will be appointed soon, he said.

The proposed acquisition in the oil sector, will create a vertically integrated public sector oil major having presence across the entire value chain. This will give ONGC an enhanced capacity to bear higher risks, take higher investment decisions and to neutralise the impact of global crude oil price volatility, he said.

The acquisition of HPCL by ONGC will result in significant synergies in terms of optimisation of logistics costs, R&D activities, economies of scale of purchase of crude oil and optimisation in refinery operations.

After the acquisition by ONGC, HPCL will continue to be a central government public sector enterprise. It can still maintain its cultural uniqueness and brand identity, distinct from ONGC, Pradhan said.

Talking to reporters outside Parliament House, he said the modalities of bringing refining units of MRPL and HPCL under one umbrella would be decided by their respective boards.

HPCL currently has 24.8 million tonnes per annum of refining capacity. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) - a subsidiary of ONGC, has 15.1 million tonnes. After this deal, the entire refining capacity of ONGC Group will come under HPCL.

So, HPCL will have 40 million tonnes of refining capacity and will be third largest in the country after IOC which has 69.2 million tonnes capacity and Reliance Industries which has 62 million tonnes, he said.

Pradhan said MRPL will merge with HPCL but did not indicate timelines. HPCL already has 16.96 % in MRPL. So there already is synergy there, he said.

ONGC owns 71.63 % of MRPL, a company it had acquired from AV Birla Group in March 2013.

HPCL plans to set up a 9 million tonne unit in Rajasthan as well as expand its Vishakhapatnam refinery in Andhra Pradesh. This will take the company to 50 million tonnes-plus category, he said.

For ONGC, the deal will bring to it assurance of market as well as greater capability to bid for not just oil and gas fields but also refinery and downstream projects abroad, he said.

Previously, the issue was about supply security but the world over market security is being sought, he said, adding that HPCL controls one-fourth of fuel retailing market in India.

HPCL as a brand with a separate board and its own identity will continue, he said.
After the Tata Group and IndiGo, private equity funds KKR and Co. and Warburg Pincus have expressed interest in acquiring Air Indias businesses, according to two people directly aware of the development.

The two buyout firms have separately sought details of the proposed privatisation process of the national carrier that was cleared by the cabinet in June-end, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

Air Indias businesses make attractive investment opportunity for the PE funds, said a source. However, the discussions are currently at a very early stage and will expectedly gain momentum once there is clarity on the divestment process.

A successful sale of Air India will hinge on whether the government writes off a part of the airlines debt, which stood at Rs 48,876.81 crore as of March 31. The government has already injected massive funds as part of a Rs 30,000-crore bailout package to keep the carrier afloat.

A potential debt write-off and access to the state-owned airlines lucrative international routes have already drawn interest from two entities.

InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, which runs the IndiGo airline, and the Tata Group, which runs Vistara and AirAsia India airlines have shown an interest.

IndiGo said it is interested in Air Indias international arm and low-fare division Air India Express, while the Tata Group has informally sought details on the privatisation from the government.

The government had constituted a group of ministers (GoM), headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley, to explore options related to the sale of assets and a potential demerger and strategic disinvestment of three profit-making subsidiaries. The GoM held its first meeting on July 21.

While both KKR and Warburg declined to comment, the sources said the funds were told to wait till an independent adviser is appointed to manage the sale through a bidding process.

A proposal inviting investment banks to manage divestment is expected soon and quite a few domestic and foreign investment banks have been sounded out, according to one of the sources.

A spokesperson for the civil aviation ministry did not respond to a query seeking comment.

The interest shown by the two private equity funds is arguably the first by overseas investors after foreign direct investment rules in aviation were changed last year to allow them to own 100% stake in local airlines, while limiting investment by foreign airlines to 49% of a domestic airlines paid-up capital. More global funds could join the fray in the coming days.

(Published in arrangement with Livemint.com)
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has given approval for the Vodafone-Idea merger.

According to sources, the CCI has sent approval letters to both Idea Cellular and Vodafone India.

Vodafone India and Aditya Birla Group-promoted Idea Cellular on March 20 announced their much-awaited amalgamation.

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, will be its chairman.

Vodafone Group and Idea Cellular announced they have reached an agreement to combine their operations in India (excluding Vodafones 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers) to create Indias largest telecom operator, a joint statement by the companies had earlier said.

The combined company would become the leading communications provider in India with almost 400 million customers, 35% customer market share and 41% revenue market share, it added.

The merger will create an entity with over Rs 80,000 crore revenue.

Vodafone will own 45.1% of the combined company after transferring a stake of 4.9% to the promoters of Idea and/or their affiliates for Rs 3,874 crore in cash concurrent with the completion of the amalgamation, the statement said.

The promoters of Idea will hold 26 per cent of the company and the balance will be held by the public.
The 145-year-old Almora Jail where Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru served two jail terms during the freedom struggle and the majestic British-era Raj Bhawan nestled in the Nainital hills are two of the most iconic structures in Uttarakhand.

These two and several other historic buildings that hold aesthetic, cultural or environmental significance for the Himalayan state, are set to get an official heritage identity besides receiving a major conservation boost in the form of Uttarakhand Heritage Act.

The proposed legislation will encompass preservation as well as restoration of historical sites, buildings, or natural bodies that are crucial to the states culture, but are not yet covered under any other government policy.

The draft (of the Heritage Act) is ready and has been sent to the state administration. It has also been thrown open for suggestions from individuals and will soon be sent to the state cabinet for approval, Beena Bhatt, director of Uttarakhand culture department, told Hindustan Times.

Around 71 monuments in Uttarakhand are protected by the state under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, which provides for preservation ancient and historical monuments and archaeological sites.

Apart from these, at least 42 monuments are covered by the Government of India through the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) under the same Act.

However, the states Heritage Act will be different in a way that it would be far-reaching in its jurisdiction. It will cover not only sites and structures, but also streets, artefacts, important natural features, and environmentally-sensitive areas.

For instance, it will protect sacred groves, lakes, traditional bridle paths, wetlands, or wooded areas, which are integral to the states cultural ethos and environment. The sites or features covered under proposed legislation will be graded according to their heritage significance, she added.

Development activities around the sites granted as heritage tag will also remain restricted.

A heritage authority will be constituted under the proposed law, which will be tasked with the declaration of heritage sites, preparation of conservation plan, acquisition of any site for maintenance and administration of the conservation fund. The authority will have the states chief secretary as it chairman and other key officials along with experts such as an architect, a structural engineer, a historian, and an environmentalist among others.

Experts, meanwhile, said that the proposed Act had been long due. Its been more than 16 years since the formation (of Uttarakhand in 2000) and a lot of damage has already been caused to our heritage sites. In fact, wed been pressing for the state to have its heritage policy for a long time but better late than never, said Dehradun-based noted heritage expert Lokesh Ohri.

Citing examples of states like Gujarat, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh that already have heritage cells within their development authorities, Ohri said, Theyve been doing commendable work to safeguard local heritage and we hope that the hill state, too, would be able to benefit in a similar manner.

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Out on his regular evening walk, a 55-year-old businessman died after falling in an uncovered drain maintained by the Public Works Department (PWD) in east Delhis Mayur Vihar on Sunday. The death drain , locals say, is notorious for such accidents. A boy had reportedly fallen into it two months ago and was rescued by locals.

Police said initial investigations have suggested that Anil Gupta slipped into an open part of the drain while heading towards a park nearby. PWD officials, however, said their internal probe revealed Gupta was pushed into the drain following a quarrel. Police said they would probe all possibilities.

In any case, local residents alleged this was not the first time a living being fell into the 10-feet deep drain. In the last two-three months alone, a child and a cow fell in the drain. Fortunately, we were able to pull them out on time, said Raja Kumar, a vendor near the accident spot.

Family members of Anil Gupta grieve his loss. (HT Photo)

A visit to the spot on Monday revealed that the drain was left open at multiple points through a 100-metre stretch. Despite locals covering the gap at the accident spot with slabs, the other openings remained a threat to visitors.

Gupta lived with his wife in Mayur Vihar phase-3. His daughter lives with her family in Uttar Pradesh while his two sons are settled in the UK and Germany. Gupta owned shops dealing in car accessories and garments.

According to his family, Gupta rarely missed his evening walks. He preferred the DDA park outside our neighbourhood. He would ride a scooter to the park and then take a walk, said Deepak.

On Sunday, Gupta left home around 4 pm but found the area right outside the park gate waterlogged. This spot has water round the year. But the rain had made it worse, said Raja, a local.

The water in the already fast-flowing drain had risen in height because of the incessant rain preceding the accident. While no eyewitnesses to the actual accident emerged, locals described what they heard from people who helped the victim after he fell in the drain.

Rajkumar Verma, Guptas friend and a staffer at the DDA park near the accident spot, claimed some women passing heard the victims cries for help.

He was nearly drowning in the drain but managed to call out for help. The women heard his cries and joined hands with some men to pull him out. Gupta was still alive at that moment and signalled them to take him to a hospital and assured them that they wouldnt have to pay the hospital fees, Verma said.

Gupta was rushed to a nearby hospital but his family alleged that they were denied help. The allegations were echoed by Maheish Girri, East Delhi MP, who visited Guptas family on Monday and demanded action against the hospital which refused to treat or admit the victim.

When Gupta was taken to another hospital in neighbouring Noida, he was declared brought dead. His family believes he died because of a large intake of dirty water. Police said they would await the autopsy report before concluding on what killed Gupta. There were no visible external injuries on his body, said an investigator.

Delhi BJP chief, Manoj Tiwari, meanwhile, urged the local police to book and arrest the concerned PWD officials whose negligence has resulted in an untimely irreparable loss for the family.
A Delhi policemans son was stabbed multiple times by a group of youths in a case of road rage that took place in south Delhis Lado Sarai on Sunday evening.

Prince Tewatia, 28, received four wounds, including in his back and thigh, and was admitted to AIIMS trauma centre. He was, however, treated and later discharged on Monday afternoon.

A resident of south Delhis Saidul Ajab area, Tewatia works at a call centre in Gurgaon. He was returning home on his Bullet motorcycle with his friend Paras when the incident took place.

Chinmoy Biswal, Additional DCP (south), said Tewatias motorcycle brushed past a scooty in Lado Sarai. The scooty rider was with three other friends who were riding another scooty.

An argument ensued between two groups, which soon turned into a scuffle. However, locals intervened and separated the two groups and sent them away.

Tewatia dropped his friend at his residence in Lado Sarai and was returning home when he decided to smoke a cigarette outside a kiosk, not far from the spot of scuffle.

It was at that moment that four youths approached him and attacked him with a knife. According to Biswal, the attack happened so swiftly that locals could not intervene.

When the attackers fled, Tewatia was rushed to a hospital by the locals and one of them called the police.

Biswal said the probe so far suggests that the attackers were the same men with whom Tewatia had got into a scuffle minutes earlier.

A case of attempt to murder has been registered at Saket police station and a team formed to identify the suspects. CCTV footage from nearby areas are being scanned.
An Ethiopian Airlines plane developed a technical snag before landing at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport in Delhi on July 24, an airport official said.

The flight was coming from Addis Ababa and was to land at New Delhi at 8.50am. But, it was found that the Ethiopian Airlines plane developed a landing gear indicator problem because of which it had to make an emergency landing at the airport. It landed at 8.59am, an airport official said.

The plane, flight number 686, was carrying 226 passengers and all of them were de-boarded safely, the official added.

The airlines, however, denied the reports. Our regular flight ET 686/23-24JUL schedule service from Addis Ababa to New Delhi which landed at IGI airport in Delhi in standard landing procedures. The flight did not make any emergency landing and did not have any emergency condition. The flight computer had a short and precautionary fault message about its landing gear but it was cleared instantly by the flight crew and the flight made regular landing which can be testified from the airport data base, the airlines spokesperson said.

Earlier this month on July 11, a man tried to force open the emergency door of a flight before it could land at Ranchi airport on Monday night. He had boarded the AirAsia flight from Delhi. The 32-year-old passenger identified as Aftab Ahmed also injured a few fellow passengers and members of the flight crew when they tried to stop him.

The Air Asia flight (I5-546) had taken off from Delhi and was headed towards Kolkata via Ranchi. At around 9.50pm, Ahmed who was seated on 24-A suddenly tried to force open one of the emergency doors (R2) of the flight.

(This story, first published on July 24, is updated with a statement from the Ethiopian Airlines)
A fire broke out on the fourth floor of Lok Nayak Bhawan that houses several government offices in Delhi on Monday. No casualties have been reported.

The building, which is the headquarters of Enforcement Directorate, also has some offices of the CBI, Income Tax and the National Disaster Response Force.

Twenty-six fire tenders and one skylift were deployed at the spot.

While there were no reports of casualties, fire officers said they still needed to check the building to ensure no one was trapped.

Thick smoke bellowing above the building had engulfed at least three floors above the one in which the fire broke out, said fire officials.

#WATCH: Fire fighting ops underway at Delhi's Lok Nayak Bhawan. pic.twitter.com/wnHXBbX3tf  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017
Manoj Yadav, 25, was among the thousands of homeless men living on the Delhi streets. He slept on the roof of a roadside juice shop in central Delhi, where he worked, more than 1,200 kilometres away from his family in Supaul, Bihar.

Manoj had left his shop outside the Doll museum in ITO, and was crossing the Bahadur Shah Zafar (BSZ) Marg in ITO to share a dinner with homeless rickshaw-pullers who lived on the central verge of the road, when a speeding white Audi car hit him. Manoj was flung at least 10-15 feet in the air and landed on an iron grill median  the rods impaling his chest and killing him on the spot.

Delhi Police on Monday afternoon detained Rajiv Kumar, a south Delhi property dealer with an office in Daryaganj, in connection with the case. Kumar, a GK-1 resident, was identified after the police team scanned CCTV footages in at least 20 different routes near the accident spot.

More than 36 hours after the incident, blood still stained the road next to the central verge. The homeless rickshaw-pullers, who were the last to see Manoj alive, told police that the white car must have been speeding at over 80-100 km/hr.

Read: Audi driver who ran over juice seller returned to check for CCTV cameras

The CCTV footage from a camera placed at a traffic signal, around 100 metres away from the accident spot, showed a white sedan with a damaged bonnet fleeing the spot. Police said Kumar, who fled the spot after the accident, took a friends help to hide the car in Noida. The white Audi was recovered.

A father of a four-year-old girl, Manoj had been working at the juice shop for the last four to five years. He slept on the roof of our shop next to the BSZ Marg. Manoj lived alone. His younger brother works in Rohini, said Bhola Nath, owner of the juice shop.

Bhola Nath said that after closing the juice shop everyday at 10pm, Manoj always looked for work at night to make some extra money. He helped unload newspapers at night to feed his family. Our juice shop is in the middle of offices of all the media houses. So, Manoj helped unload the newspapers till the wee hours, Bhola Nath said.

A shopkeeper, who claimed to be one of the first to reach the spot after hearing the rickshaw-pullers cry for help, said that it took at least half an hour for them to remove Manojs body. The iron rods had pierced his chest while his head was severed. It was disturbing. Some of his friends who worked in the nearby shops came forward, but there were others who took videos of the man. There were many cars that were driving past at a high speed, no one stopped. Many accidents happen here because of the wide road, the shopkeeper said.

Manojs body was taken to his home town in Bihar by his younger brother and friends.
A 25-year-old pedestrian was impaled after he was allegedly hit by a speeding car in central Delhis ITO, flung in the air and landed on the grilles of a road divider which pierced his stomach.

Manoj, a native of Bihar, was on his way home after finishing work at a nearby eatery where he worked as a waiter, when the incident occurred on Saturday night.

Read: Audi driver who ran over juice seller returned to check for CCTV cameras

According to eyewitnesses, Manoj was crossing the road, when a white Audi coming from Delhi Gate side hit him. The impact of the hit was such that Manoj was reportedly flung about 15 feet high and landed on the grilles of the road divider. The grilles pierced his stomach and he bled to death within minutes. It took the police over 15 minutes to get his body off the grille.

An eyewitness, who was also crossing the road, called up the police at 11.30pm.

The mans body was stuck in the grilles. We took him to the hospital but he was declared dead on arrival. It is a case of hit and run and we have registered an FIR under sections of negligence and rash and negligent driving, DCP central, MS Randhawa said.

Delhi Police said the eyewitnesses claim that it was a speeding Audi.

Read: Man hit by Audi, impaled on iron grille, was a homeless who helped poor

We are not certain if it was an Audi or other sedan. We do not have any CCTV footage to corroborate the claims. We have, however, recorded the statements of the eyewitnesses and begun investigation, Randhawa said.

The eyewitnesses told the police that driver of the car seemed drunk and the car went towards Geeta Colony.

People gathered at the spot tried to get the man off the grilles. Many tried to stop the blood spilling out of his stomach. The man, however, did not survive. Many helped the police rush the man to the hospital. His body has now been sent for a post-mortem and his family has been informed, a senior police officer said.
The second phase of the Maili se Nirmal Yamuna Revitalisation Project 2017, which aims to bring down pollution levels in the river in Delhi, is expected to take off soon, the National Green Tribunal was informed on Monday.

The Yamuna receives around 74% of its pollution load in its 22-km stretch between Wazirabad and Okhla. Of this, 67% of the pollution emanates from the Najafgarh and Delhi Gate drains. The rest is from the smaller drains.

The first phase of the project aims to bring down pollution levels in the Najafgarh drain and Delhi Gate drains. The second phase will tackle the Shahdara, Barapullah and other drains.

We appreciate the efforts and direct that the work on phase-I, which has already started, should not be stopped. The action plan for phase-II has been submitted. We direct the stakeholders to submit their responses on the action plan within three weeks, said a bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar.

The NGT was hearing a petition filed by environmentalist Manoj Misra who argued that the green body should monitor the project.

The NGT was informed that at least 14 sewage treatment plants would be commissioned by May 2019 in phase-I. These would treat around 67% of the river pollution comes from the two major drains.

The project is running ahead of its schedule, the NGT was informed on Monday.

There are 21 major wastewater drains in NCT-Delhi out of which 18 drains join Yamuna river and 3 join the Agra/Gurgaon canal.

Sources in the Delhi Jal Board said that in phase-II, the government would crack down on polluting industries.

As most of the smaller drains are located in areas where sewage lines are available, these would be connected to the STPs to bring down pollution in the river. The government also plans to dredge and desilt the drains, said a senior official of the DJB.

The NGT directed the governments of Haryana, UP, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to organise a meeting on August 8 to discuss how to tackle pollution in the Yamuna and all its tributaries.

In its earlier hearing, the bench had observed: Time is not far when the people of Delhi would be able to walk across the banks of the river Yamuna without breathing stinking air. They would not have to fear while entering the river on auspicious occasions or otherwise and the river would become a site of tourism for entire Delhi.
New Delhi

As the new president takes oath on Tuesday, motorists travelling to Lutyens Delhi in the morning and afternoon hours could face traffic restrictions on certain stretches, warned traffic police officers.

While the police advised motorists to keep off the roads connecting Parliament House and Rashtrapati Bhawan, they said some nearby roads too could be shut for the general public if the need arises.

Among those roads are Vijay Chowk between North and South Foundation area, the Rajpath and Rashtrapati Bhawan upto Janpath, Raisina Road between Rail Bhawan to Parliament House and Dalhousie Road between Krishna Menon Marg and Moti Lal Nehru Marg connecting Vijay Chowk.

Garima Bhatnagar, Joint CP (traffic), advised motorists to avoid these routes between 10.30 am and 2.30 pm. Diversions will be made and alternative routes provided if we close these routes, she said.
Students in Delhi will get a chance to take a test and apply for a driving licence at their colleges, according to Delhis transport minister who spoke of a new system that is likely to be launched by September.

According to a proposed plan, the government will empower educational institutions to issue learners licences. To be eligible, students will need to be above 18 and score at least 6 out of 10 marks in an online test that will be administered by the institutions.

Transport minister Kailash Gahlot told Hindustan Times that the project, which will be reviewed by deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia this week, is being expedited because the demand for learners driving licence is highest among the 18-24 age group applicants.

Currently, an applicant needs to visit any of the 13 motor licensing offices across the city to get a learners licence.

Once implemented, it will be the first time that the government will authorise anyone apart from the MLOs to issue driving licences.

More than 53% of those who took the learners licence last year were in the age bracket of 18-24 years. Those between 25-35 years constituted 25%  the second highest. So, primarily students are the ones taking these licences and authorising educational institutes will revolutionise the system, Gahlot said.

The project will begin with the governments polytechnic colleges. Apart from this, seven colleges under the Delhi government such as the Ambedkar University are also being roped in.

Around 88 colleges under Delhi University will also be included.

Explaining the process, officials said the online test will be conducted at colleges once a week. Students will be able to take the test either in English or Hindi. The test is just of 10 minutes and will have 10 objective type questions, they said.

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Tamil Nadu farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar have alleged that one of them attempted to commit suicide on Monday by swallowing a handful of sleeping pills.

NK Subramaniam, the farmer from Tamil Nadu, was rushed to RML hospital for treatment after he allegedly swallowed around six sleeping pills.

But police maintained it was a case of overdose. Subramaniam has given a statement to doctors that he had been having difficulties falling asleep for the last couple of days and had taken the six-odd sleeping pills to help him sleep better, said BK Singh, deputy commissioner of police, New Delhi.

Farmers countered by saying Subramaniam had even spoken about taking his own life earlier in the day.

R Sellaperumal, a farmer at the site, claimed he had been with Subramaniam before he lost consciousness.

He told us in the morning that he thought he would have to commit suicide as the central government was not responding to the farmers demands or empathising with our plight. We did not think he would actually try to do so. It was only when he fainted at around 8:30 am that we realized he had actually done it. We tried sprinkling some water on his face. He opened his eyes a little bit and told us that he could not bear to see our plights anymore and he was committing suicide in the hope that it would move the central government to action, claimed Sellaperumal.

Others said he had been very disturbed for the last couple of days.

Though he had no loans in his name, his family members were in debt. He had been disturbed for the last two days, as he thought that even after nine days of protest there has been no reaction from the central government and he would have to do something so drastic, said John Milkyaraj, a farmer from Tamil Nadu who has been protesting at Jantar Mantar.

Subramaniam is recovering at RML hospital and is under observation.

A group of farmers from Tamil Nadu had come back to Jantar Mantar nine days ago, asking the central government to intervene to give them loan waivers, fair prices for their produce, a revised drought relief package and to constitute a Cauvery river management board, among other things.

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The figures are impressive. 543 persons from the 543 territorial constituencies of this country representing the people in Lok Sabha and 245 persons elected by 29 states and 7 union territories make laws, scrutinise orders of the executive and enforce accountability to protect the interests of the people. Each of these 788 voices is important. This is what the outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee told lawmakers at a farewell function on Sunday. Cut to the chase and this is what he meant: Mr Mukherjee cautioned the lawmakers that they are not spending enough time to debate the laws they are passing and this is a disservice to the people they represent. Mr Mukherjee added with the heightened complexity of administration, legislation must be preceded by scrutiny and adequate discussion.

This is not the first time the Mr Mukherjee has reminded MPs about the quality of debates in the House. Delivering the first Bhairon Singh Shekhawat Memorial Lecture in Jaipur in May, he said that Parliaments functioning is based on 3Ds -- Debate, Dissension and Decision. He asked MPs and MLAs to improve the quality of deliberations, discussions and debates in the House, saying people have vested immense power and privileges in them. You cannot remain the role model to the world simply because of the size of your electorate, he warned them. These warnings are not without reasons: According to available data, 19.58% of the total time was lost due to interruptions/adjournments in the 14th Lok Sabha, 41.6% in the 15th Lok Sabha and about 16% in the 16th Lok Sabha (up to the 10th session). It is not just the lack of debates or delays, which is making law-making a difficult task: A lot of time is also being lost when it comes to framing the rules after a law is passed. Other senior members including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have also spoken on this challenge.

By not debating the laws that are being passed, MPs and MLAs are not just doing a disservice to the people but also ceding ground to the bureaucracy and judiciary. A report by the think tank IMFR --- Indias Parliament as a Representative Institution --- makes a valid point that while much of the public criticism is focused towards MPs, there is also an urgent need to fix institutional determinants for the malfunction. There are, it adds, three possible forces for institutional reforms: Crusaders in Parliament or civil society; increased political competition and a universal recognition of an impending crisis. Unfortunately, there seem to be no crusaders, only a select set of members who are talking about the crisis, others it seems couldnt care less. It then becomes incumbent on this select set to be the force of change.
Jawaharlal Nehru University has been in the news in recent months for all the wrong reasons. The main one is the charge of sedition against many of its students for allegedly raising anti-national issues. Now the vice chancellor has undertaken an exercise that is bound to draw more unfavourable attention to the university. He has asked Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and General VK Singh to help him procure a tank to be displayed in a prominent place on the campus to be a constant reminder of the sacrifices the Indian Army makes. He also celebrated Kargil Vijay Diwas on the campus in collaboration with Army veterans for the first time.

It is not the VCs job to inculcate nationalism in students and certainly not through installing a tank in the university. Of far greater import and relevance is the fact that given the recent turmoil, many students have suffered due to the inability to complete their courses. Seats for research have been drastically cut. The VC does not seem overly concerned about this. Celebrating military victories is best left to those who have expertise in the field and to politicians and the public if it so wishes, not to academics.

Nationalism is something which must come from within and not through external militaristic displays. This action by the VC will only evoke protest, derailing studies further. This is of a piece with carrying giant tirangas as a symbol of nationalism. These attempts to foist nationalism through these symbols are meaningless.

Pride in ones country stems from the values and ethics that students witness in public life. The use of military hardware to instil patriotism is reminiscent of the worst of Soviet-style dictatorships where the State exerted its might through these. This has no place in a democracy where it is possible to not be a hypernationalist and yet be a good citizen.

Educational institutions in any event are not the grounds for what is obviously a politically motivated drive to inculcate nationalism. The VC has eroded the credibility of both his office and the institution by doing this.

A nations worth is not measured solely in military terms nor is nationalism synonymous with symbols of war. A comprehensive and relevant education system could be a far greater value addition to nation-building and it is this that should be the VCs remit.

The ministry for human resource development should take him to task and ask him to stick to his brief. The Army is more than competent to commemorate its achievements without such interventions from academics. It can only be hoped that this does not start a trend at competitive nationalism among universities, which would spell danger for higher education.
Lucknow Manvi, daughter of a daily wage earner, is one of the seven students from Uttar Pradesh flying to the US to chase her dream of pursuing higher education.

After clearing her Class 12 from VidyaGyan School in Bulandshahr, Manvi has secured admission to the Wellesley College that is rated highly among national liberal arts colleges in the United States.

When most of the girls from her area dropped out of school after Class 5, Manvi was determined to carve a niche for herself and complete her education.

I studied at the government primary school in my village up to Class 5. I always topped my class. I appeared for VidyaGyan entrance examination and succeeded in securing a place in the institutions first batch, Manvi, who will get full a financial aid of $75,000 annually for four years, said.

The school starts from Class 6.

In 2014, Manvi became the first student from Bulandshahrs VidyaGyan School to win the Kennedy Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Scholarship. She then travelled to Minnesota to complete Class 11 and studied at the Edison High School for a year.

After she returned to India to complete her Class 12, she was invited as a speaker to the recently concluded Global Citizen India Festival representing the potential of Indian village girls as future leaders.

The 18-year-old shared the stage with Googles India head, the United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP) country head and celebrities from Bollywood and talked about her journey from a village to VidyaGyan and then Minnesota.

Manvi is determined to bridge the cultural gap between students from different countries of the world. She aspires to be a diplomat or serve the world by joining the United Nations or Amnesty International.

I want to become a citizen of the world and represent India as well as women of developing countries, she said.

And Manvi is not alone. Six other students from VidyaGyans graduating batch of 2017 have similar success stories.

Sumit, who will head to the Pennsylvania State University to pursue an undergraduate degree in computer engineering, wants to become a software engineer (HT Photo)

Himanshu and Amrish are headed to the Purdue University to study robotics and mathematics and Darshan and Rudra will study engineering at Virginia Tech.

Sumit, who will head to the Pennsylvania State University to pursue an undergraduate degree in computer engineering, wants to become a software engineer and aspires to work with leading companies such as Google, Facebook, Infosys, HCL or Wipro.

Nischal is set to join the bachelors course in research and experimental psychology at the University of California, Davis. (HT Photo)

Nischal is set to join the bachelors course in research and experimental psychology at the University of California, Davis. I want to pursue research in socio personality (the impact of surrounding environment, interactions and other events on the personality of an individual).

He also wants to start a support organisation to work for the rehabilitation of beggars, child labourers, and the elderly.

These students were educated in Hindi medium and learnt to speak and communicate in English only in VidyaGyan School. They said they faced some difficulty in picking up the language initially but managed to overcome the problem with the help of teachers.

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As many as 50 youths in Jammu and Kashmir have joined militant ranks, mostly of Hizbul Mujahideen, so far this year, a Home Ministry official said.

Fifty youths in Jammu and Kashmir have joined militant ranks in the first six months of 2017. Most of them have joined Hizbul Mujahideen and belong to south Kashmir, the official said.

More than 50 per cent of around 220 active terrorists in Kashmir are Pakistani nationals, another Home ministry official said.

According to the Home Ministrys statistics, 88 Kashmiri youths joined militancy in 2016, the highest in the last six years.

In 2010, 54 Kashmiri youths joined militant ranks. The number came down to 23 in 2011. It further dipped to 21 in 2012 and to 16 in 2013.

The ministrys statistics revealed that 115 terrorists have attempted to enter Jammu and Kashmir from across the border so far this year. 19 of them managed to sneak into the Indian territory.

The data showed that 370 infiltration attempts were made in the state in 2016 in which 119 terrorists entered into the country.

In 2015, 121 terrorists attempted to enter the country but only 33 could do so. In 2014, 222 terrorists tried to cross over into the country, but only 65 could do it.
The Congress on Monday accused the NDA vice-presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu and his family of corruption, a charge the former BJP chief dismissed as false and politically motivated.

The main opposition party alleged that the former Union urban development minister and his children took favours from the Telangana and Madhya Pradesh governments to grab land and boost trusts and businesses associated with the family.

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, making the accusations during a media briefing in the national capital, asked Naidu to come clean since he has been a great champion of transparency, accountability, integrity and probity in public life.

Naidu denied the charges, saying the allegations have been answered in the past.

It is evident that these issues have been referred to a few days before the vice-presidential elections, clearly reflecting on the political motive and mischievous intentions, he said.

The 68-year-old leader was declared the ruling BJP-led alliances choice for the vice-presidents post a week ago. He then resigned from the party as well as the urban development, and information and broadcasting ministries in the Union government.

With numbers favouring the NDA, Naidu is considered a favourite to win the August 5 election against opposition nominee Gopal Krishna Gandhi.

He responded to a string of allegations the Congress made.

Ramesh asked: Is it not a fact that on June 20, 2017, the Telangana government issued an order that has been kept secret, exempting the Swarna Bharat Trust of Naidus daughter from paying charges amounting to more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority?

Is it not a fact that such an exemption has no precedent and it has been done because his daughter is the managing trustee of the organisation?

In response, Naidu said the Telangana government had clarified that the trust was given exemption to encourage it to do social service.

In another question, Ramesh asked: Is it not a fact that in July 2014, the Telangana government placed an order amounting to about Rs 271 crore for the purchase of vehicles for police from two companies, Harsha Toyota owned by Naidus son and Himanshu Motors owned by the son of the Telangana chief minister?

Is it not a fact that such an order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating a tender?

Naidu responded that Harsha Motors never dealt directly with the state government. The vehicles were provided by the parent company, Toyota Kirloskar, and the payment was made to it, he said.

The Congress also made allegations about a trust linked to Naidu.

Ramesh asked: Is it not a fact that on 25.09.2004, Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust with Naidu as chairman was allotted 20 acres in Shahpura, Bhopal, valued at a few hundred crore rupees, lease deed of which was registered on 06.01.2007?

Is it not a fact that this land was allotted by the BJP government of Madhya Pradesh for a pittance of one-time premium of Rs 25 lakh and a yearly rent of Re 1?

He alleged that the land use was changed from residential and forestry to commercial as an act of favouritism by the BJP government.

Is it not a fact that all this was done without inviting an application in public domain in a completely arbitrary and whimsical fashion? Is it not a fact that the Supreme Court quashed this allotment on 06.04.2011 in a PIL and passed stringent strictures of political favourtism and cancelled the allotment of land? he asked.

Dismissing the charge, Naidu said he had no role in the land allotment as the BJP chief during that time. And he countered: Isnt it a fact that several trusts were similarly allotted land by various governments, including the Congress?

Ramesh also asked if Naidu, then the BJP president, was not accused of grabbing 4.95 acres in Andhra Pradesh reserved for the poor.

Is it not a fact that on August 17, 2002, Naidu was forced to return the land after public embarrassment and accusations of wrongdoing?

For his part, Naidu said Congress leaders raised the issue in 2002 and approached courts but charge of land grabbing was dismissed.

This is a clear evidence of the sense of hopelessness and political bankruptcy of the Congress. I am a product of a political party and culture that always placed the highest premium on probity in public life and always lived by those standards, he added.
Flood waters swept across several places in the country on Monday, killing two in Rajasthan and forcing Gujarat to declare a high alert.

In an upside, the situation in flood-ravaged Assam improved considerably as the swollen Brahmaputra and Barak rivers, along with their tributaries, started flowing below the danger mark at most places.

In West Bengal, lowlands in Birbhum, Purulia, West Medinipore and Hooghly districts were inundated.

With the meteorological department predicting more rains in the Gangetic region of the state in the next 24 hours, chief minister Mamata Banerjee held a monitoring meeting with senior officials at the secretariat this afternoon.

National Disaster Response Force comes to the aid of a villager in a flood-hit area in Morbi district on Monday. (PTI)

Rains lashed state capital Kolkata through the night, inundating thoroughfares and choking traffic.

In the neighbouring coastal state of Odisha, extremely heavy rains and thundershowers, along with high-speed surface winds, are expected on Tuesday due to the formation of a low pressure area over the region.

The Odisha government has dispatched one Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) team each to the northern Keonjhar and Bhadrak districts, as the threat of floods loomed large due to the rising water level in major rivers.

The levels of the Baitarani, Subarnarekha and Budhabalang rivers have been rising steadily following heavy rainfall in most parts of the state over the last couple of days.

The state government has already sounded an alert about possible floods in six districts after the IMD forecast extremely heavy rainfall in the northern region of the state.

The districts are Keonjhar, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh.

In Gujarat, 1,526 people in Banaskantha district, about 500 in Patan district, and over 200 at Kalol in Gandhinagar district have been shifted after floods to safer places.

Chief minister Vijay Rupani said the large inflow of water into rivers and dams in Banaskantha and Patan were caused by heavy rains in neighbouring Rajasthan.

Video footages showed even large vehicles like trucks stuck in flood water which entered several homes in the two districts.

People wade through a flooded street after high tide in river Ganga in Kolkata on Monday. (PTI)

The desert state saw heavy rains in Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts which caused inundation, leaving several people marooned.

A woman and her daughter died after being swept away while crossing a bridge over a swollen canal in Udaipur.

Army and Air Force contingents have been rushed in to assist in relief and rescue operations. Four MI-17V5 helicopters were conducting sorties from bases in Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Phalodi. The road and rail network has also been affected in the region.

Incessant rain has thrown normal life out of gear in several areas in the three districts of otherwise parched Rajasthan, hitting road and rail transport. Two trains were terminated in Jodhpur Railway Division following waterlogging on Bhiladi-Samdari section.

Uttar Pradesh too experienced rainfall over several places. Temple town Varanasi recorded nearly 100mm of rain.

Rainfall was also received in the national capital as well as the hills of Himachal Pradesh.
The Supreme Court, has asked the Centre and Madhya Pradesh government to explain why the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was not called in to investigate last years gunfight that left eight suspected SIMI men dead after a jailbreakfrom Bhopal Central jail.

The MP government faced severe criticism after eight suspected members of the banned Students Islamic Federation of India (SIMI)were killed in an encounter on October 31, forcing it to order a judicial probe which is still going on.

Police were accused of staging the gunfight that took place around 5km from the Bhopal Central Jail.

Mehmooda Mohammed Salim Mucchhale  the mother of one of the eight deceased requested the court to order a probe by the CBI or a set up a special investigation team and monitor the investigation. She has challenged the Madhya Pradesh high court verdict rejecting her prayer.

Her counsel, Siddhartha Dave and Farrukh Rashid, raised questions on the credibility of the present manner of probe.

The one-man Commission has neither afforded an opportunity of being heard to the family members of the deceased prisoners nor permitted them to cross-examine witnesses.

The MP government faced severe criticism after eight suspected members of the banned Simi were killed on October 31

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The district magistrate of Bihars Aurangabad Kanwal Tanuj has denied he made comments that those who cannot build a toilet should sell their wives, saying he was trying to appeal to the self-respect of the people during a drive to promote the Swacch Bharat or Clean India campaign.

News agency ANI reported that while addressing a public gathering on Saturday in Jamhore village, Tanuj said women are sexually assaulted as they go out to relieve themselves due to the lack of toilets at home and it only costs Rs 12,000 to build a toilet

Is 12,000 more than anyones wifes dignity? Who can let her wife get raped in return of Rs 12,000? If this is your mentality then go and sell your wife. Those who cannot build toilet should sell or auction his wife, ANI quoted Tanuj as saying.

#WATCH Aurangabad's DM Kanwal Tanuj says, " go sell your wife" to a person while addressing a public gathering on cleanliness (22.07) #Bihar pic.twitter.com/kqkQpVdC1q  ANI (@ANI_news) 23 July 2017

Tanuj accused the news agency of totally distorting the issue and said it was not playing the entire speech but only but a 20-second clip from his 25-minute address.

We were trying to appeal to the self-respect of the people there. Many times we have said that if you defecate in the open then you will spread diseases and you will become the transmitter of the diseases ... But what we wanted to focus upon was the self-respect of the individual and self-respect associated with the female counterpart, Tanuj told Hindustan Times over the phone.

He said he told the villagers that if people have the money to spend on various functions, liquor and tobacco then they should be able to build a toilet.

A man disrupted my speech saying if we dont have the money we will not build (a toilet). I think he came to provoke me... What I heard him saying was that should we save our honour or make money. Then I told him that if this is your mentality then you can go and sell your honour, he added.

I think this is the handiwork of some local anti-social elements... I never said that if you dont have toilets, go and sell your wife... It is very embarrassing. No one can say something like this.

The district magistrate said the village administration is very excited and promised to take the task ahead.

The officer was talking about the Shauchalay Nirman, Ghar Ka Samman scheme under which the Nitish Kumar government grants an aid of Rs 12,000 to people who want to build toilets in order to check open defecation.

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Intervening at the Informal Health Council meeting today, the President of the European Committee of the Regions Markku Markkula welcomed the launch, by the European Commission, of a public consultation on Health and Care in the Digital Single Market. He also underlined the huge potential impact of the work started by regional and local authorities to improve the quality of health and care services by using smart technologies on the ground.

"Managing health data and records in a smart, transparent and secure manner and spreading the use of digital applications to promote citizen empowerment and integrated person-centred care are key priorities if we want the digital single market to bring tangible benefits to our citizens, universities and businesses in the strategic field of health and care services", said President Markkula, recalling the intense work done by the Committee to voice the needs of health innovation actors on the ground and promote the best regional strategies

According to President Markkula, "Digital technologies can improve the quality of life of our ageing population, move towards more sustainable health and care systems and deliver new jobs in the Silver Economy." In order to seize these opportunities, a growing number of regions are committed to bring together involved actors including public and private health service and care providers, research and academic organisations, innovative businesses, patients and citizens associations and local authorities. "Many regions, in the shaping and implementing of their Research and Innovation strategy for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), are devoting a growing attention to e-Health and m-Health opportunities. Thanks to RIS3, innovation and growth processes linked to health and care can be steered and boosted by addressing actual needs of regional communities."

The Committee has insisted on the need to address demographic change also by mobilising the main EU investment tools, including the European Structural and Investment Funds. In this perspective, "The next generation of investment plans backed by EU cohesion policy should fully take into account the demographic challenge and provide innovative funding solutions".
A direct attack on JD (U) president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on the issue of corruption, by two top RJD leaders, appeared to push the ruling grand alliance (GA) in Bihar closer to the brink of a precipice on Monday.

Mohammad Taslimuddin, RJD MP from Araria in north eastern Bihar, dismissed as unsustainable the JD (U)s insistence it had a zero tolerance policy on corruption, claiming, even Nitish Kumar is not clean.

He is with the BJP by night and with the RJD by day, said Taslimuddin. There is corruption all around, said the veteran leader, who served for a while as union minister of state for home in the Deve Gowda government (1996-97) at the centre.

Taslimuddins remarks on corruption came amid RJD-JD(U) standoff over the latters demand that RJD leader and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav come clean on the CBI naming him as a beneficiary in the land for railways hotels case and his silence on the same.

The case pertains to Tejashwis father, RJD chief Lalu Prasads tenure as railway minister (2004-09), during which railway hotels were leased to private parties in lieu of gift of land in Patna as quid pro quo. The CBI named Prasad, his wife Rabri Devi and Tejashwi, in an FIR lodged in connection with the case.

RJD national vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh rubbed Taslimuddins remarks in, declaring, there is no office in the country in which corruption is not prevalent, including Bihar. Singh has targeted Kumar several times in the recent past and the CM appeared to have resented the same.

Raghuvansh also warned if anything happened to the Grand Alliance in Bihar, Nitish Kumar would be held responsible for the same as he was the elected leader of the alliance. We are just riders in the vehicle that Kumar drives. We can only caution him from taking a wrong turn, he said.

He suggested that all the three alliance partners should sit together and sort out the issue in order to save the alliance.

The crisis in the alliance has persisted as the RJD has failed to come clean on the CBI charge that he was a beneficiary of the land for hotels scam and also ruled out the possibility of his resignation as deputy CM.

Tejashwi had met CM Kumar here early last week in a bid to clear the air. Yet, the stalemate has continued.

Also last week, former MP Shivanand Tiwary, said to be a confidant of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, in his Facebook post, had called Kumars policy of zero tolerance of corruption a charade.

The sudden attack by senior RJD leaders, after several days of silence, appeared to leave the JD (U) nonplussed. Party spokesman Neeraj Kumar, MLC, said CM Kumar would never compromise on the issue of corruption.

Another JD (U) leader said Raghuvansh was facing political unemployment, which had caused him to become over talkative.

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Following Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys stand that no political party had come forward with suggestions to make party funding cleaner, the Congress on Monday released a May 30 letter that advocated complete transparency on donors and donees.

In the letter written by Congress MP and party treasurer Motilal Vora, the party expressed concern over transparency in funding of political parties and said the names of donors, donees, and the money donated must be revealed to the public.

Jaitley said on Monday that the government was actively working on the issue of electoral bonds, but no party had come up with suggestions to make party funding cleaner.

The letter said: This is with reference to your letter to the Congress President dated May 2... the government is concerned with transparency in electoral funding of political parties. Transparency implies that the electorate must know who is the donor, which is the donee political party and what is the amount donated.

Vora said in the letter that Jaitleys Budget speech in Parliament indicated that a scheme on the issue will be framed by the government, though the party could not locate such a scheme.

We, therefore, have only the Budget speech and some comments that you made in April to the media. Going by these, we infer that the donors name will be known only to the bank issuing the bond and the donees name will be known only to the Income Tax Department, the letter added.

In effect, only the government will know the names of the donors and the donees, and the people will not know who donated how much to which political party... this will not ensure transparency in electoral funding. On the contrary, it will be a completely opaque mechanism.

Vora said the Congress would be able to comment further only after the party had studied the scheme promised to be made by the government.

In reply, Jaitley wrote: I have received your letter dated May 30, regarding the issue of transparency in electoral funding of political parties.
The Congress in Gujarat seems to be caught in a Catch-22 situation ahead of the August 8 Rajya Sabha elections after suffering back to back blows with the resignation of party veteran Shankersinh Vaghela and cross-voting in the presidential polls.

The party needs at least 47 of its 57 MLAs to re-elect its lone candidate from Gujarat, Ahmed Patel. But the election of the political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi this time may hit a roadblock given that 11 Congress MLAs cross-voted in favour of NDAs presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind in the July 17 election.

Party insiders feel that the possibility of another cross-voting when Patel will seek his sixth consecutive election to the Rajya Sabha cannot be ruled out as at least 10 MLAs are staunch supporters of Kapadvanj MLA Vaghela.

According to sources, these 10 MLAs may follow in the footsteps of Vaghela in the near future.

The state leaders have a fair idea as to who all have indulged in cross-voting (in the presidential election). But the party is in a Catch-22 situation as it can neither wait nor throw out the dissidents, said a senior party leader.

Though the Congress directed its workers and MLAs to stay away from a function to celebrate Vaghelas 77th birthday on July 21, two MLAs attended it. A few others had a closed door meeting with him just before he reached the venue in Gandhinagar and announced his disassociation from the party.

As Vaghela has said he would not resign as an MLA before the RS polls, the party seems to be treading with extreme caution, which was evident from the reaction of Gujarat chief Bharatsinh Solanki to the cross-voting. The matter will be discussed with the high command before taking any step, he said.

If the dissidents come out in the open before the poll, the Congress will be banking heavily on three MLAs from other parties, including two from its ally Nationalist Congress Party and one from Janata Dal(United).

The NCP MLAs, including state president Jayant Patel, claimed they voted for opposition candidate Meira Kumar but both were present by Vaghelas side in the July 21 event. JD(U) MLA Chotubhai Vasava restrained from voting in the presidential poll.

The BJP  which has Union minister Smriti Irani and Dileep Pandya as its RS members from Gujarat  will have 27 surplus votes. Given the fluid scenario, an independent candidate may play a major role in setting up new political equations.

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The Delhi High Court on Monday said its a matter of concern that chargesheet has not been filed for three and half years in the Sunanda Pushkar death case.

Pushkar, 52, was found dead in a Delhi hotel on January 17, 2014.

A bench of Justice GS Sistani and Justice Chander Shekhar issued notice to Delhi Police on a petition by Congress MP Shashi Tharoors stepson Shiv Menon seeking him to be made a party in a plea by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy for a court-monitored CBI-led SIT probe into the death of Sunanda Pushkar.

The bench also sought response from Swamy on plea of Menon, son of Pushkar from her earlier marriage, seeking to intervene on the grounds that the BJP leader had no locus in the issue of his mothers death.

We are asking you a simple question. How are you affected by this prayer. The (Swamys) prayer is for proper inquiry into the death of this person, the bench queried Menon.

In any criminal matter if chargesheet has not been filed for three and half years, its a matter of concern... You being the son should say why no chargesheet has not been filed, the bench remarked adding, We thought the son will be extremely keen to know as to who is the person (responsible for Sunandas death).

Delhi polices counsel Rahul Mehra told the court that he has written to the DCP for the status report of the case. He said he will submit the status report after going through it.

We will place it before the court. A portion of its has to be placed in a sealed cover, Mehra said adding that he was slightly surprised by Menons prayer challenging Swamys plea for a court-monitored inquiry in the case.

Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, appearing for Menon, asked the court to restrain Swamy from passing the status report to public and media.

However, the court declined to pass any order on Menons plea saying he has to be first made a party in Swamys petition before his prayer could be heard.

The court further said, We have not even issued notice in the (Swamys) petition. We have not taken cognizance. We have not given seal of approval to his (Swamy) petition.

Earlier this month, Swamy moved the high court, seeking a court-monitored probe by a multi-disciplinary Special Investigation Team led by CBI into the death of Pushkar.

On Swamys plea, the high court had on July 20 directed the Delhi police to place before it the report regarding the status of probe in the case.

Swamy told the court that there has been constant attempt to block the investigation into the death of Pushkar and alleged that the registration of an FIR took almost a year and nothing has happened after that.

Swamy claimed a few days before her death, Pushkar had reportedly called for a press conference and claimed she would be exposing a serious corruption case.

Swamy has sought a time-bound probe in the case, saying very influential people are involved in the case, leading to attempts to protect them, and the matter has faced a lot of unnecessary delay already.

The high court has posted both the petitions for hearing on August 1.

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Actor Charmme Kaur, who is to be questioned for her alleged links with drug peddlers, has moved the Hyderabad high court on Monday seeking protection from the alleged coercive interrogation methods adopted by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).

Charmme, who has acted in nearly 50 films including the popular Hindi film Budda Hoga Tera Baap with Amitabh Bachchan, was supposed to attend the SIT questioning on Wednesday.

In her petition to the high court, she requested that she be allowed to bring her lawyers during the interrogation.

She also wanted that the questioning be done in the presence of women officials and that she be exempt from undergoing medical examination, including collection of her blood samples, hair and nails by authorities.

She submitted to the court that she came to know that during questioning, the SIT has subjected the summoned persons to scandalous questions, coercion and threat.

The actor said under Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India, the authorities cannot compel her to subject to both physical and psychological examinations, such as collection of blood, hair and nail samples by way of coercion.

Terming the ongoing media tirade against her as malicious, malafide and false propaganda, she said she has been victimised, and her reputation damaged by unnecessarily connecting her with issues unconnected to her.

For the last five days, the SIT of the Telangana excise and prohibition enforcement department have been questioning Tollywood actors and other film personalities, who are believed to have purchased cocaine and other narcotics from drug peddlers arrested in the first week of July. The SIT served notices on 12 film personalities.

The authorities questioned popular director Puri Jagannath, actor Subba Raju, cinematographer Shyam K Naidu and actor Tarun last week.

On Monday, they questioned another popular hero Navdeep and summoned art director Chinna on Tuesday.

The SIT authorities stumbled upon the names of these film stars while interrogating two drug peddlers who were arrested on July 2.

The accused, Calvin Mascarenhas (28) and Brendon Ben (20), who are suspected to be the kingpins of the drug racket, reportedly confessed to SIT that they were regularly supplying drugs to these film stars. The cops seized contraband worth Rs 22 lakh from them.

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Enforcement Directorate (ED) has sent judicial requests to governments of six countries seeking information related to liquor baron Vijay Mallya against whom extradition proceedings are underway in a London court.

Judicial requests, also known as Letter Rogatory (LR) have been sent to United States of America, France, South Africa, Ireland, Singapore and Mauritius, sources told Hindustan Times.

Directorate officials said investigators were seeking information on any financial transactions that might have occurred between Mallya-owned now defunct Kingfisher Airlines and banks based out of the six countries. Furthermore information on Mallya's investments abroad is also being sought by the ED, sources said.

The latest move comes in the midst of extradition proceedings against Mallya that were initiated by prosecutors in United Kingdom in May at the Westminster Magistrates Court in London.

Once called the king of good times, the liquor baron is facing investigations for alleged financial fraud and money laundering by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). A consortium of banks has accused him of wilfully defaulting on loans amounting to Rs 9,000 crore. He fled to London in March last year.

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Seeking to strike a fine balance between religious rituals and safety measures, the Bombay High Court on Monday asked the city police to ensure that no minor carries sharp weapons and hurt themselves during the annual Muharram procession.

A bench of justices RM Savant and Sadhana Jadhav gave the direction to the police while examining the issue suo moto (on its own), based on a December 2014 police circular, dealing with the safety measures for minors during the ritual.

The circular mandated senior police officials of various police stations to hold meetings with Mohalla Committees prior to Muharram to ensure that children do not participate in the ritual, they use no sharp weapons in the procession and the entire procession be video-graphed.

The police told the court on Monday that they had held a meeting with several community leaders who gave an undertaking that children would not use or carry weapons and sharp objects during the procession and that they would not hurt themselves.

Minors taking part in the Muharram procession shall not be forced to injure themselves. Minors will not be allowed to inflict injuries on themselves and no one else would be permitted to injure the minors. The procession will be video- graphed, said a report submitted by Additional Commissioner of Police (South region) Pravin Padval.

The court after perusing the report asked the organisers of the procession to give an undertaking that the conditions imposed by the police would be complied with.

We care about religions and its practises but we also want compliance of the conditions imposed. A fine balance has to be drawn on the practises and safety of children, the court said.

The bench has directed the additional commissioner of police (South) to personally supervise the procession to be held in south Mumbai in September and ensure that the conditions are complied with.

Muharram marks the anniversary of the battle of Karbala in which Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, was killed. To mourn his killing, participants flagellate themselves with sharp objects.
The National Archives of India has received 304 declassified records or files related to Subhas Chandra Bose, the government informed Parliament on Monday.

The records were received from four departments of the government, Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha about records pertaining to Bose and the Azad Hind Fauj received by the Archives.

The Prime Ministers Office had sent over 58 files, the Ministry of External Affairs sent 200 such files, the Ministry of Home Affairs sent 37 and the cabinet secretariat sent nine, he said.

He, however, did not say when the files were sent.

Sharma said out of the 304 files, 303 had already been uploaded on the webportal www.netajipaper.gov.in.

In 1997, the National Archives of India had received 990 declassified files pertaining to the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) from the defence ministry, Sharma said.

In 2012, 271 files and items pertaining to the Khosla Commission and 759 items from the Justice Mukherjee Commission of inquiry from the home ministry were sent to the National Archives, he said. The commissions dealt with Boses disappearance.

All these files or items are already open to the public under the Public Records Rules, 1997, Sharma said.

People view an exhibit after Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the digital copies of 100 declassified files related to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on his 119th birth anniversary, at the National Archives of India (NAI) in New Delhi, India, on January 23, 2016. (Sonu Mehta/ Hindustan Times)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his meeting with members of Boses family at his residence in New Delhi on October 14, 2015, had announced that the government would declassify files relating to the freedom fighter in a phased manner, and make them accessible to the public.

The government declassified the first set of 100 files in January last year.
The Hurriyat leadership has called for a bandh in Kashmir on Tuesday to protest the arrest of its leaders in an alleged terror funding case, which it said was fabricated and aimed at misleading the people of India.

Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, in a joint statement, gave a call for complete strike to protest and condemn the revengeful arbitrary and illegal arrests of Hurriyat leaders Altaf Ahmed Shah, Shahidul Islam, Ayaz Akbar, Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Peer Saifullah.

Shah is Syed Ali Geelanis son-in-law and Akbar is spokesman of the Hurriyat hardliner. Islam is close aide of the moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Umar Farooq tweeted that the arrests were aimed at misleading people of India.

Drama enacted by govt using the NIA to malign peoples political movement & leadership in Kashmir & to mislead people of India. Lies, propaganda.., Mirwaiz tweeted.

The joint statement by the leaders condemned the arrest of leaders on fabricated charges. They expressed serious concern about the safety of those arrested, as no one has been able to establish contact with them, and their whereabouts are not known.

The leaders accused the Centre of trying to project the peoples political struggle in Kashmir as so called Islamic terrorism aided by Pakistan, especially in the wake of international pressure building up on New Delhi.

They also said that the Centre was maligning and implicating the Hurriyat in the alleged funding as the Hurriyat represents peoples sentiments.

Nayeem Khan, who was suspended by Geelani-led Hurriyat after his alleged confession of receiving funds in a TV sting operation, and Farooq Dar (Bitta Karatay), who is associated with a lesser known faction of JKLF, were also arrested. The Hurriyat statement did not mention their names.

While Karatay was arrested from Delhi, the other six leaders were called by the sleuths of NIA to their makeshift office at Humhama in Kashmirs Budgam where they were detained.

The NIA is reportedly investigating the separatists whether they received funds through hawala for funding terrorist activities and for causing disruption through stone pelting and other activities in Jammu and Kashmir.
India has witnessed the third highest number of terrorist attacks in 2016, more than Pakistan that has slipped to the fourth position, according to the latest data compiled by the US State Department.

Iraq with 2,965 terrorist attacks and Afghanistan with 1,340 terrorist attacks, were ranked first and second position respectively, followed by India that recorded 927 attacks and Pakistan at 734 attacks, the department said in its Country Report on Terrorism.

The department said more than half of the terrorist attacks in India in 2016 took place in four states: Jammu and Kashmir at 19%, Chhattisgarh at 18%, Manipur at 12%, and Jharkhand at 10%.

This geographic pattern is relatively stable compared to 2015, with the exception of Jammu and Kashmir, which experienced an increase of 93% in attacks in 2016, it said.

In its annual report, the department said the number of terrorist attacks has increased by 16% and the total number of deaths has increased by 17% in India in 2016.

Although India ranked third among countries that experienced the most terror attacks in 2016, the lethality of these attacks remained relatively low compared to other countries that also experienced a great deal of terror violence.

On average, terror attacks in India led to 0.4 deaths per attack in 2016, compared to 2.4 deaths per attack worldwide, the report said.

Nearly three-quarters of attacks at 73% in India in 2016 were non-lethal, the report said.

According to the report, the deadliest attack in India in 2016 took place in July, when the Communist Party of India Maoist detonated explosives and opened fire on Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Bihar. Sixteen people were killed in the attack, including six assailants.

According to the report, a majority of terrorist attacks in India in 2016 involved either bombings/explosions at 47% or armed assaults at 18%.

In addition, kidnappings were particularly prevalent in India at 15% of all attacks, compared to 10% worldwide, as were facility/infrastructure attacks at 12% of all attacks, compared to 6% worldwide, the report said.

The report ranked the Philippines at fifth position with 482 terrorist attacks and Nigeria at sixth position with 466 attacks.

In 2015, Iraq at 2,418 attacks and Afghanistan at 1,708 attacks were ranked first and second respectively, while Pakistan took the third spot with 1009 terrorist attack.

Pakistan was ranked second in 2014, when it experienced 1,823 terrorist attacks.

In 2013, there were as many as 1920 terrorist attacks in Pakistan, killing 2315 people.

In Pakistan, the report said in 2016, the total number of terrorist attacks reported in Pakistan decreased by 27 per cent, and the total number of deaths decreased by 12%.

However, the total number of people injured increased 29% in comparison to 2015.

The number of perpetrators killed in attacks in Pakistan in 2016 decreased 25% between 2015 and 2016.

Perpetrator deaths comprised nine of all deaths in Pakistan in 2016, compared to 26% worldwide, the report said.

The State Department said for 70% of all attacks in Pakistan, source materials did not identify a perpetrator group.

Of the remaining attacks, 30% were carried out by Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the most active and deadly perpetrator group in Pakistan in 2016.

The number of terrorist attacks carried out by TTP continued to decline, to 67 in 2016, down from 136 in 2013.

However, following sharp declines in previous years, the lethality of attacks carried out by TTP increased in 2016 to 283 total deaths, up from 240 in 2015, it said.

According to the department, several countries that have routinely experienced large numbers of terrorist attacks in recent years observed considerable decreases in total attacks in 2016, compared to 2015.
Page Content

Members of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) on 12 July elected Karl-Heinz Lambertz (BE/PES) as their new President for the next two and half years. During their plenary session, CoR members also discussed the regional angle of future research and transport policies in the presence of Commissioners Moedas and Bulc and adopted their position on the Common Agricultural policy after 2020, the EU's energy "Winter Package" as well as on the topics of migration and development.

Karl Heinz Lambertz, CoR president-elect

In his acceptance speech, President-elect Karl-Heinz Lambertz (BE/PES) stressed that the EU needs to listen to citizens and "rethink from the ground" up by giving a greater say to local and regional governments. During his Presidency, the CoR will continue to contribute to the reflection on the EU's future, to fight to protect cohesion policy (click here for Cohesion in Europe: make or break? - TV debate with EU Budget Commissioner Gunther Oettinger) and to put special emphasis on reinforcing the CoR's ties with all Europe's cities and regions as well as on strengthening relations across the EU's institutions. Markku Markkula will officially hand over the Presidency to Mr Lambertz on 26 July. Mr Markkula will become the First Vice-President of the CoR.

Low-emission transport & missing transport links

Local and regional authorities in the EU are making transport systems more efficient, promoting the use of low-emission energy for transport and paving the way for zero-emission mobility. But, according to the CoR, they need an improved legal framework and stronger financial support to replace polluting public transport fleets. These concerns were shared by the EU's Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, who, together with local leaders, launched an EU-wide initiative to accelerate the deployment of zero-emissions buses. CoR members also welcomed the European Commission's plans to invest 140m in 13 cross-border transport projects in border areas in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

Horizon 2020: future of research and innovation in Europe

Europe needs strong regions with the strength and vision to support research and innovation ecosystems that have a real impact in a globalised world. During the CoR's plenary session, Carlos Moedas, the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, highlighted the role of cities and regions as laboratories of change and joined the call of Europe's cities and regions for a more multidisciplinary, inclusive, open and collaborative research and innovation policies.

Support for SMEs

Better support and an SME-friendly environment featured in the agenda of the plenary in multiple ways. CoR members adopted opinions calling for better regulation for SMEs and for better support for innovative entrepreneurship. Additionally, Central Macedonia, Ile-de-France and Northern and Western Region of Ireland received the European Entrepreneurial Region (EER) 2018 award for outstanding entrepreneurial strategies and visions to boost entrepreneurship within their territories.

Development and migration

The CoR adopted recommendations about how local and regional authorities can establish sustainable-development policies in line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and the European Consensus on Development. The opinion calls for a collective process, arguing that "centrally managed, top-down policies and programmes" alone will not be enough to ensure that the UN's 17 goals are met by all cities and regions in the EU. On 10-11 July, ahead of the CoR's plenary, the European Commission and the CoR brought together local and regional leaders from four continents to explore experiences and lessons gained from their international cooperation to achieve sustainable development. The event, now known as Regions and Cities for Development, is held every two years. The themes included migration. In its plenary, the CoR called for the EU to help strengthen the administrative capacity of local and regional governments in Africa and the Middle East as a way of reducing migration in the long term.

Energy

Local and regional leaders adopted three sets of legislative and policy recommendations on the energy package presented by the European Commission in November 2016. The Clean Energy for All Europeans package is the main instrument to promote Europes transition to sustainable energy, and a critical tool for efforts to revive economic growth and to combat global warming. The package covers energy efficiency, renewable energy, the design of the electricity market, security of electricity supply and governance rules for the Energy Union as well as Ecodesign and a strategy for connected and automated mobility.

The future of the Common Agricultural Policy

The CoR's recommendations on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2020 aim to maintain high-quality, sustainable and fairly priced agricultural sector that provides adequately paid jobs in all regions of the European Union, in line with the objective of territorial cohesion. The recommendations are in line with the main outcome of the public consultation on the future of the CAP, which indicates that the policy should continue to be managed at EU level and that its main objectives should be to support farmers and to protect the environment.

Other topics:

Audiovisual:
The Iraqi government has no substantial information on the fate of the 39 Indians taken hostage by the Islamic State terror group in Mosul in 2014, foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Monday.

We have no substantial evidence that they (the Indians) were killed or they are still alive, so we cannot give anything in that regard, al-Jaafari, who is an official visit to India, told reporters here.

The Iraqi government, he said while speaking through an interpreter, was as concerned about the fate of the 39 Indians as the Indian government and their families.

Al-Jaafari said acknowledged he had discussed the issue of the kidnapped Indians with his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj and pledged the Iraq government will continue its efforts to trace the men, all construction workers, who were kidnapped by militants more than three years ago.

He described as inaccurate the Indian governments statement that the Indians were possibly being held in Badush prison, located a short distance from the former Islamic State stronghold of Mosul.

We will continue to follow-up on this subject as if they were alive, this is what we must believe, he said, adding that the IS is known to circulate information that is untrue.

In such an atmosphere, we are unable to give a certain date by when this issue is going to be resolved. The Iraqi security forces are very ardent (about) finding all of those who were taken by Daesh, whether they are Iraqis, Indians or other nationalities. They are very serious and keen to preserve their lives, al-Jaafari said.

With Swaraj set to make a statement on the matter in Parliament on Tuesday, officials at the external affairs ministry were tight-lipped about what transpired at the ministers meeting with al-Jaafari.

Ahead of al-Jaafaris arrival in New Delhi, the Iraqi embassy had said search operations are on and there is high-level coordination between Iraqi and Indian authorities to locate the Indians.

On July 16, Swaraj had told reporters that information gathered by minister of state VK Singh during a recent visit to Iraq suggested the 39 Indians were possibly being held in Badush prison. She said she was hopeful of getting more information when al-Jaafari visited New Delhi.

However, the Hindustan Times reported on Saturday that Badush prison is a desolate and abandoned structure that has been unoccupied for weeks, if not months.

Harjit Masih, the sole Indian who managed to escape from the group of 40 men kidnapped in Mosul, has told several media outlets the others were gunned down in the desert near Badush on June 15, 2014. His account has been rejected by the government.

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No one knew who Jammu and Kashmir police officer Mohammad Ayub Pandith was on the night he was stripped and lynched in Srinagar last month and his identity became clear only the next morning, the Valleys top police officer said on Monday.

Inspector general of police (Kashmir range) Muneer Khan told reporters that 20 people were arrested for the crime on June 23, when thousands had gathered for night-long congregational prayers on Islams holiest night of Shab-e-Qadr. The lynching was widely condemned across ideological leanings in the Valley and across the country.

Describing the events of the night, Khan said 57-year-old Pandith, who was in plainclothes, was confronted by four men coming out of Jamia Masjid allegedly shouting slogans in support of Zakir Musa, a top militant who has called for Islamic rule in Kashmir. The men allegedly were at the mosque to welcome separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

Four of the miscreants saw the deputy SP checking the deployment -- he was on duty for access control. Then these four guys called him and started questioning him and asked for his I-card and he refused to give it. That is how the thing started. They started heckling, the number of miscreants swelled and rest is history, Khan said.

Ayub Pandith was killed by a mob outside a mosque in Srinagar.

Khan also ruled out any possibility of dereliction of duty by the police in the case and said apart from the darkness and the noise, no one knew of Pandiths identity.

The deputy SP was there to ensure the safety and security of all devotees who had come to pray at Jamia Masjid on Shab-e-Qadr night, including the Mirwaiz, he said. The body was defaced and disfigured, and his clothes were torn. Khan also praised the cooperation of common people in the investigation.

Khan said one of the accused was Sajad Gilkar, who went underground after the incident and was killed in an encounter with security forces in Budgam on July 12. Prior to the lynching, Gilkar was, according to the police, booked under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) thrice and wanted in stone-pelting and stabbing cases.

The officer said the investigation would be completed within stipulated time. The investigation of the case is going on in absolutely right manner, expeditiously and effectively. Some more arrests are expected and some more evidence is to be collected.

Khan added that the police initially arrested three suspects and their questioning led to further arrests and the recovery of crucial pieces of evidence such as the iron rod allegedly used to hit Pandith, his pistol - from which he had fired in self-defence after being heckled by the mob - as well as his cell phone that was taken away by the attackers.

The three men, who were injured below the waist after Pandith fired in self-defence, have also been arrested as they allegedly were the ones who initially started heckling the police official, Khan said.

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Dejected by the Iraqi governments disclosure that it has no substantial information on 39 Indians taken hostage by the Islamic State in Mosul, family members of the missing workers from Punjab on Monday sought a clarification on the issue from the Centre.

We have no substantial evidence that they (the Indians) were killed or they are still alive, so we cannot give anything in that regard, visiting Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told reporters in New Delhi earlier in the day.

His statement shocked the family members who were hoping some positive information from Iraq particularly after New Delhi had recently claimed the missing Indian were alive and everything possible was being done to ensure their safe return.

The construction workers were abducted from the war-torn Mosul in 2014. Of them 22 are from Punjab.

We all were keenly waiting for the visit of the Iraqi foreign minister. But his statement has definitely left us disappointed. This is shocking that neither the Indian nor the Iraqi government has any input on the missing Indians, said Gurpinder Kaur, whose brother Manjinder Singh is among the missing persons.

We want external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to clarify the exact position and tell us what the government is planning to do now on this issue, she said.

Swaraj is expected to make a statement on the matter in Parliament on Tuesday.

The government had earlier said the hostages were last seen at a prison in Badush, near Mosul, which is witnessing one of the fiercest fights between Islamic State militants and joint Iraqi and US forces.

The Iraqi foreign minister described the information as inaccurate and said the IS is known to circulate information that is untrue.

Initially we were told that Indians were last seen in Badush Jail but with reports coming that Jail structures are demolished, we dont know what to expect, Gurpinder lamented.

Harbhajan Kaur, mother of missing Harsimranjit Singh, however is not willing to give up as yet.

We are awaiting the statement of Sushma Swaraj. We hope she will clarify things in the Parliament. We have not lost hope. We just want the Indian government to make efforts and find all the children, she added.

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Opposite the main temple in Bisada lies a memorial of a male cow found dead on the spot. No one knows how it died, but the injuries suggested it had been killed. The villagers pooled in money to commemorate the bovine. That was in the mid-eighties.

Thirty years later in September 2015, an announcement about an alleged cow slaughter -- from the same spot -- would transform the people of this small village into a murderous mob.

That night, 55-year-old Mohammad Ikhlaq was lynched by angry villagers; he was first assaulted with fists, sticks and bricks, had his daughters sewing machine smashed on his head and then dragged through narrow lanes onto the main road. He did not survive the attack. His 20-year-old son, Danish, was also severely injured and spent 10 days in coma.

The brutality of cow-related mob violence since the BJP-led government came to power in 2014 was brought into sharp focus by Ikhlaqs murder. It sparked shock, horror and a national debate on rising intolerance in the country. But the outrage did not stop a spate of hate crimes against Muslims in the name of the cow. More than 600 days since the incident, the communal faultlines in Bisada remain; generations of harmony between Hindus and Muslims in this Uttar Pradesh village swallowed by hatred and prejudice.

Read Part 2 | Lets Talk About Hate: For Dalits of Mirchpur, escaping caste oppression meant leaving home

In the aftermath of the murder, Bisada claimed innocence of its men. But with time, the bravado of the tumultuous September night has returned. Today, the families of the accused have no qualms about admitting to the motivation behind the crime.

Family members of Ravi Sisodia, one of the 18 accused of Ikhlaqs murder, take pride in his actions. Ravi died in October last year, allegedly due to illness. But family members claim he died of assault by jail authorities.

Our son died for gau raksha, not for theft or (any other) crime. He is a martyr. It was right to kill Ikhlaq as he had slaughtered a cow, his mother Nirmala says.

Nirmala (left), mother of accused Ravi Sisodia who died in prison, takes pride in her sons action while his wife Pooja (right) blames Ikhlaqs family for accusing Ravi of the crime. (Burhaan Kinu/HT Photo)

When Ravis body returned from the hospital, it was draped in the national flag -- an honour generally reserved for soldiers. His 20-year-old wife, Pooja, sobs in a corner of the house, blaming Ikhlaqs family.

I begged them, fell at their feet to not blame Ravi but they did not relent, she says. Ikhlaq had attended her wedding three years ago, she told us.

But there was a time in Bisada when Hindus and Muslims lived as one. Om Mahesh, father of one of the accused, Vinay, says the land for the mosque in Bisada was gifted by Hindus.

All that has long been forgotten.

When Hindustan Times met the family of Arun Sisodia, an accused out on bail, his brother shouted that Hindus can no longer follow Mahatma Gandhis dictum of offering the other cheek to those who want to destroy the country  an apparent swipe at the Muslim community.

Read | A year after Ikhlaqs lynching, Bisada sitting on a communal tinderbox

Arun, 35, tries to calm him down, but the lid over simmering hatred had been taken off. Why dont our Muslim brothers eat pig? What is so special about the cow? Pigs are cheaper, Arun says.

Initially hesitant to talk about the incident, Arun opens up slowly. Feelings were incited. Does the Quran say anywhere that cow should be eaten?

Ikhlaqs house is just behind Aruns and he too, albeit grudgingly, admits to friendship between the families. Ikhlaq and his brothers were the only two Muslim families who lived among Hindus. All other Muslim families -- about 30 -- live in a separate enclave.

Left: The lane outside Ikhlaqs house, through which his body was dragged by the mob. Right: Ikhlaqs empty house. (Burhaan Kinu/HT Photo)

The kacha lane outside Ikhlaqs house, through which his body was dragged, has since been relaid with concrete -- as if it were possible to bury the ghosts of the past. No one lives in the houses of Ikhlaq and his brothers now, both families moved out of the village 10 days after the murder.

The door to one of the rooms that remain unlocked creaks open. A red curtain hangs limply, a charpoy sits on one corner of the sparse room -- it seems as if the residents stepped out hurriedly and will return any moment.

But Ikhlaqs family says they can never return to Bisada. His wife, Ikraman, daughter Shaista and son Danish -- live in Delhi with the eldest son, Sartaj -- a corporal in the air force.

Mara bhi hum ko aur case bhi hum par. Yeh kahan ka insaaf hai? (They killed my father and yet the case is filed against us. What sort of justice is that?), Shaista asks.

Read | Dadri lynching: Meat found in Ikhlaqs fridge was beef, says lab

Nine months after the incident, a villager filed a cow slaughter case against Ikhlaqs family. Jaan Mohammed, Ikhlaqs younger brother and the main accused in the case, says it is just a diversionary ploy by the villagers.

When (Union minister) Kiren Rijiju says he eats beef, no one says anything to him. Why was Pehlu Khan killed? Why was Ikhlaq killed for no reason? There are different standards for different people. There is no rule of law for cow vigilantes who do what they want, he adds.

Ikhlaqs mother Asghari Begum(left) and brother Jan Mohammad are still waiting for justice. (Burhaan Kinu/HT Photo)

The BJP and Sangh Parivar groups sought to delink the communal angle in the murder.

Mahesh Sharma, BJP parliamentarian from Noida, called it an accident while Nawab Singh Nagar, Dadris former BJP MLA, blamed Ikhlaqs family. The main accused in the case, Vishal, is the son of a local BJP member.

There is no law to monitor religious hate crimes making it hard to gauge the extent of the problem.

The closest is section 153A of the Indian Penal Code which pertains to promoting enmity on the basis of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community. In Ikhlaqs case, this section has not been invoked.

Senior advocate, Rebecca John, says it is not enough to say that Ikhlaq was murdered. It is problematic because you dont refer to the crime contextually. You dont bring out the elements of hate crime and it allows the accused an exit. What is the resistance in invoking 153A along with 302 (murder). The answer is political, she adds.

Despite being assigned to a fast track court, the trial in Ikhlaqs death is yet to begin.

Jaan Mohammed, however, has a different take. Other family members may want to see the accused getting convicted but personally I want the venom in society to finish. The distances that political parties have created should be removed. The accused can get any punishment but that will not bring back Ikhlaq, he says.

Watch | In Dadri, families torn apart by Ikhlaqs brutal killing come to terms with grief and anger

This is Part 1 of Lets Talk About Hate, an HT series that looks at the different complexions of hate crimes such as race, religion, identity. Follow us at @httweets for updates or send your suggestions at hatetracker@hindustantimes.com.

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Leading the charts, Maharashtra has emerged as one of the most dynamic states contributing towards skill development in the country.

According to the data for various programmes managed by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), as on June 30, Maharashtra has trained over 10 lakh people across 40 sectors since 2011.

Skill India mission is a positive step towards creating a skilled and employable workforce, providing better career opportunities to the youth across India. In a recent trend analysis, Maharashtra has emerged as a hub for skill training, NSDC Managing Director and CEO Manish Kumar said.

Maharashtra government has planned to equip 4.5 crore people with employable skills by 2022, as a part of the overall plan of the government.

According to figures, Maharashtra is leading with cumulative training of over 10 lakh employable workforce in the age group of 15-59 years.

Textile and apparels, banking and finance, IT and ITES, textiles, electronics, hardware, beauty and wellness, telecom, gems and jewellery were amongst the top sectors in the state to train for skilling.

Complying with the National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF), these trainings were executed by private institutions affiliated under the Skill India Mission.

Bridging the skill gap, 75 per cent of the trainings were imparted by partners funded by NSDC, it added.

In the last one year, nearly three lakh people have been trained and 45 per cent have received employments, it revealed.

The data also showed a positive sign of development in the state, with women comprising 60 per cent of the skill trained.

Further, it said Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are the other two prominent states, which have contributed significantly to skilling people across the country.

More than 8.5 lakh people were trained in Uttar Pradesh followed by Tamil Nadu, which has empowered 8.45 lakh people with skill training, across over 1,900 job roles, based on the industry defined standards.
Former BJP minister Maya Kodnani, an accused in the 2002 Naroda Gam riots case, was at her hospital on the day of the massacre, a defence witness told the trial court here on Monday.

Raiben Thakor, the witness, was questioned by Kodnanis lawyers as well as the prosecution before the judge for the Special Investigation Team (SIT) cases, P B Desai.

Thakor said she saw Kodnani at the Shivam Maternity and Surgical Nursing Home, Kodnanis hospital where she practised as a gynaecologist, at around 1 pm on February 28, 2002.

Thakor said she had gone there as her daughter-in-law was expecting a baby. Kodnani was in the hospital all the while and helped deliver the baby at around 5.30 pm, Thakor told the court.

Kodnani, a BJP MLA in 2002, later went on to become minister of women and child development department in the Narendra Modi government.

Dhaval Shah, a partner doctor at Kodnanis hospital, will depose as a witness on Friday.

Earlier, Kodnanis husband Surendra Kodnani had told the court that she had not gone to Naroda Gam, the scene of the riots, as she was busy overseeing a delivery at the hospital.

The prosecution, on the other hand, has claimed that it was Dhaval Shah and not Kodnani who managed the hospital full-time.

Naroda Gam massacre is one of the nine major riot cases investigated by the SIT. Eleven Muslims were killed at Naroda Gam, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, on February 28, 2002 in the aftermath of Godhra train burning incident.

Eighty-two persons including Kodnani are facing trial in the case. She has already been convicted in the Naroda Patiya riots case and is currently out on bail.
Often ridiculed by critics as Niddaramaiah for dozing off at public forums, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has pulled off a series of moves to catch rivals off guard in the run-up to assembly elections due in 2018.

The 68-year-old Congress leader has positioned himself at the forefront of the Kannada identity fight and against the Centres perceived attempt to impose Hindi. He is also basking in the glow of conducting one of the biggest conferences on Dalit icon BR Ambedkar, in Bengaluru last week.

This is in line with some of his governments measures that are seen as appealing to Kannada sub-nationalism tendencies. His latest move is setting up of a committee to look into the legality of having a state flag.

Kannada identity consolidation

In January, the Congress government proposed 100% reservation for locals in blue-collar private sector jobs. Later, it ordered making Kannada mandatory in schools, and the singing of the official state anthem compulsory.

Earlier this month, when the use of Hindi in signboards at metro stations in the city kicked up a row, Siddaramaiah was quick to weigh in on the issue, saying it was a state project and, hence, the Centres three-language policy was not applicable.

According to political analyst Narendar Pani, Siddaramaiahs proactive approach caught the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal (Secular) napping.

These were essentially issues the BJP used to champion. It is interesting that even the JD(S) kept quiet over the flag controversy, said Pani, who teaches at the National Institute of Advanced Studies. Pani said this indicated Siddaramaiah had out-thought rivals.

For political watchers, the Congress state unit is smartly projecting itself as a regional force, whereas the BJP state unit has lost room to manoeuvre as part of the dominant national party.

Taking on BJP CM face Yeddyurappa

Siddaramaiah hasnt backed off from taking on the opposition. At a recent convention of Lingayats, believed to be the BJPs biggest support base in the state, he assured them he would convey to the Centre their demand to be classified as a separate religion.

By wading into the separate religion demand, Siddaramaiah has also taken the battle to BS Yeddyurappa, the BJPs chief ministerial face and an influential Lingayat leader.

Yeddyurappa, under whose leadership the BJP formed its first government in south India on its own in Karnataka in 2008, said on Sunday that Lingayats should remain within the Hindu religion.

Siddaramaiahs decision to form the committee on the state flag also saw Yeddyurappa struggle to respond. Initially, the BJP leader criticised the formation of the committee, but changed stance the next day.

Siddaramaiah has also repeatedly undermined the BJP state leadership. For instance, after announcing the waiver of farm loans from cooperative banks, he said, I challenge the BJP state unit to convince the central government to waive the remaining debt.

Making himself an indispensable force

The CM, who belongs to the backward Kuruba caste and has always positioned himself as the leader of the AHINDA formation (a grouping of minorities, backwards classes and Dalits), has also sidelined critics within his party.

Siddaramaiah, who switched from the JD(S) to the Congress in 2006, has already been chosen by the party as its CM face for the assembly elections.

Incidentally, he became CM primarily because his rival, G Parameshwara, lost in the 2013 assembly elections.

The caste question

At the three-day Ambedkar international conference titled Quest for Equity, he recalled instances of discrimination he faced as a child and said, Only those who have faced discrimination can understand it, get angry about it, and, hence, have the will to change it.

On caste, he has bucked the narrative, suggesting that equality would first mean equality between castes. In an ambitious Bengaluru Declaration, a manifesto of sorts released at the end of the conference, the Karnataka government proposed reservation in the judiciary, in promotions in the public and private sector.

Political analyst and film critic MK Raghavendra acknowledged Siddaramaiahs early start, but cautioned that tapping into patronage networks might not necessarily bring success. The assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh have shown Prime Minister Narendra Modis appeal potentially stretches across interest groups, he said.

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The husband of former Doordarshan anchor Kanchan Nath on Monday submitted a complaint to the police seeking registration of a criminal case over his wifes death in a tree crash.

Kanchan Nath (58) died on Saturday after a coconut tree fell on her on a road in suburban Chembur.

Her husband Rajat Nath on Monday submitted a complaint to the Chembur police against the concerned horticultural assistant of M-West Ward of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, a senior police official said.

The police have registered a case of accidental death whereas this was a case under IPC section 304-A (death due to negligence), said Naths lawyer S Balakrishnan.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven Kashmiri separatist leaders, including hardline Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Shah Geelanis son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah, in a probe linked to terrorist funding.

The NIA is investigating if funds from Pakistan were used to fuel last years unrest in the Kashmir Valley that left 100 people dead.

Tehreek-e-Hurriyats Ayaz Akbar and Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Shahid-ul-Islam, who is from the Mirwaiz faction of the Hurriyat, Nayeem Khan of the Jammu Kashmir National Front and Peer Saifullah were arrested in Srinagar.

Farooq Ahmed Dar aka Bitta Karatay was taken into custody in New Delhi.

The six leaders held in Srinagar were brought to New Delhi for questioning and to appear before a court.

Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, was under preventive detention of Jammu and Kashmir police from early July.

In the past few weeks, the NIA raided places across Kashmir, New Delhi and Haryana looking for evidence of separatist leaders and businessmen receiving funds from Hafiz Saeed, who heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa group, and other Pakistan-based militant outfits.

Kashmir was rocked by violent protests after Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani was killed in a gunfight with security forces on July 8, 2016.

The Hurriyat leadership called for a bandh in Kashmir on Tuesday to protest the arrest of its leaders.

Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, in a joint statement, called the strike to condemn the revengeful, arbitrary and illegal arrests of Hurriyat leaders.

The Mirwaiz tweeted the arrests were aimed at misleading the people.

Drama enacted by govt using the NIA to malign peoples political movement & leadership in Kashmir & to mislead people of India. Lies, propaganda.., he tweeted.

The Hurriyat statement did not mention Nayeem Khan and Bitta Karatay.

Khan was suspended by the Geelani-led Hurriyat after his alleged confession of receiving funds in a TV sting operation. Karatay is associated with a lesser-known faction of the JKLF.

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The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Monday after Opposition members created pandemonium as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended six Congress MPs for five consecutive sittings for improper conduct.

Legislative business for the two Houses Bills to be introduced in Lok Sabha: The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017. The Central Road Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2017. Bills for consideration and passing: The Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2017. The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016. Bill for withdrawal in Rajya Sabha The Architects (Amendment) Bill, 2010. Bills for consideration and passing: The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017. The Footwear Design and Development Institute Bill, 2017. The Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017. The Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

The monsoon session will continue till August 11.

Here are the live updates:

4.55pm: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to shortly speak on the issue of 39 Indians abducted in Iraqs Mosul in 2014.

3:32 pm: The Upper House takes up the Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017 for consideration.

3:31 pm: Rajya Sabha passes the Footwear Design and Development Institute Bill, 2017.

3:10 pm: MP Nirmala Sitharaman seeks support to make Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) an institute of national importance. She says we are correcting the wrong policies of collecting illegal leather from unregulated sector.

3:08 pm: SP MP Ram Gopal Yadav says first correct the wrong policies on leather industries including ban on slaughter houses.

2:39 pm: Leather industry is in great crisis says Trinamool MP Manis Gupta in Lok Sabha.

2:30 pm: Lok Sabha resumes. Amid uproar, the Chair adjourns the House till tomorrow.

2:16 pm: Congress party member PL Punia speaks on hardships forced upon leader industry during discussion of The Footwear Design and Development Institute Bill, 2017.

2:07 pm: Lok Sabha is adjourned till 2:30 pm.

2:06 pm: Lok Sabha speaker S Mahajan suspends Gourav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhiranjan Chowdhary, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and MK Raghavan for five days. The members had torn papers and raised slogans in the Well to protest the incidents of lynching by cow vigilantes.

She says members persistently and willfully disrupted the House by tearing and throwing papers towards the chair, causing grave disorder.

1:23 pm: Not just merger but re-alignment and new financial arrangement will be done. HPCL will become ONGC subsidiary: Union minister D Pradhan on HPCL merger.

1 pm: Rajya Sabha is adjourned till 2 pm.

12:46 pm: Lok Sabha is adjourned till 2 PM as Opposition creates noisy scenes over lynchings by cow vigilantes.

12.45 pm: SAD MP Prem Singh Chandumajra raises the issue to missing Indians in Mosul and demands clarification on the matter. Lok Sabha speaker says external affairs Sushma Swaraj to give statement at 5 pm.

12.30 pm: Union water resources minister Uma Bharti speaks in the Rajya Sabha on cleaning of rivers and rejuvenation of the Ganga.
Parliament on Monday passed a bill that seeks to consolidate the existing laws on jurisdiction of courts on civil admiralty matters, or cases of maritime accidents or contracts related to maritime commerce, proceedings on maritime claims, and seizure of ships with the Rajya Sabha assenting to the legislation.

The Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017 , moved by Minister of State for Shipping Mansukh Lal Mandaviya, repeals laws such as the Admiralty Court Act, 1861 and the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890.

It has already been passed by the Lok Sabha.

The jurisdiction with respect to maritime claims under the Bill will vest with the respective High Courts and will extend up to the territorial waters of their respective jurisdictions. The bill also provides for central government extending their jurisdiction.

Currently admiralty jurisdiction applies to the Bombay, Calcutta and Madras High Courts and the bill further extends this to the Karnataka, Gujarat, Odisha, Kerala, Hyderabad High Courts and any other High Court notified by the central government.

The high courts may exercise jurisdiction on maritime claims arising out of disputes regarding ownership of a vessel, disputes between co-owners of a vessel regarding employment or earnings of the vessel, construction, repair, or conversion of the vessel, disputes arising out of the sale of a vessel and environmental damage caused by the vessel, among other things.

While determining maritime claims under the specified conditions, the courts may settle any outstanding accounts between parties with regard to the vessel. They may also direct that the vessel or a share of it be sold. With regard to a sale, courts may determine the title to the proceeds of such sale.

Any judgments made by a single judge of a high court can be appealed against to a division bench of the high court concerned.

The Supreme Court may, on application by any party, transfer an admiralty proceeding at any stage from one high court to any other high court.
On the last day of Pranab Mukherjees presidency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised him for his guidance and said that the President helped him understand issues.

Modi said he felt fortunate that he could meet and freely talk with Mukherjee any time. He listened to me patiently. He gave suggestions when required, but mostly encouraged me like a fatherly figure. He helped me a lot in understanding issues and thats why we could do many important work, Modi said at a function to felicitate the outgoing President.

Modi maintained that even as the President embarked upon a new innings, Mukherjees experience and wisdom were assets that would continue to guide the Prime Minister in future.

Modi acknowledged that even as the two leaders came from different backgroundreferring to Mukherjees time with the Congressthey gelled well. I have seen his work and personality. In these three years, I saw another side of Pranab da. He was in the government for so many years. But he never compared my governments decision with the past or evaluated this governments decision in the light of what happened earlier, Modi added.

In one of his earlier speeches at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Modi had choked with emotion when he described how Mukherjee had held his hand and helped him set up in Delhi. On Monday, Modi spoke about how Mukherjee moulded him .

Praising Mukherjees work to restore Rashtrapati Bhavan to its old glory, Modi said He made Rashtrapati Bhavan into Lok Bhaban because Pranab da is attached to people and the ground. He didnt need to read books to understand the pulse of the people.

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Pranab Mukherjee is addressing the nation on his last day as the President.

In his farewell speech on Sunday, Mukherjee hailed Indias democracy and Parliament in particular, and urged lawmakers to debate, discuss and dissent.

Mukherjee, the 13th President of India, will leave the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Tuesday when his successor Ram Nath Kovind is sworn in.

Mukherjee expressed concern over the declining amount of time spent in lawmaking, saying Parliament should adequately scrutinise and debate laws before they are enacted.

In addition to disruptions, the President spoke out about Ordinances in particular, calling it a tool that should be used only in compelling circumstances.

Follow Live updates of the Presidents speech here:

* When I speak to you tomorrow, it will be as a citizen a pilgrim like all of you in Indias onward march towards glory.

We extended our experience to a few villages in the neighbourhood #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

* During my five years in Rashtrapati Bhavan, we tried to build a humane and happy township

* Social inclusion would ensure access to the fruits of progress to all.

Eradication of poverty would provide a strong boost to happiness #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

* We must empower the poorest of the poor and ensure that the fruits of our policies reach the last person in the line.

* For us, creation of an inclusive society has to be an article of faith.

* Creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper have to be promoted in our institutions of higher learning.

* Our universities should not be a place for rote-memorizing but an assembly of inquisitive minds.

A reordering of society is possible through the transformative power of education #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

* As I had said on assuming Office of the President, education is the alchemy that can take India to its next golden age.

* Power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society.

* Only a non-violent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people in the democratic process.

* We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal.

* The capacity for compassion and empathy is the true foundation of our civilization.

* Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away.

* But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion.

* There are divergent strands in public discourse; we may argue, we may agree or we may not agree.

* We derive our strength from tolerance; it has been part of our collective consciousness for centuries.

The multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

* Plurality of our society has come about through assimilation of ideas over centuries.

* My temple has been the Parliament of India and my passion has been the service of the people of India.

* For the past fifty years of my public life my sacred text has been the Constitution of India.

* Each day of these five years, I was conscious of my responsibility. How successful I was in discharging my responsibilities will be judged, over time, by the critical lens of history.

5 years ago, when I took the oath of office of President, I promised to preserve, protect & defend our Constitution #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

* For development to be real, the poorest of the land must feel that they are a part of the nations narrative.

* I have received much more from the country than I have given; for that, I will remain ever indebted to people of India.

* I am overwhelmed by a deep sense of gratitude for the people of India for the trust & confidence they reposed in me.
President Pranab Mukherjee will address the nation on Monday, his last day as the President, a communique from Rashtrapati Bhavan said.

The address will be broadcast from 7:30 pm on the national network of All India Radio (AIR) and telecast over all channels of Doordarshan in English, followed by Hindi versions, it said.

Broadcast of the address in English and Hindi on Doordarshan will be followed by broadcast in regional languages by Doordarshans regional channels.

In a grand ceremony on Sunday, Mukherjee delivered an emotional farewell speech at the Central Hall where he hailed Indias democracy and Parliament in particular, and urged lawmakers to debate, discuss and dissent but not disrupt. (Presidents speech: Full text)
Outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee sent a message to both government and Opposition on Sunday on how ordinance route should be used only in compelling circumstances and passing bills without discussion was a breach of the peoples trust.

Mukherjee, the 13th President of India, hailed Indias democracy and Parliament in his farewell speech at the Central Hall in New Delhi on Sunday. Here are excerpts from his farewell speech:

It will be with a tinge of sadness and a rainbow of memories that I will be leaving this building today... I leave with a sense of fulfilment and happiness of having served the country

Parliament: Realised how disruption hurts the opposition more than the government as it denies them the opportunity to raise the concerns of the people

Legislation: When Parliament fails to discharge its lawmaking role or enacts laws without discussion, I feel it breaches the trust reposed in it by the people of this great country

Indira Gandhi and Emergency: The first question that was flung at her was, What have been your gains from the Emergency? Looking at the journalist squarely in the eye, Indira Gandhi replied, In those 21 months, we comprehensively managed to alienate all sections of Indian people. I learnt an early lesson of acknowledging my mistakes and rectifying them. Self-correction in such situations is always a better option than self-justification

Indias diversity: Not a single part of this vast territory of 3.3 million square kilometers of landmass and islands is unrepresented in the Parliament. Each of the 788 voices of MPs is important

Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Ill carry with me fond memories of association with PM Narendra Modi and remember his warm behaviour towards me
After announcing free phones, Reliance Jio now wants to provide free Wi-Fi to three crore college students across the country.

According to sources in the government, the company has submitted a proposal in this regard to the human resource development (HRD) ministry.

Sources further said that the proposal is being examined by the ministry and a final decision is yet to be taken. However, officials said any such proposal will have to go through a transparent tender process.

On the list for free wi-fi Delhi University Banaras Hindu University Aligarh Muslim University Jamia Milia Islamia University Central University, Himachal Pradesh Central University, South Bihar Central University, Jammu

Last month, a proposal was received by the ministry in which Reliance Jio expressed a desire to connect close to 38,000 colleges (technical and non-technical) under the HRD ministry across India by deploying free Wi-Fi connectivity.

Through this free access to Wi-Fi, all students will be able to get internet connection and use educational resources such as online courses available on SWAYAM platform through the National Knowledge Network. The company plans to create hotspots for this, a source said.

This is the first time the ministry has received a proposal of this kind from a telecom service provider. The government, therefore, wants to ensure other providers have a fair chance.

Though they (Reliance) are not charging us any money for this project, we cant approve it without giving a fair chance to others. A tender will be floated so that it is a fair and transparent process, added the source.

Reliance Jio had last month made a presentation before the ministry regarding its plans.

When contacted by HT, Jios representatives refused to comment on the issue.

Significantly, even the HRD ministrys proposal to provide free Wi-Fi to central universities, which has been in the pipeline for quite some time, is also likely to take off this year. HRD minister Prakash Javadekar had recently announced that 38 universities would be made Wi-Fi enabled by August 31 this year.

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The rival factions of the ruling AIADMK on Monday approached the Centre over the issue of exempting Tamil Nadu from the National Entrance Cum Eligibility Test (NEET).

While a group of state ministers accompanied by senior leader M Thambidurai called on Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi, rebel AIADMK leader and former chief minister O Panneerselvam met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital on the issue.

The state ministers called on Singh days after some of their colleagues, including Health Minister C Vijayabaskar, met Modi and some other Union ministers on the same issue.

On Thursday, the ministerial delegation had submitted a memorandum to Modi, seeking presidential nod for two bills passed recently by the state assembly and now pending with the Centre.

The bills pave way for the continuation of undergraduate medical admissions on the basis of Class 12 marks, exempting Tamil Nadu from the ambit of the NEET.

On Monday, Singh assured to favourably look into Tamil Nadus demand, an official release said.

The state was represented by a delegation of six ministers, including P Thangamani (Electricity), D Jayakumar (Finance) and Law Minister C V Shanmugam.

The meeting was part of the state governments assurance to exert pressure on the Centre on its demand for exempting the state from NEET.

The Tamil Nadu team also met Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan on NEET.

Meanwhile, Panneerselvam met Modi and took up the demand of exemption of the state from the NEET.

Accompanied by senior party leaders, including some MPs of his camp, Panneerselvam also apprised the prime minister of the difficulties to locals at Kathiramangalam (Thanjavur) and Neduvasal (Puthukottai) due to the hydrocarbon projects there, a release said.

He sought steps without affecting people there, it added.
On a day that saw the RJD going hammer and tongs against its junior Grand Alliance partner, the JD (U), and questioned its zero tolerance policy on corruption, the silence in the JD (U) camp kept everybody guessing whether it was a sign of a softening of its stance, or a lull before an impending storm.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar spent the better part of the day confabulating on the future course of action with close confidants, including party state president Bashistha Narayan Singh, ministers, Lallan Singh and Bijendra Prasad Yadav, the latter known to be a Sharad Yadav camp follower, before he left for Delhi in the evening.

Kumar, also the JD (U) national president, is likely to meet AICC chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday before taking a final call on the ruling alliance imbroglio, caused by his party's demand that the RJD come clean on the CBIs corruption charge on deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and the RJD keeping quiet on the issue.

The JD (U) chief will be attending the swearing in of President Ram Nath Kovind to whom the party had extended support, triggering a war of words with the other two GA partners.

The subsequent CBI FIR against RJD chief Lalu Prasad, Rabri Devi and deputy CM Tejashwi , in the land for railways hotels case from the time Prasad was railways minister (2004-09), has widened the rift with the JD (U) demanding a point-to-point public rebuttal of the CBI charges, or Tejashwis resignation.

But, with former JD (U) president Sharad Yadav openly taking position that the continuation and expansion of GA was more important than deputy CMs resignation, on the back of Congresss emphasis on crisis management, the situation has taken an uneasy turn.

The JD (U) unease was evident on Monday, when state president Basistha called a meeting of all the party spokespersons to ask them to exercise discretion in issuing statements to prevent the already tenuous GA relations from hurtling towards the point of no return.

And, if the silence of party mouthpieces was any indication, it was clear that they will abide by party diktat, despite the provocative and challenging voices from former RJD Union ministersRaghuvansh Prasad Singh and Md Taslimuddin.

The RJD leaders, while questioning JD (U)s commitment to zero policy on corruption in wake of rampant corruption in state and central government offices, also dumped the responsibility of saving the GA at the doors of its leader Nitish Kumar.

Even if there is going to be a compromise, it will not be without a price. The Congress, in the role of mediator, will also have to take a call on one of its chief ministers (facing corruption cases), before prevailing on the RJD to scale down it no resignation stance on Tejashwi, said party insider. Kumar is not on shallow ground, he added.

Those who know Kumar fear the unexpected silence in JD (U) camp may just be the sign of a lull before the storm.

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The RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, headed by Dina Nath Batra, has sent a list of recommendations to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) demanding a host of changes in its baseless and biased textbooks, the Indian Express reported on Monday.

The Express said the Nyas asked the NCERT to remove English, Urdu, and Arabic words, a poem by the revolutionary poet Pash and a couplet by Mirza Ghalib, the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore, extracts from painter MF Husains autobiography

In the five-page list, it also asked references to the Mughal emperors as benevolent, the BJP as a Hindu party, the National Conference as secular, an apology tendered by former prime minister Manmohan Singh over the 1984 riots, and a sentence that nearly 2,000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat in 2002 to be removed, the newspaper reported.

The Nyas has also attached pages from several NCERT textbooks, with the portions that it wants removed marked and underlined, it said.

It has objected to the facts that the Class 11 political science textbook mentions the massive majority of Congress in 1984 but does not present the 1977 election details, the Class 12 political science textbook terms National Conference of J&K a secular organisation, and the Class 10 English textbook places nationalism against other ideals as an attempt has been made to show a rift between nationality and humanity by citing thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore.

The Nyas wants that the Hindi textbooks must mention that the medieval Sufi mystic Amir Khusrau increased the rift between Hindus and Muslims.

Several things (in these books) are baseless, biased. There is an attempt to insult members of a community. There is also an appeasement  How can you inspire children by teaching them about riots? The history of valour, of great personalities like Shivaji, Maharana Pratap, Vivekananda and Subhas Chandra Bose find no place, Atul Kothari, secretary of the Nyas and a veteran RSS worker, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

We have found these things objectionable and have sent suggestions to the NCERT. We hope that these will be implemented, Kothari told the newspaper.

Earlier, the Nyas ran a campaign demanding the removal of AK Ramanujans essay Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation from the undergraduate syllabus of the University of Delhi and went to court demanding that Wendy Donigers The Hindus not be sold in India.

Ramanujans essay was removed from DUs reading list, and Penguin India, the publisher of Donigers book, pulled it from circulation.

In 2014, thousands of government schools in Gujarat were given six textbooks written by Batra as supplementary literature that claimed cars were invented in ancient India and told children to draw an enlarged nation to include countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a PIL filed by an NGO seeking an order to investigate and prosecute various people for a clutch of offences including the massacre of over 700 Kashmiri Pandits between 1989 and 1990, saying it was too late.

Dismissing the PIL filed by an NGO, Roots in Kashmir, the court said its heart wrenching but you should have moved the court 27 years ago. The organisation has alleged that 215 FIRs had been lodged relating to the murder of over 700 Kashmiri Pandits.

The plea had also sought a probe and prosecution of various persons, including separatist leader Yasin Malik, for the murders of Kashmiri Pandits during the height of militancy in the Valley in 1989-90.

The PIL filed this year by the NGO on behalf of displaced Kashmiri Pandit youth had sought reinvestigations in criminal cases and transfer of these cases outside the state.

The PIL also contended that none of the murder case has reached a logical conclusion.

A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said that almost 27 years have passed and it will be very difficult to gather evidences in cases of murder, arson and looting which had led to mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley.

You (petitioner) sat over it for last 27 years. Now tell us from where the evidence will come, the bench said.

The counsel for the NGO Vikas Padora said Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes in the Valley and could not join the investigation. While he conceded that here has been a delay, he also said neither the Centre nor the state government nor the judiciary took adequate note of it to do the needful.

(With agency input)
Himachal Pradesh Congress chief Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu sought report from district units on public outrage that spilled across the state following the death of an accused in police custody, as few legislators have been critical about governments handling of the situation.

Not only public but legislators too have made representation go the party complaining about the way things were handled after the rape and murder of the girl, Sukhu said.

A detailed report on handling of the issue would be sent to Congress high command for consideration, he added.

Chief minister Virbhadra Singhs coterie comprises all hired and fired people. The situation worsened after the death of Nepalese accused in police custody, said a Congress legislator who made a representation to Sukhu.

The state government is under sharp criticism from its own partymen. Congress fire brand leader, transport and technical education minister GS Bali had termed the case a blemish on the state.

DC MEETS NEPALESE IN SHIMLA

Meanwhile, Shimla deputy commissioner (DC) Rohan Chand Thakur and new district police chief Soumya Sambhavasin met Nepali Ekta Manch and Akhil Bharatiya Nepali Ekta Samaj on Sunday. Nepalese leaders demanded from the DC to ensure that Surajs body is handed over to them for cremation. They also sought compensation for Surajs wife Mamta. We met the representatives and listened to their demands, which would be met in course of time, Thakur said.

The association also demanded accessibility to Mamta, who is lodged in women shelter at Mashobra. Now CBI has stepped in and we are confident of impartial probe, said Jokgha Ram, president of Nepali Ekta Manch.
The Chinese military on Monday asked India not to harbour any illusions about its resolve to protect Chinas sovereignty, the latest warning to come from Beijing on the Doklam border standoff that is in its second month.

The Peoples Liberation Army, the worlds largest armed force, said its capability to protect Chinas territory was indomitable and it was ready to step up deployment on the plateau, which is close to Indias northeastern state of Sikkim.

The willingness and resolve of China to defend its sovereignty is indomitable and we will safeguard our sovereignty whatever the cost, defence ministry spokesman and deputy director-general of information office Col Wu Qian said in response to a question on the border row on Monday.

Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the Peoples Liberation Army is hard, he said, adding Chinese troops had undertaken emergency response measures and would step up deployment and drills in the area.

The Chinese border troops have undertaken emergency response measures in the area and will further step up deployment and training in response to this situation, Wu said.

Border guards of the two countries are locked in a standoff since June 16, with China accusing India of trespass and preventing its soldiers from building a road.

Bhutan and India maintain that Doklam, or Donglang as the Chinese call it, is a Bhutanese territory.

The withdrawal of Indian soldiers was a precondition for resolving the situation, he said. India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions, Wu said.

India has said China should withdraw troops from the trijunction for the two sides to talk. New Delhi also says the road, if built, will have serious security implications for India.

Donglang was Chinese territory and building a road on its territory was an act of sovereignty, Wu said.

The crossing of the mutually recognised international border by India is a serious violation of Chinas territory and runs against international law, he said.

China strongly urged India to withdraw its troops and take concrete measures to correct its errors and put an end to its provocative acts to maintain peace in border areas.

Wu was speaking at a specially convened briefing to mark the 90the anniversary of the PLA on August 1.

The anniversary could be the reason for Chinas unusually aggressive and often provocative statements on the standoff  Beijing wants the armed forces to be seen as a strong unit working under the Communist Party of China, which holds its 19th congress this year.

The history of the PLA of past 90 years has proven our resolve to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, and our capability and resolve are indomitable, Wu said.

The PLA has been flexing muscles to coincide with the impasse, conducting large-scale military exercises, including live-fire drills, in Tibet close to the Indian frontier.

(with agency inputs)
The Supreme Court has asked Chandigarhs Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research to examine a 10-year-old rape victim to ascertain if her 30-week-old pregnancy can be terminated.

A bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar also asked member secretary of the state legal services authority to assist the panel in the examination to be held on Wednesday.

The panel will affirm one way or the other whether health of the girl concerned and the child would be adversely affected if the pregnancy is allowed to be full term, the bench said, fixing Friday for the next hearing.

India has a 20-week legal ceiling on abortion. The pregnancy termination law allows a woman to abort but only after doctors confirm it is necessary to save the mothers life.

Seeking permission for abortion, advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava told the court that doctors were of the view that the pelvic bones of the girl were not fully developed and a full-term pregnancy at this tender age is very risky.

The girl, who hails from Chandigarh, was repeatedly raped by her uncle, Alok Srivastava told the court.

The case has left many medical experts dumbfounded as they have rarely found a girl getting pregnant at such a tender age, he said.

Her parents were poor and had approached the Chandigarh district court for permission to terminate the pregnancy. On July 18, the court dismissed the plea, citing the 20-week ceiling.

The girl was allegedly raped over seven months. Her parents got to know of it when they took her to a doctor after she complained of a stomach pain.

Srivastava quoted a gynaecologist and a member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to argue that the pregnancy girl should be terminated to save the girls life.

The Supreme Court has been receiving a string of petitions, including from rape victims, to terminate pregnancies that have gone beyond 20 weeks. Some mothers with underdeveloped or malformed foetuses have also challenged the abortion ceiling.

The court has referred these cases to medical experts before pronouncing its orders.

Recently, the court gave a 10-year-old rape victim from Haryana the permission to abort.

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The BJP on Monday sought to corner the Congress over the Bofors issue, saying there should be a proper investigation into the arms deal, and the country should know the complete truth.

After BJP members raised the issue in the Lok Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar supported their demand for an inquiry, saying the issue had resurfaced and the Congress should support an investigation into it if it stood for probity in public life.

BJP MPs Meenakshi Lekhi and Nishikant Dubey had raised the issue in the House.

Quoting Sten Lindstrom, a senior Swedish officer who had probed the alleged scam involving then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Kumar said he had spoken about a huge amount of evidence that had been handed over to India and that the scale of bribery in the deal could be bigger than earlier thought.

He has said that the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was involved in this. There must be a thorough probe. The country should know the complete truth, the minister told reporters.

Kumar declined to answer a question on whether his government would order a probe.

He said the Congress should not run away from the matter which involved national security.

The 1986 deal between India and Sweden for Howitzer field guns was mired in controversy over allegations of kickbacks being paid to Indian politicians and others.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has kicked up a row with his reported remark that he would hang officials upside down if there were delays in clearing routine revenue matters.

Chouhan purportedly made the controversial statement while addressing a meeting of the BJPs state executive committee here on Saturday.

The chief minister he would hang officials upside down if he found that revenue matters not under dispute were pending for more than a month.

He made the remark when a party leader from Bundelkhand region raised the issue of revenue matters pending for long, and sought Chouhans intervention to cut delays.

While the Congress slammed Chouhan for using harsh words to warn officers, BJP leaders neither confirmed nor denied the statement though they maintained the CM talked about taking tough action against officials who delay clearing files without any valid reason.

The chief minister is serious about farmers issues. He talked about taking tough action against those who delay disposal of revenue cases of farmers, state BJP spokesman Rajnish Agarwal told PTI when asked about Chouhans controversial remark.

The opposition Congress accused Chouhan of shifting the blame for his governments failures to bureaucrats.

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a statement that the chief ministers strong words against officials showed his desperation.

There is rampant corruption in the revenue and agriculture departments. Farmers are in trouble because of the wrong policies of the BJP government, but the CM is trying to escape responsibility and blame officials for the current state of affairs, said the Lok Sabha MP from Guna.

Some officials have been working with Chouhan for the the past 11 years. The CM is now blaming them for his failures as his support base is shrinking after the farmers agitation last month, Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh told reporters.
The Rajasthan government has requested the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to build a separate terminal in the form of an annexe at the Jaipur airport for VIP movement.

At present, the state aircraft carrying VIPs, including the chief minister and the governor, is operated from the state hangar.

However, this demand is contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modis move to end VIP culture in the country. After putting a ban on the use of red beacons recently, the PM had said that move is aimed at removing VIP culture and replacing with a concept that Every Person is Important (EPI).

There is a state hangar but its too small. Acting on a government request, AAI has offered 2.5-acre land for the proposed annexe, but the government is yet to respond, airport director J S Balhara told HT.

According to an AAI official, the VVIPs need a separate entry and exit due to ensure their security and this is not a case special to Jaipur but there are similar arrangements at some other state capitals like Lucknow. The separate entry and exit also prevent regular travellers from any inconvenience or delay due to security protocol, the official said.

The AAI has asked for additional land in exchange. We are in talks with the government for allocation of 14 acres of land to expand the facilities at the airport, so the 2.5-acre land that we propose to allocate will also be adjusted against the land parcel, he said.

The proposal to build an annexe for VIP movement at the airport is at a preliminary stage so no cost estimate has been done so far. However, the state government will bear the expenses for the building, he said.

In 2015-16, Jaipur airport witnessed 22,772 domestic aircraft movements, data available on the AAI website showed.

At present, other aircraft carrying VIPs and other passengers are being operated from terminal-2 of the Jaipur airport.

The AAI has also sought a cap on high rises near the airport. High-rises constructed in nearby areas pose a security threat.
Kolkata Police arrested two suspected Maoists  a man and a woman  near West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjees residence at Kalighat area of Kolkata on Monday morning.

According to a senior police officer, the two were arrested in front of Banerjees residence on Harish Chatterjee Street.

The suspected Maoists have said that they had come to surrender. They have surrendered the arms and ammunitions that they brought with them. We are interrogating them, the officer said.

During initial questioning, the duo said they are connected to Maoist groups in Bagmundi.
The kidnappers of businessman Sanjiv Gupta, who was abducted in Tundla area of Firozabad district on Saturday, have demanded Rs 100 crore ransom from his family for his safe release.

IG (public grievances) GL Meena said the ransom message was sent from Guptas mobile phone to his wife Sarika Gupta and other family members through WhatsApp on Sunday night.

Sarika informed the police on Monday.

A partner in the popular food chain, Sagar Ratna, located on National Highway-2 near Raja Ka Taal village in Firozabad, Gupta left for home in his car on Saturday evening after attending a meeting.

A senior police officer said Gupta was also a partner in educational institutions, real estate business, glass business and was also running a monthly lottery business in Firozabad and neighbouring districts.

When he did not reach home, just 2 km from the food chain outlet, his family members tried to phone him but both his mobile phones were found switched off.

Sarika and her nephew Vikalp Gupta then lodged a missing complaint. On Monday, Guptas car was found parked near a workshop on Firozabad-Aligarh border.

On Sarikas complaint, police lodged an FIR against Neeta Pandey, Pardeep Pandey and Amit Gupta who are partners of Sanjiv in the business.

There was a dispute between the partners over transaction of money, the IG said, adding that police was looking into other angles.

The Special Task Force (STF) has been roped in. Four police teams have been constituted. Raids have been conducted on hideouts of suspected kidnappers in western UP.

To dodge police, the kidnappers are regularly changing their location and using Guptas mobile to communicate with his family members. Through electronic surveillance, police traced the location of his mobile in Delhi and Chandigarh.

The police of both the states have been alerted. A police team from UP has been sent to both the locations to track the kidnappers, Meena added.
Lucknowites have openly come out in support of TCS employees who are being shifted to Noida and other centres from the Lucknow office.

NGO SUPPORT A city-based NGO, Gomti Connect also extended support to the TCS employees and promised to raise the issue at every platform. People of all age groups  children, elderly and youths  walked with Save TCS placards in their hands. The citizens said: The company has ditched the city when it was about to turn into an IT hub.

On Sunday morning, a number of citizens along with family members of TCS employees organised a march on the Riverfront road to protest the shifting of more than 2,000 employees to other centres, which would be a loss of face for the state government besides depriving city youths of jobs in the IT sector.

People of all age groups  children, elderly and youths  walked with Save TCS placards in their hands.

The citizens said Lucknow had given love and support to the company during the last 33 years, but all of a sudden the decision of transferring all employees to other places was surprising. The company has ditched the city when it was about to turn into an IT hub, they said.

Once TCS walks out, it would be difficult for the state government to get other software companies to open their offices in Lucknow . The local IT talent will have no option but to move out of the city, they lamented.

A city-based NGO, Gomti Connect also extended support to the TCS employees and promised to raise the issue at every platform.

The TCS issue has become important for the state government and local MP Rajnath Singh as the companys decision to shift operations out of Lucknow would be a big blow to his constituency.

According to reports, the home minister sought a detailed report on the shifting of TCS and the efforts of the state government to stop the company from going ahead with its decision to shift operations to Noida.

Read more: TCS employees hold candle light protest in Lucknow

During the Samajwadi party regime, IT city was developed here with an investment of Rs 1,500 crore by HCL. But after 100 days of BJP government, TCS  which was here for the last 33 years  decided to move out.

Reports about TCS shifting out of Lucknow came when the Yogi Adityanath government announced its new industrial policy. It was at the behest of chief minister that employment was added in the title before the state cabinet approved Uttar Pradesh Industrial Investment and Employment Promotion Policy, 2017.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, who resigned from the Rajya Sabha for not being allowed to speak on Dalit atrocities, will address party workers at divisional conferences from September 18 onwards to rally the scheduled castes, her core vote bank, around her party which has been suffering electoral reverses since 2012.

Mayawati, who directed the party leaders to highlight the anti-people policies of the NDA government, said at a party meeting in New Delhi on Sunday: Dalits, minorities, farmers, traders and labourers are harassed by the BJP governments at the Centre and the state.

The party plans to hold meetings on the 18th of every month as Mayawati resigned from Rajya Sabha on July 18. Mayawati will attend these meetings to remind people about her sacrifice.

Later, the BSP will organise workers conferences in the assembly constituencies. These conferences at the divisional level and in assembly segments are likely to continue till next year. The BSP will also organise demonstrations on public issues in UP and other states.

 To safeguard the rights of the Dalits and poor I resigned from the Rajya Sabha on July 18. Now I have decided to launch a countrywide agitation against the NDA, she said at the meeting where party leaders from UP and other states were called.

A senior BSP leader said, Behanji (Mayawati) will gear up the party for the Lok Sabha election by organising workers conference across the state. The BSP has decided to change its strategy to take on the NDA. Earlier behanji used to address big rallies in which supporters of over a dozen assembly constituencies were mobilized. Now, she plans to take the fight to the division and assembly segments.

Mayawati will also launch her partys election campaign in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where assembly polls will be held at the end of the year and early next year.

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Suspected Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT) operative Salim Khan, who was arrested from Mumbai airport on July 17 and brought to Lucknow on Friday, had met LeT top commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhavi during his visit to Pakistan occupied Kashmir in 2007 and was in constant touch with him since then.

Inspector General of Police (IGP) of UP Anti Terror Squad Asim Arun said Khan revealed during interrogation that he first met Lakhvi, who is on the most wanted list of National Investigation Agency (NIA), when ISI arranged his training at a terror camp in Muzaffarabad of Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Arun said Khan, who is resident of UPs Fatehpur district, was inducted in the LeT group by ISI as its agents when he worked at a coffee shop in Saudi Arabia around 10 years ago.

Khan met two LeT men Kaushar and Sharif at the coffee shop and they arranged his meeting with an ISI agent, who arranged his visit to Pakistan, Arun said adding another ISI man Mohd Ahmad helped Khan to come out of Pakistan airport after reaching there and took him to LeT terror camp in the mountain areas of Muzaffarabad.

Arun said Khan was suspected to be in constant touch with Lakhvi and ISI since then. He said he along with Kaushar and Sharif was also involved in the terror attack on CRPF camp in Rampur on January 1, 2008. Khan was on the ATS radar ever since Kaushar and Sharif revealed his name after their arrest. Khan, however, managed to flee the country, Arun added.

Read more: Suspected LeT operative sent to 7-day ATS remand by court

He said Khan was living in Saudi Arabia since then and was involved in recruiting youths for ISI and LeT through his network in UP. Khan also had the responsibility to arrange finances for the ISI agents and LeT men operating in India. Khans name resurfaced recently after the arrest of another ISI agent Aftab from Faizabad on May 3.

Khan was arrested from Mumbai airport when Saudi Arabia deported him back to India. He was deported back after visa to stay there expired and was arrested for illegal stay in Saudi Arabia.
A cot kept at Terahmani Ashram in Atrauli has become a centre of attraction these days. This mammoth cot that is 20 feet wide and 24 feet long, has the capacity to accommodate 75 people at a time.

The villagers of Kaliyanpur Khera who took the initiative to build it, consider this cot as a symbol of communal harmony as all people, irrespective of their religion, caste and class, spend considerable time on this cot and share their happiness and grief here. The ashram also has a Shiva temple where a large number of villagers visit daily for worship.

Upbeat about their achievement, the villagers are now gearing up to approach the Limca Book of Records and Guinness Book of World Records so that their efforts are highlighted far and wide.

The cot weighs 6 quintals and it has been made with eucalyptus wood. The construction work started in May and it took 12 days for 11 villagers to make it and at least 10 people are needed to lift it. The villagers also shared the entire expenditure of Rs 27,000 among themselves. Around 13 kilograms of rope has been used in weaving its lower part and 12 kilograms has been used in the upper part.

The villagers got the idea of making the cot from Amritsar in Punjab. Villagers Khacheru Singh and Ramveer Singh among many others who regularly visit Amritsar as labourers, saw such a cot there and when they came back, they shared the idea with other villagers who immediately agreed to construct it here.

A villager Rashid Ali said, This cot is an example of communal harmony in our village.

Gram pradhan Manpal Singh Yadav said, The cot is a platform for villagers to show their unity. There is no caste or religious restriction here. I am sending its details to the officials of Limca Book of Records and Guinness Book for World records so that our feat doesnt go unnoticed.

The villagers who toiled hard to make it are Vijay Nath Baba, Dev Ram Singh, Khacheru Singh, Sukh Ram Singh, Hariyana Singh, Dilshad, Teg Singh, Sunil Fauji, Girraj, Kali Charan and Kishan Pal.
At a time when the report of forensic science laboratory in Lucknow on the suspicious powder found inside the UP assembly is mired in controversy, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has detected lapses in the functioning of UPs forensic laboratories.

The CAG report on the performance audit of modernisation and strengthening of the police force (2011-16), tabled in the state legislative assembly, has found there is a shortage of modern equipment in forensic science laboratories in Lucknow, Agra, Varanasi and Ghaziabad.

Under the modernisation scheme, the government released Rs 53.55 crore for the procurement of equipment but only 55% of the budget was utilised.

The forensic directorate told the CAG that most of the equipment had to be imported from foreign countries. Funds had to be surrendered as tenders could not be finalised, it said.

The directorate said tenders had been invited for two-three times for most of the equipment as suitable technical/financial bids were not received.

During physical verification of FSL at Agra, the CAG found that physics and toxicology sections were facing shortage of basic instruments like fuming hoods, hanging load system and electric furnace. The FSL at Lucknow has only one genetic analyser.

The laboratories are also facing shortage of technical manpower. The CAG found that overall shortage of technical staff (scientific assistant, senior scientific assistant, scientific officer, junior lab assistant and lab assistant) increased from 47% in 2012-13 to 67% in 2015-16. The state government said the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) has been asked to fill vacant posts.

Due to delay in examination of samples, pendency of cases hinders the working of forensic laboratories.

The number of pending cases at Lucknow, Agra and Varanasi increased from 6,617 in January 2011 to 15,052 in March 2016.

The state government informed the CAG that new laboratories and more sections had been opened in various FSLs but in the absence of manpower and dependency on old technical staff pendency of samples has increased.

The CAG observed that the improper collection of forensic science evidence was being done due to shortage of manpower and kits. Collection of forensic evidence requires expert manpower with specialised knowledge of forensic science. During scrutiny of records of FSL, the CAG detected anomalies in collection of samples.

Investigation in criminal cases gets hampered as head constables and inspectors in the state police lack expertise and specialised knowledge. The National Police Mission in its report recommended posting of crime scene officer with crime investigation kit at each police station. But the proposal has not been implemented yet, CAG said.

During investigation at Agras FSL, the CAG found that consumables stock register, dead stock register and equipment stock register were not maintained. Proper utilisation of chemicals and various consumables and their pilferage could not be ascertained in the audit.

Under the modernisation plan, regional forensic science laboratories (RFSLs) were to be opened in Moradabad, Jhansi, Gorakhpur, Allahabad and Ghaziabad in 2010.

The aim of the RFSLs was to reduce the workload of the four functional FSLs and to enhance the capacity for analysis of samples.

Even after seven years, the RFSLs are yet to become operational.

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How many times have you complained of your smartphone running out of charge? It may soon be a thing of the past. Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have developed an ultra-thin device that can power your smartphone, fitness tracker and other gadgets using human movements such as walking and waving. Based on battery technology and made from layers of black phosphorus that are only a few atoms thick, the energy harvesting system generates small amounts of electricity when it is bent or pressed even at the extremely low frequencies characteristic of human motion.

In the future, I expect that we will all become charging depots for our personal devices by pulling energy directly from our motions and the environment, said Cary Pint, assistant professor at Vanderbilt University in the US. Compared to the other approaches designed to harvest energy from human motion, the new method has two fundamental advantages, researchers said.

The materials are atomically thin and small enough to be impregnated into textiles without affecting the fabrics look or feel and it can extract energy from movements that are slower than 10 Hertz - 10 cycles per second - over the whole low-frequency window of movements corresponding to human motion, they said. Extracting usable energy from such low frequency motion has proven to be extremely challenging, said Vanderbilt doctoral student Nitin Muralidharan, who was involved in creating and testing the device.

Even fitness trackers can be charged using the device. (Shutterstock)

For example, a number of research groups are developing energy harvesters based on piezoelectric materials that convert mechanical strain into electricity. However, these materials often work best at frequencies of more than 100 Hertz. This means that they do not work for more than a tiny fraction of any human movement so they achieve limited efficiencies of less than 5-10 per cent even under optimal conditions, researchers said.

Our harvester is calculated to operate at over 25 per cent efficiency in an ideal device configuration, and most importantly harvest energy through the whole duration of even slow human motions, such as sitting or standing, Pint said. He said that one of the more futuristic applications of this technology might be electrified clothing.

It could power clothes impregnated with liquid crystal displays that allow wearers to change colours and patterns with a swipe on their smartphone. We are already measuring performance within the ballpark for the power requirement for a medium-sized low-power LCD display when scaling the performance to thickness and areas of the clothes we wear, Pint added.

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A cybercriminal posed as a bank official and cheated a 32-year-old woman from Versova of Rs49,999, said police.

The man called the 35-year-old woman at 11.15 am on Sunday, saying the bank needed to update its data following the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The fraudster asked the woman for her credit card details, saying the data update would benefit the banks customers, said an officer from the Versova police station.

After the woman gave the fraudster he details, he withdrew Rs49,999 from her account.

On getting text messages on her mobile informing her about the transaction, the woman asked the Versova police to file a FIR. The police are in the process of tracing the accuseds phone.

Despite several reminders from the police and the media, people continue to fall prey to such scams. People should never share details of their debit or credit card with anyone. A genuine bank official will never call you and ask for your details, said a cyber expert.
The Bombay high court on Monday directed the police to ensure that no minors are harmed, injured, or permitted to carry or use weapons or sharp objects, during this years Muharram procession.

The court said that while it was not oblivious to religious practices, a fine balance needed to be maintained between such practices and ensuring the safety of all participants.

The bench also directed the additional commissioner of police, south region, to personally supervise the procession this September and ensure that the courts directions are complied with.

The court was hearing a suo moto public interest litigation over the participation of children in the mourning procession during Muharram.

Shia Muslims, who participate in processions, hit themselves with sharp objects to mourn the death of Imam Hussain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad.

On the previous hearing, the bench had directed the police and state authorities to meet with the representatives of the community.

The police said that the leaders of the community had said that this year, no child will be permitted to use or carry weapons during the procession. They had said that while children cannot be barred from participating in the procession, it will be ensured that they are not injured or harmed, that they will not be permitted to inflict injuries upon themselves.

HC directed the Shia community to submit an undertaking in court stating this.

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A 36-year-old signal maintainer with the Central Railway (CR) suffered serious injuries, as a plastic bag containing a coconut and some floral waste hit him on Mumbais Vashi bridge on Monday.

An unidentified commuter threw the bag from a CST-bound train around 12.30pm. Instead of falling into the creek water, the bag hit Santosh Kadam, who was examining a railway signal in that area.

Kadam collapsed on the spot as soon as the coconut hit him in the thigh. He was taken to the station. We later rushed him to the railway hospital in Byculla and admitted him there, said Sudarshan Khurana, station of manager of Vashi railway station.

According to Khurana, Kadam would have died had the coconut hit him on his head. Apart from the signal maintainers, the technicians and other employees of our engineering department keep working along the tracks. People should think twice before throwing such things to the creek from the moving trains, he said.

People carry the flowers and fruits used in rituals at home in plastic bags and throw them close to the water while crossing the bridge. They do this as it is believed that such wastes should not be mixed with household garbage and should be thrown into flowing water like creeks and rivers.

The commuter who threw the coconut was in moving train and is yet to be identified, said a GRP official from Vashi.

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For the BJP government in Maharashtra, especially chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, the presidential election was about getting as many votes as possible for NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind.

It, however, turned out to be more than that.

Kovind got 208 votes --- at least 13 more than assured ---on the basis strength of the ruling BJP, its ally Shiv Sena as well as smaller parties and the Independents.

The repercussions will be significant.

The first and direct impact of the outcome is going to be on the Congress-NCP led Opposition. It went on the back-foot as these 13 votes came from the Opposition legislators, especially the Congress-NCP camp. This is the first time since he took over that Fadnavis has managed to show that he has a chunk of Opposition MLAs ready to help him if needed. Since 2014, when he became chief minister, Fadnavis, as well as the BJP were claiming that several Opposition MLAs were ready to cross over to the other side if needed. The outcome of the Presidential polls in Maharashtra shows that it was not a hollow threat: the Opposition is vulnerable to poaching.

The second and indirect impact will be on the relations between the BJP and the Shiv Sena. The BJP managed to get 145 votes in addition to the Senas 63. The number has significance on the assembly floor. It is the magic figure to win a simple majority in the house of 288 members. It may not mean that the BJP currently has 145 legislators on its side, but is a clear statement. Fadnavis went on record to say that the BJP-Sena alliance will complete five years in office together but he has given a signal to the Sena leadership that it is possible to run the government without the latters support and as such, the ally should not stretch matters too far.

There is yet another outcome of the elections and that matters more in the internal power equations within the BJP. Kovind got the highest votes from Maharashtra after Uttar Pradesh. This has now strengthened Fadnavis politically. After showing his election management in the civic polls, in which the BJP emerged on top, he has now shown his political management. He has reaffirmed his position as the strongest BJP leader in Maharashtra. His importance may grow at the national level now, much to the annoyance of the Nitin Gadkari camp.

Unless something major happens, he is likely to complete his tenure comfortably (And unless of course, he is given a key responsibility at the Centre which his close aides are ruling out as of now).

Of course, all is not hunky dory for Fadnavis. His challenge will be to deliver on his promises made to people which is more difficult than political management.

It is also clear now that the Opposition in Maharashtra is still a demoralised lot. If a significant number of Opposition legislators are resorting to cross-voting, it means that they are unhappy or not hopeful about better prospects with their current parties. The Opposition leaders will need a stronger strategy and lot of hard work to make their parties a formidable force to take on Fadnavis in 2019.

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In a move to ease congestion on the Western Express Highway (WEH) during evening peak hours, the traffic police have banned heavy vehicles from plying on the north-bound stretch from Bandra to Dahisar between 5pm and 9pm. While the ban is a temporary move, till the police come up with a permanent solution, it was put into effect from Monday by invoking an old government circular on restriction of heavy vehicles on highways within the city limits.

The ban will be for trucks, lorries, water tankers, container carriers as well as private buses. However, ST/BEST buses, school buses and vehicles carrying essential commodities and chartered buses  used as office drops  will be allowed to use the highway.

Massive traffic snarls on the WEH have become a common sight ever since work on the Metro-7 (Dahisar to Andheri) project began earlier this year. The situation, according to officials, has worsened after the rains arrived.

While the police have enforced the north-bound traffic restrictions in the evening on a priority basis, they plan to soon bring in a similar four-hour ban on the south-bound stretch during morning peak hours.

Amitesh Kumar, joint commissioner of police, traffic, told HT that the north-bound heavy vehicles will be stopped at the Kalanagar junction in Bandra (East) and diverted to the Eastern Express Highway via Sion. They can continue their journey using the Thane-Ghdobunder Road, said Kumar. We are in the process of notifying a comprehensive strategy for the movement of heavy vehicles in the city.

Explaining the logic behind enforcing the ban first only during evening peak hours, a source said that while regular motorists travelling from the western suburbs to south Mumbai used the highway at different points of time during the morning, the situation is different during the evening. Almost 80% of these regulars are on the highway between 5pm and 6pm and that creates unprecedented rush.

Meanwhile, Kumar said discussions are on with the Thane police to enforce a similar four-hour ban on the entry of heavy vehicles into the city in the morning. As per our plans, heavy vehicles will not be allowed from the Dahisar toll plaza during 7am and 11am, said Kumar, adding that a decision is likely to taken within a weeks time. That will ease the flow of south-bound traffic in the morning.

However, since thousands of heavy vehicles from nearby states enter the city through the Dahisar check naka on a daily basis, blocking them for four hours in the morning could create jams on the highway beyond Dahisar. We are aware of the problem. Arrangements will be made to either divert them to Thane, so that they can enter the city through Mulund by using the Eastern Express Highway, or some alternative parking arrangements would be made at Mira-Bhayandar, Kumar said.

Read more:

Heavy rain leaves Mumbai officegoers stuck in traffic for hours

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While Mumbais bikers continue to complain of shoddy roads and congestion posing a threat to their lives, the traffic police have taken it upon themselves to make the streets a little safer for their personnel. They have identified the 130 most dangerous spots in the city for traffic police and are coming up with ways to better them.

While a 36-year-old signal maintainer was admitted to a hospital after a coconut hit him on the thigh, an autorickshaw driver recuperating from a bypass jumped from the eight floor of another hospital on Monday.

1. Mumbai bikers death: Riders share experiences of near misses on shoddy roads, in traffic snarls

Bandra resident Jagruti Viraj Hogale, 34, died on Sunday after she swerved to avoid a pothole and was crushed under a truck. This prompted Mumbai riders to share their own harrowing experiences, saying poorly managed traffic and shoddy streets are all too common.

2. Days after bypass operation, autorickshaw driver jumps to death from 8th floor of Mumbai hospital

A 57-year-old autorickshaw driver killed himself around 10:30 am on Monday, days after he underwent a bypass surgery.

3. Coconut from running train hits railway staff in Mumbai

A 36-year-old signal maintainer with the Central Railway (CR) suffered serious injuries, as a plastic bag containing a coconut and some floral waste hit him on Mumbais Vashi bridge on Monday.

4. Maharashtra monsoon session starts today: 5 issues that will dominate the discussions

As the monsoon session of the state legislature takes off today, HT looks at five issues that are likely to dominate the two week long proceedings.

5. Here are 130 spots in Mumbai where traffic police are most likely to be assaulted

In August last year, traffic police head constable Vilas Shinde caught a minor who was riding a bike. The boys brother, Ahmed Mohammad Ali Qureshi, 20, reached the spot and assaulted Shinde with a wooden stick. Nine days later, Shinde died at Lilavati Hospital in Bandra (West).
Confusion prevailed on the last day of online admissions for the second round to first year junior college (FYJC) on Monday. Hundreds of students thronged the education departments office complaining that they were admitted to colleges they did not opt for, while some alleged that colleges tampered with their applications.

More than two lakh students were allotted seats during the two admission rounds conducted between July 12 and 24. The education department said that close to 80,000 students, of those alloted seats, have confirmed their admissions.

Rohan Lohar, who was allotted the college of his third preference, Adarsh Vidyamandir in Badlapur, in the first round, said the college finalised his admission without his consent. Rohan said he merely purchased the admission form from the college, but did not fill it or submit any documents because he was waiting to secure a seat in a better college in the following rounds.

But Lohar was unable to change his preferences after the first round, as his form was locked. Inquiry revealed that the Badlapur college had accepted his application and reserved a seat in his name. As per rules, colleges must admit students only after they submit the forms and original documents.

We were surprised after discovering that the college had admitted our son without our consent. Forget about documents, we didnt even submit the admission form, said Anil Lohar, Rohans father, who has escalated the issue with state education minister Vinod Tawde.

Since the college had admitted Lohar, his name did not appear in the second list. He can no longer apply for colleges in the upcoming rounds.

My son has missed out on two rounds because of the colleges mistake, said Anil. We have requested the college to cancel his admission and asked the department to include his name in the upcoming rounds. But nothing has been done so far.

Officials from the education department said they received similar complaints from several students. However, they blamed the students for buying admission forms from colleges they did not want to seek admissions at.

Colleges cannot be blamed entirely for this error, said a senior official from deputy directorate of education, Mumbai region. If students didnt want admissions, they shouldnt have approached those college. It created confusion.

The official said though colleges were wrong to admit students, they might have done it for the students benefit. Colleges have only two days to admit students allotted to them. So they might have admitted all the students who reported to them during that period so that the students do not miss out on a seat, the official added.

The other problem

Some of the help centres complained that a few schools attached to junior colleges changed students preference on their own. Schools had the students login ID and password, as they filled forms from there. They made the changes to their forms so that the students were allotted their colleges, said an official from Nysa Asia, technical partner for admissions.

However, officials said it is impossible to tamper with forms without students knowledge. The preferences are changed only after a student submits a print out of the form and gets it stamped from the department, said Rajendra Ahire, assistant deputy director of education. The department is probing into these allegations.

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The Bombay high court on Monday refused to stay the release of filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkars Indu Sarkar, a film based on the Emergency period.

The film is scheduled to release on Friday. A Gurgaon-based woman, Priya Singh Paul, who claims to be the biological daughter of the late prime minister Indira Gandhis son Sanjay, had sought a stay, claiming the content of the film was defamatory towards her father. Paul, in her plea filed through advocate Tanveer Nizam, demanded that 30% of the film, which Bhandarkar said was derived from facts and real incidents, be identified and deleted.

A bench of justice Anoop V Mohta and Anuja Prabhudessai dismissed the petition on grounds that the Central Board of Film Certification had cleared it. The bench questioned Pauls plea, saying mere oral claims of being Sanjay Gandhis daughter, were not adequate. Such claims of relationship, unless adjudicated finally by an appropriate forum, cannot be accepted as valid, the bench said.

Read: Sanjay Gandhis daughter sends legal notice to Indu Sarkar director Madhur Bhandarkar

The HC said none of the acknowledged or legal descendants of the Gandhi family had opposed the release of the film.

Advocate Binod Saraf, lawyer for the films makers and producers, said despite announcing the release date in May and launching the trailer in June, Paul filed the plea only a week before its release. He said the film-maker had agreed to a disclaimer declaring even though the film was inspired by the Emergency, its characters were fictionalised.

Bhandarkars lawyer said the film had incorporated the 12 cuts and revisions ordered by the CBFC to get the U/A certificate for its release.

The CBFC counsel submitted the board had no objections to the films release.

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In August last year, traffic police head constable Vilas Shinde caught a minor who was riding a bike. The boys brother, Ahmed Mohammad Ali Qureshi, 20, reached the spot and assaulted Shinde with a wooden stick. Nine days later, Shinde died at Lilavati Hospital in Bandra (West).

The murder brought to light just how perilous the job of a traffic police constable is. But, it has still not stopped citizens from picking fights with them, verbally abusing and threatening to assault them.

This prompted the traffic police to undertake a survey, which helped them identify 130 vulnerable spots in the city, where on-duty officers are most unsafe.

These spots are where drivers are most likely to argue and manhandle traffic policemen, said Amitesh Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic).

Police under attack In October 2016,a traffic police constable was allegedly assaulted by a biker near Juhu Chowpatty. Rakesh Garud, 45, attached to the Vakola traffic division, fought with 23-year-old Amit Rajput, who was stopped near a barricade for a routine check. Garud suffered injuries to his face and back after Rajput hit him. In September 2016, a woman police constable at Vile Parle was allegedly slapped and kicked by a woman who she stopped for riding without a helmet. The police also arrested the womans brother for verbally abusing the constable. In June 2015, a traffic police constable was assaulted by a group of four men after he tried to intervene in a fight among them in Malad (West).

One of these spots is at Yari Road in Andheri (West), where traffic constable Nitin Rathod was assaulted on Friday. Rathod asked a tempo driver taking a U-turn to stop as there were barricades ahead. The driver, Nanku Kalluram Yadav, refused to listen. When Rathod demanded he stop, Yadav got out of the vehicle and started assaulting him. A passerby helped Rathod nab Yadav before he fled. Yadav was arrested and remanded in police custody on Saturday.

Rathod is just one of many constables who have been subjected to assault by errant drivers who refuse to be penalised for breaking traffic rules.

Now, the police will equip their constables with body WiFi-enabled cameras. We plan to buy 100 cameras on a trial basis, added Kumar. These cameras will be attached to the constables uniform and will record every conversation they have with motorists. These will serve as evidence in case of an altercation.
A day after a split between the opposition parties ahead of the monsoon session, Congress and Nationalist Congress Party decided to bury the hatchet and proposed to hold a congratulatory motion on three separate days to felicitate their leaders on their parliamentary careers.

The motion will recognize the contribution of NCP chief Sharad Pawar on August 5, while a tribute to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi will be paid on August 9  August Kranti day. The motion will also praise the contribution of other dignitaries, including Deendayal Upadhyay, Nanasaheb Deshmukh and Balaseheb Desai, on August 10.

After the NCP boycotted the joint meeting of the opposition parties to chalk out a strategy for the session, and held a press meet separately on Sunday, bringing the split to the fore. This helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led governments confidence, which had seemingly taken a beating with the current agrarian crisis and alleged financial irregularities in housing schemes. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had ridiculed the Opposition saying that it was the first instance in history that the opposition was holding two separate press conferences.

NCP had insisted that Pawars name be kept first in the motion, while Congress had given a letter to the state legislature urging it to follow protocol and put Indira Gandhis name up front as she was Prime Minister for 11 years.

However, on the first day of the monsoon session on Monday, both the opposition parties came with a fresh solution. After a round of the meetings between senior leaders from both parties, the chairman of the legislative council, Speaker of the Assembly and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, the decision to hold the motion obn three different days was taken.

The opposition has decided to put up a united front in the state legislature from Tuesday to corner the government over the loan waiver. The ruling party is moving a motion to congratulate the government for announcing the loan waiver. We will corner it over poor handling of the agrarian crisis, said a Congress leader.

In a joint press briefing by Congress and NCP leaders Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Dhananjy Munde and Sunil Tatkare, the parties said that they had differences but no dispute. We amicably resolved it. There was no need of the ruling partys intervention, Vikhe Patil said.

NCP leaders, however, said that they had succeeded in keeping their leader Sharad Pawars name first for the felicitation. Members of both parties fought over which of their leaders should be named first in the congratulatory motion, slated to be introduced in the state legislature on August 5. The motion is scheduled to be moved to praise the parliamentary contribution of the leaders from various parties.

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Officials of the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) found flyers smuggling gold in toothpaste tubes, embroidered in fabrics and stitched into jeans pockets this weekend.

In separate cases, authorities intercepted three people, including a Dubai-based salesman, and seized gold collectively worth Rs36.12 lakh.

Altaf Husain Gulam Shabbir, holding an Indian passport, was intercepted on his arrival from Dubai. We recovered four gold chains worth at Rs7 lakh after searching Shabbirs baggage. The jewellery was hidden in four tubes of toothpaste, said a high-ranking AIU officer.

In another case, Kandathil Mohamed Rafi, 26, holding an Indian passport, arrived from Dubai when he was intercepted.

A search of his checked-in baggage found gold wires coated with copper weighing 587 grams worth Rs17.32 lakh. They wires were stitched into embroidered fabrics. Investigations revealed that Rafi is a native of Kasaragod in Kerala and works as salesman in Dubai.

Faisal Farukhbhai Paliwala, 29, an Ahmedabad resident, was stopped and checked on suspicion. The searches revealed that Paliwala was carrying four gold bars worth Rs11.80 lakh which were concealed in pockets stitched inside the waistband of the jeans he was wearing.

The three were not arrested as each of the seized items was less than Rs20 lakh.

Suspicious flyers at the busy international airport are checked based on passenger profiling but smugglers look for innovative methods to dodge the authorities.

Sources said the accused are at times carriers who are paid a commission by smugglers.

The carriers, who are mostly lured by easy money, are told that the hidden goods will not be detected.

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The driver of the truck that crushed Mumbai biker Jagruti Viraj Hogale on the Jawhar-Dahanu highway on Sunday was arrested for negligent driving.

Hogale was leading a group of bikers to Jawhar for a weekend getaway. Around 9am, she tried to overtake the truck near the Vaiti village and swerved her motorcycle to avoid a pothole when she was crushed by the truck. By the time Hogales friends, who were behind here, reached her, she was dead.

READ: Woman biker who died on potholed road charged with negligence, debate rages

The driver, Vijay Yadav, 35, was arrested for negligent and rash driving, and was produced before a Dahanu court on Monday afternoon,said a Kasa police official.

The police said the truck was loaded with iron materials. The police said they seized the truck and are probing the accident.

After the accident on Sunday, the police charged Hogale for negligent driving, saying she should have shown better judgement.
Jagruti Viraj Hogale, 34, was killed on Sunday after she swerved to avoid a pothole on the Jawhar-Dahanu highway and got crushed under the rear wheel of a truck she had overtaken.

Hogale was a member of the Bikerni Motorcycle Club  Indias first all-female motorcycle group, which was started in 2011. One of the groups most active members, she had made trips to Leh and Ladakh.

She and two other women were heading from Bandra to Jawhar, a popular tourist spot know for its waterfalls, on a weekend getaway when the accident occurred, said police.

Several biking groups took to social media to express their sorrow at her death. Many who had met her on expeditions or treks described her as bubbly and energetic.

Calcutta Riders Fraternity called her an inspiration, saying her efforts had promoted biking among women across India.

Many requested fellow bikers to navigate the citys unsafe streets with caution.

Several groups blamed the civic authorities, saying action should be taken against them for the shoddy state of roads in Mumbai.

Hogale is survived by her husband Viraj and nine-year-old son Harshit.
Ten days after the civic body issued a notice to a Vailankanni grotto in Bamanwada in Chakala, the residents of the area have removed an extension built around the structure.

The decision to pull down the shelter was made in a meeting with assistant municipal commissioner Devendra Kumar Jain held on July 17.

The grotto falls under category B (illegal religious structures to be demolished or shifted). According to a 2011 Supreme Court order, if such structures are not modified or shifted, they must be demolished.

READ: Mumbai civic officials to visit six illegal shrines with residents before taking action

We realised the shed of the grotto was affecting the flow of traffic in the area. In public interest, we demolished the shelter, said Nicholas Almeida, trustee, Watchdog Foundation.

Five other holy crosses were also issued notices by the Andheri municipal office on July 15. But two days later, the Gundavali residents associations and catholics said the cross in their locality fell under category A (religious structures that cannot be demolished). They said they are willing to relocate the other four crosses and have spoken to the authorities to provide locations for these structures.

The BMC has until November 2017 to demolish illegal shrines in the city, a deadline set by the Bombay high court. While 221 shrines fall under category A, 482 other structures fall under category B. Of these, 210 have been demolished so far and 46 holy crosses were issued notices.
Attacking Byculla Jail officials, the Bombay high court said they had left no stone unturned to make the death of inmate Majula Shetye seem like an accident. It added that they were attempting to shield somebody.

On Monday, a bench of justices RM Sawant and Sadhana Jadhav took aim at the shoddy probe into Shetyes death, which the state claimed was accidental. The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Mumbaiite Pradeep Bhalekar.

On June 23, Shetye was allegedly assaulted to death by jail officials.

A fellow prisoner told the police that Shetye was brutally assaulted for complaining that two eggs and five pieces of bread were missing from the morning rations.

She said Shetye was stripped inside the barrack, after which jail staffers inserted a lathi (stick) into her private parts. Shetye was left in unconscious for a while. After a resident doctor was consulted, she was admitted to JJ Hospital, where she was declared dead.

The case was transferred to the crime branch, who arrested jailer Manisha Pokharkar, and constables Bindu Naikade, Waseema Shaikh, Shital Shegaonkar, Surekha Gulve and Aarti Shingne. The six are currently in judicial custody.

The bench said they were angered by the jailers initial record, which stated that Shetye was brought to JJ Hospital after she fell unconscious and collapsed in one of the jails bathrooms. The Nagpada police station had registered a case of accidental death based on this record.

The bench said they were even more angered by the doctor at JJ Hospital who had issued a certificate, which said no obvious external injuries were observed on Shetyes body.

By contrast, post-mortem reports revealed there were 13 to 16 contusions on the body.

The jail guards were only booked for assault after other inmates staged massive protests, and the post-mortem report revealed the extent of her injuries.

This is not about just one person, it is in the larger interest of society, the bench said.
Yuva Sena Chief Aaditya Thackeray on Monday met Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao to complain about the ongoing chaos over exam assessment in the Mumbai University and demanded resignations of state education minister Vinod Tawde and vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh.

Thackeray asked the governor to conduct an inquiry into why the university decided to opt for online assessment of papers this year, a move that has resulted in chaos and inordinate delays in paper correction.

I called the governor today to raise the issue of absolute mismanagement of the Mumbai University currently by the vice-chancellor. An inquiry must happen into why online assessment was opted for. How was the tender processed? As it has failed so badly, is it a scam? Thackeray tweeted after the meeting.

Read more: Mumbai university results to be out by second week of August

The Yuva Sena leader pointed out how just a few lakh papers have been assessed until now. With there being a hurry to meet the July 31 deadline to complete the assessment, Thackeray also raised questions over the quality of paper correction.

He said on Twitter, The Mumbai University is now without a Pro Vice Chancellor, Registrar, has an adhoc controller of examinations and is in the middle of a mess.

Finally are the Education Minister and the Vice Chancellor understanding the needs of the MU and education or must they resign?  Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) July 24, 2017

This is the first year that the Mumbai University has moved to an online assessment process, leading to major delays in the completion of assessment and announcing results of examinations held in April-May.

Read more: Lights, camera, satire: Mumbai University students voice their woes in parody video

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About 5,000 teachers logged in to assess University of Mumbai (MU) answer sheets through On-Screen Marking (OSM) system on Monday  the day one of the non-instructional days assigned by the varsity. Last week, only 23% of the 11,807 eligible teachers reported for the online assessment work.

MU officials told HT that close to 92,000 answer sheets were assessed on Monday, which made a huge difference to the overall evaluation process. Based on the progress it has made, the varsity is likely to declare results for fine arts, engineering and science streams by July 31.

Less than six lakh answer booklets now remain for assessment and moderation too is being conducted on the side, said an official from the examination house, MU. On Monday, MU officials met Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, also the universitys chancellor, who reiterated July 31 as the deadline for announcements of results. Results for faculties with large number of students will take a while, however work is in progress, added the official.

On Monday morning, a server crash affected routine assessment work. Officials attributed the problem to a large number of professors logging in to the system to evaluate answer sheets at the same time.

I logged into the system at 10am and till afternoon, the system loaded just one answer booklet. After submitting that one answer paper, the system could not provide me with the second answer booklet, said a professor assessing papers at a suburban Central Assessment Process (CAP) centre.

She added that numerous calls from the CAP centre to the examination house in MU went unanswered. We were logged in again after 12:30pm and were able to assess answer papers. Though the system is slow, I can at least assess answer papers, the professor said.

To announce results at the earliest, the MU released a circular on July 20 requesting all colleges to maintain non-instructional days for BCom faculty so that teachers could focus on assessing answer sheets for three days. By July 23, another circular was released asking all faculties of degree colleges to remain shut from Monday to Thursday to speed up the assessment work.

While the circular to all degree students was issued on a Sunday, most colleges got it on Monday. To abide by the circular, several colleges have given leaves leave to professors teaching third-year students. There is no use giving holidays to everyone because only the third year teachers need to go for assessment duty. We have declared a holiday for third-year BMS and BSc-IT students from Tuesday to Thursday, said Anju Kapoor, principal of UPG College, Vile Parle.

Most principals are worried that the holiday will affect completion of syllabus for all batches. This weeks teaching plan will be affected, and next month we have a five-day holiday for Ganesh festival. Our teachers will have to work extra hours to make up for loss time and finish the portion, said another principal of a Malad College.

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After a leopard killed a two-year-old at Aarey Milk Colony on Saturday, forest officials suspect that the cat could have been involved in three other attacks.

A Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) staff members son was fatally injured in the attack. Vihaan Garuda was walking behind his father Nilesh when the leopard grabbed him by the neck.

On May 29, a four-year-old boy living at Royal Palms in Aarey Colony, Goregaon, was attacked.

On March 17, a leopard grabbed a three-year-old boy near Khadakpada, a tribal hamlet inside Aarey. He escaped with injuries to his chest and throat after residents scared the cat away.

On May 21, a woman saved her three-year-old son by snatching him away from the claws of a leopard that had pounced on him in Chafyachapada, Aarey. The boy suffered minor injuries.

What should you do if you spot a leopard? Be alert when it is dark as that is when leopards are active. Put on loud music so the big cat avoids you. Do not venture out alone after dark. Mere sightings of a leopard do not translate into danger. Do not crowd around the animal. Ensure that the garbage is disposed and no feral dogs are present in the locality as leopards often prey on them (Source: Sanjay Gandhi National Park)

Forest officers said they were sure that the same leopard was responsible for all four attacks. We have closely monitored the pattern of the attacks. In a majority of the cases, the animal lunged for the childs neck. It did not eat any of its intended victims, said Santosh Kank, range forest officer, Mumbai.

We do not know much about the animal, only that it is much more vicious than any other leopards in this area, he said.

Kank said he filed a report, asking senior officers in the Mumbai range for permission to trap the animal as soon as possible.

Officials from the forest department installed 15 camera traps at Moracha Pada, near the helipad at Aarey, close to Film City, Goregaon (East), where Saturdays attack had taken place.

The department has increased the number of shifts to three, ensuring that at least five forest officials patrol the area at a time.

After carrying out a day-long investigation at the site and sensitising Film City officials on how to deal with such situations, we realised that one male adult leopard might be responsible for all the attacks, said Jitendra Ramgaokar, deputy conservator of forest, Mumbai range.

We have narrowed down a 5-km radius, within which the animal has been roaming and attacking children at eye-level, he said.

Officials will rely on camera trap images to check the leopards spots and confirm whether it is the same one. We cannot act until we are sure that there is just one animal involved. Our team will ensure that the area is well protected. We request residents not to panic, said Ramgaokar.

Experts said there might be more than seven leopards in the area. The forest department needs to monitor the situation for at least 15 to 20 days before taking any drastic measures. The situation is worrisome. But we cannot trap a leopard without confirming whether it is the same animal responsible for the attacks, said Krishna Tiwari founder, forest and wildlife conservation society.

Others said it was unusual for leopards to engage in such attacks. It is crucial to understand why this animal is behaving differently and what is prompting it to attack children, said Vidya Athreya, wildlife biologist.

The forest department needs to get to this animal as quickly as possible. Residents must remain cautious until then, he added.

Aarey residents said these attacks were only the beginning as illegal encroachments in the area had increased by 20%. Shanties have encroached upon a 600-acre plot. This will only invite more man-animal conflict, said a resident, who did not wish to be identified.

Authorities say

We had raised the issue with the forest department. However, we will write a fresh complaint to ensure that our citizens are protected and the animal is removed from the area. We will request trap cages, said Nathu Rathod, chief executive officer, Aarey.

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Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray said the Narendra Modi-led Union government should focus on the conflict with China and Pakistan, instead of simply concentrating on elections.

In the second part of his three-part interview in the Shiv Senas mouthpiece, Saamana, Thackeray said, You can win elections in the country at any point of time. In fact, you already have. But war is war. You have China in front of you. In this much time, you havent been able to resolve the tension in Kashmir.

In a free-wheeling chat with Sena Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut, also the executive editor of Saamana, Thackeray said the government may be neglecting threats from Pakistan and China probably because several leaders in internal BJP meetings have singled out Shiv Sena as the partys top rival. If they think Shiv Sena is their most significant rival over Pakistan and China, it is their misfortune, not mine, he said.

Thackeray also said the countrys internal situation is also not stable if a war sparks at the border today.

Read: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray slams PM Modi for centralising power, demonetisation

The countrys internal environment is not good. There is the issue of beef and cow protection and the violence that is taking place in the name of it. If that too escalates, on how many fronts are you going to fight? the Sena chief said.

He added, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a globe-trotter and the entire world has become his friend, but not even one of these friends is openly coming forward to Indias help in its tussle with China and Pakistan.

In the interview, the Sena chief said his party, which is a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre and a part of the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government, will stay with the BJP till the differences become absolutely unbearable.

He said he set his ego aside and extended support to the BJP government in Maharashtra only because after a long time people had given their mandate to a non-Congress government.

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Doctors from a city hospital have successfully treated a three-year-old brain stroke patient, reportedly one of the youngest in the country. Neurosurgeons said the surgery is rare since medical literature has reported only 22 stroke cases in children younger than 16.

Doctors from Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, who performed the surgery in March, said they waited for 90 days after the surgery to assess its success. Efficiency of such surgeries can only be analysed after three months as the blood flow restores in the paralysed part of the body, said Dr Manish Shrivastava, head of interventional neuroradiology, KDAH.

He said that the team of doctors was surprised when the childs parents brought her to the hospital in a paralysed state. The child had a history of fever, cold and the left side of her body became immobile after she fell from the bed during the illness.

Dr. Pradnya Gadgil, consultant -paediatric neurologist and epileptologist suspected that the child might have suffered a stroke.Dr.Shrivastava was called in to diagnose and treat the child.

MRI tests revealed a clot in the right artery of the childs heart which hampered the blood supply to the brain, leading to stroke. We informed the parents that its an extremely rare case because prevalence of strokes is high in the age group of 50-70 years, Dr Shrivastava added.

The doctors then performed a surgery to remove the clot and restored blood flow to the brain. Further diagnosis revealed that the child had developed infective endocarditis, an inflammation of the inner tissues of the heart, which led to vegetation growth on heart walls, which with time dislodged and blocked the right artery, Dr Srivastava said.

However, three months after the surgery, the child is able to walk normally. Doctors said that apart from minor numbness in the fingers of her right hand, all functions are normal.

Doctors said that strokes among children are rare. Occurrence of such events is rare because when it comes to children, brain abscess is more common. Previously in the country, there has been only one more case of a three-year-old being treated for stroke, said a neurosurgeon from KEM Hospital.
Banana peels, clothes and plastic packets are among the factors that disrupt local train services  and the railways cant be blamed for these delays.

The citys lifeline that caters to nearly 40 lakh commuters a day is often disrupted by the commuters themselves.

For instance, commuters often throw banana peels from the footover bridge. These fall on the overhead equipment (OHE), causes sparks and gets stuck between the OHE and the train.

Authorities need to switch off the OHE and have often spent more than 30 minutes to get the trains running again, officials said. Plastic packets, chips and biscuit wrappers have the same effect.

READ: Mumbais railway network will take 4 yrs to get better, but project cost has already touched 8K-cr

In another case, in June, a commuter was carrying a wooden door at the Ghatkopar station. He was on the footover bridge but dropped the door which fell on the OHE, breaking the wire. It took more than an hour to fix the OHE.

The railway authorities said they cannot be squarely blamed for such lapses.

I appeal to people not to throw clothes, plastic or fruit peels on the OHE wire. It disrupts movement of trains and leads to delays. These incidents are happening quite often, said Ravinder Goyal, divisional railway manager, CR
What should the police do when a biker trying to avoid a pothole dies in the process?

Should they register a case against the biker for negligent driving or against the authority in charge of maintaining the roads? Road safety experts said it should be the latter.

On Sunday, Bandra resident Jagruti Viraj Hogal was on her way to Jawhar, popular for its waterfalls, for a weekend getaway, police said. She was part of a women-only biker club and had been on trips to Leh and Ladakh.

At 9am, she tried to overtake a truck near Vaiti village, 100km from Mumbai. It was raining heavily and she did not see a pothole until it was too late. She swerved abruptly to the left but was crushed by a truck, said Kasa assistant police inspector Jayprakash Gute.

By the time Hogales friends caught up to her, she was dead.

We registered a case under section 304 (a) (negligent driving) against Hogale. She should have shown better judgement while riding her bike. Had she swerved to the right, she would have probably survived as she was wearing a helmet, he said.

Such statements are common across police stations in Mumbai and its outskirts.

After a crash is reported, the police register a case under sections of the Indian Penal Code and Motor Vehicles Act. If a person is injured, they are still booked under the MVAs provisions, said officials. If a person dies, the accused is booked. The accused is defined as the person who caused the crash.

This is where it gets tricky. It is usually always the driver of the larger vehicle who is booked. The police must proceed logically, said road safety expert AV Shenoy.

Depending on the case, an investigation is carried out and a charge sheet is filed. If the accused is dead, as in the case of Hogale, an abetted summary is filed, which states the facts to the court.

In this case, Hogale was not to be blamed as she tried to avoid the pothole. Either the public works department (PWD) or the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) should be held responsible. The real culprits are those who have not maintained the road. If the cops want to register a case against someone, they should investigate and file the case against the actual culprit.

Shenoy said the practice of filing a case against a victim is illogical and the police must look at the root cause in every case.

Retired Mumbai police inspector Raghunath Dalvi is one of the many policemen well aware of this situation. In the end, we are human. We know the victims family will suffer, but are bound by law. We want to help but cannot. The procedure has to be followed, said Dalvi.

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The state government on Monday took the first step towards fund allocation for the farm loan waiver by tabling supplementary demands in the state assembly with a budgetary allocation of Rs20,000 crore for it.

Though decks have been cleared for the funding so that banks can clear outstanding loans of farmers, the actual disbursement to farmers is unlikely for at least another two months.

A month ago, chief minister Devenda Fadnavis had announced Rs34,022 crore as farm loan waiver for nearly 89 lakh farmers. Nearly Rs18,000 crore of the budgeted amount has been allocated by the co-operation department. This includes Rs17,979 crore for subsidies, Rs3 crore for advertisement and publicity and Rs15 crore for office expenses. Rs1,000 crore each has been allocated to two different schemes for the tribal development and the social justice departments.

The total supplementary budget moved in the assembly is to the tune of Rs33, 533 crore, the highest in the recent past, thanks to the loan waiver. The budget for 2017-18, tabled just four months back, was to the tune of Rs 2.83 lakh crore. In 2016-17 the government raised about Rs 33,000crore through three supplementary demands over the year.

According to the officials from the cooperation department, the allocation will help the state government enable the cooperative as well as nationalised banks to clear off the outstanding loans of distressed farmers. The state government has decided to ask the banks to submit the amounts overdue. On receiving the requisition from the banks, an amount will be released to them to clear the outstanding loans that have turned into non performing assets. This will entitle farmers to get fresh loans, said an official from the cooperation department.

In a bid to provide for the farm loan waiver, the state has initiated a cut of 30% to its development plan. The government expects the loan-disbursing process to go on till early next year and it will have enough time to make arrangements for the remaining amount. We expect Rs10,000 crore to be spent this year and the remaining in the next year. The government has already urged the Centre to pull up its loan raising capacity to help gather the remaining amount for the waiver and development work, said the official.

The official, however, added that the actual disbursement to the accounts of farmers will take at least two more months. We have started asking for the information from farmers interested in the waiver. Collecting the data will take at least a month, followed by verification with the one provided by the banks. Until this is done, there will be no disbursement as we do not want the benefits to go into wrong hands. This means the amount will not be credited at least till the end of September, he added.
Unhappy with the compensation being offered, farmer leaders of Greater Noida have decided to start a campaign in Jewars villages asking other farmers not to give their land for the proposed airport project.

Their opposition may impact the airport project for which the state government needs 5,000 hectares in around 40 villages along the Yamuna Expressway. The Yamuna Expressway industrial development authority (YEIDA) is likely to begin land acquisition as the Centre has given its nod for the project.

We will not let the land acquisition take place for the airport project because the state government is cheating farmers by giving them only Rs3,500 per square metre (psm) for land. We are likely to start a campaign telling all villagers along the expressway not to give their land for the project until the UP government gives better compensation, said Ajaypal Sharma, district president, Bharatiya Kisan Union.

The Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway authorities are buying land from farmers through direct purchase for Rs3,000 to Rs5,000 psm. Direct purchase means that if a farmer is willing to sell land, the authority will buy it instead of acquiring it through the Land Acquisition Act, 2013.

We dont acquire land through the act because it takes a long time to make land available. Procuring it through direct purchase is quicker and easier, said a YEIDA official.

Farmers said that if the government tries to forcefully acquires the land, they will hold an agitation.

If the UP government does not increase land compensation, we will agitate. What we can do if it wants to repeat the Bhatta Parsaul agitation? We will educate farmers who give up land for the airport project and start a big protest soon as all farmer unions are together on this issue, said Sunil Fauji, a farmer leader.

The state government gave Rs17,000 psm for land in Ghaziabad. Why is it taking our land for Rs3,000 psm. We will have to protest for our rights, said Mukesh Bhati, a Jewar resident.

However, district magistrate BN Singh, said, We will talk to farmers and address their concerns. The government will have to acquire land for crucial projects.

We will acquire land for the airport project by implementing the urgency clause of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013. Farmers are happy to give their land for the project and we hope there will be no problem, said Abhay Singh, the YEIDA-appointed for land acquisition for the project.

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A Nigerian national was arrested by the Maharashtra police from Greater Noida on Monday afternoon for allegedly duping a Nashik-based woman of around Rs2 lakh after befriending her on a matrimonial website.

A team of Maharashtra police, along with their counterparts from Gautam Budh Nagar, searched a residential apartment in Delta 2 sector to arrest the man, but faced resistance from other African nationals in the housing society. It was only after an hour of tussle that police gained access to the building and arrested the man, identified as Kingsley Chibukem from Nigeria. He has been staying in Greater Noida on a students visa for a couple of years, police said.

According to the police, Chibukem befriended a woman through the matrimonial website and duped her of over Rs2 lakh on the pretext of sending her an expensive gift from Sri Lanka. Police added that the 32-year-old told the woman that he worked for a London-based food company to gain her trust. Later, he told her that he was going to Sri Lanka on an assignment and was sending her an expensive gift.

A few days later, the woman got a call asking her to deposit Rs42,500 for redeeming a courier against her name. A few days after she deposited the said amount in a bank account, she again got a call and this time, the caller claimed to be calling from Mumbai airport, asking her to pay customs duty of Rs1.25 lakh to claim her big gift. The woman again deposited the same, said Pankaj Bhalerao, assistant sub-inspector, Nashik police.

After depositing around Rs1.7 lakh, the woman again got a call asking her for Rs75,000. This time, she grew suspicious and lodged a complaint with Ozar police station in Nashik district, police said.

Bhalerao said, We traced the call details and found that the calls were made from Greater Noida.

The Maharashtra police on Monday produced Chibukem before the Surajpur court and obtained his transit remand to take him to Nashik for further questioning.
A number of families of the Nithari victims have shifted elsewhere over the years as they could not bear to live near the Noida house where the alleged brutalities took place.

The 435-square metre house still stands at D-5, Sector 31. Its owner, businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, has been accused along with his domestic help Surinder Koli, of the rape, murder and dismemberment of a number of children and young women at the house.

Bandana Sarkar, mother of 20-year-old victim Pinki Sarkar, said she shifted to Sector 29 within a year of the killings coming to light as she could not hold back her tears whenever she crossed the house.

Tears rolled down my face whenever I saw the house where my daughter was brutally murdered and cut into pieces. When the killings came to light, we could identify her only by her clothes and slippers. Within a year, we shifted elsewhere as my husband also died under mysterious circumstances, Bandana said.

I had plans to bring up my son by properly educating him. But he could not finish his education and now he works as a driver. Pinkys son was eight months old when she was murdered. Now, he is 11 and goes to school. He often asks me about his mother, but I have no answers or the courage to explain to him where she went, she added. A senior citizen now, she said she barely earns Rs4,000-Rs5,000 a month.

Bandana came to know about the cases final hearing on Sunday, a day after the CBI special judge held both Pandher and Koli guilty in Pinki Sarkars case.

(We found out when) I sent my daughter-in-law to fetch a newspaper. After seeing the photographs of Pandher and Koli, we rushed to the court on Monday, she said.

Karanveer, the father of another victim, Madhu, also shifted to Morna so that his five other children didnt have to live in the shadow of Pandhers house.

Madhu and her sister were engaged to two men of the same family in Amroha. I had many dreams of getting both my daughters married. It would have been the first wedding among my children. But all dreams were shattered and I shifted to Morna as Nithari always haunted us. We received Rs5 lakh in compensation with which I got Madhus sister married and admitted my sons to school, he said.

There was a lot of pressure on us when we appeared in court to give our statements. We braved all that but neither of the two has been hanged till now. We are aged and time is running out for us and we dont know when we will get justice, said Karanveer, who works as a security guard.

Jhabbu Lal, the father of another victim, stayed back. Seeing the house has become a part of my life despite the fact that memories of our children continue to haunt us. Some other families have left Nithari, he said.

How can Pandher claim innocence when all these murders and dumping of body parts were taking place in his house? he said.

Most of the victim families are migrants from West Bengal and Bihar who had come to NCR in search of a livelihood. In Nithari, these families lost 19 of their children.

Police used to drive away poor people from West Bengal and Bihar when they went to complain about missing children, Lal said.

Over the years, Koli has been defending himself in court in the many cases and has become his own lawyer.

Despite my repeated requests, no one investigated the truth about the man who was our neighbour in Noida and was accused in a kidney racket. I have been trying to get my point before the court for 11 years, said the 44-year-old.

I already know the fate of remaining eight cases, he added.

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Eleanor Weary Angstadt, 65, of Upper Uwchlan Township died on Saturday, July 22 after an unexpected battle with cancer. She was a loyal wife, compassionate mother, and devoted Catholic who believed in the sanctity of family above all else. Born on July 17, 1952 in Harrisburg, PA, she was the child of Hermas Bud and Eleanor (Morriss) Weary. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a medical technician. As a child, her family regularly vacationed in Ocean City, a New Jersey beach town. She continued vacationing there with her own family until her death. She grew up in Carlisle and Camp Hill, and graduated from Trinity High School. She obtained a B.S. in Special Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and taught special needs children for eight years. She married John Angstadt in 1977 and had two sons soon after. When her children were young, she put aside her career and devoted herself to raising them full time. After they grew up, she took a receptionist job at the local YMCA where she was much loved by co-workers and clientele. An active member of Saint Elizabeth Catholic Parish since its founding, she worked tirelessly as a Bible study organizer. Strong in the face of death, she looks forward to seeing her mother, father, and stillborn child in the next life. She is survived by her husband John, two sons Michael of Conshohocken and Matthew of Downingtown, and brother Father William Weary of Lewistown.
A CBI court awarded the death sentence to Moninder Singh Pandher and his aide, Surinder Koli, on Monday in one of the 16 cases of the macabre Nithari serial killings in 2005 and 2006.

The duo was arrested on December 29, 2006, after the discovery of bones and skulls from the backyard of Pandhers Sector 31 home in Noidas Nithari. Police found the mortal remains during investigation when children and young women disappeared mysteriously in the area.

The Nithari horror, in which victims were raped, killed and the corpses cannibalized, sent shockwaves and stirred the collective conscience of the country.

The verdict of the CBI court in Ghaziabad is significant as Pandher was earlier let off by the Allahabad high court in 2009 as his cell phone location was traced to Australia when the killings happened. The defence had successfully argued that he was no way involved in the crime as he was abroad.

But this time, the CBI found that he was in Noidas Sector 2 till about 1.30pm on October 5, 2006, and then left for Dehradun. That day Koli lured Pinky Sarkar, a 20-year-old domestic help, to Pandhers home.

The charge sheet states that Pinky worked at a house in Sector 30, where she watched a serial on television from 1pm. She left afterwards and disappeared. Her clothes were found at Pandhers backyard.

The location and time were crucial to nail Pandher as investigators said he was in Noida when Pinky vanished. He returned to Noida on October 14.

Such culprits deserve hard punishment so that others think a thousand times before committing such crimes. Koli lured victims inside the house where he raped and attempted to rape before murdering them and later threw their body parts and ate some of them in a heinous manner, CBI special judge Pawan Kumar Tiwari said, pronouncing the sentence.

He said Pandher was part of the conspiracy. There is no scope for their reform or rehabilitation. This case falls under the category of rarest of rare and both deserve death penalty.

Pandhers lawyer argued that there was no evidence against the ailing man and he has spent eight years in jail already.

Koli, who is from Mangrukhal in Uttarakhand, made his closing arguments on Saturday.

You give me any punishment as you feel like ... there is no evidence against me. The CBI has framed me. The court should be equal to both sides and I feel I have been denied justice, Koli said.

There is no eyewitness in the case and the victims family never made any allegations against me. The DNA test of the victim did not confirm I committed the rape.

Of the 16 cases filed against the duo, eight were decided and the Ghaziabad court awarded death penalty to prime accused Koli in each of its verdicts.

They were handed copies of the judgment on Monday and sent to Dasna jail.

The concept of blood for blood cannot be made applicable in society. Still, the work of the state is to strive for a decent society. This is possible only when such people, who have become dangerous for society, are punished with death, special judge Tiwari said.

Pandher walked out of Dasna jail in September 2014 after getting bail in all cases. But Koli was never let off.

Families of the Nithari victims are not convinced with the verdict as the cases have dragged for years.

No one is hanged even after 11 years. It is a relief that Koli is in jail. Pandher may get relief from higher courts, said Karanveer, the father of young girl Madhu whose bones were found in Pandhers backyard.

The Nithari families have lost faith after years of legal battle ... no one is hanged till date.

Pinkys family searched the whole area the day she disappeared.

We could find only her clothes and slippers. We left Nithari after she was presumed dead, as we had to pass Pandhers house on the way to work. I couldnt bear the sight of it. Every time I passed the house tears streamed down my eyes. We waited 11 years for them to be hanged, said mother Bandana Sarkar.

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Health services were crippled at the district hospital in Sector 30 for four hours on Monday as contractual doctors and paramedical staff went on a strike and protested against the hospital administration for not paying them salaries for the last three months.

Nearly 150 doctors and nurses of the hospital took part in the four-hour protest from 8am to 12pm at the district hospital premises. Holding placards, the protesting staff demanded the immediate release of their pending salaries.

The wages of the contractual staff are provided by the Noida authority, which are later disbursed by the hospital administration. Due to the protest, patients and permanent staff at the hospital faced inconvenience.

The contractual staff members staged a sit-in in front of the main gate. They also demanded that their contract be renewed for another year along with the release of the pending salary by the Noida authority.

Chief medical superintendent of district hospital Dr Ajay Aggarwal said, We are not responsible for paying their salaries. They have worked here for three months and they resumed their work today (Monday) too after the protest. Their contract has to be renewed by the Noida authority and the authority is planning to do it.

The hospitals permanent staff strength is 350. It has an overall strength of 500, including the contractual staff. Around 2,500 people daily visit the district hospital in the outpatient department to avail of the treatment. The hospital has a bed capacity of 150.

There was no impact on the services at the hospital. The staff strength of 350 is enough to take care of patients in a facility the size of the district hospital. Presence of these contractual workers makes hospitals function more smoothly. Even if the Noida authority does not pay them, they cannot do anything about it owing to the conditions mentioned in their contracts, Dr Aggarwal added.

We have been performing our duties diligently and it is our right to get our pending salaries. The hospital has maintained the record of our duties and it should stand with us, said Kavita, a paramedical staff member.
Once again, there is an emphatic call for a major shift in Indias much beleaguered higher education strategy. But this time, it is not emanating from the office of the human resource development (HRD) ministry. Rather, the demand follows from a chest thumping and energetic flag waving Tiranga March that was recently held at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

The vice-chancellor, probably overwhelmed by the occasion, asked the minister of state for petroleum and natural gas and the minister of state for external affairs to help the university procure an Army tank for the campus. Clearly, for the current JNU administration, it appears, that to instil nationalism one must reverse the long-held maxim that the pen is mightier than the sword. A few days earlier, in fact, the prime ministers office in a similar mood advised the HRD ministry to draw upon elements from existing military schools (Sainik Schools) to promote discipline, physical fitness and a patriotic outlook.

But how do tanks, large flags, chest thumping marches, discipline-for-itself and martyr walls help inspire nationalism and patriotism? This becomes a particularly good question, if not a surprising one, because, historically speaking, ideas of nationalism and patriotism have never emerged from military cantonments, the soldiers barracks or from a generals writings. If anything, nation-making and national identities have been crafted by politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, thinkers, philosophers, historians and last but not least by poets.

The Indian national movement, we know, was driven by the intellectual robustness of the Indian civilian. It was led by ordinary peasants, workers and middle class professionals like lawyers and teachers. This undisciplined lot went on to brave bullets, were jailed, lathi-charged and suffered untold humiliations at the hands of the colonial rulers. In other words, nationalism and patriotism in India was constructed as a noisy affair involving disagreements, struggles for justice and moral courage by common and ordinary folk.

On the other hand, take the case of the now less remembered Royal Indian Navy mutiny (also called the Bombay mutiny) of February 18, 1946. Over 10,000 Indian sailors across 66 ships openly revolted against their British officers. While the Indian Communist Party welcomed the strike of the sailors, both the Congress and the Muslim League remained unconvinced. Their argument was that a rebellious navy could end up compromising the ability of the national movements leadership from achieving a negotiated and constitutional form of freedom. Put differently, the armed forces belonged in the barracks and not on the streets. Even members of the Indian National Army under Subhas Chandra Bose (incidentally a bureaucrat by training) acquired much of their legitimacy and standing in the freedom movement from the celebrated INA trials, which saw their defence carried out by legal stalwarts like Tej Bahadur Sapru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai and Asaf Ali.

In other words, the Indian civilian through non-violence, ideas about justice, the ability to debate and through alternative historical imaginations brought down and ended one of the worlds most powerful modern empires: the British Raj. Any Army tank will compare poorly with this magnificent and inspiring history of resistance and opposition of the mostly un-armed, the poor and the disempowered.

While the JNU vice-chancellor has undoubtedly demeaned his office, what should remain unpardonable is the disdain he has shown for the rich political and intellectual contributions of the ordinary unarmed Indian. A tank or frenetic flag waving does not produce or inspire nationalism. Instead it requires careful intellectual work and the force of moral courage to fight for the truth to win. This is the lesson the entire world has learnt from the words, writings and deeds of Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar and Tagore. It is important to consider the contributions of these towering civilians with the same respect as the sacrifice and suffering of the masses of ordinary and powerless men and women.

Independent India will gain much more by ranking the pen over the sword. Perhaps, it would be better to ask the honourable ministers for more water tanks within the campus rather than a retired army battle tank, which will only rust with time.

Rohan DSouza is associate professor, Kyoto University

The views expressed are personal
Last week Rajya Sabha MP and Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agrawal raised the issue of airlines banning passengers, especially MPs, from flying. He was referring to the recent ban imposed by major airlines on two MPs  JC Diwakar Reddy of the TDP and Ravindra Gaikwad of the Shiv Sena.

Responding to Agrawal, Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurien informed the House that airlines did not have the right to impose a flying ban on anybody. Kurien said, Airlines are not given the authority to punish anybody.....MPs are also citizens ... if they commit a crime or mistake, the law of the land should take recourse to it.

Kurien is spot on! It is for the courts to decide the quantum of punishment and the law of the land must take its course. The only problem is that this course is a long-winded one which often takes years, if not decades. And this delay is one of the reasons that embolden our netas to behave the way they do.

Moreover, by banning a passenger who has misbehaved with the airline crew, or have created a ruckus at the ticketing counter, or is a nuisance on the flight, the airline is protecting the interests of its crew (employees) and other passengers  passengers who have the paid for good service, and follow DGCA and airline rules. Thus, more than a punishment, a ban is a passenger-friendly move.

It is nobodys argument that airlines  both private and State-owned  should discriminate against any passenger. But thats not the point here. What happened in the Rajya Sabha is making convenient use of the parliamentary privilege card to defend unacceptable conduct by some of its members  conduct that should have been unequivocally condemned.

Why is it that many politicians hit an air pocket or face turbulence when flying? A decade ago, a minister in Keralas LDF government resigned after a woman accused him of misbehaving with her on the flight. Two years ago, an MP from Bihar was alleged to have threatened crew members and refused to comply with DGCA guidelines.

Its a sense of entitlement that makes some of our leaders behave in this manner . They feel they can get away with it. This must stop.

Rather than understanding that they have been elected to serve the people, they lord it over them. They seem to have nothing but disdain for the aam aadmi. It is this derision that is reflected when our netas refuse to stand in airline ticketing queues, demand that their luggage is carried for them, and even demand on-flight privileges they are not entitled to.

Its a sense of exclusivity or VIP culture that is reflected here. The 2014 video of irate PIA passengers booing and sending back from boarding former Pakistani minister Rehman Malik for arriving two hours late gives you a good idea of the resentment people have towards such politicians.

Its a pity that some of our representatives believe that they are a cut above the people. The next time an MP or MLA is flying, he/she should try standing in the queue with other passengers, be patient and follow the drill like others. It could be a humbling experience for the leader and give him/her a new perspective. It could even work to improve public opinion about them.

Today, a politician, especially an MLA or MP, standing in a queue or following the rules like any ordinary citizen is news. This is unfortunate, and should change. For that, if banning unruly flyers, including parliamentarians, will work, it should be done.

@VijuCherian

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Prime Minister Narendra Modis triumphant foray into West Asia nearly two years ago, that encompassed the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar, now seems a distant dream. The four joint statements concluded during these visits had identified India as a strategic partner of these disparate countries competing for regional influence with each other, and had laid the basis for a constructive and substantial Indian political, economic and security role in West Asia.

The engagement in Tehran had been particularly dramatic: Then, the Indian, Iranian and Afghan leaders had signed the tripartite agreement that would link the Chabahar port, to be developed and managed by India, with Afghanistan, providing a direct political and strategic link to sustain Indias interests in that country.

There are concerns that the momentum of these path-breaking initiatives has faltered, with limited progress being made in implementing many of the agreements concluded by Indian and West Asian leaders.

The regional scenario now presents new challenges for Indian diplomacy. Bloody conflicts continue in Syria and Yemen, while the Saudi Arabia-Iran confrontation displays acrimonious rhetoric and even dangerous sabre-rattling. The situation has got further complicated with Saudi Arabia mobilising the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain in imposing a comprehensive embargo on its fraternal neighbour, Qatar, for questioning the confrontation with Iran and reliance on US President Donald Trump as a partner in shaping this posture.

Trump had made Riyadh his first foreign destination as president and, in return for lucrative defence contracts, firmly allied himself with the Saudi-led Sunni political and military alliance against Iran.

This reflects the visceral animosity that Trump and his security chiefs have for Iran, seeing it as a malign force that is responsible for terrorist activity across West Asia. The Trump presidency has committed itself to rolling back Irans regional influence and even promoting regime change.

Towards this end, the US president has removed restrictions on weapons supplies to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen, and has approved lethal US bombings in both Syria and Yemen. Talk of war against Iran is being promoted by Right-wing lobbies. This has found a happy echo in Saudi Arabia whose powerful crown prince views the confrontation with Iran in stark sectarian terms.

Some observers believe that India, by distancing itself from Iran and recently hosting the foreign minister of the Saudi-backed Hadi government in Yemen, Abdulmalik Abduljalil Al Mekhlafi, is pursuing positions in line with the US approach.

This assessment makes little sense. From the Indian perspective, conflict in West Asia would be a very dangerous development since it would jeopardise its crucial and abiding interests in terms of its energy security, trade and investment prospects, and the welfare of its eight million-strong community in the region.

India has no reason to share the US hostility towards Iran: The US position is largely a product of domestic US interest groups, particularly the neo-cons and politicians beholden to them. India, on the other hand, knows that Iran is both the target of and the enemy of jihad.

Iran is crucial for Indias strategic interests: The Chabahar port enhances Indias regional, economic and political presence, balancing as it does the Chinese at Gwadar, just 80 km away. Again, road and rail links from Chabahar will connect India with Afghanistan, Central Asia, and, through the International North-South Transport Corridor, even Russia and west Europe. These connectivities will balance Chinas Belt and Road Initiative and make India a role-player in Central Asian and Eurasian politics.

Saudi Arabias confrontation against Qatar shows the futility of its aggressive posturing. It has in fact encouraged Iran and Turkey to rush to Qatars assistance, calling into question the entire basis of the kingdoms simplistic sectarian approach to regional competitions.

Indias recent interaction with the Yemeni foreign minister has hardly any political significance, since the sponsors of the Hadi government, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are pursuing a political settlement that will exclude Hadi and bring former president Ali Abdullah Saleh back into the national mainstream.

West Asia is a part of Indias neighbourhood. Indias ties with this region go back several millennia; it is also the region where its crucial interests are at stake.

What the region desperately needs is not more conflict, being encouraged by the Trump presidency, but the balm of diplomacy that would promote engagement and dialogue. India should re-visit the joint statements signed two years ago and shape a diplomatic initiative to respond to the desperate call for peace from the region.

Talmiz Ahmad, a former diplomat, holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune

The views expressed are personal
The executive power of the Union shall be vested in the President and shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him. In spite of the expression directly in Article 53 of the Constitution, Indias President merely reigns and does not rule.

This was the view of BN Rau, who played a key role in drafting the Constitution. But KM Munshi, a member of the Constituent Assembly (CA), former presidents Rajendra Prasad, Zail Singh and KR Narayanan challenged this interpretation. Munshi asserted that the president was not only to the highest dignitary of the realm, but the embodiment of the unity of the country. His principal role was to prevent a parliamentary government from becoming a parliamentary anarchy.

There is no constitutional provision that obliges the president to act on the aid and advice of the Cabinet though BR Ambedkar wanted such a provision in the instrument of instructions.

After the Constitution came into operation, Rajendra Prasad, in a note to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru expressed the desire to act solely on his own judgment, especially when it came to giving assent to Bills and sending massages to Parliament. His reason: Presidents have to act on the advice of the Cabinet only in executive matters and not on legislative decisions.

This view was based on the accurate reading of Articles 86 and 111, which deal with legislative businesses i.e. presidential address to Parliament and assent to the Bills. Understanding, the gravity of the request, Nehru appointed the then Attorney General MC Setalvad, who chose to delight Nehru and recommend that the president is indeed a rubber stamp. The disagreement came up again in 1960, when Prasad reasserted his position at the inauguration of the Indian Law Institute.

While the true position of president is somewhat similar to that of the British monarch, there are differences. The allegiance owed by the British to their monarch is derived from history and her authority depends on traditions and conventions. The queen is above party politics but the Indian president is not since he is nominated by political parties.

The authority and status of the president depends upon the powers he can exercise and the functions he can perform under the Constitution. Unlike the British monarch, the President is not a hereditary head of the State. In fact while the PM is the leader of just one House, the President is the leader of both Houses assemblies. Unlike the British monarch, the Indian president can be impeached. This is because his powers flow from the oath he takes under Article 60 to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and submit himself to the service and well -being of people of India.

While ordinarily he has to act on the advice of the Cabinet, the latter does not have the right to give him an advice contrary to the provisions of the Constitution.

If the president has no role to play then why should he be impeached? If the president is responsible for preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution, how can he be obliged to sign an illegal Bill? Making the president part of the Parliament (Art.79) was essentially to integrate an effective inter-organ control device to check the powers of a strong Parliament.

The president also has discretion in appointing and dismissing the PM, which will come into play when no party gets the clear mandate or several leaders stake the claim or the PM loses the confidence motion.

In the Ram Jawaya Kapur And Ors. vs The State Of Punjab case, the court observed: In the Indian Constitution, we have the same system of parliamentary executive as in England and the Council of Ministers consisting, as it does, of the members of the legislature is, like the British Cabinet, a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens the legislative part of the State to the executive part. True, the president has no choice if after reconsideration, Cabinet reiterates its original advice.

One hopes that the new president, Ram Nath Kovind, will follow the footsteps of Rajendra Prasad, Zail Singh and KR Narayanan who refused to be a rubber stamp. Through the intelligent use of power of reconsideration of the Cabinets advice (like Narayanan did) and the use of pocket veto and right to be informed like Zail Singh, Kovind can fulfil his oath and enhance the stature his office.

Faizan Mustafa is vice-chancellor, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Yogesh Pratap Singh is deputy registrar (research), Supreme Court.

The views expressed are personal
Gynaecologists from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) have ruled out the possibility of aborting the nearly eight-month pregnancy of a 10-year-old rape victim.

It will be just like delivering a baby, said a senior gynaecologist from the premier government hospital, which was on Monday tasked by the Supreme Court with examining if the pregnancy can be terminated. As per SC directions, the PGIMER has constituted an eight-member committee that would formally check if the health of the girl and the child would be adversely affected if the pregnancy is allowed to extend to its full term up to delivery.

HT interacted with some gynecologists from the PGIMER and also Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, to know their views. Almost all of them ruled out aborting the 30-week foetus due to medical reasons.

A senior gynaecologist from GMCH-32 told HT, The baby cannot be aborted. They can go to any apex court or any hospital. The child has crossed the time to abort the baby.

Ten- to 12-year old children getting pregnant are rare cases. In the last five years, I have seen only two such cases; one mother was 10 and the other, 12, said a PGIMER gynaecologist. She said that in both cases the babies were delivered safely via Caesarian (C-section). The mother is so fragile that she cannot bear the trauma of labour pain and natural delivery. We could not let the 10-year-old undergo so much pain; so in that case we conducted elective C-section, wherein delivery was done even before the labour pain began, she added.

When asked if C-section is safer than natural delivery among pregnant children, she said, So far, no study on that has been done. About risk factors, she said, Surgically, the risk is as much as it is in any other surgery. But the pregnancy will be more complicated than that in adult women.

Meanwhile, on the panel constituted by the PGIMER are Dr D Behera, head of pulmonary medicine department, as chairperson; Dr Vipin Koushal from the hospital administration as member-secretary; Dr Vanita Suri, head, gynaecology; Dr Surjit Singh, head, paediatrics; Dr N Khandelwal, head, radio-diagnosis; Dr Ajit Awasthi, head, psychiatry; Dr Swati Kumari, head, internal medicine; and Dr Manoj Kumar Rohit from the cardiology department.

The SC bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar had also asked member-secretary of the state legal services authority to assist the panel in the examination to be held on Wednesday. The next hearing is on Friday.

India has a 20-week legal ceiling on abortion. Law allows a woman to abort but only after doctors confirm it is necessary to save the mothers life. The SC has been receiving petitions, including from rape victims, to terminate pregnancies beyond 20 weeks; and uit has referred these to medical experts before any orders. Recently, the court gave a 10-year-old rape victim from Haryana the permission to abort.

The Chandigarh case came to light 10 days ago after the girl was taken to hospital for stomach ache. The girl was raped allegedly by her maternal uncle, a hotel worker, repeatedly over seven months. He has been arrested. The girls family hails from Nepal and has been residing in servants quarters in one of the southern sectors in Chandigarh. Her father is a watchman and the mother works as a domestic help.

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Fly Dubai, one of the government-owned carriers of the UAE, has made a fresh bid to start operations on the Chandigarh-Dubai route.

Highly placed sources told HT that the Dubais aviation department that owns the airline wrote to the Indian ministry of civil aviation last month to seek permission to operate from Chandigarh.

The airline is long interested to fly from here but could not do so because it exhausted its existing quota granted to operate within the country under the present bilateral treaty between India and the UAE.

A senior official of Fly Dubai posted in India informed HT that the airline, through the Dubai aviation department, has requested the ministry to shift its sister concern Emirates airlines capacity line at the Calicut airport in Kerala to the Chandigarh-Dubai route, since the latter is not operating currently due to a runway issue.

The final decision is still awaited, he said.

The official said, if allowed, the airline is eager to start at least one daily flight from Chandigarh on its 174-seater Boeing 737-800.

Operating from 8 cities in India

Bilateral aviation agreements between two countries determine the number of passengers (in terms of seats) the airlines of each side can fly to the other country and also the number of cities they will be allowed to fly to.

At present, both of the UAEs designated carriers  Emirates and Fly Dubai  cant operate more than 65,200 seats per week in India. Of these, 5,200 seats per week are being operated by Fly Dubai in eight Indian cities and rest by Emirates.

The airline currently operates from Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kochi, Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chennai and Trivandrum.

However, on Tuesday, Sudhir Sreedharan, senior vice-president, commercial (GCC, Africa subcontinent) at Fly Dubai, said the airline currently operated to eight points in India and there were no plans to change the current schedule.

To connect local flyers to US, Europe

A company official said that their mandate will be not only to take local flyers to Dubai but also to connect them further to Europe and the US.

As reported by HT earlier, such connectivity is missing in the current flight operating on the Chandigarh-Dubai route, since the Indian airline operating it does not have a code-share agreement with other airlines.

This hinders extended connectivity from Dubai, even as it is the main halt between Asia and the West.

The Fly Dubai official said the carrier, which is headquartered in Dubai, operates across 94 destinations in the world.

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Search for the 39 missing Indians who were kidnapped in Mosul three years ago is expected to gather momentum with the visit of Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who arrives in India on Monday on a five-day visit.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj will hold talks with her Iraqi counterpart during which focus is expected to be on the missing Indians, mostly Punjabis, who were kidnapped by the ISIS June 2014 from Mosul city.

As liberation of Mosul brightened chances of information about the kidnapped Indians, Swaraj, at a meeting with their relatives last week, had said that they might be languishing in a jail in Badush in northwest of Mosul where fighting was going on.

However, following a media report from Badush on Saturday that the jail now is an abandoned structure and has been unoccupied for weeks, families of 22 missing Punjabis are not only a worried about their well-being, but say the government is hiding facts.

Talking to HT, Gurpinder Kaur, who has been vocal on the issue and is waiting for her brother Manjinder Singhs return from Iraq, said, After the government told us that missing Indians were last seen in Badush jail, I inquired about and came to knew that the jail was in a shambles. Now, a media report is also claiming that Badush jail is destroyed. Families of all missing men are worried. I feel either the Union government is hiding facts or it doesnt know much about the whereabouts of the missing Indians.

Kaur who claimed that she was contacted by Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa, who has announced to urge the Lok Sabha speaker bring a privilege motion against Swaraj for misleading the country on the fate of missing Indians, said: I am happy that someone is questioning the government. The Centre must provide credible information on the issue.

Kaur said a delegation of parliamentarians and some family member of the missing men should be sent to Iraq to know the ground reality.

Unhappy with how things have gone till now, Kaur said: Every family is waiting to meet their loved ones since three years but the government has not been able to give us exact details. We were happy when Mosul was freed from ISIS but then the government told us that the abducted men are in Badush jail. Now, Badush jail also doesnt exist. We dont know what to do.

(With agency inputs)

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As the Supreme Court takes up a public interest litigation to allow termination of pregnancy of a 10-year-old rape survivor from Chandigarh on Monday, her father told HT that the only thing on his mind right now was justice for her daughter and death penalty to his accused brother-in-law.

Mujhe nyaya chahiye aur kuch nahi. Main chahta hoon ki use phansi par chara diya jaye. Aur kisi bhi tarhan ki madat nahi chahiye mujhe (I want justice. The accused should be hanged. I dont want any other help), said an agitated father, while talking to HT at the Sector-39 police station.

Adding that he also wanted the court to allow her 30-week pregnant daughter to undergo abortion, the father said he will abide by the apex courts ruling.

The crime came to light last Friday after the girl was taken to hospital on complaining of stomach ache. On the complaint of her mother, who is the accuseds sister, the police arrested the man.

The accused had allegedly raped the minor repeatedly. He was later sent to police remand. However, a local court on Tuesday denied permission to terminate the pregnancy.

The girls family hails from Nepal and has been residing in servants quarters in one of the southern sectors in Chandigarh.

The father works as a watchman with the UT administration while the mother works as a domestic help. The accused uncle had been working at a hotel in Sector 35.

Will help family, come what may, says delhi lawyer

The PIL has been filed by a Delhi-based lawyer, Alakh Alok Srivastava, who came to known about the crime through media reports.

Initially, the family was not aware of the matter reaching the Supreme Court. It was only after Good Samaritans reached out to them to offer emotional and financial support, they became aware of it .

Talking to HT over phone, Srivastava said: Whether the apex court allows or dismisses the petition, I will provide all assistance and financial aid to ensure the family comes to the AIIMS, Delhi, for the girls treatment.

He said already there has been a weeks delay, adding to the familys concerns.

The instant petition is humbly praying this court to frame and issue urgent appropriate guidelines for setting up a permanent mechanism and for constituting a permanent medical board at each district of India comprising best possible medical experts of the respective districts for expedient termination of pregnancies beyond 20 weeks in the exceptional cases particularly involving child rape survivors under the best possible medical facilities, states the petition in the Supreme Court.

Although the Centre initiated the process to amend Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, way back in 2014, it is still waiting the cabinet approval before being introduced in the Parliament.

The proposed bill intends to extend the permissible period for abortion from 20 weeks to 24 weeks if the healthcare provider believes the pregnancy involves a substantial risk to the mother or the child.

The amendment also allows to do away with the time limit for abortion in case of substantial foetal abnormalities.

Medical board preparing for natural delivery, mulls adoption

The medical board constituted at the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, to oversee the case of the 10-year-old rape survivor, has started exploring the option of putting the child up for adoption after delivery.

As a local court rejected termination of pregnancy, the board is preparing for natural delivery, even as doctors continue to maintain that pelvic bones are not fully developed in girls at this age, making full-term pregnancy very risky.

The board, headed by forensic department chief Dr Harish Dasari, might also go for C-section if the need arises.

We have asked a few social workers to help bring the girl for checkup on Monday, said a gynaecologist and board member.

Meanwhile, throwing light on a similar case in Karnal, advocate Pradeep Sharma said the Punjab and Haryana high court had declined termination of pregnancy of a 12-year-old rape victim in 2015.

Eventually, the baby was given up for adoption.

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Local police departments can once again seize peoples property and cash with federal help under a Justice Department policy unrolled last week. A similar program was criticized as ripe for abuse, and the Obama administration all but shut it down.

Officials insist theyve now equipped the policy, called adoptive forfeiture, with safeguards to keep authorities from taking cash and property without justification. Law enforcement groups praised the initiative, which has helped them pay for everything from drug dogs and bulletproof vests to overdose antidotes.

But civil liberties groups and some members of Congress called Attorney General Jeff Sessions policy a dangerous reversal that opens the door for constitutional rights violations.

Adoptive forfeiture

The program is a type of asset forfeiture that allows police to skirt often more restrictive state laws to seize property using federal law. They then share up to 80 percent of the proceeds with federal counterparts. For some police departments, the money can be an important funding source. More than $6 billion in forfeited funds has been shared with state and local law enforcement since fiscal year 2000, according to the Justice Departments inspector general.

The department sees the program as a way to strip suspects of the proceeds of their activities, to deter crime and to compensate crime victims. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said last week the move will help fight drug dealing that has perpetuated the nations opioid epidemic.

If we seize and forfeit criminal proceeds from drug dealing, its going to result in less money to reinvest in drugs by that dealer, he said. And its going to have a deterrent effect.

The problems

Former Attorney General Eric Holder sharply curtailed the practice after critics said it was too easily abused, particularly with police seizures of small amounts of cash. The departments inspector general this year reported what it called weaknesses throughout the overall asset forfeiture program  including with adoptive forfeiture  such as poor data collection and analysis, and inadequate training of local and state officers.

Local use

Cumberland County came under fire from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania for its use of civil asset forfeiture.

A study released by the ACLU in 2015 found Cumberland County had an annual revenue of roughly $400,000 from seized cash and goods, or nearly 10 percent of the district attorneys office annual budget. Cumberland County ranked 10th in the state for total revenue earned from seized goods, according to the study.

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed described his offices use of civil asset forfeiture as another tool in combating crime.

I have found no better way under the law to disrupt the operations of for-profit drug dealers and other organized criminals, such as those engaged in illegal gambling and selling mislabeled good or trademark counterfeiting, Freed said.

Every life-saving dose of naloxone administered by municipal police officers in Cumberland County has been funded by forfeited funds, Freed said.

The ACLU study found roughly 55 percent of people targeted for asset forfeiture had been convicted of a drug sale or related crime, while nearly 8 percent had not been charged or convicted of any crime.

Notwithstanding the anti-forfeiture narrative, we seize assets in solid cases, supported by probable cause and engage scrupulously in the process set out in Pennsylvania law, Freed said. I am extremely proud of our efforts.

On Saturday, the county auctioned off seized goods, netting roughly $17,500, according to Freed.

New provisions

Key changes include requiring more detail from police agencies about probable cause justifying a seizure before federal authorities get involved. Also, the Justice Department will have to decide more quickly whether to take on local seizures and also let property owners know their rights and the status of their belongings within 45 days of a seizure, faster than federal law requires.

Another key change will make it harder for police to seize less than $10,000 unless they have a state warrant, have made an arrest related to the seizure, have taken other contraband, such as drugs, along with the money, or the owner has confessed to a crime. Without at least one of those conditions, authorities will need a federal prosecutors approval to seize it under federal law.

Old rules set that threshold at $5,000, and the old process rarely required a federal prosecutors sign-off.

Critics say that doesnt fix the larger problem, because police departments will still rely on forfeitures to foot their bills, creating a profit incentive to take property.

The reaction

The move is in keeping with Sessions tough-on-crime agenda in which he has stated that the departments top priority should be helping local police combat violence. But it comes following bipartisan agreement that asset forfeiture in its entirety should be overhauled.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who along with Democratic counterparts had been pushing for tighter regulations of the practice, said Wednesday that his pleas were ignored.

Instead of revising forfeiture practices in a manner to better protect Americans due process rights, the DOJ seems determined to lose in court before it changes its policies for the better, said Lee, of Utah.

The ACLU called it another step by Sessions to bring back the failed and racist War on Drugs.

And many conservative groups were critical, like the Koch-backed Freedom Partners, which called the practice unjust and unconstitutional and counter to public safety.

More than 20 states have enacted their own laws limiting asset forfeiture, either by first requiring a criminal conviction or by raising the threshold for when police can take property during an investigation. In at least one state, Pennsylvania, and in Washington, D.C., police are prohibited from referring their property seizures for federal adoptive forfeiture, which means they cant take part in the program.
The Kerala high court on Monday rejected the bail plea of Malayalam superstar Dileep, who was arrested two weeks ago in connection with the attack and sexual assault on a popular woman actor.

Rejecting the bail plea, the court said it was a serious case and his release at this juncture would affect the ongoing investigation. The court agreed with the prosecution that if he was released he would influence some of the witnesses. The prosecution said many involved in the case including his manager Apunni were absconding. The court also approved scientific evidences presented by the prosecution.

The actor had moved the high court after Angamally judicial magistrate court rejected his bail plea last week. His counsel said he would move the Supreme Court soon. Lodged in the Aluva sub jail, Dileep will be produced before the local court to extend his judicial custody.

The 31-year-old actor was abducted by a gang of criminals and sexually assaulted in a moving car over a period of three hours on February 17. The assailants recorded the assault on their mobile phones and threatened to release the clip if she dared approach the police. During the attack, the main accused, Pulsar Suni, reportedly hinted that they were committing the crime at somebody elses behest.

After the actor lodged a complaint, police arrested all the accused directly involved in the crime. An investigation aimed at identifying the conspirators behind the attack finally led to Dileeps arrest two weeks ago. The police believe that Dileep paid men to abduct and assault the actor, and take videos of the assault as proof, in order to exact revenge upon her and teach her a lesson.

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Yet another blackmail bid in the Malayalam film industry has come to light with the arrest of a production executive on Sunday following the complaint of actor Mythili.

The Ernakulam North Police arrested Kiran Kumar (38), who hails from Palakkad for posting defamatory photographs of the actor on social media, according to media reports.

Kumar was in a relationship with the actress during 2008. However, she ended the relationship when she came to know he was married, the reports quoted a police officer as saying.

Subsequently, Kumar used to visit her shooting locations and residence and create scenes. He demanded Rs 75 lakh and threatened if she failed to give the money he will post sensitive photos he took on social media. As she complained about the matter to the police, he did not upload the photos at the time, the New Indian Express quoted the officer as saying.

However things changed after she gained popularity and he decided to upload the said pictures. The actors pictures with the man soon went viral on Whatsapp and Facebook. It was then that the actor complained to the police.

The preliminary inquiry suggests a few persons are also involved in propagating the photographs on social networking sites. They will also be arrested, said Ernakulam assistant commissioner K Laljy.

The accused has been booked under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of IPC and 66 (A) of the IT Act, one of the reports said.

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Amidst her busy working schedule, Shruti Haasan, last seen on screen opposite Rajkummar Rao in Behen Hogi Teri, took time off to pay Golden Temple a visit. Apparently, its been her long-time desire to visit the popular place. It was such an unbelievable experience. Ive wanted to come here since I was a child but never got a chance. The energy and atmosphere are just indescribable. The people here have also been so lovely and hospitable. Im so thankful for this incredible feeling.

It was during a brand-related appearance in Chandigarh, she made this quick trip. She was in Chandigarh for an appearance for a brand she endorses. Since she had the next day off, she decided to make the most of it and dashed off to Amritsar and paid her respects at the Golden Temple. She has always wanted to visit Amritsar and the Golden Temple. She was meant to do so during the promotions of her last film, but due to change in plans, it didnt happen. So when she saw the opportunity with this trip, she decided to take it. She attended the night Aarti at the Golden Temple, a source said.

On the career front, she will soon commence work on her fathers multi-lingual comedy Sabash Naidu, which is a spin-off based on Kamal Haasans popular character Balram Naidu from Dasavatharam. The film also stars Ramya Krishnan in a crucial role. In Bollywood, Shruti awaits the release of Tigmanshu Dhulias Yaara.

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After delivering two back-to-back duds in the form of Life is Beautiful and Anamika, filmmaker Sekhar Kammula has bounced back strongly with his latest outing Fidaa, which has rocked the ticket window in its opening weekend worldwide. According to reliable trade pundits, the film has grossed over whopping Rs 25 crore and has registered the biggest opening in Varun Tejs career. The film, produced by Dil Raju, has also performed exceptionally well in the US where it has already breached into US $1 million club and is looking very strong.

Kammula is known for his clean films that have substantial roles for women and can be watched by all sections of the audience. Fidaa stars Varun Tej and Premam fame Sai Pallavi, and this happens to be her Telugu debut. Pallavi, who happens to be one of the biggest highlights of the film, has single-handedly won over audiences and critics, while majority of them heaping praise on her for holding the movie together. The film has music by Mickey J Meyer and its the love-hate-love story of an NRI doctor, played by Varun, falling head over heels for a girl from Telangana.

The film features Varun Tej in his most romantic avatar yet and he is said to have jumped at the opportunity when the script was pitched to him. On working with Kammula, he told Hindustan Times: He is very different from all the directors I have worked with. I know each filmmaker has a style of working but Sekhar enjoys the process more than anyone else. I really dont know why he took so long to make this film. He told me he narrated the script to a few people and then finally approached me. I like movies where everything is dealt naturally and with a sense of realism. Sekhars work stands testimonial to that kind of cinema. He doesnt like to go overboard for the sake of satisfying a section of the audiences. His style of working is very subtle and natural. Also, he lets his actors improvise with dialogues and scenes which I dont think many directors appreciate. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him.

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From head-banging metal to rock nroll and country, heres where you can see the best of international rock music in Europe this August.

Wacken Open Air, Germany, August 3-5

With over 80,000 visitors, Wacken Open Air is the biggest heavy metal festival in the world, taking place in the small village of Wacken, north Germany. This year, Alice Cooper, Asp, Apocalyptica and Megadeth are headliners. The 2017 edition will also see the festivals first ever 7k beer pipeline installed to reduce traffic and waste as part of an eco-friendly drive.

Punk Rock Holiday, Slovenia, August 8-11

While Slovenias Punk Rock Holiday music festival might be a fraction of the size of Wacken, numbers do not always represent popularity. For 2017, all 5,000 tickets available sold out in under 8 hours after going online a year before the festival, with no bands announced. Since, Offspring, Less Than Jake, Pennywise, and Propaghandi are just a handful of the musicians performing at this mecca for punk rock fans.

The annual Mera Luna festival attracts over 20,000 fans from the goth, metal, hardcore punk and industrial music communities every year. (Rolf Khlatt)

Mera Luna Festival, Germany, August 12-13

The annual Mera Luna festival attracts over 20,000 fans from the goth, metal, hardcore punk and industrial music communities every year. Over 45 international bands perform during the short two-day event, with the lineup this year featuring Korn, And One and Asp.

Reading is the worlds oldest still-running popular music festival. (Rolf Khlatt)

Reading/Leeds festival, England, August 25-27

Reading and its slightly smaller sister festival, Leeds, take place simultaneously at the end of August once a year, and share many of their performers which this year include Bastille, Muse, Kasabian and Eminem. In 2016, the dual events achieved a new visitor record number, at 90,000 in total. Reading, the older of the two, is the worlds oldest still-running popular music festival.

Rock en Seine, France, August 25-27

One of Frances biggest festivals, Rock en Seine is held just outside Paris in the grounds of the Domaine National de Saint Cloud, attracting around 1,20,000 festival-goers for the three-day event. The lineup for 2017 includes The XX, PJ Harvey, Flume and Franz Ferdinand.

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In a vast warehouse in the east of the British capital sits Europes biggest collection of neon signs.

In here weve got 1,400 pieces, said the creative director of Gods Own Junkyard, Marcus Bracey, walking through the treasure trove of brightly-illuminated tubes.

An array of neon lights and signs are displayed inside God's Own Junkyard gallery, cafe and workshop in Walthamstow, east London. (AFP)

Most are for sale  a heart with the British flag emblazoned with God Save the Queen across it, for instance, or an enormous pair of bright red lips with a tongue reaching out to the top of an ice cream cone. Weve got a mixture of sex, contemporary art, everything, said Bracey. From love through lust, everythings here.

Some of the signs date back to the 1950s, while others can cost thousands of pounds, such as a cowboy-like Jesus Christ clutching two blue revolvers, which has been sold but never picked up by its new owner.

Some of the signs date back to the 1950s, while others can cost thousands of pounds, such as a cowboy-like Jesus Christ clutching two blue revolvers, which has been sold but never picked up by its new owner. (AFP)

From seedy Soho to Hollywood

The hip, disco-like space has evolved from suitably colourful origins through several generations of Braceys family. The collection of neon was begun by Braceys grandfather, a former coal miner, in the 1950s.

Bracey, 43, jokes that his grandfather came up from the dark to the light and found his passion after leaving the mines to work for a lighting company. It was the next generation that developed the business, now based in the up-and-coming east London neighbourhood, Walthamstow.

The collection of neon was begun by Braceys grandfather, a former coal miner, in the 1950s. (AFP)

Braceys late father, Chris, became a major supplier of neon signs to the sex shops of Londons Soho district.

But, as the neighbourhood started to shed its seedy reputation, signs such as the neon-lit shapely figure of a woman, began finding their way to Gods Own Junkyard.

The family has also produced signs for film shoots, such as the flashing dragon sign used in Ridley Scotts Blade Runner in 1982  Bracey vows he will never sell it.

The hip, disco-like space has evolved from suitably colourful origins through several generations of Braceys family. (AFP)

A rainbow sign was also crafted for Stanley Kubricks 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Neon in our blood

While the buyers have changed, the technology has hardly evolved.

Neon technology was first developed in 1910 by Georges Claude, a French chemist who was looking for a cheaper way to produce oxygen for hospitals.

Since his remarkable finding that different gases produced an array of vivid colours, neon has gone on to conquer the world of advertising. From Paris to New York, it remains one of the great symbols of the 20th century, signifying in turn the utilitarian conquest of the night and electric globalisation, wrote philosopher Luis de Miranda in his essay Being and Neon on the cultural history of neon signs.

Neon technology was first developed in 1910 by Georges Claude, a French chemist who was looking for a cheaper way to produce oxygen for hospitals. (AFP)

But despite a boom in the bright lights, the industry has faced tough times. In the 1980s, there was a big shrink in demand and neon workshops were all closing. We thought almost it was the end of neon, Bracey said.

But it has come back, he said, with the help of individual buyers in search of retro designs, which make up 50% of his clients. And the future looks bright for Gods Own Junkyard.

Braceys two children say the yard provides an exciting and colourful playground and that they are aware of its importance in their family history. Its always been in our blood, in our DNA! one of them said.

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A Taliban suicide attacker targeted a police team near the residence of Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday, killing 26 people and injuring nearly 60 more, officials said.

Police officials said the bomber, who was on a motorcycle, detonated his explosives near policemen deployed at Kot Lakhpat vegetable market, located about 100 metres from the residence-cum-office of Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Lahore police chief Amin Wains confirmed it was a suicide blast.

Nine policemen, including two officers, were among the dead. Twenty people were killed instantly and six more died in hospital.

The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack. Fida Hussain Swati - a member of our suicide squad - today attacked the infidels on a motorcycle, TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a statement.

Our message to the frontline allies of infidels is not to come in our way as we will impose Allahs system on this land, he added.

Pakistani rescue workers prepare to remove a body from the site of a suicide bombing in Lahore on July 24, 2017. Pakistani officials said the suicide bombing killed 26 people and wounded nearly 60 more at a vegetable market in Kot Lakhpat neighbourhood. (AP)

Shahbaz Sharif was in a meeting at his home in Model Town area when the explosion occurred at 3.55 pm at the busy market near the Arfa Karim Software Technology Park, officials said.

Punjab government spokesperson Malik Ahmed Awan said the policemen were guarding officials of the local anti-encroachment department who were conducting an operation against illegal structures in the area . A fire erupted at the spot after the explosion, and glass panes of nearby buildings were blown out.

Local media described the area as one of the most protected neighbourhoods of Lahore, with several layers of security around the chief ministers residence in Model Town.

A rescue worker walks amid the crime scene after a suicide blast in Lahore, Pakistan, on July 24, 2017. (Reuters)

Bomb blasts by militants are common in Pakistan, especially in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but attacks in Lahore have become less frequent recently.

Lahore, a city of around six million people, is Pakistans cultural hub and the capital of its most populous and prosperous province of Punjab.
At least 35 people were killed when the Taliban attacked a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend, a presidential spokesman said on Monday.

When the Taliban entered the hospital they killed 35, all civilians, spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. This is a cruel crime against humanity.

He did not elaborate, but unconfirmed reports Sunday claimed that the Taliban had set the hospital alight and killed those inside.

The Taliban have denied the claim, though a spokesman said that parts of the local hospital were damaged in fighting in the area.

It came as the insurgents captured Taywara district in Ghor province after days of fighting, the latest victory by the resurgent militants.

Afghan forces control 59.7 percent of the country, according to a US watchdogs report issued in May after the winter lull in fighting, up slightly from the previous quarter.

But the insurgents have ramped up their offensive across the country since launching their so-called spring offensive earlier this year.
A man armed with a chainsaw wounded at least five people, two of them seriously, on Monday in a small Swiss town that was then put into lockdown as police hunted for the suspect.

Police said the attack was not an act of terror. They said they had identified the attacker, but did not name him, describing him in a statement appealing for help from the public as bald, unkempt and around 190 cm (six feet three inches) tall.

The attack happened inside an office building on a shopping street in the centre of Schaffhausen, a medieval town of 36,000 inhabitants on the German border, police said.

Map locating the Swiss town of Schaffhausen, where a man armed with a chainsaw injured at least five people. (AFP)

Police cordoned off the area and ordered people to leave, Swiss newspaper Blick said. Witnesses saw bleeding victims being treated by rescue crews, it reported.

Helicopter ambulances were on the scene.
China on Monday defended its repatriation of North Koreans who have escaped across its border after a United Nations envoy voiced concern about increasing detentions and expulsions.

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UNs special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said last week he had shared his concerns with Chinese officials in recent months.

But foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday that the persons who illegally trespassed into China are not refugees and would be handled according to international law and humanitarian need.

We hope relevant people can abide by principles in the UN charter to respect normal law enforcement on the Chinese side, Lu told a regular press briefing.

Ojea Quintana said on Friday he was alarmed by a surge in detentions and forced repatriations of North Koreans who are caught in China after making it across the border.

The envoy said he had reminded Chinese authorities of their obligations under the 1951 refugee convention as well as relevant parts of the UN system.

I urge them again to address this problem by giving special protection to DPRK (North Korea) citizens who transit through Chinas territory, he said in Seoul.

If forcibly returned, North Korean defectors are at risk of persecution, arbitrary detention, torture or other ill- treatment, enforced disappearance and execution, according to Human Rights Watch.

Women continue to be especially vulnerable to violent practices when they are sent back. Strip-searches, cavity inspections, verbal abuse and sexual violence are still known to happen in holding centres near the border with China, Ojea Quintana said.

Human Rights Watch said in June, citing activists and family members, that at least 51 North Koreans had been detained in China since July last year, including a baby born in detention, four children and three elderly women in frail health.

Based on their information, the rights watchdog said it believed that at least 13 of the North Koreans had already been forcibly returned, while the others remained in China for now.

The Demilitarised Zone dividing the Korean peninsula is one of the most heavily fortified places in the world. Almost all North Korean defectors intending to reach South Korea cross first to China and then on to a third country before travelling to Seoul.

The number of North Koreans escaping to the South declined sharply in the first half of this year as Pyongyang strengthened controls on its border with China, Seoul officials said this month.

In the six months to June, 593 Northerners entered South Korea, down 20.8% from the same period in 2016, statistics compiled by Seouls Unification Ministry showed.
Iran, Iraq ink pact on military cooperation

Published: July 24, 2017

Iran and Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to step up military cooperation and the fight against terrorism and extremism.

The MoU encourages promotion of interaction and share of experiences in the fight against terrorism and extremism, border security, training and logistical, technical and military support between both countries.

Contents Comment

Background

Iran and Iraq are hoping that the agreement would result in deeper and more serious military cooperation between the two countries. Moreover Iran is going to continue to provide full support to establish sustainable security and stability. However, this military deal likely to trigger concerns in the United States as it has voiced concern over growing Iranian influence in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where it is aligned with rebel Shia fighters.

Background

Iran and Iraq had fought a bloody war for eight years from 1980 to 88 during the reign of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But bilateral ties both countries have improved after Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003 and a government led by Shia Muslims took power in Baghdad. Iran is a predominately Shia nation. After the US withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011, it became increasingly dependent on Iran on various avenues, from trade to security. Iran also is providing military advisory assistance to Iraq in its counter-terrorism campaign against Islamic State (IS), an anti-Shia Sunni terrorist group.



Month: Current Affairs - July, 2017

Topics: International  Iran-Iraq  Terrorism  West Asia

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Two Chinese fighter jets intercepted a US Navy surveillance plane over the East China Sea over the weekend, with one coming within about 300 feet (91 meters) of the American aircraft, two US officials told Reuters on Monday.

The officials said initial reports showed one of the Chinese J-10 aircraft came close to the US EP-3 plane on Sunday, causing the American aircraft to change direction. The persons spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.

One of the officials said the Chinese jet was armed and the incident took place 80 nautical miles (148 km) from the Chinese city of Qingdao.

Incidents such as Sundays intercept are not uncommon.

In May, two Chinese SU-30 aircraft intercepted a US aircraft designed to detect radiation while it was flying in international air space over the East China Sea.

China is deeply suspicious of any US military activity around its coastline.
Politically ambitious pups and kittens: Put your resumes aside.

The job of first pet  an enviable White House gig with luxurious live-in privileges, after-hours access to the President and guaranteed positive press coverage  is not currently available.

Thats because President Donald Trump is not looking for a fluffy sidekick at the moment. Asked about plans for a four-legged addition to the White House, Stephanie Grisham, a spokesperson for Melania Trump, said in a statement: The first family is still getting settled so there are no plans at this time.

If Trump stays pet-free, he will be breaking with a long held tradition of presidential pet ownership.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelts had his beloved terrier Fala. President George HW Bushs English springer spaniel Millie was featured on The Simpsons. When President Barack Obamas family acquired their Portuguese water dog Bo, it was big news.

In the modern-day presidency, almost all of them have had a pet, said Jennifer Pickens, a White House social expert who wrote Pets at the White House. Still, she noted, all didnt necessarily have them at the beginning of the administration.

Power and pets have long gone hand in hand.

Read | Hardly a dogs life! Obamas pets Bo and Sunny have schedules too

For some reason people in power, they end up suffocating different opinions and dominating their staff, but they in some ways long for someone who will speak up to them, and a pet will, said Doug Wead, a former George HW Bush administration staffer who wrote books on presidential children and the 2016 campaign.

Wead noted that political pets can sometimes be used for, well, politics. He recalled an event after Millie had puppies that was carefully choreographed so guests could see all these little puppies.

President Bush and first lady Barbara Bush walking with their dog Millie across the South Lawn as they return to the White House. (AP File Photo)

It was calculated like a state dinner, he said.

While there have been notable pets in the White House for generations, Millie was the first modern White House dog, said Pickens. She added that Barbara Bush was the first one to use the pet as a tool to reach out.

The former first lady wrote Millies Book: As Dictated to Barbara Bush, which reached the number one spot on the New York Times non-fiction best seller list in the fall of 1990. The newspapers description: The memoirs of the English springer spaniel who lives in the White House.

Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1998 followed Bushs lead, with a childrens book about family dog Buddy and cat Socks. Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids Letters to the First Pets featured photographs of the pets, details on their habits and more than 50 letters from children to the pets.

Socks, the cat peers over the podium in the White House briefing room in Washington. (AP File Photo)

During President George W Bushs administration, when the White House was closed for tours after 9/11, the administration tried to connect with the public through videos. Among them was the Barney Cam series of short videos featuring the Scottish terrier having adventures in the West Wing, with cameos from the first family and White House staff.

When he declared victory in the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama told his daughters: You have earned the new puppy thats coming with us to the White House. Several months later, Bo joined the family, a gift from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Bo quickly became a household name, appearing on morning television shows and in videos promoting the White House Easter egg roll.

Some notable pets belonged to first kids, including Amy Carters Siamese cat Misty Malarky Ying Yang and Caroline Kennedys pony Macaroni. The Kennedy family had a veritable menagerie of pets, complete with dogs, cats, birds, hamsters and a rabbit named Zsa Zsa.

Going back in White House history, some presidential pet stories get more outlandish. According to the Presidential Pet Museum website, President Martin Van Buren was given a pair of tiger cubs that he donated to a zoo and President John Quincy Adams was presented an alligator.

Obama's pet dogs Bo and Sunny. (Wikipedia)

While Trump has not embraced presidential pet ownership, vice-president Mike Pence has picked up the slack. The Pences have a bunny, Marlon Bundo, and a cat named Pickles. Another cat named Oreo recently died. And they just added two more pets to the household  puppy Harley and cat Hazel. They also installed a beehive.

Pickens said she doesnt know that it matters if Trump gets a dog, but she said they are effective tools to connect with the American people and I think pets help humanise the presidency.

Of course, while pet ownership can provide personal and political perks, it can also go wrong. Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was dogged by criticism for admitting that during a 1983 family vacation, he strapped his Irish setter  in a pet carrier  to the roof of his car for a 12-hour drive from Boston to Canada.
The standoff between India and China in Donglang region figured in Nepals Parliament on Monday, with lawmakers raising the issue and asking the government to make clear its position on the matter without any delay.

Though the government has not formally commented on the face-off near the Sikkim border, officials told Hindustan Times they were closely watching developments between India and China as Nepal shares a long border with both countries, including a strategic tri-junction.

If the situation between India and China worsens, it will be an irreparable loss for Nepal, CPN-UML parliamentarian Yubraj Gywali said in the House. He called on the government to make its position on the standoff clear and gear up for any contingency.

In his recent interactions with the media, deputy prime minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who also holds the foreign affairs portfolio, said Nepal is closely following the situation between the two giant neighbours while urging both sides to sit for talks to ease tensions.

It is our primary position that there is no issue that cannot be settled through talks, Mahara said while highlighting Nepals foreign policy based on non-alignment.

The local media has published editorials, op-ed pieces and commentaries about the tensions between India and China and possible repercussions for Nepal almost every day. However, opinion is divided on whether Chinas clout has been gradually increasing in Nepal.

There is a cold war-like situation between India and China and media in both countries are flexing their muscles, Gywali said in the House. It seems matters on both sides have been radicalised for waging war, he said.

In such a situation, we are not preparing for what we should do. It is not a 1962-like situation. If India and China will go for war, it will have cause huge losses and even Nepal will be impacted a lot, Gyawali said while urging the government to play some sort of role to ease tensions.

Nepals key political parties should adopt a common position on the standoff and call on both sides to maintain restraint, the parliamentarians said.
An Airbus A380 flight of Emirates Airways nearly collided in mid-air with an Air Seychelles passenger jet when the Dubai-based carrier was about to land in Mauritius, local media reported on Thursday.

The near-collision was reportedly due to the Emirates crew members incorrect report of the plane altitude, when the Emirates A380-800 descended to land at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport in Mauritius, according to Dubai daily Gulf News.

UAE daily The National reported that the double-decker aircraft  which can carry 498 passengers aboard  almost crashed into the Air Seychelles Airbus A320-200 plane, which had just taken off from the same airport.

The Air Seychelles flight veered sharply to the right after it ran directly into the path of the Emirates A380, the worlds biggest passenger jet.

No passenger was injured on the Emirates flight, said the report, adding that further investigation about the incident was underway.
The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Monday rejected claims by the ruling PML-N that it acquired funds through foreign sources and from non-Muslims during the hearing of a petition by the Supreme Court.

In its reply submitted in court, the PTI rejected the allegations made by PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi and accused him of trying to malign Pakistans minorities. The PTI also maintained Abbasi had not submitted any evidence with his petition to back up his claim that the party had received funds from prohibited sources.

"On the other hand, PTI has submitted all relevant documents to the court," it said in the reply.

The PTI's reply further said that Abbasi had alleged that the party had acquired funds from non-Muslims, which should be seen as an attack on Pakistan's minorities, who "have had an important role to play in the country's progress".

"The Constitution of Pakistan does not differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims," the PTI said.

Abbasi's petition in the Supreme Court seeks the disqualification of PTI chief Imran Khan and secretary general Jahangir Tareen over the alleged non-disclosure of assets, existence of offshore companies owned by them and for PTI being a foreign-aided party.

In its reply to the court, the PTI said other parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party and PML-N, too had raised funds from foreign sources but had not provided details to the Election Commission.

The PTI further said in its 700-page reply that its funding process has been transparent and funds have been collected from dual nationals.
Donald Trumps son-in-law and top White House advisor Jared Kushner forcefully denied colluding with Moscow to sway the 2016 election Monday, insisting a string of undisclosed meetings with Russian officials were proper.

Let me be very clear -- I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so, Kushner said after giving testimony to a Congressional inquiry.

The normally camera-shy aide said contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a financier and a lawyer -- who offered dirt on his father-in-laws campaign rival Hillary Clinton -- were above board.

The record and documents I have voluntarily provided will show that all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign.

Kushner spent more than two hours appearing before senators who are probing Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Both Houses of Congress and the Justice Department are investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded in that effort, which the CIA believes was ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

The sprawling probe has plagued the White House since Trump took office, with many influential members of his team having failed to report their contacts with Russian officials.

Speaking on his return to the White House -- where he is a senior advisor to the president -- Kushner said he has not relied on Russian funds for his business.

He also went on the offensive, echoing Trumps claim that the investigations are an effort by Democrats to explain away a shock election loss.

Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won, Kushner, a former campaign aide, said.

The statement was the first time the reticent Kushner -- who is married to Trumps eldest daughter Ivanka -- publicly explained his contacts with Russian officials.

He is scheduled to appear before a House panel on Tuesday.

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading a broad investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.

- A waste of time -

The 36-year-old Kushner has faced scrutiny for not disclosing meetings and for taking part in a meeting with Kremlin-connected Russians along with Trumps son Donald Jr.

In an 11-page written statement, Kushner said the June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya -- which Donald Jr had taken hoping to get incriminating information on Trumps rival Hillary Clinton -- was a waste of time.

Kushner also acknowledged a brief meeting with Kislyak in April 2016 -- when Trump himself also briefly met the ambassador -- and another during his father-in-laws transition.

That second meeting was also attended by Michael Flynn, who became Trumps national security adviser but was quickly ousted over his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations, Kushner said of the sit-down, saying he asked Kislyak who had direct lines to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was open for dialogue.

The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day.

Kushner emphasized that he did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office.

He said Kislyak recommended meeting with banker Sergey Gorkov -- someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together, the statement said.

- Fresh sanctions -

Kushner said there was no mention of sanctions in his talks with both Kislyak and Gorkov.

The topic has made recent headlines as Congress prepares to approve fresh punitive measures against Moscow.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed new sanctions in mid-June, and after reaching an agreement the House is to vote Tuesday on a bill targeting Russia over the suspected campaign meddling as well as its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Democrat Ron Wyden, a member of the committee which questioned Kushner, said his statement raised far more questions than it answers and should not be merely accepted as the whole truth.

Kushner has repeatedly concealed information about his personal finances and meetings with foreign officials, said Wyden.

Meanwhile, Trump appeared increasingly angry with his Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion quickens.

The president took to Twitter to declare his top lawyer beleaguered, raising speculation the president may be preparing the ground to replace him.

Donald Trump Jr and Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign director, are currently negotiating with the Senate Judiciary Committee about when they will appear to give their version of events.
The US Presidents son-in-law Jared Kushner will tell a Senate committee he had four meetings with the Russians in 2016 but did not colludewith any foreign government, as Donald Trump sought to pressure Republicans by saying they were not doing enough to protect their president.

In a tweet just before Kushner was scheduled to testify in a closed-door meeting of the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee, Trump asked, Why aren't the committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?

Our beleaguered AG is Jeff Sessions, who has been a target of Trumps simmering ire, now in full public view after he unloaded on Sessions in a recent interview for recusing himself from the Russia probe. Trump has said the recusal was extremely unfairto the president.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted, It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President. Though the precise reason for his gripe was not cited, the tweet followed one in which he spoke of the phony Russian Witch Hunt.

Both sets of tweets came just ahead of Kushner and his eldest son Donald Trump Jr appearing before Republican-led Senate committees for intelligence and judiciary, investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election to help Trump win, something the president has continued to question.

I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government, Kushner is expected to tell the intelligence committee in 11 pages of prepared remarks made available to US media outlets ahead of the testimony on Monday.

I had no improper contacts (and) I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector, he would add.

Kushner has admitted to four meetings with Russians, emphasiing in every instance they were not initiated or solicited by him or the Trump campaign or the transition team. He pointed out that none of the meetings were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable.

The four meetings included one set up by Trump Jr with the Russian lawyer who had offered campaign dirt on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as part of the Kremlin-led effort to help Trump win the election. Kushner says he found that part of the meeting he attended so pointless he had himself called out of it.

Kushner dwelt at some length on his December 1 meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which had generated a lot of controversy. He was reported to have sought a secret back channel communication system with the Kremlin based in a Russian facility in the US to evade American intelligence.

Kislyak had sought a secure communications line for his generals in Russia to convey some information to the Trump transition team on Syria, Kushner said, adding he or Gen Mike Flynn, who attended the meeting, said they didnt have one at the time.

I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn, he plans to tell the committee. Kislyak replied that was not possible, so they all agreed to wait till Trumps inauguration.

Kushner also addressed questions about not reporting his foreign contacts on an application form he filled for the security clearance he needed as a senior advisor to the president, an official position. He attributed it to accidental early submission following miscommunication between his assistants.
At an austere mental health clinic in northern Syria, male patients with shaved heads squat barefoot in a courtyard, some dressed in uniforms and others in T-shirts and tracksuit trousers.

One man screams at those around him, while another laughs to himself. A third sings exuberantly, exposing bare gums missing teeth.

The second floor houses female patients in patterned dresses and flowery headscarves. Some smile at visitors while others lie motionless on their beds. One woman is tied to her bedframe.

The horrors of Syrias six-year war have left the countrys population with devastating psychological scars, but staff at the only mental health facility in Syrias opposition-held north are doing their best to treat those affected.

Among the patients at the clinic in Azaz, northern Aleppo province, is a 17-year-old girl deeply scarred by the conflict.

She saw a small child that had been killed and was being eaten by animals, Dorar al-Sobh, one of two doctors at the facility, tells AFP.

She was so shocked she lost her ability to speak. Now she cant sleep or eat...She avoids everyone.

A male patient from the neighbouring province of Raqa came back to his bombed-out home to find the lifeless bodies of his wife and six children. He has difficulty sleeping...he gets flashbacks and nightmares, says Sobh, 46.

Some cases predate Syrias conflict, but others - particularly of post-traumatic stress disorder - have been directly caused by the war.

Of course, we have seen an increase in cases, especially depression, PTSD and coping disorders, Sobh says.

Syrian patients smoke cigarettes in a room at the mental health clinic in the town of Azaz, near the border with Turkey, on July 6, 2017. (AFP)

Tortured and beaten

Nurse Mohammed Munzer recalls receiving patients who had been arrested at the peaceful protests in 2011 that kicked off Syrias uprising.

They were tortured and beaten, especially on the head. They started to have mental problems, the 35-year-old says.

Others have developed anxieties related to the relentless bombing and violence that has killed more than 330,000 people. There are people who cant handle the sound of aeroplanes, Munzer says.

The facility serves nearly 140 inpatients as well as others who come from outside for care. It was originally set up in Masaken Hanano district on the northeastern outskirts of Aleppo city.

But it was forced to relocate when fighting broke out after rebels entered the city in 2012.

The hospital was hit in Masaken Hanano, wounding one of the nurses in his hand and handicapping him, facility administrator Mohyiddin Othman says.

Many of the hospitals medical staff fled and left patients behind, some of them wandering the streets.

Local residents, alarmed by the situation, contacted a Turkish medical NGO that worked with local Syrian doctors to transfer the patients.

By 2013, they had been moved first to a facility in western Aleppo province, and then to Azaz with help from charity group Physicians Across Continents.

While Azaz has been periodically targeted by regime strikes, particularly in the early years after the patients were moved to the area, the new hospital has not been hit.

That has allowed medical staff to focus on their work, offering residents and outpatients medication, assessments and one-on-one treatment.

At times they struggle to help those in need, such as a man who regularly visited Sobh to seek treatment for depression. I asked him once about suicide. He told me he didnt think about it, Sobh said.

Fifteen days later he shot himself.

Syrian patients lie on beds in a room at the mental health clinic in the town of Azaz, near the border with Turkey, on July 6, 2017. (AFP)

Staff psychologically exhausted

The hospital also faces shortages of medicine. It receives occasional donations from the World Health Organization, but often relies on alternatives bought on the local market or in neighbouring Turkey.

The challenges can feel overwhelming, the facilitys staff say.

We are psychologically exhausted, says Sobh. Sometimes our patients hit us or curse us...Sometimes we take vacations to distance ourselves from the atmosphere of the hospital for a few days.

The facilitys basement is set aside for a kitchen and a cafeteria, where residents queue for food.

Standing at tables or seated on the floor, they eat meals of stew and bread from metal bowls.

The facility is sparsely furnished, with long rows of beds for patients and washing lines hung with blankets.

In one room, a television is mounted on the wall, and patients sit together watching.

Syrian patients watch TV in a room at the mental health clinic in the town of Azaz, near the border with Turkey, on July 6, 2017. (AFP)

The staff also do outreach in the community, hoping to tackle the stigma around mental health issues.

We try to spread awareness in our surroundings, and through flyers and social media, to explain that people who have mental illnesses are like anyone else who is sick, says Munzer.

Sobh says the growing need for mental health care has caused a subtle shift in local sentiment.

The presence of a treatment centre in this area is positive, he says. The residents of the area accept it, and its no longer a sign of weakness.
The Maldivian opposition said that the military locked down parliament on Monday on the orders of the countrys president in a bid to prevent lawmakers from taking part in a vote to impeach the parliamentary speaker.

The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party said that on the orders of President Yameen Abdul Gayoom, the gates of the parliament were padlocked by members of the armed forces on Monday morning and lawmakers were forcibly prevented from entering the parliamentary compound.

In a statement, the opposition party called Yameens action desperate, illegal and unconstitutional.

There was no immediate comment from the government. The government spokesmen could not be reached by telephone.

A no-confidence motion against Speaker Abdulla Maseeh Mohamed was scheduled to be taken up on Monday. The opposition says the motion has gained the support of 45 lawmakers in the 85-member house. However, an uncertainty arose when the election commission announced last week that the four members who supported the motion had lost their seats because they left the ruling party.

The motion was considered a severe blow to Yameen, whose control over parliament was threatened by a new understanding between the Maldives former strongman and its first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed. The Maldivian Democratic Party routed Yameens party in local council elections earlier this year.

A similar opposition bid to oust the speaker was thwarted in March when the government defeated it by 48 votes, with none opposing. At the time, opposition lawmakers were either evicted or walked out from a vote on ousting the speaker following a dispute over problems with the electronic voting system.

The coalitions plan to wrest the parliamentary majority was aimed at reforming the judiciary, elections commission and other bodies perceived as being partial toward Yameen.

In March, Nasheed and former strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and two other parties signed an agreement to form an opposition alliance.

Maumoon runs a rival faction within the Progressive Party of Maldives, which is led by the current president, his half-brother.

Nasheed was jailed in 2015 for 13 years for ordering the arrest of a senior judge when he was president in 2012.

However, he traveled to Britain last year on medical leave and received asylum there. Three other leading politicians have also been jailed after trials criticized internationally for a lack of due process. Yameen is accused of rolling back many of the democratic gains since the Maldives became a multiparty democracy in 2008.
Two months after Islamist militants launched an assault on one of the biggest southern cities in the Philippines, the fighting is dragging on and President Rodrigo Duterte says he is prepared to wait for a year for it to end.

The defence top brass admits it underestimated its enemy and is struggling to finish off the highly organised, pro-Islamic State fighters who swept through Marawi City on May 23 and have held parts of it despite sustained ground attacks by hundreds of soldiers and daily pummelling by planes and artillery.

On Saturday, lawmakers approved Dutertes request to extend martial law to the end of the year on the island of Mindanao, granting greater powers to security forces to go after extremists with a reach that goes far beyond Marawi.

But it remains unclear how exactly Duterte plans to tackle extremism after troops retake Marawi, where about 70 militants remain holed up in the debris of what was once a flourishing commercial district, along with many civilian hostages.

More than 500 people have been killed, including 45 civilians and 105 government troops. After missing several self-imposed deadlines to retake the city, the military says its options are limited because of the hostages.

Duterte has said he had asked to military to avoid more civilian casualties.

I told them do not attack. Whats important is we do not want to kill people, he said on Friday. If we have to wait there for one year, let us wait for one year.

The southern Philippines has been marred for decades by insurgency and banditry. But the intensity of the battle in Marawi and the presence of foreign fighters fighting alongside local militants has raised concerns that the region may be becoming a Southeast Asian hub for Islamic State as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.

Map of Mindanao island in southern Philippines, locating Marawi, where clashes between Islamist fighters and government troops have left more than 600 dead since May 23. Includes data on people and families displaced. (AFP)

Militants from neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia, both Muslim-majority nations, are fighting in Marawi.

About 5 million Muslims live in Catholic-majority Philippines, mostly on Mindanao. Defence secretary Delfin Lorenzana indicated on Saturday that after Marawi, the government would strengthen surveillance in the region, widening the net to detect rebel training camps and movements of militants.

We need communications equipment, hi-tech communications equipment that we can use to monitor cellphones of the enemies. We also need drones, he told Congress.

Strategic overhaul needed

Security experts say the government needs a strategic overhaul after failing to act on warnings long ago that radical ideology was taking hold in Mindanao, and luring foreign fighters unable to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Things have changed dramatically...our country must pursue some paradigm shifts, said analyst and retired police intelligence officer Rodolfo Mendoza.

We have to counter the spread of terrorism not only by supporting use of intelligence or counter-intelligence, but tackling the root causes.

The Marawi assault was planned and executed by a relatively new group, Dawla Islamiya, better known as the Maute Group, which wants recognition from Islamic State as its regional affiliate.

A soldier sits inside a bullet-riddled house in Marawi City in the southern island of Mindanao on July 24, 2017. The Philippine government is continuing to fight militants in the southern city as Congress voted to extend martial law over the southern Philippines until the end of the year. (AFP)

Led by two brothers, the Maute Group want a wilayah, or province of Islamic State, in Lanao del Sur province, where it has engaged in fierce, days-long battles with the military since 2016, each time suffering heavy losses before regrouping months later.

The brothers, Abdullah and Omarkhayam Maute, have been joined by Isnilon Hapilon, the anointed Southeast Asian emir of Islamic State and leader of a faction of another Mindanao group, Abu Sayyaf.

The Marawi fighting has been much publicised across militant networks and experts say it could attract more fighters to the region.

It has inspired young extremists from around the region to want to join, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict said in a report on Friday, adding the fighting had lifted the prestige of the Philippine fighters in the eyes of ISIS Central.

Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at Manilas De La Salle University, said the military is seeking to neutralise the Maute brothers to buy time to disrupt recruitment and stop fighters regrouping.

Moderate separatist groups from Mindanao should be co-opted to counter the extremist message, he said, while the military should work closer with the US and Australia, which have provided operational advice and surveillance planes.

The Marawi crisis erupted not because of intelligence failures, but the policy priorities of Duterte, Heydarian said.

He said Duterte, who came to power a year ago, channelled security resources into a war on drugs instead of countering Islamic radicalisation in the south, an issue the president himself has himself flagged in the past.

They were all aware of this. It was just a matter of time, Heydarian said.
It was a hot and muggy start for this year's St. Francois County Relay For Life (RFLSFC), but a cooling breeze began to offer some much-needed comfort to hundreds of St. Francois County residents gathered on the Mineral Area College Campus as the opening ceremony began Friday night.

Among those attending the American Cancer Societys Relay For Life were a large number of cancer survivors and 18 teams, as well as many caregivers and volunteers to raise money for research to find a cure for the disease.

Relay For Life of St. Francois County Co-Chairperson Sonya Bahr said this years event  the 21st held in St. Francois County since 1996  raised about $70,000.

We appreciate everything the teams did and all the hard work they put in to make this year such a success and hopefully find a cure for cancer, she said. We can continue taking donations through the month of August that will add to our total. There are still a lot of expenses that have to come out of the total we received as of Saturday, so we will be grateful for any additional donations."

Bahr offered her appreciation to The Sheriff's Band which began playing at 5 p.m. during registration and some very special participants who were willing to get a little wet for a good cause.

"We had a dunking booth and the targets were Sen. Gary Romine, Brian Boyer of Boyer Funeral Home, Farmington Police Officer Clint Boyd and Park Hills Police Officer Tony Remshardt," she said. "It was a lot of fun and we appreciate them being good sports."

This years rally took place from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday with opening ceremonies, emceed by local radio personality Mark Toti. The opening began with the presentation of colors by a group of local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America, along with the added assistance of the Farmington Fire Department. The National Anthem were sung by Amanda Dement, followed by the invocation given by the Rev. Bob Price of Cantwell Baptist Church of Desloge.

Speakers at the opening ceremony included Bahr, Rep. Kevin Engler, MAC President Dr. Steve Kurtz and American Cancer Society representative Shanna Hayes.

Following the presentations, Toti interviewed cancer survivors present that evening, giving them the opportunity to introduce themselves to the crowd and announce how many days, weeks, months or years they had survived cancer thus far. Afterward the survivors took the first lap around the track. Members of the 18 teams continued walking laps throughout the night.

Following a first-time memorial balloon release, the annual Luminaria Ceremony began after sundown. The ceremony honors survivors as well as those who have lost their battle to cancer.

Teams participating in the event were Turner Chevrolet-Cadillac, Walkin' Warriors, Team MAC, Breast Friends, Sparks of Hope Store 95, Susie Q's, Robin's Birds, Survivor's for Life, Preferred Hospice, Friends & Family of Cancer, Beautiful U, BJC Hospice, Cancer Slayers, Making a Difference, North County Tumor Raiders, Roosevelt Character Council, Smetzers and Robin's Birds.

Each of the laps were based on this year's overall theme  "Under the Big Top"  and included the Fallen Circus Member "In Memory" Lap, Ringleader Lap, Light It Up Lap, Clown Lap, Big Top Lap, Circus Animals Lap, and the Loud and Proud Lap.

The final lap took place about 5:30 a.m. Saturday, followed by the closing ceremony.

According to Bahr, the top team in donations this year was team Turner Chevrolet/Cadillac with a total of around $35,000. Coming in next was team Walkin' Warriors, which earned about $9,000. Rounding out the top three teams with more than $4,000 was team Breast Friends.

"The last two years, the weather report has been that it's going to be horribly hot, but it was the strangest things  proof that God was behind us  because it wasn't as bad as what the forecasts were saying. Last year it kind of got cloud-covered. This year it wasn't really cloud cover, but we had such a breeze that it made everyone feel better. It gives me chills just thinking about it.

"I'm sure concerns about the heat kept a lot of people away this year and that's sad because of all the hard work that the committee and teams go through. We want these survivors there because we want them to see how much we are behind them and we're going to fight the hardest so that someday people won't have to hear those three terrible words  'You have cancer.'"

Bahr also mentioned that the planning committee has set a wrap-up meeting at 6 p.m. Aug. 1 at Hub's Pub in Bonne Terre.

"If someone wants to email us or go on our Facebook page and put in suggestions for next year, we'd love to have them," she said. "We have a whole other year to plan, so we want these suggestions now because it will give us plenty of time to fulfill some of the requests people have."

Also noted was the Survivors Dinner set for 1 p.m. Aug. 13 at Elizabeth Hall in Leadington.

"Doors will open at 12:30 p.m.," she said. "The survivor is welcome to bring their caregiver. Food will be provided. If the survivor wants to bring additional guests, they are more than welcome, but we're asking for a $10 charge for each extra person."

This year's corporate sponsors were BJC Parkland Healthcare, Turner Chevrolet-Cadillac Co., Inc., Special Memories/Elizabeth Hall, Belgrade State Bank, Clark's RX Pharmacy, Long John Silvers/A&W, Heimburger Construction, Busenbark Flooring & Granite, First State Community Bank and Kevin Engler.
A meaningful dialogue on the Donglang standoff between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi is unlikely though they could meet for talks when the Indian official visits Beijing for a BRICS security summit this week, China indicated on Monday.

Doval will be in Beijing for a meeting of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) high representatives for security issues during July 27-28.

On bilateral meetings, I do not have the relevant information right now. As far as we know, in previous meetings, usually it is arranged for the heads of delegations to hold meetings to exchange views on bilateral relations and other international issues, foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told a regular news briefing.

Lu, however, was quick to put a question mark on a discussion between Doval and Yang, the head of the Chinese delegation for the BRICS meeting, on the face-off between Indian and Chinese troops at Donglang or Doklam.

The pre-condition for any such discussion, he made it clear, is the withdrawal of Indian troops to the Indian side of the Sikkim boundary.

The crux now is Indian border troops illegally stayed on Chinas territory. Once again, we urge India to pull back to the Indian side of the boundary. I want to stress that this is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides, Lu said.

This despite the fact that China and India have a smooth diplomatic channel, he said.

In New Delhi, there was no official reaction to Lus comments from the external affairs ministry.

He also hinted that India has the responsibility for initiating dialogue on the standoff, which has entered its second month.

China hopes to maintain peace and stability of border areas but China will not make any compromise on sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said. The responsibility for this incident lies completely with India and we hope India can get a clear understanding of the situation and can take swift and correct measures to avoid escalation of the situation.

Watch | Donglang standoff: Is the Chinese media playing us?

Asked about Australian foreign minister Julie Bishops comments in India calling for a peaceful resolution to territorial issues, Lu said her comments were correct but this principle does not apply to the current standoff as there is no dispute in the Doklam region.

Beijing has contended that an 1890 treaty between British India and the then ruling Qing dynasty in China had demarcated the Sikkim boundary.

Lu said the security summit later this week is a platform for BRICS countries to strengthen strategic communication, increase political mutual trust as well as discuss hotspot issues.

Doval and Yang also currently lead the special representatives mechanism for talks between India and China on the boundary issue. As many as 19 rounds of talks have been held between the two sides under the mechanism.
The principal of a private school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar confessed this week to sexually abusing women and filming them with hidden cameras for several years.

The principal of the school located in an upscale neighbourhood was caught only when one of his victims made a formal complaint to police earlier this month.

Police arrested the principal during a raid on the school and a case was filed against him under several provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The accused allegedly brought women to the school for sexual favours and had planted cameras to secretly film them. The police report said the accused would film the women during sex and would later blackmail them with the videos.

Spy cameras, condoms, performance enhancing drugs, laptops, memory cards and USB drives containing the explicit content, a pistol and several hashish-filled cigarettes were seized during the raid, officials said.

In his defence, the accused said he used to bring only sex workers to the school and never exploited the schools female staff. I just used to sit with them (women other than sex workers) to have a chit chat or a hug  relations other than sex, he claimed.

He further told the court that he used to watch the recorded videos for sexual pleasure.

Around 40 videos filmed with hidden cameras were found on his laptop. Among them were videos of other people recorded during sexual acts in a special room that the principal had kept aside for his activities.

Police officials said the accused had been involved in criminal activities for several years and was never caught till now because his victims were hesitant to complain against him, fearing the blackmail videos.
The parents of British baby Charlie Gard on Monday abandoned their legal fight to take him to the United States for experimental treatment in a case that has attracted global attention.

A lawyer representing Gards parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard told judge Nicholas Francis at Londons High Court that time had run out and that they had made their decision after seeing the 11-month-olds latest brain scans.

We have decided it is no longer in Charlies best interests to pursue treatment and we will let our son go, father Chris Gard said outside court.

He had a real genuine chance of life. We are truly devastated.

Chris Gard (left) the father of terminally ill 11-month-old Charlie Gard reads out a statement while Charlie's mother Connie Yates (right) looks on at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. (AFP Photo)

We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son, who unfortunately wont make his first birthday in just under two weeks time, he added.

Judge Francis had been due to rule on whether there was enough new evidence to allow the parents to take the baby, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, to the US for a type of treatment that has never been used on a human being.

Charlie suffers from a rare form of mitochondrial disease, which causes progressive muscle weakness in the heart and other key organs.

British doctors believe Gards brain damage is severe and irreversible and have said the baby may be suffering.

Great Ormond Street Hospital argued that Gards illness has left him deprived of his senses and that he is without any awareness as far as doctors can tell.

Supporters of Charlie Gard's parents react outside the High Court during a hearing on the baby's future, in London. (Reuters)

He has no quality of life and no real prospect of any quality of life, the hospital said.

Our son was a warrior

But father Chris Gard criticised the authorities, saying there is one simple reason why treatment cannot now go ahead, and that is time.

Had Charlie been given the treatment sooner, he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy, he said.

We will have to live with the what-ifs, that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Our son is an absolute warrior and we will miss him terribly.

A picture shows a poster set up by supporters of the family of British baby Charlie Gard outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London. (AFP Photo)

The couple fought a long legal fight to allow them to take their child out of Londons Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), but lost in both Britains Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The ruling led to the intervention of both US President Donald Trump and Pope Francis, who offered to help the baby, leading to the hospital to ask the courts for a final assessment of any new evidence.

Supporters of Charlie Gard's parents react outside the High Court during a hearing on the baby's future, in London. (Reuters)

The latest legal battle saw new testimony from a US neurologist, but a lawyer also warned the boys parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard that latest scans made sad reading.

In response, Chris Gard shouted evil, while mother Connie burst into tears.

With emotions running high, the hospital on Saturday said that it had contacted police over a shocking and disgraceful tide of hostility and disturbance.

Staff have received abuse both in the street and online, it said.

Mother Connie responded that we do not, and have not ever, condoned any threatening or abusive remarks towards any staff member, but added that they too had suffered the most hurtful comments from the public.

Great Ormond Street Hospital said the parents command GOSHs utmost respect and humble all who work there.

Scores of supporters holding blue balloons gathered outside the court for Mondays hearing, and reacted to the news with anger, chanting: shame on you judge and shame on GOSH.

The parents now want to establish a foundation for Charlies voice to be heard, according to their lawyer Grant Armstrong.

Judge Francis paid tribute to the parents for the love and the care they gave to their child Charlie.

No parents could have done more for their child, he said.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, named heir to the regions most powerful throne last month, took temporary charge of the country on Monday as the king left on holiday.

Prince Mohammeds father, King Salman, issued a royal decree deputising his son to manage state affairs and guard the interests of the people during the monarchs personal break, state news agency SPA reported.

On June 21, King Salman stripped the title of crown prince from his nephew Mohammed bin Nayef, naming 31-year-old Prince Mohammed, often known as MBS, as heir to the throne.

The crown prince has earned a reputation as a reformist in the ultra-conservative kingdom but is seen by some as lacking experience.

Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, a key US ally and the worlds largest oil exporter, heads an alliance that last month cut ties with Qatar over accusations Doha was too close to Saudi rival Iran and bankrolled Islamist extremist groups.

Qatar has denied the allegations.

The suspension of diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar has sparked the largest crisis to ever hit the Gulf Cooperation Council.
At least 24 people have been killed and 42 wounded after a car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees in western Kabul Monday, an official told AFP, the latest attack to strike the Afghan capital.

The car bomb hit a bus carrying employees of the ministry of mines during rush hour, interior ministry spokesperson Najib Danish told AFP.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the horrific attack. The statement, sent by Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, sid the target of the bombing was the intelligence services and their employees. He claimed the bus was filled with employees of the intelligence services but Kabul police chief spokesperson Basir Mujahed said the employees worked for the mines and petroleum ministry.

The neighbourhood in which Mondays bomb detonated is home to many Shia Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority who have been targeted many times in the past.

It is also near prominent politician and former warlord Mohammad Mohaqeqs home. Omid Maisom Mohaqiq, a spokesman for the politician, said the bomb had detonated near the first checkpoint approaching the house, killing and wounding some civilians.

Kabul is regularly rocked by suicide bombs and attacks. A recent UN report showed they accounted for nearly one-fifth of all civilian Afghan casualties in the first half of 2017.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which has been documenting civilian casualties since 2009, said in its recent report that 1,662 civilians were killed and more than 3,500 injured in the first six months of the year.

Many of those deaths happened in a devastating single attack in Kabul in late May when a truck bomb exploded, also during the morning rush hour, killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds.

UNAMA put the civilian death toll at 92, saying it was the deadliest incident to hit the country since 2001.

The bloody toll for the first six months of 2017 has unsettled the government of President Ashraf Ghani, who has come under increasing pressure since the May attack in Kabul.

Protests and deadly street clashes hit the Afghan capital in the wake of the May attack as people incensed by security failures called for his governments resignation.

The UNAMA report also said nearly half of Afghanistans 34 provinces have seen an increase in civilian deaths in the first six months of the year, mainly due to the rise in attacks by anti-government forces across the country.

NATOs combat mission in Afghanistan ended three years ago, handing sole responsibility to the countrys security forces, who has also suffered spiralling casualties ever since as they try to beat back the resurgent Taliban and contain the growing threat from the Islamic State group.
Donald Trumps son-in-law and top White House adviser Jared Kushner forcefully denied colluding with Moscow to sway the 2016 election Monday, insisting a string of undisclosed meetings with Russian officials were proper.

Let me be very clear -- I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so, Kushner said after giving testimony to a Congressional inquiry.

The normally camera-shy aide said contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a financier and a lawyer -- who offered dirt on his father-in-laws campaign rival Hillary Clinton -- were above board.

The record and documents I have voluntarily provided will show that all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign.

Kushner spent more than two hours appearing before senators who are probing Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Both Houses of Congress and the Justice Department are investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded in that effort, which the CIA believes was ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

The sprawling probe has plagued the White House since Trump took office, with many influential members of his team having failed to report their contacts with Russian officials.

Speaking on his return to the White House -- where he is a senior advisor to the president -- Kushner said he has not relied on Russian funds for his business.

He also went on the offensive, echoing Trumps claim that the investigations are an effort by Democrats to explain away a shock election loss.

Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won, Kushner, a former campaign aide, said.

The statement was the first time the reticent Kushner -- who is married to Trumps eldest daughter Ivanka -- publicly explained his contacts with Russian officials.

He is scheduled to appear before a House panel on Tuesday.

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading a broad investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.

A waste of time

The 36-year-old Kushner has faced scrutiny for not disclosing meetings and for taking part in a meeting with Kremlin-connected Russians along with Trumps son Donald Jr.

In an 11-page written statement, Kushner said the June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya -- which Donald Jr had taken hoping to get incriminating information on Trumps rival Hillary Clinton -- was a waste of time.

Kushner also acknowledged a brief meeting with Kislyak in April 2016 -- when Trump himself also briefly met the ambassador -- and another during his father-in-laws transition.

That second meeting was also attended by Michael Flynn, who became Trumps national security adviser but was quickly ousted over his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations, Kushner said of the sit-down, saying he asked Kislyak who had direct lines to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was open for dialogue.

The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day.

Kushner emphasized that he did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office.

He said Kislyak recommended meeting with banker Sergey Gorkov -- someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together, the statement said.

Fresh sanctions

Kushner said there was no mention of sanctions in his talks with both Kislyak and Gorkov.

The topic has made recent headlines as Congress prepares to approve fresh punitive measures against Moscow.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed new sanctions in mid-June, and after reaching an agreement the House is to vote Tuesday on a bill targeting Russia over the suspected campaign meddling as well as its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Democrat Ron Wyden, a member of the committee which questioned Kushner, said his statement raised far more questions than it answers and should not be merely accepted as the whole truth.

Kushner has repeatedly concealed information about his personal finances and meetings with foreign officials, said Wyden.

Meanwhile, Trump appeared increasingly angry with his Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion quickens.

The president took to Twitter to declare his top lawyer beleaguered, raising speculation the president may be preparing the ground to replace him.

Donald Trump Jr and Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign director, are currently negotiating with the Senate Judiciary Committee about when they will appear to give their version of events.
President Donald Trump expressed his frustration with Republicans on Sunday, saying they do very little to protect their President.

In one of several tweets issued in the afternoon and evening, Trump said the lack of support happens even with some that were carried over the line on my back.

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2017

Trumps tweet wasnt clear about why he was upset. It came as Republicans in the Senate struggled to come together on a bill to overhaul President Barack Obamas health care law.

On that topic, another tweet from the president was more specific: If Republicans dont Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!

If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for their August recess without passing a health bill.

Trump has had a complicated relationship with the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have continued to be generally supportive of the president, even as his approval ratings slip.

Democrats did not escape Trumps twitter rantings as he turned his attention for a moment to the ongoing investigation into Russia meddling in the presidential election. In another missive he wrote: As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!

The president also took a shot at favorite targets in the news media: Its hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!
Research projects related to a second green revolution, cheap eye tests for diabetes patients and solar energy in India are among several international projects for which funding worth 225 million has been announced by Britains apex research body.

Considered one of the most ambitious international research programmes, the Global Challenges Research Fund of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) supports projects in the range of 2 million to 8 million over four years. The projects involve experts from India and Britain.

The 225 million has been invested in 37 interdisciplinary projects to address challenges in fields such as health, humanitarian crises, conflict, the environment, the economy, domestic violence, society and technology in various countries, RCUK said.

UK-based eye expert Sobha Sivaprasad will trial cheap new tests that could prevent blindness in India on a large scale. Researchers from institutes and eye hospitals in the UK and India plan to roll out a new hand-held camera that could considerably reduce the costs of testing.

A second approach to be trialled is a blood test that can be performed at home to pick up signs that sight is threatened. The number of sufferers attending hospital for treatment is expected to surge, and building the capacity to deal with this is part of the research plan.

A project called TIGR2ESS seeks to frame the big question  how to bring about a second green revolution  in all its breadth and depth in the context of rapid development of urban spaces in India.

Smallholder farmers- particularly women - need smart technologies to sustain crop yields, and improve health and nutrition. The TIGR2 ESS programme will assess these options, as well as supporting basic research programmes, and providing advice to local communities, said a summary of the project involving experts from the University of Cambridge.

Another project will address Indias plans for solar energy: Last year, Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced he was determined to leap-frog fossil fuels and harness global solar expertise to turn his nation green.

SUNRISE, a UK-led collaborative project, will help deliver this challenge. Combining the best of British and Indian solar expertise from leading institutions in both countries, the project will develop printed photovoltaic cells and innovative manufacturing processes, according to a statement on the project with collaboration from the University of Swansea.

Other projects related to India include questions related to anti-violence computer games, reducing self-harm and suicide, making dams less damaging and making cities fairer in terms of social inequalities.

UK universities and science minister Jo Johnson said: From healthcare to green energy, the successful projects receiving funding highlight the strength of the UKs research base and our leadership in helping developing countries tackle some of the greatest global issues of our time.

At a time when the pace of scientific discovery and innovation is quickening, we are placing science and research at the heart of our industrial strategy to build on our strengths and maintain our status as a science powerhouse.

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Unfairly overlooked by historians, this crucial year of global conflict turned the tide of war irrevocably in the Allies favor.

The year 1943 opened badly for the once unstoppable Axis forces of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. And by the close of that unfairly overlooked but momentous year of World War II, the fortunes of the Axis belligerents had become much worse. Although 1942 had been, in Winston Churchills phrase, the wars Hinge of Fate  as the Allies, led by the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union, won near-run victories over Japan at Midway in the Pacific, Germany and Italy at El Alamein in North Africa, and Adolf Hitlers East Front legions at Stalingrad in Russia  it was the global land, sea and air combat in 1943 that proved pivotal to the wars outcome. As 1942 drew to a close, the Axis powers still had a chance to win the war; however, by the end of 1943, that chance had been irrevocably lost. Tellingly, during the crucial 12 months of 1943, the strategic initiative on nearly all the wars fronts permanently shifted from the Axis to the Allies.

Key events and hard fighting  Allied setbacks as well as successes  in all theaters of the war made 1943 World War IIs vital forgotten year of victory.

CASABLANCA AND THE GRAND ALLIANCE

On January 14, 1943, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at Casablanca in newly liberated French Morocco. The other Allied Big Three leader, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, excused himself from the conference, as the crucial Battle of Stalingrad still raged. Even with Stalins absence, the Casablanca meeting produced important decisions regarding how the Grand Alliance would prosecute the global war, by establishing the broad outline for the Allies 1943 operations on all fronts and on land, sea and in the air. Significantly, the leaders publicly proclaimed the Allies would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender from the Axis powers, and they reaffirmed the wars priorities: First eliminate Hitlers Nazi Germany, then defeat Imperial Japan.

Although from Moscow Stalin again demanded the United States and Britain launch a second front against Germany by invading continental Europe, Churchill convinced FDR to postpone a cross-Channel invasion until 1944. Once Allied armies won the North Africa campaign, they would proceed to Sicily to continue offensive operations in the Mediterranean Theater. However, to strike Germany directly, Churchill and FDR agreed to launch a combined Royal Air Force-U.S. Air Forces strategic aerial bombing offensive.

EASTERN FRONT

With two-thirds of the German army engaged in brutal combat with millions of Red Army troops, World War IIs Eastern Front remained the wars greatest clash of arms in 1943. On January 9, after encircling Stalingrad, Soviet General Konstantin Rokossovsky began Operation Ring, a direct assault on the trapped German forces. A month later, German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered the remnants of 6th Army at Stalingrad. The Soviet victory exposed German vulnerability  Hitlers powerful East Front legions could be beaten by Stalins resurgent Red Army.

In the north, Soviet troops opened a narrow corridor to besieged Leningrad, although the deadly German siege continued for another year. Meanwhile in southern Russia, the Red Armys Voronezh Front broke through 2d Hungarian Army and raced toward Kursk and Kharkov. The Soviet Southwestern Front closed on Rostov, threatening to cut off German forces in the Caucasus; yet overextension, stretched logistics, freezing weather and the operational genius of German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein helped the Germans avert a complete disaster.

In the wake of the Stalingrad disaster and Caucasus near disaster, Hitler sought to regain the East Front initiative with Operation Citadel, an attack to pinch off the Kursk salient. Delayed from May until July awaiting new panzer production, German forces attacked July 5 but stalled amid strong multiple Soviet defensive belts. The Red Army launched a counteroffensive on the Kursk salients flanks in August, seizing Orel and the much contested city of Kharkov.

The Germans failure at Kursk threatened to unhinge their entire East Front line as Soviet counteroffensives carried Red Army troops west to the Dnepr River line. Clearly, by August 1943 the strategic initiative on the East Front had permanently passed to Stalins armies.

NORTH AFRICA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN

Despite the fact that German fortunes on the East Front hung in the balance at Stalingrad, Hitler nevertheless diverted Germanys war effort by rushing reinforcements to Tunisia in the wake of the November 1942 Allied landings in North Africa. The first Allied advance stalled as winter weather reduced roads to quagmires, halting operations for three months with both sides rushing to build up forces.

In February, a renewed Allied offensive into Tunisia faced two German commanders  Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and General Jurgen von Arnim, both under Hitlers orders to fight to the last. Rommel proved the most dangerous opponent. Before his February 19-25 attack through Kasserine Pass was finally stopped, it overran inexperienced American troops, teaching them and their equally inexperienced U.S. commanders how much they still had to learn about fighting the battle-wise German army.

While an ill Rommel recuperated in Germany, Axis forces in Tunisia were trapped against the coast with no air cover and no hope for reinforcements. On May 7, Allied forces captured Tunis and Bizerte, forcing remaining Axis forces in North Africa to surrender unconditionally.

On May 12, Churchill and Roosevelt met again, at the Trident Conference in Washington, D.C., to review Allied strategy. They discussed the strategic bombing strategy for the Pacific Theater and confirmed planning for the invasions of Sicily, then Italy, and ultimately (based on the situation achieved in Italy) the cross-Channel invasion of France.

On July 10, while the titanic East Front Battle of Kursk raged, American and British forces landed on the coast of Sicily. U.S. 7th Army, under General George S. Patton Jr., took Palermo July 22, prompting Italys Fascist Grand Council to oust dictator Benito Mussolini two days later. German combat units successfully evacuated Sicily just days before Allied troops captured Messina, placing all of Sicily under Allied control.

Hitlers reaction to Sicilys fall and Mussolinis ouster was to order German troops to occupy Italy, ensuring the country remained in the Axis camp. In September, the Allies invaded Italy at Salerno but barely managed to hold their bridgehead in the face of fierce German counterattacks  tremendous Allied artillery, naval gunfire and air support proved decisive. By mid-October, Allied armies held a continuous line across the Italian peninsula, from north of Naples to Termoli on the Adriatic. For the next 18 months, the brilliant German defense led by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring would frustrate Allied offensives in Italy and turn the Italian campaign into a costly slugfest fought over some of Europes most rugged terrain.

THE PACIFIC AND ASIA

U.S. naval victories at Coral Sea and Midway in 1942 had checked Japanese expansion in the Pacific, opening the way for Allied land, sea and air forces to begin rolling back Japans conquests. Americas two theater commanders  Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commanding Central Pacific Area, and General Douglas MacArthur, leading South West Pacific Area  launched offensives in the Solomon Islands (Guadalcanal) and New Guinea (Buna-Gona) in the closing months of 1942 that concluded victoriously in early 1943. (See Battlefield Leader, July 2012 ACG.) Australian and U.S. troops victory at Buna-Gona on January 22 marked Japans first defeat on land and began MacArthurs brilliant maneuvers along New Guineas northern coastline that would propel his forces back to the Philippines in October 1944.

Despite FDRs avowed Germany First strategy, offensive operations in the Pacific Theater proved irrepressible. Indeed, since Japanese aggression had embroiled the United States in World War II, American public opinion demanded action against Japan. MacArthur and Nimitz were more than willing to oblige.

As MacArthurs forces moved inexorably along New Guineas long coastline, and a Japanese convoy was decisively defeated in March 1943 at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, Nimitzs naval and amphibious task forces continued advancing through the Solomon Islands to New Georgia (June-August) and Bougainville (November). Due to another coup by U.S. code breakers, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was ambushed and killed while on an inspection tour when his plane was shot down April 18 by American fighters sent to intercept him.

On November 20, Nimitz launched 2d U.S. Marine Division at Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands during Operation Galvanic. Meeting the Marines at Tarawas beaches, 4,500 Japanese defenders fought to the death, killing 1,000 Marines and wounding another 2,000 in 76 hours of savage combat. The Battle of Tarawa stunned the American public, driving home the stark realization of just how costly totally defeating Japan would be. The film With the Marines at Tarawa, featuring authentic, gruesome combat footage of the invasion, required President Roosevelts personal approval before government censors would release the movie for public viewing. Even then, it was not released until March 1944.

Meanwhile, Allied fortunes in Southeast Asia and China faltered. In Burma, British and Commonwealth forces were battered by powerful Japanese offensives that threatened to drive north into India. However, the August 24 appointment of British Admiral Lord Mountbatten as that theaters supreme Allied commander and the November creation of British 14th Army under the brilliant General William Slim would eventually turn the tide against the Japanese  but not until 1944. China continued to face the bulk of Japans army as Generalissimo Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalists and Mao Zedongs Communists waged both conventional and guerrilla war against Japanese invaders. Allied support to China was key to keeping it in the war, but the tenuous supply line, the Burma Road, remained threatened by Japanese success in Burma.

BATTLE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC

In early 1943, over 100 of German Admiral Karl Donitzs U-boats still prowled the Atlantic convoy lanes, exploiting gaps in Allied air coverage and attacking merchant shipping using wolf pack tactics. A total of 107 Allied merchant ships were sunk in March alone, bringing the German navy perilously close to breaking the Allies vital North Atlantic supply link. To counter Germanys strategy, the Allies increased the number of escort vessels, improved the training of ship commanders and crews, capitalized on technical improvements in direction-finding and radar equipment, and redoubled code breakers efforts to crack new German naval codes.

Allied countermeasures combined to have a telling effect: In April, the merchant tonnage lost vs. U-boats sunk ratio was cut in half; in May, radar-equipped escort ships notably destroyed five U-boats within hours. Also during May, the mid-Atlantic air coverage gap was finally closed when Allies stationed Canadian-flown B-24 Liberators in Newfoundland. Time was running out on Germanys U-boat offensive.

By mid-1943, Allied materiel, tactical and technological superiority dominated the Atlantic struggle  U-boat wolf packs had met their match in steadily improving Allied countermeasures. By the end of what German captains called Black May (during which 43 German submarines were sunk), Donitz acknowledged, We had lost the Battle of the Atlantic. He withdrew his U-boats from the North Atlantic convoy routes.

ALLIED BOMBING CAMPAIGN: EUROPE

Although Stalin continued to pressure the Western Allies for an invasion of Europe in 1943, FDR and Churchill remained committed to invading in mid-1944. The best direct action against Germany they could offer their Soviet ally was to press on with the British-American bomber offensive targeting Germany and Nazi-occupied European countries agreed to at the Casablanca Conference.

Although the air offensives directive listed key enemy war industry priority targets, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Bomber Harris, commander of RAF Bomber Command, believed the air effort should instead concentrate on destroying German cities, killing enemy workers and wrecking civilian morale. Harris recognized that the difficulty in attempting precision aerial bombing was the abysmal lack of accuracy. Even in daylight raids, pinpoint bombing from 20,000 feet or higher deposited only half the bombs within a quarter-mile of the aiming point. Under the poor visibility conditions so often encountered in northern Europe, bombs aimed at a three-mile radius target resulted in half the bomb load merely plowing up surrounding farmland.

Harris persisted in concentrating Bomber Commands efforts in night raids against area targets: the Ruhr industrial region, Hamburg, and Berlin. In a weeklong series of raids on Hamburg at the end of July called Operation Gomorrah, 2,500 tons of bombs from RAF bombers created a horrific firestorm that destroyed the city while incinerating 42,000 German civilians, wounding another 37,000, and de-housing 1.2 million. It was the most destructive air attack in history to that point. Unfortunately, worse civilian death tolls followed as the Allied strategic bombing campaign progressed against Germany and Japan from mid-1944  for the remainder of the war.

U.S. bombers based in England and others flying from bases in North Africa flew daylight bombing raids against targets in Germany and Axis-occupied countries. With General Henry Hap Arnold, U.S. Air Forces commanding general, single-mindedly pursing strategic bombing as the path to eventual Air Force independence, the American bombing effort sought to bring the German war effort to its knees by attacking key war industries. U.S. bomber targets included submarine construction yards and bases; aircraft factories; ball bearing factories; oil production and storage plants; synthetic rubber and tire factories; and military transport vehicle factories and stores. Bombing accuracy remained problematic, however, and pinpoint accuracy proved beyond the capability of the eras air war technology.

Yet despite the rising enemy civilian death toll and the dubious accuracy of attacks on enemy industry, one major impact of the Allied bombing campaign was its attrition of German fighter aircraft strength. By 1943, the German Luftwaffe clearly could not provide effective air cover on all fighting fronts. When by mid-year German fighters were concentrated over Germany confronting the seemingly endless waves of Allied bombers  increasingly accompanied by Allied fighter protection throughout most and eventually all of the bombers long missions  Luftwaffe air support to other fronts, particularly the East Front, suffered.

In August, American bombers flew from bases in Libya to the oil fields in Ploesti, Romania, in a costly raid on Germanys principal oil refineries. The price in aircraft and blood was high, at 54 bombers and 532 air crewmen lost.

DARK SIDE OF WAR

Despite the worsening war situation for Axis forces  Hitlers strategy was to issue a series of futile stand fast orders that usually proved only preludes to another German retreat  the dark side of World War II behind the fighting fronts grew even darker in 1943.

The NazisFinal Solution, the relentless deportation and killing of Jews, intensified throughout German-occupied Europe. Germans notoriousefficiencywas applied to the Nazis extermination effort, as concentration camps became quite literallydeath factories.Any resistance, such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April-May, was ruthlessly repressed by both SS and German army units.Yet even as the pace of mass murders in the death camps increased, Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler decided in the summer of 1943 to begin covering up the evidence of the extermination of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war. He sent special squads to every mass murder site to dig up and burn the bodies.

One result was that anti-German partisan activities grew rapidly, to the increasing embarrassment of German forces throughout occupied Europe. Brutal reprisals  shooting hostages, burning villages, deporting survivors to Germany for slave labor  bred more partisans. Behind German lines, the power of partisans and anti-Nazi forces grew in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and the Balkans as Allied armies rolled back Axis conquests.

With German fortunes sagging, anti-Hitler groups appeared. In Munich, a small cell of pacifist German university students and faculty called the White Rose raised a rare dissenting voice, but it was quickly snuffed out by the Gestapo when the groups members were captured and executed in February. On March 13, however, a potentially more lethal threat to Hitler arose when disaffected German army officers planted a bomb on his aircraft. The assassination attempt failed, but the plotters persevered, eventually trying again July 20, 1944.

In April, the Germans accelerated the roundup and deportation of forced laborers throughout German-occupied Western Europe. Hundreds of thousands worked as slave laborers in German war factories, enduring inhuman and dangerous conditions that killed tens of thousands.

Japanese brutality against the indigenous population in occupied territories was also horrific; in China alone, an estimated 12 million Chinese civilians were murdered during the war. Allied prisoners of war suffered horribly in Japanese camps without proper medical care and amid terrible punishments. In October, the Japanese completed the Burma-Thailand railroad that 46,000 Allied prisoners of war had been forced to build. Sixteen thousand POWs died of starvation, brutality and disease, and more than 50,000 Burmese impressed laborers died working on the Railroad of Death.

Although various schemes were proposed to the Allies to intervene in the genocidal Axis repression  such as bombing the concentration camps and the rail networks that supported them  Allied leaders determined that the quickest way to end the suffering and torment was to win the war. The air, land and sea campaigns in 1943 went a long way toward achieving that end.

12 CRUCIAL MONTHS

Sandwiched between the Hinge of Fate year of 1942 and the stirring campaigns of 1944 (notably D-Day) that set up the Allies final victory, 1943 too often unfairly gets short shrift in histories of World War II. Yet those crucial 12 months proved a vital crucible of war during which Allied armies, navies and air forces learned how to fight  and more importantly, how to win. American forces in particular benefitted by learning valuable lessons in tough, demanding combat taught to them by formidable German and Japanese forces that had been hardened during years of unremitting war.

Indeed, the nearly unbroken string of Allied victories in 1944 is hard to imagine without the devastating attrition inflicted on Axis land, sea and air forces during 1943. When 1942 ended, Axis air forces still maintained rough air parity with the Allies; as December 1943 drew to a close, Allied air forces dominated the skies over Europe and the Pacific. Replacing the catastrophic German troop losses on the Eastern Front throughout 1943 weakened Hitlers Atlantic Wall defenses, greatly increasing the chance of success for the D-Day invasion in 1944. The serious threat German U-boats posed to North Atlantic convoys as 1943 began evaporated in the face of effective Allied countermeasures. Italian forces were knocked out of the war in 1943, while MacArthurs and Nimitzs campaigns inexorably penetrated the Pacific defensive ring that Japanese leaders had staked their countrys fortune on holding.

Perhaps 1943s greatest achievement was gaining time  notably, time for American and Soviet factories to hit their stride in pouring out a flood of tanks, planes, ships, guns and ammunition that would eventually drown Axis forces in a sea of war materiel. A comment made by a German 88 mm anti-tank gun commander who fought against the Americans is telling: I kept knocking out the American tanks, but more kept on coming. I ran out of ammunition. The Americans did not run out of tanks.

During World War IIs forgotten year of victory, the Allies wrested the strategic initiative from the enemy and held it for the rest of the war. 1943 put Allied armies, navies and air forces on the march to final triumph.

Colonel (Ret.) Richard N. Armstrong, author of Soviet Operational Deception: The Red Cloak, is an adjunct history professor at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Armchair General.
Post-World War I Freikorps paramilitary units won control of Germanys streets amid revolutionary chaos.

Following the November 11, 1918, armistice that ended World War Is four years of brutal fighting, German army troops returning to the beaten fatherland found the country in social and political turmoil. Germanys new democratic Reich government, established to fill the political void created by the November 9, 1918, forced abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, was losing political ground to revolutionary German Communist Party soviets.

Soldiers, sailors and laborers  disgruntled over their role in World War I and enraged at the alarming disparity between Germanys rich and poor  were forming soviet councils to enforce the Communists will of wresting political control from the Reichs weak central government. In many instances the soviets succeeded, and Germany found itself in the midst of revolutionary combat from small villages to large cities such as Berlin, Hamburg and Munich.

In accordance with the armistice (and later the Treaty of Versailles), the Reich could only employ a small, poorly supplied and weakly motivated Reichswehr (the new German army) against German soviet forces. The Reichswehr made little progress against soviet-held positions, and at the urging of Defense Minister Gustav Noske, the Reich unofficially promoted creation of a clandestine army formed of paramilitary units known as Freikorps (German for volunteer corps) to combat the soviet revolutionaries.

Freikorps units were created by  and generally took their name from  a central figure, typically a veteran officer or noncommissioned officer. These leaders recruited heavily from their former wartime units, enlisting men who were disciplined combat veterans, knew how to function effectively as a combat unit, and shared nationalist ideals concerning Germany. Via Reich backing and personal connections, these commanders were able to ensure their troops enjoyed a better standard of living than that of the average Reichswehr soldier. Freikorps units ranged from company to division strength, and they outfitted themselves by outright theft or through the aid of sympathetic Reichswehr quartermasters who turned a blind eye to their unauthorized appropriation of weapons and equipment.

Freikorps von Epp, formed in February 1919 by Oberst Franz Ritter Xavier von Epp, at the request of Defense Minister Noske, was a leading example of an effective divisional-strength unit formed around a powerful personality. Munichs soviet government had refused to acknowledge the Reich governments supremacy, and Epp, as a decorated Bavarian officer, was considered the optimum choice to lead a force to take back Bavarias wayward city.

Epp enlisted as an officer candidate in the Bavarian army in 1887 and by the 1914 beginning of World War I had served in a variety of capacities. His services included active duty as commandant of the Bavarian War Academy and combat action as a member of the German relief force sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion and in Germanys South West Africa colony. In mid-August 1914, Epp took command of the Bavarian armys elite Royal Bavarian Infantry Life Guard Regiment and retained it until the wars end, displaying tremendous personal bravery. The Imperial German Army recognized his battlefield performance, awarding him the Iron Cross 1st Class, Iron Cross 2d Class, the noble title von, the Knights Cross and the Pour le Merite.

At the time Noske made his request, Epp was living in neighboring Wurttemberg following an assassination attempt at his Munich apartment. Epp agreed to create a Freikorps and began recruiting troops.Word spread swiftly, and soon former members of the Royal Bavarian Infantry Life Guard were enlisting. Veterans of the Bavarian Alpine Corps, to which Epps Life Guard had been attached 1914-16, were soon enlisting as well. By April 1919, Epp had a force of nearly 15,000 nationalist Bavarians who had seen World War I combat in elite units.

Among Freikorps von Epps troops was an immense pool of various military specialties from which to form specialized units. Epp created a broad range of units, including storm trooper assault troops, pioneers and regular infantry. Artillery support was provided by armored trains, heavy artillery, mortars and light artillery maneuvered via trucks. Armored cars, cavalry and an air wing added to the Freikorps combat power. On April 30, 1919, Freikorps von Epp, another smaller Freikorps, and Reichswehr units were staged outside Munich, prepared to assault the city May 2.

German soviet forces within Munich panicked with the arrival of the Reich troops, executing an estimated 20 political prisoners at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Word of the executions quickly reached Epp, who had operational control over all Freikorps and Reich units, and he launched an immediate attack upon the city. The combined force entered Munich in two columns, the first from the east and the second from the west. The use of columns was a tactic devised by General Ludwig von Marcker in Berlin as a psychological weapon to pacify through intimidation created by converging ranks of uniformed, disciplined troops. Both of Epps columns pushed deep into Munich. The air wing carried out multiple tasks in advance of each column: reconnaissance to identify blockades and machinegun nests; propaganda by dropping pamphlets encouraging surrender; and airstrikes attacking soviet rooftop snipers.

The intelligence gathered by the air wing was rapidly relayed to Epps columns, allowing them to bypass trouble spots as they sought out the largest concentrations of German soviet forces. Many of the estimated 40,000-50,000 soviet troops in Munich simply melted away at the approach of Epps columns. Only several hundred stalwart Communists stayed at their posts, fortifying Hacker Bridge and Munichs central train station.

At both of these defensive positions, Epp employed a unique blend of tactics that became the hallmark of Freikorps units until Germany was secured for the Reich in 1921. These tactics re-created highly effective World War I operations, emphasizing the importance of combined arms combat. For instance, Epp isolated the soviet defenders at Hacker Bridge and the train station with heavy artillery fire, cutting them off from both their reserves and their retreat routes while shocking them with a tremendous amount of fire.Armored vehicles patrolled side streets to prevent enfilading fire from small soviet units. Freikorps trucks brought up storm troopers and light artillery, and the smaller field pieces lowered a curtain of fire behind the target once the heavy artillery barrage lifted. Light machine guns laid down suppressing fire for the assault troops, and then the storm troopers attacked the stunned defenders using grenades, pistols, K-98 carbines, flamethrowers, trench knives and trench clubs. Employing these rapid, vicious assault troop tactics and working as a combined arms team, Freikorps von Epp took control of Munich May 2, 1919.

By swiftly seizing Munich, Freikorps von Epp showed Germans that the Reich would not permit the nation to dissolve in the post-World War I social and political upheaval. The Reichswehr, in turn, revealed it was incapable of dealing with the countrys revolutionary chaos by itself and that it could not compete with the Freikorps in battlefield performance. Indeed, its inability to enforce the governments political will had led to the creation of the Freikorps. Freikorps troops  motivated, nationalist-minded, World War I veterans  were better paid, better fed, better equipped, and better led than the revolutionary soviet forces, leaving the soviets unable to stand against them.

Epp showed the Reich how disciplined troops using combined arms tactics and exercising ruthless efficiency could reassert control in a politically destabilized situation. The success of Freikorps von Epp and other Freikorps units created physical power behind the Reichs political will. While the Reichswehr served a limited function, the true military of the Reich bringing order to the chaos of Germanys revolution were the Freikorps  Germanys secret army.

Nicholas Efstathiou holds a masters degree in military history from Norwich University, and he lives in New England with his wife, their three children, and one or two books on the subject of military history.

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Armchair General.
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Sound decisions helped create a roadblock to Japans Pacific blitzkrieg.

The Japanese offensive that began World War II in the Pacific targeted the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, British and Dutch possessions in resource-rich Malaysia and Indonesia, and Americas most advanced Pacific base, the Philippines. Quickly seizing the Philippines was particularly vital to Japans plan of conquest, as it would eliminate the U.S. military threat to the countrys vital supply lines between the home islands and the conquered southern resources region and provide a forward staging area for current and future Japanese military operations.

Standing in the way of Japans conquest of the Philippines was General Douglas MacArthurs U.S. Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE)  135,000 troops, of which 85 percent were inadequately trained Filipino soldiers armed with World War I rifles  supported by Major General Lewis H. Breretons Far East Air Force (FEAF) and the U.S. Navys Asiatic Fleet under Admiral Thomas C. Hart.

MISSION ADJUSTED

Once the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor started the war, several events rapidly transpired that had a significant impact on MacArthurs mission of defending the Philippines. Pre-war U.S. plans assumed that a successful Philippines defense would require MacArthurs forces to be greatly augmented by reinforcements once war began, but the crippling of the U.S. Pacific Fleet essentially eliminated the means of getting additional troops and weapons to the defenders. Then, eight hours after the Pacific Fleet was struck, egregious decisions made by General Brereton resulted in Japanese airstrikes destroying most of FEAFs offensive capability  its B-17 bombers  while it was still on the ground. (See Hard Choices, May 2011 ACG.) And when Admiral Hart withdrew the Asiatic Fleet from Philippine waters after Cavite Naval Base was bombed December 8 (he left some submarines, PT boats and a few support ships), MacArthurs ground forces faced the imminent Japanese amphibious invasion with no reasonable hope of reinforcements and bereft of effective air and naval support.

MACARTHURS DECISION: With defeating a Japanese invasion now unlikely, MacArthur adjusted USAFFEs mission to that of delaying a Japanese victory as long as possible. Although his forces opposed the Japanese amphibious landings December 22 at Lingayen Gulf and two days later in southern Luzon, the efforts were ineffectual. On December 24, MacArthur decided to implement War Plan Orange 3, the withdrawal to and defense of the rugged Bataan Peninsula.

RACE TO BATAAN

By December 30, the Japanese realized MacArthurs intention was to mount his main defense from the mountainous, forbidding terrain of Bataan Peninsula  if the main American-Filipino force could arrive there in time. Thus, with two powerful invasion forces converging on central Luzon (one from Lingayen Gulf, the other from south of Manila), the Japanese sought to cut off and destroy USAFFE before the bulk of MacArthurs defenders reached the peninsula. If the Japanese could win the race to Bataan their rapid conquest of the Philippines was assured.

MACARTHURS DECISION: Establishing five successive lines from which to delay the Japanese advance, MacArthur skillfully maneuvered his USAFFE units in a phased withdrawal that avoided enemy attempts to cut them off and which successfully brought most of his army to Bataan Peninsula ahead of Japanese spearheads. Meanwhile, he had ordered Brigadier General George M. Parker Jr. to begin preparing defensive positions on Bataan and to start stocking the peninsula with as much food and provisions as possible. By January 6, 1942, MacArthur had won the race to Bataan, getting about 80,000 of his troops into defensive positions on the peninsula.

ROADBLOCK

USAFFEs January 7 to April 9 defense of Bataan was characterized by countless small unit actions as American and Filipino troops reacted to continuous Japanese attacks. MacArthurs forces were organized as I Corps under Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright and II Corps commanded by Major General Edward P. King. Despite appalling conditions, rampant disease, heavy casualties and increasing shortages of food and ammunition, Wainwright and Kings beleaguered U.S. and Filipino troops managed to create a stubborn defense of Bataan that, for several crucial months, proved to be a roadblock to Japans opening war blitzkrieg. Inevitably, however, Japanese strength and firepower overcame the defenders. USAFFE forces on Bataan surrendered April 9, and the fortress island of Corregidor in Manila Bay was captured May 6.

MACARTHURS DECISION: Given the nature of the fighting on Bataan  small unit tactical actions without the opportunity for large-scale maneuvers  MacArthur decided to delegate control of the fighting to his on-scene subordinate commanders. Although he remained in overall command from his headquarters on Corregidor (and later Australia), he wisely left the fighting on Bataan to Wainwright and King.

MACARTHURS ESCAPE

When the Philippines finally fell, however, MacArthur was in Australia. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a crafty politician always sensitive to public opinion, realized the devastating blow that the capture of the senior U.S. commander in the Philippines would inflict on homefront morale. Moreover, MacArthur was a national hero, revered by the American people as the most well-known and popular U.S. military figure of the day. FDR could not take the personal political risk of letting the Japanese capture the general. In February, he therefore directed U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall to order MacArthur to escape. MacArthur, following orders, departed Corregidor by U.S. Navy PT boat the night of March 12, 1942, and proceeded to Mindanao, where a B-17 flew him to Australia.

GALLANT ARMY

Although MacArthur was not in the Philippines during the March 12 to May 6 fighting, the five-month defense that he planned, executed and oversaw that began with the Japanese attack in December shattered the invaders Pacific War opening offensive timetable. More than any other Allied combat during the wars opening months, MacArthurs Philippines defense bought the Allies the vital time necessary to prepare and mount counteroffensives that began rolling back Japans conquests in mid-1942.

Yet MacArthur realized the valor and sacrifice of his American and Filipino troops deserved the credit. In an April 1942 ceremony in which he was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading the Philippines defense, MacArthur acknowledged: This award was intended not so much for me personally as it is a recognition of the indomitable courage of the gallant army which it was my honor to command.

Jerry D. Morelock, PhD, Armchair General Editor in Chief.

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Armchair General.
Brave U.S. airmen persevered in the face of horrendously daunting circumstances.

On June 11, 1942, 13 B-24D Liberator bombers flew from Fayid, Egypt, and bombed the oil complex at Ploesti, Romania. These aircraft were part of a secret program named HALPRO originally put together to bomb Japan from a base in China. Although the B- 24s bombed individually through an overcast with negligible results and encountered no defensive reaction, only seven aircraft made it back to the planned recovery base in Syria.

The results of this wasted mission, besides depleting the bomber force working against the Germans in the Mediterranean area, would come to have great meaning for a bright young U.S. Army Air Force colonel named Jacob Smart. Smart was handpicked by General H.H. HapArnolds senior staff to be the chief planner for an aerial assault decided upon at the January 1943 Casablanca Conference. Unanimous eagerness to put the oil refineries out of business pronounced Ploesti the number one target whose destruction would hurt Adolf Hitler the most. About 30 percent of the oil consumed by the German economy was refined in Ploesti, and some estimates claimed that target destruction would shorten the war by six months. The attack was to take place between the end of the North African campaign and the invasion of Sicily and would emanate from recently evacuated fields around Benghazi in Libya.

THE PLAN

Jake Smarts opponent in his planning for the attack on the Ploesti targets was the defensive genius German General Alfred Gerstenberg, nominally German Air Attache in Bucharest but actually the German officer who oversaw all facets of the military in Romania. Gerstenbergs primary interest was his responsibility for the massive oil refinery complex around Ploesti, and he had done an excellent job of protecting his charge. Gerstenberg is an interesting study. He was a member of Manfred von Richthofens Jasta 11 in World War I and thereby a close friend of Hermann Goring. Although not a Nazi, Gerstenberg used this connection to squeeze the Reichsmarschall for armament, men and aircraft in defense of Ploesti, a job made easier because of the HALPRO bombing.

Anticipating an allied bombing offensive against the Ploesti targets, the shrewd Gerstenberg succeeded in amassing one of the greatest concentrations of defensive firepower anywhere in the German sphere of influence. He prepared an inner ring of flak defenses made up of 40 batteries of six 88 mm and four 37/20 mm guns each and an outer ring of numerous lighter batteries and hundreds of machine-gun pits and towers. More guns were mounted on buildings and in haystacks. Barrage balloons were everywhere, and complementing this array was a new signal detection unit in Athens that fed tracking information to an operations center in Bucharest.

Gerstenberg was pressuring Berlin for a defensive fighter force of 250 first-line interceptors and 75,000 more Luftwaffe personnel. This was work in progress, but in hand were 52 Me-109s at a base 20 miles from Ploesti (50 percent German pilots) and at least 85 German and Romanian fighter aircraft at other in-country bases. Completing this airborne defense force was an outer ring of fighter bases on Crete and in Greece and Bulgaria. Not bad when one considers the demands for the air war in Northwest Europe!

Jake Smart had his hands full in the planning process. He gathered a small staff that included his West Point classmate Colonel Ted Timberlake, whose fingerprints would be all over the plan. Timberlake immediately assigned one of his acolytes, Major John Jerstad, to the planning staff to do the legwork. Smart had to decide what targets to hit and how to strike them most effectively. It was quickly decided that all the refineries in the Ploesti complex could not be covered with available aircraft, so the seven main targets were selected for attack. There was no doubt that an effective strike would depend on the element of surprise, and after much agonizing, Smart decided that bombing Ploesti by low-altitude attack would answer most of the surfaced problems. The efficacy of this decision eventually was questioned by Brigadier General Uzal Ent and some of the group commanders who felt continuous bombing from high altitude was preferable.

Overall command of the Ploesti mission was vested in Major General Lewis H. Brereton as commander of Ninth Air Force, headquartered in Cairo. The B-24s used in the mission were directly under the command of Brigadier General P.D. Ent (P.D. for Pennsylvania Dutch), commander of IX Bomber Command, headquartered in a beat-up cement hotel in the town of Benghazi. Brereton ostensibly had the final say on the method of attack, but knowing the low-altitude approach had been accepted by higher authority, he refused to listen to opposing arguments, claiming in his memoirs that he had made the final decision to go low altitude. (See Ploesti Raid map.)

The five B-24 groups selected for the 2,600-mile trip were a mixed bag. (See Ploesti Raid Bomber Groups diagram, p. 35.) The lead group, the 376th Liberandos, was led by Colonel Keith K. Compton, formerly deputy group commander to Colonel Edward Timberlake when Timberlake was commander of the 93d Group. Compton was a fair-haired boy in the heavy bombardment business who hated Colonel JohnKiller Kane, another of the group commanders. The 376th had absorbed remnants of the HALPRO mission and flew pink colored B-24s.

Second in line was Lieutenant Colonel Addison Bakers 93d Traveling Circus, on loan from 8th Air Force in England. Baker, a regular Army man, was personally selected by Timberlake to lead the Circus.

Next was Colonel John R. Killer Kanes tawny colored 98th Pyramiders. Kane was an outspoken, rather abrupt man who had few close friends. He detested Keith Compton, with whom he indulged in bitter arguments concerning proper power settings for the B-24 aircraft. His group had much desert experience and he resented the aura of the European crews.

Fourth group in line was the 44th Eight Balls, commanded by Colonel Leon W. Johnson. A West Pointer like Timberlake, Johnson was a taciturn, self-controlled man with a dry sense of humor. He was well known for his concern for his men. The 44th was an experienced Heavy Bomber Group also borrowed from the 8th Air Force.

The fifth group, the 389th Sky Scorpions, commanded by Colonel Jack W. Wood, was brand new to the 8th Air Force when sent to Libya for the Ploesti mission. Wood commanded a disciplined group that was assigned a target outside of Ploesti.

The selected targets surrounding Ploesti in a five-mile diameter circle were to be approached from the northwest, as Intelligence thought that Gerstenberg would heavily fortify for an attack from the east, the Soviet side. In addition, a rail line ran from the final Initial Point (IP), Floresti, straight to Ploesti, providing an unmistakable guideline for aircrews. The first IP, Pitesti, and the second IP, Targoviste, were west of Ploesti, a direction that promised maximum surprise. The problem was Gerstenberg all along had expected an attack from North Africa and had been placing defenses for that eventuality!

Smarts plan visualized the first four groups sweeping down, in ech elon, to cover their assigned targets like a TIDAL WAVE, code name for the mission. Each group had an assigned target that was numbered from left to right as they approached from Floresti: the lead group, 376th, White I; 93d, White II and White III; 98th, White IV; 44th, White V and Blue; and 389th, Red. Lieutenant Colonel James Posey commanded B Force of the 44th and with 21 aircraft would turn right at Floresti and fly five miles to Blue Target. The 389th was to turn left at Pitesti and fly to Red Target, 18 miles northwest of Ploesti. From low altitude, accuracy and surprise would be shocking and disconcerting to any defense. (See Ploesti Raid Bomb Plan map, p. 36.)

All groups practiced low-level flying well before the target was announced. Dummy targets were set up in the desert for practice, and a final mock run was deemed successful. Crews were treated to pep talks by their commanders and senior officials. The sobering impression left with the troops from these meetings was that destruction of the target was worth a high casualty rate. Conditions at the five B-24 bases outside Benghazi were appalling. Blowing sand was everywhere and in everything. Ground crews worked around the clock to keep sand-covered engines in running condition.

Dysentery was rampant throughout the command, and commanders feared its impact on the mission. One thing was certain  the mission would proceed on the first day of August 1943, in complete radio silence, to a target 2,600 miles away!

On the evening of July 31, a shock hit Benghazi in the form of orders from General Hap Arnold that restricted key officers from flying on the mission. General Brereton and Colonel Jake Smart were ordered not to fly, and Timberlake was grounded by Brereton. These changes in mission leadership started an unsettling session of last-minute musical chairs among the crews. Brereton was replaced in the command aircraft by General Ent, whose slot with Colonel Kane had to be filled by a spare co-pilot. Smarts position as co-pilot in one of Bakers 93d Group aircraft was filled by a Captain not originally scheduled to fly. These changes combined with dysentery groundings shot crew integrity all to hell and, needless to say, added greatly to the foreboding.

THE INGRESS

At 7:00 a.m. August 1, the lead B-24 from the 376th, Wongo-Wongo, piloted by Major Brian Flavelle, lifted off from the sand and dust of the group field Berba-2. Flavelle was assigned to lead the 376th and, thereby, all five groups to Floresti, with the exception of the 389th, which would break off at Pitesti. The fact that Compton, with General Ent the mission commander on board, was not the lead aircraft has been the cause of unending discussion and argument in almost every rendition of the TIDAL WAVE mission. Compton has claimed that he led his group for the entire mission, but evidence does not support his contention (see below). No doubt exists that Comptons aircraft Teggie Ann with General Ent aboard was the Command Aircraft, but the aircraft Wongo-Wongo had been designated the lead ship with Lieutenant Robert F. Wilson the mission navigator.

Adding to the apprehension was the crash on takeoff of one of Kanes aircraft, leaving 177 B-24s flying to the target in trail by groups led by the 376th. Later, over the Mediterranean Sea, 10 aircraft had to abort with engine problems and return to Benghazi, dropping the total airborne to 167.

About two hours out, with Corfu in sight, Kane found his group closing on the two lead groups. Rather than changing his airspeed, he started a climb in order to keep his proper position.

The next disaster took place almost over Corfu when the lead B-24 Wongo-Wongo, with the mission navigator aboard, abruptly pulled up then dropped straight into the sea. Another B-24 in that flight, with the deputy mission navigator, broke formation, circled to look for survivors then returned to Africa, being unable to rejoin the formation. This episode caused much consternation and confusion, especially because of the radio silence edict. Once the shuffling around ceased, the 376th re-formed behind Lieutenant John Palms Brewery Wagon, causing a late turn over Corfu. Kane, leading the last three groups, turned over Corfu expecting the 376th, when collected, to turn right and recover its position on course. This was the last time Kane would have the lead two groups in sight! These stunning incidents were to have a major impact on the results of the planned mission to Ploesti.

The 376th, once back on course over Albania, and now at 10,000 feet to clear the Pindus Range, confronted cumulus clouds towering to 17,000 feet. The first two groups penetrated the clouds at 16,000 feet, and Kane led the second three groups through the weather at 14,000 feet. Comptons crews, unable to see any aircraft to their rear, assumed they were well ahead of Kanes, Johnsons and Woods groups. Once clear of the clouds, Compton zigzagged down from altitude to give the trailing groups time to catch up. Kane, after penetrating the frontal clouds, saw Leon Johnsons 44th Group on his right and another group to the right and rear of the 44th. Kane was unsure of the identification of this group on the far right. After his tail gunner said the aircraft were green rather than pink, Kane knew they were either the 93d or the 389th and not the 376th as he had hoped. Squeezing the three groups between two towering thunderheads, Kane descended still looking for the 376th. Finally down to below 1,000 feet, he flew west up the Danube in hopes of allowing the lead group to catch up, but after a few minutes gave up this course with the knowledge that bombing Ploesti as a cohesive mass was out of the question. This diversion completely confused Colonel Wood, who was leading the unknown group, and caused him to abandon his trailing position and fly directly to the first IP (Pitesti) on his own. Kane now figured that if this group moving to the front was the 389th, when over Pitesti, would continue north toward its separate target, but if the 93d, would turn right at Pitesti toward the second IP.

To Killer Kanes horror, the unknown group continued north when over Pitesti. It was Jack Woods 389th! Kane and Johnson were obviously well behind the front two groups. Kane quickly pushed his throttles forward. Radio silence was the specter riding the backs of these group commanders  and this troublemaker was not yet finished!

THE ATTACK

The 376th Group crossed Pitesti and headed, with the 93d in tow, for Targoviste, the second IP. Compton then made the fatal mistake that initiated a series of complications resulting in utter confusion and unnecessary casualties. He had mistaken Targoviste for Floresti, the final IP and final turning point. He slid into the lead position and turned his group to the southeast toward Bucharest and away from Ploesti. Lieutenant Palm, who had led the group after the Wongo-Wongo debacle, continued alone straight ahead toward Ploesti.

Realizing Comptons gross mistake, several crews finally broke radio silence and broadcast warnings that a wrong turn had been made. In spite of these frantic calls, Compton pressed on toward Bucharest seemingly unaware of what he had done. Nearing Ploesti, Palm headed for a target at treetop level. An 88 mm shell hit the nose of his aircraft, killing the bombardier and the navigator, Lieutenant Wilson, who had brought his group to Targoviste. On three engines, seriously wounded and attacked by Me-109s, Palm managed to slide his aircraft into an open field. The remaining crew survived, only to be captured.

Addison Baker with his 93d Group dutifully following Comptons 376th, suddenly spotted the refinery smoke of Ploesti to his left and immediately swung his group in that direction. He was unconcerned that he was headed for targets White IV and V assigned to the 98th and 44th Groups.

Compton, about five minutes after his wrong turn, realized his error and, breaking radio silence, announced that the target had been missed and that he was turning to a heading of north.

Addison Baker, with Jerstad as co-pilot, now closed on White IV amid a fully alerted defense system. When his aircraft was repeatedly hit by ground fire, Baker jettisoned his bombs to stay aloft but continued to lead his group into the targets until his flaming aircraft crashed. Eight B-24s of Bakers group went down in the target area and one was lost later to fighter attack. The second element of the 93d damaged the unassigned target, but White II and White III, their assigned targets, were still untouched.

Approaching Ploesti from the south, the 376th crews were surprised to see the smoke, fire and confusion of exploding bombs with aircraft on fire crashing and others exploding in midair from the attack of the 93d against targets White IV and White V. Having now been in the area for 20 minutes without finding a suitable target, Compton, with Ents approval, broadcast instructions to his group to pick targets of opportunity. He then salvoed his bombs through closed bomb bay doors and headed west. Major Appold left the main 376th formation, swung left with two wingmen and looked for a target. He decided on Target White II, Concordia Vega, and after releasing bombs the flight crossed the inbound path of Killer Kanes 98th headed for Target White IV. This resulted in moments of stark terror and violent maneuvering to avoid midair collisions!

Jack Wood had turned his 389th toward his Red Target, Steaua Romana. Kane and Johnson led their groups exactly as planned, turning toward Ploesti when over Floresti. They were stunned to see the foreground alive with explosions and swirling smoke. They lined up on the railroad leading to Ploesti, with Kanes 98th on the left and Johnsons 44th on the right. Adding to the vicious automatic weapons fire on the way in, a speeding flak train opened up on both groups with 88 mm guns as they flew along. Both groups suffered heavy damage before their gunners put the locomotive out of action.

Johnsons second group of 20 aircraft, led by Colonel James Posey, now turned right toward their separate assigned target, Blue, Creditul Minier, southwest of Ploesti. Poseys textbook attack completely shut down this refinery.

Kane drove into the maelstrom to bomb his assigned target, already struck by aircraft from the 93d Group. Flying close to the ground and rocked by exploding bombs previously dropped, Kane emerged from the smoke with one engine destroyed and two others damaged. Flak raked his Liberators as they left the target, enemy fighters circling the area suddenly becoming a factor.

Meanwhile, Johnsons target was so obscured by smoke and fire from the 93ds delayed-action bombs that Johnson had to circle his formation around the target to find a visual opening. Seeing a hole, he ordered his pilot, Bill Brandon, to lead the group into the target, White V. The target was accurately struck. Leons Suzy Q was holed by an 88 mm shell that passed through the right wing too low to arm! Nine of the 16 aircraft Johnson led to his target were lost, but Target White V was out of business.

The 389th Group had shut down Red Target at Campina, but Colonel Wood had lost four B-24s to flak, one of which was piloted by Pete Hughes, who drove to his target completely in flames. After dropping his bombs, Hughes pulled up, allowing three crewmen to parachute before crashing. Wood, as he left his target, was surprised to see a stray flight of desert B-24s (376th Group) drop or jettison their bombs near Campina.

THE AFTERMATH

Coming out of the target area and joining up in any semblance of order was impossible for most of the aircraft. Those flying in makeshift groups of twos, threes, and even singly flew toward safety or Benghazi, depending on fuel remaining and aircraft condition.

Enemy fighters orbiting over expected exit routes attacked crippled aircraft as small groups clustered together for mutual defense. The heroism displayed in seriously damaged aircraft making the long 2,400-mile flight home, some with dead and wounded aboard, is the stuff of legend. In many cases, these actions overshadowed the valor displayed in the attack itself. These young men, who had pressed the attack on targets for their country, now struggled valiantly for themselves  for their own survival!

Eighty-eight surviving aircraft made it back to Benghazi, 55 with battle damage. Others struggled to Turkey or Cyprus. When over the Adriatic, a few headed for Sicily and Malta. The butchers bill was steep. Fifty-four aircraft and 532 crewmen were lost from all causes, including 310 dead and 54 seriously wounded. Total mission flight time was 13 to 14 hours, with some aircraft landing after dark. The 376th Group was the first to land, having lost two aircraft. The last B-24 to land logged 16 hours in the air!

General Gerstenbergs protectorate had suffered about 40 percent damage. The refineries in a few weeks were producing at a greater rate than before the attack. Of the seven targets assigned, two were completely missed, three were accurately struck (by assigned group), and two received slight damage.

The strikes against the red and blue targets proved the efficacy of Jake Smarts planning. The low-level attack, as planned, was more for accuracy than for surprise and was foiled more through execution than by the planning. The wrong turn by Keith Compton initiated a series of decisions that resulted in confusion, increased casualties, and left critical targets undamaged. In spite of this, unusual bravery and resourcefulness provided a measure of target destruction.

The mission resulted in the award of five Medals of Honor. Group Commanders Kane, Johnson and Baker were recipients, as were Major John Jerstad (Bakers Co-pilot) and Lieutenant Lloyd Pete Hughes of the 389th Group. The last three were posthumous decorations. Every crew member reaching Ploesti was presented with a medal. Included were 50 Distinguished Service Crosses, 41 Silver Stars and 1,320 Distinguished Flying Crosses.

Unfortunately, from some quarters, controversy concerning the mission has carried through almost to the present day. Most disturbing were attempts by Lieutenant General Edward Timberlake to divert blame for Comptons poor decisions by talking up responsibility for the gap that developed between the groups. Both Timberlake and Compton blamed Kane for creating the gap they claimed caused the plan to be ineffective. In their view, Kanes wrong turn up the Danube caused the last three groups to fall behind the two leading groups and in the process also alerted the enemy radar station on Mt. Cherin. In truth, the 20-minute separation that developed had no major bearing on the results of the mission, and causes for the gap are more speculative than factual. These attempts at justification went on long after Killer Kanes demise and have caused confusion among students of the great Low-level Ploesti Mission.

Colonel Keith Comptons decision to designate a lead and backup mission navigator in aircraft other than his own might well have been the mistake that set in motion his fatal turn at the wrong IP. As Captain Red Thompson, Comptons own co-pilot, was quoted as saying in James Dugan and Carroll Stewarts definitive book, Ploesti: The Great Air-Ground Battle of 1 August 1943: Who knows what bearing there was on it from the mysterious loss of Flavelle and Wilson, the target-finding team, and the lack of air discipline that moved Flavelles wingman, carrying the Number Two navigator, to go down and circle his oil slick and return to base?

Finally, the three borrowed 8th Air Force B-24 groups returned to England, and Ploesti was not bombed again until May 1944, then at high altitude from Italy. The Soviets overran Ploesti in August 1944, capturing General Gerstenberg in the process. The allied book on Ploesti was finally closed.

Mission Ploesti, flown that single day in August 1943, is etched permanently in United States Air Force annals. Its story contains records that will probably never be matched, and it tells of brave men who persevered in the face of horrendously daunting circumstances.

Major General (USAF, Ret.) Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Jr. is a West Point graduate, decorated fighter pilot, Air Force history specialist, and member of the Armchair General advisory board. During his distinguished career, he held numerous operational commands and was the Commandant of Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Armchair General.
The Soviets greatly relied on tractors to transport heavy artillery and mortars across the battlefield. The most ominous of these was the ChTZ S-65 Stalinetz, Sons of Stalin, which was built in the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant. Founded in 1933, the factory began producing agricultural tractors with the S-60, a copy of the American-built Caterpillar 60, followed by an improved diesel-powered version: the S-65. With the outbreak of war in 1941, the majority of the existing 37,626 Stalinetz were pressed into military service to move artillery.

The German invaders captured thousands of these hefty vehicles, which were immediately used to pull vehicles stuck in the heavy Russian mud during the fall rainy season. But more often than not, the Germans used the S-65 in its original role: as an artillery tractor to move the sFH 18 heavy field howitzer.

This 1:35-scale kit by Trumpeter is molded in light grey plastic, with the parts appearing with very little flash. The fit of the parts is generally very good. The tracks in the Trumpeter kit are offered as individual pads, along with two separate inner brackets to form each link, 34 per side. Assembly of the tracks does take a bit of time, but upon completion you are rewarded with a pair of extremely nice, workable tracks. Combined with the kits clear instructions, this is the type of project that can easily be constructed over the course of a rainy weekend.

The kit, however, does have a few issues. The lettering for Stalinetz on the front radiator uses the Latin alphabet N instead of the Cyrillic II, with the same issue recurring on the lower radiator lettering for diesel. But the most basic shortcoming: the kit lacks an engine. The modelers only option is to construct the tractor with the large side engine panels in place. The oversight is unfortunate, as even a quick glance at period photos show that many of these service tractors were in use with their large side panels removed for increased engine ventilation.

Luckily, Trumpeters omission has been remedied by LZ Models, which quickly brought an excellent resin engine to the market. The LZ Models engine is nothing short of brilliant. The LZ parts are presented in light-colored resin, and the kit instructions come on a small CD that includes easy step-by-step instructions and references. If that wasnt enough, LZ Models also offers a replacement front radiator with the correct lettering as well as photo-etched parts for the front mesh and tractor logo.

The pictured S-65 model has been modified with the addition of a large front boom and T-34 wheels. This bit of scratch building was done in order to replicate a vehicle in period photographs. It is only speculation, but this field modification seems to indicate the tractor was put to use for road construction.

Overall this kit makes a very nice S-65 tractor with some very nice details, especially the tracks. The lack of engine is noteworthy, though the tractor can be built quite accurately with the engine panels in place. For those wishing to go the extra mile, I highly recommend the LZ Models upgrade set.

Originally published in the December 2012 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
Narrow Escapes of WWII

Military Channel 13 episodes, now airing

The 333rd Field Artillery Battalion was one of the U.S. Armys few African American frontline units, though its officers were white. But officers and men alike were green in 1944 when they started fighting across Europe. The battlefield honed their skills: they mastered zeroing their 155mm howitzers in on German tanks a mile off. That winter, they settled into the Ardennes. When the Wehrmacht launched the counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge, two 333rd batteries were left to cover the 106th Infantry Division.

The 333rds artillery support proved crucial to holding the line, but the unit was surrounded and down to its last rounds when it was finally overrun. Eleven men escaped, and were hidden by a farmer near the tiny hamlet of Wereth. Their refuge in this German-speaking region of Belgium held for less than a day; a Nazi sympathizer fingered them to the 1st SS Division. Surrounded again, the Americans surrendered. When darkness fell, they were marched to a nearby field where they were tortured, maimed, and shot. Their bodies were left untouched, frozen in horrific positions beneath blankets of fresh white snow.

There was a subsequent U.S. Army investigation into their deaths, but it was buried with them. Nearly half a century later, the farmers son erected a small monument on the site. Now there is an official memorial, the only one in Europe dedicated to African American troops.

Welcome to Narrow Escapes, an offbeat and often-absorbing new series. Its theme: the hopeless to near-hopeless situations that are wars most implacable face. Such as Colonel James Doolittles 1942 raid on Tokyo, with astronomical odds against its crews reaching friendly China after dropping their bombs; those found by the Japanese were tortured and killed. Or General Orde Wingates 1943 forays into Burma. An eccentric Brit who trained Jewish commandos in 1930s Palestine and liked to greet visitors naked, Wingate helped pioneer modern long-range penetration warfare. But his Chindit guerrillas, after wreaking behind-the-lines havoc, were encircled in Burma by the Japanese; one third died, the rest fled back to India.

Good footage, moving witnesses, and solid commentary.

Originally published in the December 2012 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.
Senator John McCain was just diagnosed with brain cancer and this was confirmed and announced by the doctors of Mayo Clinic who got directly involved in the senator's care. With this, President Donald Trump just sent the senator a well-wish hoping for the senator's recovery.

Reports were rife that Sen. John McCain has just been diagnosed with primary glioblastoma. It was found out that this is one type of brain tumor which the doctors of the Mayo Clinic shared to CNN exclusively.

Last Friday, Sen. McCain just underwent a surgery to remove a blood clot at Mayo Clinic Hospital located in Phoenix. The doctors who attended to Sen. McCain said that from the surgery, they found out that the blood clot is associated to the presence of brain cancer.

It was reported that glioblastoma is an aggressive tumor which is being developed in the tissue of the brain as well as in the spinal cord. During Senator McCain's surgery, a pathologist was also there which lasted for approximately four hours. But after the operation, the brain scan showed that the tissue which has been causing the problem has been removed entirely.

After the said operation, it was claimed that Sen. John McCain is recovering fast and well. Even before and after the operation, the said senator did not show any indication of neurological problems. He is currently recovering at his home in Arizona.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain's family is thinking of seeking treatment options which might include chemotherapy and radiation. Prior to the diagnosis, the senator has been very cooperative for his scheduled exams every four months for skin checks since he has a history of skin cancer. The doctors just discovered the blood clot when the senator underwent physical exam the previous week.

But prior to the diagnosis of the disease, the doctor shared that Sen. John McCain relayed to then that he felt foggy and not as sharp as he is normally is. He also added that he experienced intermittent double vision. Because of this, the doctors were quick to conduct a CT scan to the senator.

Then after this news came out, President Donald Trump released a message saying that the senator has always been a fighter. With this, he sent his thoughts and prayers to Senator John McCain and his entire family.

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New Hampshire just decriminalized the possession of marijuana as the said place has taken another step just to realize its motto, "live free or die". Just last Tuesday, Governor Chris Sununu signed a bill which states that marijuana should be decriminalized.

Before the said decriminalization of marijuana, New Hampshire took simple marijuana possession as punishable by up to one year in prison for up to three-quarters of an ounce of marijuana possession. Moreover, the state also did not allow the authorities to arrest anyone only for the possession of low-level marijuana.

With the new law concerning marijuana in New Hampshire, the low-level possession of marijuana will now be penalized with a penalty of $100 for the first offense including increasing fines. But for repeated offenses within the three years duration of committing the first offense, the penalty will be no prison time. It was also reported on VOX that the money which will be collected from the fines will benefit programs that target addiction on drugs.

Reports confirmed too that the said law decriminalize marijuana will take effect within 60 days. Because of this latest law, New Hampshire becomes the 22nd state to decriminalize marijuana. Governor Sununu's signature made New England to decriminalize or legalize marijuana.

According to some reports, there is a big difference between decriminalization and legalization. In legalization of marijuana, all the penalties for the possession of it are removed below a particular threshold. Because of this too, sales of marijuana for recreational purposes is allowed but not in Washington DC.

On one hand, decriminalization refers to the removal of incarceration and stringent penalties for the possession of marijuana but still, it imposes a fine. In both circumstances and laws, the public use of marijuana is still not allowed.

After signing the bill decriminalizing marijuana in New Hampshire, Governor Sununu also assigned and created a commission to study and look into the legalization of marijuana in the place. If the said state will take up that possibility, New Hampshire will be joining the eight other states which have already made marijuana legalized in their places.

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Latest celebrity reports confirmed that Ben Affleck had reunited with his rumored girlfriend Lindsay Shookus after spending a week apart. The couple was spotted in New York as reports were escalating their relationship is going strong.

Reports were claiming that Ben Affleck and Lindsay Shookus were spotted beating the heat in New York with a couple of iced coffees. The two reportedly headed into a hotel near the Central Park just last Wednesday.

It can be recalled that last July 6, Ben Affleck and Lindsay Shookus were spotted for the first time together in a restaurant in Los Angeles. Moreover, PEOPLE reported that Affleck and Shookus have taken a trip to Las Vegas together and they have been spotted stepping out for several romantic dates in Los Angeles also.

Even if Ben Affleck is trying to take things slow when it comes to his relationship and romance with Lindsay Shookus, the affair is progressing very fast. Some reports claimed that the reason for this is because their feelings are strong and they are really in love with each other.

However, reports were rife that Ben Affleck's relationship with Lindsay Shookus started even before Ben and Jennifer Garner separated. It was claimed that their affair started last 2013 while he was still married to Garner and Shookus was married to Kevin Miller.

But sources close to Ben Affleck and Lindsay Shookus shared that the two did not date until both of them were separated from their spouses. With this, it was claimed that their romance and relationship is still relatively new.

The source also added that Lindsay Shookus is not the kind of woman who is reckless since she is also down to earth and centered. It was also added that she felt the romance has got to be something that it was worth risking for.

Meanwhile, it was just reported that Ben Affleck turned down the upcoming Netflix film, Triple Frontier in order to spend more time with his family and to focus on his health. Before reuniting with Lindsay Shookus in New York, Ben spent time over the last week with his three children with Jennifer Garner in L.A.

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The United States just lifted an ended its controversial ban on laptops in hand luggage for passengers heading to the country from the Middle East nations or any through the Middle Eastern airlines. The reason for this was because the Department of Homeland Security just claimed that it was satisfied with the enhanced security measures it just implemented following the ban.

Previous reports claimed that the U.S. already lifted it laptop ban for three major airlines in the Middle East just earlier this month. But just yesterday, BBC reported that an official from the said department announced through Twitter that all restrictions had already been lifted for the other remaining airports and airlines.

Aside from laptops, the said ban also included large electronic devices like e-readers from hand luggage and tablets. This ban was initiated by the U.S. just last March and this immediately covered all flights going to U.S. from ten airports in the Middle East. These ten airports included the so-called major travel hubs namely Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha.

The government of the United States justified its policy on laptop ban and it was said that this was to increase national security. There was a report before from the evaluated intelligence that some terrorist organizations were looking to hide bombs in the electronics o passengers and then smuggle them onto the planes.

But this laptop ban cause controversies most especially when it comes to the timing of its implementation and the choice of the affected airports and airlines. There were even some reports suggesting that the purpose might be economic protectionism as these US airlines were not at all affected by the said ban. This created trouble and hassle for the passengers most especially the traveling businessmen.

It can be recalled that before the implementation of the laptop ban, President Donald Trump made a very controversial executive order which restricted travel to the U.S. from seven major Muslim countries. After the U.S., the UK also did the same and initiated their own laptop ban but only targeting a slightly different list of airlines from North Africa and the Middle East.

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Latest reports confirmed that the state of Hawaii is actually formulating some preparedness plans in order to face the possible missile attack of North Korea. It was further reported that the said state does not want to cause any stress for the public much to the panic of its tourism boosters.

The Emergency Management Agency administrator of Hawaii Vern Miyagi announced the said preparedness plan. But despite the confirmation, Hawaii's government cannot wait to start their public information campaign in order to make sure that the residents will know what to do in case such event will happen.

According to ABC News, the said preparedness plan will include evacuation drills for school students as well as public service announcements. However, it was reported that it will not include the kind of duck and cover drills like the Early Cold War era across the U.S. It was even said that the public announcement will say, "get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned".

Hawaii, as known by most people is the only jurisdiction of the United States to have been ever attacked in the contemporary times by a foreign power which is Japan. With that, it was made known that the said state was famously laid back about most things.

Since that certain event, Hawaii has focused on preparedness plans mostly for tsunamis, typhoons, mosquitoes bearing disease, and high waves but not missile threats and attacks. But things have changed already for the state since news claimed that North Korea's development of an intercontinental ballistic missile can reach Alaska and even the said U.S. state.

The U.S. officials now think and believe that North Korea can already launch a missile 6400 kilometers after its successful test in early July with its Hwasong-14 missile. However, it was claimed that the said range would not be sufficient to reach the Lower 48 states of Hawaii but it will reach all of Alaska.

Hawaii further said that its government is responsible for the safety of the 1.4 million residents of the state which stretch more than 2000 kilometers in the Pacific. For this reason, they are taking no chances with the said preparedness plan.

Some officials said that the missile threat from North Korea is a remote possibility as of the moment. But the government of Hawaii claimed that everyone's safety is their top priority no matter what happens.

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Chi-town producer Mulatto Beats has delivered his new project .22 Summers, and it features a nice collection of underrated, underground emcees. Artists like Mick Jenkins, King L, and Lucki are some of the names to bless the project, and each one sounds comfortable over Mulattos smooth, airy trap production.

The highlight comes from the Mick Jenkins assisted, Guilty Automatic, which finds the Chicago lyricist going in over a dark, hazy instrumental. King Louie also shines on that Mulatto sound, sounding confident and charismatic on Long Live The Kings. Overall, the project is a quick, consistent listen, so dont sleep on this underground Chicago hip-hop.
Of the sizeable crop of Scottish pop-rock bands that emerged in the mid-1980s  including Wet Wet Wet, Danny Wilson and Hue & Cry  Deacon Blue have remained among the most enduring. Their appeal and longevity isnt all that difficult to work out. Fronted by the easy-on-the-eye husband and wife team of Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh, the Glasgow outfit perfected a brand of intelligent, melodic pop, combined with a formidable live prowess that has stood to them through the years.

Taking their name from a Steely Dan song, their million-selling debut album, 1987s Raintown, included hits like Dignity, Chocolate Girl and the gloriously melodramatic When Will You Make My Telephone Ring. But it was the follow-up album, When The World Knows Your Name, that launched them into the big time. Featuring radio and dancefloor staples such as Real Gone Kid and Fergus Sings the Blues, it remains their most successful LP.

Its true that we became very successful very quickly, reflects Ricky Ross. We played sell-out shows in places like Wembley Arena and the Point in Dublin. We didnt really expect that to happen and I dont think we took it for granted. In fact, to this day I still have the mentality when playing live, that you have to keep the audience with you at all times. I keep thinking that they might disappear and never come back. Soon after that first flush of major success, Ross says he began having doubts about playing huge venues.
Ahead of the release of their new album American Dream, LCD Soundsystem have announced 3 Olympia Theatre dates in September.

The Brooklyn electronic band will play in Dublin on September 27, 28 & 29. These will be the band's first gigs in Ireland since 2015 and their only dates in the country this year.

Tickets on sale at 9am this Friday, July 28th. Tickets are from 54.50 including booking fee.

See all your friends there:
Davis and his band the Midnight Choir will come to Whelans in September.

Nashville songwriting veteran Patrick Davis has been steeped in music all his life.

After an impressive career behind the scenes writing songs for artists like Lady Antebellum, Jewel, Darius Rucker, and many others, he struck out on his own.

Davis has released four albums to date, and is set to release a new EP later this year.

His tour for the record will see him coming to Whelans, Dublin on September 30.

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In a return to his songwriting roots, he co-authored two songs on Imelda Mays most recent album Life Love Flesh Blood, one of which is below:

Tickets for Davis Whelans appearance cost 15 and are on sale now from Ticketmaster and usual outlets.
Fianna Fail Spokesperson on Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Timmy Dooley TD has criticised the latest progress report of the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce for failing to address the high number of mobile phone coverage blackspots across the country.

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Montreal-based indie rockers Wolf Parade make their return to Dublin for a gig at the Button Factory on November 20.

The Montreal band's first album in seven years, Cry, Cry, Cry is due out this autumn.

Wolf Parade went on an indefinite hiatus in 2010 after three critically-celebrated albums. This marks the group's first full-length release since their 2016 reunion.

The upcoming album is produced by Pacific Northwest legend John Goodmanson at Robert Lang Studios outside of Seattle, and is accompanied by a renewed focus and the creativity of a band that took their time getting exactly where they needed to be.

The band's members say they can only create the sound they do when working together.

We don't know who or what is responsible for our sound, it's just something that naturally and consistently comes from this particular combo of musicians, says Spencer Krug.

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Once we got back together, I was playing guitar, writing and singing in a way that I only do while I'm in Wolf Parade, says Dan Boeckner, who shares primary lyrical and singing duties with Krug.

The soaring choruses, rousing anthems, sprawling guitars and chaotic keys that make up Wolf Parade are on proud display over the course of the bands thunderous upcoming release. Check out their single 'Valley Boy' below:

Tickets for the Button Factory gig are priced 20 go on sale July 26 through ticketmaster.ie.
When the Duke of Gloucester speaks the first lines to "Richard III," he looks directly at the audience, flashes a devilish grin and begins to tell us of a dastardly, murderous plan:

"Now is the winter of our discontent "

The famous monologue sets the stage for one of Shakespeare's most-beloved tragedies, starring a villain that's at once vile and charismatic.

Sound familiar?

"It's the same reason why 'House of Cards' and 'Game of Thrones' are so popular," says Lenny Banovez, the New York-based theater director who will helm a production of "Richard III" that runs at the Houston Shakespeare Festival Saturday though Aug. 6. The festival also includes the comedy "Twelfth Night," which debuts Friday night, with the two plays alternating nights.

Listen to the machinations of Gloucester, who soon sees a bloody rise to the throne as the titular star of "Richard III," Banovez says, and you'll realize that Shakespeare set the stage for contemporary storytelling.

"We're drawn to these stories," he says. "It's a bad guy with an ability to charm us and win us over. You show the audience the dark, seedy underbelly, and they go, 'Wait a sec.' It causes them to sit forward, until they like Richard so much, then he does something and we're pushed over the edge.

More Information Houston Shakespeare Festival When: 8:15 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Tuesday, through Aug. 6.; "Twelfth Night" begins on Friday, alternating with "Richard III" Where: Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park Drive Information: Free, though reserved seats can be secured from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. the day of performance at the box office; 713-743-2929, houstonfestivalscompany.com See More Collapse

"He's so charming."

So when you see Houston Shakespeare Festival artistic director Jack Young, who stars as Gloucester, also known as Richard III, on the stage, it won't be a coincidence if you're reminded of Kevin Spacey in "House of Cards," another charming power broker who is almost fun to hate.

Of course, Richard's modern-day incarnations don't stop there.

"Walter White is another one," Young says, referring to the television series "Breaking Bad" as yet another villain-centric story that owes its existence to Shakespeare's tragedy.

The timelessness of a story about someone who we simultaneously love and hate, of course, is just one aspect of the universal appeal of Shakespeare.

Houston's production of "Richard III" comes hot off of the heels of the controversial production of "Julius Caesar" by the Public Theater in New York, in which the leader of Rome is dressed as Donald Trump, complete with red ties and golden hair. The outrage that that piece inspired was yet another reminder of how fresh Shakespeare can often feel.

No, this festival production of "Richard III" doesn't make an overt connection to contemporary politics. But the point is that the Bard's work is staged over and over again for a reason. Young and Banovez say that, however a company chooses to stage a Shakespeare play, all the relevant thematic material is right there in the text.

"Even without all that wrapping paper, without something like (Public Theater director) Oskar Eustis' strong parallel, this stuff comes up. Buckingham is a spin artist, just like, name your favorite news anchor," Banovez says, referring to Richard III's right-hand man who manipulates people to get Richard to the crown. "The parallels are there, even when you don't try to make them. The themes rear their heads because they're structurally there. The audience can go, 'Oh  that's that. Did you see that?' "

Rob Shimko, executive director of the Houston Shakespeare Festival, agrees.

"Ben Jonson, the playwright, in his preface to the First Folio, says of Shakespeare, 'He was not of an age but for all time.' It sticks around as a quote because it's so prescient," Shimko says. "Shakespeare has proven to be open enough, loose enough in his writing, yet also incredibly precise. He's interested in ambition, love, facts, power, drunkenness and revelry and music and poetry. He's such a comprehensive playwright."
On a sultry Saturday in the South of France in mid-June, many of the world's best and brightest wine minds and a smattering of other intellectual luminaries - economists, techies, politicos and multidisciplined visionaries - gathered at La Verriere, a splendidly restored medieval property that was once a glass factory and for the past decade has been home to Nicole and Xavier Rolet's ambitious, grenache-centric Chene Bleu winery.

Xavier's day job is serving as the president of the London Stock Exchange. He's considered one of the world's leading analysts of global finance.

A few people like me also got invited.

The Rolets' reason for convening this "Fine Minds 4 Fine Wines, a Think Tank Amongst Wine Tanks" was two-fold: to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Chene Bleu and to contemplate what the years ahead could hold for this product we call "fine" wine. Admittedly, those of us who merely live in the wine bubble as consumers don't fully grasp the discomfiting issues confronting the industry in the 21st century, when anybody can have a Robert Parker-size platform to prattle on about this bottle or that.

And, while the democratization of wine criticism has been hugely beneficial for expanding the conversation, it has upended the traditional hierarchies, particularly impacting Bordeaux and Burgundy, the planet's two viticultural regions that, 50 years ago, stood almost solely synonymous with the concept of fine wine.

The British wine writer Janice Robinson, the first to earn Master of Wine status who hadn't first been a wine-trade insider, was among the participants. Robinson later pointed out in her blog how this first-of-its-kind melding of oenophiles with the cool-kids TED-talk crowd "took place during the death throes of the 2016 Bordeaux en primeur (futures) campaign, which," she said, "to judge from my inbox and website, elicited minimal interest. The number of views of the relevant thread on our Members Forum is one-seventh the equivalent number last year."

The times are indeed changing. Attendees that I conversed with in the greatest depth admitted they, like me, found the mere concept of quote-unquote fine wine, our fundamental starting point, to be hopelessly anachronistic - if it's to be implied that a wine can only be truly fine if it hails from a certain prestigious place and goes for above a certain price point.

Fortuitously, one of my fellow panelists was Manuel Louzada, the director general of Propriedad de Arinzano, the Spanish winery whose elegant chardonnay from Navarra won Grand Champion Best of Show honors in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo's 2017 International Wine Competition. The Arinzano certainly fits the fine-wine profile cost-wise, selling for north of $70, but who would have ever thought a white from a once-obscure viticultural region in northwestern Spain could outshine more than 2,500 wines of every color in a blind tasting?

Louzada and others suggested that adjectives such as "natural" (but not in the organic sense) and "authentic" are better descriptors in 2017, suggesting that wine must speak to its provenance and be made without excessive manipulation and trickery, either in the vineyard or the cellar. Because so many producers have come to grasp this simple concept, wine shoppers have never had a greater array of high-quality, fairly priced options, and it's going to behoove producers, even the ones with most historically highfalutin reputations, to become more engaging with the public and more social-media savvy to maintain their prestigious standing.

The wide-ranging array of questions we sought to find answers for included:

How will the trend toward deformalization of fine dining affect the future of fine wine?

How will fine wine adapt to a new generation of post-Parker tastemakers?

What will generation-next sommeliers be looking for when they build their lists?

What are the next seismic economic shifts likely to be - climate change factors hugely into this - and which large wine regions are likely to be most affected?

How will tradition and terroir work in the IoE (internet of everything) world?

How can wine producers grasp the opportunities presented by the trends of smart luxury and eco-luxury?

From wineries to the wines they produce, who will be tomorrow's investors and which regions will be attracting the most investment dollars?

Can wine help connect generations and cultures that are growing apart?

Can wine, in conjunction with its "sacred" rituals, preserve its place as a bastion of high culture?

Definitive conclusions and fail-safe courses of action, of course, proved elusive - think tanks are, by definition, ongoing entities - but the conversations were spirited and we were rewarded for all our deep thinking by to-die-for tasting opportunities. Each participant was required to bring a bottle of what he or she considered a "fine wine," and these would be shared communally during our Saturday lunch break.

Two of the most memorable for me were the 1997 Chateau Rayas Chateauneuf-du-Pape and the 2003 Chateau Margaux, fine wines by anybody's definition and priced accordingly (from about $350 online). The latter was provided by Thibault Pontallier, whose late father, Paul, was the transformative managing director of Chateau Margaux for three decades.

Pontallier got a healthy taste of the old world of fine wine, being able to grow up where and how he did, but he has also positioned himself for what comes next. With his dad's help, he launched a line of wines called Pont des Arts (pontdesarts-wine.com) and, working with Alexandra Petit-Mentzelopoulos, the youngest daughter of Margaux's owner, Corinne Mentzelopoulos, has opened Clarette, a wine bar in London's posh Marylebone neighborhood.

While multiple vintages of the iconic First Growth Bordeaux are on offer, so are myriad price-friendly options from other places, equal parts famous and obscure. Pantallier and Mentzelopoulos may be from aristocratic families, but they get the egalitarian thing, too. It's the future because fine is in the eye, or taste buds, of the beholder.
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The Pearland Regional Airport is set to launch $500,000 in renovations and upgrades thanks to a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration that will be administered by the Texas Department of Transportation.

The grant will fund safety and security improvements including new entrance gates, signage, striping and lighting designed to increase visibility of runway markings for pilots.

Project costs will be funded through the Clover Acquisition Corp. and TxDot's Aviation Facilities Grant Program.

"The airport is truly a small city now, and this grant will go a long way to ensuring that the airport is set to safely and efficiently continue its robust development," said Stephen Alexander of Texas Aviation Partners, the managing firm of the airport. "The enhancements the airport will receive will help to make sure that aircraft can navigate the airport safely, alongside their four-wheeled counterparts."

The airport, a privately owned airfield open to the public, is home to a variety of tenants and businesses including several flights schools, airplane and helicopter maintenance shops and 20 full-time residents who live in homes or condos connected to private airplane storage facilities.

More Information flight facility facts What: Pearland Regional Airport Where: 17622 Airfield Lane, Pearland Grant: A $500,000 Federal Aviation Administration grant will be used for safety and security improvements including new entrance gates and lighting. See More Collapse

Built as a private facility in 1947 by Perry Brown of Friendswood, the 320-acre airport was transitioned to public use in 1950. Clover Acquisition acquired the property in 1957 and renamed it Clover Field. The airport, which has one 5,000-foot runway that can accommodate up to medium-size aircraft, was renamed Pearland Regional Airport in 2003. Texas Aviation Partners took over management in June 2013.

Two flying clubs, Coastal Skies and the Bar Area Aero Club, are based at the airport. In addition to flying lessons, airplane rentals and air tours for non-pilots interested in sightseeing, the clubs offer group comprehensive insurance and social events for members.

Operations manager Adam Arceneaux said the improvements will provide new security gates at the four airport entrances.

"We also plan to upgrade all the taxiway and runway lights, install additional lights and refurbish the airport beacon tower," he said.

"Our goal is to maintain a safe environment for pilots and make sure we are ahead of the curve in terms of infrastructure."

He said contracts will be awarded for all the proposed upgrades through a competitive bidding process.

The work should start this month or August and take two to three months to complete.

"We're working to manage growth in a smart, measured way," he said. "We want to make data-driven decisions for not just the airport but for the entire community. This grant is the next step for us."

This grant is a huge shot of adrenaline because it helps us step up our game."

Representative Ed Thompson, R-Pearland, said the grant would give the airport the opportunity to increase its economic development impact within the area.

"General aviation is a vital industry to our state's economic growth," he said.

"I'm so pleased that Pearland Regional Airport is being recognized for their contribution and being given the opportunity to expand their impact."

Texas Transportation Commissioner Laura Ryan also praised the airport.

"Providing this funding to the Pearland Regional Airport is key to supporting area aviation," she said. "This is a vibrant facility that plays an important economic role in the local community."
As the federal government cracks down on immigration, smugglers are turning to riskier and deadlier ways of getting immigrants into the United States, according to experts and advocates who blamed a slew of failed policies for the death of nine immigrants stowed away in a hot tractor-trailer in San Antonio.

It's a tragic outcome and a crime to smuggle these immigrants, said Jeronimo Cortina, a professor and research associate at the University of Houston's Center for Public Policy. "The real tragedy," said Cortina, "is that deaths like those in this case are going to be happening again and again, or even more if we don't tackle the root of the problem."

Cortina and other experts argue that workers will continue to enter the U.S. illegally as long as there is a supply of jobs, particularly in industries such as agriculture, hospitality and construction.

"It's a market rule, and it's not going to change just because you put up more walls," Cortina said. "And since there aren't efficient legal mechanisms to deal with this offer-demand cycles, the law of the market is fulfilled instead in the realm of the" black market.

Businesses seek workers

Although there are visas like the HBs and J-1 that allow employers to bring certain workers from abroad on a temporary basis, businesses have said for years that they are capped at insufficient amounts to meet the demands.

Just last week, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly acknowledged this when he allowed a one-time increase of 15,000 non-agricultural H-2B visas "to provide temporary relief to American businesses at risk of significant harm due to a lack of available seasonal workers."

In a statement Sunday, he said: "This tragedy demonstrates the brutality of the network of which I often speak. These smugglers have no regard for human life and seek only profits."

Eduardo Canales, director of the South Texas Human Rights Center, said Kelly's increase in visas "only stresses that the labor is needed."

"Why are we criminalizing workers? Why is (President Donald) Trump now making it even more terrorizing for workers to work in this country?" questioned Canales.

Advocates say immigration laws have been ineffective in the U.S., where attempts at reform have failed.

"Now we have harsher policies coming around with the new administration that are completely incongruent," said Luis Salinas, a lecturer at the UH Center for Immigration Research.

This year is on pace to set a record low for illegal immigration. Republican senators are reprotedly drafting a bill in collaboration with the White House that will cut in half the number of immigrants allowed to enter.

Still, countless people remain willing to risk their lives with smugglers who hold little regard for them.

People already have to pass three barriers to enter illegally: the physical border with Mexico, with the river as its main natural feature; the militarized border crossings; and checkpoints into the U.S.

Salinas, who studies border crossing patterns, said that in Texas the typical journeys involve crossing the border on foot, followed by smugglers known as "coyotes" transporting the immigrants in a vehicle.

Smuggling more at a time

With more militarization of the border, coyotes tend to reduce their risks by making fewer trips with more immigrants in each vehicle, according to Salinas.

The immigrants found in the truck in San Antonio probably came up Interstate 35 from the border, Canales said. They most likely were loaded onto a truck at a stash house near Laredo or hiked around the checkpoint, an arduous ordeal that can take days, before being loaded into the trailer. Either way, they would have been exposed to hot and dangerous conditions, he said.

"There's no vents in those trucks, in those tractor-trailers to let air in," Canales said. "And that's a very, very desperate situation for someone to get into that truck like that. People think it's going to be a short drive to San Antonio."

Some survivors told local reporters Sunday that the truck was headed to Houston.

"The reason people die, like in this case in San Antonio, is because there isn't a system that regularizes the labor that we need in this country while we continue enhancing deterrent policies that force people to more dangerous areas and modus operandi," said Canales.

Those immigrant workers have a double motivation to come - job opportunities in the U.S. and escaping poverty and violence in their homelands, said Martina Grifaldo, the director of the International Latino Alliance, an organization that helps immigrants in Houston.

Grifaldo explains that many of those immigrants "already know that they have high chances to be violated, kidnapped, hurt and killed by gangs on their way to the north, and still they come. A wall is not going to deter them."

Border Patrol agents in Laredo have reported an increase in smuggling attempts in tractor-trailers in recent months, starting with the discovery of 44 people from Mexico and Guatemala discovered after police stopped an 18-wheeler near one of the city's international bridges.

On July 7, agents found 72 people from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador inside a locked trailer in the same part of town. The next day, they found 33 people from Mexico and Guatemala inside a trailer stopped at the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 35. In another incident last week, agents at the checkpoint found 16 people inside a locked trailer, according to a news release from Border Patrol.

2003 tragedy in Victoria

In one of the biggest smuggling tragedies in the country's history, 19 people died in 2003 after being abandoned in a trailer in Victoria. The driver of that truck was sentenced to life in prison, but that was overturned and he was later given a prison term of nearly 34 years.

Agents working at the checkpoint in Falfurrias, on U.S. 281 north of McAllen, said they encountered immigrants hidden in trailers twice in one day in mid-June. On one occasion they found 13 immigrants hiding among cargo and on the other, only an hour later, they found eight people hiding in a locked moving truck.

San Antonio Express-News writer Jason Buch contributed to this report.
AUSTIN - Lawmakers in the Republican-led state Senate this weekend advanced more than a dozen conservative bills despite objections from hundreds of witnesses, cuing up much of Gov. Greg Abbott's conservative special session agenda for swift passage this week.

The future of many of those bills is unclear in the House, which is less excited about the governor's agenda. In addition, senators have found it difficult even to muscle some of their more complicated legislation out of committee.

The Senate Education Committee, which advanced a school voucher proposal and legislation to create a commission on school funding, adjourned Sunday unsure how to afford teacher raises and better benefits.

"We don't want an unfunded mandate," said Sen. Larry Taylor, a Friendswood Republican who chairs the committee.

Abbott originally wanted school districts to find money to give teachers a $1,000 raise, a plan met with pushback by school boards and administrators who said their budgets are already lean. Lawmakers then toyed with tapping state lottery funds to pay for the raises, an idea the committee scrapped Sunday as it looked for another source of revenue.

"I'm not going to say it's going to make it. I'm not going to say it's not going to make it," Taylor said of its chances of passage before the special session ends Aug. 16. "We're still early in the process."

Lawmakers managed to pass 15 other bills this weekend, including a measure that would regulate what bathrooms transgender people could use in school and government buildings and a ban on payroll deductions for union dues. The Senate Business and Commerce Committee on Sunday approved the dues bill on a 6-3 vote despite more than 30 teachers, correctional officers and police officials testifying against the legislation.

"We already work 10 hours a day," said Revathi Balakrishuan, a Round Rock educator who was named Texas Teacher of the Year in 2016. "Taking the money out of our paycheck creates a worry-free situation."

'This isn't a partisan issue'

The proposal failed to gain traction during the regular session but was reintroduced as one of 20 issues the governor wanted lawmakers to take up in the special session. The legislation would stop union payroll deductions for state workers, including educators, staff who work in Child Protective Services and prison guards. The proposal exempts first responders, including police officers and firefighters.

Ken Casaday, president of the Austin Police Association and a fellow Republican, said he was disappointed in the party for pushing the bill.

"(Teachers) should have the same rights as we do," said Casaday. "We firmly believe if this passes, we'll be next."

One of the primary forces behind the bill is Republican voters, said Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican from Mineola who is sponsoring the bill.

Testimony on the SB7 included at least two dozen state workers, with several saying they are long-time Republican voters who find themselves attacked by a proposal they see as an effort to reduce union membership and minimize the voices of those inorganized labor.

"I think that a lot of my Republican brethren miss the fact that this isn't a partisan issue," said Kasey Thigpen, a teacher in Austin who said she regularly votes with the GOP. Unions not only advocate for teachers but for students, she told the committee, like pushing for student recess time and smaller class sizes.

Sen. Kelly Hancock, a Republican from North Richland Hills and chair of the committee, often came to the bill's defense, arguing the legislation does not stop anyone from joining or participating in a union.

Tinkering with tree bill

A handful of people testified in favor of the bill, arguing the measure would help keep unions accountable and get government out of the business of collecting money for unions. Those speaking up for the legislation included Republican Party of Texas Chairman James Dickey, several lawyers who practice union law and conservative policy advocates.

The committee also passed Senate Bill 14 on a 6-3 vote, which would ban local government from regulating the trimming and maintenance of trees in residential areas, although local rules could still be set for commercial areas.

The measure passed, but not before lawmakers of both parties said they hoped for a chance to tinker with it again, noting concern in their districts where the care of trees is an important cultural issue.
At 15, she joined ISIS after converting to Islam. Now German...

YouTube unveiled its latest weapon in its effort to combat terrorist propaganda on its site: redirection.

Users who search for such content will now be directed to videos that show victims of terrorism and clerics refuting violent religious narratives.

Social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google have been rushing to respond to the wave of hate speech and terrorist propaganda flooding their platforms where it can be accessed by people with a penchant for violent behavior.

"When people search for certain keywords on YouTube, we will display a playlist of videos debunking violent extremist recruiting narratives," YouTube announced in a blog post last week explaining the new system. "This early product integration of the Redirect Method on YouTube is our latest effort to provide more resources and more content that can help change minds of people at risk of being radicalized."

YouTube, which is owned by Google's parent company, already prohibits users from uploading videos that include violent or racist content -- such as Jihadi and white supremacist propaganda -- but users circumvent the video sharing site's rules by overwhelming the site with hundreds of links. Propaganda videos are also uploaded as "unlisted," which means that the videos are hidden from searches, but easily posted on social media or disseminated with direct links to the video.

Major companies, such as AT&T, Verizon and Johnson & Johnson, pulled advertising from YouTube in March as a long-standing dispute about the site's approach to policing offensive videos boiled over, according to Adweek.

But some digital privacy experts raised questions about the new effort by YouTube and the growing role tech companies are playing in determining what users see on the Internet.

Jeffrey Chester -- Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy -- said the Redirection Effort might be an effective tool for combating propaganda, but he's concerned about the role advertisers may have played getting the system implemented.

"The advertisers took advantage of this controversy over hate speech to assert their interests over how Google and Facebook operate," Chester said. "Independent sites -- sites that fund the controversial ideas -- know that there's a slippery slope here.

"The danger here is that Google and Facebook are making decisions about how the future of the digital media system operates without public oversight and accountability," he added.

The Redirect Method was developed by Jigsaw, a company owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company, to target Isis-focused videos in particular, according to YouTube. Jigsaw says the method was developed with research partners who interviewed ISIS defectors and explored the major narratives that the group promoted for recruitment.

Those narratives include ideas like ISIS is an unstoppable military force, one that has been legitimized by Islamic faith and that leads to effective government rule that improves people's livelihood.

Along the way, Jigsaw says, researchers discovered that effectively undermining ISIS propaganda does not always mean overtly attacking the group.

"We found an abundance of videos to support our project and our focus of the research was on seeking out videos that appeared to be neutral in intention -- including documentaries or citizen journalist footage that portray the world as the creators found it, rather than materials that appear specifically designed to counter ISIS," Jigsaw writes.

An example, Jigsaw offers, is a video of a bold elderly woman belittling ISIS fighters and telling them to "return to the way of God." The video has racked up nearly 600,000 views.

Another example of a video someone might be redirected to is an interview with a captured ISIS fighter discussing the perils of life as a terrorist and how the group betrayed him.

"ISIS pays $100 as a monthly salary, for example, and I used to spend five times that amount," he explains.

In its blog post, YouTube said that as the company implements the Redirect Method users can expect to see other changes as well:

- Expanding the new YouTube product functionality to a wider set of search queries in other languages beyond English.

- Using machine learning to dynamically update the search query terms.

- Working with expert NGOs on developing new video content designed to counter violent extremist messaging at different parts of the radicalization funnel.

- Collaborating with Jigsaw to expand the "Redirect Method" in Europe.

"As we develop this model of the Redirect Method on YouTube, we'll measure success by how much this content is engaged," YouTube added. "Stay tuned for more."
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Fort Bend ISD trustees have taken aim at state leaders and lawmakers gathering for a special legislative session in Austin this week, adopting a series of resolutions imploring legislators to better fund public education.

The resolutions criticize vouchers as a way of taking money away from cash-strapped districts, lambaste a proposal to require districts to provide teacher raises without funding them and urge lawmakers to pass school finance reform in order to increase the amount that districts receive in state funding.

Kristin Tassin, the board's president, accused state leaders of taking money away from public schools to promote their political agendas.

"Our state leaders are claiming to support Texas teachers and students, but they are being disingenuous," Tassin said.

In Gov. Greg Abbott's call for a special session, he proposed giving a $1,000 pay raise to all teachers, offering vouchers for special education students, forming a committee to study school-finance reform and allowing districts to have more flexibility in teacher hiring.

Vouchers have long been a touchy subject in Texas and nationwide. Essentially, vouchers allow parents to take money that the state would have spent educating their child in a public school and use it to offset the cost of tuition at private schools. While proponents of vouchers argue that they're an innovative way to allow economically disadvantaged and special education students access to better educations, opponents say vouchers drain money from public schools and direct the funds to private schools that are not held to the same testing and accountability standards.

Both Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick -- conservative Republicans -- have been calling for vouchers or similar measures that would benefit special education students, but multiple efforts to create a school-choice program have died in the more moderate state House of Representatives.

If a student feels, a family feels they need a better opportunity, they should have that right, Patrick said. And especially, students with disabilities and autism, to be trapped in a school that cant help you get over a disability, is a sin. And were going to stand up for that community.

But Tassin said many districts, including Fort Bend ISD, have already voted to approve pay raises for the coming school year and argue that mandating unfunded raises will further strain the district's finances. Pay raises for teachers and employees have traditionally been considered a local matter.

"After a failed attempt to pass vouchers in the regular session and divert money away from public schools, our Lieutenant Governor is now proposing a pay raise for teachers in an effort to force his agenda," Tassin said. "While all of us are for higher salaries for our teachers, without state money to pay for the mandate, this is nothing more than big government control of our local funds."

Abbott said he hopes state lawmakers adopt rules that will give districts more flexibility in hiring and retaining teachers, which he said should help districts find more money for raises, though he did not specify how the flexibility would save district money.

"Texas doesn't need to spend more. We just need to spend smarter," Abbott said.

Fort Bend ISD trustees also adopted five resolutions ahead of the Texas Legislature's regular session, which began in January and ended in May. Those resolutions called for naming school finance reform a legislative priority, making testing less burdensome, streamlining the state's learning standards and opposing vouchers.
Houston's City Council plans to vote Tuesday on whether to give $85,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that a police officer used excessive force when he shot a man who turned out to be unarmed during a narcotics raid in 2013.

George Ralph Benard, 43, was shot once in the abdomen when he ran to another room of his parents' house during a police raid. A federal judge dismissed his claims against the city and the police department but allowed his lawsuit against Officer Ferdinand Rodriguez Jr. to continue, leading the city to seek a settlement.

The award could be the second in a month for Houston Police Department shootings, though such cash payments generally are rare. A few weeks ago, City Council approved a $260,000 payment to the family of Kenny Releford, an unarmed 38-year-old U.S. Navy veteran fatally shot in 2012 by another HPD officer.

That award was the largest settlement in at least seven years in a case involving an unarmed man shot or killed by HPD officers. In more than 150 cases from 2010-2015, HPD found all of those shootings to be "justified"  which Releford's argued showed a custom of accepting the use of lethal force against even unarmed civilians.

As part of the Releford case, previously secret reports on controversial shootings were released, including documents that contradicted an officer's account of the death of wheelchair-bound double amputee Brian Claunch; a report on the shooting of Rufino Lara, who was killed after his friend called police for help; and information about the shooting of two brothers by an off-duty officer who was legally drunk.

In Benard's case, HPD officers were acting on a tip that the wounded man's brother had drugs in the house, according to a federal magistrate judge's summary of the case. George Benard has convictions for a few drug offenses and one misdemeanor assault on his criminal record in Harris County; his brother, Dominick, has several drug convictions.

Officers found 122 grams of PCP and 1 gram of marijuana in the house along with a shotgun and a semi-automatic handgun, the judge wrote.

However, police and the Benard family agreed that George Benard was not holding a weapon when he was shot.

Rodriguez, an HPD officer since 1992, wrote in a report cited in court documents that he fired because Benard ran into another room and seemed to be reaching for a weapon: "As I moved forward, the suspect then quickly came back out into my view turning towards me which was to his left as if he was going to engage me. He started to move his hands from his waistband in a very fast movement as if pulling a weapon."

In a statement the day after the incident on March 19, 2013, HPD wrote that Benard was shot ignored repeated verbal commands to show his hands.

However, Benard testified that he was already walking toward the family's kitchen when the officers used a battering ram on the door and entered.

"When they said 'freeze,' I threw my hands up and that's when I got shot," Benard said, according to court documents. "Soon as I turned around, they said 'freeze,' I turned around and I threw my hands up and they shot me."

In March, U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller dismissed Benard's claims except for the excessive force complaint against Rodriguez.

The parties filed documents that suggested the case would go to trial until the judge ordered mediation, which led to a settlement agreement. On July 12, Judge Miller dismissed the case because of the out-of-court settlement.

The mayor's communications director, Alan Bernstein, declined comment. Other city officials did not respond to an emailed request for comment. Benard's lawyer, Chareka Gadson, did not return phone messages.

This article was updated Monday, July 24, to reflect efforts to seek comment from city officials and the family's lawyer.
A dwindling group of local Holocaust survivors, along with loyal supporters of the Houston museum erected in their honor - and in the memory of millions more who perished - gathered Sunday evening for a special candlelight ceremony to mark the temporary closing of the 21-year-old facility.

Over the next 18 months, the small building on Caroline Street in Houston's museum district will be torn apart, rebuilt and greatly expanded. Much of the structure, converted from a dental practice, will be done away with.

Ground breaking is slated for October. The new Holocaust Museum Houston is scheduled to open in early 2019. In the interim the museum will be housed at 9220 Kirby Drive and will include most items from its permanent exhibit, as well as some traveling exhibits and a 120-seat theater.

"From the very beginning, our founders had a bigger vision for the museum," said Kelly Zuniga, CEO of Holocaust Museum Houston. "Technology has changed, and there has been so much more research in the last 20 years. This will be a new twist for the museum - making people think about what they are seeing, making the visitor interact with the experience and to understand why it happened."

The timing of the project is crucial, Zuniga said. Holocaust survivors, local or otherwise, soon will be gone. Likewise their children, who grew up with World War II as a common point of reference, are aging. For the museum to hold its appeal and remain relevant to new generations, changes are necessary.

"We needed to expand to different topic areas," Zuniga said. "Younger generations are really engaged by social justice topics. They want to know what they can do. Our museum will be a huge call to action. It will help them understand how to formulate their questions and how to act on them."

Museum chair Gary Markowitz said the larger facility not only will allow for better display and more comfortable offices but will be technologically state-of-the-art. One example is a 3D holographic projection of a seated Holocaust survivor who can answer questions from people seated around him. The "conversation" arises from technical innovation, sophisticated software, and more than 1,500 questions that the survivor, a Montreal resident named Pinchus Gutter, answered in days of painstaking recorded interviews.

'A destination museum'

Such innovation, Markowitz said, is essential to the museum's mission of doing what it takes to communicate its essential "narrative" to a changing clientele. The museum also will become fully English/Spanish bilingual.

"It's going to improve tremendously the ability to tell our story," Markowitz said. "The goal is to become a destination museum instead of one time and done."

The reconstruction will make the museum one of the largest of its kind in the country. It was made possible by a gift of $15 million from longtime supporters Lester and Sue Smith and almost $35 million in additional funds raised in an aggressive capital campaign.

The new museum will be more than twice as large as the current one, increasing from 21,000 square feet to about 57,000 and from one story to three. Only the national Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C., and counterparts in Chicago and New Orleans will remain larger.

The additional space will allow for its main permanent exhibit, "Bearing Witness, A Community Remembers," to expand by 4,000 square feet. A rail car and rescue boat that are part of the exhibit but kept outside are to be brought in out of the weather. Technological advances of recent years will allow for more digital and interactive features. All of the original video interviews have been digitized and are in the process of being indexed in a way that watchers can immediately hear and see them discuss particular subjects.

Numerous improvements

Besides the larger permanent exhibition, the retooled museum will see numerous improvements:

The Rhona and Bruce Caress Anne Frank and Young Writers' Voices Gallery will feature the work of Anne Frank and other young diarists. Geared toward a younger audience, it will offer students access to interactive sessions through a book called "Salvaged Pages," written by Alexandra Zapruder, which features many youth diaries from the Holocaust.

A Human Rights Gallery will discuss the rise of international concern for human rights, the history of genocides and how both are connected to the Holocaust.

The Samuel Bak Gallery and Learning Center will feature 129 paintings, to be rotated each quarter. Bak is a renowned and prolific Holocaust artist.

The Boniuk Center for the Future of Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Studies will house new and current educational programs.

The Moral Choices Hall and Jerold B. Katz Foundation Butterfly Loft will feature many of the items from the museum's Butterfly Project.

The Boniuk Library, which currently holds more then 10,000 volumes and resources for in-house research, will be have enhanced public access to its materials, which include 285 oral testimonies for research purposes and genealogical searches. The Boniuk Library is one of the largest sources of data in the U.S. for communities destroyed during the Holocaust.

Once completed, Holocaust Museum Houston is expecting annual attendance to increase by a third among both general visitors and students. Its supporters and executives also are pushing to increase the permanent endowment comfortably into double digits.

More than a window

"I want people to get an understanding of what happened and why it happened," said Markowitz, whose mother survived the Holocaust though his grandparents did not. "I'm hoping if my children were to come, they would stop and think about the impact of hatred, prejudice and apathy."

It's something he says over and over when describing the need to keep the museum more than a window into history. The destruction of the European Jews may be a singular event born of Nazi ideology, but the underlying motive is familiar to many times and places.

"They need to see how they can relate that to their own lives," he said.

The temporary museum will open Sept. 5.
Worker success

Regarding "Will your new employee stay?" (Page B5, July 16), Tandra Jackson has an interesting column concerning effective "new employee orientation." An important aspect of this process, however, must include an additional, important insight.

That insight must include the idea that a change in employment may not be just a change in geography or personal relationships or pay or benefits.

The biggest factor in determining the new employee's success is the culture in the new company, especially if the change is from a large corporation to a small, entrepreneurial environment. New employees who have been around for a while and have developed an expertise in some business area are very inclined to think that they understand the large company culture as well as small company culture and how they fit in. This can be a devastating mistake.

The smaller the company, the less generic the culture. Smaller, successful companies, for example, have very specific cultures reflecting the specific skills and style of the founding entrepreneur. This affects the total working environment as well as things like who makes decisions and when. Unless this is recognized by the new employee, the transition from new employee to successful employee can be disastrous.

Norman Bunch, Houston

Come together

Regarding "Judge tosses firefighters' challenge of Houston pension reform" (Page A4, July 1), God bless our firefighters, but their years-long obstruction to pension reform shows them in a selfish, petty and mean-spirited light. The pension system mess was created by weak politicians who bought short-term peace with the labor unions at the expense of the taxpayers. The proof of this is the nearly universal recognition that the system is broken and unsustainable.

If the city goes bankrupt, the firefighters will lose their pensions. And no, pension obligations are not paid first, before all other expenses. Look at the mess in Detroit and now looming in Chicago with underfunded pension plans.

Firefighters, it's long past due for you to finally join Mayor Turner, the city fathers, and the state Legislature to save your pensions and Houston's finances.

Ronald Harring, posted on HoustonChronicle.com

Plenty of outrage

Regarding "Now they're outraged" letter (Page A15, July 15), as an Independent voter I'd like to say the described Russian collusion "farce" is clearly, and factually at a bare minimum attempted collusion by President Trump's son, Donald Jr.

It remains to be determined what if anything resulted from the meeting with the Russian attorney and former Russian military intelligence officer.

To compare the scale of a meeting with a hostile foreign government intent on disrupting and damaging the electoral process that is at the core of our democracy, to the scale of the beefs listed by the letter writer that Republicans had with former Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama and the 2016 DNC is way lopsided in gravity.

Also, the "Where was the outrage" question has two sides. Put the shoe on the other foot and ask the question again.

Jesse Cancelmo, Houston
WASHINGTON - It is no surprise, but it is still a shock, to see how little President Trump understands about the independence of the Justice Department and the importance of the rule of law.

Trump's jaw-dropping interview with the New York Times featured an unprecedented and unvarnished invitation to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to quit, an invitation Sessions on Thursday declined, at least for now.

Sessions' sin is failing to do his job, which, as Trump sees it, is not overseeing the impartial administration of justice but assiduously protecting the legal interests of Donald J. Trump. Thus, in Trump's view, it was "very unfair to the president" - actually, "extremely unfair, and that's a mild word" - for Sessions to have recused himself from overseeing the department's probe into Russian meddling into the election and the possible role of the Trump campaign.

Let us review the facts and the law.

The facts: Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump and served as a close campaign adviser. That is conflict enough, but he piled conflict on conflict by meeting during the campaign with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and then omitting to inform the Senate Judiciary Committee of the meetings when questioned about it.

The law: Justice Department regulations provide that "no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship" with the subject of the investigation or "any person or organization which he knows has a specific and substantial interest that would be directly affected by the outcome of the investigation or prosecution." A political relationship "means a close identification with an elected official ... arising from service as a principal adviser thereto."

So Sessions' situation and the question of whether he could oversee the Russia investigation isn't a close call. As Sessions told the Senate Intelligence Committee last month, "That regulation states, in effect, that department employees should not participate in investigations of a campaign if they have served as a campaign adviser." In other words, it's a no-brainer, at least if you understand basic concepts of conflict of interest. What Trump perceives as betrayal is Ethics 101.

Trump's related argument - that Sessions at the very least should have given him a head's up in advance so that he could have picked a different attorney general at the start - suffers from a similar flaw. A different attorney general might not have needed to recuse himself, but in the end that attorney general would have come to the same conclusion as the deputy left acting in Sessions' place, that a special counsel was required to oversee the investigation.

Again, the law: Justice Department regulations require appointment of a special counsel when the attorney general, or someone acting in his stead, determines that investigation through the normal departmental processes "would present a conflict of interest for the Department." How could this not be true of the Russia matter? Even leaving aside the question of whether the president himself is under investigation, it involves the president's campaign and closest advisers, including relatives. The special counsel regulations were not put in place to torment presidents but to reassure the public that, even in politically sensitive cases, justice would proceed impartially and unimpeded.

Which raises the question of what Trump hoped to achieve by taking his beef against Sessions public. What does the president imagine would happen if, as he seems to hope, Sessions goes and, along with him, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein? In confirming their successors, the Senate, even this Senate, would no doubt want some assurance that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation would be allowed to continue unimpeded. When the Senate confirmed Elliot Richardson as attorney general in the midst of the Watergate scandal in 1973, it conditioned approval on Richardson's commitment to appoint, and protect, a special prosecutor. At least a few Republican senators ought to be willing to make their support for a Sessions replacement contingent on similar backup for Mueller - who remains Trump's chief problem, and for that reason perhaps his ultimate target.

"He was up here, and he wanted the job," Trump said of interviewing Mueller about the possibility of resuming his former role as FBI director. After Mueller was named special counsel instead, "I said, 'What the hell is this all about?'" Trump said. "Talk about conflicts. But he was interviewing for the job. There were many other conflicts that I haven't said, but I will at some point."

This is the essence of Trump - exquisitely sensitive to conflicts, real or perceived, when they may work against him; resolutely obtuse to the imperative of independence when unquestioning loyalty better serves his needs.

Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.
The following are excerpts from reports generated by the Texas County Sheriffs Department:

A West Plains Police Department officer called July 23 to request assistance in locating a stolen firearm.

The officer said a man had reported that a Baikal IJ-70 Makarvo 9-millimeter pistol had been swiped, and that the only people he knew who had been inside his home and could have known of the gun were a couple living at a Country Aire Lane trailer park at Cabool. A deputy made contact with the suspects, and they said they had stayed at the mans residence but knew nothing about a stolen pistol.

Texas County 911 on July 23 requested agency assistance with a 37-year-old man who was extremely drunk and possibly having a seizure at an Elm Drive residence at Plato.

An investigating deputy spoke to a 22-year-old woman there who said the man has multiple heart conditions and might have been convulsing after throwing up. An ambulance crew arrived and the man declined to be taken to a hospital. The officer cleared the scene at about 1:30 a.m.

A 60-year-old Licking woman reported on July 10 that neighbors were shooting her vehicle with a BB gun outside her Kitchem Drive residence.

The woman told an investigating deputy she could see where BBs had hit the vehicle, but the officer was unable to see any evidence of BB damage.

The officer contacted the womans neighbors and they said they dont have a BB gun and hadnt been shooting one.

A deputy was dispatched at about 10:45 a.m. July 10 regarding a report of a prowler at a Highway 38 residence at Bucyrus.

An 85-year-old woman who lives there told the officer she saw someone in a field across the road from her house. The officer was unable to locate a suspect.

A 27-year-old woman called just after midnight July 20 to report her grandfather was missing from her Hickory Drive residence at Plato. While an officer was on the way there, the woman called back to report her grandpa was in a hospital in Lebanon and not missing.

A deputy was dispatched at about 10:15 a.m. July 1 to assist the Summersivlle Police Department regarding a report of a man with a gun at a Highway 17 residence at Summersville.

A 31-year-old man who lives there told the deputy a former employee had come to his house and pointed a gun at him. The officer gave dispatch a description of the suspects vehicle, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol was contacted to be on the lookout for it.

A deputy responded at about 4:50 p.m. July 17 after a woman who wouldnt identify herself called to report dogs in a cage at a Morton Road residence at Houston.

An investigating officer observed puppies in a cage that had shade, food and water. A person at the location said the puppies were about to go to a new home and were in the cage waiting to be picked up.

Officers on July 12 responded to a report that an 11-year-old boy was going to hang himself at a Highway AA residence at Bucyrus.

Upon arrival, officer located the boy and he had a rope in his possession. He was taken to a hospital for evaluation.

A woman called July 11 to complain about kids operating ATVs in a ditch line in front of her Highway JJ residence at Summersville.

A 31-year-old Cabool man reported on July 12 that his 28-year-old former wife had come to his Cloverdale Road residence and punched him and slapped him several times during an argument.

An investigating officer observed that the man was bleeding from a cut in his head. The man said he wished to pursue charges and a report was sent to the county prosecutor.

Texas County Jail admissions

July 20

Crystal L. Hoylman  domestic assault, armed criminal action, resisting arrest, damaging police property

Kallie J. Willbanks  burglary

Missie J. Collins  84-hour commitment

July 21

Sandra D. Cross  MDOC hold

Robert H. Andrade  48-hour commitment

Michael P. Barlow  Clay County hold

Roger E. Burgess  resisting arrest

Miles C. Wolf Jr.  48-hour commitment

Jody Spanton  Wright County hold

Andrew T. Matthews  possession of controlled substance

Matthew T. Sutton  possession of controlled substance

July 23

Erica B. Cherry  Maries County hold
Drury Universitys College of Continuing Professional Studies campus in Cabool is moving to a new location it says will better serve students and the community by strengthening partnerships and opening up new learning opportunities.

The Cabool campus will move into the Missouri Ozarks Community Health (MOCH) building at 904 Zimmerman Ave. The MOCH clinic offers a number of opportunities for Drury students to bolster classroom learning by taking advantage of on-site community partnerships, especially those studying in health-related fields.

CCPS Cabool staff will move into the space in August. Classes will temporarily be held at Cabool High School while new classroom space is built within the MOCH building this year.

Were really excited about this move because it gives us the chance to deepen our commitment to the Cabool area, and build on what weve done here for the past three decades, says Kizzi Roberts, regional recruiter for CCPS in Cabool. Its especially exciting for students who are earning dual degrees in nursing and medical assisting from Drury and Cox College. Having their learning environment inside a modern community clinic will give them valuable insights along their academic journey.

Drury and MOCH have a similar partnership in Ava. MOCH is federally qualified health center serving a four-county area via five clinic locations, including Houston.

Im thrilled to see Drury making this move, and I think its going to truly benefit both our clinic and the Drury students and staff, says MOCH CEO Tim Shryack. We think its a win-win and great step for the whole community.

Partnering with MOCH in this way will open up opportunities for Drury to expand our allied health offerings in the future, similar to what is available in Ava and other CCPS locations, says Dr. Jana Neiss, dean of the College of Continuing Professional Studies.

Although health-related opportunities will grow with this move, the academic focus for the Cabool campus will not change. Drury will continue to offer nearly 30 associates and bachelors degree options in seated and online formats. The MOCH building provides amenities that will benefit all Drury students, including a reception area and new office space for advising. Once constructed, the classrooms will be all new as well.

Generous donations that helped Drury establish its current Cabool location at 801 Walnut Ave. in 1990 will be honored as new spaces are built in the coming months.

For more information about the Drury CCPS campus in Cabool, go to www.drury.edu/cabool. Classes start Aug. 21. To find out more about registration and class schedules, call Gina Crunkilton at 417-962-5314 or rcrunkil@drury.edu.
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Energy management company Schneider Electric Australia is improving L&D across its organisation through a strengths-based positive leadership philosophy for work and individual development.



Scott Nell, senior manager of organisation development and talent, explained to HC how the initiative works, and how both learners  and leaders  are reaping significant benefits.



Traditional models for creating development plans require employees to look at the competencies for their role and then be assessed against those competencies, Nell said.



On the surface this seems like a fairly logical thing to do, however what ends up happening is simply pointing out all the things that a person is not good at.



Once these perceived weaknesses have been identified, development plans are made to focus on weakness or close the gaps, Nell added.



Is it any wonder that people are not inspired to actually implement such plans? In fact, research from the CEB shows that when development plans focus on weakness, overall performance drops by around 24%, he said.



Imagine if you were forced to do things that are de-energising to you and you perceive you perform poorly, what effect does this have on your overall motivation and therefore engagement?



Nell said that Schneider Electrics strength-based positive leadership approach flips this on its head.



We look for things employees are doing well and look for ways to take this to the next level. We dont ignore weakness but instead leverage existing strengths to compensate and prop up weakness, he said.



This leaves employees inspired to embark on their development and motivates them to succeed. The CEB research shows that this strengths-based approach increases overall performance by around 36%.



Another initiative improving L&D across the organisation is Schneider Electrics Flourish, Ignite, and Illuminate program, which promote growth mindsets among its leaders.
The UK government has today ( 22nd July 2017) released its response to the drone public consultation exercise it carried out between December of last year and March of this year, and for the most part it remains very much a work in progress for most of the issues under consideration.

The one big decision that it has announced, which can hardly come as any surprise, is that the government will require drones above 250 grammes in weight to be registered. So why has it reached this decision, and why set it at above 250 grammes? The answers to these questions can be found in fresh research the government commissioned on the potential collision impact of drones hitting manned aircraft. It should be noted that even within a few hours of the research document being released, the way the research was undertaken has already been criticised by some drone users on the basis that unrealistic conditions were used when compared to actual flight scenarios.

That may or may not be true, but the government have clearly set their registration stall out, with plenty of encouragement from the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), who were one of the partner organisations in the collision impact research exercise. The results of this research showed that a 400 gramme drone could critically damage a helicopter windscreen and its tail rotor blade. Therefore, the government has chosen to set its registration requirement at machines weighing 250 grammes or more.

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In its Consultation Report the government states that a registration scheme will help to improve safety, security and privacy. However, arguably the clear main focus of government attention is safety, and particularly safety in respect to manned aircraft. If the government were equally focussed on privacy for instance, then all drones (how will drones be defined for registration purposes?) no matter what weight, if they include a camera would need to have been registered, as it is perfectly possible to buy a drone under 250 grammes that possesses a decent quality, potentially privacy invasive filming system.

Whilst a registration scheme is to be introduced, there remain several unknowns conected to it. How much will the registration cost and will there be an annual renewal fee? The government have made clear that the drone user will be footing the bill for the running of the registration scheme. It also seems likely, although it has not been explicitly stated, that registration will not take place at the point of sale, when the drone is purchased. Arguably, a more robust registration scheme should be at the point of sale, but this would be burdensome supposedly for retailers, so it is likely drone users will have to register after purchase.

But then comes another new feature of the government requirements - drone users will have to take a mandatory assessment test in order to at least in part be considered competent/eligible to fly their drone. How this is going to work is at present unclear. The government seem to be pointing to a form of online test to be taken at the same time as registration is made. So it could be that the test has to be successfully completed before registration can be undertaken. The test is described by the government as a basic knowledge of the law and how to fly safely, with the areas covered being safety, security and privacy. The use by the government of the word basic would point to a simple, straightforward awareness of the law test, but then for example when it comes to data protection and privacy law the word basic could arguably point to something a good deal more detailed.

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In a move to allay some of the concerns of Model Aircraft Flying Clubs and their members, there is likely to be some exemptions as regards registration and the educational test. This if done correctly could encourage drone flyers or potential flyers to join such clubs.

Most of the other issues raised during the consultation exercise, such as insurance, electronic identification, and changes to the Air Navigation Order Rules and penalties imposed remain open issues for further consideration by the government.
Stefan Wermuth / Reuters

Last week the government snuck out dozens of announcements on the final day before summer recess in a bid to bury bad news, including the cancellation of plans to make the railway network faster, greener and more reliable by electrifying lines.

The Tories have promised electrification of the Midland Mainline, Great Western and Trans-Pennine routes since 2012, including pledges in their 2015 manifesto before delaying the works by years amid cost overruns.

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On Thursday in a move the Transport Secretary must have planned before the General Election, Chris Grayling confirmed that delayed upgrades between Cardiff and Swansea, Windermere and Oxenholme, Leeds and Manchester and north of Kettering to Sheffield and Nottingham would be cancelled altogether.

Instead, millions of pounds will be spent for more expensive, slower, more polluting and less reliable bi-mode trains to replace promised electric trains.

Passengers will be denied the faster, greener, more reliable train journeys they were assured of, along with the economic benefits that improved rail services between towns and cities deliver.

Research from IPPR North found that more than half of the UK's total spending on transport networks is invested in London.

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By pulling the plug on transport infrastructure investment in areas already undermined by chronic underinvestment and poor connectivity, the government is further increasing regional inequality.

The Tories described the electrification as being at the heart of their plans to build to invest throughout the UK, building a 'Northern Powerhouse' and a 'Midlands Engine', but the cancellation of these works show that these mantras have been abandoned along with any serious commitment to improve connectivity outside of the South East or to modernise and decarbonise our economy, and Labour urges the government not to follow through with the power-cut.

Through neglecting investment across the UK, the Conservatives are also undermining public support for nationally important projects such as HS2 - which ought to be the spine of our 21st century rail network - or Crossrail 2, which will be necessary to stop London's public transport grinding to a halt in the coming decades.

Investing in transport infrastructure is a key driver of economic growth and is necessary for the rebalancing the economy, increasing productivity and tackling climate change.

The government's policy of austerity on transport spending is an incredibly short-sighted move that is jeopardising our future prosperity.

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We know reliable, affordable transport is essential for delivering productivity growth, which is why Labour have pledged to upgrade the rail network throughout Britain, underpinned by commitments to deliver a Crossrail for the North - a coast-to-coast, east-west rail line in northern England - and High Speed 2, as part as an integrated rail network fit for the 21st Century to transform the economies of the Britain for the many not the few.
Rafael Marchante / Reuters

On the 18th of July 2017, a four foot wall of water rushed through the seaside village of Coverack wrecking homes and businesses, just at the start of the crucial holiday period. Film footage showing an elderly couple rescued from their home by a helicopter was beamed around the world and reminiscent of similar pictures taken at Boscastle when a flash flood destroyed the village.

In Cornwall in 2004, when emergency services were scrambled to evacuate Boscastle, the devastation was so great that the call went out to 'save as many as you can'. Miraculously, in both incidents, no one was severely injured or died but many people lost their homes and livelihoods.

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Stories of neighbours coming out to help, valiant fire and coastguard crews and teams of council and Environment Agency workers who are entrusted with the clean-up operation show the best of British kindness and community resilience. But as storms and floods continue to feature in weather forecasts there is a wider point that is crucially absent from public debate: The significant increase in extreme weather events and the causes of them.

British summers are transforming from mild temperate affairs into mercury rising heatwaves. Whilst this is great if you are on holiday, extreme heat can be disruptive and dangerous. From melting tarmac to heat stroke, the impacts of excessive heat on human health, animals and infrastructure is severe.

Excessive heat also causes thunderstorms and flash floods, as the intense heat creates instability in the atmosphere when warm air mixes with the cold air above. In addition, in hot weather clouds can hold more water vapour so when the heavens open there is often a torrent of rain.

The irony is that in dry summer months, rain is desperately needed but the soil is so hard that the land cannot absorb most of this downpour. Therefore, the large volume of water rapidly runs off the slopes overflowing drains and rivers. Flash flooding occurs particularly in narrow, steep valleys as the water is funnelled down to the sea like at Coverack.

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Sadly, predicting where these thunderstorms will strike is almost impossible and the lag time between deluge and destruction is tiny. Therefore the window of opportunity to warn residents so they can protect themselves is small. Flash floods are destructive and the frequency and intensity of them is increasing and this is the discussion that is missing from news reports on weather events.

Nearly every year the UK achieves 'record breaking' temperatures due to climate change. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, trap the sun's radiation, which is why average temperatures are increasing year on year. The longer we rely on burning oil and gas for energy, the warmer the world becomes and therefore, the more frequent and intense extreme weather events become.

Most major towns and cities are located next to rivers or seas so the number of people and properties at risk of flooding is immense. And it is not just flooding. Recently, excess heat fanned the flames of wild fires that killed over 60 people in Portugal and led to the evacuation, by sea, of an entire holiday village in Sicily. Like a mini Dunkirk, the local mayor appealed, through Facebook, for help from anyone with safe and reliable boats to rescue the women and children from the beach first to escape the advancing flames.

The good news is we know the solution to this problem. We urgently need to switch to clean energy like solar and wind to reduce the severity of global warming. The scale of the transition required is significant and increasingly corporates are leading the way. The fashion brand Burberry recently announced they will source all their electricity from renewable energy and the first showroom dedicated to electric vehicles featuring BMW and Nissan has opened in Milton Keynes.
Clodagh Kilcoyne / Reuters

Northern Ireland women's rights have suddenly become a major political issue, after being ignored or misunderstood by many people in the rest of the UK for years. In light of the DUP-Conservative partnership, many people are waking up to the harsh realities of life for women in Northern Ireland, where having an abortion is a criminal offence in almost all circumstances.

Northern Ireland's abortion laws have recently been hotly debated everywhere from the House of Commons to news bulletins across the country. But behind the dramatic debates, two women from Northern Ireland are at the centre of the fight for reproductive rights in the region.

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They are an anonymous and courageous mother and daughter, known only as 'A and B' due to essential protection provided to them by the Supreme Court. They hold the vital key to securing the biggest step forward for women's rights in Northern Ireland in generations. They urgently need your donations to help them bring their case to Strasbourg.

There's been a lot about abortion in the news lately. There's also been a lot about Northern Ireland. One of these topics making national headlines is unusual enough but both together is almost unheard of. The Conservative party's decision to strike a deal with Northern Ireland's largest political party, the DUP, so it could stay in government after the 8 June election has shone a spotlight on the state of Northern Ireland women's rights. The political moves from Westminster have been unexpected, fast and dramatic. Only weeks after the election deal, the UK government announced for the first time ever that it would fund abortions in England for women from Northern Ireland.

The upshot of this is that we are now on the cusp of what could be the most dramatic step forward for women's rights in Northern Ireland in generations. But it is a precarious deal, made by a weak government to secure its own political purposes. The announcement came hours before a crunch vote in the House of Commons on an amendment to the Queen's Speech, proposed by Labour MP Stella Creasy MP which had cross-party support from 105 MPs. The government knew it would lose the vote and so quickly introduced this new policy.

Before 29 June, there was no sign of any British government, of any political persuasion, pledging to help Northern Ireland women by allowing them access to free abortions. The rights of Northern Ireland women should not be dependent on the whim of a government of the day, acting because losing a vote doesn't seem very "strong and stable".

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This government promise needs the certainty of the law to back it up. A far cry from the drama of Westminster high politics is a little-known legal case, brought by two women known only as "A and B", fighting for five years against the odds, that holds the key to securing the deal for hundreds of women. One snag: they urgently need your help. Women living in other parts of the UK must now stand in solidarity with their Northern Ireland sisters.

In Northern Ireland, abortion is virtually illegal. Women who have abortion and the medical practitioners who perform them can face up to life in prison. The Abortion Act 1967, which is the law that makes it possible for women elsewhere in the UK to get abortions, does not apply there.

This means that the only option for women in Northern Ireland is to travel, usually to England. Not only do women suffer the mental and emotional stress of having to leave home for what might be a difficult experience, they also have to pay the cost of the procedure, which might be anything between 600 and 2,000, depending on how far the pregnancy is advanced. Add to that the cost of a ferry or flight, transport to the clinic, and a hotel, childcare, loss of income - and possibly the cost of a parent, partner or friend joining for support - and the total amount can be at least 800 and sometimes more than 2,500.

These are huge sums for any woman to find at short notice, but for low income women the impact can be devastating. What do women do if they cannot afford it? Some go ahead with an unwanted pregnancy, some take matters into their own hands by taking dangerous steps to try to force a miscarriage. Does all this sound a bit Victorian? Out-of-step with a modern, progressive democracy? This is the grim reality for women living in this far-flung corner of the UK.

Long before the government appeared to wake up to it on 29 June, this state of affairs was challenged in the courts by A and B.

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In 2012, A, aged only 15, had to make the lonely, distressing journey to England with her mother, B, to have an abortion that she was unable to have in Northern Ireland. She was barred from accessing NHS abortion services in England and her only option was to pay for her abortion in a private clinic. The experience was deeply traumatic for A, and was made worse by the stress of B having to raise nearly 1000 as they had limited income.

A and B have fought selflessly for five years to try to ensure that women from Northern Ireland should not have to suffer such devastating experiences. They now want to take their case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to get compensation and to obtain the fundamental right of all women and girls from Northern Ireland not to be discriminated against in obtaining abortions in England.

They also want to ensure that any policy arising from the recent panic political concession will be made clear to protect low income women like them.

A and B are seeking crowdfunding for their case from the wider community. They urgently need donations by 26 July to help them get to Strasbourg. Their case is important because the rights of women and girls in Northern Ireland have been continually ignored by the British government for decades and only now has the policy pledge been secured as the Conservatives sought to keep their minority government.

Women and girls living in Northern Ireland deserve better than being an afterthought or a political pawn to keep a party in power. They deserve concrete legal rights and guarantees. The government's concession could be reversed or revised based on the whims of the government of the day but a successful case for A and B would change that and give women and girls in Northern Ireland real and long-lasting justice. All UK citizens who care about women's rights must now pledge to help their Northern Ireland sisters.

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Please donate what you can to the A and B case by clicking on this link.

You can find out about the work of the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign here.
Amanda Lewis via Getty Images

The unsurprising, yet still shocking, BBC pay revelations of elite employees' salaries give voice and substance to a pay gap that we know exists, but to date has lacked a concrete sense of reality. Figures from the Office for National Statistics indicates a UK pay gap at 19.2% for full- and part-time workers, with women earning an average of 80 pence for every 1 earned by a man. The BBC's publication of a top list of earners with household names we can all relate to renders discrimination tangible and familiar.

Making individual TV and broadcast celebrities' annual salaries visible connects the UK license-paying population to a clearly discriminatory hierarchy of pay. The highest earning woman, Claudia Winkelman's, substantial annual salary of 499,000 is a quarter of the highest earning man, Chris Evans, whose pay packet is reckoned at a staggering 2.25 million in 2016, and reported by the Guardian as equalling the combined salaries of all of the black and minority ethnic BBC high-earners.

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However, research examining gender in the media by Lancaster and Roehampton Universities that I have recently been involved in, has shown that tying inequalities to individuals can actually let organisations off the hook when it comes to addressing gender inequality.

In publishing individual salaries, organisations can unwittingly reinforce a gender binary that pits men against women. The focus then shifts to 'him versus her', (like Evans versus Winkleman), rather than tackling systemic practices that perpetuate a traditional norm where men are seen as the natural inhabitants of elite positions and worthy of greater reward.

While putting a face to discrimination makes unfairness personal and provides a clear point of connection, if we are to push forward real change it is important to look beyond individuals. We need instead to address a legacy of pay systems built on informal often invisible networks and hidden negotiations that reproduce and sustain inequality.

Government legislation requires UK companies employing more than 250 people to publish salaries and bonuses for all staff by 2018. The delay of this legislation, originally planned for 2017, presents the BBC, with their advance listing of elite earners, a golden opportunity to make a positive ethical stand that other organisations can follow.

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"Well you don't look disabled," said the toilet guard lady. We were at a Belgian motorway service area that had only one disabled loo. I'd opened the door, but not quickly enough. The toilet guard, abandoning her saucer of 50-cent coins, swooped. I showed her my Ileostomy association travel certificate; she stared at it then at me before belligerently pulling the door shut. My wife said, "Try the Disability Rights card," I did, it has my photo, looks official and I was allowed to enter.

I'm an ileostomate, which means I'm missing quite a bit of the plumbing that I used to have and most folk still do. To rehash the old song, the mouth's connected to the oesophagus and that to the stomach that to the ileum then the colon, rectum and finally the anus. Well I don't have the last three anymore. I am blessed with a stoma and that makes me a happy bagman. I mean that - it's wonderful to be alive.

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Of course there are things to worry about, foods I can't eat anymore and anything off causes an immediate reaction. But mainly it's the fact that I'm incontinent - no control at all - none! Bags are brilliant and you'd not know I had one if you met me, although you might wonder why I wear braces and high waisted trousers (It's because my stoma is right where my belt used to go). As brilliant as bags are there can be mishaps. It's a sort of 'rite of passage' that occurs less as time passes, but there is always a risk. My worst experience was in a M5 service centre (what is it about motorway service centres?). We'd stopped for a sandwich and mine must have been off because - whoosh it went straight through and the bag could not cope. I made it to the loo, used my RADA key and was grateful for hot water and a basin. I carry spares, bin bags and loads of disinfectant so no one else will suffer. I completed the rest of the journey in wet clothes and stayed in the car while my wife checked into the hotel. She waved the room key and I dashed in with our suitcase, not stopping the dash until standing in the shower. I've had blowouts where I've had to use a regular cubicle and it is no fun at all, especially trying to balance things on the cistern and having to put stuff on the floor trying hard not to look at its state.

The toilet guard's reaction is not unusual although my card defuses most situations. However, I am now an expert on disabled loos and their merits and drawbacks. Firstly, who on earth decided to have electronic opening and closing doors - you know the ones that are so slow that by the time they do shut there is an audience of slightly desperate folk trying to work out if you are coming or going and in my case, whether you should be there at all. Inside, many lack a hook or shelf unless doubling as a baby changing room. Then, there is the height of the basin and hand dryer. OK, I know that many users are wheelchair bound and it's right that their convenience comes first. Most of the rest of us can do some contorting to get by, but is it beyond modern wit to have two basins and dryers? Worst of all is the flush. I won't ruin your day, but suffice it to say that ileostomates may need to flush more than once. Some cisterns fill so slowly they must be relatives of the electric door. It's embarrassing and a potential source of friction as a building queue demands to know, "What's going on in there?"

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The RADA key scheme is a brilliant idea that is under threat from the Internet. Search and you'll find them on offer at prices from over 5 to as little as 1.32 and without proof of need. I can't be the only user who has heard giggling couples within and worse, the debris of alcohol and drug addicts. There is a similar scheme in Europe; the Euroschlussel is not yet widespread, but it has the advantage of only being available on proof of need. When I bought mine I had to provide a letter from my GP. Maybe time for RADA to change the locks and make disabled loos available only to those with a genuine need?

There are horror stories of disabled people being held up at airports, even those whose disabilities are obvious. As I've explained, mine is not and I always travel with a letter from my GP, a recent prescription for my stoma supplies, an Ileostomy association travel certificate and Disability Rights card. Overkill? Well no. Indeed, I have been searched to verify my condition and why I needed to travel with odd-looking stuff. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm lucky that the scar from my operation is still red and rather long. I displayed bag and abdomen as instructed and was secretly pleased to see the searchers turn a whiter shade of pale. 'Do you know what an ileostomy means?' I asked. Astonishingly they had no idea and had never heard of a stoma either. They explained that they had to search to make sure that A) the condition was genuine and B) the equipment or medicine was still needed. Quite how B) can be established when A) is unknown is beyond me. I will always need my equipment and it goes in the carry on bag. I do dream, however, that one-day people with the condition I had will have new plumbing grown from their own DNA and that instead of an ileostomy they will go in for the human equivalent of a new exhaust pipe.

Ileostomates need to join other 'Invisibly' disabled folk in a fight for better facilities and understanding too.

HuffPost UK Lifestyle has launched EveryBody, a new section calling for better equality and inclusivity for people living with disability and invisible illness. The aim is to empower those whose voices are not always heard and redefine attitudes to identity, lifestyle and ability in 2017. We'll be covering all manner of lifestyle topics - from health and fitness to dating, sex and relationships.

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We'd love to hear your stories. To blog for the section, please email ukblogteam@huffingtonpost.com with the subject line 'EveryBody'. To flag any issues that are close to your heart, please email natasha.hinde@huffingtonpost.com, again with the subject line 'EveryBody'.
TommL via Getty Images

Whether it's down to the rise of social media, or the more recent Corbyn effect, UK election turnout has been steadily rising over the last few years, hitting 68.7% at the last General Election. Great news one might think, until we look a bit further back to the 70s, 80s and 90s, when election turnouts were consistently within the 70-80% bracket, hitting the heady heights of 78.8% in the election of February 1974. Take a longer term view and its clear there's been a decline in voter numbers, arguably caused by politicians' inability to engage the electorate, and failure to keep up in a digital world. Indeed, although technology exists which would potentially enfranchise many more voters, the UK Government has been slow to put things in place which would remove the barriers many face when casting a secure and secret vote.

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Back in August last year, I submitted a blog which focused on equal voting rights for those with disabilities, blindness or partial sight. It focused on a single question. Why, in today's digital world, do we rely almost entirely on analogue voting processes, when the technology exists to ensure there is inclusivity for all? In other words, when those with disabilities use technology to enhance and enrich their lives in so many ways, surely the option to vote online should be available now - what are we waiting for? As Nicky Gavron AM rightly points out in a recent report by Webroots Democracy: "It is frankly unacceptable that we have a situation in which hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of vision impaired and disabled voters in the UK are unable to vote independently and in secret, when in other countries they are able to do so."

Webroots Democracy's report - 'Inclusive Voting, Improving access to elections with digital democracy' - talks about the human right to be able to cast a secret and independent vote and outlines the barriers currently faced, be they accessibility to polling stations or having to rely on proxy or postal voting, neither of which offers complete assurance or secrecy. The option to cast a secure and private vote isn't new technology. Indeed, it has been available for many years and, as the Webroot Democracy report rightly points out, is utilised by governments around the world including, but not restricted to, Australia, Estonia and Switzerland. When it comes to security, there is more than 18 years of accumulated R&D, cryptography, verifiability and auditability behind e-voting technology - so why is there resistance to online voting and why is it taking so long to put in place?

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Additionally, we know there is demand for voting technology from those with disabilities worldwide. Scytl has, for example, implemented online voting capabilities for internal elections at the Barcelona Municipal Institute for Persons with Disabilities. Similarly, in New South Wales, Australia, online voting was introduced after the issue of inaccessibility was taken to court. Online voting was introduced in Australia for visually impaired and later expanded to include expatriate voters.

Clearly the UK Government has a long way to go in order to improve accessibility. It must be a priority and not the 'afterthought' outlined in the Inclusive Voting report. I welcome the recommendations given by Webroots Democracy which includes the urgent need to "initiate pilots for online voting as a matter of priority in the new Parliament, with a view to an online voting option being in place for the next UK General Election", as well as a call for the "Equality and Human Rights Commission (to) explore whether or not the existing voting systems is in breath of the Human Rights Act 1998".

Any further delay to offering online voting for those with disabilities, blindness or partial sight, along with other recommendations made by Webroots Democracy around registering to vote and accessing information on the election, parties and policies, reinforces the conclusion that these groups are merely an afterthought when it comes to including and enfranchising the electorate. Not only this but online voting comes with huge advantages including a faster and more accurate vote counting process, prevention of human errors like over or under counting, multi-language support, greater convenience, better engagement from digital natives and the environmental benefit of reducing reliance on paper-based systems.
One by one, the solicitors arrived at the coroner's court. They looked confident and prepared. They clearly knew their way around the court. Four different organisations were represented at the inquest, including the local mental health service. That meant four different solicitors.

The bereaved mother, Kim, and her family sat side by side in the public waiting room. They remained silent, watching everyone who arrived. They huddled together on the bench, as if protecting each other.

This was an initial hearing to decide what needed to be covered at the full inquest. Immediately the coroner informed the parties that she was considering designating this an 'article two' inquest. I wondered if the family knew what this meant. They had no solicitor to guide them.

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An article two inquest happens when a state organisation such as the NHS or the police may have failed to protect the life of a person. Families who have concerns about the care their loved one received prior to their death often appreciate the fact that this type of inquest allows a broader, more in-depth investigation. The four solicitors argued that this should not be an article two inquest. The family didn't make any submissions. The coroner agreed with the solicitors' view.

Afterwards Kim told me that she felt "completely out of her depth". How daunting it must have been, without legal knowledge and up against four experienced solicitors. Unrepresented families sometimes describe feeling that this is a "David and Goliath" situation.

Kim's son had ended his life a few months ago. She felt very strongly that he had been let down by the organisations responsible for his care and wanted the inquest to uncover this. The wider remit of an article two inquest would have been helpful in this respect. And importantly, families can get legal aid for a solicitor at this type of inquest - something which isn't available for most inquests. The family needed a solicitor to argue the case for article two at that pre-inquest hearing. They were so disadvantaged.

Kim told me she felt defeated. She felt her son would be simply a statistic.

Generally families represent themselves in a legal procedure which forces them to re-live the most painful aspects of their loved one's death. It cannot be right that we expect bereaved families to do this.

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I run a Suicide Crisis Centre. Our work involves supporting people who are at risk of suicide. However, we have now decided to start providing support to families at inquests as well, because of the emotional impact of the process, and because they are usually unrepresented.

We witness the huge courage of families as they seek to find out the truth about the death of their loved ones. Last week a young woman, Jess, asked to make a statement in the coroner's court after the full inquest had finished. Her father had taken his own life, but the coroner could not conclude that it was suicide because it must be proved "beyond reasonable doubt" that it was intentional. Jess walked to the witness box. In an act of remarkable bravery, she challenged the coroner's verdict (now known as the conclusion). She said that her father had expressed suicidal intent and she had warned a number of organisations that he was at risk. This had not come out during the inquest, because Jess had not given evidence.

I think the manner of her father's death was such that she expected that the conclusion of the coroner was going to be suicide, and so she didn't ask to give evidence. Many people don't realise the "high bar" required for a suicide conclusion. It must be proved beyond reasonable doubt - it is not enough that the "balance of probabilities" indicates suicide. If bereaved families had immediate access to legal advice, they could be advised about this.

Jess simply wanted the truth to come out. And she had spent months preparing her younger siblings for a suicide conclusion, explaining to them that there should be no stigma to it.

We were relieved to find out recently about the excellent organisation Inquest, which can give advice and help to people facing an article two inquest. We now put families in touch with them. When it's not an article two hearing, we can still sometimes get legal advice from other sources which we pass on to the families.

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Recently an inquest was adjourned so that the coroner could consider calling additional witnesses, including a patient on the psychiatric ward where the young woman in question had ended her life. The solicitor for the mental health trust argued that the patient's evidence shouldn't be included as they felt "her mental capacity was in question" at the time of the young woman's death. The family didn't challenge this.

I decided to make some enquiries. Initially I went to the advising psychiatrists within our charity and then, as the issues became more complex, I emailed a specialist lawyer in London. I simply did a google search and found one of the most experienced lawyers in the country. To my surprise, he replied almost immediately, giving me all the information I needed to show that the evidence of a sectioned psychiatric patient should be considered just as potentially credible as any other witness statement. I was able to send this to the coroner's court.

It's wonderful that dedicated lawyers are willing to help in this way. But we need to make it possible for families who have been bereaved by suicide to have access to legal advice from an early stage. And should we really expect them to represent themselves in court, in such a harrowing and emotionally distressing situation?

For information about the Suicide Crisis Centre: http://www.suicidecrisis.co.uk
For the past three years, Mosul has served as a Daesh stronghold. The terrorist group held territory in the Iraqi city in 2014, and proceeded to destroy its infrastructure, brutalise its residents and erase its cultural heritage.

Yet thanks to the efforts of the Iraqi National Army and coalition forces, the recent weeks have seen the city liberated of Daesh control. However, this has come at a cost. According to UN figures, some 700,000 civilians have been displaced by the conflict. For the residents who so resolutely rejected Daesh's hateful ideology - as well as the international community - the focus now turns to rebuilding.

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Speaking to the UN Security Council earlier this month Jan Kubis, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, said: 'The historic liberation of Mosul should not conceal the fact that the road ahead is extremely challenging.

'To turn the gains of the military victory into stability, security, justice and development, the Government will have to do everything possible to give the people back their lives in security and dignity,' he added.

At this point, the priority is the return of displaced people and the total elimination of any remaining Daesh cells. It will need a huge effort from the Iraqi government and ample support from the international community. In western Mosul, 15 out of the 54 residential districts described as being 'heavily damaged' by the UN. They estimate the cost of stabilising these areas to be in the region of $700 million.

This is obviously an enormous figure, which is why we're glad to see that aid is already being pledged by foreign governments - including our own. In the past two weeks, the UK government has committed to helping the city by sending lifesaving aid to the people of Mosul.

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UK aid will provide clean drinking water, food, tents, cooking equipment, soap, and vaccinations against deadly diseases. The government will also send extra funding to the country, which will help to rebuild the vital infrastructure - water facilities, power networks, clinics, schools - that will allow displaced residents to return to their homes sooner.

In a press release published last week Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, said: 'The UK has been at the forefront of the humanitarian response, and we will continue to stand by the people of Iraq as the painstaking work begins to rebuild homes and infrastructure in Mosul.

'This latest support from Britain...will allow people to rebuild their lives in their home city, and it will support the Government of Iraq's efforts to build a stable, secure and prosperous Iraq.'

The liberation of Mosul is proof of the incredible effort and sacrifice that went into driving out Daesh. Along with this, it has highlighted the bravery and resilience of the residents who, despite hailing from different faiths and backgrounds, all joined together to reject the oppressive doctrine that almost put an end to the city itself.

They are deserving of a return to a normal life. We hope that continued international support will eventually allow them to get there.

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Christopher Furlong via Getty Images

In a move reminiscent of when John Major told Party colleagues to back him or sack him (or crack him over the head with the House of Commons mace and leave him for dead behind the Speaker's chair), Theresa May's recent threat of the terrible consequences of failing to support her, might have helped stem the tide of Tory tyranny. But for how long?

Such an open invitation to challenge her fragile authority isn't destined to end well and she remains an easy target.

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To make matters worse, the prospect of revolting Conservatives suddenly becoming any less revolting is looking increasingly remote. Indeed, as ministers and MPs join the rest of us heading off on holiday, you can already make out the sniping in Sardinia, the plotting in Portugal, the colluding and conniving in Cromer, not to mention the machinating and manoeuvring in Margate.

However, would anyone from the home side be stupid enough to want to see their team captain replaced by Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister? Personally, I reckon there's more chance of Jacob Rees-Mogg christening his next child, Cyril. "Nice one Jacob, Nice one Son, Nice one Jacob, let's have another one".

Is the Member of Parliament for North East Somerset aiming to have so many children - Mogg Sprogs, if you like - that when he's PM, his cabinet and closest advisors will consist entirely of his offspring? Thereby allowing him to outdo Donald Trump, who in the nepotism stakes has thus far only managed to come up with Ivanka.

The 45th President of the United States obviously also loves an unusual name when it comes to the fruit of his loins. Thanks to the aristocratic sounding Barron, he now only needs a Prince, a Princess, an Earl, a Duke, a Duchess, a Count (although there's unlikely to ever be a bigger Count in the family than himself) and a Queen.

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Along with a political dynasty, he could then have America's very own Royal Family. Or better still, a handy replacement for our bunch of regal hangers on. Forget foreign dignitaries visiting Buckingham Palace, they could soon be staying at Trump Palace and be able to gamble their country's national debt on the spin of a roulette wheel.

Returning to Britain's infinitely duller elected representatives, while Corbyn remains every student's favourite politician - for how much longer is debatable having apparently deceived them over the promise of their debt - he's still an unpalatable choice for many others, even those within the Labour Party itself.

The same may not be the case with Westminster's favourite new old boy. Step forward, the Liberal Democrat's latest leader. Yes, fresh of energy, if not of face, Vince is back. And the Cable guy isn't to be underestimated, as we witnessed in 2010 when he went to war with the owner of the nation's premier satellite TV station.

Here is someone who managed to escape relatively unscathed from the coalition government in which he formerly played such a vital part. OK, as the Business Secretary, the fiasco of Royal Mail sell-off was his responsibility, resulting in the tax payer losing close to 1 billion. But he can be forgiven that. After all, if those dreaded self service machines are anything to go by, the Post Office has managed to confuse and bewilder many a pensioner. Let alone anyone else.

As luck would have it, the slap on the wrist by the voters of Twickenham in 2015 turned out to be a temporary one and come 2017 they re-elected him with an increased majority.

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At 74, he has proved that age is no barrier to ambition and for this he should be applauded. No matter what profession we're in, we all deserve one last hurrah. You can't help feeling that this is his.

Cable's assertion that the reason we decided to leave the EU had much to do with people of his generation (and younger) being scared of immigration, in spite of not being affected by it, is unquestionably true. Inflating the threat of a perceived enemy is an easy way for any political movement to whip up paranoia amongst certain sectors of society. Brexit is far from the first time it has happened and it definitely won't be the last.

As economic disaster appears more likely, so unfortunately does the chance of a second referendum. Against cries of "undemocratic" and "swindle", might we conceivably be asked to vote again on an issue and subject we should never have been asked to vote on in the first place? Plainly it would be ludicrous, a complete waste of money and above all, incredibly boring, but perhaps it's necessary.
Sara S'Souza

Travelling with an open mind

It was a three-week backpacking trip 12 years ago across Morocco by train that sparked my love of travel. Exploring my way through new and exciting experiences, sights, sounds, colours, smells and was like nothing I had ever experienced. Before the budget airlines had started flying to Morocco, our option was to take a ferry from Spain and navigate the Tangier coastline for a hotel. Our first experience was how eager people were to help us out with directions and how being lost, rather than being a problem, can actually lead to a new adventure (or uncover a hidden gem of a bar). To begin with I found it hard to get to grips with a culture so different - but I learnt if I asked for help people were more than willing. Through the vibrant souks (markets) of Marrakesh, a woman taught me how to haggle the prices like a local. My attempts made both of us laugh, but I got the hang of it in the end.

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Over the few weeks, we travelled to places we had never seen before and in one town were invited into someone's home to share traditional food - people from all different cultures sitting together and digging into a meal was one of my highlights of the trip.

Uncovering off-the beaten track knowledge from the locals

On a weekend break to Oslo, I realised I had forgotten to buy a guidebook and hadn't time to research the destination and its must-visit sights. After a momentary panic that we would be stuck in all the tourist traps, I decided the only way forward would be to get insider recommendations from the locals. And that's the way our weekend played out; we'd stop in a bar and ask the barmen what his favourite things to do in Oslo were and follow his instructions. After we'd been to his top recommendation, we'd meet someone new and ask their advice. I learnt that language barriers needn't be restrictive, they just encouraged me to think of creative ways to communicate, even drawing pictures at times to be understood. From here we mapped out the city like a treasure trail from bars to beaches to restaurants to art galleries, feeling like we'd been given insider knowledge on Oslo's hotspots and getting a real feel for authentic Norwegian culture, with the locals feeling happy to share their brilliant city.

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Using common ground to overcome problems

With travel invariably comes some problems to overcome and this is where finding common ground with others really comes into its own. There's nothing like a delayed cross country trip to bond people together, something I discovered on an overnight train journey through Burma. We set off along the tracks to the slowly sinking sunset with enough food to last the distance. After the first breakdown we realised things might not run as smoothly as we hoped and we found solidarity in chatting to our fellow passengers who had come from all over the world.

I loved hearing their interesting and varied stories about what had led them to the country from work to love, and these united us all while travelling through Burma that evening. The hours passed, looking out on rice paddies and picturesque Burmese countryside, but after the a second breakdown we recognised that our supplies may just run out. It was then that the kindness of locals was made evident, and I'm not sure I have ever been so grateful to receive a steaming hot plate of local food being pushed through the train window, accompanied with an ice cold beer. Experiencing the kindness of others certainly inspired me to bring that more into my everyday life.

Discovering there's no limit to the possibilities of travel

Finding common ground with fellow travellers or locals doesn't just have to be passing, it can lead you to building a whole network of lifelong friends (I even met my future partner by sharing music on a flight home from Italy). I've made friends from all over the world from going to both far flung and local festivals and any sporting event abroad will guarantee you have something to talk about. Even when our cultures are completely different, we can be united in a common love for sport and music.

Travelling is a way of taking you out of the depth of your comfort zone and opening up your mind and world to new possibilities, new ways of thinking and new people. It enables you to see life from someone else's perspective and that understanding leads to acceptance of so many diverse ways of life. Plus, I've often found meeting people from different backgrounds has helped me to understand my own culture on a deeper level. Take the chance - you never know where your travels may lead you.
One of the by-products of instant messaging technology like WhatsApp and Messenger is the particular strain of frustration you feel when you don't get a quick response to a message you can see has been read. There's probably a wonderful German word for it.

As communications technology has developed, so too has our expectation of a speedy reply. Many now expect an instant response from the people and companies we get in contact with.

So what drives our need to hear back immediately?

1. "I want it now!"

We naturally want instant reward. In the 1960s Stanford researchers conducted an experiment where they left a child alone in a room for 15 minutes with a marshmallow. They told them that if they didn't eat it, they'd be rewarded with a second marshmallow. Most of the children (who were aged 4 and 5) eventually caved into temptation and ate the marshmallow.

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The researchers followed-up on the participant's progress over the next 40 years and found that those who grabbed that first sweet tended to opt for instant gratification in other areas of their lives.

We live in a world now where we don't need to wait. We can fire up an app and see exactly what street our parcel delivery driver is on and how many deliveries they have left to complete before getting to us.

We can even see their photo and mobile number. We have access to vast amounts of information at our fingertips. We don't have to wait to find out what we want to know.

2. We evolved to find quick and easy solutions

Evolution doesn't mess around. If there's a quick and easy way to do something most of us would take it.

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Research from the University of London shows that we are hard-wired to take the path of least resistance, and - importantly - our brains will convince us that it's the right path to take. When we have a hard task to do, we'll distract ourselves with easier tasks. We'll carve a big project into manageable chunks, making the project easier to do. (But then...watching that YouTube video of a cat greeting a returning soldier is easy and fun. So we could just watch that first...)

I know that if I have a choice between sitting on hold for 20 minutes while terrible elevator music plays over the phone, or simply posting to the brand on social media, I'll pick social media. It's easy, and closes the task down in my brain so I can get on with my day. (But see my first point - I expect an instant response.)

If I'm going to meet someone after work, I don't plan my route there. I don't need to. I just open Google Maps as I walk out of the door. I'm using the path of least resistance to take the quickest path to my destination. It's a match made in heaven.

3. Our emotions demand it

When we're emotional, we need to be heard.

Research by Princeton, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon universities has found that the impulsive choices we make, and our need for the short-term reward, are governed by the emotional part of our brain.

Delayed-gratification - our drive for long-term goals - is ruled by logic and abstract-reasoning.

If my internet goes down, my first thought isn't "well, my provider is generally very reliable, so there must be a good reason for it". My first thought is "I'm angry about this, and why don't I know when it's coming back on?"

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So, of course, I'll take the path of least resistance, and message my internet provider, because my brain has evolved that way. And I'll expect a response straight away, because I need instant gratification.

I worry that this is leading our expectations to become unrealistic. What if my internet goes down, my Google maps app doesn't load, and I have a really complex task to finish? Is the pressure of this instant gratification setting us up to fail? It could lead us to be in a perpetual state of disappointment at best, anxiety at worst.

Perhaps the answer is to relearn patience, by practising mindfulness. To actively not reach for our mobile phones to check social media if we're left alone for two minutes (despite the lovely, warm, hug-like dopamine hit it gives us).

And sometimes, the right answer isn't the quickest answer. Sometimes we need to wait for a response, for it to be the best response.
10 Instagram Accounts That Could Change Your Music Career [Kosha Dillz]

In this article rapper Kosha Dillz shares ten different Instagram accounts which, although they may in many cases be unconventional, are nonetheless a source of great source of creative inspiration for the rapper from day to day.

____________________________

Guest post by indie rapper Kosha Dillz

Kosha Dillz

I look to some of the most interesting people for inspiration that I dont really know would inspire people besides myself. I consider [myself] to have a good eye for branding, and love studying the art of growth. I also realize I have tastes in things that not a lot of people have tastes in, and that's OK. I enjoy hustling, wrestling, rapping, (high school, freestyle , greco roman, NCAA) and YouTubing. With that being said, there [are] a variety of Instagrams I follow that really help me in my day for the world of Kosha Dillz. From speed readers to strength training to press on nail designs, welcome to the world of gems you should follow and learn from .FOR FREE.

need promo, and always impressed me by creating a brand that was all about doing the work. If you look at his work, he does a video every single day called #stronglife tip of the day. It is simple reminders for the hustle and a good way to start your day if you always end up on social media. His hard core attitude is something I like to bring into my rap world of business. 1. @zevenesh - This dude is crazy with the weights and is also my brother. He doesntpromo, and always impressed me by creating a brand that was all about doing the work. Iflook at his work, he does a video every single day called #stronglife tip of the day. It is simple reminders for the hustle and a good way to start your day ifalways end up on social media. His hard core attitude is something I like to bring into my rap world of business.

you dont really follow what he does, you wont come close to bringing your hustle to the next level. What Gary does now is the unification of all industries in one room. 2. @garyvee - before all the fame he has now, I was bum rushing his SXSWI keynote speech with @flexmathews and free styling about twitter. He also sold my bro a one on one consultation lunch at Taco bell. He is the master of everything and is now one of the coolest dudes to follow. Point is ifdont really follow what he does,wont come close to bringing your hustle to the next level. What Gary does now is the unification of all industries in one room.

you read really fast and help you memory and also has an amazing aesthetic for his brand. The middle section of his instagram is all screen shots of his twitter posts. My favorite one is whats your favorite wordfrom May 20 . The interaction can teach you a lot and of course you can subscribe to his podcast. 3. @jimkwik - this guy runs a way to makeread really fast and helpmemory and also has an amazing aesthetic for his brand. The middle section of hisis all screen shots of his twitter posts. My favorite one is whats your favorite wordfrom. The interaction can teacha lot and of coursecan subscribe to his podcast.

instagram . Good news is you can learn a lot from your target market how they create clever videos to direct traffic to his amazing videos, yet also see that you can do it alone and be pretty big. 4. @Meirkay - follow this guy because his whole timeline is positive. He is youtube that isnt on youtube as much as it is on Facebook. With 1,000,000 + Facebook fans, he only has 22k on. Good news iscan learn a lot from your target market how they create clever videos to direct traffic to his amazing videos, yet also see thatcan do it alone and be pretty big.

5. @toopoor  This girl is wellpretty dark. She isnt a rapper. She isnt a model. She is toopoor. She makes her own clothes, is very rare, and takes offensive and provocative pics that make reaction happen. She has a theme to her gram. Notice how it is not anything else except one colorand also has live streams where she proves silence is captivating for hundreds of people.

instagram . 6. @bartbaker - this guys is aweomse. I met him and decided to follow him, not realizing he has over 1million followers. Not only does he do the best parodies in the net, but he does the best parodies and has great strategy for increasing his fans. He uses instructional posts to increase visibility and also taught me about pinned comments in live stream for

instagram style, with tons of tasteful people who interact with it, from famous super models to musicians and entrepreneurs. It is all free and is a good example of branding and description. Hot. Sexy. Fitness. 7. @thecobrasnake // @cobrafitnessclub - Cobra snake is sort of a legend photographer in LA. He was taking pics back in the day before Steve Aoki was blowing up and DJ AM as well. Now he runs a fitness club which I 100% can attest to how it has helped me. He has a interestingstyle, with tons of tasteful people who interact with it, from famous super models to musicians and entrepreneurs. It is all free and is a good example of branding and description. Hot. Sexy. Fitness.

you show your friends your ass and can be your secret. I havent started on up yet, but you think can blow? 8. @rabbiyamstein - this is a good example of a Finstagram. A Finstagram is a joke, or one whereshow your friends your ass and can be your secret. I havent started on up yet, but @rabbiyamstein is a good one for example. Gotta side project thatthink can blow?

@modsun - I gotta say this guy knows who to interact with his fans. He is an inspiration to me for consistency and always believing in his brand. His album is called Movie. Not once did he ever not say the word movie in his instagram story for like the past year. For your own sake watch him. Warning, he is literally that happy all the time. Double warning; his music is dope.

10 @rave_nailz - Do you ever have something out of the box that shouldnt be fitted with something else? Rave Nailz is my graphic designer @braelinn , but is certainly different from her personal pages. Notice how she never leaves and isnt too pushy with the sales? I want to know where to buy it more and follow for more content vs get hassled to buy. Now that I am saying all that, I want to get some nails for my friends.

I know you think a hashtag is gonna get you more followers and likes, but when your content is so good, is hash tagging more of an artistic vibe versus the actual monitor of finding you ? A little bit of both I must say. All these grams are good for you to stay up on, and you can take bits and pieces from each one to create your own thing.

With that being said, if you love this article, take a pic of it and tag me on instagram. Im @Koshadillz

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At a short meeting Friday morning, School Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego expressed excitement about the Berkshire County Education Task Force's vote.

Lanesborough School Chair 'Re-Energized' By Task Force Vote

LANESBOROUGH, Mass.  School Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego participated in 32 meetings of the Berkshire County Educational Task Force over the past two years.

And it was exhausting. But as the group voted last Saturday to recommend a single school district for all of Berkshire County, she's become "re-energized."

"I'm really excited about it all. I think we can do something for our kids," DiLego said.

DiLego said she was somewhat surprised by the vote. She was expecting the group to come to the conclusion of recommending three separate districts. But, the more discussion the group had and the more issues arose with that, DiLego believes that one district is really the way to achieve the group's goals.

"Nobody, including me, thought that was going to be our vote," DiLego said.

She said the focus was on providing high-quality education for all children in Berkshire County, equal access to the services each child needs, and financial sustainability. She said the best way to do that is to eventually move to a single district.

"One school district really answers the best for all of those," DiLego said.

Educational equity for all children stood out for DiLego. She said the discussions had already descended into parsing out where schools would fall under the three-district option, with some schools not wanting to be lumped in with others. She said there are distinct financial differences between the regions and school districts.

"It starts to turn into a 'we're already good so we aren't going to bring ourselves down,' " DiLego said. "It'd be one large school district, where the teachers are all paid equally, the paraprofessionals are all paid equitably."

The city of Pittsfield is already at its levy ceiling, meaning it has little more it can contribute to the schools. And DiLego said there are about a half-dozen towns inching ever closer to the same place. Combining resources throughout the county will help save money through a number of different ways.

"Once we are at the ceiling, you can't spend any more money," DiLego said.

That gives her fellow School Committee member Danielle Taylor a pause of uncertainty. She'd like more information on what the educational system would ultimately look like when towns with greater wealth and towns of lesser wealth meet in the middle.

The bold vision is expected to take a decade to achieve. And, not all school districts and towns will want to be part of it. But the task force spent numerous hours coming to the best pathway forward. And now it is time to craft a roadmap to get there.

"The hope is people will not stop moving forward," DiLego said.

And the timing is right, too. DiLego said there are numerous superintendents in the district looking to retire soon so the opportunity for towns to combine resources is near.

The single district plan does not mean there would only be one high school. There would still be multiple schools but the administration of them would be shared. DiLego expects gradual steps with districts starting to share services, then sharing administration, and finally going to full regionalization.

That is exactly the path the towns of Williamstown and Lanesborough have been following and in November, the full regionalization comes to a vote. The elementary school committees have been asked to take the lead on that process and DiLego says she has a number of meetings coming up to dig into those details and ensure a new regional agreement is one both towns can get behind. The Board of Selectmen also has a community forum on the topic on July 31.

The Berkshire County Educational Task Force still has Phase 3 to work on, which will address the details of how a single district would work. DiLego isn't the only school official who has voiced excitement for the possibilities and the outcome of the vote. Others have praised the recommendation since Saturday's vote.
I like the smokes when I am drunk. Got drunk the other night on some good German beer and went through a pack. I also smoke when I am stressed out and have anxiety. I had a huge worry and concern this last spring and was smoking like a chimney.



If I am sober and/or not stressed out, I don't smoke. I don't do the whole "I am going to quit smoking." bit, if I want a smoke, I have one. I just don't want one. The ***** is bad for you and they will kill you, but warn the kids, once you smoke, you will always be a smoker even if you "quit".



If I lived in America, I probably wouldn't smoke because of the cost. Smokes in Tennessee are like $6 a pack or $180 bucks a year. Money that could be better spent on dope, beer or tips at the nudie bar.
Kaspersky Lab researchers have detected NukeBot  new malware which has been designed to steal the credentials of online banking customers. Earlier versions of the Trojan were known to the security industry as TinyNuke, but lacked the features necessary to launch attacks. The latest versions however, are fully operable, and contain code to target the users of specific banks.

Although the appearance of a malware family in the wild is not unusual, the fact that criminals have a ready-to-attack version of the Trojan, means that soon they may initiate a wide-scale malicious campaign, to infect multiple users.

As an early warning to its customers and other users, Kaspersky Lab has published a brief analysis of the malware.

NukeBot is a banking Trojan. Upon infection it injects malicious code into the webpage of an online banking service displayed in a victims browser and then steals user data, spoofs their credentials, and more.

According to Kaspersky Lab researchers, there are already a number of compiled samples of this Trojan in the wild  shared on underground hacking forums. Most of these are rough, barely operational malware drafts; however, the companys experts have managed to identify some that pose a real threat.

Around 5% of all samples found by Kaspersky Lab were NukeBots new combat versions, which have improved source codes and attacking capacities. Among other things these versions contain injections  specific pieces of code, which mimic parts of user interface of real online banking services.

Based on the analysis of injections, Kaspersky Lab experts believe the main targets of the new version of NukeBot are users of several French and US banks.

In addition, Kaspersky Lab researchers managed to detect several NukeBot modifications that didnt have web injection functionality, and were designed to steal mail client and browser passwords.

This means that developers of new versions may aim to widen the functionality of this malware family.

While criminals behind recent versions of this malware currently are not actively distributing NukeBot, this may, and likely will, change very soon. Weve already seen this before with some other malware families: after a short testing period of a ready-to-attack malware, criminals start distributing it widely through infected websites, spam and phishing. So far we have seen NukeBot versions which are ready to attack the customers of at least six banks located in France and the US, however this list of targets looks like only the beginning. The goal of our brief research is to warn the banking community and online banking customers about a potentially emerging threat. We urge interested parties to use the results of our research in order to protect themselves from this threat in advance, said Sergey Yunakovsky, security expert at Kaspersky Lab.

In 2016, the number of users attacked with malware targeting financial data increased about 30.55% over the previous year, bringing it to close to 1.1 Million attacks. While most of these attacks were mostly towards regular users, approximately 17.7% of the attacks also targeted corporate users. From our Financial Cyberthreats report for 2016, we found that users in Russia, Germany, Japan, India, Vietnam and the US are the ones most often attacked by banking malware. The trends show us that although professional cybercriminal groups have indeed shifted a lot of their attention to targeted attacks against large companies, regular users and smaller firms are still being targeted, added Sylvia Ng, General Manager at Kaspersky Lab Southeast Asia.

To protect yourself and your customers from NukeBot attacks, Kaspersky Lab security specialists offer the following advice:

For financial organizations providing online banking services:



Make sure you have an effective fraud prevention solution in place, so that you can quickly and accurately spot unauthorized use of customer accounts and irregular financial activity.

For customers of online banking services:



Use an Internet security solution with tailored technologies to protect financial transactions, like Kaspersky Labs Safe Money.

Regularly run a system scan to check for possible infections.

Kaspersky Lab products detect the malware as Trojan-Banker.Win32.TinyNuke.
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Nicolas Cage has found himself at the centre of yet another meme, this time thanks to a photo of him taken in Kazakhstan.

The Oscar-winning actor was snapped next to the country's first lady, Sara Nazarbayeva while wearing a traditional Kazakh robe - an odd sight made odder by his blank expression.

The 53-year-old was visiting the country to attend the opening of the 13th Eurasia International Film Festival which is taking place in the city's capital, Astana.

Of course, the photo has been doing the rounds on social media and it's already in the history books as yet another meme inspired by the actor.

According to the Kazinform news agency, Cage said: I would be pleased to participate in some film project on the territory of Kazakhstan.

I enjoyed the architecture of your capital. What I saw reminded me of an old black-and-white film that depicted the future.

The Astana Times reports that other Hollywood talent attending the festival includes Adrien Brody and John Malkovich.
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There is now a one-in-three chance of record rainfall hitting part of England and Wales each winter, according to new Met Office study which highlights the risk of major flooding as the climate warms.

The researchers warned that global warming would change the risk of extreme weather and suggested politicians should bear this in mind when planning to protect the public, businesses and infrastructure.

A series of storms in the winter of 2013-14 caused widespread flooding and about 1bn-worth of damage in the Thames river valley.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the Met Office team said they had used computer models of the climate to show that those storms could have been anticipated.

They also found in the current climate there was a high chance of exceeding the observed record monthly rainfall totals in many regions of the UK.

In south-east England there is a 7 per cent chance of exceeding the current rainfall record in at least one month in any given winter, the scientists said.

Expanding our analysis to some other regions of England and Wales the risk increases to a 34 per cent chance of breaking a regional record somewhere each winter.

The researchers, led by Dr Vikki Thompson, added that these estimates of the risks were only valid in the current climate.

Future climate change is likely to alter the chances of extremes, they wrote. This is a significant risk and could be used to inform decision makers on the likelihood and intensity of unprecedented rainfall events in the near future to protect the public, business and infrastructure from extreme rainfall and flooding.

Commenting on the new research, Professor Len Shaffrey, of Reading University, said it provided some really interesting insights into the probability of extreme rainfall events such as the winter of 2013-14 and how risks might be changing due to climate change.

Using weather and climate models to better understand the probability of extreme weather is an important method that is becoming more widely used to help inform those dealing with weather impacts about the risks of extreme events, he said.

Future research needs to evaluate how well weather and climate models are able to accurately simulate other extreme weather events, for example droughts and heat waves, if we want to use models to better understand extreme weather risks and how they might be changing.

Flooding in England Show all 20 1 /20 Flooding in England Flooding in England Flooding in Shepperton The Three Horseshoes Pub in Shepperton. Properties along the Thames Valley were affected by power cuts as the river burst its banks Charlie Forgham-Bailey Flooding in England Flooding in Shepperton People wade through floodwaters in Thames Meadow, near Shepperton Flooding in England Flooding in Shepperton Sandbags to stop flooding at the Warren Lodge Hotel in Shepperton Charlie Forgham-Bailey Flooding in England Flooding in Shepperton A Land Rover drives along a flooded street in Shepperton Getty Images Flooding in England Flooding in Shepperton Dr James Andrews was stranded in his home without electricity since Sunday, but he was rescued yesterday by soldiers Charlie Forgham-Bailey Flooding in England Flooding in Shepperton Soldiers from the Royal Engineers pull a boat through floodwaters in Thames Meadow, near Shepperton Flooding in England Flooding in Shepperton Many residents' homes in Shepperton are now only accessible by boat. Flooding in England Flooding in Bridgwater Water surrounds flooded propeties in the village of Moorland on the Somerset Levels near Bridgwater Getty Images Flooding in England Flooding in Chertsey A resident wades through the floodwater that has swept into Chertsey, which lies just west of London Getty Images Flooding in England Flooding in Wraysbury Firefighters driving through flooding in Wraysbury, Berkshire Flooding in England Flooding in Wraysbury In the normally tranquil village of Wraysbury, residents have rallied round after houses were swamped by floods Flooding in England Flooding in Wraysbury Services personnel assist in the evacuation of a family from their home in Wraysbury Flooding in England Flooding in Wraysbury Members of Royal Berkshire Fire & Rescue squad evacuate a family Getty Images Flooding in England Flooding in Wraysbury Floodwater reaches a children's playground in Wraysbury Getty Images Flooding in England Flooding in Wraysbury Labour party leader Ed Miliband talks with resident Peter Horner Flooding in England Flooding in Wraysbury A member of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers leads his vehicle through flood water in Wraysbury Getty Images Flooding in England Flooding in Worcester The Severn View Hotel in Worcester surrounded by flood water Flooding in England Flooding in Worcester Swans swimming through a flooded car park at Worcester Racecourse Flooding in England Flooding in Datchet Residents carry sandbags to protect their property from the floods, in the centre of the village of Datchet Flooding in England Flooding in Datchet A man is pulled in a kayak through a flooded street in the village of Datchet

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in London, urged Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, to carefully read the paper about the study.

We know that the risk of record rainfall is increasing due to climate change. From 2000 onwards, the UK has experienced six of the seven wettest years since records began in 1910, and its eight warmest years, he said.

The period between January and June 2017 was the third warmest such period on record. As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more water, increasing the risk of heavy rainfall.

The UKs two wettest winters on record occurred in 2013-14 and 2015-16, leading to flooding in many parts of the country, and highlighting to the Government that it had severely underestimated the risks.

Daniel Johns, head of adaptation at the Governments independent advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, said the paper represented important research.

He added that it reinforces our call for the Government to prepare for and expect a significant flood event to take place somewhere in the country almost every year.

However, its worth pointing out that the current UK climate the paper refers to is not stable and will continue to change, he said.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke  filled with the carbon that is driving climate change  drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

As we set out in our evidence report for the 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, rainfall patterns in some UK regions have already intensified, as long predicted by climate models.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, and evidence is mounting that higher seasonal temperatures, and heavier rainfall, are already affecting the UK.
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Preventing global warming from becoming dangerous may have just got significantly harder after new research suggested climate scientists have been using the wrong baseline temperature.

The amount of global warming is often measured relative to the late 19th century even though this is about 100 years after the start of the industrial revolution, when humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

Now an international team of scientists has suggested that the Earths true pre-industrial temperature could be up to 0.2 degrees Celsius cooler.

That would mean that instead of about 1C of global warming, the planets average temperature may have risen by up to 1.2C.

According to the Paris Agreement on climate change, the world should try to limit global warming to as close to 1.5C as possible to avoid its worst effects, such as deadly heatwaves, sea level rise that threatens coastal cities and more violent storms.

One of the researchers, Professor Michael Mann, said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had been using a definition of pre-industrial that is likely underestimating the warming that has already taken place.

That means we have less carbon to burn than we previously thought, if we are to avert the most dangerous changes in climate, he said.

When the IPCC says that weve warmed 1C relative to pre-industrial, thats probably incorrect. Its likely as much as 1.2C.

The study, described in a paper in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that anything from 0.02C to 0.21C of warming could already have taken place before the late 19th century.

The lower end of that range would mean the current use of the late 19th century is reasonably accurate, but the upper end would be a substantial change.

Professor Mann, of Pennsylvania State University, said that either the Paris targets have to be revised or the world could simply decide that they only wanted to restrict warming relative to the 19th century.

His colleague, Dr Andrew Schurer, of Edinburgh University, told The Independent: If we assume there has been warming up to the late 19th century, those targets become slightly tighter and therefore harder to reach.

But he said that defining the targets was more a matter for policymakers, based on the available evidence and risks, than scientists.

I dont think the findings will necessarily mean that climate change will be made worse than it was previously  its a slightly abstract concept, Dr Schurer said.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke  filled with the carbon that is driving climate change  drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals, says the photographer. Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow. Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a public health emergency. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

It really needs to be defined better in order that we know where we are in terms of reaching the target.

If there had already been 0.2C of global warming by the late 19th century, the researchers calculated this would increase the chance of exceeding the 1.5C target rose from 61 to 88 per cent  even if humans dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The chance of breaching 2C increased from 25 to 30 per cent.

Mitigation targets based on the use of a late-19th century baseline are probably overly optimistic and potentially substantially underestimate the reductions in carbon emissions necessary to avoid 1.5C or 2C warming of the planet relative to pre-industrial, the scientists wrote in the paper.

While pre-industrial temperature remains poorly defined, a range of different answers can be calculated for the estimated likelihood of global temperatures reaching certain temperature values.

We would therefore recommend that a consensus be reached as to what is meant by pre-industrial temperatures to reduce the chance of conclusions that appear contradictory being reached by different studies and to allow for a more clearly defined framework for policymakers and stakeholders.
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Riding hailing company Grab raised 1.5bn ($2bn) from Didi Chuxing and Softbank in the largestever venture fundraising in Southeast Asia, joining forces with two companies instrumental in driving Uber out of China.

The deal cements an alliance between SoftBank, Didi and Grab, which competes against Uber in markets from Malaysia to Thailand. The Singapore-based ride hailing company said it expects to close another 383m ($500m) from unspecified new and existing backers. That would take its valuation north of 4.6bn ($6bn), making it the most valuable startup in Southeast Asia, a person familiar with the matter said.

The record financing follows Ubers retreat from Russia and China, massive markets where Uber spent billions but ultimately capitulated to well-financed and savvy local rivals. In Southeast Asia, its waging a costly war against not just Grab but also Go-Jek, which is holding its own on its home turf of Indonesia. The local players have thus far shown greater initiative in terms of launching services such as digital payments, said Ajay Sunder, vice president of digital transformation at Frost & Sullivan in Singapore.

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Grab has been a lot more aggressive than Uber, making new acquisitions and launching new services in the region, he said. Uber will have to make a call at some stage.

SoftBank has been the primary financier of the battle against Uber in Asia, first putting 3.83bn in Didi alongside an early investment in Grab and Indias Ola. The Grab round is one of its largest investments in the region, coming on the heels of the establishment of its mega Vision Fund.

Its a vote of confidence from a company that backed Alibabas battle in China against first Ebay and then Amazons relationship with the Japanese company has blossomed since co-founder Anthony Tan first met with SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son at the billionaires Tokyo office in 2014. The two sealed a deal then with a handshake and SoftBank has backed every funding round since.

Grab is using technology to address transportation and payments, some of the biggest challenges present in Southeast Asia, Son said in a statement.

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.

Asias largest ride-hailing services are arming themselves for war with Uber, now that the cessation of activities in China and Russia allows it to focus on other fledgling markets around the world. Southeast Asia, a region on the cusp of an e-commerce boom with twice as many people as the US, remains a wide-open field that could prove pivotal if Uber is to sustain growth beyond the US and Europe.

When it closes, the current investment in Grab will eclipse a previous regional record of 574m set in September, in a round said to have given it a valuation of more than 2.2bn. Go-Jek, better known for its motorcycle taxis, raised 422,000 in a 2016 round led by KKR & Co and Warburg Pincus. On Monday however, Grab said it has 95 per cent of third-party taxi-hailing in Southeast Asia and handles 71 per cent of private vehicle hailing, and has almost 3m daily rides.

Grab may be preparing for an initial public offering, possibly within a year, said Frost & Sullivans Sunder. When you have your existing, anchor investors putting in a larger share like this, thats typically a way to fund the last investment stage before the IPO, he said.

Bloomberg
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Reckitt Benckiser expects muted sales growth this year, after last months global cyber attack exacerbated ongoing difficulties at the consumer goods firm.

The maker of Durex condoms and Lysol disinfectants has been struggling for months with the fallout from a collapse of its business in South Korea and a failed Scholl product launch last year.

But on 27 June, it became one of several major companies to be hit by the NotPetya virus, which hobbled systems for everything from manufacturing to shipping. It cut its full-year sales forecast earlier this month from growth of 3 per cent to growth of 2 per cent.

I see this as a challenging target, chief executive Rakesh Kapoor said. We are experiencing tougher market conditions, and we still have work to do on addressing the full implications of the recent cyber attack.

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The majority of its systems and key manufacturing sites are now producing near full capacity, but Reckitt said it had not yet returned to normal operations everywhere. Most issues will be resolved during the current third quarter.

Like-for-like sales fell 2 per cent in the second quarter.

Excluding the attack and tax changes in India, sales would have been flat, as they were in the first quarter, which was Reckitts weakest in 15 years.

Reckitts shares were down nearly 2 per cent this morning, with analysts saying results were disappointing, even if expected.

This does not stop it being a very poor performance  the worst in the history of Reckitt Benckiser  from a company that has previously set the benchmark for topline growth, said analysts at Bernstein.

For the first six months of the year, like-for-like revenue fell 1 per cent to 5bn, the company said.

Adjusted net income rose 14 per cent and earnings per share rose 15 per cent to 124.9 pence.

Reckitt has said that performance in the second half of the year will improve, as comparisons ease.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

The firms shares got a boost last week when it announced the sale of its North American food business to McCormick for 3.2bn.

Reckitt sold the business in order to pay down debt from its purchase of baby formula maker Mead Johnson. It said it closed the Mead Johnson deal a quarter ahead of expectations and therefore expects to realise cost savings quicker than it initially laid out.

The company said margins in that business fell 500 basis points in the second quarter, due to higher milk powder costs and marketing spending. It expects second-half revenue for that business to be somewhere between flat to down 2 per cent.

Reckitt also said it was taking a provision of 318m related to ongoing investigations by the US Department of Justice into Indivior, which Reckitt spun off in 2014.

Reuters
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The Charlie Gard case has come to a close, with the parents agreeing that the British baby should not travel to undergo further treatment.

The decision means that the 11-month-old will stay in Britain. It comes after a range of experts met to discuss the case  which was due to be ruled on by a High Court judge.

The lawyer told said that time had "run out" for the child. "For Charlie it is too late. The damage has been done," Grant Armstrong said.

The parents said they would discuss with the judge and other authorities about how the baby will be allowed to die. Armstrong said the news had left Charlie's parents extremely distressed and they now "wish to spend the maximum amount of time they have left with Charlie."

It marks the end of a difficult and emotional case for everyone involved. The effects of the dispute are likely to lead to fundamental questions about the treatment of children and rare diseases.

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But for now everyone involved has agreed that it is too late for the experimental treatment that the parents had hoped to pursue to work. That brings an end to the immediate questions in the case, and means that Charlie will stay in the care of Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he will probably die.

Charlie has a rare genetic condition causing progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. His parents had sought to send him to the United States to undergo experimental therapy.

Britain's courts, backed by the European Court of Human Rights, have refused permission, saying it would prolong his suffering without any realistic prospect of helping the 11-month-old child.

The new decision comes after experts from around the world met with each other and with the parents, to explore the possibilities for Charlie's treatment. The results of those tests appear to be so devastating that the parents have agreed that the experimental treatment will no longer help.

The parents had hoped that those discussions would go the opposite way, with the doctor offering to conduct the treatment  who recently flew over from the US to see Charlie  agreeing that the baby might have a chance. But the findings were that Charlie's illness was too far gone.

Charlie has experienced significant muscular atrophy, for instance, as a result of his condition. While the treatment could potentially improve his condition  though doctors have said the chances are low  it would not be able to reverse those effects and so it is too late to pursue that route, the family has agreed.

Charlie's parents said through their lawyer in court that they hope that the case can change the way medical decisions are made in the future. It should be proof that if mitochondrial treatment is going to take place then doctors should begin as soon as they can, they said.
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A total solar eclipse is set to sweep over America. But making sure that everyone there can enjoy it is important work.

It is one of the most stunning sights that can ever be seen in the sky, and the opportunity to do so only emerges rarely. The whole of North America will get that chance on 21 August, when a total solar eclipse will make its way across the continent, turning day into night.

But it is also highly dangerous, and viewing it wrong can damage people's eyes and the equipment used to do so. That's why Nasa has published a guide to watching the eclipse safely and happily.

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427  more commonly known as WR 124  and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead  sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later  having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

The central problem with the eclipse is that the star of the show is the sun. Even though it will be sliding behind the moon and out of proper view, all the normal caution must apply, since looking straight at it can cause such damage.

As such, Nasa says that anyone looking to observe the eclipse must not do so directly. Instead, you can either use eclipse glasses, which work like very intense sunglasses, or an indirect method.

Recommended When and where to see the 2017 total solar eclipse

Those filters are the only safe way to look right at the sun as the eclipse is moving into place. Nasa warns that anyone doing so must be careful to ensure their eclipse glasses  which should be available for purchase in most places  are safe.

That means that they shouldn't have scratched, damaged or wrinkled lenses, or be more than three years old. They should include the manufacturer's name and address  which can be checked online  and guarantee that they confirm with the ISO standard.

To use them, stand still and put on your sunglasses while not looking up at the sun, and then look towards it. Make sure to do the same when you remove them.

The only time it's safe to look right at the eclipse is when it reaches totality, and the sun passes behind the moon and turns day into night. That will last for about two minutes and 40 seconds, after which you'll need to put them back on.

If you're not using eclipse glasses, then there are other indirect methods you can use. Those include pinhole cameras  instructions for making one can be found here  or using a projecting telescope to show the image. Of course, all of those methods can be used in conjunction with glasses, letting you see the eclipse in a number of different ways.

Perhaps the best method of all is to search out your local observatory or astronomy group, and meet up with them. Organisations across the continent will be holding events to allow people to look safely at the eclipse, as well as running other activities too.
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A man has been charged with common assault following an attack involving a liquid believed to be cleaning fluid in the West Midlands.

Max Kelly, aged 23, from Smiths Wood in Solihull, was arrested following an altercation outside a pub in the town.

The attack is the latest in a series of assaults involving liquids, including acid, which are seen as part of a disturbing trend.

The victims eyes were protected by glasses and he did not suffer any burning sensation.

The number of crimes involving acid and other corrosive substances almost doubled in the West Midlands between 2012 and 2016.

In London, the number of acid attacks rose by 65 per cent last year alone to 431, meaning that an acid attack is carried out in the capital every 20 hours on average.

The Metropolitan Police have said officers are seeing some links between gang violence and acid attacks, although they cautioned that data is limited.

Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime Show all 7 1 /7 Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime 548641.bin  Simon Rawles Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime 548642.bin  Simon Rawles Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime 548663.bin  Simon Rawles Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime 548681.bin  Simon Rawles Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime 548701.bin Simon Rawles Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime 548743.bin  Simon Rawles Acid attacks: facing a heinous crime 548761.bin  Simon Rawles

Gang members are said to refer to acid as torture in a bottle and are believed to be using it in preference to knives in order to settle scores with rivals as well as to incapacitate people before carrying out robberies.

The Government has proposed classifying acid and other corrosive substances as dangerous weapons in response to the recent spate of attacks, following calls by victims and campaigners.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd promised a Government crackdown on those responsible, suggesting the law could be changed so that perpetrators could receive life in prison.

Possession of acid and other corrosive substances with the intention to harm can already be treated as a possession of an offensive weapon, but this carries a maximum of just four years in prison.
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The Army is facing a potentially very, very dangerous crisis in trained soldier numbers because of a flawed austerity drive introduced by Chancellor Philip Hammond, according to claims prompted by figures released on the day Parliament closed for the summer.

The figures were among a raft of potentially embarrassing statistics released by the Conservative Government on Thursday, hours before Parliament broke up for the summer, in what critics interpreted as a deliberate take out the trash day tactic to limit the time MPs could spend discussing them.

The Armed Forces Service Personnel Statistics show that the numbers of fully trained regular Army soldiers has dropped below a previous trained strength target of 82,000 to 78,010  a shortfall of 3,990 fully trained troops.

Perhaps more importantly for the Governments overall defence plans, the figures also show that the numbers leaving the part-time Army Reserve  formerly the Territorial Army  increased by 20 per cent between the year to 1 June 2016 and the year to 1 June 2017.

At about the same time, during the last financial year, intake into the reserve fell by 18 per cent.

Both figures raise doubts about whether the number of part-time soldiers can rise by more than 3,000 in three years to produce an Army Reserve of more than 30,000 by 2020  a target that has been key to armed forces planning since 2012 when Philip Hammond, then the Defence Secretary, unveiled a plan to cut 20,000 soldiers from the regular Army by 2020.

Some critics have also claimed official figures now underplay the true scale of the problem because the Government has redefined trained soldiers in a way that allows many more reservists to be counted in the part-time forces trained strength.

The Government has pledged not to cut the size of the Army below 82,000 (Getty)

When Mr Hammond introduced the initial plan in 2012, he insisted that cutting the full-time Army to its smallest size since the 19th century would be possible because this would be offset by increasing the strength of the Army Reserve from 19,000 to 30,000 part-time soldiers by 2020.

He also justified reducing regular soldier numbers from 102,000 to 82,000 by relating it to the need for austerity and citing the massive overspend inherited from the previous Labour Government.

But from the beginning, the plan was dogged by claims that the target of increasing reservist numbers by 58 per cent was unrealistic.

In June 2015, the independent Major Projects Authority gave the Army Reserve plan a red rating, reserved for schemes that appear unachievable.

The Government pressed on with the Army 2020 plan, insisting it had taken significant steps to address issues raised by the red rating.

Now, however, the new figures have led to stinging criticism of the Army 2020 plan unveiled by Mr Hammond, with the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan telling The Independent he feared that while reserve numbers are increasing, they are not rising fast enough to meet the crucial target of more than 30,000 reservists by 2020.

Colonel Richard Kemp, who took command of British forces in Afghanistan in 2003, said he was extremely worried by the latest figures.

He said: From the beginning, many people had the view that the target for TA [Army Reserve] figures would not be reached, and I think its now unlikely it will be.

The Army 2020 plan is not working and its not going to work.

Insisting that the blame lay with politicians who insisted on armed forces budget cuts, he said: I would point the finger at the politicians who have put the Army in this situation: the Prime Minister, the previous prime minister, the current Defence Secretary [Sir Michael Fallon] and his predecessor [Mr Hammond]. The generals have done the best they could have done with the huge budget cuts the Army has been faced with.

Colonel Richard Kemp warned over a 'dangerous economy to make' (Press Association)

Our soldiers are very, very high calibre people, but they  and the country  are being badly betrayed by the politicians who prioritised spending in places other than defence.

It is a very dangerous economy to make. The current size of the armed forces is the most worrying I have ever known it to be.

Drawing comparisons with the disarmament and appeasement policies of the 1930s, Colonel Kemp said: We are facing an increasing threat, while reducing our capacity to deal with it.

It doesnt take a genius to see that we, as a country, are in a very dangerous situation now. The level of instability around the world is increasing daily. We are seeing North Korea flexing its muscles, the rise of Jihadism, questions over Russias intentions, and massive security challenges at home, which the Army will need to get involved in at some point.

We are denying ourselves the ability to protect ourselves from all of this, or to deter those who pose very serious potential threats to us.

We will pay for this in the end, as we did in the 1930s.

Colonel Kemp was also highly critical of the Governments reliance on the controversial outsourcing company Capita, which, in 2012, took over regular and reservist Army recruitment in a partnership contract said by the firm to be valued at around 44m a year for 10 years.

He said: It was all done to save money, but privatising and civilianising Army recruitment is very much the wrong thing to do.

There are far fewer occasions when potential recruits can have vital face-to-face contacts with soldiers. I have also personally been involved in trying to assist people into the Army who have found it almost impossible to overcome the bureaucracy.

There are so many horror stories of people who want to join and cant, not because they lack the capabilities, but because of the limitations of the system and the bureaucracy.

Colonel Kemp was backed by Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith, who told The Independent the newly published figures represented a crisis in recruitment and retention.

Instead of wasting millions on a failing contract with Capita, said Ms Griffith, Government should now heed the call to lift the public sector pay cap to give our armed forces the pay that they deserve.

Clive Lewis said Government is 'reaping the whirlwind of penny-pinching austerity' (PA)

Labour MP Clive Lewis, a former reservist officer who completed a tour of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in 2009, said: It looks like we are now beginning to reap the whirlwind of a very short-sighted, penny-pinching austerity drive that originated in 2012  with potentially very, very dangerous consequences, given that you have an army to be able to protect your country.

He added: The Conservatives claim that they are the champions of the armed forces is a complete fallacy. They have been awful for our armed forces.

The most important component of the military  the people  are being increasingly forgotten and not having resources spent on them.

Mr Lewis said that some friends who remained in the military were telling him of low morale among soldiers who complained that in a reduced and stretched regular Army they had to multi-task and do jobs they never joined up for.

He said: I have had friends say to me: Its s**t, I dont like it any more and Im getting out as soon as I can

His Labour colleague Dan Jarvis, a former Parachute Regiment major who served in Kosovo and Afghanistan, said conversations with veterans and serving soldiers convinced him that regular troops were being let down by the Government.

Linking this to austerity policies capping public sector pay rises at one per cent, the Barnsley Central MP said: The poor retention rate is directly linked to the pay, pensions and accommodation offered.

The Government has got both recruitment and retention wrong.

The outsourcing of recruitment to Capita is having a negative impact; its slowing down the process, putting people off and wasting money.

Im deeply concerned by the way the Government has cut the size of the regular armed forces. Not only is the planned target too low, but they are failing to achieve it.

The new service personnel figures are also controversial because in October 2016 the Government changed the way it counted the trained strength of the Army.

Whereas before soldiers had to complete both phase 1 (basic training) and the more advanced phase 2 to be counted among the trained strength, now they needed only to have done basic training.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon explained that this would allow troops with only basic training to provide additional support in dealing with UK-based crises and also to cover for regular soldiers who had been called out to deal with terrorist attacks.

 False torture claims against Army 'tarnished' bravery of soldiers

The Ministry of Defence is adamant the change was to maximise the force available in the UK, rather than to massage statistics.

Altering the way troops were counted, however, meant that the trained strength of the Army Reserve rose by 2,440 in the space of a month, from 23,750 in September 2016 to 26,190 in October last year.

The counting change also means that the official trained strength of the regular Army now stands at 82,210, just meeting the 82,000 target set in 2012.

But the latest statistics also show that under the old definition of trained strength, the number of phase 1 and phase 2-trained regulars was 78,010 on 1 June  3,990 trained troops fewer than the 82,000 target set in 2012.

By both counting measures, the number of trained troops is falling. While there were 83,260 soldiers with at least basic training in January, there are now 82,210.

The number of phase 1 and phase 2-trained troops has been dropping consistently: from 82,230 in April 2015, to 79,750 in April 2016 and 78,150 on 1 May 2017, and 78.010 now  an overall loss of more than 4,000 fully-trained soldiers in the space of little more than two years.

Officially, the trained strength of the Army Reserve now stands at 26,730, just meeting a target  introduced after the counting change  of having 26,700 trained reservists by April this year.

But Mr Lewis said very few soldiers would consider themselves fully ready for the job after just basic training.

He said: I think most soldiers response to that would be Come on basic training is just what everybody, including Army chefs, has to do.

Army Photographic Competition 2016 Show all 13 1 /13 Army Photographic Competition 2016 Army Photographic Competition 2016 Corporal Sean Neill, from Kilmarnock, kissing his daughter Madison in the streets of Glasgow after the 400 strong Homecoming Parade. The photo, by Mark Owens, has been named Winner of Best Online Image (voted by the public) in the Army Photographic Competition 2016 Mark Owens/Army HQ Scotland/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 This photograph shows Officer Cadets from Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) on Exercise Dynamic Victory, Grafenwoehr & Hohenfels Training area, Bavaria Bombardier Murray Kerr RA/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Great Men, by Bombardier Murray Kerr RA Bombardier Murray Kerr RA/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 The photograph shows the changing room buzzing 30 minutes before forming up Sergeant Rupert Frere RLC/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Prepping for the Worst, by Cpl Timothy Jones Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Y Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, conducting jungle warfare training in Brunei, learning to live, survive and fight in the unique training environment Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Right Hook, by Bombardier Murray Kerr RA Bdr Murray Kenneth Kerr, Royal Artillery/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Army Photographic Competition 2016 The Climb, by Capt Ben Norfield, RGR Capt Ben Norfield, RGR/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 This photograph shows the TIGERS Freefall Parachute Display Team from the 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (1 PWRR) send a Birthday message to the Queen from 8,000 feet above Paderborn in Germany Dominic King AMC/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Nightlife in Otterburn, by Cpl Timothy Jones Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 The photograph shows Garrison Sergeant Major Andrew Stokes of the Coldstream Guards making inspections of the soldiers drill Sergeant Rupert Frere RLC/PA Wire Army Photographic Competition 2016 Y Company, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, conducting jungle warfare training in Brunei, learning to live, survive and fight in the unique training environment Cpl Timothy Jones/PA Wire

He claimed that changes to the way the trained strength was counted amounted to moving the goalposts to fit political positioning:

If to spare political blushes you have to redefine what a trained soldier is, thats a very worrying development.

The criticisms come as Capita launched a drive to get millennials to join the Army Reserve, as part of its 3m Belong recruiting campaign, which launched in January.

Capita, which has previously said the recruiting partnership contract would release recruiters back to front-line duties and deliver benefits in excess of 300m to the armed forces, flatly rejected suggestions that the scheme was failing, and insisted that it was performing strongly.

The firm says it has made it quicker and easier to join the Army, combining traditional face-to-face methods with online routes that appeal to 18- to 35-year-olds.

A Capita spokeswoman told The Independent: Total applications to join the British Army have increased significantly in recent years, and application performance remains strong, thanks to the improvements made to the recruitment process. We have introduced a streamlined application process, redesigned recruitment offices, and introduced new innovative ways to attract young people, for example, with the use of virtual reality technology and a highly popular fitness app.

The spokeswoman added that rather than millennials being a snowflake generation afraid to take on the rigours of Army life. Our previous research has shown they dont join the reserve because of the misconception that it will take up too much time.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: Armed forces recruitment and retention has, in general, held up well and the overall offer has remained broadly competitive.

We remain unwavering in our commitment to retaining the best men and women in our armed forces, providing pensions they dont have to pay into, subsidised accommodation and, through our Covenant, businesses are offering fairer mortgage, broadband and mobile phone deals.
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An eight-year-old girl has died and a 12-year-old girl has been airlifted to hospital after becoming trapped under logs in an Argyll forest.

The tragedy happened near the village of Benderloch outside Oban on Sunday.

Police and other emergency services were called to the area after receiving a report that a girl was trapped under logs.

A spokesman for Police Scotland said: An eight-year-old girl has died after she became trapped under logs in Benderloch.

Around 2.40pm police and emergency services received a report that the young girl had become trapped.

Despite the best efforts of emergency services, the eight-year-old girl died at the scene.

A 12-year-old was also airlifted to hospital in Oban for treatment.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 11 November 2022 City workers attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at Lloyd's of London, in the City of London, to mark Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War PA 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 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Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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Police said the Health and Safety Executive has been informed about the incident and a report would be sent to the procurator fiscal.

The spokesman added: Inquires are ongoing into this incident, however police are not treating this as suspicious.

A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal.

Press Association
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Katie Hopkins has sparked outrage for travelling to Sicily to meet a far-right group who have launched a boat in the Mediterranean to hamper the rescue of refugees.

Defend Europe, which is made up of a network of young anti-immigrant and anti-Islam activists, aims to send refugees back to Africa by harassing and blocking search and rescue vessels run by NGOs including Save the Children.

The Mail Online columnist, who was recently axed from LBC radio after calling for a final solution to Islamist terrorism in the wake of the Manchester Arena terror attack, met some of the crew in the Sicilian city of Catania. Peter Sweden, a Swedish UK-based journalist who has previously denied the Holocaust happened and has been accused of making anti-Semitic comments, was among them.

In May 2016, he wrote on Twitter: The claim that 6 million Jews were gassed seem highly unprobable. The concentration camps didn't have the facilities for that

He also said: By the way just so you know i am not a Nazi : ) I think Hitler had some good points, but i don't agree with fascism or socialism. [see footnote]

A Twitter post shows Hopkins alongside him and included the caption: Good to meet Team C-Star @DefendEuropeID. Young people, eight nations, crowd-funded, shining a light on NGO people traffickers in Med.

Hopkins, who said she wanted to use gunships to stop migrants in 2015, then deleted the tweet, changing her wording and removing the image of Sweden.

Hopkins appears to have made a number of other seemingly supportive gestures to Defend Europe. She has retweeted the Defend Europe Twitter account and just over a week ago she wrote: Looking forward to meeting the crew of the C-Star in Catania tomorrow. Setting out to defend the Med. All this week @MailOnline.

Last week a Hopkins article titled "Katie Hopkins on NGOs colluding with traffickers in Sicily" was pulled from the Mail Online website after being published for at least two hours. A representative for Mail Online refused to comment on why.

Hopkins activities on the Italian island have been fiercely criticised by charities and critics on social media.

A spokesperson for anti-racism campaign Hope not Hate, who have extensively lobbied against Defend Europe, told The Independent they were deeply concerned by the controversial commentators meeting.

What Katie Hopkins did, posing next to Italian fascist graffiti, having pictures taken with Holocaust deniers and right-wing extremists, and openly sharing content from Defend Europe, was move from being a journalist or even a commentator, into a full-on propaganda/PR machine for an extremist operation, they said.

Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Show all 7 1 /7 Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants arriving in Italy on MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie DeardenI Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants undergoing health checks after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants undergoing security checks after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants being fingerprinted after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants being fingerprinted after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily A man being taken to hospital from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden

Ms Hopkins is obviously trying to drive traffic via horrifying liberal opinion, but to those such as Defend Europe, this is carte blanche from a mainstream media commentator. Perhaps even the Mail has had enough now, with news that Ms Hopkins has returned to the UK and her first article from Sicily being mysteriously pulled from their site.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has called for the former Apprentice star to apologise for posting with Holocaust denier Mr Sweden.

Marie Van der Zyl, Vice President of the Board of Deputies, said: It was distressing to see Katie Hopkins posing for a photo with a Holocaust denier, as part of her trip to support the Defend Europe campaign.

Migrants rescued by Save the Childrens crew approach the ship Vos Hestia in the Mediterranean off Libyas coast last month (Reuters)

This follows Ms Hopkins' previous call for a final solution. Ms Hopkins should apologise, and think twice about giving her backing to a far-right campaign whose supporter base seems to be made up of anti-Muslim propagandists and Neo-Nazis.

Defend Europe is made up Identitarians  a network of people in their 20s and 30s who claim to preserve Europes identity and prevent "Islamification" of the continent. Members of the movement, who have raised almost 180,000 and chartered a 422-tonne vessel called the C-Star for their latest efforts, have used controversial tactics to further their causes. This has included blockading roads around Calais, occupying mosques, clashing with leftists and already trying to block an NGO ship in Sicily.

We dont think Defend Europe is suddenly the acceptable face of European opinion on migration and the refugee crisis. In fact, its quite clearly an operation manned by extremists with a history of far-right activity and stunts, and supported by many of the most extreme voices on the far right the world over, said the spokesperson for Hope not Hate.

Were continuing to monitor Defend Europes ship, the C-Star, which we revealed was likely carrying armed personnel.

The originally stated aim of the Defend Europe mission, which is supported by former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke, was to actively block search and rescue (SAR) NGO ships. They now claim they will monitor the situation and intervene should they see wrongdoing by the NGOs.

Just days ago, the ship was stopped in Egypts Port Suez because of a lack of documentation and papers. The vessel is thought to be off Cyprus at the time of writing.

After heading NNE from the Suez Canal yesterday and overnight with an AIS silent profile, the vessel arrived in Famagusta Bay at 09.30am this morning. She is probably heading to Famagusta for fuel and supplies, said the spokesperson for Hope not Hate.

More than 90,000 refugees and migrants, the majority of them sub-Saharan Africans, have been rescued and brought to Italy so far. More than 2,300 people have died attempting the treacherous Central Mediterranean crossing.

Asylum seeker arrivals to Italy are nearing 100,000 for 2017  an increase of 17 per cent on last year.

A representative for Hopkins did not immediately respond to request for comment.

This article was amended on 27 July 2017 to include the dates and details of Mr Sweden's tweets about the holocaust. In July, Mr Sweden released a statement on Twitter saying he no longer holds these views.
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A vigil has been held outside a London police station for a young father who died after being chased by officers.

Relatives and friends of Rashan Charles, along with anti-racism campaigners, gathered in front of Stoke Newington station to express both their grief and concern over his sudden death.

Furious protesters then marched to the convenience store in Haggerston where the 20-year-old was apprehended, shouting: "No justice, no peace - f*** the police."

Bottles and sticks were reportedly thrown at police patrolling the march and some officers on motorbikes were seen retreating as unrest escalated.

Addressing the crowds earlier in the evening, Hackneys borough commander Chief Superintendent Simon Laurence offered his condolences to Mr Charles' family and promised the incident would be fully investigated.

He said: "I understand the community want answers about what happened and no explanation can come quickly enough for a family in mourning.

"This is now subject to an independent investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

"It is their job to investigate this incident and their work started on Saturday."

Mr Laurence said the police officers understood they would be held to account for their actions.

 Rashan Charles was 'well loved' and a 'caring older brother' to many, say residents

He added that he appreciated that some members of the local community had been impacted by the death and that he had spoken with community representatives to hear their concerns.

Mr Charles' friends told The Independent they feared riots could break out if justice was not seen to be done in the case.

"We want justice for Rash, and for everyone else who has been dying at the hands of police," said Kaspala, a close friend of Mr Charles who had known him nearly all his life.

"His family want the police officer and the civilian involved to be taken to court."

Jada, the mother of Mr Charles' baby daughter, remembered him as a "caring and generous dad", saying he last saw their child the day before his death.

Unverified footage on social media appeared to show at least one police officer attempting to restrain Mr Charles on the floor of the Yours Locally shop, in Kingsland Road, at 1.45am on Saturday.

Metropolitan Police said Mr Charles was seen trying to swallow an object and that an officer sought to prevent the man from harming himself.

Mr Charles was later pronounced dead in hospital.

According to a statement from the IPCC, Mr Charles became unwell and first aid was provided by a police officer, police medics and paramedics. He was then taken to the Royal London Hospital, where he died shortly afterwards.

Family members and friends of Mr Charles, who grew up in Dalston, are now demanding justice, with some saying if action is not taken against the officer and the citizen who intervened, protests are likely to take place.

The incident marks the second police-related death in London in just over a month, following the death of 25-year-old Edson Da Costa following a confrontation with officers in Beckton.

A spokesperson for the IPCC said good progress was being made with the probe into Mr Charles' adding: We are building a full picture of what happened and why.

"We know people have concerns, but our independent investigation will be thorough, rigorous amd when appropriate its findings will be published.

"We are in contact with his family and will be issuing further information when we are able to.
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The British government licensed 283m worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the six months after an air strike by the Riyadh-led coalition killed 140 mourners at a funeral in Yemen.

A UN sanctions monitor told the security council that last year's double air strike, which targeted both mourners and those who helped them in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, violated international law.

It was one of the bloodiest attacks in a two year campaign waged by Saudi Arabia against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Following the attack, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson advised Trade Secretary Liam Fox to grant four export licence applications to supply the Royal Saudi Air Force with equipment which could be used in Yemen, according to The Guardian.

Figures compiled by the Campaign Against Arms Trade show that from the time of the attack on 8 October until the end of March 2017, the UK government authorised exports including 263m worth of combat aircraft components and 4m of bombs and missiles to the country.

The figures exclude aircraft cannon equipment, targeting software, aircraft components and assault rifles exported under 24 open licences, which are seen as even less transparent.

The situation in Yemen Show all 14 1 /14 The situation in Yemen The situation in Yemen Houthi supporters trample on a US flag during a gathering mobilizing more fighters into several Yemeni battlefronts, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen People carry the coffins of men, who were killed in the recent Saudi-led airstrikes during their funeral, in the Old City of Sanaa, Yemen AP The situation in Yemen Pro-government fighters give food to Yemeni children on the road leading to the southwestern port city of Mokha. Yemeni rebels are putting up fierce resistance in a key Red Sea port city where they are encircled by pro-government force Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni stands in front of a graffiti protesting US military operations in war-affected Yemen, in Sana'a, Yemen. According to reports, US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen A Yemeni female fighter supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, takes part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen Yemeni female fighters supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, take part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A boy shouts slogans next to pro-Houthi fighters, who have been injured during recent fighting, during a rally held to honour those injured or maimed while fighting in Houthi ranks in Sanaa, Yemen Reuters The situation in Yemen Balls of fire and smoke rise from a Houthi-held military camp following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy looks on as Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy sits amidst the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa AFP/Getty The situation in Yemen Marine One with US President Donald Trump flies with a decoy and support helicopters to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, for the dignified transfer of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens who was killed in Yemen Getty Images The situation in Yemen US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One to greet the remains of a US military commando killed during a raid on the al Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen on Sunday, at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, US Reuters

Emily Thornberry MP, Labours Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "Labour has committed to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in this conflict, until an independent, UN-led investigation has been carried out into whether these arms have been used in violation of International Humanitarian Law.

"The Government has a legal and moral obligation to ensure they are not complicit in war crimes.

"Instead, they are simply burying their heads in the sand while the people of Yemen continue to suffer."

UK and EU export rules dictate that licences should not be approved if there is a clear risk they could be used to seriously violate international humanitarian law.

The UK government was exonerated of breaching weapon exports law by continuing to approve sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia in a legal case brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade at the High Court earlier this month.

The sales were not just a moral issue but are also a clear breach of the UKs arms export criteria, Andrew Smith, a spokesperson for CAAT told The Independent.

The funeral bombing should have been a time when the UK government stopped and reflected on its dangerous policy of arming Saudi Arabia. Instead, we followed it up with almost 300m of fighter jet and bomb licences.

We dont know how theyre going to be used, who theyll be used against and how long it will be before they are used in the next atrocity.

For decades the UK has put arms sales ahead of the rights of Saudi Arabian people and now they are putting them ahead of the rights of Yemeni people."

Theresa Mays visit to Saudi Arabia in April showed that the UK is standing by what is one of the most brutal vile repressive dictatorships in the world while it bombs the poorest country in the region, according to Mr Smith.

Recommended Jeremy Corbyn reiterates call for UK to stop selling arms to Saudis

The CAATs ongoing legal appeal against the government meant he could not comment on the culpability of specific ministers, but said Theresa May and her colleagues in the cabinet could stop this anytime they want.

Statistics compiled by the organisation also reveal the UK exported 86m worth of weapons to Turkey between an attempted coup in July 2016 and end of March 2017, almost double the value of arms authorised over the same period in the previous year.
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Divisions have emerged at the top of Labours ranks yet again over its Brexit policies as Jeremy Corbyns stance on access to the EUs single market was described as making no sense at all by the Welsh First Minister.

The comments came after the Labour leader said over the weekend that Britain would have to leave the market because access was inextricably linked to membership of the bloc. Mr Corbyn also said the party had yet to decide is position on a future customs union arrangement.

While Labours election manifesto vowed to focus on retaining the benefits of the single market and customs union, it was not explicit on whether Britain would actually remain inside the institutions.

But on Monday, the Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones told the BBC Radio 4s Today programme there was no need to leave the tariff-free market, adding the UK could have full and unfettered access after Brexit.

Citing Norways relationship with the EU  Norway is a member of the single market but not the bloc  Labours Mr Jones, said: If we were not in the single market, we would be having a debate about how to access it, not how to leave it.

There is no need to leave the single market, even as we leave the EU, he added. You dont have to leave the EU and leave one of the worlds biggest markets at the same time. Thats an interpretation thats been put on the result by the current UK Government and that makes no sense at all.

The Welsh First Minister added: For any rational, sane politician to suggest that tariffs are no problem to make it more difficult to sell in that market is crazy.

 Labour would take Britain out of the EU single market, Corbyn says

On Twitter, the senior Labour MP Chuka Umunna added: Taking single market and customs union membership off the table in the Brexit talks is the Tory position, it should not be Labours.

In a sign of further divisions in the partys top ranks  this time over the customs unions  Barry Gardiner, the Shadow International Trade Secretary, said on Sunday that remaining in the institution would be a disaster.

Mr Gardiner also dismissed the idea of remaining in the single market under a Norwegian-style agreement, saying it would leave the UK like a vassal state  paying money to Brussels without any say over the rules.

He told BBC Radio 4s Westminster Hour: If you do what Norway does, what happens is the very reasons that most people who voted leave voted to leave  namely to regain sovereignty, to regain control of our borders, not to pay money into the European budget  all are not achieved.

In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier listens at the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, delivers his speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Michel Barnier, European Chief Negotiator for Brexit reacts during a meeting at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Member of the European Parliament and former leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage wears socks with Union Jack flag at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Nigel Farage, United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) member and MEP, addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcoming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier gestures during speeches at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (L) speaks with European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivers a speech during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France Getty Images

On the customs union, he continued: I just want to point out the issues around the customs union, we leave the customs union because only member states of the European Union are members of the customs union.

Other countries like Turkey have a separate customs union agreement, but the trouble with that is that it gives you an asymmetrical relationship with the third party countries that the EU does a deal with.

So the EU could do a deal with another country  lets say America  which we would be bound by in the UK, we would have to accept the liberalisation of our markets, we would have to accept their goods coming into our markets on the terms agreed by Europe, which could be prejudicial to us but we would not have the same access into Americas markets, we would be bound to try and negotiate it. But why would America give us that access when its got all the liberalisation of our market that it wants?

Its a disaster.

Responding to Mr Gardiners comments, Labour MP Wes Streeting added: Where has this come from? We were told customs union is still on the table. Even the Tories are keeping this option open.
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Food standards could be watered down in a post-Brexit trade deal with the United States, No 10 has suggested, stoking the controversy over chlorine-soaked chickens.

Downing Street has refused to say all regulations in place on food quality will be maintained after EU withdrawal  despite making exactly that guarantee for workers rights.

It comes amid a fresh row over whether the UK would allow the import of chickens soaked in chlorine, beef fed with hormones and genetically modified crops, all common in the US.

Liam Fox, the Trade Secretary  who is visiting the US this week, for trade talks  is believed to be relaxed about chlorine-washed chicken, arguing the Americans have been eating it safely for years.

The EU has banned it, after long-standing criticisms that US farmers use the chemical washes to make up for inadequate hygiene on farms and abattoirs.

Any deal to allow US meat to be sold to Britain after inferior safety measures would be certain to provoke uproar from farmers and consumers.

But, asked if Britain could allow chlorine-washed chicken in a trade deal with the US, Theresa Mays official spokesman described the controversy as hypothetical.

Our position, when it comes to food, is that maintaining safety and public confidence in the food we eat is of the highest priority, the spokesman said.

Any future trade deal must work for UK famers, businesses and consumers.

The spokesman refused to say if the Prime Minister was  like her Trade Secretary  relaxed about the prospect of US food, produced under lower standards, on British supermarket shelves.

Asked if slashing food standards had not been ruled out, he added: You are getting way ahead of yourself and Im not going to get into discussing hypotheticals.

Ben Bradshaw, a senior Pro-EU Labour MP: The Government is putting the Fox in charge of the hen coop when it comes to food safety.

They are so desperate for new trade deals to make up for some of the losses that they seem ready to compromise on the safety of the food we eat.

The Government must not water down rules that protect consumers, and neither should they follow any policy that undermines our own farmers.

No 10s refusal to rule out watering down food standards comes despite other leading Brexiteers in the Cabinet insisting it would not be the price of a US trade deal.

Asked, earlier this month, if he was absolutely clear that British food standards will not be loosened in any way, Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, replied: Yes.

And his predecessor Andrea Leadsom, now the Commons Leader, said she had serious concerns about the consequences for British farmers.

Ms Leadsom fears that, if Britain lowers its standards to compete with America, it will lose its access to EU markets, as European countries will no longer accept British products.

A spokesman for Dr Fox told The Daily Telegraph he currently had no position on chlorine-washed chicken, insisting the talks were a long way from discussing any deal on agriculture.

The Department for International Trade has not denied the papers suggestion that Dr Fox believes the Americans have been eating it perfectly safely for years.
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Jeremy Corbyn is facing a growing backlash from his colleagues after he explicitly said Labour in government would not seek to retain membership of the single market after Brexit.

Contradicting the Labour leader, Carwyn Jones, the Welsh First Minister, however, claimed there is no need to leave the single market on leaving the European Union and that access could be maintained through a Norway-style model.

Mr Jones told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: If were not in the single market, we would be having a debate about how to access it, not how to leave it.

There is no need to leave the single market, even as we leave the EU, he added, in comments that were echoed by Labour MPs on social media, once again highlighting the torturous position the party is in over Brexit.

The comments came after Mr Corbyn told BBCs Andrew Marr Show that Britain would have to leave membership of the single market because it was inextricably linked to membership of the bloc. While the partys manifesto for the general election pledged to focus on retaining the benefits of the single market and customs union, it was not explicit on whether Britain would actually remain inside the institutions.

Mr Joness intervention also led to pressure being applied by the SNP on the Scottish Labour Party to clarify its position on the single market. But a Scottish Labour spokesperson told The Independent: Kezia Dugdale and Jeremy Corbyn have always been clear that Labour supports a jobs-first Brexit.

 Labour would take Britain out of the EU single market, Corbyn says

As Kez has repeatedly said, we support tariff-free access to the single market for the UK. Jobs, the economy and retaining benefits of the single market and the customs union are our priority.

Wes Streeting, a Labour MP and leading support of Open Britain, the campaign group against a hard Brexit, also criticised the party leader, adding: The idea that membership of the single market means membership of the EU is factually untrue  look at Norway and Iceland for start.

Labour needs to fight for a Brexit deal that puts jobs first, protects our economy, and retains rights for workers. Leaving the single market would undermine all those objectives. Leaving the biggest and freest trading bloc in the world will cost jobs, and the loss of protections enshrined in EU law could make it easier for a Tory Government to cut workers rights.

Staying in the single market while leaving the EU is perfectly possible, and would be the best Brexit deal for working people and Labour communities.

The senior Labour MP Chuka Umunna continued: Taking single market and customs union membership off the table in the Brexit talks is the Tory position, it should not be Labours.

Stephen Doughty, the Labour MP for Cardiff, welcomed Mr Joness comments, posting on Twitter it was good to hear the Welsh First Minister speaking up about [the] importance of the single market + customs union.

But the divisions in the top of the partys ranks over another EU institution  the customs union  were also highlighted as Barry Gardiner, the Shadow International Trade Secretary, told BBC Radio 4s Westminster Hour that remaining in the customs union would be a disaster.

In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier listens at the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, delivers his speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Michel Barnier, European Chief Negotiator for Brexit reacts during a meeting at the European Parliament in Strasbourg EPA In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Member of the European Parliament and former leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage wears socks with Union Jack flag at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty Images In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Nigel Farage, United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) member and MEP, addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcoming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier gestures during speeches at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (L) speaks with European commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain, French Michel Barnier at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), addresses the European Parliament during a debate on Brexit priorities and the upcomming talks on the UK's withdrawal from the EU Reuters In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivers a speech during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Getty In pictures: European parliament Brexit discussions The European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France Getty Images

His intervention came despite the Labour leader just hours earlier, on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show, claiming the party had yet to make a call on the customs union.

Mr Gardiner, who also dismissed the idea of remaining in the single-market in a similar fashion to Norway, added: I just want to point out the issues around the customs union, we leave the customs union because only member states of the European Union are members of the customs union.

Other countries like Turkey have a separate customs union agreement, but the trouble with that is that it gives you an asymmetrical relationship with the third party countries that the EU does a deal with.

So the EU could do a deal with another country  let's say America  which we would be bound by in the UK, we would have to accept the liberalisation of our markets, we would have to accept their goods coming into our markets on the terms agreed by Europe which could be prejudicial to us but we would not have the same access into America's markets, we would be bound to try and negotiate it. But why would America give us that access when it's got all the liberalisation of our market that it wants?

It's a disaster.

The disarray at the top of the partys ranks came as a new Ipsos-Mori poll for the London Evening Standard found that 49 per cent of British voters wanted to prioritise access to the single market in the Brexit negotiations, rather than immigration.

According to the poll, just 29 per cent of respondents were confident Mr Corbyn would achieve a good deal if he was leading the Brexit talks while 67 per cent believed he would probably fail. For Theresa May, 36 per cent said she could succeed while 60 per cent thought she would fall short.
More businesses means more participants for Philomath Uncorked, the citys seventh annual wine walk.

The event runs 3 to 7 p.m. on Saturday.

Weve had several more businesses open up this year, which is a great thing, said Shelley Niemann, director of Philomath Area Chamber of Commerce, and that also means we needed some more vendors.

New businesses slated to host this year are Vinwood Taphouse, Farmers Insurance, Windsmith Music, Soft Star Shoes, and Staceys Funky Little Hair Salon. Wineries, breweries, distilleries, and meaderies will be paired with each of the participating locations.

It will be a fun walk this year; weve had a high demand for participation, said Niemann.

All told there will be 21 tasting stops and two water stops.

Water stops will have gift baskets available for raffle. NAPA Auto Parts will house an auto-related basket with items donated by Marys Peak True Value and Auto Cars Unlimited. Wine-related baskets at other stops include donations from Spindrift Cellars, Wine Vault, and Citizens Bank.

There will be a few stops on the walk that hold historical significance to Philomath. JanniLou Creations, the quilt shop, is the old Waucomah Theater building. Participants will have a chance to peek into the past at old movie reels and other historical items on display.

The recently revamped Soft Star Shoes building, former Phil-O-Rama skate rink, incorporated portions of the old skate floor and other salvaged items found during the remodel. Soft Star will showcase their new facility and their plans for the totality shoe, a design inspired by the upcoming eclipse.

Philomath new-comer Nectar Creek Mead will not have its facility open in time for the event, but they will participate. Teaming up with Philomath-based Old Blue Raw Honey, the two will set up in the Social Rebekah Lodge on the corner of College and 13th St. The pair has teamed up before, using Old Blue honey for Nectar Creeks mead.

I think its pretty cool you can sample the honey and the mead at the same time, said Niemann.

For those interested in something other than wine to taste, Monroe-based Hard Times Distillery and two Corvallis-based buisnesses, Vivacity Spirits and Oregon Trail Brewery, will attend.

Spindrift Cellars has invited Pink Rib Food Truck to be in their parking lot again this year. Visitors can sample their barbecue and purchase meals.

The Chamber has arranged for Corvallis Pedicab to provide safe travel for those who need it. Rides are free, but tips are welcome.
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A Conservative activist has suggested the Education Secretary Justine Greenings sexuality could be behind a government decision to radically overhaul outdated transgender policies in Britain.

The comments from Mary Douglas, a member of the activist group Grassroots Conservatives, came after the Government announced trans people will soon be able to chose their gender more easily as part of a shake up of equalities legislation.

The reforms will include removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and will ultimately be included in updates to the Gender Recognition Act. Just last week Theresa May said that when it comes to right and protections for trans people, there is still a long way to go.

But speaking on Radio 4s Today programme, Ms Douglas said she was very concerned about the move from the minister for women and equalities. In my view it should not be easy to do something as massive change your gender, she said. And the law is there to protect us, normally from other people, but also sometimes from ourselves. I think many people have profound concerns about this.

Asked why Justine Greening was pursuing this agenda, she replied: Exactly. I have no... well people can have lots of theories. I dont know. I wouldn't like to impute motives to her but what I would like to say though is that it is profoundly unconservative and conservative with a big C and small C implies continuity with what has gone before.

Pressed further on whether she was suggesting Ms Greenings sexuality and personal experience was affecting the policy of the Government, Ms Douglas replied: Its a possibility.

Recommended Labour to strengthen legal protections for trans people

She continued: "But Im not going to suggest anything I dont know. I dont know Justine personally at all but the bigger issue here is not who is introducing, or considering introducing this policy, but the implications of the policy itself."

Ms Greening used the Pride event in London in 2016 to announce she was in a same-sex relationship, becoming the first openly gay woman to hold cabinet office.

Also appearing on the programme, Maria Miller, the chair of the Women and Equalities Committee in Westminster and Conservative MP, however, added: Look, the Conservatives, or the Conservative party, have been tackling equality issues since they came into government in 2010  most notably the equal marriage act. We really led the way on that

I think what Justine Greening has announced with regards to updating the Gender Recognition Act is something that many people, including medics, will welcome because the current system is woefully out of date and medicalises a system that should be very administrative and personal. The justification is clear, its out of date.
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Handed over by her mother to an agent at the age of 10, Titi was crammed into a truck in the tiny West African nation of Benin and driven across the border into south west Nigeria.

Titi feared the worst. She recalled how a previous employer in Nigeria had welcomed her with a thin mat and a leather whip.

Sometimes, she beat us, said Titi, recounting the businesswoman who had flogged the girls for the smallest mishaps, such as breaking a plate.

Bed had been the floor.

Sometimes, she didn't give us breakfast till after 1pm, Titi, now 14, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Lagos, where she works for a nicer family  cleaning, cooking and caring for children for 18 hours a day.

Titi is one of countless young girls working as domestic servants in cities across the nation, far from their own homes in rural Nigeria or neighbouring countries such as Benin.

Many girls are sent away by their parents who cannot afford to feed or school them, while others provide for their families  sometimes acting as the main breadwinner.

Some girls, like Titi, are abused, cut off from their relatives, denied an education and left with nowhere to turn.

Recommended How teenage mothers in Nigeria could end up being hurt by Donald Trump

With Nigeria facing its first recession in 25 years, rampant unemployment and booming population growth, activists fear more and more girls may be forced into housework as families plunge deeper into poverty and so-called agents seek out profits.

Halting this phenomenon presents a huge challenge.

Little data exists on the number of girls working as maids, confusion surrounds the laws about their minimum age and the practice is deeply ingrained in Nigerian culture.

These are under-the-radar crimes so there is no data on how many house help are trafficked through Nigeria's borders, said Arinze Orakwue of Nigeria's anti-trafficking agency NAPTIP.

These are usually done under the auspices of the family so it's difficult to prosecute, Orakwue added.

House girls in Nigeria are usually employed by upper- and middle-class families with disposable income to spare, especially by working women who rely on these children to ease their domestic load while they focus on paid jobs.

I decided to hire house help because of too many domestic responsibilities, said Eucharia Anuligo, a banker and mother of two in Abuja, who employs three girls, the youngest aged 14.

I believe the girls are better off with me than with their families, added Anuligo, who sends her employees to school.

Many women who are in the market for house help turn to the agents, who source young girls from within Nigeria, as well as nearby countries, before transporting them to their new employers, taking a cut of the salary as commission.

Many agents demand that the young domestic workers provide a guarantor who knows their family, so that they can be held accountable if the children steal or commit other crimes.

One agent, a 50-year-old known as 'Uncle', said those in his ranks, as well as the families of the girls, like to move maids regularly from one household to another because of the fresh commission it generates, and the higher wages they can demand.

Despite the long days of domestic slog, Titi wants to stay with her current family. While they do not send her to school or teach her English like her previous employers, they are kind and provide her with a salary of 10,000 naira ($33) per month.

Yet, despite her protests, Titi's mother says she must move to a new family when her two-year contract expires in December.

Some agents just collect the commission from the girl's salary, added the Lagos-based 'Uncle'. When she has worked just three months in a place, they want to move her again.

They don't care whether the girl is happy there or not.

While police, NAPTIP officials and human rights activists are working to curb the trafficking and abuse of house girls, Nigeria's laws regarding the minimum age of employment are inconsistent, according to a 2015 US Labour Department report.

The Child Rights Act prohibits those under 18 from working yet the Labour Act sets the minimum age of employment at 12, said the report, which detailed the world's worst child labour.

However, Nigeria in 2015 amended its trafficking law to increase penalties for offenders and criminalise the employment of children under 12 in domestic labour, a move activists hope will give authorities greater power to crack down.

The National Human Rights Commission, a government rights watchdog, said it frequently received reports of house girls being abused, and worked with the police and NAPTIP to secure prosecutions as well as provide shelter and aid for the victims.

There is one case... a girl of about 14 was serving this woman, who mistreated her to the extent of running a hot iron over her breasts, said Lambert Onuoha from the commission.

The watchdog is striving to ensure abusers are prosecuted and challenge the norm of settling cases out of court, he added.

Civil society groups such as the Abuja-based Literacy and Skills Place are helping female domestic workers to leave a life of servitude by teaching them to read and write, and providing vocational training in skills such as baking and sewing.

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The house help industry can be a positive thing because you get to help other people who are less privileged, but it should be regulated, said Chinelo Ezenwa, founder of the project, adding that there should be laws governing treatment of maids.

For house girls like Titi, such interventions from the authorities or activists may prove too little too late.

My mummy told me I'm now too old to go to school, said Titi, who hopes instead to learn tailoring.

Thomson Reuters Foundation
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Police have recommended charges for a group of teenagers who allegedly filmed a disabled man as he drowned and did nothing to help.

Five boys between 14 and 16 years old reportedly laughed loudly when 32-year-old Jamel Dunn screamed and was submerged in a retention pond in Cocoa, Florida.

In the film at Bracco Pond, the teenagers can be heard laughing and saying You should have never got in there, and Get out the water. Youre gonna die!

Recommended Teens filmed and mocked disabled man drowning in disturbing video

The teenagers taunted and shouted insults at Dunn during the one-minute video as he struggled in the water and shouted for help.

The boys showed no remorse when they were questioned by detectives.

Under Florida law, it is not a punishable offence for a witness not to help a person in need, and the youths were likely not to face charges.

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

But Cocoa police chief Mike Cantaloupe said police discussed the case with the state attorney and decided to file a misdemeanour charging document under a statute which requires a witness to report a persons death to authorities, as reported by WKMG-TV.

He also plans to meet with lawmakers to discuss drafting new legislation which would require witnesses to help people in distress.

The state attorneys office has yet to decide if it will bring charges, and the teenagers are not in custody.

Dunns body was found five days after he drowned on 9 July.

It is not clear why Dunn decided to enter the pond, which had a no swimming sign.

Authorities said Dunn had argued with his fiancee before entering the water.

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding his decision to enter the water that day, there is absolutely no justification for what the teens did, said Mr Cantaloupe.

Pursuing criminal charges is a way to hold them accountable for their own actions.



Agencies contributed to this report.
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A 20-year-old woman has been charged with rape for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old boy in North Carolina, after the boys mother reported them to be in a relationship.

College student Taylor Ashton Moseley met the teenager while working at a bar in Surf City in the Bible belt state when a friend introduced the pair.

A relationship is said to have taken place in May, according to state police.

After the boys mother reported the relationship, the student was charged with indecent liberties with a child, statutory rape and a statutory sex offence with a child.

Moseley, a student at East Carolina University, is being held in Pender County Jail awaiting trial with bail set at $225,000.

This is the latest headline-hitting case in the US of women being charged for having sex with underage boys. Earlier this year in North Carolina, a 25-year-old teacher was charged with having unlawful sex with three of her teenage pupils.

In North Carolina, a socially conservative state with a strong religious tradition, 16-year-olds are allowed to marry with parental consent and 14-year-old girls are allowed to marry if they are pregnant.
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First daughter Ivanka Trump has been mocked on social media after a tweet she wrote four years ago misquoting Albert Einstein resurfaced over the weekend.

The tweet, written in June 2013, attributed the quote If the facts dont fit the theory, change the facts to the famed physicist.

The only problem? Einstein never actually said that.

Twitter users picked up on the misquote, with some poking fun at the irony of such a mistake, while others questioned whether Ms Trump might actually be mocking the notion of changing facts herself.

A US author seems to have prompted the onslaught of ridicule after sharing the tweet, commenting: The fact that Einstein never said any such thing only makes this tweet that much more perfect.

In the First Daughters defence, it seems she is not the first to attribute the seemingly made-up quote to Einstein.

The quote appears to have been floating around for some time, with sites like BrainyQuote.com also mistakenly attributing it to the mathematical genius.

So where did the quote come from? While some believe it was made up as a clever criticism of changing the facts, others say it was likely a summarisation of something Einstein did say, although in less direct terms.

As one Quora user points out, the physicist did say something along those lines.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

In his biography of Einstein, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein, Abraham Pais writes of an instance in 1919 where Einstein apparently handed a student a cable which informed him that the bending of light by the sun was in agreement with his general relativistic prediction.

When the student questioned what he would have said if there had been no confirmation of his theory, Einstein is said to have replied: Da konnt mir halt der Liebe Gott leid tun. Die Theorie stimmt doch (Then I would have to pity the dear Lord. The theory is correct anyway).

The seemingly made-up quote has been wrongly attributed to Albert Einstein for some time (Orren Jack Turner, Princeton, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Quora user, Alejandro Jenkins, points out that this exchange could be at the root of the misquote, as it could be interpreted to denote the physicists belief that a certain kind of mathematical beauty and simplicity is a hallmark of scientific truth and that, in some circumstances this criterion trumps strict concordance with measurements, which are in any case always subject to error and re-interpretation.

Regardless of the origins of the misquote, it certainly bears fresh meaning in light of the rise of alternative facts, a phrase that has become inextricably tied to Donald Trumps presidency after it was first used by US Counsellor to the President Kellyanne Conway to defend former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers false statements about the attendance numbers of Mr Trumps inaguration.

Of course, the US Presidents daughter could not have foreseen the significance her tweet would one day hold when she shared the post four years ago.

The incident prompted other Twitter users to share their own favourite fake quotes.

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like youve never been hurt and live like its heaven on earth.  Pol Pot, wrote one user.

Alright stop, collaborate and listen.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, quipped another, attributing American rapper Vanilla Ices Ice Ice Baby lyrics to the famous composer.

Unfortunately, Ms Trump wasnt the only one to fall prey to the temptation of fake quotes.

Donald Trumps new communications head Anthony Scaramucci was the butt of similar jokes just a couple of days ago when an old Tweet he wrote similarly resurfaced.

The businessman tweeted in June 2012: Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like its heaven on earth. MarkTwain, wrongly attributing the quote to the famous author.
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Many high-profile figures are speculated to hold presidential ambitions for the next race in 2020, including Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, and Mark Zuckerberg.

But the Facebook founder might not have what it takes after a new poll showed he would tie with current President Donald Trump.

According to a Public Policy Polling survey of 836 registered voters between 14 and 17 July, Mr Zuckerberg, pegged as a Democratic presidential nominee, would get 40 per cent, and so would Mr Trump.

The news comes as the Silicon Valley entrepreneur was travelling across the US on a 50-state tour that has led some commentators to speculate that he garners presidential ambitions.

Despite his multi-billionaire status, the survey found he was not that well known in the US compared to the President.

A total of 47 per cent of respondents said they had no opinion of him, and of those who had an opinion, it was fairly evenly split with 29 per cent negative and 24 per cent positive.

The 33-year-old spoke out about rumours he was aiming for the White House.

 Mark Zuckerberg announces AR plans for Facebook

Some of you have asked if this challenge means I'm running for public office. I'm not, he wrote on Facebook in May.

The same survey found other candidates had a much higher chance of beating Mr Trump in three years time.

 Pope Francis Meets Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg

Former President Barack Obama would win 53 to 40, according to the poll. Hillary Clinton would get 49 to 42.

Vermont senator Bernie Sanders would win 52 to 39, and former Vice President Joe Biden would win bigly at 54 to 39.

The margin of error was 3.4 percentage points.

Mr Trumps new communications director Anthony Scaramucci was questioned last week on Mr Trumps record low average approval rating of 38.8 per cent in the second quarter, according to Gallup.

What Id say about polls is that theyre a barometric pressure reading for right now, today, but the American people are actually playing a long game and I think they really, really love the President, he replied.
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The most successful Olympian of all time was no match for one of the worlds most feared animals when the two were pitched against each other to kick off the Discovery Channels Shark Week.

Michael Phelps swam a 100m stretch of warm Bahamas water in 38.1 seconds but lost out by two seconds to a great white shark swimming the same course.

The American swimmer is the world record holder for 100m and 200m butterfly as well as 400m individual medley.

He was even specially equipped with a wetsuit and monofin to mimic a sharks movement through water.

But he could not compete with the species' 25mph average speed and its sheer size, with the animals reaching lengths of up to 6m.

He was more successful in a 50m practice run against a reef shark, which he completed in just 18.9 seconds.

The much hyped stunt aired on Sunday night as a premiere to Discovery Channels Shark Week.

The popular American TV channel has been hosting the programme since 1988 to draw in summer audiences and raise awareness about shark attacks and conservation.

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Meanwhile Ryan Lochte, the second most decorated Olympic swimmer behind Michael Phelps, competed for viewers on National Geographics Shark Fest premiere.

Discovery Channel viewers were disappointed that Phelps was competing against a great white rather than a Mako, the fastest known shark.

It also became apparent, but only 57 minutes into the programme, that the race was actually a simulation and that Phelps was in fact competing against a computer-generated image of a shark based on a projection of its speed.

He completed the course in 38.1 seconds compared to the sharks time of 36.1.

The program did include a real great white swimming in the 100-metre stretch behind a decoy of swimming seals.

Other highlights of the week will include a shark vs crocodile fight over sea turtles and a "great hammerhead invasion".

The programme has in the past attracted criticism for sensationalising the risk sharks pose to humans and for intentionally blurring the lines between drama and documentary.
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A couple have been arrested and thrown into jail in the US state of Utah after allegedly giving their baby daughter drugs just hours after she was born.

The infant had developed an addiction in the womb as her mother Lacey Christenson had used heroin and prescription pain medication during pregnancy, police said.

Ms Christenson, 26, and her partner Colby Wilde, 29, admitted they had given their daughter drugs used treat heroin withdrawal at the hospital where she was born on 9 April, according to local news channel KUTV.

Mr Wilde said he crushed the pills known as Suboxone and applied the powder to his daughters gums while nurses and other hospital staff were out of the room  supposedly to hide signs of addiction in the child.

Sergeant Spencer Cannon, from Utah County Sheriffs office, told reporters this took place hours after the baby was born and confirmed the pair were facing charges of drug distribution and child endangerment.

The couple first came to the attention of the authorities last month, when Mr Wilde was arrested on suspicion of drug possession, driving while intoxicated and driving without insurance, among other possible charges.

The father dropped his two-month-old daughter in her car seat twice while fleeing officers at a Walmart in Spanish Fork, a city around 50 miles south of Salt Lake City, after police were called to reports of a theft at the store.

Authorities took custody of the girl and her three brothers, aged two, four and eight. All four of the children are now being looked after by the father of the eldest boy.

Police searched the couples home and found drug paraphernalia and Suboxone pills in various areas of the house  including next to a cot and childs cup.

The two younger boys and the girl, all fathered by Mr Wilde, tested positive for methamphetamine, with his baby daughter also testing positive for heroin and morphine.
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The truck driver charged in a Texas human smuggling case in which 10 people died could face the death penalty, the state attorney's office has said.

James Mathew Bradley Jr of Clearwater, Florida, has been charged with one count of transporting illegal immigrants. The crime is punishable by life imprisonment, death, or a $250,000 (190,000) fine and three years of supervised release. He has yet to enter a plea.

The driver appeared in court on Monday morning, the day after 39 suspected illegal immigrants were discovered in the back of his truck outside a Walmart in San Antonio.

Officials said temperatures in the truck  which had no air conditioning or access to water  reached over 100F. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) estimated more than 100 people were crammed into the truck at one point, some as young as 15.

Eight of the passengers were found dead and two more died on Sunday, officials said. Thirty victims were transported to locals hospitals, including 17 with life-threatening injuries. Most suffered from heat stroke, and many could suffer significant, permanent brain damage, the local fire chief said.

Mr Bradley denied any knowledge of the suspected illegal immigrants in the trailer, telling officers he discovered them only when he stopped at the Walmart to relieve himself. When he opened the back of the truck, he found 30 to 40 people, and at least one dead body, but did not call 911.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The passengers were discovered only after one stopped to ask a Walmart employee for water.

Mr Bradley told investigators he was towing the trailer from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas for his boss, but was not given an exact delivery location or time.

Brian Pyle, the owner of the trucking company for which Mr Bradely worked, told The Washington Post he had no knowledge of the alleged smuggling.

This was [Mr Bradley's] very first trip, Mr Pyle told the Post. "He had my name on the side, and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel.

 Nine dead bodies found in lorry outside supermarket car park

Passengers interviewed by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) described being smuggled over the Rio Grande River by various groups, housed in "stash houses," and eventually piled into the back of the big-rig truck.

"To maximise their criminal profits, these human smugglers crammed more than 100 people into a tractor trailer in the stifling Texas summer heat resulting in ten dead and 29 others hospitalised," acting ICE director Thomas Homan said.

"Our ICE agents and officers, working closely with our law enforcement partners, will pursue these smugglers and bring them to justice."

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly said the incident demonstrated the "brutality" of human smuggling rings.

"The Department of Homeland Security and its partners in the US, Mexico and Central America will continue to root out these smugglers, bring them to justice and dismantle their networks," he added.

Mexican officials confirmed that several of the victims came from Mexico, and asked American authorities for an exhaustive investigation. In a statement, the Mexican government said it was working to identify the victims and, if necessary, repatriate their remains.

Officials investigate a truck that was found to contain 38 suspected illegal immigrants and eight dead bodies in San Antonio (EPA)

Amy Fischer, policy director at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) in Texas, said the victims may be able to make a case for asylum, or for protection as victims of human trafficking.

"Our biggest fear is that instead of being offered some type of justice, instead of being able to pursue some kind of claim in court, [the victims] are instead swiftly deported," Ms Fischer told The Independent.

Under new DHS guidelines, illegal immigrants can be funnelled through an "expedited removal" process if they have lived in the US for less than two years.

Ms Fischer said the case highlights the dangerous journey that many asylum-seekers face in attempting to cross the border.

"This is happening in a context in which migrants and asylum seekers are regularly being turned away at the border," she said. "Folks who are trying to take refuge in our country and are forced into taking risky trips into the US. Theyre risking their lives in order to save their lives."

Ron Nirenberg, the mayor of San Antonio, said the incident "shines a bright light on the plight of immigrants looking for a better life and victims of human trafficking".

"Our response should serve as a lesson to the world that San Antonio will not turn its back on any man, woman or child in need," he added.
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The death toll in a suspected human smuggling case is San Antonio has risen to 10, as officials confirm two men died in the hospital after being rescued from the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer.

The man believed to be the driver of the truck, which carried up to 100 suspected illegal immigrants in Texas, is expected to be charged in relation to the deaths.

Sixty-year-old Florida native James Matthew Bradley Jr was identified by the US Attorney's office as the driver, and was arrested in connection with the incident. Federal prosecutors say he will be charged on Monday, however according to Reuters, the local US Attorneys Office would not confirm whether Mr Bradley was the truck driver who was arrested.

Recommended Thai model charged with human trafficking after selling teen for sex

Thirty people were found, with at least 20 in critical condition in a trailer parked at a Walmart store in San Antonio, where temperatures outside the vehicle reached 100 degrees and temperatures inside were thought to have been as high as 140 degrees.

It is believed that as many as 100 people were pressed together in the trailer, and four of the survivors were thought to be between the ages of 10 and 17, according to The Washington Post. Some of the people allegedly smuggled into the country had fled to the wooded area surrounding Walmart, police say.

Many were suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion, and their skin was very hot to the touch, rescuers said. Their hearts were racing, and some will have suffered irreversible brain damage. The trailer lacked any air conditioning and did not have a water supply.

All were victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo, said US Attorney Richard Durbin Jr.

These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters. Imagine their suffering, trapped in a stifling trailer, he added.

Authorities had been called after a dazed individual emerged from the truck and asked a Walmart employee for water. The employee called the police and informed them of the interaction. San Antonio Chief William McManus said in a press conference: Were looking at a human trafficking crime here."

Footage from the parking area showed a number of vehicles picking up people who had been in the trailer and survived the trip.

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

Describing it as a horrific tragedy, the Chief added: [The discovery] is not an isolated incident. This happens quite frequentlyfortunately there are people who survived, abut this happens all the time.

Officials from Mexico and Guatemala confirmed people from those countries were found in the trailer, and San Antonios consul general is working closely with local and federal authorities to identify the nationalities of the victims. Two people in hospital have been identified by the Guatemalan government.

San Antonio is approximately 150 miles north of the Mexican border, and the roads have often been used to smuggle people into the country.

In May 2003 70 people, 19 of whom died, were found in a 19-wheeler in Victoria, 100 miles southeast of San Antonio.
The public is invited to join the Albany Regional Museum in honoring World War I-era individuals for the 11th annual "History Through Headstones" tour this Wednesday.

Guests are invited to drive to Riverside Cemetery, on Seventh Avenue Southwest near the hospital, or meet at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday at the museum, 136 Lyon St. S. in downtown Albany. They can then ride a free trolley to the cemetery between 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. The trolley will run on a continuous loop during the tour.

The museum will be open that evening starting at 6:15 p.m. and guests can park there while taking the tour. Admission is free, although donations are welcome.

The event will feature nine interpretive talks plus the special emphasis on the 100th anniversary of World War I and the soldiers buried at Riverside.

Presenters are Kathy Martin, Bill Maddy, Jeff Sawyer, Steve Adams, Rick Hammel, Judie Weissert, Cory Frye, David Fitchett and Melissa Babcock Saylor, who will speak about her great-uncle, soldier Alfred E. Babcock.

At its height, the United States had nearly four million American men fighting in the war, including two million fighting in Europe. By the armistice on Nov. 11, 1918, a total of 53,402 U.S. soldiers had died in combat.

Cpl. Sidney Montgomery, the Albany areas first war casualty, is one of the soldiers to be highlighted this year. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. J.A. Montgomery of Oakville. He was 20 years old and a member of Company A, 26th Infantry, when he killed on Oct. 2, 1918.

Babcock died in France in 1918, and news sources give two different reasons for his death: One said he died from spinal meningitis and another that he was killed in a motorcycle accident. For a while, the American Legion Post 10 in Albany was named for him.

Among the others to be featured on the tour are:

 Franz Pfeiffer, the chef in charge of feeding World War I soldiers on troop trains passing through Albany. Sometimes, volunteers fed up to 1,100 troops a day. The cost to eat was 65 cents per meal, with proceeds going to the Red Cross. Soldiers dined in fine style on linens using nice silverware.

 Thurston Hackleman, born in 1852, who spoke out against the United States getting involved in World War I. He practiced law, read history, biography and philosophy. He kept a diary, recording his thoughts on local and national affairs at the turn of the 20th century.

 Mary Miller Blain, who crossed the plains in 1852 and allied with Hackleman in his campaign against liquor. She was the first president of Linn Countys Womens Christian Temperance Union and was the first treasurer of the states organization.

 C.M. Kendall, who lived from 1867 to 1922 and while the sheriff of Linn County was killed investigating reports of a moonshiners still at Plainview. The stills owner shot the sheriff and the Rev. Roy Healy. The incident became the subject of the historic account, "Murder in Linn County," which author Cory Frye will be on hand to discuss Wednesday.
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One of Donald Trumps most trusted advisors emerged from more than two hours of questioning by senate investigators to insist he had not colluded with Russia and knew of no-one in the White House who had.

Jared Kushner, the Presidents son-in-law and the latest senior member of his team to become caught up in the controversy over alleged links with Moscow, spent the morning behind closed doors answering questions from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Before appearing, Mr Kushner had issued an 11-page statement in which he denied having colluded with Russia to try and influence the presidential election. He also defended four meetings he held with Russian officials, including one with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer that he attended with Donald Trump Jr, the President's eldest son, and campaign manager Paul Manafort, in order to try and obtain incriminating material on Hillary Clinton.

When he left Capitol Hill, Mr Kushner ignored shouted questions from reporters. But 45 minutes later, he appeared outside the White House to read brief remarks on which the media immediately leapt.

Since the first questions were raised in March, I have been consistent in saying, I was eager to share any information I had with the investigating bodies, and I've done so today. The record and documents I have voluntarily provided will show that all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign, he said.

"Let me be very clear. I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses. I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information."

There are few people within the Presidents inner circle who are trusted more than Mr Kushner, whose background is also in real estate rather than politics. Married to Mr Trumps daughter Ivanka, Mr Kushner has emerged as an increasingly important person during Mr Trumps campaign for the presidency.

 Bush's CIA director: Jared Kushner's dealings with Russia could be espionage

After his surprise victory, Mr Kushner was persuaded to stay on and take a job in the White House, where he was obliged to become a federal employee to get around anti-nepotism rules. Mr Trump has tasked him with everything from improving relations with China to achieving a peace deal for the Middle East.

Mr Kushner was asked to testify on Capitol Hill, where he reportedly spoke while not under oath, following controversy about a meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, which he participated in at the invitation of Mr Trump Jr and Paul Manafort. Mr Kushner said he had asked an assistant to call him in order to give him an excuse to leave the meeting in June last year after about ten minutes.

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 Trump Jr admitted he had agreed to the meeting after an intermediary told him the lawyer had information about Ms Clinton that the Trump campaign could use. Ms Veselnitskaya has denied both working for the Kremlin or offering such information, and Mr Trump Jr has said she provided him with no such material.

Mr Kushners statement provided the details of four meetings with Russian officials that he was aware of, including the meeting with Ms Veselnitskaya.

Among the other meetings was one brief interaction with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in April last year at a Washington hotel where Mr Trump was making a campaign speech. Mr Kushner said he shook hands with the dignitaries at the reception.

The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election  Each exchange lasted less than a minute, he said.
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Republicans in Congress are increasingly frustrated with their stalled legislative agenda, and one Texas representative has found the people to blame: his female colleagues.

The fact that the Senate does not have the courage to do some of the things that every Republican in the Senate promised to do is just absolutely repugnant to me, Texas Representative Blake Farenthold said recently on a local radio show. Some of the people that are opposed to this, theyre some female senators from the northeast.

If it was a guy from south Texas I might ask them to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style, he added, in a reference to a famed American gun battle.

Mr Farenthold appeared to be directing his comments toward Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is the only female Republican senator from the northeast.

Ms Collins last week announced her opposition to a GOP plan to repeal Obamacare without a replacement. She was joined by Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, leaving the leadership shy of the 50 yes votes needed to advance the bill to the Senate floor.

Repealing and replacing Obamacare has been a fixture of Republican campaigns since the law was signed seven years ago. Their failure to carry out this campaign promise has frustrated law makers like Mr Farenthold, and driven President Donald Trump to mount attacks on members of his own party.

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

Ms Collins was the only female Republican to oppose the GOPs original bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, deemed the Better Care Reconciliation Act. Male senators Jerry Moran, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul all announced their opposition was well, effectively killing the bill without a floor vote.

Arizona Senator John McCain, currently on leave while receiving treatment for brain cancer, also urged his Republican colleagues to reconsider the bill. Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson both opposed the bill in its early stages.

Mr Cruz and Mr Lee, however, both served on the Republican working group created to draft the legislation. Ms Collins, Ms Murkowski and Ms Capito were not included in the 13-member group  in fact, no women were.

The working group that counts is all 52 of us, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at the time. Nobody is being excluded based upon gender ... Everybody's at the table. Everybody.

The group later invited Ms Capito to attend a meeting.
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is considering resigning his position amid a rash of staffing changes at the White House, reports have claimed.

Sources familiar with Mr Tillerson's conversations tell CNN the Secretary of State has grown increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration, and may be pondering an exit strategy.

The sources say Mr Tillerson was especially troubled by President Donald Trumps recent New York Times interview, in which he lamented hiring Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Mr Tillerson reportedly saw the comments  in which Mr Trump called Mr Sessions unfair for recusing himself from the Justice Department's Russia probe  as unprofessional.

While the sources caution that Mr Tillerson may have just been venting after a tough week, they also say it seems increasingly unlikely that he will finish out the year as planned.

Mr Trump and his Secretary of State have clashed on several key issues, such as Mr Trumps insistence on pulling out of the Paris climate accord. Mr Tillerson said in his Senate confirmation hearing that he supported staying in the agreement, while Mr Trump campaigned on getting the US out.

The Secretary of State has also made it a point to assure other Nato countries that the US remains committed to Article Five, the alliance's promise of mutual protection. Sources told Politico Mr Tillerson was shocked when the President failed to mention the article in his speech at the new Nato headquarters.

Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Show all 22 1 /22 Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Donald Trump's international Presidential trips French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump talk as they leave the Army Museum at Les Invalides in Paris AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump arrive for the group photo at the G7 Taormina summit on the island of Sicily in May 2017 Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Mr Trump was pressed on the subject at the G7 summit in Italy Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump gives a speeech at the Warsaw Uprising Monument on Krasinski Square Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May during a ceremony at the NATO headquarters before the start of a summit in Brussels, Belgium Reuters Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Montenegro's Prime Minister Dusko Markovic is seen to the right of Donald Trump at a Nato summit in Brussels REUTERS Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Pope Francis meeting with US President Donald J. Trump EPA Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Pope Francis poses with US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump arrives at Palazzo del Quirinale ahead of the meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella Ufficio Stampa Presidenza della via Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump is seen during a joint press conference with the Palestinian leader at the presidential palace in the West Bank city of Bethlehem AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas meets US President Donald Trump PPO via Getty Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with US President Donald Trump prior to the President's departure GPO via Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands after delivering a speech at the Israel Museum AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump lay a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance as White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump watch on during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem accompanied by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu GPO via Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump takes his seat before his speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia Reuters Donald Trump's international Presidential trips Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump look at a display of Saudi modern art at the Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud take part in a signing ceremony at the Saudi Royal Court in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips King Salman presents Donald Trump with The Collar of Abdulaziz al-Saud Medal at the Royal Court Palace on 20 May AP Donald Trump's international Presidential trips US President Donald Trump is welcomed by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud upon arrival at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump's international Presidential trips U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk on the South Lawn prior to their first foreign trip Getty Images

The two mens differences played out publicly last month, after several Gulf countries chose to cut ties with the nation of Qatar. Mr Tillerson urged cooperation between the countries; Mr Trump, meanwhile, praised the blockade, accusing Qatar of fund[ing] terrorism at a very high level.

Mr Tillerson at the time was reportedly frustrated with the influence of Mr Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on foreign policy  both Qatari and otherwise. One close associate told the American Conservative the diplomat was exhausted.

He cant get any of his appointments approved and is running around the world cleaning up after a president whose primary foreign policy adviser is a 36-year-old amateur, the source said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at a press conference in Doha on 11 July, 2017 (AFP/Getty)

The issue of personnel appointments has been a thorn in Mr Tillersons side ever since the President rejected his choice of Elliott Abrams as his second in command. Mr Trump reportedly vetoed the pick because Mr Abrams had been critical of him in the past.

Mr Tillersons frustration with the slow pace of nominations reportedly boiled over last month, when the diplomat erupted at Johnny DeStefano, the head of the presidential personnel office, for torpedoing his proposed nominees.

The outburst was apparently so intense that it prompted Mr Kushner, a witness to the event, to deem Mr Tillersons conduct unprofessional.

The news of Mr Tillersons latest complaints comes amid a tumultuous week in White House staffing. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stepped down on Friday, after Mr Trump appointed Anthony Scaramucci to run his communications team  a move the majority of his advisers cautioned against.

Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is also reportedly on rocky footing with the President, and Mr Trumps comments to the New York Times indicate that hes having doubts about Mr Sessions as well.

Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer, the President tweeted ominously on Monday, it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought.
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Few teachers could be more committed to their pupils than Teresa Danks.

Every year she spends up to $3,000 from her own modest salary on teaching supplies that her school could not otherwise provide.

But when that was not enough, the elementary school teacher hit upon the idea of standing at a busy road junction, waving a sign and begging for funds.

It all adds up week after week and month after month, Ms Danks told Fox News. So, its a huge need.

Ms Danks, who teaches in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said she decided to act after becoming aware of a crippling budget crisis in the state was hampering her and other teachers like her.

Ms Danks, who has been teaching since 1996 and earns around $35,000, said she was stunned by the immediate response of passers-by. Within a few minutes she had collected around $35 and had been moved by the messages of support she was receiving from people who stopped to donate.

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

I was getting emotional. People were like, Teachers like you - thats the reason I am alive today, she said.

Ms Danks told The Independent the support she had received both locally and nationally, was overwhelming. "I started that morning with just wanting to reach out to the community," she said. "But it has quickly grown into where we're getting feedback from teachers in the district and across the nation."

She has now launched a fundraising campaign and listed a list of supplies she needs for her classroom, including egg cartons, paper towels, yarn, leftover party paper plates, straws and pipe-cleaners.

 Education secretary Betsy DeVos wants to 'advance God's kingdom' through US school system

She also has her sights on beyond her immediate needs.

Teresa is very passionate about her kids. Everything from supplies to qualified and fairly paid teachers. She will be working to bring awareness to these and other issues that our teachers face, not just in Oklahoma but across the nation, says a message on her Facebook fundraising page.

Realising that this is bigger than her classroom, she has enlisted advisers on how to proceed. Acknowledging that this is still evolving, she will be updating her mission and overall goals in the coming days.

Earlier this spring, the Washington Post reported that such was the problems with the states budget that many schools in Oklahoma were obliged to open just four days a week. Of 513 school districts in Oklahoma, 96 have cut Fridays or Mondays from their schedules, said the report.

Republican Governor Mary Fallin said a downturn in the energy sector and a decreasing sales tax revenue had led to several very difficult budget years.

The Oklahoma Policy Institute said the state had led the nation in cuts to state funding of schools by reducing state aid per student 26.9 per cent since 2008.
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Donald Trump is said to be considering drafting in former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an official he has described as beleaguered.

There has been mounting speculation about the future of Mr Sessions, the countrys top law enforcement official, since Mr Trump claimed in a recent interview that he had been unfair to him by recusing himself from the ongoing Russia investigation. He told the New York Times he may have chosen someone else had he known Mr Sessions were to act as he did.

Now, it has been reported by Axios that Mr Trump has floated the idea of replacing him with Mr Giuliani, who had been one of his most staunch supporters during the presidential campaign.

In a tweet on Monday, Mr Trump questioned why congressional investigators probing his presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, and described Mr Sessions as beleaguered.

 Trump tells reporter to 'be quiet' when asking about healthcare and Sessions

After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that Democrats should blame ourselves,not Russia, he wrote.

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

So why arent the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered AG, looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations.

When Mr Trump was asked about Mr Sessions future by a reporter on Monday, the Presidents only response was to roll his eyes.
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An 18-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of causing a deadly crash which she live streamed on Instagram.

The footage shows Obdulia Sanchez, from Stockton, California, before, during and after the fatal crash.

It ends with her kneeling next to her dead 14-year-old sister and saying: "Wake up baby, I'm f**king sorry baby, I did not mean to kill you sweetie."

Obdulia Sanchez, 18, was booked into the Merced County Jail on suspicion of DUI and vehicular manslaughter (Merced County Sherrif)

The California Highway Patrol said Sanchez was driving the car when it veered onto the right shoulder of a road about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco.

She over-corrected, causing the vehicle to swerve across lanes, crash through a wire fence and overturn into a field.

Sanchez was booked into the Merced County Jail on suspicion of DUI and vehicular manslaughter after the crash killed her 14-year-old sister, Jacqueline Sanchez, and badly injured another 14-year-old girl.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The Instagram live video begins with Sanchez driving while singing along to music and making signs with her hands, before the camera goes blurry and red as screaming can be heard.

"If I go to f**king jail for life, you already know why," Sanchez says after the crash. "My sister is f**king dying. Look, I f**king love my sister to death. I don't give a f**k."

She adds: "Man, we about to die. This is the last thing I wanted to happen to us but it just did."

"I f**king killed my sister, OK? I know I'm going to jail for life. I understand that. This is the last thing I wanted to happen. I don't f**king care at all. I'm a hold it down."

The California Highway Patrol is examining the video as part of its investigation into the crash.

Family members have set up a GoFundMe page to pay for Jacqueline Sanchez's funeral expenses.
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At least 26 people have been killed in a car bombing in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

The blast, which rescue officials said had left 54 people wounded, struck police stationed near a market on the outskirts of the city.

Senior police officer Haider Ashraf said a suicide bomber on a motorcycle targeted officers guarding a demolition site at Kot Lakhpat's vegetable market.

Recommended Six people killed in Pakistan bombing including four soldiers

He said many of 54 wounded are policemen and several bystanders were wounded by the impact of the powerful blast.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Video posted on Twitter showed a person on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.

Local hospitals declared an emergency after Mondays explosion on Ferozpur Road, a main thoroughfare that cuts through the city.

The bomb went off in one of the most secure parts of the city, near to where the Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, has his office.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the chief minister strongly condemned blast.

In April, a suicide attack on soldiers in Lahore killed six people and wounded 18.

The city was also targeted in February when 13 were killed at a protest rally outside the Punjab Assembly.

Recommended Explosion hits Lahore as wave of terror strikes Pakistan

Police officers and journalists covering the march were among the casualties.

The attacker, a member of a group allied to the Pakistani Taliban, drove a motorbike into crowds before detonating an explosive device.

Lahore was also targeted on Easter Sunday last year in an attack that claimed the lives of 75 people.

Thousands of suspected terrorists were arrested as part of Pakistan's paramilitary crackdown on Islamist militants in the wake of the attack.
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Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to continue his deadly crackdown on drugs, telling users they face either jail or hell.

Responding to growing international criticism of his violent war on illicit drugs, which is understood to have claimed the lives of more than 7,000 people, the Philippine President said he would not be scared by threats of prosecution.

He urged his critics not to trivialise government efforts by demanding human rights be upheld, telling an audience at his annual state of the nation address on Monday: Do not try to scare me with prison or the International Court of Justice.

Recommended The human rights disaster the world prefers to ignore

"I'm willing to go to prison for the rest of my life.

"The fight will be unremitting as it will be unrelenting.

"There is a jungle out there, there are beasts out there preying on the innocent, the helpless."

To applause from his national police chief, Ronald del Rosa, Mr Duterte added: The fight will not stop until those who deal in (drugs) understand that they have to stop because the alternatives are either jail or hell.

Mr Dutertes fierce defence of his drugs policy came as thousands of protesters marched to the House of Representatives to demand he deliver on promises made in his first state of the nation speech last year, from holding peace talks with communist insurgents to improving internet speed.

Activists burn an effigy of Mr Duterte in Quezon City, northeast of Manila, where the speech was taking place (EPA)

Human Rights Watch has accused Mr Duterte of unleashing a human rights calamity in the Philippines.

The extraordinary brutality of the Duterte drug war is undeniable, it said in a statement released last week.

Many of the victims are found in back alleys or street corners wrapped in packing tape, their bodies bullet-ridden or bearing stab wounds and other signs of torture.

The 71-year-old President won approval in Congress at the weekend for an extension of martial law in the south to deal with the siege of Marawi by pro-Isis fighters.

The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Show all 9 1 /9 The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On killing drug addicts These sons of whores are destroying our children. I warn you, dont go into that, even if youre a policeman, because I will really kill you. If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Message to China I will go there on my own with a Jet Ski, bringing along with me a [Phillipino] flag and a pole, and once I disembark, I will plant the flag on the runway and tell the Chinese authorities, Kill me  AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Christmas message to law-breakers If you do not want to stop, and just continue committing crimes, then this would be your last Merry Christmas AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On sex life I was separated from my wife. Im not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On the drugs trade None of my children are into illegal drugs. But my order is, even if it is a member of my family, kill him'" AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting the Pope We were affected by the traffic. It took us five hours. I asked why, they said it was closed. I asked who is coming. They answered, the pope. I wanted to call him: Pope, son of a wh**e, go home. Do not visit us again AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Joke about rape I saw her face and I thought, 'What a pity... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first AFP/Getty The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting Barack Obama "Mr Obama should be respectful and refrain from throwing questions at me about the killings, or son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum" REUTERS The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants "If I have to face them, you know I can eat humans. I will really open up your body. Just give me vinegar and salt, and I will eat you. If you annoy me to the fullest... I will eat you alive. Raw" EPA

The fight against Islamist militants in one of the countrys biggest southern cities continues two months on, with more than 500 dead.

Separately, Mr Dutertes top ally in Congress has proposed new bills to legalise same-sex marriage and divorce.

Our citizens should not be excluded from society just because of the person they love. They must also be treated with equality before the law," Pantaleon Alvarez said.

The Vatican and the Philippines are the only states in which divorce is outlawed.

In the most recent opinion polls, Filipinos have overwhelmingly rejected same-sex marriages, with the latest survey in 2015 showing nearly 70 per cent of 1,200 respondents strongly disagreed.

Laws on same-sex marriages have been proposed as far back 2006, but none has gained traction.

However, the latest attempt could gain momentum because it has the endorsement of Mr Alvarez, a close ally of Mr Duterte.

Additional reporting by agencies
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A woman chased down a man who allegedly masturbated in front of her in a public place in New Delhi, it has been reported.

Police arrested Tarun Kumar after he was accused of unzipping his trousers and touching himself while a woman was walking her dog in a public park.

The 32-year-old, who is thought to be a chauffeur, went to the park after dropping off his employers wife at a nearby shopping centre.

The woman, who has not been named, is believed to be a German who is currently studying for a PhD at Jawaharlal Nehru University, managed to take pictures of his car as he fled, the Local reported.

"The woman provided us pictures of the registration number of the car and we tracked the owner before swooping in on the accused," Anil Kumar, investigating officer with Delhi police, told AFP.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Romil Baaniya praised the womans awareness and encouraged others to do the same if they find themselves in a similar situation.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

"She displayed sharp presence of mind by taking snapshot of the vehicle which led to cracking of the case. We need more such girls who know how to speak and stand up for themselves," Mr Baaniya told First Post.

Mr Kumar has been arrested and is being held in custody.
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Boris Johnson joked on his visit to New Zealand on Monday that a traditional Maori greeting could be misinterpreted as a head butt in a pub in Glasgow.

Mr Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of the UKs global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union. Topics on the agenda include trade, foreign policy and international security.

He visited the South Island tourist town of Kaikoura, which was struck by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in November that killed two people. Mr Johnson thanked residents for looking after tourists, including 200 Britons, who were stranded in the town after the quake and for teaching him a Maori greeting called a hongi, in which people press noses together. I think its a beautiful form of introduction, though it might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow, Mr Johnson joked.

Prime Minister Bill English later said he didnt think New Zealanders would be offended by Mr Johnsons comment. A hongi is a fairly unfamiliar ritual to almost anyone else in the world, he said.

Later on Monday, Mr Johnson travelled to Wellington where he unveiled a striking British memorial at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park. Designed by New Zealand film company Weta Workshop, the memorial stands nearly five metres tall and depicts the trunks of a royal oak and an indigenous pohutukawa tree intertwining to form a single canopy.

Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Show all 7 1 /7 Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson plays rugby with Japanese elementary school children in Tokyo Getty Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson bumps into a schoolchild during a Street Rugby event at Tokyo Square Gardens building EPA Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson collides with 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi during a game of Street Rugby with a group of Tokyo children Reuters Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson falls down after colliding with 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi during a game of Street Rugby with a group of Tokyo children Reuters Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson falls down after colliding with 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi during a game of Street Rugby with a group of Tokyo children Reuters Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match Boris Johnson takes down boy during rugby match

Mr Johnson said it was his first visit to New Zealand. This is the most mind-blowingly, mind-numbingly beautiful country that I have ever seen, he said, adding it was the only landscape he thinks could do justice to the imagination of JRR Tolkien. Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film series were both filmed in New Zealand.

The Foreign Secretary is due to travel to Australia tomorrow.

AP
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A ship chartered by far-right activists to confront refugees and send them "back to Africa" has reportedly entered Mediterranean waters after being held up in the Suez Canal.

The ship, operated by Defend Europe, set sail from the east African nation of Djibouti where it was chartered earlier in the month in a bid to block search-and-rescue vessels operated by humanitarian organisations.

Defend Europe is linked to the European anti-Islam and anti-immigrant "identitarian" movement and the vessel, named C-Star, was predominantly funded with donations on a crowdfunding website.

However its mission did not go to plan after it was swiftly "arrested" in the Suez Canal when its captain failed to produce a satisfactory crew list last week.

But the crew has now resurfaced and said they still plan to be in Sicily in the coming days.

The group is aiming for the the Italian city of Catania where many rescue boats run by charities and non government organisations (NGOs) are based.

Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Show all 7 1 /7 Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants arriving in Italy on MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie DeardenI Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants undergoing health checks after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants undergoing security checks after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants being fingerprinted after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily Refugees and migrants being fingerprinted after disembarking from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden Refugees and migrants arriving in Catania, Sicily A man being taken to hospital from MSF rescue ship the Bourbon Argos in Catania, Sicily Lizzie Dearden

A lot of them then set sail from the city to rescue migrants who capsize in the Mediterranean.

"The #CStar will reach Catania in the next days after bunkering and refilling supplies! #DefendEurope," a tweet from the ships account read.

On Saturday the account posted an image of their coordinates off the coast of Cyprus.

An earlier tweet from the ships account read: "We just had a phone call with our guy on board the #cstar. Mood is good, waves not high and the travel goes on. #DefendEurope."

More than 85,000 refugees and migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, have been pulled from the sea while trying to make the perilous crossing.

This year at least 2,000 have drowned, after paying smugglers and setting sail in rickety boats which are unsuited to the choppy waters of the Mediterranean.

The group has vowed to "assist" the Libyan coast guard in pushing back the refugee boats when they leave the countrys shores and say they want to "monitor" the actions of NGOs such as Save the Children who are operating in the region.

They claim these charities are facilitating "human trafficking" into Europe.

A statement on the groups website reads: "We need to stop the disastrous work of the NGOs in front of the Libyan coast.

"By ferrying migrants to Europe, they costing us missions make the human traffickers a fortune.

"By luring Africans into the sea they are endangering lives and abusing international maritime law.

"This madness needs to stop. We need to stop the boats to save Europe."

Defend Europe denied they will block or hinder any rescuing activities.

The group told The Independent: "As we have stated clearly from the beginning we never planned to and never will hinder any actual rescuing activities.

"Our plan is to cooperate with the Libyan coastguard and support their efforts to control their waters, to overwatch and expose the NGOs, especially if they breach the new code of conduct by the Italian government."
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Holidaymakers in Benidorm have been warned against potentially lethal cocktails being sold by unscrupulous hawkers in the Spanish resort.

Unlicensed hawkers are trawling the beaches selling cocktails made with substandard alcohol and fruit which has been left to rot in the sun, officials in the Spanish town have warned.

Many of these drinks are also prepared in unsanitary conditions such as crouched in doorways, on the floor and even on the tyres of parked cars before being sold for 5 (4.40) each.

One British tourist, Val Spencer, told the Daily Star she had seen the sellers in action.

She said: "God knows what's in them. One guy mixing them was filthy.

"He used his hands to grab ice from a bucket and was back on the beach selling the same cocktails.

"Loads of youngsters were buying them but they're better off going to a beach bar for a drink."

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

Local officials have put up posters, issued leaflets and posted on social media begging holidaymakers to avoid the sellers.

Undercover police have even begun patrolling the beach since the beginning of the tourist season in a bid to crack down on the trade.

The problem has become so acute the towns mayor, Toni Perez, is reportedly considering allowing the licensed bars along the shoreline to begin selling drinks on the beach to drive drive the illegal sellers out of business.
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The Emmanuel Macron appears to have suffered the worst drop in popularity for a French president in 20 years, according to a new poll.

Mr Macrons approval rating dropped by ten to 54 per cent in July, compared to his popularity in June which was at 64 per cent, according to an Ifop survey published in the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

This was, Ifop suggested, the biggest decline in popularity for a French president since Jacques Chirac in 1995.

The participants who had a negative opinion of Mr Macron cited concerns over authoritarianism and too much time spent on his public image.

Recommended Emmanuel Macron to meet with Rihanna to discuss education funding

Results come after the 39-year-old former banker unveiled key budget cuts in public spending and military finances  a move which has been heavily criticised.

Mr Macron is proposing 850m (750m) worth of military cuts as part of a programme to achieve 60bn (53bn) of savings over five years  while upholding an election pledge to cut taxes.

The head of the French armed forces, General Pierre de Villiers, has quit his post following a public clash with the president over the proposed cuts.

In a statement he said: In the current circumstances I see myself as no longer able to guarantee the robust defence force I believe is necessary to guarantee the protection of France and the French people, today and tomorrow, and to sustain the aims of our country.

In response to discontent amongst his own, Mr Macron had told Le Journal du Dimanche: If the military chief of staff and the President are opposed on something, the military chief of staff goes.

Mr Macron ended up overruling his own prime minister by vowing to go ahead with tax cuts in 2018, and plans to cut housing benefits were received unfavourably.

The poll results come just 10 days after US President Donald Trump's visit with the French President, following an invitation from Mr Macron to celebrate Bastille Day.
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The President of Poland has said he will veto two contentious bills that are widely seen as assaults on the independence of the judicial system.

The planned legal overhaul by the ruling party has sparked days of nationwide protests.

Andrzej Duda said he would veto two of three bills recently passed by politicians.

People gather during national protests against the Supreme Court legislation in Poznan, Poland (Agencja Gazeta/Lukasz Cynalewski via Reuters) (Agencja Gazeta/Lukasz Cynalewski via REUTERS)

One would have put the Supreme Court under the political control of the ruling party, giving the justice minister  who is also prosecutor general  power to appoint judges.

Recommended Polish President urged by EU to veto judicial independence bill

Mr Duda said that the country's justice system as it works now is in need of reform, but he said that the changes that lawmakers had proposed threaten to create an oppressive system and that the protests of recent days show that the changes would divide society.

He said that there is no tradition in Poland for a prosecutor general to have such large powers and he would not agree to that now.

The President also said he was vetoing a bill changing the functioning of the National Council of the Judiciary. The change, among other things, would have given lawmakers the power to appoint judges, politicising the courts.

However, he said he was going to sign a third bill that reorganises the functioning of local courts.

People protest against the Supreme Court legislation in Wroclaw, Poland (Agencja Gazeta/Mieczyslaw Michalak via Reuters) (Agencja Gazeta/Mieczyslaw Michalak via REUTERS)

Duda's step won the praise of members of the political opposition who had been urging him to veto the bills, seen by many Poles and the European Union as attacks on the separation of powers in the young democracy.

"What we had was not a reform, but appropriation of the courts," said Katarzyna Lubnauer, head of the parliamentary caucus of the opposition party Nowoczesna.

"I congratulate all Poles, this is a great success, really,"

Polish currency the zloty immediately rose against the euro, as investors saw the decision as lowering the political risk in Poland.

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

Observers say Mr Duda's decision puts him at odds with the de facto leader of the country, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is the leader of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party but has no formal government post.

Mr Duda was hand-picked by Mr Kaczynski as the party's presidential candidate in 2015 and has loyally supported the party's conservative nationalist agenda, not vetoing any of its laws until now.

Since being elected in 2015, the party has tightened its control over courts and prosecutors, as well as state media, and introduced restrictions on public gatherings.

Mr Duda said he consulted many experts before making his decision, including lawyers, sociologists, politicians and even philosophers.

He said the person who influenced him the most was Zofia Romaszewska, a leading anti-Communist dissident in the 1970s and 1980s.

He said Ms Romaszewska told him: "Mr President, I lived in a state where the prosecutors general had an unbelievably powerful position and could practically do everything. I would not like to go back to such a state."

Additional reporting by agencies
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A man holding a placard saying Putin lies has been arrested at a free speech protest in Moscow.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets on Sunday to protest against the Russian government's increasing crackdown on online free speech.

The protest, which was approved by the Moscow authorities, came two days after the lower house of Russias Duma (parliament) passed a bill that bans the use of proxy servers, including virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow people to disguise their computer's IP address.

The bill, which will now go through the upper house, will also ban the anonymous use of mobile messaging services. Vladimir Putin will need to sign off the bill before it becomes law.

Free speech activists have condemned the bill, which they said would lead to a fresh crackdown on legitimate dissent under the guise of battling terrorism and extremism.

Activist Gregory Saksonov was among the group of Muscovites who turned out to protest against what they see as increasing state intrusion in their everyday lives.

He was detained by police after holding the anti-Putin sign and taken to a nearby police station, but was later released without charge, OVD Info reported.

Police also arrested Ruslan Ivanov, who was released without charge but had leaflets he was handing to protesters that expressed support for opposition leader Alexei Navalny confiscated.

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

Russia's capital was the scene of a massive protest last month after Moscow City Hall launched plans to tear down Soviet-era low rise apartment buildings.

Officials say the buildings are dilapidated and need replacing, insisting that residents will be rehoused in homes which are the same size and in the same area.

But protesters fear the move will turn into an attempt to move poorer city residents to high rises on the outskirts of the city.
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At least five people have been injured, two seriously, after a man attacked people with a chainsaw in the Swiss town of Schaffhausen.

Police said the perpetrator has been identified but remains at large after the attack, which prompted them to seal off the centre of the town on the German border.

A shop owner told Swiss newspaper Blick a man with a chainsaw was walking the streets and police later confirmed the report.

Swiss police officers stand at a crime scene in Schaffhausen, Switzerland (Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann) (REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann)

Police said the attack is not being treated as an act of terrorism.

Police official Ravi Landolt identified the suspected perpetrator as Franz Wrousis.

Prosecutor Peter Sticher said the man had no fixed address but previously had been registered himself as living in the south-eastern Swiss canton of Graubunden.

Mr Landolt said Wrousis has two previous convictions, dating back to 2014 and 2016, for contraventions of weapons laws.

Police released pictures of the suspect, who remains at large

Police described him as being 6ft 2in, bald and of unkempt appearance, and he thought to have been driving a white Volkswagen minivan with registration plates from Graubuenden.

The van has since been recovered by police.

Authorities issued old photos of Wrousis wearing a green T-shirt and black jeans, standing among trees.

In a statement, police warned the suspect is dangerous, but said it was unclear whether he still had the chainsaw.

The building where the attack took place is home to a bookshop and insurance and lawyers offices. It wasnt immediately clear who or what the mans target was.

A health insurance company that has an office in the building where the attack took place said two of its employees had to be taken to a hospital, Blick reported.

We can confirm that a man with a chainsaw came into the agency and seriously wounded two of our employees, said Christina Wettstein, a spokeswoman for insurer CSS.

They are undergoing operations at the moment and we dont know how they are.

The company doesnt know yet whether the other three wounded people were customers or passers-by, she added. It also doesnt know whether the attacker was a customer.

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. 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Schaffhausen is a city of about 36,000 north of Zurich, near the border with Germany.

Police were alerted to the attack at 10:39am (08:39 GMT).

They cordoned off the area and ordered people to leave, and witnesses told local media they saw bleeding victims being treated by rescue crews.
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The daughters of couple who went missing in the Swiss Alps 75-years ago have said they "will finally be able to mourn" their parents after their funeral service.

Marcelin Dumoulin and his wife Francine were laid to rest over the weekend after a walker discovered their frozen remains on a melting glacier.

The couple, then 40 and 37, disappeared after they set off on a trek one morning from their home in Chandolin to check on their cattle in a pasture two miles away in Bern canton.

The ventured along a glacier footpath, which was the quickest route, on a clear summers day. But they vanished after dark clouds gathered in the sky and visibility worsened.

Rescue workers and locals, who believed Marcelin and Francine had likely fallen into a crevasse, launched a fruitless search for two months after the pair disappeared on August 15, 1942.

But after failing to find any sign of them, they eventually abandoned the hunt and the couples seven young children, aged between two to 13, were placed into foster care.

More than seven decades later, a local ski resort worker found the Marcelin and Francines remains preserved in the Tsanfleuron glacier on 13 July.

The couples belongings, including backpacks and a watch were also discovered in the ice nearby.

One thousand a day injured on Swiss slopes Show all 1 1 /1 One thousand a day injured on Swiss slopes One thousand a day injured on Swiss slopes 294185.bin iofoto

Their two surviving daughters, Marceline Udry-Dumoulin and Monique Gautschy, said police officially identified the pair through DNA tests.

The pair said farewell to their parents in a funeral service in the church at Saviese in Valais canton, near where the couple lived in Chandolin.

"I saw them leave that Saturday morning," recalled Monique, who was 11 when the couple went missing. "They were supposed to spend the night in the alpine pasture at Grilden and come back on Sunday."

Marceline, who was four on the day her parents went missing, told Le Matin that she had climbed the glacier three times after her parents vanished.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

She said she was "constantly wondering what had happened to them.

She added: "We spent our whole lives searching for them, without stopping. We never thought we'd be able to give them the funeral they deserved."

Her niece Maryline said her two aunts Monique and Marceline were now "happy they will finally be able to mourn.

The priest at the Saviese church told mourners at the funeral: "Three-quarters of a century later the family can at last stop asking the question: 'what happened to them?'
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The death toll in a suicide blast that hit the Afghan capital of Kabul has risen to 35, officials have said.

The car bomb detonated in a Shia neighbourhood in the west of the city during Monday rush hour, ramming into the side of a bus carrying government employees on their way to work, interior ministry Basir Mujahed told media.

At least 24 people were killed and 40 more people were injured in the explosion, including children, he added, and the death toll was likely to rise. An official speaking on condition of anonymity said the number of dead was at least 35.

 Kabul suicide bombing kills at least 24 and leaves 40 injured

The bomber attacked at one of the busiest times of the day, Mr Mujahed continued. There were traffic jams with people going to work and to the university and schools. Many of the shops had just opened.

The bus, three other vehicles and several nearby businesses were destroyed in the blast, which sent a tower of black smoke into the sky and shattered the glass of windows up and down the street.

The Taliban was quick to claim the attack, which it said killed 37 intelligence officers. The Afghan government said many of those killed were employees of the mines and petroleum ministry.

It occurred near the residences of several prominent politicians, including deputy government chief executive and Shia Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq. It is not yet clear what the militant organisations intended target was. Despite the Talibans insistence it only targets government and military personnel, is not unusual for Shia neighbourhoods to be targeted by the Sunni extremists.

In a statement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the violence as a terrorist attack.

The incident is the latest in a wave of militant violence to hit the city amid an insurgent offensive across the country. At least 1,662 people have been killed in attacks carried out by either the Taliban or Isis in the first six months of 2017.

In the most high-profile recent blast, a huge bomb hidden inside a water tanker detonated in Kabuls de facto diplomatic quarter in May killed at least 150 people, according to UN figures.

The incident prompted protests and calls for government officials to resign. Many people are losing patience with the weak and divided government of President Ghani, which they say is not doing enough to protect the people from militant violence.

Protesters demand better security in Kabul Show all 10 1 /10 Protesters demand better security in Kabul Protesters demand better security in Kabul A woman tries to stop police from firing on protesters during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul Afghan security officials use a water cannon to disperse demonstrators as they protest against a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, 02 June 2017. At least 90 people were killed and more than 350 wounded in a suicide bomb attack near the foreign embassies in Kabul on 31 May. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul A policeman rests during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul Protesters shout anti government slogans during a demonstration to protest against the lack of security in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Jun 2, 2017. Some 500 people are demonstrating in Kabul for better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed 90 people. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul Police forces run as protesters throw stones during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul Protesters shout anti government slogans during a demonstration to protest against the lack of security in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Jun 2, 2017. Some 500 people are demonstrating in Kabul for better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed 90 people. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul Protesters throw stones toward security forces during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. ( AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul Police forces run as protesters throw stones during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul Protesters throw stones toward security forces during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. AP Protesters demand better security in Kabul A boy walks past protesters during a demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, June 2, 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. AP

Mondays carnage gave rise to fresh anger and frustration. Every day people are dying. If you cannot bring peace then please leave and bring other people, Amir Helam, whose friend died in the explosion, told local Tolo TV.

Although the Taliban lost control of Afghanistan following the 2001 war, it has steadily regained ground since the majority of US and allied troops left in 2014, and is now in control of some 40 per cent of the country.

The chaos has also allowed Isis to gain a foothold in Afghanistans remote eastern provinces.

Last month US President Donald Trump bowed to pressure from the Pentagon to allow the military to set its own troop levels to prevent the precarious security situation from deteriorating further.

A total of 13,000 US and Nato soldiers are currently in the country, although observers fear after 16 years of war Afghanistan has arrived at a stalemate in the fight against extremism.

While it is expected that 4,000 extra troops will be deployed, there is still no coherent strategy from the Trump administration on the USs future involvement.
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Isis was sitting on the main ingredient for making a radioactive dirty bomb in Mosul for more than three years, but was either unaware or unable to utilise the technology for its own purposes, it has emerged.

The extremist Sunni group overran the Iraqi city after sweeping across the border from Syria in 2014. As the army abandoned their posts, weaponry and tanks came into their possession - but Western intelligence officials were also worried that the cobalt-60 isotope used in radiotherapy treatment machines in medical facilities would fall into their hands, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Cobalt-60 is in theory the main component in a radiological dispersal device (RDD), or dirty bomb - radioactive material combined with conventional explosives.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

However, two caches of the substance in a storage room on a university campus were discovered untouched by Iraqi coalition forces last month during the battle to liberate the city, health officials said.

They [Isis] are not that smart, one health ministry official told the Post.

It is not clear why Isis failed to use the cobalt - which exposure to can deliver a fatal dose of radiation in less than three minutes.

 The children of Mosul: Iraqi youngsters left psychologically damaged by ISIS war

Given the fighters thoroughly ransacked the city and it was reported in July 2014 had come into the possession of low-grade unenriched uranium, it is unlikely they did not find the cobalt stores. Instead, the substance may have proved too difficult to extract without exposing militants themselves to harmful doses of radiation, nuclear experts told the Post.

Officials have still insisted the radioactive material's location remain secret, however, fearing Isis could still get hold of it.

After nine months of brutal fighting, the US-backed Iraqi coalition Operation Inherent Resolve to oust the militants from Mosul is in its final stages.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in crossfire, used as human shields or have died in US-led coalition bombing, and almost one million people in total were forced to flee their homes.

Iraqi troops are still sweeping the city for sleeper cells, wary of counter suicide bomber attacks.

Fears that terrorists will utilise a dirty bomb to cause mass panic and disruption to civilians have been heightened since the attacks of 9/11. While dozens of people across the world have been arrested on suspicion of collecting materials to create a dirty bomb in recent years, no such device has been utilised to inflict harm on the public to date.
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A picture of a Christian man praying alongside Muslim worshippers in Jerusalem has been praised as a positive example of how different faiths can co-exist despite recent tensions over one of the citys holiest sites.

Footage of Palestinian Nidal Aboud was captured by CNN during Friday prayers in a neighbourhood just outside the walls of the contested Old City. In the clip, Mr Aboud stands quietly reading from his Bible while Muslim men around him kneel to pray.

The young man said he had never attended Muslim prayers before, but was moved to do so after two police officers were killed at the site known as Temple Mount in Judaism and the Noble Sanctuary in Islam by Arab gunmen, triggering a wave of fresh violence in the contested capital.

Since then, three Palestinians have been killed and one injured in street clashes, and three Israeli settlers have been killed in their West Bank home.

My motivation was to stand in solidarity with my Muslim brothers and in solidarity with our Palestinian issue against the (Israeli) occupation and its policies against our holy sites, whether it's the mosque or the church, Mr Aboud told CNN.

I had a dream since I was a child. I wanted to spread the world with love. I wanted to be the one who plants love in people's hearts.

The Jerusalem Quartet: Should classical music really be a legitimate target for political demonstration? Show all 2 1 /2 The Jerusalem Quartet: Should classical music really be a legitimate target for political demonstration? The Jerusalem Quartet: Should classical music really be a legitimate target for political demonstration? 344343.bin The Jerusalem Quartet: Should classical music really be a legitimate target for political demonstration? 344344.bin NICK GARDNER

Screenshots and a video clip of Mr Aboud have been widely shared by local media and internet users, most praising his simple act

Jerusalem's Temple Mount hill is the holiest site in Judaism and is also revered by Muslims, who pray at the hills al-Aqsa mosque. It is believed to have been where the First Temple of Judaism once stood, and also where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.

The area has been under Israeli jurisdiction since the 1967 Six-Day War, but is administered by Muslim authorities under the auspices of Jordan.

Israeli authorities have limited Muslim access to the al-Aqsa mosque since the gun attack earlier this month, a move which has been met with widespread protests from Palestinians.

While the Israelis say the sites new security measures, including metal detectors, are to prevent further attacks, Palestinians have criticised what they say is an attempt by the Israelis to control it.
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A German teenager who joined Isis is now being held in detention in Iraq and says she regrets joining the jihadist group and just wants to come home to her family, media reported.

Der Spiegel magazine reported that four German women who joined Isis in recent years, including a 16-year-old girl from the small town of Pulsnitz near Dresden, were being held in an Iraqi prison and receiving consular assistance.

Lorenz Haase, senior public prosecutor in Dresden, said he could confirm the teenager, Linda Wenzel, had been located and identified in Iraq and was receiving consular support but could not say anything on her exact circumstances.

Recommended US soldier charged with trying to pass classified documents to Isis

German broadcasters NDR and WDR and newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said they had interviewed Wenzel in the infirmary of a military complex in Baghdad and she told them she wanted to leave.

I just want to get away from here, she was quoted as saying. I want to get away from the war, from the many weapons, from the noise.

She added: I just want to go home to my family.

The media outlets said the teenager had told them she regretted joining Isis, wanted to be extradited to Germany and would cooperate with authorities.

They said the girl had a gunshot wound on her left thigh and another injury on her right knee that she said was caused during a helicopter attack.

Im doing well, she said.

German prosecutors said last week they were checking reports that a 16-year-old under investigation for supporting Isis was among five women arrested in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where Iraqi forces declared victory over Isis earlier this month.

In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Show all 11 1 /11 In pictures: Isis' weapons factories In pictures: Isis' weapons factories A mortar round fin manufactured by Isis in Gogjali, Mosul, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Isis rocket components discovered in Gogjali, Mosul, Iraq in November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Isis mortars discovered near Karamlais, Iraq, in November 2016 CAR In pictures: Isis' weapons factories An Isis rocket launch frame in Qaraqosh, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories A memo from Isis' COSQC on quality control at a manufacturing facility in Gogjali, Mosul, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Electrically-operated initiators manufactured by Isis in forces Gogjali, Mosul, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Isis mortar tubes at a manufacturing facility in Karamlais, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories An Isis mortar production facility discovered in Gogjali, Mosul, in November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories An Isis weapons manufacturing facilities near Mosul in November 2016 Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories Stocks of French-manufactured Sorbitol, Latvian potassium nitrate and Lebanese sugar at an Isis weapons factory in Iraq Conflict Armament Research In pictures: Isis' weapons factories A destroyed Isis weapons facility in Qaraqosh, Iraq, November 2016 Conflict Armament Research

German authorities have been investigating a teenage girl who went missing from Pulsnitz last summer for alleged contacts with the jihadist group about preparing a possible act of terrorism.

On Tuesday Haase said the teenager had travelled to Turkey about a year ago with the apparent goal of reaching Iraq or Syria and security officials had later lost her trail, but new evidence had since emerged in the case.

Reuters
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Qatar for the third and final leg of his whistlestop diplomatic efforts to soothe tensions between the tiny Gulf state and its neighbours.

Mr Erdogan flew in to Doha on Monday afternoon from Kuwait, which has been leading mediation attempts between Qatar and a bloc consisting of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt.

The group of Arab countries - followed by a handful of other Muslim nations - abruptly cut off all diplomatic and trade ties with tiny Qatar on 5 June, alleging that the state interfered in the affairs of its neighbours and funded terror organisations. Qatar vehemently denies all the allegations against it, claiming the crisis is politically motivated.

 UAE: Diplomacy will be given 'one or two more chances' before they 'part ways' with Qatar

Visits have already been paid by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and his US, German and French counterparts, all of whom are worried that the spat - which shows no sign of ending - could have long-lasting economic and security implications for the region, including coalition efforsts against Isis.

Turkey - which enjoys trade relations with Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Manama - has also built up a warm relationship with Doha in recent years, and now maintains an army base in the country.

Mr Erdogan met with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who repeated his governments stance that his country is open to dialogue so long as Qatar's sovereignty is respected. Doha has previously described a list of demands from its neighbours - including shuttering state-owned news outlet Al-Jazeera, cutting ties with Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, limiting ties with Iran and expelling Turkish troops - as unreasonable.

Turkey and Qatar announced plans to open Turkey's first military base in the Persian Gulf in 2015. The base opened last year, and new troops have arrived since the Gulf rift erupted, raising fears of an escalation with the countries seeking to isolate it.

Mr Erdogan appears to have had a cool reception in Jeddah upon his arrival on Sunday. Brief statements carried by Saudi state media said that talks with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had focussed on bilateral counter terrorism efforts.

The UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Relations, Anwar al-Gargash, reiterated last week that Qatar must review its policies because repeating its previous positions only "deepens the crisis".

News agencies contributed to this report
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At last, Saudi Arabia seems to be doing what it takes to reduce the world's most visible oil glut: the one in the US.

Unfortunately, its renewed vigour comes as Opec's deal to reduce excess crude stockpiles starts to show signs of unravelling elsewhere, a subject that will be wrestled with by the group's oil ministers as they and other producer nations meet in St Petersburg on Monday.

Data published last week by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that imports from Saudi Arabia in the week to 14 July fell to their lowest for seven years: just 524,000 barrels a day. For sure, one week's number doesn't mean much on its own, particularly when a single very large crude tanker could raise or lower that figure by half.

But this isn't an isolated figure. The EIA data show a clear drop in deliveries from Saudi Arabia since the start of June. The average rate of US imports from the desert kingdom over the past six weeks has dropped by 450,000 barrels a day, or 34 percent, compared with the first six weeks of the year.

Given that it averages six weeks for a tanker full of crude to travel from the Persian Gulf to the US, this drop in imports reflects a slowdown in Saudi shipments that began in mid-April, which shows up in Bloomberg tanker tracking data for the Kingdom. So Saudi Arabia is finally slashing exports to the US, even as shipments to other destinations  with less visible inventories  have been maintained, or even risen.

This is crucial, because the failure to drain US storage tanks has been a major factor in driving down oil prices. Exports to the US will drop measurably, Saudi oil minister Khalid Al-Falih said in May. The kingdom is now making good on that promise.

Preliminary tanker data must be treated carefully, though. Several ships show no final destination and could still end up in the US. Saudi crude usually moves across oceans in 1 million or 2 million barrel shipments, which means a pickup in flows to the US at the end of July could change the picture dramatically.

Anyway, one has to ask whether Riyadh's new resolve is too late as the Opec-brokered deal to remove about 1.8 million barrels a day from the world's supply is looking a little shakier. In June, Opec members' compliance with their agreed cuts fell to its lowest level since the deal came into effect (although 95 percent is still pretty good).

Ecuador has become the first Opec country to say openly that it can't afford to limit production. It may not be the last.

Iraq objected to cutting output amid a costly war with fundamentalist insurgents. It was pressured into accepting but has lagged its peers in implementation. In June it made just 28 percent of its agreed cut, according to secondary source data from Opec.

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

Meanwhile, output has soared from the two Opec members exempted from the cuts, something I warned about in this column. Libyan production this month will probably exceed 1 million barrels a day, almost twice April's level. Nigeria is making slower progress, but output there is rising too. Neither will accept a cut, though both might come under pressure to accept a cap slightly above current production levels  similar to Iran's compromise last year.

The Saudis have belatedly woken up to how oil traders react to a US that's visibly awash with crude. It will amount to very little unless they deal with their Africa problem.

Bloomberg
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It could almost be a scene from The Lion King. Four lionesses lie on the plain enjoying the last of the suns rays. Some cheeky jackals approach hoping for scraps, yelping like demented little dogs as they goad the lazy lions to hunt. Three curious hyenas slouch onto stage, all hunched shoulders and sly smiles flashing teeth that look too big for them. Can anyone tell me an interesting fact about the female spotted hyena? Clint asks. They have a false penis, comes the reply. The Lion King moment is over.

Its one of those facts that make guests on safari do a double take. Why would a female have a penis? Clint explains: they are the dominant sex in hyena society, have way too much testosterone and it is in fact an extended clitoris. Here endeth the lesson.

But theres plenty more where that came from. Were on the annual Pyramids of Life refresher course for the award-winning guides of Alex Walkers Serian Camps, boutique camps in Kenyas Maasai Mara and Serengeti in Tanzania.

Technically, this is a training camp for professionals; but now the course has been opened up to members of the public, too. And if youre looking for a different kind of safari, this is certainly it.

The point of Pyramids is to take the passivity out of what safaris have become  sitting in a jeep being driven from sighting to sighting, Walker tells me. We want guests to see through the eyes of a top guide, to open their minds to a lifetime of curiosity. Its an invitation to take time, to dive deeper.

Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Show all 10 1 /10 Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide One of the five month old cubs affectionately plays with mum Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide The guides pass a lone giraffe whilst on a field trek Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Two hyenas fight over the remains of a warthog Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Two male Impala graze on the dew soaked grass in the early morning light Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide A young female leopard rests in the undergrowth Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Impala grazing on the plains of Mara North Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Clint instructs Serian guides on their yearly refresher course Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide A dawn lesson with Clint Schipper at Serian Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Gladys, one of the Serian guides wearing a traditional Maasai shuka. Will Whitford Inside the safari that teaches you how to be a guide Giraffe at sunrise in Mara North Will Whitford

Most guide courses are classroom-based but this is our classroom, trainer Clint Schipper enthuses, sweeping his arms out to present the beauty and the beasts of Mara North conservancy where the luxury Original Serian Camp, our home for the next five days, is based. Its an immersive course. We spend all our time in the bush, let situations evolve and learn from them. Primarily Pyramids is a guiding experience but its good to have guests along. They dont have to be safari experts; they just need an interest in all wildlife, not simply the Big Five.

Serians guides have mixed skillsets. The older ones may not speak perfect English, but the bush is in their blood. Younger ones  mostly graduates of the respected Koiyaki Guiding School for Maasai in nearby Naboisho Conservancy  speak excellent English, but might have less bush experience. Unusually, some are women, defying male dominance in both their profession and their culture. Yet they all share a tangible passion for wildlife, with old school and new teaching and learning from each other.

Walker is right  theres no passivity here. We spot elephants in the distance but instead of rushing towards them, study their poo up close, learning the difference between elephants and hippos droppings: elephants have sticks in theirs, hippos eat only grass.

We watch a striking female leopard calmly spraying the trees to attract nearby males. And then we see a gripping Circle of Life scenario starring lions and buffalos. Introduce the sighting to guests, Clint suggests to our guides. Then just be quiet while they take it in.

There are plenty of wildlife sightings, but its not all about the sightings (Will Whitford)

We watch. Hidden in a bush are three five-week old cubs and their mum, lying absolutely silent. Four huge bulls caked in mud walk towards them. If they see the cubs they will kill them, Clint explains, driven by a protective instinct for their own future. Lets just sit and see what happens, he whispers. Maybe nothing will happen. Or it could be a once-in-a-lifetime sighting.

We wait in our two Land Cruisers: Clint, 10 guides, my partner and me, none of us uttering a word. One by one, the buffalos amble past the bush, unaware of the predators until the last bull pauses and peers straight in the lions direction. I hold my breath, not wanting to look but feeling compelled, until eventually the bull moves quietly on. Those little cubs came within three metres of losing their lives, says Clint, as we breathe again.

But its not all about the obvious sightings. Im not particularly interested in birds, but Clints enthusiasm is contagious as he pours out facts. The greater honeybird will lead people to beehives by singing, hoping for beeswax as its reward. Only five of Africas 15 kingfishers actually eat fish. The tiny (10cm) pied wheatear will fly non-stop across the entire Sahara on its 6,000-mile journey from Norway to Kenya. My disinterest turns to fascination.

Our walks are short in distance but long in duration, although time becomes irrelevant as we constantly stop to study insects, rocks, flowers and trees, frogs and damselflies, butterflies, poo and paw prints. On foot we spot hippos, a new-born giraffe and a lone hartebeest, but were mesmerised by an army of Matabele ants marching on a mission to massacre termites. This is a nature walk like no other  a never-ending fusion of scientific knowledge and bush wisdom.

On night drives, we dip into astronomy, finding constellations in inky-black skies as the nocturnal wildlife awakes. We learn about weird creatures like the bubbling kassina, a frog with a distinctive bubble-popping call, and the zorilla that looks like a mongoose crossed with a skunk. Lions prowl silently past our vehicle searching for supper as a tiny bushbaby, all eyes and ears, scurries away.

Sue saw flocks of impala with the guides (Will Whitford)

The following morning, we leave camp before sunrise to experience the dawn chorus. The idea is just to sit here in the dark with your guests, Clint whispers to his students. Lets listen to the waking of the day. We experience this every day and we know how wonderful it is. Imagine if youd never heard it before.

On cue the birds start performing. Songsters like the nightjar, rufous-naped lark, ring-necked dove, striped kingfisher, guinea fowl and African cuckoo take turns to chime in until the birdsong builds to a beautiful crescendo. The cow-like smell of buffalos wafts our way. Impalas dainty hooves trot past our vehicle. In the dark, a hyena laughs, a lion roars, a jackal yelps. This is what Pyramids of Life is all about. As dawn breaks, the Lion King moment is back.

Travel essentials

Getting there

Aardvark Safaris offers a seven-night Pyramids of Life trip from 4,765pp including international and internal flights, transfers, conservancy fees, six nights full board accommodation at Alex Walkers Serian and one night full board at Ololo Lodge in Nairobi National Park.

More information

British nationals require a visa to enter Kenya, available online at evisa.go.ke or on arrival at port of entry costing $51, or from Kenya High Commission in London costing 30.

magicalkenya.com
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Europes biggest budget airline has warned it could move its planes out of the UK if no post-Brexit aviation deal is reached by next year.

Ryanair has almost 90 aircraft based at British airports, and flies them to dozens of European destinations under the EU Open Skies agreement.

Announcing its first quarter results, the Irish airline warned: There may not be sufficient time, or goodwill on both sides, to negotiate a timely replacement bilateral.

If we do not have certainty about the legal basis for the operation of flights between the UK and the EU by autumn 2018, we may be forced to cancel flights and move some, or all, of our UK based aircraft to Continental Europe from April 19 onwards.

Recommended easyJet ramps up profit forecast after posting strong results

Ryanair campaigned strongly for a Remain vote in the EU referendum.

The airline announced profits after tax of 370m (332m) for April, May and June this year  up 55 per cent on the same spell last year.

Passenger numbers increased by 12 per cent to 35 million, but the total fuel bill actually fell due to the lower oil price.

Only seven or eight seats on the average 189-seat flight are empty; the airline reported a record load factor of 96 per cent.

Ryanair made a profit of over 10 for each passenger it flew, compared with 7.30 a year earlier. But the airline warned investors that earnings were flattered by Easter falling in April 2017; last year it was in March.

Offsetting this gain was weaker sterling and lower revenue from checked luggage, as passengers took advantage of recently relaxed rules that now allow two bags per person.

Ryanair also cut fares for yield stimulation in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London.

The airlines forecast for average fares is unchanged: a decline of 5 per cent between April and September 2017, and an 8 per cent decline between October 2017 and March 2018.

On Thursday easyJet upgraded its profits forecast after showing a strong improvement in revenue per seat.

According to the Irish Independent, Aer Lingus has warned that it may not be able to continue to charge higher fares than its giant rival, Ryanair.

The Irish flag-carrier has made a confidential submission to the Labour Court in Dublin as it seeks to counter a trade union demand for a 5 per cent pay rise in each of the next three years.

Aer Lingus said Ryanairs Always Getting Better campaign is proving successful in changing perceptions of its brand but also putting more pressure on Aer Lingus in terms of justifying the premium it charges.

It added: Ryanair's cost base is less than half the level of Aer Lingus.

The airline is part of the IAG conglomerate, and a sister airline to British Airways.
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In light of news reports that President Donald Trump's team is scouring the record for conflicts of interest on special counsel Robert Mueller's team (the essence of chutzpah) and contemplating pardons (of aides and/or himself), it is worth considering how this may all play out.

We offer several scenarios:

1. Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions quits, as does Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. Eventually someone agrees to fire Mueller. Republicans either will not pursue impeachment or are obliged to begin impeachment hearings but refuse to vote out articles of impeachment. In 2018, Democrats sweep to victory in the House and gain a seat or two in the Senate. Trump cannot be removed (two-thirds of the Senate is required for removal), but his presidency is in tatters. Some aides or ex-aides face criminal prosecution. LESSON: Republicans' failure to stand up to Trump early dooms his presidency and crashes the GOP.

2. Trump orders Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Mueller. Sessions quits, as does Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and Associate Attorney General Brand. Eventually someone agrees to fire Mueller. Republicans, together with Democrats, pass by a veto-proof majority an independent prosecutor statute. Before impeachment proceedings can finish, Democrats sweep to victory in 2018 in the House and gain a seat or two in the Senate. Trump cannot be removed, but his presidency is in tatters. Some aides or ex-aides face criminal prosecution. LESSON: Fire Mueller, and Congress will hire him back.

 Trump has power to pardon himself, claims his lawyer

3. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller remains and keeps digging. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents; Trump refuses to comply. A court orders him to comply. He doesn't. We have a full-blown constitutional crisis. LESSON: Congress cannot delegate all responsibility to Mueller. It must conduct a parallel investigation and, if need be, commence impeachment proceedings.

4. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller remains and keeps digging. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents; Trump refuses to comply. A court orders him to comply. He declares this a witch hunt, an attack on his family (or whatever). Then he resigns, claiming he has already made America great. He tells the country that Vice President Mike Pence will carry on in his place. LESSON: Congress must protect Mueller and preserve the possibility that Trump may be forced to resign.

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

5. Republicans join Democrats in warning Trump not to fire Mueller. Mueller subpoenas damaging documents. Trump complies. The evidence of collusion and/or obstruction is overwhelming. Mueller recommends prosecution or impeachment. The GOP turns on Trump, who is impeached and removed (with the GOP by that time possibly in the minority in one or both houses). LESSON: Congress must protect Mueller and pay the price for failure to oppose Trump's nomination and election.

Is there a sixth scenario in which Mueller exonerates Trump? That's the least likely outcome after Trump has fired former FBI director James Comey and threatened the special counsel. Why would he do those things unless there was something really, really bad to find? And if there is something bad, Mueller will find it. You can understand then why Trump sounds frantic. In no scenario does Trump's presidency recover.

The Washington Post
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After a sweeping Syrian military advance to the edge of the besieged Isis capital of Raqqa, the Russians, the Syrian army and Kurds of the YPG militia  theoretically allied to the US  have set up a secret coordination centre in the desert of eastern Syria to prevent mistakes between the Russian-backed and American-supported forces now facing each other across the Euphrates river.

The proof could be found this week in a desert village of mud-walled huts and stifling heat  it was 48 degrees  where I sat on the floor of an ill-painted villa with a Russian air force colonel in camouflage uniform, a young officer of the Kurdish militia  with a YPG (Kurdish Peoples Militia) patch on his sleeve  and a group of Syrian officers and local Syrian tribal militiamen.

Their presence showed clearly that despite belligerent Western  especially American  claims that Syrian forces are interfering with the Allied campaign against Isis, both sides are in reality going to enormous lengths to avoid confrontation. Russian Colonel Yevgeni, thin and close-shaven with a dark moustache, smiled politely but refused to talk to me  The Independent being the first western news media to visit the tiny village near Resafeh  but his young Kurdish opposite number, who asked me not to disclose his name, insisted that all of us are fighting in one campaign against Daesh [Isis], and that is why we have this centre  and to avoid mistakes. Colonel Yevgeni nodded approvingly at this description but maintained his silence  a wise man, I thought  for he must be the easternmost Russian officer in Syria, only a few miles from the Euphrates river.

The 24-year-old Kurdish YPG representative, a veteran of the Isis siege of Kobani on the Turkish border, said that just over two weeks ago  after the latest Syrian offensive took Isis forces west of Raqqa by surprise  a Russian air strike had mistakenly targeted a Kurdish position. That is why we set up our centre here 10 days ago, he said. We talk everyday and we already have another centre at Afrin to coordinate the campaign. We have to make one force that fights together. The presence of these men at this remote desert outpost shows just how seriously Moscow views the strategy of the Syrian war and the need to monitor the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces who are already inside Raqqa with the support of US air strikes.

The SDF  which has nothing democratic about it except perhaps its pay scales  is regarded with deep suspicion by the Turks, who will be enraged to learn of the Syrian-Kurdish cooperation, even though both Ankara and Damascus are both ferociously opposed to the creation of a future Kurdish state. But, however tenuous the new YPG-Russian-Syrian connections may be, they demonstrate that all sides are determined to avoid any military confrontation between Moscow and Washington.

There was more than a whiff of TE Lawrence about the self-confidence of these few men amid the dust and sand which covered most of us the moment we stepped outside their office. Around us on the desert floor lay hundreds of bombed or abandoned Isis oil wells  amateurishly built iron barrels and concrete platforms from which Isis extracted the oil to finance their caliphate, which once stretched from here all the way to Mosul. The YPG officer insisted that the location of the Russian-Syrian-Kurdish centre had no connection to the vast Syrian oil fields around us, but evidence of recent Russian and American attacks on the Isis constructions was everywhere.

Burned-out oil tankers, trucks and even some exploded Syrian tanks  presumably victims of Isis  lay across the desert. One trail of tankers  much like those angrily described by Vladimir Putin almost two years ago, taking oil exports to sell in Turkey  stood carbonised beside the road. Even a lorry carrying potatoes had been blitzed apart. There was no sign of bodies but the Syrian army had with some sense of irony left the original black and white Isis sign standing on the main road from Homs, welcoming visitors to the Isis Caliphate-Province of Raqqa.

Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Show all 12 1 /12 Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War A man crosses a street in Aleppo, December 12, 2009 Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War A vendor sits inside an antique shop in al-Jdeideh neighbourhood, in the Old City of Aleppo, December 12, 2009 Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War A view shows part of Aleppo's historic citadel, overlooking Aleppo city, Syria Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War A view shows part of Aleppo's historic citadel, Syria Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Visitors walk inside Aleppo's Umayyad mosque, Syria Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War People walk inside the Khan al-Shounah market, in the Old City of Aleppo, Syria Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War A man walks past shops in al-Jdeideh neighbourhood, in the Old City of Aleppo, Syria Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War People walk along an alley in al-Jdeideh neighbourhood, in the Old City of Aleppo, Syria Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Visitors tour Aleppo's historic citadel, Syria December 11, 2009 Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War A general view shows the Old City of Aleppo as seen from Aleppo's historic citadel, Syria December 11, 2009 Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War People walk near Aleppo's Bab al-Faraj Clock Tower, Syria October 6, 2010 Reuters Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War Aleppo before the Syrian Civil War A man stands inside Aleppo's historic citadel, overlooking Aleppo city, Syria December 11, 2009 Reuters

Syrias forward units of Russian-made tanks and infantry armour now cluster not far from the Roman and Umayad city of Resafeh, whose massive walls and stone towers still stand  untouched by Isiss two years of culturecide, perhaps because their carvings display no human or animal images. Thousands of camels were being herded past the great and crumbling city of the ancient Calipha Umaya bin Hisham Abdul-Malik in a smog of dust which drifted over military hardware and soldiers alike. Resafeh was the Roman city of Sergiopolis, named after a Christian Roman centurion who was tortured and put to death for his religion  not unlike Isiss own Christian victims in the deserts here three years ago.

The highway east from Homs was expected to have been the route of the Syrian attack this month. Hence the vast earth berms and defensive sand walls erected by Isis along the length of the road. But for Isis, the now-infamous Syrian army tactic of assaulting its enemies from the rear and flank drove the caliphate from hundreds of square miles of land west of the Euphrates.

General Saleh, the one-legged commander of the Syrian division on the Euphrates  who has adapted this policy many times, along with his fellow officer and friend, Colonel Tiger Suheil  says that his forces could, if he wished, be in the centre of Raqqa within five hours if we decided to do that. He described how his men had first driven al-Qaeda and Isis from the Sheikh Najjar industrial city outside Aleppo back to the Assad lake, how they had protected the water supply to the city at great loss to their own forces, how they had moved east from the Koyeress airbase to capture Deir Hafer and Meskane and other towns in the Aleppo countryside  and then suddenly surged south east, south of the Euphrates towards Raqqa.

Our forces are now seven miles from the Euphrates between Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour, 14 miles from the centre of Raqqa and 10 miles from the old Thabqa airbase, the general almost shouted. How many Daesh did we kill? I dont care. I am not interested. Daesh, Nusrah, al-Qaeda, they are all terrorists. Their deaths do not matter. Its war.

But, I suggested to General Saleh  because I had been studying my sand-blasted maps and had listened to many a military lecture in Damascus of late  surely his next target would be not Raqqa (already partly invested by American-backed forces) but the huge surrounded Syrian garrison city of Deir ez-Zour with its thousands of trapped civilians.

Our President has said we will recover every square inch of Syria, the general replied, repeating the mantra of all Syrian officers of the regime. Why do you say Deir ez-Zour? Because, I said, that would release the 10,000 Syrian soldiers in the city to fight on the war front. There was just a hint of a grin on the officers face, but then it faded. In fact, I dont think the Syrians will get involved with the American-supported force fighting for Raqqa  that, after all, was the point of the little coordination centre I saw in the desert  but I do believe the Syrian army are heading for Deir ez-Zour. As for the general, of course, he was saying nothing about this. Nor, obviously, did he believe in body counts.

There is, in reality, another intriguing tactic being deployed by the Syrian administration. The local Rif Raqqa governor  rif indicates the countryside around a city, not to be confused with the town itself  is now setting up headquarters near General Salehs caravan. Its a real campaign caravan, by the way, which rocks when you step aboard, his office and bedroom combined in one small room, his black walking stick by the bed-head. The local governor, however, is scarcely a mile away, planning the restoration of water and electricity supplies, the financing of public works and relief for refugees.

When I left the area, 29 families  cartloads of children and black-shrouded women and upturned sofas  had just arrived in Rasafeh from Deir ez-Zour to seek the Raqqa governors assistance. Another 50 had arrived the previous day. It seemed perfectly obvious that if the Syrian army lets Americas largely Kurdish friends occupy Raqqa, it is going to help the Syrian government civilian administration take over the city by the force of bureaucracy. How would that be for a bloodless victory?

But military self-confidence is often the handmaiden of misadventure. The highway that forms the tip of the Homs-Aleppo triangle has now been extended 60 miles to Resafeh, and General Saleh makes no secret that Isis and its fellow cultists return across the desert after dark to attack his soldiers. These men  many of whom are teenagers  are billeted in tent encampments beside the road, protected by tanks and anti-aircraft guns. And their battles are constant, Isis still placing IED bombs beside the highway today. When I later travelled across the desert to Homs, I followed for some time a truck carrying a 155mm artillery piece so overused that its barrel had split apart.

Yet already, Syrian engineers are restoring electricity capacity from the desert generating stations which have only recently been hideouts for Isis leaders, a power system intimately connected to the Syrian oil fields, slowly being recovered from the Isis enemy, which remain  modest though they are in comparison with the great Gulf, Iraqi and Iranian oil resources  Syrias pearl in the desert. Who controls these wealth machines  how their product will be shared now it has been freed from the Isis mafia  will determine part of Syrias future political history.
A French court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether a former journalist can stand trial in his absence for the 1996 murder of a filmmaker in Ireland.

Authorities in Paris have failed twice to extradite Ian Bailey over the death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, with the Irish High Court branding the latest attempt an "abuse of process".

The 39-year-old's badly beaten body was found on an isolated hillside in Toormore, near Schull, west Cork, two days before Christmas in 1996.

Under French law, investigators can look into the death of one of their citizens overseas and seek a prosecution.

Originally from England but living in west Cork since the mid 1990s, Mr Bailey was twice arrested in Ireland in connection with the murder but never charged. He vehemently denies any involvement in the death. Ireland's Director of Public Prosecutions decided that he should not be prosecuted.

After Judge Tony Hunt refused to order his extradition, Mr Bailey, 60, from The Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, said he expected the decision to be appealed. He said he had no indication of legal developments in France but expressed sympathy with Ms Toscan du Plantier's family.

"I know they believe, for whatever reasons, that I had something to do with the death of their daughter and I'm very sympathetic. But I had nothing to do with it," he said.

"It would be good from my point of view if a new piece of evidence came to light or somebody admitted the truth, but I don't suppose that's going to happen."

Last year in Paris, an indictment of voluntary homicide was issued by the investigating magistrate, Nathalie Turquey, against Mr Bailey and a European Arrest Warrant was sent to Irish authorities. The penalty for the offence is up to 30 years in jail.

A n appeal was lodged by lawyers acting for Mr Bailey in France and a ruling on the indictment is expected in the Paris Court of Appeal in the next few weeks. It is understood that will determine if Mr Bailey can be put on trial in his absence.

The Association for the Truth about the Murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier (Assoph) - founded by the dead woman's family to campaign over her murder - said the latest failed extradition bid was expected.

Spokesman Jean Antoine Bloc said: "We have been waiting for 20 years for justice and we are no longer expecting anything more from Ireland."

The first application to extradite Mr Bailey was refused by the Supreme Court in Dublin in 2012. Judge Hunt found that decision should block any new application.

He also criticised the second attempt to extradite Mr Bailey when the DPP had decided that he should not face charges.

"(The application) is also refused because, in the unique circumstances of this case, further proceedings seeking surrender on the fresh warrant constitute an abuse of process," the judge said.

Mr Bailey has not worked as a journalist for many years. He is currently trying to sell a collection of poems he has compiled.

He lost a marathon lawsuit against the Irish state over the handling of the Ms Toscan du Plantier murder investigation and a claim that detectives had tried to frame him. A decision on an appeal in that case is expected this Wednesday.

Mr Bailey has also suggested that he should be put on trial in connection with the murder in Ireland.

Ms Toscan du Plantier was married to the late Daniel Toscan du Plantier, a major player in French cinema who had close contacts with the upper echelons of government in Paris. Her son Pierre-Louis Baudey-Vignaud, who was 14 when she was murdered, has told RTE that he wants to see Mr Bailey on trial.

"I am confident that we will get the answer. I'm not sure if it will be tomorrow, in one month, in one year, in 10 years. But I must get the answer for my grandparents before they die," he said.

"I'm 35 and I will wait for justice to be done and justice will be done one day, for sure."

Mr Bailey, who moved to Ireland from Cheltenham, admitted during the failed lawsuit to beating his partner Jules Thomas three times.

The fallout from the case was not limited to the exposure of Mr Bailey's domestic violence, cannabis use and heavy drinking or assessments by Ireland's senior law officers that gardai botched the initial investigation.

As part of disclosures in the lawsuit, it emerged that phone calls at Garda stations countrywide were recorded for years without the public's knowledge.

The courtroom defeat in his bid for damages was the second Mr Bailey suffered after he lost libel actions in 2003 against several newspapers over their reporting of the murder investigation and naming him as a suspect.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has expressed concerns over the slow progress of the introduction of measures to protect sexual violence victims

The United Nations has been urged to put pressure on the Government to provide greater protection for sex abuse victims.

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) has asked the UN to investigate the Government's slow progress in introducing measures to protect victims of sexual violence.

A government delegation, led by Minister of State for Equality, Immigration and Integration, David Stanton, is due to attend a UN hearing in Geneva later this week.

Ahead of the meeting the Rape Crisis Centre has submitted a number of concerns to the UN Committee Against Torture.

The concerns include the slow roll out of Garda Protective Services Units specialising in investigating sexual crimes, the lack of special protection for victims in court and the absence of sufficient training for lawyers and law enforcement personnel, the centre said.

In its submission to the UN Committee the NGO also raised concern about low reporting rates, despite evidence of the widespread prevalence of sexual violence in the country.

The last comprehensive study in this area was published in 2002 and found that 42% of women had experienced some form of sexual abuse in their lifetime and that only 10% of sexual offences were reported.

Chief executive of Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Noeline Blackwell, said that the legal system should take special care of the victims of sexual violence.

"They are almost unique in the justice system because they have two roles: they are the victim of the crime, and the main person to give evidence in most cases," she added.

The report to the UN is critical of the lack of reliable data about sexual offences in Ireland. Ms Blackwell said: "If the data isn't reliable and comprehensive, how can the state know that it's taking the right actions to reduce and prevent sexual crime?"

She called for an in-depth study into sex abuse in Ireland, as well as better co-ordination of statistics gathered by state agencies.

Support services for sexual violence and domestic violence were hit with funding cuts from 2008 to 2015.

DRCC warned that this has led to a cut in rape crisis personnel and services.

"State-allocated funding of 19.5 million euro (17.5m) in 2015 and 20.6 million euro (18.5m) in 2016 remains inadequate to provide support for 60 separate services of which 46 are domestic violence services and 16 sexual violence / rape crisis services around the country.

"This is detrimental to those who rely on the services provided by the DRCC and other rape crisis centres, limiting victims' access to affordable, adequate and timely support and care," DRCC said in its submission to the UN.
The Central Bank is to take on an extra 36 staff to focus on Brexit-related work.

The Central Bank Commission signed off on the new hires at its latest meeting last month, with recruitment due to take place on a phased basis.

The Central Bank last year approved an increase in its complement for 2017 to bring it up to a total of 1,800 staff, including an additional 28 staff to address specific Brexit-related new business needs within existing divisions.

Of these 28 staff, 18 have been allocated to supervisory divisions to address specific Brexit-related new business needs within existing divisions, while the remaining 10 have been allocated to the Central Banking pillar.

The hiring for the extra 36 staff has already begun.

"At its recent June meeting, the Central Bank Commission approved an additional 36 resources, principally to support increases in Brexit-related authorisation/supervisory activity, as well as to support extensions to the post-crisis regulatory framework," a spokesman for the Central Bank said.

"Resources will be deployed across both Financial Regulation and Central Banking. Recruitment is planned to be undertaken on a phased basis, with the hiring process already commenced for some of the roles."

Dublin is a contender for Brexit-related financial services wins, and has been competing with other EU capitals including Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels and Luxembourg.

Bank of America announced on Friday that it has chosen Dublin as its preferred location for its post-Brexit EU entity, in a big-name win for the Government in its hope of attracting Brexit spoils from the City of London. Other wins have included insurer Legal & General.

The IDA said last month that Ireland would win investment from more than a dozen London-based banks. But questions have also been asked about the decisions by some big-name insurers to go to other European locations after AIG, Lloyds and Standard Chartered revealed their plans.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the Irish Independent show the Central Bank had earlier this year considered appointing an authorisations manager to manage requests from firms looking to relocate here on foot of Brexit.

It is understood that did not go ahead, however.

A Brexit resources paper, drawn up by Ed Sibley in March, then director of credit institutions and now announced as the new deputy governor, said that the banking supervision division was planning to establish a dedicated authorisation function within the banking, analytics supervision division.

"Given the size, complexity and impact of the authorisation activity and undertaking a comparison of similar roles in other areas of the Central Bank, we are seeking approval for the creation of an authorisations manager role to manage this activity and ensure we are delivering to our mandate and strategic objectives," he wrote.

Documents also show that the chair of the Central Bank's Brexit task force, Mark Cassidy, who also serves as head of financial stability, floated the idea that a single Central Bank email address be rolled out to deal with Brexit enquiries.

In an email to then deputy governors Sharon Donnery and Cyril Roux, he said the proposal had been suggested to him, and that he believed it was in some respects a good idea. But he added: "A potential risk might be that it created an erroneous impression that we were 'touting' for business in some way."

Mr Sibley said he believed it wasn't necessary or workable, and that it would be "easily open to misinterpretation".

Responding to Mr Cassidy, Mr Roux said the bank was making changes to the bank's website to highlight information related to its authorisation process.
Speciality managing general agent Nexus Group has announced the opening of their new office in Cork following the establishment a branch in Ireland in 2016.

Founded in 2008, Nexus specialises in niche classes of business, underwriting 15 speciality products on behalf of 23 different underwriting partners within lines of business which include financial lines, accident and health, property, marine, and cyber insurance.

Nexus in Ireland is headed by Stephen Comerford who specialises in securing surety solutions for builders, developers and licensed service contractors.

Read more: Bank of America chooses Dublin for post-Brexit EU operations

Mr Comerford described the timing of the expansion in the Irish market as "significant" with the construction sector set to recover and increase by 20pc in 2017.

"By specialising in performance bonds, advance payment bonds and duty deferment bonds, with ability to develop other products such as professional indemnity that are already part of the Nexus offering, we are able deliver timely and significant support to contractors to enable them to secure tender contracts," Mr Comerford said.

Mr Comerford went on to say that the Irish branch of Nexus could provide the company with a formal presence in Ireland for Freedom of Services insurers whereby it can act as local Process Agent to Irish beneficiaries who require that service.

In 2015 Nexus acquired EBA Insurance Services which enabled the company to offer an extended insurance product range that included surety, latent defects, construction and casualty throughout Europe.

Read more: Chubb Insurance considering Dublin as its European hub

The news comes after Bank of America announced last week that it has chosen Dublin as its preferred location for its post-Brexit EU entity.

Chubb Insurance and Equitable Life have both said that they are considering setting up a EU subsidiary in Dublin in the wake of Brexit.
The Brexit fallout is hitting Irish tourism hard, with UK visitor numbers down 7pc in the first five months of the year. Ireland's largest indigenous employer, which provides almost 230,000 jobs and generates 4.6bn in overseas revenue, finds itself in the frontline as UK visitors stay at home.

Last week Kevin Toland, the outgoing chief executive of the Dublin Airport Authority, sounded the alarm. He told the European Parliament's Tourism and Transport Committee that the number of UK passengers flying through Dublin Airport had been "falling like a stone" in recent months.

With 27.8 million passengers in 2016, almost 85pc of the total, Dublin Airport is a key indicator of the health of the Irish tourist industry. As Toland explained to MEPs last week, Ireland's major airports are heavily reliant on UK business with 39pc of the DAA's passengers originating in the UK - 36pc of Dublin Airport's and 58pc of Cork's.

According to Toland, UK passenger numbers were down 6.8pc at the DAA's airports in the first five months of 2017, almost exactly in line with the overall drop in UK visitor numbers.

A British visitor planning an Irish holiday would have received 1.43 for his or her pound in July 2015. By this week they would have received just 1.12. This means that, for a UK visitor, the price of a 1,000 Irish holiday has risen by 27.5pc, from 700 to 893, in the space of just two years.

Holidaying in Ireland, never particularly cheap, has just got much more expensive for UK visitors. With over 3.9 million British visitors in 2016 - almost 41pc of all overseas visitors to this country - the UK is a key market for Irish tourism.

While other European tourist destinations have also felt the impact of weaker sterling, Ireland's seems to have suffered disproportionately. While overseas trips by UK visitors were up by 3pc in the first four months of 2017, trips to Ireland were down by 8pc.

A report on the impact of Brexit on Irish tourism published earlier this month by the sector's lobby group, the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) observed: "Ireland is losing share of UK outbound travel.

"We are very much of the view that Brexit is the biggest challenge to Irish tourism since the global financial crash of 2008," says ITIC chief executive Eoghan O'Mara Walsh.

While the 7pc drop in UK visitor numbers in the first five months of the year is bad enough, even those who do make the trip from the across the water seem to be spending less. The latest data from the CSO, which covers the first quarter - the quietest quarter of the year - of 2017, shows an 8pc drop in spending by UK visitors.

Since then the drop in spending has gathered pace with many UK visitors either trading down to cheaper accommodation and/or cutting back on the length of their stay in Ireland. This has resulted in downward pressure on yields for both hotels and airlines catering to UK travellers. Dublin restaurants are also feeling the pinch with "early bird" and other cut-price menus making a reappearance in an effort to entice cash-strapped tourists.

Of course, it's not all bad news for Irish tourism. While the number of UK visitors has fallen in the wake of the UK's Brexit vote, traffic from other markets has continued to increase. American business is booming with the number of visitors from North American jumping by 23pc to 663,000 in the first five months of 2017. Other markets also performed strongly with the number of non-UK European visitors up 4pc to 1.26 million and the number of from the rest of the world up nearly 22pc to 213,000.

Non-UK visitors also tend to spend more. While 41pc of our overseas visitors came from the UK in 2016, those visitors generated a far lower proportionate share of overseas tourist revenue, about 1.48bn or about 30pc of the total.

Pat McCann, chief executive of Ireland's largest hotel operator Dalata, points out that while UK visitors account for almost 41pc of all arrivals they make up less than 25pc of hotel guests. This is because many UK visitors either don't stay overnight or else stay with friends and relatives.

The strong growth in visitors from other countries means that the fall-off in UK visitor numbers hasn't resulted in a full-blown crisis for the tourist industry similar to what happened following the 2008 crash, when the number of overseas visitors collapsed from over eight million in 2007 to just six million in 2010, a fall of 25pc in just three years.

In fact the overall number of overseas visitors to Ireland was up another 3pc to 3.57 million in the first five months of 2017. However, overall overseas tourist revenue was down by 1.3pc to 684m in the first quarter of the year.

That's the good news. The bad news is that, with sterling so weak, the UK has been far more successful at attracting overseas visitors with numbers up a massive 11pc in the first four months of 2017.

The UK's success in growing overseas visitor numbers so strongly almost certainly comes partly at Ireland's expense. If sterling weren't so weak would some of these visitors have chosen Ireland instead?

O'Mara Walsh contends that, notwithstanding the continuing growth in visitor numbers from other countries, Irish tourism has a "Brexit problem". And it's not just visitor numbers. What happens to flights between Ireland and the UK after Brexit when Britain will also leave single aviation market? Will the common travel area between the two countries survive?

He estimates that Brexit will cost Irish tourism 100m in 2017 and is calling on the Government to stump up 12m to fund a campaign to raise awareness of Ireland in the UK. While this might help treat the short-term symptoms, coping with a botched Brexit could end up costing Irish tourism far more.
A tax break for farmers to help drive renewable energy projects is one of the key proposals in the IFA's pre-budget submission.

The association has called for the Government to classify land used for solar panels as a qualifying asset for Capital Acquisitions tax relief.

IFA economist Rowena Dwyer said there must be supports put in place to incentivise farm-level renewables rather than "large industrial scale" developments.

"There is a very important social and rural economic dividend to encouraging on farm investment in renewable energy and not just maybe farmers being passive in this area," she said.

Martin Stapleton, chair of the IFA's farm business committe, said there is significant scope for Irish farmers to help the country meet the renewable energy commitments.

He said solar panel developers could be given priority grid access if they returned a share of their profits to the host communities.

Low-interest loans

The IFA proposal comes as a 34,000sqm Co Clare solar farm which could generate enough power to supply 2,000 homes was the latest to gain planning permission.

The wide-ranging Budget submssion also seeks a low-interest loan scheme of up to 500m, a 50/cow rise in the BDGP scheme and an extra 5/ewe in the sheep scheme.

Other tax measures sought include reducing the VAT on animal medicines and extending income averaging to instances where the farmer or their partner has additional off-farm income.

An increase in funding for the Fair Deal nursing home scheme to change the way farms and other small business assets are treated has also been sought.
An Irish company exported one of the largest breeds of cattle from Italy to Dubai today.

The Chianina is an Italian breed of cattle and is one of the largest members of the bovine family, weighing 1.7 tonnes.

David Clarke Livestock based in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, transported Angelino the bull and three heifers from Italy to Dubai today. David told FarmIreland that the animals are renowned for their large frame and are consumed in Italy.

David, who runs a livestock trading company, www.cows.ie said: A lot of the time theyre considered out of date because they take a long time to mature but theyre a prized and premium meat in Italy.

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He added that the animals had gone the royal route as they had been sold to a wealthy individual in Dubai for an exceptional amount of money.

They cost tens of thousands to buy. The buyer in Dubai is very wealthy and I think they were looking for something different on their farm as theyre very big in the farming world and are hugely involved in the bloodstock industry, explained David.

The animals will be bred on the farm in Dubai and David hopes to send over other varieties of cattle to the same individual in the future.
Consumers have been warned to be aware of financial fraudsters as an unauthorised firm has cloned the details of an Irish registered company.

The Central Bank have discovered that Baradero Global Transfer Limited (www.baraderoglotrans.tk) has been operating as a payment institution and/or as a money transmission business here without appropriate authorisation.

According to the bank, this unauthorised firm cloned the details of a company called Baradero Limited, a company registered with the Irish Companies Registration Office (CRO) which does not deal in financial services.

"It should be noted that there is no connection whatsoever between Baradero Limited, which is a company registered with the CRO and the unauthorised entity Baradero Global Transfer Limited (www.baraderoglotrans.tk) that has cloned its details," read a Central Bank statement.

Meanwhile, Park Projects Investments Limited (www.parkprinvest.eu.pn), has been operating as a retail credit firm without authorisation, cloning the details (name and Irish registered address) of a company called Park Projects Investments Limited.

"Fraudsters are increasingly using legitimate firms details to add an air of legitimacy to their fraud. The fraudsters will 'borrow' all of the legitimate information of an authorised/legitimate firm for the purpose of this fraud.

"They may quote authorisation numbers/company registration numbers and links to seemingly legitimate websites and even provide the real address of an authorised/legitimate firm."

The Central Bank said that it is a criminal offence for an unauthorised firm to provide financial services in Ireland and has advised consumers should be aware that, if they deal with a firm which is not authorised, they are not eligible for compensation from the Investor Compensation Scheme.

Consumers have also been advised to check the Central Bank's register to verify a firms details and to call the firm back directly using its advertised phone number.
London based private equity firm Mayfair Equity Partners (MEP) has snapped up two more Irish investments, less than a week after backing a 20m acquisition of Irish Welcome Tours.

MEP said it has bought a majority stake in Donegal based Promise Gluten Free, an Irish speciality baker established in 2011 and separately has invested growth capital in tech investor Dylan Collins led SuperAwesome, a technology led business that provides compliance-driven digital media technology to online TV brands aimed at under 13s  a highly regulated segment of the online market.

The latest investments come less than a week after MEP portfolio company Hotels & More agreed a deal to buy Irish rival Irish Welcome Tours, in a bolt on deal understood to have been valued at 20m.

That deal was MEPs first Irish investment. The firms other investments include the YoSushi Japanese casual dining chain, bought in an 80m (90m) deal in 2015.

Read More

Promise Gluten Free, based in Donegal is a group of companies comprising Aran Ard Teoranta (trading as Gallaghers Bakery) and Cuisine Royale Manufacturing. It sells in Ireland, the UK, US and Australia under its retail brands: Promise Gluten Free and PureBred Gluten Free.

Its products are stocked by retailers including Costco, M&S, Tesco, Sainsburys, ShopRite, Sobeys, SuperValu, Dunnes Stores, Spar and Woolworths.

Mayfair was advised on the Promise deal by Spayne Lindsay.

In an unrelated deal, MEP said it has invested growth capital into Dylan Collin led SuperAwesome, a technology company which helps brands provide online TV services to the under 13 age group, without falling afoul of online safety and compliance standards.

Mayfair said its investment will facilitate SuperAwesomes growth, including the entry into new markets and the development of new client solutions.
Profits after tax at low-cost airline Ryanair grew by 55pc in the three months to 30 June 2017 boosted by the timing of Easter and increased traffic growth, according to the latest results from the company.

Profits for the three month period were 397m, up from 256m in the same period in 2016, however the figures are not fairly comparative as there was no significant holiday period in the three months to 30 June 2016.

Revenue at the airline was 1.9bn in the three month period, up 13pc on the same period in 2016.

Passenger numbers at the airline grew by 12pc to 35 million, while the airlines load factor  that is the percentage of seats that are filled by passengers  grew to a record 96pc.

Read more: 'Rubbish, didn't happen' - Michael O'Leary on reports girl (13) cried after being separated from family on Ryanair flight

Despite unit costs at the airline reducing by 6pc, with 3pc of the reduction driven by falling fuel prices, average fares at the airline increased by 1pc to 40.30.

However fares may reduce by as much as 8pc in the remainder of 2017, a spokesperson for Ryanair said this morning on Newstalk.

Commenting on the results, Michael OLeary, CEO of Ryanair, said that he was pleased with the increase in profits however he cautioned that the outcome is distorted by the absence of Easter in the prior year.

"While Q1 average fares rose by 1pc to just over 40, this was due to a strong April (boosted by Easter) offset by adverse sterling, lower bag revenue as more customers switch to our 2 free carry-on bag policy, and yield stimulation following a series of security events in Manchester and London," Mr OLeary said.

Net margin at the airline grew to 21pc in the three months to 30 June 2017, an increase of 6pc on the three months to 30 June 2016.

In May this year the Ryanair Board approved a 600m ordinary share buyback programme and in the three months to 30 June the airline spent 165m under this buyback at an average price of 18.20.

Read more: Aer Lingus reveals it fears Ryanair threat

Net debt at the airline reduced to 94m at 30 June 2017 from 244m at 31 March 2017.

The company this year became the exclusive airline partner of the EU Erasmus Student Network. This partnership will enable Erasmus students to benefit from exclusive flight discounts and will be available from August.

Recent figures show that more than 250,000 students across Europe take part in the programme each year.
The era of driverless cars - or fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) - is near and will dramatically transform how we drive. The technology is well advanced and we already see automated features built into new cars, such as automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, and lane-drift prevention. The test driving of fully AVs (which require no human intervention other than setting the destination and starting the system) has been underway for a number of years and will be on the market as early as 2020.

This new era of autonomous driving will challenge many industries, perhaps the most significant being the motor insurance industry. Reports say 90pc of accidents are caused by driver error and fully AVs will decimate accident frequency.

Undoubtedly accidents will continue, but will have different causes, for example bad weather, animals running onto the road or the technology in the car failing.

The immediate challenge for the insurance industry is to establish what the role of motor insurance will be in this new era. The existing Irish legislative and regulatory framework for motor insurance in Ireland is driver-centric. At present, under the Road Traffic Act 1961, driving is defined as 'managing and controlling' a vehicle. This is not appropriate for AVs where the technology, and not the driver, controls the vehicle.

As AVs will likely, at least in the short term, have both manual and computer control, it is easily foreseeable both personal motor insurance and product liability insurance may be required. When accidents occur, it will be necessary for insurers to determine whether it was the technology of the AV or the individual driver who was in control. Claims could therefore be made against a driver, owner of the AV, AV manufacturer or technology suppliers such as software designers or programmers.

From an injured party's perspective, this may result in protracted costly litigation to secure compensation.

The Irish legislature has not, as of yet, considered this impending development in any meaningful way. At a European level, the European Commission established a high-level group on the automotive industry (GEAR 2030) in 2015, to formulate an action plan for AVs on a harmonised basis across the EU. GEAR 2030 accepts liability in respect of AVs requires clarification and is working towards introducing legislation by 2030.

The motor insurance industry in the UK has faced these issues head-on and has been collaborating with the technology developers to understand the risks and design appropriate new products. Considerable progress has been made, and in February 2017 the UK government published the draft Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill. It proposes to extend compulsory motor insurance to cover AVs when they are operated in automated mode via a single insurance product that would cover an individual driver when driving, and the AV when in automated mode.

It remains to be seen what position will be adopted in Ireland. The legal landscape will require adaptation to allow for AVs, however as long as traditional motor vehicles remain on Irish roads, the existing position will need to be retained.

Ms McClements is Matheson insurance disputes partner, and Ms McCluskey is an associate
A bank that is majority owned by the State has told its staff it wants them to become "sales soldiers".

Permanent TSB is also changing its bonus system to incentivise them to get more customers to take out mortgages and loans.

Branch managers are to become "territory sales managers", with the changes taking place from September.

In documents marked 'private and confidential' seen by the Irish Independent, the bank admits its branch footfall is down, its mortgage market share is stagnant, and its customer base "remains challenging".

The bank denies the changes under its Network 2020 plan will create a bonus culture, something that was a factor that led to the bank being bailed out by the State just six years ago.

A sanitised version of the Network 2020 plan was released to the media in May.

But this newspaper has seen extensive documentation outlining in detail what the new strategy involves.

Permanent TSB is 75pc owned by the State.

Bank documents refer to the introduction at the start of next year of a "performance-based remuneration, based on your individual contribution".

The focus for branch staff is on "creating a universal sales soldier ethos". The document on the future of the 77 branches also refers to "driving a customer-centric sales culture".

This is in contrast to the current system, where each branch gets a bonus based on its performance which is then shared among staff.

The bank is offering a voluntary redundancy package for those who wish to leave, subject to management approval, the documents state.

The bank's 77 branch managers are to be replaced with a new position called 'territory sales manager'. These people will operate geographical areas outside the towns that each branch is located.

Below them will be 55 positions for field-based customer consultants.

A spokesman for the bank denied it was reverting to a bonus culture. "The new remuneration scheme will be subject to lots of checks and limits, so not 'bonus' in the traditional sense of the word," he said.

He added that the objective of Network 2020 was to reposition the branches as platforms for staff to go out into the regions rather than as places frequented by customers.

"The banking world is changing and while we envisage branches retaining a key role in our distribution network, they have to fit into a wider, more dynamic system which helps us to engage with customers on their terms, not ours."

Legacy

The changes comes as Permanent TSB has begun writing to customers to tell them that it is standardising its fee structure across a range of older, legacy accounts.

Costs for everyday banking for thousands of customers are to increase by more than 460pc due to the new charging regime on what it describes as "legacy" accounts.

Some customers will see quarterly charges going from 3.18 a quarter to 18, a rise of 466pc.

A new standard quarterly fee of 18 is being introduced across these legacy accounts.

Many existing customers with legacy accounts are currently paying legacy fees of 3.81.

Accounts subject to the new 18 quarterly will not incur charges for day-to-day transaction use.
Cork-headquartered Fehily Timoney and Co has won the contract to design a 4.8 km-long bypass over the River Garnock north of Glasgow.

The contract, which is being described as a "significant" Transport Scotland project, is due for completion in December 2018.

The design of the bypass is one of the largest roads projects the Irish the consulting engineering and environmental scientists firm has ever undertaken in Scotland, and it will be a major boost to the firms 50 plus staff based at its Cork and Dublin offices and elsewhere.

Commenting on the announcement, Fehily Timoney MD, Eamon Timoney, said they were "delighted" to work with Farans Construction & Roadbridge on the design of the project.

Read more: Firm secures Kuwait water station contract

The work will increase the companys profile in the Scottish infrastructural market, which is far more buoyant than the sector in Ireland at present, according to Mr Timoney.

"This is a fantastic win for our team. Its all in line with our corporate strategy of focusing our personnel and expertise in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

This will continue as we wait for the Irish infrastructural market to recover. This project win may not lead to significant new hires right now but it boosts our profile in Scotland and it allows us to retain our diverse, experienced team," Mr Timoney said.

Fehily Timoney and Co has long been associated with wind projects across Scotland and recently won the 'Overseas Category' for Kilgallioch Wind Farm in Scotland at the ACEI Annual Awards ceremony.

The 279 MW Kilgallioch Wind Farm is the second largest windfarm in Scotland. It includes 96 turbines and when complete it will have the capacity to power 130,000 homes.
Animated chatter spills out from a corner of tech giant Google's Nairobi offices as five Kenyan schoolgirls discuss their upcoming trip to California where they hope to win $15,000 for I-cut, an app to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

The five teenagers, aged 15 to 17, are the only Africans selected to take part in this year's international Technovation competition, where girls develop mobile apps to end problems in their communities.

"FGM is a big problem affecting girls worldwide and it is a problem we want to solve," Stacy Owino told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, while snacking on chocolate on a break from boarding school before flying to the United States on August 6.

"This whole experience will change our lives. Whether we win or not, our perspective of the world and the possibilities it has will change for the better."

The five girls from Kenya's western city of Kisumu call themselves the 'Restorers' because they want to "restore hope to hopeless girls", said Synthia Otieno, one of the team.

One in four Kenyan women and girls have undergone FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, even though it is illegal in the East African nation.

Although the girls' Luo community does not practice FGM, they have friends who have been cut.

"We were very close but after she was cut she never came back to school," said Purity Achieng, describing a classmate who underwent FGM. "She was among the smartest girls I knew."

I-cut connects girls at risk of FGM with rescue centres and gives legal and medical help to those who have been cut.

Its simple interface has five buttons - help, rescue, report, information on FGM, donate and feedback  offering users different services.

Kenya is one of the most technologically advanced countries in Africa, known for its pioneering mobile money transfer apps.

Technovation, which is sponsored by Google, Verizon and the United Nations, aims to teach girls the skills they need to become tech entrepreneurs and leaders.

"We just have to use this opportunity as a stepping stone to the next level," said schoolgirl Ivy Akinyi who plans to become computer programmer.
As Bryan Dobson gears up for a move to Morning Ireland, after 21 years presenting RTE Six One News, speculation about who will fill his seat is mounting.

The new face is expected to co-anchor the show with Sharon Ni Bheolain, who has co-presented with Dobbo since 2005.

It is believed Dobsons replacement will be male, in keeping with the age-old tradition of the male/female co-anchor dynamic.

(He will also most likely be seated in the camera-left position, the position of authority, which is usually reserved for the more senior talent, but thats another issue.)

However, were RTE to leave sex aside and consider the right person for the role based solely on credentials, its clear Ni Bheolain could easily have a female co-anchor.

Expand Close PAY PACKETS: Sharon Ni Bheolain has confirmed that fellow RTE newscaster Bryan Dobson is paid a much larger salary than she receives / Facebook

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Whatsapp PAY PACKETS: Sharon Ni Bheolain has confirmed that fellow RTE newscaster Bryan Dobson is paid a much larger salary than she receives

Theres a wealth of female talent at RTE from reporter Sharon Tobin, who has been with RTE television since 2008, to Eileen Whelan, to Morning Irelands Audrey Carville.

Arguably, however, the woman with the most impressive CV and a perfect fit for the role is Colette Fitzpatrick, Senior Anchor at RTEs competitor, TV3 News.

Fitzpatrick recently took up that position after leaving her role at Newstalk and and her role co-presenting Pat Kenny Tonight.

In light of Ni Bheolains admission that Dobson earns considerably more than her (in the region of 60,000 - 80,000) and rumblings of very poor morale among the female faces at RTE , the State broadcaster could grasp this opportunity to make a bold statement about just how much they value female talent.

Two female co-anchors would be seen as a progressive, landmark move, a step toward equality within RTE which, the gender pay gap illustrates, is sorely lacking.

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You cant buy PR like that.

Also, while cementing the RTE brand as a champion of female talent, RTE would also damage rival TV3 by poaching their biggest star.

Of course, Colette may not come cheap and may even (shock horror) require a salary matching or even exceeding that of top tier RTE male talent like the outgoing Bryan Dobson, and that may be the only stumbling block in this particular plan.

Should the job go to a man, the baton may well be passed from Dobson to one of two established and experienced Six One faces.

Brian Finn is a business journalist and presenter with RTE News across radio, TV and online while Ray Kennedy also works in RTE News and Current Affairs across TV and radio.

When Grainne Seoige left Sky News Ireland Kennedy became one of two anchors (along with Brian Daly) of the channels weeknight programmes. When the Irish arm of Sky News closed he moved back to RTE.

Beyond Six One, David McCullough would be a good fit. He has been Political Correspondent with RTE News and Current Affairs since 2001 and joined Prime Time on RTE One four years ago.

There may be another contender in radio news reporter Jonathan Rachel Clynch who has worked in RTE for 18 years.

Whoever bags the gig, lets hope Ni Bheolain is seated camera left.
On Saturday night, police said a large crowd of kids ripped up a playground in the Falls Park missiles.

Around 200 children went on a rampage in a Belfast park, police have said.

On Saturday night, police said a large crowd of kids ripped up a playground in the Falls Park, before pelting officers with bits of the rubber floor and throwing bricks, stones and other missiles.

"This behaviour didn't just put us at risk, but several times the missiles just missed other kids," police said in a Facebook post.

"Damaging a kids [sic] play park which is used by the whole community just isn't on."

Two teenagers were arrested for public order and alcohol offences.

The officer said police alone could not solve the problem and urged parents to know where their children are.

Police said on Friday night a similar number gathered in the area and a teen girl was arrested for disorderly behaviour.

Constable McMullan added: "Damaging a playpark which is used by the whole community is unacceptable and is the kind of anti-social behaviour that adversely affects the quality of life of those people who want to use it.

Going forward, we will use all the opportunities available to us to address anti-social behaviour  and that means working closely with local residents and other agencies.

This work includes enforcement -making arrests  and education  helping our young people understand the impact this type of activity can have on victims.

The three teenagers arrested over the weekend were taken home and dealt with by way of community resolution notices or community resolution notices (CRN), meaning that they were required to acknowledge the unacceptable nature of their actions and apologise for them.

A condition of the CRN, imposed on one of the teenage boys, is that he is not permitted to enter Falls Park unless accompanied by an adult.
The trial of a garda for allegedly harassing a State solicitor has heard none of the fingerprints found on abusive material matched those of the accused.

Eve Doherty (49), a garda based in Dublin, denies harassing Elizabeth Howlin between September 2011 and March 2013 and making false statements on two dates in March 2013 claiming Ms Howlin was perverting the course of justice.

Ms Howlin worked as a directing officer with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and was involved in deciding whether or not to direct prosecutions in criminal cases.

Over an 18-month period, letters and emails were sent to Ms Howlin's home, her place of work and to her GP calling her a corrupt bitch and an incompetent useless hobbit.

The material, which included posters left around her housing estate, falsely claimed that Ms Howlin was a political appointee and that she would pull files to prevent the prosecution of anyone connected to her or the government. Ms Howlin is a distant cousin of the TD Brendan Howlin.

Michael O'Higgins SC, defending, told the jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that Ms Doherty denies being the author of any of the letters and emails. He said the allegations contained in them were hideous and defamatory.

On day 10 of the trial today, Detective Garda Conor Kiely told the jury that he carried out comparisons between the fingerprints provided by Ms Doherty and those found on a number of exhibits.

The exhibits included four copies of the poster distributed around the housing estate. None of the fingerprint marks found on these matched the prints of the accused.

Marks were also found on a letter addressed to the DPP Claire Loftus, a letter sent to the office of the DPP and a letter sent directly to Ms Howlin at her home. None of these marks matched the fingerprint samples taken from Ms Doherty.

The trial continues before Judge Melanie Greally and a jury.
A prison officer who mounted an "evil and sadistic" poison-pen campaign against a governor and son of murdered Brian Stack has won an appeal against a sentence he was given.

John Cooney (57) admitted sending anonymous letters to jail chief Austin Stack in which he pretended to be an IRA member and told Mr Stack his father Brian had deserved to suffer.

The victim was among 13 prison service staff targeted over several years in the hate-mail campaign.

Cooney had been jailed for a year, but will now serve no prison time after an appeal court reduced his penalty to community service.

Cooney had been given a 20-month sentence with the last eight suspended by Judge Cormac Dunne last February.

However, he appealed the severity of that sentence and his case was re-heard by circuit court president Judge Raymond Groarke.

Judge Groarke allowed Cooney's appeal and ordered him to carry out 240 hours of community service in lieu of the prison sentence.

Austin Stack's father Brian, who was chief prison officer at Portlaoise Jail, was shot by the IRA in 1983, suffered brain damage and died 18 months later.

Mr Stack had said he felt "re-traumatised" by the three abusive letters Cooney sent.

Separately, a female prison worker was told in a letter she had got cancer through "promiscuous conduct", while an officer was sent an obscene 40th birthday card.

Menacing

Cooney, of Colthurst Road, Huntington Glen, Lucan, Dublin, pleaded guilty to nine charges of sending indecent, obscene, offensive or menacing letters and five of harassment.

The 14 charges referred to 13 prison service employees.

Previously, Governor Austin Stack told Dublin District Court he had begun getting letters around the time gardai began making headway in the investigation into his father's murder.

The first letter arrived to his workplace in Wheatfield prison. The others followed months later.

The author pretended to be from the IRA and it became obvious that he had worked with Mr Stack in St Patrick's Institution.

The letters stated that Mr Stack's father "deserved to be in pain" for the 18 months before his death. The author wrote that it was a waste of State money for gardai to be investigating the killing.
Gardai at the scene of an apartment fire which occured last night in the Station Hill apartment complex in Clongriffin, North Dublin this morning. Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin.

A man who set fire to a Dublin apartment complex, causing 1.25 million in damage and leaving 25 people temporarily homeless, was "out of his mind" on drugs and alcohol, a court has heard.

John McGovern (25) set fire to the Station Hill apartment complex at Clongriffin, Dubliln last November after rowing with this girlfriend, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard today.

McGovern, with an address in Shangan Terrace, Ballymun, Dublin, pleaded guilty to one count of arson causing damage to a number of apartments at Station Hill apartment complex at Clongriffin and to one count of assault causing harm to his partner Grainne O'Brien on November 1 last year.

He will be sentenced on October 27.

Garda Alan Roche told Ronan Kennedy BL, prosecuting, that McGovern and Ms O'Brien, who had a tumultuous relationship, were drinking heavily throughout the bank holiday weekend.

On the Tuesday morning after the weekend, Ms O'Brien woke up in her apartment in the Station Hill complex to see McGovern throwing a hoover at her face. He then jumped on the bed and started punching her in the legs.

McGovern left the apartment shortly afterwards and went to the Travelodge in Ballymun where he continued to drink alcohol and took controlled drugs.

Ms O'Brien's ex-partner came to the apartment that afternoon, bringing their young child with them. He said Ms O'Brien had a black eye, split lip and was missing a tooth.

While he was there, McGovern returned to the apartment in an agitated state, the court heard. He threatened to fight Ms O'Brien's ex-partner, causing him to flee the building. Ms O'Brien left shortly afterwards, leaving her son in the apartment with McGovern.

She ran to a neighbour's home and asked her to call gardai. Her son left the building shortly afterwards and joined his mother in the neighbour's house.

Ms O'Brien then saw her apartment was orange and on fire, the court heard before she saw McGovern on the other side of the nearby train tracks yelling, Look at your gaff Grainne, I'm after setting it alight.

McGovern caught a train to Raheny, where he was witnessed acting erratically and scraping a knife off the metal chairs at the station. He was arrested at the scene.

When questioned by gardai, he initially blamed the fire on his partner and her ex-boyfriend. He has 25 previous convictions including theft, public order offences and escaping from custody.

The court heard 14 fire trucks were called to the scene of the fire, which took four-and-a-half hours to get under control. All of the residents were evacuated and no-one was injured. Six homes were completely destroyed and others were badly damaged due to water.

A victim impact statement from the building owner, Jim Gannon, said the damage to the property amounted to 1.25 million.

Twenty-five people, including children, were left homeless for some time after the fire, including a family with a young child suffering from cancer. A number of victim impact statements were handed into court outlining the distress and financial hardship the fire caused to the occupants.

One man, a single parent, described how he and his daughter lost all their furniture. He said his daughter was deeply affected and distressed by the fire and it took them months to get their lives back on track.

Another woman described how she experienced depression and anxiety as a result of being made homeless.

Sean Guerin SC, defending, said his client failed to take his prescribed anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety medication in the days leading up to the incident. He said that, along with the alcohol and drug consumption, led to a cocktail of reasons why McGovern was out of his mind.

He said as a result, McGovern did not realise the extent of damage the fire would cause to the building.

He handed up a letter of apology from his client, in which McGovern described the fire as the worst mistake of my life.

If I could turn back the clock, I would, he said. He described his actions as completely irresponsible and unacceptable and extended his apologies to the affected residents.

McGovern had a troubled childhood and came from a chaotic, disordered, volatile and physically violent background, Mr Guerin said.

He left school at the age of 15 and went off the rails. He has been in custody since the incident and was responding well to the regime in custody. He was now drug-free and eager to continue making progress, Mr Guerin said.

The court heard Ms O'Brien had been visiting McGovern in prison and gardai believed that had the matter gone to trial, she would have withdrawn her cooperation in relation to the case. McGovern's guilty plea carries extra weight as a result, the court heard.

Judge O'Connor adjourned the matter to get a probation report, noting it was a very serious offence.
A WOMAN who was caught with over 115,000 in cash while acting as a bookkeeper for serious criminals has received a five year suspended sentence.

Judge Gerard Griffin acknowledged that Janet Morrissey (35) was ripe for exploitation by criminals as she had a cocaine addiction and heavy debts at the time.

Morrissey, a single mother with an address in Meile An Ri Drive, Lucan, Co Dublin, was found by gardai with 9,670 in cash in her coat pocket outside her home in Lucan on April 4, 2016. A further 108,130 was found in a wardrobe in her bedroom.

She pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of 117,800 in cash, which was the proceeds of crime. She has no previous convictions.

Judge Griffin said Morrissey provided an essential service to drug dealers. But he noted her co-operation and said that she was unlikely to come to future garda attention.

He further acknowledged that she was now drug free and had a full time job.

The judge said he'd given particular consideration to a letter written by Morrissey's father when suspending the sentence and asked the man, who was present in court, to keep an eye on her.

He suspended the sentence for five years, saying to Morrissey: If we see each other again, it won't be a happy experience.

Earlier, Garda Jerome Twomey told Elva Duffy BL, prosecuting, that gardai went to Morrissey's Lucan home with a search warrant on April 4, 2016, where they met Morrissey on her way in.

They discovered wads of cash in her coat pocket, before finding more cash in her bedroom wardrobe. A copy book which was described as a ledger was also discovered in the apartment.

Morrissey told gardai she had been given a phone by a man named 'Craig' and that she collected money from various people when she received texts from a person she called 'Boss'. She then sorted it in bundles of 5,000 and 10,000.

She told gardai she had been doing this for four or five weeks, although the ledger showed it had been going on for longer, the court heard.

She was acting in the role of bookkeeper, Gda Twomey said, adding Morrissey was paid 600 a week for handling the cash.

When asked if the money was the proceeds of crime, Morrissey said she didn't know and never asked questions.

Gda Twomey agreed with defence barrister, Roisin Lacey SC, that Morrissey was an easy target for exploitation.

The people she would have been dealing with were involved in serious crime, Gda Twomey said. I believe that if she were to stop, serious threats would have been made to her.

Ms Lacey submitted that Morrissey had dealt with a considerable amount of death in her life, including a miscarriage at the age of 17 and the death of two partners. She said Morrissey turned to alcohol and drugs to escape her depression, which led to her getting involved in the offence.

She was not working and had a cocaine debt of 1000 and a credit union debt of 9000 at the time, the court heard.

Ms Lacey said Morrissey voluntarily went into rehab last year and was now alcohol and drug-free. In a letter handed up to court, Morrissey said she had been existing, not living but was now turning her life around and was training to be a counsellor.

I am a work in progress, Morrissey wrote in the letter, saying she attends AA meetings three times a week.

The court heard she has a large family support network with testimonials handed up by her parents, siblings, aunts and cousins. Her father pledged never to let his daughter fall into that trap again.
A row has broken out over whether all schools are offering free drinking water to their pupils.

The Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) has taken Education Minister Richard Bruton to task after he stated his officials were not aware of any school where pupils did not have access to a drinking water supply.

Mr Bruton made the comments in reply to a recent parliamentary question from Fianna Fail education spokesman Thomas Byrne. It triggered an immediate response from IHF policy manager Kathryn Reilly, who wrote to Mr Bruton challenging his assertion, and criticising what she sees as a lack of priority within his department to the issue.

Ms Reilly drew attention to research undertaken by the IHF among primary schools in 2015, which found water was not available free in 40pc of schools surveyed.

Meanwhile, some 47pc of schools had vending machines, where sugar-sweetened drinks were more freely available than free drinking water.

"This either means students are paying for bottled water or replacing water with less healthy options. We do not believe that this is an acceptable situation and, of even greater concern, there seems to be the lack of awareness in the department of this situation," she wrote to the minister.

Ms Reilly also pointed out that, under the national obesity plan 2016-2025, 'A Healthy Weight for Ireland', the Department of Education has responsibility for the provision of 'potable water', otherwise known as drinking water, in all learning centres.
The couple entered the competition in the hope of winning a wedding in Ireland. (Stock photo)

A couple in Australia may have to give up their dream of moving to Ireland to get married after the Win Our Wedding competition has failed to pay out the 20,000 they were promised.

Peggy OCallaghan and her fiance Keith entered the competition in the hope of winning enough money for a wedding in Ireland.

We planned to move to Ireland, and winning was fantastic because we could afford to do that, Peggy told Liveline.

But after the competition has failed to pay out, their dream of relocating to Ireland seems no longer possible.

Now were back to square one," said Peggy. "It seems more and more impossible.

Peggy said that between the couples' friends and family, they had raised almost 8000.

The outpouring of generosity and support from their friends has made Peggy even more upset that there has been so sign of the prize.

I know so many people have put in their savings and money they couldnt even afford, they were so sure we were going to win," she said.

It was unreal, the amount of support we had, which is even more devastating now that the money is gone.

Peggy also said that the website encouraged friends and family to enter the competition.

It said 'go have raffles and barbecues, get people involved and have fun with it'.

Win Our Wedding encouraged families and friends to get involved by purchasing a total of raffle tickets for 25 each. Each ticket had a unique number that was sent to the purchaser.

Peggy's winning ticket was drawn but she has not received the prize money she was promised.

She now faces having to give up on her dream of getting married in Ireland.

Moving back seems more and more impossible.

Win Our Wedding's Facebook and Twitter accounts have been deleted and their website is now offline.

Independent.ie has reached out to Win Our Wedding for comment.
Emergency services at the scene of the accident in Clare Hall

Gardai investigate a road traffic accident involving a motorcyclist and his passenger at Clare Hall in Dublin. Picture: Arthur Carron

24/7/17 Gardai investigate a road traffic accident involving a motorcyclist and his passenger at Clare Hall in Dublin. Picture: Arthur Carron

Gardai investigate a road traffic accident involving a motorcyclist and his passenger at Clare Hall in Dublin. Picture: Arthur Carron

A young motorcyclist has been killed and his passenger was seriously injured when his bike crashed into a lamp post.

Gardai at Coolock in Dublin are investigating the single vehicle fatal road traffic collision which occurred at Clarehall Dublin 17 at approximately 4.20pm on Monday.

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In a statement, gardai said: "An 18 year old male motorcyclist was fatally injured when his motor cycle collided with a lamp post. He was pronounced dead at the scene and his body removed to Beaumont Hospital.

"A 23 year old male pillion passenger was seriously injured and has been taken to the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital."

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The stretch of road is closed to facilitate an examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and local diversions are in place.

Gardai have appealed for witnesses to contact Coolock Garda Station on 01-666 4200, The Garda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.

Dublin Fire Brigade say that two fire engines, an ambulance from Swords and UCD emergency care attended the scene at the Clare Hall roundabout.

Earlier Two pedestrians died in two separate road incidents in Limerick and Cork.

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The first fatality happened at around 11.35pm last night in Limerick city when a 40-year-old male pedestrian was seriously injured when he was struck by a car on Kileely Road

He was taken by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick where he was later pronounced dead. The driver of the car (aged in his 20s) was uninjured.

The second incident occurred in the Bridge Street area of Cork city at around 11am when a male pedestrian was struck by a truck and died at the scene.

Gardai in Cork sealed off the area and are carrying out forensic examinations at the scene.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Mayorstone Garda Station in Limerick 061-456980 or Anglesea Garda Station in Cork on 021-4522000 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.
The debate around the annual budget needs to shift away from tax cuts and water refunds and on to big-ticket items such as raising the age of retirement, according to the former secretary general at the Department of Finance.

John Moran, who was a key adviser to former finance minister Michael Noonan, has criticised the decision to scrap water charges and accused political parties of believing that "money grows on trees".

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Mr Moran said TDs appear to have ignored the result of the last election, which he said clearly showed that voters were willing to forego tax cuts in return for improved services and better infrastructure.

He said one of the proposals that should be considered by the Dail is whether to increase the retirement age by one or two years.

"We are still an incredibly rich country by international standards. So why is it that we have such poor infrastructure? It's because we make decisions to spend money on other things," Mr Moran said.

"The last election to my mind was a very clear message that if money was spent wisely, people in the country were prepared to defer tax cuts and in fact to defer money in their own pockets, if it could be spent wisely for the common good.

"That's what parliament should decide. They are the ones that ultimately set what the level of spending should be, what the level of taxation should be.

"Too often our budgetary decisions focus on what are actually very small items - rather than the big picture."

Mr Moran said raising the retirement age was a decision that "counts for billions", adding that the idea should be considered in light of the fact people were living longer. But he said despite the so-called 'new politics', the focus remained on less significant issues, such as water refunds, that only count for 100m-150m.

"What's different about our politics at the moment is very often we seem to have some parties that seem to believe money grows on trees and that actually there is a cost to these decisions," Mr Moran said.

"When you decide 'we're not going to pay for water', which is a service we use. It seems logical that you pay and in fact if you do pay, you tend to probably want to use less of it, which is good ecologically.

"When we decide actually we aren't going to charge people for that, we have to make and understand the other side of the equation of that because there is an equation and money doesn't grow on trees."
Hundreds of people have turned out to pay their respects for a mother, daughter and family friend who tragically passed away following a road collision over the weekend.

From early this morning, mourners gathered at the Church of St Joseph and St Conal in Bruckless, Co Donegal where Margaret McGonagle (69) and her daughter Mairead Mundy (38) were laid to rest.

The two women tragically died in a road traffic incident in Ardee, Co Louth on Friday morning.

The funeral of the third fatality, Rachel Battles (37), took place in the same church later this afternoon.

Expand Close Mourners gathered at the Church of St Joseph and St Conal in Bruckless, Co Donegal where Margaret McGonagle (69) and her daughter Mairead Mandy (38) were laid to rest. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Mourners gathered at the Church of St Joseph and St Conal in Bruckless, Co Donegal where Margaret McGonagle (69) and her daughter Mairead Mandy (38) were laid to rest.

Mourners at this morning's funeral were told how Margaret McGonagle dedicated her life to her home and children, as well as the people she helped in her work as a counsellor.

In a touching tribute, chief celebrant Fr James Sweeney read out a letter from one of the countless people the mother-of-three helped throughout her life.

"Mags. I dont know where to start, how to express how grateful I am to you.

"I have battled with my mental health for many years and thought it was something I would just have to accept to live with, that was until I met you.

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"You have changed my life completely, saved me as a person," the letter read.

"Its a pleasure to have met you and I have enjoyed every second. I will never forget you."

Fr Sweeney also recalled how just this time last year he had the pleasure of signing Mairead Mundy's marriage certificate as she wed her husband, Pauric.

A group had been travelling back from Dublin Airport on Friday after a holiday to celebrate Mairead's wedding anniversary when the fatal tragedy occurred.

"(Mairead) lived in Bruckless all her life, a real home-bird, at the age of 18 Mairead moved to nearby Glenties, but after three days returned home to Mammy homesick," Fr Sweeney told he congregation of the mother-of-one.

"Mairead was a champion Irish dancer and danced in both the Ulster and All-Ireland competition.

"Having just celebrated their first wedding anniversary, it was tragically cut short by last weeks accident.

"Mairead was much loved by many people, especially by (her son) Caoimhin, Pauric, her family and her friends.

"Mairead will be sorely missed in all our hearts.

"Rest in peace Mairead, a loving daughter, sister, wife, mother and friend," Fr Sweeney added.

Following the emotional ceremony, the two coffins were brought to the cemetery beside the church, where the women were laid to rest as younger relatives dropped roses into the graves.

The funeral of Rachel Battles took place at Church of St Joseph and St Conal in the parish this afternoon.

Mourners were told how only last year the tragic mother-of-four renewed her wedding vows.

The remains of Rachel Battles (37), who was originally from nearby Ardara, were brought to the Church of St Joseph and St Conal, Bruckless, Co Donegal this afternoon.

Flowers adorned the brown coffin as it was brought by hearse to the church, while local gardai brought traffic on the village's main road to a halt.

As with the earlier service, hundreds of people from the Bruckless parish and the wider Donegal community turned out to pay their respects to Rachel Battles. Many mourners were stood outside the church during the ceremony due to there being no room left inside.

In his homily, Fr Father James Sweeney described Rachel as being "full of life and energy" in her school years and throughout her life. She was remembered for her caring nature, and worked in the care profession looking after the local community in Bruckless as well as Killybegs.

"Rachel went to National School at Saint Marys in Ardara and later to Saint Columbas Comprehensive School in Glenties. In school Rachel was always full of life and energy and thats the way she was throughout life.

"From the first time you met Rachel, you knew you had a friend for life.

"When Rachel was younger she worked as a barmaid in Killybegs, little did she know that while in that job she would meet the love of her life, Martin. Rachel and Martin set up home in Killybegs where they raised four beautiful children. As you know Rachels life was all about Martin and the children," Fr Sweeney told the funeral mass.

"Rachel enjoyed her comforts: sleep, pyjamas and most importantly her snugglers!

"Rachels caring nature led her into the caring profession where she began caring for those in need in the local community."

The married couple made the move from Killybegs to Bruckless three years ago.

"Last year Rachel and Martin renewed their wedding vows in a quiet family gathering in Saint Marys Church, Killybegs after many years of married life together," the congregation were told.

The chief mourners included her husband, Martin, her four children- Killian, Owen, Ellie and Danni- as well as her mother Helena and three siblings.

Following the funeral mass, her remains were brought to the graveyard on the church grounds where she was buried beside Margaret and Mairead.
Aoife Hendrick passed away after a battle with cancer

The legacy of a little girl who died five years ago from cancer continues to bring thousands of children lots of laughter.

Aoife Hendrick attended Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin from May to August 2012 for treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

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Tragically, Aoife (5), who was full of fun and had an amazing imagination, died that summer.

However, during her time at the hospital, Aoife was still able to laugh thanks to funny characters known as Clown Doctors.

Clown Doctor Keith Singleton explained: "We would tell jokes, make fun of her daddy (Adrian), which was particularly popular, and do magic tricks.

"Aoife's mammy Aine told us that her daughter's eyes shone brightly and that they heard her amazing hearty laugh, which let them all escape from the reality of the situation."

The Clown Doctors' funding from The Humour Foundation of Ireland "ran out a few years ago thanks to the recession".

However, Keith said: "A lovely couple, Aine and Adrian were not about to let the Clown Doctors drive off into the sunset in our comedy car.

"They took action and fundraised to ensure the Clown Doctors returned to the wards.

"Aoife's Clown Doctors are currently funded by the Friends of Aoife Hendrick."

The Clown Doctors are a team of carefully chosen, professional performers trained to work in hospitals.

They help create fun, laughter and creativity on the wards by parodying medical procedures and hospital jargon, helping to ease the fear and stress for children and parents.

Oversized medical equipment, 'red-nose' transplants, 'cat' scans and funny bone examinations are just a few examples of what might take place during a visit from a Clown Doctor.

Aoife's Clown Doctors hope to expand, so as to be able to reach as many children as possible.

"We are in the process of getting our full charity status," Keith said: .

"But we do need public donations to help bring our laughter into the lives of our country's sick children, as we would love to go nationwide."

To donate to the cause visit: www.gofundme.com/aoifes-clown-doctors
On an almost balmy summer evening, we make the Dart trip from the city centre to Malahide to visit Old Street, a recent addition to the town's eating options. The journey takes just over half an hour and feels like an adventure, which is silly. I've been meaning to make the trip for months but somehow kept putting it off. Why? Because I know and like Denise McBrien, the general manager, who used to run front of house at Pichet, and feared that I wasn't going to enjoy this suburban restaurant. I thought that it was going to be boring, and that I'd still have to write about it and I wouldn't know what to say. (I know, first world problems.)

So I'm delighted - and relieved - to report that Old Street is anything but boring, and that the food is both interesting and excellent.

The restaurant pulls off a difficult feat, in that it manages to have broad appeal without succumbing to blandness.

On a Friday evening, there's a happy multi-generational buzz about the place -groups of friends, families, a few couples, a 30th birthday party.

I know from the website that Old Street is owned by a local couple, Mark and Adriana Fitzpatrick, who have no previous experience in the restaurant business. Six years ago, they bought two adjoining cottages - one single storey and one double, which are among the oldest buildings in the village, and less than five minutes' walk from the station.

The Fitzpatricks hired local architect, Gareth Maguire, to secure planning, and work with them on the design and finishes. The restoration took two years and Old Street opened on the ground and first floors in April. It's stylish and modern with plenty of exposed brick and nice architectural touches at every turn. (A basement wine bar will be finished before the end of the year.) They also hired Denise, who has over 20 years' experience working in the restaurant business, as general manager. There's an attention to detail in the interiors, uniforms and table settings that tells you this is a professional operation from the moment you step across the threshold.

The Glenilen butter comes on cute wooden paddles, the salt in stone cellars, the pottery and candle-holders are from Arran Street East, the napkins are grey linen. The staff wear jeans and T-shirts under their smart aprons. The ambience is relaxed rather than formal; the food falls into the 'casual fine-dining' category that we all want these days.

We start with a salad of chargrilled asparagus with prosciutto, which comes with a richly savoury St Tola custard, peaches, walnuts and black truffle, truly a perfect summer dish. Scallops sit well with smoked anchovy mayonnaise, pickled anchovy, apple, celery and chive puree, the elements distinct yet speaking to one another in harmony.

Beef tartare, with shimeji mushroom, avocado and toasted croutons surprises with its spiciness but is seriously tasty, far better than the version of the dish that I ate in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Sicily the previous week. Good beef (from Ballyhenry Organic Farm in Co Wicklow) makes all the difference, and the spicing is key.

Smart chefs know and understand that there is a demand for dishes that put vegetables front and centre, and that beetroot and goat's cheese just doesn't cut it any more, no matter how good the ingredients. We can all do that at home. Here, head chef Fergus Caffrey (formerly of Amuse and Dax), has created a vegetarian dish of smoked polenta, braised leek, brown butter cauliflower, charred sweet corn, and sweet corn puree that is the equal in flavour terms of any meat dish. It's fabulous.

Cod with smoked ham hock, cockles, pea, kale and champ mash is perfectly cooked and a well-balanced dish, with a rustic sensibility. Unusually, beef striploin is cooked sous-vide rather than on the griddle, and comes medium as standard. It's not quite as tender as we expected, given the cooking method, but there is no shortage of flavour to the meat. It's served with seasonal Jersey Royals, confit garlic, girolles and kale. Fries could be more crisp, green beans with Caesar dressing are a guaranteed way of getting reluctant vegetable eaters to consume more greens.

To finish, a pudding called Old Street Cinema - described as caramel cremeux, candied popcorn, cola jelly, mixed nut crumble and vanilla ice cream - is an absolute winner. The creation of sous chef, Chris Fullam (formerly of Amuse and The Greenhouse and a finalist in last year's Euro-Toques Young Chef competition), he says the dish is inspired by childhood memories of the cinema. The snacks must have been a lot better where he grew up than they ever were at the Forum in Dun Laoghaire. Cheeses - a selection of Coolattin, Banagher Bold, Young Buck Blue, Brie de Meaux, and Milleens, with home-made crackers and chutney, are in fine fettle.

With a bottle of Blauburgunder Kellerei Kaltern 2015 (13pc) (46) - an organic pinot noir from the German-speaking Alto Adige in northern Italy that is elegant and complex, water and a few soft drinks, our bill for three came to 194.50 plus tip.

THE RATING

9/10 food

9/10 ambience

8/10 value for money

26/30

ON A BUDGET

Lunch is available Wednesday to Saturday, with both a la carte and set menus. From the former, you could try chargrilled flatbread with crab in chive mayonnaise for 15. The set menu is 24/29 for two/three courses.

ON A BLOW-OUT

Scallops to start, the striploin for mains, a couple of sides, dessert and cheese will set you back 126 for two before drinks.

THE HIGH POINT

Old Street is everything that you could want in a neighbourhood restaurant.

THE LOW POINT

That it's not in my neighbourhood.
A teenager who weighed 20stone has revealed how she lost weight and reversed her liver disease.

When Isabelle Kennedy was 15-years-old, doctors warned her that if she didnt lose weight she may have to undergo invasive surgery to fit a gastric band on her stomach.

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The secondary school student was also diagnosed liver diseased linked to obesity.

Now 18, Kennedy from Bexhill-on-Sea in the UK has lost 9st 8lbs by tackling her habit of emotional eating. Instead of focusing on weight loss, she worked to develop health eating habits. Since October 2014, she dropped from 20st 11lbs and a size 22 to 24 to 11st 3lbs and a size 10 to 12.

Kennedy has been overweight since the age of four, but gained eight stone in secondary school when she would comfort eat and buy crisps, biscuits, sweets and chocolate on her way home from school. For dinner, she would eat a whole pizza and chips, before tucking into ice cream, left-overs and chocolate.

The teenager now eats poached eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms and baked beans on wholemeal toast for breakfast, and an apple or banana as a mid-morning snack. At lunch, she usually eats a baked potato with tuna and sweetcorn and side salad, followed by a fat-free yogurt and strawberries for a mid-afternoon snack. For dinner, she eats a fajita rice bowl with salad, or BBQ pulled pork and salad. For dessert, she eats an Oreo ice cream sandwich or a chocolate bar.

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"The biggest thing for me to overcome was stopping the emotional eating," she said, adding this meant "finding other ways of coping."

"Now I find going for a long walk with my dog Millie or a run after college is a great way to relax after a stressful day."

"Its crazy as I used to dread any kind of activity because Id worry what I looked like and got out of breath, but not anymore," he added.

The teenager recently completed her A-Levels, and said her newfound health has given her extra confidence at college and boosted her attendance. "I honestly feel that without having lost the weight, I wouldnt have even thought about going to university as I wouldnt have believed in myself enough. I used to feel self-conscious about talking to people because I thought theyd be secretly judging me for being so big."

"After losing the weight and being discharged from hospital, I feel full of self-confidence and like Ill be able to meet new friends at university and enter the world of work when the time comes."

Her weight loss has earned Kennedy the title of Slimming World Young Slimmer of the Year.
Missed your chance at a summer getaway? Not to worry... Ryanair has announced a 'Big Freeze' sale for autumn and winter.

The sale sees over 500,000 seats released from 14.99 each-way.

It applies to fares across Ryanair's European network for travel from September to January, and is now live on the airline's website, ryanair.com.

You need to be quick, however - the seat sale fares are only available for booking until midnight tomorrow, Tuesday, July 25.

As we publish, sale fares were available from Dublin to several UK airports from 14.99, with destinations like Amsterdam and Copenhagen priced from 24.99.

Fares from Cork, Kerry and Shannon start from 19.99.

Ryanair today announced a 55pc jump in quarterly profits, boosted by the timing of Easter and increased traffic growth, according to its latest results.

Average fares at the airline increased by 1pc to 40.30, however.

Read more:
The police came in the early hours. Everyone was asleep. It was twilight.

Thirteen journalists homes were raided in the early hours of 31 October. The Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper lived in one. The CEO in another. Columnists in four, lawyers in three, the reporter, the ombudsman, the books section editor, the cartoonist, the accountant...

All were senior figures in the Cumhuriyet, Turkeys oldest and most prestigious newspaper.

A 151-Day Wait

Trying to reassure their terrified, bleary-eyed children, they were forced to watch as their homes and archives were turned inside out and computers were impounded.

They were taken to the main police station first, then to the hospital for a medical, and finally to the biggest prison in the country. They were placed in solitary cells, with no idea what their crime was.

As it turned out, they had to wait for 151 days before they could learn the charges. The indictments were announced on the 151st day: Aiding and abetting armed terrorist organisations.

Which organisations, I hear you ask?

The very same PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) that the government had shared a peace table with three years previously, and the Gulenists that the government had jointly been ruling the country with for a decade.

Funnily enough, the risks posed by the Gulen movement had been flagged by these journalists, who were now accused of being Gulenists.

Wheres the Evidence?

The reports, interviews, headlines, tweets and columns critical of the government seem to be it. In other words, they would be tried on charges of journalism.

I, as the former Editor-in-Chief, was the number one defendant. And I was charged with altering the newspapers editorial policy. My first reaction was to exclaim So what? Since when did prosecutors determine editorial policy for newspapers, anyway?

The answer is obvious: Since the Presidents seizure of the media in his drive for absolute power.

Erdogans Crackdown

Last year, Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan embarked upon a sweeping crackdown, accusing his former partner Gulen of masterminding the 15 July coup attempt.

This was a God sent opportunity to get rid of his opponents once and for all even as he purged the civil service of the Gulenists he had personally installed.

Having secured absolute power with a declaration of a state of emergency on 20 July, he then constitutionalised this de facto regime through a referendum held under civil martial law conditions  an amendment rejected by half the nation, all the restrictions and controversial Electoral Commission practices notwithstanding.

Turkey had fended off the coup attempt on 15 July, but fell victim to a counter coup of Erdogan on 20 July. Not a military rule, but a police state.

Turkey Becomes Worlds Biggest Prison For Journalists

In the wake of the coup attempt, the number of journalists in prison quadrupled from 30; as the Cumhuriyet contingent joined the 120, Turkey became the worlds biggest prison for journalists.

The Constitutional Amendment elevated Erdogan to the position of one man; one man to rule the government, the Parliament and the judiciary and in charge of the mechanism that appoints judges and prosecutors.

Not unsurprisingly, every journalists appeal for release was rejected. With a few exceptions, there was hardly any media left to criticise this turn of events: one jailed journalist is a hostage that silences several others outside. This was the method used to silence the Cumhuriyet, one of the last bastions of the free press.

Even the tea boy who runs the cafeteria was arrested; his crime being a gripe, I wouldnt serve Erdogan tea if he came here! overheard by the police constable on duty at the paper, who informed his superiors. Lo and behold! The next morning our tea boy was taken into custody on a charge of insulting the President.

The Cumhuriyet is scheduled to appear in court on the 24 July. The entire editorial team of a newspaper is scheduled to face a judge for the first time after 267 days. They will be defending not only themselves, but also free press, as well as a democracy that is fighting for its life in the hands of a despot.

If this is a coincidence, it certainly is an ironic one:

24 July is the anniversary of lifting of censorship in Turkey, commemorated since 1908 as Press Freedom Day. This year, we commemorate Press Freedom Day as Struggle for Press Freedom Day in prisons, courtrooms and exile.

All our colleagues are invited.
The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry have revealed their intimate thoughts about their mother in a documentary featuring her closest family and friends. Picture: PA

This photograph released by Kensington Palace, from the personal photo album of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, shows the princess holding Prince William whilst pregnant with Prince Harry, and features in the new ITV documentary 'Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy', which airs on ITV at 21.00hrs on Monday 24th July. The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry have spoken as never before about Princess Diana in an interview designed to teach a new generation about their mother.

The brothers, now aged 35 and 32, have given the most intimate insight yet into their childhood, as they opened their family photo album. In a 90-minute documentary, featuring the Princess' closest family and friends, the Duke and Prince will bring their mother's memory to life, detailing her efforts to give them a normal childhood and her love of pranks.

The Duke speaks of how he felt her presence as a source of comfort before his 2011 wedding to Catherine Middleton.

It will reveal how their parents' divorce left them constantly travelling between houses, that their mother's death was like an "earthquake", and how Queen Elizabeth was at one point so concerned she took friends aside to check on the Princes.

Introducing the film at a Kensington Palace screening, the Duke said he and his younger brother had never spoken so frankly in public before, explaining that the 20th anniversary of the Princess' death in August felt like an "appropriate time to open up a bit more".

"We won't be doing this again," he said. "We won't speak as openly and publicly about her again, because we feel that hopefully this film will provide the other side: from her closest family and friends, that you might not have heard before, from those who knew her best, and those who want to protect her memory and want to remind people of the person she was; the warmth, the humour, and what she was like as a mother.

"Harry and I feel very strongly that we want to celebrate her life, and this is a tribute from her sons to her."

Sitting with Prince Harry to look at photographs and talk about memories had been "cathartic", he added.

Expand Close This photograph released by Kensington Palace, from the personal photo album of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, shows Prince William and Prince Harry sitting on a picnic bench together and features in the new ITV documentary 'Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy', which airs on ITV at 21.00hrs on Monday 24th July. The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry. / Facebook

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Whatsapp This photograph released by Kensington Palace, from the personal photo album of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, shows Prince William and Prince Harry sitting on a picnic bench together and features in the new ITV documentary 'Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy', which airs on ITV at 21.00hrs on Monday 24th July. The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

As well as her sons, the film also features the Princess' brother, Earl Spencer, who speaks frankly about how the bitter divorce of their parents affected her; Sir Elton John, who sang at her funeral, and a host of friends.

The Duke and Prince have also taken part in a BBC documentary, due out later this year and focusing specifically on the week following the car crash that killed the Princess in Paris in 1997. They marked what would have been her 56th birthday last month by rededicating her grave at Althorp, the Spencer family home, and will commemorate the anniversary of her death in August.

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"We want her legacy to live on in our work, and we feel this is an appropriate way of doing that," said the Duke.

The family album

The ITV film opens with the Duke and Prince leafing though the Princess' photograph album. Harry tells his brother: "Part of me never really wanted to look at them and part of me was waiting to find the right time where we could sit down and look at them together."

One shows him on his first day of school, while another captures a beach holiday, where he is hugged tightly by his mother.

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"She would just engulf you and squeeze you as tight as possible," he recalls. "And being as short as I was then, there was no escape, you were there and you were there for as long as she wanted to hold you. Even talking about it now I can feel the hugs that she used to give us and I miss that. I miss that feeling, I miss that part of a family."

Divorce

Before the trauma of the Princess' death, Prince William and Prince Harry endured the fall-out from their parents' divorce, finalised in 1996 after a long and public battle.

"The two of us were bouncing between the two of them... we never saw our mother enough or we never saw our father enough," Prince Harry says. "There was a lot of travelling and a lot of fights on the back seat with my brother, which I would win. So there was all of that to contend with. And I don't pretend that we're the only people to have to deal with that, but it was an interesting way of growing up."

Childhood outfits

In a light-hearted moment, Prince Harry speaks with mock fury about the outfits he was compelled to wear as a child. The two young boys were photographed regularly in an array of elaborate and old-fashioned clothes.

"I genuinely think that she got satisfaction out of dressing myself and William up in the most bizarre outfits," he says. "Normally matching. It was weird shorts and, like, little sorts of shiny shoes with the old clip on. I just think, 'how could you do that to us?'"

A normal life

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The Princess, her sons say, tried valiantly to teach them about a normal life, despite their privileges. "She made the decision that no matter what, she was going to ensure that both of us had as normal a life as possible," Prince Harry says.

"And if that means taking us for a burger every now and then, or sneaking us into the cinema, or driving through the country lanes with the roof down of her old-school BMW listening to Enya, I think it was... all of that was part of her being a mum."

Diana the prankster

Described as a "total kid through and through" by Prince Harry, the Princess attempted to embarrass her sons at every opportunity

Prince William tells how he once returned home, aged 12 or 13, to find Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell, the fashion models, waiting at the top of the stairs.

"I went red and didn't quite know what to say and sort of fumbled, and I think I pretty much fell down the stairs on the way up," he says. "I was completely awestruck."

At other times, he says she would post him "the rudest cards you can imagine" to boarding school, leaving him in fear of being spotted by a teacher.

Granny Diana

If she excelled as a mother, the Princess would have been an "absolute nightmare" as a grandmother, the Duke jokes. Saying he is "constantly" mentioning "Granny Diana" at home, he has also mounted photographs so Prince George and Princess Charlotte learn about her.

"It's hard because obviously Catherine didn't know her, so she cannot really provide that level of detail," he says.

An earthquake

The Princess' death, the Duke says, was like an "earthquake".

"There's not many days that go by that I don't think of her, you know - sometimes sad, sometimes very positively," he notes.

"You know, I have a smile every now and again when someone says something and I think, that's exactly what she would have said, or she would have enjoyed that comment. So they always live with you, people you lose like that. My mother lives with me every day."

Prince Harry says: "There's not a day that William and I don't wish that she was still around."

He concludes: "You know, and of course as a son I would say this, she was the best mum in the world."

Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy will be broadcast on Monday at 9pm on ITV  Telegraph
'Someone could burn the kitchen down and Colin would say, 'Ah they were only trying out a new dish','' is how Jacinta Downey describes her fiance, Colin Brown. "He's the softy and he looks at the emotion of every situation and is genuinely caring."

Colin and Jacinta are hotel manager and assistant manager, respectively, of The Lodge at Ashford Castle, and when asked who the staff would be most afraid of, Jacinta confesses with a laugh that it's probably her. "I'm the happy, approachable, mother hen of the team," agrees Colin.

He and Jacinta met in 2006 while studying hotel management at Shannon College in Clare. They fancied each other straight away and became great friends, but didn't get together for months. "I thought he was very funny," says Jacinta. "He was so driven and confident in what he wanted, which I found really endearing. We all lived in Bunratty and Colin had a car as he had a full licence at 17. As soon as we heard his car starting in the morning, we would all run for a lift."

Colin says that he thought Jacinta was absolutely gorgeous and her personality shone through too. "She is a ball of light and is always really happy," he says. "Jacinta cares about everyone and everything, and she won't even kill a spider even though she's terrified of them."

The two students got together at the end of first year, and then went off abroad on work placement. Jacinta did her placement in Luxembourg and Colin did his in Switzerland, and they would put their days off together and meet every month somewhere in Europe for four days, which they say was very romantic. When they returned, Colin taught Jacinta to drive and even booked her test and didn't tell her until the week before.

She passed and when she came out, Colin was waiting with a car that he had bought for her.

The pair both worked at Greenhills Hotel while at college and loved it. After graduation, they moved to London for three years and Jacinta worked with Principal Hayley Hotels, eventually becoming reception manager at the De Vere Beaumont Estate in Old Windsor. Colin joined Red Carnation hotels, ultimately becoming assistant food and beverage manager at The Rubens at the Palace hotel.

"When we were in London, we worked such long shifts that there were times when we hadn't spoken properly for two weeks," says Jacinta. "Actually there were three weeks over one Christmas where we didn't see each other at all, even though we were living in the same house."

They came back to Dublin in 2013 because they missed their families too much. Jacinta (28) grew up in Portlaoise and has one younger sister, Aisling. Her mother Anne is an amazingly strong person who raised her daughters alone and now works as a special needs assistant in a school. They spent several years on Jacinta's grandmother Bernie's farm, and then moved to Portlaoise town. Jacinta began working part-time in Egan's bar and restaurant, which helped her decide that she wanted a career dealing with people.

Colin (29) is the youngest of Teresa and Derek's three children, and he grew up in Killiney in Dublin. His dad is a telecommunications engineer and his mum has worked for an American family for 25 years, taking care of the children and house. As a teenager, he worked at The Graduate and Baker's Corner pubs, which convinced him that hospitality was for him.

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When the couple returned to Ireland in 2013, Colin took a job at the Dylan hotel and Jacinta at the Clarion at Dublin Airport. Then Jacinta fell down the stairs at home and broke her foot, so she was out of work for six months.

They both went to work at The Lodge at Ashford Castle in February 2014, Colin as hotel manager and Jacinta as assistant hotel manager. The Lodge is a 64-bedroom complex and a four-star hotel 762 metres from Ashford Castle, and while both properties are run separately, they have the same owner, Red Carnation. They host some big projects between them, including Rory McIlroy's recent wedding to Erica Stoll, about which Colin and Jacinta are sworn to secrecy. "It was a really lovely day," smiles Jacinta, and, most annoyingly, won't be pressed further.

Colin and Jacinta rent a home close to The Lodge and have a beloved cockapoo called Stewie. They cater for 80 weddings a year at The Lodge and have 127 staff, and they adore it and are very proud of the hotel. "We have different skills sets," says Jacinta. "I'm very revenue and accounts driven but Colin is very creative and has great vision."

Colin proposed to Jacinta during a trip to America. As Jacinta is a huge Disney fan, he had planned to pop the question at Disney World, but was nearly rumbled when the ring was pulled out during an airport security check (Jacinta thankfully didn't notice). Unnerved, he decided to propose during a horse-drawn carriage ride around Central Park.

The happy couple are getting married next February in, where else, but The Lodge. "It's an amazing wedding venue and romantic getaway," says Colin, "and the food is also fantastic. Working with Jacinta is great and while she's really decisive in work, there isn't a chance she'll make a decision at home, even around dinner. She finds the best in every situation though and is really caring."

www.thelodgeac.com
Emily Ratajkowski has said she does not see why she cannot be both a sex symbol and a feminist

US actress and model Emily Ratajkowski poses as she arrives on May 17, 2017 for the screening of the film 'Ismael's Ghosts' (Les Fantomes d'Ismael) during the opening ceremony of the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. / AFP PHOTO / Alberto PIZZOLIALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images

Dont shoot the messenger. Unless that messenger is wearing a bikini, in which case, burn at the figurative social media stake.

Emily Ratajkowski, self-described feminist, actress, swimsuit model and music video star wants to break down perceptions of the F-word and reclaiming ownership of the female form, one nude Instagram photo at a time.

Earlier this week, in a cover story for Harpers Bazaar Australia magazine, the 26-year-old said she struggles to get parts because of her cleavage, which is a rather infuriating comment for any big breasted woman.

Ratajkowski has been acutely aware of her body from a young age  as an overdeveloped girl who got her first period at the age of 10 and was affectionately referred to as a baby woman by her father.

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"And that's what I was: a 12-year-old with D-cup breasts who still woke up in the night and asked her mom to come and sleep in her room, she wrote in a Lenny letter last year.

She paints a picture of an adolescence obsessed with her appearance: a vice principal snapping her bra in front of her class, a family friend urging her to keep a low profile because of her appearance, her dress and her ability to keep up with the adults in the room.

Like Jessica Biel and Charlize Theron before her, Emily laments the lack of job offers because of her physical appearance, the one and only time being beautiful was a bad thing in Hollywood.

But the truth is, shes just not that good of an actress. If youve seen her blink and youll miss it turn in 2014s Gone Girl, she didnt exactly set the screen on fire and was a barely palpable presence in comparison to the female lead Rosamund Pike, who rightfully earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role.

Emilys brand of feminism is one that is based entirely on the superficial: their body, their weight, their breasts, their hair.

Feminism doesnt just mean equality among the sexes; it means doing whatever the hell you want because you can. If that means stripping down naked or dressing like a nun, thats your choice and the right to behave in a matter acceptable to yourself is a right we all should have.

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There's this thing that happens to me: 'Oh, she's too sexy.' It's like an anti-woman thing, people don't want to work with me because my boobs are too big, she says.

But its insulting to blame your breasts as an explanation to why your career hasnt furthered.

Come try working in media, or tech, or business, or medicine or law and see what it takes to get ahead.

Emily talks about her boobs more than anyone else  strategically placed poses fill her Instagram feed, she went topless in Gone Girl, she went topless in the Blurred Lines music video and she has mentioned them in nearly every interview Ive seen her partake in.

She adds: What's wrong with boobs? They're a beautiful, feminine thing that needs to be celebrated. Like, who cares? They are great big, they are great small. Why should that be an issue?"

Given the amount of times shes spoken about, it seems the only person this is still an issue with is Emily. So, she retaliates and does what she believes is true to her convictions: she fights to empower female sexuality by posting a nude selfie, what has become the modern day equivalent of bra burning.

Expand Close Emily Ratajkowski and Kim Kardashian teamed up for this topless selfie to 'empower women' / Facebook

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It tells the world that men, or other women, cant control how you view, display or treat your body.

Autonomy doesnt just apply to your health, but also your happiness  and if stripping down at every opportunity makes you happy, then why not?

If I had a body like Emilys, I would walk around half naked every single day. Not because of my feminist ideals, but because I had a damn good body and Id want the world to know.

I have no problem with the backlash because I feel it illustrates my point over and over."

This quote is an oxymoron based on the simple fact that if she had no problem with the backlash, then why is she talking about it for what feels like the 6,745th time this year?

My issue with her form of feminism is that it relies solely on appearances: I am grateful to live in a modern world where I dont have to quit my job after I marry, where I can obtain further education and one where Im seen as an equal, not the lesser half in a relationship; to think the crux of feminism is revolved around breasts is just superficial and devalues the journey thus far.

There was more to the womens liberation movement in the 70s than burning your bra: it provided a gathering of like-minded, kick-ass women who wanted to blow the doors right off the patriarchy and it was an opportunity for progressive discussion - all while wearing whatever the hell they wanted.

Last year, Emily posted a topless photo with Kim Kardashian giving the finger, which unsurprisingly, went viral. It was to counteract the criticism Kardashian received after posting a nude selfie earlier in the week, namely at the hands of professional controversialist Piers Morgan, a man who literally wrote the book(s) on self promotion.

She asks: "To me, sexy is a kind of beauty, a kind of self-expression, one that is to be celebrated, one that is wonderfully female. Why does the implication have to be that sex is a thing men get to take from women and women give up?"

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Unfortunately, our society still has issues with female sexuality: we see women on screen as perceived by male directors, we get bikini waxes based on standards set by the porn industry; we adhere to increasingly conservative dress codes around the world lest we tempt an innocent man into losing control of himself by gazing at our bare shoulders.

What Emily doesnt understand is  theres a difference between the scrutiny on sexuality and the reason she isnt making it as an actress and it has nothing to do with her breasts.
Kabul's western neighbourhoods have been targeted in a series of attacks

A worker clears up at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan (AP Photos/Massoud Hossaini)

A Taliban suicide bomber has killed 24 people in an area of Kabul where prominent politicians live, causing residents and analysts to question the government's ability to protect Afghanistan's capital.

Another 42 people were injured in the attack during morning rush hour as government employees and students made their way to work and school.

Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing skyward outside the entrance to a private high school. Students in nearby dormitories were injured by flying glass.

Several cars were destroyed and many people inside small shops that lined the busy street were killed.

The suicide bomber had rammed his explosive-laden car into a minibus carrying employees of the mines and petroleum ministry, Kabul police chief spokesman Basir Mujahed said.

In a statement to the media the Taliban took responsibility for the bombing, saying the target was the employees of the intelligence services.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said insurgents had spent the last two months in Kabul shadowing intelligence services employees before striking.

Analysts said widespread corruption, rife within the government and the security forces, makes keeping Kabul safe a difficult job.

Kabul-based security analyst Waheed Muzhda said: "You can bring any amount of explosives into the city if you have money. Corruption is the big problem.

"Any group, even a small group, can bring weapons, ammunition to anywhere in the city."

Last year, Afghanistan was ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries according to Transparency International.

The western Kabul area where the attack occurred is home to many prominent political leaders, such as Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq.

It has also been the site of several previous attacks, including the suicide attack last month that killed prominent Shia Muslim cleric Ramazan Hussainzada, who was also a senior leader of the ethnic Hazara community.

Amir Helam, whose friend died in the explosion, told Afghanistan's Tolo TV that "every day people are dying".

Addressing the government, Mr Helam said: "If you cannot bring peace then please leave and bring other people."

Kabul has been battered by explosions claimed by the Taliban and by the Islamic State group's affiliate in Afghanistan.

On May 31, the Afghan capital saw its worst suicide attack since the Taliban's collapse in 2001 - an attack that killed 150 people and wounded scores more.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing, saying: "Once again, these terrorist are attacking civilians and targeting government staff."

Pakistan also condemned the bombing.

AP
The video claimed Mr Trump was "the most stupid president a country could ever have" (AP)

Somalia-based Islamic extremists al-Shabab have mocked US president Donald Trump in a new video that calls him a "brainless billionaire" as his administration steps up military efforts against the group.

The new video said US voters elected "arguably the most stupid president a country could ever have" and said Mr Trump is "making the United States the greatest joke on earth and is now propelling it further to its eventual defeat and destruction".

The SITE Intelligence Group said the video also addresses next month's presidential election in neighbouring Kenya.

The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab has claimed a growing number of deadly attacks in Kenya as the election approaches, with Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta declaring a new offensive against the extremists this month.

Mr Trump earlier this year approved expanded military operations against al-Shabab, including more aggressive air strikes and considering parts of southern Somalia areas of active hostilities.

Somalia is also included in Mr Trump's ban on refugees and visitors from six mostly Muslim countries.

The extremist group has vowed retribution on Kenya in particular for sending its troops to Somalia to take part in a multinational African Union force against al-Shabab.

"Your military's invasion of Somalia will continue to destabilise your country," the new al-Shabab video said . "When we do strike, your government will not be able to protect you."

Somalia is trying to rebuild after more than two decades as a failed state, and its chaos helped fuel al-Shabab's rise.

The extremist group last year killed more than 4,200 people, according to the Pentagon-supported Africa Centre for Strategic Studies.

Al-Shabab has vowed to step up attacks against Somalia's recently elected government and has carried out numerous deadly attacks in the capital, Mogadishu.

Pressure is growing on Somalia's military to assume full responsibility for the country's security.

The 22,000-strong African Union multinational force, which has been supporting the fragile central government, plans to start withdrawing in 2018 and leave by the end of 2020.

The US military has been among those expressing concern that Somalia's forces are not yet ready.

AP
Tim Van Noten, a member of a Belgian artists collective, pours water on a real-looking, life-size whale sculpture is displayed along the Seine River in Paris (Michel Euler/AP)

The sight of a beached sperm whale on the banks of the River Seine left Parisians baffled as the washed up mammal lay lifeless on the ground.

But the attention-grabbing appearance over the weekend turned out to be a stunt, orchestrated by Belgian art group, The Captain Boomer Collective.

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Tourists and city dwellers speculated on whether the 23ft long predator was real or not, as the artists, posing as forensic scientists from the fictitious North Sea Whale Association, examined its carcass.

The aim of the installation is to raise awareness about environmental issues.

You have the ecological dimension to the project, of course. Its also a confrontation with death and with the force of nature, and also with the child in everyone who is still puzzled by what is real and what is not, artist Bart Vanpeel told Al Jazeera.

Expand Close The stunt by Belgian art collective, Captain Boomer, has travelled around Europe in recent years (Michel Euler/AP) / Facebook

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The Collectives website outlines the process of bringing the statue to Europes shorelines, from transporting the whales carcass to the location overnight, to preparing the bleeding and the smell.

The scientists are also made to interact with the media and passers-by as if the carcass is real, to enhance the performance.

The beached whale has made a number of appearances around European cities in recent years, and came to the banks of the River Thames in 2013.
At least eight people are dead after female suicide bombers attacked two displaced persons camps in north-eastern Nigeria's main city, Maiduguri.

It is the first major attack on a displaced persons camp in the city - the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist insurgency.

Another 15 people were hurt in the attack, which started late on Sunday night, the Civilian-JTF civilian defence group said.

The Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram often targets the city with suicide bombers, and has increasingly been using women in these roles.

Late last year, Nigeria's government declared the group "crushed", but dozens of such attacks have been carried out this year.

The latest bombings occurred a few days after Nigeria's army chief of staff issued a 40-day deadline for troops to flush out Boko Haram's leader and finish off the extremists.

The Civilian-JTF's Bello Danbatta said one bomber sneaked into the Dalori camp and detonated, and two other attackers exploded on or near the camp's perimeter fence. Another bomber detonated early on Monday morning.

Thousands of people continue to shelter in camps after being forced from their homes by Boko Haram.

The extremist group's eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, kidnapped thousands of others, spilled into neighbouring countries and created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

Nigeria is moving closer to famine, with more than five million people expected to face "crisis, emergency and famine conditions" by the end of August as the lean season continues, the Norwegian Refugee Council said.

The unrest has disrupted farming and access to markets in the region.

Threats to displaced person's camps have included Nigeria's own military.

On Monday, the air force issued a statement expressing its "deepest regrets" for mistakenly bombing a camp in the town of Rann in January.

A Borno state government official said more than 230 people were killed when the air force bombed the camp multiple times.

Last week, the military said the camp was not appropriately marked as a humanitarian base on its operational maps.

AP
Boris Johnson has joked that a traditional Maori greeting could be misinterpreted as a headbutt during a visit to the South Pacific nation.

The Foreign Secretary is visiting New Zealand for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with the former colony amid a broader reshaping of its global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union.

On Monday, Mr Johnson visited the South Island town of Kaikoura, which was struck by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in November that killed two people.

Mr Johnson thanked townsfolk for looking after tourists following the quake and for teaching him a Maori greeting called a hongi, in which people press noses together.

Referring to a headbutt, Mr Johnson joked the hongi "might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow".
Prince William and Prince Harry have spoken of their regret over the last conversation they had with their mother Princess Diana before she died, saying the phone call was "desperately rushed".

In a documentary called 'Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy', timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Diana's death in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997, the two British princes said they spoke to their mother shortly before she died.

"Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know 'see you later' ... if I'd known now obviously what was going to happen, I wouldn't have been so blase about it and everything else," Prince William said.

"It was her speaking from Paris, I can't really necessarily remember what I said but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was," said Prince Harry.

The princes recall their mother's sense of humour, with Prince Harry describing her as "one of the naughtiest parents". They also recall the pain of their parents' divorce and how they dealt with the news of her death and its aftermath.

While the film addresses aspects of Diana's life, such as her charity work involving HIV and landmines, it shies away from some other issues, such as extra-marital affairs.

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According to the makers, however, the British royals were very open and did not put any subject off limits.

Diana's love of dressing up her sons in "bizarre" costumes is revealed in photos featured in the documentary.

In one picture, the princes are dressed as policemen with toy helmets, ties and utility belts with walkie-talkies. Prince Harry said: "One thing I would love to ask her now, because I genuinely think that she got satisfaction out of dressing myself and William up in the most bizarre outfits, normally matching.

"Looking back at the photos, it just makes me laugh - I just think: 'how could you do that to us?'"

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Prince William also tells how he keeps the memory of "granny Diana" alive for Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

George, who was four on Saturday, and two-year-old Charlotte are growing up with just Carole Middleton as their sole grandmother.

But William is determined his children should also have Diana in their lives through the stories he tells them about the princess.

In the documentary, he talks to his children and puts up photos in their home.

"It's important they know who she was and that she existed."

He also jokes about the havoc his mother would have caused at his children's bath times if she was alive: "She'd be a nightmare grandmother, absolute nightmare. She'd love the children to bits, but she'd be an absolute nightmare."

'Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy' is screened at 9pm on ITV tonight
The BBC is wilfully ignoring positive Brexit stories and shows a clear pattern of unbalanced reporting, a Tory cabinet minister has claimed.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has called for a face-to-face meeting with the corporation's boss, Tony Hall, to discuss the way "important" announcements from his department are being covered.

But the Liberal Democrats accused him of behaving like a "tinpot dictator" and claimed the move was a "blatant attempt at intimidating" the BBC.

Mr Fox said the BBC had chosen not to report annual foreign direct investment figures released by the Department for International Trade despite being contacted about them by his team.

The BBC also turned down an interview opportunity with him during a visit he made to Paris, he claimed.

"I understand that the BBC cannot cover every story and I appreciate too, that despite its best efforts, the corporation cannot always guarantee total impartiality," he said.

"However, I believe that we are now seeing a clear pattern of unbalanced reporting of the UK economy."

Liberal Democrat chief whip Alistair Carmichael said: "This is a blatant attempt at intimidating the BBC. The BBC shouldn't be bullied into publishing government propaganda and has rightly stood its ground.

"Liam Fox is acting like a tinpot dictator. He can't blame the media for his inability to deliver on all the trade deals promised by the Brexiteers."
People gather during a protest against the Supreme Court legislation in Poznan

The president of Poland is to veto two contentious bills that are widely seen as assaults on the independence of the judicial system.

The planned legal overhaul by the ruling party has sparked days of nationwide protests.

In announcing his decision on Monday, Andrzej Duda broke openly for the first time with Jaroslaw Kaczynski - leader of the ruling Law and Justice party.

Mr Duda is closely aligned with the party and has supported its agenda since taking office in 2015.

Mr Duda said he would veto two of three bills recently passed by politicians. One would have put the Supreme Court under the political control of the ruling party, giving the justice minister - who is also prosecutor general - power to appoint judges.

Mr Duda said a prosecutor general should not have such powers.
The animals were said to have been unaccompanied

Iranian border guards have confiscated 30 horses and mules that were carrying weapons and ammunition, according to reports.

General Qassim Rezai said the unaccompanied animals and the consignment were seized in the north-west of the country, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.

The mountainous remote area in north-west Iran is predominantly Kurdish and close to both Iraq and Turkey's borders.

It is the scene of occasional clashes between Iranian forces and militant Kurdish separatists and IS-linked fighters.

On Friday, Iran said its elite Revolutionary Guard had killed three terrorists, wounded four others and detained one in a clash in the area.

A Guard member was killed and another wounded in the clash.

AP
Security forces stand outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Security forces member speak as they stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Jordanian security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Two Jordanians died from wounds inflicted during a shooting on Sunday in the compound of the heavily-guarded Israeli embassy that also wounded an Israeli, police and a security source said.

Police said earlier that the two Jordanians worked for a furniture firm and entered the embassy compound before the shooting to do repairs. Police did not identify the wounded Israeli, and few other details were immediately available.

Israel has imposed a ban on reporting the incident and has made no public comment.

The fortress-like embassy in the affluent Rabae district of the capital Amman is protected by Jordanian gendarme. It has long been a flashpoint of anti-Israeli protests at times of turmoil in the Palestinian territories.

Violence against Israelis is rare in Jordan, a tightly policed country that is also a staunch regional ally of the United States and signed a peace treaty with Israel, the Arab neighbor with which it shares a long border.

But tensions have escalated between the two countries since Israel installed metal detectors at entry points to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after two Israeli policemen were shot dead by three Arab-Israeli gunmen on Friday near the site.

Expand Close Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

The new security measures have triggered the bloodiest spate of Israeli-Palestinian violence for years.

Jordan has called for the removal of the metal detectors and thousands of Jordanians have protested against the Israeli move in an outpouring of public anger against Israel.

Jordanian police said after Sunday's shooting that they sealed off the embassy compound and deployed dozens of anti-terrorism gendarmie forces.

"We have started a large scale investigation into the incident and ordered the prosecutor general to look at all the details," the police said in a statement.

Expand Close Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Initial checks suggested the two Jordanian men had entered the embassy compound as workmen, the statement said.

Many of Jordan's 7 million citizens are of Palestinian origin. They or their parents or grandparents were expelled or fled to Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.

Expand Close Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Security forces stand guard outside the Israeli embassy in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital Amman following an 'incident' on July 23, 2017. AFP PHOTO / khalil mazraawiKHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

Israel has in the past given repeated assurances that it understands Jordan's concerns and does not seek to alter the status quo in the Muslim holy sites of Jerusalem.

King Abdullah's Hashemite monarchy has been custodian of the sites since 1924, paying for their upkeep and deriving part of its legitimacy from the role.
Israel is "playing with fire and risking a major crisis with the Arab and Islamic world", the Arab League has warned.

The warning came after Israel sent extra troops into the occupied West Bank as violence erupted over Israel's installation of metal detectors at entry points to the shrine, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

In a possible spillover of the tensions, two Jordanian men were shot dead and an Israeli wounded in a violent incident at the Israeli embassy in Amman last night. The spate of violence has also included a Palestinian attacker stabbing three Israelis to death on Friday, with three Palestinians killed hours before.

"Jerusalem is a red line that Muslims and Arabs cannot allow to be crossed... and what is happening today is an attempt to impose a new reality on the Holy city," Arab League secretary-general Ahmed Aboul Gheit said. "The Israeli government is playing with fire and risking a major crisis with the Arab and Islamic world."

Arab League foreign ministers will hold emergency talks in Cairo on Wednesday.

On Friday, several thousand Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces in the West Bank and in Jerusalem after noon prayers. Three Palestinians were killed and several dozen wounded after protesters burned tyres and threw stones and firecrackers. Israeli troops responded with live rounds, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Later on Friday night, a 20-year-old Palestinian, identified as Omar al-Abed, jumped over the fence of the Halamish settlement, near Ramallah, and entered a home, surprising a family that were celebrating a new grandchild during their traditional Sabbath dinner and stabbing three Israelis to death.

A neighbour, an off-duty soldier, heard the screams, rushed to the home and opened fire, wounding the attacker. TV footage showed the floor tiles drenched in blood, and officials called it a "massacre".

Yesterday, Israel installed new security cameras at the entrance to the sensitive holy site, as officials began indicating it was considering "alternatives" to the metal detectors that set off a weekend of violence.

Israel set up the new security measures last week after Arab gunmen opened fire from the shrine, killing two Israeli policemen. It said they were a necessary measure to prevent more attacks and were deployed routinely at holy sites around the world. But Muslims alleged Israel was trying to expand its control at the Muslim-administered site and have launched mass prayer protests. ( Independent News Service)
Jared Kushner arrives in the Rose Garden of the White House

US president Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has denied any improper conduct as he revealed he had four contacts with Russians during last year's election campaign and the presidential transition period.

In a statement, Mr Kushner, a senior White House adviser, denied collusion with any foreign government during the presidential campaign. He also denied that Russians finance any of his businesses in the private sector.

The release of Mr Kushner's statement comes hours ahead of his interview by a US Senate committee investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and any possible collusion by Trump associates.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in a written statement released before his appearance in closed-door meetings with members of the U.S. Congress.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," he said.

Kushner said he had "perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives" during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition period after Trump's victory.

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The interview with the Senate intelligence committee is behind held closed doors.

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Mr Kushner said a June 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

Emails released this month show that Mr Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, agreed to the meeting at Trump Tower on the understanding that he would receive damaging information about his father's presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

Mr Kushner, who is married to the president's daughter Ivanka, said he had not seen those emails until he was recently shown them by his lawyers.

Mr Kushner said in his statement that Mr Trump Jr invited him to the meeting. He said he arrived late and heard the lawyer involved discussing the issue of adoptions.

He added that he texted his assistant to call him out of the meeting.

Additional reporting by Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump participates in the commissioning ceremony of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. July 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, faces two days of closed-door questioning from Congress this week as lawmakers try to determine whether Trump's campaign enlisted Russia's help to win the White House in last year's election.

Another congressional panel, the Senate Judiciary Committee, is negotiating with Manafort and Trump Jr. about testifying in a public hearing.

Here is the latest you need to know before questioning begins:

What's on the agenda?

Kushner, a senior White House adviser, is expected to face questions about his contacts with Russian citizens and officials when he testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday and the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

Kushner will also face questions about reports he tried to set up a secret back channel to Moscow, as well as other contacts with top Russian officials and business leaders during the presidential campaign and the transition period before he took office.

"We have a lot of ground to cover," Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

How is POTUS faring?

Trump has been dogged by allegations that his campaign aides worked with Russia, which U.S. intelligence agencies have accused of interfering in last year's election. The issue has dominated Washington and divided his White House, distracting from his efforts to overhaul healthcare, restructure the tax code and rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure.

Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

What do we know so far about 'that Russia meeting'?

Trump Jr., his father's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June 2016. That meeting was held in Trump Tower in New York after the lawyer offered damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

A federal special counsel and several congressional panels are investigating allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and potential connections between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.

Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

Kushner did not initially disclose any meetings with Russians on forms he filed to get a government security clearance. He has since revised those forms several times.

Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. released emails earlier this month related to the meeting that showed he appeared to welcome the prospect of damaging information from the Russian government about Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

What is Trump's latest on Twitter?

Trump says the investigations in Congress and the Justice Department are politically motivated.

"As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!" the president wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

How has Donald Trump Jr prepared for questioning?

The president's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has added a lawyer with congressional experience to his legal team, the lawyer told Reuters on Sunday.

Trump Jr. has hired Karina Lynch of the law firm Williams and Jensen, Lynch confirmed in an email to Reuters. She did not respond to queries about what her role in the team would be.

Lynch's biography on her law firm website describes her as having experience on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. She was also investigative counsel to Senator Charles Grassley, according to her law firm biography.

ABC News reported the hiring earlier on Sunday.

Trump Jr. also hired Alan Futerfas as a lawyer after reports detailed meetings last year between Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer.

What happens next?

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the intelligence panel could ask Kushner to return for further testimony if it still has questions after Tuesday.

"We expect this is just going to be the first interview," Schiff said on Sunday.
South Africa is home to most of the world's rhinos

The South African government is moving ahead with draft regulations for a domestic trade in rhino horn, despite critics' concerns that a legal market will spur rhino poaching.

Environmental affairs minister Edna Molewa said anyone possessing a rhino horn will need a permit, and that South Africa continues to recognise a ban on the international trade in horn that was imposed in 1977.

South Africa is home to most of the world's rhinos.

Earlier this year, South Africa's Constitutional Court rejected a government appeal to preserve a 2009 ban on the domestic trade in rhino horn. A South African rhino breeder plans an online auction of horn next month.

Rhino breeders say a regulated trade would undercut poaching. Some international conservation groups disagree.
James Mathew Bradley Jr arrives at the federal courthouse for a hearing in San Antonio (Eric Gay/AP)

The driver of a sweltering tractor-trailer found packed with immigrants outside a Walmart in San Antonio has been charged over the deaths of 10 of his passengers and could face the death penalty over the hellish journey.

In outlining their immigrant-smuggling case against James Matthew Bradley Jr, federal prosecutors depicted the trailer as pitch-black, crammed with around 90 people or more by some estimates, and so suffocatingly hot that one passenger said they took turns breathing through a hole and pounding on the walls to get the driver's attention.

Bradley, from Clearwater, Florida, appeared in federal court on charges of illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death.

The 60-year-old did not enter a plea or say anything in court about what happened.

Bradley was assigned a public defender and ordered held for another hearing on Thursday.

Over the weekend, authorities discovered eight bodies inside the crowded 18-wheeler parked in the summer heat, and two more victims died in hospital.

Officials feared the death toll could rise because nearly 20 others rescued from the rig were in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

Bradley told investigators that the trailer had been sold and he was transporting it for his boss from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas.

He said he did not realise people were inside until he parked and got out to relieve himself.

After hearing banging and shaking, he opened the door and was "surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground", according to the complaint.

Bradley was quoted as telling investigators that he knew the trailer refrigeration system did not work and that the four ventilation holes were probably clogged.

He also said he did not call emergency services, even though he knew at least one passenger was dead.

The truck was registered to Pyle Transportation of Schaller, Iowa.

President Brian Pyle said that he had sold the truck to a man in Mexico and that Bradley was an independent contractor who was supposed to deliver it to a pick-up point in Brownsville.

"I'm absolutely sorry it happened. I really am. It's shocking. I'm sorry my name was on it," Mr Pyle said, referring to the truck.

He said he had no idea why Bradley took the looping route he described to investigators.

Bradley told authorities that he had stopped in Laredo, Texas - which would have been out of his way if he were travelling directly to Brownsville - to get the truck washed and detailed before heading back 240 kilometres (150 miles) north to San Antonio.

From there, he would have had to drive 275 miles south again to get to Brownsville.

"I just can't believe it. I'm stunned, shocked. He is too good a person to do anything like this," said Bradley's fiancee, Darnisha Rose, of Louisville, Kentucky.

"He helps people, he doesn't hurt people."

She said Bradley told her he had no idea how the immigrants got into his trailer.

One of the passengers told investigators that he was in a group of 24 people who had been in a "stash house" in Laredo for 11 days before being taken to the tractor-trailer.

A passenger told investigators that he and others crossed into the US by raft, paying smugglers 12,500 Mexican pesos (540).

They were then put aboard the truck to be taken to San Antonio, according to the criminal complaint.

The man said he was supposed to pay the smugglers 5,500 dollars (4,200) once he got there.

He said that those in the truck were given no water or food and that the immigrants soon began to struggle to breathe and started passing out.

At least some of those in the truck were from Mexico and Guatemala, according to diplomats from the two countries.

Latin Americans who enter the United States illegally often rely on smuggling networks to guide them across the border by foot or raft, put them in safe houses and then give them rides to their destination in the US.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute," said Thomas Homan, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The tragedy came to light after a person from the truck approached a Walmart employee and asked for water late on Saturday night or early on Sunday morning after a day in which the temperature had climbed over 100F (37.7C), police said.

The employee gave the person water and then called police.

In one of the worst smuggling-by-truck tragedies on record in the US, 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003. The driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

Activists blamed federal and Texas authorities' hard-line immigration policies for contributing to the latest deaths by forcing immigrants to take greater risks to reach the US.

"These tragedies are compounded when it's incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive and we push migration into the hands of illicit actors," immigration activist Bob Libal said.

AP
The police shut down the old town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland, while they search for the attacker (AP)

A man armed with a chainsaw has wounded five people at a health insurer's office in the northern Swiss city of Schaffhausen, triggering a manhunt for a suspect described as aggressive and psychologically unstable.

Suspect Franz Wrousis, 51, has two previous convictions for weapons offences, authorities said.

The attacker wounded two insurance agency employees in their ground floor office in the old town of Schaffhausen on Monday morning, said Christina Wettstein, a spokeswoman for insurer CSS.

Authorities said their lives were not in danger.

Revising earlier statements, police said one CSS employee was seriously injured and the other was slightly injured. Another three people were slightly injured in the attack, police said.

The perpetrator had fled by the time police arrived. Authorities sealed off the city's old town until mid-afternoon as the hunt continued.

Swiss police have ruled out terrorism.

"This was first and foremost a crime against this insurance agency," senior regional police official Ravi Landolt told reporters.

"We have information that this man is dangerous, that he is aggressive and, shall we say, psychologically disturbed."

Swiss media reported that Wrousis was a CSS client. Switzerland has a system that requires residents to have mandatory health insurance with private health insurers.

Prosecutor Peter Sticher said Wrousis has two previous convictions for offences against weapons laws, one from 2014 and 2016.

He did not elaborate or say whether they were committed, but said Wrousis has no previous record in the small northern state of Schaffhausen, near the German border.

Wrousis was previously registered as living in Graubuenden, in Switzerland's south-east. He apparently lives mostly in woods, Mr Landolt said.

Police released old photos of Wrousis standing among trees in a green T-shirt and black jeans.

They described him as being about 6ft 2in, and said he is now bald and unkempt.

Police found the Volkswagen minivan with registration plates from Graubuenden that the suspect was believed to be driving.

They did not elaborate on its condition or say if anything else was found in it.

Schaffhausen is a city of about 36,000 people north of Zurich.

Therese Karrer, who often walks her dog in woods south of Schaffhausen, said she saw the suspect, who is of no fixed abode, several times in the last few weeks.

"I talked to him a few times and walked by his car every day with our dog," said Ms Karrer, who lives in the village of Uhwiesen.

She said Wrousis showed up three or four weeks ago in the forest and chatted with her once when he was having breakfast behind his car.

"He may have been a little strange, but he wasn't unfriendly," she said. "I never felt threatened."

AP
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife are greeted by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (AP)

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged Qatar and the four other Arab countries opposing it to negotiate an end to the crisis dividing them as he wrapped up a two-day Gulf tour.

He voiced his support for mediation efforts being led by Kuwait and said initiatives under way to resolve the crisis through dialogue should continue, a presidential spokesman said.

Mr Erdogan travelled to Qatar on Monday for talks with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who has said Qatar is open to dialogue so long as it respects his country's sovereignty.

He earlier met King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which leads an anti-Qatar bloc which includes the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, before holding talks with the emir of Kuwait.

The quartet cut diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar in early June, accusing it of supporting extremists. Qatar strongly denies the allegation and sees the dispute as politically-motivated.

Mr Erdogan's Gulf trip follows visits aimed at defusing the crisis by the top diplomats of the UK, France, Germany and the US, underscoring the depth of concern the crisis is causing well beyond the region.

Turkey has built increasingly close ties with Qatar in recent years, including opening its first military base in the Persian Gulf there last year.

More Turkish troops have arrived since the Gulf rift erupted, raising fears of an escalation with the countries seeking to isolate it.

The anti-Qatar quartet included expelling the Turkish troops as one of its list of demands to resolve the dispute.
The long and awaited adventure for the Scouts of Central North Carolina began with an early wake call on the morning of the nineteenth. They rode for several hours to The Summit Bechtel Reserve, in West Virginia, where they meet some of the thirty thousand scouts at the 2017 National Jamboree.

After the scouts got off the bus, they began to prepare their campsite for their ten day stay. The Boy Scout Troop set up their tents, rain fly, and troop gear. Shortly after that the young boys began to explore their surrounding area. They traded patches with other Scouts from around the United States and began to know the thrill of making a trade with other youth.

In the evening the boys went grocery shopping and practiced being thrifty as the Scout Law states. They used their food and knowledge of cooking to prepare a meal that earned high praises from the Scoutmaster It took a little longer than planned but was pretty good reported Edward Watson.

The Venture Crew started their Jamboree off by meeting their troop mates. The Venture crew will be sharing their campsite with twenty Ventures from Louisiana, and ten scouts from Honduras. It will be up to scouts like Ainsley Moore and Trevor Hunsucker to make sure that the three different groups, that have never met before, can functionally live together.

After working through the controlled chaos of setting up their campsite the crew enjoyed their evening by exploring the camp. Several scouts went to the Summit Center where they can experience a little of everything Jamboree has to offer.

Throughout the camp there is a sense of anticipation and excitement as scouts are eager and ready for the coming days.

"I really like patch trading. My favorite set is the Southwest Florida council fish set, first class Scout Kavi Miller from Concord said. As many Scouts look forward to patch trading and more, there are sure to be many adventures to cone.

Caleb Watson is sharing with us through a series of columns about the adventures of local Boy Scouts at the 2017 National Jamboree.
Regional leaders aim to launch Metro Safety Commission by end of year

WASHINGTON - As the federal government withholds millions in transportation funding because regional officials missed a deadline to set up a Metro oversight commission, local leaders say they are working on the practical aspects of the new panel and hope to launch it by year's end.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao held back five percent of a category of funding because D.C., Maryland and Virginia officials missed a Feb. 9 deadline to establish a commission to oversee the long-troubled transit system.

Five months later, legislation approving the commission has passed in the District of Columbia, both states and both chambers of Congress, though the House version of the legislation still needs final Senate passage and President Donald Trump's signature.

"Quite frankly, the passing of legislation doesn't do a whole lot unless you have this set up," said Virginia Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne. "The real substance is getting this entity up and running."

The Federal Transit Administration took on temporary safety supervision of the transit system in October 2015 and said it would penalize the three regional partners of Metro by holding back funds if the jurisdictions didn't set up a strong commission as a safety watchdog.

Local jurisdictions have been steadily penalized for their perceived sluggishness ever since.

The safety commission would replace the Tri-State Oversight Committee, which was deemed toothless and ineffective following repeated safety failures, most notably the L'Enfant Plaza smoke calamity that killed one and sickened dozens more in January 2015.

With legislation passed, regional transportation leaders say the priority has shifted from establishing the broad framework of the commission to finding people to run it, office space and staffers.

Each jurisdiction must appoint two full-time commissioners and submit applications laying out the commission's safety and investigative credentials and establishing its independence from Metro before the held-back money can be released, FTA officials say.

There also must be a handoff period when officials from the new oversight authority work alongside FTA officials to demonstrate they're trained and ready to be the watchdog.

Maryland Del. Marc A. Korman, D-Montgomery, co-chair of a work group of Annapolis legislators focused on Metro issues, said the state Department of Transportation is in the process of vetting commissioner applicants. Jennifer Mitchell, director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, said regional leaders aim to have a search firm to find an eventual executive director in late summer or early fall.

Each jurisdiction will have two full-time members, with one alternate to cover absences, on the commission, according to the legislation.

Korman said commissioners should have a rail engineering or safety background - ideally with experience on bodies such as the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Transit Administration or the Federal Railroad Administration.

Six to 12 staffers, who are still to be hired, will manage the office's day-to-day operations. Transportation leaders are looking for office space in downtown D.C.

With regional officials saying they're working as fast as possible to set up the commission, many local members of Congress are pressing to restore the funds now. A total of $8.9 million had been withheld to date, congressional leaders said in late June. The figure was expected to hit $15 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Elected lawmakers from both parties have persistently argued the February deadline for federal certification was impossible to meet. They note that an FTA "tool kit" that gave states guidance on how to achieve certification was not released until four days after the FTA had already penalized the Metro partners.

A June 30 letter to Chao from 11 Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va., and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said "the decision to withhold the funds ... was crude, punitive, and arbitrary."

"The one-year timeline imposed on the jurisdictions to establish and certify the Metro Safety Commission (MSC) ignored the unique legislative calendars of the citizen legislatures in Maryland and Virginia as well as the time consuming, FTA-managed certification process for State Safety Oversight Program," the letter said.

In a separate letter, six other members of Congress, including Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., asked the FTA to restore at least some funds. They, too, argued that the requirement to have the program fully certified by February 2017 was "unreasonable," given the need to appoint commissioners, hire staff and lease an office.

"We are therefore led to believe that FTA either set their requirements without providing fair consideration to the unique institutional challenges that exist within the jurisdictions, or the FTA set them with a deadline so unrealistic that failure was unavoidable," they wrote.

FTA said in an email last week that its stance has not changed.

The FTA also confirmed in the email that it has used $900,000 in Metro funding that was held back last year to hire and train three contractors to do federal oversight of Metro, with the goal of having that expertise transfer to the new commission.

The FTA had asked Maryland, Virginia and the District to hire the contractors, but that did not happen.

dc-subway

Washington Post News Service (DC)

7/23/2017 2:45:19 PM Central Daylight Time
A day heavy in green Indian equity markets saw a day, heavy in green, today. Nifty 50 ended, up by 321.5 points. Sensex ended, up by 1181.34 points. Top Gainers today were HDFC, HDFC Bank, Infosys. Top Losers ... November 11, 2022 | 11-11-2022 3:43 pm

In early trade, Rupee rises 71 paise to 80.69 / $ Early on Friday, the rupee strengthened 71 paise to 80.69 against the dollar as investors' attitudes were bolstered by easing US CPI data and a decline in the dollar index. Forex traders claime... November 11, 2022 | 11-11-2022 2:24 pm

Sensex zooms over 1,100 pts; Nifty above 18,300; IT index top contributor Domestic benchmark indices in the fast lane today led by IT and Metal stocks outperforming. Both the Sensex and Nifty benchmarks were nearly 2% higher amid positive global cues. On the se... November 11, 2022 | 11-11-2022 2:00 pm

NIBE receives order of Rs11.88 crore from Goa Shipyard; Stock slips 1% Nibe Limited stocks in focus as the company announced the receipt of purchase orders. As per the regulatory filing, it has received two purchase orders dated November 08, 2022 from G... November 11, 2022 | 11-11-2022 12:53 pm

Ashoka Buildcon receives provisional certificate for NHAI road project; Stock up 2% Ashoka Buildcon Limited has informed the declaration of October 26, 2021 as the Commercial Operation Date (CoD) for its Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM) Project of National Highways Authority of ... November 11, 2022 | 11-11-2022 12:26 pm
Himachal Pradesh is on the boil after the brutal gang rape of a class 10th student by a group of men in a forest when she was returning from the school.

Now, the state government in order to allay the protest decided to name a school after the victim, who was gang-raped and then brutally murdered by a group of men.

But the government had to backtrack on it hours later after learning that as per law it cant make the name of a rape victim public.

PTI

The move came after Shimla Deputy Commissioner Rohan Chand Thakur and SP Soumya Sambasivan visited victims house for the first time, the Indian Express reported. Shimla has witnessed violent protest against the state police and the situation in capital Shimla has gotten worse

Therefore, in order to allay this protest, in hurry the government decided to name a school after the victim and in a notification, the government made intentions to make the school functional with immediate effect.

The posts of Principal, five Post Graduate Teachers and one post of each trained graduate teacher (TGT) arts and medical and one post of language teacher was sanctioned.

But according to sources, the idea was dropped hours later after the government learnt via their legal experts that it is against law to make name of the rape victim public , the notification was withdrawn immediately.

PTI

We immediately withdrew the notification to correct the mistake, a senior IAS officer said.
China authoritarian government is infamous for invaded an individual's privacy. Now taking this reputation a step further, the country is planning to design a technology to predict crime even before if it committed.

How, you ask?

By pretty much stalking the person to glory.

Facebook/AI/China

According to a report from the Financial Times, authorities are using facial recognition tech, and aiding that with predictive intelligence to notify police of potential criminals, based on their behaviour patterns.

If we use our smart systems and smart facilities well, we can know beforehand . . . who might be a terrorist, who might do something bad, Li Meng, vice-minister of science and technology, told FT.

Chinese company Cloud Walk has been trialling its facial recognition system that tracks a a persons whereabouts. Based on where the person frequents, it gives them a hint about how likely they are to commit a crime.

New Scientist

The police are using a big-data rating system to rate highly suspicious groups of people based on where they go and what they do, a company spokesperson told The Financial Times.

For employing this new technology, the country is using extensive archive of citizen records to predict those who have the potential to commit a crime.

Chinas crime-prediction technology relies heavily on facial recognition and gait analysis, the only fall-out of this system is a "miscarriages of justice;" not all facial recognition system and information given by AI can be fair.
China's back to being... China. No nonsense.

It seems China believes it has a growing religious extremism problem, as evidenced by recent measures it appears to be taking to keep an eye on Muslims in the country.

According to reports from Radio Free Asia, authorities in the Xinjian province sent out a notice on the popular messenger WeChat last week, ordering citizens to install a surveillance app on their smartphones. In addition, theyre also supposedly conducting spot checks in the region, to ensure residents have the app.

Android users were told to scan the QR code in the message, in order to automatically download and install the Jingwang app. Authorities say it automatically detects terrorist and illegal religious videos, images, e-books and electronic documents stored on the phone. If the app finds that kind of material, the user would be instructed to delete them or face punitive action. Additionally, citizens that fail to install the app or later delete it could be detained for up to 10 days.

Chinese users are reporting that the app is similar to a citizen safety app launched by local police in earlier in April, lending it further authenticity. That app was developed to aid users in reporting suspicious incidents to the police.

The new Jinwang app, alongside keeping a record of illegal content also appears to keep a copy of Weibo and WeChat records, as well as storing the phones IMEI number, SIM card data, and WiFi logins, which are then transferred to a server.

Xinjiang in particular has eight million Uighurs, a Turkish ethnic group, who have long since complained of oppression at the hands of the government. And with this new demand from the Chinese government, the Muslim minority's troubles in the country are only worsening from the looks of it.
Statement by the Spokesperson on the conflict resolution and reconciliation efforts

Foreign Minister of Armenia to participate in the Fifth Paris Peace Forum

Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights

Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom

Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

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I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments
Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.

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Discover more than 2000 prices, news and analysis in primary and secondary metals markets. We cover base metals, industrial minerals, ores and alloys, steel, scrap and steel raw materials.

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No fewer than 700 suspected cultists and 38 suspected armed robbers were arrested in different parts of Anambra in the last three weeks, Garba Umar, the state commissioner of police, has said. Umar told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, July 23 in Awka that the arrests were clear signal that Anambra was no longer a safe haven for criminals. This number of arrests within three weeks to me was unprecedented and we will sustain the tempo until we flush out all the bad eggs in the state, he said. He said that the police recovered several types of arms and ammunition from the suspects. The commissioner said that some of the suspects had been arraigned, while the command was still investigating cases leveled against others. He said that additional personnel had been deployed in Anambra by the Inspector-General (IG) to beef up the existing security in the state.

Umar said that the command had created 20 new units and deployed its personnel to various flash points across the state. I personally patrol some of these locations to ensure efficient operations. I am not an arm chair police commissioner. I move round myself to make sure that things are done the right way for security of lives and property of residents, Umar said. Umar warned those who were in the habit of operating in offices and residential houses, especially around the Government House, Awka axis, to desist. He said that the command had set its dragnet in every location in the state; especially Awka, the capital, and that any person or group caught would be severely dealt with.

We have the mechanism to checkmate the activities of our men; both the Inspector General and Commissioner of Police monitoring units are working hard. We gave out our telephone numbers to the public to report any case of extortion and act of incivility and misconduct to us. The commissioner also advised the people of the state to disregard threats by any group that the forthcoming November 18 governorship election in Anambra would not hold. We learnt that there are some disgruntled elements making some pronouncements against the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that people should boycott the Nov.18 governorship election in the state. The group can say whatever they like, but the police and other security agents have a duty to secure the nation and as well ensure that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is protected. Where offences are committed; we will enforce the laws handed over to us for enforcement. We are ever ready to do that in Anambra and that is the fact. We have all the resources at our disposal to ensure that those who are eligible to vote perform their civic responsibilities without any molestation. And nobody within or outside the state can stop the exercise, he said.

(NAN)
The Nigerian Law School in Abuja has expelled a University of Ibadan graduate, Kayode Bello after he allegedly had an argument with another student over a seat in the lecture room.

The 34-year-old student according to the Punch was bundled out of the school library by law school officials and policemen attached to the Bwari Police Station on the day he was expelled.

Bellos problem with the Law School authorities started shortly after he gained admission into the school in 2016. Prior to his expulsion, Bello had reportedly complained to the management about the leakage of the sewage pipe in his rooms toilet.



Explaining events that led to his expulsion from Law School, Bello said his earlier complaints about the state of facilities in the school were not addressed.

In an interview with the Punch, Bello explained the reason why the school expelled him.



Quote

The class is usually overcrowded. There are no enough chairs in the lecture room and we have issues over seat reservation. At a point, the Head Marshal, Mr. Akinyemi, announced publicly that there should not be seat reservation again because it was causing problems.

That day, I met Chidima and other persons sitting on some chairs. There was a book on a vacant chair. As I made to sit on the vacant chair, Chidima said she was keeping the seat for a student. I said I would leave when the person came.

When the lady came 20 minutes later, Chidima angrily told me to vacate the seat. I told her that her approach was wrong. In the process, a marshal came and took both of us to Mr. Akinyemis office. He asked me to look for another seat. I made him to realise that he was the one that gave an order on seat reservation, but he ignored me.

I went to report the matter to the schools Chief Security Officer, Mr. Ogunboyan, but he was not in the office. I called him on the telephone and he asked me to be patient, saying he would address it when he came back.

The student said that the CSO took him to Akinyemi, who accused him of being rude.

I said I was not rude, but was trying to let him (Akinyemi) realise that he didnt do justice to the matter brought before him.



According to him, the school official later turned around to accuse him of inciting students against the school management saying that his room was inspected on March 20, but nothing incriminating was found.

On March 21, the CSO and the Head of Academic Affairs, Mr. Osamolu, came to my room in the midnight and forcefully evicted me. I paid over N300,000 as school fee, of which N60,000 was for hostel accommodation. They handed me over to policemen at the schools police post. When I explained what happened to a policeman, he was surprised. He gave me a space to pass the night.

When I returned to the hostel the following day, I met the door of my room broken, while my bed had been taken away. I reported at the Bwari Police Station, but a police woman I met there requested money to buy a case file, which I declined to provide.

Nigerians students have however, been reacting to Bellos expulsion as many said he was fighting for a right course while others think his approach was wrong.
The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Monday evening had a closed-door meeting with service chiefs.

The meeting, which was still on in Abuja at the time of this report, also had the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, in attendance.

The latest of such attacks at two internally displaced persons camps in Maiduguri on Sunday caused at least four deaths.

Source: ( Premium Times )
Number of accidents increase: speed cameras dont help

In the first half of 2017, 6069 emergency incidents have been registered in Armenia. The number of the emergency incidents has increased by 867 compared with the first half of last year, it means by about 16.7 percent, said Hovhannes Khangeldyan, Head of the National Center of Crisis Management. The majority of the incidents are RTAs, then fires and poisoning. As a result of emergency incidents 149 people died and 4866 people were affected. Compared with last year the number of victims has increased by 10 and the number of the affected by 747; 131 people have been saved, which is more by 28 than last years index. The number of the RTAs has increased by 109 in this half, but the number of victims has decreased by 6. In reply to the question why after the installation of speed cameras in streets and highways, the number of RTAs has increased, Mr Khangeldyan answered, Those cameras only record the violations, but do not prevent them. 100 meters from the place, where the camera is installed, the number has decreased, but not in the whole street. After passing the camera, drivers again speed up, he said.
Halima Abubakar who recently had a surgical operation in India appears set for another medical trip abroad to correct the implications of her illness.

Fans of Nollywood actress, Halima Abubakar have been asked to remember her in their prayers as she needs divine healing to overcome her present health woes.

The curvy actress had earlier revealed that her hair loss and present condition was caused by uterine fibroids removal complication.

Her manager, Abi Anah said the actress is due for surgery in two weeks time. Anah added that the actress currently responding to treatment needs prayers too.

A complete removal of the uterus is the only sure cure for Uterine Fibroids; however if a woman still wants to have children, she is better off removing the fibroids. This according to studies sometime results in complications such as blood loss and infection.
It was another sad day for members of the All Progressives Congress ( APC ), as one of its members, Alhaji Lateef Ajikanle, was electrocuted in his home on Bolaji Omupo Street, Somolu.

The father of four reportedly returned home after prayers in a mosque to meet his compound flooded.

It was gathered that the flood was worsened by the rubble of a collapsed fence owned by a poultry farmer on an adjoining street, Lisabi Street.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the Oyo State indigene waded through the flood. He was reportedly picking rubbish in the water when he was electrocuted.

A neighbour, who attempted to rescue him was also reportedly electrocuted, but escaped death by a whisker.

Officials of the Ikeja Electric, Onipanu Business District, were said to have been alerted to the incident.

After power was disconnected from the community, Lateef, who also worked with the State Universal Basic Education Board, was reportedly rushed to a general hospital where he was confirmed dead.

His younger sister, Monsuru Ajikanle, told our correspondent on Sunday that the 50-year-old was preparing to participate in the last Saturdays local government election when tragedy struck.

She said, He went to the mosque that day. The rain started early in the morning and everywhere was flooded. He was coming back from the mosque around 7am when he saw that the fence owned by the poultry farmer on the next street had collapsed on the pumping machine in our compound.

Also, the flood water could not flow out and there were waste paper and other dirty materials everywhere. He started picking the rubbish from the water. He was doing that when his hand touched the live wire exposed after the fence fell on the pumping machine. He was electrocuted.

One of our neighbours, Femi, ran into the flood to help him, but the electric current in the water forced him back. We called the Ikeja Electric to disconnect the power.

Monsuru told our correspondent that Lateef was rushed to the General Hospital, Somolu, where he was confirmed dead.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the victims wife had been taken to their family house in the Surulere area.

Our correspondent was told that Lateef worked in the Supply and Finance Department of SUBEB, Somolu.

Another family member, Dele Alakija, blamed the owner of the poultry for the incident.

Alakija said, The poultry is on Lisabi Street, and the fence that collapsed was built by the owner to separate the poultry from our compound. We had reported to the local government about a year ago that the mans operation was making life difficult for us and he should relocate, but nothing was done.

Alhaji (Lateef) had written a letter which we planned to submit on the menace of the poultry. When the fence fell on the pumping machine, it exposed a live wire from the machine and that was what killed him. The poultry should cease operation. The offensive stench of the birds and the noise from the generator are unbearable.

Our correspondent learnt that the incident was reported to the police at the Somolu division.

A check on the Facebook page of the deceased showed he was indeed a staunch member of the APC as some friends paid tributes to his memories and leadership.

Among his last activities on the social media was the poster of the chairmanship candidate of the APC in Surulere.

A top source at the General Hospital, Somolu, confirmed the incident, adding that Lateef was brought in dead.

A 50-year-old man was brought by some neighbours. They claimed that he stepped on a live cable during the heavy rain and was electrocuted. He was brought in dead, he said.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, said the police were not aware of the incident.

Nothing like that at Somolu division please, he said.

The Head, Corporate Communications, Ikeja Electric, Felix Ofulue, said the company was not to blame for the death.

He said, The man was electrocuted by his pumping machine. His pumping machine had a wire cut which fell into a pool of water. He was raking the dirt in his house when he was electrocuted.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
President Muhammmadu Buhari who has been on medical vacation to the United Kingdom since May 6, yesterday, July 23, hosted some All Progressive Congress Governors and leaders at the Abuja House in London and a photo proof of the visit hit the media from the Presidency photographers.

As reactions have continued to trail the picture as to why the President has not spoken to Nigerians via video since he left over sixty but will rather welcome the APC leaders in London despite controversies about his health, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina gave the reason as owning to the Presidents style.

In a phone conversation with Channels Televisions Sunrise Daily, Adesina said this about Nigerias ailing President saying Nigerians ought to be conversant with that about Buhari.

It is a matter of personal style, there is no style that you can call the style. The style of our president is what you have seen on display and by now two years after he came, I am sure that we should understand him, Adesina said.

We should know the kind of person he is, we should know how he prefers to do things and that is how the President is.

That just tells you that that is the way our President is, we elected him willingly and we have seen that this is the way he is, he ended.



Here is the video of the conversation with Channels Tv
A 41-year-old man, identified as Sikiru Odejide, has been arrested by operatives of the Ogun State Police Command for allegedly defiling his 13-year-old daughter.

The police said the suspects arrest followed a complaint from the mother of the victim who had been separated from the suspect.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the suspects ex-wife reported the matter at the Sango-Ota Police Division, alleging that her daughter came to her house in the Ijeshatedo area of Lagos State to inform her that the suspect has been defiling her since December 2016.

Oyeyemi said the father ordered the victim not to tell anybody, and allegedly threatened her with death.

Oyeyemi said, On the strength of the report, the Divisional Police Officer, Sango-Ota Police Station, Akinsola Ogunwale, effected the arrest of the father in the Onihale area of the Ifo Local Government Area.

Oyeyemi, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, said the suspect owned up to the crime.

He said the Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, had ordered that the case be sent to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Abeokuta.

The CP also directed that the victim should be taken to the hospital for medical attention, Oyeyemi added.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Ogbonnaya Oji, a retired colonel in the Nigerian army, is dead. Mr. Orji, from Oboro in Ikwuano Local Government Area of Abia State, died on June 20, three weeks after the death of his wife, Christiana, Premium Times report.

Mr. Orji, who was 76 joined the Nigerian army in 1960 as an officer cadet, was later to become one of the major actors of the first military coup in the country in January 1966, alongside the coup leader Kaduna Nzeogwu.

Mr. Orji fought on the side of Biafra during the civil war. He served in the Biafran army as the commanding officer of the 9thBattalion in 1967, Commander 62 Brigade in 1968, principal staff officer, 12 Division in charge of operation and training in 1969, and also as the principal staff officer at the 4th Commando Division in charge of operations in September 1969.

Mr. Orji was trained as an officer cadet at the Nigerian Military Training College, Kaduna. From there, he moved to MONS Officer Cadet School, Aldershot in the United Kingdom to complete his cadet training. He was commissioned 2nd Lt in July 1960.

He was a combatant infantry officer. His service record includes military attachment with the Royal Sussex Regiment Belfast, Northern Ireland, Platoon Commander 4th Battalion Ibadan, Nigerian Contingent in the United Nations Peace Keeping Operations in the Congo in 1962, Battalion Intelligence Officer 4th Battalion Ibadan, and General Staff Officer (GSO III) 2 Brigade Nigerian Army Apapa Lagos.

He also attended and successfully completed the Infantry Officers Staff Course at the United States School of Infantry, Fort Bening, Georgia.

He was also among the 1st three Nigerian army officers to successfully pass the Parachute

and Air-borne course at the United States Air Borne College at Fort Bening, Georgia in 1964/1965.

Late Mr. Orji had served as a member of the interim board of Anambra Aluminum Products Ltd in 1987, after his career in the military. He also served as the chairman of the Board of Anambra Vegetable Oil Products in 1988.

He became the pioneer general manager, Abia State Transport Company when Abia State was created in 1991 and served in that position till 1994.

Late Mr. Orji was a respected community leader.

Until his death, he held the traditional titles of Ugwumba 1 of Amaoba, Dike Oha 1 of Oboro and the Traditional Prime Minister of Oboro Clan.

He got married in July 1964 to Christiana (Nee Isika) and their marriage was blessed with three male children and 13 grandchildren.

Both Mr. Orji and his wife would be interred on August 19 at their country home in Amaoba-Ime, Oboro in Ikwuano, Abia State.

Source: Premium Times
Two nursing mothers have narrated how a 15-member gang of kidnappers killed their husband and abducted them and their babies in Sabon Gayan, a village along Kaduna-Abuja road.

The village located near National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, orientation camp, about 10 kilometres from Kaduna, is one of the areas currently facing challenges of kidnapping despite security measures in place.

One of the survivors,Aisha Shehu, said We spent five days under a tree in the den of the kidnappers inside a thick forest before we were freed after payment of N100,000 ransom to them(the abductors) by our family.

It was learned that Shehu Mohammed, the deceased husband of the women, who is a truck driver, was attacked by the kidnappers, around 12-midnight penultimate Saturday.

Mr. Mohammed was married to three wives(including the two victims) and had nine children and an aged mother.

The victims recalled that their residence was under siege by the abductors for over one hour. They pulled down the main door of their room, shot their husband several times, and carted away an unspecified amount of money before abducting them and their three-month-old babies.

Our husband refused to open the door when they came around 12 midnight. He shouted for help and called neighbours on phone. Nobody came to our rescue. Even the police patrol van which was a stone-throw from our house on Kaduna-Abuja highway and men from the nearby police post refused to come to our rescue, despite hearing several gun shots.

We were left to our fate to die. The kidnappers dragged us at gun point, left behind two of our children, a three-year old and a seven-year old who watched over the body of their father in a pool of his own blood before people eventually came in the morning.

The women said initially, the abductors demanded N10 million but later scaled it down to N100,000 after much pleading by the victims.

They later accepted N100,000 and then two members of their gang escorted us to a bush near our village after about 24 hours trek in the bush, one of the victims said.

Shansiya Shehu, the third wife and the most senior who was in her separate house in Gwagwada, also in Chikun Local Government, pleaded with the government to take action to curb insecurity in the area.

Awwal Mohammed, elder brother of the deceased, said the family informed the police about the abductors call for ransom but they refused to take action.

Recently there was a peaceful protest against rising insecurity in front of the village heads residence by aggrieved members of the community.

In a related development, one Farouk Mohammed, a motor scrap trader, was also reported to have been kidnapped while on his farm at Sabon Gaya on Saturday morning.

Mukhtar Mohammed, a family member, said that the abductors have contacted the family with a ransom demand of N1.5 million.

We are, however, negotiating with them. This kidnap incident is insane and is becoming one too many. The government must do something tangible before the situation becomes out of control, Mr. Mohammed said.

When contacted, Agyole Abeh, the State Commissioner of Police, said he would investigate all alleged incidences of negligence by his men and act appropriately.

He, however, said the police would not condone any frivolous protests by the natives.

Source: ( PM News )
Alhaji Lateef Ajikanle, a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC was reportedly said to have got electrocuted in his home at Bolaji Omupo Street, Somolu last Saturday, July 22.

As confirmed, the renowned Lagos APC member was struck while he was making attempts to pick dirt around his compound in spite of the Saturday flood.

His younger sister, Monsuru Ajikanle, told correspondents on Sunday that the 50-year-old was preparing to participate in the last Saturdays local government election before the tragic event.

She said:

He went to the mosque that day. The rain started early in the morning and everywhere was flooded. He was coming back from the mosque around 7am when he saw that the fence owned by the poultry farmer on the next street had collapsed on the pumping machine in our compound. Also, the flood water could not flow out and there were waste paper and other dirty materials everywhere. He started picking the rubbish from the water. He was doing that when his hand touched the live wire exposed after the fence fell on the pumping machine and he was electrocuted.

A neighbour, who attempted to rescue him was also reportedly electrocuted, but escaped death.

One of our neighbours, Femi, ran into the flood to help him, but the electric current in the water forced him back. We called the Ikeja Electric to disconnect the power, Monsuru noted

It was gathered that the flood was worsened by the rubble of a collapsed fence owned by a poultry farmer on an adjoining street, Lisabi Street.

Officials of the Ikeja Electric, Onipanu Business District, were said to have been alerted at the spur of the incident.
A former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Kenneth Minimah (retd.), and a company, Stoke Synergy Nigeria Limited, has been accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for diverting about N13.6bn belonging to the Nigeria Army.

The total sum of N13,650,795,245 was allegedly diverted by the two suspects into the accounts of four other companies given by the EFCC as Gogori Bureau De Change, My Honey Oil Interbiz Limited, Gogori University Link Limited and M&M Babies Nigeria Limited.

Justice Gabriel Kolawole of a Federal High Court in Abuja, upon an ex parte application by the anti-graft agency, had, on June 30, 2017, ordered the freezing of Minimahs account with the United Bank of Africa Plc and Stoke Synergy Nigeria Limiteds with Zenith Bank Plc.

The courts order, according to the judge, will last for 90 days from June 30, when the ruling was delivered, but subject to renewal through an application by the EFCC.

With the time lag, the courts order will expire on September 28, 2017.

Justice Kolawole, in the ruling, a copy which was sighted by one of our correspondents on Sunday, ordered the freezing of the two accounts to aid the applicant (EFCC) in being able to conduct a thorough investigation into the financial dealings and transactions.

A detective with the EFCC, Osas Azonabor, had supplied the facts of the case which formed the six grounds on which the commissions lawyer, Mr. Andrew Akoja, based the two prayers, contained in the ex parte application on.

The six grounds reproduced by Justice Kolawole, in his ruling, summarised how the sum of N13.6bn from the Nigerian Armys account with part of the proceeds allegedly ending up in Minimahs account.

The grounds of the application as reproduced in the courts ruling stated, The case being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission relates to one of money laundering in the sum of N13,650,795,245.00 (thirteen billion, six hundred and fifty million, seven hundred and ninety-five thousand, two hundred and fifty-five naira) from funds of the Nigerian Army to companies: Gogori Bureau De Change, My Honey Oil Interbiz Limited, Gogori University Link Limited and M&M Babies Nigeria Limited.

On the instruction of one Col. Odi, N94,476,500.00 was transferred into Nigerian Army Welfare Ltd./Ojo Land First Bank account number 2027107951, belonging to the Nigerian Army, using the name of Lt.-Gen. K. T. J. Minimah and one Peach Energy Multiservice Limited, out of which the amount, N52,855,000.00, was transferred to Gen K. T. J. Minimahs USA account number 1003674184.

Also from the Nigerian Army Welfare Ltd./Ojo Land account, the sum of N3,717,436,636.00 was transferred to the various accounts belonging to Honey Oil Interbiz Limited with Sterling Bank (account number 28457168), Zenith Bank (account number 1013961012) and Fidelity Bank (account No. 5080105828) on various occasions.

Honey Oil Interbiz Limited, in turn, transferred N800m to Stoke Synergy Limiteds Zenith account number 1014195674. The said sums were transferred to accounts No.1 (Minimahs account) and 2 (Stoke Synergy Nigeria Limiteds account) of the Schedule hereto now being sought to be frozen.

There is the need to preserve the money now traced to the accounts in the schedule to this application pending the conclusion of investigation and the determination of criminal charges to be instituted against the suspects.

Arguing the EFCCs ex parte motion, EFCCs lawyer, Akoja, sought two prayers, one of which was an order granting the EFCC power to instruct a bank examiner to issue an order to bank managers or any person, having control of the banks where the suspects accounts were, to freeze the accounts of the suspects.

The EFCC sought, as its second prayer, an order granting the EFCC the power to direct the banks to supply any information and to produce the account opening documents to the accounts and the statements of the accounts and to stop all outward payments, operations or transaction (including any bill of exchange) in respect of the accounts of the suspects.

Akoja had told the court that the application was designed to prevent dissipation of assets that are the subject matter of investigation/prosecution.

He added, The respondents (Minimah and Stoke Synergy Nigeria Limited) whose names appear in the schedule to the present application are being investigated for offences bordering on criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and money laundering of the sum of N13.6bn.

He argued that the money was part of the proceeds of alleged criminal activities traced to the suspects accounts.

In his ruling, Justice Kolawole held that he was convinced and satisfied that there were genuine and probable grounds to grant the EFCCs application.

The judge stated, I am convinced and satisfied that there are genuinely probable grounds for this court to lend its powers to aid the applicant in being able to conduct a thorough investigation into the financial dealings and transactions which were mentioned in the report in Exhibit EFCC-1.

The applicants motion ex parte, dated and filed on 22/2/17, succeeds as prayed.

The judge, however, ruled that he would not allow the freezing of the accounts to run indefinitely or pending when the applicant (EFCC) is able, at its own time or convenience, to conclude its investigation.

Justice Kolawole added, To do so is to make expropriatory orders, granted ex parte, to operate as a final order of indefinite duration without affording the respondents, who are affected by the execution of these orders, a hearing,

He therefore ordered that the order would last for 90 days from the date the ruling was delivered (June 30).

The judge ruled, The banks listed in the Schedule to the instant motion ex parte, shall ensure that the freezing orders on the accounts disclosed in this ruling, shall be automatically unfrozen upon the expiration of 90 days from today unless the applicant is able to serve on them, an order of this court by which operation of the said orders are renewed and elongated for another specified period of calendar time.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, on Monday, granted an interview to some journalists in Enugu saying that no court can stop him from speaking to his people.

According to Punch, Kanu was in Enugu to receive awards from a number of pan-Igbo groups, including the Igbo Women Assembly, the Eastern Consultative Assembly and the Igbo Students Union.

It would be recalled that Justice Binta Nyako had in April barred Kanu from granting interviews, and being in gatherings of more than 10 persons while granting him bail.

But, Kanu said he is not worried that he could be re-arrested for flouting the bail conditions by granting the interview, Kanu said the court cannot stop him from speaking.

He said he was only responding to questions asked him by journalists. According to him, refusing to respond to the questions would be seen as a sign of arrogance on his part.

He said, I am replying you. That is what I am doing. I am not giving an interview, I am responding to the question you asked me.

The judge is a very learned fellow. She cannot stop me from speaking.

Kanu added that President Muhammadu Buhari and the Department of State Services were the ones that are guilty of flouting court orders.

Buhari and the DSS have been in multiple breaches of court order after court order. I wish you can go to the DSS and ask Daura, what is his name? Lawal, whatever his name is, the DSS Director General, why DSS does not obey court orders.

They are the ones flouting the court orders. Its not me.

What I am doing is entirely legal. You ask me a question and I respond to you because if I keep quiet you see me as a very arrogant fellow.
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Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

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Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

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Some state governors elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress were said to have met with ailing President Muhammadu Buhari in London, United Kingdom on Sunday.

According to a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the state governors as well as the partys National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, met with Buhari over lunch for more than one hour.

Adesina quoted the Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum and Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, who was part of the delegation as saying on the telephone that the President was very cheerful and has not lost any bit of his sense of humour.

The presidential spokesman further quoted the governor as saying that it was very clear from the discussions they had that Buhari followed developments at home very closely.

According to him, the governor also said the President was delighted to receive the delegation and asked each governor about affairs in his state.

Buhari was also said to have asked the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, about the state of the railways.

When asked to react to all the negative things being said about him, the President just laughed, describing such negative reports as lies.

Governor Okorocha said President Buhari was completely unperturbed by the cocktail of lies. He, instead, sent his best wishes to Nigerians, the statement read.

Adesina further quoted Okorocha as saying that Nigerians dont have to worry at all, adding that Buhari will be back as soon as the doctors give him the green light.

By our visit to London today, the merchants of lies have been put out of business and Nigerians will not buy the garbage they have been selling. All those who look up to fake news can find better use for their time, Okorocha noted.

Governors Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa; Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna; and Yahaya Bello of Kogi were also said to be in the delegation.

Buhari left the country on May 7 for medical treatment in the British capital.

This is the second time the President will be embarking on medical vacation this year.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
A suspected armed robbery kingpin in the state, Ekene Amadi, has been declared wanted by the Imo State Police Command for allegedly shooting a police Inspector, Oliver Nwaba.

The police spokesperson in the state, Andrew Enwerem, said Nwaba was shot during an attack by Amadis gang on policemen at Nipping Point at Nkaraha Junction, along Owerri-Port Harcourt Road.

According to the statement, the 26-year-old Amadi, who is on the run, had earlier been apprehended by the police on May 22, 2017, arraigned in court and remanded in Owerri prison.

The suspect was, however, said to have been released by the court, after which he allegedly went back to his criminal activities, terrorising Nkaraha Junction and Ohaji in the Ohaji /Egbema Local Government Area of the state.

The police urged anybody with information on the whereabouts of the wanted kidnap suspect to report to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, State Headquarters, Owerri or to the nearest police station.

The suspect, Southern City News learnt, hails from Umuna Umuagwo Mgbisi in Ohaji /Egbema Local Government Area of the state.

The statement read partly, The Imo State Police Command has declared one Uju Promise Ekene Amadi (male) wanted. He is declared wanted for his involvement in a series of armed robbery/kidnapping cases in the state.

He was also involved in the attack on policemen at Nipping Point, Nkaraha Junction, along Port-Harcourt road, Umuagwo, where one Inspector Oliver Nwaba was shot.

On 22nd May, 2017, he was arrested by operatives of the command during which four counts were preferred against him and he was subsequently remanded in Owerri Prison while awaiting trial.

He was later released by the court. The suspect has gone back to terrorising Nkaraha Junction and Ohaji in particular. Uju Promise Ekene Amadi is 26 years of age and hails from Umuna Umuagwo Mgbisi, Ohaji LGA, Imo State.

He is of average height, speaks Igbo and English languages fluently. He remains wanted until arrested. Any person(s) with any useful information regarding the whereabouts of Uju Promise Ekene Amadi is requested to report to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, State Headquarters, Owerri, or to the nearest police station please.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
A Guy took to Popular Nigerian Forum, Nairaland to share an experience on how he dealt with a slay queen who felt she was smart!

Read The experience below;

Wow!

I was in a bus on my way home when I spotted a really nice figure 8 lady strolling in the dark. I was close to my bus stop so I alighted quickly to meet the girl. Surprisingly, she was very polite and I enjoyed the little chat we had together. It was really dark that night, so I couldnt see her face clearly. I got her number and we fixed a date to meet by the pool side of an hotel in the neighborhood.

D-day came and I called her. Her phone was switched off. Towards 6pm, she flashed then I called her again. She apologized then asked if we could still meet that late to which I obliged. That was when she chipped in that her friend will accompany her.

What?

No shaking

I told her there was no problem about that. With the new development, I decided to tell my friend to accompany me too.

I got to the hotel with my friend and still had to wait for 45minutes before they showed up. Next was a call on my phone telling me that they are outside. On getting there, what I saw was made me weak. Her face was scary but the curves tho

Her friend was like an old woman or a vulture. They were still doing shakara that they cant enter. Perhaps, they wanted me to beg them. I just turned and went inside. No one told them to follow me in.

To shorten that episode, I bought drinks and meat worth 3200. Immediately they finished their drinks, they got up and left. Maybe they thought we were going to tell then to follow us home.

Wow, smart!

The following Sunday, she agreed to come to my house. Sounded nice till she disappointed by ensuring her line was not reachable. She did that for 2 more Sundays then I had enough. What angered me is the fact that when its 30minutes to the time shes suppose to come, she calls to remind me. Now when its time, her phone becomes switched off. At first, I thought it was just coincidence till I noticed that she has been avoiding to give me her friends number cos my friend had been disturbing me for it. When asked how he would deal with the vulture, he said he would use pillow to cover her face or make her face the wall.

Well, I decided it would be best I pay her in her own coin. And all though the amount I spent was small, plus the fact that part of it went into I and my friends belly, I still felt it would be best to teach her a nice lesson. If shes not taught a lesson, she might repeat the same trick on another humble fellow.

I called her on a weekday to tell her I was having my birthday the following day and that the celebration will be at Ikeja shoprite. I also told her I will be buying her some provisions at shoprite after the celebrations and that she should come with 2 friends of hers. I could almost feel the way she was smiling, giggling and praising me by calling me baby.. sweetheart.

D-day came and I called her that Im already there with 2 friends of mine. She first doubted cos she couldnt hear any sound of bubbly activities. But when I handed the phone to my friend who knew about the plan, she believed thinking we were really at shoprite.

Few minutes later, she called to tell me they were at the car park in shoprite Ikeja. I told her to give me a minute that I will come meet them.

Since then, she has left my phone with over 30 missed calls.

The idea is to make her vomit the amount she thought she ate from me, no matter how little it was. She was smart at first by bringing her friend to come chop him money. Now, that amount she chopped has been spent on transporting to shoprite with the hope of eating and going home with big yellow nylon bags. Oh, I forgot to add the embarrassment she and her friends will feel when they did not See Me.

I know some people might want to call me out saying is it because of the small money you spent?

Well, nothing you say will stop the joy I derived from teaching a slay queen a lesson.

See Me see missed calls:
Tonto Dikehs ex-husband and chairman, Big Church Foundation plans to set yet another magnanimous milestone by donating an ambulance and other gadgets to the Nigeria Fire Service on Tuesday, 25th July 2017.

The presentation will be graced by the President of Big Church Foundation. This charitable endeavor comes as a fulfillment of the promise made by the Chairman of the Big Church Group, Dr Olakunle Churchill during a recent visit to the Federal Fire Service some weeks back.
Two Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) detectives have been dispatched to the United Kingdom (UK) with more evidence in the investigation of former Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, The Nation reports.

Mrs. Alison-Maduekes latest trouble borders on the uncovering of $1.7billion contracts involving her and two business associates.

Mrs Alison-Madueke, who has temporarily forfeited some assets, may lose five more. The assets are under verification.

The anti-graft agency is also investigating the ex-minister on the whereabouts of $15.8billion NLNG dividends.

She is being investigated alongside some former officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), which is the upstream arm of the NNPC in charge of oil exploration and production.

But the United States, the UK, the EFCC and other agencies in some jurisdictions may harmonise the investigations.

Source: The Nation
Americans Are Saving Less. Heres How to Save More. Young & The Invested - 1 hour ago Several recent data studies show that Americans, after saving heavily during the pandemic, are starting to pull money from those savings. We discuss how to maintain healthy savings habits.

Hog Prices Closed Mixed Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST Lean hog prices were mixed on Friday with 12 to 52 cent losses through the April contract. The deferred contracts closed 10 to 15 cents in the black with May UNCH. The USDA National Average Base Hog Price... HEZ22 : 84.350s (-0.62%) HEJ23 : 94.100s (-0.13%) KMZ22 : 94.900s (-0.63%)

Friday Cotton Closes Triple Digits Higher Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST Cotton added 116 to 182 points to the upside on Friday after a brief pause for the WASDE numbers. That kept the board under the high on Tuesday, but ended as a weekly gain of 253 points. USDAs FAS... CTZ22 : 88.20s (+2.11%) CTH23 : 86.33s (+2.09%) CTK23 : 85.56s (+1.89%)

Wheats Close in Black on Friday Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST Wheat futures ended with +1% gains on Friday. KC HRW closed the strongest on Friday with 1.8% to 2% gains, leaving the Dec contract 10 1/4 cents in the red. CBT SRW closed between 1% and 1.3% higher across... ZWZ22 : 813-6s (+1.28%) ZWH23 : 835-2s (+1.15%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.4644 (+1.39%) KEZ22 : 943-4s (+1.97%) KEPAWS.CM : 9.0182 (+2.07%) MWZ22 : 945-6s (+1.53%)

Triple Digit Losses in Friday Cattle Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST The cattle complex faded on Friday on a recovery in the grain complex. Front month fat cattle futures ended the day $0.72 to $1.77 lower. December contracts were 13 cents weaker for the week. Feeder cattle... LEZ22 : 151.525s (-1.01%) LEG23 : 153.250s (-1.14%) LEJ23 : 157.050s (-0.91%) GFX22 : 176.950s (-0.94%) GFF23 : 178.575s (-1.72%)

Soy Prices Rally on Friday Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST Front month soy futures ended the day higher on a bounce back from Thursday. Beans closed with 1.6% to 1.9% gains of as much as 27 cents. That left the Jan contract at a net 12 1/4 cent loss for the week.... ZSX22 : 1455-4s (+1.75%) ZSPAUS.CM : 14.2086 (+1.90%) ZSF23 : 1450-0s (+1.90%) ZSH23 : 1453-6s (+1.80%)

Corn Markets Close in Black Barchart - Fri Nov 11, 4:21PM CST Corn futures bounced back into the weekend with gains of 2 to 4 3/4 cents. USDA announced a private export sale of 209,931 MT of corn to Mexico this morning. The Ukraines Ag Ministry had 7.8 MMT of... ZCZ22 : 658-0s (+0.73%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.5662 (+0.81%) ZCH23 : 663-0s (+0.53%) ZCK23 : 662-6s (+0.49%)
Let Tatoyan go and one day stay in that cell" (video)

Member of the Founding Parliament Gevorg Safaryan will not be transferred to that building of Nubarashen prison, where last year he was subjected to violence. After complaints he was transferred not to the main, but the 6th building, As of now we can fix that some steps have been carried out for solving the issue and at least Gevorg remained in the 6th building, where he wanted to stay, said Gevorg Gorgisyan, lawmaker of Yelk (Way out) faction. Besides Gevorg Safaryan there are two more people in the cell. During the meeting Gevorg Safaryan told the NA lawmakers about it, Now we should understand who those two people are and whether they can stay together or not. The lawyers demanded to move Gevorg Safaryan to a safe cell, as they had information that in the main building the criminal elements threatened him. The lawmakers of Yelk faction informed about the issue of Gevorg Safaryan also to the Ministry of Justice, Mr Harutyunyan was partially aware of the issue; we presented the whole issue, said Gevorg Gorgisyan. The relatives today have also been able to visit Gevorg Safaryan, who was in the punishment cell for 23 days, Gevorg was in high spirits, I also calmed down after seeing him, said Shushan Berberyan, mother of Gevorg Safaryan. But Shushan Berberyan noticed that her son has difficulty in walking connected with the problem with his leg. Before the decision on Gevorg Safaryan, activist Vardges Gaspari had been holding protest action outside the HRD office. He came to remind Gevorg Safaryans statement that cell smelt bad and sometimes waste water flew into the cell, Let Human rights defender Tatoyan go and one day stay in that cell and then see what he will be talking about.
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Storage Express, which operates 92 self-storage locations in five states, has acquired its second facility in Fort Wayne, Ind. Located at 4501 Newaygo Road, the 50,000-square-foot building recently received several security upgrades, including a new access-control system and video cameras. Storage Express also converted the former management office into a 24-hour rental center.

Were looking forward to continued growth in this northern region of Indiana. Our rentals are centralized out of our Bloomington headquarters 24-hours a day by our Storage Express team. And our local field service reps keep this and all of our properties in top-notch shape, said Jefferson Shreve, president.

Storage Express was represented in the transaction by Jesse Luke, a partner with EquiCap Commercial, an Illinois-based brokerage firm specializing in self-storage. The Arizona-based seller was represented by Bill Alter, a broker with Phoenix-based Rein & Grossoehme, a commercial real estate agency specializing the sale of investment properties.

Storage Express has opened three total locations in Indiana in the past year, according to a press release. Founded in 1992, the company owns and operates self-storage properties in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. It has offices in Bloomington, Indianapolis and Jeffersonville, Ind.
GRAND BEND, ON  Cory Whittam raced his way into victory lane for the first time ever with the Lucas Oil Can-Am Midgets at Grand Bend Speedways Bash at the Beach Saturday night.

Whittam, who is looking for sponsors, is also the owner of his #55 machine. Last years Lucas Oil Can-Am Midget Rookie of the Year, Whittam, started on the outside pole, led all 25 laps of the Feature with only one caution to deal with. It was said that Whittam could be heard screaming with excitement as he crossed the start finish line as he took the checkered flag.

Im just so happy right now; the car was on rails tonight. I have to give great big thanks to Carey and Jim Hickson, and the whole club, everyone has been great.

When asked what his thoughts were when the caution came out, Whittam replied, Oh no, with a laugh.

Speaking about the restart, Whittam said, I saw a shadow coming in on the restart (speaking of the second place car, Ryan Fraser) and I was a little worried but I kept on her.

As the field took the green flag to start the race Whittam jumped out past pole sitter Dominique Smith going into turn one. As the field came across the start finish line to complete lap one, Whittman was your leader followed by Dominique Smith, Barry Dunn, Steven Murdoch and Ryan Fraser.

The very next lap, the rookie pole sitter was falling toward the back of the field as Whittman was well on his way, dominating the field with a half a track lead.

With the leader out in front and untouchable, back in the field, Dunn, Murdock and Fraser were all battling for second.

Dunn was able to hang onto his second spot but Murdock and Fraser were in a battle for third crossing the start finish line with Fraser making the clean pass on Murdoch through turns one and two. With Murdock now in fourth, Fraser set his sights on the green #44 machine of Dunn and three laps later, Fraser was able to knock Dunn to third. Murdock and Adrian Stahle now rounded out the top five.

With nine laps in and half a track lead over the field, Whittam had already caught up to the rear of the field, lapping Glen Fenwick in the #5 car.

At the half way point the field was single file with everyone hugging the bottom of the track to protect their position. Whittam, Fraser, Dunn, Murdock and Stahle rounded out the top five.

A few laps later Murdoch was able to swap positions with Dunn for third eventually bringing Stahle along with him sending Dunn back to fifth. Immediately Dunn had Darren Dryden on his tail challenging with Lucas Smith in the #40 car trying to challenge them both.

Just before the only caution of the night came, Dryden was able to make the pass on Dunn as there was a five-car battle for position between Dunn, Dryden, Stahle, Zavarella and L. Smith, all for positions four through eighth.

Caution came out on lap 23, with two to go, when Lucas Munsie spun out in turn four, a caution the leader, Whittam, didnt want to see.

With the line up quickly reset; top five spots went to Whittam, Fraser, Murdoch, Dryden and Stahle. Munsie was able to continue, joining the rear of the field, without leaving the track.

As the field took the green flag again, Whittam took off like a rocket while it seemed like Fraser had nothing for him.

Two laps later when all was said and done, Whittam had his first ever Lucas Oil Can-Am Midget feature win, a win that was a long time coming and well deserved.

The Lucas Oil Can-Am Midget heats were won by Adrian Stahle and Ryan Fraser.

The Lucas Oil Can-Am Midgets have a well deserved break next week but head back to Flamboro Speedway for their third of five races this season on Saturday July 29, 2017.

The Lucas Oil Can-Am Midget Feature finish at Grand Bend Speedway on July 15, 2017 was1. CORY WHITTAM, 2. Ryan Fraser, 3. Steven Murdoch, 4. Darren Dryden, 5. Adrian Stahle, 6. Brandon Zavarella, 7. Lucas Smith(R), 8. Barry Dunn, 9. Dominique Smith(R), 10. Lucas Munsie(R), 11. Glen Fenwick, 12. Adam Racine.

The Lucas Oil Can-Am Midget top 10 in Driver points are as follows1. Adam Racine1443, 2. Adrian Stahle1380, 3. Darren Dryden1339, 4. Mack DeMan1337, 5. Ryan Fraser1316, 6. Steven Murdock1270, 7. Barry Dunn1215, 8. Dominique Smith(R)1027, 9. Lucas Munsie(R)972, 10. Cory Whittam897.
Specialist insurer Beazley is reportedly looking beyond the UK amid not-so-favourable conditions at home.A report by the Financial Times said the London-based insurer is trying to find growth by hiring in Miami and in as far as Singapore, in addition to European recruits. However, there are said to be no cutbacks yet in Beazleys home market, with the underwriter redeploying people instead.Beazley is also paying more attention to cyber, healthcare, and environmental insurance, according to the report. Chief executive Andrew Horton noted that 15% of the specialist insurers premiums come from technology-related business.Last week, Horton cited market conditions which he described as not conducive to growth. He said: We will not sacrifice profitability for growth, which means that we will continue to walk away from underpriced business.Beazley recently received authorisation from the Central Bank of Ireland to turn its Dublin-based reinsurance firm into an insurance company.Plans to expand the companys remit to underwrite nonlife insurance formed part of Beazleys strategy for European growth developed in 2015 and early 2016, predating the British referendum vote to withdraw from the EU, said Beazley earlier this month.
It is a criminal offence if directors do not apply for their director ID on time
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has appointed a new executive to help drive consumer outcomes following an extensive and highly competitive recruitment process.Fiona Cameron, previously the ICAs senior manager of government and industry relations, takes on a new role as GM policy, consumer outcomes, effectively immediately.Commenting on the appointment, ICA CEO Rob Whelan said: I am delighted to promote Fiona to this executive position. Fiona has served the ICA diligently since January 2010 in consumer relations, regulatory and government relations roles. She has a first-rate understanding of the key issues facing the industry.Her new role focuses on developing and implementing the ICAs policies in relation to consumer outcomes. It includes responsibility for the industrys Consumer Liaison Forum, the General Insurance Code of Practice, statutory schemes, and the ICAs consumer referral service.An Art/Law degree holder from UNSW, Cameron has worked for the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet, the then-Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union and the NSW Attorney Generals Department. She has also held senior roles in research, policy, stakeholder relations, regulation, and law across a broad range of industries.Whelan also thanked Sarah Phillips who has served as acting GM policy, consumer policies, since last December. Phillips will work closely with Cameron as she transitions into the role.
XL Catlin has announced the launch of its cyber and data protection insurance policy in Asia Pacific.The new cover is designed to cover the increasing exposures of businesses in a changing online environment and also offers business interruption cover that arises due to a compromised network.The policy covers third party liability costs that businesses face as a result of a data breach, including regulatory investigations or contractual liability associated with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.The cover also extends to broad coverage associated with media exposures such as copyright infringement, trademark infringement, invasion of privacy, and false advertising both online and offline as well as on social media.Combining the global resources of our underwriting and claims teams with the expertise of our breach response providers, our Cyber and Data Protection insurance policy offers companies the broad cyber coverage they need under one easy-to-understand policy, Timothy Powell, regional manager, international financial lines for XL Catlin in Asia Pacific said.Powell noted that the region faces a real need for cyber coverage as cyber exposures continue to rise.With Australia recently passing a new mandatory breach notification law, Robin Johnson , country manager for Australia  insurance, noted that companies can no longer ignore their cyber risk or insurance policies aimed at protecting them from online threats.With increasingly stringent regulations as well as the financial and reputational fall-out of a cyber incident, companies need to have a robust risk management strategy and the right insurance solution to protect themselves against cyber risks, Johnson said.
An attorney has settled a disciplinary case some seven years after he was suspended for giving items of value to a former county judge.The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a five-year retroactive suspension to lawyer Harry Cardoni, who had been on temporary suspension since 2010. Cardoni admitted that he gave Luzerne Country Judge Michael Thomas Toole perks by letting the judge use his beach house in exchange for appointing his preferred arbitrator. The case ultimately resulted in a $1 million award for the client of Cardoni.The original case involved an uninsured/underinsured motorist. According to prosecutors, after using the beach house Toole contacted Cardoni through an intermediary to ask if he had a preference as to which arbitrator was appointed in the case.

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Toole ultimately pleaded guilty to accepting an illegal gratuity, as well as a failure to pay taxes relating to a finders fee that he had picked up from another attorney. As a result he was jailed for two and a half years and picked up a $5,000 fine back in 2011. He was also disbarred.Meanwhile, Cardoni cooperated with prosecutors in the case against Toole with prosecutors noting his genuine remorse. However, his licence was still temporarily suspended.Now however, the retroactive suspension is already complete  and with Cardoni having completed all of the education requirements during his suspension he can file a petition for reinstatement.
The firm behind Singaporean insurance wallet PolicyPal has received two legal notices from US-based insurer Travelers over its logo. Both companies logos feature umbrellas, but in different colours and designs.The Singaporean start-up said that it will give in to Travelers demands, as it does not have the resources to fight what could be a long legal battle with the American insurance giant.We asked advice from our lawyers, and also our mentors and even though we wish we could keep the logo, we will have to change it, Val Jishuan Yap, PolicyPals founder and CEO, told e27.It is a waste because we spent time to build brand awareness and people recognise us and now we have to change itWe are quite tired on our end but we dont have the resources to actually fight with a big insurance company, she added.Travelers is one of the largest American insurers, with history stretching back to the 1800s. It is extremely protective over its logo that has been in use since 1960, having engaged other firms, such as British tech start-up Brolly, British insurer Legal & General, and Alaskan firm HR Umbrella in legal battles over umbrella-like designs in their logos.As for PolicyPal, it will hold a crowdsourcing competition to come up with its next logo. The winner will receive SGD200 (US$146) in Grab credits.We want to get the public to submit the logo to us, and bring the power back to the users, Yap said.
Nearly half of American pediatricians arent sure how much medical liability coverage they have, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics.A survey of pediatricians found that only 53% knew the amount of basic professional medical liability coverage they had, according to the AAP. Thats down from 66% in 2007. And thats not a good thing because risk exposure is growing, according to Dr. John W. Rusher, a member of the organizations committee on liability and risk management.While clinical malpractice claims in pediatric medical care have decreased in most states (due partly to medical malpractice reform legislation at the state level), claims for failure to comply with state and federal regulations, managed care requirements, and privacy and safety regulations are growing, Rusher wrote for the AAP.

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Rusher recommended that pediatricians perform a check-up on their own insurance coverage. He said that pediatricians needed to ask their insurance carriers three questions:Rusher recommended that pediatricians made sure they were covered in situations beyond just their own practice  if they were working locum tenens (filling a slot temporarily), doing volunteer work, or assuming any duties as a medical director outside their own practice. He also recommended they make sure all physicians assistants and nurse practitioners under their supervision were covered.Most malpractice policies do include coverage for breaching state and federal regulations, but Rusher said additional regulatory-breach coverage might be necessary in several situations.With cybercrime on the rise, Rusher said that doctors needed to be sure their insurance covers data breaches. While most malpractice policies have some coverage for data and privacy breaches, Rusher said doctors might want to consider expanding theirs.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in May signed a budget bill into law allowing self-driving and self-parking cars to be tested for one year on New York public highways.

Prior to this law going into effect, the technology was prohibited from being tested in New York because of a traffic law requiring all motor vehicles to be operated with at least one hand on the steering wheel, according to Stanley Zator, an attorney at New Jersey-based law firm Einhorn Harris, who recently spoke with Insurance Journal about the new legislation in New York and its impact on the ever-changing technology around driverless cars and automated vehicles.

Vehicles to be tested in New York are required be operated with a human driver in the driver seat and carry a minimum of $5 million in liability insurance coverage following the passage of the new law, Zator added.

In addition to the new legislations impact in New York, Zator also discussed possible personal injury laws associated with driverless cars and automated vehicles and how negligence lawsuits could change in the future as a result.

We can already see some economic and political ramifications that are occurring in New York.

Insurance Journal: Could you talk about some of the main differences between true driverless cars versus automated vehicles?

Stanley Zator: There is a distinction between self-driving cars and driverless cars. Self-driving cars are not fully automated. They require a certain degree of human interaction, which may require a human driver being behind the wheel and performing certain tasks in order to get the vehicle started on a given roadway before switching to something like an autopilot feature. Driverless cars, on the other hand, are completely autonomous without the need of human intervention. Ive often heard of them being referred to like something out of The Jetsons.

IJ: In terms of true driverless cars, what do you see as some of the main benefits?

SZ: I believe driverless cars can offer a number of benefits. The top three that stand out most to me involve safety, productivity and some environmental advantages. Reportedly, 95 percent of motor vehicle accidents result from human error. By removing humans from the equation, driverless cars have the potential to actually significantly reduce car accidents and the injuries that result from them. Driverless cars can also increase productivity for those that suffer from long commutes to work or experience significant traffic delays to where theyre traveling. Rather than being preoccupied by driving in gridlock traffic, the occupant of the autonomous vehicle can divert their attention away from driving and toward a more productive task that could make their lives more efficient. As far as the environments concerned, I think driverless cars have the potential to expand ride sharing and public transportation opportunities that could significantly reduce carbon emissions and result in a cleaner environment, which is actually something that, I think, is currently being done by way of a pilot program with selfdriving cars in Arizona.

IJ: On the opposite end of the spectrum, could you talk about some of the biggest challenges so far that you see driverless cars presenting?

SZ: A few challenges faced by driverless cars are definitely safety and cyber security, at least as it stands now. The technology for automated cars is still in the developmental stages, so there are a number of accidents involving driverless cars and self-driving cars that have occurred over the past few years. From what I understand, further development and testing is required in order to operate these types of vehicles in adverse weather conditions, as well as more complex environments such as New York City. Obviously, there are added elements in that type of environment, such as horsedrawn carriages, pedestrians and cars coming from every which way and direction. Its something thats a little bit more complex, and Im not sure that the technology has caught up to that just yet. As it relates to cyber security, theres a likelihood that driverless cars may be susceptible to hacking, which could result in vehicle theft among other crimes, as well as even terror related issues.

IJ: What are some of the challenges personal injury lawyers in particular may run into trying to keep pace with the technology around driverless cars?

SZ: In my opinion, the biggest challenge that personal injury law may face is the potential that a legitimately injured claimant may lose his or her day in court because its not economically feasible to pursue the claim. What I mean by that is that driverless cars may actually shift our notions of liability from traditional negligence suits against a human driver to products liability actions against the manufacturers of these types of cars, as well as the software developers, among countless other developments that are involved in the actual production of these vehicles. In other words, fault wont be determined necessarily by human error, but a defect in the driverless car. Products liability cases, by their very nature, are very complex and costly. If the value of a given claimants injuries dont justify the cost of pursuing those types of cases, that claimant may potentially be turned away because it doesnt make good business sense for the attorney to pursue that case. It will definitely be interesting to see how the law accounts for this type of scenario and whether these types of plaintiffs may be forced to band together in some form of class action lawsuit to spread the risk and cost.

IJ: On April 5th of this year, the New York City legislature approved a bill permitting the use of autonomous vehicles on New York public highways, and it was signed into law in May by Governor Andrew Cuomo. What are some of the anticipated impacts that it might have in New York?

SZ: Governor Cuomo did, in fact, sign a budget bill into law allowing self-driving and self-parking cars to be tested for one year on New York public highways. These vehicles must be operated with a human driver in the driver seat, so they have to be self-driving cars. They must also carry a minimum of $5 million in liability insurance coverage. Prior to this law going into effect, this technology was actually prohibited from being tested in New York based upon a traffic law that required all motor vehicles to be operated with at least one hand on the steering wheel. As far as the impact on the state is concerned, I think Governor Cuomo is really hoping to create greater economic opportunities for New York-based companies to be further involved in the development of this type of technology. Theres also a push to develop alternative ride sharing and public transportation options, particularly if youre looking down the road at New York City. In turn, you have taxi cab drivers and limo services who are undertaking their own efforts to ensure that theyre not becoming displaced by this type of technology. We can already see some economic and political ramifications that are occurring in New York.

IJ: With the passing of that legislation, what will personal injury lawyers need to keep in mind for the future?

SZ: It will be imperative for New York personal injury lawyers to become familiar with the ins and outs of the law that was recently passed by Governor Cuomo. It will certainly guide their fact-finding investigations if they find themselves in this circumstance of representing an individual that was injured by a self-driving car on a New York highway. I think moving forward, personal injury lawyers should always keep in mind that these changes in technology may result in significant changes to the law as well as the insurance industry, which will make it ever more important obviously to seek out continuing legal education opportunities, as well as engage in dialogue with their colleagues to best serve their clients.

IJ: Weve spoken about how this may impact New York, but are other states expected to follow suit as well?

SZ: Weve already seen a major push for testing in states outside of New York. Arizona, California, Pennsylvania and Florida come to mind, but I anticipate that this list will continue to grow as technology advances and vehicle safety increases.

IJ: To sum up everything weve talked about, what are some of the biggest opportunities and challenges regarding driverless cars to keep a close eye on going forward?

SZ: In short, the biggest advantages and challenges to keep an eye on will be, in my opinion, safety and cyber security. Once these issues can be resolved reliably to a satisfactory degree, I think youll see driverless cars integrated into society on a much wider scale.

Topics Legislation Cyber Auto InsurTech Tech New York
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in June 2017 found a section of the state Workers Compensation Act (the Act) unconstitutional in a move that challenges the way Pennsylvania has assessed workplace injuries for the past 20 years.

The decision also resulted in a victory for Mary Ann Protz, a woman involved in the matter who suffered a work-related knee injury.

Section 306(a.2) of the Workers Compensation Act in Pennsylvania allows employers to demand that a claimant receive an impairment-rating evaluation (IRE), in which a physician determines the degree of impairment for the claimants injury. In order to assess the degree of impairment, the Act requires that physicians apply the method outlined in the most recent edition of the American Medical Association (AMA) Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment.

In its June decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found this section of the Act violates the states constitutional requirement that all legislative power rests within the General Assembly, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

The General Assembly gave the AMA de facto, unfettered control over a formula that ultimately will determine whether a claimant's partial-disability benefits will cease after 500 weeks.

Background

This decision comes after Protz sustained a knee injury while on the job in 2007. She began receiving temporary total disability benefits from her employer, Derry Area School District (Derry). At Derrys request, Protz underwent an IRE, and the physician assigned her a 10 percent impairment rating based on the Sixth Edition of the American Medical Association Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (the Guides).

Because Protzs impairment rating was less than 50 percent, Derry filed a modification petition seeking to convert Protzs disability status from total to partial, the court document stated. This meant that the duration for which Protz could receive workers compensation benefits would be limited.

After holding a hearing on Derrys modification petition, a workers compensation judge (WCJ) ruled that Protzs whole-body impairment was in fact less than 50 percent and granted the petition. However, Protz appealed to the Workers Compensation Appeal Board, arguing that the General Assembly unconstitutionally delegated authority to the AMA to establish criteria for evaluating permanent impairment.

The Board rejected Protzs argument and affirmed the WCJs decision, so Protz appealed to the Commonwealth Court, where she again argued that this section of the state Workers Compensation Act violates the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The Commonwealth Court reversed the Boards decision and agreed with Protzs argument. Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini stated in the decision that the General Assembly alone has the power to make laws, and it cannot constitutionally delegate that power to any other branch of government or to any other body.

The court did acknowledge that the General Assembly can delegate authority for the execution and administration of a law to an independent agency or an executive branch agency in certain circumstances. When the legislature chooses to delegate in this way, two limitations apply: the basic policy must be made by the legislature, and the legislation must contain standards to guide and restrain the exercise of delegated administrative functions.

The Commonwealth Court found that instead of following these two limitations, the General Assembly gave the AMA carte blanche authority to implement [the AMAs] own policies and standards.

However, even if the General Assembly had included standards guiding and restraining the AMAs exercise of delegated authority, the Commonwealth Court found this move would still be unconstitutional because the AMA is a private organization.

Instead of striking Section 306(a.2) of the Act entirely, however, the Commonwealth Court remanded the matter to the WCJ with instructions to apply the Fourth Edition of the Guides, the version in existence when the General Assembly enacted this particular section of the Workers Compensation Act in 1996.

Varying Opinions

After the Commonweath Courts decision, Derry argued it was wrong for the court to rule that the General Assemblys prospective use of the most recent edition of the Guides violates the Pennsylvania Constitution. On the other hand, Protz argued that after finding this section of the Act unconstitutional, the Commonwealth Court was wrong to remand the case to the WCJ to apply the Fourth Edition of the Guides.

While Derry argued the General Assembly is free to adopt current and future standards that are published by a well-recognized, independent authority, Protz maintained her stance that Section 306(a.2) violates the non-delegation doctrine in Pennsylvanias constitution because it gives the AMA discretion over Pennsylvanias impairment-rating methodology.

Supreme Court Ruling

Indeed, the Supreme Court document said the section of the Pennsylvania Constitution stating legislative power is vested in a General Assembly, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, serves to ensure authorized and politically responsible officials make all of the necessary policy decisions and seeks to protect against the arbitrary exercise of unnecessary and uncontrolled discretionary power.

As John Locke put it, legislative power consists of the power to make laws, and not to make legislators,' Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht wrote in the opinion. Indeed, the rule is essential to the American tripartite system of representative government. The framers of the constitution believed that the integrity of the legislative function was vital to the preservation of liberty.

The Supreme Court found that without any parameters to its authority, the AMA would be free to create a formula that yields impairment ratings so nearly every claimant is deemed to be at least 50 percent impaired, or alternatively, draft a version of the Guides guaranteed to yield impairment ratings so that almost no one clears the 50 percent threshold. It found the AMA could also add new chapters to the Guides, remove existing ones, or even create distinct criteria to be applied only to claimants of a particular race, gender or nationality.

Consider also that the AMA could revise the Guides once every ten years or once every ten weeks, Wecht wrote in the opinion. If the AMA chooses to publish new editions infrequently, Pennsylvania law may fail to account for recent medical advances. By contrast, excessive revisions would likely pose severe administrative headaches.as these hypotheticals illustrate, the General Assembly gave the AMA de facto, unfettered control over a formula that ultimately will determine whether a claimants partial-disability benefits will cease after 500 weeks.

Another concern is that the General Assembly delegated authority to a private entity and did not require the AMA to hold hearings, accept public comments or explain grounds for its methodology subject to judicial review, Wecht wrote in the opinion.

With this in mind, the Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Courts decision that Section 306(a.2) of the Pennsylvania Workers Compensation Act violates the non-delegation doctrine within the Pennsylvania Constitution. Differing from the Commonwealth Court, however, the Supreme Court ruled that this section of the Act is unconstitutional in its entirety.

Topics Legislation Workers' Compensation Pennsylvania
The Southeast has seen its fair share of natural disasters and flooding in the last several years, including two hurricanes in Florida last year  the first hurricanes to hit the state in more than a decade. But none of these events have come close to reaching the potential impact a serious storm surge event could have on the region.

According to CoreLogics 2017 Storm Surge Report, which examines risk from hurricane-driven storm surge for homes along the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines across 19 states and the District of Columbia, as well as 86 metro areas, the total reconstruction cost value (RCV) in the event of a hurricane storm surge inundation in these regions would be more than $1.5 trillion.

The total number of homes that could be affected along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, defined by CoreLogic as the 3,700 miles of coastline from Maine to Texas, is nearly 6.9 million. In the Gulf Coast region  running from Texas through the tip of South Florida  almost 3 million homes are at risk with a total RCV of $593 billion. The Atlantic Coast accounts for 3.9 million homes and a RCV of more than $970 billion.

To estimate the value of property exposure of single-family residences, CoreLogic uses its reconstruction cost valuation (RCV) methodology which estimates the cost to rebuild the home in the event of a total loss. The reconstruction cost estimates more accurately reflect the actual cost of damage or destruction of residential buildings that would occur from hurricane-driven storm surge since they include the cost of materials, equipment and labor needed to rebuild and also factor in geographical pricing differences. The values in this report are based on total destruction.

Southeast coastal states CoreLogic examined in its report are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and North Carolina, which account for at least 3.6 million of the 6.9 million homes at risk along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of those homes  about 2.7 million  are in Florida, which carries a whopping $536 billion reconstruction cost value  the highest of the 19 states.

The Southeast also accounts for nine of CoreLogics top 15 metropolitan areas at greatest risk of storm surge, with six being Florida cities.

Its common knowledge Florida is at risk of hurricanes, but the state has gone many years without experiencing significant damage from a major storm. Dr. Tom Jeffery, senior hazard scientist at CoreLogic, said that can often lead to hurricane amnesia, for citizens and municipalities and impacts preparation for a big storm event.

This report is about making people aware of the fact that we are in hurricane season. We dont know when or where they will happen, but they have the opportunity to affect the coastal U.S. and we want to put it on peoples radar, Jeffery said. A lot of these areas dont realize what the risk is once you are outside the 100-year flood plain.

He added many people in these communities dont realize what their storm surge risk is outside of the 100-year flood plain.

Large hurricanes especially can really push surge water quite a bit inland, but after big events, people say they didnt realize their property was at risk, Jeffery said. Hopefully, this information can give them the incentive to go to their insurer and find out if they are in a high-risk area and adequately prepare.

CoreLogic included a probabilistic storm surge analysis focused on Florida in this years report, with emphasis on storm surge from Hurricane Matthew, which changed course before making landfall last year and spared the state from the worst possible scenario. The goal of probabilistic modeling of hurricane perils, CoreLogic said, is to provide risk managers with insight on what could happen so they can plan and manage better.

Probabilistic loss provides an evaluation of the specific amount of damage that could be expected from a single storm event or a set of simulated events, called probabilistic events, which are informed by historical storm records that are similar in size and scope, the report states.

This analysis focused on the historical storms in Florida that caused storm surge damage beginning in 1900 and how Hurricane Matthew compares. Of the 97 catastrophic hurricanes in Florida since 1900, Hurricane Matthew ranked No. 19 among historical storm surge events. CoreLogic said storm surge damage from Matthew made up less than 10 percent of the total financial loss with the rest being a result of wind damage.

Number one on the list was the 13th hurricane of 1944 (before hurricanes were given actual names), which caused $15 billion in damage on 471,000 homes in todays terms. Hurricane Andrew, which hit in 1992, was ranked No. 4, and Wilma, which hit in 2005, was ranked No. 15.

Though Floridas first hurricanes in 11 years were not as devastating as they could have been, the two storms that did occur  Hurricane Hermine in Sept. 2016, and Hurricane Matthew  caused more than $3.2 billion combined damage to Florida.

Jeffery said the state got lucky last year. He added awareness is key to minimizing loss in the future, and the modeling company has seen increased interest in information and proactive mitigation discussions this year.

Florida went a long stretch without an impactful landfall hurricane and last year was an eye opener, an awakening to get people to think about it since we dont know when that next one is going to come ashore, he said.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Trends Florida Windstorm Hurricane
The tension between Washington, D.C., and Sacramento seems to have created extra work for some lobbyists.

Its absolutely palpable, Paul Yoder, managing director for the California Coalition on Workers Compensation, said commenting on the tension.

He was speaking with Jason Schmelzer, CCWCs legislative advocate, about legislation in the state and its potential impacts on workers comp.

The pair, which estimated the tension between the nations and the states capitols has added 25 percent or more to the workloads of lobbyists like themselves, were speaking at the annual CCWC conference in Anaheim, Calif., at Disneys Grand California Hotel Spa.

We are far and few in between in the United States.

The 15th annual conference drew more than 700 participants this year, according to organizers. The three-day conference ran from July 12-14. Topics this year included case law updates, actuarial reports, claims discussions, fraud issues and advances in telemedicine.

Yoder and Schmelzer noted that while the nation was electing a conservative president who has vowed to cut taxes last November, the state was busy passing laws that increased taxes or were far left politically from the rest of the nation.

California voters overwhelmingly supported initiatives like Proposition 56 (cigarette tax), Proposition 58 (bilingual education), Proposition 63 (an ammunition sales prohibition) and Proposition 64 (marijuana legalization).

The election made the state an outlier, if it already wasnt considered one, Yoder said.

We are far and few in between in the United States, Yoder said.

Schmelzer added: Weve always been something special, but this year we were extra different.

State legislators have also vowed to battle President Trumps initiatives on immigration, healthcare and withdrawing the nation from the Paris climate accord.

Gov. Jerry Brown is loudly opposing Trumps stance on climate change and plans to bring heads of state from other nations to involve California in international efforts to battle global warming.

He wants to have another Paris, Yoder said.

After painting a picture of the states political landscape, the pair discussed how these things could impact workers comp.

They also discussed workers comp legislation introduced this year that the CCWC took a stance on. Some of the bills failed, others will be taken up in the next legislative session.

Assembly Bill 44 was introduced in the wake of the terrorist attack on San Bernardino workers in 2015. The California Department of Industrial Relations launched an investigation into delays in treatment for those injured in the attack.

The bill would have established a disputable presumption that physician-requested treatment is appropriate, which Schmelzer said would have disrupted the established utilization review and independent medical review process and eliminated the 104-week cap on total disability.

We opposed this bill aggressively, Schmelzer said.

Assembly Bill 570 was aimed addressing gender-biased inequities in the workers comp system. It would prohibit apportionment in the case of a physical injury from being based on pregnancy, childbirth or other medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth.

The biggest issue, Schmelzer said, was that making an exception on one case could set a dangerous precedent.

Before you know it, you no longer have a workers compensation system, you have a compensation system, Schmelzer said.

Assembly Bill 1295 would require claims administrators to calculate the number of days between utilization review (UR) denial and overturn by independent medical review (IMR) for purposes of removing that period of time from the total disability cap.

Schmelzer said that the data already shows that IMR proves the UR system is working.

UR denials are upheld by IMR somewhere around 90 percent of the time, Schmelzer said. The bill didnt make it out of the Assembly Insurance Committee.

Senate Bill 562, sponsored by the California Nurses Association, would create universal healthcare. The bill didnt make it out of the Legislature but it did become a two-year bill. While some may believe its dead, it actually advanced in some respects and is poised to be a hot topic next year, Yoder said.

Its not dead, he added.

Should the bill ever get passed, it creates a number of questions for how it impacts the workers comp system, Schmelzer said.

How does that blend with a workers comp system that is totally independent of the health market? he said. This is going to be a tough one. This is going to be a really, really tough one for the state to grapple with.

Topics California Legislation Workers' Compensation Training Development
British lawmakers launched an inquiry on Monday into how banks and insurers could maintain access to the European Union market after Britain leaves the bloc in 2019.

The House of Lords financial affairs committee said it will examine how regulation and supervision can evolve to ensure financial stability and potentially to maintain some form of close regulatory relationship to preserve market access.

The committees chairwoman, Kishwer Falkner, said there will need to be cooperation between British and EU supervisors and Britain will need to maintain its influence in global standard-setting to maintain market access.

We would like to explore the options for such engagement, she said in a statement.

Banks and insurers are already announcing plans to open new subsidiaries in the EU to ensure they can continue serving customers there after March 2019.

With the shape of Britains future trading terms with the EU unclear, the sector is focusing on persuading the government to negotiate a transition period to have more time to complete moves to Europe smoothly.

The inquiry will examine the scope for Britain to adopt its own financial rules, after backers of Brexit have said that the UK can write its own rules and ditch EU red tape.

Britains Financial Conduct Authority has warned against a bonfire of regulations after Brexit.

The committee will also examine if the EUs equivalence regime is the best way for financial firms in Britain to access clients in the EU after Brexit.

This refers to Britain applying financial rules that are similar to those in the EU in return for access, a regime critics say is too unpredictable.

The committee will start public hearings in September. The government will respond to the committees findings.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; editing by Alexander Smith)

Topics Carriers Legislation Europe
The Missouri Department of Insurance helped consumers who filed complaints against their insurance company receive an additional $4 million in claim payments in the first half of 2017.

Health insurance generated the most complaints in the first half of 2017 with 701 formal complaints, followed by agent investigations with 489. Missourians complained most about claim denials and claim delays.

The departments consumer complaint team also answered nearly 10,000 phone calls, handled 1,400 inquiries and assisted with 2,000 complaints in the first half of the year from consumers across the Show-Me State.

The top categories of complaints were:

Complaints by reason Complaints by line of insurance Denial of claim (404) Health (701) Delays (268) Agent Investigations (489) Coverage question (223) Auto (353) Unsatisfactory settlement/offer (167) Life & Annuity (231)

Missourians can use the Consumer Complaint Index as a tool when choosing an insurer. The department released the index, which presents data on complaints against insurance companies received by the department between 2014 and 2016.

The Consumer Complaint Index includes data for seven lines of business including private passenger automobile, life and annuity, accident and health, long-term care, Medicare supplement, HMOs and homeowners which includes farm, mobile home, personal fire and allied lines.

Companies with a complaint index of 100 percent or more shows that the department received more complaints than the industry average for that company.

Companies with a complaint index of less than 100 percent had fewer complaints filed against them than industry average and companies with a complaint index of 100 percent were on par with the industry average.

Source: Missouri Department of Insurance, Financial Institutions and Professional Registration (DIFP)

Topics Missouri
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. is facing another class-action lawsuit by a disgruntled shareholder over its alleged inability to keep its restaurants clean, a further hurdle for a company still trying to regain consumer and investor confidence after a food scare two years ago.

The latest complaint follows Tuesdays revelation that one of the burrito chains Virginia stores had temporarily closed because of a suspected norovirus outbreak and Wednesdays media reports about Texas customers complaining of rodents dropping from the ceiling.

Chipotle in March won dismissal of a similar lawsuit brought by investors over stock price drops after several food-borne illness outbreaks in 2015 were traced to its restaurants, with a judge concluding that the case was long on text but it is short on adequately-pleaded claims. Those plaintiffs are now trying to revive the case in Manhattan federal court, and as recently as May, the company was hit in Los Angeles with another in a series of product-injury suits filed by customers claiming they were sickened two years ago.

The return of negative headlines this week has tarred what was supposed to be a marketing coup for the company, which rolled out a new campaign on Wednesday featuring RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan to tout the quality of the chains ingredients. Instead, investors have focused on the mounting number of suspected norovirus cases.

Misleading Statements

In the case filed Thursday, shareholder Elizabeth Kelley said the Colorado-based company made misleading statements to bolster confidence that it had resolved the health and safety troubles from 2015, when it was forced to close all of its U.S. stores after hundreds of consumers got sick.

Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Chipotles shares have plunged 19 percent during the 17 1/2-month period covered by the lawsuit and touched a four-year low before closing Friday at $345.34, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

As a result of defendants wrongful acts and omissions, the precipitous decline in the market value of the companys securities, plaintiff and other class members have suffered significant losses and damages, according to the complaint in Denver federal court. Also named as defendants are the companys chairman and co-founder Steve Ells, Chief Financial Officer John Hartung and former Co-Chief Executive Officer Montgomery Moran.

Reopened Restaurant

The company reopened the Sterling, Virginia, restaurant Wednesday after it was sanitized. In response to the incident, Ells pointed to the steps Chipotle has taken to safeguard customers health, including hiring a food-safety director and updating its protocols.

The Loudoun County Health Department, which is investigating the matter, said on Thursday that it had identified about 60 people who fell ill after eating at the Sterling restaurant. One of the customers tested positive for norovirus, said David Goodfriend, director of the agency.

The 2015 outbreak triggered an investigation by the Obama Administrations Justice Department and Food and Drug Administration that included a grand jury subpoena. On Feb. 1, 2016, the regulatory agency along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the outbreak appears to be over.

The case is Kelley v. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., 17-cv-001760, U.S. District Court, District of Colorado (Denver).

Related:

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Lawsuits
Were curious and we dont know. When regulators dont know whats going on, they get suspicious.

That was Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Ted Nickel acknowledging that like the industry they regulate, state insurance commissioners face challenges keeping up with new technology and uses of data and that its in the industrys best interests to help regulators understand what they are doing with these tools.

Nickel, who in addition to his paid job as his states top insurance regulator also serves as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), was speaking to a group of executives at the Super Regional Property/Casualty Insurance Company Conference in Lake Geneva, Wis. The conference, the first targeted to Super Regional insurers, was sponsored by Insurance Journal and the actuarial consulting firm Demotech.

Insurtech, autonomous vehicles, reinsurance, big data, cyber security and talent management were among the topics addressed at the conference.

Nickels talk made it clear that state regulators are trying to tackle some of the same issues that carrier executives are.

Fast-Pace

The issue right now is that technology is moving so fast, youre plugging it in, youre building it, and youre using it and there is this gap between what regulators understand and whats actually going on. And that causes some concern for us and also consumer representatives, he told the executives.

We dont always know whats in your new black box of toolsand how you better rate and better underwriteso thats a concern to us. Were curious and we dont know. When regulators dont know, they get suspicious.

The NAIC has been working to educate members on technology and innovations happening across the country. But Nickel said regulators also need the industrys help to become comfortable with the criteria being used in models and whether they are consistent with traditional underwriting criteria.

He encouraged carriers to meet with their regulators as often as they can and share with regulators in a confidential way what they are doing.

He said regulators understand the need for insurers to protect proprietary information and tools.

He also said state regulators have to work with technology innovation and data analytics companies to update and improve regulation.

Understanding technology and big data is also important for regulators to do their own jobs better. Nickel sees states using big data for market exams. He used the example of his state where he said regulators did market conduct exams to meet quotas and selected exam candidates on a random basis by, he joked, what amounted to throwing a dart at dartboard.

He said big data can help regulators focus on problem areas. With big data, commissioners can look at all of the companies like dots on a map and be able to see all that are grouped together in the middle and also identify the outliers where there may be a problem. Lets start discussions with the outliers, address whatever issue it is, he suggested, adding that because his agencys resources are limited he wants to be focusing on potential areas of problems and not be doing things just because we have to do them because theres a statute that says we have the authority.

Nickel also suggested that state insurance departments share another challenge with carriers: finding talent. Thats why his department is working with his states technical colleges to develop insurance programs, hoping some candidates might decide to work in the regulatory arena. Its also why the NAIC has a centers of excellence program to give states technical assistance in areas where they may not have qualified or sufficient staffing.

Other NAIC News

He said NAIC is close to finishing a model law on cyber breach notifications and is readying a proposal on use of big data. He urged the executives to pay attention to the latter in particular and offer feedback.

In other remarks, he indicated that while state insurance regulators are not thrilled with the covered agreement on insurance regulation that the U.S. negotiated with the European Union, they are accepting that the Trump Administration is going to sign it.

He said the NAIC didnt think it was the right tool to address matters of international regulation of insurance but it was done and its there.

It is what it is and we will live with it, Nickel said.

NAIC is hoping that a promised statement from Treasury will clarify and recognize the primacy of state regulation.

Then the work goes back to the states, he noted, referring to the need to begin implementing the agreement.

Related:

Topics Carriers Legislation Tech Data Driven
A family whose daughters were injured when they fell from a Ferris wheel at a Tennessee county fair has filed lawsuits against the rides owners and manufacturer.

News outlets report the Reynolds family and Lorena Cowhy, another woman who was injured in the August 2016 incident at the Greene County Fair, filed lawsuits in federal court on last week against Family Attractions Amusement LLC and High-Lite Rides Inc.

The lawsuits ask for a jury trial, compensatory damages and unspecified punitive damages.

A November report from the Federal Consumer Product Safety Commission says a bent skid plate and worn rivets might have contributed to 10-year-old Kayla Reynolds and 6-year-old Briley Reynolds 40-foot (12-meter) fall, causing a broken arm and traumatic brain injury, respectively.

Family Attractions Amusement LLC is owned by Dominic Macaroni.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Tennessee
Norman-Spencer Agency, Inc., a national property and casualty insurance provider, has opened a new recreational marine operation in High Point, North Carolina.

Jason Norman will be leading the office as the underwriter production manager.

Norman will be working directly with local retail agents to provide Norman-Spencers proprietary nationwide insurance Recreational Marine Program and other recreational products to retail agents that service the recreational marine industry.

The program supports boat dealers, marinas, boat manufacturers, yacht clubs, boat clubs, and recreational marine distributors.

T. Clarke Smith III, president of Norman-Spencer Marine Division, said the expansion allows the company to serve the MidAtlantic and Southern Coastal Region.

Norman has been with the company since 2010, most recently working with the Norman-Spencer Marine team. He previously held the position of Underwriting manager for Norman-Spencers proprietary concrete pumping program.

The new High Point operation is active immediately.

Norman-Spencer provides insurance services to clients and insurance buyers nationwide with over 10 proprietary in-house property and casualty insurance programs covering industries like marine, transportation, construction, watercraft and professional lines.

Topics North Carolina
Tom Fallon, 63, of Long Beach, Calif., is being arraigned today in Superior Court in Long Beach on multiple felony charges including theft by embezzlement and money laundering.

Fallons daughter, Christina Fallon, 28, also of Long Beach, is scheduled to surrender herself at the Long Beach Police Department today and is facing the same felony charges.

According to investigators with the California Department of Insurance Investigation Division, Tom Fallon and his daughter allegedly embezzled $273,954 from injured workers who trusted him to invest settlement funds from workplace accidents with his company Fortis Financial Insurance Services Inc., and then diverted their funds to his own accounts for his personal use.

The Fallons alleged theft from injured workers is particularly egregious, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said in a statement. By stealing from injured workers who depend on the funds for future care, the Fallons may have left many victims without the resources they need for medical treatment.

Evidence show Tom Fallon suggested two victims who received a $273,974 settlement from a work-related traffic collision deposit their accident settlement funds with him in whats known as a Workers Compensation Set Aside Arrangement, which would provide investment management for their settlement.

In 2014, the victims received an interest payment check from Tom Fallon that bounced for non-sufficient funds. The victims filed a request for assistance with the California Department of Insurance Consumer Services Division, which led to a criminal investigation that uncovered the alleged crime and revealed Fallon embezzled more than $250,000 from the victims and used the funds for his personal expenses and business ventures, including Big Daddys Cigar lounge in Naples.

The Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office filed a criminal complaint against Tom and Christina Fallon on July 14, charging two counts of theft by embezzlement, and 15 counts of money laundering. If convicted of all charges, the defendants face a maximum sentence of more than 16 years in state prison.

Topics California Agencies Workers' Compensation
Firefighters are bracing for the possibility of dry lightning as they battle a stubborn blaze that has scorched nearly 120 square miles near Californias Yosemite National Park.

The wildfire burning in the Sierra Nevada foothills was 50 percent contained Monday. But the states fire protection agency says it could take crews another two weeks to fully surround it.

More evacuated residents were allowed to return to their homes Sunday, but flames continue to threaten about 1,500 structures in Mariposa County. The fire is burning about 35 miles west of Yosemite, but the park remains open.

The blaze is one of more than a dozen that have ravaged California in recent weeks.

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Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics California Wildfire
What Is Termination of Employment?

The term termination of employment refers to the end of an employees work with a company. An employee may be terminated from a job of their own free will or following a decision made by the employer. Employers who execute a termination of employment may do so for a number of reasons, including downsizing, poor job performance, or redundancies.

An employee who is not actively working because of an illness, leave of absence, or furlough is still considered employed if the relationship with the employer has not been terminated formally with a notice of termination.

Key Takeaways Termination of employment refers to the end of an employees work with a company.

Termination may be voluntary, as when a worker leaves of their own accord.

Involuntary termination occurs when a company downsizes, makes layoffs, or fires an employee.

Severance packages are discretionary, which means a company does not need to offer them to employees when their employment is terminated.

A worker who is unemployed through no fault of their own may be eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

How Voluntary Termination Works

An employee may voluntarily terminate their employment with a company at any time. An individual usually does so when they find a better job with another company, retire from the labor force, resign to start their own business, or when they want to take a break from working.

Voluntary termination may also be a result of constructive dismissal, which is also called constructive discharge or constructive dismissal. This means that the employee leaves the company because they had no other choice. They could have been working under significant duress and difficult working conditions, which could include a low salary, harassment, a new work location that is farther than the employee can reasonably commute, increased work hours, among other reasons.

The forced discharge of an employee, whereby they are given an ultimatum to quit or be fired, also falls under constructive dismissal. If the employee can prove that the employers actions were unlawful during their tenure, they may be entitled to some form of compensation or benefits.

An employee who voluntarily leaves an employer may be required to hand in their resignation, which is an advanced notice, either verbally or in writing. Most industries usually require a two-week notice of an employee's termination. In some cases, the employee gives notice at the time that they terminate, or they give no notice at all, such as when an employee abandons the job or fails to return to work.

If your employment changes due to a change in hours, lay off, or termination, you may qualify for COBRA health insurance coverage under your existing group health plan for 18 months. If you choose to continue under the same plan, you are responsible for the full premium each month.

How Involuntary Termination Works

Involuntary termination of employment occurs when an employer lays off, dismisses, or fires an employee.

Layoffs and Downsizing

In a layoff, employees are usually let go through no fault of their own, unlike workers who are fired. Companies often decide to lay off workers or downsize their organizations to lower their operating costs, restructure their organizations, or because they no longer need an employees skill set. Layoffs may require employers to suspend certain roles temporarily, as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, or they may be permanent as a result of restructuring decisions.

Getting Fired

An employee is usually fired from a job as a result of unsatisfactory work performance, bad behavior, or a poor attitude that does not fit with the corporations culture. They may also be let go because of unethical conduct that violates the companys policies.

According to at-will employment laws recognized in some states, a company may dismiss without warning any employee who is performing poorly or violating some form of the companys rules. In fact, the company does not need to give a reason for the employee's termination.

Illegal Dismissals

Although employment-at-will contracts do not require an employer to warn or give a reason for a dismissal, an employer cannot fire a worker for certain reasons, including:

Refusing to work more than the hours specified in the contract

Taking a leave of absence

Reporting an incident or a person to the Human Resources (HR) department

Whistleblows to industry regulators

Individuals cannot be fired for these reasons. An employer who discharges an employee for exercising their legal rights does so unlawfully and may be liable for wrongful termination in the courts.

Other illegal dismissals occur when an employer lets an employee go for discriminatory reasons such as religion, race, age, gender, disability, sexual preference, or nationality. An employer who is found guilty of wrongful termination may be required to compensate the wronged employee and/or reinstate them into the company.

Termination for Cause

Other than at-will conditions of employment, an employer may fire an employee for a specific cause. A termination-for-cause clause requires the employer to put the employee on an improvement schedule of 60 or 90 days, during which the employee is expected to improve their work ethic. If the employee does not improve by the end of the probationary period, they could be terminated for cause and dismissed with prejudice.

In some cases, an employer may dismiss an employee without prejudice. This indicates that the employee was let go for reasons other than incompetence, insubordination, or misconduct in the workplace. In such situations, the employee may be rehired for a similar job in the future.

Termination Compensation

Some employers may provide employees with a notice of termination and/or termination pay, which is often called severance pay. This is common for employees who have worked with a company for more than three months and are involuntarily terminated. A company that offers severance does so following an agreement made privately with the employee or because severance is specified in its employee handbook. Keep in mind, though severance packages aren't a requirement under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Employers are not required by federal law to give the terminated employee a final paycheck immediately. However, state laws differ and may mandate that the employer must not only immediately provide the affected employee with a final paycheck, but also include accrued and unused vacation days.

Anyone who is unemployed through no fault of their own may be eligible to receive unemployment benefits. Each state administers an unemployment insurance (UI) program to offer temporary financial assistance to people who are unemployed and looking for a job. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) provides detailed information about unemployment insurance benefits.

The last day with your employer is commonly referred to as your end, separation, or termination date.

Is Getting Terminated the Same as Getting Fired? You are terminated from your employment if you are fired. The reason for your termination depends and your employer should let you know why they let you go. You may be fired for misconduct, poor performance, or because you're not a good fit for the position or company.

What Are the Main Reasons For Getting Fired? Employers may fire their employees for misconduct, poor job performance, violating company policy(s), theft, damage to company property or the use of company materials for personal matters, insubordination, too many sick days without justification, or consistent lateness. Some employers may build moral clauses into their employment contracts, which hold employees to a certain standard in and outside the workplace. As such, social media activity that goes against these standards may be reason enough to fire an employee.

What Is Wrongful Termination? Wrongful termination occurs when an employee is let go for reasons prohibited by employment law, such as discrimination, whistleblowing, or retaliation. Employers who fire individuals for not complying with certain requests, such as doing dangerous or illegal work, are also guilty of wrongful termination. Companies that change working conditions without notice, ultimately forcing an employee to leave or be fired, are also said to be in violation of employment laws. Individuals who are wrongfully terminated may pursue legal action against their former employers.

How Do You Fight Termination of Employment? You may not be able to fight termination of employment if you were let go for a legitimate reason, such as restructuring or theft of company property. But if you believe you were terminated without just cause, there are some steps you can take. Make sure you understand why you're being terminated. If you can, appeal the decision with your employer or the company's human resources department. Request copies of documents, including your employment contract, any communications between you and your employer regarding your performance, as well as your employment file. If you have a union, contact your representative. You can also consult an employment lawyer to take your case to court if you have a case.

The Bottom Line

There are many reasons why employees and employers end their relationship. Some employees may decide to leave their jobs voluntarily while others may be let go because of misconduct, poor performance, or another reason.

You have certain rights if you were terminated. For instance, you have the right to rescind your resignation if you choose to leave voluntarily. And you have the right to file an unemployment insurance claim if you lost your job through no fault of your own. You may have legal recourse if you believe that your employer retaliated against you and let you go illegally, whether that's because you took a leave of absence or because they discriminated against you. Be sure to check with an employment lawyer if any of these apply.


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A "courageous" victims campaigner orphaned and allegedly abused in the North following the murder of his mother Jean McConville has died.

Billy McConville, 50, had been living at a hospice while bravely coping with cancer, parish priest Father Patrick McCafferty said.

The Belfast father-of-four described suffering sexual and physical harm in residential care as a child without a mother at Rubane House in Co Down, run by brothers from the De La Salle religious order.

Mrs McConville was abducted, shot and secretly buried by the IRA at the height of the conflict when her son was aged just six.

It was one of the most notorious killings of the Troubles and claims that she was an informer for the British were later dismissed.

Fr McCafferty said: "He was a very courageous man and still fighting for justice up to the very end, especially for people like himself who suffered in those institutions.

"He was a very good man and has suffered with great dignity and with great courage."

Mr McConville was one of 10 children whose mother was kidnapped from the family home in December 1972. He was put into care shortly afterwards.

He appeared before a Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) public inquiry in 2014 to detail his experience and in recent days called on politicians to secure justice and compensation for abuse survivors, dragging himself from his hospital bed to support a Belfast rally.

The inquiry has recommended compensation worth up to 100,000 for the worst affected.

Survivors' campaigner Margaret McGuckin said decision-makers needed to act and said she was awaiting Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster's signature on a joint letter from the parties urging action from the British Government.

She said: "There will be nobody left, is that what they want?"

Ms McGuckin added that many who began the campaign for justice were no longer there, saying: "We have had a shorter lifespan because of what happened in there, so all of these people are in their late 50s early 60s."

She said Mr McConville had shown great determination when giving evidence of his ordeal and had turned up for a rally to help others in his dying days.

"He always had a kindness, a care for everyone else around him," she added.

His funeral will take place in west Belfast on Wednesday.

Mrs McConville was dragged from her home in Belfast's Divis flats complex by a gang of up to 12 men and women in 1972, accused of passing information to the British Army - an allegation later discredited by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman.

She was shot in the back of the head and secretly buried 50 miles from her home, becoming one of the "Disappeared" victims of the Troubles.

It was not until 1999 that the IRA admitted the murder when information was passed to police in the Republic.

Her remains were eventually found on Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth by a member of the public in August 2003.

Nobody has been convicted of her murder.
A legal row between the HSE and a pharamcy group over dispensing fees is to be heard in the Commercial Court, reports Ann OLoughlin.

The case taken by the HSE against DGM Pharmacies Ltd which operates the Hickey Group of pharmacies is being regarded as a test case in relation to the system of phased dispensing fees.

Mr Justice Brian McGovern who admitted the case to the big business division of the High Court was told by Eileen Barrington SC for the HSE, yesterday proceedings in twenty nine other cases have been ssued in relation to this matter.

Phased dispensing is used to prevent excessive or incorrect dosing by the patient. The idea is that instead of giving patients a months supply of their tablets, they are given one weeks supply at a time. The patient or a family member visits the pharmacy weekly, and the pharmacist can check on their adherence to their medication.

In a grounding affidavit, HSE Assistant National Director of the primary care reimbursement service Anne Marie Hoey said in mid 1996 a payment mechansim was established whereby enhanced dispensing fees became payable to community pharmacist contractors for general medical services patients where an item on a a single prescription fee, is dispensed across multiple supply occasions.

She said it has emerged from inspections of pharmacies within various groups including the Hickey Group that claims were allegedly made to the HSE for phased dispensing claims where supply had allegedly occurred on a single occasion.

She alleged the Hickey Groups standard operating procedure for monitored dosage systems stated that usually a months supply would be provided to the patient by way of a blister pack and yet fees were allegedly charged by the Hickey Group for phased dispensing.

It is contended there has been alleged non complIance with the phased dispensing rules and it resulted in the payment of pharmicists for services that they did not provide where the HSE believed phased dispensing had taken place.

Ms Hoey said that every phased dispensing claim will be reviewed but it is estimated the overall amount due from the Hickey Group from June 2011 and August 2016 in in the region of over 5m.

She said it would appear the Hickey Group has taken remedial action so as to no longer routinely claim for phased dispensing when it provides blister packs with a months medication to a patient.

Separately, she said the Hickey Group has commenced propceedings againdt the HSE alleging it wrongfully witheld payment for phased dispensing as of October 2016.
EXPORTS of Irish beverages to the United States last year grew to over 514 million with whiskey by far the most popular tipple.

The importance of the US market, as Brexit negotiations begin, was highlighted when 25 Irish drinks exporters took part in a trade showcase in Chicago earlier this month. They engaged with Binnys Beverage Depot, the largest drinks retailer in the US Mid-West, and other on-trade customers from the region.

The showcase was part of a week-long trade mission to the US and Mexico, headed by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed.

He said the United States is the destination for almost 45% of Irish whiskey, the fastest growing spirits brand globally with exports of 3.7m cases.

The 2016 figure represents an increase of 8.5% on the previous year and an increase of 47% over the last five years.

Ireland was a key player in the whiskey business of the US up to the early part of the last century and lost ground for a variety of reasons. I am determined our new and impressive progress will endure, he said.

Bord Bia used the opportunity to inform US trade and retail customers how Irelands investment in consumer insight, routes to market and the Origin Green sustainability programme can deliver benefits for their business.

Bord Bia chief executive, Tara McCarthy, said that the consumer and market insight highlighted the US as a priority destination for Irish drinks  given its size as well as the appetite for new flavours.

She said the breadth and depth of the Irish product range in Binnys Beverage Depot was proof of how far the industry had come in such a relatively short time.

We have invested over 1,000 hours in research over the last three years to appreciate the evolving US consumer tastes.

Bord Bias research identified three key areas of focus for Irish whiskey to ensure success, namely native personality, maturity and flavour complexity.

We have worked with over 20 Irish companies in the past three years to meet these demands through consumer insight and branding as well as market research and trade shows.

Bord Bia has also partnered with these companies to get feet on the street in the US market through our talent development programmes, she said.

Tara McCarthy said Bord Bia will continue to target key buyers with the aim of bringing 10 of them to its Marketplace trade event in 2018.

She said this will give the buyers the opportunity to meet with Irish suppliers and provide them with guided itineraries to ensure that they feel the full impact of Irelands sustainable production system.

During the visit to Binnys Beverage Depot, the Minister and Bord Bia chief executive met with Brett Pontoni, the companys purchasing director.

He is a keen supporter of Irelands beverage industry, having attended Bord Bias Marketplace event in 2015.

Mr Brett said he was delighted with the response of US consumers to the breadth and depth of Irish drinks stocked in Binnys Beverage Depot.

New brands from Ireland are building an enthusiastic following by offering a new taste and are seen as different and independent.

Bord Bias assistance to companies in telling their individual stories and providing resources on the ground is building on Irelands already renowned reputation for alcohol production.

Being able to tell a story about sustainable production through the Origin Green programme, appeals to millennials, who are key to the future growth of the sector, he said.

Bord Bias relationships with the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America has also helped Irish companies identify and establish commercial partnerships with US importers and distributors. Ireland also enjoys the privilege of being the only national exhibitor at the Beverage Alcohol Control Associations annual conference.

Bord Bia hosts an Ireland stand at this event, showcasing the current Irish newcomers each year and as a result of this exposure, many of the same successful Irish brands are now stocked in the high value states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, Oregon, Ohio and North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Bord Bias Thinking House continues to research the sector for new opportunities as well as working with exporters on brand design to target specific markets and categories.

The Future of Drinks (and whiskey) reports, which it commissioned, identified three key areas for Irish whiskey to focus on to ensure success  native personality, maturity matters and flavour complexity.

According to the International Wines and Spirits Record, Irish whiskey is also perceived as a trade-up from other whiskies in the market.

It cites the range of new product launches and brand line extensions as having helped to encourage greater exploration of the category.

Continued investment in new distilleries, trademarks changing hands and updates to packaging are all also contributing to the growth.

Exports of Irish drinks globally in 2016 achieved 1.4bn, up 4% on 2015. This is largely due to the performance of Irish whiskey, which has grown over 300% in the past decade.

In 2016, 8.3m (9L) cases were exported representing an increase of more than 9% on 2015, and it is projected to grow to 24m cases by 2030.

The number of distilleries has grown from in 2010 to 11 currently in production with five more in build-phase and a further 11 in varying stages of planning.

From just eight craft breweries in 2012, the category now numbers more than 90 brands, produced by 73 micro-breweries.

Ireland had just a single gin offering in 2011. There are now 23 premium gin brands in production or planning.

The premium gin market in the USA has grown from 2.1bn cases to 2.8bn cases since 2010, an increase of 33%. This trend, driven largely by the rising popularity of cocktail bars, has not escaped Irish producers.
Irelands foodservice industry, which includes meals served in hotels and pubs, was worth 7.5bn last year, according to figures from Bord Bia. There is a growing demand for convenience, with about 40% of this figure including fast food, food-to-go, coffee shops and cafes.

Irish start-ups are shaking up the sector with innovative solutions for food service providers and time-poor consumers. For instance, busy young professionals can skip the lunch queue at their local coffee shop or salad bar using the Bamboo app. The platform, started by Luke Mackey and Alan Haverty, soft-launched in February this year, and has 70 partner food outlets signed up so far.

The team is currently targeting the lunchtime market in Dublin city centre; speciality cafes to burrito bars to bakeries in business areas, such as the IFSC and Harcourt Street.

The apps core users are the 24-to-35 age bracket. They can order, pay, receive your loyalty rewards with a couple of taps, so when you arrive, you can just skip the queue, grab your order and go, Mr Mackey says.

The focus is on the customer experience, he says. When a cafe signs up, the Bamboo team works with them to figure out the best place for the pick-up point, one that works with workflow and that wont disturb the casual queue of customers.

As the market for convenience continues to grow, consumers are looking for healthier alternatives.

The Bord Bia Irish Foodservice Channel Insights report, published in 2016, identified industry trends, including health and authenticity and greater culinary expression. These trends are reflected in the growth of businesses like DropChef, which delivers the ingredients and instructions for meals to customers homes, allowing them to cook a healthy meal in 30 minutes.

College friends Roman Grogan, Ryan Scott and Sam OByrne came up with the concept as a healthy eating solution for modern lifestyles. Their chefs come up with dishes, and the DropChef team works with them to create a simple step-by-step recipe. The subscription model ranges from 6.95 to 9.95 per meal.

DropChef is not a diet thing, Mr OByrne says. Its just whole, fresh ingredients with no additives. Waste is reduced as ingredients are delivered pre-portioned in the right quantity.

What the team has discovered is that people do enjoy cooking, its the ancillary activities, such as choosing what to cook, shopping and trying to find all the ingredients, that they find frustrating.

Mr OByrne compares the convenience of DropChef to a Jamie Oliver cooking show. Its very easy for him to cook because he has everything prepared there and all he has to do is pop it in the pan. What were trying to do for people is provide them with convenience without compromise.

While DropChef, which has teamed up with tech giant Google to provide an on-demand service for its staff, is popular among time-poor, health conscious young professionals, a big part of its business is families.

The company has partnered with Irish charity Valid Nutrition which tackles severe acute malnourishment in sub-Saharan Africa, to donate one therapeutic food pack for every meal DropChef sells.

The delivery market is another sector which is exploding along with advancements in mobile technology.

Flipdish provides online ordering apps and website technology for restaurants. The company, set up by brothers James and Conor McCarthy, offers an alternative option for restaurants to aggregator platforms like Just Eat and Deliveroo which charge commission from 13% to 30% of sales, according to James McCarthy.

Flipdish is a white label solution so businesses can have their own branded app, which Mr McCarthy says is a lot faster compared to others on the market. The simplicity of using the app is comparable to WhatsApp, Mr McCarthy says. Two years ago to place an order with Just Eat there were about 21 fields to fill in, including password, address, and email, he says. The Flipdish app requires just a phone number to carry out a transaction, as it can locate the customer with geolocation.

If the restaurant is not paying commission to an aggregator site, they can offer loyalty discounts to customers through the app. Flipdish began selling the product at the start of 2016 and has 400 restaurants signed up, which is over 10% of the delivery market in Ireland.
The Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) has called for a regulatory framework to be developed for what is becoming an important source of alternative funding for certain types of smaller companies.

The ISEs head of regulation, Daryl Byrne said: As a number of European countries have introduced and others are considering introducing domestic regulatory regimes for crowdfunding, we consider that it is important for Ireland to meet best international practice and have a regulatory regime in place for crowdfunding.

In a submission to the Department of Finance, the ISE said regulation should be proportionate in balancing capital access for smaller growing businesses with appropriate levels of protection for investors.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) warned the current absence of regulation posed a substantial risk to potential investors and increased the opportunity for bad practice.

It ultimately could create serious reputational damage for this relatively new funding model in Ireland, said IoD chief executive, Maura Quinn.

However, Ms Quinn said that any regulation should not have a chilling effect on crowdfunding as its use as a finance model was still developing.

At a minimum the IoD said investors should be assured of basic standards with regard to the quality and accuracy of information provided on platforms seeking investors as well as a complaints mechanism.

Ms Quinn said there was a clear distinction between financial return crowdfunding and other types where there was no expectation of financial gain. She pointed out crowdfunding comes under the category of shadow banking, almost a third of which was subject to little or no regulation, despite 2 trillion worth of shadow banking assets being held in Ireland.

Linked Finance, the countrys largest peer-to-peer lender, said regulation would provide greater protection to consumers and raise awareness of the sector.
Facing unemployment in early 2007, there was gloom in the air for 300 workers at mobile phone giant Motorola in Cork.

Two such employees were Pat Lucey and Colum Horgan. Veterans of the business, both men worried about their futures. Not even in their wildest business dreams could the men have realised the success that would follow over the next decade by setting up their project management, consulting and IT services company.

From a fledgling start-up in 2007, Little Island-based Aspira celebrated 10 years with the announcement of an investment of 1.2m in services and a Dublin office expansion. It had 65% accelerated growth in 2015, has now more than 100 employees in Cork and Dublin and is looking at expansion.

Mr Lucey said it was a far cry from the despair of 2007.

Motorola was struggling in 2007 against the likes of Nokia and Apple and unfortunately Cork was affected. It was like a death in the family. There were people there who had worked since the beginning.

Quite a few had met and married when there. It was a shock to colleagues. Nobody saw the writing on the wall. There was a lot of doom and gloom in the three months after, it was a harbinger of what was to come, he said.

The pain of some colleagues sprung Mr Lucey and others into action. I remember as part of the management team that we had to try something. I pulled a few guys together and we ran a jobs fair internally. We invited a bunch of companies to come  IBM was just setting up in Cork, VMWare had just opened new premises. There were 20-odd companies so it wasnt all doom. We were giving them direct access to experienced people looking for work. It just changed the tone of things. It went from gloom to people seeing their own self-worth. External validation means a lot. Probably 50 or 60 folks handed in their IBM badge on a Friday and picked up an IBM one on a Monday, he added.

Along with Mr Horgan, he invested redundancy money into Aspira. When I cleaned out my office, I found the CV I had sent in there. On the CV under the career goals, I had that one day I wanted to run my own business. It had been forgotten because I wasnt thinking about a great idea for a business, I had projects to manage in Motorola. But it did get me thinking  if I dont do it now, I will never do it, he said.

Mr Lucey said he and his business partner have the support of their wives to thank for their success in 2017. My wife was a key stakeholder because she gave up her job when we had children. Basically, it would be taking the redundancy payment from the company and investing it in a new company. We said Id give it six months and see where we go. We had our 10-year celebration recently and Colm and I took the opportunity to acknowledge our wives  my wife Maria and Colms wife Una took the same risk.

It required an unreasonable amount of time and energy. I dont think I could reasonably ask my wife to put up with what she did at the time. In fairness, they provided us with unreasonable amounts of support and there is no way we would exist now without that.

It hasnt been all plain sailing  the economic crash took its toll  but Aspira has not just recovered but thrived. Mr Lucey said he doesnt want a false message to go out to budding business owners that everything will go swimmingly.

It wasnt all plain sailing. When we set up, it was very good. 2008 was good. 2009 we took a hit because a lot of customers ran out of money. You have a 47% chance of winning at blackjack  its something like 10% in your own business. You hear stories like mine where the business survived, but we dont hear of those who didnt. Project management is what I do most of the time. In that, you identify your risks, take action to avoid them, you mitigate and transfer them, etc. A lot of times people are driving at night with blinkers rather than try and identify the things that could be a problem and take action, he said.

He added: The message I am giving to entrepreneurs is that I love it, its liberating and rewarding but dont go in with blind optimism. Be optimistic but identify things that could go wrong and take action to make it less likely. Its one of the reasons I didnt want to set up on my own. I like to talk through problems with someone. The fact that Colum was on board, a colleague for 10 years in Motorola, was great. You have someone to bounce ideas off, a shoulder to cry on if you need it. The future is bright, even with Brexit, he said.

Were a Cork-headquartered company but Dublin has been an area for growth in recent years. We are evaluating options in Europe and weve narrowed that down. We set up an office in Dublin in 2014. Now were beside Google and Facebook on Sir John Rogersons Quay. Weve been in the Deloitte Fast 50. Its been quite the journey but there is more to come, I believe.
The adjudicator, Daniel Murphy expressed disbelief that he was being asked to determine a dispute between the Department of Defence and the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers (Raco) that dated from 2001 and, furthermore, related to just one individual.

The long-running row between the parties revolved around the expenses allowed to a commandant who attended a training course over 12 months at a military college in Paris between 2001 and 2002.

The Department of Defence maintained it was owed 8,295 by the officer.

Raco, on the other hand, claimed the officer was still owed a further 5,418 by the department.

Various discussions were held on a number of occasions over the years to attempt to sort out the problem but no agreement could be reached.

In 2013, the Department of Defence said that it was prepared to conclude the issue if the officer returned 5,192 which it claimed he had been overpaid in expenses and rent during the time he spent in Paris.

Such an offer, however, was unacceptable to Raco.

A conciliation council overseen by the Department of Defence made another unsuccessful attempt to secure an agreement in 2015.

During further talks, the Attorney General was consulted for advice after there was a suggestion the Department of Defence could be statute-barred from trying to recover money from the officer after so many years.

At recent talks, both sides agreed the sums of money involved in relation to rent and travel but remained in dispute over a cost of other allowances.

Outlining his ruling, Mr Murphy said he was very disappointed that the two sides could not come to a pragmatic solution by themselves.

The adjudicator criticised the interaction between the military and civilian sides of the Department of Defence and the mixed messages that were given to the officer.

He noted that the commandant was only notified of the allowances he would be getting three days before he was leaving for Paris in 2001.

Mr Murphy said the officer had written a letter to his superiors, at the time, which could be regarded as acceptance under protest of the allowances.

However, the adjudicator said he was also unimpressed with some arguments advanced by Raco.

Mr Murphy ruled the most sensible approach was to leave matters as they stood, with any amounts already paid to be regarded as settlement of the issue.

He made his finding on a pragmatic basis rather than coming to precise judgements about the finer details of the various arguments of both sides.
Villages on the Seven Heads are confident common sense will triumph with the inclusion of the West Cork peninsula on the tourist trail.

The Campaign to include the Seven Heads on the Wild Atlantic Way meets tomorrow in Courtmacsherry with Minister of State for Tourism Brendan Griffin, West Corks Minister of State Jim Daly, and key Failte Ireland representatives Fiona Monaghan and Josephine ODriscoll, along with TDs, MEPs, and county councillors.

Mark Gannon, PRO of the campaign committee, said: Were looking forward to an outcome that reflects the great tourist amenity that is the Seven Heads peninsula.

Were very confident that common sense will prevail and that the route proposed by the campaign will be added to the Wild Atlantic Way. Were looking forward to working with Failte Ireland into the future.

The campaigners say the peninsula meets all criteria for inclusion in the Wild Atlantic Way, and having the route going through the villages of Courtmacsherry, Lislevane, Butlerstown, and Ring will help to alleviate rural decline.

We anticipate that the meeting will be positive and the delegation will see we meet all the criteria, said John Madden, postmaster in Lislevane and campaign committee treasurer.

The parish has so much to offer. There is great civic pride here, and a lot has been done to develop the villages, the road network, and the beaches. People should be offered the opportunity to see it, he said.

We hope they will look on us favourably considering that we did have the West Cork Coastal Route but now there are fewer tourists coming in since the Wild Atlantic Way was developed.

Butlerstown publican Mary ONeill also sees the importance of being included on the Wild Atlantic Way.

She said: It is as if a bypass has been built around the village. The Kinsale to Clonakilty Coastal Route has been dwarfed by the marketing power of the Wild Atlantic Way.

She added: We hope that our area can be included as a loop on the Wild Atlantic Way. If we are included, Im sure the decline in tourist numbers would be reversed and the natural beauty of the area could be enjoyed by many more.

The peninsula sits south of the Wild Atlantic Way route from Kinsale to Clonakilty, with the trail to the peninsula cut off at Timoleague, 3km from Courtmacsherry. The existing inland route from Timoleague to Clonakilty bypasses the peninsulas scenery, beaches, walking routes, tourist facilities, and rich maritime history.

Mr Madden envisages the post office in Lislevane, as well as being a point where tourists would have their Wild Atlantic Way passports stamped, could have a role in enhancing their experience of the area. There would be the opportunity to interact with people on the Wild Atlantic Way route and give them advice on what to do and see in the locality, he said.

Pius Lyons, a campaign committee member from Darrara/Ring, is confident about tomorrows meeting and that the committees objectives will be met. Im very hopeful there will be a good announcement. Being on the Wild Atlantic Way will help everyone, its for the good of the whole area.
Caoimhin ONeill survived the horrific crash which claimed the lives of his mum Mairead, his grandmother Margaret McGonigle, and his mums friend, Racheal Battles.

All three women were killed as they returned home from a holiday in Turkey.

They will be laid to rest today after two separate requiem services in their Co Donegal home village.

Caoimhin also lost his dad in recent years. The 13-year-old, who recently made his Confirmation, took to Facebook to say a final farewell to his loving mum.

He wrote: R.I.P Mammy Nanny and Racheal fly high god bless GBNF [gone but never forgotten].

Dozens of people replied to Caoimhins post.

A cousin of Caoimhins, Katie Goddard, wrote: Stay strong cuz, youll get through this, hows everyone doing?xx.

And brave Caoimhin replied: Grand sticking with it Katie.

On his Facebook page, Caoimhin has proudly displayed a picture of his mum, stepdad Pauric, and himself on their wedding day.

The village of Bruckless, on the outskirts of Killybegs, will come to a standstill today when the three friends are laid to rest.

The bodies of Margaret McGonigle and Mairead Mundy have been reposing at Mrs Mundys residence in Ballyloughan, Bruckless.

The removal takes place this morning, going to the Church of Saint Joseph and Saint Conal in Bruckless for funeral Mass at 11am, with the burial taking place in the adjoining cemetery.

Ms Battles has been reposing at her late residence in Ballyloughan, Bruckless from last night.

The removal takes place also to the Church of Saint Joseph and Saint Conal for a 2.30pm funeral Mass with interment after in the adjoining cemetery.

Shuttle bus service to the wake houses were operating to the family homes from the local national school.
Canon Michael Leamy told mourners at the weekend funeral Mass in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Rathcormac, Co Cork, that the passing of Majella Duffy, 35, was surreal.

We all know where we were when the news of Majellas death came to us, he said.

It is not something we are likely to forget. It is not long ago, on the 23rd of April, that family, neighbours and friends attended the coffee morning to raise funds for the Irish Heart Foundation.

None of us who called that day could have envisaged what is taking place here today. All who supported the many fundraising events that Majella was involved in organising, no doubt, feel the same today.

Canon Leamy said Majella was a very independent and caring person who had a positive outlook on life. The congregation heard Majella decided to undertake the charity climb in memory of her late father, Mike, who died of a heart attack in his 40s.

Majellas trip to Kilimanjaro was also about family, namely her Dad who died in 2001, said Canon Leamy. Her fundraising for the Irish Heart Foundation and her climb was being made in memory of Mike. I have no doubt that the funds raised will be put to good use and will benefit many families.

A part of the mission of the Irish Heart foundation is to affect positive change in the lifestyles of Irish people and to achieve better outcomes for those affected by heart disease and stroke. Majella over the past four to five years, through her dedication to fitness, lived that mission.

Canon Leamy said Majella and her mother Bernie were exceptionally close and were as much like sisters as mother and daughter. The congregation also heard of Majellas love of dogs and baking. A photograph of her two dogs, Bo the huskie and Jacob the boxer, were brought to the altar as part of the offertory gifts.

Canon Leamy said Majella was full of life.

She worked hard and set her goals, he said. For Majella things were black and white. She was straight to the point as you know. She was kind and caring with a positive outlook on life.

Majella worked for Laya Healthcare in Little Island, Cork. It is understood she started to feel unwell at an altitude of 4,000m on Mount Kilimanjaro on July 14 and was attended to at the scene by a doctor but passed away.
The moment is not now, the Sinn Fein leader said, insisting that he will remain in charge for the next general election.

He also poured cold water on the suggestion of him being nominated for the 2019 presidential election.

Mr Adams dismissed continuing suggestions that he will vacate the office of party leader this October when Sinn Fein discusses a 10-year transition plan amid concerns his role is limiting Sinn Feins ability to win new voters. He did concede Sinn Fein is facing a generational change which will soon see him depart.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mr Adams gave the clearest indication yet of when he will step down from the role he has occupied for four decades.

However, despite confirming a deal was struck with the late Martin McGuinness on when the two individuals would leave and not rejecting claims this will be his last general election in charge, the 68-year-old said the leadership change moment is not now.

Thats my intention at this time, Mr Adams said when asked if he will remain as party leader for the next general election.

Within the next upcoming period you will see a change in the leadership, but it is not now. It is my intention to go forward in the next ard fheis [for party president again], it is my intention.

While providing clarity on the issue, which has been the subject of intensifying rumours both external and internal to Sinn Fein in recent months, his comments will be welcomed by some supporters but also likely to be viewed with concern by others.

While Mr Adams high-profile is a key weapon in Sinn Feins arsenal, his past and direct links to the Troubles era is severely limiting the partys prospects of winning over middle-class or traditional Fianna Fail and Labour voters.

The latest Millward Brown opinion poll yesterday said Sinn Fein remains on 20%, far behind the 30% and 29% rates for Fine Gael and Fianna Fail respectively.

Ruling out joining the race for Aras an Uachtarain, Mr Adams said such reports had no foundation whatsoever.

During the same interview, he also repeated his partys demand for a border referendum within five years.

He warned that the Brexit fallout is being exacerbated due to the Conservatives having no clear plan for the future.
Such stories will become the stuff of legend in the Naval Service in the years to come, and some of them were related when LE Eithne returned home after a migrant rescue mission in Mediterranean Sea.

Its 72-strong crew saved many of the rescued 1,187 people from almost certain drowning.

Navy medic Sandra Daly head nearly delivered her first migrant baby on a previous mission with LE James Joyce. However, the mother-to-be was transferred at the last minute to an Italian ship which was close by.

Ms Daly put her training to good use with the LE Eithne: On our first rescue mission, this time, we picked up 713 people and, magically, it was turned into 714.

The woman who came onboard said she was going to have a baby. We screened off part of the deck and she went into labour. It lasted two hours and she took it all in her stride. She had a baby girl.

It was the most amazing experience. I was helped by mechanic Rachel Quinn, who is from Bandon, and Corporal Mark Corcoran, an Air Corps medic.

Birthday boy Dylan Flanagan from Cobh, meanwhile, described the surreal scene when 700-plus migrants onboard joined in the celebrations.

He said the spontaneous congratulations and singing by hundreds of migrants on his 21st birthday was orchestrated by colleague Marty Kerrigan.

I think they enjoyed it more that I did. It was amazing to have all those migrants singing for you, Mr Flanagan said.

Officers said the sing-song could not have come at a better time because there was a hold-up in getting the migrants onshore in an Italian port and they were getting concerned they would not be let in.

The quick thinking of Mr Flanagans colleagues defused a potentially difficult situation and kept spirits up until it all ended happily.

Derek Howe and relatives also travelled to the Haulbowline base in Cork from Kilkenny on Saturday to greet the return of son, Able Seaman Brian Howe, 23. Mr Howe explained that Brian had initially wanted to join the army, but he was so proud of him in his now chosen maritime role.

Barrister Sinead Behan, meanwhile, was there to hug husband Commander Brian FitzGerald, LE Eithnes captain as he alighted from the ship.

Her welcome home was themed on the 1973 worldwide hit song Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.

The couples three children, Aoibhinn, 13, and twins Doireann and Fionn, 5, were sporting yellow ribbons in their hair, and back at their home in Monkstown, Co Cork, trees were decorated in a similar manner.

The kids have been counting the days [til Brian came home]. We are all very proud of him and the crew, Ms Behan said.
The Irish Examiner understands that despite Communications Minister Denis Naughten seeking the move in response to the multi-million euro BBC salary controversy, he cannot make RTE accept the demand.

Over the weekend, Mr Naughten said he wants RTE to reveal the salaries of any presenter on 100,000-plus every year. Mr Naughten wants this system to replace RTEs voluntary publishing of its top 10 salaries every two years.

The stance is believed to be due to the fact RTE needs to show more transparency if it is claiming to need more public money input, and frustration from Government over the fact the broadcasters last top 10 salary list is from three years ago.

A spokesperson for Mr Naughten said: The minister would be in favour of RTE publishing the salaries of its top presenters who earn more than 100,000 annually on their website, hes not going to deviate.

However, while the demand has been backed by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, Arts Minister Heather Humphreys, and Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath, Government cannot force RTE to act.

This is because while the taxpayer funds RTE, Government does not dictate presenter salary rates, meaning there are potential contractual and data protection issues with forcing the release of the individual, personalised salaries.

As such, while Mr Naughten is likely to raise the matter with RTEs director general Dee Forbes at their next scheduled meeting in September, unless the broadcaster complies with the demand or there is a law change  which would need the backing of Fianna Fail to pass through the Dail  the full breakdown of six-figure presenter salaries will remain secret.

In a statement last night, an RTE spokesman gave no indication the broadcaster plans to provide further transparency on the issue by saying certain figures are already published.

In line with our public commitment, RTE has been publishing details of its top 10 highest earners for a number of years and has to date published figures for 2008-2014, said the spokesman.

RTE has reduced the fees paid to top talent by 40% since 2008. The total top 10 presenter earnings for 2014 represents less than 1% of RTEs total operating costs in 2014 and less than 2% of total personnel-related operating costs.

Salaries and earnings at RTE are not based on gender.

As required by the FOI Act, RTE already provides an overview of the salaries paid to RTE staff, broken into salary bands.

The spokesman added that RTEs 2015 top 10 highest earners will be published later this year.

RTEs top 10 earners list from 2014 shows that, that year, Ryan Tubridy earned 495,000, Joe Duffy 416,893, Marian Finucane 295,000, Sean ORourke 290,096, Miriam OCallaghan 280,445, Bryan Dobson 195,816, George Lee 179,031, Richard Crowley 174,120, Colm Hayes 169,992, and Derek Mooney 168,871.
One of the Polish families among the crowd had plenty of reasons to celebrate, along with thousands from the Deise.

Magda Patelczyk was at the match with her son Max and her husband Alex, supporting their adopted county, Waterford.

We are from Poland and we are living here 11 years, said Magda.

We got interested in hurling because of Max. He started school and we tried to follow it.

This is our second time at a big event like this  the first was in Thurles.

Prior to the main feature yesterday, there was an intermediate hurling championship final between Cork and Kilkenny.

Cork fan Mossie Barry from Mayfield said he was impressed with the new facilities on offer.

Mr Barry said the new grounds were a tremendous boost to Cork.

It was badly needed. It might just have a bit of teething trouble but it is going to be great and lucky enough we have a team still in the hurling championship this year.

I was seated in the corporate side and it was just luxury and lush.

Wexford fan Luke OLoughlin, meanwhile, said he was like a rabbit in headlights before heading into the modernised Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

I am nearly getting a nosebleed going in because we arent used to this, he said, before the disappointment of the game itself.

The stadium looks lovely. I am really looking forward to having a great look around.

Eoghan OBrien, aged 8, from New Ross, Co Wexford, said he loved it all 100% and was enjoying his first trip to Leeside.

His father Shane said the key to having a successful day out was leaving early, and the family soaked up the atmosphere in the modernised stadium.

The fixtures at the revamped Pairc Ui Chaoimh stadium passed without a hitch over the weekend, according to Bob Ryan, chairman of the steering committee for the redevelopment. He said the whole operation had been seamless.

Everything has gone really well. No serious problems at all.

People flowed into the stadium very easily. We instructed people to park in the city and walk down and everyone did that.

This is so many years in the planning and execution and its a big relief that it has gone as it has. So many people are doing so well from it and it shows what Cork is able to cope with.

Garda Inspector Finbarr OSullivan praised the media for successfully getting the word out about parking in town and then walking out to the stadium.

There has been no double parking. People have arrived early.

There has been no trouble and I think it is down to the great media coverage. It has been excellent.

Meanwhile, musicians and their supporters attending the Munster Fleadh Cheoil on Leeside also got into the spirit of the occasion, with many families travelling from Clare, Waterford, and Tipperary deciding to double up and attend both GAA and musical events during a packed weekend in Cork City
The Irish leg of any U2 tour is never just another date on the schedule, but the night the die-hard fans around the world immediately look for when planning their pilgrimage to the home of Bono and the boys.

Those fans have amassed over 30 years now and, on Saturday, were rewarded with a gig that dropped any pretence of being a showcase for new material and instead gave a two-hour set of the hits that spawned U2s loyal following.

Even the support act was in on the plan.

Enjoy the local band up next, Noel Gallagher quipped as he left the stage, having given a performance indicative of what was to come.

Despite releasing two post-Liam breakup albums with his High Flying Birds, Gallaghers repertoire is Oasis-heavy, not that anyone in the crowd seemed to mind.

U2 are, above all, crowd-pleasing showmen and so they proved with a show of three parts. The quartet took to a smaller stage in the crowd to deliver the first act, a selection of pre-Joshua Tree hits, and later closed the show with some numbers from the 1990s onwards.

Larry Mullen Jr led the way as the band emerged and the Hogan Stand shook to the opening drums of Sunday Bloody Sunday, while the entire stadium roared the chorus to a beautifully delivered Bad and rousing rendition of Pride (In the Name of Love).

Having devoured a starter of sublime pre-1987 hits, the crowd lapped up the main course.

The giant high-definition screen behind the stage turned a blood red as the band retreated from their outpost to deliver the album at the heart of tonights gig from the main stage.

As the show went on, the vivid HD screen displays stunning footage shot by long-time collaborator Anton Corbijn, who provided beautifully-shot cinematic landscapes to back the Joshua Tree tunes.

There arent too many albums that can boast an opening trio of the calibre of The Joshua Tree. The Edges intro to Where the Streets Have No Name had the hairs on arms standing before Bono opened his mouth, while I Still Havent Found What Im Looking For and With or Without You retained their resonance with an obliging audience.

Age hasnt dulled the rage with which Bono punches the words for Bullet the Blue Sky, and, at one point, the frontman remarked that nothing changes, everything changes.

Nowhere in this set was that more evident than Running to Stand Still which hauntingly depicts a heroin epidemic in Dublin which, 30 years on, remains unsolved.

Live, frenzied black and white shots of the band replaced Corbijns footage for a fantastically frenetic Exit before Mothers of the Disappeared prompts a phonescreen-lit vigil prior to the encore of a selection of U2s post-80s hits.

Monochrome close-ups on the big screen paved the way for a vivid video of Syrian refugee camps as Miss Sarajevo was reimagined for a modern humanitarian crisis.

The multicoloured Beautiful Day was followed by the stadium-rock-by-numbers of Elevation and Vertigo, and the big screen paid tribute to heroic and influential women from Ireland and abroad for Ultraviolet (Light My Way).

The show was peppered with the usual crowd-pleasing shoutouts youd expect by now: Backing for the Rugby World Cup bid, name-checking the President and Taoiseach in the audience, solemn thanks to the Naval Service for its work in the Mediterranean.

In terms of music, there were no surprises on Saturday night; the setlist was a carbon copy of previous shows on the tour. The only rabbit-from-a-hat moment was a blink-and-youll-miss-it fly-by from a French team called Patrouille Tranchant, participating in the Bray Air Display at the weekend, which left a trail of tricolour smoke in its wake.

U2 have their critics, and many of these were given ammunition with U2s repertoire on Saturday night. The show closer was an underwhelming number from their latest album, and that and 2004s Vertigo stood out as the gigs only songs that arent old enough to be able to order a beer.

The Joshua Tree Tour may be U2s tacit admission that they are moving from a creative force into heritage rock territory but, at the same time, what a heritage to mine.

The rapturous reception that greeted the songs of The Joshua Tree  and the gigs preceding hits that would take pride of place in any mainstream rock bands setlist  prove that U2 not only captured a zeitgeist with their 1987 album, they released a bone fide generation-defining classic.

This weekends show posed even Bonos fiercest detractors a difficult question: Name any other singer, band, or artist who could, would, or ever will sell out a night in Croke Park, and a worldwide stadium tour, off the strength of an album they released 30 years previously.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) is concerned about the slow roll out of Garda Protective Services Units specialising in investigating sexual crimes.

Just four of the units, long promised for each of An Garda Siochanas 28 divisions, were established on a pilot basis last month  two in Dublin, one in Cork and one in Dundalk, Co Louth.

DRCC chief executive Noeline Blackwell said gardai recognised as far back as 2013 the need for trained expert sexual crime investigators.

She said the units were essential for dealing with sexual violence because it was an intimate crime.

The specialist units are needed throughout the country, so victims of sexual violence know they are going to get a consistent expert service from the justice system, she said.

This week, Ireland will be examined by the UN Committee Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

In its submission to the committee, the DRCC will criticise the lack of special protection for victims in court and the absence of sufficient training for lawyers and law enforcement.

The legal system should take special care of the victims of sexual violence, said Ms Blackwell. They are almost unique in the justice system because they have two roles; they are the victim of the crime and the main person to give evidence in most cases.

Ms Blackwell said it was crucial that the Victims of Crime Bill and the Domestic Violence Bill are passed into law without delay because both were needed to protect very vulnerable people.

The justice system is one of the best ways we have of ensuring that sexual violence is reduced because you are holding people to account, she said.

The DRCCs report highlights a lack of reliable data about sexual offences in Ireland with the UN committee.

If the data isnt reliable and comprehensive, how can the State know that its taking the right actions to reduce and prevent sexual crime, Ms Blackwell asked.

Frances Fitzgerald, Tanaiste and former justice minister, recognised a new study on sexual offences was needed and looked at ways of paying for it.

Ms Blackwell wants an in-depth study, similar to the national Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland published in 2002.

Ireland has gone through so much in the last 15 years, she said. Everything has changed, and the internet has been a big driver of that change.

Irelands examination by the UN committee takes place on Thursday and Friday this week.

The government delegation will be led by the Minister of State for Equality, Immigration and Integration, David Stanton.
OF THE many shocking revelations that followed the Grenfell Tower fire disaster, one of the hardest to comprehend was the fact that the building was wrapped in polythene.

As anyone who has set fire to a polythene bag will know, its a highly flammable material. Thats to be expected of a substance that derives from oil.

Learning that this particular plastic formed the core of the exterior cladding on the tower block was baffling to many.

The word polythene wasnt used  it was called polyethylene  but the two plastics are essentially one and the same. Polyethylene is the more correct name scientifically and tends to be used when the plastic forms fairly rigid objects such as kitchen basins, milk bottles and detergent containers.

Polythene is the more commonly known term and it has become synonymous with softer items such as plastic shopping bags, wrapping and packaging.

So what was it doing encasing  and ultimately entombing  a building housing some 700 people?

The answer is no surprise to anyone in the construction industry. There was a time when bricks and mortar meant precisely that and the only plastic used in building was lego bricks.

But plastic in its many different forms and compositions has become a widely used material in buildings, inside and out. It is used in cladding, roofing, internal walls and dividers, window frames, windows themselves, doors, piping, wiring, flooring, bathroom suites  the list is extensive.

Attractive

It is lightweight, waterproof and is great for insulating against heat, cold and noise. It doesnt rust or corrode like metal, it doesnt swell and splinter like wood, its more attractive looking than concrete and cheaper than brick or stonework.

Its easy to maintain, hygienic and available in a multitude of colours, textures and finishes including transparent.

It can also be moulded into just about any shape, cutting down on the need for assembling multiple components and allowing architects to let their imaginations run wild.

Designers of concept buildings have embraced it enthusiastically. For examples, check out the Kunsthaus, or contemporary art museum, in Graz, Austria, a bulbous creation resembling a cross between an airship, an alien and an upturned football boot all encased in an iridescent acrylic skin.

Or the National Aquatics Centre, Beijing, also known as the Watercube, a large cuboid building resembling a box of coloured bubbles, all thanks to an external structure created from the plastic, ETFE, ethylene tetrafluoroethylene.

Our own Thomond Parks handsome canopies that shield the stands from the winter winds but let in the light for grass regrowth are a polycarbonate creation.

The more modest but no less intriguing Plastic House on Dublins North Strand has graced many an architectural publication.

A small terraced Edwardian red-brick residence that retains its period exterior to the front, it has been completely gutted to replace interior walls and ceilings with plastic platforms and walkways, leaving it looking like a cross between the bridge of a spaceship and a wellness retreat centre  courtesy, mainly, of polycarbonate.

Plastics are also easy to handle, quick to erect and can often be recycled at the end of their life. Lifespan is a bit of an issue  30-60 years is the general target  but then its easily replaceable and besides, there is a school of thought that says buildings should be as transient as their uses, and that people no longer expect to walk past the same buildings as their grandparents.

Petrol

So whats not to love? Quite a lot, according to Robin Mandal, a long-practicing architect and past president of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, who says he is innately circumspect about plastics in construction.

If youre using a material that is plastic or is petroleum based, everybody knows that in the case of fire it will mutate into some other material and that generally petroleum-based products give off noxious gases, whatever about their flammability, and that they give off acrid smoke.

These are the sorts of things we would know instinctively whatever about the certification that a material has, he says.

And while he recognises the potential for the exciting new ways of building that plastic opens up, he cautions that new does not always mean better.

Certainly in my generation there would be an instinctive wariness of miracle materials, he says.

There is a view that actually we should be using simple materials well rather than trying to be clever with complex materials.

Joseph Little, architect and assistant head of the School of Construction at Dublin Institute of Technology, also has reservations about plastics.

My preference is to use natural materials, he says, but natural materials dont have a big industry behind them.

That big industry is oil. Plastic was never the main reason oil wells were dug but it became a very welcome and lucrative byproduct of the refining process and Little understands the logic that drives its production.

Taking oil out of the ground is expensive so naturally the companies involved want to make sure that they use that resource in every which way they can, extracting as much profit as possible.

Besides that, there are very few insulants on the planet that we have yet discovered or invented that have as low a thermal conductivity as fossil fuel based insulants.

Insulation

In other words, plastics, even in quite thin layers, tend to lose heat very slowly, making them excellent for insulating buildings.

But are they safe? It emerged after Grenfell that the manufacturers of the cladding that burnt so catastrophically also produced a more expensive product that also used plastic but plastic that was treated to make it less flammable.

Numerous manufacturers take the same approach, offering a basic product, a flame-retardant one and, the safest of the lot, a fire-resistant version. It begs the question why the basic type is allowed to be produced for construction at all.

But CJ Walsh, a consultant architect and fire engineer, says that misses the point.

Were not so much interested in materials in isolation in building design and construction. How materials are put together is whats important, he says.

So in the case of Grenfell Tower for example, it wasnt just the external panelling that was important. It needs to be seen in terms of a whole cladding system so it was the external panels that everybody saw, it was the air gap behind it that you didnt see and the insulation behind that again and all of that had to be fixed to the old tower walls correctly which didnt happen.

So its not that Im worried about the use of plastic per se in buildings, its how you use plastic as part of a building system thats important.

Not that hes keen to promote the use of plastics. Im worried generally about the use of plastics because plastic is becoming a persistent, organic pollutant in the planet. Were using far too much of it in all types of manufacturing and industry.

Fire breaks

Joseph Little is also reluctant to put a blanket prohibition on certain plastics and agrees its all about how they are used.

If you have a single-storey warehouse and you want to reduce the heating load in a large open space, it makes sense to install this kind of insulated cladding.

It wouldnt need to be fire retarding because its one storey and open plan  anyone in the building has good opportunities to evacuate in sufficient time.

But if Im asleep upstairs in my house and a fire starts downstairs, I wont be aware of the fire at the critical early stage and clearly cant see it.

Its essential that the floor has sufficient structural integrity to last until I escape and that the route I take to escape is safe.

If Im somewhere that is too difficult to escape from due to its location or my disabilities, its essential that that place can act as a refuge till the rescue services arrive.

Thats why we talk about fire compartments. Each of those apartments in Grenfell was meant to be a compartment in that they were meant to be complete and whole and protected so even though theres a fire in one, occupants of other compartments can get out of their compartments or indeed remain safely within them.

That can be achieved without the use of flame retardant materials throughout so long as there are fire breaks made of fire resisting materials in the right places.

Cynical

If continuous fire breaks had been installed at compartment lines in Grenfell Tower, the fire could not have moved higher than 2.4m, that is to say till it reached the next fire break, at least until the fire brigade arrived.

The fact that clear vertical shafts of 30, 40 even 80 metres existed behind the cladding, and that warm air always rises, meant that there was a dramatic stack effect in the cladding zone. It was a long thin but very, very efficient chimney.

Just like a chimney, it drew the warm air, flames and smoke rapidly and relentlessly upwards.

The awful irony of Grenfell was that the cladding was useless in the first place because of the way it had been applied, ensuring that it would not have made an effective insulant.

Insulation which is isolated from the wall behind it by a shaft of cool, moving air has no thermal value. As a result the system  as installed  had a decorative value only.

You could claim it was a cynical exercise or you could claim it was a clueless exercise but whether it was one or the other, even had there been no fire, it was a bad job.

But if Grenfell exposed poor building standards, it also shone a light on outdated mindsets.

There was a cultural understanding that fires dont spread on the outside of buildings because theres nothing outside thats a fire risk. This was generally true when buildings had brick and concrete cladding.

So what changes culture and thinking? Mandal, Little and Walsh all believe firmly that it requires education, regulation and inspection.

All of those exist to some degree but they want education to be the lifelong kind, regulation to be the up to date and robust kind, and inspection to be the expert, thorough and frequent kind.

It doesnt sound too much to ask but lets start with the question of education. In 2014 the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), eager to claw back public trust after the slew of building scandals over the previous decade, established CIRI, the Construction Industry Register Ireland.

It is a voluntary register of professionals, tradespeople and companies who have signed up to a series of commitments around standards and practices, including the requirement that they engage in continuing professional development (CPD)  regular, career-long education.

The initiative was adopted with the support of government. The environment minister at the time, Phil Hogan, said the register would be placed on a statutory footing by 2015, the idea being that nobody could legally do even small construction jobs without being on the register.

Its not a revolutionary idea  many industries have mandatory registers  but 2015 has dragged its feet into 2017 and the most that has happened so far is that the draft heads of a bill to put CIRI on a statutory footing have been referred to the joint Oireachtas committee on housing, planning, community and local government for pre-legislative scrutiny.

Prior commitments on the committees schedule mean it is expected to be October before they start discussing it. And thats only the start of a very long journey on the way to becoming law.

Joseph Little applauds the initiative, although he fears the statutory version, whenever it appears, may bend to lobbying and be watered down to allow an opt-out for smaller operators or for particular works which he believes would be a mistake.

There was a widely held view amongst siteworkers that their original training as a tradesperson and the experience onsite since had given them all the knowledge and skills they needed.

The worst are the site-workers who tell you with a smile that theyve been hired from the neck down only.

Obviously not the best builders, but the most numerous builders would have a view that: I know everything I need to know, dont be annoying me. Thats not a great way to build when things are changing radically.

Ethics

The CIF recognised the need to move on from the sins of the past and the things that went wrong. One aspect of that was to do with education and knowledge and understanding of the systemic effects of exactly what were seeing with Grenfell.

CIRI membership also requires signing up to a very comprehensive code of ethics that is broken down in 52 separate commitments.

There are specific requirements around bribery, finances, treatment of workers and so on, but also lots about the decisions that are taken in approaches to projects. Broadly speaking, they aim to make sure that builders do the right thing even when regulations would let them do otherwise.

With Grenfell, it appears nobody breached any regulations in choosing the inferior cladding, but few would argue it was the right approach to take.

Using better materials than legally obliged to use would be an ethical decision, says Little, who knows only too well from his time in private practice the pressure that can be brought to bear on architects from quantity surveyors, and on quantity surveyors from construction companies, to go with the cheapest alternative.

I have been in a position in the past where I was asked to downspec an element of a project repeatedly with a clear impact on future longevity and quality.

Thats not a nice position to be in, and no-one is served by it apart from the original developer who is pushing capital costs below any reasonable level to flip the project for maximum profit.

Ive worked for developers who clearly intended to become multimillionaires in one project. Society and subsequent owners paid the price. What was allowed to happen in the boom in that regard was very wrong.

Ethics are subjective, however. Shouldnt building regulations take the wriggle room out of decision-making?

Before the Building Control Act of 1990, Ireland didnt even have a basis for standardised building regulations but instead relied on bylaws to oversee construction activity.

Convoluted

But the new regulations that were drawn up over the years that followed havent exactly streamlined matters as much as might have been expected. Building materials are a case in point.

All works to which regulations apply shall be carried out with proper materials and in a workmanlike manner, Part D of the regulations state.

But proper materials can be anything that has a CE mark or that complies with an appropriate harmonised standard or European Technical Assessment, or with an appropriate Irish standard or Irish Agreement Certificate or with an alternative national technical specification of any State which is a contracting party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area.

Convoluted would be an understatement as there are any number of different testing and certification bodies across the EU and all sorts of new and tweaked materials being produced each year.

EU Regulation No 305/2011, otherwise known as the Construction Products Regulation, is an attempt to harmonise some of the procedures involved in getting a building material on the market throughout Europe but it still relies on a myriad of assessment and testing bodies and hENs, EADs and DoPs  harmonised European standards, European Assesment Documents and Declarations of Performance.

Compliance with the regulations doesnt necessarily mean a particular product is appropriate for use in all works  thats up to the user to assess. And while they set out a grading system for flammability that attaches a grade to a given product, each country can decide what grade is good enough to be used in which setting.

CJ Walsh says it wasnt meant to be like this. Back in the 1980s when all this was starting out, the goal was a single European market in the construction sector.

You can only have a fully effective single market in the sector if you harmonise building regulations. The member states all went ape when this was suggested and so the European Commission is still very shy of proposing that we harmonise building regulations but thats what should be happening.

As it stands each member state is allowed to set the level of safety within its own jurisdiction and the EU does not have competence in that area yet.

Copied

Walsh says the situation is not helped by Irelands unquestioning adoption of British building regulations.

We just took the model of the English and Welsh building regulations and put Irish covers on them, he says. You saw the outcome of the English building regulations in Grenfell Tower. They are deeply flawed and we have copied that system.

Robin Mandal sees it somewhat differently. The British building regulation system is among the best in the world. The Americans are very good at it too but the British for hundreds of years have been building buildings according to regulations and they have done a very good job of it.

The weakest point in the system, they all agree, is inspection to ensure the regulations are adhered to.

We have no effective system in Ireland of independent building control or independent technical control of buildings so people are not checking that products are properly tested and approved, says Walsh.

Thats how we ended up with the pyrite problem in Irish houses - nobody is checking the quality. That all goes back to Part D of the Building Regulations. Somebody should have been checking the quality of the stone used in the foundations.

There are many quality products out there but there are also cheap and nasty products being produced everywhere around the world, even in Ireland, and there is nothing to prevent building designers and builders from substituting a bad product for a good product. If they can save a few euro by getting it cheaper, thats what theyll do. Thats what happened in Grenfell Tower.

Building control sections in local authorities are under-staffed and under-resourced and because theres no effective national system of independent building control, anything and everything can go on.

Joseph Little shares those concerns. The lack of a building control culture in Ireland and the small number of building control officers employed by local authorities is a real problem.

I would say things have improved in terms of building design professionals engaging with compliance. I think probably individual people have sharpened their game and there is an improvement, but the system is still not good enough.

Criticism

Apart from building control officers, the system relies on a souped-up version of the self-certification that allowed so many substandard buildings to appear during the Celtic Tiger construction frenzy.

Its souped up in the sense that there are restrictions on who can certify a building as compliant with the regulations. Since 2014, the design certifier  who certifies that the design of a building is compliant  and the assigned certifier  who certifies the construction is compliant  must be a registered architect, registered building surveyor or chartered engineer.

But they can be one and the same person and they can be part of the design and build team so they dont have to be independent, which is a major criticism of the scheme. They do, however, put their reputations and careers at stake as if something goes wrong that they should have flagged in advance, a claim can be made against their own professional indemnity (PI) insurance.

Unsurprisingly, that amendment to the regulations is not popular among the professions involved. But Joseph Little says its not just that his PI insurance has increased - hes paying close to 3,000 a year for 600,000 cover and he does very little certification work since joining DIT.

He says the scheme is flawed in that the claim on the insurance kicks in from the date of discovery of a problem, not from the date of certification. So if the certifier has retired, died or moved out of private practice in the meantime and let their PI insurance lapse, the claimant could have to take a case against their personal assets - a process thats likely to be long, painful and not necessarily successful.

Another flaw, he says, is the requirement that the certifier must stand over the building in its entirety, regardless of whether theyve been involved in the entire construction or not, or if its only an extension or retrofit that they oversaw.

The DC is certifying that the building is designed to 100% compliance with the Irish building regulations and the AC is later certifying that the building is constructed 100% in compliance. That relates even to what happened onsite when they werent there. It relates to the work of other specialists with skills the certifier doesnt have.

Its asking you to state categorically that every aspect of this building is absolutely compliant when there are aspects of it that you are not in control of.

Caution

Robin Mandal agrees that the regulations place a considerable burden of responsibility on a certifier but he says it reinforces the need for caution around what goes into buildings.

And that, he says, should temper whatever urge a building designer might have to experiment at the expense of certainty. That applies particularly to new materials, including the ever expanding array of plastics.

 As architects, we would seek innovation, innovation comes in different forms. For the architect, I think the innovation comes in the innovative design and use of proven materials rather than relying on new materials.

That isnt to say that even the materials that are tested, as Grenfell showed, are foolproof. Testing is done to certain standards and you cant test for every eventuality so something may happen that is outside of that remit.

How they fail may not have been envisaged in their certification and thats where the architect does bring a wider view. Were trained to look at the bigger picture.

So just how plastic is that picture? I think if it hasnt already hit a peak, it will hit that point. Clients want materials that are sustainable, he says.

That isnt to say that some plastics arent and I would say that probably within certain niches, plastics will be popular. But I do think that there will remain a lot of caution on the part of the profession.

I was a student a very long time ago but one of the things we were taught was to calculate the actual embedded energy in a project. We would work out how much energy does it take to make it and how much energy will it use during its lifetime and how much energy is it going to need when its finished and needs to be replaced. I think those questions are more important than ever now.

Gas

Little also has questions around the sustainability of plastics and, in particular, about off-gassing.

Newly manufactured plastic products can release gasses for years after theyve rolled off the production line. The most dramatic release occurs during and immediately after production but they can continue to lose thickness slowly over their entire lifetime. Plastic insulation boards are typically faced off with foil or fibreglass which will slow down the rate of off-gassing but questions remain about the effects of the shrinkage on the stability of the product in the long-term.

The manufacturers want to tell us as little as possible about those things because they want us to feel that the product is somehow perfect, ageless and ready to go at a great price point  just go for it and stop thinking, says Little.

Robin Mandal says the response must be practical.

The shock, certainly for me and I think a lot of the profession, was that even when you have a robust regulatory system, disaster can happen.

The shock of seeing a building conflagrate so quickly scared the living daylights out of anybody who is involved in construction. It has had a very sobering effect.

It doesnt make it any easier on people who have lost loved ones but I would say it will lead to the prevention of anything like this happening again.

If you compare it to aviation accidents, what investigators always do is, rather than simply say it shouldnt have happened, they examine how it happened and try to make sure that chain of events is never repeated.

Retrofit

Little also wants the reaction to Grenfell to translate into action on safety. Hes concerned about the current obsession with energy efficiency in construction and in particular the rush to retrofit older buildings with insulation.

Anything that we do in terms of energy efficiency should not affect the safety and health of the occupants. There shouldnt be a question about that. He also believes a comprehensive inspection of all multi-unit residential buildings needs to be carried out across the country, not just those above a certain height. He knows it could open a can of worms.

Ive seen a lot of buildings where I despair of the poor quality of cladding or the poor quality of construction or where I can see that the costs were cut badly and the building is going to age badly, he says.

Theres a lot of timber cladding on buildings where you can see that, because either the specification was cut or the people who were designing it or fitting it didnt understand timber, that the material isnt protected sufficiently, or being allowed breathe.

Consequently it looks wrong, possibly blackens and certainly will not last as long as good quality timber cladding can last.

Dilemma

In other cases, I have gone to buildings where the fire compartment and the fire break material is either absent or is gappy.

I have been to buildings where I have stood with the builder and youre thinking if we actually declare something here, we could make an awful lot of people homeless or we could devalue the property.

Youre into a horrible situation whereby youre potentially taking the value of a property from someone or youre making them safer. Youre damned if you do and youre damned if you dont. There are many buildings like that. There are many Priory Halls in Ireland.

CJ Walsh is sceptical of the Governments response here, to date, and in particular the decision to order a survey of the cladding on buildings higher than 18m or six storeys.

Why 18m? Its completely arbitrary, he says, pointing out that Part A of the Building Regulations, for the purposes of requiring extra safeguards for taller buildings, defines multi-storey as anything over five storeys  a basement counting as one of the five.

He isnt impressed with the response to the discovery of Grenfell grade cladding on Cork County Hall either.

Theres a high-rise building in the south of Ireland and everybody is being assured that the cladding is on the lower levels so theres no problem which is a load of baloney. The powers that be are trying to shemozzle the media and the public and everybody is swallowing this.

There has always been this problem. We still havent got to the bottom of the Stardust yet. The ghosts of the Stardust are turning in their graves. We had our own Grenfell in the Stardust and we still havent got a proper investigation of what happened.

I dont have much faith in the inquiry thats going to take place on Grenfell and theyre going to do the absolute minimum possible over here as well.

Plastic merits

Plastics  the material for the 21st century. So goes the slogan from Plastics Europe, the trade association representing plastic producers and manufacturers across Europe.

It is an impressive body with a persuasive message that relies heavily on the drive towards energy efficiency in buildings as a way of mitigating the effects of climate change.

Today in Europe, buildings are responsible for roughly 40% of the EUs energy consumption and greenhouse gas pollution, it says.

Improving the energy efficiency of new and old buildings is, therefore, one of the keys to tackling climate change and saving resources.

Around 70% of the energy used in buildings is due to space heating and cooling. Making our buildings more energy efficient and reducing the amount of energy required is key to minimising their environmental impact.

It points to EU targets set down in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive which requires new buildings to be nearly zero energy by 2021. A combination of solar panels, other green energy solutions and smart insulation is envisaged.

Meeting ambitious targets on the energy efficiency of buildings would be difficult, if not impossible, without the solutions provided by plastics.

To what extent does the construction industry agree? Well, construction has become the second largest user of plastics after packaging, using 9.6m tonnes of plastics in 2014.

But while the industry is quick and extensive in extolling the virtues of its product, it is rather more restrained in fire safety.

It has a 20-page brochure, entitled Plastics and Fire Safety, but it is page 15 before that topic is actually addressed, the previous pages focusing on extolling the virtues of plastic and dispensing general fire safety advice. When it does get around to the subject, it acknowledges plastics combust and give off gasses.

Installed and used in the correct manner, plastics comply with all relevant regulations for the location and type of application in which they are used.

It cautions: The specific Euroclass of a given plastic product does not mean that this product can be used safely in all situations. For instance, selecting a construction product for an inappropriate application in terms of regulation may lead to an increased fire risk.

And again: Each type of building has its specific potential fire risks. This is why plastics, like all other materials, have to be used in the correct applications.

It does, however, add that while plastics in building have almost doubled in the last 20 years in Western Europe, the number of fire fatalities have drastically decreased.

Natural options

Plastic may be presented as a wonder material in terms of performance as an insulant, but there are natural alternatives that also do an excellent job and have the added bonus of being fire resistant without having to be chemically treated to the same degree.

Stone wool is a material made from molten rock that is blown into fibres and meshed together to form a dense layer of fabric.

The temperatures it takes to melt rock are unlikely to be reached in a typical accidental fire and even if they were, the fabric wont flare up, making it naturally fire resistant. Wood fibre from commercial forests is also an option as are various wools, cork and even, bizarre though it may seem, torn-up newspapers. Their cellulose content smoulders but does not burn, and gives off little or no smoke.

Joseph Little of Dublin Institute of Technology says he is even following the progress of a project using recycled denim. Not only are the fire resistant properties of such materials proven, but, he says, they are more environmentally sustainable.

If we are trying to decarbonise our society, why are we using materials made from oil? he asks.

Hemp and miscanthus can also be used. Hemp is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. In 100 days you can grow 4m of hemp and the land recovers and is ready for a different crop in a very short time.

Theres a huge amount we can do from natural sources. If you burn wood fibre it will char but it wont catch alight so the outside surface will blacken, the flame wont carry and the charring protects the rest of the timber or the rest of the wood fibre.

These materials dont have quite as low thermal conductivity as plastics so theyre not quite as good at retaining heat for as long as the fossil-based materials but they have really interesting properties otherwise and may have come from sources that are more environmentally sustainable or have a higher recycled content. So you have to weigh up all the advantages. Unfortunately, we import almost all these materials. But we could manufacture them if the demand was there.

Countries like Germany have a number of very large manufacturers of wood fibre so they are commercially viable. In Ireland, they are often a bit more expensive than fossil-based alternatives but things typically are when they are seen to be a niche market. As you mainstream them, typically you get bigger factories, economies of scale and costs come down.
IT HAS been a busy start to the summer holidays for the volunteer RNLI crew in Yarmouth, with the lifeboat launching on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

On Friday, the team were called at 11.09am to assist the UK Coastguard in a shoreline search from The Needles to Freshwater Bay for a possible missing swimmer.
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
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Health Care Reform and Medicare  Information For North Carolina Medicare Beneficiaries

This provides very general information about the Affordable Care Act and Medicare. For the most complete and up-to-date information about the health care reform law, visit the federal website www.hhs.gov/healthcare.

While the Affordable Care Act primarily addresses coverage and access issues for people not on Medicare, the ACA also addresses several over-arching Medicare issues.

Your Medicare coverage protected

Medicare isnt part of the Health Insurance Marketplace established by ACA, so you dont have to replace your Medicare coverage with Marketplace coverage.

More preventive services

Because of provisions in the ACA, Medicare now covers certain preventive services  such as mammograms or colonoscopies  without charging Part B coinsurance or deductibles. You can also get a free annual wellness visit to develop or update a prevention plan just for you, based on your current health and risk factors. Youll pay nothing for this benefit if the doctor participates in the Medicare program, and it is covered once every 12 months.

Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage (Part D) more affordable

Over the next several years, you will pay less in the prescription drug coverage gap  also called a donut hole  until that gap is closed by 2020. The coverage gap closes by maintaining the manufacturers discounts and increasing what Medicare drug plans cover. By 2020, youll pay only 25 percent for covered brand-name and generic drugs during the gap  the same percentage you pay from the time you meet the deductible (if your plan has one) until you reach the out-of-pocket spending limit (up to $4,750 in 2013).

If you have questions about Medicare, please contact SHIIP, the North Carolina Seniors Health Insurance Information Program, at 855-408-1212 (toll free) or visit www.ncshiip.com. To speak to someone locally please call 336-748-0217. The Shepherds Center of Winston Salem is the coordinating office for Forsyth County.

To contact the local ACA marketplace office call 336-293-8728, ext 143. The local office is in Southside Baptist Church.

Q: Im going to the beach with my children and grandchildren soon. Are there extra precautions I should take in the sun?

RH

A: While people of all ages should take steps to protect themselves from the sun, older adults may need to take additional precautions. According to a Cooperative Extension Gerontology Field Specialist, as a person ages they actually become more sensitive to sunlight, meaning an older person may experience sunburn in a shorter period of time than previously in their lives. In addition, older adults are more likely to be taking medications that may increase their sensitivity to sun exposure such as:

Antibiotics

Antidepressants

Antihistamine

Benzoyl peroxide

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories: ibuprofen, naproxen, etc.

Diuretics

Antihypertensives (blood pressure drugs)

Benzocaine

Cholesterol drugs

Neuroleptic drugs

Antifungals

This is not an exhaustive list of medications that can increase sensitivity to sunlight. If you have questions or doubts about your medications, consult your pharmacist and always wear sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses.

If you notice any symptoms such as an eczema-type rash, aggravation of existing skin conditions or exaggerated sunburn you or a loved one may be experiencing a sun sensitivity reaction. It is important to note that these symptoms will not always appear immediately after sun exposure. It may take a few days. In addition, these symptoms may appear on skin not even exposed to sunlight. A trained medical provider will be able to provide more information.

Choosing the right sunscreen

As the weather turns warmer, be reminded that the type of sunscreen you buy matters. You want to ensure it provides broad spectrum protection, meaning it blocks ultraviolet B (UVB) and ultraviolet A (UVA) radiation. Ensure the sunscreen contains ingredients such avobenzone, oxybenzone, mexoryl, zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. Sun Protection Factor (SPF) is also important to consider when purchasing sunscreen. Dermatologists recommend a minimum SPF of 15 and suggest it should be used year round, not just in the summer months. For people suspected of being sensitive to sunlight, use a minimum SPF of 30.

AgeWise is a weekly column compiled by information specialists of Senior Services Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Winston-Salem. If you have a question, email agewise@seniorservicesinc.org or mail to Senior Services, 2895 Shorefair Drive, Winston-Salem, NC 27105.
Several Forsyth County residents are longing for the old days when the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners met much later in the day and the regular meetings were on Mondays.

Mark Baker, the mayor of Tobaccoville and a former county commissioner, said he spoke during the public session of the board of commissioners meeting July 13 after talking to several residents of Tobaccoville about their concerns about the meeting changes.

Now people have to take off from work to come to speak before the commissioners to either support or be against a zoning issue or any other issue, Baker said. I just dont think thats good.

He said that most municipalities hold their meetings at night so people can attend and speak at them.

He also spoke of some confusion about the date of meetings.

Theyve always met on Mondays, Baker said. Theyve now moved the meeting to Thursday before the briefing, and citizens just arent sure whats going on.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the commissioners regular meetings were at 7:30 p.m. In October 2009, commissioners voted to change the time to 6 p.m. During the summer of 2016, meetings started at 4 p.m. Then the meeting time changed to 2 p.m. beginning Oct. 10, 2016.

The meetings were held on the second and fourth Monday until the board voted June 26 to move them to Thursday. The first formal meeting on a Thursday was held July 13 and was followed by a briefing for the next regular meeting.

More citizen comments

For Harvey Pulliam Jr. of Kernersville, its all about preserving the North Carolina and United States constitutions.

The constitution really tells leaders what they cant do, Pulliam said. It doesnt tell them what they can do. They are limited.

In addition to the time and date changes, Pulliam, who said he has been attending commissioners meetings for 30 years, is concerned about the 30-minute limit for total public comments during meetings in which each public speaker has 3 minutes each to speak.

It ought to be changed, because they (the commissioners) work for us, Pulliam said.

Based on meeting agendas, the June 27, 2005, agenda for the public session was limited to 30 minutes. Agendas prior to that time stated speakers were limited to 3 minutes each, but there was no time limit noted, according to county staff.

Pulliam wants the meetings to return to the 6 p.m. start time.

I can tolerate the 2 oclock briefings, but I think the briefings ought to also be held at 6 oclock so that people can get up there, Pulliam said.

He said he would also like for the commissioners to televise their meetings, possibly on the local school systems Cable 2 rather than WSTV-13, where the commissioners meetings sometimes get bumped for other programs.

Phillip Carter of Winston-Salem said he likes to stay abreast of governmental issues.

He said that even if he could get off work to attend a meeting, the session might run longer than his hour lunch break.

But most of all, I feel that it is a way to ostracize the citizens of being able to express their concerns, Carter said of the change in the day and times for the meetings.

He also believes the regular meetings should return to Monday.

If theyre going to have it on Thursday, move it up later, to whereby you allow citizens the full ability to be able to participate in their own governance, Carter said.

The commissioners

Commissioner Don Martin said nobody is trying to reduce public comment.

He said the board is meeting the same number of times as it was previously when the regular meetings were on Monday.

Were now putting two meetings into one, he said.

He said that sometimes the Monday meetings lasted 10 or 15 minutes because the commissioners had previously gone over the agenda in two briefing sessions.

I dont want to waste time, Martin said. If were doing a 10-minute agenda, where weve already talked everything out, the public gets nothing out of it.

Martin said he has no problem meeting at 6 p.m. as long as the commissioners can get one of their other meetings done before it. He suggested starting at 4 p.m. on Thursday for the briefing, taking a break then having the public meeting at 6 p.m.

Referencing the 2 p.m. meeting change, Commissioner Ted Kaplan said it started around the time the county was to pay overtime to county employees who presented to the board in the evenings.

He said that the county then put extra money into technology so people could find out whatever we were doing at any time.

For example, he said that people can now watch the county meetings 24-7 on the county website.

What we tried to do was become efficient, become better with more exposure to the public, and this is one way to do it, Kaplan said.

He said he has only heard from two people about having meetings at 2 p.m. and believes that people didnt understand that the commissioners had been holding their briefings at 2 p.m.

We have been meeting at 2 oclock now for years on Thursdays when the issues are being taken up and debated and discussed, he said of the briefings.

Commissioner Gloria Whisenhunt said she was concerned about changing the meeting day from Monday to Thursday.

I just think local government  the city council and the county commissioners  for years and years have always met on Monday, Whisenhunt said. I just think people associate their local government with Mondays.

She also objected to having all the meetings on Thursday because she believes meetings could get long and drawn out.

I just think people can make bad decisions when theyve been there too long, she said.

Both Kaplan and Whisenhunt said they will see how things go with the meeting changes.

Whisenhunt said she would like to wait several months then go back and revisit having the meetings at 2 p.m. to see if the public still has concerns.
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07/24/2017

Jacksonville State University is pleased to announce the addition of two new degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Forensic Investigation and Master of Science in Nursing. The programs were recently approved by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education.

The BS in Forensic Investigation is the first of its kind in Alabama. It expands on an already thriving concentration in forensic investigation within the universitys bachelors program in criminal justice, which has been attracting students since the mid-1980s. It will draw on the strengths of JSUs nationally recognized Center for Applied Forensics, whose forensics scientists will serve as instructors in the new degree program.

Traditional and online courses will be offered and students will have the option to choose one of two tracks: Criminal Investigations or Forensic Laboratory/Technician. The Criminal Investigations track will serve those who are interested in becoming an investigator or detective in law enforcement, while the Forensic Laboratory/Technician track will be geared towards students wanting to pursue a career as either a laboratory technician or forensic scientist.

The Master of Science in Nursing is a step-out masters degree housed within the new Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree program at JSU. This option is only available to students enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) to DNP track. This program will make JSU the only university in North Alabama to offer a step-out MSN degree along the academic trajectory of a BSN to DNP degree.

With the DNP program, students can select one of two pathways: Family Nurse Practitioner or Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. This step-out option will equip students with the coursework necessary to sit for the national certification exam for nurse practitioner, which will allow students to then function as a nurse practitioner while completing their doctorate. All coursework for this program will be delivered via distance education.

The JSU Nursing Department has undergone many new and exciting transformations in the past few years regarding their degree options. This fall, three cohorts of students will be among the first to begin the newest nursing degree programs: the two tracks of BSN to DNP and the post-masters DNP leadership track.

JSU will also begin offering a Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Therapy through the School of Health Professions and Wellness this fall. The traditional respiratory therapy program will begin in August with the first cohort of 24 students. The program recently earned provisional accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care. Students will be eligible to participate in their national credentialing exams upon successful graduation from the program.

For more information on the BS in Forensic Investigation, contact the Department of Criminal Justice at 256-782-5335. For more information about the MS in Nursing, call 256-782-5423. For information on the Respiratory Therapy program, call 256-782-8404.
Polish President Andrzej Duda [official website] announced on Monday that he is vetoing two proposed laws that threaten to limit the judiciarys independence. One of the bills, passed [JURIST report] by the Polish Parliament [official website] last week with two others aimed at judicial reform, would allow members of parliament to appoint Supreme Court judges, a move that many citizens of Poland strongly opposed. The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party [party website, in Polish] pushed the bill through just days after thousands of people rallied [JURIST report] in Warsaw to protest what has been seen as a massive power-grab by the party. The European Commission [official website] threatened to impose sanctions if the proposed bills were not abandoned. Duda, a former member [BBC report] of the PiS party, said that he supports a reform of the countrys judicial party but that it must increase [NYT report] the peoples sense of justice and security. Duda did sign a third bill which gives the justice minster the power to select the heads of the local courts. Parliament could challenge the vetoes, but it will need a three-fifths majority to override the Presidents decision.

PiS has drawn ire from those in the international community for threatening democracy in Poland. In August 2016 Polish prosecutors began an investigation [JURIST report] into Constitutional Tribunal [official website] head, Andrzej Rzeplinski, to determine if he abused his power in preventing judges appointed by the ruling party to take part in decisions. In June of last year the European Commission issued a warning to Poland over the appointment of the three judges. The EU began examining Polands decision regarding the Constitutional Court [JURIST reports] in January 2016. That February the Polish government passed a controversial surveillance law [JURIST report] that grants the government [press release, Polish] greater access to digital data and broader use of surveillance for law enforcement. In December 2015 the leader of the European Parliament [official website] compared PiS rise to power in Poland to a coup [BBC report], leading to Parliament calling for an apology. PiS has rejected [DW report] criticisms that its policies are undermining democracy in Poland.
Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro [Reuters profile] announced on Sunday that a controversial election for a new national assembly will go forth as planned next weekend. The new Constituent Assembly will have the power [Reuters report] to rewrite the nations constitution which was adopted in 1999. Opponents to the move, including the European Union [official website] and other Latin American countries, are calling for a boycott of the vote. Many have accused the efforts for a constitutional rewrite to be undemocratic and a way to suppress the months of anti-government protests against Maduros presidency. Maduro states [Miami Herald report] that the new assembly, which would elect 527 members, is the only solution to bring an end to the anti-government protests that have brought significant violence to the country. Since political unrest erupted four months ago, over 100 people have died and hundreds have been injured. Maduro has also threatened to imprison [VOA report] the Supreme Court judges that were sworn in on Friday by the opposition party. The state intelligence service arrested one of the appointees on Saturday.

Venezuela has faced significant political unrest since the opposition gained control of the National Assembly in December 2015. Earlier this week Venezuelas opposition party made a call [JURIST report] for a 48-hour general strike to be held next Wednesday and Thursday in response to the scheduled election. A non-binding referendum vote [JURIST report] was held in Venezuela earlier this month in regards to the proposed new constitution which showed that 98 percent of the voters rejected the new constitution. The vote was boycotted by many government supporters. In May the US Department of the Treasury announced sanctions [JURIST report] against Venezuelan Supreme Court justices for usurping democracy. In October the National Assembly voted to open criminal impeachment [JURIST report] proceedings against Maduro, alleging that he manipulated the constitution to remain in power. That same month the Assembly also declared [JURIST report] that there was a breakdown of constitutional order and that the government had staged a coup by blocking an attempt to remove Maduro from power. Instability peaked on March 30 when the Supreme Court of Venezuela dissolved [JURIST report] the opposition-controlled National Assembly and assumed all legislative powers.
On Saturday, Venezuelas opposition party, Unidad Democratica [official website], made a call [press release, in Spanish] for a 48-hour general strike to be held next Wednesday and Thursday. The strike [Bloomberg report] comes in response to President Nicolas Maduros call to rewrite the countrys constitution and to elect a new assembly next week. The opposition party had organized [Reuters report] a separate 24-hour strike earlier this week that involved millions of participants. There are also plans for marches to be held on Monday and Friday. Maduro has accused the opposition party of plotting a coup. The Constituent Assembly has called the election necessary to bring peace to Venezuela.

A non-binding referendum vote [JURIST report] was held in Venezuela earlier this month in regards to the proposed new constitution which showed that 98% of the voters rejected the new constitution. The vote was boycotted by many government supporters. Venezuela has faced significant political unrest since the opposition gained control of the National Assembly in December 2015. In May the US Department of the Treasury announced sanctions [JURIST report] against Venezuelan Supreme Court justices for usurping democracy. In October the National Assembly voted to open criminal impeachment [JURIST report] proceedings against Maduro, alleging that he manipulated the constitution to remain in power. That same month the Assembly also declared [JURIST report] that there was a breakdown of constitutional order and that the government had staged a coup by blocking an attempt to remove Maduro from power. Instability peaked on March 30 when the Supreme Court of Venezuela dissolved [JURIST report] the opposition-controlled National Assembly and assumed all legislative powers.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has informed about the claims against public joint-stock company Motor Sich (Zaporizhia).

"There are several criminal cases against Motor Sich. One of them is being investigated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). It is related to the fact that most of the shares that were earlier sold to offshore companies were sold not in line with the legislation," he said at a press conference in Dnipro last week.

He said that the enterprises of the Ukrainian defense sector, and Motor Sich is among them, are to approve the sale of their shares with relevant public institutions. [Government] investigators believe this was not done, according to the PGO chief.

Lutsenko also said that the main investigation department of the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) is investigating into a fact of possible embezzlement of public funds when the enterprise was working on the state defense order.

"This concerns the likelihood of setting too high prices of engines and further withdrawal of the funds via dummy companies, including using so-called junk shares," he said.

Lutsenko said that raids and inspections will be conducted during one month and then the PGO would be able to notify suspects about the charges.

"Now top managers of Motor Sich enterprise are defenders in the case No one announced suspects and guilty persons. We are to analyze the documents. Who signed them and who permitted to sign them," he said.

The prosecutor general said that Ukraine's Antimonopoly Committee did not permit the buyer of a controlling stake in Motor Sich to buy the stake.

"This buyer is a citizen of another state. The committee explains its decision by the non-conformity with competition on the market," he said.
Authorities in South Dakota say an 81-year-old woman who drove her car into a group of people standing outside a nursing home appears to have stepped on the gas instead of the brakes.

Two people died when the woman's 2001 Pontiac hit a group of seven people coming out of the Alcester Care and Rehab Center. Six people were injured including the driver.

The state Highway Patrol says the group that was hit was a mix of center employees and residents. The driver was among those injured. The highway patrol cited witnesses who say it appeared the woman stepped on her accelerator by mistake.

The names of the eight haven't yet been released. They were taken to three hospitals in the region. Some of the injured were later released from hospitals.

Alcester is a town of about 800 people about an hour south of Sioux Falls.

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PREVIOUS STORY:

Authorities say accident reconstruction experts are now assisting with the investigation into a fatal crash outside a South Dakota nursing home.

The South Dakota Highway Patrol says two people were killed and six others were injured Monday when a vehicle slammed into a group of people outside the Alcester Care and Rehab Center.

Patrol Capt. Jason Husby said during a brief news conference that experts from Sioux Falls are helping in the investigation.

Husby says the investigation is just beginning, but that it appears the driver unintentionally struck the pedestrians. Husby called the incident "horrible," saying: "A lot of people are affected by this."

Husby and hospitals treating the victims declined to release information about their conditions. Husby says the driver is among the injured.

Alcester is a small town about 40 miles south of Sioux Falls.

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PREVIOUS STORY:

Officials say two people are dead after a car crashed into the Alcester Care and Rehab Center Monday morning.

The Highway Patrol said a vehicle hit a group of people standing outside the center around 9:30 a.m. They believe the accident was an unintentional act.

Neighbors told KSFY News that the residents were outside doing their morning exercises in the mild weather when the accident happened. The neighbors said they believe the driver of the car was an elderly woman.

Six other people were injured in the crash, including the driver.

The car was towed away around 12:30 p.m.

The Highway Patrol is asking the public to stay away from the area as the investigation continues.

Alcester residents said the center is a nursing home facility where many elderly residents live and many nurses are employed.

This is a developing story. Stay with KSFY News as more information becomes available.
Ukravtodor not to be able to use funds from government bonds reprofiling in 2017

The State Automobile Roads Agency, also known as Ukravtodor, even if the funds from reprofiling of government domestic loan bonds are sent to the company, would not be able to use them in 2017, Ukravtodor head Slawomir Nowak has told reporters.

"If this were the money sent to the public road fund, it would have been a better approach. Having this money at the beginning of the year we could start works in March as it must be. I can say nothing about these funds now. I will take them in December, and we would not be able to use them this season," he said last week.

In February 2017, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that the reprofiling of government domestic loan bonds belonged to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is backed by the Ukrainian president. It would allow increasing the financing of road construction by UAH 15 billion in 2017, to UAH 35 billion.

In the middle of July it was reported that the Finance Ministry and the NBU have not yet approved the final conditions for reprofiling of the bonds.
KEARNEY  Twenty-five years after Kearneys Habitat for Humanity International affiliate was founded, it has made a difference worldwide.

In Kearney, Habitats 79th home will be completed by December. Around the globe, Kearney Habitat volunteers have helped build homes in Africa, Costa Rica, Haiti, Mexico, Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as throughout the United States.

The affiliate was started by Bill Ballou, Joe Methe, Jerry Marlatt and Jim McKenzie. Their efforts were kindled by a Bible study that inspired them to put their beliefs into action. Those efforts, like an everlasting flame, are still burning brightly.

Take, for example, when Ballou joined Kearney Habitat volunteers in two Carter Work Projects  Eagle Butte, S.D., in 1994, and Pikeville, Ky., in 1997. Carter Work Projects are attended by former President Jimmy and his wife, Rosalynn, who have been avid supporters of Habitat. Both times, Ballou set up live remotes from the build locations with News Director Paul Wice on KGFW Radio.

We all (the four founders) had different visions, Ballou said. Im a relationship builder. I did not go there to work. I wanted to acquaint people with the Habitat for Humanity mission.

But, of course, he did work. He worked hard at building relationships that would help Kearney Habitat.

The four continue to spread the word, raise funds and much more. Habitat for Humanity affiliates operate locally. Each one coordinates its own construction, collects applications from future homeowners and purchases land for homes.

After the Carter Work Project in South Dakota in 1994, Ballou invited the executive director of the Eagle Butte Habitat affiliate and one of the new homeowners to speak at the next annual banquet in Kearney. The executive director spoke for five minutes; the new homeowner spoke for just three, but Ballou said their presentations were effective.

If 10 people go to a build, take two along who do not have the vision, he said.

Ballou had a similar approach when he brought in speakers for fundraising banquets. He would sell eight people seats for a table of 10 and give the two extra tickets free to homeowners. Fundraising banquets, board of directors retreats and other events were all part of Ballous contribution to the group.

He (Ballou) knows how to pump up the crew, Marlatt said.

One year, Barry Long from Habitat for Humanity International was the banquet speaker. Two hundred people attended; $20,000 was raised. How did I get him here? Ballou said. Well, you ask!

Bill (Ballou) has a boldness, McKenzie said. He knows people in all the churches. He knows how to network.

Each of the four founders peppers his conversation about the groups successes with God moments and kingdom moments. Take, for example, the way they all attribute Kearney Habitats solid financial support to tithing. From the beginning, the group has tithed (given 10 percent) to Habitat International on every donation and, until they needed to buy land for new homes, on every homeowners mortgage payment as well.

As Marlatt bought needed building materials, Methe would caution him: Jerry, we dont have the money. But somehow, the money came through.

I took it on (fundraising) as a personal responsibility, Methe said. Wed have $2,700 in bills, but there would be checks in the mail, and those donations would cover our bills, with just a little extra. For 10 consecutive months, the money came in from the most unlikely sources. I finally accepted that it was in Gods hands. I think Habitat is God-inspired.

Marlatt agreed. Even though bills piled up, We did not have a problem. I really believe that because we tithe, we just got blessings  people, materials, whatever we needed. It just blew me away.

Early on, McKenzie served as Habitat president, secretary and treasurer, all at the same time. We needed a treasurer, he said. That night, at dance club, he and his wife were assigned to a table with Kent and Cindy Barney.

As they talked about Kearney Habitat, Cindy, on her third question, said, If you ever need someone to be treasurer  She began serving as treasurer in 1993 and moved to finance chair in 1996, a position she still holds.

Similar kingdom moments have come with the right gifts at the right time. A $125,000 gift from the Louise Kellaway estate made it possible for Kearney Habitat to build a much-needed combination warehouse and office building at 1815 First Ave. The building was dedicated Jan. 24, 2002.

Until then, ironically, Kearney Habitat was, in a sense, homeless. The building provides storage, allows for an early start on the build season, and has a conference room where the board can meet.

The ongoing success of Kearney Habitat created a need for more land for more homes. Thanks to a block grant, Habitat secured a number of lots between Avenue E and Avenue F. In 2013, Kearney Habitat purchased 9.5 acres near 17th Street and Avenue M, the largest single acquisition of land in the affiliates history. It was purchased with Habitat homeowners mortgage payments and gifts from local and corporate sponsors.

Homeowners interest-free mortgage payments go into a fund to finance future builds. In a Hub interview at the time, then-Habitat President Brandon Benitz said, This is an overwhelming answer to many prayers over many years. This will allow us to continue our ministry in the Kearney area for many years.

Two of the affiliates most important milestones, McKenzie said, are the purchase of those 9.5 acres, and the years of Ken Mumm presidencies. Mumm has served as president in 2001, 2002, 2014, 2016 and 2017. In addition, he chaired the Family Nurture Committee from 1997-2000 and was the UNK Habitat sponsor in 2000.

His presidencies, and the people he has engaged, have been very significant, McKenzie said.

Mumm also described the greatest gift of each of the four founders:

- McKenzie: Vision. He has great vision. He sees opportunities. There are so many people he can touch, and he has great leadership.

- Ballou:  Connections. He has great connections to churches and schools, and he gathers people together, and dreams big.

- Marlatt: Tenacity. He has the tenacity to move forward. He treads where many faint-hearted would not. He connected well with (Habitat founder) Millard Fuller and would often quote him.

- Methe: Believer. He just believed in the mission. It is a brilliant idea. Truly God-inspired. There is real genius behind it.

If there were a lot of Kearney, Nebraskas, doing this, it could make a real difference in the world, Methe said.
LOUP CITY  U.S. military veterans and their families seized up the water Saturday at Sherman Reservoir north of Loup City.

The breeze was cool and the fishing was good for nearly 55 Nebraska veterans and their families who took advantage of Nebraska Buddy Checks free day at Sherman Reservoir on July 22  a date thats significant to the Buddy Check group.

Lutheran Family Services At Ease Program Support Specialist Adam Armstrong of Grand Island started the group in 2011 in honor of the 22 veterans who commit suicide each day. On the 22nd of each month, veterans gather to socialize at 11 locations across the state, including Kearney.

Buddy Check connected with Heroes on the Water Heartland Chapter for the Saturday event. Heroes on the Water donated 17 kayaks and organized volunteer fishing guides and boat launchers.

Armstrong, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 2002-2010, said he enjoys getting in a paddleboat with Heroes on the Water.

I really got into paddle fishing this year because of Heroes on the Water, and I find that even if Im not out catching fish, Im still out in a kayak, and its a nice peaceful day and Im able to relax, he said.

Heartland Chapter Coordinator Adam Dresden of St. Paul said he started the chapter in 2013 because he saw the benefits kayak fishing provided him as a disabled veteran. After the U.S. Army veteran injured his back in a parachute accident while on active duty in 2001, he said, he could no longer run. Since then, he has had both knees replaced. Despite his injuries, Dresden said, he can kayak all day.

The Heroes on the Water motto, Paddle, Fish, Heal, helps not only physically injured veterans, but those with depression and post traumatic stress disorder.

When youre in a kayak, whats really nice about it is you have to keeping your kayak where you want it. You have to focus on casting to where the fish is, Dresden said. Youre not sitting there thinking about anything thats bad that repeatedly goes through your mind when you have PTSD.

The program also is therapeutic for families. Dresden most remembers how the program affected a veteran and his wife who were camping at Fort Kearny during a Heroes on the Water outing. Dresden said the husband asked if he could kayak, but didnt want to fish at first. After 15-20 minutes of kayaking, the veteran eagerly asked for a fishing pole.

He was really excited, had a smile, Dresden said.

The mans wife began to cry.

She said she hadnt seen her husband smile like that for years, Dresden tearfully recalled.

Kelli and Lonnie Ten Hulzen of Firth brought their two boys along for a family vacation. Kelli, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1990-2013, started the Lincoln Buddy Check program. Her husband, Lonnie, has been active in the Army since 1994.

Marine veteran Trevor Stryker of Grand Island also brought his son out fishing. Stryker, who works for Lutheran Family Services At Ease connecting veterans to resources they need, said the Heroes on the Water program helps him.

I think any activity, whether its physical activity, working out, running exercising or just getting outdoors you know and getting the vitamin D from the sun is definitely beneficial for my depression, he said.

Veterans also received free rides on a pontoon boat and learned about fishing from Katherine and David Ruder of Lincoln, who recently started the nonprofit Live Well Go Fish. Cabelas set up an archery range for children.

Overall, veterans said, they enjoyed the camaraderie with fellow veterans and their families.

A lot of young people (are) bringing their families out, and thats what its all about  just family fun, said Steve Smith of Kearney, an Army National Guard veteran from 1978-1991.

@erikadpritchard
Using data to demonstrate the effectiveness of programs funded by state tax dollars is the basis of Evidence Based

Budgeting. As states nationwide face greater demands for spending, many are adopting principles that use evidence to support strategic prioritization of taxpayer dollars and improve government accountability. Non-profit organizations such as the MacArthur

Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts have championed best practices and assisted states with implementation of evidence based budgeting policies.

In order for lawmakers to appropriate tax dollars based on evidence of their effective use, knowing how your tax dollars are spent is a basic requirement. The third largest expense in the Nebraska general fund budget is the appropriation to the University of Nebraska system. As such, Nebraska taxpayers deserve the same level of accountability and transparency about how tax dollars are spent by NU as is provided by all other state agencies.

Unfortunately, the University of Nebraska cannot detail how over half a billion dollars of state funds are spent each year. During the deficit budget and biennial budget process in 2017 I came to understand that state general fund dollars appropriated to the University of Nebraska are not tracked beyond the level of the campus to which they are allocated. I learned this through communication with university administration. Requests by my office for further specificity concerning how state tax dollars have been spent resulted in only estimates to the level of college and major unit.

Simply put, of the $583 million appropriated to the university system from the general fund in the last fiscal year, the only transparency for the specific use of those tax dollars was that $266 million was allocated to UNL, $153 million to UNMC, $66 million to UNO, $40 million to UNK, $28 million for systemwide administration and computing, $27 million for universitywide activities and legislative earmarks, and $3 million for NCTA in Curtis. Beyond that level, tax dollars are mixed with other revenue, including tuition. No tracking of your tax dollars for transparency and accountability is done beyond that point.

Every other state agency is subject to full scrutiny of how taxpayer dollars are used. Recent reports by the state auditor of small, cash funded agencies such as the Tourism Commission and Brand Committee detailed how public funds were used inappropriately, specifying specific purchases of goods via individual receipts and actual miles traveled in a state vehicle for personal use. The response of the Assistant Vice President of Budget and Planning as to why there was no data on how your tax dollars were spent by NU that its really no different than the joint checking account used by he and his spouse in their home does not pass even the basic standard of accountability.

In light of tax receipts falling $34 million below projected forecast levels for the conclusion of the 2016-2017 fiscal year, full accounting of all state dollars is even more important. As spending across state government is scrutinized, the University system must provide equal transparency regarding the use of public tax dollars.

Furthermore, the lack of data confounds the ability of lawmakers to effectively appropriate tax dollars.

Over the course of the next biennium, the University received an average reduction of 0.2 percent over the previous budget. University leadership made a variety of dramatic claims and generalizations about the impact of this reduction. However, they provided no clear evidence of direct, specific impacts to programs, much less harm to the overall mission of the university.

With no tracking of tax dollars to their point of use, it is impossible to evaluate the impact of either reductions or increases in state appropriations on university programs. Sound principles of Evidence Based Budgeting cannot be followed.

The significance of the University of Nebraska to our state is indisputable. Nebraska taxpayers value affordability of higher education, research, and the cultural contributions of a vibrant university system. Legislators have shown a commitment to the University of Nebraska with generous general fund appropriations in excess of half a billion dollars annually. Additional tax dollars are provided through various cash funds, the capital construction budget, and specific earmarks. In fact, Nebraskans underwrite higher education at the University of Nebraska at a level unmatched by most states. Public confidence in that investment and effective decisions about future appropriations require full transparency and accountability of how taxpayer dollars are spent.

Sen. John Kuehn of Heartwell represents District 38 in the Nebraska Legislature. The district encompasses southwest Buffalo County and all of Clay, Franklin, Kearney, Nuckolls, Phelps and Webster counties.

@JohnKuehnDVM
The nations economy can be helped significantly if the pace picks up in boosting the number of skilled workers for the tech sector, labor analysts report.

Take the example of computer science. The U.S. Department of Labor projected last year that by 2020 the country will likely be producing fewer than one-third of the new computer specialists needed by private industry.

An important strategy to address the tech-sector challenge is to increase the number of women and minority graduates in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

Theres considerable opportunity. The National Science Foundation points out that while only 18 percent of bachelors degrees in computer science go to women at present, 45 percent of eighth-grade girls scored at proficiency level on a national test of technology and engineering skills.

In 2015, the Washington Post reported that the field of statistics has had greater success at recruiting and retaining women than have most other STEM fields.

Ingredients for success, experts said, include creating more welcoming environments, establishing a critical mass of female students and promoting qualified female leaders. The article pointed to the statistics department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as a successful example.

World-Herald staff writer Rick Ruggles has reported on efforts in Nebraska and Iowa to boost outreach to female and minority students in tech-related majors.

Frantzlee LaCrete, an award-winning graduate of Chadron State College, will start medical school this fall at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, for example. A biracial student from Lewellen, he is a participant in the Rural Health Opportunities Program, a collaboration of UNMC and Nebraskas state college system to encourage rural residents to go into health care professions.

LaCrete has long shown a scientific aptitude and cites the importance of mentors in encouraging him.

A number of schools in Nebraska are offering outreach programs in hopes of encouraging more women and minority students to explore science and related fields. Among them, Creighton University funds undergraduate and graduate-level scholarships for women studying science or math.

The country fortunately is seeing progress. Between 2008-09 and 2014-15, total degrees in STEM were up 39 percent for women, 30 percent for blacks and 76 percent for Hispanics.

Omaha World-Herald
Canada's Black Iron, the iron ore exploration and development company with assets in Ukraine, has decided to proceed with a new preliminary economic assessment on its 100% owned Shymanivske project, the company has said on its website.

As background, Black Iron released a positive feasibility study on the Project in 2014. The study was based on the annual production of 9.9 million tonnes of high grade 68% iron content concentrate, used the long-term broker consensus iron ore price at the time of $95 per tonne and an exchange rate of UAH 8 to the U.S. dollar.

Today the exchange rate is approximately UAH 26: $1 and iron ore with 62% iron content is selling for approx. $64 per tonne.

"Using the current exchange rate is expected to materially reduce the projected upfront capital cost since a significant amount of the construction costs including labor, concrete, steel and secondary equipment such as conveyors will be Ukraine based. The lower exchange rate also results in significantly lower operating costs as achieved by existing Ukraine iron ore miners," the company said.

Canada's BBA Inc. led the preparation of the company's former PEA and therefore is highly familiar with the project to complete the new PEA in an efficient manner. The company expects to release the results of the PEA and file a technical report in Q4 2017.

In October 2010 Black Iron acquired Geo-Alliance Ore East Limited, a Cyprus-based subsidiary of Geo Alliance Group Limited of EastOne Investment Group belonging to Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk, together with licenses worth $13 million, and renamed it Black Iron (Cyprus) Ltd.

The Cypriot company owns over 99% of the shares in Shymanivske Steel LLC and Zelenivske Steel (both based in Dnipro), which own licenses to exploit iron ore mines for the period until November 1, 2024 and November 1, 2014 respectively.

In July 2013, Metinvest, Ukraine's largest mining and steel group, has reached an agreement with Black Iron Inc on investment in Black Iron (Cyprus) Ltd (BKI Cyprus), a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company that owns the iron ore assets in Ukraine. The agreements require Metinvest to make an initial investment of $20 million in BKI Cyprus to help finance the projects. Later Metinvest left the project.
The bank audit committee of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) soon seeks to appeal to the Audit Chamber of Ukraine with a proposal to punish PricewaterhouseCoopers (audit) LLC (Kyiv, the Ukrainian structure of PwC) in the form of its removal from the register of audit firms and auditors, the press service of the central bank has told Interfax-Ukraine.

In addition, the NBU committee intends to initiate punishment of the auditors who personally conducted audit of the financial report of PrivatBank in the form of annulment of their bank auditor certificates.

"This request will be the next logical step after the decision approved by the NBU board on July 20, 2017 under a request of the committee to remove PricewaterhouseCoopers (audit) LLC from the register of audit firms that have the right to conduct audit of banks," the NBU said.

The central bank recalled that the rationale behind this decision was PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit LLCs verification of misrepresented financial information in the financial statements of PrivatBank (Kyiv). In particular, this concerns information on credit exposure and regulatory capital reported by the bank.

The press service said that the bank audit committee was created by the NBU. It consists of representatives of the NBU, the Audit Chamber of Ukraine, the National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market and the National Commission for Financial Service Markets Regulation.
LycaMobile, one of the world's largest virtual operators, together with the mobile operator 3Mob LLC (a subsidiary of PJSC Ukrtelecom) will start work in Ukraine from July 24.

"We will not build our stores in Ukraine, we will sell our products through partners. We will agree with some stores where our logos will be placed. We have five or six proposals for different price categories, depending on what is good for the market. We will start selling SIM cards within a week," LycaMobile CEO Chris Tooley said at a press conference in Kyiv.

According to him, after the launch of work, customers in Ukraine will get access to 3Mob SIM cards, which will include tariffs from LycaMobile. Users will be able to make free calls to LycaMobile numbers in any of the 22 countries of the world where the operator is represented, replenishing the account by UAH 100 per month. In addition, users will be able to call to Ukraine from abroad to the operator's numbers for free.

Users, in particular, will be able to choose one of inexpensive packages of services: 16 GB of Internet traffic, 300 minutes of calls, 300 SMS and 300 minutes for communications within the network for UAH 130.

3Mob also signed a roaming agreement with Vodafone Ukraine, whose network will operate where 3Mob does not have coverage.
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Toms feet are shackled so he cant bolt from the hospital bed when the prison guard isnt looking. The guard places handcuffs on him when he walks to the bathroom and stands just outside the door as Tom relieves himself. Despite being treated for a deep tissue infection in one finger, Tom is in generally good shape  lean but muscular with the strong hands of a workman. Back in his room, sitting up in bed, he holds up his hand wrapped in gauze and asks about returning to his carpentry job when hes healed.

Tom is not unlike many of my patients who are victims of the opioid epidemic. He had started taking opioids legally for back and joint pain related to his work, but he overused them in escalating doses as his tolerance grew, a common pattern in chronic opioid use. His addictions escalated from there to include heroin and, finally, methamphetamines. It took only a year and a half after his first narcotic pain pill to wind up in jail as a result of his addiction.

The term victim aptly describes those in the thralls of addiction to pharmaceutical-grade opioids. To place the blame on Tom or the tens of thousands of other Americans who are chemically dependent on the medications is to miss the larger picture. Much like fast food or sugary beverages, these pain medications have been aggressively pushed on consumers  in this case, doctors, hospitals and the American public  by pharmaceutical companies. The maker of OxyContin, for example, spent $200 million in a single year to market and promote it in the early 2000s, plus as much as $40 million in marketing bonuses for sales representatives.

Manufacturers invited thousands of doctors to symposia and conferences on pain management or handed out free trips or lunches as part of their marketing strategies. Meanwhile, according to the Centers for Disease Control, deaths attributed to opioid overdose have more than doubled from 1999 to 2011, and claimed more than 52,000 lives in 2016 alone.

The health care system is largely to blame for creating this epidemic. By consensus and widely used common practice, health care providers adopted pain as a fifth vital sign in 1999. Yet, unlike the traditional four  temperature, pulse, respiratory rate and blood pressure  pain has no objective data to back it up. Nurses might be instructed to ask patients about their pain levels every four hours, and sometimes even more frequently. All this despite study after study showing that narcotic pain pills have questionable effects on long-term non-cancer pain, like back pain or joint arthritis from old age.

Why do physicians continue to prescribe drugs that have such a huge downside and questionable upside? Insurance reimbursements, now tied to patient satisfaction scores, are one major reason. Another is the nature of health care profession itself, which is full of people with large hearts that beat with empathy for each patient. Many of these patients are suffering terrible pain  too often the kind of chronic pain that narcotics likely wont help, or pain related to withdrawal symptoms or their newfound psychological dependency.

Some treatment options are chronic medications like methadone and newer ones like suboxone. Doctors are required to undergo special training in many states, including Florida, in order to prescribe methadone and suboxone. The few doctors who have this training are not accepting new patients due to the outpacing of the demand. So every doctor in Florida can prescribe the cause of addiction without any extra training, but we are required to have expensive training to prescribe the treatment.

The legal consequences of these addictions often compound this suffering. Most opioid or methamphetamine addicts like Tom dont do serious prison time for possessing smaller amounts for personal consumption. In his case, the judge had previously released Tom on probation. Back on his own Tom quickly resumed his old habits and was arrested again. Arrested for the third time that year, standing in a courtroom and represented by a lawyer, he asked to be put in prison.

Tom understood that he needed to get clean or he would continue the downward spiral that was already destroying his life. He also knew that inpatient drug rehabilitation could be expensive  on the order of $1,000 per day. Tom couldnt afford that on his pay, and he had no insurance to pay for any form of rehab, even the relatively less expensive day programs.

I figured that there was no way I could get clean on my own, he later told me while sitting in the hospital bed. Yet the judge could not find a reason to imprison him for small-time possession, so he sent Tom home yet again. Two weeks before I met him, Tom intentionally violated his parole on a technicality. The judge is fixin to give me a year, year and half, he said. Ill be clean by then for sure.

Can he get more drugs in prison? I asked the prison guard, thinking of all the prison movies and television shows Ive seen.

He shook his head. No more than you could fit in a birthday card.

Of course, imprisoning Tom for a year will cost taxpayers more than a month of inpatient drug rehabilitation, or a year of outpatient clinic visits.

Examining the infection in Toms finger, I find it has reached down to the bone, meaning hell need six weeks of intravenous antibiotics. The guard told me this would be impossible to get in the county jail and very difficult at best in state prison.

Which made Tom a medical conundrum for the doctors: How to treat him in a facility that wont allow him IV medication? The prison system would never pay for him to stay six weeks in the hospital. Hed likely end up getting daily injections of antibiotics in the shoulder muscle  a solution I often employ in Haiti when my patients cant afford a six-week hospital stay.

Any solution, for Tom and the tens of thousands of opioid addicts like him, must be multifaceted. The medical community must cease passing out opioid prescriptions for any but the most severe cases  the approach taken by health care providers across Europe  in order to reduce exposure to the highly addictive drugs. Medicaid, the nations publicly funded insurance program for the poor, must expand to include coverage of drug rehabilitation. The 24 states that havent accepted the Obamacare Medicaid expansion must start by ensuring their poor first, and then add drug prevention and treatment services.

Prescription opioid addiction is a disease. No other disease is treated with punitive measures such as jail time. We must stop putting people behind bars for drug addiction.

Unless, for the time being, they ask us to.

Vincent DeGennaro, Jr. is an internal medicine physician and president, Innovating Health International. He blogs at An American Doctor in Haiti and can be reached on Twitter @DoctorGlobal.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Can politicians fix our health care system? Sure, but they and everyone else trying will have to realize what our political leaders have voiced, but not seen that the system is complex and the truth behind Einsteins statement that we cannot fix a broken system using the same thinking that created it. The lack of those elements is why we are still stuck. Rather than repeating the arguments of the past to see how our health care marketplace needs to be regulated, lets just skip to how it should be treated as the complex and adaptive system that it is.

Don Berwick, writing in JAMA (April 5, 2016) proposes an Era 3 he calls the Moral Era. In it, he says: Without a new moral ethos, there will be no winners. Era 3 needs nine changes: 1. Reduce mandatory measurement; 2. Stop complex individual incentives; 3. Shift the business strategy from revenue to quality; 4. Give up professional prerogative when it hurts the whole; 5. Use improvement science; 6. Ensure complete transparency; 7. Protect civility; 8. Hear the voices of the people served, and; 9. Reject greed.

Dr. Berwick is on the right track, but his nine areas indicate he still thinks in mechanical, rather than complex terms. Thinking in complex terms is not that difficult. We are adaptable. We make choices based on the information we have and how it is processed in our brains. If the information is perceived as threatening it goes to our midbrain for a rapid, possibly life-saving, response  mostly in the form of fight, flight or freeze. If it is not threatening, our responses can be slower and more deliberate. Those are the responses we should promote in all areas of health care. So how do we do that?

The function of a health care system is to promote the health of the populace. Salutogenesis  literally the origins of health  is a concept that addresses this subject. It originated in the late 1970s from studies done by Aaron Antonovsky in this country and Israel looking at people who were healthy despite conditions that would drive others to the doctors office. The critical element he saw in his healthy population was a sense of coherence, made up of a sense of control, a sense comprehension and a sense of meaning. But all of these have much more to do with adaptive humans and were foreign to those thinking in linear mechanical terms. We ignored them.

The question is can we, with wise public policy, nudge people in these areas? And the answer is  absolutely.

Dean Ornish developed a plan to reverse coronary artery disease and wrote a book about it. His success was based on three parts: diet, exercise and group therapy. The public focused on the mechanical parts diet and exercise. Those in his program credited the group sessions where they could break down the walls of their heart.

Tom Insel led the National Institutes of Mental Health for 13 years, until an audience member at a conference where he was explaining his research, interrupted him to say that the country was dealing with a fire and the chemistry of the paint made little difference. So he went to work for Google and began putting people together in online support groups based on their psychiatric problems. Groups, like Ornishs and Insels, provide both the sense of comprehension and a sense of meaning, which is overwhelmingly found in working with others in cooperative ways. These groups work and can be multiplied by an empowered public health service. What about control?

No sense of control comes from outside help, like when some outside agent decides and pays for what is needed as in our current Medicaid. But if our Medicaid program was shifted to an HSA that is set up for and controlled by the individual a sense of control comes with it.

There is no doubt that the best way to deal with a complex system is a transparent marketplace, but in our current market-based system the purchasers of care are the organizations of insurers and the government  not the individual. Empowering the individual by shifting the insurance money to an HSA empowers the patient. A study by Linda Gorman at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute showed that putting the patient in charge decreased health care costs by 10-30 percent with no adverse health outcomes.

In the past, HSAs have not worked because people did not have the time to build equity. In cases of need, the government does have a role. HSAs would also be more appealing to all ages if they could be patterned after Singapores Unified Fund, which can be used for other socially desirable things like housing, education and even, as we suggest, incorporating SNAP. And their Unified Fund can be shared within families, an institution that all agree needs strengthening.

Seeing our system in this way opens many doors, just as any new paradigm does. And such shifts universally open many new doors for progress. We need this shift.

Lon Jones is a family physician and can be reached at Common Sense Medicine.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Regular readers of my blog know that I believe that the harms of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer outweigh the benefits  if benefits exist at all. That isnt to say that I will not order the test in a man who understands the risks and expresses a clear preference to be screened. In a recent editorial in American Family Physician, I explained my approach to counseling patients about potential screening harms:

Many older men, especially those who have received PSA tests in the past, may be surprised to learn that screening is no longer routine. Primary care physicians should anticipate this possibility and be prepared to explain that more is now known about the outcomes of testing. Phrases that may be helpful to communicate changes in our understanding of the evidence include the PSA test is now optional, this test has limitations and may not be for everyone, and there are some important downsides to being tested. These strategies, combined with decision aids, should help our patients make informed choices that are consistent with their personal preferences on PSA screening.

One question that arises frequently at the hospital and clinic where I precept family medicine residents is: what about African-American men? Should we advise that they be screened because they have a higher prostate cancer incidence and mortality than other racial or ethnic groups? This question came up during the development of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Forces 2008 recommendations included this statement:

Older men, African-American men, and men with a family history of prostate cancer are at increased risk for diagnosis of and death from prostate cancer. Unfortunately, the previously described gaps in the evidence regarding potential benefits of screening also apply to these men.

The publication of the U.S. and European randomized trials of PSA-based screening, which ultimately caused the USPSTF to change its I (insufficient evidence) statement to a D (recommend against) in 2012, unfortunately did not do much to clarify benefits and harms of screening in men of African descent, who comprised only 4 percent of participants in the U.S. trial and an unknown (but probably low) percentage of those in the European trial. And even the subsequent negative findings of the Prostate Cancer Intervention Versus Observation Trial (PIVOT), whose participants were more than 30 percent African-American, didnt discourage authors in academic journals and prominent medical blogs from arguing that black men need separate prostate cancer screening guidelines.

What troubles me about this position is that race is as much a social construct as it is a biological one. Much of the disparity in prostate cancer mortality between African-American and Caucasians can be explained by lower access to and quality of care, rather than a genetic predisposition for more aggressive and/or lethal cancers. In contrast to national data, studies of equal-access health care systems in the U.S. such as the Veterans Health Administration and the Department of Defense found no differences in prostate cancer mortality between black and white men.

In this context, the USPSTF recently published a thoughtful methods paper explaining their approach to developing recommendations for diverse populations. The research plan for their updated systematic review on prostate cancer screening included explicit questions about whether the effectiveness or harms of PSA-based screening or treatment approaches varied by subpopulations, including race. Such data may or may not be sufficient to permit the Task Force to assign a separate recommendation letter grade to screening in African-American men this time around (I suspect it will not), but it will hopefully result in more helpful guidance for primary care clinicians.

Here is what I currently tell African-American men over 50 who are considering the PSA test:

In general, this test is more likely to harm than to help. Your personal risk of having prostate cancer is higher than other men, which may make it more likely that you benefit from testing, but also increases the potential harms. So while the general statistics on PSA screening might not apply to you specifically, the decision to be screened still comes down to your personal preference.

Kenneth Lin is a family physician who blogs at Common Sense Family Doctor.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has supported the offer of the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA) to create a "fund of funds" to support Ukrainian start-ups on the terms of public-private partnership, according to the government online portal.

"Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman advocates the creation of a large fund to support Ukrainian start-ups, which can be financed from the national budget and by large international investors," the report reads.

According to its data, participants in a meeting on the premier and the members of the UVCA supervisory council noted that investors are interested in investing in a number of industries in Ukraine, in particular the IT sector, cyber security, dual-purpose technologies, and military technologies. Thus, the establishment of the fund could help optimize seeking and inviting large investors.

"The head of government proposed formulating the concept of the fund's work and combining its activities with the work of the Innovation Council, which will be approved in the near future," the report says.

Among the participants in the meeting were the head of the UVCA supervisory board, the founder and managing partner of AVentures Capital, Andriy Kolodiuk, the founder and managing partner of Horizon Capital, Lenna Koszarny, and UVCA Executive Director Olha Afanasyeva.
U.S. State Department envoy calls for ending war in Donbas as quickly as possible

A war in Donbas should be halted as quickly as possible, U.S. State Department's Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker said.

At a press conference in Ukraine's Kramatorsk on Sunday Volker said that this had been a war rather than a conflict. He said that this had been a crisis, which should be settled as rapidly as possible.
Kingstree, SC (29556)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. High near 75F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 52F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was originally published in the September 2011 issue of Kiplinger's Retirement Report. To subscribe, click here. (opens in new tab)

The death of a spouse is one of the most devastating events of a person's life. To make matters worse, at a time when you feel incapable of dealing with life's routines, you're slammed with an avalanche of financial tasks that require immediate attention. This can be particularly stressful if the surviving spouse, usually the wife, did not play an active role in the household finances.

But despite the pressure to do so, this is precisely the wrong time to make major financial decisions. If you act precipitously, you may make costly mistakes that will be tough to unwind later. "I tell my clients that they should be in a decision-free zone for six months to a year," says Karen Folk, a certified financial planner in Urbana, Ill.

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Don't put your house on the market. Don't give away money to your children or charity. Don't sell stocks or bonds. And don't agree to move in with an adult child, says Folk. Eventually, any of these steps may make perfect sense. But take a breather in the overwhelming weeks and months after a spouse dies.

One other no-no: Don't allow a salesperson to talk you into buying financial products, such as an annuity or life insurance. "Ambulance chasers will catch you when you are vulnerable," warns Kathleen Rehl, a certified financial planner in Land O'Lakes, Fla. Rehl wrote Moving Forward on Your Own: A Financial Guidebook for Widows (Rehl Financial Advisors, $20) after the death of her husband in 2007.

To drive home her point, Rehl recounts the story of a widowed client who was paid a visit by an insurance agent. The agent came to deliver the proceeds from her husband's life insurance policy, and he persuaded her to sign over the check for a new policy that she did not need.

A case in point for not making big decisions soon after a spouse's death is Maureen Saunders. The financial chores following the death of her husband, Hubert, from pancreatic cancer in 2006 at age 65 were crushing enough. Although Saunders, now 58, balanced the checkbook, her husband was the main financial decision-maker, especially when it came to investments. His death left her "in uncharted waters, not only emotionally and spiritually but also financially."

Saunders had to wrangle with the life insurance company, which didn't believe she was her husband's beneficiary. She had a "total meltdown" in the bank when she discovered, after bouncing some checks, that the Social Security Administration had rescinded Hubert's latest direct-deposit benefit payment. She proved that her husband died after the deadline to be eligible for that month's payment, but it took weeks for the government to return the money. She did not realize that she would not be eligible for a survivor benefit until she turned 60. "You're so vulnerable and raw, and there is always another form to fill out," says Saunders, who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The checklist below can help surviving spouses figure out which tasks to address early on. The tips apply to husbands and wives.

Gather the documents. If your late spouse ran the household finances, it would be great if he left behind an organized filing system as well as all the passwords you need to access computer files. But if you need to dig through the piles yourself, Rehl recommends starting a filing system using colored manila folders. Among the headings: banking, bills, credit-card statements, taxes, life insurance policies and estate documents.

You'll need to gather Social Security numbers, birth and marriage certificates, military discharge papers, company benefits booklets, car titles, powers of attorney, and current statements for bank, brokerage and retirement accounts.

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Get 10 to 25 copies of your spouse's death certificate. The funeral director can help with this. Many financial institutions require a death certificate to close an account or to change ownership of investments. You'll need the certificate to transfer title on real estate and to claim life insurance and veterans benefits.

Make sure to pay your bills for credit cards, utilities, car loans, property tax, insurance premiums and the mortgage. You could incur late charges if you let these tasks slide. (If you are hit with such charges, ask for a waiver due to the circumstances.)

Notify Medicare and other health insurance companies that you will no longer pay your spouse's premiums. Also cancel club memberships and magazine subscriptions that you don't need. Explain the situation and you may get a partial refund.

Folk suggests that you keep a joint checking account for at least a year. "Occasionally, odd checks to the deceased spouse come in," she says. "If you close or retitle the account, there won't be a place to put them."

Get some help. Charles Simon, a certified financial planner with Taconic Advisors in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., suggests creating a "financial support team." The group could include an accountant, a lawyer, a financial planner, and a trusted friend or family member who has good financial skills. "In the first six months, you're in a state of shock," says Simon, a widower who counts many surviving spouses among his clients. "Your team can help you when you're least able to attend to details."

Before Veronica Cavalla's husband, Peter, died in 2008 at age 68, he managed part of the couple's investments while a broker handled the rest. Cavalla, 64, says the broker wanted to take control of more of the investments, so she began initialing documents. She didn't know what she owned.

In addition, the new widow couldn't follow her lawyer's instructions to retitle property or take other steps to prepare the estate for probate and estate taxes. "Part of my problem was that I was so embarrassed because I didn't know what people were talking about," says Cavalla, who lives in Poughkeepsie and recently retired as a registered nurse. "Unless it was a simple matter, I avoided it."

Eventually, Cavalla's frustrated lawyer recommended that she see Simon, a fee-only planner who helped her plow through the paperwork. "I should have hired him right away," she says. If you need to find a fee-only planner, contact the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (www.napfa.org (opens in new tab); 847-483-5400).

Assess your cash flow. While you should postpone big financial decisions, you should take stock quickly of your expenses and income. Make a list of your income sources: Social Security, pension payments, dividends, interest, job earnings and IRA distributions.

Write down your fixed expenses, such as groceries, mortgage payments, utilities and insurance. "Look at your checkbook to see if there are recurring payments on your credit card," says Simon. Check your deceased spouse's check register, too. Make a separate list for your discretionary costs, such as gifts and travel.

Some income payments may decline. For instance, if your husband was receiving a Social Security benefit and you were getting a 50% spousal benefit, the spousal benefit will disappear. But some expenses will end as well, such as your spouse's Medicare premiums.If you are short on cash, start chipping away on the discretionary spending. "I used to have a 32-foot boat," says Saunders. "Now I have two kayaks."

Rehl says new widows should build a reserve for one to two years of expenses in a liquid account, such as a bank money-market account. "Widows worry, 'Will I be a bag lady?' " Rehl says. "With a liquid account, no matter how the market is going, they will feel secure."

Collect life insurance benefits. If you can't find the life insurance policy and you don't have an agent, go through checkbook registers and canceled checks to see if there were any checks written to an insurance company. For a fee, the MIB Solutions' Policy Locator Service (www.policylocator.com (opens in new tab)) might help you find the application. Your spouse also may have had a group policy through an employer or former employer or professional or fraternal organizations.

When you file a claim, you may have choices regarding how you will receive the money. Read the fine print carefully. In some cases, an insurance company will place your funds into its own money-market funds and send you a checkbook. Turn down this option, and then place the money in a federally insured bank account or a money-market fund. If you're instead considering guaranteed monthly payments for life, seek the advice of your lawyer or financial adviser.

Prepare the estate. Until you meet with your estate lawyer, hold off on placing your spouse's assets in your own name, says Wynne Whitman, an estate lawyer with Schenck, Price, Smith & King, in Florham Park, N.J. If you touch assets in your spouse's name, you'll lose any opportunity to "disclaim" the property -- that is, allowing those assets to go directly to your children or other heirs. If you forgo these assets, they will not count against your federal or state estate-tax exemption when you die.

You have nine months from the date of your spouse's death to file a federal estate-tax return. Some states have earlier deadlines for filing returns for state estate and inheritance taxes.

Whitman suggests that you save all receipts related to the estate, especially if the estate's value is close to or exceeds the estate-tax exemption. "The funeral is a legitimate expense and so is a post-funeral gathering," says Whitman. "You will need every single deduction."

Assuming you had named your spouse to make financial and health-care decisions on your behalf in the event you became incapacitated, you will need to designate a new agent for your financial power of attorney, health-care power of attorney and health-care directive.

Check with the employer. If your spouse was employed at the time of his death, call the benefits administrator to ask about benefits due to you. Besides life insurance, these can include unpaid salary and bonuses, accrued vacation and sick pay, leftover funds in a medical flexible spending account, and stock options.

You'll also need to check on pension benefits. Assuming your spouse was retired and you were both receiving monthly pension benefits in the form of a joint and survivor annuity, notify the plan administrator immediately, says Rebecca Davis, a lawyer with the Pension Rights Center, in Washington, D.C. Depending on the type of annuity you chose, you could be due 50%, 75% or 100% of what both of you were receiving before your spouse died. "If you have a 50% option and the plan keeps paying the 100% benefit, it could expect you to send back the overpayment," says Davis.

If your spouse had a 401(k), it makes the most sense to roll the account into an IRA -- assuming you get the go-ahead from your estate lawyer. If your spouse still had accounts from former employers, consolidate them into one IRA. The custodial firm that holds your IRA can help with the paperwork.

The 401(k)-to-IRA rollover can be dicey. Ask the 401(k) administrator to make a direct transfer to the IRA. If the plan instead sends you a check, get it into the IRA within 60 days. If you miss the 60-day cutoff, the IRS will consider the money to be a withdrawal and you will pay tax on the entire amount.

If you were receiving health coverage under your spouse's employer plan, you may be able to continue on the group plan for 36 months through COBRA coverage. (An employer with fewer than 20 employees is not required to provide COBRA coverage.) Ask the plan administrator if the company will continue picking up the employer's premium subsidy.

Roll over an IRA. If you are the only beneficiary of your spouse's IRA, you can roll the retirement plan into your own IRA tax-free. (There are other steps you must take if you are one of several beneficiaries.) Before doing so, make sure your spouse, if he was 70 1/2 or older, took his required minimum distribution before he died. If he didn't, you must take his RMD by December 31 in the year he died or pay a penalty.

In the following years, after you've rolled the plan into your own IRA, you can skip distributions until you're 70 1/2, allowing the account to grow tax-free. Once you turn 70 1/2, your required distributions will be based on your life expectancy.

It may be wise to forgo a rollover if you're younger than 59 1/2 and need to tap the account. By leaving the account in your spouse's name and remaining as a "beneficiary," you will not pay a 10% penalty on any withdrawals. After you turn 59 1/2, you can roll the account into your own. If your spouse left you a Roth IRA, you can claim the Roth IRA as your own, in which case distributions are never required during your lifetime.

Claim a Social Security benefit. A widow or widower is entitled to a survivor benefit that is equal to 100% of the deceased spouse's benefit, as long as the survivor waits until full retirement age to collect. You can collect a survivor benefit as early as 60, but your benefit will be permanently reduced a bit for each month you claim before your full retirement age. (It's reduced by 28.5% if you claim at 60.)

If you were collecting a spousal benefit, you can "step up" to a survivor benefit. At that point, the spousal benefit will disappear. If you are younger than full retirement age and decide to wait to claim the full survivor benefit, you will stop receiving the spousal benefit. If your husband dies before claiming a benefit, you will be eligible for a survivor benefit equal to the benefit he was entitled to at the time of his death.
July 24 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

Bakkavor, one of the biggest suppliers of ready meals to Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, is exploring plans for a stock market float that could value it at up to 1.5 billion pounds. The top management at Paysafe Group Plc are in line for a 70 million pound shares-based windfall if the payment processor becomes the latest technology company to be sold to foreign bidders. The Guardian

Asda, the British supermarket arm of Wal-Mart Stores Inc , is considering a move for the discount chain B&M European Value Retail SA , in what would be the latest attempt by a major supermarket to diversify in the face of growing competition from cheaper rivals. Liam Fox has conceded Britain is likely to seek a transitional deal until 2022 after leaving the European Union, but said the arrangements should not "drag on" until after the next general election. The Telegraph

Under-pressure mining group Acacia Mining Plc is facing a lawsuit in the UK from relatives of people who died at one of its mine sites. The BBC is planning to take men off radio and television programmes and replace them with women in an attempt to close the gender pay gap. Sky News

The boss of the UK pensions lifeboat, Alan Rubenstein, is to step down early next year after a near-nine-year tenure. Blackstone Group LP has acquired Clarion Events from rival Providence Equity Partners for a deal valued at just under 600 million pounds. The Independent

At least 15 Conservative MPs have reportedly agreed to sign a letter of no confidence in Theresa May. (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Editor's Note: Kitco readers, have your say! Check out our newest feature  KITCO CHAT!  where you can share your comments and ask questions directly to us.

(Kitco News) - Acacia Mining is continuing to struggle in Tanzania, with the government now billing the countrys top gold producer a staggering $190-billion in alleged fines and unpaid taxes from two of its mines.

Tanzania government sent a $40 billion tax bill along with an additional $150 billion in penalties and interest owned, according to a statement released by Acacia on Monday.

The fine allegedly includes under-declared export revenues from Bulyanhulu and Buzwagi mines between 2000 and 2017.

In response, Acacia said that it has been declaring all revenues fully.

As we have stated previously, Acacia refutes each set of findings and re-iterates that it has fully declared all revenues, the company said in a press release. Acacia disputes these assessments. The Company is considering all of its options and rights and will provide a further update in due course.

Following the news, the companys stock once again slumped, closing 21% down at 184.5p in London, hitting the lowest since January 2016.

Overall, the stocks value is down 66% since March, which is when Tanzanian President John Magufuli announced a ban on concentrates exports.

Acacias problems with the Tanzanian government began last year after the company was accused of tax evasion.

The shocking tax bill of $190 billion is also equal to two centuries worth of the gold producers revenue, Bloomberg reported on Monday. To put things into perspective, Acacias total reported revenue for 2016 was just $1.05 billion.

Some other incidents this summer included Acacia's North Mara gold mine being taken over by more than 500 residents from nearby villages at least three times in late-June, as they clashed with police in an attempt to steal gold ore.

At least 66 people were arrested by Tanzanian security forces. More than half of those detained were women, who were reportedly used as human shields, according to Reuters.
PRAGUE, July 24 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Czech financial markets on Monday.

ALL TIMES GMT (Czech Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA==========================

Real-time economic data releases.................... Summary of economic data and forecasts........... Recently released economic data.................. Previous stories on Czech data............. **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: =========================NEWS===================================

S&P: S&P says Czech Republic 'AA-/A-1+' foreign currency and 'AA/A-1+' local currency ratings affirmed; outlook stable.

Story: Related stories: DEBT: The Czech Republic's gross central government debt was steady at 1.789 trillion crowns ($80.09 billion) at the end of June, the Finance Ministry said on Friday.

Story: Related stories: UNIPETROL: Downstream oil group Unipetrol's Q2 net profit rises, boosted by insurance claims.

Story: Related stories: POLAND: oland's upper house of parliament on Saturday approved a Supreme Court overhaul, defying the European Union and critics at home who say the legislation would undermine democratic checks and balances.

Story: Related stories: CEE MARKETS: The zloty fell half a percent on Friday, underperforming the region's other currencies as Poland's standoff with the European Union over a judicial reform bill and anti-government protests at home weighed on local markets.

Story: Related stories: ---------------------- MARKET SNAPSHOT ------------------------ Index/Crown Currency Latest Prev Pct change Pct change

close on day in 2017 vs Euro 26.041 26.027 -0.05 3.58 vs Dollar 22.307 22.349 0.19 13.03 Czech Equities 1,004.19 1,004.19 -0.45 8.96 U.S. Equities 21,580.07 21,611.78 -0.15 9.2 Pvs close or current levels vs prior domestic close at 1500 GMT

======================PRESS DIGEST============================

STEEL: ArcelorMittal Ostrava is putting up for sale a smaller rolling mill that makes products outside its main portfolio, the company said. Polish group Stalprodukt is among those interested.

E15, page 6

(Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy.)

For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX For updates on CEE currencies TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets Prague Newsroom: +420 224 190 477

E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com

(Reporting by Prague Newsroom)
BRUSSELS, July 24 (Reuters) - The European Commission is concerned about new U.S. sanctions on Russia that could impact Europe's energy security and has activated "all diplomatic channels" to resolve the issue.

U.S. Republicans and Democrats reached a deal on legislation to allow new sanctions against Russia, which has led to concerns in Europe of "unintended consequences". "We are following this process with some concern regarding the European Union's energy independence and our energy security interests. We are activating all diplomatic channels to address these concerns from these U.S. measures with our U.S. counterparts," a Commission spokesman told a news conference.

"For us, G7 unity regarding sanctions is of key importance as is respect of the implementation of the Minsk agreement. We in the European Union will have interests in these discussions and we expect those interests to be addressed by the free legislative process which is ongoing in the U.S," the spokesman said.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop)
U.S. should be more involved in settlement of crisis in eastern Ukraine

Washington wants to be more involved in the settlement of a crisis in eastern Ukraine, United States State Department's Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker said.

Volker said at a press conference in Kramatorsk on Sunday that the U.S. saw how this conflict had begun and understood how it had been managed now. He said that this was why it has been very important for the U.S. to get more engaged in the settlement of the crisis in Donbas.

He also said that the U.S. wanted to work out a strategic understanding of this conflict in order to have the opportunity to move further and reinstate Ukraine's sovereignty over the areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions outside Ukrainian government's control.
FRANKFURT, July 24 (Reuters) - Investor cash in the euro zone may be starting to flow back into riskier assets on the bloc's periphery, playing a key part in the recent tightening of bond spreads, a top European Central Bank economist said on Monday.

With investors preferring to keep their cash in safer countries, money had been flowing into the bloc's core members such as Germany and the Netherlands for years. That has created record imbalances in the bloc's Target 2 payment system, a potentially worrisome sign as it may signal stress.

But the ECB has long argued that such imbalances are a simple function of its 2.3 trillion euro asset purchase scheme. It says that since many foreign investors that sell their bonds hold accounts in Germany, the cash lands in Frankfurt even if they sell bonds from Mediterranean countries.

"Why isn't this money circulating back to Italy or to Spain?" Frank Smets, the Director General of the ECB's economic department said in a lecture at the Ifo Institute. "That is a function of what the holders of this new cash want to do and maybe one of the things we're seeing now is that this is starting to happen."

"One of the things that were maybe a bit surprising in the recent repricing of assets is that actually the spreads tightened and it is a reflection of the fact that capitals are flowing into risk assets," said Smets, who is not a policymaker but worked until early this year as ECB President Mario Draghi's top adviser.

The spread between bonds issued by Germany and periphery countries had narrowed in recent weeks, even after comments from Draghi in late June which opened the door to central bank tightening, possibly in the coming months.

The spread in the case of 10-year bonds narrowed by around 40-45 basis points for Italy and Portugal since early June while the gap in the case of Spain shrunk by around 30 basis points.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Catherine Evans)
LONDON, July 24 (Reuters) - The yield on a Greek government bond maturing in 2019 fell on Monday to its lowest level since it was issued three years ago, as Athens prepared to end a three-year exile from financial markets.

Greece on Monday invited holders of its bond maturing in 2019 to tender them for cash or switch into new bond that will mature in 2022. Analysts said the deal was encouraging investors to snap up the existing debt in anticipation of being offered lucrative terms to switch into the new bond. "It is normal that you would see the bond that Greece is looking to buy trading firmly in secondary markets," said Mizuho strategist Peter Chatwell.

"If Greece wants to encourage investors to sell out of the old five-year and buy into the new five-year then it will have to come at a competitive price."

The yield - which moves inversely to price - on the outstanding Greek bond fell as much as 40 basis points to 3.42 percent , its lowest since issue in April 2014.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe; Editing by John Geddie)
* NSE index up 0.52 pct, BSE index 0.66 pct higher

* Reliance Industries hits highest since Jan 2008

By Samantha Kareen Nair

July 24 - India's NSE index rose to a record high on Monday, inching closer to the 10,000 mark, as market heavyweight Reliance Industries Ltd continued to surge on optimism about its outlook for the core business and telecom venture.

The broader NSE index rose as much as 0.54 percent to 9,968.95, surpassing the previous record set a week earlier, while the benchmark BSE index climbed 0.67 percent to an all-time high of 32,242.78.

Reliance was the leading gainer, advancing as much as 2.5 percent to its highest since Jan. 15, 2008, after the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate posted better-than-expected earnings and unveiled a low-cost 4G-enabled phone last week. But indexes could struggle to post stronger gains in the near term as analysts warned investors would likely enter a consolidation phase as more companies report earnings, including HDFC Bank Ltd later in the day.

"The process of consolidation is likely to continue. We will see more stock-specific moves coming through depending on how corporate results unfold," said Gaurang Shah, vice president, Geojit Financial Services.

Among other gainers, Lupin Ltd rose as much as 2.8 percent after the U.S. health regulator cleared inspection of the company's Goa facility with no adverse observations.

Bharti Airtel Ltd gained 1.5 percent, recovering from Friday's 2 percent decline, as analysts said the impact from the unveiling of the JioPhone would not be as bad as initially feared. Meanwhile, strong quarterly results helped lift stocks such as Vijaya Bank and Jammu and Kashmir Bank . Vijaya Bank rose over 2.5 percent while Jammu and Kashmir Bank gained 6.5 percent. (Reporting by Samantha Kareen Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
By Michael Flaherty

July 24 (Reuters) - Rent-A-Center Inc snubbed takeover interest from private equity firms HIG Capital and Lone Star Funds before it turned down an offer of $800 million from buyout firm Vintage Capital this month, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

HIG and Lone Star did not offer a price for the company, but each said it would pay a premium for the business, the sources said. They asked not to be identified because the expressions of interest in an acquisition were not public.

HIG and Lone Star did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Rent-A-Center declined to comment.

(Additional reporting by Lauren Hirsch and Mike Stone; Editing by David Gregorio)
BUCHAREST, July 24 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Monday.

DEBT TENDERS

Romanian debt managers tender 700 million lei ($178.73 million) worth of April 2023 treasury bonds and 1 billion lei ($255.32 million) worth of one-year bills.

OTP/BANCA ROMANEASCA

Hungary's OTP Bank has agreed to buy Romania's Banca Romaneasca from the National Bank of Greece (NBG), two sources with knowledge of the deal told Reuters on Friday, continuing OTP's acquisition drive in central and eastern Europe. NUCLEARELECTRICA

Romania's second nuclear reactor at the Cernavoda power plant on the river Danube was reconnected to the national power grid on Sunday after being offline since Saturday, its owner Nuclearelectrica said. NEIGHBOURS

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that Budapest would defend Poland as the European Union threatens Warsaw with sanctions over its plans to extend government control over its courts. DIGI

Cable and internet provider DIGI Communications N.V. said on Friday that its Hungarian subsidiary has signed an agreement to buy Hungarian telecommunications operator Invitel Tavkozlesi Zrt.

The company will pay 140 million euros, subject to further price adjustments, and the deal could be completed by March 14, 2018.

CEE MARKETS

The zloty fell half a percent on Friday, underperforming the region's other currencies as Poland's standoff with the European Union over a judicial reform bill and anti-government protests at home weighed on local markets. HEALTHCARE SHORTAGES

The Romanian Arges County Hospital has suspended oncology hospitalizations for three months because of a shortages of doctors. Ziarul Financiar

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 = 3.9166 lei)
HANOI, July 24 - 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 0411 GMT.

July 24 USD/VND mid-point 22,429 USD/VND interbank 22,725/22,730 USD/VND unofficial 22,760/22,790 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.20/36.42

Interbank offered rates Overnight 0.0-1.0

1 week 0.7-1.1

1 month 1.8-2.2

3 months 2.8-3.4

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016, the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
The following Spanish stocks may be affected by newspaper reports and other factors on Monday. Reuters has not verified the newspaper reports, and cannot vouch for their accuracy:

UNICAJA Unicaja said on Monday that Morgan Stanley has executed its green-shoe option in full with 62.5 million shares. FAES FARMA Faes Farma said on Monday first half net profit was 21.2 million euros, up from 18.7 million euros a year earlier. ACERINOX Citigrou p cuts to "sell" from "neutral" with a target price of 10.5 euros, down from 14 euros.

SIEMENS GAMESA Siemens Gamesa said on Monday it had been awarded a contract to supply 36, G114-2.1 MW turbines to a wind farm in Mexico. ALMIRALL Almirall reported on Monday a net loss of 73.1 million euros in the first half of the year compared to a profit of 80.5 million euros a year earlier. NATURHOUSE Naturhouse Health said on Friday first half net profit was 13.4 million euros, down slightly from 13.9 million euros a year earlier. BANKIA Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said in an interview published on Sunday in the ABC newspaper that the state is considering selling an around 7 percent stake of the lender after the summer. CORTEFIEL

Private equity firms CVC and PAI said on Friday they had agreed to buy the remaining shares they did not already own in retailer Cortefiel. For today's European market outlook double click on .

For real-time moves on the Spanish blue-chip index IBEX please double click on For IBEX constituent stocks highlight .IBEX in the command box and press the F3 button on your keyboard

For latest news on Spanish stock moves double click For Spanish language market report double click on For latest Eurostocks report please double click on
TAIPEI, July 24 (Reuters) - Taiwan auctioned off T$20 billion ($659.09 million) in 2-year government bonds on Monday at a yield of 0.502 percent, the central bank said in a statement. The auction yield was in line with analysts' expectations. A Reuters poll of 11 bond traders forecast a range of 0.49 percent to 0.53 percent for the issue. ($1 = 30.3450 Taiwan dollars)

(Reporting by Taiwan bureau; Writing by Jess Macy Yu; Editing by Sunil Nair)

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.
Jeff Mason and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, said on Monday he "did not collude" with Russia and had roughly four meetings with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition.

In a written statement released ahead of his scheduled appearance before lawmakers in closed-door sessions, Kushner said his initial security clearance form had been submitted prematurely in error and had omitted all foreign contacts.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," he said.

Kushner faces two days of closed-door questioning from Congress as lawmakers try to determine whether Trump's campaign enlisted Russia's help to win the White House in last year's election.

Kushner is scheduled to address the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday and the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday.

Trump has been dogged by allegations that his campaign aides worked with Russia, which U.S. intelligence agencies have accused of interfering in the election. Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Moscow.

Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. released emails this month that showed Trump Jr. appeared to welcome the prospect of damaging information from the Russian government about Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Members of both committees say they are eager to hear about the June 2016 meeting involving Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Kushner and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort were also at the meeting.

Kushner described it as a waste of time.

"I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.'"

He said no part of the meeting he attended "included anything about the campaign" and he had no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is negotiating with Manafort and Trump Jr. about testifying in a public hearing.

No Secret Back Channel

Kushner will also face questions about reports he tried to set up a secret back channel to Moscow, as well as other contacts with top Russian officials and business leaders.

Kushner said he first met Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in Washington in April 2016 and shook hands. He said he did not recall phone calls with Kislyak between April and November of that year as reported Reuters in May, had found no evidence of the calls in phone records and was skeptical they took place.

In a meeting with Kislyak after the election, on Dec. 1, Kushner said he articulated a desire for the United States to make a fresh start with Russia.

"The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day," he said.

He said the Russian ambassador asked if there was a secure line in Trump's transition office to facilitate a discussion with Russian generals about Syria. There was not.

Kushner suggested arranging something through an existing communications channel at the Russian embassy, but Kislyak indicated that was not possible and they agreed to follow up after the inauguration.

"Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a 'secret back channel.' I did not suggest an ongoing secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office," Kushner said. "I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period. We did not discuss sanctions."

Kushner said he met on Dec. 13 with Sergey Gorkov, the head of Russian state-owned Vnesheconombank, because Kislyak's insistence and because he had a "direct relationship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sanctions imposed by former President Barack Obama's administration were not discussed nor were Kushner's business activities, Kushner said.

"I did not know or have any contact with Mr. Gorkov before that meeting, and I have had no reason to connect with him since," Kushner wrote.

Kushner did not initially disclose any meetings with Russians on forms he filed to get a government security clearance. He has since revised those forms several times.

He said the forms were initially submitted prematurely in error and omitted all foreign contacts he had had, not just those with Russian officials.

Trump said the investigations in Congress and the Justice Department are politically motivated.

In a pair of tweets early Monday morning, the president lashed out at the ongoing investigation, the media and Washington at large. Without giving proof, he said no evidence had been found regarding Russia and said Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer had cast blame on Democrats, not Russia, for the election loss.

"Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer - it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!" Trump wrote, adding: "After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that "Democrats should blame ourselves, not Russia."

In an interview with the Washington Post over the weekend, Schumer said Democrats failed to deliver a strong message during the campaign.

Representatives for Schumer could not be reached immediately for comment.

Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Alison Williams and Jeffrey Benkoe
ANKARA, July 24 (Reuters) - Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek will have oversight of the economy in the new cabinet, a government spokesman said on Monday, a move that is likely to be welcomed by investors. Simsek, a former Wall Street banker, will oversee economic coordination, banks and economic institutions, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told a news conference. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim last week reshuffled his cabinet. Bozdag also said Deputy Prime Minister Fikri Isik would oversee investments.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan)

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.
Electricity was cut at the Donetsk filtration station (DFS) that halted its operation at about 7:20 p.m. on Saturday, the Ukrainian side to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) said.

DFS employees have informed the Ukrainian side to the JCCC about the DFS incident, the press center of the Ukrainian ATO headquarters in Donbas said on its official Facebook page.
* Iron ore stock rose to 140.45 mln, just below June peak

* Steel inventories also build, add to price pressure

(Updates prices)

BEIJING, July 24 (Reuters) - China's iron ore futures fell for a third session on Monday amid increasing concern over surplus supply.

"High inventory has been putting pressure on iron ore prices. Unstable steel prices also helped to curb the margins on raw materials," analysts at Orient Futures wrote in a note.

Stockpiles of imported iron ore at Chinese ports rose by 750,000 tonnes over the last week to 140.45 million tonnes, data from SteelHome consultants showed on Monday, just below a peak of 141.5 million tonnes hit last month that is the highest since at least 2004.

The steelmaking raw material is also piling up at mills. Small- to medium-sized mills are on average holding about 26 days of production, up from 25 days, Orient Futures said.

The most-active iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange closed 0.9 percent lower at 512 yuan ($75.82) a tonne, dipping as low as 502 yuan during the session.

Stocks of rebar , mostly used in construction, added 2.34 million tonnes over the last week to 372.7 million tonnes, according to the SteelHome data.

The most-traded steel rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange gained 0.29 percent to 3,516 yuan a tonne.

The rise follows a two-day fall of nearly 4 percent at the end of last week as buyer cashed in over concerns about surplus supply.

Spot rebar prices also reflected the supply concerns, losing 0.4 percent on Friday to 3,929.83 yuan a tonne, according to Mysteel data.

($1 = 6.7527 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Muyu Xu and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Tom Hogue)
* H1 profits fall 55 percent

* Could return to paying dividends in 2018

* Shares fall more than 3 percent

(Updates with dividends)

By Tanisha Heiberg

JOHANNESBURG, July 24 (Reuters) - South African miner Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) reported on Monday a 55 percent drop in first-half profits on lower sales, a stronger rand and tax impairments and said it is unlikely to pay a dividend this year. Its shares fell more than 3 percent after the results announcement. Amplats, the world's largest producer of the precious metal and a unit of Anglo American , has not paid a dividend since 2011, and would need to ensure its cash generation is stable in order to pay consistent dividends, Chief Executive Chris Griffith said.

Griffith said the company hoped to issue a dividend in its 2018 financial year.

Investors have been keen to know when Amplats will return to paying dividends.

"I don't think we would be likely to see a dividend in 2017," Griffith's told Reuters on the sidelines of the company's interim results presentation.

"What we don't want to do is issue a dividend then find out the price is a bit worse then we don't issue a dividend again."

The platinum producers headline earnings per share (HEPS), the main profit measure in South Africa that strips out certain one-off items, fell to 285 cents for the six months ended 30 June from a restated 629 cents per share in the previous period.

"The lower earnings were as a direct result of lower sales volume from mined production and a weaker basket price compared to H1 2016," the company said in a statement.

Amplats said post-tax impairments of 2.2 billion rand ($170 million) also impacted its earnings.

Its shares were trading 2.65 percent weaker at 303.65 rand at around 1000 GMT. ($1 = 12.9142 rand)

(Additional reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by James Macharia and Susan Thomas)
(Adds details)

ANKARA, July 24 (Reuters) - Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek will have oversight of the economy in the new cabinet, a government spokesman said on Monday, a move that is likely to be welcomed by investors.

The former Wall Street banker will oversee economic coordination, banks and economic institutions, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told a news conference.

Simsek, widely respected by investors, was the only one of five deputy prime ministers to retain his post after Prime Minister Binali Yildirim reshuffled the cabinet last week.

In the previous cabinet Simsek shared some economic responsibilities with Nurettin Canikli, who had oversight of commercial lenders and capital markets. Canikli was made defence minister.

Bozdag, who will function as the government spokesman in the new cabinet, also said that Deputy Prime Minister Fikri Isik would oversee investments. It was not immediately clear whether that would overlap with Simsek's remit.

Simsek, who has also worked in London, is seen as a rare anchor of investor confidence in a cabinet filled with politicians who favour borrowing to spur growth rather than focusing on saving and investor-friendly reform.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan)
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One Ukrainian soldier injured due to 14 shelling attacks by militants in ATO zone over past 24 hours

Ukrainian army positions in Donbas have come under fire 14 times in the past 24 hours, the ATO press service said on its Facebook page on Monday morning.

"One Ukrainian serviceman has been wounded," the report says.

In the Luhansk sector, the militants twice shelled Krymske, Novo-Oleksandrivka from grenade launchers and mortars, the infantry fighting vehicle was used to attack Novozvanivka.

In the Donetsk sector, the enemy fired at the strongholds of the ATO forces near Kamyanka and at Butovka mine using grenade launchers.

In the Mariupol sector, the militants used grenade launchers and small arms on Ukrainian defenders in the Maryinka area. In addition, the houses of civilians came under the grenade launcher fire.

"The Ukrainian military quickly opened fire in response to most of the provocations of the enemy," the headquarters said.
The Russian Federation has increased its military presence on the border with Ukraine by three motorized rifle divisions, the press service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on its Facebook page on Sunday.

"The organizational and staff structure, armament and military equipment that is coming to strengthen its Armed Forces, indicates that these Russian divisions are striking forces in its essence and designed to conduct rapid offensive actions," chief of the General Staff  the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Viktor Muzhenko said.
Jennyanydots in a scene from the musical "Cats" / Courtesy of Clip Service



By Kwon Mee-yoo

It's the same cats  glamorous Grizabella, popular as a rock star Rum Tum Tugger, reliable Munkustrap and sparkly and witty Mr. Mistoffelees. But they are all renewed.

An updated version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical theater classic "Cats" arrived at the Haeoreum Theater of the National Theater of Korea in Seoul, mesmerizing theatergoers with its timeless charm.

Based on T. S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," the musical premiered in 1981 in London and has been performed across the globe, in more than 20 languages.

While the show's basics of telling the tales of various cats remain the same, there were a few attempts to keep the musical fresh by its original composer Lloyd Webber, director Trevor Nunn and choreographer Gillian Lynne.

The 2017 Korean production is the beginning of the show's Asia tour, combining tweaks from the 2014 West End revival and 2016 Broadway revival.

"Cats" is a guaranteed box-office hit in Korea. The show was staged twice in Korean by Korean actors in 2008 and 2011, but the English language productions have always been much more popular. Probably in Korea, the foreignness of the feline creatures goes well with the international production performed in English. Audiences also love to hear the famous "Memory" sung in its original language.

While the other actors seem to focus on dancing more than singing, Laura Emmitt playing the glamour cat Grizabella and Brad Little playing the Jellicle leader Old Deuteronomy take on the roles of pleasing audiences' ears.





Laura Emmitt as the glamour cat Grizabella / Courtesy of Clip Service

Emmitt, who understudied roles such as Eva Peron in "Evita" and Elphaba in "Wicked," belts out the musical's showstopper "Memory" in a breathtaking way. Her character Grizabella also has become younger, with less wrinkles and a lighter costume.

Little who is well-known for playing Phantom in "The Phantom of the Opera," convincingly portrays the troupe's attentive leader with a deep, full voice.

Rum Tum Tugger, played by Will Richardson, was reborn in a rapping, contemporary street cat in the 2014 London production, but the Korean producer Seol & Company chose to stick with the traditional rock star style of the beloved character. Rugger's makeup and costume is sleeker, but his signature mane remains to draw the attention of the female cats and audience alike.

The electric magician cat Mistoffelees got a new, more sparkly black and white costume as well as new lines. In the previous production, the cat did not sing but only danced, but in the new production, the cat sings "Magical Mister Mistoffelees," a song introducing his conjuring tricks.

The "Growltiger's Last Stand," performed by Gus the theater cat reminiscing his heyday, got a major makeover into a smoky jazz number. The Italian opera aria he sang with Griddelbone was also replaced by a ballad.

Tabby cat Jennyanydots and her troupe received a whole new choreography in their tap dancing with more cats joining the line dance, making the scene even grander.

"Cats" provides a rare experience of pure fantasy that only exists in the theater. As they enter the theater, the audience will be transported into the world of the Jellicle Cats where the stage is scaled for the cats and the feline friends popping up here and there on and off the stage.

Those who want to encounter more with the cat characters can choose the Jellicle seats, located in the orchestra pit and along the aisles. During the show and the interval, the cats come out and play with the audience _ beware of mischief makers.

"Cats" runs through Sept. 10. The show is performed in English with Korean subtitles. Tickets cost from 60,000 won to 150,000 won. For more information, visit www.musicalcats.co.kr or call 1577-3363.


By Lee Hyo-sik

Cheong Wa Dae's short notice of a meeting between President Moon Jae-in and business tycoons has baffled corporate officials as they don't have enough time to prepare for it.

The presidential office said Sunday that Moon will meet with the leaders of the country's top 15 business groups Thursday and Friday, and ask them to create more jobs and share growth with small firms.

The corporations on the invitation list are Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG, Lotte, POSCO, GS, Hanwha, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Shinsegae, KT, Doosan, Hanjin, CJ and Ottogi.

But the problem is the announcement was made only four days ahead of the meeting, catching the 15 businesses off guard.

They say they need at least two weeks prior notice to adjust their leaders' schedules, complaining that Cheong Wa Dae should have consulted with them about the schedule and agenda.

The presidential office also didn't give prior notice to or consult with the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), which has been trying to organize the meeting.

After hosting a gathering of CEOs from 15 groups on July 11, the KCCI made a formal request that Moon meet with business leaders in the near future.

"Neither Cheong Wa Dae nor the KCCI notified us in advance about the President's meeting with business leaders later this week," said an executive at one of the country's top four business groups, who declined to be named. "We are bewildered by the presidential office's unilateral notice."

"Our group chairman runs on an extremely tight schedule," the executive said. "We need to know when the meeting with the President will be held at least two weeks in advance. Given such short notice, we are not sure whether the chairman will be able to go to Cheong Wa Dae or not."

An official at one of the top four conglomerates said the group hasn't heard anything from the presidential office or the KCCI regarding the upcoming meeting.

"We found out about the meeting via Cheong Wa Dae's press briefing," the official said. "We haven't been consulted by anyone. It feels like businesses must follow orders from the presidential office. As in the past, the upcoming meeting will likely be one-sided, with the President telling business leaders what to do."

The KCCI also appears puzzled by Cheong Wa Dae's handling of the matter, saying it faces an extremely tight schedule.

"It is unfortunate that we have only three days to prepare for the biggest event of the year," a KCCI executive said. "We are rushing to set the meeting agenda and finalize the list of attendees. As soon as we heard the news, we began coordinating with the 15 groups for the upcoming meeting. We want the chairman of each group to show up at Cheong Wa Dae, but if that's not possible, we would like to have the CEOs instead."

According to the KCCI, Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo, LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won are expected to attend the gathering, while Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun will meet with President Moon because group heir Lee Jae-yong is currently standing trial.
By Yoon Ja-young



The trade ministry has suggested holding talks on the U.S.-initiated renegotiations over the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) in Seoul soon after government restructuring is completed.



In a letter sent to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Paik Un-gyu said that the Seoul government is aware of Washington's concerns over its trade deficit in goods with Korea.



He stated that Korea is "willing to engage in constructive discussions on ways to foster an expanded and balanced bilateral economic and trade relationship."



Following U.S. President Donald Trump's continuous pressure that the bilateral deal should be renegotiated to lessen his country's trade deficit with Korea, the USTR requested convening "a special joint committee meeting under the KORUS FTA to start the process of negotiations to remove barriers to U.S. trade and consider needed amendments to the agreement."



Paik said Korea agreed to hold the joint committee in accordance with the due procedures set forth in the deal.



According to KORUS FTA Article 22-4, "the special session of the joint committee shall convene within 30 days of the request of a party unless both sides agree otherwise, with such sessions to be held in the territory of the other party or at such location as the parties may agree on."



While the USTR suggested that the meeting take place in Washington next month, Paik pointed out that the Korean government is still in the process of restructuring, which is to include the establishment of a Trade Office within his ministry, and the appointment of a new minister for trade, who will co-chair the joint committee.



"Under these circumstances, I suggest that the special session of the joint committee be convened at an appropriate date in the near future after the restructuring process is finalized."



Regarding the venue, Paik proposed that it be held in Seoul.



"I believe that Seoul should be given first consideration, as stipulated in the KORUS FTA."



He also suggested that the joint committee discuss how to objectively examine, analyze and assess the effects of the KORUS FTA since its enforcement, so that both sides will have "a common understanding of the issues and the effects of the KORUS FTA on overall bilateral trade."



He stressed that the KORUS FTA has struck a balance of interests, generating mutually beneficial outcomes in terms of bilateral trade, investment and employment since it went into force. According to an analysis by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the bilateral agreement actually helped the United States decrease its deficit with Korea by $15.8 billion in 2015.




By Nam Hyun-woo



Ottogi shares rose sharply Monday, after President Moon Jae-in invited the owner of the medium-sized food products maker to a meeting with executives from top conglomerates.



The stock closed at 799,000 up 7.25 percent from the previous session. It made a surprising start at 890,000 won, up 18 percent from Friday, and soon stabilized at around 800,000 won throughout the day.



The rise apparently was affected by Moon's invitation to the meeting a day earlier.



Cheong Wa Dae said it would call the leaders of top 14 conglomerates, including Samsung, Hyundai Motor, LG, Lotte, POSCO and Hanwha, to two meetings on Thursday and Friday this week. Ottogi was included.



In terms of business size, Ottogi is no match for the 14 conglomerates. According to Fair Trade Commission data, Samsung's assets surpassed 363 trillion won this May, while those of Ottogi stood at around 1.65 trillion won.



Moon seems to have sent the "special invitation" in recognition of Ottogi's business practices, which experts say are in line with those of the President.



The left-leaning President has promised to reduce irregular workers, protect ordinary people and has warned about unfair activities of conglomerates.



According to the Financial Supervisory Service, only 36 of Ottogi 3,099 employees were irregular workers as of March.



Unlike its rival food product makers, it has not raised the price of its ramyeon, or instant noodles, since 2008, in a belief that higher prices will be a burden for consumers.



Ottogi Chairman Ham Young-joon also plans to pay 150 billion won in inheritance taxes after taking control of the company. This contrasts with other conglomerates, which have been criticized for trying to dodge taxes.



In particular, chicken product company Harim came under fire for paying only 10 billion won in gift taxes for the 10 trillion won company.



Analysts said such a favorable reputation would help Ottogi improve its profitability.



"The invitation will improve its corporate reputation and consumer preferences," said IBK Securities analyst Kim Tae-hyun. "And it will save marketing costs and eventually lead to improved profitability."



Buoyed by the company's reputation, the market share of Ottogi's ramyeon has been improving this year.



According to Nielsen Korea, Ottogi's share of the domestic ramyeon market improved to 25.2 percent in May, up from 20.5 percent in 2015. During the period, the market share of business bellwether Nongshim dropped from 61.4 percent to 49.4 percent.



Observers say Ottogi's surge is attributable not only to the declining popularity of Nongshim ramyeons but also to Ottogi's decision to freeze prices.




Gangcheonsan County Park in Sunchang-gun, North Jeolla Province, will host a special event next month where visitors can enjoy light shows.

All visitors can enjoy three themed light shows at the park, between Aug. 11 and Aug. 20. Entrance costs 3000 won ($2.70). In the Beongpung Waterfall Media Facade zone, LED lights will be projected onto a 40-meter high waterfall and streams, while in the Canvass Interactive Art zone, visitors will paint pictures onto stone walls with lights. In the Teepee Tent zone, visitors can enjoy augmented reality games at eight installed teepees, tents formerly used by Native Americans.

Various other events, such as a Tarot card reading in the forest and glow-in-the-dark face painting, will also take place.
Royal seal of Queen Munjeong of the Joseon Dynasty / Korea Times file



Former Buddhist monk, lawmaker blast ex-President



By Park Jae-hyuk

Former President Park Geun-hye could have secured the return of two ancient royal seals, looted during the Korean War (1950-53), back to Korea during her visit to the United States in 2015, but did not do so for dubious reasons, those familiar with the issue said Monday.

According to Buddhist monk Hye Moon, Park could have received the seals, which date from the 16th and 17th centuries. One of the seals was made in 1547 to honor Queen Munjeong (1501-1565), the third wife of Joseon Dynasty's 11th king, Jungjong.

But Park, who was impeached due to the corruption scandal involving her close aide Choi Soon-sil, did not bring the seals back during her term.

The U.S. government returned the seals only after her successor Moon Jae-in visited the United States last month.

"The U.S. asked Korea's prosecutor general to make an official request for the seals because they were looted," said Hye Moon, who spearheaded efforts to repatriate the seals. "Former prosecutor Kim Jin-tae did so to gain U.S. approval.

"Park did not try to get the seals for unknown reasons although the U.S. was willing to return them. I suspect then-secretary Woo Byung-woo played a role in this. Woo was said to be at odds with former prosecutor general Kim. Hence, Woo might not have wanted the latter to gain credit for the seals."

Woo was former senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, a position that practically controls the prosecution. There were reports that his relationship with Kim, who is senior to Woo, was not good.

When contacted, the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) rebuffed the claim.

"The two seals were seized in 2013 but related litigation lasted through 2016," said an official of the government agency. "So it was impossible to get them back in 2015."

Hye Moon claimed the government did not put forth enough effort.

"Things were similar for the nine items, which former U.S. President Barack Obama brought here in 2014," Hye Moon said. "The government then put forth efforts to speed up the process for the items; but this time it did nothing to get the two seals back, and I don't know why."

Hye Moon is famous for starting a campaign to convince the United States to return nine stolen Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) seals in early 2014.

The nine are comprised of three state seals, which Joseon kings used on diplomatic and other important documents, and six ceremonial seals that royal families used in rituals.

Rep. An Min-suk, a four-term lawmaker with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, joined forces with Hye Moon to spearhead a campaign to retrieve the two seals at issue.

"It is well known that Park hated me so much because I raised suspicions involving her and Choi for the first time in April 2014," An said. "No doubt she would not have wanted to give me credit for the two seals. As far as I know, the government was reluctant to get them back."
A photo taken on Nov. 27, 2016 shows the Yanggakdo International Hotel in Pyongyang, where U.S. student Otto Warmbier was alleged to have removed a political poster from staff quarters. Warmbier who was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years in prison with hard labor in North Korea, died June 19, days after returning to the United States. / AFP-Yonhap



By Jane Han

DALLAS  Amid the possibility of a ban prohibiting all Americans from traveling to North Korea, a prominent political scientist and North Korea expert claims such a measure is an ill-advised idea that will penalize the basic human rights of Americans.

"What can we achieve from a travel ban?" Dr. Han Park, director and professor emeritus of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia, said in an interview with The Korea Times. "It is simply taking away the American people's basic human rights to travel and go wherever they want to go."

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has suggested the possibility of a travel ban to North Korea following the death of Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American student who died shortly after being released back to the U.S. in a coma from a North Korean prison camp.

Warmbier was detained in the North Korea for 17 months for trying to steal a propaganda poster at the end of his five-day tour in Pyongyang.

"It's true Warmbier's case has produced a strong level of anger here, but that doesn't mean it should penalize Americans and take away their inherent right to travel the world," said Park, who is well-known for negotiating the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American journalists who had been detained by North Korea while filming a documentary along the China-North Korea border in 2009.

The exact cause of Warmbier's death is unknown, but US doctors have said he suffered extensive loss of brain tissue.
By Ko Dong-hwan





Ja Song-nam / Korea Times file

The United States government deliberately delayed extending the visa of the North Korean envoy to the United Nations, possibly out of malice toward the rogue state, according to a Japanese news report.

The U.S. government, which manages visa extension affairs for the U.N. in New York, extended Ja Song-nam's visa on July 14.

The day before, Ja complained at an unofficial meeting at the U.N. about the U.S. government having delayed extending his visa since he applied for an extension in March. His visa expired in May.

Ja told Japanese news agency Kyodo the U.S. government "didn't provide a single explanation why the process took so long." He said he saw the delay as "an act of aggression."

Ja has been North Korea's permanent representative to the U.N. since February 2014.












By Kim Se-jeong



In the wake of a famous North Korean defector's return home, police are tracking down 900 defectors whose whereabouts in Korea are unclear.



The National Policy Agency said it instructed intelligence officers to step up their efforts to prevent defectors from going back.



More than 30,000 from the North are currently living in the South.



On July 9, Im Ji-hyun, a defector who was well-known in the South, appeared in a propaganda video on Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean website, claiming she was back home after an inhumane life in the South that was mired by materialism.



"I wanted to make money and worked hard at bars in the South," she said in the video. "But in South Korea, money was everything and that took a heavy mental and physical toll on my well-being."



The police are investigating motives for her re-entry to the North. While some claimed the North Korean regime might have kidnapped her from China, others alleged she was a North Korean spy.



Back in South Korea, Im appeared regularly in a cable television show.



Im's incident raised a red flag above the police agency's defector monitoring program.



Arriving in the South, defectors are sent to Hanawon, an adjustment training facility.



After leaving such facilities, defectors are paired with police officers who look after and monitor them. But in reality, communication is rare unless the defector had a good background in the North or is famous. The police's intelligence unit has limited resources, and so monitors defectors selectively.



Im isn't the only defector to have returned home. Authorities said 25 have done so since December 2011 when Kim Jong-un gripped power.



Some argued the dictator Kim is using returned defectors to create chaos in the South, using deception to lure defectors back to the North, if necessary.



A case in point is Kang, a man whose full name was not disclosed. He first defected to the South in March 2015. He went back to the North with the assistance of the North Korean regime last year. He afterwards appeared on television, slamming the South and glorifying the North. However, he arrived back in the South in May. Kang is currently in police custody and under interrogation. In South Korea, visiting North Korea is a crime.












Russian special officer of Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian General Staff Evgeniy Erofeyev, who was captured in Donbas in 2015 and returned in a prisoner swap for Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko in 2016, was killed shortly after he returned to Russia, according to Russian serviceman Viktor Ageyev, who is under arrest in Donbas.

"Have you heard what happened to GRU Erofeyev after he returned? They took him out. They killed him. I know this for a fact. Everyone is talking about this, here, there, on that side. Everyone knows they took him out. Because he said too much," Ageyev said in an interview with Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper published on Sunday.

Asked whether the incident was raised in order to scare him, Ageyev responded, "No. They wouldn't have started to talk about it. I am sure, although I am not sure of anything. I just want them to get me out of here."

As earlier reported, Russian serviceman Evgeniy Erofeyev and Aleksandr Aleksandrov were captured by Ukrainian soldier on May 16, 2015 near Schastia in Luhansk region while attempting to seize a strategic bridge after a skirmish with Ukrainian soldiers. As a result of the fighting, one Ukrainian soldier died.

Ukrainian soldiers on June 24, 2017 near Zholobok in Slavianoserbsky district, Luhansk region battled a militant reconnaissance group. They took four militants prisoner, including Ageyev, who is a contract soldier in the Russian armed forces.

Head of Ukraine's SBU Security Service Vasyl Hrytsak has said Ageyev's activities in Ukraine qualify as terrorism.

According to media reports, Ageyev's mother has travelled to Ukraine to meet with her son.
Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon pays his respects at the memorial altar for Kim Kun-ja, a former sex slave of the Japanese military during World War II, at CHA Bundang Medical Center, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. Kim died Sunday at the age of 91. On Facebook, President Moon Jae-in wished for Kim to rest in peace, saying, "Kim, a strong survivor and brave witness." Moon met Kim at a shelter for former comfort women Dec. 31, 2015, a day after the then-Park Geun-hye administration reached a settlement deal on the issue with Japan, which many of the victims opposed. / Yonhap
Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) founder Park Gi-tae, center, poses with Korean language teachers from around the world after his special lecture on Korean history at the global campus of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. / Courtesy of VANK



By Yoon Sung-won



Koreans must be just as proactive about promoting Korea's history as they are about running global businesses, Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) founder Park Gi-tae said Monday.



Park said that Korea must make extra effort to let the world know the independent history of the Korean people and their achievements.



"Korean people have created unique cultural content such as hangul, a scientific alphabet system made independently of China's influence," he said. "Likewise, our history should be better known globally, not just as a sideline to the histories of China and Japan. At VANK, we produce content that properly introduces Korea's history."



VANK recently published 56,000 postcards that promote Dokdo and independence activists during the Japanese colonial era, including Ahn Jung-geun, Ahn Chang-ho, Kim Koo, Yun Bong-gil and Yu Kwan-sun.



Dokdo is the name for Korea's easternmost islets. Japan also claims sovereignty over the volcanic outcroppings.

The postcards include photos of independence activists along with information about their lives. The information includes both their deeds and famous sayings written in Korean and in English.



Park said the civic group produced the postcards to educate young people both in Korea and around the world about Korean history.



"History textbooks in foreign countries introduce independence activists such as India's Gandhi, South Africa's Mandela and France's de Gaulle," he said. "But Korea's independence fighters remain unknown in overseas countries even though they have many heroic stories to tell. At VANK, we hope the postcards will be used as history education material in the same way that many foreign countries issue banknotes bearing the faces of their independence activists."



Born in 1974, Park majored in Japanese at Seokyeong University and studied theology at Torch Trinity Graduate University. He started a civic movement to promote Korea's history in 1999 and became the head of a full-fledged non-governmental organization in 2001.



Park and members of the civic group have worked to correct mistakes in historical publications worldwide. For instance, they persuaded National Geographic Magazine to add "East Sea" beside "Sea of Japan" in its maps in 2001.



Park called greater public interest in Korea's history.



"While Japan is continuing to spread a distorted version of history, we have been sluggish to respond," Park said. "We were slow to promote the value of our history, including our willpower to resist colonial rule."



On Monday, Park delivered a special lecture on Korea's history to 140 Korean language teachers from around the world.



"After the lecture, I handed out the postcards we made at VANK," he said. "The teachers promised to use them as educational materials in their classes."
By Yi Whan-woo



The Ministry of National Defense will hold working-level talks with Ethiopia and Uganda beginning on Tuesday, military officials here said Monday.



This will be South Korea's first working level defense dialogue with the two African countries.



The talks will take place as a follow-up to a memorandum of understanding that Korea signed with Ethiopia and Uganda last year to bolster their military partnerships.



Led by Brig. Gen. Park Chul-kyun, the deputy director general for international policy at the defense ministry, the Seoul delegates embarked on a seven-day trip to Africa, Sunday.



They will meet the Ethiopian representatives headed by Desta Abiche, who is in charge of the Ethiopian defense ministry's international cooperation, today.



"The two sides are scheduled to discuss cooperation against North Korea's nuclear and ballistic threats," a South Korean military official said. "They will also share thoughts on bilateral military exchanges and U.N. peacekeeping operations."



The South Korean delegation will head to Uganda afterwards.



Park is scheduled to meet with David Muhoozi, the chief of the country's Defense Forces, Thursday.



The topics to be included in their dialogue are international countermeasures against North Korea, bilateral military exchanges and cooperation between the countries' defense industries.



The delegates will return home, Saturday.



"We expect the working-level dialogues will help reaffirm our friendship with the two African countries and seek practical measures on military cooperation," the official said.



Ethiopia was among the U.N. coalition forces that fought alongside South Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War.



A close ally of North Korea in Africa, Uganda agreed to cut all military and police ties with the Kim Jong-un regime in May 2016 during a summit between then-President Park Geun-hye and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.








The prosecution's investigation into Korea Aerospace Industries' corruption allegations in military aircraft development is expected to be expanded to other major projects conducted under the former Park Geun-hye government, including the purchase of Lockheed Martin F-35s and the KF-X program to develop indigenous fighter jets. Former National Security Office chief Kim Kwan-jin, left, Park's longtime friend Choi Soon-sil, center, and Park herself have been mentioned as key figures involved. / Graphic by Cho Sang-won



By Jun Ji-hye

State prosecutors are investigating former Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) President and CEO Ha Sung-yong and former Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) chief Chang Myoung-jin over allegations of corruption and dereliction of duty, respectively, in a set of major defense projects.

But not many people seem to believe that the ongoing investigation would be summed up as an investigation into simple corruption and graft cases involving the two figures appointed by former President Park Geun-hye, who was removed from office in March over a massive corruption scandal.

Rather, it is widely seen as the beginning of an investigation into controversial defense projects pushed for by the Park government, including a 7.3 trillion won ($6.48 billion) F-X project and an 8.5 trillion won KF-X project.

In March 2014, under the F-X project, the nation decided to buy 40 F-35 stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin as the Republic of Korea Air Force's next-generation fighters. Meanwhile, the KF-X project is designed to develop 4.5-generation indigenous fighters by 2026 to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of F-4s and F-5s.

Those who have been mentioned as key figures in the projects included Kim Kwan-jin, former National Security Office (NSO) chief, Choi Soon-sil, Park's longtime friend who was at the center of the political scandal and subsequently arrested, and Park herself.

The investigation into the former KAI and DAPA heads has begun under the leadership of Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office chief Yoon Seok-youl, who was appointed by President Moon Jae-in in May.

Ha is suspected of pocketing billions of won in illicit gains, while the nation's sole aircraft maker inflated expenses for developing military aircraft, including the Surion utility helicopters and T-50 jet trainers. Chang is suspected of neglecting his duty of supervising KAI, as his administration allowed the firm to resume delivery of the Surion choppers despite a series of defects, including engine problems.

Yoon was one of the main prosecutors for the independent counsel's investigation into the scandal involving the former president. Earlier, Yoon was demoted by the Park administration for conducting the stern investigation into allegations that the National Intelligence Service intervened in the 2012 presidential election to help Park win the presidential election over then-opposition candidate Moon.

Yoon's appointment apparently reflected the Moon government's willingness to eradicate corruption and push for reform.

The expectation for the investigation to expand to larger projects and higher-level figures was fueled by the sheer number _ more than 100 _ of prosecution personnel who have been mobilized for the ongoing probe.

The F-X project was one of the most controversial defense projects pushed for by the Park administration. The Defense Acquisition Program Executive Committee's 2014 decision to choose Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters provoked controversy, as the DAPA initially recommended Boeing's F15-SE as the nation's next generation fighters.

At the time, former NSO chief Kim Kwan-jin served as defense minister and the head of the committee. While making such a controversial decision, Kim told his aides, "We need to make a political decision," according to Rep. An Min-suk of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).

Critics construed Kim's mention of "a political decision" as pressure from the former president.

The decision later caused more enormous controversy, as it was belatedly known that the nation failed to receive four core F-35-related technologies from Lockheed Martin, which are necessary to carry out the KF-X project to develop indigenous fighters.

The nation originally planned to receive technologies related to active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, infrared search and track (IRST), electronic optics targeting pod (EOTGP) and RF jammer from the U.S. defense giant in return for the purchase of the F-35s. But the plan floundered after the U.S. government did not allow the firm to transfer the technologies for security reasons.

Following that hitch, the DAPA said it would develop such technologies domestically, but since then, questions have been consistently raised over why the committee rejected the F-15SE, even though Boeing was more positive in handing over core technologies.

Adding to the controversy was the alleged intervention of Park's friend Choi in the decision-making in the F-X project.

Rep. An alleged late last year that Choi may have illicitly helped Lockheed Martin receive business favors from the Park government and received a commission in return.

The U.S. defense corporation denied this allegation at the time, saying it has never received business favors from the Park government with the help of Choi.

An also identified Linda Kim as a key person who could lead to the truth behind the allegations. Kim was an influential arms lobbyist until the early 2000s and may have been friends with Choi.

On July 18, Rep. Hong Ihk-pyo of the DPK said, "There have been a number of suspicions over the Park government's decision to change the model for the nation's next generation fighters from Boeing's F-15SE to Lockheed Martin's F-35. Thorough investigations are surely necessary." He also stated that the KF-X project should be examined again.
By Jun Ji-hye



The Ministry of National Defense is moving to reform its commands in charge of counter-espionage and cyber security as part of measures to achieve President Moon Jae-in's goal of building robust national defense through reform, sources said Monday.



The ministry has been preparing reform measures for the Defense Security Command (DSC) and the Cyber Command since new Defense Minister Song Young-moo took office, July 14, they noted.



During his inauguration ceremony, Song vowed to build "new armed forces" through reform in line with President Moon's pledge.



The DSC has been criticized for excessively monitoring individual soldiers under the guise of information gathering. The command has also faced suspicions several times that it monitored not only soldiers but also civilians. In 2011, it was suspected of attempting to hack a university professor's emails.



The Cyber Command was embroiled in controversy over allegations that it meddled in the 2012 presidential election by posting online comments supporting then-ruling party candidate Park Geun-hye and criticizing then-opposition party candidate Moon. At the time, the command claimed such activities were part of its psychological operations.



"Reform measures will likely include those to enhance the political neutrality of the DSC and the Cyber Command, and to prevent them from collecting information that can be seen as excessive surveillance of individuals," a source said, asking not to be named.



Amid the reform drive, expectations are growing that a DSC department in charge of collecting information on military personnel and other affairs could be reduced or even removed.



The DSC is comprised of three departments. The other two are in charge of managing security work regarding the defense industry and conducting counter-espionage, respectively.



Speculation is also growing that an Air Force general or a Marine Corps general could be appointed as the DSC commander as part of efforts to accelerate reform. The post has been dominated by Army generals.



To reform the Cyber Command, the ministry is considering adjusting the functions and personnel of the psychological operations group, or even removing the group. Instead, measures to enhance the command's original role to protect the military from hacking attempts will be introduced, the source added.



In a similar move, June 1, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) chief Suh Hoon ordered the "immediate and complete" abolition of the spy agency's domestic intelligence operations right after being inaugurated.



Following the order, the NIS stopped all activities of officers gathering information on government ministries, organizations and agencies, as well as media companies.



Such a move came as the spy agency has long been suspected of meddling in domestic politics and elections, including the 2012 presidential election in which the NIS allegedly conducted a smear campaign by posting online comments favorable to Park and negative to Moon.




Army sergeant, who went on a shooting rampage at a base in Goseong, Gangwon Province, leaving military court after his first hearing on Sept. 18, 2014. / Yonhap



By Lee Han-soo

The recent suicide of a conscript in 22 Infantry Division has again put the spotlight on the division's cycle of suicides because of alleged bullying.

The private first class jumped to his death on July 19 during a visit to the Armed Forces Capital Hospital.

In a suicide note, he said that every moment of his life had been agony. He apologized to his mother for his actions.

There has been a public outcry since Military Human Rights Korea (MHRK) claimed that the infantry division knew about the bullying, but did little to stop the soldier from killing himself.

"The army had known about the bullying through a distress counsel with the private first class on July 14," MHRK said in a press release. "However, the military did not take sufficient action, such as separating the soldier from his attackers."

After the press release, the Korean literature department of Hongik University, the soldier's alma mater, demanded a thorough investigation.

It is not the first time the 22nd Infantry Division has been the focus of tragedy.

A soldier hanged himself from a tree after he returned from his five-day leave in January.

His parents claimed he resorted to extreme measures after his superiors bullied him.

In 2014, a sergeant, surnamed Lim, went on a shooting rampage at a base in Goseong, Gangwon Province, leaving people five dead and seven wounded.

Kim then fled and tried to shoot himself with an assault rifle but was captured two days later.

Lim claimed that he went on the rampage because of severe bullying.

A military court sentenced him to death in February, and the military appellate court confirmed the sentence.
By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo



A Mongolian man severely injured his girlfriend in a frenzied knife attack in Seoul, police said Monday.

The woman was stabbed several times in the chest, neck and back. Police arrested the man at the scene and he will be charged with attempted murder.

According to police, the attack took place at the woman's home, where the two --both Mongolians -- lived in Bugahyeon at 12:40 a.m. on Saturday. The woman told police the man attacked her after she shouted at him to get out.

The reason for the quarrel is unknown.
Mun Moo-il, the nominee for the country's next prosecutor general, purses his lips during a confirmation hearing at the National Assembly, Monday. / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho

The National Assembly endorsed Mun Moo-il as prosecutor general after heated discussions on reform of the prosecution during his confirmation hearing Monday.

The quick confirmation seemed to take many by surprise.

Mun's view on the prosecution was adamant all along: the prosecution will not change unless it is forced to.

While answering questions from lawmakers, Mun said prosecutors should not give up any of the powers they have, claiming they were necessary to better serve the people.

Mun expressed opposition to key parts of President Moon Jae-in's sweeping reform plan for the prosecution which has lost public trust over the years.

He voiced an objection to the government's plan to allow police officers to have more investigative powers while prosecutors retain the power to indict suspects.

"Prosecutors need to be able to investigate some cases directly," Mun said. "Nevertheless, I also believe prosecutors investigate too many cases directly. I will come up with a system to solve the problem."

Another key pledge of President Moon was to set up an independent body that can investigate and indict suspects so that prosecutors will not be able to "pick and choose" cases to fit their tastes. It is also about preventing the prosecution from going easy on criminal cases involving prosecutors.

Mun avoided answering questions about the need for such an institution, saying, "We can find a better system." But in a written reply he submitted to the National Assembly, he noted making such an institution can be viewed as unconstitutional because it may violate the people's basic rights.

Asked about his views on the prosecution's exclusive power to request warrants from courts, Mun again refused to give a clear answer, saying "Korea's warrant system needs to change to a certain extent, but it is difficult to give you one, clear solution for its problems."

The prosecution's political neutrality is the only thing he clearly promised during the hearing in response to opposition lawmakers' questions.

His ambiguity and lack of willingness to reform the prosecution is already drawing extensive criticism. Many say he does not seem to be the right person to spearhead the tough mission.

But political parties have not revealed their opinions about the nominee yet.

Korean prosecutors exercise boundless discretion in making crucial decisions, including how to investigate cases themselves or by directing police, whether criminal charges should be filed and what the charges should be, without having their powers checked.

Reforming the prosecution was one of the key pledges in the Moon government's five-year plan, which was announced last week.
By Choi Ha-young

More than eight of 10 Koreans back President Moon Jae-in's idea of increasing taxes on the rich, according to a survey released Monday.

The Realmeter poll showed 85.6 percent of respondents said they support a tax hike on the rich. Only 10 percent were against it, giving the liberal President momentum to push for tax reform.

"There will be no tax hike for the middle class and small- and medium-sized businesses. This policy will last for my five-year term," Moon said, Friday.

He echoed the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Chairwoman Choo Mi-ae's call to raise taxes on the "super rich"  a 25 percent corporate tax rate for companies that have more than 200 billion won ($ 179 million) in revenue, and a 42 percent income tax rate for individuals who earn over 500 million won annually.












By Kim Hyo-jin

The Moon Jae-in administration and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) are speeding up their plan to levy higher taxes on top conglomerates and super-rich individuals.

"We should speed up revising the tax system including the normalization of corporate tax and tax hikes on the super-rich," Rep. Woo Won-shik, the DPK floor leader, said Monday during a meeting between party leaders and government officials.

"We should do our utmost to correct the distorted taxation put in place during the previous conservative governments by designing careful policies."

With the party spurring the tax on the wealthy, Strategy and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said the government will finalize a tax revision plan within a month, backing the government's determination for a swift overhaul.

"Discussions on key economic policies will be in focus for the next one month," Kim said. "The government plans to announce its direction for state management, draw up a tax revision plan and finish the allocation of the budget next month."

Party leaders and economic officials will discuss the revision including corporate and income taxes in a meeting scheduled for Thursday, according to DPK chief policymaker Kim Tae-nyeon.

Talks on tax hikes gained traction after Choo proposed them during a meeting on national fiscal strategy held at Cheong Wa Dae and presided over by President Moon Jae-in last Thursday.

Choo demanded the government increase taxes on businesses earning over 200 billion won ($178.2 million) to 25 percent, and up the current 40 percent rate on individual taxpayers who earn 500 million won ($448,000) a year to 42 percent.












One soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was wounded in the Anti-Terrorist operation (ATO) area in the east of Ukraine on July 23, Defense Ministry's spokesman Andriy Lysenko said.

"There are no casualties for the past 24 hours. One Ukrainian soldier was injured as a result of the enemy shelling. This happened in Maryinka," Lysenko said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.
Ad hoc committee to be launched today; decision due in Oct.



By Ko Dong-hwan





The fate of two reactors at the Shin Kori Nuclear Power Plant in the southeastern city of Ulsan is critical for the country because it will set the tone of the administration's energy policy.

President Moon Jae-in is pushing to deliver on his campaign promise to phase out nuclear power plants. The state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) has suspended work on the two reactors for three months  following a presidential order  fueling debate over the propriety and legitimacy of the decision.

The government will launch a nine-member review committee today, which will hear public opinions over the next three months.

The committee will select jurors from among ordinary citizens who will make a final call on whether the construction is permanently halted. It will make the decision by the end of October.

At a roundtable discussion that The Korea Times hosted last week, experts showed a stark difference in views about the safety of the No. 5 and 6 reactors.

Pro-nuclear experts said the three-month deliberation period was "absolutely not enough," while anti-nuclear experts said the time was sufficient.

Regardless, they agreed that the decision would be a watershed for Korea's energy industry.

"The reactors, if completed, will be the most up-to-date version of the third-generation type, equipped with intensive safety features," said Kyung Hee University engineering professor Whang Joo-ho in Yongin.

"I cannot understand why they shut them down despite such technological breakthroughs."

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute senior research adviser Chang Moon-hee said the reactors' safety had been thoroughly vetted.

"The risks of accidents in 10 reactors concentrated in Ulsan and Busan, including Shin Kori No. 5 and 6, have been assessed by Korea's Nuclear Safety and Security Commission," Chang said.

"No. 5 and 6 are APR1400, the same as the United Arab Emirates' Barakah reactors that Korea built after beating France and Japan in stringent safety tests overseen by America's Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

But their opponents said that no matter how good the reactors may be, their concentration in southeastern port cities was dangerously high.

Seoul National University professor of environmental and energy policy Yun Sun-jin said having 10 reactors next to more than 4 million people was "unprecedented in international cases."












By Kim Se-jeong



An appeals court in Seoul ruled in favor of a bisexual asylum seeker, Sunday, recognizing her as a refugee.



The court viewed the asylum seeker's fear of persecution in Uganda, her home country, as legitimate. A lower court turned down her request earlier.



"We view that with her sexual identity, it would be difficult for her to carry on her daily routine anywhere in Uganda," according to the court ruling quoted by a local daily.



"Knowing her sexual identity, the government in Uganda is likely to press criminal charges against her. If the fear of persecution affects your freedom, it can already be persecution."



The ruling came almost 10 days after the highest court in Korea ruled against an Egyptian asylum seeker who claimed his homosexuality could endanger his life, if sent back home.



In Uganda, homosexuality is illegal. According to the 2014 law, homosexual, bisexual and transgendered men and women can be sentenced to death. Under mounting pressure, the country's Constitutional Court challenged the law, but it did little to dilute the anti-homosexual sentiment in the African country.



The woman in the spotlight, whose name was undisclosed, 28, fled Uganda in February 2014 and filed for refugee status in Korea two months later.



She said her bisexuality was denounced by her mother who reported her to the police. She said she had been detained by the police because of her sexual identity and raped by police officers.



Her two interviews with refugee officers were unsuccessful. She filed for a special round of interviews with the Ministry of Justice, which also turned her down saying her fear for persecution wasn't sufficient. The Seoul Administrative Court also ruled against her, citing the same reason.




























By Dirgha Raj Joshi





With improving economic conditions, Asian nations are spending a lot of resources in hopes of winning Nobel prizes, but they will need more than cash to realize their ambitions.

The major part of South Korea's scientific development strategy was created in 1999 as the "21st Century Frontier R&D Program," and launched as part of a national plan called the "Long-term Vision for Science and Technology Development Toward 2025."

The current National R&D Programs are the 21st Century Frontier R&D Program, the Creative Research Initiative (CRI), the National Research Laboratory (NRL), the Biotechnology Development Program, the Nanotechnology Development Program, and the Space Technology Development Program.

After the successful setup of a prototype of a xion detector in Daejeon, a major experiment is slowly taking shape. One day it might answer a major mystery about the Universe by detecting a particle called the xion _ a possible component of dark matter. If it succeeds, it will have the potential to rewrite physics and win its designers a Nobel prize.

The government is spending heavily to achieve this goal. In 1999, it allocated 2.07 percent of GDP, which reached 4.29 percent in 2014, surpassing runner-up Israel (at 4.11 percent), as well as regional competitors Japan and the United States. The government aims to increase its investment to 5% of GDP in 2017.

As of 2014 most of the R&D money came from industry (75 percent), government (23 percent) and others (2 percent). South Korea has one of the world's highest proportions of researchers, 12.84 researchers per 1,000 as of 2013. Also, it is a world leader in patent applications, filing 4,590.92 domestic and foreign patent applications per million people, compared to Japan (3,659.4), Germany (2,226.93), U.S. (16,611.2) and China (617.29) at same period.

South Korea has doubled its academic publications in scientific journals since 2005. Figures released in 2014 by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) show that nearly 70 percent of South Koreans who were awarded PhDs in the United States from 2008 to 11 planned to stay there. The government cannot stop this directly so it needs to think of working hours, stress, pay and other benefits within Korea.

As an international student and a researcher from Nepal, I would like to request all concerned bodies including the government to re-think the current situation and improve it. Graduate education should be made free and support given to graduate students for their living expenses because they are totally focused on research that will be a great asset for the country as well as for the betterment of the world. A minimum of 30 percent of international student admission should be made compulsory at all universities. Respective cooperative research labs should be established in diverse fields such as the Korea-Nepal Research Laboratory on Hydropower/Health/Agriculture. Korean scholars and researchers will no longer be only Korean but will be multicultural and take their place rivaling the best research efforts in the world.





Dirgha Raj Joshi is a teaching and research assistant in MS Pharmacy (medicinal chemistry) at Wonkwang University in North Jeolla Province. Write to djmeropaila121@gmail.com.
By Frank Ching





The disputed Sino-Indian border, long a source of intermittent clashes, is once again the focus of a confrontation that sees Chinese and Indian troops facing off, this time in an area claimed by Bhutan.

Interestingly, China's territorial claim to the contested area rests on an 1890 treaty, the Convention between Great Britain and China Relating to Sikkim and Tibet. At the time, Sikkim was a British protectorate and India was a British colony. Today, Sikkim is part of an independent India. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge and yet China pins its claim on this relatively ancient treaty.

The latest conflict began after a PLA construction party entered the Doklam area and attempted to upgrade or extend a dirt road. An Indian account of the incident said: "It is our understanding that a Royal Bhutan Army patrol attempted to dissuade them from this unilateral activity." This was followed by the intervention of Indian troops, triggering a stand-off between Chinese and Indian troops, the first time on territory not claimed by India.

According to China, "the area where the construction activities are underway is totally under the jurisdiction of China because it is completely located on the Chinese side of the China-Bhutan customary line." China demands the withdrawal of Indian troops.

On June 30, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman asserted that "the boundary convention signed in 1890 explicitly stipulates that Mount Gipmochi is the junction of China, India and Bhutan, and Doklam is situated on the Chinese side of the China-India and China-Bhutan boundaries."

It is interesting that China should put so much emphasis on this 1890 treaty, especially since, on the same day, the foreign ministry spokesman referred to another treaty with Britain, the Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong, signed in 1984, as a "historical document that no longer has any realistic meaning."

The Chinese announcement was made despite the fact that the Joint Declaration spells out policies regarding Hong Kong for 50 years beyond 1997 and says, "The Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the People's Republic of China agree to implement the preceding declarations and the Annexes to this Joint Declaration."

So, on one hand, a treaty that is meant to run at least until 2047 is already irrelevant, while one signed in 1890, when the world was very different, is still binding. China is picking carefully  and unilaterally  which treaties it considers relevant.

Actually, the 1890 treaty is by no means clear. While the treaty says that the line between Sikkim and Tibet "commences at Mount Gipmochi on the Bhutan frontier," it also says that the boundary "shall be the crest of the mountain range separating the waters" that flow southward into Sikkim and northward into Tibet.

Unfortunately for China, Mount Gipmochi is not at "the crest of the mountain range separating the waters." That location, it turns out, is Batang La.

M.Taylor Fravel, an expert on China's border issues, explained the problem. "The convention contains a contradiction that allows each side to claim it supports its own position," he said. "Article 1 states that the border begins at Mount Gimpochi, roughly 3 km south of the Chinese road and the western point of the Jampheri Ridge. Article 1 also states that the boundary will follow the watershed. Unfortunately, however, Mount Gimpochi is not the start of the watershed, and the convention did not explain how to square this circle."

"Sometime between 1907 and 1913," he said, "Britain published a map of the area showing the border starting at Batang La, 6 km north of Mount Gimpochi, effectively changing the terms of the convention."

So, if Gimpochi is the starting point, Doklam is in China but if Batang La is the real starting point, then Doklam is in Bhutan and China has no right to build a road there.

India says that it reached agreement with China in 2012 that "the tri-junction boundary points between India, China and third countries will be finalized in consultation with the concerned countries." China is silent on this agreement.

But this is excellent moment for the two countries to consult Bhutan on the tri-junction boundary point. Bhutan needs to act on its own behalf rather than relying on India. Other countries, very much including Britain, should speak up.

Once Bhutan decides to talk to China directly, the world will see this as a David versus Goliath situation, with puny Bhutan resisting a domineering neighbor used to getting its way. This is a better scenario than a faceoff between two giants.





Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based journalist. Contact frank.ching@gmail.com.
Seoul should be bold in ending truce



South Korea has started an effort to establish a peace structure on the Korean Peninsula.



The heart of this effort is to have North Korea freeze its nuclear programs by 2020, the fourth year of President Moon Jae-in's five-year term, a precondition for talks for a peace treaty to replace the current truce.



As shown by its choice of words _ peace structure rather than peace treaty _Seoul is very cagey. First of all, it is not the party in the 64-year-old truce signed by the U.S., North Korea and China. The South stayed away when then President Syngman Rhee insisted on unification. Also making Seoul negative is Pyongyang's tactic of making any possible discussion of it a matter between it and Washington, excluding the South.



Seoul would be the most affected by a change in the status quo and thereby should be given priority in determining how it will come about. The North's nuclear weapons pose the greatest threat to the South. If Pyongyang decides to open up, Seoul would pick up the biggest tab for economic assistance. That means that a peace treaty can't be complete without the participation of the South.



President Moon Jae-in should be bolder in boosting Korea's role. He made a good start with his inter-Korean peace initiative in Germany earlier this month by proposing a summit with the North's leader Kim Jong-un to discuss the replacement of the word truce, among other things.



Moon gained consent from U.S. President Donald Trump about Korea playing the leading role in fostering the conditions that could lead to unification and in defending itself. For that purpose, the two leaders confirmed Seoul's prompt takeover of wartime control of its troops from the U.S., which, when effected, would significantly raise its responsibility for its own defense.



Trump should match his promise with actions, letting it be known that Korea is a leader in the peace talks with the North and that Seoul's position reflects that of Washington. Of course, it doesn't mean precluding a U.S. effort for talks on peace with the North, as long as its stance is closely coordinated with Seoul.



This way, the parties concerned will most likely get what they want _ Seoul would get lasting peace; the U.S. would see a neutralized threat from a nuclear attack by the North; China would have stability on its western regions; and the North would be assured of no regime change.



For this process to begin, the first domino should fall. The North is getting ever closer to gaining reliable nuclear weapons and systems to deliver them over a long distance to the U.S. The window of opportunity is narrowing, meaning that Moon should be extra ambitious.




Korea International Trade Association Chairman Kim In-ho, center, poses with POSCO Daewoo CEO Kim Young-sang, left, and COEX CEO Byun Bo-kyung, after signing a business cooperation agreement at the Trade Tower in southern Seoul, Friday. The three companies agreed to jointly foster the meetings, incentives, conventions and events (MICE) industry and help small exporters make inroads into foreign markets. / Courtesy of POSCO Daewoo
LG Chem employees test a reverse osmosis filter at the company's plant in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province. / ourtesy of LG Chem



LG Chem has set its sights on joining the pantheon of the world's top five chemical firms by 2025 with a massive investment and enhanced business portfolio.

The Seoul-based company believes that such efforts will help prepare itself for the looming Fourth Industrial Revolution that is expected to introduce sweeping changes in the industry.

First, the nation's leading chemical company plans to invest 2.76 trillion won ($2.46 billion) to boost its competitiveness in existing businesses and nurture new cash cows this year. The amount is up 40 percent from the previous year. In addition, it is set to spend a record 1 trillion won for research.

LG Chem's key businesses are in basic materials and chemicals; energy solutions; IT and Electronics materials; advanced materials and life sciences.

By sector, it plans to advance the business portfolio, centered on high-value products, including elastomers, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and engineering plastics, in the field of basic materials and chemicals to continuously boost its competiveness in the global market.

In that respect, LG plans to increase elastomer production to 290,000 tons by 2018 _ the world's third-largest volume by company. Plus, it started running a production facility with an annual capacity of 400 tons of carbon nanotubes in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province. It invested 25 billion won in the plant.

The company is mapping out a plan to continuously secure deals pertaining to third-generation electric vehicles with a range of more than 500 kilometers behind pre-emptive research that will help it gain the upper hand in prices and capabilities.

In terms of energy storage systems and other batteries, LG Chem plans to focus on expanding its presence in newly emerging markets and improve profitability with differentiated and cost-effective products.

The world's largest manufacturer of large-sized polarizers, LG has continued to expand its production lines in the emerging Chinese market.

In addition, it has also gained traction in the global water resource management market after winning a supply deal with Oman for water treatment filters in June 2016. It came with another contract to provide reverse osmosis filters for desalination plants in Egypt in June of 2017 _ the largest of its kind in the North African country.

When it comes to life sciences, the company is focused on three key businesses: metabolic disease, biomedicine and vaccines and seeks to beef up its relevant overseas businesses as part of its efforts to fully nurture its life sciences sector.

Setting energy, water and bio as future growth engines, LG will invest 1 trillion won in relevant research, with a plan to increase the investment by 10 percent every year.

The company announced last week that its second-quarter operating profit advanced 18.7 percent from the previous to 727 billion won thanks to steady demand for its key products _ particularly basic materials. Its sales also rose 22.3 percent to 6.38 trillion won over the cited period.

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Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine deputy Maksym Poliakov (People's Front Party faction) was supposed to report to the Cherkasy regional police station to be fitted with an electronic bracelet. The MP, however, failed to appear, as agreed, National Police of Ukraine spokesman Yaroslav Trakalo told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

"Police and agents from the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) waited for him from 11.00 until 14.00 on Saturday at the regional police precinct, but he failed to come," Trakalo said.

Poliakov, meanwhile, said on Monday in an interview with the 112.Ukraine TV channel that no one had attempted to put a bracelet on him.

"No one has tried to put a bracelet on me, or a collar," the MP said, adding that he has no plans to hide from investigators.

Poliakov said he would post UAH 300,000 bail.

Poliakov is suspected of violating Part 4 of Article 368 (illegal profiteering) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

NABU agents guided by the agents from the Special Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) on June 19, 2017 detained seven persons involved in extorting and receiving unlawful profits using a foreign company to carry out amber mining in Ukraine.

Detectives determined the arrested individuals, acting in the interests of MPs Poliakov and Borys Rozenblat, received more than $300,000 in bribes from representatives of the foreign company in order to draft a law on amber mining in favor of the foreign company and submit it to parliament for adoption.

Head of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) Yuriy Lutsenko on June 21 provided parliament with a letter requesting stripping immunity from the deputies and allowing their arrest. The Rada did so on July 11.

On July 21 Kyiv's Solomiansky District Court remanded Poliakov into pretrial custody, setting bail at UAH 304,000, in addition to setting several requirements. The court also obliged the MP to wear an electronic monitoring device and forbade him from leaving Kyiv and Uman (Cherkasy region) without permission of investigators, prosecutors or the court, as well as to turn over his foreign passports.

The pretrial conditions are in effect until August 19.
During Normandy Four talks (Ukraine, Germany, France and Russia) held on Monday by telephone Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called on the Russian side to immediately end aggression and to stop supplying weapons to the occupied territories.

"Ukraine's president said the past several days of July were some of the bloodiest in 2017 and called on Russia to immediately end aggressive actions and supplies of weapons to the occupied territories," Poroshenko's press service said.

The interlocutors noted the importance of a full ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and separation of opposing forces with the 24/7 monitoring of the situation carried out by the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The Normandy Four leaders listened during the talks to briefings by SMM Chief Monitor Ertugrul Apakan and his deputy Alexander Hug.

"Poroshenko noted the importance of introducing to Donbas a United Nations peacemaker mission. He repeated that the release of hostages is being blocked by the Russian side. Ukraine demands the immediate release of all hostages, as well as those being held in Russia, including Oleh Sentsov and Roman Suschenko," the press release says.

The sides agreed to set final steps for ensuring security and to continue work on the so-called Road Map for implementing the Minsk agreements.

The talks lasted about two hours.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called his first telephone conversations in the Normandy format for settling the situation in Donbas "a direct dialogue for concrete actions."

"Direct dialogue for concrete actions. The joint work of Berlin, Paris, Moscow and Kyiv on the Ukrainian crisis reaffirmed," the French president wrote on Twitter after a telephone conversation between the heads of state of the Normandy Four countries.
On Tuesday, July 26, at 13.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference entitled "Case of 22 Fighters of the 51st Separate Mechanized Brigade: Three Years of Struggle for Truth." The event is timed to the 3rd anniversary of the events in Sector D on the Russian-Ukrainian border, where on July 25, 2014, after ten days being encircled and fired at, without weapons and equipment, without waiting for decisions from the military command, fighters of the 51st Perekopsk-Kharkiv Prague-Volhyn Separate Mechanized Brigade made a decision to independently leave the encirclement and were taken prisoner, after which they were forcibly taken to the territory of Russia. The participants will include defense lawyer, moderator of the event Serhiy Hryshko, defense lawyers Olena Yarkina and Oleksandr Olenchenko, defendant, former serviceman of the 72nd Brigade Oleh Musiyenko, defendant, former serviceman of the 51st Brigade Yuriy Shyts (8/5a Reitarska Street). Accreditation is required by phone: (044) 390 2283, hmaraantonina@gmail.com.
Your Excellency Julie Bishop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia,

His Excellency Bryce Hutchesson, High Commissioner of Australia,

Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure I extend a warm welcome to Hon. Julie Bishop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia to Sri Lanka. The visit is significant, since it coincides with the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and Australia.

The people to people links are the bedrock of the bilateral relations between Sri Lanka and Australia. The presence of over 150,000 Australians of Sri Lankan origin has provided a human bridge between the two countries.

The year of 70th Anniversary of our diplomatic relations have generated a new momentum in our longstanding relations with a series of recent high level visits. H.E. President Maithripala Sirisena undertook a State visit and Hon. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe undertook an official visit to Australia this year. The fruitful outcomes of these visits would serve as a roadmap for our cooperation in the years ahead.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and I just concluded productive discussions on ways and means of further enhancing our bilateral cooperation in areas of mutual interest, including economic partnership, development cooperation, combating people smuggling, education and skill development, tourism, reconciliation and the role by Overseas Sri Lankans in the development of Sri Lanka. We also discussed on regional security challenges including maritime security as well as cooperation in the multilateral fora.

Sri Lankas economic ties with Australia have now transformed itself into a dynamic partnership due to growing trade, investment, and new business interests. I extend an invitation to Australian investors to take full advantage of Sri Lanka transforming itself into an important and viable logistical hub in the East-West maritime arc.

I expressed my deep appreciation for Australian development assistance received for several decades including under the Colombo Plan. Sri Lanka is also thankful for the opportunities awarded for post graduate studies to Sri Lankan public officials through Australia Awards which is coming under the purview of Hon. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. We also discussed on enhancing cooperation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training to empower younger Sri Lankans.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and I discussed on promotion of tourism between the two countries. I welcomed Australias assistance in the planning and development of the Sri Lanka tourism industry. We explored opportunities to collaborate in promoting eco-tourism and community based tourism. I am pleased to inform that Sri Lankan airlines will commence its operations to Melbourne with effect from October winter 2017.

I take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop for her keen interest in reaching out to Sri Lankan Australians and encouraging them to work with the Government of Sri Lanka towards common objectives. Sri Lanka continues to encourage overseas Sri Lankans to contribute to Sri Lankas economic development. Strengthening of the Sri Lankan economy and inclusive growth are important factors for ensuring long-term peace, stability, and non-recurrence of conflict.

It is a happy coincidence that Foreign Minister of Singapore Vivian Balakrishnan and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop are visiting Sri Lanka at the same time. I am glad to inform that we have made use of this opportunity to meet together tomorrow to discuss on issues of common interest.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will pay courtesy calls on President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe tomorrow.

Sri Lanka values the longstanding friendship and cooperation with Australia. I am confident that the visit of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will further enhance our warm and friendly relations and serve as a catalyst to expand our partnership in multifaceted areas in the years ahead.

I wish Minister Julie Bishop and her delegation a very pleasant stay in Sri Lanka.

Thank you.

Coutesy : www.mfa.gov.lk
Export of travel goods from Sri Lanka will enjoy duty free entry to the United States following a decision by the United States administration to approve the inclusion of travel goods from all GSP beneficiary countries, including Sri Lanka, in the expanded US General System of Preferences (GSP) scheme on July 1, 2017. This would enable the duty-free entry of products such as bags, wallets and backpacks in to the US market after being previously charged 6 to 20 percent of tariff.

Following this concession, Sri Lankas travel goods exports to the United States will have the potential to regain the market share previously enjoyed by Sri Lanka by making the country among top 10 suppliers to the US market, once again. The inclusion of travel goods in the GSP is expected to help US travel goods brands and retailers to broaden sourcing options for these products.

Production of travel goods in Sri Lanka continues to remain as Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) industry, which provides livelihood to a considerable number of men and women at the grassroots level and this development wouldbolster the local manufacturing industry and investments in this industry. It would also lead to the creation of new jobs in the travel goods manufacturing sector in Sri Lanka.

US companies having a manufacturing plant in Sri Lanka in the travel goods industry could also export the finished product not only to the US market under zero duty but could also export to the EU under EU GSPPlus, India and Pakistan under the respective Free Trade Agreements as well.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Colombo

19th July 2017
Why should a voter in Butte County, deep in the northern part of the state, have a say in how Los Angeles County is governed?

Common sense says no. Residents of largely rural Butte County are happy they dont have to deal with problems of L.A. County. It doesnt make sense for these people, or those in Californias other counties, to tell us how we should run our affairs. Or does it?

Thats the issue with a proposed constitutional amendment by Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) edging its way through the legislature, having already passed two committees. It would, through a statewide vote, add two members to the five-member Los Angeles County board of supervisors and create a new office, county chief executive. It would apply to counties with 5 million or more residents, and Los Angeles is the only one that fits the description. There are other laws on the books written this manner.

Ive been in favor of expanding the board for years. County voters have consistently turned down the idea.

The Los Angeles board is unreflective of the countys population. As Alan Clayton, a reapportionment expert and Latino activist, told Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times, Latinos, with 48 percent of the countys almost 10 million residents, have only one supervisor, Hilda Solis. Board chairman Mark Ridley Thomas is African American. Janice Hahn, Kathryn Barger and Sheila Kuehl are white. Clayton and others have fought for a redistricting plan that would help elect another Latino and hopefully an Asian American but have always been defeated by incumbent supervisors who dont want to dilute their considerable power.

The idea of a county chief executive, also rejected by county voters in the past, is worthwhile. A single executive, setting priorities in a budget and appointing department heads and commissioners, would be a big improvement over the current opaque system where the five supervisors, isolated on the top floor of the Civic Center county building, make deals and set priorities among themselves in an opaque way. I want someone in charge, not five supervisors who hide from responsibility and blame.

But theres certain sneakiness about the plan, and voters should question the motives of the sponsors. Creation of two more supervisorial seats would open up two more elected offices for politicians who, because of term limits, are always looking for a new job. And a county mayor would be one of the most visible and powerful elected offices in the statea stepping stone to the governors office and who knows what else.

Another sneaky aspect of the proposal by Mendoza is the statewide vote. He and his supporters know Los Angeles County voters might again turn down board expansion and the county mayor, fearing the cost and too much government.

Backers of the plan would rather put it on a statewide ballot; give it a confusing title: get their legislative contributors to finance an expensive, simplistic, misleading campaign; and sneak their plan into law. I can see the promo ads now: Clean Up Government, Vote Yes on Measure 12. Thats why the voters in Butte County might vote yes on something that is none of their business.
PRESS RELEASE

De-Escalation Agreement Signed for Syrias East Ghouta Region

July 22, 2017 (EIRNS)The Russian Defense Ministry announced today that agreements on a functioning de-escalation zone for the East Ghouta region of Damascus province in Syria, have been concluded, after talks between the Russian military and Syrian opposition groups in Cairo, Egypt.

"The documents fix borders of the de-escalation zone, locations and authorities of the forces observing the de-escalation, as well as routes for delivery of humanitarian aid and for free movement of the civilians,"

the ministry said in a statement. "The first humanitarian convoy to the de-escalation zone and evacuation of the injured are due within days."

In Damascus, the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces announced a cessation of hostilities for a number of areas of Eastern Ghouta, which was to have taken effect at noon, today, local time.
PRESS RELEASE

Congressional McCarthyites Win on Anti-Russia Bill Trump Opposes

July 23, 2017 (EIRNS)Most members of Congress have again bought the British intelligence and media "talking point," rejected by the American people, that Russia is a major adversary planning harm to the United States. House and Senate leaders have reportedly agreed on a new version of the anti-Iran/Russia sanctions bill, adding to it new financial sanctions on North Korea which previously passed the House as a separate bill. The House is to vote July 25, the Senate sometime this week.

President Trump and, publicly, Secretary of State Tillerson have opposed these war-sanctions aimed squarely against the progress for peace being made by cooperation between Trump and Russian President Putin. The New York Times gloated Sunday,

"Now, Mr. Trump could soon face a decision he hoped to avoid: veto the billa move that would fuel accusations that he is doing the bidding of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russiaor sign legislation imposing sanctions his administration has opposed."

Democratic McCarthyite Sen. Ben Cardin lied, "A nearly united Congress is poised to send President Putin a clear message on behalf of the American people and our allies."

Both the American people and our non-British European allies oppose the sanctions. The European Commission immediately issued a statement reflecting German opposition in particular.

"We are concerned the measures discussed in the U.S. Congress could have unintended consequences, not only when it comes to Transatlantic/G7 unity, but also on EU economic and energy security interests,"

it said. "This impact could be potentially wide and indiscriminate, including when it comes to energy sources diversification efforts," the statement goes on. It argues that "sanctions are most effective when theyre coordinated but that unilateral measures undermine that effectiveness."

Presidential Press Secretary Sarah Sanders indicated Sunday that the President would likely sign the bill, though that is to be seen. The newly negotiated bill originates in the House, lets Congress block any lifting of sanctions within 30 daysthough providing that the Senate must be first to do sobut removes the prohibition of oil companies deals with Russia, and delays some of the sanctions.
"Bill Graham and the Rock and Roll Revolution" Review - The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center Reveals an Expansive Life

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center brings a pivotal era of rock music history to life with its new exhibition, Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution, which 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 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 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.

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 the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Cente Webs

EXHIBITION-RELATED PROGRAMS:

MEET THE PHOTOGRAPHER

The Rolling Stone Years

August 17, 6:30  8:00 pm music industrys most important figures

Baron Wolman was Rolling Stones Chief Photographer when the magazine was first published 50 years ago. View his iconic photos as he talks about his memorable encounters with Bill Graham and the rock stars of the time.

A book signing of The Rolling Stone Years follows the presentation.

FILM & DISCUSSION

The Last Waltz

September 10, 2:00  3:30 pm

This Martin Scorsese documentary captures the final concert of the Canadian-American musical group The Band in a star-studded farewell performance at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, November 25, 1976. Music legends including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, and Muddy Waters are featured in the film. A post-screening discussion with Columbia College faculty Ron Falzone and Rami Gabriel will take place.

FAMILY PROGRAM

Posters that Rock!

September 24, 11:00 am  2:00 pm

Kids and adults alike will work together to screen print a rock poster with Jay Ryan, a poster maker and musician who will also share how current rock concert poster design ideas come to life.

Recommended for ages 8+.

HISTORY OF ROCK & SOUL

Music for Social Change

October 1, 2:00  3:30 pm

From rock to soul to rap, music has the power to become the soundtrack of social change. Join National Radio Hall of Fame inductee Terri Hemmert as she spotlights musicians who have responded to social issues through their music.

SURVIVOR TALK: EDITH SCHUMER

Sunday, October 8 | 12:30 pm

Edith was born in Stockstadt, Germany, in 1925. Like Bill Graham, the subject of the Museums rock & roll exhibition, Edith was one of the 1,000 children, a group of approximately 1,400 German Jewish children who were allowed to come unaccompanied to the United States via an organized rescue effort that occurred nine months prior to the start of World War II.

Edith eventually settled in Chicago. Her daughter, Fern, has published several books based on her mothers experience including Motherland: Beyond the Holocaust.

AUDIO TOUR

Listen as Bill talks about his life, from being a hidden child of the Holocaust, to his early days in upstate New York, to the full breadth of his career. Download the link at the Museums website and/or bring a pair of headphones to the exhibition to hear Bills story in his own words.

Take an electrifying trip through the 1960s-1980s and learn about the extraordinary life and career of rock impresario Bill Graham, the Holocaust refugee who promoted countless music legendsincluding The Grateful Dead, Santana, and Jimi Hendrixand produced humanitarian concerts such as "Live Aid" to raise the consciousness of the world.

For more information, go to illinois holocaust museum website
As Senate Republicans rush pell-mell toward a Tuesday vote on an Obamacare repeal bill that most, if not all, still havent seen, a new study examines one of the givebacks the GOP leadership has offered anti-repeal senators to bring them on board.

The sweetener is a $200-billion fund for the 31 states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, to be paid out starting in 2022. Since the GOP bill would eliminate the Medicaid expansion, the ostensible idea is to help them cushion health insurance costs for those states and their Medicaid enrollees forced to transition to the ACAs individual insurance exchanges.

Few objective analysts think the $200 billion fund would provide much of a cushion, since the measure published by the Senate GOP  known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act  would cut more than $700 billion out of federal Medicaid funding over 10 years. But the new study, released Monday by the Urban Institute, finds that the $200 billion would cover those transition costs for barely two years.

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Your money or your life is not a choice.  Insurance expert David Anderson

That would still leave the former Medicaid enrollees, who are among Americas lowest-income households, on the hook for higher insurance costs.

Even as the cushion runs out, the Urban Institute observes, the loss of federal dollars devoted to the Medicaid program would be permanent. That would present states with a sheaf of unpalatable options, including cutting Medicaid benefits or throwing more people out of the program.

The finding underscores the quandary faced by repeal advocates in the Senate Republican leadership. Several GOP senators from Medicaid expansion states, including Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia have said they wont vote for a repeal measure that slices so deeply into the expansion. Others, including Dean Heller of Nevada and Rob Portman of Ohio, are under intense pressure from the Republican governors of their home states to resist the cuts.

That forced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to drop from the repeal bill two long-cherished tax cuts for the wealthy, in part to provide funds for the $200-billion sweetener. (McConnell also may have been responding to the awful optics of slashing healthcare for the poor in order to provide tax cuts for the rich.)

McConnell has said that a procedural vote on the Better Care Reconciliation Act will be held Tuesday, despite mounting problems with the bill. Among other problems, the Senate parliamentarian ruled last week that many of its provisions are subject to a filibuster, which means theyd require 60 votes to pass. Since Republicans have only 52 votes in the chamber  counting that of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is out indefinitely following brain surgery  those provisions are clearly dead. They include defunding of Planned Parenthood and other provisions aimed at keeping extreme conservatives on board.

In analyzing the $200-billion giveback fund, health insurance experts at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips earlier raised significant questions about whether sufficient BCRA pool and waiver funding could be patched together to provide in all 31 expansion states a broad-based coverage solution that is comparable in benefits and affordability to coverage under the ACA. The Urban Institute paper answers those questions with a resounding no.

The paper estimates that the higher premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs likely to result from the BCRA would drive 90% of the people covered by Medicaid expansion  12 million out of the 13.3 million covered  clear out of the insurance market. Among other things, the repeal measure would result in a $13,000 deductible per person in a benchmark ACA plan by 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Since Medicaid expansion covers people earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $16,640, a deductible equivalent to nearly 80% of income is tantamount to no insurance at all, and almost no one would buy it. As insurance expert David Anderson of Duke comments, Your money or your life is not a choice.

The $200-billion fund is aimed at helping that population. The Urban Institute calculates that providing the transitional group with premium subsidies would cost $17.4 billion by 2022; covering their deductibles and co-pays $33.6 billion; and paying their claims $19 billion. Those costs and others would come to just over $76 billion in 2022. If the expansion states opt to roll back expansion, the costs would come to $100.7 billion that year. In either case, the cost would rise every subsequent year.

In other words, at best the $200 billion would cover a bit more than two years of higher costs for Medicaid patients and their states. Theres a technical term for what Collins, Murkowski, et. al. are being offered: A pig in a poke.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
From California to the Midwest, billionaire investor Warren Buffett is steadily building an energy powerhouse.

Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary has gobbled up utilities and natural gas pipelines and tapped into clean energy production, including from Southern Californias abundant geothermal resources.

The latest move by Berkshire Hathaway Energy is the planned $9-billion purchase of Dallas-based Oncor, a regulated electricity service provider with 10 million customers and more than 3,700 employees. Its one of the nations largest power transmission companies.

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Oncor is an excellent fit for Berkshire Hathaway, and we are pleased to make another long-term investment in Texas, Buffett said in a statement announcing the deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year. When we invest in Texas, we invest big!

Buffetts big investment amps up an energy operation that last year contributed nearly 10% of Berkshire Hathaways $24 billion in earnings.

(Ally Levine / @latimesgraphics)

Buffett views utilities and their earnings as recession resistant, providing an essential service for which demand is remarkably steady, the so-called Oracle of Omaha told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in the latest version of his famous annual letter.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy declined to make anyone available to comment for this report.

Jon Wellinghoff, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said he believes Berkshire Hathaway recognizes that there are many areas of the electrical grid that operate inefficiently and  like any business  it is looking to capitalize on that.

There are tremendous efficiencies to be squeezed out of the system, said Wellinghoff, a former chief policy officer at SolarCity who is chief executive of consulting firm Policy DER.

I think Berkshire Hathaways strategy is to maximize the use of the transmission system, he said. I also think it can be and ultimately will be a good use of renewable energy.

Berkshire Hathaways PacifiCorp utility produces 77% of its electricity from fossil-fuel plants such as the Hunter coal-fired power plant in Utah. (George Frey / Getty Images)

Berkshire Hathaway appears to be doing all it can to counter a purported death spiral of economic harm that power companies face because of growing energy efficiency regulations, consumers generating their own power with rooftop solar panels and the advent of electricity storage options in homeowners garages.

At the same time, Berkshire Hathaway is pushing for a regional approach to delivering electricity throughout the West, with the operator of Californias electrical grid at the control switch.

The states grid manager, the California Independent System Operator, has inched ever closer toward making a regional grid a reality, including the expansion of its electricity-trading market.

That market now includes the states shareholder-owned utilities Southern California Edison Co., Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. as well as out-of-state entities such as Arizona Public Service. Municipal utilities also have become members  the nations largest, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, is expected to join in spring 2018  at least some at the prodding of Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries.

Some critics of Berkshire Hathaway argue that Buffetts company is inconsistent in its approach to clean energy and climate change as it continues its expansive march across the country.

For example, its MidAmerican Energy subsidiary in the Midwest produces about 47% of its electricity largely from wind power and expects to reach 85% by 2020.

Meanwhile, the companys Western utility, PacifiCorp, which powers homes in Oregon, Washington and California and feeds Californias electric grid, operates on 62% coal. PacifiCorp doesnt expect to completely shut down its coal operations until 2036.

(Ally Levine / @latimesgraphics)

There seems to be a disconnect between Berkshire Hathaways and Warren Buffetts concern for climate change in some parts of the portfolio, said Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Clubs Beyond Coal Campaign.

Its actually kind of mystifying to us that PacifiCorp isnt championing clean energy the way MidAmerican is, Hitt said.

Some of Berkshire Hathaway Energys expansion efforts are being challenged by Californias Imperial Irrigation District, which is questioning the companys regional approach. The agency is concerned that Berkshire Hathaway could introduce PacifiCorp coal into California and apply charges from throughout its Western operations to Californians.

Maria Severson, a San Diego lawyer representing the irrigation district, said utility cases involving Berkshire Hathaway Energys operations in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington and California highlight the complexity of the companys growing empire.

Do Californians have to pay for Berkshire Hathaways projects in other states if the company shows that California could benefit? And if the coal plants provide electricity to California, will Californians have to pay for that or for shutting down the plants to meet the states clean energy mandates?

If theyre going to be regionalized, is our rate structure going to change? Severson asked. And with the abundance of clean geothermal energy in the Imperial Valley, our concern is the renewables here would be ignored and coal energy would be brought in.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiaries also generate electricity from clean sources such as the geothermal activity at the Salton Sea in Imperial Valley, where the resource is abundant; wind in Wyoming; and solar in Arizona.

In support of efforts to supply more wind power throughout the West, the company is working to add 1,000 miles of transmission lines in Wyoming and Idaho.

(Ally Levine / @latimesgraphics)

In past interviews, company executives have said that where projects benefit Californians, the company would look to recover costs from the states utility customers, raising concerns among some critics.

In particular, some industry experts have questioned whether utilities should continue to build big-box power plants and expand the transmission line network.

Wellinghoff, who is a strong proponent of a more localized approach referred to as distributive generation, said he does not believe there is a need to build more natural gas plants or other so-called baseload facilities that can run at all times.

But he said there is a need for a combination of the kinds of approaches broached by Berkshire Hathaway with expansion of transmission networks as well as the more individualized and community efforts pushed by Elon Musk and his Tesla Inc.s solar, battery and electric vehicle ecosystem.

I think the tension is sort of a false dichotomy, Wellinghoff said. Distributive resources work best locally for individuals. But there are multiple homes and businesses that arent suitable for that. Those people are all going to need energy from someplace.

As for Berkshire Hathaways coal-heavy Western operations, Wellinghoff said he does not believe that will be an issue for long.

Ultimately the renewables are going to win, he said, because theyre much cheaper.

ivan.penn@latimes.com

For more energy news, follow Ivan Penn on Twitter: @ivanlpenn

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Googles parent company, Alphabet Inc., can easily afford the $2.7-billion write-down its taking to cover a big antitrust fine in Europe. But the company might find it harder to shrug off the rest of the European regulatory assault headed its way.

In June, a European Commission ruling slapped Google for abusing its market dominance in search by unfairly directing visitors to its comparison-shopping service, Google Shopping, to the detriment of its rivals. The regulators not only imposed a huge fine, they also insisted that Google change the way it provides search results in Europe.

For the record: An earlier version of this story said Alphabets revenue after subtracting commissions it paid out was $26 billion, up 21% from $21.5 billion in the year-earlier quarter. In fact, it was $20.9 billion, up 19% from $17.5 billion.

Alphabet is still mulling over an appeal of that ruling. But it could take years to get a ruling at the European Court of Justice. And that case is only the first of several such investigations that have embroiled Google in Europe, a situation that raises uncertainty about its ability to operate freely there in the future.

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On Monday, Alphabet reported second-quarter earnings were $3.5 billion, down 28% from $4.9 billion in the same quarter last year; that figure includes the effect of the $2.7-billion European fine. The Mountain View, Calif., tech giants revenue was $20.9 billion after subtracting commissions it paid out, which was up 19% from $17.5 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

Google faces the prospect of additional fines if it doesnt change the way it displays Google Shopping results in Europe by late September.

These things tend to hobble a companys behavior even if there isnt a decision, said Jonathan Taplin, a former USC professor and author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Have Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. I dont think its the end, I think its the beginning.

Google has offered to make concessions on multiple occasions in an attempt to settle Europes 7-year-old antitrust probe. But previous offers were still considered to drive the vast majority of clicks toward Googles services  its key source of revenue from advertisers.

Thats what makes the current negotiations over what it can do to avoid further fines confusing, says Mark Ballard, head of research for Merkle, an ad agency that represents Gap, Crate & Barrel and other big online-ad spenders.

Theres a lot of uncertainty, he says. Until we see that plan, its going to be hard to predict what kind of impact this will have.

Alphabet shares rose 0.5% to $998.31 during regular trading. After the company released its earnings results, its shares dropped more than 3% in after-hours trading, to $968.

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Google starts tracking offline shopping  what you buy at stores in person
From Friday through Sunday, the Los Angeles Philharmonic hosted its fifth cleverly named Take a Stand symposium, a gathering of more than 300 educators around the country who are involved with music training programs, such as YOLA (Youth Orchestra L.A.) and patterned after Venezuelas El Sistema.

There were essential sessions on strategizing, effective teaching methods for kids from different (and often underprivileged) backgrounds, the latest research on these programs effectiveness, discussions of technical matters, the global perspective and basically how to find every which way out of the classical music box.

All this is business as usual. And business for this program, which is also administered by the Longy School of Music and Bard College, has been good.

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This seasons symposium concluded with a National Take a Stand Festival, in which 101 musicians, ages 12 to 17, from dozens of U.S. programs, were selected to form an orchestra. The L.A. Phils Venezuela-born music director, Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistemas most famous representative, is largely responsible for the programs international influence. He and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestras principal conductor, Thomas Wilkins, helped train the ensemble and they took turns conducting it in a special performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Saturday night.

Take one look at and one listen to the National Take a Stand Orchestra; you can hardly miss that this is exactly what everyone in the field has been hoping for and what, it seems, everyone outside the field keeps saying doesnt and cant exist. Weve heard forever the cries of elitism (hardly), the myopic laments about aging audiences, the complaints that the vast majority of classical musicians dont represent the multi-ethnic population of our cities.

Deniers have a point about that last one. Diversity is a problem. Despite all the goodwill in the world, it will still require generations to train young players. The direst of predictions suggest that orchestras may not last that long.

But let me put on my rose-colored glasses. Around the time self-driving electric cars and an expanded Metro make getting to Disney Hall far faster and easier for people all over L.A., there may be an orchestra inside much more like a mature Take a Stand than anything we are now used to, an orchestra that looks like and plays in ways that reflect the world we live in.

Removing the glasses, however, an elephant suddenly appears in the room. Venezuela. With the country on the verge of economic collapse, an increasingly authoritarian government generating a possible constitutional crisis and perpetual demonstrations that could lead to a full-scale revolution, El Sistema seems to be under threat. In Venezuela right now, there is practically no business as usual.

El Sistemas executive director, Eduardo Mendez, and several musicians from the program who had planned to travel to L.A. for the symposium had to cancel at the last minute because of the uprising. Dudamel and El Sistemas renowned Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra have also had to postpone engagements in Colombia for logistical reasons, those being that with so many streets and highways in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, shut down by daily protests, the musicians couldnt get to rehearsal.

Even as the National Take a Stand Orchestra was playing, there were news reports from Caracas that a popular Sistema-trained violinist had been wounded  shot by police with rubber bullets  while playing in a demonstration.

How much does this undercut the basic premise of El Sistema and the programs it has inspired worldwide, including in the U.S.? El Sistema advocates teaching children how to work together despite their differences by playing in orchestras. Exchange guns for instruments is the persuasive motto of El Sistemas evangelical founder, Jose Antonio Abreu.

With these instruments and this music, we can change the world, and we are doing it, Dudamel said to an avid audience during the youth orchestra concert Saturday. Despite everything, it seemed at that moment impossible not to believe him.

The young players had arrived in L.A. as strangers nine days earlier. They came from many backgrounds, with Latinos and African Americans in the majority. Wilkins conducted Coleridge-Taylors Danse Negre, the Hungarian March from Berliozs The Damnation of Faust and Nimrod from Elgars Enigma Variations. Dudamel led Tchaikovskys Slavonic March and the Mambo from Bernsteins West Side Story, which included the musicians waving their instruments in the air, Sistema style.

Then, without having told anyone they were planning on doing this, the kids broke into their own thing, brass players improvising, others dancing.

Music poured out of all of them. Yet they remained focused. A few string players were as physically active, if not more so, than violist Carrie Dennis, who left the L.A Phil at seasons end. Some  not me!  found her gestures distractingly physical. Maybe shes just ahead of her time. Kiss staid orchestras goodbye. The new generation is following in her footsteps.

The mold is definitely breaking, but it is anyones guess how 100 young musicians playing for maybe 1,000 listeners can change the world. Isnt it enough that they have changed their lives, and that they can go on to change others lives? And that the audience, which consisted mostly of their mentors and artistic movers and shakers, can use the knowledge of this success to change many more lives?

Just as the symposium started, Dudamel submitted an editorial in Spanish to the Madrid newspaper El Pais and in English to the New York Times in which he took his strongest stand so far about the situation in Venezuela, calling on the government to withdraw its attempts to write a new constitution without the approval of the people.

After long resisting angry calls for him to get involved in the protests, Dudamel told me that he no longer had a choice. You know I didnt want to speak out, he said, but we have arrived at a point where you have to say something.

But Dudamel also acknowledged the delicacy of his position as a public figure in Venezuela, where he continues to work with El Sistema and where he feels a personal responsibility for the welfare of the students. Its for the children, he says. That is the reality. I cannot go and say things in a very relaxed way as if that is not my responsibility.

People feel the right to judge other people in a very superficial way. I have been speaking, we have been speaking out with music all the time. That is also the reality.

While Dudamel may not find it appropriate to take sides or name names, he does say that he has had enough of false promises from politicians. As he told the symposium, politicians love to talk about the future, because they dont have to do anything in the present. The present is the future! he said.

The next night, the National Take a Stand Orchestra proved it.

mark.swed@latimes.com
Everything you want to know about Black Lightning, Supergirl, Arrow, Flash and the rest of the CW lineup

Cress Williams, Christine Adams, Nafessa Williams and China Anne McClain from the television series Black Lightning. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

The traditional CW block of Comic-Con panels added a new show this year. Black Lightning joined Supergirl, DCs Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash and Arrow for a three-plus-hour extravaganza touting the networks super-heroic TV slate.

The new kid on the block, Black Lightning brought a level of social awareness to the proceedings that most of the fantastical other shows didnt particularly touch on (this year, at least). The show is grounded in family and community, specifically black families and black communities, and according to the showrunners it will not shy away from addressing the concerns that are current.

Yes theres a problem with police brutality and we will get into that. Theres also a problem with us killing each other, said Salim Akil, one of the executive producers of the series alongside Mara Brock Akil. They were joined on the panel by lead actor Cress Williams, who plays the titular character, and his TV daughters China Anne McClain (playing Jennifer Pierce) and Nafessa Williams (Anissa Pierce), and his TV ex-wife Christine Adams (Lynn Pierce).

Black Lightning follows Jefferson Pierce (Black Lightnings real-life persona), who is a man wrestling with a secret. He has the superhuman power to control electricity but gave it up for his family and others. But when his family is threatened hell have to don the suit and use his powers again. Fun side note, his daughter (McClain) exhibits special powers as well.

Whats going to make this so fun for the writers and others is that this is going to come from an authentic black male voice, Salim said. I think this character will give back to the culture. Black culture specifically, but American culture.

The biggest challenge was accepting that this black man was running around town in this suit. Thats the easiest way to get shot, Salim said as the audience laughed. "[The show] is about balancing out when he uses his powers [and] how he uses his powers and why.

Another Black Lightning surprise was the announcement that James Remar and Damon Gupton would be joining the cast.

Salims closing remarks circled back to representation, and the desire to give little kids the opportunity to choose between being Batman or Black Lightning for Halloween -- highlighting the fact there should be a choice.

Heres a breakdown for the rest of the CW panel:

Supergirl

(Jevon Phillips / Los Angeles Times)

- Katie McGrath (Lena Luthor) is now a series regular, and her character immediately makes an enemy of a powerful person.

- We will get to see Martian Manhunters father.

- Supergirls sister Alex popped the question to her girlfriend at the end of last season. Exec Jessica Queller is happy that they get to portray a relationship that is emotional, modern and honors the love between these two women.

- Melissa Benoist wants a puppy on the show. David Harewood wants the Martian to get drunk and sing karaoke.

DCs Legends of Tomorrow

- Last season the Legends were the only game in time, so to speak, but now Rip Hunter will head a group that can help fix time alongside the heroes..

- Neal McDonoughs Damien Darkh will return.

- A new character, Zari, joins the cast. Shes a hacker from the future played by Tala Ashe who will butt heads with the positivity of Ray (Brandon Routh).

- There will be a character called Fireshine. Its a Freaky Friday situation for the Firestorm duo where Victor Gabler will most likely be the physical manifestation of the hero instead of Franz Drameh.

- There have been conversations with Matt Ryan about Constantine coming on the show.

- They are having an 80s episode in which they investigate Ray Palmers childhood.

The Flash

Tom Cavanagh, Grant Gustin and Candice Patton on the Flash panel. (Jevon Phillips / Los Angeles times)

There was a sneak peek of exclusive footage from Season 4. The whole cast was once again present for the panel. Exec Todd Helbing, Keiynan Lonsdale, Jessie L. Martin, Candice Patton, Grant Gustin, Tom Cavanaugh, Danielle Panabaker and the always-popular Carlos Valdes.

- Jesse L. Martin was happy he got to work with Victor Garber on the musical episode. As a New York kid, that means a lot.

- The Thinker is the new big bad for this season, and will be played by Neil Sanderlands from The 100.

- Gypsys (Jessica Camacho) father will be showing up, and hell be played by Danny Trejo.

Arrow

- Responding to the inquiry of why the island was blown up, producer Wendy Mericle said: Were good at blowing things up. Thats what we do.

- Exec producer Marc Guggenheim: We are going to see a different Oliver Queen. The last five years have really changed him.

- Stephen Amell on his characters changes: To start on episode 116 and be able to do fun, new stuff has been great.

- Katie Cassidy, who played Black Canary, on returning: So excited to be back. It feels like I never left. Its been pretty easy getting back in the swing of things.

- There will be a super group of villains, including one played by Michael Emerson, though we dont know who he is or who theyll be.

- Amell has apparently mentioned that hed like to see a Supernatural"-"Arrow crossover, so a member of the audience asked him how that could possibly happen.

- The character Richard Dragon will be among the villains this year as well.

- One of the first questions from the audience centered on the identity of the mysterious vigilante from last season. The only reveal from Guggenheim was that the character is someone we already know.
CBS S.W.A.T. reboot will take on the Trump years, #BlackLivesMatter, says Shemar Moore By Meredith Blake Stephanie Sigman and Shemar Moore (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Dont let the funky theme song or the 70s origins fool you. While technically a remake  of both the original series and the subsequent 2003 film based on it  CBS upcoming cop drama S.W.A.T. is very plugged into the current moment, according to its cast and creators. In the series, former Criminal Minds star Shemar Moore plays a native Angeleno who runs a tactical unit for the LAPD and finds his loyalty torn between his fellow officers and the community in which he was raised. As co-creator Aaron Rahsaan Thomas told reporters Tuesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour, the series was inspired by his experiences growing up in Kansas City, which have helped him understand both sides of the raging debate over police violence. I grew up in a neighborhood that had a very complicated view towards police officers, said Thomas, who created the series with veteran showrunner Shawn Ryan. On one hand, a 12-year-old kid who was a neighbor of mine was shot and killed by a police officer. On the other hand, another neighbor of mine was an actual police officer. Moore, best known for his long run on the CBS procedural Criminal Minds, noted the diversity of the cast and creative team and added that, while the show is primarily designed to entertain, it will also resonate politically. Were taking on the Trump years, he said. I dont care who you voted for. Its just whats happening today. Its Black Lives Matter. As much as some people dont want to hear it, its All Lives Matter. Its not just black versus blue or black versus white. Its every ethnicity. Its fear. Its racism. Its terrorism. Its subject matter of today. Ryan, who created the groundbreaking drama The Shield, about corrupt Los Angeles police officers, said he was excited about the chance to examine the often charged relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Los Angeles is such a diverse, amazing community, and seeing an officer who kind of lives in the city and sort of sees the people that are being policed as humans and as neighbors and as friends was really important to me. Facebook

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Netflix getting A Little Help from Carol Burnett By Libby Hill What do you get when you pair up a living legend with a bunch of little kids? Comedy gold, if Netflix has its way. The online streaming service announced Monday that comedy icon Carol Burnett will be returning to television with A Little Help With Carol Burnett, an original unscripted series that pairs Burnett with children to tackle lifes dilemmas. Someone once asked me how old I am inside, Burnett said in a statement Monday. I thought about it and came up with, Im about 8. So its going to be a lot of fun playing with kids my age. Kids ages 4 to 8 will join Burnett as celebrities and everyday folks bring their real-life problems to the show to get advice in front of a live studio audience. Were thrilled Carol is bringing her unique sensibilities to Netflix, Bela Bajaria, the services vice president of content acquisition, said in Mondays announcement. Carol is truly a legend in the entertainment industry with unprecedented success and fandom across TV, film and the stage, and we are both honored and excited to work with her. A Little Help With Carol Burnett will be produced by Dick Clark Productions and is the companys first Netflix project. This is the second television project announced this year for Burnett, 84. In February, ABC ordered a pilot for the multi-camera comedy Household Name, starring Burnett, though the series has not been picked up in its current iteration. Debuting in 2018, A Little Help With Carol Burnett will feature 12 half-hour episodes. Facebook

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Ken Burns explains why his Vietnam War documentary is more relevant than ever By Libby Hill Ken Burns in Beverly Hilton on Sunday. (Richard Shotwell / Invision) History doesnt repeat itself, Ken Burns told a room of journalists gathered Sunday at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour in Beverly Hills Were not condemned to repeat what we dont remember, Burns explained. Its that human nature never changes. Its a curious statement from the storied documentarian, particularly given his latest project, the 18-hour, 10-part documentary series The Vietnam War, directed with Lynn Novick. But just because humanity isnt trapped in a constantly repeating cycle doesnt mean that the echoes of modern strife arent plentiful throughout the upcoming PBS series. This is a story about mass demonstrations all across the country against the current administration, Burns said in response to a question about what the youth of America will find relevant in The Vietnam War. About a White House obsessed with leaks and in disarray because of those leaks, about a president railing against you, the news media, for making up news. Its about asymmetrical warfare, which even the mighty might of the United States Army cant figure out the correct strategy to take, and its about big document drops of classified material thats been hacked, that suddenly is dumped into the public sphere, destabilizing the conventional wisdom about really important topics and accusations that a political campaign reached out to a foreign power at the time of a national election to influence that election. This is the film we started in 2006, and every single one of those points are points about the Vietnam War having nothing to do with today, Burns concluded. By creating a fully-formed picture of Vietnam, Burns hopes to shed light on the rancor and alienation defining this present moment, he explained. For Novick, the thematic relevance only serves to help teachers who have long struggled in tackling the Vietnam War. Weve had great response from teachers already that the Vietnam War is difficult to teach because its controversial and unsettled history and theyre looking forward to using the film in the classroom, Novick said. Those resonances that Ken is talking about, those will be assignments for students. Were not going to have to work very hard with teachers to come up with those themes, and students are curious about whats happening now. The Vietnam War premieres Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. PDT Facebook

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Goodbye, MTV Moonman trophy. Hello, Moon Person By Emily Mae Czachor MTVs token space cadet just scored an identity revamp  and gender didnt make the cut. In a recent interview with the New York Times, MTV President Chris McCarthy said the networks iconic Moonman trophy has been discontinued. From now on, the metallic figurine  whose impenetrably opaque helmet has become the unofficial face of MTVs Video Music Awards  will go by Moon Person instead. Because who knows whats really going on beneath that lacquered astronaut getup, anyway. Why should it be a man? McCarthy told the Times. It could be a man, it could be a woman, it could be transgender, it could be nonconformist. This new development is just the latest installment in MTVs string of efforts to do away with gender norms during its awards proceedings. The network eliminated gender-specific categories at its MTV Movie & TV Awards earlier this year, where all nominees were placed in neutral categories (i.e. best actor in a show, best actor in a movie). And the network isnt going to stop there. McCarthy also announced a new MTV reality series  still in development called We Are They about a group of gender-nonconforming young adults coming of age. With Katy Perry hosting, the VMAs will broadcast from the Forum in Inglewood on Aug. 27. Heres the full list of nominees. Facebook

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Sam Shepard: Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actor and ... avant-garde drummer? By Randall Roberts Sam Shepard in 2014. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Sam Shepard, whose death at 73 was announced on Monday, will be remembered for his cross-discipline versatility. As a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, he penned classic off-Broadway plays including True West, Buried Child and Fool for Love. An Oscar-nominated actor, he starred in films including Days of Heaven, The Right Stuff, Crimes of the Heart and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. To fans of underground music, however, Shepard served a lesser-known role as the drummer for seminal New York avant-garde folk band the Holy Modal Rounders, with whom he performed on the crucial late 1960s albums Indian War Whoop and The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders. The band is best known for its song If You Want to Be a Bird, which plays during the classic scene in Easy Rider in which Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson roar down the highway on their motorcycles. Thats Shepard playing drums as Rounders founders Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber whoop and yowl. It was in his capacity as a percussionist, in fact, that he drew the attention of a young Patti Smith, who, in her 2010 memoir Just Kids, recounted their first early 70s meeting at seminal music club the Village Gate. Escorted to the club by Todd Rundgren, who had just issued his album Runt, Smith described the Holy Modal Rounders set as like being at an Arabian hoedown with a band of psychedelic hillbillies. I was fixed on the drummer, who seemed as if he was on the lam and had slid behind the drums while cops looked elsewhere. Smith, who at the time was freelancing for Crawdaddy magazine, introduced herself to this drummer, who said his name was Slim Shadow. The two started hanging out, wrote Smith, describing his tales as being even taller than mine. He had an infectious laugh and was rugged, smart, and intuitive. In my mind, he was the fellow with the cowboy mouth. Only later did she learn Slims real identity when a friend pulled her aside after seeing them at a restaurant together. As recounted in Just Kids, Smith wrote that her friend asked, What are you doing with Sam Shepard? Sam Shepard? I said. Oh, no, this guys name is Slim. Honey, dont you know who he is? Hes the drummer for the Holy Modal Rounders. No, corrected her friend, Hes the biggest playwright off-Broadway. He had a play at Lincoln Center. He won five Obies! Once she learned of his reputation and acclaim, Smith and Shepard continued to see each other -- despite his being married at the time -- and eventually collaborated on a play called Cowboy Mouth. Smith described telling him of nervousness at writing for the stage, which she had never done. But Shepard urged her on, Smith wrote, telling her that you cant make a mistake when you improvise. Replied Smith: What if I screw up the rhythm? You cant, Shepard explained. Its like drumming. If you miss a beat, you create another. 7:15 a.m. Updated to correct the title of Smiths memoir, Just Kids, and to identify the Holy Modal Rounders co-founders, Stampfel and Weber. Facebook

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Lady Gaga subpoenaed in producer Dr. Lukes lawsuit against pop singer Kesha By Randall Roberts The ongoing offstage drama between the pop singer Kesha and her former producer Dr. Luke has entangled another platinum superstar: Lady Gaga. On Saturday, attorneys for Dr. Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald, issued a statement regarding their attempt to depose Lady Gaga about relevant conversations she may have had with Kesha. The artist, who was born Kesha Sebert, is the subject of a defamation suit filed in New York by Dr. Luke stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct, which the producer vigorously denies. The statement reads: Dr. Lukes counsel served a subpoena on Lady Gaga because she has relevant information regarding, among other things, false statements about Dr. Luke made to her by Kesha. This motion has become necessary because Dr. Lukes counsel has not been able to obtain, despite repeated request [sic], a deposition date from Lady Gaga. The protracted legal battle between Dr. Luke, left, and Kesha has brought Lady Gaga into the fray. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images) Representatives for Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, said in a statement issued to The Times on Monday morning: As Lady Gagas legal team will present to the court, she has provided all of the relevant information in her possession and is at most an ancillary witness in this process. Dr. Lukes team is attempting to manipulate the truth and draw press attention to their case by exaggerating Lady Gagas role and falsely accusing her of dodging reasonable requests. Among the information Lady Gaga has provided are copies of text messages that were, according to a report on TMZ, heavily redacted. Lady Gaga has been a vocal Kesha supporter. Last year, Gaga wrote about her peers plight in an Instagram post: The very reason women dont speak up for years is the fear that no one will believe them or their abuser has threatened their life or life of their loved ones/livelihood in order to keep their victim quiet and under control. What happened to Kesha has happened to many female artists, including myself, and it will affect her for the rest of her life. The news comes at a particularly crucial moment for Keshas career. On Aug. 11, she will release her highly anticipated new album, Rainbow. The record, featuring songs such as Learn to Let Go, will arrive via Dr. Lukes imprint, Kemosabe, a situation Kesha sought to avoid in a 2014 lawsuit of her own, which she later dropped. Facebook

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Ride on, genius: Celebrities mourn the loss of Sam Shepard By Emily Mae Czachor Acclaimed actor and playwright Sam Shepard died July 27 at age 73. (Charles Sykes / Associated Press) Sam Shepard  Oscar-nominated actor and critically acclaimed playwright, author, screenwriter and director  died on July 27 after suffering complications from ALS (Lou Gehrigs Disease). When news of his death broke Monday morning, Twitter erupted with posts to mourn, honor and remember one of show business beloved renaissance men. View Instagram post This story was updated with additional reactions. Facebook

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Macaulay Culkin got his first tattoo with goddaughter Paris Jackson, and its a match By Emily Mae Czachor For Paris Jackson, getting inked is nothing out of the ordinary. With more than 50 tattoos already under her belt, the 19-year-old daughter of late pop king Michael Jackson collects body art like postage stamps. According to E! News, the budding actress got her latest over the weekend: an understated sketch of a red spoon, just below the crook of her left arm. A new tattoo might be old-hat for Jackson, but it wasnt for Macaulay Culkin, Jacksons 36-year-old godfather -- and first-time tattoo patron -- who emerged from West Hollywoods Tattoo Mania with a matching spoon on his own forearm. Though neither Jackson nor Culkin spoke to the meaning of the double-inking, the design is supposedly meant to represent a kind of chronic struggle. And thats not the only news that Culkin made recently. The Internet nearly lost its collective mind last week when a new photo emerged of the Home Alone actor looking healthy and happy. E! News even declared that Culkin definitely just won 2017s greatest makeover. Your eyes aren't deceiving you. Macaulay Culkin definitely just won 2017's greatest makeover (thus far, at least). https://t.co/IdKjxii5KZ pic.twitter.com/SOAuSx57oU  E! News (@enews) July 27, 2017 Facebook

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Alex Jones products are almost as bad as his conspiracy theories, says John Oliver By Meredith Blake Over the last year, conspiracy theorist and influential radio host Alex Jones has come under intense scrutiny for his fringe beliefs, most notably his claim that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax perpetrated by the government. On Sundays Last Week Tonight, John Oliver noted that Jones status as a Sandy Hook truther qualified him for an Easy Pass to hells version of the champagne room. But he spent most of his time on a relatively overlooked aspect of Jones conspiracy empire -- the wide range of products that he sells in order to fund it. According to Oliver, Jones spends nearly a quarter of his airtime plugging InfoWars-branded merchandise, including Wake Up America Patriot coffee to Combat One Tactical Bath Wipes and a powder called Caveman True Paleo (made from chocolate and domesticated bird corpses, Oliver joked). As the comedian pointed out, it just so happens that many of the products Jones sells, often at a significant markup, purport to address the conspiracy theories with equally wild-eyed zeal. Think: water filters to remove chemicals that supposedly turn frogs gay or vitamins to boost your immunity and ward off germs from allegedly disease-ridden refugees. Jones even has his own in-house expert, Dr. Edward Group, with dubious qualifications (and equally questionable hair) to back up his various outlandish claims. InfoWars is essentially a QVC for conspiracy, Oliver argued. So in the spirit of InfoWars, Oliver decided to introduce his own personal care product, John Oliver Moisture-Armored Tactical Assault Wipes, available via Infowipes.com. The price? A mere $1 million. Worth every penny, were sure. You can watch the complete segment here. Facebook

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Vintage Casablanca poster sells for $478,000 By Trevell Anderson How much would someone pay for a vintage movie poster? Well, if that film is Casablanca, one persons answer is $478,000. Thats how much a bidder coughed up Saturday for the only known surviving Italian-issue poster for the 1942 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The poster sold through Heritage Auctions of Dallas. The buyer has just set a world record and acquired what we in the poster collecting world would equate to a masterpiece, said Grey Smith, Heritages director of vintage posters. The stunning artistry put into this poster makes it stand head and shoulders above any paper produced for the film. The poster, measuring 55.5 inches by 78.25 inches, was produced in 1946. The film opened in Italy on Nov. 21 that year, almost four years after its U.S. premiere. Featuring artwork by Luigi Martinati, the poster is considered the best of the pictures numerous advertisements, Smith said. Previous Italian-issue posters for the film have sold for as much as $203,000. A U.S.-issue of the poster has fetched $191,200. The auction featured other rare posters for the film, with a half-sheet going for $65,725, and a postwar Spanish-release poster selling for $35,850. ---------- For the Record An earlier version of this article misstated the purchase price of the Casablanca poster sold Saturday as $487,000. Facebook

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There is no Plan B for public broadcasting without federal funding, PBS president says By Libby Hill Paula Kerger, chief executive of PBS (Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images) PBS President and Chief Executive Paula Kerger wasnt pulling any punches Sunday at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour in Beverly Hills. When people say, What is the Plan B for [loss of federal funding]? There is no Plan B for that, Kerger said of the potential budget crisis public broadcasting faces under the Trump administration. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been under fire for months, with President Trumps proposed budget axing the institutions $450-million budget. Though its easy to suggest that budget cuts would threaten Big Birds livelihood, the true victims of defunding would be far more human. Kerger explained that of PBS $450-million budget, one-third goes to radio. Of the television budget, most goes to community service grants that local stations use for up to 50% of their operating budgets. PBS itself will not go away. But a number of our stations will. If you are a station for whom 30 or 40 or 50% of your funding is suddenly pulled away, theres no way you can make up that money, Kerger said. You will find big parts of the country that will suddenly be without public broadcasting. The fate of public broadcasting is currently in flux, waiting for the end of Congress August recess for resolution. Currently, the House Appropriations Committee has approved the bulk of the PBS budget, while the House Budget Committee recommended doing away with funding altogether. Budget concerns aside, Kerger also addressed other unresolved PBS matters. The second seat of PBS NewsHour has been vacant since the untimely death of co-host Gwen Ifill in November 2016, leaving Judy Woodruff as the shows sole anchor. We have encouraged [executive producer] Sara Just and Judy Woodruff and the team at NewsHour to take their time and think very carefully about who that right person [to replace Ifill] is, Kerger said. Im hopeful that they will be making an announcement sometime over the next few months of a new anchor. Kerger also announced an upcoming project aimed at inspiring the country to come together in celebration of literature. The Great American Read is an eight-part series launching in spring 2018 that explores the nations 100 best-loved books, chosen by the American people and culminating in the first-ever national vote to choose Americas Best-Loved Book. Facebook

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AMC Visionaries adds Eli Roth, Roots, Gibney for new docu-series By Meredith Woerner Robert Kirkman, left, and Eli Roth at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour in Beverly Hills. ( Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for AMC) AMC announced several additions to its upcoming Visionaries docu-series Saturday at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour in Beverly Hills. Writer-director-actor Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) will be offering a deeper look into his signature style of genre filmmaking with Eli Roths History of Horror (working title) and Ahmir Questlove Thompson, Tariq Black Thought Trotter (founding members of The Roots) and Alex Gibney (Going Clear, History of the Eagles) will executive produce a series called Rap Yearbook (another working title). The cable network also has three other installments in development: History of Video Games, Outlaws of the Internet, and History of Martial Arts. The new Visionaries members join the previously announced programs Robert Kirkmans Secret History of Comics and James Camerons Story of Science Fiction. Kirkman and Roth were present at the AMC panel with Cameron appearing via satellite to show sneak peeks from the comics and sci-fi iterations of the series. A sizzle reel for the Secret History of Comics utilized plenty of classic panel pages and a sort of motion comic-like animation to illustrate the early days of Marvel Comics, going all the way back to the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby days. But the real treat was a collection of cameos, famous faces opining about their love of the form including Lee himself, J.K. Simmons, Kevin Smith, and Method Man, who earnestly revealed, You have to be born a comic book fan, I think. And there are plenty more talking heads to come, the AMC press release promised Patty Jenkins, Lynda Carter, Famke Janssen, Michelle Rodriguez, and Todd McFarlane. The second clip shared a look at Camerons love letter to science fiction. Today, science fiction is mainstream but it didnt used to be that way, the director explained. When I was a kid science fiction wasnt cool, but I thought it was cool. Cameron wants to focus on closing the gap between current fans knowledge of modern day sci-fi to the pioneering works of literature that inspired the blockbuster offerings of today. The Terminator and Avatar director noted that without Jules Verne and H.G. Wells there would be no Avengers, Star Wars or his own works. The series will be divided by theme -- space travel, time travel etc.-- and include appearances from Paul W. Anderson, Roland Emmerich, Paul Verhoeven, Bryan Singer, Keanu Reeves, Jonathan Nolan, David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana. When asked how their respective series would showcase diversity -- the footage screened was very male-centric -- Kirkman responded that History of Comics would have two episodes devoted to diversity. One will focus on the women who helped Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston steer the course of the hugely famous female superhero, and another highlighting people of color titled The Color of Comics. The episode explores the history of black characters, and the lack of black characters in the comic book industry, said Kirkman. which touches on the creation of Black Panther  the Marvel character  and does a really cool focus on this company called Milestone Comics that was founded by a group of African American comic book creators to create characters that appealed to them and represented them, because there was a huge lack of representation in comics even in the 90s. You wouldnt have horror without Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, Roth added. He cited the late George Romero as an example of how he wants to break down the themes within the horror genre. At the height of the civil rights movement [Romero] puts an African American as the lead of Night of the Living Dead and at the end of the movie hes shot by a bunch of rednecks. Not because of the color of his skin, but because they think hes a zombie. But you can read into the implications of that. What [Romero] was doing with using genre to explore racism was so ahead of its time. its just as potent today as it was 50 years ago. Its absolutely something were going to be discussing. Roths urgency to document the horror masters was apparent. It was the death of Scream moviemaker Wes Craven that inspired Roth to get involved in Visionaries. The panel then took a turn for the analytical when the creators were asked how their series would reflect the world today. The fact that dystopian science fiction has come back, especially in television and in movies, is very important, said Cameron. It means that in the age that we live in right now the challenges that face us are technological. Theyre science challenges: climate change, genetics, artificial intelligence, things like that. These are really on our horizon as major, existential threats. The best horror reflects whats going on in our times, said Roth. He used Jordan Peeles Get Out  which addressed modern day racial tensions as a reference. Its no accident that movie coming out right now is making over $200 million at the box office. You can tell its really resonating with people. Bouncing off Camerons dystopia revelation, Roth then turned his lens onto the current political climate, I dont think weve ever seen a cast of characters like this in our White House thats straight out of WWF wrestling in the 80s. When [Anthony Scaramucci] is coming out with things that would make Rowdy Roddy Piper in his heyday blush. This is a farce, is this actually happening? When will we start seeing this dystopian outlook on the current political climate in the movies? Possibly before Roths series, which will air sometime in 2018, after History of Comics and the Story of Science Fiction in 2017. Facebook

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President Trump got a fan letter from a young boy this week. Stephen Colbert introduced another young fan Friday By Greg Braxton Stephen Colbert, host of CBS The Late Show. (Michael Loccisano / Getty Images) White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took time during a White House briefing this week to read a fan letter to President Trump from a 9-year-old boy named Dylan who has the nickname of Pickle. Sanders read part of the letter to reporters: Youre my favorite President ... I dont know why people dont like you. Sanders interjected, Neither do I, Dylan. The letter continued, You seem really nice. Can we be friends? Sanders assured Pickle that she had spoken directly to Trump about him, and the president would be more than happy to be your friend. Stephen Colbert on Friday brought another young fan of Trumps onstage Friday night to read her own letter during his CBS Late Show. Dear President, my name is Norah, but everybody calls me Mustard, the little girl recited. She continued, Youre my favorite current president. Norah then presented some probing questions to Trump: I was wondering, does the attorney general enjoy your full support? And how do you plan to implement the ban on transgender people currently serving in the military? Will those on active duty be called home? Sounds like a logistical nightmare. She continued, One more thing: Are you a puppet of Vladimir Putin? I love puppets! I made one at camp! Love, Mustard. The Late Show audience cheered. Facebook

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Broadways Great Comet producer apologizes for controversial Mandy Patinkin casting By Nardine Saad (Jeff Schear / Getty Images) The producer behind Broadways struggling musical Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812" has joined the apologetic refrain for the diversity uproar that followed the decision to bring in Mandy Patinkin to replace departing star Okieriete Oak Onaodowan, who is black. The production came under fire this week following its move to replace Onaodowan, who was in the original cast of Hamilton, with Tony Award winner Patinkin in a titular role. As part of our sincere efforts to keep Comet running for the benefit of its cast, creative team, crew, investors and everyone else involved, we arranged for Mandy Patinkin to play Pierre, co-producer Howard Kagan said in an official statement posted Friday on Twitter. Kagan said they had the wrong impression of how Onaodowan felt about Patinkins casting and how it would be received by members of the theater community, which we appreciate is deeply invested in the success of actors of color  as are we  and to whom we are grateful for bringing this to our attention. We regret our mistake deeply, and wish to express our apologies to everyone who felt hurt and betrayed by these actions, he said. The legendary Broadway star dropped out of the musical on Friday after the announcement that he would be replacing the African American star was met with disdain. Patinkin was to join the cast for a limited run from Aug. 15 through Sept. 3, but declined the part because he would never accept a role knowing it would harm another actor. I hear what members of the community have said and I agree with them. I am a huge fan of Oak and I will, therefore, not be appearing in the show, the Homeland alum tweeted. Another tweet on the shows account included an apology to Patinkin for any misunderstanding and said they understood his decision to withdraw from the show. Our deepest apologies. pic.twitter.com/Mks7XLGxbq  The Great Comet (@GreatCometBway) July 28, 2017 pic.twitter.com/vSZk6K2KOV  The Great Comet (@GreatCometBway) July 28, 2017 Onaodowan, who had replaced recording artist Josh Groban in the role of Pierre earlier this month, is scheduled to continue to perform through Aug. 13, after which, he stated Friday on Twitter, he will not return to the show. It is unclear if his decision to leave the production was his own or prompted by other factors. Show creator Dave Malloy, whose musical was inspired by a portion of Leo Tolstoys War and Peace, also apologized Friday on Twitter for how everything went down and missing the racial optics of their casting decision. They had previously asked actress Brittain Ashford to step aside for the casting of better-known singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson during the summer months and they didnt anticipate that Patinkins casting would be viewed differently, Malloy said. Despite 12 Tony Award nominations, Comet only received two wins -- for set and lighting -- at the June ceremony and ticket sales ebbed when Groban departed. Malloy said that sales for shows after Aug. 13, when Michaelsons run would also end, were catastrophically low. So they decided to cast Patinkin, hoping that his star power would help boost sales, because the weird show was in desperate shape and on the brink of closing. Facebook

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Eagles, Doobie Brothers will play Classic Northwest show Sept. 30 in Seattle By Randy Lewis The reconfigured Eagles, shown during a July 15 performance at Dodger Stadium, will continue with a Sept. 30 Classic Northwest concert with the Doobie Brothers in Seattle. (Kevin Mazur / Getty Images) The EaglesClassic music festival series will continue with at least one more stop, this time in Seattle. But unlike the inaugural Classic West bill July 15-16 at Dodger Stadium, which is having a Classic East encore this weekend in New York, the added Classic Northwest show on Sept. 30 will be just a single day and feature the Eagles and Doobie Brothers only. The Classic West and East shows teamed the Eagles, Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers on one day, with Fleetwood Mac, Journey and Earth, Wind & Fire on the second day of each. Tickets for the Classic Northwest bill go on sale Aug. 5 at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster. At the outset of the Eagles portion of Classic West on July 15, co-founder Don Henley indicated it was still uncertain how much of a future his long-running band might have absent co-founder Glenn Frey, who died last year at 67. To make the Classic West and East shows possible, the group tapped Freys son, singer-guitarist Deacon Frey, and country music star Vince Gill to handle the lead vocals on the many Eagles songs that were originally sung by Glenn Frey. In case this is our last dance, Henley told the crowd at Dodger Stadium, where he was joined by longtime bandmates Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit, we want to thank all of you in Southern California for all your support. Facebook

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In her new Hulu series, Sarah Silverman wants to love America -- seriously By Greg Braxton Executive producers Amy Zvi, left, and Adam McKay, star/executive producer Sarah Silverman and executive producer Gavin Purcell at Hulus I Love You, America panel at the TCA summer press tour. (Willy Sanjuan / Invision/Associated Press) From her stand-up act to her Comedy Central series to her Twitter account, comic-actress Sarah Silverman has a long history of courting laughs and controversy. Her outspokenness and sometimes absurd, sometimes acerbic views on everything from celebrity to culture to politics, particularly President Trump and his administration, have raised eyebrows. On her upcoming Hulu series, I Love You, America, Silverman is focused more on forming bonds than being provocative. In surveying the current political landscape and the comedy shows that skewer it, Silverman says she wants to reach out to all on the political spectrum. For me, [those shows are] great, but they really connect with more like-minded people. Theyre brilliant. Theyre funny. But Im hoping to, with this show, connect with un-like-minded people, Silverman said Thursday during a panel at the Television Critics Assn.'s summer press tour in Beverly Hills. The mission of the show is that were all the same. But whats important is that its funny. Although the exact format of the show is still being refined, Silverman did reveal some elements, including a monologue, a focus group in the studio and field pieces in which she travels around the country talking to people. For example, Silverman says she plans to go to Slidell, La., to meet a family that says they have never met a Jewish person. I cant help but have preconceived notions. They cant help but have preconceived notions, said Silverman. All I can do is just try to be open and brave and go into the situation. And same for them. Although Silverman and executive producer Adam McKay didnt make any sharp criticisms about Trump at Thursdays session, they did take exception to his attacks against so-called entertainment liberals or the Hollywood elite. What is he talking about? said Silverman. Im from ... New Hampshire. Everybody out here is from somewhere else. The goal of the show will be to seek common ground and understanding, she said: Ultimately were all the same. The thesis of the show is that everybody just wants to be loved. Facebook

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Jerry Seinfeld is Forbes highest-paid comedian; Amy Schumer still only woman to crack the top 10 By Nardine Saad If Jerry Seinfeld is this years king of comedy, then Amy Schumer is the queen. The Comedy Central star once again landed on Forbes list of highest-paid comedians, the financial magazine announced Thursday. She was the first woman comic to crack the top 10 last year and remains the only woman on the list this year. The Trainwreck and Snatched star made an estimated $37.5 million between June 2016 and June 2017 thanks to her Netflix show The Leather Special, her memoir The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo and endorsement deals with Bud Light and Old Navy. That ranked the raunchy comic No. 5 on the list filled with veteran comedy heavyweights. Meanwhile, the Seinfeld and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee star shot back to the top of the list this year, earning an estimated $69 million. Seinfeld was eclipsed last year by Kevin Hart, who this year dropped to the No. 6 spot with $32.5 million. Chris Rock trailed Seinfeld for the second spot on Forbes list, earning $57 million. His record-breaking $20 million-per-special contract with Netflix paved the way for several comics, including Seinfeld, to cut lucrative deals with the streaming service, which is poised to become the go-to-destination for comedy specials. In addition to touring, those deals significantly padded the incomes of several stars on Forbes list. In the third and fourth spots, funnymen Louis C.K. and Dave Chappelle, who earned $52 million and $47 million, respectively, also made expensive deals with the streaming service to make their millions. To see Forbes complete list, click here. For the record, 10:40 a.m.: A previous headline and version of this story said that Schumer was the first woman to make the top 10 list this year. Schumer was the first woman to make the top 10 last year. Facebook

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American Horror Story: Cult gets sickeningly sweet in official poster By Libby Hill We're just beneath the surface... #AHSCult pic.twitter.com/GvnMD1KieQ  AmericanHorrorStory (@AHSFX) July 27, 2017 What exactly is beneath the surface in American Horror Story: Cult? Bees, apparently. The seventh season of FXs hit horror anthology series is slowly revealing itself via its official Twitter account. On Thursday, the series shared the official poster for the series, and it is super messed up. The poster features a deathly pale woman who happens to be missing the top of her head and, for that matter, her brain. Instead, the inside of her head is a honeycomb, replete with bees and, of course, honey. This is creepy for so many reasons. Here are a few: This poor woman has had the top of her skull removed, bringing to mind that particularly gruesome dinner scene featuring Anthony Hopkins and Ray Liotta in the 2001 film Hannibal. Even more horrifying is that this poor, sweet woman is definitely dressed like a clown. The white makeup, lines through the eyes and exaggerated ruby red lips suggest that AHS: Cult is drawing inspiration from traditional grotesque whiteface clown makeup. Think more Pennywise, less juggalo. (And if none of that is enough to scare you, please enjoy this clown dating site I stumbled across while researching all of this.) FXs American Horror Story: Cult premieres on Sept. 5. Facebook

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Stephen Colbert had some [bleeped] thoughts on Anthony Scaramuccis NSFW rant By Yvonne Villarreal (Richard Boeth / Associated Press) Stephen Colbert took a cue from incoming White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci -- or the Mooch, as hes called -- by giving Thursdays episode of The Late Show a decidedly NSFW vibe. We got an incredible taste of unfiltered Mooch today, Colbert said during his monologue. He was, of course, referring to Scaramuccis disapproving -- and often vulgar -- comments about White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon in a New Yorker article that sent social media tongues wagging Thursday. But to even discuss the matter, Colbert had to issue a warning to CBS censors: Youre going to want to break out the extra bleeps for this one, he said before diving in. (If only we could get our ellipses to put in some overtime!) In his colorful conversation with New Yorker correspondent Ryan Lizza, which took place Wednesday night,Scaramucci was trying to get to the bottom of who leaked that he had dinner at the White House with President Trump, the first lady, Sean Hannity and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. Scaramucci described Priebus as a  ... paranoid schizophrenic who had blocked him from the White House for six months -- prompting Colbert to break out an impression of Scaramucci. Yes, the guys paranoid, OK? He thinks his own communications director is gonna stab him in the back again, Colbert said with an exaggerated Italian accent. Front stab! he added with a knifing gesture. The New Yorker article also detailed how Scaramucci accused Bannon of seeking to build [his] own brand off the  strength of the president and made some other inflammatory remarks that we cant fully detail. So well let Colbert take it from here. Facebook

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Longtime Disney imagineer Martin Sklar dies at 83 By Richard Verrier (Jae C Hong / Associated Press) Martin Marty Sklar, the pioneering Walt Disney Co. imagineer who played an instrumental role in the design of Disney theme parks, has died, the company announced Thursday night. He was 83. During his 54 years at Disney, Sklar worked closely with Walt Disney and led the creative development of the Burbank companys theme parks, attractions and resorts around the world, including the companys ventures in the cruise business, housing development and the redesign of Times Square in New York. Everything about Marty was legendary  his achievements, his spirit, his career, Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said in a statement. He embodied the very best of Disney, from his bold originality to his joyful optimism and relentless drive for excellence. He was also a powerful connection to Walt himself. No one was more passionate about Disney than Marty and well miss his enthusiasm, his grace, and his indomitable spirit. Sklar was born in New Brunswick, N.J., and attended UCLA, where he was editor of the Daily Bruin newspaper when he was recruited to create the Disneyland News for Walt Disneys new Anaheim theme park in 1955. After graduating in 1956, he joined Disney full-time and would become Disneys lieutenant. He wrote speeches, marketing materials and a film showcasing Walts vision for Walt Disney World and the Epcot theme park in Florida. READ MORE> Facebook

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Is a happily ever after coming to The Mindy Project? By Yvonne Villarreal The Mindy Project creator/executive producer/star Mindy Kaling with executive producers Matt Warburton, left, and Ike Barinholtz at the shows Television Critics Assn. press tour panel. (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP) Is there a happily ever after written in the stars for the final season of The Mindy Project? Series creator Mindy Kaling, who also plays the titular heroine at the center of the Hulu comedy, took the stage Thursday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills to discuss the shows swan song season. And when asked if Kalings rom-com-obsessed character, Mindy Lahiri, would get her storybook ending, the 38-year-old actress suggested it wouldnt necessarily be in the way viewers expect. I think that all of us would agree that we do have happily ever after, the connotations of it, said Kaling, who was joined onstage by executive producer and showrunner, Matt Warburton, and producer and star Ike Barinholtz (sporting a neck brace from a recent stunt gone wrong). But happily ever after isnt the same as no loose ends, she said. That everything is tied up neatly in a bow is something we arent super interested in. That side of it I think were trying to avoid, Kaling added, while also leaving the audience with the sense of feeling that it was about something and that it really was a project and that she had some growth in the end. And for fans wondering whether or how Danny Castellano (played by Chris Messina) would factor into all that, the season promises to shed some light on that. For the unitiated, Messinas Danny is Mindys former fiance and the father of her child. Messina, who hasnt been a series regular since Season 4, is set to return for multiple episodes. And while the Season 5 finale ended with Mindy marrying boyfriend Ben (Bryan Greenberg), hints were thrown that the new episodes would bring some clarity to the Mindy-Danny relationship. The one thing we can promise the audience is a little bit of clarity about where they stand, Warburton said. Its so great to see him back because weve always known theyre always going to be in each others lives  but its great to actually see what that means this season. Its complicated, added Kaling. Theyre both married to other people, so we went into that season with all of that, which makes things sort of fun and delicious. Other familiar faces set to return for the final season are Mark and Jay Duplass, Adam Pally and Glenn Howerton. Kaling, in discussing the decision to end the series, promised a good finale. The decision to end the show was our decision, and I think thats always very hard, Kaling said. It was like, God, should this be the end? ... I think right now the idea of doing a prequel or something like that just felt  we just have such a good finale. We have such a good finale that weve known about for awhile. The final season of The Mindy Project will start its rollout on Hulu in September. Facebook

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Tiffany Haddish clarifies controversial Bill Cosby remarks: Im not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf By James Reed Actress Tiffany Haddish has clarified her remarks about wanting to work with Bill Cosby. (Christina House / For The Times) A joke that Tiffany Haddish recently told The Los Angeles Times has backfired on the breakout star of the new film Girls Night. Talking to The Times Trevell Anderson, Haddish credited Bill Cosby as a comedy inspiration, seemingly unfazed by the multiple sexual-abuse allegations levied against the beleaguered, 80-year-old TV legend. I still want to work with Bill Cosby, I dont care, she told The Times earlier this month. Ill drink the juice. Ill take a nap. I dont give a damn. But seriously, I would love for him to play my grandfather in something. Her remarks raised eyebrows and ire on social media, with some fans questioning her intentions and a New York magazine story noting that the actress seems to have wandered into problematic fave territory. I've been rooting hard for Tiffany Haddish but I find nothing funny about her making light of Bill Cosby drugging women  Stephanie. (@qsteph) July 26, 2017 Twitter: "We loved Tiffany Haddish in #GirlsTrip. Sweetie is doing amazing!"



Tiffany Haddish: "I'd love to work with Bill Cosby."



Twitter: pic.twitter.com/X23DQWb2wi  hellresidentNY (@hellresidentNY) July 27, 2017 On Thursday, Haddish attempted to clarify those comments while speaking on a panel at the Television Critics Assn.'s summer press tour in Beverly Hills. What I said was a joke, she said, noting that when youre expected to be funny in promotional interviews, there are risks. Youre going to say some bad jokes. Haddish said her point had been that Im not afraid to do anything. Im not afraid of any kind of job. Im not afraid to play any kind of girl as long as it doesnt compromise my morals.... Ive been through things. Ive been victimized, she added. I dont agree with what he did or anything, but, at the end of the day, Im not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. Thats what I was trying to say, and I was trying to do it in a humorous way. Times staff writer Sarah Rodman contributed to this report. Facebook

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Tracy Morgan thanks God, and Tiffany Haddish reflects on her success at Last O.G. panel at TCA By Sarah Rodman Tracy Morgan, left, Tiffany Haddish and Ryan Gaul of the new TBS comedy The Last O.G. at the TCA press tour in Beverly Hills on Thursday. (Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images) Thank God. Thats what Tracy Morgan had to say about what it means for the 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live alum to be returning to TV three years after the devastating accident that put him in a coma and resulted in the death of his friend James Jimmy Mack McNair. The stand-up comic and actor, whose new TBS comedy, The Last O.G. premieres Oct. 24, was full of gratitude and thoughts on starting over during the presentation for the show at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour Thursday in Beverly Hills. Executive produced by Morgan, Jordan Peele and John Carcieri, The Last O.G. chronicles the adventures of Tray (Morgan). Newly sprung from prison after serving 15 years, he has to acclimate to the changed times, his gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood and his former girlfriend (Tiffany Haddish of Girls Trip) raising the children he didnt know existed with another man. This is a show about humanity, this is a show about second chances, this is a show about redemption, said Morgan, answering a question about whether it would explicitly explore African American issues. I wanted to transcend that... I wanted to deal with humanity. Haddish, naturally, fielded several questions about Girls Trip, the new comedy film that has minted her as a star. I feel like a foster kid whos been in the system for a long time and then turned 16 and somebody adopted them and said, You can go to college and you aint got to pay no school loans or nothing,  she said of how shes been feeling in the wake of the films superb box office. Im happy! Ive been accepted finally after all these years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears. Haddish said she was looking forward to her role in The Last O.G. since its a character who has gone through a transition in her life, just as she herself has. Her fellow cast mates, including Cedric the Entertainer, good-naturedly ribbed her about becoming a diva since shes now a movie star. But Morgan noted seriously that Haddish has been nothing but a pro: She comes to work. Haddish joked: My bank account, it dont show movie star yet. Im waiting on it. They say nine months; its like a baby. Im waiting for the delivery. Morgan said it was important to surround himself with scene stealers such as Haddish and Cedric and was clearly earnest in his appreciation of his collaborators and their sensitivity to his physical needs. They make sure I sit down... they dont ask me, they [say] sit down for a little while. So Im good. Im taken care of by my people, and I love them with my heart. Facebook

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It can be TGIF every day on Hulu: The service lands popular ABC programming block in SVOD deal By Yvonne Villarreal Every day can be Friday in the 90s with help from Hulu. The streaming service announced Thursday it has signed a deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution for the exclusive streaming rights to programs that were part of the popular ABC programming block known as TGIF. The announcement was made during the streaming services day of panels at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills. The shows under the deal include Full House, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, Step by Step and Hangin With Mr. Cooper. Nabbing the rights to Full House is particularly noteworthy considering Hulus rival Netflixs success with reviving the comedy, which is returning for a third season in September. With the Hulu deal, more than 800 episodes of the five sitcoms from the bygone family friendly lineup will be available beginning Friday, Sept. 29. These shows are more than just beloved hits, they were part of a cultural tradition to tune in every Friday night, said Craig Erwich, Hulus senior vice president of content in a statement. Facebook

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TV Academy announces which awards will be handed out during Primetime, Creative Arts Emmys By Nardine Saad Get your Emmys ballot ready  the Television Academy has announced which categories will be awarded during this years 69th Primetime Emmy Awards and the separate Creative Arts Emmy Awards. The main event will take place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 17 and will be hosted by The Late Show star Stephen Colbert. Prizes will be awarded to comedy and drama series, limited series, reality competition, variety talk and sketch, television movie, acting, directing, and writing during the live telecast on CBS. HBOs Westworld and NBCs Saturday Night Live lead the nominees with 22 nods apiece, a total that includes several below-the-line categories to be doled out at the two Creative Arts Emmys ceremonies the week before. Honoring artistic and technical achievements that could make or break your play-at-home ballot, the Creative Arts Emmys will be held in the same venue on two consecutive nights on Sept. 9 and 10. Theyll be put together for one show, produced by Bob Bain, that will air on FXX on Sept. 16. The first night will cover categories that include animation, choreography, cinematography, costuming, make-up, hairstyling, documentary and nonfiction awards, editing, lighting, sound-mixing, technical direction, variety special and some writing awards. The second night will lean more heavily on front-of-the camera talent, awarding the likes of guest actors and actresses and stunt work, in addition to childrens programs, commercials, main title designs and theme music, music composition and supervision, prosthetic makeup and additional sound and editing categories. For a complete list of this years nominees, click here. Heres the complete list of the awards being handed out during the Primetime Emmys telecast: COMEDY SERIES

DIRECTING FOR A COMEDY SERIES

DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA SERIES

DIRECTING FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL

DIRECTING FOR A VARIETY SERIES

DRAMA SERIES

LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

LEAD ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

LEAD ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

LEAD ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

LIMITED SERIES

REALITY-COMPETITION PROGRAM

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

TELEVISION MOVIE

VARIETY SKETCH SERIES

VARIETY TALK SERIES

WRITING FOR A COMEDY SERIES

WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES

WRITING FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL

WRITING FOR A VARIETY SERIES Facebook

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Kesha finds redemption in new song: The past cant haunt me if I dont let it By Emily Mae Czachor For Kesha, Learn to Let Go is not just an aptly titled track off her upcoming Rainbow LP. Its become one of my mantras over the last few years, she said in a remarkably uplifting letter that the singer published Thursday to accompany a new video for the song. (This is her new M.O., it would seem.) Learn to Let Go, which Kesha co-wrote alongside her mother, Pebe Sebert, is a heartrending chronicle of redemption. Had a boogeyman under my bed/ Putting crazy thoughts inside my head, she sings, while real home-video footage of a whimsical young Kesha cuts between clips of a grown Kesha frolicking through the forest. The chorus rings like a self-empowered anthem: The past cant haunt me if I dont let it. My mom is always telling me how you have to learn to accept that you cant try to control everything, she wrote in the letter. When you realize that you are not the one in control and you stop holding onto regrets  its liberating. Your past only has as much effect on your future as you want it to, Kesha continued. Its about embracing your past, but not letting it define you. Her new album, Rainbow, will be released Aug. 11. Facebook

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Stephen Colbert to bring animated Trump series to Showtime By Meredith Blake Stephen Colbert has ridden anti-Trump sentiment to the top of the late-night ratings. Now hes riding it all the way to premium cable. On Thursday, Showtime announced it had ordered 10 episodes of an as-yet-untitled animated series featuring cartoon renderings of the president, his family and inner circle. The satirical half-hour series, executive produced by Colbert and The Late Shows show runner Chris Licht, will debut on Showtime this fall. According to the network, turnaround on the series will be quick in order to incorporate current events. Stephen and Chris have an uncanny genius for deconstructing the world of President Trump, and this series opens a new realm for them, Showtime President David Nevins said in a press statement. Tim Luecke, who co-created the animated version of Trump who frequently appears in Late Show bits  including a recent segment from the notorious presidential suite of the Moscow Ritz-Carlton  will serve as lead animator. The announcement caps off a period of good news for Colbert, who racked up six Emmy nominations this month and will be hosting the awards in September. The recently concluded Russia Week, in which the comedian traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg, brought The Late Show its biggest margin over The Tonight Show since its premiere in 2015. While The Late Show airs on CBS, Colbert has also developed ties with his corporate cousins at Showtime. Many point to his riveting election night special Stephen Colberts Live Election Night Democracys Series Finale, which aired on the premium network, as a turning point after an uneven transition from The Colbert Report. For its part, Showtime has invested heavily in political content over the last 18 months, most notably the documentary series The Circus, from journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Facebook

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Matt Damon gets punched right in the face in George Clooneys Suburbicon trailer By Nardine Saad  Matt Damon, Oscar Isaac and Julianne Moore star in the trailer for George Clooneys Suburbicon. In George Clooneys latest directorial effort, Suburbicon, the pleasantries of a 1950s town are undone when a home invasion exposes the communitys criminal subculture and racial tensions. And Matt Damons Gardner Lodge gets stuck in the thick of it -- defending his young son, making death threats, killing mobsters and getting popped square in his bespectacled face at the office -- as seen in the first trailer that Paramount unveiled Thursday. Did we mention this is a comedy? The dark, screwball kind from the minds of screenwriters Clooney and frequent collaborators Ethan and Joel Coen and Grant Heslov? Well, it is, in case that wasnt clear from the previous description. These animals took everything from us, a blood-splattered Gardner tells his son Nicky (Noah Jupe) at the dinner table. I have to make decisions like whats best for the family. After Gardners wife is murdered, he invites Auntie Margaret (Julianne Moore) to come live in the manicured suburban community to help with his son. Meanwhile, he gets mixed up with a loan shark that sets him on the warpath of a formidable, coffee-swilling collector named Roger (Oscar Isaac). The film is based on a script that the Coen brothers wrote years ago that Clooney found, and they agreed to have him direct it, according to Moore. Paramount acquired the U.S. rights to the film, billed as a comedy, crime and mystery, at the Berlin Film Festival last year. It will be shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and hits theaters on Oct. 27. Facebook

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Woody Allens Wonder Wheel to complete Amazons turn to full-service distribution By Mark Olsen Woody Allen at the American Film Institutes Life Achievement Award tribute to Diane Keaton on June 8, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Christopher Polk / Getty Images for Turner) Thursday it was announced that Woody Allens latest film, Wonder Wheel, will have its world premiere as the closing-night film at this years New York Film Festival. The film stars Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, Juno Temple and James Belushi in a story set around Coney Island in the 1950s. But that wasnt the only Allen item of the day. Variety reported that Wonder Wheel will also be the first film fully distributed by Amazon when it opens in theaters on Dec. 1. The company has already made fast inroads to the movie business, winning Academy Awards this year for Manchester by the Sea and The Salesman, but has up to now worked with established distribution partners such as Roadside Attractions or Bleecker Street to help get those movies into theaters. Amazon released Allens 2016 film, Cafe Society, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell, in partnership with Lionsgate. The online giant also released Allens six-part Crisis in Six Scenes, in which he starred alongside Elaine May and Miley Cyrus, late last year via the Amazon Prime Video streaming service. The move by Amazon is yet another way the company is distinguishing itself in relation to streaming rival Netflix. Where Netflix has been seen as pulling back from theatrical distribution, opting for either extremely limited or no theatrical release at all of its titles to drive viewers to its own platform, this latest push by Amazon renews its commitment to traditional theatrical releases. The New York Film Festival slot for Wonder Wheel gives Amazon the three marquee spots at the showcase. Previously announced, Richard Linklaters Last Flag Flying will open the festival, and Todd Haynes Wonderstruck, which premiered at this years Cannes Film Festival, will show in the centerpiece slot. Other upcoming Amazon titles include Mike Whites Brads Status, starring Ben Stiller, and Luca Guadagninos remake of Suspiria, starring Dakota Johnson. Facebook

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Mick Jagger releases two new, politically charged singles By August Brown (Dave Gatley / Los Angeles Times) Mick Jagger has been looking to the past on recent albums and festival dates. But a pair of urgent new singles are firmly set in the present. On Thursday, the Rolling Stones frontman released two tracks, Gotta Get A Grip and England Lost, that describe, as he put it in a statement, the anxiety, unknowability of the changing political situation in a post-Brexit U.K. The production is resolutely modern, built on programmed drums and clanging guitar noise. The London grime artist Skepta even joins him for a verse on England Lost. Ostensibly, its about seeing an England football team lose, but when I wrote the title I knew it would be about more than just that. Its about a feeling that we are in a difficult moment in our history. Its about the unknowability about where you are and the feeling of insecurity, Jagger said in a statement. Its obviously got a fair amount of humour because I dont like anything too on the nose but its also got a sense of vulnerability of where we are as a country. The Girls actress Jemima Kirke also stars in a new clip for Gotta Get A Grip. The songs are Jaggers first new solo material since 2001s Goddess In the Doorway. Facebook

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Katy Perry to host 2017 MTV Video Music Awards By Libby Hill The MTV Video Music Awards are returning to California and getting a certified California Gurl to host. Katy Perry took to her Twitter feed Thursday to announce her upcoming gig hosting -- and performing -- at the VMAs in August. Ive been training with MTV in zero gravity, eating astronaut ice cream, and Im on a group text with Buzz Aldrin and Neil deGrasse Tyson, Perry said in a statement. Come August 27th, Ill be ready to be your MOONWOMAN! Brace for impact, kids. Perry will kick off the evening as the first announced performer for the ceremony. On Tuesday, Perry earned five VMA nominations for her video contributions over the last year, tying with the Weeknd, with only Kendrick Lamar earning more. Were thrilled to have global phenomenon Katy Perry as the host and a performer at the 2017 VMAs, said Bruce Gillmer, head of music and music talent for Global Entertainment Group, Viacom, in a statement from MTV. She is at the forefront of music culture and the perfect person to anchor this years show, which promises to be one of the most diverse and music-filled in VMA history. The 2017 MTV Video Music Awards will air from the Forum in Inglewood on Aug. 27. Find a full list of nominees here. Introducing your MOONWOMAN. Brace for impact! August 27th on @MTV @VMAs pic.twitter.com/WJsIYq7WiM  KATY PERRY (@katyperry) July 27, 2017 Facebook

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Turns out Larry David and Bernie Sanders are related! By Yvonne Villarreal Turns out Saturday Night Live was on to something when it cast Larry David to play Sen. Bernie Sanders. During his freewheeling appearance Wednesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills to promote the upcoming ninth season of HBOs Curb Your Enthusiasm, David revealed that the resemblance is rooted in reality: Sanders is a distant relative. Hes in the line ... like a third cousin, or something, he said. The genealogical discovery comes courtesy of Davids appearance in an upcoming episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots. I was very happy about that, David said. I figured there was some connection. David played Sanders on Saturday Night Live through the 2015-16 election cycle and also appeared alongside the senator on the late-night sketch show. Its the kind of family secret that David isnt ashamed to admit. I love Bernie, yes, David said. I love Bernie. Facebook

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Trumps proposed transgender military ban turns late-night into hostile territory By Libby Hill If theres one upside to the Trump administrations early-morning Twitter proclamations, its that it gives late-night shows all day to craft their reactions. Wednesday began with President Trump announcing a ban on transgender individuals serving in the United States military and ended with late-night hosts uniformly blasting the policy decision in hilarious fashion. On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert had plenty to say about Trumps tweets, which ended with an uncharacteristic thank you. Thank you? Colbert responded, shocked, before offering his own profane two-word response to the president. Colbert went on to discuss what he saw as the greatest fallacy of the presidents reasons for banning transgender soldiers: increased medical costs. Though a 2016 study funded by the Pentagon found that military medical spending on transgender soldiers would increase anywhere from $2.4 million to $8.4 million, Colbert wanted to reframe those figures. To put that number in perspective, the military spends five times as much on Viagra, Colbert explained, And if your erection lasts for more than four hours, thats too bad, because youre stuck on a submarine for the next six months. On The Daily Show Trevor Noah had similar concerns about the presidents cost-related excuse, pointing out that taxpayers are paying $60 million for Trump to travel to his various properties throughout his presidency. Noah also pondered which of Trumps generals hed consulted with, given that the Pentagon was unaware of his proclamation, suggesting that perhaps hed spoken with The General Online. Late Night With Seth Meyers also invoked the cartoon general from the car insurance commercials, when Meyers opted to turn discussion of Trumps tweets over to four of his female writers. Today it might be trans people, but tomorrow its gay people, and then the next day its black people, and after that its women, and then its immigrants, the writers pointed out, all of those groups represented between them. On The Tonight Show Jimmy Fallon had the good sense to turn over a portion of his monologue to transgender comedian Patti Harrison, who had plenty to say about Trumps Wednesday announcement. When I saw the headline this morning, at first I just read, Donald Trump bans transgender people, and I was like, Yeah, that sounds like him, Harrison deadpanned. But then I realized it was just in the military and I was shocked, because I assumed he already did that. But it was James Corden who took a completely different take on the transgender military ban, opting for a stylish and heartfelt song and dance, expressing his love and appreciation for the LGBT community. Facebook

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Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are on the road again in new song collaboration By August Brown Ringo Starrs new LP includes a collaboration with fellow former Beatle Paul McCartney. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images) Any time the surviving Beatles reunite on record is a historic occasion. But a new single from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr packs in even more classic-rock star power. Starrs new song Were on the Road Again is one of several collaborations with his former bandmate on his new LP, Give More Love. The song also has guest appearances from Joe Walsh, Edgar Winter and Steve Lukather. Its a slightly goofy ode to life on the road, as Starr boasts that, We play really tight; we play really loud and cheekily references his own song Photograph. The two Beatles last recorded together on Starrs 2010 album, Y Not, and performed McCartneys Queenie Eye at the 2014 Grammys. Starr announced the McCartney studio collaboration back in February, thanking the fellow Beatle in a Twitter post. Thanks for coming over man and playing Great bass. I love you man peace and love.  pic.twitter.com/Z5kpyLLlkO  #RingoStarr (@ringostarrmusic) February 20, 2017 Set for release on Sept. 15, Give More Love will also feature cameos from Peter Frampton, Don Was, Richard Marx and Dave Stewart, among others. You can hear Starrs new track with Paul McCartney via Rolling Stone. Facebook

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Curb Your Enthusiasm returns this fall -- and you can expect a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe? By Yvonne Villarreal Actor-creator-executive producer Larry David speaks at the Curb Your Enthusiasm panel during the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour at the Beverly Hilton. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/AP) Larry David revealed the real reason Curb Your Enthusiasm is at last returning after a six-year hiatus: People wouldnt stop bugging him about it. The Seinfeld co-creator took the stage Wednesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills -- joined by his Curb cohorts Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin and J.B. Smoove and executive producer Jeff Schaffer -- to discuss the shows coming ninth season. So, why bring back the show now after all these years? Im not a misser, David told reporters. I dont really miss things, people that much, but I was missing it. I thought, yeah, what the hell. And I got tired of people asking me if the show was coming back. I couldnt get asked that question anymore and I wasnt ready to say, No, never. The often madcap and sometimes hilariously perplexing 30-minute panel -- led by Davids gruff wit and deadpans -- kicked off with a teaser for the season. There was David in a shower, David talking about constipation, David enduring the displeasure of middle-seat status on a flight. The amount of uncomfortable situations [real Larry David] has been in these last six years, Schaffer said, youre going to see it all. Its like were sitting in the Ft. Knox of awkward. As for TV Larry David, Schaffer said viewers will learn very quickly what hes been up to during the years that have passed. Once the show starts to air, it will be self-evident, he said. It goes to this really strange, fun, crazy place.... And you will never expect where it ends. The trip to that ending begins Oct. 1 when the comedy returns to HBO. The 10-episode season brings back Curb favorites like Cheryl Hines, as well as frequent faces Richard Lewis, Bob Einstein, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. And what would a long-awaited return be without some guest stars? Elizabeth Banks, Ed Begley Jr., Carrie Brownstein, Bryan Cranston, Lauren Graham, Jimmy Kimmel, Nick Offerman, Nasim Pedrad and Elizabeth Perkins will get in on the fun. For those who still need something to pin their hopes on about what this season will entail, Garlin offered this absurdly brilliant comparison. It really thematically follows Pirates of the Caribbean. ... Its more like the last one than the first few. Facebook

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At TCA 2017, HBO defends Confederate, announces Jon Stewart special and says Deadwood movie is inching closer By Greg Braxton Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming, addresses reporters at the Television Critics Assn.'s summer press tour at the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday. (Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press) HBO, which has the hottest show on television with Game of Thrones, recently came under fire with the announcement of a new series called Confederate from a team that includes Game of Thrones producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. The series revolves around events that lead to the Third American Civil War and examines an alternate reality in which the South seceded from the Union and thus, slavery is still legal. Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming, defended the project Wednesday during the premium networks session at the summer edition of the Television Critics Assn. gathering at the Beverly Hilton. Bloys said that, in hindsight, the announcement was mishandled because it lacked the context and the vision that he received from Benioff and Weiss in discussing the series. He admitted it was misguided to believe they could simply announce a series with such a sensitive and volatile subject matter. We could have done a better job with the press release, he said. There was no benefit of context. My hope is people will judge the actual material instead of what it could be or should be or might be, he said. Well rise or fall based on that material. He added that he felt the series, rather than being divisive, would be able to advance the racial discussion. Although the topic is controversial, he said he and the producers of the show all feel this is a risk worth taking. Bloys also stressed that the depiction of slavery would not echo Gone With the Wind and would not include whips and plantations. In other major HBO news, former Daily Show host Jon Stewart will perform a stand-up special at a date and time to be announced, and host the latest Night of Too Many Stars, an all-star benefit for autism. Also, a movie reboot of HBOs western Deadwood is closer to reality. Bloys said the shows creator, David Milch, has completed a script that will please fans of the series while also being accessible to those less familiar with the show. But, he said, reuniting the large cast, which included Timothy Olyphant and Ian McShane, may prove challenging. Facebook

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Two Jon Stewart comedy specials are coming to HBO By Yvonne Villarreal Jon Stewart, seen here presenting at the ESPYS, will return to HBO for his first stand-up special in two decades. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Jon Stewart will headline two stand-up specials for HBO. The news was announced Wednesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills. The former Daily Show host will get a stand-up special  his first since since 1996s Jon Stewart: Unleavened aired on the network. A date and location have not been confirmed. Were excited to bring Jon to the network with this pair of specials, said HBO programming president Casey Bloys in a statement. Weve all missed his uniquely thoughtful brand of humor. Im really thrilled to be able to return to stand-up on HBO, added Stewart in a statement. Theyve always set the standard for great stand-up specials. Plus, I can finally use up the last of the Saddam Hussein jokes left over from my first special. Stewart will also host the latest Night of Too Many Stars, the all-star benefit for Next for Autism, a nonprofit organization focused on people living with autism spectrum disorder. The special will air live this fall and will take place from the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. The specials are part of Stewarts four-year deal with the premium cable network. Facebook

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Angelina Jolie talks about difficult split from Brad Pitt By Nardine Saad A-lister Angelina Jolie is adjusting to the domestic growing pains of life as a single mom  making a proper breakfast, keeping house and picking up dog poop. I never woke up and thought, I really want to live a bold life. I just cant do the other. Its the same as I cant make a casserole. I cannot sit still, she said in a sprawling new interview with Vanity Fair, in which she discussed her high-profile split from actor Brad Pitt. Ive been trying for nine months to be really good at just being a homemaker and picking up dog poop and cleaning dishes and reading bedtime stories. And Im getting better at all three. But now I need to get my boots on and go hang, take a trip, the humanitarian said of her plans to head to Africa for a mission with the preventing Sexual Violence Initiative. Angelina Jolie opens up about putting her family first, life after Brad, health issues & her most personal film yet https://t.co/nKyf4dO8ls pic.twitter.com/WkXCgWR1PV  VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) July 26, 2017 The Oscar-winning actress explained how and when her marriage devolved, though she didnt go into great detail about the breakup for the sake of their six kids. The marriage began suffering in the summer of 2016 while she was in post-production on her fifth directorial effort, First They Killed My Father, a film about Cambodias Khmer Rouge genocide, which hits Netflix in September. Things got bad, Jolie said. I didnt want to use that word. ... Things became difficult. The director became slightly defensive at the mention of the familys globe-trotting lifestyle, which reportedly had been grating on Pitt. "[Our lifestyle] was not in any way a negative, she asserted. That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children. ... Theyre six very strong-minded, thoughtful, worldly individuals. Im very proud of them. After 12 years together and a few years of marriage, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016. While her ex was couch-surfing, she and the kids spent nine months in a rental property before settling into a six-bedroom, 10-bathroom Los Feliz manse once owned by film legend Cecil B. DeMille. Its just been the hardest time, and were just kind of coming up for air. [This house] is a big jump forward for us, and were all trying to do our best to heal our family. The divorce filing came suddenly for the health of the family on the heels of a spat Pitt had with their 15-year-old son, Maddox. They reached a divorce settlement privately in January after battling publicly for months over custody of the kids. The Oscar-winning producer had been vilified with accusations of child abuse and having an affair with his Allied costar Marion Cotillard. But he arguably won over public opinion with his introspective GQ Style interview in May in which he admitted to sobering up after boozing too much. Last year, Jolie was diagnosed with hypertension and developed Bells palsy when nerve damage caused one side of her face to droop. She took up acupuncture to treat it. Sometimes women in families put themselves last, she said, until it manifests itself in their own health. Thats just the latest in her medical history. Following a preventative double mastectomy in 2013, she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in 2015, which sent her into menopause. I cant tell if its menopause or if its just been the year Ive had, she said, quipping about her dry skin and the idea that she could still be considered a sex symbol. I actually feel more of a woman because I feel like Im being smart about my choices, and Im putting my family first, and Im in charge of my life and my health. I think thats what makes a woman complete. For the record, Aug. 4, 12:55 p.m.: A previous version of this story said that First They Killed My Father would hit Netflix this month. It debuts in September. Facebook

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Caitlyn Jenner questions why Trump isnt fighting for transgender service members By James Reed (Taylor Jewell / Invision/Associated Press) There are 15,000 patriotic transgender Americans in the US military fighting for all of us. What happened to your promise to fight for them?  Caitlyn Jenner, tweeting in response to President Trumps transgender military ban announced Wednesday Read More Facebook

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Robert Pattinson confirms hes kind of engaged to singer FKA Twigs By Nardine Saad (Mike Coppola / Getty Images for People) Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson says hes kind of " engaged to singer FKA Twigs. The actor addressed the engagement rumors Tuesday in a direct response to shock jock Howard Sterns questioning on Sirius XMs The Howard Stern Show. Youre engaged, right? Stern said after calling the edgy English songstress his fiancee. Yeah, kind of, Pattinson, 31, responded uneasily. The Good Time star, whose relationships have been intensely scrutinized since he dated Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart at the height of the teen vampire frenzy, agreed that hes been a bit protective of his romances. Hes been dating the Water Me singer, real name Tahlia Barnett, since 2014 and theyve been rumored to be engaged since April 2015. Save for public appearances together, Pattinson has kept pretty mum about the relationship. Its one of the most frustrating things in the world because you want to be able to show off a relationship, he told Stern. You kind of get stuck in this position where you have to make decisions whether you want to let the kind of crazy people in. Pattinson was referring to the Twi-hards or, as he called them, a crack troupe of crazies who believe every decision he makes is part of some big conspiracy. To protect [the relationship] you kind of think, I want to create a big boundary between it. But then it makes it difficult for your actual relationship, he said. Additionally, Pattinson also discussed the racial disparagement his fiancee faces on social media for dating him. He tries to tune out the hate when he can, but he isnt always successful. I think its like professional trolls, he said of rude commenters. They get so addicted to kind of just wanting to cause hurt and pain on someone and its just one of the most difficult things to know how to confront. Its a faceless enemy. ... It might seem fake to them, but its definitely real in your life. Pattinson said responding to hate can just be feeding into it. It makes me feel less powerful if youre trying to attack and make it go away. Its like trying to attack a reflection in the water or something. You just look crazy, he said. Facebook

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David Letterman cringes when late-night TV hosts refer to viewers as fans By Emily Mae Czachor A profoundly bearded David Letterman made a rare talk-show appearance Monday -- one of just a handful of public ventures since the end of his run on The Late Show in 2015. Only this time, Letterman arrived as a guest. In an unusual turn of events, the former late-night host played interviewee on the season premiere of stand-up comedian Norm Macdonalds podcast, Norm Macdonald Live. The longtime pals discussed a number of matters, from Lettermans first-ever hosting gig (a game show called Wordbusters) to the time he found himself face to face with Richard Nixon. The two also discussed late-night TVs changing landscape and how Letterman never felt comfortable thinking of himself as the star of his own show. I could not possibly, and still dont, consider myself a star, because I couldnt refer to myself as a star, Letterman said. Johnny Carson was a star, theres no question of that. So for me to adopt that -- Starring Dave Letterman -- that was just ridiculous. In the same way, I always cringe a little when people refer to the folks who watch their show as their fans, Letterman added. I just think thats a little too  you know, you kind of just stepped over the line of basic humility there. Macdonald commented on late-nights packed roster of big-name hosts -- none of whom he finds particularly unique, except Conan OBrien, who he thinks has changed it up a little. On any plans for a late-night return to the host seat, Letterman told fans not to expect too much. Ive done it for 30 years, he said. I dont want to do it anymore. Watch the full episode above (warning: some profanity). Facebook

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Olivia de Havilland, 101, files motion to expedite her Feud lawsuit By Nardine Saad Olivia de Havilland at her Paris home in 2003. (Jean-Marc Giboux / Getty Images) Citing her advanced age, legendary actress Olivia de Havilland has filed a motion in her Feud lawsuit for a preferential trial date this fall. De Havillands attorneys filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, requesting that the jury trial be set in November or no later than 120 days of her motion being granted. The 101-year-old is hoping that a judge will fast track the trial during her Sept. 13 hearing date, which is just days before Feud is expected to be a big winner at the Primetime Emmy Awards. (The miniseries is nominated for 18 awards.) The Gone With the Wind star sued FX and Feud showrunner Ryan Murphy last month over her depiction in the miniseries about rival actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The two-time Oscar winner, who was played by actress Catherine Zeta-Jones on the show, makes legal claims about violations of her common law and statutory rights of publicity, her right to privacy and unjust enrichment. Based on her unusually advanced age, resulting particular susceptibility to disease, and recurring health issues, there is a substantial likelihood that she, as with anyone at this advanced age, may not survive for any extended period of time, the motion said. It is likely that if a trial preference motion is not granted, Olivia de Havilland will be prejudiced, because on the normal schedule, trial would not be set within the next 120 days. Her team also argued that because she is the sole plaintiff, De Havilland is crucial to the trial. Olivia de Havilland has a substantial interest in the litigation as a whole here as her personal statutory right of publicity cause of action does not survive her death. ... Further, should Olivia de Havilland die before her trial date, she will not be able to enjoy the benefits which she would receive in damages, the motion said. De Havillands June 30 lawsuit said the show damaged her professional reputation for integrity, honesty, generosity, self-sacrifice and dignity. She claimed that FX, Murphy and Fox producers never sought or obtained her permission to be depicted in the series and that Zeta-Jones portrayal of her in an episode about the 1963 Oscars cast her in a false, hurtful and damaging light. The defendants have not yet responded to de Havillands initial filing. According to Deadline, the Paris-based actress will not be attending the September hearing but may return to Hollywood if the trial is expedited to November. Olivia de Havilland 101: Everything you need to know as the movie legend celebrates her 101st birthday Facebook

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Despacitos Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee call out Venezuelan president for using song to push agenda By Nardine Saad Luis Fonsi, left, and Daddy Yankee. (Sergi Alexander / Getty Images) Despacito singers Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee and co-writer Erika Ender have condemned Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro for appropriating their international hit song for political gain. The chart-topping Puerto Rican recording artists and Panamanian songwriter on Monday called out Maduro, currently the subject of violent and sometimes fatal nationwide protests over his policies, for reworking their lyrics to appeal to voters during his weekly television show on Sunday. The revision promoted the leaders plans for a controversial citizens assembly to be elected on July 30 and tasked with rewriting Venezuelas 1999 constitution and bypassing the opposition-led legislature. Our call to the Constituent Assembly only seeks to unite the country ... despacito, Maduros version said. The term despacito means slowly in Spanish and in the original version of the song refers to the singers wooing techniques. Maduros supporters swayed to the remix dressed in matching T-shirts and baseball caps that brandished campaign slogans. the Associated Press said. The president was seen clapping along to the remix while the audience danced, according to the BBC. I DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS, Ender wrote in Spanish on Instagram, citing a news story about Maduros use of the song. I cannot see so much pain in people I love so much. Warrior people, people with iron will. Good people, who are fighting for freedom of rights and expression. ... I love Venezuela, a land that has given me true brothers and sisters. Brothers who suffer because of the situation that exists. Ender also lamented seeing the song she co-wrote be used without permission to advertise campaigns linked to a regime that has sowed so much discontent and suffering. View Instagram post On repeated occasions, I have said how much I enjoy the versions of Despacito that have been released on a global level. However there has to be a limit, Fonsi also wrote in Spanish on Instagram. I have never been consulted, nor have I authorized the use of or the change of lyrics of Despacito for political means, much less in the middle of the deplorable situation in a country I love so much, Venezuela. He added that his music is for everyone who wants to listen to it and enjoy it, not to use as propaganda that tries to manipulate the will of the people who are crying out loud for their liberty and a better future. View Instagram post Daddy Yankee took a much more blunt approach in his post, sharing an image of a news article about Maduro with a large red X superimposed on it. What can you expect of a person who has stolen lives from young dreamers and people who are looking for a better future for their children? the reggaeton rapper wrote in Spanish. That you illegally appropriated Despacito does not compare to the crimes you commit and have committed in Venezuela. Your dictatorial regime is a mockery not only for my Venezuelan brothers, but for the whole world. With that nefarious marketing plan, you will only continue to highlight your fascist ideology, which has killed hundreds of heroes and injured more than 2,000. View Instagram post Millions of Venezuelans joined a general strike last week amid economic turmoil and a shortage of food and medicine in the country. Government opponents dealt a symbolic blow on Sunday to Maduro, casting votes in an unofficial referendum that rejected his plan for the constitutional overhaul. The government denounced the opposition balloting as illegal and seditious, according to The Times, but turnout appeared high at thousands of makeshift voting places set up throughout the country and abroad. Facebook

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Netflix invests in Matt Groenings Disenchantment By Libby Hill Matt Groening is ready to take another crack at this television thing. The creator of The Simpsons, which debuts its 29th season on Fox this fall, has a new show courtesy of Netflix. The streaming service provider announced Tuesday that it had ordered 20 episodes of Disenchantment, an adult animated comedy series set in a deteriorating fantasy kingdom. The show centers around a hard-living young princess named Bean, voiced by Abbi Jacobson (Broad City), her elf companion, Elfo (Nat Faxon), and personal demon Luci (Eric Andre). Ultimately, Disenchantment will be about life and death, love and sex, and how to keep laughing in a world full of suffering and idiots, despite what the elders and wizards and other jerks tell you, Groening said in a statement Tuesday. Matt Groenings brilliant work has resonated with generations around the world and we couldnt be happier to work with him on Disenchantment,  Cindy Holland, vice president of original content for Netflix, said in a statement. The series will bear his trademark animation style and biting wit, and we think its a perfect fit for our many Netflix animation fans. The series joins Netflixs Bojack Horseman in aiming for an audience unafraid of exploring the less-savory aspects of adulthood. Disenchantment will premiere on Netflix 10 episodes at a time, beginning in 2018. Facebook

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Broad City stars talk about the decision to bleep President Trumps name on the show By Yvonne Villarreal Abbi Jacobson, left, and Ilana Glazer of the series Broad City speak at the Television Critics Assn. press tour at the Beverly Hilton on Tuesday. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) Broad City creators and stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson consider the bleeping out of President Trumps name from the comedys upcoming fourth season a different kind of joke. The two appeared onstage Tuesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills to discuss the new season and how they reworked the show in the wake of Trumps election. We just got to a point where in real life were talking about the current administration, were talking about Trump  and it sounds so gross every day saying it so many 
Allegations that Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito used methamphetamine and ecstasy while he was dean of USCs medical school have opened a window into the pervasiveness of drug use and addiction among physicians and the challenges they face when confronting it.

Experts say physicians become substance abusers at about the same rate as the general population. But they are often reluctant to seek treatment out of fear of losing their medical licenses and livelihoods.

They also know the signs of drug use  and how to hide them  better than others, allowing them to evade notice and their addiction to escalate, experts say.

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Theres an invulnerability: Well, Ill just do this the right way, and itll never be a problem. Ill just do this the right way and Ill never overdose,  said Dr. Marvin Seppala, addiction expert and chief medical officer at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Somehow they believe their knowledge is going to be more powerful than addiction.

USC received more than a year of questions about former medical school deans conduct before scandal broke 

Some experts say physicians in California are less likely to address their addictions than those elsewhere. A decade ago the state ended its rehab program that allowed them to seek treatment without putting their licenses at risk. The vast majority of states still offer such programs.

The Times reported Monday that Puliafito, a renowned eye surgeon, had used drugs extensively while serving as dean of the USC Keck School of Medicine. He stepped down in March 2016, three weeks after a 21-year-old woman with whom he had been partying overdosed in a Pasadena hotel room, but had still been seeing patients as of earlier this month.

USC officials have not said how much they knew about Puliafitos situation before the story ran. On Monday, they said he was no longer seeing patients.

We are concerned about Dr. Puliafito and his family and hope that, if the articles assertions are true, he receives the help and treatment he may need for a full recovery, USC president C.L. Max Nikias said in a statement released Tuesday. Reports of high-powered executives, doctors, and others with substance abuse issues have become all too common  individuals who function in their workplace but have serious issues affecting their private lives.

By Friday, the university was taking a decidedly harder line, announcing it had hired a former federal prosecutor to investigate.

We are outraged and disgusted by this individuals behavior, Nikias wrote Friday in a letter to the university.

Officials said they had begun the process to strip Puliafito of his faculty tenure and terminate him. Moveover, Puliafito was now barred from our campuses and any association with USC, including attending or participating in university events.

Many questions remain about the deans conduct and how USC responded to it.

How doctors hide their addictions

Between 8% and 12% of people  whether they are doctors or not  will develop a substance abuse problem at some point in their lives, said Dr. Lisa Merlo, a psychiatry professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine who studies addiction among healthcare professionals.

As with most addicts, doctors are most commonly addicted to alcohol, followed by opiates.

The physicians with the most addiction problems tend to be anesthesiologists, emergency room doctors and psychiatrists; men are more likely to be referred for treatment than women, she said. Physicians who are stressed and working long hours may turn to drugs as a coping strategy, experts say.

Youre on a pedestal as a physician, and youve got all these societal expectations ... in some ways its harder to ask for help because nobody expects you to want or need help, said Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a physician in Boston who was addicted to Vicodin for years.

Seppala, with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, said a doctors marriage might fall apart, his personal life in shambles, but signs of distress wont always appear at work.

If doctors are injecting drugs, they remember to wear long-sleeved shirts in the operating room, he said. They know which eye drops will make their pupils appear normal. Seppala said an emergency room physician from California who became addicted to methamphetamine worked up to the day he was admitted to rehab.

Thats where the risk lies, because these people are really bright, and because they know illnesses and do all these things to try and hide it ... the obvious things are always really late, Seppala said.

Money also comes into play.

Nurses who work for alcoholic doctors might not report them out of fear of losing their job. Hospitals could lose revenue if their star doctors go on leave for treatment or lose their licenses, he said.

A neurosurgeon or something thats a big income producer for the hospital, they may be really resistant to putting that person in treatment, Seppala said. Youve got some perverse incentives.

The challenge of getting doctors into treatment

Many state medical boards run special rehab programs for physicians. If doctors are reported because of a drug problem and they complete the state program, the medical board wont go after their license.

The philosophy behind these so-called physician health programs is that doctors will come forward earlier for help if they know it wont endanger their career. Many programs are also confidential, so patients cant find out if their doctors were treated for abuse.

California ran such a program until 2008, but several state audits found it was failing. Physicians werent always forced to temporarily stop practicing after testing positive for a drug and entering into rehab, and one audit found one-quarter of scheduled drug tests were not administered.

It was all just very inefficient and frankly, a fraud, said Julianne DAngelo Fellmeth with the Center for Public Interest Law, who closely evaluated the program before it was scrapped.

Only a small fraction of the states doctors participated. The program had an average of 250 doctors enrolled out of the 125,000 doctors licensed in California in 2008, according to state data.

Still, advocates for physician health programs say Californias closure has led to fewer physicians seeking treatment. The state enacted a law last year to create a new physician health program, but the details are still being worked out.

Do you have information about USCs former med school dean? We want to hear from you 

Without the program, employers and hospitals might be more reluctant to report doctors they suspect of having a problem, some say. Before, they could push them into treatment without endangering their medical license, but now, reporting them to the board could result in disciplinary action.

Now people are more inclined to say, I dont want this guy to lose his license, and I think ignore it or underplay it, said Francine Farrell, who founded the Pacific Assistance Group, a rehabilitation program for healthcare professionals, after the state shut down its program in 2008.

The medical board took action against 43 physicians for drug or alcohol abuse in the 2015-16 fiscal year, including some whose licenses were revoked or suspended, according to the boards latest annual report.

Merlo said doctors typically benefit from being in a treatment program with other health professionals so they dont assume a doctor role and start treating other participants like their patients.

Studies have found that recovery rates among doctors are higher than in the general population. Many physicians are highly motivated to return to their careers, experts say. The five-year recovery rate for addicts who participate in physician health programs is 80%, said Merlo, compared with 40% after one year in the general population.

Grinspoon, the primary care doctor in Boston, completed rehab through his states physician health program and now sees patients at Massachusetts General Hospital. But he said taboos around addiction still keep people from seeking treatment, and many are fearful theyll lose patients if they find out about a substance abuse problem.

What we end up doing is pretending these problems dont exist, he said. But whats really unsafe is a physician that nobody knows is addicted  its the untreated physician whos really dangerous.

Want more local investigative journalism like this? Support L.A. Times reporters. If youre not already subscriber, join today. 

soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com

Twitter: @skarlamangla

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A domestic violence report in Azusa that escalated into a standoff involving two young hostages Monday has been resolved without additional violence, authorities said.

After refusing to exit a home in the 200 block of North 9th Street for hours, Ricardo Barrios, 39, ultimately surrendered to Azusa police and sheriffs deputies about 12:45 p.m., and two children who were with him, an 11-month-old baby and 11-year-old child, were determined to be safe, authorities said.

#LASD SEB SWAT on scene assisting @AzusaPD operation. Barricaded assault suspect. Please stay clear of Azusa & 9th St. pic.twitter.com/X7LvS7gNBV  SEB (@SEBLASD) July 24, 2017

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Police had gone to the home about 6:40 a.m. after receiving a 911 call of a possible assault. Officers found a woman who had non-life threatening injuries, Azusa police Officer Michael Bires said. The woman was taken to the hospital, and Barrios, the suspected attacker, refused to cooperate, Bires said.

Barrios has been booked on numerous felonies but details were not immediately available, police said.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

UPDATES:

3:25 p.m.: This article was updated with the conclusion of the standoff.

This article was originally published at 12:10 p.m.
Los Angeles police have located the father of a 2-year-old boy who was found early Monday wandering the streets of North Hills.

The boy was found about 6 a.m. near Van Nuys Boulevard and Woodman Avenue, said Officer Drake Madison, an LAPD spokesman.

The boy was found by a truck driver near a business loading dock, police said at an afternoon news conference. The boys father dressed him then went to work, assuming that the boys older cousin would get up and take him to a medical appointment, police said.

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But the cousin overslept and the boy, simply mirrored his parents action and headed out into the world, Det. Mike Snowden said.

Theyre inquisitive. If this kid was able to watch mom and dad open or unlock a door he couldve done the same thing, Snowden told reporters.

Police had reunited the boy with his father and no arrests have been made.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA

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4:05 p.m.: This article was updated with the boy reuiniting with his father.

This article was originally published at 10:35 a.m.
A Connecticut man testified Monday that Robert Durst  the idiosyncratic real estate tycoon accused of murder  once kicked him in the eye at party in the 1980s, swinging with enough force to fracture a bone in his face.

Prosecutors will likely use the testimony of Peter Schwartz, who is the first of several witnesses scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles courtroom this week to testify against Durst, to bolster their theory that the defendant had a history of violence.

The New York millionaire is unlikely to stand trial before 2018, and the judge has allowed prosecutors and defense attorneys to gather early testimony from several elderly witnesses.

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Durst, 74, is accused of carrying out the execution-style shooting of his friend Susan Berman inside her Benedict Canyon home in 2000  a slaying, prosecutors say, that was meant to silence her because she knew too much about the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathleen.

In court Monday, Durst walked to the defendants table slowly, turning at one point to look into the audience. While Schwartz testified, Durst stared at him, expressionless.

Schwartz said that in January 1981, he and his then-girlfriend attended a party at the New York City home of Robert and Kathleen Durst. Hed been invited, he said, by his friend Gilberte Najamy. At some point during the gathering, Schwartz said, some people, including Robert Durst, left to go to a nightclub. The group that stayed behind  Schwartz and a handful of others, including Kathleen Durst  settled into a small room in the home.

When Robert Durst returned about 20 minutes later, Schwartz recalled, the defendant, who appeared very agitated, looked at Kathleen and then at Schwartz, who was seated on the floor against a radiator.

Robert Durst, the witness recalled, then addressed him in a threatening tone: Youre the only guy here.

A moment later, Durst, dressed in pointed cowboy boots, barreled toward him and kicked him in the right eye, Schwartz said, adding that Durst had kicked with enough force to fracture his orbital bone.

He was enraged, Schwartz said. Bent on doing harm.

After the kick, Schwartz  who described himself as taller and heavier than the defendant  pinned him to the ground, he said, agreeing to let him go, but warning him that he didnt want any more problems. A few moments later, Schwartz said, the defendant charged toward him, shoving him into the radiator and injuring his back. Schwartz said he again held Durst to the ground, but agreed to let him go. As Durst left the room, Schwartz recalled Kathleen Durst telling the group that her husband owned a gun.

She seemed concerned and terrified, said Schwartz, 69, a therapist in Connecticut.

The kick, Schwartz testified, was the second time Durst had assaulted him at a party. At a gathering at a friends home in Connecticut in the late 70s, Schwartz recalled standing near a door, when it suddenly swung open, hitting him in head. He didnt see who swung it, but Schwartz said Durst was the only other person standing nearby. Durst, Schwartz said, stood there silently as if nothing had happened.

Unconcerned, Schwartz recalled of Dursts reaction. He could care less.

Dursts attorney, Dick DeGuerin, tried to poke holes in Schwartzs story, saying that the witness had previously called him, expressing concern about his lack of memory from the years-ago incidents.

Under questioning from DeGuerin, Schwartz recalled another time hed visited the Dursts home with Najamy, who he said had brought a white substance that he believed to be cocaine with her. The attorney then asked if there had been cocaine at the party where hed been kicked in the eye.

I dont recall, Schwartz said.

Prosecutors also plan to gather testimony from Paul Kaufman, who dated Berman; Emily Altman, Dursts longtime friend; and Richard Markey, one of the last people to see Berman alive. At a similar hearing in February, Nicholas Chavin  a mutual friend of Durst and Berman  delivered bombshell testimony: Durst, Chavin said, had once confessed to killing Berman.

Durst has pleaded not guilty.

In a 2015 interview with The Times after Durst was arrested on suspicion of killing Berman, Markey recalled his last memories of his friend. It was a few days before Christmas in 2000, and theyd met at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica for dinner and a movie. They watched Best in Show, he said, laughing together through the comedy, then parted ways.

Markey then went out of town to visit relatives. When he returned, he had a startling message on his answering machine: Berman had been killed. Markey said he suspected Durst, but doubted hed ever face criminal charges.

Prosecutors will likely ask Altman about a document that she gave to producers of The Jinx, a documentary examining Dursts life. The document is a narrative timeline that prosecutors say Durst wrote while he was awaiting trial in Galveston for the 2001 slaying of Morris Black. (Durst admitted to shooting Black, his neighbor, and chopping up his body, but argued that hed acted in self-defense. He was acquitted.)

How carry Morris out of apartment? the document reads. Too heavy...bought axe. DID IT. Lift body parts into trash bags.

Prosecutors were planning to call Altmans husband, Stewart, but will now question him at a later hearing, according to a spokesman for the district attorneys office.

Stewart Altman is a labor lawyer who met Durst more than half a century ago while attending high school together in Scarsdale, N.Y.

The defense was expected to call New York police Det. Michael Struk, who led the investigation into Kathleens disappearance in the 1980s. But after a back-and-forth with prosecutors over the cost and logistics of his travel from the East Coast, the defense ultimately decided against it.

In a recent court filing, Dursts lead attorney, DeGuerin, explained that the witnesses requests  that the defense pay for his wifes travel, as well as a dog sitter  could have been interpreted as conferring a benefit on a witness in return for his testimony.

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

For more news from the Los Angeles County courts, follow me on Twitter: @marisagerber

UPDATES:

2:05 p.m.: This article was updated with testimony from the court hearing.

This article was originally published at 5 a.m.
A man was killed and his 9-year-old daughter was injured Sunday in a high-speed police pursuit that ended in a crash in Santa Ana, authorities said.

The pursuit started about 10:30 p.m. when police received a report of a man who brandished a weapon in the 1600 block of South Main Street, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna told reporters at the scene.

When officers spotted the vehicle and tried to stop it, he said, the driver sped off.

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Officers lost sight of the vehicle, but later spotted the crash. The man had hit a utility pole in the 1400 block of Warner Avenue.

The 40-year-old Costa Mesa resident, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officers did not know his daughter was in the car until they approached the crash and noticed she was trapped in the backseat, Bertagna said.

Firefighters used hydraulic equipment to remove the girl from the car as live wires sparked nearby, he said. She was taken to a hospital and listed in stable condition, Bertagna said.

When authorities searched the car, he said, they found $13,000, a half-pound to a pound of narcotics and a loaded weapon.

Bertagna said the man had three no-bail warrants  all stemming from narcotics-related offenses.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA
They welcomed their first customers just over five weeks ago, quietly offering what has become the stores bestsellers: a cold brew and iced mocha.

But the owners of Weird Wave Coffee said Saturday proved to be their busiest day so far at the tiny shop on Cesar Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights. More than 150 customers streamed in and out to grab a cup of java or a croissant.

Then it happened again.

Overnight, someone broke one of the stores front windows. It was the second time in less than a week that the shop had been vandalized.

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Co-owner Jackson Defa credited the recent surge in business in part to the shops thrust into the media spotlight, after becoming the latest target of protesters fearful of gentrification. Police have not determined who is responsible for the incidents of vandalism.

The resistance has certainly propelled us into the limelight, Defa added. But to be honest, this isnt about Weird Wave. This is about two parts of a community trying to decide their future  the part that wants to grow and the part that prefers no progress.

Customers and neighboring business owners said Sunday that they support the owners of Weird Wave and decry the vandalism that occurred.

John King, a city planner from Lincoln Heights, said the shop was a good opportunity for the community to have another choice to eat and drink. I get that people have reservations over gentrification and other issues. But to turn to vandalism and violence, thats ridiculous.

King and his high school buddy David Tse stopped by the cafe after lunch Sunday. Their conversation turned to urban blight.

A cafe is better than a vacant building, Tse said. Any land thats open is going to be developed. If it wasnt this, it would be another type of business.

Kings brother, Jeremy, said he understands both sides of the gentrification debate, but I draw the line at harassment and violence.

Other area businesses, including art galleries, have been targeted by demonstrators who believe they will draw new ventures, increase rents and push out working families. In one instance, protesters stormed into a show at a gallery and threw detergent at patrons as well as the food they were being served, according to witnesses.

But business owners munching on coffee cake and flaky croissants at Weird Wave on Sunday talked about how theyre co-dependent on one another and need to support each other to stay afloat. The coffee shop is squeezed between a pawn shop, a dental clinic and an insurance agency.

They dont bother me at all, said Diana Alonzo, a sales clerk at a money transfer service a few doors down from Weird Wave. Its bad that these things are happening. Everyone has the right to work and, if they want to be here, then they should be here.

James Valenzuela, a supervisor at a nearby barbershop, said that demonstrators have rights but as business people, we welcome all other business people. Common sense, no?

Hes tired of having to clean up after the protesters who he said scrawl chalk messages on the sidewalk along Cesar Chavez Avenue.

Who doesnt need money? Who doesnt want to survive in this tough economic time? Valenzuela said. Protesters make a lot of noise, but theyre not getting haircuts.

Customer Eric Soto, who grew up in the neighborhood and owns a finance company, described the fight as a battle for market share. I understand forced displacement, but I definitely welcome their shop. This is not some big corporation entering. This is really mom and pop, and well be watching how they mold themselves to the community.

Soto questions why locals would have to go to Silver Lake or Echo Park to find something cool. We should have it in our backyard.

Defa said he and his partners chose the coffee shops name as a play on the third wave of coffee  a movement to produce high-quality, artisanal beverages.

Were absolutely staying, he vowed. Our mission is to serve great coffee without pretension.

anh.do@latimes.com

Twitter: @newsterrier

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Homes are threatened and firefighters are injured as two brush fires erupt in Southern California
Firefighters on Monday were mopping up a pair of wildfires in Southern California that briefly threatened homes in La Verne and Lucerne Valley, authorities said.

Crews on Sunday afternoon stopped forward progress on the Rodeo fire in La Verne, which raced across 50 acres after starting near the 210 Freeway and Fruit Street, Los Angeles County fire officials said.

The blaze had burned uphill toward residential neighborhoods, but hundreds of firefighters swarmed the area and kept the flames at bay, authorities said. The fire was 70% contained by Monday evening and has stopped expanding, said Inspector Gustavo Medina.

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Voluntary evacuations in the Live Oak Canyon and Webb Canyon areas were lifted.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation.

The second blaze to begin Sunday, the High fire in Lucerne Valley, has also stopped expanding, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The blaze has burned across 100 acres and was 45% contained Monday morning, Cal Fire tweeted.

The fire erupted about 20 miles southeast of Victorville and prompted mandatory evacuations for several hours Sunday.

The blaze was reported just before 4 p.m. off High Road near Highway 18 in Lucerne Valley, according to Cal Fire spokeswoman Debbie Chapman.

In 2 hours, it exploded from five acres to about 100, burning toward homes scattered in the desert. Ultimately, 170 acres burned, officials said. Roughly 200 firefighters responded to the fire.

The blazes forward progress was reported stopped and it was 70% contained Monday evening, Cal Fire tweeted.

In Mariposa County, meanwhile, Cal Fire continued to increase its defensive lines around the massive Detwiler fire burning outside Yosemite National Park.

The blaze has scorched 78,900 acres and was 60% contained Monday evening, Cal Fire said.

The Detwiler fire began just before 4 p.m. July 16 off Detwiler and Hunters Valley roads two miles east of Lake McClure.

The wildfire, which produced plumes of smoke that spread as far as Idaho, destroyed 120 structures, including 60 homes, officials said. For four days, workers and families in Mariposa  a historic gold-mining town  were forced to evacuate.

Many residents were allowed to return to their communities Friday, while more evacuation orders were lifted Saturday evening, officials said. The fire is burning about 20 miles west of Yosemite.

Cal Fire spokesman Brandon Vaccaro said he expects full containment of the fire in about two weeks.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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UPDATES:

7:38 p.m.: This article was updated with updated information about acreage burned and containment.

This article was originally published at 9:45 p.m.
By the time they climbed up into the pitch-black truck, they had already crossed the Rio Grande on rafts and walked all night through wild brush land.

The air was hot inside the 18-wheeler, and there was no food or water.

But just before they set off, according to an account of the fatal journey filed Monday in federal court, a man opened the door. He reassured the scores of migrants huddled inside that the vehicle had refrigeration.

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Dont worry about the journey, he said.

A few hours later, the truck driver told a federal agent, he opened the door to find bodies just lying on the floor like meat.

James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Fla., could face the death penalty for his role in the deaths of 10 migrants who perished after they were crammed into the hot tractor-trailer.

In a federal complaint filed Monday, Bradley was charged under federal law with one count of transporting illegal aliens, a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death if the crime results in a death.

Thirty-nine people were discovered in and around the truck early Sunday after a disoriented man approached an employee for water in a Wal-Mart parking lot just off Interstate 35, about 150 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

Eight men were pronounced dead at the scene Sunday morning and are believed to have suffered from heat exposure and asphyxiation.

Among the dead was a so-called Dreamer, a migrant who had been brought to the United States as a young child. Frank Guisseppe Fuentes, 20, spent much of his life in the U.S. and had crossed the border in an attempt to reunite with family members living in Maryland after he was deported to Guatemala City, Jose Barillas, the Guatemalan consul general in Houston, told Univision.

Barillas said Fuentes had been a beneficiary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program created by former President Obama that grants work permits and temporary protection from deportation to those whose parents brought them to the U.S. as children. Fuentes had lost his protected status after committing crimes, Barillas said. He did not say what those crimes were.

He was trying to get back, Barillas said.

Seventeen of the vehicles occupants were rushed to hospitals with serious or critical injuries. An additional 13 had non-life-threatening injuries. Two men have since died at hospitals, according to the U.S. attorneys office.

These human smugglers crammed more than 100 people into a tractor trailer in the stifling Texas summer heat, Thomas Homan, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement. Human smugglers have repeatedly demonstrated that they have absolutely no regard for human life.

During the journey, one of the men trapped in the sweltering truck made a desperate call home.

Theres no oxygen, Mario Alberto Ramirez Mendes, 23, told his family members in Calvillo, a small city in central Mexico known as the countrys top producer of guavas.

We cant breathe, he said.

Ramirez left home two weeks ago with his 18-year-old nephew, Jhonny Serna Ramirez, and two others who hoped to cross into the U.S.

The group waited for about a week at a hotel on the border before smugglers helped them cross the Rio Grande, according to Mario Ramirez, Jhonnys 17-year-old brother.

In interviews with Homeland Security agents Sunday, some of the trucks passengers said they had paid protection money to the Mexican criminal cartel Zetas to cross the border. They estimated that as many as 70 to 200 people may initially have been crammed on board.

A San Antonio police officer found multiple people around the rear of the trailer, according to an affidavit filed by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent James Lara.

When the officer shone a light into the cab of the trailer, Bradley emerged from the cabs rear camper, the agent reported. He told the officer that he was driving the trailer from Schaller, Iowa, to Brownsville, Texas, and that he was unaware of the trailers cargo.

Bradley said he heard movement in his truck only when he exited the vehicle for a bathroom break, according to the affidavit. After opening the door at the back of the trailer, he said, he attempted to administer aid.

During further questioning by Homeland Security Investigations agents, Bradley said he was traveling from Laredo, Texas, to deliver the truck to someone who had purchased it. As he exited the vehicle, the affidavit said, he heard banging and shaking in the trailer. When he opened the door, he said, he was surprised when he was run over by Spanish people and knocked to the ground.

About 30 to 40 people ran from the trailer, Lara wrote in the affidavit. Immediately, Bradley told him, he realized at least one person was dead. He said that he knew the trailer refrigeration system did not work and that the four main vent holes were likely clogged.

He called his wife but did not call 911, he told agents.

Several of the immigrants taken from the trailer told agents they had been smuggled across the river near Laredo in different groups and then held at various stash houses.

One immigrant, a Mexican citizen from Aguascalientes state, told agents he had traveled via Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and had arranged to pay smugglers $5,500 when he arrived in San Antonio.

After waiting with 28 people until 8 p.m. Friday to be smuggled across the river, smugglers told him that people associated with the Zetas would charge about $700 for protection and to cross by raft. The group crossed the river in three trips and then walked throughout the night.

About 9 a.m., his group was picked up by a silver Chevrolet Silverado truck and taken to the trailer. About 70 people were already inside, he estimated.

Everything was OK for the first hour. But then some passengers started having difficulty breathing and began to pass out, agents learned from their interviews.

People began hitting the trailer walls in an effort to get the drivers attention.

One by one, people started taking turns breathing from a ventilation hole in a wall.

At the end of their journey, when they finally pulled in to the Wal-Mart parking lot, the driver slammed the brakes abruptly, causing many passengers to fall over. The rear doors were opened and, as the driver described it, people started to swarm out.

Six black SUVs were waiting to pick up people. They left as soon as they filled with passengers.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry said that at least four of the dead were Mexican citizens and that 21 of those hospitalized are Mexican.

Two Guatemalans survived and are in stable condition.

After receiving a panicked call from Ramirez late Saturday night, family members began frantically dialing the phone number of one of the smugglers in hopes that he could communicate with the driver of the truck, Mario Ramirez said.

Their efforts were fruitless. The next day, the family found out that Ramirez was OK. But Serna, his nephew, is gravely ill.

Serna, who is being treated at a hospital in San Antonio, is still unconscious, his brother said, and has suffered serious kidney damage caused by severe dehydration. His parents are traveling to the U.S. on Monday on humanitarian visas to be with him.

He is strong, his brother said in an interview Monday. But we feel desperate.

Serna left for the U.S. because he was unable to find well-paying work after leaving school, his brother said.

He only went to fulfill his American dream, Ramirez said.

Adan Valdivia Lopez, mayor of Calvillo, said that at least four residents of his city were on the tractor-trailer.

There is not a single family here that does not have a relative in the United States, Valdivia Lopez said by phone.

The parents of those who survived the incident, he said, are worried about what U.S. immigration authorities may do to them.

The parents were very concerned primarily about the health of their children, but also about the treatment they will be given if they are deported, he said.

Smuggling migrants in tractor-trailers is a relatively common practice along the Southwest border.

In May 2003, 19 people died of dehydration, hyperthermia, suffocation and mechanical asphyxia after they were abandoned in a trailer truck at a truck stop in Victoria, Texas. The driver in that case, Tyrone Mapletoft Williams, was convicted and is serving a sentence of nearly 34 years in prison.

In Williams case, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2010 that simply leaving migrants inside the truck was not punishable by death. Williams conduct during the smuggling trip, despicable as it was, fell short of the statutory minimum to subject Williams to the possibility of a death sentence, the court ruled.

Jarvie reported from Atlanta and Linthicum reported from Mexico City. Times staff writer Matt Pearce in Los Angeles and special correspondent Cecilia Sanchez in Mexico City contributed to this story.

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Warren Buffett is building up a recession resistant energy powerhouse

UPDATES:

7:30 p.m. The article was updated with a statement from the Mexican foreign ministry regarding the number of Mexican citizens who were in the truck.

5:46 p.m.: The article was updated with additional details from a federal law enforcement affidavit and interviews with relatives of the migrants.

12:05 a.m.: The article was updated throughout with Times staff reporting.

This article was originally published at 9:35 a.m.
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Monday, July 24, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

What they knew and when they knew

The University of Southern California is taking steps to fire Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, who served as dean of its medical school. It remains unclear when top USC officials first learned about the allegations involving Puliafito. But The Times made repeated inquiries over the last 15 months about him, in some cases describing information reporters had gathered about the dean. Los Angeles Times

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Plus: You can read the correspondence between USC and The Times here. Los Angeles Times

Its never too early

The midterm elections are 18 months away, but early fundraising shows that there will be at least a dozen hotly contested congressional races in California next year. Many of the challengers recently filed their first financial reports, and political insiders and donors are looking closely for indicators of who has fundraising ability. A strong early fundraising figure can deter potential rivals or draw support from the national political parties. Weak fundraising can encourage new opponents to enter the race. Los Angeles Times

Scandal in the LAPD

A recent scandal involving cadets, stolen police cars and illicit sex has illuminated deficiencies in the cadet program and in how the LAPD keeps tabs on its cars and other equipment. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

As everyone knows, Los Angeles is always changing, and has been for the last few hundred years. Before Boyle Heights was predominantly Latino, it was home to people of Jewish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Croatian and Serbian descent. Echo Park, Highland Park and the Arts District have been transformed, too. Displacement is real, with rising rents forcing mass movements of people across the city in a money-driven game of winners and losers, and Ive written about that many times. But you cant easily reverse the phenomenon, or have any real impact with a race-based rant against a small independent coffee shop that moves into a vacant storefront and is embraced  as far as I could tell  by merchants and neighbors.

-- Times columnist Steve Lopez on gentrification, change and fear in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times

Plus: Vandalism strikes a Boyle Heights coffeehouse again  and many residents are fed up. Los Angeles Times

Crackdown coming: Lowriders and other cars have turned out in force this summer for cruising events on Whittier Boulevard in East L.A., a reminder of decades past when motorists would congregate and traverse the boulevard. But history appears to be repeating itself  with officials looking once again to enforce cruise control. Los Angeles Times

Strong words: O.J. Simpson is a sociopath, a narcissistic liar, a murderer, a thug, a kidnapper, a robber, Fred Goldman says. Associated Press

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Revolutionaries: A father and son on two sides of Californias political and cultural extremes. New York Times

Major change: A measure to suspend and eventually repeal a widely reviled fire prevention fee levied on nearly 800,000 rural California properties has been approved by the Legislature. This change was offered as a bargaining chip by Democrats to entice Republicans to help pass an extension of the states cap-and-trade climate program. Los Angeles Times

Shedding their lab coats: In Orange County, Hans Keirstead is a pioneering stem cell researcher who is running to unseat GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. Hes part of a national trend of scientists shedding their lab coats to run for office. Politico

Get ready: Next Junes statewide ballot will ask if cap-and-trade revenues collected from 2024 to 2030 should be subjected to a supermajority vote in both houses of the Legislature. If legislators fail to act, the money would sit in limbo. Los Angeles Times

Modesto mourns: Former California state Sen. Dave Cogdill, who paid a political price for his role in ending the 2009 budget crisis, died Sunday morning after battling pancreatic cancer, his family said. He was 66. Los Angeles Times

CRIME AND COURTS

Death in jail: The Orange County district attorneys office is investigating the jailhouse death of a 27-year-old man convicted of car theft who was sharing a cell with a man charged with two murders. Los Angeles Times

Arrest made: A man accused of sexual assaults in the heart of the Beverly Hills shopping district was arrested Friday night, authorities said. Los Angeles Times

Shooting near school: Los Angeles Unified School District police officers shot and wounded a man holding a knife early Saturday morning near Esperanza Elementary School in Westlake, authorities said. Los Angeles Times

THE ENVIRONMENT

Shark! A surfers sighting of a shark estimated to be longer than 10 feet prompted lifeguards to issue an advisory at Coronados Silver Strand State Beach on Saturday. Los Angeles Times

Tiny earthquakes: Hundreds of tiny earthquakes have hit the Mammoth Lakes area in Californias Eastern Sierra in recent days, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Major changes afoot: Tim Blake is a longtime cannabis grower and entrepreneur. His Healing Harvest farm produces top-quality product, and he owns Area 101, an iconic dispensary and gathering spot just off Highway 101 near tiny Laytonville, about three hours north of San Francisco. Blake is happy about the growing acceptance of marijuana, but also recalls fondly a more paranoid, more profitable way of life. Los Angeles Times

Campus controversy: Claremont McKenna College has suspended three students for a year and two others for a semester for blocking access to a campus event to protest a speaker known for defending police against Black Lives Matter activists. Los Angeles Times

Eichlerville: These modern homes were built to be affordable. Now they are going for millions. Mercury News

Out and about: Go hiking above the roar and mist of McCloud Falls in Northern California. Los Angeles Times

Cool HQs: From California to London, technology giants like Facebook, Apple and Google are employing top architects to build spectacular symbols of their immense global power. The Guardian

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: partly cloudy Monday, sunny Tuesday. San Diego: partly cloudy Monday and Tuesday. San Francisco area: partly cloudy Monday, sunny Tuesday. Sacramento: sunny Monday and Tuesday. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

This weeks birthdays for those who made a mark in California:

City Councilman

Mitchell Englander (July 25,1970),

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong (July 29, 1952) and Rep. Jeff Denham (July 29, 1967).

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
Trump called him my African-American. But he has few kind words for the president. By Mark Z. Barabak (Mark Z. Barabak/Los Angeles Times) On the day that changed his life, Gregory Cheadle almost stayed in bed. He was tired  he traveled a lot in his long-shot bid for Congress  but asked himself: How often does a candidate for president come to the far reaches of Northern California? And why pass up a crowd and the chance to hand out more fliers? So Cheadle roused himself that June 2016 morning and secured a spot up close when Donald Trump swooped in for a rally at Reddings municipal airport. It was hot, the atmosphere was loose and Trumps patter seeming more stand-up comedy than campaign spiel. He went into one of those sidelong digressions, about protesters and an African American  great fan, great guy  and, by the way, whatever happened to him? It was then, Cheadle said, he raised his hand and jokingly shouted, Im here. Trump looked and pointed, his voice a throaty rumble. Look at my African-American over here! he exclaimed. Are you the greatest? In the days and weeks that followed Cheadle was attacked on social media and harassed by people who dug up his phone number and email address. For a time he stayed home, too nervous to venture outside. All, he said, because the media portrayed him as something he was not and never has been: a Trump sycophant. Read More Facebook

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Trump quietly signs Russia sanctions bill By Noah Bierman President Trump quietly signed legislation Wednesday that imposes new sanctions on Russia and limits his ability to remove them, according to two White House aides. Trump signed the bill without cameras or an immediate press release. He had opposed imposing new sanctions on Moscow but had little choice after a nearly unanimous Congress approved the bill, guaranteeing they would override a veto. The bill, which also imposes new sanctions on Iran and North Korea, prevents American companies from investing in many energy projects that are funded by Russian government interests. It also prevents Trump from unilaterally lifting the sanctions. It thus marked an unusual move by Congress to tie the presidents hands on foreign policy. Trump did not want to give up that leverage. But the vote in Congress was a strong sign that lawmakers do not trust Trump to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has repeatedly praised, and the widening federal investigation into possible coordination last year between his presidential campaign and Moscow. Passage of the sanctions bill already has sparked a harsh reaction in Moscow. Putin announced last week that the United States would need to shed 755 personnel, including U.S. diplomats, from its embassy and consulates in Russia. President Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats, said to be spies, from the United States last December. A White House aide said a statement would be issued later Wednesday. Facebook

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Senior GOP senators serve notice: No action on healthcare at this point By David Lauter Trump administration officials continue to push the Senate to take another run at healthcare legislation, but on Monday senior Republican senators pushed back, making clear that theyre done with the topic for now. Theres just too much animosity and were too divided on healthcare, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the head of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview with Reuters. I think we ought to acknowledge that we can come back to healthcare afterward, but we need to move ahead on tax reform, Hatch said. His remarks were quickly followed by others in GOP leadership positions. I think its time to move on to something else, Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri told CNN. If the question is do I think we should stay on healthcare until we get it done, I think its time to move on to something else. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota also chimed in. Until someone shows us how to get that elusive 50th vote, I think its over, he told reporters. The remarks seemed a coordinated effort to respond to administration officials, including budget director Mick Mulvaney and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who said over the weekend that they wanted the Senate to keep working on healthcare. Last week, the Senate defeated several different Republican plans to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act. The votes made it clear that with unified Democratic opposition to repeal, and divisions among Republicans, the campaign to overturn the law has stalled out, at least for now. Congress faces several other pressing issues that will be demanding lawmakers attention, including deadlines at the end of September to raise the federal debt ceiling and fund government agencies for the coming fiscal year. And the administration is eager to move on tax proposals, with officials rather optimistically saying they hope to see votes by November on a tax package that is not yet written. Facebook

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Good news for Atty. Gen. Sessions: Trump has 100% confidence in Cabinet By Noah Bierman To Q re Sessions, spox Sanders says Trump has 100% confidence in Cabinet. Last wk she wouldn't say if he had it in Sessions. Kelly effect?  Jackie Calmes (@jackiekcalmes) July 31, 2017 President Trump has called Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions beleaguered and even VERY weak, but Sessions seemed to get good news from the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, on Monday. Trump has 100% confidence in all of his Cabinet secretaries, Sanders said in response to a question about Sessions job status during the daily White House briefing. Last week, when speculation about Sessions was rife, Sanders repeatedly declined opportunities to provide assurances that the attorney general enjoyed the presidents full confidence. Trump himself said time will tell when he was asked last week about Sessions. The willingness to tamp down speculation about Sessions may reflect the arrival Monday of retired Gen. John F. Kelly as the new White House chief of staff. He is tasked with restoring order to the administration. Sanders also batted down reports that the White House was discussing moving Sessions to another post, as secretary of Homeland Security. That job became vacant Monday after Kelly was sworn in as Trumps new chief of staff. Sanders said the White House has had no conversations about any Cabinet members switching jobs. Republican senators have publicly opposed firing Sessions, and a couple have objected to shifting him to another post as well, given that it could appear that Trump is trying to affect the investigations of himself and his campaign in the context of Russias election interference. Trump has said publicly that his frustration with Sessions, once among his closest allies, stems from Sessions decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, an act that led to the appointment of a special counsel. Facebook

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Can Trump really cut health insurance payments for members of Congress and their staff? It would be easy By Lisa Mascaro Reeling from the failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump now threatens to block federal funding that lawmakers and their staff rely on to help buy health insurance. Trumps threats are not empty. The administration could simply stop the payments -- which are provided to Capitol Hill lawmakers and staff much the way many employers help pay employees monthly insurance premiums -- by dashing off new federal regulation. But the easy attack on lawmakers skims over what many say was a complicated, but fair-minded, compromise made during the Obamacare debates several years ago. Under Obamacare, if lawmakers want insurance through their employer - the federal government - they are required to buy policies through the ACA exchanges. There had been great criticism at the time, largely from opponents of the healthcare bill, that lawmakers and congressional staff should not be exempt from the law. The argument was they should have to live under it. So they did. Usually those buying individual insurance on the exchanges can apply to see if their income and geographic area allow them to qualify for a federal subsidy. For lawmakers, though, that was prohibited. Instead, they get the regular employer contribution they did before, much in the same way other workers do when their companies buy insurance. For federal workers, the government covers about 70% of the costs, about the same paid by employers in the private sector, according to Kaiser Family Foundation. The administration affirmed that federal support for lawmakers and their staffs in an Office of Personnel Management regulation issued in 2013. To cut those funds off, Trump administration could simply reverse course, and issue another regulation changing the rules. Trump appeared ready to do so in a series of weekend tweets. Why should Congress not be paying what public pays, Trump tweeted over the weekend. If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon. But such a move would likely cause an uproar in Congress. Its not just members of Congress, but also their staffs, who would have to pay full price for their insurance. Stopping Trumps action, though, seems tough. It would require Congress to pass legislation ensuring the federal payments would continue to be made. Few lawmakers would likely take up that cause. And even if Congress were able to pass a bill protecting the payments, it seems doubtful Trump at this point would sign it into law. Facebook

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U.S. hits Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with sanctions By Associated Press Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro celebrates the results of Sundays election in Caracas. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images) The Trump administration has hit Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with financial sanctions. The move comes after Venezuela held a weekend election that will give Maduros ruling party virtually unlimited power in the South American country. The Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control announced the sanctions against Maduro in a brief statement on Monday, a day after the Venezuelan vote to elect a constituent assembly that will rewrite the constitution. A longer explanation from the White House was also expected. The administration imposed sanctions on more than a dozen senior current and former Venezuelan officials last week, warning the socialist government that new penalties would come if Maduro went ahead with Sundays election for the assembly. Facebook

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Anthony Scaramucci is out as White House communications director By Brian Bennett Anthony Scaramucci, the brash New Yorker who was announced little more than a week ago as President Trumps White House communications director, was ousted Monday before he had even officially taken the job. John F. Kelly, the newly sworn-in White House chief of staff, told Scaramucci around 9:30 a.m. EDT that he was going to be replaced, according to a person close to White House. In a statement officially announcing the move, the White House said Scaramucci felt it was best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team. While Scaramuccis time at the center of the presidents circle was short, it was consequential, prompting the resignations of first Sean Spicer as White House press secretary and then Reince Priebus as chief of staff. The most notable firings and resignations in the Trump administration >> A former hedge fund executive on Wall Street, Scaramucci, who enjoyed media attention, also had come on strong stylistically, highlighted by a profane tirade against colleagues Priebus and Trump strategist Steve Bannon in an exchange last week with a New Yorker reporter. The abrupt shift in Scaramuccis status seemed to reflect Kellys mission to bring order to the chain of command within the chaotic administration. In getting Scaramucci to leave, Kelly was undoing Trumps own hiring decision. Scaramucci had told reporters when he was hired that he would be reporting directly to the president at Trumps request, bypassing the normal chain that would have the communications director -- like all staff -- report to the chief of staff. Scaramuccis unusually short tenure reflects a moment of extreme turbulence in the White House, which has been embroiled in infighting as it confronts low poll numbers for the president, a floundering legislative agenda and the investigations involving Russian meddling in last years presidential election. After word spread of Scaramuccis ouster, Spicer, who resigned when Scaramucci took over but was still working in the White House, walked out of his office to a throng of reporters. Is this a surprise party? he asked. UPDATE 12:15 p.m.: This story has been updated throughout with additional details and background. This article was originally published at 11:49 a.m. Facebook

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Trump swears in John Kelly, says ex-secretary of Homeland Security will do an even better job as chief of staff By Noah Bierman President Trump swore in his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, on Monday morning, formalizing a shake-up in his top ranks that was announced Friday evening with word of the resignation of Reince Priebus. We look forward to - if its possible - an even better job as chief of staff, Trump said to Kelly, formerly the secretary of homeland security. Ill try, sir, Kelly replied. JOHN KELLY is now chief of staff. Sworn in during ceremony in Oval Office minutes ago. pic.twitter.com/dMEQ4rhpFA  Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 31, 2017 Trump is hoping that Kelly, a retired general, will retool and bring order to a White House that has struggled with low poll numbers, staff infighting, a faltering legislative agenda and an investigation into Russian election meddling and potential collusion and obstruction of justice. Yet Trump said the administration has done very well after a reporter asked what would be different under Kelly. He cited the unemployment rate, the thriving stock market and unnamed polls that, he said, show high business confidence. Were doing very well. We have a tremendous base, he said.The country is optimistic. And I think the general will just add to it. Trump praised Kellys performance at the Department of Homeland Security, where Kelly focused on immigration issues at the southern border, as record-shattering, with very little controversy. There was no word on whom the president might name to replace Kelly at the department. Trump reportedly has considered moving Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions there from the Justice Department, reflecting his unhappiness with the attorney general, but Republican senators preemptively have signaled their opposition to such a move. Facebook

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Risky investigation, stalled agenda  Trumps in trouble, so heres his strategy By Noah Bierman (Spencer Platt / Getty Images) Hosts of Southern Californias Morning Answer radio show were wrapping up a two-hour live broadcast from a white tent just outside the West Wing last week and marveling at their access to Cabinet secretaries and prominent administration figures. If youre a Trumpkin, host Brian Whitman told his listeners on AM 870, this is like fantasy camp. The White Houses daylong hospitality for Salem Radio Network, a nationwide chain of Christian and conservative stations, underscored President Trumps continued courtship of  and increased dependence on  core supporters as he confronts a stalled agenda and increasingly perilous investigations into whether his campaign colluded with Russia and he subsequently sought to obstruct the inquiries. Read More Facebook

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Obamacare vote isnt the only sign of GOP resistance to Trump By Noah Bierman In the year since Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, party leaders have been reluctant to challenge a man who has formed a tight bond with conservative voters, even when he upset party orthodoxies and norms of presidential behavior. But that reticence is breaking down. A convergence of contentious issues, as well as embarrassing infighting and shake-ups at the White House, have a number of Republicans suddenly in open resistance to Trump on a number of fronts. Read More Facebook

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Trump ousts Reince Priebus as chief of staff in latest White House shake-up By Noah Bierman John Kelly (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) President Trump ousted his beleaguered chief of staff, Reince Priebus, naming Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly to replace him Friday in the latest White House shake-up as the administration struggles to emerge from bitter staff infighting and a stalled legislative agenda. Trump announced the abrupt reshuffle in three posts on Twitter hours after the Senate killed his latest plans to rewrite President Obamas signature healthcare law, dealing another harsh blow to the White House. The tweets, sent as Trump was returning on Air Force One with Priebus after a speech on gang violence in New York, caught Capitol Hill and others off guard even though Priebus stature in Trumps inner circle has been in sharp decline for some time. Read More Facebook

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Putins spokesman accuses U.S. of political schizophrenia By Associated Press Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a meeting in Moscow on June 21. (Sergei Karpukhin / EPA) Russia urged the United States on Monday to show political will to mend ties even as it ordered sweeping cuts of U.S. embassy personnel unseen since Cold War times. President Vladimir Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said it will take time for the U.S. to recover from what he called political schizophrenia, but added that Russia remains interested in constructive cooperation with the U.S. We are interested in a steady development of our ties and are sorry to note that we are still far from that, he said. Peskovs statement followed Sundays televised comments by Putin, who said the U.S. would have to cut 755 of its embassy and consulate staff in Russia, a massive reduction he described as a response to new U.S. sanctions. The Russian Foreign Ministry had previously said that the U.S. should cut its embassy and consular employees to 455, the number that Russia has in the United States. Along with the caps on embassy personnel announced Friday, it also declared the closure of a U.S. recreational retreat on the outskirts of Moscow and warehouse facilities. Moscows action is the long-expected tit-for-tat response to former President Obamas move to expel 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian recreational retreats in the U.S. over reports of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Facebook

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White House urged to refrain from Obamacare sabotage as Trump mulls subsidy cutoff By Laura King A pair of prominent lawmakers urged President Trump on Sunday not to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in the wake of failed Republican efforts to scrap his predecessors signature legislative achievement. But Trump urged GOP senators to try again to push through some version of repealing and replacing the law, even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week it was time to move on to other matters. Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway said the president would decide in coming days whether to block subsidies that are a crucial component of the existing healthcare law. Hes going to make that decision this week, and thats a decision that only he can make, Conway said on Fox News Sunday. Two of the lawmakers who blocked the Senate GOP repeal plan last week, however, criticized the administrations continued efforts to overturn the law. Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who steadfastly rejected a series of GOP healthcare measures last week, blamed the Trump administration for encouraging instability in the insurance markets by continuing the uncertainty over whether the subsidies  cost-sharing payments that reduce out-of-pocket healthcare costs for poorer Americans  would continue. Im troubled by the uncertainty that has been created by the administration, Collins said on NBCs Meet the Press. She contested Trumps characterization of the payments as an insurance company bailout. Thats not what it is, she said, calling the reduction payments vital assistance to low-income Americans. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said further action on healthcare should be done in a bipartisan manner and not rushed. You cannot do major entitlement reform singlehandedly, and you wouldnt do major legislative initiatives singlehandedly, she told reporters in Alaska. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) echoed Collins criticism of Trumps threat to stop making the cost-sharing payments. You know, I really think its incomprehensible that we have a president of the United States who wants to sabotage healthcare in America, make life more difficult for millions of people who are struggling now to get the health insurance they need and to pay for that health insurance, he said on CNNs State of the Union. Prior to heading out for a day at his Virginia golf property, Trump tweeted that Republican senators should press ahead with efforts to scrap Obamacare -- a day after he tauntingly exhorted them not to be quitters in the quest for a legislative victory for him. Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace...and go to 51 votes (nuke option), get Cross State Lines & more.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2017 The White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, on CNNs State of the Union, said it was official Trump administration policy that the Senate should keep working to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, eschewing an August recess if necessary. Senators, he said, need to stay, they need to work -- they need to pass something. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, while acknowledging a responsibility to follow the law -- Obamacare -- also signaled that Trump was not accepting defeat in efforts to get rid of the measure. Our goalas well as the presidents goal, is to put in place a law, a system, that actually works for patients, he said on Meet the Press, adding, You cant do that under the current structure. Facebook

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Frustrated in defeat, Trump threatens healthcare of voters  and lawmakers By Joseph Tanfani Frustrated by the failure of the Obamacare repeal in the Senate, President Trump on Saturday threatened to end federal subsidies for healthcare insurance  for Congress as well as the rest of the country. After seven years of "talking" Repeal & Replace, the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017 If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017 If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon! Trump tweeted, fuming about Congress failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which he said was imploding. Such a move could cause havoc and much higher premiums in insurance markets, since many low- and moderate-income people depend on those subsidies to help cover the cost of their policies. Through a series of administrative maneuvers by Congress and the Obama administration, members and their staffs also benefit from those subsidies. Targeting congressional healthcare might score Trump some populist points with his base, but it would likely come at a cost of poisoning his relationship with Congress. Just making the threat on Saturday highlights how far things have eroded between Trump and top GOP lawmakers. And it comes a day after Trump pushed out former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, an establishment Republican who was the GOP congressional leaderships trusted liaison in the White House. Trump actually has a jarring amount of leverage over thousands of congressional staff who depend on employer health care contribution. https://t.co/lRPmrmDIJs  Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 29, 2017 Trumps longstanding threat to let the health insurance plans fail would come with its own political price. The federal government sends about $600 million a month to insurance companies to help cover the cost, and Trump is threatening to cut that off to allow Obamacare markets to collapse. His goal is to pressure Congress to send him a repeal bill, but so far the strategy has failed. The confidence Trump has expressed that if he followed through with the threat the fallout would land not on him but on Democrats, because they created Obamacare, is not widely shared in Washington. If health care collapses, voters will blame Trump and the GOP.



That's what happens when you control the White House and Congress. pic.twitter.com/iEjEGyapAL  Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 29, 2017 Facebook

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Iran condemns new U.S. sanctions, vows to pursue missile program By Ramin Mostaghim Iran defied Washington and condemned new U.S. sanctions over its development of missiles capable of being armed with nuclear warheads. We will continue with full power our missile program, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told state television IRIB on Saturday, dismissing new sanctions passed by Congress last week as, hostile, reprehensible and unacceptable. Its ultimately an effort to weaken the nuclear deal, Ghasemi said, adding, The military and missile fields  are our domestic policies and others have no right to intervene or comment on them. Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear activities under the 2015 agreement with the U.S. and other world powers in exchange for sanctions relief. Ghasemi argued Saturday that the U.S. had violated that agreement by linking the missile program to the nuclear deal and restricting Iranian banking activities in the U.S. He argued that Irans latest missile tests dont break the agreement because the weapons are defensive. The new wave of pressure on missile projects in Iran will push the Islamic theocracy into a corner, predicted Iran analyst Hojjat Kalashi in Tehran, noting that the government of President Hassan Rouhani, who was reelected in May, is coping with an economic downturn and may step back from the compromise nuclear deal. The new Iran sanctions bill, which also targets Russia and North Korea, was passed by the House and Senate this week. It would penalize those involved in Irans ballistic missile program as well as those who do business with them, impose an arms embargo on Iran and label its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist group. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said President Trump will sign the bill. On Friday, the U.S. was joined by Britain, France and Germany in condemning Irans recent launch of a satellite-carrying rocket and warned that it violated a United Nations resolution implementing the 2015 nuclear deal. In a joint statement, they urged Iran to stop developing missiles and rockets capable of carrying nuclear warheads that have a destabilizing impact on the region. In response to a rocket launch Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on subsidiaries of an Iranian company involved in Tehrans ballistic missile program. But Nader Karimi Juni, an analyst close to Rouhanis government, said Iranian leaders dont believe the U.N. and European powers will ultimately back the U.S., and so Iran will not compromise on missile projects and will remain defiant. Facebook

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Trump jabs U.S. mayors, who push back, calling president out of touch with cities By Kurtis Lee (Spencer Platt / Getty Images) President Trump wants police to know that he  not mayors  has their back. Ive met police that are great police that arent allowed to do their job because they have a pathetic mayor or a mayor that doesnt know whats going on, Trump said Friday in a speech before police officers in Brentwood, N.Y. The comments from Trump, who in his address highlighted crime in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, drew applause from some in attendance. In a statement following Trumps remarks, the United States Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan group, released a statement pushing back against the president. The presidents comments today prove how out of touch he is with the realities of life in American cities. Mayors number one priority is  and always will be  the safety and protection of their residents, said New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, the groups president. There is no daylight between the mayors of our cities and the uniformed officers who work tirelessly to keep us safe every single day. During the speech Trump called on police and immigration officials to be rough with suspected gang members in cities nationwide. In a recent interview with The Times, former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who recently launched a $200-million initiative to empower city governments and mayors, stressed the key to good governing is experience as a manager  something, he said, Trump was not. Bloomberg added that the mayors are much more in tune with the needs of residents than the federal government. You got to remember a mayor and the local city council are much closer to the public than the governor and the state legislature, or the president and the federal legislature. So if the public is in favor of something, the local officials know it and they get held responsible, he said. Facebook

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The growing parade of exits under Trump administration By Len de Groot A lot of people have left President Trumps early administration  Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was replaced Friday. The White House communications department has been the scene of many of the recent turnovers as it wrestles to craft a message sometimes at odds with Trumps frequent tweeting. At the National Security Council, there has been a leadership struggle since Michael Flynn resigned in the face of pressure over undisclosed contacts with Russia. One appointee was fired over comments he made at a private function. Others have been removed as Flynns successor, H.R. McMaster, has moved to add loyalists to the council. Here are the most noteworthy departures: Read More Facebook

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Trump urges officers and immigration officials to be rough on animals terrorizing U.S. neighborhoods By Barbara Demick ( (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)) President Trump on Friday called for police and immigration officials to be rough with suspected gang members in order to rid the country of animals he said are terrorizing communities. Please dont be too nice, Trump told police recruits at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, a heavily Latino suburb of New York City. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know the way you put the hand  like, dont hit their head, and theyve just killed somebody?  You can take the hand away. He implied that he was satisfied with rough handling of suspects by the police. When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon  you just see them thrown in, rough, he said. Scoffing at calls for what he describes as political correctness, Trump also renewed his pledges to build a wall along the Mexican border. He accused the Obama administration of admitting criminals into the United States. Read More Facebook

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Analysis: In a Washington run by men, two overshadowed Republican women make their point on healthcare By Cathleen Decker In a Washington that has grown demonstrably more testosterone-fueled since President Trumps inauguration, it took two Republican women to secure the end of a long effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. They were the same two women  Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski  who had been excluded from the 13-member working group drafting the Republican bills. Nobodys being excluded based upon gender. Everybodys at the table, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had said of his all-white-males group. In the early hours of Friday, the duo was overshadowed by the more dramatic and unexpected no vote from Sen. John McCain of Arizona. There was reason for the attention lavished on McCain  a war hero and veteran senator returns to the Capitol days after a dire cancer diagnosis. But without both Collins and Murkowskis steadfast opposition, his vote would have been meaningless. Also largely overlooked: Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat who like McCain made an arduous trip to Washington despite her recent diagnosis of late-stage kidney cancer. Social media buzzed Friday with praise for the women senators from many fronts, including from men. But from many women, there was also a sense of familiarity at being ignored or taken for granted. Read More Facebook

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Clinton Foundation donor who was denied a visa settles leak case against the U.S. By Joseph Tanfani A billionaire Nigerian businessman and major Clinton Foundation donor banned from entering the U.S. two years ago on terrorism grounds has settled a lawsuit against the U.S. government. Gilbert Chagoury last year sued the FBI and other government agencies in U.S. District Court in Washington, saying he had been damaged by what he described as improper government leaks to the Los Angeles Times. The Times reported last year that Chagoury had been denied a visa to travel to the U.S. in 2015 on suspicion that he had provided aid to terrorist groups. One document, citing unverified information from an unnamed source, said that Chagoury  who is of Lebanese heritage  had funneled funds to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia and political group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. Chagoury, an ardent Lakers fan who for decades lived part of the year in Los Angeles, angrily denied that he ever provided funds for terrorism. He said the publicity forced him to sell his Beverly Hills mansion at a loss and caused a bank to close his account. A philanthropist, Vatican ambassador and longtime friend of Bill Clinton, Chagoury once was invited to the White House after contributing to a Democratic get-out-the-vote campaign. He donated at least $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. Emails released last year showed that a Bill Clinton aide pushed Hillary Clintons aides at the State Department to get Chagoury access to top U.S. diplomats. In the settlement filed in court on Friday, the Justice Department said Chagoury has never appeared on the list of Specially Designated Nationals, figures such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers who are generally barred from doing business in the U.S. The government did not grant Chagourys request for a court hearing to dispute the reports that led to his exclusion from the U.S. As I have often said, I have loved America my whole life because it was the land of freedom and justice, he said in a statement, adding that he hopes the agreement will help repair his reputation. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chagoury, who lives most of the time in Paris, has not applied for another visa, said his spokesman, Mark Corallo. Facebook

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Trump ousts Priebus, announces John Kelly as new chief of staff President Trump announced via Twitter on Friday that he had named retired Gen. John Kelly, head of the Department of Homeland Security, as White House chief of staff, replacing Reince Priebus. I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. He is a Great American....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017 ...and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017 I would like to thank Reince Priebus for his service and dedication to his country. We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017 Read More Facebook

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Rep. John Delaney of Maryland to run for president By Associated Press Rep. John Delaney of Maryland says hes running for president, instead of governor or reelection, in 2018. Delaney, a Democrat, announced his plans in a statement Friday. The politically moderate banking entrepreneur is in his third term in Marylands 6th Congressional District, which includes western Maryland and a large section of Montgomery County, the states largest county. The 54-year-old is worth roughly $90 million and is one of the Houses wealthiest members. He spent about $2 million to help finance his first House race in 2012. His consideration of a possible Maryland gubernatorial bid months ago quickly drew interest in his House seat. Several candidates already have expressed interest in running for the seat. Facebook

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McCain set to head back to Arizona to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments By Kurtis Lee (Shawn Thew / EPA) Sen. John McCain is headed home. Hours after McCain spurned his party and voted in opposition to a GOP measure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the senators office announced Friday he will return to Arizona to undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments for his recent diagnosis of brain cancer. McCain, 80, was found this month to have a brain tumor known as a glioblastoma. He is scheduled to return to Washington in September after his initial treatments. The glioblastoma  an aggressive type of cancer  was discovered when McCain had a blood clot removed from above his left eye. According to the Mayo Clinic, which is overseeing McCains treatment, glioblastoma is difficult to treat. After returning to Washington this week and voting in favor of opening Senate debate on repeal, McCain was among three Republicans early Friday morning to vote in opposition to a so-called skinny bill that would repeal the ACA, known as Obamacare. The move by McCain, who has served in the Senate since 1987, has drawn the ire of members in his own party and some in the right-wing media. Facebook

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McCains surprise vote doomed GOP healthcare bill, but did it open the door for Senate bipartisanship? By Lisa Mascaro Sen. John McCain is usually happy to spar with reporters, but he ducked into an elevator ahead of the Senate healthcare vote late Thursday without saying a word about how he would vote. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, though, already knew the answer. The Democratic leader had been talking with the Arizona Republican all week  four, five times a day  ever since McCain returned to work after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Earlier in the week, McCain had dramatically salvaged the stalled GOP bill by voting to begin debate, only to go on to deliver a blistering speech against his own party leaders partisan, closed-door process in crafting it. Weve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle, he told them. Were getting nothing done. Schumer and McCain have been longtime colleagues, a kind of frenemies who seem like throwbacks to an earlier era of Congress. They worked together on big legislation, including the 2013 immigration overhaul  grand ideas that seem all but impossible in todays Congress. They had plenty to discuss. About the Senate, about it working again, about working together, and about how this bill was so poor for the American people, Schumer said. And he knew that, so did half his colleagues, but he had the courage to vote no. The moment stunned the Senate when McCain stepped up to cast his vote  a single down-turned finger  dooming the healthcare bill. Audible gasps filled the galleries, which were packed with onlookers. But his vote  along with no votes from Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska  did more than shelve the long campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It cracked open a new divide in the Senate, which seems to be split not so much between Republicans and Democrats, but by those senators who want to work together versus those stuck in hardened partisan tribes. Read More Facebook

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U.S. hits Iran with more sanctions in response to satellite launch By Associated Press The United States is slapping Iran with new sanctions in response to its launch of a satellite-carrying rocket into space this week. The sanctions target six Iranian subsidiaries of the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group. The Treasury Department says that group is central to Irans ballistic missile program. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the sanctions illustrate deep U.S. concerns about Irans missile testing and other actions. He says the U.S. will continue countering Irans ballistic missile program, including Thursdays provocative space launch. The U.S. has said that launch flouted a U.N. Security Council resolution because the technology is inherently designed to be able to carry a nuclear payload. The sanctions come as the Trump administration continues debating its Iran policy and whether to scrap the 2015 multilateral deal that limits the development of Irans nuclear capabilities. Facebook

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Political betrayal. McCain vote against Obamacare repeal draws ire from conservative writers By Kurtis Lee (Cliff Owen / AP) Though John McCain was one of three Republicans who helped Democrats squash the legislation to repeal Obamacare, conservative media is homing in on the Arizona senator for spurning his party in the healthcare vote. Here are some of todays headlines: John McCain: Traitor to the conservative cause (Washington Times) McCain, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, has been a staunch opponent of Obamacare, but in the end he could not support the so-called skinny repeal measure put forward by his colleagues in the Senate. In this piece, Cheryl K. Chumley, jabs McCain for his vote. For American voters expecting their Republican-dominated House, Senate and White House to honor their years of repeal promises and actually, well, repeal Obamacare, McCains thumbs-down was a face-slap moment that will be remembered in history as a textbook classic case of political betrayal, she writes. McCains odd definition of leading the fight to stop Obamacare (National Review) This article is simple  its a quick compare-and-contrast of McCains recent comments versus his vote on Friday. Last year, during a tough reelection, McCains campaign ran a television ad that boasted the senator is leading the fight to stop Obamacare. But last night his office put out a statement noting the GOP Senate bill did not offer a replacement to actually reform our health care system and deliver affordable, quality health care to our citizens. The author of this piece, Jim Geraghty, concludes: Its very difficult to characterize McCains decision as leading the fight to stop Obamacare. Thats more like leading the fight to keep Obamacare in place while you continue to look for a replacement that you like better. John McCain burns Mitch McConnell sides with Democrats (American Spectator) When McConnell, the majority leader, stood on the Senate floor Friday after the bills failure, he was clearly annoyed. McCains no vote had led to applause moments earlier from Democrats. In a move thats no surprise to anyone, John McCain voted against the embarrassingly named Skinny Repeal, voted against his party (or is it his party?) and voted to keep Obamacare going as is, writes Melissa Mackenzie. Facebook

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Meet the two female GOP senators who opposed the healthcare bill from the start By Kelcey Caulder Sen. John McCain shocked Republicans and Democrats alike with his vote early Friday morning to kill the latest Republican effort to repeal Obamacare. But McCain was not the only Republican to play a role in blocking the final version of the overhaul bill. Two female Republican lawmakers, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, also voted against the bill. Collins has opposed repeal and replace efforts from the beginning, and Murkowski has also been critical of much of what the Senate Republican leadership has proposed. Collins said it would be a big mistake for Republicans to pass legislation without trying seriously to work with Democrats to reach bipartisan solutions. Instead, she called for both parties to work together to improve the healthcare system. Murkowski and Collins were the first from their party to come out against repealing the ACA without having new, replacement legislation on the table. In statements posted on Twitter, Collins, who voted against the same proposal in 2015, said she did not think it was constructive to repeal the law without a replacement, while Murkowski encouraged senators from both sides of the aisle to work together to address healthcare issues. I will vote no on the motion to proceed to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. I voted against this same proposal in 2015. pic.twitter.com/Szuke5zYNL  Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) July 18, 2017 My recent statement on the Senate Healthcare Process: pic.twitter.com/j19Ok1KwWw  Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) July 18, 2017 The two senators were also the only Republicans to vote against opening debate on repeal of Obamacare earlier this week. Their opposition to Republican healthcare efforts has drawn a lot of criticism within the party, some of it expressed in vulgar, even violent terms. Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter said in an interview Wednesday with MSNBC: Somebody needs to go over there to that Senate and snatch a knot in their ass. A Texas congressman said the female senators narrowly avoided an Aaron Burr-style showdown with him. President Trump publicly rebuked Murkowski on Twitter for her vote. Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017 Trump has not criticized Collins by name for her vote, but warned Tuesday at a rally in Ohio that any senator who votes against repeal and replace is telling America that they are fine with the Obamacare nightmare, and I predict theyll have a lot of problems. Facebook

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The current Senate GOP effort to repeal Obamacare is dead. Now what? By Noam N. Levey (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) The sudden collapse of the GOPs Senate campaign to repeal or replace the Affordable Care Act does not mean the issue disappears. Significant problems and challenges remain, particularly for Obamacare insurance marketplaces. The defeat increases the odds that Congress will begin to look at a more limited approach to shore up the current law and stabilize markets. The GOPs repeal effort may return, but in the meantime heres a look at what a temporary fix might look like: Read More Facebook

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Paul Ryan responds to the failure of the GOP healthcare bill By Associated Press House Speaker Paul Ryan said Friday that hes disappointed and frustrated by the failure of Republican healthcare legislation in the Senate. But Ryan said in a statement that we should not give up after promising for years to repeal and replace Obamacare. We were sent to Washington to fulfill the pledges we made to our constituents, the statement said. While the House delivered a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, unfortunately the Senate was unable to reach a consensus. At the same time, the speaker said that overhauling the tax code is at the top of the Houses list of priorities. He pledged to pursue historic tax reform in the fall. He issued his statement as the House prepared to leave Washington for its annual August recess. The House passed legislation repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act in May. But after a failed vote early Friday in the Senate, its not clear if GOP leaders will be able to resuscitate the efforts. Facebook

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Economic growth rebounded to 2.6% annual rate in second quarter By Jim Puzzanghera The Port of Los Angeles (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) The U.S. economy rebounded this spring after a weak winter, expanding at a solid 2.6% annual rate as consumers picked up their spending pace, the Commerce Department said Friday. Total economic output, also known as gross domestic product, for the April-through-June period was in line with analyst expectations for a bounce-back based in part on pent-up demand. The economic growth rate was more than double the 1.2% pace in the first quarter. That figure was revised down Friday from an earlier estimate of 1.4%. After the winter blues, the economy has rebounded, said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at Cal State Channel Islands. Read More Facebook

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Never mind healthcare. President Trump has made slogans great again By Mark Z. Barabak ( (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)) His promise to repeal and replace Obamacare has crashed and burned. Tax reform hasnt gotten far. The White House is in disarray, and big plans to rebuild the nations infrastructure have hit a brick wall. But there is one unimpeachable triumph President Trump can point to: Hes made great again great again. The Make America Great Again 2016 campaign slogan  limned in block letters and emblazoned on countless cherry-red ball caps  has been reimagined, repurposed and cheekily appropriated for countless pitches and commercial products. Apart from the now-familiar caps, mercantile options include aprons, beanies, beer cozys, coffee mugs, hoodies, leggings, swimsuits, T-shirts, water bottles and, for the special someone, Donald Trump Make America Great Again Womens Booty Shorts. But MAGA, as the president short-hands the phrase in Twitter posts, is also popping up in places having little or nothing to do with politics: on a catwalk at New Yorks Fashion Week, high in the sky promoting classical music in Phoenix, on the menu at an Italian restaurant in Atlanta. Read More Facebook

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If Adam Schiff is Californias next U.S. senator, he might want to thank President Trump By Mark Z. Barabak (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) The road to elected office can be long and winding and is not always paved with the best of intentions. Some politicians  think of the Kennedys or the Bush family  are born to the trade. Others are borne by tragedy. Former Santa Barbara Rep. Lois Capps succeeded her husband when he died of a heart attack. Former New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy was spurred to run when her husband was killed and her son gravely wounded in a mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road. Typically, though, the ascension is more methodical, one rung after the next, often with a pinch of right-place, right-time fortune thrown in for good measure. Lately that bit of luck has visited itself on Adam B. Schiff, in the form of Russian meddling and a president who hurls tweets like poison thunderbolts. Read More Facebook

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Kris Kobach says Trumps voter fraud panel will keep voter data secure. Some states arent buying it By Kurtis Lee (Jessica McGowan / Getty Images) After weeks of legal battles and bipartisan pushback from top election officials nationwide, President Trumps voter fraud commission has renewed a message for the states: Its safe to pass along your data about voters. Individuals voter registration records will be kept confidential and secure throughout the duration of the commissions existence, Kris Kobach, vice chairman of the commission, wrote in a letter sent late Wednesday to all 50 secretaries of state. Even so, by Thursday, much of the criticism that greeted an earlier request from the commission was repeated by election officials and activists, who have expressed concerns about privacy and have called the panel both a sham created by an insecure president and a tool to suppress votes. Trump  without evidence  has repeatedly alleged that 3 million to 5 million illegal votes were cast in last years presidential election. (Trump prevailed in the electoral college, while Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by about 3 million votes.) Read More Facebook

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President Trump said our guys are rougher than the violent gang MS-13. What did he mean? By Brian Bennett (SAUL LOEB / AFP ) When President Trump said this week his administration is going after bloodthirsty criminal gangs like the notoriously violent MS-13, he added a menacing flourish: Our guys are rougher than their guys. The comment raised concerns that Trump was instructing immigration agents to use excessive force when going after suspected gang members. Not so, Trumps top spokeswoman said on Thursday. I think the president means that our guys are going to do whatever it takes to protect Americans, protect American lives, protect our borders, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in response to a question about what Trump meant by rougher. Trump wants people to do their jobs, not go beyond the scope of what they should do, Sanders said. Trumps comment came during a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Tuesday night. We are throwing MS-13 the hell out of here so fast, he said, boasting that his administration is liberating towns and cities from gangs. And, well, I will just tell you this, were not doing it in a politically correct fashion, Trump added. Were doing it rough. Our guys are rougher than their guys. Trumps comment was meant to boost morale among immigration officers looking to arrest and deport gang members, said one senior administration official, who would speak only without being identified to discuss the presidents thinking. As part of Trumps crackdown on immigrants in the country illegally, he has instructed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to target a suspected gang member for deportation before that person has been convicted of a crime, said ICE director Thomas Homan. Homan joined Sanders at her daily briefing at the White House. The two spoke to preview the presidents Friday trip to Long Island, N.Y., where he will tout his administrations efforts against MS-13 and other gangs. For Trump, who grew up in Queens, recent headlines about MS-13 violence in central Long Island have hit close to home. In April, four young men were found hacked to death in a park in Central Islip, N.Y., a senior administration official told reporters Thursday night. He is a New Yorker and he knows New York, the administration official said. It is absolutely a personal issue. And he knows whats happening in New York -- and its not just Long Island -- is a tragedy and there are communities like that all across America. Facebook

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Boy Scouts chief apologizes for presidents political rhetoric at national Jamboree. Trump wont By Brian Bennett President Trump wont apologize for a surprisingly political speech this week to Boy Scouts that provoked a backlash for his attacks on his predecessor, his election rival, dissident Republicans and the news media. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered that word on Thursday, just after a top executive of the Boy Scouts of America issued an apology on behalf of the organization for allowing the political rhetoric to occur during Trumps address Monday evening at the National Scout Jamboree held in West Virginia. Michael Surbaugh, the organizations chief executive, in a statement extended his sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree. He noted that the groups invitation to the president to speak was in keeping with a long-standing tradition since 1937; eight of 11 incumbent presidents have attended. But, Surbaugh wrote, we have steadfastly remained non-partisan and refused to comment on political matters. We sincerely regret that politics were inserted into the Scouting program. At the White House, however, Sanders indicated that neither she nor Trump saw any reason to apologize, or considered his remarks in any way out of line. I was at that event and I saw nothing but roughly 40,000 to 45,000 Boy Scouts cheering the president on throughout his remarks, Sanders said. I think they were pretty excited that he was there and happy to hear him speak to them, she added. Sanders said she had not seen the statement from the Boy Scouts chief. During his rambling 38-minute speech to the Scouts in Glen Jean, W.Va., Trump criticized Hillary Clinton and President Obama and singled out congressional Republicans who were not in lockstep with him on healthcare. He got much applause and supportive chants from his audience, and even credited the Scouts -- who are too young to vote -- for being among the millions who elected him. But almost immediately, the Boy Scouts organization was inundated with protests from former Scouts, parents and others angered by the presidents partisan words. Facebook

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Trumps words kind of hurtful, Sessions says, but he has no plans to resign By Joseph Tanfani President Trumps scathing criticisms have been kind of hurtful, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions said Thursday, even as he again signaled that he wants to stay on the job. He wants all of us to do our job, and thats what I intend to do, Sessions said in an interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News. Separately, Sessions told the Associated Press that it hasnt been my best week  for my relationship with the president. He made the comment in El Salvador, during a visit to highlight joint efforts to take on the MS-13 gang. The attorney general said he hadnt met with Trump but looked forward to talking to him about it. If he wants to make a change, he has every right, Sessions said. I serve at the pleasure of the president. Ive understood that from the day I took the job. But, he said, I believe with great confidence that I understand what is needed in the Department of Justice and what President Trump wants. I share his agenda. The comments were the first this week on the subject from Sessions, who has been subjected to harshly critical tweets from Trump for three days. The president has called him weak and said he wasnt aggressive enough in going after leakers. Last week, after Trump criticized Sessions in a New York Times interview, Sessions told reporters he planned to stay on as long as it was appropriate. Sessions has seemed to redouble his attempts this week to win back the presidents favor. He announced another crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities that dont cooperate with immigration enforcement and on Friday traveled to El Salvador to highlight arrests of MS-13 gang members, both favorite topics of the president. The Justice Department also plans to address leaks next week. Sessions said his department was stepping up leak investigations. Some people need to go to jail, he said. The president has every right to ask the DOJ to be more aggressive on that, and we intend to. On Wednesday evening, after Anthony Scaramucci , Trumps incoming communications director, falsely claimed in a tweet that hed been the victim of a leak, Sessions chief spokeswoman released a statement agreeing that leaks are undermining the government and promising to aggressively pursue leak cases wherever they may lead. Trump has made it clear that he is most angry with Sessions for recusing himself from supervising the ongoing investigation into his administrations ties with Russia. But Sessions defended that decision. I understand his feeling about it because this has been a big distraction for him, he said on Fox. Im confident I made the right decision, the decision thats consistent with the rule of law, and an attorney general who doesnt follow the law is not very effective at leading the Department of Justice, he said. In the interview, Sessions reached back to Trumps campaign slogan to praise the president as a strong leader. He is determined to move this country in the direction that he believes it needs to go to make it great again, he said. Sessions has received considerable support in recent days from conservative Republicans, including many of his former Senate colleagues. On Thursday, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) went to the Senate floor to discourage Trump from moving against Sessions, saying that the Senate would not allow the president to make a recess appointment that would bypass the normal confirmation process. A recess appointment would allow Trump to appoint a person who could serve without confirmation until the start of 2019. Such appointments can only be made if the Senate formally takes a break, which senators of both parties have said they will avoid in order to prevent Trump from avoiding confirmations. If youre thinking of making a recess appointment to push out the attorney general, forget about it, Sasse said. The presidency isnt a bull, and this country isnt a china shop. 1:55 p.m.: This post was updated with additional remarks by Sessions and remarks by Sen. Ben Sasse. 5:50: This post was updated with additional quotes from Sessions interview. Facebook

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For Trump White House, cable television becomes the venue for intramural sniping By Noah Bierman President Trump and his aides love to complain about leaks from within the White House. But on Thursday, the infighting was out in the open. The incoming communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, in a morning phone call broadcast on CNN, compared the West Wing to a fish that stinks from the head down, implying that White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is responsible for at least some of the leaks. Later, Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to come to Priebuss defense and say whether Trump has full confidence in his chief of staff. Another Trump advisor, Kellyanne Conway, used a prison analogy for the broader backstabbing among aides, telling Fox News that her West Wing colleagues were using the press to shiv each other. While the knifings might suggest a new level of chaos in a White House known for it, the style is all Trump. As a businessman, he has a history of fostering rivalries among his employees. He always did sort of like competition, backstabbing, infighting kind of stuff, said Barbara Res, who spent nearly two decades as a top executive in Trumps real estate business. He set people up to do that. Trump led the charge this week, using his Twitter account and an interview with the Wall Street Journal to ridicule his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, one of Trumps first and most prominent campaign supporters. By Thursday, both Priebus and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were seeing their fates publicly debated, less than a week after Sean Spicer was forced out as press secretary after months of speculation and presidential slights. The Priebus intrigue was amplified by Scaramucci on Twitter and in the CNN interview. He blamed Priebus for leaking Scaramuccis personal financial disclosure forms -- which are publicly available -- and suggested that Trump encouraged Scaramuccis offensive in a phone conversation the two men had just before the aide dialed into CNN. When Sanders was asked about the Scaramucci-Priebus dustup, she said that the president likes healthy competition on his staff. The president likes that kind of competition and encourages it, Sanders said. The result is a White House that increasingly suggests the presidents former way of life. As the star of a reality TV show, he fomented internal competition and firings among apprentices; their cable television appearances, meanwhile, recall the confessionals familiar to reality show fans, in which characters confide directly to the camera their anger or enmity toward others on the show. The primary attribute for a successful tenure in the Trump White House is masochism, tweeted Rick Wilson, a longtime Republican operative and Trump critic. The repeated evidence of dysfunction and the high level of insecurity among Trumps core aides help explain the White Houses inability to focus on its agenda. Trumps critics voiced suspicions on Twitter that the public staff blow-up was a deliberate distraction from the struggle in Congress to pass a healthcare bill, as well as from the ongoing investigations into potential collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia and the backlash to Trumps surprise Twitter announcement on Wednesday that transgender people will be barred from military service. But those issues also were being heavily covered on cable news. The stories that were overshadowed were those Trump was trying to promote: a deal his administration helped strike with Foxconn to build a production facility in Wisconsin, possibly creating thousands of new jobs, and nascent efforts to craft a tax overhaul plan. Facebook

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Democrats criticize financial industry backgrounds of two Trump bank regulator nominees By Jim Puzzanghera Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) Senate Democrats on Thursday criticized the financial industry backgrounds of President Trumps nominees for two key banking regulatory positions, arguing they would not protect the interests of average Americans. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and others sharply questioned Joseph Otting, the former chief executive of Pasadenas OneWest Bank, and investment fund manager Randal Quarles during a confirmation hearing by the Senate Banking Committee. Trump nominated Otting to be the comptroller of the currency, a powerful regulator of national banks. Quarles has been tapped to be the Federal Reserves vice chairman for supervision, who is in charge of the Feds oversight of the nations largest bank holding companies and other regulatory efforts. The two are expected to be friendlier to the banking industry than recent Democratic appointees. Read More Facebook

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Senator warns Trump there will be holy hell to pay if he fires Sessions By Joseph Tanfani A prominent Republican Senator issued a blunt warning to President Trump not to interfere with the Russia investigation, saying any effort to get rid of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters Thursday that there will be holy hell to pay if Trump fires Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, a favorite of conservatives who represented Alabama in the Senate for 20 years. Grahams warning was the sternest yet from Senate Republicans to Trump about the potential consequences of firing either Sessions or Mueller. The chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, (R-Iowa), issued his own warning in a tweet Wednesday night, saying his committee would not take up a nomination of a replacement attorney general this year, which is required before the Senate can vote to confirm. Everybody in D.C. Shld b warned that the agenda for the judiciary Comm is set for rest of 2017. Judges first subcabinet 2nd / AG no way  ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) July 27, 2017 Starting with an interview in the New York Times last week and continuing with a three-day barrage of critical tweets, Trump has raged at Sessions for his decision to recuse himself from supervising the investigation into the Russian attempts to influence the election, and into whether anybody involved in Trumps campaign participated in the scheme. Trump also has bitterly complained about Mueller, whom he has accused of leading a witch hunt, and Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod J. Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and who is now supervising the probe. Justice Department regulations say that only the attorney general, or in this case Rosenstein acting in his place, can fire the special counsel. If Sessions were gone, Trump could try to appoint a replacement willing to carry out the firing. Graham said he will introduce a bill next week that would require court review if anyone tried to fire a special counsel who was investigating the president. I think Ill get all the Democrats and I hope to get a good number of Republicans, he said, adding that the enacting such a law is not just for Trump but for any future president. We need a check and balance here. Graham said Trumps campaign to marginalize and humiliate the attorney general is not going over well in the Senate or among conservatives. He also said Trump, who has called on Sessions to investigate his former rival Hillary Clinton, has gone way beyond what is acceptable in a rule of law nation. This is not draining the swamp, he said. What hes interjecting is turning democracy upside down..taking 200-year-old concepts that were a nation of laws and not men and trying to turn it upside down. Sen. Graham: "Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency." https://t.co/6Pd60LrGRU pic.twitter.com/EXBOwBC35C  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 27, 2017 Facebook

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Watch live: White House news briefing with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders Facebook

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Trump administration threatens to retaliate against Alaska for GOP senators Obamacare repeal vote, news site reports By Noam N. Levey The Trump administration threatened to block federal aid to Alaska in an effort to bully one of the Republican senators opposed to the current Senate GOP push to roll back the Affordable Care Act, according to a report by the Alaska Dispatch News. The news site reports that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Wednesday called Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan with a warning that Murkowskis vote had put Alaskas future with the administration in jeopardy. According to the report: Sullivan said the call from Zinke heralded a troubling message. Im not going to go into the details, but I fear that the strong economic growth, pro-energy, pro-mining, pro-jobs and personnel from Alaska who are part of those policies are going to stop, Sullivan said. I tried to push back on behalf of all Alaskans.  Were facing some difficult times and theres a lot of enthusiasm for the policies that Secretary Zinke and the president have been talking about with regard to our economy. But the message was pretty clear, Sullivan said. The threat followed disparaging comments made by the president about Murkowski, including a Twitter attack Wednesday morning Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad! Trump wrote. Murkowski dismissed the presidents attacks in an interview with MSNBC. Were here to govern. Were here to legislate, she said. Were here to represent the people who sent us here. And so every day shouldnt be about campaigning. Every day shouldnt be about winning elections. How about just doing a little bit of governing around here? Thats what Im here for. Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins were the only Republicans who voted against a procedural motion Tuesday to begin debating legislation rolling back the 2010 healthcare law, often called Obamacare. Sullivan, also a Republican, voted in favor of advancing the bill. Murkowski has urged a more open process to develop the legislation, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) has put together behind closed doors without committee hearings or input from Democrats. A spokeswoman for Zinke did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Facebook

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Iran angered by report that Trump wants additional nuclear inspections By Shashank Bengali Iran responded angrily Thursday to reports that the Trump administration would push for inspections of military facilities to ensure Tehran is complying with the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran will not succumb to further pressure, Hamid Reza Taraghi, a hard-line analyst who is close to Irans leadership, told The Times. Taraghi did not say whether Iran would refuse inspectors access to military facilities but insisted the Islamic Republic was complying with the agreement, which required Iran to shelve its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. President Trump has said he wants to tear up the deal and doesnt believe Iran is complying, although his administration certified it was in a report to Congress this month. The Associated Press reported Thursday that Trump was pushing for inspections of suspicious Iranian military sites, either to prove that Iran was violating the deal or force it to refuse, which could cause the agreement to collapse. Iranian officials have argued in the past that inspections of military sites would be off-limits. But under the agreement it signed with the United States and five other world powers, Iran agreed to the so-called Additional Protocol, which allows U.N. inspectors limited access to any site where illicit nuclear activity is suspected. Taraghi, a former lawmaker, said the Additional Protocol allowed for snap inspections and that international inspectors had installed closed-circuit cameras in all nuclear-related facilities. They have access to everything going on here on the ground, Taraghi said. What else do they want to know? It was not immediately clear what military sites the Trump administration was seeking to have inspected, or whether it had evidence that Iran was breaching the terms of the deal. U.N. inspectors monitoring Irans compliance had not requested access to military facilities as of July 25, according to a paper published Thursday by Mark Fitzpatrick, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington. If US has good evidence of #Iran violations, then an inspection request is warranted, Fitzpatrick tweeted. A request designed to trap Iran into saying no isnt. Facebook

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Top U.S. general says Pentagon will not change policy on transgender troops until White House acts By W.J. Hennigan The nations senior military officer said Thursday that there will be no modifications to Pentagon policies for now despite President Trump social media posts declaring a ban on transgender troops in uniform. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a memo to commanders and senior enlisted leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines that the military will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect. Dunford said Pentagon policy on transgender troops would not change until the White House has issued Trumps directive to Secretary of Defense James Mattis through formal channels  not on Twitter  and the secretarys office issues guidance on implementation to the service chiefs. Its unclear when that might happen. The unusual memo appeared intended to calm widespread confusion and concern at the Pentagon, which was blindsided when Trump wrote Wednesday that Pentagon would not accept or allow transgender troops to serve in any capacity. The presidents posts appeared to reverse a year-old Pentagon policy that allowed transgender soldiers to openly serve for the first time, and to seek sex reassignment surgery, hormone therapy and other treatments at military hospitals. Trumps surprise announcement not only marked a retreat for the Pentagon push to bar gender-based discrimination. It also was an about-face for Trump, who had repeatedly vowed his support for the LGBT community during the campaign last year. The posts raised questions about the fate of thousands of transgender service members, including some deployed overseas, and whether they would be kicked out of the military under Trumps directive. Dunfords memo appeared to address those fears, at least for the short term. There will be no modifications to the current policy until the Presidents direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance, he wrote. In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect, he added. As importantly, given the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions. In his tweets, Trump said he had decided to bar transgender troops because the military cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Experts said neither justification was accurate or fair since the expected medical costs were negligible and transgender troops have been openly serving for the past year without disruption. The sweeping declaration drew rebuke from war veterans and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy groups, who vowed to challenge Trump in federal court if self-identified transgender service members are forced out of the military. VoteVets, a liberal military veterans advocacy group, said Thursday it had collected more than 20,000 signatures from veterans, military families and other supporters to oppose the ban. Facebook

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Analysis: Trumps war against elites and expertise By Cathleen Decker (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) When President Trump campaigned this spring at the Hermitage, the home of Andrew Jackson, one part of his predecessors approach got a special endorsement. It was during the Revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite. Does that sound familiar? Trump asked to laughs from his audience. When Trump ally and National Rifle Assn. President Wayne LaPierre teed off six weeks later on Americas greatest domestic threats, he cited not homegrown terrorists but what he termed the three most dangerous voices in America: academic elites, political elites, and media elites. The rhetoric against elites came from two men who would seem to be card-carrying members of the club: LaPierre made more than $5 million in 2015, the most recent year for which his compensation was publicly released. Trump lived before his inauguration in a gold-plated home in the sky above New Yorks Fifth Avenue, a billionaires luxurious domain. Yet for Trump and his allies, a war on elites has been central to the campaign which put him in the presidency and has maintained the loyalty of his core voters. Trump has taken particular aim at entities that could counter his power, which has helped stoke the ardor of his political backers. Read More Facebook

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Top Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway says colleagues using the press to shiv each other By Noah Bierman White House staffers continued their angry campaign against leaks -- and each other -- as top advisor Kellyanne Conway used vivid language in a Fox interview Thursday to denounce colleagues who are using the press to shiv each other in the ribs. The comments came shortly after Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, delivered his own attack on leakers -- all but blaming Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff -- in an interview on CNN. If the Trump White House at times resembles a reality show, cable television has become the confessional booth where the players vent their anger at each other. That dynamic was on vivid display Thursday morning. Kellyanne Conway: "Now, there are leaks, and then there are people using the press to shiv each other in the ribs. Thats different." (Fox)  David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) July 27, 2017 Conway largely backed Scaramucci without explicitly taking sides in his public war against Priebus, whom he publicly suggested leaked Scaramuccis financial disclosure forms to the press. The forms are public and available through a request. We just have to cut down on people thinking its cute and its popular and it somehow enhances their resume and their portfolio for later on to curry favor with folks who are more interested in covering the style and not the substance here, Conway said of those who leak to he press. Asked specifically whether she agrees with Scaramucci that Priebus leaked the financial forms, Conway passed on the opportunity to defend Priebus. Leakers are easier to figure out than many think, she said, perhaps ominously given Scaramuccis threats to fire suspects. This West Wing is a very small place. Facebook

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Warfare in the West Wing breaks into the open as Scaramucci takes aim at Priebus By Brian Bennett A knife fight for control of the West Wing broke into the open Thursday morning as President Trumps new communications director Anthony Scaramucci lashed out at White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus in a televised interview, accusing Priebus of leaking and standing in the way of Trumps agenda. The fish stinks from the head down, I can tell you two fish that dont stink, OK, and thats me and the president, Scaramucci said, calling in to CNNs morning show New Day. I dont like the activity thats going in the White House, he said. Scaramucci, who had said the day he was named to the White House job that he and Priebus were like brothers, drastically amended that in the interview, comparing the two of them to the brothers who, in the Bible, were the characters in the first murder. Some brothers are like Cain and Abel, other brothers can fight with each other and get along. I dont know if this is reparable or not  that will be up to the president, he said. Scaramucci on his relationship with Reince: "Some brothers are like Cain and Abel." Uh, Cain killed Abel. https://t.co/UQ8F9HiXLx  Dan Merica (@merica) July 27, 2017 President Trump has a track record of encouraging rivalries among people who work for him. Scaramucci said he had spoken with Trump for 15 minutes to go over what he was going to say before he called CNN, implying his warning to Priebus carried Trumps backing. Trump, Scaramucci said, has given me his full support and his full blessing. When Scaramucci was hired, Trump told him he would report directly to the president, bypassing the chief of staff, and setting up the clash that played out Thursday on national television. If you want to talk about the chief of staff, we have had odds, we have had differences. When I said we were brothers from the podium, thats because were rough on each other, Scaramucci said. The tension between Scaramucci and Priebus flared after Politico published a story Wednesday about Scaramuccis publicly available financial disclosure form showing he still stands to profit from his stake in an investment firm he founded. The disclosure form was available to the public because Scaramucci had been nominated earlier this year for a job at the Export-Import Bank of the U.S., and the forms become public 30 days after they are filed. But Scaramucci, in a tweet Wednesday night, seemed to imply Priebus had leaked the form to make him look bad, or knew who did, and called for an FBI investigation. He later deleted the tweet, apparently after being informed that the form was not leaked. Over the last five days, Scaramucci said to CNN, he has done a major amount of work interviewing assistants to the president and communications staff. He also had dinner with Trump on Wednesday night in addition to his phone conversation with the president Thursday morning. The two of them want everyone to know we have a very, very good idea of who the leakers are, who the senior leakers are, in the White House, he said. Scaramucci took aim specifically at Priebus for leaking details about internal White House discussions and maneuvers. If Reince wants to explain that hes not a leaker, let him do that, Scaramucci said. Scaramucci appears to be giving voice to Trumps frustration with people in the White House the president believes are slowing down policy efforts, even though Trump has shown a pattern of repeatedly stepping on his own efforts on healthcare, job creation and other initiatives with unplanned tweets on topics such as Russia, transgender troops and unfounded allegations of voter fraud. There are people inside this administration who think its their job to save America from this president, Scaramucci said. Its not their jobs ... to rein him in or do things to him that slow down his agenda. People in the Washington are back-stabbers, Scaramucci said. Im more of a front-stabbing person. Facebook

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Scaramucci tweets, then deletes, confusing statement that referred to information in Politico report as a leak By Colleen Shalby In a now deleted tweet, incoming White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci sent out a confusing statement Wednesday night, addressing information reported earlier by Politico as a leak. The article reported on Scaramuccis financial disclosures. According to Politico, those details had been filed with the Office of Government Ethics, so its unclear what  if anything  was leaked information. Scaramuccis tweet further confused as it ended with White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus Twitter handle. Just before those characters, he noted that he intended to contact the FBI and the Justice Department. Some speculated that Scaramucci was implying that Priebus was behind the leak. But in a new tweet roughly two hours after the original, he tweeted what appeared to be a clarification, correcting a headline of news site Axios. Wrong! Tweet was public notice to leakers that all Sr Adm officials are helping to end illegal leaks, he tweeted, ending it  once again  with Priebus handle. Wrong! Tweet was public notice to leakers that all Sr Adm officials are helping to end illegal leaks. @Reince45 pic.twitter.com/AB0reseuX1  Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 27, 2017 Five days ago, Scaramucci, responding to a question about reported tensions between him and the chief of staff, said he and Priebus are a little bit like brothers, where we rough each other up a little, which is totally normal for brothers. 10:15 p.m. PT: This post was originally published at 8:52 p.m. It was updated with information from Scaramuccis new tweet. Facebook

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Senate Judiciary chair fires off warning to Trump about Sessions By David Lauter Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, fired off an unmistakable warning to President Trump on Wednesday evening: Dont even think about trying to get a new attorney general confirmed this year. Trump has been publicly tormenting Jeff Sessions, appearing to want to push the attorney general into stepping down from his job. But in a tweet, Grassley made it clear that if Trump pushed Sessions out, he would have to live with an acting attorney general for a long time. Everybody in D.C. Shld b warned that the agenda for the judiciary Comm is set for rest of 2017. Judges first subcabinet 2nd / AG no way  ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) July 27, 2017 Any nominee for attorney general would have to pass through the Judiciary Committee before getting a confirmation vote, so Grassleys no way would be a formidable barrier. Grassley has been an administration loyalist on nearly all issues so far, but as a veteran senator, he has a strong independent streak and, as previous administrations have found, he can be implacable if angered. His message comes as conservative allies rally support for Sessions. Several other Republican senators have spoken out in favor of the attorney general, a former colleague who was well liked during his years as senator from Alabama. Senate Democrats already have said they would use procedural motions to prevent the Senate from formally going on a recess this summer, blocking Trump from making a recess appointment that would bypass the Senate. Republicans used similar maneuvers to block recess appointments by President Obama. If Sessions were to step down and not be replaced, Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein would become acting attorney general. Trump has been critical of Rosenstein as well as Sessions, so that option presumably would not appeal to him. Facebook

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Under fire from Trump, Sessions should stay focused on his job, White House says By Joseph Tanfani (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) In spite of a daily barrage of Twitter attacks from President Trump, the White House press secretary said Wednesday that Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions should stay focused on performing his duties as the nations top law enforcement officer. You can be disappointed in someone and still want someone to continue to do their job, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday, hours after Trump criticized Sessions for the third straight day  this time for not replacing acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Sessions was one of Trumps earliest and most loyal supporters, but the relationship has turned icy as Trump continues to seethe about Sessions decision to step aside from supervising the investigation into alleged Russian interference with last years election. Sessions was at the White House for meetings Wednesday, the second time this week hes visited the West Wing, but once again did not see Trump, Sanders said. Sanders did not clear up the main question surrounding Trumps strategy of publicly battering the attorney general: If the president is so unhappy, why doesnt he simply fire Sessions? Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Wednesday that Trumps apparent attempt to humiliate Sessions into quitting was a sign of weakness. To me, weakness is when you play around the edges, and you dont use the power you have, Graham said in an interview on CNN. Sanders said that Trump wants Sessions to continue to lead the Department of Justice. He wants him to focus on things like immigration, leaks and a number of other issues, she said. One of Trumps public complaints has been that Sessions hasnt been aggressive enough in pursuing leakers of classified information. In fact, the Justice Department is expected to announce next week some leak prosecutions. On Tuesday, Sessions also announced new measures to cut off some federal funds to so-called sanctuary cities that dont cooperate with immigration enforcement, another favorite issue for the president. But Sanders added that, at this point, a leak investigation would not salvage Sessions standing with Trump. I dont think thats the nature of the relationship, she said. In two tweets Wednesday morning, Trump criticized Sessions for not replacing McCabe, whose wife ran for office as a Democrat in Virginia in 2015. He suggested that McCabe had a conflict of interest in his duties as deputy director of the FBI during the investigation of Hillary Clintons handling of classified emails as secretary of State, although McCabe did not move into that job until months after his wifes campaign was over. McCabe took over the bureau as acting director when Trump fired James B. Comey in May. Sanders also declined to answer a question on why Trump did not fire McCabe himself, saying only that Trump looked forward to seeing his nominee as FBI director, Christopher Wray, be confirmed by the Senate soon. Facebook

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Trump, on Twitter, announced a ban on transgender service members. Now the military has to figure out what he means By Brian Bennett (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump surprised even the Pentagon on Wednesday morning by his unexpected announcement, via Twitter, of a ban on transgender service members. The military has not had a chance to decide how to put such a ban into effect, acknowledged Trumps top spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as she fielded numerous questions on the topic later from White House reporters. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who was on vacation, wasnt informed until Tuesday that Trump had decided to bar transgender service members from serving in any way. Sometimes you have to make a decision and once he made a decision, he didnt feel it was necessary to hold that decision, Sanders said. The president concluded, based on consultations with his national security team, that allowing transgender individuals to serve erodes military readiness and unit cohesion, she said. White House and Pentagon officials had been discussing details of medical coverage for transgender service members on active duty. But Trump went far beyond that with his series of tweets that the military will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the military. It will be up to the Defense Department to determine the specifics of the policy, including whether active-duty transgender service members will be kicked out of the military, Sanders said. Estimates of the number of current service members who are transgender range from 1,300 to about 16,000. The implementation policy is going to be something that the White House and Department of Defense will have to work together to lawfully determine, Sanders said. I would imagine the Department of Defense will be the lead on that, she added. Trumps tweets overshadowed other announcements he had planned to make Wednesday about adding manufacturing jobs to the economy and donating $100,000 of his second-quarter paycheck to the Department of Education to support science and math education. The president has expressed concerns since this Obama policy came into effect, Sanders said. She added that the president considered allowing transgender people in the ranks is a very expensive and disruptive policy. At one point, an exasp
After years of failed efforts, the California Legislature may finally pass a bill that responds to the problem of rising prescription drug costs. But temper your enthusiasm: Though this measure (SB 17) has been fiercely resisted by the pharmaceutical industry, it wouldnt actually stop manufacturers from raising their prices as high as they think the market will bear. It would just make them reveal more about the cost and value of their drugs as they do so.

Some lawmakers and consumer advocates would like to go further, capping drug prices in some fashion. But efforts to control drug prices through legislation or the ballot have failed, in part because of heavy industry opposition and in part because of concerns that price caps might lead to drug shortages or other unintended consequences. The state also could be on shaky ground in federal court if it took steps that impeded interstate drug sales.

In short, the Legislatures options are limited. Worse, its hard for policymakers to find lesser measures that might be helpful because of the cloud of mystery surrounding how pharmaceutical companies price their products. Although publicly traded companies report broadly on their expenses and revenues, those numbers dont provide much explanation for specific pricing decisions, such as why an EpiPen that sold for $104 in 2013 was priced at $225 two years later. The companies typical explanation is that every successful drug has to cover the cost of developing many other drugs that dont make it to market.

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Even after their patents expire, drug makers sometimes face so little competition that theres nothing to stop them from jacking up prices exponentially.

Thats where SB 17 by Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) comes in. It would gather data from insurers about which drugs are the most commonly prescribed, which are the most costly and which saw the largest increase in total sales, as well as what percentage of premiums and premium increases were attributable to prescription medications. So much for the non-controversial portion of the bill. More contentiously, it would require drug makers to give notice weeks in advance of a major price hike. It would also compel manufacturers to lay out the rationale for such increases, along with documentation of any improvement in clinical efficacy that their drugs offer over alternative treatments. The same disclosures would be required for newly approved specialty drugs.

The drug companies biggest fear seems to be that the measure is a stalking horse for price caps, which they say would dry up the investment they rely on to fund R&D. But thats a wholly separate debate, and one that should be informed by the kind of industry data that SB 17 aims to collect.

Nor can drugmakers argue with a straight face (although some do) that the Legislature should simply trust competition and market forces to protect consumers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but pharmaceutical companies enjoy goverment-awarded monopolies on their products that last for a decade or more, and that they often manage to extend by tweaking their formulations. And even after their patents expire, drug makers sometimes face so little competition that theres nothing to stop them from jacking up prices exponentially (see, e.g., the exploits of pharma bro Martin Shkreli). On top of that, consumers arent trained to diagnose their own ailments and prescribe the right pills  they rely on medical professionals to make those choices for them. Thats why pharmaceutical companies spend so much time and money marketing their wares to doctors and clinicians.

Drug makers insist that their products are being demonized in the debate over healthcare costs, and that their prices arent as high as they appear because of the rebates and discounts obtained by pharmacy benefit managers such as Express Scripts  powerful middlemen that process claims for prescription-drug benefits and negotiate with drug makers on behalf of insurers and large employers. They complain that Hernandezs bill doesnt account adequately for the role of these middlemen.

There are a host of questions surrounding pharmacy benefit managers, which critics say pocket some portion of the discounts they negotiate rather than passing them along to their customers. And a bill is moving through the Legislature (AB 315) to offer a bit of needed clarity by requiring these companies to disclose to their clients the discounts they obtain, while also reporting aggregate information to the state about the prices they pay for drugs.

If the industry is worried about SB 17 painting a misleading and prejudicial picture about drug prices, it should be working with Hernandez to generate better data for state policymakers, not trying to stymie the push for transparency. The fact that pricing is complicated is all the more reason to develop a clearer picture of the factors involved. Its not as if this issue is going away  as drug prices continue to rise along with healthcare spending in general, so will the pressure on lawmakers to ease the pain.

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Only 36% of Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center, believe colleges and universities have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country, versus 58% who say they have a negative effect. Among Democrats, those figures are 72% and 19%, respectively. That finding represents a crisis.

For it to be a crisis does not depend on you having any conservative sympathies. For this to be a crisis requires only that you recognize that the GOP is one of two major political parties in American life, and that Republicans lack of faith in higher education will have practical consequences.

Further, it helps if you recognize that, in the present era, Republicans dominate American governance, with control of the House, Senate, presidency and crucially for our purposes, a significant majority of the countrys statehouses and governors mansions. They also have built a machine for state-level political elections that ensures that they will likely control many state legislatures for years to come.

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In my network of professional academics, almost no one recognizes that our lopsided liberalism presents a threat to academia itself.

As an academic, I am increasingly convinced that a mass defunding of public higher education is coming to an unprecedented degree and at an unprecedented scale. People enjoy telling me that this has already occurred  that state support of our public universities has already declined precipitously. But things can always get worse, much worse.

And given the endless controversies on college campuses in which conservative speakers get shut out and conservative students feel silenced, the public relations work is being done for the enemies of public education by those within the institutions themselves.

Whos to blame for the fact that so few Republicans see the value in universities? The conservative media must accept some responsibility for encouraging its audiences to doubt expertise; so must those in the mainstream media who amplify every leftist kerfuffle on campus and make it seem as though trigger warnings are now at the center of college life.

But academics are at fault, too, because weve pushed mainstream conservatism out of our institutions. Sociologists Neil Gross and Solon Simmons have found that about half of professors identify as liberal, versus only 14% who identify as Republican. (At the time of their study, in 2006, only a fifth of American adults described themselves as liberal.)

In Whats Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Michael Berube describes and defends a philosophy of non-coercion and intellectual pluralism that isnt just an intellectual curiosity, but an actual ethos that he and other professors live by. I grew up believing that most professors lived by that ethos. I dont anymore. And when I suggest its a problem that academics are so overwhelmingly liberal, I get astonished reactions. You actually think conservatives should feel welcome on campus?

In my network of professional academics, almost no one recognizes that our lopsided liberalism presents a threat to academia itself. Many would reply to the Pew Research Centers findings with glee. They would tell you that they dont want the support of Republicans. My fellow academics wont grapple with the simple, pragmatic realities of political power and how it threatens vulnerable institutions whose funding is in doubt. Thats because there is no professional or social incentive in the academy to think strategically or to engage with the world beyond campus.

Instead, all of the incentives point toward affirming ones position in the aristocracy of the academy. There are no repercussions to ignoring how the university and its subsidiary departments function in our broader society, at least not in the humanities and, for the most part, not in the social sciences either.

Universities make up a powerful lobbying bloc, and they have proved to be durable institutions. I dont think youll see many flagship institutions shuttered soon. But an acceleration of the deprofessionalization of the university teaching corps through part-time adjuncts? Shuttering departments such as Womens Studies or similar? Passing harsh restrictions on campus groups and how they can organize? Thats coming, and our own behavior as academics will make it easier for reactionary power, every step of the way.

Our public universities are under massive pressure and at immense risk, and those who should be defenders of public universities still dont understand that theyve created the conditions for their destruction.

Fredrik deBoer is a writer and academic at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York.

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When he was cajoling lawmakers to extend the centerpiece of Californias ambitious climate change program, Gov. Jerry Brown talked a lot about hard choices and the compromises necessary to get politically controversial legislation passed. Turns out that to get a deal, Brown may have sacrificed one of his own pet projects  Californias bullet train.

Brown has been the most outspoken advocate for building the high speed rail train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which would be the first of its kind in the U.S. He has continually pressed skeptical Democrats to stay committed to the project. Hes challenged Republicans in the state and in Washington, D.C., who want to defund the rail line. And Brown pretty much saved the project in 2014 when he convinced lawmakers to dedicate 25% of all the cap-and-trade auction revenue to the train, which should provide enough money to build the first leg of the train from Merced to San Jose.

Yet Brown has been even more outspoken and committed to combating climate change, which he has called a threat to organized human existence.

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The cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions, is central to Californias plan to reduce emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and its supposed to be a model for how to cut global greenhouse gases without slowing the economy.

Will lawmakers want to pull the plug on the bullet train once they see it whizzing from farm fields to Silicon Valley?

But when lawmakers on the left and right balked at Browns plan to extend the program, the governor started cutting deals, left and right. One of those deals, which helped secure eight Republican votes, was Republican Assembly Leader Chad Mayes constitutional amendment that would give the minority party more say over how billions of dollars raised through cap and trade are spent.

High speed rail has received the most money so far from the program  $958 million  and by law the project gets one-quarter of all the funds raised through the cap-and-trade auctions. This has infuriated many Republicans who are adamantly opposed to building the bullet train but were unable to block the funding plan when it was approved by a simple majority vote in the Legislature a few years ago.

Mayes constitutional amendment would require a one-time, two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature in 2024 to spend the cap-and-trade revenue. Getting that supermajority would likely require negotiations with Republicans who could try to block or reduce the amount of money going to high speed rail. Of course, its hard to know how legislators might feel about the project in 2024. The initial segment from Merced to San Jose is supposed to start operations in 2025. Will lawmakers want to pull the plug on the bullet train once they see it whizzing from farm fields to Silicon Valley?

But first  voters would need to approve the constitutional amendment to require the special 2024 legislative vote. The amendment will be on the statewide ballot next June. Its likely that Republicans and high speed rail critics will portray the ballot measure as a referendum on the bullet train and a chance for voters to block funding for the project  albeit in 2024.

If voters approve the constitutional amendment, that could send a message to lawmakers in Sacramento and in Washington, as well as investors, that the project does not have public support. That could hurt future efforts to secure public and private funding to build the rail line from the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles. And the High Speed Rail Authority wouldnt have Brown around anymore to champion the project. Hes termed out next year.

The extension of the cap-and-trade program is certainly good for the bullet train in the short term. The project is guaranteed to get billions of dollars in revenue before 2024. However the constitutional amendment creates more hurdles and more uncertainty for a project that has been dogged by delays, cost overruns and deep skepticism over the last decade.

Brown was right to compromise to get the cap-and-trade deal, but its too bad that to keep Californias landmark climate change program on track he had to throw the bullet train off.

For more opinions, follow me @kerrycavan
Kamala Harris works to forge relationship with Central Valley

Sen @kamalaharris talking grapes with Fowler Packing Co president Dennis Parnagian in the fields outside metro Fresno pic.twitter.com/smVuRfbSpQ  Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) July 5, 2017

The drought may be over in the minds of urban Californians, quite literally washed away by huge accumulations of rain last year that filled reservoirs and left the states mountains covered with snow even now.

But the farmers and others in the Central Valley, veterans of multiple drought-and-flood cycles, know the reprieve is only temporary. On Wednesday they pressed new U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris to work to ensure a more reliable source of water for the nations most bountiful farming region.

This area is drying on the vine, Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, told Harris during a roundtable with Central Valley officials.

A long-term solution can only come through federal and state action to protect the areas water supply, he said.

Jason Phillips, chief executive of the Friant Water Authority, said recent rainfall had done little to stem problems caused by nearly a decade of drought.

A canal that runs from Fresno to north of Bakersfield sunk in some places as much as 2 feet in two years, he said, wreaking havoc on a system that operates on the force of gravity.

We cannot get all the water to our growers, he said.

The meeting between Harris and nearly two dozen agriculture and water officials was meant to ease what is typically a fraught relationship between the states Democratic leaders  all of whose power bases are in metropolitan areas  and the mostly Republican Central Valley powers that traditionally look at them with skepticism.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has worked for two decades to aid the agricultural industry  at the roundtable, several nodded as Harris referred to the senior senator as an incredible warrior for the area.

But Harris predecessor, former Sen. Barbara Boxer, was allied more with environmental groups that have fought dams and other water systems. As a result, she was viewed negatively by many here.

Harris was intent Wednesday on persuading the Central Valley representatives of her interest in places beyond her base in Alameda and San Francisco counties.

They, on the other hand, worked to convince her to be more in the Feinstein mold on issues important to the area  from reliable water to immigration programs to environmental protections that take into consideration the areas needs.

President Trump was highly popular in much of the Central Valley, apart from Fresno County, which leans Democratic because of its metropolitan shadings. But some issues important to the valley cut in politically unorthodox ways.

Republicans here are more concerned than those elsewhere with passing a plan that would give legal status to immigrants, on whom agriculture depends. With undocumented workers worried about deportation, and the border tightening to those not yet here, the labor supply has already shrunk, farmers said.

Theyre out there working, being productive people, said farmer Joe Del Bosque. They work hard for us, and we have nowhere to reach.

Del Bosque said he recently held a training session for new workers. Of the 200 people who showed up, only a handful were born in the United States, he said.

Environmental regulations prized by Democrats elsewhere are often frowned on by some party members here and blamed for the areas water difficulties.

Several of the participants lobbied Harris for her support of dams that have long been under consideration by federal and state officials, particularly the Temperance Flat Dam, which would be constructed on the San Joaquin River.

Harris offered no assurances on the topic to the group on Wednesday. Afterward, speaking to reporters, she also did not take a position.

One of the things that were going to have to figure out ... is what is the right solution for that, she said of a plan to construct the Temperance Flat Dam and several others. Is it going to be about the building of dams? Is it also going to be about looking at  also looking at  other sources of renewable and sustainable reliable sources?

Both sides signaled they did not expect an alliance on all fronts. But Harris said she would serve as an advocate for farmers during the crafting of a new farm bill and other measures before the Senate.

William Bourdeau, executive vice president of the politically influential Harris Farms, told the senator he wished the majority of her supporters who reside in urban areas would have a better understanding of the risks and challenges of farming.

We need somebody to explain the symbiotic relationship we have, he said.

I agree with you completely, she replied.
A federal court in Washington on Monday cleared the way for President Trumps election commission to ask states to turn over personal voter information as part of its investigation into Trumps claims about voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election.

The U.S. District Court ruled against the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public-interest research group that had sought a temporary restraining order to block the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The court rejected arguments that the commissions request for certain voter data violated Americans privacy and that the commission did not follow constitutional proceedings.

Trump has claimed that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in November, mostly by immigrants who entered the country illegally. He has provided no evidence, and nearly every credible election study has concluded that voter fraud is either non-existent or too small to affect outcomes.

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The commission has been hit with a flurry of lawsuits since its vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, sent a letter to state officials nationwide June 28 requesting voter information, including dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers and information about which elections voters participated in since 2006.

In addition to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, lawsuit, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, Common Cause and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund have also sued, citing privacy concerns and other alleged violations.

The commission had its first official meeting July 19. It was closed to the public, but livestreamed online.

The commission defended its data request, saying it only asked for publicly available information on a voluntary basis and that the information was necessary for strengthening public confidence in voting processes.

As of July 18, officials from 21 states have said they will not submit any voter information. Officials from 29 states have agreed to submit information, but said their state laws allow them to provide only some of the information requested. Even Kansas, where Kobach is secretary of state, will only provide partial information.

In response to EPICs complaint, the commission voluntarily stopped collection of voter information on July 10, pending the courts ruling. As of that day, only Arkansas had released voter information, which the commission said it would not download. The commission had originally asked states to provide all voter information by July 14.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a June 29 statement he would not provide sensitive voter information, arguing that Californias participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the president, vice president and Mr. Kobach.

Trump said in a tweet that the pushback from states suggested they had something to hide.

In the lawsuit, EPIC argued Kobachs request for voter information violated constitutional privacy rights  particularly because the letter stated the information would become publicly available  and could enable identity theft and financial fraud. It also noted the commission did not comply with a separate federal privacy law that requires public notification about what information is being collected and why.

EPIC President Marc Rotenberg said in a statement that the group will push forward to safeguard Americans personal information. The commission cannot evade privacy obligations by playing a shell game with the nations voting records.

Several members of the commission have been criticized for supporting Trumps unproven claims of voter fraud rather than looking at the election in an unbiased and nonpartisan manner. Kobach has previously led efforts to enforce stricter voting rules at registration and the polls. The commission also includes attorney Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member who has consistently fought for more regulations, and Cincinnati Mayor Ken Blackwell, who accidentally posted Ohio voters Social Security numbers on the secretary of states website.

Lauren.Rosenblatt@latimes.com

@LRosenblatt_

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It has been a decade since Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning documentary that catapulted the one-time presidential candidate to the front lines of climate change activism. Now hes back with An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, which follows the former vice president as he travels the world to talk about global warming.

He spoke Monday at an event organized by the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

Here are some highlights from the event.

Props for California

Gore didnt neglect the big news in California: Last week, lawmakers voted to extend the states cap-and-trade program, the centerpiece of its fight against global warming. The vote was noteworthy not only because it solidified the only program of its kind in the country, but also because it received bipartisan support.

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Gov. Jerry Brown, who has been seeking the mantle of global climate leadership, was a driving force behind the measure.

He just got this amazing legislative victory last week, Gore said.

Gov. Jerry Brown, center, flanked by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, speaks of the passage of a pair of climate change measures July 17 in Sacramento. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Adding optimism to climate alarmism

For some people, Gores public image is inseparable from his dire predictions on climate change from An Inconvenient Truth. But hes also looking on the bright side by highlighting different approaches that can stem the potential devastation of global warming. Some of that optimism was on display during Mondays event.

Were going to win this, Gore said when talking about avoiding catastrophic effects of climate change.

At another point, Gore said, The U.S. is likely to meet the commitments made by former President Obama regardless of Donald Trump.

Thats an optimistic reading of the landscape. Under the Paris accord, the U.S. needs to reduce emissions at least 26% below 2005 levels by 2020. But right now its on course for a reduction of 19% or less, according to an analysis from the Rhodium Group, a research organization that tracks climate policies.

Seeking converts for the climate fight

The San Francisco crowd broke out in laughter when the moderator, Greg Dalton of the Climate One discussion forum, asked Gore, Are more Republicans in Congress in the gay closet or the climate closet?

Gore said many Republicans know climate change is a threat but theyre scared to death of primary challenges if they depart from the orthodoxy.

I think the dam may break soon, he said.

Gore drew a connection between climate activism and other social movements that faced resistance.

The climate denial is no more ferocious than the resistance to civil rights in the South, he said. And yet, it gave way.

chris.megerian@latimes.com

Twitter: @chrismegerian

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What Californias big vote on climate change policies means for you

Updates on California politics
Trump promotes sons Justice with Judge Jeanine interview President Trump promoted via Twitter an interview with his son Eric Trump just before it aired Saturday night on Fox News Justice with Judge Jeanine. Eric Trump on @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews now!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 Eric Trump called into the show to defend his father from criticism prompted by the first government shutdown in more than four years, as well as a series of Womens March events that saw protesters in dozens of cities take to the streets to oppose the presidents policies. .@EricTrump joined me over the phone from Mar-a-Lago ! pic.twitter.com/Hro3TzUW52  Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) January 21, 2018 Speaking to host Jeannine Piro  who is reportedly an old friend of the presidents  Eric Trump offered effusive praise for his father, ticking off glowing statistics to illustrate the strength of the U.S. economy and gains against Islamic State fighters overseas. My fathers working like no ones ever worked before to bring back this country and to fulfill his promise to make America great again, said the executive vice president of the Trump Organization. He also repeated a sentiment recently expressed on Twitter by his father: That Democratic lawmakers forced a government shutdown on the anniversary of the presidents inauguration in a bid to distract from his achievements. You look at this whole government shutdown, and the only reason they want to shut down government is to distract and to stop his momentum, Eric Trump said. I mean, my father has had incredible momentum. Hes gotten more done in one year than arguably any president in history. Facebook

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Trump tweets: a perfect day for all Women to March President Trump hailed the nationwide Womens March gatherings Saturday. On Twitter, the president called it a perfect day for all Women to March, seeming to imply that those taking part were celebrating his administrations accomplishments: Beautiful weather all over our great country, a perfect day for all Women to March. Get out there now to celebrate the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months. Lowest female unemployment in 18 years!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Participants in the marches across the United States were actually seeking to deliver a powerful rebuke to Trumps policies and mount a crucial mobilization for this years midterm elections. But Trump continued to tout his administrations unprecedented success in tweets sent later in the day: Unprecedented success for our Country, in so many ways, since the Election. Record Stock Market, Strong on Military, Crime, Borders, & ISIS, Judicial Strength & Numbers, Lowest Unemployment for Women & ALL, Massive Tax Cuts, end of Individual Mandate - and so much more. Big 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The Trump Administration has terminated more UNNECESSARY Regulation, in just twelve months, than any other Administration has terminated during their full term in office, no matter what the length. The good news is, THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018 In addition to the roll call of major American cities where womens marches took place  including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta  protesters also raised their voices in suburbs and small towns, reflecting the aim of coalescing a broad-based movement on the anniversary of Trumps inauguration to oppose the presidents stance on immigration, healthcare, racial divides and an array of other issues. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Trump calls shutdown a present from Democrats By Associated Press President Trump is blaming Democrats for the government shutdown  tweeting that they wanted to give him a nice present to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration: This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. #DemocratShutdown  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 That comes after Senate Democrats late Friday killed a GOP-written House-passed measure that would have kept agencies functioning for four weeks. Democrats were seeking a stopgap bill of just a few days in hopes that would build pressure on Republicans, and they were opposing a three-week alternative offered by GOP leaders. Democrats have insisted they would back legislation reopening the government once theres a bipartisan agreement to preserve protections against deporting about 700,000 immigrants  known as Dreamers  who arrived in the United States illegally as children. Trump on Saturday accused Democrats of holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration: Democrats are holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration. Cant let that happen!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Democrats are laying fault for the shutdown on Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have struggled with building internal consensus. In a series of tweets hours after the shutdown began, the president tried to make the case for Americans to elect more Republicans to Congress in November in order to power through this mess: Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 He noted that there are 51 Republicans in the 100-member Senate, and it often takes 60 votes to advance legislation: For those asking, the Republicans only have 51 votes in the Senate, and they need 60. That is why we need to win more Republicans in 2018 Election! We can then be even tougher on Crime (and Border), and even better to our Military & Veterans!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 #AMERICA FIRST!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 The stopgap spending measure won 50 votes in the Senate, including five from Democrats. Although the House and Senate were in session Saturday, it was unclear whether lawmakers would take any votes of consequence. Trump had been set to leave Friday afternoon for a fundraiser at his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., where he intended to mark the inauguration anniversary. But he remained in Washington and ended up scrapping his plans to attend the Saturday fundraiser. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet casts doubt on likelihood of averting shutdown President Trump appeared to cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching a deal to avert a government shutdown Friday night in a tweet. Trump also sought to blame Democrats for what would be the first shutdown since 2013. His message came just hours before the midnight deadline by which lawmakers must pass a measure to fund government agencies, or some operations will cease. Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border. Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018 Despite last-minute negotiations Friday between Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Congress remained deadlocked over a spending bill and the federal government was headed toward a shutdown at midnight. Senate Democrats  joined by some GOP deficit hawks and immigration allies  were set to filibuster a stopgap funding bill approved by the House on Thursday. A Senate vote was planned for 10 p.m. Eastern, and even White House officials predicted it would fail. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Lisa Mascaro. Facebook

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Trump signs surveillance law after confusing tweets By Associated Press President Trump on Friday signed a bill into law to renew a foreign intelligence surveillance program, announcing his action in the latest in a series of confusing tweets about the spy program: Just signed 702 Bill to reauthorize foreign intelligence collection. This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 19, 2018 Trumps tweet on Jan. 11 created chaos in the House just before it voted to reauthorize what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He linked the intelligence program to a dossier that alleges his presidential campaign had ties to Russia. That caused people to wonder if he didnt support the program that allows U.S. spy agencies to collect intelligence on foreign targets abroad. Trump and other Republicans have alleged that Obama administration officials improperly shared the identities of Trump presidential transition team members mentioned in intelligence reports. Democrats say there is no evidence that happened. Shortly before the House vote, and after conferring with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump did an apparent about-face. This vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land, he tweeted. We need it! Get smart! In his tweet announcing that he had just signed the bill, Trump wrote: This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first! There are no obvious links between the dossier Trump spoke of, which includes salacious but unsubstantiated allegations against him, and the reauthorization of the spying program, or between the program and Trumps oft-repeated claims that the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests that Pennsylvania trip is a political one The White House press office was once again forced to walk back a tweet from President Trump on Thursday morning after he described a trip to Pennsylvania later in the day as a political one  a statement that would force the Republican Party, not taxpayers, to pay for the journey. The White House had said Trump was going to an industrial equipment company outside of Pittsburgh to highlight the good economy and new tax cuts, making it an official, policy-oriented event. It was widely assumed that the trip had a political cast  the area is holding a special election to fill a congressional seat vacated by a Republican who resigned. Trump, by his tweet, seemed to confirm that politics was the whole purpose: Will be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE, running for Congress in a Special Election (March 13). Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 Trump later shared via Twitter a pair of video clips of his speech at H&K Equipment, in which he touted the tax cuts he signed into law just before Christmas and tried to turn the conversation back to his accomplishments after weeks dominated by distractions, including questions about his mental health and comments about immigration that some considered racist: Departing Pittsburgh now, where it was my great honor to stand with our incredible workers, and to show the world that AMERICA is back - and we are coming back bigger and better and stronger than ever before! pic.twitter.com/kWPgylqFzj  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 AMERICA will once again be a NATION that thinks big, dreams bigger, and always reaches for the stars. YOU are the ones who will shape Americas destiny. YOU are the ones who will restore our prosperity. And YOU are the ones who are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/f2abNK47II  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018 The Republican National Committee, rather than the White House, is supposed to pay for political travel so that taxpayers are not financing party activities; for trips that combine policy and politics, parties have split the cost under past presidents. Neither the RNC nor the White House responded to emails sent Thursday asking who would pay. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement later Thursday suggesting that taxpayers would foot the bill. She insisted that Trump would be conducting government business while in Pennsylvania. Read More This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump tweets praise of Bob Dole after awarding him Congressional Gold Medal By Associated Press Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole knew the art of the deal before President Trump published the 1987 book of the same name. The two shared a stage under the Capitol dome Wednesday as Dole, 94, accepted Congress highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, for his World War II service and decades of work in the House and Senate. Trump later praised Dole in a tweet, attaching to his message a video composed of clips from the ceremony: Today, we witnessed an incredible moment in history  the presentation of Congress highest civilian honor to our friend, and true AMERICAN HERO, Bob Dole. #CongressionalGoldMedal pic.twitter.com/qNQqDLRmCk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2018 At the ceremony, the president saluted Dole as a patriot and gave tribute to Doles struggle as a veteran who worked his way back from a grievous shoulder wound he suffered in Italy. He knows about grit, said Trump. But it was Doles penchant for working across the aisle that earned him his latest award, according to the legislation. Bob Dole was known for his ability to work across the aisle and embrace practical bipartisanship, reads the legislation Trump signed in September. Some of the awards 300 recipients include George Washington and Mother Teresa, according to the Congressional Research Service. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts report that seeks to link terrorism cases with immigration By Joseph Tanfani The Trump administration on Tuesday released a report attempting to link terrorism with migration, arguing that it was evidence of the need to dramatically reshape the nations immigration system. New report from DOJ & DHS shows that nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign-born. We have submitted to Congress a list of resources and reforms....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 ....we need to keep America safe, including moving away from a random chain migration and lottery system, to one that is merit-based. https://t.co/7PtoSFK1n2  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The report, ordered by President Trump in an executive order last year, said that 75% of the 549 people convicted of terrorism charges since 9/11 were born outside the U.S. Administration officials called that a sign that the U.S. needs to scrap its policy of family preferences for visas, which they call chain migration, and a diversity visa lottery program. But the report did not specify how many  if any  of the convicted terrorists entered the country through those means. It also did not detail how many of the convictions were related to attacks or plans in the U.S. versus overseas and how many involved people who went to fight overseas for the Islamic State or another terrorist group. Those details were not available, officials said. The report, due last year, is being released in a highly charged moment in the immigration debate, as Trump and some Republicans in Congress seek tough new border and immigration measures in return for a deal protecting the 690,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump also fired off a pair of tweets on the topic earlier Tuesday: We must have Security at our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER, and we must have a great WALL to help protect us, and to help stop the massive inflow of drugs pouring into our country!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The Democrats want to shut down the Government over Amnesty for all and Border Security. The biggest loser will be our rapidly rebuilding Military, at a time we need it more than ever. We need a merit based system of immigration, and we need it now! No more dangerous Lottery.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The focus of our immigration system should be assimilation, a senior administration official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition that his name not be used. He said the nation should give priority to potential immigrants who speak English, who have an education and those who are committed to supporting our values  not family members of people already here. The official said the timing of the report was coincidental. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets welcome to president of Kazakhstan By Associated Press President Trump said Tuesday that he and the president of Kazakhstan are united in a shared determination to prevent North Korea from threatening the world with nuclear devastation. Trump and President Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed North Korea along with other issues during meetings at the White House. Today, it was my honor to welcome President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan to the @WhiteHouse! pic.twitter.com/TerYFZViax  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 Trump said Kazakhstan, once part of the Soviet Union, is a valued partner in our efforts to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. Together we are determined to prevent the North Korean regime from threatening the world with nuclear devastation, he said, as both presidents addressed journalists between meetings. Nazarbayev noted that his country once had one of the worlds largest nuclear arsenals but voluntarily gave it up after the Soviet Union collapsed. He said his country is in talks with Iran, which was the focus of a global deal that lifted some economic sanctions in exchange for Irans curbing its nuclear program. Trump has sharply criticized the Iran nuclear deal and threatened last week to pull out soon unless other countries fix what he says are terrible flaws. Read More Facebook

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Trump falsely claims his approval rating among black Americans has doubled By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump lashed out at the news media Tuesday morning in a tweet denouncing the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion among members of his campaign team. Do you notice the Fake News Mainstream Media never likes covering the great and record setting economic news, but rather talks about anything negative or that can be turned into the negative. The Russian Collusion Hoax is dead, except as it pertains to the Dems. Public gets it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the presidents tweet, but it appeared as though he was watching Fox & Friends. A short time later, Trump tweeted a headline from a report that aired during that mornings episode: 90% of Trump 2017 news coverage was negative -and much of it contrived!@foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 The segment focused on the latest survey results from conservative watchdog Media Research Center, which purportedly analyzed the evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC from Jan. 20 to Dec. 31 and found that 90% of the statements made about Trump were negative. Study: 90% of Trump media coverage in 2017 was negative pic.twitter.com/vbrwup4Drg  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 16, 2018 But believe it or not, through all this negative coverage, they did a survey of 600,000 people about how black America views this president, co-host Brian Kilmeade said. His numbers have actually doubled in approval. Trump highlighted the statement in another tweet: Unemployment for Black Americans is the lowest ever recorded. Trump approval ratings with Black Americans has doubled. Thank you, and it will get even (much) better! @FoxNews  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2018 But its not true. The claim appears to have originated from a misreading of data from the online polling firm SurveyMonkey, according to factcheck.org. The firm polled 600,000 Americans in 2017 and found that Trumps approval rating among blacks actually dropped from 23% early in his presidency to about 17%, as of the week ending Jan. 3. Some conservative outlets, including Breitbart, produced an average from those and other SurveyMonkey figures and compared them to the scores Trump received from black voters in the 2016 exit polls. That methodology is not sound. And since the statistics measure different things, the comparison is misleading. Facebook

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Trump goes after senator who surfaced his immigration remark By Associated Press President Trump turned his Twitter torment Monday on the Democrat in the room where immigration talks with lawmakers took a famously coarse turn, saying Sen. Richard J. Durbin misrepresented what he had said about African nations and Haiti and, in the process, undermined the trust needed to make a deal. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting, Trump tweeted, using a nickname to needle the Illinois senator. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military. Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals cant get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 Trump was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young people who came to the United States illegally as children. Members of Congress from both parties are trying to strike a deal that Trump would support to extend that protection. Trump also cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching an agreement in tweets sent earlier Monday: Statement by me last night in Florida: Honestly, I dont think the Democrats want to make a deal. They talk about DACA, but they dont want to help..We are ready, willing and able to make a deal but they dont want to. They dont want security at the border, they dont want.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 ...to stop drugs, they want to take money away from our military which we cannot do. My standard is very simple, AMERICA FIRST & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018 On a day of remembrance for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump spent time at his golf course with no public events, bypassing the acts of service that his predecessors staged in honor of the civil rights leader. Instead, Trump dedicated his weekly address to Kings memory, saying Kings dream and Americas are the same: A world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from. That message was a distinct counterpoint to words attributed to Trump by Durbin and others at a meeting last week, when the question of where immigrants come from seemed at the forefront of Trumps concerns. Some participants and others familiar with the conversation said Trump challenged immigration from shithole countries of Africa and disparaged Haiti as well. Without explicitly denying using that word, Trump lashed out at the Democratic senator, who said Trump uttered it on several occasions. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks pundit for laudatory Fox & Friends spot By Alex Wigglesworth President Trump thanked Fox News personality Stuart Varney after Varney praised Trump during an appearance on Fox & Friends. In a pair of tweets early Sunday, Trump quoted from Varneys commentary, in which he argued that Trump deserves more credit for the booming economy. The pundit, who also hosts a show on Fox Business Network, cited moves by some corporations to raise workers minimum wage or pay out one-time bonuses in response to the GOP tax cuts. President Trump is not getting the credit he deserves for the economy. Tax Cut bonuses to more than 2,000,000 workers. Most explosive Stock Market rally that weve seen in modern times. 18,000 to 26,000 from Election, and grounded in profitability and growth. All Trump, not 0...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 ...big unnecessary regulation cuts made it all possible (among many other things). President Trump reversed the policies of President Obama, and reversed our economic decline. Thank you Stuart Varney. @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2018 Varney was reacting to a quote from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who on Thursday called the bonuses handed down to workers pathetic in comparison to the gains corporations are expected to see from the tax cuts. In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic, Pelosi told reporters. Its pathetic. Varney shot back Sunday that the bonuses, along with explosive stock market growth, are enriching all Americans. This is a huge shot in the arm, its the result of this tax cut deal and I think President Trump should get the credit for it, he said. .@Varneyco Sets the economic record straight after Nancy Pelosi calls U.S. mass bonuses crumbs pic.twitter.com/BvjIHGm3HE  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 14, 2018 The sweeping tax plan passed last month lowers the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and cuts personal income taxes. Analysts say the benefits will largely flow to corporations and the wealthy, as theyre more likely to be in positions to share in corporate profits. For instance, Wells Fargo & Co., which responded to news of the tax overhaul by announcing it will raise workers pay to at least $15 an hour, also reported that it expects to pay an effective tax rate of 19% this year, down from about 31% in previous years. That should amount to tax savings of more than $3 billion annually. On average, middle-class Americans are expected to see a very small tax cut in the near term and a tax increase after 2025, when all of the tax cuts for individuals expire. The tax cuts for corporations, however, are permanent.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer James Rufus Koren. Facebook

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Trump touts MLK proclamation in tweet, but ceremony is overshadowed by reports of racist remarks By Associated Press President Trump signed a proclamation Friday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, noting the contributions of a great American hero. Today, it was my great honor to proclaim January 15, 2018, as Martin Luther King Jr., Federal Holiday. I encourage all Americans to observe this day with appropriate civic, community, and service activities in honor of Dr. King's life and legacy. pic.twitter.com/samlJsz1Nt  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 Overshadowing the event was mounting backlash from Trumps comments during a private meeting with lawmakers the day before. A short time after the meeting, which was called to discuss a possible immigration deal, reports emerged that Trump had asked participants why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the Senates second-ranking Democrat, appeared to confirm those reports on Friday. Trump did not respond Friday to several questions about the incident, including whether he actually used vulgar language to describe African nations, or if he is racist. The president said at the White House that love was central to the slain civil rights leader. Trump said the nation celebrates King for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.  This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump criticizes Democrats in tweet calling for stricter immigration rules President Trump hit out at Democrats on Thursday night in a tweet calling for stricter immigration rules. Trump wrote that members of the party seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the border with Mexico: The Democrats seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the Southern Border, risking thousands of lives in the process. It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery & Chain. USA!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2018 It wasnt immediately clear exactly what prompted the tweet. Earlier Thursday, Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise to resolve the standoff over so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children but have temporary permits to work, attend school or serve in the military. The president drew widespread condemnation after reports emerged that he had asked participants in an Oval Office meeting about the proposal why the United States should accept immigrants from shithole countries in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts bill aimed at improving border screening for fentanyl By Associated Press President Trump signed legislation Wednesday aimed at giving Customs and Border Protection agents additional screening devices and other tools to stop the flow of illicit drugs. Speaking at a surprise bill-signing ceremony while flanked by members of Congress from both parties in the Oval Office, Trump described the bill as a significant step forward in the fight against powerful opioids such as fentanyl, which he called our new big scourge. He echoed that language Thursday in a tweet: Yesterday, I signed the #INTERDICTAct (H.R. 2142) with bipartisan members of Congress to help end the flow of drugs into our country. Together, we are committed to doing everything we can to combat the deadly scourge of drug addiction and overdose in the United States! pic.twitter.com/ELZvFol5Lo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 The legislation will pay for new portable and fixed chemical screening devices to detect and intercept fentanyl at ports of entry and in the mail, along with other laboratory equipment and personnel, including scientists. Trump has made fighting the opioid epidemic a centerpiece of his administration, though critics say he hasnt dedicated nearly enough money or resources to make a difference. Trump suggested during his remarks on Wednesday that hed like to take a more aggressive approach to the drug crisis  but the countrys not ready for what he has in mind. So were going to sign this. And its a step. And it feels like a very giant step, but unfortunately, its not going to be a giant step, because no matter what you do, this is something that keeps pouring in, he said. And were going to find the answer. There is an answer. I think I actually know the answer, but Im not sure the countrys ready for it yet, he added. Does anybody know what I mean? I think so. Facebook

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Trump applauds news that Toyota-Mazda plant is slated for Alabama By Associated Press Japanese automakers Toyota and Mazda on Wednesday announced plans to build a mammoth, $1.6-billion joint-venture plant in Alabama that will eventually employ about 4,000 people. President Trump lauded the news in a tweet: Cutting taxes and simplifying regulations makes America the place to invest! Great news as Toyota and Mazda announce they are bringing 4,000 JOBS and investing $1.6 BILLION in Alabama, helping to further grow our economy! pic.twitter.com/Kcg8IVH6iA  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Good news: Toyota and Mazda announce giant new Huntsville, Alabama, plant which will produce over 300,000 cars and SUVs a year and employ 4000 people. Companies are coming back to the U.S. in a very big way. Congratulations Alabama!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018 Several states had competed for the project, which will be able to turn out 300,000 vehicles per year and produce the Toyota Corolla compact car for North America and a new small SUV from Mazda. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and company executives held a news conference to announce that the facility is coming to the Huntsville area not far from the Tennessee line. Production is expected to begin by 2021. The decision to pick Alabama is another example of foreign-based automakers building U.S. factories in the South. To entice manufacturers, Southern states have used a combination of lucrative incentive packages, low-cost labor and a pro-business labor environment, because the United Auto Workers union is stronger in Northern states. Read More Facebook

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Trump highlights call for border wall in tweets on visit with Norways prime minister By Associated Press President Trump praised Norways prime minister in a tweet on Wednesday after Erna Solberg became the first foreign leader to visit with the president in 2018. Today, it was my great honor to welcome Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway to the @WhiteHouse - a great friend and ally of the United States! Joint press conference: https://t.co/qWR1BhfQZI pic.twitter.com/PJvwznjRCO  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Trump also shared via Twitter a video clip of a joint news conference he held with Solberg on Wednesday afternoon. In the clip, Trump responds to a question from a reporter by saying there can be no bipartisan immigration deal absent funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been seeking a solution for hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers, young people who were brought to the United States as children and are living here illegally. The United States needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval. The safety and security of our country is #1! pic.twitter.com/4CFzQXb5aS  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 We need the wall for security, we need the wall for safety, we need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in, Trump said Wednesday.  Any solution has to include the wall because without the wall, it all doesnt work. On Tuesday, Trump drew widespread attention when he said during a meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers that he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. That contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill in subsequent tweets and public comments. Read More This post contains reporting from Los Angeles Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump praises Cabinet in tweet touting meeting By Associated Press President Trump promoted a meeting of his Cabinet on Wednesday, sharing via Twitter a link to a video of the session posted on the White House YouTube account. In his tweet, Trump thanked his Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country and wrote that the last year has been one of monumental achievement. I want to thank my @Cabinet for working tirelessly on behalf of our country. 2017 was a year of monumental achievement and we look forward to the year ahead. Together, we are delivering results and MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! https://t.co/ptXa1hAPwW pic.twitter.com/yv6RALkQf3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The former reality television star continued to dispense accolades at the meeting Wednesday, greeting reporters in the Cabinet Room by saying: Welcome back to the studio. Then he proceeded to relive a Cabinet Room session from the prior day, when he had allowed reporters and TV cameras to stick around for much of his meeting with a bipartisan group of legislators on the thorny issue of immigration. It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance  you know, some of them called it a performance  I consider it work, Trump said. Trump went on to say he had received letters from news anchors calling it one of the greatest meetings theyve ever witnessed. He added that the media will ultimately support Trump in the end, because theyre going to say, if Trump doesnt win in three years, theyre all out of business. Asked for examples of letters received from news anchors, the White House said it had received private communications. It also offered a series of positive on-air comments and tweets from journalists about the unusual access to the meeting. During his remarks, Trump swung from praising his own meeting coverage to telling journalists that they were dependent on his presidency for ratings to threatening a strong look at libel laws. Still, Trump thanked the journalists in front of him, joking: Youve gotten very familiar with this room. I appreciate your nice comments yesterday. Facebook

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Trump blasts DACA ruling in tweet calling courts broken and unfair By Lisa Mascaro President Trump denounced the federal courts Wednesday as broken and unfair after a district judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction keeping protections in place for so-called Dreamers. Trump tweeted: It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 On Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administrations decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected from deportation some 700,000 people who came to the country illegally as children. Alsup granted a request by the state of California, the University of California and other plaintiffs to stop Trump from ending DACA on March 5. The administrations decision to end DACA, which was announced in September, was based on a flawed legal analysis, Alsup wrote in his decision. Dreamers would be irreparably harmed if their DACA protections, which allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., were stripped away before the courts had a chance to fully consider their claims, he ruled. The action is the mirror image of a ruling in 2015 by a federal judge in Texas who ruled in favor of that state when it sought to block President Obama from expanding DACA to include the parents of Dreamers. Trump administration officials praised that judicial ruling. By contrast, they sharply criticized Alsups decision. Read More Facebook

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Trump thanks lawmakers for productive immigration meeting, says deal must include border wall President Trump thanked a bipartisan group of lawmakers for participating in a meeting on immigration legislation on Tuesday. Much of the discussion involved so-called Dreamers, an estimated 700,000 young people who were brought to the country illegally as children and are now facing deportation. In a tweet, Trump wrote that there was strong agreement to negotiate a bill to protect Dreamers, as well as put into place some of the reforms favored by Republicans. Thanks to all of the Republican and Democratic lawmakers for todays very productive meeting on immigration reform. There was strong agreement to negotiate a bill that deals with border security, chain migration, lottery and DACA. https://t.co/SdqAQ3aL3z pic.twitter.com/8DYHZHspAy  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 The most notable exchange of the meeting came when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the San Francisco Democrat, asked Trump whether he would be agreeable to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill. Yeah, I would like to do it, Trump responded. The statement drew widespread attention because it contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trumps promised border wall and other immigration reforms. Trump later backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill, tweeting that a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of any deal: As I made very clear today, our country needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 Pressure has been mounting for Congress to broker an immigration deal by Jan. 19 as part of a must-pass budget package to fund the government. This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman. Facebook

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Trump thanks officers and veterans in tweets President Trump doled out a slew of accolades Tuesday via Twitter. He thanked the nations law enforcement officers, including in his message a hashtag denoting a day of appreciation organized by a national support group for law enforcement families. On behalf of the American people, THANK YOU to our incredible law enforcement officers. As President of the United States - I will fight for you, and I will never, ever let you down. Now, more than ever, we must support the men and women in blue! #LawEnforcementAppreciationDay pic.twitter.com/Qb4uxB4JRm  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trump later expressed gratitude for federal immigration agents, in particular: .@ICEgov HSI agents and ERO officers, on behalf of an entire Nation, THANK YOU for what you are doing 24/7/365 to keep fellow Americans SAFE. Everyone is so grateful!#LawEnforcementAppreciationDay

President @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/HXCpTlruVo  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018 The president thanked veterans as he cited his administrations efforts to curb the number of veteran suicides by improving mental health treatment for the high-risk group: Today, it was my great honor to sign a new Executive Order to ensure Veterans have the resources they need as they transition back to civilian life. We must ensure that our HEROES are given the care and support they so richly deserve! https://t.co/0MdP9DDIAS pic.twitter.com/LP2a8KCBAp  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 Trumps tweet included photos of the president signing an executive order Tuesday directing the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to develop a plan to provide seamless access to mental health and suicide prevention resources for 12 months for members leaving the armed forces. Also on Tuesday, Trump touted a law he signed the day before designating the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a national historic park: It was my great honor to sign H.R. 267, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park Act, which redesignates the Martin Luther King, Junior, National Historic Site in the State of Georgia as the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. https://t.co/Qe0b6HBFTY pic.twitter.com/QTgaqTawPT  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2018 And he thanked House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) for sharing a video compilation comprised of clips of politicians and commentators praising the GOPs tax cut bill: Thank you @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy! Couldnt agree w/you more. TOGETHER, we are #MAGA https://t.co/QaxtqpyXTR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018  This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump hails tax bill in tweets recapping speech to farmers By Associated Press Connecting with rural Americans, President Trump on Monday hailed his tax overhaul as a victory for family farmers. Farm country is Gods country, Trump told the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Trump became the first president in a quarter-century to address the federations convention. His Southern swing also included a stop in Atlanta for the national college football championship game. Cant wait to be back in the amazing state of Tennessee to address the 99th American @FarmBureau Federations Annual Convention in Nashville! #AFBF18



On my way now - join me LIVE at 4:00pmE: https://t.co/QaljAqekdD. pic.twitter.com/Wm7Io0hYT8  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Joined by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and a group of Tennessee lawmakers, Trump said most of the benefits of the tax legislation are going to working families, small businesses, and who  the family farmer. The package Trump signed into law last month provides generous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest reductions for middle- and low-income individuals and families. In every decision we make, we are honoring Americas PROUD FARMING LEGACY. Years of crushing taxes, crippling regs, & corrupt politics left our communities hurting, our economy stagnant, & millions of hardworking Americans COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN. But they are not forgotten ANYMORE! pic.twitter.com/MdYS7xnukQ  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The president vastly inflated the value of the package in his speech, citing a total of $5.5 trillion in tax cuts, with most of those benefits going to working families, small businesses and who? The family farmer. The estimated value of the tax cuts is actually $1.5 trillion for families and businesses because of cuts in deductions and the use of other steps to generate offsetting tax revenue. We have been working every day to DELIVER for Americas Farmers just as they work every day to deliver FOR US. #AFBF18 pic.twitter.com/QDH7fvFkZ7  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 From Nashville, Trump traveled to Atlanta to watch Alabamas Crimson Tide and Georgias Bulldogs face off Monday night in the College Football Playoff National Championship. We are fighting for our farmers, for our country, and for our GREAT AMERICAN FLAG. We want our flag respected - and we want our NATIONAL ANTHEM respected also! pic.twitter.com/16eOLXg6Fi  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Before departing for the game, Trump referenced his ongoing defense of the American flag and the national anthem, saying there was enough space for people to express their views. We love our flag and we love our anthem, and we want to keep it that way, he said. Facebook

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Trump tweet hails drop in unemployment rate for African Americans By Associated Press President Trump touted a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans on Monday in a tweet. African American unemployment is the lowest ever recorded in our country. The Hispanic unemployment rate dropped a full point in the last year and is close to the lowest in recorded history. Dems did nothing for you but get your vote! #NeverForget @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 The rate fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Trump also hailed the development via Twitter on Saturday. His latest tweet on the topic came about an hour after it was discussed during an episode of Fox & Friends, according to Mediaite. Facebook

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Trump talks up the economy and dresses down the media in Sunday tweets With President Trump cheering from the sidelines, the White House on Sunday pressed its defense of the presidents fitness to govern, as fired former aide Stephen K. Bannon reversed course and apologized for his role in a new books explosive portrait of Trump. The presidents critics, meanwhile, said Trumps stream of taunts and insults in response to the book  Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, released last week  served only to underscore the authors unsettling portrayal of Trumps year-old presidency, depicting a leader whose own aides consider him childish, ignorant and dangerously erratic. Trump provided more ammunition Sunday morning, as he continued to attack the book via Twitter while preparing to depart Camp David for the White House: Leaving Camp David for the White House. Great meetings with the Cabinet and Military on many very important subjects including Border Security & the desperately needed Wall, the ever increasing Drug and Opioid Problem, Infrastructure, Military, Budget, Trade and DACA.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Ive had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 The most vehement defense of Trump on Sunday came from senior advisor Stephen Miller, a onetime Bannon acolyte who distanced himself from his former mentor. In a combative appearance Sunday on CNNs State of the Union, Miller called the book grotesque and writer Michael Wolff the garbage author of a garbage book. Trump is known to closely monitor aides televised performances in putting forth his case, and he gleefully weighed in within moments of Millers televised clash with host Jake Tapper. CNN has long been a particular target of Trumps ire. Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trumps reaction, however, seemed to bolster Tappers on-air depiction of Miller as using his appearance on the show to play to the president rather than addressing questions put to him. I get it  theres one viewer that you care about, the host said exasperatedly after Miller turned the discussion repeatedly to negative news coverage of the president while deflecting specific queries. Later on Twitter, Trump took up two themes that have been prevalent on his social media feeds recently. The president again went after the news media, tweeting that the recipients of his self-proclaimed most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year, which he promised earlier in the week to announce on Monday, would actually be revealed the following Wednesday: The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 Trump later lauded a New York Post opinion piece that compared him favorably with his predecessor, President Obama, as well as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In quoting the op-ed, Trump initally misspelled consequential as consensual, but he deleted those tweets and re-sent the messages. His is turning out to be an enormously consequential presidency. So much so that, despite my own frustration over his missteps, there has never been a day when I wished Hillary Clinton were president. Not one. Indeed, as Trumps accomplishments accumulate, the mere thought of...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 ...Clinton in the WH, doubling down on Barack Obamas failed policies, washes away any doubts that America made the right choice. This was truly a change election  and the changes Trump is bringing are far-reaching & necessary. Thank you Michael Goodwin! https://t.co/4fHNcx2Ydg  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2018 Trump also continued talking up the economy, which has been enjoying a period of strong gains. The Stock Market has been creating tremendous benefits for our country in the form of not only Record Setting Stock Prices, but present and future Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Seven TRILLION dollars of value created since our big election win!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018 In addition to Miller, other senior administration officials made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows to decry the claims made in Wolffs book. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Wolffs characterization of Trump as averse to digesting classified briefing material was ludicrous, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, insisted that that those around Trump love their country and respect their president. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King. Facebook

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Responding to book that mocks his intelligence, Trump tweets hes like, really smart By Tracy Wilkinson President Trump declared himself a very stable genius on Twitter on Saturday and later in a televised news conference called the author of a book that questioned his mental fitness a fraud. His comments came on a bone-cold day at Camp David during a weekend retreat with top administration officials and Republican congressional leaders strategizing on the years legislative agenda, including matters such as infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and national security. Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 ....to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Still, Trumps explosive rebuttal to author Michael Wolffs claims not only opened the day, but it also ensured the presidents capability to fill the highest office in the land was a topic that would not go away. In his early-morning tweets, Trump said two of his greatest assets have been mental stability, and being, like, really smart. He noted that his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, played these cards [about competence] very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). Read More Facebook

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In morning tweets, Trump touts job numbers and takes digs at news media By Associated Press President Trump used Twitter on Saturday morning to tout a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans. He also used the tweets as an opportunity to take digs at media outlets whose past coverage he has found to be critical. The African American unemployment rate fell to 6.8%, the lowest rate in 45 years. I am so happy about this News! And, in the Washington Post (of all places), headline states, Trumps first year jobs numbers were very, very good.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from. Still, the rate for black workers remains well above those for whites and some other groups, something experts attribute in large part to decades of discrimination and disadvantages. Robust job creation has lowered unemployment for all Americans. U.S. employers added nearly 2.1 million jobs in 2017  the seventh straight year that hiring has topped 2 million. In his tweet, Trump praised a report that noted the numbers, touting the fact that it appeared in the Washington Post (of all places). Minutes later, Trump renewed his attack on an ABC News reporter who was suspended last month after filing an erroneous report on Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security advisor. Brian Ross, the reporter who made a fraudulent live newscast about me that drove the Stock Market down 350 points (billions of dollars), was suspended for a month but is now back at ABC NEWS in a lower capacity. He is no longer allowed to report on Trump. Should have been fired!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 The reporter, Brian Ross, was reportedly reassigned within ABC News upon returning from his unpaid suspension. But on Saturday, Trump wrote that he should have been fired. Trumps tweets came hours before he was set to host congressional Republicans and administration officials at Camp David. The meeting scheduled to begin at midmorning Saturday was expected to touch on the budget, infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and the shape of the midterm election this fall. Facebook

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Trump commends Sen. Rand Paul after he proposes eliminating all U.S. aid to Pakistan President Trump commended Sen. Rand Paul after the Kentucky Republican announced plans to introduce legislation that would eliminate all U.S. aid to Pakistan. Trump tweeted Friday night: Good idea Rand! https://t.co/55sqUDiC0s  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it was suspending security assistance to Islamabad until the country moves aggressively against local militants who have attacked U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration at the apparent inability of Pakistani authorities to rein in militants who cross out of the countrys rugged tribal areas to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson. Facebook

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Trump continues to lash out at Sloppy Steve Bannon in tweets on tell-all book By Associated Press President Trump is praising a major Republican donor family for distancing themselves from his former advisor Steve Bannon. Trump tweeted Friday: The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trump has continued to lash out at Bannon over an explosive new book that quoted his former aide as questioning Trumps competence and describing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower among Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as treasonous and unpatriotic. On Thursday, billionaire GOP donor Rebekah Mercer issued a statement distancing her family from Bannon. Mercer is a co-owner of Breitbart, the populist website Bannon helps run. I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected, Mercer said. My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements. The book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, quickly shot atop Amazons best-seller list, and the publisher moved up its release date by four days, to Friday. Trump took up the topic again on Twitter on Friday night, denouncing both Bannon and the books author, Michael Wolff, in starkly personal terms: Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018 Trumps message linked to a meme depicting a parody book cover titled, Liar and Phony, that featured a photo of Wolff and disparaging quotes about the author. In a tweet sent earlier Friday morning, Trump suggested the book was intended to serve as a distraction from the FBIs investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which Trump wrote is proving to be a total hoax. Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 That came amid reports that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself from the Justice Departments Russia investigation. Trumps effort to keep Sessions, a vocal and loyal supporter of his election bid, in charge of an investigation into his campaign offers special counsel Robert Mueller yet another avenue to explore as his prosecutors work to untangle potential evidence of obstruction. Read More Facebook

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Trump praises the economy ahead of meetings at Camp David By Associated Press President Trump is praising the strength of the U.S. economy ahead of meetings at Camp David with congressional Republicans. Trump tweeted early Friday: Dow goes from 18,589 on November 9, 2016, to 25,075 today, for a new all-time Record. Jumped 1000 points in last 5 weeks, Record fastest 1000 point move in history. This is all about the Make America Great Again agenda! Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Six trillion dollars in value created!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The president also told reporters on the South Lawn that the tax cuts are really kicking in after Congress passed a package of tax cuts at the end of 2017. And the president praised the December jobs report, which found U.S. employers added 148,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, the lowest level since 2000. The modest but steady pace of hiring is a reassuring sign for investors who have been buoyed by the just-passed Republican tax plan and have been sending stock market indexes roaring to uncharted heights. The president is meeting with Republican congressional leaders and members of his Cabinet on Friday and Saturday to discuss the 2018 agenda. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets as Dow crashes through 25,000 By Associated Press President Trump dispatched a congratulatory tweet as the Dow Jones industrial average rose above the 25,000-point mark Thursday, just five weeks after its first close above 24,000. Dow just crashes through 25,000. Congrats! Big cuts in unnecessary regulations continuing.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 After the Dow closed above 25,000, Trump shared a graphic depicting the stock indexs record-setting rise. MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/iONbr1DkVk  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Later in the day, the president was back on Twitter, complaining that news outlets had barely covered the stock market milestone. He suggested that the strength of the economy would be the biggest story on earth, had it unfolded during the presidency of his predecessor. The Fake News Media barely mentions the fact that the Stock Market just hit another New Record and that business in the U.S. is booming...but the people know! Can you imagine if O was president and had these numbers - would be biggest story on earth! Dow now over 25,000.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 The Dow broke past 1,000-point barriers in 2017 on its way to a 25% gain for the year, as an eight-year rally since the Great Recession continued to confound skeptics. Strong global economic growth and good prospects for higher company earnings have analysts predicting more gains, although the market may not stay as calm as it has been recently. The Dow has made a rapid trip since it reached 24,000 points Nov. 30, partly on enthusiasm over passage of the Republican-backed tax package, which could boost company profits this year with across-the-board cuts to corporate taxes. Read More Facebook

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Trump reacts to Fire and Fury book in tweet lashing out at author and Sloppy Steve President Trump lashed out at the author of a soon-to-be-released book about the chaotic first year of his presidency Thursday night. In a tweet, Trump called Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a phony book and claimed that hed never spoken to its author, Michael Wolff. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve! Trump wrote. He appeared to be referring to former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, whose stunning criticisms of Trump and his circle figure prominently in the title. I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that dont exist. Look at this guys past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018 Trumps tweet came hours after he had his lawyer demand that Henry Holt & Co. and Wolff stop publication the book. Instead, the publisher expedited the books release to Friday, four days before it was slated to hit bookstore shelves, in response to unprecedented demand. Published excerpts on Wednesday and Thursday whetted that appetite and roiled Washington. Bannons comments, including that it was treasonous and unpatriotic for Trumps son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort to have met in 2016 with Russians said to have dirt on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, prompted Trump on Wednesday to rebuke his former advisor, saying Bannon had lost his mind. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Brian Bennett and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump thanks senators who attended meeting on immigration President Trump tweeted thanks to Republican senators who attended a meeting about possible immigration legislation on Thursday. In his message, Trump also listed his top priorities when it comes to any type of overhaul of the nations immigration system. Thank you to the great Republican Senators who showed up to our mtg on immigration reform. We must BUILD THE WALL, stop illegal immigration, end chain migration & cancel the visa lottery. The current system is unsafe & unfair to the great people of our country - time for change!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Trumps tweet echoed his remarks at the beginning of Thursdays meeting, when he insisted again that constructing a border wall and overhauling two legal immigration programs must be part of any deal with Democrats to protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation. Two-year deportation protections and work permits given under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program begin to expire March 6 under an executive order. Trump announced in September that he was ending the Obama-era program, but told Congress to draft a law to continue protections for people brought to the country illegally as children  a group that has widespread public support. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Brian Bennett. Facebook

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Trump resumes Twitter war against kneeling NFL players President Trump has resumed his Twitter war against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest social injustice and racial inequality. In a tweet early Thursday, Trump replied to a supporter who shared a meme that appears to depict family members lying on the grave of a fallen soldier with the caption: This is why we stand. Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! Trump wrote. So beautiful....Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel! https://t.co/tJLM1tvbvb  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The president has denounced players who kneel during the anthem in previous tweets. Hes also called for the firing of players who do so. His latest message came amid news that the NFL finished the regular season with TV ratings that fell nearly 10% below the previous season. Analysts attribute the drop to controversies facing the league, as well as changing viewing habits and a possible saturation point in the number of games available. Read More This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Alex Wigglesworth. Facebook

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Trump credits himself with facilitating talks between North and South Korea By Associated Press President Trump says his tough stance on nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula is helping push North Korea and South Korea to talk. Trump tweeted early Thursday: With all of the failed experts weighing in, does anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on between North and South Korea right now if I wasnt firm, strong and willing to commit our total might against the North. Fools, but talks are a good thing!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 That assertion is in conflict with some of the presidents own statements. Last year, he ridiculed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for talking about negotiations with the North. This week, Trump seemed open to the possibility of an inter-Korean dialogue after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare overture toward South Korea in a New Years Day address. But Trumps ambassador to the United Nations insisted that talks wont be meaningful unless the North is getting rid of its nuclear weapons. The overture about talks came after Trump and Kim traded more bellicose claims about their nuclear weapons. In his New Years Day address, Kim repeated fiery nuclear threats against the United States. Kim said he has a nuclear button on his office desk and warned that the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike. Trump mocked that assertion Tuesday evening in a tweet. Facebook

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After disbanding his vote fraud panel, Trump still says voting system is rigged By Brian Bennett One day after disbanding his troubled voter fraud commission without any findings of fraud, President Trump continued to call the U.S. voting system rigged and said states should require that Americans have voter-identification cards. In two tweets on Thursday morning, Trump blamed the commissions failure on the lack of cooperation from mostly Democrat States that refused to hand over voter rolls because they know that many people are voting illegally. However, voting supervisors in Republican-led states refused as well, objecting on privacy and other grounds. Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud. They fought hard that the Commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally. System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 As Americans, you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do.....except when it comes to the most important thing, VOTING for the people that run your country. Push hard for Voter Identification!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Despite Trumps assertions, analysts have not found evidence of widespread voter fraud. Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after alleging, without proof, that millions of illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Trump was elected after winning a majority in the electoral college, but the nationwide count showed Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes. The commission sought personal data on voters across the country and faced mounting lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns. Read More Facebook

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Trump touts another good day for stocks, credits tax cut By Associated Press President Trump touted another good day for the stock market Wednesday in a tweet. Stock Market had another good day but, now that the Tax Cut Bill has passed, we have tremendous upward potential. Dow just short of 25,000, a number that few thought would be possible this soon into my administration. Also, unemployment went down to 4.1%. Only getting better!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Big gains for technology and healthcare stocks helped U.S. indexes set records again Wednesday. Some analysts attributed the surge to investor enthusiasm for Trumps $1.5-trillion tax cut. All told, Wall Street analysts estimate the tax package should boost earnings for companies in the Standard & Poors 500 index by roughly 8% this year. Thats much more generous than the average tax cut of 1.6% that middle-class families will receive, according to the Tax Policy Center. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 The public has been less enthusiastic about the tax law. A Monmouth University poll last month found that nearly half of Americans disapproved of it, with only 26% in support. Still, as Trump also noted on Twitter, some workers have seen a benefit: So far, dozens of companies have announced bonuses and higher minimum wages as a result of the tax cut. AT&T, Comcast, Bank of America, and American Airlines have all pledged to pay $1,000 bonuses to their employees. Some 40 U.S. companies have responded to President Trumps tax cut and reform victory in Congress last year by handing out bonuses up to $2,000, increases in 401k matches and spending on charity, a much higher number than previously known. https://t.co/bmWrwWzxMR  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 Investors also appear less concerned than many politicians about how the additional profits will be used. The Trump administration says it expects companies will plow much of the extra profit back into their businesses, purchasing more software, machinery, and other equipment. Those investments will make workers more productive and provide a key boost to the economys long-run growth. They should also boost wages and salaries for employees. Opponents of the tax law respond that companies are more likely to pass the windfall on to shareholders in the form of higher dividend payments and share buybacks, which raise the price of those shares still in investors hands. Previous cuts in corporate tax rates, in the United States and overseas, havent always led to higher wages. For Wall Street, its all good, at least in the short run. Most analysts take the view that either way, companies and the economy will benefit. Facebook

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Trump reacts to death of Mormon Church president By Associated Press President Trump mourned the death of Mormon Church leader Thomas S. Monson on Wednesday evening. Trump tweeted a link to a statement in which he said that Monson demonstrated wisdom, inspired leadership, and great compassion and delivered a message of optimism, forgiveness, and faith. Melania and I are deeply saddened by the death of Thomas S. Monson, a beloved President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...https://t.co/ETD3fWtfU3  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 4, 2018 A church bishop at the age of 22, Monson became the youngest church apostle ever in 1963 at the age of 36. He served as a counselor for three church presidents before assuming the role of the top leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 2008. After a life of church service, Monson died Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City, according to church spokesman Eric Hawkins. He was 90. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets that Iranian protesters will see great U.S. support at the appropriate time By Associated Press President Trump continued to express support for Irans anti-government protesters on Wednesday. In a tweet, Trump commended the protesters and pledged that the United States will support them at the appropriate time. Such respect for the people of Iran as they try to take back their corrupt government. You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Trumps tweet Wednesday morning came as Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo sent a letter to United Nations officials complaining that Washington was intervening in a grotesque way in Irans internal affairs. The President and Vice-President of the United States, in their numerous absurd tweets, incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts, the ambassador wrote to the U.N. Security Council president and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The U.S. didnt immediately respond to the letter, which maintains that Washington has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilized conduct of international relations. At least 21 people have been killed and hundreds arrested in Iran during a week of anti-government protests and unrest over economic woes and official corruption. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people took part in counter-demonstrations Wednesday backing the clerically overseen government, which has said enemies of Iran are fomenting the protests. Trump has unleashed a series of tweets in recent days backing the protesters, saying Iran is failing at every level and declaring that it is time for change in the Islamic Republic. Facebook

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Trump congratulates Sen. Orrin Hatch upon news of his retirement By Associated Press President Trump congratulated Sen. Orrin Hatch for an absolutely incredible career upon news of Hatchs impending retirement. In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Trump called Hatch a tremendous supporter and wrote that he will be greatly missed in the Senate. Congratulations to Senator Orrin Hatch on an absolutely incredible career. He has been a tremendous supporter, and I will never forget the (beyond kind) statements he has made about me as President. He is my friend and he will be greatly missed in the U.S. Senate! pic.twitter.com/0VjzLEeHTl  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Hatchs decision to retire from the Senate after four decades lets the Utah Republican walk away at the height of his power after helping to push through an overhaul of the tax code and persuading Trump to downsize two national monuments. Retirement also preserves the 83-year-olds legacy by allowing him to avoid a bruising reelection battle that would have broken his promise not to seek an eighth term. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweet exaggerates progress in improving veterans care By Associated Press President Trump played up tremendous progress in improving care for veterans in his first year on Tuesday in a tweet. His message linked to an Instagram video describing eight accomplishments that show Trump is fighting for our veterans. But it overstates the impact of these steps. We will not rest until all of Americas GREAT VETERANS can receive the care they so richly deserve. Tremendous progress has been made in a short period of time. Keep up the great work @SecShulkin @DeptVetAffairs! https://t.co/ir25vW15hx pic.twitter.com/OtuzIgxMn6  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Of the eight achievements cited, two are ceremonial proclamations recognizing National Veterans and Military Families Month and National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Two are pieces of legislation that extended the troubled Veterans Choice program on a temporary basis. This became necessary because the Trump administration repeatedly miscalculated the amount of taxpayer dollars available to pay for care from private doctors outside the Veterans Affairs system when veterans had to endure long waits for treatment at VA medical centers. The departments poor budget planning caught lawmakers off guard. A fifth claim involves telehealth, a step letting doctors practice medicine across state lines using digital technology. Announced in August, it has yet to take full effect because a proposed VA regulation hasnt been completed. The VA wants authority to practice across state lines to come from legislation, not a regulation. On Wednesday, the Senate approved a telehealth measure that now goes to the House. A sixth claim refers to legislation that streamlines the appeals process for disability compensation claims within the VA. This step has had limited effect so far because it applies to new disability claims, not the 470,000 pending claims. The last two initiatives make it easier for the VA to discipline employees. The department has pointed to more than 1,300 employees who have been fired under Trumps watch. Because their infractions are not detailed in public documents, the effect on veterans care is not fully known. Facebook

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Trump unleashes his first tweetstorm of 2018 By Noah Bierman President Trump clearly didnt resolve to change his Twitter habits this year. With nine disparate tweets over three hours on Tuesday morning, the first working day of 2018, Trump continued to exploit social media to be the most aggressive commentator in chief in American history. For any other president, his posts would have made for a monumental day of (mis-)statements. Yet for Trump, the series  attacks on political foes and media, provocations of foreign leaders and self-praise for events he had nothing to do with  was all but unremarkable. His Twitter barrage  sent between 7:09 a.m. and 10:16 a.m.  reflected a familiar gamut after nearly a year in office: Attacks on political foes: Nearly 14 months after his election, Trump called for the jailing of Huma Abedin, Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid (his misspelling, another occasional feature of Trump tweets). Crooked Hillary Clintons top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 In the same tweet, he disparaged the Deep State Justice Dept, headed of course by his appointees, calling on it to act against James B. Comey, the FBI director he fired for investigating the Russia thing. Diplomatic provocations: Trump again called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Rocket man, ridiculed the volatile nuclear-armed foe for recent military defections and openly speculated about potential talks between North and South Korea. Sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on North Korea. Soldiers are dangerously fleeing to South Korea. Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not - we will see!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not  we will see! Trump wrote. Later Tuesday, Trump tweeted: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Also later Tuesday, Trump tweeted an attack on Pakistan, his second in as many days, and added a new one against Palestinians: It's not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others. As an example, we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They dont even want to negotiate a long overdue...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ...peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Undermining media: Trump offered Congratulations! to A.G. Sulzberger, who took over as publisher of the New York Times this week. The Failing New York Times has a new publisher, A.G. Sulzberger. Congratulations! Here is a last chance for the Times to fulfill the vision of its Founder, Adolph Ochs, to give the news impartially, without fear or FAVOR, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved. Get...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 ....impartial journalists of a much higher standard, lose all of your phony and non-existent sources, and treat the President of the United States FAIRLY, so that the next time I (and the people) win, you wont have to write an apology to your readers for a job poorly done! GL  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the two-part post was really yet another slam against a perceived media foe: Trump said the paper had a last chance to fulfill its journalistic mission, and accused it of relying on phony sources and substandard reporters  just days after he granted another exclusive interview to the paper. As a bonus, the tweet contained a recycled falsehood, that the paper apologized after the election for reporting on him unfairly. It didnt. Trump later said on Twitter that he would soon announce the most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year. Stay tuned! I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 oclock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 The president also tweeted a quote from Fox Business Networks Lou Dobbs Tonight, which aired a segment praising Trumps first-year accomplishments. Dobbs reportedly joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday for a gala to celebrate New Years Eve. President Trump has something now he didnt have a year ago, that is a set of accomplishments that nobody can deny. The accomplishments are there, look at his record, he has had a very significant first year. @LouDobbs Show,David Asman & Ed Rollins  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 Taking credit: Trump congratulated himself for policing the border with Mexico, an area where his policies and anti-immigration rhetoric are believed to have had some effect on reducing illegal crossings. Thank you to Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council for your kind words on how well we are doing at the Border. We will be bringing in more & more of your great folks and will build the desperately needed WALL! @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 He took credit for employee bonuses by companies after he signed Republican tax cuts into law last month. Companies are giving big bonuses to their workers because of the Tax Cut Bill. Really great!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 But the jaw-dropper was Trump congratulating himself for planes not crashing. Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 It was the safest year on record worldwide, but the American streak without commercial jet passenger deaths goes back to 2009. Trump, who has promoted deregulation as one of his top accomplishments, has not signed off on any new airline safety regulations. The White House pointed to new security screening of passengers, to electronic devices to prevent terrorist attacks and to Trumps support for privatizing air traffic control  a proposal that has gotten nowhere in Congress. Falsehoods: Trump said President Obama, in brokering the 2015 nuclear arms limitation deal with Iran, foolishly gave money to the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. He didnt. The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 The nuclear deal, which included major U.S. allies as signators, released Irans own funds that had long been frozen. Trumps art of the deal: When Trump sees a big deal looming, he often blasts the other side  to gain leverage, as hes written. This week he resumes a showdown with Democratic lawmakers over funding the government and immigration protections for so-called Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children. Democrats are doing nothing for DACA - just interested in politics. DACA activists and Hispanics will go hard against Dems, will start falling in love with Republicans and their President! We are about RESULTS.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018 Trump, who in September ordered a gradual end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, sought to shift blame for the resulting controversy, saying Democrats are doing nothing for DACA and are just interested in politics. Trump has insisted that any help for Dreamers be paired with funding for a border wall and a crackdown on legal immigration. Democrats, and some Republicans, are opposed. Read More Facebook

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In tweet, Trump suggests U.S. will withdraw financial assistance to Pakistan By Shashank Bengali Pakistan lashed out Monday after President Trump accused its leaders of lies & deceit and suggested the United States would withdraw financial assistance to the nuclear-armed nation it once saw as a key ally against terrorism. It was the presidents latest broadside against Pakistan after a speech in August in which he demanded its leaders crack down on the safe havens enjoyed by Taliban militants fighting U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan. The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018 U.S. Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the presidents statement, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said. Pakistan lodged a strongly worded protest and asked for clarification about Trumps comments, according to two foreign office officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pakistans prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and a meeting of the National Security Committee on Wednesday to discuss Trumps New Years Day tweet. Read More Facebook

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Trump continues to tweet in support of Iranian protesters By Laura King President Trump expressed renewed support Sunday for protesters in Iran, declaring that people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. In a tweet from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the president said the nationwide economic protests that began on Thursday  and have taken on wider political overtones as they have grown in size  were a signal that Iranians will not take it any longer. Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Trump has tweeted about the protests for three days straight as Iranians took to the streets despite a heavy police presence, tear gas and scores of arrests. The defiance gained urgency after two people were reported shot to death in the city of Dorud, about 200 miles southwest of Tehran. As the conflict escalated, Iranian authorities on Sunday slapped a temporary ban on Instagram and the messaging app Telegram, which were widely used to fan protest fervor. Iran, the Number One State of Sponsored Terror with numerous violations of Human Rights occurring on an hourly basis, has now closed down the Internet so that peaceful demonstrators cannot communicate. Not good!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Irans leaders already are casting Trumps increasingly effusive expressions of support for the demonstrators as opportunistic meddling and are painting the demonstrators as foreign pawns, adopting a strategy that some analysts say could jeopardize the legitimacy of the nascent antigovernment protests. Read More Facebook

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Trump tweets condolences after Colorado deputies are shot in ambush, one fatally By Associated Press A man fired more than 100 rounds at sheriffs deputies in Colorado early Sunday, killing one and injuring four others, before being fatally shot himself in what authorities called an ambush. Two civilians were also injured. President Trump expressed sorrow, writing on Twitter: My deepest condolences to the victims of the terrible shooting in Douglas County @DCSheriff, and their families. We love our police and law enforcement - God Bless them all! #LESM  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017 Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said deputies came under fire almost
Daily Pilot columnist David Hansen extolled the virtues of Laguna Beachs homeless shelter while condemning the ACLU of Southern California and its lawsuit against the city in his column of July 10 (ACLU wins at law but loses at diplomacy.)

ACLU SoCal and its legal allies filed the suit in 2015 because people with disabilities experiencing homelessness could not access the shelter or its transportation system and were harmed by the actions of the citys police department. Hansen found the suit to be a bitter irony given that the city, unlike others nearby, had benevolently opened the shelter.

But there was a fact Hansen left out: ACLU SoCals previous lawsuit is what caused the city to build a shelter in the first place.

In 2008, ACLU SoCal sued the city for its inhumane and unconstitutional policy of ticketing individuals for sleeping outside when they had no other place to go. Laguna Beach, one of the wealthiest enclaves in the country, essentially made it illegal to be homeless.

The lawsuit was settled in 2009, with Laguna Beach agreeing to repeal its anti-sleeping ordinance until it provided a legal place for people to sleep. In response, the city quickly built a shelter  and just as quickly reinstated the ordinance.

But neither donations by community members nor the existence of a shelter make the citys homelessness program accessible to those with physical and mental disabilities. This is not a trivial issue. Studies commissioned by Laguna Beach estimate that approximately 80% of people experiencing homelessness in the area have disabilities.

Yet, the shelters crowded, noisy conditions are intolerable for many of these people, and staff expel them for nonviolent behaviors that are not criminal but symptomatic of their deteriorating physical and mental health.

This inaccessibility deprives much of the population the city aims to assist of potentially life-saving shelter from the elements. It also exposes them  once again  to legal troubles.

Police are again issuing citations, and those who try to access the shelter but cant because of their disabilities are not spared, as are those who do not get a space in the shelter, which does not have enough space for people who are homeless in Laguna Beach on most nights.

The current lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial later this year, but the judge has already ruled that the shelters transportation system violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Though Hansen alleges that this result could have been achieved without a lawsuit, the citys history does not indicate a willingness to act for the benefit of its homeless population without the threat of the law.

Hansen warns that ACLU lawsuits could result in the city just throwing up its hands and saying forget it, weve tried hard and look where its gotten us. Ship them to Santa Ana.

Perhaps one day, cities like Laguna Beach will treat their homeless residents as they do the rest of their constituents: like human beings possessing basic, fundamental rights rather than cattle to be shipped to other cities. Until then, ACLU SoCal will be there to defend those rights.

PETER J. ELIASBERG is chief counsel of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
Last month we talked about the option of occupations that dont necessarily require a college degree. So where do you find programs to learn the skills needed for these occupations?

Lots of places. How you learn a vocation depends in part on what there is to learn, in part on how you best learn and in part on personal circumstances such as finances.

In many cases there are multiple ways to get to the same job spot. One route is via traditional educational institutions, both public and private. California community colleges offer programs that lead to certifications in a wide variety of fields, from welding to nursing and finance to food science. This option gives students an opportunity to not only learn a vocation but also deepen their general education, which yields many benefits socially and professionally.

Many private institutions offer training in specific areas, such as health sciences or computer sciences. These programs tend to be less like college and more intensively focused on the career training goal. They are also a more expensive option in almost every case.

Another route is a certification program through business or trade associations. Some offer programs, both in person and online, that enable a person to acquire the skills that will make them employable. Software development, public safety and many other professions can be learned in whole or part this way, often supplemented by on-the-job training.

Some vocations require state or federal licensure, such as beauticians, barbers, financial advisers, real estate agents, aircraft dispatchers, trucking and many others. In California, more than 200 occupations are licensed, from tree trimmers to contractors. An online search will reveal both the requirements for being licensed and often links to options for training.

And finally, there are variations of on-the-job training, ranging from informal mentorships and learn by doing to formal trade apprenticeships. The latter is quite common in the building trades, for example. I know several people who wound up in the wine trade, having started at the farm level and learned their way up. Another friend picked up the business of wholesaling semiprecious stones from a dealer because he showed passion and interest for the business.

There are so many skill areas we have not even mentioned such as television/film technicians, music technicians, criminal justice jobs and more. To get an idea of the cornucopia of possibilities offered locally, just go to the website of any nearby California community college. Check two or three  their offerings vary, with many offering one-of-a-kind programs for which they become quite well known.

Success can be achieved in many ways. It is very important that students feel they have the option to explore all the possibilities. Most students will lead happier, more productive and more financially successful lives if allowed to pursue the post-high-school educational path that is a natural fit with their interests, inclinations and abilities.

Passion and commitment count. Supporting and nurturing that is our most important role as parents.

ROBERT FRANK is the executive director of the Hillside School and Learning Center in La Canada. He holds a masters of science degree in special education and has more than 40 years of teaching experience. His column appears on the last Thursday of each month. He can be reached at frank@hillsideforsuccess.org.
Lt. Anthony was fearless, competent and charismatic. After two combat tours in Vietnam, he could no longer balance the razors edge between insanity and insanity. So, in 1971, he fell.

Post-traumatic stress disorder left him angry, depressed and prone to violence. There was no way out. We became fast friends, yet I felt helpless. All I could do was listen.

One morning as we sat for breakfast, Lt. Anthony quoted Tennyson: Hope, smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering it will be happier  He then said, Im going to a Buddhist meeting. Its my last hope.

I accompanied him to a gathering at the beach and sat on the periphery. I watched him grasping for hope and chanting, Nam myoho renge kyo.

Last week, I spoke with my friend Colleen Pathe, a devoted Buddhist. Colleen follows Nichiren Buddhism, which embodies the teaching of the 13th-century Japanese priest Nichiren. Its focus, based upon chanting, Nam myoho renge kyo and reciting the Lotus Sutra, contain the teachings of the Buddha, essential for salvation.

Colleen attempted to explain the intricacies of a religion steeped in history, tradition and ritual that was founded in India 2,500 years earlier. Buddha, the source also called Shakyamuni or Siddhartha, taught that we have within us the ability to transform suffering. We possess this power because we are inseparable from the fundamental laws of all life and the universe. The chant Nam myoho renge kyo is the manifestation of this belief. Chanting induces the pure and fundamental energy of the universe and honors the dignity and possibility of our lives.

It affirms the law of cause and effect: For every action there is a reaction, and everything you do prompts something, Colleen said.

Each week there is a faith practice study where Buddhists come together to embrace their collective belief, chant and read portions of the Lotus Sutra. Kathy Quant, a resident of La Canada and a principal of this sect, encourages inquiries into Buddhism, which is unique as it is both a religion and philosophy. She offered her email address, kathyquant@hotmail.com, and phone number, (818) 241-8288, for anyone interested in learning more.

Back to my story about Lt. Anthony: His transformation was gentle; there were no sign posts, no sudden turns. The alchemy was so discreet that neither of us was cognizant of any beginning, middle or end. In his chanting, he embraced the Buddhist nature and pledged to build happiness for himself and others. One day, I noticed he was OK.

The last time I saw Lt. Anthony was at my mustering-out party. I introduced him to a friend of mine, Lt. Florinda White. They eventually married and moved to Alaska. He and Florinda had five children and as many grandchildren. Today, they live on the Kenai River, and each day as practicing Buddhists, they chant, Nam myoho renge kyo.

JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
Where will you be on Aug. 21 to watch the total solar eclipse? Whats being called the Great American Eclipse will be visible coast to coast on a diagonal path from Oregon to South Carolina  and some lucky fliers will see it from their seats too.

Alaska Airlines has scheduled an invitation-only flight for astronomy enthusiasts and eclipse-chasers to be the first to witness the eclipse. The flight will leave 7:30 a.m. from Portland, Ore., and fly around 35,000 feet in elevation above the coast, far above any clouds that could get in the way.

The airline kicked off a contest Saturday open to anyone in the U.S. who wants a shot at two seats on the eclipse flight.

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To enter, make a 30-second video that reveals how much of an AvGeek or SpaceGeek you are and upload it to the contests website by 11:59 p.m. PDT Aug. 7.

You can also plan a DIY eclipse-in-the-air experience by timing a commercial flight to destinations along the eclipses path of totality, the time when the moon moves into position and completely blocks out the sun.

Southwest Airlines announced Saturday that many of its regularly scheduled Aug. 21 flights may offer spectacular eclipse views. Its planners identified these routes with greatest likelihood of seeing the eclipse from the sky.:

Fight 1375, departing 9:05 a.m. from Seattle to St. Louis.

Flight 1368, departing 9:05 a.m. from Portland, Ore., to St. Louis.

Fight 1577, departing 10:30 a.m. from Denver to St. Louis.

Flight 301, departing 10:30 a.m. from Denver to Nashville.

Flight 1969, departing 9:50 a.m. from Denver to Atlanta

If youre on one of those flights, Southwest will give you viewing glasses (the protective paper eyewear type) and souvenir while serving up cosmic cocktails.

Whats it like to see a total solar eclipse from on high? Watch the video above  and listen to the excitement in the voice of Mike Kentrianakis of the American Astronomical Society. who was flying during a total solar eclipse on March 8, 2016.

He was on board an Alaska Airlines flight whose path from Anchorage to Honolulu was adjusted to offer great views of the eclipse.

For information on the upcoming eclipse, go to Solar Eclipse Across Americas website.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel

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Brian Mattsons mom is 93. The Agoura Hills resident wrote to On the Spot to talk about a less-than-satisfactory experience his mother had with getting special assistance at LAX.

Shes mobile, but she cannot walk the great distances often required by airline travel.

Id say his moms experience was the exception to the rule, but recent reports from a friend who had suffered a complex orthopedic injury suggest otherwise, as do the experiences of others (I was married to one) who use a wheelchair or have mobility issues.

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Here is what you need to know to ensure your trip is as smooth as possible:

If you need a wheelchair or use a wheelchair, make sure you indicate this when you book your flight.

You should reconfirm this before the original flight as well as any connecting flight. But know that this doesnt ensure help will happen.

Know too that in most cases, the people who provide the wheelchair service are not airline employees but contractors.

Training is required for airline and contractor personnel who deal with the traveling public, the Air Carrier Access Act noted.

Good to know, but that doesnt guarantee anything.

In my experience, the communication with those contractors about who needs help, who needs urgent help because of flight times and how to prioritize those often contradictory needs varies from good to whatever the polar opposite of stellar is. Thus...

The key to chaos control in travel is to build in lots of extra time. You can be stranded in a wheelchair-no-mans-land (the hubs and I often sat for 30 minutes or more) waiting for what seems like eons if you are trying to make a flight.

The extra-time dictum isnt just about timely transport to gates, said Cory Lee of the website Curb Free with Cory Lee: Sharing the World From a Wheelchair Users Perspective.

I frequently fly out of Atlanta and the way that parking is set up for the international terminal, you have to ride a shuttle bus from the parking deck to the terminal, he said in an email.

Not all the shuttles have wheelchair lifts, he said, so it often takes up to an hour for an accessible shuttle to appear.

Ive nearly missed flights in the past just because I was waiting on an accessible shuttle.

What Ive started doing in the past few months is calling the airport shuttle number about 20 minutes before I get there so that I dont have to wait as long.

Lees proactive approach is designed to keep the unexpected from wrecking his travel plans, but even the most proactive planner may need help. Do not, not, not back down from asking for assistance. You have a legal right to it.

Wheelchair assistance is indeed mandated under the Air Carrier Access Act, said Candy Harrington, a co-founder of Emerging Horizons, which she describes as an accessible travel information source. She is also the author of a dozen books (the 13th is in progress) designed for wheelers and slow walkers. Destinations include Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia and other national parks, as well as books on accommodations, road trips and more.

When you are talking about an arriving flight, Harrington said in an email, then the rule is that the wheelchair has to be there by the time the last person is off the plane for prompt wheelchair assistance.

Sometimes a passenger would sit on an empty airplane waiting for a wheelchair for up to an hour  and sometimes theyd miss the connecting flight.

The carrier law says that airlines must obtain an assurance of compliance from contractors who provide services to passengers  but again, that doesnt mean it happens.

While Diana Dawson, a longtime colleague and journalist, was recovering from an accident that shattered her ankle, she needed to take a business trip from Austin, Texas, to Tampa, Fla.

Heres what she wrote in an email to me, which would have been comical if it werent so disturbing:

Changing planes in Houston, no one came to wheel me up the ramp so the  pilot did it.

When he got to the top [of the ramp], he said that was where his area stopped.

But then he got frustrated because there was no one to take me to the next gate. He had a little time between flights, said he could stand to stretch his legs and took me himself.

Stars for extraordinary customer service; no stars for the failure that created the situation.

When Dawson changed planes in Houston on the way home, the wheelchair never arrived so I had to walk up the ramp to get to one. They then plopped me in one, but there was no one to push it.

A guy finally arrived, was worried Id miss the plane and literally ran to the next gate pushing the chair.

He parked it beside the wall in the preboarding area.

When the gate agent called our flight, he asked that all preboarding people come in front of him and line up.

He saw me parked against the wall a few feet from him, but he just ignored me. Finally, again, I had to get up and walk down the ramp.

Houston and many other airports, we have a problem.

Flying as a wheelchair user continues to be a hassle and timeliness doesnt always seem to be a priority to the airport staff, Lee wrote.

Again, call. A lot. Make a pest of yourself but pleasantly so.

On the day of, or even the day before, your flight, call and let them know that youll be flying out and need assistance, Lee wrote in his email.

Request that someone meet you at the ticketing counter if you need assistance throughout the airport, or at passenger dropoff if you need a wheelchair.

Keep your phone charged and at the ready, even after youve made those preflight calls because you may need yet another number thats not reservations.

Before flying anywhere, research to see if theres a number online for the airports special needs department, Lee wrote.

Enter it into your phone so you can call immediately.

As a starting point, see Cheapflights Tips for Travelers With Disabilities or go to the airlines website.

If youre struggling to get what you need, ask to speak with a complaints resolution official, or CRO.

If an employee doesnt know who the CRO is, then ask to speak to a supervisor, Harrington wrote, as they most certainly know who the CRO is; they may even be one.

In any case the CRO is specially trained to solve disability related problems and has the authority to do so (under the Air Carrier Access Act)  even over airline contractors.

As with most adventures and misadventures, one key to dispute resolution (after asking nicely and making sure youre armed with information about the law and about services) is to keep your cool.

Its hard because our emotions and intelligence live in the same house, but you can control which one will triumph in a supercharged situation.

One suggestion from the Mayo Clinic website on anger control: Identify solutions.

Instead of focusing on what made you mad, work on resolving the issue at hand, it says. Remind yourself that anger wont fix anything and might only make it worse.

Odd, because we just want someone to make it better. But these days, the architect of your well-being often is you. Which, when you think about it, is a pretty good advocate to have.

Have a travel dilemma or question? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
A car bomb exploded in Kabul on Monday morning, striking a minibus carrying Afghan government employees and killing at least 24 people, officials said.

Afghanistans Interior Ministry said 42 other people were wounded, all but one of them outside the bus.

The Toyota Corolla packed with explosives blew up in a neighborhood that is home to politicians including Mohammad Mohaqeq, a deputy to Afghanistans chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah.

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A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the target of the blast was not immediately known, but several of the victims were Ministry of Mines employees who were riding in the minibus on their way to work.

Ambulances raced to the scene to evacuate victims, many of whom had suffered severe burns.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

An official with the Ministry of Mines, who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media, said that only one employee on the bus escaped, but was injured.

Saifullah, a 37-year-old who runs a bakery near the site of the blast, said it shattered the windows and the hood of the exploded car landed outside the shop.

One of my friends was injured, said Saifullah, who, like many Afghans, has only one name. I saw more than 10 others were burned [to death] and many were killed and wounded.

The explosion came on the first anniversary of a massive bombing that targeted ethnic Hazara demonstrators in Kabul, killing more than 80 people and wounding hundreds.

Members of the protest movement, known as Enlightenment, had planned a demonstration to mark the anniversary but called it off late Sunday after discussions with Afghan President Ashraf Ghanis office.

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Faizy is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Shashank Bengali in Mumbai, India, contributed to this report .
A small clearing in a dense northwestern Russian forest marks the site where, 20 years ago, Yuri Dmitriev discovered a group of mass graves containing victims of Josef Stalins Great Terror.

Using detailed documents uncovered in KGB archives, Dmitriev was able to piece together the location where Stalins execution squads killed and buried more than 9,500 people from 1937 to 1938. The documents contained the dates and names of those killed, as well as the executioners names. During the next two decades, Dmitriev worked meticulously to document every victims story.



For the record: An earlier version of this story said Yuri Dmitriev has four children. He has three.

Today, Sandarmokh, as the site became known, is a memorial to the people of more than 60 nationalities buried here, including those from Norway, Finland, Poland, Ukraine and Russia.

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But friends and family of Dmitriev, one of Russias most outspoken researchers of Soviet-era crimes, say he faces political repression for his work to shine a light on one of his countrys darkest periods.

At a time when Russia is facing increased international isolation for its annexation of Crimea and accusations that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a resurgence of Kremlin-promoted nationalism has put pressure on historians or anyone else who dares to bring attention to Russias difficult history.

In December, police arrested Dmitriev in his home in Petrozavodsk, a city of about 250,000 in Russias northwestern republic of Karelia. They charged him with child pornography and endangering a minor, claiming that Dmitriev was taking pornographic photos of his 11-year-old adopted daughter. A third charge of possessing an illegal firearm was added later.

Prosecutors said the police were acting on an anonymous tip that accused the researcher of possessing naked photos of the child.

Dmitriev denies the charges, saying that the photos were innocent and that the firearm charge stemmed from his owning parts of a non-working hunting rifle. Colleagues and human rights organizations say he has been framed with a grotesque charge intended to smear his reputation and associate his work with an unspeakable crime.

The government is trying to associate sexual crimes with his research in such a way that it would turn people away from looking into the history of Sandarmokh, said Melissa Hooper of Human Rights First, an international human rights watchdog. This is a cautionary tale to others, and the warning is: Dont try to challenge the narrative of Russian strength, and dont try to smear the Russian name by digging into the negative past.

A Finnish banner is hung from a tree at the Sandarmokh mass execution site in northwestern Russia. (Vasiliy Kolotilov / For The Times)

Seven decades after the end of World War II, the Kremlin under President Vladimir Putin has gone to great lengths to continue the glorification of the Soviet Unions victory in the war under Stalins leadership. In May, the Kremlin issued a protocol to Russian ministries and public organizations to find ways to spread objective historical and current information about the Russian Federation, including its role in defeating Nazism.

Putin, a former KGB officer, has described Stalin as an effective leader. In a recent lengthy interview with filmmaker Oliver Stone, Putin said the excessive demonization of Stalin in the West was one means of attacking the Soviet Union and Russia.

Critics say the Kremlins approach to history whitewashes Stalins repressions and the crimes of the Soviet state. Historians estimate between 15 million and 30 million people died under Stalin  who ruled the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s to 1953  in labor camps, executions and forced famines.

Stalin has again become a popular figure in Russia. A June public opinion poll found that 38% of Russians saw him as the most outstanding person in world history. (Putin tied with Russias beloved 19th century poet Alexander Pushkin for second place at 34%.) Statues dedicated to Stalin have been re-erected in several towns across Russia.

A lone wolf

As the head of the Memorial Society branch in Karelia, Dmitriev was known by his colleagues and friends as a fearless and headstrong individual. For years, his summers were spent excavating in the vast, forested region bordering Finland. He focused on the search for Stalins victims near the Solovki prison camp, one of the most notorious of the Russian penal colonies. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the dissident author of The Gulag Archipelago, once described Solovki as the mother of the gulag.

The Memorial Society was started in 1989 as a nonprofit human rights organization dedicated to researching political repression in totalitarian states. It brought attention to the victims of Soviet political repression during the last days of the Soviet Union.

Yuri was a sort of a lone wolf, said Irina Flige, the director of the Memorial Society in St. Petersburg. There were two of us to research in St. Petersburg. But in Karelia  all of Karelia  it was just Yuri, his daughter Katya and a big dog.

Dmitrievs digging found more than one mass grave in the region, and his work culminated in a book documenting 13,000 of Stalins victims in Karelia alone.

The eldest of his three children, Ekaterina Klodt, 32, said Dmitriev made it his lifes purpose to painstakingly document the names of not just the victims, but also the perpetrators of crimes committed during one of Russias darkest periods.

He felt that each victims family had the right to bury their relatives, so that they had the opportunity to go visit their graves, Klodt said in an interview in Petrozavodsk. He worked all day and night in front of that computer, just poking with his two fingers at the keys all the time.

A Catholic cross at Sandarmokh commemorates the Poles who fell victim to Soviet political repression and were killed there. (Vasiliy Kolotilov / For The Times)

Today, a paved road leads to the forest where the Soviet execution squads notes described the burial of thousands of their victims. Following the notes, Dmitriev first spotted large, oval-shaped patches in the earth among the tall birch and pine trees, said Flige, who was with Dmitriev that day in 1997. They began digging, soon finding bones and skulls.

Over the years, victims families have erected gravestones to memorialize the victims. Some are large, carved stones dedicated to hundreds from Georgia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and other places. Others are simple signs with a name and photograph, nailed to trees.

Too many of these names are foreigners, said Gleb Yarovoi, a Petrozavodsk journalist and lecturer at Petrozavodsk State University, as he walked through Sandarmokh. Thats why this is so uncomfortable for the authorities.

Local authorities at first embraced the International Day of Remembrance held every year at Sandarmokh since 1997. Dozens of foreign delegations joined regional leaders to pay respects to those who had been executed at Sandarmokh and elsewhere.

A monument memorializes Ukrainians who were executed at Sandarmokh in Karelia. (Vasiliy Kolotilov / For The Times)

But in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Russian nationalism was on the rise. That year, the Karelian government said there wouldnt be enough money for the sound system for guest speakers at the ceremony.

Dmitriev gave his annual speech regardless, and in it, he mentioned the war in Ukraine and cautioned those in attendance not to let the past repeat itself.

The next year, the regional government said there would be no buses to shuttle people the 100 miles from Petrozavodsk to Sandarmokh.

By then, Dmitriev was telling his eldest daughter that he was getting worried. Something was going to happen to him, he said. Klodt passed it off as paranoia. On Dec. 13, 2016, Dmitriev called her from the police investigators office. He had been arrested.

He called and I just couldnt believe what he was saying, Klodt said. What photographs, what are they talking about?

Dmitriev told her he was facing eight to 15. Days? she asked. Surely this will be over soon, she said she remembers thinking.

 No, eight to 15 years, he told me, Klodt said as she fought back tears. I just dropped to the floor then. There was no way this was happening to my father. Hes 61 years old. He cant survive in conditions of our prisons.

A contentious court case

A month after Dmitrievs arrest, the state channel Russia 24 ran a 14-minute report on his case. The report criticized both Dmitriev and the Memorial Society, saying they wanted to slander Russia and influence the minds of young people by politicizing history.

After that report, it was obvious to everyone that these absurd charges against Dmitriev was now a political issue, Flige said.

The prosecutors office said it wouldnt comment on the case until the court delivered a verdict.

But I can assure you that it is not in any way connected with Dmitrievs [research] activity, said Tatyana Kordyukova, the prosecutors chief assistant on media relations, when asked if the case was politically motivated.

Dmitrievs lawyer, Viktor Anufriev, said his client took photos of his adopted daughter to document the girls health and development from 2008 to 2015. Dmitriev, who grew up as an orphan, adopted the girl when she was just older than 3. Because he was an older parent, it was a hard fight to finalize her adoption with the state authorities, Anufriev said.

Dmitriev was a detail-oriented person who documented everything, often with photos, his lawyer said.

The entire case against his client was initiated too quickly and under strange circumstances, Anufriev said.

Klodt said she and her father believe someone broke into his home a few weeks before he was arrested. She said she believes her fathers computer was searched and the photos downloaded. Several days later, police reported they had received the anonymous letter claiming that Dmitriev was taking photos of his adopted daughter.

These facts make any normal person wonder, Anufriev said.

Dmitrievs court case is closed to both journalists and the public because of the sensitive nature of the charges involving a minor. Anufriev said he expects a verdict in September.

My father is paying a big price for all the truths he has revealed, Klodt said.

sabra.ayres@latimes.com

Twitter: @sabraayres

Ayres is a special correspondent.

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The Chinese military Monday asked India not to harbor any illusions about its resolve to protect Chinas sovereignty, the latest warning to come from Beijing on the Doklam border standoff that is in its second month.

The Peoples Liberation Army, the worlds largest armed force, said its capability to protect Chinas territory was indomitable and it was ready to step up deployment on the plateau, which is close to Indias northeastern state of Sikkim.

The willingness and resolve of China to defend its sovereignty is indomitable and we will safeguard our sovereignty whatever the cost, defense ministry spokesman and deputy director-general of information Col. Wu Qian said in response to a question on the border row on Monday.

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Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the Peoples Liberation Army is hard, he said, adding Chinese troops had undertaken emergency response measures and would step up deployment and drills in the area.

The Chinese border troops have undertaken emergency response measures in the area and will further step up deployment and training in response to this situation, Wu said.

Border guards of the two countries are locked in a standoff since June 16, with China accusing India of trespassing and preventing its soldiers from building a road.

Bhutan and India maintain that Doklam, or Donglang as the Chinese call it, is a Bhutanese territory.

The withdrawal of Indian soldiers was a precondition for resolving the situation, he said. India should not leave things to luck and not harbor any unrealistic illusions, Wu said.

India has said China should withdraw troops from the trijunction for the two sides to talk. New Delhi also says the road, if built, will have serious security implications for India.

Donglang was Chinese territory and building a road on its territory was an act of sovereignty, Wu said.

The crossing of the mutually recognized international border by India is a serious violation of Chinas territory and runs against international law, he said.

China strongly urged India to withdraw its troops and take concrete measures to correct its errors and put an end to its provocative acts to maintain peace in border areas.

Wu was speaking at a specially convened briefing to mark the 90th anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army on Aug. 1.

The anniversary could be the reason for Chinas unusually aggressive and often provocative statements on the standoff  Beijing wants the armed forces to be seen as a strong unit working under the Communist Party of China, which holds its 19th congress this year.

The history of the [Peoples Liberation Army] of past 90 years has proven our resolve to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, and our capability and resolve are indomitable, Wu said.

The Peoples Liberation Army has been flexing its muscles to coincide with the impasse, conducting large-scale military exercises, including live-fire drills in Tibet, close to the Indian frontier.
Taking a swipe at the United States in his state of the nation address, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte asked the U.S. to return three church bells seized as spoils of war from the eastern Philippine village of Balangiga more than a century ago.

Give us back those Balangiga bells, Duterte said in his speech at the House of Representatives, attended by the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats. They are part of our national heritage ... return it to us, this is painful for us.

Duterte, who calls himself a socialist, has had an antagonistic attitude toward the U.S. while bolstering ties with China and Russia.

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File photos of two bells of Balangiga at F.E. Warren Air Force Base outside Cheyenne, Wyo., (NEAL ULEVICH / AP)

Filipinos revere the Balangiga bells as symbols of their long struggle for independence. The bells gave the signal for insurgents to attack American soldiers who were occupying Balangiga after the U.S. took possession of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War.

Two of the three bells are displayed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo. They are part of a memorial to 46 U.S. troops killed by Filipino insurgents in 1901. A third bell is with a U.S. Army regiment in South Korea.

Talk about returning the bells has been a perennial issue in U.S.-Philippine relations.
Seeking to defuse rising tensions with Muslims over access to a holy shrine in Jerusalem, the Israeli Cabinet announced early Tuesday that it would remove metal detectors it had placed at the entrance to the site after a deadly attack by Israeli Arab gunmen there this month.

Photographs posted on Twitter showed the metal detectors coming down shortly after the announcement.

They will be replaced with high-tech smart inspection equipment, the prime ministers office said in a statement. Israeli media had reported that the government was considering high-resolution cameras that could detect hidden objects.

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Until the new equipment is installed, the statement said, extra police will be deployed to the holy plaza, which is revered by Jews as the site of the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

The metal detectors set off Muslim protests, which led to street battles in Jerusalem with Israeli security forces and stabbings of Israeli civilians. The violence, which left several dead on both sides and hundreds of Palestinians injured, prompted the Palestinian Authority to freeze ties with Israel.

The removal of the metal detectors comes amid growing cooperation between Israel and Jordan  the Muslim administrator of the shrine.

The improving relations have given the latest conflict a feel that is decidedly different from similar crises of the past, when Jordan and neighboring Arab countries recalled their ambassadors from Israel and sponsored anti-Israel resolutions in the Arab League and the United Nations.

This time, no heads of state spoke out as the clashes escalated, leaving any official criticism of Israel to bland statements by government ministries.

The shift reflects how Arab governments are more focused on other issues, including the civil war in Syria, the militant group Islamic State and an increasingly influential Iran. Israel, which is grappling with the same threats, is seen as an important, if quiet, partner.

Its not surprising that a country like Jordan, which has a large Palestinian population, wouldnt want to fan the flame that they cant control, said Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. The region is a mess. There are so many other crises happening. Theres more emphasis on the bilateral Egypt-Israel and Jordanian-Israel relations.

For Jordans King Abdullah II, those national interests appear to have taken precedence over the need to appease a public that remains broadly sympathetic to the Palestinians and suspicious of Israel.

Israel and Jordan have too much hanging in the balance with Syrias destabilization, said Eran Lerman, an Israeli former deputy national security advisor, in a conference call with journalists.

For a time Monday, it appeared the crisis over the holy site was about to get worse, not better, after an Israeli security guard at the countrys embassy compound in Jordan shot and killed two Jordanians a day earlier.

The incident began with an argument between the guard and a 17-year-old who was delivering furniture to a residence in the embassy compound. According to the Israeli government, the teenager used a screwdriver to stab the guard, who opened fire, killing the boy and the landlord of the residence.

After the shooting, Israeli officials wanted to immediately bring the security guard and embassy staff back to Israel. Jordan demanded to interrogate the guard first, despite Israels argument that he had diplomatic immunity.

The standoff spurred a day of negotiations that ended in a resolution. The governments did not disclose the agreement, but the Haaretz newspaper reported that Israel agreed to let Jordanian police take a declaration from the guard before he and others left.

The return of the embassy staff was made possible by close cooperation in the last day between Israel and Jordan, the Israeli prime ministers office said in a statement.

The latest flare-up of violence between Israelis and Palestinians started this month when two Israeli police officers were killed by the Israeli Arab gunmen at the holy shrine. After Israel installed the metal detectors, Muslim worshipers refused to pass through them, and clashes with Israeli police ensued.

Three Palestinians were killed amid violent demonstrations after midday prayers Friday, and several hours later three Israelis were stabbed to death in the settlement of Halamish. On Monday, a Palestinian from the West Bank stabbed an Israeli at a restaurant in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva.

And for the first time in months, militants in the Gaza Strip have been firing rockets toward Israel, prompting retaliatory strikes.

The escalating crisis prompted the United Nations Security Council to call an emergency meeting Monday.

Meanwhile, Trump administration envoy Jason Greenblatt was scheduled to arrive in the region to help the sides reach a resolution. While Greenblatts last visit two weeks ago focused on reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, that seems like a more distant goal now.

Though cooperation between Israel and its Arab neighbors is improving, the recent crisis will make it harder for Arab states to help Israel make peace with the Palestinians.

There wont be any gestures by Arab states like the ones that have been talked about, Elgindy said. It was always a long shot, but now its a much longer one.

Mitnick is a special correspondent.

UPDATES:

6:45 p.m.: This article was updated with details about the shooting at the Israeli Embassy in Jordan.

5:15 p.m.: This article was updated with news of Israels decision to remove the metal detectors.

This article was originally published at 6:45 a.m.
An American university student is free following a weeklong detention in China for allegedly injuring a taxi driver who was roughing up his mother during a fare dispute, in a case that drew objections over the students treatment from U.S. lawmakers.

Guthrie McLean, a student at the University of Montana, was released from a detention center in Zhengzhou early Monday, according to his mother, Jennifer McLean, a teacher who lives in the central Chinese city.

We are very, very very, very happy, Jennifer McLean wrote in an email to The Associated Press. She said the release  at 2 a.m. local time when her son was delivered to her doorstep  came as a surprise after shed twice been told to anticipate a release only to be disappointed.

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They have not finished the process completely, but we are hopeful it will go smoothly from here on, she said.

The U.S. State Department confirmed McLeans release, but provided no details citing privacy concerns.

The safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas is one of the Departments highest priorities, it said in an emailed statement Monday.

The release followed an agreement with Chinese authorities to drop any charges against Guthrie McLean, according to Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.

Further details on the agreement were not disclosed. People who answered the phones at Zhengzhou police headquarters said there was no one available to comment on the case.

Daines and U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Rep. Greg Gianforte had pressed McLeans case with Chinas Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The lawmakers said McLean had been justifiably defending his mother, who is deaf, from the driver, whose knee was reportedly hurt in the encounter.

Jennifer McLean told The AP the taxi driver had been pushing her around and hurting her when her son intervened and pushed the taxi driver to the ground.

Jennifer McLean said that when police detained Guthrie five weeks later on charges of intentional injury, they demanded the equivalent of $7,400 in compensation and threatened to imprison her son for up to three years if they refused to pay.

The family did not pay $7,400, according to Daines, who added that more details would be released at a later time.

After two 20-hour days in back and forth negotiations with Chinese officials, we were able to come to an agreement that worked for everybody, most importantly for Guthrie and for Jennifer, his mother, Daines said in a conference call with reporters.

Daines said he spoke with Guthrie McLean after his release, and he plans to return to Missoula, Montana to resume his studies next month.

Tester and Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte issued statements Sunday saying they were pleased with the outcome of the case.

Guthrie McLean has been majoring in East Asian studies at the University of Montana in Missoula for about two years and works in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, according to school officials.

Hes a U.S. citizen, but he largely grew up in China after living in Missoula as a young child while his mother was studying at the university, according to his boss, Olivia White.

Associated Press writer Didi Tang contributed to this report from Beijing.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu huddled with Cabinet ministers Sunday to reconsider the placement of metal detectors at the entrance to a sacred Jerusalem plaza, which touched off a wave of deadly Palestinian unrest and a diplomatic crisis for Israel.

Palestinian leaders and Israels Arab neighbors have assailed the additional security measures  instituted a week ago after three Arab gunmen ambushed and killed two Israeli Druze policemen at the entrance to the esplanade outside Al Aqsa Mosque  as a unilateral move to tighten control over the site, which is holy to both Muslims and Jews.

Netanyahus government has also come under fire from some Israeli officials who warn that the risk of a religious conflict triggered by the metal detectors overshadows the extra security they provide.

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Three Palestinians were shot dead Friday in clashes with Israeli police in East Jerusalem. That night, three Israelis were stabbed to death in the West Bank settlement of Halamish by a 19-year-old Palestinian from a neighboring village.

On Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said his decision to freeze ties with Israel over the bloodshed includes security cooperation with Israel  a collaboration that has been a bulwark of stability in the West Bank for years.

Despite quiet talks between Israel and Jordan, the custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, to defuse the crisis, there were indications Sunday that the violence might have spilled over to the neighboring kingdom. Media reports in Jordan said two local nationals were killed and an Israeli citizen was wounded in gunfire inside the Israeli Embassy compound in Amman, Jordans capital.

Preliminary investigations indicated that the two Jordanians had entered the compound to do carpentry work, the countrys official Petra news agency said, citing the Public Security Directorate. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which declared a news blackout on the incident.

The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to discuss ways to defuse the crisis in Israel on Monday.

Israels public security minister, Gilad Erdan, said Sunday that the metal detectors could be removed if police come up with another way to ensure security at the site. But he told Channel 2 TV he is not aware of such a program.

Netanyahu has been under pressure from members of his right-wing coalition not to bow to calls to remove the metal detectors.

Speakers at the packed funeral for the three Israelis killed Friday  Yosef Salomon, 70; his daughter Chaya Salomon, 46; and son Elad Salomon, 35  also urged the government to hold firm against Palestinian demands and tighten control over the West Bank, which Palestinians claim for a future state.

Its time to cut down the hope of the Arabs for a state in the land of Israel and to impose sovereignty in all of Judea and Samaria, said Rafi Mendel, an in-law who referred to the West Bank by its biblical names.

Others called on the government to step up settlement building as revenge for the killings, saying the young assailant, Omar Abed, should have been killed rather than taken to a hospital after he was shot by an off-duty soldier who heard the familys screams.

Hours before the attack, Abed posted a farewell note on Facebook accusing Israel of desecrating the Muslim holy sites and vowing to answer the call of Al Aqsa with a knife.

The Arabs are guests here. If they dont act properly, they need to leave, said Yifat Rosenheim, who said Chaya Salomon taught her kids when they were in elementary school.

Other family friends, however, said the aggressive rhetoric was not in keeping with the familys gentle reputation. A former neighbor, Yossi Shinover, remembered Yosef Salomon, a volunteer guard at the settlement, as someone who welcomed Palestinian laborers to Halamish with water, empathy and a smile.

Asked about the crisis over the Jerusalem holy sites, Shinover shrugged.

Both sides are dreaming, she said. And then theres the need to be practical. Thats the problem.

Mitnick is a special correspondent. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Twitter: @joshmitnick
Hundreds of activists, lawyers and observers packed an Istanbul courthouse Monday as prosecutors began laying out an indictment against 17 people from Turkeys leading secular newspaper, Cumhuriyet, including its senior editorial staff.

The defendants are alleged to be a part of various terror organizations, but the majority of the evidence hinges on editorial policies at the newspaper, which the government says portrayed the ruling AK Party in a negative light. The case is part of a broader crackdown by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on independent journalism in Turkey.

The defendants were cheered by supporters as they entered the courtroom, which was standing-room-only for most the day-long hearing. Representatives from Reporters Without Borders, the International Press Institute, PEN International and a slew of other international rights groups were in attendance. The hearing is expected to continue through this week.

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Police began detaining Cumhuriyets top staff in October, but it took six months before prosecutors produced an indictment against the group, which includes columnists, reporters, a cartoonist, and executives from the foundation that owns the paper. Cumhuriyet has continued to publish  with blank spaces marking the spots where work from the detained writers would normally have appeared.

Prosecutors are seeking sentences of seven-and-a-half to 43 years for a range of terror-related charges, with some being accused of membership in an armed terrorist organization and others of helping a terrorist organization without being a member of it.

Articles published by Cumhuriyet, the indictment says, have gone beyond the heavy criticsm allowed under the countrys press freedom laws. Instead, it says, they have paved the way for illegal politics and for targeting of Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in asymmetric war methods.

While the newspaper has a reputation for being staunchly secular and equally distrusting of Erdogan and his arch-foe, Fethullah Gulen, the cleric who has been accused of being behind last Julys failed coup, prosecutors allege that over the past four years Cumhuriyet shifted away from its founding principles and philosophies and was seized by Gulens organization, Hizmet, in 2013.

Turkey refers to Hizmet as the Fethullah Terror Organization. The defendants are also accused of allegiance to the Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK.

Several hundred people chant slogans as they gathered outside the central court in Istanbul, Turkey, to protest against the prosecution of journalists and executives of Cumhuriyet newspaper on Monday, (Burak Kara / Getty Images)

At the time of the alleged crimes, Erdogan and his closest advisers were facing corruption allegations. The case was built on surreptitious recordings of phone calls, which Turkey now claims were doctored and part of a conspiracy that included media outlets including Cumhuriyet.

Examining the editorial policy is not up to the prosecution, Akn Atalay, the chair of the executive board that owns Cumhuriyet, told the panel of three judges. Atalay and several other defendants told the judges that the books and documents they had prepared for their defense had been taken away by authorities before the hearing.

Prosecutors presented a record of Atalays communications over the last several years and said he had communicated with Gulen followers on five occasions using an encrypted messaging app known as Bylock, an allegation that has been used to detain thousands in Turkey over the past year.

At the hearing, Atalay went through each instance of communication and said they were for journalistic purposes. Other defendants also charged with communication with Gulens organization, which once ran one of the countrys most widely read newspapers and largest writers union, said any communication was one-way, and was part of efforts by the clerics followers to reach out to Cumhuriyet.

Much of the indictment included social media posts and news clippings of articles that alleged corruption in Erdogans party, or collusion with Islamist rebels in the Syrian war.

My arrest has become a punishment showing I was right when I wrote that Turkey moves toward authoritarianism, said Kadri Gursel, an executive board member of the International Press Institute who is charged with being a part of the Fethullah Terror Organization.

Gursel told the court it was illogical and against good sense to allege that he was in contact with the groups members. He said his views of the organization were categorically negative, even when Gulen and Erdogan were allies.

Erdogan has faced mounting criticism that his campaign against Cumhuriyet is an attempt to silence the last remaining major newspaper that criticizes his government, and the allegations of collusion between the journalists and Gulen are manufactured.

One of the defendants is investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, who in 2011 was prosecuted for ties to Gulen. The previous case against Sik was based on a book, The Imams Army, which alleged a wide-ranging conspiracy by Gulen to control the government, much like the allegations Erdogan now makes. Sik and another colleague spent a year in prison before the charges were dismissed, and the prosecutors in that case are being tried for membership in the Gulen organization themselves.

Reporters Without Borders currently ranks Turkey 155th in the world in terms of press freedom, and rights groups have said more than 150 journalists are currently behind bars facing charges that include insulting Erdogan and membership in a terror organization.

Since a state of emergency was imposed last July, scores of television and radio stations, newspapers and websites, and other outlets have been banned over allegations they support either the Gulen organization or the outlawed PKK. Erdogan has insisted that only two of the journalists behind bars today are actually journalists.

Turkeys judiciary itself is facing a shortage of manpower to try the cases. About 3,000 judges and prosecutors have been fired over the last year over allegations they are affiliated with terror groups. Shortly after the detentions of the Cumhuriyet journalists in October, the prosecutor preparing the indictment in the case, Murat Inam, was himself fired and charged with being a member of the Gulen organization.

Farooq is a special correspondent.

ALSO

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China increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports in the first half (H1) of 2017, as part of an effort to clean up its coal-dominated energy mix.

The LNG channeled into the world's biggest energy consumer rose 38.3 percent year on year to 15.89 million tonnes in the January-June period, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs Sunday.

The growth rate is higher than the 21.2-percent increase registered in the same period last year, partly encouraged by the lowering policy barriers for LNG from the United States to enter the Chinese market.

The country had already imported 400,000 tonnes of U.S. gas in the first five months, in sharp contrast to zero a year ago, Vice Premier Wang Yang said Tuesday during his visit to the United States.

The country's demand for natural gas is on the rise as the government eyes the clean fuel to help gradually replace dirtier coal. Coal consumption accounted for 59.8 percent of China's overall energy use in H1.

Measures have been taken to encourage imports and explore the potential of domestic shale gas reserves.

Pipeline networks for natural gas will be expanded to 104,000 km by 2020, a substantial improvement from 64,000 km in 2015. The figure will go up to 163,000 km in 2025, when all Chinese cities with more than half a million residents will have the access.

The government plans to increase the proportion of natural gas in energy consumption from the current 5.9 percent to around 10 percent by 2020, and to 15 percent by 2030.
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A unique fundraising initiative featuring the Japanese art of origami takes off in Portlaoise this week, with the goal of raising money for a number of worthwhile charities including the Cuisle Centre by the creation of 1,000 paper cranes.

The 1,000 Paper Cranes Project, organised by The Kiki Theatre and Performance Group, Clonkeen, Portlaoise, is inviting everyone to participate in creating a thousand origami cranes in two days, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Ireland and Japan.

Origami workshops will run consecutively at various locations in Portlaoise this weekend, and members of the public along with community groups, clubs, sporting organisations and individuals are invited to create origami cranes and celebrate the art of paper folding. People of all ages and abilities will have the opportunity to be part of this amazing gift, which will be sent to the Hiroshima Peace Park in Japan.

The cranes will be made from green, white and gold origami paper and when completed the thousand cranes will feature in an exhibition in the Cuisle Cancer Support Centre during the origami festival, August 26 to September 3, and will then be sent to the Hiroshima Peace Park.

The origami challenge takes place at the Dunamaise Arts Centre, the Methodist Church Community Hall, the Kyle Shopping Centre, and Laois Shopping Centre, from 9am to 6pm, this Friday, July 28 and Saturday, July 29. It also takes place at Kilminchy Nursing Home, from 10.30am to 12pm on Friday, and Ballard Lodge Nursing Home, from 2.30pm to 5pm on Saturday.

The origami festival will then open with a function in the Dunamaise Arts Centre on Friday, August 25.

All proceeds collected shall be divided and donated to the Relay for Life Japanese Cancer Society, the Cuisle Cancer Support Centre and the Irish Cancer Society.

The project has been inspired by the story of Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing. After being diagnosed with leukaemia from the radiation, Sadako began to fold origami paper cranes in hopes of making a thousand of them. She was inspired to do so by the Japanese legend that one who created a thousand origami cranes would be granted a wish. Her wish was simply to live.
Three young Tullamore lads are celebrating this week as they have just been signed to one of the biggest music record labels in the world.

Having grown up sharing a love of music together, Ro, Bee and TeddyC from pop/hip-hop band 'Chasing Abbey' have been offered a contract to work with the American based Universal Music Group and 3Beat UK.

The contract is the golden ticket to stardom that the band has earned having stormed the charts in recent months.

Speaking to the Leinster Express, Chasing Abbey band members said the feeling has not sunken in yet.

"It's a great feeling being signed but it hasn't sank in too much yet. It was always a big goal of ours to get signed and now that we're here it's really just another stepping stone in our journey. We have big plans and signing this deal with Universal gives us a platform to share our music with the UK and the rest of the world," they said.

The Midlands group who recently rocked Portlaoise at the Old Fort Quarter Festival will be moving on to bigger stages with the support of the huge label behind them.

Getting a record deal is a goal all musicians strive for, and the lads had some advice for anyone trying to achieve this.

"The best advice we can give any up and coming artist is to work hard, and when you think you're working had work even harder," they said.

The band took to Facebook to share the news with their fans at the weekend and they received a fantastic response.

"12 months ago we started Chasing Abbey. Today, we signed a global record deal with 3Beat UK/Universal Music Group. Thank you all so much for your support and belief. You've made 3 young pups' dreams come true," was written on the Facebook post.

The three young pups have shown their teeth in the intervening 12 months, with upbeat hip-hop track, That Good Thing, receiving widespread acclaim, putting them in front of a massive radio and live circuit audience.

While they were in Laois at The Old Fort Festival the three down to earth lads sat down for a chat with the Leinster Express.

The band has been playing around the country this summer at festivals like Sea Sessions and Kilkenny Music festival and they will play the Academy Green Room this September.

It's now expected that the band will begin work on new material and there is sure to be exciting times ahead for this up-and-coming group.

Watch a video of Chasing Abbey performing live in Portlaoise here.

Have a listen to the chart-topping song, That Good Thing.
A High Court judge is to deliver a decision on whether two men, one with an address in Sallins, arrested over the discovery of a firearms cache in a business park are to be granted bail.

Jonathan Harding (44) of McNeil Court, Sallins, Co Kildare and James Walsh (33), with addresses at Wheatfield Avenue, Clondalkin and Neilstown Drive, Clondalkin are facing charges, under the Firearms Act, for unlawful possession of five revolvers, 20 rounds of ammunition and a silencer on January 24 at a unit in Greenogue Business Park, in Rathcoole, Co Dublin.

Today, Monday, Detective Sergeant Michael Cuffe, of the Drugs and Organised Crime Unit, told the High Court that he believed if released on bail both men would be flight risks and might not face trial.

The court also heard evidence from Detective Chief Superintendent Patrick Lordan of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) who said that the gardai were objecting under Section 2 (A) of the Bail Act.

The section allows a Chief Superintendent give evidence that the refusal of bail is necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offence.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt said he will deliver his decision tomorrow morning.
A new website aimed at attracting tourists to Celbridge was launched on Wednesday, July 19.

Tourism journalist, Eoghan Corry, officially launch the website www. discovercelbridge.com

The event at the Slip Hall, Castletown, which was attended by recently elected Mayor of Kildare, Martin Miley, marks progress on one of several objectives in the Celbridge Heritage and Tourism Strategy launched earlier this year by the Integrated Services Programme (ISP) Celbridge Tourism and Heritage Forum.

The site was developed by Webstop, in conjunction with the Forum. The ISP Celbridge Tourism and Heritage forum is made up of members of the Celbridge Tidy Towns, Celbridge Community Council, Celbridge Guided Tours, Celbridge Historical Society, Celbridge Business Association, Castletown Foundation and Christ Church, Celbridge.

Susan Bookle, Director of the Kildare Integrated Services Programme (ISP), said research in Celbridge identified tourism as an area in the town that was underdeveloped. In their role as facilitators the ISP set up the Celbridge Tourism and Heritage Forum and support the group in several ways to achieve their goals.

Celbridge Tourism and Heritage Forum Chairperson, Breda Konstantin, said that key to its work was the development of a Tourism and Heritage Strategy for Celbridge. This was achieved in the main by building on a very comprehensive heritage/tourism strategy framework for Celbridge drawn up by a subcommittee of Celbridge Tidy Towns involving Denis Conlan, Breda Konstantin, June Stuart, and Roisin McDermott. They had input from Failte Ireland, Kildare Failte, OPW Castletown and several local stakeholders. First Western Consultancy shaped the strategy.

Several elements of the strategy have already been implemented.

Damien Joyce was thanked for his wonderful promotional video of Celbridge using drone footage, also photographers Gordon Adamson, John ONeill and former Irish Times journalist, Ed Longworth.

Eoghan Corry gave a talk on the story of Celbridge through the ages. The Forum committee presented Eoghan with a very attractive plaque provided by local company, Splate.

Dr. Tony Lenehan, Kildare Failte, congratulated the Forum committee on their work to date , and sited Celbridge as a fine template for other communities who wish to develop local tourism. Kildare Mayor Martin Miley Jnr. thanked the Forum members for their enthusiasm, outstanding achievement and volunteerism. The Mayor expressed appreciation of the work of the Leixlip Celbridge MD Elected Representatives and acknowledged the presence of Deputies Frank ORourke and Catherine Murphy. Mayor Miley said key factor to the success of the work in Celbridge is the coming together of so many local groups, supporting each other, armed with a clear Strategy and the willingness to work hard.
A meeting aimed at progressing a number of potential public projects in Clane will take place in the town tomorrow, Wednesday, July 26.

Clane Community Council, along with the Clane Project Centre and a number of business people, have organised the meeting which will take place at the Westgrove Hotel.

The Londis and Supervalu stores have also been involved in setting up the project.

The meeting, starting at 18.30, will be addressed by Jacqui McNabb, the head of the Local Enterprise Office and by Garda Sgt Paul Reilly, based at Clane.

It is aimed at business people who are invited to attend.

A number of elements will be the focus of the meeting.

One is the types of support available to business from Kildare County Councils Business Support section. This includes assistance or grants which can be obtained under the Shop Fronts grants scheme.

A second element will be focus on a proposed public realm plan and a health check for the area.

A third areas is closed circuit television (CCTV).

This has been raised on numerous occasions in recent times.

The meeting will look at a Clane community CCTV project, which will be pitched at the business community.

Cllr Padraig McEvoy, said that while the focus of this will be initially that of the business sector, it is planned that the question of CCTV will then branch out to the wider community.

Earlier this year, it emerged that the Government announced a grant-aid scheme to help community groups with establishing community-based CCTV systems.

Community groups can apply for grant-aid of up to 60% of the total capital cost of a proposed CCTV system, up to a maximum grant of 40,000. When the grant is approved the applicant will receive an upfront payment of 50% of the grant with the balance to be paid when the system is fully operational.

The CCTV is aimed at acting as a deterrent to anti-social behaviour. It is intended that the scheme will run for three years with funding of 1 million being made available each year, nationally.

Recently Kildare South TD, Martin Heydon, led a delegation of Kildare South Fine Gael councillors to meet the Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, to discuss the implementation of a Community based CCTV system across south Kildare communities.
One view of our divided country is that it was always a land of potential Leavers and Remainers, the rift being merely exposed by the referendum. On this theory, Remainers were born rather than made and Leavers, like leopards, will never change their spots.

Yet the truth is that Leavers comprise all sorts of people, as do Remainers. They are not a different species. I am coming round to the view that our current turmoil is not the fault of the people themselves, so much as the power of a virulent ideology that has swept the country like a tsunami, sweeping away common sense, but which is now slowly evaporating.

It has happened before: ideas have taken hold with a force disproportionate to their merit, and caused mayhem. There are reasons why these belief systems gain traction. Let us look at a couple of examples.

Lysenkoism

In the Soviet Union of the 1930s, the policy of forced collectivisation had produced widespread famines. The claims of a peasant, Trofim Lysenko, that weeds could be transformed into wheat or barley and food production quickly boosted by unscientific methods, were eagerly seized on by Stalin.

The Communist Partys powerful propaganda machine denounced opponents of Lysenkoism, branding them enemies of the state. (3000 scientists were dismissed, imprisoned or executed). An unworkable doctrine thus became the accepted dogma. Lysenkoism caused enormous long term damage to soviet science, agriculture and the economy.

Translated into present day Britain, that reads as follows:

The policy of austerity had produced widespread discontent. The claims of a self-styled man of the people, Nigel Farage, that Britain could be transformed into a global power and that Britons could have their cake and eat it, were eagerly seized on by Theresa Mays government.

Their powerful propaganda wing  the Brexit press  denounced opponents as saboteurs and remoaners, branding them enemies of the people. An unworkable doctrine thus became the accepted dogma. Brexit threatens to cause enormous long term damage to the British economy.

The Unification Church

Remember the Moonies? If you were around in the 1960s like me, you probably will. So called after the founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, they were said to be a sinister cult who seduced people away from their families, promising salvation through sex and free love.

The nearest I got to that was driving around in a flower power van, but more impressionable youngsters were turned against their families and brainwashed by the cults teachings , whilst being fleeced of any money and possessions. Desperate parents, grieving for the loss of their loved ones, attempted to locate and deprogram their sons and daughters, often with limited success.

What the cult of the Moonies had in common with Brexit Britain was the isolation and impoverishment of its victims. It was dressed up as a spiritual movement, but its ulterior purpose was the amassment of huge wealth by its founder. In the same way, Brexit has been dressed up as a patriotic protest, but its true purpose, as Nick Clegg made clear, is to make the very rich very much richer, by removing the protections and regulations of the EU.

Today, our continental neighbours have reluctantly given up hope of persuading us to remain within our European family, and are resigned to the loss. And who can blame them, for to deprogram either Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May would be a challenge indeed. Nevertheless, they would welcome us back with open arms if we turned up on their doorstep.

So what happened to the Moonies? They faded from the limelight amid scandal and disillusion, though the Reverend Moon retained considerable political power and influence until he died in 2012. These cults are no fleeting fads or fashions, they can last quite a long time: Lysenkoism persisted for over thirty years, sustained by an uncritical media.

How long will Brexit last?

Brexit is an edifice of fantasy resting on no solid foundation, which is already crumbling at the approach of reality. It is a time expired idea which has lost much of its initial gloss. If Vince Cable is right, it might never take place at all.

Other commentators are less optimistic, Polly Toynbee predicting an indefinite stalemate.

In my view, much will depend on the tactics of Britains rightwing press. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Rupert Murdoch might change his mind  he has done so before. If he decided for example that he could sell more copies of the Sun by exposing Brexit as a con, that might be the lethal blow that puts Brexit out of its misery.

But Im not betting on it.

* John King is a retired doctor and Remain campaigner.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is the global club of national parliaments, so one might ask why Liberal International (LI) has signed up to the organisation as an Observer Member. The clearest reason is to further the work of LIs highly active Human Rights Committee, which already has recognition and speaking rights at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The IPU has its own human rights committee specifically defending the rights of parliamentarians across the world. Many of its cases involve liberal politicians in places where opposition politics is fraught with danger. A second reason is to develop stronger collective identity and action between liberal politicians from our member parties.

Dhaka was a controversial choice of venue, as Bangladesh has itself seen considerable political strife in recent years and the last election was boycotted by the opposition. Whilst I was there their student leader in Chittagong was picked up by police then found dead hours later. A high profile court case involving the suspension from office of the opposition mayor of Sylhet was dismissed by the High Court, only for new proceedings to be instigated before he had gained access to his office. I met the opposition leader off site to discuss democratic progress.

Many see the IPU as a toothless talking shop and I did detect an approach of not rocking too many boats. National delegations are generally made up of a combination of government and opposition MPs and the protocol is that the government position is supported by the whole delegation. The country reports were as a result self-congratulatory and many beggared belief.

The three major resolutions involving liberal politicians supported Sam Rainsy of Cambodia (currently in exile in France), Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia and Senator Leila de Lima of the Philippines, President Dutertes strongest most outspoken critic, (both in prison). All three resolutions were passed in the strongest possible terms. Saumura Tioulong (Sams wife) told me that the Hun Sen regime was trying to make their opposition party illegal through changes to the law, which was reflected in the wording of the resolution.. The regime has already tried this before resulting in the opposition forces creating a new party which fought the last election. I also met with Izzah Anwar MP, daughter of Anwar Ibrahim, who is due for release next year, unless the regime finds new charges to mount against him. The resolution called for his immediate release to be able to resume his political life.

It was unable to meet with a Filipino Liberal but I had met Philippines Human Rights Commissioner Chito Gascon to discuss the case 2 weeks earlier in Geneva. The Resolution pointed to the case against de Lima being political, criticised the President for interference and resolved to send an IPU observer to the trial proceedings.

The other major resolution involved Venezuela where the Maduro government has succeeded in ignoring the fact that it lost the parliamentary elections by ignoring parliament. He is now planning to get rid of parliament altogether by changing the constitution.

Although I was primarily interested in the Human Rights Resolutions there were a number of plenary debates. The main debate was on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which included several national progress reports. The IPU has a role in ensuring that parliaments deliver on their SDG targets and provide guidance for national parliamentarians on introducing measures in their own parliaments.

The emergency resolution chosen was on famine in Africa. The Ugandan delegate gave a clear and accurate assessment of the causes and remedies of famine in Africa, which has again become an urgent problem.

By networking with parliamentarians from our various sister parties I was able to convey the need for dialogue between our Malaysian and Swiss members over the 1mdb funds. I also met with the Canadian liberals and Boris Mbuku Laka of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, our only member on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians Committee, who is keen to work with Liberal International in the future. We also discussed the failure of Kabila to stand down as President.

I enjoyed the company of party colleague Lord Dholakia of the UK parliamentary delegation. Delegates found it helpful to make contact with their fellow liberal parliamentarians and also to have a Liberal International desk in the plenary. We plan to take a larger team to the next IPU in St Petersburg to build on this promising start.

* Liberal International Human Rights Committee Member Phil Bennion recently represented Liberal International at the IPU in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

* Phil Bennion is the Chair of the Party's Federal International Relations Committee and former MEP for the West Midlands.
Politics in the UK is changing faster now than ever before. This change gives us the opportunity to take our place at the heart of the UK by presenting a strong, passionate and persuasive liberal view of the world. It also means we may get lost among the crowd. We must make sure it is the former, and not the latter.

Clear, simple messages are crucial to how the country views us. Every opportunity to speak to people is a chance to present liberalism in its best light  distinct, valuable, and making our communities stronger.

The centre ground is stable, but it is also defined by what it isnt. Strong messages must change that. The preamble to the Constitution of the party is a wonderful piece of writing; honest, inspirational, and clear, but it is not going to be read by 99 per cent of the population. What we need to do is distil its values: liberty, equality and community, and let that shine through our communications.

So how can we change this? Well, by knowing those values, and by using them consistently and well in our communications. The preamble says: We seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community.

Each time you write a message, take the opportunity to echo those words. Are you writing to say thank you to voters after the election? Say: Thank you. Together we can build a better community.

Are you writing a survey to small businesses? Say: Our policies let you compete equally.

Are you going door to door? Remember those words. We protect your freedom. We build your community. We give you opportunity. We value you.

Liberalism is unique. It flourishes where individuals have the capacity to enrich themselves, and the community around them. It acknowledges peoples individuality, but recognises that they can only thrive when society gives them the opportunity to make the best of themselves.

Let me also introduce the three word test. If you have a policy, can you sum it up in three words? If not, dont use it. Because if you cant sum it up in three words, most people arent going to take the time to listen to it. Capture their attention, and add explanations for those who need it.

We need to make an emotional case for the party. Evidence-based policies are what we do, but making people care about them is a different thing. Present a policy simply; show how it connects our values to peoples lives.

We need to speak clearly, and listen well. Putting into practice new techniques, such as deep canvassing (sometimes called persuasive canvassing) and the increased use of social media, will help us to campaign more effectively. Knowing what is at the heart of our beliefs, and making those connections to people, comes first.

* Sam Al-Hamdani is a party member, recent council by-election candidate, activist and member of his local party committee (Macclesfield) and on the North West Regional Party committee.
William Wallace  one of our eminent peers  delivered the William Beveridge Memorial Lecture at the Social Liberal Forum Conference a week ago.

Professionally William was a professor in International Relations at the London School of Economics, and he has worked as a visiting professor in Universities around the world. So you would be right in expecting his lecture to be intellectually rigorous and thoroughly relevant to social liberals.

He took as his theme the question: Is a liberal and democratic society compatible with globalisation? You can read the full text of his lecture here, but here is a taster.

He sets the question firmly in an international context:

Dani Rodrik, one of my favourite economists  a Turk teaching at Harvard  wrote some five years ago that we may be discovering that democracy is not compatible with unconditional globalization; and that if we have to choose, we must prefer democracy and open society to globalization. I take that as my text, and will explore its implications for Liberals, who believe in open societies and international cooperation but also in individual freedom within settled communities. I have a second text, which is President Macrons declaration that France must support a market economy, but not a market society  which is a good phrase for us to adopt in Britain, when Corbynistas are close to rejecting the market as such and the Conservative right sees the market as governing social provision.

He goes on to analyse the problem thus:

Thomas Piketty and many other economists have shown that globalization has lessened global inequality, but worsened domestic inequality within industrialised countries. That effect has been sharpest in countries with weak welfare provision, and low public expenditure on education and training  the USA and Britain. Were all familiar with the result: insecure employment at low wages for the unskilled, well-paid careers for the highly-educated, locked in to succeeding generations by the differences in support from family and local community, and in motivation and self-confidence, which mould childrens development. The sharpness of the divide within Britain was increased by three particular factors: 1) the outdated practices of the British economy at the end of the 1970s, after years of inadequate investment, complacent management and trade union resistance to change; 2) the speed with which these old  and outdated  industries collapsed under the impact of Thatcherite economics, after 1979; 3) and the policy choices chosen by Margaret Thatcher to use the revenue stream of North Sea oil to lower taxes, rather than to accumulate a sovereign wealth fund or to reinvest in innovation and education. Between 1985 and 1995, on OECD figures, tax revenues in the industrial democracies rose on average by 2%; but in the UK they went down by 5%.

So what must we do as liberals?

We have to engage in the intellectual argument about the structure of markets and of trade. The Leave campaign promised a world in which free trade was the default option, and market regulation through international negotiation unimportant. Liam Fox clearly still believes this, though most others now understand that its fantasy. We do not live in a free trading world. Worse, the government that Theresa Mays administration most relies on for a free trade deal  the American  is protectionist, and represents a country that is structurally protectionist. Unregulated free trade is an ideology, not an achievable policy. Trade relations have to be negotiated, through hard bargaining and detailed trade-offs.

And specifically 

To pitch ourselves back into the political debate, I suggest that we need to discuss a number of awkward and difficult issues, which are in many ways uncomfortable for liberals to address: tax, responsible capitalism, citizenship, and migration. And we need to explore further some traditionally liberal themes that will benefit from refreshing: mutual ownership as an element in a regulated market economy, the appropriate role of an active state, local democracy and its reinvigoration, and above all the central Liberal value of education and training.

He spends the rest of the lecture unpacking these themes.

Its quite a long read but well worth it.

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
Liberal Leave was formed as a part of Vote Leave during the EU referendum. It had the slogan Liberal. Democratic. Internationalist. and it mainly operated through social media. The most high-profile figure in the Group was an ex-MP called Paul Keetch who wrote an article in the Independent called Think that if you are liberal you should vote to stay in the EU? Think again. I was part of that group during the EU referendum and I now chair it.

I have tried to change the group so it is about a compromise between Remain and Leave, one that can be found in the Icelandic option which differs from the Norway option due to its use of safeguard measures. Compromise is what I feel Brexit should now be about, because otherwise hard-line groups on either side will shape it for us in the years to come.

We are against a second referendum. The argument used by Tim Farron during the recent election campaign was that we didnt vote for a destination, just to leave the EU and thats right. Therefore, we should have a referendum on just that, the destination. Do we want to remain members of the single market and do we want to remain members of the customs union? We should ask that rather than replaying the EU referendum.

During the referendum, the European Free Trade Association + European Economic Area (EFTA+EEA) model was the object of attacks from both Remain and Leave supporters. I often heard people say things like They accept all EU laws when they only accept laws related to the single market. Pay, no say was another popular one and it brings up two important areas. They do have a say just in global bodies where they always have their own seat and their own voice rather than a say in the EU. The pay part is better than it sounds with the EFTA+EEA countries paying for EU programs like Erasmus+ which we would probably take part in anyway, EEA grants which go towards poorer EU countries and payment for EFTA membership. Most importantly EFTA+EEA countries dont contribute towards the EUs central budget. They are also under the EFTA court, not the ECJ as many expect. Finally, They have to accept the four freedoms. Liechtenstein doesnt and the rest have safeguard measures that can be triggered solely by them, when they want and for however long they want. More on Free Movement controls can be found here.

Brexit is not going to be a single event and even if during the two-year negotiations we completely drop out of the single market we should aim for the Norway model. Why? Because it offers fairness, stability and security.

* Torrin Wilkins is a Liberal Democrat member and the Director of Centre Think Tank
COUNCIL planners have given the Crescent Shopping Centre the green light for a second expansion in less than two years.

Bosses at the Dooradoyle shopping complex won planning permission for 1,750 square metres more retail space last year.

And with this extension nearing completion, the centre sought to increase this to close on 2,000 square metres.

Despite council planners initially registering concerns over the latest expansion bid  saying they felt it could set an undesirable precedent, the latest permission was waved through with just three conditions.

The move has led to local Fianna Fail councillor James Collins warning that the Crescent is in danger of becoming Limericks city centre from a retail point of view  and that it is having a negative impact on local service businesses in the Raheen, Dooradoyle and Mungret area.

According to documents, the Crescent Shopping Centre is seeking to alter the planning permission is secured last year.

This saw the reconfiguration of seven units in the City Mall and the creation of five new shops around the outside of the centre, with three accommodating cafe and deli-bar uses.

In their latest planning application, Crescent bosses sought to scrap one of the proposed cafes, change one unit from retail service to just retail use and merge two of the units to provide a massive shop facility.

All this means that the latest expansion rises from 1,742 square metres to 1,957 square metres.

Reacting to the planning permission being given, Cllr Collins said: The Crescent should not be allowed to turn into Limericks city centre from a retail point of view. But even from a Raheen, Dooradoyle, Mungret and Ballinacurra point of view, what is happening now is small businesses are finding themselves competing with the Crescent Shopping Centre. It is affecting services.

The Crescent argued its latest expansion is key to ensuring its tenants in the City Mall remain competitive.

They said the minor extension does not alter the shopping centres role with respect to the retail hierarchy in the region, which puts Limerick city centre as number one.

It [...] reflects the policies and objectives relating to the provision of new retail floorspace as set out in the Mid-West Retail Strategy, County Plan and the Southern Environs Local Area Plan, a submission to council goes.

Council gave the shopping centre the go-ahead subject to three conditions.

These include a stipulation that the developer pays the local authority 11,800 for public infrastructure.

And that the retail area of one of the units is only allowed to operate as a single shop.
UNIVERSITY Hospital Limerick has been given the green light by Limerick City and County Council to expand its busy surgical day services.

In March last, the Health Service Executive and UHL proposed the 850,000 development to the local authority, which will involve a major reconfiguration to its surgical day services in the coming months.

Works will include the reorganisation of the Dooradoyle surgical assessment unit, the pre-operative assessment service, and its on-site admission spaces.

The HSE advertised a tender notice for the project in late February.

According to figures released by the UL Hospitals Group, an average of 82 patients attend the surgical services on a weekly basis.

Once the works are completed, more patients can be surgically assessed outside the emergency department. The new works also mean that patients will be able to be admitted on the morning of the surgery, where traditionally admissions had to occur the evening prior to surgery, a spokesperson told the Chronicle.

According to planning files, there were no objections to the project and no submissions made by the public.

The developer in charge of the reorganisation must pay a financial contribution of 5,200 to Limerick City and County Council, as part of its conditions for granting permission.

Last week, UHL also received planning permission to retain its 90-space car park in Dooradoyle for another three years.

UHL is looking to reconfigure its old emergency department, and to turn it into a short stay unit, which will provide up to 17 beds.

According to hospital officials, this will help alleviate UHLs overcrowding issue.

Emergency consultants at UHL have said that the overcrowding problem will continue unless the bed capacity issue is sorted.

University Hospital Limerick opened its new state-of-the-art emergency department on May 29, and launched the 25m facility on June 12.

UL Hospitals Group chief clinical director, Prof Paul Burke said that, in the short term, the UL Hospitals Group hopes to turn the previous ED into a transit area which could act as a short stay unit, providing up to 17 extra beds.

According to latest figures published by the Nurses and Midwives Organisation, UHL had the second highest rate of overcrowding in the country in May, with 627 patients treated on trolleys at the Dooradoyle hospital.
A Chinese firm has signed a deal with local companies to build Africa's tallest skyscraper in the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

The deal was struck in Casablanca by China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) and Morocco's BMCE Bank of Africa and Travaux Generaux de Construction de Casablanca, Morocco's leading construction company, the le360.ma news site reported.

The 55-story tower will be 250 meters tall and use ecological and sustainable design concepts.

It will house offices, hotels and luxury apartments, according to the report.

The tower will be the highlight of a large-scale project to develop the Bouregreg Valley in Rabat, a key component of the 2014-2018 Integrated Development Program dubbed "Rabat, City of Light, Moroccan Cultural Capital."

The new project also involves the construction of several innovative facilities, including the Grand Theater of Rabat, the Arts and Culture House, the National Archives of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Archaeological Museum.
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Chinese scientists discover new material that may allow us to charge our smartphones with our clothes

Professor Xiong Rengen shows his new findings in the lab. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

Can you imagine the day when you can charge your smartphone simply by stretching in your clothes? A research team from Chinas Southeast University has found a new organic-based piezoelectric material that could help this become reality, Chinanews.com reported.

Piezoelectricity refers to electric polarization in a substance, especially certain crystals, caused by mechanical stress. According to Professor Xiong Rengen, who heads the research team, piezoelectric materials have already been applied to various fields, such as spaceflights, submarines, missiles, and medical ultrasounds.

Traditional inorganic piezoelectric materials, such as ceramic, are too stiff to be attached to thin films or electronic components. In addition, thin films and most electronic components get damaged in the extremely high temperatures under which those materials are made.

The new organic piezoelectric materials (Photo/Chinanews.com)

The new organic-based perovskite structured piezoelectric material is far more pliable yet has a piezoelectric response similar to traditional materials. It is also cheaper, lighter, and more environmentally-friendly.

"The molecular piezoelectric materials will further shrink the size of computer chips, making it possible to manufacture flexible heart rate meters and ultrasound machines," Xiong noted, expressing his confidence in the future application of the material.

The research on this new material was published in the Science on July 21, making China a leader in the field of molecular material research.
A movie made by high school students in Beijing has received mixed reactions from the public, as the show featuring the teenage LGBTQ community has unprecedentedly touched a taboo topic in China.

Escape, a 75-minute movie, was jointly created by 37 students from the High School Affiliated to the prestigious Renmin University of China. Featuring the life of a transgender high schooler, the film has carried out an in-depth exploration into the LGBTQ community in Chinese schools, questioning the flaws of the countrys sexual education.

Thanks to modern education, [weve] gained abundant knowledge about LGBTQ communities. But unfortunately, there are still many people in [China] who are not aware of the existence of such a minority group, while some are indifferent to, or even against them, Hu Ranran, the movies director, told the Beijing Youth Daily during an interview.

The movie has been shown over the past few weeks among high school students in Beijing, with many supporting the team and praising the teenagers for having a social responsibility that adults should have.

My child is a transgender. I came here to watch the movie with her today, and I think its really good. It helps me understand the LGBTQ community and shows me some problems she may encounter in the future, said a father who watched the show.

Despite the warm public praise, the film was not allowed to be presented at the schools annual movie festival, as it contains sensitive content.

Our teachers said the show is too avant-garde, and is not suitable to be shown in public, while our parents, who regard LGBTQ as a taboo topic, are reluctant to talk about the movie with us, said Hu.

Many of the students parents told Beijing Youth Daily that LGBTQ individuals are mentally-distorted and abnormal, with many suggesting mental therapy for the minority group.

I hope my movie can raise public concern over such a neglected group. Ive contacted many LGBTQ individuals, who have overcome many difficulties, in an effort to become who they really are. Every one of us may become a member of a minority group in some aspects, and you should not be ashamed, Hu added.
Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region continues to showcase its harmonious relations and economic prosperity gained over the years. Established on 1st May 1947, Inner Mongolia is the first minority autonomous region set up at the provincial level under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and it is where the country started the system of regional autonomy in its ethnic areas.

70 years down the line (1947  2017), the Autonomous Region acting on the shared aspirations of people and officials of all ethnic groups, has forged ahead on the glorious journey of regional ethnic autonomy and brought about tremendous changes.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, addressing an Inner Mongolia Promotion Meeting recently, commended the effort of the Autonomous Regions officials for working hard over the years to achieved political stability, economic prosperity, cultural progress, social harmony, border tranquillity and well-being of people of all ethnic groups.

Inner Mongolia has ensured it takes the lead in terms of Chinas openness in trade and other economic fronts under the Belt and Road Initiative and has embrace the world with greater vitality, he said, and added that the promotion of environmental protection, sand control and poverty reduction have made the Autonomous Region an enviable destination in China. The Foreign Minister admonished Inner Mongolia authorities to continue to showcase the Chinese experience of dealing with desertification across the world.

Li Jiheng, the Communist Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia expressed gratitude to authorities for the development and for ensuring the beautiful features, harmonious society and unique culture in the Autonomous Region.

Speaker after speaker including Ambassadors of Mongolia, New Zealand, Italy and Madagascar commended the development effort and the existing ties in terms of trade, culture, health, education that has ensured a win-win situation over the years.

In 2016, the regional GDP reached 1.86 trillion yuan, with an increase of 7.2%, and per capita GDP amounted to 74, 00 yuan, with an increase of 6.9%. Public fiscal revenue reached 201.65 billion yuan, up by 7%, and total fixed assets investment reached 1.55 trillion yuan, with an increase of 11.9%.

Industries of energy, chemistry, metallurgy, construction materials, agriculture and animal husboundry are growing in size and steady towards a higher level in quality. The region is pushing forward the development of new energy, new materials, big data and cloud computing, energy conservation and environmental protection, high-end equipment, biotechnology, and traditional Mongolian and Chinese Medicine, in order to build Inner Mongolia into an important national base of energy, new-type chemistry, non-ferrous metals, green agriculture and animal husbandry, strategic emerging industries and world-class tourist destination.

In 2016, the added value of all industries amounted to 775.82 billion yuan, increased by 7.0%. The growth rate for the added value of industries above a designated scale reached 7.2%. Science and technology innovation played a significant leading role in industrial upgrading with a number of significant achievement in 2016, including rare earth magnetic motor, the exploration of high aluminium coal, the fruitful research of traditional Mongolian pharmaceutical formulation, and first time in regions history the establishment of two state key labs  the rare earth lab and the special vehicles research lab.

The output of coal production reached 845.5 million tons in 2016; the installed wind power capacity was 25.65 million tons kilowatts, 17% of the countrys total, and the wind power output reached 46.4 billion kwhts. The installed solar power capacity reached 6.36 million kwhs and output 8.3 billion kwhs.

The total urban population stood at 15.42 million and urbanization rate reached 61.2% with an increase of 0.9%.

Abu Bakarr Kargbo is a Senior Staff Writer of Standard Times Newspaper in Sierra Leone and an Intern at Peoples Daily Online.
(File photo/Beijing Youth Daily)

Students get a 30 percent discount for abdomen liposuction! We suggest they do it during the summer, before their military training course at the beginning of the term, said Ms. Teng, a Beijing-based surgery consultant. Nowadays, those who seek plastic surgery are not just workplace newbies, but also recent high school graduates about to enter college.

When youre in high school, as long as you get good marks, teachers and classmates treat you well. But college is different. Without good looks, its hard to stand out in the student union or in campus activities, a high school graduate surnamed Zhou explained to the Workers Daily.

Sun, another college freshman who came to Beijing to do the surgery, has a more specific reason. A new identity card will be made for us in our first year. Afterwards I can use the new photo for all my IDs and certificates. Nobody knows what I looked like before.

According to a medical beauty hospital in Beijing, the number of students seeking plastic surgery usually surges during the summer holiday, accounting for about one third or half of the total clients. Eye and nose surgery, Botox injections, and abdomen liposuction are the most popular.

Moreover, plastic surgery is not cheap. According o prices posted on the website of a medical beauty hospital, a nose job costs 15,800 yuan (about $2,337); eye pouch removal ranges from 4,000 yuan (about $592) to 10,000 yuan (about $1,479); and an abdomen liposuction starts from 8,500 (about $1257), depending on the surgical method.

The price of one plastic surgery is far above her schooling costs. But we have no choice. This is all for my daughters future. A decent look is important in society, said Zhous mother.

Weve seen many cases in which the resume photo looked quite different from the job applicant in person. Unless we are recruiting receptionists, we wont place on a lot of emphasis on their looks, said Mr. Feng, a senior HR staff member. If we question their looks, the applicant usually says it was because the photo was taken years ago.
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Texas small businesses could bear the brunt of economic losses if Texas lawmakers pass a so-called transgender bathroom bill, a group of small business owners said Monday.

Business leaders in Texas and around the U.S. have grown increasingly vocal in their opposition to state lawmakers efforts to regulate transgender bathroom use. Nearly two dozen executives in San Antonio and Dallas have blasted bathroom bill proposals as distractions and damaging to the states ability to attract businesses and talent. Major tech CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Tim Cook of Apple, have implored lawmakers not to seek the legislation. And IBM has said it could reassess its commitment to Texas should a bathroom bill pass.

Now, small businesses are publicly speaking out. A group of five small business owners said Monday their companies could pull back on planned investments, lose potential projects and fail to attract customers and workers if state lawmakers efforts to bar transgender men and women from bathrooms that match their gender identity.

Were great for talking points about being the heart and soul of Texas but when we stand up to say that our businesses are in jeopardy, those same folks dont seem to listen, Amber Briggle, owner of Soma Massage Therapy in Denton, said on a conference call Monday organized by Texas Competes, a business coalition that opposed bathroom legislation.

Briggle said she planned to hire two new employees to service potential convention clients who travel to the citys new convention center. But its unclear whether convention groups will book enough events at the center to justify the new hires if a bathroom bill passes, Briggle said.

And Briggle isnt the only person in her family affected by the ban. Her husband, a University of North Texas professor, attempted to convene a philosophy conference but was thwarted after California banned state employees from using taxpayer dollars to travel to Texas, preventing potential California convention-goers from attending, Briggle said. The couples 9-year-old son is also transgender, Briggle said.

California enacted its travel ban after Texas lawmakers passed a bill allowing adoption groups with religious affiliations deny adoptions over sincerely held religious beliefs, which opponents say will lead to discrimination against LGBT couples who want to adopt.

State lawmakers who back bathroom bill have downplayed the business communitys concerns, saying such a bill is necessary to protect women. John Wittman, spokesman for Gov. Greg Abbott, said businesses see Texas as attractive because of the states low taxes, right-to-work laws, litigation reform and regulatory climate. People who come to Texas want to do business and raise their families in a state that has safe communities, and this law helps achieve that, Wittman said.

The truth is that businesses look at what is best for their bottom line, and Texas is that place, Wittman said in a statement.

After hearing hours of testimony from citizens and business groups, the state Senate State Affairs Committee voted Sunday to move Senate Bill 3  which would bar local governments and school districts from enacting policies that allow transgender men and women from using bathrooms, showers and changing facilities tied to their gender identity  to the full Senate for a vote.

We must put our daughters before dollars on this issue, state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican and the bills author, said in a statement.

Opponents predictions of economic fallout stemming from a bathroom law are not based in fact, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement. Patrick pointed to the citys vote on the HERO ordinance in 2015, when Houston voters rejected a proposal to add gender identity and sexual orientation to the citys nondiscrimination ordinance.

Houston hosted the most successful Super Bowl of all time this year and I am not aware of one business that did not come to Houston or one dollar the Texas economy lost as a result of the Houston vote, Patrick said in a statement, adding that North Carolina had a record year in hotel occupancy and the tourism sector is booming after passing similar legislation last year.

Texas tourism leaders have cautioned bathroom bill supporters against looking to North Carolinas recent performance as a reliable marker of the effects of that states bathroom legislation, which was repealed and replaced earlier this year. Convention groups plan years in advance, Visit San Antonio CEO Casandra Matej told lawmakers Friday, so the effects of any canceled events wont be seen for years.

North Carolina lost dozens of events and projects in the aftermath of the bills passage.

The bathroom bill debate has already cost the state $66 million in convention business, Phillip Jones, CEO of Visit Dallas, told state senators during a committee hearing Friday. The state could lose more than $1 billion in additional convention business should Texas lawmakers pass the bill, Jones said.

San Antonio hotels have lost 43,623 booked hotel room-nights from convention groups that canceled because of the bathroom bill debate, said Justin Holley, owner ABH Hospitality Management, said on the conference call Monday. The management group owns four hotels in San Antonio.

San Antonio has already lost three conventions valued at $3.1 million because of the debate, Matej told the state Senate State Affairs Committee during a hearing on the bill Friday. Another 15 convention groups have threatened to cancel their events should a bathroom bill become law, taking with them $41 million in local spending, Matej said.

Further event cancellations stemming from a potential bathroom law would harm hotel employees who depend on local convention business, Holley said.

Were all about welcoming people, Holley said of the hospitality industry. This sends the message that, as a state, we pick and choose who we welcome.

Austin stands to lose up to 30 convention groups worth $133 million if the bathroom bill passes, Visit Austin CEO Tom Noonan told lawmakers Friday. Meetings worth $10 million have already been canceled because of the bathroom bill debate, Noonan said.

On Thursday, the Association of American Law Schools became the latest group to pull its event from Austin over the bathroom bill and Senate Bill 4, the sanctuary cities bill passed by the Legislature earlier this session. The association relocated the four-day 2018 conference to Chicago and wont consider Texas for future meetings because of the two bills, Paul Marcus, the associations president, told Austin Mayor Steve Adler in a letter Thursday.

Austins event planning industry  including caterers and audio technicians  could take a serious hit if groups follow through on their threats to leave the city, Cindy Lo, owner of Red Velvet Events in Austin, said Monday.

When we see tourists vote with their feet, its these small businesses and individuals who will suffer first, Lo said.

Concerns over the bathroom bill extend outside of the tourism and hospitality industry. Mary Ann Guido, CEO of San Antonio-based construction firm Guido & Companies Inc., said businesses looking to relocate could pass over San Antonio, taking with them construction contracts worth millions of dollars.

Why would they think of coming into Texas when theres not an inclusive attitude? Guido said.

And the states tech industry would have a hard time recruiting young, talented workers who expect an LGBT-friendly atmosphere, said Jason Bodor, owner of Denton-based technology services firm GSATi.

Attracting the best talent isnt optional, Bodor said. Its crucial to keep our competitive edge and our business success.

jfechter@express-news.net
A 57-year-old man who allegedly threw a crow bar at two people in 2016 was ordered in the 341st District Court to attend anger management classes.

Mathew Howard Baldwin pleaded no contest to two charges of aggravated assault during a hearing Tuesday.
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A 30-year-old Laredo man received a 14-year sentence Friday in a local federal court for his involvement in a major poly-drug conspiracy that operated out of Laredo.

Mario Alberto Rodriguez was sentenced for his part in a conspiracy run by Juan Pablo Contreras, an associate of the Mexican Mafia. Contreras organized the distribution of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine to members of the gang in the South Texas area between September 2009 and May 2013.

During Friday's sentencing, Rodriguez said he would travel to Mexico to pick up packages of narcotics but did not know what substances he was trafficking.

The government identified Rodriguez as one of three main carriers working under Contreras.

Contreras would buy the heroin wholesale from Mexico and distribute it locally and to San Antonio and Austin. He is currently serving a 32-year prison sentence for the operation.

READ MORE: Local doctor charged with harassment over voicemail

Rodriguez is responsible for recruiting his mother-in-law, Eufrosina Lopez, to transport a load of methamphetamine and heroin to Austin.

She was sentenced in January 2016 to serve six-and-a-half years in prison for possessing controlled substances with the intent to deliver them.

While U.S. District Court Judge Diana Saldana said there was no indication that Rodriguez was a member of an organized gang, records state the protection and contacts of the Mexican Mafia and its associates were used at all times during the conspiracy to traffic the narcotics.

The U.S. Attorney's Office identified Rodriguez as a member of the Texas Mexican Mafia in a news release regarding his sentencing.

Federal court records have also tied Rodriguez as an associate to Erasmo Abdon Trejo-Nava. Trejo-Nava headed a cell operating out of Laredo that was one of the primary transporters of marijuana shipments for the Zetas drug cartel in Nuevo Laredo between June 2011 and June 2013.

Rodriguez was identified through intercepted phone calls as being involved in the transportation of 4,088 pounds of marijuana from Laredo, court documents state.

RELATED: Judge: Laredo woman who attacked pregnant woman in Wal-Mart parking lot must pay $17K in restitution

He is awaiting sentencing in the Trejo-Nava case after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana.

Saldana said she hoped Rodriguez realized he was up to no good, "spreading terror and madness."

Rodriguez requested he be placed at a prison facility outside of Texas so he can start fresh. He is expected to be transferred later this year after his sentencing for his involvement in the Trejo-Nava conspiracy.

Rodriguez, who has been in custody since January 2012, said being locked up has given him time to reflect on his mistakes.

"What else can I say, I really regret what I did," Rodriguez said.

He is the final defendant to be sentenced as part of the Contreras drug trafficking conspiracy, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The remaining defendants convicted in the case received terms ranging from two years to 262 months in prison for their respective roles in the conspiracy.
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A woman who attacked a pregnant woman during a road rage incident in 2014 has been ordered to pay over $17,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to assault.

Alexandra Kristine Villalobos received a 10-year probated sentence Tuesday.

As conditions of probation, 341st District Court Judge Beckie Palomo ordered Villalobos to pay $17,594 in restitution and complete anger management classes.

Villalobos' co-defendant, Gilberto Alejandro Arevalo, faces a charge of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. He entered a not guilty plea to the charge in January 2016.

Arevalo is scheduled for trial Sept. 11 after rejecting a plea agreement offered by the prosecution, records state.

READ MORE: San Antonio death toll in 'horrific' human trafficking reaches 9

The incident occurred the afternoon of Sept. 7, 2014, when police responded to an assault report in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, 4401 U.S. 83 South.

A caller told police that a man and a pregnant woman had been assaulted.

Police said they learned that a Ford Crown Victoria was driving recklessly through the parking lot when it passed the victims' vehicle.

The complainants yelled at them because they were concerned that Crown Victoria driver could hit a pedestrian, according to court documents.

Police said the suspects returned to where the victims parked. A woman, later identified as Villalobos, exited the Victoria and attacked the pregnant woman.

A 56-year-old man attempted to separate them.

But a man, identified as Arevalo, punched him in the face several times, causing a cut and his eye to swell. Arevalo then allegedly kicked him in the face while he was on the floor.

Both suspects got back in their vehicle and drove away.

MORE FROM LMTonline: 11-year-old dancer from Laredo shares LEA stage with Les Twins

The criminal complaint states that the 56-year-old man believes he was struck with brass knuckles.

Paramedics took him to Laredo Medical Center for treatment.

He was later flown to San Antonio for treatment to his eye.

Police released surveillance footage of the incident later that month, requesting the community's assistance to identify the suspects.

The next day, investigators received information on their identities and a detailed description of the vehicle involved in the incident.

An investigation led police to identify and arrest Arevalo and Villalobos.
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A man who admitted last week to stealing a pit bull and her seven puppies from a home in Cotulla has been jailed on misdemeanor charges of theft and trespassing.

Identified as Joshua Galvan, 38, the suspect in the case is a registered sex offender and was reported by the dogs' owner as being the one likely responsible for the theft before sheriff's deputies arrived at his house.

Telltale footprints leading from the scene of the theft as far as Galvan's gate less than a hundred yards distant reinforced officer's beliefs that he would be a person of interest in connection with the crime.

The pit bull puppies have been valued at more than $100 each.

In his report on the case, La Salle Cpl. Anthony Zertuche said he met with dog owner Ramon Nunez, who claimed that Galvan had already made inquiries regarding the puppies and had asked to be given one.

READ MORE: New details emerge about immigrants' deadly trip to San Antonio in sweltering trailer

Nunez reported that he had come home Thursday morning at around 9 a.m. to find that the young dogs and their mother had been removed. The investigating officer noted that Nunez' property is fenced and that there is a gate across the driveway.

The corporal noted that he spotted footprints in the dirt at the scene of the theft and that he followed the prints as far as Galvan's property entrance. Galvan, however, was either not home at the time of the officer's visit or was not responding to calls.

Armed with the theft victim's complaint and with the footprint evidence, Cpl. Zertuche said he sought arrest warrants for Galvan and a search warrant for the property, all of which were signed Thursday afternoon by Justice of the Peace George Trigo.

Cpl. Zertuche was joined by Deputies Miguel Limon and Juan Mirelez, Sheriff's Investigator Homar Olivarez, Highway Patrol Sgt. JD Rodriguez and a number of DPS troopers in approaching the Galvan property at around 5 p.m. Friday in a bid to execute the search warrant.

RELATED: 'Hope you enjoy it b---h': Laredo doctor charged with harassment over voicemail

The corporal noted that he called on the other officers to assist because uncertainty remained over how many dogs were being kept at the property.

"We have since learned that Galvan approached Nunez after our first visit Thursday morning and confronted him over having called the sheriff's office about the dog theft," Cpl. Zertuche said. "The suspect in the case appears to have admitted to taking the dogs and asked Nunez not to press the issue. He offered to return them."

The officers executed the search warrant and caught Galvan after the suspect tried to flee but became tangled in a barbed wire fence. Galvan provided information regarding the dogs' whereabouts and all were safely recovered by the Cotulla animal control officer.

Galvan was remanded into custody on Class B misdemeanor charges of theft and criminal trespass. Prosecutors are examining options for revoking probation for Galvan from an earlier conviction.
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Something like 50 advisory committees exist under Webb County, and no records are kept for many of them. The county could not provide the names of the people who serve on more than half of their committees.

It is difficult to even know the exact number of Webb County's existing committees. Unlike the City of Laredo, which posts agendas of all its committees and commissions online, the county's website does not provide this information. To obtain a list of Webb County committees, LMT had to file an open records request. And the committees that in fact meet do not post their agendas anywhere online, either.

Margie Ibarra, Webb County clerk, said only the advisory boards, such as the Board of Judges, the Auditor's Board and the Bail Bonds Board, post their agendas outside her office.

With legislative policy-making bodies like City Council and Commissioners Court, meeting agendas need to be publicly posted at least 72 hours in advance, according to the Texas Open Meetings Act. This is not the case for most committees, which are generally not subject to the act.

READ MORE: Laredo woman who attacked pregnant woman in Wal-Mart parking lot must pay $17K in restitution, judge says

However, the Texas Open Meetings Act stipulates that if a committee makes recommendations that are approved without any real discussion by the legislative policy-making body, then the committee would need to follow rules laid out in the act.

It is unclear which Webb County committees may make these types of recommendations to Commissioners Court and would thus be subject to the Open Meetings Act.

The Webb County Clerk's Office is charged with keeping records of Commissioners Court agendas, minutes, and their approval of contracts.

When it comes to the county's committees, Ibarra said her office largely doesn't know who is appointed to these groups. Sometimes commissioners will appoint someone to a committee at a meeting, and sometimes they'll appoint them later without notifying the Clerk's Office, Ibarra said.

"There's decisions (when Commissioners Court will) say, 'We're going to send it to the committee.' But we have no idea what the committee decisions are," Ibarra said. "I think it's very important that at least the public knows what kinds of committees we have, what they entail, and when they have meetings. Because I'm sure that there's a lot of public opinion on the different committees that might exist right now."

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina said only certain committees, by law, are required to post agendas. Other committees "that deal with internal issues" are not required to post, he said in a statement to LMT.

And the reason the county doesn't know who serves on certain committees is because they are essentially dead, he said.

"Some committees have already served their purpose and if they have served their purpose they extinguish themselves through inaction. However, if there is a time (when we) need to reestablish them, the vehicle to do that is already there because there was a committee established at some point," Tijerina said in the statement.

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Some of Webb County's existing committees are specific, such as the Cell Phone Committee, the County-City Project & Programs Committee, the Garbage Fee Committee, the Safety Committee and the Vehicle Use Committee. The county could not provide the names of people who serve on any of these groups.

Webb County budget officer Lalo Uribe said many of these committees were created by prior administrations and county judges. He said it would be great to have an updated list online, and that the current list needs to be scrubbed.

Interim Risk Management Director Alexandra Colessides is working on the implementation of the county's new health insurance plan. The Insurance Committee, she said, has not met since she took over this job, and she does not know who serves on the committee. Colessides had never heard of the Health Care Funding District Commission.

Other counties around the state take different approaches to their online transparency in this regard. Counties such as Dallas, El Paso, Bexar, Nueces and Galveston post information about their committees on their websites.

Some of the larger counties that do not have this information on their websites are Wilson, Hidalgo, Montgomery, Cameron and Lubbock.
Photo taken on July 23, 2017 shows the submersible "Explorer" on China's independently-made marine science expedition vessel "Kexue." (Photo/Xinhua)

"Explorer," China's independently-developed unmanned submersible, carried out its first experimental mission in the northern reaches of the South China Sea on July 24. It is expected to explore underwater for 20 hours, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The submersible is 3.5 meters long, 1.5 meters wide, and 1.5 meters high, and has four red fin-shaped propellers. It can work at a maximum depth of 4,500 meters under water.

Zhao Hongyu, an associate researcher at the Shenyang Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, explained that the "Explorer" is not tethered to its mother ship. It works autonomously in accordance with default procedures.

Scientists will identify spots with research value after the "Explorer" finishes its mission in this cold area of the South China Sea, and then carry out fine investigations with a remote-operated submarine.

Unlike unmanned submersibles, remote-operated submarines are tethered to the mother ship and can carry more equipment to conduct finer investigation and operations.

"Explorer" is loaded on "Kexue," China's independently-made marine science expedition vessel, which is now carrying out a maritime scientific expedition in South China Sea.
Hale County commissioners on Monday accepted bids from Concrete Connection of Plainview for all three phases of concrete work outside the Ollie Liner Center.

The addition of a concrete apron on three sides of the countys exhibition/events center is part of some $500,000 in upgrades to the facility on the south edge of Plainview.

Concrete Connection already is involved in upgrades at the RV park outside the Ollie Liner Center. All thats lacking on that is for Xcel Energy to reactivate electrical service, which is expected later this week. Once that happens, county road crews will clean and seal coat the RV park, located on the north edge of the Ollie Liner Center.

The county provides 24 full-service RV spaces with electrical, sewer and water hookups. There are another 17 spaces on the east edge of the building with electrical hookups only.

The county charges $15 per night ($10 for seniors) for the RV hookups, with stays limited to one week. By comparison, commercial rates locally range from $25 to $35 per day. Commissioners plan to take a look at increasing the RV rates at the OLC at their next work session in early August. Once all OLC upgrades are complete, they are expected to review OLC rental charges as well.

On Monday, they accepted Concrete Connections bid of $167,794.95 for concrete work around the Ollie Liner Center. Thrasher, Inc., bid $170,530.35 for the same project. The project is expected to be completed in 90 days, depending on weather, once work begins sometime in August.

Earlier, the sewer line serving both the OLC and RV park was replaced.

The final phase of the upgrades will be repairs and seal coating of the OLC parking lot, which is expected to be done by county employees.

In other action Monday commissioners:

--Approved the addition of Garret Smith to the staff of the District Attorneys Office. He is expected to become the county court prosecutor once upon receiving results of his Texas Bar Exam in November.

--Approved annual contracts related to the Texas VINE (Victim Information and Notification Everyday) program through the Texas Attorney Generals Office. It provides crime victims up-to-date information on court cases.

--Approved current accounts payable of $112,054.40 and acknowledged the countys closing balance of all accounts on June 30 of $19,449,492.71. County Treasurer Ida Tyler reported that the county received $52,120.63 in investment income during the first half of the year. She said investments are earning more than 1 percent for the first time in several years.

--Authorized the purchase of two grill guards for DPS Licenses and Weights patrol vehicles in Hale County, if asset forfeiture funds are not available. Total cost is $900.

--Approved the June run report for Hale Center EMS. That agency had 27 emergency calls with 22 in the city and 5 in rural Hale County. Six were non-transport calls and one was a handoff to UMC EMS from Abernathy.

--Accepted a $20,000 bid for tax forfeited property at 1115 N. Columbia in Plainview. It is appraised at $33,617. A City of Plainview trust property, it was one of seven properties offered through an internet auction.

--Approved the UMC EMS second quarter run report which serves Abernathy and surrounding area. They reported 18 responses, including two outside their service area -- in Petersburg and Hale Center.

--Approved three measures related to the acquisition of privately-held structures at the Plainview/Hale County Airport. Commissioners authorized the county judge to sign an engagement letter with Jeff Tillman for appraisal review services. The judge also was authorized to sign an agreement with Groundwater & Environmental Services, Inc., to conduct an environmental due diligence audit at the airport. Also, the judge was authorized to sign an agreement with Parkhill, Smith and Cooper to survey the 27 structures owned by Rocket Aviation and to development an Airport Boundary Survey.

--Accepted a $5,400 bid for three trust properties in Abernathy. Those tracts, at 1202, 1203 and 1210 Ave. B, are City of Abernathy trust properties.

--Approved quarterly reports from the Indigent Health Department, Veterans Service Office and Plainview/Hale County Economic Development Corp. The formal reports were made Friday at the commissioners work session.

--Heard a presentation from Andrew Jackson on the Hale, Swisher, Castro Counties CSCD biennial budget. A final budget hearing is set for 8 a.m. Aug. 14 in the 64th District Courtroom.

--Authorized the installation of upgraded security cameras at the Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Office north of Abernathy. The installation will be done by Professional Alarm Services of Wolfforth at a cost of $13,363.50.

--Approved the hiring of Jesus Carmona and Alfredo Picasso as part of the Precinct 4 Road Crew.

--Approved retroactive raises for three corrections officers at the Hale County jail since their routine pay increases had been overlooked earlier.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Mario Martinez was absent Monday. All other members of the Hale County Commissioners Court were in attendance.
WASHINGTON - Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, spent two hours Monday answering questions from Senate investigators about his contacts with Russian officials, as the various probes into Russian interference during the 2016 election entered a new phase involving some of those closest to Trump.

After his closed-door questioning, Kushner spoke briefly to reporters outside the White House.

"Let me be very clear: I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner said. "I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information.

"Since the first questions were raised in March, I have been consistent in saying I was eager to share whatever information I have with investigating bodies, and I have done so today,'' he said. "All of my actions were proper.''

Legal experts expect that all of Kushner's answers to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee will be shared with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is conducting a separate probe into any potential criminal activity surrounding Russian meddling and key figures in the Trump campaign.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president "was very proud of Jared for voluntarily going to the Hill and being very transparent with every interaction that he's had. He thought Jared did a great job and was very glad that he was able to go through that process and lay everything out and I think show the members of that committee as well as everybody else what a witch hunt and hoax this whole thing is.''

Kushner dismissed outright the notion that Russia could be responsible for his father-in-law's election victory. "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won. Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him,'' he said.

Kushner's appearance Monday will be followed by further questioning Tuesday - again, behind closed doors - before the House Intelligence Committee, which is also probing Russian election-year meddling.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian government orchestrated a far-reaching campaign to disrupt last year's presidential campaign and influence the outcome in Trump's favor. A major question for the current investigations is whether any Trump associates acted to help or advise the Russian effort.

Kushner and the White House used the grilling to offer their most detailed refutation - in the form of an 11-page written statement - of the idea that anyone in the campaign sought to coordinate with people acting on behalf of the Russian government.

"Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest,'' Kushner wrote.

Kushner's statement detailed four meetings he had with Russian officials or nationals during the 2016 campaign and transition period. He described them as brief and unremarkable contacts in his role as the Trump campaign's liaison to foreign governments.

Kushner wrote that his first meeting with a Russian official was in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Trump delivered a major foreign policy speech, the execution of which Kushner said he oversaw. Kushner wrote that he attended a reception to thank the event's host, Dimitri Simes, publisher of the National Interest, a foreign policy magazine. Simes introduced Kushner to four ambassadors at the reception, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Kushner said.

"With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump's speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America's foreign policy," he wrote. "The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions."

Kushner did not name the other three ambassadors he met at the reception, and he denied having had any other contact with Kislyak during the campaign, disputing a report by Reuters that he had two phone calls with the ambassador.

"While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador," Kushner wrote. "We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place."

In fact, he said that on Nov. 9, the day after the election, when the campaign received a congratulatory note from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kushner tried to verify it was real and could not remember Kislyak's name. "So I sent an email asking Mr. Simes, 'What is the name of the Russian ambassador?' " Kushner wrote.

Kushner also described attending a June 2016 meeting organized by his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr., with a Russian attorney. He said it was listed on his calendar as "Meeting: Don Jr. | Jared Kushner." He wrote that he arrived at the meeting late, and when he got there the Russian lawyer was talking about a ban on adoption of Russian children by Americans.

"I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting," Kushner wrote. "Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for 10 or so minutes and wrote, 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.' "

Kushner also detailed two interactions with Russian officials during the transition period, before Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20. The first, on Dec. 1, was a meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower in New York. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who would become the president's national security adviser, also attended.

"I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations," Kushner wrote. "Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President. The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day."

Kushner wrote that Kislyak addressed U.S. policy in Syria and wanted to "convey information from what he called his 'generals.' " But Kislyak said they could not come to the United States and "asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation."

Kushner said that he or Flynn explained there were no such lines, and that Kushner asked Kislyak if the Russians had "an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn." He wrote that Kislyak said "that would not be possible," and they agreed to wait until after the inauguration to receive the information.

The Washington Post first reported in May on Kushner and Kislyak's discussions about establishing a secret means of communications, though Kushner suggested in his testimony that the channel would have been for the purpose of this one meeting.

"I did not suggest a 'secret back channel,' " he wrote. "I did not suggest an ongoing secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period."

The second transition-period meeting Kushner said he had with Russians was on Dec. 13, when, at the urging of Kislyak, he met with Sergey Gorkov, a banker with "a direct line" to Putin.

On Dec. 6, the Russian Embassy asked Kushner to meet with Kislyak on Dec. 7, and Kushner declined, he wrote. The Russians asked if he could meet on Dec. 6, and Kushner declined again, he wrote. Kislyak then requested a meeting with Kushner's assistant - "and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed," Kushner wrote.

Kislyak and Kushner's assistant, whom Kushner did not name, met on Dec. 12, and Kislyak requested that Kushner meet with Gorkov, "who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together."

Kushner agreed to meet Gorkov, making room in his schedule for him the next day. Their meeting lasted 20 to 25 minutes, Kushner wrote, and Gorkov presented two gifts - "a piece of art from Nvogorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus," and a bag of dirt from there. Kushner gave the gifts to his assistant and asked him to formallyregister them with the transition office.

During the meeting, Kushner wrote, Gorkov told him about his bank and discussed the Russian economy, expressing "disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future." Kushner wrote that "no specific policies were discussed," including sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

---

The Washington Post's Ashley Parker contributed to this report.

---

Video: The Post's Philip Rucker explains how President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is defending his contacts with Russian officials before congressional investigators. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Oliver Contreras/The Washington Post)

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Adopted at six months old in Manhattan, Spring resident Rachel Meforana, 66, never knew she had family searching for her.

Thanks to the internet, she stood embraced for the first time by her sisters Emily Balbas Lonsberry Cook and Jannette Balbas Eguchi of California Thursday at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

"It was unreal," said Cook, 75, Saturday emotionally describing the moment. "It was everything we expected and more. We threw our arms around each other and it was like we already knew each other. We've been talking non-stop for two days."

Encouraged by her husband Henry, Meforana conducted a DNA test, a Christmas gift from Henry who had also connected to his family members, and created an Ancestry.com profile curious about her family history. Through the website, she connected her to her long lost siblings who did not know her name or location.

"I didn't know anyone existed," Meforana said. "Apparently, they knew I existed and had been looking for me, but they had no idea where to start."

Once connected, the siblings were able to communicate and confirm their family ties.

"I wrote back in caps and an exclamation point 'you are my sister'," Meforana said happily. "Honestly, it was like this light came on and I was like 'oh my God, I belong to somebody.' I kind of resemble Emily."

When Meforana first learned as a teen the man who raised her and her biological sister Victoria-who was sworn to secrecy-- in New York was not her biological father, she felt hurt and confused.

However, her siblings were able to answer questions about her parents to give her peace, including, that her father died in February before she was born in July of 1951 and her 24-year-old mother, who was religious, may have been told what was right and wrong to do at the time to influence her decision.

"I wasn't just a throw away kid," Meforana said. "I was actually loved. It was really heart-warming to know it wasn't two people meeting and going on their way. They actually did love each other."

Meforana also learned she has a brother, who shares a name with her father, Vincent Balbas, whom she is in communication with. He may be able to help answer more questions about her family history through a paternal DNA test, she said. While meeting Thursday, her sister Emily shared a meaningful comment to Meforana.

"The first thing she said to me was that you are Daddy's daughter," Meforana said. "It was just everything I could have hoped for and didn't know I was hoping for."

She encourages others who have questions about their family history to get a DNA test and consider creating an online profile like she did.

"If you even think you are alone and there might be somebody out there, just use every avenue," she said. "I never imagined this would happen. If you have any inkling, just go out there and search."

For families with children who are adopted, she recommends honesty.

"Your child will not love you any less because you tell the truth," she said. "Each one of us has a story and we have the right to know."

Meforana's sisters flew back to California Sunday morning, but not without making plans to see each other again.

"They are coming out at Christmas time, Cook said. "We will be getting together and staying in touch. The internet was not a one-time shot."
KABUL - At least 24 people were killed in the latest violence to rock Afghanistan's capital Monday morning when a suicide bomber struck near a minubus in the southwestern neighborhood of Dehbori.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh confirmed the death toll and said about three dozen others had been injured. Pictures shared on social media showed a street strewn with burning vehicles and debris, with smoke rising above.
WASHINGTON - The Senate Republican drive to pass a sweeping rewrite of the nation's health-care laws took another unexpected turn late Monday when the office of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., announced he would return to Washington for a planned Tuesday vote.

McCain, who was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, could provide a critical vote to open debate on the GOP bill. The senator had been recuperating from surgery and exploring treatment options in Arizona.

McCain's announcement came as some Senate GOP leaders expressed confidence in a newly emerging strategy of trying to pass smaller-scale changes to the Affordable Care Act, with an eye toward continue negotiations into the fall.

While it was unclear if McCain's return would improve the chances of the bill clearing a key procedural hurdle as he has expressed concerns about the proposal. But some Republicans were privately abuzz with speculation that leaders might be close to securing the votes they needed to at least keep alive a months-long effort that all but died last week.

Still, the prospects of success were murky at best. President Donald Trump threateningly urged Republican senators to get behind the effort Monday, but his sharp rhetoric produced no new public support. And Republican senators were confused about what kind of measure their own leadership even intended to bring to a vote.

"Senator McCain looks forward to returning to the United States Senate tomorrow to continue working on important legislation, including health care reform, the National Defense Authorization Act, and new sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea," McCain's office said in a statement.

Hours earlier at a White House event on Monday afternoon, Trump forcefully encouraged Senate Republicans to vote "yes" on a procedural motion that would allow debate on health-care legislation to begin. However, exactly what legislation lawmakers would be debating remained unclear to many of them late Monday.

In a West Virginia speech before the National Boy Scout Jamboree later on, Trump sought to pressure Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., by saying, "You better get Senator Capito to vote for it," referring to his health and human services secretary, Tom Price, who was with him. Trump also quipped that he would fire Price if he did not round up enough votes.

"As the Scout law says, a Scout is trustworthy, loyal - we could use some more loyalty, I can tell you that," Trump said in a day that was filled with thinly veiled barbs at Republicans who have failed to advance the health-care revamp.

Revered on both sides of the aisle, the news that McCain has brain cancer cast a pall over the Capitol last week and his return is sure to provide a morale boost for colleagues in both parties.

But most immediately, McCain may provide a critical vote in support of beginning formal debate on the health-care bill. Republican leaders openly discussed the possibility of McCain's return with reporters on Monday during an evening vote.

"I'm pretty confident we'll get on the bill even without John, " Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the chamber's lead GOP vote-counter, told reporters.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she spoke with McCain on Saturday and that her frequent collaborator was eager to get back to work.

"It is just extraordinary how upbeat he is and how accepting of his diagnosis - it was truly inspirational to talk with him," she said. "I have a feeling that if there's any way he can be back, he will be here - whether his doctors like it. It just reminds me of what an extraordinarily brave person he is."

Without McCain, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., could only have afforded one GOP defection. Multiple Republican senators have raised objections to each health-care proposal that has been offered, leaving McConnell and Trump in a very difficult spot.

"There is still time to do the right thing," Trump said at the White House on Monday. He added a word of warning: "Any senator who votes against starting debate is telling Americans that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare."

Vice President Pence is also lobbying heavily for wary senators to pass a health-care overhaul and was spotted heading toward McConnell's Capitol Hill office late Monday afternoon as votes were getting underway.

McConnell encouraged senators to vote Tuesday to open what he said would be a period of "robust debate" on health care. "I will vote 'yes' on the motion to proceed and I would urge all of our colleagues to do the same," he said in a speech on the Senate floor.

But a flurry of problems remained for McConnell as he insisted on taking up the troubled legislation, which must receive 50 votes to be approved, with Pence ready to break a tie.

His plan is catching flak from all sides - ranging from moderate senators who disagree with the Medicaid cuts to conservatives who don't believe the package goes far enough to repeal the ACA, which they have campaigned against for seven years.

After it became clear last week there weren't sufficient votes for the Senate package to repeal and replace the ACA that McConnell negotiated, the majority leader said the Senate would instead move to a straight repeal bill like one they voted on in 2015.

But there was confusion Monday about exactly which direction senators would go on Tuesday when and if the voting starts. And none of the options that McConnell has presented had won enough public support to guarantee passage.

"What are we proceeding to?" Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a conservative critic of the effort, wondered aloud to reporters.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, centrist Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she would not vote "yes" to move forward on any of the plans that have been floated so far.

One emerging idea late Monday was to scale down the scope of the proposals and instead find a narrower bill, That would set up a House-Senate conference to resolve the differences between the two proposals, buying Republicans more time,

Cornyn confirmed Monday evening that congressional leaders were now leaning against the original plan, if the Senate could approve legislation, to have the House immediately approve the Senate bill once it was approved in the upper chamber.

"Initially there was some thought maybe the House would take up the bill we passed, but that may not be the case. So what we need to do is make progress," Cornyn told reporters.

That point - just "make progress" - was echoed by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who held a robust conversation with GOP leaders on the Senate floor during votes and explained that the aim is just to make sure some legislative proposal passes in a bid to keep the effort alive.

Officially, the Senate plans to vote on a motion to proceed to a House-passed repeal-and-replace bill. But from there, that measure could be amended in any number of ways.

In his remarks Monday, McConnell referred to the 2015 repeal-only bill that passed with overwhelming GOP support but was vetoed by President Barack Obama.

McConnell said senators have another chance to vote for that measure, and this time "President Trump will use his pen to sign such legislation."

The GOP leader did not mention the Senate bill to "repeal and replace" Obamacare simultaneously. Trump has pushed lawmakers not to give up on the simultaneous repeal-and-replace approach, leaving many scratching their heads about what direction McConnell would go should legislation advance to a full floor debate.

"We'll have several amendments," said McConnell spokesman Don Stewart. "Members are discussing timing."

Cornyn said Monday that leaders hadn't decided which version of the bill would come up if the motion to proceed succeeds - in part because they want to keep their options open.

"We're trying to maximize the number of votes," Cornyn told reporters. "What we're trying to do is convince everybody that if they'd like to get a vote on their amendment, then they need to vote to proceed to the House bill."

McConnell met with conservative activists Monday to discuss health care. Two attendees - Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of tea party Patriots and Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs at FreedomWorks - said they support the motion to proceed.

Martin said she hoped that "at the very least, at the end of this process" lawmakers could pass the 2015 repeal bill. Pye also voiced support for that measure.

But neither said they walked away from the meeting with a clear understanding of which amendments to the bill would be brought up in which order, if debate can even begin.

---

The Washington Post's Paul Kane and Jenna Johnson contributed to this report.
South African President Jacob Zuma's home province is making overtures to one of the key power blocs in the African National Congress in a bid to support his preferred successor as he prepares to step down as leader of the ruling party in December.

Monday's meeting between party officials from the provinces of Mpumalanga and Zuma's home area of KwaZulu-Natal came amid an intensifying drive by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to win the leadership of the ANC against Zuma's favored candidate, his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

"These fellows are desperate," said Lukhona Mnguni, a political analyst at the Durban-based University of KwaZulu-Natal. "It does show that the Zuma faction is no longer in the driving seat as it was before."

Mpumalanga and two other provinces are part of an informal bloc known as the "premier league" that has previously helped Zuma, 75, ward off leadership challenges and survive multiple scandals. The three provinces have about a third of the ANC's membership, according to the party's latest figures.

After the meeting Monday, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga expressed concern about an "ongoing onslaught and vicious attack" aimed at Zuma, according to a statement. At the same time, they criticized the Gupta family, who are friends of Zuma and in business with his son, saying they and other business interests have been "driven by a desire for profit maximization at all cost" and that party members must "never fall prey to their tricks and influence."

Mpumalanga had the third-biggest of nine provincial delegations to the ANC's policy conference in July after KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, making it the dominant region in the "premier league," which also includes the Free State and North West provinces.

While KwaZulu-Natal's rank and file members are divided on the succession question, their elected officials have campaigned for Dlamini-Zuma, a 68-year-old former African Union Commission chairwoman and mother of four of Zuma's children, who has previously served as foreign minister and home affairs minister.

Her main opponent, Ramaphosa, co-funded the National Union of Mineworkers and helped negotiate a peaceful end to apartheid. He went into business and amassed a fortune after he lost out to Thabo Mbeki in the contest to succeed Nelson Mandela as president in 1999. He returned to active politics in 2012 when he became ANC deputy president.

The ANC's next leader will probably succeed Zuma in 2019 as president, a post that wields immense power, including the right to dispense cabinet posts and other top government jobs.

The choice of its new leader could be key the party's election chances in two years. Support for the ANC slipped to 54.5 percent in municipal elections in August last year, from 62 percent in a 2014 national vote. That was its worst performance since taking power after apartheid ended in 1994.

"The meeting is significant in determining the future leadership of the ANC," said Susan Booyen, a political science professor at the University of Witwatersrand's School of Governance. "Negotiations like that could go either way, on the assumption that it is going to be a tight race and that provinces like Mpumalanga could be one of the king-makers."
Chinas economic performance in the first half the year was better than anticipated, with 18 provinces and cities having registered GDP growth of 6.9 percent or above, official data showed on July 23.

Beijings GDP growth was 6.8 percent, slightly lower than the nations average of 6.9 percent.

Chinas eastern provinces and cities still lead the country in terms of overall economic growth, with GDPs of Beijing, Shandong, Shanghai, and Fujian all surpassing one trillion yuan ($180 billion) from January to June.

Chinas western regions saw greater economic growth than the eastern regions. Chongqings economy rose by 10.5 percent, followed by Guizhou at 10 percent.

New drivers for economic growth brought by the Belt and Road Initiative have benefited the western regions, said Chen Yao, a researcher with the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and secretary general of the China Regional Economic Association.

The rapid development of Chinas western regions has narrowed the regional development gap, indicating stronger regional coordination and sustainability, Chen noted.

The service industry contributed to at least 50 percent to the economic growth of the 19 provinces and cities. However, the number was lower than that of big cities in the developed world, Chen pointed out. The service sector accounted for 82.2 percent of Beijings GDP.

High and new technologies, the sharing economy, and other emerging factors are becoming an important driving force in the above provinces and cities, data indicated.
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WASHINGTON (AP)  Passions are running high on Capitol Hill  but pistols at 10 paces over health care?

GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas is angry with some fellow Republicans in the Senate who are balking at parts of legislation to overturn "Obamacare." After GOP promises to repeal the law, that "is just repugnant to me," he says.

Who's to blame?

"Some of the people that are opposed to this, there are some female senators from the Northeast," Farenthold said.

And it's a good thing they're women, according to the congressman from Corpus Christi.

"If it was a guy from south Texas, I might ask them to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style," he said. That was a reference to the 1804 firearms duel in which Vice President Aaron Burr killed former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

Who are those female senators from the Northeast?

Farenthold named no names. But Susan Collins of Maine has been consistent in opposing the GOP replacement for Obamacare. She remains concerned about deep cuts in Medicaid and has criticized the bill-writing process, with about a dozen men crafting the measure behind closed doors. Under the latest iteration of the bill, 22 million more people would become uninsured by 2026, many of them Medicaid recipients, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Other female senators who have expressed reservations are Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, some distance from the Northeast.

Farenthold made his comments in a radio interview Friday with Bob Jones of Corpus Christi radio "1440 Keys."

For weeks, Senate Republicans have struggled to agree on a bill to repeal and replace much of the 2010 law. Lacking support, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has postponed votes twice but hopes to bring the latest measure up again on Tuesday.
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People close to the Zetas Cartel helped some immigrants cross the Rio Grande, according to one man who survived the drive inside a sweltering tractor-trailer from Laredo to San Antonio late Saturday.

Ten people who were inside the trailer have died and dozens were taken to area hospitals.

Details in a criminal complaint against James Matthew Bradley Jr., the 60-year-old trailer driver, give an idea of what transpired in the days leading up to the deadly drive to San Antonio.

RELATED: New details emerge about immigrants' deadly trip to San Antonio in sweltering trailer

The man told authorities he waited with a group of 28 other people to be smuggled into the U.S.

"He was told by the smuggler that people linked to the Zetas would charge 11,000 Mexican pesos for protection and 1,500 Mexican pesos to cross by raft since the river ran deep in that area," reads the complaint. "The money was collected and his group crossed the river by raft in three trips."

The 12,500 pesos is about equal to $700.

The man was one of dozens of immigrants being smuggled into the country via a tractor-trailer with a broken air conditioner late Saturday. A group of roughly 70 to 200 people were loaded into the trailer Saturday morning, where they sat in the dark heat until 9 p.m. when they departed for San Antonio, according to the complaint.

During the trip, the man told authorities the group banged on the walls of the trailer trying to get Bradley's attention.

Bradley told police he did not know there was a group of immigrants in his trailer.

Related: Officials: Guatemalan citizen among dead in S.A. from smuggling operation, death toll climbs to 10

He said he pulled over at a Walmart on San Antonio's Southwest Side around midnight to use the restroom when he heard noise coming from the back of the trailer. Upon opening the back of the trailer, Bradley said dozens of people flooded out and left in multiple SUVs.

Eight people were found dead at the scene and two more died in local hospitals.

At least six survivors have been released from the hospital.

Four patients in at the Baptist Health System and two patients at University Hospital were released over the last two days, the hospitals announced Monday.

Five additional patients  four men and one woman  remain at University Hospital, with conditions ranging from good to critical, the hospital said.

An update on the 23 more survivors  who were transported to five other hospitals, including Brooke Army Medical Center and Southwest General Hospital  was not immediately available.

Of those known to be on the trailer, 25 are Mexican nationals, according to preliminary data from the Consulate General of Mexico. Four Mexican immigrants are among the dead.

On Sunday, a spokesman for the Guatemalan government told the Associated Press that two survivors were from that country. A third Guatemalan man was traveling with the two, but his whereabouts were unknown Sunday.

Experts say some of the survivors will likely be paroled into the country as material witnesses. Those who cooperate with law enforcement could be eligible for visas.

Bradley has been charged with one count of transporting immigrants who are in the country illegally. He will attend a bail and probable cause hearing Thursday.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
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AUSTIN -- The Texas Senate is close to passing a limited school voucher plan for special needs students, one of Gov. Greg Abbott's declared priorities during the 30-day special session.

Senators by a 19-12 vote gave preliminary approval to the plan Monday and are scheduled to pass the bill out of the Senate as early as Tuesday.

Under Senate Bill 2, the state would create tax credit scholarships that would help subsidize private school tuition. The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, would set aside $60 million for the program. He said that would pay for 6,000 students to get up to $10,000 each to help pay for the cost of going to a private school.

During the nearly three-hour floor debate, Taylor said most parents of special needs students in public schools appear to be happy, but there are some that would like to trying something else that might be better for their child.

"It's for those students who are not getting their needs met," Taylor said.

He said it's about making sure parents have the ultimate say into what is best for children.

Critics have argued that Taylor's bill is an attempt to eventually expand school vouchers to cover more students, something they worry will take funding away from public schools.

While the measure is set to clear the Senate, it faces a tougher journey in the Texas House of Representatives, where lawmakers have been less supportive of the concept.
China has granted U.S.-developed genetically modified (GM) crops more access to the domestic market after food experts declared them safe for consumption.

The imports of 16 GM crop varieties, including GM soybean and maize, were approved by Chinas Ministry of Agriculture last month.

The move aims to meet the domestic demand for high-quality crops, particularly maize, according to Li Xinhai, a researcher at the Institute of Crop Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Yang Xiaoguang, a researcher at the National Institute for Nutrition and Food Safety at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said scientists widely agree that GM food in Chinese and foreign markets are safe to eat.

Yang, who has been engaged in the research of GM food safety for over 20 years, said no evidence has been found that GM food is harmful to humans.

According to Chinese agricultural experts, the industrialization of homegrown GM crops is a way to make the domestic market less dependent on imported products.

Chinas import of soybean has increased from 16.9 million tons in 2003 to 83.9 million tons in 2016, according to Chinese customs data.
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School & Education, Local News, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: July 24 2017

Executive Order Directs All State Agencies to Make Voter Registration Forms Available to Members of the Public in Person and Via Mail.

Albany, NY - July 24, 2017 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a series of aggressive executive actions designed to expand voter registration opportunities for New Yorkers. These steps to help combat low voter participation across New York come amid troubling news that the federal government is considering actions to restrict voter access.

"It is our responsibility to make it as easy as possible for people to vote because that's what democracy looks like," Governor Cuomo said. "As the federal government and foreign powers threaten the sanctity of America's democracy, I am exercising my executive power to expand the availability and opportunity for every New Yorker to register to vote. I am also continuing the fight for legislative reforms, including early voting and same-day registration, that increase access to vote for people throughout this state. Whether you are a student in college or a grandparent living on social security, there should be no artificial barriers to register and take part in the electoral process."

Executive Order Directs Agencies to Offer Voter Registration

Governor Cuomo signed Executive Order #169 , which directs every state agency to make available voter registration forms and to offer assistance in filling them out.

Under current state and federal law, forms are available at the Department of Motor Vehicles and certain social service agencies. This order expands the forms to agencies which interact with the public through professional licensing, recreational activities and other avenues.

Additionally, under this order all agencies are directed to mail or provide electronically voter registration forms to members of the public whose contact information they maintain.

The Executive Order directs that all voter registration activities are to be conducted in a non-partisan fashion.

The Governor also established the State Agency Voter Registration Task Force, which is composed of Alphonso David, the Counsel to the Governor and Jamie Rubin, the Director of State Operations, as well as various agency commissioners. The Task Force will oversee administration of the state agency voter registration program in consultation with the State Board of Elections.

The Task Force will also explore ways to implement the reforms laid out in this Executive Order with the use of electronic signatures and how to set up secure online voting registration systems, similar to the one currently in place at the Department of Motor Vehicles, through additional state agencies.

SUNY and CUNY Investigation of Campus Voter Registration

Governor Cuomo has also ordered SUNY and CUNY to conduct a full investigation of their campus voter registration practices in order to ensure that required steps are being taken to increase voter registration rates among young voters on our State's public college campuses.

State law requires SUNY and CUNY campuses to provide all students with voter registration forms at the beginning of each school year, as well as in January of each Presidential election year. Federal law has also mandated these institutions provide students an opportunity to register to vote, as well as assistance and filing of registration forms through campus Disabled Student Service offices. Recent data has shown that voter registration rates at many of New York's public colleges are lagging behind other higher education institutions nationally.

The Governor is directing that SUNY and CUNY conduct this investigation into low registration rates and develop an action plan to educate students of their rights and ensure administrators are meeting their obligations under the law. This probe will ensure that young New Yorkers will receive the voter registration opportunities they deserve.

Promoting DMV Online Registration

Governor Cuomo also directed the Department of Motor Vehicles to send information referencing the DMV's online voter registration application in all renewal emails reminding New Yorkers to renew their licenses, identification cards, and vehicle registrations. This action will maximize citizens' awareness of the easy and seamless electronic voter registration application available on DMV's website. Since the launch of online voter registration in 2012, there have been over 921,922 online voter registration applications, including 430,886 who identified themselves as first-time voters.

The Democracy Project
New York Tops in Nation in Efforts to Make Highways Safer, National Report Says

Local News

By Long Island News & PR Published: July 24 2017

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration notes NY is top state in taking steps to reduce injuries and fatalities on its roadways.

New York, NY - July 24, 2017 - New York is the top state in the nation in taking steps to reduce injuries and fatalities on its roadways, a recent report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says. No state has taken as many steps to curtail the number of crashes as the Empire State. As a result, New York had one of the lowest rates of traffic fatalities per 100,000 residents in the nation, according to 2013 data cited in the report.

Here in New York, we are very proud of the aggressive approach we have taken to ensure that travel on our roads is safe for our residents, our children and our visitors, said Terri Egan, Acting Chair of the Governors Traffic Safety Committee and DMV Executive Deputy Commissioner. We were the first state in the nation to adopt a cell phone law, the first to adopt a motorcycle helmet law, and the first to adopt a seat belt law. New Yorkers have always taken the lead in traffic safety, and this report reaffirms that what we do is working.

NHTSAs detailed analysis looked at a host of steps states can take to make driving safer.

New York has implemented the following measures identified in the report:

Allowing the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles to revoke or suspend a drivers license if a motorist refuses a blood-alcohol test

Publicizing sobriety checkpoints

Authorizing the use of a device that prevents convicted drunk drivers from being able to start their cars if they have been drinking

Implementing comprehensive laws to make sure children and youths are property buckled into seat restraints

Using automated cameras to reduce speeding

Enabling police to stop drivers for cell-phone use and texting

Requiring all motorcycle riders and passengers to wear helmets

Creating a graduated licensing system that gives new drivers a chance to learn before driving with additional passengers and without a licensed adult

Requiring youths to wear bicycle helmets

Adopting a Complete Streets policy that seeks to make the roads safe for all users: motorists, motorcycle riders, bicyclists and pedestrians.

New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Matthew J. Driscoll said, We are proud to lead the nation in the number of safety measures weve implemented on New York States roads and bridges, and we are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to further improve highway safety. In support of Governor Cuomos Complete Streets law, NYSDOT designs projects that take into account the safety and convenience of all travelers, including motorists, pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users in each of our projects.

The report placed New York among the top four states (including the District of Columbia) for the lowest number of fatalities per 100,000 residents based on 2013 traffic data. Ranking above 46 other states, New York had 6.10 fatalities per 100,000 residents.

The Empire State saw a drop in fatalities on its roadways last year, at the same time the number of fatal crashes rose nationally. Preliminary data taken from the Traffic Safety Statistical Repository (TSSR) for 2016 shows a decrease of approximately 10 percent in fatalities in New York State in 2016, compared to a 6 percent increase reported nationally.

This report confirms New Yorks leading role in taking measures to make driving, riding and walking in New York a safe and enjoyable experience, Egan continued. We will continue to do all we can to improve that experience for everyone who uses our roads.

Last year, for example, New York matched its all-time high record for compliance with the seat belt law; 92 percent of New Yorkers regularly buckled up. It also marked the seventh consecutive year that seat belt use in the Empire State stayed at or above 90 percent.

This past November, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced $28.3 million in federal highway safety grants had been awarded to 550 programs throughout New York State to improve overall highway safety and reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes.
Local News, Travel & Local Attractions, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: July 24 2017

Kaminsky: "A ferry route along the South Shore will create options for commuters when the next crisis regarding the LIRR inevitably arrives."

Inwood, NY - July 24, 2017 - Senator Todd Kaminsky and Assemblywoman Melissa Missy Miller today called for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to explore the establishment of a ferry route to Manhattan originating along the South Shore of Senator Todd Kaminsky and Assemblywoman Melissa Missy Miller today called for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to explore the establishment of a ferry route to Manhattan originating along the South Shore of Nassau County . Senator Kaminsky and Assemblywoman Miller sent a letter to Joseph Lhota, Chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), requesting that he join them for a tour of potential docking sites near Inwood, or other suitable locations, on the South Shore of Nassau County.

A ferry route along the South Shore will create options for commuters when the next crisis regarding the LIRR inevitably arrives. Regardless of the success of this summers planned repairs, the long-term economic viability of Long Island depends on improving and diversifying our mass-transit system. It is not enough to simply say, We made it through the Summer of Hell, and then act surprised when a Winter of Hell immediately follows, and we are not prepared. A ferry route would be a key, new way to get passengers off of our roads, and out of Penn Station, said Senator Todd Kaminsky.

Solving our ongoing transportation problems is going to require new ideas and fresh solutions. Long Island commuters deserve relief from train cancellations and delays. Unreliable public transit has led to congestion and gridlock on our roadways as residents become wary of taking the train and choose to drive. A ferry from our community to Manhattan would alleviate these issues and provide residents with a safe, reliable commute. Revitalizing and expanding our transit system with a ferry route along the South Shore is a wise investment in our future and helps address a serious ongoing problem were facing right now, said Assemblywoman Missy Miller.

As a commuter that takes the Inwood LIRR, I would be delighted to have a different option to get to and from Manhattan. Right now, when something goes wrong, there are no options for me. A ferry will be a great addition to the Inwood community, said Yolette Louis, a resident and commuter from Inwood.

The possibility of a ferry in Inwood would give another, more reliable mass transit option with direct access to Manhattan and vice versa. It can open up new economic opportunity here and the prospect is very exciting. Thank you Senator Kaminsky and Assemblywoman Miller for spearheading this effort, said Adam Mayer, a resident of Inwood who utilizes the LIRR.
Captured position by Hezbollah inside Lebanon on the outskirts of Arsal

As fighting rages on in the Jurud Arsal region of Lebanon and in the western Qalamoun region of Syria, Hezbollah has claimed several advances against Sunni jihadists.

Since the operation to clear the border area began Friday, numerous videos have been uploaded to Hezbollahs War Media Center on Telegram and YouTube. In one video, the Shiite jihadists are seen capturing a Sunni jihadist-occupied hill in the Jurud Arsal region of Lebanon (photo above). In others, Hezbollah fighters and the Syrian army are seen advancing near the town of Fleita in Syrias western Qalamoun region.

Today, the Shiite jihadist group claimed capturing Fleita barrens and its surroundings alongside the Syrian military. Several infographics from Hezbollah have also been released showing the progress against the Sunni forces on both sides of the border. The infographics do not show the position of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), however, an English translation of one graph by Lebanese publication The Daily Star does show LAF positions.

Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), a coalition of different jihadist and rebel groups in Syria in which al Qaedas branch operates, has also claimed that its forces killed over 50 Hezbollah fighters and that several attacks were repelled. This number is likely exaggerated.

However, at least 15 Hezbollah fighters have been confirmed killed in the battles so far. Several have been eulogized on Hezbollah-linked social media accounts. A funeral procession for six of those fighters was also held yesterday in one of Beiruts southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Additionally, Saraya Ahl al Sham  a Free Syrian Army-branded coalition of rebel groups in western Qalamoun  reportedly withdrew from its positions following the Hezbollah-led advance.

Despite claims to the contrary by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the LAF is coordinating its efforts near Arsal with the Hezbollah-led offensive on the border. Lebanese troops are said to be positioned on the outskirts of Arsal to prevent the flow of jihadists into the city. The Shiite forces appear to be undertaking the brunt of the military operation. (See Threat Matrix report, Lebanese military coordinates with Hezbollah, Syrian military in border operation.)

Hezbollah infographic showing advances:

English translation of an earlier infographic from The Daily Star showing the positions of the LAF:

Hezbollah and Syrian troops advancing near Fleita in western Qalamoun:

Hezbollah advances in Jurud Arsal, Lebanon:

Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Earlier last week, the leader of the Houthi insurgent group in Yemen, Abdul Malik Badreddin al Houthi, vowed to fight in any future conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. The group is officially known as Ansar Allah.

The Yemeni nation is ready to take part in any future confrontation against the Israeli enemy, Houthi said. He continued by saying that Israel should take us into consideration in all future conflicts with Hezbollah and the Palestinian people. Houthi also addressed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his statement, which was later republished on Hezbollahs Al Manar website.

Your bet on the Yemenis is proper. Israel must beware the Yemeni participation in any of its military confrontations with Hezbollah or the Palestinian resistance, Houthi said to Nasrallah. In a speech last month, Nasrallah mentioned that in any future war with Israel, the Jewish state would be met with resistance by fighters from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Both Hezbollah and Iran have been implicated in supporting the Houthi rebels in its campaign in Yemen.

In 2012, the US State Department formally accused Iran of supporting the Houthis. In its Country Reports on Terrorism 2012, State said that Iran actively supported members of the Houthi tribe in northern Yemen, including activities intended to build military capabilities, which could pose a greater threat to security and stability in Yemen and the surrounding region.

Iran and Hezbollah have provided training, money, and weaponry for over a decade, according to State. This support may be increasing according to a report released by Reuters earlier this year.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is believed to have transferred rocket and missile capabilities. In addition, the US military has intercepted several weapons shipments from Iran believed to have been headed to the Houthis. High-ranking Iranian officials have also spoke about the Iranian regimes support for the Yemeni insurgents.

Ansar Allah is not thought to be directly subordinate to Tehran like Hezbollah or other proxies. However, support for the insurgent group offers Iran the ability to spread its influence across the Middle East. In addition, it allows Iran to both combat and challenge Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states troops and influence in Yemen.

Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
The Taliban claimed credit for a suicide attack in the Afghan capital of Kabul that killed scores of people. The Afghan government said all of those killed were civilians, while the Taliban claimed its assault killed intelligence officers.

Afghan officials said that the suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying employees from the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum as it traveled in Police District 3 in the early morning Kabul time, according to TOLONews. The Afghan news agency reported that 36 civilians were killed and 40 more were wounded in the blast.

The Taliban, in a statement release on Voice of Jihad, claimed its suicide bomber, who was identified as Ahmad, slammed his corolla car filled with explosives into buses carrying intelligence employees and killed 37 officials.

Mujahideen combatants spent the past two months pursuing the intelligence services employees before they succeeded in conducting the attack, the Taliban claimed.

The Taliban is sensitive to the issue of civilian casualties incurred during its operations, and routinely denies United Nations reports that state that the Taliban have been responsible for the lions share of casualties in Afghanistan. The Islamic States Khorasan province, on the other hand, has no qualms about claiming attacks on civilians.

This has led to a curious situation where one of the largest suicide attacks in Afghanistan has gone unclaimed. On May 31, a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives in the diplomatic quarter of the capital. Reports indicate that upwards of 150 Afghans may have been killed in the deadly blast. Western and Afghan officials were quick to point the finger at the Haqqani Network, the dangerous Taliban subgroup whose commander is also the Talibans deputy emir. The Taliban has issued multiple denials that it carried out the bombing. The Islamic State, which has claimed credit for attacks in the region that it never executed, was silent.

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.
CGTN photo

Senior Colonel Wu Qian, the spokesman of China's Ministry of National Defense, said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is determined to defend the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity in the ongoing border standoff with India.

Wu made the remarks at a press conference on Monday on the achievements of the PLA in the 90 years since its founding.

When China tried to build a road in the Doklam border region last month, India sent troops to block the construction efforts, saying it was helping its neighbor, Bhutan, the spokesman said when answering a question from India Today.

"We urge India to withdraw the troops unconditionally and to stop provocative actions," Wu said. Adding maintaining the peace and stability in the region is beneficial for both Chinese and Indian people.

"It is easy to shake a mountain, but no way to shake the PLA," he said.

South China Sea

When referring to the recent report of a Chinese navy ship sailing near the northeastern coast of Australia, Wu said China has the right of freedom of navigation in international waters just like any other countries.

On Saturday, Australia claimed it detected a Chinese observation ship sailing near a joint exercise between the US, New Zealand and Australian navies, off its northeastern coast. A reporter from CNN raised the question and described it as a "high-profile" and "new normal" activity.

China is actively participating in peacekeeping and humanitarian aid activities around the world and it is taking the responsible role in maintaining global and regional peace and stability, Wu said.

Speaking of Vietnam's recent oil drilling in the South China Sea, Wu reaffirmed China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights in the area, but denied the reports saying Chinese vessels destroyed a Vietnamese fishing ship.

Vietnam began the drilling expedition last month in a sea area about 400 km off its southeastern coast.

Reports came in over the weekend saying Vietnamese ships were under threat by Beijing.

Wu said he is not aware of such reports.

Discipline troops

The PLA will fully implement governance by law and crack down on corruption following President Xi Jinping's instructions, senior officials told reporters.

The army has improved the military legal system with Chinese characteristics, while advancing the governance of defense and military development. Meanwhile, it will continue to carry out reforms, address institutional impediments, and fight corruption to set up the framework of a new military system.

Officials also outlined the achievements of the ongoing reform on the Chinese armed forces PLA.

CGTN photo

Speaking of the speculation on a military parade marking the 90th anniversary of the PLA, Wu said the ministry will release the information at an appropriate time.
The next person to be appointed will be the thirteenth to hold the role in 12 years  and the third in just two months
A seminar on relations between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan opened Monday, stressing the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.

Dai Bingguo, president of the National Society of Taiwan Studies (NSTS), said that since May last year, the Democratic Progressive Party administration had undermined the political foundation of the peaceful development of cross-strait relations by refusing to endorse the 1992 Consensus.

Under such circumstances, the mainland continued promoting cross-Strait personnel exchanges, boosting people-to-people communication and cooperation, and bringing forth favorable policies for Taiwan compatriots, said Dai, a former state councilor.

Dai said that the Chinese side had always opposed any official and military exchanges between the United States and Taiwan, urging the United States to clearly understand the serious harmfulness of such provisions and abide by the China-U.S. three joint communiques.

The mainland firmly opposes "Taiwan independence" secessionist activities in any form and hopes Taiwan authorities return to the 1992 Consensus, which is the right track of the common political foundation, Dai said.

He called for further improvements in cross-Strait economic cooperation to consolidate common interests and enlarge communication between the two sides to deepen social integration.

Zhang Zhijun, head of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said that unceasing kinship and strong will for exchange and cooperation across the Strait was an inexhaustible driving force for the development of cross-Strait relations.

"We are confident to unite cross-Strait compatriots, overcome difficulties and eliminate interference," Zhang said. "the mainland will continue to boost cross-Strait relations, maintain stabilities in the Strait and promote peaceful reunification."

The two-day seminar, held in Taiyuan, capital of northern China's Shanxi Province, was jointly hosted by the NSTS, the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, and the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee in his 30 minute long farewell speech at Parliament on last day condemned Centre on the grounds of ordinance raj. While addressing audience he said that ordinance on financial matters should be introduced only on urgent situations. He also advocates that legislation should be done through debates.

The Parliamentarians bid farewell to the outgoing President in an event conducted around 5:30 pm at Parliaments Central Hall. During the speech President lauded recently launched GST system by stating that it as an exact example of cooperative federalism.

Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Loksabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Rajya sabha Deputy Speaker PJ Kurien, Loksabha Deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai and all other Ministers and MPs attended the function to bid farewell to the Honorable President.
Are you the type to stick to a single running route through your neighbourhood without deviating from your usual path? Or worse, are you the type to run indoors on a treadmill, where there is nothing but a blank wall in front of you and the only interesting sight is the sweaty person next to you doing the same thing? If thats the case, its time for a change.

Singapore is, contrary to popular belief, a country that boasts plenty of good jogging locations with unique scenery and landmarks to keep you coming back for more. From the sprawling greenery of Punggol Waterway Park, to the uphill trails along the Southern Ridges, weve rounded up some great routes to make your exercise routine feel more like an exciting adventure instead of a bore. Need to make it even more interesting? We recommend a quick round of running backwards  its apparently even than regular running!

Head up to the gallery to check out our favourite scenic running routes in Singapore  pencil in a new destination each week into your fitness journal!

Angela Goh

Photos: Getty Images

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Chinese and Russian commanders conducted a simulation exercise here on Sunday for the ongoing joint military drills code-named "Joint Sea 2017" in the Baltic Sea.

In the hours-long exercise, two tactical assault groups, consisting of mixed warships from the Chinese and Russian fleets, simulated details of the drills on a map, including ship-to-sea firing by secondary cannons, air defense, joint landing and inspection, maritime search and rescue, underway replenishment and other subjects.

"The simulation exercise was conducted for two purposes, namely, making commanders at all levels more familiar with the procedures and subjects of the drills, as well as enhancing coordination and tacit understanding between commanders of the two countries," said Wang Xiaoyong, deputy captain of a destroyer detachment of the Chinese Navy.

During the drills, the participating air forces and sea forces will be deployed through unified guidance by a joint directing center, a joint headquarter and a tactical command post, which are formed by commanders from both countries.

The Joint Sea 2017 drills, which kicked off on Saturday and will last until July 28, aims to carry out joint rescue missions and ensure maritime economic activities.

The Chinese fleet consists of one destroyer, one frigate, one supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines. The Russian side includes one frigate, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and marines.

Chinese and Russian navies will conduct a variety of joint exercises and attend the parade in St. Petersburg on the occasion of Russia's Navy Day.
COLLINSVILLE-What roads will be fixed in Henry County over the next six years? Which ones take priority? Those questions will be part of the discussion Tuesday, as the supervisors consider a final adoption of the Secondary Road Plan for 2017-2023.

The board approved the proposed plan at its June meeting on first reading and Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) staff is requesting that the approval be submitted in the form of a resolution.

In May, the board held a public input session with VDOT regarding the plan, and also heard input from VDOT Resident Engineer Lisa Hughes regarding possible VDOT funding.

The board is also scheduled to hear an update on general highway matters from Hughes at its 6 p.m. meeting.

Also at the boards 6 p.m. meeting, the supervisors are scheduled to consider a resolution honoring Krissy Esget, a Henry County resident and Coast Guard veteran who participated in the 2017 Department of Defense Wounded Warrior Games in Chicago as part of Team Navy/Coast Guard in shooting, swimming and track and field events, winning two silver medals in swimming. Esget was honored earlier this month by the Martinsville City Council in a similar ceremony.

The supervisors will also hold a public hearing regarding the proposed abandonment of a section of a 50 foot street space extending beyond the end of Horseshoe Lane in the Horsepasture District. Melvin and Linda Barnes and Jerry and Elizabeth Edwards are requesting the abandonment, as they own the property on both sides of the road space and beyond where it terminates. The street space would be made part of their properties. A new survey will be required to facilitate the action.

The county staff believes that there is no public necessity for the continued existence of the section of street space because it does not extend through to Wagon Trail Road, and VDOT has advised that it has no objection to the abandonment.

The board will also hold a public hearing regarding a rezoning application for a property just north of 233 Sandy River Road in the Iriswood District. The applicant requests the rezoning of approximately .87 acre from Suburban Residential S-R to Mixed Residential M-R, as the applicant intends to place a double wide manufactured home with a permanent foundation on the property.

Earlier on Tuesday at the boards 3 p.m. meeting, the supervisors will consider awarding a contract to GCA Staffing of Roanoke for temporary employment services.

Since 2009, Henry County has had a contract with the company to provide temporary employment services for several county departments, primarily Parks and Recreation. The contract is up for renewal and the Purchasing Department issued a Request for Proposals. Six companies responded, and a committee of county employees recommended that the county stay with GCA Staffing. The committee recommends a one-year contract with an option for up to four one-year renewals. The contract amount is based on a percentage of GCAs expenses in providing the personnel, and varies based on usage and position. The county spends approximately $100,000 annually on temporary employment services.

The group will also consider awarding a contract in the amount of $27,065 to Sheehy Ford Inc. of Richmond for the purchase of a 2017 Ford Explorer for the Assessors Office. They will also consider awarding a contract in the amount of $88,360 to B&A Builders of Virgilina for rehabilitation of a property located at 31 Linden Road, Bassett as part of the Linden Road Housing Rehabilitation Project. Funds for the project were previously appropriated from a Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development grant, and B&A Builders submitted the lowest bid of the three bids received.

Finally, the group will enter into a closed meeting to discuss appointees to the Industrial Development Authority, Community Policy and Management Team, Roanoke River Basin Association and Southern Area Agency on Aging Board; pending legal matters; acquisition/disposal of real estate; and as-yet unannounced industries.
When voters attend the polls in November to select the next governor of Virginia, there will be a third name on the ballot: Cliff Hyra.

Hyra is running for governor as a Libertarian candidate, but for the purposes of this editorial, he could be running for the Whig Party, or the American Vegetarian Party, or the Pan-Galactic Martian Party. This is not an editorial about Hyras policies, nor is it an endorsement or condemnation of them.

Instead, this is an editorial about the upcoming gubernatorial debates and Hyras right to be included in them.

The first gubernatorial debate took place Saturday at the Homestead in Hot Springs. While candidates Ralph Northam and Ed Gillespie took the stage, Hyra  whose name, again, will appear on the ballot statewide  was not invited to participate. That doesnt exactly seem fair.

The debate was hosted by the Virginia Bar Association, and in order to participate, a candidate had to meet a number of qualifications listed in the VBAs Statewide Candidate Debate Policy. According to the language of the policy, Hyra met all the criteria but one: In the VBAs sole and exclusive judgment, he is not a significant candidate, meaning that at least 30 days prior to the debate, he had not demonstrated substantial voter interest and support. This includes evidence of a significant and sustained level of financial support and receipt from a significant number of contributors.

Now granted, the VBA is a private organization and can set forth whatever policies it so chooses, and its policies are similar to those of other debate-sponsoring organizations. At the same time, these sorts of rules can be fairly subjective. How does one demonstrate substantial voter interest and support?

In our last gubernatorial election in Virginia, Robert Sarvis, the Libertarian candidate for governor, received 6.5 percent of the vote; 146,084 people cast their votes for him. It was the best showing by a third-party candidate in Virginia since 1965.

Some might argue that that number is insignificant compared to the 1,069,789 people who voted for Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Others might argue that 146,084 people are a significant number; thats more than twice the population of Martinsville and Henry County combined.

Additionally, the level of financial support and number of contributions a candidate has received should have no impact on someones right to participate in a debate. Debates are about ideas and policy, not seeing which candidate can build the tallest Jenga tower out of stacks of $100 bills.

It seems to us that we might be able to get more ideas and generate a better discussion if we allow more people to take part. After all, Hyra is his partys nominated candidate.

Now sure, there is the opposing view, that if you let one additional party in, you have to open the flood gates. We see a solution to that, by only allowing those who qualified for the statewide ballot to take part. Those are all statewide political parties, all of which will have a name submitted for voter consideration in November.

The best way for candidates to get support and contributions is through exposure, the exact sort of exposure that a televised debate can provide. Irrespective of party, anyone who appears on the state gubernatorial ballot should be invited to stand on the debate stage as well.

The Bulletin Editorial Board consists of Brian Carlton, Ben Williams and Trisha Long
The Venezuelan opposition, backed by Washington and Madrid, has launched an all out offensive to prevent Sunday's Constituent Assembly elections form going ahead. We stand firmly against this reactionary attempt which can only be defeated by revolutionary means.

The opening salvo of this offensive was fired by US president Donald Trump who promised, in an official statement, to implement strong and swift economic sanctions against Venezuela if the Constituent Assembly goes ahead. There is a lot of discussion in the pages of the business papers in the US about the precise meaning of this threat. If the US was to impose sanctions on the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA that would cut the main source of foreign currency the government has. While PDVSA sells oil to a variety of countries, most of its sales to China and Russia are in payment for loans already given, while the US is its main cash customer. However, cutting oil imports from Venezuela would have an impact on the US market. While the US can always use its strategic reserves any disruption of supply from Venezuela would complicate matters for US refineries, which are fine tuned to use extra heavy Venezuelan oil. This disruption might lead to a temporary increase in the price of fuel in the US, something no American president wants to face. It is more likely that any sanctions would be a continuation of the current US policy (introduced by Obama) of targeted sanctions against Venezuelan high officials. However, more serious economic sanctions cannot be ruled out, at a time when US foreign policy in Latin America is driven by the mad-dog gusanos in Miami and their representatives in the Republican party. One way or another, Trump's statement is a serious threat and an intolerable act of imperialist aggression.

Today, an editorial in the Spanish paper El Pais, the voice of Spanish multinationals with crucial interests in Latin America, denounces Maduro's assault on the democratic system and demands that the international community makes an effort to stop this institutional coup. Of course El Pais and the Spanish ruling Popular Party know all about coups in Venezuela since they supported the short lived April 2002 coup against president Hugo Chavez. El Pais further calls on Spain to lead an effort uniting European and Latin American countries and the US to send the chavista regime an unequivocal message of the consequences of the final desctruction of the Venezuelan democratic system Maduro and his collaborators should know that their actions will not be left unpunished. This is the extraordinary language of imperialist intervention in Venezuela, coming from those who have been consistent in defending the interests of multinationals and those of the Venezuelan oligarchy.

The current stage of the reactionary offensive (which has been going on for over three months) started with the so-called consultation on July 16 in which the democratic opposition asked if people rejected the Constituent Assembly and refused to recognise its legitimacy, if they wanted to Army to intervene and if they approved of the formation of a parallel government of national unity. This was an attempt to legitimise their calls for a coup and to prevent the Constituent Assembly elections from going ahead.

As we have already explained elsewhere, the consultation saw a sizeable mobilisation of the ranks of the opposition (concentrated in the middle and upper class layers of the population), but also witnessed a significant mobilisation of the Chavista ranks in a simultaneous dry run for the CA elections. The figures of participation given by the opposition are clearly widely exaggerated, but that did not prevent them from going ahead with their plans.

Last Thursday, July 20, they called for a civic strike, which in reality was not supported from any section of the workers. All major state-owned companies were working normally as did the majority of private sector ones. What you had was a shut down of commerce and shopping malls, a paralisation of privately owned transport, as well as a large scale campaign of road blockades and barricades. There are many examples of workers arriving at their workplaces only to find themselves locked out by their employers. In Barcelona, Anzoategui, for instance, workers at the Macusa factory (which makes leather seats for the car industry) were told they had to take a paid day off, something they refused. You will not find a single report of assemblies in the workplaces where workers decided to participate in the strike.

Y SALIERON SIN MIEDO AUNQUE UNO DE LOS TERRORISTAS TENIA UN FUSIL EN SUS MANOS: pic.twitter.com/v0C9ami7il  Moringadas (@Moringadas2016) July 20, 2017

The opposition violence on the day reached a new peak. Groups of rioters with molotov cocktails and home made rocket launchers besieged and attempted to set on fire the building of the VTV state TV channel in Los Ruices in Caracas. At least one of the attackers was pictured holding an assault rifle. They were finally repelled by the joint action of the National Guard and VTV workers who came out shouting revolutionary slogans like Chavez no murio, se multiplico (Chavez didn't die, he multiplied). In Cabudare, Lara, workers at the milk processing plant Lacteos Los Andes (nationalised under Chavez), also had to repel a similar attack by violent opposition rioters. These examples are significant and show the beginning of a working class reaction.

VTV attack Photo: AVN

Riots and road blockades were more intense in the local councils which have opposition mayors, were the municipal police collaborated and defended the rioters, like in Baruta or in parts of Barinas. Again, the day's protest were mainly concentrated in the middle and upper class areas of the main cities, with little or no following in the working class and poor neighbourhoods.

The opposition has also stepped up their institutional challenge, by having the National Assembly to appoint a new set of Supreme Court judges. This is a clear attempt to create a situation of dual power in the state institutions. However, the opposition stopped short of appointing a new government, something they had promised to do. This is probably a reflection of splits within the opposition ranks between the old parties of the ruling class (mainly Accion Democratica) and the new young and more far right leaders of the opposition (like Maria Corina Machado, Freddy Guevara, Juan Requesens, etc). Maria Corina Machado in an interviewed explained that her party disagreed with the governability pact which the MUD (United Democratic Roundtable) had announced. Freddy Guevara on his part publicly praised the Resistance, that is the small groups of armed rioters which have been at the forefront of the clashes with the police and terrorist activities of the last three months.

For this week the opposition has called for two days of general strike on Wednesday and Thursday. This means in fact a bosses lock out in some companies, but above all a widespread campaign of road blockades and barricades, probably combined with sabotage of the electricity grid in key cities, in an attempt to bring the country to a standstill. Several opposition leaders have made public appeals for people to stockpile on food and basic products for the whole week and stay home.

One of the main opposition leaders, Henrique Capriles, has issued a call for a take over of Caracas on Friday 28, following on from their 48h national strike, and even hinted that they do not rule out marching on Miraflores Palace, which brings ominous memories of the coup in April 2002, which was triggered by an opposition march on the presidential palace.

On Saturday 29, the opposition is calling on its supporters to march on their local election centres and blockade them in order to physically prevent the elections from taking place on Sunday. Further measures will be announced for Sunday, have promised the opposition leaders.

The National Electoral Council has already made plans to allow people living in 74 of the country's 1141 parishes, where the opposition violence has concentrated, to vote in other polling stations other than their own.

This week, therefore, will be crucial in the insurrectionary offensive of the opposition and imperialism.

At the same time there is a lot of background noise about negotiations. It is said that the former Spanish president Zapatero has arrived in Caracas. He was part of the failed negotiations between the government and the opposition at the end of last year and also played a role in the release of opposition leader and coup plotter Leopoldo Lopez from jail into house arrest two weeks ago. President Maduro made yet another appeal to the opposition to negotiate in his Sunday TV program. Some leaders of the moderate wing of the opposition have been also cautiously using the word negotiation in their statements. In an article in El Nacional (the main opposition mouthpiece), a leader of Avanzada Progresista (the party of Lara governor Henri Falcon) called for a negotiation involving concessions on both sides.

This is the voice of those in the ruling class who recognise that while Chavismo has lost a lot of support, they have not been able to win over the masses in the working class and poor neighbourhoods nor to create any significant rifts within the army. They also fear a descent into a civil war which would not be in the interests of the ruling class if it could be avoided. However, these sectors are in conflict with the new breed of opposition leaders who base themselves on the frenzied petty bourgeois masses which make up their base and rely on the violent rioters of the Resistance. Both sectors have the same aims, their difference is one of tactics.

If the MUD was to come to power, with the support of imperialism, that would be clearly be a major set back for the Bolivarian revolution and would threaten all its conquests. The oligarchy would launch an all out assault on working people. They would introduce a brutal austerity package making the workers pay for the full price of the capitalist crisis, through cuts in health care and education, pensions, social housing, mass lay offs in the public sector, the privatisation of state-owned companies, the return of expropriated land to its former owners, etc. As well as this they would unleash a campaign of repression and a political motivated purge against revolutionary activists and their organisations.

Faced with this situation we cannot be neutral. It is scandalous that organisations like the misnamed Party of Socialism and Freedom of Orlando Chirino has in effect joined the opposition offensive, calling on people to participate in their consultation and giving public support to their civic strike. They have joined the camp of the capitalist class.

We are implacably opposed to the opposition offensive, which represents the interests of the capitalists, bankers and landowners with the full backing of US (and Spanish) imperialism. This is therefore a class struggle and can only be fought with class struggle methods. Faced with armed assaults against state-owned companies, workers should form Popular Defence Brigades (BDP), armed self defence organisations, like the ones peasant organisations have already set up in Zulia, Barinas and Apure. Last week a caravan of the BDP marched from Santa Barbara de Barinas to Socopo, in a show of strength and made an appeal to others to replicate their example. It is the time to activate the reserve of the army in which many workers are already enlisted.

At the same time the so-called 48h general strike, which in reality is a bosses lockout, can only be effectively fought with mass workplace meetings, factory occupations and the threat of expropriation. Any capitalist involved in the counter-revolutionary offensive should have its assets expropriated under workers control. As they say in Venezuela, la culebra se mata por la cabeza (you kill the snake by its head) and the reactionary campaign is organised and financed by big capitalists and landowners.

The opposition wants to prevent the Constituent Assembly from taking place and so maximum participation must be ensured. However, the idea that the Constituent Assembly itself will bullet-proof the revolution and guarantee peace and dialogue as the government argues is either naive or foolish. The counter-revolution must be fought with revolutionary means. Also because only by revolutionary means can we start to solve the economic problems which affect millions of working class families. Only by unleashing the revolutionary initiative of the masses can the fighting spirit of the masses be rekindled.

Only the people saves the people!

Hands Off Venezuela!

Expropriate the coup plotters!

Factory closed, factory occupied!

Down with the reactionary and imperialist offensive!

Defend the Venezuelan revolution!
AMHERST -- Are your Beefsteaks the beefiest?

Or are your Big Boys the most flavorful? Your Early Girls the fairest in the land?

The Massachusetts Department of Agriculture put out a call this week for contestants in its 33rd annual Massachusetts Tomato Contest.

The contest will be Aug. 22 at the Boston Public Market Demonstration kitchen, 100 Hanover St., Boston, but growers can drop off their entries at stations around the state if they cannot make it to Boston.

The contest is open to all commercial growers.

And here, according to Massachusetts Department of Agriculture, are the criteria from firmness to exterior color:

Flavor:

Firmness/slicing quality:

Exterior color

Shape:

The Department of Agriculture promises that first-, second- and third-place tomato trophies will be awarded in all four categories.

How to Register:

Each farm is required to submit a registration form available here.

Drop off locations are as follows:

Eastern Massachusetts

Mass Farmers Markets Office, 240 Beaver Street, 2nd floor, Waltham; 781-893-8222

Central Massachusetts

Davidian Bros. Farm, 500 Church St, Northboro; 508-393-3444

Western Massachusetts

Department of Agriculture Western Massachusetts office, 101 University Drive, Suite C4, Amherst, 01002; 413-548-1900
A 10-year-old girl was fatally struck while standing in the breakdown lane of Interstate 90 westbound after a vehicle swerved out of traffic to avoid another collision.

Massachusetts State Police responded to the crash around 6 p.m. Sunday night near the North Street Overpass at the 102.5 mile marker in Upton.

According to a state police press release, a preliminary investigation indicates that two vehicles, a 2011 Toyota Camry and a 1999 Jeep Wrangler, both with New York registrations, had pulled over onto the breakdown lane after the Jeep blew a tire.

The 33-year-old driver of the Toyota and the girl, who were both from New Carrollton, Maryland, pulled over slightly ahead of the Jeep and exited the vehicle. The Toyota driver walked back to the Jeep to assist with the flat tire, while the 10-year-old girl stood between the two vehicles.

Meanwhile, a 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe SUV traveling on Interstate 90 started approaching the area where the vehicles had broken down. The car, which was towing a trailer carrying motorcycle, was being driven by a 41-year-old Conway, New Hampshire man, who was traveling with a 44-year-old woman from Freedom, New Hampshire, police said.

As the Tahoe driver approached the stretch of the road where the vehicles had pulled over, traffic began to slow down in front of him.

A vehicle directly in front of the Tahoe began to decelerate, causing the Tahoe to swerve into the breakdown lane to avoid a crash, police said. The vehicle crossed over into the breakdown lane right between the Jeep and the Toyota and ended up striking the 10-year-old girl, who was standing behind the Camry.

The Tahoe driver noticed the Camry in front of him, but could not avoid a collision, police said.

The girl suffered serious injuries and was rushed to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. She was later pronounced dead, police said.

There was also a one-year-old girl inside the Camry at the time, but she did not appear to be injured.

Police are continuing to investigate the incident.
The former top official in Saugus and Nahant, already on probation for tax evasion, admitted to destroying public records and bid-rigging last week in Salem Superior Court, the Associated Press reports.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley sentenced Andrew Bisignani to two years probation, including six months of house arrest, and ordered the 70-year-old to pay $600,000 in fines Thursday.

"Throughout my 37 years of public service, including, specifically, my tenure as town manager of Saugus and as town administrator of Nahant, my concerns and priorities were always the health, safety, and wellbeing of the community I served, never my own self-interest," Bisignani said in a statement.



Bisignani served as town manager in Saugus between 2009 and 2012 and town administrator in Nahant between 2012 and 2014, reports The Daily Item of Lynn.



While serving in Nahant, Bisignani attempted to destroy records related to his service in Saugus after the town hired forensic auditors to examine town finances.



The auditors discovered Bisignani paid favored contractors for public projects which never went out to bid.



Between 2010 and 2013, Bisignani failed to report more than $375,000 of income on his federal tax returns and was already serving the six months of house arrest on that charge after a federal judge sentenced him in February.



That income was generated via three rental properties Bisignani owned in Revere, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts court officers will no longer be allowed to detain people solely due to their immigration status, a decision that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey calls a "victory."

"Massachusetts law provides no authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a Federal civil immigration detainer, beyond the time that the individual would otherwise be entitled to be released from state custody," the state Supreme Judicial Court said in a ruling released Monday.

This decision, Healey said, is "a victory for the rule of law and smart immigration and criminal justice policies, and a rejection of anti-immigrant policies that have stoked fear in communities across the country."

The ruling was part of an appeal on behalf of Sreynuon Lunn, a man brought to the U.S. as an infant by Cambodian parents fleeing the Khmer Rouge.

After a criminal charge was dismissed against Lunn in February, he was held for several hours by Massachusetts court officers before taken into federal custody.

"Massachusetts law protects our residents from illegal detention and prevents the federal government from forcing local law enforcement to make decisions contrary to the public safety interests of their communities," Healey said. "This decision allows local law enforcement to focus their resources on keeping people safe."

The high court's ruling is the first of its kind in the United States, the ACLU of Massachusetts said Monday.
CHELMSFORD - A police officer is on routine administrative leave after shooting a suspect in a violent domestic disturbance on Sunday morning.

Police responded to a home on Clover Hill Drive at about 7:40 a.m., according to the Middlesex District Attorney's Office, for a report of a man attacking a woman.

Chelmsford Police Chief James Spinney said the suspect, who was not immediately identified, punched an officer in the face and threatened police with a hammer and large shards of broken glass.

Officers called for backup, according to WCVB, and an attempt to subdue the man with a Taser was unsuccessful. Spinney described him as "extremely aggressive, extremely violent."

One officer opened fire, striking the suspect in the leg and grazing his head.

The suspect is in serious condition with injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening. He will face charges once he is released from the hospital.

The female victim was taken to a hospital, where she was treated and released. One officer suffered facial injuries.

Spinney said Sunday's call was one of many to that address over the past six months.
It is illegal for offices to hold people based solely on their immigration status, the highest court in Massachusetts said in a ruling released Monday.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was asked to consider if court officers have the authority to arrest an individual at the request of federal immigration officials.

"Massachusetts law provides no authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a Federal civil immigration detainer, beyond the time that the individual would otherwise be entitled to be released from state custody," states the ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

The ruling was part of an appeal on behalf of Sreynuon Lunn, a man brought to the U.S. as an infant by Cambodian parents fleeing the Khmer Rouge.

Now in his 30s, Lunn was arrested in Boston last October on a charge of unarmed robbery.

The day before his arraignment, homeland security officers issued a civil immigration detainer against him, requesting he be held in custody. Bail was set at $1,500 and Lunn was committed to the custody of Suffolk County Sheriff's Office in lieu of bail.

Four months later, the criminal charge was dismissed by a Suffolk Superior Court judge citing a lack of prosecution.

After the charge was dismissed, he was held by court officers at Boston Municipal Court at the request of a Federal immigration officer then taken into federal custody.

Immigrants in the United States without proper documentation are subject to deportation for numerous reasons, including but not limited to: if they commit a crime, if they represent a security or foreign policy threat and if they illegally vote.

As the charge was dropped, there was no criminal reason to hold Lunn for federal immigration officials, according to the court.

Lunn's case was remanded to Suffolk County Court for dismissal.
SPRINGFIELD -- A prosecutor said Monday it was a "shock and surprise and miracle" a domestic violence victim survived a series of brutal beatings over two days, according to medical staff that treated her.

Dennis Ramirez, 27, of Springfield, pleaded guilty to 10 charges including armed assault with intent to murder in the case in front of Judge Mary-Lou Rup in Hampden Superior Court.

She sentenced him to 12 to 13 years in state prison followed by five years probation.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa G. Doran said, "Not only was this a danger to her but the defendant put her 3-year-old autistic son in danger as well." Ramirez admitted beating the woman with a stick in a car as she tried to shield her son, who was on her lap.

Ramirez pleaded guilty to three counts of assault and battery on a family member, two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of intimidation of a witness, one count of kidnapping, one of armed assault with intent to murder and one of reckless endangerment of a child.

Doran had asked for 18 to 20 years in state prison plus probation, while defense lawyer George J. Welch asked for 10 to 12 years followed by probation. Ramirez has 598 days credit for time spent in jail awaiting trial.

The incidents happened Nov. 26 and 27, 2015, and spanned Chicopee, Holyoke and Springfield.

At one point, Ramirez told the woman, with whom he had been in a dating relationship for several years, that he was going to take her to his spot. He took her to a wooded area, dragged her out of the car, locked her son in the car, kept making threats to kill her and severely beat her with a stick and his fists, Doran said.

The woman blacked out and woke up at Mercy Medical Center with life-threatening brain bleeding.

Emergency surgery was performed, and the woman was kept alive by machines, Doran said. After she was released from the hospital, she had a mini-stroke associated with the brain injury.

The woman still has headaches, pressure in her skull and permanent scarring from surgery, Doran said.

Ramirez at one point put a knife to the woman's neck, then told her to stab him so he could stab her, Doran said. He repeatedly threatened to kill the woman.

Doran said although Ramirez does not have much of a record, the seriousness of these crimes led her to her sentence recommendation.

Welch said Ramirez began to show signs of mental health issues when he was a toddler. Those problems make it difficult for Ramirez to control his anger and have impulse control, Welch said.

"Mr. Ramirez made it clear to me he in no way wants me to attempt to minimize his actions, make excuses for his actions," Welch said. "He only wants me to express his extreme remorse."
SPRINGFIELD -- A 43-year-old city man has been sentenced to 12 to 13 years in state prison after pleading guilty to domestic violence assaults that left the victim on life support at a Springfield hospital.

Judge Mary-Lou Rup sentenced Joseph Malachi on Monday in Hampden Superior Court to the prison term plus five years probation.

Malachi pleaded guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury, assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and assault on a family member.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa G. Doran said that on Sept. 13, 2016, police were called to an Allen Park Road apartment for a report of an unconscious victim. Malachi's wife was found unresponsive and bleeding from her head.

A security officer had seen the woman's young children outside and was told, "My dad just killed my mom," Doran said.

Malachi stomped on and kicked the victim, Doran said.

The victim, who was in the courtroom with a group of family members, was treated at Baystate Medical Center, where it was unclear whether she would survive and where she was on life support for a period of time, the prosecutor said.

She had to learn to walk again, as well as other functions, and still uses a cane, Doran said.

"She had a very long road once she did wake up," Doran said.

Another incident happened on July 26, 2016, in which Malachi slapped the victim and smashed her phone against a wall when she tried to call police, Doran said.

Malachi pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and battery, intimidation of a witness, assault on a family member and violation of a restraining order for the July incident.

If the case had gone to trial, the children would have had to testify about the attack they saw, Doran said.

She said Malachi had a criminal history in Connecticut and had been incarcerated a number of times for assault, drug and larceny crimes.

Defense lawyer Mary Anne Stamm asked for a sentence of five years, saying the September incident, although the most violent, wasn't premeditated.

She said Malachi had a lot of pressure on him and just "snapped." Stamm said neither alcohol nor drugs were involved and Malachi has no history of mental illness.

Malachi's plea was the second domestic violence plea heard by Rup and prosecuted by Doran on Monday.

Dennis Ramirez, 27, of Springfield, pleaded guilty to 10 charges including armed assault with intent to murder in the case in front of Rup.

She sentenced him to 12 to 13 years in state prison followed by five years probation.

In that case, Doran said it was a "shock and surprise and miracle" the victim survived a series of brutal beatings over two days, according to medical staff that treated her.

Danielle Hultgren was the victim witness advocate on both cases.
The historic Notre Dame des Canadiens Church in Worcester could be demolished and replaced by another Roseland Residential apartment building, a large swath of which are currently being built in the city's downtown.

Roseland Residential submitted a site plan through Hancock Associates earlier this month stating its intent to build a four-story, 84-unit apartment building with nearly 2,000 square feet of retail space. The city's Planning Board will review the site plan, which is not in any way related to demolition, on Aug. 2.

The Planning Board can only impose reasonable conditions and cannot deny approval of the plan, barring extreme circumstances, Michael Traynor, chief development officer for Worcester said.

"Roseland submitted a plan for a mixed use development, including both multi-family and retail," read a statement from Ilene Jablonski, Roseland Residenial Trust's senior vice president of marketing. "We are excited to have this project become part of our 145 Front at City Square development and continue to grow Worcester's future economic growth.

This is the second time in two years a developer has announced plans to tear down the Notre Dame Church, with the group behind the Roseland Apartment complex most recently developing plans to build 84 apartments on the property. CitySquare II, which bought the building from the Arch Diocese of Worcester in 2010, found the building too pricey to revitalize or sell to another developer for revitalization.

In April, they sold the building to an unknown developer. Roseland Residential has not indicated if they officially purchased the building.

The Notre Dame Church is not listed on the National Registry as a historic property, but it is featured on MACRIS, a Massachusetts Historical Commission database of historic properties.

Preservation Worcester Executive Director Deborah Packard, who has advocated for preserving the building through the Re-Imagine Notre Dame group, has argued for the protection of the church because of its architectural beauty, striking facade and impact on Worcester's boxy skyline.

The building is noted under MACRIS for having an "exotic revival/Romanesque revival" architectural style.

"[These projects] look like they're impossible to restore but that's not always the case. When you see paint and plaster coming off the wall, its intimidating at first, but there are structural issues and then there's cosmetic issues, and you have to distinguish between the two," Packard said.

The design of the new apartment building seems to keep in line with the rest of the Roseland Apartment complex, which consists of half a dozen buildings and close to 370 units.

Based on the renderings, the building will feature the tan, grey and reddish-brown colored exteriors, slanted and flat roofs, and the overall square, symmetrical shape of the other buildings. According to the site plan, 86 parking units are called for in the plan, but it is not clear from the renderings where these units will be.

"Over the past few years, other uses for the property have not come to fruition, and we are exited to see our proposal under agreement and moving forward," Jablonski said.
Massachusetts State Police detectives are investigating a fatal shooting in Spencer after an officer gunned down a man who might have been in possession of a replica firearm.

The shooting occurred Sunday night during a domestic dispute call on Northwest Road. Officers gave pursuit to a vehicle involved with the domestic complaint after the driver initially failed to pullover.

According to Worcester County District Attorney's Office, the driver eventually returned to the home where the domestic complaint originated from.

Police said the man exited the vehicle and pointed what appeared to be a firearm at a Spencer police officer. The officer fired a single shot and struck the man.

He was transported to UMass Medical Center where he died as a result of his injuries.

According to the district attorney's office, a replica handgun was found near the man's body. At this time, police believe the firearm to be a black pellet pistol.

The man's name has not been released at this time. The fatal shooting is under investigation by the state police.
About 20 years ago, a seed of curiosity planted itself in Robin Kelsons mind.

It was then that her friends seemed to start developing cancer like never before, and Kelson, a scientist with a biochemistry degree from the University of Oregon and a masters in biology from MIT, started exploring potential causes.

"I just thought, This is worth looking into," Kelson said, sitting at her Whitefish homes kitchen table last week.

By Molly Priddy

Full Story: http://flatheadbeacon.com/2017/07/21/finding-better-way-grow/
Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi promoted on Thursday Air Defence Forces commander Ali Fahmy from Major General to Lt General, and commander of the Naval Forces Ahmed Said from Rear Admiral to Vice Admiral during the closing ceremony of the countrys monthly youth conference in Ismailiya.

Sisi gave a short speech warning that terrorism was a "regional and international threat that must be confronted on all levels", and repeated his admonition of countries that support terrorist organisations.

He also announced that this years annual youth conference will be held in October in South Sinais Sharm El-Sheikh, where youth from around the globe are invited to attend and participate.

The Ismailiya youth conference resulted in several recommendations for initiatives including declaring 2018 as the year for disabled people, forming youth monitoring groups in state institutions, launching an initiative to beautify public squares and streets, and founding a high council for national databases.

This is the third time Sisi has attended the monthly youth conference, which started in December.

This months youth conference sessions and workshops began on Wednesday and addressed issues including a recent surge in the price of foodstuffs, the government's efforts to improve the healthcare system, and sustainable energy development.

The decision to hold the monthly youth conference was announced by the president in October during the first annual National Youth Conference.

In January, the second regular youth conference was held in Aswan and tackled challenges facing Upper Egypt, including ways to develop the economy and tourism in the region as well as the social and political empowerment of the youth. Some 1,300 young people from Upper Egyptian governorates took part in the event.

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Egyptian officials have announced the date of the Muslim religious festival Eid Al-Adha this year, saying it will fall on Friday, 1 September.



The date was announced on Monday by Egypts Astronomical and Geophysics Institute, which is responsible for official astronomical calculations.



Eid Al-Adha is the second of two major religious holidays celebrated by Muslims around the world, the other being Eid Al-Fitr.



In statements to the state-owned news agency MENA, the head of the institute, Hatem Ouda, said that, based on astronomical calculations conducted by the institutes observers, the Day of Arafah will be on Thursday, 31 August.



The Day of Arafah precedes the start of Eid Al-Adha in the Islamic world by 24 hours, according to the Islamic calendar.



The Day of Arafah marks the second day of the Islamic pilgrimage at the holy site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.



Eid Al-Adha, which lasts for four days, honors the willingness of the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his first-born son Ismail as an act of submission to Gods command.

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A Marion man charged with sexually abusing a female acquaintance for nearly a decade was given at least 16 years in prison in McDowell County Superior Court.

Edward Almond Buchanan, 36, of Apache Path, Marion, was found guilty of first-degree rape and indecent liberties with a child. He was sentenced to 192 to 291 months in prison. He was given credit for 573 days time served. He was given a 16 to 29 month suspended sentence consecutive to previous judgment. He must serve 36 months of supervised probation. He must pay a court-appointed attorney $4,130. He was fined $100. He must pay court costs.

In addition, Buchanan was found guilty of two counts each of first-degree sex offense and indecent liberties with a child. For each conviction, he was sentenced to 192 to 240 months in prison, given credit for 573 days time served, given a 16 to 20 months suspended sentence and 36 months of supervised probation, all running concurrent to his active judgment. He must not have contact with the victim.

In Dec. 2015, Lt. Andy Manis of the McDowell County Sheriffs Office charged Buchanan of an initial first-degree sex offense of a child after the department was notified by members of the suspects family about numerous alleged incidents between Buchanan and a female acquaintance. According to warrants obtained at the time of the arrest, it was reported that Buchanan had sexually molested the victim from the ages of 8 to 16, between June 2007 and August 2015.

As the investigation continued, additional sex charges began to mount. He was indicted by a grand jury the in February 2016.

In April of last year, Buchanans parents, 59-year-old Belinda Buchanan and 64-year-old Jerry Buchanan, were charged by the Sheriffs Office with making intimidating statements to the victim concerning the case.
Temperatures across Egypt are expected to rise this week after a slight dip, with Cairo and the north of Upper Egypt seeting 37 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, rising to 40 degrees on Thursday.

Egypts Meteorological Authority revealed the end of the cool spell in a statement on Monday, as reported by state-run news agency MENA.

The coastal city of Alexandria, meanwhile, will see a relatively cool 32 degrees in the daytime and 26 at night.

The Red Sea resort city of Hurghada will witness a high of 38 and a low of 28, while temperatures in Sharm El-Sheikh in South Sinai will range from 39 in the daytime to 30 at night. Saint Catherine will witness a high of 36 and a low of 19.

On the Mediterranean Sea, there will be moderate waves, reaching 1.5 to 2 metres in height, while waves on the Red Sea will be between 2 and 2.5 metres.

Upper Egypt will see a high temperature in most places, with Luxor seeing a high of 41 degrees, Aswan 42, and Qena 40.

Egypt has witnessed a heat wave in recent weeks, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees in some areas, including Cairo.

During such hot weather, the Meteorological Authority generally advises citizens to avoid prolonged exposure to the sun during the summer, especially between 12 pm and 3 pm. People are also advised to drink lots of fluids.

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McDowell County sheriffs deputies need the publics help locating a missing woman.

Mary Margaret Hardenburg, 52, left her residence at 224 Deer Valley Drive in Old Fort on Sunday, July 16 and hasnt been seen since. Her sister reported her missing on Thursday, July 20.

Hardenburg is a white female who stands 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 130 pounds. She has blonde hair and green eyes. She is driving a silver 2002 four-door Buick LeSabre with North Carolina tag BMT-7009.

Anyone with information concerning Hardenburgs whereabouts is asked to call the McDowell County Sheriffs Office at 652-2235 or the 911 communications center at 652-4000.
The IDSC said the authorities would not demolish inhabited homes on the Nile island, and promised to talk with residents to clarify government goals of reclaiming illegally seized state land

The Egyptian cabinets Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) said on Monday that last weeks demolition of buildings on Cairos Warraq Island aimed to reclaim illegally seized state land, and was not preparation for an investment project on the island as some reports suggested, state news agency MENA reported.

"The removal of illegal encroachments is not part of a plan for investment projects," the IDSC said in its statement, adding that are some who "take advantage of such situations in attempts to rally angry citizens against the state."

"Meetings between security officials and citizens of the island will be held in the next few days to clarify the situation and eliminate any misconceptions," the IDSC stated.

The IDSC says that the state is merely looking to remove encroachments on agricultural land on Warraq Island, as the law stipulates that the construction of buildings is not allowed on more than 2 percent of the islands land.

The statement added that illegal construction has led to an increase in population on the island, with its inhabitants reaching 90,000 citizens, resulting in a drop in agricultural production.

The security force tasked with removing illegal buildings "had clear orders not to demolish any inhabited buildings or farmland," the IDSC said.

Last week, one civilian was killed, 19 were injured, and 31 police personnel were wounded in clashes between police and citizens when the state demolished a number of buildings on Warraq Island, which authorities said were built on illegally seized public land.

The IDSC says that a misunderstanding and rumours caused the clash between citizens and police.

"Some citizens used the microphones of mosques to spread a rumour that the police were evacuating all citizens," which caused anger and provoked the standoff, the IDSC said.

Some residents said their homes, mostly two-storey structures, were demolished by the authorities last week even though they maintained they posses documentation proving legal status.

The IDSC statement said that the decision to demolish illegal buildings on the island is not new, and that it dates back to 2007, with 700 unexecuted building demolition orders.

The government is currently conducting a nationwide campaign to reclaim illegally seized public land.

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that fixing education, health and economic problems depends on bringing the nation's population growth under control

Terrorism and population growth are two of the biggest threats facing Egypt in its history, the country's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said at the Fourth National Youth Conference in the coastal city of Alexandria on Monday.

During the conference, El-Sisi said that the current rate of population growth in Egypt poses a threat to the nation, restricting Egypt's progress.

The number of Egyptians worldwide according to the government's statistics authority now stands at 101 million, including 8 million living abroad, with officials maintaining that steep rise in population will hinder the country's development plans.

The country's population stood at 99 million in June 2016.

In March of this year, The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said the annual rate of population growth in the country is 2.4 percent.

The president's comments followed a presentation by Health Minister Ahmed Emad El-Din Rady as part of the conference's agenda concerning the "Egypt Vision 2030" development plan.

Egypt Vision 2030 aims to implement a programme of sustainable development policies involving the country's youth, to be implemented regardless of any changes in government or leadership.

"You would lose your children because you can't afford to spend money on them," El-Sisi said.

"You want to ensure education is provided to all? Fix the population problem. You want to guarantee job opportunities? Fix the population problem. You want medical services? Fix the population problem," El-Sisi said.

He said that the population dilemma was a threat to both Egyptians and the government, with each having a role to perform, although the benefits of the appropriate actions would not be immediately visible.

During a presentation on education reforms by Education Minister Tarik Shawki, one attendee asked about the salaries of teachers, with El-Sisi commenting: "We either have patience and fight to reach development, or we beg."

Shawki said the ministry's main goal was to provide education and training to all without discrimination, as well as to improve education and the competitiveness of the education system.

He also assured high-school students and their parents that there would be no additional reforms now to the secondary certificate system, known as Thanaweya Amma, which has been harshly critcised for years.

He said a new system might be adopted at some future point, but he did not say when such a move might happen.

"The new Thanaweya Amma system should be tested before its implementation," El-Sisi said.

Monday's conference is the most recent in a series of events in Sharm El-Sheikh, Aswan and Ismailia aimed at tackling issues of direct relevance to Egypt's young people, including enhancing their political participation and preparing them for future leadership roles.

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At some point during their practice, most clinicians will need to impart to their patients some bad news about a medical situation. But how can doctors deliver this in the most effective and compassionate way possible, without creating confusion or additional suffering for their patients? Share on Pinterest Talking about difficult news can be challenging for both patient and physician. Confirmation of a serious illness, recurrence of disease, unexpected clinical findings, complex co-morbidities, and even a terminal prognosis, are all examples of difficult information that must be communicated by physicians. A recent Health Affairs Blog post by health services researcher Vincent Mor, Ph.D., of Brown University in Providence, RI, noted physicians reluctance to have conversations about prognosis or advance care planning. While they acknowledged the importance of such conversations, nearly half were frequently unsure of what to say. Medical News Today asked practitioners from the field of palliative care, who deal with situations wherein patients face serious or life-threatening illnesses on a daily basis, to share their experience. This is not easy. Nobody likes doing it. No matter how well you deliver bad news, its still bad, said Steven Pantilat, M.D., founding director of the Palliative Care Program at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center. You cant make it somehow O.K. for the patient, but its important not to make it worse. Find out which strategies work for experienced practitioners when they talk to patients and their families about serious medical issues.

Clear communication is key When bad news hits, patients are faced with difficult choices. They have to consider trade-offs between cure-focused and comfort-oriented care to make personal values-based decisions about their own treatment. Most people would want to know the truth  no matter how upsetting it proves to be. It is also important to arm them with this information to allow them to make informed decisions about their care. Dr. Pantilat illustrated the challenge with a patient of his who was 89 years old but still driving and an active ballroom dancer. One day, he came to the emergency room complaining of hip pain. An X-ray and computerized tomography scans showed two masses of untreatable colon cancer, totally unsuspected. And now I have to tell him this terrible news, he explained to MNT. I told him in simple language, and then I was just quiet. We as physicians dont always appreciate just how bad the news will be to someone who still thinks their tomorrows are infinite. Dr. Pantilat recently published a book entitled Life After the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and Caregivers, which encapsulates 27 years of medical practice in helping patients to live well in the face of serious illnesses. Although the book was written for lay people, the information can also help clinicians to understand their patients experiences and learn to talk with them about shocking news. He recommended delivering bad news clearly and straightforwardly. Dont use jargon or euphemisms. It is what it is, and it has a name. Then give the patient some time to respond. Sometimes doctors are so uncomfortable that they just keep talking in order to avoid drawn-out silences. Often, the patient doesnt absorb much after the first shock of the bad news hits. In some cases, it may be preferable to save planning and follow-up questions for a subsequent meeting, after their shock has dissipated.

Its O.K. to say Im sorry Dont ask: Do you have any questions? because the answer will often be no. Instead ask: What questions do you have?' Dr. Pantilat advised. Acknowledge the patients feelings. But dont say, I know how youre feeling, or The same thing happened to one of my own family members.' Such attempts to personalize the situation are not helpful, but you can show empathy: I can see how devastating this news is for you. It must come as a big shock. It also helps for the clinician to prepare in advance the care plan that he or she would recommend, Dr. Pantilat noted. Patients may come to these meetings already on edge. People know that good news doesnt wait. Bad news is what follows when the doctor says: Why dont you come into my office and have a seat?' It may help to let patients know when a diagnostic test is first ordered that an unwanted outcome is a real possibility, even if the goal for the test is to rule it out. If its a patient youve known for a long time, and you have to give bad news, and they start crying, you can cry with them. But my rule is I should not be so upset that the patient has to comfort me. Steven Pantilat, M.D. Its O.K. for doctors to say how sorry they feel  even though the doctor is not to blame. He also advised ensuring that the patient knows they wont be abandoned, but that the physician will continue to accompany them throughout their treatment.

How best to facilitate family meetings How to better facilitate this kind of conversation is a skill that can be learned, Timothy Jessick, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), a palliative care physician at Aurora West Allis Medical Center in Wisconsin, told MNT. He has developed a 4-hour training program that draws on professional resources from the Palliative Care Network of Wisconsin to teach hospitalist physicians communications skills that enable them to lead goals-of-care conversations with critically ill, hospitalized patients. This intervention is designed for hospitalized patients who may have 12 months or under to live. What were trying to do is help hospitalists change their mindsets to be more person  and patient-centered  to meet the family where they are at and to help them define goals of care and treatments that make sense for them now, Dr. Jessick said. More than 150 Aurora doctors and nurses have received this training in how to lead goals-of-care conversations, and there are plans to train 100 more hospitalists and 130 emergency clinicians throughout the Aurora health system over the next 18 months. We believe our hospitalists can and should be doing more than just episodic care for this hospitalization. That includes helping to establish goals of care that can be documented in the patients medical record and accompany the patient across care settings, Dr. Jessick added. Still, the moment of truth will come when bad news has to be delivered. Dr. Jessick remembers vividly how difficult that was for him to do for the first time, even though it was 20 years ago. There was no one available with the knowledge or expertise to help me with this most difficult conversation, he recounted. He recommended being well prepared for the meeting. Physicians should ask the patient and their family if this is the right time to share important information, or if other family members need to be present. Asking open-ended questions and finding out what the patient has already been told, as well as what they understand about their condition, is also important.
New research suggests that social interaction may have a positive effect on a persons chance of survival after being treated for cancer. Share on Pinterest A new study suggests that social interaction could make chemotherapy more effective. Although cancer remains one of the leading causes of death both in the United States and across the globe, cancer survival rates have improved significantly in recent years. Little is known, however, about social interaction and whether it has any bearing on the effectiveness of common cancer therapies, such as chemotherapy. This is why a team of researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), in collaboration with the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, set out to examine the impact of social interaction during chemotherapy on the patients survival rates. The new research was published in the journal Network Science. First author Jeff Lienert, of the NHGRIs Social and Behavioral Research Branch, led the study, which examined whether patients 5-year chances of survival were affected by interacting with peers who also underwent chemotherapy and survived.

Studying social interaction in chemotherapy Lienert and colleagues accessed the medical records of 4,691 cancer patients who were undergoing chemotherapy treatment in medical facilities in Oxfordshire, U.K. The patients were around 60 years old on average, and 44 percent of them were male. The researchers were interested in investigating co-presence in a chemotherapy ward, so they created a network of patients that could co-inhabit in such a ward. Lienert and team considered the total amount of time that the patients spent in each others company. To determine social influence, the scientists weighted the co-presence of immediate neighbors, while also considering their 5-year mortality rate. Lienert explains the methodology of the study, saying, We had information on when patients checked in and out of the chemotherapy ward, a small intimate space where people could see and interact for a long period of time. We used time spent getting chemotherapy in a room with others as a proxy for social connection, Lienert adds.
An existing Alzheimer's medication slashes inflammation and insulin resistance in patients with metabolic syndrome, a potential therapeutic intervention for a highly dangerous condition affecting 30 percent of adults in the United States, according to new clinical trial results by scientists at Northwell Health's Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.

In a study released in JCI Insight, Feinstein Institute researchers found that the FDA-approved Alzheimer's drug "galantamine" cut key markers of inflammation - a hallmark of metabolic syndrome - by more than 25 percent, leading to reduced insulin resistance. A cluster of four risk factors - increased blood pressure, a high blood sugar level, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels - comprise metabolic syndrome, which greatly raises risks for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

But there is no treatment for metabolic syndrome as a whole, leaving physicians to tackle the condition by treating symptoms. From previous studies at the Feinstein Institute, Associate Professor Valentin A. Pavlov, PhD, and his colleagues knew that galantamine - derived synthetically from flowers used in Greek mythology to combat memory loss and delirium - lessened inflammation levels in mice with obesity. Since inflammation plays a key role in metabolic syndrome, they decided to study the effect of galantamine in people with the condition.

"It's been very tough to come up with a treatment that targets all the components of metabolic syndrome, which is becoming a pandemic because it stems from obesity," said Dr. Pavlov, corresponding author of the new research. "By repurposing galantamine, it means we don't have to start from zero to establish its safety. We already know it's safe."

"Galantamine can target the entire syndrome as well as targeting components of the syndrome," added study co-author Yael Tobi Harris, MD, chief of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center, part of Northwell Health. "Using an existing drug is a much faster way of getting a treatment out there. It's promising, it makes me optimistic, and it's a starting point indicating an avenue of research that should be pursued further."

Galantamine belongs to a class of drugs known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, which slow the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, a chemical messenger in the brain. In Greek mythology, the snowdrop flower serving as a source of galantamine was given to Odysseus by the god Hermes as an antidote to jimsonweed, which the sorceress Cerce gave to Odysseus to trigger memory loss and delirium.

The Feinstein Investigators collaborated with a team of colleagues led by Dr. Fernanda Consolim-Colombo from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil to perform a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical study of the effects of galantamine in patients with metabolic syndrome. In the study, 30 patients with metabolic syndrome received graduated doses of galantamine daily for 12 weeks and another group of 30 patients received a placebo during this same timeframe. Levels of inflammatory molecules indicating patients' metabolic syndrome-associated inflammation were tracked.

Also measured were participants' insulin levels, insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) heart rate and heart rate variability, and other metabolic and cardiovascular markers. At the end of the 12-week treatment period, those treated with galantamine experienced significantly reduced levels of pro-inflammatory molecules and higher levels of anti-inflammatory molecules compared to placebo patients. The galantamine group also experienced a significant decrease in insulin levels and insulin resistance compared with the placebo group.

"What galantamine does is activate the nervous system to decrease inflammation," Dr. Harris explains. "And because the inflammation is causing insulin resistance . . . we then see a decrease in insulin resistance."

Dr. Pavlov noted that the graduated doses of galantamine used on study participants - 8 mg and 16 mg daily in the intervention group - were still lower than the highest approved dose for Alzheimer's patients of 24 mg daily, and none of the patients experienced serious side effects. "Our results are even more impressive because they were achieved with relatively low doses," he says.

Dr. Pavlov and Dr. Harris agreed more research still needed, including longer clinical trials that include greater numbers of patients with metabolic syndrome. Other trials could also examine galantamine's effects on type 2 diabetes, they said.

"These findings illustrate that it may be possible to treat inflammation in metabolic syndrome," says Kevin J. Tracey, MD, a co-author of the study and president and CEO of the Feinstein Institute. "Bringing down inflammation and insulin resistance may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and other complications."

Article: Galantamine alleviates inflammation and insulin resistance in patients with metabolic syndrome in a randomized trial, Fernanda M. Consolim-Colombo et al., JCI Insight, doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.93340, published 20 July 2017.
Most people aren't worn out by simple daily tasks requiring little exertion. But those with chronic fatigue syndrome might be exhausted by a walk across the room.

A study by University of Florida Health researchers published recently in the Journal of Pain Research provides a possible explanation for that atypical exhaustion, supporting a hypothesis that the bodies of those with chronic fatigue inappropriately magnify minute muscle byproducts caused by exertion.

"People with chronic fatigue are essentially sensing muscle metabolites while they are not doing anything, and they're not supposed to be," said Roland Staud, M.D., a professor of rheumatology and clinical immunology in the UF College of Medicine and the study's lead author. "Generally speaking, when we're at rest, we don't feel our muscles."

To evaluate the role of fatigue signals from muscles, the investigators injected 58 people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome - which is also called systemic exertion intolerance disease, or SEID - with either a placebo saline solution or the painkiller lidocaine in the muscles of their back and buttocks. The group that received the lidocaine solution reported a 38 percent reduction in fatigue.

That result suggests that peripheral tissues, such as these muscles, play an important role in the generation and maintenance of chronic fatigue, the researchers said. The lidocaine appears to block the signaling of muscle metabolites generated at rest that are then translated by the central nervous system into symptoms of severe fatigue, they said.

That opens potential avenues of treatment, although further research is required, said Staud.

"It's unlikely the central nervous system creates fatigue out of nothing," he said. "It uses just very minute fatigue signals that it receives and inappropriately amplifies them, which results in significant impact on the quality of life of these individuals."

These findings have implications far beyond chronic fatigue and might be extended to other diseases where debilitating fatigue is a symptom, including lupus, cancer, depression and other disorders.

This latest study builds on earlier work by Staud's team that also demonstrated patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a disorder characterized by increased sensitivity to pain, reported a reduction in pain after similar lidocaine injections.

Chronic pain and fatigue are sisters, Staud said, and the mechanisms propelling both are thought to be quite similar. Up to 2.5 million Americans have chronic fatigue syndrome, though many of those are undiagnosed, according to a 2015 report by the Institute on Medicine.

The study's co-authors are Michael Robinson, Ph.D., director of the UF Center for Pain Research and Behavioral Health and a professor in the UF College of Public Health and Health Profession's department of clinical and health psychology; and laboratory technician Taylor Kizer.

Article: Muscle injections with lidocaine improve resting fatigue and pain in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, Staud R, Kizer T, Robinson ME, Journal of Pain Research, doi: 10.2147/JPR.S139466, published 26 June 2017.
From being in endless controversies for its content to Central Board of Film Certification deciding to ban it in our country, Lipstick Under My Burkha has finally hit the theatres on 21st July. And boy, people have amazing things to say about Alankrita Shrivastav's alternative narration.

With all the debate and disagreement around the film, I went to watch the film thinking there will be a lot of sex scenes, abuses, audio pornography, etc. Or the film will portray everything against our so-called culture; women will suddenly go into the revolution mode, rebel against their husbands, go out and live that independent' life. But actually there was nothing as such, so I wonder what exactly was Mr. Pahlaj Nihalani scared of. To know all about this bold and brilliant film read our review.

(c) Twitter

Alankrita Shrivastava's movie is about lives of four women living in Bhopal who have their sexual desires and needs but are scared to express it aloud because of the society we live in. Because Indian women are not supposed to be sexually active because it's a man's job.

Releasing a film like this wasn't an easy task; after all Nihalani was very concerned about log kya kahenge'. The film didn't have a certification from the CBFC for a very long time but that's not it. Here we also have a list of the scenes that were chopped off from the film in name of sanskar and sabhyata.

This list has been doing the rounds on the internet. It consists of 11 cuts made in the film and 16 cuts that the filmmakers did for CBFC's satisfaction.

(c) Scroll

(c) Scroll

Well, well, well here's a line from the film for all the honourable members of CBFC that we would love to get an answer from, Lipstick maat lagao, affair ho jayega. Jeans maat pehno, scandal ho jayega. I want to ask the authorities aisa kya ho jayega? Humari azadi se aap itna daarte kyu hai?
Seven civilians were killed when a 4x4 vehicle laden with explosives approaching an army checkpoint south of Al-Arish in North Sinai exploded after it was run over by an army tank to stop an imminent attack on the checkpoint on Monday evening, the army spokesman reported on his official Facebook page.

The 4x4 vehicle, which exploded on the scene, was carrying five suspected militants armed with guns and 100 kilograms of explosives, the army said.

The victims included two women and two children.

The aborted attack could have killed nearly 50-60 soldiers and civilians, the statement added.

A number of civilian cars and commercial trucks were lined up to pass the checkpoint at the time of the foiled attack, a video footage posted by the army spokesperson showed.

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The Arab League has decided to postpone a meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the ongoing clashes in Palestine, moving the meeting from Wednesday to Thursday.

In an official statement on Sunday, Arab League spokesperson Mahmoud Afifi said the urgent meeting was postponed to ensure the largest number ministers could participate.

The meeting was requested by Jordan in response to deadly violence between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank in the past week.

He added that a meeting by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss recent Israeli escalations against Palestinians is set to be held next week.

On Friday, Israel installed metal detectors at the entrances to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and closed it for Friday prayers, citing security concerns.

The closure of Al-Aqsa for Friday prayers, the first such move since Israel occupied east Jerusalem in 1967, triggered clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops.

Israeli forces killed six Palestinians and injured tens in the past 72 hours, while a Palestinian man stabbed three Israeli settlers to death on Friday night.

Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said the Israeli government is "playing with fire and causing a major crisis with the Arab and Islamic world."

Jerusalem is a "red line" and Arabs and Muslims would not accept such violations by Israeli occupation forces, the pan-Arab organisation chief said in a separate statement on Sunday.

Aboul-Gheit added that the current measures "have nothing to do with security."

"Security considerations are not the real motive behind the recent Israeli actions in Jerusalem's Old City and the vicinity of Al-Aqsa," he said.

"What is happening today, unfortunately, is the completion of the project to Judaicise the Holy City and take over the old town," he said.

On Saturday, two Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces as Israeli troops moved to prepare for the demolition of the home of the Palestinian who they say stabbed the three Israeli settlers to death on Friday in the town of Kobar in the occupied West Bank.

On Friday, Egypt called on Israel to immediately stop its violent actions and cancel its escalated security measures against Palestinians in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque area, expressing "deep concern".

The UN Security Council is expected to hold closed-door talks on Monday about the spiralling violence, after Egypt, France and Sweden sought a meeting to "urgently discuss how calls for de-escalation in Jerusalem can be supported."

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An Israeli embassy security guard shot dead a Jordanian who stabbed him with a screwdriver in the Amman mission compound in an incident in which a Jordanian bystander was also killed, Israel said on Monday.

The incident on Sunday night has tested already tense relations between Israel and Jordan, one of two Arab states with which it has peace treaties. Jordan wanted to question the guard, who was slightly hurt, but Israel said he had diplomatic immunity and should be repatriated.

Israel's foreign ministry said the security officer had acted in self-defense when he shot his attacker, a workman at the embassy compound. His father said he was a 16-year-old with no militant links.

The Jordanian bystander appeared to have been killed accidentally, an official told Reuters.

Israeli media said the guard was holed up in the fortress-like embassy along with the ambassador and other staff while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent an envoy to try to defuse the stand-off with the Jordanians.

Israel censored overnight media reports on the incident in what it called a move to protect the diplomats from reprisals, and its statement on Monday did not detail the aftermath. In brief remarks to reporters, Netanyahu said he had phoned the guard and "promised to bring him back".

Israeli-Jordanian tensions have escalated since Israel installed metal detectors at entry points to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after two police guards were shot dead by gunmen there on July 14.

Jordan is the custodian of the Al-Aqsa complex and has a large Palestinian population, making Amman sensitive to any changes of status at the site which Israel captured along with other East Jerusalem and West Bank areas in the 1967 war, in a move condemned by the international community.

Israel's foreign ministry said the Jordanian who stabbed the guard was a workman who was at the embassy compound to replace furniture. "The security officer responded in self-defense," the statement said.

A second Jordanian, who owned the rented property where the work took place, was accidentally shot dead by the guard, an official briefed on the incident told Reuters on condition he would not be identified by name or nationality.

The first slain Jordanian, Mohammad Jawawdah, was 16 years old and had no militant links, his father Zakaria told Reuters.

"My son was not a trouble-maker or a terrorist and he did not belong to any political parties," said Zakaria Jawawdah, whose family has Palestinian roots. "I want to know how the investigation is going and know what happened and what led to the killing of my son."

Jordan has confirmed there were Jordanian fatalities and a wounded Israeli in the incident, but has not elaborated.

The Israeli embassy in the affluent Rabae district of Amman is protected by Jordanian gendarmes. It has long been a flashpoint of anti-Israel protests at times of turmoil in the Palestinian territories.

A U.S. official said that President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, was due in Israel on Monday and was likely to attempt some mediation in the crisis.

Violence against Israelis is rare in Jordan, a tightly policed country that is also a staunch regional ally of the United States. It also shares a long border with Israel.

Israel and Jordan made peace in 1994. Relations plummeted three years later when Israeli spies were arrested in Amman after poisoning senior Hamas official Khaled Meshaal.

Jordan freed the would-be assassins after Israel delivered an antidote that saved Meshaal's life. Israel also released Hamas's founder and spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, from jail as part of the swap. In 2004, Israel killed Yassin in a Gaza air strike, saying he was behind a wave of Hamas suicide bombings.

Netanyahu was also prime minister at that time.

*The story was edited by Ahram Online.

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Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan left Qatar on Monday after two days in the Gulf trying to mediate in the worst row among Arab states for years but there was no sign he had made any progress.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic and travel ties with Qatar in June, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants. Doha denies that.

Turkey has been Qatar's most powerful ally in the dispute, rushing through legislation to send more troops to its base in Doha as a sign of support.

Kuwaiti and Western efforts to end the crisis have yielded little so far. The four Arab states want Qatar to reduce ties with their arch-foe Iran, close down the Turkish military base and shut the Al Jazeera TV channel, which they view as critical of their governments.

Qatari state news agency QNA said that Qatar's ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, had "reviewed regional developments, specifically the Gulf crisis and efforts to contain it and to resolve it through diplomatic means..." in talks with Erdogan.

The agency said the talks also covered joint efforts to combat terrorism and reviewed defence and economic cooperation.

Several contingents of Turkish troops with columns of armoured vehicles have arrived in Doha since the crisis erupted on June 5.

Under a 2014 agreement, Ankara could send in as many as 1,000 troops.

Turkey and Qatar have been important backers of the Muslim Brotherhood movement which is designated by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE a terrorist organisation.

Before he arrived in Qatar, Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In Saudi Arabia, he discussed with King Salman "efforts to combat terrorism and its sources of funding", state news agency SPA said, without elaborating.

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French President Francois Hollande says has not come to Algeria to offer 'apologies' on colonial crimes and hopes for a new chapter in mutual relations

French President Francois Hollande said on a landmark visit to Algeria on Wednesday he had not come to say sorry for crimes committed during colonial rule, but he sought to begin a new era in relations.

"I have not come here... to offer repentance or apologies. I have come to say what is true," Hollande told a news conference on the first day of his trip to the former French colony.

Responding to a question about Algerian demands for French contrition, Hollande said it was important to recognise the truth about France's colonial past and the tragedies that occurred during the 1954-62 war of independence.

But there must also be a "willingness not to let the past block us but on the contrary to work for the future. Once it has been recognised, the past must allow us to go much faster and much further."

He said he would deliver the same message to Algerian MPs when he addresses parliament on Thursday morning.

Hollande was received with full honours by his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika as he got off the plane, and a large crowd cheered them as their convoy passed along the capital's historic corniche.

Hollande invited Bouteflika to pay a state visit to France, and called for a "strategic partnership between equals."

But before the visit, 10 political parties including four Islamist groups denounced the refusal of France "to recognise, apologise for and compensate" the crimes committed during 132 years of French colonial rule.

And the popular French-language newspaper El-Watan, in an editorial on Wednesday, called for French recognition of "the colonial past and crimes of colonisation," saying such a move would "soothe memories that are still painful."

The socialist president, who is accompanied by a 200-strong delegation including nine government ministers and around 40 business leaders, is visiting Algeria after a period of lukewarm ties under his rightwing predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy.

His two-day trip to the energy-rich north African country also comes at a time when the French economy is sorely in need of a boost.

Hollande and Bouteflika signed a declaration of friendship and cooperation late on Wednesday.

Another document will detail a five-year work programme in the economic, financial, cultural, agricultural and defence sectors.

Projects to benefit include the construction of a factory by vehicle manufacturer Renault, the operations of French cement group Lafarge and the teaching of French in Algerian schools.

The two countries are bound together by human, economic and cultural ties.

More than half a million Algerians live in France, and hundreds of thousands of others hold French nationality, but many are also frustrated at not being able to obtain visas and seek a better life in Europe.

A poll published by Algerian daily Liberte said 57 percent of Algerians were in favour of a special relationship with France.

It also said that 35 percent of French people believe Hollande should "in no circumstances" apologise to Algeria for the colonial past, against 13 percent who think he should.

On the crisis in Mali, Hollande appeared to soften the hawkish French stance, saying there was a convergence of positions between him and Bouteflika, both agreeing on the need for dialogue to restore the country's unity.

But this process must take place "only with the movements or forces that distance themselves from terrorism, that fight against terrorism," he said.

France has been a key Western backer of the planned deployment of a 3,300-strong African intervention force to drive out Islamists who have seized the northern half of Mali, fearing the Sahel region may become a "terrorist" haven.

But Algeria, the regional powerhouse which shares a vast southern border with Mali, is seen as key to any military operation, and Bouteflika has said he favours "a negotiated political solution."

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A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 40, and the death toll could rise, an Interior Ministry spokesman in the Afghan capital said.

Police cordoned off the area, located near the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shia Hazara community live.

Monday's suicide bombing was yet another example of the unrelenting violence in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

"I was in my shop when suddenly I heard a terrible sound and as a result all of my shop windows shattered," said Ali Ahmed, a resident in the area of Monday's blast.

Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 35 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

Salim Rasouli, director of the city's hospitals, said at least 13 dead and 17 wounded had been taken to hospitals.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the Islamist group in a post on Twitter, saying 37 "intelligence workers" had been killed.

The Taliban often exaggerate the scale of attacks against Afghan government and foreign targets.

Mujahid said the target of the attack had been two buses that had been under surveillance for two months.

Government security forces said a small bus owned by the Ministry of Mines had been destroyed in the blast.

Three civilian vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or damaged in the blast, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

At least 1,662 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in the first half of the year. The latest suicide bombing came two weeks after the Islamic State group claimed an attack on a mosque in the capital that killed at least four people.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in a massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to United Nations figures.

On Sunday, dozens of Afghan troops were under siege after Taliban fighters overran a district in northern Faryab province, a spokesman for the provincial police said.

There was also fighting in Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Kunduz provinces in Afghanistan's north, and Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan in the south, according to officials.

The resurgence of violence also coincides with the U.S. administration weighing up its strategic options for Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops to bolster the training and advisory mission already helping Afghan forces.

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At least eight people are dead after female suicide bombers attacked two displaced persons camps in northeastern Nigeria's main city, a civilian self-defense group said Monday. It was the first major attack on a displaced persons camp in Maiduguri, the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist insurgency.

The attack started late Sunday night and left another 15 people wounded, spokesman Bello Danbatta with the Civilian-JTF group told The Associated Press.

The Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram often targets the city with suicide bombers and increasingly has been using female ones. Nigeria's government late last year declared the group "crushed" but dozens of such attacks have been carried out this year.

The latest bombings occurred a few days after Nigeria's army chief of staff issued a 40-day deadline for troops to flush out Boko Haram's leader and finish off the extremist group.

Danbatta said one bomber sneaked into the Dalori camp and detonated, and two other attackers exploded on or near the camp's perimeter fence. Another bomber detonated early Monday morning.

Thousands of people continue to shelter in camps after being forced from their homes by Boko Haram. The extremist group's eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, kidnapped thousands of others, spilled into neighboring countries and created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

Nigeria is moving closer to famine, with more than 5 million people expected to face "crisis, emergency and famine conditions" by the end of August as the lean season continues, the Norwegian Refugee Council said in a statement Monday. The unrest has disrupted farming and access to markets in the region.

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One suspect has been arrested, while two others are still being sought by police

Police and antiquities staff have foiled the theft of a valuable statue of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis from the Nubian Museum in Aswan.

Mahrous Saeed, Director General of Nubian Antiquities, said that the attempted theft occurred on Sunday afternoon, when the museum was closed for lunch.

Security cameras detected three people moving around inside the museum and attempting to remove a statue depicting goddess Isis breast-feeding her son Horus.

The incident was reported to the Tourism and Antiquities Police, who succeeded in securing the statue and identifying those responsible.

One of the suspects was arrested, but the other two escaped and are being sought by police.

Saeed said that two of the suspects were employees in the museum's administration department, while the identity of the third person is not known.

The Nubian Museum was inaugurated in 1997 to relate the history of Nubia, the area that stretches from Aswan in the north through to Sudan in the south.

The museum was designed as an innovative interpretation of traditional Nubian architecture, winning an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2001.

The museum's content is organized along chronological lines, illustrating the development of the region from pre-history up to the present through art and artifacts.

In addition, the museum boasts life-size models showing traditional Nubian customs, as well as a permanent exhibit documenting international efforts, carried out during the construction of the Aswan Dam, to rescue the ancient monuments of Nubia from the waters of Lake Nasser.

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Here are five news stories and events to start your week:

Trump Helps Commission Navy's $13 Billion Supercarrier USS Ford

Via Jim Watson of Agence France Presse: "President Donald Trump on Saturday presided over the commissioning of the U.S. Navy's newest next-generation aircraft carrier ... Trump appeared to revel in the pomp and pageantry of the ceremony on board the warship at the sprawling Norfolk naval base in Virginia, which included a 21-gun salute, and the hoisting of the Stars and Stripes on the ship's mast. 'American steel and American hands have constructed a 100,000-ton message to the world: American might is second to none, and we're getting bigger and better and stronger every day of my administration.'"

Upcoming Tricare Change Could Hurt Families

Via Amy Bushatz of Military.com: "A short sentence buried in a series of major Tricare reforms passed by Congress in 2016, set to roll out late this year, is causing alarm among military family advocates. They worry that the measure will block Tricare beneficiaries from accessing the healthcare they need. Currently, military families can at any time switch members of their household from Tricare Prime (the system's default, military clinic-based plan) to the plan currently known as Tricare Standard. That plan allows civilian-based care and self-referrals. Once users make the swap, they often are locked into the new plan for a year."

Army Chief of Staff Speaking at National Press Club

U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, the service's top officer, is scheduled to speak 12:30 p.m. Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Military.com will join other journalists at Milley's table to hear from the general about the many issues facing the U.S. military's largest branch of service. Watch for Milley to talk about the Army's push to add thousands of soldiers to its ranks; the difficulties associated with training, equipping and deploying a force amid the threat of budget caps known as sequestration; and operational challenges from the Middle East to Asia.

The Navy's Railgun Will Get Faster, More Powerful This Summer

Via Hope Hodge Seck of Military.com: "The Navy's futuristic electromagnetic railgun is set to take a major developmental step forward this summer as developers work to increase the number of shots it can fire per minute and the power behind the system. The railgun has been a pet project for the Navy for more than a decade since early testing of a prototype for a shipboard system began in 2006. The gun uses electromagnetic force to launch projectiles at high speeds, allowing the system to function without the powder mechanism conventional shipboard guns."

Navy Has First Female Applicants for SEAL Officer, Special Boat Units

In case you missed this exclusive from Hope Hodge Seck of Military.com: "More than a year after a mandate for the Pentagon opened previously closed ground combat and special operations jobs to women, officials say the Navy has its first female candidates for its most elite special warfare roles. Two women were in boot camp as candidates for the Navy's all-enlisted Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman program, Naval Special Warfare Center Deputy Commander Capt. Christian Dunbar told members of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service in June."

-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Brendan_McGarry.
Joseph V. Micallef is a best-selling military history and world affairs author, and keynote speaker. Follow him on Twitter@JosephVMicallef.

On July 11, Beijing dispatched Chinese troops from the port of Zhanjiang in Guangdong province with orders to begin "constructing the base at Djibouti." The announcement follows on a previous January 21 announcement of an agreement with Djibouti to host what the Chinese Foreign Ministry termed a "logistics and fast evacuation base."

Widely described in the western media as China's first overseas base, the facility, still in the process of being constructed, stops short of being a full-fledged military base, but is widely interpreted as the first step in a significant build-up of Chinese military power in the Indian Ocean.

Under the agreement with Djibouti, China can station up to 10,000 troops in its facility there, although the initial deployment will fall far short of that number. The new base comes on the heel of a $14 billion, Chinese financed railroad project, which links the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa with Djibouti, as well as an expansion of port facilities in Djibouti. The rail line represents Ethiopia's only direct transportation link to the Indian Ocean.

The Chinese facility is only a few miles away from the U.S. base at Camp Lemonnier. Although the U.S. maintains a range of small outposts and air facilities in Africa, Camp Lemonnier is the only fully operational American base on the African continent. The Chinese facility joins bases operated by Italy, France, Spain and Japan. In addition, Saudi Arabia has announced that it too will build a military base in Djibouti.

Djibouti sits at a strategic location on the horn of Africa overlooking the Straits of Mandeb. Roughly 10 percent of the world's petroleum traffic and 20 percent of global trade traverse those straits. The Straits of Mandeb connect the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean and along with the Suez Canal is an important maritime route linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean.

China's base in Djibouti is part of a broader dual strategy described by Beijing as "String of Pearls" and the "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) that is at the heart of Beijing's aims in the Indian Ocean. The "String of Pearls" relates to China's plans to construct or expand port facilities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Djibouti is a template for that expansion, one in which Chinese economic aid for the expansion of regional transportation links and port development are potentially the precursor to an expanded Chinese military presence.

The Pakistani port of Gwadar in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, for example, has been largely built and is controlled by Chinese interests. In 2015, Islamabad agreed to lease the port facilities until 2059 to the state-owned China Overseas Port Holding Company.

The port sits on the Arabian Sea, astride the sea lanes that bring oil from the Persian Gulf to China. It is the most visible element of a broader, Chinese financed, $54 billion, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor designed to create transportation infrastructure and promote industrial development in Pakistan and especially in the province of Baluchistan.

Although both Islamabad and Beijing have announced that there will not be a Chinese military presence in Gwadar, Chinese investment in port facilities in Sri Lanka, Greece, and now Djibouti, have been followed by regular visits of People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels and in the latter case, a long-term military facility.

China has been following the same template elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. In fact, Beijing's String of Pearls is expanding beyond the Indian Ocean to include port development and infrastructure projects in Wavis Bay, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea, Darwin, Australia and Piraeus, Greece. Piraeus is one of Europe's largest container ports. In August 2016, the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) acquired a 51 percent interest in the Piraeus Port Authority.

In addition, Chinese companies have invested heavily in the expansion of port facilities in Singapore. The three, giant new berths, being financed by Chinese interests, will maintain Singapore's status as the world's second busiest container port after Shanghai.

In 2016, Chinese companies handled 18 percent of all worldwide container traffic, more than any other country. In addition, Chinese companies had varying degrees of ownership interests in 30 of the world's 50 largest container ports. Roughly 65 percent of the world's container traffic moves through ports that are either controlled or have significant investment by Chinese companies.

Beijing's String of Pearls strategy is paralleled by its "One Belt, One Road" strategy. The strategy consists of the "Silk Road Economic Belt" and the "New Maritime Silk Road." The two titles refer to the network of overland trade routes, termed the Silk Road, that once crisscrossed central Asia and the maritime trade routes that historically connected China with the Middle East and Europe.

The One Belt, One Road strategy is a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure development program to build roads, railways, pipelines and ports to connect Eurasia and create a seamless transportation corridor between China's cities and their markets in Asia and Europe. China has already tested the feasibility of rail shipments, via Russia, from China to a variety of European cities.

The OBOR initiative would encompass 60 nations that collectively have more than 4.4 billion people and that economically represent about 40 percent of global Gross Domestic Product. In 2016, the China Development Bank extended loans amounting to 160 billion dollars to countries involved in OBOR related infrastructure projects. On May 13 and 14, 2017 Beijing hosted a two-day summit, "The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation."

This was the first multilateral meeting on the OBOR initiative organized by China. Over 130 countries and 1,500 delegates, including 29 hears of states, attended the conference.

Among the world leaders in attendance were Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Both the EU countries and the U.S. sent delegates, although these not include any ranking members of their respective governments. The U.S., for example, sent Matt Pottinger, a Special Assistant to President Donald Trump, but no cabinet level or elected officials.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the summit produced "270 signed deliverables for policy coordination, infrastructure, trade, investment and people to people exchanges." At the Summit, Chinese President Chinese President Xi Jinping announced an additional $124 billion in funding for the OBOR initiative, including loans, grants and $8.7 billion in assistance to developing countries.

Beijing claims that approximately one trillion dollars has already been invested or committed to the OBOR program, with several trillion additional dollars planned to be invested over the next decade.

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road are designed to both complement one another and potentially serve as alternative routes for Chinese goods to world markets. By developing transportation infrastructure between Asia's interior and various Chinese funded ports along the Indian Ocean littoral, Beijing will be better able to funnel its trade, both exports and imports, to central Asia as well as to European and Middle Eastern markets.

Alternatively, if China's maritime trade routes are interdicted, the overland trade routes can still serve as an alternative transportation corridor.

There is also a significant military aspect to the OBOR initiative. There is no question that the infrastructure development, especially the expansion and creation of new port facilities in the Indian Ocean, will enhance Beijing's ability to project its military power in the region. Moreover, the trillions of dollars that China claims it will ultimately invest in the OBOR initiative will also underscore's Beijing's determination to protect its new investments.

Historically, the People's Liberation Army, has been, in terms of manpower, the world's largest army. It represented a significant force and allowed China to project considerable military power along its periphery. A capability underscored by America's experience during the Korean War and by Vietnam several decades later. China's ability to project military power beyond its landward periphery, even across the roughly 100-mile-wide Taiwan straits, was limited however.

Currently, the PLA has 2.3 million personnel. This is down from its peak of 6.3 million in 1951. Since the 1980s, the PLA has been progressively reduced in favor of building up the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). Recently, Beijing announced the downsizing of the PLA to under one million personnel by 2022. The reduction was designed to free up funds for new military technologies as well as to further increase the size of the PLAN and PLAAF.

The changes signal a shift in the role of the PLA away from large scale, conventional ground warfare in favor of developing a broader reliance on stand-off weapons and precision munitions. In addition, it signals an expansion of the Chinese military's role beyond territorial defense and homeland security to include a broader mandate to protect China's citizens, assets and interests abroad, and especially those associated with the One Belt, One Road initiative.

As part of this realignment of Chinese military forces, the PLAN's function has been expanded beyond costal defense to include the ability to project military power across the world's oceans, with particular emphasis on the Indian Ocean. In addition, China's military is shifting to a more integrated command structure that will have one overall commander in each theater with authority over all the branches of the PLA.

Historically China focused on defending itself against land-based invasions, usually from the north and west. In 2015, however, Beijing signalled a significant policy change when it released an official white paper on military strategy that called for a big shift from land based forces to maritime capabilities.

"The traditional mentality that land outweighs sea must be abandoned, and great importance has to be attached to managing the seas and oceans and protecting maritime rights and interests," the document noted. It went on to emphasize that the Chinese navy should guarantee "the security of sea lanes of communication and overseas interests".

Over the last several decades, China's military has undergone a significant modernization. Defense spending has soared, reaching over 200 billion dollars in 2016 and just under two percent of GNP. Adjusted for purchasing power parity, however, China's defense budget is the equivalent of between 300 and 350 billion dollars, roughly two-thirds or more of U.S. defense spending.

Since the 1980s, China has also developed a sophisticated military-industrial capability that has not only speeded up Beijing's military modernization but has also turned China into a leading exporter of sophisticated weaponry. Today, China has the largest warship building capability in Asia. It manages sophisticated weapons platforms that allow it to design and build state of the art tanks, aircraft, drones and guns.

In the short term, India and Russia are the two countries that, strategically, are the most affected by China's OBOR strategy and its related military expansion. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the String of Pearls, should they ultimately come to host a Chinese military presence, will effectively function as a containment of Indian military forces, especially, naval power, in the Indian Ocean.

Combined with China's long-standing ties and support for Pakistan, as well as its own frontier region in India's northeast, the String of Pearls effectively encircles India.

Although the Kremlin has outwardly been supportive of the OBOR initiative and although Vladimir Putin was prominently present at the OBOR Summit in Beijing, the Chinese initiative poses a significant threat to Russian interests in Central Asia. Over the last two decades, the Kremlin has attempted to rebuild Russian influence and control in the region it terms the near abroad, those countries that were once part of the Soviet Union or satellite states.

Notwithstanding, Moscow's attempts at intimidation, that strategy has largely failed. All its former East European satellite states have joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). So too have the former Soviet Baltic Republics, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Ukraine, a key component of Russia's historic strategy of defense in depth, has, at least for now, aligned itself with the West. Although, it has stopped short of either joining the EU or NATO.

Moreover, Moscow's attempts to upend the status quo in Kiev has resulted in the imposition of punishing economic sanctions on Russia by the US and the EU which have severely crippled the Russian economy.

In Central Asia, in the hydrocarbon rich "Stans" of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, Moscow has attempted to bind them economically and militarily to Russia via the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

At issue is the Kremlin's attempts to control the export of natural gas from the region to ensure that it does not compete or undermine Russia's political leverage from its own gas sales to Europe. The Chinese OBOR initiative would potentially divert Central Asia's economic activity and its hydrocarbon exports south to the string of Indian Ocean ports or east back to the Chinese heartland.

Moreover, the OBOR transportation infrastructure will largely bypass Russia, meaning that potentially it paves the way for access to the European marketplace for the "Stans" that is not dependent on the availability of Russian transportation facilities or pipelines. If the OBOR initiative is successful, China will largely replace Russia's political and economic role in Central Asia. Not good news for the Kremlin.

In the long run, Chinese naval expansion will prove to be a strategic challenge for the United States as well. China has recently deployed its first aircraft carrier and has a second one under construction. Currently, there are 17 aircraft carriers deployed among the world's navies. The United States has 10 of those carriers, with an additional one in reserve.

Italy is the only other country that has more than one carrier deployed, two smallish carriers -- the Cavour and the Garibaldi. Both Russia and China have second carriers that they are building as does Great Britain. India has two carriers under construction to add to its existing carrier.

The U.S. also has three additional, Ford class, carriers under construction. The Gerald R Ford (CVN 78) was delivered to the US Navy on May 31st. Although it will require several more years of additional work before it is fully operational. The John F Kennedy (CVN 79) is currently under construction. The initial structural fabrication work for the third carrier, Enterprise (CVN 80) has just started.

China is a long way from posing a challenge to American naval supremacy on the world's oceans. For now, the expansion of Chinese naval power, combined with land based missiles and air forces functions to extend coastal defense zones, provide defense in depth, to create broader area denial zones for U.S. naval forces as well as to intimidate China's neighbors in the East and South China Sea.

Given that the U.S. has mutual defense agreements with many of these countries, Chinese capabilities, even if still modest, can't be ignored. What is also clear is that the Indian Ocean will likely be the first theater where Sino-American naval rivalry will be played out.

Long-term, it is likely that India will need to develop the same kind of long-term security strategy with the U.S. that has characterized U.S.-Japanese military cooperation. In September 2016, The US and Indian governments announced that they had signed a Logistic Exchange Memorandum of Understanding (LEMOA) that will allow the US to use Indian military facilities.

According to the text of the agreement "the US Airforce and navy can use Indian naval and air bases for logistics support, refueling and services on a regular basis." In addition, "the US armed forces can utilize Indian military bases while conducting military operations in third countries." A remarkable turnaround for a country that once saw itself as the leader of the nonaligned movement.

In a broad sense, China's growing political, economic and military role in the Indian Ocean and central Asia is nothing more than the reassertion of China's traditional posture in the region. Still, it is a posture that China has not been able to exert for the last two centuries. It's revival, while not historically unprecedented, will lead to dramatic shifts in the region's geopolitical alignments and pose new challenges to American foreign and military policy.

-- If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
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...
Donald Trump's son-in-law and top White House advisor Jared Kushner forcefully denied colluding with Moscow to sway the 2016 election Monday, insisting a string of undisclosed meetings with Russian officials were "proper."

"Let me be very clear -- I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner said after giving testimony to a Congressional inquiry.

The normally camera-shy aide said contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a financier and a lawyer -- who offered dirt on his father-in-law's campaign rival Hillary Clinton -- were above board.

"The record and documents I have voluntarily provided will show that all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign."

Kushner spent more than two hours appearing before senators who are probing Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Both Houses of Congress and the Justice Department are investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded in that effort, which the CIA believes was ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

The sprawling probe has plagued the White House since Trump took office, with many influential members of his team having failed to report their contacts with Russian officials.

Speaking on his return to the White House -- where he is a senior advisor to the president -- Kushner said he has not "relied" on Russian funds for his business.

He also went on the offensive, echoing Trump's claim that the investigations are an effort by Democrats to explain away a shock election loss.

"Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won," Kushner, a former campaign aide, said.

The statement was the first time the reticent Kushner -- who is married to Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka -- publicly explained his contacts with Russian officials.

He is scheduled to appear before a House panel on Tuesday.

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading a broad investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.

The 36-year-old Kushner has faced scrutiny for not disclosing meetings and for taking part in a meeting with Kremlin-connected Russians along with Trump's son Donald Jr.

In an 11-page written statement, Kushner said the June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya -- which Donald Jr had taken hoping to get incriminating information on Trump's rival Hillary Clinton -- was a "waste of time."

Kushner also acknowledged a brief meeting with Kislyak in April 2016 -- when Trump himself also briefly met the ambassador -- and another during his father-in-law's transition.

That second meeting was also attended by Michael Flynn, who became Trump's national security adviser but was quickly ousted over his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

"I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations," Kushner said of the sit-down, saying he asked Kislyak who had direct lines to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was open for dialogue.

"The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day."

Kushner emphasized that he "did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office."

He said Kislyak recommended meeting with banker Sergey Gorkov -- "someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how

Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together," the statement said.

Kushner said there was no mention of sanctions in his talks with both Kislyak and Gorkov.

The topic has made recent headlines as Congress prepares to approve fresh punitive measures against Moscow.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed new sanctions in mid-June, and after reaching an agreement the House is to vote Tuesday on a bill targeting Russia over the suspected campaign meddling as well as its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Democrat Ron Wyden, a member of the committee which questioned Kushner, said his statement raised "far more questions than it answers" and should not be merely accepted as "the whole truth".

"Kushner has repeatedly concealed information about his personal finances and meetings with foreign officials," said Wyden.

Meanwhile, Trump appeared increasingly angry with his Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the investigation into possible Trump-Russia collusion quickens.

The president took to Twitter to declare his top lawyer "beleaguered," raising speculation the president may be preparing the ground to replace him.

Donald Trump Jr and Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign director, are currently negotiating with the Senate Judiciary Committee about when they will appear to give their version of events.

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Please find enclosed the Proceedings of the 22nd Annual General Meeting of the Company held on Monday, 24th July, 2017 at 10.30 A.M at Mapple Emerald, Rajokri, NH- 8, New Delhi  110038.This is for your information and records.Thanking You.Source : BSE

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Sub : Compliance under Regulation 30 of SEBI (Listing Obligations andDisclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015Pursuant to Regulation 30 of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, we hereby enclose the Notice of 34th Annual General Meeting of the Company to be held on 23rd August, 2017.Kindly acknowledge receipt.Source : BSE

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Moneyconotrol Research

Ashok Leyland (AL), the second largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, reported an optically weak quarter marred by decline in the top line and profit led by a decline in volumes, increase in operating costs, foreign exchange losses, and one-time losses. However, we recognise numerous tailwinds for the company like an increase in its market share, strong exports, strategy on defense, the GST opportunity and last but not the least, the focus on BS-VI and EVs. Any weakness in the stock should be an opportunity for long-term investors.

Quarter at a glance

In the first quarter of the fiscal, net revenue from operations saw a decline of 0.5 percent (y-o-y) and 36 percent (q-o-q). The decline was mainly because of the headwinds industry faced on account of BS-IV led pre-buying and GST rollout. The same resulted in destocking and postponement of purchase by customers. The company witnessed volume decline of 8.6 percent (y-o-y) and 40 percent (q-o-q).

ALs EBITDA margin shrunk by 410 basis points (y-o-y) in 1Q18, which was led by a rise in raw materials cost (76bps), employee costs (192bps) and other operating costs (142bps) as a percentage of sales.

The management said that raw material costs continue to go up and feels confident to pass on the same as it plans to hike prices of its products starting August 2017. The company indicated that it is the only player who has been taking steady price hikes.

On employee cost increase, the lower denominator (sales) played its part and employee cost as a percentage of sales will even out as sales pick up.

The companys profit after tax fell significantly by 61.7 percent from last year. This decline was mainly caused by foreign exchange losses of Rs 2.7 crores recorded in Q1 of FY18 as against the gain of Rs 49.7 crore in the same quarter previous year. Additionally, one-time loss on loans to subsidiaries of Rs 12.5 crore dented profit. As per management, all material impairments on subsidiaries have been taken care of.

Commenting on Hinduja Foundries, the management indicated that it is not yet EBITDA positive. It has, however, got cash profit for the month of June and is going to be EBITDA accretive, going forward.

Looking beyond the current quarter numbers, the company did sound positive, riding on multiple tailwinds.

While the company continued to face industry-related headwinds, it achieved the highest ever market share of 34.7 percent in the current quarter. On the back of the companys technological prowess and smooth riding over the past many quarters, it has been able to gain year-on-year market share in 12 out of the past 13 quarters.

The market share gain was not only in a particular product or a region, but it was well-rounded across all products and regions. This was driven by its innovative BS-IV compliant iEGR technology, which was launched in April after the government banned the use of BS-III vehicles in the country. The management is very confident about the technology as is evident from the increase in warranty for its products.

With many of the headwinds largely behind, volume pick-up is only a matter of time riding on the positive impact of GST rollout, and the governments increased focus on infrastructure spending. While recognising the competitive intensity, the management is confident about its products and its position in the market.

The management, in the conference call, indicated that international markets such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have started to recover and the company undertook good exports in the quarter gone by, especially in Bangladesh. On the back of this, the company has guided to 25 percent growth in MHCV exports.

AL has earmarked Rs 500 crore towards R&D to prepare itself for BS-VI and electric vehicles. As per the governments timeline, the auto companies have to be BS-VI compliant by 2020 and the company is gearing itself for the same.

Recently, AL announced its strategic alliance with SUN Mobility to take a step further in developing EVs. However, the management indicated that it will have a positive impact on the company only after 18-24 months.

The company has sold 1,500 units to Indian Arm Forces and the management is very confident and excited about the long-term opportunity in the defense sector.

In sum, we are positive on the medium to long-term outlook on Ashok Leyland. The company has bolstered its position in the market and looks set to gain from GST, infrastructure spending and markets return to normalcy post BS-IV implementation.

We also like ALs long-term growth drivers including opportunities in defense, preparedness for BS-VI and foray into EVs. At the current price, the stock trades at a reasonable valuation of 18.7 FY18 projected earnings and 14.5x FY19 projected earnings, which makes it an ideal candidate for accumulation on any weakness.
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Two-wheeler major Bajaj Auto plans to begin shipments of its bikes and three-wheelers to Thailand in next couple of months as part of its plans to consolidate its position in the Southeast Asian market.

The two-wheeler major currently exports to various markets in the region including the Philippines, Singapore and Myanmar.

The Pune-headquartered firm has also started exporting KTM bikes to the Malaysian market recently.

"South East Asia is a big market for two-wheelers. We are getting good response from Malaysia and now in couple of months will also start exporting to Thailand," Bajaj Auto President (Business Development and Assurance) S Ravikumar told PTI.

The company will be exporting both bikes and three- wheelers to the Thailand market, he added.

The company, which exports to various regions including Africa and Latin America, is witnessing robust growth in new markets like Malaysia where it recently started exporting units.

"Efforts on entering new markets have paid dividends and dependence of the company on traditional high volume countries like Sri Lanka, Nigeria, etc has reduced," Ravikumar said.

For the quarter ended June 30, the company sold 4,09,525 units in the export markets.

"It is after five quarters that we have crossed 4 lakh unit sales mark in export markets. New markets like Malaysia are maturing now and have given decent results," Ravikumar said.

Elaborating on various markets, he said that sales have picked up in Nigeria, a big market in African continent.

"Besides, Sri Lanka continues to be down, while in markets like Colombia and Philippines we are holding on," Ravikumar said.

The company remains "cautiously optimistic" about export markets going ahead, he added.

Commenting on the domestic sales, he said the market would continue to see "turbulence" in August with GST implementation going on and the market would only stabilise in September.

When asked about new launches, Ravikumar said the company's new product pipeline remained robust with plans to introduce many models in remaining quarters of the fiscal.

He, however, declined to share specific details about the new product launches.
Meta layoffs | Why Zuckerberg's Metaverse bet has proven to be a bit too costly
A plug is seen coming from the Chevrolet Volt electric car during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan January 13, 2009. REUTERS/Mark Blinch (UNITED STATES) - RTR23CT6

The government's new action plan to curb use of fossil fuels can replace close to half of the motor vehicles to run on electricity on Indian roads by 2030.

The Union Cabinet will soon consider the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric vehicles in India (FAME) scheme to provide both manufactures and consumers of electric vehicles (EVs) to get assorted incentives: tax and non-tax, according to The Financial Express.

The discussion includes reducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) levied on electric cars to zero from 12% now. At present, the GST (inclusive of cesses) on petrol/diesel vehicles ranges around 28-43%.

If states agree to the plan, EVs will be exempt form toll-tax and road-tax making it cheaper.

EV's cost around 2.5 times of petrol/diesel vehicles and the scheme could enhance cash incentives to buyers, sources aware of the plan told Financial Express.

The move will also ease domestic EV manufacturers as well as encourage global players such as Tesla, Toyota, Nissan and Renault to set up manufacturing units in India.

Under the FAME scheme, a two-wheeler buyers get up to Rs 22,000 reduction in purchase price while the price discount is up to Rs 25,000 for three-wheelers and Rs 1.87 lakh for 4-wheelers.

EVs manufactured in India can travel about 100 km in a single charge compared to 300-350 km by EVs manufactured by firms like Tesla. To solve this problem, the government will likely incentivise setting up of lithium ion battery plants in India.

Earlier, Maruti Suzuki India had approached the government for incentives to establish an integrated manufacturing facility for the battery pack in India.

Mercedes Benz Managing Director for India Roland Folger has also asked the government to offer incentives on electric-car imports until local output becomes viable  if New Delhi is keen on ending fossil-fuel transport by 2030, reported The Economic Times.

The German automaker, which is heavily investing in technology for electric mobility, said that if adequate support is extended these vehicles may make their way to India by 2020.

Earlier in June, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had said on Twitter that he is in talks with the government of India regarding temporary relief on import restrictions until a local factory is built in the country.

With continued decline in battery costs, EVs are becoming cost effective. A set of fiscal incentives can create a self-sustaining EV market that will help India achieve its 2020 target of 67 million EVs and nearly half of the 66 crore (from 21 crore now) vehicles by 2030.

According to a Niti Aayog-Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) report, India can save 64% of anticipated passenger road-based mobility-related energy demand and 37% of carbon emissions in 2030 by pursuing a shared, electric, and connected mobility future.

This would result in a reduction of 156 Mtoe in diesel and petrol consumption for that year.

At $52/bbl of crude, this would imply a net savings of roughly Rs 3.9 lakh crore (approximately $60 billion) in 2030. This would help India in achieving its commitment under Paris Climate Agreement to reduce the emissions intensity of its gross domestic product by 33-35% by 2030 from 2005 level. Simultaneously, it would also help Indian renewable energy manufacturers who could have 175 gigawatt capacity including 100 GW from solar by 2022. The EV batteries could be used to store solar energy, said the report.
ICICI Prudential appointed actuary to meet IRDAI over Sahara Life takeover

A senior IRDAI official said that that they have called for a meeting with the appointed actuary on Wednesday to discuss the takeover and the valuations that have been arrived at by the insurer.

July 24, 2017 / 05:35 PM IST

The appointed actuary at ICICI Prudential Life Insurance will meet officials of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) over the takeover of Sahara Life Insurance. Moneycontrol had reported on July 4 that ICICI Prudential had begun valuation of liabilities for the takeover of Sahara Life.

A senior IRDAI official said that that they have called for a meeting with the appointed actuary on Wednesday to discuss the takeover and the valuations that have been arrived at by the insurer. ICICI Prudential Life is having a board meeting tomorrow for the declaration of their first quarter results for the financial year 2017-18.

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) had, in June, appointed an administrator to look into the business of the insurer and later had instructed them to not write any new business.

Based on certain criteria about six insurers were approached to assess their interest in buying policyholder liabilities. Of them, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance gave a favourable consent.

Sahara Group has been reeling under financial troubles ever since its chief Subrata Roy was arrested in 2014 in a case of non-refund of almost Rs 20,000 crore to investors. Sahara Mutual Fund's licence was cancelled by Securities and Exchange Board of India in 2015.

IRDAI had sent a formal letter to the insurer on this issue. On July 3, ICICI Prudential Life begun the process of valuing the policyholder liabilities of Sahara Life. They had been given three weeks time to assess it and they have now submitted the report to IRDAI.

Based on the submissions, IRDAI will revalidate it and if it is found okay, the policyholder liabilities and assets will be transferred to ICICI Prudential Life.

Only after the meeting with the appointed actuary will the process of transfer begin. Sahara Life has already been instructed to not write any new business.

Sahara Life also has the option to approach the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) and challenge the decision of the insurance regulator. Further, they can also approach the Lucknow High Court (their headquarters are in Lucknow) or the government to seek a resolution.

In June, IRDAI said that the insurer has been acting in a manner likely to be prejudicial to the interests of holders of life insurance policies. It had also said that all the policies issued by Sahara Life will now be managed by an administrator.

Under the current scheme, only policyholder assets and liabilities will be transferred to ICICI PruLife. The rest including employee liabilities, shareholder reserves, gratuity, share capital and other assets will remain with company.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel's first quarter profit is expected to fall 20 percent sequentially to Rs 300 crore on weak operational performance. Results will be announced on July 25.

Revenue, however, may increase 0.2 percent to Rs 21,975 crore from Rs 21,935 crore on sequential basis, according to average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18.

Operating profit is seen falling 5.5 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 7,550 crore and margin may shrink 204 basis points to 34.36 percent on sequential basis, impacted by India business.

Telecom operators' revenues and margins are expected to get a hit from Reliance Jio's paid plans as these companies offered unlimited free voice and extra data package to high ARPU subscribers.

Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.

India revenue may fall 1.4 percent QoQ to Rs 12,790 crore and operating profit may decline 8 percent to Rs 4,400 crore with margin erosion of 256 basis points in Q1.

Analysts expect moderation in sequential revenue decline in June quarter because Reliance Jio started to charge for its services from April 1. India's revenue fell 6.25 percent QoQ in Q4FY17 and 6.1 percent in Q3FY17.

Bharti Airtel is fighting well to retain its customers but it is coming at the cost of ARPU.

India business' average revenue per user is seen declining 3.5 percent QoQ to Rs 152.5 but volume growth may be 8.3 percent at 413 billion minutes and minutes of usage may increase 5.5 percent to 497.

Africa business in Q1 is likely to decline 2.4 percent sequentially to Rs 4,925 crore but operating profit may increase 1.8 percent to Rs 1,330 crore and margin may expand 110 basis points to 27 on sequential basis on cost control measures.
business Expect K-12 school network to double in the next 3 years: Zee Learn Zee Learn posted a strong set of first quarter earnings of FY18. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Debshankar Mukhopadhyay, CEO of the company discussed the details.
The IT firm Persistent Systems reported consolidated net profit increase by 2.5 percent to Rs 75 crore for the quarter ended June as compared to the net profit of Rs 73.28 crore in the June quarter last fiscal. The companys revenues grew 3.7 percent to Rs 728 crore in the quarter under review from Rs 701.77 crore in the April-June 2016 period.

The company's dollar revenue in Q1 was in-line with expectations but margins have come in below estimates. The EBIT margins for the quarter stood at 9 percent for the quarter under review compared to 12.5 percent last quarter.

The main reason for slower margins was currency impact of 120 basis points in the first quarter, said Anand Deshpande, Founder, MD & CEO, Persistent Systems, along with that there was also visa related expenses which were one-off.

Moreover, sales team was also hired in advance along with onsite hiring for fulfilling projects that started during the quarter, he added. However, all these were transient items and they will help in better revenues over the next few quarters, which will help in reducing the percentage of margin and improve overall profitability.

See great opportunities in the data digital internet of things (IoT) space and healthcare space.

The company would stick to its revenue of lower teens in FY18 and growth will be largely organic. The new acquisition of PARX will help grow European business significantly, which so far has been limited, said Deshpande. It would be premature to put the contribution of PARX in terms of numbers, he said but it would reported as part of the companys European revenues.

When asked how the company planned to spend the cash of books of around Rs 900 crore, Deshpande said there are no specific plans of buyback, but would look at smaller acquisitions to fill in areas in terms of new technology, region expansion etc.

However, the company has announced some employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) scheme for key employees, which would require small amount of share to be bought back.
Global reinsurers are losing interest in Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the government-sponsored crop insurance scheme. The coverage under the scheme has increased to 40 percent of cropped area in FY18 but insurers are anticipating inadequate capacity of reinsurance capacity.

"While the domestic reinsurer, General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC Re), is providing cover for crop insurance, this may not be adequate when 50 percent of cropped area is covered in FY19. We will need global reinsurance support for that," said a senior public sector insurance official.

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) will have an increased presence since the government has allocated Rs 9,000 crore for the scheme. In 2016-17, it was allocated Rs 5,500 crore. During his budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the coverage under the scheme will be increased to 50 percent of cropped area in 2018-19.

Sources in the industry said that global reinsurance companies with presence in India have considerably reduced exposure to this scheme. In several other countries, crop insurance is considered a risky segment. A senior industry official said that without foreign reinsurance support, Indian reinsurance support will not be able to sustain the scheme.

The coverage of this scheme will be increased from 30 percent of cropped area in 2016-17 to 40 percent in 2017-18 and 50 percent in 2018-19. The Budget provision of Rs 5,500 crore for this Yojana in the budget estimate of 2016-17 was increased to Rs 13,240 crore in the revised estimate of 2016-17 to settle arrears claims.

The crop insurance segment saw premiums of Rs 20,611.42 crore in FY17 as compared to Rs 5,310.06 crore collected in FY16. The scheme, approved by the Cabinet in January 2016, has a uniform premium of two percent to be paid by farmers for all kharif crops and 1.5 percent for all rabi crops. For commercial and horticultural crops, the farmers premium is five percent. The rest of the premium is paid by the government.

Data from the General Insurance Council showed that compared to a market share of 5.5 percent in FY16, it grew to 16.1 percent in FY17. The private sector players collected Rs 9,864.77 crore of premium in the crop segment while public sector insurers collected Rs 3,682.52 crore of premium. Agriculture Insurance Corporation of India (AIC) collected Rs 7,064.13 crore in FY17.

More than 1 million farmers have been given cover under this scheme, making India the third largest agriculture insurance market in the world after US and China.
Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda dubbed the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as "extremely tedious" for traders and sought simplification of various procedures involved.

Speaking at 'Veopari Sammelan' here in the home constituency of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Hooda noted that in the name of 'One Nation, One Tax', the present GST brought by the BJP was "extremely tedious" with seven-tier tax structure.

The Congress, on the other hand, was committed to one tax rate (with three slabs) with a cap of 18 per cent, he claimed.

The two-time former chief minister also presented a 12- point demand letter for a people-friendly GST in front of the traders who had come from across the state.

He said that if the government failed to fulfil their demands, then they would hold a 'Veopari Mahapanchayat' in Haryana after the monsoon session of Parliament and later protest would also be held across the state.

He demanded that a provision be kept for filing two returns instead of multiple in a year, cloth traders be exempted from the GST while imposition of GST on farm-related goods should be done away with.

He also demanded to revoke the provision of search and seizure, saying it would invite inspector raj.

"We are not against the GST, but we are opposing the flaws in the newly-introduced GST," Hooda said.

Former Haryana Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma and Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda also spoke on the occasion.

The former chief minister has also been holding "Kisan Panchayats" across the state to highlight the plight of the farmers.
An acute water crisis has affected various parts of the country, right from the parched fields of Maharashtra to the dry taps of Chennai. Here are what policymakers are suggesting to turn replenish vessels, water tanks and reservoirs across the country. (Image: Reuters)

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today said his government was ready to discuss the loan waiver scheme for farmers with opposition Congress-NCP leaders.

He was speaking in the Legislative Assembly after the Monsoon session began today.

Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and NCP leader Ajit Pawar sought an explanation from the government about loan waiver announced for the cultivators.

"Loan of farmers should be waived immediately. The loan waiver scheme is time consuming and farmers' patience is being tested," said Pawar.

To this, Fadnavis replied,"Maharashtra government is ready to discuss loan waiver with opposition leaders. The opposition leaders should not forget that in supplementary demands, state government has asked for provision of Rs 20,000 crore, which we propose to use for the loan waiver scheme".

"There will be no time limit for such discussion. It can stretch for long hours but the state (government) will discuss the issue with opposition," Fadnavis added.

Dissatisfied with the reply, the opposition MLAs staged a walk-out for a brief period.
India's trade deficit with China has marginally dipped to USD 51 billion in 2016-17 from USD 52.69 billion in the previous fiscal, Parliament was informed today.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that efforts are being made to increase overall exports by diversifying the trade basket with emphasis on manufactured goods, services, resolution of market access issues and other non-trade barriers.

"This is done through bilateral meetings and institutional dialogues. Indian exporters are encouraged to participate in major trade fairs in China to show-case Indian products," she said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

In a separate reply, the minister also listed out top 10 countries with which India's trade deficit has increased during the last three years and this fiscal.

The countries include South Africa, Iran, Russia, Canada, Japan, Australia and China.

India's bilateral trade with China stood at USD 71.48 billion in 2016-17.

Replying to a separate question, she said the government is not working on a proposal to merge the directorate general of foreign trade with the central board for excise and customs to promote ease of doing business.
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The Steel Ministry has received two references with regard to irregularities in award of a tender by state-run iron ore miner NMDC, Parliament was informed today.

"Two references regarding irregularities in award of tender by NMDC for Inter Plant Pipeline and Gas Mixing and Boosting Station at Nagarnar Iron and Steel Plant, Nagarnar have been received in the Ministry," Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

The matter is under further examination in consultation with Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO), NMDC Ltd and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), he informed.

In order to ensure transparency in award of tenders, the minister said, "NMDC generally floats tenders in global/open tender mode in e-procurement mode by posting tenders in the NMDC website, Central Procurement Portal (CP Portal) with wide publicity in leading newspapers."

NMDC has approved the Contract Manual comprising of standard procedures and guidelines for transparency and to prevent the irregularities in the process.

NMDC, he said, has entered into a pact with the Transparency International and introduced Integrity Pact in all the contracts whose value is more than Rs 20 crore. It has also adopted a policy on 'banning of business dealings with agencies".
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The National Company Law Tribunal is busy dealing with with bad loan cases these days. However, recently employees of Aruna Hotels in Chennai filed a bankruptcy application with NCLT against their former employer.

This is one of the first cases where an employee has approached the court. If the employees win, then the verdict will be landmark as the individuals will then be able to file complaints with the bankruptcy court over personal grievances.

NCLT's Chennai branch has accepted application of three employees, a report in the Economic Times said. The court has also appointed P Sriram as the interim insolvency professional (IIP).

The complaint said that the employer  Aruna Hotels  failed to pay arrears of salary and leavy salary to the employees.

In relation to this case, the court referred to another case - of one D Ramjees who had filed a case against his employer. Ramjees had asked for Rs 2.6 crore, which the company had denied. However, a letter by the employer admitting to arrears worked in Ramjees's favour.

The court has asked the insolvency officer to take charge and declare moratorium against the company till the case is wrapped up. The court also asked two more employees to approach the IIP with their claims.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was implemented earlier this year with companies waiting for recovery of their dues. Essar Steel, one of the 12 defaulters, has dragged the Reserve Bank of India over the IBC proceedings.

In June, the central bank had asked 12 large defaulters to move the NCLT to recover their dues.
The logo of Nomura Securities is pictured at the company's Otemachi Head Office in Tokyo, Japan, November 18, 2016. Picture taken November 18, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai - RTSTQUW

The demand for Indian equities in Japan has risen to a high. The assets of Nomura Holdings India equity fund quadrupled to about USD 3.6 billion (400 billion yen) in the past year.

At the end of June, Japanese investors owned Indian stocks and bonds worth $13 billion  the highest since 2012, Bloomberg quoted Indias regulator.

Its not like we put in any special marketing effort for this fund, Kazuto Wada, an executive director at Nomura, told Bloomberg. Investors are looking at where the growth will be in the medium to long term, without having to worry about short-term swings in the market.

The prime reason for the increasing attraction of the Japanese towards the Indian market is the high economic growth. The expansion rate of the Indian market is seven times that of its Japanese counterpart, which is seeing a stagnation in the past few decades. Compared to the India's 10-year bond yield, which is at 6.43 percent, Japan's counterpart yields 0.07 percent.

In addition, the optimism that the markets have shown for the market-friendly policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, have led to the buoyancy.

According to Wada, India's reforms are "showing tangible progress" with its economy growing at 7 percent annually. Growth in advanced economies is slowing.
3:30 pm Market at Close: Driven by steady corporate earnings so far, benchmark indices closed the session on an extremely strong note, but the Nifty failed to achieve 10,000-mark in Mondays trade.

The Sensex closed up 216.98 points at 32245.87, while the Nifty ended higher by 51.15 points at 9966.40, about 35 points away from the fresh milestone of 10,000. The market breadth was negative as the declines outnumbered the advances. About 1332 shares advanced against a decline of 1388 shares, while 173 shares were unchanged.

Bharti Airtel, Reliance and Wipro were the top gainers on both indices, while Dr Reddys Labs, Axis Bank and Vedanta lost the most.

2:59 pm Buzzing: Healthcare firm Divis Laboratories fell as much as 5.6 percent after dismal performance in the quarter ended June 2017.

Profit tanked 41.5 percent year-on-year to Rs 176.54 crore and revenue declined 19.3 percent to Rs 821.20 crore in April-June quarter.

Operating profit fell 39.4 percent to Rs 244.82 crore and margin contracted by 990 basis points to 29.8 percent compared with year-ago quarter despite forex gain of Rs 7.01 crore (against Rs 0.73 crore YoY).

The pharma firm slashed its FY18 revenue growth guidance to (10) percent from 5 percent growth.

2:41 pm Market Check: Benchmark indices continued with its strong uptrend, with the Nifty inching closer towards the 10000-mark.

The Sensex was up 232.57 points at 32261.46, while the Nifty was up 58.25 points at 9973.50. The market breadth was positive, but narrow, as 1452 shares advanced against a decline of 1167 shares, while 158 shares were unchanged.

Wipro and Reliance continued to gain the most, while ONGC and Dr Reddys Laboratories were the top losers.

2:25 pm Earnings: Zee Learn's Q1 profit nearly doubled to Rs 12.8 crore from Rs 6.7 crore and revenue grew by 44 percent to Rs 67 crore YoY.

Operating profit jumped 56.8 percent year-on-year to Rs 25 crore and margin expanded to 300 basis points to 37.4 percent in Q1.

2:10 pm Pharma stocks in focus: Dishman Pharma said inspection at arm's Swiss units successfully completed.

Lupin has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for Fluocinonide topical solution.

1:57 pm Results: IRB Infrastructure shares rallied 5 percent after better-than-expected earnings in Q1.

Revenue grew by 19.7 percent and profit increased 30.8 percent YoY. Other income jumped 74.1 percent to Rs 53.5 crore.

1:40 pm Market Check: Benchmark indices remained strong, with the Sensex up 200.41 points at 32,229.30 and the Nifty up 48.85 points at 9,964.10.

The rally was driven by Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ITC, TCS and Infosys.

About 1442 shares advanced against 1,140 declining shares on the BSE.

1:10 pm Earnings: Indiabulls Real Estate's Q1 consolidated net profit grew by 29.1 percent year-on-year to Rs 152.5 crore and revenue increased 23.4 percent to Rs 1,077 crore.

Operating profit jumped 24.7 percent to Rs 373.7 crore and margin expanded to 34.7 percent from 34.3 percent YoY.

12:54 pm IPO: The Security and Intelligence Services (India) Limited is estimated to raise Rs 778 crore through its initial public offer or IPO, according to sources.

The company's IPO will open for subscription on July 31, 2017 and close on August 2, 2017. The price band for the IPO is set at Rs 805 t0 Rs 815 and the market lot is of 18 shares and in multiples of 18 thereafter.

The initial offer would comprise fresh issue of Rs 362.25 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 415 crore.

The net proceeds from fresh issue will be utilized for repayment and pre-payment of a portion of certain outstanding indebtedness, funding working capital requirements and for general corporate purposes.

12:34 pm Earnings: Country's second largest private sector lender HDFC Bank started off the year on a strong note by showing impressive growth in earnings on all counts. Profit grew by 20.2 percent year-on-year to Rs 3,893.84 crore despite sharp rise in provisions.

Profitability was driven by net interest income and other income.

The stock price lost ground due to asset quality concerns but immediately recovered to hit fresh record high of Rs 1,725 (up 1.25 percent) after the bank clarified that the rise in asset quality was due to farm loan waiver announced by states in June.

12.05 pm Market Check: Reliance Industries, ITC, technology and banks stocks lifted the Nifty near 10,000 level in noon despite mixed trade in Asia.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 191.60 points at 32,220.49 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 49.85 points at 9,965.10 but the market breadth does not look strong.

About 1,393 shares advanced against 1,030 declining shares on the BSE.

All sectoral indices barring Pharma and Metal traded in green.

11:40 am Alok in focus: Alok Industries shares rallied as much as 13 percent in morning trade after a media report indicated that Aion Capital and SSG Capital are interested to buy controlling stake in the troubled textile company.

Alok Industries, which owes about Rs 23,000 crore to lenders and trade vendors, is one of 12 accounts that already identified by the Reserve Bank of India under Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code in June.

11:20 am Reliance near life high: Oil-to-telecom major Reliance Industries moved closer to its intraday record high of Rs 1,626.05 touched on January 15, 2008.

The stock today hit fresh 52-week high of Rs Rs 1,624.80. It was trading at Rs 1,621.95, up Rs 35.75, or 2.25 percent on the BSE.

11:05 am Plants sale: Amtek Auto shares were locked at 5 upper circuit at Rs 31.15 amid high volumes after subsidiary signed agreement to sell UK plants to Liberty Group.

There were pending buy orders of 63,872 shares, with no sellers available on the BSE, at 11:01 hours IST.

"Amtek Global Technologies Pte. Ltd., subsidiary of Amtek Auto Limited, has entered into an arrangement to sell its UK based subsidiaries' plants to Liberty Group," the company said in its filing on July 21.

Meanwhile, the auto ancillary company's loss widened sharply to Rs 889.6 crore in the quarter ended June 2017, from Rs 319.7 crore in year-ago quarter, hit by lower revenue and exceptional loss.

10:50 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks rallied further, with the Nifty inching towards 10,000-mark. Index heavyweights Reliance Industries and ITC led major support to the market as both contributed 50 percent to Nifty's gains.

Banks and technology stocks also gained strength.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 192.14 points at 32,221.03 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 50.85 points to 9,966.10.

About 1,388 shares advanced against 862 advancing shares on the BSE.

10:40 am Interview: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) posted a dismal set of earnings in the first quarter ended June, 2017 as profit was down to Rs 234 crores on back of lower crude oil prices versus Rs 1942.4 crore in the last quarter.

Throwing more light on the earnings performance and the outlook going forward, Managing Director, H Kumar said the inventory loss of USD 2.33 per barrel during the last quarter vis a vis and inventory gain of USD 4.72 per barrel during first quarter last fiscal. However, our operating numbers are much higher than Q1 of FY17, he said.

Standalone total income for the quarter was down 20 percent at Rs 14494.6 crore versus Rs 18,108.6 crore reported in the last quarter

The EBITDA was down 63 percent at Rs 582.7 crore versus Rs 1554.1 crore same quarter last fiscal.

When asked about the company's merger with HPCL, he said as of now government is only talking about ONGC acquiring stake in HPCL and MRPL merger has not yet been discussed.

On the business outlook, he said there is a huge potential of higher capacity for polypropylene unit going forward and see an uptick in gross refining margins over the next three quarters. The polypropylene unit was shut for 35 days in Q1.

The gross refining margins for Q1FY18 stood at USD 4.7/bbl versus USD 5.29/bbl year on year.

10:20 am Buzzing: Shares of Avenue Supermarts, the operator of D-Mart retail chain, gained 5.5 percent intraday on the back of strong June quarter (Q1FY18) numbers.

The company's Q1 net profit increased 47.7 percent at Rs 174.7 crore versus Rs 118.4 crore, in the same quarter last fiscal.

Total income of the company was up 35.7 percent at Rs 3,598 crore versus Rs 2,652.4 crore.

The company's operating profit (EBITDA) was up 29.2 percent at Rs 303 crore and EBITDA margin increased at 8.4 percent.

10:08 am Cigarette price hike: ITC shares gained as much as 2.4 percent in morning trade Monday as the cigarette major hiked select product prices following GST Council hiked cess to pre-GST level.

The company increased cigarette prices of its three brands effective July 18, reports CNBC-TV18 quoting sources of Cogencis.

It hiked Gold Flake Kings and Classic Rich prices to Rs 300 per 20 pack each while Navy Cut Filter price increased to Rs 188 per 20 pack.

9:58 am Market Check: Benchmark indices extended gains in morning, with the Nifty hitting 9950 level, backed by ITC.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 134.64 points at 32,163.53 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 32.05 points at 9,947.30.

About two shares advanced for every share falling on the BSE.

9:45 am Buzzing: Share price of AstraZeneca Pharma advanced 3.5 percent intraday as the company going to launch its drug in India.

The company is going to launch Osimertinib 40 mg and 80 mg in India on July 27, 2017.

Osimertinib is an oral anti-cancer drug for management of lung cancer. It is indicated for the treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as detected by an appropriate test, whose disease has progressed on or after EGFR TKI therapy.

Osimertinib is the product of AstraZeneca group and has been approved in over 45 countries, including US, EU, Japan, China and other Asian countries.

9:35 am Market Outlook: Sanjeev Prasad of Kotak Institutional Equities said the research house believes global macro factors will continue to be more relevant for the Indian market without a stronger domestic economic and earnings recovery.

The Indian market has performed exactly in-line with the EM MSCI Index over the past 12 months. The BSE Sensex rallied 15 percent in last one year.

In model portfolio, Kotak removed Aurobindo Pharma and reduced weight on Reliance Industries, Prasad said.

He further said the research house allocated 100 bps to IOC and included Hindalco Industries. Among metals stocks, it has had recommended positions in JSW Steel, Tata Steel and Vedanta.

Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks started off the week on a positive note, with the Nifty and Bank indices opening at record highs.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 51.05 points at 32,079.94 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 9.05 points at 9,924.30. About two shares advanced for every share falling on the BSE.

Lupin gained 2 percent followed by Wipro, Reliance Industries, Coal India and Adani Ports.

Nifty Midcap gained 0.2 percent in early trade. Divis Labs, SREI Infrastructure, MRPL and Persistent Systems lost up to 5 percent.

Tata Sponge, IIFL Holdings, Quess Corp, J&K Bank, GVK Power, Avenue Supermarts, Amtek Auto, Fortis Healthcare, HPCL and Vijaya Bank gained up to 8 percent.
Market

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By Dinesh Rohira

The market witnessed an overwhelming sustenance to breach its past weeks crucial resistance level seen at 9,850 to close above 9,900 level in current trading session.

On the backdrop of favourable earnings growth and positive cues on global events, the Nifty surpassed its 9,900 level to trade above its all exponential moving average on closing basis despite a marginal consolidation seen at a certain occasion.

On the daily chart, Nifty formed a strong bull candlestick pattern indicating an uptrend momentum in the upcoming session.

However, the breakout from current hurdle will be a crucial trigger for Nifty to trade around 10,000 mark in the near-term.

On the technical front, the RSI at 64 indicates a strong buying sentiment in the market, while the MACD at 87 which is above its Signal Line supports the next leg of rally.

Further, the EMA analysis indicates a strong uptrend momentum with crucial support level seen at 9,875, while the upper band will be resisted at 9,920 level.

With possibility of breakout from the upper band on the framework of succeeding the earnings expectation and favourable domestic data, the 10000 mark in near term cant be ruled out in upcoming session

Here is a list of top 4 stocks which can give up to 10% return in short term:

Balaji Telefilms: BUY| Target Rs. 206 | Stoploss Rs. 175 |Upside 10%

Regardless of trading on a sideways direction for several trading periods, Balaji has managed to trade above its closing level in most of the trading session on the backdrop of volume breakout witnessed in the current session.

On the weekly basis, the stock was up by 4 percent, supported by mounting buy on Fridays trade. The technical outlook for stock suggests a strong upward trend with RSI at 72 which supports a buying regime at this price, while the MACD at 13.4 indicates a crossover from its Signal-Line which is at 11.3 indicating a bullish rally in upcoming sessions.

According to exponential moving average analysis, it indicates a strong uptrend with a major support level at 163 with upper resistance level at 197.

The inherent break out from upper level is expected by building a strong uptrend momentum to surface above 200 mark in next leg. We have a BUY recommendation for Balaji Telefilms Ltd. which is currently trading at Rs. 187.50

Wipro: BUY| Target Rs. 307 | Stoploss Rs272 | Upside 7%

Wipro Ltd. bounced back from its crucial support level after consolidating at a lower level for several trading sessions. With this uptrend momentum build on the backdrop of volume support, the stock started to trade at the bullish trajectory.

On the weekly basis, the stock gained about 8 percent. On the daily chart, the stock formed a bullish reversal pattern which indicates an end of the downward movement.

On the technical front, the RSI of stock stood at 59 as price started to trade above its past resistance level.

Further on the basis of EMA, the stock is currently trading on positive bias where the major support level is seen at 267 below its closing price, while the near term resistance will be tested at 290-295 zone.

The breakout from the upper circuit is expected to build a leap momentum to trade around 300 level. We have a BUY recommendation for Wipro Ltd. which is currently trading at Rs286.40

Coal India: BUY| Target Rs279 | Stoploss Rs250 | Upside 6%

Coal India pushed firmly on uptrend movement forming a series of highs on a closing basis after going through series of consolidation phase in a previous trade.

Backed by volume breakout after a hefty struggle, the stock formed upward reversal pattern which suggests a bullish continuation price pattern. On weekly basis, the stock gained almost 5 per cent.

On the technical front, the RSI stood at 52 suggesting a favourable buying regime, coupled with MACD at 1.49 supporting the current rally as it crossed over its signal-line.

On moving average analysis, the stock is currently at upward trend as price started to trade above its 50-days EMA, where the stock will face a crucial resistance at 275 and major support level at 252.

The breakout from the upper circuit is expected to the extent the current rally at board range of 275-280 zone. We have a BUY recommendation for Coal India which is currently trading at Rs. 262.25.

Tata Motors: BUY| Target Rs485 | Stoploss Rs452 |Upside: - 5%

After consolidating through the lower level at 260 for several past trading sessions, Tata Motor saw an upward reversal movement which contributed the broader momentum in price and volume in current trading session to trade on a positive trajectory.

On the weekly basis, the stock gained almost 3 per cent and closed on a positive trajectory. Technically Tata Motors is at uptrend regime with RSI at 60 suggesting a strong buying sentiment at current price band coupled with MACD trading above its Signal Line.

Further, the moving average analysis suggests a strong support for upward movement as price started to trade above its 50-day EMA. A major support level for the stock will be seen at 453 while the resistance level will be tested at 480.

The possibility of a break out from upper circuit level will support the next leg of an upward trend. We have a BUY recommendation for Tata Motors Ltd. which is currently trading at Rs. 464.60

The author is Founder & CEO, 5nance.com. The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts 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.
Mercedes-Benz Valuation: $48.6 billion Change in valuation: 2 percent Change in rank: +1

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German luxury carmaker Mercedes- Benz can bring in BS VI emission compliant models as early as 2018 to India for which it can also forge partnership with oil firms for higher grade oil.

The car maker has already sought help from various ministries, including Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, which has asked them to get in touch with oil and gas firms.

"We would be ready as early as 2018. We could bring the first set of vehicles in 2018 into the country," Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director and CEO Roland Folger told PTI when asked about the company's plans regarding launch of vehicles compliant with Bharat Stage (BS) VI emission norms. The move would, however, depend on issues like availability of BS VI grade fuel by 2018, he added.

"We are already talking to some of the oil and gas companies or it is going to be something which nobody expects us to do," Folger said. When asked if the company would work with some of the oil and gas companies to source BSVI grade fuel, Folger said: "Of course, we work with some of them." Citing the example of Reliance Industries, he added that the oil and gas major has been exporting BS VI oil for the last five years.

"They are exporting to Europe, US. They actually produce more BS VI grade fuel for export markets than they do normal fuels for India," Folger said. He added that the major challenge in front of them is the availability of BS VI fuel across adequate fuel stations across the country.

"If say 50 of our vehicles come into the marketplace how many fuel stations you expect to get BS VI fuel and how much time will it take to ramp it up. It is a hen and egg situation. We are waiting for all the fuel to be available and the fuel stations are waiting for all the vehicles to be there," Folger said.

He added that it was important to start as early as possible with smaller volumes and then ramp it up accordingly. Elaborating further he said the company is in talks with various ministries regarding the issue.

"We have already asked Ministry of Road Transport and Highways whether they would support us and they haven't said no. They have asked us to speak to oil and gas companies and that's what we are doing," Folger said.

In a bid to curb vehicular pollution, the government has decided to implement stricter emission norms of BS VI from April 1, 2020 by skipping BS-V altogether. Oil marketing companies (OMCs) are incurring an expenditure of Rs 90,000 crore for phase-wise upgradation of the fuel quality.
Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones are displayed during the Samsung Unpacked event in New York City, United States March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid - RTX339UG

National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI) today said its Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) App has crossed 16 million downloads and 4 million active customer base and a new updated version would be launched soon.

BHIM App is a common platform across the nation for making simple, easy and quick payments.

"Transactions via BHIM App is witnessing growth with each passing month since its launch on December 30, 2016. Download numbers breaching 16 million mark is a remarkable achievement towards digital transactions and creating a less-cash society," A P Hota, MD and CEO of NPCI, said today.

Currently, the 1.3 version of the app is available on Google Play Store and Apple Store and soon a new update (Version 1.4) of the app will be launched, he said.

BHIM referral scheme is also operational now, where the existing BHIM user (referrer) needs to encourage the new BHIM user (referee) to download the BHIM App and enter the referrer's mobile number as the referral code.

For both referrer and the referee to get their incentive, the referee has to make minimum 3 unique transactions totalling minimum value of Rs 50. On successful completion of the process, the referrer would get Rs 10 and the referee who does the payment would get Rs 25, NCPI said in a release.

About BHIM/Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a smart mobile phone based app that allows simple, easy and quick payment transactions using UPI. One can easily make direct bank to bank payments instantly and collect money using Mobile number or payment address.

It is a unique payment solution which empowers an individual with immediate send and collect request. It uses an email like Virtual Payment Address (VPA)/ Mobile Number@upi /Account number and IFSC Code/Aadhaar Number as payment identifier for sending or collecting money instantly.

NPCI is an umbrella organisation for all retail payments system in India. It was set up with the guidance and support of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks' Association (IBA).
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh

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Punjab plans to shift to environment-friendly electric vehicles in a big way, with the new industrial policy to be significantly focused on the same, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said today.

Mahindra & Mahindra Managing Director Pawan Goenka during his meeting with the chief minister said that his group was keenly interested in promoting electric vehicles in Punjab. He suggested a scheme to bring in electric taxis to propagate green energy and generate employment in the state.

Amrinder said that his government was keen to explore electric vehicles as a replacement for the traditional, more polluting petrol and diesel run vehicles in the state. He pointed out that Chinese energy major Yinlong also recently discussed with him the possibility of launching electric cars and buses in the state.

The government was also in talks with Ola for electric taxis, he added. An official spokesperson said that a proposal to launch an Uber-like app for tractors, called Tringo, was also discussed at the meeting. The app would enable owners to rent out their tractors, said the spokesperson.

The chief minister responded favourably to Goenka's request for expansion of their tractor units in Punjab and asked the company to submit a proposal. Urging the company to support the state's efforts to provide employment to youth, the chief minister offered help to Tech Mahindra in setting up a BPO in Mohali after Goenka said there was huge potential for IT sector jobs.

Mahindra & Mahindra was also interested in potato seed development for exports, according to Goenka. The chief minister also reminded Goenka of his suggestion, made to Anand Mahindra in Mumbai, for setting up a defence project in Abohar. Goenka, according to the spokesperson, said the company was exploring the same.

The chief minister said the government was also considering the company's proposal to develop the Ranjit Sagar dam resort. Taking forward from their Mumbai talks, the two sides also discussed an Uttar Pradesh-like Dial 100 emergency response system for Punjab to provide prompt integrated emergency services to ensure public safety for all, including those with special needs.

The chief minister said the Home and Police departments were studying the proposal. Mahindra group's plans to set up Mahindra world university in Ludhiana also came up for discussion. Mahindra & Mahindra, which employs about 6,000 people directly and another 30,000 indirectly in Punjab, currently earns Rs 6,000 crore revenue from the state.
The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs today approved construction of 30,000 affordable houses for urban poor on private land at Sholapur, Maharashtra, under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban). Central assistance of Rs 450 crore has also been approved for this project.

An inter-ministerial Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC), chaired by Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary (Housing & Urban Affairs) approved this first of its kind affordable housing project on private land under PMAY (Urban) after detailed discussions with the officials of the Maharashtra Government.

Raynagar Cooperative Housing Federation, Sholapur submitted a proposal to build 30,000 affordable houses for its members comprising of beedi and textile workers and other urban poor belonging to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) at a total cost of Rs 1,811 crore under PMAY (Urban). The state government after due examination agreed to provide an assistance of Rs 300 crore for the same and forwarded the proposal to the ministry in March last year.

Being the first of its kind, DS Mishra ascertained for Maharashtra officials about the ownership of land, compliance with the Mission Guidelines including the eligibility of beneficiaries, AADHAR linking, role of state government and implementation oversight to ensure the proposed project is completed in time as funding by both the central and state governments is involved.

Maharashtra officials explained that the State Level Technical Committee (SLTC) set up under PMAY (Urban) has appraised the project and recommended for central funding. The ownership of the land area of 189 hectares is with the Federation which has acquired this land for building the houses and it will be the implementing agency. All the proposed beneficiaries have been AADHAR linked.

The State officials also informed CSMC that the cost of each dwelling unit of Rs 6.03 lakh has been determined in a transparent manner and with central and state assistance, the delivery price would be Rs 3,53 lakh per house.

On the assurance that the State Level Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (SLSMC), set up under PMAY (Urban) will oversee the implementation of the project, the CSMC approved the project.

Todays approval for the affordable housing project on private land under PMAY (Urban) is expected to trigger more such projects on private lands under the Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) component of PMAY (Urban). Central assistance of Rs 1.50 lakh for each beneficiary is provided under this component.

CSMC, in its 24th meeting today approved construction of 2,84,803 more affordable houses for urban poor under PMAY(Urban), the highest number approved in a single meeting of CSMC. The total cost of these houses to be built in six states is Rs 16,407 crore for which central assistance of Rs 4,272 crore has been approved.

Andhra Pradesh has been sanctioned 2,25,245 houses, Uttar Pradesh-23,322, Tamil Nadu-15,374, Manipur-10,392, Assam-9,767 and Meghalaya-703.
Eminent scientist Tessy Thomas today called upon the youth to take up initiatives like start-ups to help the government fight challenges in sectors like health, environment and education.

Thomas - known as the 'Missile Woman of India' - was speaking at the Convocation 2017 of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science here.

"The quality of Indian graduates coming out from such institutes would also have significant impact on the global economy as many of the students join the MNCs and global corporates. It is worth reminding ourselves of this goal as India today is faced with challenges in the domains of health, sanitation, housing, environment and education and cannot be resolved by the government alone.

"To overcome these, it is important that graduating students such as you take the initiative - through start-ups or towards building a public-private partnership  a bridge between citizens and the government, between sections of society and the nation as a whole," she said.

The project director for Agni-IV Missile in Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) stressed that the role of education was not only to cultivate the intellect but also to ignite their imagination and create academic excellence and also emerge as scholars who can transfer values and information to the society.

"You should strive towards fostering a culture of excellence. Excellence is not an accident but a habit - where you set your own performance standards like working with a focus for completing tasks ahead of time," Thomas said.

"The world you are entering as a graduate today has changed, and would continue to change, at an incredibly rapid pace. The 21st century landscape is very much a global world, driven by a knowledge economy," she said.

However, she said, the core objectives of education in the coming years should encompass four essential components  building values, awareness, knowledge and skills. Ideally, these should foster development of personal qualities and behavioural attributes, which will help children develop into good citizens.

She further focused on how technology has changed the educational landscape -- from the use of tablets in the classroom to the proliferation of open universities -- and the pressure to prepare students for an increasingly competitive workplace in a hyper-connected world.

Earlier, BITS-Pilani Vice Chancellor Souvik Bhattacharya said a total of 3,542 students, including UG and PG, graduated in the year 2016-17 while 112 students graduated with a PhD.

Santanu Chaudhary, director of CSIR-CEERI, Pilani was the guest of honour at the annual event.
Granules India Ltd.

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Share price of AstraZeneca Pharma advanced 3.5 percent intraday Monday as the company going to launch its drug in India.

The company is going to launch Osimertinib 40 mg and 80 mg in India on July 27, 2017.

Osimertinib is an oral anti-cancer drug for management of lung cancer. It is indicated for the treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as detected by an appropriate test, whose disease has progressed on or after EGFR TKI therapy.

Osimertinib is the product of AstraZeneca group and has been approved in over 45 countries, including US, EU, Japan, China and other Asian countries.

The company has already received import and market permission in Form 45 (Marketing Authorization) from Drug Controller General of India for the said drug.

At 09:23 hrs AstraZeneca Pharma was quoting at Rs 995, up Rs 29.55, or 3.06 percent on the BSE.

Posted by Rakesh Patil
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Goldman Sachs has reiterated buy on Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) with a revised target of Rs 585.

According to global research firm, the company has been laggard to its OMCs peer by 25 percent in the last 12 months which was mainly driven by weaker than expected earnings in the last 3 quarters due to Kochi start-up costs.

However, the firm believes that the said underperformance will reverse in coming 12 months, as there will be improving oil demand trend seen in 2HCY17 through monthly oil demand data.

Also, the full commissioning of Kochi plant in 2HFY18 will also help to drive volumes and margins for the refining segment of the company.

Meanwhile the key risks include, the lower than expected oil demand, lower refining/marketing margins, project delays, higher than expected private competition and unfavourable government regulations.

The firm has increased its SOTP-based fundamental value of the company from Rs 550 to Rs 570 as impact of lower earnings is offset by a higher multiple (7x to 8x) in its SOTP for marketing segment.

However, the firm has reduced the core EPS by -3 percent to -6 percent for FY18/20 to reflect higher cost due to GST, lower refining margins and stronger currency.

At 10:59 hrs Bharat Petroleum Corporation was quoting at Rs 469.55, up Rs 2.35, or 0.50 percent on the BSE.
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Motilal Oswal's research report on Indian Bank

INBK reported PAT of INR3.7b (in-line) v/s INR3.2m in 1QFY17, led by strong total income of INR21.1b (+26% YoY led by 48% YoY growth in other income) and controlled opex (11% YoY, -5% QoQ). Provisioning was 52% higher than estimate at INR7.2b, as PCR increased 350bp QoQ to 61.65%. Gross slippages increased 14% QoQ, but strong recoveries and upgrades at INR3.5b (v/s INR201m in 4QFY17) led to net slippage ratio of 1.1%, the lowest in seven quarters. Absolute GNPA declined 2% QoQ, while GNPA/NNPA fell 26bp/34bp QoQ to 7.21%/4.05%. Calculated PCR improved to 45.7%. Total stressed book stood at 8.5% of net advances. Overall loan book grew 1%/4% QoQ/YoY to INR1.29b. The bank cut down on its corporate book exposure, with the share of corporate loans declining 200bp YoY to 49%. With a comfortable capital position (CET1 11.7%), the bank is well poised to grow its loan book. Calculated NIM expanded 27bp QoQ to 2.94% (28bp higher than estimate), driven by lower CoF (5.48% v/s 6.24% YoY), partially offset by lower yield on advances (8.8% v/s 9.25%). NIM is expected to improve further with moderation in interest reversals (INR450m in 1QFY18).

Outlook

Focus on balance sheet consolidation and core operating parameters has led to improving earnings, despite challenging macros. Capitalization is best-in-class with CET 1 ratio of 11.7%. The bank is planning a FPO to reduce GoI shareholding to 75%. Improvement in loan growth is expected to drive operating leverage in the ensuing years. We expect RoAs/RoE to be the best among PSBs at 0.7%/11.2% (FY19E). Maintain Buy with a target price of INR382 (1x FY19E BV) based on RI model.

For all recommendations report, click here

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Sushil Finance's commodity report on Crude oil

Oil prices slid on Friday, settling about 2.5 percent lower after a consultancy forecast a rise in OPEC production for July despite the group's pledge to curb output, reigniting concerns the global market will stay awash with crude. OPEC and some non - OPEC states, such as Russia, have been trying to cut production 1.8 million bpd through the end of March 2018. On Monday several ministers from OPEC and non - OPEC member countries will meet in St. Petersburg. Kuwaiti Oil Minister Essamal - Marzouq, whose country heads the joint ministerial committee, said attendees would discuss continuing the production cuts. U.S. oil drillers cut one rig in the week to July 21, according to data from Baker Hughes. Analysts said the decline was likely a pause in a drilling recovery expected to continue through at least 2019.

We expect crude oil prices to trade sideways on the back of short covering after drop in prices.

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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In an interview to CNBC-TV18's Anuj Singhal and Surabhi Upadhyay, SP Tulsian of sptulsian.com shared his views and outlook on the market and specific stocks.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.

Anuj: First thoughts from you on HDFC Bank. Expensive stock, but has always been expensive. Your thoughts on this spike in gross non-performing assets (NPA) and whether the market would take it in its stride. Today, at least it has done that.

A: Actually, you cannot expect these kind of all the parameters to get approved or verified or meet the expectations for the bank like HDFC Bank. In fact, the increase in the net NPA or maybe gross NPA, that is seen negligible, because the kind of growth which the bank has been consistently posting, the operating profit having risen by 30 percent plus and even if you take a call on the current year's earnings, that is the share is I think ruling at a price-earnings ratio (P/E) multiple of maybe 25-26 times and the sub price to book of less than five and that has been in fact the continuous historic P/E multiple and price to book being given to these stocks.

Sometimes, we get carried away with the newly listed like AU Small Finance Bank, I am not trying to criticise any new listing where price to book of 10 and all those irrational valuations being given. But I think HDFC Bank stands out as the best bank and if you really see the profit after tax (PAT) growth of maybe 20 percent or maybe operating profit of about 30 percent, has been continuously demonstrated, I do not know for how many quarters, maybe 16, 20, 24 and that is really credible for the bank to having posted these kind of numbers.

And in fact, maybe the banks like many of these banks where the marginal increase in the asset quality has been seen whether you talk of RBL Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, honestly, I am not worried because those are just a matter of prudence, the corporate prudence or maybe the fiscal prudence, in fact that has been exercised by these banks. And coming on HDFC Bank, yes, continue to remain positive, but these are all, now have become a portfolio kind of stocks which will keep giving you the continuous or maybe the consistent gain of maybe about 16-18 percent or 18-20 percent on an annualised basis.

Anuj: Your thoughts on the defence space because we have heard a lot about the defence rerating, but can it be played via any of the listed stocks?

A: I am extremely positive on this and this seems that this news or this sector or this upsurge which we can see in this sector has not been yet tapped by the market. And in fact maybe somebody wants to have a pure defence play then probably the one PSU which comes to the mind is Bharat Electronics (BEL).

And in fact if you see the stock having moved in this last three months from Rs 150 to a level of Rs 175, now seen having consolidating in those levels, I am not saying that if you see the company on its own, I am not playing much on the joint venture or maybe the strategic investment kind of things which we have seen in case of BEML, but if you see the independent business of the company that is doing extremely well and apart from that, three companies come to my mind which is, one is L&T, second is Bharat Forge and in fact these two stocks looks very good. And third is Mahindra and Mahindra.

But again, in Mahindra, there is no identified listed stocks available, but I am extremely positive on Bharat Forge because the kind of foray they have with the Israeli, joint venture having been entered into. And similar is the case with Larsen and Toubro because if you see the Mazgaon dock have delivered one submarine and there are six submarines lined up for that scorpion deal, if you recall about five six years back, the things have got shelved or got delayed and all sort of things. So I am extremely positive on defence. If you take the sea, air or land, in fact for all three equipments, the kind of purchases which will be made by the Indian government in the next 4-6 years, I am extremely positive on this sector.

Anuj: Aurobindo Pharma is one of your favourite pharma stocks, one of your three favourite stocks. The other ones have been Glenmark Pharma. So at current price, is Aurobindo a good buy?

A: Since he is a long-term investor, he wished to buy it for long-term, I will advise him definitely to go for it because if you take a valuation call, the share is now available, maybe I am expecting it Rs 48-49 earnings per share (EPS) for the current year. In fact the kind of news flow on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in terms of the new approval, the pending filing and all that are really making this stock look very good. I am not disturbed with this US FDA one or two units kind of inspection happening.

Overall, things are looking quite positive. As I said, Rs 48-49 could be the EPS for current year. I will not be surprised to see the EPS ramping up to about Rs 55-56 for FY19. So if you take that call, the P/E multiple works out to about 15. Already we have seen the pharma stocks having bottomed out. We are not giving a renewed call on the pharma stocks. We are, in fact, taking a pause that wait for some time. But those who wish to buy any of the pharma stocks, you are right that the first choice comes to our mind for recommending as investment is Auro Pharma followed by Glenmark.

Surabhi: What do you think about Reliance Communications for the long-term? There are people out there looking to find the next Jaiprakash Associates hoping to get the next trading flip if nothing else. But Reliance Communications, given what is happening with their loan standstill, etc. is it worth buying?

A: No, not at all because I think people just get what you call, carried away with the movement of one or two stocks. In fact when we have advised JP Associates and Jaypee Infratech in this last four months, they have risen by 100 percent. And at that time, the wisdom of recommending those stocks were questioned by many of the people because they were all calling it equity value as zero for the stressed assets and all accounts. In fact in Reliance Communications, I do not think that any kind of hopes are seen visible. In fact I have my apprehensions where the media and the analysts have been calling it transfer of Rs 14,000 crore debt to the joint venture Aircel as a repayment.

So unless and until there are any concrete steps having taken by the company, I am not keeping any positive call. And in fact maybe in the space or in the same league JP Associates and JP Infra, in fact we have recommended three and four other stocks also which have already risen by about 20 percent and they can in fact rise further. So remain away and avoid applying the same thing to any stressed assets in general.
Officers and soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army hold a flag and weapons during a training session for a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the World War Two, at a military base in Beijing, China, August 22, 2015. Troops from at least 10 countries including Russia and Kazakhstan will join an unprecedented military parade in Beijing next month to commemorate China's victory over Japan during World War Two, Chinese officials said. The parade on Sept. 3 will involve about 12,000 Chinese troops and 200 aircraft, Qi Rui, deputy director of the government office organizing the parade, told reporters in Beijing on Friday. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj - RTX1P5OK

China's Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) will hold a scaled down annual war games on its 90th anniversary as 'security uncertainties' like the Doklam standoff with India and North Korean missile tests have shifted the PLA's attention to war preparedness.

Citing a source from the Chinese Army, South China Morning Post said in a report, Security uncertainties have caused the PLA to raise its vigilance for war preparedness, so the army may not be able to deploy too many personnel and put too many resources into war games.

This years war games were supposed to be the biggest ever to mark the anniversary. developments on Chinas borders, such as the current military stand-off between Chinese and Indian troops in the Himalayas and Pyongyangs missile tests, may affect its scale, added the source.

Watch || Chinas One Belt One Road: How OBOR Will Impact India

Earlier, it was reported that a military parade would be held but now China is deciding to hold a full scale, head to head military manoeuvre.

The war games will be held at 1,066 square km Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base in Inner Mongolia, according to the report. Xi Jinping, Chinese President and Commander in Chief of the PLA is expected to attend the August 1 event.

The military exercise will involve Red and Blue forces. The Blue forces are dummy western force set up for such drills. The red forces will be from various commands of PLA. The scale of war game is expected to be closer to the real battles, according to experts cited in the report.

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Similar war games were also held in 2015, in which PLA troops practised urban combat skills on the reproduction of key Taiwanese buildings. In the same year, the PLA also held a military parade in Beijing involving 10,000 army personnel to mark the 70anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
The tax department has asked non-resident Indians (NRIs), expats, and foreign investors in PE and hedge funds to disclose their bank accounts held across the world, reports The Economic Times.

The bizarre demand has left many perplexed as they are not comfortable sharing details of their foreign accounts with the I-T department which, in any case, cannot tax earnings generated from such assets.

Fearing non-disclosure could land them in trouble, many of these individuals have approached tax practitioners and lawyers to help them deal with this issue.

Most of them have chosen not to file their return until the last date and some are reporting only one foreign or Indian bank account to collect tax return in the hope the government will soon come out with some clarification.

According to tax norms, income earned by non-residents outside the country are not taxable in India. In fact, many Indians become stay abroad for 182 days every year to avoid paying tax on such income. According to the report, tax authorities suspect black money is being legitimised by misusing this norm.

The current move appears to be a follow up on the tax department's crackdown two years ago. The government had then asked all resident Indians to disclose their offshore bank accounts after data leaks revealed information on many Indians who had undisclosed overseas accounts.
As India gears up to welcome Ram Nath Kovind as its 14th President, incumbent Pranab Mukherjee delivered his final speech on his last day of office at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"I have received more than I have given," he said while addressing citizens on live television and expressing his gratitude.

He congratulated President-elect Ram Nath Kovind who will assume office on Tuesday while articulating his wisdom in a short yet inspirational speech.



Eradication of poverty would provide a strong boost to happiness #PresidentMukherjee

 President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

Elaborating on his vision of India, Mukerhjee said that a modern nation is built on the four facets of democracy, secularism, equality and economic equity. "The poorest of the land must feel that they are a part of the nation," he said.

Recollecting his five-year Presidential term, he said that he had dedicated himself to preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of India.

"How responsible I was will be judged by the critical lens of history," he added.

Mukherjee said that he treated the Parliament as his "temple" during the 50 years of public service. He added that the Indian Constitution was his sacred book and his "passion" was directed towards providing service to the citizens of India.

He emphasised that "pluralism and multiplicity" are the key characteristics of India and one must embrace these for an all-encompassing development of India. He added that we must aim for an inclusive society which will promote happiness among all citizens in India.



Social inclusion would ensure access to the fruits of progress to all #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017



He spoke of the Gandhian principles of non-violence and said that the "marginalised" should be free from the clutches of the existing violence in the country. The key to the development of India is the eradication of poverty, he added.

Mukerhjee also spoke about how India has been affected by floods and droughts at the same time in 2017 and pleaded that citizens take climate change seriously. He urged the citizens to come together to battle the problem that plagues India.



Our universities should not be a place for rote-memorizing but an assembly of inquisitive minds #PresidentMukherjee

 President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

The outgoing President stressed on the importance of education and said that the higher educational institutions in the country must promote "innovative thinking" and "autonomy of the mind".



As I had said on assuming Office of the President, education is the alchemy that can take India to its next golden age #PresidentMukherjee  President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017





When I speak to you tomorrow, it will be as a citizen a pilgrim like all of you in Indias onward march towards glory #PresidentMukherjee

 President of India (@RashtrapatiBhvn) July 24, 2017

He concluded by mentioning that from Tuesday onwards, he would turn into a citizen of India and continue fulfilling his duties towards the nation.

Catch live updates of the New President's swearing-in ceremony here
Ram Nath Kovind, nominated presidential candidate of Indias ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), delivers a speech during a welcoming ceremony as part of his nation-wide tour, in Ahmedabad, India, July 15, 2017. REUTERS/Amit Dave - RTX3BL0Y

The National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) Ram Nath Kovind will be become the 14th President of India on July 25. He will be sworn-in by the Chief Justice of India JS Khehar in the Central Hall of Parliament.

Kovind, the second Dalit leader to become the President, defeated Opposition's candidate Meira Kumar by a huge margin of 65.5 percent votes in the Electoral College.

Kovind will take the office as tenure of President Pranab Mukherjee ends on Monday.

Here's how the swearing-in in ceremony will happen:

The President-elect will come to the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan, escorted by the Military Secretary to the President. Then the President-elect and the incumbent go in a ceremonial cavalcade travelling in the same car to the Parliament.

From here, he will make way to the Parliament House for the swearing-in ceremony, where they will be received by the Speakers and Vice-President of Lok Sabha, who is also the chairman of Rajya Sabha.

He will then be escorted to the Central Hall of Parliament.

Kovind will take oath in presence of the Chief Justice of India. In absence of CJI, the senior most Supreme Court Judge will be present.

The oath for president will be on lines of: I, (person's name), do swear in the name of God/solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the office of President (or discharge the functions of the President) of India and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law and that I will devote myself to the service and well-being of the people of India.

Once the ceremony is over, the President's Bodyguard will escort Kovind to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Thereafter, outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee will give him a tour of the official residence  the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

After the tour, Kovind will drop off Mukherjee at his new residence  10, Rajaji Marg.

A rehearsal of the swearing-in took place on July 22, as per media reports.

The swearing-in ceremony is expected to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Catch live updates of Kovind's swearing-in ceremony
Syed Ali Shah Geelani (C), chairman of the hardline Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference group is detained during a protest in Srinagar against the recent killings in Kashmir, July 13, 2016. REUTERS/Danish Ismail - RTSHOHO

Seven people including Altaf Ahmed Shah, the son-in-law of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, were arrested today by the NIA in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, officials said.

Altaf Ahmed Shah, popularly known as Altaf Fantoosh, was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, who had put him in preventive detention earlier this month.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Ayaz Akbar, who is also spokesman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat--a hardline separatists organisation--and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from the Valley, they said.

The NIA also arrested Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, said the officials, engaged in the operation.

The others arrested are Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate', they said.

The houses of those arrested had been raided by NIA sleuths last month.

Shah is perceived as an influential force in the Tehrek- e-Hurriyat.

Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned terrorists organisation Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM)--another terrorists outfit--and Dukhtaran-e- Millat--an all-woman outfit of separatists.

Those arrested have been brought to Delhi and will be produced before a court here tomorrow, the official said.

The raids were part of the NIA's efforts at clamping down on separatist groups allegedly receiving funds for subversive activities in the Valley.

The NIA had registered a case on May 30 against the separatist and secessionist leaders, including members of the Hurriyat Conference, who have been acting in connivance with active militants of proscribed terrorist organisations HM, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and other outfits and gangs, an official release said.

The case was registered for raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir and for causing disruption in Kashmir Valley by way of pelting stones on the security forces, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India, it said.

In pursuance of this case, the NIA had conducted widespread searches on the suspected persons in Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Haryana and incriminating documents, electronic devices, cash and other valuables worth crore of rupees were unearthed, the release said.

For the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s, a central probe agency had carried out raids in connection with the funding of separatists.

In 2002, the Income Tax department had raided the establishments of some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.
Maruti Suzuki, India expanding its range of automatic cars has launched the CVT option for Alpha variant of its premium hatchback Baleno.

This is the third variant of Baleno in which a CVT gearbox has been added. The company already provides the automatic option in Delta and Zeta variant of the model.

The variant is priced at Rs 8.34 lakh, ex-showroom Delhi.

The automatic Baleno will be coming with high-end features like Smartphone Linkage Display Audio that works with Apple CarPlay and MirrorLink.

Baleno was the first car to bring dual air bags and Anti-locking Braking System (ABS) with Electronic Braking Distribution (EBD) to the segment.

Maruti Suzuki's Baleno model is one of the best selling cars in the premium hatchback segment. In less than two years, since its launch in October 2015, Maruti Suzuki India has sold two lakh cars of the model. It achieved one lakh mark in less than a year and set a record for being the top selling premium hatchback in India.

Interestingly, Baleno is the first model of Maruti Suzuki India being exported to Japan. The company currently exports this model to over 100 countries in the world.
Apple iPhone 7 (Representative Image: Reuters)

Moneycontrol News

A woman from the United States and insurance company State Farm are suing Apple for USD 75,000 on grounds of a defective iPhone 4S, that caused a fire in her home, was sold to her in 2014, according to multiple US media reports.

A lawsuit, filed jointly on Thursday, claimed that the woman's iPhone had started a fire at her home. The incident took place on April 1 last year but has been filed now in the US District Court.

The event comes in the backdrop of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 debacle still remaining fresh in public memory.

Xai Thao, a resident of Wisconsin in the United States, has reportedly said her iPhone 4S had a defective battery that had led to a fire.

All phones, or electric devices in general, have chances of combusting if there if an improperly installed lithium ion battery with it, which happened to be the case with the Galaxy Note 7 by Samsung.

iPhones previously have been reported to catch fire after consumers have connected it to faulty charge cables or replaced batteries without professional help.

The lawsuit states that preliminary investigations have shown the evidence of a significant localized heating event in the battery area of the iPhone.

It also declared that it had remnants of internal shorting, indicating that an internal failure of the iPhones battery caused the fire.

As per the lawsuit, the iPhone was in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition when the woman bought it in 2014.

The iPhone 4S hasnt been linked with any major incidents of fire so far.
The government is considering giving telecom companies more time to pay for the spectrum they bought, in a bid to give relief to the sector reeling under massive debt and profitability issues, according to an official source.

The finance minister held discussions on the relief measures being proposed for the sector with his officials as well as the telecom secretary last week.

When contacted, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Department of Telecom (DoT), told PTI, "I met the finance minister and we had a preliminary discussion. The recommendations are yet to be finalised."

Sundararajan declined to comment further on the matter.

A telecom ministry senior official, however, said the inter-ministerial group (IMG) constituted to look at measures to mitigate the financial stress of the sector is favourably considering relaxing the period of deferred spectrum payment to 16 years. This, said the official, will improve the cash flow of telecom companies.

At present, a portion of spectrum auction amount is taken as upfront payment by DoT, and the rest after a two-year moratorium is paid out every year in 10 instalments.

"Relaxing the payment period to 16 years could increase telcos' cash flows by Rs 55,000 crore," said an industry official who did not wish to be named.

Other proposals being actively considered include shifting from PLR (over 13 percent) to MCLR (8 percent) for interest on deferred payments, and convergence between DoT guidelines and RBI guidelines on the issue of allowing spectrum as a collateral.

"The inter-ministerial group is still exchanging ideas, and the date of the next meeting is yet to be finalised," the DoT official said.

The IMG, last month, had held extensive dialogue with all telecom players as well as large banks to discuss the industry's financial difficulties and suggest measures to ease the situation.

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha has promised that the government will act swiftly on the recommendations of the inter-ministerial panel, and that report of the panel is expected soon.

United against Reliance Jio, three established operators Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have cited Rs 4.6 lakh crore of cumulative industry debt to demand raising of the call termination charges from the current 14 paise per minute as well as reduction in licence fee, spectrum usage charges and GST, besides relaxation in deferred payment norms for the spectrum acquired.

Jio, backed by India's richest person Mukesh Ambani, has ascribed the financial stress in the telecom sector to existing operators like Bharti and Idea running businesses on debt and investing heavily in unrelated sectors, a charge that has outright been dismissed by the established operators.
Moneycontrol News

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended the ten-year anniversary celebrations of a Hindu temple in Canada maintained by a spiritual organisation. The Canadian PM, known for his popularity among the masses, was dressed in Indian attire, donning a blue kurta with white pyjamas and had a garland of flowers around his neck.

The Canadian PM tweeted: The BAPS Mandir is more than architectural masterpiece  Its truly a place for the community, after attending the 10th anniversary celebrations of the temple.

Justin Trudeau at the BAPS temple (Image Courtesy: Twitter)

The tweet went viral instantly, with over 2,800 likes and 850 plus retweets.

People from the Hindu community of Toronto turned up at the event held in the Canadian city of Toronto, just a few hours away from capital Ottawa.

Speaking at the event, Trudeau remarked on the temples structure and symbolism as well.

The Mayor of Toronto, John Tory, presented the Maharaja of the temple a key to the city of Toronto.

The Canadian PM has often publicly reiterated the statement that multiculturalism is one of Canadas strengths.
Hundreds of companies and individuals are under the government's scanner for making cash deposits of more than Rs 10 lakh in bank accounts since April 2016.

The government is also scrutinising thousands of accounts through which demand drafts and payment orders for values below Rs. 50,000 were made after November 8, later cancelled and payments taken in cash.

Instances of more than 3.6 million (36.06 lakh) cash deposits of more than Rs 10 lakh been made in banks during April 1, 2016 to July 14, 2017 have been identified for scrutiny.

These will be matched the account holders' declared income source as disclosed in their tax returns, an official, who did not wish to be identified, told Moneycontrol.

This implies that the government has been scrutinising suspicious bank transactions from even seven months before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation on November 8, 2016, outlawing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of a broader strategy to clamp down on corruption and black money.

Officials said that data mined after November 8 has thrown up several tax evasion methods that the government will now crack down on.

Also read: GST, demonetisation to make cash dealings difficult: Arun Jaitley

In some instances, account holders were found to be indulging in discounting of demand drafts of small amounts for a commission in collusion with bank officials.

Small amounts of cash was being withdrawn by the same people using demand drafts.

Discounting is a system through which banks can offer cash withdrawal against a draft upto to a certain limit, and also make drafts by depositing cash upto a certain limit.

The government had amended Rule 114E of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, effective from April 1, 2016. According to the new rule, a bank is required to report cash deposits above Rs 10 lakh in a financial year in one or more accounts (other than a current and fixed deposit account).

In addition, banks have also been reporting cash payments above Rs.1 lakh in a financial year in one or more credit card bills of the same person.

As of July 14, 2017, the total number of cash deposits exceeding Rs 10 lakhs in a financial year in one or more accounts is 36, 06,269.

Of these, cumulative cash deposits of more than Rs 25 lakh were made in about of 4.62 lakh accounts during November 8 to December 30, 2016.

Cash deposits of more than Rs 5 lakh were made in 23.87 lakh accounts during these 50 days.

Also read: Govt orders shuttering of 1 lakh dodgy companies in last 48 hours; PM signals crackdown on tax evaders

Banks have also reported accounts that show "unusual activity compared with past transactions," sudden activity in dormant accounts, and fund movement in accounts that are inconsistent, with what would be expected from declared business.

Last month, the government deregistered and shuttered more than 1 lakh companies with doctored accounts, sending a stern message that the government will come down heavily on tax dodgers who refuse to come clean despite repeated warnings.

More than three lakh companies have been identified so far, based on data mined after demonetisation, whose books haves been found to be suspicious.

More than 37,000 shell or paper companies have also been found to be funneling black money through obscure routes such as hawala.

Data mining is going on in banks of about how funds have moved after November 8, Prime Minister Modi had said on July 1.
Air India

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Weeks after IndiGo expressed interest in Air Indias businesses, private equity players KKR and Warburg Pincus are eyeing the national carriers units.

The firms have each asked for details of the proposed Air India privatisation process, according to a report in Mint. It added that the discussion are at a very early stage and will gain momentum after there is clarity on divestment process.

The much-awaited Cabinet approval for sale of governments stake in Air India came today with the Narendra Modi-led team of ministers deciding to set up a committee to explore various options including strategic divestment of the loss-making airline and its five subsidiaries.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will head the inter-ministerial panel. The decision was based on the recommendations of Niti Aayog.

The committee will consider the quantum of disinvestment to be made the universe of bidders, according to a government statement.

According to media reports, Tata Sons officials led by Chairman N Chandrasekaran have already met top officials in the aviation ministry to express their interest in buying the airline. Tata Sons has stakes in Air Vistara and AirAsia India.

The committee will also study and suggest ways to treat the unsustainable debt of Air India; hiving off certain assets to a shell company and demerger and strategic divestment of the airlines profit-making subsidiaries.

Air India Transport Services, Hotel Corporation of India, Air India Charters, Air India Engineering Services and Airlines Allied Services are the five subsidiaries of Air India.

The airline, surviving on a Rs 30,231-crore government bailout package, has accumulated losses of around Rs 52,000 crore and as much debt. The package, approved by the previous government in 2012, called for staggered equity infusion over nine years. It has so far received Rs 23,993 crore under the package.

The airline reported an operating profit of Rs 105 crore in 2015-16 though this was contested by Comptroller and Auditor General which said it was actually an operating loss of Rs 321 crore. The national carrier hasnt made a net profit in at least a decade.

Air India has a 14 percent market share in the domestic market and 17 percent share of the overseas traffic flying to and from India.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a key visit to the Gulf region aimed at defusing the standoff around Turkey's ally Qatar, saying no one had an interest in prolonging the crisis.

Erdogan, whose country has come to Qatar's aid in the crisis, had talks in Jeddah Sunday with King Salman who hailed the Turkish leader's "efforts in the fight against terrorism and its financing," Saudi state news agency SPA reported.

Erdogan is scheduled to fly to Kuwait later today before heading to Qatar tomorrow for his first face-to-face talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani since the crisis began.

"No one has any interest in prolonging this crisis any more," Erdogan said in Istanbul before leaving on the two-day trip.

He accused "enemies" of seeking to "fire up tensions between brothers" in the region.

Erdogan praised Qatar's behaviour in the crisis, saying Doha had sought to find a solution through dialogue. "I hope our visit will be beneficial for the region," he said.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with their Shiite rival Iran.

Doha denies the claim and has been strongly backed by Ankara throughout the standoff.

The crisis with Qatar has put Turkey in a delicate position, and Erdogan has repeatedly said he wants to see the end of the dispute as soon as possible.

In recent years, Qatar has emerged as Turkey's number one ally in the Middle East, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating their positions on a number of issues including the Syria conflict where both are staunch foes of President Bashar al-Assad.

Crucially, Turkey is in the throes of setting up a military base in Qatar, its only such outpost in the region. It has expedited the process since the crisis began and reportedly now has 150 troops at the base.

"From the first moments of the Qatar crisis, we have been on the side of peace, stability, solidarity and dialogue," said Erdogan.

But Turkey, which is also going through a turbulent time with the European Union and the United States, also does not want to wreck its own relations with regional kingpin Saudi Arabia.

As well as meeting King Salman, Erdogan was also to hold talks with Mohammed bin Salman for the first time since he was elevated to the role of crown prince and his father's heir in a dramatic June reshuffle of the royal house.

"As the elder statesman in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia has a big role to play in solving the crisis," said Erdogan, taking care not to explicitly criticise the kingdom.

Erdogan said he supported the mediation efforts of Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, a possible indication Ankara sees Kuwait as the key to solving the crisis.
Disney | Brand Value: USD 41.1 billion | Brand Revenue: USD 168.8 billion | Industry: Automotive

Toyota Motor Corp is likely to begin mass production of electric vehicles (EVs) in China as early as 2019, the Asahi daily reported on Saturday.

The model will be based on the C-HR sport utility vehicle and manufactured for the Chinese market only, the report said without citing sources.

The pace of production is to be decided after taking into account the regulations and the subsidies, the report said, adding that annual output could start with more than several thousand units.

Toyota spokesman Ryo Sakai said: "We are going to introduce EVs in China with a few years. However, we don't talk about any future product plans."

Keen to combat air pollution, China is planning to set goals for electric and plug-in hybrid cars to make up at least a fifth of Chinese auto sales by 2025, with a staggered system of quotas beginning in 2018.
In the second such instance in the last two weeks, the Sri Lankan Navy rescued two elephants from the deep sea on Sunday.

According to a statement released on the Sri Lankan Navys website, one of the patrol vessels spotted two drowning elephants off the coast of Trincomalee. After notifying the Navy command and the Department of Wildlife, a joint rescue operation was commenced.

Navy divers and three more patrol boats from the Eastern Naval Command were involved in the operation.

After a mammoth effort, the elephants were directed to the shore. The animals were later released into the forests near Foul Point in Trincomalee district.

The Navy also released a video of the rescue mission.

Watch | SL Navy rescues two Jumbos drowning in the sea

In the video, elephants could be seen frantically trying to keep their trunks above the water before sailors of the Navy arrive on the scene.

The Sri Lankan Navy had rescued another elephant in a similar predicament on July 11.

(Image Source: Sri Lanka Navy)
China said today that it will safeguard its security interests at "any cost" as its sovereignty was "indomitable", amid a standoff with India in the Sikkim sector.

Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian made this assertion ahead of this week's National Security Advisors' (NSA) talks to resolve the standoff.

Maintaining China's hardline stance on the issue, Wu told a media briefing that the willingness and resolve of China to defend its sovereignty was "indomitable".

"China will safeguard its security interests at any cost. India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," he said ahead of the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Commenting on the over a month-long military standoff between the troops of the two countries at Doklam area in the Sikkim section, Wu urged India to to "correct its mistake".

Stating that the PLA has taken emergency measures in the region and continues to increase focused deployments and drills, he said, "We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquillity."

His comments came as NSA Ajit Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from July 27-28 during which he is expected to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi. Both Doval and Yang are Special Representatives of the two countries in the boundary talks.

Chinese officials say while there may not be a formal meeting between the two officials, keeping with Beijing's public position that no talks will be held without India withdrawing troops, they could hold discussions on the sidelines to end the deadlock.

Last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told Rajya Sabha that China intends to unilaterally change the status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to India's security.

She had said there was a written agreement between India, China and Bhutan in 2012 that the three nations will together decide on the boundaries at the tri-junction point.

She also accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China.

Swaraj also said that India was not "unreasonable" on the issue and all nations were with it.

The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area near the Bhutan tri-junction has dragged on for the past four weeks. It started after a Chinese Army's construction party attempted to build a road.

Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam while China claims it as part of its Donglang region.
Send items for Worship News to religion@thereporteronline.com. Address questions to Nancy March, editor, at nmarch@thereporteronline.com. Deadline is noon Thursday to appear in the Saturday Worship News and Notes. Presentation of Our Lord Ukrainian Catholic Church has one more Sidewalk Ukrainian...
Auto burglary

Someone smashed the rear window of a 2016 Ford F250 on Burnett Avenue and stole an air compressor and hand saw. The crime was reported 3:54 p.m. July 18.

A thief or thieves broke a window on a white 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee, parked in Cochrane Plaza, and stole a purse from the vehicle. The theft was reported 4:45 p.m. July 18.

Someone broke into a vehicle parked at Blue Grass Court and stole credit cards. The crime was reported 5:07 p.m. July 14.

Stolen vehicle

A white 2016 Kia Optima was stolen from a spot on Hillwood Lane. The theft was reported 6:32 a.m. July 19.

Hit and run

A silver or gray Infiniti rear-ended a silver Volkswagen Passat at Butterfield Boulevard and Tennant Avenue, and left the scene. The incident was reported 3:54 p.m. July 19.

Burglary

A resident of Triggs Lane arrived home to find the door broken open, but nothing was stolen from the residence. The crime was reported 4:35 p.m. July 19.

Vandalism

Someone broke the side mirror off a vehicle that was parked in the Downtown Garage, 50 E. Third Street. The crime was reported 7:15 p.m. July 19.

Battery

A male juvenile about 13 years old assaulted a 15-year-old boy across the street from the Community and Cultural Center, 6:57 p.m. July 14. The assault occurred at Taco Bell, then the victim walked across the street to the CCC. The victim was allegedly kicked in the ribs during the assault.

All subjects are innocent until proven guilty. Information is compiled from public records.
Hunger affects every community in North Carolina. In Burke County, 13,340 people, 14. 9 percent of the county population, are food insecure. Children and older adults have a greater risk of being hungry. When people lack access to adequate and healthy foods, their health and well-being suffers. Children are unable to concentrate in school, and people of all ages are more likely to be sick.

There are several programs that help people access food, but the largest federal program is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamps). In North Carolina the program is called Food and Nutrition Services and operates through the Department of Health and Human Services.

Many households depend on the monthly food supplement to expand their grocery budget and purchase healthier foods. The Burke County Cooperative Extension offers a program called More In My Basket, which provides education about the FNS program. Through More In My Basket, participants learn if they are likely eligible for FNS and how FNS can expand their food budget, and receive individualized assistance with completing an application.

More In My Basket was developed at North Carolina State University by Dr. Carolyn Bird, a family resource management specialist.

People with limited resources must make tough decisions about how to spend their money, Bird said. They may forego medical care in order to put food on the table. They may skip meals to pay utility bills. Through More In My Basket , we help connect more people to FNS, allowing them to better manage their financial resources. FNS is not only good for families, but it helps the community as well. Research shows that for every $5 of FNS spent, there is a $9 impact in the community.

Contact Emily Troutman at North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Burke County Center to learn about upcoming More In My Basket sessions or to schedule a session. Emily can be reached at 828- 764-9480 or emily_troutman@ncsu.edu.

If you would like to find out if you may be eligible for FNS, contact the More In My Basket toll-free information line at 855-240-1451.
Gerresheimer Glass recently challenged its employees to demonstrate their integrity to the community during the third annual One Gerresheimer Week.

Gerresheimer Glass, Inc., a premier vial pharmaceutical supplier for the global pharmaceutical industry, held various fundraising events during One Gerresheimer Week from June 4-10. The week was a global event with all of the Gerresheimer plants worldwide participating in various activities to promote integrity.

The employees held numerous events throughout the week to raise money for Burke Hospice and Palliative Care. The plants goal was to raise $500. Plant employees surpassed the goal by raising $1,135. All four shifts competed for a catered lunch for the shift that raised the most money. D1 shift of 30 employees was the winning shift. They received a catered lunch from Myras on June 13. D1 shift employees presented a check for $1,135 to Teresa Adkins, Mike Loesekann, Daryl Brown and Mark Stinson, who represented Burke Hospice, on July 19.

Additional activities held throughout the week included a food drive for Burke United Christian Ministries, the delivery of 56 gift baskets to Magnolia Lane Nursing and Rehabilitation, work by supervisor s and managers on the Shopfloor, a raffle of 11 donated prizes and a catered lunch on all four shifts.
After pleading guilty to drug charges, a Morganton man was sentenced to prison on July 19 in Burke County Superior Court.

Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin sentenced Raydene Little Jr., 31, to between six to eight years in prison after he pleaded guilty to trafficking methamphetamine.

In April 2016, an officer with Glen Alpine Police Department stopped Little for driving an uninsured vehicle. The officer saw drug paraphernalia in the floorboard of the vehicle and asked Little for his consent to search it, according to a release from the District Attorney's Office.

During the search, the officer found a Crown Royal liquor bag under the drivers seat that contained digital scales and multiple plastic bags containing a crystalline substance. The State Crime Lab confirmed the substance to be methamphetamine, according to the release.

According to police reports in Burke County, Little Jr. also has been charged with multiple offenses since January, including trafficking methamphetamine, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, assaulting a government officer or employee, resisting arrest and probation violation.

In addition to the sentence, Little was given a mandatory fine of $50,000, the release said.

Noah Spencer investigated the case for the Burke County Narcotics Task Force and Lance Sigmon handled prosecution for the District Attorneys Office.
A sex offender from Morganton was recently sentenced to prison in Burke County Superior Court.

Joseph William Rudisill, 31, was sentenced to five to seven years after pleading guilty to charges of failing to register as a sex offender and admitting his status as a habitual felon, according to a press release from the district attorneys office.

Rudisill entered his guilty plea on July 17 and was sentenced to his prison term by Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin, the release said.

The habitual felon status enhanced Rudisills prison sentence. In 2006, he had previous convictions for indecent liberties with children in Iredell County and he was charged with failing to register as a sex offender in Avery County in 2012. He also failed to register as a sex offender in Burke County in 2013, the release said.

Between Sept. 27, 2016 and Oct. 2, 2016, Investigator Isaac Propst with the Burke County Sheriffs Office made visits to Rudisill's home to conduct a random address verification of his sex offender registration . After a half-dozen failed attempts to make contact, investigators started checking hospitals for Rudisill. Police determined he had a prescription filled in Rowan County and never returned to his registered residence, the release said.

Working with the Burke County Office of Probation and Parole, Propst determined that the defendant had absconded supervision and was in violation of sex offender registry requirements, the release said.

Propst led the investigation for the Burke County Sheriffs Office and Assistant District Attorney Michelle Lippert prosecuted the case for the state.
The FTSE 100 has rallied 14% over the past year, up 3.4% year to date. The unloved stocks of the past couple of years have seen gains  with energy stocks up last year, and financials rallying too. So where are the pockets of value left?

The Morningstar Fair Value Estimate tells investors what the long-term, intrinsic value of a stock is, helping them see beyond the present market price. Morningstar calculates the fair value estimate of a company based on how much cash we think the company will generate in the future.

When determining the fair value estimate, Morningstar also takes into account the predictability of a companys future cash flows - the uncertainty rating. A stock with a higher uncertainty rating, requires a larger margin of safety before earning a four or five-star rating.

Despite the considerable rally in UK equities over the last year there are still bargains to be had. There are 17 undervalued stocks in the UK, according to Morningstar equity analysts. We highlight five below. Barclays (BARC) With headquarters in London, Barclays is the second-largest U.K. bank by asset size and is a trans-Atlantic consumer, corporate, and investment bank. The bank operates via two main divisions: Barclays U.K. and Barclays International. Barclays U.K. includes the personal banking, Barclaycard, and wealth, entrepreneur, and business banking. Barclays International includes the corporate and investment banking and consumer, cards, and payments segments in Europe and the U.S. Barclays U.K. serves as the groups ring-fenced business. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) In the pharmaceutical industry, GlaxoSmithKline ranks as one of the largest companies by total sales. The company wields its might across multiple therapeutic classes, including respiratory and antiviral, as well as vaccines and healthcare-related consumer products. Sainsbury (SBRY) Founded in 1869, J Sainsbury is the second-largest U.K. grocery chain with a 16.5% market share. It operates over 600 supermarkets and nearly 800 convenience stores, all in the U.K., with 90% of sales generated by supermarkets. The company has diversified away from core food by selling clothing, telecom equipment, and other non-food items. In September 2016 it took a step further into non-food retailing with the purchase of Home Retail Group, operating the Habitat and Argos chains, for 1.1 billion. It has operated online sales since 1997. Rio Tinto (RIO) Rio Tinto searches for and extracts a variety of minerals worldwide, with the heaviest concentrations in North America and Australia. Iron ore is the dominant commodity, with meaningful contributions from aluminium, copper, diamonds, energy products, gold, and industrial minerals. The 1995 merger of RTZ and CRA, via a dual-listed structure, created the present-day company. The two operate as a single business entity. Shareholders in each company have equivalent economic and voting rights. Smith & Nephew (SN.) Smith & Nephew designs, manufactures, and markets orthopaedic devices and wound-care solutions. Approximately three fourths of the U.K.-based firm's revenue comes from knee replacements, hip implants, nails, fixation devices, and arthroscopy tools. The remaining 25% of revenue is from the wound therapy segment. Roughly half of Smith & Nephew's total revenue comes from developed European and Asian markets, 40% is from the United States, and emerging markets account for the remainder.
by Francis Monfort



The typical U.S. home was worth $200,400 in June, the highest is has ever been and an increase of about 7.5% a year ago, according to a real estate market report from Zillow.



Increasing home values across the country were driven by high buyer demand and fewer homes on the market. June saw the greatest inventory slide since July 2013, with 11% fewer home for sale compared to a year ago.



Seattle, Dallas and Las Vegas saw the fastest increases in home values, with all cities posting double-digit gains over the same period a year ago. Home values rose 13% year-over-year in Seattle to a median figure of $447,100, while Dallas and Las Vegas saw 10.5% and 10% increases, respectively.

Read more: Foreign investment in U.S. homes reaches record high

The national housing market remains red-hot and shows no signs of slowing, even as some local markets like the Bay Area have noticeably cooled, said Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell. But even in areas where the housing market has slowed, home values are at or very near peak levels, selection is limited, demand is high and competition is fierce.



Meanwhile, median rent across the U.S. remained steady, posting an annual growth of just more than 1% to $1,422 per month. The biggest increases in annual rent among the 35 largest U.S. metros were seen in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, California.
Exactly one month from today, a total solar eclipse will sweep across America, casting millions of people into temporary darkness. It will be the biggest astronomical event America has seen in years, watched by millions of people from within the path of totality and tens of millions more who are outside it. One astronomer has said it will be the "most photographed, most shared, most tweeted event in human history."

Some eclipse enthusiasts have spent years preparing for this solar spectacle, the first eclipse to cross the entire continental United States in almost a century. But even if you are just finding out about the eclipse, it's not too late to plan for the big event. Here's what you need to know:

(Story continues below.)

Now Playing: Millions of people across the U.S. gear up for the one-time solar event known as the Great American Eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017. Video: San Antonio Express-News

Q: What is happening?

A: A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, blocking our view of the sun. If you are standing in the moon's shadow on Earth, you will see the sky darken and feel the temperature drop. The place where the sun should be will look like a black circle in the sky. You will be able to view the sun's atmosphere, called the corona - a halo of exceedingly hot gas that's invisible under normal circumstances. Mike Kentrianakis, the solar eclipse project manager for the American Astronomical Society, calls it "the most gorgeous natural wonder you will ever see."

"If it strikes you hard enough," he promises, "you will never be the same."

Q: When and where is it happening?

A: The eclipse will occur across the continental United States on Aug. 21. The moon's shadow first hits land north of Newport, Ore., at 10:15 a.m. Pacific time. It will then make its way southeast through Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The shadow will leave the continental United States close to Charleston, S.C., at about 2:49 p.m. Eastern time.

MISSOURI GETS READY: Hundreds of thousands of visitors expected

Q: What is "the path of totality"?

A: The 70-mile-wide, 3,000-mile-long swath that lies directly in the shadow of the moon is called "the path of totality." For this eclipse, it will start off the coast of Oregon and sweep across the country to South Carolina. Because the moon orbits around Earth so quickly (at a pace of 2,100 miles per hour), each spot on the path will experience only about two minutes of totality. There is no way to chase the shadow around the country - the moon will cross the entire United States in about 90 minutes, faster than the speediest jetliner.

Q: What will I see if I am not inside the path of totality?

A: The shadow of the moon, known as the "umbra," will cross a relatively small swath of land. But the moon also casts a lighter shadow, called the "penumbra." People in this region, which will cover all of North America, will experience a partial eclipse. They will see the sun partly covered by the moon - like a cookie with a bite taken out of it. The degree to which the sun is covered depends on your proximity to the path of totality - the closer you are, the less of the sun you will see. People in the Washington area can expect to see about 80 percent coverage of the sun. If you are watching a partial eclipse, you must wear protective glasses for the entire event, or you will risk severe eye damage. (More on that below.)

Veteran eclipse chasers say that a partial eclipse isn't nearly as beautiful as totality. "It's a completely different phenomenon," said Kentrianakis, of AAS. "It shouldn't even be called an eclipse. It should be called something else." He recommends that everyone who is interested in the eclipse make their way to the path of totality for the big event.

Q: What about clouds?

A: Clouds would be a bummer. If the sky is overcast during totality, it will still get dark, but you will not be able to see the moon cover the sun or the glow of the corona. Eclipse experts recommend checking the weather forecast for your area in the days before Aug. 21 to ensure that you watch the event from a spot where skies will be clear.

Q: Why is this a big deal?

A: This is the first total solar eclipse to occur solely in the United States since the country was founded. For most Americans, this is the best chance to see a solar eclipse we will have in our lifetimes. An estimated 12 million people live in the path of totality, and as many as 7 million more will migrate to the path for the big event. It's likely to be a tremendous astronomical experience, and you don't want to miss it.

This eclipse is also a huge opportunity for scientists. The corona, which becomes visible when the moon covers up the sun, is the object of intense scientific interest - it emits sprays of hot, ionized particles that can damage electrical grids and satellites and harm astronauts in space. Because this eclipse will move across thousands of miles of mostly inhabited landscapes, rather than hard-to-reach wilderness or open seas, it will be within sight of scientists for almost the duration of totality. That means that researchers positioned at various locations along the path of totality can film the event and piece their clips together to create an unprecedented 90-minute video of the corona in action.

Q: Where should I go to watch the eclipse?

A: Anyone within the path of totality will be able to see the moon cover up the sun. But several cities along the path are putting on a special show for the occasion. Here's a look at some of the festivals taking place across the country on the big day. It's also worth considering where you are least likely to experience clouds.

Q: Do I need any special equipment?

A: Yes! Except during the brief phase of totality, you must wear eclipse-watching glasses the entire time you are looking at the sun. This is also true if you are watching the eclipse from outside the path of totality. If you attempt to look at the eclipse without protective lenses, you risk severe damage to your eyes. Ultraviolet rays from the sun can literally give your eyeballs a sunburn.

Only specially designed solar filters will do the trick. Regular sunglasses are not good enough! NASA has identified several manufacturers of eclipse glasses and solar filters that meet international safety standards. Eclipse glasses are also available at many libraries.

To recap: If you are outside the path of totality, you must wear glasses the entire duration of the eclipse. If you are within the path of totality, wear your glasses until the moon completely blocks the sun. Then you can take your glasses off to see the spectacle and the sun's corona. But before totality ends (after about 2 minutes, depending on your location), put your glasses back on to watch the rest of the event.

We are not trying to scaremonger, but c'mon, guys. Be smart, wear your glasses. Your optometrist will thank you.

Q: When is the next one?

A: The next total solar eclipse visible from planet Earth will occur in July 2019 over Argentina and Chile. And the United States is set to see another total eclipse on April 8, 2024, when the moon will cast a shadow across Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Canada and Maine.

Q: Why don't eclipses happen every month?

A: We experience total solar eclipses because of the cosmic coincidence that the moon is 400 times closer than the sun and 1/400th of its size. This means that when Earth, the moon and the sun line up perfectly, the moon neatly blocks out the light of our star. But the orbit of the moon is slightly tilted relative to the plane in which Earth orbits the sun, so most of the time it passes below or above the sun from our line of sight. The moon's orbit takes it directly in between Earth and the sun every 18 months or so, resulting in a total solar eclipse.

In addition to being tilted, the moon's orbit is not perfectly circular. Sometimes, the moon is farther away when it passes between us and the sun. In these cases, it appears slightly smaller than the sun, so a ring of the sun's light is still visible during the eclipse. This phenomenon is known as an annular eclipse, and it also occurs roughly every year and a half.

But Earth won't experience eclipses forever. The moon is drifting away from our planet at a rate of about an inch and a half per year. In approximately 650 million years, the moon will be so distant that it can no longer completely block out the sun. Humans will have seen their last eclipse - if we manage to make it that long.
The House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday, while the Senate has already overwhelmingly approved its version, but would have to concur with the House bill before it could be sent to Trump for his signature.

Key Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached accord Saturday on the measure, which does not include changes Trump wanted to make it easier for him to lift penalties against Moscow.

Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, told CNN, "You've got to ask President Trump. My guess is he's going to make that decision soon." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC News "the White House supports where the legislation is now."

The U.S. Congress is moving toward adoption of new sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, but it was unclear Sunday whether President Donald Trump would sign the legislation.

 Investigations

Trump has been largely dismissive of numerous investigations underway in the U.S. about Russian meddling in the election aimed at helping him win. But the legislation would require him to submit a report to Congress explaining his reasons for wanting to ease or terminate sanctions against Moscow, such as returning diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York that former President Barack Obama shut in December in response to the election interference.

Congress would have at least 30 days to hold hearings and then vote to approve or reject Trump's easing of sanctions. Scaramucci, reflecting Trump's views, said, "The Russia thing is a complete bogus and nonsensical thing."

Scaramucci, named Friday as one of Trump's top advisers, said the president remains uncertain whether Russia hacked into computer files at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington and then released thousands of e-mails through the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks to damage Trump's challenger, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Numerous congressional panels are interviewing Trump campaign aides about possible links to Russian interests. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a criminal probe whether the Trump campaign illegally colluded with Moscow and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director who was heading the Russia probe before Mueller took over.

 Procedural Issues

On Saturday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said they had reached an agreement that fixed lingering procedural issues, as well as adding the sanctions against North Korea to the bill approved by the Senate.

The House legislation will be considered under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage, meaning it would pass with a veto-proof majority. Approval of the bill will likely occur before Congress' August recess, a rare bipartisan effort in the politically fractious Washington.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement, "The bill the House will vote on next week will now exclusively focus on these nations and hold them accountable for their dangerous actions."

Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, echoed the Republicans' statement, saying the bill "will hold Russia and Iran accountable for their destabilizing actions around the world." With the sanctions legislation, Congress is seeking to punish Russia not only for its meddling last fall in the U.S. election, but also for its 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed the U.S. election interference, a claim Putin has rejected.
'The big truck is still on ...
Heavy flooding and power outages plagued many parts of Seoul and the surrounding region over the weekend as thunderstorms raced back and forth across the region.

Seoul, surrounding Gyeonggi Province and the western port city of Incheon were inundated with nearly 100 mm of rainfall, but temperatures soared close to 30 degrees Celsius once it ended.

In Siheung, Gyeonggi Province west of Seoul, 96 mm of rainfall on Sunday morning submerged 126 homes in floodwaters. The amount of rainfall seen was even higher than the record 91.8 mm that pounded Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province last Sunday.

Goyang north of Seoul saw 155.5 mm of rainfall until 2 p.m., and Uiwang 135.5 mm. Water levels in the Imjin River just south of the border with North Korea rose to 5.56 m, the highest so far this year.


Comedian Kim Byung-man suffered a spinal fracture while skydiving in the U.S.

Kim's agency said on Friday that he was involved in an accident while training for a skydiving license to represent Korea. "He was injured due to a sudden change of wind direction as he was landing," the agency said.

Lifeguards and U.K. military personnel on the scene gave Kim first aid to prevent further damage, and he was taken to a hospital. An examination revealed a spinal fracture but no nerve damage.

After surgery and a recovery period of one to two weeks, Kim will return to Korea. A full recovery is expected to take about two months.


The U.S. military has ramped up surveillance of a North Korean submarine that has been conducting "unusual activities" in the East Sea for about a week, NHK reported Sunday.

Officials in Seoul declined to confirm any military operation against the sub. "The Romeo-class diesel submarine has been engaged in activities for about a week... Activities by submarines of this class in the area usually last about four days," NHK added.

The 1,800-ton diesel subs were introduced in the 1960s and do not have the capacity to fire ballistic missiles. Each 76 m-long sub has a crew of some 50 sailors and is armed with 14 torpedoes and about 20 mines.
Originally posted on: Monday, July 24, 2017

We're less than a month away from the most anticipated solar event of many of our lifetimes.

On Monday, Aug. 21, a total solar eclipse will be visible from coast to coast in the U.S. Scientists from across the country will be setting up various experiments along with citizen observers, helping to advance our knowledge of the sun's magnetic field and the effect on the Earth's atmosphere.

Dr. Alex Young of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, spoke with meteorologist Maureen McCann about what we can expect from the celestial show.

Maureen McCann: Walk me through what's going to happen on Aug. 21, and what we'll see here in Central Florida?

Young: The moon is going to move between the sun and the Earth and cast a shadow, which will reach the U.S. in Oregon and travel across 14 states at about 1,400 mph, ending in Charleston, South Carolina. Everyone in the U.S., including those in Orlando, will experience a partial solar eclipse.

#Eclipses happen when the Sun, Moon & Earth line up just right  More on the Moon's role on Aug. 21: https://t.co/magHBffJAv #Eclipse2017 pic.twitter.com/2mQkAkW2Oa  NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) July 22, 2017

About 85 percent of the sun will be covered by the moon in many places. If you happen to be in the narrow path that's about 70 miles wide called the "path of totality," you'll see a total solar eclipse. But (here), you'll still get to see a deep partial eclipse and you're going to see the moon's shadow move from west to east and feel changes in temperature and light. It's going to be really spectacular.

McCann: Why is this particular eclipse so special, Dr. Young?

Young: This is an opportunity for us to not only study the sun, but also study the Earth. The shadow that is cast on the ground is well understood. We know exactly where it is and so we can see the change in light that reaches the ground as it moves across the country. This is changing the atmosphere itself, changing the clouds, temperature, and etc.

Happy #SUNday! The Aug. 21 total solar eclipse in the US is a rarity. Here's why they're not so common: https://t.co/vwLdvflEwK #Eclipse2017 pic.twitter.com/ND1Hy5xwG2  NASA (@NASA) July 16, 2017

So, this gives us an amazing opportunity to study changes in our atmosphere and understand the impact of the sun on the Earth.

McCann: What sort of citizen science will NASA be doing for this eclipse to involve people who will get to see it themselves?

Young: During that day, everyone who's experiencing this partial eclipse will get to be a NASA scientist. The environment around you is going to change. The clouds will change, the temperature will change, so if you download the Globe Observer app on your smart phone, you'll take that along with a thermometer and you'll be able to record the changes in your environment as that shadow is going across the country.

In turn, you'll be providing data to be part of one of the largest citizen science experiments we've ever done and allowing us to better understand our Earth and our atmosphere.

#Eclipse2017 on Aug. 21 will be neat to seebut it can also help us understand how the sun energizes Earth. See how: https://t.co/b06zTlGEPo pic.twitter.com/19CRvvuU6P  NASA (@NASA) July 20, 2017

McCann: Are there any safety tips that you would like to pass on?

Young: It's never safe to look directly at the sun unless you have your safe solar viewing glasses. So make sure you have these on hand when viewing the sun during the eclipse.

You can also view the eclipse in an indirect way by projecting the phenomenon on paper. Anything with a hole will create a pin-hole, allowing you to see it. Overall, you want to enjoy it, see it, and be safe by protecting your eyes.

You can find out more details about the safety as well as the science, including the citizen science, here.
A North Korean family of five, including a former senior official of the Workers Party, committed suicide last week after they were caught by Chinese police and faced deportation to the North. They were heading to South Korea.

Activist Kim Hee-tae told the Chosun Ilbo on Sunday, "Fifteen defectors who were on their way to South Korea were caught by police in the Chinese province of Yunnan a week ago."

"They killed themselves by taking poison after they were taken to Shenyang, Liaoning Province three days ago and faced deportation to the North," he added. They were a 50-something senior official of a regional agency of the Workers Party, his wife, son and two daughters.

"Right after they were caught in Yunnan, they tried to bribe their way out through a local fixer, but once they were taken to Shenyang they probably lost hope and killed themselves," Kim speculated.

The Foreign Ministry in Seoul declined to confirm the story.

Meanwhile, China appears to be cracking down more aggressively on refugees from the North. Twenty-seven defectors who were on their way to South Korea were arrested in Yunnan in July alone. Five others were caught in Guangxi near the border with Vietnam and 11 in Jilin Province, according to a source said.


The State Council executive meeting on July 19 decided to adopt measures to prevent students from dropping out of school.

We should not only guarantee the basic living standards of the public, but also ensure that eligible children, especially those from poverty-affected families, receive compulsory education to help eliminate poverty among those families, Premier Li Keqiang told the meeting.

By 2020, the State Council wants 95 percent of students to complete their nine years of compulsory education.

Premier Li said Chinas education has made several achievements since the reform and opening up, becoming a key force to drive the nations economic and social progress.

He said education will continue to support Chinas development and must be a priority of the government.

In some regions, especially poor areas, some students are still dropping out of schools. Such phenomenon, if left uncontrolled, will cast a shadow on those poor families, as well as, the future of the nation, Premier Li said.

The Premier recalled his visit to Northwest Chinas Shaanxi province where he was told that a kid from a poor family used to walk 20 kilometers to school every day.

We must make education in the countryside more equal and prevent students from dropping out of school due to poverty or the distance from home to school, he said.

He mentioned that a significant factor contributing to students dropping out of compulsory education was limited budget, which causes poor school conditions and a teacher drain.

It is a serious problem that must be addressed, and the educational funding model should be adjusted accordingly, the Premier said.

He asked related departments to optimize educational expenditure and strengthen investment in compulsory education.

Besides, Premier Li said efforts should be made to improve school facilities in rural areas, increase support for students with learning difficulties and enrich courses and teaching methods, including offering vocational courses, to attract students and keep them from dropping out.

He also called on government departments to come up with ideas to help children be more enthusiastic about school, the Premier said.

As most children like being together, and they can be easily influenced by their peers, we should let those who dropped out of school be envious of the learning atmosphere in schools.

The Premier also stressed that equal access to education is an important basis for social equity, and the major responsibility of the government is to ensure children from poor families have the opportunity to change their fate through receiving education, especially compulsory education.
ITW Global Brands, a car care products provider based in Houston, has opened a new global headquarters in the Energy Corridor.

The 25,000-square-foot facility at 16200 Park Row will provide space for more employees. There are about 70 Houston employees.

RELATED: Real estate in brief

"I am excited that our Houston team is under one roof after three years of searching for a space that was thoughtfully designed and large enough to foster our future growth," says James Stone, company Vice President & General Manager in a statement.

The company's best-known products are Rain-X wiper blades and glass care products.
Fast food eateries McDonalds Corp. and Panera Bread Co. are collectively hiring hundreds of new employees in the San Antonio area.

McDonalds is looking to add the bulk of those new jobs, hiring about 700 employees during an nine-hour hiring spree Tuesday at all 129 of the restaurant chains San Antonio locations, the company said in a news release.
Speaking at a San Antonio Trial Lawyers Association luncheon earlier this month, high-powered attorney Mikal Watts recounted the federal raid at his law firm in 2013, his subsequent indictment, trial and exoneration on charges that he made up fake clients to sue BP over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

A large screen off to Watts right trumpeted the title of his presentation, Skinned Alive: An innocent mans persecution by the U.S. Department of Justice. Watts contends the charges against him, his brother David and a paralegal were politically motivated. The Democratic mega-donor most notably hosted a $38,800-a-plate fundraiser in 2012 at his Dominion estate for President Barack Obama.
You might look to Madonna for music tips or Barack Obama for inspiration. But would you turn to these rich and famous folks for financial advice?

Not only do many of your favorite celebs invest in the stock market, but they also make some surprising choices when deciding where their money goes. While some of those investments pay off, others leave these rich folks wallets a few dollars lighter.

Here are some surprising investments made by millionaires and billionaires, along with details on why they ponied up their cash.

Ashton Kutcher: Casper

Net worth: $200 Million

Actor Ashton Kutcher is famous for his role on CBS Two and a Half Men, and he has also gained quite a reputation as an investor. According to Entrepreneur, a number of startups have emerged in the mattress industry, and Kutcher jumped on board the trend with an investment in Casper, a bed-in-a-box company.

Casper launched in 2014 with a strategy to control costs and drive profit by selling from its website. That meant no brick-and-mortar overhead and no salesperson salaries. In just over a year, the company sold more than 50,000 mattresses. Sales in 2015 reached $100 million, and the company was on track to make twice that sum in 2016, according to an article from CNN Money. Today, the company sells pillows, sheets, duvets and dog beds in addition to its trademark mattresses.

Although its not odd for an investor to jump on a hot opportunity, Kutchers track record classifies him as a tech investor. Investing in home furnishings is an entirely different ballgame.

Barack Obama: Smith & Wesson

Net worth: $40 Million

Former President Obama is so passionate about ending gun violence that he cried during a 2016 announcement of an executive action related to gun control. Yet he is invested in gun and ammunition companies through the Illinois General Assemblys pension plan, which he joined as a senator, Reuters reported. Obamas net worth was $12.2 million when he left office this year.

Gun stocks have been a hot pick in recent years, and managed money has piled on the bandwagon. Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson  one of the stocks Obamas pension plan invested in  enjoyed net sales of $722.91 million in 2016, according to Statista. It was recently trading at $21 per share.

If youre hoping to find a job with a pension plan, remember that you do not have control over where that money is invested. And that is true even if you are president of the United States.

Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent: Gunnar Optiks

Net worth: $15 Million

50 Cent gained fame as a rapper, but he has also made some savvy investments over the years. His deals include the $100 million he earned from his Vitaminwater investment and a project-development agreement with Starz.

Additionally, Jackson invested in a company called Gunnar Optiks, which makes protective glasses designed to reduce eye strain, a condition that affects people who stare at computer screens all day. Although 50 Cent did not disclose how much he invested, he has said he believes Gunnar has the potential to be a billion-dollar company. However, in 2015, the rapper filed for bankruptcy, suggesting that the company did not make him billions, at least.

It is common for celebrities to invest in fashion and accessories. But its less common to find a star focused on gear that addresses occupational health issues.

John Kerry: ConocoPhillips

Net worth: $194 Million

Former Secretary of State John Kerry is a vocal critic of fossil fuels and has warned of the economic and human costs they impose. He also said clean energy is the biggest economic opportunity the world has ever seen, according to a Huffington Post report.

For that reason, it is surprising that in 2015, Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz, disclosed trust investments in 94 companies that explore for, extract, store and transport oil, coal and other fossil fuels. Among them is ConocoPhillips, which was ordered to pay a group of aquaculture farmers $266,000 in 2015 for an oil spill off the coast of China in 2011.

Meanwhile, the couple was only invested in four companies involved in alternative renewable energy and energy-reduction efforts in 2016, according to The Daily Caller.

Warren Buffett: Apple

Net worth: $75 Billion

According to Fortune, Warren Buffett bought 72 million shares of Apple in January 2017. This is after his company Berkshire Hathaway revealed a $1.1 billion stake in Apple in 2016. The move isnt too surprising, given that the companys shares are up 25 percent year-to-date.

In general, Berkshire Hathaway tends to steer clear of technology stocks. Buffett has a long-standing rule of investing in things he can wrap his mind around, such as Sees Candies and insurance company Geico. Apparently, the Oracle of Omaha is getting technical.
While President Donald Trump criticized over the weekend the phony investigation into his campaigns contacts with Russian officials while running for office, Congress struck a deal to finally punish Russia for the alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

But it was a bit of a rough road to reach that compromise. The main speed bump: U.S. oil and gas firms objections to the codification of sanctions issued by President Barack Obama in 2014. By turning what were executive orders into law, Trump would not be able to undo sanctions against Russia without congressional approval.

The compromise between leaders in the Senate, where the bill passed with an overwhelming 98-2 majority, and the House, where the sanctions package stalled, was welded with a carve-out for U.S. oil and gas interests.

Heres the deal: The bill, if passed and signed into law, would restrict U.S. firms from partnering with sanctioned Russian firms on projects in which those Russians owned at least a 33 percent stake.

What it means: On its face, the compromise bill would give certain joint ventures the greenlight, while stopping others.

For example, BP would be good to go ahead with a big offshore natural gas project in the South Caspian Sea of Azerbaijan, a former Soviet state. Lukoil, BPs Russian partner on the project, owns only a 10 percent stake in developing that gas field so the deal would not be covered under the new sanctions legislation.

The language of the bill also ensures that it didnt affect a major pipeline used to transport oil from Kazakhstan through Russia to Ukraine in which Chevron is a co-investor, according to CNN.

But it seems that ExxonMobils stalled co-venture to drill in the Arctic Ocean and Black Sea may remain that way. The sanctioned state-owned firm involved in that deal, Rosneft, has a two-thirds stake in the project.

(Caveats to this rule of thumb abound: We havent seen the text of the bill yet. Plus, whether its sanctions issued by legislation or executive order, its the Treasury Department that determines which Russian firms fall on the sanctions list.)

What the White House says: The message from Trumps recently shaken-up press shop is muddled, to say the least. Freshly minted White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday morning on ABC that the president supports the compromise bill. But almost simultaneously, the new White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, told CNN that the president hasnt made the decision yet to sign that bill one way or the other. (My bad, Scaramucci later told the New York Times when asked about his comments. Go with what Sarah is saying as I am new to the information.)

Meanwhile: Members of the European Union, who have hounded Trumps seemingly cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, voiced reservations about potential unintended consequences of the unilateral effort to sanction Russia through legislation.

This impact could be potentially wide and indiscriminate, including when it comes to energy sources diversification efforts, the European Commission said in a statement over the weekend.

In particular, Germany appears worried its domestic firms partnering with Russias Gazprom on the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would deliver Russian gas to Eastern Europe, would be swept up in the sanctions.

So strangely enough, by signing a bill punishing Russia, Trump may be able to simultaneously needle another foil of his on the international stage, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

According to the office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the vote for the sanctions bill is set for Tuesday.
Premier Li Keqiang stressed the importance of enhanced temporary assistance for people in need at the State Council executive meeting on July 19.

Since its establishment in 2013, the nationwide temporary assistance system has effectively supported impoverished families, and more funds from the central government have also been in place to support the system.

Last year, about 10 million people in China received temporary assistance, which helped to make the lives of those living in hardship easier.

At a State Council executive meeting held in October 2013, Premier Li said the temporary assistance system was a basic measure to safeguard the livelihood of people and social fairness.

It is a safety net and a bottom line for people living in need, and a way to protect their rights of living and dignity, he said.

In July 2015, the State Council then decided to roll out critical illness insurance for rural and urban residents.

Premier Li said the insurance effectively bailed out families with huge medical costs, giving a sense of safety to all residents.

The national coverage of the critical illness insurance was also included in the Government Work Report in 2016, and covered all rural and urban residents at the end of last year, as promised by Premier Li.

With care for the livelihood for people from the central government and Premier Li, the temporary assistance system and critical illness insurance, along with other policies on social assistance, could anchor social stability by supporting those in poverty and difficulty.
Ziegler Cooper Architects/Everson Developments

Everson Developments has tapped The J. Beard Real Estate Co. to find tenants for Vision Park Medical Building, a proposed 51,000-square-foot medical office building at 123 Vision Park Blvd. in Shenandoah near The Woodlands.

The three-story building, designed by Ziegler Cooper Architects, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2018. Pre-leasing is underway.
The state Supreme Court made it harder Monday for some third-strikers to get their life sentences reduced if they were armed when they committed their last offense, even if the crime itself was neither serious nor violent.

For the second time this month, the justices agreed with prosecutors in a dispute over the scope of Proposition 36, a 2012 initiative that narrowed Californias 1994 three strikes law.

The 1994 law imposed a sentence of 25 years to life for anyone who had two previous convictions for serious or violent felonies and was then convicted of a third felony of any type, including some minor drug and theft offenses.

Prop. 36 limited third strikes to serious or violent felonies and allowed prisoners who were serving life terms for other third-strike felonies to have their sentences reduced, unless a judge found that they posed an unreasonable risk of danger.

Under Prop. 36, however, a third strike is still considered a serious felony if the defendant was armed with a gun or another deadly weapon. The court said Monday that a judge can consider evidence from charges that were dismissed, as part of a plea agreement, to find that the defendant was armed during the third-strike crime, even if the crime itself was not serious or violent.

The case involved Mario Estrada, who pleaded guilty to grand theft in 1996 for stealing $400 from a Radio Shack store in Los Angeles County. With two previous robbery convictions, he was sentenced as a third-striker to 25 years to life.

After Prop. 36 passed, Estrada sought release on the grounds that grand theft is not classified as a serious or violent crime, and he had served his full sentence under other provisions of the three-strikes law. But the sentencing judge refused, citing testimony by a Radio Shack employee in 1996 that Estrada had pulled out a handgun after entering the store  a charge that prosecutors had dismissed in his 1996 plea agreement.

Estradas lawyers argued that prosecutors had agreed not to use the handgun evidence against him when they dropped that charge. But the Supreme Court said Monday that the judge was entitled to use the testimony to find that Estrada was armed when he committed the theft.

In allowing nonviolent third-strikers to win release from life sentences, Prop. 36 defined violent offenders to include not only those inmates convicted of inherently violent offenses but also those who committed nonviolent offenses in a violent manner, Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar said in the 7-0 ruling.

A judge considering a request for a reduced sentence can look at evidence from dismissed charges that shows the defendant was armed or acted violently during the crime for which the defendant was convicted, Cuellar said.

In another Prop. 36 case, the court ruled 4-3 on July 3 that a more lenient definition of unreasonable risk of danger, approved by the voters in a later initiative, did not apply to third-strikers.

Prop. 47, passed in 2014, shortened sentences for many drug and theft crimes and allowed prisoners serving time for those crimes to go free unless a judge found an unreasonable risk that they would commit a violent felony. The court said third-strike inmates seeking release under Prop. 36 were bound by the measures non-specific, broader unreasonable risk standard.

Mondays case is People vs. Estrada, S232114.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
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HARTFORD  By the narrowest of margins Monday night, the General Assembly rejected the governors veto of a controversial five-year plan for towns and cities to delay affordable-housing projects.

During debates and votes that pitted suburban versus urban lawmakers, the override succeeded 101-47 in the House and 24-12 in the Senate. Both votes were the minimum needed to repudiate Gov. Dannel P. Malloys veto of legislation he claimed would be used by municipalities to resist new housing.

Proponents of the override, led by Sen. Gayle S. Slossberg, D-Milford, said predatory developers have been gaming the states 30-year-old affordable housing law, using teams of lawyers to tie up municipalities in court and build dense housing units out of character with neighborhoods.

No other state in the nation gives private developers this ability, Slossberg said, noting that only 31 cities and towns in the state have met the goal of 10-percent affordable housing.

The bill, which affects six towns, including Fairfield, Stratford, Milford and Greenwich, will also expand the types of dwelling units counted toward those communities progress on statewide affordable-housing goals.

We thought we should offer carrots, said Rep. Larry Butler, D-Waterbury, co-chairman of the legislative Housing Committee, who spent much of the House debate fending off criticism from lawmakers from Hartford, New Haven, Stamford and Bridgeport. There is a serious problem here. We tried to provide an opportunity to mitigate that in the state of Connecticut.

Rep. Patricia Billie Miller, D-Stamford, said that historic state housing law restricted many lower-income residents to the major cities. They were locked into certain areas, she said. They could go to Bridgeport, they could go to Norwalk. The small towns that surrounded our area would not allow those families.

More than 130 of the states towns and cities have less than 10 percent of their housing units classified as affordable. But the emergence in recent decades of affordable housing requirements has opened up housing opportunities in wealthier towns such as Darien, Miller said.

Rep. Chris Rosario, D-Bridgeport, commended Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for vetoing the bill.

I strongly believe that this legislation will take affordable housing in the wrong direction, he said.

But Rep. Kim Rose, D-Milford, said that some property developers in her city take advantage of housing laws to maximize unit coverage at the expense of the character of small neighborhoods.

Right now we have more than 1,000 units of housing in the development and building stage, with 30-percent of those affordable, she said. We have predatory developers that are purchasing small parcels single-family parcels, one house in the middle of a development of Cape Cods. And they are coming in and putting in 15 units, three stories.

In reaction, Chris Collibee, spokesman for Malloy, said the override was wrong for the state.

The best interest of our residents and communities were not served by this action, Collibee said in a statement minutes after the 8 p.m. Senate vote. Make no mistake, Gov. Malloy is undeterred by todays developments and remains resolute in increasing access to affordable housing in all of our communities, because every personregardless of race, ethnicity or socio-economic status--deserves the opportunity to live in the communities in which they work.

After more than four hours of debate, the House voted 78-72 to accept a concessions deal with unionized state workers aimed at saving $1.56 billion in the budget year that began July 1. Democrats said it was a key to an eventual budget agreement, but Republican lawmakers said it did not achieve enough savings. The Senate will take up the bill next week.

It doesnt get the job done, said Rep. Fred Wilms, R-Norwalk, stressed the need for flexibility for managing the states 45,00-member unionized work force, whose contracts would be extended to 2027 under the deal, which includes a four-year no-layoff clause. We are choosing to fix our costs for four and 10 years.

House Minority Leader Themis Klarides on Monday said that towns and cities need some certainty in their own adopted budgets. But Aresimowicz criticized the GOP plan as an attempt to end collective bargaining in the state.

Meanwhile, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities on Monday released a survey that indicates spending freezes that have resulted from the budget impasse in the General Assembly have occurred in 29 of 61 member towns and cities.

KDixon@ctpost.com; Twitter: @KenDixonCT
AAA is among several auto safety groups applauding a new law that requires children younger than 2 years old to be in rear facing car seats and calls on children to be in booster seats until their eighth birthday.

The General Assembly made a strong statement in support of safety with passage of this law, said AAA spokeswoman Fran Mayko, in a news release. The new provisions bring Connecticut in line with the latest research and best thinking from the leading child safety advocates both locally and nationwide.
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A local doctor has been arrested for allegedly harassing his soon-to-be ex-wife's friend, accusing both of being "lesbian girlfriends," according to court documents obtained Friday.

On Wednesday, Rene Rolando Compean, 57, was charged with harassment.

Compean's attorney, Marc Gonzalez, declined to comment on the allegations against his client, citing an ongoing investigation.

RELATED: Laredo gynecologist confessed to downloading child porn after employees found it on USB, according to records

The case unfolded June 19, when a San Antonio woman called Laredo police saying she had received a voicemail on her cellphone. In the voicemail, a man said a sexual slur and added, 'Hope you enjoy it b***h,'" states the criminal complaint.

The woman told police she immediately identified the man as Compean.

She said to police she is friends with his wife, who is going through a divorce. Compean has falsely accused her and his wife of being lesbian girlfriends, according to court documents.

Investigators retrieved the voicemail as evidence.

The woman told police she had recently blocked Compean's number to prevent him from calling her.

RELATED: Suspect charged in harassment case

"However, (she) now suspected that Dr. Compean was using the on-call answering service operator from (a hospital) to get through," the complaint states.

Police said they tried meeting with Compean on July 4. He declined to meet with police and stated he had an attorney handling the case.

Compean's wife stated he was upset because she and her adult children went to a concert in San Antonio during Father's Day weekend, the complaint states.

Compean allegedly sent his wife text messages accusing her of meeting with her friend in San Antonio, according to the complaint. LPD said they recovered screenshots of those text messages.
A school district in Texas approved a measure that would allow paddling as a form of punishment starting in the upcoming academic year.

Three Rivers Independent School District in South Texas passed the new system Tuesday. It allows "campus behavior coordinators and/or the principal" to administer corporal punishment with a witness present, according to the text of the policy. The witness must be of the opposite sex of the student.
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For the past three months servers have been laying down the beer and schnitzel at King's BierHaus in the Heights for a thirsty crowd relieved the Pearland juggernaut finally opened its doors in the north Houston location at T.C. Jester.

The kick-off has seen events that range from a VIP beer tasting, extensive press coverage to an "Ole Cindy Watch Party" in June where the crew invited customers in to witness the storm that wasn't.

But the King's team isn't stopping there with the creative promotions, and their latest one could be the trip of a lifetime for a lucky pair.

However, even the losers in the drawing will still get a tasty Bavarian reward when the company opens two King's Kolache Haus locations at a yet-to-determined Heights and Pearland address.

On Aug. 1 the company will announce the grand prize winner of a drawing for a trip for two to Salvatorfest held in March 2018 in Munich, Germany. The drawing began in June on their Facebook page where they asked fans to share a promotional video to be entered in the random drawing.

Since then, according to a company spokesperson, 2,000 people have entered and the post has generated over 600,000 views.

According to Scott Birdwell, who owns Defalco's, a one-stop shop for homebrewers to pick up materials and for educational classes located in southwest Houston, Salvatorfest is a celebration of a style of beer invented by German monks in the 1600's during Lent.

"Monks were forced to fast during Lent," said Birdwell. "But they were able to drink beer. They made this really strong beer called a double-bock. They actually survived on it for 40 days so they referred to it as a 'Savior.'"

Birdwell said most German breweries have a style of beer that ends with an "-or" to reflect the original Salvator version.

"It's a very rich beer with quite a bit of kick," he said.

The popular German Paulaner beer brand - founded in 1634 - claims their Salvator is the original recipe.

The festival celebrates this beer with a kick that pre-dates the better-known Oktoberfest which began only 200 years ago.
Youve probably heard of link building, but you might not know what it really is or how to do it effectively. Sure, you can go ahead and hire a digital marketing agency, but unless you know the ins and outs, you won't be successful.

What if they use PBNs?

What if they have a bad linking strategy?

What if they waste all your budget and don't deliver any results?

It's important to understand link building practices and how Google can change your website -- especially with Google's recent updates.

While working with clients through my agency, Taco, I come across a few common mistakes website owners make as they build links. And even though there are fantastic guides talking about link building, I see these mistakes over and over again.

Here are six link building strategies that hurt your SEO efforts and how to fix them.

1. Building links to home page links

It seems logical to send all of your SEO power to your homepage because that's where you want everyone to start. But, it's wrong. In fact, it's probably one of the biggest SEO myths. The homepage shouldn't be used for your top phrases.

I know you're asking right now, "But then how do I target the key phrases I want to rank for?"

You should build out content-rich subpages in your site to target those phrases, then build backlinks to those pages. By following this method, you will have links going to many pages on your site, not just your home page. This is a much more natural way to build links to your website.

Related: Why You Want 'Backlinks' to Your Website

2. Too much keyword anchor text

As I mentioned in the previous section, your homepage is not the place to target all of your important key phrases. Use it instead for building the brand and creating trust with the search engines.

So, when you are building links to your home page, the majority of the anchors should come from your brand or some form of your URL.

Most SEO strategies want to build links that have their important phrases as the anchor, but according to the research done by SEOJet, only 3 percent of your links should have an exact match as an anchor text.

This principle of building branded links also applies to subpages, if you want your link profile to look really natural, you need to have some anchor texts that have no key phrase at all, some links with the URL as the anchor, and some with your brand as the anchor.

This is how other website owners would link to you naturally. It is unreasonable to think that anyone who ever linked to you because they loved your site would use your main key phrase as the anchor. So, you can't do it either.

3. Not enough nofollow links

There is a misconception about nofollow links and whether or not you should get any as you build links for your site. If you look at it from a real-world perspective, the nofollow attribute was created so we as website owners could let Google know that certain links were advertisements and they shouldn't be counted in the SEO algorithm.

In other words, Google expects that real businesses will have nofollow links because real businesses advertise. So, how do you expect Google to recognize you as a real business if you aren't getting any nofollow links through advertising?

This is further supported by the fact that on average over 30 percent of links pointing to top-ranked websites are nofollow links. It is good to get nofollow links.

Related: How to Promote a Website Through Link Building in 10 Easy Ways

4. Not enough high-content pages

If you want people to link to your website naturally, then you should create amazing content ever written so people will link to it.

In fact, in order to build a lot of links to a page, you need good, in-depth content. If you're not doing that then getting a lot of links pointing to a page of yours will not look natural.

Google would never believe that a post with 500 words would naturally get 100 links pointing to it. But, the ultimate guide on a certain topic with 5000+ words could bring in hundreds of links naturally. That is where you need to focus your content marketing efforts.

5. Bad blogger outreach practices

One of the best ways to get links from high-authority websites is to write a guest blog post for them. There are a ton of blogs that will accept your guest post, but the reality is most guest posts never get approved.

This happens for two reasons.

Your pitch email is a template that could apply to any blog in the world or your writing isn't good enough. When you pitch a potential blog, don't think of it as a one-time thing but as if you are building a relationship with a colleague. Reach out to your new business colleague and talk to them about their site and their needs.

Then pitch your guest article that helps solve those needs. After that, make sure you write an amazing article. If writing isn't your greatest talent, then find someone who is a stellar writer and get them to help you.

If you are looking for a good outreach email to copy, check out this one in SEMRush.

Related: 5 Strategies for Better 'Link Building' and Improving Your SEO

6. No link building plan

This is the most common mistake almost all marketers make. They think that if they create amazing content, either people will naturally link to you (good luck with that to anyone who doesn't already have a following) or you just need to go build links to that page and it will rank.

That is a vague SEO strategy. You might as well say, "Just go do stuff and you will rank."

For some reason, people don't treat links as they should -- like money. Links are money. Links help you get on page one of Google search results. Page one equals money.

With your own personal money, you create a budget (read: plan) and then tell your money what to do. So, if you treat links like money, then you will have a plan in place and can tell your links what to do. You will plan out which anchor texts you need to get and how many so that you can keep a natural link profile. Using this SEO tactic, you will be able to get better SEO results with fewer links.

You would be surprised how much of an impact these things can have on your rankings, so give yourself a leg up on your competition by fixing these link building miscues.

Related:

6 SEO Strategies That Are Hurting Your Online Business

4 Easily Overlooked Reasons Your Online Business Is Not Thriving

4 Online Marketing Trends With Big Potential to Drive Sales



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


A quote caught my eye (and others' eyes) over the weekend. It was from Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, and it was about how Democrats move forward with a new slogan - "A Better Deal" - and new policies.

"When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don't blame other things - Comey, Russia - you blame yourself," Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Washington Post. "So what did we do wrong? People didn't know what we stood for, just that we were against Trump. And still believe that."

I certainly read that as a not-so-veiled shot at Hillary Clinton, who has spent plenty of time blaming things not named Hillary Clinton since November 2016 for her election defeat. Fox News went so far as to say: "Schumer tells Clinton 'blame yourself.'" And, notably, it comes from none other than Clinton's former New York colleague in the Senate.

Others disagreed, believing it was a more general statement about the party. Some even pointed to Schumer's use of the "we" personal pronoun in the second part of the quote - suggesting that he was talking about the party as a whole and not Clinton specifically.

Here's what I think we can say for sure: Regardless of whether this quote was aimed at Clinton, she's definitely on the receiving end. It's undeniably a rebuke of her choice of public statements since the 2016 election, and it shows how some Democrats believe Clinton's decision to continue re-litigating things - something she apparently plans to do at length in a forthcoming book - is going to make it tougher for her party to move forward.

Clinton has offered a number of reasons for her loss, including Russia's hacking, James B. Comey's late disclosure of newly discovered Clinton emails, misogyny and debate questions. Clinton has said she takes "absolute personal responsibility for her loss," but her repeated claims that she was the target of unfair and nefarious attacks suggest otherwise.

Anytime you write about Clinton making these excuses, her defenders are quick to pounce. It's possible that Russia did, in fact, tip the scales, they argue! FiveThirtyEight has done an analysis that suggests Comey probably did lose the election for her! And you can certainly make a credible case for either; we'll simply never be able to know for sure, because it would require psychoanalyzing millions of people in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin about something that happened months ago.

The point is that it's kind of neither here nor there at this juncture - especially when it comes to Democrats' efforts to climb out of their historically deep hole in Congress and in the states. And Schumer's comments show exactly how fruitful an exercise he believes all of that is in the meantime.

Irrespective of whether he was sending a message to Clinton and her defenders, they should consider it a commentary on her and their unwillingness to let go of the 2016 election and the many ways in which they feel they were wronged. Regardless of those feelings, Schumer seems to be arguing that the fact the Democrats were even in a position to lose to the most unpopular president-elect in modern history is an indictment of them. He doesn't want the party to continue trying to rely on how unpopular Trump is moving forward, and looking backward makes it more difficult to do that.

That's a message that can't help but be about his former colleague from New York.
WASHINGTON - Conservative hard-liners in the House are hoping to gut the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan scorekeeper whose analysis has recently bedeviled Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, by amending a massive spending bill set to be debated later this week.

An amendment filed Monday by Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., would eliminate the agency's Budget Analysis Division, cutting 89 jobs and $15 million of the CBO's proposed $48.5 million budget. A separate amendment filed by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., would also eliminate the same division and specify that the CBO instead evaluate legislation "by facilitating and assimilating scoring data" compiled by four private think tanks - the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Urban Institute.

Both Griffith and Meadows are members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, but complaints about the CBO have been widespread among Republicans in recent months after the agency found that various iterations of the party's health-care legislation would result in an increase of more than 20 million uninsured Americans over the coming decade. Critics have attacked the CBO's analysis and pointed to its projections on the Affordable Care Act as evidence that the office, now led by a Republican-selected director, cannot be trusted to accurately analyze complex legislation.

The criticism compelled the eight former directors of the CBO, which was created in 1974, to sign a letter Friday objecting to "recent attacks on the integrity and professionalism of the agency and on the agency's role in the legislative process."

But conservatives say the CBO's scorekeeping function is best left to other outlets.

"They're the one group that makes a weatherman's 10-day forecast look accurate," said Meadows, the Freedom Caucus chairman, during a Monday appearance at the National Press Club. "There's plenty of think tanks that are out there. And so we ought to take a score from Heritage, from AEI, from Brookings, from the Urban Institute and bring them together for a composite score that would represent a very wide swath of think tanks and their abilities. We think that's a pragmatic way to use the private sector and yet let Congress depend on a score that is accurate."

The White House has also attacked the CBO's credibility as the health-care repeal effort has languished. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., at times has criticized the agency's health-care estimates, but he also defended it from attacks last month, telling reporters that "it's important that we have a referee."

"It is important that we have a scorekeeper," he said. "We can always complain about the nature of the score."

The amendments are being offered to a $790 billion spending bill that combines appropriations for the military, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy and for Congress itself scheduled to come to the House floor for debate on Wednesday. The bill was largely written by Republicans and is not expected to garner support from Democrats, meaning that even if it passes the House, it is unlikely to emerge from the Senate intact. But the CBO provision could become subject to negotiations if it is adopted in the House.

Both amendments take advantage of a recent change to House rules pushed by Griffith that allows any member to target discrete programs or even individual employees for reduction or elimination. The provision, known as the Holman rule, was in effect from 1876 until 1983.

"When someone gives you bad advice again and again, why would you trust them to help you make big decisions?" Griffith said in a statement explaining his amendment. "I believe Congress would be better served if CBO becomes an aggregator of predictions made by third-party public policy groups across the political spectrum, from left to center to right."
BERRYVILLE, Va. - Democratic leaders traveled to a deep red corner of Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock's Northern Virginia district Monday to unveil a strategy they hope will convince voters they have more to offer than just opposition to President Donald Trump.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, N.Y., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Calif., and other Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Mark Warner, Va., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., stood on a stage in a community park under a blazing sun to roll out their plan, called "A Better Deal."

"Democrats have too often hesitated from directly and unflinchingly taking on misguided policies that got us here," Schumer said. "So much so that too many Americans don't know what we stand for. Not after today."

In one of the few references to Trump in the hour-long event, Schumer said the president campaigned on a populist message but abandoned working people when he took office.

Democrats' proposals are designed to appeal to middle-class workers - ways to lower prescription drug prices and provide more federal funding for apprenticeships and job training, and more aggressive monitoring of proposed corporate mergers - all poll-tested ideas that they think will win back voters who supported Trump last year.

"It's not enough to just identify the problem," said Van Hollen, who as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is in charge of preserving Democratic seats next year and trying to increase their number. "It's not enough to simply analyze and empathize. We have to put forward bold solutions."

Democrats said they would discuss specific legislation later, and Schumer did not answer a question from a resident who urged the party to push back against efforts to revive the Depression-era banking regulations of the Glass-Steagall Act.

A relatively convenient 90-minute drive from Capitol Hill for busy lawmakers but a world away from Washington, Berryville is the seat of Clarke County, in the western end of the 10th Congressional District, which Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won by double digits in November.

Trump won the county with 57 percent of the vote to Clinton's 37 percent - 15 points worse than she performed across the rest of the district.

For Democrats to gain control of the House, they would have to unseat members such as Comstock - a point made by Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, N.M., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

"While it's early, there's no doubt that this district and so many others are up for grabs in the 2018 midterms," he said. "This won't be easy. And Democrats can't take anything for granted."

Seven Democrats are competing for the chance to take on Comstock in 2018, a sign of both enthusiasm within the party and a sense that she may be vulnerable.

Before the event, the Virginia GOP tweeted a photo of Comstock in Clarke County and another of her with Clarke officials, in keeping with Comstock's successful strategy last year of focusing on local issues and refusing to delve into national politics. Comstock beat her Democratic opponent in the county last year, 63 to 37 percent.

Activists fromthe liberal groups Indivisible and Dump Comstock watched the Democrats' event as well.

Comstock's political director, Ken Nunnenkamp, said Democrats trotted out their "most extreme left wingers" for a "bizarre visit" rife with the "same tired talking points."

Maddie Anderson, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, likened the Democrats' event to an in-kind contribution to Comstock.

"I'm glad that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Elizabeth Warren got to experience Clarke County, where Rep. Comstock is fighting for local issues each day, including the heroin epidemic," Anderson said in a statement. "Her massive level of support in Clarke County reflects the fact that she's working hard for the people of the 10th, while Pelosi swings through for a couple hours and leaves without shaking a single hand."

Warner, who gave a shout-out to two candidates for state delegate in the front row, said later that Democrats can win in places like Clarke County with an economic message. For example, he said, expanding broadband access would allow people to work remotely and remain in their communities.

"I believe it still is how you sort through the economic anxiety that the changing economy brings," he said.

A few protesters in the crowd silently held signs needling Warner for winning only 39 percent of the vote in Clarke County in his 2014 race.

One of them had a pizza box that said "Still Pelosi" in a knock on the Democrats' new slogan, "A Better Deal," which some have mocked as similar to Papa John's "Better Pizza" tagline.

But after years of watching GOP lawmakers successfully make similar pitches to voters, Democrats have decided they must do things differently, and they think focusing more on pocketbook issues - and less on Trump - will resonate.

Topping their list is the establishment of a federal "price gouging enforcer" who would lead a new agency to monitor prescription drug costs and negotiate lower prices. Cutting the cost of prescription drugs remains a major issue with the public. In a survey in late April by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 64 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans named it as one important step that Trump and Congress could take to improve health care.

The heart of the drug-price proposal - letting the government negotiate the rates at which pharmaceuticals are sold within Medicare - is a policy that Democrats have been championing for more than a decade, without success.

The idea was a major point of contention in 2003, when Congress added prescription drug benefits to the program, known as Part D. During that debate, Republicans, at the urging of drugmakers, kept such direct negotiations out of the law. That makes Medicare, which enrolls about 77 million older and disabled Americans, unlike the nation's other health-care entitlement program, Medicaid, in which drugs must be sold at the deepest discount that any entity can negotiate.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is never one to hold back, especially with words.

When criticized, he often fires back with his own verbal ammunition. And his frequent target has been the United States, which, as he has repeatedly said, is in no place to criticize him for violating human rights because of its own history of atrocities against Filipinos. For Duterte, that history stretches all the way back to the 1900s, when Filipinos fought for independence from American control.

Duterte dredged up one such piece of history during his second State of the Nation address on Monday.

It was about three church bells that American troops took as spoils of war after burning down Balangiga, a small seaside village on the island of Samar in the Visayas region of the Philippines, in retaliation against Filipino guerrillas. One of the bronze bells was taken to a military museum in South Korea. The other two have been on display at the Francis E. Warren Air Force base in Cheyenne, Wyo.

But for Filipinos, the bells are rightfully theirs, a reminder of the slaughter of thousands of civilians, including women and children.

"Those bells are reminders of the gallantry and heroism of our forebears . . . who resisted the American colonization and sacrificed their lives in the process. Give us back those Balangiga bells. They are ours. They belong to the Philippines. They are part of our national heritage," Duterte said toward the end of a lengthy address in which he frequently veered off script, lashed out at critics and political enemies, and used an informal tone sprinkled with Tagalog expletives.

After applause that lasted a few seconds, he added, in Tagalog: "Return them. It's painful for us."

What those bells signify for the United States, especially for veterans, is entirely different. They're to honor the American soldiers who were killed in September 1901, when Filipino guerrillas disguised as women carrying coffins infiltrated Balangiga and ambushed an Army base. According to the Francis E. Warren Air Force base website, the bells were tolled as a signal for the guerrillas to start attacking.

About four dozen Americans were killed, prompting a swift and brutal retribution from the United States. Brig. Gen. Jacob W. Smith ordered his men to kill anyone who can bear arms. To him, that meant anyone age 10 and older.

"I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me," Smith said.

In a handwritten message delivered to his subordinate, Maj. Littleton Waller, he wrote that "the interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness."

The iconic bells have long been at the center of a tug-of-war between the United States and the Philippines.

In the late 1990s, Philippine president Fidel V. Ramos asked President Bill Clinton to return one of the bells. In 2014, more than 3,000 Filipinos signed an online petition asking President Barack Obama to return the bells.

After he took office, Duterte resurrected calls for the United States to give back what Filipinos see as religious symbols, not remnants of war.

"Until now, they hijacked it, stole it and never returned it to us," Duterte said during a speech last year at a Philippine Air Force event, ABS-CBS News reported.

Another piece of history that Duterte has frequently brought up is the Battle of Bud Dajo in 1906 on the island of Jolo in the southernmost part of the Philippines. American troops killed hundreds of Moro men, women and children trapped in the crater of the Bud Dajo volcano, as the United States tried to take control of the country's Muslim stronghold.

By then, much of the Filipino resistance against the United States had dissipated, and President Theodore Roosevelt had declared he Philippine-American war over four years earlier. But the country's Muslim minority in the south resisted in what became a long, drawn-out battle.

Duterte talked about the Battle of Bud Dajo as recently as last week in response to criticisms from Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who said he would protest if the Filipino leader comes to the United States at President Donald Trump's invitation.

McGovern led a hearing in Congress Thursday on Duterte's drug war that has resulted in a mass killing of suspected addicts and dealers in the Philippines. More than 7,000 deaths have been reported from July 1, 2016, to Jan. 21, according to the Philippine National Police. The deaths were carried out by both police and unknown vigilantes.

"We should be clear what an extrajudicial killing or execution is: It is the purposeful killing of a person by governmental authorities without the sanction of any judicial proceeding," McGovern said in his opening remarks. "No arrest. No warrant. No judge. No jury. Simply, murder."

Duterte shot back, telling reporters Friday that he, too, can - and will - investigate the United States's history of human rights violation.

"You're investigating me and the internal affairs of my country? I'm investigating you, and I will investigate you, and I will expose it to the world what you did to the Filipinos, especially to the Moro Filipinos," he said.

Duterte also said he will never come to the United States during or after his term - despite an invitation from President Trump a few months ago.

"I've seen America, and it's lousy," Duterte told reporters.

Unlike his predecessor, Trump has praised Duterte's drug war, telling the controversial Filipino leader in a phone call in April that he's doing a "great job."
WESTPORT  Jeff Northrop was working at a hedge fund in New York City three years ago when a casual conversation with his dad changed his career path for good.

Little did he know, his family owned fertile oyster beds in Westports Mill Pond. Though it had been in the family since 1857 and he had grown up in Westport, this was news to Northrop, who was immediately interested in the propertys potential.

My dad just mentioned it one day that we owned this and that maybe I should look into it as a business opportunity, Northrop said. From there, it just fueled the obsession.

Shortly after, Northrop quit his job in finance to become a full-time oyster farmer. Unlike the major players in the shellfish industry  which are based on tradition and practices passed down through the generations  Northrop was starting from scratch. Through his oyster startup, Hummock Island Oysters, Northrop is aiming to see what they can do to bring new technologies to the centuries-old practice of oyster farming.

Northrop is the new kid on the block in one of Connecticuts largest industries, but that does not seem to phase him. Connecticuts oyster production peaked at nearly 25 million pounds in 1911, surpassing New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

After months of research and an effort to raise capital, Northrop jumped headfirst into being an oysterman. Now, Hummock Island partners with restaurants around the region to offer quality oysters harvested from the beds that have been in his family for more than a century. In May, the business began offering tours guided by another former-financier intrigued by Northrops

More Information For more information or to sign up for a tour of Hummock Island, visit oysterfarmtours.com. See More Collapse

business plan.

Jonathan Goldstein grew up in Los Angeles and was working for an angel investor in Portland, Ore., when he first encountered Northrop and the idea for Hummock Island Oysters. Inspired by the potential, Goldstein moved to New York City and joined Northrop in his shoreline startup. Goldsteins business card lists strategy as his title, but he prefers oyster guy, tour guide and, if he must have something more official, sales. While Northrop is quiet and reserved, guiding the small barges across the 84-acre Mill Pond, Goldstein is his vocal counterpart with an affinity for shucking.

Im a foodie, I saw the potential and it seemed like a good fit, Goldstein said. I got involved before we were even a company and it was kind of an accident, but its been very fruitful.

At the center of Mill Pond, a small shack sits atop a mound made from the foundation of a mill that once stood along the shoreline closer to Long Island Sound. Dubbed Hummock Island, the shanty is the namesake and hub for the business, as well as the destination for the oyster tours.

The house  which many in Westport are familiar with, though few have actually stepped foot inside  has been fully restored. Serving as a museum of sorts for the new business, the house provides views of the pond and is perhaps the most serene environment in which to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Tour participants take a ride to the island where they learn about the history of oyster farming in the area and of Hummock Island, the process for farming oysters in the Mill Pond and a shucking lesson. Of course, there is also a taste test.

The idea is to educate people about how oysters are grown and get people out here to the house on the island, Goldstein said. Everyone has a different story about the house, it seems, though theyre mostly made up.

The pair maintain an office at 31 France St. in Westport that serves as a processing and shipping facility. Hummock Island Oysters are distributed to a variety of high end restaurants throughout the region, including Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Of course, Northrop is not the first in his family to realize the value of the fertile beds beneath the surface in the protected tidal inlet that is Millpond. The area was a working oyster farm for decades, serving up shellfish at a family-owned eatery until the early 1970s.

When the restaurant shut down, so did the farm, Goldstein said. It was vacant until 2013, when Jeff found out about it.

The Mill Pond receives half a billion gallons of water renewal every day as the tide ebbs and flows. The Hummock Island farmers have the ability to control the tides via gates at the entrance to the pond. This means they can grow their farmed oysters much faster than the wild oysters farmed in by larger businesses in Long Island Sound.

That means our product goes from seed to market size in 18 months, Goldstein said. In the wild, it takes three to five years. People try to replicate the growing cycle that we have here naturally. So were very fortunate to have that.

Business has been good for Northrop and his unusual startup business, but he has more in mind for the future of Hummock Island. There are 15 million growing oysters in the water at Mill Pond, a number soon to reach 20 million, Northrop said. With a focus on sustainable aquaculture and a determination to stay away from traditional oystering methods, he plans to expand the business and continue to support innovation in the field.

Were going to continue to perfect the quality of the oyster and grow the operation, and hopefully acquire other farms, Northrop said. My goal is also to have a $75 million to $100 million fund that invests in sustainable shellfish aquaculture.

kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com; 230-842-2563; @kaitlynkrasselt
Over 200 Chinese moviegoers attended a screening on Yongxing Island in the South China Sea on Saturday, according to Xinhua.

The cinema is operated by Hainan Film Company and comes with up-to-date technology, the news agency reported, including both 4K resolution and a 3-D perforated screen. The new movie theater has received widespread attention in Beijing's state-run media - with Xinhua describing it as "China's southernmost cinema."

But its opening also plays a more controversial role in one of Asia's most fraught territorial disputes.

Yongxing Island, known internationally as Woody Island, is the largest of the Paracel Islands. These islands are in a part of the South China Sea claimed simultaneously by China, Vietnam and Taiwan - part of a broader set of geopolitical disputes in the sea that also involve many Southeast Asian nations. China has long claimed much of the landmass in this sea, pointing toward a historical claim known as the "9-dash line."

Disputes over the geographically useful region have long been a recurring theme of diplomacy. Last year, an international court in The Hague rejected most of China's claims in the region. The U.S. has challenged China's sovereignty in the area and has sailed Navy destroyers through the contested areas as recently as early July.

Beijing has dismissed international condemnation and instead worked to build up its presence in the tiny and often isolated islands it claims in the South China Sea. Many of these moves serve a military purpose: Last year, China was reported to have moved advanced surface-to-air missiles to Woody Island.

But Beijing has also made clear efforts to create a livable city for residents on these islands, too. In 2012, China set up a prefecture-level city named Sansha on Woody Island, soon unveiling things like a school and a hospital and even setting up a 4G mobile signal network. Xinhua reports that the city "also has a stadium and has organized various cultural activities to enrich the lives of residents."

The greater purpose of these civilian-minded infrastructure installations may still be military - last year, a Chinese military newspaper reported that three-quarters of residents were military personnel who need something to do in their downtime. (The total number of residents is thought to be up to 2,000.)

There has also been talk of turning the islands into a patriotic tourist destination or even an offshore banking hub.

Gu Xiaojing, general manager of Hainan Media Group, told Xinhua that there will be "at least one film" screened every day, so that "residents and soldiers on Yongxing Island can enjoy films simultaneously with moviegoers across the country." The plan is to screen blockbusters and local authorities have also purchased mobile projection units that can be taken to other islands held by China in the area.

The movie screened on Saturday was titled "The Eternity of Jiao Yulu," Xinhua reported. It is a documentary about the life of a Chinese Communist Party politician who is said to have worked hard and honestly before his death in the 1960s and is now held up as a hero in state-sanctioned history, though critics say the reality of Jiao's life is not clear.
NORWALK  Isa Shala, owner of In-Vision Builders of Riverside, said he likes challenges.

Shala likely could not have asked for a greater challenge than reconstructing the fire-gutted building a 45 Wall St. in Norwalk.

Its major reconstruction, but weve had a lot of progress in the last two and half to three months, said Shala, general contractor for the project, standing on the second floor and pointing at rebuilt walls and newly installed floor joists.

In April, work began in earnest after years of inactivity followed by several hiccups and false starts.

Shala said the demolition posed the greatest challenge. Workers removed by hand the fire-damaged bricks and, in places, entire brick walls. A pile of bricks stands outside the rear of the building, ready to be hauled away by wheelbarrow.

With guidance from structural engineer Chris M. Marseglia, workers filled and shored up damaged sections of the remaining brick walls with Rebar-reinforced concrete. Shala said the building will be more structurally sound that it was before the fire.

William D. Ireland, Norwalks chief building official, estimates that the structural framing is 70 percent complete.

Its very good workmanship, Ireland said. Its being professionally done. Its being monitored weekly by the engineer.

Ireland said the building facade will be restored to its historic appearance in accordance with drawings submitted to the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency for review.

Up to a half-dozen workers are busy inside the building up to six days a week to make up for lost time. Shala originally envisioned the project taking eight to 10 months to complete but now says it will take extra time. He expects completion by next summer.

After years of inactivity, several extra months amount to a relatively short period of time in the larger scheme of things.

In August 2010, a fire gutted the building owned by Norwalk resident Ganga Duleep and Wall Street Associates, LLC. Debris removal and abatement work began in 2013, but the work stopped for long periods of time, according to neighbors.

Duleep could not be reached immediately for comment.

Josh Glasser, owner of Ink-Side-Out Tattoo at 45 Wall St., said hes glad to see work proceeding.

Im just super-thrilled that something finally is going on, Glasser said. Any progress is better than no progress.

Leo Guerrero, Norwalks assistant building official, inspects the building weekly to view the progress and ensure that the work is proceeding according to code.

Last Thursday when I came by, he was halfway done on the roof with the framing, Guerrero said. I was here on Friday and the whole frame was completed. Theyre ready to put the roof on.

Shala said he hopes to finish the roof and secure the interior of the building in about two weeks. Part of the back of the building remains open, awaiting a roughly 2,000-square-foot addition.

When complete, the reconstructed building will house apartments and retail space as it did before the fire. The first floor will provide spaces for two restaurants. The second and third floors each will have five apartments, Shala said.

Capital For Change, Inc., is controlling the financing for the estimated $1.4 million project. Demetrios N. Panteleakis of Springfield, Mass., is the construction manager, Shala said.

Last fall, Ireland sent Duleep a certified letter, warning her that the building had blight conditions in violation of city code. Of concern to him was building exterior, including missing, broken or boarded windows and graffiti.

At a blight hearing held at City Hall in December, Capital For Change CEO and President Cal Vinal said Duleep had hired Panteleakis as her general construction manager and that his role would be to supervise the job and submit payment requisitions to T.D. Bank, according to minutes of the meeting.

In May 2013, Duleep said TD Bank endorsed a check from her insurance company in the amount of $689,262 to proceed with repair of the boarded-up building.
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For two local siblings, pursuing dreams comes with sweet rewards. Sandra Meza and Jaime Spencer team up to prepare and decorate desserts for Choco Treats.

Spencer, who has his own venture as an artist, uses his skills to decorate sweets for his sisters business.

Im one of her employees, Spencer said. It feels great. Were really an entrepreneur family.

The two work together to create desserts for birthdays, weddings and other occasions. The pair specializes in cake balls and makes other chocolate-covered treats, including Bundt cakes and pretzels.

We noticed everything we would make was drizzled or dipped, Meza said. Thats how we got our name.

Meza baked as a hobby before selling her creations. Early in life, she developed an interest in joining her mom in the kitchen. Meza said its satisfying to share her own baked goods.

Now I have two kids, and Im married, Meza said. It makes me happy when I have the kids involved and see them happy making cupcakes.

More for you Firefighters find respite through second jobs

Her brother also views satisfaction in his work as an artist. He has painted murals, created yard decorations and designed logos for customers.

Its not about the money I make, Spencer said. The smile I see in someones day when they see my artwork is special to me. Money comes second to me.

Editor's note: This is part two of a two-part series on jobs. Part one, about Midland Fire Department personnel with second jobs, can be found HERE. See More Collapse

When Spencer was attending Midland High School, graphic design teacher Jackeline Dominguez noticed his talent and determination.

Hes a very genuine kid, said Dominguez, who chairs the MHS Career and Technology Education department. He doesnt boast or say, I know how to do this. He takes pride in what he does.

Dominguez guided Spencer through the Business Professionals of Americas pin design contest, which gave his work national attention.

She opened my eyes to my business career, Spencer said. I wanted to be an artist, and she opened my eyes with the business competition.

Now Spencer works out of his home, where he stores supplies and creates large-scale projects in the backyard. Though owning a home-based business allows him to set his own schedule, not having a workspace sometimes takes a toll.

One day its raining  its scorching hot one day, Spencer said. I cant work outside.

For the baking business, the siblings fulfill orders for Midland customers at Spencers home. They work at Mezas Odessa residence when requests come from that area.

Meza said having a home-based business allows her to take care of her children, who are 4 and 6.

If I worked at a facility, I would have to pay someone.

For many Choco Treats customers, Mezas collaboration with her brother stands out. Claudia Heimmermann, a part-time instructor at the Midland College Cogdell Learning Center, also noticed their teamwork when she taught them job-related skills this year.

I think theyre definitely very supportive of each other, Heimmermann said. They both want to see each other succeed. Jaime wants to help Sandra, and Sandra wants to help him.

As Meza looks toward the future, she hopes to open a bakery. For now, she is grateful for the response to her business.

It has grown, Meza said. We also have grown in the baking, tasting and decorations.
SAN ANTONIO -

The people packed into the sweltering tractor-trailer needed air. They banged on the walls for help, but the vehicle kept going. Trapped with as many as 200 people in the pitch-black trailer, they took turns breathing through a hole in the side. Some just passed out.

They had been tagged with colored tape, allowing the smugglers to more easily sort them at the journey's end - who would be handed off to which awaiting vehicle.

The detailed account was laid out in a federal court filing Monday, coming from men who chronicled their harrowing journeys to a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio. Some had traveled hundreds of miles from central Mexico.

Prosecutors charged the truck's driver - James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60 - with smuggling immigrants for financial gain resulting in death, a charge that could carry the death penalty because it resulted in people dying while in transit.

At least eight migrants perished inside the trailer; two others died later. Dozens of others remain in seven area hospitals, some with critical injuries. All of the dead or injured were undocumented, federal authorities said.

It's unknown what happened to the scores of others who the migrants told investigators had been in the trailer with them.

Before the truck was found in the Walmart parking lot here, some travelers had spent days held in a house near the border with Mexico. Some were told to pay a group linked to a deadly Mexican drug cartel thousands of dollars for safe passage across the Rio Grande. Bradley told authorities he was unaware of the trailer's cargo and was surprised when he realized people had been trapped inside.

The truck's discovery revealed the group's horrifying journey to the United States at a time when immigration arrests have spiked under President Donald Trump and illegal border crossings have plummeted, according to federal officials. The case also highlighted the extreme dangers people face as they try to enter the country.

"To maximize their criminal profits, these human smugglers crammed more than 100 people into a tractor trailer in the stifling Texas summer heat resulting in 10 dead and 29 others hospitalized," Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement Monday. "Human smugglers have repeatedly demonstrated that they have absolutely no regard for human life. Our ICE agents and officers, working closely with our law enforcement partners, will pursue these smugglers and bring them to justice."

At the Mexican consulate in San Antonio on Monday, workers fielded calls from the migrants' relatives, who reached out from across the United States, including Colorado and Ohio, as well as Mexico.

Consul General Reyna Torres said she and the consulates of El Salvador and Guatemala met with Homeland Security authorities Monday morning. Federal officials were still struggling to identify some of the dead and injured, Torres said, adding that she has not been notified that anyone from the truck has been formally detained or arrested.

Certain visas allow victims of some crimes to remain in the United States if they can help authorities investigate or prosecute crimes. The Department of Homeland Security declined to say whether the people in the trailer would be allowed to remain in the United States or sent back to their countries of origin.

Jack Staton, acting assistant director of intelligence for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations arm, told reporters in a call Monday afternoon that he would not discuss specifics of the case.

He called human smuggling "100 percent [a] crime against humanity," adding that, "this is just victimizing people that are attempting to get a better life."

One man, who was not identified, told investigators he began his journey in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and was to pay smugglers $5,500 when he arrived in San Antonio, according to his account, written by James Lara, a special agent with Homeland Security investigations.

In Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican city on the Texas border, the man said he waited with a group of 28 people before a smuggler told him that people linked to the Zetas - a violent drug cartel - were charging 12,500 pesos (more than $700 dollars) to bring people across the Rio Grande in rafts.

The Zetas drug cartel has long been involved in trafficking immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border, with migrants from Central America saying smugglers have to pay off corrupt police and drug cartels alike while traveling through Mexico. The cartel has been known to exert particular influence in the northern Mexican border states, operating safe houses where large groups of migrants are stashed before being ferried across the Rio Grande.

The man from Aguascalientes said that after his group crossed the river, they walked for a while and were brought to the tractor-trailer, where they joined dozens of others inside. It was morning, he said, and they were told their journey would begin later that evening.

Another man told federal agents that he was among two dozen people who had been held in a "stash house" in Laredo, Texas, for 11 days before arriving at the trailer, which he said was already crowded and sweltering when he arrived, Lara wrote.

"The smugglers closed the doors and the interior of the trailer was pitch black and it was already hot inside," Lara wrote in the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. "He stated they were not provided with any water or food. People inside were making noise to get someone's attention but nobody ever came."

It was not until that night that the doors reopened and people inside were told it was time to go, Lara said.

Authorities have focused their investigation on Bradley, the tractor-trailer's driver. Bradley owned the truck found outside Walmart early Sunday, but not the trailer, according to public records. He told federal agents that the trailer's refrigeration system did not work and the vent holes were likely clogged up, according to the complaint.

Bradley bought the truck - a 1999 Peterbilt model that had been completely refurbished and given a new paint job - in March for $90,000, said Justin McDaniel of Outlaw Iron in West Bend, Wisconsin, who sold him the truck. McDaniel recalled Bradley as friendly and "your typical Southern guy."

"That's why the accusations being made now caught me by surprise," McDaniel said. "It's very disturbing."

Bradley took out a pair of loans earlier this year to buy trucks for which he needed to make payments of almost $2,000 a month, according to records.

Alton Bradley, the driver's nephew, said the man nicknamed "Bear" is a lifelong trucker with a passion for the work. When he heard the news, Alton Bradley, who lives in Florida, said he called his aunt - the driver's sister - and she responded, "I'm just sick and I can't believe it."

In an interview Sunday, Brian Pyle, president of Pyle Transportation, the Iowa-based hauling firm with which Bradley was affiliated, said the driver was operating independently of the company. Pyle said he did not know what Bradley was transporting and said it was the driver's "very first trip."

He declined to characterize his relationship with Bradley or say how long they have known each other. When asked how long Bradley had worked for his company, Pyle hung up the phone.

On Facebook, where Bradley's profile photo shows him wearing a Pyle Transportation T-shirt, Bradley is friends with Brian Pyle, at least one other Pyle family member and other Pyle truck drivers.

The truck had not been outside the store long: Surveillance video showed that it was parked outside Walmart for just 30 minutes before one of the store workers encountered someone from the trailer asking for water, a company spokesman said.

It remains unclear whether the operation discovered Sunday was related to the driver or the company, which has 18 trucks and 15 drivers, according to federal records.

Bradley has said he was unaware there were people inside the trailer, which was emblazoned with the Pyle decal.

In the complaint, Lara wrote that Bradley had told agents he was traveling from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas, to deliver the trailer. Bradley said his boss had sold the trailer and asked him to deliver it, and he was not told a delivery address or a desired time frame, Lara said.

During his initial court appearance Monday, Bradley arrived with his arms shackled and was ordered held until a bond hearing scheduled for July 27.

When the trailer eventually stopped at Walmart, one of the migrants told investigators that people inside the trailer were so weak that they toppled over. Bradley told Lara he got out to go to the bathroom and heard banging and shaking from the trailer.

"Bradley said he went to open the doors and was surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground," Lara wrote. "Bradley said he then noticed bodies just lying on the floor like meat. Bradley said he knew at least one of them was dead."

Bradley told agents that he called his wife, who did not answer, and did not call 911. The complaint does not elaborate on why he did not call police.

Between 30 and 40 people scrambled out of the trailer after the doors were opened, Bradley said.

Bradley and one of those inside the truck offered different accounts of what happened next. The driver told federal agents no one else was there when he parked and no vehicles were there to pick up anyone. The man from Aguascalientes said that once the vehicle stopped and people flooded out of the trailer, six black SUVs were on hand to pick them up and filled up in minutes before quickly leaving.

- - -

Berman and Bever reported from Washington. Alice Crites, Abigail Hauslohner, Julie Tate and Todd Frankel in Washington; Josh Partlow in Mexico City; and Jon Silman in Land O' Lakes, Fla., contributed to this report.

- - -

Video: Police found a truck July 22 near a Walmart in San Antonio that contained people suspected of crossing the border illegally. Eight of the people died at the scene, and one died later in a hospital. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

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Turkey withdrew a list of accusations against German companies, seeking to de-escalate tensions that flared last week between the two NATO allies.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere spoke with this Turkish counterpart Monday, and was told the almost 700 accusations involving German companies were a "communication problem," Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said in Berlin. Turkey's interior ministry said no German company is being investigated by Turkey and last week's complaint was a misunderstanding that has now been cleared up.

German federal police on Friday declined to investigate the claims, saying the Turkish list didn't contain anything concrete enough to warrant follow up. German media reported some items included allegations of working with local entities linked to terror organizations.

The detention of a German human-rights activist in Istanbul last week, led to a war of words between the two countries, the culmination of months of discord over NATO troop visits, imprisoned journalists and Turkish Nazi references. Chancellor Angela Merkel's veteran finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, on Friday compared Turkey to the former communist East Germany, while Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country wouldn't give in to threats or "blackmail."

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier argued over the weekend that the German government is right to act against unacceptable Turkish policies under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Steinmeier said is seeking to shut down domestic opposition.

"Many who have worked cooperatively with him and his party in the last few years are now being persecuted, are thrown in jail, are being silenced. We can't accept that," Steinmeier said in an interview with ZDF public television broadcast on Sunday. "It's a question of the self-esteem of our country to send clear stop signals."

Along with being NATO allies, the two countries have other deep ties. Germany is Turkey's biggest trading partner and the largest minority ethnic group in Germany is Turkish. Companies including Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Siemens and Volkswagen have local operations in Turkey, and the German government depends on the country to help stem the flow of migrants into Europe.

Merkel criticized Turkey's actions in unusually strong terms last week, denouncing the detention of the activists as "absolutely unjustified," prompting Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel to announce a "re-orientation" of Germany's Turkey policy and warn companies about doing business in the country.

Erdogan responded on Sunday that Germany's actions are "unforgivable" and suggested retaliation. "No one can interfere in Turkey's internal affairs," he said. "The government will do everything against those who are agents against Turkey."

Schaeuble said in an interview with newspaper Bild published Monday that Erdogan's policies "jeopardize the centuries-long partnership between Turkey and Germany. So much binds us, but we can't let ourselves be blackmailed."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization must ensure that its rules are applied in Turkey, Volker Kauder, caucus leader of Merkel's Christian Democrat-led bloc in parliament, said Monday on ARD public television, adding it's "not acceptable" that the Turkish government is denying lawmakers from allied countries such as Germany access to NATO bases.
University of Texas police responded to four gun-related incidents in the past 12 months, but only one -- involving a photo shoot for a newspaper -- can be tied to the controversial state law permitting students to carry concealed handguns in most campus buildings.

Campus carry went into effect Aug. 1, about two weeks before the fall semester opened at UT. Opponents of Senate Bill 11 feared there would be a rise in gun-related violence at the campus.

But as the one-year anniversary approaches, those concerns have been unfounded.

Told ya so, say pro-gun activists.

After decades of resounding success with the concealed handgun license program in Texas, Im not the least bit surprised to see the campus carry law being implemented successfully and without incident, said Sen. Brian Birdwell, the author of the bill. Its a testament both to the irrationality of the original prohibition and the law-abiding nature of handgun license holders.

School officials had asked students to call police if they spotted someone flashing a gun on campus, which is unlawful under the campus carry law. There have been four complaints, with one report of gunfire and one arrest, according to police incident reports obtained by the American-Statesman through an open records request.

Only one person carrying a gun on campus was identified in those documents as a student. Huyler Marsh, a graduate student in accounting, posed for a photo for an August story on campus carry in The New York Times. Marsh posed for a photo in a campus library, raising the back of his red plaid shirt to expose a .45-caliber handgun in his waistband. The gun no longer was concealed, triggering a university investigation. UT released a statement saying the dean of students reviewed the incident and spoke with Marsh.

The person who lodged the complaint was not affiliated with UT, according to the incident report.

The UT Police Department did not list a suspect for the other three incidents, one of which resulted in an arrest for taking a gun into a prohibited area:

-- In the afternoon on Jan. 27, police were dispatched to the 2300 block of Guadalupe Street -- a strip of restaurants and shops known as the Drag. A person near the University Co-op flashed a gun at the complainant, according to the report. Police could not find the accused person.

-- About 10 a.m. April 27, police responded to a report of gunfire at the corner of Dean Keeton Street and San Jacinto Boulevard. No injuries were reported, but the person believed to be the target, a 27-year-old construction worker, was issued a trespass warning, and police escorted him off campus.

-- About 2 p.m. May 18, police pursued a vehicle after a passenger pointed a handgun out of the window at 38th Street and Lamar Boulevard. They lost track of the vehicle at 51st Street and Avenue F. Austin police joined the search but did not find the vehicle or the passengers.

UT Austins leadership, faculty, staff and students worked very hard to develop policy and educate the campus, UT spokeswoman Cindy Posey said in a statement.

Posey would not say which incident led to the arrest, but she said the arrested person was not Marsh.

All of this stuff could have happened without campus carry, said junior-to-be Quinn Cox, the vice president of UTs chapter of Students for Concealed Carry.

The American-Statesman (recently) made a request through the university for reports of gun-related incidents in the three years before campus carry went into effect. School officials have not provided that information yet.

This month, a federal judge in Austin threw out a lawsuit filed by three UT professors who had asked that their classrooms remain gun-free. They claimed the possible presence of firearms could have a chilling effect on classroom discussion. But U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the threat of physical harm is not heightened just because a student might have access to a gun.

Even though gun owners appear to be on their best behavior, opponents of campus carry continue to condemn it. Jessica Jin, founder of the anti-campus carry group Cocks Not Glocks, said the lack of reported incidents from the past year only proves that students do not need guns for protection.

I think its really funny that were presented with accounts of how little of a problem its been in terms of actual students pulling out weapons, but I wonder why these questions arent framed by how the lack of incidents also prove the lack of necessity for guns on campus, Jin said.

Rumors circulated on social media May 1 that a student with a concealed permit flashed a gun to thwart a knife attack that left one person dead and three others injured. But police said they could not confirm the rumors. Kendrex White, a student who might have been suffering from mental illness, was arrested and charged with murder.

Members of Jins group drew laughs and headlines last year when they set up shop in the middle of campus and distributed dildos to protest the law. They were fighting absurdity with absurdity, she said, adding that the group is tossing around ideas for another campaign.

Jin said the odds that someone wielding a gun would be in position to stop a violent attack is so many zeroes behind a decimal point.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency






A 20-year-old from Guatemala was among the 10 people who died during a smuggling operation that ended in San Antonio, according to that country's foreign affairs ministry.

Officials were called to a Walmart parking lot at 8538 S. Interstate 35 and Texas 16 after a person in the trailer approached an employee asking for water. Eight male immigrants were found dead inside the trailer. Two more have since died.
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter took to Twitter to say the 10 immigrants who died after being smuggled into San Antonio in a tractor-trailer would still be alive if "we had a wall."

Building a wall along the country's border with Mexico was one of President Donald Trump's promises as a candidate, and a policy he has yet to deliver on. Five days after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that called for the "immediate" construction of a border wall to "prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism."
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The San Fernando Cathedral served as a place of community mourning Sunday evening to honor the immigrants who died Sunday after being inside a semi-truck without ventilation.

About two dozen people turned out for the 40-minute vigil to honor the nine who died and pray for the 30-plus survivors. It was organized by RAICES, a nonprofit organization that provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrant families and refugees.

RAICES' community organizer Barbie Hurtado said the incident could have been prevented.

No human has to die in the search of a better life, Hurtado said.

The organization also condemned San Antonio Police Department's decision of alerting ICE about the incident.

RELATED: New details emerge about immigrants' deadly trip to San Antonio in sweltering trailer

We resist all attempts to dehumanize the survivors of these tragedy, Hurtado said.

The truck carrying more than two dozens of immigrants was parked at a back corner of the Walmart parking lot at 8538 S. Interstate 35 and Texas 16.

According to San Antonio Police Department, eight immigrants are believed to have died of heat exposure and asphyxiation. A ninth person died later at an area hospital. All were adult males.

Reyna Torres Mendivil, the general consul of Mexico in San Antonio, confirmed there are Mexicans among the survivors.

Torres said some of some of the people who died and some of the survivors who are minors are Mexican nationals.

Any person who needs assistance, of course we'll provide it, Torres said in Spanish.

Torres said the Mexican government will provide any legal assistance to Mexican families.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, came to the vigil and said he hoped Gov. Gregg Abbot would work with the U.S. Congress to fix the broken immigration system.

There are people who are desperate to come to the United States, Castro said. The system needs to be reformed.

RELATED: 10th victim dies in hospital after dozens found in sweltering trailer at San Antonio Walmart
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Before leaving the border town of Laredo for the deadly ride to San Antonio, immigrants spent hours packed in a trailer, according to court documents obtained by mySA.com Monday morning.

One of the immigrants questioned by federal agents after police found the trailer with eight dead  two more died in a hospital -- in a Walmart parking lot on the Southwest Side said that about 70 immigrants were loaded into the truck Saturday morning, but it wasn't until after 9 p.m. that evening that they left for San Antonio.

The details were outlined in a criminal complaint against the truck's driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, who appeared in federal court Monday.

RELATED: Death toll climbs to double digits in 'horrific' human trafficking case

He is charged with one count of transporting immigrants who are in the country illegally and faces up to life in prison or the death penalty under a law that allows enhanced penalties when immigrants die during smuggling operations.

Bradley will be held without bail until hearings Thursday morning.

"The smugglers closed the door and the interior of the trailer was pitch black and it was already hot inside," an agent with Homeland Security Investigations wrote in the criminal complaint. "He stated that they were not provided with any water or food. People inside were making noise to get someone's attention, but nobody ever came."

The immigrants were told by smugglers the truck would be refrigerated on the ride up.

"During the first hour of transportation, everyone seemed to be OK," the agent wrote. "Later, people started having trouble breathing and some started to pass out. People began hitting the trailer walls and making noise to get the driver's attention. The driver never stopped. People had a hole in the trailer wall to provide some ventilation and they started taking turns breathing from the hole."

When they arrived, the doors were flung open and six black SUVs took away some of the immigrants, according to the complaint.

One of the immigrants told agents he was traveling to San Antonio with seven family members. He spent 11 days in Laredo in a stash house before being loaded onto the trailer. Another told him he planned to go to Minnesota with his brother.

Bradley initially told police he didn't know there were people in the trailer, according to court records filed Monday.

RELATED: Photos show scene of 'smuggling venture gone horribly wrong'

Later, the driver said he had tried to give aid to the dozens of people inside the trailer.

"Bradley stated when he arrived at the Walmart he exited the vehicle to urinate and he heard banging and shaking inside the trailer," an agent with Homeland Security Investigations wrote in the complaint. "Bradley said he went to open the doors and was surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground. Bradley said he then noticed bodies just lying on the floor like meat. Bradley said that the knew at least one of them was dead. Bradley said he knew the trailer refrigeration system didn't work and that the four vent holes were probably clogged up."

San Antonio police were called to the Walmart parking lot on the Southwest Side after a person from the trailer asked a store employee for water. Upon arrival, police found eight of the immigrants dead inside the vehicle just after midnight Sunday.

More than two dozen others were taken to local hospitals, where two more people died.

It is believed the eight people found in the trailer died of heat exposure/asphyxiation, police said.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Authorities are asking for the public's help identifying and finding a "brazen blonde bandit" who allegedly stole a Shi Tzu dog from San Antonio's Animal Care Services on Monday.

Security camera's captured the woman walk into ACS's shelter around noon with an apparent accomplice who had a small child with her.
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League of United Latin American Citizens representatives are blaming "severe anti-immigrant laws" in the U.S. for the deaths of 10 people left in the trailer of an 18-wheeler during a human trafficking operation.

"The tragedy is a result of severe anti-immigrant laws whose only purpose is to further marginalize an already vulnerable population," said Gabriel Rosales, the LULAC National Vice President of the Southwest, in a written statement. "For those who insist on burying their heads in the sand, let this massacre serve as a reminder of the real consequences of such hateful policies."

RELATED: New details emerge about immigrants' deadly trip to San Antonio in sweltering trailer

Authorities first discovered the deaths around 12:30 a.m. Sunday in a Walmart parking lot on the city's Southwest Side after someone from inside the 18-wheeler walked in and asked for water. Eight people were pronounced dead at the scene. Two others have died in area hospitals since the gruesome discovery.

Authorities said around 100 people were being transported in the 18-wheeler. Other vehicles picked up about 60 of the immigrants from the parking lot. When authorities opened the trailer door Sunday morning, 30 living immigrants remained.

"People who put their lives at risk in this manner are doing so because they have no choice," Rosales said. "They are fleeing incomprehensible violence and have nothing to lose."

Others have laid blame on the human traffickers bringing the undocumented immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said the "horrific" discovery was a reminder why human trafficking rings need to be pursued and punished.

"These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle," Homan said.

Senator John Cornyn said border security will help prevent future human trafficking tragedies in Texas.

RELATED: 'Disappointing, tragic and preventable': Leaders react after migrants found dead in semi

"Compassion is called for. But lawlessness ensures cartels will continue to profit from these tragedies," he said. "Status quo is not compassionate."

The driver of the 18-wheeler, 60-year-old James Matthew Bradley Jr., was booked into a federal jail following the discovery. He was in federal court Monday morning.

Bradley is charged with one count of transporting immigrants who are in the country illegally and faces up to life in prison or the death penalty under a law that allows enhanced penalties when immigrants die during smuggling operations.

Court records say he initially told police he didn't know there were people inside the trailer he was hauling. He later said he tried to give aid to the victims.

None of the victims have been identified at this time.

"We need comprehensive immigration reform to help stop these senseless deaths," Rosales said. "Such reform is consistent with our American values and in everyone's economic interest. LULAC offers its deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the immigrants who died in yesterday's tragedy."

LULAC Councils in San Antonio will be available to provide assistance to survivors. They can be contacted at 210-223-7327. The organization has also set up a fund to help with costs related to sending the dead victims to their home countries.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
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A 26-year-old woman was killed and another was injured in a stabbing early Monday at a Haven for Hope apartment complex near downtown.

Authorities responded to The Terrace at Haven for Hope, a non-profit organization that serves homeless people in San Antonio, around 12:30 a.m. in the 700 block of North San Marcos.

RELATED: San Antonio death toll in 'horrific' human trafficking reaches 9

Upon arrival, police discovered Stacy Mascarenas lying dead in the doorway of her apartment. She had multiple stab wounds on her body.

Police said that another woman, 52-year-old Donna Barrientez, was inside the apartment at the time of the attack. A 6-year-old child, who also lived in the apartment, woke her up in the middle of the night to tell her that a man was attacking Mascarenas.

Barrientez tried to intervene and stop the attack, but the suspect stabbed her in her legs. Despite the stab wounds, Barrientez was able to pull the knife away from the suspect and stab him back, police said.

RELATED: Texas undercover prostitution sting leads to 16 arrests

After he had been stabbed, the suspect broke out a screen window in the apartment and fled the scene. Barrientez told police she had never seen the suspect before and doesn't know him, police said.

Police are currently investigating the incident.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
When retired educator Joan Cook Carabin wrote her 60-page tribute to the late federal Judge Hipolito Hippo Garcia, she imagined her readers would be middle-schoolers.

Carabin, a former nun who married a former Catholic priest more than 40 years ago, wrote the book to inspire students like Garcia  average, quiet, reluctant to believe in themselves despite obvious gifts.

Her career in adult education and community colleges convinced her that many (more) young people underestimate themselves than overrate themselves, she said. I wanted to show them a judge who had one great gift  the gift of listening.

People who met him never forgot that quality. His funeral guest book contained tributes from fellow students at Poe Middle School who recalled their long talks.

Garcia didnt always do well academically but, having served in the Armys 3rd Armored Division during World War II, he studied at St. Marys University on the GI Bill, earning two degrees. He worked in the Bexar County district attorneys office, Bexar County Court-at-Law No. 2, the states 144th District Court and then as a U.S. district judge in the Western District of Texas, the first Mexican-American to do so.

Hippo tells stories of a boy whose ancestors owned a prosperous ranch in Mexico but got caught up in the violence and corruption of the Mexican Revolution, and lost it all. They arrived in San Antonio as refugees and restarted their lives as laborers.

Carabin writes that one-time rich teenage boys worked in stores and hotel kitchens. She talked with at least 40 people who knew Garcia and conducted 80-plus interviews, finding pride in those immigrant roots. Garcias father and uncles were proud to help their mother, she said.

They even pooled their money and in 1923 purchased a home for her on Lavaca Street thats recognized by the National Historic Trust. For almost 100 years now, different members of the Garcia family have lived there.

From those working hands came a jurist remembered for his exceptional judicial temperament and uncommon capacity to understand others. He was known for reading every scrap of paper in his case files.

Garcia also was a familiar face in public schools, where his mock trials and talks taught youth and their parents the consequences of bad judgment.

He studied Shakespeare to understand the dark side of human nature, Carabin said, and read every important work on the Civil War.

Garcia never married but served as godfather to many a future lawyer. Some joke that at one time, he might have been godfather to a third of those admitted to the bar in San Antonio.

Carabins book is on its way to a second, larger and longer version that will be edited by the St. Marys School of Law, which wants to get it in the hands of law students, legal scholars and alumni as well as a broader audience.

The law schools dean, Stephen M. Sheppard, a man who cant help but think big, jumped at the chance to include Hippo in the St. Marys Law Stories, a project that will include books, films, oral histories and archives to mark the schools centennial in 2027.

The project will also produce works about former Texas Supreme Court Justice Rose Spector and the legendary Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez. Sheppard says the stories of at least 25 graduates, faculty members and others will be studied.

St. Marys has much to celebrate. In no small measure, it has helped create one of the biggest, strongest cohorts of Mexican-American lawyers in the United States. Among them are those whove waged important civil rights battles in local and state governments and in the nations highest courts. Theyve also founded organizations of import that remain dedicated to justice.

The original Hippo, published by LifeRich Publishing, an imprint of the Readers Digest Association, remains a quick, inspiring read.

The newer version, whose publication date is not yet known, will contain additional chapters by San Antonio scholars Patricia Portales and Neftali Garcia, among others, Carabin said. Law students are pulling together a summary of Garcias published opinions, which will be included in the successor to Carabins book, Sheppard says.

Hippo is a reminder of students whose potential remains untapped, of those who too quickly are set aside as average, or bloom later than the ones who shine immediately or are just easier to teach.

Garcia was the former, and succeeded because colleagues like Roy Barrera Sr. championed him, Carabin says.

If you want to read Carabins version of Hippo, she has copies for $10 each. Contact her at joancookcarabin@icloud.com.

If you can wait, Sheppard says the newer version will tell a bigger story with more nuance.

eayala@express-news.net
Throughout his life, Raymundo Villarreal was proud of his short, brave service to his country in the Army during the Korean War, but he rarely talked about it.

His family knew, of course, that he had lost his arm shortly after he had been assigned to Company C, 9th Infantry and sent to Masan, South Korea. But they didnt know the details until recently.

He started talking about the war and how he lost his arm later in life, daughter Dianne Hernandez said.

Villarreal died July 14 as a result of coronary disease. He was 89.

Villarreal grew up in Coal Mine, a small community in Lytle. Money was scarce, and he and one of his brothers started a shoe-shining business as children to help out the family.

Hard times led Villarreals family to become migrant workers. Wanting a better life, Villarreal left home and enlisted in the Army in 1948.

After basic training, he was sent to Masan. He was there just a short time when he found himself in a foxhole, and soon after, a live grenade dropped into the hole, his daughter said, recounting the story her father told.

Trying to put distance between himself and the grenade, Villarreal tried to throw it away. But it exploded, severing his right arm from his body.

He didnt have time to be a soldier  he was injured right away, Hernandez said. He earned a Purple Heart, receiving it July 17, 1950, at Tokyo Army Hospital, where he was recuperating.

More Information Raymundo Villarreal Born: Jan. 6, 1928, Lytle Died: July 14, 2017, Castroville Survived by: Wife Guadalupe Villarreal; daughters Dianne Hernandez and Annette Galindo and son-in-law Ivan; sons Ray Villarreal and daughter-in-law Val, and Gilbert Villarreal; sister Jesusa Estrada; five grandchildren; and numerous friends and family. Services: Visitation 6 p.m. Monday at Sunset Northwest Funeral Home, 6321 Bandera Road. Funeral at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, St. Dominic Catholic Church, 5919 Ingram Road. See More Collapse

It was while he was on leave at home after his injury that Villarreal began to court the woman who would be his wife for 66 years.

We went to a Christmas dance in Hondo, Lupe Villarreal recalled. He was a very good-looking man and was easy to get along with.

On Aug. 18, 1951, eight months after the dance, the two married. They would go on to have four children.

He was medically retired in 1951. He and his father-in-law then owned a grocery store in Hondo.

Despite his amputation, Villarreal lived an active lifestyle.

My dad could do anything. He built shelves for Mom, a privacy fence for the yard and taught my sister how to tie her shoes, Hernandez said.

In his later years, Villarreal moved to San Antonio, wanting to be closer to military medical care and his adult children.

His family has fond memories of their patriarch.

He provided for his family and instilled in us the responsibility of family and work ethic, Hernandez said.
Nigeria is adamant that the sailors should be tried in court. The charges against them will be slapped once they reach the country.
An army helicopter crashed in Arcturus this Friday, about 12km out of Harare. The chopper caught fire, only remains are seen in the video below.

Witnesses say a Black Thunder helicopter crashed in Pioneer road near Mapfeni dam Goromonzi and all who were aboard were burnt beyond recognition.

The flying bird dropped on top of a house and some of the occupants died when the house caught fire. Pioneer road is in James farm.

Witnesses said there were four (4) people aboard, 3 males and one (1) female. The lady is the one who can be identified. Added the witnesses:

Tasvika tine almost 7 fire extiguishers takakwanisa kudzima moto tichibatsirwa nemalocals mabuckets emvura. Vose four vafa no survivor takwanisa kuona kamwana kadiki sucking age kakuvara zvakaipisisa. Helicopter dzava2 neine Red Cross sign. [We arrived with at least 7 fire extinguishers to quench the fire with the help of the local people who were using buckets to pour water. All four who were aboard died, no survivors. We only saw a very young kid who sustained serious injuries. There are two helicopters involved now with another one which has a Red Cross sign.]

Details are still sketchy. See pictures here

WATCH VIDEO BELOW:

 Pindula/ZimLive

Breaking News via Email
THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has brushed aside pressure by opposition parties for public disclosure on suppliers of ballot papers for this years general elections, saying there was no law compelling the electoral management body to involve political parties in its procurement processes.

Zec, in an emailed response to NewsDay, yesterday said it would disclose such details at the appropriate time.

No, there is no legal provision which requires Zec to involve political parties in its procurement processes for the ballot paper and the printer. Section 52A of the Electoral Act [Chapter 2:13] only requires the commission to disclose the following information to all political parties and candidates contesting an election, and to all observers  (a) where and by whom the ballot papers for the election have been or are being printed; and (b), the total number of ballot papers that have been printed for the election; and (c), the number of ballot papers that have been distributed to each polling station, Zec said.

Several opposition parties, civil society and pressure groups have over the past few weeks been piling pressure on Zec to name suppliers and printers of ballot papers before proclamation of election dates to enhance transparency in the electoral process.

The Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance recently threatened a national shutdown to force the government and Zec to disclose the identity of the company contracted to print the ballot papers.

But Zec has resisted the pressure, saying it will comply with provisions of the Constitution at the appropriate time.

As already has been stated above, this is a legal requirement and the commission will comply with the provision at the appropriate time as it has always done in all previous elections. There is not going to be any secrecy around the supplier and the ballots as the commission has an obligation to make these public in terms of the law, the electoral body said.

Early this week, independent electoral watchdog Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) claimed Zecs delay in naming printers of the ballot papers violated the Constitution.

The group warned that Zecs intransigence on this issue could lead to a disputed poll outcome.

Zesn believes that adherence to the tenets of an open data policy by the commission will enhance on the integrity and transparency in the administration of electoral processes, whose outcomes are acceptable to contesting political parties, interest groups and the electorate, it said.

 NewsDay

Breaking News via Email
By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Readers, I had to do a router reset at the exact moment I was about to press the Submit button. And I will return (unapologetically) in an hour or so with UPDATEs. lambert. P.S. 3:02PM, all done.

Trade

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and British trade officials will begin their Trade and Investment Working Group today, with the hope that it could lead to a bilateral trade agreement after the United Kingdom officially exits the European Union. However, the two days of talks are likely to focus on a raft of near-term measures the two sides could achieve, according to business sources briefed on what to expect [Politico]. A U.S. trade official told Morning Trade the talks will lay the groundwork for commercial continuity, adding that early discussions will also explore ways to strengthen trade ties that are consistent with the U.K. trade obligations as an EU member.

I see three ways you can adjust a bilateral trade deficit: one is tariffs, one is quotas and one is managed trade. If those are put on the table, I dont see how either of our trading partners are going to continue. I look at the impending NAFTA negotiations and I see some very rough sledding coming up, [Nelson Cunningham, president of McLarty Associates] said [Politico]. Thats particularly true for Mexico, since the United States had a $63.2 billion trade deficit with that country in 2016. You take $60 billion of the Mexican economy, that is hugely significant, Cunningham said.

Politics

New Cold War

Hysterical hysteria: Someone's been getting into the wrong, uh, Tito's, if you know what I mean. pic.twitter.com/qRQkqAZtNc  Jacob Bacharach (@jakebackpack) July 21, 2017 Forensic studies of Russian hacking into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2017, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia [Consortium News]. Key among the findings of the independent forensic investigations is the conclusion that the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack. This is from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and so highly credible; they did good work back in the Iraq WMD days. Indeed, IMNSHO, VIPS, not being torturers (Brennan) or perjurers (Clapper) are some of the few members of the intelligence community with any credibility at all. WARNING: The scope of the post is limited: We focus specifically on the July 5, 2016 alleged Guccifer 2.0 hack of the DNC server.

Health Care

Following a week of high-level negotiations among GOP senators, Republican leadership is planning a Tuesday vote on the motion to proceed to the House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA)  the vehicle for their health care reform efforts. The process has been shrouded in confusion and uncertainty, as it still remains unclear what legislation Senate leaders ultimately hope to move forward. And while knowing whats in the Senate bill may be, as Senate Whip John Cornyn said, a luxury we dont have, its worth acknowledging that theres still a narrow path towards passage [RealClearPolitics]. The fallout early last week is indicative of the deep divisions among Senate Republicans on health care reform. While little has changed that dynamic, a renewed effort from the White House and an injection of $200 billion in additional funding could provide a needed boost to GOP leaders. Recall that a mere $8 billion in additional funding introduced by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) was enough to lift the House bill over the finish line. The likely absence of Sen. McCain this week and the intransigence of Sen. Collins will make threading the legislative needle a difficult  almost impossible  task for GOP leaders. But the BCRA could make one last gasp for revival before we finally write its eulogy. And if Leader McConnell writes the right prescription, it has an outside chance at survival. Ka-ching. UPDATE This thread, from the Washington DC director of MoveOn, is a good guide to the Parliamentary mechanics involved in passing a health bill (any health care bill) in the next few says. Start here:

The first big tell is Tuesday morning, when Republicans need 50+1 votes to start final debate on something bad, don't know what yet. 2/  Ben Wikler (@benwikler) July 24, 2017 UPDATE Neera throws #TheResistance under the bus:

If we defeat Trumpcare it will be because of the courage of a few GOP (woman) Senators who are willing to put country over party.  Neera Tanden?? (@neeratanden) July 24, 2017 As readers know, I think you can give an account of the AHCA/BCRA voting that doesnt include demonstrations at all. But Im not the well-paid liberal CEO who pushed those tactics!

2018

Five poll numbers that should make Democrats uneasy [CNN]. Democrat favorables havent budged since the 2016 conventions. [And] Trump supporters arent going anywhere.

Realignment and Legitimacy

Chuck Schumer: A Better Deal for American Workers [New York Times]. The top level summary: First, were going to increase peoples pay. Second, were going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, were going to provide workers with the tools they need for the 21st-century economy. Some very quick reactions: 1) Schumer doesnt address debt. Whats the point of increasing pay that doesnt increase quality of life, since the increase is passed right through to (say) the student loan people or the medical debt collectors? 2) Schumer, by not addressing Medicare for All, suppresses it. Isnt that really the best way to reduce every day expenses? 3) Schumers focus on workers tools is a jobs guarantee for the professionals who will do the training, but says nothing about the nature of the 21st-century economy. Why isnt the best tool for workers a union? 4) Schumer seems never to have heard about Case-Deaton. How will Democrats reverse the trend of declining life expectancy in the working class? Then Schumer goes into detail. Again, quick, not especially thought-through reactions: On Monday we are announcing three new policies to advance our goals. On a day the entire Beltway is going nuts over health care? WTF? Right now, there is nothing to stop vulture capitalists from egregiously raising the price of lifesaving drugs without justification. Well, except for Democrats like Cory Booker voting against the most minor reform possible: Importing drugs from Canada. Were going to fight for rules to stop prescription drug price gouging and demand that drug companies justify price increases to the public. And were going to push for empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for older Americans. First, please drop the fight for (and push for) rhetoric. Democrats always virute signal about fighting for, but they never deliver. Second, if empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices works, then why not just empower Medicare to negotiate everything, and move straight to single payer? Third, why limit this to older Americans? Why not all citizens? Right now our antitrust laws are designed to allow huge corporations to merge, padding the pockets of investors but sending costs skyrocketing for everything from cable bills and airline tickets to food and health care. We are going to fight to allow regulators to break up big companies if theyre hurting consumers and to make it harder for companies to merge if it reduces competition. First, fight to, make it harder. Second, although there are some who are very excited about this, its a stretch, even discounting words are wind, to call this the start of a populist movement, since the populist movement was driven from the bottom up by a wave of well-organized discontent, as opposed to being created from the top down by Democrat consultants and strategists. Third, Schumer still puts markets first; he just wants to tweak them. Hence, hes squarely in the neoliberal mainstream; the consumer framing does this, too. Fourth, show me concrete material benefits. Suppose we break up the giant health care insurance companies. Is that really the answer to universal health care? And do we have another couple of decades to experiment on the health of the American people when theres a proven solution sixty miles north of Burlington, VT. Fifth, Schumer pointedly does not mention the following ginormous monopolies: Google, Facebook, Amazon. Why? Sixth and finally, its hard to see the Democrat Party moving forward on any policies that benefit the working class (i.e., most voters) unless they adopt a funding model like the $27-contribution Sanders campaign. Otherwise, Democrats are simply beholden to squillionares Schmidt, Zuckerberg, and Bezos, and will fight for, and not deliver, again and as usual. Right now millions of unemployed or underemployed people, particularly those without a college degree, could be brought back into the labor force or retrained to secure full-time, higher-paying work. We propose giving employers, particularly small businesses, a large tax credit to train workers for unfilled jobs. This will have particular resonance in smaller cities and rural areas, which have experienced an exodus of young people who arent trained for the jobs in those areas. Tax credits. Hold on to your hats, folks. Im so excited. Chuck Schumer goes big for antitrust!!!! https://t.co/UKxb9OI8dw  Zephyr Teachout (@ZephyrTeachout) July 24, 2017 This voter adopts the correct attitude: We off that. It's $25, now. https://t.co/xxYV6PkF5Z  Ella Septima-Hamer (@Jbrous14) July 23, 2017 Chuck, what have you done for us lately? No reason the ratchet effect cant work both ways. UPDATE The 4 Types Of Constitutional Crises [FiveThirtyEight]. This: True constitutional crises are rare. The Constitution is set up so that power is shared between the president, Congress and the courts, and between the federal government and the states. This cuts down on vacuums where no one has clear authority, instead creating situations where multiple people or institutions are empowered to act. Serious constitutional crises occur when our institutions are rendered ineffective, which is usually about politics more than process, and often has less to do with how institutions were designed than with how legitimate they are perceived to be. The last type of constitutional crisis  when different parts or branches of government are at loggerheads  might be the one we are most likely to see during Trumps administration. If Trump continues to strain democratic norms and push political boundaries, Congress, the courts or even members of his own administration could push back. Those conflicts could be resolved deliberately and thoughtfully, with an eye toward what the founders would do. Or not. Oddly, or not, the authors leave out the intelligence community, clearly players, and clearly trying to take advantage of a power vacuum. UPDATE 51st state question answered no in 6 of 11 counties contemplating secession [Denver Post]. In five of the 11 counties where the secession question appeared on the ballot, the measure passed by strong margins.

Stats Watch

Purchasing Managers Index Composite Flash, July 2017: Markits U.S. samples are reporting the best strength, though still moderate, so far this year [Econoday]. The manufacturing PMI shows the most acceleration Strength in new orders, especially for services which hit a 2-year high, is the leading plus in todays report with output and employment also positives. Price data are mixed with wages up but fuel bills down and selling prices soft.

Existing Home Sales, June 2017: The slip in pending home sales was no false signal as existing home sales fell [Econoday]. Rising prices and thin supply, not to mention low wages, are offsetting favorable mortgage rates and holding down sales. Housing data have been up and down and unable to find convincing traction so far this year. And: Total housing inventory available declined 7.1% on the year having fallen for 25 months in succession [Economic Calendar]. And: This was slightly below the consensus expectations. For existing home sales, a key number is inventory  and inventory is still low [Calculated Risk].

UPDATE Supply Chain: Wal-Mart Stores Inc.s latest investment move shows the growing significance of the warehouse in retail competition. The countrys biggest store operator secured the right to invest in logistics-equipment provider Plug Power Inc. along with a pact to roll out more of the companys forklifts and other vehicles at its distribution centers [Wall Street Journal].

The Bezzle: Indoor vertical farming is on the rise, if a recent funding round for San Francisco startup Plenty is any indication. The company just scored what they say is the largest agriculture technology investment in history. Plenty has attracted attention  and quite a lot of money  from well-known tech greats like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt [Inhabitat]. Well, how are the cities gonna secede if they cant grow food?

The Bezzle: Abuses Hide in the Silence of Nondisparagement Agreements [New York Times]. As more harassment allegations come to light, employment lawyers say nondisparagement agreements have helped enable a culture of secrecy. In particular, the tech start-up world has been roiled by accounts of workplace sexual harassment, and nondisparagement clauses have played a significant role in keeping those accusations secret. Harassers move on and harass again. Women have no way of knowing their history. Nor do future employers or business partners. Non-disparagement wouldnt be on my list of the best way to ensure coding quality, either, but thats not up for discussion

The Bezzle: Canada: Supreme Court Clears Way for Facebook Privacy Lawsuit [Global Legal Monitor]. In 2011, Facebook created Sponsored Stories as a new advertising product that uses the name and the profile picture of the users. When a user likes the Facebook page of a company that purchases the Sponsored Stories, his name and photo will be associated with the company or their product and will be used to advertise on Facebook and externally. (Douez v. Facebook, Inc.,  6.) According to the British Columbia Privacy Act, this practice is illegal and can be actionable without proof of any damage.

The Bezzle: Is a More-Enlightened Social Media Possible? [Lions Roar (Rainbow Girl)]. Rainbow Girl comments: Interview with Dan Zigmond, a zen priest. Also (drumroll) director of analytics for FB newsfeed.

As the director of analytics for Facebooks News Feed, Dan Zigmond works on the algorithms that decide what more than a billion people read each day. Thats a big responsibility. Does your background in Buddhism inform, or dovetail with, your work on the News Feed? From the Buddhist context, were all inherently interconnected. One of the great illusions is the sense of an independent self thats disconnected from the world. Connecting with people can help us break down that illusion and understand that inherent connectedness. In our daily lives, its very important to interact with people you meet as if they are a part of you and you are a part of them.

Rainbow Girl: A quick read illustrating profound smarminess. No mention of how he manipulates what information people receive, i.e., facilitating delusion, traditionally one of the three main poisons that cause suffering in dharma philosphy.

Todays Fear & Greed Index: 72 Greed (previous close: 73, Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 67 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed. Last updated Jul 24 at 1:19pm. One year ago: 85, Extreme Greed. Good times

Health Care

The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills [New York Times]. Before EmCare, about 6 percent of patient visits in the hospitals emergency room were billed for the most complex, expensive level of care. After EmCare arrived, nearly 28 percent got the highest-level billing code. Credentialism and corruption (see NC on medical coding here and here).

UPDATE Some of the most powerful people in the US are talking about a massive change to healthcare [Business Insider]. [Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini] told Aetna employees at a town-hall-style meeting in May that he thought we should have that debate about single-payer as a nation.  Bertolini did not support a total government-run single-payer system but could be open to a private-public system used in some nations. So the industry has always been the back room for government, Bertolini said. If the government wants to pay all the bills, and employers want to stop offering coverage, and we can be there in a public private partnership to do the work we do today with Medicare, and with Medicaid at every state level, we run the Medicaid programs for them, then lets have that conversation. Why? I see whats in it for Bertolini (ka-ching) but whats in it for us?

UPDATE If Jesus did anything, he offered health care wherever he went  and he never charged a leper a co-pay. Like most Americans, I know the Affordable Care Act is not perfect. In considerable measure, this is because over twenty states sabotaged the ACA by refusing to expand Medicaid. Its main shortcoming is that it needs to be transformed into a single payer system with universal healthcare for all [William Barber, Think Progress] (Barber is chief architect of North Carolinas Moral Mondays).

Our Famously Free Press

UPDATE Newsweek Settles with Journalist Smeared by Kurt Eichenwald [Paste Magazine]. The background:

In October, Paste reported on a disturbing story involving Newsweeks Kurt Eichenwald and Sputnik editor Bill Moran. The former, it appeared, sought to silence the latter through the use of bribery and threats. For the uninitiated, Moran had written a piece based on a Twitter users misattribution of a damning Eichenwald quote about Benghazi to longtime Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal. Wikileaks had just dumped Clinton campaign director John Podestas emails, and there was a mad dash among journalists and non-journalists alike to find a big story in them. One of those emails had Blumenthal sending the Eichenwald story to Podesta. Upon realizing his mistake roughly twenty minutes after publication, Moran took the article down. However, then-GOP candidate Donald Trump used the misattributed quote in a speech to attack his opponent. From these facts, Eichenwald inferred that the only possible means by which Trump could have come across the misattributed quote was purposeful collusion with the Russians, and that the Wikileaks documents themselves had been altered. This conclusion led him to write a piece, Dear Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, I Am Not Sidney Blumenthal, in which he wove a sordid web connecting the GOP candidate to Russia. The piece went viral, earning the Newsweek journalist a top spot on various cable news shows. Moran was fired.

A sad victim of Putin Derangment Syndrome.

Gaia

Solve Antarcticas sea-ice puzzle [Nature]. Researchers are struggling to understand these stark differences5. Why do Antarcticas marked regional and seasonal patterns of sea-ice change differ from the more uniform decline seen around most of the Arctic? Why has Antarctica managed to keep its sea ice until now? Is the 2017 Antarctic decline a brief anomaly or the start of a longer-term shift? Is sea-ice cover more variable than we thought? Pressingly, why do even the most highly-rated climate models have Antarctic sea ice decreasing rather than increasing in recent decades? We need to know whether crucial interactions and feedbacks between the atmosphere, ocean and sea ice are missing from the models, and to what extent human influences are implicated.

UPDATE Earthquakes in the colonies, far from the metropolis:



Animation of equakes in Okla. & parts of adjoining states, 2004-16. Size of dots and volumes are proportional to equake strengths. #okquake pic.twitter.com/5qmgZKqKs5  USGS in Oklahoma (@USGS_Oklahoma) July 20, 2017

Class Warfare

UPDATE The gig economy of the 18th Century [BBC]. The diaries of three men in 18th-Century Britain that I have found give a fascinating insight into how middle class people  the supposed beneficiaries of todays gig economy  made multiple employments work. Edmund Harrold, a resident of Manchester in the early 18th Century was a barber by training and title. He rented a small shop, shaved customers heads, bought and sold hair, and crafted wigs. In the hours unfilled by this he worked as a book dealer, and eventually as an auctioneer, selling various items in alehouses within Manchester and in outlying towns. He lent out money when he had it, earning 10% interest on his holdings. Whatever middle class means

UPDATE Robots are closing in on a new breakthroughpicking up an object and putting it in a box. Its a seemingly modest action that marks a big step in warehouse automation [Wall Street Journal]. The e-commerce surge has raised the role that backroom handling plays in the sales supply chain, and pushed warehouse operators to fine-tune operations that have long been geared toward handling industrial-scale materials while human workers took over for the picking of individual items to fulfill orders. With companies under pressure to deliver online orders faster, warehouse bottlenecks have become the focus of more research.

News of the Wired

UPDATE Wait til other countries start doing this:

This is now part of the US non-immigrant visa application. This is obnoxious, absurd and threatens freedom of speech. pic.twitter.com/lnpLmC5v4I  Nima Fatemi (@mrphs) July 22, 2017

The applicant is from Iran, but still.

James Frederick Housel | July 28, 1951  March 11, 2017 [San Juan Journal (MR)]. A second obituary of Isolato.

Margaret Hamilton: NASAs First Software Engineer (video interview) [Makers].

Ten Ways to Organize Your Bookshelf [The Millions]. It could be argued that every bookshelf, like every piece of writing, is autobiographical, even with its veneer of objective organization, but I admit I can see the nostalgic appeal in consciously organizing my books according to the stages of my life. Why not just a heap of books next to ones bed?

UPDATE Zeitgeist watch:

Nothing to see here. keep playing. pic.twitter.com/6VpXW2PBjn  SabrPictorial (@SABRPictorial) July 23, 2017

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allegic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please put it in the subject line. Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Todays plant (via, proposed by Richard Smith):

Mmmm, dinner!

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Those people who surround you

Only want to see you weak enough to crawl

Theyll lie for you, decide for you

And buy up all your rights and all your wrongs

And theyll try to stop your singing

In the middle of your song

For they do not want you free

And they will not make you strong

But only drag you down the hole theyre coming from They say you are foolish in wanting the sun

They say you selfish in learning to run

They tell you that the darkness

Is a blessing in disguise

For you never have to notice if youre sighted

Or youre blind

And theyll do their best to keep you from the light Janis Ian, From Me to You

Last week, at an offsite retreat, CalPERS staff and board held a full day workshop on options for CalPERS investment management, with most of the session devoted to private equity. However, this set of presentations differed starkly from the November 2015 private equity workshop, the last occasion when staff gave the board a strategic overview of this investment program. While the 2015 session had a clear aim of defending CalPERS private equity program, it also provided a great deal of information. In addition, there appeared to be a genuine effort to educate the board, even if the education had an obvious bias.

By contrast, the centerpiece of this board meeting was a star-studded panel, Larry Sosini, Sandra Horbach of Carlyle, Mark Wiseman of BlackRock and Mario Giannini of Hamilton Lane, discussing of possible private equity business models. If you listened carefully to the speakers, you could hear them more than once acknowledge that CalPERS proposed approach was backwards: you make your strategic choices first, then settle on the mix of business models based on those decisions, not the other way around.

But if you understood the real game, niceties like developing a bona fide strategy were beside the point. The real job of the brand-name experts was to legitimate the staffs plan to set up an independent company to make private equity investments run as a business.

Thus CalPERS and its private equity industry allies saluted the idea that this new entity would operate at arms length without providing a justification save the assumption it would be easier to attract managerial talent. As well discuss at greater length in our next post, there are reasons to question this view.

Nor did CalPERS staff or the experts elect to compare this approach to other options for creating private-equity-like returns without employing private equity managers, although JJ Jelincic and other board members forced some discussion of this issue.

Finally, there was no briefing to the board how as to this vehicle might work. Structural and legal issues were deferred to a future meeting. Yet the chief investment officer said explicitly that the entity would not report to the board when it is the board that acts as fiduciary for CalPERS beneficiaries, so it is board members who are most at risk under this scheme. Worse, the clear intent of staff is that by presenting the board with only one option, and refusing to consider any others in a good faith manner, the board will have no choice but to fall in line.

To their credit, several members of the normally complacent board were clearly uncomfortable with the presentations and asked some savvy and important questions. I hope they continue to push back, since they appeared to grasp the key defect of staffs plan, which is that it will create an entity with weak oversight as an explicit design objective that has lots of CalPERS money at its disposal.

This approach is particularly dangerous in combination with another idea CalPERS pushed hard in the business models panel: that of making very long-term, Warren Buffett-like investments.

One thing that constrains private equity chicanery is the expectation that they pay back all the money that was invested in ten years or less. Even though private equity firms inflate returns around the time they raise new funds, in bad equity markets, and when they hold dogs at par value before they dump them late in the life of a fund, the amount of gaming is limited because too much overstatement of interim returns would be revealed when companies were sold and would damage a firms reputation. Investments not required to be sold are a prescription for valuation fraud. CalPERS would be much less exposed to that risk in other approaches.

Some of the other striking features of this workshop included:

The odd combination of CalPERS effectively admitting that it was lacking both private equity expertise and even a strategy, when owning up to weaknesses is a positive development, yet planning to rely on independent hired guns might find difficult to identify and select and by design would not supervise. Staff was silent on what if anything else it planned to do about its admitted shortcomings A not-well-executed version of what the management committee at Goldman would call a honest dishonest presentation, one that was pumping for an outcome but feigning objectivity. One big source of bias was reliance on private equity experts who all have far more loyalty to general partners than CalPERS. One of the most galling was the repeated insistence that private equity fees have nothing to do with returns, when in every other area of investing, where total fees are a fraction of private equitys estimated 7% per year, its universally understood that every dollar paid in fees is a dollar less in returns, and that minimizing fees and costs is an important investment objective. Some misidentification of CalPERS issues and requirements for CalPERS improving its game in private equity

Well discuss why the first day of the CalPERS offsite, on portfolio leverage and private equity, was not an intellectually honest exercise and why that matters. Our next post will discuss the risks of the independent company versus in-house approach, an option staff curiously neglected to mention.

CalPERS Embarrassing Pretense at a Strategic Review

CalPERS staff engaged in yet another snow job with the board in trying to pretend it had done a bona fide strategic review. The centerpiece was (and I am not making this up) a listening tour where CalPERS consulted with 50 Big Names on private equity, many of whom would have absolutely no reason to know anything relevant, such as Jeff Immelt of GE and Jamie Dimon as well as Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone and critics like Ludovic Phalippou of Oxford. They asked for their views on private equity topics as well as What would you do if you were CalPERS?

By contrast, the last time CalPERS thought about making a big change in its private equity strategy, it hired McKinsey.1

As anyone with a modicum of business training, or even some common sense, would recognize, this was a garbage-in, garbage-out exercise intended to provide the sheen of brand name validation. People like Immelt are too removed from the industry to have much if any insight; general partners like Schwarzman clearly have an agenda, which is to keep limited partners giving them money and paying fat fees. In addition, none of them know CalPERS well enough to provide specific advice.

Its another sign of how little respect the staff has for the board that it didnt deign to provide a list of its interviewees, but merely mentioned the names cited above plus Larry Fink of BlackRock and professor Ashby Monk from Stanford.

Even the panelists, who should have been briefed better, regularly played the false idea that CalPERS board approval process leads to less than speedy responses from CalPERS. In fact, the staff has $2 billion per deal of delegated authority from the board, vastly more than it needs for private equity fund and co-investment commitments. Moreover, CalPERS staff said it felt it wasnt getting called as early and as often as it wanted to be. There was no willingness to consider that the causes might be specific, and at least partly solved: that the recently-departed head of private equity, Real Desroches, was widely regarded as difficult.

If CalPERS had wanted candid feedback, it would have needed to interview practitioners (as in people doing the business on a day-to-day basis, and not heads of firms, a tall order given how protective most PE firms are regarding their communications, but this is one reason consultants get paid real money) and have an independent party conduct the interviews, since its socially awkward to talk about institutional or personal shortcomings.

Another indicator of how cursory the strategic review was is that CalPERS enlisted Hamilton Lane to produce a SWOT analysis.

Weve written before about the slipshod work that Hamilton Lane does in its bread and butter business:

As you can see, the Hamilton Lane reports do not contain sufficient business and financial analysis for a potential investor to make a reasoned decision whether to risk a substantial equity investment. Their role is to provide due diligence theater.

I am pretty sure that Professor Phalippou would say that any of the students in his private equity course could have done a better job.

But even more important than the signs that the strategic review process was unserious was the way that staff omitted important options so as to blinker the board. Here was the slide that staff used to frame the discussion:

Remarkably, Ted Eliopoulos declared that CalPERS should use every business model. That makes no sense. You set your strategic priorities, and the use of business models derives from that. The result could be that you do wind up using a bit of all of them. But to engage in cart-before-the-horse decisions leads to the guaranteed mediocrity that pervades the financial services industry like the financial supermarket or universal banking when big banks decide to do everything without determining what they need or ought to do well.

As indicated, even with the pretense that spreading resources all over the map was both comprehensive and sound, CalPERS omitted some important options and failed to clue in the board.

First, there is no mention of replicating a private equity investing strategy in public markets. One approach we discussed in 2015 was developed by Brian Chingono and Dan Rasmussen showed how to exceed the average private equity funds return by a solid margin:

Looking at US data going back to the early 1960s, they found that if youd bought a portfolio consisting of companies in the top quartile according to each of these filters, you would have made around 23 per cent per year between 1965 and 2013. You would have done slightly better with an equal-weighted portfolio and slightly worse with a value-weighted portfolio.) Compare that to the roughly 10 per cent annual returns you would have gotten over the same period if you invested in the S&P 500 index and reinvested all dividends, or the long-run net of fees returns of the Cambridge Private Equity Index of around 13 per cent per year.

Now admittedly, if CalPERS were to go this route, others would probably replicate it and reduce a good chunk of the juicy returns. But this is still effectively money sitting on the street that CalPERS is refusing to pick up. And even a mere five or so years of outsized returns from a public markets replication of private equity would buy time for CalPERS to get longer-term private equity initiatives in place. And it would take advantage of CalPERS genuine expertise in public equity markets.

Similarly, CalPERS staff disingenuously neglected to mention the possibility of doing private equity in house. While this may sound like a stretch, it was even more of a stretch in the early 1980s for big commercial banks like JP Morgan and Barclays to think they could get anywhere in investment banking. Yet they now give the likes of Goldman and Morgan Stanley a run for their money, while former top firms like First Boston, Salomon Brothers, and Lehman failed or were rescued and eventually lost their independence. Even the panelists all admitted that CalPERS could get there if it wanted to, but gave very attenuated time horizons. 2

If nothing else, its important to compare the new entity concept with a well-designed in-house approach. CalPERS assumes the former is preferable without having examined both in a rigorous way. Our next post will show that CalPERS has seriously underestimated the difficulty and risks of setting up a new vehicle properly.

Another curious omission, perhaps because it isnt a business model question per se but more a product focus matter, is the failure to consider investing in private company debt. This is an area that private equity firms are pursuing keenly. The fact that it apparently didnt come up in the listening tour confirms that CalPERS wasnt speaking to people who were close to the market. Not only is this a hot area for private equity firms, but CalPERS also has a strong in-house debt investing team, so here is a sweet spot where CalPERS strengths match a big growth area for private equity. CalPERS could use this as a foundation for building an internal effort.

In addition, CalPERS refused to subject some private equity approaches to the sort of scrutiny youd expect to see in a strategic review. For instance, relying on the well do a bit of every business model, Eliopoulos swore fealty to continuing its fund of funds program.

Now a finance savvy reader might wonder why in Gods name is a player like CalPERS paying an extra layer of fees in a funds of funds program when it large enough to meet any fund investment minimum?

The reality is that for CalPERS, the fund of funds approach is to invest in emerging, meaning minority, firms. CalPERS included a discussion of that in one of its panels. However, there was no mention whatsoever of the returns. Given how deeply underfunded CalPERS is, it is hard to justify much participation in this sort of effort unless the returns are very close to or better than those of the rest of the private equity portfolio. The silence regarding results suggests that they are falling short to a meaningful degree.

Yet another proof of strategic incoherence is that the lets put on a show, lets created a new company scheme is inconsistent with another plan CalPERS staff wants to implement, of having private equity and public equity be combined into a growth unit. This would amount to a demotion of the importance of the head of private equity, since instead of reporting to the Chief Investment Officer, he would presumably have the head of Growth as his boss. That would send a signal to staff that they dont regard private equity as requiring distinctive competences, let alone ones that the panelists all said in a polite way needed to be upgraded. 3

Finally, CalPERS bizarrely spent an entire morning panel discussing leveraging its entire portfolio as a way to increase returns and then proceeded to act as if that idea was not a strategic alternative to experimenting in private equity.

Although I am instinctively leery of approaches like that, since I am skeptical that CalPERS has a solid understanding of the risks in its various investment strategies, it has that problem independent of the question of adding leverage. As well discuss in more detail below, CalPERS expects to earn an inadequate return for private equity risks over the next decade. And despite Eliopoulos oath of undying loyalty to private equity, CalPERS has been reducing its commitments to private equity, and also to public equity. That means it would not be crazy to add back some risk at the portfolio level. One advantage of that approach is that it is much more under CalPERS control, and can be adjusted far more quickly, that levered investments in very illiquid assets.

What Problem Does CalPERS Appear To Be Trying to Solve?

It is important to understand that despite the pretense that CalPERS staff was presenting ideas for discussion with the board, its independent company plan is yet another naked power grab, with no serious discussion of the rationale.

But we can infer what might be driving the decision process. At the outset of the business models panel, Chief Investment Officer Ted Eliopoulos swore CalPERS undying fealty to private equity (see at 1:14):

Chief Investment Officer Ted Eliopoulos:because at the end of the day, we do feel very strongly that investing in the private markets in general and private equity are a necessity for us for CalPERS to be successful in meeting our investment objectives over the course of not only this next asset allocation cycle but into the next ten years, twenty years, thirty years, and in perpetuity, really.

This statement confirms that Eliopoulos is unfit to serve as chief investment officer. Private equitys apparent attractiveness would go poof if Treasury were to tax highly leveraged transactions more heavily than ordinary corporate borrowings, as it proposed in 1987.4

More generally, the only reason to deem a particular type of financial asset or exposure as a permanent item in an investment portfolio is either that it is a distinct asset class or that it provides significant risk mitigation by performing differently than other investment strategies. Despite regular casual claims otherwise, private equity is not an asset class. It is essentially levered equity. The fact that CalPERS plans to put public and private equity in the same unit confirms that they embody largely the same risks and rewards.5

Moreover, in the very next set of presentations, on The State of Private Equity, CalPERS cannot expect private equity to earn an adequate risk-adqusted return in the next ten years. From page four of this slideshow:

According to a compilation of forecasts by Wilshire Associates, BNY Mellon, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, Private Equity is forecast to have a lower ten year forward return of 8.7% compared to the actual ten year return of 10.4%, as of 9/30/16. The ten year forecasted returns for Global Equities* and US Equities* are respectively, 7.5% and 6.9%.

These numbers are deadly. A bedrock principle of finance theory is that an investor must expect a higher return from an investment with higher risk to justify committing funds to it. The rule of thumb for the required risk premium for private equity over public equity is 300 basis points.6 Yet CalPERS experts forecast that private equity will earn only 120 to 180 basis points more than public stocks, which is too little additional return to justify investing in private equity.

CalPERS preliminary fiscal year 2016-2017 results confirm doubts about whether private equity is worth its higher risks. Private equity delivered 13.9% returns, which sound impressively high relative to CalPERS overall portfolio targets. But public equity earned 19.7%! Public equity was still 18 basis points below its benchmark, but private equity was 640 basis points short.

With the history of private equity failing to meet its benchmarks for the last ten years, and almost always failing in every sub-period (five, three, and one years) with expected inadequate future returns, its hard to make sense of Eliopoulos pathological-sounding loyalty to PE.

So the best route for CalPERS to improve private equity returns would be to reduce the fat fees that private equity firms extract. This slide comes from CalPERS 2015 private equity workshop:

Notice that it shows a whopping 7% in private equity fees. Thats 7% per year. Mind you, CalPERS was apparently relying on the work of Oxford professor Ludovic Phalippou. CalPERS does not know the full cost of investing in private equity, which is a remarkable lapse and for the board, a breach of fiduciary duty. One of the basic requirements of being a fiduciary is evaluating the costs of an investment strategy relative to their returns.

Moreover, as Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt point out in their landmark book, Private Equity at Work, over 60% of large firm private equity fees are not at risk. The fund managers get them irrespective of how the investment performs.

The defense , that some funds deserve their juicy fees by delivering premium returns, is hollow. Investing in private equity is a crapshoot and even more so for a player as big as CalPERS, who will find it hard to do better than index-like returns. Its a fools errand to try to find top tier funds, since outperformance stopped persisting in private equity nearly a decade ago. Indeed, the top quartile funds in one period are even less likely to be top quartile in their next fund than by chance.

In a lower-return environment, its reasonable to infer that investor returns will fall more than the fees paid to private equity fund managers, making the deal of what I pay versus what I get even worse. Thus finding more direct ways to invest means lower total costs and hopefully more net returns to CalPERS.

It was thus revealing to see the panelists repeatedly try to dismiss the elephant in the room of the egregious level of private equity fees relative to returns, when in every other area of investing, its a no-brainer that even an extra 50 basis points in fees represents a big drag on investment returns over time. Instead, concerns about fees were treated as if they were petty, even ignorant, when fees and net returns are obviously intertwined. It was thus embarrassing to see board member Richard Costigan put his foot in his mouth and chew by running to the defense of private equity on the matters of fees, revealing his abject ignorance of basic principles of investing and the state of CalPERS private equity program.

Costigan, and this appears to reflect indoctrination by Eliopoulos and other members of staff, also argued that CalPERS mustnt compete with the oh so powerful general partners.

This is ridiculous. Wall Street firms both compete and cooperate with each other all the time. They work together on equity and debt syndications even though they fight for merger & acquisition mandates and in trading markets. The fact that the private equity industry is Goldmans biggest client does not keep Goldman from running private equity funds. And launching a CalPERS-backed private equity investment effort, whether in some sort of inadequately supervised independent vehicle or in-house but sufficiently distant from other operations so as to have the needed elbow room, is competing with private equity. The fact that Costigan cant grok that is staggering.

Another environmental issue that may be driving Eliopoulos scheme is that private equity firms have a large amount of so-called dry powder, as in uninvested funds. That suggests that even if CalPERS makes more commitments to private equity, the money may not be put to work soon. Eliopoulos may believe that more direct participation would allow for higher odds of meeting the investment allocation. But if this venture is to be independent, CalPERS in fact has no more assurance of that happening than with its fund investments.

Mind you, we think it is a good sign that CalPERS is finally recognizing that it needs to improve its game in private equity and ask fundamental questions about how it is managing that program. But the institution seems unwilling to do the depth of examination needed and instead is grasping at things it thinks it can do relatively easily, irrespective of their actual complexities and risks.

While I applaud CalPERS for recognizing that it needs to make significant changes in its approach to private equity, its chosen path looks like insufficiently-well-examined leading edge conventional wisdom. Even if it succeeds, CalPERS is likely to be an also-ran unless it takes concerted steps to increase its skills at the staff and board level. Naive implementation will create even more downside to the board than under its current approach.

____

1 One big problem CalPERS faces now is it would be hard to find anyone who is either knowledgeable enough about private equity but not in bed with or keen to curry favor with general partners or has the raw analytical chops to do a ground-up study. Having said that, there are boutique consulting firms manned by partners who are former big consulting firm partners, as well as experts like Oxfords Ludovic Phalippou, who devised an unconventional private equity strategy for Norways sovereign wealth fund many years ago.

2 I believe CalPERS could make very substantial progress in three to five years if it made a determined effort. A major focus of my consulting career involved getting banks into investment banking, and later helping banks improve their securities markets businesses. I had a seat at the table at multiple institutions, as well as having close knowledge of initiatives at other firms. And coming out of Goldman, I was a big nay-sayer. I was wrong due to suffering from industry hubris, my lack of experience, and from thinking over too short a time horizon (not recognizing my vantage was only 2-3 years out). And one reason it took banks as long as it did was regulatory barriers, a factor absent with CalPERS. Admittedly, CalPERS might need legislative clearances for certain activities, such as restructuring its board or providing for certain types of incentive pay, but given CalPERS status, it would not take all that long to get narrowly-tailored waivers passed into law.

3 Notice how this restructuring also misses completely that the more important informational synergies, if any, within CalPERS, look to be between private equity and the debt investing team rather than the public equities group.

4 The October crash took place shortly after that plan was mooted.

5 The main reason private equity appears to offer modest differentiation from the simple levering of a the stocks of comparably-sized public companies is due to the false appearance of lower volatility. That in turn results from illiquidity, which is a bad thing in investing, and resulting infrequent price reporting. It is tautological that anything that is priced once a quarter is going to be less volatile than something you can buy and sell on an intra-day basis.

The other big reason that private equity appears less volatile than it is, as weve discussed regularly, is due to too-often rosy valuations. These have been documented to occur regularly when a fund manager is raising a new fund, during lousy equity markets, and in mature funds, where the fund manager is often holding doggy company at their purchase price, when the market price is lower. One participant in the November 2015 workshop. Bob Maynard, CIO of Idahos public pension fund, was so candid to admit that the phony overvaluation in bad markets was the reason they invested in private equity and not to achieve higher returns, because they liked the appearance of risk-dampening even though they fully understood it to be bogus.

6 Some practitioners, such as the former CIO of North Carolina, Andrew Silton, have argued that the risk premium should be much higher, on the order of 500 to 800 basis points. In addition, the risk premium should be relative to comparable risk public stocks, which are mid to small capitalization, and not large cap indexes like the S&P 500. In other words, if anything, using the stock indexes listed in the slideshow is flattering to private equity, since bigger cap stock indexes will have lower returns over long periods of time.
By Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and contributing writer for Grist, covering climate science, policy, and solutions. He has previously written for the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and a variety of other publications. Originally published at Grist.

The best shot at large-scale climate action under the Trump administration might lie with a lawsuit set to go to trial early next year.

Juliana v. United States has a plot suitable for a Disney movie: An eclectic group of 21 kids (and their lawyers) fighting to save the world by forcing the federal government to adopt a science-based plan to reduce emissions. Their lawsuit got a boost this past week when climate scientist James Hansen published a paper in support of their cause.

The time may be right for Juliana and other lawsuits like it to gather real momentum, paving the way for meaningful victories, says Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. He says that a groundswell of litigation could put real pressure on industries and governments to pay for local adaptation projects and make firm commitments to reduce emissions, all within Trumps first term.

Legal experts say Juliana has helped open a new front in the battle against climate change in the United States and around the world. Its the culmination of years of legal strategizing by Our Childrens Trust, the advocacy group that helped organize the effort. Our Childrens Trust has brought related suits in all 50 states, as part of a buckshot strategy to get one of them to break through.

This case is especially crucial in the fight against climate disruption, says Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversitys Climate Law Institute. Cases like Juliana, she says, empower young people to advocate for their rights, and that drives social change.

The buzz about Juliana comes amid a flurry of legal challenges to the Trump administrations efforts to dismantle environmental rules. Just this week, a series of lawsuits were filed in California as a direct challenge to the oil industry on climate change grounds, using a legal theory similar to the landmark tobacco industry lawsuits of the 1990s. The administrations quest to roll back or reverse pending Obama-era EPA regulations is also getting blocked in the courts.

When it comes to climate change, so far, the Trump administration is losing more frequently than its winning, says Burger.

At the heart of this suit is the principle of intergenerational equity. In essence, the 21 plaintiffs in Juliana say that the federal governments refusal to take serious action against climate change unlawfully puts the well-being of current generations ahead of future generations.

This argument might have helped spur legal action abroad, too. Since Juliana was filed in 2015, similar lawsuits have been brought by youth in Pakistan, New Zealand, and India, Burger says.

Worldwide, there is a great deal of interest in the Juliana case not just because of the practical outcome that it might or might not achieve, but because of what it represents, he says. Deeply held values about environmental protection, about intergenerational equity, about the need to address climate change  these things can be linked to specific legal rights embodied in constitutions or in common law.

So far, the courts agree. In November, they scored their first major victory, when a federal district court allowed the suit to go to trial. Judge Ann Aiken set a judicial precedent in her decision, ruling that climate change may pose an unconstitutional burden on younger generations. I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society, she wrote.

Late last month, a trial date for the Juliana case was scheduled for next February in Eugene, Oregon. Its sure to set a dramatic spectacle of the kids and their lawyers on one side of the room against representatives of the Trump administration on the other, with the future of the climate on the line.

In his paper published on Wednesday, Hansen  whose granddaughter Sophie Kivlehan is a plaintiff in the case  presented an updated scientific basis for the suits claims. The new study, which has 14 coauthors from around the world, concludes that the burden climate change has placed on younger generations is now so huge that continuing on a high-emissions scenario would cost a minimum of $89 trillion (and as much as $535 trillion) to clean up by the end of this century. And that cleanup job would rely mainly on the still-unproven technology of negative emissions  literally sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Such a burden unarguably sentences young people to either a massive, implausible cleanup or growing deleterious climate impacts or both, the paper argues. The best alternative, Hansen says, is a court-ordered mandate to reduce emissions now.

After decades working as a NASA climate scientist and at times being politically pressured into silence, Hansen quit his post in 2013 in part to help build the scientific evidence backing the Juliana case. Its hard to solve this politically, he said on a conference call with the media this week. Thats why we need to take advantage of the fact that the judiciary is less subject to that pressure.

To be sure, the ultimate success of Juliana hinges on the composition of the Supreme Court, if the case makes it that far. That fact makes Burger and his colleague, Michael Gerrard, less optimistic. I cant foresee a scenario where there are five votes to uphold such a ruling, says Gerrard. Burger called success in a Supreme Court during Trumps first term a near impossibility.

But victory in the Supreme Court isnt the only objective for the kids and their lawyers. This is a trailblazing case, designed to pave the way for future success of other cases, too.

This is strategic impact litigation, says Burger. As you can see from the global interest, its already had a real impact. Its starting to shape the conversation about climate change.
Top cat: Alaska mourns Stubbs, feline mayor of Talkeetna Deutsche Welle

U.S. Foresaw Better Return in Seizing Fannie and Freddie Profits Gretchen Morgenson, NYT

Collapse of safe-haven asset bubble looms Nikkei Asian Review

Two top Wall Street chiefs celebrate $314m share bonanza FT. Dimon and Blankfein lead way with stock gains boosted by Trump effect on markets. Ka-ching.

Going Cashless? Bad for Tax Cheats, Privacy, Poor Bloomberg. Correction: Bad for the sort of tax cheat who doesnt have an acountant or tax lawyer.

Uber-rival Grab rakes in $2.5bn in fresh investment FT. Grab is in Southeast Asia. Are the economics different from Ubers, for any reason?

The balanced budget paradox Real World Economics Review (MT).

Yes, ancient civilizations on Mars sounds crazy. And yet Ars Technica. Well, Podesta believes in UFOs.

Syraqistan

Brexit

Do UK readers agree with Cheungs tweet? And who is Damian Green? The government's new list of Cabinet committees and members seems to confirm Damian Green's new role as de facto Deputy PM pic.twitter.com/HCxe1ewuP6  Aron Cheung (@Aron_Cheung) July 21, 2017

Frankfurt Is the Big Winner in Battle for Brexit Bankers Bloomberg

Macrons Francafrique Al Jazeera (MT).

China?

Lost your phone in Japan? Youll probably get it back Al Jazeera

New Cold War

Trump Transition

Health Care

Our Famously Free Press

Democrats in Disarray

The Millennials are the American Earthquake Corey Robin (MR). Must-read. Note that both Sanders proposals for free college and Medicare for All enable voters to avoid getting into debt, but totally write off the already indebted. A debt jubilee would accomplish that, but thats not on the table, or anywhere near it.

When student debt payoff becomes complicated by identity theft LA Times

Oh, Jeremy Corbyn Medium. Same issue as in this country; college debt.

In the state with the highest medical debt, its the middle class who carries the burden STAT

Wisconsin Company First In US To Microchip Employees Mankato Times (DC Blogger).

Herointown, N.J.: The dead, 5,217 and counting Newark Star-Ledger (Re Silc). Jackpot

Class Warfare

For Whom the Wall Fell? A Balance Sheet of the Transition to Capitalism Branko Milanovic, The Globalist

Competence to Stand Trial Evaluations of Sovereign Citizens: A Case Series and Primer of Odd Political and Legal Beliefs Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Surprisingly good background on sovereign citizens, and well worth a read.

The Mystery of Why Japanese People Are Having So Few Babies The Atlantic

Cleveland doulas fight infant mortality in their neighborhoods, one birth at a time: Saving the Smallest Cleveland Plain-Dealer

Wonder Woman Is Propaganda TNE

The artificial glacier growing in the desert CNN. Not really glaciers: ice stupas.

Live-tweeting the #Detroit67 riots, 50 years ago today Detroit Free Press

Game of Thrones recap: In Stormborn, the battle for the Seven Kingdoms truly begins WaPo

Antidote du jour (via):

Fiona and Bibi.

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Sleeping Monster: Sleeping Monster: The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and Labor

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

In our previous posts in this series (here, here, and here) we treated TiSA as a sort of dream of the collective unconscious of the globalist elite hive mind; underneath it all, its what they really want, though expressed in prose both opaque and phantasmogoric. We saw how TiSAs definition of services is so vague, so subject to the manipulations of The Trade Blob that provides legal and technical services to the global elites, as to make the scope of the agreement totalizing. We saw the global dominance of the forces behind TiSA: Really Good Friends of Services (23 WTO members, including the US and the EU and TeamTiSA (chaired by Citigroup, IBM, UPS, Walmart, MetLife and Liberty Mutual). We looked at how TiSA negotiations will be structured and showed how, through its standstill and ratchet limitations, TiSA seeks to arrest any government policies that do not put markets first (for example, Medicare for All) to create a neoliberal utopia. And we urged a re-orientation from defeating treaties  though defeating TPP, and putting TTIP on hold, are all good things  to defeating the forces behind the treaties, because when a treaty is defeated, The Trade Blob simply breaks it up for spare parts and tries again. In this post  after which Ill give TiSA a rest, unless driven by events  I want to look at TISA and labor, again using using Professor Jane Kelseys TiSA: Foul Play (PDF) as our guide. Of course matters are as horrible as you would think.

Foul Play describes TiSAs globalist fever dream of constant disruption and creative destruction in stark terms. Page 14:

Trade in services agreements are designed to serve capital. Labour is rarely visible, except as a commodity, a mode of delivery, or a barrier to trade  even though it is workers who provide the services that are being traded. On the rare occasions that the Really Good Friends of Services and Team TiSA talk positively about workers it is either to promise a fanciful increase in employment from TiSA or to extol the benefits for workers of greater flexibility from harnessing new technologies.

(One might ask whether the Better Skills portion of what is reportedly the Democrats new slogan is designed to support that flexibility and, if so, whether Better Wages will indeed result.)

Their vision of a globally-integrated services market is devoid of politics or social responsibility, leaving them free to maximise their profits through constant reorganisation, relocation and technological innovation. Those with corporate wealth and power are concentrated at the top of the pyramid, operating through layers of highly competitive subcontractors who employ a fragmented, vulnerable and exploited workforce.

In other words, everybody at the top of a power curve (locally, regionally, nationally, internationally) will be racing toward the top. Everybody on the power curves long tail will be pushed toward the bottom. Twas ever thus, you might say, but TiSA is designed to take as much friction out of that process as possible; to grease the greasy pole, you might say.

Since TiSA, obviously, is structured and written for those at the top of the power curve, its hard to tease out its effects on working people considered as a class. Ill consider these effects from two angles:

1) Professional Services

2) Contract Labor

(Of course, all of these classes interact as global elites manipulate them to good effect; for example, foreign services workers can be used to bust unions; professionals in one country can be turned into the precariat of another, as algorithms and digitization eat the world; and so on.)

The Effects of TiSA on Professional Services

Im putting this first because I think our 10%-ers believe that their guilds, their credentials, and getting their children into the right schools, especially as legacies, will protect them (indeed, will transform them into an aristocracy), and 10%-ers, especially in the suburbs, are highly sought voters by both parties. Of course, The Trade Blob is itself composed of 10%-ers, so for them TiSA may turn out to be a cloud no bigger than a mans hand. Nevertheless, there are at least two issues affecting professionals. One is TiSAs assault on requirements for local presence. Page 53:

Prohibiting requirements for local presence is one of Team TiSAs principal demands. Accepting that ban would pose major obstacles to effective legal liability, the vetting of qualifications and assessing compliance with technical and professional standards , consumer protections and the ability to tax, as well as monitoring the labour standards of workers who are delivering the service.

At the 30,000-foot level, you can see how eliminating local requirements for assessing compliance with technical and professional standards would make the transfer of legal services much more frictionless; why shouldnt I be able to obtain legal services from an English-speaking lawyer in India or the Phillipines? Granted, lawyers write the laws, so that may be slow to happen  perhap significantly, Legal Services do not have a CPC Code under W/120  but what about (CPC code 862) Accounting, auditing and bookkeeping services? Or (8671) Architectural services? Or (8672) Engineering services? And so on.

The second is TiSAs assault on domestic regulation. TiSA also includes an Annex on Movement of Natural Persons, which could affect professionals. Its still under development, but this is the current state of play. Page 91:

Independent Professionals would have a right of temporary entry to deliver a service on the same terms as contractual service suppliers. They would still be subject to licensing and qualification requirements and procedures, including codes of conduct. and any technical standards that apply to the service, although those would subject to the light-handed approach required by the Annex on Domestic Regulation [1]. In addition, Australia, Norway and Iceland are pushing an Annex on Professional Services. Almost none of it is agreed.

Good news for professionals! More on the Annex on Domestic Regulation:

The annex would apply to measures affecting trade by listed professions through any mode of delivery and whatever technologies were used to deliver the service, under the principle of technological neutrality. The list of professions includes engineering and finance-related services. Australia and Turkey want to prevent any TiSA country from applying a discriminatory economic needs test, including a labour market test to show there are no locals to do the work. Once professional services have become contractualised, for example as a result of TiSAs Annex on Telecommunications, these rights of entry could have significant displacement effects. Increased cross-border provision of professional services would also make it more difficult for governments, and people using the services, to check the authenticity of qualifications and the quality and ethics of practitioners, apply consumer protection laws and enforce penalties. While there was limited support for these proposals in November 2016, there was extensive support for applying the Domestic Regulation annex to measures affecting trade in professional services.

So, again from the 30,000-foot level, TiSAs tendency will be to erode professional protections. How that will affect any professional subsector (which is where policy limitations are fought out) is yet to be determined.

The Effects of TiSA on the Contract Labor

Contract Labor falls under the proposed Annex on Movement of Natural Persons in TiSA, where the text is not agreed. Here, however, is the intent (supported by Canada, Colombia, the EU, Norway and Mauritius). Page 92:

Contractual services suppliers is the most controversial category The basic intention is clear: if a firm in one TiSA country has a contract to supply services in another TiSA country, it must be allowed to use workers it has employed from its own or a third (even non- TiSA) country to deliver the service, where the contract requires the temporary presence of those workers. The contract referred to is between the contracting parties to supply and receive the service. There are no rules about the nationality of the employees of the contractor supplying the service. For example, a New Zealand company that has a consultancy contract to privatise a countrys postal service could recruit personnel from New Zealand or any other country to deliver the service. A specialist call centre firm in Israel that wins a contract to deliver back office services in Canada could bring temporary employees from Israel, Pakistan or the Philippines. Express delivery firm from Turkey that competes successfully with the public postal service in Italy for delivery contracts could bring its own drivers temporarily from Turkey or Romania to supply the service.

Or the UKs NHS could contract out nursing services to the Phillipines, say, and obtain those services at whatever wage obtains in the Phillipines.[2]

The pay and conditions of those employees would be governed by their employment contract with the supplier of the service and the relevant law for that contract. It is possible that the original contract for the service requires the workers to be employed under the labour laws of the country in which they are supplying the service, but that is uncommon. It is also possible that the country where the service is supplied requires that local labour laws, such as the minimum wage, apply to foreign employees of foreign contractors, but that is not usually the case.

Its bad enough to be a member of the precariat in the United States, especially if youre in debt. What happens when precariats compete globally? Nothing good, to the precariat that by luck, skill, or collective action has managed to achieve wages and working conditions above the global average.

Conclusion

There are many, many other facets to TiSA that perhaps I can consider at a later date, especially e-commerce, finance, telecommunications, and postal services. However, Foul Play puts the immediate priority well. Page 79:

[Defeating TiSA] will help to keep open the spaces for global and national unions to work with others to develop a collective strategy to protect peoples rights as workers and as citizens in the 21st century. The immediate task is to ensure that the TiSA negotiations are not resumed . That requires a concerted campaign by UNI affiliates and others at international, regional and national levels to expose and oppose what governments belonging to the Really Good Friends of Services have secretly proposed on behalf of the Team TiSA corporations  and to ensure that the same agenda is not transplanted to other free trade agreements or the WTO.

As for defeating the forces behind TiSA. Well, somebody should ask Chuck Schumer where he stands on it, and how TiSA jibes with the Democrat Partys new populist agenda of better. Eh?

NOTES

[1] Foul Play, page 138: A number of countries have been trying for years to secure disciplines on government regulation of technical standards, qualifications requirements and procedures, and licensing requirements and procedures in the GATS. They are now attempting to advance their demands through TiSA, in both the core text and an Annex on Domestic Regulation. New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and Switzerland are the main proponents. The US, Canada and the EU oppose some of their worst aspects, but not all.

[2] Not that this is a bad thing on the average, and especially for the Phillipines nurses, but will the UK nurses be compensated for the impact? If what happened during the deindustrialization of the Rust Belt is any indication, the answer will be no, although economists will shed crocodile tears after the process is complete and promise to do better next time.
(Natural News) A Tennessee judge believes that offering permanent birth-control procedures to inmates will lessen the number of babies being born with withdrawal symptoms, otherwise known as Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). Judge Benningfield admits that the controversial decision to offer a vasectomy or an implanted birth control device to inmates for reduced jail time can raise eyebrows among some people, but argues that the intended long-term effects will help society. He told CBS News, Im not on a crusade of any sort, Im trying to help  trying to help people.

Tennessee is a state that has seen an almost ten-fold increase in the number of babies being born with NAS. Judge Benningfield believes that for many of these cases, the parents are repeat offenders. Those who regularly engage in risky behaviors such as drugs and alcohol typically commit petty crimes which land them in jail. Women are notorious for becoming pregnant by having unprotected sex while under the influence of drugs. This, in turn, has resulted in a worrying amount of drug-addicted babies or infants who are intoxicated with alcohol when they are born.

The local health department of Tennessee has already seen the connection and has proposed an educational class for inmates at the county jail. These programs would focus on the risks of developmental abnormalities found in babies born to mothers who are addicted. This, however, is not enough of a stopgap for Judge Benningfield who wants a more lasting solution. He issued a new order which allowed Tennessee inmates to have an additional 30 days off of their sentence if they underwent a birth-control procedure, or a vasectomy for men and a contraceptive implant for women. The reduced jail time would be over and on top of the two day reduction inmates would receive after completing the educational class.

So far, the order has been largely successful  if you take the number of inmates opting to be either snipped or slapped to be a good indication of triumph. Nevertheless, legal professionals, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), call the move to be largely unconstitutional, impeding on peoples natural rights to conceive and reproduce, especially if they feel that they are being manipulated to having the decision in exchange for their liberty.

Local district attorney general, Bryant Dunaway pointed out that its not the place of the government or the courts, or the state of Tennessee to encourage the trading of fertility procedures for a reduction in sentences.

Even so, Judge Benningfield insists that the choice was never forced on the inmates. The decision to sterilize themselves is a choice they made on their own. He does admit, however, that while the reduction of jail time for the procedure is not explicitly encouraged, it is implicitly suggested. Moreover, the procedures are not largely irreversible. The female implants are only effective for around three years and the men can have their vasectomies reversed. These operations are offered free of charge to any inmate who requests it.

Already, 24 women have had the procedure with 38 men signing up to receive a vasectomy.

Judge Benningfield finds the vehement arguments of the ACLU to be rather confusing. Im trying to help these folks, you know, begin to think about taking responsibility for their life and doing right and giving them a leg up. And when they get out of jail to perhaps rehabilitate themselves and not be burdened again with unwanted children and all that comes with that, he said. (Related: Vasectomy parties on the rise as couples celebrate future child-free lives.)

He has stated nevertheless that he will reverse his order if a higher court tells him to do so.

Sources include:

NewsChannel5.com

NBCNews.com

CBSNews.com
(Natural News) Without a doubt, fossil fuels  oil and coal, primarily  drove the industrial and technological revolutions of the past 150 years, and they continue to support the advancement of economies around the world today, while making life for billions of people more comfortable than at any time in history.

Despite that, lunatics in three California counties now think they have a right to destroy all of that progress, and over nothing more than a grand hoax.

As reported by The Daily Caller, Marin County, San Mateo County and Imperial Beach have each filed separate, though nearly identical, lawsuits against 37 of the worlds largest oil and coal companies, claiming that the global warming they allegedly caused has led to a rise in sea level and erosion of beaches in their jurisdictions.

In their filings, county lawyers say that there has been a rise in flooding, meaning beaches are eroding more quickly  and thats the fault of evil oil and coal companies who are destroying the world.

As such, the three counties are seeking monetary compensation (of course) for current and future damages. And, while the plaintiffs do not have any specific number in mind, they claim theyll need at least $54 billion from these companies in the coming decades.

This is a long-anticipated move in climate litigation, Michael Burger, executive director of environmental law at Columbia University, told The San Francisco Chronicle. Youll find pieces of it in other cases, but bringing it together like this is different than whats been done before. You can expect there will be a great deal of interest in how this litigation proceeds.

Plaintiffs are using the cigarette company argument, claiming that oil and coal companies have long known their drilling and production activities have been damaging the earth and causing global warming, but that they have sought to discredit scientific findings on the matter.

Actually, those conducting the scientific studies have discredited themselves, by faking data and lying about the available evidence in order to push their climate change agenda. [RELATED: Global warming hoax revealed AGAIN: Study finds surface temp data adjusted to show continual warming.]

Plus, as The National Sentinel has reported, the executive secretary of the UNs Framework Convention on Climate Change has admitted very clearly that the hoax of global warming/climate change is being perpetuated specifically to destroy capitalism and change the worlds economic model.

This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution, she said recently.

Nevertheless, officials in three California counties believe they have the right to destroy an entire industry  the very one responsible for their existence  in pursuit of payola on the basis of a fake narrative.

Granted, the suits have major legal hurdles, as The Daily Caller noted:

In order to prove their case, the counties will have to find a specific connection between harm from global warming and the actions of each energy company. Additionally, theyll have to show that the issue cannot be handled by government regulations.

In addition, a similar suit brought by an Alaskan town was tossed out of court in 2008.

But, before you dismiss this effort out of hand, remember that the Church of Global Warming has many believers and followers  not a few of them sit as judges on state and federal courts. A couple of decades ago this kind of challenge would have been laughed at, but today, the belief that SUVs, cattle farts and life-sustaining carbon dioxide are killing the planet is pervasive.

Should this suit succeed, the damage it would do to economies all over the world is incalculable. Oil and coal companies would collapse overnight, taking the worlds biggest economies with them. The ensuing chaos would result in death and destruction.

Which means that, ironically, these three California counties would actually accomplish what they claim the oil and coal companies have been doing.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

DailyCaller.com

SFGate.com

TheNationalSentinel.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Anyone who still tries to claim that pesticides do not harm honeybees after recent study results out of Germany and France is likely trying to promote their own interests because they are clearly out of touch with reality. The new study, which was published in the Journal of Apicultural Research, leaves no doubt about the effects caused by pesticides to these important insects and adds to an already significant pile of evidence arguing against their use.

Researchers at Martin Luther University in Germany looked into the effects that a type of pesticide known as a thiacloprid, a subclass of a neonicotinoid, had on the social interactions between honeybee workers. After measuring the interactions among experimental worker groups, they found that bees who fed with thiacloprid had significantly lower social interactions.

In another paper that formed part of the research, scientists from the University of Poitier in France examined the effect that exposure to the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam had on honeybee larvae. They discovered that these bees suffered impaired learning and memory as adults after being fed thiamethoxam when they were in the larval stage.

Meanwhile, two studies that were published recently in the journal Science side by side provided new information about just how harmful these chemicals are to honeybees. The first study found that exposure to neonicotinoids can lower the reproductive success of honeybees as well as bumblebees and red mason bees. The scientists reached their conclusions after large-scale, field-realistic studies in the U.K., Hungary and Germany.

The other study, from York University in Canada, followed 55 honeybee colonies across 11 locations for several months in 2014. That study revealed that bees are exposed to these chemicals for a lot longer than previously believed, and worker honeybees who were exposed to neonicotinoids had a 23 percent decrease in their lifespan.

Dangerous levels of neonicotinoids

Moreover, those bees who were exposed to the pesticides tended to fly further away from their hives, acting as though they were lost. In addition, they were slower to recognize dead or dying bees and remove them from their hive, which is vital for colony health as it eliminates potential disease sources. The researchers in this study said that 70 to 80 percent of the exposed colonies would have died without outside assistance. Both studies found that the concentrations of neonicotinoids that are encountered by bees in fields are dangerous to them.

The University of Sussexs Dave Goulson told New Scientist: I think youd have to be pretty unreasonable at this point not to accept that, at least some of the time, these chemicals harm bees when used in normal farming practice.

The findings of these studies are timely as the European Food Safety Authority prepares to decide whether a temporary ban on using three major neonicotinoids on crops that attract bees should become permanent. In light of these results, it may even be extended to cover all uses of the chemicals outside of greenhouses.

Neonicotinoids are currently the most widely used pesticides on the planet. They are sprayed directly on seeds or crops, and they kill insects by affecting their central nervous system, which leads to paralysis and death. Around 70 percent of the planets most vital food crops depend entirely on pollination by bees, and they have been dying off in droves thanks to these pesticides. In fact, beekeepers have been reporting losses of around one-third of their bee populations every year.

This is particularly disheartening in light of the fact that these chemicals dont even improve crop yields, with evidence compiled by the Center for Food Safety showing that they sometimes have the opposite effect, preying on the wrong insects and allowing aphids to go unchecked and damage crops. Those who use these chemicals are putting the worlds food supply at risk for very little benefit, if any.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

NewScientist.com

EcoWatch.com

LATimes.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Another corporate CEO is putting her shareholders at risk of a major consumer backlash because she just wont shut up with her anti-Trump agenda. After promising to sue President Trump for trying to return millions of acres of land to the states from which it was stolen by Barack Obama as part of his national monument scheme, Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario has now been exposed for also donating company profits to the unborn baby murder mill known as Planned Parenthood.

An investigation by Breitbart News has revealed that the outdoor apparel company has given numerous donations to Planned Parenthood over the past several years. According to the non-profit database GuideStar, Patagonia donated $30,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2012, $25,000 in 2013, and another $12,000 in 2014, for a total of nearly $70,000. This doesnt account for any donations that may have been made in 2015 and beyond.

These donations are of particular interest to the public because Patagonia is becoming widely known for its extremist agendas, which include spending millions of dollars to defeat Republican and conservative candidates for political office.

Earlier reports indicate that Patagonia spent $1 million to support the Democrats back in November with a get-out-the-vote drive. It also forked over another $10 million from its profits on Black Friday to fund various left-wing environmental groups as part of a comprehensive effort to garner as much support for its far-left agenda as possible.

Patagonias Rose Marcario is the perfect example of why conservatives are sick and tired of CEOs using their position to push a political agenda, said Lance Wray, executive director of the group 2nd Vote, in a written statement to Breitbart News. Not only is she leading a lawsuit against the Trump administration, but her company provides financial support for the liberal agenda far beyond environmental activism.

Our research has found Patagonia uses its charitable giving arm to funnel tens of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood. This means a portion of every customer dollar helps fund a gruesome business that performs over 300,000 abortions every year.

Patagonia spends millions on liberal causes while supporting human trafficking, child labor in its supply chain

Marcario apparently hasnt learned that its not exactly smart for a company head to ostracize half of the country with extremist political rhetoric. Even worse is to do so while spending millions of dollars in company earnings for pet causes that support her personal agenda, as well-intentioned as she clearly believes it to be.

Her beef over the land that lame-duck Obama decided to seize from the state of Utah without consent from its citizens is a peculiar hill to die on as well. A November poll showed that at least 60 percent of the states citizens opposed the move, as did many others across the country, who saw it as a gross abuse of federal power.

Patagonia also has plenty of its own dirty laundry in the form of involvement with human trafficking and child labor throughout its supply chain. Rather than spend her companys money trying to fight these evils and build a better corporate model, she instead is handing it over to extremist causes, including the baby butchers over at Planned Parenthood.

A 2011 internal audit of Patagonia turned up multiple instances of forced labor, exploitation, and human trafficking in the companys supply chain. This was confirmed by Cara Chacon, Patagonias director of social and environmental responsibility, as well as Thuy Nguyen, the Patagonias manager of supply chain social responsibility and special programs.

In 2016, millions of conservatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood, Wray adds. Shouldnt we make that vote count even more by defunding Patagonia? Conservatives who take their shopping dollars elsewhere can send Ms. Marcario and Patagonia a clear message that it just makes better business sense to stay out of politics.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com

TheAtlantic.com
Massachusetts court officers do not have the authority to arrest someone suspected of being in the U.S. illegally if that person is not facing criminal charges, the state's highest court ruled Monday.

The Supreme Judicial Court opinion applied to officers who provide security in state courthouses, but the ruling also suggested that no Massachusetts police officer has the legal standing to comply with such federal requests.

"Today's decision is a victory for the rule of law and smart immigration and criminal justice policies, and a rejection of anti-immigrant policies that have stoked fear in communities across the country," Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said. "As my office argued in this case, Massachusetts law protects our residents from illegal detention and prevents the federal government from forcing law enforcement to make decisions contrary to the public safety interests of their community. This decision allows local law enforcement to focus their resources on keeping people safe."

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that remaining in the U.S. when subject to deportation is a civil, not a criminal, infraction. In the unanimous decision, the Supreme Judicial Court pointed out there is no state law that provides "authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer beyond the time that individual would otherwise be entitled to a release from state custody."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said that based on the court's language, the decision extends to all Massachusetts police officers.

"Conspicuously absent from our common law is any authority (in the absence of a statute) for police officers to arrest generally for civil matters, let alone authority to arrest specifically for federal civil immigration matters," the court wrote.

The decision is a major setback to the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration enforcement, the ACLU said.

"This court decision sets an important precedent that we are a country that upholds the constitution and the rule of law," Carol Rose, the ACLU's executive director said. "This victory is the first of its kind in the nation. At a time when the Trump administration is pushing aggressive and discriminatory immigration enforcement policies, Massachusetts is leading nationwide efforts by limiting how state and local law enforcement assist with federal immigration enforcement."

A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The court's decision came in the case of Sreynuon Lunn, who in October was arraigned on an unarmed robbery charge in Boston Municipal Court. At the time, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a civil immigration detainer against Lunn, who was born to Cambodian parents.

The state charge was dismissed on Feb. 6, but a judge refused to free him and court officers kept Lunn in a courthouse holding cell until an immigration officer took him into federal custody.

His lawyers appealed, saying in part that his detention based solely on the request by federal officials was unconstitutional.

Lunn, 32, was ordered released from custody back in May and remains free in the U.S., the ACLU said.

He has been the subject of a long-running deportation battle.

Lunn was born in a Thai refugee camp to Cambodian parents fleeing the Khmer Rouge and brought to the United States as a 7-month-old. He was legally allowed into the country as a refugee and given lawful permanent resident status. He has two U.S.-born children.

Immigration officials first tried deporting him in 2009 after he was convicted of an aggravated felony. But both Cambodia and Thailand have denied him citizenship and refused to issue travel documents.

The Massachusetts court urged the state Legislature to address the matter.

Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, an outspoken opponent of undocumented immigrants, said he is already working with Republican lawmakers on "a bill that aims to authorize all levels of law enforcement and court officers to cooperate fully with Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

"The decision makes Massachusetts residents and visitors more vulnerable to become victims of crime," Hodgson said of the court ruling.

Rep. James Lyons of Andover, Rep. Shaunna O'Connell of Taunton and Rep. Marc Lombardo of Billerica are working with Hodgson on the legislation.
Australia was disappointed that hundreds of its rejected refugees would not begin resettling in the United States this month under a deal that predates President Donald Trump's administration, an official said on Friday.

President Barack Obama's administration agreed to accept up to 1,250 refugees among hundreds of asylum seekers  mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka  who have been languishing for up to four years in immigration camps on the impoverished Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton said Australia wanted the refugees to start moving in July, but the United States had already filled its 50,000 refugee quota for the current fiscal year.

"We're disappointed that they haven't been able to move this month, which was my hope, but their new program year starts on Oct. 1, and we're working with both the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that we can get people off as quickly as possible," Dutton told reporters.

Trump berated Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during their first telephone conversation as national leaders in January over the deal which Trump described in a tweet as "dumb."

Trump said the refugees would be subjected to "extreme vetting" before they were accepted. There are few details on what that would entail.

Australia will not settle any refugees who try to arrive by boat  a policy that the government says dissuades asylum seekers from attempting the dangerous and occasionally deadly ocean crossing from Indonesia. Australia instead pays Papua New Guinea and Nauru to house asylum seekers in camps that have been plagued by reports of abuse and draconian conditions.

Dutton said he was determined to close the men-only camp on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea by the end of October. Asylum seekers on Manus who were rejected by the United States would be transferred to Nauru, who will remain open indefinitely.

Australia last month reached a settlement of 68 million dollars with more than 1,900 asylum seekers who sued over their treatment on Manus.
A police-involved shooting is under investigation in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.

According to the Middlesex District Attorney's office, the shooting happened at a home on Clover Hill Drive at about 7:40 a.m. Sunday.

Officers responded to the home after receiving a 911 call from an older man who heard other family members  a man and woman  engaged in some type of altercation, according to Chelmsford Police Chief James Spinney.

"He was concerned for their well-being," Spinney said.

According to the Chelmsford Police Department, the suspect became combative with the responding officer and struck him in the face with a closed fist.

During the altercation, two additional Chelmsford officers arrived at the scene. The suspect continued to be combative, using a large shard of glass and a hammer as weapons.

After officers tried repeatedly to control the suspect, a Taser was used. When that was not successful, another officer discharged a firearm.

"There was one Taser deployment and it was ineffective. At that point, with growing concern for the well-being of that female and that male victim who was in close proximity to that male subject, the officer discharged his firearm," Spinney said.

Police said they had responded to the home a number of times within the last six months.

Authorities said the officer who discharged the firearm is on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

The names of the suspect and victims have not yet been released.

The suspects wounds are believed to be non-life-threatening, however he remains in serious condition. He is expected to face charges in connection with the incident.

The female victim was also transported to a hospital where she is being treated for injuries allegedly caused by the suspect during the altercation.


A suspect has died following an officer-involved shooting in Spencer, Massachusetts, according to Spencer police.

At 8:30 p.m. officers attempted to stop a vehicle involved in an earlier domestic dispute. The vehicle gave way to a short pursuit before pulling in to a driveway along Northwest Road.

The suspect then exited the vehicle and pointed a possible firearm at police officers.

An officer fired a single shot. The suspect was then transported to the hospital where he died of his injury.

According to police, a replica handgun was found near the suspect.

Neighbor Robert Frigon witnessed the incident. "I just heard the police coming up the road, then I hear one gunshot," Frigon told reporters. "I yelled to my wife 'shut the doors and get in the house.'"

The suspect's vehicle was towed from the scene around 3:30 Monday morning

The incident remains under investigation.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Kennedy spoke at the Solution to End Violence Forum over the weekend in Chicago, and he announced a plan to address the gun violence in the city.

Kennedy, who spoke about his father Robert F. Kennedy's assassination while running for president in 1968 during the speech, laid out an eight-point plan as he seeks to curb the violence that has made national headlines in Chicago.

The plan that Kennedy put forward includes increasing the number of police officers on Chicagos streets, raising the number by 2000 officers. He also proposed more widespread availability for mental health services, and extensive rehabilitation for inmates.

During the speech, Kennedy criticized Governor Bruce Rauner for not doing enough to curb violence in Chicago, saying that the governors belief in limited government intervention has been the wrong path forward.

The Republican party in the state of Illinois was hijacked by a libertarian madman who believes that there is no role for government in peoples lives nor the economy nor in state support for any anti-violence program, he said.

Kennedy also put forward proposals for tougher gun control in the state, which Mayor Rahm Emanuel has also proposed.
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Ahead of Key Vote, Details of GOP Health Bill Still Unknown

The Senate will move forward with a key vote this week on a Republican health bill but it's not yet known whether the legislation will seek to replace President Barack Obama's health care law or simply repeal it, the third-highest ranking Republican senator said. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will make a decision soon on which bill to bring up for a vote, depending on ongoing discussions with GOP senators. Thune sought to cast this week's initial vote as important but mostly procedural, allowing senators to begin debate and propose amendments. But he acknowledged that senators should be able to know beforehand what bill they will be considering. The Republican-controlled House in May passed its version of a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare." Senate Republicans are now considering two versions of similar legislation, one that would repeal and replace, and another that would simply repeal Obamacare with a two-year delay to give the Senate more time to agree on a replacement.

John McCain Spends Weekend Outdoors With Daughter, Friend

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., spent the weekend outdoors about a week after undergoing surgery and being diagnosed with brain cancer, NBC News reported. McCain, 80, tweeted a photo of himself and a friend, Joe Harper, with their feet in the Oak Creek of Zebra Falls in Arizona. The senator's daughter Maghan McCain also tweeted a photo of the outing, which she used to thank supporters for their well wishes in the wake of her dad's diagnosis. McCain underwent surgery to remove a blood clot on July 14 and was subsequently diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

9 Dead, Dozens Hurt After Suspected Smuggling Truck Found

Nine people are dead and the death toll could rise after emergency crews pulled dozens of people from a sweltering tractor-trailer found parked outside a Walmart in the midsummer Texas heat, victims of what officials said was an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong. The driver was arrested, and nearly 20 others taken from the rig were hospitalized in dire condition, many with extreme dehydration and heatstroke, officials said Sunday. "We're looking at a human-trafficking crime," said San Antonio Police Chief William McManus, calling it "a horrific tragedy." One U.S. official said Sunday evening that 17 of those rescued were being treated for injuries that were considered life-threatening. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information has not been publicly released.

Cancer Patients' Gray Hair Turned Dark in Trials for New Immune Drugs

Cancer patients' gray hair unexpectedly turned youthfully dark while taking novel drugs, and it has doctors scratching their heads. Chemotherapy is notorious for making hair fall out, but the 14 patients involved were all being treated with new immunotherapy drugs that work differently and have different side effects. A Spanish study suggests that may include restoring hair pigment, at least in patients with lung cancer. With the first patient, "we thought it could be an isolated case," said Dr. Noelia Rivera, a dermatologist at Autonomous University of Barcelona. But she said the research team found the same thing when they asked other patients for photos from before treatment. The 14 cases were among 52 lung cancer patients being followed to see whether they developed bad side effects from the drugs  Keytruda, Opdivo and Tecentriq.

Many Viewers Disappointed After Michael Phelps Takes on 'Great White' Shark in Race

After ample build up and the promise of a dramatic face-off, Michael Phelps finally raced his fiercest competitor. But the great white shark snagged the gold in Discovery Channel's anticipated Shark Week kick-off, "Phelps Vs. Shark: The Battle for Ocean Supremacy." In the previously recorded stunt, the trained athlete and the ocean predator went head-to-head (sort of) in a 100-meter race off the coast of South Africa. The shark ended up crossing the finish line 2.0 seconds before Phelps. Though the show highlighted Phelps' man-made advantages, which included an especially buoyant wetsuit and a mono fin to help him "swim like a shark," his victory was perhaps never meant to be. A great white shark can hit top speeds of 15 miles per hour in short bursts, according to National Geographic. However, the beasts have been reported to max out at 25 or even 35 miles per hour.

Police: Man Armed With Chainsaw Injures 5 People in Northern Switzerland

An unkempt man armed with a chainsaw wounded five people Monday at an office building in the northern Swiss city of Schaffhausen and then fled, police said. A manhunt is on for him. Police were alerted to the incident at 10:39 a.m. (04:39 ET). Five people were taken to the hospital, two of them with serious injuries, police said. A rescue helicopter was brought in to help the victims and the old town in Schaffhausen was sealed off. "This case is not a terrorist act," police said, without elaborating on what the man's motive might have been.
Over 40,000 residents in Northern Illinois are without power after a line of severe thunderstorms spawned numerous warnings and did damage to several towns and communities.

According to ComEd, nearly 18,000 people in Will County are without power after the storms, which rolled through the area on Sunday afternoon. Just under 14,000 residents in DuPage County are also without power thanks to the severe weather.

Around 3500 residents in Kankakee and McHenry counties also lost power, according to the utility company.

Customers are encouraged to call 1-800-EDISON1 if they encounter downed power lines, or if they need the utility company to disconnect power in the event of a flooded basement.

Customers can also check the status of outages in their area by texting the word OUT to 26633, or by visiting the companys website.
A jury has convicted a western Michigan woman of first-degree murder in the shooting death of her husband in a crime apparently witnessed by the man's pet parrot.

The Newaygo County jury deliberated about eight hours before finding 49-year-old Glenna Duram guilty Wednesday of killing 46-year-old Martin Duram. He was shot five times in May 2015. Glenna Duram suffered a head wound in what prosecutors said was a suicide attempt, but survived.

Martin Duram's ex-wife, Christina Keller, has said that after the slaying, the pet parrot, Bud, repeated "don't (expletive) shoot" in Martin Duram's voice. Keller took ownership of the bird after Martin Duram's death.

Duram is due to be sentenced Aug. 28 on the murder and a felony firearm charge.
President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner answered questions from Senate investigators for hours behind closed doors Monday, acknowledging four meetings with Russians during and after Trump's victorious White House bid and insisting he had "nothing to hide." He emerged smiling to publicly declare, "All of my actions were proper."

Kushner, a quiet insider who generally avoids the spotlight, was the first top Trump lieutenant to be quizzed by the congressional investigators probing Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The wealthy developer-turned-presidential adviser spoke privately with staff members of the Senate intelligence committee and will return to talk to the House intelligence panel Tuesday.

"Let me be very clear," Kushner said afterward in a rare public statement at the White House. "I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so."

Trump watched on TV as Kushner made his appearance outside the West Wing and "thought Jared did a great job," said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She said his House testimony on Tuesday would show "what a hoax this entire thing is."

Earlier Monday, Kushner released an 11-page statement that was billed as his remarks to both the Senate and House committees. In it, he acknowledged his Russian contacts during the campaign and then the following weeks, in which he served as a liaison between the transition and foreign governments. He described each contact as either insignificant or routine and he said the meetings, along with several others, were omitted from his security clearance form because of an aide's error. Kushner cast himself as a political novice learning in real time to juggle "thousands of meetings and interactions" in a fast-paced campaign.

His statement was the first detailed defense from a campaign insider responding to the controversy that has all but consumed the first six months of Trump's presidency. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia sought to tip the 2016 campaign in Trump's favor. Congressional committees, as well as a Justice Department special counsel, are investigating whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia in that effort and whether the president has sought to hamper the investigations.

Kushner said Monday he "will continue to cooperate as I have nothing to hide."

He provided for the first time his recollection of a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information about Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Emails released this month show that the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., accepted the meeting with the idea that he would receive information as part of a Russian government effort to help Trump's campaign. But Kushner said he hadn't seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

He called the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering. He says he arrived late and when he heard the lawyer discussing the issue of international adoptions, he texted his assistant to call him out.

"No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign; there was no follow-up to the meeting that I am aware of; I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted," he said.

Kushner also confirmed earlier media reports that he had suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities to set up secure communications between Trump adviser Michael Flynn, who would become Trump's national security adviser, and Russian officials. But he disputed it was an effort to establish a "secret back channel."

His statement describes a December meeting with Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in which Kushner and Kislyak discussed establishing a secure line for the Trump transition team and Moscow to communicate about policy in Syria.

Kushner said that when Kislyak asked if there was a secure way for him to provide information from his "generals," Kushner suggested using facilities at the Russian Embassy.

"The ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Nothing else occurred," the statement said.

Kushner said he never proposed an ongoing secret form of communication.

He also acknowledged meeting with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, at the request of Kislyak but said no specific policies were discussed.

In an effort to demonstrate how distanced he was from international diplomacy, Kushner said in his statement that he "could not even remember the name of the Russian ambassador" when he wanted to verify an email purporting to be an official note of congratulations from Russian President Vladimir Putin on the day after the election.

As for his application for a security clearance, Kushner said his form was submitted prematurely due to a miscommunication with his assistant, who had believed the document was complete.

He said he mistakenly omitted all of his foreign contacts, not just his meetings with Russians, and has worked in the past six months with the FBI to correct the record.

On another matter, Kushner described receiving a "random email" during the presidential campaign from someone claiming to have Trump's tax returns  which the president hasn't released  and demanding ransom to keep the information secret.

Kushner said the emailer demanded payment in Bitcoin, an online currency. Kushner says he showed the email to a Secret Service agent, who told him to ignore it.

Trump Jr. and Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was also at the June 2016 meeting, were scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. But on Friday their attorneys said they remained in negotiations with that panel. The two men are now in discussions to be privately interviewed by staff or lawmakers, though the GOP chairman of the committee, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, has said they will eventually testify in public.

The president took to Twitter on Monday to repeat his criticism of the investigations, and reiterate his allegation against his former opponent, questioning in a tweet why investigators aren't looking into "Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations."
U.S. military officials confirmed two Chinese fighter jets intercepted and almost collided with a U.S. military surveillance aircraft in the East China Sea this weekend, NBC News reported.

One of the Chinese J-10 fighter jets flew underneath U.S. Navy EP-3 on Sunday and then suddenly was in front of the aircraft. The maneuver forced U.S. reconnaissance jet to take "evasive action" to avoid a collision, officials said.

U.S. military officials described the maneuver was unsafe and unprofessional as they have with similar past incidents earlier this year.
A Connecticut couple is fighting to stay together after hearing one of them is going to be deported.

Joel Colindres came to the U.S. from Guatemala 13 years ago. And seven years ago, he married Connecticut native Samantha.

Since then, the two have been fighting for the necessary documents for Joel to stay in the U.S.A.

"Let's do it the right way, you've been paying into money for social security, you're not going to be having retirement," said Samantha Colindres.

Colindres said problem is, back in 2004, when he was 20 years old and living in Texas, he missed an immigration court date.

"There's a deportation order on him because he missed a court hearing," said Samantha, "They had his address completely wrong, his first name was spelled with a k, his last name was wrong, he never even received the order to go the court."

Because of the order, Colindres said he cannot apply for citizenship. Instead, he has been granted several Stay of Deportation or "stays,"

which is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement-approved order allowing him to remain in the country for one year. Last Thursday, the couple received the results from their most recent "stay" application.

"Denied, your stay has been denied, and you have thirty days to leave the country. I broke down in tears, how can you do this!?" said Samantha.

It's news the couple has not been able to share yet with their six-year-old son, and two-year-old daughter.

"How do you tell them? Hey, I'm sorry I got to leave. I don't know when I am going to see you again," said Joel Colindres.

ICE tells NBC Connecticut they are not going to take Colindres into custody at this time. Instead, they placed him on a GPS monitoring program. ICE also said "he was instructed to report back to ICE with an itinerary as proof he intends to comply with his removal order."

Until the time comes, the couple is working with attorney's to clear up the court date issue, and keep her family together in the country they say they love.

"We have to prepare for the worst, but no matter what, I am always going to love this country," said Colindres.

The couple plans to hold a rally Thursday on the 300th block of Main Street in West Hartford.
An immigration lawyer in New London said theres a culture of fear amongst people who are undocumented but trying to become lawful American residents or American citizens.

I think theres been a lot of word on the street about round-ups by ICE so people are starting to think, maybe I need to prepare for myself, said attorney Marcy Levine.

Levine said under Donald Trumps administration, shes been getting flooded with calls from both undocumented and documented immigrants concerned about deportation. Theyve been making plans for guardianship for their children and finding a power of attorney for their belongings.

People who are undocumented are not safe. Even if theyre not out committing crimes. A lot of us believe that people who had pending criminal cases or violent criminal histories would be the ones targeted for removal, Levine said.

She referenced Nury Chavarrias case. A Norwalk mom of four whos lived in the United State for 24 years. Chavarria is now seeking refuge at a New Haven church, refusing deportation.

Theres uncertainty about the future of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Levine added. And to have a case heard before a judge could take years.

I wanted a changed life. And over there, I (didnt) have milk to give to my children. I needed to take a chance for them, said Lizbeth Polo-Smith, who left her young children in Peru in 2002 and came to America.

Polo-Smith wanted to be able to afford meals, diapers and create a better life for her children. But she was in the U.S. for 14 years before being able to get her green card.

Polo-Smith was able to lawfully bring two of her children to American when they were eight and six years old since their father was an American citizen.

Were not criminals. Were working in (American) houses, were working in their yards, were working in their restaurants. Were working  Were not criminals, she said.

At Centro de la Comunidad at 109 Blinman Street in New London, Levine and Polo-Smith are hosting a forum and discussing legal options for non-citizens. It starts at 7 p.m. Monday, and theres another discussion on July 29 at 10 a.m.

People who attend are asked to donate a pack of diapers for families in need.
A Connecticut mother who has taken refuge in a church to avoid deportation is one of a dozen immigrants staying in houses of worship nationwide under a sanctuary movement invigorated by President Trumps positions on undocumented immigration.



The case of Nury Chavarria, which has received national attention, comes after the Trump administration expanded the categories of people to be deported and specified that no one was protected.

Chavarria refused to leave for Guatemala last week as ordered by U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement, instead fleeing to Iglesia De Dios Pentecostal in New Haven. The 43-year-old single mother of four, who entered the United States illegally in 1993, said she did not want to be separated from her children.

Her oldest, her 21-year-old son, has cerebral palsy, according to the Hartford Courant. Her youngest, 9-year-old Hayley, issued a public plea on behalf of her mother.

While Chavarria remains in the church, it is unlikely that ICE agents will move to detain her. The agency typically avoids making arrests at what it calls "sensitive locations," including houses of worship, schools and hospitals and doctors' offices, though exceptions can be made. ICE also tries to steer clear of religious and civil ceremonies such as funerals and weddings.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the status of the policy. It appears to remain in effect, according to its website.

Kica Matos, the director of immigrant rights and racial justice for the Center for Community Change, who is representing Chavarria, said she expected ICE to fully honor its policy and not try to deport Chavarria while she remains inside the church.

NBC Connecticut

Church World Service, a coalition of Christian denominations that has assisted refugees for 70 years, said it knows of no instances in which ICE agents entered a congregation. There have been cases of ICE agents waiting across the street, it said, and of arrests taking place near a church and school.

In Fairfax, Virginia, in February, ICE agents detained men who had just left a church shelter, where they had gone to stay warm. ICE told Time magazine that the location was a coincidence and that it was not targeting churches. In Los Angeles in March, a father who had been ordered deported, Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, was taken into custody blocks from his 12-year-old daughters school, where he had dropped her off. Another daughter was in the car with him.

The sanctuary movement began in the 1980s under President Reagan and was revived under President Barack Obama.

Its grown a lot, and after the election is when we saw just a bigger spike, said Myrna Orozco Gallos, an associate with the Church World Services Immigration and Refugee Program.

The number of congregations offering to provide sanctuary has jumped from 400 to 800 since Trump took office. Although raids took place during the Obama administration too, ICE's detentions have gotten new attention because of Trump's stance on undocumented immigrants.

The organization has kept track of 29 public cases in the last three years, she said.

Chavarria, a housekeeper who has no criminal record and pays taxes, applied for asylum when she arrived but was denied. She was supposed to leave the country in 1998, but did not comply, and then in 2010, was given a one-year stay of the deportation order on humanitarian grounds. She complied with yearly check-ins with immigration officials and each year received an extension of the stay to allow her to raise her American-born children  until June, when an ICE official told her she had to depart by Thursday.

I told him, 'Im not a criminal,' she said last week. Im a mother of four children. They are citizens, USA. I want to stay here to help them and keep my family together.

Chavarrias supporters are hoping to win her another reprieve. Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, is among those urging that her case be reconsidered. He told the Hartford Courant that Chavarria had ineffective counsel in her asylum case; other members of her family were granted asylum, he said, while her attorney was later disbarred.

Among the dozen people who have sought refuge is Ismael Delgado, who has been staying at a church in Phoenix, Arizona, since October 2015, according to the United Church of Christ. Delgado, who ran a restaurant, has lived in the United States for 20 years and has two children.

Another undocumented immigrant, Jose Juan Federico Moreno, took shelter in a church on the South Side of Chicago more than a year ago rather than return to Mexico. Moreno, who worked for a furniture moving company, was targetted after getting a DUI in 2009.

Others will stay only a few months.

There have been successes among the movement. Two immigrants, Jeanette Vizguerra and Arturo Garcia from Denver, both received two-year reprieves in May. Vizguerra, who is from Mexico and who has lived in the United States for 20 years, left a Baptist church in Denver after she got a stay until 2019. Garcia, who is also from Mexico, had lived in the basement of a Unitarian church in 2014 and 2015 but emerged when he was told his case was not a priority, according to the Denver Post. Garcia, who owned a floor tile-laying business with his brother, was arrested in April 2016 and later was granted a stay, the newspaper reported.

Church World Service is holding a meeting in Texas on July 28 and July 29 at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Its goal is to provide training and to develop a framework for the sanctuary movement.

Here are the other undocumented immigrants living in houses of worship across the country, according to published reports and Church World Service:

Rosa Sabido, a Mexican national, has taken refuge in a church in Mancos, Colorado. She had lived in the United States for 30 years on visitor visas or through stays of deportation but faced immediate deportation in May. Residents have volunteered to stay overnight at the church to make sure she was not alone. Her lawyer told the Los Angeles Times she had no criminal record and had worked as a church secretary and tax preparer at H&R Block. Sabido applied for permanent residency in 2001, a case that is pending, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Juana Ortega, an undocumented grandmother from Guatemala, took sanctuary at a church in Greensboro, North Carolina, in May. She came to the United States in 1993, seeking asylum, and when her attempts failed got repeated stays on her removal order, according to CNN. At her first check-in with ICE under Trumps administration she was told she had until the end of May to leave. Ortega is married to an American citizen; her youngest child is a teen-ager, CNN reported.

Minerva Garcia is a mother from Mexico who has worked temporary jobs, has no criminal record and has paid taxes for 17 years, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. She also sought refuge at a church in Greensboro, North Carolina, when she was facing deportation at the end of June. Garcia came to the United States looking for better care for her oldest son, who is blind and who was 5 at the time.

In Philadelphia, Javier Flores, the father of three U.S.-born children, moved into a church in November, according to Philly.com. He entered the country illegally in 1997 and has been deported multiple times. He re-entered, also illegally, to be with his wife and children. He applied for a special visa available to undocumented immigrants who assist authorities in the prosecution of a crime in which they were injured. Flores was attacked with box cutters in an apparent failed robbery.

A Reno, Nevada, church gave sanctuary to David Chavez-Macias in April. Chavez-Macias, who has lived in Reno for 29 years, had a work permit that was revoked because of a traffic ticket  he turned left on a red light. He has Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that weakens his heart, and he relies on treatment in the United States, according to NBC affiliate KRNV.

Emma Membreno-Sorto, a Honduran immigrant who has been ordered deported, took shelter at a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March. Membreno-Sorto applied for political asylum when she arrived from Honduras about 25 years ago, but did not receive notice of a court date, according to the Albuquerque Journal. She moved from Atlanta to Colorado to New Mexico and learned of the deportation order when she was taken into custody at her home in 2011. She has only one traffic ticket and no criminal history, the newspaper reported. Her husband is a U.S. citizen.

Sixto Paz, a homeowner and the father of three U.S. citizens, moved into a church in Phoenix, Arizona, in May 2016. He started working in the United States through a government amnesty program in the 1980s, but an immigration court in Phoenix denied his petition to stay in the country, according KPHO. He had been working as a roofer.

Lorenzo Solorzano Morales has been staying at the Faith, Life and Hope and St. Peter the Apostle Mission in Chicago with his wife and 7-year-old daughter since October. He faces deportation for an arrest on a domestic battery charge in November 2011, according to the Chicago Tribune. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, accused of pulling a womans hair during an argument, the newspaper reported. A landscaper, he has lived in the United States for 30 years.

A woman who has remained anonymous sought refuge at a church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in May. She told the Boston Globe that a man took her against her will from her hometown in Ecuador to the United States. She was arrested crossing the border in 2012 and was detained in Arizona for about a year because she could not pay $7,500 in bail; eventually she was released and went to the Boston area. She got a job as a cook, had two children with a partner but lost her asylum case and an appeal, according to the Boston Globe.

Correction (July 24, 6:45 p.m. ET): An earlier photo caption misspelled Nury Chavarria's surname.
Did you guess that the photo was of NBC Connecticut Today Traffic Anchor Hanna Mordoh?

You can donate now to our Supporting Our Schools campaign by clicking here.

Here are some of Hanna's school memories:

Who was your favorite teacher and why?

My favorite teacher was my middle school then high school choir teacher, Mrs. Gwen Witten Upchruch.

What was your favorite subject in school and why?

I loved speech class! Something about writing & telling a story resonated with me. I also enjoyed our school tv class, where I learned to shoot video & edit. It makes sense with my career that these two classes stood out as favorites.

What was your favorite school supply and why?

I always loved mechanical pencils. I doodled a lot in my notebooks & if I broke the lead there was no need to get up in front of the class & sharpen the pencil!

What was your favorite extracurricular activity?

I was class president & passionate about cheerleading, gymnastics & track. However, despite my inability to sing... choir was probably my favorite extracurricular because that's where I met my husband (don't worry, we got married ten years after high school)

Click here for more information on how you can help.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being paid to dozens of state hospital employees, while they remain on administrative leave during an investigation.

The NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters wanted to know how this happened.

The investigation centers around allegations of patient abuse at the Whiting Forensic Division, a state psychiatric hospital. Its a story the Troubleshooters broke earlier this year.

Twenty-nine employees are on administrative leave in connection with an investigation into alleged abuse and failure to report it.

Some have been out as long as 14 weeks so far while receiving full-time pay. That totals $400,000, and counting, according to information provided to the Troubleshooters in response to a Freedom of Information request.

State regulations say employees only get administrative leave pay for 15 days. Yet the agency overseeing Whiting tells the Troubleshooters the union contract that covers most of these employees allows for extensions of administrative leave due to extenuating circumstances.

And these employees may be on leave quite a while longer. First, a state police investigation must wrap up. Then the agency in charge of Whiting conducts its own investigation. When that ends, decisions on continuing administrative leave pay are made.

At the same time, state tax dollars are paying for replacements to work for many of the 29 employees now out on administrative leave.
After failing to appear in court over a shoplifting charge in Virginia, Dallas Cowboys Receiver Rodney Darnell Whitehead - better known as Lucky Whitehead - has a warrant out for his arrest, according to TMZ Sports.

Whitehead, 25, was in the news just last week after he returned to his Dallas home to find out his dog was being held for ransom, according to him.

Local rapper Boogotti Kasino responded to Whitehead's accusation by claiming the dog was not stolen, but that Whitehead did owe him money.

The situation was resolved after Whitehead told NBC 5 the dog was returned to him, without payment.

Whitehead, who has played for the Cowboys the past two seasons, was originally charged with shoplifting around 1 a.m. on June 22, in Prince William County, Virginia.

Whitehead was given a court summons at the scene and released, according to police. He now faces charges for failing to appear in court as well, according to court records.

The receiver is in the final year of a three-year deal with Cowboys.

Whitehead is currently with the team in Oxnard, California, for training camp.

This story is ongoing and will be updated as further details are released. Please check back later for more updates.
What to Know Ten dead after being trafficked to San Antonio in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer; dozens remain hospitalized.

The driver of the truck is in custody and charged with transporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally. He could face the death penalty.

Some survivors seen leaving in cars with friends or family, at least one person was found after wandering into nearby woods.

The driver of a broiling tractor-trailer found packed with immigrants outside a San Antonio Walmart early Sunday could face the death penalty after being charged Monday with transporting illegal aliens, resulting in the deaths of 10 of his passengers.

A federal complaint filed Monday accuses 60-year-old James Matthew Bradley of driving a trailer packed with immigrants for "commercial advantage or private financial gain."

A passenger in the trailer told federal investigators that he and others who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally were guided into the trailer to be taken north to San Antonio. The complaint said passengers appeared fine during the first hour of their journey, but people later began to struggle to breathe.

A second passenger in the trailer told the Associated Press that he remembers climbing into a pitch black metal tractor-trailer with no ventilation. Adan Lara Vega, 27, also recalls hearing crying and people asking for water. He said he was sweating and then lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital.



The pitch-black truck, crammed with as many as 90 people, was so suffocatingly hot that one passenger said they took turns breathing through a hole while others began pounding on the walls to get the driver's attention.

The driver of a tractor-trailer found parked outside a Texas Walmart with dozens of people inside its trailer is due in court Monday.

Bradley told investigators that he was unaware that there were people inside until he parked and got out to urinate. He allegedly said that he opened the door after hearing banging and shaking and was "surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground."

The complaint said Bradley did not call 911, even though he realized that several people already were dead.

Bradley said the truck had recently been sold and that he was transporting it from Iowa to Brownsville.

Brian Pyle, of Pyle Transportation Inc., of Schaller, Iowa, told the Associated Press Monday that they sold the truck to a man in Mexico in May. He said an independent contractor, Bradley, was supposed to deliver the vehicle to a pick-up point in Brownsville over the weekend. Pyle said he had no idea of any problems with the truck until media started to call Sunday following reports of the deaths in San Antonio.

Bradley, who has been arrested, could face the death penalty if convicted.

Authorities fear the death toll could rise because many of those rescued from the sweltering truck in San Antonio have been hospitalized with extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

10th Victim Dies After Being Trapped in Broiling Trailer

Authorities announced Monday that the 10th victim had died at the hospital in connection with the incident. Eight were found dead inside the truck when officers arrived early Sunday morning. Of those who survived, some escaped or left with friends and family, but 38 others required hospitalization -- as many as 20 of those were in dire condition, many with extreme dehydration and heatstroke, officials said Sunday.

"We're looking at a human-trafficking crime," said San Antonio Police Chief William McManus, calling it "a horrific tragedy."

Authorities were called to the San Antonio parking lot late Saturday or early Sunday and found eight people dead inside the truck. Two more victims died at hospitals, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Sunday's human smuggling deaths in San Antonio call attention to a problem, one Dallas trucker said has been going on for years. He tells NBC 5 it's a problem that's difficult to stop.

The tragedy came to light after a person from the truck approached a Walmart employee and asked for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, said McManus. The employee gave the person water and then called police, who found the dead and the desperate inside the rig. Some of those in the truck ran into the woods, McManus said. Investigators checked store surveillance video, which showed vehicles arriving and picking up people from the truck, authorities said.

San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Wood said the victims, "were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water."

Authorities said the truck had no working air conditioning.

Based on initial interviews with survivors of the San Antonio tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at one point in its journey, ICE acting Director Thomas Homan said. Officials said 39 people were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination.

Four of the survivors appeared to be between 10- and 17-years-old, Homan said. Investigators gave no details on where the rig began its journey or where it was headed.

But Homan said it was unlikely the truck was used to carry the immigrants across the border into the United States. He said people from Latin America who rely on smuggling networks typically cross the border on foot and are then picked up by a driver.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute," Homan said.

Mexican Consul General in San Antonio Reyna Torres said Mexican nationals were among the survivors and those who died on the rig.

The Mexican government also released a statement Sunday night expressing its condolences to the relatives of those who died and called for an "exhaustive investigation"

A Guatemalan official said two natives of Central American country were among those hospitalized. Consul Cristy Andrino in McAllen said the two told her they had crossed into the U.S. on foot and were later picked up by the rig. Guatemala was seeking to obtain witness status for the two survivors so they wouldn't be deported, Andrino said.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department stepped in to take the lead in the investigation. Department Secretary John Kelly said the deaths demonstrate the brutality of smuggling organizations that "have no regard for human life and seek only profits."

San Antonio is about a 150-mile drive from the Mexican border. The temperature in San Antonio reached 101 degrees on Saturday and the heat index was likely much higher. The temperature didn't dip below 90 degrees until after 10 p.m. Temperatures inside the truck could have reached as much as 140 degrees; Heat stroke can be fatal once a person's body temperature climbs above 107 degrees.

Vigil Held in San Antonio for Trafficking Victims

On Sunday evening, about 100 people gathered at a San Antonio church for a vigil to mourn those killed.

Immigrants' rights activists and church officials held up handmade signs reading "Who here is not an immigrant" and "No human is illegal."

Tough Immigration Laws Blamed for Deaths

Those gathered at a vigil Sunday held a moment of silence, then gave speeches blaming federal and Texas authorities' embrace of harsher immigration policies for contributing to the deaths.

Jonathan Ryan, executive director of a nonprofit called Raices, said it's "an unfortunate example" of what happens when such policies are enacted.

A new law approved by the Texas Legislature lets police inquire about peoples' immigration status during routine interactions such as traffic stops.

Bob Libal is executive director of Grassroots Leadership, an Austin-based nonprofit that supports more liberal immigration policies.

"These tragedies are compounded when it's incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive and we push migration into the hands of illicit actors," Libal told The AP in a phone interview. "Everyone's thoughts today should be not in politicizing it but in making sure that everyone who survived this ordeal is treated with respect and get the protection they need."

A group of immigration lawyers and advocates sued Homeland Security Secretary Kelly and other U.S. officials this month alleging that guards on the U.S. border with Mexico have illegally turned away asylum-seekers.

Trafficking Case a Common Occurrence

Sunday's tragedy was just the latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end with multiple deaths. In one of the worst cases on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

In the May 2003 case, the immigrants were being taken from South Texas to Houston. Prosecutors said the driver heard them begging and screaming for their lives but refused to free them. The driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

"These criminal organizations, they're all about making money. They have no regard for human life," Homan said.

The Border Patrol has reported at least four truck seizures this month in and around Laredo, Texas. On July 7, agents found 72 people crammed into a truck with no means of escape, the agency said. They were from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Authorities in Mexico have also made a number of similar discoveries over the years.

Last December, they found 110 migrants trapped and suffocating inside a truck after it crashed while speeding in the state of Veracruz. Most were from Central America, and 48 were minors. Some were injured in the crash.

Last October, also in Veracruz state, four migrants suffocated in a truck carrying 55 people.

Associated Press writers Mike Graczyk in Houston, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Peter Orsi in Mexico City and Frank Bajak in Houston contributed to this report.

Federal Complaints
The U.S. is seeking a political resolution to the crisis in Syria and won't insist on Syrian President Bashar Assad's immediate ouster, President Donald Trump's homeland and counterterrorism adviser said Thursday.

"I don't think it's important for us to say Assad must go first," Tom Bossert said at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual gathering of intelligence and national security officials and experts. "The U.S. would still like to see Assad go at some point. That would be our desired outcome."

Bossert said there needs to be a political outcome in Syria, not a military-imposed one that has no political strategy to fill a void in leadership. Still, he said Assad staying in control does not offer the best hope for a peaceful Syria. Whether Assad's leaving "comes first or second or soon thereafter, it would be a nice outcome."

Bossert spoke following news reports that Trump had decided to halt the CIA's years-long covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the Assad government. Russia had long pushed the United States to end the program.

The phasing out of the secret program was reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday. Officials told the newspaper that ending the operation reflects Trump's interest in finding ways to work with Russia. The program was a key component begun by the Obama administration to put pressure on Assad to relinquish power.

The CIA began the covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train a moderate opposition to Assad. By some estimates, the CIA trained some 10,000 fighters.

In October 2015, the CIA-backed rebels were being bombarded during Russian air campaigns in Syria. U.S. officials said then that the Russian air campaign was aimed at weakening U.S.-funded groups and other moderate fighters battling Assad's forces.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who at the time was a Republican congressman representing Kansas, said then that the Russians were fully aware of whom they were targeting and that the bombing locations not connected to Islamic State fighters.

For years, the CIA effort had foundered and some lawmakers had proposed cutting its budget. Some CIA-supported rebels had been captured; others had defected to extremist groups. But in late 2015, CIA-backed groups, fighting alongside more extremist factions, had begun to make progress in south and northwest Syria.

Some Syrian rebel officials said they are not officially aware yet that the U.S. has stopped its program to back the moderate opposition. One warned that such a move if true it will make extremist groups stronger.

Col. Ahmad al-Hamada, an army defector who is now with the rebel group known as the Northern Division, said by telephone from Turkey: "There is a big question mark regarding the American decision. The moderate Syrian opposition should receive that backing."

He said, "The opposition that is backed by the U.S. and other countries is fighting the regime of Bashar Assad that used chemical weapons to kill the Syrian people, and they are also fighting Daesh and other groups that are considered terrorist organizations."

"By ceasing the support this means you are making the moderate Syrian opposition weak in front of groups that are stronger on the ground," al-Hamada warned.

He added that if the countries that support the Syrian opposition had been more serious in arming moderate groups, hardliners wouldn't have become that powerful.

"Moderate groups are the strong opposition that could help prevent the rise of extremist groups in the region," he said, adding that the U.S. should arm, train and help moderate rebel groups in their battle against Assad's government and extremist groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaida.

"By not arming the moderate opposition they are indirectly making extremist groups become more powerful at a quick pace."

Al-Hamada said the U.S. continues to back the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces "that the Syrian people consider a secessionist group and not national." The SDF has been a main force fighting IS in Syria.

Maj. Issam el Rayyes, spokesman for the Southern Front, a coalition of several dozen moderate rebel groups that is fighting Syrian government forces south of the country, said they have not been informed about ending the CIA program, adding that he will only comment once there is an official statement out.

Bossert defended Trump's policy in Syria.

"What clearly this president has done has obtained some ceasefire that's durable through some cooperation with the Russians despite all the domestic political brouhaha. ... I think he has demonstrated a desire at least to have safe havens so that we don't have a refugee and a migration problem that plagues Europe and eventually the United States in a way that we can't maintain security control of."

Andrew Tabler, with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said at the security summit that the covert program was run out of two operation centers  one in Jordan and one in Turkey.

"What it's done over time, and with very limited covert support, is it's propped up a number of groups ... fighting against the Assad regime," Tabler said. "That has not been a successful strategy in a number of ways. One of them is that the nature of a covert program lacks political coherence. It's very difficult to get those involved in a revolution focused politically in a different direction."
Editor's note: The video above contains graphic material that may be disturbing to some viewers.

An 18-year-old woman has been arrested in California on suspicion of causing a deadly crash that she recorded live on Instagram.

Obdulia Sanchez was booked into the Merced County Jail on suspicion of DUI and vehicular manslaughter after Friday's crash that killed her 14-year-old sister and badly injured another 14-year-old girl.

The California Highway Patrol says Sanchez was driving the car when it veered onto the right shoulder of a road about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco. It says she overcorrected, causing the vehicle to swerve across lanes, crash through a wire fence and overturn into a field.

Sergio Ramos Estrada, a cousin, told NBC News the teens were preparing for a quinceanera when the accident happened.

"We were going to go to her house the next day to celebrate her quinceanera, and unfortunately that happened," Ramos Estrada said.

Sanchez is currently being held on a $300,000 bond at the John Latoracca Correctional Facility in Merced. The California Highway Patrol is examining the video as part of the investigation.

Shannon Vallor, who teaches philosophy of technology and social media ethics at Santa Clara University, said too many people are trying to lead parallel lives with their phones, always streaming, posting, and missing what's happening right in front of them.

"This case should shock us, and if we can't be shocked by this, we're really in trouble," Vallor said. "Our habits or being able to pay attention to the world around us, are being radically transformed, and in a lot of cases, damaged and degraded by our media habits."

Mary Hernandez, 25, was following Sanchez on Instagram and watched as the livestream showed the car careen into the fence, according to NBC News.

Disturbed by what she saw, Hernandez said she recorded a copy of the video.

"There are so many people that are on my Snapchat that I see driving on their phone," Hernandez told NBC News over the phone. "I hope that this video makes people think twice about what theyre doing in their car."

Hernandez, a medical assistant from Stockton, California, told NBC News she doesnt personally know Sanchez, but the women have mutual friends.

"This is real," she said. "This is something that could seriously happen to someone."

Instagram said in a statement Monday: "We are deeply saddened by this tragedy. We urge people to use our reporting tools if they see any content or behavior that puts anyone's safety at risk."

Social media sites such as Instagram of Facebook have faced a host of violent or disturbing postings since users were given the ability to livestream.

NBC News contributed to this report.
A 40-acre brush fire threatened at least a dozen homes in La Verne on Sunday afternoon, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.



The Rodeo fire was reported around 3 p.m. on Rodeo Lane. Two hundred firefighters were on scene at the height of the blaze.



Voluntary evacuations were advised for residents who live on Rodeo Lane, police said. Those evacuations were lifted by 7 p.m., fire officials said. No homes were damaged in the fire.

Cellphone video and aerial footage from NewsChopper 4 showed flames in the backyard of several homes.

"There were flames in my backyard," homeowner Evelia Arriaza said. "It happened so quickly."

The Rodeo fire was also impacting traffic in the area. Baseline Road was open in all direction as of 9 p.m., but Rodeo remained closed north of Baseline, police said.

Police also reported the city suffered a power outage during the fire fight in the area of Bonita and I streets. Power was restored to most customers within an hour. It's unclear why the outage occurred or whether it had anything to do with the brush fire.

Firefighters attacked the flames with both ground crews and at least one water-dropping helicopter.

Officials added that a close by reservoir and proper brush clearance by residents helped aid in the firefight.

The fire was 50 percent contained as of 11 p.m.

City News Service and NBC4s Christine Kim contributed to this report.


Attorneys for Los Angeles County plan to go to court Monday in hopes of blocking a re-start of natural-gas injections at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in Porter Ranch, challenging a determination by state regulators that it is safe to resume limited operations at the facility.

In a message to constituents, County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said it is irresponsible to re-start Aliso Canyon until a study is completed into the cause of the four-month leak that sent tons of methane into the air from the facility and forced thousands of residents from their homes in late 2015 and early 2016.

"The facility must remain closed until the root cause analysis and energy reliability study are completed and the health concerns of our impacted residents are fully addressed to the satisfaction of county health officials," Barger said.

According to the California Public Utilities Commission and the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the investigation into the cause of the leak is continuing. Regardless of that study, the agencies on Wednesday cleared the way for the Southern California Gas Co. to resume injections of natural gas to store at the facility.

"In order to protect public safety and the environment, this facility will be held to the most rigorous monitoring, inspection and safety requirements in the nation and will store only the minimum gas necessary to supply the Los Angeles area," said Ken Harris, DOGGR oil and gas supervisor.

"The extensive testing, retrofits and new safety measures ensure the wells are in sound operating condition today."

CPUC Executive Director Timothy Sullivan said the facility will be restricted to about 28 percent of its operating capacity, "just enough to avoid energy disruptions in the Los Angeles area."

Concerns have been raised in the months since the leak, blamed on a pipe breach, about the possibility of electrical shortages due to the lack of natural gas from the Porter Ranch-area facility to operate power plants.

Critics have blasted such claims as scare tactics meant to pressure regulators into allowing Aliso Canyon to resume operating -- an accusation SoCalGas executives vehemently deny.

"Aliso Canyon is an important part of Southern California's energy system, supporting the reliability of natural gas and electricity services for millions of people," according to the Gas Co. "SoCalGas has met -- and in many cases, exceeded -- the rigorous requirements of the state's comprehensive safety review."

The Aliso Canyon storage facility has been largely out of use since the four-month leak spewed about 109,000 metric tons of methane into the air and led to the temporary relocation of about 7,000 Porter Ranch-area residents. The leak, the largest of its kind in U.S. history, began in October 2015 and was capped in February 2016.
A male pedestrian was struck and killed Monday morning on the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills, authorities said.

The first report was at 2:24 a.m. by a witness who told the California Highway Patrol a male pedestrian with dark clothing was standing in middle lanes of the eastbound Ventura Freeway at Kanan Road waving at traffic and that vehicles were swerving to avoid hitting him, said CHP Officer Elizabeth Kravig.

It was then reported that a silver Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and unknown debris were blocking the No. 1 lane, the CHP said.

A SigAlert was issued at 2:44 a.m. shutting down the No. 1 lane of the eastbound Ventura Freeway just east of Kanan Road. The SigAlert was lifted at 5:35 a.m.
University of Southern California associate professor Dr. Maria Aranda never left the east side of Los Angeles, a community where she was born and raised and where she's now doing research aimed at helping an older generation of Latinos.

"I see the immense need in our community," Aranda said.

Older Latinos suffer higher rates of severe depression and disability and are less likely to get quality treatment, she said.

That's why USC's School of Social Work started Programa Esperanza, or Project Hope, which works with patients at the Alta Med clinic in Boyle Heights.

"They meet one-on-one with their interventionist and they talk about their problems, but more importantly, they develop what we call an action plan," Aranda explained.

Project Hope participant Fidencia Aguilera said her counselor told her to focus on things she likes to do. So the 79 year old focuses on crafts, singing and dancing.

Cristina Cuello, 81, said being a part of the depression study has helped her. as well. "I feel at Alta Med like a waterfall of love," Cuello said.

Aranda said that people doubted their ability to do a study that required older Latinos to open up and talk about their feelings.

"We've proved those naysayers wrong," she said.

She believes the study works because the counseling is culturally aware, offered in Spanish and comes with a deep connection to this generation.

Aranda plans to share the findings so that low-income, limited-English speaking older adults can be helped across the country.

"Since a very young age, I've been interested in working with older adults," Aranda said. "It could be because my grandmother lived with us in my initial formative years, so I understood what it is to be around older people."

Drawing upon lessons she learned as a child, Dr. Aranda continues to discover better ways to treat aging adults in a community with which she has a lifelong connection.
A Southwest Florida man was airlifted to the hospital after an alligator attack happened in Port Charlotte on Monday morning.

According to NBC affiliate WBBH, 68-year-old Fredric Inman was bitten by the alligator at a pond near Kings Highway and Suncoast Boulevard where he was bathing in the pond.

Inman was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital for serious conditions.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Commissions removed the alligator from the pond but have not released further information.
What to Know Ten dead after being trafficked to San Antonio in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer; dozens remain hospitalized.

The driver of the truck is in custody and charged with transporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally. He could face the death penalty.

Some survivors seen leaving in cars with friends or family, at least one person was found after wandering into nearby woods.

Ten people are dead and nearly three dozen more remain hospitalized after being found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio early Sunday morning in what officials describe as an immigrant-smuggling operation gone wrong.

U.S. officials say 17 people pulled from the trailer suffered life-threatening injuries.



San Antonio Chief of Police William McManus and Fire Chief Charles Hood confirmed overnight police arrived at a Walmart on the city's southwest side shortly after midnight to find eight people dead and dozens of others, including men, women and children, suffering from heat stroke or dehydration and in need of immediate medical care after being trafficked into the United States.

"We're looking at a trafficking crime here this evening. The Department of Homeland Security is involved; homicide will work with them to determine the origin of this horrific tragedy," McManus said.[[436107463,R]]

One of the people hospitalized died Sunday and another was reported deceased Monday morning. Another victim was found in a field nearby, bringing the total number of people found to 39. All of the survivors that have been located are receiving medical care.

None of the names of the deceased have been released, though officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas did confirm all of the deceased are adult men.

McManus said early Sunday morning police were called after a passenger in the truck asked a Walmart employee for water. The employee then saw a number of people in the back of the truck and called for help.

Many of the survivors had heart rates over 130 beats per minute and were hot to the touch, Hood said. They had no water and the air conditioning in the truck was broken. The least-severe cases just needed to be re-hydrated.

It's not clear how long the people had been in the truck or how long they had been without air conditioning and water. Authorities said they were investigating where the immigrants were from.

Hood said EMS transported patients ranging in age from young children to adults in their 30s to seven different area hospitals, sending a large number downtown.

Police said while reviewing the store's surveillance video they noticed a number of cars had arrived at the store and left with some of the survivors. The store's surveillance video is part of the ongoing investigation, McManus said.

Hours later, after daybreak, a helicopter hovered over the area, and investigators were still gathering evidence from the tractor-trailer, which had an Iowa license plate and was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa. The company did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.

"This is not an isolated incident. This happens quite frequently. Fortunately, we came across this one," McManus said. "And fortunately there are people that survived."

McManus said truck driver James Mathew Bradley Jr., who remained at the scene and is in police custody, is expected to face state and federal charges. The survivors, McManus said, will be investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Federal authorities say charges will be filed against Bradley, 60, from Clearwater, Florida. Bradley is being held in federal custody in connection with this incident, NBC News reported. He is expected to make a court appearance after a criminal complaint is filed Monday.

On Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement saying, Human trafficking is an epidemic that Texas is working to eradicate. To that end, Texas will continue to provide protection for the victims who have been robbed of their most basic rights, and bring down the full weight of the law for the perpetrators of this despicable crime.

Also on Sunday, San Antonio-based U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr. said those responsible for the deaths are "ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo."

Durbin also said federal investigators will work with San Antonio police to identify those responsible.

"By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished," Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement.

The temperature Saturday in San Antonio reached 104 degrees and the heat index was likely closer to 110. Temperatures inside a vehicle can increase by 20 degrees more than the outside temperature in as little as 10 minutes, after an hour that temperature can be 43 degrees higher. Heat stroke can be fatal at when the body reaches 107 degrees.

Sunday's Tragedy Just the Latest Case of Human Smuggling to End in Deathz

Sunday's smuggling-by-truck attempt is not uncommon, and only the most recent to end in death.

In one of the deadliest cases on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

In the May 2003 case, the immigrants were being taken from South Texas to Houston. Prosecutors said the driver heard them begging and screaming for their lives but refused to free them. The driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

The Border Patrol has reported at least four truck seizures this month in and around Laredo, Texas. On July 7, agents found 72 people crammed into a truck with no means of escape, the agency said. They were from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Authorities in Mexico have also made a number of such discoveries over the years.

Last December, they found 110 migrants trapped and suffocating inside a truck after it crashed while speeding in the state of Veracruz. Most were from Central America, and 48 were minors. Some were injured in the crash.

Last October, also in Veracruz state, four migrants suffocated in a truck carrying 55 people.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the death toll and number of people found in the truck. This story has been updated to reflect the death toll of nine that was confirmed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Authorities also confirmed that 39 people were found in the truck. Of the nine deceased, are all adult males, according to The United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas.
A massive shark reeled in by fishermen over the weekend appears to be the heaviest of its kind caught off New Jersey.

Dave Bender and his five fishing mates caught the 12-foot, 926-pound mako during a fishing trip over the weekend off the shore of Brielle on Bender's boat, the Jenny Lee, Patch.com reports.

After the shark took the bait, it took about 90 minutes to get the shark close enough to the boat to land it. The men reeled it in, the rod snapping in the process, and then took another hour to wrestle it into the boat.

"Fish of a lifetime, to say the least," Bender wrote in a Facebook post.

Massive Crowds Gather, Require Police Control ... for a Grocery Store?!?!

Though the shark is 70 pounds heavier than the current state record -- an 856-pounder caught in 1994 -- it won't be an official state record because it was landed through the combined effort of the six men who chartered the boat, Patch reports. The state only recognizes fish caught by a single angler.

The world record catch for a shortfin mako is the 1,221-pound shark caught by Luke Sweeney in July 2001 off Massachusetts, according to Patch.

Shortfin mako sharks are highly migratory, and move quickly and intelligently in water, according to Oceana.org. The shortfin mako shark is one of only very few shark species known to have bitten and killed people, but the events are extremely rare and likely accidental.

Everywhere they live, mako sharks are either targeted commercially or captured accidentally in fisheries targeting other species, according to Oceana.org. They're valued for the high quality of their fins and meat, sparking concerns their population may be decreasing.


Military officials say they've identified the remains of a U.S. Marine from New York City who was killed in a Pacific island battle during World War II.

The Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency says Pvt. Joseph Carbone, of Brooklyn, was killed on the first day of the Battle of Tarawa on Nov. 20, 1943.

Carbone was serving in the 2nd Marine Division as it assaulted the atoll that's part of the Gilbert Islands. The Marines suffered heavy casualties before securing the island after a three-day battle.

Some of the Americans killed were buried in temporary cemeteries whose locations couldn't be found after the war. In 2015, the Florida-based nonprofit group History Flight found a mass grave containing the remains of 35 Marines and one sailor.

Pentagon officials say interment services for Carbone's remains are pending.
A construction worker and father of five was found dead in an elevator shaft in Manhattan Sunday, authorities say.

Police responded to a call after 7 a.m. Sunday of an unconscious person at 555 10th Ave., the location of a luxury apartment building partially under construction. The 53-year-old worker was found between the elevator and elevator shaft, police said.

The man, identified as Steven Simpson of Brooklyn, was pronounced dead at the scene.

"My heart is so broken," Crystal Mack, Simpson's wife, said. "I don't know how I'm going to live or move on. I don't know what to do or what the next move is."

Simpson had clocked out of work Saturday around 3:30 p.m., his co-workers told police. He then realized he forgot something and turned back.

Police said Simpson was going up the elevator, before it lost power and got stuck.

"I know he was trying to get out of the elevator shaft because it was his son's birthday," Kevin Welch, Simpson's brother-in-law, said. "Nothing in this world could make him miss being there with his son."

With other workers gone for the day, he tried to pry the doors open. Unexpectedly, the elevator began to move and caught Simpson between the floor and the top portion of the doorway, according to police.

Mack said his worried family went by the building looking for him Saturday night. His phone showed that he was there, but they couldn't find him, she said. They called his phone a bunch of times, but nobody answered. Nobody was inside the building to ask either.

They tried to file a missing persons report, but because they had no information to go on, police advised them to come back.

"He knows it was his son's birthday and he knows my birthday is in September," Mack said. "He wanted to do something for me for my birthday so he's working to get this extra money and now he's gone."

A co-worker came back to the building site Sunday morning and found Simpson dead.

The family woke up to the news that somebody died there and immediately knew who it was.

Mack couldn't help but to break down after having to tell her son Shane why his dad wasn't able to make it home on his 9th birthday.

Simpson leaves behind his wife, five children and several siblings.

"This is a tragic situation," the construction company said in a statement. "Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the victim."


What to Know A suicide bomber rammed his explosive-packed car into a bus carrying government employees in Kabul, killing at least 24 people, police say

Cancer patients' gray hair unexpectedly turned youthfully dark while taking novel drugs, and it has doctors scratching their heads

After ample build up and the promise of a dramatic face-off, Michael Phelps finally raced his fiercest competitor

Get the top headlines of the day in your morning briefing from NBC 4 New York, Monday through Friday. Sign up for our newsletter here.

Taliban Claims Kabul Bombing That Kills At Least 24, Wounds 42

A suicide bomber rammed his car packed with explosives into a bus carrying government employees in the Afghan capital, killing at least 24 people and wounding 42 others, Kabul's police chief spokesman said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack occurred in a western Kabul neighborhood where several prominent politicians reside and at rush hour, as residents were heading to work and students were on their way to a nearby private high school, said Basir Mujahed, the spokesman. The bus was completely destroyed, along with three other cars and several shops in the area, he said, adding children were among the wounded. In a statement, the Interior Ministry called the attack "a criminal act against humanity." In the past, both the Taliban and the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan have staged such large-scale attacks in the Afghan capital.

Ahead of Key Vote, Details of GOP Health Bill Still Unknown

The Senate will move forward with a key vote this week on a Republican health bill but it's not yet known whether the legislation will seek to replace President Barack Obama's health care law or simply repeal it, the third-highest ranking Republican senator said. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will make a decision soon on which bill to bring up for a vote, depending on ongoing discussions with GOP senators. Thune sought to cast this week's initial vote as important but mostly procedural, allowing senators to begin debate and propose amendments. But he acknowledged that senators should be able to know beforehand what bill they will be considering. The Republican-controlled House in May passed its version of a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare." Senate Republicans are now considering two versions of similar legislation, one that would repeal and replace, and another that would simply repeal Obamacare with a two-year delay to give the Senate more time to agree on a replacement.

John McCain Spends Weekend Outdoors With Daughter, Friend

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., spent the weekend outdoors about a week after undergoing surgery and being diagnosed with brain cancer, NBC News reported. McCain, 80, tweeted a photo of himself and a friend, Joe Harper, with their feet in the Oak Creek of Zebra Falls in Arizona. The senator's daughter Maghan McCain also tweeted a photo of the outing, which she used to thank supporters for their well wishes in the wake of her dad's diagnosis. McCain underwent surgery to remove a blood clot on July 14 and was subsequently diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

9 Dead, Dozens Hurt After Suspected Smuggling Truck Found

Nine people are dead and nearly three dozen more remain hospitalized after being found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio in what officials describe as an immigrant-smuggling operation gone wrong. U.S. officials say 17 people pulled from the trailer suffered life-threatening injuries. San Antonio Chief of Police William McManus and Fire Chief Charles Hood confirmed police arrived at a Walmart on the city's southwest side shortly after midnight to find eight people dead and dozens of others, including men, women and children, suffering from heat stroke or dehydration and in need of immediate medical care after being trafficked into the United States. One of the people hospitalized died later. Another victim was found in a field nearby, bringing the total number of people found to 39. All of the survivors that have been located are receiving medical care.

Cancer Patients' Gray Hair Turned Dark in Trials for New Immune Drugs

Cancer patients' gray hair unexpectedly turned youthfully dark while taking novel drugs, and it has doctors scratching their heads. Chemotherapy is notorious for making hair fall out, but the 14 patients involved were all being treated with new immunotherapy drugs that work differently and have different side effects. A Spanish study suggests that may include restoring hair pigment, at least in patients with lung cancer. With the first patient, "we thought it could be an isolated case," said Dr. Noelia Rivera, a dermatologist at Autonomous University of Barcelona. But she said the research team found the same thing when they asked other patients for photos from before treatment. The 14 cases were among 52 lung cancer patients being followed to see whether they developed bad side effects from the drugs  Keytruda, Opdivo and Tecentriq.

Great White Takes Gold in Race Against Phelps on Shark Week

After ample build up and the promise of a dramatic face-off, Michael Phelps finally raced his fiercest competitor. But the great white shark snagged the gold in Discovery Channel's anticipated Shark Week kick-off, "Phelps Vs. Shark: The Battle for Ocean Supremacy." In the previously recorded stunt, the trained athlete and the ocean predator went head-to-head (sort of) in a 100-meter race off the coast of South Africa. The shark ended up crossing the finish line 2.0 seconds before Phelps. Though the show highlighted Phelps' man-made advantages, which included an especially buoyant wetsuit and a mono fin to help him "swim like a shark," his victory was perhaps never meant to be. A great white shark can hit top speeds of 15 miles per hour in short bursts, according to National Geographic. However, the beasts have been reported to max out at 25 or even 35 miles per hour.
A Long Beach man sued the state and California Lottery Commission Friday, alleging he was wrongfully denied a $5 million Scratchers ticket prize because his 16-year-old son bought the winning ticket.

Ward Thomas' Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges failure to discharge a mandatory duty, breach of contract, negligence and both intentional and negligent representation. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

A California Lottery representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Thomas says his son bought five Scratchers tickets at a Mobil station on Bellflower Boulevard in Long Beach on Oct. 16 by exchanging other winning tickets. One of the five was a winning ticket with a $5 million prize, the suit states.

Thomas validated the ticket at a 7-Eleven store in Long Beach that same day and then validated it again the next day at the lottery office in Santa Ana, the suit states.

However, on Dec. 5, the Lottery Commission told Thomas that his award was being denied because his son was a minor and therefore was "not legally able to play the lottery," the suit states.

The complaint does not state how the commission knew Thomas' son bought the tickets and that the purchaser was under age 18.

No one at the gas station, which also is a defendant, told Thomas' son that he was too young to buy a lottery ticket, the suit states.

The suit further alleges the commission failed to enforce its own rules in the operation of the lottery and that the commission engaged in false advertising by not publicizing that lottery ticket buyers had to be at least 18 years old.
Passions are running high on Capitol Hill  but pistols at 10 paces over health care?

GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas is angry with some fellow Republicans in the Senate who are balking at parts of legislation to overturn "Obamacare." After GOP promises to repeal the law, that "is just repugnant to me," he says.

Who's to blame?

"Some of the people that are opposed to this, there are some female senators from the Northeast," Farenthold said.

And it's a good thing they're women, according to the congressman from Corpus Christi.

"If it was a guy from south Texas, I might ask them to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style," he said. That was a reference to the 1804 firearms duel in which Vice President Aaron Burr killed former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

Who are those female senators from the Northeast?

Farenthold named no names. But Susan Collins of Maine has been consistent in opposing the GOP replacement for Obamacare. She remains concerned about deep cuts in Medicaid and has criticized the bill-writing process, with about a dozen men crafting the measure behind closed doors. Under the latest iteration of the bill, 22 million more people would become uninsured by 2026, many of them Medicaid recipients, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Asked about Farenthold's comments, Collins said: "In the 20 years that I've been in the Senate, I've heard a lot of suggestions for how to resolve disagreements. But this is the first time that anyone has suggested a duel. And as far as I know, dueling is illegal in every state. He'll be disappointed, I guess."

Other female senators who have expressed reservations are Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, some distance from the Northeast.

Farenthold made his comments in a radio interview Friday with Bob Jones of Corpus Christi radio "1440 Keys."

In a statement late Monday, the Texas lawmaker said: "This was clearly tongue in cheek. That being said, I'm extremely frustrated with Senate Republicans who are breaking their promise to the American people to repeal and replace Obamacare."

For weeks, Senate Republicans have struggled to agree on a bill to repeal and replace much of the 2010 law. Lacking support, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has postponed votes twice but hopes to bring the latest measure up again on Tuesday.
The state Game Commission and some firefighters rounded up a bear that caused a stir when it strolled through an eastern Pennsylvania city.

The Nazareth Fire Department posted several pictures on its Facebook page after someone reported the 215-pound female bear Sunday afternoon.

Nazareth Fire Department

By the time firefighters arrived, the bear had climbed a tree.

State game officers planned to tranquilize the bear, but needed the firefighters to catch the animal in a tarp as it fell.

Nazareth Fire Department

Nazareth Fire Department says that in about 10 minutes the bear fell onto the tarp.

The (Easton) Express-Times says the bear tried to run away once it fell from the tree, but she laid down and passed out from the tranquilizer dart.

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A 2-year-old boy was left alone by caretakers in a Virginia mall last week.

Security at Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge reported to police after 1:30 p.m. July 17 that they found a child abandoned and asleep in a stroller in the food court.

Caretakers from Ebenezer Baptist Church Christian Academy, a preschool in Prince William County, returned to the mall to recover the child just before 3 p.m.

Police gave the uninjured child back to a family member.

Police charged Christal Lundy, the day care director for Ebenezer Christian Academy, with felony child neglect Friday.

"We determined that she was the one in charge of the program and in charge of the kids at the time and she was the primary caregiver," said Nathan Probus of Prince William County Police.

She turned herself into police at the Gar-Field police station and was released on $5,000 bond.
The number of people who reported getting sick after eating at a Chipotle in Virginia earlier this month has more than doubled.

More than 135 people have reported they fell ill after eating at the Sterling, Virginia, location from July 13 to July 16, the Loudoun County Health Department announced Monday. On Thursday, they said 60 people had reported illnesses that occurred during the four-day period.

"Based on symptoms reported and these preliminary laboratory results, the cause of the outbreak is believed to be norovirus, though the specific source of the norovirus has not yet been identified," Dr. David Goodfriend, director of the health department, said in a statement.

For two days, the restaurant was closed after people said they got sick from eating there.

Chipotle reopened the suburban Washington, D.C., location Wednesday after a "complete sanitization." It noted its procedures to deal with the issue quickly and said its food was safe to eat. Its stock nevertheless fell, underscoring its vulnerability following past food scares. The shares were down again Monday.



The health department is not aware of any Chipotle customers who became ill once the location reopened.

Chipotle initially said the company became aware of a "small number" of reported illnesses. The reported symptoms were consistent with norovirus, for which symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pain.

The company has been working on winning back customers since an E. coli outbreak in the fall of 2015, which was followed by a norovirus outbreak at a single restaurant later that same year.

Norovirus is a leading cause of illnesses from contaminated food, and infected employees are a frequent source of outbreaks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, often by touching foods such as raw fruits and vegetables with their bare hands before serving them. The agency says one out of six Americans get sick each year by consuming contaminated food or drinks more broadly.

Goodfriend said some of those sickened were Chipotle employees.
A driver crashed into a gas pump in Fairfax County, Virginia, Sunday evening, sparking a fire that engulfed her car, officials say.

The fire started on the 8500 block of Richmond Highway (Route 1) in the Mount Vernon area about 6:25 p.m., the Fairfax County fire department said Monday.

Fire investigators say the driver tried to pull up to a gas pump but accidentally stepped on the accelerator and knocked the pump over. No information was released immediately about the speed she reached.

The crash set the gas pump and the woman's car ablaze.

The driver was able to escape. Firefighters extinguished the flames, which sent dark smoke over the area, as video distributed by the fire department shows.

The driver, who was not identified, was taken to a hospital for evaluation.

The blaze caused an estimated $50,000.
Residents on Maryland's Eastern Shore are cleaning up after a tornado ripped through the area early Monday morning, damaging homes, injuring one person and leaving thousands without electricity.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said state agencies will be in the area to help those affected by the damaging tornado.

A waterspout over the Chesapeake Bay moved ashore at 1:29 a.m. in the Bay City area of Stevensville, according to the National Weather Service. It moved northeast before lifting off at 1:33 a.m. after covering about 2 miles.

Winds reached 125 mph, making it an EF2 tornado, the National Weather Service said. Officials said they received multiple calls for structural collapses, gas leaks and transformer failures.

"Honest to God, it sounded like a train," said Bernadine Lichliter.

Lichliter said a man living across the street had to crawl out of his home after the strong winds demolished his home. The man was taken to the hospital for a puncture wound. He was treated and released.

State personnel were at the scene of the storms impact throughout the day and remained on the scene to assist with the damage assessment and to determine any resources the state can provide to area residents, according to a statement from the governors office.

Lt. Governor Rutherford and I extend our support to the Kent Island community in the wake of last night's severe weather, which caused damage to multiple homes and buildings and left thousands of residents without power, said Hogan. The state stands ready to assist in any way needed as the community works to rebuild.

MEMA, Maryland State Police, Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Department of Human Services and the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development are in the area to assist residents in various ways.

Several News4 viewers sent in photos showing damage to homes in the Queen Anne's County. Strong winds ripped the roof off of a townhome community in the Ellendale area of Kent Island.

Almost 3,700 people in the county are without power as of 9:34 p.m. Monday, according to Delmarva Power. County officials said several major power lines were knocked down by the storm, and it could be some time until power is restored.

Residents in the area are being asked to stay inside until Delmarva Power can assess the power line situation.

County officials said an emergency shelter is available for those affected by storm. The shelter at Centreville Middle School is also open to pets. The Animal Welfare League in Queenstown is also available to shelter pets.

A family reunification site has also been set up at the Kent Island Fire Department.

Maryland Emergency Management spokesman Chas Eby said high winds closed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge for more than an hour, but engineers didn't find any damage.

A tornado warning was issued for the area, and the National Weather Service said there were reports of roof damage and boats into yards. Heavy rain was reported in the region, including nearly 7 inches in New Castle County, Delaware.

The Storm Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, said it was the first tornado for Queen Annes County since June 2012 and the third EF2 since they started keeping records in 1950. They said it was the first strong tornado to hit Maryland since September 2004.

Strong tornadoes are considered to be rated EF2 or higher.

Their records showed the early Monday morning tornado was only the second strong tornado on record between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The first tornado hit at 3 a.m. and was associated with Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
With praise and a blessing for the military, President Donald Trump helped hand over the USS Gerald R. Ford to the Navy on Saturday and said the state-of-the-art aircraft carrier will send a "100,000-ton message to the world" about America's military might when it is ultimately deployed.

U.S. allies will rest easy, Trump said, but America's enemies will "shake with fear" when they see the Ford cutting across the horizon.

The president, who is commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, likened the $12.9 billion warship to "an incredible work of art" and boasted about the American labor that went into building a vessel that eventually will house thousands of sailors and crew members.

Trump's participation in the ceremony also capped "Made in America" week at the White House, during which the president and administration officials sought to draw attention to the U.S. manufacturing industry.

"American steel and American hands have constructed this 100,000-ton message to the world," Trump said of the Ford during a speech that praised the bravery and spirit of U.S. service members and referenced his desire for a buildup after years of spending restrictions.

"American might is second to none and we're getting bigger and better and stronger every day of my administration. That I can tell you," Trump told thousands of service members and guests, including former defense secretaries Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and Govs. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia and Rick Snyder of Michigan, who were packed into the steamy hangar bay on the main deck.

"Wherever this vessel cuts through the horizon, our allies will rest easy and our enemies will shake with fear because everyone will know that America is coming, and America is coming strong," Trump said.

After the speech, he put the Ford into commission and asked God to "bless and guide this warship and all who shall sail in her." He was followed by Susan Ford Bales, the ship's sponsor and daughter of the 38th president, whom the ship honors.

"There is no one, absolutely no one, who would be prouder of the commissioning of this mighty ship than the president of the United States, Gerald R. Ford," she said. "I am honored to give the command: 'Officers and crew of the United States Gerald R. Ford, man our ship and bring her to life.'"

"Anchors Aweigh" played as row after row of sailors in crisp, white uniforms who had been standing in formation began filing off to man their stations. Sirens and bells sounded, horns blared and the U.S. flag was hoisted high above the deck.

Soon after, the captain was informed that the "ship is manned and ready and reports for duty to the fleet."

Trump, who visited the carrier in March, told Time magazine this year that the Navy should revert to using steam catapults to launch fighter jets because some of the USS Ford's state-of-the-art systems and technology "costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it's no good."

Construction started in 2009 and was to be completed by September 2015 at a cost of $10.5 billion. The Navy has blamed the delays and budget overruns on the ship's advanced systems and technology, including electromagnetic launch systems for jets and drones that will replace steam catapults.

The warship also has a smaller island that sits farther back on the ship to make it quicker to refuel, re-arm and relaunch planes, and a nuclear power plant designed to allow cruising speeds of more than 30 knots and operation for 20 years without refueling.

The vessel completed sea trials in April but still will go through a battery of tests and workups at sea before becoming ready for deployment, work that is expected to cost nearly $780 million and take more than four years to complete, congressional auditors said this month.

Docked at Naval Station Norfolk, the USS Ford eventually will house about 2,600 sailors, 600 fewer than the previous generation of aircraft carriers. The Navy says that will save more than $4 billion over the ship's 50-year lifespan.

The air wing to support the Ford could add more personnel to the ship, which is designed to house more than 4,600 crew members.

The Ford was built at Newport News Shipbuilding, a giant Navy contractor in Virginia.

"I was with you four months ago and I knew that I had to be here today and I told you I'd be back to congratulate you and the crew and everybody involved in commissioning the newest, largest and most advanced aircraft carrier in the history of this world," Trump said Saturday. "That's a big achievement."

Associated Press writer Steve McMillan in Richmond, Virginia, and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has "complete power" to issue pardons, an assertion that comes amid investigations into Russian interference in last year's presidential election. It was one of many topics that appeared to occupy the president's mind as the day broke.

On a day when most people are ready to forget about the issues that nagged them during the week, Trump revved up. In an early morning flurry of 10 tweets, he commented about pardons, former presidential rival Hillary Clinton, son Don Jr., health care, the USS Gerald Ford, the attorney general and other issues.

Trump said in one of his 10 messages: "While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS."

The Washington Post recently reported that Trump has inquired about the authority he has as president to pardon aides, relatives or even himself in connection with the widening investigation into Russian interference in the election and whether any Trump associates were involved.

The president has long criticized leaks of information about the investigation, and has urged authorities to prosecute leakers.

Trump maintains that no crimes have been committed.

One of Trump's attorneys, Jay Sekulow, said the president has not discussed the issue of pardons with his outside legal team.

Sekulow reiterated that point Saturday evening. Speaking to reporters at the site of the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, he said that Trump's private legal team is "not researching it because it's not an issue."

"I don't know where this came from. There is nothing to pardon," said Sekulow, who added that "what's going on in Washington is an attack on the president."

Next week, Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; his son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner; and Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, are scheduled to appear before Senate committees investigating Russian meddling.

Trump defended his son in one of the tweets, saying he "openly gave his e-mails to the media & authorities whereas Crooked Hillary Clinton deleted (& acid washed) her 33,000 e-mails!" Trump's namesake has become a focus of the investigation after it was revealed that he, Kushner and Manafort met with Russian representatives at Trump Tower in June 2016. Trump Jr. later released email exchanges concerning the meeting on Twitter, after learning that The New York Times was about to publish them.

The FBI investigated Clinton for using a private email server as secretary of state. She turned over thousands of pages of emails to the government, but deleted thousands of others that she said were personal or unrelated to her work as the nation's top diplomat.

Trump also complained Saturday about a Washington Post report that the Russian ambassador to the U.S. said he discussed election-related issues with Jeff Sessions when the men met during the 2016 presidential race. Sessions, now the attorney general, at the time was a U.S. senator and foreign policy adviser to Trump.

Trump tweeted: "A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post,this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions.These illegal leaks, like Comey's, must stop!"

The Post on Friday cited anonymous U.S. officials who described U.S. intelligence intercepts of Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's descriptions of his meetings with Sessions.

The Justice Department said Sessions stands by his previous assertion that he never had conversations with Russian officials about any type of interference with the election.

Trump also said "Republican Senators must step up to the plate and, after 7 years, vote to Repeal and Replace" the Obama-era health care law. An effort to advance legislation collapsed in the Senate earlier this week after several Republicans said they wouldn't vote for the bill.

Trump ended the tweet with "Tax Reform and Infrastructure. WIN!"

AP Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace contributed to this report.
In "Midnight, Texas" being normal makes you an outsider.

NBC's upcoming thriller series centers around the rural town where supernatural beings can shield themselves from the outside world and reveal their true colors. The show is based on the best-selling book series by Charlaine Harris, the author who inspired the "True Blood" series.

Manfred Bernardo (Francois Arnaud), a charming psychic whose ability to communicate with spirits has landed him in trouble, arrives in Midnight after his ghost grandmother tells him the town will be safe for him. Manfred quickly gets pulled into the town's affairs and meets writer Creek Lovell (Sarah Ramos), whom he takes an interest in right away.

"I really liked exploring a lead character who isn't flawless, who is damaged, not inherently bad  but has selfish ways," Arnaud said.

While Manfred possesses supernatural abilities, his love interest, Creek, enjoys writing and dreams of leaving Midnight to find stories.

"Creek is kind of a small town girl but with an edge  her small town is filled with monsters," Ramos said. "She has come to feel at home with these people with supernatural powers  they become more of her family than even her immediate family."

https://twitter.com/midnightintexas/status/887798057961570304

For Ramos, her performance in "Midnight, Texas" signals a dramatic departure from her usual roles.

"I haven't been on a show like this before," said Ramos, who played Haddie Braverman on NBC's "Parenthood." "It was just really exciting to be branching out, and  fun to play an adult."

Manfred and Creek may live in a world where supernatural powers exist, but Arnaud and Ramos find ways to relate to their characters. Despite his character's ability to communicate with spirits, Arnaud says that Manfred's personality is similar to his own.

"In his disposition, he's not that far off from me," Arnaud said. "It's very hard and also very satisfactory to tap into something that's closer to you  you can't really hide so much behind the character."

"I relate to [Creeks] journey," Ramos said. "She really has to transition from being a young adult  to being a fully-formed individual."

"Midnight, Texas" draws from author Charlaine Harris' book series, but its format as a television program allows the characters and the setting of the town to come to life. The actors praised Harris, whose creativity sparked the series.

"[Harris] has this ability to make really weird, unique stories feel really compelling and relatable," Ramos said. "This show literally has an angel, a witch, a psychic, an assassin, an energy-leaching vampire, and a were-tiger."

"Tonally there's something different [about Midnight] because it's incredibly scary," Arnaud said. "But it stays funny, it takes itself seriously  it deconstructs the codes of all the genres it borrows from. There's a self-awareness to the show that is a new take on the supernatural."

As members of the town fend off the intrusion of the local police department and the dangers of a biker gang, the supernatural beings ban together as allies to protect their town.

"It's just a thrill ride," Arnaud added.

Catch the premiere of "Midnight, Texas" on Monday, July 24 at 10 p.m. EDT.
New road signs designed to send a message are also sparking controversy in Manchester, New Hampshire.

The signs read, Your generosity could lead to a fatality. Please donate to a local charity. It is an initiative to wipe out pan handling while also curbing substance abuse.

Im just trying to get by and live, said Joe Pinto, who is homeless and relies on panhandling to get by.

Pinto said he is tired of the stigma panhandlers have.

I just try to get food. You get a lot of people who do heroin, who do drugs, smoke crack. That's not me, he said.

Chief Nick Willard of the Manchester, New Hampshire Police Department said directly giving money to panhandlers is enabling those who are addicted to drugs.

Your 5 dollars could go to a fatal overdose of a human being. We've had 25 panhandlers overdose, 6 of whom have died, Willard explained.

Fifteen new signs have gone up with a message to give to local charities that help the homeless. These charities help provide food and shelter.

Pinto said he is skeptical the signs will help. He thinks the money panhandlers make prevents them from committing crimes.

What are you supposed to do, rob a bank? A liquor store? Thats what people are forced to do. I'm not going to do it but you know what I mean. It makes it harder for us, Pinto said.
A New Hampshire woman was arrested Saturday morning for the attempted kidnapping of a 1-year-old girl, whom she allegedly attempted to steal while hitchhiking.

According to police in Rochester, Joanne E. Shaw, 25, was walking along the road when an unidentified 52-year-old male, traveling with his 1-year-old daughter, stopped to ask if she needed a ride.

Shaw got into the victim's vehicle. Soon after, she told the driver that she intended to take his daughter.

A struggle ensued while the male attempted to pull over the vehicle.

Shaw then reached for his keys which she broke in half.

As the vehicle came to a stop, Shaw took the 1-year-old and fled the vehicle on foot.

When the male victim caught up with Shaw another struggle ensued in which he was hit two times.

Officers arrived at the scene and detained Shaw shortly thereafter.

Shaw was charged with kidnapping and two counts of simple assault, among other charges. She was held on $5,000 cash bail and scheduled to be arraigned on Monday in Strafford Superior Court.
The boyfriend of a woman found dead on Sunday in Leominster, Massachusetts has been charged with her murder, according to police.

Jose Cortes, 58, will be arraigned Monday in Leominster District Court.

Police are not releasing the name of the victim at this time.

The female victim was found dead at Cortes apartment, who identified himself to police as the victim's boyfriend.

Check back for updates as this story develops.
Fire officials are investigating the cause of a massive blaze that tore through an apartment complex under construction on Sunday in Waltham, Massachusetts.

The fire broke out just before 4 a.m. at the complex on Cooper Street and quickly reached 10-alarms.

Waltham Fire Chief Paul Ciccone says the fire went from two buildings to five buildings within minutes. Each structure collapsed.

"It spread very quickly," Ciccone said.

The site is where general contractor, Callahan Construction, was slated to finish more than 200 luxury apartments by the end of the year.

Massive Fire Engulfs Waltham Construction Site

In a statement to the press, Lilsa Nickerson, spokesperson for Callahan Construction, said that the property had previously undergone a joint inspection.

"The property underwent a joint inspection last week with with the Waltham Fire department and City of Waltham, and passed inspection under the city's effort to review all large projects currently under construction in Waltham to ensure accordance with state building code," said Nickerson.

"We thank local authorities for their immediate response in this incident and are cooperating with authorities to determine the cause," the statement continued.

Nearby homes, including about 150 people at the Arthur Clark Apartments, an elderly housing complex, were evacuated due to the amount of smoke.

"We evacuated the elderly housing at 48 Pine St. and I believe they evacuated 190 Moody St. which is a larger elderly complex," said Ciccone.

The power to the neighborhood was also cut as a safety precaution.

A video of a Cooper Street apartment complex under construction is seen before it went up in flames on Sunday, July 23.

"There was ash raining down on our house and they were spraying down our house with water to make sure it didn't catch on fire. Then they said, 'you want to leave, leave now,'" said one resident, who was evacuated.

It's unclear when residents will be able to return to their homes.

In addition to the damage at the construction site, authorities said at least 30 vehicles at nearby E & T Auto Body on Elm Street were destroyed.

Two firefighters suffered minor injuries.


A dog that Maine's governor tried to rescue from a euthanasia sentence will live.

A judge agreed Monday to a deal to send an Alaskan husky named Dakota to a veterinary hospital for training after it attacked two other dogs, killing one.

A judge had ordered that Dakota be put down after the attacks last year. Republican Gov. Paul LePage attempted to pardon Dakota in March, elevating the dog to celebrity status.

It's debatable whether the governor has the authority to pardon the dog. But Monday's hearing and the deal that included input from the owner of the dogs Dakota attacked made the issue moot.

A previous effort to save Dakota by moving her to a New Hampshire shelter failed.
A girl was killed on the Massachusetts Turnpike after she was struck by a vehicle in the breakdown lane on Sunday evening in Upton, according to police.

According to state police, two vehicles were westbound traveling to New York together, a 2011 Toyota Camry and a 1999 Jeep Wrangler.

The Jeep became disabled with a flat tire around 6 p.m. and both vehicles pulled into the left-most breakdown lane, with the Toyota in front.

The driver of the Camry, a 33-year-old man from New Carrollton, Maryland, got out of the vehicle to help the driver of the Jeep, a New York man, change the tire.

The man's daughter also got out of the Camry and stood behind it.

At that time, a 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe pulling a trailer holding a motorcycle was in the left-most travel lane. Preliminary investigation suggests the driver of the Tahoe, a 41-year-old Conway, New Hampshire, man, swerved into the breakdown lane to avoid a collision after traffic slowed down.

The driver swerved in between the Jeep and the Camry, noticed the Camry in front of him, but couldn't stop in time, striking the girl.

She was transported to the UMass Medical Center in Worcester, where she succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead.

A 1-year-old girl was also in the Camry at the time of the crash, but was not injured. She was taken to a hospital as a precaution.

The incident remains under investigation.
The trial for a man accused of abusing a dog so severely that it had to be euthanized has been postponed for a month.

Officials say jury selection for the trial of Radoslaw Czerkawski was delayed to Aug. 7 after the case's assistant district attorney underwent emergency surgery for a detached retina to save her sight.

The trial, which had been scheduled to start on Tuesday, comes nearly four years after the animal that came to be known as Puppy Doe was found barely alive on a playground.

Czerkawski faces multiple animal cruelty charges.

The case received widespread attention when the year-old pit bull mix was found in Quincy in 2013 with skull, spine and rib fractures, a stab wound to the right eye and a split tongue. The starving female dog was euthanized.

Czerkawski has pleaded not guilty and suggested youths he saw drinking in a park were responsible for the abuse. His attorney didn't immediately respond to a message, but previously questioned the DNA evidence.
A New Hampshire man has been arrested in connection with a brutal attack of a young woman outside a Planet Fitness gym.

Twenty-two-year-old Jordan Lamonde of Portsmouth was charged with second degree assault Monday afternoon after Rochester police officers responded to Portsmouth Regional Hospital.

Police have been investigating the assault since June 12, when gym employee Erin McCarthy, 18, reported she was walking to her car when she was attacked from behind.

Surveillance footage of the attack showed McCarthy was punched nearly 40 times, thrown to the ground and then kneed in the head before the suspect, later identified as Lamonde by police, got into his car and drove off.

McCarthy said she had no idea who her attacker was.

"He didn't say a single word at all," she said. "He was silent through the whole thing."

Lamonde has been ordered on $150,000 cash bail. He's due in court on Tuesday.

It's unclear if he has an attorney.
A Brockton woman accused of killing her boyfriend, hiding his body in a closet and telling police he died during a botched robbery, pleaded not guilty at her arraignment on Monday.



Thirty-three-year-old Kathryn Podgurski was charged with murder Monday in the death of 44-year-old Joseph Shaw. She was arraigned in Brockton District Court and is being held without bail.

As prosecutors laid out their case, many of Shaw's family left the courtroom in rage and overcome with emotions.

Plymouth District Attorney Tim Cruz said a relative of Podgurski called police Friday saying men tried to rob Podgurski and Shaw at their apartment and killed Shaw.

Police said they found Shaw's body in a closet under clothing and kitty litter. Shaw had been stabbed and had been dead a significant period of time.

"The body was also found to be missing the lower left portion of the leg," said the prosecutor.

Cruz described the homicide as a "crime of passion".

"We're going to dod the best we can to get justice for him," Cruz said.

Shaw's family had reported him missing July 17.

A lawyer for Podgurski did not immediately comment. She is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 24.
Founded in 1971, City Furniture got its start when Kevin Koenig and his brother Keith Koenig constructed wood bed frames in a garage. They started with a single showroom, Waterbed City, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but have now grown to 27 locations across the state and operate under the brands of City Furniture and Ashley Furniture HomeStore brands.

The company currently has an older Cisco 802.11g Wi-Fi network that it uses for bar code scanning and inventory management and was reaching the end of its life. City Furniture had big plans to digitize the company by moving its point-of-sale (POS) operations and capabilities to Wi-Fi-enabled tablets so the employees could transact business from anywhere in the store. Also, it wanted to use VoIP to take calls from iPads anywhere in the showroom, as well as access radio apps.

To do these things and become a modernized, digital retailer, the company needed to upgrade its Wi-Fi network to something with greater throughput and 5GHz capabilities. The new wireless network was critical to the plans for City Furniture; they could not afford to make the wrong decision. So Eric Jensen, infrastructure manager at City Furniture, went through an extensive evaluation process to ensure the network would satisfy immediate requirements but also carry the company into the future.

Why City Furniture selected Aerohive

Jensen recruited the help of Gartner to help with the RFP process and to build a short list that included Aerohive and a number of other Wi-Fi players. After pitting all the vendors against the technical requirements provided by Gartner, City Furniture chose Aerohive for three reasons:

Ability to meet the physical range of coverage

Superior price/performance

Excellent customer service through the evaluation process

City Furniture worked closely with Aerohives local reseller, United Data Technologies, for integration and deployment.

The solution included Aerohive AP250 and AP245X access points and HiveManager Online for cloud management. The company has operations and warehouses in different states, making cloud management critical to the success of the deployment to make it easy for IT to manage the system and reduce the reliance on VPNs.

The Aerohive AP250 is equipped with a software-selectable radio that allows the AP to operate in dual 5GHz mode if needed. This allows all showroom iPads and corporate laptops to operate in the 5GHz band with minimal channel congestion and better throughput. The Aerohive AP250s also have integrated Bluetooth for iBeacon technology. This was a key requirement for City Furniture because in the future, they will look to use beacons as a way of targeting customers and gathering the data for new insights. The AP245X APs have external antennas to ensure uninterrupted operations in the warehouse.

Also, Aerohives private pre-shared key (PPSK) feature is used to quickly on-board and identify mobile devices, giving IT greater control and ease of management, as well as an improved level of security. City Furniture was able to use the cloud management tool to create three SSIDs to isolate the traffic from iPads, laptops, and the scanners and pickers used in the warehouse.

Having Aerohive in place has been the ultimate game changer for our retail business.  Eric Jensen, Infrastructure Manager, City Furniture

The POS system is now fully rolled out across the entire company, and salespeople can use iPads as they move through the store with customers as they look for information or other products that may not be on the show floor.

The Wi-Fi is critical to this creating the enhanced, digital experience retailers are looking for. I recently interviewed a high-end retailer that attempted this without considering the Wi-Fi network, and the lag in the system was so bad that the in-store staff put the iPads on the shelves rather than being embarrassed by a system that does not work.

Also, City Furniture associates can easily communicate with one another using apps such as Zello and using VoIP to answer calls anywhere in the store. Financial apps for financing and payment are now available on the iPad, so shoppers can complete their experience without having to wait in a queue at a register.

How the new Wi-Fi network helps City Furniture's headquarters and warehouse

In the warehouse and headquarters, employees are also enjoying their newfound mobility. A combination of new wireless devices from DLI and software from HighJump are in place for optimized retailer and supply-chain operations. As trucks pull into the locations, the extended outdoor Wi-Fi network gives City Furniture the ability to allocate inventory on site

Almost every organization I talk to today has big plans for digital transformation. However, its critical that businesses consider the implications of the network, as we now live in a world where everything is connected and its these connections that give us the new insights. City Furniture made a big bet with Aerohive, and now its paying off with new customer experiences and improved processes.
Staff at One Stop store reportedly threatened with a knife

Police are hunting raiders who pulled a knife on shop staff in Hungerford today (Saturday).

The incident happened at the One Stop store in Fairview Road.

Staff there declined to discuss the incident but local residents said police were making door-to-door enquiries at 4.45pm.

It is believed two men were involved and that a knife was used.

It is not known whether any money was stolen.

One near neighbour said: "I heard that one man ran off towards the railway station while the other fled in the opposite direction."

Thames Valley Police have not yet responded to requests for a comment or a description of the raiders.
Nathan Butler-Broad moving on to 'a different challenge'

THE headteacher of Spurcroft Primary School is standing down to embark on a different challenge.

Nathan Butler-Broad, pictured, will leave the Spurcroft Road school in September, after six years in the post.

He told the : I am moving to Battle Primary Academy in Reading which offers a different challenge and one I am very much looking forward to.

Deputy headteacher Kate Flowerdew will take the reins in September.

She is well known to staff and parents, having spent 17 years at the school, Mr Butler-Broad said.

Mr Butler-Broad, who was deputy headteacher at The Hill Primary School, Caversham, before moving to Spurcroft, told the in 2011 that he thought that the school was far better than satisfactory, as it was then deemed by Ofsted.

Under his stewardship, the school was rated good after its latest Ofsted inspection in 2016.

Inspectors said that pupils benefited from an exciting and well-planned curriculum and that the school is a vibrant and caring community.

The school also opened a new 2.5m building last year, part of a 3.1m renovation project providing six new classrooms, a new library, dedicated after school club space, calm room and new offices.

The schools capacity also increased from 315 pupils to 525.

Spurcroft held its beach party-themed summer fete earlier this month, featuring a variety of games, including a human fruit machine.

Mr Butler-Broad said: The fete was a great success and the Friends of Spurcroft deserve great credit.

They are so organised and committed and it just makes such a difference.

We are hoping to have raised in the region of 4,000, which is great, particularly at a time when school funding is so stretched.
By Express News Service

Social media can make or break brands, with consumers incessantly sharing their feedback on the products they consume and services they use in public internet spaces. Negative feedback, if ignored, can throw firms into crisis, say digital thought leader Venke Sharma and digital marketing expert Hushidar Kharas in their book The Indestructible Brand. In a telephonic interview with T K Vineeth, the authors say companies are yet to wake up to the idea of having a crisis management team for social media. Edited excerpts:

Venke Sharma

When crisis hits a company, it can have an emotional impact on employees. But your book suggests employees not try to defend their company on social media. Why?

Employees may be tempted to react in such circumstances, but emotional reaction will not help. Also, not every employee is equipped to deal with hard questions from customers. Its better to let the crisis management team do the task. The company should open a direct line of communication with customers. One way employees can help their company is by scanning social media buzz about the brand and report the same to the right team responsible for dealing with it.

Consumer-facing establishments tend to get a heavy flow of negative feedback through social media. What should be the social media strategy of these firms?

Companies should quickly put together their team and peruse at what level the slip has happened  operations, marketing, or at any other level. The other important thing is to build a crisis management playbook. This will help companies to respond quickly to crises as they erupt. The sooner a company responds to the crisis, the better. And, to make the response more effective, always use photographic evidence to support your argument. And, have a designated spokesperson to respond to queries from concerned customers. Brands are built by the love of consumers. When the love is lost, brand value erodes.

How can organisations spot brewing crises and take steps before they erupt?

Anticipating crises is very important. Companies need to listen to discussion by consumers about their experience with the brand. There are technology tools available today that can alert companies whenever their brand names are mentioned in social media and public internet spaces. It is important for companies to invest in listening tools. Also, every company should have a customer commitment officer, who will check if the organisation is actually fulfilling the promises they make to customers.

Your book says poorly thought-through marketing campaigns can backfire, like in the case of McDonalds. If disgruntled customers hijack promotional campaigns and spin them into parodies, what are the options before the company?

Shaping the narrative is the key for marketing campaigns. You also need to constantly monitor the campaigns to see if customers are getting the message. Watch out for negative comments and respond to the genuine concerns of customers.

While companies can always choose to shut down the campaign if it goes out of hand  like what McD did  they also have the option of engaging with consumers with a sense of humour and repartee. The latter option would work especially in cases where customers dont have any real issue with brand but are just trying to make fun of the campaign. Also, brands should try to ferret out positive feedback and amplify it.

Are Indian companies investing enough in social media?

Indian companies have embraced social as a marketing tool. Theyre investing heavily in creating content and campaigns for social media. What many brands have not realised is the consequence of social media. Anything you say on Twitter is equivalent to an official company statement, and should be treated with the same importance as a CEOs speech in public. Companies should give as much importance to social media as they would give to their traditional communications wing.

Social media can make or break brands, with consumers incessantly sharing their feedback on the products they consume and services they use in public internet spaces. Negative feedback, if ignored, can throw firms into crisis, say digital thought leader Venke Sharma and digital marketing expert Hushidar Kharas in their book The Indestructible Brand. In a telephonic interview with T K Vineeth, the authors say companies are yet to wake up to the idea of having a crisis management team for social media. Edited excerpts: Venke SharmaWhen crisis hits a company, it can have an emotional impact on employees. But your book suggests employees not try to defend their company on social media. Why? Employees may be tempted to react in such circumstances, but emotional reaction will not help. Also, not every employee is equipped to deal with hard questions from customers. Its better to let the crisis management team do the task. The company should open a direct line of communication with customers. One way employees can help their company is by scanning social media buzz about the brand and report the same to the right team responsible for dealing with it. Consumer-facing establishments tend to get a heavy flow of negative feedback through social media. What should be the social media strategy of these firms? Companies should quickly put together their team and peruse at what level the slip has happened  operations, marketing, or at any other level. The other important thing is to build a crisis management playbook. This will help companies to respond quickly to crises as they erupt. The sooner a company responds to the crisis, the better. And, to make the response more effective, always use photographic evidence to support your argument. And, have a designated spokesperson to respond to queries from concerned customers. Brands are built by the love of consumers. When the love is lost, brand value erodes. How can organisations spot brewing crises and take steps before they erupt? Anticipating crises is very important. Companies need to listen to discussion by consumers about their experience with the brand. There are technology tools available today that can alert companies whenever their brand names are mentioned in social media and public internet spaces. It is important for companies to invest in listening tools. Also, every company should have a customer commitment officer, who will check if the organisation is actually fulfilling the promises they make to customers. Your book says poorly thought-through marketing campaigns can backfire, like in the case of McDonalds. If disgruntled customers hijack promotional campaigns and spin them into parodies, what are the options before the company? Shaping the narrative is the key for marketing campaigns. You also need to constantly monitor the campaigns to see if customers are getting the message. Watch out for negative comments and respond to the genuine concerns of customers. While companies can always choose to shut down the campaign if it goes out of hand  like what McD did  they also have the option of engaging with consumers with a sense of humour and repartee. The latter option would work especially in cases where customers dont have any real issue with brand but are just trying to make fun of the campaign. Also, brands should try to ferret out positive feedback and amplify it. Are Indian companies investing enough in social media? Indian companies have embraced social as a marketing tool. Theyre investing heavily in creating content and campaigns for social media. What many brands have not realised is the consequence of social media. Anything you say on Twitter is equivalent to an official company statement, and should be treated with the same importance as a CEOs speech in public. Companies should give as much importance to social media as they would give to their traditional communications wing.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: The city police on Sunday conducted cordon and search operations at Kandriga, Ajit Singh Nagar and New Rajarajeswari Peta with an objective of recovering stolen vehicles and property. The police seized 14 motorcycles during the cordon and search operation and arrested eight former convicts. Around 180 police personnel, including two ACPs, Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors, participated in the operation. The police searched the premises of around 500 suspects.

DCP (Law and Order) Kranthi Rana Tata said, We initially mapped the locality and blocked all entry and exit points. We will not spare any wrongdoers. The individuals and shopkeepers should install CCTV cameras on their premises to crack stolen cases at the earliest, he said.

Speaking to Express, ACP K Sravani said, the offenders chose the outskirts of the city, presuming no surveillance. Residents are advised to inform the police when they are out of the station for a few days. The landlords, while renting their homes, should collect tenants identity cards.

She added that civilians should inform police about suspicious movements of strangers in their localities to prevent burglaries and housebreakings.

VIJAYAWADA: The city police on Sunday conducted cordon and search operations at Kandriga, Ajit Singh Nagar and New Rajarajeswari Peta with an objective of recovering stolen vehicles and property. The police seized 14 motorcycles during the cordon and search operation and arrested eight former convicts. Around 180 police personnel, including two ACPs, Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors, participated in the operation. The police searched the premises of around 500 suspects. DCP (Law and Order) Kranthi Rana Tata said, We initially mapped the locality and blocked all entry and exit points. We will not spare any wrongdoers. The individuals and shopkeepers should install CCTV cameras on their premises to crack stolen cases at the earliest, he said. Speaking to Express, ACP K Sravani said, the offenders chose the outskirts of the city, presuming no surveillance. Residents are advised to inform the police when they are out of the station for a few days. The landlords, while renting their homes, should collect tenants identity cards. She added that civilians should inform police about suspicious movements of strangers in their localities to prevent burglaries and housebreakings.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: City police have successfully solved the gold heist case in 13 days and arrested seven of the ten accused in the case. They also recovered the stolen gold weighing 4.025 kg out of the stolen 5 kg.



Police commissioner D Goutam Sawang disclosing the details said the theft was the handiwork of professionals and ex-convicts. The robbers, hailing from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, formed a group after getting acquainted in jails they were lodged in previously.



After conducting two recces in three months based on the information provided by an ex-employee of the gold workshop, Tanmai (27), the group of dacoits attacked the workshop located in the busy Gopal Reddy Road in Governorpet area of Vijayawada on July 11.



Thereafter the police launched an intense manhunt for the accused. Following the trail left by the credit card of one of the accused, police successfully traced them to Mumbai and nabbed them there with help of local police on Sunday night. The accused were brought to Vijayawada on Monday. Police are still looking for the other three involved in the case.



VIJAYAWADA: City police have successfully solved the gold heist case in 13 days and arrested seven of the ten accused in the case. They also recovered the stolen gold weighing 4.025 kg out of the stolen 5 kg. Police commissioner D Goutam Sawang disclosing the details said the theft was the handiwork of professionals and ex-convicts. The robbers, hailing from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, formed a group after getting acquainted in jails they were lodged in previously. After conducting two recces in three months based on the information provided by an ex-employee of the gold workshop, Tanmai (27), the group of dacoits attacked the workshop located in the busy Gopal Reddy Road in Governorpet area of Vijayawada on July 11. Thereafter the police launched an intense manhunt for the accused. Following the trail left by the credit card of one of the accused, police successfully traced them to Mumbai and nabbed them there with help of local police on Sunday night. The accused were brought to Vijayawada on Monday. Police are still looking for the other three involved in the case.
By ENS & Agencies

BEIJING/NEW DELHI: The Chinese army moved tens of thousands of tonnes of military vehicles and hardware into the remote mountainous Tibet region after the standoff with Indian troops in the Dokalam area in the Sikkim sector, the mouthpiece of the Peoples Liberation Army said on Wednesday.

The vast equipment was transported to a region south of the Kunlun Mountains in northern Tibet by the Western Theatre Command  which oversees the restive regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, and handles border issues with India, reported the PLA Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese military.

The move took place late in June and involved hardware being moved simultaneously by road and rail from across the entire region, the report said.

Chinas state-run media has stepped up its rhetoric against India in recent weeks but there was no way to confirm the veracity of such claims.

Earlier this week, state-run CCTV had broadcast the Peoples Liberation Army troops taking part in heavy military exercises using live ammunition on the Tibetan plateau.

The location was not far from the disputed Dokalam area where Chinese and Indian troops are locked in a standoff, the Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The PLA Daily report, however, did not say whether the movement of the military equipment was to support the exercise or for other reasons.

However, Defence Ministry sources in New Delhi denied reports of China carrying out any major troop mobilisations close to the border. Claiming a general state of alert on both sides of the Line of Actual Control, army sources said there have been a couple of videos in the media showing massive exercises by the Peoples Liberation Army while the Chinese media reported mobilisation of heavy equipment and resources at Doka La.

The army sources claimed that the exercise in the video that has been doing the rounds is a routine annual exercise which took place in early June and is nothing unusual. It took place near Lhasa in Tibet, about 700 km from the border.

Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face-off in the Dokalam area of the Sikkim sector for over a month after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the disputed area.

China claimed it was constructing the road within its territory and has been demanding the immediate pull-out of the Indian troops from the disputed Dokalam plateau.

BEIJING/NEW DELHI: The Chinese army moved tens of thousands of tonnes of military vehicles and hardware into the remote mountainous Tibet region after the standoff with Indian troops in the Dokalam area in the Sikkim sector, the mouthpiece of the Peoples Liberation Army said on Wednesday. The vast equipment was transported to a region south of the Kunlun Mountains in northern Tibet by the Western Theatre Command  which oversees the restive regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, and handles border issues with India, reported the PLA Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese military. The move took place late in June and involved hardware being moved simultaneously by road and rail from across the entire region, the report said. Chinas state-run media has stepped up its rhetoric against India in recent weeks but there was no way to confirm the veracity of such claims. Earlier this week, state-run CCTV had broadcast the Peoples Liberation Army troops taking part in heavy military exercises using live ammunition on the Tibetan plateau. The location was not far from the disputed Dokalam area where Chinese and Indian troops are locked in a standoff, the Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. The PLA Daily report, however, did not say whether the movement of the military equipment was to support the exercise or for other reasons. However, Defence Ministry sources in New Delhi denied reports of China carrying out any major troop mobilisations close to the border. Claiming a general state of alert on both sides of the Line of Actual Control, army sources said there have been a couple of videos in the media showing massive exercises by the Peoples Liberation Army while the Chinese media reported mobilisation of heavy equipment and resources at Doka La. The army sources claimed that the exercise in the video that has been doing the rounds is a routine annual exercise which took place in early June and is nothing unusual. It took place near Lhasa in Tibet, about 700 km from the border. Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face-off in the Dokalam area of the Sikkim sector for over a month after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the disputed area. China claimed it was constructing the road within its territory and has been demanding the immediate pull-out of the Indian troops from the disputed Dokalam plateau.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: Anamika Ray, an academician and mother of a three-year-old, died due to medical negligence at a Delhi hospital in 2015.

The incident prompted her husband, Ankuran Dutta of the Gauhati University, to lead a country-wide campaign against medical negligence. He founded the Dr Anamika Ray Memorial Trust, involving hundreds in the campaign against what he terms medical terrorism.

Our goal is to have a separate law to regulate the medical profession. Another aim is to build a greater trust in the relationship between medical professionals and patients, Dutta said. The Trust, which observes June 25 as Patients Rights Day, has brought out a draft on patients rights and responsibilities.

Through our campaign, we have reached out to people at the grassroots.

Many doctors are also clandestinely supporting us. I receive at least two to three calls every day from victims, but I always urge them to carefully notice if the case is of medical error or negligence, he insists.

Last month, the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) found two doctors guilty of negligence leading to the death of Dr Anamika Ray and directed that their names be removed from the State Medical Register for 15 days. But Dutta said he was unhappy with the action. He has filed a complaint demanding their life-long suspension and sought compensation which will be donated to the trust.

GUWAHATI: Anamika Ray, an academician and mother of a three-year-old, died due to medical negligence at a Delhi hospital in 2015. The incident prompted her husband, Ankuran Dutta of the Gauhati University, to lead a country-wide campaign against medical negligence. He founded the Dr Anamika Ray Memorial Trust, involving hundreds in the campaign against what he terms medical terrorism. Our goal is to have a separate law to regulate the medical profession. Another aim is to build a greater trust in the relationship between medical professionals and patients, Dutta said. The Trust, which observes June 25 as Patients Rights Day, has brought out a draft on patients rights and responsibilities. Through our campaign, we have reached out to people at the grassroots. Many doctors are also clandestinely supporting us. I receive at least two to three calls every day from victims, but I always urge them to carefully notice if the case is of medical error or negligence, he insists. Last month, the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) found two doctors guilty of negligence leading to the death of Dr Anamika Ray and directed that their names be removed from the State Medical Register for 15 days. But Dutta said he was unhappy with the action. He has filed a complaint demanding their life-long suspension and sought compensation which will be donated to the trust.
By ANI

MUMBAI: After a 36-year-old biker from Mumbais Bandra was killed on a pothole-ridden road from Dahanu to Jawahar Road in the states Palghar district, Shiv Sena on Tuesday said that they are working on the problems of potholes.



Shiv Sena youth wing Yuva Sena leader Aditya Thackeray told the media, There is action and we are working on it.

Thackeray, however, did not elaborate further on the kind of steps being taken.



On Sunday, Jagruti died on the spot due to severe injuries.



The accident took place around 9am when Jagruti along with two other women, was on a road trip to Dahanu.

MUMBAI: After a 36-year-old biker from Mumbais Bandra was killed on a pothole-ridden road from Dahanu to Jawahar Road in the states Palghar district, Shiv Sena on Tuesday said that they are working on the problems of potholes. Shiv Sena youth wing Yuva Sena leader Aditya Thackeray told the media, There is action and we are working on it. Thackeray, however, did not elaborate further on the kind of steps being taken. On Sunday, Jagruti died on the spot due to severe injuries. The accident took place around 9am when Jagruti along with two other women, was on a road trip to Dahanu.
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: Bombay High Court on Monday slammed the Byculla jail officials, who are remanded in judicial custody for the death of prisoner Manjula Shetye, and asked them not to mislead the court by terming Shetye's death as an accident.

The jail officials told the division bench of R M Sawant and judge Sadhana Jadhav, Manjula Shetye fell unconscious after falling down in prison washroom and was given an immediate attention.

The crime branch officials probing the case too kept referring the death as an accidental death.

The court was surprised by the stand taken by the police and said that an attempt was being made to shield someone. If the postmortem report showed multiple external injuries then how could the doctor from JJ Hospital give you an initial certificate against Shetye having suffered external injuries. You (jail) and the doctor who is your person are leaving no stone unturned to shield somebody, the court said.

Manjula Shetye (45), who was serving her life sentence at the Byculla jail, had died at the state-run JJ hospital on June 24, allegedly after being beaten by the jail authorities on June 23 in a row over two eggs and five loaves of bread. A case had been lodged against Jailer Manisha Pokharkar and guards Wasima Sheikh, Bindu Naikodi, Sheetal Shegaonkar, Surekha Gulve and Aarati Shingne in this regard after Mumbai Crime Branch was entrusted with the probe in the case.

The court asked the state to file a further status report before scheduling the matter for further hearing on July 31.

The crime branch has recorded statements of 292 prisoners in the case, of which 60 had accused the six jail officials for beating up Shetye. Some of them had claimed that she was subjected to sexual abuse along with physical torture, which caused her death.

Magisterial inquest had ruled out any injury on her private parts though her autopsy has suggested multiple injuries on her body. A forensic analysis of the CCTV footage at the jail too had shown her being dragged to her barrack.

Sheena Bora murder accused Indrani Mukherjea too had moved to Mumbai court alleging that she was beaten up by the jail officials after Shetyes death triggered a protest in the prison.

MUMBAI: Bombay High Court on Monday slammed the Byculla jail officials, who are remanded in judicial custody for the death of prisoner Manjula Shetye, and asked them not to mislead the court by terming Shetye's death as an accident. The jail officials told the division bench of R M Sawant and judge Sadhana Jadhav, Manjula Shetye fell unconscious after falling down in prison washroom and was given an immediate attention. The crime branch officials probing the case too kept referring the death as an accidental death. The court was surprised by the stand taken by the police and said that an attempt was being made to shield someone. If the postmortem report showed multiple external injuries then how could the doctor from JJ Hospital give you an initial certificate against Shetye having suffered external injuries. You (jail) and the doctor who is your person are leaving no stone unturned to shield somebody, the court said. Manjula Shetye (45), who was serving her life sentence at the Byculla jail, had died at the state-run JJ hospital on June 24, allegedly after being beaten by the jail authorities on June 23 in a row over two eggs and five loaves of bread. A case had been lodged against Jailer Manisha Pokharkar and guards Wasima Sheikh, Bindu Naikodi, Sheetal Shegaonkar, Surekha Gulve and Aarati Shingne in this regard after Mumbai Crime Branch was entrusted with the probe in the case. The court asked the state to file a further status report before scheduling the matter for further hearing on July 31. The crime branch has recorded statements of 292 prisoners in the case, of which 60 had accused the six jail officials for beating up Shetye. Some of them had claimed that she was subjected to sexual abuse along with physical torture, which caused her death. Magisterial inquest had ruled out any injury on her private parts though her autopsy has suggested multiple injuries on her body. A forensic analysis of the CCTV footage at the jail too had shown her being dragged to her barrack. Sheena Bora murder accused Indrani Mukherjea too had moved to Mumbai court alleging that she was beaten up by the jail officials after Shetyes death triggered a protest in the prison.
Lavanya Menon By

Express News Service

First Person

When I think back to the first few months of my period, it isnt so much the pain that I remember as the embarrassment. I would do anything to not walk up to the cupboard in my parents bedroom where the toiletries were stored. Id lie through the pain and gritted teeth to avoid the conversation. It was a lonely experience.

So when Culture Machine kicked off a debate by giving its woman employees the first day of their monthly cycles off and got everyone from Reuters to my parlourwali aunty talking about it, it was exciting because change seemed to be in the offing.

Sure, the move has received just as much backlash as approval, with some people calling paid leave for a biological function regressive.

Havent women until now swallowed an asprin, braved the pain and gotten s*** done without making a big deal of it? Should entitled, self-aggrandising young women seek more leave that might only end up showing all women as not comparatively competent? But hey, Sherlock, its worth remembering that men dont bleed five days in a row every month.

And isnt every revolution sparked by a whining brat who wanted just a bit more? And just how much is too much to ask in a patriarchal world where even the default temperature of your AC is set to suit the metabolic rate of a middle-aged man? It wouldnt be widely off the mark to guess that if it were men who bled, the FOP leave would be a given.

If you can work your way through that time of the month, more power to you! But to those who cant, let the choice be open. Menstruation, after all, affects women in different ways and the pain, as a London-based study showed, can range from a nagging discomfort to the severity of a heart attack.

And isnt the argument that more sick leaves be given to women beside the point? If anything, it reaffirms the taboo around menstruation and the cultural prejudice to keep it a secret.

Women should be able to have the choice of taking a day off when they have excruciating pain, and assert that it is menstrual leave. The idea should become so common and female biology so demystified that seeking an FOP is met with a shrug, not a raised eyebrow.

Legal View

In countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines, there are legislations that either enable or mandate menstrual leave. In the Philippines, the law entitles female employees to one days menstrual leave per month. An employer who denies this benefit is liable to pay a fine or can be imprisoned.

Niharika Hema Raj, High Court advocate, said, it is important that India set an example for the world. Such a provision can be brought in through an amendment to existing labour laws, she said.

Teachers View

Sonamika Ray, headmistress, Capital High School, Bhubaneswar

Onset of menstruation is usually noticed in girls studying in Class VII. While a handful of them have prior knowledge of periods, many are unaware. We cater to several slum localities. Our childrens mothers are mostly daily-wagers who do not have the time to explain to them what menstruation is. Hence, we hold orientation classes for girls of Class VII. We explain to them that menstruation is normal. We tell them about sanitary napkins and about the body aches associated with the first day of period. But the problem in co-education schools is that there are fewer girls and they feel shy to discuss menstruation.

Doctors View

Dr Gayathri Kamath, gynaecologist, Fortis Hospital

I dont think leave from work is required during menstruation. Women with medical conditions like fibroids or endometriosis have severe pain and hence they may want to avail it. I think a woman should take it in her stride to work during periods. There is no reason for a normal physiological function to be considered a sickness.

First Person When I think back to the first few months of my period, it isnt so much the pain that I remember as the embarrassment. I would do anything to not walk up to the cupboard in my parents bedroom where the toiletries were stored. Id lie through the pain and gritted teeth to avoid the conversation. It was a lonely experience. So when Culture Machine kicked off a debate by giving its woman employees the first day of their monthly cycles off and got everyone from Reuters to my parlourwali aunty talking about it, it was exciting because change seemed to be in the offing. Sure, the move has received just as much backlash as approval, with some people calling paid leave for a biological function regressive. Havent women until now swallowed an asprin, braved the pain and gotten s*** done without making a big deal of it? Should entitled, self-aggrandising young women seek more leave that might only end up showing all women as not comparatively competent? But hey, Sherlock, its worth remembering that men dont bleed five days in a row every month. And isnt every revolution sparked by a whining brat who wanted just a bit more? And just how much is too much to ask in a patriarchal world where even the default temperature of your AC is set to suit the metabolic rate of a middle-aged man? It wouldnt be widely off the mark to guess that if it were men who bled, the FOP leave would be a given. If you can work your way through that time of the month, more power to you! But to those who cant, let the choice be open. Menstruation, after all, affects women in different ways and the pain, as a London-based study showed, can range from a nagging discomfort to the severity of a heart attack. And isnt the argument that more sick leaves be given to women beside the point? If anything, it reaffirms the taboo around menstruation and the cultural prejudice to keep it a secret. Women should be able to have the choice of taking a day off when they have excruciating pain, and assert that it is menstrual leave. The idea should become so common and female biology so demystified that seeking an FOP is met with a shrug, not a raised eyebrow. Legal View In countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines, there are legislations that either enable or mandate menstrual leave. In the Philippines, the law entitles female employees to one days menstrual leave per month. An employer who denies this benefit is liable to pay a fine or can be imprisoned. Niharika Hema Raj, High Court advocate, said, it is important that India set an example for the world. Such a provision can be brought in through an amendment to existing labour laws, she said. Teachers View Sonamika Ray, headmistress, Capital High School, Bhubaneswar Onset of menstruation is usually noticed in girls studying in Class VII. While a handful of them have prior knowledge of periods, many are unaware. We cater to several slum localities. Our childrens mothers are mostly daily-wagers who do not have the time to explain to them what menstruation is. Hence, we hold orientation classes for girls of Class VII. We explain to them that menstruation is normal. We tell them about sanitary napkins and about the body aches associated with the first day of period. But the problem in co-education schools is that there are fewer girls and they feel shy to discuss menstruation. Doctors View Dr Gayathri Kamath, gynaecologist, Fortis Hospital I dont think leave from work is required during menstruation. Women with medical conditions like fibroids or endometriosis have severe pain and hence they may want to avail it. I think a woman should take it in her stride to work during periods. There is no reason for a normal physiological function to be considered a sickness.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: The political crisis in Nagaland is far from over. Eleven MLAs  10 of them from the Naga Peoples Front (NPF) and an Independent will move the Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court to get the issue of the NPF chief whip cleared. All of them are loyal to ousted chief minister Shurhozelie Liezietsu. After being appointed as the CM following the dismissal of Liezietsu by governor PB Acharya, TR Zeliang had on July 21 proved his majority on the floor of the House by winning the trust vote 47-11. Thirty six of the 47 NPF MLAs, besides four BJP and seven Independent legislators, had voted in his favour.

The NPF insisted that as per rules, Assembly Speaker Imtiwapang Aier should have disqualified the 36 NPF MLAs, who had backed Zeliang, as the party had decided the whip ahead of the floor test.

The NPF appointed Kiyanilie Peseyie as the chief whip in 2014 and he has been holding the post ever since. That appointment is still valid in the Assembly. It hasnt been withdrawn or revoked either by the party or the Assembly. Then, TR Zeliang appointed himself as the chief whip of the NPF Legislature Party but it has to be done by the party, not the legislature party, former Speaker Chotisuh Sazo, who is one of the MLAs left with Liezietsu, told the New Indian Express on Monday.

He said the Speaker had not given any clear indication as to which one was the real whip. One cannot have two whips in one Assembly for one party, Sazo pointed out. The tenth schedule of the Constitution (anti-defection law), Para 2 1(b) says that it is the political party which is to give direction (about whip) but not the legislature party.

The NPF constitution Article V Clause 10 says the (party) president has to authorise one person for issuing ordinance to all its members within the legislature wing. All these rules authorise the party chief whip to issue whip in the Assembly, Sazo argued.

He said the 11 lawmakers were taking legal recourse as the issue of two leaders, which came up in the House, needed to be cleared by the court. He added that the MLAs had asked the Speaker for clarity on the issue but the latter did not follow up on it.

Asked about when they will move the court, Sazo said, The MLAs are in touch with the lawyer and the case may be filed today (Monday) itself.

Zeliang was expelled by the NPF for six years 15 minutes after being sworn in. Later, 19 other MLAs were expelled and 10 others suspended by the party.

GUWAHATI: The political crisis in Nagaland is far from over. Eleven MLAs  10 of them from the Naga Peoples Front (NPF) and an Independent will move the Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court to get the issue of the NPF chief whip cleared. All of them are loyal to ousted chief minister Shurhozelie Liezietsu. After being appointed as the CM following the dismissal of Liezietsu by governor PB Acharya, TR Zeliang had on July 21 proved his majority on the floor of the House by winning the trust vote 47-11. Thirty six of the 47 NPF MLAs, besides four BJP and seven Independent legislators, had voted in his favour. The NPF insisted that as per rules, Assembly Speaker Imtiwapang Aier should have disqualified the 36 NPF MLAs, who had backed Zeliang, as the party had decided the whip ahead of the floor test. The NPF appointed Kiyanilie Peseyie as the chief whip in 2014 and he has been holding the post ever since. That appointment is still valid in the Assembly. It hasnt been withdrawn or revoked either by the party or the Assembly. Then, TR Zeliang appointed himself as the chief whip of the NPF Legislature Party but it has to be done by the party, not the legislature party, former Speaker Chotisuh Sazo, who is one of the MLAs left with Liezietsu, told the New Indian Express on Monday. He said the Speaker had not given any clear indication as to which one was the real whip. One cannot have two whips in one Assembly for one party, Sazo pointed out. The tenth schedule of the Constitution (anti-defection law), Para 2 1(b) says that it is the political party which is to give direction (about whip) but not the legislature party. The NPF constitution Article V Clause 10 says the (party) president has to authorise one person for issuing ordinance to all its members within the legislature wing. All these rules authorise the party chief whip to issue whip in the Assembly, Sazo argued. He said the 11 lawmakers were taking legal recourse as the issue of two leaders, which came up in the House, needed to be cleared by the court. He added that the MLAs had asked the Speaker for clarity on the issue but the latter did not follow up on it. Asked about when they will move the court, Sazo said, The MLAs are in touch with the lawyer and the case may be filed today (Monday) itself. Zeliang was expelled by the NPF for six years 15 minutes after being sworn in. Later, 19 other MLAs were expelled and 10 others suspended by the party.
Anand ST Das By

Express News Service

PATNA: The district magistrate of Aurangabad district found himself in the middle of a controversy when a video clip widely circulated on Sunday showed him asking an audience of villagers to sell their wives if they have no money to build toilets at home.

Kanwal Tanuj, a 2010-batch IAS officer, was apparently incensed when during a motivational speech he was delivering before hundreds of villagers, someone in the audience shouted that he did not have the money to build a toilet.

If that is the case, then go and sell your wife. If this is the mentality you have, then go and sell your wife, Tanuj was heard retorting angrily. Sources said the incident took place at an event by the district administration on Friday to promote Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in a village populated mostly by Mahadalit villagers.

Before making the statement, Tanuj was heard explaining at length the need for toilets at home and the campaigns run by both the Centre and the state to make villages open defecation free (ODF). Likening the presence of a toilet to a desire to protect the dignity of women, he said many women in villages were getting raped due to the absence of toilets at home.

Save the dignity of your women if you can. How poor are you? Raise your hands and tell me if the value of your wife is lower than Rs 12,000, he said, referring to the amount the government pays for each toilet. Which man would say, Take the dignity of my wife and give me Rs 12,000? he asked.

While his remarks drew sharp criticism from various sections, Tanuj told The New Indian Express that a small portion of his long speech was being cited by vested interests with an ulterior motive.

We are organising camps in every panchayat to promote toilet construction. Most people claim they do not have the money and want advances. I explained to them why toilets are necessary, and I did not say anything objectionable as being claimed, said Tanuj.

Bihar is among the most laggard states in toilet construction despite sanitation being one of CM Nitish Kumars seven resolves. Bihars ODF coverage currently remains a lowly 31 per cent, showing marginal rise from 22 per cent in October 2014, when the scheme was launched. Only six per cent of Bihars villages have become ODF, and no district has been declared ODF yet. The state government is likely to declare two districts  Sitamarhi and Rohtas  as the first two ODF districts later this month.

PATNA: The district magistrate of Aurangabad district found himself in the middle of a controversy when a video clip widely circulated on Sunday showed him asking an audience of villagers to sell their wives if they have no money to build toilets at home. Kanwal Tanuj, a 2010-batch IAS officer, was apparently incensed when during a motivational speech he was delivering before hundreds of villagers, someone in the audience shouted that he did not have the money to build a toilet. If that is the case, then go and sell your wife. If this is the mentality you have, then go and sell your wife, Tanuj was heard retorting angrily. Sources said the incident took place at an event by the district administration on Friday to promote Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in a village populated mostly by Mahadalit villagers. Before making the statement, Tanuj was heard explaining at length the need for toilets at home and the campaigns run by both the Centre and the state to make villages open defecation free (ODF). Likening the presence of a toilet to a desire to protect the dignity of women, he said many women in villages were getting raped due to the absence of toilets at home. Save the dignity of your women if you can. How poor are you? Raise your hands and tell me if the value of your wife is lower than Rs 12,000, he said, referring to the amount the government pays for each toilet. Which man would say, Take the dignity of my wife and give me Rs 12,000? he asked. While his remarks drew sharp criticism from various sections, Tanuj told The New Indian Express that a small portion of his long speech was being cited by vested interests with an ulterior motive. We are organising camps in every panchayat to promote toilet construction. Most people claim they do not have the money and want advances. I explained to them why toilets are necessary, and I did not say anything objectionable as being claimed, said Tanuj. Bihar is among the most laggard states in toilet construction despite sanitation being one of CM Nitish Kumars seven resolves. Bihars ODF coverage currently remains a lowly 31 per cent, showing marginal rise from 22 per cent in October 2014, when the scheme was launched. Only six per cent of Bihars villages have become ODF, and no district has been declared ODF yet. The state government is likely to declare two districts  Sitamarhi and Rohtas  as the first two ODF districts later this month.
Aishik Chanda By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: Large parts of southern West Bengal have been inundated due to incessant rains over the last 72 hours and have claimed the lives of three persons and rendered thousands of people homeless.

While breaking of a barrage over Kuye river in Birbhum district resulted in the death of a Satabdi Bajikar, another person, Arnab Chattterjee of Birbhum died by drowning into a well which was under water. The third person died of electrocution in Kolkata when he tried to switch on a fan at his residence after being completely drenched in rains.

The administrations in the western districts of Purba and Paschim Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly, Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and Paschim and Purba Medinipur have been asked to remain on alert and open a few relief centres to provide food and shelter to the victims.

The situation has become grave after all major barrages and dams over Damodar river, also known as 'sorrow of Bengal', opened its flood gates due to heavy rainfall in neighbouring Jharkhand. While Panchet Dam released 18,000 cusecs of water, Maithon Dam released 2,000 cusecs and Galudih barrage released 17,000 cusecs of water.

Though Birbhum district had been the most affected with at least 10 villages going under the water due to the collapse of Kuye barrage, the situation became slight better due to lesser rains in the district on Monday.

However, heavy rainfall in neighbouring Jharkhand could lead to the release of water from Masanjore barrage which could lead to inundation of large parts of the area in the district.

On the other hand, while Chotanagpur plateau region in Jhargram and Bankura districts received heavy rainfall on Monday leading to major rivers Shilabati, Kangsabati and Dwarakeswar flowing above the danger levels, low-lying areas in the border of Paschim Medinipur and Hooghly districts have been cut-off leading to deployment of boats in Keshpur, Ghatal, Daspur, Khirpai and Arambag areas of the two districts. Fishermen in coastal areas of the state in Purba Medinipur district have been warned against venturing into the sea over the next 48 hours.

However, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee refused to sound flood alert in the state.

"Some districts are under the water due to heavy rains in the state and neighbouring Jharkhand, but situation is under control. However, if rain continues over the next 24 hours, the situation may become grave," she told media men before leaving for Delhi to attend the swear-in ceremony of President Ram Nath Kovind.

The meteorological department has said that the rains will continue with the same intensity over the next 24 hours.

"Rainfall is not likely to increase. While Bankura registered the highest rainfall yesterday at 227 mm, Lalgarh in Jhargram district received the most rainfall on Monday at 170 mm. The rains are being caused due to depression that is centred over low-lying areas of Gangetic south Bengal and over Jharkhand," MET department director G K Das told New Indian Express.

KOLKATA: Large parts of southern West Bengal have been inundated due to incessant rains over the last 72 hours and have claimed the lives of three persons and rendered thousands of people homeless. While breaking of a barrage over Kuye river in Birbhum district resulted in the death of a Satabdi Bajikar, another person, Arnab Chattterjee of Birbhum died by drowning into a well which was under water. The third person died of electrocution in Kolkata when he tried to switch on a fan at his residence after being completely drenched in rains. The administrations in the western districts of Purba and Paschim Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly, Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and Paschim and Purba Medinipur have been asked to remain on alert and open a few relief centres to provide food and shelter to the victims. The situation has become grave after all major barrages and dams over Damodar river, also known as 'sorrow of Bengal', opened its flood gates due to heavy rainfall in neighbouring Jharkhand. While Panchet Dam released 18,000 cusecs of water, Maithon Dam released 2,000 cusecs and Galudih barrage released 17,000 cusecs of water. Though Birbhum district had been the most affected with at least 10 villages going under the water due to the collapse of Kuye barrage, the situation became slight better due to lesser rains in the district on Monday. However, heavy rainfall in neighbouring Jharkhand could lead to the release of water from Masanjore barrage which could lead to inundation of large parts of the area in the district. On the other hand, while Chotanagpur plateau region in Jhargram and Bankura districts received heavy rainfall on Monday leading to major rivers Shilabati, Kangsabati and Dwarakeswar flowing above the danger levels, low-lying areas in the border of Paschim Medinipur and Hooghly districts have been cut-off leading to deployment of boats in Keshpur, Ghatal, Daspur, Khirpai and Arambag areas of the two districts. Fishermen in coastal areas of the state in Purba Medinipur district have been warned against venturing into the sea over the next 48 hours. However, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee refused to sound flood alert in the state. "Some districts are under the water due to heavy rains in the state and neighbouring Jharkhand, but situation is under control. However, if rain continues over the next 24 hours, the situation may become grave," she told media men before leaving for Delhi to attend the swear-in ceremony of President Ram Nath Kovind. The meteorological department has said that the rains will continue with the same intensity over the next 24 hours. "Rainfall is not likely to increase. While Bankura registered the highest rainfall yesterday at 227 mm, Lalgarh in Jhargram district received the most rainfall on Monday at 170 mm. The rains are being caused due to depression that is centred over low-lying areas of Gangetic south Bengal and over Jharkhand," MET department director G K Das told New Indian Express.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Members of the TMC and AIADMK in the Rajya Sabha today expressed grave concern over the issue of different questions papers being given to students attempting the common medical entrance examination in regional languages in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Derek O'Brien (TMC) said till 2013, the English question paper for medical entrance examination, NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), used to be translated into regional languages.

But this year, those attempting NEET in Bengali or Tamil got question papers that were entirely different, he said, adding that 40,000 of the 56,000 students who wrote the exam in Bengali or Tamil had "disastrous" results.

He also raised the issue of a report that NCERT wants Rabindranath Tagore out of school textbooks.

The HRD Ministry has a lot to explain on the issue, he said.

"NEET exam is not a West Bengal issue. It is a federal issue," he said.

He was joined by AIADMK members who demanded scrapping the applicability of NEET to Tamil Nadu.

A Navaneethakrishnan (AIADMK) said a uniform NEET syllabus should be introduced first.

Both TMC and AIADMK members wanted the government to respond, but with no word coming from treasury benches, they rushed into the Well of the House raising anti-NEET slogans.

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said he had allowed Drek O'Brien to speak because he had given a notice under rule 267 that seeks suspension of listed business to take up discussion on the issue, and allowed the AIADMK members to mention and the issue has been understood.

"Now go back to your seats," he said.

Reacting to the issue, Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said the issue was under examination of the government.

"We are looking into the matter," he said.

Members then returned to their places and the House resumed normal functioning thereafter.

NEW DELHI: Members of the TMC and AIADMK in the Rajya Sabha today expressed grave concern over the issue of different questions papers being given to students attempting the common medical entrance examination in regional languages in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Derek O'Brien (TMC) said till 2013, the English question paper for medical entrance examination, NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test), used to be translated into regional languages. But this year, those attempting NEET in Bengali or Tamil got question papers that were entirely different, he said, adding that 40,000 of the 56,000 students who wrote the exam in Bengali or Tamil had "disastrous" results. He also raised the issue of a report that NCERT wants Rabindranath Tagore out of school textbooks. The HRD Ministry has a lot to explain on the issue, he said. "NEET exam is not a West Bengal issue. It is a federal issue," he said. He was joined by AIADMK members who demanded scrapping the applicability of NEET to Tamil Nadu. A Navaneethakrishnan (AIADMK) said a uniform NEET syllabus should be introduced first. Both TMC and AIADMK members wanted the government to respond, but with no word coming from treasury benches, they rushed into the Well of the House raising anti-NEET slogans. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said he had allowed Drek O'Brien to speak because he had given a notice under rule 267 that seeks suspension of listed business to take up discussion on the issue, and allowed the AIADMK members to mention and the issue has been understood. "Now go back to your seats," he said. Reacting to the issue, Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said the issue was under examination of the government. "We are looking into the matter," he said. Members then returned to their places and the House resumed normal functioning thereafter.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee emphasised on the need for pluralism and tolerance on Monday in his last televised address to the nation as the President. Mukherjee said the soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance and urged citizens to free public discourse from violence.

What appeared to be a reference to increased incidents of lynching in the name of cow vigilantism and the recent violence in West Bengal, the President said there was need for more compassion and empathy as these are the true foundation of the countrys civilisation.

He asserted that the country derived its strength from tolerance. Multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special. The 81-year old, however, added, But everyday, we see increased violence around us. At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust. We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal. The veteran politician stressed that the power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society.

The President also reminded the people of Mahatma Gandhis philosophy, and said the creation of an inclusive society had to be an article of faith. We may argue, we may agree or we may not agree. But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion. Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away, he said.

Mukherjee also advocated for the poorest sections of the society and said that not only a non-violent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people, especially the maginalised and the dispossessed, in the democratic process.

Mukherjee, a former lecturer who has often assumed the role of a teacher during his visits within and outside the country, spoke about education, which he called the alchemy that could take India to its next golden age. The President called for upgradation of higher educational institutions to world-class levels. Mukherjee, who will demit office on Tuesday, also stressed on the need for protecting the environment. He said nature had been kind in its bounty but cautioned that when greed exceeds need, nature lets loose its fury.

Mukherjee, who will hand over the baton to Ram Nath Kovind, said he had tried to spread happiness to a few villages in the neighbourhood in the last five years. Summing up his five years at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, he said, We tried to build a humane and happy township.

NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee emphasised on the need for pluralism and tolerance on Monday in his last televised address to the nation as the President. Mukherjee said the soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance and urged citizens to free public discourse from violence. What appeared to be a reference to increased incidents of lynching in the name of cow vigilantism and the recent violence in West Bengal, the President said there was need for more compassion and empathy as these are the true foundation of the countrys civilisation. He asserted that the country derived its strength from tolerance. Multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special. The 81-year old, however, added, But everyday, we see increased violence around us. At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust. We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal. The veteran politician stressed that the power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society. The President also reminded the people of Mahatma Gandhis philosophy, and said the creation of an inclusive society had to be an article of faith. We may argue, we may agree or we may not agree. But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion. Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away, he said. Mukherjee also advocated for the poorest sections of the society and said that not only a non-violent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people, especially the maginalised and the dispossessed, in the democratic process. Mukherjee, a former lecturer who has often assumed the role of a teacher during his visits within and outside the country, spoke about education, which he called the alchemy that could take India to its next golden age. The President called for upgradation of higher educational institutions to world-class levels. Mukherjee, who will demit office on Tuesday, also stressed on the need for protecting the environment. He said nature had been kind in its bounty but cautioned that when greed exceeds need, nature lets loose its fury. Mukherjee, who will hand over the baton to Ram Nath Kovind, said he had tried to spread happiness to a few villages in the neighbourhood in the last five years. Summing up his five years at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, he said, We tried to build a humane and happy township.
S N M Abdi By

Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately send thank you notes to two womenMehbooba Mufti and Mamata Banerjee. They are openly talking about Chinas subversion in Jammu & Kashmir and West Bengal. These brave daughters of India must be complimented for sounding a timely alarm over Chinas lethal plans. A million thanks to Banerjee for warning us that China will grab Sikkim and the Siliguri corridor cutting off the Northeast from the mainland. Foreign policy and defence are central subjects but the border states are important stakeholders. So kudos to both CMs for shining a torch on the big threat China poses to Indias territorial integrity and internal security.

But talking is one thing and doing is another. The onus of taking action to stop China in its tracksand if necessary take the battle into Chinese territoryis on the prime minister. In the current scenario, Modis actions should speak louder than anyones words. Constitutionally, the president is the commander-in-chief of our armed forces. But thats merely on paper; in reality, waging war is the prime ministers business. Beijing is belligerently calling for Indian soldiers to retreat from the Doklam plateau at the China-India-Bhutan tri-junction.

The Chinese calculation is that India will blink and wave a white flag. Instead, Modi must tell Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly that our troops wont back off. Period.

If this leads to a localised conflict which snowballs into a full-blown war, so be it. Im not being facetious. Now is Indias opportunity to avenge the humiliation of 1962and this golden opportunity has come after living for 55 long years in the shadow of a crushing defeat. Thankfully, Modi has all the requisites of a good wartime prime minister ranging from oratory skills to enjoying the nations confidence.

No individual or clique pose a challenge to his political or moral authority. Modi has a handpicked defence minister in Arun Jaitley. Similarly, the Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat has been selected personally and with great care by Modi himself. There are no doubts about Jaitleys or Rawats loyalty and commitment to the PM. Modi can also count on the RSS and the media to rally the whole country behind him when body bags start arriving in Delhi and Deoband, Mumbai and Muzaffarpur, Kolkata and Kodaikanal, even as we inflict high casualties on the enemy on land and

at sea.

We have defeated and humiliated Pakistan thrice since 1947. Each time it took us on, it got a licking. We even dismembered it in 1971 and took thousands of prisoners of war! The whole world knows that Pakistan is no match for India despite having nuclear arms. But its high time we dealt decisively with Chinathe country which George Fernandes, defence minister in NDA 1, branded as Indias enemy No. 1. And Atal Bihari Vajpayee cited China as the main reason for Indias 1998 nuclear tests in a memo to Bill Clinton. There is no better time than now to punch China so hard in the Himalayas as well as in the Indian Ocean that it stops taunting us about 1962.

If we go to war, we can bank on the US and Japan to back us not only in their own interest but because of Modis personal equation with Donald Trump and Shinzo Abean unspoken camaraderie that even Modis worst critics admit in private.

In an earlier piece, India, stay away from Shanghai, published in TNIE on 29 May, 2017, I had questioned the wisdom of India joining the China-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Today I stand vindicated because its common knowledge now that even as Xi was welcoming Modi into SCO at Astana, Kazakhstan, on June 8, the Peoples Liberation Army was sneaking into the Doklam plateau where the borders of China, India and Bhutan intersect. Chinas advance into whats essentially Bhutans territory came to light on June 16 when the Royal Bhutan Army sought Indias help to push back the PLA. As New Delhi is bound by a treaty to back Bhutan militarily, the Indian Army came to Bhutans aid resulting in the month-long India-China stand-off on the soil of a third country.

And to let you into a well-known secret, the Doklam plateauwhich China wants to snatch from Bhutan for overarching military advantage over India is so critical for Indias security as it overlooks the Siliguri corridor that we are even ready to buy it from Bhutan! Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch bluntly wrote in the journal Centre for Land Warfare Studies in 2013 that the King of Bhutan may consider selling the Doklam plateau to India so that this bone of contention is resolved permanently. His logic for outright purchase was that India would get what it wants and Bhutan wouldnt have to withstand Chinas pressure after the sale. Thimpu exploded in anger at the offer. But Katoch obviously had Indias strategic and defence interests uppermost in his mind.

When Indias national security hinges on Doklam, can we afford to give in to Chinas threats and meekly withdraw our forces? Modi should pay heed to Mulayam Singhs advice not to buckle down but to stand up to China. I respect Singh because he ordered a series of surgical strikes against Pakistan while he was the defence minister but cleverly kept them under wraps.

Even before the first shot is fired at the India-China border, Modi must order Indians to make a bonfire of Chinese products. The leaping flames will make Beijing realise that India is no longer afraid of China. And lastly, if Trump dithers when we need the US by our side, Modi should immediately cancel orders India has placed for drones, planes and nuclear reactors worth billions of dollars amid hugs and handshakes. India must tell the world that there is no room for neutrality in the war against China.

S N M Abdi

An award-winning journalist and commentator based in Kolkata

Email: snmabdi@yahoo.com

Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately send thank you notes to two womenMehbooba Mufti and Mamata Banerjee. They are openly talking about Chinas subversion in Jammu & Kashmir and West Bengal. These brave daughters of India must be complimented for sounding a timely alarm over Chinas lethal plans. A million thanks to Banerjee for warning us that China will grab Sikkim and the Siliguri corridor cutting off the Northeast from the mainland. Foreign policy and defence are central subjects but the border states are important stakeholders. So kudos to both CMs for shining a torch on the big threat China poses to Indias territorial integrity and internal security. But talking is one thing and doing is another. The onus of taking action to stop China in its tracksand if necessary take the battle into Chinese territoryis on the prime minister. In the current scenario, Modis actions should speak louder than anyones words. Constitutionally, the president is the commander-in-chief of our armed forces. But thats merely on paper; in reality, waging war is the prime ministers business. Beijing is belligerently calling for Indian soldiers to retreat from the Doklam plateau at the China-India-Bhutan tri-junction. The Chinese calculation is that India will blink and wave a white flag. Instead, Modi must tell Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly that our troops wont back off. Period. If this leads to a localised conflict which snowballs into a full-blown war, so be it. Im not being facetious. Now is Indias opportunity to avenge the humiliation of 1962and this golden opportunity has come after living for 55 long years in the shadow of a crushing defeat. Thankfully, Modi has all the requisites of a good wartime prime minister ranging from oratory skills to enjoying the nations confidence. No individual or clique pose a challenge to his political or moral authority. Modi has a handpicked defence minister in Arun Jaitley. Similarly, the Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat has been selected personally and with great care by Modi himself. There are no doubts about Jaitleys or Rawats loyalty and commitment to the PM. Modi can also count on the RSS and the media to rally the whole country behind him when body bags start arriving in Delhi and Deoband, Mumbai and Muzaffarpur, Kolkata and Kodaikanal, even as we inflict high casualties on the enemy on land and at sea. We have defeated and humiliated Pakistan thrice since 1947. Each time it took us on, it got a licking. We even dismembered it in 1971 and took thousands of prisoners of war! The whole world knows that Pakistan is no match for India despite having nuclear arms. But its high time we dealt decisively with Chinathe country which George Fernandes, defence minister in NDA 1, branded as Indias enemy No. 1. And Atal Bihari Vajpayee cited China as the main reason for Indias 1998 nuclear tests in a memo to Bill Clinton. There is no better time than now to punch China so hard in the Himalayas as well as in the Indian Ocean that it stops taunting us about 1962. If we go to war, we can bank on the US and Japan to back us not only in their own interest but because of Modis personal equation with Donald Trump and Shinzo Abean unspoken camaraderie that even Modis worst critics admit in private. In an earlier piece, India, stay away from Shanghai, published in TNIE on 29 May, 2017, I had questioned the wisdom of India joining the China-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Today I stand vindicated because its common knowledge now that even as Xi was welcoming Modi into SCO at Astana, Kazakhstan, on June 8, the Peoples Liberation Army was sneaking into the Doklam plateau where the borders of China, India and Bhutan intersect. Chinas advance into whats essentially Bhutans territory came to light on June 16 when the Royal Bhutan Army sought Indias help to push back the PLA. As New Delhi is bound by a treaty to back Bhutan militarily, the Indian Army came to Bhutans aid resulting in the month-long India-China stand-off on the soil of a third country. And to let you into a well-known secret, the Doklam plateauwhich China wants to snatch from Bhutan for overarching military advantage over India is so critical for Indias security as it overlooks the Siliguri corridor that we are even ready to buy it from Bhutan! Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch bluntly wrote in the journal Centre for Land Warfare Studies in 2013 that the King of Bhutan may consider selling the Doklam plateau to India so that this bone of contention is resolved permanently. His logic for outright purchase was that India would get what it wants and Bhutan wouldnt have to withstand Chinas pressure after the sale. Thimpu exploded in anger at the offer. But Katoch obviously had Indias strategic and defence interests uppermost in his mind. When Indias national security hinges on Doklam, can we afford to give in to Chinas threats and meekly withdraw our forces? Modi should pay heed to Mulayam Singhs advice not to buckle down but to stand up to China. I respect Singh because he ordered a series of surgical strikes against Pakistan while he was the defence minister but cleverly kept them under wraps. Even before the first shot is fired at the India-China border, Modi must order Indians to make a bonfire of Chinese products. The leaping flames will make Beijing realise that India is no longer afraid of China. And lastly, if Trump dithers when we need the US by our side, Modi should immediately cancel orders India has placed for drones, planes and nuclear reactors worth billions of dollars amid hugs and handshakes. India must tell the world that there is no room for neutrality in the war against China. S N M Abdi An award-winning journalist and commentator based in Kolkata Email: snmabdi@yahoo.com
Anil S By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: June 2015. Campaigning for the Aruvikkara byelection - necessitated by sitting MLA G Karthikeyans untimely demise - was on. Fresh out of the budget bedlam in the Assembly, a resolute LDF was leaving no stones unturned to make it happen. Kick-starting the poll campaign at Aryanad, the then Opposition LDF had an array of political titans seated on the dais.

Prominent names like CPM state chief Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPI state chief Kanam Rajendran, R Balakrishna Pillai, Vaikom Viswan, M V Jayarajan and M V Govindan. But for the sizeable crowd which gathered there, it was a short man who left an indelible impression on their minds.

An unassuming leader, Uzhavoor chose not to attack political adversaries with a barrage of allegations, but had them laughing almost hysterically. With biting satire and witty remarks, he connected well with the masses. It was BJP candidate O Rajagopal who was at the receiving end of his Aruvikkara speech. He solemnly called for action against the saffron party for torture of a senior citizen, by fielding him in elections repeatedly. A crowd-puller in the fullest sense of the word, Uzhavoor was considered the LDFs warhorse for both defence and offence. His satirical take on issues worked to the Lefts advantage, especially in times of crisis.

He was a true champion of secularism and stood with the LDF like a rock, according to senior CPI leader Pannian Raveendran. The NCP made a mark in recent Kerala politics only because of Uzhavoor. While major political debates raged in the presence of political stalwarts like V S Achuthanandan, it was Uzhavoor who used to come up with rare gems of humour. With just a remark here, a slight gesture there, a hilarious observation, he used to lighten the atmosphere, prompting a smile, said Pannian, whose shared close ties with Uzhavoor for well over 25 years.

Crisis always brought out the best in him as evidenced by the damage control exercise undertaken following NCP nominee A K Saseendrans sudden ouster from the Pinarayi Cabinet. As reports of a schism within the state NCP over Saseendrans replacement emerged, Vijayan remained unruffled.

 Im sure Pinarayi Vijayan takes a call on the NCP ministership as per my word. But why should I proclaim it? If they feel happy with such statements, let them be!, Uzhavoor had told Express at the time.

NCP leader A K Saseendran consoles KC (M) chairman K M Mani MLA who broke down as he paid homage to Uzhavoor Vijayan in Kottayam on Sunday.

His oratorical skills - much like those of the inimitable E K Nayanar, Lonappan Nambadan and T K Hamza - enabled Uzhavoor to carve out a niche for himself in Kerala politics and he seldom missed an opportunity to take a dig at his political adversaries.

Serious political debates were abridged in simple satire doled out humorously, prompting the audience to eagerly await him at every gathering. None of his sarcastic comments were however aimed at hurting the opponents. Instead these were salvos for the masses to enjoy a laugh. Though he was never stingy with his criticism, he never had any political foes. Even those, who were being criticised, enjoyed it. Just a hilarious mention of cinema which touched upon all aspects of social life could have the audience in splits.

The Laughing riot

His was a style that made even CPM strongman Pinarayi Vijayan laugh uncontrollably, when he compared Pinarayi to Pulimurugan, the larger-than-life character essayed by Mohanlal in the eponymous blockbuster.

Criticising the Oommen Chandy Governments liquor policy, Uzhavoor said, While the Modi Government is implementing Ghar Wapsi, the Chandy Government is going forBar Wapsi.

Hundreds pay tributes

Hundreds paid last respects to Uzhavoor Vijayan at Thirunakkara grounds in Kottayam,including ministers K Raju, Mathew T Thomas, former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Kerala Congress leader K M Mani and CSI Moderator Bishop Thomas K Oommen.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: June 2015. Campaigning for the Aruvikkara byelection - necessitated by sitting MLA G Karthikeyans untimely demise - was on. Fresh out of the budget bedlam in the Assembly, a resolute LDF was leaving no stones unturned to make it happen. Kick-starting the poll campaign at Aryanad, the then Opposition LDF had an array of political titans seated on the dais. Prominent names like CPM state chief Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPI state chief Kanam Rajendran, R Balakrishna Pillai, Vaikom Viswan, M V Jayarajan and M V Govindan. But for the sizeable crowd which gathered there, it was a short man who left an indelible impression on their minds. An unassuming leader, Uzhavoor chose not to attack political adversaries with a barrage of allegations, but had them laughing almost hysterically. With biting satire and witty remarks, he connected well with the masses. It was BJP candidate O Rajagopal who was at the receiving end of his Aruvikkara speech. He solemnly called for action against the saffron party for torture of a senior citizen, by fielding him in elections repeatedly. A crowd-puller in the fullest sense of the word, Uzhavoor was considered the LDFs warhorse for both defence and offence. His satirical take on issues worked to the Lefts advantage, especially in times of crisis. He was a true champion of secularism and stood with the LDF like a rock, according to senior CPI leader Pannian Raveendran. The NCP made a mark in recent Kerala politics only because of Uzhavoor. While major political debates raged in the presence of political stalwarts like V S Achuthanandan, it was Uzhavoor who used to come up with rare gems of humour. With just a remark here, a slight gesture there, a hilarious observation, he used to lighten the atmosphere, prompting a smile, said Pannian, whose shared close ties with Uzhavoor for well over 25 years. Crisis always brought out the best in him as evidenced by the damage control exercise undertaken following NCP nominee A K Saseendrans sudden ouster from the Pinarayi Cabinet. As reports of a schism within the state NCP over Saseendrans replacement emerged, Vijayan remained unruffled.  Im sure Pinarayi Vijayan takes a call on the NCP ministership as per my word. But why should I proclaim it? If they feel happy with such statements, let them be!, Uzhavoor had told Express at the time. NCP leader A K Saseendran consoles KC (M) chairman K M Mani MLA who broke down as he paid homage to Uzhavoor Vijayan in Kottayam on Sunday. His oratorical skills - much like those of the inimitable E K Nayanar, Lonappan Nambadan and T K Hamza - enabled Uzhavoor to carve out a niche for himself in Kerala politics and he seldom missed an opportunity to take a dig at his political adversaries. Serious political debates were abridged in simple satire doled out humorously, prompting the audience to eagerly await him at every gathering. None of his sarcastic comments were however aimed at hurting the opponents. Instead these were salvos for the masses to enjoy a laugh. Though he was never stingy with his criticism, he never had any political foes. Even those, who were being criticised, enjoyed it. Just a hilarious mention of cinema which touched upon all aspects of social life could have the audience in splits. The Laughing riot His was a style that made even CPM strongman Pinarayi Vijayan laugh uncontrollably, when he compared Pinarayi to Pulimurugan, the larger-than-life character essayed by Mohanlal in the eponymous blockbuster. Criticising the Oommen Chandy Governments liquor policy, Uzhavoor said, While the Modi Government is implementing Ghar Wapsi, the Chandy Government is going forBar Wapsi. Hundreds pay tributes Hundreds paid last respects to Uzhavoor Vijayan at Thirunakkara grounds in Kottayam,including ministers K Raju, Mathew T Thomas, former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Kerala Congress leader K M Mani and CSI Moderator Bishop Thomas K Oommen.
By Express News Service

RAMANATHAPURAM: A 65-year-old Pakistani national, who was staying in Ervadi without proper documents, was arrested on Sunday. The man identified as Mohammed Yunus, from Karachi, was arrested from a lodge.

The arrest comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Rameswaram to inaugurate a memorial for former president late A P J Abdul Kalam on July 27.

According to the police, based on a tip-off that a suspicious man was staying at a lodge, they rushed to the spot and conducted an investigation.

During a probe, the man claimed that his name was Kasim Bai and he had come from Sri Lanka, but during a search the police found currency notes from various countries and proof that he had visited places like Mumbai and Rajasthan.

It further came to light that he was using fake Aadhaar cards with Ervadi and a place in Bihar as addresses. He also did not have a passport with him. Based on the findings, the police informed the Q branch, which identified him as Mohammed Yunus, from Karachi.

Yunus came to Ervadi for smuggling drugs and met dealers in Sri Lanka in April. With the help of those dealers, he came to Tamil Nadu by boat and travelled to Ahmedabad.

Yunus had been staying in Ervadi for around two months and was planning to return to Sri Lanka.

It also came to light that Abdul Aziz (26) and Syed Abudhakir (23) from Erwadi helped Yunus come to India.

The police arrested all the three on Sunday, but no drugs was recovered.

They were then produced before a court in Paramakudi and remanded under judicial custody.

Yunus was taken to the Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai and the other two to Ramanathapuram Jail.

Inquiry is on to find out if the trio are Pakistani spies.

Prime Minister Modi will arrive in Mandapam in a helicopter and will go to Peikarumbu, which is 15 km away, from here.

RAMANATHAPURAM: A 65-year-old Pakistani national, who was staying in Ervadi without proper documents, was arrested on Sunday. The man identified as Mohammed Yunus, from Karachi, was arrested from a lodge. The arrest comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Rameswaram to inaugurate a memorial for former president late A P J Abdul Kalam on July 27. According to the police, based on a tip-off that a suspicious man was staying at a lodge, they rushed to the spot and conducted an investigation. During a probe, the man claimed that his name was Kasim Bai and he had come from Sri Lanka, but during a search the police found currency notes from various countries and proof that he had visited places like Mumbai and Rajasthan. It further came to light that he was using fake Aadhaar cards with Ervadi and a place in Bihar as addresses. He also did not have a passport with him. Based on the findings, the police informed the Q branch, which identified him as Mohammed Yunus, from Karachi. Yunus came to Ervadi for smuggling drugs and met dealers in Sri Lanka in April. With the help of those dealers, he came to Tamil Nadu by boat and travelled to Ahmedabad. Yunus had been staying in Ervadi for around two months and was planning to return to Sri Lanka. It also came to light that Abdul Aziz (26) and Syed Abudhakir (23) from Erwadi helped Yunus come to India. The police arrested all the three on Sunday, but no drugs was recovered. They were then produced before a court in Paramakudi and remanded under judicial custody. Yunus was taken to the Puzhal Central Prison in Chennai and the other two to Ramanathapuram Jail. Inquiry is on to find out if the trio are Pakistani spies. Prime Minister Modi will arrive in Mandapam in a helicopter and will go to Peikarumbu, which is 15 km away, from here.
By AFP

KABUL: At least 35 people were killed when the Taliban attacked a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend, a presidential spokesman said Monday.

"When the Taliban entered the hospital they killed 35, all civilians," spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. "This is a cruel crime against humanity."

He did not elaborate, but unconfirmed reports Sunday claimed that the Taliban had set the hospital alight and killed those inside.

The Taliban have denied the claim, though a spokesman said that parts of the local hospital were damaged in fighting in the area.

It came as the insurgents captured Taywara district in Ghor province after days of fighting, the latest victory by the resurgent militants.

Afghan forces control 59.7 percent of the country, according to a US watchdog's report issued in May after the winter lull in fighting, up slightly from the previous quarter.

But the insurgents have ramped up their offensive across the country since launching their so-called "spring offensive" earlier this year.

KABUL: At least 35 people were killed when the Taliban attacked a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend, a presidential spokesman said Monday. "When the Taliban entered the hospital they killed 35, all civilians," spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. "This is a cruel crime against humanity." He did not elaborate, but unconfirmed reports Sunday claimed that the Taliban had set the hospital alight and killed those inside. The Taliban have denied the claim, though a spokesman said that parts of the local hospital were damaged in fighting in the area. It came as the insurgents captured Taywara district in Ghor province after days of fighting, the latest victory by the resurgent militants. Afghan forces control 59.7 percent of the country, according to a US watchdog's report issued in May after the winter lull in fighting, up slightly from the previous quarter. But the insurgents have ramped up their offensive across the country since launching their so-called "spring offensive" earlier this year.
By Associated Press

MAIDUGURI: At least eight people are dead after female suicide bombers attacked two displaced persons camps in northeastern Nigeria's main city, a civilian self-defense group said Monday. It was the first major attack on a displaced persons camp in Maiduguri, the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist insurgency.

The attack started late Sunday night and left another 15 people wounded, spokesman Bello Danbatta with the Civilian-JTF group told The Associated Press.

The Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram often targets the city with suicide bombers and increasingly has been using female ones. Nigeria's government late last year declared the group "crushed" but dozens of such attacks have been carried out this year.

The latest bombings occurred a few days after Nigeria's army chief of staff issued a 40-day deadline for troops to flush out Boko Haram's leader and finish off the extremist group.

Danbatta said one bomber sneaked into the Dalori camp and detonated, and two other attackers exploded on or near the camp's perimeter fence. Another bomber detonated early Monday morning.

Thousands of people continue to shelter in camps after being forced from their homes by Boko Haram. The extremist group's eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, kidnapped thousands of others, spilled into neighboring countries and created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises.

Nigeria is moving closer to famine, with more than 5 million people expected to face "crisis, emergency and famine conditions" by the end of August as the lean season continues, the Norwegian Refugee Council said in a statement Monday. The unrest has disrupted farming and access to markets in the region.

MAIDUGURI: At least eight people are dead after female suicide bombers attacked two displaced persons camps in northeastern Nigeria's main city, a civilian self-defense group said Monday. It was the first major attack on a displaced persons camp in Maiduguri, the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist insurgency. The attack started late Sunday night and left another 15 people wounded, spokesman Bello Danbatta with the Civilian-JTF group told The Associated Press. The Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram often targets the city with suicide bombers and increasingly has been using female ones. Nigeria's government late last year declared the group "crushed" but dozens of such attacks have been carried out this year. The latest bombings occurred a few days after Nigeria's army chief of staff issued a 40-day deadline for troops to flush out Boko Haram's leader and finish off the extremist group. Danbatta said one bomber sneaked into the Dalori camp and detonated, and two other attackers exploded on or near the camp's perimeter fence. Another bomber detonated early Monday morning. Thousands of people continue to shelter in camps after being forced from their homes by Boko Haram. The extremist group's eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, kidnapped thousands of others, spilled into neighboring countries and created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises. Nigeria is moving closer to famine, with more than 5 million people expected to face "crisis, emergency and famine conditions" by the end of August as the lean season continues, the Norwegian Refugee Council said in a statement Monday. The unrest has disrupted farming and access to markets in the region.
By Associated Press

BERLIN: A teenage German girl who ran away after converting to Islam and was found by Iraqi troops in Mosul says she wants to go home, a German newspaper and broadcaster reported Monday.

"I just want to go back home to my family," said 16-year-old Linda W., whose last name was not given in line with German privacy laws. "I want to get away from the war, away from all the weapons, away from the noise."

German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcaster ARD said their reporter interviewed the girl in Baghdad after she was found earlier this month as Iraqi forces liberated the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State group.

Linda W. ran away from her home in the small eastern German town of Pulsnitz last summer, shortly after converting to Islam. She had been in touch with IS members and was married to one of their fighters after arriving in the group's territory.

Her husband died shortly after the marriage, the German media reported.

The girl said she had been hiding in a basement in Mosul when Iraqi soldiers captured her. She said she is "doing fine" despite a bullet wound in her left leg that she said "is from a helicopter attack."

The teenager is currently in a military hospital ward in Baghdad, according to the report.

It's not clear if she can return to Germany or if she will be tried in Iraq for membership in IS.

In Iraq, Linda W. could theoretically face the death sentence, according to the country's counter-terrorism law. However, even if she is sentenced to death in Iraq, she would not be executed before the age of 22.

Photos of a disheveled young woman in the presence of Iraqi soldiers went viral online earlier this month, but there were initially contradicting reports about the girl's identity.

The soldiers initially mistook her for a Yazidi woman, but the teenager told them: "I'm not Yazidi, I'm German."

Linda W. was one of 26 foreigners arrested in Mosul this month, Iraqi officials have said.

The Iraqis found three other women from Germany, with roots in Morocco, Algeria and Chechnya. Iraqi officials said the German-Moroccan woman has a child and both were arrested in Mosul about 10 days ago.

The Chechen-German woman was identified as Fatima by Sueddeutsche Zeitung and ARD. She is sharing a room with Linda W. and has an arm injury, they reported, adding that the woman had told them that her two children were missing after a recent air raid in Mosul.

German paper Bild reported Monday that Linda's father, Reiner W., found out about his missing daughter's whereabouts on the radio as he was working on the construction of a German highway.

"I had a breakdown where I heard that Linda is alive," Bild quoted the divorced father as saying. "I so much wish that my Linda will come home healthy again. I will always be there for her."

BERLIN: A teenage German girl who ran away after converting to Islam and was found by Iraqi troops in Mosul says she wants to go home, a German newspaper and broadcaster reported Monday. "I just want to go back home to my family," said 16-year-old Linda W., whose last name was not given in line with German privacy laws. "I want to get away from the war, away from all the weapons, away from the noise." German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcaster ARD said their reporter interviewed the girl in Baghdad after she was found earlier this month as Iraqi forces liberated the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State group. Linda W. ran away from her home in the small eastern German town of Pulsnitz last summer, shortly after converting to Islam. She had been in touch with IS members and was married to one of their fighters after arriving in the group's territory. Her husband died shortly after the marriage, the German media reported. The girl said she had been hiding in a basement in Mosul when Iraqi soldiers captured her. She said she is "doing fine" despite a bullet wound in her left leg that she said "is from a helicopter attack." The teenager is currently in a military hospital ward in Baghdad, according to the report. It's not clear if she can return to Germany or if she will be tried in Iraq for membership in IS. In Iraq, Linda W. could theoretically face the death sentence, according to the country's counter-terrorism law. However, even if she is sentenced to death in Iraq, she would not be executed before the age of 22. Photos of a disheveled young woman in the presence of Iraqi soldiers went viral online earlier this month, but there were initially contradicting reports about the girl's identity. The soldiers initially mistook her for a Yazidi woman, but the teenager told them: "I'm not Yazidi, I'm German." Linda W. was one of 26 foreigners arrested in Mosul this month, Iraqi officials have said. The Iraqis found three other women from Germany, with roots in Morocco, Algeria and Chechnya. Iraqi officials said the German-Moroccan woman has a child and both were arrested in Mosul about 10 days ago. The Chechen-German woman was identified as Fatima by Sueddeutsche Zeitung and ARD. She is sharing a room with Linda W. and has an arm injury, they reported, adding that the woman had told them that her two children were missing after a recent air raid in Mosul. German paper Bild reported Monday that Linda's father, Reiner W., found out about his missing daughter's whereabouts on the radio as he was working on the construction of a German highway. "I had a breakdown where I heard that Linda is alive," Bild quoted the divorced father as saying. "I so much wish that my Linda will come home healthy again. I will always be there for her."
By Associated Press

JERUSALEM: A deadly shooting at Israel's Embassy in Jordan further complicated Israeli government efforts on Monday to find a way out of an escalating crisis over a major Jerusalem shrine, including mass Muslim prayer protests and Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The shooting, in which an Israeli security guard killed two Jordanians after being attacked by one of them with a screwdriver, led to a diplomatic standoff between the two countries at a time when Jordan is heavily involved in efforts to defuse the crisis over the Jerusalem holy site.

Jordan is the Muslim custodian of the shrine, which is also holy to Jews. The 37-acre walled compound is the third holiest site of Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It is also the holiest site of Judaism, revered as the place where biblical Temples once stood.

Jordanian officials said Monday that the guard could only leave after an investigation, according to a news site linked to Jordan's military. Israel insisted the guard has diplomatic immunity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke to the guard and assured him that Israel has experience in dealing with such a situation and would bring him home. He said Jordan's ambassador to Israel came to the Foreign Ministry earlier Monday "to help solve the crisis."

The drama played out as President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy, Jason Greenblatt, headed to the Holy Land on Monday. It was the first sign of a high-level, on-the-ground attempt by the Trump administration to end the standoff between Israel and the Muslim world.

The holy site is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The escalation began earlier this month when Arab gunmen fired from the holy site, killing two Israeli policemen. In response, Israel installed metal detectors at the site, a move that incensed the Muslim world.

The shooting at Israel's embassy in the Jordanian capital of Amman could further inflame Jordanian public opinion against Israel.

The Amman shooting took place on Sunday evening in a residential building used by the embassy staff.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said the incident began when two Jordanian workmen arrived at the building to replace furniture. It said one of the workers, later identified as a 17-year-old of Palestinian origin, attacked an Israeli security guard with a screwdriver.

The guard opened fire, killing the teen. A second Jordanian, the owner of the building who was also a physician, was hit by gunfire and later died of his wounds. The guard was lightly hurt, the ministry said.

The Jordanian news site Hala Akhbar, which is linked to the kingdom's military, quoted diplomatic and security officials as saying that Jordan refused to let the guard leave without an investigation.

The website quoted the officials as saying that Jordan might take "diplomatic measures" if Israel refuses to meet the demand.

Israel's Foreign Ministry did not refer to Jordanian demands, but said the guard enjoys diplomatic immunity under international conventions.

An Israeli government official said talks were under way whether to evacuate the embassy staff, given the tensions in Jordan.

He said either all or none of the staff would be evacuated, and that the security guard would not be left behind. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the diplomatic efforts underway to defuse the situation.

The father of the slain teen on Monday called for an investigation and said he would not bury his son until he was shown security camera footage of the incident.

Zakariah al-Jawawdeh told The Associated Press that his son Mohammed is a "son of Jordan who was shot on Jordanian soil" and he deserved justice.

He described Mohammed as apolitical, saying his son spent long hours working in the family furniture store and had no time to watch the news.

Israel's security Cabinet met from late Sunday until the early hours of Monday to discuss the crisis at the shrine and the embassy shooting, and was to convene again Monday afternoon.

Netanyahu said Israel is in regular contact "with security and government officials on all levels in Amman to bring as speedy a resolution as possible to this event."

Israel and Jordan signed a peace deal in 1994, but the agreement remains deeply unpopular in the kingdom where many residents are of Palestinian origin. Jordan and Israel have close security ties, but frequently clash over Israeli policies at the Jerusalem shrine.

Jordan's ruling Hashemite dynasty, said to trace its ancestry to the Prophet Muhammad, draws much of its legitimacy from its role as protector of the shrine.

Meanwhile, the security Cabinet reached no decision after a six-hour meeting on how to defuse the crisis over the Jerusalem shrine, Israeli media said. The ministers were reportedly reviewing the initial decision on installing the metal detectors and weighing possible alternatives.

Israel has said the metal detectors were a needed security measure to prevent future attacks. However, the government is facing growing domestic criticism, with some commentators saying it did not fully weigh all the repercussions of introducing new measures at the most volatile spot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Muslim religious leaders have alleged that Israel is trying to expand its control at the site under the guise of security  a claim Israel denies. The tensions have led to mass prayer protests and deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Ikrema Sabri, a senior Muslim cleric, said Monday that Jerusalem's police chief, Yoram Halevi, met a day earlier with a lawyer representing the Muslim leadership to discuss solutions to the crisis.

Sabri said newly installed security cameras, described in media reports as a possible alternative to the metal detectors, were discussed.

He said the lawyer was to brief the Muslim leadership later Monday on Israel's responses.

In another sign of the tense atmosphere, a Palestinian assailant stabbed an Arab citizen of Israel in the neck in central Israel, apparently mistaking him for a Jew, police said. The assailant was detained.

JERUSALEM: A deadly shooting at Israel's Embassy in Jordan further complicated Israeli government efforts on Monday to find a way out of an escalating crisis over a major Jerusalem shrine, including mass Muslim prayer protests and Israeli-Palestinian violence. The shooting, in which an Israeli security guard killed two Jordanians after being attacked by one of them with a screwdriver, led to a diplomatic standoff between the two countries at a time when Jordan is heavily involved in efforts to defuse the crisis over the Jerusalem holy site. Jordan is the Muslim custodian of the shrine, which is also holy to Jews. The 37-acre walled compound is the third holiest site of Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It is also the holiest site of Judaism, revered as the place where biblical Temples once stood. Jordanian officials said Monday that the guard could only leave after an investigation, according to a news site linked to Jordan's military. Israel insisted the guard has diplomatic immunity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke to the guard and assured him that Israel has experience in dealing with such a situation and would bring him home. He said Jordan's ambassador to Israel came to the Foreign Ministry earlier Monday "to help solve the crisis." The drama played out as President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy, Jason Greenblatt, headed to the Holy Land on Monday. It was the first sign of a high-level, on-the-ground attempt by the Trump administration to end the standoff between Israel and the Muslim world. The holy site is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount. The escalation began earlier this month when Arab gunmen fired from the holy site, killing two Israeli policemen. In response, Israel installed metal detectors at the site, a move that incensed the Muslim world. The shooting at Israel's embassy in the Jordanian capital of Amman could further inflame Jordanian public opinion against Israel. The Amman shooting took place on Sunday evening in a residential building used by the embassy staff. Israel's Foreign Ministry said the incident began when two Jordanian workmen arrived at the building to replace furniture. It said one of the workers, later identified as a 17-year-old of Palestinian origin, attacked an Israeli security guard with a screwdriver. The guard opened fire, killing the teen. A second Jordanian, the owner of the building who was also a physician, was hit by gunfire and later died of his wounds. The guard was lightly hurt, the ministry said. The Jordanian news site Hala Akhbar, which is linked to the kingdom's military, quoted diplomatic and security officials as saying that Jordan refused to let the guard leave without an investigation. The website quoted the officials as saying that Jordan might take "diplomatic measures" if Israel refuses to meet the demand. Israel's Foreign Ministry did not refer to Jordanian demands, but said the guard enjoys diplomatic immunity under international conventions. An Israeli government official said talks were under way whether to evacuate the embassy staff, given the tensions in Jordan. He said either all or none of the staff would be evacuated, and that the security guard would not be left behind. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the diplomatic efforts underway to defuse the situation. The father of the slain teen on Monday called for an investigation and said he would not bury his son until he was shown security camera footage of the incident. Zakariah al-Jawawdeh told The Associated Press that his son Mohammed is a "son of Jordan who was shot on Jordanian soil" and he deserved justice. He described Mohammed as apolitical, saying his son spent long hours working in the family furniture store and had no time to watch the news. Israel's security Cabinet met from late Sunday until the early hours of Monday to discuss the crisis at the shrine and the embassy shooting, and was to convene again Monday afternoon. Netanyahu said Israel is in regular contact "with security and government officials on all levels in Amman to bring as speedy a resolution as possible to this event." Israel and Jordan signed a peace deal in 1994, but the agreement remains deeply unpopular in the kingdom where many residents are of Palestinian origin. Jordan and Israel have close security ties, but frequently clash over Israeli policies at the Jerusalem shrine. Jordan's ruling Hashemite dynasty, said to trace its ancestry to the Prophet Muhammad, draws much of its legitimacy from its role as protector of the shrine. Meanwhile, the security Cabinet reached no decision after a six-hour meeting on how to defuse the crisis over the Jerusalem shrine, Israeli media said. The ministers were reportedly reviewing the initial decision on installing the metal detectors and weighing possible alternatives. Israel has said the metal detectors were a needed security measure to prevent future attacks. However, the government is facing growing domestic criticism, with some commentators saying it did not fully weigh all the repercussions of introducing new measures at the most volatile spot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Muslim religious leaders have alleged that Israel is trying to expand its control at the site under the guise of security  a claim Israel denies. The tensions have led to mass prayer protests and deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence. Ikrema Sabri, a senior Muslim cleric, said Monday that Jerusalem's police chief, Yoram Halevi, met a day earlier with a lawyer representing the Muslim leadership to discuss solutions to the crisis. Sabri said newly installed security cameras, described in media reports as a possible alternative to the metal detectors, were discussed. He said the lawyer was to brief the Muslim leadership later Monday on Israel's responses. In another sign of the tense atmosphere, a Palestinian assailant stabbed an Arab citizen of Israel in the neck in central Israel, apparently mistaking him for a Jew, police said. The assailant was detained.
By IANS

NEW DELHI: Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday said here that he was not sure whether the 39 Indians missing in the city of Mosul since 2014 are alive.

"I am not 100 per cent sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul are alive," al-Jaafari told the media. "We are trying our best (to trace them)."

Most of the 39 Indian construction workers who went missing in 2014 are from Punjab.

Al-Jaafari's comments came after Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh visited Iraq after Iraqi forces aided by an international coalition liberated Mosul from the Islamic State on July 9.

Al-Jaafari also held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here on Monday.

Sushma Swaraj had earlier said that with the freeing of Mosul, the process to trace and rescue the missing Indians would be taken forward.

She said they had information that the Indians were in a jail in Badush, which lies in ruins now.

Singh was earlier sent to Erbil in Iraq to pursue the case of the missing Indians.

On July 12, Singh visited the Kurdish Peshmarga frontline in Mosul area to seek information about the Indians. He said some Islamic State held areas were still being cleared.

Sushma Swaraj has met the families of the 39 persons around a dozen times since they were abducted in June 2014 and assured them that the government was doing everything to locate them.

Iraqi forces liberated Mosul after 266 days of fierce battles, ending three years of Islamic State rule.

NEW DELHI: Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday said here that he was not sure whether the 39 Indians missing in the city of Mosul since 2014 are alive. "I am not 100 per cent sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul are alive," al-Jaafari told the media. "We are trying our best (to trace them)." Most of the 39 Indian construction workers who went missing in 2014 are from Punjab. Al-Jaafari's comments came after Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh visited Iraq after Iraqi forces aided by an international coalition liberated Mosul from the Islamic State on July 9. Al-Jaafari also held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here on Monday. Sushma Swaraj had earlier said that with the freeing of Mosul, the process to trace and rescue the missing Indians would be taken forward. She said they had information that the Indians were in a jail in Badush, which lies in ruins now. Singh was earlier sent to Erbil in Iraq to pursue the case of the missing Indians. On July 12, Singh visited the Kurdish Peshmarga frontline in Mosul area to seek information about the Indians. He said some Islamic State held areas were still being cleared. Sushma Swaraj has met the families of the 39 persons around a dozen times since they were abducted in June 2014 and assured them that the government was doing everything to locate them. Iraqi forces liberated Mosul after 266 days of fierce battles, ending three years of Islamic State rule.
By PTI

LAHORE: A Taliban suicide bomber today struck a police team near residence-cum-office of Pakistan's Punjab province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif here, killing at least 26 people, including policemen, and wounding 58 others.



Lahore police chief Capt (R) Amin Wains confirmed that it was a suicide attack and the "target was police".

"A suicide bomber on a motorcycle approached the police contingent deployed at the anti-encroachment drive outside the Arfa Karim Tower, near the CM's Model Town residence, and blew himself up," Wains said.



He said at least 26 people, including nine policemen, were killed in the blast that also wounded 58 others. One Sub-Inspector, 1 ASI and 7 Constables were among the dead.



The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.



The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed the responsibility for the attack.



"Fida Hussain Swati - a member of our suicide squad today attacked the infidels on a motorcycle," TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a statement.



"Our message to the front line allies of infidels not to come in our way as we will impose Allah's system on this land," he added.



The Lahore police chief said the initial investigation showed that the bomber used some 10-kg explosive in his suicide vest.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief General Qamar Javed

Bajwa condemned the blast and vowed to continue the war against terrorism in Pakistan till elimination of the last terrorist.



"No words can express the grief which grips my heart now. The blast destroyed many families but terrorists can never destroy our resolve," Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said.



"Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins!," he tweeted.



Rescue 1122 spokesperson Deeba Shahnaz told PTI that police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower near Model Town when the powerful blast took place at 3.55 PM.



She said 20 people died on the spot while remaining six succumbed to their injuries in hospitals. "Causalities may rise as the condition of at least five injured is stated to be critical," she said.



Emergency was declared in the city hospitals and people were appealed to donate blood. Army personnel also participated in the rescue operation.

"29 injured persons are being treated at Lahore General Hospital, 9 in Jinnah and 18 in Ittefaq hospital," the official Twitter account of the Government of Punjab tweeted.



Many of injured are policemen. Several bystanders were wounded by the impact of the powerful blast.

The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed. "I was at my shop and watching the LDA staff demolishing a small illegal structure when a powerful blast occurred. I fell on the ground due to its impact. Once a cloud of smoke evaporated I saw a number of people lying in the pool of blood there," eyewitness Asif Hamid said.



Another eyewitness, injured police constable Murtaza, said the policemen were standing under the shadow of a tree when he saw a motorcyclist approaching them.



"I heard a bang and fell unconscious. I regained consciousness at the Service Hospital," he said.



Opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party leader Imran Khan announced two-day mourning saying no political activity would be held until Wednesday.



Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, has witnessed several terror attacks in recent years.



In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahore's Bedian Road.



In February, a suicide bomber killed 14 people, including senior police officers, near the Punjab Assembly here.

LAHORE: A Taliban suicide bomber today struck a police team near residence-cum-office of Pakistan's Punjab province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif here, killing at least 26 people, including policemen, and wounding 58 others. Lahore police chief Capt (R) Amin Wains confirmed that it was a suicide attack and the "target was police". "A suicide bomber on a motorcycle approached the police contingent deployed at the anti-encroachment drive outside the Arfa Karim Tower, near the CM's Model Town residence, and blew himself up," Wains said. He said at least 26 people, including nine policemen, were killed in the blast that also wounded 58 others. One Sub-Inspector, 1 ASI and 7 Constables were among the dead. The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed the responsibility for the attack. "Fida Hussain Swati - a member of our suicide squad today attacked the infidels on a motorcycle," TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a statement. "Our message to the front line allies of infidels not to come in our way as we will impose Allah's system on this land," he added. The Lahore police chief said the initial investigation showed that the bomber used some 10-kg explosive in his suicide vest. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa condemned the blast and vowed to continue the war against terrorism in Pakistan till elimination of the last terrorist. "No words can express the grief which grips my heart now. The blast destroyed many families but terrorists can never destroy our resolve," Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said. "Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins!," he tweeted. Rescue 1122 spokesperson Deeba Shahnaz told PTI that police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower near Model Town when the powerful blast took place at 3.55 PM. She said 20 people died on the spot while remaining six succumbed to their injuries in hospitals. "Causalities may rise as the condition of at least five injured is stated to be critical," she said. Emergency was declared in the city hospitals and people were appealed to donate blood. Army personnel also participated in the rescue operation. "29 injured persons are being treated at Lahore General Hospital, 9 in Jinnah and 18 in Ittefaq hospital," the official Twitter account of the Government of Punjab tweeted. Many of injured are policemen. Several bystanders were wounded by the impact of the powerful blast. The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed. "I was at my shop and watching the LDA staff demolishing a small illegal structure when a powerful blast occurred. I fell on the ground due to its impact. Once a cloud of smoke evaporated I saw a number of people lying in the pool of blood there," eyewitness Asif Hamid said. Another eyewitness, injured police constable Murtaza, said the policemen were standing under the shadow of a tree when he saw a motorcyclist approaching them. "I heard a bang and fell unconscious. I regained consciousness at the Service Hospital," he said. Opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party leader Imran Khan announced two-day mourning saying no political activity would be held until Wednesday. Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, has witnessed several terror attacks in recent years. In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahore's Bedian Road. In February, a suicide bomber killed 14 people, including senior police officers, near the Punjab Assembly here.
By AFP

KABUL: At least 26 people were killed and 41 wounded Monday after a Taliban-claimed car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees through a Shiite neighbourhood in Kabul, raising fears of sectarian violence in the Afghan capital.

The assault came as a presidential spokesman said the Taliban also killed at least 35 civilians in an attack on a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend.

The deadly attacks underscore spiralling insecurity in Afghanistan as the resurgent Taliban ramp up their offensive across the country, while security forces struggle to contain them.

In Monday's blast the bus was carrying employees of the ministry of mines, passing from western Kabul to the downtown ministry during rush hour, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish told AFP.

It was struck by the car bomb as it passed through a busy area of the capital that is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority.

An AFP photographer at the scene saw multiple bodies and wounded people in the street, surrounded by shattered glass as security forces cordoned off the area.

The bus's charred remains were left smoking in the middle of the road as the wounded were rushed to hospitals in ambulances as well as private cars and taxis.

"It was a huge explosion, my house nearly collapsed," a neighbourhood resident who gave his name as Mostafa told AFP, adding that the street was "filled with human flesh and blood".

"It was horrible," said shopkeeper Momin. "It is a crowded area -- many of my friends and other shopkeepers are either killed or wounded."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which came just before 7 am. The group rarely claims attacks with high civilian casualties, but does frequently target government employees.

Afghan presidential spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi put the toll at 26 dead and 41 wounded.

At a press conference, Murtazawi also said at least 35 people were killed in the hospital attack over the weekend.

All the victims were civilians, Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. "This is a cruel crime against humanity," he added.

He did not elaborate, and officials say phone lines are down in Taywara district, captured by the militants over the weekend.

The Taliban have denied the claim and reports they torched the hospital, though a spokesman said parts of the building were damaged in fighting.

Ghor is a poor, mountainous province that has been relatively safe in the past but shares a border with the Taliban-infested provinces of Helmand and Farah.

Demonstration cancelled

Afghan forces control 59.7 percent of the country, according to a US watchdog's report issued in May after the winter lull in fighting, up slightly from the previous quarter.

But the insurgents have ramped up their offensive across the country since launching their so-called "spring offensive" earlier this year.

Monday's attack in Kabul came as the Hazara community had planned to hold a demonstration in the same neighbourhood to mark the one-year anniversary of twin bombings that killed 84 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

They had agreed to postpone the demonstration over security fears and after meeting with President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday.

The Taliban have carried out sectarian attacks in the past, though they have been rare in Sunni-majority Afghanistan throughout its decades of war.

The rise of IS, which has frequently targeted Shiites, has fuelled the spectre of more such assaults, with fears Monday that Hazaras had been the target of the car bomb rather than the government employees.

Others suggested the politician Mohammad Mohaqeq, whose home is nearby, could have been the target.

Kabul is regularly rocked by suicide bombs and assaults. A recent UN report showed that attacks on the capital accounted for nearly one-fifth of all civilian Afghan casualties in the first half of 2017.

Many died in a single devastating attack in late May when a truck bomb exploded, also during the morning Kabul rush hour, killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds.

The bloody toll for the first six months of 2017 has unsettled the government and put increasing pressure on Ghani, who condemned Monday's attack.

NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan ended three years ago, handing sole responsibility to the country's security forces, which have also suffered spiralling casualties as they try to beat back the Taliban.

KABUL: At least 26 people were killed and 41 wounded Monday after a Taliban-claimed car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees through a Shiite neighbourhood in Kabul, raising fears of sectarian violence in the Afghan capital. The assault came as a presidential spokesman said the Taliban also killed at least 35 civilians in an attack on a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend. The deadly attacks underscore spiralling insecurity in Afghanistan as the resurgent Taliban ramp up their offensive across the country, while security forces struggle to contain them. In Monday's blast the bus was carrying employees of the ministry of mines, passing from western Kabul to the downtown ministry during rush hour, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish told AFP. It was struck by the car bomb as it passed through a busy area of the capital that is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority. An AFP photographer at the scene saw multiple bodies and wounded people in the street, surrounded by shattered glass as security forces cordoned off the area. The bus's charred remains were left smoking in the middle of the road as the wounded were rushed to hospitals in ambulances as well as private cars and taxis. "It was a huge explosion, my house nearly collapsed," a neighbourhood resident who gave his name as Mostafa told AFP, adding that the street was "filled with human flesh and blood". "It was horrible," said shopkeeper Momin. "It is a crowded area -- many of my friends and other shopkeepers are either killed or wounded." The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which came just before 7 am. The group rarely claims attacks with high civilian casualties, but does frequently target government employees. Afghan presidential spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi put the toll at 26 dead and 41 wounded. At a press conference, Murtazawi also said at least 35 people were killed in the hospital attack over the weekend. All the victims were civilians, Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. "This is a cruel crime against humanity," he added. He did not elaborate, and officials say phone lines are down in Taywara district, captured by the militants over the weekend. The Taliban have denied the claim and reports they torched the hospital, though a spokesman said parts of the building were damaged in fighting. Ghor is a poor, mountainous province that has been relatively safe in the past but shares a border with the Taliban-infested provinces of Helmand and Farah. Demonstration cancelled Afghan forces control 59.7 percent of the country, according to a US watchdog's report issued in May after the winter lull in fighting, up slightly from the previous quarter. But the insurgents have ramped up their offensive across the country since launching their so-called "spring offensive" earlier this year. Monday's attack in Kabul came as the Hazara community had planned to hold a demonstration in the same neighbourhood to mark the one-year anniversary of twin bombings that killed 84 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State. They had agreed to postpone the demonstration over security fears and after meeting with President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday. The Taliban have carried out sectarian attacks in the past, though they have been rare in Sunni-majority Afghanistan throughout its decades of war. The rise of IS, which has frequently targeted Shiites, has fuelled the spectre of more such assaults, with fears Monday that Hazaras had been the target of the car bomb rather than the government employees. Others suggested the politician Mohammad Mohaqeq, whose home is nearby, could have been the target. Kabul is regularly rocked by suicide bombs and assaults. A recent UN report showed that attacks on the capital accounted for nearly one-fifth of all civilian Afghan casualties in the first half of 2017. Many died in a single devastating attack in late May when a truck bomb exploded, also during the morning Kabul rush hour, killing more than 150 people and injuring hundreds. The bloody toll for the first six months of 2017 has unsettled the government and put increasing pressure on Ghani, who condemned Monday's attack. NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan ended three years ago, handing sole responsibility to the country's security forces, which have also suffered spiralling casualties as they try to beat back the Taliban.
By PTI

KIEV: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko today demanded Russia's Vladimir Putin halt arms supplies to rebels as the leaders of France and Germany tried to revive a peace plan.



After a spike in violence, the four leaders discussed the Ukraine crisis for two hours by telephone in the latest round of talks aimed at stopping a conflict that has killed 10,000 people since April 2014.

The conversation was the first to involve French President Emmanuel Macron since he came to power in May, becoming the main international moderator on the crisis along with Germany's Angela Merkel.



Last week saw some of the costliest clashes in months between Russian-backed rebels and government troops, after an insurgent leader announced plans to form a new "state" to replace Ukraine.



Poroshenko called the last days of July some of the bloodiest in 2017 and urged Russia "to immediately cease aggressive actions and supply of weapons to the occupied territories," Ukraine's presidency said in a statement after the talks.



Kiev and its allies in the West insist the Kremlin has sent troops and arms to back up the rebels, but Moscow continues to deny the evidence of its role in the conflict.



In a statement the Kremlin said Putin "laid out Russia's approach on all the key points of the said agreement in great detail."



A February 2015 peace plan hammered out by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in the Belarusian capital Minsk has failed to stop clashes rumbling on in east Ukraine.



And although the deal has hit a wall it is still viewed by those involved as the only way of unwinding Ukraine's war.



Last week rebel chief Alexander Zakharchenko said he wanted to establish a new state called Malorossiya (Little Russia) on the basis of Ukraine.



While the plan immediately appeared doomed after it failed to gain traction with the Kremlin, it cast a further cloud over the peace agreement.

KIEV: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko today demanded Russia's Vladimir Putin halt arms supplies to rebels as the leaders of France and Germany tried to revive a peace plan. After a spike in violence, the four leaders discussed the Ukraine crisis for two hours by telephone in the latest round of talks aimed at stopping a conflict that has killed 10,000 people since April 2014. The conversation was the first to involve French President Emmanuel Macron since he came to power in May, becoming the main international moderator on the crisis along with Germany's Angela Merkel. Last week saw some of the costliest clashes in months between Russian-backed rebels and government troops, after an insurgent leader announced plans to form a new "state" to replace Ukraine. Poroshenko called the last days of July some of the bloodiest in 2017 and urged Russia "to immediately cease aggressive actions and supply of weapons to the occupied territories," Ukraine's presidency said in a statement after the talks. Kiev and its allies in the West insist the Kremlin has sent troops and arms to back up the rebels, but Moscow continues to deny the evidence of its role in the conflict. In a statement the Kremlin said Putin "laid out Russia's approach on all the key points of the said agreement in great detail." A February 2015 peace plan hammered out by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in the Belarusian capital Minsk has failed to stop clashes rumbling on in east Ukraine. And although the deal has hit a wall it is still viewed by those involved as the only way of unwinding Ukraine's war. Last week rebel chief Alexander Zakharchenko said he wanted to establish a new state called Malorossiya (Little Russia) on the basis of Ukraine. While the plan immediately appeared doomed after it failed to gain traction with the Kremlin, it cast a further cloud over the peace agreement.
One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021
insights from industry Jan Groen, Ph.D. President and Chief Executive Officer, MDxHealth

An interview with Dr. Jan Groen, CEO, MDxHealth conducted by April Cashin-Garbutt, MA (Cantab)

Can you please give an overview of the 225 urine test MDxHealth developed to diagnose prostate cancer? How does the test work?

This test, which we have branded SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer, came with the acquisition of a company in the Netherlands called NovioGendix. They developed a prototype assay, so they did most of the heavy lifting in terms of discovering the two specific biomarkers that are currently in the product. These biomarkers are tuned towards the detection of what I call clinically significant prostate cancer.

It is a very simple, straightforward molecular diagnostic test. Like most of the molecular diagnostic tests that are currently on the market, it is a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) based assay. After acquiring the company, we immediately started to commercialize this product and brand it as SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer.

It works by detecting RNA in the urine of a man that has an elevated PSA level. A man is only eligible for the SelectMDx test, once the PSA level is elevated.

The standard of care is slightly different in the United States than it is in Europe. In the United States, they use the PSA (prostate specific antigen) test as a screening test. It is a very simple $15 blood test that detects circulation of the protein, PSA, in the bloodstream. If thats elevated, which is defined as higher than 3mg/mL, it indicates that something may be wrong with the prostate. It wouldnt necessarily mean the man has prostate cancer; it could be an infection of the prostate or prostatitis, for example.

Elevated PSA levels does not mean you have prostate cancer, an enlarged prostate, for example, can also result in an increased PSA level. In contrast to the United States where PSA screening is commonplace, in Europe, if a patient has clinical symptoms or is worried something might be wrong with his prostate, he will first visit his GP (General Practitioner) to discuss his symptoms. The GP could consider measuring the PSA and if its elevated, the patient might receive a referral to see the urologist. Based on increasing PSA levels combined with other clinical manifestation, the urologist might decide to biopsy the patient. The biopsy of a mans prostate is the standard of care to confirm a prostate cancer diagnosis.

Today, we know that the vast majority of men with an elevated PSA level undergo a biopsy procedure, but only a small portion of them will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, based on the histopathology results. The biopsy procedure, which is a rectal procedure, involves 12-cores being taken by needle from the prostate, which are sent to a pathology lab for review.

The pathologist analyses the samples using a microscope and checks for the absence or presence of cancer cells. When cancer cells are present, its obvious, but if there are no cancer cells present, it may be that a needle has missed cancer, so to speak, or it could be that there is no prostate cancer in play whatsoever.

To put it into perspective, I'll give you some statistics. Each year, 1.3 million biopsies are carried out in the United States and based on the standard of care (the prostate biopsy procedure), approximately 220,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer. It's an invasive procedure and if only about 220,000 of the 1.3 million suspected cases do in fact have prostate cancer, that means that based on microscopic analysis, nearly 1.1 million men undergo a biopsy procedure when no cancer was present. By definition, that would not mean no cancer was present; however, it could be that they were just not able to detect it using the microscope.

Now, instead of patients with elevated PSA levels going straight to a biopsy procedure, we can provide our SelectMDx liquid biopsy test first. Its a non-invasive test because it only entails collection of a urine sample, which we then test for the absence or presence of two prostate cancer-specific biomarkers in the urine.

When those biomarkers are present, you are most likely dealing with a high-grade disease  a clinical significant form of prostate cancer. If the biomarkers are absent, there is most likely no cancer or the patient is likely to have indolent prostate cancer.

It's an early stratification test, to identify the patients that most likely are dealing with aggressive prostate cancer.

How accurate is SelectMDx and how has it been validated?

The test had been validated in a multi-center trial of more than a thousand patients before we launched the product to the market. Patients with elevated PSA levels, with and without a history of prostate cancer were included in these studies.

The negative predictive value of the SelectMDx test today is 98%. By using this test, we can identify men that need to be followed up by a prostate biopsy procedure or MRI scan, because once a patients result is negative, the likelihood they have a high-grade disease or clinically significant cancer is very low.

Reducing unnecessary biopsies is the main purpose of the test. As a physician would tell you, as stated in the clinical guidelines, if the PSA level is elevated and/or another clinical manifestation, a patient is put on the list for a prostate biopsy, which is not risk-free procedure. Up to 45% of men who undergo biopsies experience rectal bleeding and up to 6% are hopsitalised for infections. We even see sepsis in about 3% of men hospitalized for infection.

Will the test be able to help select patients for MRI?

Absolutely, yes. MRI is considered to be the new tool for urologists. This may be my view on the world of the physician, but in general, physicians like to see pictures.

You can imagine if youre carrying out a biopsy and they provide you with a picture of the tissue where it is possible to see whether cancer cells are present or not. Similarly, an MRI scan generates pictures where you might be able to see the cancer.

In some respects, an MRI scan is also quite often perceived as invasive for the patient as being placed in a tube can have a psychological impact.

Data with the SelectMDx test, which we recently present at the American Urological Associations (AUA) annual meeting in Boston, we showed that the test could identify men who are most likely dealing with a high MRI score, which is expressed in the PI-RADS scores, divided into classifications one, two, three and four. If a patient is in category three and four, they most likely have clinically significant cancer.

The data we presented at the AUA, clearly shows a very strong correlation; if the SelectMDx test is positive, so to speak, the patient will most likely also be positive on the MRI scan.

A very important element here is that the focus today is on men with clinically significant cancer, because they will need treatments. With low-grade otherwise known as indolent cancer, there's no urgent need for intervention. Most men will develop prostate cancer in their lifetime, without experiencing any clinical complications, so there's no urgency for intervention in men with low-grade disease.

Has the cost effectiveness of SelectMDx been analyzed? How does it compare to PSA testing alone?

I mentioned the price of the PSA test, which is $15 or maybe a little bit more in the UK. The PSA test is still the gold standard for the urologist, so that's mainly the tool they use to identify men that might have an issue with their prostate. The next step is the biopsy procedure. Thats not only quite invasive, but also more expensive. The price of the biopsy varies between countries, but, for example in the United States, it is $3,000 or more.

In the UK, the SelectMDx test is 225. I don't know exactly how much a 12-core biopsy costs in the UK, but theres a significant saving if you use the SelectMDx test first. We have published data to that effect in the British Journal of Urology International, where we demonstrated a significant saving of up to 125 per patient and an increase in quality of life if a SelectMDx test is used first, before proceeding to biopsy.

What do you think the future holds for prostate cancer diagnosis?

If you go back many years ago and look at the field of infectious disease, the main tool they used was culturing of bacteria or viruses. That whole world has changed now, because it has since been molecularised  molecular diagnostic tools are now used to identify patients with bacterial, fungal or viral infections.

As I mentioned before, if you look in oncology pathology today, 95% percent of the diagnosis is still based on the use of the microscope. Diagnosis of cancer is still very traditional: if there's a suspicious mass, they take a biopsy and then they send the tissue to the pathologist for review. At the end of the day a pathologist is always needed to confirm the cancer diagnosis, even when a molecular test is positive.

But as you can imagine, there's absolutely an unmet need for molecular diagnostic biomarker tests, to improve upon the patient diagnosis, prognosis or the monitoring of patients with cancer. That whole field is open and biomarker assays, DNA or RNA assays, will provide physicians with more actionable and accurate information for early intervention or treatment decisions.

In the world of prostate cancer today, you will see a high influx of new molecular diagnostic tools coming to the market to support physicians in managing their patients.

What is MDxHealths vision for the future?

As a company, we focus on uro-oncology and we absolutely believe this is a wide-open space for us to develop new tools for the diagnosis of patients with kidney cancer, bladder cancer and prostate cancer, but more importantly, as you have probably noticed, more and more expensive treatments will come to market for the treatment of cancer.

Most of those treatments involve specific drugs that require specific biomarker assays to upfront identify patients that most likely benefit from that particular treatment or assays to monitor the patients over time to see what the response is to that particular drug.

We will also see many new cancer-specific biomarkers assays coming to the market to guide physicians who most likely will benefit from a certain drug. As many of the new orphan drugs are very expensive and not all patients will respond to these drugs. These type of predictive assays will result in better treatment and cost savings for the healthcare providers.

Where can readers find more information?

SelectMDx clinical validation study in European Urology: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27108162

SelectMDx cost-effectiveness study in BJUI: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bju.13861/full

SelectMDx & MRI study presented at AUA: http://www.jurology.com/article/S0022-5347(17)31237-5/fulltext

MRI to detect prostate cancer in a UK patient population presented at Prosca: https://abstracts.mirrorsmed.org/abstracts/mrcap-study-can-multiparametric-mri-prostate-be-used-identify-patients-whom-trus-biopsies

SelectMDx page on MDxHealths website: http://www.mdxhealth.com/selectmdx-prostate-cancer

ProstateMDx, an educational resource for physicians about biomarkers for prostate cancer diagnosis: www.prostatemdx.org

About Jan Groen, Ph.D.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Executive Member of the Board

Dr. Jan Groen joined MDxHealth in 2010 and has more than 30 years of experience in the clinical diagnostics industry, with a particular focus on emerging technologies, product development and commercialization.

Dr. Groen was previously the president of Agendia, Inc. and COO of Agendia B.V., responsible for their United States and European diagnostic operations, respectively. Prior to this, he served as VP of Research & Development at Focus Diagnostics, Inc., a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics, in California.

Dr. Groen has held numerous management and scientific positions at ViroClinics B.V., the Erasmus Medical Center, and Akzo-Nobel. Dr. Jan Groen is a supervisory board member of IBL International B.V.

Dr. Groen holds a Ph.D. degree in Medical Microbiology from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, a BSc in Clinical Laboratory Studies and has published more than 125 papers in international scientific journals in the field of clinical diagnostics.
Research has shown that women who undergo multiple cycles of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) are more likely to have a baby. The study published in the Medical Journal of Australia reports the cumulative live birth rates after complete ovarian stimulation cycles. The study looked at chances of having a baby successfully after several rounds of IVF or other types of assisted reproduction techniques.

Image Credit: Nevodka / Shutterstock

For this study the researchers looked at 56,652 women who had already undergone eight cycles of treatment in Australia and New Zealand during 2009-2012. They were tracked until 2014 or until they gave birth to a live baby. Results showed that for women over the age of 40, the success rates for having a live baby rose from 10% at the first cycle of IVF to around 40% at the end of the seventh cycle.

According to researcher Michael Chapman this study shows that women who are undergoing IVF do have a reasonable chance of getting pregnant. He explained that the rates of success are higher for younger women. At present women who are trying assisted reproduction are counseled about the low chances of success before they start on the treatment. This study can change what is being told the women. Chapman explains that until now there was no data on the success rates of multiple cycles vis a vis single or a couple of cycles of IVF. This is the first long term data that researchers have he added. But he warned that IVF can never guarantee a 100% chance of a success. He said that it is the hardest to say to a patient to stop trying with multiple cycles after a point of time.

Overall live birth rate was 32.7% after the first cycle and 54.3% at the end of eighth cycle according to conservative estimates. The rates are 77.2% after eighth cycle as per optimal estimates write researchers. In women who started before 30 years the rates of success after first cycle was 43.7% and rose to 69.2% (conservative estimates) or 92.8% (optimal estimates) at the seventh cycle. Women aged between 40 and 44 years however showed a success rate of 10.7% for the first complete cycle and 21.0% (conservative estimates) or 37.9% (optimal estimates) for the eighth cycle.

Associate Professor Georgina Chambers from the University of New South Wales Explained how the study was done and said that a single cycle was taken as one cycle of stimulation of the ovary (usually with a medication) along with fresh and frozen embryos. The probability of success with a live birth was analyzed with repeated cycles.

The study also showed that of the women who start having IVF before the age of 45 years, 23-35 per cent would stop after each completed cycle unable to cope with the physical, emotional and financial demands of the treatment. Women over 45 are most likely (nearly 50%) to stop the treatment after a single complete failed cycle. According to Chambers, the average number of completed IVF cycles is 2.1 and is different for each couple and individual.

In 2014, data shows that 33,750 women in Australia and New Zealand underwent 67,700 cycles of IVF and this led to live birth of 12,900 babies. Cost concerns are that each cycle costs up to $12,000. The IVF industry in Australia is $500 million-a-year strong and was earlier brought under scanner by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for making false claims regarding high success rates. After this study, concrete evidence supports claims that multiple cycles may raise the chance of success say the researchers.
Australian researchers have completed the world's first randomized control trial (RCT) assessing the efficacy and safety of ketamine as a treatment for depression in elderly patients.

The results, published in the latest American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, provide preliminary evidence suggesting ketamine's effectiveness as an antidepressant when delivered in repeated intravenous doses.

Led by a team of researchers from UNSW Sydney and Black Dog Institute, the trial tested different doses of ketamine amongst 16 older age participants (aged over 60 years) who had treatment-resistant depression, administered at Wesley Hospital.

"These findings take us a big step forward as we begin to fully understand the potential and limitations of ketamine's antidepressant qualities," said lead author UNSW Professor Colleen Loo, who is based at Black Dog Institute.

"Not only was ketamine well-tolerated by participants, with none experiencing severe or problematic side effects, but giving the treatment by a simple subcutaneous injection (a small injection under the skin) was also shown to be an acceptable method for administering the drug in a safe and effective way."

Participants received increasing doses of ketamine over a period of five weeks, with doses optimised for each individual participant using a new dose-titration approach developed by Professor Loo's Sydney research team and collaborators.

As part of the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, an active control treatment which causes sedation similar to ketamine, was used to substitute for one of the treatment sessions. Researchers monitored for mood and other side-effects after each treatment session.

Following the RCT, participants also received 12 ketamine treatments in an open-label phase to investigate the effectiveness of multiple doses of ketamine.

By the six-month follow up, 43 percent of participants (7 of 14) who completed the RCT had remitted, with five remitting at amounts below the commonly-used dose of 0.5 mg/kg. Repeated treatments also resulted in a higher likelihood of remission or a longer time to relapse, with an overall response and remission rate of 68.8 percent for the patients receiving ketamine treatment.

"Elderly patients with severe depression face additional barriers when seeking treatment for the condition. Many medications may cause more side effects or have lower efficacy as the brain ages," said co-author Dr Duncan George from UNSW Sydney. "Older people are also more likely to have co-morbidities like neurodegenerative disorders and chronic pain, which can cause further complications due to ketamine's reported side effects. "Our results indicate a dose-titration method may be particularly useful for older patients, as the best dose was selected for each individual person to maximize ketamine's benefits while minimising its adverse side effects."

Previous studies into ketamine treatments for older people with depression - which are limited to just five case reports - show mixed success, with findings limited by small sample sizes.

More broadly, little is known about ketamine's potential side effects at different doses, which include cognitive and dissociative effects, elevated blood pressure and heart rate, liver inflammation and urinary problems.

"These results are a promising early piece of the puzzle, but the risks of ketamine use are still not wholly understood. Future studies with greater sample sizes are needed to formally assess ketamine's side effects, such as its impact on liver function," Professor Loo added.

The study was a collaboration between UNSW Sydney, Black Dog Institute, Royal North Shore Hospital, The Wesley Hospital Kogarah, the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre and the University of Otago.

Professor Loo will build on these promising results as part of her current work directing the world's largest trial of ketamine to treat depression, which is now recruiting participants. For more information about the study contact [email protected] or call 02 9382 9509.
A novel approach of using visual and physical stimulus to help military veterans address their traumatic experiences could soon play a significant role in helping British veterans overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), thanks to a new Cardiff University research project.

Funded by the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT) and supported by Health and Care Research Wales, the study is seeking to help veterans who have not responded to current PTSD treatments.

The two-year study is investigating the effectiveness of a new therapy known as 3MDR, where patients walk on a treadmill whilst interacting with a series of self-selected images that are related to their trauma, and displayed on a large screen. The aim of this therapy is to help patients learn how to move through their avoidance by, literally, approaching their traumatic memories.

Psychological therapy with a focus on the traumatic event is the treatment of choice for PTSD and can be very helpful but, unfortunately, treatment resistance is high. Preliminary results from research conducted in the Netherlands suggest that 3MDR may help veterans with treatment resistant, combat-related PTSD. The aim of the new study is to determine the efficacy of 3MDR in the treatment of British military veterans with treatment-resistant and combat-related PTSD and to explore what factors influence outcome.

Led by Professor Jonathan Bisson of the Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff Universitys School of Medicine, the study is being carried out in a specially designed laboratory, with the trial therapy being delivered to veterans in contact with Veterans NHS Wales. The researchers hope that exposure to traumatic memories, enhanced with walking, music and high effect pictures, will eliminate cognitive avoidance  a coping strategy that can contribute to the worsening of PTSD symptoms.

Professor Jonathan Bisson, Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University School of Medicine, said:

There is an urgent need to identify effective treatments for military veterans who do not respond to, or are unable to engage with, current first line treatments. Around 4% of British military veterans suffer from PTSD, which often causes significant distress to them and those around them, along with considerable financial and social impact. This new method of treatment could offer new hope for veterans with PTSD who are currently facing the prospect of life with a chronic and enduring disorder.

Ray Lock CBE, Chief Executive of Forces in Mind Trust, added:

Improving our understanding of veterans mental health and effective treatments has been a priority of the Forces in Mind Trust since the Trusts inception. PTSD has a major impact on the quality of life of a small minority of veterans and it is important that we look at new and viable ways of helping some of those people whose mental health issues can be the hardest to treat. This is an exciting and innovative approach justifying further exploration which we are very pleased to support.

During the study, researchers are regularly assessing the symptoms of PTSD in patients receiving treatment in order to measure its clinical efficacy. The findings will be presented in a report at the end of the project.
As many as 19 million U.S. children suffer from at least one chronic medical condition such as ADD/ADHD, asthma, or depression. Building a habit of strict medication adherence from a young age is crucial for preventing lifelong negative health consequences. However, children's stage of cognitive development, combined with varying degrees of family support, means that a proper regimen is not always followed.

Paul Barclay, a human factors psychology doctoral student at the University of Central Florida and winner of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society's 2017 "Mobile Health Applications for Consumers" Design Competition, sought to address this issue by designing a prototype smartphone app to help children develop proper medication habits.

Although basic smartphone applications are a popular intervention for improving medication practices among adults, none is geared toward the younger market despite the fact that 75% of children report that they regularly use smartphones to surf the Internet or play games. Barclay's prototype app adopts an engaging game-based format to help children learn, retain, and recall the health information provided to them. Caregivers set up the medication schedule, and both parties receive reminders and alerts if doses are missed.

Barclay presented his work at the HFES 2017 International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care in March in New Orleans. The design competition showcased application of human factors/ergonomics methods and principles in the concept and design of useful and usable smartphone health apps for consumers or their nonprofessional support network.

Richard Holden, chair of the 2017 competition, noted, "The student design competition is an annual highlight. It combines innovative solutions to important problems with the human factors methods needed to make these solutions effective and usable."

Barclay's was one of 15 entries; he and two other finalist teams presented their work at the health-care symposium before the judges. The other finalist teams were Nadejda Doutcheva, Michelle Tong, Thomas Martell, and Ashish Vishwanath V. Shenoy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison for "Health Links: A Mobile Application for Low-Socioeconomic Position Patients in Madison, Wisconsin Seeking Information About Community Resources"; and Meng Li and Xi Zheng, University at Buffalo, SUNY, for "Claim Pro: An Integrated Health Insurance Management App for Managing Medical Claims From Multiple Insurance Plans and Finding Healthcare Providers."

The 2018 student app design competition will open in the fall, with the winner presenting at next year's symposium, to be held March 26-28, 2018 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts.
Blood donation rules in England and Scotland have been relaxed to allow gay men and sex workers to donate blood, due to more more accurate testing being available. Homosexual men can now donate blood three months after their last sexual activity instead of 12 months as was the rule before. Earlier gay men were banned from donating blood for life.

The rules were relaxed to 12 months after their last sexual activity in 2011. Sex workers, who could not donate blood before for life, are now also allowed to donate blood after the same three month gap between the blood donation and the last sexual activity.

Experts have welcomed this move by saying that this would remove discrimination against gay men and also give them an opportunity to donate blood and contribute to the blood supply. Testing systems now, explain experts, are so accurate that if the donors were compliant with the three month rule, there should be no problem. The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs - which advises UK health departments, recommended these changes.

At present all the donated blood in UK is meticulously screened for several virus borne disease including Hepatitis B and C, and HIV. According to experts, a three month window is long enough for these viruses to appear and get detected in blood before that blood is transfused to another person. According to Prof James Neuberger, from the committee the technology is so advanced now that the viruses can easily be picked up at much earlier stages than before and the blood donor can be screened before he or she can donate the blood that is to be used. The new rules would come into effect from November in blood donation centres in Scotland and in early parts of 2018 in the centres of England.

The rules may also consider persons who have had piercing, tattooing, acupuncture, history of non-prescribed injecting drug use etc. in future. These behaviors may all raise the risk of contracting one of the blood borne viral infections.

Alex Phillips, blood donations policy lead at the Terrence Higgins Trust said that these changes in the rule would end the stigma and assumptions. There is evidence, she explained, that three months is adequate time for the tests to pick up the viruses. Lifetime bans on blood donations on commercial sex workers is more due to preconceptions and prejudices than scientific evidence she said. Deborah Gold, chief executive of National Aids Trust, also said that this was a great step towards removing discrimination against gay and bisexual men. NHS Blood and Transplant, she added, is also considering some gay men to donate like any heterosexual persons without the three month window depending on absence of some risk factors and high risk behaviors.

According to NHS Blood and Transplant 200,000 new donors are needed each year in UK to fulfill the needs of the blood supplies. More persons from Asian and minority ethnic communities should step forth to donate blood it has been said.
Beijing: China on Monday hinted that a bilateral meeting could take place between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and its state councillor Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a BRICS NSAs meet in Beijing even as the two countries are engaged in a bitter standoff in Doklam.



Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, during a briefing, hinted at talks between Doval and Yang by saying that he cannot confirm it, but in the past BRICS NSAs meet, the officials have held bilateral meetings.



Lus remarks came after Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qianchines asserted that China will safeguard its security interests at "any cost" and asserted that India should not "harbour any unrealistic illusions".



China has maintained its hardline stance on the border dispute, even as Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from July 27-28.



I dont have relevant information you mentioned right now. As far as we know during the previous meetings, the host countries arranged for the heads of the delegations to hold bilateral meetings in which they exchanged views on bilateral relations, BRICS cooperation and multilateral affairs," Lu said when asked whether there would be a bilateral meeting between Yang and Doval.



Both Doval and Yang are Special Representatives of the two countries in the boundary talks. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, while replying to a question about Dovals schedule in Beijing, had last week said that if there are any further developments in his programme then the media will be informed.



Asked whether the Doklam standoff will figure in the BRICS NSAs meeting since the agenda included discussion on regional hotspot issues, Lu said, China and India enjoy smooth diplomatic channels.



The Indian border troops illegally crossed into Chinas territory. We once again urge India to pull back its troops to the Indian side of the boundary. I want to stress again that this is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides," he said.



Lu also declined to comment on whether the BRICS NSAs would call on Chinese President Xi Jinping or Premier Li Keqiang, saying that he has no information on it.



The tradition of the previous BRICS NSA meetings has been that it was followed by a meeting with the top leaders of the host country. In his briefing, Lu said Doklam standoff is like no other between India and China.



Reacting to the Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishops comment that territorial disputes between India and China should solved peacefully, Lu said the Australian leader is "correct".



"But this principle does not apply to the current standoff between China and India because Doklam region has no dispute. The Sikkim section is a defined boundary recognised and abided by both sides," he claimed.



Earlier, commenting on the over a month-long military standoff between the troops of the two countries, Wu urged India to "correct its mistake".



Stating that the PLA has taken emergency measures in the region and continues to increase focused deployments and drills, he said, "We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border regions peace and tranquillity."



Last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had told Rajya Sabha that China intends to unilaterally change the status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to Indias security.



She had said there was a written agreement between India, China and Bhutan in 2012 that the three nations will together decide on the boundaries at the tri-junction point.



She also accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China.



The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area near the Bhutan tri-junction has dragged on for the past four weeks. It started after a Chinese Armys construction party attempted to build a road.



(With PTI inputs)
Beijing: China on Monday warned India not to harbour any illusions about the People's Liberation Army's ability to defend its territory.



"Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the People's Liberation Army is hard," Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian was quoted as saying by Reuters.



We will safeguard out sovereignty and security interests. I would like to remind the Indian side: Do not push your luck and do not hold any illusion, he said.



Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face-off in Doklam area in the southernmost part of Tibet for over a month after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road, fearing it may allow China to cut India's access to its northeastern states.



The two sides' troops then confronted each other close to a valley controlled by China that separates India from its close ally, Bhutan, and gives China access to the so-called Chicken's Neck, a thin strip of land connecting India and its remote northeastern regions.



India has conveyed to China that the construction of the road would represent a significant change of status quo with serious security implications for New Delhi.



Wu said withdrawal of Indian border guards was a precondition for resolving the situation.



"India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," Wu said, adding that the military had taken emergency measures in the region and would continue to increase focused deployments and drills.



This month, state media said China's military had carried out live fire drills close to the disputed area.



India has said it is ready for talks with China but it must first pull back its troops to end the tense standoff in the Sikkim sector, and called for a "peaceful resolution" of the border issues between the countries.



The US has said it is "closely and carefully" watching the Doklam standoff, urging the two Asian giants to engage in direct dialogue.



(With REUTERS Inputs)
New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University's (JNU) Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar has asked the Union government to install a tank on campus to remind the students constantly of the valour of the Army.



Jagadesh Kumar, who was speaking on the occasion of 'Kargil Vijay Diwas', said an Army tank can remind students of the sacrifices and valour of the soldiers.



PTI reported that the event started with the JNU faculty, students and kin of Kargil martyrs holding a march with a 2,200-feet-long Tricolour and paying tributes at the Wall of Heroes, located in JNU's convention centre where 21 portraits of Param Vir Chakra awardees are exhibited.



Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said JNU created history by organising 'Tiranga March' and setting up Wall of Heroes. He said it as an important day to remember the sacrifices made by the Army.



"In no other country, is the Army being questioned. As India is a democracy, some powers dare to show India in poor light. May God give sUch people better sense," Pradhan said. Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh was also present at the event.



"The outside forces never succeeded with their powers. They became successful only when an insider helped them out. The Indian veterans have been trying to instill the spirit of unity in every Indian heart," the former Army chief said.



He added that Indian soldiers work with the feeling that the nation is above all and there is no division within the Army on the grounds of religion, caste and community. He said the Indian Army is the best in terms of observing human rights.



(With PTI inputs)




New Delhi: Seven people, including the son-in-law of separatist leader SAS Geelani, have been arrested by the National Investigation Agency on Monday. The NIA has pressed charges of conspiracy, waging war against India and terror funding.



Altaf Ahmed Shah, Geelanis son-in-law, has been in custody of Jammu and Kashmir Police since he was placed under preventive custody after Eid. Shah was arrested by the NIA in connection with its probe into the funding of terror.



Besides him, Geelani's close aides Tehreek-e-Hurriyat spokesman Ayaz Akbar and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the NIA from the Valley, officials engaged in the operation said.



The NIA also arrested Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, they said. The others arrested are Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate', they said.



The houses of those arrested had been raided by NIA sleuths last month. Shah is perceived as an influential force in the Tehrek- e-Hurriyat. While Bitta Karate was arrested in Delhi, the other six were arrested in Kashmir and will be brought to Delhi, an NIA press statement said.



Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the Jamaat-ul Dawah, the front of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), has been named in the FIR as an accused besides organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Dukhtaran-e-Milat.



NIA will seek custody of all the accused to find out who else was involved in this terror funding conspiracy. Mirwaiz Farooq, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Yasin Malik will all be summoned. They will be asked to join investigations in Delhi," an NIA officer said.



Mirwaiz in a tweet has called the NIA action vendetta, but NIA sources say that enough evidence exists to prove the conspiracy charge made against the aides of Mirwaiz and Geelani.



The separatist leadership has called for a Kashmir bandh on Tuesday in protest against the arrests, but central government remained unfazed. Sources within the NIA said that a lot of ground work and evidence collection was done before the decision to arrest was taken.



The raids were part of the NIA's efforts at clamping down on separatist groups allegedly receiving funds for subversive activities in the Valley. The NIA had recovered account books, Rs 2 crore in cash and letterheads of banned terror groups, including of the LeT and HM, from the raids.



Former home secretary R K Singh has also demanded arrest of Mirwaiz and Geelani. "They (the arrested accused) could not have acted on their own. Geelani's PA has also been arrested. They are also involved. They are receiving money from Pakistan and ISI. They keep half the money for their lavish lifestyle and the other half is then funelled to instigate violence the valley. They should also be questioned," Singh said.



The NIA investigation also seeks to identify the chain of players behind the financing of terrorist activities, including those who masterminded the throwing of stones at security forces, burnt down schools and damaged government establishments.



For the first time since the rise of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s, a central probe agency had carried out raids in connection with the funding of separatists. In 2002, the Income Tax department had raided the establishments of some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.
Hours after Surinder Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher were pronounced guilty by the CBI court in Pinki Sarkar murder case in Nithari in UP on Monday. Miles away, in West Bengals Murshidabad district, her family members expressed happiness over the verdict.Though Pinkis mother Bandana Sarkar was in Delhi for the verdict, her aunt Geeta Sarkar in Gandhi Colony broke down out of joy.After so many years finally Pinkis soul will rest in peace. We knew that one day we will get justice. We were shocked when we first heard that how Surinder Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher used to kill girls, Geeta told News18.She said, There was a girl from Bengal who lured all these girls to Pandhers house. I dont know whether she was arrested or not. We want stern action against her too. She is also one of the key accused in the case.Speaking to News18 from Ghaziabad, Pinkis mother, Bandana, said, My daughter must have suffered a lot. Those who killed my daughter are not human beings. They are demons. A normal human being cannot do this torture to anyone. I would like to thank the CBI for ensuring justice to us.Advocate Khaled Khan, who is fighting for justice on behalf of Pinkis family members, said, All the evidence went against Surinder Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher. We were confident that they will be served with harsh punishment. I am very happy to ensure justice to the victims family members.Koli and Pandher were pronounced guilty by the CBI court in the murder and attempted rape of 20-year-old Pinki Sarkar. This is eighth of the 16 murder cases against the two. Judgment has already been given in seven cases.The Nithari killings took place in 2005 and 2006 when minor girls, young women and children disappeared mysteriously from around Pandhers Sector 31 residence in Noida. Noida police arrested Koli and Pandher on December 29, 2006 after the bones, skulls and other human remains of the Nithari victims were discovered from the backyard of his house.
After the announcement of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) closing down its Lucknow Center, more than 2,000 workers and their families hit the streets on Sunday for a silent march.The march began from Ram Manohar Lohia Park, Lucknow. People were seen carrying placards messages like CEO Uncle, Our states future is in your hands now. A human chain was formed as a part of the protest. Several social organisations also joined in. A campaignSave TCS Lucknow began few days earlier on Twitter.The decision by IT giant TCS to shift its Lucknow Centre is being seen as a major embarrassment for the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh. CM Adityanath after meeting with delegation of TCS employees had ordered his secretary level officers to pursue the matter.A senior government official said Adityanath will have a meeting with the TCSs top executive sometime after August 10. CM recently has announced the new industrial policy offering big discounts to investors to set up units in backward regions.Speaking to ETV, Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Dinesh Sharma said, Efforts are being made to stop TCS leaving from Lucknow. They will have to explain the reasons behind their decision as the government has agreed to give them all the facilities.
Mumbai: A woman was crushed to death by truck in Mumbais Jawhar area when she fell off her bike after hitting a pothole.



Police said 36-year-old Jagruti Hogale was a resident of Bandra and was going on a road trip with other members of the Bikerni motorcycle club.



This is the fourth death this year on the Dahanu-Jawhar Road.



Meanwhile, following CNN-News18's extensive reportage on potholes in Mumbai, the opposition Congress is going to raise the matter in the Maharashtra Assembly.



This incident comes just a day after two people were injured in Parel when a tree fell on a passenger taxi they were travelling in.



Manohar Kuchrakar(75) and Vidyavasani Mishra (52), were travelling in a taxi when the tree fell on the vehicle in Boiwada area.



On Saturday, 58-eight-year-old Kanchan Nath, a former Doordarshan anchor, died after a coconut tree fell on her. She was out on a morning walk when the tragedy befell her in Mumbais Chembur.



Footage from a nearby CCTV camera showed passersby rushing to her aid and trying to remove the mammoth tree off Nath. She was taken to the hospital and succumbed to her injuries the next day.



CNN-News18 has learnt that nearby residents had complained to the BMC in February that the trees branches were falling onto the road, posing a hazard to pedestrians and motorists. CNN-News18 has a copy of the complaint.



The incident is likely to result in more flak for the Shiv Sena-led BMC. The civic body is already under fire shooting off a notice to radio jockey Malishka Mendonsa after her parody video mocked the corporation for the citys potholed roads.




Mumbai: Actor Kunal Kapoor says he channelises his restless energy in acting.



The actor, who has worked with popular filmmakers like Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Rahul Dholakia, Pradeep Sarkar and Gauri Shinde, doesn't take up acting projects in bulk. Why is he so choosy?



Kunal said: "I get this complaint from well-wishers... 'Why such less number of films?' But honestly, I always do films that I believe in, and they are very few and far between. These days, my kind of films are happening so, I am working quite a lot."



He added: "Since last year, so far, I have done some films. I did Veeram, Dear Zindagi, an English language film The Noblemen, Raagdesh is coming and there are two more projects I will be working on. So yes, it's quite an interesting phase of my career."



Starting as an assistant director with Mehra, Kunal made his Bollywood debut with the film Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities, directed by M.F. Husain.



Talking about his true calling in acting, he said: "I was a restless child from the beginning and I didn't know where to channelise that. And then when I started assisting and working on a film set, I understood that film is the platform



"Even though I was an assistant director, most of the time I was in front of the camera rehearsing with actors. Gradually, I realized that I actually want to be in front of the camera, I want to be an actor. I channelise my restless energy in acting."



Kunal is quite excited about Raagdesh, in which he plays Major General Shah Nawaz Khan of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army.



Talking about the Red Fort trials, he said: "Isn't it quite shocking? I mean how come we were not taught about an important part of our history in school? It's really sad that our generation knows so little about the Indian National Army that contributed to the Indian freedom movement... nothing less than any other political parties or individual."



"After reading the entire story, I felt there's a deliberate attempt to wipe it out of our history books. It is unfortunate," said Kunal.



Kunal went the extra mile to get under the skin of the character. The actor read up a lot on Major General Khan, met his grandson, spent time with their family to get a better insight into his personality and worked on an Urdu-Punjabi accent to capture a certain speaking style of the 1940s' era.



What about his experience of working with the film's director Tigmanshu Dhulia?



"I always wanted to work with Tishu sir (Dhulia), and the interesting thing I have observed is that all actors perform well in his filmEveryone acts the best in his film! You know why?"



"Because he is an amazing actor, director, and writer. Being an actor, he understands what exactly I need to know to perform the characterit's a dream come true to work with him," said Kunal.



The story of Raagdesh revolves around three soldiers.



"I loved all the three characters in the film, whether it was Shah Nawaz, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon or Prem Sahgal, I love them all," he said.



"Tishu sir was looking for a combination of Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Shashi Kapoor in these three characters. While Dhillon's character played by Amit (Sadh) is an emotional man who is ready to give his life for the country at any point of time, Sahgal is a little romantic by nature like the image of Shashi Kapoor. Shah Nawaz is calm, composed and intense," he added.



Raagdesh will release on July 28.
New Delhi: Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Ashutosh on Monday urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to use the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines in at least 5% polling booths in the assembly segment in the upcoming Bawana by-poll in Delhi.



In a letter that Ashutosh personally delivered to Chief Election Commissioner Achal Kumar Jyoti, he wrote: The Election Commission of India may recall its own decision dated July 5, 2017, to compulsorily tally paper trail slips of Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines with the results of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in five per cent of polling stations in each assembly seat for all State and Lok Sabha elections.



A copy of the letter has also been marked to the Delhi State Election Commissioner.



The Bye election of Bawana Assembly Constituency of Delhi is due any time now. The Bawana Bye election provides an ideal opportunity for the Election Commission of India to practically implement the decision to tally VVPAT paper trails with EVM results. The Aam Aadmi Party requests the Election Commission of India to use the EVMs with VVPAT machines for the Bawana Assembly Bye-election and implement the decision of counting and tallying of paper trails in five percent booths, the letter further read.



After the meeting, also attended by AAP leader Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh tweeted, Met the Chief Election Commissioner along with Sanjay Singh Ji. He assured us that he would implement VVPAT machines and tally 5% of the counted votes.



In a reference to reports that there was an EVM malfunction in an election in Maharashtras Buldhana district, he said, We spoke about faulty EVMs in Buldhana. The CEC has asked the state election commission for a report on the matter.



The Bawana Assembly Constituency of Delhi fell vacant after AAP MLA Ved Prakash, who won the seat in 2015, resigned from the assembly in March this year to join the BJP.




New Delhi: Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, whom the CBI has booked in a in a land graft case, amid bickering in Mahagathbandhan met Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday. This comes just two days after Nitish Kumar met Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.



Tejaswi is also likely to meet his lawyers in Delhi on Tuesday as he prepares his legal defence.



JD(U) state president Bashistha Narain Singh summoned all spokespersons at his house in the morning and directed them not to interact with media till further instructions.



Nitish will be in Delhi on Tuesday to attend President elect Ram Nath Kovind's swearing in ceremony and, sources say, he is expected to meet Sonia as well.



Fissures in the Bihar Mahagathbandhan came to the fore after the CBI booked Lalu, wife Rabri Devi, and son Tejashwi in a corruption case. Lalu has been accused of influencing the awarding of an IRCTC tender when he was the railway minister in 2005 and accepting prime land in return. The land was allegedly transferred to Tejashwi and Rabri via a shell company.



The Congress  third member of the alliance  has been playing peacemaker in the standoff between Bihars two major parties.



The Bihar Assembly session will begin later this month and Nitish is likely to face questions about Tejashwi continuing in the government despite corruption allegations against him.



Nitish has carefully cultivated a clean image and this controversy is causing a huge dent to his image perception.



The RJD has clearly ruled out Tejashwi's resignation.



The JD(U) has 71 MLAs, RJD 81 and the other alliance partner Congress has 27 while the BJP, which is the main opposition in the House, has 53 MLAs.
Kohima: The Naga People's Front (NPF) has decided to move court seeking disqualification of 36 NPF legislators in the wake of new Chief Minister T R Zeliang winning the floor test in the Assembly and forming government.



The petition will be filed on Monday in the Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court in Kohima, said NPF legislators supporting former chief minister Shurhozelie Liezietsu.



They announced it during an interacting with a section of media-persons at the Chief Minister's official residence in Kohima on Sunday night.



MLA Kuzholuzo Azo Nienu said the 10 NPF legislators with Liezietsu had challenged the decision of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) Speaker Imtiwapang Aier in recognising Zeliang, an expelled member of NPF, as the whip on July 18 and 20, before the two Assembly sittings were held for the floor test.



He expressed surprise that on both occassions, the speaker did not respond to their letters and also did not cite any reason for not accepting the whip issued by Kiyanilie Peseyie as authorised by NPF president Liezietsu for the sessions.



On the confusion about appointment of chairman of the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN), Azo said, "His appointment as chairman of DAN will continue as the alliance partners comprising NPF, BJP, NCP and JD(U) has been endorsed."



"The alliance partners have not withdrawn their support signed on July 10 last, and unless they withdraw I will continue to be the chairman," he said.



MLA Chotisuh Sazo, who is also a former NLA Speaker, said during the present crisis the Speaker should have accepted the whip issued by NPF party and not the whip issued by NPF Legislature Party.



"NPF is the registered party and recognised by the Election Commission of India while NPF Legislature Party is not a recognised party," he said.



"As per NPF Constitution Chapter 5 Section 10 clearly mentions that the president of the party is authorised to promulgate ordinance on all its members, including the legislators," he said.



He also said that as per the Tenth Schedule Para 2 (1)(b) clearly mentions that a political party is to give direction to its members, whether vote in favour, against or abstain the floor test.



"The NPF party had appointed MLA Kiyanielie as the chief whip in November 2014, which has not been withdrawn by the party nor revoked by the Assembly," he said.



"So we have decided to challenge the matter in the court and file the petition by tomorrow," he said.



Sazo said once the judgement is out, the 36 NPF legislators who vote against the NPF whip will be liable of disqualification from the Assembly.



"Unless condoned by the party within 15 days, they will be disqualified from the Assembly," he said.



MLA Yitachu said that many of the legislators supporting Zeliang have been misguided on the entire episode.



He also informed that NPF has taken the matter to the Supreme Court while hearing has been listed for Monday.



Meanwhile, NPF continued suspending its dissident legislators.



Kezong Chang, who had been inducted as a minister in the Zeliang Cabinet yesterday, was today suspended by the NPF party.



With his suspension, altogether 11 legislators with Zeliang have been suspended till date while 20 are expelled.



"Kezong Chang, MLA and member of NPF Party ceases to be primary and active member of the Party but shall continue to be bound by the whip of the NPF on the floor of NLA as per judicial decision of the apex court," stated a suspension order issued by NPF Working President Huska Yepthomi.
Lucknow: Opposition members on Monday boycotted the proceedings of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly for the third day, accusing the Leader of the House Yogi Adityanath of not taking any initiative to end the deadlock, even as the Speaker termed their stand as "unfortunate".



Instead of participating in the proceedings of the House, members of the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress sat in the central hall and ran a parallel "House".



With just four days of the budget session left, Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit expressed displeasure at the opposition's move.



It's "unfortunate", he told media persons outside the House which was adjourned after condoling the death of BJP MLA Mathura Prasad Pal, who died after prolonged illness.



"I had called the opposition for a meeting of the business advisory committee that decides agenda of the House. I was expecting them to participate in the proceedings as condolence was to be taken up on the death of a legislator. It's unfortunate," Dixit said.



"The alternative of House is the House alone", Dixit emphasised adding that the opposition members should raise their voice in the Assembly itself.



Asked about the opposition's allegations that the microphone was switched off when Leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Chowdhury was speaking in the House, Dixit said that no such thing had happened.



The opposition has accused the treasury benches of threatening them, using unparliamentary language and decided to boycott the entire session.



"The government is not serious on the issues being raised by the opposition. No attempt has been made by the Leader of the House (Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath) to end the deadlock and run the House. To mark our protest, we sat at the central hall and I was made Leader of the House, while Ram Govind Chowdhury was leader of opposition and Lalji Verma was made Speaker," Congress Legislature Party leader Ajay Kumar Lallu told PTI.



He said that it was unfortunate that the chief minister was not present in the House today at the time of the condolence resolution. "It has been a tradition that Leader of the House reads the resolution but the CM was not present and it was read by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna," Lallu said.



He claimed that instead of discussion on matters like law and order, farmers' issues, unemployment which were being raised by the opposition, the government was "threatening" members. This will not be tolerated, he said.



Under the previous regime, when BJP member Upendra Tiwari sat on a dharna, the then Parliamentary Affairs minister Azam Khan, senior minister Shivpal Yadav and Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey had reached out to him, he said, claiming that the present government did not want to run the House with the opposition.



Earlier, with the opposition boycotting proceedings, the budgets of 75 departments were cleared on Friday when the government conducted its entire business in less than two hours. The Question Hour ended in just a few minutes. Now, only the budgets of home and general administration departments are to be passed before the House is adjourned sine die.
As South Korea prepares for the largest winter sporting event in its history, LG Electronics (LG) is focusing on improving automated services at the main hub for the worlds travellers  Incheon International Airport (IIA). Starting on July 21, LG will put into trial service a number of Airport Guide Robots and Airport Cleaning Robots at the airport to assist travellers arriving and departing from Korea. The Airport Guide Robot will roam the airport providing information and assistance to visitors while the Airport Cleaning Robot will be on hand to keep the floors clean.Through this, LG will be able to provide its robotic services to approximately 57 million travellers who pass through the airport every year. While the robots are officially going into trial service today, they have been a familiar presence to frequent travellers since February, when they began beta testing at IIA. As per LG, its engineers have been fine tuning the robots for the past five months, improving their performance based on the data and experience collected during the beta test.Equipped with LGs voice recognition platform, the Airport Guide Robot understands four different languages  Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese  the four most popular languages spoken at the airport, in order to provide assistance verbally. The robot can connect to the airports central server to provide information regarding boarding time and locations of restaurants, shops, and more.With a quick scan of a boarding pass, the Airport Guide Robot can escort the late or lost traveller to the right departure gate on time. The Airport Cleaning Robot takes LG HOM-BOTs cleaning performance, autonomous navigation, and object-avoidance capability and applies them to a commercial, public environment. This robot detects the areas that require the most frequent cleaning, stores those locations in its database and calculates the most efficient routes to get there. With these airport robots, LG is demonstrating its initiative to develop and expand its commercial robot business as a future growth engine.Currently, LGs robot business is divided into two sectors: home and commercial. LGs home robots include the HOM-BOT vacuum cleaner and the new Hub Robot while LGs commercial business consists of robots specially designed to provide services in public areas such as airports, hotels and banks.
Wellington: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson joked on his visit to New Zealand on Monday that a traditional Maori greeting could be misinterpreted as a head butt elsewhere.



Johnson is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen its ties with its former colony amid a broader reshaping of Britain's global relationships as it prepares to leave the European Union.



Topics on the agenda include trade, foreign policy and international security. He visited the South Island tourist town of Kaikoura, which was struck by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake in November that killed two people.



Johnson thanked townsfolk for looking after tourists, including 200 Britons, who were stranded in the town after the quake and for teaching him a Maori greeting called a hongi, in which people press noses together.



"I think it's a beautiful form of introduction, though it might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow," Johnson joked, in a reference to a head butt.



Johnson said it was his first visit to New Zealand. "This is the most mind-blowingly, mind-numbingly beautiful country that I have ever seen," he said, adding it was the only landscape he thinks could do justice to the imagination of JRR Tolkien, author of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit," which were filmed in New Zealand. Johnson is due to travel to Australia.
Colombo: An outbreak of dengue virus has killed around 300 people so far this year in Sri Lanka and hospitals are stretched to capacity, health officials said on Monday.



They blamed recent monsoon rains and floods that have left pools of stagnant water and rotting rain-soaked trash -- ideal breeding sites for mosquitoes that carry the virus.



The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is scaling up emergency assistance to Sri Lanka with the Sri Lanka Red Cross to help contain the outbreak.



"Dengue patients are streaming into overcrowded hospitals that are stretched beyond capacity and struggling to cope, particularly in the countrys hardest hit western province," Red Cross/Red Crescent said in a statement.



According to the World Health Organization, dengue is one of the world's fastest growing diseases, endemic in 100 countries, with as many as 390 million infections annually. Early detection and treatment save lives when infections are severe, particularly for young children.



The Sri Lankan government is struggling to control the virus, which causes flu-like symptoms and can develop into the deadly hemorrhagic dengue fever.



The ministry of health said the number of dengue infections has climbed above 100,000 since the start of 2017, with 296 deaths.



"Ongoing downpours and worsening sanitation conditions raise concerns the disease will continue to spread," Red Cross/Red Crescent said.



Its assistance comes a week after Australia announced programmes to help control dengue fever in Sri Lanka.



"Dengue is endemic here, but one reason for the dramatic rise in cases is that the virus currently spreading has evolved and people lack the immunity to fight off the new strain," Novil Wijesekara, head of health at the Sri Lanka Red Cross said in a statement.
Real estate conglomerates vie for Hanoi railway projects

VietNamNet Bridge - Real estate developers are seeking land plots in the suburbs, especially in areas with good infrastructure development, as available space in the inner city is diminishing.













Six Vietnamese and two foreign investors have registered to develop urban railway projects (subway), namely Vingroup, Xuan Thanh Group, Lung Lo 5 JSC, Mosmetrotroy from Russia, Tan Hoang Minh Co Ltd, the joint name of Licogi and MIK Group Vietnam, and Lotte.

Hanoi has submitted a plan to auction 6,000 hectares of land to build 10 urban railway lines from now to 2030.Six Vietnamese and two foreign investors have registered to develop urban railway projects (subway), namely Vingroup, Xuan Thanh Group, Lung Lo 5 JSC, Mosmetrotroy from Russia, Tan Hoang Minh Co Ltd, the joint name of Licogi and MIK Group Vietnam, and Lotte.Most of the investors are the big guys in the real estate sector. The investors all registered the projects immediately after Hanoi called for private investment in the projects.Thanh Nien quoted a source as reporting that to attract private investors, Hanoi plans to allocate land along the subway system to the investors for exchange for their capital to build the subway.

By the time the railway system is completed, there would be residential quarters on both sides of the route to use the project. Urban areas and shopping centers would be set up within a radius of 500 meters around subway stations.



The project will be implemented under the mode of PPP under which investors can use land to develop urban infrastructure and shopping centers.



Do Thi Thu Hang from Savills, a real estate service provider, noted there is no available land in the inner districts of Cau Giay, Thanh Xuan, Tay Ho and Dong Da.



There potential land plots in the suburban districts of Hoai Duc, Quoc Oai, Dong Anh, Thach That, Ha Dong and Long Bien.



This opens up many opportunities for infrastructure projects, especially urban railways heading towards the area.



These include the Metro 2A route from Ha Dong district to the center, the Metro 3 route running along Highway 32 linking Hoai Duc district to the center, and the Thang Long Boulevard metro route that connects Thach That and Quoc Oai areas with My Dinh.



Highway 18 that connects National Highway 5 and Dong Anh area is another area that can be used.



If the infrastructure projects can be developed, there would be more successful urban areas like Ecopark along new urban railways systems.



The land along urban railway systems is expected to become very valuable. In a report on the impact of the urban railway on the real estate market, CBRE said the land price would increase, while the number of real estate projects in the areas would explode.





RELATED NEWS

Domestic private conglomerates want to invest in subway systems

South Korea is 4th country to invest in Vietnam subway





Luong Bang
Surrounded by family, Slick transitioned on Monday, July 17, 2017, to his heavenly home after battling cancer. Born on April 5, 1944, he was the son of the late James H. Reeves, Sr. and Savonia G. Reeves. He was also preceded in death by his sister, Lucille. Affectionately known as "Slick", he graduated from Dunbar High School in 1963. He proudly served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. He retired from B&W Naval Nuclear Fuel Division. He was a passionate and well-known photographer whose excellence was demonstrated in the memories he captured for others. He was a member of both the Virginia and North Carolina Professional Photographers' Associations and a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Jacqueline Paige Reeves; his children, Kelvin (Shernita) and Minister Ethel Reeves both of Lynchburg, Virginia; his grandchildren, Dakota, Ebony, Jacquelle, Kelvin and Keilan; his great-grandson, Josiah and other relatives and friends. He was blessed to have lasting friendships with brothers that he never had Dr. Jerry Head from Durham, North Carolina and the late James "Mr. B." Becton(Carol) from New Berne, North Carolina. The family will receive friends from 6 to 7 p.m., Friday, July 21, 2017, at Community Funeral Home. A homegoing service will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, July 22, 2017, at New Dearington Baptist Church 400 Smyth St. Family and friends will assemble at the church. Condolences may be emailed to comfuneral@aol.com. Community Funeral Home directing
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Challenges of working in clinical care

Clinical environments are highly pressurised and healthcare professionals are constantly having to deal with life and death, pain, despair and grief. They are also susceptible to other occupational stressors such as poor management practices; unkempt physical spaces; substandard or malfunctioning equipment; fear of culpability for negligence of care all of which will impact on the quality and standard of service provided.

I have witnessed serious shortcomings at various clinical care institutions both in the UK and in Trinidad and Tobago, and staff have lamented that even though they raise concerns with senior management their voices go unheard.

This deep-seated frustration with the systemic failures and their sense of disillusionment is notable by the impact it has on their overall well-being. To quote a healthcare professional, its a case of shut up and put up with the mess and hope and pray for the patients because if not it will drive me insane. Another asked: How can we be expected to deliver a first-class service in a third-rate environment and it not affect us. The fact of the matter is that healthcare personnel are psychologically, emotionally and cognitively diverse and as such will have different reactions to situations.

But, working in an environment where there are processes which are counter-productive to health and healing (even amongst the most resilient person) will eventually impinge on their ability to deliver the level of service expected.

Let me share some of the challenges raised by the staff at Port of Spain General, San Fernando and Mt Hope Hospitals: Lack of mandatory tools of the trade  equipment malfunctioning due to lack of maintenance Poor communication illegibility of referral letters and prescriptions, language and cultural barriers Inefficient procurement processes for acquiring equipment, supplies and stationary Inadequate human resources and consequential overwork Occupational safety and health violations  exposure to unsafe situations with risks to cross-infections, receiving abuse, threats and physical violence Working in physical spaces with vermin infestations, broken air-conditioning and unusable furniture Ineffective organisational practices  management failings, nepotism, interpersonal conflicts, lack of training and development, low morale, incompetence Unrealistic patient demands and expectations hostility, emotional exhaustion Sub-standard records management system  patient documentation, test results, and images consistently being lost Breaches of confidentiality  fear of disclosure of their own health status From discussions with personnel who have been shouted at, rushed off their feet, feel undervalued, are mentally and physically exhausted and in some instances are in a job where there is a mismatch between their personality, skills and the role they perform, it is evident that not only do these issues affect the quality of their work, but they have a bearing on their health and wellness.

Studies in the UK found that 61 per cent of healthcare professionals expressed feelings of stress most of the time, and that they are also prone to increased levels of depression, anxiety, suicide, and have greater rates of substance misuse.

Such findings ought not to be overlooked because all employers have a duty of care for their staff, and if the work environment is not conducive to staff wellness it should be addressed because staff is the most valuable resource within an organisation.

In TT there is a culture of non-disclosure when it comes to mental health mainly due to stigma and discrimination, but the reality is that health care personnel work in environments with heightened occupational and psychosocial stressors that increases their chances of physical and psychological distress and the knock-on effect of not addressing those stressors is the potential for life-threatening clinical errors to occur.

If healthcare institutions are serious about adhering to quality assurance standards and fulfilling their duty of care to patients and employees, then the voices of the staff who wish to discuss the challenges they endure should be listened to. The benefits of having a motivated and empowered workforce should not be underestimated, so taking account of their concerns will be a step in the right direction that can invariably boost morale, improve communication, reduce absenteeism/presenteeism and lead to improved job outputs and outcomes  a win/win situation for all.

Dr Yansie Rolston FRSA is a UKbased disability and mental health specialist advisor. She is a social strategist and trainer who works internationally at various levels of government, business and civil society.

Contact her at yr@efficacyeva.com
Third suspect charged for Maloney double murder

The 25-year-old Valencia man is expected to appear before an Arima Magistrate today charged with the offence. Additionally the DPP also gave instruction to release a 32-year-old man who was also detained in connection with the double murder.

Two people  24-year-old man and a 54-year-old relative of Mohammed  were already charged with the double murder and have appeared before an Arima Magistrate.

On June 28, Mohammed and Subar was found bound and gagged, with their throats slit, at Mohammeds home on Ajim Baksh Street.

The discovery of the two bodies was made by Mohammeds husband.
Law student raped at knifepoint

The traumatised victim, who is from Tobago, returned to the sister isle on Saturday night, hours after the incident, and is recieving counceling for his ordeal.

According to reports, the victim who is pursuing a law degree, travels to Trinidad every Saturday to attend classes.

On Saturday afternoon around 4 pm he exitied a taxi in Arouca and was on his way to board another taxi to take him to the Piarco International Airport, when he saw a man whom he thought looked familiar.

The victim told police that he was approached by a man who told him that he was going to Tobago but needed to go to his apartment to change, and asked the law student to accompany him to his apartment so he could freshen up before they both departed to the airport.

The law student said because the man looked familiar he did not feel that there was anything sinister about the invitation to go to the suspects apartment.

According to the victim, when arriving to the apartment a short distance away from the Arouca taxi stand the man placed a knife at his neck, and ordered him to perform oral sex.

He said that following the act, he was then buggered for close to ten minutes.

Following the two rape acts the student was allowed to leave. He made his way to the Arouca Police Station where the matter was reported.

The victim was taken to the St Joseph Health Centre where he was examined by DMO Dr Gopaul, and a medical certificate obtained. Police officers then took the victim back to the Arouca area where a search was carried out at the apartment where the rape act took place, and a 31-year-old Guyanese national arrested.

The suspect was taken back to the Arouca Police Station and was expected to be placed on an identification parade yesterday for the two rape acts as well as other criminal acts reported by victims.

The law student was expected to return to the country yesterday to attend the identification parade.

Sources say that the man was inconsolable following the incident.

Investigatons are continuing.
No One Will

Ever Smash

Stuff Quite

Like He Did
The driver of a tractor-trailer containing dozens trapped alongside eight dead bodies has been taken into custody. The driver faces federal and state charges in what is being investigated as a human trafficking incident, reports My San Antonio. Per the AP, one more victim has died at the hospital after enduring sweltering conditions in the unair-conditioned container, bringing the death toll to nine. Though 38 victims were found in the trailer parked in a San Antonio Walmart lot, more than 100 people may have initially been inside the truck, says Thomas Homan of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement; he added that the remaining victims may have fled or been picked up. The rest of the survivors are being treated at nearby hospitals.

According to the Washington Post, the tractor-trailer advertised Iowa company Pyle Transportations on the side. Company owner Brian Pyle told the Post that the driver, who was out on his first trip, owns and operates the truck independently, but uses Pyles insurance and trailer to haul goods. "Its a common thing in the trucking industry," Pyle says. He had my name on the side, and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel." Homan says some of the survivors have identified themselves as Mexican nationals. US Attorney Richard Durbin released a statement confirming that the driver was in custody and "will face charges," adding that Homeland Security and local responders will aid in identifying those who were responsible for this tragedy." (Read more smuggling stories.)
A 3-month-old girl who tested positive for meth, heroin, and morphine was allegedly dosed with a painkiller by her parents hours after her April 9 birth to mask the girl's addiction from hospital staff. The Utah County Sheriff reports that Colby Glen Wilde, 29, and Lacey Dawn Christenson, 26, face multiple charges, including child endangerment and drug distributionthough the Salt Lake Tribune reports these charges don't touch on what allegedly happened at the hospital. Having used heroin and prescription drugs heavily throughout her pregnancy, Christenson admitted to police she knew her daughter would be born addicted. When hospital staff weren't looking, she and Wilde allegedly rubbed a crushed painkiller called Suboxone on the girl's gums to mask her symptoms.

The case only began to surface two months later, when Wilde allegedly grabbed items from a Walmart shelf and immediately tried to return them; police say he dropped his baby, who was strapped into a carseat, two times while attempting to flee, reports Gephardt Daily. The Utah Division of Child and Family Services took custody of the couple's four children; the youngest three kids tested positive for meth. In late June, police say a search warrant led to the discovery of drugs and related items all over the house, including next to a bassinet and sippy cup. On July 18, they executed another search warrant and say the revelation about the alleged post-birth dosing occurred in an interview with the couple after that. The couple's cash bail has been set at $10,000, reports CBS News. The baby's current health has not been reported. (Withdrawal can kill an infant.)
Hundreds of sheep in a herd belonging to a farmer in Couflens in the southwest of France have plunged to their deaths in what appears to be a bear attack on one of the sheep. As the Guardian reports, the attack on one is believed to have frightened the 209 others, who sailed over a 650-foot cliff in an apparent bid to flee. That cliff sits on the border with Spain, and most of the recovered bodies169were found in the Spanish village Lladorre; the rest ended up on the French side of the border. Bear fur was found on one of the bodies, and the Local reports that an analysis of it does point to a bear prompting the scare, which came almost exactly a year after more than 130 sheep died similarly.

The French government, which has been reintroducing brown bears to the Pyrenees for the last 20 years or so after hunters completely depleted the native population, will compensate the farmer. A local branch of the French farmers' federation is furious nonetheless. Sheep breeders have previously protested the presence of bears and wolves, which they say threaten their flocks and livelihood. The current estimate suggests there are 35 brown bears inhabiting the Pyrenees. Last year, one was found with a gunshot wound to the chest in northern Spain, though it enjoys protected status there. (Protesters slaughtered a sheep at Auschwitz in March.)
An 18-year-old Ohio woman has been charged with reckless homicide after investigators say they found the remains of her newborn baby buried outside her family home earlier this month. On July 14, acting on a tip from a doctor's office, police say they found the body of Brooke Skylar Richardson's baby in a backyard in Carlisle, Ohio, about 40 miles north of Cincinnati. One week later, on July 21, the Warren County prosecutor charged Richardson with homicide based on evidence that her infant "was born alive and was not a stillborn baby," the Dayton Daily News reports. Investigators believe Richardson killed her baby around May 7, though they are still waiting for a final report from the coroner's office on the cause of death.

Police returned to the property July 20 and arrested Richardson. They also searched for additional evidence around that time, including digging near a fire pit in the yard, WDTN reports. At Richardson's arraignment on Friday, the judge scheduled a preliminary hearing for Aug. 1. Richardson had already entered a not-guilty plea, and the judge continued her $15,000 bond. If convicted, the recent high school graduate faces between one to five years in prison. After the arraignment, Richardson's attorney, Charles M. Rittgers, called his client a "very good person." "She didnt drink. She wasnt a partier or a smoker," Rittgers said. "By all measures a very good girl who helped children." (Read more Brooke Skylar Richardson stories.)
A South African girl born with the AIDS virus has kept her infection suppressed for more than eight years after stopping anti-HIV medicinesmore evidence that early treatment can occasionally cause a long remission that, if it lasts, would be a form of cure. Her case was revealed Monday at a Paris AIDS conference, where researchers also gave encouraging results from tests of shots every month or two instead of daily pills to treat HIV, the AP reports. "That's very promising," the US' top AIDS scientist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said of the prospects for long-acting drugs. Current treatments keep HIV under control but must be taken lifelong. Only one person is thought to be cured: the so-called Berlin patient, a man who had a bone marrow transplant in 2007 from a donor with natural resistance to HIV. But transplants are risky and impractical to try to cure the millions already infected.

So some researchers are aiming for the next best thing: long-term remission, when the immune system can control HIV without drugs even if signs of the virus remain. Aggressive treatment soon after infection might enable that in some cases, and the South African girl is the third child who achieved a long remission after that approach. She was in a study sponsored by Fauci's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which previously found early treatment helped babies survive. The unidentified girl started on HIV drugs when she was 2 months old and stopped 40 weeks later. Tests when she was 9 1/2 years old found signs of virus in a small number of immune system cells, but none capable of reproducing. The girl doesn't have a gene mutation that gives natural resistance to HIV infection, Fauci said, so her remission seems likely due to the early treatment. (Read more HIV/AIDS stories.)
Poland's president has defied the leader of his country's powerful ruling party and blocked a plan to upend the court system. President Andrzej Duda vetoed two of three bills that would have given politicians far more control over the courts than they have now, reports Reuters. Critics said the changes, which would have allowed Poland's top judges to be effectively fired and replaced by the ruling Law and Justice Party, amounted to a political takeover of the judiciary. In fact, the European Union had warned that Poland might no longer qualify as a democracy had they gone through.

"As president I don't feel this law would strengthen a sense of justice," Duda said on national TV, per the BBC. "These laws must be amended." The decision puts him squarely in opposition to Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who runs the Law and Justice Party and is seen as the most powerful politician in the country despite not holding an official government post. Thousands of protesters had taken to the streets in opposition to the laws. While Duda vetoed two of three measures, the one he allowed to take effect gives the justice minister more control over judges on lower courts. (Read more Poland stories.)
A teenage German girl who ran away after converting to Islam and was found by Iraqi troops in Mosul says she wants to go home, a German newspaper and broadcaster reported Monday. "I just want to go back home to my family," says 16-year-old Linda Wenzel. "I want to get away from the war, away from all the weapons, away from the noise." German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcaster ARD say their reporter interviewed the girl in Baghdad after she was found earlier this month as Iraqi forces liberated the northern city from ISIS. Linda ran away from her home in the small eastern German town of Pulsnitz last summer, shortly after converting to Islam, reports the AP.

She had been in touch with ISIS members and was married to one of their fighters after arriving in the group's territory. Her husband died shortly after the marriage, the German media reports. The girl said she had been hiding in a basement in Mosul when Iraqi soldiers captured her. She said she is "doing fine" despite a bullet wound in her left leg that she said "is from a helicopter attack." The teenager is currently in a military hospital ward in Baghdad, according to the report. It's not clear if she can return to Germany or if she will be tried in Iraq for membership in ISIS. In Iraq, Linda could theoretically face the death sentence, according to the country's counter-terrorism law. However, even if she is sentenced to death in Iraq, she would not be executed before the age of 22. (Read more ISIS stories.)
Jared Kushner appears before not one but two congressional panels this week in regard to his contacts with Russian officials, but he makes the case in a statement released Monday morning that he doesn't have much of value to offer. "I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," he writes of four meetings he had with Russian officials, per Politico. "I had no improper contacts." In the 11-page statement (read it in full here), he describes the now-famous meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer as a waste of time. In "looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.'"

Kushner appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee at 10am Monday and follows up with an appearance before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, and both sessions will be behind closed doors. Kushner will not be under oath, but the Washington Post reports that he is still putting himself at risk because any statement he makes could be used against him later by criminal prosecutors. Kushner is not expected to take the Fifth Amendment, and the panels are expected to turn over his testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller. If he does somehow incriminate himself, however, one legal analyst says he's got a backup: No one who has paid any attention to this administration should doubt that if Kushner ever needs a pardon, he will get one." (Read more Jared Kushner stories.)
In the 10 years he has been digging up ordnance from the Korean War, Maj. Jong Il Hyon has lost five colleagues to explosions. He carries a lighter that one gave him before he died. He also bears a scar on his left cheek from a bomb disposal mission gone wrong, per the AP. Sixty-four years after a truce was reached, the war is still giving up thousands of bombs, mortars, and pieces of live ammunition. Virtually all of it is American, but Jong noted that more than a dozen other countries fought on the US side, and every now and then their bombs will turn up as well. "The experts say it will take 100 years to clean up all of the unexploded ordnance, but I think it will take much longer," Jong said at a construction site on the outskirts of Hamhung, North Korea's second-largest city.

There, workers unearthed a rusted but still potentially deadly mortar round in February. Last October, 370 more were found in a nearby elementary school playground. According to Jong, his bomb squad is one of nine in North Korea, one for each province. His unit alone handled 2,900 leftover explosives last year. He said this year they've already disposed of about 1,200. North Koreans claim 400,000 bombs were dropped on Pyongyang alone, roughly one bomb for every resident at the time, and that only two modern buildings in the capital were left standing. All told, the US dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea during the war, most of it in the North, including with 32,500 tons of napalm. Between 12% and 15% of the North's population was killed in the war. (Read more Korean War stories.)
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski may be on the outs with President Trump, but that wasn't always the case. A lengthy profile in New York magazine begins with the odd anecdote that when Brzezinski gave her co-host a rabbit in April 2016 as a birthday present, Scarborough actually named it Donald Fluffy Trump. (The name had to be changed to Melania when they realized they got the gender wrong, but another Donald Fluffy Trump exists.) The story notes that their Morning Joe show was among the first to treat Trump as a candidate with a chance of winning, and Scarborough even acted as an informal adviser on phone calls. But relations began to sour almost immediately after the inauguration when the pair visited the White House, and Scarborough told Trump that his first week in office hadn't gone well. He says Trump didn't take it well.

"It was shocking," says Scarborough. "It was the first time anybody had told him that the first week didnt go really well. When they voiced more criticism about his staff on-air, Trump reportedly blew up over the phone, and things have been downhill ever since, culminating in Trump's tweet about Brzezinski's cosmetic surgery. "It's just so silly," she says. The piece details the feud, including Trump's view that both are two-faced phonies, and it also provides a look at how the personal relationship between the co-hosts blossomed. "These are two people who really f------ love each other," writes Olivia Nuzzi of the engaged couple. Both were married to others, and Brzezinski offers only this about coming to realize that Scarborough was more than a co-host. "There was a moment, and it was alarming," she says. "Complicated and alarming." Click for the full profile. (Read more Mika Brzezinski stories.)
An 18-year-old in California faces charges of vehicular manslaughter in a crash that killed her younger sisterand a key piece of evidence against her may be an Instagram video she was livestreaming before, during, and after the crash, reports KFSN. Police also accused Obdulia Sanchez of drunk driving. The Stockton teen was driving a car that veered off a road Friday and overturned, according to the California Highway Patrol. Her 14-year-old sister, Jacqueline Sanchez, was killed after being ejected, and another 14-year-old was badly injured but is expected to survive. Police say both were in the back seat, and neither girl was wearing a seatbelt.

"I f------ killed my sister," Sanchez says in the video. "I know I'm going to jail for life ... I don't f------ care at all." At another point, she says, "If you don't survive, baby, I am so f------ sorry. ... I did not mean to kill you, sweetie. Sweetie, I am f------ sorry. Sweetie, please, wake up!" per the Washington Post. BuzzFeed has a link to the video, but note the graphic content. It's no longer on Instagram, but the CHP is examining it as part of its investigation, per the AP. (Read more fatal car crashes stories.)
The USS Constitution, the world's oldest commissioned warship still afloat, has returned to Boston's waters. The undocking of "Old Ironsides" on Sunday marked the end of restoration work that started two years ago, officials say. The restorations extend the life of the nearly 2-foot-thick wooden vesselthe last remaining survivor of six ships created when President George Washington signed the Naval Armament Actsays a historian at Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston. The ship enters dry dock about every 20 years for below-the-waterline repairs, reports the AP.

The most recent work included replacing 100 hull planks and installing 2,200 new copper sheets, 500 of which were signed by nearly 100,000 museum visitors, according to USS Constitution Museum President Anne Grimes Rand, who calls the ship "a wonderful symbol for our democracy." "It was meant to last for 10 or 20 years, and to have [the] ship here more than 200 years later, it needs constant care," Rand says. The ship was launched in 1797 and earned its famous nickname notching victories in the War of 1812. The vessel will be temporarily docked at a nearby pier to undergo more restoration work until September, when it will reopen for public tours. (Read more USS Constitution stories.)
With the first of his two days of congressional testimony in the books, Jared Kushner made a rare public statement Monday afternoon to reaffirm his main point: "I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," he said, per the AP. Kushner spoke outside the White House after meeting behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee. While he largely reiterated points made earlier in an 11-page statement to Congress, Kushner also suggested that the Russia investigation has political undertones. "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won," he said, per NBC News. "Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him."

Kushner has said all of his actions related to four meetings with Russian nationals were aboveboard, per CNN. He added during his speech that he had "no improper contacts" and has "not relied on Russian funds for my businesses." Kushner is back on Capitol Hill Tuesday, when he again testifies behind closed doors, this time with the House Intelligence Committee. As for that 11-page statement, an analysis by Zack Beauchamp at Vox finds the carefully worded descriptions of the Russian meetings to be incomplete. "The whole thing reads like it was put together by a very talented legal team," he writes. Judge for yourself here. (Read more Jared Kushner stories.)
Since launching in 1994, Snopes has managed to outlast the majority of web dinosaurs founded in the Internets salad days. But legal woes and company infighting threaten to take down the fact-checking site after more than 20 years of internet sleuthing, reports Poynter. The company posted a plea to its readers Monday, writing that it was in danger of closing its doors due to a vendor that is holding the site and its advertising revenue hostage. The open letter reminds users of the importance of fact-checking in the era of #fakenews and links to a GoFundMe campaign started by founder and CEO David Mikkelson that asks for a suggested donation of $10. The viral campaign has raised nearly half of its $500,000 goal from thousands of patrons in its first nine hours.

While Snopes letter doesnt go into specifics about the mysterious vendor and its legal woes, the Atlantic offers a deep dive into the drama that landed Mikkelsons parent company, Bardav, into this position. Married founders Barbara and David Mikkelson divorced in 2015, the same summer the couple joined forces with San Diego startup Proper Media to help modernize the sites ancient backend and provide other services. A year later, Barbara ended up selling her 50% Bardav stake to be split between Proper Medias owners. But a messy dispute prompted David Mikkelson to sever ties with Proper Media. He claims that though the companys contract has been terminated, it continues to insert [its] own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us. Meanwhile, Proper Medias complaint claims otherwise, and its lawyer snapped back at Mikkelsons campaign by asserting that Proper Media is a 50% co-owner of Bardav. (This story on how the debunking site began is worth a read.)
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New Delhi:

A huge pay gap between CEOs and other employees at Indian companies has come to the fore, with the biggest listed blue-chip firms doling out to their top executives salary packages of up to 1,200-times of their median employee remunerations.

An analysis of remuneration disclosures made by top listed companies forming part of the blue-chip index Sensex --under directions of the capital markets regulator Sebi --shows that the pay packages of senior-most personnel such as CEOs and executive chairmen continue to remain high and rose further at most private sector firms during 2016-17.

On the contrary, the median employee remuneration fell or remained almost same during the last fiscal, while the ratio of the top executive's pay to the median employee remuneration remained at astronomically high levels of hundreds-times inmany cases.

The public sector companies show a totally different picture with their chiefs getting salaries of just about 3-4 times of their median employee remunerations.

While the rules do not put any restrictions on the companies regarding how much more they want to pay their top executives vis-a-vis an average employee, the Sebi regulations require most listed companies to annually disclose various remuneration ratios to help the investors know about salary practices at the firms in which they have invested.

However, salaries of top executives, especially in case of those related to promoter groups, typically require the approval of the companies' boards, various committees and share holders. Besides, the companies with inadequate profits need the government's approval for any excessive salaries paid to their top executives.

Among the 30 Sensex firms, at least 15 have already disclosed an increase in the ratio of top executive pay with that of the median employee remuneration for 2016-17. Nine of the Sensex firms are yet to disclose these numbers and therefore the tally may go up.

Six Sensex companies have reported some decline in this ratio and these include Wipro (down from 260 times to 259times), Infosys (283 times), Dr Reddy's Lab (from 312 times to233 times) and Hero MotoCorp (from 755 times to 731 times). The country's most-valued firm Reliance Industries didnot disclose this ratio in its latest annual report published on the website. While its chief Mukesh Ambani has capped his pay at Rs 15 crore for many years now, the ratio was high at 205 times in 2014-15.

Among other major Sensex firms, TCS saw the ratio between top-paid executive pay and the median employee remunerationrise to 515 times (from 460 times in previous year), while thesame for Lupin stood at 1,263-times (though down from 1,317times) for Chairman. The ratio for the CEO at Lupin was muchlower at 217-times.

At Adani Ports, the ratio was down to 42 times in case of Gautam Adani (from 48 times), while the ratio was much higher at 169-times for another Whole Time Director. The same for Bajaj Auto was also high at 522 times.

Among banks, the ratio was highest for HDFC Bank's CEO Aditya Puri (whose pay package rose by 20 per cent to over Rs10 crore) where it rose from 179 to 187 times. Kotak Mahindra Bank saw the ratio rise from 42 to 48, ICICI from 100 to 112-times and Axis Bank from 72-times to 78-times. At HDFC Ltd, the ratio for the CEO Keki Mistry rose from 88 times to 92 times, while the same for Chairman Deepak Parekh was much lessat 17 times.

Among the companies which are yet to report their latest numbers, Larsen and Toubro had disclosed a very high ratio of1004-times for the fiscal 2005-16. At ITC, the ratio rose from 427 to 508 times in case of YC Deveshwar, who has now given up his top executive role, butthe ratio for the current executive chief was much lesser at 59 times.

Deveshwar's total package rose by 58 per cent to Rs 21.16 crore, including all the benefits. Other companies that saw an increase in the ratio included Bharti Airtel (to 366-times in 2016-17), Cipla (416times), M&M (108 times), Tata Steel (94 times) and HUL (138times). In terms of the median employee remuneration, a few companies such as Wipro and Cipla recorded a decline and there was only a marginal rise of less than 5 per cent for several others such as Bharti Airtel, M&M, Bajaj Auto, TCS and HUL.

The companies with an increase of over 10 per cent for median employee remuneration were a few and included Kotak Mahindra Bank, Adani Ports, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ltd and Lupin.

Dr Reddy's Lab was among the very few to see a decline in the CEO pay, while it was unchanged for RIL and Adani Ports.The companies having seen a rise in the top executive pay included Wipro, TCS, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto, Tata Steel, M&M, Hero Motocorp, Lupin and Bharti Airtel. The overall key management pay rose significantly for Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ltd, TCS and Asian Paints.

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New Delhi:

Veteran actor Dharmendra's able sons Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol who were last seen in comic series of 'Yamla Pagla Deewana', are all set to be back in the screens yet another time. Latest media reports suggest that the duo will be next seen in Shreyas Talpade's first hindi language film 'Poster Boys'. Both the actors have again managed to drool people over their comic side after 'Poster Boys' and team dropped the first ever trailer of the movie on social networking sites.

The 'Border' actor on Monday took to micro-blogging site Twitter to share the very first trailer of the venture and captioned it as "Tareek pe tareek pe tareek, but #PosterBoys are finally here! #PosterBoysTrailer out now! Watch the trailer here:"



'Poster Boys' which is a remake of Marathi film 'Poshter Boys', produced by Shreyas himself, is a tale of three men with three different types of nature like silent, live and sleepy. While Bobby Deol will be seen playing the character of docile Vinay Sharma, Shreyas and Sunny will portray the characters of over enthusiastic Arjun Singh and explosive Jaagavar Chaudhary respectively. The movie revolves around the way the trio get rid of their image of poster boys after they accidentally become the face of a vasectomy advertisement namely, 'Nasbandi'.

Also Read: Shahid to be featured in Bhansali's next 'Tuesdays and Fridays'?

Tareek pe tareek pe tareek, but #PosterBoys are finally here! #PosterBoysTrailer out now!

Watch the trailer here: https://t.co/JaCpJHCJgY  Sunny Deol (@iamsunnydeol) July 24, 2017

Apart from them, 'Singham' star Ajay Devgan will also be doing the background narration of the movie.

Talking about his participation in the movie Talpade said, "Ajay bhai has been aware of Poster Boys since its inception. When I showed him the first cut of the trailer, he was happy with the way it had shaped up. He could not stop laughing. He has always been supportive. I am honoured that he's a part of my directorial debut."

Also Read: Priyanka flies back to USA after much awaited vacation at Maldives

"I think Sunny paji and Bobby must have also thought that this is the script where they can try something different. So, they loved the script and immediately agreed to be a part of it," Shreyas was quoted further while interacting with a leading daily.

Produced by Sony Pictures Networks Productions, Sunny Sounds Pvt. Ltd. and Affluence Movie Pvt. Ltd the flick is slated to release on 8th September 2017.

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New Delhi:

Foreign Minister of Iraq Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday revealed that the country is now following on fresh 'news gained through intelligence sources' and they consider that all missing Indians are alive.



The statement given at the press conference late in the evening is a turn around from an earlier statement in the day wherein the visiting minister had said that he had no substantial evidence on whether the missing persons were killed or alive.

The Iraqi minister had also stressed that best efforts were being made to get information about the 39 missing Indians.

"There are financial incentives from Iraq govt for people who help us to locate those Indians," al-Jaafari said in the evening press conference.

Here is what Iraq FM said in press conference:

#We consider them "exist". We consider them alive. we have offered financial incentives for finding them: Iraq FM on Missing Indians



#Daesh had taken over the prisoner of Badush. They had demolished it. We can only assume they alive: Iraq FM on missing Indians



#No confirmation Al Bagdadi Is dead. We need evidence. DNA one: Iraq FM



#My compassion and sympathy for the family. I treat them like my children (missing Indians). IS killed so many Iraqi. They not normal criminals. We deing with a monster. It wil take time. Be patient.: Iraq FM



#Her pledge is worth administration and respect: Iraq FM on Sushma swaraj's determination to locate 39 indians



#Did not mislead General VK Singh on 39 Indians: Iraq foreign minister



Families of missing people disappointed

However, family members of 39 Indians, who were abducted in Mosul three years ago, expressed pain and dejection after the statement.



The kin of the missing men were hoping that concrete information about the whereabouts of their dear ones would emerge during the Iraqi ministers visit.

Suggested read | Iraq: No clue of missing 39 Indians in Mosul



We feel very disappointed. We heard the Iraqi minister say that he does not know whether the 39 missing Indians were dead or alive. We were hoping that he will be able to provide some information or some clue, said Davinder, whose elder brother Gobinder is missing.



But the minister clearly said he did not have any information about them, Davinder added.



Gobinder was a resident of Murar village in Kapurthala.



Our family is very tense now; nobody has been able to eat anything, Davinder told PTI.



Family members of the other missing persons said that from the Iraqi ministers statement, it was clear that the Indian government does have any concrete information about the missing.



Now it has become clear that Indian government does not know about the missing Indians. The government has kept us in the dark for the last three years, said Sarwan.



Amritsar-based Sarwans 30-year-old brother Nishan had gone missing in Iraq.The government told us on June 8 that our men were in a church in Iraq. Then on July 16, during a meeting with Union minister Sushma Swaraj, we were told that they might have been lodged in a jail in Badush in northwest Mosul, said Sarwan.



But a recent media report said that the jail was abandoned and it had been unoccupied for weeks, he added.



He demanded that the government make the status of the missing Indians clear.Gurpinder Kaur, whose 26-year-old brother Manjinder Singh is missing, said, Now we do not know what to do. Our families were quite worried about the well being of our men.



The families have pinned their hopes on the statement External Affairs Minister Swaraj is likely to make tomorrow in the Parliament.



We will listen to the statement of the Union minister tomorrow and after that we will decide the next course of action, said Sarwan.



Among the 39 Indians who had been missing, 22 were from different places in Punjab including Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar.The issue was raised by Swaraj during extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who began a five-day India visit today, nearly two weeks after Mosul was liberated from ISIS by Iraqi forces.



We dont know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts, the Iraqi foreign minister later told reporters.

(With Inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah on Monday said "Hurriyat has received funds from the central government" and it has been mentioned in the book of AS Dulat who was former RAW (Research & Analysis Wing) chief.

Abdullah said that he would not like to disclose the names of those who had funded to Hurriyat leaders, but the nation is bearing consequences.

He said terrorism will not end until way for talks between India and Pakistan does not open.

A few days back, Abdullah had suggested third party mediation to resolve the Kashmir issue, saying India should take the help of "friends" and that dialogue was the only solution.

Won't take names bt Hurriyat received funds from GoI too,read Dulat's(former RAW Chief) book on it. Now India bearing consequences: Abdullah pic.twitter.com/aVbLeUga4S  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

The former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir had also asked, "Till what time should we wait?" and wondered how many more wars will India and Pakistan fight.

"The way out is through dialogue. Use your friends... Use them for dialogue to resolve the issue," he had told reporters.

The BJP, Congress and Shiv Sena had condemned Abdullah's suggestion of third party mediation to resolve the Kashmir issue.

Also Read: Does Farooq want Kashmir to become Syria, says Mufti on third-party mediation between India, Pakistan

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New Delhi:

Indian workers emigration to Gulf countries have declined by 34.6 per cent between 2014 and 2016. This record was informed by the Ministry of External Affairs.



Decline in emigration has led to a slight drop in overall remittances or private transfers made by Indians working abroad.

The official figures for emigration to six gulf countries - United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain - dropped from 775,845 in 2014 and fell to 507,296 in 2016, said the ministry while responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

The decline in the number of Indian workers emigrating to the gulf countries has been attributed to economic slowdown in Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC countries by the MEA.

"There has been a decline in the number of Indian workers emigrating to the gulf countries for employment due to economic slowdown in GCC countries triggered by the weak oil prices, which has resulted in lack of demand for workers," said the MEA.

"However, it has been reported by the Indian Missions that by undertaking different fiscal measures, these countries have been able to cope with the depressed oil and gas prices," it added.

"As per information provided by the Reserve Bank of India, the overall remittances/private transfers made by the Indians working abroad, all over the world, including Gulf countries, as recorded in Indias balance of payments statistics has fallen slightly from US$ 69,819 Million in 2014-15 to US$ 65,592 Million in 2015-16," said the ministry.

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New Delhi:

An Indian Air Force fighter pilot flying Jaguar mistakenly put a Pakistani military base in its firing-range and was ready to bomb it, but was directed to pull back by his seniors during the Kargil crisis in 1999, a former Indian Air Force official said on Monday.

The targeting of the Pakistani base on June 24, 1999 had the full potential of triggering an all-out war between India and Pakistan, as then and now Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and then Pakistan Army Chief Pervez Musharraf were present in the vicinity, reported Pakistani media.

An IAF official who was then holding senior positions in the IAFs Western Air Command said that a flight commander was assigned to bomb Point 4388 in Kargil.

He added instead of targeting the Point 4388 he landed up aiming at a Pakistani military base in Gulteri through a cockpit laser designation system (CLDS).

The Indian Express report reads On 24 June 1999, Jaguar CLDS [Cockpit Laser Designation System] engaged Point 4388. The pilot had lased over Gulteri across LoC but the bomb did not reach the target as it was released outside the laser basket,

The national daily quoting a government document wrote, Later, it was ascertained that the PM of Pakistan, Mr Nawaz Sharif, was present at Gulteri when the target was attacked.

Pakistani media had reported on June 25, 1999, that Sharif was in Gulteri to address the troops. He had called for a dialogue with India to defuse the war-like situation along the Line of Control.

The Indian daily reported that both Pakistani Prime Minister and Army Chief were present at the base when it became the focus of the Jaguars target, even though the Indian government had not allowed the IAF to cross over the LoC.

IAF spokesperson denied talking to media in connection to the report.

Retired Air Marshal A K Singh, who was a senior officer in the Western Air Command then, said that the pilot of the first aircraft had called him and told him that the target was a big military camp and that he had it on the CLDS.

"I was airborne. When he told me about the target, I told him not to fire," said the retired Air Marshal.

Retired Air Marshal Vinod Patney, then Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Air Command said, The pilot of the the first aircraft had doubt about the target he told the pilot of the second jet not to fire.

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New Delhi:

Kolkata Police arrested two suspected Maoists - a man and a woman near West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence at Kalighat area of the city on Monday.

According to a senior police officer, the two were arrested in front of Banerjee's residence on Harish Chatterjee Street.

"The suspected Maoists have said that they had come to surrender. They have surrendered the arms and ammunitions that they brought with them. We are interrogating them," the officer said.

During initial questioning the duo said they are connected to Maoist groups in Bagmundi.

Also Read: Suspected Maoist arrested in Jamui

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New Delhi:

Members of Parliament on Sunday bid adieu to outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee at a gala ceremony in the Central Hall of Parliament as leaders recalled his contribution in upholding democratic values.

Eighty one-year-old Mukherjee was received by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar at Parliament for the farewell ceremony.

In her speech, Mahajan said, aThis is a solemn occasion for each one of us to express our profound respect to President Mukherjee.a

Ansari lauded Mukherjee for his aunshakable belief in the idea of Indiaa and said he often appealed to the people to re-dedicate themselves to the democratic values of the country.

The outgoing president expressed gratitude to the parliamentarians for the farewell.

aAfter Independence, we undertook to promote fraternity, dignity and unity of the nation. These ideals became the lodestar for the country,a Mukherjee said.

He asked the members to avoid frequent disruptions in Parliament saying it hurt the opposition more.

aDuring my years in Parliament, I learnt that it stands for debate, discussion and dissent. I also learnt that disruptions hurt the opposition more,a he said.

Mukherjee also said the government should avoid the ordinance route as it should be reserved only for compelling circumstances.

aIt should not be taken for matters being considered for discussion (in Parliament),a he added.

Mukherjee said, aAs the President, I have tried to protect, preserve and defend the Constitution, not just in letter, but in spirit as well.a

He concluded by saying, aI leave this magnificent building with a rainbow of memories and a sense of fulfilment and happiness of having served the people of this country as their humble servant.a

President Pranab Mukherjee was given farewell by the MP's in the Central Hall of Parliament on Sunday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sonia Gandhi, Vice President Hamid Ansari and other members of Parliament were present in theA farewellA ceremony of Mukherjee.A He will quit the highest office of the country formally on July 25.

Here are the highlights:

#A I will carry with me fond memories of our association and his warm and courteous behaviour to me: President Pranab Mukherjee on PM Modi

#It is unfortunate that parliamentary time devoted to legislations has been declining, said outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee in farewell speech

#Recent passage of GSTA and its launch on July 1 is shining example of cooperative federalism and A speaks volumes for maturity of India's Parliament, saysA President Pranab Mukherjee

#A If I claim I am the creation of this Parliament, perhaps it will not be treated as immodesty: President Pranab Mukherjee in farewell speech

If I claim I am the creation of this Parliament, perhaps it will not be treated as immodesty: President Pranab Mukherjee in farewell speech pic.twitter.com/eJDyzL1HBR a ANI (@ANI_news) July 23, 2017

# Hamid Ansari, who served as vice-president for five years, calls the President of India a "consummate diplomat" in his farewell address, as he recounts a long and distinguished career.

#A LS Speaker presented a book signed by MPs and her speech to President Mukherjee during farewell ceremony hosted in Parliament's Central Hall.

LS Speaker presented a book signed by MPs and her speech to President Mukherjee during farewell ceremony hosted in Parliament's Central Hall pic.twitter.com/Lt6FnBbdcv a ANI (@ANI_news) July 23, 2017

(With PTI Inputs)

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New Delhi:

To make workplace more safer for women working in government offices in India, the central government has come up with SHe-box  an online complaint portal.

The Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Monday launched the online complaint platform  www.wcd.nic.in. Any female employee of the government can lodge complaints related to sexual harassment at workplace in the SHe-box.

Gandhi said, Initially only employees working in various government sectors can file a complaint. Women working in various private sectors will also be able to drop in their complaints very soon.

The Union Minister suggested the handlers of the SHe-box to make to make the portal more interactive.

Gandhi also announced that her ministry while soon launch a national survey to analyse the nature and magnitude of sexual harassments faced by women at workplace across the country.

A senior official of the ministry informed the media that SHe-box is initiative of Women and Child Development Ministry. The decision to host online complaint portal for sexual harassment was taken after the minister received several complaints from female employees under different ministries.

The official informed the media that once the complaint is registered, the details will be forwarded to the department where the women works.

He added that Women and Child Development Ministry will follow each complaint at every stage. We would regularly keep asking for details and development of the complaint from concern department.

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New Delhi:

The BJP on Monday sought to corner the Congress over the Bofors issue, saying there should be a proper investigation into the arms deal, and the country should know the complete truth.

After BJP members raised the issue in the Lok Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar supported their demand for an inquiry, saying the issue had resurfaced and the Congress should support an investigation into it if it stood for probity in public life.

BJP MPs Meenakshi Lekhi and Nishikant Dubey had raised the issue in the House.

Quoting Sten Lindstrom, a senior Swedish officer who had probed the alleged scam involving then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Kumar said he had spoken about a huge amount of evidence that had been handed over to India and that the scale of bribery in the deal could be bigger than earlier thought.

He has said that the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was involved in this. There must be a thorough probe. The country should know the complete truth, the minister told reporters.

Kumar declined to answer a question on whether his government would order a probe.

Also Read: Monsoon Session of Parliament, day 6: Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill proposed in LS, FDDI Bill passed in RS

He said the Congress should not run away from the matter which involved national security.

The 1986 deal between India and Sweden for Howitzer field guns was mired in controversy over allegations of kickbacks being paid to Indian politicians and others.

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New Delhi:

The Monsoon Session of the Parliament continued to be disruptive on the sixth day on Monday as the Opposition continues to demand discussion on rising cases of mob lynching and farmers crises. While the Lok Sabha saw little action apart from presentation of Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Rajya Sabha managed to pass a couple of bills before adjournment till Tuesday.



With two of the 19 sittings scheduled in this session already a near washout, the government is trying hard to push through key bills, from a total 34 bills lined up for passing in the Monsoon Session.

Suggested read | Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspends six Congress MPs for throwing papers



Lok Sabha



A bill to authorise the RBI to direct banking companies to resolve the problem of stressed assets was today introduced in the Lok Sabha by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.



The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, seeks to amend the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and replace the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017, which was promulgated in May this year.



The measure allows the RBI to initiate insolvency resolution process on specific stressed assets.



The RBI would also be empowered to issue other directions for resolution, appoint or approve for appointment, authorities or committees to advise the banking companies for stressed asset resolution.



Jaitley introduced the Bill amid protests in the House by opposition members protesting over the alleged incidents of lynching by cow vigilantes in different parts of the country.

Suggested read | Monsoon session of Parliament: Ananth Kumar seeks probe into Bofors issue



Just before the bill was introduced, Trinamool Congress member Sougata Ray said he was opposed to the banking regulation ordinance and said it was a desperate step by a desperate government.



Non-performing assets of banks have risen to over Rs 9 lakh crore and now RBI is being given power to refer the cases to Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board, he said.



It is the same RBI which had not been able to count notes (since demonetisation). Giving such powers to RBI will detract it from macro-economic to micro-economic issues and render the bank management useless, Roy saidHe demanded that the bill be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee.



When Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked Jaitley if he has to say anything on Roys remarks, the Finance Minister said the issues does not relate to the introduction and would be dealt with when the bill comes up for a discussion.



Moving on fast-track, the RBI had in June identified 12 large loan defaulters who account for 25 per cent of the total bad loans in the banking sector.Action under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code has already begun in certain cases, including Essar Steel, Bhushan Steel and Bhushan Power & Steel.

Suggested read | Monsoon Session of Parliament to kick start from Monday, Opposition set to raise heat on vigilantism, Kashmir issues



Rajya Sabha



Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017 passed



The Upper House passed the Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017. D Raja, while supporting the Bill, raised the issue of a recently passed Sri Lankan law that would affect Indian fishermen. D Bandhopadhyay (Trinamool Congress) also spoke in favour of the Bill. He however pointed out that the jurisdiction of territorial waters must be clearly demarcation.

Bill to raise footwear standard to international level passed



Parliament also approved a bill which aims at promoting the footwear industry and raise its standard to the international level.



The Footwear Design and Development Institute Bill, 2017 provides for establising and declaring the Footwear Design and Development Institute as an institute of national importance for promotion and development of quality and excellence in education in this area.



Through the bill which was passed by the Rajya Sabha by voice vote, the government intends to upgrade the Footwear Design and Development Institute to deal with international standards and address the shortage of trained human resource in the sector.



It had been passed by the Lok Sabha in April.



Govt withdraws Architects (amendment) bill 2010 from RS



The governent on Monday withdrew from the Rajya Sabha a bill to amend the Architects Act, 1972 which provides for registration of architects. The bill has been withdrawn as the government seeks to redraft it with further amendments to the Act, junior HRD Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey said while withdrawing the legislation in the Upper House.



The bill was first introduced in the Rajya Sabha by the previous government in 2010, which was later referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. The panel is yet to submit its report.



The Act empowers the government to set up a Council of Architecture, which may prescribe the minimum standards of architectural education in India and maintain the register of architects.



(With Inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

A pothole claimed the life of a 34-year-old woman biker in Mumbais Bandra on Sunday. In order to avoid the pothole, she came under the wheels of a truck.



Jagruti Viraj Hogale was a renowned biker and was also a part of a women-only bikers club that had made trips to Leh and Ladakh. She was heading towards Jawhar, which is a famous tourist spot along two other women, police said.



Jayprakash Gute, Assistant police inspector, Kasa police station said that the biker tried to overtake a truck near Vaiti village. She didnt see a pothole until the last minute as it was raining heavily. She suddenly took a left without realising that the truck was behind her and got crushed under it.

ALSO READ: VJ Jose Covaco joins RJ Malishka, takes a dig at BMC for countless potholes on streets of Mumbai



The deceaseds friends were few metres behind and by the time they caught up to her, she was dead, Gute added.



Recently, the popular Radio Jockey Malishka also took a dig at Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). She made a 1.23-minute-long video footage, titled Mumbai tula BMC var bharosa nai ka (Mumbai, dont you have faith in BMC) in Marathi and uploaded on YouTube. In the footage, she purportedly poked fun at the bad state of roads filled with potholes in the city as well as the delays in suburban train schedules.

ALSO READ: RJ Malishka's Sonu song parody video on Mumbai civic body irks Shiv Sena, BMC serves notice

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New Delhi:

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Pakistan that the countrys macroeconomic stability earned in the past three years could be undermined if it fails to continue with its reforms.

Tokhir Mirzoev, Resident Representative of the IMF to Pakistan said, "The economic stability needed to be used to make the gains achieved through it more permanent."

Mirzoev cautioned that the present trends could undermine macroeconomic stability "if the reforms do not continue".

The warning came amidst looming political instability in the run up to a verdict in the high-profile Panama Papers case against beleaguered Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family for alleged corruption and money laundering.

The Supreme Court yesterday reserved its judgement in the case after concluding the hearings. It is not clear if the verdict would unleash chaos in the country.

The Panama Papers last year revealed that Sharif sons and daughter owned offshore companies which managed their family's properties.

The assets in question include four expensive flats in Park Lane, London. "The moment of opportunity earned through the stabilisation programme is a hard-earned opportunity to advance deeper structural transformation of the economy to ensure future stability," Mirzoev told the Dawn newspaper.

He said the key trends were widening of the current account deficit and a still vulnerable fiscal framework. Pakistani economy has made progress in the last three years.

The IMF has projected that Pakistan's economy will continue to grow at a healthy pace in 2017 and 2018. The IMF had raised its GDP growth forecast for Pakistan for FY 2017 from 4.7 to 5 per cent and projected GDP growth of 5.5 per cent. Noting that the budgeted revenue would require a "significant effort", Mirzoev said the decline in reserves and the growing current account deficit were sources of concern.

"Currently the economy is flying on one engine and that engine is importing sectors, while the second engine exports is lagging," he said.

Mirzoev said that the greater exchange rate flexibility will help rectify this imbalance, but beyond that, the government will need to engage with the exporter community more proactively to develop the plans to revive exports.

"Adding more generation capacity to the system is crucial, but more generation without reforming a leaky distribution system could add to the circular debt and may compromise long-term sustainability of new energy projects.

In this context, finding a permanent solution to power sector arrears will be critical in the period ahead," Mirzoev said when asked about the nature of the reforms to be undertaken.

Mirzoev is currently on rounds meeting with business and opinion leaders around the country following the latest Article IV report released by the fund this week.

"One important message of the report is the need to rebalance the federal-provincial fiscal relations. There are important gaps in the devolution of resources and responsibilities to the provinces under the last NFC award," he said.

He said that the accord had created a mismatch between provincial government incentives and responsibilities.

"The provincial governments should be empowered, but the devolution of powers needs to be better aligned with the devolution of resources; and the interests of the provinces could be better aligned with those of the centre and the broader national objectives," Mirzoev said.

The outcome of this mismatch is a fiscal system that is unbalanced, insufficiently flexible, and less prepared to absorb large shocks, he said, adding that provinces have a say in key national policy decisions, but often do not bear the equal obligation when it comes to funding such policies.

It is important to take appropriate steps to address the growing imbalances early on and not allow the economy to come back full circle to where it was before the "moment of opportunity" was attained, he said.

"Reserves are still adequate for the foreseeable future, and there is still some debt carrying capacity, so the situation is not exactly dire. But its recent trend is worrisome and to reverse this will require some concerted effort," Mirzoev said.

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met with the lawmakers of Rajasthan at his official residence 7 Lok Kalyan Marg, New Delhi.

A few days back, the Prime Minister had met with the MPs of Western Uttar Pradesh and had asked them to shun the mindset of "lal batti (red beacon) culture".

He made these remarks in a meeting with party MPs from western Uttar Pradesh at his residence, according to an official statement.

Modi routinely meets party MPs from different states during Parliament's sessions to discuss governance and political issues.

The Modi government had barred the use of beacon lights from May 1 on all vehicles, except emergency vehicles, saying they have no place in a democratic society.

Delhi: PM Narendra Modi met BJP MPs from Rajasthan at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg. pic.twitter.com/3atWW2T6sN  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

It had projected the measure as an attempt to end "VVIP culture".

Also Read: PM Modi says applying science to solve problems is priority, asks officials to come up with specific targets

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New Delhi:

President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday ended his five-year tenure in the highest Constitutional office of India with a farewell speech addressed to the nation. In his last speech as President, Pranab Mukherjee thanked the people for love he recieved during his term and hoped for an inclusive and non-violent society in future.



Here are the five main highlights of President Pranab Mukherjee's last address to the nation:



#Parliament is my temple: For the past fifty years of my public life my sacred text has been the Constitution of India. My temple has been the Parliament of India and my passion has been the service of the people of India.



#On pluralism and tolerance: The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance. Plurality of our society has come about through assimilation of ideas over centuries. The multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special. We derive our strength from tolerance; it has been part of our collective consciousness for centuries. There are divergent strands in public discourse; we may argue, we may agree or we may not agree. But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion. Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away.



#On non-violence: The capacity for compassion and empathy is the true foundation of our civilization. We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal. Only a non-violent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people in the democratic process. Power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society.



#On education: As I had said on assuming Office of the President, education is the alchemy that can take India to its next golden age. A reordering of society is possible through the transformative power of education. Our universities should not be a place for rote-memorizing but an assembly of inquisitive minds. Creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper have to be promoted in our institutions of higher learning.



#On inclusive society: For us, creation of an inclusive society has to be an article of faith. We must empower the poorest of the poor and ensure that the fruits of our policies reach the last person in the line. Eradication of poverty would provide a strong boost to happiness. Social inclusion would ensure access to the fruits of progress to all.

Read full speech of President Mukherjee here



Earlier President Mukherjee addresses a function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. During his speech, he expressed sorrow on the fact that he will no longer be associated with Parliament and thanked PM Modi for 'advice and co-operation'.

Here are the highlights:



On Parliamentary proceedings



It is unfortunate that the parliamentary time devoted to legislation has been declining. With the heightened complexity of administration, legislation must be preceded by scrutiny and adequate discussion. Scrutiny in committees is no substitute to open discussion on the floor of the House. When Parliament fails to discharge its law-making role it breaches the trust reposed in it by the people.



On association with PM Modi

In this task, I greatly benefitted from the advice and co-operation extended by Prime Minister Modi at every step. I will carry with me fond memories of my association with Prime Minister Modi and his warm & courteous behaviour.



On retiring from Parliament of India

As I retire from the Office of the President of the Republic, my association with the Parliament also comes to an end. I will no longer be a part of the Parliament of India. It will be with a tinge of sadness and a rainbow of memories that I will be leaving this magnificent building today. I leave with a sense of fulfilment & happiness of having served the people of this country - as their humble servant.

Next President of India Ram Nath Kovind will take oath to office on Tuesday.

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New Delhi:

On the eve of demitting office, outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee will address the nation at Rashtrapati Bhavan at 7:30 pm on Monday. After addressing, Mukherjee will host dinner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cabinet ministers.



Members of Parliament on Sunday bid adieu to Mukherjee at a gala ceremony in the Central Hall of Parliament as leaders recalled his contribution in upholding democratic values.



81-year-old Mukherjee was received by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar at Parliament for the farewell ceremony.



The outgoing president expressed gratitude to the parliamentarians for the farewell. After Independence, we undertook to promote fraternity, dignity and unity of the nation. These ideals became the lodestar for the country, he said.

ALSO READ: I am a creation of this Parliament, says President Pranab Mukherjee in farewell speech



He asked the members to avoid frequent disruptions in Parliament saying it hurt the opposition more. During my years in Parliament, I learnt that it stands for debate, discussion and dissent. I also learnt that disruptions hurt the opposition more, he said.



PM Modi also gave farewell to Mukherjee on Saturday. PM Modi hosted a dinner for Mukherjee. The function at Hyderabad House was also attended by President-elect Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President Hamid Ansari. On the occasion, the Prime Minister presented a memento to the outgoing president, the PMO said. In keeping with tradition, PM Narendra Modi presents a memento to President Pranab Mukherjee at the farewell hosted by him for the President, Press Information Bureau tweeted. Mukherjee also signed the visitors book.

ALSO READ: Nitish Kumar in Delhi, meets Rahul Gandhi, attends PM Modis dinner

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New Delhi:

A social servant for three decades Ram Nath Kovind will become President of India on Tuesday after an official oath taking ceremony at the Central Hall of the Parliament.



Outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee remitted his office on Monday with a moving address to the nation.



The President-elect will take the oath in the presence of the Chief Justice of India at 12:15 PM.



On the morning of the swearing-in day, the President-elect will come to Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt escorted by the Military Secretary to the President.



Then incumbent will go in a ceremonial cavalcade travelling in the same car to the Parliament. There he will be received in the Parliament by the presiding officers of the two Houses, i.e. the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Vice-President, who is also the Chairman of Rajya Sabha, and will be escorted to the Central Hall.



The President-elect takes an oath or affirmation in the following form: "I, A.B., do swear in the name of God/solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the office of President (or discharge the functions of the President) of India and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law and that I will devote myself to the service and well-being of the people of India."

Suggested read | President Mukherjee farewell speech: 'Education is the alchemy that can take India to its next golden age'



The Chairman of Rajya Sabha, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Members of Council of Ministers, Governors, Chief Ministers, Heads of Diplomatic Missions, Members of Parliament and Principal Civil and Military Officers of the Government of India will assemble in the Central Hall for the Ceremony.



After taking the oath the Presidents Bodyguard  a ceremonial unit  will escort the newly sworn in President to the presidents official residence, Rashtrapati Bhavan.



According to the Article 56 of the Constitution of India, the President shall hold office for a term of 5 years from the date on which he enters the office. He shall, however, continue to hold office notwithstanding the expiry of his term, until his successor enters upon his office.



Besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is reported that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das and other senior leaders will attend the swearing-in ceremony.



Ram Nath Kovind secured 2930 votes with a value of 7,02,044 while his opponent Meira Kumar got 1,844 votes with the value of 3,67,314.

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New Delhi:

Two days after quitting the Congress, veteran leader and former Chief Minister of Gujarat Shankersinh Vaghela on Sunday resigned as the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly. Vaghela send his resignation letter to party president Sonia Gandhi.



Vaghela, in his resignation letter alleged that some party leaders were conspiring against him ahead of the Assembly polls and this forced him to take such a decision. The elections are expected to take place in the state in December.



The former Chief Minister had quit the party at a public gathering of his supporters on his 77th birthday on July 21. He joined the Congress in 1998 and claimed that just like some party leaders conspired against him in 2009, when he lost Godhara (Panchmahal) Lok Sabha seat, similar attempts were made to oust him from the party in recent times.



Vaghela in his letter said, As I can see right now that once again history is repeating itself, as a well-planned conspiracy within the party is at work for ousting me during the forthcoming elections. Hence, I strongly feel that I should not remain in the party at the cost of my dignity and self-respect.

ALSO READ: 24 hours after leaving Congress, Shankarsinh Vaghela recalls strong RSS ties, says not hungry for power



Vaghela said since he has also decided to resign as the sitting Congress MLA of Kapadwanj seat, he will submit his resignation to the Gujarat Assembly speaker in the coming days. In his farewell speech on Friday, Vaghela announced he would resign as MLA on August 15, after the Rajya Sabha polls, to be held on August 8.



In the letter, Vaghela thanked Gandhi for making him Union minister in the UPA-1 government. Venting his anger on the Congress, Vaghela claimed he was left with no other option but to resign as his suggestions for the upcoming Assembly polls were not accepted.



On Friday, the former RSS leader, who left the BJP 20 years ago and later joined the Congress, also announced that he will not join any political party, not even the BJP. Though he refused to divulge details about his future plans, he maintained he is not retiring from public life.



Vaghela had been at loggerheads with the Congress leadership for quite some time over his demand that he be projected as the chief ministerial face in the poll-bound state. He had been contending that if he was projected as the CM candidate in the polls, the party would be able to take on the BJP effectively in Prime Minister Narendra Modis home state.



Vaghelas move comes close on the heels of the Congress failing to muster its entire strength in the presidential election held on July 17. Congress-backed candidate Meira Kumar could garner only 49 votes against the partys strength of 57 in the state assembly.



With PTI inputs.

ALSO READ: Sulking leader Shankersinh Vaghela calls meeting of supporters to show his might ahead of polls

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Mumbai :

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Monday criticised Prime minister Narendra Modi, saying that the latter is making friends with world leaders, but the nation has failed to get international support on the issue of Pakistan and China.

Slamming BJP for giving maximum time to internal politics and elections, Thackeray said it would be an injustice to the nation if the senior ally shifts its focus from the core issues.

In the second part of his interview to Sena mouthpiece Saamana, Thackeray said, What has happened which caused a severe unrest in Kashmir and has made the dragon (China) our enemy? Are we lacking somewhere? The PM roams around the world and has made many friends. Then, why is it that nobody is openly supporting us against these enemies?

He said, The BJP might be considering the Shiv Sena as its number one enemy. That is why may be, Pakistan and China have been ignored? If they feel the Sena is a bigger enemy than these two nations, it is their misfortune, not mine.

There has been nearly a month-long border standoff between India and China in the Sikkim sector, which is seen as part of Chinese coercive tactics to change the status quo. India has taken a strong stand against such a Chinese move.

According to Thackeray, Chinas strength cannot be ignored and India needs to make efforts to match it.

Also Read: Shiv Sena questions incidents related to cow vigilantes, suspects Pakistans hand in it

If the ruling party remains stuck in elections and internal politics, it will be an injustice to the nation... You can win elections anytime, you have even won them. But, a war is a war and there is China on the opposite side, he said.

On one hand, they (the BJP) have been able to get back Kashmir from Pakistan and on the other hand, China is trying to expand, Thackeray said.

The environment in the country isnt good now, the Shiv Sena chief said, referring to the issue of gau rakshaks and instances of them resorting to violence.

On how many fronts will you be able to fight at the same time? he asked.

Asked on his interaction with Modi during the NDA meet held before the presidential polls, Thackeray said the prime minister welcomed him with a lot of affection.

The PM requested him to sit with him to eat and affectionately asked about the wellbeing of his family members. Modi even spoke to him in Marathi, the Sena leader said.

Also Read: Where cow vigilantes have disappeared after terror attack on Amarnath Yatris, says Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray

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New Delhi:

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be travelling to Beijing to attend a BRICS meeting on July 27 and 28, the External Affairs Ministry said on Monday.



The visit comes amid deterioration in bilateral ties between the two neighbours due to the Dokalam standoff with Beijing ratcheting up its rhetoric against New Delhi on the dispute.



As far as visit of the National Security Adviser to China for the meeting of BRICS NSAs is concerned, I can confirm that he will be visiting. The visit will take place on Jul 27 and 28, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

Suggested read | China to India: 'Immediately withdraw frontier defence personnel along LAC to reduce tension'



Asked whether Doval will have any bilateral meeting with any Chinese leader or the Special Representative for boundary talks on the sidelines of the meeting of NSAs from BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Baglay did not give a direct reply.



We will keep you informed as and when there are developments, he said.



Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face-off in Dokalam area of the Sikkim sector for over a month after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the disputed area.

Suggested read | Pak High Commissioner Basit meets Chinese, Bhutanese counterparts in New Delhi to discuss Dokalam

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to Centre and Madhya Pradesh government in connection with 2016 encounter of SIMI activists in Bhopal.

The Apex Court questioned Centre and Madhya Pradesh government, saying why the case was not handed over to CBI.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had stated that an NIA probe will be conducted into the prison break to trace the possible international links of the eight SIMI activists killed in a police encounter hours after they escaped from Central Jail.

Also, the state government will carry out a separate investigation into the matter, he had said.

"Taking the entire incident seriously, we have taken a decision for a probe by former DGP Nandan Dubey into it," Chouhan had told.

SC notice to Centre & MP govt on 2016 encounter of SIMI activists in Bhopal. SC asked why was the case not handed over to CBI. pic.twitter.com/LCBZDsi8U9  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

Soon after the jail break, four officers including the Prison DIG were suspended.

"The escape of terrorists from a jail is a serious matter. That is why we have taken a decision to suspend MP Prison Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Bhopal Central Jail Superintendent, Deputy Jail Superintendent and Assistant Jail Superintendent," the chief minister had informed.

The Chief Minister had also congratulated Bhopal Police as well as the citizens for their swift action.

The undertrials escaped around 2-3 AM after killing a jail security guard by scaling the prison wall with the help of bed sheets.

Also Read | Bhopal encounter: Slain SIMI activists' lawyer Parvez Alam demands High Court monitored probe into incident

The activists were identified as -- Amzad, Zakir Hussain Sadiq, Mohammad Salik, Mujeeb Shaikh, Mehbood Guddu, Mohammad Kalid Ahmed, Aqeel and Majid. (With PTI Inputs)

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking probe into the investigation of 215 cases relating to the murder of more than 700 Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s, holding no fruitful purpose would emerge as evidence is unlikely to be available at this juncture.

An organisation named Roots in Kashmir which claimed that 215 FIRs had been lodged relating to the killings of Kashmiri Pandits in early 1990 which led mass exodus community out of the Valley.

A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud cited the lapse of almost 27 years in raising the cause of Pandits before it as the key reason for rejecting the plea and said that now no evidence can be found.

"We have heard counsel for the petitioner at some length. We, however, decline to entertain this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, for the simple reason that the instances referred to in the present petition pertaining to the year 1989-90, and more than 27 years have passed by since then.

"No fruitful purpose would emerge, as evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture. The instant petition under Article 32 of the Constitution is accordingly dismissed," the bench said.

Advocate Vikas Padora, appearing for the petitioner, said the plea was belated as the victims were on the run to save their lives and at no point of time efforts were made to ensure justice for them either by the state government or by the Centre.

"Even the courts did not take suo moto cognizance of the offence aimed to wipe out entire community from the earth," Padora said, alleging over 700 Pandits were killed in the Valley and that moreover, separatist leader Yasin Malik has confessed to his role in a news show on a television channel.

At one point of time, the bench got irked when the lawyer kept seeking issuance of directions and said "unfortunately, you are seeking headlines. Argue on law and facts".

The lawyer said that the entire community including him has suffered during the forced mass exodus from the Valley and grave injustice would be caused if justice is not done to the cause.Kashmiri Pandits were forced to migrate from the Valley and could not join the investigation leading to the delay but neither the Centre nor the state government nor the judiciary took adequate note of it to do the needful, he said.

Kashmiri Pandits were forced to flee the Valley in the early 1990s amid rising threats and attacks during the peak of militancy.

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New Delhi:

The rival factions of the ruling AIADMK on Monday approached the Centre over the issue of exempting Tamil Nadu from the National Entrance Cum Eligibility Test (NEET) for admissions to undergraduate medical courses.

A group of state ministers accompanied by senior party leader and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai called on Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Delhi and took up the issue, over which the opposition parties have been attacking the state government.

Rebel AIADMK leader and former chief minister O Panneerselvam met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital on the same issue.

The state ministers called on Singh and Jaitley days after some of their colleagues, including Health Minister C Vijayabaskar, met Modi and some other Union ministers on the NEET issue.

The ministerial delegation had on July 20 submitted a memorandum to Modi, seeking presidential nod for two bills passed recently by the state assembly aimed at exempting the state from NEET and pending with the Centre.

The bills would pave the way for the continuation of undergraduate medical admissions on the basis of Class 12 marks, exempting Tamil Nadu from the ambit of NEET.

Suggested Read: Monsoon Session, Day 6: List of bills passed, proposed and withdrawn

Today(Monday), Singh "assured to favourably" look into Tamil Nadu's demand, an official release said.

Jaitley told them that he would take up the matter with Health Minister J P Nadda, it added.

The state was represented by a delegation of six ministers, including P Thangamani (Electricity), D Jayakumar (Finance) and Law Minister C V Shanmugam.

The meeting was part of the state government's assurance to exert "pressure" on the Centre on its demand for exempting the state from NEET.

The team also met Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan on the issue.

Meanwhile, Panneerselvam met Modi and took up the demand for exempting the state from the NEET.

Accompanied by senior party leaders, including some MPs of his camp, Panneerselvam also "apprised the Prime Minister of the difficulties" faced by locals at Kathiramangalam (Thanjavur) and Neduvasal (Puthukottai) due to the hydrocarbon projects there, a release from the rival faction said.

He sought steps to ensure that people were not affected, the release added.

The stepped up efforts by the state government come amid the criticism of the DMK-led opposition parties over its "failure" to protect the interest of the state's students.

DMK Working President M K Stalin had accused the central and state governments of "betraying" the interests of the state's students.

Medical counseling was being deferred and parents were also worried, he had said last week.

The AIADMK, DMK and other parties in the state have been opposing the NEET, saying state board students, especially from rural areas, would find it difficult to compete with CBSE students.

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New Delhi:

Two Indian-origin foreign nationals have been arrested for smuggling four kilograms of gold jewellery worth Rs 1.2 crore in their undergarments by Airport Customs Air Intelligence Unit (ACIU) at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai after they arrived from Singapore.

The ACIU officials informed that the duo were arrested on Saturday.

The two arrested have been identified as Santaletchmi Superamaniam, 41, a Malaysian citizen and Magisvary Jairaman, 59, a Singaporean national.

According to the airport authorities, an AICU official randomly asked Superamaniam regarding her purpose of visit to Mumbai was she was crossing the customs area. She told the officer she was here for shopping when he doubted their behaviour. After observing her behaviour for a while the officer asked her to pass through a metal detector.

Also Read: Govt imposes 10% customs duty on imported mobile phones, parts

The airport official further added that after the alarm rang a female AICU officer thoroughly checked her and recovered two kilogram of gold jewellery hidden in her underwear.

An AIU official requesting anonymity said, During questioning she revealed that she was being accompanied by another foreign nationalist Jairaman and their receiver who was to collect the gold from them was waiting outside the airport.

He further added that Jairaman was stopped as she was leaving the airport campus. She was also carrying two kilograms of gold hidden in her underwear.

Also Read: Four militants including 2 women arrested by security forces in Manipur

The man was also arrested for questioning. He told the AIU officials that he was asked by his Singapore-based handler to collect gold from the two women whose photos were provided to him by his carrier.

AIU officials on questioning the three have learnt that people involved in the international-gold racket usually used woman who looked like high-profile executives or were from affluent families to avoid suspicion.





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New Delhi:

President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday delivered his farewell speech on the last day in highest office in India. President Mukherjee took office on July 25, 2012, after leaving his post as Minister of Finance in the UPA II government. President Mukherjee did not contest for the second term and will be succeeded by President-elect Ram Nath Kovind. New President of India will take oath on Tuesday.

LIVE updates:

Highlights of the farewell speech:

#When I speak to you tomorrow, it will be as a citizen a pilgrim like all of you in Indias onward march towards glory



#We extended our experience to a few villages in the neighbourhood



#During my five years in Rashtrapati Bhavan, we tried to build a humane and happy township



#Social inclusion would ensure access to the fruits of progress to all



#Eradication of poverty would provide a strong boost to happiness

#We must empower the poorest of the poor and ensure that the fruits of our policies reach the last person in the line



#For us, creation of an inclusive society has to be an article of faith

Suggested read | President Pranab Mukherjee farewell speech: 5 highlights



#Creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper have to be promoted in our institutions of higher learning



#Our universities should not be a place for rote-memorizing but an assembly of inquisitive minds



#A reordering of society is possible through the transformative power of education



#As I had said on assuming Office of the President, education is the alchemy that can take India to its next golden age



#Only a non-violent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people in the democratic process

#Power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society

#Only a non-violent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people in the democratic process



#We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal



#The capacity for compassion and empathy is the true foundation of our civilization



#Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away



#But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion



#There are divergent strands in public discourse; we may argue, we may agree or we may not agree



#We derive our strength from tolerance; it has been part of our collective consciousness for centuries



#The multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special



#Plurality of our society has come about through assimilation of ideas over centuries



#The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance



#My temple has been the Parliament of India and my passion has been the service of the people of India



#For the past fifty years of my public life my sacred text has been the Constitution of India



#How successful I was in discharging my responsibilities will be judged, over time, by the critical lens of history



#Each day of these five years, I was conscious of my responsibility



#5 years ago, when I took the oath of office of President, I promised to preserve, protect & defend our Constitution



#For development to be real, the poorest of the land must feel that they are a part of the nations narrative

#I have received much more from the country than I have given; for that, I will remain ever indebted to people of India

#I am overwhelmed by a deep sense of gratitude for the people of India for the trust & confidence they reposed in me



#7:35 PM:

#Pranab Mukherjee addressing the nation on the eve of demitting office as the 13th President of the Republic of India

#7:25 PM:

For the past 50 years of my public life, my secret text has been the constitution of India, my temple has been the Parliament of India, my passion has been the service of the people: President Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan

On Sunday, President Mukherjee expressed concern over the declining amount of time spent in lawmaking, saying Parliament should adequately scrutinise and debate laws before they are enacted.

It is unfortunate that the parliamentary time devoted to legislation has been declining, he said at a farewell function in Parliament attended by Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, besides others.



Mukherjee said with the heightened complexity of administration, legislation must be preceded by scrutiny and adequate discussion.



Scrutiny in committees is no substitute to open discussion on the floor of the House. When the Parliament fails to discharge its lawmaking role or enacts laws without discussion, I feel it breaches the trust reposed in it by the people of this great country, he said.



The outgoing president, who will demit office on Tuesday, said not a single part of the country of 3.3 million square kilometres of landmass and islands is unrepresented in the Parliament.



543 persons from the 543 territorial constituencies of this country representing the people in Lok Sabha and 245 persons elected by 29 states and 7 union territories make laws, scrutinise orders of the executive and enforce accountability to protect the interests of the people. Each of these 788 voices is important, he said.

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Paris:

On Sunday Organisers of an international HIV science conference in a global HIV meeting urged the US government, a major donor of AIDS research and treatment programmes, to "stay engaged" even as President Donald Trump has threatened cuts.

"The American people are a major funder in this and weneed them to stay engaged," International AIDS Society president Linda-Gail Bekker told journalists in Paris. Failure to do so, she said, would "jeopardise" lives. More than 6,000 scientists are gathered in the French capital until Wednesday to assess advances in AIDS science amid concerns over funds drying up.

Globally, government donor funding for HIV dropped lastyear to the lowest level since 2010 -- from $7.5 billion (6.4billion euros) to $7 billion, according to the Kaiser FamilyFoundation (KFF), a California-based health policy NGO. The United States has for years been the biggestcontributor to the global fight against HIV infection, accounting for about two-thirds of funding by governments.

Trump's proposed budget, submitted in May, reduces funding for several global health programmes, including HIV/AIDS, with the expectation that other donors can and should increase their commitments.

"We've heard from the White House certainly suggestions of cuts that sound like they could seriously jeopardise theresponse to the epidemic," said Bekker. "This is a disastrous time to see not only flat-liningbut actually a reduction in funds," with ever more people inneed of treatment

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New Delhi:

A shootout at Israel's embassy compound in Amman on Sunday left two Jordanians dead and one Israeli injured. Police said that the two Jordanians worked for a furniture firm and went to embassy for repairs, while another wounded Israeli could not be identified by Police.

Tension have been mounted between the two countries since Israel installed metal detectors at entry point to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after two Israeli policemen were killed at the site by Israeli Arab gunmen.

On Friday ,thousand of Jordanians took to the streets of Amman after the weekly prayer to register their protest against Israeli measures at the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound.

Israel ans Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty, and now this incident of Amman shoot out came as Israeli Prime minister met with his security cabinet to decide how to respond to the increasing violence.

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New Delhi:

A suicide car bomb attack in a western neighbourhood of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Monday morning left twenty-four people dead and fourty two injured, as per latest reports from Afghan health ministry official.

BREAKING: Afghan official says death toll in suicide bomb attack in western Kabul climbs to 12 with another 10 people wounded a The Associated Press (@AP) July 24, 2017

Earlier in the day, Health ministry spokesperson Waheed Majrooh told The Associated Press two people died in the explosion along with the suicide bomber. Another two people were hurt, although the extent of their injuries was not immediately known.

The Latest: Official: Suicide attack kills 2 in western Kabul. https://t.co/4hZeOhzwgt a The Associated Press (@AP) July 24, 2017

Several prominent political leaders, such as Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq, live in western Kabul. The area has witnessed several attacks including the suicide attack that killed prominent Shia Muslim cleric Ramazan Hussainzada last month. Hussainzada was also a senior leader of Afghanistanas Hazara community.

The blast comes two days after another blast in Afghanistan's Takhar province, in which 2 civilians had lost their lives.

More Updates on the incidentA to follow

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Islamabad:

Pakistan on Monday summoned India's Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh over alleged ceasefire violations during which he lodged a strong protest over the death of an Indian soldier and many civilians in firing by Pakistani troops.

The Indian diplomat told the Pakistani side that India has noticed increased movements of terrorists and infiltration attempts along the Line of Control, official sources said. Pakistani troops have been providing cover firing to infiltration attempts, Singh told them.

Singh, who was summoned after one civilian was killed and three others injured in alleged ceasefire violations across the LoC by Indian troops, told the Pakistani side that there have been more than 243 ceasefire violations so far from Pakistani troops in 2017, official sources said.

The Director General (SA & SAARC), Dr. Mohammad Faisal, summoned Singh here and "condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations by the Indian occupation forces," the Foreign Office said.

It alleged that Indian forces resorted to "unprovoked firing" on Leepa Sector on July 21 which killed Umair (12) and injured three civilians in Gheekot village.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws," Faisal said.

During the meeting, Singh conveyed to Faisal that the ceasefire violations were initiated by Pakistani troops and Indian troops responded appropriately.

He told the Pakistani side that India has lost one soldier on July 21 in Sunderbani sector and many civilians.During the past few days, Pakistani troops have been attacking civilian areas on the Indian side in various sectors, including on schools.

As a result, local people have been shifted to relief camps, Singh told the Pakistani side. The Foreign Office said Faisal urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 ceasefire arrangement; investigate this and other incidents of ceasefire violations; instruct the Indian forces to respect the ceasefire, in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the LoC.

This was the third ceasefire violation by the Indian forces in the past four days, it said in a statement.It alleged that despite calls for restraint, India continues to indulge in ceasefire violations.In 2017 to date, Indian forces have carried out 618 ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary, it claimed.

Faisal also urged India to permit United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to play its mandated role as per the UN Security Council resolutions.

According to the UN Security Council mandate of 1971, UNMOGIP observes and reports on ceasefire violations along and across the LoC and the Working Boundary between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as reports developments that could lead to ceasefire violations.

India maintains that UNMOGIP has outlived its utility and is irrelevant after the Simla Agreement and the consequent establishment of the Line of Control.

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Islamabad:

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's younger brother and Punjab province Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif can replace him if Supreme court disqualified him for alleged corruption and money laundering in the sensitive Panama Papers case, according to a media report.

Since Shehbaz is not a member of the National Assembly the lower house of the Parliament he cannot succeedimmediately and would have to contest elections. Therefore, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif will most likely become the interim prime minister for 45 days till Shehbaz is elected in by-polls, Geo News reported, citing sources, thatit was decided in a high-level huddle of ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) yesterday.

It was also decided during the meeting that the party will utilise all legal and constitutional options available ifthe verdict goes against the premier. The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Sharif, was also attended by Shehbaz along with federal ministers, advisers and the legal team representing the Sharif family in the Panama Papers case.

The meeting reviewed the situation following developments in the Supreme Court. According to sources, the legal team briefed the prime minister on the Panama Papers case. Speaking in a talk show, Asif rebuffed the media reports. "The entire party is behind the leadership of Nawaz Sharif. There is no any prime ministerial candidate.

There has been no discussion in the meeting on this issue". The Supreme Court yesterday concluded hearing the sensitive Panama Papers case against beleaguered Prime Minister Sharif, 67, and his family for alleged corruption andmoney laundering, but reserved its verdict that could jeopardise his political future.

The judgement was reserved after counsels of both sidesconcluded their arguments before a three-judge bench of the apex court headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan. The bench didnot immediately give any date to give its judgement. A six-member JIT was set up in May by the Supreme Court with the mandate to probe the Sharif family for allegedly failing to provide the trail of money used to buy propertiesin London in 1990s.

The JIT has recommended that the report's Volume-X shouldbe treated as confidential as it contains the details of correspondence with other countries. So far Sharif has refused to quit, calling the investigators' report a compilation of "allegations and assumptions". His decision to stay in power was endorsed bythe federal Cabinet last week.

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New Delhi:

Ahead of this week's National Security Advisors' (NSA) talks to resolve the border standoff at Sikkim sector, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said China will safeguard its security interest at "any cost" and India should not harbour any "unrealistic illusions."

"China will safeguard its security interests at any cost. India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," he said ahead of the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Asking India to correct its "mistake" he asked India to stop provocations on the border and resolve the issue in order to maintain peace and stability in the region.

"We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquillity," Wu said.

India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be traveling to Beijing to attend a BRICS meeting on July 27 and 28, he is expected to meet his counterpart Yang Jiechi in a bid to resolve the issue.

Wu also stated that People's Liberation Army has taken emergency measures in the region and continues to increase focused deployments and drills.

Two of the world's most powerful Armies- India and China are up against each other for a piece of land called Doklam in India and Donglang in China.

The entire row errupted in mid-June when India tried to stop a road construction by Chinese Army in Doklam stating that it will change the status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to India's security.

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New Delhi:

A powerful explosion rocked Pakistan's Lahore on Monday afternoon. The number of killed, according to media, has reached at least 26, while 57 others have been reported injured.A



The blast took place at the Ferozepur Road near the residence of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, says Reuters.A

LIVE Updates

#6:35 PM:

26 people have lost their lives and 57 injured -A Govt Of Punjab



#6:31 PM:A

8 policemen have been martyred including 1 Sub-Inspector, 1 ASI and 6 Constables - Govt Of Punjab



#6:09 PM

No words can express the grief which grips my heart right now. Blast destroyed many families, but terrorists can never destroy our resolve. Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins!: Punjab CM Shehbaz Sharifa



#6:00 PM

"39 people injured and 25 persons have lost their lives." - Deputy Commissioner Lahore



#LahoreBlast: 19 injured persons are being treated in Lahore General Hospital, 6 in Jinnah Hospital and 14 in Ittefaq hospital. pic.twitter.com/DG1ls8stFh a Govt Of The Punjab (@GovtOfPunjab) July 24, 2017

#5:55 PM:

Lahore police chief Capt Amin Wains said the atarget of blast was policea. He also confirmed that it was a suicide blast.

According to Rescue 1122, at least 20 people including policemen have been killed in the blast.

aPolice and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the CMas Model Town residence, when a powerful blast took place,a Rescue 1122 Deeba Shahnaz told PTI.

Rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital. An emergency was declared in city hospitals.

aThe condition of several injures is stated to be critical,a the official said.

The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.

Citing police sources, the Geo News reported that a suicide attacker targeted police personnel deployed at the site. The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed.

#5:45 PM:A

Pakistani news website Dawn reported that the SP Imran Awan has confirmed that more than nine bodies were shifted to a nearby hospital. At least three of the deceased people are policemen, he added.

According to Awan, an anti-encroachment drive was underway in the area when the explosion took place. The anti-riot police officials were deployed for the drive, the media house reported.A



The injured include six policemen. Rescue 1122 teams have shifted them to nearby hospitals where emergency has been imposed.

Rescue 1122 is shifting injured to the hospitals, where emergency has been imposed #LahoreBlast pic.twitter.com/fEBMUBISev a Govt Of The Punjab (@GovtOfPunjab) July 24, 2017

Some 10-15 people under the tree... Look like dead

May Allah protect us#BreakingNews #Lahore pic.twitter.com/EQWR9hsloC a Muhammad Shoaib (@muh_shoaibb) July 24, 2017



In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahoreas Bedian Road.

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Japan's Environment Ministry will set up public wireless LAN services at national parks by the end of fiscal 2017, hoping to draw more overseas tourists.

Under a project announced last week by the ministry, free wireless LAN will be available in 63 visitor information centers within the parks, excluding those in Oze and Minami Alps national parks, and in two centers that are slated to open by the end of March next year.

The project aims to enhance the information transmission capabilities of the centers, where visitors can learn flora and fauna as well as the surrounding terrain, so they can be bases for nature conservation and promoting tourism.

Multilingual exhibits and information terminal devices with translation software will be introduced at the centers as part of the project.
Three Danbury-area high school students were awarded National Merit Scholarships.

Recently, National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced about 900 additional winners of National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities. These Merit Scholar designees join over 3,200 other college-sponsored award recipients who were announced in June.

The local recipients are Nicole DiMauro of Danbury, who attended Immaculate High School in Danbury, and her scholarship is sponsored by Northeastern University; Ian Magill of Ridgefield, Hopkins School in New Haven, University of Chicago; and Haley McClure of Southbury, Pomperaug High School, Villanova University.

This year, 182 colleges and universities are sponsoring more than 4,000 Merit Scholarship awards. Sponsor colleges include 103 private and 79 public institutions located in 44 states and the District of Columbia.

College-sponsored awards provide between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study at the institution financing the scholarship.

This final group of winners brings the number of 2017 National Merit Scholars to more than 7,500. These distinguished high school graduates will receive scholarships for undergraduate study worth a total of over $32 million.

In addition to college-sponsored awards, two other types of National Merit Scholarships were offered  2,500 National Merit $2,500 Scholarships, for which all finalists competed, and approximately 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who met criteria specified by their grantor organizations.
I did not leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left its senses. The political movement that once stood athwart history resisting bloated government and military adventurism has been reduced to an amalgam of talk-radio resentments. President Trumps Republicans have devolved into a party without a cause, dominated by a leader hopelessly ill-informed about the basics of conservatism, U.S. history and the Constitution.

Americas first Republican president reportedly said, Nearly all men can stand adversity. But if you want to test a mans character, give him power. The current Republican president and the party he controls were granted monopoly power over Washington in November and already find themselves spectacularly failing Abraham Lincolns character exam.

It would take far more than a single column to detail Trumps failures in the months following his bleak inaugural address. But the Republican leaders who have subjugated themselves to the White Houses corrupting influence fell short of Lincolns standard long before their favorite reality-TV star brought his gaudy circus act to Washington.

When I left Congress in 2001, I praised my partys successful efforts to balance the budget for the first time in a generation and keep many of the promises that led to our takeover in 1994. I concluded my last speech on the House floor by foolishly predicting that Republicans would balance budgets and champion a restrained foreign policy for as long as they held power.

I would be proved wrong immediately.

As the new century began, Republicans gained control of the federal government. George W. Bush and the GOP Congress responded by turning a $155 billion surplus into a $1 trillion deficit and doubling the national debt, passing a $7 trillion unfunded entitlement program and promoting a foreign policy so utopian it would have made Woodrow Wilson blush. Voters made Nancy Pelosi speaker of the House in 2006 and Barack Obama president in 2008.

After their well-deserved drubbing, Republicans swore that if voters ever entrusted them with running Washington again, they would prove themselves worthy. Trumps party was given a second chance this year, but it has spent almost every day since then making the majority of Americans regret it.

The GOP president questioned Americas constitutional system of checks and balances. Republican leaders said nothing. He echoed Stalin and Mao by calling the free press the enemy of the people. Republican leaders were silent. And as the commander in chief insulted allies while embracing autocratic thugs, Republicans who spent a decade supporting wars of choice remained quiet. Meanwhile, their budget-busting proposals demonstrate a fiscal recklessness very much in line with the Bush years.

Last weeks Russia revelations show just how shamelessly Republican lawmakers will stand by a longtime Democrat who switched parties after the promotion of a racist theory about Barack Obama gave him standing in Lincolns once-proud party. Neither Lincoln, William Buckley nor Ronald Reagan would recognize this movement.

It is a dying party that I can no longer defend.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham has long predicted that the Republican and Democrats 150-year duopoly will end. The signs seem obvious enough. When my Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994, it was the first time the GOP had won the House in a generation. The two parties have been in a state of turmoil ever since.

In 2004, Republican strategist Karl Rove anticipated a majority that would last a generation; two years later, Pelosi became the most liberal House speaker in history. Obama was swept into power by a supposedly unassailable Democratic coalition. In 2010, the tea party tide rolled in. Obamas re-election returned the momentum to the Democrats, but Republicans won a historic state-level landslide in 2014. Then last fall, Trump demolished both the Republican and Democratic establishments.

Political historians will one day view Donald Trump as a historical anomaly. But the wreckage visited of this man will break the Republican Party into pieces  and lead to the election of independent thinkers no longer tethered to the tired dogmas of the polarized past. When that day mercifully arrives, the two-party duopoly that has strangled American politics for almost two centuries will finally come to an end. And Washington just may begin to work again.

Joe Scarborough, a New Canaan resident and former Republican congressman from Florida, hosts the MSNBC show Morning Joe. He wrote this commentary for the Washington Post.
A Western New York man is dead after driving a go-kart on a roadway and crashing into a car.

The Niagara Falls Police Department says a 34-year-old man from Niagara Falls was driving a high-performance go-kart Saturday afternoon on the 1900 block of Buffalo Avenue. He was driving westbound before spinning around into eastbound traffic, hitting a Chevy Volt around 2:45 p.m.

Police say the go-kart became lodged under the Volt, which was unable to avoid the crash.

"It was just the most traumatic thing I've ever seen," witness Angelo DiDonna told WKBW.

DiDonna, who saw the crash happen in his rearview mirror, told the TV station he and the Volt driver both stopped to attempt to help the go-kart driver. Niagara Falls Fire Department and AMR Ambulance crews responded to the scene, but the man was pronounced dead at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.

According to the Buffalo News, the go-kart driver was testing new equipment installed at a nearby auto shop. He was not wearing a helmet.

The victim's name is being withheld until family and friends are notified.

The Volt driver, who has also not been identified, is not being charged.

"The driver said that he had just felt the impact; he didn't even see the guy," DiDonna told WKBW.

The NFPD's Crash Management Unit is continuing to investigate.

A fatal go-kart crash in Niagara Falls Saturday afternoon has claimed the life of a 34-year old man. https://t.co/TRTJEoHOdG pic.twitter.com/sFtDJZ60Sn  traffic command (@trafficcommand) July 23, 2017
Britain to Invest in Nigerias Oil Pipelines, Others

The British government has said it will invest in Nigerias oil pipeline infrastructure, renewable energy, as well as gas and power.The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Paul Arkwright, disclosed this when the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, paid a courtesy visit to the Chancery of the British High Commission in Abuja.Arkwright said Britain had genuine investment interests in the downstream, midstream and upstream sectors of the Nigerian oil and gas industry.He noted that the British Department for International Trade was ready to liaise with the Federal Government to invest in Nigeria.The high commissioner also urged the Federal Government and the NNPC to organise a roadshow in London to create awareness on the possible investment opportunities available in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.Arkwright said many British investors had funds, which they were willing to invest in Nigeria, stressing, however, that the process of obtaining Nigerian visa in the UK was cumbersome with three different levels of visa procurement fees as well as Nigerias postal order system.In his response, Ughamadu, on behalf of the Group Managing Director of the corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, condoled with the British government over the recent terror attacks on the UK.He assured the high commissioner and his team in Nigeria that the corporation would sustain the cordial relations between both countries.
The Police authorities during the dismissal of the 3 officers

As the Nigeria Police Force attempts to rebuild its image, three police officers of the Lagos State Command have been dismissed by the force.

The action of the dismissal of the officers, was taken in a case of illegal arrest and extortion reported three weeks ago by an unnamed Nigerian using the popular social-messaging service, WhatsApp.

A statement by Assistant Commissioner of Police Abayomi Shogunle of the Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit (PCRRU) in Abuja, said the dismissal followed an internal trial at which the men were found guilty, under the Police Act, of corrupt practices and discreditable conduct.

In a major image-makeover effort, the PCRRU is sending to the public such messages as: Remember, Bail is Free, PCRRU says NO TO IMPUNITY and our quick response will put a smile on your face.

The dismissed officers are: Inspector Okelue Nkemeonye, Sgt. Braimoh Sunday and Sgt. Yusuf Olukoga, met their fate after the complaint was filed on June 21. Their lead officer, ASP Bayo Obadiah, received an official query and his case is being sorted out.

In his message to the PCRRU, the complainant told the horrendous story of how he was abducted by a team of policemen that morning as he came out of a bank to transact business. Held all day until about 6 p.m., not only was he beaten by the policemen, they used his ATM to withdraw money from his account, and transferred money into another account provided by one of them.

According to ACP Shogunle, Upon the receipt of the complaint, a case with Tracking Number PCRRU637624 was registered and acknowledgment of complaint sent to the complainant. PCRRU Investigation team was dispatched to Ikorodu where all the three dismissed policemen including AP No. 98199 ASP Bayo Obadia who led the team were apprehended. PCRRU preliminary investigation reveals that all the allegations contained in the WhatsApp message actually happened.

In addition, he said the four police officers who were armed on the day of the incident had falsely paraded themselves as operatives of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) despite not being posted to SARS by police authorities.

Investigation also showed that the officers extorted a total sum of N200,000 from the young men whom they tagged Yahoo Yahoo Boys, the money forcibly taken from them via an N90,000 ATM withdrawal and another N110,000 mobile bank money transfer to a third-party account provided by the policemen, ACP Shogunle continued, adding the extorted N200,000 was recovered by the PCRRU Investigators.

All the arrested officers, witnesses and recovered exhibits including the N200,000 cash and printed bank statement of account were handed over to the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2 Lagos for further detailed investigation and necessary disciplinary measures, he said. The approval of the punishment of dismissal from service as recommended by the Adjudicating officer is part of the outcome of the disciplinary measures.

With reference to ASP Bayo Obadiah who led the team of the infamous men on this unacceptable conduct, he pointed out that an official query was issued to him by the AIG Zone 2 Lagos, and that both his reply and that query have been forwarded to the office of the Force Secretary in Abuja from where it will go to the Police Service Commission as required by Police Regulations.

The Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim K. Idris, has commended the complainant for coming forward to report the incident to PCRRU, the IGP has also said that all allegations of professional misconduct reported against any police officer would be treated in line with relevant laws and in keeping to the 'Change Begins With Me Campaign' of the Federal Government, Shogunle noted.

He encouraged the public to report cases of police misconduct to the PCRRU for resolution, stressing that the IGP Idris led administration is bent on ensuring a more public friendly and corrupt free police force in Nigeria.
The governor of Imo state, Rochas Okorocha has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to return to Nigeria within the next two weeks.Recall President Buhari who is currently in the UK for the treatment of an undisclosed ailment left Nigeria on May 7th.Okorocha was part of some APC governors and chieftains who visited President Buhari at the Abuja house in London yesterday, Sunday.He made the revelation while speaking with the BBC World in the UK today, Monday, where he gave an update on the President's health and when he is scheduled to return home.According to Okorocha, the President was in high spirits and fully engaged in discussions about the Nation.He also, added that the President spoke on a whole range of issues affecting the country, an indication that he had been following proceedings and other issues going on in Nigeria.This is coming just hours after the former Minster of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode (FFK) dismissed the claims of the APC delegate to London that all was well with the President. According to FFK , the single picture which the delegates claimed they took with the President and shared to Nigerians was fake, as it was an old picture taken at Abuja, FCT.
Former Chief Security Officer to late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, said Nigerians should expect the end to Biafra agitat...

Former Chief Security Officer to late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, said Nigerians should expect the end to Biafra agitations soon. This came as the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, weekend, called on Yerima Shettima to stop his campaign of calumny against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as the group will not accept or condone anybody associating MASSOB with Ralph Uwazuruike or Biafra Independence Movement, BIM, in the country.This is even as the former chairman of Police Service Commission, PSC, Chief Simon Okeke, said the agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, is a reaction to the hopelessness and lopsidedness of successive governments in Nigeria.Major Al-Mustapha disclosed this while speaking to newsmen at an International peace campaign organised by Awareness for Good Leadership, Peace and Development, in Katsina, weekend.He said he is working to see the end of the agitations and also working out ways on how to mend issues from within the six geopolitical zones of the North and the South. He said he has plans to bring together all classes of Nigerians together to identify what the principles of peace is all about in the interest of the nation.According to him, Im already handling that issue of agitations for Biafra. If you have been following what is going on, Im at the centre of it. And this will come to pass pretty soon and will take a new dimension on how we can mend issues from within the six geopolitical zones or within the North and the South. You will soon see the results and that will soon come to national attention.I left there for here and Im going back there, God willing. Stop campaign of calumny against Kanu In a statement issued in Abakaliki, National Secretary of MASSOB, Comrade Ugwuoke Ibem Ugwuoke, lambasted Yerima Shettima, leader Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, for allegedly trying to deceive the people of Biafra and create disaffection among the genuine pro-Biafra groups that are committed towards the actualization and restoration of an independent and sovereign state of Biafra.The statement read in part: MASSOB is not against BIM or Ralph Uwazuruike. We will not accept or condone anybody associating MASSOB with Uwazuruike even ignorantly. MASSOB has a new leader in the person of Comrade Uchenna Madu, the former MASSOB National Director of Information. We still wish to correct Yerima Shettima that the so-called Ojukwu memorial lectures he annually attends in Owerri with tens of Hausa-Fulani people is not MASSOB programme but that of Uwazuruike-led BIM. MASSOB advises Yerima Shettima to stop his campaign of calumny against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and also his propaganda of deceit to paint Uwazuruike a white saint.The people of Biafra know their leaders. IPOBs agitation, reaction to state of lopsideness Ex PSC boss Speaking with select journalists during his quarterly news conference in his Akata House, Amichi, Nnewi South Local Government Area, Anambra State, Chief Okeke told Igbo elders and Nigerians who are castigating IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to listen to him and address some of the points he has made through IPOB activities.Chief Okeke, however, stated that secession is not the best option for Ndigbo, rather if there is equitable governance in Nigeria and equity and fairness in doing things in the country, there will be no need for Biafra restoration. IPOBs secession idea is arising from a state of hopelessness and lopsidedness that successive governments in Nigeria have kept Biafrans.The agitation for Biafra restoration is a reaction to some actions of non involvement of Ndigbo in the Nigerian governance. Chief Okeke blamed some Nigerian leaders, particularly former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd) for the woes in the country, saying: His creation of 12 states, instead of the regional government he met in office, has brought unnecessary agitations by different ethnic groups in Nigeria. Gowon created 12 States with jaundice in his head; he created the states to humiliate Ndigbo, by ensuring that Ndigbo who live near the river banks, like todays Obigbo in Rivers State are lost to other states.I pray for Biafran agitation to collapse in 2019Methodist Prelate Meanwhile, the Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Samuel Uche, has condemned the agitation for the break-up of the country, saying that those championing it were being sponsored by selfish politicians. All these campaigns that the Igbo must leave the country or that Biafra must be are all sponsored by politicians who are looking for political power, Uche said, yesterday, in Ibekwe, Ikot Abasi Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, during a thanksgiving church service organised by Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Nsima Ekere. Uche prayed: Any politician who sponsors people to kill others so that they can enter political office will never enjoy that office. I pray that Biafra and all those agitations will crumble in 2019.I am not PDP, APC or APGA. I am for every Nigerian. Nigerians will reject bad leaders in 2019. Uche spoke about great deprivation in the Niger Delta region and called on the Federal Government to urgently address the problem of the area. As a leader of the Methodist, I am saying here that we should allow this area, Niger Delta, to control its resources and pay a certain percentage of money to the centre. Let us practice true federalism, he said, adding that what is keeping Nigeria one was nothing other than oil. All these shouts of one Nigeria, one Nigeria is because of oil.If the oil dries up today, it will be to your tents oh Nigeria! Mr. Uche said he heard the finance minister say recently that there was improvement in the nations economy. He said he believed the minister but that he would believe her the more when he sees families around him enjoy three square meals daily. He attacked the nations politicians as being greedy lots. Nigeria has enough to take care of the peoples needs but not enough to satisfy greedy politicians, he said. If we spend responsibly what we have, everybody could be taken care of and everybody will be happy. The NDDC chief, Mr. Ekere, in his remark during the church service, thanked God for His blessings upon his life and that of his wife.Mr. Ekere asked Nigerians to continue to pray for President Muhammadu Buhari and the nation. The event was attended by several dignitaries, including Governor Solomon Lalong of Plateau State, the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Victor Attah; and the Deputy National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Segun Oni, who represented the partys National Chairman, John Oyegun.
A group of Nigerians, under the aegis of Coalition of Concerned Nigerians, has asked the Federal Executive Council to write the National Assembly to request a medical examination of President Muhammadu Buhari to determine his suitability to remain in office.The coalition made the request in a statement in Lagos on Sunday.Members of the group noted that having spent 114 days out of the first 180 days of the year on medical examination, Buharis suitability to continue in office had been called to question.The statement was signed by the Chairman, National Conscience Party, Alhaji Tanko Yunusa; a lawyer and social activist, Mr. Ikechukwu Ikeji; a former Commissioner, Delta State Oil Producing Commission, Mr. Ken Okolugbo; a lawyer and businessman, Mr. Turner Ogboru; and a chartered accountant and public affairs analyst, Mr. Bala Zakkar.The group also asked the National Assembly to amend the constitution to remove the power to initiate investigation into the health of the President from the FEC and to also put a limit to the duration a President or governor can go on medical vacation.They, however, stated that the issue of governance and the Presidents state of health had presently constituted a cog in the wheels of the delivery of the dividends of democracy to Nigerians.They demanded that the Presidents handlers be made to disclose the true state of the Presidents health as a mark of respect for citizens who voted him into power and also to further engender openness and transparency in government.The statement partly reads, Our worry is as to the exact nature of the Presidents health and the fact that this has been kept secret from Nigerians, who pay his medical bills and who are entitled to know the state of health of their President.This situation is unprecedented. When YarAdua took ill, the nature of his sickness was disclosed to Nigerians. And when YarAdua stayed away from Nigeria for 79 days, it was the present President, Muhammadu Buhari, who called on YarAdua to resign or be impeached by the National Assembly.The chicken has come home to roost and it is now the turn of President Buhari to walk his talk. While we are not here calling for his resignation or impeachment, we are insistent that the nature and cause of his sickness be disclosed to Nigerians.They argued that while it was true that the President complied with the provisions of Section 145 of the Constitution, as amended, in transmitting the required letter to the National Assembly and transferring power to the Acting President, they believed that the handlers of the President were taking advantage of the lacuna in the said section of the Constitution which did not place a time frame within which the President could stay away.Meanwhile, a civil society group, Kingdom Human Rights Foundation International, which filed a suit bordering on the health status of Buhari, has requested an urgent hearing of the matter.The plaintiff, is by its suit, seeking an order compelling the Executive Council of the Federation (otherwise known as the Federal Executive Council) to declare Buhari incapacitated to continue to hold office and another, mandating Senate President Bukola Saraki, to constitute a medical panel to verify the Presidents fitness.The group, through its lawyer, Mr. Nnamdi Okere, has written to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, and the vacation judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, stating that the case required an urgent determination.
The German Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Bernhard Schlagheck, says his country will support a more united and prosperous Nigeria devoid of wrangling.Schlagheck spoke during an interactive session with the leadership of the Enugu State Chapter of Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, in Enugu on Monday.The ambassador also said that the Federal Republic of Germany had confidence in Nigerias ability to deal decently with the call for the restructuring of the country for a more equitable nation.He, therefore, advised all stakeholders to respect the constitution and territorial integrity of the country.We are very much interested in seeing a decent constitutional process and plead with all stakeholders to respect the Nigerian Constitution and territorial integrity.I am quite confident that the Nigerian people and their representatives in the parliament will take appropriate steps to make the restructuring process successful for the people of Nigeria.Let all stakeholders abide by the constitution and bring in what they have to say in the discussion process and make Nigeria better, prosperous and more successful.Schlagheck said that his country was concerned about the effects of the agitations in parts of the country on future elections.Responding, Chief Chiedozie Ogbonnia, the President of the state chapter of Ohaneze Ndigbo, said that the agitations from the South-East arose out of the feeling of marginalisation.Ogbonnia said that the main purpose for the agitation was to secure a better condition for the people of the area in a united Nigeria.He said that the clamour for the restructuring of the country had become a national discourse and imperative to give all sections of the country equal sense of belonging.According to him, it is the hope of all Nigerians that all issues relating to the restructuring of the country are sorted out before the 2019 general elections.Ogbonnia said that the zone was working with other regions of the country to ensure a process that would keep intact the unity of the country.He said that the current administration at the Federal level was a product of the yearnings for change by Nigerians, adding that much needed to be done to keep the people together.The type of federation we run in Nigeria is not like others elsewhere in the world. We have to do away with the feelings of injustice in the country, Ogbonnia said.
Governor Rochas Okorocha said President Muhammadu Buhari was very cheerful and has not lost any bit of his sense of humour when he and other leaders of the All Progressives Congress met him in London on Sunday.The governor noted that with the visit those peddling rumours about Buharis health status  have been put out of business.Okorocha gave this report in a telephone conversation reported by President Buharis special adviser on media and publicity, Femi Adesina.According to Adesina, the Imo state governor said the party delegation spent more than an hour with President Buhari over lunch, and it was very clear from the discussions that he followed developments at home very closely.He said the President was delighted to receive the delegation and asked each governor about affairs in his state.He also asked the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, about the state of the railways.When asked to react to all the negative things being said about him, the President just laughed, describing such negative reports as lies.Governor Okorocha said President Buhari was completely unperturbed by the cocktail of lies. He, instead, sent his best wishes to Nigerians.According to the governor, Nigerians dont have to worry at all, adding that President Buhari will be back as soon as the doctors give him the green light.By our visit to London today, the merchants of lies have been put out of business and Nigerians will not buy the garbage they have been selling.All those who look up to fake news can find better use for their time, Governor Okorocha said.Governors Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa; Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna; Yahaya Bello of Kogi; and APC National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, were also in the delegation.
The Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Samuel Uche, on Sunday, prayed that the agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra will c...

The Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Samuel Uche, on Sunday, prayed that the agitation for a sovereign state of Biafra will crumble in 2019.Uche also said that selfish politicians are the ones sponsoring the Biafra agitation so that they will use such to gain political power and position especially in 2019. The Prelate said this during a Thanksgiving service in Ibekwe, Ikot Abasi Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.He however warned that any politician who sponsors others to kill people in order to occupy certain positions will not enjoy that office. According to him, All these campaigns that the Igbo must leave a section of the country or that Biafra must be, they are all sponsored by politicians who are looking for political power. Any politician who sponsor people to kill others so that they can enter political office, they will never enjoy that office. I pray that Biafra and all those agitations will crumble in 2019.I am not PDP, APC or APGA. I am for every Nigerian. Nigerians will reject bad leaders in 2019. This is even as Former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha has said that those spending heavily on Nnamdi Kanu will be exposed soon. According to him, Any call to divide Nigeria is unacceptable. I have been playing a role to ensure a united Nigeria. I have been criss-crossing the North and the South-East, and to all parties concerned, soliciting for peace.I was recently in Owerri to sign a peace accord with some associations and the North. My understanding is that certain people are investing in these problems to promote themselves, but very soon the government would realize it. If Arewa youths had addressed IPOB as a group or their leader Nnamdi Kanu as an individual, it would have been a fair- deal, but asking millions of Igbo that reside in the North to quit is not acceptable by law and the provisions of our Constitution. We have spoken to the Northern Leaders Forum as well as Ralph Uwazuruike because Nnamdi Kanu was his boy, he brought him up to be in the Radio House in London.The people creating tension in Nigeria are behind Kanu. What he is doing may not necessarily be to create tension but those behind him are investing in the tension to divide us as a nation. But our security agencies are doing a lot to identity them. All I am after is the creation of a platform that is sincere and that caters for indigent Nigerians.
The Indigenous People of Biafra(IPOB) has raised the alarm over a fresh plot to kill its leader, Mr Nnamdi Kanu by some retired and serving...

The Indigenous People of Biafra(IPOB) has raised the alarm over a fresh plot to kill its leader, Mr Nnamdi Kanu by some retired and serving service chiefs, politicians from Igboland and some from the north.

The group said it is worried over the constant threats to the life of its leader, whose only sin they said was his constant attempt to liberate both Christians and Igbo indigenes in Nigeria from the plans by some elements in the north to annihilate them.

Powerful in the press release listed some of those who have at one time or the other openly threatened to kill its leader, saying that others who were nursing secret plots to do so have also been uncovered by the security arm of the group.

Former Chief Security officer to Abacha, Major Hamza Al Mustapha, IGP, Ibrahim Idris, Chief of Army Staff, Major General Tukur Buratai, Former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former Lagos State Police commissioner, Alhaji Abubakar Tsav, former governor, Yerima Shetima were among those listed to be threatening the life of Kanu.

Others listed from the south east who were also conniving to eliminate Kanu are; Ohaneze Ndigbo led by Chief Nnia Nwodo, Gov. Willie Obiano of Anambra State, Gov, Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, Gov. David Nwaze Umahi of Ebonyi State, Methodist Prelate, Samuel Uche.

It said, We understand that Federal Government of Nigeria mapped out huge amount of money and political positions for them to carry out the heinous crime against Kanu. We promise them that any attack on Nnamdi Kanu or assassination attempt will radicalize the struggle for Biafra independence to the point which no one can curtail the radicalism for Biafra independence anymore.

IPOB members cannot stop half way because the struggle for Biafra quest for freedom is at the point of no return, therefore Government of Nigeria should fix a date for referendum where people will decide through their votes, whether to leave Nigeria or stay in Nigeria, he said.
National President, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Comrade Chinonso Obasi has said ailing President Muhammadu Buhari ...

National President, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Comrade Chinonso Obasi has said ailing President Muhammadu Buhari would be back in the country to continue in office.The NANS President in a statement Monday said he had a conversation with the Presidency in London, noting that hes convinced the Commander-in-Chief would return alive, contrary to the scheming of those whose love is not for our teeming citizens but themselves. He wrote: My conversation with the Presidency yesterday in London at about 2:17pm Nigerian time has given more hope that President Muhammad Buhari will soon be back, alive and able to return to his presidential seat.In the course of conversation, I realized that Nigerians need more love to survive the machinations of the ungodly, the desperadoes and ill wishes gradually being orchestrated by those whose love is not for our teeming citizens but themselves. While calling on Nigerians to unite to move the nation forward, Comrade Nonso stated that issues concerning the nation should be prioritized by well meaning citizens desirous of seeing the nation realize her full potentials.This is the time Nigerians have to be more patriotic than political as issues of national interest should be more paramount and the Presidents health considered as a national frailty that we as a people and a nation can overcome. Let me on behalf of teeming Nigerian students, the most marginalized in the nation, appeal to Nigerians and particularly those in positions of trust to be objective in carrying out any obligation assigned to them in national interest. In the same vein, individual players and stakeholders in the polity should thread with caution as the progress, unity and peace of our dear nation is non-negotiable. President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) is our father and deserves our goodwill and solidarity; if by any reason were not comfortable with his absence due to medical vacation, let every Nigerian observe due process in their agitation.We do hope the Government of PMB will find the Mini compendium, our irreducible minimum demand in the education sector most useful in addressing the ills in the education sector for a functional education system in Nigeria, he stressed, adding that despite the huge population of the association; it has chosen diplomacy rather than violence to press home its demands.With our overwhelming membership strength of over 40.1million Nigerian students; ordinarily, we should be the highest noise makers and agitators but neither have we chosen to be restless rather, we are being diplomatic, civil and patriotic as our nation struggles through these trying times and wish to send this as a signal to those disrupting the peace of Nigeria to remember that there is no other nation we have other than Nigeria -our fatherland, he said.
Neymar will reject a blockbuster move to Paris Saint-Germain and stay with Barcelona.That is according to his team-mate at the Camp Nou, Gerard Pique, who posted a picture of him and the Brazilian on Twitter on Sunday night, with the caption: he stays.Reports in Spain and France had suggested that Neymar was ready to join the Ligue 1 giants in a world-record 197million move. But Piques intervention suggests he will remain at the Nou Camp.The 25-year-old scored twice in his sides 2-1 win over Juventus on Saturday night.He is also understood to have held talks with Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi about his future.
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday met behind closed doors with the Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima and service chiefs at th...

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday met behind closed doors with the Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima and service chiefs at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.The closed-door meeting started at about 6:00 p.m. at the Vice Presidents conference room.Those at the meeting included the Minister of Defense, Mansur Dan-Ali, Chief of Defence Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabriel Abayomi Olonishakin, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen. Tukur Buratai and the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Sadique Abubakar.Others at the meeting are the  Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari; and the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno.Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Shettima said the meeting was an exploratory one designed to cross pollinate ideas on the rebuilding of the North East.He said the Federal Government has magnanimously decided to support the state in the Bama initiative, which is a pilot scheme.The governor hoped that the scheme would be replicated in all parts of the devastated North East.He said: It was an exploratory discussion and once it comes on stream you would be informed. The meeting was about restoring the dignity of our people about rebuilding lives, infrastructure, schools and clinic.I do not have the mandate to state how much is being committed to the project, it is still in the exploratory case and it is not for me to pass judgment on how much is going to be committed. But it is a partnership that would certainly work.The federal government, he said, is committed to assisting the zone to rehabilitate educational and health infrastructures so the people can get back on their feet once and for all.On constant bombings in the area, he added:Well, it is not constant per say, if you juxtapose the sorry state of affairs two years ago with the current state of affairs, there is cause for celebration to me personally even these suicide bombings is a sign of weakness on the part of Boko Haram.Two years ago they were holding unto 22 out of 27 local government areas in the state and they have been sufficiently decimated. I am not under- rating their capacity from the state but these are lunatics who basks on the opportunity of publicity to kill and maim so that they can get greater regard in the global Jihadist community.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP as taken a swipe at the Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed for fingering opposition ...

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP as taken a swipe at the Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed for fingering opposition parties as the mastermind of hate speeches currently threatening the unity of the Nigerian State.In a press statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary, National Caretaker Committee of the PDP, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, the party expressed shock at the Ministers outburst even as it described the statement as another lie from Alhaji Mohammed.The Leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is taken aback over the recent vituperation by the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed in which he accused opposition in the Country as being responsible for hate speeches, disinformation and fake news. How convenient! This is another lie from Lai Mohamned!! Mr. Minister is invited to review his past speeches/statements as Spokesman of opposition ACN/APC and then he will agree with us that the APC leaders/members are the architects and sustainers of hate speeches in our dear Country, Nigeria, the PDP scribe wrote in a statement.Adeyeye further said the Minister ought not to forget easily that in the past, he similarly took on the ruling party while he was in the camp of the opposition. In case Lai Mohammed has forgotten, let us remind him and his Parties, the ACN & APC that in their desperate quest to grab power by all means, organized and carried out series of campaigns of calumny as opposition designed to mislead the public, discredit the person and Office of past PDP led administrations especially, that of the immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck E. Jonathan, GCFR in order to cause disaffection amongst Nigerians against his government.Alhaji Lai Mohammed as the Spokesman of ACN at a press conference in April 2013 raised a false alarm alleging that the Federal government of Nigeria under President Jonathan had awarded an oil pipeline protection contract to serve as a smokescreen in funding activities that would create chaos in the South-West region. Of course, it turned out that no such contract was ever awarded by the Jonathan Administration.Still in April 2013, the ACN Spokesman now Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed mischievously alleged that President Jonathan had issued a Presidential Directive targeted at witch-hunting the Former Governor of Lagos State and Leader of the ACN , Bola Tinubu in order to stop the Merger of the Party with other political parties. This also turned out to be a hoax, the statement continued. The PDP also added that apart from the Minister, other prominent members of the APC also made speeches capable of causing disharmony in the land prior to the 2015 polls.  Also before the 2015 General Elections, the Chairman of APC, Chief John Oyegun in November 2014, vowed to form a parallel government if the elections were rigged.His statement was later re-echoed by the Presidential Campaign Director-General of the APC, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, and now Minister for Transport, the statement noted, adding that talk about distractions, intimidation, harassments and hate speeches defines the APC leaders and members.Let us not forget the Infamous inflammatory statements by General Muhammadu Buhari that caused wide spread violence and killings of Nigerians in the 2011 General Elections. The General repeated almost the same statement on the 14th of May 2012 in Kaduna State when some CPC members from Niger State paid him a visit.He was quoted to have incited his supporters saying if what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood. Till date, President Muhammadu Buhari has neither refuted the statement nor offer any explanation for it. What could be more hateful than such a call for pogrom or mass murder of innocent Nigerians? The list of such hateful and inciting speeches by the APC leaders and especially their erstwhile spokesman is endless. It was a period of one lie, one day.All in the desperate bid to grab power at all cost. Now that they have the power,they dont know what to do with it, wrote Adeyeye lamentably. Lai Mohammed and indeed any of the APC leaders for that matter are not in the position to teach any lessons on appropriate public speeches.They should first apologize to Nigerians for their serial lies, inciting and hate speeches with which our people were deceived into believing that they had something to offer. They should then undergo the serious ritual of self purgation without which there will be a constant relapse into their goebbellian tactics as we continue to witness. It is so ironic that those who haul mud at people do not ever want sand thrown at them. If you are not ready to take the heat you better leave the kitchen, it stated. The PDP further said the Minister was merely trying to compensate for the failure of government to deliver on promises made, urging Nigerians not to be deceived.Lai Mohammeds statement must be seen for what it is: a desperate attempt to divert attention from his governments woeful failures. When this government first assumed office we were inundated with daily sermons of how terribly the PDP had destroyed the Economy.Now that it appears that cliche is well worn out they must find so called hate speeches by the Opposition to blame for their woes. Our advice to the APC Government is that it should concentrate on doing the business of the people and to endeavour to speak the truth always. Lies can take you thus far but in the end it cannot be an alternative to the truth, wrote Adeyeye.
Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode says the latest picture showing some APC Governors, party Chairman, John Oyegun and President Mu...

Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode says the latest picture showing some APC Governors, party Chairman, John Oyegun and President Muhammadu Buhari, purportedly taken in London, is old and fake.

This is contained in snippets of his news article sent out on Monday.

He said: I have been reliably informed that the picture was taken in Abuja some time back and not yesterday in London.

Quite apart from that, even though the picture was meant to have been taken in London curiously all the drinks on the table are Nigerian products and Nigerian-made.

Did the Governors take all those drinks along with them to London when they went to see the President?

Is Buhari not coming home soon again? Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo and some government officials told us that he would be back on the 28th of July which is just a few days away.

Why the need for the APC Governors to visit him in far away London if he will be back in Nigeria in a few days?

What was the purpose and point of this fake photo-shoot and this strange breakfast meeting? What was the purpose and objective of this monumental fraud and deceit?

Whatever the answers may be to these questions the curtain must be brought down on what can only be described as a puerile and nauseating conspiracy.

For those who still believe that the meeting actually took place there are some nagging questions that need to be answered.

For example why were the Nigerian and foreign media not allowed to cover the proceedings and participate in this celebrated photo-soot and merry London feast?

Why did the Villa press corps not take one of their own camera men to London and make a short video of the event?

Why was the whole event shrouded in so much secrecy? Why is it that only one picture was taken? Why were more pictures not taken? Why was Buhari not put on audio tape and recorded talking to his guests?
Russia called on OPEC to limit oil output rises from its members Libya and Nigeria in the near future, as it hosted a meeting of key OPEC states on Monday to discuss ways to prop up oil prices.OPEC has agreed with several non-OPEC producers led by Russia to cut oil output by a combined 1.8 million bpd from January 2017 until the end of March.OPEC states Libya and Nigeria are exempt and their production has been rising.The deal to curb output propelled crude prices above $58 a barrel in January but they have since slipped back to the $45 to $50 range as the effort to drain global inventories has taken longer than expected.Rising output from U.S. shale producers has offset the impact of the output curbs, as has climbing production from Libya and Nigeria, which were granted an exemption from the cuts to allow their industries to recover from years of unrest.Russias energy minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that Libya and Nigeria were approaching the moment when their output should be capped due to significant rises in recent months.I think that these countries should join other responsible oil producers and contribute to the market stabilisation initiative as they reach a stable level of output, Novak told the Financial Times.Libya has been producing over one million bpd, below its capacity of 1.4 million to 1.6 million bpd but near its record high since unrest erupted that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.Nigeria has also ramped up output in recent months.The two countries have now increased their production by around 700,000 to 800,000 bpd since the OPEC-led pact was agreed.OPEC sources told Reuters on Saturday that Nigeria could cap output if it managed to sustain production at 1.8 million bpd for 90 days.They also said Libya could struggle to sustain output at above 1 million bpd and hence a cap was not needed.Saudi Arabia has signaled that it was prepared to accommodate rising output from Libya and Nigeria, but stressed that additional measures should be taken by all producers.Russia said it was willing to further cooperate with OPEC.However, the option of deeper output cuts has so far been ruled out, OPEC sources said.Non-OPEC member Omans oil minister Mohammed al Rumhy told reporters he saw no need for additional production cuts from OPEC and non-OPEC.OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said market rebalancing would accelerate as demand would pick up in the second half of the year.The oil ministers and officials are attending a meeting in the Russian city of St Petersburg of a ministerial committee that monitors the pact, known as the JMMC.The committee meets again in a few months before OPECs formal November gathering.Russia and Saudi Arabia, both members of the JMMC, face mounting pressure to prop up oil prices.Russia, which is heavily reliant on oil revenues, is holding a presidential election next year.Saudi Arabia needs higher prices as it wants to list its state giant oil firm Saudi Aramco next year.It has also faced several years of record budget deficit and has had to dip into its foreign exchange reserves to plug fiscal holes.The JMMC also includes Kuwait, Venezuela, Algeria and Oman.
A Delta State 2019 All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship aspirant, Prof. Pat Utomi has fired back at the immediate past governor of ...

A Delta State 2019 All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship aspirant, Prof. Pat Utomi has fired back at the immediate past governor of the state Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, for saying he (Utomi) should go and contest for councilor and not the governorship seat.

The former governor had claimed that Utomi and others aspiring for political offices should not to be blinded by their political ambitions as to resort to peddling falsehood against government but rather should concentrate on facts.

In his response, however, Utomi urged the former governor to give account of the N20 billion expended on the Independent Power Project, IPP.

According to Utomi, he will prefer that Uduaghan gives account for the Independent Power Plant, IPP project abandoned in Oghara which has gulped over N20 billion.

Such waste is still being experienced today in the state under the current administration.

Utomi added, Governor Okowa was right to raise an alarm about the over N600 billion debt that he claimed to have inherited. He has however, proceeded to increase this debt burden by over N60b of his own. This is only further mortgaging Delta state and the future of our children.

I am pleased to hear the former Delta State Governor, Uduaghan respond to my comments on the poor state of finances in Delta State. To my mind, it is the direction of engagement that I hope will raise the quality of public discussions and move our democracy towards better serving the people. I therefore, feel obligated to respond to the issues raised and to set the records straight for the benefit of the general public.

But in his reaction, Uduaghan said, It is very interesting that Prof Utomi quickly rushed to respond to me, again with tales that were full of falsehood.

I will surely respond with further details and more information on Prof Pat Utomi, who was the last Managing Director of the once vibrant Volkswagen Company of Nigeria and Chairman of the South-South summit held in Asaba to let our people know that Prof Utomi does not have what it takes to govern Delta.

He is the one contesting to be Governor of Delta State and not me. Let people properly evaluate him.
Ovation publisher and media mogul, Dele Momodu has revealed that he spoke with Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi about their emergency ...

Ovation publisher and media mogul, Dele Momodu has revealed that he spoke with Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi about their emergency meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday.

Amaechi visited the ailing President in the Abuja House, London along with Kaduna state Governor Nasir El-Rufai, the chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) John Oyegun and Governor of Imo state, Rochas Okorocha.

Momodu, writing on his Twitter page late on Sunday, admitted that he had a video call with the former Rivers Governor, to confirm the visit and also ask about Buharis wellbeing.

He wrote: The Biblical Thomas could easily have been a Nigerian as we doubt everything; just had a video call with ROTIMI AMAECHI in London.

ROTIMI AMAECHI has confirmed to me in a video call minutes ago that he and other APC Chieftains indeed met with President Buhari this noon.

The video call became necessary when I got strident calls from those doubting the authenticity of the media release from FEMI ADESINA.

Reacting to a user who asked him what Amaechi told him, Momodu tweeted: The President is in great spirit. Nothing different from what the Acting President told Nigerians after a similar visit.

I didnt start this job today My source is solid and impeccable; Amaechi wont confirm if untrue, he will keep mute!
The President of the Anambra State chapter of pan Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Damian Okeke, has revealed what ...

The President of the Anambra State chapter of pan Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Damian Okeke, has revealed what the late warlord, Odumegu Ojukwu thought was the meaning of Biafra.

Okeke disclosed that Ojukwu once told the organization that Biafra is like a fully loaded trailer descending the Milikin Hill in Enugu and nobody knows where it would land.

Speaking in Awka, the state capital, Okeke said the body is using the struggle for Biafra to achieve equity and justice.

He said, As far as I am concerned, we are using Biafra to ask Nigeria to do the needful because that is the vehicle we should use to get our rights.

What is happening to us today has gone beyond marginalization. We should work together to get what will benefit the Igbo and the important thing is to get what belongs to us in Nigeria.

I recall when Ohaneze once asked the late Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, what was really the meaning of Biafra and his answer was that it is like a fully loaded trailer descending the Milikin Hill in Enugu and nobody knows where it would land.

What we have in mind are equity and justice. If we get our rights in Nigeria, what else are we fighting for?

Ohaneze Ndigbo had severally made it clear that members of IPOB and MASSOB are our children. We are all working towards the betterment of Igbo nation.

I want to say that the leadership of Ohaneze, the governors of the South East states and many other Igbo elders are jointly on top of the situation of the quit notice to Ndigbo by the Arewa youths.

Recall that the Ohanaeze Chieftain had dismissed the call for secession, saying Igbos cannot exist alone.




A former minister of education under the late Umaru Musa YarAdua, Prof Jerry Anthony Agada has warned the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPO...

A former minister of education under the late Umaru Musa YarAdua, Prof Jerry Anthony Agada has warned the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, led by Nnamdi Kanu against claiming Benue as part of the supposed Biafra Republic.

Agada warned Kanu and his fellow agitators to stay off Benue in their own interest.





The former minister urged the agitators to stop misleading Nigerians by immediately removing Benue state from the map of their supposed Biafra.

Kanu had claimed that he rejected Biafra because the Nigerian government failed to add Benue and Rivers to his territory.

Speaking with newsmen in Makurdi on Sunday, Prof Agada, who is Board Chairman, Civil Service Commission, Benue State, maintained that Idoma people in particular and Benue state in general, had nothing in common with the Biafra agitations.

According to him, before the civil war, there was nothing like Biafra and even during the war, no part of Benue or Idoma land was captured by the Igbo soldiers hence the claim was misplaced and misleading.

Prof Agada said, when the Nigerian soldiers came to Idoma land in 1967, they were stationed at Saint Joseph Primary school Orokam, my home town in Ogbadibo local government area, which is close to the boundary between the then northern region and Eastern region.

So during crisis, Nigerian troops started pushing up the Igbos in Obolo-afor and Nsukka in the eastern region. Nowhere was captured by eastern troops in Benue which is in the northern region.

No place was ceded to Igbos at the time, so why should the IPOB mislead the people with the map they are now flaunting claiming Idoma land and Benue is part of them?

Those of us who stayed in Orokam where the war started, did not feel the impact of Igbo soldiers moving to Idoma areas or heard that Igbo troops captured any part of Idoma communities where IPOB is today laying claim to be part of their territory.

Until the war ended in 1970, there was no claim that our kingdom then was captured by the then secessionists. The only thing we heard was that B26 airplanes came to drop bomb in Otukpo which was later captured and destroyed by the Nigeria soldiers.

So IPOB should keep Benue and Idoma region out of their agenda, we have never been part of them in anyway.

Prof. Agada cautioned the IPOB agitators to leave the people of the area and indeed the entire Benue state out of their Biafra arrangement stressing that they should not coax people who do not share in their ideology and belief.
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A foreign insect known as a scale is killing tens of thousands of acres of roseau cane, a key wetland plant on Louisiana's coast. (Photo by Ted Jackson, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
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.
Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy in the afternoon. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 67F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.

Tonight

Clear. Low 43F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph.

Tomorrow

A mainly sunny sky. High 58F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.
Welcome to nonleaguedaily.coms news provision, your go-to source for all non league updates, rumours, interviews, and much more besides.

Founded by a team with a genuine passion for the world of non league football, nonleaguedaily.com understands exactly what supporters of the so-called lower leagues are looking for. You want the high-quality reporting, in-depth analysis, and match reporting that matches that is more commonly found in the journalism for the top flights, but with the focus firmly fixed on the national leagues.

We understand that your passion, interest, and dedication is constant, and we believe you need a news service that matches that commitment with its own dedication and thoroughness  so thats what you can expect from our site.

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INDIANAPOLIS  Abortion services temporarily are unavailable at the Planned Parenthood health center in Merrillville due to a state law requiring abortion doctors, or another "back-up" physician, have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

According to the State Department of Health, the Merrillville clinic's back-up doctor, whose name by law cannot be released by the state, ended the doctor's relationship with Planned Parenthood on July 13.

As a result, abortions in Merrillville have been halted and cannot again be performed until another physician with local admitting privileges agrees to serve in the role.

Christie Gillespie, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, said the Merrillville health center remains open and continues to provide family planning and other health services.

She said women seeking abortions are being referred to other facilities.

"Our organization complies with every state law, and does not comment on personnel issues," Gillespie said. "We have every confidence that we will be providing abortion care for our patients at our Merrillville health center soon."

Indiana is among just eight states with an enforceable admitting privileges requirement, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan sexual and reproductive health research organization.

Critics of the mandate claim it is intended to restrict abortion access, since abortion doctors often cannot obtain the privileges as abortion procedures rarely require hospital admission.

Religiously affiliated hospitals also typically refuse to extend privileges to abortion doctors.

Supporters of the admitting privileges requirement, including Indiana Right to Life President Mike Fichter, believe it is necessary to preserve health and safety.

"In case of an emergency, admitting privileges ensure a woman is aided in the most expedient manner possible," Fichter said.

State records show the Merrillville Planned Parenthood performed 1,278 abortions in 2016, accounting for nearly 18 percent of the Indiana's 7,277 abortions.
Gerald Jerry Smith wanted to be a police officer since the day a Cedar Lake officer helped him and his best friend cross the street on their way home from kindergarten.

At last week's Town Council meeting, Smith, the towns current police chief, rendered his retirement effective Oct. 2 and gave an emotional farewell and thank you to the council and the people of Cedar Lake.

Smith has been a sworn officer in the Cedar Lake Police Department for more than 22 years. The crowd and town officials gave him a standing ovation after he said his goodbyes.

Chief Smith has been an excellent leader and a role model to our town, Council President Randy Niemeyer said in a prepared statement. He will be missed, but we wish him all the best in the next chapter of his life.

Smith, whose family was on hand, talked of his time in the Marine Corps before joining the Cedar Lake department and of the support he got from town officials and residents after he was seriously injured in an accident in 2000.

The many get-well cards he got from children convinced him to take a position with the departments DARE program, a move he had previously resisted. I dont like kids, he recalled telling his commander at the time. But the support and encouragement he got from kids during his convalescence changed his mind. He went on to be the Indiana DARE Officer of the Year in 2006. In 2015, he was named DARE Executive Officer of the Year.

Thank you for the faith, confidence and trust you had in me to lead the department, Smith told the council.

During the meeting, the council also authorized beginning a search for Smiths replacement. The town intends to hire a new chief before Smith retires so as to ensure a smooth transition.
INDIANAPOLIS  A man who has reveled in serving his neighbors as judge in northeast Indiana's rural Wabash County today takes his seat on the highest court in the state.

Justice Christopher Goff, 45, has no problem admitting that he never expected his legal career eventually would find him sitting alongside four colleagues on the elevated bench at the Indiana Supreme Court.

"When I began my career in Huntington, we had a 1986 Dodge Colt, $70 and two kids," Goff said. "If you would have told me then that I would be on the Indiana Supreme Court, I would have told you that you didn't know what you were talking about."

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb last month selected Goff as Indiana's 110th justice following a months-long application and interview process overseen by Chief Justice Loretta Rush and the six other members of the Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission.

Goff succeeds Justice Robert Rucker, a Gary native, who retired May 12 after 26 years as a state appellate judge, including nearly 18 years on the Supreme Court.

Blue collar justice

Similar to Rucker, who toiled as a young man in the Region's steel mills, Goff also came to the legal profession from a distinctly blue collar background.

Born in Wabash, the son of a factory maintenance man and a teacher's aide, Goff worked in a magnetics factory to pay his way through Ball State University.

While still a student he married his wife, Raquel, at the Wabash County Courthouse. Following the ceremony, they worked the second shift at the factory.

Goff graduated from Ball State with top honors in 1994 and enrolled in the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University Bloomington, where he completed the three-year program six months early.

He worked as an associate at a Huntington law firm for three years and then became a partner there.

In 2005, then-Gov. Mitch Daniels selected Goff, who he had never met, to fill a judicial vacancy in Goff's hometown.

"I was humbled by the confidence placed in me by Gov. Daniels. He did not have to take a chance on me, but the fact that he did made me resolve to prove him right," Goff said.

"It also gave me the courage to look for the untapped potential in those struggling people who come before me on a daily basis. They all have within them the spark of the divine, and that fact must be remembered when their fate is in your hands."

Wabash County voters elected the Republican to the bench in 2008 and again in 2014.

'People, not problems'

As a small-town lawyer  Wabash has 10,253 residents; Wabash County, 33,000  Goff focused on domestic relations and criminal cases, though he also took on collections, wills and estates, personal injury and business lawsuits.

He said having a diversified practice proved invaluable when he became the sole superior court judge for the county.

"Small town practice in Indiana can be very rewarding. You get to be 'Atticus Finch' and there is nothing like it," Goff said, referring to the beloved attorney in the Harper Lee novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird."

"My clients were people, not problems. It is gratifying and humbling to know that your efforts and abilities are all that stand between your client and injustice."

But working as a lawyer in the town where you grew up also has its challenges, as Goff learned when he was hired to advocate for a sentence modification on behalf of a high school classmate who was convicted of murder at age 18 and ordered to serve 60 years in prison.

"I had a difficult time wrapping my head around his fate. He had been a better kid than me," Goff said. "I could not accept that someone with so much promise should be effectively thrown away.

"His crime and his punishment were my motivation for becoming a lawyer."

Goff was unsuccessful at reducing the man's jail term. But Goff said the case changed his view of criminal litigants and led him as a judge to establish problem-solving courts for Wabash County.

"My classmate taught me that good people can do evil things. My work with problem-solving courts has largely been an effort to help people never get to such a desperate point in life," Goff said.

"All people are endowed with inherent dignity and worth. If our legal system is to be respected, then we must treat all people accordingly."

The next adventure

Goff describes his legal philosophy as "originalist" and "textualist" when interpreting the Constitution, but declared that his overriding goal as a justice is to maintain the tradition of consensus that has distinguished the Indiana Supreme Court.

"I believe in collaboration, and I think that judicial decisions are best received if everybody can get behind them," Goff said.

He certainly has experience organizing and coordinating large groups of people.

His wife is the 11th of 12 children of a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Durango, Mexico, and together they have four children and one grandchild.

"We typically host holiday parties in our home for as many as 100 family members. This is impressive when you consider that we live in a 2,000-square-foot ranch home," Goff said. "I am proud of my family and its unique heritage."

In fact, the first thing Goff did at the governor's event announcing his selection was to ask his family to stand beside him as he enthusiastically introduced them.

Goff then confessed that he was humbled by the prospect of succeeding Rucker  "one of the greatest jurists in the history of our great state"  and at serving on Indiana's highest court.

"The weight and responsibility of this role certainly are not lost on me," Goff said. "I can only hope that, in time, through humility, hard work and a lot of help from others, my service on the court will help make Indiana an even greater place than it already is."

Hoosier voters will decide at the 2020 general election whether to retain Goff for a 10-year term.
*

Munster Town Councilman John Reed pleaded guilty Monday afternoon to operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

Hammond City Court Referee Gerald P. Katy imposed a suspended $500 fine and a 60-day jail sentence on Reed. Katy also expunged the results of Reed's breath test, administered by Hammond Police, Reed said.

Reed already had served a 60-day suspension of his driving privileges.

His guilty plea was part of an agreement with the Lake County prosecutor's office.

Reed said afterward Prosecutor Bernard Carter's pledge to get tough on drunken driving is a reality, because he wasn't allowed to plead to a lesser charge, such as reckless driving. "I took it on the chin," he said, adding he will avoid drinking and driving in the future.

The Lake County prosecutor's office charged Reed a year ago with operating a vehicle while intoxicated and following too closely about the time Prosecutor Bernard A. Carter publicly vowed to crack down harder on drunken driving.

Police arrested him July 19, 2016, on allegations he crashed his 2011 BMW into the back of another car while the two vehicles were northbound on Calumet Avenue in Hammond.

Police reports indicate two people in the car struck by Reed's vehicle suffered undisclosed injuries.

Police allege Reed slurred his speech, wasn't able to fully perform aspects of a walking sobriety test and ultimately agreed to an official alcohol breath test back at the Hammond police station, a police report in the matter states.

Police allege his alcohol level was nearly twice the legally intoxicated level of .08.

He has been free on bond while awaiting trial. Hammond City Court judges had postponed the case of Reed, R-1st, seven times since it first was filed last summer.

Reed has served as a Munster town councilman the past four years. He has been an attorney since 1997 and currently serves as the Republican party's legal counsel.

Carter's crackdown followed the controversy surrounding the reduction of a drunken driving case in Hammond City Court last spring involving union official Randy Palmateer.

Palmateer, business manager of the Northwest Indiana Building and Trades Council, was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after being stopped at a Hammond police sobriety check in March 2016.

Six weeks later, the prosecutor reduced the charge to reckless driving for the second time in five years for Palmateer.

Carter said his office was unaware of Palmateer's 2011 case, because the earlier offense wasn't reported to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

* This story has been changed
Throughout the year, Crossroads YMCA and St. Jude House provide programs and services that change lives.

No one is turned away from the Y due to an inability to pay, said Jill Schaffenberger, spokesperson for Crossroads YMCA, which has branches in Crown Point, Griffith, Hammond and Whiting.

In 2016, for example, Crossroads YMCA provided more than $434,000 for income-based membership subsidies, military and special needs scholarships and program subsidies that include swimming lessons, before- and after-school care, summer day camp and youth and toddler sports, she said.

Without the before- and after-school care, some parents wouldnt be able to keep a job, Schaffenberger said. We provide physical education, nutrition education and activities such as swim lessons at Southlake, Hammond and Whiting.

Family fitness programs also give parents an opportunity to work out while the kids enjoy activities with adult supervision, she said.

The Y is for everybody, Schaffenberger said. Its a friendly environment.

Through St. Jude House, victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and their dependent children up to age 24 find paths to pursue a violence-free life, said Linda Perez, executive director of St. Jude House.

All of the services to residential and nonresidential are free, she said.

St. Jude House provides safe, temporary emergency shelter, a 24-hour crisis hotline, one-to-one counseling and support groups, case management, legal advocacy, a childrens advocate and community education, Perez said.

Abuse knows no gender lines and St. Jude House provides assistance to both women and men.

Statistics show that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men are abused. Our experience bears that out, Perez said.

Both nonprofit organizations rely on fundraisers to continue offering services and programs.

The Northwest Indiana Raffle provides that support and offers large cash prizes. Sponsored by The Times Media Co., the fundraiser encourages area residents to Dream Big, Buy a Ticket & Transform a Life.

Called the House Raffle Northwest Indiana since its inception in 1995, the 23rd annual fundraiser no longer features a house as the first prize.

Nobody has chosen the house during the last 10 years. Cash was the bigger draw, Schaffenberger said.

We realized after research and discussion with focus groups that we needed to enhance the fundraiser and touch more people, added Perez.

The raffle restructuring includes 50 new prizes. First prize is $100,000, while the second prize is a 2017 Ford Mustang GT convertible supplied by Art Hill Ford in Merrillville, valued at $40,000. The winner of the third prize can choose one of four trips valued at $7,500 and provided by Barefoot Getaways of Cedar Lake.

If the car winner chooses the cash alternative, that prize will be $35,000. The winner of the trip who selects a cash prize instead will receive $5,000, according to the raffle rules.

A lot of people are excited about the Mustang convertible, Perez said.

Fourth prize is $5,000 cash, and the fifth place prize is $2,500 in cash.

There is $1,000 for the sixth through 50th prizes. Last year the lowest prize was $300, Schaffenberger said.

Raffle tickets cost $125 and must be purchased by 8:30 p.m. Aug. 1, she said

The raffle drawing begins at 10 a.m. Aug. 4 at the Marian Education Center, Franciscan Health Crown Point, 1201 S. Main St.

We absolutely rely on this fundraiser, Perez said. We encourage people to support the Crossroads YMCA and St. Jude House and win great prizes.
MICHIGAN CITY  The police department here has welcomed two new police officers.

Amanpreet (Adam) Singh and Cody Washluske joined the department July 10, replacing retiring officers Michael Elkins and Larry Young Sr.

Singh graduated with an associates degree in criminal justice from Ivy Tech Community College in Valparaiso. Originally from New York, he was raised in Cedar Lake and now lives in Portage.

"My interest in law enforcement began as a child. No one in our family has served or been in the law enforcement field, so I will be the first. I am really excited and grateful for Michigan City Police Department for giving me this opportunity to make my dreams come true," Singh said.

Washluske was born and raised in Michigan City, and is working on his bachelors degree. His father, Shane Washluske, is also a police officer.

"I know I will learn a lot of different things and skills to keep me safe out on the streets. I hope I can use those skills and what I learn to help people in need and make a difference. Growing up, I have always valued family, and now I am a part of a whole new police family," Washluske said.
MICHIGAN CITY  City police said they will release the name of the officer later this week who said he shot at a motorist early Sunday for driving at a high rate of speed toward him during an unrelated traffic stop.

The 29-year-old LaPorte man driving the vehicle was treated for a graze wound to his arm, but police are uncertain whether he was injured by the officer or during one of two shootings reported shortly beforehand in the Eastport neighborhood, according to Indiana State Police, who are investigating.

A residence in the area of Pleasant Avenue and Rose Street was struck by the officer's gunfire, according to state police. No one in the residence was injured.

The motorist was treated at Franciscan Health Michigan City and was released, police said. It is unclear whether he was charged or faces charges.

The officer involved in the shooting was not hurt and has been placed on administrative leave, per department policy.

The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 a.m. while the officer and another were impounding a vehicle following a drunken driving arrest, police said. The Chevrolet Surburban was driving at a high rate of speed and was "all over the road" in the 400 block of Pleasant Avenue, police said.

Prior to the incident, police were investigating two separate reports of shots fired in the Eastport neighborhood, state police said. One report came from the 200 block of Pleasant Avenue and the other from Ridgeland Avenue. Other police said they overheard gunshots south of where the vehicle was being impounded before the officer fired.
PORTER  Sunday afternoon's scorching sun and heat did little to slow down Qwintyn and Paityn Vanatta, of Sidney, Iowa.

After spending the last few nights camping out with their parents at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, the 11- and 7-year-old, respectively, jumped right into play during the park's Historic Toys program held at the Chellberg Farm house.

"We're outdoorsy people," said Jill Vanatta, who watched over the pair with her husband, Darin Vanatta.

The program was billed as an opportunity for today's young people to unplug from electronics and join in some traditional games and methods of play from the early 1900s.

Jill Vanatta said the couple's children enjoy their electronics, but the family makes a point to share in outdoor activities to stay engaged with one another.

Sunday's program was led by Lakeshore volunteer Angel Gochee-Goins, of Porter, who had indoor and outdoor activities planned.

Pulling out a hand-painted deck of cards that is a reproduction of what was available in the 1700s, Gochee-Goins said card games date back to 500 A.D. While playing, children would learn matching skills and numbers.

"It was 21 in those days," she said of modern-day Blackjack, "and they didn't gamble on it."

Gochee-Goins also had a collection of hand-made dolls on display. The collection included dolls made of old rags, others made of wooden spools or handkerchiefs and a traditional Raggedy Ann.

"Early dolls, no face," she said. "Later dolls, faces."

Wandering out on the lawn in front of the historic farm house, Gochee-Goins showed off other toys, including croquet, which she said was brought over from England at the end of World War II.

Gochee-Goins said she hoped the program would remind parents they don't have to spend a lot of money for their children to have fun.

"But this takes some time on your part," she said. "It's not a babysitter service."

Marvin Rist, of the Miller section of Gary, said his two children have no problem finding fun.

"They just get into whatever they get into," he said.
VALPARAISO  Family-friendly Zao Island was the site of the first Progresstival, hosted Sunday by Progressives in Action Northwest Indiana.

The event was the first gathering of progressive-minded organizations in Northwest Indiana, said Tina Rongers, a member of the leadership group for Progressives in Action.

Were a local grassroots organization that popped up after the election, said Rongers, of Hebron.

Rongers said her group, which has a Facebook presence and also meets twice a month, brings awareness to others of legislation concerning civil and human rights, equality and equity, specifically issues affecting the environment, education, health care, social services and voter registration.

She said the group provides information on how to get involved in the political process, either by attending rallies or writing and calling legislators to make their wishes known about pending legislation.

The group has about 300 followers who attend meetings and participate on the organizations Facebook pages.

We educate group members about how things work at the legislative level, said Kate Sanders, another group leader. We want them to understand the process."

To create Progresstival, the Progressives in Action invited other area progressive organizations to set up tables and provide information about their groups purpose and goals.

Visitors were encouraged to learn about nearly 20 local progressive organizations, including Sierra Club Dunelands Group, NOW Showing Up for Racial Justice, Civic Engagement Boot Camp, Hoosier Women on the March and NWI Supporting Women.

Erin Ledyard and her daughter, Ada, 6, visited several tables and signed up for email updates.

Ledyard is already active with several organizations, and she designed the logo for Hoosier Women on the March.

Since the election, it is so important to get more in touch with political activity in my community, said Ledyard, of Winfield. In the past, it was something I took for granted.

David Woronecki-Ellis, secretary of the Sierra Club Dunelands Group, said membership has increased since the November 2016 elections.

We went from under 900 members to over 1,100 members, Woronecki-Ellis said.

NWI Supporting Women strives to encourage more women to run for office and raises money to support their campaigns, said Lisa Beck, a co-founder.

Only 20 percent of the General Assembly is women, said Beck, of Hebron. We make up 50 percent of the population, so we are not well-represented.

Brant Bargfeldt collected a bag full of brochures and flyers, but felt a bit disappointed as he sipped a cold drink in the shade. Bargfeldt had hoped to learn about organizations that support gay rights.

I think this could be a big thing if they invited more groups, said Bargfeldt, of Merrillville.

Ryan Strode, of Civic Engagement Boot Camp, said his group, which was founded in April, has conducted three training sessions teaching people how elections work and how to fundraise and run for office.

We provide training for anyone who wants to get more involved, said Strode, of Cedar Lake.

Sanders said Progressives in Action is interested in trying to organize a town-hall-type event in the future, and the group would like to host a Progresstival annually.

Ledyard was happy to see the groups together and networking.

They are a unified force, Ledyard said. It is super, super positive, and we wanted to come out and support them today.
A Purple Heart lost nearly 50 years ago belonging to a soldier from the Bronx is returned to his family. NY1's Talia Kaplan tells us about the detective work that got the medal back.

A Bronx man named Bernard McNamara earned a Purple Heart in World War II, but it was lost sometime in the 1960s.



McNamara's family always wondered what happened to it.

Enter Sen. Charles Schumer. "We've solved the mystery of the missing Purple Heart," he said Sunday.

The medal was found on a street in Nyack, Rockland County, more than a dozen years ago.

It was taken to an American Legion post, and Schumer's office was contacted.

The date 1943, and name B.J. McNamara, were engraved on it.

But Schumer said more than a thousand B. J. McNamaras served in World War II.

After lengthy research, a Schumer staffer determined that the medal belonged to a Bernard McNamara, who died in 1975.

"Reuniting B.J. McNamara's Purple Heart with his family is a storybook ending after a long, long search," Schumer said.

McNamara's daughter, Catherine Birong, thinks her mother and her cousins, who lived in Rockland County, played a role in the medal's disappearance.

"She took the medals out  my dad's medals  and she was pinning them on all the little kids and she told them to go outside and play soldier," Birong said. "I think that was the last time I ever saw those medals."

Bernard McNamara was wounded by German artillery fire in Italy in 1943, and was taken prisoner the following month. After the war, he worked for Con Ed.

Some of McNamara's children and grandchildren choked back tears as they held the medal in their hands.

"If you would have told me a week ago today this would have happened, I would have said, 'You are crazy,'" Brian McNamara, Bernard McNamara's son, said while fighting back tears. "This is going to happen. I am amazed, and I am thankful."

"It's very touching, and I am very appreciative of Senator Schumer's efforts, and his staff," Birong said. "They went through a lot to find us."

Birong says the medal will now be on display at her home as a way to honor her father and his dedication to the country.
Urgent action needed on teacher shortage

24 July 2017

A survey of new primary and intermediate teachers in Auckland reveals large numbers are considering giving up on teaching, and two thirds are planning or thinking about leaving the city due to the cost of living.

NZEI Te Riu Roa surveyed teachers with up to two years of experience in May, asking how the cost of housing in Auckland was affecting them professionally.

These results reveal that the Auckland teacher shortage is looking to become an even bigger disaster than previously thought, with huge numbers of younger teachers planning to leave teaching, leave Auckland and even putting off having children.

More than 450 Auckland teachers responded to the survey, which found:

Over two thirds are thinking about or actively planning to leave Auckland

94% of male teachers under 35 are thinking about or definitely leaving Auckland

64% of all New Educators surveyed have given up hope of ever owning their own home

40% of female teachers under 30 are deferring having their own children due to the high cost of living in Auckland

Teachers have been warning for years about the teacher shortage in Auckland and the impact this will have on childrens education, and it's beyond time for action, said Malcolm Milner, Balmoral School principal and NZEI strategist on Auckland issues.

NZEI members want to know if the Government has a plan for addressing the crisis, and if so, what it is. If the Government does not have a plan, then the question is why not? If it does, then show it to us.

This survey indicates that in the future you're going to see even fewer teachers available, or wanting to work in Auckland than now. This will have a major impact on the quality of education for children in Auckland.

As a principal its devastating to think that Auckland is set to lose a generation of talented, dedicated teachers because they cant afford to live here.

Its not our job to develop a plan for recruiting and retaining teachers in Auckland and other hard to staff areas  its the Government's job.

Any plan will need to address workforce planning - how many teachers we need and where they're going to come from; ways to raise the status of teaching; teacher pay and conditions. We strongly feel that pay is too low, and the cost and provision of housing is a significant factor.

This election is an opportunity to fix the underfunding of education and the teacher shortage. We want to make education central to the election. We believe New Zealanders will be looking to support parties that are prepared to back public education and educators," said Mr Milner.

Comments from the survey:

I can't move out of my parents place as I cant afford the rent and travel.

Auckland is too expensive. Half of my wages goes on rent and what's left is crumbs.

Cant afford to live in Auckland, wanting to move out because the house prices and being a single parent is ridiculous

Im looking to take on a second job/weekend job

We would like to sell up and move out of Auckland for a lower mortgage. We are slaves to our mortgage.

It's not a passing thought, it is constant, every day worry and stress. Teaching is hard enough as it is.
#football Injured star Son Heung-min named to S. Korean World Cup squad The injured South Korean football star Son Heung-min was named to the country's World Cup squad Saturday, as the football-crazed nation waits with bated breath to see if the belove...
Terry Andrus has seen many achievements during his tenure at East Alabama Medical Center, but what he says he enjoys the most about his job is helping people.

I think the reason I like what I do is I love serving and helping people, Andrus said. My job allows me to do that every day.

After announcing his upcoming retirement, Andrus recently took time to reflect on his career.

Humble beginnings

Andrus grew up in a small town in Louisiana in the late 1960s and early 70s.

The only exposure he said he had to business was a shoe store.

 Your breadth of the world was somewhat limited to your experience, Andrus said.

He knew he didnt want to sell shoes, so he pursued science.

I was pretty good at science, but not great at science, so I ended up going to school at the University of New Orleans, Andrus said.

He received a degree in medical technology from the University of New Orleans and got married in 1976.

After graduation, Andrus wanted to explore other options. He decided to pursue health care administration.

To get into the graduate programs, you needed certain business courses, which I hadnt taken in undergraduate, so I took accounting and economics, Andrus said. When I took those courses, I recognized that was my aptitude, and so thats when we decided that I would go back to graduate school.

Andrus went to graduate school at Georgia State University.

I chose Georgia State in Atlanta because its graduate school program in health administration was in the business school, Andrus said. I knew something about hospitals, but I wanted that business education. So I did that, and Ive had a great experience over these last 40 years in the field.

After graduating from Georgia State, Andrus went on to work in health administration positions in Atlanta and outside of Georgia.

In 1984, Andrus became the chief executive officer at East Alabama Medical Center.

Hospital achievements

During his watch, the organization has achieved many notable accomplishments that include being named by Fortune magazine as one of the Top 100 Places to Work in 2001 and 2002; being named a key performer by The Joint Commission; being awarded multiple awards by Healthgrades; and becoming the second hospital in Alabama to earn the Baby Friendly distinction.

Certainly, were proud of the things weve accomplished, and obviously, theres a whole team of people that make all of that happen each and every day, Andrus said. I happen to be the president and CEO. There are lots of people who do the important work that goes on each and every day.

He said he learned from his mother, who is almost 100, to always be humble.

 Shes always had a favorite saying that sticks in my head and its Dont get a big head, Andrus said. My mother always instilled in me to be humble.

Dr. Joel Pittard, chairman of the centers board, said Andrus best asset is being a leader.

 He just has natural leadership qualities, Pittard said. And he does a great job of communicating with the personnel there at the hospital. He walks around the hospital every day and checks in on each department and finds out if they have problems or issues.

Andrus said he would describe himself as a people person.

I actually have a very unique management style, so I do not sit in an office very much, Andrus said. I like to be out and about. We have so many employees who are highly motivated to do their job well, so when people are highly motivated to do their job well, my job is to try to get them the resources they need.

Taking on a new role

Andrus has announced that he will retire from his role as CEO in 2018.

Laura Grill, executive vice president at EAMC, was appointed last month to succeed Andrus as chief executive officer.

Grill, who has 25 years of service with the center, will assume full CEO responsibilities at the start of the centers new fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2018.

Weve chosen an outstanding successor in Laura Grill, and my job would be to work to help make her be as successful as she can be, Andrus said. Shell do an outstanding job.

Andrus explained why he made the decision to retire.

I think its better to leave a bit early than a little bit late, and I do think also that you need to give other people an opportunity to serve and do their job, Andrus said. Im not going to be disconnected, so I will still certainly be involved.

Andrus said he wanted to help get the new cancer center started before he retires.

 Thats something thats very important to the community, Andrus said. Were real excited. We hope to break ground in January, February or March next year.

While Andrus will officially retire with 38 years of service in October 2018, he will serve as president emeritus in an advisory capacity.

I am retiring, but I am not going away, Andrus said. I am going to stay doing some other things for the hospital for two to four years. I will be available for Laura for any advice.

Andrus said he also hopes to teach classes.

We have a really good management development program, Andrus said. I hope to teach some classes there.

Fun in the workplace

Andrus said he will do fun activities in the office for employees who challenge themselves to reach certain goals whether its for an employee opinion survey or for patient satisfaction scores.

Ive done all sorts of things, Andrus said. Ive kissed a pig, Ive dressed up as Vanna White, and I dressed up as a rock star. It was standing room only to watch me get my head shaved.

Andrus said he likes to provide some fun in the workplace.

Its very serious what we do, but you kind of want to temper that with appropriate fun in the workplace, Andrus said. You got to have a little bit of a release valve, so anything fun is a release valve.
Sorini Samet & Assocs, which had been promoting investment in Haiti through the Association of Industries of Haiti, is now targeting US government officials and Congress in an effort bankrolled by the Haitian government.

The Haitian Central Bank and Haiti Center for the Facilitation of Investments is funding the campaign aimed at Trump Administration officials and members of Congress.

The Association asked SS&A to arrange meetings for Haiti's Ministry of Commerce and Industries to discuss matters such as extension of the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership and HOPE/HELP legislation.

Established in 2000 by President Clinton, the CBTP created 40,000 jobs in Haiti, serving as a major boost to its troubled economy.

President Trump, who ran an election campaign geared to returning manufacturing jobs to the US, is not viewed as a strong proponent of the CBTP.
MGM Resorts International hired Debra DeShong as VP-global industry affairs based in its DC outpost.

Shes in charge of media relations and messaging strategies for the destination resort chain that runs properties such as the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand (Las Vegas), National Harbor (Oxon Hill, MD) as well as a 56 percent-owned venture in China.

Debra DeShong

Most recently, DeShong was executive VP/managing director for PA at Subject Matter in Washington.

Earlier, she was chief of staff for US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, co-founder of Point Blank Public Affairs and founder of Five by Five Public Affairs

She also held communications jobs at the United Nations Foundation, staff of former Jersey Senator Bob Torricelli, Democratic National Committee and Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign.

Alan Feldman, executive VP-global industry affairs at MGM, said DeShongs decades of leadership in public policy and international relations, coupled with her expertise in messaging and strategy will make her a key asset to the chain as it expands its footprint overseas.
Mike Naple, an Obama Administration alum, has joined STG, the public affairs shop founded by Democratic operatives Julianna Smoot and Paul Tewes.

Mike Naple

The former Dept. of Health and Human Services communications director for human services also worked on the staff of Congressman Jerry McNerney and press secretary for the Brady Campaign & Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Smoot, a prolific fund-raiser, was National Finance Director for the 2008 Obama campaign. As deputy campaign manager for the 2012 run, Smoot and her team raised more than $1B.

Tewes directed Obamas key win in the Iowa caucus and headed national party operations during the general election. Earlier, he was national coordinated campaign director of the Democratic Senatorical Campaign Committee. and then its political chief.
24/07/2017 - The South African economy has registered tremendous progress over the past two decades, boosting living standards and lifting millions out of poverty nationwide. Further reforms are now necessary, however, to revive economic growth and ensure that all South Africans can benefit from it, according to a new report from the OECD.

The latest OECD Economic Survey of South Africa says that wide-ranging structural reforms will be needed to put the economy on a new growth trajectory, boost job creation and improve inclusivity.

The Survey, presented in Pretoria by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria and South African Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba, identifies priority areas for future action, including continuing efforts to maintain macroeconomic stability, improve the business environment and deepen regional integration, all of which are critical for inclusive growth and job creation.

South Africa has accomplished many great things in the past two decades, but building stronger and more inclusive growth will require bold action from policymakers, Mr Gurria said. Ensuring a better future for all South Africans will require increased access to higher education, a stronger and fairer labour market, deeper participation in regional markets and a regulatory framework that fosters entrepreneurship and allows small businesses to thrive. Many of the necessary reforms will be difficult, but the rewards will be worth the effort.

Given the limited scope for monetary or fiscal policy action to boost growth, the Survey suggests a range of structural policy reforms. It encourages South Africa to open key sectors, including telecommunications, energy, transport and services, to more competition. It also says that moving forward with the planned introduction of a national minimum wage will reduce in-work poverty and inequality. Wider development of apprenticeship and internship programmes will also increase the inclusion of youth in the labour market, while streamlining the labour dispute system should increase flexibility and lower barriers to job creation.

Skills shortages and mismatches remain key bottlenecks to growth and inclusiveness, and access to higher education remains limited. Establishing a universal student loan scheme contingent on future earnings, with the participation of banks and backed by government guarantees, is a feasible solution, the Survey says. A recent OECD report, Getting Skills Right: South Africa, analyses in further detail skills mismatches and explores potential strategies for addressing them.

Boosting entrepreneurship, which is low in South Africa when compared to other emerging economies, and growing small businesses can also be crucial to economic recovery and job creation, according to the Survey. The government has taken steps to ease requirements for starting a business, but red tape remains a burden. The quality of the education system and lack of work experience contribute to gaps in entrepreneurial skills. There is scope to broaden the sources of finance and ensure that government policies provide both financial and non-financial support for entrepreneurs and small businesses, the Survey says.

The OECD points out that while regional integration offers substantial opportunities for both South Africa and its neighbours, economic integration in the sub-region has not advanced much. Intra-regional trade in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is only 10% of total trade, compared to about 25% in the ASEAN region or 40% in the European Union. Better implementation of existing SADC protocols and agreements would advance integration, promote trade and create jobs. Reducing non-tariff barriers, by improving customs procedures and simplifying rules of origin, would reduce trade costs in the region. More ambitious and effective infrastructure and investment policies are also needed to improve the inter-connectivity of systems across the region, the Survey says.

During his visit to Pretoria, the OECD Secretary-General is meeting with senior South African government officials, business and labour leaders and representatives of civil society.

An Overview of the Economic Survey, with the main conclusions, is accessible at: http://www.oecd.org/economy/surveys/economic-survey-south-africa.htm.

The recent OECD publication, Getting Skills Right: South Africa, is accessible at: http://www.oecd.org/els/getting-skills-right-south-africa-9789264278745-en.htm.

For further information, journalists can contact OECD Media Officer Lawrence Speer (+33 6 0149 6891) or the OECD Media Division (+33 1 4524 9700).

Note to Editors:

The Paris-based OECD is an international organisation that promotes policies to improve the economic and social well-being of people worldwide. It provides a forum in which governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to the economic, social and governance challenges they face.

The OECDs 35 members are: Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Three countries  Colombia, Costa Rica and Lithuania  have been formally invited to become members of the Organisation, and are currently in the process of accession.

South Africa is one of the OECDs five Key Partners, with Brazil, China, India and Indonesia. Key Partners contribute to the OECDs work in a sustained and comprehensive manner. A central element of the Key Partners programme is the promotion of direct and active participation in the substantive work of the Organisation. This includes partnerships in OECD Bodies, adherence to OECD instruments and integration into OECD statistical reporting and information systems.

Further information on OECD cooperation with South Africa is available at: http://www.oecd.org/southafrica/south-africa-and-oecd.htm.
Charges Dismissed Against Ex-Ohio Cop Who Killed Samuel Dubose Elijah C. Watson Elijah Watson serves as Okayplayer's News & Culture Editor. When

The charges against Ray Tensing in the murder of Samuel Dubose have been dismissed.

Tensing, a Former University of Cincinnati Police Officer, faced voluntary manslaughter and murder charges for shooting and killing Dubose, an unarmed black man, back in 2015. But the charges were formally dropped Monday. Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Leslie Ghiz dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning the case against Tensing is dismissed permanently.

READ: Police Officer Indicted On Murder Charges In Fatal Shooting Of Samuel Dubose

However, according to a report from the Cincinnati Enquirer, U.S. Attorney Ben Glassman said that his office is still looking into the case for possible civil rights violations.

My office will now undertake to acquire and review the evidence from the state court trials in order to assess whether there are possible federal civil rights offenses warranting investigation and potential prosecution, Glassman said in a statement. However, it is unknown when that decision will be made.

Dubose was fatally shot in the head by Tensing on July 19 during a traffic stop. Body camera footage revealed what happened during the incident, with the former cop ultimately using deadly force against Dubose. Initially, prosecutor Joe Deters had led two trials against Tensing but the juries in both failed to come to a unanimous verdict on the charges against him. Following those two mistrials, Deters did not seek a third trial against Tensing.

Source: cincinnati.com
Agricultural News

Tom Fanning of Buffalo Feeders is Named 2017 Oklahoma Cattleman of the Year by the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association

Tom Fanning of Buffalo Feeders was named the 2017 Oklahoma Cattleman of the Year by the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association a their 65th Annual Convention in Norman on Saturday evening. Fanning has served as the Northwest District Vice President of the OCA, serves as the Chairman of the Oklahoma Beef Council and worked to coordinate this spring all of the wildfire relief that flowed into northwest Oklahoma after hundreds of thousands of acres were burned in early March of this year.





It was especially his work to coordinate the huge amount of money, equipment and supplies into Woodward, Harper and Beaver Counties that was spotlighted on Saturday evening at the OCA Awards Banquet. Fanning led a small army of volunteers in the three counties and beyond that worked to get the help that poured in from across the United States to ranchers that were hurt by the massive fires that killed over a thousand cattle, destroyed hundreds of miles of fence and burned over 500,000 acres in Oklahoma and Kansas. Fanning worked with the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Foundation in distributing $1.2 million dollars of cash donations as well as working tirelessly for weeks in making sure that feed and hay and fencing materials that were donated found a home on ranches that were damaged or destroyed.





Fanning told Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays that things look better now- "we had abundant rainfall in April and May and the land has recovered significantly- we still have a lot of fences to replace." He says the money donated has been distributed and has made a positive impact in the countryside surrounding his feedlot operation- Buffalo Feeders.





Fanning and his feedlot is profiled on the Oklahoma Beef Council website- click or tap here to read a Q&A with Fanning on his feedlot and how he cares for his cattle.





You can hear the conversation that Hays had with Fanning on Saturday evening after the award was given by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below. Pictured here is Tom Fanning, along with his wife Michelle and sons Jake and Lane.























Ron Hays talks with Tom Fanning after he is named Cattleman of the Year by OCA

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National Cattlemen's Beef Association Top Lobbyist Visits with OK Cattlemen's Association Members

The Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association hosted Colin Woodall, vice president of government affairs at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, as keynote speaker during the 65th Annual OCA State Convention and Trade Show General Session. Woodall gave a thorough update on the policy NCBA is currently advocating in Washington, D.C. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Associate Farm Director Carson Horn was there to speak with Woodall on some of the dynamics present in D.C.'s political scene and how this is affecting the advancement of the NCBA's agenda to promote the interest of the US cattle industry. You can hear their entire conversation by clicking or tapping the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of the page.





Overall, Woodall says the attitude of the Trump administration and Congress has been very cooperative with the agricultural community, as eager as those affected to relieve farmers and ranchers of some of the over burdensome rules and regulations imposed by previous administrations. He says most of the people President Trump has put in leadership roles are not the typical career politicians, but rather come from a background in the business sector.





"When you have a business background you definitely understand what it means to comply with rules and regulations and how it has a negative impact on your bottom line," Woodall said. "They recognize what we do to feed not only ourselves here in the US, but around the world. So, that mentality, I believe, has given them some good perspective in looking at these rules and trying to figure out which ones need to be eliminated."





While working with people whose concern is actually making government work for the people, not the other way around, is refreshing says Woodall, time is of the essence and NCBA is trying to work with leaders in government to get as much done legislatively as possible before the 2018 Midterm election. This election will be pivotal for the future of the Trump administration, insists Woodall.





"If the Democrats take back the House or the Senate, or both, then in effect, that stops (the President's) ability to do any more legislative work," he explained, but tried to reassure. "I do believe that the House has a fair chance of keeping the Republican majority."





The Senate, though, is much more worrisome, with only a two-seat margin between the Republicans maintaining or losing control.





"Those two seats could very easily go away," Woodall said coldly. "A lot of it depends on whether or not they can show the American people they have been successful over the past year. If they can do that, then I think their chances definitely improve, but they're going to have to fight for it and earn it."





Knowing that, Woodall says NCBA is doing everything it can to be helpful to Congress in getting priorities passed so incumbents up for re-election will be able to focus on securing the votes they need to keep their seats.





"For us, that means trying to get comprehensive tax reform in place, trying to help get a Farm Bill completed and to make sure that we don't leave anything to chance in case there is a change in control after November 2018," Woodall asserted.





To hear Woodall speak on NCBA's priorities for the Farm Bill, his thoughts on trade and a recap of NCBA's recent Summer Business Conference in Denver, click or tap below on the LISTEN BAR to hear his full interview with Associate Farm Director Carson Horn.



















Listen to Woodall speak with Horn about the DC political scene during the 2017 OCA Convention

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OSU Animal Science Department Ranch Tour a Success, Ranchers Enjoy Lively Exchange of Ideas

Earlier this summer, the faculty of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources' Animal Science Department at Oklahoma State University, invited members of the Oklahoma ranching community to join them on a bus tour of several ranches around the Lawton area, to meet with fellow cattlemen and open a dialogue share insights on the advantages or disadvantages of certain management practices. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Associate Farm Director Carson Horn caught up with Gant Mourer, an organizer of the event within the Animal Science Department, during the 65th Annual Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association State Convention and Trade Show, to find out how the trip went. You can listen in as Mourer debriefs Horn on the Animal Science ranch tour from earlier this summer, during the OCA State Convention this past week, by clicking or tapping the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of the page.





"It seemed to work really well," Mourer said. "We had hoped for 30 participants and we got 30 or just a few more and really, that worked out great for us because we were able to visit with producers on the tour, everyone could get one on one time and ask questions and it really flowed well."





This tour was a first for the Department. Mourer says the idea to conduct a tour came about, when the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association shifted its local ranch tour format to an international experience. Mourer explained that the Department felt there was still a need for such a tour that could allow ranchers in the state to connect and learn from each other. The concept, though, was to keep the group small and the stops close, which Mourer believes maximized interaction.





"We wanted to spend some quality time with other producers from different parts of the state to be able to interact and really gain knowledge and spread ideas of what works and what doesn't work from ranch to ranch," he said. "We didn't waste time on a bus - we wanted to see ranches and I think we accomplished that."





Animal health, Beef Quality Assurance practices and herd genetics, were all topics that Mourer says the members of the tour organically brought up in discussion as they met with ranchers around the Southwestern Oklahoma, including the Ballou Cattle Company, in Fletcher; MCS Cattle Company, in Elgin; Coyote Hills Ranch, in Chattanooga; and Collins Cattle, near Frederick.



"Some great discussion over genetics and how do we improve them; maybe where do we need to concentrate? Some new ideas of our herd genetics and genomics," he said, "that's been a real hot topic."





If you are interested in joining the tour next year, Mourer says the Department is considering the schedule for 2018 already, this time considering a look at Southeast Oklahoma. He says stay tuned until next Spring for more details.



















Click below to hear Horn and Mourer speak about discussions that occurred on OSU's ranch tour

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LINCOLN  As the ceremony ended and the other families dispersed, Michelle Howardson sat down on the concrete and quietly cried.

She stayed there, cross-legged in front of her brothers photo, for several minutes, running her fingers over his name, the shape of his smile, the date of Staff Sgt. Sean Howardsons death.

Howardson drove more than four hours from her home in Wayland, Iowa, to the Pinnacle Bank Arena on Saturday morning for the unveiling of the Remembering Our Fallen war memorial.

She said that seeing it  the 25 weatherproof panels featuring more than 4,500 photos of the nearly 7,000 American men and women who have died in the war on terror since 9/11  was overwhelming.

The only way I can describe it is a heart-shattering happiness to know that these veterans wont be forgotten, Howardson said.

Saturdays ceremony marked the first public showing of the memorial that, when completed, will include names and photos of the 7,000. The ceremony honored Gold Star family members from five states and concluded with a black riderless horse led through the towers of photos.

The memorial will have a national unveiling Sept. 7 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It will be on display at the Pentagon for Sept. 11.

The Remembering Our Fallen project began in 2010 after Bill and Evonne Williams read a story in The World-Herald about Lonnie Ford, the father of Army National Guard Sgt. Joshua Ford, who died in 2006 in Iraq. Four years after Joshuas death, Ford told a reporter that he felt that his son already had been forgotten.

Since 2010 the project has completed 19 state-specific memorials, featuring the names and photos of about 60 percent of the Americans who have died in the military since Sept. 11, 2001.

Its been one step at a time, and we are so pleased that its grown into this, Bill Williams said Saturday.

For Ford, the morning ceremony was emotional.

Ive been wiping tears the whole time, he said. This brought us families together, and its just so good for my heart.

Noala Fritz, whose son, 1st Lt. Jacob Fritz, was killed in Iraq in 2007, helped set up the memorial Friday night.

As she put up the banner with her sons name, she said, she felt a calm wash over her.

I smiled because I saw it, I felt it  my son Jacob was at peace, he was with his fellow soldiers who have given the ultimate sacrifice, Fritz said. He was there and people now will never forget him.

Online memorial honors U.S. troops killed since 9/11

The Omaha World-Herald is partnering with Bill and Evonne Williams of Patriotic Productions to create an online honor wall to reflect the national expansion of the Remembering Our Fallen tribute.

Since establishing a tribute to Nebraskas fallen military members, the couple have expanded their memorials to 18 additional states. Now they are creating a national memorial that, when completed, will include almost 7,000 who have died in the war on terror since 9/11.

An online tribute at fallen.dataomaha.com reflects more than 3,600 of our nations fallen troops from 19 states. The numbers will grow as further tributes are added in coming weeks and months. You can search those memorialized by state, hometown or name.

The national memorial, called the Tribute Towers, will have a national unveiling Sept. 7 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It will be on display at the Pentagon for Sept. 11. It then will go on tour across the country.  Jeffrey Robb
The sudden collapse of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnells health care bill last week was much more than a tactical setback for the Senate Republican leader once considered an unbeatable legislative wizard. It was a catastrophic failure for the GOPs attempt to make one-party government work.

Its one thing to produce gridlock when control of Congress is divided. When one party manages to produce gridlock all by itself, something is seriously wrong. The setback means that Obamacare will almost certainly survive for the foreseeable future, despite seven years of GOP promises to repeal it.

McConnell and his allies clearly overestimated the cohesion of their fragile 52-seat majority in the Senate  a majority so small that any three defections meant defeat. Moderate-conservative Republicans wanted to protect the expansion of Medicaid, the health insurance plan for low-income families, especially in their home states. Hard-line conservatives wanted, above all, to shrink Medicaid and reverse the expansion.

Theres no easy way to compromise between those two positions. McConnell promised some senators that the bill would shrink Medicaid, but privately assured others that the shrinkage might never happen. That gambit backfired.

Bills normally go through a long process of public hearings and debate that, with luck, build popular support; that didnt happen this time.

In his attempts to appeal to both pragmatists and hard-liners, McConnell produced an incoherent bill that became less attractive to each camp, not more.

Nor did he succeed in selling the bill to voters; several polls found less than one-fourth of the public liked the legislation. Bills normally go through a long process of public hearings and debate that, with luck, build popular support; that didnt happen this time. And McConnell got little help on that score from a president who seemed jarringly unaware of the details of the bill.

Worst of all, from the GOP point of view, the debate inadvertently built new constituencies for Obamacare. The long battle over repeal educated millions of voters on what the law has actually delivered, especially through Medicaid expansion.

Before the House and Senate Republicans drafted proposals to replace Obamacare, the choice voters confronted was between a flawed status quo and an undefined alternative that Trump promised would be beautiful. Not surprisingly, many chose beautiful.

Once the legislation was unveiled, the choice changed. Now it was between Obamacare and a plan that reduced future spending on Medicaid, weakened the guarantee to cover pre-existing conditions, and threatened to close rural hospitals.

Given that alternative, a majority rallied to Obamacare. The long-derided law is now more popular than President Trump, 53 percent to 38 percent in recent Gallup polls.

That helps explain why McConnells fallback plan to repeal Obamacare without a replacement (although the repeal would not take effect for two years) didnt survive long.

Three pragmatic Republican senators  Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska  rejected the idea almost instantly, saying it would throw insurance markets into chaos.

I did not come to Washington to hurt people, Capito explained with spare eloquence.

McConnell said he would still seek a vote on repeal, but the defections appeared to doom his plan.

The health care debate isnt over, of course. Obamacare still needs short-term support and long-term fixes, which the president isnt eager to provide.

Trump said he will now revert to a messy solution he has long proposed: standing back and letting the federal health law fail on its own.

Well let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us, and theyre going to say, How do we fix it? 

Im not going to own it, he added. I can tell you, the Republicans are not going to own it.

Except he already does, in the eyes of many voters. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll last month found that 59 percent of Americans think the Trump administration now bears responsibility for making Obamacare work  including 56 percent of Republicans.

Translation: Voters expect the governing party to fix problems whether it wants to or not.

Some Senate Republicans have accepted that burden already. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, said hes getting to work to stabilize the individual (insurance) market. John McCain of Arizona, hospitalized in his home state, said its time to draft new legislation with input from members of both parties.

With the collapse of McConnells effort, the GOP appears to have lost its chance to pass a bill in the Senate through reconciliation, the arcane budget process that requires a majority of only 50 votes. Any future health care bill will need 60 votes instead of 50  which requires winning support from at least eight Democrats.

If they want to repeal, replace or merely fix Obamacare, Senate Republicans now have no choice but to try to legislate piecemeal changes the old-fashioned way  with hearings, open debate and even a measure of bipartisanship.

Thats probably too optimistic. But as McConnell warned a few weeks ago, they may have no alternative. Theyve tried everything else and failed.
A July 19 Public Pulse writer complained about Jeff Koterbas July 6 editorial cartoon comparing Donald Trump to Kim Jong Un as disrespectful of to the president.

Respect is earned, not given. Perhaps when Trump begins acting respectful toward women, other world leaders, Sen. John McCain, Gold Star families, the intelligence community, the press or the voters (accusing people of unlawfully voting without evidence), then we can discuss respect.
Employees are unhappy

A meeting of the Standing Committee of National Council(JCM) with the Additional Secretary, Department of Expenditure, has taken place today to discuss about the issues arising after the implementation of the pay panel's recommendations. At the beginning of the meeting: the Official Side briefed about the decision taken by the Government on the Allowances. The Staff Side

thereafter raised the following issues

Points raised

The Central Government Employees are dissatisfied by the decision taken by the Government not to revised the HRA percentage recommended by 7th CPC. The demand of the Staff Side is reiterated for retaining the existing percentage of 30%, 20% and 10%.

The low paid employees who were getting Transport Allowance @ Rs.3600 + DA a on 1.1.2016 is subject to huge financial loss since their Transport Allowance has been reduced to Rs.1300+DA. This injustice should be rectified. Official Side agreed for a review.

Revise allowances

Even though the demand of the Staff Side is that, Allowances should also be revised from the date of revision of pay i.e.1.1.2016, at least Government should have given the same from the date of notification of 7th Pay Commission as was done during the previous pay commissions.

The Official Side is requested to consider this demand. The Staff Side also drawn attention of the Official Side towards the Awards given by the Board of Arbitration in favour of the employees in the past in the regard.

Minimum Pay Fitment Formula

As regards Minimum Pay Fitment Formula, the Staff Side has already the justification for increasing Minimum Pay and Fitment Factor. However, Official Side has not yet responded till date on this demand.

Since Minimum Pay is not derived on the basis of Dr.Akryod Formula / 15th ILC norms and Supreme Court judgement, the issue requires the review by the Government. Morever, even in the existing Pay Matrix there is discrimination between the low paid employees and high paid officers. Therefore, this demand should be discussed with the Staff Side by the Official Side so as to settle this major issue which was agreed to be considered by the Group of Ministers.

Government may restore various advances withdrawn and should also issue orders for revision of HBA as recommended by 7th CPC and accepted by the Cabinet.

While thanking the government for restoring Risk Allowance to the Defence Civilian Employees, the revised rate is very negligible. It should be at least at par with the Risk Matrix given to the Fire fighting Staff.

7. Staff Side, while thanking the government for restoration of some of the allowances, abolished/subsumed by the 7th CPC, asked the Finance Ministry to remove the barrier of coming back to Finance Ministry in case of 12 allowances meant for the Running Staff of the Indian Railways, being bilateral settlement with the Railway Ministry.

Discontentment

The Staff Side informed the Chairman that, considering the discontentment prevailing amongst the Central Government Employees, the Official Side may convey the feelings of the Staff Side to the Government on the above issues, and in case if ther is no positive approach from the Government, then there will be alternative than to plunge into Action Programmes.

The chairman, after a patient hearing, responded as follows :-

The views expressed by the Staff Side would be conveyed to the Government.

As regards, Minimum Pay and Fitment Factor, the Staff Side may give additional grounds and justification for any revision, so that the Official Side can consider the same.

After receipt of the above note from the Staff Side, the next meeting would be convened.
Should Kashmir be given to Pakistan: Row erupts after this question appears in MP civil service exam

After Rahul, Congress Aiyar slams Abdullahs proposal on 3rd party mediation on Kashmir

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, July 24: The debate over any "third party" mediation on Kashmir issue is gaining momentum with each passing day.

On Friday, National Conference chief and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, insisted that a third party can be approached for the settlement of the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan.

Right from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti, politicians cutting across party lines disagreed with Abdullah's suggestion.

On Monday, senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, who closely follows Kashmir's politics, too said that there is no need for any third country's involvement in the affairs of J&K.

"I don't agree with him (Farooq Abdullah). There is no need for any third country's mediation on Kashmir," Aiyar was quoted as saying by ANI.

The former J&K CM said that India should approach the United States and China to resolve the Kashmir issue. Abdullah added India has so many allies across the globe, which can be approached for settling the Kashmir issue to act as a mediator between India and Pakistan.

"For how long are you going to wait? Sometimes, you have to take the bull by the horns. The way is to have a dialogue. India has so many friends all across the world. They can ask them to act as a mediator. US President Trump himself said that he wants to settle the Kashmir problem. China also said that it wants to mediate on Kashmir. Somebody has to be approached," Abdullah said.

Reacting to Abdullah's demand for a third party intervention, Mufti on Saturday said, "There can be no place for a third party intervention in Jammu and Kashmir."

"Let America and China mind their own business. Look at the places America has interfered in, be it Afghanistan, Syria, or Iraq. While China has its own problems to deal with in Tibet, we have the Lahore Declaration and the Shimla Agreement with us," Mufti added.

"This (Kashmir) is our internal matter and nobody has the right to interfere in it. I don't agree that Kashmir should be discussed with China or Pakistan. Kashmir is India and India is Kashmir," Gandhi said.

OneIndia News
Army goes desi to be battle ready with military tanks, weapons

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, July 24: The Indian Army wants to cut down its dependency on imported key spares and components to maintain battle tanks and other military systems.

The army officials have come to the conclusion due to delays in import of critical equipments which severely affects its combat readiness.

Thus, the army has decided to fast-track indigenisation of key components and spares for battle tanks and other military systems.

The Ordnance Factory Board, an umbrella body of 41 ordnance factories, has decided to bring down import of spares and components from current 60 per cent annually to 30 per cent in the next three years, a senior army official said.

The Master General of the Ordnance (MGO), responsible for artillery and other key military supplies to frontline bases, has also started extensive talks with leading Indian defence firms to evolve a strategy for indigenisation of key spares and components of tanks and other weapons systems.

The MGO and OFB procure spares worth over Rs 10,000 crore annually, the official said. It has been a long-standing grievance of armed forces that supply of critical spares and equipment from Russia takes a long-time, affecting maintenance of military systems procured from that country.

Russia has been a major supplier of military platforms to India. The decision to go for indigenisation of spares is part of the government's overall approach to enhance battle readiness of the 1.3 million strong army after a thorough review found "gaps" in its operational preparedness.

The official said the army plans to involve micro, small and medium enterprises to produce smaller parts of the weapons systems. Extensive discussions were already held with around 80 MSMEs.

A policy document finalising the roadmap is likely to be issued in the next couple of weeks. The initiative to go for indigenous production of spares is in sync with defence ministry's policy to cut import bill on defence and promote the domestic industry.

Earlier this month, the government had empowered the vice chief of army to directly procure ammunition and spares to maintain readiness for short duration "intense wars".

The full financial powers was given to the army after an internal review found that optimum level of "war stores" were not being maintained.

The army has been pressing the government for ensuring speedy procurement of key military platforms citing evolving security challenges. In April, top army commanders had brain-stormed over the prevailing security scenario as well as external threats facing the country and decided to enhance combat effectiveness.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 10:21 [IST]
DSP lynching: Main accused killed in encounter, 20 arrested: IG Kashmir

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Srinagar, July 24: According to Jammu and Kashmir police department, one of the main accused in connection with the lynching of Deputy SP Ayub Pandit was killed in an encounter on July 12 and twenty people have been arrested so far.

Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Munir Khan, in a press conference on Monday, said 20 people have been arrested in connection with the lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ayub Pandit, reported news agency ANI.

Describing the incident as "serious" and the "first of its kind" in the Valley, Khan said investigations are going on expeditiously.

Lynching of Deputy SP #AyubPandit was a very serious incident and first of its kind in the Valley: Munir Khan, IG Kashmir pic.twitter.com/RYN0yfCoOK  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

Adding further, he confirmed that a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Sajid Ahmad Gilkar, had played a key role in instigating the mob to lynch DSP Ayub Pandith, was killed by security forces in Budgam district on July 12.

The IG said that during the investigation, the police found that four miscreants, including Gilkar, played a major role in instigating the mob against Pandit.

"It was a very serious incident and the first of its kind in the Valley," he added.

DSP Mohammed Ayub Pandith was lynched by a mob after he allegedly opened fire at a group of people who caught him clicking pictures near a mosque in the downtown area of Srinagar. Pandith was seen moving in suspicious circumstances by some people near Jamia Masjid in Nowhatta area at 12.30 AM.

OneIndia News
CBI serves notice to Bimal Gurung and other Morcha leaders to appear in Calcutta Court

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Darjeeling, July 23 : A CBI team arrived in Darjeeling on Sunday armed with a Calcutta High Court order that Bimal Gurung and others accused in the Madan Tamang murder case have to appear before the Chief Judge, City Sessions Court, Calcutta on Monday.

The four member CBI team led by DSP BK Pradhan with the help of the police went around serving the notices. The notices were pasted in the premises of the accused they could not meet in person.

The list included GJM President Bimal Gurung; General Secretary Roshan Giri; Assistant Secretary Binay Tamang and others. When questioned on whether the notice has been served to Gurung, Pradhan talking to Oneindia stated "We have sent some persons to serve the notice."

The notice served by the Special Crime Branch, CBI states "By Hand." The notice states "The Hon'ble High Court vide order dated 19.07.2017 has issued the following directions to the CBI: "We therefore, direct that on 24th July , 2017 the CBI shall ensure the presence of all accused persons in the Trial Court , as directed by the Division Bench of this Court and other connected matters on 14th December 2016 so that the process of framing of charge can progress further and be completed.

In view of the above you are therefore, directed to appear before the Court of Ld. Chief Judge, City Sessions Court, Calcutta on 24.07.2017 at 10am, the date already fixed for consideration of charge ..." The notice is signed by Pradhan.

Though the Morcha leaders remained tight lipped regarding the notice, there were no reports of the leaders departing for Kolkata. Sources state that the GJM leaders fear that they could be arrested in Kolkata as they are charged in multiple cases in connection with the ongoing agitation in the Hills.

Earlier Binay Tamang talking to media persons had warned that situation would become uncontrollable in the Hills if the Morcha leaders are arrested in Kolkata.

Incidentally on July 19 Calcutta High Court had directed the city sessions court to frame charges against GJM President Bimal Gurung and 21 others in the Madan Tamang murder case by August 17.

The division bench comprising of acting Chief Justice Nishita Mhatre and Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty while hearing PILs on the ongoing indefinite bandh in the Hills had earlier added the CBI in the case.

The division bench had asked the investigation agency to file an affidavit as to why the CBI has failed to take steps to ensure that GJM President Bimal Gurung, his wife Asha Gurung and several others accused in the killing of All India Gorkha League leader Madan Tamang are not present in Kolkata as was directed by another division bench of the high court.

Madan Tamang had been brutally assassinated on May 21, 2010 at the Upper Clubside, Darjeeling while overseeing preparation of a public meeting. The case was handed over to the CBI.

In May 2015 the CBi submitted a charge sheet naming 54 persons including Bimal Gurung, Asha Gurung, Roshan Giri and BinayTamang. 22, including Gurung, Giri, Tamang had moved anticipatory bail pleas in the Calcutta high court.

A division bench headed by Justice Ashim Roy had in December 2016 had granted the Morcha leaders anticipatory bail but had specified that the trial against the accused would be conducted by a special CBI court in Calcutta and they would have to stay in the city (within the jurisdiction of Kolkata metropolitan police) from the time of framing of the charges and till the completion of trial.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 6:18 [IST]
Burqa clad woman who hurled bomb at CRPF camp is member of rabid Asiya Andrabi headed Dukhtaran-e-Milat

X, Y, Z, Z+ and SPG: The whys and hows of security categories in India

In a first, CRPF appoints 2 women cadre officers as IG of RAF, Bihar sector

CRPF jawans thrash company commander in Kashmir

India

oi-PTI

Srinagar, July 24: Following the death of their colleague due to illness, CRPF jawans allegeldy beat up their company Commander in Anantnag district of Kashmir, a police official said today.

Khupmani Misall of 28 Battalion CRPF, posted at Qaimoh, was taken ill on Saturday night, the official said.

He said Misall was taken to the CRPF Unit hospital at Anantnag, where he died.

The death of the jawan angered his colleagues who allegedly thrashed their company commander for not allowing Misall to be taken to the nearest health facility, which caused delay in timely medical attention to him, the official said.

He said they have not received any complaint from the CRPF in this regard so far. Inquest proceedings have been initiated to ascertain the jawans cause of death.

A CRPF spokesman said an inquiry has been ordered into the entire incident including the alleged thrashing of the company commander by his subordinates.

"Once the inquiry is completed, action, as warranted under rules, will be taken," he added.

The incident comes close on the heels of Army men allegedly thrashing and injuring seven police personnel at Gund in Sonamarg and ransacking the police station also.

The state police has asked the Army to take action against the erring soldiers though the Army has downplayed the incident as a minor altercation.

PTI

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 15:40 [IST]
'Devegowda didn't understand his own Hindi speech', says Tharoor

India

oi-Anusha

Parliamentarian and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor taunted former Prime Minister H D Devegowda for not understanding 'a word of his own speech in Hindi'. Speaking at the Dr B R Ambedkar International conference in Bengaluru, Tharoor said that during the 49th Independence day celebrations, the then Prime minister H D Devegowda made a speech in Hindi but was not able to understand most parts of his own speech.

"On India's 49th Independence day, the then Prime Minister Deve Gowda stood on the ramparts of Red Fort and made his speech in Hindi. Eight other prime ministers had done the same thing 48 times before him but what was unusual this time was that he spoke to the country in a language which he did not know a word of," said Shashi Tharoor.

He added that Devegowda made a speech in Hindi simply because it was the tradition. "A script of the speech was written in Kannada. A script, which of course, made no sense to him," Tharoor added.

The parliamentarian was speaking on Hindi imposition and language controversy when he made references to H D Devegowda. The JD(S), however, has lambasted Tharoor for his statements and has questioned his intelligence.

"For Mr Tharoor's information, former Prime Minister H D Devegowda can comprehend and speaks quite well in Hindi. In which language does Mr Tharoor think Devegowda speaks to Mulayam Singh Yadav in, English? They communicate with Lalu Prasad Yadav in Hindi. Questioning the capacities of a man whose policies have received international acclaim only casts aspersions on Shashi Tharoor's intelligence," said Tanveer Ahmed, spokesperson of the JD(S).

The party also held that Devegowda had no reasons to hate Hindi and would not have made the speech in Hindi if he had reservations about the language. "We are only against Hindi imposition but do not hate the language. Tharoor needs help with his mental balance and it is high time that he seeks out help," the JD(S) spokesperson added.

OneIndia News
Doklam: One motorable road complete, second to be constructed by March 2021

Don't allow next Doklam in Arunachal, says BJP MP; claims China has encroached upon 60 km of state

To wade of Chinese demon, RSS wants you to chant this 'mantra'

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The RSS has asked all Indians to chant a 'mantra' before their prayers. " Let Kailash, Himlaya and Tibet be delivered from the demonic clutches of China.'

RSS pracharak and national executive Indresh Kumar told Mail Today: "Kailash, Himalaya aur Tibet Cheen ki asuri shakti se mukt ho" (Kailash, Himalaya and Tibet be delivered from the demonic clutches of China). This is the mantra or 'sankalp', translated into 'resolve', that the RSS wants every Indian to chant five times before starting their prayers. This will not just hurt the core interest of China, but also infuse spiritual energy in the efforts and will create positive action."

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Sikkim Standoff : China has no chance to win at Doklam | Oneindia News

China has become a votary of violence. It has moved away from Confucianism and has adopted a imperialist and expansionist character, Kumar also said.

They have captured the territory of several countries such as India, Nepal, Bhutan, apart from having captured Tibet. Doklam was saved from their clutches only as Indian and Bhutanese soldiers pre-empted Chinese design," he also said.

The statements come in the wake of the standoff between India and China at Doklam.

National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval will visit China this week to take part in the BRICS summit where he is expected to raise the Doklam issue.

OneIndia News
Don't allow next Doklam in Arunachal, says BJP MP; claims China has encroached upon 60 km of state

Give up your illusions, China's army tells India amidst Doklam standoff

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Don't harbour illusions the Chinese military on Monday told India. The largest armed force in the world, People's Liberation Army, the world's largest armed force, said its capability to protect China's territory was "indomitable" and it was ready to step up deployment on the Doklam plateau.

The willingness and resolve of China to defend its sovereignty is indomitable and we will safeguard our sovereignty whatever the cost," defence ministry spokesman and deputy director-general of information office Col Wu Qian said in response to a question on the border row on Monday. He further said that the Chinese troops had undertaken emergency response measures and would step up deployment and drills in the area.

Wu said that the withdrawal of Indian soldiers was a precondition for resolving the situation.. "India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," he also said.

"The crossing of the mutually recognised international border by India is a serious violation of China's territory and runs against international law," he said. China strongly urged India to withdraw its troops and take concrete measures to correct "its errors and put an end to its provocative acts" to maintain peace in border areas.

The history of the PLA of past 90 years has proven our resolve to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, and our capability and resolve are indomitable, he further said.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 11:37 [IST]
Heads to roll in Kerala BJP after internal probe report leak, three leaders under radar

India

oi-Anusha

The Kerala unit of the BJP has prepared a list of leaders responsible for leaking an internal probe report that has come as a massive embarrassment. Three office bearers are likely to face action over leaking a report that nailed a BJP leader in a bribery case.

K P Sreesan, the chairman of the internal committee, A K Nazeer and state secretary V V Rajesh have been held responsible for the leak for failing to maintain the confidentiality of the report. The internal probe was ordered in absolute secrecy by Rajasekharan after a businessman alleged that Vinod, the convenor of the cooperation committee had taken bribes to get MCI nod for a medical college.

BJP Kerala general secretary M T Ramesh alleged that the report was leaked from Nazeer's mail ID while Rajesh gave it out to the media. Ramesh has documented his allegations with evidence and has sent it to the party's senior leadership in Delhi. Rajasekharan has come under severe fire over the corruption allegations against a Kerala BJP member. Action against him is likely after a committee submits its report on the leak.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 9:29 [IST]
How Congress conspired against Shankersinh Vaghela for 20 years

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Shankersinh Vaghela who resigned from the Congress and as leader of opposition in the Gujarat Assembly has spoken about how the Congress conspired against him for 20 years.

Your leaders never accepted me wholeheartedly he said in his resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Many leaders actively worked to ensure that I was defeated he also said.

As I can see right now that once again history is repeating itself, as a well-planned conspiracy within the party is at work for ousting me during the forthcoming elections. Hence, I strongly feel that I should not remain in the party at the cost of my dignity and self-respect," Vaghela said in the three page letter.

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Shankersinh Vaghela sever ties with Congress, party says did not remove him | Oneindia News

I am left with no option but to resign he said while also adding that none of his suggestions for the upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat were considered.

Vaghela recounted how Congress leaders had made deliberate attempts to ensure his defeat in the 1999, 2004 and the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, which he had lost by a narrow margin.

On Friday, Vaghela announced he would resign as MLA on August 15, after the Rajya Sabha polls, to be held on August 8.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 9:05 [IST]
How Vaghela's exit from Congress has altered politics in Gujarat

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The political equations in Gujarat ahead of the assembly polls has been altered with the exit of Shankershinh Vaghela from the Congress. He is all set to pitch himself as a third alternative ahead of the elections in Gujarat.

While the former chief minister has not yet revealed his future plans, his exit from the Congress has worried both the opposition party and the ruling BJP, they say. Speculation is rife in both parties about the 77-year-old veteran politician's next move and how will it impact their prospects in the crucial Assembly elections, in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While the Congress is eyeing a return to power in Gujarat where it is in opposition for nearly two decades, the BJP is seeking to extend its good run in the state.

The BJP in Gujarat lacks a leader with mass connect, after Modi and BJP president Amit Shah left the state to helm the party's national leadership. The Congress, too, does not have any leader with mass appeal after Vaghela's exit, an observer said.

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Both the Congress and the BJP are aware of the political heft of the Kshatriya strongman, who wields a considerable influence in North Gujarat.

Quitting Congress on his 77th birthday on Friday, Vaghela said, "Today, I free myself from Congress and I set Congress free," and indicated that he will chart an independent course.

Sources close to Vaghela say he will reveal his future plans shortly.

His son Mahendrasinh Vaghela, a Congress MLA, while hinting that Vaghela plans to contest the next elections, earlier told PTI that his father will not retire from active politics.

"We will all (supporters of Vaghela) sit together and chalk out the future strategy in a few days time," Mahendrasinh Vaghela said.

Political observers say Vaghela will pitch himself as an 'anti-Congress' and 'anti-BJP' alternative in the Gujarat elections as he feels that the situation is ripe for him to make the last attempt for the coveted CM's post, which he held for about a year in the 1990s.

The forthcoming state election is the last chance for the septuagenarian to give a shot at power and that's why he took the risk of quitting Congress after 20 years of association, they say.

Vaghela reportedly tried to convince the Congress to make him state party president and give him a free hand to fight the polls against the BJP. However, the Congress did not pay heed to his suggestion leaving him with no option but to quit the Sonia Gandhi-led party, the observers say.

The Congress and the BJP are "worried" over the next move of 'Bapu', as Vaghela's supporters fondly address him, though they may not accept it openly.

Sources in Congress say that Vaghela's next move is being closely watched by the party.

"Though Vaghela may deny that this (resignation) is for power, the people of Gujarat know that he has betrayed the Congress when it was looking to come back to power in the state after almost two decades," a source said.

"People will never accept him as the third force for quitting the party at a crucial juncture," he further said.

The sources in BJP say the saffron party is also calculating the impact of Vaghela's exit on the political scene in Gujarat and that it hopes he may not pose a formidable challenge to its quest to retain power.

The party will now have to re-work its strategy keeping in mind the 'Vaghela factor'.

"Vaghela had earlier formed a political party but has not been successful. He knows it is difficult for him to survive as a third front," the BJP source said.

For record, the Congress is downplaying Vaghela's exit and its impact on its electoral prospects.

Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said, "The party will not face any adverse impact of Vaghela's exit. We will fight the elections on our own agenda and strength. Our aim is to oust the BJP from Gujarat."

BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya said, "Now, when Vaghela has made himself 'Congress-mukt' (free), the BJP expects he will support the development agenda of the party."

"The Congress has received a severe jolt due to Vaghela's exit. It will be badly defeated in the elections," he said.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 6:05 [IST]
Indians, are you ready to rear cows? This BJP MLA demands your devotion to gau mata

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Bhopal, July 24: If this Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader has his way, then we all might end up taking care of at least one cow each. Yes, a member of legislative assembly (MLA) from BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Murlidhar Patidar, wants every Indian to rear a cow each.

"In fact everyone must rear one cow each. The key is not money but devotion. The practice has been on since ages," Patidar was quoted as saying by ANI.

Patidar came up with his bizarre suggestion during a discussion on stray cows in the Madhya Pradesh assembly on Monday. The BJP MLA insisted that the state government should come up with a law to make it mandatory for all belonging to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) to rear at least one cow each.

"The BPL card holders get ration and other government facilities. Can't we make a law to force every BPL card holder to rear at least one cow? If they don't keep cows, they will not get BPL facilities," Patidar said.

Call it gau mata bhakti (cow devotion) or one more leader jumping into the controversial issue of cow to gain instant popularity, but the fact is that where would 1.3 billion Indians get space to rear cows in their houses?

Moreover, millions of Indians are homeless. Does the BJP leader want homeless to take care of cows too? Last but not the least, it is hard to digest the fact cited by the BJP MP that every Indian since ages has been taking care of cows. Really?

In recent times, we have witnessed several cases of mob lynchings in the name of cow protection.

In spite of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's condemnation of violence perpetrated in the name of cow, beating and killing continue in the country.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 14:20 [IST]
Indira v/s Pawar row divides opposition in Maharashtra ahead of assembly session

India

oi-Anusha

The rift in the Maharashtra opposition was exposed a day before the assembly session begins. Breaking convention, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress held separate press conferences. A fight on whether Indira Gandhi should come first or Sharad Pawar seems to have split the opposition in Maharashtra.

The Congress has shot off letters to the Legislative Council chairman seeking discussions on priority basis on former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's contributions to the country. The NCP wants a congratulatory resolution for Sharad Pawar who completes 50 years in politics. The Congress dashing off letters to the Chairman without their knowledge seems to have ticked the NCP off. Especially since they were all set to table the congratulatory resolution during the previous session but could not owing to farmers issues.

The Congress has demanded that centenary celebrations in praise of Indira Gandhi and a resolution remembering her contributions to the country were more important since she is a former Prime Minister while the NCP maintained that Pawar should be congratulated first. In a first, both parties addressed the press separately making the rift public. While the NCP has maintained that it was willing to work together, it also put the onus of explaining the separate press conference on the Congress.

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The infighting among the opposition camp comes on the eve of Maharashtra assembly session where the delay in disbursal of farmer loan waiver is expected to be discussed. Despite being an ally, the Shiv Sena has already warned of exposing the BJP-led government in Maharashtra if it fails farmers in the state.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 7:29 [IST]
Sushma Swaraj to take up case of 39 missing Indias with Iraq Foreign Minister

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, July 24: Iraq Foreign Minister Dr Ibrahim al-Jaafari arrived in New Delhi on Monday morning for a five-day visit to India. Dr. Ibrahim will meet External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan to hold discussion on the entire gamut of bilateral relations between both the countries, as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest. He will be accompanied by a senior-level official delegation. Swaraj will hold extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart today during which focus is expected to be on the issue of 39 Indians kidnapped by the ISIS three years ago from Mosul city.

He's also scheduled to meet Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan in the afternoon. Later in the day, he's expected to meet Vice President Hamid Ansari at 6, Maulana Azad Road.

On the second day of his visit, the Iraqi Foreign Minister will attend a programme in the National Capital and on Wednesday he will fly to Mumbai to attend a programme.

On the fourth day of his visit, Dr Ibrahim will come back here to be a part of another programme and on Friday July 28, he will emplane to Iraq at around 4 a.m.

"India and Iraq have historically enjoyed close and friendly political, economic and cultural ties. Our robust bilateral trade amounted to nearly US$ 13 billion in 2016-17. Iraq contributes significantly to Indias energy security and is the second-largest supplier of crude oil to us (over 37 MMT during 2016-17). Thousands of Indians visit Iraq annually for pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

Minister of State for External Affairs V. K. Singh had visited Iraq this year to coordinate and facilitate the return of the Indians stuck in Iraq.

Earlier in August 2016, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar visited Iraq.Bilateral trade till August 2016 between India and Iraq was of USD 5077 Mn of which Indias Exports accounted for USD 425 Mn and Imports for 4652 Mn.Indian exports to Iraq consist of cereals, iron and steel, meat and meat products, pharmaceutical products, agro chemicals, cosmetics, rubber manufactured products, paints, gems and jewellery, ceramics, manufactures of metals, machine tools, electrical machinery and instruments, transport equipment, electronic goods, handicrafts, sugar, tea, garments.

Oneindia News (with agency inputs)
ISIS finds new method to recruit people from Kerala

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Kerala's problems with the Islamic State appear to be never ending. Apart from the 21 persons from Kerala who joined the ISIS in Afghanistan, there are now reports that suggest that some had crossed over to Syria to fight alongside the outfit.

It took a while for the security agencies and the families of these recruits to realise that these persons had crossed over to Syria. Most of them did not go to Syria directly from India. All of them had jobs in Dubai and they are suspected to have left for Syria from there says the interrogation report of Shahjahan Velluva Kandy.

It may be recalled that Kandy had been arrested on July 1 after he was deported. Several agencies are questioning Kandy a resident of Kannur.

Intelligence Bureau officials say that this is a new recruitment tactic that has been adopted by the ISIS. The outfit has been targeting Indians working abroad. This ensures that the scrutiny is lesser, the officer also said.

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Indians working in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Malaysia have been on the radar of the ISIS.

Most of the recruitments into the ISIS have taken place in this fashion. It was only in the case of the Afghanistan incident did the recruitment take place directly from India, the officer also noted.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 7:21 [IST]
FM Nirmala Sitharaman hints at possibility of Centre considering restoration of state status to J&K

In J&K, 14,000 dropouts find their way back to schools

One Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist gunned down in Jammu and Kashmir

J&K: Terrorists escape checkpoint, exchange gunfire with security personnel

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

A search operation was launched in Ajas area of Bandipora in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday after terrorists escaped a checkpoint and exchanged gunfire with the security forces.

The terrorists were travelling in a car and the area has been cordoned off since the incident.

Reports say that a grenade and a pouch was also recovered from the spot.

On July 15, a CRPF personnel was injured when a police and CRPF patrolling party came under grenade attack by terrorists in Kulgam's Laroo in Jammu and Kashmir. Based on preliminary information, an official said the grenade blast left Assistant Sub-Inspector Rajinder Singh injured. The whole area was immediately cordoned off and a hunt was launched to nab the attackers

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 23:45 [IST]
Ready, get set, go: Rahul Gandhis Bharat Jodo speeds up in Telangana

KCR to attend swearing-in ceremony of Kovind

India

pti-PTI

Hyderabad, Jul 24: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao would attend the swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday.

Rao was scheduled to leave for the national capital tonight, official sources said on Monday.

Rao's TRS had supported Kovind's candidature for the President's post. Kovind would assume the office of President tomorrow.

In his last address to the nation before demitting office, President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said public discourse should not be stifled and called for it to be freed from violence.

Mukherjee was given a farewell by Members of Parliament on Sunday in the Central Hall of Parliament. Mukherjee, who is also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, was given a farewell by the Chiefs of Staff Committee on Friday.

PTI
Kerala High Court rejects actor Dileep's bail plea

India

oi-Anusha

The Kerala High Court on Monday rejected actor Dileep's bail plea. The court that heard arguments last week had reserved its verdict for Monday. No respite was given to the actor who has spent about 10 days in Aluva jail in connection with the actress molestation case.

While rejecting the bail plea, Kerala High Court observed that 'abducting and sexually assaulting a young actress in a moving car was a serious crime'. Judge Sunil Thomas said that it was too early to grant bail to Dileep. "The case is unique considering the seriousness, meticulous planning, cruel execution and being a crime execution to wreak vengeance on a woman by engaging criminals to sexually abuse her," the bench observed before rejecting Dileep's bail plea.

During arguments on the bail petition on Thursday, the police submitted that the actor was the key conspirator in the case, Dileep's counsel, however, claimed that there was no evidence against the actor.

The prosecution deemed Dileep the key conspirator who hired goons on 'quotation basis' in the actress molestation case and told the court that statements of all accused highlighted Dileep's role in the crime. The Kerala police submitted that prime accused Suni had met Dileep at least four times and the two had conversed on the phone multiple times. The court was also informed of how Dileep denied knowing Suni until confronted with evidence.

Dileep's counsel told the court that the investigators had no proof against the actor. The counsel submitted that conspiracy cannot be established only on the pretext of Dileep meeting accused Pulsar Suni. The investigators maintained that crucial evidence including the phone and the memory card used to record the actress were yet to be traced. Moreover, the police told the court that it was crucial to question the actor in the presence of his manager Appunni, who is currently absconding.

OneIndia News
Can BJP counter Rafale with Bofors: Two contentious deals that are very different

BJP MPs demand reopening of Bofors case; Rahul says, let them raise it for another 30 years

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, July 24: Lok Sabha members from the treasury benches on Monday raised a demand to reopen investigation into the alleged Bofors guns scam.

While several members from the treasury benches were seen demanding a discussion on the issue, BJP member from New Delhi Meenakshi Lekhi said there were documents pertaining to discussions between then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme which proved a quid pro quo.

In response to BJP members allegations against his father, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi remained defiant and said: "They have been raising it for thirty years, let them raise it for another 30 years." Rahul Gandhi has called for an emergency meeting of his close aides at his residence, reported Republic TV.

Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police official who led the investigations, has been reported as saying Rajiv Gandhi and Palme discussed the details of a financial quid-pro-quo before the Bofors gun deal. under which Bofors would pay money to a foundation in Sweden to make it easier for payments to be made to Indians and others.

"According to Lindstrom, the documents related to that discussion are still somewhere with the government. To say that it is an old case and it should be forgotten is wrong, because when old issues are not settled, their ghosts return to haunt," Lekhi said.

BJP's Nishikant Dubey also raised the issue.

"The CBI should open and re-investigate the case. CBI had sought permission earlier as well, but he UPA government did not allow them," Dubey said.

The Bofors issue came in focus again recently after a parliamentary panel suggested that the case of irregularities in purchase of Bofors guns should be reopened as there were many "loopholes" in the investigation in past.

The CBI has said it can re-investigate only if a court or government order was issued.

The alleged corruption in the Bofors gun deal had created a scandal in 1989, leading to the fall of the government under Rajiv Gandhi.

A six-member Parliamentary Accounts Committee's subcommittee on defence was looking into non-compliance of certain aspects of the CAG report of 1986 on the deal.

IANS
Gorkhaland agitation: Gurung says he is ready for dialogue with Mamata Banerjee

Madan Tamang murder case: CBI seeks arrest warrant against GJM leader Bimal Gurung

India

oi-PTI

Kolkata, Jul 24: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday sought an arrest warrant against the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung, his wife Asha and 20 others before a city court in connection with the Madan Tamang murder case.

The CBI counsel prayed before the chief judge of City Sessions Court Kundan Kumar that the arrest warrant be issued against the 22 accused, who were absent at the hearing in the case.

Out of the 48 accused in the case against whom CBI has prayed for framing of charges for the murder of All India Gorkha League leader Madan Tamang in the heart of Darjeeling in 2011, 26 accused were present.

The Calcutta High Court had on July 19 directed that all the accused, against whom CBI has sought framing of charges in the case, to be present before the court of the chief judge of City Sessions Court, which had fixed today for the commencement of hearing.

A division bench presided by acting Chief Justice Nishita Mhatre had directed the trial court to hold day-to-day hearing and conclude proceedings for framing of charges by August 17.

Among the 26 accused present before the court today were former GJM MLA Harka Bahadur Chetri, Captain Ramesh Allay and Rabin Subba.

Apart from Bimal Gurung, senior GJM leaders Asha Gurung, Roshan Giri, Binay Tamang and Devendra Sharma were among those who were absent.

All the accused, who were absent in the court, made written prayers before the court seeking to be represented by their lawyers.

CBI counsel Arun Bhagat opposed the prayers, submitting that the high court has expressly ordered their presence before the trial court for the hearing and prayed for arrest warrants to be issued against them for being absent.

The judge adjourned order in the matter, which is likely to be pronounced later in the day.

PTI

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 16:18 [IST]
Missing Indians in Mosul: Congress prepares privilege motion against Sushma

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi: The search for the 39 missing Indian labourers who were kidnapped in Mosul three years ago is expected to gather momentum with the visit of Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who arrives in New Delhi on Monday on a five-day visit.

The Congress has said it will submit a privilege motion against Swaraj in the Lok Sabha for "misleading the nation, and families" of the kidnapped Indians.

Reffering to media reports, which said the jail where abducted Indians were said to be housed is in ruins, the main opposition slammed Swaraj for loss of credibility.

39 Indians mainly from Punjab were taken hostage by ISIS when it overran Iraq's second largest city Mosul in 2014.

Though, Iraq envoy sad that they had no clue about the missing Indians, whether they are dead or alive, New Delhi considered them to be alive.

One of them, Harjit Masih from Gurdaspur, had managed to escape. He claimed to have witnessed the massacre of the other 39 Indians. But the government has rejected it.

On July 16, Eexternal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had said that information gathered by minister of state VK Singh during a recent visit to Iraq suggested the 39 Indians kidnapped in June 2014 were possibly being held in the Badush prison. She said she was hopeful of getting more information about the Indians when her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim Al-Jaafari visits New Delhi on July 24.

Al-Jaafari's visit from July 24 to July 28 to India comes two weeks after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced liberation of Mosul, the second biggest city in his country, from the IS, which marked a major milestone for the Iraqi security forces.
Why is Parliament being cut-short so often asks Derek O'Brien

Monsoon session day 6: Rajya Sabha passes FDDI Bill, The Admiralty Bill, 2017

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, July 24: The sixth day of Monsoon session that began on Monday witnessed ruckus in Lok Sabha and was adjourned till Tuesday. The Upper House witnessed some business as Footwear Designing and Development Bill (FDDI) passed in Rajya Sabha. Legislative business has taken a hit in the ongoing stormy Monsoon Session amid fiery debates and repeated adjournments.

The Opposition has been creating a ruckus in the Parliament over issues like farmer crisis and increase in the incidents of mob lynchings.

With two of the 19 sittings scheduled in this session already a near washout, the government is trying hard to push through key bills, from a total 34 bills lined up for passing in the Monsoon Session.

In Lok Sabha

LS adjourned till tomorrow.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan mentions the names of parliamentarians who tore papers. "This conduct of MPs is unbecoming. I am therefore constrained to suspend these MPs from the proceedings of parliament for five consecutive days," she says before adjourning the House till 2.30 PM.

Gaurav Gogoi, Kodikunnil Suresh, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Sushmita Dev, Ranjeet Ranjan, and M.K.Raghavan have been suspended for five consecutive days.

Lok Sabha witnessed unruly scenes with some MPs tearing papers in the House in protest as their adjournment motion was rejected.

Lok Sabha Speaker says Sushma Swaraj will give a statement on missing Indians in Iraq in the House at 5 pm today.

Zero Hour ends. Lok Sabha adjourned. Will meet again at 2 PM.

I want to see how undisciplined can the Oppn get: Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. Amid rising din in the Lok Sabha, a visibly upset Speaker said, "Mujhe bhi dekhne do kitni anushasan heenta ye log kar sakte hain jabki hum charcha de rahe hain."

Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge looses cool and stands up in the House while ministers seek leave to introduce bills. He told Speaker Sumitra Mahajan that the Opposition was not being given a chance to speak. Kharge was apparently upset as the Speaker had dismissed the adjournement motion.

The country is facing lynching and attacks on Dalits, minorities and women. The government has failed to protect the marginalised, says Kharge.

Arun Jaitley seeks leave to introduce Banking Regulation amendment bill in Lok Sabha. TMC's Saugata Roy opposes the bill.

Congress to raise the issue of rising road accidents due to pothole ridden roads.

An MP asks why benefits of reservations are not given for OBC students in Navodaya Vidyalayas. Government says it will consider the suggestion.

Taking a tough stance against a belligerent Opposition, raising slogans in the House, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said that she will not allow the Question Hour to be disrupted by the Opposition's adjournment notice.

The Opposition is raising slogans in the House against the increased incidents of mob lynchings, after the Speaker told them that the notice will only be taken up after the Question Hour.

Chants of "band karo, band karo mob lynching band karo" and "Gundagardi nahi chahiye" echoed in the Lok Sabha as Union Minister of State, Commerce & Industry Nirmala Sitharaman tried to answer the MPs' questions, raising her voice above the din.

Question Hour begins in Lok Sabha. Opposition MPs storm the well seeking debate on agrarian crisis. But the Speaker wants to continue with Question Hour.

Lok Sabha proceedings begin. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan informs the House about loss of lives in floods and bus accident in Rajasthan. The House mourns the deaths.

In Rajya Sabha

Rajya Sabha adjourned for the day.

The Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017 is passed.

D Raja, while supporting the Bill, raises the issue of a recently passed Sri Lankan law that would affect Indian fishermen.

D Bandhopadhyay (Trinamool Congress) speaks in favour of the Bill. He however points out that the jurisdiction of terrirorial waters must be clearly demarcation.

The Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017 is taken up for consideration.

Footwear Designing and Development Bill (FDDI) passed in Rajya Sabha.

The Upper House is discussing a bill on establishing the Footwear design and development Bill. While discussing the issue, the question of Dalits being atatcked by cow vigilantes came into discussion. Howvever, it did not lead to a major disruption in the House.

Rajya Sabha re-convenes after adjournment.

Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2 pm after Question Hour gets over.

SP's Ram Gopal Yadav asks govt to brief Rajya Sabha on progress of Namami Gange project.

Tamil Nadu and West Bengal MPs troop the Well demanding answers on NEET. Health Minister J P Nadda says the ministry is looking into NEET issue.

Anand Sharma and A K Antony wants to government to respond to media reports on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conversation with Modi. Why a change in stand on Palestine, they ask.

Congress' Ripun Bora gives adjournment notice in Rajya Sabha over CAG report on shortage of ammunition with Army.

Derek O Brien, says NEET papers set in Tamil and Bengali were different from rest of the country. These two states have been affected, he says.

He also points out a newspaper report that Rabinranath Tagore's reference has been removed from NCERT books.

KTS Tulsi raises breach of privilege of MPs over 'distortion' of Naresh Agrawal's comment on Hindu deities.

Rajya Sabha proceedings begin. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien is in the Chair. Ministers are laying papers listed against their names.

Concern over working days

Expressing concern over the dwindling number of working days in Parliament, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury has called for enacting a law to ensure there is at least 100 days of active presence of members in the House.

"In the last 2-3 years, Parliament sittings were not held for more than 60 to 70 days (in a year). In such a scenario, how the government will be held accountable?" the 64-year-old Left leader asked. "In contrast, the British Parliament sits for 200 days in a year," he noted.

This will make sure that the government of the day is held accountable for its actions and policies, and members get enough time to deliberate on key issues, the Rajya Sabha member said on Sunday night.

Today's agenda in both Houses

The key bills, including The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, are listed for discussion and passing in Lok Sabha.

The four bills will be tabled for discussion, apart from statements by Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and Minister of Steel Vishnu Deo Sai.

Pradhan will brief the Lower House on the strategic sale of Government of India's existing 51.11 percent shares in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), while Sai will speak about the status of implementation of the recommendations contained in the 29th Report of the Standing Committee on Coal and Steel.

The legislative business lined up for Monday will include crucial Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Central Road Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016, and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

In Rajya Sabha, four bills are scheduled to be discussed, with the ministers moving to pass the bill. The days agenda indicates that Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017, Footwear Design and Development Institute Bill, 2017, Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Bill, 2017, and Collection of Statistics (Amendment) Bill, 2017 will be debated in the Upper House on Monday.

Oneindia News
NDA cadet found hanging at Pune, suicide suspected

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

A fifth term cadet from the National Defence Academy in Pune was found hanging in his room at the 'H' Squadron building of the academy.

"A fifth term cadet, Alekh Jaiswal was found hanging in his room on the ground floor in 'H' squadron of the academy at 5.15 pm on Sunday. The cadet was immediately rushed to Military Hospital, Khadakwasla but could not be revived. The local police and his parents have been informed. A Court of Inquiry has been ordered," said an official statement from the NDA.

Jaiswal was a cadet from the Navy stream and was pursuing his BSc in Computer Science on academic front. He belonged to the Hunder Squadron. He had completed his schooling from Sainik School Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh and would have turned 20 this August. The Court of Inquiry will ascertain various facts about the unfortunate incident," the NDA also said.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 5:58 [IST]
Biker who inspired other women to take up riding dies while trying to avoid pothole in Mumbai

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

A 36-year-old woman biker from Bandra was killed after she lost control of her Bullet on a pothole-ridden road from Dahanu to Jawahar Road, fell down and came under the rear tyre of a truck on Sunday morning.

An official from Kasa police station said, the biker, Jagruti Hogale, lost balance and her head came under the rear tyre of the truck she was trying to overtake. She could not spot the pothole as it was filled with water. The accident happened around 9am when Jagruti and two other women were on a road trip to Dahanu, 115 km from Mumbai.

Jagruti was a member of the 'Bikerni Motorcycle Club' - India's first all-female motorcycle group, which was started in 2011. One of the group's most active members, she had made trips to Leh and Ladakh.

Maharashtra: Woman biker killed as tyre got stuck in a pothole, following which she fell and was run over by a truck in Palghar (July 23) pic.twitter.com/AAZgdtsrPH  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

The tragedy occurred amid Mumbaikars growing frustrations with potholes on city roads. Several motorists complained about the shoddy work on these roads and complained that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials were not taking enough efforts to keep a check on such incidents. They also accused the officials of colluding with contractors to ensure that they get away, reports NDTV.

Meanwhile, Congress leader RV Patil has demanded an FIR under IPC section 302 for the death of the woman.

Demand FIR to be registered against those responsible under Sec 302& negligence:RV Patil,Congress on death of a Palghar woman due to pothole pic.twitter.com/phlM2OyZYR  ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

"All roads not under PWD, govt has ordered inquiry, we are taking note of all the incidents; Road repair can take place only after rains," said Mahashtra PWD Minister Eknath Sambhaji Shinde.

In spite of BMC blacklisting seven contractors and arrest of BMC officials, the quality road has not seen improvement.

The pothole menace has been a major challenge for motorists. And for those riding two-wheelers, a pothole not only leads to a back breaking ride but also sometimes a life threatening one.

Biker groups mourn

Several biking groups took to social media to express their sorrow at her death. Many who had met her on expeditions or treks described her as 'bubbly' and energetic'.

Calcutta Rider's Fraternity called her an 'inspiration', saying her efforts had promoted biking among women across India.

OneIndia News
Fact Check: Before swearing in ceremony did Ram Nath Kovind and Draupadi Murmu perform verdict rituals

Rashtrapati Bhavan all set to welcome 14th President Ram Nath Kovind

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

The Rashtrapati Bhavan is decked up to welcome its next inhabitant, 14th President of India Ram Nath Kovind.

Kovind set to be sworn in on July 25, the President-elect has expressed a desire to visit Rajghat before he enters Rashtrapati Bhavan. President Pranab Mukherjee had also begun his tenure with a visit to the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi.

Kovind will reside in the largest residence for any head of state in the world.

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The Rashtrapati Bhavan, or the Viceroy's house, as it was earlier called, was built for the Viceroy of India by the Britishers. It was designed by British architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, The work had started in 1913 and competed in 1929. Over 23,000 workers worked on it for 16 years.After independence, it became the official residence of the President of India.

Besides, a full dress rehearsal of oath taking ceremony of President-elect is in full swing.

Durbar Hall Two-ton chandelier hanging from a height of 33 meters. Known during the British rule as Throne Room. ( Photo: Presidentofindia.nic.in) Ashoka Hall The Ashoka Hall, which gives the feel of a large jewel box, is a rectangle measuring 32 metres by 20 metres. It has a wooden floor,a central dance space, and three vestibules. Unlike most halls and chambers in Rashtrapati Bhawan, the Ashoka Hall has a painted ceiling. The painting is in the Persian style ( Photo: Presidentofindia.nic.in) Banquet Hall State Dinning Hall, now known as Banquet Hall. Can seat 104 persons. Portraits of all former Presidents embellish its walls. An assortment of medieval arms on display. ( Photo: Presidentofindia.nic.in) President's Body Guard An equestrian display by the President's Body Guard (PBG) in their ceremonial regalia. The horses are adorned with shabracks, throat ornaments and white brow bands.The PBG is permanently based in the President's Estate. PTI photo Armed forces' full dress rehearsal Full dress rehearsal of oath taking ceremony of President-elect Ram Nath Kovind, at Raisina Hill, in New Delhi on Saturday. PTI Photo

OneIndia News
Red Corner Notices: How effective is it, there are over 600 pending

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

What is the success rate of a Red Corner Notice in India? While the Interpol is quick to issue an RCN, the success rate at which criminals are arrested is dismal. There are currently a little over 600 RCNs pending and the criminals against whom it has been issued remain elusive.

There is an RCN against Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon, Hafiz Saeed and others. While these notices have been issued long time back, the fact is that it has made no difference.

Most of the fugitives who seek refuge in Pakistan manage to easily dodge the red corner notices. They are advised to avoid traveling abroad. However in the case of Dawood there have been instances when he has traveled to Dubai on various occasions. He has traveled under the protection of the ISI and this is one of the reasons why he has managed to dodge arrest.

Red corner notices have also been issued against foreigners wanted for crimes in India.

However the West has not been too cooperative when it comes to extraditing its nationals. In the case of an Indian national, the process is easier explains an officer. This would call for better ties with these nations and a policy on such issues needs to be laid out strongly the officer also explains.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 7:47 [IST]
SC asks why SIMI activists encounter case not handed over to CBI

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to Centre and Madhya Pradesh government on the encounter of eight SIMI activists in Bhopal in 2016.The apex court asked both the governments why was the case not handed over to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Eight SIMI under-trials had pulled off an audacious escape from the high-security Central Jail of Bhopal on the intervening night of October 30-31 last year after killing a guard. The police, however, had gunned them down in an alleged encounter on the outskirts of Bhopal within hours after they escaped from the prison after attacking the guards.

On November 7, 2016, the state government had appointed retired high court judge S K Pandey to probe the daring jailbreak by eight activists of the banned SIMI.

Initially, this single-member commission had been asked to complete the probe within three months and submit its report to the government.

Layer, the commission was given three extensions and the new deadline for it to finish the probe is November 6, 2017. Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Jayant Malaiya said the decision was taken by a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

(With agency inputs)
SC refuses to re-open cases of Kashmiri Pandit killings

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition that sought to re-open 215 cases in which Kashmiri Pandits were killed. The court observed that it would be difficult to obtain evidence after 27 years and hence the cases could not be re-opened.

A plea had been filed seeking to order a trial against separatists, Yasin Malik. It was alleged that he was one of the persons behind the killing of Kashmiri Pandits in 1989-90. It was alleged that Malik had committed offences during that period and hence he must be tried.

As a result of the unrest in 1990 several Kashmiri Pandits were killed and many other had to leave Jammu and Kashmir. Separatists and terrorists had systematically called for the killing and ouster of Kashmiri Pandits.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 12:11 [IST]
Rushdie attack a reminder of how big a threat Iran is to the US, others

Terror on Indian tracks: Hatched in Pakistan, executed from UAE, Nepal

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The terror on tracks conspiracy which is being probed by the National Investigation Agency has exposed the role of operatives in India, Pakistan, UAE and Nepal. Set to file its first chargesheet in the case, the NIA says that the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan.

The NIA is probing a case relating to a conspiracy to blow up the railway track at Ghorasahan in Bihar. It was found that the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan.

Subsequently operatives and in Nepal and UAE were told to coordinate with Indian operatives and carry out the act of terror.

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NIA officials say that the chargesheet would be filed before the court on Tuesday. In thechargesheet, the NIA would name Pakistan national Sheikh Shafi and the primary conspirator. The names of the Shamshul Hoda and Brajkishore, two Nepalese nationals too would be named in the chargesheet. In addition to this six other accused would be part of the chargesheet, NIA officials said.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 7:58 [IST]
Uddhav Thackeray asks whether India is really prepared for war

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Mumbai, July 24: Expressing serious concern over the continuing tensions on India's borders with Pakistan and China, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Monday wondered whether the country is really prepared for war.

"Jammu and Kashmir, which was peaceful for the past 10 years, is up in flames since the killing of Burhan Wani. China is outright issuing threats to us. Are we really prepared in case a war breaks out?" Thackeray asked.

His comments came in the second instalment of his customary, annual birthday-eve interview series to the party's publications 'Saamana' and 'Dopahar Ka Saamana'. Thackeray, who spoke with Saamana Executive Editor Sanjay Raut, MP, will turn 57 on June 27.

Thackeray decried suggestions that "Shiv Sena is the No. 1 enemy of the Bharatiya Janata Party" and said "dump all politics in the fire and pay attention to the nation's security".

"If Shiv Sena is their No. 1 enemy, then what about Pakistan and China? The Chinese dragon ... is now aggressively trying to pounce on us," he said.

The Sena chief said he was perturbed over what had gone wrong though Prime Minister Narendra Modi was globe-trotting. "If the whole world is our friend, then why can't these two neighbours be restrained? Why not a single of our friends is openly coming to help and rein in our enemies?" Thackeray asked. He pointed out that now China was openly "aggressive against India".

"It is all very nice to hear that India and China are very different now since the 1962 Sino-Indian war, but we cannot ignore China's present strength and we need to consider how we can grapple with that challenge effectively.

"If we continue to play politics over these serious issues, it will be a downright deceit of the people of the country. You will continue to win elections, but a war is war," Thackeray said.

He referred to a report in which China has claimed that Tibet is its hand and Leh, Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan are its five claws. "When it tightens the grip of its hand, do we have an iron fist to tackle it? Under such circumstances, when you have lost your domestic friends, will your global friends rush to your aid? As the Shiv Sena founder, the late Bal Thackeray, used to warn, what will be the fate of the country if war actually erupts?" Thackeray asked.

Internally, the situation was not conducive, what with violence breaking out over beef and cow protection, he said. If a war erupts on the border, how many wars will they fight, he asked.

To a query, Thacekray dismissed the idea of the proposed bullet train, saying: "There's no need for it but the upcoming Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway was necessary as it will link the state's capital and its second capital."

IANS
Tuesday is now No Meeting Day in Haryana and officers to be with people on Friday

Haryana panchayat polls: Public holiday in several districts on Nov 9 and 12

Will abortion endanger 10-yr-old rape victims life? SC asks for medical examination

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre on a plea seeking permission to allow a 10-year old rape survivor to terminate her pregnancy.

A bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar asked Chandigarh's Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research to examine a 10-year-old rape victim to ascertain if her 30-week-old pregnancy can be terminated.

The bench also asked member secretary of the state legal services authority to assist the panel in the examination to be held on July 26.

The apex court has also asked the member secretary to make proper transportation arrangements for the rape survivor and one of her parents. The PIL was filed after a Chandigarh district court did not allow the 26-week-old-pregnant rape survivor to undergo abortion.

The apex court has fixed the plea for hearing on Friday and asked the doctors to ascertain the risks on the life of the victim if the foetus is allowed to be aborted.

Medical complications

Continuing the pregnancy is a bigger threat to the pregnant child's life and sanity. Medically, the chances of the little girl dying carrying her rapist's foetus to term are far higher than getting an abortion at 26 weeks.

A young child carrying a pregnancy through has exponentially higher chances of delivering a severely premature and underweight baby, developing high blood pressure (pre-eclampsia and eclampsia that lead to seizure, coma), severe bleeding after childbirth, infections and other complications related to labour and childbirth. Even in healthy adult women, these causes account for 70% of childbirth-related deaths in India.

India has a 20-week legal ceiling on abortion.The pregnancy termination law allows a woman to abort but only after doctors confirm it is necessary to save the mother's life.

The girl, who hails from Chandigarh, was repeatedly raped by her uncle.

Recently, the court gave a 10-year-old Rohtak- raped by stepfather the permission to abort.

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 19:51 [IST]
Saab to set up new facility in India to manufacture Carl-Gustaf M4 weapons system

With half sanctioned strength and obsolete weapons, UP police is a mess

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Obsolete weapons, half the manpower and outdated communication technology is how the Comptroller and Auditor General has described the Uttar Pradesh police.

The CAG report titled 'Performance Audit of Modernisation and Strengthening of Police Forces' also said that forensic science labs in the state were ill-equipped to handle increasing number of requests for examination of samples for investigation.

The report pointed out "the state still has only about 50% of the police stations against the required number" and there is "an acute shortage of residential and other than residential accommodation for police personnel", while projects are "inordinately delayed by construction agencies".

"Mobility of the police force for patrolling and other purposes is severely constrained due to the acute shortage of vehicles and obsolescence of its fleet," it said.

The CAG also noted that the traffic police has few officers and lacks equipment to monitor and control rapidly growing traffic and increasing length of road networks.

Besides, the central auditor has pointed out "severe capacity constraints" plaguing the police training establishment that "lacks modern infrastructure to impart state-of-the-art training".

The report for the year ended March 31, 2016, was recently tabled in the Uttar Pradesh assembly.n made worse as the Centre and the state governments had failed to release their due share for the modernisation scheme during 2006-11.

The Centre released "Rs 496.84 crore (70 per cent)" during the period, of its due share, as against "Rs 162.20 crore (38 per cent)" allocated by the state, the audit report said.

OneIndia News
Why a terror angle should not be ruled out in the Coimbatore cylinder blast case

Coimbatore: 24 years back and now, the radical Islamists are of the same family

Death toll in Kabul suicide blast rises to 35: Afghan official

International

oi-Madhuri

A suicide bomber rammed his car packed with explosives into a bus carrying government employees in the Afghan capital early on Monday, killing 35 people and wounding 42 others.

The blast took place at about 6:45am local time close to Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqi's house and a private university. Initial reports indicated that at least three people were killed and five wounded.

The bus was completely destroyed, along with three other cars and several shops in the area

Meanwhile, an Afghan health ministry official said that 35 people were killed in suicide car bombing in Kabul.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault. The Taliban, in a statement to the media, said they were behind the bombing and that the attack was carried out by an insurgent only identified as Ahmad. Meanwhile,Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing.

The blast comes 2 days after another blast in Afghanistan's Takhar province, in which 2 civilians had lost their lives. As violence in the country gets worse, more and more conflict related incidents are surfacing across Afghanistan.

OneIndia News
Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence

32,000 girls converted to Islam and sold as ISIS slaves: This is The Kerala Story

German girl who joined Islamic State wants to go home: Report

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

A German teenager, who joined Islamic State, now wants to return to her family in Dresden, Germany. Currently, the girl being held in detention in Iraq.

She regrets joining the jihadist group and just wants to come home to her family, media reported on Sunday. She was reportedly wounded on her left thigh and another injury on her right knee during a helicopter attack.

Quoting a German magazine Der Spiegel new agency Reuters reported that four German women who joined Islamic State in recent years, including a 16-year-old girl from the small town of Pulsnitz near Dresden, are being held in an Iraqi prison and receiving consular assistance.

Lorenz Haase, senior public prosecutor in Dresden, said he could confirm the teenager, named only as Linda W, had been "located and identified in Iraq" and was receiving consular support but could not say anything on her exact circumstances.

German broadcasters NDR and WDR and newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said they had interviewed Linda W in the infirmary of a military complex in Baghdad and she told them she wanted to leave.

"I just want to get away from here," she was quoted as saying. "I want to get away from the war, from the many weapons, from the noise."

German prosecutors have been investigating a teenage girl who went missing from Pulsnitz last summer for alleged contacts with the jihadist group about preparing a possible act of terrorism.

They said last week they were checking reports that a 16-year-old under investigation for supporting Islamic State was among five women arrested in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where Iraqi forces declared victory over Islamic State earlier this month, reported Reuters.

OneIndia News
Leaders of Israel and Turkey hold first meeting since 2008

Jerusalem violence: Netanyahu faces pressure over security measures at holy site

International

oi-PTI

Jerusalem, July 24: After a weekend of violence left eight people dead, with fears more unrest could follow the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure over new security measures at a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials signalled they may be open to changing the measures at the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, after the installation of metal detectors at entrances following an attack that killed two policemen stoked Palestinian anger.

The metal detectors remained in place today morning, though cameras had also been mounted near at least one entrance to the compound in Jerusalem's Old City -- a possible indication of an alternative to the detectors.

Netanyahu was also holding a cabinet meeting and was due to meet with his security cabinet later in the day.

"Since the start of the events, I have held a series of assessments with security elements including those in the field," he said at the start of the meeting.

"We are receiving from them an up-to-date picture of the situation, as well as recommendations for action, and we will decide accordingly."

Israeli Major General Yoav Mordechai -- head of COGAT, the defence ministry agency responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories -- signalled changes to the policy were possible.

"We are examining other options and alternatives that will ensure security," Mordechai said in an interview with Al-Jazeera.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said he would continue to support the metal detectors remaining in place unless police provide a satisfactory alternative.

The crisis has resonated internationally.

The UN Security Council will hold closed-door talks Monday about the spiralling violence after Egypt, France and Sweden sought a meeting to "urgently discuss how calls for de-escalation in Jerusalem can be supported".

Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit today accused Israel of "playing with fire" with the new security measures.

Tensions have risen throughout the past week over the metal detectors at the compound, which includes the revered Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, following the July 14 attack that killed two policemen.

Palestinians reject the metal detectors because they view the move as Israel asserting further control over the site.

They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside.

Israeli authorities say the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the holy site and emerged from it to shoot the policemen.

Today's main weekly Muslim prayers -- which typically draw thousands to Al-Aqsa -- brought the situation to a boil.

In anticipation of protests, Israel barred men under 50 from entering the Old City for prayers.

Three Palestinians were killed in clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians around the Old City, in other parts of annexed east Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank.

PTI
Prophet said army should seize India for Islam says Lashkar-e-Tayiba

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Lashkar-e-Tayiba has attributed Ghazwa-e-Hind to the Prophet. Ghazwa-e-Hind or holy war to capture India according of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba was the dream of the prophet.

According to the Lashkar, the Prophet had said that the army would would rise from the west and seize India for Islam. These were the points that were made at a Lashkar conclave of commanders which was held in Islamabad on Sunday.

The meeting while speaking about rolling out Ghazwa-e-Hind said that the first priority would be take over Kashmir. Once this is done the entire map of India can be changed the meeting discussed. Further on the agenda was Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif. The Lashkar expects that he would have to step down soon in the wake of the Panama Papers case. While Sharif looks to replace himself with his brother, the Lashkar believes that the country would be under the control of the army.

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The Lashkar said that the PM must reverse his policy on Kashmir. They are unhappy with the manner in which Sharif has handled the Kashmir issue. The terror outfit feels that the army would handle this issue better. They said that the army must intervene to save and free Kashmir.

Further the commanders expressed disappointment that their leader Hafiz Saeed continued to be under house arrest. They feel that he was being targeted unnecessarily to appease the West. They demanded the immediate release of Saeed.

On the Kashmir issue, the commanders pointed out that Kashmiris has been fighting the Hindus even before the birth of Pakistan. Islam and Kashmir and Islam and Pakistan are not separate, they also said.

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Story first published: Monday, July 24, 2017, 8:27 [IST]
At UNSC, US calls on world to tell Russia to stop its nuclear threats

Trump likely to sign new sanctions against Russia

International

oi-PTI

Washington, July 24: President Donald Trump would sign a sweeping Russia sanctions measure, which the House could take up this week, according to White House. Those measures require him to get Congress' permission before lifting or easing the economic penalties against Moscow.

Lawmakers are scheduled to consider the sanctions package as early as tomorrow, and the bill could be sent to Trump before Congress breaks for the August recess.

The legislation is aimed at punishing Moscow for meddling in the presidential election and its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the newly appointed White House press secretary, said the administration is supportive of being tough on Russia and "particularly putting these sanctions in place."

"We support where the legislation is now, and will continue to work with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved," Sanders said on ABC's "This Week."

Congressional Republicans and Democrats announced on Saturday that they'd settled lingering issues with the bill, which also includes stiff economic penalties against Iran and North Korea. The sanctions targeting Russia, however, have drawn the most attention due to Trump's persistent push for warmer relations with President Vladimir Putin and ongoing investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign.

"North Korea, Iran and Russia have in different ways all threatened their neighbors and actively sought to undermine American interests," according to a joint statement by California Republicans Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, and Ed Royce of California, the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman. The bill the House will vote, they said, "will now exclusively focus on these nations and hold them accountable for their dangerous actions."

The White House had objected to a key section of the bill that would mandate a congressional review if Trump attempts to terminate the sanctions against Moscow.

Top administration officials said the provisions infringed on the president's executive authority and tied his hands as he explores avenues of cooperation between the two former Cold War foes. But Sanders said the White House was able to work with the House and Senate to "make those changes that were necessary."

She didn't specify what those changes were, however. The congressional review section wasn't altered substantially and Democrats were satisfied with the results.

Lawmakers included the review because of wariness in both parties over Trump's affinity for Putin. Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the top ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump has been unwilling to respond seriously to Russia's belligerence, "leaving Congress with the urgent responsibility to hold Vladimir Putin accountable."

McCarthy had pushed to add the North Korea sanctions to the package. The House had overwhelmingly passed legislation in May to hit Pyongyang with additional economic penalties, but the Senate had yet to take up the bill.

The Senate last month passed sanctions legislation that targeted only Russia and Iran. Congressional aides said Senate Republicans may resist adding the North Korea penalties, but it remained unclear whether those concerns would derail the legislation.

The aides were not authorised to speak publicly and requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Although the legislation has widespread support, the bill stalled after clearing the Senate more than five weeks ago due to constitutional questions and bickering over technical details.

PTI
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All rights reserved.

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of One News Page Ltd.
by  Graham Pierrepoint



It may be another week of unknown news ahead of us, but we at least have this weeks historical events to look back on  get ready for another trip back in time as the One News Page DeLorean fires up and gets ready to take you on an educational history tour!

July 24th 1974  Nixon Forced to Hand Over Watergate Tapes

In a landmark ruling overseen by the US Supreme Court, it was unanimously decided 43 years ago this week that controversial President Richard Nixon must hand over recordings which could stand to incriminate him in the infamous Watergate scandal.

July 25th 1978  The First Test Tube Baby Born

Louise Brown celebrates her 40th birthday this week as the very first person to be born via in vitro fertilization  her birth creating hope for millions of couples around the world who would otherwise have been unable to conceive.

July 26th 1953  The 26th of July Movement

Revolutionary and eventual long-running President of Cuba, Fidel Castro, launched his rebellion against then-President Fulgenico Batista 64 years ago this week  a move which would of course change the shape of the country forever.

July 27th 2012  The London 2012 Olympics Opens

In a ceremony which celebrated all things British  and even involved James Bond meeting Queen Elizabeth II  the UKs capital kicked off what would be a momentous Olympic Games for the hugely memorable London 2012.

July 28th 1951  Alice in Wonderland Debuts

Alice in Wonderland  one of Walt Disneys most iconic animated features  celebrates its 66th birthday this week, and it still remains one of the most iconic adaptations of Lewis Carrolls bizarre adventure  to the extent that recent live action remakes have paled in comparison, at least critically!

July 29th 1928  Steamboat Willie Created

And thats not all from Disney this week  as Steamboat Willie saw its test footage created 90 years ago. This would, of course, start an animated revolution  and would of course introduce the world to Mickey Mouse. The rest, as they say  is history.

July 30th 1935  Penguin Books Debut

Finally, we this week celebrate the launch of Penguin books  arguably some of the most popular and profitable paperbacks ever produced  which were, of course, also charged with bringing some of our best-known literary classics to the table. You can even download some of these for free for tablets and e-readers!
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Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday instructed his police chief to ensure the security of all judges after a shooting incident on Saturday threatened the life of a high court judge in Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka.

Sirisena strongly condemned Saturday evenings shooting incident which left one police officer dead. The president said the sacrifice of the countrys brave police officers will never be forgotten.

An unidentified gunman opened fire at the vehicle of Jaffna High Court Judge M. Illanchelian in Nallur, Jaffna with a shoot-out erupting between the judges security detail and the shooter.

The police said Justice Illanchelian was unharmed following the shooting. However one police sergeant of the security detail had succumbed to his injuries.

Two suspects have been arrested over the shooting. The reason for the shooting is still unknown but police said investigations were continuing.

(Xinhua)
Barely four months to the 2023 general elections, a plot to remove the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, is being hatched by top political actors in the country, Daily Trust has gathered.

Top politicians and persons close to the seat of power in Abuja are said to be firming up the plot as a last ditch plan should the INEC chairman fails to accede to their demands regarding the conduct of the elections.

Preparations for the conduct of the elections are in top gear following the lift of ban on campaign activities by the INEC on September 28.

The INEC, on its part, said it had reached an advanced stage with the process including procurement of materials. The commission has also advertised for the temporary election

The INEC chair, in an exclusive interview with Daily Trust penultimate week, had reiterated that the commission would deploy Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) as done during recent off-season elections.

Yesterday, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) addressed a press conference in Abuja and raised the alarm over the plot to remove the INEC chairman.

CUPP spokesman, Ikenga Ugochinyere, who spoke on behalf of the opposition parties, said the coalition had also uncovered fresh plots to deactivate the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) from being used in the election and ultimately stop electronic transmission of results.

Prior to the CUPPs press conference, sources had told Daily Trust that political actors believed the elections would be difficult to manipulate under the current circumstances.

The three unwanted elements about the elections which the politicians wanted expunged, Daily Trust gathered, include the use of BVAS for accreditation of voters, cancelation of the use of incident forms and electronic transmission of election results.

Two governorsone from the South East and another from North Eastare said to be in the forefront of the plot to kick out the INEC chairman. Also, a leader in the National Assembly, who allegedly felt betrayed by the INEC chairman, is said to have joined the prey to get back at the chairman.

The fear over BVAS

BVAS, introduced by INEC to replace the smart card reader used in the 2019 elections, is a biometric system that recognises voters based on their finger prints or faces.

An INEC insider said politicians are now wary of the use of BVAS and cancellation of the use of incidence form for voters not recognised by the BVAS device.

The BVAS is very advanced. Its different from the smart card reader in many ways. If it cannot capture your fingers, it can capture your face, and there is no excuse for not using it.

According to the source, the agitations that that the INEC brings back the incident form and cancel the use of BVAS and the IREV platforms have thickened since the Anambra State governorship election.

A governor from the South East was said to have made frantic efforts to have the election swayed but was made impossible because of the adamant nature of the INEC top leadership and the electronic transmission of results.

They had results from 10 local governments which they wanted the INEC to accept but they were told it was impossible with the current system. It was frustrating for the governor who had already told one of the candidates he woukd be declared as the winner, said the source.

According to another insider in the commission, rather than work with the party, the governor later discovered that three senior INEC officials, including one in charge of the electronic systems had compromised to pave way for another party to win the election.

They obtained security reports about the three of them, showing the transactions they had. This was how they pushed the person in IT out of his seat and blocked the reappointment of another senior commissioner, said the source who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Aside the political pressure being exerted on INEC, there were reports of a lawsuit instituted before the Federal High Court in Owerri, Imo state, seeking to stop INEC from using BVAS for the 2023 elections.

Yakubu in the eye of the storm

Some politicians are said to be uncomfortable with the INEC chairmans rigid posture and unwillingness to help them during critical periods.

Yakubu was also lately embroiled in allegations around his assets declaration.

In late September, a Federal High Court in Abuja okayed hearing in a suit asking to compel the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to release the assets declaration forms of the INEC chairman.

The plaintiff in the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/33/2021, is one Emmanuel Agonsi.

Daily Trust gathered that this was not the first suit of this nature against the INEC chairman.

There was another suit in Abakaliki. It went up to the Court of Appeal, they wanted to stop his renomination for second term. They nearly succeeded both at the level of Presidency and the National Assembly.

He was there thinking his name would be submitted for reappointment when he was told that they had tabled the name of one professor, who was later appointed a national commissioner. When it came to the screening there was move to also block him but a presiding officer gave him a smooth sail, it is for that reason that the man now feel pained for INEC to have rejected him as candidate of his party, one of our sources said.

Use of BVAS irreversible INEC

INEC yesterday dismissed the call for the re-introduction of the incidence form and the suspension of the use of BVAS for the 2023 general elections.

INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, in a chat with Daily Trust yesterday, said: The decision of the commission to introduce and use the BVAS is final and irreversible. It is backed up by the law and a substantial number of the BVAS for the 2023 elections have been delivered. The BVAS is the game changer and has buried the incident forms.

Those engaged in identity theft should not near the polling units. Those that have stolen or bought over PVCs are out of business and should not attempt to access the PUs. The commission is focused on delivering on its mandate.

The commission is not and will not pay attention to the negatives or the antics of those that will want to delegitimize the electoral process and the commission. The commission has reached the critical stage of the electoral process and all Nigerians, and all the critical stakeholders should join the commission in delivering a clean election.

CSOs react

Executive Director Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, told Daily Trust that,

I wont be surprised if there are plans to blackmail INEC to suspend the use of the BVAS. Nigerians have endorsed the use of BVAS, and that is what matters. Any attempt to stop the use of the BVAS should be considered an assault on the sovereignty of Nigerians and an effort to subvert the popular will of the people.

INEC should continue to resist the attempt to capture the institution by all means possible. It is within INECs constitutional powers to undertake, organize and supervise elections. Its powers cannot be subjected to any authority. The commission has insisted that the use of the BVAS for election has come to stay. Stakeholders should respect the commissions powers.

Executive Director, Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), Ibrahim Zikirullahi, said:

We know theres a vast array of political and partisan interests who may want to subvert the electoral process for their own self-serving ends. Its however important to note that the will of these elements should not be allowed to prevail over the will of the Nigerian electorate.

The key to ensuring desperate elements dont undermine the process is to ensure there is vigilance.

Also, Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, said:

In elections, numbers that have no relationship with the votes cast are routinely written up all over the country. This is what we call rigging. In 2015 INEC used a technology solution in the form of Card Reader to verify the PVC and close the gap between the voting tallies and achieve over 50% in using the device to accredit voters in the presidential election.

The result was that for the first time in Nigerias presidential election history, the loser declined to sue and, overall, the percentage of elections ending in the courts fell to about 43%. In 2007, 86.25% of all offices contested ended in court while in 2011, it was just about 51%.



Source: https://dailytrust.com/4-months-to-elections-plots-to-remove-inec-chair-stop-bvas-raise-dust
Anchored by veteran journalist Chris Kehinde Nwandu, Inside Politics with CKN will feature the movers and shakers in the Nigerian political arena.

As we look forward to the 2023 governorship and presidential elections, Nwandu is the ideal person to dissect the important political stories as Nigerians begin to think about their next leaders.

The 30-minute program was initially set to debut on Friday, September 30th but was moved to Friday, October 7.

READ: Popular Journalist CKNs Daughter Yadirichi Nwandu Bags First Class From Nigerian University

The weekly half-hour show will discuss and analyze the political situation in the country while guests will cut across politics, Economy, Security and other sectors.

The program wouldnt have come at a better time than now when Nigeria is facing several socioeconomic and political challenges.

The 30 minutes program will help to raise the stake in our polity and proffer solutions were necessary.

The show which is produced by African Governance and Leadership Initiative is broadcast on Fridays 8:00 pm to 8:30 pm on Silverbird TV and Silver News24 from Silverbirds studios in Lagos State.

DONT MISS: How I was Detained For Two Hours And Almost Deported From Heathrow Airport London  Chris Kehinde Nwandu
The Federal High Court sitting in Yola, Adamawa state, on Friday, nullified the primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that produced Senator Aishatu Binani as the partys governorship candidate for the state.

Aisha Binanis Election As APC Guber Candidate Nullified

The court on Friday declared that there will be no candidate for the APC in the state for the 2023 elections but said both petitioner and defendants are free to appeal the ruling.

This is a developing story. More details will be added shortly

Meanwhile, Kanyi Daily reported that history was made as Aishatu Binani defeated Nuhu Ribadu, Bindow, and others to win APC governorship ticket.
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Bababajide Sanwo-Olu, has congratulated member of the Governance Advisory Council (GAC) and Second Republic Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Chief Olorunfunmi Basorun, on his 84th birthday.

Basorun, a retired deputy director of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and former Secretary to the State Government, SSG during former Governor Lateef Jakandes administration will clock 84 on Saturday, October 15.

Governor Sanwo-Olu in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Gboyega Akosile, on Friday, described Chief Basorun as a committed and exemplary political and religious leader who has been a source of inspiration and support to the younger generation.

The Governor commended the chartered banker and accountant turned politician for his contribution to good governance and people-oriented programmes as SSG to the Lagos State Government during the administration of the late Alhaji Lateef Jakande administration from 1979 to 1983.

Governor Sanwo-Olu also hailed Chief Basorun for being a consistent and progressive politician since he joined partisan politics in 1979, noting that the GAC member has contributed and worked dutifully with other party leaders and members for the success of the ruling party in Lagos State.

READ ALSO: Sanwo-Olu reveals plan to turn Lagos to Africas model mega city

He said: On behalf of my adorable wife, Ibijoke, the good people and government of Lagos State and entire leaders and members of our dear party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), I congratulate our father, Chief Olorunfunmi Basorun, on his 84th birthday.

Chief Basorun has contributed to the private and public sectors in different capacities. As a chartered banker, accountant and lawyer, he rose through the ranks to become a deputy director in the apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). He left CBN with a good track record to join the Lateef Jakande administration in 1979 as a Secretary to the Lagos State Government.

Since he joined partisan politics in 1979, Chief Basorun has remained one of the respected leaders of our party. He has contributed immensely to the development and growth of the ruling party and Lagos State in the last four decades.

As Chief Olorunfunmi Basorun celebrates his 84th birthday, I congratulate him for a life full of fulfillment and service to humanity. I pray that God will bless him with more years of joy and sound health for him to render more service to our dear party, Lagos State and humanity.
Opalesque Industry Update - BlueMountain Capital Management, a leading diversified alternative asset manager with $22 billion in assets under management, is pleased to announce that Claudio Macchetto has joined as Head of Platform Distribution, a newly created position at the firm, effective July 10. In the role, Mr. Macchetto will be responsible for the marketing of BlueMountain's diversified alternative investment strategies to wealth management channels and private banking platforms, as well as the management of retail distribution relationships globally. "We are pleased to welcome Claudio to BlueMountain," said Stephen Siderow, BlueMountain's Co-President and Co-Founder. "He brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience working with top wealth managers and private banks. He will be instrumental in making our strategies available to a broader group of ultra-high net worth individuals." Mr. Macchetto joins BlueMountain with over 22 years of financial services experience. Previously, he was the Head of Global Platforms at Paulson & Co. for over a decade, where he was responsible for all marketing and investor relations for the firm's hedge funds through high net worth platforms. Prior to that, Mr. Macchetto served in a series of management roles at Citigroup, including positions as CFO and Director in the Fund of Hedge Funds group at Citigroup Alternative Investments (CAI). During that time, he led the development of CAI's third party single manager platform, Hedge Forum. Before joining Citigroup, Mr. Macchetto was First Vice President at Salomon Smith Barney, a Senior Associate in Booz Allen & Hamilton's financial and health service group, and a global analyst at Institutional Shareholder Services. He received an MBA in finance and strategic management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Georgetown University. "BlueMountain has a sterling reputation within the financial community as a disciplined investment manager that provides unparalleled service to its investors," said Mr. Macchetto. "I look forward to working with the team as we expand the firm's client base to include more private banks, wealth managers, and advisors who are keen to offer high quality asset managers on their platforms."
United States Radio Transmitter Market by Manufacturers, States, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title United States Radio Transmitter Market by Manufacturers, States, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.A radio transmitter is an electronic device which, when connected to an antenna, produces an electromagnetic signal such as in radio and television broadcasting, two way communications or radar. Heating devices, such as a microwave oven, although of similar design, are not usually called transmitters, in that they use the electromagnetic energy locally rather than transmitting it to another location.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Radio Transmitter in United States market, to split the market based on manufacturers, states, type and application.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit:Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers Harris Broadcast Electronics R&S Syes GatesAir Egatel(COMSA) Nautel Thomson Broadcast Hitachi Kokusai Electric NEC RIZ Transmitters BTESA Continental Beijing BBEF Tongfang Gigamega Chengdu ChengGuangMarket Segment by States, covering California Texas New York Florida IllinoisMarket Segment by Type, covers FM Radio Transmitter Shortwave Radio Transmitter Medium Wave TransmitterMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Aerospace Automobile Electronics Industry OthersTo 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
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The Global Cancer Nanotherapy market report examines this market on the basis of its market sections, major geographies, and present-day market patterns. Geographies considered in this research report are North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Latin America.Global Cancer Nanotherapy Market Professional Survey Report 2017-2022 Purchase This Report by calling ResearchnReports.com at +1-888-631-6977.This Cancer Nanotherapy Market report gives an extensively wide-ranging analysis of the market expansion drivers, factors regulating and avoiding market enlargement, existing business sector outlines, market association, market predictions for coming years.Additionally, this report recognizes pin-point investigation of adjusting competition subtleties and keeps you ahead in the competition. It offers a fast looking perception on different variables driving or averting the development of the Cancer Nanotherapy market. It helps in understanding the key product areas and their future. It guides in taking knowledgeable business decisions by giving complete constitutions of the market and by enclosing a comprehensive analysis of market subdivisions. To sum up, it equally gives certain graphics and personalized SWOT analysis of premier market sectors.Get PDF Sample Copy@This Study on the Global Cancer Nanotherapy Market is an all-inclusive study of the business sectors up-to-date outlines, industry enhancement drivers, and manacles. It provides market projections for the coming years. It contains an analysis of late augmentations in innovation, Porter's five force model analysis and progressive profiles of hand-picked industry competitors. The report additionally formulates a survey of minor and full-scale factors charging for the new applicants in the market and the ones as of now in the market along with a systematic value chain exploration.Get 30% Discount on this Report@Table of Content1 Industry Overview1.1 Global Cancer Nanotherapy Market Overview1.1.1 Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook2 Global Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Global Market Size (Million USD) by Players (2012-2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate3 Company (Top Players) Profiles and Key Data4 Global Market Size by Product and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Market Size by Product (2012-2017)4.2 Global Market Size by Application (2012-2017)5 United States Development Status and Outlook6 EU Development Status and Outlook7 Japan Development Status and Outlook8 China Development Status and Outlook9 India Development Status and Outlook10 Southeast Asia Development Status and Outlook11 Market Forecast by Regions, Product and Application (2017-2022)12 Market Dynamics13 Market Effect Factors Analysis14 Research Finding /Conclusion15 Methodology and Data SourceAbout 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 ,
United States Rotary Blasthole Drilling Rig Market by Manufacturers, States, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title United States Rotary Blasthole Drilling Rig Market by Manufacturers, States, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.Rotary Blasthole Drilling Rigs are designed to drill big blast holes into high benches in large quarries and opencast mines. With long, high-strength masts and extremely robust components, they can develop very high rotational torques and pulldown forces. This, together with abundant flushing air and responsive ergonomic controls, gives very high penetration rates in continuous duty.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Rotary Blasthole Drilling Rig in United States market, to split the market based on manufacturers, states, type and application.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit:Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers Atlas Copco CAT Joy Sandvick FURUKAWA Sinosteel HYMC Schramm KAMAMarket Segment by States, covering California Texas New York Florida IllinoisMarket Segment by Type, covers Mid-range Drilling Rig Large-range Drilling Rig OtherMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Open Pit Ming Quarries OthersTo 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
E-commerce Payment Market Share 2017 Alipay, Tenpay, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard

E-commerce Payment

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Cloud Database Market Share 2017 Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Couchbase, MongoDB

Cloud Database

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Airline Route Profitability Software Market Share 2017 Sabre Airline, NIIT Technologies, IBM, Megabyte, OPNSC

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Storage Software Market Size 2017 IBM, NetApp, Huawei, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Hitachi

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ERP Software Market Size 2017 SAP, Oracle, Sage, Infor, Microsoft

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Luxury E-tailing Market Size 2017 Neiman Marcus, Net A Porter, Nordstrom, Ralph Lauren

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Mobile Health App Market Size 2017 AT&T, Athenahealth, Biotelemetry, Cisco Systems, Sanofi SA

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Mobile Health App Market Research ReportA market study  Global Mobile Health App Market  examines the performance of the Mobile Health App market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Mobile Health App market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Mobile Health App market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Mobile Health App Market 2017 report includes Mobile Health App market Size, Revenue, market Share, Mobile Health App industry volume, market Trends, Mobile Health App Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Mobile Health App Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.Request For Sample Report:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Mobile Health App Market 2017:1. AT&T2. Athenahealth3. Biotelemetry4. Cisco Systems5. Sanofi SA6. Philips N.V.7. Apple, Inc.8. AirStrip Technologies Inc.9. Nike Inc.10. Cerner Corporation11. Medtronic, Inc.12. Omron healthcare co.ltd.13. Johnson & Johnson...Firstly, the report covers the top Mobile Health App manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Mobile Health App report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Mobile Health App industry, Mobile Health App industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Mobile Health App Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Inquiry Before Purchasing Report:The Mobile Health App 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 Mobile Health App market revenue worldwide.Finally, Mobile Health App 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:"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
Retail E-commerce Software Market Size 2017 Magento, WooThemes, Shopify, PrestaShop, VirtueMart

Retail E-commerce Software

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Retail E-commerce Software Market Research ReportA market study  Global Retail E-commerce Software Market  examines the performance of the Retail E-commerce Software market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Retail E-commerce Software market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Retail E-commerce Software market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Retail E-commerce Software Market 2017 report includes Retail E-commerce Software market Size, Revenue, market Share, Retail E-commerce Software industry volume, market Trends, Retail E-commerce Software Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Retail E-commerce Software Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.Request For Sample Report:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Retail E-commerce Software Market 2017:1. Magento2. WooThemes3. Shopify4. PrestaShop5. VirtueMart6. OpenCart7. BigCommerce8. osCommerce9. Demandware10. Yahoo Store11. IBM12. SAP Hybris13. Oracle ATG Commerce14. Open Text Corporation15. Pitney Bowes16. CenturyLink17. Volusion18. Ekm Systems19. Digital River20. Constellation Software21. Sitecore22. Shopex23. Guanyi Soft24. Centaur25. U1City26. Baison27. HiShop...Firstly, the report covers the top Retail E-commerce Software manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Retail E-commerce Software report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Retail E-commerce Software industry, Retail E-commerce Software industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Retail E-commerce Software Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Inquiry Before Purchasing Report:The Retail E-commerce Software 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 Retail E-commerce Software market revenue worldwide.Finally, Retail E-commerce Software 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:"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
Educational Software Market Size 2017 Neusoft, Wisedu, Jucheng, Kingsun, Hongen

Educational Software

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Educational Software Market Research ReportA market study  Global Educational Software Market  examines the performance of the Educational Software market Size 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Educational Software market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Educational Software market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Educational Software Market 2017 report includes Educational Software market Size, Revenue, market Share, Educational Software industry volume, market Trends, Educational Software Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Educational Software Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.Request For Sample Report:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Educational Software Market 2017:1. Neusoft2. Wisedu3. Jucheng4. Kingsun5. Hongen6. Guangdong Dongtian Digital Technology7. Zhengfang Software8. Kingosoft9. Beijing China Education Star Technology10. IntelHouse Technology...Firstly, the report covers the top Educational Software manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Educational Software report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Educational Software industry, Educational Software industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Educational Software Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Inquiry Before Purchasing Report:The Educational Software 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 Educational Software market revenue worldwide.Finally, Educational Software 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:"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
Sheet Face Masks Market: Global Industry Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast For 2024

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Global Sheet Face Masks: OverviewSheet face mask has occupied a significant position due to its associated product benefits. By fabric type the market has been categorized into non-woven, cotton, hydrogel, bio-cellulose and others and by category type the market has been segmented into premium sheet face masks and mass sheet face masks. Previously facial mask was considered only mud mask and cream mask but due to various limitations such as dry skin problems, time consuming and others resulted to inclination towards traditional facial mask products.Download PDF Brochure For More Information@Global Sheet Face Masks: Drivers and TrendsThe market for sheet face masks is booming at a different pace across different geographical regions worldwide. Currently, the market is growing at a steady pace globally, and is majorly driven by the demand for anti-ageing formula, dehydrated skin and this factor strongly influences purchase decisions among consumers. The market for sheet face masks in all regions is expected to grow significantly owing to increasing research and development for enhancement of sheet mask products. Moreover, emphasis on innovation in technology on the formulation of new sheet face masks to improve performance, and increasing demand to ensure damage repair are impacting the market for sheet face masks globally.Sheet face masks comprises of five types of fabrics which includes non-woven, cotton, hydrogel, bio-cellulose and others. Rising aging population and growing trend in personal beauty enhances products is booming sheet face masks market globally. In addition, rise in male grooming products is also driving the growth of this market across the globe. In addition, bio-cellulose segment in sheet face masks market is growing rapidly. Major factors driving the growth of the market includes thin natural fiber use in bio cellulose fiber and also rising economic growth, changing lifestyle, and rising trend towards new facial masks is boosting the market of bio cellulose fiber sheet face masks globally. Asia Pacific has the largest market for bio cellulose. The growth of the market in this region is directly impacts the revenues of the leading vendors in Asia Pacific.As per current trend, hydrogel fabric is growing rapidly. Increasing demand for hydrogel fabric is due to consumers preference and their changing buying behavior towards beauty products. Furthermore, local manufacturers in Africa and APAC, focuses on new product development and product innovations according to consumers preference in order to developed a loyal customer base over the years. In addition, the presence of numerous manufacturers in the nation and their continual effort to develop various types of sheet face masks such as aloevera, honey flavor, hydrogel mask, aqua skin ampoule mask and others as per consumers need is a major driver for the market in the developed country such as U.S, U.K. Canada and others. Moreover, considering the growing skin problem during winter like dry skin problem, wrinkle problem the global key players of sheet face masks market are expected to adopt improved technology for manufacturing sheet face masks.Global Sheet Face Masks Market: Regional OutlookMoreover, in this report the study provides different countries included in different regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. North America includes the U.S. and Rest of North America. Europe includes U.K., Germany, France, Russia, Italy and Rest of Europe. Asia Pacific includes countries such as India, China, Japan and Rest of Asia Pacific. In addition, Middle East and Africa includes country such as UAE, South Africa and Rest of Middle East and Africa. Latin America comprise of countries such as Brazil and Rest of Latin America.Browse Report@Key Players Mentioned in this Research Report are:In order to get a better understanding of the sheet face masks market, a key trends analysis has been included for all the segments. In addition, the market players in the sheet face mask market have also been profiled in terms of their financial overview, product segments, recent developments and business strategies adopted by them. The leading players in the market include. Sephora Inc. (California, U.S), Boss Biological Technique Ltd., (Guangdong, China) Dolce & Gabbana S.r.l. (Milan, Italy), 3Lab Inc. (New Jersey, U.S.), Kracie Holdings, Ltd.. (Tokyo, Japan), Innisfree Corporation.(South Korea), BioRepublic Skin Care (Atlanta, U.S.), Star Skin Beauty Group AG (Los Angeles, U.S.), Yunos Co. Ltd.(Osaka, Japan) and DECLEOR Paris. (Paris, France) among others.About Us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation 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 ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Hurling Helmets Market Share 2017 Mycro, ONeills, Marc, Cooper

Hurling Helmets

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Global Hurling Helmets Market ResearchThe Global Hurling Helmets Market 2017 Industry Research Report is a in-depth study and professional analysis on the current state of the Hurling Helmets market.Firstly, Worldwide Hurling Helmets Market report provides a basic overview of the Hurling Helmets industry including classification, definitions, Key vendors, Growth Drivers, Competitive Landscape, Regional Analysis and Hurling Helmets industry chain structure.Request For Sample Report:Major Companies covered in this Research Report are:-1. Mycro2. ONeills3. Marc4. CooperGlobal Hurling Helmets Market analysis is provided for the international industry including company development history, Hurling Helmets market competitive landscape, Regional analysis and major regions development status on industry Market scenario.Secondly, Hurling Helmets Market report includes, development policies and plans are discussed, manufacturing processes and cost structures. This Hurling Helmets Industry report also states import/export, supply and consumption figures as well as cost, price, Global Hurling Helmets Market revenue and gross margin by regions (South East Asia, India, North America, Europe, Japan and China) and also other can be added.Browse Complete Report Here:Then, the report pay attention on worldwide major leading market players (in Hurling Helmets industry area) with information such as Company Profile, Sales Volume, Price, Gross Margin and contact information. Global Hurling Helmets Industry report also includes Upstream & downstream consumers analysis, raw materials.All above Company Profile, Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Revenue, Supply, Import, Export and Consumption covered in Hurling Helmets industry report.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
Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Market Growth and Value Chain 2015-2025 by FMI

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Therapeutic drug monitoring is a branch of clinical chemistry and clinical pharmacology which aims at maintaining the drug concentration levels in the body fluids within the particular therapeutic range. The purpose of therapeutic drug monitoring is refining patient care by individually adjusting the drug dosage for better outcomes.Some of the situations where measurement of drug dosage concentration is useful include, non-response at therapeutic dose, suboptimal tolerability, pharmacokinetic drug-drug interaction and drug adherence. TDM is regarded as a module of personalized medicine that interacts with various other disciplines such as pharmacogenomics and pharmacokinetics. Most commonly monitored drugs are digoxin, valproate and carbamazepine.The global therapeutic drug monitoring market showed significant growth over the last few years and is projected to grow at a robust CAGR during the forecast period.Therapeutic Drug MonitoringMarket: Drivers and RestraintsTherapeutic drug monitoring is driven by various key factors which include, ageing population with better health care services, increasing demand for genetic testing, increased government and private sector participation in therapeutic drug monitoring markets, rise in drug profiling.Request For Report Sample@Ongoing problems with reimbursement, retrenchment in the hospital fields and a weak global economy. Fluctuating exchange rates further weakens the global market.Therapeutic Drug MonitoringMarket: SegmentationGlobal therapeutic drug monitoring market is segmented on the basis of product type as following:AntibioticsAnticonvulsantsAntiarrhythmicAntineoplasticBronchodilatorsImmunosuppressiveHIV/AIDS drugsTherapeutic drug monitoring market is further segmented on the basis of technology as:SpectrometryChromatographyElectrophoresisProteomic technologyTherapeutic Drug MonitoringMarket: OverviewWith the advancement of technology and increase incidence in disease population, therapeutic drug monitoring, is gaining wide acceptance as a method of choice among patients. This market is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR in the forecast period (2015-2025).In the upcoming years, the TDM market will undergo significant transformation. These alterations will be done by convergence of new and more stringent regulations improvements in diagnostic technologies, automation and system engineering.Visit For TOC@Therapeutic Drug MonitoringMarket: Region-wise OutlookDepending on geographic regions, therapeutic drug monitoring market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa.In terms of geography, North America dominates the therapeutic drug monitoring market, followed by Europe. During the earlier stages of this market development growth rates were higher, while the value of the market was relatively low. As the market value started to rise the annual growth rate declined slightly, but is expected to increase again as the market develops and the advantages of therapeutic drug monitoring is appreciated in the established markets and as the techniques and products appear in the emerging market.Therapeutic Drug MonitoringMarket: Key PlayersCoulter, BioChem Pharmaceuticals, BioRad, OraSure Technologies,and Roche Diagnostics. The market is currently led by Some of the key players in compression therapy market are,Abbott Laboratories, Bayer AG, Beckman Roche diagnostics followed by Abbott Laboratories.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:
Hydraulic Roof Supports Market Size 2017 Joy Global, Caterpillar, Becker Mining, Nepean, Famur

Hydraulic Roof Supports

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Global Hydraulic Roof Supports Market ResearchThe Global Hydraulic Roof Supports Market 2017 Industry Research Report is a in-depth study and professional analysis on the current state of the Hydraulic Roof Supports market.Firstly, Worldwide Hydraulic Roof Supports Market report provides a basic overview of the Hydraulic Roof Supports industry including classification, definitions, Key vendors, Growth Drivers, Competitive Landscape, Regional Analysis and Hydraulic Roof Supports industry chain structure.Request For Sample Report:Major Companies covered in this Research Report are:-1. Joy Global2. Caterpillar3. Becker Mining4. Nepean5. Famur6. Kopex7. Tiandi Science & Technology8. Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery9. Beijing Coal Mining Machinery10. Pingdingshan PMJ Coal Mine Machinery Equipment11. Chongqing Dajiang XinDa Vehicle12. Shanxi Pingyang Industry Machinery13. Shandong Tiansheng Coal Mine Equipment14. Shandong Mining Machinery Group...Global Hydraulic Roof Supports Market analysis is provided for the international industry company development history, Hydraulic Roof Supports market competitive landscape, Regional analysis and major regions development status on industry Market scenario.Secondly, Hydraulic Roof Supports Market report includes, development policies and plans are discussed, manufacturing processes and cost structures. This Hydraulic Roof Supports Industry report also states import/export, supply and consumption figures as well as cost, price, Global Hydraulic Roof Supports Market revenue and gross margin by regions (South East Asia, India, North America, Europe, Japan and China) and also other can be added.Inquiry Before Purchasing Report Here:Then, the report pay attention on worldwide major leading market players (in Hydraulic Roof Supports industry area) with information such as Company Profile, Sales Volume, Price, Gross Margin and contact information. Global Hydraulic Roof Supports Industry report also includes Upstream & downstream consumers analysis, raw materials.All above Company Profile, Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Revenue, Supply, Import, Export and Consumption covered in Hydraulic Roof Supports industry report.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
Organic Cocoa Market with Current Trends Analysis 2015 - 2025

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The certified organic cocoa market represents a very small share of the total cocoa market, estimated around 0.5% of total production. However, the demand for organic cocoa products are growing at a very strong pace, the supply side faces a strong challenge to meet the demand of organic cocoa. Since, farmers are paying ample amount for producing organic cocoa, production of organic cocoa is more in least developed countries. Organic cocoa has many nutritional benefits such as more fiber, iron, magnesium, copper, manganese and many other minerals. Moreover it also contains antioxidants, which helps to protect skin. Organic cocoa also helps to improve blood flow and lower blood pressure. Demand for organic cocoa products are very high in U.S, U.K and Germany, hence organic cocoa are supplied to developed economies of North America and Western Europe to manufacture organic cocoa products. Currently, Dominican Republic is dominating the organic cocoa market in terms of production that holds around 70 percent of the total market share; Peru, Ecuador and Mexico together hold around 20 percent of the market share in terms of production; rest around 10 percent is held by Bolivia, Ghana, Brazil and others.Organic Cocoa Market Segmentation:On the basis of product type the organic cocoa market is segmented into cocoa powder, cocoa paste, cocoa butter, cocoa beans and others (products containing cocoa). Products containing cocoa holds the highest market share in terms of value followed by cocoa beans and cocoa butter.Request For Report Sample@On the basis of application organic cocoa market is segmented into confectionaries, bakery, functional food, health drinks, home cooking use and others (pharmaceuticals, ointments, and toiletries). Organic cocoa is majorly used in food industry as a main ingredient of chocolate.Geographically, Organic cocoa market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Latin America is dominating worldwide followed by Middle East and Africa (MEA) in terms of organic cocoa production. Majority of organic cocoa is exported to Western Europe followed by North America. U.K and U.S are the largest manufacturing countries of organic cocoa products in the world, since organic chocolate is more popular in U.K, U.S and Germany and consumers from those countries owe a significant inclination towards organic chocolates irrespective of high pricing of organic products.Organic Cocoa Market Dynamics:Chocolate is the main application of organic cocoa which is the main growth driver of organic cocoa market. Also, the organic cocoa market is expected to be largely driven by the health consciousness among consumers. However, lack of proper supply of organic cocoa restrains the global organic cocoa market which also leads to increase in price of organic cocoa. There is a huge opportunity in the North America and Western Europe and Japan. Asia Pacific excluding Japan is an untapped market which is also a potential market for organic cocoa. This is attributed to increasing inclination of consumers towards organic products, rapid urbanisation, strengthening supply chain for organic cocoa and rising health consciousness among consumers.Visit For TOC@Organic Cocoa Market Key Player:Some of the leading players are Kraft Foods Inc., Cargill Incorporated, Tradin Organic Agriculture B.V., Ciranda, Blommer Chocolate Company, Artisan Confections Company, PASCHA Company, InterNatural Foods LLC and Wilmor Publishing Corp.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 Email Encryption Market to Register a CAGR of 22% during 20172025

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Global Email Encryption Market- Size, Trend, Share, Opportunity Analysis & Forecast, 2014-2025, the industry is expected to increase at a CAGR of 22% during the period, 20172025. The research offers comprehensive analysis of factors that fuel or impede growth of the market.The study offers introduction of the global email encryption market in respect to scope. It includes executive summary of the industry, such as recent developments, trend analysis, competitive landscape, and market attractiveness. It incorporates Porters Five Forces Analysis (PFFA) to assess rivalry among manufacturers. The report evaluates bargaining power of buyers & suppliers, threat from substitutes & new entrants, and competition in the industry. It segments the market into deployment, end-user, and geography.Request Sample At:The research bifurcates the global email encryption market on the basis of deployment into on premises and cloud. As per it, the industry finds its application in BFSI, government, healthcare, retail, education, IT & telecom, and manufacturing. Regionally, it classifies the market into North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America Middle East & Africa (LAMEA). It assesses industry share of type, application, and geography for the period, 20142025.The study analyzes size of the global email encryption market of each type and application by regions for the historic period as well as forecast period, 20142016 and 20172025, respectively. It discusses leading manufacturers of the industry, such as HP, McAfee, Symantec, Sophos, Cisco, TrendMicro, Proofpoint, Zix Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, and Entrust. It explores these firms based on criterions set which include finance & business segment and recent advancements of every company. Further, the report offers description of factors that accelerate progress of the market which include increase in demand of encryption software. It also explores alternative aspect that propel growth of the industry, such as rise in mobility and data breach.Enquire About Report At:The study discusses features that slow down prosperity of the global email encryption market, such as high price of encryption solution. It depicts abovementioned parameters of the industry through tables and figures. For instance, there are tables that show revenue generated by all segments of the market. The experts maintain that strict norms by government related to data privacy would increase demand of the industry. The report also offers various key takeaways of the market, such as anticipation of present market trends. It also provides insightful information of the future market potential.Request for Report Customization At:Table Of Contents:1. Executive summary1.1. Key findings1.2. Market attractiveness and trend analysis1.3. Competitive landscape and recent industry development analysis2. Introduction2.1. Report description2.2. Scope and definitions2.3. Research methodology3. Market landscape3.1. Growth drivers3.1.1. Impact analysis3.2. Restraints and challenges3.2.1. Impact analysis3.3. Porters analysis4. Global email encryption market by deployment4.1. On-premise4.1.1. Historical market size by region, 2014-20164.1.2. Market forecast by region, 2017-20254.2. CloudProgressive Markets is the answer to every possible business query. It is a market research and business consulting firm, headquartered in India with an aim to deliver up-to-date executive support to foster overall growth of an organization in its domain. With more than 442 syndicate and customized research reports for 11 industry verticals at hand, the plausible resolutions to your business concerns are just one-query away.Asia Pacific Intelligence CentreUnited StatesEAST COAST U.S.Direct: +1-646-564-2246Toll Free + 1-888-906-9222Email: help@progressivemarkets.comWeb:
Hair Care Market: New Product Development and Innovation catering to Consumer Preferences

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Hair Care Market: SnapshotThe global hair care market is expanding at a steady pace and is likely to continue doing so during the course of the forecast period. One of the most important factors responsible for this stability is the demand for healthy, lustrous, and manageable hair and this need drives the purchase decisions of most consumers.The market for hair care products expected to grow significantly across developing and developed regions owing to increasing R&D activities for the enhancement of these products. Moreover, an emphasis on innovation in technology for the formulation of new hair care products is expected to impact the market globally.The global hair care market was valued at US$81.3 bn in 2015 and is expected to reach US$105.3 bn by 2024, registering a steady 3.0% CAGR during the forecast period.Download PDF Brochure For More Information@Availability of Variety of Hair Styling Products and Devices a Key FactorIn terms of revenue, the shampoo segment accounts for the dominant share in the hair care market, and registered a 30.9% share in 2015. The shampoo market is gaining popularity thanks to product innovation based on evolving customer needs. The major players offering a wide variety of shampoos in the market include Procter & Gamble Co., LOreal S.A., and Unilever plc.Hair styling products form a highly attractive segment in the hair care market and is projected to expand at a 4.4% CAGR. Hair styling products include mousse, holding sprays, heat-resistant sprays, sprays for curly hair, serums, and gels. The growing demand for hair styling products due to the changing purchasing behavior and patterns of consumers is likely to boost this product segment. A key trend noted in this segment is the fact that local manufacturers in Africa and APAC have been focusing on new product development and innovation catering to consumer preferences so as to establish a loyal customer base over the years.Hair colors are gradually witnessing increased demand across the globe. This can be attributed to the ever-rising influence of the fashion industry and a rise in the global aging population. A recent trend noted in this segment is an increase in male consumers. Mens grooming products have gained much popularity in recent years and this global trend is reflected in the hair color market as well.hair care market.MEA offers Immense Scope for Growth with Improving Disposable Incomes of ConsumersAsia Pacific accounted for the leading share of 33.12% in the global hair care market in 2016. The region, which comprises China, Japan, India, and Rest of Asia Pacific, is fueled by the increasing number of people facing hair and scalp problems such as hair fall and damage. In addition, rising self-consciousness among youth about their appearances is supporting the market. The growing variation of hair colors, styling products, oils, conditioners, and shampoos available in the market today is also attracting an increasing number of consumers in the region.The Middle East and Africa (MEA) market is expected to expand at a strong CAGR of 4.0% during the forecast period. The region, which includes UAE, South Africa, and the Rest of MEA, is expected to be supported by the growing opportunities for hair care products in rural areas thanks to the improving disposable income and changing lifestyles of the consumers. In addition, local and international key players have been investing significant capital in emerging markets since the crisis of 2009 led to a decrease in the prices of hair care products. This, in turn, is anticipated to boost the market for hair care in the region.Browse Report@The global market for hair care is extremely consolidated owing to the presence of several manufacturers, both domestic and international. The competition among manufacturers is intense and thus, the entry of new players is restricted. Some of the leading players competing in the global hair care market are Henkel Corporation, Procter Gamble Co., LOreal S.A., Unilever plc, Revlon Inc., Avon Products Inc., Aveda Corporation, Neutrogena Corporation, Amka Products (Pty) Ltd., and Combe Incorporated.About Us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation 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 ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Baby Food And Infant Formula 2017 Global Key Players  Mead Johnson, Nestle, Danone, Abbott, Heinz, Bellamy Market Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Baby Food And Infant Formula Market

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Baby Food And Infant Formula SWOT Analysis and Forecast to 2022Report Details:Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Baby Food And Infant Formula Market Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Manufacturers, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.This report studies Baby Food And Infant Formula 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, coveringMead JohnsonNestleDanoneAbbottHeinzFriesl and CampinaBellamyTopferHiPPPerrigoArlaHolleFonterraWestl and DairyPinnacleMeijiYiliBiostimeYashiliFeiheBrightdairyBeingmateWondersonSynutraWissunHain CelestialPlum OrganicsDGCAusnutria Dairy Corporation (Hyproca)Request for Sample Report @By types, the market can be split intoInfant FormulaBaby CerealsBaby SnacksBy Application, the market can be split intoBaby Product StoreSupermarketOn-line ShopBy 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.Complete Report Details@Key Points in Table of Content:1 Industry Overview of Baby Food And Infant Formula1.1 Definition and Specifications of Baby Food And Infant Formula1.1.1 Definition of Baby Food And Infant Formula1.1.2 Specifications of Baby Food And Infant Formula1.2 Classification of Baby Food And Infant Formula1.2.1 Infant Formula1.2.2 Baby Cereals1.2.3 Baby Snacks1.3 Applications of Baby Food And Infant Formula1.3.1 Baby Product Store1.3.2 Supermarket1.3.3 On-line Shop1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India4 Global Baby Food And Infant Formula Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Baby Food And Infant Formula Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)..8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Baby Food And Infant Formula8.1 Mead Johnson8.1.1 Company Profile8.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.1.2.1 Product A8.1.2.2 Product B8.1.3 Mead Johnson 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.1.4 Mead Johnson 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.2 Nestle8.2.1 Company Profile8.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.2.2.1 Product A8.2.2.2 Product B8.2.3 Nestle 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.2.4 Nestle 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.3 Danone8.3.1 Company Profile8.3.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.3.2.1 Product A8.3.2.2 Product B8.3.3 Danone 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.3.4 Danone 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.4 Abbott8.4.1 Company Profile8.4.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.4.2.1 Product A8.4.2.2 Product B8.4.3 Abbott 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.4.4 Abbott 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.5 Heinz8.5.1 Company Profile8.5.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.5.2.1 Product A8.5.2.2 Product B8.5.3 Heinz 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.5.4 Heinz 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.6 Friesl and Campina8.6.1 Company Profile8.6.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.6.2.1 Product A8.6.2.2 Product B8.6.3 Friesl and Campina 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.6.4 Friesl and Campina 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.7 Bellamy8.7.1 Company Profile8.7.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.7.2.1 Product A8.7.2.2 Product B8.7.3 Bellamy 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.7.4 Bellamy 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.8 Topfer8.8.1 Company Profile8.8.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.8.2.1 Product A8.8.2.2 Product B8.8.3 Topfer 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.8.4 Topfer 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.9 HiPP8.9.1 Company Profile8.9.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.9.2.1 Product A8.9.2.2 Product B8.9.3 HiPP 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.9.4 HiPP 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution Analysis8.10 Perrigo8.10.1 Company Profile8.10.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.10.2.1 Product A8.10.2.2 Product B8.10.3 Perrigo 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.10.4 Perrigo 2016 Baby Food And Infant Formula Business Region Distribution AnalysisContinued...Buy this Report @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTSales@Wiseguyreports.ComPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)For accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially check:For updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially check: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.ADDRES:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Global Fish Sauce Market 2017 : NANDAO, Masan Consumer, Jinguanyuan, Hung Thanh, Viet Phu, Marine

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QY Market Research published, Top Manufacturers Analysis Of Fish Sauce Research Report. A market study based on the "Fish Sauce Market" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Fish Sauce Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Fish Sauce industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Fish Sauce market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research ReportMasan ConsumerTang Sang Ha Company LimitedThaipreeda GroupNANDAOTeo Tak SengSantou Fish SauceJinguanyuanHung ThanhThai Fishsauce FactoryPichai Fish SauceRayong Fish SauceRungroj Fish SauceViet PhuMarineHalcyon ProteinsThe report studies the industry for Fish Sauce across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Fish Sauce market & dynamics of demand and supply of Fish Sauce into consideration. The 'Fish Sauce' research study covers each and every aspect of the Fish Sauce market globally, which starts from the definition of the Fish Sauce industry and develops towards Fish Sauce market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Fish Sauce market is classified and analyzed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Fish Sauce market. The geographical segmentation of the Fish Sauce industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Fish Sauce is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Fish Sauce market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Fish Sauce market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Fish Sauce market 2017 is also analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Fish Sauce production volume, data regarding demand and Fish Sauce 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 Fish Sauce across the globe.About Us :Worldwide Industry 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 Worldwide Industry, we believe in building long term relations with our clients. Our services cover a broad spectrum of industries such as Automotive and Aerospace, Medical Devices, Technology, Machinery & Manufacturing.Contact Us :Worldwide IndustryUnited States
Wheelchairs 2017 Global Key Players  Invacare Corp, Sunrise Medical, Permobil Corp, Pride Mobility, Drive Medical Market Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Wheelchairs Market

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Wheelchairs SWOT Analysis and Forecast to 2022Report Details:Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Wheelchairs Market Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Manufacturers, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Global Wheelchairs market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Wheelchairs sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player;the top players includingInvacare CorpSunrise MedicalPermobil CorpPride MobilityDrive MedicalHandicareMedlineOttobockGF HealthKarmanHubangHoveround CorpNISSINN.V. VermeirenMIKIPDGRequest for Sample Report @Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Wheelchairs for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoWheelchairs PoweredWheelchairs ManualOn 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 Wheelchairs for each application, includingHospitalsRecuperation MechanismFamily ExpensesIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Complete Report Details@Key Points in Table of Content:Global Wheelchairs Sales Market Report 20171 Wheelchairs Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Wheelchairs1.2 Classification of Wheelchairs by Product Category1.2.1 Global Wheelchairs Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Wheelchairs Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Wheelchairs Powered1.2.4 Wheelchairs Manual1.3 Global Wheelchairs Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Wheelchairs Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hospitals1.3.3 Recuperation Mechanism1.3.4 Family Expenses1.4 Global Wheelchairs Market by Region1.4.1 Global Wheelchairs Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Wheelchairs Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Wheelchairs Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe Wheelchairs Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Wheelchairs Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Wheelchairs Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Wheelchairs Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Wheelchairs (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Wheelchairs Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Wheelchairs Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)..9 Global Wheelchairs Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data9.1 Invacare Corp9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.1.2.1 Product A9.1.2.2 Product B9.1.3 Invacare Corp Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 Sunrise Medical9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.2.2.1 Product A9.2.2.2 Product B9.2.3 Sunrise Medical Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.3 Permobil Corp9.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.3.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.3.2.1 Product A9.3.2.2 Product B9.3.3 Permobil Corp Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.4 Pride Mobility9.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.4.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.4.2.1 Product A9.4.2.2 Product B9.4.3 Pride Mobility Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.5 Drive Medical9.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.5.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.5.2.1 Product A9.5.2.2 Product B9.5.3 Drive Medical Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.6 Handicare9.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.6.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.6.2.1 Product A9.6.2.2 Product B9.6.3 Handicare Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.7 Medline9.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.7.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.7.2.1 Product A9.7.2.2 Product B9.7.3 Medline Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.8 Ottobock9.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.8.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.8.2.1 Product A9.8.2.2 Product B9.8.3 Ottobock Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.9 GF Health9.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.9.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.9.2.1 Product A9.9.2.2 Product B9.9.3 GF Health Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.10 Karman9.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.10.2 Wheelchairs Product Category, Application and Specification9.10.2.1 Product A9.10.2.2 Product B9.10.3 Karman Wheelchairs Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.10.4 Main Business/Business OverviewContinued...Buy this Report @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTSales@Wiseguyreports.ComPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)For accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially check:For updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially check: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.ADDRES:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Human Biobanking Ownership Market : Future Demand And Growth Analysis With Forecast 2024

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Biobanks are kind of repositories which store the biological samples for research and educational purpose. The samples are collected form general public based on various factors such as ethnicity, age, gender, lifestyle and geography. Biobanks collect the samples in various forms such as tissues, saliva, blood, etc. A purified genomic database is maintained in these biobanks, this data is significant in research and study purpose for understanding the environmental impacts and mutations, and diseases and disorders derived from them. The samples are stored in groups of specific traits to ease their application in research purposes. The samples are collected from donors after their consensus and most of the biobanks follow the practice of donors ownership and his consensus on use of his/her sample for any further research purpose by private entity or public organization. Biobanks play a vital role in research and development is healthcare industry.Obtain Report Details @The genetic and other biological data repository maintained by biobanks help researchers to understand the human trait associated diseases and disorders, and also the impact of environment and genetic variations on cell lines and human health. These biobanks provide extensive data based on these factors and on the basis of other demographical traits, which is expected to grow the human biobanking ownership market. The biobanks offer database of cross border population which makes its users time saving and effective resource, which is expected to increase uptake for biobanking services across the globe. However, high cost associated with human biobanks, as the genome sequencing is costly and tedious process, the human biobanking ownership market is expected to restrain the growth across the globe. Also stringent laws and regulations in biobanking and concern over the security and privacy of human biobanks across globe is another factor expected to bolster the growth for human biobanking ownership market. In the near future, the global human biobanking ownership market is expected to be governed by laws to protect the privacy of gene donors and establish their rights. For example, in Estonia, the Human Genes Research Act passed in 1999 provides donors full authority over who can access their data and establishes anonymity in clinical research. Such laws will help in the growth of the global human biobanking ownership market.Based on the operator of the biobank, the human biobanks can be segmented in to academic & research Institutes, pharmaceutical and biotech industry, hospitals, and stand-alone biobanks. These biobanks serve various purposes such as diagnostics, forensic, organ transplantation, research, and others. By the ownership type the biobanks can be privately funded and operated, publically funded and operated, and public-private partnership funded and operated. Some of the Government agencies promote biobanks, so as to create database of population to support in strengthening the healthcare infrastructure.Fill The Form To Gain Deeper Insights On This Market @Geographically, global human biobanking ownership market is segmented in four major regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Asia Pacific has been driving the global market growth owing to the rapid growth of the private biobanks and clinical research organizations in the region. Demand witnessed in North America and Europe is also significantly aiding the growth of the market. In Europe, countries such as Estonia are focusing on collecting the DNA of every citizen in order to enrich their national biobank. In Estonia, the national biobank program started in 2000 by collecting DNA samples from a quarter of the countrys population. While these DNA samples are mostly used for clinical research, the government is planning to use this data to build a robust health care infrastructure by offering personalized care. The Government of Estonia has already started developing a system to make this genetic data available to citizens and doctors.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.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:
Global Clinical Trial Imaging Market Share by Industry Research 2016 - 2024

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Medical imaging plays a prominent role in clinical trials as it can help in providing answers to the critical challenges that occur in drug development process. It takes about 15 years for a drug to move from a laboratory set-up to FDA approval. The chances of a compound getting regulatory approval are minimal as out of 6 to 11,000 compounds that are evaluated in the pre-clinical stage, only 5 are able to make it to the clinical trials and only one of them gets regulatory approval. Medical imaging can help play a crucial role in the product development process as it can reduce the late-stage attrition by gathering more information in the pre-clinical trials of safety, efficacy, and mechanism of action.Obtain Report Details @Medical imaging applications for pharmaceutical clinical trials include identifying disease predisposition, diagnosing and evaluating lesions and their severity, determining the responder patients, and monitoring therapy effects and their follow-ups. Nuclear imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) are used to observe drug pharmacokinetics and distribution along with studying the specific molecular endpoints. For drug efficacy studies, use of imaging surrogate endpoints and imaging biomarkers can provide quick results with good statistical power as they help in facilitating small group sizes. In addition, imaging has a huge potential in drug safety assessment during clinical trials in the absence of suitable biomarker. With its widespread applications, medical imaging is witnessing a rapid growth in its use for clinical trials. In fact, medical imaging is used as an endpoint for about half of all clinical trials.Factors that are driving the growth of the global clinical trial imaging market are increase in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, rise in the number of contract manufacturing/contract research organizations, and an overall increase in research and development spending. Furthermore, the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, portability and miniaturization of equipment, and rise in geriatric population are fueling the growth of the market. On the other hand, high cost of installation of these systems and enormous cost of clinical trials are projected to impede the growth of the market. However, the rise in demand for multimodal imaging systems and the growth potential offered by the emerging markets are projected to further boost the growth of the market during the forecast period.The global clinical trial imaging market is segmented into product, end-user, modality, and geography. In terms of product, the market is classified into software and services. The services segment is expected to have a significant share of the market owing to high costs associated with the imaging equipment. The biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have been forced to outsource imaging clinical trials to service providers owing to the high cost. In terms of modality, the market is divided into PET, MRI, ultrasound, CT, X-Ray, and ECHO. The CT segment is projected to dominate the market. Based on end-user, the market is segmented into biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations, medical device manufacturers, government research and academic institutes, skincare companies, and others. Pharmaceutical companies are projected to account for a prime share of the market.In terms of geography, the global clinical trial imaging market is distributed over North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to dominate the market in terms of size owing to presence of large number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, large R&D spending, and rise in number of contract research organizations (CROs). North America is followed by Europe. The market in Asia Pacific is expected to register a fast growth due to rapid advancements in the health care infrastructure and rise in prevalence of chronic diseases.The major prominent players operating in the clinical trial imaging market are Cardiovascular Imaging Technologies LLC, Intrinsic Imaging, LLC, PAREXEL International Corporation, BioClinica, Inc, ICON plc, Biomedical Systems, IXICO PLC, WorldCare Clinical, LLC, and VirtualScopics Inc.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:
Tissue Microarray Market - Key Futuristic Trends And Competitive Landscape 2024

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Tissue microarray is a high-throughput technology which accelerates and facilitates in situ analysis of tissue. The identification of disease causing gene is a major focus in the current advanced biomedical research. Array-based technology provides platform for molecular profiling of disease genes and tissue such as DNA array and tissue array. Thousands of genes are already identified using microarray technology that may be associated with disease initiation, development, and progression. The identification theses genes has enhanced the process of lead discovery. Clinical evaluation of such leads is a challenging task as it involves analysis of numerous well-characterized tissue specimens. Tissue microarray helps in the analysis of thousands of tissue samples simultaneously in using array format. The technique of tissue microarray helps to maintain the pace with lead discovery process.Read the Comprehensive Overview of Tissue Microarray Market:The tissue microarray technology involves core needle biopsies of numerous tissue constructed on the block. It is prepared from paraffin-embedded tissue, fresh tissue, or from archival formalin fixed tissue. Small size tissue cylinders of about 0.6 mm size are extracted from different primary tumor blocks (donor blocks) and are assembled in array format in single empty block (recipient blocks).Tissue microarray blocks are used simultaneously for in situ analysis of tissue samples. Tissue microarray can be manufactured manually or automatically.Tissue microarray has a number of advantages over standard conventional techniques. Tissue microarray enables high throughput data acquisition with simultaneous analysis of large number of specimens. This technology allows analysis of samples in one batch on one slide, thus maintaining the uniformity of variables such as temperature, incubation period, washing interval, and antigen retrieval. The technique uses small amount of reagent and has proven to be highly effective and extremely efficient with short duration process. The technique retains the original block for diagnosis and conserves the crucial tissue of donors. The technique is widely used in the diagnosis of tumor, especially breast cancer and lung cancer. In addition, tissue microarray is used for identification of novel molecular marker and clinical validation of new genes on histopathological platform for meaningful outcome. Tissue microarray is categorized into three types: multitumor array used for screening large group of tumor for presence and absence of marker; tumor progression array used for studying of molecular and morphological variation at different stage of tumor progression; prognostic array for studying the correlation of clinical follow up outcome with microarray data. Factors such as increase in number of cases of tumor patient along with technology advances and adoption of microarray technique in genomic and proteomic filed due its rapid assay, uniformity in result, fewer sample requirement are anticipated to augment the growth of the tissue microarray market. However, high cost of microarray techniques and preference of users for alternative techniques such as PCR are projected to restrain the market growth during the forecast period.The global market for tissue microarray has been segmented on the basis of product, application, end-user, and geography. On the basis of product, the market is segmented into cell line array, frozen tissue array, paraffin embedded tissue array, tissue array slides, and others. The paraffin embedded tissue array segment is estimated to dominate the market during the forecast period. On the basis of application, the market is classified into immunohistochemistry, FISH, mRNA, in situ hybridization, nucleic acid extraction, and others. The immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization segments are anticipated to capture significant market shares in the near future due to increase in adoption of protein expression methodology for diagnosis of disease.On the basis of end-user, the market is segmented into hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers, and others. The technique of tissue microarray is highly precise and requires skilled person to handle and analyze the output data. Thus the market for hospital is anticipated to witness high growth during the forecast period.Based on geography, the market has been distributed over North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America holds a significant market share and is projected to retain its dominance during the forecast period due to increase in health care expenditure, advance technology adoption, and rise in number of cases of cancer.Request for the Sample Report:The key players operating in the tissue microarray market are Abcam plc, Asterand Bioscience, Auria Biopankki, Externautics, Novus Biologicals, LLC, OriGene Technologies Inc., Protein Biotechnologies Inc, PREMIER Biosoft, Pantomics Inc., and US Biomax Inc.About TMRTransparency 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.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207
Global Isocyanate Market 2027 Major Manufacturer  Bayer Material Science, The Dow Chemical Company, Huntsman Corporation, Anderson Development Company

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Market Research Future adds new report of Global Isocyanate Market Research Report- Forecast to 2027 it contains Company information, geographical data and Table of ContentKey PlayersThe key players that are involved in the Global Isocyanate market are Yantai Sanjiang Chemical Industry Material Co. Ltd. BASF SE Bayer Material Science The Dow Chemical Company Huntsman Corporation Anderson Development CompanyKey Findings The Global Isocyanate Market is driven by the growth in automotive industry and construction industry. The European Isocyanate Market is heading towards maturity and the growth is mainly expected from the emerging countries of Asia-Pacific. By 2020, Asia-Pacific is expected to account of the Global Isocyanate Market.Request a Sample Report @Market Segments:The market for Global Isocyanate is segmented in mainly two parts i.e. by type, by application, and its various sub-segments; By Type; include methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), toluene diphenyl diisocyanate (TDI), and aliphatic isocyanates By Application; include rigid foams, flexible foams, paints and coatings, adhesives and sealants, elastomers and bindersMarket Highlight:The Isocyanate Market is driven by expanding request in car and development enterprises in the creating markets of Asia pacific. The noteworthy development in the development business, vehicle industry and electronic in creating markets has helped the interest for Isocyanate as of late. The market in Europe is developing relentlessly and it is required to witness noteworthy development over the coming years. Subsequently the market for Isocyanate is relied upon to develop at mind blowing CAGR of over the time of 2016-2027.Browse Report Details @Study Objectives of Isocyanate To give itemized examination of the market structure alongside gauge for the following 10 years of the different fragments and sub-sections of the worldwide Isocyanate showcase To give bits of knowledge about components influencing the market development To Analyze the Isocyanate showcase in light of different components value investigation, store network examination, watchmen five constrain investigation and so on. To give recorded and figure income of the market fragments and sub-sections as for four principle geologies and their nations North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW) To give nation level investigation of the market as for the present market size and future planned To give nation level investigation of the market for section by Type, Applications, and its sub-fragments.Request Table of Contents for this Report @Regional Analysis of IsocyanateAsia-Pacific commanded the Global Isocyanate showcase with the biggest piece of the pie, representing million and is required to become more than million by 2027. North America is evaluated to outperform in million 2015 to wind up noticeably the biggest market for Isocyanate and anticipated that would develop at Remarkable CAGR of from million of every 2016 to million by 2027. The European market for Isocyanate is relied upon to develop at Remarkable GAGR (2016-2027).About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Dairy Blends Market 2022 Top Vendors  Cargill Inc., Friesland Campina, Dohler Group, Galloway Company Inc., Kerry Group, Advanced Food Products LLC

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Market Research Future adds new report of Global Dairy Blends Market Research Report - Forecast to 2022 it contains Company information, geographical data and Table of ContentKey Players:The key players profiled in the Dairy Blends market are Cargill Inc. (U.S.) Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited (New Zealand) Dohler Group (Germany) FrieslandCampina (Netherlands) Kerry Group (Ireland) Galloway Company, Inc. (U.S.) Advanced Food Products LLC (U.S.)Intended Audience: Dairy blends manufacturers Frozen dessert Industry Food and beverages industry Infant formula Manufacturers Retailers and wholesalers Traders, importers and exportersRequest a Sample Report @Market Segments: Dairy Blends has been segmented on the basis of Form; which comprises powder, liquid Dairy Blends has been segmented on the basis of Type; which comprises milk protein concentrate, sweetener, thickener, nutritional enhancer Dairy Blends has been segmented on the basis of Packaging; which comprises bottles, bags, cans, boxes, sachets Dairy Blends has been segmented on the basis of Application; which comprises infant formula, ice-cream, yoghurt, bakery, confectionery, specialty flavorings, butter and cheese, beveragesMarket Highlight:Dairy Blends are drain concentrates with low-fat substance when contrasted with other dairy spreads. The high water content aides in utilizing the dairy mixes for fricasseeing and preparing reason. They are additionally devoured straightforwardly as spreads. They are utilized as a part of creation of newborn child equation in view of the supplement content. Dairy mixes constitutes of incompletely hydrogenated oil or fluid vegetable oils. Low fat dairy mixes are utilized as a substitution of higher fat containing cheddar and spread for breakfast. Purchasers are getting more slanted towards toward low-fat containing spreads in their dinners which help in powering up the request of dairy mixes.Browse Report Details @Key Findings: Powder form of dairy blends is growing at a higher rate due to its higher shelf life. Top five exporters of Dairy Blends are Belarus, France, Belgium, Ireland and GermanyStudy Objectives of Dairy Blends Market: Detail investigation of the market's fragments and sub-sections To gauge and conjecture showcase estimate by from, bundling, application and area To investigations key main impetuses which are impacting the market Region level market investigation and market estimation of North America, Europe, Asia, and rest of the world (ROW) and their nations Value chain examination and production network investigation of the Dairy Blends Competitive procedure investigation and mapping key partners in the market Analysis of authentic market patterns and advances alongside current government administrative prerequisitesRequest Table of Contents for this Report @Regional Analysis:The global Dairy Blends market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world (ROW). Among these Europe region has the major market share followed by North America. Increasing consumption of dairy spreads and blends is supporting the growth of dairy blends market in developed countries of Europe and North America region. U.K., Portugal, France, Korea and Germany are the major importers of dairy blends and its products.The Dairy Blends market is segmented under the following regions mentioned below:North America US Canada EuropeEurope Germany France Italy Spain UK Rest of EuropeAsia-Pacific China India Australia Singapore Rest of Asia PacificRest of the world Brazil Argentina Saudi Arabia South AfricaAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Asia Pacific Insomnia Market is expected to Post a Moderate Growth Rate of 5.1% post 2023

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Market Research Future adds new report of Insomnia Market Research Report- Asia Pacific Forecast to 2023 it contains Company information, geographical data and Table of ContentMarket Scenario:Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder. It involves disturbance in the sleep or trouble in falling asleep or waking up too early in the morning. The exact cause is still a mystery. Insomnia can be exist alone or conjugated with the other psychiatric problems. It is most common is women and mostly occur in young age. Conditions like pregnancy, postpartum and menopause can increase the severity of insomnia in the patients. Asia Pacific insomnia market is driven by increasing number of the number of patients suffering from sleep disorders due to adoption of alcohol, caffeine and tobacco by a huge number of populations. Many research has explain that psychological and behavioural factor are responsible for causing insomnia. Increasing workload and stressful modern life has increase the demand for the sleeping pills. Technological development and increasing healthcare expenditure has also contributed in the growth of the market. Increasing prevalence of diseases like Alzheimers and Parkinsons has also anticipated being factor for the growth of this market across Asia Pacific. On other hand, lack of education and lack of awareness may restrain the growth of the market.Asia Pacific insomnia market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% during forecasted period of 2017-2023.Request a Sample Report @Market Segmentation:Asia Pacific insomnia market has been segmented On the basis of Types of Therapy which comprises pharmacological therapy and non-pharmacological therapy. Pharmacological therapy is further segmented into benzodiazepines, non-benzodiazepines, melatonin receptor agonists and other. Non pharmacological treatment is further segmented into relaxation therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, sleep hygiene education, stimulus control, paradoxical intention and other. By drug formulation they are segmented as capsules, tablet On the basis of Type of disease they are poor quality of sleep, sleep maintenanceStudy Objectives Asia Pacific Insomnia Market Research Report To provide the detail overview of market. To provide In-depth market segmentation and sub segmentations. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide competitive landscape and key players in the market. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to main countries To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospectiveBrowse Report Details @Key Players for Asia Pacific Insomnia market Takeda Pharmaceutical Company (Japan) Pfizer, Inc. (US) Eisai, Co. (Japan) Merck & Co Inc. (US) Sanofi (France), GlaxoSmithKline Plc. (UK) Meda Consumer Healthcare Inc. (US) Care Fusion Corporation (US) Pernix Therapeutics (US) Purdue Pharma L.P. (US) Consumer Healthcare Inc. (Canada) Dainippon Sumitomo (Japan) ECR Pharmaceuticals (US) Johnson & Johnson (US) Astellas (UK) Biocodex S A (France) Neurim (Switzerland) Flynn Pharma (UK)Intended Audience Manufacturing and packaging industries. Insomnia devices and drug manufacturers Insomnia devices and drug suppliers Biotechnology Companies Bio-Pharmaceutical Companies Research and Development (R&D) Companies Government Research Laboratories Medical Research InstitutesRequest Table of Contents for this Report @Regional AnalysisOn regional basis, Japan accounts the largest share in the Asia Pacific insomnia market. 1 in every 5 people in japan is suffering from acute or chronic symptoms of insomnia. In Japan insomnia is the major problem than anxiety and depression. India and China are also contribute major share in the market. Approximately 5% of total Indias population is suffering from insomnia. This increasing number of people suffering from insomnia is the major driving factor for the market in Asia Pacific region.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Sebacic Acid Market 2027 Major Landscapes  Du Pont, BASF, Green International, Fulida Industry co Hebei, Hengshui Dongfeng Chemical Co

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Market Research Future adds new report of Global Sebacic Acid Market - Forecast to 2027 it contains Company information, geographical data and Table of ContentMarket Synopsis of Sebacic Acid MarketOver the past few years, there has been an increasing demand for Sebacic acid in applications such as textiles, cosmetics, households and others. Generally, Sebacic acid is produced from castor oil and it comes in powder form. Rising demand of textiles worldwide has escalated the growth of Sebacic acid. As per the report, China, is one of the top producers of Sebacic acid and exports around 100,000 metric tons. Owing to this, Asia-Pacific is estimated to be the largest market for Sebacic acid followed by Europe and North America.Market Segmentation:As per MRFR analysis, the global Sebacic Acid market is segmented into applications and production methods. On the basis of Applications, the global market is segmented into textiles, cosmetics, households On the basis of Production Methods, the global market is segmented into castor oil and adipic acidRequest a Sample Report @Study Objectives of Sebacic Acid Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Sebacic Acid Market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To Analyse the Global Sebacic Acid Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, Porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW) To provide country-level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country-level analysis of the market for segment by types and 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 Sebacic Acid MarketBrowse Report Details @Key PlayersThe leading market players in the global Sebacic Acid market mainly include Du Pont BASF Green International Fulida Industry co Hebei Hengshui Dongfeng Chemical Co Hengshui Jinghua Chemical Plant Mitsu Toatsu Chemical Persulphate Ltd Qingdao Great Chemical Unitchem Co LtdThe reports also covers brief analysis of Geographical Region includes:North America US Canada MexicoEurope Germany France Italy Spain U.K Rest of EuropeAsia  Pacific China India Japan Australia/New Zealand Rest of Asia-PacificLatin America BrazilRequest Table of Contents for this Report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Bank Kiosks Market Trends Global Industry Analysis, Top Manufacturers, Share, Growth, Statistics, Opportunities & Forecast up to 2022

Bank Kiosks Market

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The Bank Kiosks Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2022 is a valuable source of insightful data for business strategists. It provides the Bank Kiosks industry overview with growth analysis and historical & futuristic cost, revenue, demand and supply data (as applicable). The research analysts provide an elaborate description of the value chain and its distributor analysis.For this report, the Bank Kiosks market value is provided for 2016 in USD millions, an expected CAGR % as well as USD million worth of industry in 2022. Regionally, the globe is segmented into United States, China, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and India to study their market size and local analysis. End user applications of Bank Kiosks market covering Rural and Urban are studied in this research. Share of Bank Kiosks market is covered by applications as well supported with potential applications in the future.Buy the complete Bank Kiosks report with Comprehensive table of contents @The research methodology used to estimate and forecast the Bank Kiosks market involves a primary and a secondary research. A systematic procedure has been used to arrive at the global size of the Bank Kiosks market and present revenue of key players in the market. Accurate data has been collected by conducting extensive interviews with people holding key decision making positions in the industry such as CEOs, VPs, directors, and executives.Inquire for discount for this report @Industry chain analysis covering upstream raw materials and equipments of Bank Kiosks market, their suppliers' information as well as analysis of downstream major consumers for Bank Kiosks is provided to understand the complete industry chain structure. Overall market analyzed in this report is divided by regions, types and manufacturers/companies. The research estimates 2017-2022 Bank Kiosks market development trends covering capacity, production and revenue forecasts as well as regional supply consumption forecasts.Towards the end, this report includes a feasibility analysis of New Project Investment covering SWOT analysis of Bank Kiosks OR marketing strategy analysis and market effect factor analysis. Overall, the report provides factual insights collected and analyzed with detailed primary and secondary research on Bank Kiosks market.The research compiles profiles of small and big Bank Kiosks market companies covering their product details as well as important statistics on production, capacity, price and more. These active companies' numbers are supported with information on marketing traders and/or distributors of the Bank Kiosks industry along with their contact information. This data gives valuable industry insights and direction to individuals and/or companies that are new entrants, eyeing to enter or grow in the Bank Kiosks market. Some of the Key vendors profiled in this research include: NCR Corporation Diebold Cisco Systems Inspur Technologies Glory Limited Nautilus Hyosung GRG Banking Korala Associates Auriga SPA Hitachi-Omron Terminal Solutions OKI Electric Industry Shenzhen Yi of ComputerPartial list of Tables and Figures for this report include:Figure Global Bank Kiosks Capacity (K Units) of Key Manufacturers in 2016Figure Global Bank Kiosks Capacity (K Units) of Key Manufacturers in 2017Figure Global Bank Kiosks Major Players Product Production (K Units) (2012-2017)Table Global Bank Kiosks Production (K Units) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Bank Kiosks Production Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)Figure 2016 Bank Kiosks Production Share by ManufacturersFigure 2017 Bank Kiosks Production Share by ManufacturersFigure Global Bank Kiosks Major Players Product Revenue (Million USD) (2012-2017)Table Global Bank Kiosks Revenue (Million USD) by Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Bank Kiosks Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table 2016 Global Bank Kiosks Revenue Share by ManufacturersTable 2017 Global Bank Kiosks Revenue Share by ManufacturersAbout Us:eMarketOrg.com aims to provide businesses and organizations market intelligence products and services that help in making smart, instant and crucial decisions. Our database offers access to insights from industry leaders, experts and influencers on global and regional sectors, market trends, user behaviour, for companies as well as products. With data and information from reputable and trusted private and public sources, our clients are never short of statistics and analysis that are up to date.Contact Details:Ronald Aldensales@emarketorg.cominfo@emarketorg.comeMarketOrg.com aims to provide businesses and organizations market intelligence products and services that help in making smart, instant and crucial decisions. Our database offers access to insights from industry leaders, experts and influencers on global and regional sectors, market trends, user behaviour, for companies as well as products. With data and information from reputable and trusted private and public sources, our clients are never short of statistics and analysis that are up to date.Starting with market research reports, eMarketOrg.com plans to add conferences, knowledge products, which can be periodically subscribed to, and more to its range of business offerings. Spread across the globe, our network of partners, in collaboration with our service specialists, ensure that our clients receive the right product, service and/or solution that meet their requirements in convenient timelines and within comfortable budgets that neither go underutilized nor dig a big hole into their monthly, quarterly and/or yearly spends.Get in touch with us to experience a new one-stop market intelligence and business service.F/3, 4A Bharat Pushpa Apt.,Subhash Nagar, Shukrawar Peth,Pune  411002
Food Acidity Regulator Market Trends Global Industry Analysis, Top Manufacturers, Share, Growth, Statistics, Opportunities & Forecast up to 2022

Food Acidity Regulator Market

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The Food Acidity Regulator Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2022 is a valuable source of insightful data for business strategists. It provides the Food Acidity Regulator industry overview with growth analysis and historical & futuristic cost, revenue, demand and supply data (as applicable). The research analysts provide an elaborate description of the value chain and its distributor analysis.For this report, the Food Acidity Regulator market value is provided for 2016 in USD millions, an expected CAGR % as well as USD million worth of industry in 2022. Regionally, the globe is segmented into United States, China, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia and India to study their market size and local analysis. End user applications of Food Acidity Regulator market covering Beverages, Sauces, Condiments, and Dressings, Processed Food, Confectionery and Bakery are studied in this research. Share of Food Acidity Regulator market is covered by applications as well supported with potential applications in the future.Buy the complete Food Acidity Regulator report with Comprehensive table of contents @The research methodology used to estimate and forecast the Food Acidity Regulator market involves a primary and a secondary research. A systematic procedure has been used to arrive at the global size of the Food Acidity Regulator market and present revenue of key players in the market. Accurate data has been collected by conducting extensive interviews with people holding key decision making positions in the industry such as CEOs, VPs, directors, and executives.Inquire for discount for this report @Industry chain analysis covering upstream raw materials and equipments of Food Acidity Regulator market, their suppliers' information as well as analysis of downstream major consumers for Food Acidity Regulator is provided to understand the complete industry chain structure. Overall market analyzed in this report is divided by regions, types and manufacturers/companies. The research estimates 2017-2022 Food Acidity Regulator market development trends covering capacity, production and revenue forecasts as well as regional supply consumption forecasts.Towards the end, this report includes a feasibility analysis of New Project Investment covering SWOT analysis of Food Acidity Regulator OR marketing strategy analysis and market effect factor analysis. Overall, the report provides factual insights collected and analyzed with detailed primary and secondary research on Food Acidity Regulator market.The research compiles profiles of small and big Food Acidity Regulator market companies covering their product details as well as important statistics on production, capacity, price and more. These active companies' numbers are supported with information on marketing traders and/or distributors of the Food Acidity Regulator industry along with their contact information. This data gives valuable industry insights and direction to individuals and/or companies that are new entrants, eyeing to enter or grow in the Food Acidity Regulator market. Some of the Key vendors profiled in this research include: Cargill Incorporated Kerry Group Tate and Lyle plc Corbion N.V. Univar Brenntag A.G. Innophos Holding Inc Chr.Hansen Royal DSMPartial list of Tables and Figures for this report include:Figure India Food Acidity Regulator Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Food Acidity Regulator Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure Global Food Acidity Regulator Capacity, Production (K MT) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure Global Food Acidity Regulator Major Players Product Capacity (K MT) (2012-2017)Table Global Food Acidity Regulator Capacity (K MT) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Food Acidity Regulator Capacity Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Figure Global Food Acidity Regulator Capacity (K MT) of Key Manufacturers in 2016Figure Global Food Acidity Regulator Capacity (K MT) of Key Manufacturers in 2017Figure Global Food Acidity Regulator Major Players Product Production (K MT) (2012-2017)Table Global Food Acidity Regulator Production (K MT) of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)Table Global Food Acidity Regulator Production Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)About Us:eMarketOrg.com aims to provide businesses and organizations market intelligence products and services that help in making smart, instant and crucial decisions. Our database offers access to insights from industry leaders, experts and influencers on global and regional sectors, market trends, user behaviour, for companies as well as products. With data and information from reputable and trusted private and public sources, our clients are never short of statistics and analysis that are up to date.Contact Details:Ronald Aldensales@emarketorg.cominfo@emarketorg.comeMarketOrg.com aims to provide businesses and organizations market intelligence products and services that help in making smart, instant and crucial decisions. Our database offers access to insights from industry leaders, experts and influencers on global and regional sectors, market trends, user behaviour, for companies as well as products. With data and information from reputable and trusted private and public sources, our clients are never short of statistics and analysis that are up to date.Starting with market research reports, eMarketOrg.com plans to add conferences, knowledge products, which can be periodically subscribed to, and more to its range of business offerings. Spread across the globe, our network of partners, in collaboration with our service specialists, ensure that our clients receive the right product, service and/or solution that meet their requirements in convenient timelines and within comfortable budgets that neither go underutilized nor dig a big hole into their monthly, quarterly and/or yearly spends.Get in touch with us to experience a new one-stop market intelligence and business service.F/3, 4A Bharat Pushpa Apt.,Subhash Nagar, Shukrawar Peth,Pune  411002
Calcium Carbonate Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size | Research Report

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Global Calcium Carbonate Market: SnapshotThe global calcium carbonate market is prophesied to make progress with the rise of the paper industry and growing demand from the plastic sector. Calcium carbonate is also used in other industries such as rubber, architectural materials, paints and additives, coatings, and light chemicals. Besides this, the inorganic mineral and commercial and functional filler supports the light scattering and brightening qualities of paper. Since calcium carbonate is used as an extender in paints and coatings and a major raw material in cement, an elevating demand from the building and construction sector is also predicted to boost the global market.This 102 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Calcium Carbonate Market. Browse through to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market @According to the latest figures procured through extensive primary and secondary research by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the global calcium carbonate market is projected to reach 112.0 mn tons by 2019. A significant growth is expected to be witnessed by the global market, relying on the growing number of applications in end-use industries. In 2016, the market had attained a volume of 99.0 mn tons.Precipitated Calcium Carbonate More Promising than Ground Calcium CarbonateGround calcium carbonate (GCC) and precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) are the two principal product type segments, out of which GCC holds a significant share in the market. However, the GCC market is anticipated to lose its share while growing at a lower CAGR than that of PCC. With a wide array of applications in coated papers and improved physical properties, the PCC segment is envisaged to touch 23.8 mn tons in 2019 from 20.5 mn tons in 2016.Calcium carbonate finds applications in various end-use sectors such as paper, plastic, building and construction, pharmaceutical, and agriculture. The paper market held a gigantic share of 40.4 mn tons in 2016 and is expected to reach 45.9 mn tons by the end of the forecast period. High priority for education which is fueling the production of books and articles in Asia Pacific countries such as India has created large opportunities for paper manufacturers. The plastic market is envisioned to grow hand in hand with the paper market, increasing its share at a 0.5% rate by 2019.Asia Pacific Pushes Down Market Share of North America and EuropeBy geography, the global calcium carbonate market is foretold to be dominated by Asia Pacific throughout the forecast period. With a whopping percentage share of 50.8% in 2019, the Asia Pacific region will ride on easy availability of raw materials and low cost of production. Moreover, different industries such as education, packaging, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) demanding paper at a substantial rate are expected to drive the market in Asia Pacific.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Calcium Carbonate Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market @The Rest of the World market, including Latin America and the Middle East and Africa, is foreseen to exhibit a stallion growth while accounting for a promising 6.9% share by the end of the forecast period.Other segments such as North America and Europe are analyzed to decline their market share by 1.0% each in 2019. North America could suffer from the volatile economic conditions in the region and emergence of the rising markets in Asia Pacific countries. Europe is predicted to be on the back foot due to the closure of paper mills and effects of recession.Innovations in technology is one of the key factors for ensuring sustained growth amidst a highly competitive scenario. For instance, CalciTech Ltd. has developed and patented synthetic calcium carbonate (SCC), which finds usage in the manufacture of specific food and pharmaceutical products. Some of the prominent players operating in the global calcium carbonate market are Mississippi Lime Co., Imerys, Maruo Calcium Co. Ltd., and Schaefer Kalk GMBH & Co. KG.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.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
FGD Gypsum Market - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast | 2025

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FGD gypsum, also known as synthetic gypsum, is manufactured through the process of flue gas desulfurization. Flue gas desulfurization is a technology used to eliminate sulfur dioxide (SO2) from exhaust flue gases of fossil-fuel power plants. The process keeps the air clean and provides sustainable and ecologically sound source of pure gypsum. The product is created while carrying out various industrial processes. Industrial production of phosphoric acid, titanium, hydrofluoric acid, and citric acid helps produce phosphogypsum, titanogypsum, fluorogypsum, and citrogypsum, respectively, as their by-product.Browse Market Research Report @The product manufactured is an environmentally friendly, highly sustainable and of high quality. The usage of the synthetic gypsum form FGD is expected to increase as more coal fired power plants convert their desulphurization processes to produce commercial gypsum. Increase in construction of wallboard plants near these power plants is also anticipated to boost the usage of FGD gypsum.FGD gypsum is used in various industries such as agriculture and construction based upon its usage. In terms of application, the FGD gypsum market can be segmented into wallboard, cement, plaster of Paris, fertilizers, and others. FGD gypsum is primarily used in the form of wallboards and plasterboards in the construction industry. FGD gypsum is also added to cement as filler or retarder. Plaster of Paris is utilized to create decorative panels, structures, and sculptures for the building & construction industry. FGD gypsum is a versatile mineral and is employed as a fertilizer in agriculture. It is primarily added as sulfur or calcium fertilizer. Additionally, gypsum is utilized as soil conditioner; it helps retain water. FGD gypsum is also used in ornaments and other decorative items.Growth in the construction industry in Asia Pacific, North America, and Europe is anticipated to boost the global FGD gypsum market in the near future. Demand for gypsum is high in the construction industry due to wide applications in wallboard, cement, and plaster of Paris. FGD gypsum is recyclable; this makes it the first choice of material in the construction industry. The construction industry in Europe is significantly strong. It accounts for 10% share of the GDP of European Union. The construction industry in Europe is estimated to expand at a steady rate of 3% till 2020.The construction industry is significantly strong in Western Europe as compared to its counterpart in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the European Union is focusing on energy efficient and green buildings plans. The region has developed a strong regulatory framework to achieve sustainable construction. These initiatives are likely to fuel the demand for gypsum wallboards and plasterboards in the construction sector in Europe. FGD gypsum boards are more energy-efficient and provide greener solutions than cement and concrete structures. Increase in population along with improvement in the standard of living in Asia Pacific is boosting the market in the region. In developing nations such as China and India, the demand for FGD gypsum is higher due to the development of industries and growth in the construction industry.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the FGD Gypsum Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market @The FGD gypsum market is highly consolidated; seven to eight manufacturers account for more than 80% the share globally. However, the rest (20%) of the market is relatively fragmented. Key manufacturers operating in the gypsum market include EDF Energy, E.ON UK Plc, Scottish & Southern Energy Plc, Rugeley Power Ltd., Drax Power Ltd., Eggborough Power Ltd., ?EZ Energeticke produkty, s.r.o., STEAG Power Minerals GmbH, VGB PowerTech e.V., and BauMineral GmbH.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.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
DDoS Prevention Products & Services Market Value chain and stakeholder analysis By 2024

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Denial of service (DoS) attack is an intentional effort that affects the smooth functionality of web services. It is typically executed by inundating the intended network with excessive requests to overload the system and prevent authorized requests from accessing the network.Distributed DoS (DDoS) attack is a type of DoS attack in which the source of the attack is thousands of IP addresses. This is a malicious attempt to make a web application or a website unavailable to its intended users by overwhelming the application or the site with a huge amount of traffic, causing the application or the site to operate slowly or to crash.DDoS attacks are continuously evolving posing a challenge for users. The perpetrators of these attacks use huge armies of automated computers that are infected with malware and are remotely operated to create DDoS attacks on large scales.Obtain Report Details:It is challenging to stop the attacks by simply blocking a single IP address, considering the sea of incoming traffic from multiple sources targeting the websites. In such cases, it becomes very difficult to distinguish legitimate user traffic and the attackers. These attacks are often used as decoys to distract IT security teams from other similar attacks.DDoS attacks are launched by businesses, nation-states, and individuals each having their own motivation such as cyber vandalism, extortion, personal rivalry, business competition, and cyber warfare.In the current competitive scenario, availability of online services is of utmost importance. DDoS attacks have become more dynamic, innovative and consequential, thus affecting e-commerce activities. The growth of DDoS prevention products and services can be attributed to the increasing online businesses and e-commerce activities.Furthermore, increasing awareness about data security is another major factor to drive the DDoS prevention products and services. DDoS prevention products and services are witnessing high growth in the banking, retail, and manufacturing sectors. Mobile networks are easy to access and tamper, thus leading to increasing number of DDoS attacks.To counter these threats, enterprises are investing heavily in DDoS prevention solutions that is further fueling the growth of this market. The increasing number of application-layer attacks are also forcing companies to make new investments in DDoS prevention products and services.Large data centers and cloud services providers are highly visible targets owing to large amount of vital data hosted. The significant increase in the number of data centers across the world has further increased the need for advanced DDoS prevention solutions. However, the complex IT infrastructure and the high product costs of DDoS solutions are the major challenges hindering the growth of this market.The DDoS prevention products & services market can be categorized in terms of services, solutions, and geography. On the basis of services, the market can be divided into hybrid services and cloud based services.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the DDoS Prevention Products & Services Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Moreover, in terms of solutions, the market can be further segmented into on-premise and cloud solutions. Geographically, the market can be categorized into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East and Africa.The major players in the DDoS prevention products and solutions include Akamai Technologies, Inc., Arbor Networks, Inc., Verizon Communications, Inc., Corero Network Security, Inc., Fortinet, Inc., Neustar, Inc., Orange Business Services, RioRey, and Verisign, Inc.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.About TMRTransparency 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 TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Sodium Amide Market : Key Growth Factors and Industry Analysis 2024

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Sodium amide, often called sodamide, is a highly reactive crystalline inorganic base. It is used in synthesis of various organic compounds and dyes. Sodium amide reacts aggressively with water and forms explosive compounds when exposed to air. Therefore, sodium amide is stored in inert atmosphere of nitrogen or argon. Sodium amide is used as a catalyst in the production of hydrazine and sodium cyanide. It is also employed in the production of hydrogen gas by the reaction of ammonia, sodium metal, and sodium amide.Browse Market Research Report @The compound is used to manufacture dyes, specifically indigo dye. Along with an alkali, sodium amide is used to obtain indoxly from phenyl glycine. This indigo production method exploits the reactivity of sodium amide with water to substantially lower the overall temperature of the entire process of indigo dye production. Furthermore, sodium amide acts as a drying reagent for dehydrating ammonia gas and deprotonation of alkynes, weak acids, alcohols, etc.Demand for sodium amide is rising due to the high demand for indigo dye in the textile industry, especially in China and India. Need for sodium amide in the manufacture of indigo dye is expected to increase during forecast period owing to the rapid technological advancement in textile production. Sodium cyanide, which requires sodium amide for its synthesis, is one of the key reagents in the extraction of gold from its ore.The gold industry is expanding significantly; this is estimated to propel the demand for sodium cyanide, thereby boosting the demand for sodium amide. Sodium amide is also used for synthesis of hydrazine. Usage of hydrazine as a part of rocket fuel in space exploration; gun propellant; and precursor to production of pharmaceuticals and pesticides & insecticides is driving the market for sodium amide. However, high reactivity, difficulty in handling, and other environmental hazards are compelling industry participants to search for better, more stable, and safer alternatives of sodium amide. This is likely to moderately hamper the sodium amide in the near future.Based on functionality, the global sodium amide market can be classified into catalyst, deprotonation agent, and dehydrating agent. Sodium amide is largely used as a catalyst in the production of several industrial compounds such as hydrazine and sodium cyanide. Geographically, the sodium amide market has been divided into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. Asia Pacific (especially China and India) utilizes significant amount of sodium amide for the production of indigo dyes for textiles. Consumption of sodium amide is also high in North America and Europe for the production of jeans and denims; indigo dye is primarily used in coloring denims and jeans. Furthermore, the use of sodium amide as a catalytic agent for the production of hydrazine is also boosting the market in Asia Pacific as the region is a significant producer of hydrazine hydrate.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Sodium Amide Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market @The compound is commercially manufactured by reacting ammonia gas/liquid with sodium metal in the presence of ferric nitrate as a catalyst. The compound is also obtained as a by-product during the production process of hydrogen gas. Manufacturers of sodium amide include JinXiang Chemical Enterprise, Natrizen Chemicals Private Limited, Nasense Labs Private Limited, Hongze Xinxing Chem Co., Ltd., Solvay USA Inc., Alkali Metals Limited, Fox Chemicals GmbH, Hangzhou Meite Chemical Co., Ltd. (Meite Industry Co., Ltd.), and Align Chemicals.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.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Antifog Additives Market - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast | 2024

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Antifog Additives Market: OverviewFogging is the phenomenon of condensation of water vapor on the surface of the packaging material in the form of tiny discrete droplets. Antifog additives are useful for preventing the formation of fog in plastic films, which are mostly seen in agricultural and food packaging applications.Browse Market Research Report @In the case of food packaging, the formation of drops or fog on the surface of the packaging material may lead to a decrease in the quality of food material that is enclosed in the packet, leading to a decrease in its sale eventually. For food packaging, the additive used must be FDA approved. For agricultural purposes, antifog additives are used in green houses to avoid the formation of fog within the green houses. The formation of fog within the greenhouse can prove to be detrimental to the proper growth of the plants as it tends to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the plants. In extreme cases, it may even lead to the burning of the plants due to the optical activity of the water droplets.Antifog agents are mostly available in the form of creams, gels, and spray solutions and wet wipes; ideally coatings are applied during the time of the manufacturing processes itself. Anti-fog additives can be added to plastics from where they can move out from the inner side of the plastic.The substances which are commonly used as antifog additives are surfactants, hydrophilic coatings, and hydrophilic nanoparticles and coatings. Antifog additives are made up of a polar head group like hydroxyl and a nonpolar tail with a hydrocarbon chain in it.Antifog Additives Market: Market TrendsThe idea of using antifog additives has been well-accepted in the food preservation and agricultural sectors. At present, there is an increase in the amount of food material that is packed and sold, for which it is essential to maintain quality. Fogging is a common phenomenon seen in packaged food items; to avoid fogging, antifog additives are widely used.In case of greenhouses as well, it is important to ensure that the plants are growing in an ideal condition such that their growth is not hampered or affected by the formation of fog.These applications are anticipated to be the major drivers of the market for antifog additives in the coming days and in the present scenario as well.Antifog Additives Market: Region-wise OutlookThe packaging used in the food processing industry is highly susceptible to the formation of fog. Due to the increased demand for packaged food in countries like India and China, the use of antifog additives is expected to increase in Asia Pacific.North America is also expected to be a potential market in the future due to the increased knowledge regarding the use of antifog additives for the maintenance of the quality of processed food.The other regions are expected to show little development in the market for antifog additives.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Antifog Additives Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market @Antifog Additives Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players operating in the market of antifog additives are PolyOne Corporation, A. Schulman, Inc., Akzo Nobel N.V., Clariant AG, Evonik Industries, Ashland Inc., Corbion N.V., and Croda International Plc.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.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Battery Materials Market : Key Growth Factors and Industry Analysis 2024

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Global Battery Materials Market: Brief AccountThe global battery materials market is driven by the use of batteries in automotive industries, medical sector, defense and military, electronics industries, marine, and in power backup systems. Different battery materials are used as per their application requirements. The demand for battery materials is especially noteworthy from Asia n countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan. Players are making extensive research to develop batteries that have long life and high power density. Players are also striving to achieve low cost of production without compromising on the performance of the end product. Developing products that are eco-friendly is the new trend and is driving the global battery materials market to a new high. Batteries are essential in small household equipment as well as in large industries and thus, the demand for battery materials will always exist. Technological developments will ensure the development of many other equipment and gadgets that require batteries and this will create a huge demand for battery materials in the future.Browse Market Research Report @Global Battery Materials Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe rising demand for smartphones and laptops is expected to fuel the demand for Li-on battery materials. In fact, the flourishing electronics sector is the major driver for the battery materials market across the globe. Backup power systems have become absolutely necessary today for businesses and industries to function without causing tremendous losses. This is driving the demand for lead-acid battery materials. Moreover, electric plug-in vehicles make use of NiMH batteries. Thus the demand for these battery materials will also see a growth in the coming years as electric vehicles are expected to have huge scope of growth in the coming years. The demand for electric vehicles is projected to rise in an attempt to reduce carbon footprint. All these factors are boosting the demand for different battery materials all across the globe, especially in Asia Pacific. However, issues with safety could be a restraining factor for this market. Strict regulations could increase the cost of the production and this in turn will decrease the demand.Global Battery Materials Market: Geographical AnalysisThe global battery materials market is segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North Americam and the Rest of the World. Of these, Asia Pacific is a clear winner in terms of being the most lucrative regional segment in the world. The presence of a large number of manufacturing base is a key reason driving the demand for battery materials. The region is also house to many battery materials manufacturers, especially in China and Japan. Countries such as Germany and Europe are also host to many battery materials manufacturers. These and various other developed nations are poised to be lucrative markets for battery materials on account of technological advancements leading to the development of many advanced gadgets and equipment, which requires the use of batteries.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Battery Materials Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market @Global Battery Materials Market: Companies MentionedKey players operating in the global battery materials market include Jiangxi Zichen Technology Co. Ltd., Huzhou chuangya power battery materials Co. Ltd., Eveready Industries India Ltd., Shenzhen Sinuo Industrial Development Co. Ltd., Panasonic Corporation, ZETO, BTR New Energy Materials Co., Ltd., Hunan Shinzoom Technology Co. Ltd., Shaneshan Technology, Energizer Holdings, Inc., Duracell Inc., Uniross Batteries, Hitachi Maxell Ltd., Shantou Jinguang Hi-tech Co., Ltd., Capchem, GP Batteries, and Beijing Institute of Chemical Reagent. This market is fragmented and most players in the market are investing extensively in research and development to make batteries efficient and durable.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.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Food Grade Lubricants Market Size, Share | Industry Trends Analysis Report, 2024

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A new research report by Transparency Market Research offers a comprehensive evaluation of the global Food Grade Lubricants Market. The study, titled Food Grade Lubricants Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024, is available for sale on the firms website.Food grade lubricants must perform the same technical functions as conventional lubricants. Additionally, they should resist degradation of food products and exhibit neutral chemical behavior toward food processing equipment and food packaging materials while complying with food/health safety regulations. Food grade lubricants can be derived from petroleum or produced synthetically. Based on base oil, food grade lubricants can be classified into mineral oil based, synthetic oil based, and biobased. Food grade lubricants play an important role in the food industry due to the beneficial properties of aluminum complex thickened grease such as high temperature resistance, water resistance, and chemical inertness toward food processing equipment. Food grade lubricants primarily used in food & beverage, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries.Browse Market Research Report @The three primary types of food grade lubricants are H1 lubricants, H2 lubricants, and H3 soluble oils. H1 lubricants are approved for incidental contact with food in food processing environments. These lubricants are used as anticorrosion protective films for sealing tank closures and as lubricants for equipment parts in situations where the machine part is potentially exposed to food. H2 lubricants are employed in locations that do not carry the possibility of the lubricant or the lubricating part coming into contact with food. H3 soluble oils are applied on hooks, conveying belts, and similar equipment for prevention of corrosion. Special grades include HT1, which are lubricants that are used as heat transfer fluids in locations with food contact possibilities. Significant performance improvements have been carried out in the recently introduced food grade lubricants. These include superior wear protection, and increased thermal and oxidative stability. These food grade lubricants are also accredited with halal and kosher certifications.NSF International, a public health and safety company, is a global leader in the development of standards, certification of products, and assessment of risks of food grade lubricants. It offers services to manufacturers in more than 80 countries in developing national standards and providing third party conformity assessment. NSF registration is becoming an industrial standard for food grade lubricant manufacturers in many countries. Most countries are not obligated legally to adopt NSF standards; however, manufacturers conform to these to reduce the risk exposure. Global demand for food grade lubricants is rising primarily due to the growth in the global food processing industry and introduction of highly stringent food safety laws. The U.S. has a high number of regulations for food safety and also accounts for large share of the global food grade lubricants market. However, majority of food and beverage companies in the U.S. do not use H1 grade food lubricants or use along with H2 grades in their plants.Increase in awareness about H1 grades through programs conducted by NSF are reversing this trend. Europe is also set to witness growth in the use of food grade lubricants due to the recent enactment of governmental regulations. Economic growth in China and India coupled with lifestyle changes has boosted the demand for processed food products this countries. Awareness about food safety is increasing in China and India due to a series of food contamination scandals. Government regulations regarding food safety are expected to be introduced in these countries in the near future. Thus, China and India are likely to be rapidly growing markets for food grade lubricants over the next decade. Among the grade types, the H1 food grade is expected to acquire significant market share in the near future.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Food Grade Lubricants market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market@Key players operating in the food lubricants market are ExxonMobil Corp, Petro-Canada, MDS Europe Ltd, Elba Lubrication Inc, The Dow Chemical Company, The Lubrizol Corporation, Matrix Specialty Lubricants, Bel-Ray Company Llc, SKF Group, and BP p.l.c.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)About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.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 :
Electric Motors Market: Latest Trends, Development Insight, Manufacturers Challenge Competitors and Forecast Analysis up to 2019

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Electric motors are commonly used as a source of mechanical energy in a broad range of residential, industrial and commercial applications such as fans, pumps, compressors, elevators, refrigerators and several other systems. The global electric motors market is expected to see a steady growth through the estimated period 2013  2019. Stringent electricity consumption regulations, rising need to reduce green house gas effects and positive outlook of manufacturing industries are expected to propel the growth of global electric motors market.Electric motor is the most vital component used in the production of motor vehicles, heating ventilating and cooling (HVAC) equipment and in several home appliances. Rising income levels and improving standards of living are expected to spur the production of motor vehicles and electronic appliances globally. This is expected to be the primary factor to boost the demand for electric motors globally. In addition, use of energy efficient electric motors minimizes financial burden on consumers and governments by optimizing electricity consumption. Due to the aforementioned factors, electric motors are expected to see a huge demand in the replacement market particularly from industrial users.Obtain Report Details @Based on output power capacity electric motors are divided into two categories fractional horsepower (FHP) motors and integral horsepower (IHP) motors. Fractional horsepower are generally used in low power applications and accounted for the largest revenue share of the electric motors in 2012. IHP motors are expected to see the fastest growth through the estimated period. Stringent electricity consumptions and benefits of energy efficiency electric motors are motivating industrial users to retrofit their plants with energy efficient electric motors. This represents a positive outlook for IHP motor suppliers in the next six years.In 2012, motor vehicles accounted for the largest application segment for electric motors. Due to rising fuel prices and pollution, demand for electric vehicles is rising rapidly in developed and emerging countries such as the U.S., Japan, Germany, China, India and others. This segment is expected to maintain its dominating position in the electric motors market with increasing production of electric vehicles in the next six years. Significant demand for electric motors is also expected from HVAC industry, household appliances and industrial machinery segment.Make an Enquiry@Asia-Pacific was the largest as well as the fastest growing regional market in the global electric motors market. Growing industrialization and rising disposable income in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and several other countries in Asia-Pacific is likely to contribute to the growth of electric motors. North America and Europe is expected to grow blow global electric motors market CAGR through 2013  2019. Stringent electricity consumption regulations and government incentive programs for early replacement of low efficient electric motors are expected to drive this growth.Global electric motors industry looks highly fragmented with large number of international and domestic players. Rising standardization and less price and quality differentiation among competitors is intensifying competition. Some major players in the global electric motors industry include Regal Beloit, Asmo Co Ltd, AMTEK, Baldor Electric Company and Danaher.Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Graft Polyols Market 2015 Trends, Research, Analysis and Review Forecast 2023

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Global Graft Polyols Market: SnapshotSteady growth witnessed in the flexible polyurethane foams market has resulted in the high demand for graft polyols. Besides enhanced load-bearing capacities, graft polyols offer numerous functional properties such as improved resilience, mechanical strength, color retention, cell opening, and solid content, a rising awareness regarding which has helped the global graft polyols market gain pace in the last few years. With the demand for comfortable and luxurious searing systems scaling higher in automotive and furniture industries, the use of flexible polyurethane foams is expected to gain pace, which is in turn likely to boost the grafts polyols market further in the coming years.On the downside, fluctuating prices of raw materials could hinder the markets expansion to an extent. A majority of raw materials required to produce graft polyols are obtained as derivatives of crude oil. Therefore, fluctuations in crude oil prices are likely to render raw material prices unstable, consequently emerging as a key hindrance for the global graft polyols market. However, with the rising use of natural oils such as castor oil, more lucrative avenues are expected to open for the graft polyols market in the coming years. Also the use of natural oil-based alternatives is expected to increase in cushions and mattresses, which in turn will boost the global graft polyols market in the coming years.View Report @Asia Pacific Emerges as Dominant Regional Market for Graft PolyolsRegionally, Asia Pacific emerged as the leading market, accounting for a share of over 45% in 2014. The rising disposable income of consumers and economic development witnessed in nations such as Japan, Singapore, China, and Malaysia has played a key role in fuelling the demand for graft polyols in Asia Pacific. In the Asia Pacific market, the consumer preference is inclining toward luxurious furniture and vehicles equipped with comfortable seating. This has in turn created the demand for flexible polyurethane foams, thus creating lucrative growth opportunities for the graft polyols market in the region.Among the various countries exhibiting demand for graft polyols, China is at the fore in Asia Pacific. As per recent studies, growth witnessed by the graft polyols market in China is expected to be exponential as it will benefit from the nations tremendously expanding furniture and automotive sectors.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Graft Polyols Market Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Europe and North America to Continue Exhibiting Lucrative ProspectsIn North America and Europe as well, the demand for graft polyols is expected to rise at a significant pace. In terms of market-share Europe, is expected to follow Asia Pacific. The rising demand for graft polyols from Germany, is expected boost the Europe market between 2015 and 2023. Besides this, opportunities exhibited for the market in Italy and the U.K., are expected to remain lucrative through the aforementioned forecast period. The rising demand for high resilient foams in cushions, protective packaging, automotive seating, and carpets across developed nations will aid the graft polyols markets expansion in Europe.In the coming years, the demand for graft polyols is expected to rise at a high pace in the Middle East & Africa. Industrialization witnessed in the last few years will boost the regions graft polyols market. Meanwhile in Latin America, the demand witnessed in Brazil on account of the nations rapidly growing automotive sector will aid the growth of the graft polyols market.Some of the leading players operating in the global graft polyols market are China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec Limited), BASF SE, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Jilin Shenhua Group Co., Ltd., Oltchim S.A., and The Dow Chemical Company.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Teslin Market - Global Industry Volume and Region Analysis | 2024

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A new research report by Transparency Market Research offers a comprehensive evaluation of the global Teslin Market. The study, titled Teslin Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024, is available for sale on the firms website.Teslin is a high performance material which allows to bond with inks, adhesives, coatings and laminating films. Teslin is polyolefin based and is the leading synthetic paper available in the market. More than half of the volume of Teslin is aerated and makes the material to be microporous in nature. Teslin shows lower dielectric constant and emit less amount of particulates when flexed. Teslin is a good adsorbent and allows inks to set instantly. Teslin helps to create printed representation that is of superior quality and durability. They are available in few millimeter thickness and are extremely strong, reusable, secure and non-toxic. Teslin does not need any special treatment or processing for its disposal. Teslin is mainly used in the synthetic paper industry. Teslin materials are resistant to steam pressing and gamma irradiation. Teslin provides proper cushioning to protect embedded components in electronic labels. Teslin with wide range of thickness are available depending upon the technology by which it is produced.Browse Market Research Report @Teslin market can be segmented on the basis of the substrate which is used as Teslin SP substrate, Teslin TS substrate, Teslin SPID substrate, Teslin Digital substrate, Teslin IJWP substrate and Teslin HD substrate. Teslin products are also segmented on the basis of application as Teslin Security-Grade substrate, Teslin Food Grade Substrate, Teslin Blue substrate and LUMIT digital paper. The compatible print technologies for the standard Teslin products are segmented as offset technology, flexographic technology, gravure technology, thermal transfer technology and inkjet technology.The Teslin market is expected to witness a robust growth in the current year and is expected to follow the same trend in the forecast period (2016-2024). Synthetic paper industry is the major market driver for the Teslin material followed by tag and label industry. The declining market of ordinary paper has helped synthetic paper market to get boosted. In recent years. Consumer preference to paper alternative is expected to have a positive demand on the Teslin market. Banking sector is found to be a key market driver of Teslin .The products such as ID cards, brand protection labels, smart cards, RFID tags, baggage tags also drive the Teslin market. Companies have started to print on plastics to keep a competitive edge and this has triggered the use of Teslin material. Another growing field which use Teslin material is flexographic industry since it uses the property of Teslin to reproduce crisp and vibrant color. Digital photos and graphics are key market drivers of Teslin. Government regulations regarding food and beverage labeling have also influenced the Teslin market in a positive manner. The rising demand for emergency door hangers has helped the Teslin market to expand further.The global market for the Teslin material has been segmented into regions i.e., North America, Asia Pacific, Europe. Asia Pacific region is the key economy for Teslin with major consumption of Teslin materials from China, Japan and Taiwan followed by India. However the key players for Teslin manufacturers are based on US followed by European countries.Major players operating in the global Teslin market are PPG Industries, Inc, Ningbo Prime Import & Export Co., Ltd, Innox Higa Singapore Pte Ltd, Logo Tags, Xiamen Hunsen Industrial Co., Ltd, American Profol Inc.,Yupo Corporation, Tagleef industries,Nan Ya Plastics Corporations USA,Union Brothers , Shanghai Allecard Image Material Co.,Ltd, INLAYS INDIA PVT LTD, Knowell Corporation and R.Lamifilm Korea Pvt Ltd.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Teslin market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market@The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.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)About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.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 :
Melamine Market 2015 Share, Trend, Segmentation and Forecast to 2023

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Global Melamine Market: SnapshotThe global melamine market is driven mainly by the thriving construction and building industry. Another key factor propelling the growth of the melamine market across the globe is the increase in the demand for lightweight automotives so as to ensure low emissions, keeping environmental concerns in mind. Melamine formaldehyde (MF) resins are extensively used for the manufacturing of laminated wooden panels as these resins possess several beneficial characteristics such as resistance to heat, abrasion, stains, and chemical reaction. According to a report published by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the global melamine market is anticipated to be worth US$2.49 bn by 2023 and exhibit a modest growth during the forecast period.Growth in Building Industry Driving Global Melamine MarketMelamine is being used in textile resins, laminates, molding compounds, adhesives, surface coatings, flame retardants, and paper treatments, and thus the demand for melamine is expected to continue throughout the forecast period. The rising standard of living and rapid urbanization in many of the developing nations is propelling the construction and building industry, which in turn is boosting the demand for melamine. Melamine is water resistant and hard, which makes them useful in the construction industry.View Report @Melamine Foams to Create Growth Opportunities in FutureSome of the factors challenging the growth of this market include price fluctuation of the raw materials required for melamine and growing concerns regarding the emission of formaldehyde from the various melamine-based molding compounds. On a positive note however, melamine foams are projected to offer several growth opportunities for the melamine market. This is because melamine foams have the intrinsic property of flame retardancy. In addition to this, these foams have high capacity to absorb sound, which is also expected to drive their demand for use in suspended baffles, buildings, metal ceiling panels, and acoustics panels.Laminates Segment to Continue to Lead in Melamine MarketFrom among various applications of melamine such as adhesives and sealants, laminates, molding compounds, paints & coatings, and others such as flame retardants, concrete plasticizers, textile resins, and paper finish, laminates will contribute the highest towards the growth of the melamine market. The laminates segment was also leading in the past and shall continue to do so, at the fastest pace. Melamine-based adhesives are also likely to see a high demand in the coming years as they are being used extensively in panel laminations, hotline fixing of car seats, headlamps, and various other interior component assemblies in the automotive industry.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Melamine Market Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Asia Pacific to Emerge as Lucrative Market for Melamine between 2015 and 2023On the basis of geography, Asia Pacific accounted for 50% of the market in 2014, trailed by Europe. The thriving construction industry in the region on account of rapid industrialization, high population, and a rise in the disposable income are benefitting the melamine market in Asia Pacific. Some of the leading countries supporting the growth of the market in the region are India, China, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Indonesia.European melamine market is also expected to witness a growth on account of the shift of production of wood based panels and laminated from the western part to the eastern part of Europe. Countries contributing significantly to the growth of the melamine market in Europe include, Turkey, Poland, and Russia. It is expected that North America will witness a sluggish growth in the coming years, in contrast to Latin America, which is anticipated to witness a higher demand for melamine in paper finish applications and also for laminates.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:
Flooring Market Analysis And Forecast (2017-2025): Size, Shares And Strategies Of Key Players

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Global Flooring Market: SnapshotThe global flooring market is highly dynamic and versatile. Equipped with a wide-ranging portfolio of products, this market is among the most important building material markets. The substantial rise in the construction industry and the increasing trend of home improvement and renovation project activities is likely to boost this market substantially over the forthcoming years.Browse Market Research Report:The rising number of residential constructions in various emerging nations and the reconstruction activities in mature economies, especially those in North America and Europe, are also expected to accelerate the growth rate of this market in the near future. On the other hand, the market may face severe challenges from the surging concerns over the harmful effect of certain chemicals used in the manufacturing of flooring products in the years to come. In 2016, the market was valued at US$247.56 bn. Expanding at a CAGR of 6.40% between 2017 and 2025, the opportunity in this market is anticipated to rise to US$429.25 bn by the end of 2025.Asia Pacific to Report Continued DominanceAsia Pacific, North America, the Middle East and Africa, Europe, and Latin America have emerged as the main regional markets for flooring components across the world. Compared to other regional markets, Asia Pacific has been reporting a higher demand for these components and accounted for more than 42% of the overall market in 2016. With a significant expansion in the construction industry in various Asian nations, thanks to the high economic growth, the Asia Pacific flooring market is anticipated to continue on the top over the next few years.In Asia Pacific, China has surfaced as the key consumer of flooring products and is expected to remain so over the forthcoming years. Japan, South Korea, and Australia are other important consumers of flooring products in this region. India also demonstrates a significant potential for the growth in its flooring market as a considerable portion of flooring is currently constructed from non-standard materials here.Europe is another prominent regional market for flooring components. Although the flooring market in Europe is comparatively mature, innovation and new technological developments in flooring products, such as tiles, woods, and carpets and rugs, are expected to boost this market considerably in the years to come.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Flooring market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market @Demand for Tiles to Remain StrongCarpets and rugs, wood, resilient, tiles, laminate, and stone are the key products available in the global flooring market. Tiles, among these, have been witnessing a greater demand than other products. With the rise in building and construction activities and increasing interest of people in interior decoration, this trend is likely to remain so over the forthcoming years. Carpets and rugs are also expected to register a healthy rise in their demand in the near future due to their extensive usage in households.The demand for resilient flooring is likely to expand at a higher pace than other products, with luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and wood-polymer composites (WPC) exhibiting double digit growth rates. Stone flooring, such as marble and granite flooring, will witness a moderate demand due to their high costs and complex installation.Gerflor Group, Shaw Industries group Inc., Tarkett Group, Mannington Mills Inc., Mohawk Industries Inc., Avant Holding GmbH, Armstrong World Industries Inc., and Boral Ltd. are the key players operating in the global flooring market.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.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:
Marine Lubricants Market: In-depth Research Report segmented based on Type and End-User Industry 2024

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Global Marine Lubricants Market: SnapshotThe global market for marine lubricants is experiencing a significant rise in its size and valuation, thanks to the increasing need to improve the output efficiency of machine parts and their output efficiency. With the increasing demand for group II and group III base oil, manufacturers are prompted to produce more base oil, which is reflecting greatly on this market.Browse Market Research Report:On the other hand, the inadequate supply of bright stock material has propelled the discovery of alternatives, which are likely to hamper the growth of this market in the near future. The shortage of supply is also expected to limit this market over the next few years. In 2015, the global marine lubricants market was worth US$2.32 bn. Expanding at a CAGR of 4.17% from 2016 to 2024, the markets opportunity is projected to touch US$3.33 bn by the end of 2024.Asia Pacific to Retain Supremacy over Global Marine Lubricants MarketAmong the regional markets for marine lubricants, Asia Pacific emerged as the market leader in 2015, with a share of more than 51%. Thanks to the vast requirement for marine lubricants in this region, the trend is expected to remain so over the next few years. The presence of a large pool of ports in Asia Pacific, primarily in China and the ASEAN countries is another important factor behind the growth of the Asia Pacific market for marine lubricants. Several economies, such as China, Japan, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, and Australia, are anticipated to contribute to the rising demand for marine lubricants significantly in this region over the forthcoming years.Europe is another prominent regional market for marine lubricants. The U.K., Russia, and Germany are the key contributors to this market, among which, the U.K. has acquired the leading position. The number of ships using inland waterways is higher in Europe than in other regions due to the presence of extensive inland waterways in countries, such as France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, as well as in Russia. This, as a result, is projected to boost the Europe market for marine lubricants in the years to come.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Marine Lubricants market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market @Mineral Oil to Report High DemandBased on the type of product, the global market for marine lubricants is segmented into mineral oil, synthetic oil, and bio-based oil. The demand for mineral oil is much higher than the other two and the trend is anticipated to continue in the years to come. Synthetic oil is also gaining significant momentum across the world due to the cost benefits it offers and is expected to surface as the most attractive segment in the global market over the forthcoming years.In terms of the operation, the market is classified into inland and offshore. The offshore segment has been leading the overall market due to the widespread application of offshore waterways in transportation and ocean fish farming. The scenario is expected to remain so over the next few years, thanks to the increasing operations of naval fleets across the world.ExxonMobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Petroliam Nasional Berhad, BP Plc, Gulf Oil Marine Ltd., FUCHS, Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd., JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corp., QUEPET Lubricants, China Petrochemical Corp., Total Group, and LUKOIL Marine Lubricants DMCC are some of the prominent vendors of marine lubricants across the world.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:
Neuroendovascular Coil Market Size, Status and Forecast 2024

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Neuroendovascular coiling is performed to prevent the blood flow in an aneurysm. An aneurysm is the excessive enlargement of blood vessels lead to a weakness of the blood vessel wall. This helps by sealing the aneurysm, promoting blood clotting around the coils and reducing pressure on its outer wall. The endovascular coiling treatment is usually performed under general anesthesia by a neurosurgeon or an interventional neuroradiologist using fluoroscopic imaging guidance. The coil is left behind and placed permanently in the aneurysm. Coiling is performed for both the ruptured aneurysms and unruptured aneurysms.View Report @Neuroendovascular coils are used as an alternative effective treatment to surgical clipping in an aneurysm. This neuroendovascular coiling helps in the prevention of subarachnoid hemorrhage, which leads to stroke, severe complications and even death. A number of factors can contribute for developing an aneurysm and weakness in an artery wall such as old age, smoking, high blood pressure, drug abuse, head injuries, heavy alcohol consumption, certain blood infection, low estrogen level and many other factors. Diagnosis of the ruptured aneurysms can be done by the computed tomography (CT) scan after the signs of the subarachnoid hemorrhage. If computed tomography scan shows negative signs then a lumbar puncture can be performed to detect blood in the cerebrospinal fluid to confirm an aneurysm. The computed tomography angiography (CTA) is also widely performed to detect and analyzed the aneurysm.Global neuroendovascular coiling market has been segmented by product type, indication, end user, and geography. In term of product type, the market has been categorized into Guglielmi Detachable Coils (GDC) and Matrix coils. Guglielmi detachable coil is made of the platinum. Matrix coils are of two types biopolymer coated and hydrogel coated. Matrix coils are highly demanded and are more effective than guglielmi detachable coils. Based on the indication global neuroendovascular coil market is segmented in ruptured aneurysms and unruptured aneurysms. End user for the neuroendovascular coils includes hospitals, stroke center and ambulatory surgical centers. Hospitals are further sub- segmented into 500 plus beds hospitals, 250 to 499 beds hospitals and less than 250 beds hospitals.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Neuroendovascular Coil Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Geographically, the Neuroendovascular Coil market has been segmented into five regional markets, namely, North America (United States and Canada), Europe (Germany, France, United Kingdom, etc.), Asia-Pacific (Australia, China, Japan, India, etc.), Latin America (Mexico, Brazil etc.) and Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa etc.). North America was observed as the largest market, in terms of revenue for neuroendovascular coil. North America was followed by Europe and is expected to register higher growth. Emerging markets such as Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are expected to record robust growth during the forecast period 2016-2024 due to growing health care industry, and aging population which consequently would lead to increased patient population in these countries. India, China, and Brazil are expected to drive strong growth among the emerging countries, owing to increasing investments by government bodies in order to enhance healthcare facilities.In addition, there are number of factors that would affect the growth of the neuroendovascular coil market such as, high incidence of brain aneurysms, technological advancement, increase in the number of stroke patients and awareness about health in developing countries. The market is also experiencing certain restraints, such as, risk of complication in neurovascular procedures, stiff competition among existing neuroendovascular coil manufacturers, subsequent upswing in bulk purchasing through GPOs (Group Purchasing Organizations) and government regulations for reduction of overall healthcare cost.The major players operating in the neuroendovascular coil market include Medtronic, Stryker, Cardinal Health, Penumbra, Inc., Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Boston Scientific, Cook Medical Inc., and Terumo Corporation.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.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:
Assisted Reproduction Technology Devices Market:Global Industry Analysis,Trends and Forecast 2024

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Global Assisted Reproduction Technology Devices Market: SnapshotAssisted reproduction technology (ART) devices have been designed and developed to solve issues pertaining to fertility. Ever since the initial introduction of IVF (in-vitro fertilization) in 1978, technique to resolve pregnancy related issues have come a long way. The advent of assisted reproductive technology offer solutions such as in-vitro fertilization (IVF), gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT), intrauterine insemination (IUI), and surrogacy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that 208,604 ART cycles were conducted at 458 clinics in the U.S., of which 57,323 were live births and 70,354 were live born infants in 2014. Though the usage of ART is not significant, its demand has still soared in the recent past.View Report @The research report by Transparency Market Research provides a comprehensive outlook of the global assisted reproduction technology devices market. The publication is aimed at providing a detailed analysis of the segments in the market, the competitive landscape, financial outlook of the companies operating in the market, and the supply chain analysis.Global Assisted Reproduction Technology Devices Market: Drivers and TrendsThe global assisted reproduction technology devices market is expected to witness a significant boost in the coming years due to the growing support by governments for research and development. The rise in funding for developing efficient and safe assisted reproduction technology devices is expected to make a positive impact on the global market.The high prevalence of male and female infertility due to poor lifestyle choices, deferred pregnancies, and health conditions have collectively boosted the demand for assisted reproduction technology devices. Infertility in males is observed due to poor sperm count, blocked sperm ducts, and poor sperm movement. On the other hand, female infertility is usually a result of dysfunctional fallopian tubes along with issues related to cervix or uterus.The growth of medical tourism and the possibility of surrogacy in emerging economies has been crucial to the growth of this market in recent years. The high cost of using these technologies and devices in developed countries has dissuaded several patients and made them migrate to developing countries, where seeking medical treatment is relatively cheaper.Global Assisted Reproduction Technology Devices Market: Regional OutlookThe global assisted reproduction technology devices market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. Of these, North America is expected to lead the global market in the coming years. The high rate of awareness amongst people about assisted reproduction technology devices market is expected to drive the regional market. Furthermore, incredible governmental support to the overall market in North America for in-vitro fertilization and high infertility rates are projected to boost the markets growth.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Assisted Reproduction Technology Devices Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Europe also expected to steady growth in the overall assisted reproduction technology devices market in the coming years. The rising rate of medical tourism and acceptance of IVF are expected to propel the regional market in the coming years. Asia Pacific is also projected to emerge as a significant market for the assisted reproduction technology devices due to the emergence of medical tourism industry. The rising disposable incomes, late pregnancies, and rising women employment are expected to fuel the growth of this regional market in the near future.Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:Some of the key players operating in the global assisted reproduction technology devices market are Microm UK Limited, Irvine Scientific, Parallabs, Cryolab Ltd., European Sperm Bank Cosmos Biomedical Limited, and Origio.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:
Global Physical Security Market Grows To USD ~120 Billion By 2022 At ~ 10% of CAGR

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Global Physical Security Market, By Type (System, Service), By Industry (Education, Oil & Gas, Government, Retail, Hospitality, BFSI, Retail) - Forecast 2022Physical Security Global Market  OverviewAccording to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, The global market of Physical Security is projected to gain prominence over the forecast period due to the increasing terrorist activities threats Worldwide. The Market is forecasted to witness a phenomenal growth by 2022; with a striking CAGR during forecast period 2016-2022. The global Physical Security market is expected to grow at USD ~120 Billion by 2022, at ~10% of CAGR between 2016 and 2022.Technological advancement and increasing demand for effective and advance technology-based products is anticipated to boost the market size of Physical Security market.Get a sample report atThe study indicates that the physical security market is boosted by the increasing demand for security measures against terrorist attacks and for controlling the business assets. The study indicates that apart from these factors, increasing usage of IoT and development of smart transportation systems to track the location of automobiles is also driving the physical security market. The market for Physical Security grew with the IT revolutions. The technological advancements are contributing to development of cost effective security systems which boosts the physical security market. The study indicates that the combination of logical and physical components of security is a challenge faced by the physical security market.Physical Security describes the security measures that are designed to protect the property from any attacks and to cease unauthorized access. Physical security is a broad term which includes CCTV surveillance, security guards, protective barriers, locks, access control protocols, security scanning, metal detection and many other techniques.Physical Security Global Market  Competitive AnalysisCharacterized by the presence of several well-established and small players, the global Market of Physical Security appears to be highly fragmented and competitive. Well established players incorporate acquisition, collaboration, partnership, expansion, and technology launch in order to gain competitive advantage in this market and to maintain their market position. Strategic partnerships between Key players support the growth and expansion plans of the key players during the forecast period. The Key players operating in the market compete based on pricing, product launch, technology launch, reputation and services. On the product and sales side, companies are investing in innovation/R&D, brand building, and fostering strong relationships with customers to support their competitive position. These Manufactures strive to develop products with the adept technologies, unrivalled design and features. International players are entering in the emerging markets of developing economies such as India/China market to tap the growing opportunity.Browse complete report atKey Players: Cisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.) Anixter International Inc. (U.S.) Tyco International Plc (Ireland) Bosch Security Systems, Inc. (Germany) ADT Corporation (U.S.) Genetec Inc. (Canada) Honeywell International, Inc. (U.S.) Pelco (U.S.) Stanley Security (U.S.) Senstar Corporation (Canada)Physical Security Global Market  SegmentsThe Physical Security Market is segmented in to 3 key dynamics for the convenience of the report and enhanced understanding;Segmentation by Type : Comprises System, Service and other  Segment System is further segmented as Access Control protocols, Biometrics systems, Locks, Video Surveillance, Physical Security Information Management, Security Scanning, Metal Detection, Fire & Life Safety and Segment Service is segmented further in to Maintenance & Support, Designing & Consulting, System integration.Segmentation by Industry : Comprises Defence & Public Sector, Education, Oil & Gas Energy, Government, Retail, Hospitality, BFSI, Retail, Transportation & Logistics, and IT & Telecom.Segmentation by Regions : Comprises Geographical regions - North America, Europe, APAC and Rest of the World.Physical Security Global Market  SynopsisThe security industry will continue its trends of offering more specific solutions to particular situations. In the end, End Users arent looking to buy hardware/software  what they really want is to reduce trespassing, or make sure only certain people can access the sensitive areas in the office, or keep track of potential threats in an airport. The convergence of hardware into end-to-end solutions will be able to address specific security problems. They will consist of high-performance cameras, storage and access controls tightly integrated with video management and analytics tools. This approach will be easier for customers to purchase, install and implement, while offering a great return on their investment.While high quality video tape is a core feature of modern security cameras, ultimately that information needs to be assessed and analyzed before a decision can be made to respond to its content. The recent advances in camera technologies, such as thermal imaging and enhanced low-light capabilities have been significant steps forward. But in the end, they just generate more tape that needs to be watched/reviewed. The security industry has been working hard on video analytics software that can work in real time to help professionals make informed decisions. In 2017 new camera capabilities are combined with real-time analytics to address several security challenges, including facial recognition, forensic analysis and perimeter protection.Get a discount atRegional Analysis:The regional analysis of physical security market is being studied for region such as Asia Pacific, Americas, Europe and Rest of the World. Government initiatives against the terrorist attacks and illegal immigration has driven the market of physical security in North America. It has been observed that North America region is leading in physical security market. The study reveals that Asia-Pacific region is expected to show a positive growth in the physical security market during the forecast period. Asia-Pacific countries like China, Japan and South Korea have a fair share in the physical security market.Physical Security Global Market  Regional AnalysisThe regional analysis of physical security market is being studied for region such as Asia Pacific, Americas, Europe and Rest of the World. Government initiatives against the terrorist attacks and illegal immigration has driven the market of physical security in North America. It has been observed that North America region is leading in physical security market. The study reveals that Asia-Pacific region is expected to show a positive growth in the physical security market during the forecast period. Asia-Pacific countries like China, Japan and South Korea have a fair share in the physical security market.At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Akash AnandP: +1 646 845 9312W:
Acetaminophen (paracetamol) Industry: Global Survey, Trends, Outlook,Forecast by 2024

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Acetaminophen, commonly known as Paracetamol is the most widely used analgesic and antipyretic that relieves pain and reduce fever. Discovered in 1877, the drug is typically used for mild to moderate pain. It is prescribed either alone with or in a combination with cold medication. The name Paracetamol is approved by the International Nonproprietary, Australia and Britain, while Acetaminophen is the name that is approved and used in U.S and Japan.View Report @Acetaminophen market: UsageIts pain reliever content is derived from a coal tar and is safe at recommended doses. It also appears to be safe during pregnancy and when breastfeeding. The drug is classified as mild analgesic used for relieving headaches, arthritis and other minor pains. It is also recommended for cold and flu remedies. As acetaminophen is normally used to treat inflammatory pain, it is classified as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID).Acetaminophen is commercially available in the form of tablets, liquid suspensions, and capsules. The common adult dose is 500 to 1000 mg and the drug is safe for all age groups including children and infants. Acetaminophen is safe for use at recommended doses but overdose of drug leads to nausea, vomiting and sweating. Serious skin rashes may rarely occur, however high dose of the drug can result in liver failure.Acetaminophen is composed of active metabolite of phenacetin and acetanilide, but unlike phenacetin and acenilide, their combination acetaminophen is not carcinogenic at therapeutic doses. Its effects last between two-four hours.Acetaminophen market growthOwing to the increasing cases of chronic diseases and conditions that need pain management solutions on regular basis, the Paracetamol market is showing a growth. The market of Asia-Pacific leads in the market of Acetaminophen (Paracetamol) driven by the high growth markets of India and China. The high population and availability of cheap drugs has made Paracetamol highly popular in the market. Acetaminophen is also widely used and prescribed in North America and European markets. Although the drug has high growth market in India, in its recent guidelines on the Safety and efficacy of non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug, Indian Medical Association (IMA) asked people to desist from using Paracetamol, saying that it cause more harm than good if taken without medical supervision.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Acetaminophen (paracetamol) Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.The Paracetamol market is currently being driven particularly in countries such as South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina by spikes in healthcare costs and the easy availability of affordable Paracetamol drugs without the requirement of a prescription. The major companies which are involved in manufacturing Acetaminophen include Glaxo SmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Captab biotech, Arika healthcare, Aknil biotech, M.M. Pharma and Genesis Biotech.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About 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:
Acute Care Market: Latest Trends,Analysis & Insights 2024

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Acute care is a branch of secondary health care in which short term treatment is provided to patients for their various medical conditions such as severe injury and recovery from surgery. Acute care medical services are usually provided to patients by health care professionals including medical and surgical specialties. Acute care may necessitate stay of a patient in hospital emergency department and ambulatory surgery center. Hospital-based acute inpatient care typically has the goal of discharging patients as soon as they attain healthy and stable medical condition. Usually acute care settings include emergency department, coronary care, intensive care, neonatal intensive care and cardiology.View Report @Acute care market segmentationBased on the medical condition of the patients, acute care services can be segmented as emergency care, urgent care, short term stabilization, pre-hospital care, critical care, trauma care and acute care surgery. According to Heart Foundation projected that Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is the leading global cause of death, accounting for 17.03 million deaths per year. It projected that the number will grow to more than 23.06 million by 2030.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Acute Care Market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.The market for acute care is expected to show tremendous growth rate throughout the forecast period 2014 to 2020. The rising number of elderly people across the globe is one of the many reasons for acute care market growth as they usually suffer from various acute diseases such as viral infection and cardiovascular diseases. In addition, increasing number of hospital owing to rising healthcare expenditure would further drive the growth of acute care market. Large revenue contribution of the region is due to the presence of large number of patient population. In addition, presence of large number of hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers in the region further propels the growth of acute care market. Likewise, large number of emergency visits in hospitals across North America due to huge incidences of trauma injury has also contributed heavily in collecting largest share of the global acute care market. Europe accounted for the second largest share of global acute care market owing to presence of significant number of patient population.The acute sector is involved in two types of vanguards; sites that encourage the spread of excellence between hospitals covering over 15 million people, and sites that focus on integrated care between different services and local areas.Acute care market growthAccording to the World Health Organization, around 80 percent of the total CVD deaths occur in developing countries. These unmet medical needs of the population in emerging economies will support the growth acute care market. In addition, increase in healthcare infrastructure and medical expenditure by the governments in Asia-Pacific will also increase the number of medical institutions such as hospitals that would provide acute care services. Likewise, rise in healthcare expenditure will also widen the entry of acute care service provider in the market. For instance, it has been estimated that Chinas healthcare expenditure was USD 357 billion and is expected to reach USD 1,000 billion in 2020.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.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Acute Lymphocytic/Lymphoblastic Leukemia Therapeutics Market - Global Industry Volume and Region Analysis | 2024

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Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) also called as lympholastic leukemia is a cancer that starts from the early version of white blood cells called lympholastic in the bone marrow. Over production of cancerous lymphoblast is the main reason behind this type of cancer. ALL is characterized by the over production of cancerous lymphoblasts. When a person is suffering from ALL, lymphoblasts are generally overproduced in the bone marrow and constantly multiply, causing damage to the bone marrow by restraining the production of normal cells such as platelets and red blood cells (RBC).View Report @These lymphoblasts are also called as leukemia cells. As the number of lymphoblast increases in the bone marrow and blood, there is less room for healthy RBCs, white blood cells and platelets. This may cause anemia, infection and bleeding. The cancer can also spread to the brain and spinal cord.Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Therapeutics market: CategoriesAcute lymphocytic leukemia can be categorized into two types, childhood acute lymphocytic/lymphoblastic leukemia and adult acute lymphocytic/lymphoblastic leukemia. Some of the signs and symptoms associated with acute lymphocytic/lymphoblastic leukemia are weakness and fatigue, anemia, loss of appetite, fever, paleness, shortness of breath, bone and joint pain, bruising, petechiae, swollen glands in the groin, neck and under arms,enlarged lymph nodes, spleen and liver.Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Therapeutics market: Available treatmentsProper medications, including antifungals, antineoplastics, antimicrobials is necessary take as soon as the disease detects. Apart from this, radiation therapy, biological therapy and immunotherapy should be taken by patients of ALL.Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Therapeutics market: TrendsIn terms of geography, North America is the leading market for acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapeutics market owing to the large base of leukemia patients. The American Cancer Society, estimates that in 2016 in the U.S, about 6,590 new cases of acute lymphocytic/lymphoblastic leukemia would be diagnosed out of which 3590 would be males and 3000 would be females. The organization also estimated that during the same year, almost 1430 deaths would occur in the U.S. from acute lymphocytic/lymphoblastic leukemia. Such growing base of leukemia population would further contribute to the growth of the overall acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapeutics market. However, other market such as Asia-Pacific tends to witness high growth in this market owing to the increased incidence of cancer cases in the recent years.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Acute Lymphocytic/Lymphoblastic Leukemia Therapeutics Market . Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Currently, the global acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapeutics market is highly lucrative, and is primarily driven by the growing incidence and prevalence of leukemia. Moreover, other factors such as high demand for improved cancer therapies; along with focused towards addressing the unmet medical needs are also driving the growth of this market. Furthermore, increasing burden of cancer among geriatric population and increased focus on retaining superior quality of life are some of the factors contributing to the growth of this market. However, rise in overall healthcare expenditure and patent expiries of antineoplastic drugs are some of the major factors; that might hinder the growth of the acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapeutics market in future.The major companies involved with the acute lymphoblastic leukemia therapeutics market are Biogen Idec, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene Corporation, ERYTECH Pharma, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Genzyme Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Limited, Pfizer, Inc. and Spectrum Pharmaceuticals.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:
IoT Monetization Market Synopsis and Highlights, Key Findings, Major Companies Analysis and Forecast to 2022

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Market Research Future published a half-cooked research report on " IoT Monetization Market Research Report- Global Forecast to 2022" - Market Analysis, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2022Global IoT Monetization Market Information, by Deployment (On-Cloud, On-Premise), by End-User (Automotive, Healthcare, Agriculture, Retail, Consumer Electronics) - Forecast 2022Synopsis of the Form Fill Seal Machine MarketMarket Synopsis of IoT Monetization Market:Market Scenario:IoT monetization is the process of generating revenue for an organization with the help of IoT enabled devices such as smart home, smart appliances, smartphones, smart cameras and others. With new smaller, connected IoT sensors and wearable devices, businesses can cost-effectively monitor, analyze and manage their revenue generating operations. By implementing flexible business models, easy license management, reduced hardware manufacturing and storage cost, organization has been building successful IoT monetization systems.The major factor that drives the growth of IoT Monetization market is increasing smartphone users, growing advancement in cloud based technology, and growing emergence of smart appliances which is useful in building smart cities & offices among others. However, security concern among customers and lack of power-efficient devices are some of the major restraint of the IoT Monetization market growth.Segments for IoT Monetization Market:Global IoT Monetization Market can be segmented as follows: Segmentation by Deployment: On-Premise and On-Cloud Segmentation by End-Users: Healthcare, Automotive, Agriculture, Consumer Electronics and RetailRequest a Sample Report @Key Players for IoT Monetization Market:Some of the major players in Global IoT Monetization Market includes Google Inc. (U.S.) Amdocs, Inc. (U.S.) Cisco systems, Inc. (U.S.) Microsoft Corporation (U.S.) SAP SE (Germany) General Electric Corporation (U.S.) Intel Corporation (U.S.) Facebook Inc. (U.S.) Apple Inc. (U.S.) PTC, Inc. (U.S.)Browse Full Report Details @Regional Analysis of IoT Monetization Market:North America is dominating the global IoT monetization market with the largest market share due to presence of large number of IoT companies in the region and growing adoption of new technology by industrial sectors to perform their routine operations and therefore is expected to grow with highest revenue by 2022. Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region during the forecast period due to increasing adoption of IoT technology in automotive and industrial sectors in the region. Also, growing trend of digitalization in the developing countries such as India & China is fuelling the growth of IoT monetization market. North AmericaTarget Audience: IoT Device Manufacturers Network Providers IoT Associations and Organizations Research & Consultancy Government Technology InvestorsMake an enquiry for this Report @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.Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Global Snoring Control Device Market Expected Revenue, Industry Share, Development Stages, and Landscape- Forecast to 2022

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Market Research Future published a half-cooked research report on "Snoring Control Device Market Research Report- Global Forecast To 2022" - Market Analysis, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2022Snoring Control Device Market Information, by Type, by Treatment (Injection Snoreplasty, Laser-Assisted Uvulopalatoplasty, Radiofrequency Ablation, Injection Snoreplasty, Palatal Stiffening) - Forecast till 2022Market Synopsis of Snoring control device Market:Market Scenario:Snoring is frequently depicted in a comedic action when in reality the scenario is not the same especially when its regular, it gives poor rest to the snorer and to anyone who shares the bed, room, and in extraordinary case to people next door. Snoring is caused by unwinding of the snorer soft palate, throat and tongue. There are different anti-snoring devices are available in the market.Globally the market of snoring control device is expected to grow at the rate of about 9.7% till 2022, growth at this rate has started since 2016.Market Segments:Global snoring control device market has been segmented on the basis of types which comprises nasal devices, oral appliances, chin straps, position control devices, tongue-stabilizing devices, expiratory positive airway pressure therapy devices (EPAP) and others. On the basis of treatments the market is segmented into injection snoreplasty, laser-assisted uvulopalatoplasty,radiofrequency ablation, injection snoreplasty, palatal stiffening, CPAP, UPPP, laser turbinectomy, tonsillectomy, septoplasty and others.Request a Sample Report @Key Players for Snoring control device Market:Some of the key players in this market are: Sleeping Well LLC (U.S.) Apnea Sciences Corporation (U.S.) Tomed Dr. Toussaint GmbH (Germany) Sleep Well Enjoy Life Ltd. (U.K.) MEDiTAS Ltd. (U.K.) Glaxosmithkline Plc. SomnoMed Ltd Sleep Science Partners Inc.Browse Full Report Details @Regional Analysis of Snoring Control Device Market:North America holds the largest market share of the global snoring control device market and is expected to grow at a stable growth rate. Europe is the second largest market for snoring control device. Asia pacific region is expected to be fastest growing region of this market.Intended Audience Snoring control device manufacturers & suppliers Pharmaceutical companies Hospitals Clinics Academic research institutes Government institutesMake an enquiry for this Report @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.Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Tissue Sealants Market | Key Trends and Opportunity Analysis 2024

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Global Tissue Sealants Market: OverviewTissue sealants are surgical accessories used to prevent excessive loss of fluids from the site of surgery. The key property of tissue sealants is their adhesive and cohesive strength, which allows them to act as an effective protective barrier on a surgical site. The steady technological development in the medical sector has been the crucial factor affecting the movement of the global tissue sealants market, as it has spurred the demand for advancements in the efficacy of tissue sealants.The report provides a thorough overview of the global tissue sealants market by presenting data about its regional breakdown, its competitive dynamics, and major segments. The report uses industry-standard market evaluation tools to deliver reliable insight into the development of the global tissue sealants market in the coming years.The tissue sealants market is divided into two major product segments, namely natural and synthetic tissue sealants. Of these, the market for natural tissue sealants is dominated by fibrin-based tissue sealants, whereas synthetic peptides and polyethylene glycol are among the key synthetic tissue sealants. The historical growth trajectory of each of these segments is examined in the report, which provides a clear foundation for projections about their future performance.View Report Global Tissue Sealants Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe steady rise in the demand for surgical procedures of various kinds is the key driver for the global tissue sealants market. Due to the rising prevalence of accidental trauma and pathogenic injuries, surgical procedures are becoming increasingly necessary across the world. This has driven the demand for important surgical accessories such as tissue sealants and is likely to remain an important driver for the tissue sealants market in the coming years. The rising awareness about the utility of tissue sealants in surgical procedures has also been a key factor in the steady growth of the global tissue sealants market.The rising prevalence of cardiac conditions and the consequent increase in the number of cardiovascular surgeries is also an influential driver for the global tissue sealants market. Cardiac surgeries require sophisticated and reliable tissue sealants, as the area being operated upon is vital. The increasing investment in the field of cardiac surgery is thus likely to remain an important driver for the global tissue sealants market in the coming years.The increasing geriatric population, which has benefited from the rapid advances in healthcare in their lifetime, is likely to remain crucial for the global tissue sealants market in the coming years. This is mainly due to the increased need for surgery of geriatric individuals due to their advancing age.Global Tissue Sealants Market: Geographical and Competitive DynamicsNorth America is the key contributor to the global tissue sealants market and is likely to remain so in the coming years. The advanced healthcare scenario in countries such as the U.S. and Canada has been vital for the regions tissue sealants industry. The rising geriatric population and extensive investment in the healthcare sector in North America are also likely to drive the tissue sealants market. Apart from North America, Asia Pacific holds promising opportunities for local as well as multinational manufacturers of tissue sealants, as the healthcare sector in many Southeast Asian countries is on the rise and is likely to receive steady government support in the coming years.The report profiles the leading players operating in the global tissue sealants market in order to shed light on the markets competitive dynamics and hierarchy. Key industry participants examined in the report include Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., Hemacure, Baxter Healthcare, Integra LifeSciences Corporation, C.R. Bard Inc., Cohesion Technologies, Inc., and Genzyme Corporation.Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Tissue Sealants 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.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Healthcare Workforce Management Systems Market | Key Trends and Opportunity Analysis 2023

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Global Healthcare Workforce Management Systems Market: OverviewA wide range of healthcare organizations and institutions are adopting healthcare workforce management systems in order to overcome management issues. From retaining top talent to tracking patients recovery, these systems have fast becoming an integral part of the global market. The global healthcare workforce management systems market is also being driven due to benefits it offers such as reduction of labor costs and fair application of work rules. The global market is expected to witness a persistent surge in the coming years as it allowing effective streamlining of work.The research report thoroughly assesses the global healthcare workforce management systems market to provide its readers a fair picture. The publication studies the various strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities impacting the segments of the global market. Additionally, the research report also includes recommendations and comments by market experts to give the readers a valuable insight into the ever-changing market dynamics.Global Healthcare Workforce Management Systems Market: Key TrendsThe demand for management solutions in the healthcare industry have augmented the growth of the global healthcare workforce management systems market. The tremendous evolution and development of these solutions has also promoted several health providers to adopt these for ensuring smoother operations. The growing pool of geriatric population, increasing expenditure on healthcare services, and improvements in the healthcare payment and delivery models have also favored the global market in recent years.The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the geriatric population across the globe will reach 2 billion by the end of 2050 from 524 million in 2010. This rise would be predominantly seen in the developed countries of the U.K., the U.S., and Japan. This phenomenal growth is expected to be the primary growth driver for the flourishing demand of healthcare workforce management systems. The market is also likely to be favored by the growing number of regulatory reforms that are pressing organizations to adhere to utilization of workforce management systems. On the flip side, the global healthcare workforce management systems market is being restrained due to the concerns about data security, high cost of software and services.View Report Global Healthcare Workforce Management Systems Market: SegmentationThe global healthcare workforce management systems is segmented on the basis end user into nursing homes, assisted living, long-term care centers, hospitals, and other healthcare institutions. The mode of deliveries available in the global market are web-based, cloud-based, and on-premise. The global market also includes various software and services. The software available in the global market are for managing time and attendance, HR and payroll, talent management, scheduling, and analytics among others. On the other hand, the services available are support and maintenance, implementation services, optimization services, and training and education.Global Healthcare Workforce Management Systems Market: Regional OutlookFrom a geographic point of view, the global healthcare workforce management systems market is segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World. The research report states that North America holds a dominant position in the global market due to a growing awareness about effective management of workforce in the healthcare industry. The regional market is also expected to thrive due to the high adoption rate of technology. Europe is expected follow North Americas lead closely as the region has a growing pool of geriatrics that is expected to demand healthcare workforce management systems for delivering efficient healthcare solutions.The publication also states that the Rest of the World and Asia Pacific are likely to be emerging markets in the overall healthcare workforce management systems. The improving economic conditions in the developing countries of these regions, large number of unmet medical needs, and increasing demand for healthcare IT solutions are expected to bolster the growth of the healthcare management systems market in the aforementioned regions.Key Players Mentioned in the Report are:The leading players operating in the global healthcare workforce management systems market are Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Infor, Inc., Kronos, Inc., Mckesson Corporation, Workday, Inc. and Cornerstone Ondemand, Inc., among others.Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Healthcare Workforce Management Systems Market during 2015- 2023About 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:
U.S. Asset Management IT Solution Market is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 5.1% by 2024

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U.S. Asset Management IT Solution Market: SnapshotThe growing need for IT solutions for the management of assets such as equity, fixed income, real estate, commodities, and international investments is the key factor boosting the deployment and adoption of asset management IT solutions across the globe. Within the U.S., the need for asset management IT solutions is spurred by the increasing number and value of asset managers in the country. The U.S. Department of Commerce states that in 2015, U.S. asset managers held over US$51 trillion worth of long-term conventional assets under management, which amounted to slightly over 47.0% of the global funds that year.The growth in exchange traded funds has also created a need for the management of IT solutions in the U.S. The market for asset management IT solutions in the country is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 5.1% from 2016 to 2024, rising from a valuation of US$828.5 mn in 2015 to US$1,298.2 mn by 2024.Obtain Report Details @On-premise Solutions Gain Preference over Cloud-based Deployment ModelBy component, asset management IT services dominate the U.S. market. The service segment is expected to retain its lead throughout the forecast period as asset managers are looking to hire third-party service providers to automate their business processes. Within this segment, enterprise data management services hold the major share, followed by reporting solution and services. This sub-segment is also projected to register strong growth by 2024.Based on application, the asset management IT solution market area is expected to expand at a CAGR of 4.9% from 2016 to 2024 owing to the growing number of wealth managers in the U.S. Within this segment, portfolio management accounted for the leading market share in 2015, which can be primarily attributed to the expanding customer base of investment management firms in the country.The U.S. asset management IT solution market, by deployment model, is segmented into cloud-based, on-premise, and hybrid. On-premise software solutions account for the prominent share, followed by hybrid deployment. Owing to rising security concerns over cloud-based services and the need to prevent the leakage of clients critical information, on-premise deployment is expected to hold a significant share in the coming years.Make an Enquiry @Northeastern U.S. Records High Revenue GrowthThe northeastern region of the U.S. is expected to lead the asset management IT solutions market, accounting for a share of over 42.0% in 2016. Retaining its dominance throughout the forecast period, this region is fueled primarily due to the presence of a large number of asset managers.The asset management IT solutions market in the southern region of the country is expected to expand at a high CAGR of 6.1% during the forecast period. This growth can be attributed to the rise in number of investment management firms in order to meet the rising demand for asset management in the region. Furthermore, the adoption of Big Data in investment management supports the growth of the asset management IT solution market in the U.S.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Automotive Engine Pulley Market: New Tech Developments and advancements to watch out for 2025

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An engine pulley is a basically a wheel that is mounted to the engine of a vehicle, mostly automobile, that drives or guides a belt. It is also known as a serpentine belt. The belt is a part of a system which powers the peripheral devices within an engine compartment including the power steering, fan of the vehicle and air conditioner. An engine pulley is frequently used in combination with a timing belt  which helps in the opening as well as closing of the engine's valves.The engine pulley system in a vehicle usually features many pulleys that perform diverse functionalities. One pulley may be in control of powering the air conditioning unit, whereas another pulley or a set of pulleys may take care of the engine timing. Certain types of pulleys, known as idler pulleys, are responsible for keeping tension on the belt and aids in guiding the belt accurately through the system. Generally idler pulleys are not connected to the peripheral devices, and they are adjusted in a number of directions to regulate the tension on the belt. Adjusting the tension of the pulley need to be done very carefully in order to prevent breakage and avert dismounting of the belt.The global automotive engine pulley market is principally driven by the growth in vehicle production owing to growing disposable income and rapid urbanization, especially in the developing nations. Furthermore, increasing demand for lightweight and efficient pulley systems that reduce the vehicle weight and improve vehicle performance for meeting rigorous government regulations including the CAFE standards are likely to increase the global automotive engine pulley market growth during the forecast period.Obtain Report Details @The global automotive engine pulley market can be segmented by type, type of vehicle, and geography. Automotive engine pulleys can be of two types - drive belt, and timing belt. The drive belt segment held a significant market share in the global automotive engine pulley market in 2016. Drive belts reduce engine load along with increasing fuel efficiency and available power. Moreover, these belts are easy to maintain and replace. These factors are likely to boost the segments growth thereby augmenting the overall growth of the automotive engine pulley market. Based on vehicle type the market can be divided into passenger car, light commercial vehicle, and heavy commercial vehicle. By volume, the passenger car segment is expected to hold a substantial share of the market, owing to the rising demand for high-quality pulleys with advanced load-carrying capacity.By geography, the global automotive engine pulley market can be segmented broadly into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle east and Africa. Asia pacific held a significant market share in the global market in 2016 owing to the rising production of vehicles in Japan, and China. Asia Pacific is followed by North America and Europe, in terms of market share. The U.S. held the majority of the market for automotive engine pulleys in the North American region trailed by Mexico and Canada. The demand for automotive engine pulleys in European region is likely to be high owing to the growing demand for technologically advanced automobiles in this region.Fill the form to Gain Deeper Insights on this Market @The key players in the region are investing profoundly in research and development activities to introduce strong and durable automotive pulley systems that have reduced widths and a lengthier service life than the existing ones. For instance, some R&D activities are focusing on decreasing the breadth of the belt for incorporation of those in compact engines. The primary aim of this is to attain a reduction of width from 16 to 20 mmto 10 mm to 14 mm. Some of the major players in the global automotive engine pulley market include ContiTech, Phoenix Pulleys, Bearings & Belts, Clark Pulley Industries, Zhejiang Renchi Auto Parts Co.Ltd., Panjiva, Inc., KAVO B.V., and Kanemitsu Co. Ltd., among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Ancillary Hospital Location Diagnostic Testing Market | Analysis & Key Trends 2023

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Global Ancillary Hospital Location Diagnostic Testing Market: Brief AccountThe global ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market could witness a robust growth in developing economies such as India where continuous efforts are taken to bridge the gap between specialty doctors and patients requiring special healthcare at unexpected times. The government of Hyderabad has planned to install 20 ICUs in district and suburb hospitals where the infrastructure could cost around INR 32.0 lakhs and another INR 1.0 crore for procuring medical equipment. The government has also decided to pay its doctors at par with the remuneration of private doctors. Annually, the government would incur approximately INR 7.0 crore from the expenditure of healthcare staff salaries.Diagnostic testing is one of the main segmentations of the global ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market. Coming in line with the standing of each segment in the market is crucial to make a lasting progress in the industry.The authors of the global ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market report have taken into account all the deciding factors for analysis, such as growth trends, restraints, opportunities, and value chain evaluation. This report is a complete study of the market which gives confidence to participants for counting their growth development on.Global Ancillary Hospital Location Diagnostic Testing Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe demand in the world ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market could be primarily driven by the need to assess the medical condition of patients and confirm their recovery status. The results achieved are critically employed by physicians and doctors to approve or disapprove the discharge of patients from ICU or any other emergency care units. Ancillary hospital locations are considered to be very critical and sensitive where diagnostic testing needs to be dead accurate and performed on an immediate basis so as to provide the right and early treatments for patients.Patients suffering from infectious diseases generally need to stay longer in ICUs. Moreover, there is a strong prevalence of infectious diseases in the major regions of the global ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market. Thus, the infectious disease testing segment by diagnostic testing type is prophesied to win a lions share in the market. Nonetheless, radiology testing is expected to pick up a staggering pace in terms of growth to emerge as a faster growing market. This could be due to the extensive application of radiology for diagnosing a range of health conditions, including nervous system, neural, and cardiovascular disorders.View Report Global Ancillary Hospital Location Diagnostic Testing Market: Geographical AnalysisMedical tourism in emerging nations such as India due to the lower cost of indispensable and extortionate treatments is prognosticated to offer bankable opportunities for players operating in the international ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market. There has been an increased level of patient shifting from Europe and North America to the Middle East and Asia Pacific countries to incur lesser medical costs. Heart bypass surgery, for instance, costs only close to US$5,200 in India, whereas the cost could spike up to US$144,000 when performed in the U.S.The number of healthcare facilities, availability of treatment and diagnostic methods, healthy lifestyle requirement, and rising awareness about diseases are some of the positive factors supporting the growth of the global ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market in less developed countries.Global Ancillary Hospital Location Diagnostic Testing Market: Companies MentionedWith a view to cement their status in the worldwide ancillary hospital location diagnostic testing market, industry players could consider new product development and collaborations as principal strategies. Top-tier companies such as Thermo Fisher Scientific Corporation, EKF Diagnostics, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Agilent Technologies, and Abbott Laboratories are predicted to lead the way in the market.Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Ancillary Hospital Location Diagnostic Testing Market during 2015- 2023About 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:
NEW YORK  Can a company that started as a tofu maker for the counterculture ease the sales struggles of soup giant Campbell?

Oregon-based broth and soup maker Pacific Foods is being bought by Campbell Soup Co. for $700 million, the latest example of a big packaged food maker acquiring a smaller maker of products that are seen as fresher or more wholesome. Though Campbell introduced some organic soups under its own name in 2015, it says Pacific Foods is more of a leader in that area.

Whether Pacific  which also sells drinks made out of almonds, hemp, rice and soy  can rejuvenate Campbell remains to be seen. Despite other recent acquisitions, the company has recorded two straight years of declining sales, underscoring how difficult it can be for a food giant to keep up with changing trends.

The acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, will allow Pacific Foods to stay in Tualatin, where it employs more than 500 at its manufacturing plant and corporate offices.

Pacific Foods co-founder Chuck Eggert is not expected to stay on with Campbell, but says his farms will continue to be a supplier for the company. He spoke with The Associated Press after the deal was announced. His comments have been lightly edited and trimmed for clarity.

Q: What was Pacific Foods like when you first started?

A: That was 30 years ago. We started out as a tofu company. It was meant to be an ingredient for things like mayonnaise.

The natural foods market then was people with allergies, a lot of kids from the '70s that were counterculture and had gone to India, a lot of vegetarians. So we've seen an incredible amount of change, and it's been accelerating in the last six years.

Q: Are you a vegan or vegetarian?

A: No. I tried that. Over the years, I've tried most everything, but I decided it was way too much work.

Q: What was your background before starting Pacific Foods?

A: I was the chief financial officer at (frozen potato company) Lamb Weston. I had a food science background and had worked at Lamb Weston for about 12 years.

Q: How much of Pacific Foods' sales come from broths and soups, versus plant-based drinks?

A: Soups and broth are bigger.

Q: What's changing at Pacific Foods?

A: We're going through a process of increasing the nutritional value of our products. We just came out with a 10-gram protein tomato soup. (Campbell says the product will be launched in the fall).

Q: The dairy industry says terms like "soy milk" are misleading because those drinks don't have milk. What is your position?

A: A number of years ago we changed to refer to our products as non-dairy beverages. We did that very intentionally. We call things what they are. We try to take a position with all of our labeling that we don't try to put flowery language or marketing stuff on it.

Q: Who are Pacific Foods' customers?

A: Our customers are people who are very concerned about what they eat. We sell to the customer that reads the ingredient statement.

-- The Associated Press
Michael Russell | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Hokusei sushi chef returns with Nimblefish

Cody Augur, the former chef at Southeast Belmont Street's Hokusei, which closed at the end of 2015, and Fukami, the pop-up that replaced it, plans to open a new sushi counter, Nimblefish, in the former Boxer Sushi space, 1524 S.E 20th Ave., according to Davenport GM Kurt Heilemann, a partner in the new project. Look for reasonably priced nigiri and sushi handrolls from Augur and Dwight Rosendahl (Masu) plus a nice selection of white Burgundy, Sancerre, Champagne and sake from Heilemann. Fukami's omakase dinners will continue to pop up at Davenport until the fall, then on off days once Nimblefish opens.

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David Greenwald | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Modest Mouse frontman to open bar

Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock plans to open a "mid-concept" bar in the former Red Flag space catty corner from Stammtisch at 344 N.E. 28th Ave., Willamette Week reports. The bar, which Brock is opening with Bunk Bar co-owner Matt Brown's budding restaurant and bar company, Title Bout, won't be a dive, but won't be too fancy, either. They're still looking for a name, though given Portland's last decade of growth, "Convenient Parking" probably isn't in the running.

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Roseline to open first cafe

Roseline, the fine coffee roaster found inside Southeast Portland's Yale Union building, plan to open their first cafe along the Goat Blocks development's Yamhill Alley on Southeast 11th Avenue, across from Kachka's new location, according to founder Marty Lopes. Roseline provides coffee to top restaurants including St. Jack and Luce, cafes including Never and Prince (pictured), but this will be their first retail location.

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New Peruvian restaurant debuts on Hawthorne

A new Peruvian-style rotisserie chicken spot from longtime Navarre chef Adam Warren and wife Angeline Perla has taken over the former Sandoval spot at 1864 S.E Hawthorne Blvd. According to Eater PDX, those birds come from Scratch Farms and will be cooked in a monster of a rotisserie oven, with a menu filled out with lomo saltado, ceviche and pisco sours.

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H Mart leases former Zupan's

The former Zupan's space at 3301 S.E. Belmont St. has finally found a new tenant: H Mart, the mostly Korean superstore with metro area locations in Tigard and Beaverton. The new location appears to be part of a move from the suburbs to the urbs for the grocer, including the just-opened location in Seattle's U-District.

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Portland's best new food carts announced

As we have every year since 2011, The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com spent a chunk of spring scouting out Portland's best new food carts. Our 2017 list is a worthy entry, with great cart-made pasta, Haitian food, Korean fried chicken and much, much more.

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Atlas Pizza opens in N.E. Portland

Southeast Division Street's Atlas Pizza has opened a second location at 710 N. Killingsworth St., near Jefferson High School and Portland Community College's Cascade campus. Like the original, the new pizzeria features pinball machines, retro arcade games and New York-style slices and pies.

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New Italian restaurant replaces Daily Grill

According to Eater PDX, the newly created Microwave bar management company plans to open a 100-seat bar, Opal, and 65-seat restaurant, Omerta, in the Westin Hotel's former Daily Grill space. Details about the project, at 614 S.W. Park Ave., remain scarce.

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Michael Russell | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Boxer Ramen to open fourth location

Boxer Ramen, the ramen chain from Little Big Burger founder Micah Camden, is set to open a new outpost in the former Americano at 2605 E. Burnside St., Portland Monthly reports. It will be the ramen chains fourth location, and its largest.

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Big's Chicken returns

Big's Chicken, the Portland smoked chicken shack heavily damaged in a fire last week, plans to serve its smoked-and-grilled chicken sandwiches from the parking lot of Laurelhurst Market, 3155 E. Burnside St., throughout the summer, chef Ben Bettinger told The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com.

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You don't have to imagine that you're stepping back in time when you enter Brightview, a Salem mansion built in 1859.

Everything you imagine affluent life was like during Oregon's settlement era is right before your eyes. Look up at ornate crown molding. Look over at marble fireplaces. Look down at tongue-and-groove floors.

Although the mansion, first owned by an aspiring railroad tycoon, has been updated over the decades, the original Rural Gothic-style Victorian features are front and center. Maybe that's because generations of families have lived here and the current family made it their mission to carefully restore one of the oldest homes in the state's capital.

And now it could be yours. The 1.13-acre estate, perched on Gaiety Hill at 606 High St SE, has been listed at $1.1 million.

Included with the sale is the history of this fabled house, which was owned by some of the state's most influential people. For decades, law, politics, government, education, religion and social life were not only discussed in the parlor, but the ideas were acted upon.

Fourth owner Lafayette Grover, who was governor of Oregon from 1870-1877, used it as his Governor's mansion.

Historians know Brightview as the Smith-Fry House. Joseph Showalter Smith, a lawyer, retail and railroad businessman, and president of the Willamette Woolen Mill, lived here from 1860-1868.

Later, the house was owned by three generations of the Fry family. Daniel Fry was secretary of the State Board of Control during the Depression and early WWII years. His wife, Rita Fry, named the property Brightview around the turn of the last century.

The estate is recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Restore Oregon for its architectural, social and civic significance. The property is also a contributor to the historic Gaiety Hill neighborhood, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Current owners Amy Cheifetz Billings and Kenneth Billings were married here. Her parents, Joan and Howard Cheifetz, bought the neglected property in 1992, and restored it to its current glory.

A lot of their work was reversing an unfortunate remodel in the 1940s. The original light fixtures had been sold off and the woodwork had been painted blue. The settlement-era hardwood floors had been torn out and replaced with wall-to-wall carpeting.

Howard Cheifetz, a food chemist and part-time contractor, pulled out the carpet and installed Douglas fir flooring from the 1860s that had been salvaged from another building. He laid, sanded, refinished and stained the floors throughout the 4,381-square-foot house.

Joan, who had a Ph.D in children's literature, came up with the design aesthetic based on her knowledge of real estate and interior design.

"Restoring and decorating the house was their labor of love in their retirement," says daughter Amy Cheifetz Billings.

Joan loved wallpaper.

During the renovation, multiple layers of flocked wallpaper with 60 years of dust were stripped away. Walls and ceilings were repaired, then Howard Cheifetz installed wallpaper with vintage-looking floral patterns. A professional wallpaperer completed the stairwells and other tricky surfaces.

The results are striking throughout the two-story house. Wallpaper climbs up walls. Continues over ceilings and covers underneath the stairs.

The family, who opened their home each Christmas to the public, believes owning a historic property is "a privilege and a civic responsibility," according to notes written by Joan.

The Cheifetzs enjoyed entertaining, inside and out. Upgrades to the interior included opening up the kitchen to make the space more efficient, and installing two stoves and two refrigerators.

They also added a conservatory sitting area off the 1,000-square-foot stone terrace, three fountains and vintage-styled iron fencing around the property.

Amy and Kenneth installed a water feature in 2013 to memorialize their wedding day.

Amy says she and her husband are saddened to leave their long-time home but hope to find a buyer who appreciates its historic and livable qualities.

"The neighborhood is close-knit," says Amy. "If you live here, you are automatically invited to be a part of the neighborhood's Friday night wine and cheese gatherings known as 'Bacchus' that has been a tradition for over 40 years."

-- Janet Eastman



jeastman@oregonian.com

503-799-8739

@janeteastman




Folk singing and dance performances by multi-ethnic groups from West China have given Scotland a rare chance to explore the colorful cultural landscape of the region.

The weekend event at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre featured Cucurbit flute, peacock dancing and fashion shows of ethnic costumes in Yunnan province and Tibet autonomous region.

An exhibition, featuring 100 photographs and 18 cultural artifacts, themed Color of West China, was also displayed as part of the Cultural Exploration of West China tour, which kicked off in London and will visit Manchester, in north west England, and Dublin, in Ireland.

"The performances were stunning," said Liz Cameron, head of the Scottish Chamber of Commerce. "They portray a beautiful culture and the amazing dancing and singing projected China in a wonderful light."

Lu Guangjin, director-general of the State Council Information Office of China who co-organized the tour with the Chinese embassy in UK, said the events "showcase both the culture heritage that has been sustained by the ethnic groups in West China to this day and the latest changes and development in this region".

The program is part of the Experience China series, which has already toured Germany, Italy, the US and many other countries.

Pan Xinchun, the Chinese consul general in Edinburgh, said West China is an important cradle of Chinese civilization and is making a significant contribution in developing the Belt and Road Initiative. He said the events "will display the colorful culture of China and help develop the friendly relationship between China and Scotland".

Claire Tynte-Irvine, head of the International Division of the Scottish government, said: "We are lucky that the Chinese presence in Scotland is so strong and people-to-people exchanges are important part of this."

She said an increasing number of Scottish children are learning about China's language and culture through the Confucius Classroom hubs. Eighteen out of 19 Scottish higher education institutes have built academic and research links with Chinese institutions.

Scotland's flagship education award, the Saltire Scholarships, have been presented to more than 200 Chinese students since 2011. The country welcomes an increasing number of Chinese students and tourists and will host more Chinese performers at the world-famous Edinburgh festival in August.

"Chinese initiatives, such as the monumental Belt and Road (Initiative) offer new chances to build links with China's west regions," Tynte-Irvine said.
Oregon refuge occupier Jason Blomgren's penchant for everything bagels appears to be coming to an end.

Federal supervision officers have cited concerns that Blomgren has been using opiates, which would be a violation of his release conditions, based on a positive result for morphine on a May urinalysis test.

But Blomgren's defense lawyer and investigator argued, based on an outside expert's opinion and review of the test results, that poppy seeds could not be eliminated as the source of the morphine, according to court papers.

Jason Blomgren

"Therefore, it is our position that the positive urine sample test was caused by the bagel he ate for breakfast and not an illegal controlled substance,'' Blomgren's lawyer Robert W. Rainwater said in court documents.

Rainwater asked his investigator Nena Baker to accompany him to court Monday, ready to testify that she spoke with Blomgren and "learned he eats an 'everything' bagel with poppy seeds for breakfast every morning. He ate one the day of the screening,'' according to court papers.

Blomgren, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to impede federal employees from carrying out their work at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge through intimidation, threat or force, has been out of custody for more than a year. He had been subpoenaed by the government to testify in a trial against Ammon Bundy and other leaders of the refuge occupation, but he ended up not being called as a witness.

Under a negotiated plea agreement, Blomgren is expected to be sentenced to probation Aug. 28.

Blomgren, under the supervision of federal officers in the western district of North Carolina, was reported to have tested positive for morphine on May 22, according to prosecutors. Based on that test and other concerns, his pretrial supervision officer in North Carolina urged Blomgren be taken into custody for violating his conditions of release.

Judge adds new condition of release for defendant Jason Blomgren.

During a subsequent test July 17, Blomgren again tested positive for opiates and oxycodone, Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel told a judge Monday. Blomgren told federal officials he hadn't consumed any poppy seeds that morning, Gabriel added.

More "interpretive work'' needs to be done on the July test results, though, the prosecutor told the court.

Rainwater said his client will try to work it out. "Perhaps he does needs some drug treatment,'' Rainwater noted.

On Monday, the government withdrew its petition to find Blomgren in violation of supervision, as Blomgren listened to the proceeding by phone from North Carolina.

Instead, Gabriel asked U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones to add a new condition for his release: "Defendant shall not consume any items containing poppy seeds.''

Gabriel said he didn't want to comment about whether Blomgren's claim of consuming bagels with poppy seeds was causing his positive drug tests.

"I don't think that's my place,'' Gabriel told the judge.

The judge approved the new condition.

"It seems reasonable to give up the everything bagel,'' Blomgren's lawyer said after the hearing. "He'll have to.''

Blomgren said he'll change his morning routine.

"As for breakfast, I will be eating egg whites and tea from now on,'' he told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian
Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and son-in-law of President Trump, said in a closed-door meeting Monday that he did not collude with Russians during Trump's campaign.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, center, accompanied by his attorney Abbe Lowell, right, arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington., Monday, July 24, 2017, to meet behind closed doors before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.

Afterward, U.S. Sen Ron Wyden, D-Ore., released a statement calling on Kushner to testify under oath to Congress and provide emails, financial documents and other records supporting his denials.

"He has an obligation to be transparent with all relevant documents to back up his claims," Wyden said of Kushner.

Kushner did tell congressional committees via his 11-page statement that he had several contacts with Russians during the Trump campaign and transition. He said none of the meetings were improper.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," said Kushner, 36. He added that he has "nothing to hide" and will cooperate with investigators.

Wyden, often an opponent to Trump and his appointees, questioned whether Kushner should be taken at his word. He said Kushner's description of his business relationships with Russians is "incomplete at best" and that the White House aide has "repeatedly concealed information" about his business dealings and foreign ties.

"There should be no presumption that he is telling the whole truth today," Wyden said.

Kushner said administration officials have checked his phone records and they show no evidence corroborating press reports that he had two phone conversations with the Russian ambassador in 2016.

Paul Manafort, former head of the Trump campaign, and Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, avoided subpoenas to testify under oath and at a public hearing this week, instead brokering a deal with Senate Judiciary Committee leaders to provide documents and private testimony ahead of any public hearings.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

503-221-8209; @GordonRFriedman
LONDON - The unlikely friendship between Britain's widowed Queen Victoria and a clerk from India will be brought to life Monday at an exhibition opening on the Isle of Wight.

It will give visitors to Osborne House, Victoria's holiday retreat on the island off England's south coast, a rare glimpse of an episode in the monarch's life.

English Heritage, Britain's main cultural agency, outlined Sunday its plans for the exhibition at Osborne.

Costumes from the upcoming film "Victoria & Abdul" will go on show for the first time at Osborne from Monday.

The film, to be released in British cinemas on Sept 15, was largely shot at Osborne. It tells the story of the unexpected friendship between Queen Victoria and her Indian servant Abdul Karim in the later years of her reign.

The costumes were designed by Oscar nominated designer Consolata Boyle who worked on The Queen (2006), The Iron Lady (2011) and Florence Foster Jenkins (2016). Her designs pay meticulous attention to historical detail.

Costumes in the exhibition include formal and informal attire worn in the film by celebrated British Judi Dench, such as the exquisite black silk gown with gold front piece Victoria wears while waiting for Karim's return to Osborne.

The striking outfits worn by Ali Fazal as Abdul Karim include the faithfully recreated scarlet and gold livery with a peacock blue striped silk turban.

The exhibition will continue until Sept 30.

English Heritage Curator at Osborne, Michael Hunter, said: "Osborne was Queen Victoria's private family home which means visitors can step straight into Queen Victoria's world when they get here."

"Victoria & Abdul is the first film to ever use the interiors of Osborne as a location and these costumes add an extra layer to the rich experience of a visit here."

Victoria and Abdul forged an unlikely and devoted alliance that the royal household and Victoria's inner circle tried to destroy.

Shrabani Basu, who wrote and researched the remarkable story, said Abdul died a broken man a few years after being banished from England after Victoria's death in 1901.
Palestinian children hold candles during a protest against Israel's newly-installed security measures at the entrance to the al-Aqsa mosque compound, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip July 23, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

CAIRO - The emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss Israeli aggression over Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem has been delayed to Thursday, the Cairo-based Arab League (AL) said in a statement on Sunday evening.

Requested by Jordan and supported by several Arab states, the emergency meeting was scheduled to be held on Wednesday, but the AL said the delay is to guarantee largest number of participant ministers.

The meeting is intended to discuss the latest Israeli aggressions and measures in East Jerusalem and its Al-Aqsa Mosque shrine.

The AL said that it also coordinated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to address the issue in its ministerial meeting next week.

Tensions between Israel and Palestinians have been rising since July 14 when Israel installed checkpoints and metal detectors at the entrances of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after three Israeli Arab gunmen shot dead two Israeli policemen near the holy site. The three were later killed by the Israeli police.

Since then, daily clashes have been erupting between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters at the gates of the mosque compound and elsewhere in the West Bank.

In clashes during a massive protest on Friday, Israeli security forces killed three Palestinians and injured hundreds of others.

On Sunday, Israel further installed security cameras around the holy site, yet it remains unclear whether the cameras will replace the metal detectors that sparked Palestinian rage.

The AL has repeatedly condemned the Israeli practices at Al-Aqsa Mosque as a blatant breach of the right of worship and violation of relevant international laws and UN resolutions.

In an earlier statement on Sunday, the pan-Arab organization referred to the recent Israeli measures as "playing with fire," stressing that Jerusalem is "a red line."

Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews. It has been a flashpoint site for Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the past decades since the 1967 Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem.

The recent Israeli measures led to new tensions in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has lasted for decades, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel is blamed by the international community for the current deadlock of the peace process because of its settlement expansion policy, which is rejected even by the United States, its strongest ally.

The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital city in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders.
Goose Creek, SC (29445)

Today

Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High 77F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 54F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Goose Creek, SC (29445)

Today

A few passing clouds, otherwise generally sunny. High 77F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies in the evening, then becoming cloudy overnight. Low 54F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
"Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance." - Samuel Johnson

Perseverance is defined as a steadfastness, despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. It is a noun used by many to describe local author Harry Grether and his plans for the 10th anniversary edition of his book, "Lessons from an Imperfect World."

Grether explains in his "Journey of a book" synopsis that during his career as a special educator, he kept notes and memories of experiences that he felt would one day be worth sharing. He declared a mission to leave some other stories, with positive messages to counteract much of the negativity that often surrounds us in modern times.

A little more than 10 years ago, Grether published his first edition. He felt inspirited to write a book to inspire others and give hope shortly after his daughter Denise lost a five-year battle with cancer.

During his grief, he continuously asked the question, "Why" to which he received a straight forward answer from a pastor he spoke with. "We live in an imperfect world."

From that point, Grether has "found a purpose for his pain."

When the book was released in 2005, 5,000 copies were printed. A majority of the first print, which Grether paid for out of pocket, was donated to centers including Cancer Services, Hospice family members, grief groups, Toni and Trish House for the terminally ill and family members who have lost loved ones.

During the last 10 years, Grether has received much support from many people. Several endorsements appear on the back cover and front pages of the second printing done in mid-2016.

"I needed to do a second printing because I ran out of the first," he said. "The most important change that's been made is that a group of people, who've named themselves "Harry's Tribe," which consists of 10 people, have written some very kind endorsements and statement of support. I think that gives it much more credibility. There is also a very personal forward from Thom Pepe, that gives it authenticity and adds to its purpose."

He continued to explain that he added a little bit in the beginning and at the end, reflecting on the past 10 years but everything else remains the same.

"The book is the same, the price is the same," added Grether. "It just has more credibility because of some people that believe in it and its journey have decided to add their personal thoughts and feelings about it."

For the 10th anniversary edition, 10,000 copies were printed. The plan for the copies of the new edition include giving away two thirds of them to different organizations and individuals in need of a little encouragement. The other one third will be marketed and sold to pay for the copies donated.

"I have a hope," he said. "I would like to partner with Ronald McDonald Houses and the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and provide them with books when they have a need. I'd like them to be available in waiting rooms, free for anybody."

On page 20 of Grether's book, he wrote, "one of the most important reasons we are here is to be of help to one another." His actions reflect those words as he fulfills his intended purpose for his book.

"I met Harry at the Children's Grief Center in January 2017," said Hillary Baldwin, program coordinator at the center. "I actually read his book long before we ever met. After I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. He has such a beautiful way of expressing his emotions in every one of the life experiences he shares throughout the book, both joyful and sad. I believe that this book has the power to warm hearts, as it has warmed mine."

She added, "I lost both my brother and father to suicide. I tried several methods to work through my anger, pain and grief. After reading Harry's book, it was beyond clear to me that I wanted his message in my life. His message about being grateful, helping other whenever humanly possible, sharing your story and offering comfort and support."

In the forward, Thom Pepe talked about how the book has touched his life.

"Sometimes, it's a bit of grace at a time of confusion, hurt and anger is what we crave to regain our own balance when 'life' happens to us," he explained. "Harry Grether understood this need from the deepest part of his own loving soul as he prepared and collected the stories that he shares with us in 'Lessons from an Imperfect World.' Those stories so kindly shared with us, provide a place for hope and dignity within our own hearts when kindness and understanding are needed the most."

Grether plans to continue this journey with his book for as long as time allows.

People who are interested in learning more about "Lesson from an Imperfect World" can visit Grether's website, www.harrygrether.com or his Facebook page. Books can be purchased on Amazon or by contacting Grether via email harrygrether@gmail.com
Junior Achievement of North Central Michigan received a $2,500 grant from the Gladwin County Community Foundation and $1,250 grant from the Clare County Community Foundation.

In Gladwin County, $2,125 was given through the Gladwin County Community Investment Fund and $375 through the Gladwin County Youth Endowment Fund. The $2,500 grant helped to fund K-12 Junior Achievement programs in Gladwin County.

In Clare County, $250 was given through the Reine M. Doherty Community Fund and $1,000 through the Clare County Youth Fund (Clare YAC) to help fund K-12 JA programs in Clare County.

Through JA programs, students were taught skills presented by business and community volunteers. JA teaches K-12 students how business works, workplace skills and how to manage the money they will earn.

Mike Rush, president/CEO of JA of North Central Michigan, said the organization is "truly grateful for the support" from the foundations.

"This funding helped us to continue to provide students with the education and skills required to be successful in the workplace and throughout life," Rush said.

JA is the world's largest nonprofit organization dedicated to educating students about business, financial literacy and workforce readiness. Its hands-on programs have been endorsed by the Michigan Department of Education and help meet financial education curriculum requirements for K-12 students.

For more information about Junior Achievement, visit www.janorthcentralmi.org or call 989-631-0162.
Five area science teachers are among a select group of educators crafting the future of middle school science education through the Michigan Science Teaching and Assessment Reform project.

More than two dozen teachers from around the state are attending curriculum development workshops this summer in Midland, Clinton Township, Grand Rapids, Mount Pleasant and Houghton. With scientists, engineers and curriculum developers, they are creating a radically new science curriculum for grades 6-8 that meets the new Michigan Science Standards, which call for students to learn by thinking and acting like scientists and engineers.

Robin Allen, Denise Bujalski and Jayme Swanson from Northeast Middle School; Amy Huff of Arenac Eastern Middle and High School; and Kiel Henderson of Meridian Junior High School are among the leaders in advancing this new approach to science education.

"The teachers play a vital role," said Michigan Technological University Provost Jacqueline Huntoon, Mi-STAR's lead investigator. "Their input is essential to Mi-STAR's twin goals: enhancing student engagement in science and giving all students the critical-thinking skills they will need to be effective citizens."

Led by Michigan Tech, the Mi-STAR consortium includes representatives of seven of Michigan's public universities and 14 K-12 districts throughout the state. It is funded by a $5 million grant from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.
A British politician is embarking on a 1,000-kilometer charity walk around the UK in aid of the British Red Cross.

Michael Bates, a minister of state at the UK's Department for International Development and a member of the House of Lords, expects to spend 45 days trekking from London to Edinburgh via Cardif, Manchester and Belfast.

Bates, 56, will be supported by his Chinese-born wife, Xuelin Bates, who helped organize the trip.

They aim to raise money for the UK Solidarity Fund, set up by the British Red Cross, to support the victims and families affected by the recent terrorist attacks in London and Manchester.

"We had originally planned a walk in Africa this year, but when the terrorist attacks happened we felt that perhaps this year our help was needed at home and home should always come first," Bates said.

Xuelin said the change to their plans had left little time to prepare.

"Michael said it's a very meaningful deed and it was always what he wanted to do," she explained. "Through this walk he'd like to call for world peace, call for more walks for fundraising in 2017 and get more people to participate and support the charity."

The walk is the latest in a series of charity fundraising challenges the couple have tackled.

In 2015, they undertook a 71-day journey from Beijing to Hangzhou to raise money for Red Cross Society projects in China. Last year, Bates trekked through South America in aid of the children's charity UNICEF.

The couple have pledged to walk 16,000 kilometers and raise 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) for charity over the next 10 years.

Bates said he is confident he can complete this latest challenge.

"This is the sixth walk we have done together and the key is that I know I can do it," he said. "As you get older, the body is weaker but my mind is stronger so that is what I'll be focusing on."

"I believe perseverance is the key for walking," his wife said.
EDWARDSVILLE  A former Illinois assistant attorney general on Monday joined the field of Democrats vying to challenge U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis in 2018, and a state lawmaker has dropped consideration of a possible run.

Erik Jones, an Edwardsville attorney and former investigative counsel for U.S. House and Senate committees, will run to replace the Taylorville Republican as the state's 13th Congressional District representative, he announced Monday.

"Im running for Congress because I believe our best days can still be ahead of us," he said in a Facebook post, "but to get there we need to send bulldogs to Congress, not backslappers."

Jones has "spearheaded investigations to root out scams, waste and corruption so consumers, workers, and victims would be better protected," according to his website, erikjonesforcongress.com.

"Hes has taken on the broken system, going toe-to-toe with corporations, government and politicians. Hes held them accountable for helping themselves at the expense of everyday people," according to the site. "Most recently, as an attorney in private practice, Erik has helped U.S. companies respond to data breaches resulting from foreign hackers targeting American consumers Social Security numbers and financial information."

Also on Monday, State Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, who held a town hall at Normal Public Library in May, announced she has decided not to run for the Democratic nomination in the district, pledging instead to focus on her work as a slate lawmaker and opposing the re-election of Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Ammons said she reached the decision after three months of consultations with constituents, family and supporters, including having meetings around the district.

Throughout these listening sessions, I realized most of the issues being described to me were state issues and my efforts would have more of a direct impact in Springfield  a place where I have already successfully passed legislation that prevents pollutants from entering into our water supply, ends unfair charges for prison phone calls, and protects workers, she said in a news release.

Those considering runs include Jonathan Ebel, director of graduate studies in religion at the University of Illinois, and Jersey County States Attorney Ben Goetten.

Montgomery County Board member Dillon Clark previously announced a run but has since withdrawn from the race.

Davis has represented the district, which stretches from Bloomington-Normal and Champaign-Urbana to the Mississippi River, since 2013.
100 years ago

July 24, 1917: McLean Countys draft quota will be 393 men. To ensure that the full quota can be drafted, twice the number will be called to weed out those who dont qualify to serve for one reason or another. Those men who are taken will go into the regular Army.

75 years ago

July 24, 1942: Local youth have formed a teen dance club under the auspices of the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Municipal Recreation Board. The first dance is set for Aug. 7. Among the rules is the provision that cash remaining after expenses be donated to local causes.

50 years ago

July 24, 1967: Storms pounded Central Illinois, leaving cables and corn down, a Roland Drive foundation washed out, and a house afire from a lightning strike. There were no tornadoes in McLean County, but one touched down at Cornell in Livingston County.

25 years ago

July 24, 1992: A jury convicted Alvin Alexander in the murders of three people at S&S Liquors in 1988. They deliberated for seven hours. Alexander is eligible for the death penalty. His half brother, Glen Wilson, has already been convicted in the case and sentenced to die.
Q: I recently attempted to file a claim for service-connected disability compensation through the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Office. They told me that due to computer problems they currently are not able to process such claims. What is the latest update on when the computer problems will be fixed?

A: Computers are being replaced throughout the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA). In addition, the mainframe computer traffic-handling hardware is being replaced. Veteran Service Officers (VSO) at the IDVA indicate that while there is no final date for the ability to file claims, the Information Technology group is working hard to get new computers and proper access available as soon as, possible. In the meantime, Veteran Service Officers for groups such as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans and AMVETS are still able to file disability compensation claims. George Sebastian, the full-time VSO at the Bob Michel VA Clinic in Peoria can write and file your claim at the VA Clinic at 7717 N. Orange Prairie Drive, in Peoria; 309-494-1454.

Q: I am a Desert Storm Veteran who separated after a four-year career in the Marine Corp in 1992. I paid into the G. I. Bill for education during my first year in the Corp. However, I was not ready to go to school when I returned home. I recently lost my job of 15 years and began to think about using my G. I. Bill education benefits to go back to school. I found out that even with the 10 or 15-year option, my benefit has expired. It seems unfair that I will not be able to utilize my education benefits even though I paid into the program while on active duty. What is being done to make this situation better for someone like me, who was not ready to go back to school when the government program dictated?

A: U. S. House of Representatives Committee on Veterans Affairs Chairman Phil Roe, R-Tenn., announced on July 18, 2017 that his committee held a hearing on H.R. 3218  the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017. This bill if enacted would remove time restrictions to use the G.I. Bill, enabling future post-9/11 eligible veterans to use their G.I. bill benefits for their entire lives instead of limiting the benefit to 10 or 15 years after separation from active duty. Desert Storm, OEF, OIF, and OND veterans would be affected by this legislation Let your local member of Congress know your viewpoint of this legislation and let your senators know they need to pass a similar bill. In the meantime, if you entered the military from an Illinois address of residence and you returned to Illinois within six months of your separation from the military, the Illinois Veterans Grant (IVG) should be available to you. This benefit pays tuition and fees at any State of Illinois-supported educational institution. In McLean County, the IVG can be used at both Heartland Community College and Illinois State University. Contact the financial aid, Veterans Office at either institution for more information and determining eligibility. You must have your DD 214 Separation document to apply for the IVG.

News

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. David Shulkin recently unveiled the worlds most advanced commercial prosthetic, the Life Under Kinetic Evolution (LUKE) arm. The Luke Arm is the product of nearly eight years of testing and research, and holds the potential to significantly benefit veterans and others with upper-extremity amputations. Uniquely, the Luke Arm can move as one unit, reducing the labor-intensive process of controlling one joint at a time. It also features the first commercially available powered shoulder, with up to 10 powered degrees of freedom. Secretary Shulkin stated, There is no commercial market for this type of technology. The patient population is simply too small to motivate private companies to pursue these types of advancements on their own. This why VA and its research efforts  efforts that could not be replicated in the private sector  are so important. The new Luke Arm is a shining example of why the VA exists.

Did you know?

The American Legion Riders Legacy Run is still registering Legion Rider members who wish to participate in this years Legacy Run to the Legion National Convention in Reno, Nev., from Aug. 17 through Aug. 24. Thus far, 345 participants have signed up for the charity motorcycle ride that raises money for the American Legion Legacy Scholarship Fund. The 2016 Legacy Run helped raise more than $1 million for the Scholarship Fund for the third straight year. In 11 years, the ride has raised more than $7 million for college money for the children of U. S. military personnel killed on active duty on or after Sep. 11, 2001, as well as children of post 9/11 veterans with a combined VA disability rating of 50 percent or higher. More information about participating in the Legion Riders Legacy Run or supporting the Legacy Run through donations, is available on-line at www.legion.org/legacyrun.
SPRINGFIELD  Gov. Bruce Rauner called for a special legislative session on Monday after lawmakers ignored his noon deadline for sending him public education-funding legislation with just weeks before the scheduled opening of schools.

Rauner issued the summons for lawmakers to return to the Capitol beginning Wednesday after he held a news conference in Chicago to accuse Democrats who control the General Assembly of holding school children "hostage" to their political agenda.

"The Democrats in the majority are playing political games with our children's education," he told reporters, while again promising to change the legislation with an amendatory veto. "They seem to be intent on holding up school funding until August when schools need to open."

Senate President John Cullerton of Chicago, whose chamber never sent Rauner the legislation for fear he would veto it without review, claimed in a statement Monday that Rauner is confused about what the legislation does and has given conflicting messages about it.

"I'd like to have a conversation with Gov. Rauner in hopes of getting some clarity as to exactly what is going on," Cullerton said in a statement. "We slowed down the process in the Senate in order to let everyone blow off some steam, politically speaking."

The legislation would revise the way schools receive state aid for the first time in two decades. The method funnels money to the neediest school districts first after ensuring that no district receives less money than last school year. That includes a $250 million-a-year grant for Chicago schools for programs funded separately in other districts and a requirement that the state pick up the annual, $215 million employer portion of Chicago teachers' pensions.

Rauner contends the $250 million grant was meant to help pay retirement-account costs  something Chicago officials and proponents of the plan reject  and so the extra money is a "bailout" for past pension-payment shortfalls.

Democrats are holding the measure to build pressure, according to House Republican Leader Jim Durkin of Westchester.

"The Democrats want to create and manufacture a school-funding crisis," said Durkin, who appeared with Rauner in Chicago. "I want all schools funded fairly. I want all schools opening on time. We are going to open schools on time. The Democrats cannot stay silent on this issue. Send the bill to the governor."

Rauner produced a list last week that showed an amendatory veto of the legislation, known as SB1, would cut $145 million from Chicago schools and distribute it to other districts across the state. But he has not explained who did the analysis or how the numbers were crunched. He declined, when asked on Monday, to explain what changes he would make with the amendatory veto.

"We need it on my desk and you will see. They don't want me to be able to (make an) amendatory veto (on) it," Rauner said. "They want to create a crisis and just say, 'There's no discussion, there's no more time, there's nothing to debate. It's over. If schools want to open on time, only SB1 in its current form.' That's unfair."

Lawmakers ended a two-year budget stalemate earlier this month and approved a spending plan over Rauner's objections. However, the plan requires Rauner to distribute school aid through a revised method.

___

The bill is SB1 .

___

Tareen reported from Chicago.
Last month Patently Apple posted a report titled "Foxconn is closer to Announcing their new U.S. Plant Location and it just might be Wisconsin." The report noted that while the deal hadn't been cemented just yet, it would appear that Wisconsin is going to get the new Foxconn Plant. President Donald Trump alluded to negotiations with an unspecified company during a visit to Milwaukee yesterday, saying Walker might get "a very happy surprise very soon." Trump added that "we were negotiating with a major, major incredible manufacturer of phones and computers and televisions." Flash forwarding to today and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has published a report titled "Apple Supplier Foxconn Looks at Producing Display Panels in Wisconsin."

According to the WSJ report, the announcement of a TV plant could come as early as this week. "Mr. Gou has been meeting U.S. political leaders to discuss possible sites, people familiar with the discussions said. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican who represents a district in southeastern Wisconsin, said earlier this month that he has met Foxconn officials."

Our previous reports on the matter (one, two and three) have much more meat on their bones than the anemic WSJ report that first sounds definitive and then backs off by stating that "the people cautioned that a final decision hasn't been set and that Foxconn could make last-minute changes. They said Foxconn was contemplating events in Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin to discuss its plans."

Our April report noted that Foxconn's Chairman Gou stated that "We are planning a number of investments in America. This project will include both capital-intensive and skilled labor-intensive and high-tech investment."

So in the end it could be that Wisconsin gets the first nod but that other states in the race may also end up being big winners. Our June 22 report covered Foxconn's 'Flying Eagle' Project worth billions in U.S. Investment could cover displays, semiconductor packaging and more.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.
Patna: Women of Patna on Sunday took part in a scooter rally sponsored by the Bihar Women's Industry Association (BWIA) with the goal to promote psychological and financial empowerment of the women once considered the 'weaker sex' in the male-dominated society.

More than 60 women of all ages took part in the rally that began from the Eco Park at 7:30 am on Sunday. The rally was flagged off by Rural Development Minister Shrawan Kumar.

Passing through Bailey Road and Dak Bungalow Road, the scooter rally arrived at the Sri Krishna Memorial Hall where District Magistrate Sanjay Agrawal welcomed them and hand them certificates of participation.

Speaking on the occasion, Pushpa Chopra, the President of the BWIA, said that the goal of such rallies was to promote women's empowerment, independent thinking, raising awareness about girls' feticide, and promoting ideas to protect the environment.

"We have been doing this for the last 27 years. Besides organizing two industrial fair each year in Bihar, we also offer help of all types to women who are interested in starting their own business," she said.

Bihar Industries Association (BIA) Ramlal Khetan, BWIA Vice President Purnima Rai and a number of other office holders were present on the occasion.
Patna: Just when you think things between Janata Dal  U and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) were beginning to thaw in the aftermath of CBI charges against Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav, out comes a statement from a party shill that further fuels the speculation that this Grand Alliance is on the verge of collapse.

On Monday, as if on cue, it was Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and party national Vice President Raghuvansh Prasad Singh who fired the salvo to escalate the war of words between the two parties when he said that the Janata Dal  U, like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had become a party of 'abusers' and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar himself was speaking the language used by the BJP leaders.

Singh, who is considered to be the voice of his party chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and the one who makes public statements only after prior clearance from his boss himself, said that the JD-U would be well advised to listen to party stalwarts like Sharad Yadav and try to save the alliance instead of trying to damage it, a goal the BJP had been working overtime to achieve since the last Assembly polls.

Declaring Tejaswi Yadav innocent of all corruption charges, Singh went on to excoriate the Center saying the Narendra Modi government was acting out of vengeance and the corruption allegations by the CBI against Yadav's family were made up to destroy the first family of Bihar.

RJD leader Shakti Singh also accused the JD-U leaders for further muddying the water by making nonsensical statements.

"They (JD-U spokespersons) are only causing confusion in the Grand Alliance by their utterances. They need to maintain the decorum and respect the coalition dharma so as not to hurt the feeling of other members of the alliance. Everything is fine in the Mahagathbandhan and there is no need to lecture each other," Singh said.

Also blaming the Center for the legal woes of the Lalu family, Singh said that even the members of the Grand Alliance were speaking the 'language of the BJP' and that was not good for the coalition in Bihar.

RJD leader and MP Taslimuddin went a step further saying all this talk about Nitish being against corruption was a complete fabrication because the Chief Minister was not exactly 'as clean as he professes to be'.

"Nitish Kumar koi doodh ke dhule hue nahin hain. In the day time, he associates with the RJD leaders but after dark sets in, he hobnobs with the BJP," Taslimuddin said.

He further said that Kumar talked about 'Zero Tolerance' about crime but corruption of all kinds including bribery was rampant in government offices in Bihar.

Not to remain quiet after the RJD leaders' blistering statements, JD-U spokesperson Sanjay Singh said that an 'unemployed' Raghuvansh Prasad Singh was going through some mental issue that the JD-U couldn't help with.

"We understand his predicament but our battle is with corruption and not anybody else. The Chief Minister has made it very clear his stand on corruption and he is not changing his position despite criticism from all sides," he said.

Neeraj Kumar, another party spokesperson, regurgitated the party talking point saying Nitish Kumar had never in the past, nor in the future, would compromise his ideals on corruption.

"He set the example of good governance that is being praised and talked about in other states. He will, not in this life nor in any other lives, he would compromise with his principles when it comes to corruption," he said.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Iran, Iraq sign MoU to boost defense and military cooperation

07/23/17

Source: Press TV

Iran and Iraq have signed a memorandum of understanding to boost defense and military cooperation in a variety of fields. The agreement was inked by Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and his Iraqi counterpart, Erfan al-Hiyali, in Tehran on Sunday.









According to the MoU, Tehran and Baghdad will strengthen cooperation, exchange experience in the fight against terrorism and extremism, improve border security, and provide the two countries' military forces with training, logistical, technical and military support.



Speaking at the ceremony held to sign the agreement, Dehqan said while terrorist groups, especially Daesh, were committing crimes in Iraq, cooperation between the two countries resulted in great achievements.





Dehqan added that more serious cooperation was necessary to prevent the emergence of terrorist groups in Iraq and across the region.



"The signed MoU will set a framework for future cooperation and we hope that it would prepare the ground for serious and effective measures [in this regard]," Dehqan said.





Iran-Iraq defense ministers meeting





The Iraqi minister, for his part, said the agreement was signed in line with the two countries' common interests.



Heading a delegation, Hiyali arrived in Tehran on Saturday at the official invitation of the Iranian defense minister. Later in the day, the two defense chiefs held talks on different issues.
Political Prisoners Including Swedish Resident Hidden from Ambassadors During Evin Prison Visit

07/24/17

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

Shortly before Iranian officials took the Swedish and other foreign ambassadors on a staged tour of Evin Prison on July 5, 2017, Swedish resident Ahmadreza Djalali and other political prisoners were moved to a ward under the control of Iran's Intelligence Ministry.



Iranian-born Swedish resident Ahmadreza Djalali and his wife, Vida Mehran-nia



"That same morning, security agents took Ahmadreza and several other inmates to Ward 209 and returned them to Ward 4 in the evening," a source close to Djalali's family told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). "The agents themselves admitted that they were hiding them from the ambassadors who were coming to visit the prison."

When the Djalali family contacted the Swedish Embassy in Tehran, "they were told that the embassy was following up on Ahmadreza's case at the highest levels, but unfortunately, they still do not have precise information about his situation," said the source, who requested anonymity.

"They did not answer the family's questions about the Swedish ambassador's visit to Evin Prison," added the source.

Intelligence Ministry agents arrested Djalali, an expert in emergency disaster medicine who lives in Sweden, near Tehran on April 24, 2016. He was visiting Iran on an official invitation by Tehran University and had previously cooperated with the country's Red Crescent Society.

More than a year and a half into his imprisonment, the charges against him have not been publicly disclosed, but during the interrogation stage he was accused of "collaborating with enemy states."

"Moving the prisoners before the ambassadors arrived means Iran's human rights situation is not good," added the source. "Otherwise there was no reason to move Ahmadreza and the other prisoners. Obviously they have violated his human rights and they didn't want him to talk to the ambassadors and tell them what hell he has been through."

Continued the source: "They have accused him of espionage and kept him in prison for 15 months without any evidence. The family has repeatedly asked for his case to be reviewed and his human rights to be respected. The family wants the Swedish ambassador and Iranian officials to look into his case."

Djalali is due to go on trial on August 2, 2017 at Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Abolqasem Salavati.

Salavati has not only denied Djalali's lawyer of choice on several occasions, he also threatened Djalali with the death sentence on the first day of his trial.

Salavati has presided over many cases involving dual nationals, including Iranian-British citizens Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, currently serving a five-year prison sentence, and Kamran Foroughi, serving a seven-year prison sentence.

The judge is also infamous for imposing harsh sentences in politically motivated cases.

"They have no evidence whatsoever against Ahmadreza," the source told CHRI. "All they have is a piece of a confession that he was forced to sign after months of interrogations and threats against his family."

Forced "confessions" in politically motivated cases are often extracted under the threat of or actual torture and then broadcast by the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) to win public opinion.

Responding to a tweet by CHRI, Swedish Ambassador Helena Sangeland said she was aware of the limited nature of her visit to Evin Prison.

"Clearly limits to what we were shown," she said.

Envoys from countries including Great Britain, Germany, Japan and Denmark were among the dozens of diplomats who were treated to a reception on Evin Prison's lawn after the heavily guarded tour.

Civil rights activists Atena Daemi and Golrokh Iraee, currently imprisoned in Evin, pointed out some of the places the ambassadors were prevented from viewing in a joint letter from the prison on July 8.

"Did they give you a tour of Ward 209, Ward 2-A or Ward 241? Did they show you the solitary cells without windows, ventilation or toilets? What about the cells known as the 'graves?'" asked the political prisoners.

"Did they introduce you to a physician with the alias 'Shahriari?'" asked the prisoners. "He's the one who finds out what's wrong with sick prisoners just by looking at them. He's the one who never dares to sign his name because he's afraid one day he will be exposed for his malpractice."

"When we invite guests to our home, we obviously try to make a beautiful presentation, even if it's the same place where [thousands of] political prisoners were executed in the 1980s," added the letter.

An estimated 4,500-5,000 political prisoners who had already been tried and sentenced-mostly members of political opposition groups-were suddenly executed in prisons throughout Iran including Evin during the summer of 1988 without being provided access to due process.
Iran, Afghanistan to link railway networks

07/24/17

By Ebrahim Fallahi, Tehran Times



TEHRAN - Iran and Afghanistan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Sunday for implementing a project linking rail networks of the two neighboring countries. The MOU, between Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (IRIR), also known as RAI, and Afghanistan Railway Authority (ARA), was signed by IRIR's Managing Director Saeed Mohammadzadeh and Afghanistan Railway Authority's Director General Mohammad Yamma Shams during a meeting at IRIR's building in Tehran.





Alongside the construction of railway between Iran's city of Khaf and Afghanistan's city of Herat, the MOU calls for further railway cooperation between the two sides.



During the event, the officials emphasized the importance of Iran-Afghanistan railway projecs and called for acceleration of efforts from both sides for completion of Khaf-Herat railway as soon as possible.



The projected Khaf-Herat railway will be about 140 kilometers (km), of which 60 km is funded by the Iranian side and the rest will be financed by Afghanistan.





source: google map



According to Mohammadzadeh, IRIR will complete 30km of its 60km-share by the 15th of the current Iranian calendar month of Mordad (August 6) after which the two countries railways will officially be connected.



The railway is going to be used for freight transit in the first phase but passenger transfer has also been foreseen for a near future.



Khaf-Herat railway part of East-West corridor



The Iranian official noted that completion of Khaf-Herat line is just a small part of a much bigger project and the two countries plan to build some part of the East-West railway corridor which extends from China to Europe through Iran and Afghanistan.



According to Mohammadzadeh, Iran and Afghanistan have signed an MOU with five other countries which are in the way of East-West corridor and further negotiations are still ongoing in this regard.



"With the establishment of East-West corridor, Iranian railway will have the potential for transferring over 100 million tons of goods through the country in the next 10 years," he added.



IRIR ready to share knowledge and technology



Mohammadzadeh further said, "Iran has good experience and knowledge in railway construction and IRIR is ready to provide ARA with knowledge, technology and experience."



"IRIR is planning to hold training courses for ARA employees and for the time being 96 ARA members will be coming to Iran to participate in these courses," he said.



Mohammad Yamma Shams for his part expressed satisfaction with IRIR's efforts for the completion of Iranian side of the Khaf-Herat project saying, "We hope the construction of Iran-Afghanistan railway will lead to better economic relations between the two countries."



Shams further mentioned the tender for construction of Afghanistan's side of the line which is going to be held to choose an Iranian contractor to execute the project.



"ARA has made the necessary preparations and a competent Iranian company will be chosen through tender for execution of the Afghan part of the deal," he said.
The Ministry of Communications is to develop a multi-stakeholder cyber security governance system that would empower the national security and the military to curb cybercrime in the country.



To this end, the ministry has appointed a cyber security advisor to support the direction towards effective cyber security governance in the country.



Speaking at the inaugural Alumni Day of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, the sector minister, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful also stated that the ministry was aligning its strategies with the National Security Policy and Strategy to ensure effective and efficient cyber security responses.



Peace and security



The celebrations was on the theme: Reconnecting and Networking for Peace and Security.



Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said available research findings, including some publications by the KAIPTC, suggested that the cyber environment was increasingly becoming a fertile ground for criminality.



This, she said, was evident in crimes such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorism and money laundering.



Cybercrimes



The minister said the country and the sub-region had recorded various forms of cyber crimes including, website defacement, hacking into banking systems and databases, ransomware attacks, identity theft, simbox fraud among others.



She recalled that the cyber attacks on the Electoral Commission results transmission system during the 2016 elections resulted in the EC abandoning the electoral collation of the results.



Capacity building



For his part, the German Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Christoph Retzlaff, said Germany had been the main sponsor of the centre since its inception in 2003.



He said this year alone, the German government had contributed 200 million euros to the centre for the training of 27 security forces for Africa, two police advisors, as well as a management advisor.



This gesture by the German government demonstrates the importance it attaches to security and peace in the West African sub-region, he added.



German government



He indicated that the KAIPTC was well known around the world, especially in Germany as a centre of excellence for peace keeping in the sub-region.



The ambassador, therefore, urged the alumni to also increase cooperation with ECOWAS, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) to help develop the technology to fight security challenges.

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The water supply problem faced by the Akim Asafo Senior High School is expected to be abated following the commissioning of a borehole provided by BAYT AFRICAN CHARITY-GHANA to the school with a student population of 441.



Commissioning the borehole, the secretary of BAYT AFRICAN CHARITY-GHANA Mr. Ishmael Zachariah Alhassan said the organization was touched by the difficulties students, teachers and other workers of the school face in accessing potable water hence the provision of the borehole to improve water supply in the school.



Speaking to Peacefmonline.com, Mr. Alhassan averred that the organization which supports the needy and deprived communities especially in the area of potable water supply will continue to assist the school to become one of the best schools in the country.



He therefore appealed to other Non Governmental Organizations to continue to extend their services to more deprived communities to help make life comfortable to the people.



Mr. Isaac Osew-Larbi, Headmaster of the school however commended BAYT AFRICAN CHARITY-GHANA for helping to address the water supply problem Akim Asafo Senior High School has been facing for many years.



He also appealed to the government to provide a Science Laboratory to enhance the study of Science in the school.



I am appealing to the government to provide us with a Science Laboratory to enhance the study of science in this school. The school has no science laboratory even though science is thought in the school and that poses a great challenge to the school, he appealed.



He again urged government to come to the aid of the school to complete the girls and boys dormitories to help the school admit more students in the next academic year.

Source: Daniel Adu Darko/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei has provided responses to all points raised with supporting documentation to the petition filed by some Concerned Staff of the Electoral Commission.



In the document, lawyers for the EC boss has described the allegations as baseless.



Below is the full response of Mrs Charlotte Osei:



RE: PETITION AGAINST THE CHAIRPERSON OF ELECTORAL COMMISSION, MRS. CHARLOTTE OSEI



RESPONSES PROVIDED BY MRS. CHARLOTTE OSEI TO THE ALLEGATIONS MADE IN THE PETITION



As a point of order with regard to the recent unfounded accusations leveled at Mrs. Charlotte Osei in her capacity as Chairperson of the EC Ghana, Mr. Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang is not a staff member of the Commission. Whilst he claims to act on behalf of Concerned Staff of the Commission, he has not made clear who those staff indeed are. This is of particular importance as he has previously introduced himself at another forum as counsel for Ms. Georgina Opoku-Amankwaa, the deputy Chairperson Corporate Services of the Commission. In order for this petition to be considered as a legitimate submission on behalf of the staff, the names and signatures of these concerned staff must be provided in support of the so-called petition submitted.



With regard to the baseless allegations, below is a detailed response on all points raised with supporting documentation, which it is noted, Mr. Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang and his fictitious petitioners have failed to provide.



Claim 1: Madam Charlotte Osei, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission on 30th June, 2015 assumed office as Article 71 appointee whiles still holding office as a Board Member of Ghana Re Insurance, a public company contrary to Article 44(4) of the 1992 Constitution. When the issue was raised, the PRO of Ghana Re confirmed that she only resigned on December 5th, 2015. This means that whiles holding office as the Chairperson of the Commission, she was still a Board Member of Ghana Re Insurance.



Response 1: Ghana Reinsurance is a limited liability company with shares held by the government of Ghana. A non-executive director position is not a public office in the context of Article 44(4) which my esteemed counsel should well know.



Claim 2: Mrs. Charlotte Osei was appointed as Chairperson of Electoral Commission of Ghana while holding office as Chairperson of the National Commission of Civic Education contrary to the 1992 Constitution. In fact, it was announced as her swearing-in ceremony by the former president that he received her resignation from the NCCE on 29th June, 2017 before the swearing in.



Response 2: The appointment to the office of Chairperson of the Electoral Commission took effect on June 30, 2015. Resignation as Chairperson of the NCCE pre-dated the swearing in on June 30, 2015. The Chairperson therefore cannot be accused of holding two public positions simultaneously. She certainly did not receive two salaries for the month of June 2015.



Claim 3: Following her appointment as EC chair, Mrs. Charlotte compromised the independence and neutrality of the Commission by arranging for 2015 V8 Landcruiser with registration WR 2291-15 from the Office of the President for use as official vehicle without going through the procurement process or recourse to the Commission.



Response 3: Mrs. Osei does not use a vehicle with the said registration number WR2291-15. Following her appointment as Chairperson, the Office of the Chief of Staff allocated Mrs. Osei a vehicle. This is certainly not a new practice in Ghanas public service. Indeed, the office of the Chief of Staff provided and continues to provide vehicles for many government institutions and appointees. The Chairperson could therefore not have compromised her independence or neutrality as she neither requested nor lobbied for the said vehicle. Indeed, this flawed argument would imply that the Commission receiving money from the Government of Ghana compromises the neutrality of the Commission.



Claim 4: The political posture of the Chairperson prior to the conduct of the 2016 General Election nearly pushed Ghana to the precipices. But for the action of technical and competent staff of the Commission, she could have plunged this country into civil war.



Response 4: The petitioners would have to define clearly the political posture which nearly pushed the country to civil war. It is a witnessed fact that during the election, the Chairperson was in touch directly with the two main candidates in the presidential election in her capacity as Returning Officer. The then candidates are in a position to confirm this. The Chairperson remained in continuous contact with the hierarchy of the Ghana Police Service and the Military until the final declaration of results to ensure a peaceful conclusion to the election. It is well documented by several observer bodies that the December 2016 elections were safe, free and fair and the Chairperson is directly acknowledged as having been instrumental in ensuring this. As testament to her work, she has received local and international commendation and recognition.



As an allegation supporting an impeachment process, this would be the first time that posture, that could have had a certain effect but did not, would be a supporting ground for a constitutional impeachment process.



Claim 5: Mrs. Charlotte Osei, without recourse to the Commission engaged the Service of lawyers [email protected] without going through the procurement process. This service engagement goes contrary to the Public Procurement Act. As at now, there is no formal contractual arrangement between the Commission and the Solicitors. The basis of fees computation for services rendered by these lawyers still remains unknown.



Response 5: [email protected] Law was retained on the basis of a decision of the Commission taken at a Commission meeting of September 2015. If there has been any breach in the procurement process, then the entire Commission must be held responsible. It was made clear at the meeting that fees for litigation related work cannot be agreed ahead as it would depend on the complexity of each case and the court where a case was filed. For instance, Supreme Court cases are usually billed higher than cases conducted at the High Court. It was therefore the function of the Chairperson to refer all incoming lawsuits to [email protected] on the basis of the Commissions decision. It was the function of the Deputy Chairperson CS to negotiate the fees for each matter referred with [email protected] Indeed, the same Deputy Chairperson CS has previously failed to negotiate fees with previous counsel retained by the Commission or ensure that they are paid for legal work done. Some of these payments remain outstanding four years after services have been rendered.



If it is true that the Chairperson unilaterally retained [email protected], members of the Commission including the two Deputy Chairpersons would clearly have to explain the basis for meetings held between the entire Commission and Lawyer T. Sory, and other meetings between management and executive management staff, and staff of [email protected] to discuss pending cases.



The petitioners may not be staff of the Commission as they claim and so may not be privy to the fact that on November 16, 206, [email protected] wrote to the Commission providing a fee quote for its services and offering a flat rate fee for High Court cases and Supreme Court cases which was accepted. The said letter is attached hereto and marked CO5A. Further, any payments made to [email protected] have been effected by the Director Finance under the supervision of the Deputy Chairperson CS. If the petitioners have no knowledge of the arrangements with [email protected], one wonders the basis for payments made to [email protected] without the approval or knowledge of the Chairperson. The petitioners in the interest of fairness and transparency, may wish to present the agreement between the Commission and its previous legal counsel, specifying the scope of services and agreed fees a. In which case, it would be helpful to explain why the Commission as at the date of the alleged petition, has been unable to pay its lawyers for the 2013 Presidential election petition.



Claim 6: The Commission signed a contract with Super Tech Limited (STL) on the premise that the Voters Registration Exercise was going to be electoral area based. Upon assumption of office as the Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs. Charlotte Osei unilaterally abrogated the said contract without recourse to the same Commission that approved the earlier version. She single handedly renegotiated the contract with the vendor without involvement of the members of the Commission not even the deputies. She then awarded the contract to the tune of $21,999, 592 without going through tender contrary to the Public Procurement Act. The Chairperson reawarded these contracts without seeking approval from the Commission. In the opinion of the Commission, these contracts could have been negotiated further down if members of the Commission had been involved. This is because the change in the 2016 voters registration process required automatic reduction in these contracts.



Response 6: The two Deputy Chairpersons signed 2 contracts with STL on 6 May 2015 for US$22.3m (BVR) and US$16.4m (BVD) respectively (copies attached and marked CO6A). Letters were written to PPA on 15 May 2015 (copies attached and marked CO6B) seeking permission for sole sourcing AFTER the contracts had been signed. The contracts contained no price break down and were signed against the 2016 budget of the Commission, which was unknown at the time. The finance and procurement departments of the Commission had no knowledge of the execution of the contracts (Please see CO6C attached). The Chairperson informed the Deputy Chairpersons of the many breaches of law in connection with these contracts. The Deputy Chair Operations confirmed the illegalities in an email and also confessed his lack of knowledge of procurement processes (please see CO6D attached). The Chairperson abrogated the contracts in August 2015 (please see CO6E attached) and requested the Finance department to re-negotiate with STL and rectify the contract award process. Upon receipt of the consent of the PPA to sole sourcing, she engaged consultants to advise the Commission on the real needs of the Commission regarding the BVR contract and review the proposals submitted by STL. The Consultants confirmed that the Commission should spend a maximum of US$7.2m (attached as CO6F). This resulted in STL submitting a new proposal for the services at a quote of US$7.2m (attached as CO6G)



Interestingly, STL has not complained about the abrogation of the contracts. It is amazing that persons, who schemed to cause loss to the state, flout procurement laws with impunity, can then accuse another of acting illegally. When the first contracts were signed, no one in the Commission was involved in the negotiations. Quite surprisingly, it is now alleged that their involvement would have resulted in better pricing for the Commission. Was the Chairperson to seek the input of the same deputies who had admitted lack of knowledge in procurement matters and who had earlier failed to follow procurement laws and hastily signed such major contracts?



Claim 7: As part of compromising her independence and neutrality, Mrs. Charlotte Osei claimed that the Electoral Commission has been allocated a new building for use as office complex without the approval of the Commission. The 7 member Commission has not at any point in time formally requested for any office allocation since the Commission sees nothing wrong the current office. With the Chairpersons insatiable demand of affluence and flamboyance, she unilaterally awarded a contract to the tune of GHS3.9 million for demarcation and partitioning of the said office complex without recourse to the Commission. She claimed she sought approval from the Public Procurement Authority but strangely enough, the contract sum is higher than approved level.



Response 7: It is untrue that the 7 members of the Commission do not see anything wrong with the current offices. Commission members have constantly complained to the Chairperson about leaking and damaged roofs, poor electrical wiring, damp walls and lack of storage facilities to store elections equipment resulting in significant losses and inefficient use of resources at the Commission.



The Chairperson informed the Commission in late 2015 that the Commission had requested new office premises from the Presidency to house the new secretariat of the Association of African Election Authorities (AAEA) after Ghana had been voted as a permanent secretariat of the AAEA in July 2015 with responsibility to provide office space for the AAEA. In February 2016, at a Commission meeting members were informed that Government had allocated a new office building to the Commission through the office of the Chief of Staff. Members were further informed that the new office was a new building and would only require partitioning and all commissioners were encouraged to visit the new premises. The Chairperson subsequently visited the new site with the two Deputy Chairpersons and a commission member, all of who were very excited by the new office. The Chairperson has no control over the office of the Chief of Staff or the Presidency and clearly cannot obtain the permission of the Commission if a new office is allocated to the Commission. The current offices have major structural defects, significant parts of the roof are collapsing, significant leakages in most offices, damp and mouldy walls, electrical defects have been discovered and pointed out by the Fire Service for urgent attention (please see CO7A attached), the building lacks disability access, is decrepit and outdated, requiring extensive work and expense to make it habitable and reflective of the office of the Electoral Commission. The building houses precious lives of staff of the Commission and sensitive national assets such as the largest database of Ghanaians currently in the country. The current office space is not suitable by any standards.



With regard to the contract for partitioning of the 8-floor office building, the procurement laws were scrupulously followed. A copy of the Tender evaluation report is attached and marked CO7B. The scope of the contract included glazed aluminum partitions for all 8 floors, plumbing and sanitary installations, ventilation/air conditioning installations, electrical installations, servicing of the lifts, demolitions, masonry works and painting amongst others. Directors of the Commission at the head office (Finance, HR, IT and Electoral Services), and an external consultant were members of the evaluation panel. The Chairperson of the Commission was not a member of the tender evaluation panel. The bid submitted by Inocon Limited was the lowest of the three bids and was recommended to the Chairperson for approval.



The Chairperson of the Commission is not and has never been a member of the tender evaluation committee and cannot therefore; influence the award of the contract. Indeed, Mrs. Osei was not even present in the ETC meeting where tenders were opened for the partitioning contract (please see document marked CO7C). The Chairperson is the only one authorised by the policies of the Commission to sign contracts (copy of policy attached and marked CO7D). In any case, for the said contract that is allegedly unknown to the Commission, payment was approved and paid by the Deputy Chairperson CS without the knowledge and authorization of the Chairperson.



There is no requirement in law or in policy, for the Chairperson to seek the approval of the Commission for the execution of any contracts. Evidence of any law or policy requiring this approval should as a matter of law, be presented by the petitioners.



An investigation into the processes for award of the contract and a value for money assessment would be welcome as it would be based on law and policies and not motivated by ill will and pettiness.



Claim 8: Mrs. Charlotte Osei has been engaging in cronyism by awarding a contracts to the tune of $14,310,961 United States Dollars to her cronies for the construction of pre-fabricated District offices without recourse to the Commission. The value of these contracts is in excess of the approved threshold by the Public Procurement Authority. One of the contractors by name Messrs Contracts & Cads Limited is related to Mrs. Charlotte Osei. Upon receipt of advance mobilization under the approval of the Chairperson, the company has failed to meet the contract terms. Notwithstanding the clear breach of the contractual terms, the company has requested for additional payment which the Chairperson has approved. The Director of Finance has stopped the payment of this request. This accounts for one of the reasons of the Chairpersons disaffection for the Director of Finance.



Response 8: A contract was awarded for the construction of 100 district offices to Messrs Clicotech and Messrs. Cads Contracts & Services on a 58-42 basis. Although Messrs Cads Contracts was the only company that met all the criteria at the Entity Tender Committee level (please see document marked CO8A), the tender evaluation committee recommended that they be awarded 42% of the contract for stated reasons. The Chairperson followed in total, the recommendations of the evaluation panel (copy attached and marked CO8B) in awarding the contract. In following the recommendation, there was clearly no wrongdoing or alleged cronyism by the Chairperson. If the Chairperson intended to award the contract to Cads Contracts based on cronyism, then the same Chairperson would not have given Clicotech Limited an extended time (with consent of the other bidders) to submit its audited accounts, VAT and tax clearance certificates to enable it meet the tender requirements. Mrs. Osei has no relative at Cads Contracts Ltd.



If the contract sums were in excess of the thresholds approved by the PPA, it begs the question why these issues were not pointed out in the report of the tender evaluation panel, why the Deputy Chairpersons as member so the Review Panel did not point this out and why the Deputy Chairperson CS would approve the payments to Clicotech and Cads Contracts (same contracts, issued through same process) and ensure that payments on the contracts were effected without the approval of the Chairperson and with no notice to her.



In Addition, the consultant engaged by the Commission has been actively involved in the management of the contract. He has visited all the project sites, written to confirm work done by both contractors and to endorse the certificates raised by both contractors. The consultant has not raised any issues of impropriety or poor performance on the contract. Indeed, the consultant has recently written a letter to the Chairperson reminding her of the need to honour payment obligations to the contractors as per the terms of the contract. Incidentally, on these same contracts, mobilization payments were made to both contractors in December 2016, without the knowledge and approval of the Chairperson. These are matters of grave financial impropriety that require further investigation. The Chairperson has no issues with the Director of Finance and staff at the EC head office can testify to this. In matters of contracts, it is important that an institution such as the EC follows the instructions of its retained consultant in management of the contract to avoid breaches of contractual terms rather than sentiments based on mischief and ill will.



Claim 9: The Chairperson has brought the Commissions name into disrepute for single handedly petitioning EOCO on an alleged misappropriation of staff endowment fund for malicious reasons. This is because the issue has come before the entire Commission for redress. The decision to go to EOCO was not that of the Commission but characteristically unilateral decision by the Chairperson.



Response 9: The Chairperson has NOT submitted a petition to EOCO on the Endowment Fund issue. However, the Chairperson believes that EOCO is the right institution being a fact finding body, to investigate the issue of what the endowment fund contributions of staff, which were not paid into the Fund for eight months in 2014 were used for. This matter has been before the Commission since February 2015 and has not been resolved. A memo sent by the Chairperson on December 1, 2015 on the issue has not been responded to as of today (please see CO9A attached). The vouchers indicating the application of the Funds have not been submitted despite repeated requests by the Chairperson and repeated claims by the deputy Chairpersons of their availability. The Commission cannot by itself, use 2017 funds released by the Ministry of Finance, to repay obligations incurred in 2014, with no documentation and not recorded in the audit report of 2014 as an outstanding obligation, without the report of a separate institution like EOCO. If there has been any embarrassment to the Commission, it is based on the failure to keep proper accounting records in the matter and the wrongful utilization of monies belonging rightfully to the staff endowment fund. If the unknown petitioners are actually concerned staff of the EC, the resolution of this matter should be of utmost importance.



Claim 10: The Commission procured grant from USAID as part of the support of the 2016 General Election. This facility was signed by the then Minister of Finance. By Article 175 of the 1992 Constitution and in line with Section 5 of the Financial Administration Act, 2003 (Act 654), these grants constitute Public Funds. As part of the implementation of this grant the Chairperson, Mrs. Charlotte Osei, without the Commissions approval unilaterally recruited Personal Assistant and a Communication Officer and paid them $1,500 and $2,500 United States Dollars respectively. This was done without clearance from the Ministry of Finance.



Response 10: The Chairperson and the Commission did not require the permission of the Ministry of Finance to utilize funds agreed with the USAID in the manner agreed by USAID in the Funding contract. All expenditure of donor funds is carried out in line with the policies of the donor agency. The petitioners would have to provide further proof of this requirement and show how in disbursement of other donor funds the Commission has sought the permission of the Ministry of Finance. The Chairperson followed the rules of the funding agency to the letter. The Chairperson does not need the approval of the Commission to appoint temporary staff and consultants deemed necessary and agreed in the Grant letter. Indeed, as part of the basket of donor support provided to the Commission for the election, it was agreed by donor partners that the Commission would require a communications consultant and that a personal assistant should be recruited for the Chairperson to support with managing the heavy workload of the election year.



Claim 11: The Chairperson unilaterally transferred District Electoral Officers she perceived to be pro-NPP to deprived areas prior to the 2016 general elections without the knowledge of the Commission contrary to administrative procedures.



Response 11: The petitioners would have to show the basis for the perception that the district electoral officers transferred were pro-NPP. Is the allegation that only staff who are pro other parties should be made to work in deprived areas? How are these deprived areas defined? It would be helpful for the petitioners, if they exist, to show what action was taken and should have been taken against district electoral officers performing key functions and showing party biases as they allege. These officers were transferred because of threats made by political actors on their activities, which were likely to compromise the neutrality of the commission and the integrity of the elections. It is within the powers of the Chairperson to transfer district electoral officer either for purposes of protecting the lives of staff or as the exigencies of the Commissions work requires.



Claim 12: Since her assumption of office, the Chairperson has polarized the Commission along political lines. Her political posture prior to the 2016 General Election is evidence for public judgment.



Response 12: This is palpably untrue. Indeed, the Chairperson assumed office in a very politically polarized environment and has worked very hard with staff, staff associations and unions to create a healthier work environment. The petitioners must present evidence to support this allegation.



Claim 13: The leadership of Mrs. Charlotte Osei has brought about an irreversible disunity among Commission Members to the extent that she is not on speaking terms with the deputies and other Commission members. There is total breakdown of administrative structures of the Commission.



Response 13: Mrs. Osei is on speaking terms with everyone at the Commission. The Deputy Chairpersons have chosen to be grossly insubordinate and rude and there is ample documented evidence to support this. Deputies take managerial decisions and implement same without the knowledge of the Chairperson; threaten staff that have direct dealings with the Chairperson; take their leave without the approval of the Chairperson and implement major administrative and operational decisions without the knowledge of the Chairperson. It would be helpful for our fictitious petitioners to provide evidence to the contrary. There is only a breakdown of the structures for maladministration and illegal financial dealings and not the administrative structures of the Commission as claimed by the fictitious petitioners.



Claim 14: Mrs. Charlotte Osei persistently antagonized the then opposition, NPP prior to the 2016 General Elections to the extent she never met any of the leadership who sought audience with her to discuss issues of concern. This contrary to her over patronage of the then ruling NDC including her attendance of Cabinet Meetings.



Response 14: It is surprising that the concerned staff are also spokesperson for the NPP with seeming intimate knowledge of the grievances of the NPP. However, contrary to the impressions of the petitioners, the leadership of the NPP is in a position to confirm several meetings held with Mrs. Osei to discuss their concerns ahead of the 2016 elections. Indeed, in one of those meetings with the two Deputy Chairpersons, it was confirmed that the Deputy Chairperson Operations had unilaterally and without the knowledge of the Chairperson or the Commission created over 1000 (one thousand) additional polling stations for the district level elections of September 1, 2015.



Mrs. Osei has NEVER attended a cabinet meeting and shown absolutely no patronage to the NDC. This is the most infantile of allegation as surely, records are available of attendance at Cabinet meetings at the Presidency. The petitioners would be compelled to provide evidence in support of these allegations.



Claim 15: Mrs. Charlotte Osei frequently travels out of the jurisdiction without informing either the Commission or any of her deputies.



Response 15: The Chairperson does not report to the two deputies. These are deputies who constantly show insubordination, do not come to work or come to work when they feel like, go on leave and travel without the knowledge and approval of the Chairperson. They clearly do not respect their office or their role within the organisation. Corporate governance procedures are clearly disregarded in their operational behavior.



As a ground for impeachment, it would also be proper for the Deputy Chairpersons to be impeached for all the times they have taken unauthorized leaves and travelled within and outside the jurisdiction, without the approval of the Chairperson.



Claim 16: Mrs. Charlotte Osei harbored personal vendetta against a vendor by name Messrs Buck Press Limited on the premise that he belongs to NPP. She categorically made this statement in an interview with BBC. In view of this, she unilaterally without recourse to the Commission removed the companys name from the list of vendors already approved by PPA to do business contrary to the Public Procurement Act.



Response 16: The BBC interview transcripts are available and would show that Mrs. Osei never made any comments that showed a personal vendetta against Messrs. Buck Press or mentioned his party affiliation which is unknown to her. The petitioners would be required to provide documentary evidence of these allegations.



Messrs Buck Press was awarded 2 contracts by the Commission in 2016; 1 contract in 2015; 2 contracts in 2014; 1 contract in 2013; and 2 contracts in 2012. Messrs Buck Press was one of four companies who put in a tender for the printing and supply of carbonised forms. The contract was awarded to Aerovote Ghana on the basis of the recommendations of the Tender Evaluation committee report submitted to the Chairperson (copy attached and marked CO16A).



The Chairperson is NOT a member of the tender evaluation committee. The tender evaluation committee was chaired by the director of finance and included the Directors of HR, IT and Electoral Services at the Commission. There is no record of the evaluation committee recommending that the contract should be awarded to Buck Press and that the Chairperson flouted such recommendation. Further, the Chairperson was informed by the evaluation committee that Aerovote was the only company that met the security and form personalization requirements and with the capacity to print the carbonized forms IN GHANA. Consequently, for the first time in our electoral history, political party representatives could monitor the process of printing of carbonized forms that led to higher levels of transparency and the integrity of our electoral process. The Chairperson has no personal issue against Messrs. Buck Press. The Commission has maintained the same seven main printers it has always done business with and the Chairperson maintains a cordial relationship with all the printing companies.



Claim 17: The Chairperson, Mrs. Charlotte Osei assuming Office has consistently attempted to demonise her predecessor, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan and taking steps to de-recognise the legacy of her predecessor.



Response 17: The Chairperson has always shown the highest levels of respect and admiration for her predecessor and she maintains a very warm relationship with Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan and his family. Indeed, in most interviews she has granted, she has always paid tribute to the excellent legacy left by her predecessor particularly in the area of putting in place structures that support and enhance credible and transparent elections. In any case, assuming without admitting that this allegation was true, how does this become a ground for impeachment of the Chairperson of the EC under the 1992 Constitution of Ghana?



Claim 18: Mrs. Charlotte Osei has consistently approved for payment of $76,000 United States Dollars to an IT company, Dream Oval Limited without contract contrary to the Financial Administration Act.



Response 18: The contract with Dream Oval was funded by the USAID and awarded in line with USAID procurement policies. The USAID has not complained of any breaches of policies and has agreed to pay the additional costs necessitated by the additional security infrastructure that Dream Oval had to put in place for the Commissions website. There has been no breach of any law or policy put in place by USAID with regard to this matter. This is therefore, another baseless allegation founded on mischievous imaginations.



Claim 19: The Chairperson through her arrogant posture brought embarrassment to the Commission by refusing to grant audience to the members of the National Peace Council and the leader of the Africa Union Delegation Mr. Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa during the 2016 General Election.



Response 19: It is patently untrue that the chairperson refused to meet President Mbeki and the National Peace Council. The Peace Council came on an unscheduled visit to the office at a time the Chairperson was away from the office. There were subsequent conversations and meetings with the Chair of the National Peace Council, which the Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante can confirm.



The Chairperson met President Thabo Mbeki on December 1, 2016 at the Movenpick Hotel at the request of President Mbeki. There is pictorial evidence of the meeting as posted by president Mbeki on social media (please see attached and marked CO19A). There were also several phone conversations with President Mbeki before and after the December elections. Indeed, after the elections, President Mbeki called personally to congratulate the Chairperson on her warmth, hard work, exemplary leadership and excellent organization of the elections. It would be most helpful for the petitioners to establish basic facts available as matters of public record in their quest to vilify the Chairperson.



Claim 20: The Chairperson is managerially and administratively inept. She lacks managerial experience or capacity and knowledge of corporate governance structures and regulatory compliance. She has no respect for the organizational structure of the Commission to the extent that she deals directly with directors and senior officers without recourse to the deputies. The Chairperson lacks the requisite managerial skills in public administration. This point needs no elucidation since the current leadership style is publicly known.



Response 20: The Chairpersons managerial competence is evident from her career track record and the reports of local and international election observer missions as well as the commendations from regional directors and senior staff of the EC on the organization of the 2016 elections. Her competence is also shown by many positive changes at the Commission since the tenure of the current Chairperson.



The Chairperson will deal directly with directors when a Deputy spends half of the working week outside of Accra, particularly in a busy election year when decisions have to be taken quickly. The Chairperson has attempted to put in place structures at the Commission to ensure that the Commission is managed in an efficient manner. The Commission has no disciplinary committee or effective disciplinary processes, no audit review committee or processes, no structured management meetings, and no clear financial and administrative procedures and manuals. This is unpardonable.



Financial statements and bank statements are not submitted to the Chairperson or the Commission. Budgets and audit queries are not formally presented to the Chairperson or the Commission. Approvals and payments are made on the blind side of the chairperson and in excess of approved limits. The attempts by the Chairperson to ensure proper structures and financial management systems have led to disputes with the deputy Chairpersons and staff who benefit financially and illegally from the chaos. The Chairperson refuses to superintend a system that engenders endemic corruption and poor administrative structures.



It should be noted that all these actions amounting to financial malfeasance and impropriety would be documented and submitted to the requisite authority for investigations.



Claim 21: The Chairperson had poor human relations not befitting of any leader in public space.



Response 21: The Chairperson has a warm and friendly relationship with all staff and maintains an open door policy. The Chairperson only has difficulties with staff that do not want to see the progress of the Commission and want to continue to preserve their illegal commercial kingdoms for personal gain within the Commission.



In 2015, attempts by the Chairperson to stop district electoral officers from inserting ghost names on the list of officials recruited for the 2015 district level elections, to enable them appropriate the allowances for the officials resulted in the Chairperson being reported to the BNI for investigation. In the report attached hereto dated September 23, 2015 and marked CO21A, staff, according to the BNI, admit to a culture of misappropriation of funds meant for electoral staff, and assert that this practice is a convention at the Commission.



A work culture that permits some staff to steal with such boldness is extremely unfortunate and cannot be allowed to continue.



Claim 22: The Chairperson has submitted an estimate of over GHS1million for the renovation of the official bungalow for the Chairperson without recourse to the Commission or appropriate staff in the Commission.



Response 22: The estimate for renovation of a house indicates the level of work required to be done in the house. It is not a contract and there is no breach of the law occasioned by submitting an estimate. It is in fact the Deputy Chair Operations that is in breach of process reflected in his actions in 2015 when without recourse to the Chairperson, the Deputy Chair Operations verbally authorized a Director to undertake repairs to the Chairmans official residence for the use of the said Director.



Upon submission of the estimate of works done, it would have been expected that the Deputy Chair CS who oversees administration, would have started a proper procurement process for the renovation of the Chairpersons residence. To date, no work has been initiated and the Chairperson is still unable to move into the official residence two years after appointment. In the same vein, the Chairperson was never provided with an office three months after joining the Commission. She had to initiate the moves herself to get suitable office premises and furnish it personally.



Claim 23: The Chairperson has constituted herself into the Commissions Tender Review Committee contrary to the Public Procurement Act. She singularly chairs the Entity Tender Committee and Tender Review Committee at the same time. This puts her into conflict of interest position and this is a clear breach of the public Procurement Act.



Response 23: The Chairpersons headship of the Commissions Entity Tender Committee (ETC) is in line with the law, commission policy and was a decision taken at a Commission meeting after its review of the UNDP commissioned assessment report on the EC. That report highlighted major breaches of procurement law and poor procurement and financial management regime at the Commission prior to the appointment of the Chairperson. To establish conflict of interest, it needs to be shown exactly what actions the Chairperson has taken in her capacity as head of the ETC which show that her personal interest have conflicted with her official position. The fictitious petitioners have failed to establish this.



Claim 24: The chairperson since assumption of office does not know any regional or district of the Electoral Commission. She has blatantly refused to visit any of the offices of the Commission citing security reasons. Surprisingly, since her assumption to duty, she has never visited any of the offices of the deputies.



Response 24: The Chairperson has visited as many offices as time constraints in a busy election year would permit. As with all large organizations, the Chairperson in her leadership is required to prioritize major issues around clear priorities within the Commission. At the time of the appointment of the Chairperson, the strategic and organizational priorities did not allow for significant local travel to the regions. Security has never been a cited reason for the failure to travel and proof of this would be requested from the petitioners. As with all large organisations, the Chairperson is required to allow the responsible leadership to keep her informed of the needs of the organisation whilst she may not personally be able to visit every office  it is with this knowledge of the deplorable state of district and regional offices, and in some cases, no district offices at all, that the Chairperson commissioned the construction of 100 district offices due to be completed this year.



In the Chairpersons short tenure of 24 months at the Commission, she has supervised the conduct of two national elections and 4 by-elections and undertaken significant travel related to Commission work and AAEA obligations. Whilst the Chairperson regrets not being in a position to visit each and every station and district office, the nature of constraints of time and organisation priorities she has been unable to do so  however it is clearly the responsibility of the Deputy Chairperson of Operations to do so.



The Chairperson has visited the offices of her deputies. In any case, it is baffling why this issue should be of major concern to the concerned staff of the Commission, and be elevated to an impeachable offence and of greater importance to staff than the security of their retirement funds and their general well being.



Claim 25: On the issue of Staff Endowment Fund she blatantly refused to meet the Senior Staff Association and the Union in the presence of the deputies and by extension the Commission. The allegations against the Deputy Commissioners and other staff have not been brought before the Commission only to surface at EOCO. The Chairperson cause the said auditing of the Endowment Fund without recourse to the Commission. The said audit report was not brought to the attention of the relevant persons for their comments or responses in line with best practice of auditing standards.



Response 25: The Chairperson has had many, many meetings with the Senior Staff Association (SSA) and Union executives on the issue of the endowment fund. The president of the SSA Mr. Joseph Addo Boateng and Mr. Charles Botchey, union chair can confirm this. Indeed, she has never refused a meeting with the two bodies to discuss the endowment fund issue. The staff bodies are aware of her tireless efforts to resolve the issues regarding the endowment fund monies since November 2015. The Chairperson wrote letters to the retired Director of Finance and Chief Accountant in February 2016 seeking their input towards a resolution of the issue. Further, she commissioned an internal audit report into the Fund in March 2016. These have all yielded no conclusions, as the payment vouchers to support the fact that the endowment fund monies were used for operational purposes were never provided.



Claim 26: The Chairperson has lost popularity, legitimacy and touch with the staff and some members of the Commission. She has failed to manage the Commission as a corporate entity.



Response 26: Legitimacy is conferred by law and cannot be lost simply on baseless, frivolous allegations that are lacking in substance, not factual, and actuated by malice. The Chairperson has consistently delivered on her mandate in an exemplary manner as reflected by the several commendations received by her from the international and local community on the successful elections held in 2016.



The Chairperson is responsible for leadership of an organization mandated by the law and subject to the law. The rules of engagement are clearly defined in the law and corporate governance is a critical component to the successful operation of the Commission. Delivery of this requires that the leadership take unpopular decisions to ensure that the broader needs of the Commission and the people of Ghana are placed ahead of the desires of corrupt, unscrupulous individuals with the sole desire to enrich themselves at the expense of our Democracy. Where there is an endemic culture of corruption and the Chairperson is attempting to eradicate same, clearly she will not be expected to be popular with the beneficiaries of the corrupt system. Where leadership of the Commission seeks popularity, either with staff or external stakeholders, then leadership of the Commission would be failing in its duty to the people of Ghana and breaching the oaths of office that they have sworn to on appointment.



Claim 27: The Chairperson, Mrs. Charlotte Osei unilaterally awarded a contract of about $25,000 to a South African company, Quazar Limited to change and redevelop the Commissions logo under the guise of rebranding without going to tender contrary to the Public Procurement Act.



Response 27: The decision to prepare a strategic plan and rebrand the Commission was a decision of the full commission at a meeting. Quazar was selected out of three companies and contracted by the UNDP to assist the Commission complete its Strategic Plan and rebranding. The UNDP was very happy with the services of Quazar and the UNDP has not submitted any complaints of any breaches in the award of contract process. Indeed, representatives of Quazar had several meetings and workshops with senior staff and members of the Commission. It is therefore unclear the basis for the complaints that the Chairperson unilaterally engaged the services of Quazar. In addition, Quazar was not paid US25,000. Quazar was paid about GHS23,470 as supported by the documents attached and marked CO27A. It would be most helpful if the petitioners would get basic facts right.



FURTHER PARTICULARS



28. It is worth pointing out, that while the Chairperson is persistently accused of arrogance and taking unilateral decisions, there is ample evidence of extreme arrogance, ineptitude and blatant breaches of the law by the deputy Chairpersons. A few examples will suffice here:



I. The Deputy Chairperson CS has signed contracts worth over GHS40m without the knowledge and authorization of the Chairperson between July-September 2015. Payments were also made on these contracts in excess of her approval limits and again, without the knowledge and authorization of the Chairperson. This is illegal, criminal and a breach of the policies of the Commission and the laws of Ghana. The supporting documents would be submitted to the relevant investigative agencies for their further action.



II. In June 2017, the annual leave of Deputy Chairperson Operations was approved by the Deputy Chairperson CS without recourse to the Chairperson and signed on behalf of Chairperson by Deputy Chairperson CS while she herself was on leave. This is clearly symptomatic of poor knowledge of corporate governance and managerial ineptitude. Indeed, the Deputy Chairperson CS has arrogated to herself the powers of the Chairperson, convening commission meetings and taking other ultra vires decisions in clear breach of the Law.



III. The Deputy Chairperson CS went on an unauthorised leave from May 19 - June 19 2017 without notice to the Chairperson and without prior approval. A sick leave note was subsequently submitted to the Director of HR.



IV. While on leave in June 2017, the Deputy Chairperson without authorization and notice to the Chairperson, approved 2015 financial statements of the Commission, an increase in the amount for fuel coupons (beyond budgeted levels) and without prior knowledge and authorization of the Chairperson or the Commission. Clearly, there is ample evidence of poor knowledge of corporate governance, rules of public service financial management and general incompetence.



V. The poor financial management systems within the Commission are systemic. In some cases, Commission funds are paid into personal accounts of staff members at the regional offices.



VI. A surreptitious attempt was made to remove the Chairperson of the Commission from the GIFMIS platform to enable payments to continue to be made on the blind side of the Chairperson.



VII. The Deputy Chairperson Operations has persistently instructed officials to carry out illegal vote transfers on the Voter management System in clear breach of the law and operational policies of the Commission. Such actions have major implications for the integrity of the work of the Commission and constitute abuse of office.



VIII. The Deputy Chairperson Operations collected funds above GHS6m (Six million Ghana cedis) in cash from some political parties for the organization of party primaries without recourse to the structures of the Commission, and without the involvement of the finance department of the Commission. Political party primaries were treated as a private commercial project by the Deputy Chairperson Ops, with funds paid directly into the personal accounts of key staff for functions to be performed for party primaries. An internal audit report highlighting widespread malfeasance in the conduct of party primaries under the supervision of the Deputy Chairperson Operations is attached and marked CO28A. This situation cannot be allowed to continue.



It is clear from the manner in which these allegations have been laid  in the court of public opinion  based on no facts and only malicious intent of persons protecting corrupt and unscrupulous acts. These acts enrich solely the practitioners of these acts, and there is no intent to abide by the law of the land nor truly be of service to the people of Ghana. There is clearly, no established case of fraud or abuse of office made against the Chairperson. The public purse, should be, and must be protected, even at the EC. The independence granted the Commission under the Constitution does not mean immunity to flout all the financial laws of Ghana, waste public funds and unlawfully enrich corrupt public officials.



The role of the EC is to enable the citizens to participate in free and fair elections  it has and will always remain the guiding principle of the Chairperson. It is only those that are eager to subvert the law and engage in illegal actions that will not support this mandate in its implementation and vision of creating a World Class Electoral Commission.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs Charlotte Osei has described her two deputies as 'rude and insubordinate'.



She has also denied the allegation that she has created disunity among members of the commission.



Her remarks follows allegations levelled against her by some members of the Commission that she was not on good terms with her two deputies and other members.



According to the aggrieved members of the Commission, the leadership of Mrs. Charlotte Osei has brought about an irreversible disunity among Commission Members to the extent that she is not on speaking terms with the deputies and other Commission members. There is total breakdown of administrative structures of the Commission,



In response to this, in a 28-point response document, Madam Charlotte Osei through her lawyers said the Deputy Chairpersons have chosen to be grossly insubordinate and rude and there is ample documented evidence to support this.



"Mrs. Osei is on speaking terms with everyone at the Commission. The Deputy Chairpersons have chosen to be grossly insubordinate and rude and there is ample documented evidence to support this. Deputies take managerial decisions and implement same without the knowledge of the Chairperson; threaten staff that have direct dealings with the Chairperson; take their leave without the approval of the Chairperson and implement major administrative and operational decisions without the knowledge of the Chairperson. It would be helpful for our fictitious petitioners to provide evidence to the contrary. There is only a breakdown of the structures for maladministration and illegal financial dealings and not the administrative structures of the Commission as claimed by the fictitious petitioners".









Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The acting General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party [NPP], John Boadu has responded to allegations by the opposition National Democratic Congress [NDC] that, the Nana-led government is attracting mayhem rather than the peace he promised Ghanaians.



He described as unfortunate some happenings that are taking shine of the good governance by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his experienced appointees.



Recently, the EC-Saga has been a major topic for discussion as counter accusation has ensued between the Electoral Commission (EC) boss, Mrs. Charlotte Osei and her deputies as well as some staff of the election management body.



The EC chairperson has been accused of fraud and financial malfeasance  this has compelled some of her staff to petition President Nana Akufo-Addo for her removal.



But in a 28-point response, Mrs. Osei denied any acts of fraud or financial malfeasance on her part and counter-alleged fraud and corruption against her accusers.



Speaking on the issue on NEAT FMs morning show Ghana Montie, John Boadu noted that, the allegations leveled against both the EC chairperson and her staff will be investigated thoroughly by the rightful authorities to bring the matter to an end.



He was emphatic that  The NPP has no hand in this saga to remove the EC boss as claimed by the NDC. The NDC will continue to show it incompetency even in opposition.



What do we gain to watch Ghana burn? he questioned.



According to Uncle JB as affectionately called in politics, Whoever will be found guilty in this allegation will be sanctioned accordingly. The commission itself will be investigated because a whole lot has been said about them. Theres no unity among the commission so Charlotte Osei alone cannot be blamed. Its not about her.



We must all work on solving this situation so the commission will maintain its integrity before the next election, he added.

Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Washman007









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Say what you want about Huntsman spiders  seriously, say anything, arachnids dont have ears  but you have to admit theyre hardy mofos. Kitchens, sheds, dunnies: those furry limbed boys seem capable of popping up just about anywhere, including in shipping containers destined for the UK.

A particularly leggy specimen freaked the hell out of an unsuspecting British removalist last week, after it popped up in a box of goods from Brisbane. All 18cm of its impressive span survived the 16,000km, three-month journey to the relatively spiderless Surrey.



Dont do this.

Speaking to the BBC, removalist David Aldridge said I had three guys unloading, one ran about two miles up the road when he first saw it. Sure, theres the possibility thats metaphorical, but were choosing to take this one at face value.

via RSPCA / BBC.

As for how the stowaway managed not to cark it on the way over, Aldridge speculates from the empty locust shells found in the container it seems he has thankfully been able to find food during that length of time, but its a long time to go without water, and hes lucky he didnt get squished by any boxes or furniture.

Seeing as this is the UK were talking about and not, oh, any suburb in Australia, Aldridge made the call to capture the spider and hand it over to Heathrow Animal Reception Centre. The Beeb says itll be rehomed by a specialist, which we can only assume means itll be hurled from an old Tupperware container into the shrub out front.

This isnt even the first time a big ol spider has caused enough of a consternation in Britain for the media to get involved. A lil while earlier this year, a fella in Kent called the RSPCA to intervene when he came across a Huntsman on his wall.

Theyre not that big of a deal, but were still here for the occasional news of a Pom being freaked the heck out by one of our homegrown fang-mangs.

Source: BBC.

Photo: RSPCA.
Last week the Surfers Paradise Alliance said they wanted to shorten your Schoolies, now some Gold Coast apartment owners have come out  again  in favour of banning the annual graduate pilgrimage entirely.

As evidence in the case the Gold Coast body corporate reform group plan to put forward to the state gov, theyve released gnarly footage of Queensland Police surveying $40,000 worth of damage done last year to a Gold Coast apartment.

Shocking pictures emerge of $40000 worth of damage inflicted on a Gold Coast unit by Schoolies. @AmandaAbate #7News pic.twitter.com/oeRm6VXi5L  7 News Gold Coast (@7NewsGoldCoast) July 24, 2017

More than 60 school leavers allegedly smashed a unit wall and furniture, leaving holes in just about every wall, with plaster and rubbish strewn about the place willy-nilly.

The rich dudes/dudettes who own luxury apartments, and whose main concern is apparently reputational damage to Surfers Paradise, will also be including pics in their submission.

The pics are truly eye-opening: people dancing on balconies (gasp!), bongs left in stairwells (shock!), and actual shit smeared on the walls (genuinely horrifying)  because millenials just want to watch the world burn.

The groups stats are admittedly damning, although not entirely surprising:

121 noise breaches across the two Schoolies weeks

36 emergency services attendances, including five for potential suicides or drug overdoses

Six fights broken up by police

Four schoolies found by police with drugs

One case of sexual assault investigated by cops

13 schoolies evicted, half for drug possession, and the others for unit damage, excessive noise or balcony hopping

48 fire doors jammed

They also have recorded incidences of knives being thrown off balconies, blood splattered in elevators, kids wizzing in a sauna, and the unavoidable: broken beer bottles in the pool.

I mean Im not an expert, but I would think that perhaps the solution is not to Airbnb your swanky apartment out to a bunch of teenagers when you know their only intention is to get smashed and maybe get laid for ~seven days. They can stay in a backpackers 40 minutes away like everyone else.

The group are scheduled to meet with Communities Minister Shannon Fentiman next week on the Gold Coast.

But their efforts will probably be fruitless, because its not like the government is technically responsible for the influx of youths in November anyway.

As Fentiman said: The state government certainly doesnt organise Schoolies or promote Schoolies. We provide the safety response.

Translated loosely that means:

Source: Gold Coast Bulletin.

Photo: Sergio Dionisio / Getty.
Apart from hosting and possible maintenance costs, there are not exactly downsides to having your own website. Even if its just a personal blog it can always become more useful down the line, if you utilize it in the right manner. In other words, more
As tens of thousands punters experience the Australian festival scenes most harrowing comedown and subsequent return to reality, its worth revisiting the little moments that make Splendour In The Grass so damn notable: billionaires spotted trying to absorb the vibe on Byron Bay. Punters trying to absorb some illicit substances on the fests final night. That kind of deal.

With that in mind, we feel its utterly necessary to share a little tidbit we eyed backstage, which provided some wholesome context to what was already a full-on festival highlight.

Ahead of Client Liaisons peppy and polyestered set with Tina goddamn Arena, we clocked the trio hanging out like the best of Aussie pop pals. Arena evidently wasnt just there to bust out some tunes with her suited proteges, as she made an effort to straighten out the duos jackets.

And. Bless. Her. Heart.

Tina Arena fixes up Client Liaison backstage at Splendour In The Grass 2017 from PEDESTRIAN.TV on Vimeo.

TBH, were also in need a bit of an adjustment after the weekend that was. Tina: call us.

Ready for take off bring it on #Splendour ???????? @splendourinthegrass @clientliaison @cappellazzocouture @nickwlord this outfit is amazing ?????? A post shared by Tina Arena (@tinaarena) on Jul 22, 2017 at 11:55pm PDT

Photo: Courtney-Joy Fry / PEDESTRIAN.TV.
WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Monday allowed President Donald Trump's voting commission to go forward with collecting voter data from 50 states and the District of Columbia, ruling the White House advisory panel is exempt from federal privacy review requirements whatever additional risk it might pose to Americans' information.

The ruling averted a public setback for a president who has claimed widespread fraud cost him the popular vote in November. The commission's request for the voting information of about more than 150 million registered voters remains controversial, with many state leaders from both parties voicing objections about its potential to reveal personal information, suppress voter participation and encroach on states' oversight of voting laws.

The panel's June 28 letter to the states requested that they turn over "publicly-available voter roll data," including name, address, date of birth, party registration, partial Social Security numbers and voting, military, felony and overseas history, among other data.

On July 10, the White House clarified that it had scrapped plans to use a Pentagon-operated website to accept the data and had designed a new system inside the White House to take the submissions.

Those changes appeared crucial in a 35-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington said.

"The mere increased risk of disclosure stemming from the collection and eventual, anonymized disclosure of already publicly available voter roll information is insufficient" to block the data request, she wrote.

Kollar-Kotelly, who was appointed by president Bill Clinton in 1997, ruled against the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group that sought to block the commission's data request because the panel had not conducted a full privacy impact statement as required by a 2002 federal law for new government electronic data collection systems.

She concluded that while EPIC had the right to sue under the law for a privacy review, the commission was a presidential advisory panel, not a federal agency subject to the privacy law.

"Neither the Commission or the Director of White House Information Technology - who is currently charged with collecting voter roll information on behalf of the Commission - are 'agencies'" of the federal government subject to the court's review in this matter, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

"To the extent the factual circumstances change, however - for example, if the . . . powers of the Commission expand beyond those of a purely advisory body - this determination may need to be revisited."

Kollar-Kotelly wrote the only added risk to privacy were if the White House computer systems are more vulnerable to security threats than those of the states, or that its de-identification process would be inadequate.

President and Executive Director Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy center was expected to issue a statement shortly.

A spokesman for the voter information commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The commission is led by Vice President Mike Pence, with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican, as vice chairman.

The court order was not a final ruling on the commission's work, with other groups filing lawsuits and one appealing to a higher federal court to block its action under open records and meeting laws.

But Monday's ruling removed one legal obstacle even as the commission faces other political head winds. The commission had asked states to hold off submitting the sweeping voter data the panel had requested pending the court decision.

At least 44 states have indicated they won't provide all their voter data, with some saying they would provide nothing and others providing what information they could under state laws.

The vice president's office has said 20 states have agreed to share at least some data and 16 more are reviewing the request.

President Trump has said that widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote in November, although critics say the claim is unsubstantiated and is a pretext for federal laws to suppress voter participation, including by racial minority groups and poor people.

Trump has championed the commission's work as a way to "strengthen up voting procedures" by identifying "vulnerabilities . . . that could lead to improper voter registrations and improper voting." Conservative board members have advocated stricter federal election laws, alleging that a liberal bias in U.S. enforcement has benefited liberals.

Republicans such as Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan had called the commission's request a "hastily organized experiment," or a "federal intrusion and overreach," as Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler, R, put it.

Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo refused "to perpetuate the myth voter fraud played a role in our election," while Vermont Secretary of State James Condos, D, called the commission "a waste of taxpayer money."

In court filings, Rotenberg called the privacy implications of creating "a secret database stored in the White House" of hundreds of millions of voter records from across the country "staggering" and lacking legal authorization.

EPIC said the proposal would increase privacy risks to every registered voter, "including in particular military families whose home addresses would be revealed," people whose partial Social Security numbers are used as passwords for commercial services and people with felony convictions.

Trump formed the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after repeatedly suggesting that millions of illegal voters cost him the popular vote against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Studies and state officials of both parties have found no evidence of widespread voting fraud.

Led by chairman Pence, the panel's other members are Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson, R; New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, D; Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, D; former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell, R; Christy McCormick, R, commissioner with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; former Arkansas state representative David Dunn, D; Mark Rhodes, clerk of Wood County, West Virginia, D; Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow of the Heritage Foundation, R; J. Christian Adams, R, a conservative columnist; and Alan Lamar King, D, a probate judge in Alabama.

Kobach said in the court filing that McCormick is not serving in her official capacity as a member of the EAC. Kobach said the Trump commission has "no legal relationship with the EAC," and that while the president can appoint additional members to the newly formed advisory commission, to Kobach's knowledge, no other federal agency officials are currently under consideration.

Although the May 11 executive order stated the commission would be supported by the General Services Administration - a federal agency subject to privacy requirements - the administration said in fact data would be downloaded on to White House computers, with an employee of Pence's office and White House information technology staff responsible for collecting and storing it.
Nearly two years after the complaint was filed, a federal age discrimination lawsuit against the state Office of Open Records has ended with a $60,000 settlement.

The settlement, announced Monday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, involves Joseph Bednarik's claim that he wasn't hired by the open records office because he was 55 when he sought a job as an appeals officer in 2009.

The EEOC filed suit on Bednarik's behalf in U.S. Middle District Court in September 2015. Bednarik, a lawyer, had worked for the state Human Relations Commission for 17 years before seeking the open records post.

During his job interview, a former open records office director expressed concern that Bednarik would be retiring soon, the EEOC claimed in its suit. A 40-year-old woman was hired for the job he sought.

The EEOC contended that decision was age-based and so violated the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which is designed to protect workers over 40.

"This resolution should send a strong message to all employers, public and private, that the EEOC will not tolerate age discrimination in the workplace," said Spencer H. Lewis, Jr., director of the EEOC's Philadelphia District Office.

Erik Arneson, the current executive director of the open records office, said the settlement doesn't equate to an admission that his office discriminated against Bednarik.

"The events alleged by Mr. Bednarik happened so long ago that none of the current staff at the Office of Open Records has any first-hand knowledge," Arneson said. "As a result, and based on the recommendation of counsel, this modest settlement made far more sense than to engage in a potentially lengthy and expensive court battle."

"Age discrimination is repugnant and I would never tolerate it," he added.

In court filings state officials insisted Bednarik's age played no role in the decision not to hire him. Rather, they said former open records director Terry Mutchler received a negative recommendation when she contacted a former employer Bednarik provided as a reference.

Mutchler said Monday that she shares Arneson's abhorrence for age discrimination. Her record as head of the OOR contradicts Bednarik's accusations, she said.

"Anyone that studies my hiring record at the OOR would see that most of my hires ranged in age between 40 years old and 64 years old," Mutchler said. "This particular candidate was initially a strong candidate to be sure and made it to the final round. The reason we didn't hire him was because a reference, strikingly, gave him a bad reference, and we told him that at the time of the decision."

"My very first hire was a man over 40 years old, and as I built the office I went on to hire four people over 40 years old, three people over 50 years old and two hires over 60 years old, many of whom I am happy to report are still in place at the OOR," she added.

The $60,000 settlement was approved by Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner. A civil trial on the case had been scheduled for August.
Route 147 in upper Dauphin County is closed in both directions after a two-vehicle crash Monday morning.

The accident was around 7:15 a.m. at the sharp bend near south River Road, emergency dispatch said. There are injuries reported.

Route 147 is closed between Mountain and Woodland roads.

For more traffic information, follow live traffic updates, accident reports and road closures below from PennDOT, Total Traffic Network and other Twitter sources.

Get a look at conditions on local roads -- via PennDOT traffic cameras -- anytime here on PennLive. For Pennsylvania Turnpike updates and possible travel delays visit the Turnpike website here.

Tweet us at @pennlive with any incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
Richard Hamborsky's crime had nothing to do with pulling a trigger, but his drunken-driving conviction still bars him from owning a gun, a Commonwealth Court panel ruled Monday.

So, Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini wrote in the court's opinion, state police were correct in denying the 60-year-old Uniontown man's application to buy a firearm.

The problem for Hamborsky is that his 2011 DUI conviction - his second for drunken driving - was graded as a first-degree misdemeanor.

It was so graded because it was a second offense and Hamborsky's blood-alcohol level was logged at .166 percent, more than twice the legal limit, Pellegrini noted. Hamborsky was sentenced to 30 days in the Greene County Prison, plus 2 3/4 years on probation.

The fact that first-degree misdemeanor convictions carry penalties of up to 5 years in prison in Pennsylvania worked against Hamborsky's desire to buy a gun, Pellegrini said, because federal law bars anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison from owning firearms.

While Hamborsky would have been eligible to buy a gun under state law, federal law bars him from owning a firearm because he could, theoretically, have served up to 5 years in jail for the DUI offense, the judge noted.

Hamborsky appealed to the state court after an administrative law judge for the attorney general's office upheld the gun purchase denial state police issued in 2015.

Pellegrini said his court can't even consider Hamborsky's claim that the denial breaches his constitutional right to bear arms because Hamborsky didn't raise that issue when he first appealed to the AG.
For the first time in recent history, the Harrisburg School District hosted a recruitment fair to draw aspiring teachers to the capital city.

"Opportunity awaits you in Harrisburg!" exclaimed its flier.

In recent months, the district has reached out to local colleges, such as Shippensburg, as well as far-flung universities in New York and Puerto Rico.

The reason is a familiar one. At the start of the summer, Harrisburg had 40 vacant teaching positions district-wide, reflecting the ongoing shortage that has dogged schools across the country. The district employs roughly 350 teachers.

"We're innovative because we must be," said district spokeswoman Kirsten Keys, before launching into her elevator pitch: "Harrisburg is a great place to work and give back and impact the lives of children. What our students receive here is a launch pad for where they go in the future."

When asked if she was trying to recruit the reporter, she replied: "We're open to everyone. These are jobs where people can make a difference."

According to data reported in November by the state Department of Education, Harrisburg was among the top public school districts with teaching shortages -- although it was far from the worst.

During the 2015-16 school year, Harrisburg reported a shortage of 29 full-time teaching positions. For comparison, Gettysburg had 32, State College had 44, Pittsburgh had 72 and Philadelphia topped the list with 255.

Curtis Tribue, now in his third month as Harrisburg's human resources director, said the district has vacancies at all levels--elementary, middle and high school--in a range of subject areas that include English, math and science. The biology and math postings are particularly difficult to fill, he said, because of the kinds of certifications required.

Some of the reasons for the shortage are specific to Harrisburg. Others are commonplace across K-12 education.

"People are moving," Tribue said. "They're attracted to suburban districts."

Harrisburg, like many districts across the state and the nation, is feeling the squeeze created by a glut of retirements among baby boomers and a dearth of college students entering the profession.

Enrollment in teacher education programs fell 35 percent between 2009 and 2014, according to a 2016 study by the Learning Policy Institute. That means the pool of potential new hires dropped from 691,000 to 451,000.

The same study found that 8 percent of the teaching workforce leaves the profession each year through retirement or to find higher-paying jobs.

In that kind of market, schools are forced to compete over a dwindling field of qualified candidates.

Money is one part of the equation, Tribue said. In recent years, the district has lost principals to other districts due to the salary difference.

Harrisburg's starting teacher's salary of $46,500, however, is competitive. According to the institute, a new teacher can expect to make $41,901 in Pennsylvania. Nationwide, the average is $36,141.

"We're talking thousands of dollars," Tribue said. "If we're pulling teachers from as far as Hanover [in York County] or Delaware, that will make a difference if you can get a comparable salary closer to home."

On the other end of the equation--the attrition of teachers leaving the district--administrators have tried to make it more enticing to stay.

Such efforts have included leadership training and continuing education, including a partnership with Shippensburg University that prepares teachers from lower-income districts for administrative roles.

Those efforts can have the unintended consequence of making Harrisburg's teachers more attractive to neighboring districts with more money to spend, but the hope is that opportunities to advance within Harrisburg will keep them from leaving.

"As these vacancies come available, it gives opportunity for newer teachers and upward mobility," Tribue said. "And it's not all about dollars and cents. That plays a part but it's about sharing with them ways to innovate and improve the lives of these children."

Keys said the district didn't just begin its recruitment efforts. Each January, it begins attending larger recruitment events that draw schools from across the state or nation. Those consortiums can expose the district to a large number of prospective candidates, she said, but they also have a downside.

"Unless you're a major, stand-out district, you tend to blend into the background," she said.

That's what spurred last week's recruitment event.

Tribue said 115 prospective candidates showed up. Still others completed video interviews with the school. As of Friday, he said, the number of vacant positions fell to 33, although he noted that the figure is constantly in flux.

Late summer can be a difficult time, he said, because school boards are jockeying for each other to make hiring decisions for the year ahead. That means a teacher could announce his or her departure at any time.

Any vacancies that exist on Aug. 21, Harrisburg's first day of classes, will be filled with substitutes.

"I like to think of the advantages first," Tribue said. "A substitute teacher may be excellent at what they do and we'll bring them on board [full-time]. The disadvantage is the inconsistency in the classroom. They may have a short tenure."
A Canadian silver collector coin that is being issued for the 75th anniversary of an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe during the Second World War is seen in this undated handout photo from the Royal Canadian Mint. The Royal Canadian Mint is apologizing for a commemorative coin that a veterans' group says incorrectly named an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe during the Second World War.Officially code-named Operation Jubilee, the Dieppe Raid is called the Battle of Dieppe on a silver collector coin issued for the 75th anniversary of the assault. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Royal Canadian Mint *MANDATORY CREDIT*
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Monday, July 24, 2017, after meeting on Capitol Hill behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
The pandemic brought a technological revolution to schools. Is that a good thing?

Regardless of the path, by necessity, most educators agree the pandemic electrified the use of technology in the classroom.
For sale U.S. 700 million barrels of oil. Trump see no need for a petroleum reserve now



Inside The Strategic Petroleum Reserve as U.S. seeks oil-reserve overhaul to ease mandatory drawdowns

WASHINGTON/SINGAPORE

Petroleumworld 07 24 2017

The weather was hot and humid on July 21, 1977, the day the U.S. government began stockpiling oil. It started small. Just 412,000 barrels of Saudi Arabian light crude stashed in a Southeast Texas salt cavern. In the wake of the Arab oil embargo, which sent prices through the roof and forced Americans to ration gasoline, creating a national reserve seemed like an obvious way to protect U.S. consumers from global supply shocks.

It's hard to imagine if you weren't there,'' said John Herrington, the Energy secretary under President Ronald Reagan, who pushed to expand the reserve in the 1980s. We were lining up at gas stations. We were turning down our thermostats.''

Forty years later, the world has changed, and Washington is torn on whether the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has outlived its usefulness. The U.S. is awash in crude, imports are declining, yet the stockpile remains the largest in world, ballooning to nearly 700 million barrels of crude, enough to offset U.S. production for more than two months, stored in some 60 caverns in Texas and Louisiana.

In light of these changes, Herrington's position has shifted. I don't see the need for a petroleum reserve now,'' he said.

Shrinking Reserves

The government is far from united on the matter. The Energy Department this year kicked off a $2 billion, multiyear effort to upgrade the reserve and improve its ability to distribute oil during an emergency. President Donald Trump , on the other hand, wants to sell part of the reserve, a plan that lawmakers for now have ignored. So the hoard, and the salt caves, remain.

The caverns themselves are a marvel. For all the disputation in Washington, the place is eerily quiet. At Bryan Mound, about 60 miles south of Houston, the salty breeze from the Gulf of Mexico rustles through knee-high sea grass.

Bryan Mound is the largest of four reserve locations on the coast of Texas and Louisiana, able to hold about 247 million barrels of crude underground.

On the surface is a blue sign identifying Cavern 5 and a patch of cement. Two thousand feet (610 meters) below, a sprawling cave begins to open. Originally created by underground sulfur mining, the cavity twists and bloats another 2,000 feet down. Cavern 5 can hold about 37 million barrels of oil, the largest single accumulation of stored oil anywhere in the world.

The caverns are more cost-efficient than smaller above-ground storage tanks. When oil is pumped in, the saltwater is pushed out. To empty the oil, workers simply pump the saltwater back in.

That's what's happening now. The stockpile is shrinking.

Congress has, in recent years, ordered the Energy Department to sell 190 million barrels of oil to fill government budget holes, but it hasn't authorized the agency to replace it. That means that by 2025, the stockpile will be 27 percent smaller. Such a drop in volume could warrant closing some reserve sites, according to Guy Caruso, former chief of the Energy Information Administration.

The agency this year completed two of more than a dozen planned sales of reserve oil, auctioning off about 16 million barrels. A January auction brought in an average price of $51.46 a barrel, while a March sale cleared an average of $45.42 a barrel, according to the Energy Department. The drawdowns have brought the current inventory down to 679 million barrels as of July 14.

Still Vulnerable

Proponents of maintaining the stockpile argue that the U.S. is not immune to price volatility, in spite of rising domestic production and declining imports.

We're still vulnerable,'' said Robert McNally, former energy adviser to President George W. Bush and the president of the Bethesda, Maryland-based consulting firm Rapidan Group. It's short-sighted and deeply unwise to assume that today's energy circumstances will be the same over the next few decades.''

Christopher Smith, who led the Energy Department's Office of Fossil Energy under President Barack Obama, argues that just the existence of the stockpile has a calming effect on markets. For U.S. refiners, the argument goes, the reserve serves as a kind of insurance policy, promising relief if times get tough.

The problem with that argument is that the U.S. has never established a clear policy for when to release oil, leaving it instead to the discretion of the president.

Economic Illiterates'

We ought to dispose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because we've never figured out how to use it in a crisis,'' said Philip Verleger, an economist who led the Treasury Department's Office of Energy Policy under President Jimmy Carter and is now the head of an eponymous Carbondale, Colorado-based consulting firm. The economic illiterates at the Energy Department say it works. But they haven't used it when they needed to.''

The stockpile has been used when extreme weather events, like Hurricane Katrina, threatened energy infrastructure on the Gulf Coast. It's only been used once in response to a global emergency, during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. In 2011, the U.S. also released 30 million barrels in response to oil-supply disruption in Libya.

One of its more controversial uses came in September 2000, when Democratic President Bill Clinton released 30 million barrels to lower gasoline prices, a move that critics said was a way to influence the November election.

We called that the use of the strategic political' reserve,'' said McNally, a Republican. Still, he argues that the reserve remains an important foreign policy tool, especially when dealing with other major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Case in point: As the Trump administration weighs banning crude imports from Venezuela as part of a potential sanctions package, White House advisers are considering whether such a move would warrant a release of oil from the reserve. Venezuela sells about 700,000 barrels a day to Gulf Coast refiners, so an embargo could squeeze refiner margins, and even raise gasoline prices. The oil reserve could give the U.S. some cushion.

Herrington, Reagan's energy secretary, shrugs off the idea. Venezuela, to me, is small potatoes, he said. And the oil from there is not particularly good.






Horizon was ordered to turn over documents in a case involving its Omnia insurance plans. Read more

The New Jersey Supreme Court on Monday ordered Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state's largest health insurer, to turn over a McKinsey & Co. report and other documents it used to establish two tiers of health systems for an insurance plan introduced in 2015.

Providers in the second tier, including Capital Health System Inc. and St. Peter's University Hospital Inc., sued, alleging that Horizon treated them unfairly and breached their contracts when it set up the tiers for its Omnia insurance plan. At the seven Tier One health systems in the Omnia Health Alliance consumers have lower out-of-pocket costs.

The decision overturned an Appellate Court decision that Horizon did not have to provide the documents for discovery in court.

"We continue to agree with the Appellate Court's characterization of plaintiffs' cases and look forward to prevailing on the merits of the case," Horizon spokesman Kevin McArdle said.

In its 2016 annual report, Horizon said that Omnia plans, which cost on average 15 percent less than comparable broad-network plans, had nearly 290,000 members.
When the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education earlier this month hiked tuition at our 14 state universities, it struck a nerve with state Treasurer Joe Torsella.

A Democrat who took office in January, Torsella oversees college savings plans, including one he instituted that's funded with philanthropic and family donations, not tax dollars, available to every child born in the state.

So, he naturally called a new 3.5 percent tuition increase from PASSHE "deeply disappointing." He said our higher ed system needs reform. He said, "Forcing overburdened families to pay more is not the right path forward."

It didn't surprise me that Torsella spoke out. It surprised me that few others did.

Then again, this is a Pennsylvania pattern: Those in power make bad decisions after not dealing with recurring problems, and everybody else shrugs.

Recurrent problems in this case include rising costs, changing demographics, unsustainable union contracts and pension payouts, legislative inattention, questionable governance, and a PASSHE deficit of $72 million, half of which is to be paid off by middle-class students and families.

Sound familiar? Of course it does, it's Pennsylvania's Groundhog Day.

It's like the annual state budget and every other state problem. Nobody pays attention to trends. Nobody adjusts policy to reality. Nobody works toward anything other than their next job or election.

Our policymakers are shortsighted, small-thinking, and wrong.

There are multiple reasons why they're wrong on new tuition hikes.

Pennsylvania already has the nation's second-highest college debt, according to a CNBC report last week. The average in the state is $34,798.

Tuition and fees for in-state students at Pennsylvania's tax-supported universities are the nation's third-highest, according to the nonprofit College Board.

Think there's a correlation?

New York state just made its college system tuition-free for middle-class students. Maybe out-of-state, higher-paying New York students attending or thinking about our state schools close to New York  Edinboro, Mansfield, East Stroudsburg  will think again, and further drop already shrinking enrollment here.

The Inquirer and Daily News reported last week on a new study  which cost PASSHE nearly $400,000  critical of PASSHE's structure, governance, and leadership.

The 14 university presidents keep getting raises. They make around a quarter-million dollars a year, some more, according to PASSHE data.

And the head of the system, Frank Brogan (who makes $346,000 a year), is leaving.

Meanwhile, in an economy requiring at least some post-secondary education for the overwhelming majority of new jobs, there's this: Current U.S. Census data show that the percentage of Pennsylvanians with a college degree (28.6 percent) is below the national average, lower than every other mid-Atlantic state and lower than every other northeastern state.

And what are we doing about it? We're hiking tuition. Just like last year. And the year before that.

(Tuition also is going up at costlier "state-related" schools: Penn State, Temple, Lincoln, and Pitt.)

"I think we're making a terrible mistake," Torsella tells me. "The life raft of our economy is a higher level of education across the state."

Are there answers?

Torsella says, "State investment in higher education is clearly inadequate," and institutions need to look at cost drivers and seriously discuss reversing them.

But here's the thing. Data from the Colorado-based State Higher Education Executive Officers Association shows Pennsylvania slashed higher ed funding by nearly 20 percent between 2011 and 2016, one of only five states making such deep cuts. (The pending state budget includes a 2 percent PASSHE increase.)

Our legislature, demonstrably, can't act with any foresight in any area. Why would higher ed be different? And PASSHE hasn't exactly shown itself as a breeding ground of innovation.

Meanwhile, more than 25,000 state university students, almost a quarter of the statewide total, from Philly and its four collar counties are paying more.

And who knows how many others are being priced out of their future?
Jeff Sessions has been attorney general of the United States long enough to make one thing clear: He doesn't care much for the rights of the accused. Or even the rights of people who haven't yet been formally accused of any thing. Consider the controversy over civil asset forfeiture.

Rooted in the so-called "war on drugs" launched in the 1970s and '80s, civil asset forfeiture  seizing homes, cars, cash or other possessions that allegedly may have been used in the commission of a crime  has been broadly interpreted to allow law enforcement agencies to seize millions of dollars of people's stuff, even in cases where no one has yet (or ever) been convicted of a crime. In some instances, law officers seize the home of a law-abiding citizen merely because they believed someone temporarily staying there  a grandson or a nephew, say  was up to no good.

For decades, cities like Philadelphia were hotbeds for these property seizures and no one was even questioning the practice. Today, a lot of people are asking hard questions about it. Locally, city and state officials have already drastically scaled back such programs to limit abuse while those who've been harmed  such as the Philly parents threatened with losing a home over a son's $40 drug deal  are pursuing a lawsuit aimed at blocking civil forfeitures all together. On the federal level, former President Barack Obama had a mixed record but his first attorney general Eric Holder did take some steps during Obama's second term to scale back civil seizures.

Since the main policy thrust of the Trump administration is to reverse anything that happened under Obama, it probably won't surprise you to learn that Holder's tentative steps in the right direction are being reversed by Sessions and his new team at the Department of Justice. Last week, DOJ announced it was moving to make it easier to seize cash and property from criminal suspects  even in the 24 states, many with Republican governors, that had placed restrictions on the controversial practice. Sessions seemed totally oblivious to the massive abuses in the program

as he called it "a key tool" in the fight against crime.

But then, Jeff Sessions seems oblivious to many things that have happened since his idyllic youth in the 1950s and early 1960s as an Eagle Scout in Camden, Alabama  beginning with his seeming lack of awareness of the civil right protests that rocked the town in 1965 as he was graduating high school. Continuing with his 1980s efforts to prosecute blacks registering their neighbors to vote in rural Alabama, Sessions has been remarkably consistent in fighting to curtail civil liberties. He opposes the positive work taking place in cities like Philadelphia, which has seen crime rates continue to drop in recent years even while  or often because of  encouraging immigrants to report crime in a "sanctuary city,' decriminalizing recreational marijuana use, and working (with mixed results) to curb abusive stop-and-frisk practices that target non-whites and reduce the number of police-involved shootings.

In just four months in office, Sessions has targeted sanctuary cities, launched new offensives in the discredited "war on drugs" that has made America the world leader in mass incarceration, and said the only problem with police-involved shootings is that the "thin blue line" needs to be fortified. In Sessions World, there is no social problem that can't be solved by locking more people up and refusing to give human beings the benefit of the doubt. Somewhere up there, the harsh Greek law-giver Draco, who liked to cut off people's hands for minor offenses, is looking down and asking, "Man, does this Sessions dude ever give anybody a break?!"

But here's the incredible irony. Jeff Sessions isn't just the nation's highest ranking law-enforcement officer. He is also  according to evidence that is mounting daily  a prime candidate for criminal prosecution.

It's an incredible story. As attorney general, Sessions oversees a criminal-justice network, including the FBI, that has made it its business to charge people with lying  in sworn testimony, in written documents, even in interviews with federal agents. Yet back in January, as a U.S. senator seeking confirmation in his high-ranking Trump administration post, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions raised his right hand and swore to tell the whole truth, before telling what seem to be epic lies about his contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign.

When Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota asked Sessions a fairly straight-forward question about reports of links between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the future AG volunteered: "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians." It turns out, as Sessions later conceded in a follow-up written statement, he'd met with the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak. Twice, he insisted  and he doesn't remember much what they talked about but it wasn't really the Trump campaign. Honest. Now investigators are probing whether there was at least a third meeting that Sessions didn't report even when he tried to clear up that first false statement.

That was before this weekend, when things go a lot worse for the embattled attorney general  and not just because he seems to have lost the confidence of President Trump by maneuvering his way out of position to quash the Russia probe. The Washington Post reported that intelligence intercepts revealed that Kislyak may have told his superiors in Moscow that the campaign  and what Trump could do for Vladimir Putin's government in areas such as lifting sanctions imposed by Obama  was the crux of what he talked to Sessions about. It's revealing that Sessions' boss (for now) Trump went on a Twitter diatribe against "leaks"  not against the veracity of the Post report. It increasingly looks as if Sessions lied at his confirmation hearing because the truth was just too devastating to speak.

As a graduate of a small Methodist university, Sessions is presumably well-acquainted with the Bible's so-called Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Yeah, right. If Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, were investigating Jeff Sessions, criminal suspect, for lying to the federal government, he'd surely bust that bad dude on the toughest possible rap  felony perjury  and go after the maximum penalty, which is five years in prison plus fines. And before his case even went to trial, Sessions and his lawmen would try to seize all the cash they'd claim he'd earned illegally by lying to become attorney general, and maybe they'd even take the car he drove to the Senate hearing for good measure.

Instead, according to news accounts, here's what President Trump is exploring whether to do unto Jeff Sessions and to a whole host of top aides and Trump family members  maybe even himself: Grant a full pardon that would prevent prosecutors from going after any potential crimes that have been committed until now. That would include lying at congressional hearings and on government forms about the full extent of their Russia contacts and about their financial dealings. And obstructing the FBI's probe into these matters. And the mother of all potential crimes that investigators continue to look at: Collusion between Team Trump and Team Putin related to 2016's election hacking.

If you believe the worst about the Trump-Russia-2016 allegations, you probably feel that American democracy and norms have been dealt a crippling blow. But if Trump does indeed pardon the key players in this mess  and with a Republican Congress showing zero appetite for impeachment even under the most dire circumstances  the destruction of the American Experiment will become a fait accompli. Stay tuned to this space.

And yet there's something especially grating about the unjust double standard that could, in theory, let Jeff Sessions skate free for his wrongdoing, immediately after his Draconian push  no matter how brief it turns out to be  to lock up as many Americans for as long as the statutes will allow. Not only would Sessions be government-forgiven for all of his sins, but  unlike thousands of citizens who've done much lessor nothing!  the taxpayers wouldn't even be able to seize his stuff.

Unless, maybe, Sessions has a nephew selling $40 bags of weed from a room over the attorney general's garage.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Isa Betancourt wades into Swann Fountain on the Parkway, and takes home a handful of insects to sort, catalogue, and pin. Read more

A simple fly  very small, not the trashcan variety  was floating on the surface of Swann Fountain in Logan Square on a recent Monday morning, right next to a curl of waterlogged paper and a chunk of dead leaf. According to Isabelle Betancourt, an entomology curatorial assistant at the Academy of Natural Sciences, it would be nearly impossible to isolate the fly without picking up the gunk around it. Using a slender, fine-mesh net (the kind a kid takes fishing), Betancourt can easily catch a fat wasp with a quick dipping motion, but these speck-size insects require a light jab, which, even when executed perfectly, often captures trash in the process.

Betancourt, 27, is often found wearing bug-related jewelry and runs the Swann Fountain Insect Survey, an urban entomology project that is using the insects in Philadelphia's famous fountain to study the city's environment. Three times a week, Betancourt wades into Swann Fountain  just like the girls of Hallahan Catholic High School do every year on the last day of school  and catches every bug she sees to bring them back to the academy to sort, pin, and catalog.

Swann Fountain opened in 1924 as a memorial to physician Wilson Cary Swann, the founder of the Philadelphia Fountain Society, which had worked to make fresh water available, even in the middle of the city. Artist Alexander Calder had called the central brass sculptures "The Fountain of Three Rivers," as its main figures represented Philadelphia's three waterways  the Delaware, Schuylkill, and Wissahickon. At the foot of the statue, below the three main sculptures, Calder added shad, frogs, and turtles.

The fish are angled upward with their mouths open, as if reaching for a fly.

In a way, Betancourt's project resembles Swann's and Calder's, in that it celebrates the boons of nature in the middle of an urban landscape.

When she finished her work on this particular Monday, Betancourt had collected the small fly in question, dozens like it, several bug-orbiting clumps of garbage, and some more "charismatic" samples  bees, wasps, ladybugs, and beetles. It was a light load, she said, perhaps because of the stormy weather.

Urban entomology is a relatively new scientific field that looks at how the bugs in residential, commercial, and industrial centers reflect a city's environmental well-being. Insects are excellent bioindicators  meaning the presence or absence of certain bugs in a given sample can indicate changes in environment over time. That's why Betancourt is always sure to go for the little flies, even when it means collecting a lot of trash. Missing an insect means potentially losing an important piece of information.

Betancourt isn't alone in this area either. Her colleague at the museum Greg Cowper has been collecting specimens in the walls of Eastern State Penitentiary since 2011. He has collected more than 1,000 species at the prison, whose fortresslike structure creates what Cowper describes as the urban equivalent of an island. Cowper keeps a small display of his findings in cell 25 on cell block 9.

Betancourt's primary mission now is to collect baseline data  a large survey that future entomologists will be able to compare with their findings, to see if Philadelphia's climate is affecting its buglife. If later collections turn up more pollution-sensitive insects, for example, it could indicate that Philadelphia's waterways are no longer clean enough for their survival. In addition to the presence of specific insects, Betancourt is also looking at when certain types are present.

"In the early spring, we get a lot of ground beetles  they appear all at once and then fade away quickly. Then we get dung beetles. Now we're seeing June beetles," Betancourt said. "It's like when botanists measured time in terms of when certain flowers bloom. We're tracking when different bugs emerge."

Betancourt conceived of the project back in 2013, when, after eating lunch in Logan Square, she noticed dozens of insects dead in the water. "I kept my eye on it for a while," Betancourt said. "Then I decided it was worth jumping in."

Part of the fountain's appeal had to do with the primary challenge of urban entomology. "If I set up traditional collection methods in a city," Betancourt said, "there's a high chance they would be tampered with, or who knows what. They would need to be watched." By contrast, Swann Fountain functions as a trap without offering the opportunity for interference. The most common trap is a flight-intercept trap  mesh hangs in a bug's flight path, the bug crawls up, and falls into a jar of ethanol. "Normally, we put that up," she said, "but this fountain does similar things. The spray of the fountain catches bugs midflight, much like an intercept trap."

Another common collection method, called a bee bowl, consists of a brightly colored basin filled with water. Entomologists add a little bit of soap to break the water's surface tension, creating a set of light frequencies attractive to bees and wasps. Swann Fountain, with its continually moving water, "is the perfect mix of bee bowl and intercept trap."

The ideal science experiment is infinitely repeatable, a condition that can be hard to achieve in the fluctuating landscape of a city. Betancourt suspects the fountain, an important feature of Philly culture, will be around for a while.

It's a fitting spot for the scientist's urban entomology project. "People don't have to leave to find nature," she said. "Bugs are around us all the time, even in the city."
Lawrence Wrights new book The Terror Years features 10 essays about the War on Terror. Read more

He established himself a decade ago as an expert in the history of Islamist terrorism with the magisterial Pulitzer Prize-winning study The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Yet, prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, journalist Lawrence Wright had no experience as a foreign correspondent or war reporter.

Wright, 69, who has written for the New Yorker since 1992, doesn't really have a beat. You could say he covers the zeitgeist. Consider a major cultural shift in American life, and you'll find Wright right there, somewhere in the background, notebook in hand.

He began his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s covering the civil rights movement as a young newspaper reporter in Nashville. Since then, he has published books about the transformation of baby boomers from protesters to investors in the 1980s (In the New World: Growing Up With America, 1964-1984); the importance of religion in American life (Saints and Sinners); and the child-abuse and recovered-memory controversy of the 1990s (Remembering Satan: A Tragic Case of Recovered Memory). And he caused a stir in 2013 with his second book on religion: the searing expose Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.

Wright's coverage of terrorism remains the high point of his career. And he returns to the topic with The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State, a collection of 10 previously published essays that tackle territory familiar from the earlier book, but from fresh, unexpected angles.

He will talk about the book with former Inquirer foreign correspondent Dick Polman at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Free Library of Philadelphia's Parkway Central Library.

Ask Wright about his range of interests, and he'll tell you he's just being a dutiful reporter.

"I guess I made a resolution years ago that I would only do things that were only really important or really fun," Wright said during a recent phone interview from his home in Austin, Texas.

"Life gives you so many alternatives to choose from and  you judge these as best as you can until something comes along like 9/11. And it's the central event of my lifetime, so I knew I had to write about that."

Wright's engagement with the Islamic world goes back to a strange job he landed in his 20s.

A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he fulfilled the requirement that he serve in a nonmilitary capacity by teaching English at the American University in Cairo. "I didn't even know what language they spoke in Egypt," Wright said.

Nearly five decades later, in 2004, he was back in the region to teach once again, this time mentoring journalists in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It gave him a chance to do research for The Looming Tower.

Wright laughed when asked about press censorship in Saudi Arabia.

"What I learned from my experience is that it's OK [for journalists] to have opinions, and [Saudi] newspapers were full of columns by columnists who were expressing one thought or another," Wright said.

"There just wasn't any access to real facts. You could say your opinion, and the government was fine with that. But facts were a different matter. Newspapers there were just really impoverished in the area of real reporting."

Wright said the Saudi press reminded him of American journalism in the era of the blog.

"To me, so much of what's going on today reminds me of the Arab press," he said. "You know, there's a tremendous amount of opinion in the media based on a very small bank of information. I think the commentarian has taken over, so now what you get is a lot less reporting and more opinion."

The Terror Years isn't a study of abstract ideas. It's a collection of beautifully etched profiles about personalities caught up in the war on terror.

There's a postmortem of sorts on the career of former FBI counterterrorism head John O'Neill, who had left the FBI under a cloud and was head of security at the World Trade Center when it was attacked Sept. 11.

"Here was the FBI agent who had been after Osama bin Laden since the 1990s, and no one cared. He had a warrant for bin Laden's arrest. And he was fired for taking classified documents out of the office," Wright said.

"I was in Austin on 9/11, and there were no flights, so I couldn't get to New York to cover the story, so I had to find more creative ways. Then I read that John O'Neill had died in the attacks. It was one paragraph. And I thought it was so ironic."

Irony, Wright quickly found, was the wrong word.

"After speaking with his family and his colleagues, I realized this wasn't ironic; it was tragic. It was a Greek tragedy."

Wright also devotes an essay to O'Neill's protege, Ali Soufan, one of fewer than 10 FBI agents who spoke Arabic at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Soufan also was the inspiration for one of the characters in Wright's first film as a screenwriter, the strangely prescient 1998 thriller The Siege, about the effects of a terror attack on New York featuring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis.

"I based Tony Shalhoub's character on Soufan," Wright said.

And the film, which was both a critical failure and a box-office flop?

"After 9/11," he said, "it became one of the most-rented DVDs in America."

Lawrence Wright, "The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State"

7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 27, at The Free Library of Philadelphia's Central Library, 19th and Vine Streets.

Tickets: Free.

Information: 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org/authorevents/.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks about sanctuary cities at the U.S. Attorneys Office in Philadelphia on Friday. Read more

If anti-Trump, then pro-Sessions

I never thought I would say this, but I now officially support Attorney General Jeff Sessions keeping his job ("Sessions says he plans to stay on," Friday). Though I am not a fan of Sessions, I am even less a fan of President Trump and am supportive of anything that will reveal the truth about Russian interference in the election.

How does keeping Sessions in office help to do this? Sessions has recused himself from overseeing the Russian-Trump investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller. If Sessions is fired or resigns, Trump will undoubtedly insert a loyalist in the AG job, one who will readily oust Mueller at the first suggestion by the president.

We cannot let Trump subvert the rule of law or the U.S. Constitution. No president is above the law. The president, as much as any citizen, must be held accountable for his actions. The Russia-Trump investigation must be allowed to run its course.

Sessions may play a pivotal role in securing justice for the American people.

 Ken Derow, Swarthmore

Name presidents accomplishments

President Trump is anti-American by his actions with respect to Russia ("Give Trump his due," Monday). I am a U.S. Air Force veteran, and I am way more patriotic than Trump.

What accomplishments can we give him praise for? I would like to know what they are.

His own words over the last 18 months prove that he is an unabashed liar. He has promised many things that he just has not lived up to. Isn't it curious that in running a populist campaign, the majority of his cabinet are multimillionaires? That after criticism of his opponent for connections with Goldman Sachs, yet several of his cabinet members and advisers are from that Wall Street investment firm?

Before anyone accuses anti-Trump people of falsehoods and being anti-American, I suggest he or she look in the mirror.

 James Stevens, West Chester, dansteve@mac.com

Why are pardons needed?

I have one question for our president: If he and his associates are not guilty of anything ("Trump denounces 'illegal leaks' on probe," Sunday), why this intense insistence on his right to pardon himself and everyone connected to him?

 Marlene Lieber, Medford

Surprised Spicer lasted so long

Columnist Michael Smerconish referred to former White House press secretary Sean Spicer as "always a gentleman" ("A chat with Sean Spicer right before his exit," Saturday), and I have no doubt that's true.

I've always felt kind of sorry for Spicer, as he labored to provide excuses and 180-perspectives for an administration that, thus far, has failed to uphold the most basic elements of its job for the American people. In fact, I'm actually surprised that it took Spicer this long to resign. Now, maybe, he can get a good night's sleep.

 Judy Sloss, Glenside, jsloss@comcast.net

Call a vote on shale severance tax

On June 30, the Pennsylvania House passed a $32 billion budget for 2017-18, but we have not completed the revenue bills to support that spending and bridge a $2 billion budget gap ("Budget still isn't balanced," Thursday).

With Standard & Poor's threatening Pennsylvania with another credit downgrade, negotiations blew up last week. House Speaker Mike Turzai proposed closing the gap with a "no-new-taxes plan."

We learned the outline of that plan in a four-hour caucus Saturday: borrow more than $1.5 billion from the Pennsylvania's share of the tobacco settlement agreement; raid other restricted accounts of more than $650 million; and claim $50 million in liquor revenue.

The speaker's rationale: "I can assure you there are very few, if any, tax votes in the House on either the Republican or the Democratic side."

Not so. More than 70 percent of Pennsylvanians support a tax on Marcellus Shale. Nine House Republicans have authored severance tax plans, and 10 Democrats have sponsored proposals, including my House Bill 1624.

So, I offer this suggestion: Let us vote.

If the speaker thinks there is not a will for taxes, including a shale tax, he should not be afraid to bring one of those bills for a vote. Let the people see where their representatives fall on the issue: place a reasonable tax on our precious resource, or dig our hole deeper through borrowing  saddling future residents with the tab.

I urge the speaker to return to the table and in good faith negotiate a responsible revenue plan we can be proud of.

 Madeleine Dean, state representative, 153rd District, Abington, RepDean@pahouse.net

Dying on Gods terms

I thank Marybeth Hagan for writing the beautiful commentary about how her Aunt Sue died with love of family and with dignity ("Death with dignity, in embrace of family, faith," Sunday). I especially liked the last sentence: "God's fingerprints where all over it."

I can relate, since my wife died of cancer at the age of 51. She also died with dignity, love, and respect. She died on God's terms. She experienced peacefulness because she knew she was getting close to meeting her creator face-to-face. She did not need to make a choice when she wanted to die, because she knew the author of all life is the only one who can take it.

 John J. Donohue, Newtown Square
Officer Daniel Kostick and the man who shot him, William Nobblen. Read more

Both men are in their 30s, married, with two young children. Both also carry the scars from their armed encounter two years ago.

But those similarities ended with the way Daniel Kostick and William Nobblen exited a Philadelphia courtroom Monday.

Kostick, 33, left with his family to welcoming handshakes and embraces from his fellow Philadelphia police officers.

Nobblen, 37, left the courtroom in handcuffs  his forlorn wife, Malana, comforted by one friend in a courtroom packed with police  embarking on a 35- to 70-year prison term for shooting and wounding Kostick in a late-night drug stop in West Philadelphia.

"I'm sorry, your honor, this is the most difficult day in my life," Nobblen told Common Pleas Court Judge Mia R. Perez before he was sentenced.

Defense lawyer Jonathan B. Strange told Perez that he had advised Nobblen not to speak because anything he said could be used against him at another trial in October on an aggravated assault and a gun charge.

A jury in April convicted Nobblen of aggravated assault and assault on a police officer. His lawyer says he will appeal the conviction.

Perez noted the surface similarities between the two men and said "both families will feel the effect of this for their rest of their lives."

She also cited Nobblen's childhood: born to a drug-addicted 17-year-old single mother who abandoned him for long periods, father missing, abused by a great-uncle who preyed on several generations of children in the family.

"There's no doubt that you have not had the easiest road in life," Perez told Nobblen. "You have experienced trauma that has spanned many generations of your family. Unfortunately, that trauma will continue."

Perez, who reminded Nobblen that she had offered to recuse herself from his trial because she is married to a police sergeant, mentioned the fear that trails the families of law enforcement officers.

Perez said she needed to impose a sentence that "will deter others."

Kostick, who joined the department in 2008 and still carries the bullet that shattered his shoulder and then lodged in his neck, said nothing during the 90-minute sentencing or after it ended.

Kostick's family and wife, Alexandra, submitted victim-impact statements detailing the impact on his children and extended family and his painful road to recovery.

The statements were read aloud by Assistant District Attorney Allison Borgatti, who also said that Kostick left his job as a bicycle officer in West Philadelphia's 19th Police District for a "safer" job with the police Crime Scene Unit.

The events leading to the shooting began about 10:15 p.m. on April 23, 2015, at 52nd Street and Girard Avenue.

According to Borgatti, Kostick and his partner and best friend Thomas Howe were on patrol on bicycles when they spotted a white minivan parked and the driver smoking what appeared to be marijuana.

As the officers approached the van, Borgatti said, the van made a U-turn and sped east on Girard. Howe called police radio while Kostick tried to see where the van went.

Instead, Borgatti continued, Kostick encountered the driver on foot at 51st and Warren Streets and recognized him because of a teardrop tattoo under his right eye.

"I don't want to have to do this," Borgatti said the suspect warned and then fired at Kostick, hitting him in the shoulder. Though wounded, Kostick drew his pistol and fired back hitting the suspect in the arm.

Officers caught up to the wounded Nobblen in a nearby alley, smoking a marijuana cigarette, and arrested him.

Strange argued for the mandatory 20- to 40-year sentence and nothing more, maintaining that Nobblen did not intend to harm the officer: "He believed he was acting to protect himself. He made decisions that, today, he surely regrets."

Borgatti, who asked the judge to sentence Nobblen to 43 to 87 years in prison, argued that Nobblen has never worked except as a drug dealer, adding, "He completely adopted the gangster way of life."

Borgatti also read aloud an expletive-pocked June 19, 2017, letter to Mayor Kenney, purportedly written by Nobblen, complaining of racist treatment by police and prison officials and saying "they were framing me because I was a better shot than he."

The letter ended with an expletive and the words, "Die slow, Mr. Mayor."
Grant Shea, former health and human services program manager at the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management. Read more

A former Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management manager pleaded guilty to child pornography charges Monday at a federal court hearing that was closed to the public by the judge at the prosecutor's request.

Grant Shea, 30, of South Philadelphia, the office's health and human services program manager for five months until he resigned in July 2016, pleaded guilty to all six counts he faced  two each of receipt, possession, and distribution of child pornography, authorities said afterward.

Shea, dressed in a forest-green prison jumpsuit, his hands cuffed behind him, and appearing thin and pale, was led into the courtroom by U.S. marshals. After the nearly hourlong hearing, he was led back through the eighth-floor hallway into custody. His head bowed, he declined to comment.

"He looks forward to putting this behind him and moving on," said Richard J. Fuschino Jr., who has been representing Shea with lawyer William J. Brennan. Fuschino said they would work on letting the "court know who Grant Shea is outside of this aberration."

Shea began working at the Office of Emergency Management in May 2012 as a health and medical planning coordinator. He became the office's health and human services program manager in March 2016. He resigned July 14, 2016, when a federal indictment charged him with one count each of receipt, possession, and distribution of child pornography.

According to the indictment, in April 2016, Shea received and distributed "a visual depiction  of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." That June, authorities who searched his home found computers that contained child porn.

At his arraignment July 15, 2016, Shea was released and ordered to home confinement on the condition that he not engage in criminal activity.

Later, the FBI, while reviewing evidence seized during an unrelated child pornography investigation, discovered that Shea tried to solicit child porn in November while on house arrest awaiting trial.

After obtaining another warrant, the FBI on Jan. 30 searched Shea's home again and found a sexual image of a pre-pubescent boy on a smartphone. Federal authorities filed a complaint against Shea that day, charging him with a new count of possession of child porn, and a federal magistrate ordered his bail revoked. He has been in custody at the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center since.

According to the complaint, two laptops seized from Shea's home in June 2016 contained 1,829 images and 382 videos of child porn, as well as internet chats in which Shea "would solicit other users to trade child pornography with him."

When the FBI searched Shea's home in June 2016, Shea said that he had begun viewing and downloading child porn one or two years earlier and that it "started as a fantasy and curiosity when people started sending him links to the files," the complaint said.

In May, the U.S. Attorney's Office filed a second indictment against Shea on the new possession charge and also charged him with receiving and distributing child porn in January.

In court on Monday, U.S. District Judge Nitza Quinones Alejandro said she was granting a motion by Assistant U.S. Attorney Priya DeSouza to seal the proceeding and ordered a reporter for the Inquirer and Daily News to leave the courtroom despite the reporter's request to delay it until a lawyer for the newspapers could be contacted. No other reporter was present.

DeSouza did not say why the request was made and declined to discuss it after the hearing.

"The courtroom was closed due to a sensitive matter related to an ongoing investigation," said Michele Mucellin, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia.

It is unusual for court proceedings to be closed to the public. During federal plea hearings, the prosecutor usually reads a summary of the charges. The defendant then decides whether to agree to the prosecutor's account and enters a plea.

Jeffrey Lindy, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor who is not involved in Shea's case, said Monday that the threshold for closing a courtroom to the public in a federal proceeding is high.

"The presumption is that courtrooms are open, civil and criminal," Lindy said. "And what happens in court must be accessible to citizens."

Lindy said federal court proceedings sometimes are closed to protect a government cooperator or to protect an ongoing investigation.
ACHIN, Afghanistan  A recurring rumble of explosions echoes off the barren, boulder-strewn slopes of the Spin Ghar mountains, each ordnance aimed wishfully at redoubts where Islamic State militants are suspected of hiding. Afghan and U.S. special forces listen in on enemy chatter, intercepting dozens of their radio channels. American AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighter jets whir in circles overhead, at low altitude, waiting for strike orders. Soldiers on the ground man the mortars.

The operation against the Islamic State in Khorasan  or ISIS-K, as the Syria-based group's Afghan contingent is known  is now into its fourth month of unremitting warfare. The U.S. military has pledged to "annihilate" the group by year's end, and the redoubled assault has contributed to a spike in U.S. airstrikes to levels not seen in Afghanistan since President Barack Obama's troop surge in 2012. One in five of those strikes is against ISIS-K, despite it controlling only slivers of mountainous territory.

The battle is lopsided, but each day the front line here in Achin district moves back only slightly. Both local intelligence officials and the U.S. military believe that ISIS-K is replenishing its stock of fighters almost as quickly as it loses them. A sense that this may be an indefinite mission has set in.

Soon after its founding in 2014, ISIS-K descended into this district and established it as its stronghold. Entire villages emptied as word of the group's mercilessness spread. Fighters infamously strapped defiant local clerics to explosives and filmed their detonations. For nearly three years, ISIS-K held firm not just in the Spin Ghars but in the vacated villages in the fertile valley beneath them.

In April, the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb, a MOAB  nicknamed "the mother of all bombs"  on a cave complex in one of Achin's valleys, known as the Momand. It is unclear how many fighters, if any, were killed. The MOAB  which felt so forceful that "every ant in the valley must've died," said one villager  was followed by weeks of airstrikes on compounds that ISIS-K fighters had held for two years.

On a recent trip up the valley, the bodies of at least four were still there, lying in abandoned fields overgrown with wild cannabis. The corpses were mostly just bones after months in the sun.

Over the past three years, ISIS-K has succeeded in carrying out ghastly attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But as Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria is whittled away, coalition forces here are worried that Afghanistan's notoriously ungovernable eastern provinces could become a safe haven for fleeing fighters and a new staging ground for attacks on the West.

"We believe that ISIS-K is not currently able to launch attacks because they are essentially being hunted," said Capt. William Salvin, spokesman for the U.S. military here. But he did not refute the assessment of a local Afghan intelligence officer in Achin, who spoke on a condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media: In terms of numbers, ISIS-K has not been severely reduced. The battle is looking more like one of attrition.

While the Pentagon maintains that ISIS-K is down to about 1,000 fighters across Afghanistan, from a high of 2,500 in 2015, the Afghan intelligence officer surmised that there were more than 1,000 in Achin district alone.

The fierce conflict also is scattering fighters across a wider swath of the mountainous east, ensuring a longer, more dispersed mission. Last week, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. drone strike killed Abu Sayed, ISIS-K's leader, or emir. That took place in neighboring Konar province, indicating that the fighting has spread at least that far.

Most of ISIS-K's fighters are thought to be Pashtuns, with few, if any, coming from Iraq and Syria. According to Salvin, the United States sees ISIS-K as more of an "authorized franchise of ISIS-main" than the Islamic State's operation in Libya, which is more closely tied to the fighting in the Middle East. Instead, Afghan analysts say, ISIS-K derives much of its support from Pakistan's military establishment.

"In Nangahar, it is Pakistan's game," said Davood Moradian, director of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, referring to the province in which Achin is located. Pakistan has launched its own military operation against Islamist militants on its side of the Spin Ghar range, but Moradian was skeptical that they shared the goal of the group's elimination.

"Pakistan's military operation against Daesh"  an alternate name for the Islamic State  "is more of a disciplinary mission: Stop your internal disagreements and concentrate on the target we've agreed upon, namely, the Afghan state," he said.

Pakistan has always denied playing a destabilizing role in Afghanistan, but its neighbor's ongoing instability has proved hugely lucrative for Pakistan's military, which has ruled the country for almost half its 70-year existence. George W. Bush's and Barack Obama's administrations gave the Pakistanis a combined $33.4 billion in aid, and there is little evidence their support for Afghan militants has stopped.

Members of the U.S. Congress have been calling for years for a drastic reduction or elimination of security assistance to Pakistan, as well as ending its status as a major non-NATO ally  or even designating it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said that the Trump administration's new Afghanistan strategy, expected this month, will have a "regional component," but it is unclear if that means a curtailment of U.S. aid to Pakistan. In fact, a hostile Pakistan might well pose a greater threat to the U.S. mission here.

Even so, exasperation toward Pakistan runs high here.

"That people are even asking the question 'Should the U.S. stop giving money to Pakistan?' shows the silliness of the discourse in Washington," said Moradian. "It is like asking if we should stop giving heroin to an addict. Of course. It is the very first thing you must do. Otherwise, you will keep fighting permutations of the same adversary here for eternity."

During a recent meeting of his full national security team, President Donald Trump reportedly focused on Pakistan's role in harboring Islamist militants, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster pressed for a more punitive approach.

Among the Momand Valley's former residents, the belief that "Pakistan wants to destroy Afghanistan" is near universal. People eagerly share conspiratorial evidence of Pakistan's hand in their calamity. Daesh leaders all speak Punjabi, one of Pakistan's main languages; their long hair and beards are just wigs supplied by the Pakistani government; one man said that he had seen fighters swimming in the Momand River, and one had a big Pakistani flag tattooed on his biceps.

Many of these people's homes were destroyed by U.S. airstrikes because they were suspected of being used by ISIS-K as hideouts. Most shops in Shadal Bazaar, the valley's main market, were reduced to rubble, too, although the fighting is now far enough into the mountains that some butchers and barbers have dared to rebuild.

Yet the Momand Valley possesses a mesmerizing beauty that makes those who fled yearn to return. If they do, they will find the evidence of ISIS-K's presence not just in their ruined homes but in the few that were left standing. ISIS-K converted Kitab Gul's home into a prison, for instance, and the disturbingly small cages in which they locked those accused of petty crimes such as smoking cigarettes are still lying about. The Afghan army has requisitioned Gul's home as a lookout post.

Despite the U.S. bombing of their homes, and despite U.S. support for Pakistan, locals were largely positive about the campaign to "annihilate" ISIS-K.

"They are not Muslim. Their only religion is cruelty, and there is nothing crueler than what they have done to us," said Mir Jamal, a proud but exhausted father of nine who has spent two years loading trucks for meager sums since escaping his village with nothing but the clothes on his back. When fighters swept into the valley, Jamal's brother and elderly father stayed behind to protect their home. They were caught. His brother's forearm was burned with embers from a fire, and he was waterboarded. His father was pitilessly beaten and now barely speaks.

"My father had red cheeks. He prayed five times a day. He had a big chest, and he farmed late into his life," said Jamal, fighting back emotion. "How can we ever accept Daesh?"
Police escort Cherie Amoore, 32, accused of kidnapping an infant at the King of Prussia Mall, from the District Courthouse in Upper Merion after her arraignment on Friday, April 1, 2016. Amoore claimed she had a newborn son who died in February. Read more

After hearing more than nine hours of testimony, Judge William R. Carpenter said Cherie Amoore knew the difference between right and wrong and had, at least to some extent, premeditated the child's abduction. To make matters worse, Amoore's actions affected multiple victims, including a defenseless baby boy, Carpenter said, and the boy's mother, Malika Lewis-Hunter, who cried in the front row of the Norristown courtroom.

"Imagine the terror, the living nightmare she experienced during those hours," Carpenter said before he handed down the sentence.

The judge's decision came after extensive questioning of several doctors by both the prosecution and defense regarding Amoore's mental health and whether she had actually believed she was pregnant in the months before the kidnapping.

Amoore was found guilty in March of kidnapping and concealing the whereabouts of a child after a brief bench trial, in which neither the prosecution nor the defense presented arguments.

A shackled Amoore declined comment Monday as she was escorted from the courtroom. Her mother, Renee Amoore, deputy chairman of the State Republican Committee, also did not want to speak. She had faced a maximum of 13 to 27 years in prison.

"I think it was an appropriate sentence," said Amoore's lawyer, Marc Steinberg. But he added: "I'm never happy when I see a client go to jail."

Steinberg had asked the judge to consider a sentence of house arrest so Amoore could receive more mental-health treatment than she would have access to in prison.

But Assistant District Attorney Brianna Ringwood said that would not be suitable.

"Cherie Amoore is a con artist," Ringwood said. "She lied to, manipulated, and deceived people that she cared about."

Before her sentencing, Amoore tearfully addressed the court, acknowledging how many people she had hurt, including her own family and friends.

"I hope that I deeply express my remorse for the magnitude of my actions," Amoore said. "I can't imagine what it is Miss Hunter endures day in and day out.  I do hope, if not now but one day, Miss Hunter will be able to forgive me."

Two doctors said they believed Amoore experienced a dissociative episode on March 31, 2016, when she snatched Lewis-Hunter's 7-week-old son from a mall food court.

Gerald Cooke said he diagnosed Amoore, 33, of Wayne, with borderline personality disorder, de-personalization disorder, and major depressive disorder after two psychological evaluations.

"There is a very blurry line for her between reality and fantasy" Cooke said. "She is confused and confusing."

When Amoore walked out of the mall with the baby, Cooke said, she did not realize that what she was doing was wrong.

When Amoore held the baby, "she believed that was her baby," even referring to him by a name she had chosen for her own child, Cooke said.

Amoore's adult struggles stemmed in part from anger she had harbored toward her mother as a child, said Carla Rodgers, who also evaluated Amoore.

"She could never match her mother's accomplishments," Rodgers said. "She felt her life paled in comparison."

Cherie Amoore also believed that her mother pushed her to get an abortion in 2008, when Cherie became pregnant by her then-boyfriend, Rodgers said.

Rodgers said she believed Amoore truly believed she was pregnant in the months leading up to the kidnapping, during which Amoore told conflicting stories to various people  including the boyfriend and close family  about miscarriages and stillborn births, either in a hospital or in a bathtub at her home. Amoore had previously had a baby shower that about 100 people attended.

John Sebastian O'Brien II, the only doctor called by the prosecution, said he believed Amoore faked her pregnancy in order to get attention. If Amoore had authentic mental-health issues, they occurred only as she came to terms with her possible punishment in this case, he added.

Dressed in black with her hair pulled into a tight bun, Amoore sat quietly in the Norristown courtroom most of the day.

She became emotional several times, wiping away tears as Lewis-Hunter described what she went through on the evening of the kidnapping.

"I was scared. I didn't know what to do," Lewis-Hunter said, crying. "It was like everything around me was going so fast. I didn't know where to go, who to go to."

The 27-year-old from Philadelphia said she had gone to the mall that day for a family outing with her two children, who were 7 weeks old and 2 years old at the time, and three cousins. It was Lewis-Hunter's first trip to the vast King of Prussia Mall.

When Amoore first approached Lewis-Hunter's family, she was "real nice, pleasant, respectful," Lewis-Hunter said.

Amoore told Lewis-Hunter that she had just moved to the Philadelphia area from Virginia. Amoore said her husband was in the military. And Amoore said she, too, had a newborn baby, even talking with Lewis-Hunter about postpartum depression, said Lewis-Hunter, who later found out none of those statements was true.

After Amoore followed Lewis-Hunter and her family into the main food court in the Plaza section of the mall, Amoore fled with the newborn baby when Lewis-Hunter turned away to care for another child.

The kidnapping resulted in an extensive search, with police stopping and searching every vehicle, including SEPTA buses, that left the mall that evening. An Amber Alert was issued later that night.

"I'm not comfortable with them being with anyone else," Lewis-Hunter said. "Every day is a struggle."

Nearly 30 family members and friends of Amoore's were present for the daylong sentencing. Several were called as character witnesses, describing Amoore as a well-liked and competent woman. None of her supporters wanted to comment as they left the courthouse.
Jared Kushner, senior White House adviser and son-in-law to President Trump, released a statement in advance of his closed-door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee today. Here are six takeaways:

 Kushner said that he never set out to have a pivotal role in Trump's presidential campaign, but that his responsibilities grew exponentially as the race wore on.

 Kushner said he had only minimal contact with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, and couldn't even remember his name the day after the election, when the campaign was searching for someone in the Russian government to verify that Trump had received a note of congratulations from Vladimir Putin.

 Kushner's one and only meeting during the campaign with Kisylak occurred in April 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Trump gave a foreign policy address. Kushner said he was introduced to Kislyak with several other foreign diplomats, but he only exchanged pleasantries with Kislyak and the others.

 Kushner said he exited early from the June 9, 2016, meeting involving the president's son, Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin connected lawyer that has generated a firestorm of controversy, and renewed allegations of collusion between the campaign and the Russian government. The portion of the meeting he attended focused entirely on Russian government restrictions on adoptions of Russian children by U.S. citizens and there was no discussion of the campaign, Kushner says.

 Kushner knocked down reports that he and other members of the incoming Trump administration sought to set up a back channel line of communication to the Russians before the inauguration, designed to bypass official U.S. communications links. "I did not suggest any ongoing secret form of communication," Kushner says in the statement.

 Kushner said he had a total of four contacts with figures linked to the Russian government during the campaign and the transition. These contacts were inadvertently left off of his official disclosure form amid the swirl of activity during the transition and the rush to meet the filing deadline.

Everything is happening so fast  or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies  but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We've launched a newsletter to explore just that. You can sign up to get the weekly Trumpadelphia newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday.
WASHINGTON  Jared Kushner, President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, spent two hours Monday answering questions from Senate investigators about his contacts with Russian officials, as the various probes into Russian interference during the 2016 election entered a new phase involving some of those closest to Trump.

After his closed-door questioning, Kushner spoke briefly to reporters outside the White House.

"Let me be very clear: I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner said. "I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information.

"Since the first questions were raised in March, I have been consistent in saying I was eager to share whatever information I have with investigating bodies, and I have done so today," he said. "All of my actions were proper."

Legal experts expect that all of Kushner's answers to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee will be shared with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is conducting a separate probe into any potential criminal activity surrounding Russian meddling and key figures in the Trump campaign.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president "was very proud of Jared for voluntarily going to the Hill and being very transparent with every interaction that he's had. He thought Jared did a great job and was very glad that he was able to go through that process and lay everything out and I think show the members of that committee as well as everybody else what a witch hunt and hoax this whole thing is."

Kushner dismissed outright the notion that Russia could be responsible for his father-in-law's election victory. "Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won. Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him," he said.

Kushner's appearance Monday will be followed by further questioning Tuesday  again, behind closed doors  before the House Intelligence Committee, which is also probing Russian election-year meddling.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian government orchestrated a far-reaching campaign to disrupt last year's presidential campaign and influence the outcome in Trump's favor. A major question for the current investigations is whether any Trump associates acted to help or advise the Russian effort.

Kushner and the White House used the grilling to offer their most detailed refutation  in the form of an 11-page written statement  of the idea that anyone in the campaign sought to coordinate with people acting on behalf of the Russian government.

"Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest," Kushner wrote.

Kushner's statement detailed four meetings he had with Russian officials or nationals during the 2016 campaign and transition period. He described them as brief and unremarkable contacts in his role as the Trump campaign's liaison to foreign governments.

Kushner wrote that his first meeting with a Russian official was in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Trump delivered a major foreign policy speech, the execution of which Kushner said he oversaw. Kushner wrote that he attended a reception to thank the event's host, Dimitri Simes, publisher of the National Interest, a foreign policy magazine. Simes introduced Kushner to four ambassadors at the reception, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Kushner said.

"With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump's speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America's foreign policy," he wrote. "The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions."

Kushner did not name the other three ambassadors he met at the reception, and he denied having had any other contact with Kislyak during the campaign, disputing a report by Reuters that he had two phone calls with the ambassador.

"While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador," Kushner wrote. "We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place."

In fact, he said that on Nov. 9, the day after the election, when the campaign received a congratulatory note from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kushner tried to verify it was real and could not remember Kislyak's name. "So I sent an email asking Mr. Simes, 'What is the name of the Russian ambassador?' " Kushner wrote.

Kushner also described attending a June 2016 meeting organized by his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr., with a Russian attorney. He said it was listed on his calendar as "Meeting: Don Jr. | Jared Kushner." He wrote that he arrived at the meeting late, and when he got there the Russian lawyer was talking about a ban on adoption of Russian children by Americans.

"I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting," Kushner wrote. "Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for 10 or so minutes and wrote, 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.' "

Kushner also detailed two interactions with Russian officials during the transition period, before Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20. The first, on Dec. 1, was a meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower in New York. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who would become the president's national security adviser, also attended.

"I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations," Kushner wrote. "Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President. The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day."

Kushner wrote that Kislyak addressed U.S. policy in Syria and wanted to "convey information from what he called his 'generals.' " But Kislyak said they could not come to the United States and "asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation."

Kushner said that he or Flynn explained there were no such lines, and that Kushner asked Kislyak if the Russians had "an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn." He wrote that Kislyak said "that would not be possible," and they agreed to wait until after the inauguration to receive the information.

The Washington Post first reported in May on Kushner and Kislyak's discussions about establishing a secret means of communications, though Kushner suggested in his testimony that the channel would have been for the purpose of this one meeting.

"I did not suggest a 'secret back channel,' " he wrote. "I did not suggest an ongoing secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period."

The second transition-period meeting Kushner said he had with Russians was on Dec. 13, when, at the urging of Kislyak, he met with Sergey Gorkov, a banker with "a direct line" to Putin.

On Dec. 6, the Russian Embassy asked Kushner to meet with Kislyak on Dec. 7, and Kushner declined, he wrote. The Russians asked if he could meet on Dec. 6, and Kushner declined again, he wrote. Kislyak then requested a meeting with Kushner's assistant  "and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed," Kushner wrote.

Kislyak and Kushner's assistant, whom Kushner did not name, met on Dec. 12, and Kislyak requested that Kushner meet with Gorkov, "who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together."

Kushner agreed to meet Gorkov, making room in his schedule for him the next day. Their meeting lasted 20 to 25 minutes, Kushner wrote, and Gorkov presented two gifts  "a piece of art from Nvogorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus," and a bag of dirt from there. Kushner gave the gifts to his assistant and asked him to formallyregister them with the transition office.

During the meeting, Kushner wrote, Gorkov told him about his bank and discussed the Russian economy, expressing "disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future." Kushner wrote that "no specific policies were discussed," including sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

The Washington Post's Ashley Parker contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump has labeled his own attorney general as "beleaguered."

"So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?" the president tweeted from his personal Twitter account on Monday morning.

Over the past week, Trump has been attacking Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his decision months ago to recuse himself from the investigations into possible connections between Trump's campaign and Russia. Sessions, a former senator from Alabama, supported Trump from the early days of his candidacy and became a trusted adviser. Ten days after the election, Trump nominated Sessions for attorney general and said in a statement that "Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him."

In March, Sessions announced that he would recuse himself from investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign, including those into Russian interference in the electoral process. That announcement came the day after the Washington Post reported that Sessions twice met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and did not disclose those meetings to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in January.

The Russia investigations have swept up Trump's eldest son and his son-in-law, greatly angering the president, who says the charges are unfounded and part of a "witch hunt." Trump has been privately criticizing Sessions for weeks, and he said in an interview with the New York Times last week that he would not have appointed Sessions if he had known the attorney general would recuse himself, as he considers the decision "very unfair to the president."

The president vented to the world in a series of tweets on Monday morning, lashing out not only at Sessions but also at Democrats and the media, whom he has blamed for hyping and continuing the investigations.

The first tweet came at 6:40 a.m. in Washington:

Twelve minutes later, the president went after Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.):

Trump seemed to be referring to a comment Schumer made to the Post last week, in which he said: "When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don't blame other things  Comey, Russia  you blame yourself."

There was then a lull, and the president returned at 8:49 a.m. with the swipe at Sessions and demanded to know why his general election rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, is not also being investigated:

Twenty-three minutes after that, the president went after California Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee:

Six minutes later, at 9:18 a.m., the president shifted to talking about health-care legislation:

Everything is happening so fast  or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies  but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We've launched a newsletter to explore just that. You can sign up to get the weekly Trumpadelphia newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday.
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, shown on Election Day last year, has introduced a provision to cap Medicaid growth at the rate of inflation. Read more

The Senate is planning a critical vote Tuesday on Republicans' long-promised health-care overhaul, but on the eve of that decision, Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) was still unsure what exactly he would be voting on or whether the measure could pass.

The cloud of uncertainty hovered even as Toomey spoke to business owners and executives at a suburban office park in West Chester. And with the potential for failure looming, the senator, who helped write the Republican health plan, already had one eye on another key GOP priority, tax reform.

He told reporters at the roundtable event that he was unsure if Republicans had the votes to keep their current repeal effort alive. Still, Republican leaders vowed to push ahead with a key procedural vote, with success looking like a long shot. Should they advance the measure anyway, it's unclear what would come next  whether they would move to repeal and replace the law known as Obamacare, to simply repeal the law and replace it later. The uncertainty has left several senators wary on a vote on which the GOP has almost no margin for error. Either way, party leaders hope to force senators to formally take a stand before summer recess.

Toomey, like other Republicans, did not know which idea would be posted for a vote.

"I expect to find that out, actually quite soon, sometime this afternoon," he said Monday after a meeting set up by the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry. Acknowledging the uncertainty, he later added, "It's a big, complicated challenge."

Adding to the challenge: Several major provisions critical for winning over conservative votes could be dropped under the complex rules that Republicans are using to try to pass the health measure with a simple majority, rather than a 60-vote threshold.

Toomey said that he would prefer to repeal and replace the legislation at the same time, but that he was open to the idea of repealing now and then trying to work with Democrats on a replacement. The GOP would delay the repeal for two years to try to craft a new law.

"If we've got the votes, the ideal thing from my point of view would be to have as much of the replacement as we can do done now," he said. "But if we don't have the votes, if we could in the alternative pass a repeal bill where the repeal goes into effect at some date in the future and we stabilize the market in the meantime, I do think there's a chance that the Democrats would begin to be willing to work with us in that scenario."

With the GOP on the brink of failure to deliver on a seven-year old promise, President Trump turned up the pressure Monday afternoon at the White House, where he appeared with people who he said had been hurt by the law.

"Any senator who votes against starting the debate tells America you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare," Trump said, delivering the robust public push that his critics say has largely been missing during the halting repeal effort. "There's been enough talk and no action. Now is the time for action."

Democrats, citing projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, have warned that the GOP health plan would add more than 20 million to the ranks of the uninsured and could undermine consumer protections for people with expensive pre-existing conditions.

Republicans faced steep odds. They can afford to lose only two of their 52 votes and advance their plan  but got a boost late Monday night when Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) announced he would return Tuesday after receiving cancer treatment, giving the GOP one more vote. Republicans, however, still face skepticism from several other senators who have attacked the bill from the center and the right.

Toomey suggested he might lobby wavering Republicans. "There's a few colleagues that I think are genuinely undecided, and I might be able to play a constructive role," he said.

He added that the repeal push would not end if it stalled Tuesday.

"I don't think it's over because it's too important," Toomey said. " So we can't just ignore it and walk away from it."

If the vote fails Tuesday, it will likely mean going back to the drawing board and a process that could turn into a slog as Republicans focus elsewhere.

"I think the tax code is holding us back, and there is a fairly strong interest on the part of Republican senators, the administration, and the House to pass fairly comprehensive tax reform to deal with the business aspect of our tax code as well as individuals," Toomey said. "So whether or not we're successful on health care, we're going to move on to tax reform very, very soon."
A group of men (center) walk down Darien Street near the Fairhill Cemetery after police chased them out of a vacant house that had been used as a shooting gallery. Read more

Editor's note: Jim MacMillan was a Daily News photographer from 1991 to 2008, during which time he covered many city issues, including the addiction crisis. Here, he shares photos and memories from his time on the streets of Philadelphia.

Recent news reports on the growing opioid crisis made me think about the pictures I took one December day in 1995.

It was memorably cold, and I was walking around one of Philadelphia's most distressed neighborhoods with a veteran police official who was known for not wearing a gun on his holster. But when he rapped on the unlatched front door of a vacant rowhouse and pushed it open with his nightstick, everyone huddled inside seemed to know the drill.

He gave no orders and they asked no questions, but they clearly understood that it was time to stand up, put down the drugs, and walk away.

One young man dashed out the door sideways, as if to run an errand. Others staggered and stumbled and struggled to button their coats. I took some pictures, though I was worried that the freezing temperatures might cause my film to crack or tear.

This block of North Darien Street near the historic Fair Hill Burial Ground honestly could have passed for a war zone, with many houses boarded up and trash strewn among abandoned cars. But some of the houses were still occupied by "decent people"  code words for neighbors who managed to avoid addiction, the drug trade, and the criminal justice system. And one of the neighbors had called the police to deal with this popular drug house one more time.

Decades after moving here I am still struggling to understand the intersections of guns, drugs, poverty, homelessness, addiction, and other issues that lead to so much suffering in our city.

I am no expert on solutions to addiction, but we can't expect that driving people who use drugs out of a park or a rail yard or a church will do anything but lead them to gather elsewhere.

I wonder what might change if we could send out more intervention workers and fewer police officers. Could we turn our jails into shelters or treatment centers or maybe harm reduction centers? Today, I am learning about the city's new plan to address the immediate crisis, but we must also sustain that support for as long as it takes.

Meanwhile, I spend a lot of time thinking this city might be better off had we made better choices when I took these pictures.

Jim MacMillan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who spent 17 years with the Philadelphia Daily News. At present, he serves at the assistant director for external affairs at Temple University's Klein College of Media and Communication.
6 Top-Rated Hiking Trails in Valley of Fire State Park

Written by Lana Law

Jul 28, 2020

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Just over an hour's drive from Las Vegas, Valley of Fire State Park is one of Nevada's great treasures. The diversity and drama of the landscape in this compact park is stunning. Canyons, petroglyphs, unique stone formations, and colorful swirling rock hills stir the imagination and provide incredible opportunities for hiking.

Hikers on Fire Wave Trail | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

If you have only a single day to spare in Las Vegas, it's well worth making the day trip to Valley of Fire to tackle a couple of short hikes and see a few sights. In a weekend, you can easily tackle most, if not all, of the hiking trails, as well as see the major sights. In the spring, the wildflowers bring color to the park, and any time of year you are likely to see some wildlife.

For details on the trails and to help you choose, see our list of the best hikes in Valley of Fire State Park.

See also: Where to Stay near Valley of Fire State Park

1. Fire Wave Hike

Fire Wave Hike | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

If you have time for only one hike in the park, this is the one to do. This 1.2-mile trail offers the most stunning vistas and lets you immerse yourself in the landscape. Colorful rock hills and mounds stretch out from your feet in every direction as you stand on striated stone fields.

The trail is an out-and-back hike that descends from the parking lot, across a sandy slope, which is dotted with wildflowers in the spring. Views to the left peer out over the red rock ridges and distant mountains, while in front of you stands a red rock wall.

The trail rounds this huge fin and leads to a wide-open sloping area of orange rock that looks out onto an undulating pallet of colors. Rock ridges of pink, yellow, and orange, flow out before you, tempting hikers to make a few unscheduled climbs.

The trail is marked with posts and stone cairns, but this is an area where you can wander freely and explore, with each direction revealing unique perspectives.

Total hiking time for this trail is about one hour. Be aware, the trail is in full sun the entire distance. Trekking across the soft sand is tiring, and the open rock sections radiate heat, making for a very hot trek at midday. If you are planning a day of hiking in Valley of Fire, make this trail your first stop.

2. White Domes Hike

White Domes Hike | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

This scenic one-mile loop hike has some interesting treats along the path, including a movie set and a dramatic but short slot canyon. The trail, which begins on soft sand, soon descends on stone stairs that follow a huge cliff wall down to a basin. Over the years, this area has been used for numerous movie and TV sets.

From down here, you can see the cliff wall beside the stairs is actually a free standing fin, and the surrounding stone walls make you feel like you are in a box canyon. From this point, the trail drains into a traditional slot canyon, with twisting walls that rise up high above and blot out the sky in some areas, as it gradually gets narrower and narrower.

At the end, the canyon opens up into a flat area, with some small natural arches and views to distant, rolling mountains, before returning to the parking lot. Total hiking time is about 40 to 50 minutes.

3. Mouse's Tank Hike

Mouse's Tank Hike | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Mouse's Tank is an easy but exceptionally entertaining, .75-mile out-and-back hike along a sandy trail through a canyon. The trail is flat, with essentially no elevation gain, if you stick to the path, and it dead ends at the Mouse's Tank; a natural water catchment area that may or may not have water in it.

Along the trail, particularly on the left side as you are walking out from the parking lot, is a steady parade of petroglyphs on the red rock walls. Literally hundreds of petroglyphs can be seen all along this hike. At the start of the trail is an information sign offering insight into what some of the petroglyphs may have meant to the people who created them. Stop and have at least a brief look at this before you head out on your hike.

Total time for this hike varies, but you should allow at least 45 minutes.

4. Rainbow Vista and Fire Canyon Overlook Hike

Trail to Fire Canyon Overlook | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Rainbow Vista hike is a short loop around a flat sand field, dotted with some small shrubs. Views off to the left of this short hike look out to colorful rock hills in the distance.

At the far end of this loop is a sign with an arrow pointing towards a trail that leads to Fire Canyon Overlook, and another arrow pointing to the parking lot. It is definitely worth hiking out to the overlook, which is the nicest part of this hike.

The trail from this point leads through a narrow canyon, over sand and rock, to a drop-off that looks out over the red, bowl-shaped Fire Canyon. Jagged red rocks rise above you and fall off below you from the viewpoint. Along the way are a number of small arches.

The trail returns along the same path and joins up again with the Rainbow Vista Trail.

The total distance for this hike, including the spur to Fire Canyon, is about 1.1 miles.

5. Elephant Rock

Elephant Rock | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Elephant Rock is one of the main rock formations in the park. It takes very little imagination to see the elephant shape, and the park has created a short hike around this attraction.

The trail is located near the East Entrance, immediately inside the park. From the parking area, you can hike along a trail that parallels the road for a short distance, and the elephant is off to your right, set high up on the rocks above you. From here, the trail continues on and around the backside of the rock mound that Elephant Rock is perched on.

If you are doing a driving tour of the park and want to stretch your legs, but are not interested in committing to one of the longer hikes, this is the best place to take a break and enjoy a little walk. Apart from a short uphill section at the start, followed by a quick descent, the trail is flat and easy.

From this high vantage point, you can see the red rock ridges that dominate the area around the East Entrance.

6. Petrified Logs

Petrified Logs | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Petrified Logs is hardly a hike, but is worth seeing if you are interested in the natural history of Valley of Fire State Park. This short loop trail leads out and around a knoll to fenced-off areas that protect these ancient trees. The petrified logs are the remains of pine trees that grew here 150 million years ago. Plaques at the site provide more detailed information on the logs.

The best time to do this hike is in the early morning, when the sun hits the logs and shows off the colors in the petrified wood. As with all Valley of Fire hikes, the surrounding landscape is beautiful. From the top of the knoll are 360-degree views.

Petroglyphs at Atlatl Rock

Petroglyphs at Atlatl Rock | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Although this is not a hike, the petroglyphs at Atlatl Rock are worth seeing. A long set of metal stairs has been installed along the rock face to allow visitors to reach the petroglyphs. At the base of the stairs is a large parking lot and picnic tables.

Tips and Tactics

Quail in the morning at Valley of Fire State Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law The best time of day for hiking is in the morning, when you are more likely to see wildlife and before the heat of the day sets in. This is also the quietest time on the trails, and you may have the place all to yourself. Bring everything you need with you to the park because apart from one very small gift store, which is only open when the visitor center is open, there is nothing else around. Cell coverage is non-existent in most of the park. You can usually get coverage at the entrances, White Domes (best spot for coverage), and possibly the visitor center.

Where to Stay near Valley of Fire State Park

If you are a camper, Valley of Fire State Park has two very nice campgrounds. Most non-campers stay in Las Vegas and take a day trip here. If you stay along the Las Vegas Strip, travel time to the park is about one hour and slightly less from downtown, near Fremont Street. From the northern edge of Las Vegas, the trip takes about 45 minutes. Valley of Fire State Park is set off on its own, and there is very little in the vicinity and no sizeable towns. Below are some highly-rated hotels in Las Vegas: Luxury Hotels: Topping the list of the high-end themed resorts along the Strip are The Venetian and Bellagio . These places offer a true Las Vegas experience. Also centrally located along the Strip, Caesars Palace has been a longtime favorite with luxury travelers and is a bit of an institution in Las Vegas. All of these resorts have wonderful restaurants and pool complexes.



Another luxury resort is the Wynn Las Vegas . With a good location along the Las Vegas Strip, the Wynn offers easy access to all the Las Vegas action, plus first-class service and amenities. Mid-Range Hotels: Centrally located on the Strip, and frequently offering good deals, The Mirage has large rooms and a nice pool.



The Golden Nugget , on the trendy and vibrant Fremont Street, in downtown Las Vegas, is just 55 minutes from Valley of Fire. Also in this area is the Downtown Grand . Budget Hotels: If you are serious about getting an early start on your day to Valley of Fire and want to stay as close as possible to the park, the Comfort Inn & Suites Las Vegas , in the north end of Las Vegas, is just 45 minutes to the park. The hotel has an outdoor seasonal pool and comes with a complimentary breakfast.

Frequently Asked Questions

What other hikes are nearby?

Valley of Fire State Park is surrounded by extraordinary hiking trails all waiting to be explored. If you are heading south, consider hiking near Las Vegas at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The Calico Tanks hike is a favorite. For additional details see our Best Hikes near Las Vegas article.

If you are heading north, you are in luck as well. St. George, Utah is blessed with the amazing Snow Canyon State Park. The Petrified Dunes trail is fun for the entire family. Check out our article Top Hikes near St. George for photos and trail descriptions.

In southern Utah, explore the famous trails in Zion National Park. A little further afield, walk among the hoodoos on the hiking trails in Bryce Canyon National Park. And if you are looking to explore Utah in more depth, don't miss our list of the Best Hikes in Utah.

More Related Hiking Articles on PlanetWare.com

Hiking Boots We Love: Finding the right hiking boots is essential. You might think you can get away with a pair of gym shoes if you are hiking in the desert, but you'll be far better off with a good pair of hiking boots that offer support and help prevent injuries. Consider the conditions you are going to be hiking in and then use our guide to the Best Men's Hiking Boots, or for the ladies, the Best Women's Hiking Boots, and find what's right for you.
15 Top-Rated National and State Parks in Utah

Written by Lana Law

Nov 17, 2020

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Utah, with its inspiring landscapes of arches, canyons, rivers, lakes, and sand dunes, is a paradise for nature lovers and a playground for adventurers. With five national parks, termed the "Mighty 5" by the state, and dozens more state parks and national recreation areas, Utah offers an extensive variety of vacation choices for hikers, campers, sightseers, and roadtrippers.

Each park has its own unique attractions, sights, and geology. All the parks listed below are well suited for travelers interested in sightseeing and a scenic drive, but some are more well-known than others for specific interests, such as hiking, climbing, boating, or even off-roading.

Don't limit yourself to just one park. Plan a route and see as much of the state as your time will allow with our list of the best parks in Utah.

1. Zion National Park

Zion National Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Zion is one of the most visited parks in the United States and one of the most breathtaking landscapes in the Southwest. Massive cliff walls and mountains line the valley and have given rise to the term "vertical park," which is often used to describe Zion. In the spring, waterfalls pour off the ledges, feeding the Virgin River as it flows through the canyon.

Two scenic roads offer access to the park and attractions, but more terrain can be explored on foot. Zion has an extensive system of hiking trails that take you through the canyons and along the ridges high above. You can immerse yourself in the scenery by hiking below the giant rock walls or up the Virgin River through The Narrows, and fearless hikers can experience the grand views from lookouts more than 1,000 feet above the canyon floor.

From spring until fall, a free shuttle service transports visitors along the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. Visitors can hop on and off at any and all of the stops along the way. During the winter months, this road is open to private vehicles. The Zion-Mount Carmel Highway is open year-round to private vehicles. RVs must pay a fee and get a permit in advance to use this stretch of highway and in order to pass through a narrow tunnel. Accommodation: Where to Stay near Zion National Park Read More:

Best Campgrounds near Zion National Park

2. Arches National Park

Arches National Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

With more than 2,000 sandstone arches, Arches National Park has the highest concentration of natural arches in the world. The freestanding horseshoe-shaped Delicate Arch is the posterchild for the park, perched majestically on a cliff wall in front of a sandstone bowl.

The arches are spectacular, coming in a full range of shapes and sizes, each seemingly with its own character. The park, set high above the surrounding desert and the nearby town of Moab, is also home to giant stone fins, spires, slickrock, sand dunes, and beautiful views that stretch to the distant La Sal Mountains. Short walks and hiking trails lead to spectacular sites, most of which are easy enough to be enjoyable for small children. Accommodation: Where to Stay in Moab

3. Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Canyonlands is Utah's Grand Canyon. The view from the Island in the Sky district of the park, looking out over the carved landscape of plateaus and canyons, is one of the most awe-inspiring sites in the entire state.

The short hike to Mesa Arch is another must-see attraction, as this dramatic arch, perched on the edge of a 500-foot drop, frames the distant landscape. And these are just two of the sites in one section of the park. Canyonlands has three separate areas, the most popular of which are Island in the Sky and The Needles, both within an hour of the town of Moab, not far from Arches National Park.

Needles is an excellent area for longer hikes and four-wheel driving; Island in the Sky is more for sightseeing and grand views. The third area, the remote Maze district, is less visited and more difficult to access, and really only for those well prepared for remote and rough conditions.

4. Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

A fantasy world of towering stone spires and balanced rock formations known as hoodoos, in shades of orange, gold, cream, and pink, greet visitors who make the journey up to Bryce Canyon National Park. From the lookouts along the canyon rim, you can peer out over the bowl of hoodoos into an almost surreal landscape.

The most striking views are from Sunset and Sunrise Points, along the Rim Trail. To get a different perspective, take a walk along one of the hiking trails that carve through the canyon and meander around the base of these giant spires and oddly-shaped stone formations. The park, set at an elevation of between 8,000 and 9,000 feet, is also home to a number of ancient bristlecone pines, a less common site in this part of Utah. Accommodation: Where to Stay near Bryce Canyon National Park Read More:

Best Campgrounds near Bryce Canyon National Park Utah - Bryce Canyon National Park Map (Historical)

5. Dead Horse Point State Park

Dead Horse Point State Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

If you visit only one state park while you're in Utah, it should be Dead Horse Point. One of the most spectacular viewpoints in Utah is from Dead Horse Point Lookout, with views over a gooseneck in the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.

Looking down and to the left, you can see what is called "Thelma & Louise Point." The final scene from this movie, portrayed as a car driving over the edge of the Grand Canyon, was actually shot here. You can also see the Potash Road as it follows the cliff of the plateau below.

Several hikes lead to dramatic lookouts on both sides of the point. If you are up for a longer hike, the seven miles of trail are connected and can be done as one long hike.

The lookout at Dead Horse Point State Park is about a 45-minute drive from Moab.

6. Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

One of Utah's "Mighty 5" parks, Capitol Reef National Park is another area of impressive rock formations. Approaching from the south, particularly in the late day when the sun is low in the sky, Capitol Reef looks like a giant wall of orange, pink, and purple hues on the horizon.

Less visited than the other major parks, Capitol Reef offers a different experience, with less people, more solitude, and a feeling of tranquility. The park offers incredible opportunities for camping and has one of the nicest national park campgrounds in Utah, backed by orange cliffs and hedged in by an orchard.

The scenic drive through the park provides a close-up look at the most dramatic section, but you'll also find interesting stops as you approach the park's visitor center coming from the town of Torrey, including Goosenecks Overlook and Panorama Point.

This park does not require as much time to see as places like Arches, Canyonlands, or Zion National Park, but it's definitely worth a stop. Accommodation: Where to Stay near Capitol Reef National Park

7. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Escalante Grand-Staircase National Monument | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

The largest US National Monument by landmass, Grand Staircase-Escalante is a rugged, diverse, and largely remote area of southern Utah. Seemingly endless waves of slickrock dominate large sections of the park, including stretches that can be seen from the viewpoints along scenic Highway 12, cutting across the north end of the monument.

Highway 89, along the southern edge between Kanab and Page, offers even more dramatic views of colorful banded hills and canyons. You can stop off at the Paria ghost town and nearby recreated Old West town, both of which have been used as filming locations in movies.

This area is surrounded by some outstanding scenery of mountains and washes. For those who head into the interior, a land of colorful canyons, cockscomb ridges, arches, and even waterfalls can be reached by dirt roads and hiking trails.

8. Cedar Breaks National Monument

Cedar Breaks National Monument

Cedar Breaks National Monument is similar in many ways to Bryce Canyon, with a deep amphitheater of towering hoodoos and surrounding walls of multihued stripes that glow in shades of orange, pink, gold, and cream. At an elevation of 10,000 feet, the park is closed in winter, when the access road is covered in snow.

However, in the summer, the cool climate is a refreshing treat from the heat of lower regions and a good place for hiking, with a variety of trails for all levels of ability. Also, with many deciduous trees, the park becomes a colorful spectacle in the fall, when the leaves turn a bright yellow and orange. The park is open from late May to mid-October.

9. Snow Canyon State Park

Snow Canyon State Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

This pocket of magnificent scenery in southwestern Utah, near St. George, is overshadowed by the bigger name national parks in the vicinity but packs a big punch for its size. This state park also offers sights you can't see or easily access in places like Zion National Park, including black lava fields and lava tubes, some of which you can scramble down into.

Other things to do include walking along waves of petrified dunes, entering a slot canyon just a 10-minute walk from the road, and searching out some outstanding lookout points.

This park is one of the most popular hiking areas near St. George and yet offers solitude you won't easily find in many of Utah's national parks. Accommodation: Where to Stay in St. George

10. Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Small but unique, Coral Pink Sand Dunes is a fun place to spend a day playing on the dunes. Sculpted by the wind pattern created by the Moquith and Moccasin Mountains, the dunes here range in size, with the largest reaching about 100 feet in height. Like the orange cliffs that dominate nearby national parks in Utah, the sand here is Navajo sandstone.

You can try your luck sandboarding down the dunes, but most people opt to run down them. A nature trail on the edge of the dunes features plaques with information on the sites.

This park is an extremely popular place for people who come here with ATVs. However, there is plenty of space, and they aren't likely to bother people on foot. Operating ATVs is not permitted during quiet hours in the morning and evening, so they do not disturb campers looking for tranquility.

11. Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Monument Valley, the setting for countless movies, is not a state or national park, but a Navajo Tribal Park on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Huge buttes and pinnacles rise up from the valley floor like stone castles of the desert.

The red and orange sandstone against the piercing blue sky creates stunning images. Photographers can create true masterpieces here. A scenic 17-mile dirt road weaves through the stone structures, with pullouts all along the route.

Stop in at the visitor center to see sweeping views over the valley to some of the most famous sites. If you want to see more of the landscape, you can take a guided tour to sites you can't reach from the road, including large sections of red sand dunes.

12. Sand Hollow State Park

Sand Hollow State Park | Photo Copyright: Lana Law

Sand Hollow is lesser known by out of state residents but a hot spot with locals, who come here to hang out on the beach, boat, fish, kayak, or take their OHVs (off highway vehicles) into the surrounding sand dunes.

A beautiful, coral-colored soft-sand beach stretches all along the west and south side of the lake, forming a wide band between the lake and road. In some areas, you can drive your vehicle right down to the water's edge and set up on the shoreline. Note that the sand is soft and deep, don't want to drive off the road without a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

On the opposite side of the lake, mountains add to the scenery. The park has two campgrounds, as well as primitive campsites along the beach in the dunes.

13. Goosenecks State Park

Goosenecks State Park

This small park is worth a stop for the outstanding view of a meander in the San Juan River, 1,000 feet below the lookout. Beyond, dramatic scenery stretches into the distance, where the river has carved its way through the landscape.

To get a complete view, or to photograph a gooseneck showing the water flowing all the way around the bend, you need to inch your way out to the very edge of the unguarded viewpoint ledge. Beware of high winds before you consider approaching the ledge.

Goosenecks State Park is in a remote part of southern Utah but is a convenient stop if you are visiting Monument Valley. The park also has eight first-come, first-served primitive campsites, with vault toilets and no water.

14. Natural Bridges National Monument

Natural Bridges National Monument

Three large natural bridges are the highlight of Natural Bridges National Monument, located in southeastern Utah. If you are not planning a stop at Arches National Park, then this park is definitely worthwhile. Hiking trails that offer access to these high bridges range in length from 0.4 to 1.4 miles in length.

Unlike arches, which are formed by many types of erosion, natural bridges are formed primarily by erosion from water. These three are quite spectacular, but the park has a number of other interesting features, including Horse Collar Ruins. These well-preserved Puebloan cliff dwellings, dating back more than 700 years, can be seen from a short overlook trail.

15. Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

When most people think of Utah and water, it's generally the Great Salt Lake near Salt Lake City. Less known to those from out of state is Flaming Gorge State Park. Created by damming the Green River, this huge reservoir is a hot spot for outdoor activities. Flaming Gorge State Park is located in the far northeast corner of the state right near the Wyoming state line.

Activities here include boating, water skiing, sailing, kiteboarding, and houseboating, making this one of the most popular recreation destinations in the state.

In addition to the active water sports, Flaming Gorge State Park is noted for its world-class lake trout fishing. Catches in the 30 pound range are a fairly regular occurrence, with the occasional 40 pounder bending a rod as well.

A five-mile hike called the Red Canyon Rim Trail runs along the edge of the gorge and provides amazing views from cliffs that reach 1,400 feet above the canyon floor.

Camping is available at the Canyon Rim campground and at a nearby RV park in Manila.

Explore More of Utah's Great Outdoors

Camping in Utah: The state and national parks offer some of the best places for camping, but you can also find awesome out-of-the-way BLM (Bureau of Land Management) campgrounds, as well as quality private RV campgrounds, near the major parks. With nearby Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, the area around Moab is one of the best places for camping in the state. Near Zion NP and Snow Canyon State Park, St. George is another great place for camping.

Hiking Trails: It's worth taking the time to hit the trails in this state, and Utah has trails for everyone, from beginners and families with children to advanced hikers seeking a challenge. For a look at the best hikes from a state level, see our list of the overall best hikes in Utah.
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Trump is trying to use his presidential power to launch a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton in an obvious effort to distract attention away from his own Russia connections and scandal.

Trump tweeted:

So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

Right after he won the election, Trump told 60 Minutes, I dont want to hurt them. I dont want to hurt them. Theyre good people.

Trump made similar statements to The New York Times:

I dont want to hurt the Clintons, I really dont. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways."  Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016

Donald Trump has no other tricks. His primary gimmick has always been to divert from his own scandals by turning attention to the scandals of others. Unfortunately, he couldnt have been gifted a better target than Hillary Clinton in 2016, but the election is over. Hillary Clinton isnt the president. Clinton is a private citizen, most importantly, there is zero evidence that she ever did anything wrong.

Trumps call for a criminal investigation into Clinton is just the presidential version of lock her up.

It is an empty tactic designed to distract, but the fact that Trump is pulling this stunt shows a president in full decline who still thinks that he is living in 2016 election.
Hungary, Romania may derail international gas pipeline project

The European Union-backed Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria (BRUA) pipeline could suffer a major setback if the Romanian and Hungarian gas authorities approve a rulebook that would exclude key Austrian partners, the Independent Chemical Information Service (ICIS), reported.

Unexpected Hungarian measure may detail international project

The Hungarian transmission system operator FGSZ took the European gas market by surprise on Friday when it announced

Instead, FGSZ noted, the only economically viable part of the Bulgaria-Hungary-Romania-Austria (BRUA) pipeline would be the existing Romania-Hungary interconnector, which could be expanded from its current capacity of 4.4 billion cubic metres (bcm) to 5.26bmc/year.

Will it not be built at all?

According to ICIS , FGSZ said it had contacted the Romanian grid operator Transgaz with a view to conduct an open season procedure just on this point. The procedure would have an almost identical draft for the Romania-Hungary project only.If the rulebook is approved by Romanian regulator ANRE, the original start date of commercial operations of 1 October 2022 would still apply, according to FGSZ.ICIS understands that Romanian and Hungarian officials haveto approve the rulebook. If they fail to do so, the procedure has to start from scratch, but will then need to be in line with the European CAM network code.

In practice this means, that natural gas might not even reach Austria, which would be a shocking turn of events considering that for the last three years of the process, Austria has been coordinating the Romania-Hungary-Austria (ROHUAT) project by organising legal workshops and putting that expertise to bring the project to ready level," a source close to the market told ICIS.

According to FGSZ the gas could be exported to Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia and Croatia.

The capacities of the Slovak interconnector is 1.75bcm/year, the Ukrainian pipeline 6.10bcm/year, 4.81bcm/year for the Serbian connection and 2.62bcm/year for Croatia.



The source told ICIS that initially, the ROHUAT project would have ensured larger security of supply by connecting the Black Sea gas reserves into the European gas infrastructure.



In its original form spearheaded by the EU, BRUA is expected to travel 582km south to north, linking Bulgaria to the central European Baumgarten hub in Austria. Natural gas could come either from the Black Sea, or from the Caspian region when the new volumes come on-stream by the end of the decade.



With this new development, the new source would be sacrificed and it would also limit upstream activity on new markets. I think the target group will also change with this shift in the direction of the project as the gas was initially aimed at western European hubs through the Baumgarten border point in Austria," the source added.



If the rulebook is approved and the gas is not shipped to Austria, companies which expect to export the Black Sea gas, including the US ExxonMobil, or Austrias OMV could be locked out of regional exports.



Instead, Russias Gazprom may be able to use the existing infrastructure to sell Russian gas to the region. This is because Russia is in the process of building TurkStream, a pipeline that would cross the Black Sea.



Construction works have already started on the first string which will supply the Turkish market.



Gazprom said in February it had also started building the offshore section of the second string, which could connect with the existing onshore infrastructure in Bulgaria. Backstory

It speaks volumes that Austria did not attend the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding of the so-called Vertical Corridor (aiming to connect the regional projects in order to create an integrated gas transmission corridor on the North-South direction) in Bucharest last Wednesday. The MoU was signed by Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian and Romanian gas transmission companies, FGSZ from Hungarys part."The full activation of the Vertical Corridor will give the entire region an opportunity to significantly benefit from diversified natural gas import that Greece has and which will soon be further increased, via an upgrade of the LNG Terminal in Revythousa and the Caspian Sea gas that will be transported by the TAP pipeline which is under construction," the consortium of the companies (DESFA) said.The start of the Open Season Procedure for ROHUAT was already put off this spring.Following the feedback received in the course of the Shipper Event held on 8 March in Budapest, all involved TSOs (SNTGN Transgaz SA, FGSZ Ltd and Gas Connect Austria GmbH) and NRAs (ANRE, Romania; HEA, Hungary and E-Control, Austria) decided to postpone the start of the Open Season Procedure with a few weeks. The new starting date will be communicated in due time," FGSZ said in a statement on 8 March.The later start shall ensure further improvement of the contractual and tariff framework in order to offer an enhanced basis for the Open Season Procedure. Please be informed that the Target Commercial Operation Date 1 October 2022 remains unaffected," it added.Click here for more on the Open Season Procedure.
Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High 77F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low near 55F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Got questions about the solar eclipse happening Aug. 21? Five seconds on Google will get you more than 10 million results  including interactive maps that zoom in on the zone of totality from coast to coast.

But the last time the Pacific Northwest experienced a total solar eclipse, information wasn't as easy to come by.

"You went to the library," recalled Bryan Brewer. "And you did a lot of things by phone and mail." Among them: dialing up the U.S. Naval Observatory to request pamphlets showing the eclipse path.

Brewer, then a 32-year-old technical writer at Boeing, became intrigued with the subject when he learned that southern Washington and northern Oregon would be in the prime viewing zone for the eclipse of Feb. 26, 1979. He thought it would be the perfect setting for a reunion with college friends.

But the research was frustrating. Most of the books Brewer found were highly technical. None combined history, science and eclipse lore in a concise, readable format.

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"I couldn't find a good book on the subject," he said, "so I decided to write my own."

Deluge of data

Thirty-eight years later, the competition is stiffer.

The upcoming total eclipse of the sun will be the first of the internet age in the contiguous United States, and its approach is being heralded by a deluge of data, websites, publications and guides. Search for "eclipse books" on Amazon, and hundreds of titles pop up.

That includes a new edition of Brewer's self-published book, "Eclipse: History. Science. Awe." The introduction, written by the late sci-fi luminary Frank Herbert, author of "Dune" and then-Port Townsend resident, remains unchanged. But Brewer, now 70 and working as a startup consultant, spruced up the package with color images and revised the text to focus on this year's epidemic of eclipse fever.

"There was a lot of enthusiasm in 1979, but it wasn't nearly as widespread as today," he said. "The level of interest is just increasing exponentially as you get closer to the day."

Still, some people don't seem to appreciate the vast difference between a partial and total eclipse  or how moving the experience can be, Brewer added. One of his neighbors recently mentioned that her family planned to take in the event from Seattle, where the moon will block about 95 percent of the sun's surface.

While 95 percent sounds close to 100 percent, the effect is not comparable. Even at 99 percent, a sliver of the sun remains uncovered  which means none of the striking features of a total eclipse are visible.

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"It's only when you get to 100 percent that the experience is just off the charts," Brewer said. "If you're interested in this, make sure you get in the path of totality."

Vivid memories

His memories of that February morning in 1979 remain vivid. He and a dozen friends bundled up in down parkas and drove to the top of a bluff near Goldendale, Klickitat County, just north of the Columbia River and about 100 miles east of Portland. Clouds that threatened to block their view parted at the last minute.

"The anticipation was palpable," Brewer said. For about an hour, the moon crept slowly over the face of the sun. Clouds blocked the view, "Then: Boom!"

The bluff was plunged into twilight. Birds fell silent. Stars shone. And the solar corona  the star's normally invisible outer fringe  burst into view.

In the introduction to his book "American Eclipse," science writer David Baron describes his initiation into the ranks of umbraphiles  eclipse-chasers  this way:

"For three glorious minutes, I felt transported to another planet, indeed to a higher plane of reality, as my consciousness departed the earth and I gaped at an alien sky.

"Above me, in the dim vault of the heavens, shone an incomprehensible object. It looked like an enormous wreath woven from silvery thread and it hung suspended in the immensity of space, shimmering. As I stood transfixed by this vision, I felt something I had never experienced before  a visceral connection to the universe  "

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Solar tourists

Brewer felt that connection, too, and it's what led him to travel the globe to experience it again.

He led a tour to an eclipse in Brazil in 1994 and was on a cruise ship in the Caribbean that outran clouds to get a clear view of an eclipse in 1998. The feeling of awe intrigued him so much that he added a section to the book about new research that shows benefits ranging from a calm-yet-energized state to feelings of openness.

"A total solar eclipse delivers a big dose of awe in a big way," he said.

Ancient peoples also experienced awe, but often mixed with terror. Across much of Asia, peasants and soldiers used to bang drums and shoot arrows into the sky to chase away the dragon that was eating the sun, according to Brewer's book. In 585 B.C., the shocking specter of a total solar eclipse inspired two warring armies to lay down their swords and make peace.

British troops granted safe passage for an American eclipse expedition to the Gulf of Maine during the Revolutionary War  but Baron reports that the organizers got the location wrong and missed the event. "American Eclipse" also recounts the race to document an 1878 eclipse on the western frontier at a time when the young country was eager to establish its scientific bona fides.

Eclipses don't occur like clockwork, but they do follow patterns that were discovered thousands of years ago by the Babylonians and other ancient civilizations. Mapping out the exact path of totality was a tougher problem that took scientists centuries to refine.

In 1925, scientists tested their predictions by enlisting residents of New York City to line up along the Hudson River and note exactly where the moon's shadow passed over the metropolis.

Part of the mystique of total solar eclipses is their geographical rarity, Brewer said. The sun is completely eclipsed somewhere on Earth about every 18 months  but only along a narrow swath. In 1979, that swath grazed the northwestern corner of the United States, then looped into Canada.

Aug. 21 will mark the first coast-to-coast eclipse in the U.S. in 99 years  and the path of totality will be about 70 miles wide. For Northwesterners, another total solar eclipse won't come close until 2044, when the path will extend through the eastern half of British Columbia.

"Unless you want to go chase eclipses," Brewer said, "for most people, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
WABASHA  For the first time, stakeholders who can find a different solution to the draft of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 40-year dredge material management plan sat in a room and talked about some options.

"This is the first time you've had the city, the county, the state agencies and federal (agencies) together in the same room," said Sen. Mike Goggin, R-Red Wing. However, the first-term state senator added he wished a group like this could have been convened before the Corps developed a plan that called for taking roughly 500 acres of farmland on the Minnesota and Wisconsin sides of the river from people who don't want to sell. "You put the cart before the horse."

Friday's meeting included representatives of the Wisconsin and Minnesota departments of natural resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Corps, the city and county of Wabasha, and Minnesota state lawmakers.

The meeting included some background from the Corps on how it developed its plan, said Paul Machejewski, channel maintenance coordinator for the Corps. In addition to the Corps' mandate to find a solution that does not damage the environment  adhering to the federal Clean Water Act and its rules concerning wetlands is a big part of that  the Corps needed to find a solution that was economically viable.

Machejewski said the cost per year of the Corps' dredging and material management in Lower Pool 4  the area from Lock and Dam 4 to the southern base of Lake Pepin  is currently $7 million per year. The new 40-year plan is expected to cost $5 million per year. "Our budget is not going up," he said. "We need to find a better way to do this."

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While finding the least costly option is not federal law, said Kevin Baumgard with the Corps, it is a binding regulation that the Corps follows.

The groups discussed several potential options rather than offloading sand at Southside Fitzgerald  the riverfront property behind River Drive South in Wabasha  and trucking the sand and silt to the farm of Willard Drysdale about five miles down the road just north of Kellogg. Here are a few of those options along with what was discussed:

 Create either one large island or several small islands in Lake Pepin.

Pro: Create islands that likely would benefit tourism in Lake Pepin. Depending on the size, those islands could take a major portion of the 10.7 million cubic yards of dredge material that will be pulled from the Mississippi River to maintain the 9-foot navigation channel. At the very least, the islands would take enough sand to get the Corps another five or 10 years down the road to developing a new plan.

Con: The islands will be hard to build in the lake because of the depth of the water, said Jim Fischer, Mississippi River Team Leader for the Wisconsin DNR. "We wouldn't support big islands in the middle of Lake Pepin," Fischer said. "The big challenge is, it doesn't take anywhere near the volume of material they'll be generating over 40 years."

Fischer added there are several rare aquatic species in Lake Pepin, including paddle fish and several mussels, and the DNR does not know how they might be affected by islands.

Barb Naramore, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota DNR, said another hurdle is that Minnesota law does not allow for the deposit of material on bed of a water body unless it meets specific criteria of habitat restoration or improvement.

Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, questioned whether moving sand and silt from one part of the water body  Lower Pool 4  to another  Lake Pepin  was covered by that law.

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"This is in the public's best interest to put the sand back where it came from," said Wabasha City Administrator Chad Springer. "From the city's perspective, the social impact to humanity is the city's number one response."

An island, he said, could take between 10 and 15 years of sand, helping move the issue down the road until better solutions could be developed.

 Barge the dredge material either to Winona or to Louisiana.

Pro: A 160-acre mining pit that ranges from 30 to 60 feet deep exists about a mile off the river in Winona. The owners of the mine have expressed interest in taking the dredge material to fill the pit. Also, parties in Louisiana have said they would want the material if it could be barged down river to them.

The Corps and other stakeholders are working with a barge company to determine how much it would cost to barge the material down river. Also, the material would need to be dried before it could be loaded, meaning there would need to be a site to hold the sand while it dries.

Con: The Corps, Machejewski said, would need to understand who is off-loading the sand and what it will be used for.

 Ship the dredge material by rail either to North Dakota, where it might be used for hydraulic fracturing  analysis shows that about 40 percent of the sand is frac sand, Machejewski said  or to a sand sorting facility in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.

Pro: Using the sand from the river would reduce the need for oil and gas companies to mine for frac sand. While the fracking market is somewhat volatile, it would represent a market where, potentially, the dredge material could become a source of income.

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Con: The sand from Lower Pool 4 can withstand only about half the pressure needed for fracking in the Bakken Oil Fields in North Dakota, Machejewski said, though it does meet the needs for fracking in Canada. The volatility of the oil and gas markets mean the demand for the sand would be uncertain. Also, there is not a method yet for economically sorting the frac sand from the rest of the material.

 Filling in government land and pits not identified in the draft plan by the Corps.

Pro: Wabasha County Administrator Michael Plante said the county had identified several nearby areas that represent either government land  thereby negating the need to take the 298 acres of farmland from the Drysdales  or pits. Plante said the county had found three parcels "that held some promise."

Con: Machejewski said the Corps needed help in determining whether these parcels met environmental guidelines such as avoiding wetlands. "It's not just on us to figure this out," he said. "We need help on this."

 Spread the dredge material on area farmland at agronomic rates.

While this idea could find a home for some of the 270,000 cubic yards annually pulled from Lower Pool 4, the Corps is waiting to hear back from the University of Minnesota on how much sand and silt  and on what kind of soil  could be spread around nearby farmland.

Machejewski said he was glad to see the stakeholders together, working on a solution. "You get more done face to face," he said.
The question is simple, but the answer is surprising  and sure to raise some eyebrows within a Rochester community in the midst of a $6 billion transformation dubbed Destination Medical Center.

Should patients always make the pilgrimage to Mayo Clinic and other highly touted hospitals across the country for specialized surgeries? MPIRICA Health Analytics  a Washington-based analytics company led by CEO Shakil Haroon and Harvard-trained researcher Dr. Michael Pine  says no.

According to data examined by MPIRICA in a study titled "Reputation vs. Reality," Mayo Clinic's surgical outcomes at its Rochester campus are considered "fair" or "below average" in 10 of the 24 categories measured.

That number will likely surprise many, given Mayo's status as the top-ranked hospital in two of the last three years by U.S. News & World Report.

However, Mayo actually performed better than other highly regarded hospitals examined by MPIRICA. For example, the study says Johns Hopkins Hospital scored fair or below average in 16 categories, while Massachusetts General Hospital posted fair to below average scores in 14 categories.

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No other hospital in the top 10 exceeded Mayo's 14 categories rated "excellent." Duke University Hospital and UCSF Medical Center, in San Francisco, also had 14 "excellent" ratings. Mayo was the only hospital to receive an "excellent" rating for hip replacement; one of only two rated "excellent" for knee replacement; and one of only three rated "excellent" for colorectal surgery.

"We're a new (2014) start-up company and what we're saying comes as something of a surprise to many folks," Haroon said Sunday in a phone interview with the Post Bulletin. "Absolutely, we expect there to be concerns raised about our being a new company and legitimate concerns about what methodology (we used) to get the results.

"But we've spent a career on refining this methodology and we have a depth of material to share with them. We invite their critique and engagement to further refine what we've developed here."

Mayo spokeswoman Traci Klein didn't offer criticism of the new report. Instead, she said it wasn't immediately clear what methodology MPIRICA used to determine its scores.

"On the surface, the results for Mayo Clinic Rochester look good, and we're proud that Mayo continues to consistently rank among the top providers nationwide regardless of the quality measure used," Klein said. "However, commenting any further would be difficult because MPIRICA does not transparently show methodology details."

What's being touted as a first-of-its-kind report was made possible by a 2013 Wall Street Journal lawsuit seeking access to medical records after Freedom of Information Act disputes. A judge's favorable ruling in 2014 paved the way for MPIRICA  and others  to gain access to Medicare records and publish its findings.

The study released today was the culmination of two years of crunching numbers, Haroon said, which piggy-backed off 25 years of Dr. Pine's work in the private sector while working under non-disclosure agreements with insurance companies. Haroon said the MPIRICA's's methodology is detailed in a 200-page document that includes more than 500 risk factors.

MPIRICA issued its findings through a quality score scale, which it touts as an "apples-to-apples comparison of medical providers at the surgical procedure level." Set up similar to a FICO credit score, excellent outcomes are considered anything between 600-800, fair outcomes fall between 400-600, and anything less is considered below average.

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Mayo finished with 14 excellent ratings, eight fair and two below average outcomes in MPIRICA's study, which examined "millions" of surgical outcomes in 2015 by more than 120,000 U.S. surgeons. Poor outcomes on surgeries can increase medical costs by up to five times initial estimates and caused about 11,000 deaths across the U.S. between 2010-12.

"First and foremost, we'd like to raise public attention to the availability of data-driven measures to help them figure out where to get the best care," Haroon said. "It's to open up a national conversation, adopt a more scientific approach and look at the data.

"A hospital may be legendary in terms of reputation  and they might earn that in certain categories  but you might be (better off) looking elsewhere in other categories."

The 10-page report specifically highlights Mayo's "below average" score for percutaneous coronary intervention surgical outcomes, which scored just 320 on MPIRICA's quality scale. Due to that low number, MPIRICA recommends that patients actually seek care for PCI surgery at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, which scored 700.

Their model specifically excludes subjective patient satisfaction scores, relying exclusively on data pulled from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It took the MPIRICA team two years to comb through the CMS data before releasing its new report.

The study relies exclusively on data pulled from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which MPIRICA used because hospitals have a "strong financial incentive" to provide accurate information to CMS for reimbursement purposes. The data is also audited regularly, with financial penalties imposed for mistakes.

But a potential limiting factor of that analysis is that the data involves patients all older than age 65, as opposed to a broader spectrum of patients across all age groups. Hospitals are invited "to provide their own clinical or claims data to (fill) in any gaps that may be left by using CMS data," the report says. But an argument in favor of accepting the over-65 data, according to the report, is that "This cohort of older Americans has more  and more complex  health problems than other groups in the country. Any surgeon that performs well with older, sicker patients will likely have good results with younger patients, too."

Teamwork returns Mayo Clinic to No. 1
RED WING  Three separate crashes on U.S. Highway 61 this weekend snarled traffic from Winona to Red Wing.

The first crash occurred at 1:30 p.m. Saturday when a Toyota driven by Diana Santoro, 69, of Rollingstone was southbound on U.S. Highway 61 and making a left turn onto Park Avenue in Winona. A 2011 Chevrolet driven by Mark Bofinger, 24, of Winona was northbound on Highway 61 and attempted to avoid the crash but was struck in the driver's side door by the Toyota. The Chevy entered the ditch, and the Toyota continued onto Parks Avenue, according to a report from the Minnesota State Patrol.

Bofinger was not injured, according to the state patrol report, but Santoro was transported to Winona Health with non-life threatening injuries.

Winona police, the Winona Fire Department and Winona Health Ambulance also responded to the call.

At about 2:17 p.m. Saturday south of Winona, a second crash occurred on Highway 61.

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State patrol reported a 2011 Chevrolet driven by James Gull, 55, of La Crosse, Wis., had been stopped at a stop sign on Winona County Road 3 when it pulled forward to make a right turn onto Highway. 61. The Chevy was struck on the driver's side door by a 2008 Dodge driven by Jennifer Muller, 24, of Houston, traveling southbound on Highway 61. The Chevy flipped over onto its side.

Gull was not injured in the crash, but Muller was transported to Winona Health with non-life threatening conditions.

Winona County Sheriff deputies, Dakota First Responders and Tri-County Ambulance also responded to the call.

Finally, at 10:09 a.m. Sunday, a 1998 Jaquar XJ6 driven by Robert Boehmer, 73, of Minneapolis, was southbound on Highway 61 at milepost 98 north of the intersection with Minnesota Highway 19 when the vehicle failed to negotiate a slight right turn, ran off the left side of road and struck the left guardrail, causing it to crossed back over both southbound lanes and collide with a concrete containment wall on a bridge. The vehicle then crossed both lanes again and struck the left containment wall on the bridge over the Cannon River.

Boehmer was transported to Mayo Clinic Hospital - Red Wing with non-life threatening conditions before being transferred to Mayo Clinic Hospital - St. Marys Campus in Rochester. Boehmer was listed in fair condition this morning at St. Marys, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Red Wing police and the Goodhue County Sheriff's Office also responded to the call.
Tasked with working on an urban tree preservation ordinance, Rochester's Committee of Urban Design and Environment hopes to go a step further.

Committee members will be asking the Rochester City Council to support the creation of an urban forest master plan.

"I think it's more important than ever to get this urban forest master plan in front of them before we do this tree ordinance stuff," said CUDE member Barb Hudson.

The council's request for a tree preservation ordinance was spurred by plans to develop the former Golden Hill School site, which will result in the removal of several large trees. On July 5, the council split 4-3 in approving plans to alter the site.

While city permission was needed to change the elevation by more than 10 feet, Mark Engel, current planning supervisor of the Rochester-Olmsted Planning Department, said the fate of the trees isn't covered by existing ordinance.

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"All those trees could be removed based on our ordinance today," he said, noting there would be no requirement for city approval.

Council member Ed Hruska, who once was a student at the school, said the idea of approving the changes troubled him, but he noted the city didn't have a way of properly stopping the changes required to create a retail center at the site being sold by the school district.

"Unfortunately, that's progress," he said. "It doesn't always sit well with people, and it doesn't always sit well with us."

While he supported the requested land change, he also joined fellow council members who unanimously supported seeking an urban tree preservation.

CUDE Chairman Paul Sims said he took Hruska's comments to be a sign of changing views on the council.

"I'm really glad the discussion landed where it did," he said.

Rochester-Olmsted Planning Department planner Sandi Goslee pointed out it's not the first time the committee or the council has discussed creation of a policy to protect trees in the city. She said it was discussed 12 years ago, but the council wasn't interested in making a change.

The lack of interest didn't stop committee members and others from pushing for changes, which eventually led to the city's boulevard tree ordinance, but the proposed effort would go beyond governing trees in boulevards.

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Jeff Haberman, the city's forester, said an urban tree ordinance primarily would govern what happens with trees on private land because the city already oversees public trees. He said it could be restrictive enough to cover residential property or could be limited to changes with new development.

With about four-fifths of the trees in the city on private property, a policy shift could have an impact on the city's environment. Haberman said estimates show the city has a 26 percent to 27 percent tree-canopy cover, which refers to how much of the landscape is covered by trees, but cities with tree plans typically target 40 percent coverage.

He said combining an ordinance change with an overall plan would be ideal.

"A tree preservation ordinance is one component of that master plan, so it is possible to develop the ordinance without a master plan, but the two are quite intricately involved," he said.

Hudson plans to represent CUDE on Aug. 7 by presenting the city council with a letter seeking support for an overall urban forest master plan, but the committee already has approved plans to move forward, which likely will include the creation of a subcommittee to gather opinions from a variety of sources.

"It seems like this should be expedited," committee vice chairman Derrick Chapman said, echoing others who also voiced a desire to put a policy in place before more trees are removed in the city.
People who have worked closely with the man tapped to lead Minneapolis' embattled police department say he has qualities that will fit well with the role: He's friendly, forthright, has deep city roots and is African-American, which could help improve sour relations between police and the city's black community.

But Medaria Arradondo's rise from school resource officer and patrolman to assistant chief during 28 years on the force has some wondering whether an outsider would be better suited to changing the culture of a department accused of being too quick to use force.

Facing public anger over an officer's fatal shooting last weekend of an unarmed, white 40-year-old Australian woman who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault near her home, Mayor Betsy Hodges asked police Chief Janee Harteau to resign, which she did Friday. Hodges nominated Arradondo as Harteau's replacement and dismissed protesters' calls for her to resign, too.

"Inside the department, outside the department, fans, critics, everybody  he builds relationships with people, which is going to be crucial as the department moves forward," Hodges told The Associated Press Saturday. "What's needed at this time is someone who is good at making change and helping usher people through change, which Arradondo has done and is doing,"

The police department has stepped up training in recent years, focusing on community policing, Hodges said. She said Arradondo will work to cement those changes.

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Arradondo, nicknamed "Rondo," needs the city council's approval before he can begin the job. He served as the department's public face for most of a week after the July 15 police shooting of Justine Damond, until Harteau returned from vacation on Thursday.

Linea Palmisano, a city councilwoman who represents the ward where the shooting happened, said she's impressed with Arradondo, but wonders if someone from outside the department would be better able to make changes and enforce procedures such as turning on body cameras.

Neither the Somali-American officer who shot Damond, Mohamed Noor, nor the officer with him, Matthew Harrity, turned on their body cameras.

Others say an insider is exactly what the department needs: Someone who was brought up in the Twin Cities and can spot the dysfunction beneath "Minnesota nice."

"He's a fifth-generation Minnesotan, and he's appreciated and well-respected as a police officer," said Raeisha Williams, a 5th Ward city council candidate and the former communications director for the local NAACP. "He's African-American, obviously, and he knows the climate, he knows the community, he knows the culture."

That's vitally important when policing a region where 40 percent of residents are people of color, Williams said.

Arradondo has also experienced discrimination: He and four other officers sued the city in 2007 alleging they were the victims of systemic racial discrimination and a hostile working environment.

They contended black officers were offered fewer training and overtime opportunities and received fewer appointments than white counterparts, among other problems. The city settled two years later, paying the officers a total of $740,000.

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Williams dealt closely with Arradondo following the 2015 police shooting of Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old black man whose death sparked large protests and an 18-day occupation outside of the north side police station. The officers involved weren't charged.

Williams said Arradondo was respectful. Arradondo's hometown experience contrasts with many officers who live outside the city, in mostly-white communities, Williams said.

"So they come in with bias because they're not racially diverse in their own environment," she said. "It feels like they're the predators and we're the prey."

Large police departments like Minneapolis often struggle with bureaucracy, inertia and political pressures, said Remy Cross, an associate professor of criminology at Webster University. Arradondo's department history gives him more credibility to make changes, Cross noted.

"But it's still going to be a real up-hill kind of fight," he said. "He has to walk carefully here and not alienate (fellow officers)."

Police Lt. Bob Kroll, Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis president, frequently criticized the former chief and the mayor. Kroll says Arradondo is smart and respected by the rank and file.

"One of the first calls he made was to me yesterday. We had a good talk," Kroll said.

Kroll said the department is understaffed, with 30 authorized positions going unfilled. He says Arradondo should fill those positions immediately and seek authorization to hire more.

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"It hurts your engagement with the community  the officers are short tempered, they don't take time on the calls," Kroll said.

Kroll says the department should focus on what he calls "proactive policing," where officers stop people for minor infractions or suspicious behavior. Critics point out that approach easily turns into police profiling, which contributes to increased police violence.

"The only people that are using the term 'profiling' are committing crimes and they want to get away with the little crimes so they can commit the bigger crimes," he said.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is overseeing the investigation into Damond's shooting. Noor is not required to submit to an interview with the bureau and has not agreed to one or provided a statement, the bureau said Friday. The bureau also said a cyclist who was nearby when the shooting happened spoke to investigators.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that an unidentified source with direct knowledge of the investigation said a witness filmed part of the encounter. It doesn't say whether that video includes the actual shooting or only the aftermath.
In a June 2 story by Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Goldman, the New York Times blew the identity of the new CIA chief of operations against Iran. The Timess decision to do so was deliberate, willful and deeply dishonorable.

It may have been illegal as well. The special counsel investigation of the Bush administration was predicated on possible criminal violations in the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Plame. Possible criminal violations might have been predicated on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, on section 793 of the Espionage Act and on the statutes that impose liability on accomplices and conspirators.

When it comes to the damaging disclosure of highly classified national security information, the New York Times is a hard core recidivist. I took a look at the Timess potential criminal liability in one such case in the 2006 Weekly Standard column Exposure.

CIA Director Pompeo brought up the Timess June 2 story in his interview with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens at the Aspen Security Forum last week. I recounted their exchange in a nearby post. We had a publication  you work for it, Bret  that published the name of an undercover officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, Pompeo noted. I find that unconscionable, he added.

Pompeo looked Stephens in the eye. Stephens shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Youre talking about Phil Agee, Stephens inquired (twice).

Pompeo wasnt talking about Philip Agee. Agee was of course the traitorous former CIA agent whose misdeeds gave rise to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in the first place. He never worked for the New York Times. The Times didnt blow Agees cover. He had nothing to do with the Times. He is ancient history. He died in Havana in 2008. I dont know how Stephens associated Agee with Pompeos comment.

Presidential assistant and social media maven Dan Scavino seems to have thought that Stephens correctly identified the undercover CIA officer to whom Pompeo was referring. In the tweet below he accused Stephens of repeating the name twice and asked rhetorically whether that was just as disgraceful.

CIA Dir Pompeo calls out @NYTimes for publishing name of an UNDERCOVER CIA agent. Just as disgraceful?@BretStephensNYT REPEATS name 2x's! pic.twitter.com/wp9dUDmu1S  Dan Scavino Jr. (@Scavino45) July 21, 2017

This is stupid twice over. First, Scavino has no idea what he is talking about. Second, Stephens would have done no harm by correctly identifying the undercover officer to whom Pompeo was referring. The damage  the disgrace  was committed by the New York Times on June 2 in the story that it featured on page one of its June 3 edition.

Stephens took offense at Scavinos accusation. He demanded that Scavino retract his accusation and apologize (tweet below).

This is categorically false. I did not mention name. I made a reference to Phil Agee. Retract and apologize. https://t.co/YIX2kggcYT  Bret Stephens (@BretStephensNYT) July 21, 2017

Scavino owes Stephens an apology. But consider Stephenss response to Scavino. It implies, if not concedes, that the disclosure of the CIA undercover officer to which Pompeo referred was in fact disgraceful.

So Scavino wrongly attributed the disgraceful disclosure of the CIA undercover officer to Stephens. Rather, the disgrace was solely attributable to Stephenss colleagues at the Times. You know, the ones who wrote the June 2 story. They committed the disgrace.

Will Stephens acknowledge the wrong committed by his colleagues at the Times? Will he express regret for it it? Will he apologize for it? Or is Scavinos error the only point worthy of note?
The Trump pardon story exemplifies the frustrations of President Trumps first six months in office. It began with a story published Thursday evening by the Washington Post that said Trump has been talking with his advisers about his power to grant pardons:

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trumps lawyers have been discussing the presidents pardoning powers among themselves. One adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Muellers investigation.

As usual, the Posts story was based entirely on anonymous sources: people familiar with the effort, one of those people, [a] second person, a close adviser. Trumps presidency has been bedeviled by leaks on almost a daily basis, and not only from Obama holdovers in the intelligence agencies. These leaks apparently came from the White House.

Still, the Post has little credibility when it comes to President Trump, and the only person quoted by name in the Posts article (a quote that was added after the story appeared on Thursday evening), Trump lawyer John Dowd, described it as not true and nonsense.

Trump could have left well enough alone, but as so often happens, he didnt. Yesterday morning he tweeted, apparently about the Post story:

While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2017

Of course, he had a point. There is no evidence, in my view, that Trump or anyone associated with him has committed a crime, whereas we know that numerous leakers and reporters have done so. I fervently hope that before long, criminal prosecutions of leakers, reporters and editors will begin, with employees of the Washington Post near the top of the list.

But the effect of Trumps tweet was to put the issue of pardons front and center. He implicitly conceded that the Posts story was rightor, in any event, that is how his tweet has reasonably been interpreted. Trump enabled the Democratic Party press (CNN was, as usual, an egregious offender) to yammer nonstop about Trump contemplating pardons for his son-in-law, his former campaign manager, and others, including himself. The casual observer no doubt assumes that the only reason why Trump would be interested in pardons is that he or others in his circle have committed crimes. And in the context of the Post article, Trumps reference to his pardon power being complete can reasonably be interpreted to refer to pardoning himself.

This is the sort of self-inflicted wound of which Trump has suffered far too many. One wonders, how many times can a president shoot himself in the foot and still be successful? Over the next 3 1/2 years we are likely to find out.

If you are interested in the question whether a president can pardon himself, Ann Althouses answer is Yes.
At the Aspen Security Forum, the same conference Scott discussed here, CIA Director Mike Pompeo discussed with clarity the situation the U.S. confronts in Syria. As Josh Rogin reports, Pompeo stated that we have two main enemies in Syria: ISIS and Iran. Our goals, in addition to finishing off ISIS in Syria, should be to stop Iran from establishing a zone of control that spans the region and providing the conditions to have a more stable Middle East to keep America safe.

Noting the obvious, Pompeo added that we dont have the same set of interests in Syria as Russia does. What are Russias interests? They love a warm water naval port and they love to stick it to America.

Compare Pompeos analysis to that of the Secretary of State. According to Rex Tillerson, Russia has the same interests that we do in having Syria become a stable, unified place.

This may be true as far as it goes, but it doesnt go far. Russia wants a stable, unified Syria that it dominates to the exclusion of the U.S. Curbing the influence of Iran, with whom Russia has worked closely in Syria, is not an objective. Nor are regional stability and American safety. Iran and Hezbollah, Russias allies in Syria, are committed to destabilizing the Middle East.

Tillersons top Middle East official, acting assistant secretary Stuart Jones, also spoke at Aspen. He served as ambassador to Jordan and then Iraq under President Obama.

According to Rogin, Jones conceded that the U.S. has effectively outsourced security in Syria to the Russians by having them police the cease fire President Trump and Vladimir Putin agreed to. He explained:

This is a real test of the Russians ability to lead this process. The solution is to put this on the Russians and, if that fails, its a problem.

Hes joking, right? Sadly, he isnt.

Rogin notes that this almost exactly what John Kerry said when he negotiated Syrian cease fires with Russia in 2015 and 2016. Repeatedly, he insisted that Russias willingness to be a constructive partner must be tested. Repeatedly, Russia refused to be a constructive partner, instead electing (big shock) to promote its interests by helping the Assad regime expand its control and massacre civilians.

Russia already has its grade in Syria  an A from its perspective; an E from ours. There is no need for further tests.

Its the Trump administration that is now under examination. Will it repeat the same mistakes committed by the Obama administration? So far, the answer appears to be Yes.

Will it commit a mistake that even Obama never made  abandoning non-jihadist rebels in exchange for nothing more than the promise of a cease fire? The answer is Yes.

Even if the cease fire in southwest Syria holds, it serves the interests of Russia and Iran, not those of America. As Rogin explains, the regime and its partners are using the cease fire to free up resources to advance in eastern Syria. This is where the key fight for control of the strategic region around Deir al-Zour is underway. That fight is central to Irans effort to establish the zone of control Pompeo said is antithetical to U.S. interests.

At the Aspen event, Jones acknowledged that the regime and its partners are using the cease fire for this purpose. Apparently, hes fine with it.

Id like to know how the Trump administration squares this apparent indifference over what happens in eastern Syria with its much heralded alliance with Sunni powers in the region. Sunni fighters from this part of Syria are off fighting ISIS. What, asks Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, will they do upon returning home under fire from Iranian militias?

Trumps visit to Saudi Arabia, where he seemed to forge an alliance of Sunni states, has been billed as the major foreign policy success of his administration. Arguably, it is the only one, to date.

Trumps Syria policy risks undermining that good work.

Mike Pompeo has the right line on Syria and Russia. Unfortunately, President Trump has adopted the contrary line of Rex Tillerson and the Obama holdovers.
A few days ago, the Washington Post reported that Attorney Jeff Sessions statements about what he discussed with the Russian ambassador are at odds with reports by the ambassador to his government about what he and Sessions discussed. However, as I argued here, there is no inconsistency between the statements of Sessions quoted by the Post and the Russian ambassadors alleged description of his talks with Sessions.

The Sessions statements quoted by the Post were that he did not discuss the presidential campaign with the ambassador. The ambassador told his government that the two discussed Russia. Although Russia was an issue in the campaign, discussing it is not discussing the campaign.

However, although the Post article did not quote it, Sessions made this statement on March 1, via a tweet by his spokesperson: I never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. (Emphasis added)

If by this, Sessions meant that he did not discuss Russia, which was an issue in the campaign, the statement is at odds with what the Russian ambassador told his government. If he meant that he didnt discuss issues about the campaign  e.g., how it was going, how Russia might assist, etc.  which is what Sessions said elsewhere, there is no inconsistency.

I want to make two more points about the meeting. First, it is the Russian ambassadors job to talk with U.S. Senators about Russia. Thus, if he did not talk to Sessions about Russia, it is likely he would tell his government he did.

Second, the anti-Sessions leaks by his enemies apparently do not describe what the ambassador told his government Sessions said about Russia. At least, the Washington Post, recipient of the leaks, does not describe this.

So if Sessions discussed Russia with the ambassador, either he said nothing from which the Russian government could take heart or the Post and/or its sources are holding back information, waiting to lower another boom on Jeff Sessions.
Over the weekend, Congress reached an agreement on sweeping sanctions legislation to punish Russia for its election meddling and aggression toward its neighbors. Congress thereby rejected President Trumps contention that he needs flexibility to adjust the sanctions to fit his diplomatic initiatives with Moscow. Congressional Republicans, it appears, dont have faith in Trumps diplomatic initiatives with Moscow.

Will Trump veto the legislation? Probably not. He seems to lack the votes to sustain a veto. Thus, the main consequences of a veto would be (1) an embarrassing defeat and (2) a reinforcement of the view that he is, if not a tool of the Kremlin, then way too sympathetic towards it.

I have mixed feelings about the legislation. I very want to see harsher sanctions imposed on Russia. However, as a general matter, I dont like it when Congress ties the presidents hands on foreign policy.

Only when there is strong reason to believe the president is well off-track do I favor congressional interference. I thought President Obamas Iran policy was such an instance.

Congress, including its Republican members, believe we have reached that point with President Trumps Russia policy. And not without reason. From Trumps campaign comments about Putin, to his initial unwillingness to agree that Russia interfered in the election, through his decision just last week to abandon anti-Assad, and therefore anti-Russia, forces in Syria that we have previously backed, the president has caused Congress to believe he is well off-track when it comes to Russia.

Democrats believe, or claim to, that Putin effectively has bought him. Some Republicans may also suspect this to be the case. Others may think that Putins successful (so far) authoritarianism makes him attractive to Trump. Still others simply worry that Trump doesnt know who hes dealing with and/or what he is doing.

Are any of these concerns justified? It hardly matters.

A presidents power depends to a considerable degree on maintaining the confidence of his own party. Trump has lost that confidence when it comes to Russia. Therefore, he has lost power.

Theres an important lesson in this. I hope Trump learns it.
Dear Compatriots, Ladies and Gentlemen!



Back in my presidential campaign on many occasions did I reiterate that President of the Republic of Poland should serve two grand causes: should serve the Polish nation, and should serve the Polish state. It is incumbent on the President to seek the nations prosperity and to spare no effort to contribute to its well-being, and also security. Likewise, it is incumbent on the President to take care of the quality of the state and of its institutions in their functioning.

The administration of justice is one of such institutions who feature especially importantly in the social and political system. The quality of the functioning of the former determines the level of trust placed by the society in the state and its institutions. In recent years, the demand for the reform of administration of justice has been repeatedly heard. Unfortunately, there are many people who have been wronged by the administration of justice, and harbour a deep sense of injustice. The society expects form judges that they will be professional, will be ethical and perfectly honest, that they will deliver judgments in line with their oath of office: impartially and in line with their conscience. But it is also expected that they will always be mindful of the fact that they administer justice to people, that a judge will be able to see a human person who stands before him in a sheer expectation of justice beyond the pile of files on his desk.

Without reform of the administration of justice there is no way to build a just state, i.e. the one which affords equal treatment to all citizens, the one which commands confidence of the Polish people. Changes are absolutely essential: on the procedural and formal platform, but also the ethical one.

The package of bills to reform the system of justice, as it was prepared by the Parliament, has been largely responsive to social expectations. Nevertheless, as President, I could not approve them, and I have made use of my right of veto since their require to be fine-tuned with the Constitution in order to preserve the independence of the judiciary; that however without the sense of absolute supremacy and impunity; so that they lay down conditions for the judges to feel free from various types of pressures.

Bearing this in mind in the nearest future I will submit new versions of bills to reform the judiciary. I believe that these amended bills will be adopted by the Polish Parliament in a possibly nearest future and that a wise pro-state and, foremostly, pro-social reform of the administration of justice will become an accomplished fact. This is what the people are expecting.

For almost two years, the camp of the good change has been reforming the country in such a way so as to make Poland more citizens-friendly. I am deeply convinced that a reform of the judiciary, one which is thoroughly and wisely prepared, will further contribute to our pursuits of the Home Countrys welfare: as a state that is strong and just, the state which respects and protects an ordinary citizen.

After all, its is our shared dream to live in a free, democratic, secure and prosperous country.

Thank you very much.
OCEAN CITY  An autopsy revealed an Ocean City woman was strangled Saturday and an arrest has been made, police said.

Denise Webber, 54, was strangled and died Saturday before Ocean City police found her body in her apartment at the Wesley Inn, according to Cape May County Prosecutor Robert L. Taylor and Ocean City police Chief Chad Callahan.

Police arrested Paul Kline, 49, on a murder charge. He is being held at the Cape May County jail and is scheduled for his first court appearance Monday.

The prosecutor said an investigation revealed Kline and Webber were dating and living together at the Wesley Inn in Ocean City.

Ocean City Police responded to Webbers apartment at the building on Wesley Avenue around 8:40 a.m. Saturday and found her body. Officials determined Kline killed her, authorities said.

Murder carries a sentence in New Jersey of 30 years to life in state prison.

Taylor said anyone who has information about the incident should contact the prosecutors office at 609-399-9111, or anonymously through the Cape May County Sheriffs Tip Line at cmcsheriff.net or Crime Stoppers at 609-465-2800.
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/538283/Belonging_Documentary.jpg )

Producer / Director Morag Livingstone states: "I went into this film trying to make sense of a few things I had read in the news and had heard in Prime Minister's Questions. As a result I've uncovered both collusion at the heart of government and a secret government plan long suspected by many, but not proven - until now."

Film Information:

Belonging: The Truth Behind the Headlines is an investigative feature-length documentary about where power lies in the United Kingdom. Re-examining Rupert Murdoch's purchase of The Times and The Sunday Times in 1981 and events surrounding 3 industrial disputes, 3 governments and over 3 decades: News International dispute (1986/7), Royal Mail as it prepared for privatisation (2007/8) and a dispute at the Grangemouth Oil Refinery in Scotland (2013), Belonging explores what has happened behind closed doors of successive UK governments and the resulting impact on all of our human rights. In this film there are many revelations - not least a secret government plan to destroy community and collectivism that affects us all.

Heart-wrenching personal stories are told by those at the centre of three industrial disputes, not only highlighting the impact of the actions of those in power on individuals and communities, but also raising the question of what lies ahead. This is a film that will not tell you how to think but will ask you to think again.

Trailer: http://www.belonging4us.com

*Review Ross Miller in the National: http://www.thenational.scot/culture/15310151.Film_review__Belonging_____The_Truth_Behind__the_Headlines/

Morag Livingstone is a 2x best-selling author, freelance investigative journalist and filmmaker.Belonging is her first feature documentary. Having worked in the business of oil and telecoms for 15 years before retraining, Morag went into the documentary with an open mind and has meticulously researched and proven how governments and business collude to the detriment of us all.

Film legal review and fact checked by Doughty Street Chambers, London.

Contact: Morag Livingstone, morag@livingstone-media.com

SOURCE Livingstone Media Limited
PEORIA, Illinois, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT; NYSE Euronext: CATR) informs its stockholders that today, a Form 8-K was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") with respect to monthly retail statistics.

Caterpillar files electronically with the SEC required reports on Form 8-K, Form 10-Q, Form 10-K and Form 11-K; proxy materials; ownership reports for insiders as required by Section 16(a) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended; and registration statements on Forms S-3 and S-8, as necessary; and other forms or reports, as required. All of the forms and reports filed electronically with the SEC are available on the SEC Internet site (www.sec.gov ).

Caterpillar also maintains an Internet site (www.Caterpillar.com ) and copies of its annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to these reports filed or furnished with the SEC are available free of charge through Caterpillar's Internet site (www.Caterpillar.com/secfilings) as soon as reasonably practicable after the relevant document has been filed with the SEC.

CONTACT: Rachel Potts, Corporate Public Affairs, +1-309-675-6892

This is a disclosure announcement from PR Newswire.

SOURCE Caterpillar Inc.
LONDON, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Interview Opportunities Available With Founder and CEO Dr Asif Qasim

Recent study shows doctors are using open social media channels to share patient images and discuss clinical cases

MedShr designed to allow GMC-compliant private case discussion between doctors

MedShr Local Networks connect primary and secondary care doctors through clinical case discussion to increase the quality of care and improve patient pathways

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/535939/MedShr_Logo.jpg )



MedShr - the private, professional network for clinical case discussion - has today announced the launch of MedShr Local Networks, which will offer private groups to connect local GPs and hospital doctors in NHS trusts. Dr Asif Qasim, Founder and CEO, hopes that this will lead to better clinical decision-making: "With better communication and collaboration between GPs and hospital doctors, we can improve the quality of care and use case discussion as a vehicle to improve care pathways."

A recent report by DeepMind Health, covered by the Guardian, revealed that many NHS clinicians are sending patient images through unsafe channels such as Snapchat, which is "insecure, risky, and non-auditable". MedShr was developed specifically to provide medical professionals with a safe platform for clinical case discussion. The app and web platform allow members to share cases with over 250,000 verified medical professionals from all over the world, or privately with a group or individual.

MedShr Local Networks have been developed to encourage collaboration between primary and secondary care in specific areas, and facilitate peer-to-peer learning while protecting patient information. Clinical case discussion supports clinicians in referrals, decision-making and follow-up, and ultimately saves the NHS time and money. Local Networks will focus initially on specialties that are targets for improvements in quality, pathway efficiency, and market share.

MedShr Local Networks has been piloted with Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, who are digital leaders in pioneering the approach. CHS benefits from an asynchronous closed learning environment in which allocated faculty leads are responsible for leading case discussion. Groups include an overarching Croydon Case Discussion Group, as well as groups for Haematology, Cardiology and Urgent and Emergency Care. These groups contain only approved members who can view and contribute to case discussions. Cases with photos or movies require patient consent and are fully anonymised, which makes MedShr a fully GMC-compliant network.

In addition to the Local Networks framework, MedShr's private clinical case discussion groups are currently being rolled out to replace traditional multidisciplinary meetings (MDM) for a number of private London hospitals. Providing a platform for virtual MDMs facilitates high quality patient case discussion and clinical decision making without the often difficult requirement of a face-to-face meeting. In an increasingly time-pressured healthcare environment, MedShr's new system strives to make achieving best practice patient care easier than ever before.

Dr Asif Qasim says "MedShr Local Networks facilitates private and safe case discussion and collaboration between primary and secondary care professionals in a new and exciting way. We know this is a great way to bring clinicians closer together and improve the quality of care."

Contact: Sophie Morgan-Short, Marketing Manager, sophie.morgan-short@medshr.net , +44(0)7852-911-643

SOURCE MedShr
DUBLIN and ATLANTA, Georgia, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Sysnet Global Solutions a leading provider of cyber security and compliance solutions to the payments industry, today announced that it has appointed Jeremy Coram as SVP Business Development, North America. Jeremy will be responsible for identifying and strategically assessing mutually beneficial opportunities within the cyber security space, for Sysnet and its current and prospective clients.

Jeremy brings over 15 years of experience in the payments industry focusing on new business development, relationship building, channel sales and alliance management. He previously held the role of Director of Channel Sales at Trusted Knight Corporation where he was responsible for growing client business and for partnering with distributors, service integrators and resellers. Jeremy has also worked with other significant organisations in the payments industry including Trustwave and AT&T Global Solutions.

Commenting on his appointment, Gabriel Moynagh, CEO at Sysnet Global Solutions, said "At Sysnet, we are passionate about our client relationships. We constantly strive to understand and anticipate our clients' cyber security and compliance needs and to develop solutions that meet those needs, providing long-term value to our clients. Jeremy's proven track record of problem solving and relationship building makes him a valuable addition to our team we look forward to having him continue to grow our business in this region."

"I am excited about joining a company that understands the complexities of the payments industry and is consistently on the cutting edge of providing new solution that help acquiring organisations to meet the cyber security needs of their merchant customers in practical, real-world ways. I am also extremely excited with the opportunity to build on the trust and integrity Sysnet has established with its existing clients and also with the opportunity to establish similar relationships with new clients in the region." said Jeremy.

Jeremy holds an BA in Business Administration - Marketing / Management.

About Sysnet Global Solutions

Established in 1989, Sysnet Global Solutions provides payment card industry, cyber security and compliance solutions that help businesses to improve security and acquiring organisations to reduce risk. Specialising in data security and PCI DSS compliance validation solutions, Sysnet offers a range of services, including its award-winning, proprietary, cyber security and compliance management solution Sysnet.air, to a wide variety of businesses including acquirers, ISOs, international banks, payment service providers and merchants. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Sysnet has clients in more than 55 countries worldwide.

sysnetgs.com

SOURCE Sysnet Global Solutions
BERLIN and SAN JOSE, Calif. and TOKYO, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acrolinx, the leading provider of AI software for enterprise content creation, announced today the majority acquisition and equity growth funding by GENUI in a transaction with a volume of approx. $60m. Bernd-Michael Rumpf, former CEO of SAP SI will invest alongside GENUI, and Acrolinx management is expanding its shareholding in the company as part of the transaction. The investment will help accelerate Acrolinx's continued global expansion and market leadership.

"Content matters now more than ever. To reach, engage, and retain customers, you need a lot of high-quality content. While many companies have solved the problem of content distribution, scaling the creation of great content remains a huge challenge. We have shown how Artificial Intelligence is a great way to solve that problem," says Andrew Bredenkamp, Founder and CEO of Acrolinx. "We are confident that the experience and networks of GENUI and Bernd-Michael Rumpf will bring enormous value for Acrolinx. Together with GENUI, a strong partner with a long-term focus, we will be able to further scale our go-to-market strategies, broaden and accelerate product development, and execute on our vision even more rapidly," added Ulrich Callmeier, COO & CTO of Acrolinx.

Acrolinx is the only AI software platform that uses a unique linguistic engine to "read" content and provide immediate guidance and powerful analytics to make it more effective. The company's technology is transforming how over 300 of the world's biggest brands create high-performing content on-brand, on-target and at scale. The Acrolinx AI engine integrates with all major content tools, giving content contributors real-time advice on everything from brand, tone, clarity, compliance and consistency as they create content.

Acrolinx were recently recognized by Forrester Research as one of the breakout vendors in the field of "Content Intelligence."

"Acrolinx delivers a unique and compelling value proposition for its customers  a proprietary AI-powered linguistics engine technology to help companies align, enhance, and enrich their marketing and product content. We are committed to jointly accelerate growth with new and existing customers and further sharpen the various use cases along the customer journey," said Bernd-Michael Rumpf.

"The Acrolinx offering is unique, easy to implement, and has a clear ROI for its customers," said Patrick Gehlen, Partner at GENUI. "In our discussions with customers, they confirmed the strong value add through cost savings in the content creation process, faster time to market as well as increasing revenues through more effective content. This has enabled Acrolinx to capture an impressive global customer base with 70%+ revenues abroad with largely blue chip customers like Google, SAP, IBM, Amazon, Volvo, Siemens, Facebook and Nestle. GENUI is excited to support the company to further expand its global leadership position." With GENUI as a partner with a long-term view providing capital and expertise, Acrolinx will benefit from a stable shareholder structure, enabling management to pursue its strategy, focused on sustainable growth.

Bernd-Michael Rumpf, Patrick Gehlen and Max Odefey of GENUI will join as members of the company's board of directors.

"We are excited to see Acrolinx move to the next stage of the company's development together with GENUI," said Hans-Christian Perle, Partner at international growth equity investor Kennet who has supported Acrolinx as a major shareholder over many years. "We are convinced that this transaction will enable Acrolinx to expand and reinforce its global leadership position in AI software for enterprise content creation."

Acrolinx had also previously received investment from Harbert European Growth Capital, who provides flexible, long term and permanent debt capital for technology and life sciences businesses across Europe.

Global technology investment bank Drake Star Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor to Acrolinx on this transaction.

About Acrolinx:

Acrolinx is a leading global provider of highly scalable and proven AI software for enterprise content creation. Acrolinx technology helps large global brands, including IBM, Nestle, Siemens, Google, Facebook, Boeing, SAP and Amazon, create content that's on-brand, on-target, at enterprise scale. The company is a spin-off of Germany's DFKI, one of the world's leading research institutes in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Learn more at acrolinx.com.

About GENUI:

GENUI is a private investment firm established by a group of exceptional entrepreneurs and investment professionals which takes long-term stakes (10+ years) in medium-sized growth companies in the German-speaking countries. With GENUI, companies gain a shareholder that contributes unique expertise and a valuable network of contacts from entrepreneurs, as well as ensuring professional, growth-oriented governance.

CONTACT: Deb Symon, 781-454-6670, [email protected]

SOURCE Acrolinx

Related Links

http://www.acrolinx.com


MOSCOW, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Aeroflot has achieved a key strategic milestone and has once again occupied a spot among the world's top 20 leading airlines by passenger traffic, returning to this group for the first time in nearly thirty years. According to data compiled by Flight Airline Business, an authoritative aviation publication, Aeroflot Group in 2016 ranked 18th among global carriers in terms of passengers carried during the year.

In addition, the Group was ranked 20th in the world in terms of traffic as measured by revenue passenger kilometres.

These achievements mean that Aeroflot has delivered on one of the key strategic targets of its 2025 Strategy - to become one of the top-20 global airlines by passenger traffic - significantly ahead of schedule.

In its analysis of the ranking, Flight Airline Business underscored the breakthrough character of Aeroflot's achievement amidst a challenging backdrop. The publication wrote, "Russian operators enjoyed a bright return to profits, after the exchange rate and geopolitical challenges that hit carrier fortunes. Aeroflot, for example, turned a net loss of Rb 6.5 billion ($108 mln) in 2015 to a profit of Rb 38.8 billion last year."

Passengers carried globally increased by 6% year-on-year in 2016, reaching 3.4 billion, according to the publication. Aeroflot Group saw passenger traffic increase by 10.3% in the same period, nearly twice the pace of global growth.

Aeroflot Deputy CEO for Strategy and Alliances Giorgio Callegari said: "Six years ago when we adopted the 2025 Strategy, many of our competitors claimed that no Russian airline would join the global elite in the foreseeable future. Today, however, Aeroflot has not only returned to the world's top airlines by traffic, we have done it significantly faster than originally planned. We managed to achieve this despite the challenging macroeconomic situation, and while vastly improving the customer experience."

Aeroflot CEO Vitaly Saveliev said: "Today we can proudly announce to citizens of Russia and the entire world that Aeroflot is officially back among the global passenger airline elite. After nearly 30 years we have regained our position as one of the strongest players in our sector globally. This is a reason to be proud and it strengthens Russia's status as a great aviation power, a key priority for us as the nation's flag carrier."

About Aeroflot

Aeroflot is Russia's flagship carrier and a proud member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance. Aeroflot and its partners serve 1,062 destinations in 177 countries worldwide. In 2016, Aeroflot carried 29 million passengers (43.4 million passengers as Aeroflot Group including subsidiaries).

Aeroflot became the first Russian airline to be awarded Four Star Airline status by Skytrax in recognition of the high-quality of its customer service. In 2017, Aeroflot was named Best Airline in Eastern Europe for the sixth time at the Skytrax World Airline Awards.

In 2017, Aeroflot was named the most powerful brand in Russia and the world's strongest airline brand by leading valuation and strategy consultancy Brand Finance. Aeroflot was also named Best Major Airline in Europe by TripAdvisor travellers and recognised as the Favourite International Airline in China at the Flyer Award Ceremony 2017.

Aeroflot operates one of the youngest fleets in the world with 199 aircraft. Aeroflot is based in Moscow, at Sheremetyevo International Airport.

Aeroflot is among the global leaders in aviation safety, with a European Community Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft (SAFA) Index, the main globally recognized safety parameter, comparable to global peers.

The first Russian carrier to enter the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) register, renewing its registration for the seventh time in 2017, Aeroflot has successfully passed the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations (ISAGO) and is fully ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2004 compliant.

Find out more at http://www.aeroflot.com.

SOURCE Aeroflot
LONE TREE, Colo., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Allstate Insurance Company is continuing to expand its recruiting efforts in Missouri to attract the state's workforce. For jobseekers interested in a new opportunity, Allstate may be the perfect choice, whether for small business ownership, or a career in sales.

"We're seeking professionals with an entrepreneurial spirit, looking to own and operate their own business and those who are interested in working in an Allstate agency," said Jeff Healy, Allstate's West Central regional sales leader.

The perfect candidate for an Exclusive Allstate Agent has a strong entrepreneurial drive, a passion to help others and a devotion to making a difference in their community. With the Allstate brand and team behind their new small business venture, they will have all the comprehensive training and resources needed to be successful.

Allstate is offering a $5,000 award to anyone who refers an eligible Allstate Agency candidate. The referral award is payable after the candidate has completed 90 days of Allstate agency ownership.

Interested candidates can learn more about becoming an Allstate Agency owner by going to www.allstateagent.com or by calling 1-877-711-1006.

For more information about becoming an Allstate sales professional walk in to one of Allstate's new or existing agencies or visit http://allstateagencycareers.recruiting.com/.

You can also contact Kristen Conley at 303-779-3726 or email [email protected] for more information.

About Allstate

The Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) is the nation's largest publicly held personal lines insurer, protecting approximately 16 million households from life's uncertainties through auto, home, life and other insurance offered through its Allstate, Esurance, Encompass and Answer Financial brand names. Allstate is widely known through the slogan "You're In Good Hands With Allstate." Allstate agencies are in virtually every local community in America.

SOURCE Allstate Insurance Company

Related Links

http://www.allstate.com


"Osteopathic medicine is one of the fastest-growing segments of the health care professions in the U.S.," said Dr. Baker. "As our profession grows younger and move diverse, we need their voices to help lead us into what is clearly a very bright future for our distinct philosophy of medicine."

Dr. Baker is a clinical associate professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNTHSC/TCOM), where he previously served as acting chair and course director for the Department of Radiology and as a member of the teaching faculty for the Department of Gross Anatomy.

A graduate of UNTHSC/TCOM, Dr. Baker completed a residency in diagnostic radiology at Fort Worth Osteopathic Medical Center and has served as president of the Texas Osteopathic Medical Association. He is also a member of the American Osteopathic College of Radiology.

Also Saturday, delegates named AOA Trustee William S. Mayo, DO, president-elect of the AOA. Dr. Mayo is a board-certified ophthalmologist practicing in Oxford, Tennessee and is a clinical instructor at the William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine. His term will begin in July 2018.

About the American Osteopathic Association

The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) represents more than 129,000 osteopathic physicians (DOs) and osteopathic medical students; promotes public health; encourages scientific research; serves as the primary certifying body for DOs; and is the accrediting agency for osteopathic medical schools. To learn more, visit DoctorsThatDO.org.

About the AOA House of Delegates

The AOA's House of Delegates, comprised of more than 500 delegates representing osteopathic state medical associations, specialty societies, interns, residents and students from throughout the country, meets annually in July to set organizational policies and elect new officers.

SOURCE American Osteopathic Association

Related Links

http://DoctorsThatDO.org


DUBLIN, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Role of Governments in Promoting the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in Asia-Pacific" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The pervasiveness of digital technologies has reached a state of ubiquity in consumer products. Digitisation is gradually penetrating the manufacturing sector in order to produce cheaper and better consumer products. At times of uncertain and volatile economic conditions, manufacturers are seeking competitive advantages by modernising and upgrading their production methods

Industrialised nations such as Germany have paved the way forward in digitising their manufacturing capabilities through Industrie 4.0 or in broader terms, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). This manufacturing transformation is rapidly catching on in Asia-Pacific with Japan, South Korea, and Singapore leading the way. Governments in APAC are looking to IIoT as a viable way to create sustainable manufacturing growth and affirm their role in the global supply chain. However, not all countries in APAC are ready for IIoT.

This study investigates the role of governments in promoting IIoT in APAC through initiatives, action plans, and funding schemes. As the manufacturing economies in APAC gradually embrace the fourth industrial revolution, bridging the gaps in infrastructure capacity is a prominent factor. Profiles of 8 export-intensive economies in APAC and their IIoT-readiness ranking are provided.

Specifically, this report addresses the following points:



- How are governments supporting Industrial Internet of Things initiatives?

- Which government agencies are contributing towards the development and deployment of the Industrial Internet of Things?

- How much funding is available to manufacturers seeking assistance from public institutions?

- Which countries in Asia-Pacific are ready to implement Industrial Internet of Things solutions?

- What are the necessary foundations for the implementation of Industrial Internet of Things solutions?

- How will the Industrial Internet of Things affect the workforce and what are the government's responses to this?



The outcome of this research pinpoints these strategic imperatives for growth:



- IIoT adoption may lead to implementation of Smart Cities initiatives

- Solution providers should position themselves to address this opportunity

- Spending on IIoT solutions in emerging economies is likely to come from government agencies instead of the private sector

- Marketing and business development campaigns should be appropriately aligned. IIoT solutions need to be tailored

- Governments need to wholeheartedly follow through on their industrial digitisation plans, otherwise any prior investments will be futile

- Whilst the fourth industrial revolution is beginning to take shape, government agencies should keep abreast with innovative developments and prepare for the next paradigm shift



Key Topics Covered:



1. Executive Summary



2. Market Overview



3. South Korea-Innovation in Manufacturing 3.0



4. Japan-Industrial Value Chain Initiative



5. China-Made in China 2025



6. Taiwan-Productivity 4.0



7. Singapore-Smart Nation



8. Rest of APAC-Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand



9. IIoT Readiness Score-Country Rankings



10. Growth Opportunities and Companies to Action



11. The Last Word



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/l2s2d2/role_of

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


WELLINGTON, Fla., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- July 11, 2017 was certainly a lucky day for Robert Alan Morton, a 58 year old with Stage 4 kidney disease. Robert had refused dialysis but was on the kidney transplant list. Nevertheless, he felt the need to search the internet for other possible solutions. It was Stem Cell Genetic Med that caught his interest. After careful detailed consultations with Dr. Feinerman of Stem Cell Genetic Med, Alan found confidence in stem cells and decided this was the right place.

Break Through Kidney Disease Stem Cell Treatment

There are over 30 million people (about 15%) in the United States suffering from kidney disease of varying degrees. Many people with mild kidney damage are not aware of their chronic kidney disease (CKD). As much as 48% of those with severely reduced kidney function, but not on dialysis, are not aware of having CKD. CKD is estimated to be slightly more common in women than in men (16% to 13%)

So let's get back to Robert Alan Morton. He brought to the stem cell clinic copies of his laboratory studies showing BUN and Creatine being very high. Alan's glomerular filtration rates ranged from 14-20, which is very low indicating kidney failure. He also was a "walking drug store", taking over ten powerful medications which left him sedated and uncomfortable. Alan turned to the latest in cutting edge medicine: Stem Cell Therapy.

Treatments were done at the Stem Cell Genetic Med Facility, supervised by Burton Feinerman, M.D and the Independent Imaging Center, adjacent to the JFK Medical Center in Palm Beach, FL. At first, under local anesthesia, a mini-liposuction was performed to extract fat containing millions of autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). Then these stem cells were given to the interventional radiologist, Peter Okolo, M.D., who inserted a catheter into the right radial artery and under visualization passed it up to the aorta to the left and right kidney. The patient was given very minimal sedation and was comfortable during the entire session. The stem cells will now repair the damaged kidneys and regenerate new healthy kidney tubules and glomeruli, reversing the kidney disease.

[Watch the Procedure] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZJ_-9MIRT0

This was truly a breakthrough in kidney medicine and Stem Cell Genetic Med anticipates that it shall become a standard in regenerative nephrology. Early discovery of CKD should also be a primary focus and interest amongst family physicians and nephrologists.

Media Contact:

Burton Feinerman MD

President, Stem Cell Genetic Med

10111 Forest Hills BLVD suite 255

Wellington, FL 33414

office 561-557-3358, cell 941-592-6613

www.stemcellgeneticmed.com

SOURCE Stem Cell Genetic Med

Related Links

http://stemcellgeneticmed.com


OAKLAND, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Cal/OSHA and Chevron have reached a settlement agreement for a comprehensive plan that will improve safety at the Chevron Richmond refinery and for surrounding communities. The agreement meets and exceeds California's landmark regulation to reduce risk at refineries, which was approved by the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board in May and is currently pending approval by the Office of Administrative Law.

"The settlement requires Chevron to exceed current and upcoming requirements and to use new and innovative methods recently developed by engineering experts in the petroleum refining industry to ensure the safe operation of process safety equipment," said Cal/OSHA Chief Juliann Sum. "This means safer operations at the refinery, which will help protect refinery workers and those who work and live nearby."

The agreement resolves Chevron's appeal of citations issued by Cal/OSHA on January 30, 2013, following an investigation into a fire that occurred at the Richmond refinery on August 6, 2012. Cal/OSHA cited Chevron for 17 workplace safety and health violations, including six serious and nine willful in nature. During the settlement negotiations, Cal/OSHA received input from the United Steelworkers and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The negotiated settlement requires Chevron to institute the following extraordinary measures to ensure process safety at the Richmond refinery:

Replace all carbon steel piping that transports corrosive liquids with chrome-alloy piping, which has better corrosion resistance, at an estimated cost of $15 million . This exceeds current and upcoming workplace safety requirements for refineries.

. This exceeds current and upcoming workplace safety requirements for refineries. Develop and implement criteria and procedures, at an estimated cost of $5 million , to monitor equipment to alert operators when equipment should be replaced. This is a new and innovative practice recently developed by refinery engineering experts.

In addition:

Chevron agrees to:

Provide specialized, hands-on training on incident command situational awareness and hazard recognition for all Chevron Fire Department personnel at the Richmond refinery with rank of lieutenant and above. The training will include at least three hours of instruction and focus on emergency response.

refinery with rank of lieutenant and above. The training will include at least three hours of instruction and focus on emergency response.

Provide at least eight hours of in-person training on process safety management for operators at the refinery beyond the training that is already provided.



Continue its collaboration with the United Steelworkers in order to meet the training requirements imposed by the new refinery safety regulation pending approval by the OAL.



Donate $200,000 , in addition to any monies already donated in 2016, to the Regional Occupational Program in Richmond , a job-readiness course offered by the Contra Costa County Office of Education in partnership with Chevron to help prepare students for jobs in the petrochemical and related industries.

, in addition to any monies already donated in 2016, to the Regional Occupational Program in , a job-readiness course offered by the Contra Costa County Office of Education in partnership with Chevron to help prepare students for jobs in the petrochemical and related industries.

Pay the citation penalties originally proposed by Cal/OSHA in January 2013 ($782,700) , plus an additional $227,300 .

, plus an additional . Cal/OSHA agrees to:

Withdraw nine of the 17 violations cited. The withdrawn citations include four willful-serious category violations, three serious and two general in nature.



Amend five of the remaining eight violations cited, as follows:



Three willful-serious category violations downgraded to two serious and one general,





Two serious category violations downgraded to general category.

Cal/OSHA helps protect workers from health and safety hazards on the job in almost every workplace in California. Employers and employees who have questions or need assistance with workplace health and safety programs can call Cal/OSHA's Consultation Services Branch at 800-963-9424. Employees may also file complaints confidentially with a Cal/OSHA district office.

Employees with other work-related questions or complaints may contact DIR's Call Center in English or Spanish at 844-LABOR-DIR (844-522-6734).

Members of the press may contact Erika Monterroza or Peter Melton at (510) 286-1161, and are encouraged to subscribe to get email alerts on DIR's press releases or other departmental updates.

The California Department of Industrial Relations, established in 1927, protects and improves the health, safety, and economic well-being of over 18 million wage earners, and helps their employers comply with state labor laws. DIR is housed within the Labor & Workforce Development Agency. For general inquiries, contact DIR's Communications Call Center at 844-LABOR-DIR (844-522-6734) for help in locating the appropriate division or program in our department.

https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDIR

https://twitter.com/CA_DIR

http://www.youtube.com/CaliforniaDIR

http://www.dir.ca.gov/email/listsub.asp?choice=1

SOURCE California Department of Industrial Relations

Related Links

http://www.dir.ca.gov


MELVILLE, N.Y., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Canon, U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, builds on the success of its imageRUNNER ADVANCE, imageCLASS and imageFORMULA line as the recipient of eleven 2017 Summer Pick Awards from Keypoint Intelligence - Buyers Lab (BLI). BLI recognized Canon across the enterprise solutions, desktop solutions and scanner solutions categories.

Selections for the 'Pick' Awards are made by BLI's staff of technicians and analysts after subjecting a number of devices from every major original equipment manufacturer to BLI's comprehensive lab tests in the last six months. With these imageRUNNER ADVANCE accolades Canon adds to awards received in previous Pick seasons resulting in at least one model within every product family of the third generation imageRUNNER ADVANCE line being recognized as a BLI Pick. With the awards for imageCLASS, imageFORMULA, imagePROGRAF, uniFLOW and Therefore, Canon is receiving a level of distinction that speaks to the strength and breadth of its B2B offering, as well as its ability to meet the diverse needs of customers.

"We appreciate BLI's careful selection process and recognition of Canon's commitment to quality," said Toyotsugu Kuwamura, executive vice president and general manager, Business Imaging Solutions Group, Canon U.S.A., Inc. "Canon continues its dedication to setting high standards of excellence, and these awards serve as positive reinforcement of this approach. We pride ourselves on being able to consistently deliver quality solutions for a variety of businesses, and thank BLI for the recognition."

In the enterprise solutions category, BLI awarded Canon with the following Summer 'Pick' Awards:

imageRUNNER ADVANCE C5560i Outstanding 60-ppm Color Copier MFP

imageRUNNER ADVANCE 4535i Outstanding 356-ppm Copier MFP

imageRUNNER ADVANCE C3530i Outstanding 30-ppm Color Copier MFP

imageRUNNER ADVANCE 3525i Outstanding 25-ppm Color Copier MFP

imageRUNNER ADVANCE C355iF Outstanding Color MFP for Large Workgroups

imageRUNNER ADVANCE C255iF Outstanding Color MFP for SMBs

BLI awarded Canon the following awards in the desktop solutions category:

Color imageCLASS LBP712Cdn Outstanding Color Printer for Large Workgroups

imageCLASS LBP312dn Outstanding Printer for Small Workgroups

imageCLASS MF410 Series Outstanding MFP for Small Workgroups

"Canon's awarded MFPs and desktop printers include advanced features that let users customize and personalize to their preferences and job requirements," said George Mikolay, Associate Director of A3/Production for Keypoint Intelligence - Buyers Lab. "Customization lets users simplify and streamline their printing, scanning and copying workflows to meet their organization's goals more efficiently and ensure maximum uptime."

Canon was also recognized in the scanner solutions category with the following award:

imageFORMULA ScanFront 400 Outstanding Workgroup Scanner

"Similar to many of the award-winning MFPs, Canon's imageFORMULA ScanFront 400 networked document scanner boasts user-friendly, intuitive features that optimize the user experience," said Jamie Bsales, Director of Software Analysis for Keypoint Intelligence - Buyers Lab. "With its stellar ease of use and flexible integration with uniFLOW and other business software, the Canon imageFORMULA ScanFront 400 is an excellent choice for distributed scanning environments and a deserving recipient of this award."

For more information about Canon U.S.A., Inc., visit www.usa.canon.com.

About Keypoint Intelligence - Buyers Lab

Keypoint Intelligence is a one-stop shop for the digital imaging industry. With our unparalleled tools and unmatched depth of knowledge, we cut through the noise of data to offer clients the unbiased insights and responsive tools they need in those mission-critical moments that define their products and empower their sales. For over 50 years, Buyers Lab has been the global document imaging industry's resource for unbiased and reliable information, test data, and competitive selling tools. What started out as a consumer-based publication about office equipment has become an all-encompassing industry resource. In a landscape that's ever evolving, we change with it. For more information on Buyers Lab, please call 973-797-2100, visit www.keypointintelligence.com, or e-mail [email protected].

About Canon U.S.A., Inc

Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions to the United States and to Latin America and the Caribbean markets. With approximately $29 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE: CAJ), ranks third overall in U.S. patents granted in 2016. Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest level of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all of the products it distributes in the United States. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. In 2014, the Canon Americas Headquarters secured LEED Gold certification, a recognition for the design, construction, operations and maintenance of high-performance green buildings. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss and follow us on Twitter @CanonUSA. For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].

Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Canon U.S.A. Web site:

http://www.usa.canon.com

For sales information/customer support:

1-800-OK-CANON

SOURCE Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Related Links

http://www.usa.canon.com


DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Information technology (IT) professionals around the globe are invited to join CompTIA, the world's leading technology association, for a week of activities, contests, information sharing, and giveaways to mark IT Pro Appreciation Week July 24  28.

"Today's IT professional holds a leading and essential role in implementing the technology solutions that allow businesses to compete, grow and succeed," said Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO, CompTIA. "No longer relegated to the back room, IT experts are center stage in the decision-making process because they have the best insight into how technology can help achieve organizational goals."

Throughout the week CompTIA and its social media followers on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter will use the hashtag #WeLoveITPros to share their appreciation for IT professionals. Daily contests and giveaways, along with new content on career advice and tech topics and trends, are also planned. This week's schedule includes:

IT Superheroes Save the Day ( Monday, July 24 )  IT pros always manage to save the day. Discover how you can become a cybersecurity super hero with resources from CompTIA.

)  IT pros always manage to save the day. Discover how you can become a cybersecurity super hero with resources from CompTIA. Take a Personal Day ( Tuesday, July 25 )  CompTIA is here to help you eliminate some workplace stress. Check out information on training tips, remote IT roles and download "The Struggle is Real" printable calendar.

)  CompTIA is here to help you eliminate some workplace stress. Check out information on training tips, remote IT roles and download "The Struggle is Real" printable calendar. Move Forward by Giving Back ( Wednesday, July 26 )  Learn about opportunities for IT professionals looking to help make a difference through CompTIA's philanthropic arm, Creating IT Futures.

)  Learn about opportunities for IT professionals looking to help make a difference through CompTIA's philanthropic arm, Creating IT Futures. 15 Ways to Grow Your Career  Starting with CompTIA AITP ( Thursday, July 27 )  CompTIA's Association for IT Professionals (AITP) is gearing up to offer tech pros exclusive access to benefits that will help you achieve career success from resume to retirement.

)  CompTIA's Association for IT Professionals (AITP) is gearing up to offer tech pros exclusive access to benefits that will help you achieve career success from resume to retirement. Happy SysAdmins Day ( Friday, July 28 )  Wrap up the week by recognizing Global SysAdmins Day.

To get started, visit CompTIA IT Pro Appreciation Week.

IT professionals are also invited to join their industry colleagues at CompTIA ChannelCon 2017 to discuss, debate and educate themselves on the market-changing issues and trends that are re-shaping the industry. This year's conference, July 31 through August 2 in Austin, Texas, will offer attendees three days of conversation, education, networking, and skill building opportunities. To register, or for more information, visit https://www.comptia.org/channelcon/it-pros.

If you are unable to attend the conference in person, consider participating in ChannelCon Online, the award-winning virtual companion to CompTIA ChannelCon 2017. The virtual conference features 14 educational sessions, many of which qualify for continuing education unit (CEU) credits toward the renewal of CompTIA certifications. To register for ChannelCon Online visit https://www.comptia.org/channelcon/register-and-plan/register-cc-online.

Contact:

Steven Ostrowski

CompTIA

630-678-8468

[email protected]

SOURCE CompTIA

Related Links

http://www.comptia.org


While the exact origins of creme brulee are still up for interpretation and reach back to the 1600s 1 , there's no doubt this classic dessert has staying power in an ever-changing dessert landscape. The texture contrast between creamy custard and a torched sugar top coat solidify the delicacy's ongoing popularity. However, despite its appeal, not many at-home cooks take it on due to the perceived difficulty in creating it 2 . Each of Chef Silva's original recipes are made using a Bernzomatic torch and are easily achievable for dessert lovers  some "no bake" and all made with easy-to-source ingredients.

"Creme brulee is one of my all-time favorites, and the power of a Bernzomatic torch is a chef's best-kept secret to truly bring this dessert to life," said Chef Silva. "I went for the classic recipe, and then added a few twists making them simple for anyone to try. I hope at-home cooks feel inspired and empowered to find their own fire and embrace their creativity in the kitchen."

Captivate friends and family using a Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch to add the crisp finish. Learn how to master a traditional Vanilla Creme Brulee, tackle a kid-friendly Cookies N' Cream option or expand your taste buds with a French Toast Creme Brulee.

Traditional Vanilla Creme Brulee

Ingredients:

Custard:

1 1/2 cups milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 vanilla bean, scraped

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

8 egg yolks

Brulee:

Sprinkling of raw sugar for each ramakin

Supplies:

Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch

4 standard size ramekins

Deep baking pan

Custard:

Combine milk, heavy cream and vanilla bean and place them in stainless steel pot with low heat. Whisk the sugar, salt and egg yolks in a bowl. Once milk mix is warm, temper in the yolk mix and cook while stirring with rubber spatula until mixture reaches a temperature of 145F. Place ramekins in a deep baking pan and pour mixture into each ramekin. Hit with a Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch to remove any air bubbles. Place the baking pan with filled ramekins in the oven and then add a layer of hot water to the bottom of the pan to create a water bath. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 300F. Remove from oven and chill for four hours.

Finishing Touch:

Remove baking pan with chilled ramekins from refrigerator and sprinkle a layer of raw sugar on top of each filled ramekin. Caramelize the sugar top coat of each creme brulee with the Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch for 20-25 seconds. Brulee means burnt, don't be afraid to bring the heat!

Cookies N' Cream Creme Brulee

Ingredients:

Custard Mixture:

1 can evaporated milk

1 can sweet condensed milk

1/2 qt. heavy cream

Base:

2 cups custard mixture

4 egg yolks

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. sugar

3/4 tsp. kappa carrageenan

Brulee:

Sprinkling of raw sugar for each ring mold

Crust:

Smashed chocolate wafer cookies

Supplies:

Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch

4-6 standard size ring molds

Crust:

Cover the bottom of each ring mold with a layer of crushed chocolate wafer cookies. Create as thin or thick of a layer as desired!

Custard:

Place all custard base ingredients in a container and thoroughly whisk until well combined. Keep refrigerated, and use as directed.

Base:

Combine 2 cups of the custard mixture with the egg yolks in a stainless-steel pot and whisk to combine. Mix salt, kappa carrageenan and sugar in another small bowl with a whisk and set aside. Place custard, egg yolk and vanilla mixture over medium to low heat. Use a thermometer to see when the temperature hits 100F before stirring in salt, kappa carrageenan and sugar mix with a whisk. Transition to using a spatula to stir combined mixture until the temperature reaches 170F. Pour combined mixture over crushed chocolate wafers in each ring mold and refrigerate for an hour and a half.

Finishing Touch:

Remove from the refrigerator and sprinkle a layer of raw sugar on top of each chilled creme brulee. Caramelize the sugar top coat of each creme brulee with a Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch for 20-25 seconds.

French Toast Creme Brulee

Ingredients:

French Toast:

4 slices of Brioche bread

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

1 vanilla bean

1/4-1 tsp. sugar (to taste)

1/4-1 tsp. cinnamon (to taste)

1/4-1 tsp. cloves (to taste)

1/4-1 tsp. brown sugar (to taste)

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Pastry Cream:

1 qt. milk

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 vanilla beans, scraped

10 egg yolks

3/4 cup cake flour

1/2 tsp. salt

6 tbsp. unsalted butter

Brulee:

Sprinkling of raw sugar for topmost piece of French Toast

Supplies:

Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch

4-6 serving plates

French Toast:

Beat egg, vanilla bean, cinnamon, cloves and brown sugar in a shallow dish. Stir in milk. Dip bread in egg mixture, coating each side equally. Cook each side in stove top pan until browned.

Pastry Cream:

Place milk, vanilla beans and half the sugar called for in a stainless-steel pot. Place egg yolks and remaining half of sugar in a separate bowl and whisk right away, adding flour and salt and whisking until smooth and set aside. Cook milk mixture until it simmers, then temper egg yolk mixture into simmering milk mixture. Increase heat while whisking vigorously until combined mixture boils. Remove mixture from heat and whisk in butter. Spread the completed mixture thinly in a container and refrigerate for two hours. The thinner you spread, the faster it chills!

Finishing Touch:

Plate and stuff French Toast with pastry cream. Sprinkle a layer of raw sugar on the top most piece of French Toast and caramelize with a Bernzomatic TS4000 High Heat Torch for 20 seconds.

Bernzomatic is dedicated to inspiring people to find their fire, whether it be in the kitchen, the workshop or the great outdoors. Discover ideas for using a torch in unique ways, including more kitchen recipes, at www.Bernzomatic.com.

About Chef Thiago Silva

For six years, Thiago designed and implemented menus as the Executive Pastry Chef at EMM Group restaurants around the world including La Cenita, The General and Catch in New York City. Alongside his restaurant menus and the daily responsibility of creating unique desserts for VIP patrons, he builds massive celebration cakes for celebrity clients including Derek Jeter, John Legend, Sophia Vergara, Lady Antebellum, Brook Shields, and the 2011 New York Giants Champion Team. In July 2017, Thiago competed on and won Food Network's culinary competition "Dessert Games," in addition to competing and winning on Food Network's "Chopped" in April 2015. Thiago has been honored with accolades including Zagat's "30 Under 30" of 2013, Dessert Professional Magazine's "Top Ten Pastry Chefs in North America" of 2015, and People Magazine's "14 Sexiest Chefs in America" in 2015. In December of 2015, Thiago left EMM Group after six successful years to focus on new challenges.

About Bernzomatic

Bernzomatic, a Worthington Industries brand, has been the leader in the blowtorch category since 1876. With a passion for craftsmanship and creation, Bernzomatic believes in providing the right tools and inspiration to take on projects and redefine what you can achieve. Bernzomatic products set the standard in safety, durability and performance, and include handheld torches, fuel cylinders, butane lighters and project accessories that can be used on the job site, in the home and in the hands of those with a desire to create. Find your fire at www.Bernzomatic.com.

1 Saveur, 2012

2 Detroit Free Press, 2016

MEDIA CONTACT

Maureen Murray

312-396-4390

[email protected]

SOURCE Bernzomatic

Related Links

http://www.Bernzomatic.com


MALVERN, Pa., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CertainTeed Solar is proud to announce an increase in rated power for the Apollo II and Apollo Tile II solar roofing systems. Apollo II now offers 63 watts of rated power, improving on both the performance and the economics of CertainTeed Solar roofing systems.

"The power increases to our Apollo II line reflect CertainTeed's continuous commitment to the improvement of our products," said Mark Stancroff, director of CertainTeed Solar. "Plus the low-profile appearance of these integrated systems lets installers offer solar solutions to customers who may be deterred by aesthetics of rack-mounted systems."

Apollo II and Apollo Tile II modules are proudly manufactured in the United States using foreign and domestic components and are backed by the strongest warranty in the solar industry which covers the products and the professional installation of the system for up to 25 years.

All CertainTeed Solar systems are available nationwide. For more information, visit www.certainteedsolar.com.

About CertainTeed

Through the responsible development of innovative and sustainable building products, CertainTeed, headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania, has helped shape the building products industry for more than 110 years. Founded in 1904 as General Roofing Manufacturing Company, the firm's slogan "Quality Made Certain, Satisfaction Guaranteed," quickly inspired the name CertainTeed. Today, CertainTeed is a leading North American brand of exterior and interior building products, including roofing, siding, fence, decking, railing, trim, insulation, drywall and ceilings.

A subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, one of the world's largest and oldest building products companies, CertainTeed and its affiliates have more than 5,700 employees and more than 60 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and Canada. The group had total sales of approximately $3.4 billion in 2016. www.certainteed.com

For more information contact:

Victoria Gallagher, CertainTeed

(610) 893-6002

[email protected]

www.certainteed.com/pressroom

SOURCE CertainTeed

Related Links

http://www.certainteedsolar.com


NEW YORK, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuing its commitment to a better world through design, Lexus International announced today its call for entries for the Lexus Design Award 2018. Launched in 2013, the award is an international platform to identify and recognize the next generation of global creators and designers. Every year, thousands of young creative talent from around the world aspire to be selected for the final round. Those twelve finalists and their works will be introduced to the design community and beyond at Milan Design Week 2018*, four of which will be mentored by established global designers and given a production budget of three million JPY (over $25K USD) to create actual prototypes.

In addition to the unique mentorship opportunity and global exposure, young designers are drawn to the Lexus Design Award by the inspiring theme that provides endless possibilities from a design perspective. This year's creative theme for the Lexus Design Award 2018 is "CO-," a Latin prefix meaning with or together in harmony. Lexus believes that great design can ensure the harmonious coexistence of nature and society. In that sense, "CO-" is an approach that allows the brand to explore its true potential and that of the environment by creating new possibilities through collaboration, coordination and connection. Now, young designers get their turn for "CO-" to inspire them to conceive a better world.

The Judges who assess the designs are globally recognized illustrious creators active in diverse design genres. Additionally, mentorship is provided by esteemed designers who share their know-how and provide hands-on support. They guide the selected candidates to express their full potential through the development of working prototypes of their innovative ideas.

The Judges and Mentors for the Lexus Design Award 2018 will be announced in August. As in previous years, Lexus will be partnering with a select group of renowned professionals who embody design excellence at the front lines of creativity around the world and who share the brand's belief that great design can make the world a better place.

During Milan Design Week*, all the finalists' works will be displayed at the Lexus experiential space. Judges will then assess the four prototypes to choose the Grand Prix winner for 2018. Previous winners have gone on to enjoy success and further develop their ideas into viable products.

Entries to the Lexus Design Award 2018 competition will be accepted from July 24 through October 08. For more information on the application process, please visit LexusDesignAward.com. The twelve finalists will be announced in early 2018.

* The world's largest design exhibition, also known as Salone Del Mobile, presents events and exhibits by brands and designers in many categories including furniture, fashion and textiles.

Call for Entries to the Lexus Design Award 2018 Competition

Title Lexus Design Award 2018 Application period July 24 - October 8, 2017 Theme "CO-" Judging criteria  True to the essence of "CO-" with uniqueness in its interpretation.  Consistent with the Lexus Design goal of making the world a better place. Judges To be announced in August Mentors To be announced in August Award categories Lexus Design Award 2018  Twelve finalists  One Grand Prix winner (selected from the four prototype winners)  Four prototype winners (selected from the twelve finalists)  Eight panel finalists Prizes/benefits  Twelve finalists will be invited to Milan Design Week 2018. *  Four winners among the twelve finalists will receive up to three million yen each to cover prototype production costs. The four winners will create prototypes between January and March 2018, through sessions with their assigned mentors.  The four prototypes and eight panels will be exhibited at a Lexus exhibition space during Milan Design Week 2018.  Each of the twelve finalists will be asked to give a presentation at Milan Design Week 2018, after which a single Grand Prix winner will be named from among the four prototypes through final review by the judges. *Note: Only one person per entry will be invited, regardless of whether the winning works are submitted by an individual or a group. Organizer Lexus International In cooperation with designboom Application Process For more information, visit LexusDesignAward.com

ABOUT LEXUS DESIGN AWARD

First launched in 2013, the Lexus Design Award is an international design competition that targets up-and-coming creators from around the world. The award seeks to foster the growth of ideas that contribute to society by supporting designers and creators whose works can help to shape a better future. It provides a unique opportunity for four finalists to work with globally recognized designer as a mentor to create prototypes of their designs, and then exhibit them at one of the design calendar's most important events.

ABOUT LEXUS

Since its debut in 1989, Lexus has earned a worldwide reputation for high-quality products and exemplary customer service. Lexus is the hybrid leader among luxury brands, offering hybrids that provide the best in innovative technology and premier luxury. The evolution of Lexus is reflected in the progressive designs of its new vehicles. The signature spindle grille, dynamic light treatments and sculptured lines create a distinctive look of luxury for Lexus.

Media Contact:

Prue Hyman

Senior Analyst, East Coast Lexus Communications

212.510.4812

[email protected]

SOURCE Lexus International

Related Links

http://lexus.com


BEIJING, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Concord Medical Services Holdings Limited ("Concord Medical" or the "Company") (NYSE: CCM), a leading specialty hospital management solution provider and operator of the largest network of radiotherapy and diagnostic imaging centers in China, today announced the resignation of Mr. Zhe Yin and Ms. Yan Sui as directors of the Company. Both of Mr. Yin and Ms. Sui submitted their resignations to the Board for personal reasons.

In addition, Concord Medical's board of directors has appointed Mr. Chuang Shang-yan as a director of the Company, effective from July 21, 2017.

Mr. Chuang has more than 13 years of experience in financial services. Mr. Chuang has served as Chief Financial Officer of Noah Holdings Limited since September 2016. Mr. Chuang joined Noah Holdings Limited as Director of Investment Relations and Corporate Development in March 2011. In 2012, he founded Noah Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited and served as its Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer until January 2016. Prior to joining Noah Holdings Limited, Mr. Chuang was a senior executive at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the Investment Banking Division and Asia Private Equity Division from 2003 to 2011 based in Hong Kong. Mr. Chuang graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Stern School of Business at New York University.

Dr. Jianyu Yang, Chairman and CEO, commented, "We are very pleased to welcome Mr. Chuang to the Board. Mr. Chuang's experience will be invaluable to our growth and we believe he will make significant contributions to the Company. I would also like to express my gratitude to Mr. Yin and Ms. Sui for their contributions to the Company over the past years. They have contributed to our development and we wish their success in the future endeavors."

About Concord Medical

Concord Medical Services Holdings Limited is a leading specialty hospital management solution provider and operator of the largest network of radiotherapy and diagnostic imaging centers in China. As of April 30, 2017, the Company operated a network of 95 centers with 57 hospital partners that spanned 49 cities and 19 provinces and administrative regions in China. Under long-term arrangements with top-tier hospitals in China, the Company provides radiotherapy and diagnostic imaging equipment and manages the daily operations of these centers, which are located on the premises of its hospital partners. The Company also provides ongoing training to doctors and other medical professionals in its network of centers to ensure a high level of clinical care for patients. For more information, please see http://ir.concordmedical.com.

For more information, please contact:

Concord Medical Services

Ms. Carol TIAN (Chinese and English)

+86 10 5903 6688 (ext. 608)

[email protected]

SOURCE Concord Medical Services Holdings Limited
ATLANTA, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New findings from Swaziland, supported by the Swazi Ministry of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), reveal remarkable progress in controlling the country's HIV epidemic and are the latest to show that global HIV efforts are helping to curb the HIV epidemic and saving lives.

Results from the Swaziland HIV Incidence Measurement Survey (SHIMS2), a type of Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA), show that, in the country with the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, Swaziland nearly halved the rate of new HIV infections between 2011 and 2016. Over the same period, rates of HIV viral load suppression  a marker of effective treatment and reduced infectivity  doubled. These data show that targeted HIV service delivery by the Government of Swaziland, CDC through PEPFAR, and other partners in recent years is yielding dividends.

The PHIAs are national surveys  implemented under the leadership of Ministries of Health and by PEPFAR, CDC, and ICAP at Columbia University  providing direct measurement of progress toward global targets to control the HIV epidemic. These complex surveys combine house visits, in-person interviews, HIV testing, and cutting-edge technologies, including in laboratory science and diagnostics. The data from Swaziland draw from two large household surveys directly measuring new HIV infections and viral load suppression at two periods, in 2011 and 2016.

"CDC plays an essential role in the global HIV response by ensuring that programs rapidly respond to new data for greatest impact," said CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald, M.D. "These findings show a dramatic transformation in Swaziland where, at one time, HIV was destabilizing family structures, communities, and its economy. CDC's commitment as a longstanding stakeholder in the global HIV response, working side-by-side with ministries of health on evidence-based programs, has helped transform some of the world's most severe HIV epidemics."

Swaziland not alone in progress fighting HIV

The Swaziland findings add to results from PHIA surveys released in December 2016 from three other PEPFAR-supported countries that also showed strong progress toward epidemic control. PHIA results from Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe found that 87 percent of people diagnosed with HIV were on treatment, and nearly 89 percent of those on treatment were virally suppressed.

"Results from Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe clearly show that our efforts, through PEPFAR, and, in concert with partners are working," said Rebecca Martin, Ph.D., director of CDC's Center for Global Health. "As a key partner in PEPFAR, CDC supports countries' sustained responses to their HIV epidemics, as well as to other global health threats, ultimately protecting the health and economic well-being of America and the rest of the world. Today's investments in controlling the global HIV epidemic will save lives and costs into the future."

"These groundbreaking findings from Swaziland show that we are making strong progress toward controlling the HIV epidemic in the country with the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world," said Ambassador Deborah L. Birx, M.D., U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. "Combined with the results from three additional PEPFAR-supported surveys that we released last December, we now have clear evidence that four African countries are approaching control of their HIV epidemics using the 90/90/90 fast track strategy."

Together, the four PHIA surveys also help the global community focus on who still needs to be reached to control the HIV epidemic. These data shine a light on the specific populations and geographic areas that remain unreached and require urgent attention and services. For example, young people  especially adolescent girls and young women  are less likely to know their HIV status and seek services. In Swaziland, the SHIMS2 data also revealed that men ages 20 to 35 years need access to tailored treatment and prevention services, such as evening and weekend clinics and targeted outreach in communities.

PHIA survey findings have already helped Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe focus resources on urgent program priorities.

About CDC

CDC works 24/7 saving lives and protecting people from health threats to have a more secure nation. Whether these threats are chronic or acute, manmade or natural, human error or deliberate attack, global or domestic, CDC is the U.S. health protection agency. HIV and TB are the world's two most deadly infectious diseases. The two epidemics are tragically interconnected, as TB is the leading cause of death for those living with HIV. CDC's Division of Global HIV & TB works with partners to tackle these two epidemics and to produce the greatest global health impact. More information on the PHIA surveys can be found at www.CDC.gov/globalhivtb.

About PEPFAR

PEPFAR is the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history. Through the compassion and generosity of the American people, PEPFAR has saved and improved millions of lives, accelerating progress toward controlling and ultimately ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat. For more information, please visit www.pepfar.gov, and follow PEPFAR on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

About ICAP

ICAP was founded in 2003 at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. A global leader in HIV and health systems strengthening, ICAP provides technical assistance and implementation support to governments and non-governmental organizations in more than 21 countries. More than 2.2 million people have received HIV care through ICAP-supported programs and over 1.3 million have begun antiretroviral therapy.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

CDC works 24/7 protecting America's health, safety and security. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are curable or preventable, chronic or acute, or from human activity or deliberate attack, CDC responds to America's most pressing health threats. CDC is headquartered in Atlanta and has experts located throughout the United States and the world.

Contact: Media Relations

(404) 639-3286

SOURCE Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Related Links

http://www.icf.com


REDMOND, Wash., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Due to the increase in demand for a skilled cybersecurity workforce, and lack of diversity in such, CyberTraining 365 has partnered with the National Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) Conference to provide training scholarships to 40 aspiring students who attended the event on March 31st-April 1st in Tucson, AZ. (For details of the program, please refer to www.wicys.net.)

WiCyS

Dr. Ambareen Siraj, Founder and General Chair of WiCyS, says "The cybersecurity field is severely lacking in people with diverse perspectives and practical shovel-ready skills. Our partnership with skill training providers, such as CyberTraining 365, will hopefully contribute in getting more women with practical skills to bring their perspectives to the table."

Being advocates of inclusion and diversity, broadening women's interests and education in the cybersecurity sector is important to CyberTraining 365 and to show their support of the WiCyS Conference and Community, this year they have offered 40 seats for their subscription-based, online cyber security certification courses, free of cost to WiCyS 2017 student attendees.

CyberTraining 365 has shown an active interest in filling the skills-gap, having launched a veteran scholarship called CyberVet 365 last year, and recently launching a Women in Tech: Cyber Security interview series where they hope to help get more exposure of the cyber security field to women/girls.

"We are committed to providing the best possible cyber security training to those whose skills may be vital in the field, but whom may have not had exposure to the industry or proper training outlets. With women representing less than 10% of the Information Security space, we hope to help lessen this disparity while helping fill the cyber security skills-gap to get more, much needed, experts in the field." Says Bally Kehal, CISO of CyberTraining 365.

About CyberTraining 365

CyberTraining 365 is an online academy that offers nearly 1,000 hours of relevant and cutting edge cyber security training. Our training provides the most in demand industry certification prep courses including EC-Council, CompTIA, (ISC)2 and Cisco; all taught by leading cyber security experts. All of our offerings are aligned with the national initiative for cyber security education (NICE) and ensure the most up-to-date information for this constantly shifting field. With engaging content in a scenario-based format, CyberTraining 365 uses bite-sized micro-learning methodology ensures learners are not overwhelmed with information. On Demand LMS platform has white-label capabilities ideal for internal training purposes.

About Women in CyberSecurity

The WiCyS initiative was launched in 2013 with support from a National Science Foundation grant (Award #1303441, Lead PI: Dr. Ambareen Siraj, Computer Science, Tennessee Tech University). Since then, with support from various industry, government and academic partners, WiCyS has become a continuing effort to recruit, retain and advance women in cybersecurity. It brings together women (students/faculty/researchers/professionals) in cybersecurity from academia, research and industry for sharing of knowledge/experience, networking and mentoring.

Media contact:

Bally Kehal

[email protected]

1-800-720-4851

SOURCE CyberTraining 365

Related Links

https://www.cybertraining365.com


STAMFORD, Conn., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Deloitte Foundation has renewed its commitment to help support the development of future accounting Ph.D.s and educators by pledging $650,000 to the American Accounting Association(AAA)/Deloitte Foundation/J. Michael Cook Doctoral Consortium and $400,000 to the AAA Robert M. Trueblood Seminars. The gift of $1,050,000 to the AAA will fund approximately three more years of doctoral consortia as well as the continuation of the Trueblood Seminars for Professors through 2020.

"It is imperative for the sustainability of the accounting profession to not only grow the pipeline of future CPAs, but to also strengthen the quantity and quality of the accounting professors who will teach those students," said Tonie Leatherberry, president of the Deloitte Foundation. "Since inception over 40 years ago, the Doctoral Consortium has assisted thousands of accounting Ph.D.s who have in turn impacted millions of students. By funding key Ph.D. education initiatives and continuing to provide real-world case studies through the Trueblood Seminars, the Foundation is helping to strengthen the connection between the profession and academia."

More than 90 of the nation's top accounting Ph.D. students attended the 47th Annual AAA Doctoral Consortium, a three-day program on accounting research, teaching and career development, held at Deloitte University in Westlake, Texas.

Since 1971, the AAA/Deloitte Foundation/J. Michael Cook Doctoral Consortium has convened leading accounting doctoral students and distinguished faculty from U.S. and select international universities to share their experiences and ideas on key issues of importance to students who are about to complete their Ph.D. programs and pursue academic careers. Each year, attendees hear from a diverse group of faculty who present their perspectives on scholarly research, publishing, teaching and the job market.

The Robert M. Trueblood Seminars have been held annually since 1966 and in 1975, the American Accounting Association joined the Deloitte Foundation in administering the seminars. More than 2,400 professors have attended the Seminars since the program's inception. The annual Seminars enable approximately 70 financial accounting and auditing faculty to explore pertinent accounting issues and to provide professors with curriculum resources to educate students about today's business environment. The program agenda typically features 25 cases, and technical updates on key issues and developments in practice. Fifty of the cases used during recent seminars are also available online for faculty use in the accounting classroom. More than 2,100 professors from across the country are registered users of the Trueblood case studies.

About the American Accounting Association

The American Accounting Association is the largest community of accountants in academia. Founded in 1916, the organization has a rich and reputable history built on leading-edge research and publications. The diversity of the organization's membership creates a fertile environment for collaboration and innovation. Collectively, the organization shapes the future of accounting through teaching, research, and a powerful network, ensuring its position as thought leaders in accounting. For more information about the AAA, please visit http://aaahq.org.

About The Deloitte Foundation

The Deloitte Foundation, founded in 1928, is a not-for-profit organization that supports education in the U.S. through a variety of initiatives that help develop the talent of the future and their influencers and promote excellence in teaching, research and curriculum innovation. The Foundation sponsors an array of national programs relevant to a variety of professional services, benefiting middle/high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and educators. Learn more about the Deloitte Foundation.

Contact

Wendy Berk

Public Relations

Deloitte Services LP

+1 617 922 1148

[email protected]

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms.

SOURCE Deloitte Foundation
NEW YORK, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Crello offers over 10,000 free templates for creating graphics in a number of popular formats, and now it's available in nine languages.

Crello - a visual editor that allows users to create vibrant, professional designs regardless of their skill level, is now available in Portuguese, English, Ukrainian, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Dutch. The tool allows users to create their own unique designs in just a few steps by using templates premade by professional artists and designers. Crello currently supports 29 popular formats: posts to social media, visuals for newsletters, brands' pages and events on Facebook, postcards, flyers, gift certificates, online ads' banners, and even prints.

Visual content marketplace Depositphotos released the English version of Crello on June, 15th. The release has been received favorably, gathering positive feedback from media in the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland, as well as in Asia and Latin America. Within the first couple of weeks since the launch, over 100,000 people from around the world have tried Crello.

"Since the day of the launch, we've made sure that Crello is essential not only for non-designers, but also for creative professionals from various fields who work with visual content and need to create designs in a short period of time. We've even noticed the team of a site for graphic designers, DesignTaxi, use the tool to prepare illustrations for their articles," said Liudmila Nebozhak, Project Head Manager at Crello.

The collection of free templates from Crello has expanded to over 10,000 designs.

About Depositphotos

Depositphotos is a commercial platform that brings authors of high-quality licensed stock photos, graphics, vectors, and videos together with appreciative buyers. The world's leading visual content marketplace offers more than 65 million stock photos, illustrations (including a broad selection of vector files and video content). Depositphotos serves over 3 million customers in 192 countries. The company headquarters are located in New York, with offices in London, Milan, Berlin, Kyiv, Moscow, and Warsaw. For more information, visit depositphotos.com.

Media contact

Daria Staverska, PR Manager at Crello

[email protected]

SOURCE Depositphotos

Related Links

http://www.depositphotos.com


SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dynapower, the leading independent supplier of energy storage solutions, is honored to announce that Adam Knudsen, President and Chip Palombini, Energy Storage Group manager, will be serving on Governor Phil Scott's Climate Action Commission.

"We are very excited to have Adam Knudsen and the team at Dynapower be a part of the Commission's important work. The company is on the cutting edge, leading the low carbon economy. This is a Vermont-based manufacturing company building the foundation for the strong climate action-based economy Governor Scott envisions," said Peter Walke, deputy secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.

The goal of the Vermont Climate Action Commission is to develop solutions that grow the state's economy by providing solutions to climate change, put Vermonters on a path to great affordability, and not leave vulnerable Vermonters behind.

According to scientists at NASA and around the globe, global climate change is already having adverse effects worldwide. The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought, and an increase in the number, duration and intensity of tropical storms.

"Dynamically enhancing our grid to reliably integrate as much clean renewable energy as possible is one of the keys to addressing climate change, both here in Vermont and abroad," said Knudsen. "Energy storage is key to optimizing the use of energy on the grid, including the large scale integration of renewables into the grid."

Knudsen will leverage Dynapower's extensive experience in smart grid energy storage to contribute and progress the objectives of the Climate Action Commission. Dynapower has connected over 375MW of energy storage inverters worldwide, including in Vermont at Stafford Hill and at its corporate headquarters in South Burlington. Installations with Dynapower inverters and energy storage systems have helped strengthen electric grids in several states including Vermont, California, Hawaii and Texas; provided backup power for critical facilities; reduced electricity bills for ratepayers; and enabled island nations to be run completely from renewable energy.

"We are proud to be on the forefront of such a transformative technology as energy storage that is already positively impacting communities around the globe. We are particularly proud to be doing this from Vermont, and to now bring that expertise to bear on Vermont's approach to combating climate change, and helping to create jobs in Vermont, is extremely gratifying," said Knudsen. "The entire Dynapower team stands behind the Governor in supporting this important effort to chart a course forward for Vermont's economy and the well-being of all Vermonters, and the planet."

If you would like more information about this topic, please call Richard Morin at 802.999.1566, or email [email protected].

CONTACT:

RICHARD MORIN

[email protected]

www.dynapower.com

802.999.1566

SOURCE Dynapower

Related Links

http://www.dynapower.com


CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Eurest Services announced today the launch of its newly renovated website. The complete redesign will enhance the overall visitor experience through functionality and usability.

Bringing the current website to the modern world, the redesign will feature quick and easy access to a complete list of services providedincluding EverSource and the company's Centers of Excellence platform. The website will evolve to showcase the latest innovations and sustainability practices, senior leadership overview and take a step further to include testimony. Included will be links for career opportunities.

The website is catered towards current and prospective clients with a focus on Our Vision, Our People, Our Culture, Sustainability and Safety. The new site goes live on 07/24/17 and is located at WWW.EURESTSERVICES.US

"We saw a need to evolve and update our vision and bring it to the modern world," said President of Eurest Services Stephen Barnett. "We filled in the gaps and merged content to fit a client's model. Just like our business, we're growing and we want to showcase our growth. We did that with this website."

"I am constantly asked why Eurest Service's website does not highlight the fact that we are one of the industry leaders in facilities services that provides a five-star hospitality experience," added Vice President of Operations Bobby Ochse. "The new website really hits the mark. The page focuses on key factors that are important to our business, and, more importantly, our customers."

Eurest Services will continue to update the revamped website on a regular basis with new innovations, technologies, sustainability solutions and case studies. Visitors are encouraged to explore the website and follow Eurest Services on social media for company updates Eurest Services LinkedIn.

About the Company

Eurest Services, a division of Compass Group USA, is a premier provider of Integrated Support Services to the Business & Industry sector focusing on target markets such as Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Financial and Insurance Institutions, Corporate Business & Industry and Pharmaceuticals. As part of Compass Group, we offer what few corporations can: a service delivery model that fully integrates our facilities management services with a dining service solution  that achieves true economies of scale. This allows our clients to focus on their core business, while we create a better workplace experience for our clients and their associates.

With unparalleled focus on safety, innovation and sustainability, we offer a customized facility solution supported by a team of specialize experts. Eurest Services diligently provides its clients with the highest caliber of service performance in the industry.

SOURCE Eurest Services

Related Links

http://WWW.EURESTSERVICES.US


JACKSONVILLE, Fla., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With record-setting high temperatures creating dangerous weather conditions across the country, Firehouse Subs invites guests nationwide to help in its effort to support America's first responders with the sixth annual H 2 O for Heroes bottled water collection drive. On Saturday, August 5, all Firehouse Subs restaurants will provide one medium sub* to each guest who donates an unopened, 24-pack of bottled water. The donated water will be provided to local first responders and community support organizations to aid those most in need of water during the hot summer months when the risk of dehydration and other heat-related illnesses is most threatening.

In 2012, Phoenix-area franchisees Jerry and Windy Griffin launched H 2 O for Heroes as a local initiative to encourage bottled water donations at a time when wildfires and drastic heat had depleted the supplies of several first responder organizations.

"When my husband Jerry and I came up with the idea to start H 2 O for Heroes, we never imagined the response from the community would be so overwhelmingly supportive," said Firehouse Subs Franchisee Windy Griffin.

Now in its sixth year, and its second as a nationwide effort, the program continues to provide much-needed relief to first responders. Last year's drive resulted in more than 528,000 bottles of water donated to local heroes and citizens in need. With heat records rising across the country and sweltering temperatures igniting wildfires from California to Georgia, the demand for donated water remains high this year as well.

"We hear from so many departments that don't have the additional money to purchase bottled water, and the donations they receive from our guests assist them in a variety of emergency situations," continued Griffin. "From hydrating firefighters in the scorching summer heat to keeping K9 officers cool on patrol, this water is a life-saving tool."

Firehouse Subs currently serves its signature hot subs to guests in 44 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and most recently the brand made its debut in airports with Jacksonville International. To find a location near you, visit www.firehousesubs.com, or download the brand's mobile loyalty rewards app, Firehouse Rewards, available on Google Play and the App Store.

*Limit one medium sub per person, per case of unopened 24-pack bottled water.

*Excludes Firehouse Subs restaurants in Puerto Rico, Mexico and airports.

About Firehouse Subs

Firehouse Subs is a fast casual restaurant chain with a passion for Hearty and Flavorful Food, Heartfelt Service and Public Safety. Founded by brothers and former firefighters Chris Sorensen and Robin Sorensen, Firehouse Subs is a brand built on decades of fire and police service, hot subs, steamed and piled higher with the highest quality meats and cheeses and its commitment to saving lives through the establishment of the non-profit Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation. The founders are the real deal, the food is their creation and the restaurant is built upon a family of franchise operators who share their same passion for generously serving food and community. In 2015, Firehouse Subs expanded its brand presence to the international market, debuting in Ontario, Canada and further expanding in 2017 to Mexico City, Mexico. Also in 2015, the brand introduced its first digital loyalty rewards program, Firehouse Rewards, which allows guests to earn and redeem points for each visit through a smartphone app. Firehouse Subs is consistently recognized as a leader in the fast casual segment. For the last three years, Firehouse Subs was ranked No. 1 by Technomic's Chain Restaurant Consumers' Choice Awards among fast casual brands in the categories of overall brand (2017), food quality (2016), service (2015) and atmosphere (2014). Forbes recognized Firehouse Subs in 2015 as a Best Franchise to Buy.

To learn more, visit www.firehousesubs.com.

Quick Facts:

44 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico

1,080+ restaurants

$28+ million donated to public safety organizations through Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation

Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla.

For More Information:

Brittany Mirvil & Maria Coukoulis

The Zimmerman Agency  850.668.2222

[email protected]

SOURCE Firehouse Subs
SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nine out of the top 50 most affordable community colleges offering online programs are located in the state of Georgia. This shows Georgia's strong commitment to affordable education for its residents. The next most represented state in the ranking is North Carolina with five schools. You can view the full list here: http://affordableschools.net/most-affordable-online-community-colleges/

AffordableSchools.net put the list together as part of its commitment to helping students find the most affordable and flexible solutions to higher education. Community colleges are regularly cited as being a good way to lower the cost of college. And online programs offer greater flexibility.

Many students will choose to save money by spending their first two years at community college, before transferring to a 4-year University program. With the growth of demand for online education, community colleges are increasingly offering some of their programs online. We wanted to make a ranking of community colleges that are committed both to keeping costs low, and offering the flexibility of online schooling.

Here's a list of schools recognized for being the most affordable community colleges offering online programs:

Sinclair Community College - Dayton, Ohio

Holmes Community College - Goodman, Mississippi

Pitt Community College - Winterville, North Carolina

Clark State Community College - Springfield, Ohio

Lehigh Carbon Community College - Schnecksville, Pennsylvania

Daytona State College - Daytona Beach, Florida

Pennsylvania Highlands Community College - Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Schoolcraft College - Livonia, Michigan

Carl Albert State College - Poteau, Oklahoma

Walters State Community College - Morristown, Tennessee

Florence-Darlington Technical College - Florence, South Carolina

Amarillo College - Amarillo, Texas

Richmond Community College - Hamlet, North Carolina

Chesapeake College - Wye Mills, Maryland

Arkansas Northeastern College - Blytheville, Arkansas

Cochise County Community College District - Douglas, Arizona

Cuyahoga Community College District - Cleveland, Ohio

Citrus College - Glendora, California

Coffeyville Community College - Coffeyville, Kansas

State Fair Community College - Sedalia, Missouri

Erie Community College - Buffalo, New York

North Arkansas College - Harrison, Arkansas

Technical College of the Lowcountry - Beaufort, South Carolina

Central Arizona College - Coolidge, Arizona

Middlesex Community College - Bedford, Massachusetts

Tallahassee Community College - Tallahassee, Florida

Southeastern Technical College - Vidalia, Georgia

West Georgia Technical College - Waco, Georgia

Central Texas College - Killeen, Texas

West Virginia Northern Community College - Wheeling, West Virginia

Georgia Northwestern Technical College - Rome, Georgia

Fayetteville Technical Community College - Fayetteville, North Carolina

Forsyth Technical Community College - Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Delta College - University Center, Michigan

Washtenaw Community College - Ann Arbor, Michigan

Eastern Gateway Community College - Steubenville, Ohio

Harford Community College - Bel Air, Maryland

Wayne Community College - Goldsboro, North Carolina

Atlanta Technical College - Atlanta, Georgia

Westmoreland County Community College - Youngwood, Pennsylvania

Chattahoochee Technical College - Marietta, Georgia

Central Georgia Technical College - Warner Robins, Georgia

Pima Community College - Tucson, Arizona

Wiregrass Georgia Technical College - Valdosta, Georgia

Leeward Community College - Pearl City, Hawaii

Indian River State College - Fort Pierce, Florida

Olney Central College - Olney, Illinois

South Texas College - McAllen, Texas

Albany Technical College - Albany, Georgia

Oconee Fall Line Technical College - Sandersville, Georgia

AffordableSchools.net (http://www.affordableschools.net) is an independent college search and rankings site with a focus on affordable colleges and programs within higher education. It publishes a number of rankings series, focusing on variety of categories, including affordable Bachelor's degrees (various subjects), affordable Bachelor's degree colleges by state, affordable online degree programs, niche rankings, resource lists, and much more. The site is designed to make your college search easier.

Raj Kumar Dash

Managing Editor

Phone #: 310-929-7240

Contact form: http://affordableschools.net/contact/

SOURCE AffordableSchools.net

Related Links

http://affordableschools.net


SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Gigamon Inc. (NYSE: GIMO), the industry leader in traffic visibility solutions, invites Black Hat attendees to learn how GigaSECURE Security Delivery Platform can help organizations gain better network visibility and control in detecting and mitigating threats.

Visit Gigamon Booth #760 at the Black Hat Business Hall at Mandalay Bay to learn more about the company's network and cloud security solutions. Also visit the Black Hat Network Operation Center (NOC) to see how Gigamon Visibility Platform is integrated into the Black Hat network environment to enable security tools with enhanced performance and efficiencies.

Gigamon and its security partners will be presenting sessions and engaging with attendees at Black Hat events. The full list of Gigamon activities is available here.

Wednesday, July 26

11:15 a.m.: Live Broadcast Interview with Dark Reading

Interviewer: Lenny Liebmann, contributing editor of Dark Reading

Location: Dark Reading News Desk, Level 2, Mandalay Bay Conference Center

Topic: Lenny Liebmann will interview Shehzad Merchant, CTO of Gigamon, about a new model that leverages GigaSECURE Security Delivery Platform using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to gain greater visibility and awareness into network traffic. The interview will also cover the importance of automation across the attack lifecycle to better detect, predict and contain threats. The interview will be live-streamed on DarkReading.com and replayed on video monitors from the show floor.

11:30 a.m: RSA & Gigamon Joint Solution Presentation

Presenter: Kirk Punches, senior manager, cloud alliances at Gigamon

Location: RSA Booth #907, Black Hat Business Hall

Topic: Companies are increasingly leveraging the public cloud to achieve scale, elasticity and innovative services for their application workloads. However, the public cloud is a shared responsibility when it comes to security. Kirk Punches will discuss how Gigamon Visibility Platform for AWS integrates with the RSA NetWitness Suite to provide pervasive visibility into data-in-motion across public cloud workloads to quickly and efficiently identify, analyze and mitigate potential threats.

NOTE: This presentation will be held again on Thursday, July 27 at 2:30 p.m. at the RSA booth.

Thursday, July 27

1:20 - 2:10 p.m.: Speaking Session  "Cyber Risks and Supply Chain Failures: Whether to Zig or Zag"

Presenters: Simon Gibson, CISO at Gigamon and Katie Moussouris, founder and CEO of Luta Security

Location: Oceanside E, Level 2, Mandalay Bay Conference Center

Topic: IT transformation requires partners to deliver results. However, as the supply chain expands, it introduces greater security risks. Organizations might not know if or when something in the supply chain fails. Real-time visibility and control across the infrastructure are necessary to complement the forensics capabilities required for post-incident analysis. How can SecOps teams analyze the resulting increased network data volume to identify and stop threats? Learn how Gigamon and its security partners can help SecOps teams better identify and combat threats.

Follow @Gigamon, #BHUSA17 and #seewhatmatters on Twitter for the latest Gigamon updates.

About Gigamon

Gigamon (NYSE: GIMO) provides active visibility into physical and virtual network traffic, enabling stronger security and superior performance. The Gigamon Visibility Fabric and GigaSECURE, the industry's first Security Delivery Platform, deliver advanced intelligence so that security, network and application performance management solutions in enterprise, government and service provider networks operate more efficiently and effectively. Learn more at www.gigamon.com, the Gigamon blog or follow Gigamon on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. See What Matters

SOURCE Gigamon

Related Links

http://www.gigamon.com


SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- After a three-year skid, sales of green vehicles (hybrid, PHEV, EV and hydrogen) revved up in the first half of 2017, thanks in part to what would have once been considered an unlikely source  the light truck segment. According to new analysis from Edmunds, green vehicle sales are up 21.5 percent in the first half of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016. Driving this growth is a diversification of the green model lineup to include bigger vehicles that tap into consumers' love of SUVs, such as the Kia Niro, a hybrid compact crossover SUV. Light trucks now make up 22.9 percent of the green vehicle market, up from 5.2 percent in 2012.

"If automakers want car shoppers to adopt green technology, they can't just offer it exclusively in a little econobox," said Edmunds Executive Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell. "While the styling of the iconic Prius used to be trendy, consumers today don't necessarily want a vehicle whose design screams 'green car.' And as tastes have taken a dramatic turn away from passenger cars, and battery technology improves, automakers have an opportunity to drive adoption forward by offering electric powertrains in vehicles shoppers actually want."

Also moving the needle on green vehicle sales this year are plug-ins (including PHEVs and EVs), which have increased 45 percent in volume year over year. One out of every 100 vehicles sold in 2017 had a plug. While still a marginal subset of overall sales, the introduction of the Chevrolet Bolt, ramped-up production of the Tesla Model 3, and the release of the new Nissan Leaf later this year will play starring roles in the plug-in's turn in the spotlight.

Green Car* Sales Volume and Market Share

H1 All Green Car

Sales Green Car

Market

Share Year-Over-

Year Market

Share Average Price

of Regular

Gas 2017 266,488 3.2% 24% $2.36 2016 219,342 2.5% -11% $2.07 2015 242,104 2.8% -20% $2.46 2014 288,861 3.5% -6% $3.54 2013 294,989 3.8% 19% $3.59 2012 230,056 3.2% 46% $3.66



*Green cars include hybrid, PHEV, EV and hydrogen

It remains to be seen whether electric vehicle sales will be able to stand up on their own after federal tax credits begin expiring. Federal subsidies have provided a much-needed boost for EVs and PHEVs, but as GM, Tesla and Nissan close in on the 200,000-vehicle cap on federal tax credits, and new or extended government incentives are uncertain, the future is murky on whether electric vehicles will be able to attract buyers without a steep financial incentive.

"Americans tend to buy cars based on emotion," said Caldwell. "If automakers can hone in on the right products that excite buyers without the carrot of government subsidies, EVs have a much better shot at going mainstream at a quicker pace."

Automakers Approaching the Phaseout Stage of Plug-in & EV Rebates

(Cumulative Sales Qualifying for Federal Tax Credits)

Automaker Q1 2016 Q2 2016 Q3 2016 Q4 2016 Q1 2017 Q2 2017 GM 100,335 107,562 115,047 124,366 133,039 142,961 Tesla 66,179 76,307 88,627 100,261 112,155 121,410 Nissan 92,522 95,384 98,829 103,597 106,884 110,845 Ford 63,848 70,296 77,077 84,157 89,067 94,681 Toyota 46,145 46,164 46,174 48,596 52,942 58,288 BMW 22,404 26,599 31,643 36,321 39,522 42,965

About Edmunds

Edmunds is the leading car information and shopping platform, helping millions of visitors each month find their perfect car. With products such as Edmunds Your Price, Your Lease and Used+, shoppers can buy smarter with instant, upfront prices for cars and trucks currently for sale at more than 13,000 dealer franchises across the U.S. Edmunds' in-house team of unbiased car-shopping experts provide industry-leading vehicle reviews and shopping tips, as well as welcome all car-shopping questions to the free Shopper Advice line at 1-855-782-4711, via email at [email protected], via text at ED411 and on Twitter and Facebook. The company is regarded as one of America's best workplaces by Fortune and Great Place to Work. Edmunds is based in Santa Monica, California, and has a satellite office in downtown Detroit, Michigan.

Contact:

Monica Favorite

Edmunds Corporate Communications

www.Edmunds.com

Media Hotline: 310-309-4900

[email protected]

SOURCE Edmunds.com

Related Links

http://www.edmunds.com


Anthony Imperato, President of Henry Repeating Arms, presented the rifle to Service Officer Denisewich in appreciation of his service to our great nation, and dedication to our nation's veterans, service members and their families. Imperato started by saying, "It may be a bit unfair to condense a 36 year military career into a couple of paragraphs, and I am honored to try." He continued, "Colonel Denisewich is a veteran of the U.S. Army and recipient of the Afghanistan Campaign Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. He is an advocate for veterans, helping them to navigate the confusing maze of the Department of Veteran Affairs to secure the benefits they have earned and truly deserve. I am humbled to stand beside him and before such an esteemed audience."

In addition to receiving a Henry Military Service Tribute Rifle, Mr. Denisewich was presented with a Certificate of Appreciation signed by both Brian Duffy, Commander-in-Chief of the VFW, and Anthony Imperato.

In late 2016 Henry Repeating Arms partnered with the VFW to establish a fundraising program that would raise money for the VFW National Headquarters and offer individual VFW Posts the opportunity to enhance their fundraising efforts. For more information on the program please email [email protected]. Imperato told the crowd, "This new program has generated $9,000 so far. Feeling the swell of patriotic pride as I do when attending this annual convention, we are adding to that and I am honored to present the VFW with a check for $50,000."

For more information about Henry Repeating Arms and its products visit henryusa.com or call 866-200-2354. For more information about the VFW, the oldest and largest major war veterans association, visit vfw.org.

About Henry Repeating Arms

Henry Repeating Arms is one of the country's leading rifle manufacturers and top ten firearm manufacturers. Their company motto is 'Made In America Or Not Made At All' and their products come with an unlimited lifetime guarantee. Henry Repeating Arms was awarded the Stevie American Business Award for Customer Service. The company's manufacturing facilities are in Bayonne, NJ and Rice Lake, WI with approximately 450 employees.

SOURCE Henry Repeating Arms
PROVIDENCE, R.I., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Hope On Wheels will present the Hasbro Children's Hospital of Providence with a $50,000 Hyundai Impact Award. Hasbro Children's Hospital is one of 25 recipients of this year's award, which is given to pediatric oncology departments at select children's hospitals nationwide. Hasbro Children's Hospital will use the funds to support the work of pediatric cancer research and programs. The $50,000 Hyundai Impact Award will be officially presented to Hasbro Children's Hospital Thursday, July 27th at 10:00 a.m.

In 2017, Hope On Wheels will award $15 million toward pediatric cancer research and programs. This brings the organization's donation total to $130 million since Hyundai joined the fight against pediatric cancer in 1998. With this latest grant, Hasbro Children's Hospital has received more than $425,000 from Hope On Wheels.

"Throughout the country, talented doctors are working tirelessly to help kids fight cancer by conducting research or providing bedside care," said Scott Fink, chairman, Hyundai Hope On Wheels Board of Directors. "Our goal at Hope On Wheels is to provide these doctors with the grant funds they need to perform their lifesaving work. Superheroes come in all forms, but for children and families battling cancer  superheroes wear lab coats."

The $50,000 Hyundai Impact Award will be officially presented to the Hasbro Children's Hospital Thursday, July 27th at 10:00 a.m. During the event, Providence area children battling cancer will participate in the program's signature Handprint Ceremony, in which they'll dip their hands in paint and place their handprints on a white 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe. Their colorful handprints on the official Hope Vehicle represent their individual and collective journeys, hopes and dreams.

Doctors and researchers that receive a grant from Hope On Wheels are named Hyundai Scholars and are presented with a special lab coat. This year, Hope On Wheels will further recognize its Hyundai Scholars for their incredible efforts on behalf of children battling cancer through a campaign called "Superheroes Wear Lab Coats." The video series will showcase their lifesaving work.

For more information about Hyundai Hope On Wheels and to view a complete list of this year's grant winners, please visit HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org/research . Follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram at facebook.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels, twitter.com/HopeOnWheels or instagram.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels.

HYUNDAI HOPE ON WHEELS

Hyundai Hope On Wheels is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is committed to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Launched in 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels provides grants to eligible institutions nationwide that are pursuing life-saving research and innovative treatments for the disease. HHOW is one of the largest non-profit funders of pediatric cancer research in the country, and primary funding for Hyundai Hope On Wheels comes from Hyundai Motor America and its more than 835 U.S. dealers. Since its inception, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has awarded more than $130 million towards childhood cancer research in pursuit of a cure.

HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA

Hyundai Motor America, headquartered in Fountain Valley, Calif., is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company of Korea. Hyundai vehicles are distributed throughout the United States by Hyundai Motor America and are sold and serviced through 835 dealerships nationwide. All new Hyundai vehicles sold in the U.S. are covered by the Hyundai Assurance program, which includes a 5-year/60,000-mile fully-transferable new vehicle limited warranty, Hyundai's 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty and five years of complimentary Roadside Assistance.

For more details on Hyundai Assurance, please visit www.HyundaiAssurance.com

Please visit our media website at www.hyundainews.com

Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook

SOURCE Hyundai Hope On Wheels

Related Links

http://HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org


HOLLYWOOD, Fla., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Hope On Wheels will present Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital of Hollywood, FL with a $50,000 Hyundai Impact Award. The facility, part of the Memorial Healthcare System, is one of 25 recipients of this year's award, which is given to pediatric oncology departments at select children's hospitals nationwide.

Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital will use the funds to support the work of the Love Jen Fund, which helps families cope with the financial and emotional stresses of pediatric cancer. The $50,000 Hyundai Impact Award will be officially presented to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Thursday, July 27, at 10:00 a.m.

In 2017, Hope On Wheels will award $15 million toward pediatric cancer research and programs. This brings the organization's donation total to $130 million since Hyundai joined fight against pediatric cancer in 1998. With this latest grant, Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital has received more than $755,000 from Hope On Wheels.

"Throughout the country, talented doctors are working tirelessly to help kids fight cancer by conducting research or providing bedside care," said Scott Fink, chairman, Hyundai Hope On Wheels Board of Directors. "Our goal at Hope On Wheels is to provide these doctors with the grant funds they need to perform their lifesaving work. Superheroes come in all forms, but for children and families battling cancer  superheroes wear lab coats."

The $50,000 Hyundai Impact Award will be officially presented to Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Thursday, July 27th at 10:00 a.m. During the event at the Conine Clubhouse, South Florida children battling cancer will participate in the program's signature Handprint Ceremony, in which they'll dip their hands in paint and place their handprints on a white 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe. Their colorful handprints on the official Hope Vehicle represent their individual and collective journeys, hopes and dreams.

Doctors and researchers that receive a grant from Hope On Wheels are named Hyundai Scholars and are presented with a special lab coat. This year, Hope On Wheels will further recognize its Hyundai Scholars for their incredible efforts on behalf of children battling cancer through a campaign called "Superheroes Wear Lab Coats." The video series will showcase their lifesaving work.

For more information about Hyundai Hope On Wheels and to view a complete list of this year's grant winners, please visit HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org/research . Follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram at facebook.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels, twitter.com/HopeOnWheels or instagram.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels.

HYUNDAI HOPE ON WHEELS

Hyundai Hope On Wheels is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is committed to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Launched in 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels provides grants to eligible institutions nationwide that are pursuing life-saving research and innovative treatments for the disease. HHOW is one of the largest non-profit funders of pediatric cancer research in the country, and primary funding for Hyundai Hope On Wheels comes from Hyundai Motor America and its more than 835 U.S. dealers. Since its inception, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has awarded more than $130 million towards childhood cancer research in pursuit of a cure.

HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA

Hyundai Motor America, headquartered in Fountain Valley, Calif., is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company of Korea. Hyundai vehicles are distributed throughout the United States by Hyundai Motor America and are sold and serviced through 835 dealerships nationwide. All new Hyundai vehicles sold in the U.S. are covered by the Hyundai Assurance program, which includes a 5-year/60,000-mile fully-transferable new vehicle limited warranty, Hyundai's 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty and five years of complimentary Roadside Assistance.

JOE DiMAGGIO CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL & FOUNDATION

Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital (www.jdch.com) - the largest pediatric hospital serving Broward, Palm Beach, and northern Miami-Dade counties - has 224 licensed beds, seven operating rooms, and an entire floor dedicated to pediatric oncology. The stand-alone facility, part of the Memorial Healthcare System (www.mhs.net), combines advanced technology, the expertise of some of South Florida's most diverse, board-certified specialists, and a patient and family-centered focus to heal the body, mind, and spirit of those it touches, regardless of their ability to pay.

The nonprofit Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Foundation (www.jdchfoundation.org) provides philanthropic funding to support the children's hospital's mission.

For more details on Hyundai Assurance, please visit www.HyundaiAssurance.com

Please visit our media website at www.hyundainews.com

Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook

SOURCE Hyundai Hope On Wheels

Related Links

https://hyundaihopeonwheels.org


LAS VEGAS, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM Security (NYSE: IBM) today announced the launch of two new security testing practice areas focused on automotive security and the Internet of Things (IoT). The new services will be delivered via an elite team of IBM X-Force Red researchers focused on testing backend processes, apps and physical hardware used to control access and management of smart systems.

The new IoT services will be delivered alongside the Watson IoT Platform to provide security services by design to organizations developing IoT solutions for all industries. With 58% of organizations testing their IoT applications only during the production phase1, the potential for introducing vulnerabilities into existing systems remains unacceptably high. The Watson IoT Platform provides configuration and management of IoT environments, and the IBM X-Force Red services bring an added layer of security and penetration testing.

IBM X-Force Red marked its first-year anniversary with the addition of security specialists such as Cris Thomas (aka Space Rogue) and Dustin Heywood (aka Evil_Mog with Team Hashcat), who add to the team's impressive roster of talent globally. To further optimize their engagements, IBM X-Force Red has also built a password cracker called "Cracken" designed to help clients improve password hygiene.

"Over the past year, we've seen security testing further emerge as a key component in clients' security programs," said Charles Henderson, Global Head of IBM X-Force Red. "Finding issues in your products and services upfront is a far better investment than the expense of letting cybercriminals find and exploit vulnerabilities. Our own investments in people, tools and expertise have more than tripled our security testing capabilities in the first year of IBM X-Force Red, making our offense our clients' best defense."

Connected Car Security is a Global Priority

Gartner estimates that the production of new automobiles equipped with data connectivity, either through a built-in communications module or by a tether to a mobile device, is forecast to reach to 61 million in 2020.2 With the current and future challenges in mind, IBM X-Force Red created an automotive practice dedicated to helping clients secure hardware, networks, applications, and human interactions.

IBM X-Force Red worked with more than a dozen automotive manufacturers and third-party automotive suppliers to build expertise and programmatic penetration testing and consulting services. The formation of the automotive practice aims to help to shape and share industry best practices and standardize security protocols.

The new automotive practice is also applying some of the findings from research disclosed by IBM X-Force Red early this year that notified consumers and the automotive industry of security pitfalls inherent in connected cars. The research looked at the insecure transfer of ownership between owners of some connected cars, which may create an opportunity for a malicious takeover of the functions of the vehicle, such as locking and unlocking of doors, remote start, light and horn control, and the ability to geo-locate the current owner through a mobile app. When these findings were revealed at RSA 2017, Henderson and IBM X-Force Red also disclosed that these security loopholes were also identified across four major auto manufacturers.

The interconnected components and systems in a modern vehicle can number in the hundreds or thousands, each with their own security controls and vulnerabilities. As these components are combined and connected to mobile applications and external servers, the total amount of potential vulnerabilities for the vehicle climbs above the sum vulnerabilities of its parts. With this in mind, IBM X-Force Red performs discrete security testing of the components and solution-based security testing for the complete system of the vehicle.

Watson IoT Platform and IBM X-Force Red

Gartner forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020.3 While the insights gained from IoT data help drive revenue streams and forge lasting customer relationships, demand and shortened production cycles often leads to rushed or non-existent security testing for these new products and services.

IBM X-Force Red has changed the delivery of security testing due to the perceived gaps in security of emerging technologies such as IoT and connected cars. Programmatic and on-demand security testing through the entire lifecycle of the products is emerging as the best way to find vulnerabilities in a proactive fashion. Watson IoT Platform customers will now be able to leverage the security expertise of IBM X-Force Red to assist throughout development and deployment.

"It's not just about the technology, it is also about the global reach, investment, and collaborative approach which make IBM a trusted IoT partner for enterprise IoT solutions," said James Murphy, Offering Manager, IBM Watson IoT Platform. "With IoT technologies permeating the farthest corners of industry, IBM is bringing our Watson IoT Platform and X-Force Red security talent together to address present and future concerns."

The Watson IoT Platform approach is security by design, with security controls built-in, delivered as a cloud-based service with industry-recognized ISO27001 compliance. The Watson IoT Platform also has advanced security IoT service capabilities that extend Watson IoT Platform with Threat Intelligence for IoT. These features help customers visualize critical risks in the IoT landscape and create policy-driven automations to help prioritize operational responses for IoT incidents.

The skills and experience of the X-Force Red team alongside the Watson IoT Platform provide the vital components to help get clients off to the right start from design all the way through to go-live of their IoT solution.

Investing in Infrastructure

In February 2017, IBM X-Force launched The Red Portal, a cloud-based collaboration platform for clients and security professionals that presents an end-to-end view of security testing programs. Clients can view real-time testing project milestones, vulnerabilities across all assets, reports of findings and the overall status of their managed testing program. The Red Portal centralizes and streamlines all communications with X-Force Red and provides a way to begin remediation immediately on the most critical items.

At this year's Black Hat conference, X-Force Red will unveil the newest weapon in their arsenal. Cracken is a dedicated password-cracking cluster used by X-Force Red during penetration tests and security assessments. To illustrate the importance of password length and complexity, X-Force Red will let attendees test passwords against Cracken at Booth #616 during Black Hat USA 2017.

IBM X-Force Red at Black Hat 2017 and DEF CON 2017

Charles Henderson, Global Head of IBM X-Force Red, will present his discussion of real-life penetration testing, "Better Than Mr. Robot" at Black Hat USA 2017. The session will be held in Business Hall Theater B, Mandalay Bay on Thursday, July 27 from 11:00-11:50 a.m. PT.

Chris Thompson, Red Team Ops Lead, IBM X-Force Red, will present his demonstration of advanced Red Team tactics, "MS Just Gave the Blue Team Tactical Nukes (and How Red Teams Need to Adapt)" at DEF CON 25. The demo will be held in the 101 Track on Saturday, July 30 from 3:00-3:45 p.m. PT.

X-Force Red and other IBM Security experts will demonstrate the latest offerings at Booth #616, Level 1 Business Hall, Mandalay Bay on July 26 & 27.

1 2017 Study on Mobile and IoT Application Security, Ponemon Institute, Arxan, & IBM Security

2 Gartner, Gartner Says Connected Car Production to Grow Rapidly Over Next Five Years, September 2016

3 Gartner, Forecast: Internet of Things  Endpoints and Associated Services, Worldwide, 2016, December 2016,

About IBM Security

IBM Security offers one of the most advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM X-Force research, enables organizations to effectively manage risk and defend against emerging threats. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research, development and delivery organizations, monitors 35 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries, and has been granted more than 3,000 security patents worldwide. For more information, please check www.ibm.com/security, follow @ibmsecurity on Twitter or visit the IBM Security Intelligence blog.

Media Contact

Dillon Townsel

IBM Security Media Relations

+1-512-571-3455

[email protected]

SOURCE IBM

Related Links

http://www.ibm.com


SAN FRANCISCO, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Informa's Business Intelligence Design Engineering and Sourcing Group, the fiercely independent information-services network targeted to engineering decision makers, and European Business Press, the leading pan-European publisher of B2B electronics publications, today launched an exclusive content sharing program to educate electronics professionals in North America and Europe.

The Design Engineering and Sourcing Group's Electronic Design, Machine Design, Microwaves & RF, Power Electronics and SourceESB, former Penton properties, which reach over 3.9 million design engineers and purchasing professionals every month, will share content with European Business Press' eeNews Europe and its vertical mircosites, eeDesignNews and MWee. The collaboration will also provide advertisers with a larger reach into these new audiences.

Paul Miller, President, Informa's Industry & Infrastructure Intelligence said, "We're excited to offer the engineering community greater access to essential resources and comprehensive insight on trends, tools and disruptive technologies. Now engineering decision makers throughout North America and Europe can rely on our unequaled experience and proven expertise to make informed decisions. We look forward to a long relationship with European Business Press."

Andre Rousselot, President, European Business Press, added, "We are looking forward to expanding our audience to North America. We couldn't be more pleased with our initial relationship with the Design Engineering and Sourcing Group. By syndicating content generated by our talented teams of editors on both sides of the Atlantic we'll be able to improve the readers' experience of our respective audiences and better serve our advertising markets."

The two companies will also explore opportunities in the areas of research and new jointly developed products and solutions for the engineering community.

About European Business Press

Created in 1998, EBP is the leading pan-European Publisher of B2B electronics publications both in print and online.

About Informa

The Design Engineering and Sourcing Group, Electronic Design, Machine Design, Microwaves & RF, Power Electronics and SourceESB are part of Informa, the international business intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events group. Informa serves commercial, professional and academic communities, helping them connect and learn, and creating and providing access to content and intelligence that helps people and businesses work smarter and make better decisions faster.

Informa has over 7,500 colleagues in more than 20 countries and a presence in all major geographies. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jane Cooper

Director, Marketing

Design Engineering and Sourcing

(216) 931-9301

[email protected]

SOURCE Informas Business Intelligence
SAN FRANCISCO, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Invitae Corporation (NYSE: NVTA), one of the fastest growing genetic information companies, today announced that it will report its second quarter 2017 financial results on Monday, August 7, 2017 and will host a conference call that day at 4:30 p.m. Eastern / 1:30 p.m. Pacific to discuss its financial results and recent developments.

The dial-in numbers for the conference call are (844) 579-6824 for domestic callers and (763) 488-9145 for international callers, and the reservation number for both is 53628132. Following prepared remarks, management will respond to questions from investors and analysts, subject to time limitations. We encourage our shareholders and those representing them to send in questions to [email protected]. E-mail questions will be accepted until 4:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Pacific on Monday, August 7, 2017.

The live webinar of the call may be accessed by visiting the investors section of the company's website at ir.invitae.com. A replay of the webinar will be available shortly after the conclusion of the call and will be archived on the company's website.

About Invitae

Invitae Corporation (NYSE: NVTA) is one of the fastest growing genetic information companies in the U.S. Invitae's mission is to bring comprehensive genetic information into mainstream medical practice to improve the quality of healthcare for billions of people. Invitae's goal is to aggregate most of the world's genetic tests into a single service with higher quality, faster turnaround time, and lower price than many single-gene and panel tests today. The company currently provides a diagnostic service comprising approximately 1,500 genes for a variety of genetic disorders associated with oncology, cardiology, neurology, pediatrics, and other rare disease areas, as well as clinical analysis of a 20,000-gene medical exome. Additionally, the company has created a Genome Network to connect patients, clinicians, advocacy organizations, researchers, and therapeutic developers to accelerate the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of hereditary disease. For more information, visit our website at invitae.com.

Contact:

Kate McNeil

[email protected]

347-204-4226

SOURCE Invitae Corporation

Related Links

http://invitae.com


ATLANTA, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jackson Healthcare, a national provider of staffing, search, and technology services, has announced the appointment of Ryan Esparza as Chief Information Officer (CIO). As head of the shared services technology group that supports 18 companies in the Jackson Healthcare portfolio, Esparza oversees the strategic vision, direction, and delivery of technology initiatives.

Esparza comes to Jackson Healthcare with a wealth of experience with some of Atlanta's leading brands, including The Weather Channel, Intercontinental Hotels Group, COXnet, and The Home Depot. Immediately prior to joining Jackson Healthcare, he was a vice president of software engineering at The Weather Company, an IBM Business, where he managed engineering teams in Atlanta and Israel to build the company's advertising, video, and content delivery platforms in all digital formats. Previously, as a Global Innovation Manager at IHG, Ryan launched the world's first mobile key platform.

In Esparza's first six months at Jackson Healthcare, he has upgraded legacy infrastructure and migrated critical business processes to the cloud to support the rapid growth of Jackson's 18 companies. Additionally, he has introduced a technology operating model that aims to solve the unique challenges presented by the diversity of Jackson's portfolio.

"Ryan is the ultimate technology leader, a naturally curious problem solver who can operate at 30,000 feet and just as easily fix a problem deep in the weeds," said Jennifer Dangar, Chief of Corporate Operations. "We are incredibly fortunate to have such a strategic thinker in Ryan. He's already helping propel Jackson Healthcare's rapid growth."

Ryan Esparza holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the board of the Alpharetta Technology Commission. He lives in Brookhaven, Georgia with his wife, Brittany, and two children.

About Jackson Healthcare

Jackson Healthcare is built on a simple idea  that talented professionals with a shared purpose can improve the lives of patients, families and communities. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the company has risen to be among the largest healthcare staffing, search and technology companies in the U.S. The company currently serves more than seven million patients in over 1,300 healthcare facilities. In addition to serving health systems and providers, Jackson champions local, national and international charitable work for health and children's wellness. Associate surveys earned Jackson Healthcare Atlanta Business Chronicle's "Best Place to Work" in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Visit JacksonHealthcare.com to learn more.

SOURCE Jackson Healthcare

Related Links

http://www.jacksonhealthcare.com


BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Loton, Corp's (OTC: LIVX) LiveXLive Studios named social media sensation Jake Paul the newest contributing social editor of LiveXLive. Paul joins Andrew B. Bachelor, aka "King Bach," and inaugural contributor Amanda Cerny. Individually, and as a team, the trio will create original short-form content and viral promotions on the LiveXLive platform for their massive millennial audiences.

Paul, the former Vine phenom turned Disney Channel star, leveraged his creative passion and ambition to break into the music world by releasing the hip-hop song  "It's Everyday, Bro." The song debuted at No. 2 on iTunes, and the music video went viral, garnering more than 27 million views on YouTube in the first seven days. Paul took this sizzling momentum to the stage by announcing his first ever concert in a surprise performance at Exchange LA, a nightclub in Downtown Los Angeles. At his first concert, Paul caused pandemonium, with thousands of fans lining up hours before the show. To make his performance available to fans across the globe, LiveXLive worked with Paul to feature an exclusive live stream of the concert on its site, so fans everywhere could be a part of the incredible energy at the sold-out show.

With his first concert under his belt, Paul is now taking his creative passions and risk-taking mentality to LiveXLive's platform, joining forces with Cerny and Bach. The trio will create content for the LiveXLive platform, with a focus on developing a community around the best live music in the world. Paul, who had nearly 2 billion loops on Vine, has a combined social following of well over 20 million.

"I love music, my followers love music, and I know LiveXLive is the ultimate home for the live music experience," said Jake Paul, contributing social editor and content creator for LiveXLive. "We're going to bring great comedy and great music together like no one else is doing, and we'll have incredible access and resources to do it."

"Jake Paul has quickly demonstrated that he can create music-related content that resonates with young audiences by the millions," said Robert Ellin, founder and CEO of LiveXLive. "With his music career launching at the same time that we're expanding our original content production and live music streaming deals, this couldn't be a better match."

LiveXLive is developing and launching music news programming, documentaries, specials, and long- and short-form content. All of this original programming will complement LiveXLive's live streams of some of music's biggest and most important festivals and events from around the world. Paul will also contribute to other LiveXLive projects, which will be announced later this year.

About Loton, Corp and LiveXLive, Corp

LiveXLive, Corp ("LiveXLive"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Loton, Corp ("Loton") is one of the world's only premium internet networks devoted to live music and music-related video content. Since LiveXLive's launch in 2015, LiveXLive has been building an online destination for music fans to enjoy premium live performances from music venues and leading music festivals around the world, such as Rock in Rio, Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, Hangout Music Festival, as well as premium original content, artist exclusives and industry interviews. The LiveXLive platform has featured performances and content from some of the most popular artists in various music genres, including Rihanna, Katy Perry, Metallica, Duran Duran, Radiohead, Chance The Rapper, Bruce Springsteen, Major Lazer and Maroon 5. For more information, visit our website at www.livexlive.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @livexlive.

Forward Looking Statement

All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release are "forward-looking statements." These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These factors include uncertainties as to identifying, acquiring, securing and developing content, ability to attract and retain users, successfully implementing the company's growth strategy, including relating to its technology platform, management's relationships with industry stakeholders, changes in economic conditions, competition, and other risks including those described from time to time in Loton's filings with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and Loton and LiveXLive disclaim any obligations to update these statements except as may be required by law.

SOURCE LiveXLive

Related Links

http://www.livexlive.com


SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jet Airways, India's premier international airline, has appointed Discover the World to provide sales and marketing in Switzerland.

"Discover is delighted to partner with Jet Airways for the first time," said Jenny Adams, CEO of Discover the World. "Our team in Switzerland, headed by Director Richard Gugerli, will expand the airline's visibility, helping to increase its revenues especially through its code share partnership with Air France/KLM."

According to Gilbert George, Jet Airways' Vice President  Continental Europe & Americas, "We were impressed with the innovative approach Discover presented which matched our values and covered all market segments, as well as their digital expertise."

From the end of 2017, Jet Airways will fly to India 54 times a week from London Heathrow, Paris CDG, and Amsterdam to Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai. This includes new services from Amsterdam to Bengaluru and Paris CDG to Chennai which will commence on October 29, 2017. Jet Airways also flies daily from Amsterdam to Toronto.

For more information about Discover the World, visit discovertheworld.com or call (480) 707-5566 or +44 203 598 8030.

About Discover the World

Discover the World has earned a reputation as a leader in global travel distribution and its success in developing a worldwide network of 85 offices in more than 60 countries capable of exceptional representation performance is unmatched. With a portfolio of more than 90 clients utilizing its sales, marketing and business process outsourcing services, Discover the World remains a dominant innovator for the travel industry.

About Jet Airways

Jet Airways is India's premier international airline which operates flights to 65 destinations, including India and overseas. Jet Airways' robust domestic India network spans the country covering metro cities, state capitals and emerging destinations. Beyond India, Jet Airways operates flights to key international destinations in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Europe and North America.

The Jet Airways Group currently operates a fleet of 112 aircraft, comprising Boeing 777-300 ERs, Airbus A330-200/300, next generation Boeing 737s and ATR 72-500/600s. With an average age of 7.33 years, this is one of the youngest fleets in the region.

Jet Airways, together with airberlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Alitalia, Etihad Airways, Etihad Regional operated by Darwin Airline, and NIKI, participates in Etihad Airways Partners. Etihad Airways is part of the Etihad Aviation Group, which also holds minority investments in each of these airlines. For more information, please visit: www.jetairways.com.

SOURCE Discover the World

Related Links

http://discovertheworld.com


RESTON, Va., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Key Government Finance, an affiliate of Key Equipment Finance, one of the nation's largest bank-held equipment finance companies and an affiliate of KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY), today announced strategic personnel alignments within its technology finance team, designed to strengthen its federal brand.

Toni Egan, Key Government Finance senior financial sales vice president, will bring her significant history of federal finance and sales expertise to join Chris McKinley, Key Government Finance senior financial sales vice president, who has been instrumental in establishing the organization's IT federal brand for the past six years. Based in Reston, Virginia, both Egan and McKinley will share federal IT market responsibility for delivering the company's structured technology finance solutions to Key Government Finance's OEM and prime contractor federal partners. Egan and McKinley each have several years of significant federal lending expertise, as well as the technology background required to navigate within the federal ecosystem. Both understand the myriad of challenges experienced by the company's partners, as well as the growing demand for modernization of the federal IT infrastructure and the strong push toward cyber, big data and artificial intelligence that the federal government is flowing its operating and capital funds towards.

Gina Ringgenberg, vice president of federal sales, will assume responsibility for the federal lab segment for Key Government Finance. She brings a significant history in investment banking, strategic procurement and senior project management to her new role. Also based in Reston, Virginia, Ringgenberg will create and execute on financial solutions within the United States Department of Energy and Department of Defense federally funded research lab environment, consisting of OEMs, lab management operators and prime contractors. The lab segment is of growing importance to Key Government Finance's federal branding strategy. Increasingly, clients in this space must pursue financial solutions designed to balance growing research and telecommunication needs while restricted by federal budget constraints.

"Continuing development of structured financial and federal marketplace expertise, our client focused execution strategy, and being highly selective of the types of sales and support personnel we choose for this business and for our clients will continue to be the hallmark of the Key Government Finance federal team," said Art Hyman, senior vice president of Key Government Finance's federal finance business. "Our clients and their end user clients, federal agencies, continue to grapple with the highly publicized age of the federal IT infrastructure, the need for ever greater IT strength offset with real budgetary and capital issues. Our goal is to continue as the premier provider of capital education and solutions to the federal market in solving these ongoing issues, and we are excited to have this team on board to address these real industry challenges."

About Key Equipment Finance

Key Equipment Finance has been in the equipment finance business for 44 years and is one of the largest bank-based equipment finance providers in the U.S. The company provides tailored equipment lease and finance solutions for commercial clients and government entities. Through its manufacturer and vendor alliances unit, equipment finance programs are developed for manufacturers, distributors and resellers.

The company's government finance unit, Key Government Finance, provides financing solutions for state and local government entities, the federal government and not-for-profit organizations. Key Government Finance was established in 2000.

Key Equipment Finance's specialty finance group includes a specialty finance lending team, which provides structured facilities to various sectors of the specialty finance market, and a lease capital markets team to support corporations looking to optimize risk and revenue. Headquartered outside Denver, Colorado, Key Equipment Finance manages approximately $12 billion in assets and originates more than $4.5 billion of equipment financing annually. For more information, visit http://www.keyequipmentfinance.com.

About KeyCorp

KeyCorp's roots trace back 190 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation's largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $135.8 billion at June 30, 2017. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, insurance, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of more than 1,200 branches and more than 1,500 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC.

SOURCE Key Government Finance

Related Links

http://www.keyequipmentfinance.com


JAKARTA, Indonesia, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

KinerjaPay Corp., (OTCQB: KPAY), a digital payment and eCommerce platform, ("KinerjaPay" or the "Company") today announced the appointment of Deddy Oktomeo as Chief Executive Officer and Yohansyah Yeung as Chief Marketing Officer of its wholly-owned subsidiary PT Kinerja Pay Indonesia.

Mr. Oktomeo has been CEO of an Mitralink Solusi, an Indonesian IT consulting company, for the past 17 years, where his experience ranged from product design and development to operations and sales support, as well as marketing and finance. Under his leadership, Mitralink developed business in new markets and established new standards of performance in sales and profitability. Mr. Oktomeo was also a founder of mFoodGate a premium merchant-to-member food and beverage solution platform, and co-founder of Fintech Gate, which provided "Know Your Customer" and "Anti-Money Laundering" solutions to financial institutions.

Mr. Yeung previously held senior marketing positions in a number of multinational companies, including Sinar Mas Group, Lippo Bank, Emerson Network Power and IDC Research. His expertise includes sales pipeline and account management, new customer acquisition, corporate sales, B2B sales, strategic planning and financial modeling.

Commenting on the appointments, Edwin Ng, Chairman and CEO of KinerjaPay Corp. said, "As KinerjaPay continues to experience high levels of growth, it is vital that we have a skilled management team in place to ensure that our customers continue to experience the high quality and reliable service that they have come to expect from our platform and applications."

"Deddy Oktomeo is one-of-a-kind; a CEO respected for his ability to consistently deliver strong results. He has a deep understanding of how an IT company works, and his agile leadership style will be crucial as we scale the KinerjaPay operation. And Mr. Yohansyah's breadth of experience will be indispensable in helping us develop marketing and sales strategies to further strengthen KinerjaPay's connection with our users," added Mr. Ng.

Deddy Oktomeo stated, "KinerjaPay is an outstanding company with huge potential, broad opportunity and an innovative team. I look forward to working with management to shape and execute the strategies that will ensure KinerjaPay not only maintains its position within the market, but continues to deliver ground-breaking customer experiences."

Mr. Yeung added, "Indonesia is one of the fastest growing eCommerce markets in the world and KinerjaPay has developed a reputation for providing consumers and businesses with a safe and effective transaction platform. I look forward to working with Edwin and Deddy to accelerate the Company's growth, and establish KinerjaPay as a leading brand in Indonesia and other Asia/Pacific markets."

About KinerjaPay

KinerjaPay enables consumers to "Pay, Play and Buy" through its secure web portal and mobile applications. Based in Indonesia, the Company provides easy and convenient payment solution while shopping online at its marketplace platform. With its current omni-channel platform, users can perform various payment services such as credit card bill payment, utility, phone bill, healthcare insurance and direct transfer to anyone at their convenience. KinerjaPay is also planning to launch other eCommerce verticals such as travel market, delivery services, and online gaming in the near future. The Company's services are available through its mobile applications and on its website at http://www.kinerjapay.com.

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, about KPAY's expectations, beliefs or intentions regarding, among other things, its product development efforts, business, financial condition, results of operations, strategies or prospects. In addition, from time to time, KPAY or its representatives have made or may make forward-looking statements, orally or in writing. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "believe," "expect," "intend," "plan," "may," "should" or "anticipate" or their negatives or other variations of these words or other comparable words or by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical or current matters. These forward-looking statements may be included in, but are not limited to, various filings made by KPAY with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, press releases or oral statements made by or with the approval of one of KPAY's authorized executive officers. Forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results as of the date they are made. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause KPAY's actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Many factors could cause KPAY 's actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors summarized in KPAY 's filings with the SEC. In addition, KPAY operates in an industry sector where securities values are highly volatile and may be influenced by economic and other factors beyond its control. KPAY does not undertake any obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Please see the risk factors associated with an investment in our securities which are included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on February 11, 2016.

Media Contact:

KinerjaPay Corp.

Email: [email protected]

+62-8229-777-0098

For more information, please visit our website http://www.kinerjapay.co. There you will find access to all of our past press releases and SEC filings regarding the activities discussed in this letter.

SOURCE KinerjaPay Corp.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leesa Sleep, the leading direct-to-consumer online luxury mattress retailer, today announced the close of a Series B funding, raising $23 million in a round led by One Better Ventures, an investment company led by Seventh Generation CEO John Replogle. Notable investors include social impact entrepreneurs such as Blake Mycoskie, Founder of TOMS. Replogle will join Leesa as Chairman of the Board alongside Peter Graham who was Chairman of Seventh Generation until its recent sale to Unilever, who will also join the Leesa Sleep Board. The investors included in this round are aligned with Leesa's social mission  to elevate life with thoughtfully designed and crafted products and to be a force for good in the world, as recognized by Leesa's certification as a B Corp.

Launched at the beginning of 2015 by e-commerce entrepreneur David Wolfe and mattress industry veteran Jamie Diamonstein, Leesa raised $7 million in its Series A funding in mid-2015 through TitleCard Capital, whose partners include well-known artists and professional athletes such as Adam Levine, Jimmy Kimmel and Kate Hudson. Leesa has delivered triple digit growth and positive cashflow since its inception and sales are expected to exceed $200 million in the next 12 months. Leesa will use this second round of funding to invest in the brand and to drive growth by launching a series of new products as well as to extend the reach and impact of its partnerships, events and celebrity relationships based around a common goal to be a force for both wellness and good  including working with long term ambassadors Michael Phelps and Aly Raisman.

"We are humbled and invigorated by the extraordinary response Leesa has received in such a short period of time, and we are excited to use this round of funding to broaden our reach to customers and influencers alike as well as expand into the retail category," said David Wolfe, co-founder and CEO of Leesa. "As a company that values its impact on the world as much as its financial prosperity, we are also thrilled to be able to use this success to drive toward our audacious goal of ending homelessness."

Leesa will also use this round of funding to further expand its product line to cover the entire sleep spectrum. Jamie Diamonstein expertly leads the product development process and is considering a series of new products focused on quality and unique craftsmanship consistent with Leesa's existing merchandise. Further, Leesa's rapid growth provides an even greater opportunity to continue its already robust social impact program, the self-established heart and soul of the company. Leesa has donated more than 17,000 mattresses as a result of its One-Ten Program, wherein Leesa donates one mattress for every 10 sold  just one part of a three-tiered social impact program that affects every employee and customer of Leesa.

"The combination of Leesa's exceptional products, experienced management, customer service and dedication to social good is what has propelled them forward in the category," said John Replogle, CEO of Seventh Generation and Chairman of the Board at Leesa. "This round will help to ensure Leesa is a household name known as much for its amazing sleep products as for its social mission and goal of providing all people with a place to rest their head at night."

About Leesa Sleep, LLC

Based in Virginia Beach, Va., Leesa is a direct-to-consumer online luxury mattress company that offers 100 percent American-made mattresses delivered directly to consumers' doors. From its start, Leesa has measured its own success not just by the bottom line, but by the company's overall social impact. To date, Leesa's One-Ten program has provided more than 17,000 mattresses to those in need. Leesa offers a 100-night risk-free trial, free shipping, and no-hassle returns. In 2016, Leesa was recognized as a certified B Corp, joining forces with more than 2,100 companies like Ben & Jerry's, Patagonia, Eileen Fisher and Warby Parker using business as a force for good. The company currently offers free shipping to the U.S., U.K. Germany and Canada. For more information visit www.leesa.com.

Media Contact:

Erica Cooper

Leesa Sleep, Head of PR and Communications

[email protected]

SOURCE Leesa Sleep, LLC

Related Links

http://www.leesa.com


RESTON, Va., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology company, is highlighting the importance and excitement of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers for young professionals around the globe. With a worldwide dearth of qualified technical talent, Leidos is committed to educating and training students, specifically in the growing and critical field of cybersecurity. The company is pleased to announce its sponsorship of the Cambridge2Cambridge (C2C) Cyber Challenge that uses Leidos' CyberNEXS platform for hands-on, real-world training hosted this year by the University of Cambridge.

C2C is a government and industry backed competition, a cross-nation cyber battle with teams made up from some of most prestigious universities in the world including from the U.K.; Birmingham, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Imperial College, Kent, Lancaster, Oxford, Queen's University Belfast, Royal Holloway, Southampton, Surrey, and University College London, and from the U.S.; Arizona, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, California State Polytechnic University, Colombia, Dakota State, Maryland, Mission College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, U.S. Air Force Academy, Virginia and Worcester State.

Throughout the competition Leidos employees will be onsite to facilitate and encourage students in using the CyberNEXS platform and developing their skills. The company will also participate in seminars including, "The Future of the Cyber Conflict" as well as a Women in STEM networking session.

"Developing and growing a strong STEM workforce is key to our success as an organization and vital for our global security," said Doreen Harwood, Leidos Senior Vice President, Cyber & SIGINT Solutions. "Watching these students rapidly learning and developing practical new skills using our CyberNEXS tool is hugely inspiring, and will help equip the much needed next generation of cyber defenders."

"Recruitment and developing the capabilities of our workforce is a key enabler to defend our nations and clients," said Bill Krampf, Leidos Senior Vice President for U.K. and Europe. "We live in a world where new skills have to be honed to defend against adversaries. Only with continued partnerships with universities can we truly help shape the skills that are coming into the future workforce."

CyberNEXS is a scalable cybersecurity trainer that provides hands-on learning experience for both students and industry security professionals. The platform uses scenario-based exercises and a secure virtual environment to assess network and system attack-and-defend, forensics, and penetration strategies. The platform has honed the skills of high school, collegiate and industry security professionals.

About Leidos

Leidos is a FORTUNE 500 science and technology solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defence, 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.

Contact:

Robert McNeill

[email protected]

SOURCE Leidos

Related Links

http://www.leidos.com


NEW YORK, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mesothelioma Victims Center specializes in providing one of the nation's best services for construction workers, electricians, welders, plumbers, and machinists who have recently been diagnosed with mesothelioma. Included in these services, they offer instant access to some of the nation's most capable and skilled mesothelioma attorneys who make certain their clients receive the best possible financial compensation for this asbestos exposure cancer as they would like to discuss anytime at 800-714-0303. http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

Skilled Tradesman

The Mesothelioma Victims Center says, "At the very least, a construction worker or skilled tradesman with mesothelioma that calls us at 800-714-0303 will receive a free rundown on how the mesothelioma compensation process works. We'd also value the opportunity to discuss why having the most experienced mesothelioma lawyers is vital when it comes to mesothelioma compensation.

"We are talking about potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in additional financial compensation because you hired the most qualified attorneys. Once you hire a lawyer/law firm to assist with a mesothelioma compensation claim you are stuck with them as it is nearly impossible to fire them as we would like to discuss." http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

The types of construction workers or skilled trades workers with confirmed mesothelioma the Mesothelioma Victims Center is eager to assist include:

Carpenters

Welders

Plumbers

Electricians

Machinists

Millwrights

Pipefitters

Steamfitters

Insulators

Roofers

Boiler Technicians

Plasterers

Tile Flooring Installers

The Mesothelioma Victims Center's number one priority is to see to it that any construction worker or skilled tradesman with mesothelioma receives the very best possible financial compensation. For this to happen, a person must have the have the nation's top mesothelioma attorneys assisting with the compensation claim as the group would like to explain anytime at 800-714-0303. http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

Before the 1980s there were no laws to protect construction workers or tradesmen from exposure to asbestos as opposed to today where a contractor could get fined or go to jail for intentionally exposing his workers to asbestos. Please refer to the OSHA website that discusses this:https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_id=10862&p_table=standards

Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. High-risk work groups for exposure to asbestos include Veterans of the US Navy, power plant workers, shipyard workers, oil refinery workers, steel mill workers, miners, pulp or paper mill workers, printers, factory workers, railroad workers, plumbers, millwrights, boiler technicians, electricians, auto mechanics, machinists, welders, pipefitters, insulators, firemen and construction workers. In most instances a person who has been diagnosed with mesothelioma was exposed to asbestos in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, or 1980's. http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

The average age for a diagnosed victim of mesothelioma is about 70 years old. This year between 2500, and 3000 US citizens will be diagnosed with mesothelioma in the United States. Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that is caused by exposure to asbestos.

The Mesothelioma Victims Center says, "If you call us at 1-800-714-0303, you will be talking directly to some of the nation's skilled and experienced lawyers, and they make house calls. When it comes to mesothelioma compensation please don't shortchange yourself because a less than qualified lawyer or law firm." http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

According to the CDC the states indicated with the highest incidence of mesothelioma include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon.

However, based on the calls the Mesothelioma Victims Center receives a construction worker or skilled tradesman with mesothelioma could live in any state including New York, Florida, California, Texas, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, or Alaska.

For more information about mesothelioma please refer to the National Institutes of Health's web site related to this rare form of cancer: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mesothelioma.html

Media contact:

Michael Thomas

[email protected]

800-714-0303

SOURCE Mesothelioma Victims Center

Related Links

http://mesotheliomavictimscenter.com


EL PASO, Texas, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bar Louie is pleased to announce it has signed a franchise agreement with Mount Olympus Enterprises, LLC to open three bar and eateries in El Paso, the first set to open by the fall of 2018. With two more slated to open in the town, Bar Louie is expanding its presence in the Lone Star State, where it is headquartered.

The new restaurant will be owned and operated by the Alluin Group, spearheaded by millennial entrepreneur Arturo R. Alluin, who discovered Bar Louie when he visited Nashville a few years ago and was immediately drawn to the unique atmosphere of the brand. Also involved in the business will be Alluin's father, Arturo G. Alluin, and mother, Ruth Ojeda, marking a true family affair. The family has lived in El Paso for almost a decade and is excited to bring the concept to the Sun City.

"Bar Louie will deliver a fun, entertaining experience while offering great food and amazing drinks to the residents of the Southwest," Alluin said. "El Paso has seen booming population growth in recent years and the city is transforming into a more vibrant and modern community, hungry for stylish and novel concepts such as Bar Louie. The relaxed atmosphere perfectly caters to the desire and we can't wait to see the positive impact our restaurants have."

The group is currently working with a commercial real estate agent to determine the future sites and are considering east, west, and central locations throughout the city. They are targeting areas near retail, offices, sporting event centers and popular city areas. El Paso's Bar Louie will offer local residents a unique gathering place for drinks and dinner with friends.

Bar Louie is a neighborhood bar and eatery with handcrafted cocktails, a featured selection of local and regional beers with more than 40 taps, unique wines and craveable food in an inviting, urban atmosphere. In addition to delicious specialty martinis and made from scratch food, the El Paso location will play host to what will become weekly rituals for the community  El Paso will come to expect happy hour specials, live music, and much more. The new Bar Louie establishments are expected to have indoor and outdoor seating and create between 75-100 jobs per location for the local community.

"Signing another deal in a new city demonstrates the strength of the brand and demand for our concept in our home state of Texas," said Bar Louie Director of Franchise Jill Szymanski. "With the help of franchisees like the Alluin family, Bar Louie is carving out a distinctive niche in the social bar and eatery space. Each one of our locations contains its own set of diverse characteristics and we are excited to see what's to come for the El Paso establishments."

About Bar Louie

Bar Louie is a national collection of neighborhood bars featuring hand-crafted cocktails and spirits, delectable food and an inviting atmosphere for people to enjoy time with friends and mingle with new people. Founded in 1991 in Chicago, Bar Louie has more than 125 locations across the United States and is growing through both franchising and corporate locations. Open during four parts of the day  lunch, happy hour, dinner and late night  Bar Louie is an award-winning concept with a progressively hip and lively atmosphere. For more information on Bar Louie, visit www.barlouie.com. To learn about franchising opportunities with Bar Louie, go to www.barlouie.com/franchise.

Media Contact: Mike Garabedian, Fishman Public Relations, 847-945-1300, [email protected]

SOURCE Bar Louie

Related Links

http://www.barlouie.com/franchise-information


"From day one, my administration has been fighting to bring back our manufacturing jobs and to crack down on foreign countries that cheat," the president told the group. "We will end the theft of American prosperity, and we will stand up for our companies, our factories and our workers."*

Attendees also included Vice President Pence, Labor Secretary Acosta and several members of Congress.

"It is obvious that President Trump cares deeply for manufacturers and their employees," said Lindell, who was seated immediately on his right. "Vice President Pence clarified that is a priority for this administration, declaring, 'Made in America is not a slogan; it's a mission.'

"I am proud to share that mission with Mr. Trump," Lindell added. "I felt the overwhelming presence of God when I visited the White House  from the president and everyone on his staff."

Lindell first met with Trump in mid-August during the presidential campaign to discuss keeping manufacturing at home and reviving America's cities. During a private meeting at Trump Tower, Lindell and Trump agreed this renewal begins in our inner cities and with blue-collar American workers, who make up the heart of our nation.

Lindell understands the importance of the "Made in the USA" label, and has been working to that end since he founded MyPillow in 2005. To-date, his company has manufactured 30 million pillows 100 percent made in America in his home state of Minnesota, with every component produced domestically  even the cotton is grown in America.

"Like Mr. Trump, I care for the American people," said Lindell. "Each of my 1,500 employees are like family, and I have a passion for helping them and others who are striving to achieve the American dream. But for me, the pillow is a platform to use the success I've been provided by God to change the lives of the most vulnerable throughout the world."

MyPillow is currently donating a pillow to a homeless shelter for every product purchased in select markets. Lindell also created The Lindell Foundation out of his passion and strong commitment to offer assistance to his MyPillow employees and serve the people in his own community. This fall he will embark on a national tour to launch similar Lindell Foundation initiatives in cities across the nation.

For more information about MyPillow, visit https://www.mypillow.com.

* Quotes from White House Press Office http://bit.ly/WhiteHousePressRemarks

CONTACT:



For The Lindell Foundation

A. Larry Ross 972.267.1111



[email protected]

For Mike Lindell



Matt Rich 212.404.4444



[email protected]



SOURCE MyPillow

Related Links

https://www.mypillow.com


HAMPTON, Va., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Missions to the surface of distant planetary bodies require power  lots of power. Through the 2018 Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, NASA is enlisting university students in its quest for efficient, reliable and cost-effective solar power systems that can operate on Mars both day and night.

The teams will have until November to submit their proposals. Interested teams of three to five undergraduate and/or graduate students are asked to submit robust proposals and a two-minute video describing their concepts by Nov. 30.

NASA's Game Changing Development Program (GCD), managed by the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate, and the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) are seeking novel concepts that emphasize innovative mechanical design, low mass and high efficiency, with operational approaches that assure sustained power generation on the Mars surface for many years.

It's not easy to harness the power of the sun from Mars. Depending on where spacecraft land, the angle and distance from the sun changes substantially during different seasons, affecting solar power flow management and performance. Martian dust is also a threat. It clings to everything on the surface and could form a blanket over solar panels.

The goal is to have a reliable operating power source in place before astronauts ever step foot on the surface of Mars. That means solar array designs will need to fit compactly into a single cargo launch, have the capability to deploy robotically on the surface, and begin producing power soon after landing.

The 2018 BIG Idea Challenge invites teams and their faculty advisors to work together to design and analyze innovations in the design, installation, and sustainable operation of a large solar power system on the surface of Mars, in the following areas:

Novel packaging, deployment, retraction, and dust-abatement concepts

Lightweight, compact components including booms, ribs, substrates, and mechanisms

Optimized use of advanced ultra-lightweight materials and high efficiency solar cells

Validated modeling, analysis, and simulation techniques

High-fidelity, functioning laboratory models and test methods

From these proposals, NASA and industry experts will select four teams to continue developing their proposed concepts, submit a technical paper, and present their concepts in a face-to-face design review at the 2018 BIG Idea Forum, held at a NASA center in early March 2018. Each of these four teams will receive a $6,000 stipend to participate in the forum.

Student members from the BIG Idea Challenge winning team will receive offers to participate in paid summer internships at either NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, or Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where they will continue developing their concept under the mentorship of NASA experts.

For more information about the challenge, and details on how to apply, visit the BIG Idea website at: http://bigidea.nianet.org

For more information about NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

For more information about the National Institute of Aerospace, please visit: www.nianet.org

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


BELLEVUE, Wash., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MPIRICA Health today released "Reputation vs Reality: What Outcomes Data Reveals About America's "Best" Hospitals," a new report comparing "top rated" hospitals, based on reputation, with alternative nearby hospitals. Results were in line with what MPIRICA methodology creator, Dr. Michael Pine, a Harvard trained cardiologist and nationally recognized medical quality expert, found in 1999: reputation does not necessarily match reality and that prestigious brands do not consistently deliver excellent care for all surgeries they perform. Rather than using a general ranking system, MPIRICA measured how surgeons performed on specific surgical procedures based on more than two decades of research, demonstrating the importance of utilizing data rather than relying on reputation built through lists like U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals Honor Roll.

MPIRICA analyzed ten highly reputable hospitals for this report  Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic, Duke University Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Mayo Clinic Hospital Rochester, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center and UCSF Medical Center  on 24 common procedural categories. These hospitals consistently appear on "Best" lists for overall hospital performance or safety, but after drilling down into data on surgical outcomes, there were some areas in which they fell considerably short.

"Choosing the right hospital is a life or death decision for some patients. It's vital that patients have access to data that points them toward their local hospital with the best outcomes history in the procedure they plan to undergo," said Shakil Haroon, founder and CEO of MPIRICA Health. "A patient should never trust a surgeon with their life without first understanding how effective they have been at the procedure in the past."

While the top-rated hospitals ranked poorly across certain surgeries, MPIRICA identified excellent nearby hospitals with top outcomes for corresponding surgeries. Alternative hospitals recognized include Euclid Hospital, Hoag Orthopedic Institute, Riverview Medical Center, NYU Langone Medical Center, Holy Cross Hospital, Rex Hospital, Duke Regional Hospital, Evanston Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Only one of the original ten hospitals analyzed, UCSF Medical Center, has an impressively consistent rating in all surgical procedures reviewed.

Hospitals studied in the "Reputation vs Reality: What Outcomes Data Reveals About America's "Best" Hospitals" report were assigned MPIRICA Quality Scores based on analysis of millions of Medicare claims from across the country. Scores were adjusted for patient risk, on a scale from 100 to 800, similar to a credit score. MPIRICA aggregated surgeon scores for each hospital. The scores provide a clear objective rating of surgical outcomes, not just for the 10 hospitals analyzed in the report, but for 4,914 hospitals nationwide, across 864 procedures.

"Each MPIRICA Quality Score is the product of multiple clinical outcomes, tracked from patient admittance through post-discharge, using a high-quality, widely recognized national database," said Pine. "Each component undergoes comprehensive risk adjustment to capture patient risk and severity and is weighted to reflect its importance. As a result, the score allows direct comparison of U.S. hospital and surgeon performance at the individual procedure level."

Patients and their loved ones often don't know what to look for when choosing a hospital or surgeon for specific procedures. Many believe they must travel to hospitals whose names are recognizable across the United States. According to MPIRICA, patients can find great care in their own backyard; they just need to know how to choose where to go.

By equipping patients with objective data to make better healthcare decisions, MPIRICA hopes to improve healthcare outcomes and the quality of care.

To learn more about MPIRICA and read their latest report, visit https://www.mpirica.com/blog/2017/07/hospital-reputation-reality-report/

About MPIRICA Health, Inc.

Based in Bellevue, Washington, MPIRICA is a digital health startup founded in 2014 to demystify healthcare quality transparency for consumers and payers with an intuitive measurement of surgeon and hospital performance. The MPIRICA Quality Score is based on past medical outcomes, across 864 surgical procedures. The 3-digit score ranges from 100-800, with 600 to 800 representing an excellent demonstration of quality healthcare for a given procedure. Scores less than 600 but more than 400 represent fair care, while anything below 400 indicates substandard historical performance. Find information about MPIRICA Health on Twitter, LinkedIn or at www.mpirica.com.

SOURCE MPIRICA Health, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.mpirica.com


GAINESVILLE, Fla., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In a unique non-profit crowd funding campaign, 2redWinery, makers of the award-winning Zinpiphany Zinfandel and #2red, is currently crowd funding the 2017 vintage on Indiegogo with all proceeds supporting prostate cancer research through the non-profit Robert and Susan Hollander Foundation, an IRS approved 501c3 organization. Campaign supporters, in exchange for their tax-deductible support, can secure wine from the award-winning wine library of 2redWinery.

Winemaker Dr. Bob crushing Syrah grapes.

Dr. Robert Hollander, the winemaker and principle of 2redWinery, started small-volume wine making in 2007 in pursuit of a long-standing passion in wine. After he was diagnosed with prostate cancer at an incurable stage in 2010, Dr. Hollander, a highly-regarded clinician/teacher at the Gainesville VA Medical Center, affiliated with the University of Florida, the Foundation to fund prostate cancer research.

"Realizing that things can always be worse, three of the ugliest words pairs in the English language have got to include 'metastatic cancer,' 'palliative therapy,' and 'my oncologist,'" Hollander observed. "Channeling the wine making into something purposeful just seemed to make sense." In the four years the non profit Foundation has been operational, unrestricted grants have been provided to researchers at MD Anderson Center, the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic pursuing prostate cancer research.

Dr. Hollander's campaign goal is $12,000, with all proceeds above production costs supporting prostate cancer research through his non profit Foundation. Contributions to the campaign are processed by FirstGiving and are tax deductible. Rewards for campaign supporters include wine from the award-winning library of 2redWinery (see attachment).

Contact Information:

Robert Hollander

Winemaker, 2redWinery

President, Robert and Susan Hollander Foundation

[email protected]

Related Images

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image2.jpg

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image4.jpg

Related Links

www.2redwinery.com

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKuq-qIf2bY

SOURCE 2redWinery

Related Links

http://www.2redwinery.com


LONG BEACH, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- OKI Data Americas demonstrated its evolving portfolio of print solutions at the NBM Show today, where the manufacturer hosted individual booths to share customized business applications that specifically addressed the wide format and textile print markets. OKI's participation in the NBM WRAPSCON event showcased its impressive display of ColorPainter eco-solvent wide format printers and proColor textile printers in booths #217 and #951, respectively.

Honoring OKI's commitment to provide a better customer experience for its wide-format customer base and end-users, and leveraging partnerships with industry experts, ColorPainter advocate and vehicle wrap pioneer Troy Downey led his team through live vehicle wrap install demonstrations. All graphics were meticulously printed onsite, utilizing the ColorPainter E-64s and M-64s, while attendees enjoyed the on-the-spot training and the opportunity to engage and ask questions.

"We're always eager to illustrate the product value, economical advantages and market differentiation ColorPainter delivers," said Fabrizio Soto, General Manager of OKI Data Americas' Industrial Business Unit. "Our customers appreciate hands-on experiences with our products and ability to witness their high-quality output. Offering these onsite opportunities is one of the many reasons we enjoy our relationship with NBM and our experience at Long Beach was nothing short of spectacular."

Meanwhile in the proColor textile booth, print entrepreneurs observed OKI's entire lineup of textile transfer printers, including the new Pro8432WT, released last month at NBM Indianapolis. Attendees also interacted with OKI's partners and industry leaders, including FOREVER Media and Neenah Paper, who conducted daily seminars in the booth. The seminars discussed the new technology and solutions available to those users considering toner-based transfer printing as an alternative to traditional screen printing processes.

"At NBM Long Beach, we sought to show entrepreneurs how OKI's textile print portfolio is well positioned to provide the unique, customized output assets that drive an efficient return on investment," said Rich Egert, General Manager of OKI Data Americas' Strategic New Business division. "Thanks to our knowledgeable partners and textile print experts at NBM, we were able to educate prospective customers on the ways in which OKI's exclusive transfer print technology fits into the industry at large."

OKI brand products are built on parent company OKI Data Corporation's history of leadership and innovation. Most of OKI's color printing solutions feature Single Pass Color as well as proprietary digital LED and HD Color technologies. These technologies allow OKI to manufacture products that require fewer moving parts than the traditional laser printer.

OKI Data provides live1, toll-free technical support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, with agents based in North America. In addition, OKI Data live chat feature is available to customers within the US and Canada seeking online support on weekdays during normal business hours within the Eastern time zone.

Support for OKI's wide-format printers within the U.S. and Canada is provided by a network of authorized distributors; support and training for authorized distributors is available during normal business hours within the Pacific time zone.

About OKI Data Americas

OKI Data Americas, headquartered in Mt. Laurel, NJ, is backed by Tokyo-based parent company OKI Electric Industry, a $4.4 billion multinational public corporation which has been a leader in telecom, infrastructure, and mechatronics systems since 1881. OKI Data Americas began its innovation in the printing industry more than four decades ago, first marketing some of the earliest dot matrix printers before pioneering the LED print technology that continues to drive OKI's product portfolio today.

With its catalog of Office Products, including single and multifunction digital color and monochrome LED printers, and serial impact dot matrix printers, OKI is a reliable presence in printing-intensive environments around the world. In the graphics and signage industries, OKI's Industrial Printers  including the ColorPainterTM line of eco-solvent wide-format printers and proColor series of digital production printers  deliver world-class print output that is made to last. For more information, visit www.oki.com/us and follow OKI Data Americas on Twitter at @OKIData.

OKI Reg. OKI Electric Industry Co., Ltd.

proColor T.M., OKI Data Americas.

ColorPainter and Teriostar are trademarks of OKI Data Infotech Corporation.

Single Pass Color T.M. and design Reg. T.M. OKI Data Corp.

1 Available in the U.S. and Canada.

Contact:

Matt Nestor

OKI Data Americas

856.252.3817

[email protected]

SOURCE OKI Data Americas

Related Links

http://www.oki.com


DUBLIN, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Organic Fertilizers Market - Global Forecast to 2022" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The demand for organic fertilizers is projected to be on the rise, owing to increasing land under organic cultivation. Globally, the agricultural land area under organic cultivation increased at a CAGR of 8.5% between 2000 and 2015, wherein it stood at about 50.9 million hectares in 2015, or about 1% of the agricultural land globally. Similarly, the agricultural land area under organic cultivation in the North American and European markets increased at CAGRs of 7.7% and 7.0%, respectively, from 2000 to 2015. In terms of addition to the land area during the year 2015, these regions witnessed an increase of about 0.6 million hectares and 1 million hectares, respectively, when compared to 2014. On the other hand, higher reliance on inorganic means of cultivation is the major restraint for the organic fertilizers market.

The market for animal-based organic fertilizers is projected to be the fastest-growing during the forecast period. Animal-based organic fertilizers are a good source of necessary nutrients required for the growth of a plant that strengthens the root health development and flower growth. This is one of the major factors driving the market for animal-based organic fertilizers globally.

In 2016, the cereals & grains segment accounted for the largest share of the global organic fertilizers market. Crops such as wheat and rice require more nutrition during their growth stages, and hence, result in higher expenditure on fertilizers. Farmers are facing a rise in demand for organic agricultural products, especially in growing economies such as China and India; this has increased the demand for organic fertilizers in cereal & grain cultivation.



On the basis of form, liquid was the largest segment in the organic fertilizers market in 2016. Liquid organic fertilizers are the most widely used and preferred form of organic fertilizers. The reason being it provides a number of advantages over the dry form of organic fertilizers. The liquid form is a more convenient, economical, and effective way of adding nutrient to the crops.

Companies Mentioned



Agrocare Canada, Inc.

Ball Dpf Llc (U.S.)

Biofert Manufacturing Inc ( Canada )

) Biostar Systems, Llc.

California Organic Fertilizers Inc. ( Canada )

) Converted Organic Llc (U.S.)

Coromandel International Limited

Dirt N' Grow ( Canada )

) Fertikal N.V. ( Belgium )

) Ilsa S.P.A

Italpollina Spa

Krishak Bharati Cooperative Limited

Midwestern Bioag

Multiplex Group of Companies ( India )

) National Fertilizers Limited

Nature Safe

Nature's Nutrients Inc ( Canada )

) Perfect Blend, Llc

Sustane Natural Fertilizer, Inc.

Tata Chemicals Limited

The Environmental Factor Inc ( Canada )

) The Fertrell Company (U.S.)

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company

True Organic Products Inc.(U.S.)

Uniflor Poland Ltd ( Poland )

Key Topics Covered:



1 Introduction

2 Research Methodology



3 Executive Summary



4 Premium Insights

5 Market Overview



6 Organic Fertilizers Market, By Source



7 Organic Fertilizers Market, By Crop Type



8 Organic Fertilizers Market, By Form



9 Organic Fertilizers Market, By Region



10 Competitive Landscape

11 Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/6ccpqz/organic

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com


EL DORADO, Ark., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Swedish steel producer Ovako has awarded Systems Spray-Cooled the contract to modernize and increase safety on their Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) with the first Spray-Cooled roof in the Nordic region, located at their bar, billet, tube, and rings facility in Hofors, Sweden.

Electric Arc Furnace with Spray-Cooled equipment in the charging phase.

After first being exposed to Spray-Cooled technology at the European Electric Steelmaking Conference in Italy, Ovako weighed the new technology against their current pressurized tubular roofs. The main concerns were implementing the technology with their environment (piping); otherwise, Ovako has been highly enthusiastic about the technology and saw clear advantages both for maintenance and for safety. Because Spray-Cooled equipment operates at atmospheric pressure, the cooling water is not pumped across the area to be cooled. Therefore, the potential for high pressure, high volume water leaks is eliminated.

Under the contract, the new roof will be engineered to work with their current furnace setup, as well as 'future-proofed' to integrate with planned furnace upgrades. To alleviate concerns about potential piping issues, the new roof will be engineered using state of the art 3D laser scans of the current furnace and surrounding mill. The 3D laser scan will aid in the design, especially since the available drawings are 25 years old and have discrepancies. It will also allow piping to be designed accurately for easy fitment and should greatly reduce or eliminate unforeseen issues in the process.

The Hofors steelmaking operation, based around ingot casting, has an annual capacity of about 500,000 tonnes of ingots. The tube rolling capacity is about 120,000 tonnes annually and the ring rolling capacity about 45,000 tonnes a year.

This is an unconventional cantilever-lift roof that will be fabricated in Germany. Ovako and Systems Spray-Cooled plan on commissioning the new roof in January of 2018.

For product information, go to https://spraycooled.tsg.bz/applications/eaf-roofs/. For general information, contact Systems Spray-Cooled at +1 (615) 366-7772; email [email protected]; web spraycooled.tsg.bz.

For sales/reader service inquiries: For media inquiries:







Contact: Systems Spray-Cooled Contact: Kyle Morgan

877 Seven Oaks Blvd., Ste 500 The Systems Group

Smyrna, TN 37167; U.S. +1 (870) 862-1315

+1 (615) 366-7772 E-mail: [email protected]

E-mail [email protected]





SOURCE Systems Spray-Cooled

Related Links

https://spraycooled.tsg.bz


NEW YORK, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sotheby's is pleased to host a summer program for students participating in the Prep for Prep program at its York Avenue headquarters. Prep for Prep is an educational leadership development organization that prepares and places New York City's most able students of color into leading independent schools.

The four-week course, which started on 10 July, is designed to help participants deepen their knowledge and understanding of the art world through direct engagement, academic inquiry and art creation. With a curriculum focused on a range of art-related experiences, the program will include visits to museums, opportunities to interact with professionals from across the art world, and a series of workshops, panel discussions, and talks with Sotheby's specialists and executives.

"We are thrilled to have the opportunity to introduce some of the city's brightest and most promising high school students to the art world and to provide them with access to engaging and illuminating experiences that will help foster an interest in the arts," commented Elyse Dreyer, Sotheby's Senior Vice President and Director of Corporate Social Responsibility.

"Thanks to the generosity and vision of Sotheby's, Prep for Prep is taking a giant leap forward in exposing its students to the transformative power of the arts and all that they have to offer personally and professionally. We could not have a better partner than Sotheby's guiding them on this journey of exploration," added Aileen Hefferren, Chief Executive of Prep for Prep.

About Prep for Prep

Prep for Prep develops leaders from under-represented communities through access to a superior education and life-changing opportunities. Since 1978, Prep has identified New York City's most able students of color through a highly selective admissions process and, following 14 months of rigorous academic preparation, placed them at leading independent schools in the City and boarding schools throughout the Northeast. Once placed, Prep offers its students a sense of community, peer support, critical postplacement services, and a host of leadership development opportunities through college graduation. The results are compelling: More Prep students have graduated from Harvard than any other institution; nearly 90% of Prep's 2,829 college graduates have earned degrees from the most competitive colleges in the country. They are emerging leaders in every field from business and law, to education and the arts, to science and medicine. Prep shares its best practices with like-minded organizations through an initiative called Smart Connections.

About Sotheby's

Sotheby's has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby's became the first international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973), India (1992) and France (2001), and the first international fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby's presents auctions in 10 different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, and Sotheby's BidNow program allows visitors to view all auctions live online and place bids from anywhere in the world. Sotheby's offers collectors the resources of Sotheby's Financial Services, the world's only full-service art financing company, as well as the collection advisory services of its subsidiary, Art Agency, Partners. Sotheby's presents private sale opportunities in more than 70 categories, including S|2, the gallery arm of Sotheby's Global Fine Art Division, and two retail businesses, Sotheby's Diamonds and Sotheby's Wine. Sotheby's has a global network of 80 offices in 40 countries and is the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (BID).

Images are available upon request

Browse sale catalogues, view original content, stream live auctions and more at www.sothebys.com, and through Sotheby's apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV and Amazon Fire

New York | +1 212 606 7176 | Lauren Gioia | [email protected] |

Dan Abernethy | [email protected] |

SOURCE Sotheby's

Related Links

http://www.sothebys.com


EAU CLAIRE, Wis., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Radial announced today its plan to bring on an additional 600 workers in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to support the busiest time of year in the retail industry. As more people shop online, job opportunities in customer care centers have expanded dramatically to ensure customers receive the personal care and service they expect.

With the increased pressure to provide the highest level of customer care for Radial's clients and their consumers during the holidays, Radial understands the importance of providing a positive work experience for its seasonal hires. Seasonal workers will have access to competitive hourly wages, overtime and holiday pay, flexible schedules with the option to work from home, employee discounts, and a referral bonus program. The customer care center in Eau Claire also features games in the lunch room, giving workers a chance to unwind while at work.

For workers who may be looking for something more long term, Radial converted over a thousand seasonal employees last year into full-time roles after the holidays.

At the customer care center in Eau Claire, seasonal hires will have the chance to work with some of the world's favorite brands and retailers including American Eagle Outfitters, Aeropostale, Shoe Carnival and more. Workers will represent brands and retailers of all sizes, and handle customer issues that drive sales, as well as satisfaction.

"We're thrilled to be creating so many additional jobs in Eau Claire, many of which may lead to full-time opportunities. If you value quality, excellence and the best customer service possible, and you thrive in an energized, fast-paced and rewarding workplace culture, we'd love to have you work with us," said Kelly Scally, Director, Strategic Staffing, at Radial. "Whether you're looking to earn extra cash for the holidays or wanting to get your foot in the door at Radial, seasonal work is a great place to start."

To learn more about seasonal job openings in Eau Claire, visit www.radial.com/jobs.

About Radial

Radial is the leader in omnichannel commerce technology and operations, enabling brands and retailers to profitably exceed retail customer expectations. Radial's technical, powerful omnichannel solutions connect supply and demand through efficient fulfillment and transportation options, intelligent fraud detection, payments, and tax systems, and personalized customer care services.

Hundreds of retailers and brands confidently partner with Radial to simplify their post-click commerce and improve their customer experiences. Radial brings flexibility and scalability to their supply chains and optimizes how, when and where orders go from desire to delivery. Learn how we work with you at www.radial.com.

Media Contact:

Laura Beauregard

PAN Communications for Radial

407-734-7320

[email protected]

SOURCE Radial

Related Links

http://www.radial.com


AUSTIN, Texas, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Reveal Energy Services announced today the commercialization of IMAGE Frac 2.0 pressure-based fracture maps that validate completion designs on every well with minimum operational risk and cost. The company is presenting the technology's latest version, which includes five new services, at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) July 24-26 at the Austin Convention Center.

Validate your completion design on every well with minimum risk and cost.

IMAGE Frac technology is a new approach to mapping hydraulic fractures, enabling operators to work with factory mode consistency that increases reservoir contact by confirming whether a stimulation treatment is producing the planned fracture dimensions. The technologyfield proven in 1,200 stages in 6 US unconventional basinsis based on precise surface pressure data recorded during hydraulic fracturing. Work proceeds normally without a downhole tool, downtime, or additional crew.

IMAGE Frac 2.0 technology powers these five new services:

Improve treatment design

FracSCANSM technology accurately quantifies 3D fracture maps of half-length, height, and asymmetry. The maps allow operators to improve treatment design and well lateral-spacing decisions, in addition to evaluating formation interactions or frac barriers and understanding stress-shadowing effects.

Optimize effective reservoir contact

ProppantSCANSM technology offers unprecedented insight into the fluid system and pump schedule for transporting proppant so operators can optimize effective reservoir contact. The identified propped fracture dimensions answer the question: "Where did the proppant go?"

Improve cluster spacing decisions

PerfSCANSM technology improves cluster spacing decisions by highlighting the fluid distribution within a stage. The technology offers a clear understanding of pumping rate effects on fluid distribution.

Enhance fluid distribution

DiverterSCANSM technology lets operators know if the diverter is slowing down or stopping primary fracture growth and enhancing fluid distribution within a stage. Multiple diverter drops can be evaluated in time for improved field decisions.

Reduce nonproductive fluid loss

DepletionSCANSM technology identifies the depletion boundary surrounding a parent well so operators can reduce nonproductive fluid loss to improve treatment effectiveness. The resulting depletion map offers information about the extent of repressuring the reservoir following a protection refrac.

"Our data offer greater insight into production variability, based on the direct measurement of stimulation-induced hydraulic fractures," said Sudhendu Kashikar, CEO of Reveal Energy Services. "With this greater awareness, operators can enhance their completion designs to reduce that variability."

The company is presenting IMAGE Frac technology in URTeC booth 728.

About Reveal Energy Services

Reveal Energy Services offers simple, accurate, and affordable fracture maps that validate completion designs on every well with minimum operational risk and cost. The flagship IMAGE Frac pressure-based fracture maps with five services offer unparalleled diagnostic insight into completion design effectiveness and well-spacing decisions. Reveal Energy Services was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of Statoil Technology Invest in January 2016. The company, which is privately held, is funded by Statoil and Lime Rock Partners. For more information, please visit: www.reveal-energy.com .

Contact

Sudhendu Kashikar

[email protected]

1500 CityWest Blvd.

Houston, TX 77042

+1.832.529.1895

SOURCE Reveal Energy Services

Related Links

http://www.reveal-energy.com


During a welcome presentation, Mr. Shi Chuliang, offered an appreciation for all of the continuous customer support. In the afternoon, Mr. Zhang Daocai met many business partners and was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal and China Daily.

In the evening at a gala celebration dinner, Mr. Zhang Daocai made a toast to all friends and thanked the North American business partners. He talked about the establishment of the North American automotive tech center in Auburn Hills and the strategy of accessing the regional talent pool and the latest innovative technologies including the great prospects of new energy vehicle developments. Mr. Zhang Yabo, SANHUA Holding Group Vice President, also welcomed all of the dinner guests and presented future developments in North America.

At the dinner, local government officials and a Michigan senate representative awarded Mr. Zhang Daocai and Mr. Shi Chuliang with welcome certificates. Representatives from General Motors and the Valeo Corporation praised SANHUA Automotive for their award winning innovations, great customer satisfaction performance and rapid growth in North America.

SANHUA Automotive is a leading global solution provider of advanced automotive technology, systems and components for major OEMs, specializing in thermal management systems. As experts in thermal management, SANHUA Automotive continues to develop products that offer enhanced fuel economy savings for conventional vehicles and opportunities for increased mileage range in EV and hybrid vehicles. More info, please find www.sanhuaautomotive.com.

SANHUA Holding Group is a leading HVAC manufacturer of controls and components with a global footprint. Collaboration with the largest companies in the Automotive, Appliance and HVAC industry makes SANHUA a leading worldwide OEM supplier providing the highest quality components. SANHUA has set up production bases in China, Poland, America and Mexico as well as R&D centers in China, Austria and America. More info, please find www.sanhuagroup.com.

SOURCE Sanhua Automotive

Related Links

http://www.sanhuagroup.com


SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Santa Barbara Chocolate is a beloved California supplier of organic chocolate. The company continues California's long history of supplying chocolate across the country. The state was the first to manufacture and sell chocolate in the United States, and Santa Barbara Chocolate has not only continued that tradition but has improved the quality of chocolate over the years. Since its inception, Santa Barbara Chocolate has been a trusted source for the chocolate lover, chef, and baker.

Santa Barbara Chocolate

"Our chocolate is something that just isn't replicated," says Jason Vishnefske, co-founder and master chocolatier of Santa Barbara Chocolate Company. "Most people realize it the moment they have their first taste. Nothing compares to what we make. It ignites your senses and exceeds your expectations."

Each season, Santa Barbara Chocolate releases a range of recipes that are nutritious, delicious and a big hit with everyone who tries them. Their new summer chocolate recipes include a Chocolate Energy Smoothie, Milk Chocolate Raspberry Ganache, Tea Time Truffle, and more. These fun, delectable treats are perfect for summer. They are also healthier than some other chocolate recipes. For instance, the Chocolate Energy Smoothie provides a delicious boost of energy without the sugar crash, which often happens with the heavy, fake ingredients that are normally used in regular chocolate smoothies or frappes.

"My goal has always been to make recipes that are super easy but also healthy," says Vishnefske. "I hear often that it's hard to make recipes without the usual artificial ingredients. Well, with my chocolate and recipes, I offer a smoothie recipe that's dairy-free, no added sugar, and nutritious without losing the taste and flavor."

Santa Barbara Chocolate's bulk organic dark chocolate is 70 percent cacao without soy lecithin. It is a real taste of South American cacao and offers the subtle floral nuances of raw cacao grown in the Amazon's headlands. The company's organic dark chocolate is USDA certified, ethical trade, and Kosher Pareve.

Customers buying from Santa Barbara Chocolate include chocolatiers, ice cream shops and bakers looking for organic chocolate that doesn't cost more to buy than typical chocolate. Their organic chocolate with California style allows their specialty food customers the winning edge in crafting their gourmet and memorable desserts and pastries.

For more information, visit SantaBarbaraChocolate.com.

About Santa Barbara Chocolate Company

Santa Barbara Chocolate Company is a California chocolate factory that supplies bulk wholesale chocolate chips, makes organic chocolate couverture and imports Belgian baking chocolate. For more information, visit SantaBarbaraChocolate.com.

Related Images

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Related Links

Chocolate Shop Start Up

Professional Chocolatier Recipe Book

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjTipMX78hg

SOURCE Santa Barbara Chocolate
WASHINGTON, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

What: Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development's seventh annual DevelopmentXChange:

The DevelopmentXChange challenges global problem-solvers to harness the power of ingenuity to develop and scale transformational solutions to improve maternal and newborn survival in poor, hard-to-reach communities around the world. Fifty-three of the brightest innovators from across the globe will come together to present their groundbreaking solutions that have the potential to drastically reduce maternal and newborn mortality.

After a rigorous multi-month review process and a review of more than 550 applicants, the fifty-three selected finalists will join over 50 Saving Lives at Birth grantees to take part in:

The Annual Pitch Competition to pitch innovative ideas to investors and potential partners

Curated 1:1 partnering and mentoring meetings

The open innovation Marketplace filled with the most cutting-edge maternal and newborn life-saving innovations

Who: 53 global entrepreneurs will compete for award. To learn more about our finalists, please click here (https://savinglivesatbirth.net/innovation/2017/innovators/all).

Other attendees include existing Saving Lives at Birth innovators; program partners; collaborators, mentors, and global health practitioners.

When: Thursday, July 27, 2017

11:30- 4:00 pm : Pitch Competition

: Pitch Competition 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm : Marketplace and Networking Reception

: Marketplace and Networking Reception 5:30 pm *: Announcement of Award Nominees *

Register here (https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3494797/2017-Saving-Lives-at-Birth-Develo...).

Where:

Ronald Reagan Building

1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20004

For additional information:

USAID Press Office: [email protected]

Grand Challenges Canada: [email protected]

Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad): [email protected]

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: [email protected]

DFID: [email protected]

KOICA: [email protected]

Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development is a global call for groundbreaking, scalable solutions to infant and maternal mortality around the time of birth. The program leverages the collective resources of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada (funded by the Government of Canada), UK's Department of International Development (DFID), and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

Launched in 2011, Saving Lives at Birth is currently in its seventh award round. To date, the Partners have funded 107 innovative tools and approaches, aiming to address the 303,000 maternal deaths, 2.7 million neo-natal deaths, and 2.6 million stillbirths that occur each year.

To learn more about the finalists' innovations, please go to: www.savinglivesatbirth.net.

SOURCE Grand Challenge for Development

Related Links

http://www.savinglivesatbirth.net


MILAN, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SEA, a leading Italian airports operator and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announce a seven-year service agreement to consolidate and manage SEA's IT infrastructure on a hybrid IT environment that integrates the IBM Cloud.

As the travel and transportation industry re-draws, new niches as well as new competitors emerge. In order to remain competitive airport operators need to be more agile and responsive by better utilizing information technology services. The agreement that covers data center and hosting services, systems and storage managed services, help desk and security management, is expected to generate significant savings for SEA in the next seven years.

Through the agreement, SEA that manages Northern Italy's main airports Milan Linate and Malpensa, will use a resilient IT infrastructure that supports new technologies to help improve service levels and operate with more flexibility.

"SEA has distinguished itself in recent years for its ability to offer innovative services and its own increasingly reliable partners and customers." - Luciano Carbone, Chief Corporate Officer of SEA said  "We are aware, however, that the evolution of technology requires continuous commitment and focus in order to maintain the highest quality standards. By working with IBM, we feel strongly that we will not only meet our strategic initiatives, but exceed them."

The airport operator will rely on the hybrid cloud infrastructure for several SAP workloads, such as SAP Hybris and will use Cloud VDI to support its workplace management and internal classroom training programme. The data center services will be delivered by the Italian IBM Data Center Campus, that includes also the IBM cloud data center in Milan, part of IBM's global network of nearly 60 data centers in 19 countries.

IBM's enterprise-grade cloud data centers follow a standardized set of core controls to help secure client data and interests. IBM also is one of the first global cloud companies to adopt the EU's Data Protection Code of Conduct for Cloud Service Providers, demonstrating a firm commitment to data privacy and security in its cloud infrastructure services.

"The increase in customer expectations for greater speed, efficiency and innovation - said Stefano Rebattoni, general manager for Global Technology Services of IBM Italia. "Today requires whole sectors to review their operational structure. The global and local network of the IBM data centers will allow SEA to optimize innovating its computing environments, preparing for the integration of new IT models, like the cloud, to better respond to the demands of the rapidly changing market."

About SEA

SEA (Societa Esercizi Aeroportuali) is the Group that manages the Italian airports of Milan Malpensa and Milan Linate. It is ranked among the first ten airport systems in Europe for volume of traffic, in both the passenger and cargo segments. It is the second in Italy by number of passengers and the first for cargo transported.

Located in one of the most developed catchment areas in Europe, a geographical area that encloses urban areas with the highest concentrations in the world for population, industrialization and income generation.

SEA aims to qualify among the highest international airport operators with the most efficient and advanced service and cargo levels for passengers and cargo traffic.

For more information on SEA, visit: www.seamilano.eu

About IBM Global Technology Services

IBM Global Technology Services offers end-to-end IT consulting and business services supported by an unparalleled global delivery network that is transforming its business to lead in an era of Cognitive and Cloud. As a cloud services integrator, GTS is managing the services and underlying infrastructure in an integrated and unified way. It is modernizing clients' IT environments to help them meet the increasingly complex customer demands. GTS provides clients with innovative technology solutions that help them to improve their business processes and in turn, profitability.

For more information on IBM Global Technology Services, visit: http://ibm.com/services

Contacts

IBM Italia

Media Relations

Claudia Ruffini, [email protected]

cell. 335 6325093

SEA

Media Relations

[email protected]

SOURCE IBM

Related Links

http://www.ibm.com


ST. PAUL, Minn., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Second Harvest Heartland today announced a $50,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation to help fight hunger in the Twin Cities area through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) education and outreach. SNAP is the largest federal assistance program working to fight hunger in America. More than 70% of SNAP benefits go to households with children. Yet, 17 percent of Americans eligible for SNAP currently do not receive this benefit. Only 41 percent of eligible seniors are enrolled.

With this grant, Second Harvest Heartland hopes to scale access to SNAP among eligible households, with particular emphasis on reaching seniors, families with children, and other vulnerable populations. Funds will be utilized to offer one-to-one assistance to households eligible for SNAP.

"No one should worry about where they will find their next meal. Every day, Second Harvest Heartland helps to provide food to the 1 in 10 people who struggle with hunger in Minnesota. But we can't end hunger alone. Programs like SNAP help to fill a critical gap for people in need," said Rob Zeaske, Chief Executive Officer.

SNAP provides more than nutrition assistance; it helps improve families' overall well-being. With lower grocery bills, people are better able to pay for other basic necessitiesrent or mortgages, medical expenses, utilities and transportation. According to the USDA's Economic Research Service Report, SNAP is critical to moving families into long-term food security.

Walmart and the Walmart Foundation provide donations of both food and funds to the Feeding America nationwide network of 200 food banks. In Minnesota, Walmart stores donate millions of pounds of food to Second Harvest Heartland each year, and raise funds for regional hunger relief. Additionally, Walmart employees volunteer at local food bank facilities throughout the year.

For more information about what Second Harvest Heartland is doing to fight hunger, visit www.2harvest.org.

About Second Harvest Heartland

Second Harvest Heartland is one of the nation's largest, most efficient and most innovative hunger relief organizations. Second Harvest Heartland provides an average of 75 percent of all food distributed by its food shelf partners, and in 2016, provided more than 80 million meals to nearly 1,000 food shelves, pantries and other partner programs serving 59 counties in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Second Harvest Heartland leads through innovation, finding efficient, effective solutions to connect the full resources of our community with our hungry neighbors. For more information, visit 2harvest.org or call 651.484.5117.

SOURCE Second Harvest Heartland

Related Links

http://www.2harvest.org


WASHINGTON, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 30th, 2017 Hedin House Apartments, a 48-unit affordable housing community located in Washington, D.C., was acquired by Security Properties in partnership with Housing Up Development, a local non-profit, for $3,300,000. This marks the second affordable housing acquisition by Security Properties and Housing Up Development in the District of Columbia this year. In February, the duo purchased Glenn Arms, a 55-unit historic multifamily community located in the Adams Morgan neighborhood for $8,800,000.

Hedin House Glenn Arms

Hedin House, a 5-story mid-rise, was constructed in 1956 and renovated in 1973. It boasts 8,401 square feet of ground floor retail currently occupied by Seabury Resources, a local non-profit. The property houses senior and disabled residents with all units being income-restricted at 60% of Area Median Income (AMI). A Section 8 HAP Contract provides another layer of subsidy for 70% of project units. Affordability covenants have been extended for a 40-year term as part of the preservation transaction.

Hedin House was acquired using 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) equity, a low-interest loan from the District's Housing Production Trust Fund, and a Construction-to-Permanent loan from Citi Community Capital. $8 million of tax credit equity was provided by R4 Capital, a New York based private capital syndicator. Over the next 12 months, the property will undergo a $115,000/unit renovation to modernize all major building systems and to enhance the aesthetic appeal and functionality of both residential units and common areas. A new community space and computer room will be added for resident use. Other improvements include all new kitchens and baths, new appliances, substantial electrical, plumbing and HVAC improvements, new flooring throughout, a new green roof, ADA accessibility enhancements, and new windows throughout. "We anticipate a dramatic transformation at Hedin House," indicates Jeff Garrison, Director of Affordable Housing at Security Properties. "We have worked closely with the Hedin House resident community from the outset of this project and we look forward to delivering a final product that will exceed expectations for years to come."

Glenn Arms is located in the vibrant and rapidly-growing neighborhood of Adams Morgan in northwest Washington, D.C. The site has two residential buildings constructed in 1910 and 1916 respectively. It is currently undergoing a 10-month rehabilitation at $100,000/unit that will modernize unit interiors and common areas, update all major building systems, and provide two additional units and a new community room. Upon completion, Glenn Arms will be ADA-compliant, and include a host of energy efficiency upgrades. All of this renovation work will be done while maintaining the historical integrity of the structure, and, going forward, Glenn Arms will be included on the National Historic Registry.

Funding sources for Glenn Arms include 9% LIHTC equity, Historic Tax Credit equity from the National Parks Service, a low-interest loan from the District's Housing Production Trust Fund, and a Citi Community Capital Construction-to-Perm Loan. The tax credit investor is R4 Capital who provided over $10.5 million of equity. "The Glenn Arms project offers us a unique opportunity to preserve part of D.C.'s historic fabric while extending rental affordability. There are few locations where the need for quality affordable housing is as great as it is in the D.C. metro area," said Bryon Gongaware, Managing Director of Affordable Housing at Security Properties.

Security Properties is a national real estate investment, development, and operating company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. For nearly 50 years, Security Properties has provided quality housing to its residents as well as excellent financial performance for its investors. Since its founding, Security Properties has acquired or developed over 81,600 residential units at a cost of over $5 billion. Security Properties maintains a focused multi-family strategy supported by integrated teams of professional acquisition, development, construction, investment, and property management specialists. For more information, visit www.securityproperties.com

Housing Up Development is a non-profit affordable and supportive housing developer and manager with a growing portfolio of properties located throughout Washington, D.C. Projects include mixed-income affordable housing and permanent supportive housing for low-income and formerly homeless families and seniors. Housing Up specializes in a seamless approach to developing and managing housing while supporting families with comprehensive services. For more information on Housing Up, please visit www.housingup.org.

Media Contact:

Ed McGovern

[email protected]

206-628-8019

SOURCE Security Properties

Related Links

http://www.securityproperties.com


NEW YORK, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Podcast industry leader Midroll Media has unveiled its late-summer lineup of new programming for comedy network Earwolf, including a first-of-its-kind improvised musical podcast, a dating tell-all and a radio favorite available for the first time to podcast listeners.

The expanded roster reflects Earwolf's commitment to building a network that's home to a diverse group of both established and up-and-coming comedic talent.

The announcement comes as Earwolf and host Scott Aukerman celebrate the 500th episode of "Comedy Bang! Bang!", the network's flagship podcast and one of the industry's longest-running and most popular comedy shows. The podcast has long served as an incubator for comedy talent, with regular guests including Lauren Lapkus, Paul Rust, Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham having boosted their early careers through appearances on the show.

The 500th episode of "Comedy Bang! Bang!" is available July 24 and features special guests Lapkus, Jon Gabrus, Nick Kroll, Jason Mantzoukas, Mary Holland and Paul F. Tompkins.

"We're excited to celebrate 'Comedy Bang! Bang!', the show that created the world of comedy podcasting and is still going strong at 500 episodes," said Chris Bannon, chief content officer for Midroll Media. "And I'm delighted that, after seven years, Earwolf is still working with the best performers in comedy to create brand new shows for all the listeners coming into podcasting today."

The Earwolf summer launches include:

"Off Book" is the first-ever improvised musical podcast, featuring rising improvisational comedy stars Jessica McKenna (a regular "Comedy Bang! Bang!" guest) and Zach Reino (co-star and co-writer of numerous UCB productions). The two will join a musically gifted guest to bring the audience an original musical each week. The show is also innovating on the advertising side of the business with a new form of the host-read ad: improvised musical ad reads. Episodes will be available Tuesdays beginning July 25 .

is the first-ever improvised musical podcast, featuring rising improvisational comedy stars (a regular "Comedy Bang! Bang!" guest) and (co-star and co-writer of numerous UCB productions). The two will join a musically gifted guest to bring the audience an original musical each week. The show is also innovating on the advertising side of the business with a new form of the host-read ad: improvised musical ad reads. Episodes will be available Tuesdays beginning . "Homophilia" brings together former MTV host Dave Holmes , comedian Matt McConkey and a celebrity guest for a candid conversation on what they're loving in pop culture and who they are loving in their romantic lives. From pop-culture favorites to coming-out stories, hook-ups and long-term relationships, no topic is off-limits. New episodes will be available every Friday beginning Aug. 11 .

brings together former MTV host , comedian and a celebrity guest for a candid conversation on what they're loving in pop culture and who they are loving in their romantic lives. From pop-culture favorites to coming-out stories, hook-ups and long-term relationships, no topic is off-limits. New episodes will be available every Friday beginning . Episodes of the popular 1960s comedy radio show "Chickenman" are joining Earwolf. Listeners can enjoy each bite-sized episode of this superhero drama in just two minutes. Twenty episodes are available via podcast platforms for the first time, while the remaining archives are available through Stitcher Premium. Episodes are available on Aug. 2 .

Also new to the Earwolf network are two podcasts from leading digital-media humor brand Cracked: "Cracked Movie Club" (July 13) and "Cracked Gets Personal" (Aug. 16). "Throwing Shade" (July 6) and "James Bonding" (Aug. 1) have also joined the network.

All Earwolf podcasts are available on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts and everywhere listeners access podcasts. For more information, visit Earwolf.com.

About Midroll Media

Midroll Media is a leading podcast content company, advertising network and distribution platform that is changing the face of digital audio. It is the parent company of the Earwolf network and its top-ranked comedy podcasts; popular podcast listening platform and content network Stitcher and its premium subscription service; and the Midroll advertising network, representing over 300 of the world's largest podcasts. With offices in Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco, Midroll was founded in 2010 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP).

SOURCE The E.W. Scripps Company

Related Links

http://www.scripps.com


BOSTON, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Stealth BioTherapeutics (Stealth), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics to treat mitochondrial dysfunction, today announced the initiation of TAZPOWER, a Phase 2/3 study evaluating elamipretide in patients with Barth syndrome. Barth syndrome is a rare genetic mitochondrial disease, caused by mutations in the TAZ gene, and characterized by cardiac abnormalities, skeletal muscle weakness, recurrent infections and delayed growth.

"The severe problems experienced by patients with Barth syndrome are caused by misshapen and dysfunctional mitochondria, which reduce the energy production in the affected tissues. The resulting muscle weakness can lead to severe fatigue, heart failure and death," said Stealth Chief Medical Officer Doug Weaver. "In this study, we hope to show that elamipretide may have clinical benefit by improving function in these affected mitochondria."

TAZPOWER is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study that will evaluate the effects of daily elamipretide treatment in a minimum of 12 patients with genetically confirmed Barth syndrome. Patients will be randomized to one of two sequence groups: 12 weeks of single daily subcutaneous injections of elamipretide in Treatment Period 1, followed by 12 weeks of treatment with placebo in Treatment Period 2, with a four-week wash-out period between periods, or vice versa. The primary endpoint is change in distance walked during the six-minute walk test. Secondary endpoints include functional assessments, patient-reported outcomes and safety.

"Our understanding of Barth syndrome and how it manifests has evolved significantly, but current treatment efforts are still limited to the management of symptoms," said Hilary Vernon, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics at McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and the primary investigator for the study. "The initiation of TAZPOWER represents an important milestone in the potential development of a disease-specific treatment option."

TAZPOWER builds upon Stealth BioTherapeutics's existing rare disease and cardiorenal programs, including three ongoing Phase 2 studies in adults with heart failure (IDDEA-HF, PROGRESS-HF, RESTORE-HF).

"This study underscores our commitment to develop elamipretide for the treatment of rare genetic mitochondrial diseases," said Stealth Chief Executive Officer Reenie McCarthy. "The cardiovascular and skeletal muscle symptoms affecting this population share a common thread with symptoms experienced in diseases commonly associated with aging, such as heart failure, in which mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to the clinical pathology."

For additional information on the TAZPOWER study or elamipretide, please refer to Stealth's website.

About Barth Syndrome

Barth syndrome is a rare genetic condition characterized by muscle weakness, cardiac abnormalities, recurrent infections and delayed growth. Barth syndrome occurs almost exclusively in males and is estimated to affect one in 200,000 to 400,000 individuals worldwide at birth. There are currently no FDA-approved therapies for the disease.

About Stealth BioTherapeutics

We are a privately held clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of therapeutics for diseases involving mitochondrial dysfunction. We believe there is a strong rationale for our lead product candidate, elamipretide, in indications in these diseases based on encouraging preclinical and early clinical data. We are investigating elamipretide in three primary mitochondrial diseases  primary mitochondrial myopathy (PMM), Barth syndrome and Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON)  as well as in heart failure, Fuchs' corneal dystrophy and dry age-related macular degeneration. We received Fast Track designation for elamipretide for the treatment of PMM from the FDA in December 2015. We are developing our second product candidate, SBT-20, for central nervous system disorders. Our mission is to be the leader in mitochondrial medicine. To learn more information about us and our pipeline, visit www.stealthbt.com.

Contacts

Media Relations

dna Communications

Kate Contreras, 617-520-7088

[email protected]



Investor Relations

Stern IR

Beth DelGiacco, 212-362-1200

[email protected]

SOURCE Stealth BioTherapeutics

Related Links

http://www.stealthbt.com


ROME, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Roman Guy, an Italy tour operator, has just launched new food tours in Florence and Venice. Lead by local food guides, these experiences introduce travelers to regional Italian cuisine and everyday customs.

With the success of their Rome "Local Foodie Tour in Trastevere", creating Florence and Venice food tours was the natural next step. As in Rome, the new food tours focus on immersing clients in the culinary culture of each city. With local English-speaking guides, participants stroll through food districts, tasting local dishes and learning the customs and histories behind the food.

"Food and wine in Italy is as important as churches and monuments; an integral part of the culture and of any visitor's experience."

- Giuliano Carraro, Venice Food Guide, The Roman Guy

At the average cost of dining out, the new tours include six stops of food and wine tastings, including a sit-down meal. Participants also benefit from local insights from foodie guides, helping them eat well throughout their trip and minimizing risks of falling into tourist traps.

"We're welcoming many more Gastronauts to Italy each year who don't want to eat sub-par food. Italy is famous for its food, so it's our duty to help people experience the real regional cuisines with our local food tours."

- Brandon Shaw, Co-Owner, The Roman Guy

In Venice, participants taste traditional "Cicchetti", visit "Bacari", enjoy a prosecco breakfast and a short gondola ride.

In Florence, local flavors like "porchetta", "coccoli" and "trippa" are washed down with quality Tuscan wine, before dining in a market.

More information: Local Venice Food Tour, Local Florence Food Tour.

All three Food Tours are now available to book online, via their website.

The Roman Guy offers individual City Tours and fully customized Italy Trip Planning Services. Top priority is to make all their customers feel like a VIP, regardless of budget or occasion.

Contact:

Lorna Davidson

+1 888 290 5595 (704)

[email protected]

theromanguy.com

Tour Pictures

SOURCE The Roman Guy

Related Links

https://theromanguy.com


COCONUT CREEK, Fla., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- VUE Software announced that National Lloyds, an A.M. Best A-rated property and casualty underwriter that leads underserved markets in Texas and other southern states, will be transforming their distribution processes with VUE Onboarding & Compliance and VUE CRM for Insurance.

"As a growing company, National Lloyds was seeking modern distribution technology to maintain producer compliance and effectively manage our extensive producer pool. With VUE's straight-thru processing and one-click synchronization to the NIPR and PDB, no manual entry is required and our producer information is always-up-to-date. VUE Software's industry expertise, software functionality, and references were instrumental in our choice," said Elena Banfi, compliance attorney for National Lloyds.

"This is a great partnership for both companies. With VUE's out-of-the-box cutting edge technology, and the VUE team's depth of insurance industry knowledge, Lloyds will be able to quickly advance to the next level in their growth process," explains Jeff Sloan, VUE Software's VP of Sales, North America.

Solution Overview:

VUE Onboarding & Compliance

VUE CRM for Insurance

About VUE Software

VUE Software is a single scalable platform built from the ground up for Insurers, MGAs, FMOs, IMOs, and Insurance Distributors who have outgrown their current tools and require greater automation for producer administration and sales processes. Founded by CSSI over two decades ago, VUE Software offers configurable solutions to meet the unique needs of the Life and Annuity, Health, and Property and Casualty markets. The company leads the Distribution Modernization movement and provides insurance organizations a solid path to revenue growth and competitive advantage, supporting multiple product types, distribution channels, and hierarchy types.

About National Lloyds

Headquartered in Waco, Texas, National Lloyds is an insurance holding company that sells policies underwritten through two wholly owned insurance subsidiaries: National Lloyds Insurance Company and American Summit Insurance Company. National Lloyds is recognized as an insurance leader in Texas and throughout the south and both insurance carrier subsidiaries have an AM Best "A" rating. The insurance company subsidiaries are niche property and casualty underwriters, offering primarily fire and limited homeowners insurance for low-value dwellings and manufactured homes.

National Lloyds' insurance subsidiaries, collectively, are licensed to sell insurance in over 30 states and have an extensive distribution network of over 4,200 independent insurance agencies and more than 160 employees. National Lloyds is a subsidiary of Hilltop Holdings Inc., a Texas-based financial holding company with $12.3 billion in assets as of March 31, 2017. Find more information at www.NationalLloydsInsurance.com.

Media Contact:

Michael Palmisano

Vice President of Marketing

954-333-2313

VUE Software

4800 Lyons Technology Parkway, Suite 4

Coconut Creek, FL 33073

Web: http://www.vuesoftware.com

Blog: http://www.vuesoftware.com/blog

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/vue-software

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Vuesoftware

Facebook: www.facebook.com/vuesoftware

Twitter: @VUESoftware

All other registered trademarks, trademarks, or service marks belong to their respective companies.

SOURCE VUE Software

Related Links

http://www.vuesoftware.com


"Known to the world with stunning white beaches and blue waters, Sanya has been named one of 52 Places to Go in 2017 by the New York Times. It is also the first time a Chinese city in the list," said Zheng Conghui, Deputy Director of the Sanya Tourism Commission, during his welcoming speech. "Sanya is full of rich resources and unique tourist experience. With years of steady development, nearly 17 leading global hotel groups have invested in Sanya to build almost 47 hotels. Sanya is going through a transformative period that is key to become an international city to attract travelers around the world."

The roadshow is divided into different sections including exhibition, interaction, performance, photo galleries and Virtual Reality (VR) games and more. In the exhibit area, participants are able to experience the local culture of Sanya with an artificial beach building based on the real one there and taste the Hainai cuisine. Hainan's local minority group, Li Nationality, brings their cultural shows and introduces the traditional knitting skills as well.

"Thailand and Sanya have a lot of things in common in terms of natural resources, culture and many other areas. I believe that an increasing number of Thai travelers will make Sanya as a primary destination in the future. "said Mr. Luo Taidong, the Head of East Asian Market Development Team of National Tourism Administration of Thailand.

Thailand is the first and important stop for Sanya to promote the "Celebration" and develop the city into a leading tourism destination around the world. Last year, Sanya government signed the letter of the intent with the city of Pattaya to become its friendship city. More direct flights are now available from Southeast Asian countries to Sanya to boost travel.

After the roadshow in Thailand on July 22, Sanya will continue the global promotion campaign of the "Celebration " to other nations. From July to October this year, the city government will organize a number of roadshows at nine countries including Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany to attract more tourists to visit the city. The next stop is Malaysia, which will happen on July 25.

About Sanya

Located in the southernmost point of China's Hainan island, Sanya is an international coastal destination. The city has been praised by global visitors as the only Chinese seaside vacation destination for its stunning coastline and profound cultural heritage.

For more information about Sanya please visit: http://english.sanya.gov.cn/publicfiles//business/htmlfiles/englishsite/tourism/index.html

SOURCE Sanya Municipal Government
LONDON, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

COMPANIES ACROSS EUROPE INVITED TO ENTER HIGH PROFILE AWARDS IN ITS 11th YEAR

http://www.businessawardseurope.com

The European Business Awards and lead sponsor RSM have today announced the opening of the 11th European Business Awards; Europe's largest cross sector business competition, celebrating the best in Europe.

From today companies can enter and be nominated for the chance to win in one of 12 categories. As well as endorsement and recognition, other benefits to those taking part include networking opportunities with peers, potential new business partners, increased brand exposure through PR and social media, and the opportunity to be part of a select business community.

To enter or nominate a company go to http://www.businessawardseurope.com . The competition is independent, free to enter and open to organisations of all sizes and from any industry sector. Last year the European Business Awards attracted over 33,000 organisations from 34 countries. Information on the previous winners can also be found on the website.

Adrian Tripp, CEO of The European Business Awards, said: "For a chance to be recognised as the best in Europe, to learn from peers and gain new clients, please enter or nominate a company today."

He added: "The European Business Awards celebrates and rewards innovative, dynamic and thriving businesses. We wouldn't be able to do this without the support of our sponsors and we are pleased once again to announce RSM as our lead sponsor this year, supported by ELITE and PR Newswire."

Jean Stephens, CEO of RSM International, the sixth largest global network of independent audit, tax and consulting firms, and long-term sponsors of the Awards, said: "As advisors to growing and successful businesses, such as those in the European Business Awards, our goal is to help them to make confident decisions for the future, and this is particularly important during these unpredictable and challenging times. Given the current circumstances, we believe it is more important than ever to recognise and reward achievements, ethics and ingenuity.

She added: "We are looking forward to another year of lead sponsorship, celebrating prosperity and supporting the development of a stronger and more successful European business community."

This year the competition has a three-stage process. Following entry, in September a "Ones to Watch" list of businesses chosen as the most successful, innovative and ethical in each country will be published.

Following further judging, 12 National Winners (one for each category) will be announced for each country at a series of networking events. Finally, in June 2018 the final 12 European Winners will be announced at a celebratory Gala.

The Awards Categories for 2017-2018:

The RSM Entrepreneur of the Year Award The ELITE Award for Growth Strategy of the Year The Award for Innovation The Award for International Expansion The Social Responsibility and Environmental Awareness Award The New Business of The Year Award The Workplace and People Development Award The Customer and Market Engagement Award The Digital Technology Award The Business of the Year Award with Turnover  0 - 25M The Business of the Year Award with Turnover 26M - 150M The Business of the Year Award with Turnover 150 +

To enter this year's European Business Awards or for more information about the competition please go to http://www.businessawardseurope.com or call +44(0)207-234-3535.

About the European Business Awards:

The European Business Awards' primary purpose is to support the development of a stronger and more successful business community throughout Europe.

The European Business Awards programme serves the European business community in three ways:

 It celebrates and endorses individuals' and organisations' success

 It provides and promotes examples of excellence for the business community to aspire to

 It engages with the European business community to create debate on key issues

The European Business Awards is now in its 11th year. Last year it engaged with over 33,000 businesses from 34 countries. Sponsors and partners include RSM, ELITE and PR Newswire. http://www.businessawardseurope.com.

Twitter: @rsmEBA

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/businessawardseurope

LinkedIn: the company page "The European Business Awards"

About RSM:

RSM is the sixth largest network of independent audit, tax and consulting firms, encompassing over 120 countries, 793 offices and more than 41,200 people internationally. The network's total fee income is US$4.8 billion.

RSM is the lead sponsor and corporate champion of the European Business Awards promoting commercial excellence and recognition of entrepreneurial brilliance.

RSM is a member of the Forum of Firms, with the shared objective to promote consistent and high quality standards of financial and auditing practices worldwide.

RSM is the brand used by a network of independent accounting and advisory firms each of which practices in its own right. RSM International Limited does not itself provide any accounting and advisory services. Member firms are driven by a common vision of providing high quality professional services, both in their domestic markets and in serving the international professional service needs of their client base. http://www.rsm.global

About ELITE:

ELITE is a full-service programme designed to share best practice and increase growth opportunities for fast growing companies, with a focus on understanding the capital markets. ELITE is an innovative programme based on exclusive training and a tutorship model, supported by access to the business and financial community. Its aim is to prepare companies for their next stage of growth and investment.

For further information on the programme, companies and the full list of partners, please go to:

http://www.elite-growth.com

About PR Newswire:

PR Newswire is the leading global provider of PR and corporate communications tools that enable clients to distribute news and rich content. We distribute our client's content across traditional, digital and social media channels in real time with fully actionable reporting and monitoring.

Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimisation network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire enables the world's enterprises to engage opportunity everywhere it exists. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in Europe, Middle East, Africa, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region.

For more information on PR Newswire please visit http://www.prnewswire.co.uk

SOURCE The European Business Awards
LOUISVILLE, Ky., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Customer experience is a key competitive advantage that is essential for advisors to attract and retain satisfied clients, is fundamental for the growth and health of a profitable practiceand is expected to increase in importance. These are among the latest findings from the third annual Advisor Authority study conducted by Harris Poll and commissioned by Jefferson National, operating as Nationwide's advisory solutions business. This new special report, "Customer Experience: The DNA of the Advisor/Investor Relationship," provides a 360-degree viewwhy customer experience matters to advisors, what's most important to investors, where they align, and the keys to unlock client acquisition, satisfaction and retentionbased on an online survey of roughly 1,600 Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), fee-based advisors and individual investors nationwide.

"Among the many revelations from this year's Advisor Authority study, we learned that the customer experience is truly the DNA of the advisor/investor relationshipthe foundation for building a mutually beneficial partnership that allows investors and advisors to reach their most important financial goals," said Mitchell H. Caplan, leader of Nationwide's advisory solutions business. "By serving RIAs and fee-based advisors for more than a decade, we have seen first-hand how advisors achieve the greatest success when the customer experience puts clients first. To gain new clients and earn more of their business, putting the client first is not just a regulatory requirement, it's a business necessity that is increasing in importance."

Key to Advisors' Value Proposition

More than 9 in 10 RIAs and fee-based advisors (94%)including the most successful who earn more and manage more AUMsay that the customer experience is important to their value proposition. Advisors, including the most successful, most commonly say this is because customer experience improves client retention (27%) and improves the advisor/investor relationship (26%).

Advisors also say customer experience distinguishes their firm from their competitors' firms (15%) and helps to attract prospective clients (9%). When asked if the customer experience will become more important for attracting and retaining clients in the next twelve months, more than 8 in 10 advisors (86%) agree. Adding new clients is consistently rated as advisors' top driver of profitability (53% in 2017, 56% in 2016).

Trust Must Come First

To make the advisor/investor relationship work, trust must come first. When asked to select the single most important attribute in their relationship, trustworthiness is rated number one by both advisors (44%) and investors (35%). And communication is key rated second by both advisors (11%) and investors (16%).

But in their relationship, investors want resultsand look for the track-record to prove it. While advisors rate a proven track-record a distant fourth (8%), investors say it ties for second (16%). Proven track-record rates even higher among the High Net Worth (23%), and the Ultra HNW (21%) investors.

Key to Success: Quality Communication, One-on-One Relationships

To create a successful customer experience, advisors must be in sync with investors' priorities. When asked to select the top factors that contribute to a successful customer experience, advisors and investors agree that quality of communication (39% and 36%) and a personal one-on-one relationship (44% and 35%) are among the top two.

To create a successful customer experience investors continue to suggest that technology is no replacement for the human touchand nothing can replace face-to-face. In the age of instantaneous digital communications, investors and advisors still say face-to-face meetings are their preferred form of communication, rated number one by both advisors (36%) and investors (36%).

Attracting Clients: Experience, Holistic Planning and Fiduciary Standard Matter Most

When asked to name up to three factors that influence investors to work with an advisor, investors' priorities are clear year-over-year. In both 2017 and 2016, advisor experience is the number-one factor by a wide margin (46% in both years), and personalized advice for a holistic financial picture is second (26% in both years). Serving clients using a fee-based fiduciary standard is a close third, at 25% in 2017 and 24% in 2016.

Guided advice gives investors greater confidenceand greater optimism. When investors are asked to identify the main reason they have an advisor, the number-one factor by a wide margin is to feel more confident in their financial future (30%). Given the pivotal role that advisors serve, it should be no surprise to learn that investors who work with an advisor are more optimistic about their financial outlook for 2017 (59%) than those who do not (40%)and year-over-year their optimism has increased (59% vs. 47%).

To download the Advisor Authority 2017 special report on "Customer Experience: The DNA of the Advisor/Investor Relationship," financial professionals can visit: http://www.jeffnat.com/advisorauthority/chapter1

About Advisor Authority:

The third annual Advisor Authority study explores the investing and advising issues confronting RIAs, fee-based advisors, broker/dealers and investorsand the innovative techniques needed for success in today's complex market. It features a special focus on the most successful advisors and the most affluent investors. These latest findings are to be followed by a series of special reports that will be released through year-end.

Methodology

The third annual Advisory Authority study was conducted online within the United States by Harris Poll on behalf of Jefferson National, now Nationwide's advisory solutions business, from March 13  April 7, 2017, among 779 employed financial advisors, ages 18+ and 817 investors, ages 18+ who are primary or shared financial decision makers with investable assets greater than $100K. Among the 779 financial advisors, there were 521 Registered Investment Advisors and 258 Broker/Dealers. Among the 817 investors, there were 208 Mass Affluent, 204 Emerging High Net Worth, 204 High Net Worth and 201 Ultra High Net Worth. And, among the investors, 524 have an advisor, while 293 do not. Investors are weighted where necessary by age, gender, race/ethnicity, region, education, income, marital status, household size, investable assets and propensity to be online in order to bring them in line with their actual proportions in the population.

Results of this new research are compared to results from a similar March 2016 study conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of Jefferson National among 683 employed Financial Advisors, including 440 Independent Registered Investment Advisors and 243 Broker/Dealers and among 733 Investors, there were 167 Mass Affluent, 184 Emerging High Net Worth, 199 High Net Worth and 183 Ultra High Net Worth. And, among the investors, 458 had an advisor, while 275 did not.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Poll surveys. Because the sample is based on those who were invited to participate in the Harris Poll online research panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. A complete survey method is available upon request.

About Harris Poll

Over the last five decades, Harris Polls have become media staples. With comprehensive experience and precise technique in public opinion polling, along with a proven track record of uncovering consumers' motivations and behaviors, Harris Poll has gained strong brand recognition around the world. Contact us for more information.

About Jefferson National

Jefferson National, operating as Nationwide's advisory solutions business, is a recognized innovator of a leading tax-advantaged investing solution for RIAs, fee-based advisors and the clients they serve. Trusted partner to a network of over 4,000 advisors, Jefferson National provides greater efficiency, transparency and choice through an adaptable technology platform, award-winning distribution strategy and cost-effective servicing capabilities. Named the industry "Gold Standard" as of 2012 and winner of more than 50 industry awards, including the DMA 2010 Financial Services Company of the Year. The company serves advisors and clients nationwide, through its subsidiaries Jefferson National Life Insurance Company and Jefferson National Life Insurance Company of New York. To reach our advisor support desk, please call 1-866-WHY-FLAT (1-866-949-3528). To learn more, please visit www.jeffnat.com.

About Nationwide

Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. and is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor's. The company provides a full range of insurance and financial services, including auto, commercial, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; banking and mortgages; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance. For more information, visit www.nationwide.com.

Nationwide, Nationwide is on your side, the Nationwide N and Eagle are service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.  2017

SOURCE Jefferson National

Related Links

http://www.jeffnat.com


Each year, more than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside the hospital, and about 20 percent occur in public places such as airports. Hands-Only CPR has been shown to be as effective as conventional CPR for cardiac arrest when it occurs in public, and CPR can double or triple a victim's chance of survival. The interactive kiosks are designed to train large numbers of people on this simple, lifesaving technique.

Hands-Only CPR has two steps, performed in this order: when you see a teen or adult suddenly collapse, call 911. Then, push hard and fast in the center of the chest until help arrives. Each kiosk has a touch screen with a short video that provides an overview of Hands-Only CPR, followed by a practice session and a 30-second test. With the help of a practice manikin, or a rubber torso, the kiosk gives feedback about the depth and rate of compressions, as well as proper hand placement  factors that influence the effectiveness of CPR.

The latest kiosks will include new features and enhancements such as:

a video that tells the story of former University of Dayton students Matt Lickenbrock and Sean Ferguson who are now good friends after Lickenbrock performed Hands-Only CPR on Ferguson who suffered a cardiac arrest after being struck by lightning in a campus parking lot. Lickenbrock learned Hands-Only CPR from the Association's pilot kiosk at DFW International Airport and he later used his skills to help save Ferguson's life;

students and who are now good friends after Lickenbrock performed Hands-Only CPR on Ferguson who suffered a cardiac arrest after being struck by lightning in a campus parking lot. Lickenbrock learned Hands-Only CPR from the Association's pilot kiosk at DFW International Airport and he later used his skills to help save Ferguson's life; updated Hands-Only CPR instruction that follows 2015 Association Guidelines for CPR, which recommends that CPR chest compressions be performed at a rate of 100 to 120 beats per minute; and

closed captioning to make the training available to everyone.

More than 20,000 visitors have learned Hands-Only CPR from the Association kiosks installed in 2016 at the following airports: O'Hare International; Indianapolis International; Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International; and Baltimore-Washington International.

"Our nation's airports have proven to be a great way to extend our educational campaign to train people on the lifesaving skill of Hands-Only CPR and, help meet the Association's goal to double bystander response by 2020," said Craig Samitt, MD, chief clinical officer at Anthem, Inc. "By expanding the availability of the training kiosks, we're hopeful that more people will feel confident to administer Hands-Only CPR on a stranger or someone they love."

Airports represent an opportune setting to train the public in Hands-Only CPR at kiosks, according to a study recently published in Resuscitation. Researchers evaluated data from the Association's pilot kiosk at DFW International Airport during a 32-month period. The study showed there was noticeable interest by the public to learn Hands-Only CPR as nearly 23,500 visitors used the kiosk from July 2013 to Feb. 2016.

"Only 46 percent of people who suffer an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest receive bystander CPR before professional help arrives," said Clifton Callaway, M.D., Ph.D., a volunteer on the Association's Emergency Cardiovascular Care committee and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. "The airport kiosks have proven to be an invaluable approach to introduce CPR to people, making it more likely they'll respond if they encounter a cardiac arrest victim outside the hospital."

The new kiosks will be located in the following spots:

Behind Central Checkpoint across from the Interfaith Center at Cleveland Hopkins International ( July 24, 2017 )

) Concourse A, Gates A6-A22 at Cincinnati /Northern Kentucky International ( Aug. 1, 2017 )

/Northern Kentucky International ( ) Entrance to the Main Food Court at Orlando International ( Aug. 9, 2017 )

To learn more about the Hands-Only CPR campaign and be prepared to save a life, visit heart.org/handsonlycpr or facebook.com/AHACPR.

In 2009, the Association launched a nationwide Hands-Only CPR campaign to raise awareness about this lifesaving skill. The campaign is supported nationally by an educational grant from the Anthem Foundation. Since 2012, nearly 9.7 million people have been trained in Hands-Only CPR via events, training kiosks and video education with the Foundation's support.

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke  the two leading causes of death in the world. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation's oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-800-AHA-USA1, visit heart.org or call any of our offices around the country. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the American Stroke Association

The American Stroke Association is devoted to saving people from stroke  the No. 2 cause of death in the world and a leading cause of serious disability. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat stroke. The Dallas-based association officially launched in 1998 as a division of the American Heart Association. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-888-4STROKE or visit StrokeAssociation.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association receives funding mostly from individuals. Foundations and corporations donate as well, and fund specific programs and events. Strict policies are enforced to prevent these relationships from influencing the Association's science content. Financial information for the American Heart Association, including a list of contributions from pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers, is available at http://www.heart.org/corporatefunding.

About Anthem Foundation

The Anthem Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Anthem, Inc. and through charitable contributions and programs, the Foundation promotes the inherent commitment of Anthem, Inc. to enhance the health and well-being of individuals and families in communities that Anthem, Inc. and its affiliated health plans serve. The Foundation focuses its funding on strategic initiatives that address and provide innovative solutions to health care challenges, as well as promoting the Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets specific disease states and medical conditions. These disease states and medical conditions include: prenatal care in the first trimester, low birth weight babies, cardiac morbidity rates, long term activities that decrease obesity and increase physical activity, diabetes prevalence in adult populations, adult pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations and smoking cessation. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Associate Giving program which provides a 50 percent match of associates' pledges, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Anthem Foundation, please visit http://www.anthem.foundation and its blog at http://anthemfoundation.tumblr.com.

SOURCE American Heart Association

Related Links

http://www.americanheart.org


FT. WAYNE, Ind., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tippmann Innovation, a leader in cold storage construction, announces the additions of Nick Pacitti and Kristine Grudis to 2 key positions in Cold Chain Management, Pre-Construction and QF+ (QuickFreeze).

Nick Pacitti - Supply Chain and Pre-Construction

Earlier this year, Nick Pacitti joined Tippmann Innovation in leading the business development effort. Nick will also head the Tippmann Cold Chain Management consulting practice. As a seasoned food industry executive, Nick has over 35 years of extensive experience in designing, developing and delivering food logistics solutions. Nick brings the ideal mix of advisory talent and practical experience necessary in leading large scale efforts in defining and developing key strategic and tactical initiatives,

As a veteran of the food industry, Nick held senior management roles with Kraft and Nestle where he designed and reengineered a host of supply chain initiatives in supporting growth and new product launches. Prior to joining Tippmann Innovation, Nick built a consulting firm where he managed over 300 operations management projects for close to 100 clients. Nick developed and successfully implemented a number of fresh food channel strategies for leading retailers. In concert with these initiatives, Nick has designed a Food Safety and Sanitation Audit (FSSA), a Vendor Certification Audit (VCA) and the Cold Chain Assessment and Certification (CCA) for leading retailers and food distribution companies.

Nick was the Chairman of the Food Logistics Technical Subcommittee and a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Food Marketing Institute (Washington DC) and their Safe Quality Food Institute. In this role, Nick guided the development of food logistics and quality practices for the industry in concert with leading retailers, 3PLs and food processors. These standards are now used in attaining the Global Food Safety Initiative, SQF certification.

In addition, Nick co-founded the Integrated Food Chain Center (IFC) at Georgia Tech and their Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. The IFC Charter is to develop industry standards and influence policy and regulations in the safe handling of perishable foods. As a senior lecturer, Nick teaches cold chain management course at Georgia Tech.

Nick holds two Master's Degrees, an MBA from The Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and an MA from Kent State University. An undergraduate degree was awarded Magna cum Laude from LaSalle University in Philadelphia, PA.

Kristine Grudis - Director, QF+

Tippmann Innovation is proud to announce the addition of Kristine Grudis as the new Director of QF+. For nearly 25 years, Kristine has been involved with the Food/Beverage, Pharmaceutical, 3PL & Industrial vertical markets with an emphasis on temperature controlled building solutions. Kristine's tenacity has developed and maintained key strategic accounts with the likes of Nestle, Sysco Food Service, Target, Costco and many more. Kristine's goals are to consistently exceed client's expectations by delivering the most cost effective, innovative engineered solutions. "I am excited for the opportunity to be a part of an experienced, progressive team looking to be the most innovative leader in our cold storage industry!" states Grudis.

Sam Tippmann, President and CEO, commented on the recent hires: "Our Mission Statement begins with "Tippmann invests in the best people" and that's not just some empty text in our employee handbook, it is the cornerstone of this company's success. The product that this company sells is not buildings or equipment, it is the services our employees provide to the Cold Chain. We have been very fortunate with growth in the last several years and I attribute that to our rock solid team. When it comes to great people, we are always hiring."

About Tippmann Innovation: Tippmann Innovation is an award winning, specialty industrial cold storage builder that develops buildings around a business plan, ensuring that an investment becomes a profit center. TI utilizes time-honed expertise and advanced technology solutions to create efficient buildings that scale with a business, and are designed to maximize profitability through fully integrating operations and supply chain, by design. TI provides a full suite of cold storage construction services, including master site planning and operations guidance. TI's innovations include the Patented QF+ in-rack freezing and thawing system, coupled with the T2 spacer system that creates the fastest system available. TI has offices in Indiana, Illinois and Florida and operates internationally.

www.ticold.com/

Media Contact:

Rob Adams

[email protected]

260-424-2222

SOURCE Tippmann Innovation

Related Links

http://www.ticold.com


SEATTLE, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Titan Hemp (www.titanhemp.net), a leading provider of hemp products and extracts, announced that it has secured the exclusive global rights to market, sell and distribute all hemp originating in Thailand. This blockbuster deal has been developed with True Hmong Global Distribution Ltd, a Thai company that has been granted exclusive permits by the Thai government to manage all farming and exports of the nation's commercial industrial hemp.

The deal gives Titan Hemp exclusive rights to Thailand's hemp program, which will grow to over 1 million acres within the next 5 years.

Titan Hemp, under the leadership of Co-Founders Amy Ansel and Tanya Hart, has grown to become a worldwide leader in the sourcing and distribution of premium quality hemp and hemp-based products.

The industrial hemp, fiber and hurd from Thailand is grown to specific characteristics, making it ideally suited for fiber complex composites, bioplastics for car manufacturing, plastic composite replacements, and a wide range of industrial applications, including: carbon nano-sheets, building materials, high performance super capacitors, furnishings and high tech fabrics.

Titan Hemp continues to cultivate relationships with US and European manufacturers that are interested in obtaining high quality industrial hemp for a wide range of applications.

Titan Hemp is also developing a supply chain to provide high-grade hemp for pharmaceutical quality oil extraction exports from Southeast Asia.

The company is working with chain stores in the United States that are looking to expand their line of hemp-based products  a market that is forecast to reach $1.8 billion within the next 3-years.

With their pipeline of almost one million acres of sustainable supply, Titan stands to become one of the largest global suppliers of hemp.

The company will soon be announcing the opening of a second round of financing to ramp up production. Qualified and institutional investors, entrepreneurs, and family offices are urged to make inquiries now to receive preferential consideration.

For information on Titan Hemp, visit: www.titanhemp.net.

Manufacturers, retail outlets and investors are asked to call the company, at: 507-407-HEMP.

Connect with Titan Hemp:

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.titanhemp.net

Facebook: facebook.com/titanhemp

Twitter: @titanhemp

SOURCE Titan Hemp

Related Links

http://www.titanhemp.net


LONDON, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TP ICAP, the world's largest interdealer broker, has selected Bloomberg Entity Exchange as the chosen platform to help clients register onto new trading venues operated by its broking businesses, including Tullett Prebon and ICAP.

TP ICAP firms have applied to operate Organized Trading Facilities (OTFs) under the MiFID II regulatory regime. MiFID II, which applies across the European Union from 3 January 2018, requires operators of OTFs and other trading venues to collect information about venue users and transactions. It also prescribes information to be given to venue users, including risk disclosures.

Bloomberg Entity Exchange is a secure, web-based electronic platform, which will provide an environment to centralize the exchange of information required by the new rules. It will also facilitate the distribution and management of venue-related documentation, such as rulebooks and policies, as well as contractual documentation.

Nicolas Breteau, Chief Executive, TP ICAP Global Broking, said: "We are pleased to have agreed to this partnership with Bloomberg Entity Exchange, which will help ensure we simplify the repapering process for our clients in our preparation for MiFID II, a regulation which will have far reaching implications for the industry we operate in.

"MiFID II will impose significant requirements on firms to share and collect data from their clients. We want to help our clients to quickly understand what the new rules will mean to their trading relationships, especially around trade execution, reporting and transparency. Partnering with Bloomberg provides us with the opportunity to offer clients and trading partners a combination of innovative technology and dedicated client service."

"Entity Exchange enables the secure and efficient exchange of information and documentation required for TP ICAP to provide execution services to its customers in compliance with MiFID II," said Dan Matthies, Global Head of Bloomberg Entity Exchange. "The adoption of Entity Exchange by a globally recognized player such as TP ICAP, and hundreds of brokers and buy-side firms around the world, shows it is satisfying an unmet need for smarter technology to facilitate regulatory compliance without causing significant disruption to workflow."

About TP ICAP

TP ICAP brings together buyers and sellers in global financial, energy and commodities markets. It is the world's largest wholesale market intermediary, with a portfolio of businesses that provide broking services, data & analytics and market intelligence, trusted by clients around the world. We operate from offices in 31 countries, supporting award-winning brokers with market-leading technology.

www.tpicap.com

About Bloomberg Entity Exchange

Bloomberg Entity Exchange provides users with a flexible solution, which can be used for the exchange of all types of data and documents. From Know Your Customer requirements under global legislation, MIFID II, EMIR, Dodd Frank and beyond, Bloomberg's Entity Exchange provides trading partners with the opportunity to securely permission and exchange their data and information quickly and easily. It also offers built-in workflow tools and a comprehensive audit trail so brokers can manage the data and document collection requirements mandated by reforms like MiFID II and the European Union Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (4MLD).

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company's strength  delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately  is at the core of the Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg's enterprise solutions build on the company's core strength: leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively. For more information, visit www.bloomberg.com or request a demo.

BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL, and BLOOMBERG TERMINAL are trademarks and service marks of Bloomberg Finance L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.

SOURCE Bloomberg

Related Links

http://www.bloomberg.com


CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- College Consensus (http://www.collegeconsensus.com), a unique new college ranking website, has published their ranking of the Best Colleges in Oklahoma 2017-2018 at http://www.collegeconsensus.com/ranking/best-colleges-ok/.

To identify the Best Colleges in Oklahoma for 2017-2018, College Consensus combined the latest results from the most respected college ranking systems with thousands of real student reviews to produce a unique consensus score for each school. According to College Consensus founder Jeremy Alder, "Like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic does for movies, College Consensus gathers the publisher rankings and student reviews from around the web and distills the results into simple, easy to understand scores so students can quickly and easily compare schools. It is the ranking of all rankings, so to speak." Learn more about the College Consensus rankings methodology at http://www.collegeconsensus.com/about/.

To help prospective Oklahoma students evaluate the higher education options that are right for their unique needs, College Consensus identified the top ten overall consensus-ranked colleges in Oklahoma (presented here in alphabetical order):

Oklahoma Baptist University - Shawnee, OK

Oklahoma Christian University - Edmond, OK

Oklahoma City University - Oklahoma City, OK

Oklahoma State University - Stillwater, OK

Oklahoma Wesleyan University - Bartlesville, OK

Oral Roberts University - Tulsa, OK

Southwestern Christian University - Bethany, OK

University of Central Oklahoma - Edmond, OK

University of Oklahoma - Norman, OK

University of Tulsa - Tulsa, OK

Oklahoma is its own thing - a unique blend of the South, the Southwest, and the Midwest, grounded in the culture of the American Indians and steeped in all of the influences of America's multifaceted pioneers. From Oklahoma comes the myth of the frontier immortalized in the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but Oklahoma also keeps America's forebears alive through research and support of Native American culture and people. In fact, Oklahoma has more Native American students than any other state, along with critical research centers and programs oriented toward preserving American Indian languages, dance, literature, and music. Oklahoma's colleges and universities - like Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma, the state's major public research institutions - are preparing students for the future of work and commerce. Meanwhile the state's many Christian institutions - like Oklahoma Baptist University, Oklahoma Christian University, and Southwestern Christian University - prepare educators, healers, and businesspeople for service leadership.

The best colleges and universities in Oklahoma, as Managing Editor Carrie Sealey-Morris explains, "take community engagement and economic uplift seriously." In many areas of the state, the higher education system is the key to turning around economic stagnation and worker exhaustion, educating working adults and traditional-aged students alike for the new world of work. According to Sealey-Morris, natural gas and oil have been bedrock for the state, but Oklahoma has embraced the modern age as well; Oklahoma's industry is now heavily invested in "biotechnology, bringing the state's age-old agricultural base into the laboratory, while telecommunications and electronics have made Oklahoma a growing hotbed for the tech industry." The state of Oklahoma has found its groove in the 21st century: "one of the most business-friendly states in the union, Oklahoma is booming with entrepreneurship and start-ups," and Oklahoma's top colleges and universities are helping make the future happen.

College Consensus makes college comparison quick and easy. The site's unique consensus ranking system provides the most accurate guide to college reputation and quality anywhere. In addition to rankings, College Consensus also offers expert advice and guidance on all aspects of college life, from finding the perfect college, to getting accepted, paying for it, and beyond.

Carrie Sealey-Morris

Managing Editor, College Consensus

[email protected]

(512) 710-9901

http://www.collegeconsensus.com/

https://www.facebook.com/collegeconsensus/

SOURCE College Consensus

Related Links

http://www.collegeconsensus.com


DENVER, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vista Gold Corp. (the "Company," "we" or "our") (NYSE MKT: VGZ) (TSX: VGZ) today announced the completion of the automated sorting tests on the coarse fractions of the four 5-tonne bulk samples from its Mt Todd gold project. The tests, completed at the facilities of Tomra Sorting Solutions near Hamburg, Germany, demonstrate that plus 5/8" (16 mm) product from the HPGR crusher can be efficiently sorted to separate the non-gold-bearing particles from the gold-bearing sulfides and quartz/calcite veining, at production rates.

The tests confirmed that, consistent with previous test work, 8-10% of the run-of-mine feed to the crushing circuit can be removed from the process stream prior to the grinding circuit. This is expected to reduce grinding circuit operating costs and provide a modest increase in grade to the grinding circuit. These results, combined with the favorable previously announced results of the HPGR crushing tests, provide support for key assumptions underlying the Company's decision to commence an update of the Mt Todd Preliminary Feasibility Study ("PFS").

Vista's President & CEO, Frederick H. Earnest, commented, "The application of this technology is not new to the mining sector and it is being used effectively where ores have distinct visual and/or density variations. Being present for the automated sorting of the bulk samples at production rates allowed us to observe the efficiency of this technology and its applicability to the Mt Todd gold project. The material balance results are consistent with previous test results and we expect to have assay results for the sorted material in August.

"With this phase of our metallurgical testing program complete, we are prepared to commence the grinding and leach recovery optimization testing once the samples are returned from Germany. The final results of this metallurgical testing program are expected to be available the middle of September. We have commenced the work of updating our PFS for the Mt Todd gold project, inclusive of flow sheet changes to integrate this sorting technology. We believe these changes will deliver a better technical project with improved economics."

Automated Sorting Test Results

The bulk sorting tests confirmed our ability to selectively remove particles known to have minerals associated with the presence of gold in the Batman deposit at production rates. The plus 5/8" (16 mm) material from the HPGR crushing/screening tests at Thyssen Krupp Industries was shipped to the facilities of Tomra Sorting Solutions. Three members of Vista's management/project development team were present to observe the tests, which were conducted in a standard production-size sorter with a 60 cm wide belt. Material from each of the four composites was sorted first using x-ray transmission ("XRT") to remove particles containing sulfide minerals and subsequently using lasers to remove particles containing quartz/calcite. The XRT sorting tests were conducted at three different sensitivity levels. The material balance results of the sorting tests are summarized in the following table.

Plus 5/8" Fraction Composite 1 Composite 2 Composite 3 Composite 4 XRT Sorted Material 33-57% 38-54% 27-46% 38-57% Laser Sorted Material 2.2-1.4% 7.6-6.7% 7.7-5.1% 1.9-1.3% Sorting Reject 40-62% 38-54% 46-64% 40-59% Fraction of Total Composite

Sorting Reject 7.0-10.9% 6.8-9.6% 7.7-10.7% 7.4-11.0%

Each composite represents a different part of the Batman deposit with varying amounts of sulfide and quartz/calcite mineralization which provided the opportunity to sort material that represented: high grade core, low grade peripheral, average to high grade early production and average grade main deposit. The variation in the amount of material sorted by the XRT and laser sorting steps is a reflection of the relative mineral content and is not an indication of sorting efficiency. Upon receipt of assay results, the Company will determine the optimal settings, taking into consideration gold losses, grade of sorted product and total product rejected.

Based on the results of this testing, the Company plans to apply a different sorting recovery/waste reject factor to each of the different major mineralization styles in the deposit.

Commencement of Preliminary Feasibility Study Update

We believe that the Mt Todd gold project is a better gold project today as a result of the project optimization work completed over the last 12 months and we have commenced the work of updating the current PFS. As part of this work we intend to evaluate and include all appropriate production improvements and the most current economic factors. We believe the results of this study, when completed late this year or early next year, will demonstrate a technically improved project and provide an improved perspective of the value of the Mt Todd gold project at present gold prices.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information disclosed in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. John Rozelle, Senior Vice President of Vista and a qualified person (as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101).

About Vista Gold Corp.

The Company is a well-funded gold project developer. Our principal asset is our flagship Mt Todd gold project in Northern Territory, Australia. Mt Todd is one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in Australia. For more information about our projects, including technical studies and resource estimates, please visit our website at www.vistagold.com.

For further information, please contact Connie Martinez at (720) 981-1185.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future, including such things as our belief that plus 5/8" product from the HPGR crusher can be efficiently sorted at production rates (including the ability to selectively remove minerals associated with the presence of gold at the Batman deposit); our expectation that the removal of 8-10% of the run-of-mine feed to the crushing circuit from the process stream prior to the grinding circuit will reduce operating costs and provide a modest increase in the grade to the grinding circuit; our plans to commence grinding and leach recovery optimization testing; the expected timing of, the completion of and the expected results of our proposed metallurgical testing program, assay results and updated PFS; and our belief that the Mt Todd gold project is a better technical project with improved economics; and other such matters are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this press release include the following: our approved business plans, exploration and assay results, results of our test work for process area improvements, mineral resource and reserve estimates and results of preliminary economic assessments, prefeasibility studies and feasibility studies on our projects, our experience with regulators, representative samples reflect the Mt Todd gold project, and positive changes to current economic conditions and the price of gold. When used in this press release, the words "optimistic," "potential," "indicate," "expect," "intend," "hopes," "believe," "may," "will," "if," "anticipate," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. These 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 future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include, among others, uncertainty of resource and reserve estimates, uncertainty as to the Company's future operating costs and ability to raise capital; risks relating to cost increases for capital and operating costs; risks of shortages and fluctuating costs of equipment or supplies; risks relating to fluctuations in the price of gold; the inherently hazardous nature of mining-related activities; potential effects on our operations of environmental regulations in the countries in which it operates; risks due to legal proceedings; risks relating to political and economic instability in certain countries in which it operates; uncertainty as to the results of bulk metallurgical test work; and uncertainty as to completion of critical milestones for Mt Todd; as well as those factors discussed under the headings "Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed on February 22, 2017 and other documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements and forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information; whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Vista Gold Corp.

Related Links

http://www.vistagold.com


BETHESDA, Md., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Walker & Dunlop, Inc. (NYSE: WD) (the "Company") announced today that Elliot Howell has joined Walker & Dunlop Investment Sales (WDIS) as managing director. Mr. Howell is based out of the Company's Atlanta office and is responsible for the origination and execution of investment sales for multifamily assets in the Southeast.

WDIS Executive Vice President, Greg Engler, commented, "We are thrilled to welcome Elliot to WDIS. The investment sales market remains very active and we continue to focus on expanding our team's coverage in the Southeast and across the United States. With over ten years of diverse real estate industry experience, Elliot will be a true asset to both our clients and the Walker & Dunlop team."

Prior to joining Walker & Dunlop, Mr. Howell served as managing director at Trammell Crow Residential where he was involved in multifamily property acquisition, financing, and development in the Southeast. He was previously in the multifamily capital markets group at JLL. During his time at JLL, Mr. Howell was directly involved in the underwriting and sale of over $1.8 billion in transaction volume.

To view recent closings by the WDIS team, visit our website.

About Walker & Dunlop

Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD), headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, is one of the largest commercial real estate services and finance companies in the United States providing financing and investment sales to owners of multifamily and commercial properties. Walker & Dunlop, which is included in the S&P SmallCap 600 Index, has over 600 professionals in 28 offices across the nation with an unyielding commitment to client satisfaction.

SOURCE Walker & Dunlop, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.walkerdunlop.com


BROOMFIELD, Colo., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Webroot, the market leader in endpoint security, network security, and threat intelligence, launched the Webroot Certification Program that covers key feature differentiators, deployment best practices, cybersecurity management, and basic troubleshooting techniques for SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection. The program enables the sales and technical teams at managed service providers (MSPs), value-added resellers (VARs), and other distributor partners to better sell and support the solution, as well as streamline and enhance their IT services business.

Key Facts:

There are two tracks for the free, self-paced Certification Program: one for sales professionals and one for technicians. Both will increase a partner's knowledge of Webroot's endpoint security solution and cover key trends in the security market.

Under 1 hour in length, the sales track provides an overview of key product features and differentiators of SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection to help partners master the intricacies and market differentiators of the product.

Under 2 hours in length, the technical track provides best practices for deploying and supporting SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection. It will help partners' technical teams deploy, manage, and troubleshoot customer sites more efficiently.

Partners will gain access to additional tools and resources, such as the Webroot IP test tool, which helps reduce troubleshooting time.

When at least one employee attains a sales certification and one attains a technical certification, partners can distinguish themselves as a Webroot Certified Partner.

If interested, partners can contact their sales representative or sign up online.

About SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection:

Webroot SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection offers a unique blend of layered, multi-vector protection to secure users and devices against today's attacks.

It covers threats that come from email, web browsing, file attachments, hyperlinks, display ads, social media apps, and connected devices like USB drives, as well as other blended threats with the potential to deliver malicious payloads.

Powered by industry-leading cloud-based threat intelligence platform, Webroot solutions combine the latest real-time intelligence from Webroot BrightCloud services with advanced machine learning and behavior-based heuristics. Using an always up-to-date, cloud-based technology, Webroot is able to detect, analyze, categorize, score, and highly accurately predict the threats each endpoint is experiencing in real time.

Today's multi-vector attacks are designed to exploit the blind spots of conventional signature-based security, allowing malware to infiltrate systems undetected. Traditional endpoint security vendors can only protect end users once the threat is known, and are limited to a single moment to choose whether what they have detected is bad, or can be allowed to execute.

Webroot offers multiple methods during multiple attack stages to stop threats across multiple vectors.

Key Quotes:

Chriss Rhode, CEO, OrLANtech

"The program allows my sales and technical resources to sell and support Webroot security solutions better. It helps my sales staff speak intelligently about key trends in the cybersecurity industry and connect Webroot's multi-vector approach to escalating threats. Bottom line, it improves total revenue and strengthens the profitability of our accounts."

Charles Tomeo, Vice President of Worldwide Business Sales, Webroot

"With a significant shortage of security expertise in the marketplace, Webroot is committed to providing our partners with the knowledge and tools they need to implement the security solutions today's IT environment demands. Partners will find they can become more self-sufficient with this certification, which will translate into better results and an increased bottom line."

Additional Resources:

Explore the Certification Program.

Learn more about SecureAnywhere Business Endpoint Protection.

About Webroot

Webroot delivers endpoint security and network security and threat intelligence services to protect businesses and individuals around the globe. Our smarter approach harnesses the power of cloud-based collective threat intelligence derived from millions of real-world devices to stop threats in real time and help secure the connected world. Our award-winning SecureAnywhere endpoint solutions, BrightCloud Threat Intelligence Services, and FlowScape solution protect millions of devices across businesses, home users, and the Internet of Things. Webroot is trusted and integrated by market-leading companies, including Cisco, F5 Networks, Aruba, Palo Alto Networks, A10 Networks, and more. Headquartered in Colorado, Webroot operates globally across North America, Europe, and Asia. Discover Smarter Cybersecurity solutions at www.webroot.com.

Social Media: Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook

2017 Webroot Inc. All rights reserved. Webroot, SecureAnywhere, Webroot SecureAnywhere, Webroot BrightCloud, BrightCloud, and Smarter Cybersecurity are trademarks or registered trademarks of Webroot Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

SOURCE Webroot

Related Links

http://www.webroot.com


"Our demonstrated commitment to our communities is a perfect match for a partnership with Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital," said Cathy Nash, CEO of Woodforest National Bank. "Our gift to the Excellence Fund provides the forum for our organizations to work together with a focus on offering the best programs, delivering Leading Medicine right here in The Woodlands, and making a positive impact on our friends and neighbors."

The $1 million gift is the largest philanthropic commitment to a Houston Methodist hospital, outside the Texas Medical Center.

"Not only are we thankful to Woodforest National Bank for this remarkable gift, but we are also thankful that our institutions share common values and the commitment to serve The Woodlands and surrounding communities with integrity and purpose," said Debbie Sukin, CEO of Houston Methodist The Woodlands.

Woodforest Bank Sky Plaza is among the most prominent spaces in the new hospital. It provides a space for patients, visitors, physicians and staff to visit and relax, and it will be the site for future hospital and community gatherings.

About Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital

Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital is a not-for-profit, faith-based hospital, which is part of Houston Methodist. For the fourth consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report recently named Houston Methodist Hospital the Best Hospital in Texas, with national rankings in 11 specialties. Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital opened on June 26, 2017.

For more information on Houston Methodist The Woodlands campus, please visit houstonmethodist.org/thewoodlands. For more information about Houston Methodist, visit houstonmethodist.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. To find a physician, call 936.270.3333.

Media Contact:

Amy Barnett

Sr. Communications Specialist

Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital

Cell 281.904.9329

[email protected]

SOURCE Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital

Related Links

http://www.houstonmethodist.org


NEW YORK, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ABO Capital announced today that its CEO Zandre Campos was featured in Money Inc discussing investing in Africa. The article entitled "Investment into Africa Continues to Prosper" was originally published in Money Inc on June 29, 2017.

Over the past few decades, investment from outside industries has continued to flourish in Africa leading to an expanding economy. Zandre Campos explains the two predominant reasons for this growth are increased technological needs within the region and private equity investments. Initially, the young, technologically savvy consumer population in Africa needed more broadband internet providers for their mobile devices, so fortune 500 companies began to realize the gap and invested in the region. Additionally, private equity firms receive large returns from investing in African economies. The combination of these factors has turned the African continent into an area that ensures success for investors.

"International businesses are beginning to realize the incredible potential income the continent of Africa can provide with gaps in digital needs and high returns for private equity firms," said Mr. Campos. "The amount of capital being injected into the economy proves Africa is indeed a prosperous investment that is financially beneficial and sustainable for companies looking to expand across the globe."

Zandre Campos is chairman and CEO of ABO Capital, an international investment firm that invests in companies in the healthcare, energy, transportation, hospitality, technology, education and real estate sectors throughout Africa. ABO's mission is to create global value for developing countries in Africa, while contributing to their economic development.

Read the full Money Inc article:

http://moneyinc.com/investment-into-africa-continues-to-prosper/

About ABO Capital

ABO Capital, formerly Angola Capital Investments, is an international investment firm that invests in companies in the healthcare, technology, energy, transportation, hospitality and real estate sectors throughout Africa. The mission of ABO Capital is to create global value for developing countries in Africa, while contributing to their economic development.

About Zandre Campos

Zandre Campos is one of the great, innovative business leaders and global entrepreneurs emerging out of Africa. Currently, he is chairman and CEO of ABO Capital, an international investment firm headquartered in Angola with holdings throughout the Globe. Mr. Campos was named one of the Top 25 African business influencers and was a recipient of the Distinguished Business Excellence Award by African Leadership Magazine. He is frequently quoted as an expert on Africa in the media and is a recurring contributor for The Huffington Post and US News & World Report. He recently addressed both students and professors at the NYU Africa House on the opportunities in Africa.

SOURCE ABO Capital

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SHANGHAI, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE: ZTO) ("ZTO" or the "Company"), a leading express delivery company in China, today announced that it successfully completed its first trial delivery using a drone in an industrial park in Zhejiang Province.

The drone, developed by a domestic drone producer and custom designed for ZTO, flew 14.0 kilometers (8.7 miles) from ZTO's sorting facility in Le Qing county, Zhejiang Province to the office building of an enterprise customer located in an economic development park in the same county. The drone used in the trial delivery has a maximum range of 30.0 kilometers (18.6 miles), is equipped with a 25-liter (6.6 gallon) container, a maximum load carrying capacity of 10.0 kg (22.0 pounds) and is preprogrammed to fly to its destination and does not require a remote control.

"Drone delivery is an innovative new application of technology that we are developing to further optimize and increase the efficiency of last-mile delivery," commented Mr. Meisong Lai, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ZTO. "This test successfully demonstrated that we can shave 60% off our traditional delivery times using drones. Using traditional ground transportation, this delivery would have taken approximately 50 minutes when taking traffic conditions, gate checks, wait times for elevators, etc., into consideration. We were able to do this in less than 20 minutes using a drone. We believe that drones can be best used for the delivery of parcels to rural areas in the future as they can improve accessibility, ease labor shortages, and reduce logistical costs and delivery time of the entire network."

About ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc.

ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE: ZTO) ("ZTO" or the "Company") is a leading express delivery company in China and one of the largest express delivery companies globally, in terms of total parcel volume in 2016. ZTO provides express delivery service as well as other value-added logistics services through its extensive and reliable nationwide network coverage in China.

ZTO operates a highly scalable network partner model, which the Company believes is best suited to support the significant growth of e-commerce in China. The Company leverages its network partners to provide pickup and last-mile delivery services, while controlling the mission-critical line-haul transportation and sorting network within the express delivery service value chain.

For more information, please visit http://ir.zto.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confidence" and similar statements. ZTO may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual reports to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about ZTO's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in our annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and ZTO undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

ZTO

Ms. Sophie Li

Investor Relations Director

E-mail: [email protected]

Christensen

In China

Mr. Christian Arnell

Phone: +86-10- 5900-1548

E-mail: [email protected]

In US

Mr. Tip Fleming

Phone: +1-917-412-3333

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc.
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Kochi, July 19 : Kerala Police on Wednesday voiced confidence it has enough evidence to nail superstar Dileep in the alleged abduction and molestation of a popular actress in February this year.

A.V. George, Superintendent of Police and one of the key officials behind the probe, refused to give out much about the probe, but said they would not have arrested the actor without evidence.

He appeared confident that he has all the evidence against Dileep.

However, the actor's manager Appunny, who is currently on the run, in his anticipatory bail plea filed on Wednesday said that police has no evidence against Dileep. He alleged that police is trying to put pressure on actor-turned-director Nadir Shah and himself to turn approver in the case.

Dileep is presently housed at the Angamaly sub-jail near his home town Aluva as a remand prisoner.

On Thursday, a single bench of the Kerala High Court is to take up his bail application. Last week, the trial court denied bail to the actor.

In a related development, revenue officials have found that the theatre complex owned by Dileep near here has been built on encroached land. They have started to initiate legal proceedings against the actor.

Giving the developments a political colour, state Congress president M.M. Hassan blamed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over the actor usurping government land in two places.

"The closeness the actor shared with Vijayan and the CPI-M is well known. It is the CPI-M which helped Dileep usurp government land. The revenue department is now looking into this," Hassan told reporters in Kasargode.

The superstar was arrested on June 10th and the next day he was remanded to 14 days judicial custody for conspiring in the abduction and molestation of a popular actress in February in Kochi.

The police had earlier arrested the prime accused Pulsar Suni and his accomplices a week after the incident.
Riyadh, July 20 : Saudi Arabia has announced that 83,828 Iranian pilgrims will perform Haj this season after Iran boycotted the religious ritual last year.

Minister of Haj, Omra Dr Mohammed Benton, made the announcement when inspecting the headquarters of Haj contractors of Iranian pilgrims, Xinhua news agency cited Okaz local news as saying on Thursday.

The visit is part of a series of similar visits to other contractors to ensure the best services for foreign pilgrims. In March, Saudi Arabia announced the finalisation of the required steps for the participation of Iranian pilgrims in the upcoming Haj season.

Iran boycotted the last Haj season over rifts between the two countries mainly due to the death of Iranian pilgrims in a stampede in Mina area during 2015 Haj.

Saudi Arabia had cut ties with Iran early in 2016 and banned its citizens from travelling there. The country clarified that cutting relations covered commercial ties while Iranian pilgrims would always be welcome in Saudi Arabia.
Jammu, July 21 : A fresh batch of over 1,100 pilgrims set out from here for the Amarnath Yatra on Friday amid tight security, an official said.

"Another batch of 1,141 pilgrims left the Bhagwati Nagar Yatri Niwas at 2.50 a.m. in an escorted convoy of 46 vehicles for the Kashmir Valley," he said.

This was the 23rd day since the pilgrimage to the Himalayan cave shrine began.

So far, 2.35 lakh pilgrims have performed the yatra that started on June 29.

Every day the pilgrims have to start their journey early as no vehicles carrying pilgrims are allowed to cross the Jawahar Tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar highway after 3.30 p.m. due to security reasons.

The precaution was taken to ensure that the pilgrims reach the base camps of Baltal in the north and Pahalgam in the south of the Kashmir Valley before sunset.

From the two base camps, the pilgrims have to track treacherous mountain tracks. The traditional Pahalgam route is 46 km long and takes around four days. While the one from Baltal is 14 km.

The yatris who use the Baltal route return to the base camp the same day after paying obeisance inside the cave shrine.

Helicopter services are also available for pilgrims on both routes.

A total of 48 pilgrims have so far died during the yatra in 2017. Of these 17 died in a road accident on Jammu-Srinagar highway on July 16.

While eight died in a terror attack on a bus carrying pilgrims at Batengo on the same highway on July 10 in Anantnag district. Another 23 died due to natural causes.

Situated at 3,888 metres above the sea-level, the Amarnath cave houses an ice stalagmite structure that waxes and wanes with the size of the visible moon.

Devotees believe the ice stalagmite structure symbolizes mythical powers of Lord Shiva.

The 40-day long yatra will end on August 7 on Shravan Purnima coinciding with the Raksha Bandhan festival.

Over 35,000 security personnel drawn from the Army, Central Reserve Police Force, Sashastra Seema Bal, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the state police are deployed for the protection of the pilgrims this year.
Guwahati, July 21 : A total of 4,472 pilgrims from the northeastern states are set to go to Saudi Arabia for Haj this year, it was announced on Friday.

Haj Committee chairman Nekibur Zaman said the first batch would leave Guwahati on July 24 for Medina. The pilgrimage would continue till July 31.

"Daily 600 pilgrims will travel to Medina from Guwahati in two batches. For the first time, the state government has appointed 21 'Khadem-Ul-Hojja' (officials) to take care of the pilgrims from the state," he said.

"They will be monitoring all the process and will provide all assistance," Zaman said.

A reception committee will organise special programmes to see-off the pilgrims from Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Sikkim at Haji Mushafirkhana in Guwahati.
Berlin, July 21 : German Finance Minister Wolfang Schaeuble on Friday drew parallels between contemporary Turkey and government practices in the former state of East Germany.

"Turkey is arresting people arbitrarily and no longer upholds even minimal standards of diplomatic conduct," Xinhua news agency quoted Schaeuble as saying.

The situation, he said, reminded him of East Germany which was why Berlin could no longer guarantee the safety of German tourists in Turkey, the report said.

"If Turkey does not stop playing these games, we must tell our people: you are travelling at your own risk," Schaeuble said.

After a year of deeply fraught relations between Berlin and Ankara, tensions between the two NATO partners reached boiling point on Tuesday after the Turkish arrest of German human rights activist Peter Steudtner.

The announcement that Steudtner had been placed in police custody sparked outrage in German political circles. The head of the SPD parliamentary faction, Thomas Opperman, complained that Erdogan had inaugurated a "new stage of escalation in German-Turkish relations".

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Thursday cancelled his holiday to tighten national safety recommendations for travel to Turkey in response to the development.

The Foreign Office officially urged Germans in Turkey to "exercise heightened caution" when in the country.

Gabriel in a strongly-worded speech warned Turkey that Germany would hold talks with the European Union (EU) to re-evaluate financial aid the country currently receives as an accession candidate.

He demanded the immediate release of nine German citizens currently in Turkish police custody.

Turkey is still in official talks to join the EU although new negotiating chapters have not been opened in years. Gabriel questioned whether negotiations over Turkey's customs union with the EU could be completed in the current political climate.

Alongside the Finance Minister, several German politicians expressed support for Gabriel's speech and the resulting toughening of Berlin's stance towards Ankara.

Turkey lashed back at the front of official German criticism, describing Berlin's stance as inappropriate and inacceptable. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's speaker Ibrahim Kalin said Gabriel's statement was motivated by domestic politics.

A statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry accused its German counterpart of seeking to benefit from hostility towards Turkey and Turks.

Germany has also frozen existing arms export projects between the two countries as a preliminary measure. While details remaining unclear, such a move would mark an unprecedented step for defence relations between allied NATO partners.

Turkish-German relations have been severely strained since a military coup failed to unseat Erdogan in July 2016.

Ankara has rejected Berlin's criticisms that it engaged in an excessive crackdown on political opponents in response to the coup and is resentful towards its German NATO partner for allegedly granting asylum to Turkish revolutionaries.

There is also a long-standing spat between Berlin and Ankara over attempts to prevent Turkish politicians from holding campaign rallies in Europe.

Hoping to win support amongst Turkish migrant communities for a controversial constitutional referendum which ultimately passed in April 2017, Erdogan and members of his AKP party ran up against heavy opposition in several European capitals.

Turkey retaliated by banning German parliamentarians from visiting their country's armed forces stationed at the Turkish military base of Incirlik and Konya from where they were participating in the international military effort against the Islamic State.

In June, German lawmakers voted to transfer troops from Turkey to a new base in Jordan after several attempts to defuse the diplomatic crisis failed.
Ghaziabad, July 22 : Eight policemen of Sahibabad police station here have been suspended after they were found guilty of a custodial death, an officer said on Saturday.

Ghaziabad Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) H.N. Singh suspended eight staffers of Sahibabad police station including the Inspector Incharge, his assistant -- a Senior Sub-Inspector (SSI) -- three Sub-Inspectors and three constables, including the head clerk of the police station.

The suspended staff have been identified as Inspector Sudhir Tyagi, Sub Inspectors Akhilesh Gaur, Neeraj Kumar Tyagi, Gajendra Singh, Atul Kumar and constables Prem Singh, Rahul and Sanjiv.

The SSP's action came after an inquiry report conducted by a senior police officer, Rajesh Kumar from Meerut, found the policemen guilty of the custodial death.

Police apathy came to light when a man admitted to the Narendra Mohan Hospital was identified as Mandeep Negi in the records but after he died, the body was tagged as "unidentified" when shifted to the mortuary. Police also cremated him as "unidentified".

According to police records, on July 9, three residents, Aditya, Ajit, Arjun and Rinku overpowered a suspected thief in Shyam Park Extension and handed him over to police.

After the suspect went missing from home, the family members on July 10 approached police and lodged complaint that "their son is missing since July 9". However, instead of registering a complaint, police sent them back.

The family members stayed in touch with police till July 12 but on July 15, police cremated the suspected thief as "unidentified", alleged Satya Pal Chaudhary, a social activist and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader, who pursued the matter.

On July 16, when family members identified the deceased, they alleged Inspector Sudhir Tyagi misled them, did not register their complaint and cremated their son, who was later identified as Mandeep Negi.

They alleged that their son was killed in police custody and protested outside the police station.

When police faced a tough resistance from the public, it filed a case against its Aditya, Ajit and Arjun.

But the family members contradicted the police claim and protested against the police atrocity.

"Although the SSP has delivered the justice to the grieved family, a criminal case should be registered against the erring staff," said BSP leader Satya Pal Chaudhary.
Agartala, July 22 : The Indian and Bangladeshi governments have undertaken an ambitious project to establish a new waterway between the two neighbours using the mighty Brahmaputra river, Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said here on Saturday.

"India and Bangladesh governments have signed an agreement to establish the news waterways between the two countries using the Brahmaputra river," Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways and Shipping Mandaviya told the media.

"Indian government would dredge the Brahmaputra river on its side and the Bangladesh authority would dredge the river on their side. We expect that within the next one year. The new waterway would be operational and it would boost the trade and people to people contact."

India is prioritising multi-modal connectivity in the northeastern region, including water connectivity, and already 16 waterway projects, mostly involving Bangladesh, have been approved.

India and Bangladesh have a 2,979 km land border and 1,116 km of riverine boundary. They also share 54 common rivers, including the Brahmaputra.

According to Tripura Transport Secretary Samarjit Bhowmik, the state government had submitted proposals to develop waterways between Tripura's Gomati and Howrah and Bangladeshi rivers.

The Shipping Ministry has recently sanctioned Rs 12 crore and asked the state government to submit detailed project reports to develop waterways between Tripura's Gomti and Bangladesh's Meghna rivers.

Since 1972, four inland water routes between India and Bangladesh are currently operational : Kolkata-Pandu (in southern Assam) via Bangladesh, Kolkata-Karimganj (in southern Assam) via Bangladesh, Rajshahi (in Bangladesh)-Dhulian (in southern Assam) and Karimganj-Pandu-Karimganj via Bangladesh.

Mandaviya, who came here on Saturday on a day's visit, met Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Governor Tathagata Roy and discussed about various ongoing projects of his ministries.

The Minister, who is also Minister of State in the Chemicals and Fertilisers Ministry, discussed with Sarkar the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Jan Aushadhi Pariyojana with a view to provide quality medicine at affordable prices to all sections of the society, an official said.

He also held a meeting with the officials of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation and Tripura PWD Department to discuss ongoing roadway projects.

According to the minister, currently Tripura has six national highways with a total length of 854 km.
New Delhi, July 23 : 10 Rajaji Road, the new abode of outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee, is all ready to welcome its newest resident.

The eight-room, two-storey villa -- quite a change from the 340-room Rashtrapati Bhavan -- is no stranger to former Presidents, having previously hosted A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

The rooms of the villa -- spread over an expansive 11,776 sq feet -- have been spruced up and the walls repainted. The existing furniture has also been replaced and the entrance and exit gates await the nameplates of the new resident.

"It is not overcrowded with furniture. We are keeping it simple. Also, a large space has been created which is being turned into a library," a senior official from the Urban Development Ministry told IANS.

With Ram Nath Kovind elected as the 14th President of India, it is time for Pranab Mukherjee to bid adieu to Rashtrapati Bhavan and move to the new address as he goes into retirement.

Mukherjee will be moving out of the sprawling presidential palace atop Raisina Hill to his new home on July 25 after the incoming President is ceremonially welcomed to Rashtrapati Bhavan, an official told IANS. Kovind will then escort Mukherjee to his new home.

Mukherjee, 81, who was elected President in 2012, is a voracious reader and will be carrying all his personal books to his new address, which will be comparable to a residence allotted to a Union minister.

"He is also planning to pen a book based on his five years as the President although nothing is final yet," another official said.

As a former President, Mukherjee's pension will be Rs 75,000 per month (50 per cent of that while in office). There are some other perks, including two telephones, one mobile phone and a car for free. The President Emoluments Act also allows the former President to access secretarial staff, and office expenses of up to Rs 60,000.

This will be apart from free medical attendance and treatment as well as travel anywhere in India, accompanied by one person, in the highest class in any mode of travel.

According to the President Emoluments Act 1951, a retired president is entitled to facilities like rent-free Type VIII accommodation anywhere in India, free water and electricity, apart from the landline, mobile phones and medical amenities.

Mukherjee will have at his disposal five personal staffers, including a private secretary, a personal assistant and two peons. Responsibility for his security will be handed over to the Delhi Police.

The 10 Rajaji Marg bungalow was allotted to Minister of State for Culture and Tourism Mahesh Sharma in 2015 after Kalam's death. Sharma has been allotted another bungalow on the adjacent Akbar Road.

(Somrita Ghosh can be contacted at somrita.g@ians.in)
Islamabad, July 24 : A group of 40 Pakistani teachers left for Beijing to receive training on the Chinese language.

A special see-off ceremony for the teachers was held on Sunday at the Chinese embassy in the here which was attended by Zhao Lijian, chargA d'affaires of the embassy and Arshad Ali, executive director of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, reports Xinhua news agency.

It is the third batch of Pakistani teachers visiting China for language training since 2015. So far, at least 120 Pakistani teachers have received training under the International Chinese Language Teacher Training Programme sponsored by the Chinese government.

The 40 teachers -- 26 females and 14 males -- from different institutes across Pakistan, will get training under the 15-day programme.

Masooma Nayyar, a headmistress of a school from Pakistan's southwest province of Balochistan, told Xinhua that the visit to China is going to be a great booster in her career and life.

"I am very excited and believe that the training will help me understand Chinese culture and language better," said Nayyar.

Currently, four Confucius Institutes operate in different areas of Pakistan to impart Chinese language to students from all walks of life.
Colombo, July 24 : The Sri Lankan navy rescued two young elephants washed out to the sea from drowning on the coast of Trincomalee.

This incident is the second of its kind after a team of naval officers earlier this month saved an elephant struggling to keep afloat after it was swept into the rough seas off the island's northern coast, reports Xinhua news agency.

After the two distressed jumbos were first noticed by an Inshore Patrol Craft on routine sea patrol on Sunday, a combined rescue mission was launched by the navy and the officials from the Department of Wildlife in Trincomalee.

Responding to the situation, the navy augmented the rescue mission by deploying three more Fast Attack Craft on patrol and a team of navy divers.

After being safely guided to the shore, the two elephants were subsequently released to the Foul Point jungle, the navy said.

In the earlier rescue mission, the navy said the jumbo had likely got swept into the sea while crossing the Kokkilai lagoon, a large stretch of water that lies between two forest areas.
Washington, July 24 : US President Donald Trump remains unconvinced that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election, the newly-appointed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said.

"He basically said to me, 'Hey you know, this is, maybe they did it, maybe they didn't do it,'" Scaramucci told CNN on Sunday night of a conversation he had with the President about alleged Russian interference.

Prior to Trump's inauguration, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified report showing the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency all concluded the Russian government attempted to influence the election to bring down Hillary Clinton and help Trump.

Scaramucci suggested Trump does not yet accept the conclusion of the intelligence community and questioned the media's pursuit of the story, saying it tarnished Trump's victory in November.

"The mainstream media position on this, that they interfered in the election," Scaramucci told CNN.

"It actually in his mind, what are you guys suggesting? You're going to delegitimize his victory?"

Scaramucci said he intended to review the intelligence community's evidence once he had his security clearance and pledged to give Trump his personal thoughts on the conclusions.

He said Trump would make up his own mind in time and that if Trump believed Russia was responsible for the 2016 efforts and a threat to future elections, he would act.

"A person that's going to be super, super tough on Russia is President Donald Trump," the Communications Director added.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump posted a tweet that called the Russia probe a "witch hunt", saying Democrats were using the Russian hacking allegations as an "excuse for a lost election".

"As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!" he wrote.

In response, Democratic Senator Al Franken told CNN: "What can you say? It's just bizarre."
Lucknow, July 24 : The Central Command of the Indian Army will celebrate Kargil 'Vijay Diwas' on Wednesday through a series of functions, a defence spokesperson said on Monday.

Kargil Vijay Diwas is celebrated all over India on July 26 every year to commemorate the emphatic victory in the Kargil War against Pakistan and honour the war heroes.

It was on this day in 1999, the Indian Army successfully took control of posts in extremely difficult and treacherous high altitude and glaciated terrain across the Himalayas in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, after fighting for 60 days.

Functions to pay homage to the gallant martyrs would be held in all stations across the seven states under the area of responsibility of the Central Command.

These will be followed by felicitation of participants of Kargil War, 'veer naris', parents of martyrs, veterans and widows.

In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would pay homage to the martyrs at 'Smritika' War Memorial in presence of senior serving and retired military officers, junior commissioned officers and other ranks.

Major General Vinod Sharma, General Officer Commanding, Madhya Uttar Pradesh Sub Area, will lay the wreath and felicitate the war heroes and the families of martyrs.
Bengaluru, July 24 : Renowned Indian space scientist U.R. Rao, the architect of early satellites including Aryabhatta, Bhaskar, Apple, Rohini and multi-purpose Insat series, passed away here early on Monday, said an ISRO official. He was 85.

Rao passed away at his residence around 3 a.m. after prolonged illness and due to age-related health issues, an official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS.

Rao, who was Chairman of ISRO for a decade until 1994, leaves behind his wife, also a scientist, a son and a daughter.

Rao was in a private hospital till recently due to a heart ailment and was recovering at home, the official said.

Rao's death plunged the scientific community into grief.

"Saddened by the demise of renowned scientist. His remarkable contribution to India's space programme will never be forgotten," tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

ISRO Chairman A.S. Krishna Kumar, senior space scientists and many others from the space agency rushed to Rao's house on hearing the news.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah visited the house and laid a wreath on Rao's body.

The state government decided to pay homage to Rao with a state funeral later in the day, an official of the Chief Minister's office told IANS.

As a mark of respect, Rao's cortege was taken to ISRO's Satellite Centre on the Old Airport Road in the eastern suburb from his residence to enable hundreds of scientists and officials to pay homage. The final rites will take place later on Monday.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted: "U.R. Rao led India's space research programme to unprecedented heights. His contribution was remarkable. I'm saddened by his demise."

BJP President Amit Shah too saluted Rao's "remarkable contribution" to India's space research programme.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said Rao helped to take ISRO to unparalleled heights since the launch of Aryabhatta.

In a message to the bereaved family, Siddaramaiah said: "Rao served the country and the Indian space agency for over four decades.

"He was the architect of the early satellites, including Aryabhatta, Bhaskar, Apple, Rohini and many multi-purpose Insat series of satellites."

He said Rao brought about a dramatic change in communications, remote sensing and weather services in the country.

He also praised his scientific temper and described him as "a proud Indian and a Kannadiga". "He was humble and simple though a towering personality in the international space community."

Born on March 10, 1932, near Udupi, Rao was Chairman of the Governing Council of the space agency's Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad and Chancellor for the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology at Thiruvananthapuram.

The Indian government this year conferred the country's second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan, on Rao, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1976.

Rao was the first Indian to be inducted in May 2016 into the prestigious International Astronautics Federation's Hall of Fame at Guadalajara in Mexico.

The Paris-based space advocacy organization was set up in 1951 to promote dialogue and exchange information for space cooperation in the world.

Rao was also inducted into the 'Satellite Hall of Fame' in Washington in 2013 by the Society of Satellite Professionals International, an ISRO official said.

As a pioneer in space technology, Rao contributed immensely to the optimal utilization of space assets for satellite-based communications and remote sensing of the country's natural resources.

He was instrumental in the development of the geostationary launch vehicle (GSLV) and the development of cryogenic technology.
Bengaluru, July 24 : Renowned Indian space scientist U.R. Rao, the architect of early satellites including Aryabhatta, Bhaskar, Apple, Rohini and multi-purpose Insat series, passed away here early on Monday, said an ISRO official. He was 85.

Rao passed away at his residence around 3 a.m. after prolonged illness and due to age-related health issues, an official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS. Rao's wife, who was also a scientist, son and daughter were at the bed side when he breathed his last.

His last rites were held on Monday evening with full state honours.

A 21-gun salute was given and bugles were sounded before the last rites at Hebbal crematorium where hundreds of people, including scientists, engineers, officials, friends and relatives bid him a tearful adieu.

Rao, who was Chairman of ISRO for a decade until 1994, was in a private hospital till recently due to a heart ailment and was recovering at home, the official said.

Rao's death plunged the scientific community into grief.

"Saddened by the demise of renowned scientist. His remarkable contribution to India's space programme will never be forgotten," tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

ISRO Chairman A.S. Krishna Kumar, senior space scientists and many others from the space agency rushed to Rao's house on hearing the news.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also visited the house and laid a wreath on Rao's body.

As a mark of respect, Rao's cortege was taken to ISRO's Satellite Centre on the Old Airport Road in the eastern suburb from his residence to enable hundreds of scientists and officials to pay homage.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted: "U.R. Rao led India's space research programme to unprecedented heights. His contribution was remarkable. I'm saddened by his demise."

BJP President Amit Shah too saluted Rao's "remarkable contribution" to India's space research programme.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said Rao helped to take ISRO to unparalleled heights since the launch of Aryabhatta.

In a message to the bereaved family, Siddaramaiah said: "Rao served the country and the Indian space agency for over four decades.

"He was the architect of the early satellites, including Aryabhatta, Bhaskar, Apple, Rohini and many multi-purpose Insat series of satellites."

He said Rao brought about a dramatic change in communications, remote sensing and weather services in the country.

He also praised his scientific temper and described him as "a proud Indian and a Kannadiga". "He was humble and simple though a towering personality in the international space community."

Born on March 10, 1932, near Udupi, Rao was Chairman of the Governing Council of the space agency's Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad and Chancellor for the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology at Thiruvananthapuram.

The Indian government this year conferred the country's second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan, on Rao, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1976.

Rao was the first Indian to be inducted in May 2016 into the prestigious International Astronautics Federation's Hall of Fame at Guadalajara in Mexico.

The Paris-based space advocacy organisation was set up in 1951 to promote dialogue and exchange information for space cooperation in the world.

Rao was also inducted into the 'Satellite Hall of Fame' in Washington in 2013 by the Society of Satellite Professionals International, an ISRO official said.

As a pioneer in space technology, Rao contributed immensely to the optimal utilization of space assets for satellite-based communications and remote sensing of the country's natural resources.

He was instrumental in the development of the geostationary launch vehicle (GSLV) and the development of cryogenic technology.
New Delhi, July 24 : The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) plans to construct 18 ferry terminals in six cities along the River Ganga under the Jal Marg Vikas Project, Parliament was told on Monday.

The six cities include Varanasi, Patna, Munger, Bhagalpur, Kolkata and Haldia on National Waterway-1, Minister of State for Shipping Mansukh Lal Mandaviya told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

"The project aims at capacity augmentation of navigation on the Haldia - Varanasi stretch of National Waterway-1," he said.

The Minister added that IWAI has engaged a reputed consultant for preparation of Detailed Project Report for the development of ferry services at these places.

"The consultants have started the preparatory work for identifying suitable locations," he said.
Turin (Italy), July 24 : Police in north Italy on Monday arrested two Sinti Gypsy brothers accused of robbing bank cashpoints at night while wearing US President Donald Trump masks.

The men, aged 26 and 30, were held after their latest alleged heist when they made off with 92,000 euros after blowing up two cashpoints in the northwest Piedmont region - in Cavallermaggiore, near Cuneo and in Vigone, near Turin.

The two brothers are suspects of pulling off dozens of similar robberies after driving to the bank cash points aboard stolen cars which they had resprayed with black paint, police said.

The suspects forced open the slot where the cashpoints dispense money and inserted an explosive device to blow them open, said police.

The pair were identified from security camera images, according to police.
New Delhi, July 24 : The NIA on Monday filed a chargesheet against nine accused for their involvement in a conspiracy to carry out terrorist act by planting explosives on the railway tracks near Ghorasahan station in Bihar's Motihari district in September 2016.

Umashankar Patel, Gajendra Sharma, Rakesh Kumar Yadav, Ranjay Sah, Mukesh Yadav, Motilal Paswan and Arun Ram -- all resident of East Champaran (Motihari), along with Brij Kishore Giri and Samsul Hoda -- both residents of Nepal -- have been charged in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) chargesheet.

The chargesheet had been filed under sections 150 of The Railways Act, Sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances Act and sections 16, 17, 18, 18B and 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, an NIA official said.

Of the chargesheeted accused, six are in judicial custody, Giri and Hoda were earlier arrested in a murder case in Nepal's Bara district, while Ram was murdered on December 25, 2016.

In the chargesheet, the NIA has mentioned that Hoda, Mohammed Shafi, a resident of Pakistan, and Giri were the main conspirators in the Ghorasahan case.

"Hoda entered into a criminal conspiracy with Shafi and others to carry out a series of terrorist acts in India, for which he visited Pakistan in July 2016 along with Shafi.

"The conspiracy hatched was to carry out IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) explosions on railway tracks and bridges to blow up passenger trains in order to cause loss to public life, disrupt essential lines of communication and thereby cause threat to the security and integrity of India," the chargesheet said.

In furtherance of the conspiracy, the chargesheet said, Hoda associated Giri and transferred to him large funds to recruit other associates and arrange logistics for the terrorist acts.

The funds were sent from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for Giri in various bank accounts in Nepal and India, the chargesheet said, adding that Giri, in turn, recruited other accused persons to carry out the terror activities.

"The accused procured explosives and other material for the fabrication of IEDs. They fabricated and planted a pressure cooker IED on the railway tracks near Ghorasahan Railway Station in the night of September 30, 2016 in order to cause loss to public life and property and to disrupt the essential lines of communication.

"They later fabricated and planted another IED on the railway track near Adapur and Nakardei railway stations in Bihar in the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 2016," the chargesheet added.

An NIA official said that further investigation against Hoda, Giri and Shafi was going on.

After the Home Ministry's January 25 and 26 orders, the NIA took over the Ghorasahan case to probe the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)'s role, which was first pointed to by Bihar Police.
New Delhi, July 24 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday condemned the terror attack in the Afghan capital on Monday that left at least 36 dead and said India stood with Afghans in their fight against terrorism.

"Strongly condemn the terrorist attack in Kabul. My heart goes out to the victim's families. We stand in solidarity with people and government of Afghanistan in their fight against terrorism," tweeted Modi.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi also condemned the attack.

Calling for concerted international efforts in confronting the global menace of terrorism, she said: "All the nations need to unitedly stand against the menace of terrorism as it is a global phenomenon threatening international security and stability."

Expressing her grave concern and grief, she extended condolences to the people of Afghanistan as also bereaved families and wished speedy recovery to the injured.

At least 36 persons were killed and 42 others wounded when a car packed with explosives struck a minibus carrying government employees in western Kabul on Monday, officials and witnesses said.
New Delhi, July 24 : As a Delhi government order asking officials not to communicate "views of the department without minister-in-charge's approval" appeared in social media on Monday, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that it was leaked from the Lt Governor's office.

Retweeting photos of the order, Sisodia said: "This copy (one circulated in social media) of the order has been leaked from LG's office. In the second page of the order, it has been marked to LG office."

The order dated June 24, signed by PWD Minister Satyendar Jain also asks officials to inform about all communications from central government to the Chief Minister.

"Rule (21) of TBR (Transaction of Business) reads as under: All communications, received from the central government(including those from Prime Minister...) shall as soon as possible after their receipt, be submitted by the Secretary to the minister-in-charge, the Chief Minister and Lieutenant Governor for information," the order reads.

"This rule is not being followed properly and it should be strictly adhered to," the order adds.

The order also states that the "views" of the department on any issue shall not be communicated without the approval of minister-in-charge, adding that any deviation (from the order) would be treated as insubordination and dealt with accordingly.
New Delhi, July 24 : In a flip-flop, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said here on Monday that the 39 Indians missing in the city of Mosul since 2014 are considered alive, after having said earlier in the day his government was not 100 per cent sure about this.

"We are trying to follow news gained through intelligence sources, and we consider that all the Indians are alive," al-Jafaari told the media here late Monday.

He also said that the Iraqi government had financial incentives for people who could help locate those 39 Indians.

He said that the IS was known for spreading fake news and that the Iraqi government checked such information from its own sources while expressing hope that the 39 Indians were alive.

Earlier in the day, following a meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, al-Jafaari said: "I am not 100 per cent sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul are alive. We are trying our best (to trace them)."

Most of the 39 Indian construction workers who went missing in 2014 are from Punjab.

Al-Jaafari's comments came after Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh visited Iraq after Iraqi forces aided by an international coalition liberated Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation on July 9.

Sushma Swaraj had earlier said that with the freeing of Mosul, the process to trace and rescue the missing Indians would be taken forward.

She said they had information that the Indians were in a jail in Badush, which lies in ruins now.

Singh was earlier sent to Erbil in Iraq to pursue the case of the missing Indians.

On July 12, Singh visited the Kurdish Peshmarga frontline in Mosul area to seek information about the Indians. He said some IS-held areas were still being cleared.

Sushma Swaraj has met the families of the 39 persons around a dozen times since they were abducted in June 2014 and assured them that the government was doing everything to locate them.

Iraqi forces liberated Mosul after 266 days of fierce battles, ending three years of IS rule.
New Delhi, July 24 : President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday condoled the death of renowned Indian space scientist U.R. Rao, the architect of early satellites including Aryabhatta, Bhaskar, Apple, Rohini and multi-purpose Insat series.

In a message to Rao's wife Yashoda, the President said: "I am sad to learn about the passing away of your husband, Prof. U.R. Rao. Please accept my heartfelt condolences and convey the same to the rest of your family members. I pray to the Almighty to give you and other members of the family strength and courage to bear this irreparable loss."

The President said that Rao would be long remembered for his services to the nation in various capacities including chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Secretary in the Department of Space and Chancellor of the Indian Institute of Science and Technology at Thiruvananthapuram.

"For his exemplary services to the nation, Prof. Rao was honored with numerous prestigious awards including Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. His demise is a great loss for our country and the scientific community," the President said.

Prime Minister Modi also expressed his sadness over the death of Rao.

"Saddened by demise of renowned scientist, Professor UR Rao. His remarkable contribution to India's space programme will never be forgotten," he said.

Rao, 85, passed away at his residence on early Monay after prolonged illness and due to age-related health issues. Rao's wife, who was also a scientist, son and daughter were at the bed side when he breathed his last.
Lucknow, July 24 : The first batch of 300 Haj pilgrims let for Saudi Arabia from the Chowdhary Charan Singh international airport here on Monday.

The pilgrims were flagged off from the Haj House by Minority Welfare Minister Chowdhary Laxmani Narayan Singh, who was accompanied by his deputy Mohsin Raza and other senior officials while family members and relatives of the pilgrims turned up in large numbers to wish their loved ones well.

While for the last several years, the Chief Minister had been flagging off the first batch of the Haj pilgrims, this time round, present incumbent Yogi Adityanath gave the event a miss.

Officials said Adityanath had flown off to New Delhi to meet BJP President Amit Shah and to attend the swearing-in of new President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday.

This year, in all 29,441 people will leave for the Haj pilgrimage from Uttar Pradesh. Of these, 12,414 will take the flight from Lucknow while the rest will fly for Saudi Arabia from Varanasi and New Delhi.
Tripoli, July 24 : Libyan Coast Guard said on Monday they had rescued 150 migrants off Sabratha, west of Tripoli, Libyan media reports said.

The migrants were taken to a base in Tripoli, news site Alwasat said, quoting Libyan Navy spokesman Ayoub Qassim.

A total of 11,122 migrants were picked up in Libyan waters this year till July 19 according to figures issued on Friday by the International Organisation for Migration.

The figure was slightly lower than the 11,233 people rescued off Libya over the same period of 2016.

Over 2,000 people have perished this year on the treacherous central Mediterranean route between Libya and Italy, considered the world's most dangerous route for sea migrants.
Istanbul, July 25 : Seventeen staff reporters and directors of the Turkish opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet were among 19 people who went on trial in Turkey on Monday charged with aiding "armed groups".

"We want justice," ran a Cumhuriyet frontpage headline on Monday announcing the trial,which opened in Istanbul amid chaotic scenes outside the courthouse.

Eleven of the Cumhuriyet suspects are in custody, including cartoonist Musa Kart, columnist Kadri Gursel and investigative journalist Ahmet Sik.

Also on trial are a US-based reporter and an administrator of the microblogging website Twitter.

Charges against the suspects include accusations Cumhuriyet's journalists aided the separatist Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) and the movement led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, which is widely believed in Turkey to have orchestrated last year's failed coup.

Supporters of the accused are adamant the trial is political and part of Turkey's ongoing attempt to muzzle freedom of expression and stifle dissent.

If found guilty this week, the defendants could face sentences of up to 43 years in jail. Ten have already been in pre-trial detention for almost nine months.

Around 170 Turkish media outlets have been shut down since Islamist-leaning president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party launched a crackdown following the mid-July 2016 botched coup which has led to the arrests of 55,000 people, described by Cumhuriyet as a "witch hunt".

The staunchly secularist Cumhuriyet is one of a small handful of remaining opposition newspapers in Turkey and the trial will be keenly watched by rights organisations at home and abroad, including the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Turkey is currently listed as the country with the biggest number of imprisoned journalists, ahead of China and Egypt. Journalism organisations say more than 150 journalists are behind bars, most of them accused of terror charges.

The Turkish government denies the figure.
Kolkata, July 25 : In a unique initiative, 15 inmates from the state-based Dumdum correctional home, on Monday showcased a wide array of jute products crafted by them after getting trained by professionals inside the prison.

The inmates, chosen from a group of 40 from the correctional home (as jails are called in West Bengal), after six months of skill development training by the state directorate of correctional services and a city-based social welfare organisation, produced bags, purses, pen holders, cushion covers and various other jute based products, in a bid to propagate the usage of the eco-friendly golden fibre.

"We are trying to make our inmates skilled by teaching them new skills and upgrading their existing skills. This is mainly for two reasons; when they are in the correctional home they can be gainfully employed and used and once they go out of the correctional homes, they can be employed by people and organisations," Arun Kumar Gupta, Director General of West Bengal Correctional Services, said at the official launch of the initiative 'Jute Story Beyond Bars' at a auditorium here.

He said that the state office of correctional services have started several skill development training like making jute products, fabricating garments, making school uniforms and so on to engage the inmates at various state correctional homes.

"This is an ongoing process and the 'Jute story' is a part of that process to provide the prisoners an innovative platform in the domain of artisanal manufacture and empower their lives," Gupta said.

Stating that skill development training inside the prisons received very enthusiastic response, the organisers of the event said the training workshops are aimed at invoking creativity and confidence among the inmates and helping them gain employable skills once they come outside.

"We started this project to promote jute as an eco-friendly product of Bengal at the international level. Also it is like a movement to harness the creativity of these people who are in a confinement for some wrongdoing in the past," said Chaitali Das, Managing Trustee of Rakshak Foundation, that worked in collaboration with the correctional home in honing the skills of the inmates.

"These people are convicts, while some are facing serious charges. But all of them have taken great interest in this creative activity. I think that everyone of us, at our most vulnerable moment, can make a mistake. But everyone deserves a second chance," she added.

The products made by the inmates are scheduled to feature in a three day exhibition in Sri Lanka during the SAARC meeting in September. The organisers are also planning to launch an online platform for the common people interested in buying the products.
Washington, July 25 : US President Donald Trump took to social media to ask why congressional committees and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are not investigating the links between the Russian government and "dishonest" Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump on Monday resorted once again to Twitter to lambaste Clinton and lash out at the investigations being pursued by several congressional committees to determine if his election campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the result of the election and hurt Clinton's chances at the polls, Efe news reported.

"So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes and Russia relations?" tweeted Trump.

The President's comment comes a few hours after his son-in-law Jared Kushner denied having "improper contacts" with Russian officials.

Kushner released a statement outlining the testimony he intends to provide on Monday behind closed doors before the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the congressional bodies pursuing the Russia investigation.

The president feels that the Russia investigation is an excuse by Democrats to justify their unexpected defeat in the November presidential election, when Republicans surprisingly won the White House, kept control of both houses of Congress and reaped numerous victories in local elections.

"After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that 'Democrats should blame ourselves, not Russia,'" Trump tweeted.

Democratic congressional leaders, including Schumer, on Monday are presenting a new economic plan to get back into the good graces of their voter base after the 2016 election defeat with the aim of regaining control of Congress in the 2018 midterm elections.
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We are thrilled that Qorus has achieved this recognition. They are an ideal example of how, by working together, we can achieve more than any of us could achieve individually.

The award recognized the value of an Office 365 bundle solution offered by Qorus and DocuSign. The bundle solution enables companies that use Office 365 to transform their document creation and approval processes, by creating and signing digital documents.

One of the first adopters of this bundle solution is SharePoint Revolution, another Microsoft partner. CEO, Larry Nordlinger explains the benefits: SharePoint Revolution uses Office 365 and Azure to efficiently create and manage all our content, including proposals, SoWs and contracts. Adding the Qorus and DocuSign bundle for Office 365 has made us even more productive and profitable.

The Qorus + DocuSign bundle for Office 365

DocuSign is the global leader in eSignature documents and Qorus, built on Office 365, is a leader in helping organizations efficiently locate, create and collaborate on business-critical documents.

When we met with DocuSign, it was a perfect union. Their focus on customer success and drive for continual innovation closely align with our values at Qorus. Ray Meiring, CEO Qorus. By partnering we have created a new bundled solution which streamlines an end to end document generation and execution process to deliver true enterprise value. Qorus and DocuSign document creation solution gives users a secure and reliable way to create and manage high-value digital documents that require signatures  all built on Office 365.

The Qorus application is well-designed and incredibly efficient. Time to market is extremely important and we were able to fully integrate, test and pilot our joint solution in record time delivering incredible value to our customers. Scott Owen, Senior Managing Director, Global Channels/Resellers, DocuSign

As a result of using this bundled solution, SharePoint Revolution is seeing nearly 150% faster turnaround time for document creation, agreement and signatures. Faster time to market means more deals closed sooner.

Partners like Qorus continue to drive innovation by taking advantage of our member eco-system, said award committee chairperson and former IAMCP President, Gail Mercer-MacKay. We are thrilled that Qorus has achieved this recognition. They are an ideal example of how, by working together, we can achieve more than any of us could achieve individually.

The competition was fierce as partners from around the world entered a wide variety of leading-edge projects that are helping customers compete and get ahead through implementation of exceptional joint partner solutions. Entries submitted include cloud computing, marketing innovation, collaboration and messaging, data analytics and business intelligence offerings. Regions represented include APAC, EMEA, US, LATAM and Canada. Through partnering, IAMCP members are shaping how businesses go to market around the world.

About Qorus

Qorus helps organizations create business-critical documents more efficiently and accurately. Our software is incredibly powerful but highly intuitive and very easy to use. Even the most non-technical users can quickly create accurate, personalized and compliant documents like proposals, contracts, RFPs, pitches and reports.

Qorus runs on Microsoft Azure and integrates with Microsoft Office to enhance document productivity.

Learn more about Qorus for Office 365 at http://www.qorusdocs.com/office-365-add-ins
We believe our customers will gain inspiration along with education when visiting the new website.

Econoprint, a full-service commercial print and communications company located in the Madison, Wisconsin area, is proud to announce the launch of their newly rebranded website.

We are excited about our new website launch and the information it will provide to our customers in understanding who we are, and the products and services we offer, said Dave Genin, Vice President of Sales at Econoprint. We believe our customers will gain inspiration along with education when visiting the new website.

The new site provides the best user-friendly experience, including improved navigation and functionality throughout. It has quickly become a place for visitors to browse for ideas and inspiration when looking for all things print, signage and design.

The modern redesign of the site was thoughtfully created with existing and prospective customers in mind. With the hard work and expertise of Powderkeg Web Design, the new Econoprint site is modern, informative, and fun!

The new site features:

-Modern and responsive design with more imagery

-Easy navigation and functionality

-An extensive portfolio of printed and/or designed work

The completely rebranded site allows visitors to take a deeper look into who Econoprint is as a company and brand, along with how they prioritize their customers. Econoprint serves the Madison and south central Wisconsin areas with locations in Verona and Lake Delton, providing print, signage, and design services.

For more information, visit Econoprint.com or call (608) 845-2800.
We selected WealthVest as our exclusive distributor of annuity products in banks and broker-dealers for their thought leadership in the annuity distribution space, said Jim Thomsen, President of Thrivent Holdings.

Thrivent Independent, a division of Thrivent Financial, and WealthVest are working together to help Christians be wise with money. Thrivent Independent has entrusted WealthVest with the distribution of its Multi-Year Guarantee Annuity: Growth You Can Count On, soon to be available in banks and broker-dealers for clients seeking safety and fixed income alternatives. The Thrivent Independent products offered through WealthVest will be underwritten by Thrivent Financial.

WealthVest is excited for the relationship with Thrivent Independent, a division of Thrivent Financial, said Lincoln Collins, President of WealthVest. We know that the products offered by Thrivent Independent are backed by an organization committed to helping people be wise with money.

Thrivent Financial was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Institute for the sixth consecutive year in 2017.** For more than a century, Thrivent has been helping Christians be wise with money and live generously. Thrivent has earned a rating of A++ (Superior), highest of 16 ratings, (May 2017) from A.M. Best, an independent insurance ratings agency.***

Thrivents mission is to help Christians be wise with money and live generously, and their commitment to making a difference in the lives of others puts them in a category all their own, said Wade Dokken, President of WealthVest. We are pleased to join them in this partnership.

We selected WealthVest as our exclusive distributor of annuity products in banks and broker-dealers for their thought leadership in the annuity distribution space, said Jim Thomsen, President of Thrivent Holdings. Were confident that their proprietary tools and resources will help thoroughly educate financial professionals on Thrivents Multi-Year Guarantee Annuity so that they can join us in leading people to make wise money decisions.

Associates from Thrivent Independent and WealthVest kicked off their partnership by collecting two tons of food during a four-day drive serving Gallatin Valley Food Bank, and then joined forces to greet guests, prepare and serve meals, and clean up at One Night Out at the Community Cafe. Meals were provided for 142 families and individuals.

*Guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of Thrivent Financial.

**Thrivent Financial was named one of the Worlds Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Institute for our leadership in promoting ethical business standards and introducing innovative ideas to benefit the public. "World's Most Ethical Companies" and "Ethisphere" names and marks are registered trademarks of Ethisphere LLC. For details, visit Ethisphere.com.

***Ratings reflect Thrivent Financial's overall financial strength and claims-paying ability but do not apply to the performance of investment products.

Insurance products underwritten and issued by Thrivent Financial, the marketing name of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, Appleton, WI. Independent financial representatives are licensed insurance agents/producers appointed by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. For additional important information, visit Thrivent.com/disclosures.

About WealthVest

WealthVest is a national field-based wholesaling team specializing in fixed and fixed index annuities in broker-dealers and banks. Backing WealthVests traditional field wholesaling model is a full internal support model, dedicated key accounts team, and an internal operations team. WealthVest is dedicated to giving broker-dealers and their advisors the training, research, marketing and tools to help their clients with retirement planning. WealthVest.com

About Thrivent Independent

Thrivent Independent is a division of Thrivent Financial, a not-for-profit membership organization that helps Christians be wise with money and live generously. Thrivent Financial is the largest fraternal benefit society in the U.S. and is one of the largest life insurers owned by its membership. Thrivent Independent allows independent financial representatives and financial organizations to share Thrivents unique mission with clients they serve. Christians who are served by independent agents now have the opportunity to become members of a unique organization with access to Thrivents product solutions and membership benefits. ThriventIndependent.com.

About Thrivent Financial

Thrivent Financial is a not-for-profit membership organization that helps Christians be wise with money and live generously. It offers its more than 2 million member-owners a broad range of products, services and guidance nationwide. For more than a century it has helped members make wise money choices that reflect their values while providing them opportunities to demonstrate their generosity where they live, work and worship.
Commodity Technology Advisory (ComTech), the leading analyst firm covering the energy and commodity trading and risk management (E/CTRM and Commodity Management) technologies markets, announces that it will be hosting the 4th annual CTRM Conference in Amsterdam on October 5th, 2015 in partnership with veteran Conference organizer, Synergy, and its E-Mart Energy and Utility Week events.

The CTRM Conference, a unique 1-day event focused on the $1.6billion E/CTRM and CM software category, brings together end users, service practitioners, and technology providers to explore and examine the critical issues and trends impacting both technology users and providers. With the theme Commodities at a Crossroads, this years event will focus in particular on the many disruptive technologies currently impacting the sector.

Major changes are being experienced across the commodities trading business and a range of new technologies might help address aspects many of these business challenges. From Blockchain to Artificial Intelligence and trade automation, and from visualization to big data, the changes and challenges experienced by the commodities industry are demanding new approaches and innovation, said Dr. Gary M. Vasey of ComTech. Topics covered will include CTRM in the Cloud, the promise of Blockchain, data visualization, automation and intra-day trading. The full agenda can be viewed online at the CTRM Conference website.

Our collaboration with ComTech and the CTRM conference enables us to provide a strong platform for business and knowledge exchange on the CTRM/ETRM market segment. As technological developments gather pace we recognize a growing importance for knowledge exchange and discussions surrounding CTRM/ETRM, not only the energy branch but indeed across commodity groups. We look forward to welcoming you to Amsterdam in October for this years CTRM conference, said Thomas Crabtree of Synergy.

Further details, including registration and sponsorship information, can be found at http://www.ctrmconference.com.

About Commodity Technology Advisory

Commodity Technology Advisory (ComTech Advisory) is the leading analyst organization covering the Energy and Commodity Trading and Risk Management (E/CTRM) technology markets. Led by Patrick Reames and Dr. Gary M. Vasey, ComTech Advisory provides invaluable insights, backed by primary research and decades of experience, into the issues and trends affecting both the users and providers of the applications and services that are crucial for success in markets constantly roiled by globalization, regulation and innovation. For more information, visit http://www.comtechadvisory.com

About Synergy

Synergy is part of Clarion Events and the market leader in developing and organising high quality international conferences and exhibitions for, and in co-operation with, the electricity, gas and water sectors. The management team has over four decades of experience in delivering high value events in the European and Australasian markets. The multi-lingual, expert team works closely with regional advisory boards made up of leading utility experts to deliver cutting-edge content in the areas of Grid Optimisation, Renewables, Energy Storage, Smart Metering, Smart Cities, Smart Homes, Energy Services & Efficiency, Energy Trading, Intelligent Buildings, Data Management, Analytics and IoT, Cyber Security, Smart Gas and Smart Water.
As AI and machine intelligence expand into new industries there appears to be a commonality in their evolution: more and more founders are female.

As an all female team, REWORK understand the importance of empowering women in technology and are excited to be hosting the first Canadian edition of the Women in Machine Intelligence Dinner series. The evening will bring together industry experts and researchers to discuss the latest advancements in their fields.

"It was a great get together, very inspiring and interesting to find out about the chances, but also challenges which come with machine intelligence for our society. The event gave me a great opportunity to connect with women in this field to learn from each other. Keep pushing boundaries!

Vivien Richter, CEO of Seatris. (WIMI Dinner in London)

As the deep learning revolution continues, the ability for its technology to disrupt and improve industries across the board is evident and we are seeing transformations from healthcare to fashion, and transport to finance, as well as many more.

Adriana Romero, Post-Doctoral Researcher at Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms will be presenting at the dinner and will discuss the challenges faced in deep learning models for personalized medicine. The medical industry is characterized by high variability of data including text, imaging and genomic data, and the recent advancements in imaging and genomics are helping to overcome the segmentation problem which Adriana will explore in detail.

Adriana is currently researching under the advice of Yoshua Bengio, one of the most highly regarded leaders in AI, who is appearing on the Panel of Pioneers at the Deep Learning Summit in Canada that week on October 10 & 11.

Maluuba, a Microsoft company, who are kindly sponsoring the dinner, are working to solve Artificial General Intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans. Research Manager Layla El Asri, who is confirmed to speak at the dinner, is currently working with artificial intelligence in the context of language understanding, dialogue and human-machine interaction. Layla will talk about her experience in leading a team seeking to build artificial intelligence systems that are knowledgeable and can exchange information with users to help users accomplish tasks or gain knowledge.

As well as hearing from these inspirational women, attendees will enjoy a champagne reception, three course meal, and the opportunity to network with speakers as well as other attendees. The evening will be a great opportunity for attendees to show their support for women in artificial intelligence and machine learning and help to inspire more women in tech, as well as learning about the latest advances and cutting edge research in AI.

Regular attending companies include: Microsoft, Vodafone, Bupa, DeepMind, Babylon Health, Playfair Capital and RBC.

Early Bird discounted tickets for the dinner are available until August 18, as well as Early Bird passes for the Deep Learning Summit in Montreal, October 10 & 11. Register now for discounted tickets here:

https://re-work.co/events/deep-learning-summit-montreal-canada-track1-2017#registration_anchor

Any questions? Get in touch!

Media enquiries:

Yazmin, yhow(at)re-work(dot)co

Ticket queries & event info:

Katie, kpollitt(at)re-work(dot)co
Joao Pessoa, Brazil Datacenter First of its kind in Northern Brazil, this facility is strategically located in a converging region of optical fibers with low latency for national and international destinations.

HostDime.com, Inc., a privately held global data center company with unique global data center locations, held a grand opening for its newest data center facility in Joao Pessoa, Brazil on Friday July 14, 2017. The 20,000 square foot data center facility will serve as the flagship facility in Brazil for the company. This is one of the very few data center facilities in Northern Brazil.

The four-story data center building is a brand-new built-to-suit facility designed and constructed by HostDime. The facility was designed in accordance with Uptime Institute's Tier III standards and is currently being certified by the Uptime Institute. This would be only the second facility in Northern Brazil to receive this certification. This is the second facility HostDime has built in Brazil and the first building fully owned by HostDime. HostDimes continued growth in Brazil and the demand for data center infrastructure services in Brazil drove the need to have this facility built. HostDime also operates data center infrastructure in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

"First of its kind in Northern Brazil, this facility is strategically located in a converging region of optical fibers with low latency for national and international destinations. This facility is one of a kind with all the amenities, redundancy, and network availability in Northern Brazil. It was designed to host mission-critical environments for nationals in Brazil and international companies who require their applications to be hosted for better latency in Brazil. Forty percent of the capacity of this new data center has already been allocated and the forecast is to reach maximum occupancy in mid-2018." - Filipe Mendes, CEO of HostDime Brazil

The highly-secure data center facility is manned around-the-clock by armed security guards in a guard house located on the exterior of the building. It is also monitored by 72 high-definition cameras inside and outside the facility. The facility was constructed with security being one of the most important aspects of the design. There is a 3 point check-in system before admittance into the data center floor. Once at the floor, you must pass facial and biometric recognition to receive access. The building perimeter is entirely closed off to public access and is protected by tall concrete walls and an electrocution fenced intruder system above the walls. The front of the facility is fully gated with a car trap system.

HostDime constructed this facility with two 500 KW generators in production and two more generators with 500 KW capacity on standby. With this power infrastructure and highly scalable components, HostDime clients will have the flexibility to deploy high-density racks of up to 10KW per rack on demand. This amount of power density per rack is uncommon in Brazil. This power configuration will be able to service colocation clients who seek high density cloud infrastructure physically located in Brazil. The power will be delivered via a system composed of parallel redundant UPS units and generator units via two independent paths of power distribution from the main power sources to the end rack. Two paths of distribution and multiple N+1 UPS and generator units allow for any fault in the system and/or path to occur without affecting critical loads, thereby achieving high resiliency of 100% uptime for 24/7 mission-critical operations. This type of architecture enables HostDime to perform routine maintenance on its infrastructure while maintaining redundancy and providing conditioned power delivery without impacting any critical systems and loads. The entire facility will be equipped to provide power feeds to all racks via A/B power sources by default. A fire suppression system is equipped with environmentally friendly HFC-125 clean agent gas in the unlikely event of disaster.

HostDimes total investment in this new facility was $15M USD. The facility can support up to 250 racks and also has private cage space for those companies who seek private spaces. The network currently has a capacity of 50G via a diverse network of providers such as Embratel, Tely, Telefonica, and Level3. The network is also connected to the local PTT Brazilian peering exchange for Northern Brazil.

Local executives are in talks with local government officials to make this facility the official cloud data center facility for the state of Paraiba to house its online applications. This facility will be able to fully service any companies local data center infrastructure needs. In the near future it has been speculated that local Brazilian government may require any foreign entities doing business in Brazil such as Facebook, Google, and other global corporations to house their data in Brazil. This facility is poised to be able to service that demand if required by the Brazilian government.

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HostDime.com, Inc., a Global Data Center Company offers an array of cloud products which include managed services for dedicated servers, VPS (Virtual Private Servers) and colocation. HostDime.com owns and operates data centers in Orlando, Florida as well as India, Mexico and Brazil, with facilities in Colombia, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom.

HostDime.com, Inc. was founded in 2003 and has over 250 employees in seven countries. Presently ranked among the top 50 hosts in the world, HostDime.com, Inc. hosts over 5,000,000 domains/applications, and has a focus on reliable, high-quality managed cloud hosting products with exceptional support.
K+H Connection is pleased to present Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency 2018. The conference, which is in its second year, will take place April 9-11, 2018 at the Hyatt Centric Magnificent Mile in Chicago, IL.

We were thrilled with the feedback we received from Flourish 2017, and are so proud to bring Flourish 2018 to Chicago. Chicago is nationally recognized as one of the top FinTech cities, and we are committed to elevating the role of branded currency and its impact on FinTech through this strategic location choice, says show co-producer Holly Glowaty. Registration for Flourish 2018 will open in August 9, 2017 at 8:00am CST. Special rates are available for retailers and startups.

Last year we brought together 165 industry experts to create robust content and networking opportunities. This year we hope to nearly double the number of attendees and create an even more exciting conference. As always, it is all about enabling meaningful connections that move our industry forward, says Kristen Thiry, co-producer of Flourish.

Do you have information you would like to share with the Branded Currency industry or would you like to nominate someone you would like to see present? Flourish will be soliciting speaking requests starting August 9, 2017. Please see the agenda section on the website to fill out the form, or contact Kristen Thiry directly at kristen(at)khconnection(dot)com.

About K+H Connection

K+H Connection is a women run consulting firm focused on merchant payment technology with special expertise in stored value and prepaid products and services. In addition to Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency Conference, K+H produces several other FinTech focused events, including Women in FinTech initiatives. Please visit http://www.khconnection.com for more information.

About Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency

Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency is a conference in its second year serving the Branded Currency Industry. For more information on registration, accommodations and agenda topics please visit http://www.flourishcon.com. For inquiries regarding sponsorship opportunities, please contact Holly Glowaty directly at holly(at)khconnection(dot)com.
SAIL Capital wins "Niche Investment Firm (Energy) 2017" We've created a new advisory business SAIL Global Advisors LLC to assist large global investors in adapting to this new trend with the greatest expertise and experience.

The ACQ5 Awards released their results for this year, and SAIL Capital was voted "US Niche Investment Firm of the Year (Energy)." Just last week, SAIL was awarded the same award for the Cleantech Category. The ACQ5 Global Awards, launched in 2005 and now in its 12th year, were the first of their kind in the global legal / financial publishing industry.

"We are honored to accept the Awards for both categories: Energy and Cleantech. Our vision is always to see the full spectrum of energy." says SAIL CEO Walter Schindler.

At the same time, the news headlines of the last week show the growing interest in investments in companies that have a sustainable agenda. Founded in 2000, SAIL Capital is internationally recognized as a global pioneer of sustainable investment. Schindler adds: We are experiencing the steepest rise in demand for sustainable investment assets in history. That is why we've created a new advisory business SAIL Global Advisors LLC to assist large global investors in adapting to this new trend with the greatest expertise and experience."

ACQ5 Global Awards decisions are firmly based on peer nominations following the receipt of detailed submissions from market participants and extensive year-round research into the markets in all global regions. The total number of nominations received stood at an amazing 83,121.

"Relying on reader insight and experience to provide nominations to the panel remains the cornerstone of our program and to identify industry leaders, individuals, teams and organizations that represent the benchmark of achievement and best practice in the business world according to Jake Robson, Group Editor of The ACQ5
Emerging and middle market clients are our most successful partnerships. We're excited to have Chris Wood lead the charge of identifying and developing our next wave of these partnerships.

With the recent hiring of Chris Wood, brand consulting & marketing agency Trajectory LLC intends to steepen its own trajectory across its three related segments of health & wellness business  consumer products (most notably skin care/anti-aging), healthcare providers and related services, pharmaceutical and device.

According to Trajectory President Eric Brody, "Mr. Wood will lead the charge to capture more growth among the firm's emerging and middle market client base. Over time, these have proven to be our most successful partnerships, with clients who desire true strategic partners and problem solvers, need true extensions of their internal teams, want to work with senior marketing professionals, and require thought partners to help propel their brands and businesses successfully to the next stage of growth."

Speaking of Mr. Wood, Brody says, "Chris has achieved great success leading high-level agency teams in strategic planning, marketing and commercialization of some of the largest brands in the pharmaceutical industry. With his drive and passion for the health and wellness space, deep understanding of numerous therapeutic categories, and tremendous entrepreneurial spirit, were thrilled to have Chris as a member of our leadership team."

The 21-year industry veteran has managed a number of billion dollar brands, including Duragesic, Novo Nordisk Diabetes, Viekira Pak, Vioxx, and Zoloft. Wood also successfully built and ran his own agency for 5 years. He began his pharma career as a sales representative with Burroughs Wellcome (now GSK).

About Trajectory

Founded in 1999, Trajectory is an independent, specialist brand consulting and marketing agency that understands the key business issues confronting its clients  as its sole focus is helping brands connect with, and deliver value for, health-seeking audiences. Clients span the three related categories of consumer products and services, healthcare systems and providers, and pharmaceutical and device. While steeped in category expertise, the firm combines this with new ways of looking at challenges to help clients see new possibilities to grow stronger customers, brand and business.
On October 19-20th, Senior Executives from IHG, Hilton, Wyndham, Priceline Group, Google, Booking.com, Skyscanner, & Expedia will come together at EyeforTravels North America 2017 Summit.

The 2017 meeting will attract over 400 senior travel executives from across North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific  to discuss critical issues and challenges facing travel, as well as strategizing to safeguard against future disruptions in the sector.

The top issues being discussed at the summit will include:



Prepare for the Next Wave of Disruption: What Will the Industry and Your Business Look Like in 10 Years Time? [IHG]

The State of Travel with the Priceline Group [Priceline]

Building Brand Loyalty in an Era of Abundant Choice [Wyndham]

Navigating the Complex Distribution Landscape: The Changing Face of Third Party Distribution and its Ramifications [Skyscanner]

Poised for Digital Transformation: How will AI Revolutionize Travel? [Expedia]

Creating a Complete Customer Experience Through Smart Partnerships [Brand New Matter, Blacklane, Mckenzie & Co.]

Navigating the Complex Distribution Landscape: The Changing Face of Third Party Distribution and Its Ramifications [Skyscanner, Cleartrip.com]

Speakers confirmed for the Las Vegas summit include:

Paul English, CEO, Lola

Ben Bates, Commercial Excellence Manager, Booking.com

Todd Henrich, SVP Corporate Development, Priceline.com

Michael Childers, Chief Consultant, Content & Media Strategy, Lufthansa Systems America

Michelle Woodley, Executive Vice President, Preferred Hotel & Resorts

Michael Almeraris, Global Mobile Virtual Reality Partnerships & Strategy, Google

Noah Brodsky, Senior VP Worldwide Loyalty & Engagement, Wyndham Hotels

Shane Corstaphine, GM - Americas, Skyscanner

Sean Brevick, VP - Marketing and Digital Services, Americas, Marriott

Jay Fluegel, Head of Product - Customer Care, Expedia

Jeff Borman, VP Revenue Management - Franchise, Hilton

Michael Menis, SVP - Digital & Voice Channels, IHG

For a full list of agenda items being discussed and the full speaker line-up, please visit http://www.eyefortravel.com/north-america
Varghese Summersett PLLC is pleased to announce that Tanya S. Dohoney, a Criminal Law and Appeals Specialist with 30 years experience, has joined the firm as Of Counsel.

Dohoney will be assisting with legal issues as they arise pretrial and mid-trial, as well as handling criminal appeals for Varghese Summersett, a role for which she is uniquely qualified. A seasoned appellate attorney, Dohoney is double certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in Criminal Law and Criminal Appeals  a feat accomplished by very few other Texas attorneys.

Throughout my legal career, I have admired Tanya for her encyclopedic knowledge of criminal case law and her exemplary writing skills, said Managing Partner Benson Varghese. Yet what I have admired the most  and what anyone who knows her will agree with  is she genuinely cares about the people she works with and the issues she tackles in her appellate briefs. I am excited to have Tanya join our team and put her skills to work for individuals who are going through the most tumultuous times in their lives.

Prior to joining Varghese Summersett, Dohoney spent 26 years as a senior appellate attorney for the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorneys Office. Before that, she worked as Chief Appellate Attorney at the McLennan County Criminal District Attorneys Office. Early in her career, she also clerked for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Dohoney has handled countless appeals arising from criminal litigation over the past three decades, including some of Tarrant Countys most high-profile cases.

Dohoney graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in history and received her law degree from SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas. She is also heavily involved in philanthropy.

Based in downtown Fort Worth, Varghese Summersett PLLC is made up of ten attorneys who focus exclusively on criminal defense matters at the state and federal levels. Collectively, the attorneys at Varghese Summersett PLLC bring together more than 100 years of criminal law experience, have tried more than 550 jury trials, and include four Board Certified Criminal Law Specialists.

http://www.versustexas.com
Mary-Joy Howes, Esq.

The law firm of Goodman, Shapiro & Lombardi, LLC (GSL) announced that Mary-Joy Howes, Esq. has been named a partner of the firm. Her primary focus will continue to be on general condominium representation, including lien enforcement and requests for reasonable accommodations. She will remain headquartered at the firms Lincoln, RI office, where she manages an expansive condominium lien enforcement department.



Ellen A. Shapiro, Esq., a principal at GSL, announced that two senior-level attorneys also will be joining the firm. Craig Rourke, Esq. brings extensive experience in construction defect litigation and insurance defense coverage. The second attorney was not named due to current commitments but Shapiro added, the firm is welcoming an attorney, who brings extensive legal expertise in condominium litigation. Both replace Frederick C. Casavant and Pamela Jonah.

Additionally, she said, We are excited that the Honorable Cheryl Jacques, who served in the Massachusetts legislature prior to being appointed Judge of the Industrial Accident Board, will be Of Counsel to GSL.

Howes was admitted to practice in Rhode Island in 2005 and later in the U.S. District Court, District of Rhode Island. She earned her J.D. from Roger Williams University after completing her bachelors degree in English from Providence College, magna cum laude. Howes has been an associate at GSL for nearly eight years. She is active with the New England Chapter of the Community Association Institute (CAI) and is a member of CAIs Emerging Leaders Network, and CAI Rhode Islands Legislative Action Committee.

Howes is a frequent speaker at CAI events and a contributor to Condo Media magazine, for which she writes a monthly column that addresses issues in the Rhode Island condominium community, along with Frank A. Lombardi, a principal and manager of GSLs RI office. Both attorneys secured a significant victory for condominium associations at the Rhode Island Supreme Court in the case of Twenty Eleven, LLC v. Botelho, in which the Court confirmed that a condominium association has a priority lien capable of extinguishing a first mortgage.
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate announces that Amy Hopkins has joined the team of real estate professionals in their island office.

Amy, a REALTOR since 2005, believes in building relationships with her clients one step at a time, and one transaction at a time. She is passionate about the real estate business and particularly enjoys being involved in the industry because of her previous experience in building and designing homes. Her main goal is to make each transaction an enjoyable success, and always places the needs of her clients first.

Amy Hopkins is a REALTOR who loves where she lives; youll often find her boating, fishing, paddle boarding, running, biking and dining out in the Golden Isles.

Pat Cooper, President and Broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate, says, Amy has the local knowledge, ambition, and dedication to get results for her clients. She loves the real estate business and it shows in every transaction. Im thrilled to have her as a member of our team.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate, which is independently owned and operated, became a member of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brokerage network, operated by HSF Affiliates LLC, earlier this year. Since that time, it has earned a host of honors and welcomed several new professionals to the highly successful real estate team.

About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate

Hodnett Cooper Real Estate is a family-owned and operated company with three offices throughout the Golden Isles offering a full range of real estate services including real estate sales, residential rentals, property management and commercial sales. The brokerage is the premier real estate company in southeast coastal Georgia with a professional and diverse team of agents. Visit http://www.BHHSHodnettCooper.com.

About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, based in Irvine, CA, is a brand-new real estate brokerage network built for a new era in residential real estate. The network, among the few organizations entrusted to use the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway name, brings to the real estate market a definitive mark of trust, integrity, stability and longevity.

About HSF Affiliates LLC

Irvine, CA-based HSF Affiliates LLC operates Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Prudential Real Estate and Real Living Real Estate franchise networks. The company is a joint venture of which HomeServices of America, Inc., the nations second-largest, full-service residential brokerage firm, is a majority owner. HomeServices of America is an affiliate of world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
TenantBase, the online platform built for small businesses and start-ups to find and lease commercial space, recently announced expanding to a new Dallas office space and adding several new team members.

TenantBase has set up their new office in Uptown at 3131 Turtle Creek after working at SPACES, a co-working space in Uptown Dallas. We had a phenomenal experience at SPACES getting started in Dallas. We work with a lot of businesses needing flexibility, and co-working options are a great way to address that and be part of an entrepreneurial community, says Mike Zei, Co-Founder.

After launching the Dallas office in the first quarter of this year with Shawn Hall, formerly with Bright Realty, TenantBase is off to a fast startcompleting over 20 lease transactions in their first four months of operation. To keep up with the inbound tenant demand for the TenantBase service, the company has hired four additional commercial real estate Advisors in Dallas, bringing the local market to a total of six. The newest additions include Dallas native and local broker, Collin Cole, and Dallas commercial real estate industry veterans, Randy Shipman and Kathy Boop, who bring significant experience and local expertise to the Dallas team.

As we continue to grow in Dallas, as well as our other operating markets of Southern California and Nashville, we have started to find a great fit with experienced commercial real estate brokers that have an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for working with our niche of tenants, says Zei.

TenantBase plans to continue to add to their local commercial real estate teams through the end of the year.
Yal-Ku Lagoon in Akumal, Mexico Now we can focus on enjoying our retirement with zero debt, while living on the Caribbean. Not bad!

There is simply no way we could have both retired this early in the States, says Florida-native Paul Kurtzweil, 45, who along with his wife Linda, 43, retired to Mexico in 2015. Moving to Akumal made it all possible, and we couldnt be happier. Now we can focus on enjoying our retirement with zero debt, while living on the Caribbean. Not bad!

Paul and Linda are not alone in bucking the trend revealed by the latest U.S. Jobs report. According to the report, more Americans are working past the traditional retirement age of 65 and the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects 36% of 65- to 69-year-olds will be active participants in the labor market by 2024. But some folks are taking a different approach to the retirement crisis. Editors at International Living say they have seen an increase in the number of people like Linda and Paul looking into early retirement overseas.

The idea of retiring overseas has definitely become more mainstream over the years, says IL Executive Editor, Jennifer Stevens. When International Living first started publishing in 1979, the idea was pretty far out of the box. But over the last five years or so weve seen more people coming to our conferences, visiting our website, and subscribing to our magazine for information about how to live better for less overseas.

Our correspondents are meeting many of these people in person too, in all of the countries we cover. There does seem to be a sizeable number of people who are doing anything but postponing retirement. In fact, they have found that thanks to lower costs and high-quality lifestyles in all sorts of overseas locales, they can enjoy a long and fulfilling retirement.

Paul retired from law enforcement after 25 years, and Linda worked in child welfare management, both high-stress jobs, says Paul. We are both planners, so the decision to end up in Mexico didnt happen by accident. We spent several years looking at all our options, including a total of over 30 trips to Mexico.

When I retired, Linda couldnt retire just yet, at least not if we stayed in the U.S. After we crunched the numbers, we realized that one or both of us would have to continue to work, foregoing retirement, to sustain our lifestyle. So, we decided to get serious about moving abroadfinding a place with a lower cost of living that would meet all our other requirements, Paul says. We made the decision to move to Mexico and knew that would be the key to living well and retiring while we were still young.

Connie Pombo and her husband, Mark, also refused to delay retirement. We were young retirees, aged 55, when my husband and I retired to Ecuador in 2010. In those early Gold Rush Days, we were actually considered too young to retire (if there is such a thing) as all of the friends we met in our new home were in their 60s and 70s. At that time, we didnt fit in very well until the word got out that Cuenca was the top retirement haven and a new generation of retirees joined usmany of whom were in their late 30s and 40s.

I will never regret our decision to retire early. It saved us emotionally and physically as we were on an economic death row with an oversized mortgage, two car payments, and ever-increasing medical premiums with outrageous deductibles that left us sleepless most nights.

For seven years, we havent had to worry about how were going to pay the mortgage; answer to our bosses outrageous demands for more hours and less pay; endure long, cold winters; or survive two-hour commutes in cars that were owned by the bank. Instead weve been enjoying the good life.

Weve lived on the same budget for the past seven years ($1,317 a month), as we own our condo. Mark and I are able to live a comfortable lifestyle at a fraction of what it would cost in the States. And in less than a month, were giving ourselves a raise when we are finally eligible for our Social Security checks. In the States, it wouldnt be a big dealwed just be scraping bybut in Ecuador our modest raise is equivalent to winning the lottery.

Janet Hitchens, a former nurse, and her husband John, a retired investor, first went to Santa Fe, Panama, to explore. We both retired early, says Janet. We were looking for adventure, for something a little different. We were intrigued by Panama because it had a stable democracy and was easy to get to from the States. So, we arrived here in November 2005, without a word of Spanish, and decided to travel around for six months.

Im never bored here, but Santa Fe is for active retirees, says Janet. Its for people who like hiking to discover new waterfalls and enjoying a potluck lunch with friends at the end of it, rather than going out to a fancy restaurant.

Everyone who comes here reinvents themselves. Now my passion is travel. And Panama is a great hub to travel from. Weve been to Peru recently, and with our pensionado [retirement] visa I was able to get round-trip tickets to the Caribbean island of Curacao for only $230.

When people retire overseas they suddenly find they have more money left over for travel, to indulge themselves. They are essentially trading up, says Stevens. And its not just in Latin America. Californian Tricia Pimental and her husband, Keith found they could trade up and retire early by moving to Portugal. Keith and I immediately saw our expenses fall to between one-third and one-quarter of what they were back in the U.S. The truth is, almost everything in Portugal is less expensive. 

International Livings Best Places to Retire 2017 can be found here: The World's Best Places to Retire in 2017.

Members of the media have full permission to republish the article linked above once credit is given to InternationalLiving.com.

Further information, as well as interviews with expert authors for radio, TV or print, is available on request. Photos are also available. To learn more please contact Internationalliving.com Associate Editor, Carol Barron, tel. (772) 678  0287, e-mail: CBarron(at)internationalliving.com; twitter: @inliving; facebook: International.Living

For 37 years, InternationalLiving.com has been the leading authority for anyone looking for global retirement or relocation opportunities. Through its monthly magazine and related e-letters, extensive website, podcasts, online bookstore, and events held around the world, InternationalLiving.com provides information and services to help its readers live better, travel farther, have more fun, save more money, and find better business opportunities when they expand their world beyond their own shores. InternationalLiving.com has more than 200 correspondents traveling the globe, investigating the best opportunities for travel, retirement, real estate, and investment.
Richard Danielpour I have admired the music of Richard Danielpour for many years. He is unquestionably one of the most revered composers living today, said Yamaha Artist Services Director Bonnie Barrett.

Richard Danielpour, one of the most sought-after composers of our time, has joined the distinguished family of Yamaha Artists. Mr. Danielpours remarkable oeuvre includes works for orchestra, chamber orchestra, wind and brass ensembles and band, as well as solo piano, ballet and opera. He was drawn to Yamaha by the quality of its pianos, its leading-edge music technology and its unmatched service and support team.

My first piano was a Yamaha and I am still in love with it, says Mr. Danielpour. In recent years, I have played a number of Yamaha concert grands, and I am so impressed with them, not only because of how they sound, but also because of how they feel. Above all other instruments, when I play a Yamaha, I am at home.

As one of the most visible and recorded composers of his generation, Mr. Danielpours list of commissions includes some of the most acclaimed artists of our day, including Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Frederica von Stade and Thomas Hampson, as well as the New York City and Pacific Northwest Ballets, among numerous others.

Mr. Danielpour has also had works commissioned by such renowned institutions as the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Maryinsky and Vienna Chamber Orchestras, Orchestre National de France, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. With Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Mr. Danielpour created Margaret Garner, his first opera, which premiered in 2005 and had a second production with New York City Opera.

In 2016, Mr. Danielpour had seven world premieres in the United States. Most notable among them was Talking to Aphrodite, a song cycle for voice and string orchestra, which he wrote in collaboration with Erica Jong and premiered at Carnegie Hall in December 2016. He is currently working on an 80-minute oratorio, The Passion of Yeshua, which will premiere in July 2018 at the Oregon Bach Festival.

Mr. Danielpour also recently completed an 11th Bagatelle for solo piano, written especially for Yamaha Artist Inna Faliks. Ms. Faliks will record the piece as part of Mr. Danielpours recording of his complete set of Bagatelles, later this year.

I have admired the music of Richard Danielpour for many years. He is unquestionably one of the most revered composers living today, says Yamaha Artist Services Director Bonnie Barrett. His music is simply beautiful and his body of work is impressive. Richards remarkable output will undoubtedly become a legacy that future musicians will cherish and embrace. I am proud that he has chosen Yamaha to be his partner and piano of choice.

Ms. Barrett and Mr. Danielpour envision an artistic collaboration that supports Mr. Danielpours composition and teaching work, while highlighting the leading-edge music technology and product development of Yamaha. In the fall of 2017, Mr. Danielpour will relocate from New York City to Los Angeles, where he will become a fully tenured Professor of Composition at UCLA. He will also continue to teach at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. To help balance these new, bi-coastal responsibilities, he looks forward to using Yamaha Remote Lesson advanced distance learning technology that enables highly nuanced performance datathe actual key strokes and subtle pedal movements made by a performing artistto be transmitted back and forth between similarly equipped instruments over the internet, with perfectly synchronized video streaming between the two locations.

A faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Danielpour has received the American Academy of Arts & Letters Charles Ives Fellowship, a Guggenheim Award, the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, and fellowships and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House and the American Academies in Berlin and Rome.

Mr. Danielpour is one of the most recorded composers of his generation; many of his recordings can be found on the Naxos and Sony Classical labels. In 1999, he became only the fourth composer, other than Stravinsky, Copland and Glass, to sign an exclusive recording contract with a major American recording label, CBS/Sony. A graduate of Juilliard, Danielpour studied directly with Vincent Persichetti and Leonard Bernstein.

Learn more about Richard Danielpour at http://www.richard-danielpour.com. For more information about Yamaha Artist Services New York, please visit http://www.yamaha.com/yasi

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About Yamaha Artist Services New York, Inc.

Established in 1987 in New York City, Yamaha Artist Services, Inc. (YASI) provides a wide range of professional services exclusively for performing artists, concert venues, performing arts organizations and educational institutions, representing an unparalleled commitment to the music industry and an invaluable resource for musicians, presenters and educators worldwide.

Since 2005, Yamaha Artist Services New York has been in the heart of midtown Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and 54th Street, in an historical landmarked 1925 building which originally served as Aeolian Hall, the headquarters of the Aeolian Piano Company. Designed by Warren & Wetmore, the architects of other notable buildings in New York City (Grand Central Terminal, the former Steinway Hall on 57th St.,) the building later became the headquarters for Elizabeth Arden. Occupying over 4,000 square feet, the Yamaha Artist Services Piano Salon features an elegant performance venue seating up to 90 and houses a large selection of concert-ready Premium Pianos of various sizes, including the acclaimed Yamaha CF series (CFX, CF6, CF4,), Bosendorfer, and Disklavier instruments, as well as the innovative AvantGrand hybrid and TransAcoustic pianos. Led by Yamahas Chief Concert Technician, Yamaha Artist Services also provides outstanding technical support for concert venues and artists throughout the United States.



The Piano Salon is a state-of-the art, acoustically and technically adaptable environment. It features a wide-screen projection system with custom NEXO stereo sound, remote control cameras and a Newtek Tricaster system for video capture and live broadcast, and a 128 channel Dante-equipped Nuage recording and mixing console for professional audio recording and post production. The Piano Salon also features Yamaha's Active Field Control system (AFC), which uses sound processing technology to optimize room acoustics to suit the desired size of a performance, and can recreate authentic acoustic simulations of other performing arts venues.

It is a versatile space hosting instrument selections for artists, concert venues and educational institutions; rehearsals, recitals, auditions, masterclasses, press receptions, lectures and film screenings. The Piano Salon has been at the forefront of showcasing Yamahas groundbreaking RemoteLive and Remote Lesson technologies, a groundbreaking and innovative way of delivering a live performance or pedagogical experience by linking two or more Disklavier pianos together, anywhere in the world, in perfect synchronization with video streaming.

Yamaha Artist Services New York works in close collaboration with other Yamaha Artist Service centers throughout the world, including those located in Japan, China, Russia and Europe, ensuring the seamless and unwavering support of Yamaha Artists internationally, wherever they are performing.
Skyline was our top choice for this project due to their quality, legibility, and robust, native integration with Fiscal Systems.

Skyline Products, a leading manufacturer of electronic fuel price signs announced today that it has been selected by MFA Oil Company to provide LED price signs to a new Petro-Card 24 cardlock fuel station located in Hamilton, Mo. The two LED price signs will provide seamless integration to Fiscal, the companys existing POS system, allowing fuel prices to be pushed directly to the price sign.

Skyline was our top choice for this project due to their quality, legibility, and robust, native integration with Fiscal Systems, said Kenny Steeves, MFA Oil vice president of bulk and propane plant operations. Many of our existing sites have manual price signs that lack visual appeal and require too much staff time to update. The ability to push prices through POS will be a significant time-saver over the long term.

In addition to Fiscal Systems, Skyline Products boasts integration protocols for Allied Electronics, Comdata, Excentus, Gilbarco Veeder-Root, Retalix, NCR Radiant, Verifone, and a variety of other POS systems.

Weve seen many cardlock locations replace manual price signs with Skylines electronic price signs, said Chip Stadjuhar, President and CEO of Skyline Products. The benefit is two-fold: it allows the retailer to change fuel prices faster and more accurately while also letting passenger vehicles know that they are invited to purchase from these locations. The increase in volumes and gross profit can be substantial.

This was the goal for Petro-Card 24. This newest station was built next to a major four-lane highway with the goal of attracting passenger vehicles and traditional fleet card accounts. MFA Oil plans to replace its older, manual price signs at many of the companys cardlock stations over the next several years.

About Skyline Products

Skyline Products helps convenience stores and fuel retailers differentiate themselves and increase automotive traffic through electronic LED and scroll price sign s that are Designed to be Bold, Engineered to Last. Since 1970, Skyline has invested heavily in research and development to create the industrys most legible and reliable price signs. Fully designed and manufactured in Colorado Springs, CO, our industry-exclusive technologies provide superior display feedback, unmatched brightness control, exceptional full-bodied digits, advanced energy efficiency, and military-grade durability. Additionally, Skyline provides customers with price-change confirmation and the most advanced sign diagnostics on the market. Learn more at SkylineProducts.com.

About MFA Oil

MFA Oil Company is a farmer-owned energy supply cooperative with more than 40,000 members. MFA Oil is the eighth largest propane retailer in the United States. The company supplies fuels, lubricants and propane to customers in Missouri, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming. Through a subsidiary, MFA Oil operates Break Time convenience stores in Missouri and Arkansas, Jiffy Lube franchises in central Missouri and Big O Tires franchises in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Visit http://www.mfaoil.com for more information.
The new battery stores electrons, which travel over a wire, to emit ionic, bio-compatible current. Credit: University of Maryland.

Engineers at the University of Maryland have invented an entirely new kind of battery. It is bio-compatible, because it produces the same kind of electrical energy that the body uses.

In ordinary batteries the electrical energy, or current, delivered is in the form of moving electrons. This flow of electrons out of the battery is generated by moving positive ions from one end to the other of the battery. This new device does the opposite. It moves electrons around in the device to deliver energy as a flow of ions out. This is how electricity is generated in the human body and all living things: through ion currents. It is the first time that an ionic current-generating battery has been invented.

My intention is for ionic systems to interface with human systems, said Liangbing Hu, the head of the group that developed that battery. Hu is a professor of materials science at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also a member of the University of Maryland Energy Research Center and a principal investigator of the Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage Energy Frontier Research Center, sponsored by the Department of Energy, which funded the study.

So I came up with the reverse design of a battery. In a typical battery, electrons flow through wires to interface electronics, and ions flow through the battery separator. In our reverse design, a traditional battery is electronically shorted (that means electrons are flowing through the metal wires). Then ions have to flow through the outside ionic cables. In this case, the ions in the ionic cable  here, grass fibers -- can interface with living systems.

Potential applications might include the development of the next generation of devices to micro-manipulate neuronal activities and interactions that can prevent and/or treat such medical problems as Alzheimers disease and depression, said Jianhua Zhang, PhD, a staff scientist at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Zhang performed biological experiments to test that the new battery transmitted current to living cells. The battery could be used to develop medical devices for the disabled, or for more efficient drug and gene delivery tools in both research and clinical settings, as a way to more precisely treat cancers and other medical diseases, he said. Looking far ahead on the scientific horizon, one hopes also that this invention may help to establish the possibility of direct machine and human communication.

The battery has another unusual feature  it uses grass to store its energy. To make the battery, the team soaked blades of Kentucky bluegrass in lithium salt solution. The channels that once moved nutrients up and down the grass blade were ideal conduits to hold the solution.

The battery looks like two glass tubes with a blade of grass inside each, connected by a thin metal wire at the top. The wire is where the electrons flow through to move from one end of the battery to the other as the stored energy slowly discharges. At the other end of each glass tube is a metal tip through which the ionic current flows.

They proved that the ionic current is flowing by touching the ends of the battery to either end of a lithium-soaked cotton string, with a dot of blue-dyed copper ions in the middle. Caught up in the ionic current, the copper moved along the string toward the negatively charged pole, just as the researchers predicted.

The team describes the example of calcium channels in the muscles and neural gaps in the brain  calcium ions move around in both. In fact, the body is a complex network of ion-current systems, sometimes using different ions to generate electrical fields in each organ system.

Because living cells work on an ionic current, scientists have previously tried to figure out how to patch an electronic current to an ionic current. The problem is that electronic current needs to reach a certain voltage to jump the gap between electronic systems and ionic systems. But living systems ionic currents flow at a very low voltage. So the electronic-induced current would be too high to, say, run a brain or a muscle. Ionic current, however, would flow as easily as a plug in a socket, and could be run at any voltage.

This is not the first time UMD scientists have tested natural materials in new uses. Hu and his team have been studying cellulose and plant materials for batteries, creating a battery and a supercapacitor out of wood and a battery from a leaf.

To determine a good ionic cable, the conductivity needs to be high, while the mechanical property has to be strong, said Chengwei Wang, first author of the paper and a graduate student in the Materials Science and Engineering department at the University of Maryland in College Park. We also tried cotton string soaked with salt solution, which also has good mechanical strength and ionic conductivity. However, the salt solution easily evaporates because the solution is on the outside of the string. The microchannels in the grass can hold the salt solution, making them a stable ionic conductor.

To test their battery in living cells, the researchers worked with Dr. Zhang of NIDDK. Zhang poked the ionic-current-emitting ends of the battery into a cell culture that generates fluorescent light when stimulated. After 30 minutes, all the cells in the culture had lit up, which means that the ionic current had successfully penetrated them.

The invention of the ion current battery is a big leap forward, and it could revolutionize many aspects of medical science, said Zhang.

The work is very creative and its main value is in delivering ionic flow to bio systems without posing other dangers to them,  said Dr. Ping Liu, an associate professor in in nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved with the study. Eventually, the impact of the work really resides in whether smaller and more biocompatible junction materials can be found that then interface with cells and organisms more directly and efficiently.

The team plans to diversify the types of ionic current electron batteries they can produce. We are developing multiple ionic conductors with cellulose, hydrogels and polymers, said Wang.

The research was funded by Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage, a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center, and by Intramural Research Program of the NIDDK (DK043304).

--end

Inverted battery design as ion generator for interfacing with biosystems

C Wang, et al. Nature Communications (2017) 10.1038/ncomms15609

Media Contacts:

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The luxury island resort in Indonesia even beat the Brando, Obama's recent vacation spot.

Nihi was created by internationally known retail brands  C. Wonder and Tory Burch  and investing in several others.

Burch, together with hotelier James McBride, bought a beach hostel on the Indonesian island of Sumba in 2012. The duo spent $30 million renovating the hostel, then reopened it as a five-star resort in 2015.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Burch splits his time between Miami, the Hamptons, and his resort in Indonesia. Nihi has 27 private villas, including Raja Mendaka, Burch's private home. That particular section has

Nihi is on the west coast of Sumba, a remote Indonesian island.

The name means "mortar stone," and the beach was originally named after a rock formation on the tide.

In 2012, Chris Burch and hotelier friend James McBride bought what was then a beach hostel owned by a couple from New Jersey.

Burch and McBride redeveloped the land and opened it as Nihiwatu in 2015, though they have since changed its name to Nihi.

It has become the largest local employer on the island. A portion of the hotel's profits are also given to the Sumba Foundation, an organization that funds projects to help the local community.

It has 27 private villas with plunge pools.

Raja Mendaka, Chris Burch's private home, is also available to guests. It has a main house and four additional villas.

Its plunge pool has views over Nihi Beach and across the Indian Ocean.

It also has a large indoor-outdoor entertaining area.

There are two, two-story tree houses on the resort. Connected by a bamboo bridge, both villas have a bedroom, a bathroom, and a balcony. The main treehouse also has a living area and private infinity pool.

Traditional Sumbanese antiques, local wood, and Ikat prints are featured throughout.

There is a beach spa available, but treatments can also be done in your own room.

The wellness center offers daily group yoga sessions. Instructors can also hold private classes that are tailored to an individual's needs.

The beach has always been considered a surfer's paradise.

The resort has a rule that no more than 10 surfers are allowed in the water at a time. Surf lessons are also available and cost $250 per person. The sessions are tailored to the amount of experience each person has.

You can book excursions to nearby waterfalls through the resort. One trip includes a 90-minute trek to a blue lagoon where guests can jump off the rocks and swim. The trip costs $175 per person.

Guests can also travel by Safari jeep or boat to neighboring bays with less advanced surfing spots.

There are riding stables with a team of guides to take guests out on sunrise and sunset horseback-riding trips along the beach, or up into the hills and past rice fields and the rain forest.

Prices for a one-bedroom villa start at $750 a night during the low season. Burch's five-bedroom private estate costs around $14,000 a night throughout the year.
Kushner released an 11-page statement ahead of his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Monday meeting will take place behind closed doors and will not be under oath.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in his statement. "I had no improper contacts."

As The Wall Street Journal notes, one of the newly detailed meetings was previously undisclosed. In Kushner's statement, he revealed that he met Russias ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, at an event in April 2016, but he said it was in a group setting rather than a private one.

Kushner later met with Kislyak and Michael Flynn at Trump Tower in December 2016, after Trump won the presidential election and before Flynn's short tenure as national security adviser.

The Washington Post reported in May that Kushner suggested setting up a secret back channel with Moscow during that meeting, but Kushner denied that he proposed "an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office."

He acknowledged, however, that he asked whether the Trump transition team could use the Russian embassy to speak with Russian officials privately about Syria.

Kislyak "said he especially wanted to address US policy in Syria, and that he wanted to convey information from what he called his 'generals,'" Kushner wrote. "He asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation. General Flynn or I explained that there were no such lines.

"I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority ... and I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn."

Kushner insisted that "the fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day."

Almost two weeks later, Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kushner noted in his statement that he arranged the meeting at Kislyak's request.

The FBI is reportedly examining whether Gorkov suggested to Kushner that Russian banks could finance Trump associates' business ventures if US sanctions were lifted or relaxed, according to Reuters, citing a US law-enforcement official.

But Kushner denied that in his statement, insisting that "there were no specific policies discussed" in his meeting with Gorkov, which he said lasted 20 to 25 minutes.

"We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration," Kushner wrote. "At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind."

Kushner said he "did not remember" until recently the meeting he attended on June 9, 2016, at Trump Tower with his brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr., his father's campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Russians interested in discussing "adoption" policy.

"I arrived at the meeting a little late," Kushner wrote. "When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on US adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting."

Putin barred Americans from adopting children in response to US sanctions imposed in 2012 on suspicion of human-rights violations. As such, the meeting's true purpose, at least on the Russians' side, was to discuss potentially easing or lifting the sanctions. The Russians, via a music publicist named Rob Goldstone, also dangled an incentive for Trump campaign officials to attend the meeting: dirt on Hillary Clinton.

That email chain was forwarded to Kushner. But he said he did know who would be at the meeting when he agreed to it because he did not read the entire chain beforehand.

"Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time," Kushner wrote. He said he emailed his assistant from the meeting after "10 or so minutes," asking: "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting."

Kushner said he disclosed the June 9 meeting on his security clearance form "prior to it being reported in the press ... even if that was not required as meeting the definitions of the form."

Kushner also addressed questions about his security clearance (SF-86) form, which he has had to update at least twice since January to disclose as many as 100 previously unreported meetings or conversations he had with foreign nationals.

"As my attorneys and I have previously explained, my SF-86 application was prematurely submitted due to a miscommunication and initially did not list any contacts (not just with Russians) with foreign government officials," Kushner wrote.

"It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians," he continued. "That is not the case. In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted. The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form."

Kushner said he had "made every effort to provide the FBI with whatever information is needed to investigate my background" and "my attorneys have explained that the security clearance process is one in which supplements are expected and invited."

National security experts, however, have said omitting foreign contacts on an SF-86 form is a very serious violation that for anyone else would result in a security clearance revocation and possibly a firing. Experts have also questioned Kushner's claim that his form was submitted prematurely, noting that the SF-86 instructs the applicant to review all answers for completeness and accuracy before signing.

According to instructions listed on the National Background Investigations Bureau's website, the form requires applicants to disclose whether they have had "close and/or continuing contact with a foreign national within the last seven years with who you, or your spouse, or cohabitant are bound by affection, influence, common interests, and/or obligation."

The form, which can be filed electronically, includes checkboxes for "Yes" or "No" and has a "Save" button below the question to preserve the answer. The form must also undergo a certification process, meaning verifying "that all your answers are true and complete to the best of your knowledge," giving the applicant one more opportunity to make corrections or additions to the form.
Every bathroom on the Ford is, for the first time, gender-neutral, equipped with flush toilets and stalls, according to Navy Times.

Bathroom-design experts have said sit-down toilets are less sanitary and take up more space, and most of the Ford's crew members are men. (Women are only about 18% of the Navy.)

But the Navy has said getting rid of urinals has advantages for current and future operations.

Making every bathroom accessible to all of the ship's sailors will make things more convenient for sailors, the Navy has said. And bathrooms that can be used by either gender mean the Navy can reassign them without making any design changes, should the crew's makeup change.
So when the news dropped earlier this month that Whitmire would resign as the voice of Kermit, after 27 years, Muppet fans were shocked.

Here is everything you need to know about this summer's most perplexing scandal:

A fan site broke the news that Kermit was out.

Whitmire publicly announced that he didn't resign. Disney fired him.

Whitmire published anemotional blog post(his first ever) on July 11, the day after the news of his recasting broke. Whitmire explained in his post that he had not quit The Muppets, but had been fired by Disney.

"For me the Muppets are not just a job, or a career, or even a passion. They are a calling, an urgent, undeniable, impossible to resist way of life. This is my lifes work since I was 19 years old. I feel that I am at the top of my game, and I want all of you who love the Muppets to know that I would never consider abandoning Kermit or any of the others because to do so would be to forsake the assignment entrusted to me by Jim Henson, my friend and mentor, but even more, my hero."

Whitmire continues to explain in his post that he waited nine months to discuss his firing publicly, in the hopes that Disney would change its mind.

The Muppet Studio revealed that Whitmire was fired for 'unacceptable business conduct.'

We raised concerns about Steves repeated unacceptable business conduct over a period of many years and he consistently failed to address the feedback. The decision to part ways was a difficult one which was made in consultation with the Henson family and has their full support."

Whitmire, who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, responded to accusations that he had conducted himself unacceptably, and said he felt Disney's primary motivation for firing him had more to do with character notes that he gave while ABC's "The Muppets" show was in production.

Whitmire's biggest character note for "The Muppets" was this: Kermit isn't a liar.

Disney pushed a plotline on "The Muppets" where Kermit lies to his cousin Robin about his breakup with Miss Piggy, and Whitmire wasn't a fan. This became a contentious issue between the puppeteer and Disney, according to Whitmire. Whitmire even went so far as to insinuate that Disney's dismissal of his character notes as one of the reasons why the show was cancelled after its first (and final) season last fall.

Here's what he said when speaking to The Hollywood Reporter:

"We have been doing these characters for a long, long time and we know them better than anybody. I thought I was aiding to keep it on track, and I think a big reason why the show was canceled (after one season last fall) was because that didn't happen. I am not saying my notes would have saved it, but I think had they listened more to all of the performers, it would have made a really big difference."

Brian Henson admitted that he should have fired Whitmire 13 years ago.

Jim Hensons son Brian Henson spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday in an attempt to elucidate why the decision was made to recast Kermit.

Henson said that he wished he had replaced Whitmire before selling The Muppets to Disney in 2004, and feels guilty for not doing so prior to the sale.

Cheryl Henson said that Kermit 'recasting is long over due' in Facebook post.

Jim Hensons daughter, Cheryl Henson (the sister of Brian), also weighed in on Whitmire's recasting in a Facebook post Tuesday.

She mirrored her brothers remarks regarding Whitmire:

Steves (sic) version of history is ridiculously self serving. My father never asked him to perform Kermit, my brother Brian did. Steves performance as Kermit has strayed far away from my fathers good hearted, compassionate leader of the Muppets. Steve performed Kermit as a bitter, angry, depressed victim. Worst of all, in the last few years he had not been not funny or fun. Recasting Kermit is long over due. Stop with the pity party! Lets get back to the true spirit of Jim Hensons Kermit!

"Dont judge her emotional posts too harshly. I hope all of you and Cheryl, too, can understand that being outspoken about these very character issues to the top creative executives on the ABC series is at the core of the number one issue stated to me for my termination by The Muppets Studios."
This was disclosed by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Agriculture, Kwame Asafu-Adjei.

Speaking at a National Stakeholder Conference on Agriculture Asafu-Adjei said their invite will be because they have received numerous complaints from farmers on the challenges they face when they try securing a loan from ADB.

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Unfortunately the only bank we have for farmers is the Agricultural Development Bank. But it is not serving the interest of farmers anymore and my committee will invite them to come and explain to us because this is a farmers bank where they have to look out for the interest of farmers and all stake holders.

He stressed that all stakeholders in the sector need to play their roles properly to help grow the industry.

Agriculture cannot continue to be a strong pillar of the economy if we do not put the necessary measures in place. I am confident that we will all benefit and the planting for food and jobs will be a success. I will do my part and all stakeholders should endeavour to do their part as well.

ADB bank was established purposely to cater for the needs of farmers. However, the bank has since diverted from its core mandate of providing financial support to farmers.
Out of the allocated number, 30 percent will be awarded to Persons With Disability (PWDs), women and those in youth employment.

This was revealed by the Minister of State in charge of Public Procurement, Sarah Adwoa Safo when she paid a working visit to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA).

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It is a policy the government under the leadership of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is committed to implementing. And very soon, my office [Ministry of Public Procurement] will come out with how it is going to be done, she said.

She added that her ministry will organise capacity workshops for the said groups so they are in a better condition to also bid for contracts.

The minister has been visiting public institutions that are more involved in procurement activities to familiarise herself with their activities.

She added that her ministry is doing all within its power to get the two existing laws (Public Procurement Act, (Act 663) and Public Procurement (Amended) Act (Act 914) harmonised for easy reading and referencing.
According to Graphic Online, there was controversy at the spot at East Legon in Accra last Thursday when a task force from the AMA stormed the place to demolish the structure.

The pub and grill was among some structures lying within the East Legon Green Belt zone and had been earmarked for demolition.

The task force had earlier demolished some unauthorized structures and walls in the area.

READ MORE: Ramsey Noah shocked as Ebony twerks in his face

It, however, had to spend several hours trying to demolish the facility following pleas from Madam Michy and some residents not to demolish her facility, Graphic reported.

Madam Michy initially claimed that the keys to the facility were with one of her workers and was waiting to pack out her belongings to enable the task force to pull down the structure.

Officials of the AMA, who heeded to her pleas, finally disconnected her facility from the electricity grid and seized her electricity meter. She was given a one-week ultimatum to pull down the structure.

This generated controversy as some officials among the team from the AMA questioned why other peoples structures had been demolished while others were let off the hook.
The actor made the revelation on Celebrity Car Ride with Zionfelix when asked about women and his encounter with fame.

He said that the groupies worry all working chaps and so like himself, he will always have women worrying him.

The moment you become a public figure, people will try so have to be careful. The women Ive been with will not exceed three. Im not that worldly, he disclosed.

Asked why he was not a womaniser, he said My uncle and brothers dont do that so why should I?

And your financial issues also go in a downward spiral if you womanise.

It hasnt helped my standard of living.

The actor said that he would not make womanising a priority and if a woman comes what she sees may not be what she expected.

The actor felt it would reduce his standard of living.

Asked if he has 'chased' any woman, the Kumawood actor said "Ive not chased a lady before except my wife. It happened through friendship, then everything went from there. I may have joked about chasing ladies when we were kids but thats it nothing more.
The creature has since been buried but the traditional authority has said it will perform special rituals to cleanse the land of any possible curse.

Chief of the community Nana Druye Adarkwa II has also sent messengers to search for the owner of the sheep.

He told Kumasi-based Nhyira FM that the creature cannot be taken for an ordinary sheep, as it had eyes, eyebrows, mouth, and nose which looked like a human being.
He, however, denied committing the offence, while the judge, Mr Albert Maga, granted him bail in the sum of N100,000, with a surety in like sum.

Suleiman, who resides at New Karshi, in Nasarawa State, is standing trial for alleged abduction.

The prosecutor, Agabi Auta, told the court that the defendant committed the offence on July 16, at 12.16 p.m. at Mararaba, Nasarawa State.

Auta alleged that one Patricia Jarguma, the defendants girl friend and who resides at Area 5 Aso Mararaba, on July 17, reported the matter at the A Division Police Station Mararaba.

The prosecutor told the court that the defendant, on July 16, allegedly abducted the girlfriends two children, Abdulsalam, nine, and Abdulrasheed, six, from his girlfriend mothers house at Mararaba.

When the defendant went to the house to see the children, he pretended he wanted to buy them biscuits, but instead abducted them to unknown destination, he told the court.

Auta said the offence contravened Section 273 of the Penal Code.
The actor made the revelation on Celebrity Car Ride with Zionfelix and said Agya Koo is a talented actor who has a lot of creative content and so as a fellow actor himself he works with whatever Agya Koo gives in order to create good content that brings to life his own character.

The actor said, so if he Agya Koo and I are on set and cannot create work it becomes a problem.

The Kumawood star said the reason why he refuses to beef with Agya Koo is that he holds a lot of respect for the elderly although he is very stubborn.

READ MORE: American actor Lance Gross is coming to Ghana

He clarified to Zionfelix that he and Agya Koo were still very good friends.

Asked about his alleged beef with Kwadwo Nkansah, he disclosed that they had a few disagreements but due to circumstances in the past he felt it's right to reconcile with his fellow actor.

Asked to disagree on set he said hes had arguments with them but if they reconcile it will end. "I m not going to claim all high and mighty that Ive not had disagreements with any of my cast mates that would be inhumane to say, he said.

When asked if he would ever want to step out of Agya Koos shadow and go solo, he said that Time doesnt stay as is, the veterans in the industry have come and gone so in time his time will come and so will it pass. Thats how it is.
The Judge, Justice Alfred Benin, said that the application had no basis.

Mr Woyome was seeking to stop the Attorney General from orally examining him in connection with attempts by the state to retrieve GHS51.2million from him.

The judge announced earlier this month that he would rule on Woyomes application on July 4 and therefore the oral examination that was billed for Thursday, June 29, did not come off.

The oral examination would border on whether Mr Woyome owed the state any debt and whether he had any property for satisfying the judgement of this court, dated July 29, 2014.

The oral examination would also be based on whether the businessman has any means of satisfying the judgement of this court, dated July 29, 2014 and the manner in which he used the money paid to him by the Republic of Ghana.

READ ALSO: AG to orally examine Woyome on June 29

But Mr Woyome filed a review of the decision of the court for the state to orally examine him.

At an earlier Supreme Courts hearing, Woyome's lawyer, Mr Ken Anku , prayed the court to temporary halt the oral examination pending the review.

He based his argument on Article 134(b) of the 1992 Constitution which allows a review of the decision of a single judge of the Supreme Court by three other justices of the court.

But the Deputy Attorney, Mr Godfred Dame, in a response argued that the application was a ploy by Woyome to delay execution of the court's order.

He said that Woyome had failed to indicate if he will suffer any hardship or damage if the oral examination proceeds.

Meanwhile, Alfred Woyome has described as erroneous the move by the Attorney General to drag him to the Supreme Court to orally examine him.
The galamsey pit collapsed on Sunday evening killing some of the miners who were trapped in it.

Four bodies have so far been retrieved from the pit, with fears that over 14 more are still in the pit.

Personnel from the Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Police Service, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and the military, were at the site on Monday to restore order.

READ ALSO: 22 galamseyers given mass burial at collapsed pit site
Mr. Woyome told the Supreme court at the oral examination on Monday that he had a payment plan with the AG of which he was adhering to and hence was surprised that the AG took the action to court.

Alfred Woyome was earlier seeking to stop the Attorney General from orally examining him in connection with attempts by the state to retrieve GHS51.2million from him.

But the Supreme Court dismissed the application, saying that it had no basis.

The oral examination is bordering on whether Mr Woyome owed the state any debt and whether he had any property for satisfying the judgement of this court, dated July 29, 2014.

The oral examination is also based on whether the businessman has any means of satisfying the judgement of this court, dated July 29, 2014 and the manner in which he used the money paid to him by the Republic of Ghana.

The oral examination is being led by a Deputy AG, Godfred Dame.
A letter communicating Mr Ntims appointment from the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, quoted the repealed 1994 Act instead of the Lands Commission Act, 2008, Act 767.

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The appointment letter stated: Pursuant to Section 5 (1) of the Lands Commission Act, 1994 (Act 483), the President of the Republic of Ghana in consultation with the Council of State hereby appoints you as the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Ghana Lands Commission.

I take this opportunity to congratulate you formally for your appointment. Kindly indicate your acceptance or others of this appointment. Thank you.

However, under the new land commission law, the Chairman and other members of the Commission are appointed under section 8 of the Lands Commission Act, 2008, Act 767 but the 1994 Act cites Section 5.

READ MORE:

Section 8 of the 2008 Act states

1. The Commission, shall in accordance with article 259 of the Constitution consists of

(a) the Chairman, who shall not be a Minister or a Deputy Minister;

(b) one representative of, and nominated by (i) the National House of Chiefs; (ii) the Ghana Bar Association; (iii) the Ghana Institution of Surveyors; (iv) each Regional Lands Commission; (v) the department responsible for town and country planning; (vi) the National Association of Farmers and Fishermen; (vii) the Environmental Protection Agency; and (viii) the Ministry responsible for Lands and Natural Resources; and

(c) the Executive Secretary of the Commission

2. The President shall in accordance with article 70 of the Constitution appoint the chairman and the other members of the Commission.
The former Minister in the Mahama-led administration confirmed the incident to Accra-based Starr FM.

He said that the search team was led by an Assistant Superintendent of Police who searched the whole house with his team. They took away the former Ministers laptop and pen drives.

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He said the CID team searched my Study, the childrens room in an operation which lasted for about three hours.

He added that the search warrant indicated that he was being investigated as a suspect for causing financial loss to the state over the Ameri deal.

However, the former minister said I have nothing to hide on Ameri, Im a citizen of this country Im prepared to meet them in court.

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Government officials in the Nana Addo-led administration have described the Ameri deal as a stinking one.

The economic management team also has the blessing of the President to look into the deal and review it.

Ghana under the Mahama-led administration signed a $510 million contract with Africa and Middle East Resources Investment (AMERI) Group to supply gas turbines to Ghana.

Ghana paid $290 million more than it should for the $220 million power generators.

An in-depth investigation into the deal by Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang (VG) in December 2015 alleged the NDC government paid more than the actual price for the turbines on the international market.

However, the former Minister of Power Dr Kwabena Donkor has defended the actions of his government saying there was nothing shady in the deal.
"I am not considering it [running for president] but people have come to me and I am thinking about it", Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur told Accra-based Joy FM at a ceremony to mark the 5th anniversary of the passing of President John Mills.

The party's immediate concern now is to repair its electoral machine in order to win power in 2020.

Many have so far considered contesting the flagbearership race - John Mahama; Former Trade minister Ekow Spio-Garbrah; Minority leader Haruna Iddrisu and former Vice-Chancellor of UPSA Prof.Joshua Alabi have all expressed interest in the race.

Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, however, said that: "As of now, I am not in the race but nobody knows what will happen in a year's time".
POLITICS SEPTEMBER 6, 2017Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson Refused to Answer Senate Questions on Trump DossierSen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wanted to know if Steele was paid by Simpsons firm Fusion GPS the dossier and FBI for the investigation of then-candidate Trump and his associates. Reports indicate the discredited dossier was used by former fired FBI Director James Comey to justify the anti-Trump probe, and allegedly offered him $50,000.Mr. Comey considered the dossier so important that he insisted it be included in Januarys final Intelligence Community Report on Russian meddling in the election. In fact, the debunked dossier was used as evidence when the FBI obtained a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) warrant to monitor Carter Page, a low-level adviser to the Trump campaign.Chairman Grassley hauled Mr. Simpson up to Capitol Hill after catching him in a lie about his availability. Mr. Levy, Mr. Simpsons lawyer, had claimed he was unavailable and traveling overseas when the subpoena was issued on July 21.However, Fox News found him at an Aspen security conference.Mr. Simpson told Congress the truth and cleared the record on many matters of interest to congressional investigators, Fusion representative Tracy Schmaler said in a previous statement. He also kept the identities of Fusion GPS clients confidentialFusion GPS honors that commitment without exception  just as law firms and businesses do all over the country.Bill Browder, the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital, publicly before the Senate Judiciary Committee in July that Fusion GPS was hired to conduct a smear campaign against Sergei Magnitsky and himself. Mr. Magnitsky, a Russian attorney and auditor, was tortured and murdered after he uncovered a money-laundering scheme in Russia.The Justice Department (DOJ) alleged Prevezon Holdings, a company run by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, benefited from the felonious scheme and targeted them in a civil asset forfeiture case. Mr. Katsyv retained Natalia Veselnitskaya, the very same woman and Russian attorney who sought a meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and then-presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort.In other words, Fusion GPS was working in support of Russian efforts to repeal the Magnitsky Act.Mr. Browder also testified that he suspects Fusion GPS gives incentives to journalists who push stories for their smear campaigns. Senate Democrats initially used a rarely used parliamentary rule in an effort to block his testimony the day before.[youtube]A5muhnA1LYI[/youtube]Greg Hunter - Weekly News Wrap-Up 10.27.17Well he really sums the FACTS up well. The dossier sHILLERY paid for was the basis to illegally spy on Trump, and the Democrats did the colluding with the Russians while selling off US Uranium, Obama knew about the illegal servers and the pay for play money, and from the start .How Team Hillary played the press for fools on Russiajumping ship is about to become the new nationanal sportThe infamous Trump/Russia dossier was funded in part by Hillary Clintons campaign lawyerLawyer Marc Elias paid Fusion GPS to research Trumps ties to Russia.Republicans are freaking out about a new report tying Hillary Clinton to a Russian uranium dealEmbattled House Intel chair launches probe into US-Russia uranium deal allegedly implicating ClintonsThe Obama Administrations Uranium One ScandalNot only the Clintons are implicated in a uranium deal with the Russians that compromised national-security interests. Lets put the Uranium One scandal in perspective: The cool half-million bucks the Putin regime funneled to Bill Clinton was five times the amount it spent on those Facebook ads  the ones the media-Democrat complex ludicrously suggests swung the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.The Facebook-ad buy, which started in June 2015  before Donald Trump entered the race  was more left-wing agitprop (ads pushing hysteria on racism, immigration, guns, etc.) than electioneering. The Clintons own long-time political strategist Mark Penn estimates that just $6,500 went to actual electioneering. (You read that right: 65 hundred dollars.) By contrast, the staggering $500,000 payday from a Kremlin-tied Russian bank for a single speech was part of a multi-million-dollar influence-peddling scheme to enrich the former president and his wife, thensecretary of state Hillary Clinton.At the time, Russia was plotting  successfully  to secure U.S. government approval for its acquisition of Uranium One, and with it, tens of billions of dollars in U.S. uranium reserves. Heres the kicker: The Uranium One scandal is not only, or even principally, a Clinton scandal. It is an Obama-administration scandal.
That is according to Adam Marshall, the influential director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, a lobby group which represents 92,000 UK businesses.

Writing in the Observer on Sunday, he warned against striking a quick, comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) with the US.

He said the UK should instead pursue "quick wins" which tackle some of the practical issues facing UK-US trade after Brexit.

US President Donald Trump spoke of a "big" and "powerful" deal between the two countries at the recent G20 Summit earlier in July, a topic Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly pushed him on.

Marshall wrote: "I am distinctly uneasy about this prospect [of an FTA], and so, too, are many I speak to in business across the UK."

"While a comprehensive UK-US free trade deal could be a long-term aspiration, its not at the front of the queue for businesses  for whom other, more immediate priorities take precedence. It is a stark fact that the US has many of the worlds toughest and most seasoned trade negotiators, whereas the UK has ceded its policy and know-how to the European commission for decades."

He said another consequence of a speedy FTA could be "predatory purchasing of UK firms by bigger, cash-rich US competitors."

"We have seen cases where UK firms were hollowed out and asset-stripped by overseas buyers. Indeed, in more limited circumstances, UK firms have done the same in the US and other markets. But the truth is that under a US-UK deal, this less-welcome variant of mergers and acquisitions activity would probably be to the UKs long-term disadvantage," he said.
The photographer took to his Instagram page to share his good news with fans and followers, writing, "Its a double joy and all glory to the lord almighty as my wife and I welcome our baby girl Ziorah on the same day of our wedding anniversary. #thankful#bestanniversarygiftever #grateful #family."
Known for her artsy details, the fashion brand stays true to her love for "bold aesthetics" "originality," and exciting "craftsmanship" which comes to the fore in the new collection.

Think exaggerated padded jackets, check shirts with graphic and sash details, 'pleather' pants, cape detailed dresses featuring standout graphics amongst other bold androgynous pieces presented in the collection.

"Inspired by the daily commute of students in Lagos metropolis, the collection sets education as its central theme" the brand's creative director Mfon Ogbonna shares about the inspiration for the collection.

"Looking at it (student's daily commute) as a journey to tomorrow's dreams and aspirations" she says.

About the collection she dished; "With bold graphics and diverse textures it speaks to the unpredicatability of the journey while capturing the energy and relentless spirit of her muse".

Taking the role of her muse she eulogized the journey; "There's a bridge and there's a river that I still must cross. As I'm going on my journey.

There's a road I have to follow, a place I have to go. Well no-one told me just how to get there. But when I get there I'll know".

Take a peek at the campaign in the gallery below.

Credits:

Photographer- Kosol Onwudinjor

Makeup - Adella

Hair- Bernard O

Models-

Beth Model Management

Catch 22 Model Management

Few Models

Graphics- Laura Knoops
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
And that's totally fine. The beautiful thing about new places is that everyone sees it differently.

We still had some stuff to see in Port Harcourt, so we headed for G.R.A, the bike HQ of the city.

Port Harcourt has the 2nd largest biker community in Nigeria, with Lagos coming first, and Abuja coming next.

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The reasons are obvious; all three are major cities, with higher spending power and more refined tastes.

We were going to meet Derrick, a guy who slept, ate, fixed, and lived for bikes.

I have a car but I don't even drive it, Derrick said as we got talking.

I'd rather take a cab instead of driving.

Derrick has been riding for 14 years. Hes rode to Ghana, he's rode round the entire South-South in one stretch. He does all the cool stunts you see. But it has also come at a price.

The first thing I always tell people is that bikes are dangerous.

And it's true. Someone once said the closest people to God are a pilot and a biker.

In 2014, our host, Akoji, was riding outside Port Harcourt. He was still a newbie at the time.

He was going fast, really fast and in a fraction of a second, he lost control and the bike started to wobble.

Next thing, he was on the ground, sliding across the road. He was wearing good gear, so his body didn't peel.

At the side of the road was a gutter, and he hit the edge.

His femur, the thigh bone, snapped.

But speed is a drug. And while you see an accident as a never again" sign, a biker sees it as a lesson. A mistake that shouldn't repeat itself.

Back to Derrick.

I've crashed thrice, he said, but I haven't broken anything yet.

We talked about passion and speed, then he said he wanted to show us a few stunts.

Time to ride.

The road in front of where we were has a school with an open field.

It was afternoon and the kids know the drill. Once they hear the revving sound of a bike, they jostle for the front at the schools iron fence.

No one likes to be the one hearing the stories. We want to be the ones telling.

And so he got started.

First, it was a standard run. Just to get a feel of the road.

Then it was time to do a few willies.

And he accelerated, and accelerated, and when it looked like he had enough room, liftoff.

The front tyre was up in the air. Then something went wrong.

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Just as he was beginning to adjust into his one tyre ride, the bike began to wobble.

He crashed. And his bike sled away, and he rolled off the ground. And rolled, and you could tell that he knew how to fall as he knew how to ride.

When you learn how to ride a bike, you also learn how to fall. Because even the best riders fall, and Derrick is one of Nigeria's finest riders.

We ran over to the crash scene. He didn't hit his head to the ground, and even if he did, the ground would have met with the protective helmet he had on.

But he wasn't wearing gloves or a jacket. So the friction of the ground scraped off the outer layer of his skin on his left palm and arm.

All he needed was some first aid, and regular meds, and he'd be fine. So they took him to a hospital to check.

And then, Inyang came along.

I don't do willies and stunts. I don't care about all of that, Inyang said.

Inyang is perhaps one of the most interesting people I've met since hitting the road, and perhaps, in a long time.

When he speaks, you hear him clearly. When he smiles, he smiles intently.

Inyang has rode across the entire coastline/border states of Nigeria.

Ask him about his longest ride, Akoji said. And I did.

I rode from Nigeria to Austria, he began. It took me and be began to count with his fingers.

16..24...31...32 days. It took me 32 days.

The most difficult border is the Nigerian border, he made us understand. And that's quite a reputation. Considering he rode through 12 countries.

So you got into Europe by ferry, I said.

Yes. I just ferried my bike from Morocco to Spain and then rode till I got to Austria. I crossed eight African countries and four European countries.

Half the time, my jaws were dropped in awe and respect. This man was giving me strange ideas. Showing me new ways to make things happens. Showing me new ways to see the road.

This man was giving me ideas.

He was like and old man who had just returned from a distant country with gifts and stories. We were his children, and the friends of his children, huddled together, listening to stories of lands we've never seen. Yet.

What's the most beautiful place you've seen in Nigeria, I asked.

Gembo.

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Many people think it's Jos thats the most beautiful place, he continued, or that it is even the highest point in Nigeria. That's wrong. Gembo is.

Gembo is in Taraba State. He showed us a photo, and if he had told us it's at the South of France, we'd have believed.

And we just knew we had it see it for ourselves too. We just had to.

I'd imagined a life like this, over and over. A life of new places, of new people. One that feels almost entirely new every single day.

In my mind, the biggest obstacle to this is the ones we love. The ones who have to stay behind with the bittersweet taste in their mouths. The ones who are happy for us that we're living life on our terms. But they are also the ones who feel lonely, the one whose hearts skip a beat every time we hit obstacles. They say as long as you're happy, but we know it makes them sad to know you'll be gone for so long.

So I asked about his wife. He laughed.

I ran into her in Morocco for about 10 or 15 seconds. She's a rally car driver. She was contesting in a race at the time so I could only see her briefly.

I wonder how it would have been if perhaps, she had to wait with her heart in her mouth every time.

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Sometimes you set out to meet one thing, and you find another. In Asaba, all we wanted was photographs of the memorial. What we got as bonus was a meeting with the Onuohi of Asaba and another with the Ogbueshi. We came looking for Derrick, and we found Inyang.

You guys are lucky, Akoji said. Even we bikers hardly get to ever see him.

This is perhaps the most beautiful thing about travel. The spontaneity. You go looking for a corn cob, and next thing you know, you're running through a corn plantation.
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Adom Online reports that Obenewaa said that she killed her victims after engaging in sex with them, sending shock waves down the spines of many men, especially those who patronize prostitutes.

In an interview on Koforidua-based Bryt FMs, Obenewaa who resides at Labone, a suburb of the Accra, said she was introduced to the business of prostitution at the age of 16 when her parents divorced and she needed to cater for herself.

I was initially working as a local prostitute but later went international after coming into contact with one Miss Elizabeth Opeyemi, an international sex worker from Nigeria, she revealed.

According to her, Opeyemi took her to places like Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso among others, where they engaged in international prostitution.

My eight years of friendship with Miss Opeyemi was a great moment that saw me with billions of cedis. I was able to buy two separates six-bed room apartments from the monies I made through my sex business and now own a lot of other landed properties from this same sex business, she boasted.

In view of the lucrative nature of the business, Obenewaa said she was compelled to seek some spiritual backing and that was when she was introduced to one Alhaji Abugri, a spiritualist in Benin.

She revealed that Alhaji Abugri gave her some cowries and powdery substance and directed her to insert them inside her vagina before embarking on her trips to solicit clients, thinking it was just to boost her sex trade.

Obenewaa further revealed how she started making huge sums of money after the spiritual encounter but realized that almost all the men she slept with died shortly after, prompting her to seek explanations from her spiritualist.

She got the shocking revelation from Alhaji Abugri who told her the powdery substance she has been inserting into her private part was a spiritual serpent that has been enticing men to seek for her service.

Out of fear, Obenewaa said she pleaded with Alhaji Abugri to do something about it but none of her efforts yielded any positive outcome as the spiritualist said it was irreversible until death.

Though I have acquired the needed wealth one could desire for in life, I am still not a happy person because of this predicament in my life.
But something happened last month that has left me with so much guilty feelings. It happened that my boss has been away for two months and the maid had also traveled to her village to see her sick mother, leaving me and madam all alone in the house.

That day, it had rained all day and the weather was so cold. After the rains, I decided to pump out some water that had flooded the compound and while I was at it, madam called me to come upstairs and do something for her.

This was not unusual as I used to go into their bedroom and helped them once in a while. I had on a boxer short and a t-shirt and told madam that I wanted to go and put on something better but she told me to come like that as what she wanted me to do for her was very urgent.

I went upstairs and knocked on their bedroom door and she told me to come inside. When I opened the door, I was shocked to meet Madam almost naked as she wore only a lingerie with no underwear and I could clearly see the outline of her firm breasts and private part.

I told her I was very sorry and made to turn back but she ordered me to come inside. When I hesitated, she walked up to me and grabbed me, asking me why I was behaving like a little boy and whether she was not desirable enough.

She told me clearly that she was . I told her I could not do such as I saw her as my big sister and feared what my boss would do to me if he found out. But she doused my fear by asking me how oga would know as she would not tell him, neither would I do so.

To cut a long story short, I fell for the temptation and slept with my madam that day. I even spent the night in their bedroom and for the duration that the maid was away, it became a daily routine as we would stay indoors and have sex all day.

Even when the maid came back, madam would send her on errands that would take her many hours before coming back and we would have sex.

She would even sneak into my room at night or take me to hotels where we would have sex. Now oga is back and his wife does not want to stop sneaking around with me. It seems she is hooked on sex with me and is not letting go despite my protests.

Right now, I am full of guilt and fear what would happen if oga finds out that I am sleeping with his wife. I don't know if I should tell him what is going on. I need advice, please.

Godfrey."
After weeks of getting a sneak preview of what can happen when an overcrowded city fails to manage its drainage problems, residents of Lagos, from Surulere to Victoria Island, have gone through July with lakes where roads used to be, in some of the worst cases of flooding that the city has ever seen.

Most of the major roads around Lagos have suffered long pile-ups, regardless of the time of day.

They are largely a result of the rain; apart from the endless presence of large puddles of water on certain stretches of Ikorodu Road, parts of Osborne Road and Ozumba Mbadiwe and a large part of the Surulere/Yaba area, the erosion has created large craters in already weak roads, and they are getting larger.

Images posted on Twitter over the course of July have shown entire streets and roads filled with water up to waist level. Some guy kayaked through Ahmadu Bello Way, in what is supposed to be a financial district.

Water is a respecter of no persons.

As unexpected as it may seem, almost everyone who was in Lagos during the early days of the month, or at any other time before, could have seen this coming.

In recent times, the city has seen greater rainfall with each new season, and each year has come with forecasts that predict more rain than the last year.

Between June and July 2016 (usually the rainiest months of the year), Lagos took 762.63 mm of rain. Compare that with 2012, when just over 563mm of rain fell in those two months and you begin to get a better sense of the picture.

This years rains are only the next chapter in a progression that was bound to happen, thanks to perhaps the most important global factor of our time, climate change.

There was also a man-made element to the floods. This year, the Lagos State government has continued its program of reclaiming land from the Atlantic.

In addition to the multi-million dollar Eko Atlantic City, new dredging work started this year along parts of Oniru and on the mainland end of the Third Mainland Bridge, near Oworonshoki.

Beyond displacing thousands of liters of sea water, these projects have also reduced the breadth of options available for rain water that would ordinarily run into the Lagos Lagoon and eventually, the Atlantic.

On the other hand, there is the ever-present problem of clogged drainage channels on Lagos Island. Between indiscriminate waste disposal and the canals that can remain uncleared for months with next to no maintenance, there was hardly a clear path for floodwater to pass through.

When all the factors are considered, nearly anyone could have seen the floods coming a mile away.

But if any member of the state government did, you wouldnt have known from the official reaction.

Days after the first episodes of flooding, in the first weeks of July, the Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode spoke of immediate steps to find a holistic solution to the problem of flooding in Lagos.

Speaking at the Water Technology and Environmental Control (WATEC) sensitization program in Lagos, he said: We have witnessed our most prime estates flooded with water; we have seen our roads taken over by floods

"These indeed are trying times for any government, especially our own administration, which has determinedly pursued massive infrastructural development, to improve standards of living of our citizenry, Ambode said.

He then continued to draw attention to the floods that have troubled London this year, and similar cases in Japan, as proof that this is not a Nigerian problem.

No matter how well a society may be prepared, we can never rule out the element of the natural or if you like, the supernatural, Ambode said.

London and Japans floods have claimed their place in the international news at different points in the last two weeks, for obvious reasons.

Yet, it is hard to see how they have affected the young family who had to make calls for help from their balcony because their entire ground floor was somewhere between flooded and submerged.

Passing responsibility to unseen forces is even lazier. A good example of what Ambode calls  the role of the natural, or the supernatural, if you like is when a city suffers an earthquake and tsunami in one week, not a mild episode of flooding that was not totally unexpected, by any stretch of the imagination.

Lagos needs, and deserves much more than such lazy grabbing at the air.

Too much of the sprawling economic and commercial hub bears the evidence of this sort of temporal, instant thinking. It is what has made it a city of the moment rather than the long term.

It is why, after years of being touted as the worlds next big megacity, the citys 20 million people depend on an unholy mix of an inadequate transport system, almost non-existent public healthcare, a distinct absence of urban planning and weak institutions, struggling with the burden of their charge.

It is why, despite lying in the face of the Atlantic Ocean, Lagos does not have an emergency flood management system.

The problems that the city faces are not new, or of the nature to be resolved with immediate steps like the governor suggested.

They are infrastructural, the result of years of erratic side-stepping, aggressive commercialization, and yet not enough fore-planning.

A survey of Lagos by a United Nations research team shortly after independence identied a range of serious problems including extreme congestion, extensive housing shortages, exorbitant rents, scarcity of housing nance, a rapid growth of slums and inadequate sanitation.

Why these problems have become more pronounced, more than 50 years after, is the introduction of todays realities, the rapid forced urbanization of Lagos, decades of migration from other states and neighboring West African countries, and a subject of much-heated debate, global warming.

Lagos relies on a basic drainage system that is nowhere near capable of meeting the demands of a city of 20 million people on the edge of the Atlantic.

It is a system that has been inadequate since the moment it came into being.

According to researchers, Babatunde Abraham Williams and Annmarie Hauck Walsh in their 1968 report/book, "Urban Government for Metropolitan Lagos", Lagos sewer and drainage system was as terrible, as far back as 30 years ago, "with the complete absence of any functional system at all". "

"The creation of a comprehensive underground sewage system had been proposed at various times since 1902 but with little impact", the report says. The most recent attempt at the time, in 1956 had been abandoned "because of lack of capital combined with political chicanery on the part of an anti-sewage clique on the Lagos Town Council who had business connections with night-soil collectors".

Today, the drainage system is made up mostly of a loose network of sewers, canals and roadside gutters.

Many of these date back to two major time-periods; the 70s, during massive building projects laid by Jakande, and the 2000s, when then-governor Tinubu pushed a facelift of much of the citys infrastructure.

The rest is mostly haphazard; Home and land owners, as well as local community bodies, are expected to dig gutters where there are none, usually in new settlements like Ikorodu, Ajah Extension etc.

The effect is that 40 years after Williams and Walsh compiled their research, Lagos still does not have an actual drainage system. There is no uniform, interconnected network of channels laid out according to a carefully considered plan.

The same can be said of much of the city itself. While it emerged as the commercial and economic nerve of the country, most of Lagos suburbs came into existence as mushroom communities, government residential areas or, more recently, hastily-built private estates.

The result is that the city is mostly a rag-tag collection of residential buildings, businesses, commercial hubs and everything else.

Lagos, in all truth, is really a city that just happened.

Beyond the obvious, there are many factors that contributed to this.

For instance, according to American researchers, Mensch and Williams, in the mid-1960s, there were only 30 professional planners working in the whole of Nigeria; and in the immediate post-independence era, there was reportedly only one skilled engineer in charge of Lagos entire water distribution and management system.

The evidence is there to see in suburbs like Yaba, where old, Victorian homes stand within inches of tall, 3-4 story concrete mammoths on streets where every building is within touching distance of the next one.

On streets like this, one long roadside gutter is supposed to carry the drainage from many houses.

There is no urban planning of the type that is necessary for the government to consider before thinking up a drainage system or rolling out immediate counter-measures in the case of emergency.

Donald Trump may disagree but the biggest threat to humanity in this century is climate change. Many experts put this years extreme weather down to the effects of global warming.

And as it continues to affect our lives to a greater degree, the implications of Lagos infrastructural problems become more prominent.

The responsibility then falls on the government and city planners to create the infrastructure that will make the city better prepared for extreme weather conditions.

But Lagos does not even have a plan.

Where then does the Lagos State government start? Is there any hope for a city whose very existence is built on a foundation that threatens its future?

There is much to do, admittedly. The state government seems bent on denying the depth of its problems and there are many reasons why it would make sense for them to do so.

As the world becomes more aware of the role that Lagos plays in the Nigerian economy as well as the many prospects available to be explored, investment has poured in, from private firms and companies like Huanchang Steel Construction and Sinotruk, and countries like the Netherlands, Norway, and China.

Most of these investors operate on certain false presumptions that are in stark contrast to the reality beyond Third Mainland Bridge and the glitzy boardrooms of Victoria Island, when it is dry.

Embarking on reforms of the scale that is needed, or even admitting and commenting on the extent of work that is needed would expose the soft underbelly of Lagos.

Theres also the chance, however unlikely, that the state government does not know the true extent of the problem.

It wouldnt all too alarming; the near-absence of research, records, and statistics on matters relating to public life in Nigeria is well known, more so by the people who should be keeping them.

Ultimately, there is no place in the future for Lagos without the foundational reforms that are required to keep up with emerging trends and a local reality.

There are lessons to be learned in this case from another industrial, economically-vital port city; Rotterdam, a coastal city in the home of Arjen Robben and clogs, the Netherlands.

In the last four years, Rotterdam has become a choice destination for leaders and planners looking to learn, and borrow a leaf or two, from their approach to solving the problem of rising oceans and flooding, largely by the unusual efforts of a new agency, Room for the River.

About half of the industrial Dutch city is between 0 to 12 feet below sea level.

Theirs is a uniquely Dutch problem.

The country has been fighting water since over a millennium ago, when farmers built the first walls and ridges, called dikes, to regulate the water level.

Windmills followed later, pumping water off the land; a few of them can still be seen scattered across the Dutch countryside.

Netherlands is the Niger Delta of Europe; it sits at the mouth of the North Sea, where the continents two major rivers empty themselves into the Atlantic. It is also one of the worlds most densely populated countries and about 60% of its land area is prone to flooding.

Rotterdam makes up a chunk of that 60%; yet the last episode of flooding there happened between 19931995. The people call it the disaster. Over 200,000 people had to be evacuated and thousands of animals were lost to the flood that covered large parts of the city and caused millions of euros worth of damage.

Since then, Rotterdam has developed a system based on living with the water, rather than fighting it. Making this work has been the sole responsibility of "Room for the River".

Since it was created in 2006, the agency has gone about spending its 2.2 billion dollar budget on giving the river more space to handle extra water by lowering floodplains, widening rivers and channels and moving families and communities from high-risk areas to higher ground.

Ahmed Abdoutaleb is a Moroccan-born Muslim who is the mayor of Rotterdam, and in his capacity, oversees the citys reaction to the threat of flooding.

Rotterdam lies in the most vulnerable part of the Netherlands, both economically and geographically., he told the New York Times in June, If the water comes in, from the rivers or the sea, we can evacuate maybe 15 out of 100 people. So evacuation isnt an option. We can escape only into high buildings. We have no choice. We must learn to live with water.

The Irish government has already shown interest in building a similar system. Considering the massive gaps in infrastructure, Lagos may not be able to execute such a plan to the letter, but there is so much that can be learned.

In all fairness, recent weeks have shown that the problem of flooding is not one unique to Lagos.

The late-July rains have brought floods to Asaba, Port Harcourt, Suleja, Abeokuta, Sagamu and many other towns and cities around the country.

In truth, this is fast becoming a national issue, but there is a reason why the floods in Lagos came months before these singular instances in other states.

20 million people, rising ocean levels, a lack of urban planning and clogged drainage systems are the perfect recipe for a disaster of epic proportions.

The Lagos State government, in reaction to the flooding, has ordered owners of properties erected on drainage channels to evict these structures, as it will have no option than to demolish the buildings.

In a sense, clearing the path for water does offer a solution, but it is a temporary one that can only yield short-term results.

Previous administrations have demolished buildings in the past. There is a reason why we still face the same problems.

The Lagos State government will need to look beyond immediate response to create a far-reaching, long-term plan that will redefine the structure of Lagos, from basic elements like the distribution of markets to the more difficult, like the necessary distinction between residential and commercial districts.

The harsh reality is that in the coming months and years, Lagos will face major tests of its prospects as the megacity it flatters to be. Ambode must take important decisions to give the city a fighting chance.
Most users prefer to smoke it, usually mixed with high-grade marijuana and rolled up in papers like tobacco and weed.

Although it can come in almost any color, the backroom chemists who make it often use dried herbs or lawn clippings to make sure it looks closely like the real stuff, so it often appears something between a deep shade of green and damp brown.

In the real sense, it looks a lot like marijuana, but its the farthest thing from marijuana that youve ever heard of.

It is widely reported that, beneath the surface of daily activity, Nigeria is on the cusp of a major drug problem.

The aggressive emergence of a culture of casual drug use has been supported by the presence of players at every major level of the drug chain.

On one hand, production is high as ever, even as makers of amphetamine have been discovered in Lagos and Rivers.

Nigerias status as a transit country is also not in question; since the early years of military rule, large amounts of cocaine have been funneled through the country under various guises.

And now, while the consumption of drugs like marijuana and opioids like Codeine and Tramadol has reached an alarming rate, a new, unfriendly substance is causing convulsions, kidney failure and a zombie-like state of intoxication that can lead to death.

Synthetic marijuana, like the name suggests, is a collection of man-made chemicals that mimic the effect of marijuana and are sprayed on dried herbs or similar substances, wrapped in brightly colored packs and sold as an alternative to marijuana that is both legal and more potent.

In the United States and the UK, it is sold under three major brand names; "Spice", "K2" and "Black Mamba", for as low as $1 per bag. This is key because it puts it in the ballpark of the most susceptible; the homeless, poor and young students.

In many ways, this affordability is a major reason why the use of the drug is spreading rapidly in areas like Lagos, Port-Harcourt, and Abuja.

But aside that, many other factors, like easy access, are contributing their quota.

Synthetic marijuana is relatively new in Nigeria, so the sale and use are not as elaborate as it is on the other side.

It is mostly sold in head-shops here, small outfits that sell accessories used for the consumption of cannabis and tobacco, as well as items that form part of that culture, like weed-branded shirts and Bob Marley bandannas.

Outfits like this are scattered around Lagos and Victoria Islands.

There are also reports that it is sold by dealers of more expensive strains of marijuana and designer drugs in the highbrow areas of Lagos.

Synthetic marijuana is sold in small quantities for a little as 2,000 naira and as much as 10,000 naira, depending on the size of the bag and where it is bought. The substance itself is sealed tight in small, shiny bags about the size of a sugar or tea bag with the brand name written across it.

On the streets where this drug is slowly claiming victims, the tags vary; Colorado, Black Mamba, Lamba (when mixed with Loud, a highly potent strain of marijuana), Happy Boy or Scooby Snax.

The names are admittedly more colorful than youd expect; what the packs contain is anything but.

Most of the clamor against synthetic weed has been made by people who have either experimented with the drug, or have seen its effects on frequent, and even first-time users. And as more people come in contact with the drug, the numbers are rising and the voices are getting louder.

On social media website, Twitter, a user @sofireginald recounted her experience with the drug in a series of tweets.

Some of her friends had tried the drug and, despite diluting it with large amounts of tobacco, what they got was nowhere near the pleasurable high they were hoping for; according to her tweets, one of them had gone completely deaf for three days, another went so mental that she was held in medical care for three weeks and counting.

Apparently alarmed by these experiences, she advised users to stay away from "Colorado or comorado or whatever name you people have coined for it"

One of her tweets read, Ive seen people cry, convulse, take off their clothes and do other weird shit. You can actually go insane. Its not remotely healthy.

Segun (not real name) agrees that synthetic marijuana is very dangerous; he also thinks that it is difficult to explain the true extent of its danger to people who have never tried it or seen it at work.

Segun is an avid marijuana user; he has smoked at least a blunt a day, consistently, for over three years.

One day, while driving home after work, a friend showed him a half-rolled blunt that he had gotten from another friend earlier that day; just two hits had fucked him up, but for some reason, he felt he was overreacting.

This friend offered the mystery blunt to Segun and another colleague who was on the ride; ever the adventurous smokers, but unwilling to take too much of a risk, they took three light drags each. What came immediately after was an intense, harsh high, and a comedown made in hell.

I dont know how to describe it. At first, I was feeling these strange sensations at the back of my head and my shoulders., Segun recounts. My right leg, it felt almost detached. It felt like if it stayed still for long, it would feel like it was not there any more

I could only think about one particular thing at a time. My thought process was limited to handling the steering and using the brake. I had no idea where I was driving to, or where I was.

I couldnt just remember. It was as if something crazy would happen if I tried to think of anything else. All I could do was drive and say guy (when my friends talked to me)", he said. I had to increase the volume of the music to avoid falling into this place that the drug was taking me to

When I got home, I ate and bragged a lot about the high, then I blacked out. I dont remember these things happening. I can only tell you because I was told, Segun adds.

He is one of the lucky people. There have been reports of people having worse highs while on synthetic weed, sometimes inflicting self harm. In one case, a user jumped off a ledge, broke his leg and carried on, completely oblivious to what had happened and the broken leg he was trying to stand on.

For all the novelty of these accounts, you will be mistaken to assume that they are isolated events.

In recent weeks, various people have reported seeing the distinctive colorful packs of Spice in different places, from the Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, to Vantage, a hotel, and lounge, in Lekki.

In the 1990s, John W. Huffman, a chemist from South Carolina in the United States, began researching artificial ways to replicate cannabinoids, the active chemicals that cause the behavioral and psychoactive changes that we interpret as being high.

Marijuana was a banned Schedule 1 substance in the United States at the time, and Huffman needed to replicate these chemicals for his research on the health effects of marijuana while avoiding the implications of experimenting with a banned substance.

He found some success years after; one of the compounds he developed replicated the desired effects and was shown to help reduce skin cancer and brain tumors in lab mice.

Huffman published his findings in the mid-2000s, complete with instructions on how to re-create the chemical compound he had developed that he said could be followed by a halfway decent undergraduate chemistry major in three steps using materials that can be purchased by just about anyone.

Needless to say, there were more than enough capable chemistry graduates at the time. In the years that followed, manufacturers created it in large quantities and began to sell it in head shops, packaged as air fresheners, aromatic leaves or potpourri.

Most experts agree that Spice was first sold as a recreational drug in the UK in 2004.

Huffmans original compound was the product of years of rigorous research and had been fine-tuned to achieve as little harm as possible, but even at that, it was extremely dangerous.

In time, cities around the US became aware of the health and social risks that it posed. Between 2014 and 2015, New York and other states banned the substance out-rightly.

The manufacturers responded in the most unexpected way.

The original anti-spice laws only recognized the class of compounds close to Huffmans original template; so the manufacturers set about using it to create their own chemical compounds that could replicate marijuana and evade the laws.

As new laws are created in Europe and the United States to tackle the production of spice, the manufacturers have become more experimental, pushing the boundaries and creating new chemicals that they do not totally understand.

It is why, regardless of the ingredients listed on the packaging, no-one ever really knows what is in a spice blunt. Not even the manufacturers themselves.

What they have managed to create is a concoction of random chemicals that can take a user to the fringes of insanity and, as in a case where 33 New Yorkers were rushed to the hospital in July 2016, turn them into living, breathing zombies.

It then begs the question: What makes a person want to be so high that they use a drug that rids them of control of the mind and body?

Few regular users of synthetic marijuana hardly ever find the words to recount their experience in useful detail; but among those who have tried the drug, a number have lived to tell the tale.

They describe the feeling of being high on synthetic weed as something entirely different from regular, natural marijuana.

While regular cannabis gives a feeling of light euphoria, drowsiness, increased sensory awareness (and paranoia among new users), this synthetic high is something between extreme paranoia and a deep, aggressively overwhelming trance.

Users begin to act erratically almost immediately after smoking. Even where two individuals use the same batch, their reactions can be completely different.

Some users are so bemused that they break into spontaneous, intense laughter, others become severely anxious and paranoid that they literally withdraw into themselves and become hostile at any attempt to make contact or have a conversation.

Either way, they enter a world of their own, one where the norms and behavior of sobriety are inaccessible, to put it lightly.

In many ways, it is the case with all forms of recreational drug use and it's eventual, usually unavoidable abuse. Most drug users do so for the euphoria, mental liberty and the feeling of detachment that can come with being high.

In this sense, it is a journey between two extremes; release, euphoria, and weightlessness on one hand and the reality of daily life and its momentary worries on the other.

Users of synthetic marijuana are simply more willing, usually by reason of circumstance or sheer misdirected curiosity, to explore the former extreme to its farthest ends; what they find is usually a chaotic inverse that one can hardly emerge from without any harm.

The compounds that make up synthetic marijuana were never meant to be inside the human body. When they are, the damage they cause is immense.

Some of the short term effects on the mind include but arent limited to; unresponsiveness, loss of consciousness, confusion, altered time sense, extreme anxiety, panic attacks, severe paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, psychosis and potential suicide, says Victor Ugo, a medical doctor who is the founder of Mentally Aware Initiative, a mental health advocacy program based in Lagos, Nigeria.

In cities like New York and London where spice is already a major problem, there are entire groups of the homeless, poor, delinquent and wanderers who use the drug in groups during smoking sessions in not-so-secluded places.

Locals call them zombies.

The name comes from the zombie-like state they enter after using the drug, where they seem to lose all capacity to understand, process information and make decisions.

In extreme cases, zombies can black out and become almost motionless, falling over whatever is in sight when the high takes effect.

It can take days or weeks for a user to feel completely rid of the feeling. When they regain consciousness, there is usually no memory of these events.

With some medical help and abstinence, recovery can happen at a much quicker pace but, even in the case of a first time user, the drug usually causes permanent damage to brain cells and long-term behavioral changes.

It is not that easy to escape the effects of synthetic marijuana on the bodys anatomy.

According to Ugo, from medical analyses, it has been found that the active ingredients are dangerous and toxic.

The drug has severe short and long term effects of the human body, with no limit to which vital organ it affects., he adds.

Short term use can cause nausea and vomiting, heavy sweating, uncontrolled/spastic body movements, acute kidney injury, rapid heart rate, high blood pressure and reduced blood supply to the heart.

Long-term users face health risks that are far worse and can be, in extreme cases, terminal. Unlike the non-synthetic Marijuana which isnt known to be addictive, synthetic Marijuana can be addictive, Ugo says.

It can lead to withdrawal symptoms which include craving, nightmares, heavy sweating, nausea, tremors, headaches, extreme tiredness, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, problems thinking clearly and neglect of other interests or duties.

After repeated use of the drug, users can experience forgetfulness and confusion. Weve at times heard of and read about users/addicts experiencing paralysis, he continues.

Beyond these health concerns, there is also the social implication of dealing with such an addictive drug that is mostly used by the youth and individuals on the fringes of society.

Factors like these have pushed governments in countries most hit by synthetic marijuana to educate the population, enact legislation and provide intensive rehabilitation in a bid to defeat what is fast becoming an epidemic.

The reverse is the case in Nigeria. Despite reports of overdoses, insanity and organ failure caused by synthetic marijuana in recent months, Nigerias drug agencies are yet to even show any signs that they are even aware of the drugs existence.

For now, the full extent of their focus is on often-celebrated cannabis busts that end with press releases and high-definition pictures.

(Efforts to reach the Lagos State Command of the Nigerian Police Force were not responded to)

As they tackle a rapidly emerging epidemic, countries in the West have considered and explored many routes to get synthetic marijuana off their streets.

In the UK, stringent laws have been enacted to discourage the production, sale, and use of synthetic marijuana.

The United States approach to solving this problem has involved similar stringent laws, but also a trend where states have legalized medical and recreational marijuana at various levels. While some believe this approach is as liberal as it gets, there are others who feel it is not liberal enough.

In the alternative, certain individuals and pro-Spice groups have called for a more liberal approach to synthetic marijuana around the world.

They claim that the original compound that Huffman developed was the product of years of scientific research, and much safer than what is sold today.

What they advocate is that the government sponsors research into synthetic marijuana with a view to developing compounds that are safer to consume.

Regardless of the many differing opinions, one thing is certain, that more people need to be educated on the perils of using and selling synthetic marijuana.

Unlike regular marijuana, synthetic marijuana is hardly stored in bulk or sold in dark dens under the bridge, so law enforcement agents must drop their usual model of random raids for an approach that relies more on community policing and coordinated investigations.

Anti-Spice laws must also be created, with heavy sanctions for those who violate its provisions.

In all fairness, the spread of synthetic marijuana has come faster than was first feared, but the dangers that it poses demand that efforts against it move even quicker.
The president was dining alongside Governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), at the Abuja House in London.

Its the first public photograph of Buhari since he left Nigeria on an open-ended medical vacation on May 7, 2017.

We can imagine that it was the best photograph from a number of takes. Nigerians wanted to see their president looking hale and hearty and that photo of a smiling Buhari has been bang on target.

Buhari is apparently looking healthier than when he left his homeland weeks ago.

That Nigerians had to wait 77 days for a picture of their president, is subject matter for another day.

Here are seven things we learnt as the Nigerian president sat down for supper with State Governors:

1. Buharis sense of humour is a thing.

When acting president Yemi Osinbajo returned from his trip to London to see an ailing Buhari on July 13, he told the nation that her president hasnt lost his sense of humour and wit.

Buhari is in very high spirits. He is recuperating very well and we had a very long conversation. We spoke for well over an hour and his humor is all there, Osinbajo had said.

Fast forward a couple of days later, and the presidents sense of humour was among the many things a bunch of Governors returned home with after they met Buhari.

According to Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha who was among the traveling party, the president was very cheerful and has not lost any bit of his sense of humour.

We thank God for sense of humour and wit.

2. Buhari has been following developments at home closely.

Buhari hasnt lost touch with the country he was elected to oversee on March 31, 2015, according to the Governors.

That also means he knows what Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose and IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu, think of him at this point. Not like he never did, anyway.

According to a statement from presidential spokesperson Femi Adesina, the party delegation spent more than an hour with President Buhari over lunch, and it was very clear from the discussions that he followed developments at home very closely.

Oh well, isnt that sorta....very reassuring?

3. Buhari is aware that youve been saying a lot of horrible things behind his back.

We are not even about to guilt-trip you, but London has got ears too, you know.

So, if for instance, youve been wishing the president dead and saying things like a cabal is holding him hostage, you better be very, very afraid.

At least you cant say we didnt warn you.

Heres Femi Adesina again: When asked to react to all the negative things being said about him, the president just laughed, describing such negative reports as lies. Governor Okorocha said president Buhari was completely unperturbed by the cocktail of lies. He, instead, sent his best wishes to Nigerians.

Awwwww.

Mushy much?

Sorry, guilty much?

4. Buhari knows that Nigerians now sell lies about him.

Ok, theres a modern term for people who make a living off selling lies. Its called Fake news.

But Buhari and the Governors would rather refer to them as merchants of lies.

Ouch!

Heres Governor Okorocha: By our visit to London today, the merchants of lies have been put out of business and Nigerians will not buy the garbage they have been selling. All those who look up to fake news can find better use for their time.

Thats putting a whole lot of people out of business in a recession and we are not even sorry for them.

5. Only the Doctors are stopping Buhari from returning home.

If you think Buhari hasnt missed home, well, think again.

The Doctors are the reason why hes kept the entire nation waiting, guessing and speculating.

Adesina and Okorocha put it this way: Nigerians dont have to worry at all.President Buhari will be back as soon as the doctors give him the green light.

You heard them. You dont have to worry at all.

6. PDP Governors werent invited.

I mean, imagine inviting Fayose for a meeting like this.a perfect opportunity for the Governor to get a lot off his chest, just slipped by.

That musta hurt, right?

The problem is that Fayose is PDP and if you must know, PDP Governors werent handed tickets to London.

Some ministers and 'big boys' also made the trip, but they were all APC chieftains.

Among the delegation for London were Governors Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa; Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna; Yahaya Bello of Kogi; and APC National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun.

Rotimi Amaechi was also in the building and chuckling the whole time.

Heres a suggestion for PDP and its Governors--if you are excluded from the delegation for a particular trip, maybe organise yours?

7. Buhari loves hour-long meetings.

When Osinbajo returned home, he said: "We spoke for well ..."

When the Governors returned from their own trip, they said: "the delegation spent with President Buhari over lunch".

When next you are booked for a session with Buhari, just know your meeting will last a little over an hour. No more, no less.
Badaru made this call during the 60-million-naira fund raising for the building of the state secretariat of Jamaatul Izalatil Bidiah Waikamatil Sunnah (JIBWIS) in Dutse.

He said, we need prayers from all and sundry to take the country out the present economic crisis, as well as the quick recovery of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is on medical vacation in London.

The governor said the existing economic recession predated the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration under Buhari, adding that the current government was doing its best to rebuild the economy.

According to him, the Buhari administration places emphasis on the principle of growing the food we eat and using what we produce as a means of revamping the economy.

Earlier, the National Chairman of the JIBWIS, Sheikh Abdullahi Balalau, implored the Federal Government to investigate the recent crisis between herders and some communities in Mambilla area of Taraba.

ALSO READ: Jigawa govt spends N6M to empower 363 women

Balalau explained that a high-powered commission of inquiry would be necessary to ensure that culprits are identified and duly punished, describing the incident as a negation of the tenets of major religions.
In a report by TheCable, the three officers, Okelue Nkemeonye, Braimoh Sunday and Yusuf Olukoga, were dismissed after they were found guilty of illegal arrest and extortion.

It was also reported that an assistant commissioner of police, Abayomi Shogunle, said action was taken against the dismissed officers after a complaint.

Shogunle said after investigation, it was found out that the allegations were true.

Upon the receipt of the complaint, a case with tracking number PCRRU637624 was registered and acknowledgment of complaint sent to the complainant, the statement read.

PCRRU Investigation team was dispatched to Ikorodu where all the three dismissed policemen including AP No. 98199 ASP Bayo Obadia who led the team were apprehended. PCRRU preliminary investigation reveals that all the allegations contained in the WhatsApp message actually happened.

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Also the four police officers who were armed on the day of the incident falsely paraded themselves as operatives of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) despite not being posted to SARS by police authorities. Investigation also shows that the officers extorted a total sum of N200,000 from the young men who they tagged Yahoo Yahoo Boys, the money was force from them via N90,000 ATM withdrawal and N110,000 mobile bank money transfer to a third party account provided by the policemen.

 All the extorted N200,000 was recovered by the PCRRU Investigators.

The inspector-general of police, IGP Ibrahim K. Idris NPM, mni has commended the complainant for coming forward to report the incident to PCRRU, the IGP has also said that all allegations of professional misconduct reported against any police officer would be treated in line with relevant laws and in keeping to the Change Begins With Me Campaign of the federal government.
Peterside disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday on the sidelines of the celebration of African Day of the Seas and Oceans in Nigeria.

He said that the agency would be sending the Anti-Piracy Bill to the National Assembly as an Executive Bill.

We have received assurances of accelerated passage of the bill and before the end of this year the bill will become a law and we will have legal backing to fight piracy and criminality on our water ways.

There have been a lot of concern about piracy within the Gulf of Guinea and Gulf of Aden.

The recent statistics published by the International Maritime Bureau based in Malaysia showed that there was a drop in incidents of piracy within our waterways.

This is possible because of the few things we are doing with the Nigerian Navy, enhancing our intelligence gathering mechanism and inter-agency as well as inter-departmental collaboration, Peterside said.

He said that the Blue Economy was the most recent concept in economy in repositioning the littoral states.

Peterside said that the Federal Ministry of Transportation had recently empanelled a committee to come up with a Blue Economy policy.

He said that Blue Economy could generate a lot of resources in terms of fishes, aquaculture, transportation, power generation, which would generate a lot of wealth for Nigerians.

The NIMASA chief said that there was need for Nigerians to take advantage of the Blue Economy.

Rear Adm. Ferguson Bobai, Chief of Training and Operations, Naval Headquarters, also told NAN that there was need for continuous inter-agency collaboration to enable all the agencies to achieve quick results in their responsibilities.

Bobai commended NIMASAs efforts in taking bold steps in working toward making the Anti-Piracy bill a law.

Speaking on the celebration of African Day of Seas and Oceans, the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Adm. Ibok-Ete Ibas, said NIMASA being the government regulatory agency, should promote maritime safety and develop indigenous commercial shipping.

Ibas said that NIMASAs functions highlighted the need for synergy among maritime regulators and law enforcement agencies operating in Nigerian maritime domain.

The CNS, who was represented by Bobai, commended NIMASA for positively projecting Nigerias image within the international maritime community.

He said that a team would be going round to sensitise stakeholders on Harmonised Standard Operating Procedures on Arrest, Detention and Prosecution of Vessels and Persons (HOSP-AD&P).

Ibas said that this would go a long way in ensuring seamless operationalisation of the document through the adoption of common procedures and practice in facilitating good maritime governance.

`With the collaboration of the Ministry of Justice, Defence Headquarters and NIMASA, the HOSP-AD`&P was launched on Jan. 26, 2017.

The Celebration of African Day of the Seas and Oceans will enhance the attainment of Code of Conduct for repression of piracy and illicit activities at the sea adopted by the Heads of Government of ECOWAS.

Africas Integrated Maritime Strategy (AIMS) is created and developed as a tool to address Africas maritime challenges for sustainable development and competitiveness.

AIMS also seeks to foster more wealth creation from Africas oceans, seas and inland waterways by developing a thriving maritime economy and realising the full potential of sea-based activities,  Ibas said.

In his remark, the Chairman of the occasion, Mr Norrison Quakers, SAN, attributed attitudinal and disposition as the greatest challenges facing Africans.

Quakers said that there was need for Africa to have the political will to ensure quick facilitation of applicable laws.

He urged African countries to minimise damages, adding that Africa should ensure enforcement of ocean protection against toxic wastes and other dangers in the ocean.

Quakers said that there was need for an institution to be funded independently to discharge its statutory functions.

He, however, encourage growth of 11African countries to take full advantage of the maritime domain.
Utomi, who had served as a Secretary of the State Government, said Uduaghan and some 'elements' in previous governments sabotaged his efforts to contribute to the development of the state.

The economist and Uduaghan have been known rivals who at any chance to speak publicly on issues concerning the State would slam each other.

The former governor had, in an earlier reaction to a berating statement made by Utomi, advised him (Utomi) to contest the post of councillor in his ward, instead of aiming to be the next governor.

Reacting to this, Utomi, in a statement made available to Punch on Sunday, July 23, accused Uduaghan of misappropriating billions of Naira of Delta State's funds.

He dared the ex-governor to render an account of his stewardship including the abandoned Independent Power Project in Oghara that gulped over N20 billion.

Utomi said there is nothing to show for the power project.

He said, "While I agree with the former governor that our conversations of today should focus more on the future than the past, we must recognise that the damage done to Delta State by the mismanagement of its finances and resources still plague the state as we speak. Uduaghan's legacy is a sad reflection of this awful chapter of our history.

"My comment on optimal debt-to-revenue ratios is verifiable and those who have the ability to do the mathematics are all over the place. It was a comment made to draw attention to and prevent the worsening of a problem that is still ongoing; because in spite of the bailout funds from the Federal Government, and the huge windfall from the Paris loan refunds which now stands at over N24bn, the Delta State House of Assembly has approved over N18bn as loan for the Okowa administration this year alone. In fact, a N13bn plus loan request was recently made to the Delta State House of Assembly.

"Deltans need to be aware and decry this type of heavy debt burden, especially as there are no commensurate development projects or programmes on the ground to justify it and to aid repayment in future. Governor Okowa was right to raise an alarm about the over N600bn debt that he claimed to have inherited. He has however proceeded to increase this debt burden by over N60bn of his own. This is only further mortgaging Delta State and the future of our children."

Utomi also refuted some allegations made against him by Uduaghan that he did not contribute to committees he was appointed to chair during his (Uduaghan) administration.

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The former governor had also alleged that Utomi did not use his international and national connections to attract development to the state.

Utomi said, "A good councillor would have done much better for the people than Uduaghan did as governor. There is extreme misuse of the opportunities available to Delta State. It will take a serious and truly capable government to vigorously tap its potential and create jobs for our teeming youths. This is one of the many reasons why I believe Delta State needs new political leadership in 2019. Deltans are not meant to suffer from the jeopardy of a clueless administration, especially at this critical phase of our existence.

"I would have imagined that Uduaghan will be very sober and saddened by his legacy of mismanagement and gross wastage that he left behind in Delta State. Trying to spin his poor record in the hope that Deltans would have forgotten so soon is a failed attempt to rewrite history. Undoubtedly, he knows that only few Deltans speak well of him and it is his pain to struggle with that reality.

"As he grapples with history, what is more important to Deltans today is how we can rectify the wrong policies, decisions and actions of the past, so that we can create a government that would not only meet the needs of our people today but guarantee a better life for successive generations.

"This is the task that I have offered to commit myself to between now and 2023. We are looking forward to 2019 with hope and renewed zeal for the beginning of a 'New Delta' teeming with opportunities and alive with possibilities."
"Saw this accident scene at the Ugwu Onyeama segment of the Enugu-Onitsha expressway earlier", Ndukwe wrote.

"The car in the ditch fell in there while trying to get away from a team of FRSC officials who were following him in a hot pursuit.

"Regrettably the officers abandoned the occupants to their own fate and fled the scene; though amazingly, the occupants survived without life threatening injuries.

"These are sad realities of what state our dear country is in, where citizens are law breakers and law enforcement agents are indiscipline. We shall overcome," Ndukwe concluded.

The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has come in for plenty of flak in recent times.

The road safety agency has had its activities curtailed in Lagos by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode; and a video showing a driver being assaulted by an FRSC personnel in Abuja, recently, immediately went viral.

Once regarded as one of the saner law enforcement agencies in the land, the FRSC has found itself spoken of in the same breath as a 'corrupt' police force and Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO)--by an irate populace.

In an attempt at turning the media tide, FRSC boss, Boboye Oyeyemi had to warn Nigerians and other law enforcers against killing and attacking his men.

According to Oyeyemi, the police shot at two FRSC officers who were on duty along the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway on July 15.

Many road users are abusing the civility of the unarmed personnel that are trained to be cautious while discharging their legitimate duties, Oyeyemi flared.

In the past, many FRSC operatives had been abducted, killed, assaulted, ran over, threatened and shot. It is also disheartening that some of the attackers misinformed the unsuspecting public by releasing manipulated information to gain public sympathy.

Attempts are often made to make the aggressors look like the victims.

Section 10 (4) of the FRSC (Establishment) Act, 2007 states categorically that members of the Corps shall have powers to arrest and prosecute persons reasonably suspected to have committed any traffic offence.

Resistance based on ignorance of the law or impunity can no longer be grounds to attack operatives carrying out their lawful duties, Oyeyemi warned.

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While having its hands full with a slew of bad press concerning the activities of its men across the country, reports that the FRSC had chased a driver into a ditch along the Enugu-Onitsha expressway, was gaining currency as well.

All through last week, Pulse worked the phones as we sought to get to the root of the story and establish the facts surrounding the bizarre incident.

Did the FRSC really chase a driver into a ditch before abandoning him to his fate?

Pulse spoke to two top ranking FRSC officials in Abuja who wasted little time making the cellphone number of the agencys spokesperson, Bisi Kazeem, available.

The story was made up to make the FRSC look bad again, Mr. Kazeem hollered from the other end of the line.

Its just a ruse. The first person that broke that news, I personally went to his messenger...sent him a message to get in touch with me, to substantiate what he had said, but he never got back. We went to the hospital where he claimed that those people were taken to. We went there..they said the people that came there had been discharged. We couldnt trace anyone. So, its unsubstantiated, Kazeem told Pulse.

Pulse pressed Kazeem to relay the FRSCs version of events.

According to the FRSC spokesperson, the patrol team approached the driver while on patrol on 15 July for seat belt violation. The driver didnt have his vehicle papers and drivers license. The patrol team decided to impound his vehicle at FRSC base 9th mile unit command, Enugu.

On their way to the command, instead of the driver heading to where he was being directed to, he sped off with the road marshal in the vehicle.

After the driver drove about 700 meters away from the command, he pushed the FRSC marshal out of his vehicle and continued his journey.

Some minutes later, information came in from other motorists along 9th mile Enugu that the vehicle whose driver kicked out a marshal, had run into a ditch.

The two occupants of the vehicle were taken to Benem hospital. No one died.

The two victims of the crash, which included the driver, were discharged on Sunday morning. We have the phone number of one of them--Chukwunyere Ugochukwu and the phone number of the next of kin. Efforts to speak with him have failed as I speak with you--hes not picking up his calls.

The vehicle which fell in the ditch was the same vehicle that abducted and threw our marshal onto the road. We also know where the driver lives.

The driver knew the offence he had committed by abducting an FRSC personnel. He must have realised the gravity of his offence, so he drove on suicidal speed.

People believe that we jump into vehicles. No, we dont. The only way we can successfully impound a vehicle is to attach a personnel to the vehicle enroute our office.

What drivers do these days is that they drive away with the arresting FRSC official. A case in point is the recent incident that happened in Abuja involving one of our personnel where the driver ran away with the arresting officer.

Kazeem also told Pulse that the driver who ran his car into a ditch would be prosecuted for making away with an FRSC official and hurling the personnel onto the road from a moving vehicle.

Our marshal is even injured from the incident along the Enugu expressway, Kazeem said.

When this driver recovers, which is why weve been calling him on his mobile, well now book him for obstructing the job of the FRSC.

Days before we spoke to the FRSC, Pulse had also reached out to Ndukwe--the Facebook user who broke the news of the incident.

Five days after Pulse left a message for Ndukwe on his Facebook messenger, we are yet to receive anything resembling a reply.

The FRSC had left Pulse the name of the hospital where the driver of the car that ended up in a ditch, had checked into. The hospital is called Benam.

Benam is located on 9th mile corner street, Enugu.

Two nurses at this health facility, took turns to speak to Pulse about the incident.

Queendaline was first to answer the phone and pleaded that we should call back in another 30 minutes.

When we did call back an hour later, another Nurse who identified herself as Josephine, wasted little time addressing our enquiries.

Josephine told Pulse that Chukwunyere Ugochukwu and another occupant of the car on the day, were admitted at the Benam hospital on July 15, like the FRSC had detailed.

They were discharged the next day (July 16), Josephine said.

When Pulse pleaded for the cellphone number of Ugochukwu, Josephine demurred, saying that would be unprofessional of her and could cost her her job.

No Sir, Im not allowed to do that. This is the much I can give out for now, she said politely.

However, Pulse was able to get the cellphone number of Ugochukwu from another source.

Three days after we rang his mobile and left him a text message, the driver of the car that ran into a ditch along the Enugu-Onitsha expressway on July 15, 2017, has refused to answer his calls.
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The metal detectors remained in place on Sunday morning, though cameras had also been mounted near at least one entrance to the compound in Jerusalem's Old City -- a possible indication of an alternative to the detectors.

Netanyahu was also holding a cabinet meeting and was due to meet with his security cabinet later in the day.

"Since the start of the events, I have held a series of assessments with security elements including those in the field," he said at the start of the meeting.

"We are receiving from them an up-to-date picture of the situation, as well as recommendations for action, and we will decide accordingly."

Israeli Major General Yoav Mordechai -- head of COGAT, the defence ministry agency responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories -- signalled changes to the policy were possible.

"We are examining other options and alternatives that will ensure security," Mordechai said in an interview with Al-Jazeera.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said he would continue to support the metal detectors remaining in place unless police provide a satisfactory alternative.

The crisis has resonated internationally.

The UN Security Council will hold closed-door talks Monday about the spiralling violence after Egypt, France and Sweden sought a meeting to "urgently discuss how calls for de-escalation in Jerusalem can be supported".

Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit on Sunday accused Israel of "playing with fire" with the new security measures.

Week of tensions

Tensions have risen throughout the past week over the metal detectors at the compound, which includes the revered Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, following the July 14 attack that killed two policemen.

Palestinians reject the metal detectors because they view the move as Israel asserting further control over the site. They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside.

Israeli authorities say the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the holy site and emerged from it to shoot the policemen.

Friday's main weekly Muslim prayers -- which typically draw thousands to Al-Aqsa -- brought the situation to a boil.

In anticipation of protests, Israel barred men under 50 from entering the Old City for prayers.

Clashes broke out between Israeli security forces and Palestinians around the Old City, in other parts of annexed east Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank, leaving three Palestinians dead.

On Friday evening, a Palestinian broke into a home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank during a Sabbath dinner and stabbed four Israelis, killing three of them.

The Israeli army said the 19-year-old Palestinian had spoken in a Facebook post of the Jerusalem holy site and of dying as a martyr.

There were further clashes on Saturday, when Palestinian youths hurled stones and petrol bombs as the army used a bulldozer to close off the attacker's West Bank village and prepare his house for demolition.

Netanyahu said Sunday the demolition would go ahead "as soon as possible".

Israel frequently razes or seals attackers' homes as a deterrent, although rights groups say this amounts to collective punishment.

Clashes also flared in east Jerusalem and other Palestinian villages in the West Bank near Jerusalem on Saturday, police said.

Two Palestinians died during the clashes, including one when a petrol bomb exploded prematurely.

Hamas arrests

Israeli security forces said Sunday they had arrested 25 men active in the militant Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip.

The arrests throughout the West Bank included "senior members", a statement from the Shin Bet internal security agency said, and was part of preventive measures in the wake of "the tensions around the Temple Mount".

Also Sunday, a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza hit an open area, the Israeli army said, causing no injuries. No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the rocket.

The holy site in Jerusalem has served as a rallying cry for Palestinians.

In 2000, then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the compound helped ignite the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which lasted more than four years.

The Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.
The 36-year-old White House aide will be asked about his meetings with Russia's ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank and a Russian lawyer -- the latter along with Trump's son Donald Jr.

"There's a lot we want to know," Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the House committee, said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" program.

"We certainly want to know about several of the meetings that have been alleged to have taken place," he added.

"His counsel has said they'll only make him available for two hours. So we expect this is just going to be the first interview."

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into possible collusion, but the House and Senate have organized separate probes.

Donald Jr and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are currently negotiating with the Senate Judiciary Committee about how and when they might testify about their Russia links.

The pair are working with the panel to provide documents and conduct pre-interviews behind closed doors, ahead of any public hearing, the committee chair Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein have announced.

The judiciary committee has set a hearing for Wednesday. Both Donald Jr and Manafort were invited to testify, but their participation was still unclear.
On the eve of talks in Brussels with senior Turkish officials, EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn warned the country that is a candidate to join the bloc is "slipping away from European values."

"I am always concerned if there is an increase of tension between one of our member states or some member states with neighbouring countries. I think Turkey should understand the reasons for that and address it," Hahn told reporters.

"We are in the middle of the tourism season; this is certainly not conducive to invite people to come and go there," he said.

"The same applies for investment in the country, if the situation seems to be still very shaky, very unclear, very fragile."

Hahn and EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini meet Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Turkish EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik on Tuesday amid increasingly sharp exchanges over Ankara's rights record and a crackdown after last year's failed coup.

Relations between Germany and Turkey in particular are at rock bottom, with the two NATO partners at odds over the arrest of several German nationals as part of the crackdown, and over access of German officials to a NATO base.

Turkey and the EU began formal membership talks in 2005 after years of foot-dragging by EU member states wary of admitting such a large Muslim country.

Progress remained slow and the negotiations came to a virtual halt last year as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rounded up opponents in a massive crackdown following a failed coup.

Some EU member states, led by Austria, want the talks to be suspended outright, and there have been similar calls in Germany as the crisis with Turkey deepens.

Asked about the possible suspension of funding for candidate member countries, Hahn said that while he had a certain amount of "discretion" on the matter, the money could not be halted as long as the accession negotiations remained open.

"As long as this decision (to halt accession) has not been taken, these payments must continue," he said.

Separately, NATO said it was trying to resolve a dispute over access to the Konya airfield in central Turkey where Berlin has military personnel stationed.

"In an effort to find a solution, the Secretary General (Jens Stoltenberg) has now offered to arrange a visit for (German) parliamentarians to Konya airfield within a NATO framework," Cazalet said.
That means the text now must be revised by a committee of deputies and senators before being resubmitted.

The survey, by the Chilean firm Cadem, found 70 percent of respondents supported abortions in the three cases set out in the bill.

Twenty-four percent were against, and six percent gave no opinion.

The survey questioned 705 people, 494 of them by telephone and 211 in person. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.7 percent.

The result corresponded to previous surveys on the issue.

President Michelle Bachelet has worked since 2015 to overturn the strict ban on abortions brought in 1989, in the final days of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.
Tenzin Choeying, 19, succumbed to critical burn injuries in New Delhi a week after shouting "Victory to Tibet" and setting fire to himself at a university campus in Varanasi, in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state.

"He died on Saturday days after he was shifted from a Varanasi hospital for specialised treatment," Anil Rai, medical superintendent at Safdarjung hospital, told AFP.

His body will be handed over to the authorities after a postmortem, Rai added.

Self-immolation has regularly been used as a protest against China's actions in Tibet.

The International Campaign for Tibet -- which claims 150 Tibetans have self-immolated since since 2009 -- said Choeying shouted "Victory to Tibet" before setting himself on fire.

Varanasi police, quoting eyewitnesses, said the 19-year-old yelled "freedom" before dousing himself with kerosene and setting himself ablaze on July 14.

They were investigating the motive behind the suicide, including recent exam failures as being a possible cause for his actions.

China says its troops "liberated" Tibet in 1951, but many Tibetans accuse the government of religious repression and eroding their culture.

China rejects the accusations and accuses the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader who lives in exile in the Indian hill town of Dharamshala, of inciting self-immolations in a bid to split Tibet from the rest of the nation.

Choeying was the youngest of four siblings from a Tibetan family living in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile.

Tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees live in Indian settlements, the biggest of which is in southern Karnataka state.

A young farmer self-immolated in southwest China in March, the first Tibetan to set themselves on fire in 2017.

Choeying is the not the first Tibetan to set himself on fire in India.
A second Jordanian was wounded "in a shooting at a residential building inside the compound of the Israeli embassy," the police said in a statement.

It said police were notified in the late afternoon of a shooting at the compound in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of Amman.

Police deployed to the scene and surrounded the area, the statement said.

"An initial investigation indicated that three people were wounded, one an Israeli who was taken to hospital," it said, adding that two Jordanians were wounded and one later died of his injuries.

The police statement said the two Jordanians had gone into the building to carry out "carpentry work".

An investigation into the shooting was still underway, the police said.

The security source told AFP the casualties were the result of an unspecified "incident".

"A Jordanian man was killed and an Israeli man wounded and is in a serious condition following an incident inside the (Israeli) embassy" said the source who declined to be named or give further details.

Jordanian security forces deployed in the streets around the embassy, an AFP correspondent said.

Israel and Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty, but tensions have been high in recent days after Israel security measures at a highly sensitive holy site in annexed east Jerusalem.

On Friday, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets of Amman after the weekly prayer to denounce the Israeli measures at the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

A crowd estimated at more than 8,000 turned out for a demonstration called by Islamist movements and leftist parties.

Israel shut off the mosque compound on July 14 after Arab Israelis attacked and killed two police officers nearby.
Seventeen of those taken to hospitals after the discovery in the early morning hours in San Antonio -- about a two hour drive from the Mexican border -- were in critical condition, suffering from heat stroke and dehydration, authorities said.

At least 39 people were in the trailer, including one person who was later found in a nearby wooded area, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

At least two were school-age children, Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

It was not immediately clear how many suspected migrants might have fled and were unaccounted for.

City police chief William McManus told CNN that the dead were all adult men. Authorities were not releasing the victims' names or nationalities until their families were notified.

Mexican officials were working with US authorities to identify the dead, the country's foreign ministry said.

McManus told a news conference that someone from the truck had approached a Walmart employee asking for water.

The employee brought water to the truck in the parking lot, and then called the police who "found eight people dead in the back of that trailer," the police chief said, calling it a "horrific tragedy."

"We're looking at a human trafficking crime," McManus said.

The truck driver had been arrested, he said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr, 60, of Florida, was in custody and would be charged Monday morning in San Antonio.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed Sunday evening that the death toll had climbed to nine and called the case "a heartbreaking tragedy."

"Texas will continue to provide protection for the victims who have been robbed of their most basic rights, and bring down the full weight of the law for the perpetrators of this despicable crime," he said in a statement.

'Hot to the touch'

People in the truck were "hot to the touch," Hood said. The air conditioner in the trailer was not working.

"For those people who survived, they took a beating," he told CNN.

"With heat stroke, you sometimes have neurological deficits that you're never going to be able to recover from."

Hood estimated the temperature in the truck could have reached 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius).

"If that truck would have been there overnight, there's no doubt that we would have lost all 38 of those people," Hood said.

Happens 'all the time'

The US Department of Homeland Security and immigration officials are assisting local law enforcement with the investigation.

"This is not an isolated incident... this happens all the time," McManus said.

"It happens late at night, under darkness because they don't want to be discovered."

The police chief said store security footage showed that some vehicles came to pick up some travelers who were on the truck and who had made it out alive.

It was not immediately clear how long the truck had been in the parking lot, and police were working to determine who owns it.

Tens of thousands of illegal migrants from Mexico and Central America attempt to make the treacherous trip into the United States each year.

In 2003, 19 would-be migrants died in an overheated truck while being taken from south Texas near the Mexican border to Houston.

President Donald Trump has pledged to build a security wall along America's border with Mexico in order to crack down on illegal immigration.

So far, the project has been stalled by reluctance in Congress to dedicate funding for the barrier, which could cost as much as $20 billion according to some estimates.

US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has been to Mexico twice to discuss immigration, human trafficking and the spiraling cross-border drugs trade.
"Be firm. Especially to foreign drug dealers who enter the country. If they resist even the slightest, just shoot them," Widodo said.

The Indonesian Narcotics Agency recorded there are 6 million drug users in the archipelago out of its 255 million people, a situation the president labelled "drug emergency".

But Widodo's remarks prompted criticism from human rights activists.

Andreas Harsono, Indonesia's researcher from Human Rights Watch condemned the order.

"A president statement like that can seem like a green light to shoot without the correct procedure," Harsono told AFP Sunday, adding that law enforcers should be cautious and follow the law.

Indonesia imposes a tough punishment for drug trafficking, with smugglers who carry five or more grammes given the death penalty.

In the last two years, it has executed about 18 drug traffickers, including foreigners such as Australian Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, which sparked diplomatic outrage and a call to abolish the death penalty.
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Erdogan, whose country has come to Qatar's aid in the dispute, had talks in Jeddah with King Salman who hailed the Turkish leader's "efforts in the fight against terrorism and its financing," Saudi state news agency SPA reported.

He also met Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman before leaving for Kuwait for the second leg of his tour.

Erdogan was received by Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who has been mediating to resolve the crisis.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with their Shiite rival Iran.

Doha denies the claim and has been strongly backed by Ankara throughout the standoff.

The Turkish president will visit Qatar on Monday for his first face-to-face talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani since the crisis began.

"No one has any interest in prolonging this crisis any more," Erdogan said before leaving Istanbul.

He accused "enemies" of seeking to "fire up tensions between brothers" in the region.

Erdogan praised Qatar's behaviour in the crisis, saying Doha had sought to find a solution through dialogue. "I hope our visit will be beneficial for the region," he said.

The crisis has put Turkey in a delicate position, and Erdogan has repeatedly said he wants to see an end to the dispute as soon as possible.

In recent years, Qatar has emerged as Turkey's number one ally in the Middle East, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating over issues including the Syria conflict where both are staunch foes of President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkish base on Qatar

Turkey is also setting up a military base in Qatar, its only such outpost in the region. It has expedited the process since the crisis began and reportedly now has 150 troops there.

"From the first moments of the Qatar crisis, we have been on the side of peace, stability, solidarity and dialogue," said Erdogan.

But Turkey, which is also going through a turbulent time with the European Union and the United States, also does not want to wreck its own relations with regional kingpin Saudi Arabia.

"As the elder statesman in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia has a big role to play in solving the crisis," said Erdogan, taking care not to explicitly criticise the kingdom.

Erdogan said he supported the mediation efforts of Kuwait's emir, a possible indication Ankara sees Kuwait as the key to solving the crisis.

The Qatari emir said Friday he was ready for talks to resolve the row as long as the emirate's sovereignty is respected.

His call received a cold reception from the UAE's state minister for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, who said he hoped the emir had pledged to reconsider Qatar's position.

"Dialogue is necessary, but it should be based on a revision" of Qatar's stance, he tweeted.

Erdogan is likely to get a warm welcome in Doha where Turkey has been loudly applauded for sending in food, including fruit, dairy and poultry products by ship and by plane to help Doha beat an embargo.

Turkey has also benefited, with its exports to Qatar doubling in the past month to more than $50 million. According to the economy ministry, Ankara has sent around 200 cargo planes filled with aid since the crisis began.

Erdogan's tour coincides with a visit to Kuwait by the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, who held talks Sunday with Kuwaiti officials.

A statement said Mogherini paid tribute to Kuwait's "relentless mediation efforts" in the dispute and called for a resolution "through dialogue and without delay".
Any funding lapse, they said, will be counted in human lives.

"As we gather today, the largest and most important donor in HIV response has threatened devastating cuts to funding for research and treatment programmes," International AIDS Society president Linda-Gail Bekker told a global HIV science conference in Paris.

"Draconian cuts to research and... HIV funding is a catastrophe we cannot afford to see happen," she said.

More than 6,000 scientists are gathered in the French capital until Wednesday to assess advances in AIDS science amid concerns over money drying up.

Globally, government donor funding for HIV dropped last year to the lowest level since 2010 -- from $7.5 billion (6.4 billion euros) in 2015 to $7 billion, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a California-based health policy NGO.

The United States has for years been the biggest contributor by far to the global fight against HIV infection, accounting for about two-thirds of funding by governments.

However Trump's proposed budget, submitted in May, reduces funding for "several global health programmes, including HIV/AIDS, with the expectation that other donors can and should increase their commitments."

Bekker urged the United States to "stay engaged" .

"These onslaughts on funding, principles and programmes have already begun to erode the gains we have so painstakingly made," she told conference delegates.

"If we do not actively move forward on the HIV response, then we are sliding back. Sliding back means sick patients, lost lives, ongoing transmission and infected children -- a world that we do not want to go back to."

'Return on investment

UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe pointed to gains in life expectancy for people infected with HIV as a "return on investment".

From only four percent of infected people on life-saving anti-retroviral treatment in 2003, the number grew to more than 50 percent in 2016 -- covering 19.5 million of the 36.7 million people living with HIV around the world.

"I know that donors... want to see impact. And today we can say... that we have been able to reduce by more than 50 percent the death rate, mortality rate, among people living with HIV," said Sidibe.

But much work remains -- some 17 million people are still not getting the treatment they need, including 1.2 million children.

And in east Europe and central Asia, there has been a 60-percent rise in new infections in the last six years, mainly in Russia.

"The worst conspiracy would be complacency," said Sidibe, pointing to a $7 billion gap in annual funding for AIDS research and prevention and treatment programmes.

"Any cuts to funding will jeopardise our results."

AIDS expert Jean-Francois Delfraissy, co-chairman of the conference, said there are likely to be similar funding trends "in Europe, and probably also in France in the next years".

"We have a lot of great success and I think that politicians can understand that, but I think it's not sufficient," he said.

Trump was not the only world leader to come under fire.

Activists questioned why French President Emmanuel Macron did not attend the first day of the conference, though it was unclear whether he had been invited.
How smart is it to borrow from Peter to pay Paul?

Not smart at all, although those with vivid imaginations can conjure up a scenario where it might make sense.

Here's the key ingredient -- the borrower has to be in terrible financial shape. Or, to put it another way -- the borrower has to be the state of Illinois, which is in terrible financial shape.

The state, in fact, has a plan to borrow money to pay off a portion of its debts, and here's why.

Illinois has about $15 billion in unpaid bills. In fact, Illinois has been keeping its government running for years now by not paying its bills in a timely fashion, stiffing creditors on one side of the financial ledger while spending tax dollars on the other side.

Ordinary people can't get away with that kind of thing. But the state does what it wants, but not without a significant cost.

Under current law, bills that are at least 60 days old generate a 12 percent annual interest charge.

So unpaid bills plus interest increase the size of the bill. That's why businesses that buy state debt from creditors eventually make good money.

In passing their budget and tax plan over Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto, Democrats authorized $6 billion in borrowing to make a sizable payment dent on the $15 billion backlog. Backers of the plan say the savings will come from borrowing at 6 percent a year to pay off bills growing at a rate of 12 percent a year.

Call it arbitrage, call it common sense, call it smoke and mirrors, there's no doubt that 6 percent is less than 12 percent. Hence, the savings is real if things work out as expected.

But there are some caveats here that ought to be taken into consideration.

Although the borrowing plan is billed as a money saver, it's still expensive. One analyst estimated a $6 billion loan will cost taxpayers $2.5 billion even if paid off quickly, and there's no reason to think the state is going to pay off this debt in an expeditious matter.

Even with the recent $5 billion tax increase, there is a real dispute about whether the 2017-18 state budget actually is balanced, as its backers claim, or $2 billion in the hole, as critics suggest. Different accountants can read the numbers in different ways.

Of even greater concern is the Legislature's propensity to continue to spend money that it does not have.

If Illinois is going to pull itself out of its really deep hole, legislators are going to have to embrace the kind of fiscal restraint they have flatly rejected in the past.

The state desperately needs more revenue and not just that generated by increases in the personal and corporate income tax. It needs the natural revenue that is generated by a growing economy that produces more good-paying jobs at higher incomes for people who then pay higher taxes to local and state government.

Instead, Illinois is enduring a slow-growth economy that is at risk of falling back into a recession. If that happens, experts say government revenues will fall significantly.

That's why the state is skating on thin fiscal ice. Sure, the borrowing ploy looks like a winner. But that's only because Illinois has been down so long that virtually anything looks like up to our legislators.
CHICAGO  Her death was senseless. If I could have videotaped her last moments, traveled back in time and showed her how horrible her death would be, I think she wouldve quit, Joe Konrath said of his mother, Laura.

As it was, Laura Konrath had four strokes, two heart attacks and coronary artery blockages and was in constant pain from plaque in her body and brain. She died in January at 71 after smoking four to five packs a day since her teens.

Joe Konrath, a novelist from Schaumburg, Ill., bluntly blamed cigarettes in her obituary and suggested hers be a cautionary tale.

Her family is angry that she suffered so much and died so young. Theyre especially angry that she chose cigarettes over living a longer, healthier life, he wrote.

What my mother had to endure, what her family had to endure watching her die, was entirely preventable.

Smoking cessation efforts show progress  there are now more ex-smokers than smokers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the CDC predicts that if smoking continues at the current rate among U.S. youths, 1 in every 13 who are 17 or younger now will die prematurely from a smoking-related illness.

Of the almost 37 million people in the U.S. who smoke, 70 percent want to quit, said Dr. Steven Schroeder, director of the California-based Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the 1998 settlement between the four largest tobacco companies and states seeking to recoup costs for treating smokers.

But only a tiny percentage of smokers succeed in quitting without assistance, which is why the center is working on a number of fronts  pursuing policy changes and tobacco taxes to discourage sales; pressing college campuses and the military to keep younger people from starting; getting pharmacies to stop selling cigarettes; encouraging hospitals and medical professionals to step up efforts to persuade patients to quit. A recent focus is on those with mental disorders and substance abuse problems who consume 40 percent of all cigarettes sold in the U.S.

My mantra is, hate the smoke, love the smoker, Schroeder said. Various approaches are necessary because theres no one way to get people to stop smoking.

The graphic TV ads featuring people ravaged by smoking cause a spike in calls to quit lines each time they air, he said. But that tack doesnt work with youths, who dont think theyre ever going to get sick, leading to campaigns focusing on the bad behavior of the tobacco industry and how its not cool to date a smoker, he said.

The lead researcher in a study released in March by AARP and the National Institutes of Health hopes the main takeaway  that its better to quit at any age than to keep smoking  will aid cessation efforts.

The study, said to be the first to look at the effects of quitting on mortality rates of those in their 70s, was needed to see if the benefits already documented for those who quit earlier in life held true for those giving up smoking in their 60s, said Sarah Nash, a cancer epidemiologist in Anchorage, Alaska.

We now have data that shows even those who quit in their 60s have reduced risk of death into their 70s and 80s, she said. We have evidence that clinicians should try to get people to quit even if theyre in their 60s.

Konraths frank obituary language inspired numerous promises to quit and comments from others who had to cope with smokers.

Wendy Filip, of Woodridge, Ill., was left to pick up the pieces after her husbands mother committed suicide in 2007 rather than comply with her doctors ultimatum to quit smoking or no longer be his patient after he placed a stent in a coronary artery.

Her mother-in-law had tried to kill herself five years earlier upon learning she had multiple myeloma, and while Jackie Filip did not give up cigarettes, she promised her then-13-year-old granddaughter she would not attempt suicide again, Wendy Filip said.

Her death really crushed (granddaughter) Kristin, Filip said, and made both Kristin and her father, Joe, angry and bitter. It wasnt until after Jackie Filip died that Kristin told her parents she had for years covered up her grandmothers smoking, which was forbidden when the child visited.

Joe Filips father, who also smoked and scoffed that it wouldnt kill him or his wife, was diagnosed with lung cancer when he was 75 and died two weeks later. Wendy Filips father had asthma that turned into COPD, but he continued smoking even while dragging around an oxygen tank, she said.

He was forced to quit about a year before his death in 2012 at age 82 when he was in a rehabilitation center. But by then, it was too late, Filip said.

Smoking should be illegal, she said. I love that Illinois went smoke-free. It made it easier for my husband and me, both of whom have asthma.

Futile as Konraths efforts were to get his mother to quit, he doesnt see banning smoking as the answer.

People are always going to do whatever they want to with their bodies, he said. If we want to properly educate people on the dangers of smoking, we have to start young. I think school field trips to hospices would be helpful.

Everybody makes bad choices, and I think a lot of people have bad habits. Prohibition wont stop human nature, but education might.
PLATTSMOUTH  A Louisville man who broke into a downtown business last September learned Monday that he would serve one year in state prison.

Joshua A. Debrie, 19, appeared in Cass County District Court for plea and sentencing hearings. Debrie accepted a plea agreement with prosecutors that dealt with charges in two cases. Debrie pled no contest to one Class IIIA felony charge of attempted burglary. The state agreed to reduce its original Class IIA felony charge of burglary in exchange for the plea.

Prosecutors also agreed to dismiss three additional charges against Debrie. The dismissed charges included possession of burglars tools, attempted burglary and false reporting of a criminal matter. Debrie agreed to pay restitution of $530.15 to one victim and $91.33 to a second victim.

Deputy County Attorney Steven Sunde told the court Cass County Sheriffs Office deputies responded to the American Family Insurance location at 132 Main Street in Louisville at 8:54 p.m. Sept. 7. Several juveniles had witnessed a break-in at that location and informed the owner of another local business. The owner quickly called authorities about the situation. A CCSO deputy who was on a routine patrol of Louisville at the time arrived at the business within seconds of the initial call.

The deputy saw broken glass scattered on the ground around the main entrance of American Family Insurance. Additional deputies arrived on scene and searched the property. They found Debrie sitting near the back door of the structure.

Sunde said deputies noticed blood coming from one of Debries knuckles. He said deputies suspected Debrie had used his knuckles to smash the glass on a front window. Deputies also found a wrench in Debries back pocket. The wrench had fresh marks on it.

Authorities interviewed Debrie and asked him why he was at the business. Sunde said Debrie told them he had entered one of the windows to catch the real criminals who had been inside.

Judge Michael Smith accepted a request from both the state and defense to advance to immediate sentencing. Sunde asked the court to follow the plea agreements recommendation of one year in state prison. He said he felt the one-year recommendation was appropriate because of Debries criminal history.

Debrie had been out on bond on a separate criminal case when the Louisville break-in took place. He had also pled guilty in 2016 to charges of domestic assault-third degree, theft-shoplifting $0-$500 and unauthorized use of a financial transaction device.

Defense attorney Donald Schense also asked the court to follow the plea deals recommendation. He said his client had not taken any physical items out of the building during the break-in. He also said he felt Debrie had learned a valuable lesson from the aftermath of the incident.

Smith ordered Debrie to serve one year in the Nebraska Department of Corrections. Debrie will receive credit for 47 days he spent in jail following his arrest. Debrie will pay restitution amounts of $530.15 and $91.33 and will spend nine months on post-release supervision. He will have to abide by many terms of a typical probation sentence during the post-release supervision period.
Gov. Bruce Rauner stunned observers when he unceremoniously booted his veteran top staff out the door and turned management of state government over to an inexperienced team of policy wonks from the Illinois Policy Institute (IPI).

The IPI is a very conservative advocacy group; nothing wrong with that, of course.

Yet its about time the IPI was called out for its hard-edged promotion of great-sounding but wholly impracticable proposals, which is to my mind harmful to the policymaking process.

The IPI has been headed since 2007 by John Tillman, an entrepreneurial builder of non-profit advocacy organizations. Tillman raises $3 million-plus a year in funding from old money conservatives like the Koch Brothers as well as from successful Chicago business folks like Bruce Rauner.

True believer ideologue and IPI president Kristina Rasmussen is Rauners new chief of staff. And top policy and management slots are also now filled with a half dozen young IPI folks. From my knowledge of several IPI staff, they are smart, lacking in government experience, and highly ideological.

By ideological, I mean the IPI believes, really believes, in very small government, which I suppose we all do except, of course, for Social Security, Medicare, defense, education, highways, good water and sanitation, public safety and effective local government.

The IPI employs about two dozen policy analysts, as well as lawyers who do good work in fighting oppressive regulations on small business. The IPI also has a stable of newspaper op-ed writers and a statewide radio network to push the IPI agenda across the state.

I put analyst in quotes because, like many advocacy groups of both the right and left, the IPI approach is conclusion driven. By that I mean the IPI first establishes its ideological conclusion, to wit: Illinois could have enacted its recent budget without a tax increase. Then, the so-called analysts go out in search of narrative to buck up the conclusion.

For example, IPI put out a no-tax increase Budget Solutions 2018 document that is basically nonsense. Oh, it sounds good, and in the future we should adopt some of its suggestions, but via a transition period over several years.

The IPI budget solution is not to save or cut huge amounts, but simply to shift, massively, state responsibilities onto the backs of its local governments.

Their proposal would, for example, shift at least $2.5 billion in teacher and professor pension responsibilities off the state ledger books and onto local school districts and universities.

The IPI would also save $1.7 billion by simply not distributing a slice of the income tax revenue that has always gone to local governments. This sharing was part of the original income tax enactment in 1969, and it has the effect of keeping property taxes lower than they might be otherwise.

The irony is that the IPI is right on principle in these illustrations. Local schools and universities, not the state, should pay for their own pension obligations. And local government officials would probably sharpen their budget-drafting pencils a bit if all their revenue came from their own sources.

But you simply cant make such big changes in one year.

Of course, next door to my office at Connies Country Kitchen, all this IPI propaganda sounds eminently reasonable. And to be fair, my coffee drinking buddies shouldnt be expected to understand the nuances of state budgets any more than I understand GPS, row crop shut-off, and gene splicing.

But to folks who study this stuff closely, like leading business organizations such as the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club and the Civic Federation of Chicago, the IPI budget proposal is all claptrap, though they would be too polite to say so.

These organizations concluded that, painful as it will be to their own members, the only way out of our deep budget hole is with a tax increase. Indeed, the groups proposed bigger tax increases than those enacted recently.

So, with people who are trying to solve the states problems, the IPIs credibility is zippo.

This is too bad, because IPI employs bright folks, and some of their ideas have merit.

So, now that they are inside and running Illinois state government, I hope the IPI management team takes a problem-solving approach to its work.

But I am not optimistic. Ideology thrives on rigidity; it is not good at governance.

This column has been edited to correctly reflect when John Tillman joined the Illinois Policy Institute.
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With India and Pakistan as newly installed members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, China is likely to face an increasing amount of divisiveness within a regional economic and security organization accustomed to extreme comity and cooperative discussions. India's entry could especially frustrate Beijing because of rising geopolitical competition between the Asian giants and different approaches to counterterrorism.

Beijing may not have even wanted India to join the SCO. Russia first proposed India as a member, likely in part to complement bilateral economic and security engagement, but mainly to constrain China's growing influence in the organization. Russia is increasingly concerned that post-Soviet SCO members  Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan  are drifting too far into China's geostrategic orbit. For example, it is well known that Moscow has long delayed implementing Chinese initiatives that would enable Beijing to reap greater benefits from regional trade, including establishing an SCO regional trade agreement and bank. As China gains more clout in Central Asia, Moscow may welcome New Delhi by its side to occasionally strengthen Russia's hand at slowing or opposing Chinese initiatives. Indeed, during a recent visit to Moscow, Modi said, India and Russia have always been together on international issues.

Going forward, this strategy is likely to pay big dividends. New Delhi has a major hang-up related to the activities of its archrival Pakistan  sponsored by Beijing at the 2015 SCO summit to balance Moscow's support of India  and continues to be highly critical of China's so-called all-weather friendship with Islamabad. In May, New Delhi refused to send a delegation to Beijing's widely publicized Belt and Road Initiative summit, which was aimed at increasing trade and infrastructure connectivity between China and Eurasian countries. According to an official Indian statement, the flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative  the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor  was not being pursued in a manner that respects sovereignty and territorial integrity. Indian opposition stems from the plan to build the corridor through the disputed Kashmir region and to link it to the strategically positioned Pakistani port of Gwadar, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to raise the issue again during his acceptance speech at the SCO summit last month. New Delhi likely will continue to criticize the corridor in the context of the SCO because, as a full member, India has the right to protest developments that do not serve the interests of all SCO members. The SCO also offers another public stage for India to constantly question the intent behind China's exceptionally close ties to Pakistan.

India-Pakistan tensions also occasionally flare up, and Beijing may have to brace for either side to use the SCO as a platform to criticize the other. In the absence of a major incident, Beijing has admirably handled the delicacy of this situation. When asked in early June whether SCO membership would positively impact India-Pakistan relations, China spokesperson Hua Chunying said: I see the journalist from Pakistan sit[s] right here, while journalists from India sit over there. Maybe someday you can sit closer to each other. Additionally, the Chinese military's unofficial mouthpiece, Global Times, published an op-ed suggesting that SCO membership for India and Pakistan would lead to positive bilateral developments. Even if that is overly optimistic, it would set the right tone as the organization forges ahead.

But the odds are against China's desired outcome. Beijing needs to look no farther than South Asia for a cautionary tale. In this region, both India and Pakistan are members of the multilateral grouping known as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. New Delhi, along with Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan, boycotted last year's summit in Islamabad because it believed Pakistan was behind a terrorist attack on an Indian army base. Even with an official ban on discussing bilateral issues in its proceedings, SAARC has been perennially hobbled by the intrusion of India-Pakistan grievances. Beijing can probably keep its close friend Islamabad in line at the SCO, but this likely won't be the case with New Delhi.

Another major issue for the SCO to contend with is the security of Afghanistan. An integral component of the organization is the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, aimed at combating China's three evils  terrorism, extremism, and separatism. India, however, is likely to reliably and reasonably highlight the contradiction between China's stated anti-terrorism goals and the reality of its policy. Most notably, Beijing has consistently looked the other way as Pakistani intelligence services continue to support terrorist groups in Afghanistan, including the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network. Moreover, because India is particularly close to the Afghan government, it could seek to sponsor Afghanistan to move from observer status toward full SCO membership. This would give India even greater strength in the group and could bolster Russia's position as well.

Lingering border disputes and fierce geostrategic competition in South Asia between China and India is likely to temper any cooperation Beijing might hope to achieve with New Delhi in the SCO. The unfolding Doklam dispute  where Chinese and Indian troops are in a standoff  is just the latest example of tense relations at multiple points along their land border. Mutual suspicions in the maritime domain persist as well, with the Indian government recently shoring up its position in the strategically important Andaman and Nicobar island chain to counter the perceived Chinese string of pearls strategy  aimed at establishing access to naval ports throughout the Indian Ocean that could be militarily advantageous in a conflict. Such mutual suspicions will likely impact SCO discussions, perhaps in unpredictable ways.

Although India may be an unwelcome addition and irritant to Beijing at the SCO, China does not necessarily need the SCO to achieve its regional objectives. From its announcement in 2001, the SCO gave Beijing a productive way to engage neighbors still dominated by Moscow. But today, China's economic and military strength makes it far more formidable on its own  a point that is only magnified as Russian influence simultaneously recedes. For instance, even though India rejected Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative overture, China remains India's top trading partner and a critical market for all Central and South Asian states, leaving them with few other appealing options.

India's entry into the SCO, however, could put Beijing in the awkward position of highlighting the organization's value, while increasingly working around or outside of it. Outright failure of the SCO would be unacceptable for China because of its central role in establishing the forum. Regardless of the bickering between countries that may break out, Beijing can be expected to make yet another show of the importance of the SCO, with all of the usual pomp and circumstance, at the next summit in June 2018. China as host makes this outcome even more likely.

Derek Grossman is a senior defense analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. He formerly served at the Defense Intelligence Agency as the daily intelligence briefer to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs at the Pentagon.

This commentary originally appeared on The Diplomat on July 24, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Russian Labor Ministry sued over huge lawmakers pensions

MOSCOW, July 24 (RAPSI)  Lawyer Yury Kachan has filed with Moscows Meshchansky District Court a lawsuit demanding explanations from the Russian Labor Minister Maxim Topilin concerning huge retirement pensions of lawmakers, according to the claims copy obtained by RAPSI.

Deputy Head of the Labor Ministrys pension provision department Elena Moskaleva is a co-defendant in the lawsuit.

Retirement benefits of lawmakers differ markedly from pensions of ordinary citizens, the lawsuit reads.

The plaintiff asks to clarify the reasons for the occurrence of private legislation governing MPs pension provision that extends special privilege to them.

Additionally, the attorney demands to collect 1 ruble ($0,017) in damages jointly from the defendants.

Kachan also seeks to turn over the control of retirement contributions payment from the Pension Fund of Russia to the Federal Tax Service.

The lawsuit has been set for July 31.
Russian ex-banker Gitelson put on international wanted list

ST. PETERSBURG, July 24 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov)  Ex-chairman of Inkasbank Alexander Gitelson, who stands charged with embezzling 20 billion rubles ($334 million), has been put on the international wanted list, the Investigative Committees St. Petersburg directorate told RAPSI on Monday.

Investigators claim that Gitelson has fled to Austria. In June 2017, the Austrian authorities agreed to prosecute Gitelson, the Investigative Committees statement reads.

From March 2007 to October 2008, the defendant acting as the Board Chairman of Bank of East-European Finance Corporation (EEFC) conspired with Deputy Chairman of the Board Ivan Bibinov to embezzle the banks funds in the amount of 20 billion rubles under the pretense of credit granting to companies controlled by Gitelson.

Bibinov was given a 4-year suspended sentence with a 5-year probation term in May 2015.

In March 2015, Gitelson was convicted and sentenced to three years for embezzling over 2 billion rubles ($33 million at the current exchange rate) in public funds from Inkasbank. A court in St. Petersburg also fined the banker 500,000 rubles ($8,400).

In April 2011, Moscows Meshchansky District Court sentenced Gitelson in absentia to five years in prison and a 1 million-ruble ($16,700) fine for embezzling 495 million rubles ($8.3 million) from his acquaintance, MP Adnan Muzykayev.

Later, the court ruled to combine punishments for both crimes and extended prison sentence to five years.

In May 2016, the Commercial Court of St. Petersburg granted Gitelsons petition for his own bankruptcy.




PLATTSMOUTH  A Plattsmouth resident who was selling marijuana out of his car pled guilty to a felony charge Monday morning.

Jason R. Scott, 36, appeared in Cass County District Court for a plea hearing. He pled guilty to one Class IIIA felony charge of attempted distribution or manufacturing of controlled substance-marijuana. Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox told the court the plea bargain did not contain any sentencing recommendations.

Cox told the court a Nebraska State Patrol trooper stopped Scott for speeding on April 5. The trooper noticed the odor of marijuana near the vehicle and asked Scott if any drugs were in the car. Cox said Scott initially told the trooper there were no illegal substances.

The trooper searched the car and soon discovered multiple drug-related items. Cox said the trooper found a blue-tinted cooler that contained marijuana, a red scale used for weighing marijuana, a mason jar that contained the drug and $820. The trooper determined there was approximately one-half pound of marijuana inside the car.

Cox said the large quantity of items indicated Scott had been trying to distribute marijuana at multiple locations. Scott told the trooper he had been selling it to friends in Plattsmouth and Omaha. Cox said Scott did not provide additional details about the marijuana to authorities.

Scott remains free on bond. The court set a sentencing date of Sept. 25.
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You can run or walk to help some good causes.

On Aug. 19, three local sheltering agencies are hosting The Run for Shelter at Fremont Lakes State Recreation Area.

The public is invited to participate in the 5 kilometer (3.1 miles) event, which starts at 8 a.m.

Registration starts at 7:30 a.m. Runners and walkers may pick up their registration packets, which will contain their T-shirts and running numbers. Cost is $20 to participate.

Participants will meet at the Tow Line restaurant and the run-walk will end here as well. The route will be marked and is a timed run for those wishing the run the course. A park pass is not needed to take part in this event. Participants may bring children in strollers. No pets are allowed.

This is the third year for the event.

As in past years, agencies benefiting from this event are: The Bridge, Care Corps Family Services, Inc., and Heartland Family Services Jefferson House.

The run-walk event is designed to raise awareness about the three agencies and services they provide, said Morgan Bridgman-Putnam, director of development and public relations at Care Corps.

The Bridge, formerly known as the Crisis Center for Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault, provides emergency, confidential shelter and support for victims in Dodge, Washington, Burt, Cuming and Saunders counties.

Last year, the agency worked with 838 individuals, who had 752 children, and responded to 4,092 crisis calls; 34 of the 40 families the agency provided safe shelter for were able to move into permanent housing with 85 percent free from violence.

Care Corps Homeless Services, Inc., provides shelter, which includes meals, hygiene products and first-aid care. Care Corps serves homeless and hear homeless individuals and families.

Last year, the agency prevented 249 people from becoming homeless and provided shelter for 165 babies and children; 84 percent of clients left the shelter to enter a permanent housing situation. The agency provided more than 30,000 meals in 2016 and on any given night serves more than 80 people.

Heartland Family Services Jefferson House Childrens Emergency Shelter and Group Home provides residential safety to children from birth to age 18.

Last year, the residential program helped almost 50 children from Dodge County and the surrounding area. All of the children were able to maintain authorized contact with their families. Jefferson House also has in-home services. The agency helped 118 individuals, working with 61 at-risk families, said Charli Hathcox, communications manager for Heartland Family Service.

Ninety-six percent of the youth, who spent time at The Jefferson House, now have no documented cases of truancy, drug/alcohol addiction(s), or new current charges, said Chris Seawall, program director.

Tera Kucera, executive director of Care Corps, pointed out the importance of these agencies.

Without the services that these three organizations provide, many people in our community would have no safe place to seek shelter, she said.

The August event has an educational component.

Along the course, runners and walkers will be able to learn 10 facts about each agency, Kucera said.

Kylie Kampschneider, sexual assault advocate at The Bridge, noted the importance of such education.

Were all such different agencies, providing different services, Kampschneider said. I think a lot of people will learn about each agency and the individual things each of us are doing.

We all work together, Kampschneider added.

Each year, a client from one of the agencies shares his or her story. In the past, clients from Care Corps and Jefferson House have shared their experiences. This year, a client from The Bridge will speak.

Registration for the event is required.

To register for the event visit: getmeregistered.com and search for Run for Shelter or secure.getmeregistered.com/get_information.php?event_id=127214.

Those who need help registering may call The Bridge at 402-721-4340 or Care Corps at 402-721-3125. Participants also may register on the morning of the event.
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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 07/24/2017



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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.
CapitaLands wholly owned serviced residence business unit, The Ascott Limited (Ascott), is acquiring an 80% stake in Synergy Global Housing (Synergy), a leading accommodation provider in the U.S. The acquisition will expand Ascotts footprint in the U.S. and strengthen its extensive range of international-class serviced residences for corporate customers worldwide. It will also triple Ascotts portfolio from over 1,000 units to about 3,000 units in the U.S.

This acquisition is yet another move to transform Ascotts global operating platform following hot on the heels of its investment in Quest Apartment Hotels earlier this month, which will leapfrog Ascott to become the largest serviced residence provider in Australasia.

Mr Lee Chee Koon, Ascotts Chief Executive Officer, said, Ascott has been a partner of Synergy to cross sell our units since 2013. We see value in taking a majority stake in Synergy to further increase the scale of our business in the U.S. and to strengthen Ascott's lead globally. We are confident of surpassing our target of 80,000 units well ahead of 2020, as we look at more opportunities to grow through investments, management contracts, franchises and strategic alliances.

Mr Lee added, In addition to providing Ascotts corporate customers with more accommodation options in the U.S., we will also be able to immediately fulfill demand from Synergys corporate customers when they require accommodation outside of the country. The U.S. is a key market for Ascott and we see potential for us to expand further in cities such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington DC.

In addition to Global Solution Centres in Dublin, Ireland; Hyderabad, India and Singapore; Synergy has a strong foothold in the U.S., where it leases apartments from partners and property owners to rent to corporate clients. In particular, this investment will give Ascott an immediate presence and access to corporations based in Silicon Valley, which include high-tech powerhouses boasting achievements and influence that extend well beyond the San Francisco Bay Area.
Swiss-Belhotel International (SBI) has announced the promotion of Herve Peyre as the Area General Manager for Bahrain.

An MBA from Cornell University in Paris, Herve has had an illustrious career in hospitality starting in 1993 as Assistant Food and Beverage Manager at Hilton Paris. Subsequently he spent 18 years with the Hilton Hotels & Resorts working in various senior executive roles. His last posting with the Hilton group was as General Manager of Hilton Strasbourg in 2011. Prior to joining Swiss-Belhotel Seef Bahrain, Herve was the Cluster General Manager for Flora Creek & Flora Park Deluxe Hotel Apartments in Dubai.
At first glance, Model Citizen Salon may seem like any other place to get your roots done or
'The two-word answer is: Proper oversight,' says T N Ninan.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

The India of the 1980s and 1990s had many dreams: Private TV by satellite or cable, instead of drab old Doordarshan with its government propaganda; modern corporate hospitals that looked like hotels, just like those in America; world-class highways built by private construction companies and not by the CPWD (central public works department); and efficient, privately-run power stations that would give the state electricity boards a run for their money.

We also wanted private phone services, and flight services that were better than what Indian Airlines could offer.

We wondered why we couldn't get passports in days, rather than weeks and months.

And we wanted private insurance companies, instead of the painfully bureaucratic Life Insurance Corporation.

I am sure you could add to this listlike quality housing from private developers, instead of sand-in-your-face flats built by the DDA (Delhi Development Authority) or MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority).

Well, we have got a lot of what we wished for -- and then some.

But do we really prefer R-nub to ol' Doordarshan?

At least DD was/is staid and restrained, not like an attack dog barking in your drawing room.

We mouthed the public-private-partnership mantra, but the private infrastructure companies that have been building power stations and highways are neck deep in debt, some of them plain bankrupt.

They have pulled banks into the mess, undermining credit growth and destroying hopes of an economic recovery.

And (how can we forget?), permitting the private sector access to natural resources led to scandalous asset grabs.

Meanwhile, private insurance companies resorted to mis-selling policies, duping many unsuspecting customers.

And how many have been left in the lurch by private builders -- with delivery deadlines long forgotten, quality promises honoured in the breach, and building regulations violated?

Still, disillusionment can be slow to set in.

We go in large numbers to private hospitals, even though we know that we are being hopelessly over-charged and made to undergo procedures that are not needed because doctors get their cut on the bills.

It should not surprise that doctors have lost their haloed status, so we have a new trend of patients attacking them physically when things go wrong.

Some doctors recently took to wearing helmets, as a mark of protest!

In fairness, there is the brighter side, and some of it has turned out exactly how we might have envisioned it.

No more queues for phones, for instance; and the phone services are highly affordable.

Also, a choice of airlines with much greater frequency of flights, vastly improved airport terminals and, once again, affordable tariffs though even the best operators treat you like cattle sometimes.

The metro networks sprouting in various cities are middle-class dreams come true (Why only middle-class? Because the rich don't use them and the poor can't afford them; they walk or cycle).

So why have some things worked out well, and others not?

The two-word answer is: Proper oversight.

Markets need to be regulated.

Businesses need freedom to operate, but also careful monitoring of everything from quality and safety to environmental practices.

And customer protection laws have to be effective.

The insurance regulator took its sweet time before it cracked down on mis-selling in the insurance business.

In the media, the sector regulator (such as it is) is asleep when there is border-line hate speech being broadcast, along with rampant war-mongering.

Key customer-centric components of power sector reforms have been sabotaged by private vendors.

And while everyone knows of rampant hospital malpractice, the government has not looked beyond the price of stents!

Short point: There is no escape from building State capacity.

It is not enough to say the public sector can't deliver, so let the private sector handle it.

Because the private sector needs to be regulated, and proper regulation needs State capacity too, lest you run the twin risks of poorly-framed rules and regulatory capture.

Ignore this, and you will end up rapping along with Eminem, 'This is what I wished for... Just isn't how I envisioned it.
Poor rain threatens recovery in production this season, sugar prices at three-month high

Over half of India currently faces sugar deficit despite existence of huge carryover stocks from the previous year and bumper output in some states including Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Deficient monsoon rain so far has threatened recovery in sugar production this season, the second year in a row, pushing sugar prices to a three-month high in the past few weeks.

Industry sources said 14 states and Union Territories with a huge sugar consumption base are currently facing supply shortage due to low output last year.

These include major consumers such as West Bengal, Rajasthan, and Bihar to name a few. Despite growing consumption, a number of these states do not produce sugar at all.

The government has asked Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) to ensure that Mills do not increase prices as market prices were quoted at three-month highs.

In response to the letter from ministry of consumer affairs to check prices, Saritha Reddy, president ISMA said that, "We have asked all member sugar mills, writing individually to them, to keep prices under check.

We also want prices to remain under check and do not go up unreasonably."

The government had also allowed duty free import of 0.5 million tonnes of raw sugar to bridge the regional deficit, experts believe the quantity insufficient to meet the regions demand.

During the fortnight ahead of GST (goods and services tax) levy, traders and stockists abstained from re-stocking.

Consequently, trading of sugar came to a grinding halt.

In the first week of July (post implementation of GST on July 1), traders faced huge difficulties in generating e-bill which also interrupted supply.

Now, all these demands suddenly came since the second week of July resulting into price rise, said Sanjeev Babar, Managing Director, Maharashtra State Co-operative Sugar Factories Federation Ltd.

Meanwhile, Indias central, eastern and north-eastern states would need 5.4 million tonnes of sugar to flow in from surplus region or through imports as these regions are in huge deficit.

States such as Uttar Pradesh, which produced 8.7 million tonnes of sugar in 2016-17 against a consumption of 3.7 million tonnes, and Maharashtra with a production of 4.2 million tonnes and consumption of 3.3 million tonnes need to supply to the deficit state to control prices there.

Interestingly, major cane growing regions in Maharashtra have witnessed below normal rainfall for the week ended July 12 resulting in 5 per cent of cumulative rainfall so far this season.

In northern Karnataka too, the rainfall remained below normal for the week ended July 12, lowering prospects of cane yield in the region.

But, the Indian Meteorological Departments forecast of a return of rainfall in the week ahead, provides a good prospect for cane crops.

Meanwhile, rating agency Icra had recently forecast sugar prices in India to move up following the governments decision to raise import duty to 50 per cent from the existing 40 per cent to control cheap import.

Concerned with rising prices, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has directed all sugar associations to order their respective mill members to improve supply to curtail prices.

Photograph: Reuters
'The world may be desirous of peace, but not Kim Jong-un.'

'Should we then accept the old adage that to maintain peace, we should be prepared for war?' asks Rajaram Panda.

IMAGE: The US army and South Korean military responded to North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile test/strong>with a combined ballistic missile exercise.

Photograph: South Korean Defence Ministry

The last possible option in dealing with North Korea is a military strike.

Invoking this option could be disastrous for the United States and the Northeast Asian region. The use of nuclear weapons could become unpreventable with disastrous consequences to humanity.

US President Donald J Trump needs to remember that North Korea has threatened to 'ruthlessly ravage' the US if Washington attacks. US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that the consequences of any military action would be 'tragic on an unbelievable scale.'

America's two Asian allies -- Japan and South Korea -- will also face severe security risks. This makes this option avoidable.

If a hot war is to be avoided, China must help. But at the moment it finds itself helpless against a leader whose survival depends on nuclear deterrence.

The world may be desirous of peace, but not Kim Jong-un.

Should we then accept the old adage that to maintain peace, we should be prepared for war? That seems to be the present scenario.

IMAGE: US soldiers along the Naktong river front in 1950 during the Korean War.

If war breaks out now, both Japan and South Korea -- already in range of North Korea's missiles -- will face the brunt of the assault.

In addition, the US will have to worry about its 28,500 Marines in South Korea, and 300,000 US citizens in Seoul alone.

Photograph: Kind courtesy Wikimedia Commons

While speaking at a news conference in Warsaw with Polish President Andrej Duda after July 4, Trump warned North Korea that he was considering 'some pretty severe things' and that 'something will have to be done'.

He promised to 'confront very strongly'.

The possibility of war with an adversary that is openly defying the United Nations Security Council resolutions and threatening the US cannot be overlooked.

Trump is miffed because had the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launched by North Korea on July 4 been on a standard trajectory -- and not on a lofted trajectory as was the case -- the missile could have reached Alaska.

Trump knows that with further testing, Pyongyang could achieve even longer ranges. So, military strike cannot be off the table for him.

Has Trump lost his 'strategic patience'?

Is he going to opt for more diplomatic and economic pressures or launch a military strike?

There is no clear picture at the moment, but good sense would dissuade Trump from exercising the military option.

While Trump did not elaborate on the options under consideration, Mattis said North Korea's launch of a missile capable of striking parts of the US did not bring the two nations closer to war.

Mattis further clarified that the US' 'self-restraint' had prevented conflict and that 'diplomatic efforts remain underway'.

This could suggest that the US, for now, is focused on a diplomatic response.

The US has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, and about 50,000 in Japan, and will be concerned about their safety if a war breaks out.

It has already installed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has assured Japan and South Korea of defence if their security is breached.

But if Trump's remarks of 'pretty severe things' mean a pre-emptive military strike, North Korea will not be expected to sit idle.

If war breaks out, both Japan and South Korea -- already in range of North Korea's missiles -- will face the brunt of North Korea's assault.

The 20 million people in Seoul could be cannon fodder for North Korean missiles and artillery guns.

Japan is not expected to be spared either.

Pyongyang is expected to use chemical and biological weapons that are believed to be in its possession.

Besides the 28,500 US Marines in South Korea, Trump must also worry about the safety of about 300,000 US citizens in Seoul alone.

From all indicators, war casualties would be heavy.

If war breaks out, the US and its allies might eventually emerge victorious, but the cost will be heavy and difficult to imagine.

The consequences of war and human suffering are likely to be more telling than what was seen in the 1950 to 1953 Korean War -- a time when North Korea had no nuclear or chemical weapons.

So, is military strike an option? Trump needs to ponder over this with a cool head.

IMAGE: Japan Self-Defence Forces hold a drill at a base near Tokyo to mobilise a missile unit in response to North Korea's missile testing.

Japan needs to worry about the prospect of a North Korean ICBM flying over Japan to reach the US as a realistic possibility.

Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters

What is Japan's role in this?

After it was confirmed that the missile launched by North Korea July 4 was an ICBM, Japan now needs to worry about the prospect of a North Korean ICBM flying through the sky over Japan towards the US as a realistic possibility.

Can Japan legally intercept such a missile, an operation that is to be conducted under strict conditions and within high technological barriers?

Though it is legally possible for Japan to do so as the security-related legislation came into force in March 2016, there are still doubts on its interpretations.

According to a July 2014 legislation, there are three conditions regarding the use of force: An armed attack occurs and threatens Japan's survival; there are no other appropriate means to protect Japan's people; and use of force is restricted to the minimum necessary.

If these three conditions are met, only then can Japan use force and shoot down a ballistic missile heading toward the US.

Both Hawaii and Guam could come under North Korea's target.

While Hawaii is the home of the headquarters of the US Pacific Command, Guam can be the base for launching operations to respond to a contingency on the Korean Peninsula.

Japan is unsure whether it could legally intercept a missile fired by North Korea under this situation.

If war breaks out, and the Japanese government determines that its survival is in danger, it could intercept a missile as a self-defence measure.

But during peacetime, it would legally not be able to shoot down an ICBM targeted toward the US.

Moreover, Japan's capacity to intercept a North Korean ICBM is limited.

Given such complexities, a military strike is definitely not an option that Trump must have in his basket of options.

While the US and other stakeholders need to continue pursuing diplomatic pressure and tighten economic sanctions, efforts need to be invigorated to get China on board on all decision-making process.

Though the US has dismissed a Russian-Chinese 'freeze-for-freeze' plan -- in which North Korea halts its nuclear-arm development and the US and South Korea suspends joint military drills -- the goal to encourage dialogue with China and Russia still remains open.

The security dynamics in the region is messy. This demands decisive policy response from all stakeholders.

Dr Rajaram Panda is currently the Indian Council for Cultural Relations India Chair Visiting Professor at Reitaku University, Japan.

The views expressed are the author's own and do not represent either of the ICCR or the Government of India.
'Opposition to the idea of a state flag has come from the small thinking pseudo-nationalists, who are the ones pushing Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan.'

'Identifying India wrongly as a one language, one religion nation,' says Aakar Patel.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

I am a Gujarati who lives in Karnataka. Both states have individual identities.

Surat, where my parents still live, was an international port town till about 1700. It has a mix of people, all sorts of castes and communities, who have visited and stayed over centuries.

It is the only city in India to have multiple indigenous merchant castes: Bania, Jain, Shia Bohras and Khojas, Sunni Bohras and Memons, Parsis, and since the 1970s, even Agarwals and Oswals by the thousands.

In previous centuries, even foreigners would live and trade in the city. Leo Tolstoy has written a short story called 'The coffee house of Surat'.

In it, at a cafe in Surat, a Persian, an African, an Indian, an Italian, a Jewish trader, a Chinese, a Turk and an Englishman discuss the nature of god.

It is difficult to imagine such a gathering in Surat today, about 150 years after the story was written.

Indeed, it is difficult even to imagine the story in the 1800s because by then the port on the Tapti river had silted over and large ships could no longer sail up the Arabian sea to Surat.

The new port on the west was Bombay. Today it is possible to imagine all those different nationalities accidentally gathering in one Mumbai restaurant.

Bangalore is a more recent city than Surat, but it has just as rich a history. It is a city that is international brand recognition.

When I travel around the world to Europe or Africa or South East Asia, people ask me where I am from. It is sufficient to say I am from Bangalore.

They understand, because of the superb work being done here in information technology. But this city has many charms, even outside its economy and ability to produce jobs.

Bangalore has people of many languages. The woman who comes to clean our house is illiterate, but she can speak fluently in four languages: Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. She also understands Malayalam.

I don't think there are many north Indians, even the literate, who have this diversity in their cities. We Bangaloreans are very proud of this fact.

Even though there is an insistence on primacy to Kannada (and I support this), there is great tolerance in this city to other languages and this is quite unique.

There is nothing wrong in our celebrating our city and our state.

I am writing this because of the recent controversy over the Karnataka flag. The chief minister has asked to committee to examine whether it is all right for the state to have an official flag.

It already has a flag, yellow and red, which all Kannadigas, (including Gujarati Kannadigas like me) recognise. This flag has acceptance in all our political parties and it is not offensive to anyone.

Unlike the saffron flag, the Karnataka flag does not stand for one religion.

There is absolutely no problem with the state using this as a symbol of the rich and proud heritage of Karnataka.

Opposition to the idea of a state flag has come from the small thinking pseudo-nationalists, who are the ones pushing Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan. Identifying India wrongly as a one language, one religion nation.

To a large extent this issue is being used to abuse the Congress, but I think Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is within his rights. He has said quite clearly that the state flag comes below the national flag. So he is already disarming those who think this is the first step towards some sort of separatism.

He is also absolutely correct on the Constitutional side and I suspect that is what his committee will also tell him.

The first line of the Indian Constitution is: 'India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.' And so we are starting by accepting the idea of different states.

If we look around us, there is already a sort of sub-nationalism with its own flags. We have city specific (Chennai Super Kings) or state specific (Kings XI Punjab) IPL teams and that is another form of sub nationalism.

These teams all have their own flags and we don't have a problem with that. Nor is there a problem with political parties and their flags.

The other thing is that if we look at other nations similar to ours, the idea of a state identity is quite common. All American states have their own flags and there is no accusation that this in any way goes against national unity.

All of our states have unique histories and because of that they have unique identities.

These identities should be allowed to express themselves. They are not in contradiction with our Constitution and there is no reason for them to be suppressed.

Aakar Patel is Executive Director, Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are his own.
The Congress on Monday sought to embarrass National Democratic Alliance vice presidential candidate M Venkaiah Naidu by raising the issue of alleged irregularities in land deals involving him and his family members and demanded answers since he always spoke of transparency and probity.

Accusing Naidu of land grab in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district that was reserved for the poor, destitute and landless, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Naidu was "forced" to return this land after public protests and political pressure.

Responding to Ramesh's allegations, Naidu, until recently Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting and Urban Development, said all these things have been answered and mentioned earlier.

"Some people went to court, and the court has also dismissed it. I feel really sorry that they could stoop down to this level in this election also," he told reporters.

Union Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ananth Kumar said whatever allegations Ramesh has tried to level are "baseless and unsubstantiated."

Ramesh did not give any proof to back up his allegations beyond giving the sequence of events allegedly involving Naidu and his family members.

At a news conference in New Delhi, Ramesh also alleged that on June 20, 2017, the Telangana government issued a "secret order" exempting the "Swarna Bharat Trust" of Naidu's daughter from paying development charges of more than Rs 2 crore to the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority.

The Congress leader alleged further that in July 2014, the Telangana government placed an order of Rs 271 crore without inviting tenders for purchase of vehicles for the police from two car dealers - Harsha Toyota owned by Naidu's son and Himanshu Motors owned by Telangana chief minister's son.

"Is it not a fact that such an order was placed in contravention of all rules and without even floating a tender?" he asked.

Ramesh also said that the Supreme Court on April 6, 2011 quashed the allotment of 20 acres of land to "Kushabhau Thakre Memorial Trust" of which Naidu was chairman.

He said the Supreme Court also passed strictures against the Madhya Pradesh government in alloting this land in Bhopal on September 25, 2004.

"I think it is incumbent upon Venkaiah Naidu, it is incumbent upon the BJP to provide satisfactory answers, the nation wants to know," he said.

He said Naidu is a senior, experienced and articulate leader and a candidate for the post of vice president for BJP and he should explain to the country and answer the questions raised by the Congress party.

"Naidu has been a great champion of transparency, accountability, integrity and probity in public life, apart from being a master player with words and a poet of sorts. In the same spirit we are asking these questions," he said.

"Those holding the highest public offices must fully disclose their 'interests' as also 'special treatment' in the shape of state largesse for themselves and for their kith and kin," he said in his written statement.

Asked if he was alleging corruption by Naidu, Ramesh did not answer and instead demanded answers from Naidu and the BJP.
A Central Reserve Police Force company commander was allegedly thrashed by his subordinates following death of their colleague due to illness in Anantnag district of Kashmir, a police official said on Monday.

Khupmani Misall of 28 Battalion CRPF, posted at Qaimoh, was taken ill on Saturday night, the official said.

He said Misall was taken to the CRPF Unit hospital at Anantnag, where he died.

The death of the jawan angered his colleagues who allegedly thrashed their company commander for not allowing Misall to be taken to the nearest health facility, which caused delay in timely medical attention to him, the official said.

He said they have not received any complaint from the CRPF in this regard so far. Inquest proceedings have been initiated to ascertain the jawan's cause of death.

A CRPF spokesman said an inquiry has been ordered into the entire incident including the alleged thrashing of the company commander by his subordinates.

"Once the inquiry is completed, action, as warranted under rules, will be taken," he added.

The incident comes close on the heels of Army men allegedly thrashing and injuring seven police personnel at Gund in Sonamarg and ransacking the police station also.

While the Army has downplayed the incident as a minor altercation, the state police has asked the Army to take action against the erring soldiers.
China said on Monday that it will safeguard its security interests at 'any cost' as its sovereignty was 'indomitable', amid a standoff with India in the Sikkim sector.

Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian made this assertion ahead of this week's National Security Advisers' talks to resolve the standoff.

Maintaining China's hardline stance on the issue, Wu told a media briefing that the willingness and resolve of China to defend its sovereignty was 'indomitable'.

"China will safeguard its security interests at any cost. India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," he said ahead of the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army.

Commenting on the over a month-long military standoff between the troops of the two countries at Doklam area in the Sikkim section, Wu urged India to to 'correct its mistake'.

Stating that the PLA has taken emergency measures in the region and continues to increase focused deployments and drills, he said, "We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquillity."

His comments came as National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS (brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from July 27-28 during which he is expected to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.

Both Doval and Yang are Special Representatives of the two countries in the boundary talks.

Chinese officials say while there may not be a formal meeting between the two officials, keeping with Beijing's public position that no talks will be held without India withdrawing troops, they could hold discussions on the sidelines to end the deadlock.

Last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told Rajya Sabha that China intends to unilaterally change the status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to India's security.

She had said there was a written agreement between India, China and Bhutan in 2012 that the three nations will together decide on the boundaries at the tri-junction point.

She also accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China.

Swaraj also said that India was not 'unreasonable' on the issue and all nations were with it.

The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area near the Bhutan tri-junction has dragged on for the past four weeks. It started after a Chinese Army's construction party attempted to build a road.

Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam while China claims it as part of its Donglang region.

IMAGE: Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian. Photograph: ANI
Saint Ange Tourism Reports 7th edition is out! Saint Ange reports that Creole Travel based in the Seychelles has introduced a new addition to their fleet; they describe their latest attraction as a "cool vessel", named Zephir.

Activities and excursions can and will help increase the yield from tourism. Creole Travel offers with their new boat an opportunity to enjoy the underwater life without getting into the water.

Eric Renard of Creole Travel says, "Our knowledgeable team welcomes you on board to sail and witness the beautiful marine life of Seychelles through the widening viewing glass of Zephir. The adventure starts from respective jetties all the way to its designated marine parks where clients would get the wonderful opportunity of glimpsing and identifying different marine species such as lazy sea cucumbers, cute starfishes, shy sea turtles, beautiful baby sting rays, school of colourful fishes and many more. Of course, the fun does not stop there! On your way back, you will get to see the picture-perfect skyline beauty of Seychelles as you cruise through the grandiose vast water of the North coast embedding you with remarkable experiences".

For previous editions, click on the links below:

Edition #1 of 17th June 2017:-

http://mailchi.mp/5496a1288436/saint-ange-tourism-report-2nd-edition-20311

Below is the link to Edition #2 of 25th June 2017:-

http://mailchi.mp/bd63c28fd5e7/saint-ange-tourism-report-2nd-edition

Below is the link to Edition #3 of 2nd July 2017:-

http://mailchi.mp/d8fdec4a3213/saint-ange-tourism-report-3rd-edition

Below is the link to Edition #4 of 9th July 2017:-

http://mailchi.mp/1ccc3e88165d/saint-ange-tourism-report-4th-edition

Below is the link to Edition #5 of 16th July 2017:-

http://mailchi.mp/6bf10b5afaee/saint-ange-tourism-report-5th-edition-36359

Below is the link to Edition #6 of the 18th July 2017:-

http://mailchi.mp/c3af8cc19990/seychelles-tourism-mourns-the-passing-ofmr-louis-doffay
A car bomb exploded in western Kabul on Monday, killing more than 20 people, local Afghan media reported on Monday.

More than 20 people were killed in explosion in Gulaee Dawa Khana area in PD3, reports ToLo News.

Police said there were no details yet about the target.

The neighbourhood is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority which was hit hard just a year ago in a strike which killed dozens -- in the first attack claimed by the Islamic State group in the heart of Kabul.

Image for representation only.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police has arrested 20 persons in connection with the mob lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohd Ayub Pandith in Srinagar last month, Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Munir Khan said on Monday.

A terrorist involved in the killing of the police officer was shot dead in an encounter with security forces on July 12, the IGP said addressing a press conference on the status of the investigations in the case.

Pandith was lynched outside Jamia Masjid in Nowhatta area of the city on June 22.

The IGP said the investigation in the case is still on and more arrests are likely to take place.

"So far 20 accused have been arrested and one more, a militant identified as Sajad Ahmad Gilkar, was killed in an encounter with the security forces in Redbugh area of Budgam on July 12, Khan said.

"The investigation of the case is going on at a fast pace and some more arrests are expected which will lead to the completion of the investigation and the case will be submitted for judicial determination, he said.

Khan said the police is making vigorous efforts to identify the remaining assailants involved in the crime, while recovery of other evidences related to the commission of the crime is underway.

"The important pieces of evidence including an iron rod, by which the officer was hit, his identity card, service pistol (in a damaged condition) and his cell phone have been recovered, he said.

The IGP said it was encouraging to note that people came forward to provide valuable information which led to a substantial headway in the investigations.

"Unlike other cases, there was widespread condemnation by cross-section of the society.General public and eyewitnesses voluntarily came forward to render assistance in the investigation and provide valuable information.This led us to the right conclusion and the right line of investigation," he said.

Khan said in the initial phase, three persons were arrested and questioned which led to subsequent arrests and recovery of the evidence. Stitching together the sequence of events which led to the lynching of the officer, the IGP said during investigations it surfaced that a group of hooligans came out of the mosque raising slogans in favour of terrorist commander Zakir Musa and 'supposedly to welcome' chairman of moderate Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

"Four miscreants saw the DySP, who was coming out of the mosque after checking the deployment for access control duties, called him and questioned him.They asked for his identity card which he refused to give.

"The hooligans started heckling the officer and the number of miscreants swelled.The officer fired some shots from his service rifle below the waistline causing injury to three assailants who were in the immediate proximity and were heckling him. However, the mob continued to beat him which ended in his death, Khan said.

He said it took time to identify the slain officer as 'he was defaced and disfigured'.

Rejecting the charge that there was any kind of dereliction of duty on the part of police officials present in the area, the IGP said, "It seems the slain officer had not liaised with the officers of the police station concerned".

Asked whether Mirwaizs supporters were involved in the incident, Khan said the probe is still on.

He said 'Everyone who needs to be questioned, would be questioned' in response to a query whether Mirwaiz would be questioned in connection with the case.

He said the slain officer was there to protect everyone praying at the mosque including the Mirwaiz.
Iraq on Monday said it has no "substantial evidence" on whether the 39 Indians abducted in Mosul three years ago have been killed or are still alive but assured India that it is "making the best efforts" to find out.

The issue was raised by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who began a five-day India visit on Monday, nearly two weeks after Mosul was liberated from Islamic State by Iraqi forces.

"We don't know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts," the Iraqi foreign minister told reporters about the Indians abducted in Mosul.

In a meeting with the relatives of the abducted Indians last week, Swaraj had said they might be languishing in a jail in Badush in northwest of Mosul where fighting was going on. However, a media report from Badush on Friday said the jail is now an abandoned structure and has been unoccupied for weeks.

Swaraj is likely to make a detailed statement in Parliament tomorrow about her meeting with her Iraqi counterpart.

In the talks, Swaraj and al-Jaafari decided to take steps to boost cooperation in areas of education, trade, energy and healthcare, official sources said.

The volume of bilateral trade in 2016-17 was nearly USD 13 billion. Iraq contributes significantly to India's energy security and is the second largest supplier of crude oil to India in 2016-17 with a total volume of over 37 MMT.

The Iraqi foreign minister also met Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

India had requested Iraq to locate the 39 missing Indians, mostly from Punjab, after Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from Islamic State.

Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh was also sent to Iraq days after the Iraqi prime minister announced victory in the fight to liberate Mosul.
Torrential rains have caused floods in Gujarat, forcing the evacuation of over 2,200 people. The state has been put on high alert and the military was called in on Monday to help in relief and rescue operations.

IMAGE: A National Disaster Response Force person rescues a girl from a flood-hit village in Morbi district on Monday. Photograph: PTI Photo

Army and air force contingents have been rushed in to assist in relief and rescue operations. Four MI-17V5 helicopters were conducting sorties from Jamnagar.

Incessant rain has thrown normal life out of gear in several areas of the state.

IMAGE: NDRF men have been called in along with the army and air force to help locals be evacuated. Photograph: PTI Photo

Torrential rains pounding north Gujarat have caused flood in Banaskantha and Patan districts, prompting authorities to declare a state-wide high alert and call out Army, Air Force and National Disaster Response Force teams for assistance.

About 2,200 people have been shifted to safer places and 460 maroon people rescued, officials said.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who reviewed the situation with top officials, said the problem has been compounded by heavy rains in neighbouring Rajasthan which led to surge in water levels of rivers and dams in Gujarat.

IMAGE: People sit in a tractor trolley as they move out of a flooded neighbourhood after heavy rain in Ahmedabad. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

Video footages showed even large vehicles like trucks stuck in flood water which entered several homes in the two districts.

Banaskantha and Patan districts are hugely affected due to heavy rains in north Gujarat and Rajasthan. Dantiwada and Sipu dams are overflowing, and due to the release of water from the dams, people living in low-lying areas have been shifted to safer places, he said.

IMAGE: Banaskantha and Patan districts are hugely affected due to heavy rains in north Gujarat and Rajasthan. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

One column of the army, roughly about 100 personnel, has been rushed to the flood-hit areas from Dhrangdhara to assist the National Disaster Response Force in evacuating people and reaching relief to them.

Three Air Force helicopters have been kept ready in Deesa town in Banaskantha to provide help if the situation worsened.

IMAGE: People drive through a flooded road after heavy rains in Ahmedabad. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters
"No words can express the grief which grips my heart right now. Blast destroyed many families, but terrorists can never destroy our resolve," said Pakistan's Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif.

IMAGE: A policeman collects evidence from the crime scene after a suicide blast in Lahore, Pakistan. Photograph: Mohsin Raza/Reuters

At least 26 people, including policemen, were killed and 57 others injured on Monday when a suspected suicide bomber targeted police personnel deployed near residence-cum-office of Pakistans Punjab province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore.

Police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the CMs Model Town residence, when a powerful blast took place, Rescue 1122 Deeba Shahnaz said.

Lahore police chief Capt (R) Amin Wains confirmed that itwas a suicide blast and the target was police.

The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.

The Punjab government confirmed that 26 people were killed and 57 others injured in the blast. One sub-inspector, 1 assistant sub-inspector and six constables were among dead, it added.

IMAGE: The blast took place when Police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the CMs Model Town residence. Photograph: Mohsin Raza/Reuters

Rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital. Emergency was declared in city hospitals. The condition of several injures is stated to be critical Shahnaz said.

Around29 injured persons are being treated at Lahore General Hospital, 9 in Jinnah and 18 in Ittefaq hospital, the official Twitter account of the Government of Punjab tweeted.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast.

Citing police sources, the Geo News reported that a suicide attacker targeted police personnel deployed at the site. The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed.

We are collecting evidence and this could be a suicide bombing. The death toll includes police and civilians, DIG Operations Haider Ashraf was quoted as saying.

Pakistans Prime Minister Sharif strongly condemned the blast and directed officials to provide best possible medical treatment for the injured.

IMAGE: escue workers move a body from the site of the suicide blast. Around 57 injured people are being treated in hospitals. Photograph: Mohsin Raza/Reuters

No words can express the grief which grips my heart right now. Blast destroyed many families, but terrorists can never destroy our resolve, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said.

Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins! he tweeted.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said terrorism can not be ruled out as the motive behind the explosion. He added that security forces are conducting their investigations.

Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, has witnessed several terror attacks in recent years.

In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahores Bedian Road.

In February, a suicide bomber killed 14 people, including senior police officers, near the Punjab assembly.
In his farewell address to the nation, Pranab Mukherjee emphasised that the soul of India resided in pluralism and tolerance.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee delivers his final address to the nation. The President will be demiting office on Tuesday when President-elect Ram Nath Kovind takes the oath.



President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday advocated freeing public discourse from violence -- physical as well as verbal -- and asserted that the country derived its strength from tolerance.

Stressing the need for pluralism and tolerance in his last televised address to the nation as the president, he said the capacity for compassion and empathy was the true foundation of the countrys civilisation.

But everyday, we see increased violence around us. At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust. We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal, Mukherjee, who will demit office on Tuesday, said in his address.

He made it clear that only a non-violent society could ensure the participation of all sections of the people, especially the marginalised and the dispossessed, in the democratic process.

The power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society, Mukherjee, 81, said.

The soul of India, he emphasised, resided in pluralism and tolerance.

India is not just a geographical entity. It carries a history of ideas, philosophy, intellect, industrial genius, craft innovation and experience, the president said.

Plurality had come through the assimilation of ideas over the centuries, he said.

Multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special. We derive our strength from tolerance, he added.

Not ruling out divergent stands in public discourse, he said, We may argue, we may agree or we may not agree. But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion. Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away.

IMAGE: Buzz words from Pranab Mukherjee's speech. He said in his address that for development to be real, the poorest of the land must feel that they are a part of the nation's narrative. Photograph: Rediff.com

The president reminded the people of Mahatma Gandhis philosophy, and said the creation of an inclusive society had to be an article of faith.

Gandhi wanted the people to move forward unitedly in ever-widening thought and action, he said, and stressed the need for focusing on the poor.

Financial inclusion is at the core of an equitable society. We must empower the poorest of the poor and ensure that the fruits of our policies reach the last person in the line, he said.

Mukherjee, a former lecturer who has often assumed the role of a teacher during his visits within and outside the country, spoke about education, which he called the alchemy that could take India to its next golden age.

Referring to the transformative power of education, he called for upgrading higher educational institutions to world-class levels.

Our education system must accept disruption as a norm and prepare our students to manage and build upon the disruptions. Our universities should not be a place for rote-memorising but an assembly of inquisitive minds, he said.

Institutes of higher learning must promote creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper, he said.

It calls for the application of logic through discussion, argument and analysis. These qualities have to be cultivated and the autonomy of the mind has to be encouraged, he said.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee with President-elect Ram Nath Kovind releases a publication at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo

Talking about the need for protecting the environment, he said nature had been kind in its bounty but cautioned that when greed exceeds need, nature lets loose its fury.

He asked scientists and technologists to work with farmers and workers to revive the health of the soil, arrest the decline in water tables and restore ecological balance.

Mukherjee emphasised the peoples right to lead a happy life which, he said, could be achieved through good governance, social inclusion and poverty eradication.

Eradication of poverty would provide a strong boost to happiness. A sustainable environment would prevent damage to planetary resources. Social inclusion would ensure access to the fruits of progress to all, he pointed out.

Good governance would enable the people to shape their own lives through transparent, accountable and participatory political institutions, the president said.

We all have to act together now for the future may not give us another chance, he said.
Family members of 39 Indians, who were abducted in Mosul three years ago, expressed pain and dejection after visiting Iraqi Foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said that he had no substantial evidence on whether the missing persons were killed or alive.

The Iraqi minister had also stressed that best efforts were being made to get information about the 39 missing Indians.

The kin of the missing men, however, were hoping that concrete information about the whereabouts of their dear ones would emerge during the Iraqi ministers visit.

We feel very disappointed. We heard the Iraqi minister say that he does not know whether the 39 missing Indians were dead or alive. We were hoping that he will be able to provide some information or some clue, said Davinder, whose elder brother Gobinder is missing.

But the minister clearly said he did not have any information about them, Davinder added.

Gobinder was a resident of Murar village in Kapurthala.

Our family is very tense now; nobody has been able to eat anything, Davinder said.

Family members of the other missing persons said that from the Iraqi ministers statement, it was clear that the Indian government does have any concrete information about the missing.

Now it has become clear that Indian government does not know about the missing Indians. The government has kept us in the dark for the last three years, said Sarwan.

Amritsar-based Sarwans 30-year-old brother Nishan had gone missing in Iraq.

The government told us on June 8 that our men were in a church in Iraq. Then on July 16, during a meeting with Union minister Sushma Swaraj, we were told that they might have been lodged in a jail in Badush in northwest Mosul, said Sarwan.

But a recent media report said that the jail was abandoned and it had been unoccupied for weeks, he added.

He demanded that the government make the status of the missing Indians clear.

Gurpinder Kaur, whose 26-year-old brother Manjinder Singh is missing, said, Now we do not know what to do. Our families were quite worried about the well being of our men.

The families have pinned their hopes on the statement External Affairs minister Swaraj is likely to make on Tuesday in the Parliament.

We will listen to the statement of the Union minister tomorrow and after that we will decide the next course of action, said Sarwan.

Among the 39 Indians who had been missing, 22 were from different places in Punjab including Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar.

The issue was raised by Swaraj during extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who began a five-day India visit on Monday, nearly two weeks after Mosul was liberated from the Islamic State by Iraqi forces.

We dont know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts, the Iraqi foreign minister later told reporters.

Image: Paramjit Kaur displays the photograph of her brother Kuljit Singh, who has been kidnapped in Iraq.Photograph: Munish Sharma/Reuters
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and senior advisor of United States President Donald Trump, on Monday flatly denied colluding with Russia during the 2016 election, saying he had no improper contacts with the Russian officials.

Giving a detailed explanation, Kushner in an 11-page statement said he hopes that that he has been able to demonstrate the entirety of his limited contacts with Russian representatives during the campaign and transition.

Kushners statement came hours before his meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee staff.

It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defence. I have tried to focus on the important work at hand and serve this President and this country to the best of my abilities, Kushner said.

I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector, Kushner said.

Kushner said that the record and documents he provided to the committee shows that he had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable.

The presidents son-in-law said over the last six months he made every effort to provide the Federal Bureau of Investigation with whatever information was needed to investigate his background.

Kushner said in the week before the inauguration, amid the scramble of finalising the unwinding of his involvement from his company, moving his family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from his outside positions and complete his security and financial disclosure forms, people at his New York office were helping him find the information and organise it, review it and put it into the

electronic form.

They sent an e-mail to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed. At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known).

Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017, he explained.

That evening, Kushner said, when his team realised the form had been submitted prematurely, they informed the transition team that they needed to make changes and additions to the form.

The very next day, January 19, 2017, they submitted supplemental information to the transition, which confirmed receipt and said they would immediately transmit it to the

FBI.

The supplement disclosed that I had numerous contacts with foreign officials and that we were going through my records to provide an accurate and complete list. I provided a list of those contacts in the normal course, before my background investigation interview and prior to any inquiries or media reports about my form, he said.

It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians. That is not the case, Kushner said.

In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted. The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form. These included meetings with individuals such as Jordans King Abdullah II, Israels Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Mexicos Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso and many more. All of these had been left off before, said the top presidential aide.

Image: White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner departs following his appearance before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of their probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Photograph: Aaron P Bernstein/Reuters
IMAGE: Jagruti with her bike. She posted this photo on Facebook earlier this month.

Photograph: Jagruti Viraj Hogale/Facebook

A 36-year-old biker was killed when she was thrown off her two-wheeler after hitting a pothole on a road near Mumbai and was crushed by a passing truck.

Bandra resident Jagruti Hogale, a member of the all-women 'Bikerni' motorcycle club, was on a trip with two other bikers to Jawhar in Palghar district on Sunday when the incident occurred, a police official said.

The advertising professional tried to overtake a truck on the Jawhar-Dahanu road around 9 am but her bike landed in a pothole, throwing her off.

She was then crushed under the wheels of the truck, the official said, quoting an eye witness.

Hogale was rushed to a hospital where she was declared dead before admission, Kasa police station's assistant police inspector Jaiprakash Guthe said.

The biker had earlier driven up to Khardung La in Ladakh, one of the highest motorable roads in the world, the police official said.

An accidental death report has been registered and the truck driver has been arrested.

He has been booked under the Indian Penal Code sections 304-A (causing death by negligence), which carries a punishment of up to two years in jail, and 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), which provides for up to 6 months in prison, Guthe said.

This is the fourth death this year caused by vehicles skidding on potholes on the Jawhar-Dahanu road, police said.

On July 4 this year, an 18-year-old boy was killed when he lost control over his motorcycle while trying to avoid a pothole at Bhiwandi Naka in the neighbouring Thane district.

He fell from the vehicle and later died of head injuries.

Earlier, a 21-year-old man was killed when his two-wheeler landed in a pothole near the state-run J J Hospital in Mumbai in September last year.

Popular radio jockey Malishka Mendonsa recently incurred the wrath of the Shiv Sena which controls Mumbai's civic body for a satirical song on pothole ridden-Mumbai roads during the monsoon.
'What is the future of ISRO?' Professor Rao asked from his hospital bed.

'What we see now is the continuation of programmes we started long ago.'

'What are we planning in the space science arena?'

'What is our plan for human space flight?'

Former ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair recalls his last meeting with Professor U R Rao, the pioneering Indian space scientist who passed away on Monday, July 24.

IMAGE: Professor U R Rao, remembers former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, 'always respected competence and recognised skill.'

'He was never biased by any personal feelings.'

'He was a workaholic and respected people who worked hard.'

Photograph: Kind courtesy Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

Professor Rao was the person who initiated me into space science.

When I joined the Thumba rocket launching station as a youngster, Dr (A P J Abdul) Kalam was my boss.

Dr Kalam was just starting the payload integration section and I was put in charge of that.

That was the time Professor Rao had come back from the US; he was at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad.

One of his research fellows along with a Japanese scientist was building a payload, and we were asked to integrate the payload with the rocket.

So, in September 1967, I was sent to Ahmedabad. I spent a few weeks with Professor Rao and that was the starting point of my space career.

I was a raw electrical engineer, fresh out of college. The lessons on the galaxy, universe and space were quite new to me and my interactions with him guided me towards space science.

He was extremely encouraging, and was available if I had any doubts. Moreover, he was quite knowledgeable and conversant on the subject.

Later, when he was head of the satellite division at Thumba, we had a very healthy competition, so to say.

His division had proposed the development of the tele-command system for the SLV 3 during Dr (Vikram) Sarabhai's time. Dr Kalam was in charge of the whole programme.

I was one of the contenders for the tele-command system. To my surprise, I won the competition and was made the project director.

What followed were some of the very rewarding moments of interaction with Professor Rao.

Later he moved to Bangalore, building satellites. I would say he was the father of satellite technology in India.

Personally, I had lots of opportunities to interact with him in those days. He always respected competence in people and recognised skill. He was never biased by any personal feelings.

He was a workaholic and respected people who worked hard. Maybe that's why he respected me.

He was a man in a hurry, and wanted instant results. He was very impatient as far as work was concerned.

He always wanted perfection from everyone.

It was a great experience spending time with a person who had excellent analytical skills, had the ability to spot problems and find the solutions, and the determination to see that problems were solved immediately.

After the SLV3 launch in 1984, I was moved to the electronic division at the Sarabhai Centre, which was not a significant post at that time.

When Professor Rao became the chairman, ISRO, he personally moved me to PSLV.

I still remember, one fine morning, I got an order saying that I was appointed as the director, PSLV. He also added that, with full powers of the project director.

Like what happened in 1967, this was also a turning point in my life. It was a huge change for me from the electronics division.

He had this idea about how to groom a person. If I had remained in the electronic division, I would have been making some computers or something like that.

Instead, I was thrown into the PSLV project, and I was the project director for almost 10 years.

Those years were the most rewarding in my life, all thanks to him.

IMAGE: 'At ISRO, as far as the Indian space programme is concerned, all the key technologies -- whether it is for the satellites or the launch vehicles or space research programme -- he was the father of it all,' says G Madhavan Nair, the former ISRO chairman.

Professor Rao, right, with then Vice President Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, who presented him with the Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award, November 24, 1988.

With Professor Rao, there was no hierarchy system; he was encouraging and appreciate of good work.

Though he was the chairman, he used to call me directly and give me technical advice whenever we had any problem.

We always had a very friendly relationship. We also shared some of the most difficult moments in our lives too.

He was the chairman and I was the project director of PSLV when the first launch happened. It was a failure.

When it failed, I was in bad shape.

I went to him to explain and saw him collapsed in his chair due to the shock of the failure.

After a few hours, we started talking about how to come out of the failure and have a successful launch the next year!

At ISRO, as far as the Indian space programme is concerned, all the key technologies -- whether it is for the satellites or the launch vehicles or space research programme -- he was the father of it all.

He was the initiator of all technologies while Professor Satish Dhawan was the institution builder.

Professor Rao headed the satellite centre, right from Arya Bhatta to IRS to PSLV to in fact, everything.

He was the chairman overseeing everything during the PSLV launch.

When you develop something new, there will be failures and he took the blame for all the failures and we enjoyed the fruits of all the successes.

If we are where we are right now in satellite launches and space technology, it is because of the foundation laid by him.

IMAGE: 'If we are where we are right now in satellite launches and space technology, it is because of the foundation laid by him,' says G Madhavan Nair.

The ISRO Satellite Centre in Bengaluru felicitated Professor Rao in March 2017 on his being awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour.

Photograph: Kind courtesy: The ISRO Satellite Centre

He was available for advice even after he left ISRO. When I took over as chairman, he was always there for me. We used to interact quite often, especially during the Moon mission, etc.

Last month, I felt I should see him as he was not keeping good health. When I reached Bangalore to meet him at his house, I was told that he was rushed to the Manipal Hospital.

Though I was a bit hesitant to go there, I decided to go in the evening. My plan was to spend a few minutes with him and come back, but to my surprise, he spoke to me for one whole hour!

And it was about the past, present and future of ISRO.

I was surprised by the passion with which he spoke. His wife was a bit alarmed as he had not spoken the whole day.

But when he saw me, nothing could stop him from talking.

One thing that still bothers me is the question he asked me. He asked, 'Nair, what is happening to our department?' I heard only the department part. Then, he said, 'I am worried about ISRO.'

'Everything is doing very well,' he continued, 'but remember these are programmes we had started long ago. What we see now is the continuation of all those programmes.'

'What is the future of ISRO? What are we planning in the space science arena? What are we doing for the new propulsion system of rockets? What is our plan for human space flight?'

He spoke about ISRO's future for at least 15 minutes. He wanted to have a new vision for ISRO and was concerned that there was none.

He might have conveyed this to many people and I am sure ISRO will come out with a new vision statement soon.

He was a pioneer in India's space programme and laid the foundation for all the space technologies which we enjoy today.

I feel the way the country recognised him was not enough; he should have been put on a high pedestal.

The best tribute we can give is initiate more youngsters into the space programme as we need more and more young minds.

G Madhavan Nair, former chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation, spoke to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
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NBF held its Annual General Assembly Meeting (AGAM) today remotely through Webex application, where shareholders approved the Chairmans and Directors Reports, the Internal Sharia Supervision Committee Report for NBF Islamic, the Islamic Banking Window of NBF. In addition, the banks Corporate Governance Report and the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2020 were discussed and approved. The shareholders confirmed the appointment and remuneration of the banks external auditors, Ernst and Young, for the year ending 31 December 2021; and the Internal Sharia Supervision Committee members for NBF Islamic for a period of three years. The AGAM approved the appointment of two independent representatives to facilitate shareholders who wish to attend and vote through proxies; and also approved no dividend for the year ended 31 December 2020.
'One remembers Professor Rao with fondness as the man who gave the space programme a very professional front face, a very different appearance from the raw energy of a Vikram Sarabhai or the polished passion of a Dr Satish Dhawan.'

M D Riti remembers U R Rao, the space pioneer who passed into the ages on Monday, July 24.

IMAGE: Professor U R Rao speaks at a felicitation for him at the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, after he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the country's second highest honour this year. PhotographS: Kind courtesy: ISRO Satellite Centre

A dapper, short man, who seemed almost dwarfed by the huge desk he sat behind.

That was the first impression you got of Professor U R Rao when you walked into the chairman's office at the ISRO headquarters at Bangalore.

The next thing that struck you was his bland, almost impersonal professionalism.

For a journalist like me, who always liked to connect to the human being inside the interviewee, this always felt like a stone wall.

I had to always remind myself that that was not what it was.

It was an organisational leader who just never shed his professional hat.

I have seen Professor Rao at countless events over many years. And this was always his demeanour.

Smiling. Bland. Professional. Articulate. He

was a physicist and scientist, and not an engineer like most of his colleagues.

He was also called only 'Professor', and not 'Doctor', although he had a PhD, because he had started his career as a lecturer in Mysore and Ahmedabad.

You could meet Professor Rao as many times as you liked. He would still greet you with the same slightly distant smile and manner, although he would, of course, display his recognition of you.

It made me do my background research all the better before I approached him, and always heightened my own awareness of my lack of technical knowledge.

Covering the space programme was always a scary proposition for a generalist journalist, simply because it was all about cutting edge technology, gigantic budgetary allocations and even often about hidden international political agendas.

For example, it was during Professor Rao's tenure that the Glavkosmos deal between India and Russia, on cryogenic engine technology transfer fell through, and we were all busy wondering just how effectively India would be able to recover potentially lost ground and make this engine completely indigenously.

As a member of the fourth estate, in every sense of that concept, we journalists of that era always felt we must play devil's advocate, and explore whether the huge money spends on the space programme were really justified.

IMAGE: Professor U R Rao, right, at a visit to the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru.

In the decade that Professor Rao headed the programme, some of the most spectacular ocean dives by satellites and launch vehicles actually happened. (My two little nephews had christened the SLVs as Sea Loving Vehicles instead of Satellite Launch Vehicles, in those days!)

Professor Rao would meet the media with that slight characteristic frown and the ready smile, alternating between the two based on the questions he was being asked.

He always came across more as an organisation head than a technology man, because that was exactly what he was.

And finally in 1992, the successful launches began.

When Dr K Kasturirangan took over as ISRO head, it was a complete shift of styles, to a very down-to-earth space scientist who looked like he would be more at home behind a console than behind the dapper Professor Rao's desk.

Finally, there was a man who looked at you with a smile of recognition in his eyes. Professor Rao then moved on to the role of distinguished space programme mentor.

One remembers Professor Rao with fondness as the man who gave the space programme a very professional front face, a very different appearance from the raw energy of a Vikram Sarabhai or the polished passion of a Dr Satish Dhawan.

I began my journalistic engagement with the space programme during Professor Rao's long tenure, and he will always be the face I remember behind the big desk.
Tajikistan arrests two in probe of blast near military court

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Tajikistan arrests two in probe of blast near military court, 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a70510.html [accessed 12 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.

April 04, 2017

Tajik police have arrested two men in connection with an explosion near a military court in the country's south that left one person dead, authorities say.

Interior Ministry spokesman Umarjoni Emomali on April 4 declined to identify the suspects or provide further information, saying the investigation into the blast was ongoing.

Emomali added that the incident was being treated as an act of terrorism.

Earlier, police said a 67-year-old man  identified as Hasanboi Rahmonov, an ethnic Uzbek  was killed in the explosion near the regional military court in the city of Qurghon-Teppa on the evening on March 12.

Media reports at the time said it was possible the man, who worked as a guard at a nearby school, had detonated the explosives himself.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Serbia: Belgrade sees another protest against Vucic election

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Serbia: Belgrade sees another protest against Vucic election, 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a706c.html [accessed 12 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.

April 04, 2017

Several thousand people, mostly young, dissatisfied with the results of the elections, gathered in a protest march in downtown Belgrade on April 4.

Several thousand protesters have taken to the streets of Belgrade for the second straight evening to protest the election of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic as president on April 2.

Protesters blew whistles and chanted, "No to dictatorship!" outside the Serbian parliament on April 4. The crowd periodically blocked traffic.

Vucic won 55 percent of the vote in a solid victory. Opposition candidate Sasa Jankovic came in second with just 16.4 percent.

Some protesters have alleged that the election was rigged, but the demonstrations have not put forward any demands.

Vucic has vowed to continue Serbia's pro-European Union course while, at the same time, working to maintain ties with traditional ally Russia.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Macedonia accuses Albania of interfering in internal affairs

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Macedonia accuses Albania of interfering in internal affairs, 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a707c.html [accessed 12 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.

April 04, 2017

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov (right) and European Council chief Donald Tusk talk during their April 3 meeting.

Macedonia has accused neighboring Albania of interfering in its domestic affairs, saying that Tirana is trying to influence the Balkan country's ethnic Albanian minority.

The Macedonian Foreign Ministry said on April 4 that Skopje had summoned Albania's ambassador to protest what it called Albania's "open interference in Macedonia's internal affairs."

It accused Albania of trying to "change the constitutional order in Macedonia."

Macedonia is mired in a political deadlock, with parties representing the ethnic Albanian minority  which makes up about 25 percent of its 2.1 million population  demanding concessions to join any coalition following December parliamentary elections.

After meetings in Tirana under the sponsorship of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Macedonia's main ethnic Albanian parties agreed on a platform of demands, seeking more rights and the establishment of Albanian as Macedonia's official second language.

Following the elections, nationalist VMRO-DPMNE leader and former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski was unable to build a governing coalition because he refused the language demands.

Social Democratic Union leader Zoran Zaev agreed with the language demands and attempted to form a coalition with the ethnic Albanian parties.

But President Gjorge Ivanov, also from the VMRO-DPMNE, has refused to give Zaev the official mandate to do so.

Ivanov argued that the language issue was an attempt to destroy Macedonia's independence, and he has accused Albania of interference in its domestic affairs.

In its statement of April 4, the Macedonian Foreign Ministry said it warned Ambassador Fatos Reka against a "serious provocation to good neighborly relations that we wish to maintain."

Albanian Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati on April 3 criticized the move by "Gruevski and his political group to transform a democratic crisis into an ethnic crisis."

European Union President Donald Tusk visited Skopje on April 3, but he failed to resolve the crisis.

"My position remains unchanged," Ivanov said after Tusk's visit.

With reporting by AFP and European Western Balkans

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Russian PM calls opposition corruption charges 'rubbish,' 'nonsense'

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 4 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian PM calls opposition corruption charges 'rubbish,' 'nonsense', 4 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a708c.html [accessed 12 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.

April 04, 2017

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (file photo)

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has for the first time responded to allegations of corruption made by opposition activists, calling them "rubbish" and "nonsense."

Medvedev said on April 4 the allegations, which have led to a series of street demonstrations by opposition protesters, had been made "to try to pull people out into the streets and reach political ends."

Activist Aleksei Navalny has been the most vocal among opposition leaders with accusations of rampant corruption among officials close to President Vladimir Putin, targeting Medvedev in particular.

Navalny has helped lead large antigovernment demonstrations in Russia, the most recent on March 26, which led to a government crackdown and Navalny's arrest and sentencing to a 15-day term.

Navalny, who announced he will run for president in March 2018, has accused Medvedev of using charities and NGOs to collect donations from tycoons and state banks and using the funds to buy luxury homes, yachts, property abroad, and other assets.

Medvedev downplayed the accusation without offering specifics.

"Everything is being done under the 'compote' principle," he said in televised comments.

"They take all kinds of rubbish and nonsense, gather  if it concerns me  the people I know, people I never heard of at all, some places where I've been to, and places I have never heard of, gather some papers, photographs, clothing, then create a product and show it.

"It is difficult for a viewer to make sense of it," he said. "And if good money is paid for this, the product turns out fairly well."

With reporting by AFP and TASS

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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At least six dead in 'suicide blast' in Lahore, Pakistan

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, At least six dead in 'suicide blast' in Lahore, Pakistan, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a709c.html [accessed 12 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.

April 05, 2017

Pakistani security officials collect evidence from the scene of a suicide bomb attack on a census team in Lahore on April 5.

At least six people have been reported killed and 15 injured in an explosion in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

"This was a suicide blast," Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmed Khan said on April 5, adding that the attack targeted an army vehicle taking part in Pakistan's census.

Khan said the dead included four soldiers and two civilians.

"It appears to have been an act of terrorism," Punjab provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said.

The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group claimed responsibility for what it called a suicide attack.

On February 13, a Taliban suicide-bomb attack in Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province, killed 14 people.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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UN expert says 40-50 years needed to clear Syria, Iraq of mines, weaponry

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, UN expert says 40-50 years needed to clear Syria, Iraq of mines, weaponry, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a70aa.html [accessed 12 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.

April 05, 2017

A Russian sapper clears up mines around Aleppo in February.

A United Nations expert says it will take 40-50 years and billions of dollars to clear the mines, improvised explosives, and other unexploded ordnance from the multiyear wars in Iraq and Syria.

Agnes Marcaillou, director of the UN Mine Action Service, said on April 4 that it will take "decades of work" for the two war-torn countries to look like post-World War II Europe.

Her comments at a news conference marking International Mine Awareness Day came the same day reports surfaced of a suspected chemical attack in Syria's Idlib Province that left at least 58 people dead.

Marcaillou estimated a cost of around $180 million a year to remove mines, weapons, and explosives in areas retaken from Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, including $50 million a year in Mosul alone.

"The end-game is to empower the government of Iraq to take care of its own problem like the French and the Germans" and the British did after World War II, she said.

Marcaillou said it will take a sophisticated effort of a "huge magnitude" to make Syria safe again but that it can be accomplished if funding is made available.

Based on reporting by AP and The Arab News

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Serbia: Protests against Vucic election persist in Belgrade

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Serbia: Protests against Vucic election persist in Belgrade, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a70ba.html [accessed 12 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.

April 05, 2017

Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Belgrade for the second straight evening to protest the election of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic as president.

Protesters blew whistles and chanted, "No to dictatorship!" outside the Serbian parliament on April 4. The crowd swelled into the thousands and periodically blocked traffic.

Vucic won 55 percent of the vote in the April 2 election. Opposition candidate Sasa Jankovic came in second with 16.4 percent.

Some protesters have alleged that the election was rigged, but the demonstrations have not put forward any demands.

The presidency is largely ceremonial in Serbia, but Vucic is expected to maintain power through control of his ruling Serbian Progressive Party.

He has vowed to continue Serbia's pro-European Union course while at the same time working to maintain ties with traditional ally Russia.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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At least 31 reported killed in attack in Tikrit, Iraq

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, At least 31 reported killed in attack in Tikrit, Iraq, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a70ca.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Last Updated: April 05, 2017

At least 31 people have been killed and 40 wounded in an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants in the city of Tikrit, Iraqi security and medical personnel said.

Police Colonel Khalid Mahmud said on April 5 that around 10 militants, including two suicide bombers, entered the city overnight.

The assault targeted a police checkpoint and the house of a police colonel, who was killed with four members of his family, reports said.

The IS-affiliated Amaq news agency claimed that seven militants clashed with security forces until they ran out of ammunition and detonated explosive belts.

Nawfal Mustafa, a doctor at the city's main hospital, said a total of 26 bodies were taken to the hospital, including 14 belonging to police officers.

Sporadic gunfire could reportedly be heard in the morning.

Tikrit is located 175 kilometers north of Baghdad.

The attack comes as government forces continue an offensive to retake the northern city of Mosul, the last major IS stronghold in Iraq.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and the BBC

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Russian authorities refuse to issue passport to activist Dadin

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian authorities refuse to issue passport to activist Dadin, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a70da.html [accessed 12 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.

April 05, 2017

RUssia  Russian opposition activist Ildar Dadin attend a meeting with his supporters at the Sakharov Museum in Moscow, March 4, 2017

Russian activist Ildar Dadin's application for a Russian foreign-travel passport has been denied, his wife, Anastasia Zotova, says.

Zotova wrote on Facebook late on April 4 that passport authorities telephoned her husband earlier that day and told him that he is not eligible to obtain a travel document because he is involved in "unsanctioned politics."

It is not clear if Dadin had plans to travel.

Dadin was convicted and sentenced to prison in December 2015 under a controversial law that criminalizes participation in more than one unsanctioned protest in a 180-day period.

He was released on February 26 after the Supreme Court threw out his conviction and ordered the case closed.

Dadin, the only person convicted under the law, was considered a political prisoner by major human rights groups.

Dadin's plight attracted additional attention last autumn, when he alleged he and other inmates had been tortured and abused at a prison in Karelia.

Since his release, he has continued to protest to call attention to abuse and inhumane conditions in Russian prisons.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Kazakh prosecutors seek three-year prison term for union activist

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Kazakh prosecutors seek three-year prison term for union activist, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a70ea.html [accessed 12 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.

April 05, 2017

Nurbek Qushaqbaev in an Astana courtroom on April 3

ASTANA  Prosecutors have asked a court in Kazakhstan to convict Kazakh labor union activist Nurbek Qushaqbaev of instigating an illegal workers' strike and sentence him to three years in prison.

The request was made on April 4 at Qushaqbaev's trial in Astana, the capital of the energy-rich Central Asian nation.

Qushaqbaev, a member of the union at the Oil Construction Company (OCC) in the western Manghystau region, was arrested in January after hundreds of OCC workers struck for two weeks to protest the closure of a trade-union alliance.

The strike was stopped after a local court declared it illegal.

Qushaqbaev pleaded not guilty.

The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions was closed on January 4 after a court ruled that it had failed to meet deadline for reregistration.

The confederation says its attempts to reregister were impeded by local officials.

A verdict in Qushaqbaev's trial is expected on April 6.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Anti-Vucic protests continue as Serbian students issue demands

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 5 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Anti-Vucic protests continue as Serbian students issue demands, 5 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a70fa.html [accessed 12 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.

April 05, 2017

Protesters in Belgrade on April 5

Thousands of Serbs have taken to the streets of Belgrade for a third straight night to protest the April 2 election of Aleksandar Vucic as president.

The crowds of mostly students blew whistles outside the Serbian parliament building on April 5 and accused Vucic of stealing the election.

The presidency is largely ceremonial in Serbia, but Vucic is expected to maintain power through control of his ruling Serbian Progressive Party. The protesters see Vucic as an autocratic leader and the Serbian Progressive Party as corrupt.

Earlier in the day, one group of students posted on social media a list of demands, including the dismissal of the elections commission, the state media regulator, and the heads of the RTS TV state television channel.

They also called for parliament speaker Maja Gojkovic to resign, saying that she adjourned parliament for a week during the campaign which prevented the opposition from using its tribune as a platform.

On April 4, Vucic told journalists that he doesn't object to the protests "as long as they are peaceful."

"We're a democratic country and everyone has the right to be happy or unhappy because of the election results," he said.

with reporting by dpa, Reuters, and B92

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Kazakh-born man asks for release pending trial in Russian hacking case

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Kazakh-born man asks for release pending trial in Russian hacking case, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a711a.html [accessed 12 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.

April 06, 2017

An FBI wanted poster for suspected Russian hackers

A Kazakh-born man accused of working with Russian intelligence officials to hack over a half-billion Yahoo e-mail accounts has asked a Canadian court to release him on bail.

But prosecutors said Karim Baratov posed an "extremely high flight risk" because of his alleged ties to Russian agents, and argued against his release on April 5.

Baratov's lawyers said his parents will vouch for him if he's released. His father, Akhmet Tokbergenov, told the court through a Russian interpreter that he would turn off the Internet in the family home if the court requested it.

Baratov, 22, said he registered an Internet business in 2014 that made about $81,000 that year registering websites, renting web spaces, and preventing hack attempts on web servers.

But U.S. prosecutors say Baratov was a "hacker-for-hire" paid by Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents Igor Sushchin and Dmitry Dokuchaev, who were also charged in the case.

Baratov has Kazakh origins, arriving in Canada in 2007 and becoming a citizen in 2011. He was arrested last month and faces extradition to the United States.

Based on reporting by AP and Toronto Star

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
French court postpones extradition hearing of former Kosovar prime minister

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, French court postpones extradition hearing of former Kosovar prime minister, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a7126.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Comments All reference to Kosovo should be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244. Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Last Updated: April 06, 2017

Former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj has described himself as a "political hostage."

A French court has postponed until April 27 a scheduled hearing regarding Serbia's request to extradite former Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj.

The court made the announcement on April 6.

Haradinaj was detained by the French authorities on January 4 and is wanted in Serbia on suspicion of committing war crimes, including kidnappings and torture, when he was a guerrilla fighter during Kosovo's 1998-99 independence war.

After the previous hearing in a French appeals court in Colmar last month, Haradinaj described himself as a "political hostage."

Haradinaj, 48, has been tried twice and acquitted of war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

He was elected prime minister of Kosovo in 2004 but resigned after 100 days in order to face trial in The Hague.

Predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. It is recognized by 114 countries.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Islamic State claims deadly attack in Russia's Astrakhan

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Islamic State claims deadly attack in Russia's Astrakhan, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a7134.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Last Updated: April 06, 2017

The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has claimed responsibility for an April 4 attack in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan that left two traffic-police officers dead.

A website associated with IS posted the claim on April 6, citing an unnamed IS "security source."

Earlier on April 6, Russian authorities said National Guard troops killed four men suspected of involvement in the earlier attack in a shoot-out in Astrakhan the same day.

Three National Guard officers were injured, one of them seriously.

The IS statement also claimed responsibility for this incident, calling it an "attack."

The claim comes when Russia is on high alert following an April 3 bombing in the St. Petersburg subway that left 14 people dead and nearly 50 injured.

With reporting by Interfax and AFP

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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European Parliament approves visa-free travel for Ukrainians

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, European Parliament approves visa-free travel for Ukrainians, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a7144.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Last Updated: April 06, 2017

BRUSSELS  The European Parliament has approved visa liberalization for Ukraine, a crucial step toward enabling Ukrainians to travel to the European Union without obtaining visas.

The measure passed on April 6 by a vote of 521 to 75, with 36 EU lawmakers abstaining.*

EU member states must also approve visa liberalization for Ukraine before the measure enters into force.

Ambassadors representing the 28 EU member states are expected to approve the deal when they meet in Brussels on April 26, and EU sources have told RFE/RL that EU ministers are expected to rubber-stamp the decision on May 11.

The deal would be sealed in a signing ceremony expected shortly after that.

Diplomats have expressed hope that the visa-free regime will enter into force in mid-June.

The decision will apply to all Ukrainian citizens who have biometric passports, including residents of the areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatists and of Crimea, the Ukrainian region that Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

Many in Ukraine, which saw Russia seize Crimea in 2014 and has been mired in a deadly conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the east for three years, see the visa deal as a symbol of closer ties to the EU.

The decision will apply to all Ukrainian citizens who have biometric passports. They will be able to enter most EU member states for up to 90 days during any 180-day period.

Visa-free travel to the EU for citizens of Georgia, another former Soviet republic under pressure from Russia, began on March 28.

With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels

*A previous version of this story misstated the number of EU lawmakers who abstained from the vote.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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European Parliament blasts Russia over Navalny, protest clampdown

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, European Parliament blasts Russia over Navalny, protest clampdown, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a7154.html [accessed 12 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.

April 06, 2017

Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, who was arrested during March 26 anti-corruption rally,gestures during an appeal hearing at a court in Moscow, March 30, 2017

BRUSSELS  The European Parliament has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for the "immediate release and dropping of all charges" against Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny "and all the peaceful protesters and journalists detained after the recent demonstrations in Russia."

The April 6 declaration, which was supported by all political groups in the European Union's Strasbourg-based parliament, also condemned what it called Russian police operations that it said were "attempting to prevent and disperse peaceful anticorruption demonstrations and detaining hundreds of citizens."

Tens of thousands of people took part in peaceful anticorruption demonstrations in dozens of Russian cities on March 26, the largest protests against President Vladimir Putin's government in five years.

Police detained more than 1,000 people in Moscow alone, including Navalny, who was sentenced to 15 days in jail for resisting police and fined the equivalent of $350 for organizing the protest in the capital.

The European Parliament resolution condemned "the constant efforts to silence Aleksei Navalny" and expressed support for his Anticorruption Foundation's "efforts to raise awareness of and combat corruption in public institutions and among political representatives and public office holders."

It also expressed "deep concern" over a February court decision that it said "effectively excludes Aleksei Navalny from the political arena," a reference to his conviction upon retrial in a financial-crimes case under which he initially received a five-year suspended sentence in 2013.

Authorities say the conviction bars Navalny, who is seeking to run for president in March 2018, from public office.

Navalny denies wrongdoing and says the case, like another one in which he was convicted in 2015, is politically motivated Kremlin retribution for his anticorruption activities and his opposition to Putin.

The European Parliament resolution also urged the EU and its member states to develop "a strong unified policy toward Russia that commits the member states and EU institutions to a strong common message on the role of human rights in the EU-Russia relationship."

Rikard Jozwiak covers the European Union and NATO for RFE/RL from his base in Brussels. Write to him at [email protected]

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Kazakh trial of Jehovah's Witness gets under way

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Kazakh trial of Jehovah's Witness gets under way, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71714.html [accessed 12 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.

April 06, 2017

Teimur Akhmedov (left), in the defendant's cage, and his lawyers in an Astana courtroom on March 27.

ASTANA  The trial of a Jehovah's Witness charged with inciting interethnic enmity has begun in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana.

The court on April 6 began hearing the case of Teimur Akhmedov, 60, who was arrested in January for what the Committee for National Security (KNB) described as propagating ideas that "disrupt interreligious and interethnic concord" in the country.

The U.S. Embassy in Astana has sent a representative to monitor the case.

Likewise, Diana Okremova, the director of the local Media Law Center NGO, attended, as well as relatives of the defendant and local Jehovah's Witnesses.

An RFE/RL correspondent was the only journalist present at the trial, and the judge allowed her to make written notes.

Akhmedov, who is undergoing cancer treatment, pleaded not guilty at a preliminary hearing on March 27.

If convicted, Akhmedov faces up to 10 years in prison.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Russia: Moldova urges Moscow not to recognize Transdniester documents

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 6 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russia: Moldova urges Moscow not to recognize Transdniester documents, 6 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71813.html [accessed 12 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.

April 06, 2017

Moldovan parliament speaker Andrian Candu

The government of Moldova has condemned a recent appeal by the de facto authorities in the country's breakaway Transdniester region asking Russia to recognize the region's travel documents.

Parliament speaker Andrian Candu said on April 6 that such a move by Moscow would "constitute a crude violation of international law."

De facto officials in Transdniester on April 5 held joint parliamentary hearings with Russian lawmakers at which they adopted a resolution asking Moscow to recognize the region's "passports."

The request follows a controversial decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize documents issued by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The Transdniester resolution expressed support for Russia's proclaimed policy of "protecting" ethnic Russians and "consolidating the Russian world."

Moldova's pro-European Prime Minister Pavel Filip said on April 6 that Russia has proclaimed its support for Moldova's territorial integrity and that he did not expect "the scenario applied in eastern Ukraine to develop in this region."

Transdniester declared independence in 1992 and has received economic, political, and military support from Moscow ever since.

Russia maintains a 1,200-strong military force in the region despite Moldova's repeated calls for it to be withdrawn and replaced with international peacekeepers.

With reporting by Interfax

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Kazakh union activist sentenced over oil workers' strike

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 7 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Kazakh union activist sentenced over oil workers' strike, 7 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71913.html [accessed 12 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.

April 07, 2017

Nurbek Qushaqbaev in handcuffs in a court in Astana on April 7.

ASTANA  Kazakh labor union activist Nurbek Qushaqbaev has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison over a January oil workers' strike.

A court in Astana on April 7 found Qushaqbaev guilty of instigating an illegal strike by workers and sentenced him the same day.

The court also obliged Qushaqbaev to pay an equivalent of $80,000 to the Techno Trading Company as compensation for losses caused by the strike.

Qushaqbaev, a member of the union at the Oil Construction Company (OCC) in the western Manghystau region, was arrested in January after hundreds of OCC workers struck for two weeks to protest the closure of a trade-union alliance.

The strike was stopped after a local court declared it illegal.

Qushaqbaev pleaded not guilty.

His lawyers said they will appeal the verdict.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Russian opposition activist released from prison after serving term

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 7 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian opposition activist released from prison after serving term, 7 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71a13.html [accessed 12 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.

April 07, 2017

KRASNOYARSK, Russia  Russian opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev has been released from a Siberian prison after serving a 4 1/2-year sentence.

Razvozzhayev says he was abducted by Russian security agents in Ukraine in 2012 and brought to Russia, where he was arrested and tried.

A court in Moscow found him guilty of helping to organize a protest on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square in May 2012 and of attempts to organize similar rallies across Russia.

Police and protesters blamed each other for violence that erupted at the protest on the eve of Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency for a third term.

Razvozzhayev's wife, Yulia, met him at the prison gates in the city of Krasnoyarsk.

Razvozzhayev told RFE/RL that he does not yet know what he is going to do now but that he would like to contribute to the democratization of Russia and reforms in the country's corrections system.

For two years, Razvozzhayev will be monitored by police and barred from attending public gatherings and events.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Two policemen killed in Russia's volatile North Caucasus

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 8 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Two policemen killed in Russia's volatile North Caucasus, 8 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71b13.html [accessed 12 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.

April 08, 2017

Violence is common in the North Caucasus region, where Islamic militants have mounted frequent attacks on police and officials.

Russian investigators say two traffic policemen have been killed after their vehicle came under fire in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region.

Unidentified attackers "fired multiple shots from an automatic weapon" at two traffic policemen riding in their patrol vehicle in the town of Malgobek in Ingushetia in the early hours of April 8, a local branch of Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement.

One of the policemen was killed at the scene, while the second officer died in hospital from his injuries, police said.

Violence is common in the North Caucasus region, where Islamic militants have mounted frequent attacks on police and officials, and some have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State extremist group.

Based on reporting by TASS and AFP

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Pakistani police say 10 militants killed in gunbattle

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 8 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Pakistani police say 10 militants killed in gunbattle, 8 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71c13.html [accessed 12 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.

April 08, 2017

A Pakistani Army soldier secures the scene of a bomb blast in Lahore on February 23 claimed by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistani police say 10 militants, including a key facilitator of deadly blast in February, have been killed in a gunbattle in the eastern city of Lahore.

Police officers probing a previous militant assault came under attack early on April 8 on the Lahore outskirts, the regional Counterterrorism Department said in a statement.

Police called for reinforcements and encircled the area, challenging the militants to surrender, the statement said.

"A gunbattle ensued. When firing stopped 10 militants were found dead by the firing of their fleeing accomplices," the statement said, identifying the militants as members of Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban.

Jamaat-ur-Ahrar claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in Lahore that left 13 dead in February, as well as an Easter Day bombing in Lahore last year that killed more than 70 people in a public park.

The police statement said a facilitator of the February bombing was among those killed in the April 8 gunbattle.

Authorities say Pakistani security forces killed around 100 militants in February after a Sufi shrine bombing that left more than 80 dead in the southern province of Sindh that month.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Geo.tv

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Serbia: Thousands protest in Belgrade against Vucic for sixth day

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 8 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Serbia: Thousands protest in Belgrade against Vucic for sixth day, 8 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71d13.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Last Updated: April 08, 2017

Thousands of students have demonstrated against Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's decisive win in a presidential election, claiming major irregularities in the campaign, including stifling the media, voter intimidation, and bribes.

For a sixth straight day, the students gathered in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on April 8 to protest Vucic's victory at the polls, where he garnered 55 percent of the vote on April 2 to win the presidency outright over 10 other candidates.

With music blaring in the background, the demonstrators blew whistles and banged pots as they taunted Vucic by calling him a thief and a tyrant while accusing him of stealing the election.

The number of protesters swelled in front the Serbian government's headquarters as hundreds of policemen and soldiers, who were holding a separate rally over low wages and poor living standards, joined the students.

"The times when politicians would turn the army and police against its people are over. The army, the police, and the people are in one place today," Veljko Mijailovic, the head of the police union, told the crowd.

Victory hands the 46-year-old Vucic and his Progressive Party, which has a majority in parliament, control over the entire legislative and governing process, and some critics have warned that could push the Balkan country back into the autocracy symbolized by former leader Slobodan Milosevic during his decade in power.

Once an ultranationalist, Vucic's rise to prominence in recent years came after he reinvented himself as a reformer who is committed to Serbia's drive toward European Union membership.

He has craftily strengthened his party's position through the ballot box, calling and winning two early parliamentary elections since 2014. While he once opposed integration with the 28-country bloc, he now pledges to prepare the nation of 7.3 million people for EU accession by 2019.

The protesters see Vucic as an autocratic leader and the Serbian Progressive Party as corrupt.

They have called for the government, along with top officials from the public broadcasters RTS and RTV, the Central Election Commission, and the regulatory Authority for Electronic Media, to step down.

With reporting from RFE/RL's Balkan Service, AP, and dpa

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Moldova says 17 arrested in plot to assassinate leading politician

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 8 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Moldova says 17 arrested in plot to assassinate leading politician, 8 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71e13.html [accessed 12 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.

April 08, 2017

Moldovan media tycoon Vlad Plahotniuc is also the head of the Democratic Party, the largest partner in Moldova's pro-European governing coalition.

Prosecutors say that 17 people have been detained in Moldova and Ukraine in a suspected plot to assassinate Vladimir Plahotniuc, one of Moldova's most powerful politicians.

Vitalie Busuioc of the Moldovan Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime said on April 8 they had seized money and weapons, including grenade launchers, that were to be used in plot to kill Plahotniuc, a businessman who is also the head of the Democratic Party, the largest partner in Moldova's pro-European governing coalition.

Eight of the suspects were arrested in Moldova, while the nine others were in Ukraine, according to Busuioc.

Ion Iachimov of the Moldovan National Investigation Inspectorate said two Moldovans, one of whom is currently in Moscow, ordered the murder in exchange for $200,000.

The Democratic Party said in a statement that it "firmly condemned this criminal act."

Ukraine's Interior Ministry said on April 7 that the authorities had thwarted an assassination attempt against Plahotniuc.

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Hungary: Tens of thousands rally in Budapest in support of Soros-funded CEU

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 9 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Hungary: Tens of thousands rally in Budapest in support of Soros-funded CEU, 9 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a71f10.html [accessed 12 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.

April 09, 2017

Demonstrators called on President Janos Ader to reject the bill and refer it to a constitutional review.

Tens of thousands of people have marched in Hungary's capital to protest against new legislation that could force a university founded by U.S. billionaire George Soros to leave the country.

At the April 9 rally in Budapest, the demonstrators called on President Janos Ader to reject the bill and refer it to a constitutional review.

Parliament adopted the bill on April 4 that would require foreign universities in Hungary to have a campus and provide similar courses in their country of origin.

Many in Hungary and abroad believe the law is aimed at Budapest's Central European University (CEU), which the nationalist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban sees as a bastion of the liberal opposition.

Under the law, the CEU could be forced to stop accepting students in 2018 and to close its doors in 2021.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Insurgents kill 13 Afghan troops in separate attacks

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 9 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Insurgents kill 13 Afghan troops in separate attacks, 9 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a72013.html [accessed 12 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.

April 09, 2017

The attacks come amid Afghanistan's spring fighting season, when warmer weather brings increased operations by both militants and government forces.

Insurgents have killed at least 13 Afghan security forces in separate attacks, Afghan officials have said.

Munir Ahmad Farhad, spokesman for the governor of the northern Balkh Province, said on April 9 that a roadside bomb killed nine Afghan troops and wounded several more late on April 8 in the Chimtal district during an operation against the Taliban.

He said five insurgents were killed and dozens wounded.

In a separate incident also on April 8, militants with the extremist group Islamic State (IS) attacked the Darzab district headquarters in the neighboring Jowzjan Province, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.

Four Afghan reinforcements, including a unit commander, were killed in an ambush as they raced to the scene of the clashes, he said.

The attacks come amid Afghanistan's spring fighting season, when warmer weather brings increased operations by both militants and government forces.

Afghan forces have struggled to combat the Taliban since the U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in 2014.

The U.S. military said earlier a U.S. soldier was killed in Afghanistan while conducting a mission against an affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

The soldier was a member of U.S. Special Operations Forces helping Afghan forces battle IS militants in Nangarhar Province, the U.S. said.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Egypt to declare state of emergency after church bombings

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 9 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Egypt to declare state of emergency after church bombings, 9 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a72113.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Last Updated: April 09, 2017

(WARNING: Graphic) People look at the aftermath following a bomb blast that struck worshipers gathering to celebrate Palm Sunday at the Mar Girgis Coptic Church in the Nile Delta city of Tanta, 120 kilometers north of Cairo, on April 9.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said a three-month state of emergency will be imposed, after dozens of people were killed in bomb attacks on two churches

Sisi announced the measure, which is expected to be backed by parliament, in a speech after a meeting of the National Defense Council on April 9.

Earlier, the president ordered military units to "immediately deploy and assist the civilian police in securing vital facilities in all provinces of the republic," his office said.

The two bombings targeted Coptic Christians on Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, killing at least 44 people and injuring more than 100, officials said.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were carried out by two militants wearing suicide vests, and warned of future attacks.

One bombing took place outside a church in Alexandria where Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Church, was attending Mass, media reported. He was unhurt.

The blast occurred several hours after an explosion rocked another Coptic church in the city of Tanta in the Nile Delta.

The government announced three days of mourning.

Palm Sunday marks the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and the start of Holy Week for Christians.

Christians make up around 10 percent of Egypt's population and have repeatedly been targeted by Islamic extremists.

A bombing at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49 in December.

After the latest attacks, Pope Francis, who is due to visit Egypt later this month, asked God "to convert the hearts of those who spread terror, violence, and death."

Grand Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, head of Egypt's Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, called the attacks a "despicable terrorist bombing that targeted the lives of innocents."

The UN Security Council condemned the "heinous" and "cowardly" bombings, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed hope that the perpetrators will be brought to justice.

The U.S. Department of State condemned in "the strongest terms the barbaric attacks" and said the United States will "continue to support Egypt's security and stability in its efforts to defeat terrorism."

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
South Ossetia says Bibilov leads vote in election condemned by Georgia, U.S. as 'illegitimate'

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 10 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, South Ossetia says Bibilov leads vote in election condemned by Georgia, U.S. as 'illegitimate', 10 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a722321.html [accessed 12 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.

April 10, 2017

Voting site for the South Ossetia presidential election

South Ossetia's election officials say Anatoly Bibilov, the speaker of the breakaway Georgian region's parliament, has taken the lead in a presidential election that was rejected by Tbilisi and condemned as "illegitimate" by the United States.

The election commission on April 10 said Bibilov had 48.7 percent with 35 percent of votes counted, Russian state-run TASS news agency reported. A candidate needs 50 percent to avoid a runoff on April 23. Turnout was reported at 81 percent.

TASS quoted Bibilov as claiming he had won 54.9 percent of the vote, avoiding the runoff.

The news agency said 78 percent of voters supported a referendum to change the region's name to "Republic of South Ossetia - State of Alania," a move also condemned by Georgia and the United States.

Russia recognized South Ossetia, along with another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia, as independent countries after fighting a brief war against Georgia in 2008.

It has kept thousands of troops in the regions, deployments NATO says violate the EU-brokered deal that ended the fighting.

The United States and all but a handful of countries consider South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be parts of Georgia.

Mark C. Toner, acting spokesman for the U.S. State Department, on April 7 said the United States did not accept the "illegitimate elections" in South Ossetia and previous ones held in Abkhazia on March 12 and March 26.

"The United States fully supports the territorial integrity of Georgia and its sovereignty within its internationally recognized borders," he added. "Our position on Abkhazia and South Ossetia is clear and consistent. These regions are integral parts of Georgia."

The Georgian Foreign Ministry on April 9 said it "condemns the so-called presidential election and referendum taking place on the grounds of the occupied Tskhinvali region."

It said the referendum question to change the name of the region was meant to prepare the ground of an illegal annexation by Russia.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Russian opposition leader Navalny released from jail

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 10 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian opposition leader Navalny released from jail, 10 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a72510.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Last Updated: April 10, 2017

Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny at the Moscow City Court on March 30, 2017

MOSCOW  Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny has been released from jail after serving a 15-day sentence in connection with anticorruption demonstrations he organized that jolted the country's political life.

Navalny's release from custody on April 10 followed his arrest last month near the site of the March 26 demonstration in Moscow, one of the largest antigovernment street protests since a series of rallies in 2011-2012 that he also helped lead.

He had been expected to be released from a detention facility in northwestern Moscow.

But as journalists and reporters waited for him to exit the facility, his associate Leonid Volkov told the crowd that Navalny had been moved to a different facility in Moscow, where he was freed from custody.

After initial confusion about his whereabouts, Navalny tweeted a photograph of himself following his release. He wrote in a blog post that he was "incredibly happy to be with you again."

Navalny was sentenced on March 27, one day after the protest that the government called illegal because city authorities had not granted permission for a march and rally in the center of the city. Authorities say the rally led to violations of public order.

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in dozens of cities across Russia on March 26 in the biggest grassroots protests in Russia since a series of demonstrations more than five years ago.

Those protests erupted after parliamentary elections tainted by allegations of widescale fraud and were fueled by anger over Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency after a stint as prime minster.

On March 26, more than 1,000 people were detained in Moscow alone.

Both the United States and the European Union expressed concern over Navalny's arrest and Russia's broader reaction to the protests.

A vocal critic of Putin, Navalny is seeking to run in a March 2018 presidential election that is widely expected to result in a new six-year term for Putin.

The March 26 protests followed an investigative report in which Navalny's anticorruption organization alleged that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has used corrupt practices to amass assets including luxury real estate in Russia and abroad.

Both the Kremlin and Medvedev have brushed off Navalny's investigation.

Medvedev last week for the first time responded to Navalny's report, calling the allegations "rubbish" and "nonsense" but not offering specifics.

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Russian bill sharply restricting social media use is submitted to Duma

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 10 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian bill sharply restricting social media use is submitted to Duma, 10 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a72613.html [accessed 12 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.

April 10, 2017

Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov (file photo)

A bill that would bar children under 14 from social networks and place other restrictions on Internet use has been submitted to Russia's parliament, but a lukewarm reception from the Kremlin appeared to cloud its prospects for passage.

Controversial State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov's draft law, submitted to the lower house on April 10, would require users accessing social networks to present identification documents in order to prove their age.

It would also bar the use of social media to organize public gatherings that are not sanctioned by the authorities and propose a ban on the use of social media at state companies and offices.

Political analysts say the use of social media to spread ideas, opinions, and information about planned protests has unnerved the Kremlin, which reined in traditional broadcast media shortly after President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.

But state-run news agency TASS quoted Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, as saying on April 10 that while Kremlin officials had not seen the bill itself, aspects of it that he has read about in the media were "not very realistic."

Peskov did not specify which proposals he had seen.

At the same time, the state-funded Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) said on April 10 that an opinion poll it conducted showed 62 percent of Russians aged 18 to 24 support the idea of barring children under 14 from social networks.

Kremlin-watchers say Putin and his government sometimes have allies submit bills that appear too controversial for passage and subsequently support separate legislation containing some of the proposals from the rejected draft.

Milonov is a member of the Kremlin-controlled United Russia party who is known for what critics say are antigay and anti-Semitic remarks.

He was the author of a local version of a 2013 law barring the spread of gay "propaganda" among minors that has been widely criticized by Western governments and rights groups.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2007-2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036
Russian teacher arrested on terrorism charge tied to antigraft protests

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 10 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Russian teacher arrested on terrorism charge tied to antigraft protests, 10 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a72713.html [accessed 12 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.

April 10, 2017

Russian riot policemen detain a demonstrator during the opposition rally in central Moscow on March 26.

Russian authorities have arrested a university teacher on charges of calling for "terrorist activities" with anonymous Internet posts related to recent antigovernment protests.

Russia's main investigative agency said in an April 10 statement that the suspect, identified in the media as 25-year-old Dmitry Bogatov, posted content "calling for mass disorder in central Moscow" and publicly tried to stoke potentially deadly actions.

The Investigative Committee said Bogatov, who teaches math at a Moscow university, was formally placed under arrest earlier in the day.

The teacher told a court hearing he is innocent.

Russian authorities had previously said they had opened a criminal investigation into unidentified individuals who had called for an April 2 unsanctioned anticorruption demonstration in Moscow.

Dozens of people were detained during the protest, which came a week after more than 1,000 were detained during a rally organized by leading Kremlin critic and anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny.

Navalny's spokeswoman said he had nothing to do with the April 2 protest.

Russia in recent years has stepped up its policing of online content it deems extremist in nature.

It has also prosecuted government critics over Internet posts that free speech advocates say are protected by the constitution.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, TASS, and RIA-Novosti

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Hungary's president signs bill threatening Soros-funded CEU

Publisher Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Publication Date 10 April 2017 Cite as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Hungary's president signs bill threatening Soros-funded CEU, 10 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975a72813.html [accessed 12 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.

April 10, 2017

Hungarian President Janos Ader (file photo)

Hungarian President Janos Ader has signed controversial new legislation that could force a university founded by U.S. billionaire George Soros to leave the country.

Ader said in an April 10 statement that the bill was in line with the constitution and did not infringe academic freedom.

Last week, the nationalist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban rushed the bill requiring foreign universities in Hungary to have a campus and provide similar courses in their country of origin through parliament in a matter of days, triggering street protests.

Many in Hungary and abroad believe the law is aimed at Budapest's Central European University (CEU), which Orban's government sees as a bastion of the liberal opposition.

Under the law, the CEU could be forced to stop accepting students in 2018 and to shutter its doors in 2021.

Based on reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters

Link to original story on RFE/RL website

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Call for Vietnamese blogger's release on eve of her trial

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 24 July 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Call for Vietnamese blogger's release on eve of her trial, 24 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975b7f64.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges the Vietnamese judicial authorities to release Tran Thi Nga, an internationally recognized human rights defender and blogger who is due to go on trial tomorrow in Phu Ly, the capital of the northern province of Ha Nam.

Detained since 21 January, when she was arrested at her Phu Ly home, this mother of two is facing up to 12 years in prison on a charge of violating article 88 of the penal code by "using the Internet to spread propaganda videos and writings."





Blogging under the name of Thuy Nga, she defends migrant workers and people whose land has been seized by the state. She is also a member of Vietnamese Women For Human Rights, which supports and helps human rights defenders.





In September 2013, Nga walked into a complaints bureau in Phu Ly and accused several people there of being plainclothes police officers who had persecuted her and other citizens. She took care to film the scene and the video can be seen on YouTube, where it is has been reposted many times under different pseudonyms.





Although detained since January, Ngo saw her lawyer for the first time in May. He reported that her health has worsened steadily in prison. She is suffering from complications from an injury in May 2014, when five men beat her with steel rods after she visited Nguyen Tuong Thuy, a blogger who had just spoken about human rights at visiting US President Barack Obama's residence.





"We are outraged by the detention of this activist, who has always fought courageously to protest against Vietnamese government persecution," RSF said. "The authorities must free Tran Thi Nga, who has committed no crime and whose health is very worrying. She is not receiving adequate medical care and is eating very little."





Vietnam's one-party state is cracking down more and more on bloggers and activists, who are the only source of independently-reported news and information for the public. As a result, Vietnam is now the world's second biggest prison for citizen-journalists, after China.





Last month, the dissident Pham Minh Hoang was deported to France after being stripped of his Vietnamese citizenship, and the blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was sentenced to ten years in prison. The media are entirely government-controlled and just provide state propaganda.





Vietnam is ranked 175th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
Russian parliament certifies free Internet's death

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 22 July 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Russian parliament certifies free Internet's death, 22 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975b8554.html [accessed 12 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Russia's parliamentarians have given final approval to two laws intended to ban software that bypasses online censorship and tighten government control of search engines and messaging services. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) thinks they certify the death of a free Internet in Russia.





The two laws marking a turning-point in Russian Internet censorship were among the torrent of bills that legislators approved in a rush yesterday, the last day of the parliamentary session before the summer break.





The first law aims to plug the gaps in Russia's Internet censorship by obliging services that circumvent website blocking - such as VPNs, proxy servers or the Tor network - to block websites that are banned in Russia. Those that do not comply will be rendered inaccessible in Russia.





This law also requires search engines to remove all references to sites that are blocked in Russia.





The second law will require the identification of users of messaging services such as WhatsApp and Telegram by means to their telephone numbers and will allow the authorities to block certain subscribers or messages.





"The free Internet has just hours to live in Russia," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "As we feared, the Duma has decided to step up censorship and surveillance of Internet users. We again condemn this escalation in draconian legislation, which tramples on the rights of Russian citizens and threatens the digital sector."





The approval of these laws by the upper chamber and their promulgation by President Vladimir Putin are formalities. The anti-VPN law should take effect on 1 November, the law on messaging services on 1 January. Their implementation nonetheless faces major technical challenges.





Russia is ranked 148th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
Morocco obstructs coverage of Rif protests

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 23 July 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Morocco obstructs coverage of Rif protests, 23 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975b8a54.html [accessed 12 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) has registered many media freedom violations since the start of a wave of protests in Morocco's northern Rif region and accuses the authorities of deliberately obstructing the Moroccan and foreign reporters who have been trying to cover the unrest.

"The situation of Moroccan and foreign journalists covering the events in northern Morocco keeps on getting worse," said Yasmine Kacha, the head of RSF's North Africa bureau. "By trying to prevent coverage of the Rif protests, the Moroccan authorities are gradually turning this region into a no-go zone for independent media."

Kacha added: "RSF also calls on the Moroccan authorities to free all the citizen-journalists who have been arrested and to condemn all the physical attacks against media personnel who are just doing their job by covering these demonstrations."





Hamid El Mahdaoui, the editor of the Badil.info news website, was arrested on 20 July while filming a protest in the city of Al-Hoceima that had been banned by the authorities a few days before. He is due to appear before the local prosecutor in a court in Al-Hoceima today.





According to Agence France-Presse and many observers in Al-Hoceima, Internet connections have been slowed down and have at times been cut off altogether, and the telephone network has been disrupted throughout the city, complicating the work of journalists.





Citizen-journalists detained





RSF had registered many other incidents prior to these latest ones. Since 26 May,seven citizen-journalists and media workers have been arrested in the Al-Hoceima region in connection with their coverage of Hirak, the name given to the protest movement under way in the Rif region since last October.





One of them, Rif Press website editor Mohamed El Hilali, has already been sentenced to five months in prison on charges of "insulting police officers in the course of their work" and "demonstrating without prior authorization." Rif Press has been shut down.





Six other citizen-journalists - Mohamed Al Asrihi and Jawad Al Sabiry of the Rif24 website, Abd Al Ali Haddou, a presenter on AraghiTV (a web TV), Rif Press photographer Houssein Al Idrissi, Fouad Assaidi, a host on AwarTV's Facebook page, and Badil.info reporter Rabiaa Al Ablak - are currently in pre-trial detention in Casablanca.





All are charged with criminal law offences rather than press law violations, according to Ahmed Ait Bennacer, a member of the lawyers' collective that defends Hirak detainees.





"It is unacceptable that such grave charges as endangering state security are being brought against recognized and proven citizen-journalists," Bennacer said. "Any judicial proceedings should only be brought under the press law and these citizen-journalists should meanwhile be released."





Some of the citizen-journalists charged under the penal code are even facing the possibility of the death penalty.





Several of the detainees began a hunger strike on 17 July in protest again their arrest and the conditions in which they are being held. A report by the National Human Rights Council (CNDH) that was partially leaked referred to mistreatment and torture and said detainees were being kept in isolation.





Beaten during Rif solidarity demonstration





RSF registered two physical attacks on journalists during a demonstration in Rabat on 8 July in support of the Rif protest movement. One of the victims, Ahmed Rachid, a photographer and cameraman with the Lakome2 news website, was badly beaten while filming police dispersing demonstrators.





The other was Hicham Al Amrani, who covered the demonstration for Badil.info. "I was doing my job as a journalist when ten policeman approached, me, insulted me, and then kicked me and hit me with their batons," Amrani said. "I had the impression that they treated me with even more contempt after I told them I was a journalist."





Foreign reporters not welcome





The authorities are not just targeting Moroccan media and journalists.

Retransmission of France 24's Arabic-language channel was banned last month. Jamal Alilat, a visiting reporter for the Algerian newspaper El Watan, was arrested and deported in late May.





Two journalists with the French newspaper L'Humanite, reporter Rosa Moussaoui and photographer Ayoub Benkarroum, were harassed by the security services while covering a demonstration in support of the Hirak detainees in Meknes on 4 July.





"The authorities spotted me as a foreign journalist when I pulled out my equipment," Moussaoui said. "The security services took a photo of me and then followed my photographer and me, at first on foot and then with a DST [domestic intelligence agency] car."





While on her way to cover the banned 20 July demonstration in Al Hoceima for the French weekly Politis, freelance journalist Nadia Sweeny was stopped three times at checkpoints, where police and gendarmes requested her identity papers and asked her what she was doing in the region.





After she reached Al Hoceima, policemen took a note of her car licence number and reported her presence to their superiors while she was interviewing Nawal Benaissa, one of the leaders of the Hirak movement.





Coverage of the Rif protests is just the latest of the media freedom problems in Morocco, where foreign reporters are often expelled for covering sensitive stories, coverage of the monarchy and Islam is off limits, and independent reporting is obstructed in Western Sahara. Morocco is ranked 133rd out of 180 countries in RSF's World Press Freedom Index.
Afghans dream of stepping out of the shadows with Pakistan ID scheme

Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Author Samad Khan Publication Date 21 July 2017 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Afghans dream of stepping out of the shadows with Pakistan ID scheme, 21 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975bc8b4.html [accessed 12 November 2022]

An Afghan in Pakistan without papers, Mohammad Rehman has lived all his life in fear of arrest by the police and deportation to his conflict-torn homeland.

But a new Pakistan government programme to register up to one million undocumented Afghans like him, is finally allowing him to dream of stepping out of the shadows with a measure of security.

"I am feeling confident that I will have at least some sort of identity while in Pakistan," says Rehman, who was born and raised in Pakistan to Afghan parents. "If the police arrest me now, at least I will be released without much trouble."

The pilot programme launched on July 20 seeks to register undocumented Afghans living in the country, currently estimated between 600,000 to one million, many of whom have lived in Pakistan for nearly four decades and raised children there.

Under the scheme, thousands like Rehman will be issued with an Afghan Citizen, or AC, card providing legal protection from arbitrary arrest, detention or deportation under Pakistan's Foreigner's Act.

The six-month registration programme began with pilot projects in the country's capital Islamabad and the north-western city of Peshawar, which hosts the largest number of undocumented Afghans. The programme is expected to roll out in all four provinces from August 16.

The push to issue the cards has been welcomed by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. It will allow Afghans to stay in Pakistan for the time being, until they can be issued documents such as passports, by the Government of Afghanistan.

"The initiative will bring much needed relief for many Afghan families where some were registered refugees, while others had no legal status," UNHCR spokeswoman Duniya Aslam Khan told a news briefing in Geneva on Friday (July 21).

"It will help regularize the stay for many refugees at a time when return to their home country may not be possible," she added.

The registration follows three years of consultations between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan and UNHCR. It forms part of Pakistan's Comprehensive Policy on the Voluntary Repatriation and Management of Afghans, which was endorsed by its cabinet in February this year.

Other components of the plan include: extending the validity of the Proof of Registration cards to some 1.4 million registered Afghans refugees until the end of 2017; a commitment to adopt a national refugee law; and a visa regime for different categories of Afghan refugees who have the Proof of Registration cards.

Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority, Ministry of States and Frontier Regions and the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation will oversee the project, with support from the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, and UNHCR.

UNHCR will assist IOM with an information campaign to reach Afghan communities living in Pakistan, as well as ensuring that Afghans with international protection needs are referred to UNHCR.

Aside from easing his fears of arrest, undocumented Afghan honey vendor Saleem Khan sees other benefits from the registration programme. He hopes that having a card will allow him to move more freely and access markets in the village of Mandi Bahuddin in Punjab, and, reduce his children's fear of discrimination in school.

"My daughters were reluctant to attend the school as their teachers would bother them from time to time due to lack of documents. Police would stop us at every check post. After getting the card, we will be relieved," he says.
Cite as

UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), List of issues in relation to the 4th periodic report of Jamaica : Human Rights Committee, 9 May 2016, CCPR/C/JAM/Q/4, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975c34e4.html [accessed 12 November 2022]
Cite as

UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), List of issues prior to submission of the 7th periodic report of Poland : Human Rights Committee, 19 August 2014, CCPR/C/POL/QPR/7, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975dc894.html [accessed 12 November 2022]
Cite as

UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), List of issues in relation to the 4th periodic report of Slovakia : Human Rights Committee, 22 April 2016, CCPR/C/SVK/Q/4, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975de564.html [accessed 12 November 2022]
CLEAR LAKE | Monica Fredericks was in her Clear Lake home with her mother and her two granddaughters shortly before noon Sunday when someone knocked on the door with alarming news.

"They said, 'The house is on fire! Get out!'" Fredericks said as she stood outside Sunday afternoon by what remained of a twin home in the 100 block of Lakeview Meadows Court.

The fire burned fast, according to Fredericks.

"We were lucky to get out," she said, referring not only to her family but also those on the other side of the twin home.

The house number of Fredericks' side is 107. The house number for the other side is 105. Fredericks said Frank and Marlys Mishak live at that residence.

All the occupants got out safety before firefighters arrived, according to a news release from the Clear Lake Fire Department.

One firefighter, Marc Anderson, 31, was transported to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa by a fire department ambulance to be evaluated for chest discomfort. He was later released to return home.

Fredericks said she ran back into her residence once to get a few items, including her granddaughters' favorite stuffed animals, but firefighters wouldn't let her go back in after that.

However, the firefighters were able to save some precious belongings from the house, such as the ashes of Frederick's late husband and a journal.

Fredericks said she is thankful the firefighters acted so quickly.

The Clear Lake Fire Department was on the scene for about five hours. The Clear Lake police and water departments and Alliant Energy assisted, and the Ventura Fire Department provided mutual aid.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Damage to the properties has been estimated at $750,000.
Cite as

UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), List of issues prior to the submission of the third periodic report of the Republic of Moldova (CCPR/C/MDA/3), 28 November 2011, CCPR/C/MDA/Q/3, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975e4794.html [accessed 12 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.
Rainy season worsens cholera crisis in Yemen; UN agencies deliver clean water, food

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Rainy season worsens cholera crisis in Yemen; UN agencies deliver clean water, food, 21 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975eacd4.html [accessed 12 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.

Yemen is facing the world's largest cholera outbreak, the United Nations health agency today warned, with 5,000 Yemenis falling sick every day  the majority of them children and the elderly.

The cholera outbreak is far from being over, Fadela Chaib, spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO), told reporters in Geneva. The rainy season had just started and would exacerbate the situation in terms of transmission.

WHO's office in Yemen said that since 27 April 2017, over 372,900 suspected cholera cases and 1,837 associated deaths have been reported in over 91 per cent of Yemen's governorates.

UN agencies, including WHO and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), are scaling up access to clean water and sanitation, and setting up treatment centres for oral rehydration therapy and other measures.

The response is also focused on providing food as the country remains on the verge of famine. Seventeen million people are currently hungry in the war-torn country, making then more vulnerable to catching the bacteria.

It is necessary to break the vicious cycle of malnutrition and diarrhoea, Ms. Chaib said.

Children aged 15 and under accounted for 41 per cent of all suspected cases, and people aged over 60 for 33 per cent of all deaths.

Asked if the number of cases could rise about 600,000, as projected by the non-governmental organization Oxfam, Ms. Chaib called the current toll heavy and said the situation remains alarming.

In 2011, some 719,377 suspected cases of cholera were recorded in Haiti, and 8,767 people died, according to national figures citedby the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Guterres 'strongly condemns' stabbing attack that left three Israelis dead in West Bank

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Guterres 'strongly condemns' stabbing attack that left three Israelis dead in West Bank, 22 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975eb794.html [accessed 12 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.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has strongly condemned yesterday evening's stabbing attack by a Palestinian perpetrator, which resulted in the death of three members of an Israeli family in the Halamish settlement in the occupied West Bank.

He conveys his condolences to the bereaved and wishes a speedy recovery to those injured, according to a statement issued by the UN chief's Deputy Spokesman, Farhan Haq.

Furth to the statement, Mr. Guterres again called on all to refrain from any actions or words that could further escalate an already volatile situation.
In DR Congo, UN aid chief says world must 'not let down' millions of people in need

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, In DR Congo, UN aid chief says world must 'not let down' millions of people in need, 21 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975ebce4.html [accessed 12 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.

Wrapping up a four-day mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations humanitarian chief today urged the world not to forget the DRC, and called for scaled-up relief funding to help millions of people suffering from violence, diseases, and malnutrition.

I urge and encourage the international community not to let down the millions of people in need in the DRC. How many more clues do we need to step up?  said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien in a press release on the visit.

Some 3.8 million people are now displaced within the DRC. An appeal for $748 million launched earlier this year has so far received less than 25 per cent of funding, the lowest level in the past 10 years.

Separately, a $64.5 million emergency appeal was made for the Kasai crisis. To date it has only received 11 per cent.

This is not just insufficient  it is unacceptable for the global community to leave this very real suffering of the Congolese people unaddressed  just because of a shortage of money, stressed Mr. O'Brien, who is also the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

During two days of travel outside of the capital, Kinshasa, Mr. O'Brien visited some of the communities most affected by the massive crisis, including Tshikapa in the Kasai region, where a year of conflict has led to serious human rights abuses and displaced some 1.4 million people.

Stephen O'Brien, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, visits Moni, once a site for internally displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It used to host 12,000 people, but after fighting broke out on July 4th 2017, shelters were burned down and people fled. Photo: OCHA

The violence in the five provinces that make up the Kasai region has also pushed thousands of children out of school. Some 600 cases of sexual-based violence have been reported since last year, while several schools and health clinics have been commandeered into temporary shelter for the displaced.

In the Komba IDP site, I met young Mangasa Kalone who told me how she was almost burned alive when her village was attacked, Mr. O'Brien highlighted.

He also visited a school compound where NGOs are providing protection and recreational activities to some 1,000 unaccompanied minors. I am deeply concerned for the health of these children, many have been stunted by malnutrition, he said.

He also held talks with a wide range of actors in North Kivu and South Kivu, two of the traditional hotbeds of humanitarian needs.

In Kinshasa, he met with the Congolese Prime Minister, Bruno Tshibala, the ministers for interior and humanitarian affairs, representatives of donor countries, and senior officials of UN agencies and of the peacekeeping mission, known for its French acronym MONUSCO.
UN chief concerned about unfolding violence in Jerusalem's Old City

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN chief concerned about unfolding violence in Jerusalem's Old City, 21 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975ec274.html [accessed 12 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.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today expressed concern about the situation in the Old City of Jerusalem, which has been the scene of escalating violence in recent days.

In a statement, his spokesperson said that the Secretary-General deeply deplores the death of three Palestinians in clashes today with the Israeli security forces and calls for these incidents to be fully investigated.

He urged the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to refrain from actions that could further escalate the situation.

In today's statement, Mr. Guterres also called all political, religious and community leaders to help reduce tension.

The Secretary-General reiterates that the sanctity of religious sites should be respected as places for reflection, not violence, the spokesperson said.

The Old City is a walled area within the city of Jerusalem.
UN agency lauds new project to register undocumented Afghan refugees in Pakistan

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN agency lauds new project to register undocumented Afghan refugees in Pakistan, 21 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975ec694.html [accessed 12 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 new pilot project in Pakistan to register undocumented Afghan refugees  who up to now have been without identity papers and living in fear of being arrested or deported  would allow up to one million people to have legal status, the United Nations refugee said.

This significant step will help regularize the stay for many Afghans at a time when return to their home country may not be possible, Duniya Aslam Khan, spokesperson at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters at the UN's Geneva Office.

The six-month registration programme started yesterday in the capital Islamabad and Peshwar, in the north-west, which hosts the largest number of undocumented Afghans. The programme is expected to be rolled out throughout the country starting on 16 August.

Afghans registered under the new scheme receive African Citizen cards, which allow them to legally stay in Pakistan until the Government of Afghanistan can issue them passports and other documents, and provides protections under Pakistani law.

The initiative will bring much needed relief for many Afghan families where some were registered refugees, while others had no legal status, Ms. Khan said.

The registration project comes after three years of consultations between the Governments, and is part of Pakistan's Comprehensive Policy on the Repatriation and Management of Afghans, which was endorsed by its cabinet in February this year.

I am feeling confident that I will have at least some sort of identity while in Pakistan, Mohammad Rehman, who was born and raised in Pakistan to Afghan parents, told UNHCR. If the police arrest me now, at least I will be released without much trouble.
Amid rising violence in Jerusalem, UN and diplomatic partners urge maximum restraint on all sides

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 23 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Amid rising violence in Jerusalem, UN and diplomatic partners urge maximum restraint on all sides, 23 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975ecdb4.html [accessed 12 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.

Expressing deep concern about the escalating tensions and violent clashes taking place in and around the Old City of Jerusalem, the United Nations and its diplomatic partners in the Middle East peace process have called on all to demonstrate maximum restraint and work towards de-escalating the situation.

In a statement issued late yesterday, the envoys of the so-called Middle East Quartet - comprising the UN, Russia, the United States and the European Union - strongly condemned acts of terror, and expressed regret for all loss of innocent life caused by the violence, and hope for a speedy recovery to the wounded.

The statement comes in the wake of a series of deadly stabbings, other violent incidents and rising tensions in and around Jerusalem's Old City since mid-June, particularly near the holy site known as the Temple Mount and as Haram al-Sharif.

Noting the particular sensitivities surrounding the holy sites in Jerusalem, and the need to ensure security, the Quartet envoys called on all to demonstrate maximum restraint, refrain from provocative actions and work towards de-escalating the situation.

Through their statement, the envoys welcomed the assurances by the Prime Minister of Israel that the status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem will be upheld and respected. Further, the Quartet encouraged Israel and Jordan to work together to uphold the status quo, noting Jordan's special role as recognized in its peace treaty with Israel.

The Quartet envoys reiterated that violence deepens mistrust and is fundamentally incompatible with achieving a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the statement concluded.
'The time to act is now;' end children's suffering in Iraq and across the Middle East  UNICEF

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 22 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, 'The time to act is now;' end children's suffering in Iraq and across the Middle East  UNICEF, 22 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975ed174.html [accessed 12 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.

Calling for immediate care and protection for children caught up in violence in Iraq's war torn Mosul and other Middle East conflicts, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) today warned that the lives and futures of some 27 million across the region and parts of Africa are at risk.

The worst of the violence in Mosul may be over but for too many children in Mosul and in the region, extreme suffering continues, said, Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

As for recently-liberated Mosul, he said that children in shock continue to be found, some reportedly among the debris or hidden in tunnels. Some have lost their families while fleeing to safety. According to reports, families have been forced to abandon their children or give them away  they are now living in fear, alone.

Many children have been forced to fight and some to carry out acts of extreme violence, he said, emphasizing: These are horrific times for far too many children in Iraq and other conflict-affected countries in the region.

UNICEF says that violence and conflicts are putting the lives and futures of nearly 27 million children at risk, impacted by violence in Yemen, inside Syria and refugee hosting countries, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Libya and Sudan, as well as Iraq.

In the north-eastern city of Ar-Raqqa in Syria, violence has further intensified over the past weeks, with children repeatedly coming under attack. Between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians continue to be trapped in the city as heavy violence continues around them, Mr. Cappelaere explained.

Moreover, families have described horrific conditions and journeys fraught with danger, sniper fire, landmines and unexploded remnants of war, he added.

Such horrors are not over even if children escape from immediate danger. They are being detained, abused and stigmatized for perceived affiliations, while tensions are high between and within communities, said Mr. Cappelaere.

Those children who are alone need our support to help them find their families, be reunited and surrounded with care, protection and services, regardless of their family's origin or affiliation, he underscored.

As with any other child in the world, they have the right to be safeguarded, including through legal documentation. Children are children!

The time to act is now, Mr. Cappelaere said, and asked: How can we build a more stable and prosperous future for all while children are exposed to such horrors and treated this way?
As RAGBRAIers approach Charles City, one rider looks forward to possibly meeting the family of the teen whose life inspired him.

Tony Hager, a former wrestler from Ogden, is dedicating his ride to 15-year-old Logan Luft, who died after an ATV accident July 4.

My goal is to raise $10 per mile, Hager said.

His 190-mile ride runs Wednesday through Saturday, with a total fundraising goal of $1,900. One hundred percent of the funds will be donated to Logan's family.

After speaking with Logans mom and the family, it gave me more of a passion, Hager said.

Logan, who would have entered ninth grade this fall, was passionate about three activities: wrestling, fishing and running. More than 1,600 people attended his funeral earlier this month.

The sport of wrestling is a family, Hager said on his fundraising page. Once you have stepped on the mat, everyone is now your brother or sister.

Through this ride, Hager hopes to help a fellow wrestling family members family, he said.

Hager owns several wrestling news sites, including IAwrestle. Though he never met Logan, he knows wrestlers who knew and loved the teen. Logans story and his death struck a chord with Hager, inspiring him to give back.

Being in the wrestling media world and how he was an organ donor, I felt like I needed to do something, Hager said.

Five individuals received organ donations from Logan and tissue donations could help 50 to 75 people. Family members said organ donation and helping others is exactly what Logan would have wanted.

To show his support, Hager will write Luft on his left calf and Tuff on his right, in honor of the special hashtag the family used. Supporters also wore "Donate Life" T-shirts sporting the tag during Logan's funeral.

Hager hopes the words will be a conversation starter.

Maybe some others will write this on their calves in honor of him as well, Hager said.

Hager started a RallyMe campaign to raise funds.

Its his understanding that the family will donate the money to an organization that recruits organ donors in Iowa.

I really hope people who dont have the ability to donate write 'Luft Tuff' too, showing you care, Hager said. Not everyone has the means.

He originally reached out to the family after the funeral to explain his wishes and to assure them it was not a publicity stunt.

Its such a tough time, Hager said. Theyre OK with it and have been giving me ideas on how to support him.

Hager is starting his ride in Rockwell and hopes to meet with the family when the event stays overnight in Charles City.

He also encouraged those joining him to tweet pics to @hagertony and use the hashtag #LuftTuff.

At the end of the day, if I can get a few people to write Luft Tuff on their legs, thats a win for me, Hager said.
Three displaced families killed in airstrike in south-west Yemen  UN rights wing

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 21 July 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Three displaced families killed in airstrike in south-west Yemen  UN rights wing, 21 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975ed8f4.html [accessed 12 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.

Three displaced families have been killed when their makeshift shelter was hit in an airstrike in Yemen's Taiz governorate earlier this week, the United Nations human rights wing said.

Citing witness reports, Rupert Colville, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said today that the straw house the families were sheltering in was destroyed in the strike, killing everyone who were inside at the time.

At least 18 civilians in all, including ten children and two women, are believed to have died in the incident, he said.

The Arab Coalition Forces airstrike had taken place in the Al Asheerah village, which is near the town of Mawza, and is currently controlled by the Houthis, at around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 18 July.

According to Mr. Colville, the families had been recorded by OHCHR as displaced, along with three others, from their homes in a different village nearby three months ago as a result of other airstrikes, and had set up four rough shelters in an open area in Al Asheerah.

The village is located about eight kilometres from the Khalid Bin Al Walid Military Camp, where clashes between pro-Hadi forces, backed by the Coalition Forces, and the Houthis are taking place.

Noting that according to available information, there did not appear to have been any military objectives anywhere in the immediate vicinity of the destroyed house, the OHCHR spokesperson underscored that attacks targeting civilians or civilian objects or indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

[We] remind all parties to the conflict, including the Coalition, of their duty to ensure full respect for international humanitarian law and to respect their obligations under international human rights law, said Mr. Colville, calling on the authorities for a comprehensive and impartial investigation into this incident.

Since March 2015, OHCHR has documented 13,609 civilian casualties, including 5,021 killed and 8,588 injured. These figures are based on the casualties individually verified by its office in Yemen and the overall number could be much higher.
Poland: Presidential veto is a step back from the brink

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 24 July 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Poland: Presidential veto is a step back from the brink, 24 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975f3ed4.html [accessed 12 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.

Following an announcement by Poland's president Andrzej Duda that he will veto two controversial judicial reform bills which would have granted the ruling Law and Justice Party wide ranging control of the judiciary, Gauri Van Gulik, Deputy Europe Director at Amnesty International, said:

"With this decision President Duda has pulled Poland back from the brink of all-out assault on the rule of law. These reforms would have brought the justice system fully under the heel of the government, removing judicial independence and jeopardizing fair trial rights in Poland.

"It is partly thanks to people power that this alarming scenario has been averted. Since these reforms were announced, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Poland to defend their freedoms, and President Duda's unexpected announcement is a tribute to the power of public protest.

"While we welcome today's announcement, deep concerns remain about the independence of Poland's judiciary. We are calling on President Duda to veto a third bill, which gives the government the power to appoint heads of the common courts.

"Hundreds of protesters may face prosecutions for their participation in these protests, showing exactly why judicial independence is so important. Until the third bill is vetoed, their right to fair trials will be in jeopardy."

Background

The amendment of the Law on the Supreme Court entered the first hearing in the lower chamber Sejm on 18 July and was adopted by the Senate on 22 July, but needed presidential approval to be signed into law.

Since Friday, the police have ID-checked over 200 protesters, many of whom were fined for blocking the streets or climbing through the police barriers. The majority refused to pay fines and preferred to stand trial in court. Amnesty International is monitoring a number of these cases.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Afghanistan: Kabul bombing is a war crime

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 24 July 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Afghanistan: Kabul bombing is a war crime, 24 July 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5975f4204.html [accessed 12 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.

Responding to the deaths of 24 people and the wounding of 42 when a car packed with explosives rammed into a bus in western Kabul this morning, in an attack claimed by the Taliban, Amnesty International's Afghanistan Researcher, Horia Mosadiq, said:

"This horrific attack deliberately targeted civilians and constitutes a war crime under international law. It was just yesterday that the people of Kabul were marking the one year anniversary of one of the deadliest attacks in the city's history. Today, they are forced to mourn further deaths.

"Nearly 16 years after the conflict in Afghanistan began, civilians are increasingly paying the greatest price. A record number of civilians have been killed in the first half of this year, with women and children being the worst affected. And neither the Afghan government nor the international community is paying enough attention to their plight.

"The Afghan government must put the protection of people's lives at the heart of its policies. Meanwhile countries in the European Union must stop making the callous claim that Afghanistan is safe for refugees and asylum seekers to be returned to."

Background

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), a total of 1,662 civilians were killed between January 1 and June 30 this year, marking the highest figure for civilian casualties recorded by the UN body.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
CLEAR LAKE | A two-vehicle crash on I-35 near Clear Lake early Monday morning resulted in minor injuries, according to law enforcement.

The Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Office says a northbound 2015 Dodge Ram driven by Michael Hill of Holden, Mo., was rear-ended by a 2008 Ford Focus driven by Christopher Platz, 29, Kansas City, Mo.

Hill had turned his hazards on to pull on to the shoulder near mile marker 192 around 1:12 a.m., the sheriff's office said in a news release. The crash occurred near mile marker 192.

Platz, who the sheriff's office said had minor injuries, was transported to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa by Clear Lake Fire and Rescue.

He was cited for failure to reduce speed to a reasonable and proper rate.

The Clear Lake Police Department and the Iowa State Patrol also provided assistance at the scene.

 Courtney Fiorini
Has the state of Iowa been frittering away millions of tax dollars under the leadership of Gov. Terry Branstrad and his successor, Kim Reynolds?

You might think so, judging by the way Reynolds and other state officials describe the impact of deep budget cuts as the state struggles to balance its budget for the just-completed fiscal year.

A few months ago, the Iowa Legislature approved $118 million in budget cuts, then agreed to withdraw $131 million from the state's cash reserves to fill a budgetary hole that seemed to be constantly growing in size. But state revenues continued to fall short of expectations, and so, despite the actions already taken, the budget now appears to be $97 million in the red.

Reynolds can make up only half of that by dipping back into the state reserves. The rest of the imbalance will likely have to be wiped out through additional spending cuts.

"The bottom line is that there will be continuity of government and Iowans will experience no change," Reynolds has said.

No change? Can the state actually cut $170 million in spending, while raiding cash reserves that have to be replenished, with Iowans experiencing no change in government service?

No, it cannot. There is not anywhere near that much fat in the state budget.

Reynolds is fully aware of this fact because the executive branch agencies under her leadership are already slashing services to Iowans due to funding reductions. Those cuts come in the wake of a long, steady erosion of state staffing and funding that is a direct result of the Branstad-Reynolds administration's approach to governing.

For example, the Iowa Department of Public Health has seen its overall budget reduced by almost 14 percent since last year. As the Register's Brianne Pfannenstiel recently reported, the department absorbed $2 million worth of cuts in the 2016-17 budget year, and lawmakers then cut $4.4 million from the agency's 2017-18 budget while ordering department officials to use their discretion to cut $1.3 million more.

Now the department's hearing aid and audiological services program has been shut down due to a $156,000 cut in state funding. This program was set up to provide Iowa children with hearing aids, which can cost up to $2,500 and often aren't covered by insurance. Last year, the program helped 133 families.

The state also zeroed out its contributions to the Iowa Regional Autism Assistance Program, which assists families in early identification of children at risk for autism and steers families to more comprehensive diagnostic services, care coordination and family-to-family support groups.

Last month, in responding to the budget cuts, University of Iowa Hospitals' director of health policy, Jennifer Harbinson, wrote to state lawmakers and warned that "these cuts will impact Iowans with disabilities, autism, cancer and diseases."

And yet Gov. Reynolds claims the yet to be identified spending cuts, which will come on top of those already announced, will result in no change of services for Iowans.

At the same time, spokesmen for some of the agency heads who serve at the pleasure of the governor are parroting that claim. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources, for example, has imposed a $1.2 million budget cut by eliminating the position of state geologist, shuttering its Bureau of Forestry and terminating a program for parks improvement.

Officially, however, the department claims none of these cuts will affect Iowans. "There will be absolutely no impact on the services to the general public or any other agencies that they work with," DNR spokesman Alex Murphy says. "Cities and counties and other entities will not see any impact of this."

That claim doesn't come close to passing the laugh test. Rather than advocate for the DNR and its mission, Murphy seems to be more interested in providing the governor with political cover.

For years, the condition of Iowa's state parks has been spiraling downward, as campers, hikers and other visitors can readily attest. Now the DNR is eliminating its Trail Crew program, which has used two full-time DNR employees, working in conjunction with a team of federally paid AmeriCorps workers, to develop and maintain trails and other amenities in the parks. Now the Trail Crew program is toast.

To be fair, Reynolds doesn't have much choice but to make even more cuts in spending to balance the 2016-17 budget. But her first order of business should be to acknowledge the impact of the cuts already made  not just to state lawmakers who may be called back to Des Moines for a special session, but to the people of Iowa.

The governor can't continue to insist that million-dollar spending cuts have zero impact on state services. If she does, she'll lose any credibility she now has with voters. Either that or the public will believe her and demand to know why the state has been spending millions on programs that have no impact on their quality of life.

This editorial appeared in the July 11 edition of the Des Moines Register.
Body cameras for the Mooresville Police Department have arrived. Find out when they will be used.

Mooresville-Decatur
COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With more than 30,000 children in Canada waiting to be adopted, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is excited to see that more Canadians are seriously considering foster care adoption, and are also embracing the idea that every child is adoptable.



According to a recent survey conducted by Nielson on behalf of the Foundation, 26 percent of Canadians who havent adopted are considering it, up 5 percent since 2012. Of those individuals, more than half (58%) are considering foster care adoption. This is encouraging news as more and more children enter the foster care system each year. Giving more hope to the Foundation is the discovery that of the Canadians considering foster care adoption, more than 66 percent are serious about it, which is an 11% increase over 2012 and could result in more adoptive homes for waiting children.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is unique in that it focuses on finding adoptive parents for children in foster care, specifically children who are at risk of aging out without being adopted, such as those with special needs, sibling groups who would benefit from being adopted together and older children who have spent years in foster care.

Five-year-old Maria fit into all of those groups. She is on the autism spectrum, had spent four years in foster care and had a biological brother who was also waiting to be adopted in a different city.

The siblings never met until an adoption recruiter with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption helped Liz LeBrun of Guelph, Ontario give Maria a permanent home. I know how great the need is, especially for kids who have special needs, said LeBrun. I saw Marias profile, and because I have a background in special education, I knew I could offer her some things that would be helpful to her. Liz went on to also adopt Marias biological brother.

Our caseworkers do an extensive analysis of these children, talking to their teachers, social workers whove had interactions with them and even former foster families, trying to match the child with the perfect family, said Rita Soronen, President & CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

The Foundation is on a mission to place as many children in loving homes as possible and to spread the word that every child is adoptable, and their message seems to be working.

In fact, more than 85 percent of Canadians understand that children in foster care are victims of abuse and neglect and are in the system due to no fault of their own. But the most exciting finding is that 54 percent agree that every child is adoptable, up from 49 percent in 2012. The belief that Unadoptable is Unacceptable has been at the core of the Foundations message and awareness campaigns.

In many provinces, there has been a drive toward enhanced policies on behalf of children whove been abused or neglected and are in foster care, said Soronen. Those efforts, combined with increased awareness about adoption opportunities are making a huge difference in the lives of many Canadian children.

Liz LeBrun says the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption left such an impact on her family that when they were changing Andys last name, they also chose a new middle name, Thomas, to honor Dave Thomas and his vision of a loving family for every child.

The LeBrun family really exemplifies the findings of this survey and the mission of our Foundation, said Soronen. These children are just like any other child. Theyve simply had a rough start in life, but they are available for adoption and deserve to find a permanent family and a safe home.

For the first time, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption also included survey questions about attitudes toward foster care in general. The results are available on the Foundations website.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Canada is a nonprofit public charity dedicated exclusively to finding permanent homes for the more than 30,000 children waiting in Canadas foster care system. Created by Wendys founder Dave Thomas who was adopted, the Foundation implements evidence-based, results-driven national service programs, foster care adoption awareness campaigns and advocacy initiatives. To learn more, visit davethomasfoundation.ca or call 1-800-ASK-DTFA.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fd942d4f-6c68-4753-89d8-3a83364cd473

A video accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f0ea58ca-711a-4805-abe9-eba6acef267f

ACCESS MORE INFORMATION, INCLUDING PRESS RELEASE, PHOTOS AND VIDEO HERE: http://bit.ly/2tYzRWt **By entering the password adopt you agree to honor the embargo.** All elements available for free and unrestricted media use. Please credit/courtesy: The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
As China scales back plans to build new coal-fired power plants for its domestic market, it is adding dozens more to the world total with similar projects abroad, environmental monitors say.

The building binge of overseas projects threatens to offset the environmental benefits from curbing expansion of coal power at home, according to recent reports.

As the world's biggest carbon emitter, China is also the leading contributor to the boom in new coal power projects in developing countries.

According to a report by the Berlin-based environmental group Urgewald, some 1,500 new projects are planned by many countries at 850 locations around the world, boosting generating capacity by 43 percent.

Taken together, Chinese companies and investors represent the biggest source.

"The fleet of new coal plants would make it virtually impossible to meet the goals set in the Paris climate accord," The New York Times said in a July 1 report.

China won praise from environmental groups in January after the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced the suspension of 103 planned coal power projects in 13 provinces, including some already under construction.

The cutback came after Greenpeace East Asia warned in late 2015 that China's environmental authorities had approved plans for some 155 new coal plants despite utilization rates that had already dropped to the lowest level in 37 years.

The Urgewald report, based on data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker at http://endcoal.org/tracker/, suggests that the numbers of China's new projects internationally could be far greater.

Chinese companies are either building or planning more than 700 coal power units with about one-fifth of the capacity abroad, said The Times.

China accounts for 45 percent of the projects in the database, according to Urgewald's tally.

An RFA review of the data found that 15 Chinese companies are involved in planned coal power projects in 21 foreign countries, ranging from Pakistan to Indonesia, Vietnam, Iran, Jamaica and Zimbabwe.

The lengthy list suggests that China will keep increasing its global climate footprint, even as it reduces the rate of growth of carbon emissions on its own territory.

"If the Chinese government truly wants to position itself as a global climate leader, it needs to rein in its state-owned companies that are flooding the world with new coal power plants," said Trusha Reddy, coordinator of the International Coal Network at Earthlife Africa in Johannesburg, as quoted by Urgewald.

One of the group's main complaints is that large coal-fired projects have been slated for countries like Egypt and Malawi for the first time.

"Putting new coal plants in countries that have never had any coal plants before creates coal dependencies for decades to come," the NGO said.

Big investments in the projects could force them to keep operating for 40 years or more, it said.

A Chinese worker clears a conveyor belt used to transport coal near a coal mine in Datong, northern China's northern Shanxi province, Nov. 20, 2015. Credit: AFP Big push for overseas projects

China's broad push for overseas coal power projects may suggest a coordinated effort, possibly linked to "industrial capacity cooperation," a government initiative to export entire industries and manufacturing processes to less developed countries.

Beijing has promoted the concept for its industries that have vast production overcapacity like steel and building materials, giving manufacturers an incentive to close surplus plants in China while opening facilities abroad.

Critics have charged that this amounts to exporting pollution, but Chinese officials have argued that the program is intended only "to help other countries beef up their manufacturing capability."

For many of China's less developed trade partners, industrial capacity cooperation has become intertwined with China's other big overseas initiativethe "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) program to build infrastructure and trade routes through Asia to Africa and Europe.

But the push for foreign coal-fired projects predates both OBOR and industrial capacity cooperation, said Derek Scissors, an Asia economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

"Coal plant building by SOEs (state-owned enterprises) with supportive financing from state banks was happening well before OBOR," Scissors said by email.

The effort has been driven largely by China's capabilities rather than overcapacity.

"The original motive was that China built a ton of coal plants starting in 2003 and had gotten very good at it. Why not use that as a tool of foreign policy?" Scissors said.

Over time, China's promotion of coal power has found its place among its other foreign policy initiatives, like OBOR.

"The government is definitely involved, both in terms of creating a framework for SOEs to want to do this for diplomatic reasons and helping them with loans to host countries. OBOR just adds a public relations exercise," Scissors said.

The crown fits poorly

Regardless of the rationale, environmental advocates are focused on the consequences of starting hundreds of new coal power projects in developing countries.

Urgewald has called for divestment and blacklisting of companies and financing sources that support the coal projects.

"This means no more loans, shareholdings, bondholdings, insurance contracts," the group says.

It is unclear whether such opposition will have an effect on China's SOEs with their backing from state bank financing, but the report could damage China's image as a leader in the campaign against climate change.

"The crown fits poorly," Derek Scissors said.

The proliferation of Chinese coal power projects has been part and parcel of its growing influence around the world.

But the thrust into foreign markets for coal-fired generation also goes against the grain of China's own environmental policies.

"With a 25-percent decline in the commissioning of new coal-fired power plants, China's energy investment is increasingly driven by low-carbon electricity supply and networks, and energy efficiency," the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its World Energy Investment 2017 report this month.

According to the Paris-based IEA, China continued as the world's largest destination of energy investment, accounting for 21 percent of the global total.

At a prerelease press conference for the study, IEA officials were asked about the impact of China's investments in coal power overseas.

In response to a question from RFA, IEA energy investment analyst Michael Waldron cited "emerging overcapacity" among Chinese power companies as a result of the decline in final investment decisions for domestic coal projects.

So far, the effects of the overseas projects have not outweighed the benefits of suspending the planned projects at home, Waldron indicated.

"The decline in final investment decisions in China is not being made up for on a one-for-one basis by an increase of Chinese investments in coal power in some other parts of the world," said Waldron.

"But indeed, there are some Chinese companies that are undertaking and are looking increasingly to do investments in other parts of the world," he said.
Residents of Kbal Rormeas commune in Sesan district, northeastern Cambodia's Stung Treng province, will use bamboo stalks to make rafts to escape flooding caused by testing of the Lower Sesan 2 hydropwer dam, July 20, 2017.

Villagers affected by the U.S. $781 million Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam project on Mekong River tributaries in northeastern Cambodias Stung Treng province said on Monday that they will remain in their villages as the water level keeps rising during a test of the 400-megawatt project.

Officials previously warned locals that the area would be flooded when testing began on July 15, but scores of residents of Sesan districts Sre Kor and Kbal Romeas communes refused to move out and abandon land they have occupied for generations.

On the tenth day of the test on Monday, eight of 10 sluices were closed during the initial round of testing, pushing up the water level in the Sesan River to 66 meters (217 feet) at the dam site, they said.

The water level will reach a height of 67 meters (220 feet) at Sre Kor commune. In the meantime, the Sre Pork Bridge and a few roads in Kbal Rormeas, where the dam is located, are now flooded, villagers said.

Um Reth, a representative from Cambodias Royal Group, which is part of the joint venture with Chinas Hydrolancang International Energy that has built the dam, told RFAs Khmer Service that Sre Kor and Kbal Rormeas will be flooded when the other two sluices are closed.

He also said that weather conditions are contributing to the elevated water level.

There are rain storms in the area, he said. The water level may be higher than anticipated. The Sre Pork Bridge shouldnt be inundated, but now it has already been flooded.

Futh Khoeun, a resident of Old Sre Kor village told RFA that those who have refused to leave the area remain in their homes there, although authorities have imposed some restrictions on peoples movements in Sre Kor and Kbal Rormeas.

Authorities also have prevented some visitors from entering the area.

About 124 families in Sre Kor commune and 58 families in Kbal Rormeas commune have refused compensation plans offered by the government and the joint venture.

They say they do not want to move to a new location because it would be much more difficult for them to eke out a living and because they do not want to abandon their ancestors tombs and the place they have called home for generations.

Hundreds of others have already accepted compensation offered to them and left the area near the dams reservoir to resettle in new homes.

On July 5, the joint venture that built the dam said it would start testing the facilities from mid-July to mid-August, during which the water level of the river is projected to rise to 72 meters (236 feet).

Once it becomes operational in September, the Lower Sesan 2 will be the largest hydropower dam in Cambodia.

Reported by Chanthy Men for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Asked about China's much-publicized new Silk Road initiative, known in official circles as the One Belt One Road program, U.S.-based environmental writer Zheng Yi, author of China's Ecological Winter, predicts that Chinese companies will use it as a golden opportunity to polluted poorer countries and take the proceeds, much as they have done at home:



RFA: Can you tell us something about the relationship between environmental issues and China's Belt and Road initiative?



Zheng Yi: I can't see that there is any relationship. But I have some general ideas about it. There are some entrepreneurs in China who are very happy at China's reaching out to developing countries, because they get to pollute as much as they like there. I think that's where the relationship may lie.



RFA: So you think it may have an entirely negative effect, in terms of environmental protection?



Zheng Yi: I can't see that anything good is going to come out of it. They're not in it for other people's benefit, are they? My understanding of One Belt One Road is that it's all about the government ... projecting its power. I am very concerned that it will lead to very serious pollution in the countries in China's hinterland.



RFA: So you are saying that China, which hasn't sorted out its own pollution problems, is now exporting them to other countries? Does China even have the determination to sort out pollution at home?



Zheng Yi: You can't really talk about determination in this context, because however determined they are, they can't remove themselves from the face of the earth. It's about discipline. The pollution caused by Western countries was large done in ignorance. They industrialized earlier, and they had no way of knowing how the serious pollution caused by large-scale mass production such as iron and steel factories would create a whole new problem for humanity. Once they realized, the developed countries, which usually had a more-or-less democratic political system, they used that system to respond fairly quickly to the problem. For example, the newspapers would write about it, the population would protest about it, and in a property owning society the lines of power are very clearly drawn, and there would be a representative assembly. The entire political machine would kick into action in a very short space of time to prevent pollution from worsening. They might not have been able to clean it all up immediately, but they could at least move fast to stop it the trend in a fairly brief space of time. In China, the reason that this problem has been worsening for a very long period of time is a systemic one ... Ordinary people aren't allowed to speak out or protest. The police don't arrest the polluters; they arrest the protesters. The polluters are all in bed with the government, and in particular, with the environment protection bureaux. What hope is there for the momentum of pollution to be halted? They can try using political campaigns, or inspection teams, or awareness campaigns, or the [ruling Chinese Communist Party's] central commission for discipline inspection. But everyone knows this isn't going to work.



RFA: But corrupt officials breathe in polluted air as well. Pollution affects their health too, surely?



Zheng Yi: But we are talking about massive economic incentives here ... They continue to pollute because they get huge benefits from doing so. You can save a huge amount of money by not installing cleaner equipment, for example, and it's the ordinary people who pay the price for this saving, and the officials who gain from it. There are two huge generators of China's economic growth in recent years; one is the sale of land. The other is the money saved by failing to implement proper pollution controls, leaving later generations to pick up the bill. From their point of view, breathing it a bit of polluted air is a small price to pay. And they can always move overseas. They can buy a house in the United States, they can buy clean air and water ... They have all kinds of ways to escape it. For example, they go and live in less polluted places in China, like areas of natural beauty, or coastal cities that aren't very industrialized. It's still in their interest to keep doing it. They're not staying in this country. They have stashed up billions, and are pouring their money out of the country, and sending their wife and kids to live overseas. They have already converted all of that pollution in to cash and put it in overseas bank accounts. Then, a word in the right ear, and they're outta here. Bye bye.



Reported by Gu Jirou for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Police in Myanmars violence-ridden Maungdaw township in Rakhine state have arrested 31 people after acting on tips that militants planned to hold a secret meeting in Kyauk-hlay-gar village, the office of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi said on Monday.

A police patrol in the area arrested the men on July 22 after they failed to produce family registration documents, the announcement said.

The men are now being questioned for possible involvement in the recent violence in Maungdaw township.

The statement also said a 55-year-old man from Maunggyitaung village in adjacent Buthidaung township, who had disappeared from the fields on July 22, was found by a creek near a farm with his throat slit.

The latest murder is one of a string of killings in northern Rakhine state that officials have pinned on Muslim insurgents since October 2016, when militants launched deadly attacks on border guard posts in Maungdaw and neighboring Rathedaung townships.

The assaults, which were blamed on an obscure group of militant Rohingya Muslims, sparked a massive four-month security sweep of the three townships in northern Rakhine state during which about 1,000 people are estimated to have died and 90,000 Rohingya fled their homes, with most going to neighboring Bangladesh.

So far, Rakhine authorities have charged more than 500 local Muslims and deemed 1,300 others fugitives for their alleged involvement in the October 2016 attacks.

Though the crackdown ended in February, authorities recently put government soldiers and border guard police patrolling the area on high alert in the wake of a series of disappearances, murders, and other attacks on security forces.

The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution in March to send an international fact-finding mission to Myanmar to investigate atrocities that the countrys army is said to have committed against the Rohingya during the crackdown in northern Rakhine, but the Myanmar government has denied entry visas to the mission.

Boat capsizes off Buthidaung

In Buthidaung township on Sunday, four border police officers and a boatman went missing after strong currents in the river near Tinmay village caused a boat in which they were traveling to capsize, villagers said.

The boat was one of three vessels from the Taungbazar village border police station carrying eight policemen, three of whom swam back to the shore when the boat capsized, they said.

The boat was later found downstream along with some of the officers firearms, but the bodies of the four others are still missing, they said.

Calls placed by RFAs Myanmar Service to Buthidaungs district police commander and the border police went unanswered.

The officers were returning from security clearance operations in Tinmay village, according to a report by the online journal The Irrawaddy, citing a senior border police officer from Maungdaw who requested anonymity.

On July 9, security forces on patrol near the village killed two suspected militants and arrested another after the men fired on them from a house and detonated a bomb.

Inside the house, security forces seized cartridge cases, bullets, a handmade gun, a remote mine, material for building improvised explosive devices, and a Ba-94 gun which was one of the weapons that belonged to the assailants who raided one of the local border guard stations in the October 2016 attacks.

Reported by Min Thein Aung for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Police in western Chinas Sichuan province detained a senior Tibetan monk this week without explanation, leaving followers and friends unsure of his present whereabouts and concerned for his well-being, sources said.



Tulku Lobsang, a monk of Boroe monastery in Sichuans Sershul (in Chinese, Shiqu) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture had been summoned by police on July 21, a local source told RFAs Tibetan Service.



They called him to come to their office in Dartsedo, and when he arrived, police in plain clothes took him into custody, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



No reason was given for his detention, the source said.



Lobsang had been accompanied by the monasterys manager and several other persons, who were sent by police back to Boroe to retrieve Lobsangs identity card, which he had neglected to bring with him, he said.



Boroe monks and laypeople from neighboring villages immediately began to offer prayers for Lobsangs safe return, while senior monks and community representatives went to Dartsedo to ask unsuccessfully for his release, the source said.



No word has yet been received on Lobsangs whereabouts or any charges made against him.



Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Rigdhen Dolma. Written in English by Richard Finney.




A Tibetan student who set himself on fire in India on July 14 in a protest calling for Tibetan freedom has died in a hospital in Delhi, sources said.



Tenzin Choeying, 19, passed away at about 4:50 p.m. on July 22, having suffered burns that finally spread to 90 percent of his body, doctors at Delhis Safdarjung Hospital said.



Choeyings remains were set to be taken to the Indian hill town of Dharamsala, seat of the Tibetan government in exile, where they are expected to arrive on July 25, Tibetan activist and relative Tenzin Tsundue told RFAs Tibetan Service.



There, the Tibetan Youth Congress [TYC] plans to organize his cremation on the morning of the 26th, guided by Tibetan astrological calculations, Tsundue said.



Choeying, a member of the TYC regional chapter in Varanasi, India, set himself ablaze at around 9:00 a.m. on July 14 at the Central University for Tibetan Studies in a protest calling for freedom for his homeland, Tibetan sources said in earlier reports.



Choeying was especially concerned that Tibetans living under Chinese rule should be allowed to learn their own language, one source said.



'Urgent pleas for help'



The image of a person engulfed in flames is shocking, often disturbing, to people living in the free world, Tenzin Dorjee, former director of the Students for a Free Tibet activist group wrote in a recent posting on his Facebook page.



But instead of being disturbed by [these acts], we must understand them as urgent pleas for help and intervention from a people who have been pushed to the brink of existence by decades of ruthless repression and colonial oppression by China, Dorjee wrote.



Self-immolation protests by Tibetans living outside Tibetan-populated areas of China are rare, while a total of 150 have now set themselves ablaze in Tibet and Tibetan-populated counties in western China.



Most protests feature demands for Tibetan freedom and the return of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from India, where he has lived in exile since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.



Reported by RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.




File photo of a mosque at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, from which Uyghur students have been rounded up at China's behest.

Authorities in Chinas northwest Xinjiang region forced a 12-year-old ethnic Uyghur boy to undergo political reeducation and have detained him since arresting his parents, who returned home from Egypt to register themselves with the government nearly five months ago, according to official sources.

Thousands of Uyghurs, many of whom are students studying at Cairos prestigious Al-Azhar Islamic University, have voluntarily traveled to Xinjiang from Egypt since the beginning of the year when Chinese authorities detained many of their relatives and threatened them with severe punishment if they did not return.

In February, Memet Abla, 39, and his wife Buzorigul Rishit, 36, took their 12-year-old son Hezritieli Memet home from Egypt to Yopurgha county, in Xinjiangs Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture, where they were promptly arrested by local authorities, two officials from the countys Yekshenbe Bazaar recently told RFAs Uyghur Service.

With his parents in detention, Memet was placed in the custody of the local government for surveillance, according to Abduqadir Abdureyim, a police officer at the Yekshenbe Bazaar station.

There are many from our village who have returned from Egypt, but I only remember one clearlya 12-year-old boy named Hezritieli Memet, Abdureyim said.

He came back with his parents in February. His fathers name is Memet Ablet. This family is from the 8th neighborhood of the No. 3 township in our village.

According to Abdureyim, Abla used to run a business in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi, but had relocated to Egypt late last year to undergo religious education.

They stayed there for only three months and voluntarily returned following our governments call [for Uyghurs in Egypt] to return home and report themselves, he said.

I do not know where Memet Ablet and his wife are at the moment, but I know their son Hezritieli Memet had gone through political reeducation at the county Education Center. Then, he was turned over to the custody of the village authorities for detention.

The official reason for Abla and Rishits arrests was not immediately clear.

Hesen Basit, party secretary of Yekshenbe Bazaars No. 6 township, told RFA he couldnt confirm that Memet was being held, but said that the boy had been politically reeducated.

If he is detained, it is probably to prevent him from talking about his overseas experiences or to find out what he saw in Egypt, in case he didnt disclose it to the authorities, he said.

Punished on return

Last week, an activist told RFA that more than 200 Uyghurs are being detained in Egypt for deportation to China, dozens of whom are in the custody of the countrys national intelligence service, and London-based rights group Amnesty International said the agencys involvement was a clear indication that Beijing had ordered the roundup.

The Uyghurs, many of them religious students at Al-Azhar, have been detained since July 4, rounded up in restaurants or at their homes, with others seized at airports as they tried to flee to safer countries, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Dozens of Uyghurs are believed to have already been deported home to China, where rights groups say they face a serious risk of arbitrary detention and torture.

Media reports have quoted officials as denying that Egyptian authorities were targeting Uyghurs and saying that those arrested were brought in for alleged irregularities in their residency papers, but Uyghur exile groups and students say the detentions were ordered by China on allegations that they had joined extremist organizations.

In March, sources told RFA that 17 Uyghurs had been blacklisted and punished after returning to Kashgars Yopurgha county from Egypt.

Chinese authorities detained the father and brother of one student who had yet to return to Yopurgha22-year-old Ibrahim Memetin February as part of a bid to force him to return, his mother said at the time.

Police told us to convince our son to return from Egypt, but we couldnt contact him, she said.

As a result, my husband [Memet Naway] was detained in early February and, 20 days later, my older son [Turghun Memet] was as well. Currently, they are undergoing political reeducation at the county Education Center.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party blames some Uyghurs for a string of violent attacks and clashes in China in recent years, but critics say the government has exaggerated the threat from the ethnic group, and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for violence that has left hundreds dead since 2009.

China regularly conducts strike hard campaigns in Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Today Exante announced that it is offering its clients the opportunity to trade in the five most popular cryptocurrencies directly on its own trading platform protected and regulated through a secured account. Effective immediately Exante customers can trade it LTC (Litecoin) and XRP (Ripple) with ETH (Ethereum), XMR (Monero), and ZEC (Zcash) following next month. Exante was already offering access to Bitcoin since 2012 - the first brokerage firm to do so.

By taking away much of the risk and insecurities usually associated with trading in digital currencies the fin-tech company headquartered in Malta is able to let its clients profit directly from the attractive exchange rates. Trading is done from the same accounts clients use for their other activities. Through its platforms Exante offers easy access to more than 50 financial markets. All Exante products are regulated by the MFSA and audited by KPMG, adding a layer of security to the exciting but volatile cryptocurrency market.

'We noticed that there is a big demand in the market to trade in alt-coins but investors are wary of the red tape and worried about the lack of regulation' said Anatoliy Knyazev, co-founder for Exante. 'Cryptocurrencies have now firmly entered the mainstream, but the act of buying and selling coins and safely managing a wallet is complicated, risky and requires technological knowledge. This is where we saw room for innovation just like we did with Bitcoin.'

Exante's Bitcoin fund made headlines in 2013 when it returned 4847% year on year - which made it the best performing fund ever, according to Bloomberg. The fund broke its own record by returning more than 10.000% last year. The five new cryptocurrencies have all seen spectacular price developments.

-END-

For further information contact:

Thijs Plug

Head of Content

T: +356 2015 0000

E: plug@exante.eu

Note to editors

About EXANTE:

EXANTE is a European investment company established in 2011. Its headquarters are located in St Julian's, Malta. EXANTE is licensed to provide financial services, including trading and investment. The company works with a wide range of products and services - from solutions for retail clients, to tailored offerings for institutional counterparts. Its full-scale trading tool is accessible from desktops, web browsers and mobile applications. EXANTE provides online trading access to over 50 markets worldwide. Clients can invest in more than 45.000 financial instruments. www.exante.eu
A Chinese coast guard ship (L) uses a water cannon on a Vietnamese ship in disputed waters in the South China Sea, May 2, 2014.

Vietnam has ordered a private company conducting a gas-drilling expedition in a disputed area of the South China Sea to cease operations following military threats from China, according to reports.

The BBC reported Monday that Spanish-owned Repsol was ordered last week to leave the area, located about 400 kilometers (250 miles) off Vietnams southeast coast and called Block 136-03 by Hanoi, after Beijing said it would attack Vietnamese military bases in the contested Spratly Islands if drilling continued.

China claims sovereignty over more than 80 percent of the islands and other land features in the South China Sea and rejects conflicting claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The decision came days after Talisman-Vietnam, a subsidiary of Repsol that the Vietnamese government has leased the block to, confirmed the existence of a major gas field there, the report said. The company began drilling at the block on June 21.

Beijing calls the block Wanan Bei-21 and has leased it to a different company, though it was not immediately clear which one.

The Chinese rights were sold in 2015 to a Hong Kong-listed company called Brightoil, two directors of which are senior members of Chinas ruling Communist Party, but the company has denied owning them.

The BBC cited an analyst who estimated that Repsol had spent around U.S. $300 million developing the field, and said Vietnams capitulation came as a surprise to observers.

Prior to the threats of attack, China had signaled its displeasure over Talisman-Vietnams activities in the area.

Days before the company began drilling last month, Fan Changlong, vice chair of Chinas Central Military Commission, abruptly ended an official visit to Vietnam and a friendship meeting at the China-Vietnam border was canceled.

While China and Vietnam confronted one another with coastguard vessels and other ships in the South China Seas disputed Paracel Islands in 2014, the neighboring nations have largely avoided such standoffs since.

Major escalation

Carl Thayer, a Southeast Asia expert based in Australia who has taught at several defense universities, called Beijings threats of attack a marked and alarming step up of Chinese assertiveness and a major escalation in Chinas posture.

In a background brief, he suggested that Vietnams pause in oil exploration at the block would have long-term ramifications and make foreign oil companies think twice about purchasing exploration rights from the country.

Foreign oil companies, if they assessed the risk as serious, could demand protection from Vietnam or cut bait and leave, Thayer said.

If Vietnam stops exploration permanently this would have long-term implications for present oil contracts with foreign companies and more significantly, Vietnams future energy security.

Chinas threat also raises a nightmare scenario for Hanoi, according to Thayer, because any attack on a Vietnamese-occupied claim in the South China Sea would result in a massive eruption of anti-Chinese sentiment in Vietna

This could seriously undermine the political authority of the current leadership, he said.

Meanwhile, a Chinese attack on Vietnam would also likely set off alarm bells throughout Asia and leave the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) split on how to respond, Thayer said.

Such an attack would be like throwing down the gauntlet to the U.S., Japan and other maritime powers who reject Chinas territorial claims, he added.

Do they really want to go to war with China to protect Vietnams oil industry or over a few little rocks in the South China Sea?"

Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: Majedie Asset Management Limited (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):



The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:



Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree



NOVAE GROUP PLC (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:



For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?



If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" No





2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



ORD 112.5P



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 819,080 1.27 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL:



819,080



1.27

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit ORD 112.5P Sale 100,000 701.5000

(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. CFD Nature of dealing



e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit





(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type



e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit





(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing



e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)





4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:



Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:



(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or



(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:



If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO

Date of disclosure: 24 July 2017 Contact name: Matthew Hambly Telephone number: 0207 618 3900

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.

The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.




The Richmond areas newest craft brewery is planning its grand opening next week, promising unconventional beers served with a touch of outdoorsy, Scandinavian elan.

Vasen Brewing Co. plans to open to the public at noon July 29 in the redeveloped HandCraft building at 3331 W. Moore St., in Richmond.

Vasen joins a batch of craft beverage makers that have turned the Scotts Addition area into a destination for fans of beer, spirits and cider.

Were excited to see what the neighborhood is transforming into, said Joey Darragh, who co-founded the brewery with his cousin, Tony Giordano.

The 17,000-square-foot brewery has a 4,000-square-foot taproom, including a patio. The first beers to be served include an American pale saison, a dubbel, a smoked farmhouse ale, a passion fruit saison and a sour saison.

Were going to be focusing more on Belgian-inspired ales, Darragh said. We are taking these traditional recipes and tweaking them, and creating hybrid beers, whether thats combining a Belgian yeast with a German brewing style, or taking Belgian beer and using either American or Australian hops.

So we are really trying not so much to defy convention, but to take the beers that we love and try to re-invent them, he said.

The brewery has a fermentation laboratory for testing various yeast strains, which the brewers plan to collect from natural sites in the region. We want to culture our own yeast, said Nathan Winters, Vasens marketing and environmental director. We will have a lot of our own house strains.

For now, the brewery is planning limited distribution of its beers in kegs to restaurants. It plans to install a canning line in about six months to distribute beer to retail stores.

Both in their early 30s, Darragh and Giordano grew up in Northern Virginia and came to Richmond to open the brewery after first pursuing careers elsewhere. Giordano worked for Boulder Beer Co. in Colorado, where he honed his skills as a brewer, and Darragh worked as an engineer for electric automobile maker Tesla Motors.

Growing up, we had always talked about doing some sort of business together, Darragh said.

The cousins started making plans to turn their brewery dreams into a reality in 2014. As part of the planning, they took a trip to Europe to visit classic, old-world brewing regions in Belgium, Germany and England.

Because of their Scandinavian roots, we capped the trip with a visit to Sweden, Darragh said. We went around and tried to soak up as much of the culture as we could. We searched out things that we thought might resonate as part of the brewery.

A friend in Sweden suggested the name Vasen. It means your inner essence, Darragh said. In some cases, it can mean a spirit animal.

In the taproom, a mural by local artist Emily Herr depicts a caribou in a wilderness setting, symbolizing the Scandinavian family heritage of Darragh and Giordano. Another decorative piece at the center of the taproom is a massive, man-made boulder, which doubles as seating and represents the co-founders plan to emphasize and support outdoor lifestyles and environmental preservation.

Vasen is planning to support several nonprofits such as Blue Sky Fund, which provides outdoor adventure programs for urban youth, and RVAMore, a volunteer program that builds nature trails, said Winters, who previously worked for Oskar Blues Brewery in Colorado. The brewery also plans to donate 1 percent of its sales to 1 Percent for the Planet, a nonprofit that supports environmental causes.
Two men who were fatally shot in Richmond in separate homicides Friday night and early Saturday have been identified.

At 8:47 p.m. Friday, police were called to the 2700 block of North Avenue in North Richmond for a report of shots fired. Officers found a man unresponsive on the sidewalk, and police identified him late Saturday as Michael D. Johnson, 25.

Johnson, who lived on the block where he was found shot, was taken to a hospital, where he died later in the night.

Another shooting occurred just before 2 a.m. Saturday in the 1900 block of Hopkins Road in South Richmond, where officers found an unresponsive man in the rear parking lot of an apartment complex. Police identified him Sunday afternoon as Melvin L. Chambliss, 52.

Chambliss, who also lived on the block where he was found shot, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Anyone with information about the North Avenue homicide is asked to call Major Crimes Detective M. Gouldman at (804) 646-3915.

Anyone with information about the Hopkins Road homicide is asked to call Major Crimes Detective G. Bailey at (804) 646-6743.

You can also contact Crime Stoppers by calling (804) 780-1000, going online to www.7801000.com or sending a text message to 274637, using the keyword iTip followed by the tip.
A state trooper shot and injured a woman in Dinwiddie County on Sunday night after she pointed a gun at law enforcement officers and ignored commands to drop it, state police said.

According to a news release, state police were assisting the Dinwiddie Sheriffs Office after a report of a suicidal subject at a residence at 9:40 p.m. When troopers and deputies arrived at the home, in the 10000 block of Scotts Road, they found a 39-year-old woman in the backyard holding a weapon.

Police said the woman ignored police commands to drop the weapon and pointed it at the trooper and deputies, at which time the trooper fired their weapon and struck the female subject. A gun was recovered at the scene, police said.

The woman was taken to Southside Regional Medical Center for treatment of serious injuries. She was later transferred to VCU Medical Center, where she remained in care Monday. No one else was injured.

The trooper has been placed on administrative leave in accordance with Virginia State Police policy, according to the news release.
Westfield, Massachusetts, July 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Department of the Army, National Guard Bureau, released a solicitation in which it outlined plans to award a contract to a certified small business that can install a vault door at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield, Massachusetts.

The agency, according to the solicitation, intends to issue a firm fixed-price contract to a certified small business, which then will have 60 days to complete the installation.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this work is 236220, and the small business size standard is $36.5 million average annual revenue for the previous three years.



The agency estimates the magnitude of construction to be less than $25,000, will conduct its evaluation of bids in accordance with FAR Part 14, and will evaluate bids on price.

For more information, e-mail Contracting Officer Kyle Kiepke at kyle.d.kiepke.mil@mail.mil, and Contract Specialist Sarah Sinclair at sarah.a.sinclair.mil@mail.mil.

The contractor who receives this contract 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, and a firm that not only helps companies survive but also thrive, 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.
Deb Merricks was hooked on Esther the Wonder Pig, an internet sensation among animal lovers, as soon as she saw her page on Facebook.

I thought she was hilarious, Merricks said.

She then bought Esthers book, Esther the Wonder Pig: Changing The World One Heart at a Time, to learn more about her and her human dads, Steve Jenkins and Derek Walker.

Esther was adopted by Jenkins in 2012, having been told she was a micro piglet.

Jenkins knew his partner, Derek Walker, wouldnt be wild about the idea, but he did it anyway, according to Esthers website.

That decision changed their lives forever.

It turned out she wasnt a micro pig at all but a full-sized commercial pig, who grew to 600 pounds within three years.

When it became clear that Esther needed more space, they made another life-changing decision and bought a farm in Campbellville, Ontario, Canada, on which they opened the Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary. There, they care not only for Esther but also for other farmed animals in need.

According to www.happilyeveresther.ca, the farm sanctuary is dedicated to rescuing abused, neglected, and abandoned farmed animals with goals to provide safe, lifelong homes for all the animals and to educate the public about the true nature of farmed animals.

Esther has more than 1 million followers on Facebook.

I found it to be a fascinating story of compassion, patience, tolerance, change and growth. Not only for Esther, but the dads, Steve and Derek, as well, Merricks said.

***

Merricks then entered a raffle for a trip for two to Esthers fifth birthday party at the sanctuary. The trip included airfare, three nights in a hotel, a rental car and spending money.

There were just over 1,200 entries from more than 28 countries, and, fortunately for me, I won! said Merricks, of Pittsylvania County.

A friend, Cheri Hartmann of Farmington, N.Y., joined her on the trip. The two women have been friends for more than 10 years and have worked together for the last two and a half. Cheri said she thinks of Merricks as a sister and loves traveling with her.

When Merricks discovered Esther and her story, she shared it with Hartmann, and they both became fans.

Merricks flew to Toronto from Greensboro, N.C., on June 30. She did a bit of exploring in Toronto until Hartmann arrived later that evening.

The next day, July 1, was not only Esthers birthday but also Canadas 150th birthday.

It was nice to see all of the Canadian flags flying or posted in peoples homes and businesses. All of the businesses were closed, even Walmart, Merricks remembered. It reminded me of when I was a kid and all the stores would close for a holiday.

After a 30-minute drive to the sanctuary, they were excited to arrive.

Merricks said that after opening the gate to drive onto the property, it was like she had been hit with magical fairy dust.

This is a farm, mind you, but the place was pure enchantment. A feeling of warmth, happiness and calm just hits you, she said. Derek and Steve are two of the kindest people I have ever met.

To see them interact with the animals living out their lives on the farm is inspiring. Most of the people at the party were workers and volunteers on the farm and their families. They were the happiest people I have ever met.

After meeting and talking with everyone, Esther made her grand entrance in a tutu.

She looked divine. We all sang Happy Birthday to her, and she devoured her cake and entertained us to everyones delight, she said. She is a very big, beautiful piggy and so very smart. I was in pig heaven to say the least.

After taking a dip in her pool, Esther retired for the evening.

It was so obvious Esther loves her dads. She has a playfulness and intelligence about her that is amazing. Her eyes just draw you in, Merricks said. She is quite the ambassador for pigs.

Merricks said shes a lifelong animal lover and always had a stuffed animal with her as a child. Currently, even though she has a job that requires her to travel a lot, she also volunteers for the Danville Area Humane Society.

***

I have been forever changed because of my trip to Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary; meeting Esther, Derek and Steve and the other animals that call (the sanctuary) home; the workers and volunteers; and the benefactor of this unbelievable experience, Merricks said. It was like visiting the enchanted forest ... absolutely magical. There is magic in kindness, and the people there understand that. The world needs to learn from these two men and this pig.

Hartmann shared Merricks delight at meeting Esther and being at the farm.

Meeting everyone at the sanctuary was the best part of the trip for me, Hartmann said. They are truly a committed group. They understand that not everyone is going to be inspired to go vegan, but they want to make people aware the animals we consume are not without worth. If they can get one person to commit to decreasing their meat consumption, then that is one less animal that will end up in the slaughterhouse.

She said the most moving part, though, was taking the picture with Esther.
WISE  Tammy Duncan sported a toothless grin as she slid out of the dental chair minutes after an oral surgeon cut away portions of her jaw.

Numbing agents mitigated what could have been an immensely painful experience, but finally receiving direly needed dental care  in her case, surgery to accommodate the fitting of dentures  was the true source of her bliss.

She wrapped Dr. Gregory Zoghby in a tight hug and then did the same to his assistant.

Praise the Lord, Im going to get my teeth!

By the end of the day, Duncan, 52, would have a new, full set of pearly whites, and her boyfriend  elsewhere being fitted for glasses  would see her clearly for the first time in a long while.

This was the scene on Friday from the Remote Area Medical clinic, an annual event that provides free medical, dental and vision services to some of the poorest residents in Southwest Virginia.

As the health care debate rages in the nations capital, patients and providers at the RAM clinic are anxious for change. Most of them have a resounding demand for politicians in Washington, D.C.: Fix the nations health care system.

Located near the Virginia-Kentucky border, the clinic at the Wise County Fairgrounds attracts residents from a wide area. The clinic, the largest of the year, has 1,400 volunteers who serve thousands of people in one weekend.

At 5 a.m. Friday  the first day of the clinic  RAM founder and British philanthropist Stan Brock stood at the entrance of the clinic as volunteers prepared to let people through the gate.

Hundreds arrived at the fairgrounds in the dead of the night to secure a decent spot in line. They slept in their cars or pitched tents as they waited for the clinic gates to open. Before the sun crested the surrounding mountains, volunteers had given out all of the numbers for the day .

How many people are here for the dentist? Brock said. How many people are here to see the eye doctor?

In the sea of people tightly clustered around the entryway, many raised their hands in response to both questions.

For a lot of folks, the clinic is a one-stop shop  their only shot at receiving health care for the year.

Mr. Trump really needed to be here, Brock said. Theres been absolutely no change in the number of people that come to these events since the day I started it in the United States.

Brock founded RAM in 1985, and this weekends clinic marked the 869th such event. Although the majority of the free clinics are conducted in the U.S., Brock originally formulated the idea as a way to serve people in developing nations.

Ninety-odd percent of what we do is here in the U.S.  because of this, Brock said, gesturing to the clinic behind him. Lets fix it, and then we can start concentrating on these other places that we were formed to help.

Tonia Large, 61, and her granddaughter Isabella Mullins, 12, held coveted tickets Nos. 1 and 2 for Friday morning .

Like 60 percent of the patients at the RAM clinic, Large and Mullins sought dental care. People in Southwest Virginia depend on RAM, Large said.

Large, who doesnt have health insurance, criticized the Affordable Care Act as unaffordable.

I do know that with health care, unless people come up with something with premiums that people can afford, people are still going to be doing without, she said. Its bad everywhere, but here with coal gone, very few jobs in this area, theres nothing really here. You dont have many opportunities to get a good job so you can afford to pay high premiums.

Like many of the residents in far Southwest Virginia, Large voted for President Donald Trump in November because he promised changes to the countrys costly health care system.

Shes still waiting for him to deliver.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act by whatever means necessary.

While the Affordable Care Act needs to be reformed, repealing the signature legislation of former President Barack Obamas administration should not be an option, said Teresa Gardner Tyson, the executive director of The Health Wagon, who helped start the RAM clinic in Wise County 18 years ago.

The Health Wagon is a Southwest Virginia mobile health provider and nonprofit organization. Some 98 percent of its patients are uninsured, and many show up with life-threatening conditions because they have put off health care, she said.

To be honest, I would be ashamed to be a politician in Washington right now, she said. To take insurance away from one person is really unconscionable.

In an attempt to show the need for more accessible health care in Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, invited U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to visit the RAM clinic with him Friday. McConnell represents Kentucky and has been leading Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He declined McAuliffes invitation.

McAuliffe, who has visited the clinic each year of his governorship, toured the facilities Friday with a large entourage that included Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring and Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel. Behind the scenes, several state Republican and Democratic lawmakers volunteered at various stations throughout the clinic.

McAuliffes slow-moving group weaved through dental chairs and ophthalmic testing devices as the governor paused to shake hands, have his blood pressure tested and pose for a flurry of photos with attendees.

As the entourage passed by, Beth McLoughlin, a member of the Norton Lions Club, shouted, We do what Congress doesnt do. The RAM clinic volunteer in her ninth year elaborated that she meant RAM serves people. Congress doesnt.

During his tour, McAuliffe reiterated his call for Virginia to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which would provide coverage for 400,000 more Virginians. State Republicans have consistently blocked his efforts to do so.

Those 31 states who expanded, their health care is in much better shape, he said. But the lack of a legislature to give us the authority to go expand Medicaid has really impacted Virginia.

Although states must provide dental and vision care for children covered by Medicaid, some states do not extend coverage of those services  the same services many seek at the RAM clinic  to adults.

Republicans want everyone to have the ability to obtain affordable health care, Republican Party of Virginia Chairman John Whitbeck said in a statement.

Democrats want to throw more money at a system that just isnt working  a system that Obamacare is making worse, he said. Democrats want people to have health insurance. We want people to have health care.

As Republicans have failed to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, the health care law appears as though it will remain on the books, making it imperative to expand Medicaid during the next General Assembly session, McAuliffe said. The end of McAuliffes four-year term will coincide with the start of the 2018 General Assembly session.

McAuliffes visit left a bad taste in the mouth of Salem dentist Steve Alouf. A founder of Benchmark Dentures, Alouf spent the weekend fitting patients with dentures, but said the politicization of the clinic takes away from everything positive the volunteers work toward all weekend.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
RICHMOND  EMILYs List, the group that trains Democratic women who support abortion rights to run for office, hosted a seminar in Richmond Monday for state House candidates. Organizers said the training is especially energetic this year because so many women, in Virginia and nationally, were motivated to run by the election of Donald Trump to the White House.

Virginias 100-member House of Delegates is up for election in November, along with the statewide offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. The off-year election is putting increased national focus on the state.

Groups such as EMILYs List are angling for gains in the 2018 midterm elections in Congress. But before then, theres the commonwealth.

We have got to change our legislature here in Virginia, Stephanie Schriock of Alexandria, the president of Emilys LIST, told a group of female candidates and staffers assembled at Reynolds Community Colleges downtown campus for a day of training on how to raise money, hire the right people and put together a message. Weve got to push like hell to get this done and thats what were doing here today.

Fifty-one women filed to run for state House this year as Democrats, and the party now has a record 43 female nominees, according to the Democratic Party of Virginia. Two of those Democrats are in the Roanoke region: Djuna Osborne is challenging Del. Chris Head in the 17th House District in Roanoke and Botetourt counties and Roanoke, while political newcomer Stephanie Cook is challenging longtime Republican Del. Charles Poindexter in the 9th House District in Franklin, Patrick and Henry counties.

More than 80 percent of Virginias 140 state lawmakers are men.

Among the Democratic candidates at Mondays training were Kelly Fowler, a real estate agent from Virginia Beach, and Debra Rodman, a professor and the director of womens studies at Randolph-Macon College from Henrico County.

Trainings like this show that were changing the face of what leadership looks like, said Rodman, who is challenging Del. John OBannon, R-Henrico, a member of the legislature for more than 16 years, in House District 73. (Map)

Rodman won the Democratic nomination by beating three other candidates at a party caucus in April.

Fowler is running against Del. Ron Villanueva, R-Virginia Beach, in House District 21, which includes parts of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. (Map) She won the June Democratic primary for the seat against Tom Brock, who had come under pressure from the party because of past social media posts about women that he acknowledged were totally inappropriate and offensive, and previous racial jokes on social media.

Fowler said she decided to run after attending the Womens March on Washington with her daughter in January.

I came to the conclusion that I had to run, Fowler said. I had a responsibility.

She said she finds Villanueva unresponsive, especially on one controversial issue taken up this year by the GOP-controlled House: a symbolic resolution encouraging people to lower flags to half-staff on Jan. 22, the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion, for a Day of Tears. The House passed the resolution 57-36, with Villanueva among the yes votes.

Villanueva defeated female candidates in 2011, 2013 and 2015. He said hes noticed Trump has inspired many candidates to run  but hes not Trump.

I grew up in this district and Ive been re-elected several times. Im pretty visible. I go to virtually everything Im invited to, so to say Im unresponsive is incorrect, he said. This district is used to seeing competition, and its up to the people to make sure they vote for whoever they want.

Schriock said the energy around Democratic women running for office is unprecedented this year. Since the November presidential election, she said, 16,000 women have contacted EMILYs List about possibly running for office. That compares with 920 over two years in the last election cycle, she said.

With the GOP in control of the White House and the energy created by the womens march, Schriock said, she expects this year and next years congressional elections to bode well for Democrats.

The Roanoke Times contributed to this report.
CHICAGO  Ive given birth to three babies, shattered my wrist, broken my tailbone twice, gotten tattooed, and, once, when I was suspected of having contracted West Nile Virus, had two consecutive spinal taps (one failed) in the name of advancing medical students knowledge while securing a diagnosis.

But never have I suffered worse from deep, bone-rattling pain  the kind of pain where you just want to die to end the misery  than when I had tooth issues.

I relived painful memories of abscesses, root canals, pulled bicuspids and more in ghoulish, visceral detail as I read Mary Ottos horribly sad book, Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality and the Struggle for Oral Health in America.

Otto deserves an award for taking what could be a mundane topic and infusing it with quirky history, heart-wrenching real-life stories, and prose that is sometimes poetic and often cringe worthy.

Her point, however, is not to merely entertain us with unforgettable anecdotes, but to illustrate the absurdity of an American health care system that treats the mouth as wholly separate from the rest of the body.

It is a setup in which pediatricians and general practitioners rarely, if ever, speak with dentists because of historical tensions and lack of communication between the professions. And one in which the drab, low-paid work of oral health education and prevention takes a far back seat to the lucrative and glamorous business of cosmetic dentistry.

This system conspires to create consumers of those who can afford not only basic oral care but also a variety of beautification treatments like veneers, whitening and gum contouring surgery, while shutting out those who cant pay for even the most rudimentary care.

Pain, loss of function, serious illness, and even death result from untreated oral conditions and offer harrowing reminders that the mouth is part of the body and that oral health is essential to overall health, Otto writes. Yet the separate, carefully guarded, largely private system that provides dental care in America can be enormously difficult to reach for those without mobility or money or adequate dental benefits.

Otto ties the whole squalid tale of the how this inequality plays itself out through the story of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver, a Maryland boy who died in 2007 from complications of a completely preventable, untreated infection in one tooth.

Through Drivers tragic death we learn how seemingly minor dental issues like an infection that could easily be treated with antibiotics and expert treatment can spiral out of control and kill anyone without the cash, transportation or insurance necessary to fill a prescription and follow-up with a dentist (those who will see patients on Medicaid or Medicare are in incredibly short supply).

On the professional side, Otto tells how dentistry evolved from being a lowly trade to a profession that takes hundreds of thousands of dollars in educational costs, and then equipment, to build a viable dentistry practice. And how excruciatingly complex and difficult it is to get reimbursement for treating low-income patients from the few federal or state programs that even provide dental benefits.

Perhaps most importantly, Otto makes readers reflect on how Americans tend to view poor dental health  as evidenced by dental emergencies, imperfect or yellowed teeth  as a moral failing or an abdication of personal responsibility rather than as a legitimate lack of access to qualified caregivers.

Otto is most effective at getting this message through when illustrating how shameful it is that so many kids lack access to dental care at the ages when the easiest prevention methods like fluoride treatments and basic cavity care can make a lifetimes worth of difference.

This is not just a problem in very low-income communities, either. Ive taught school in solidly middle-class suburbs and still run across many students whose parents are able to clothe and feed them, but not address their painful and embarrassing dental issues. Ive had children in class with green, rotting teeth who can hardly eat lunch or concentrate on learning due to pain and shame.

In all, this harrowing book pulls at the heartstrings. Its a must-read for anyone who cares about public health policy  as a reminder that oral health is a crucial aspect of overall health and not a luxury reserved only for the affluent.

Cepeda is a columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group.
Temporary Insp Dave Struggles seals up the property on Dovercourt Road.

POLICE have "closed" a Rotherham house after it became used as a drugs den.

They were granted permission to seal up the property by Sheffield magistrates on Friday.

The house on Dovercourt Road has been closed for an initial three months following concerns from residents relating to drug use.

It s the first in Rotherham to be closed for suspected drug issues under the Antisocial Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014.

After the initial three-month period, officers and council staff can apply to the court for the order to be extended.

Temporary Insp Dave Struggles said: Nearby residents had come to us with concerns regarding the potential use and supply of drugs in the area.

The order, which was granted at Sheffield Magistrates Court on Friday, allows us to make the area a safer and more enjoyable place to live.

For the next three months, aside from one visit to collect property, the house will be closed to everyone.

Both South Yorkshire Police and Rotherham Council are committed to tackling drug use across the borough, and the negative impact this can have on communities.

This closure order would not have been possible without the cooperation and information provided by the people of Rotherham and Id encourage residents who are struggling with any issues in their area to please contact us.

If you come to us with information, or a problem thats bothering you, we will act on it and take positive steps to disrupt criminal activity and improve the quality of life for our communities.

Rotherhams Borough Councils cabinet member for waste, roads and community safety, Cllr Emma Hoddinott, said: We welcome the police using all the powers available to them, including closing houses where drug dealing is suspected.

Its important we tackle these issues which cause problems for communities and encourage local residents to work with us.
Singapore's Soo Kee Group has entered into a joint venture with Global Crown Group Holding, the parent company of a gold jewellery manufacturer and distributor in China, to tap the country's booming bridal market.

The memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed by Soo Kee founder and chairman Peter Lim and Global Crown director Chau Tsan Kwan on 19, July marked Soo Kee's foray into China.

Named Diamond Avenue Investments, the joint venture company will be selling diamond jewellery from the Soo Kee's bespoke bridal jewellery brand Love & Co.

The wedding industry in China grew by 40 per cent from US$57 bn in 2011 to US$80 bn in 2015, and according to a China Wedding Industry Development Report, it is expected to rise further.

Last year, wedding jewellery sales was estimated to account for more than half of the total consumption volume of jewellery in China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council said.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Market, Rough & Polished




The Luxembourg Government and Luxembourg-based Kleos Space SARL signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) providing the framework for their cooperation within the SpaceResources.lu initiative with focus on space technology development. The newly created Kleos Space company is 100% owned by UK-based Magna Parva Limited.



Kleos Space is active in geolocation services and develops a space infrastructure for geo-intelligence and signal intelligence applications with in-space manufacturing. Within the framework of this MoU, the developments and research to take place in Luxembourg are related to the project for in-space manufacturing of composite beams equipped with antennas. Kleos Space will collaborate with EmTroniX, a Luxembourg-based company specialized in electronics development, as well as with the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) on this subject. The Government will support the development of the in-space manufacturing technology by providing funding through the Luxembourg space program (LuxIMPULSE).



Kleos Space has its premises at the national business incubator Technoport and starts its activities with 5 employees. By 2022, the company intends to employ up to 60 people in Luxembourg. The Director of Kleos Space, Andy Bowyer, said: "We are particularly proud to nestle our new company in Luxembourg as the Grand-Duchy has been a forerunner in space technology since the late 80s. Today it has a clear, defined and commercially focused Space strategy mainly with the world leading SpaceResources.lu initiative, which is closely aligned and highly complementary to our own. I have found Luxembourg to have a shallow bureaucracy  enabling responsiveness and a detailed understanding of the funding gap faced by high-growth ventures such as ours."



Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, Etienne Schneider, stated: By widening the capabilities of the national space sector, the implementation of Kleos Space in the Grand-Duchy is confirming the constant expansion and consolidation of Luxembourg as a European hub for developing highly advanced space technologies in the context of the SpaceResources.lu initiative. The cooperation of Kleos with LIST as a renowned research organization, the hosting of the company in a public incubator as well as the collaboration with other national private actors showcase the assets of the local expertise ecosystem and provide Kleos a promising starting position in Luxembourg.



Cedric Lorant, CEO of EmTroniX added: EmTroniX is proud and delighted to have been selected as a major technical partner for this innovative and challenging project, our tasks being to design the arm deployment controller and the digital receiver for the geo-localisation. Kleos comes thereby perfectly in line with the engineering service offer in space electronics design and manufacturing that EmTroniX is currently developing in Luxembourg.



"Uniting space technology and composite materials, two key focus areas of LIST's Materials Research and Technology Department, the collaboration with Kleos is of great strategic interest for our Institute. We are working with the Ministry of the Economy on a growing number of space-related industrial partnerships and we are aiming to sustain this trend" stated Prof. Jens Kreisel, Director of MRT-LIST.



"The current partnership with Kleos will allow us to further enhance and test Kleos' composite materials, relying strongly on the new National Composite Center facilities at LIST. It is an honor for us to support Kleos in developing the ideal material solutions for the pultrusion, assembly and deployment of their antennas in orbit" added Dr. Damien Lenoble, who heads the Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials Unit and the partnership development at MRT-LIST.
Swiss drug giant Novartis AG (NVS) reported Tuesday higher profit in its second quarter, despite weak net sales. A volume growth of 6 percentage points was offset by the negative impacts of generic competition and pricing. Further, the company confirmed its forecast for fiscal 2017.

Joseph Jimenez, CEO of Novartis, said, "Novartis delivered very strong innovation in Q2 including the positive pivotal trial readouts for RTH258, ACZ885 and CTL019 JULIET, demonstrating the strength of our pipeline. We are on track for the full year guidance. The trajectory of the current growth drivers reinforces our confidence in our next growth phase, which we expect to start in 2018."

For the second quarter, net income grew 10 percent to $1.98 billion from $1.81 billion a year ago, mainly driven by divestment gains and lower amortization. Earnings per share increased 11 percent to $0.84 from $0.76 last year.

Core net income was $2.87 billion or $1.22 per share, compared to prior year's $2.93 billion or $1.23 per share last year.

For the quarter, operating income on a reported basis increased 9 percent year-over-year to $2.28 billion, while core operating income fell 3 percent to $3.24 billion.

At constant currency rates, core operating income was in line with prior year as gross margin expansion and productivity offset the generic erosion and growth investments.

Net sales were $12.24 billion, 2 percent lower than last year's $12.47 billion. At constant rates, net sales remained flat as growth drivers offset Gleevec/Glivec Gx impact.

Innovative Medicines net sales were $8.3 billion, down 1 percent, despite volume growth of 7 percentage points. Among key growth drivers, Cosentyx sales climbed 90 percent at constant currency, with strong growth in all three indications. Entresto grew 240 percent in constant currency rates, driven by improved access and US sales force expansion.

Excluding Gleevec/Glivec, Oncology grew 9 percent driven by Promacta, Tafinlar + Mekinist and Jakavi.

Net sales in Emerging Growth Markets grew 4 percent driven by strong performance in China, Russia and Brazil.

Sandoz net sales fell 5 percent, as volume growth of 4 percentage points was more than offset by 8 percentage points of price erosion, mainly in the US.

Alcon sales grew 1 percent driven by Surgical with growth in key segments, including IOLs, and Vision Care.

Looking ahead, for fiscal 2017, the company continues to expect net sales to be broadly in line with prior year, and core operating income to be broadly in line or decline low single digit, both at constant currency rates.

In Switzerland, Novartis shares settled at 80.15 francs on Monday, up 0.31 percent.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Today's Daily Dose lists the names of drugs that have been recommended for approval by the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP). The lone exception is Vanda's antipsychotic medicine Fanaptum, for which the CHMP has rendered a negative opinion.

Read on...

AbbVie's (ABBV) biologic drug Humira just got one step closer to approval for pediatric uveitis patients in Europe - with the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use issuing a positive opinion for the drug.

Humira has been granted positive opinion for the treatment of chronic non-infectious anterior uveitis in pediatric patients from two years of age who have had an inadequate response to or are intolerant to conventional therapy, or in whom conventional therapy is inappropriate.

The European Medicines Agency's final decision for this expanded label indication is anticipated by September.

Humira was approved by the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of non-infectious intermediate, posterior and panuveitis in adults in June 2016.

The drug is also approved for use in adults with moderate to severe active and progressive rheumatoid arthritis, severe active ankylosing spondylitis (AS), severe axial spondyloarthritis without radiographic evidence of AS, moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis, active and progressive psoriatic arthritis, moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

Humira is AbbVie's best selling drug, and it netted global sales of $16.08 billion in 2016, up 14.7% over 2015.

ABBV touched a new 52-week high of $75.04 on Friday before closing the day's trading at $74.63, up 0.84%.

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s (LXRX) XERMELO has been recommended for approval by the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use to treat carcinoid syndrome diarrhea in combination with somatostatin analog (SSA) therapy in adults inadequately controlled by SSA therapy.

The European Commission is expected to render its final decision on XERMELO in the third quarter of 2017.

XERMELO was approved by the FDA in February of this year.

Lexicon has a license and collaboration agreement with Ipsen SA (IPSEY) to commercialize XERMELO in Europe and other countries outside of U.S. and Japan.

LXRX closed Friday's trading at $16.70, down 0.83%.

Merck's (MRK) blockbuster drug Keytruda has been recommended for approval in Europe by the European Medicine Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use in the indication of locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma in adult patients who have received prior platinum-containing chemotherapy, as well as adult patients who are not eligible for cisplatin-containing chemotherapy.

The European Commission's final decision is expected in the third quarter of 2017.

Keytruda is already approved for a number of indications in the U.S. and Europe. The drug's recent approval in Europe was in May for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) who have failed autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) and brentuximab vedotin (BV), or who are transplant-ineligible and have failed BV.

Keytruda logged in sales of $584 million in the first quarter of 2017, up 134% over the comparable year-ago quarter.

MRK closed Friday's trading at $62.63, down 0.49%.

A federal jury has ruled in favor of Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc. in the patent infringement suit, which was filed by Sandoz and Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc. (MNTA) over generic version of the blood thinner Lovenox.

The case dates back to September 2011 when Momenta sued Amphastar of infringing its patented control methods for the manufacturing of generic Lovenox.

In its verdict, the Court has ruled that the patent covering methods for the manufacturing of generic LOVENOX was infringed by Amphastar, but invalid and unenforceable.

Commenting on the verdict, Craig Wheeler, President and CEO of Momenta said, "We are disappointed in the jury's verdict and believe the facts and the law do not support these findings. We are considering all available legal options to overturn the verdict, including post-trial motions and appeals."

MNTA closed Friday's trading at $16.80, down 2.61%.

The European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended approval of BAVENCIO as a monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive skin cancer.

Bavencio is co-developed by Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and EMD Serono, the biopharmaceutical of Germany's Merck KGaA.

The European Commission's final decision on BAVENCIO is expected in the third quarter of 2017.

In the U.S, Bavencio has won accelerated approval from the FDA for the treatment of patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) and urothelial carcinoma.

PFE closed Friday's trading at $33.48, down 0.18%.

Sanofi (SNY) and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (REGN), on Friday, announced that the European Medicine Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended approval of Dupixent for use in adults with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis who are candidates for systemic therapy.

The European Commission's final decision on Dupixent in the European Union is expected in the coming months.

The FDA approved Dupixent for the treatment of adult patients with inadequately controlled moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis in March of this year.

REGN closed Friday's trading at $515.92, down 1.00%.

The European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Product for Human Use has recommended against approval of Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s (VNDA) Fanaptum for the treatment of schizophrenia in adult patients.

The CHMP is of the opinion that the benefits of Fanaptum did not outweigh its risks.

Vanda intends to appeal this opinion and request a re-examination by the CHMP.

The drug received approval in the U.S. in 2009, where it is marketed under the brand name Fanapt.

Fanapt net product sales were $74.3 million for the full year 2016, a 13% increase compared to $65.6 million for the full year 2015.

VNDA closed Friday's trading at $16.40, up 0.61%.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Bhu Foods of San Diego, CA is recalling several flavors of Protein bars, as the supplier of organic sunflower seeds, Hudson Valley Foods, Inc., notified that ingredients sold to the company have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. There has been no reported illness to date from this recall, the company noted.

Bhu Foods is recalling the following flavors of Protein bars produced from May 9, 2017 - June 9, 2017: Organic Vegan Protein - Chocolate + Tart Cherry + Pistachio, Organic Vegan Protein - Apple Chunk + Cinnamon + Nutmeg, Organic Vegan Protein - Peanut Butter + Chocolate Chip, Organic Vegan Protein - Superfood Chocolate Chip + Fudge Brownie Batter, Organic Vegan Protein - Peanut Butter + White Chocolate, Grass Fed Whey Protein - Dark Chocolate + Coconut + Almond (Made with Organic Ingredients, Grass Fed Whey Protein - Salted Caramel + Pecan (Made with Organic Ingredients), Grass Fed Whey Protein - Vanilla + Almond + Cashew (Made with Organic Ingredients), Paleo Protein - Double Dark Chocolate Chip (Made with Organic Ingredients).

Bhu Foods said it is recalling these item out of an abundance of caution, even though there was only a possibility of contamination from the organic sunflower seeds.

Laura Katleman, President of Bhu Foods, "We sincerely apologize for this situation that occurred with one of our ingredient suppliers. As soon as our team was notified, we immediately set our recall plan into action to ensure the safety and of our customers. Bhu Foods will continue to operate with the highest standard of excellence providing customers with exemplary, wholesome organic products."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
President Donald Trump launched a tweetstorm Sunday night and into Monday morning, attacking the media, Republicans and even his own Attorney General.

Trump once again called the investigation of Russian interference in last year's presidential election a "witch hunt," going against the belief of his FBI Director nominee Christopher Wray.

"As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!" Trump tweeted.

Trump also lashed out at members of his own party, claiming that Republican lawmakers were not doing enough to protect him.

The president tweeted, "It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President."

"If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!" he added.

Trump's ire was not only focused on the GOP, however, as he also took the opportunity to attack one of his favorite targets - the media.

"It's hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!" Trump tweeted.

Trump did offer praise for Fox Business Network anchor Lou Dobbs, who he said gave an "A+" rating to his first six months in office.

In a potential sign of frustration in his early months in the White House, Trump suggested Washington, D.C. was a sewer rather than a swamp, as he claimed on the campaign trail.

"Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer - it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!" Trump tweeted.

Trump also took another shot at Attorney General Jeff Sessions after suggesting in an interview with the New York Times last week that he would not have nominated the former Senator if he knew he would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

"Why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?" the president tweeted.

Trump also attacked Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, calling the Congressman "sleazy."

"Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into "Russia," spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!" Trump tweeted.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Grab Monday said that Didi Chuxing and SoftBank Group Corp. will invest up to $2.0 billion to lead the Singapore-base ride-hailing company's new financing round.

Grab, considered to be Uber's biggest rival in Southeast Asia, also expects to raise additional $500 million from existing and new investors. Grab claims this investment to be the largest single financing in the history of Southeast Asia.

Grab CEO and Co-founder Anthony Tan said, "We are delighted to deepen our strategic partnership with DiDi and SoftBank. We're encouraged that these two visionary companies share our optimism for the future of Southeast Asia and its on-demand transportation and payments , and recognize that Grab is ideally positioned to capitalize on the massive market opportunities."

Grab operates one of the largest transportation network in Southeast Asia with nearly 3 million daily rides. Grab offers private car, motorbike, taxi, and carpooling services across 7 countries and 65 cities in Southeast Asia.

The funding comes at a time when Grab is trying to expand into consumer firm that also offers loans, electronic money transfer and money-market funds.

In February, Grab announced plans to invest $700 million in Indonesia over the next four years. The company will open an R&D center in Jakarta and also targets hiring 150 engineers over the next two years.

Southeast Asia's ride-hailing market could grow to $13.1 billion by 2025 from $2.5 billion in 2015, WSJ reports says, citing a study of Google and Singapore state-investment firm Temasek Holdings.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
FM meets visiting UN delegation





SANAA, July 24 (Saba) - Foreign Minister Hisham Sharaf met on Monday with the United Nations High-level Joint Delegation headed by the Executive Director of the World Food Program( WFP), UNICEF Executive Director and World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Director.

The Foreign Minister welcomed the Executive Directors of the United Nations humanitarian organizations, which play an important humanitarian role in providing the necessary humanitarian assistance to the Yemeni citizens suffering from the worst humanitarian situation in the world due to the aggression and siege imposed by the aggression countries led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

During the meeting, Sharaf briefed the visiting UN delegation on the humanitarian situations in Yemen.

Sharaf said the countries of the aggression have been carrying out a mass genocide against the humanity through killing and starving the Yemeni people.

The Minister affirmed that the Yemeni people have been hit by a high rate of malnutrition and cholera epidemic and other diseases and that Saudi Arabia and UAE stand behind the spread of those diseases because of imposing the all-out land, air and sea siege against Yemen.

"The aggression countries also imposed a siege on some UN assistance and prevented aid provided by the US Agency for International Development from entering the port of Hodeidah," said the minister.

The minister added the Saudi-led aggression coalition also put a lot of obstacles and prevent food and medical aid to reach the country and that leads to cause further deterioration in the humanitarian situation in Yemen.

"The Saudi-led coalition also banned international journalists and foreign media from visiting Yemen to inspect facts on the ground," the minister said.

Sharaf stressed on the importance of the visiting UN delegation to inspect the facts and the suffering of the Yemeni people.

Meanwhile, the visiting UN delegation stressed that the main objective of their visit to Yemen is to inspect the seriousness of the humanitarian situations, the worst starvation and the outbreak of malnutrition and cholera.





HA/zak

Saba

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[25/July/2017]
Tamil Nadu farmers protesting here on Monday one of them tried to commit suicide by consuming 10 sleeping pills apparently because of depression.

A group of farmers from Tamil Nadu, belonging to the areas in and around Trichy, Karur and Thanjavur, have been sitting in a protest at Jantar Mantar since March 14, 2017.

One of the Tamil Nadu farmers protesting here in Delhi Jantar mantar on Monday tried to commit suicide by consuming 10 sleeping pills apparently because of depression, fellow farmers said. Police, however, denied that the farmer had tried to kill himself.

Their key demands include a better drought-relief package for Tamil Nadus farmers, since the relief package announced by the government barely covers their losses. After incurring heavy losses as a result of the recent drought (which was officially declared on January 10, 2017), they are finding it difficult to provide even the bare essentials for their families and their own selves.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven Kashmiri separatists on charges of receiving funds from Pakistan to sponsor terror activities and stone-pelting protests in the Kashmir Valley

The NIA arrested all seven Hurriyat leaders, including Nayeem Khan, Bitta Karate, Altaf Fantosh (son-in-law of Syed Ali Shah Geelani), in connection with a terror funding case. It was revealed that these leaders laundered money to create unrest in the Valley.

The hawala money was being used to burn schools, stone-pelting in the Valley. The agency has also prepared a list of 60 stone-pelters who have created unrest in the area.

The NIA conducted raids in Srinagar, Jammu, Delhi and Haryana and reportedly seized incriminating evidence against those involved in receiving, acting as intermediaries and final beneficiaries of funds coming from Pakistan. India has for decades accused Pakistan of arming, financing and training militants fighting to end Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. Islamabad says it provides only political and diplomatic support.

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Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday said here that he was not sure whether the 39 Indians missing in the city of Mosul since 2014 are alive. Most of the 39 Indian construction workers who went missing in 2014 are from Punjab.

Al-Jaafari's comments came after Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh visited Iraq after Iraqi forces aided by an international coalition liberated Mosul from the Islamic State on July 9.

Al-Jaafari also held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here on Monday.

Sushma Swaraj had earlier said that with the freeing of Mosul, the process to trace and rescue the missing Indians would be taken forward.

Sushma Swaraj has met the families of the 39 persons around a dozen times since they were abducted in June 2014 and assured them that the government was doing everything to locate them.

Iraqi forces liberated Mosul after 266 days of fierce battles, ending three years of Islamic State rule.
Under the Green Highways Project, the government has made it mandatory to set aside 1 per cent of the total project cost of any NH contract to a Green Fund corpus that will be used for plantation purposes.

Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari launched the initial plantation drive on 1,500 km of National Highways at a cost of about Rs 300 crore under the National Green Highways Mission in New Delhi today.

Speaking on the occasion Shri Gadkari said that the greening project has a huge potential to generate jobs and can prove to be a game-changer for agriculture and rural economy.

Greening of one km of highway provides employment to ten people. Today's launch of 1,500 km under the Mission will employ 15,000 people . The Minister further said that the project may even be linked with the NREGA scheme.

The afforestation is expected to help in sequestering approximately 12 lakh mt carbon annually.

It will help in making India pollution free. It will also help in curtailing the number of road accidents in India.

National Green Highways Mission Mobile App was also launched on the occasion. The mobile application will enable the management to monitor all the projects with real time data from the fields. The technology will assist in identifying the bottlenecks quickly and ensure speedy and successful implementations of the projects.
India is passing through the biggest technological revolution which will make data analytics critical for delivery of services to the people, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Thursday.

Leakages in government schemes are now vanishing and in due course all benefits provided by the government will go straight to the intended beneficiary's account, he said at an event here.

Addressing an interactive meeting organised by industry body FICCI, Kant enumerated the various initiatives of the government to change the 19th century mindsets and move into the 21st century through vast and transformative decisions.

The government has leveraged technology to link up all states with the Centre through PRAGATI' (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation), an integrative and interactive platform for addressing the common man's grievances and monitoring important programmes and projects, the NITI Aayog CEO said.

Under this initiative, the Prime Minister links up with all Chief Secretaries of states and Indian Ambassadors overseas to monitor projects online once every fortnight.

This initiative, he added, was breaking all walls between the states and the Centre.

He said the government has moved away from inputs and processes to focus on outcome targets of various ministries.

Outcomes are now monitored regularly through a dashboard, an IT user interface, created by NITI Aayog.

Any deviations from the assigned outcome targets are brought to the notice of the PMO, which then suggests appropriate remedial steps, Kant said at the interactive meeting on "The Business of Government: Learnings from Global Experiences" organised with the support of NITI Aayog, Bharti Institute of Public Policy of Indian School of Business (ISB) and the IBM Centre for The Business of Government.

The quiet administrative revolution that has been taking place in the country will receive a shot in the arm by the increasing use of digital technology which in turn will give a fillip to growth, Kant said.
At least 25 endangered one-horned rhinos died in Nepals largest habitat of the pachyderms during the 2016-17 fiscal.

Officials on Saturday found the male rhino with its horn gouged out in Chitwan National Park, the country's biggest rhino conservation area.

"We performed a post-mortem and found that it had been hit by a bullet on its head," the park's spokesman Nurendra Aryal told AFP.

Aryal said a team had been set up to investigate the incident and security had been tightened at the district borders.

In September last year a rhino died weeks after poachers shot it in the same park, the first of the rare animals to be killed in the country in over two years.

Thousands of one-horned rhinos once roamed the plains of Nepal, but their numbers have plunged over the past century due to poaching and human encroachment on their habitat.

The population decline was particularly dramatic during Nepal's 1996-2006 civil war, when soldiers on anti-poaching duties were redeployed to fight the Maoist guerrilla insurgency.

But the country has since made rapid progress in combating the poachers who kill the animals for their prized horns, drawing praise from conservation groups and activists.



Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2017/04/09/rare-one-horned-rhino-killed-by-poachers-in-nepal/#W9OLPrGdgudGlxP4.99

Shant Raj Jnawali, a rhino expert at WWF, said the latest death highlighted the vulnerability of the animals despite anti-poaching efforts from the community, park wardens and army.
This much is undeniable. The spate of gruesome crimes  including murders, rape, theft and many others - reported over recent months is quite frightening. So alarming we cannot help but wonder how much more we will allow this epidemic of unpremeditated violence to continue.

We know its an issue we constantly raise on these pages. We know we ask questions about our response as a community about this issue all the time.

But how can we not care? How can we pretend that this is normal?

As you are reading this piece, a 34-year-old mother is fighting for her life at the Motootua Hospital. She is the victim of a horrendous crime committed by her very own husband.

From what weve been told, her husband allegedly stabbed her on the chest multiple times in public. Whats worse is that the stabbing happened while their children looked on is sheer horror in broad daylight.

Acting Assistant Police Commissioner, Salaa Moananu Salaa, said the woman is in a critical condition at the hospital.

In the meantime, it has obviously left people who saw it in shock.

According to some witnesses who were there, the man was doing all of this in front of his children. Thankfully, bystanders and Good Samaritans rushed to the womans aid and took her to the hospital. We dont want to imagine what would have happened by now if these people were not around to help.

At this stage, no one knows for sure what sparked the vicious attack.

Such a brutal story is so horrifying its hard to believe that this is what Samoa has become.

But this is just one of so many similar cases weve seen and heard in recent months. Just about every day there is an attack of some sort.

The real worry is that it has already caused the deaths of several presumably innocent people and if this is allowed to continue there is the chance it will cause more suffering ahead which is why this dispiriting threat is quite scary.

The chilling reality is that it appears that violence has become just a normal part of life for some people. Whats worse is that we are not just talking about fists and slaps. We are talking about cases where people are no longer afraid to use objects such as knives and guns to inflict injuries on each other.

Ladies and gentlemen, this cannot be treated as normal.

The point is that there has got to be a reason this upsurge of wanton violence which has become so prevalent in Samoa today. And understandably, people will have different theories and reasons.

Now the way we see it, we believe that a lot of the violence is caused by hardship and growing poverty. These things cause frictions in families and when they reach boiling point, thats when we see these unimaginable incidents unfold.

Sadly, the government has been ignoring this concern saying these are just stupid opinions. And as long as they refuse to do anything to tackle hardship and poverty, all this effort to reduce domestic violence will not amount to much.

Weve got to be realistic about the causes of these problems. We can theorise until we are blue in the face but if we dont start addressing some of the root causes, we are wasting our time.

Now let me take your mind back to the first State of Human Rights Report for Samoa, which identified undeniable poverty in this country. Compiled by the Office of the Ombudsman as the National Human Rights Institution (N.H.R.I) of Samoa, it found that one in every five Samoans live in poverty.

Despite progress in big picture economic growth and within high level development framework, there is disparity in development outcomes particularly in rural and remote areas, the report reads.

Approximately 20 per cent of Samoas population lives below the basic needs poverty line (B.N.P.L), with the higher proportion of rural populations falling below the B.N.P.L. Basically, this means that about 1 in every 5 Samoans lives in poverty.

Folks, we repeat, those are not our words. Those are the words of the report endorsed by Prime Minister Tuilaepa when he spoke at the launch of the report. Whats more, he called for the formation of a Parliamentary Committee to follow up on the reports recommendations.

What has become of that? And what is being done to follow up this report?

Have a safe week Samoa, God bless!
A Cabinet appointed Commission of Inquiry investigating the conduct of two senior Police officers has recommended that their services be terminated.

Chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice, Lesatele Rapi Vaai, the Inquiry focused on the conduct of suspended Police Commissioner Samoa Mulinuu in handling of the criminal matter against Sililoto Peneueta.

His involvement in alleged tampering with witnesses in the District Court case of Police v Mauga Precious Chang was also under the microscope.

The second officer investigated was former Inspector Luatimu Samau. He was accused of alleged witness tampering in the District Court case of Police v Mauga Precious Chang. His conduct in discharging his duties as a police Inspector and whether it breached the Police Code of Conduct was also questioned.

According to a copy of the Commissions report obtained by the media, the Commission has recommended that both officers be sacked. The Commission that there was corrupt motive in their conduct.

For Samau, the Commission found as follows:

The Commission has concluded that Samau is guilty of misconduct by involving himself in the investigation of the Police v Mauga Chang file. He has however resigned from the Service effective as from 2nd March 2017, the report reads.

Our Terms of Reference requires us to make a recommendation as to what action should be taken against Samau. That Term of Reference was based on the assumption that Samau had not resigned from the Service.

Samau however during his final submissions, expressed the wish that he would liked to return to the Service. He also in his letter of resignation to the Minister of Police made a similar request.

Had he not resigned we would have recommended that his service be terminated.

We are satisfied that he had involved himself in the investigation with a corrupt motive; he blatantly ignored the code of conduct issued by the Commissioner pursuant to section 11 Police Service Act 2009; and he is also guilty of misconduct pursuant to section 50 of the same Act.

His impugned conduct viewed as a whole falls far below the standard that a reasonable member of the Samoan community is entitled to expect from him.

In the case of the suspended Commissioner, Samoa Mulinuu, the Commission said:

The Commission had determined and concluded that the behaviour and conduct of the Assistant Commissioner in both the Sililoto and Police v Mauga Chang matters will be likely to affect the confidence of the community in his performance.

In considering the appropriate recommendation, the Commission is mindful that the primary purpose of professional disciplinary proceedings is not to punish, but to protect the public, to maintain public confidence in the integrity of the Service and to uphold proper standards of behaviour.

It was said in the New Zealand High Court in Dentice v Valuers Registration Board (1992) 1 NZLR 720 at 724:

Although in respect of different professions, the nature of the unprofessional or incompetent conduct which will attract disciplinary charges is variously described, there is a common thread of scope and purpose.

Such provisions exist to enforce a high standard of propriety and professional conduct; to ensure that no person unfitted because of his or her conduct should be allowed to practice the profession in question; to protect both the profession and the public, and the profession itself against persons unfit to practice; and to enable the profession or calling, as a body to ensure that the conduct of members conforms to the standards generally expected of them.

But punitive orders have also been recognized to be necessary at times to uphold professional standards. This was recognized and commented on in another New Zealand High Court decision in Patel v Complaints Assessment Committee Auckland HC, 13/08/2007. It was said at 27 and 28:

[27] Such penalties may be appropriate because disciplinary proceedings invariably involve issues of deterrence. They are designed in fact to deter both offender and others in the profession from offending in a like manner in the future

I therefore propose to proceed on the basis that although the protection of the public is a very important consideration, nonetheless the issues of punishment and deterrence must also be taken into account in selecting the appropriate penalty to be imposed.

The Commission is of the view after considering the circumstances involving the Sililoto matter and the Police v Mauga Chang matter, that the services of the Assistant Commissioner should be terminated.

The two (2) incidents involved members of the community, one (1) was a police witness, the other was a target of an unfounded complaint.

An element of corruption played a role in his conduct. He ignored the oath he took when he was sworn in as a police officer, and he also breached the Police Code of Conduct.

His explanation that his conflict of interest did not influence the integrity of the investigation cannot be accepted. His oath and the Police Code of Conduct required him to disassociate himself with the investigation of the Sililoto matter; he had no choice. It also required him not to interfere in the Police v Mauga Chang matter.

The Commission cannot ignore his inaction in the Samaus tribunal matter when he failed to perform as Assistant Commissioner, to facilitate a Tribunal hearing during the three (3) to four (4) months he had the file. His excuse about taking the file home inadvertently cannot be accepted.
The Ministry of Police has warned members of the public as well as the National Health Services that it is illegal not to report crime.

The warning comes from Acting Assistant Police Commissioner, Salaa Moananu Salaa, following an incident where a 41-year-old man from Saanapu died of first-degree burns.

Salaa said the incident occurred last month but the Police have only just found out about it.

The family of the deceased were sleeping when they were woken up by a loud scream, said Salaa. When the family ran out to see who it was they saw the deceased running and screaming to his home wit his body on fire.

The family took him to the hospital but he later died.

According to Salaa, the Police only found out after rumours spread about a man who was killed from burns.

The officers conducted their investigation and when approached the family, they were about to have a burial service, he said.

They stopped the family and approach the National Health Service about why they didnt report the matter to the police when the deceased was admitted.

A post mortem was conducted on Thursday to confirm the cause of death and the inquest for this matter will be on the 23rd of August.

Salaa said it is very important for the public to inform the Police about such matters.

Its important for the Ministry to know of these kinds of incident so that we can do our side, he said.

Not reporting suspecting crimes is illegal and anyone can be charged when the police find out.

So I urge the public as well as the National Health to work together with the Ministry of Police to ensure that we do our job especially when we are dealing with the lives of our people.

We are here to serve and to protect the people.
The Samoa Metrological Office is increasing its output capability to better inform the country of changing weather conditions 24-7.

This time, the Weather Office is taking advantage of mobile phones.

Look forward to receiving the latest weather update on your mobile phones, said the Chief Weather Officer Mulipola Ausitalia Titimaea.

The two main service providers will text the reports regularly using the same technology which they have been utilizing to advertise their promotions via text messages from time to time.

We are slowly transiting to the new mobile app to reach more people effectively and efficiently.

Based on the daily inquires on weather reports, we are confident that we have found the right solution through the mobile app.

It has the capacity to issue early warnings for a possible tsunami and earthquake.

Its still on trial but available on Samsung phones as a start.

This new services is free of charge
A mother and her step son have been charged with incest.

This was confirmed by the Acting Assistant Commissioner, Salaa Moananu Salaa, who said the alleged relationship dates back to 2015.

The incident started in 2015 when the family were staying at one of the villages at the Itu o Tane District in Savaii, said Salaa.

They moved to Upolu and they stayed at one of the villages in the Vaimauga District where the accused man and woman continued on with this disgusting act.

The woman is 26-years-old. The male is 18 and is the son of the womans husband.

It was the womans brother in law who reported the matter to the police, said Salaa.

The pair is scheduled to appear in Supreme Court before Chief Justice, His Honour Patu Tiavaasue Falefatu Sapolu.

This is the third case of incest to have surfaced in the past few weeks, he said.

Its disgusting and its not accepted in the Samoan culture and tradition.

In any Samoan family, there is a triangle and in that triangle, there is the father, mother and the children. However, this incident completely ruins that triangle which is sad.

And so the Ministry of Police is urging the public and everyone to remember the culture and the tradition.
Water is a precious resource and we should do our best to preserve it.

That is the opinion of 31-year-old Same Letoa from Solosolo.

Same and his daughter, Sala were just on their way back from doing shopping in town when they were spotted by Village Voice.

I think everything is running smoothly in our village except for the use of water, he said.

Here in this whole area; I would call it the middle area, our water only comes on at five oclock in the morning and then stops running at eight oclock at night time.

I mean if you go to the other parts of the village, their water is doing fine whereas we are struggling to save water for the next day.

All the families including mines try to store water in containers before the water goes off.

And most of us we only have buckets and small containers to store water but I think having your own water tank would make it easier.

I mean we are human beings and we do get tired of filling up containers everyday.

For me, this is something I cant belittle because I have four little children.

There must be water everyday because you cannot control how kids want something especially if its a basic need.

I need help with a water tank to make this job a bit easier.

I would buy a water tank but honestly I cannot afford one.

I work five days a week and my pay only covers for food and other things needed by my family.

The reason why a water tank is important for us, is because its the best option to store water and it saves our time and energy because everyday, its like we get tired more from filling up buckets than from our jobs.

So help us with a water tank please.

If you want to help out Same Letoa with a water tank, contact Samoa Observer headquarters at Vaitele on 23078.
The two men accused over a package intercepted by Customs Officers at the Fagalii Airport, which contained ice, made their initial appearance in the Supreme Court yesterday.

Scott Robert Barlow, of Samoa, and Fatu Vagana, of American Samoa, are facing drug charges. They appeared before the Chief Justice, His Honour Patu Tiavaasue Falefatu Sapolu yesterday.

Prosecuting the case was Lucy Maria Sio of the Attorney Generals office.

Vagana was represented by Leiataua Jerry Brunt while Arthur Lesa represented Barlow.

The men have been in police custody since last month.

Vagana was released on bail yesterday.

In Court, Leiataua informed the Court that his client upon bail release will be living with his family in Vaitele and the prosecution have been informed and have not objected to the bail release.

The prosecutor pointed out she does not oppose to bail release, however Vagana who is from American Samoa needs to surrender his travel documents.

But Ms. Sio opposed bail for Barlow.

Mr. Lesa told the Court he had just been served a motion opposing to the bail in the morning. He asked for an expedited hearing on the motion against his client.

The hearing is set for tomorrow.

In respect of the accused Fatu Vagana, because there is no opposition to bail from the prosecution, this accused is granted bail on these conditions.

If you have a passport, you must surrender it to the registrar office, secondly stay permanently at your family residence in Vaitele Fou, unless the court tells you otherwise; thirdly sign with the Police Post at Tuanaimato on Tuesdays and Fridays before noon.

The Chief Justice rescheduled the matter for next Monday for mention and status on the pleas of the defendants.

Last month Acting Assistant Police Commissioner, Salaa Moananu told the Samoa Observer the Police were alerted by the staff at Fagalii Airport.

They (the drugs) were in a package from American Samoa and the staff at Fagalii Airport found this out when the package went through the scanning machine.

Salaa said the Police were contacted straight away and they quickly responded and confirmed that it was indeed meth, weighing 5.9grams.

The two men were arrested when they turned up to collect the package. Salaa further stated they are still investigating how the package got through Customs in American Samoa.

Something is not right with this picture and there are many questions at the moment.
SAN ANTONIO (AP)  The driver of a broiling tractor-trailer found packed with immigrants outside a Walmart in San Antonio was charged Monday in the deaths of 10 of his passengers and could face the death penalty over the hellish journey.

In outlining their immigrant-smuggling case against James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, federal prosecutors depicted the trailer as pitch-black, crammed with around 90 people or more by some estimates, and so suffocatingly hot that one passenger said they took turns breathing through a hole and pounding on the walls to get the driver's attention.

Bradley appeared in federal court on charges of illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death. The Clearwater, Florida, man was ordered held for another hearing on Thursday.

He did not enter a plea or say anything about what happened. But in court papers, he told authorities he didn't realize anyone was inside his rig until he parked and got out to relieve himself.

Over the weekend, authorities discovered eight bodies inside the crowded 18-wheeler parked in the summer heat, and two more victims died at the hospital. Nearly 20 others rescued from the rig were hospitalized in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

At least some of those aboard were from Mexico and Guatemala, authorities said.

Bradley told investigators that the trailer had been sold and he was transporting it for his boss from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas. After hearing banging and shaking, he opened the door and was "surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground," according to the criminal complaint.

Bradley told investigators that he knew the trailer refrigeration system didn't work and that the four ventilation holes were probably clogged. He also said he did not call 911, even though he knew at least one passenger was dead.

The truck was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa. President Brian Pyle said that he had sold the truck to a man in Mexico and that Bradley was an independent contractor who was supposed to deliver it to a pick-up point in Brownsville.

"I'm absolutely sorry it happened. I really am. It's shocking. I'm sorry my name was on it," Pyle said, referring to the truck. He said he had no idea why Bradley took the looping route he described to investigators.

Bradley told authorities that he had stopped in Laredo, Texas  which would have been out of his way if he were traveling directly to Brownsville  to get the truck washed and detailed before heading back 150 miles (240 kilometers) north to San Antonio. From there, he would have had to drive 275 miles south again to get to Brownsville.

"I just can't believe it. I'm stunned, shocked. He is too good a person to do anything like this," said Bradley's fiancee, Darnisha Rose of Louisville, Kentucky. "He helps people, he doesn't hurt people."

She said Bradley told her he had no idea how the immigrants got into his trailer.

One of the passengers told investigators that he was in a group of 24 people who had been in a "stash house" in Laredo for 11 days before being taken to the tractor-trailer.

A passenger told investigators that he and others crossed into the U.S. by raft, paying smugglers 12,500 Mexican pesos (about $700). They were then put aboard the truck to be taken to San Antonio, according to the criminal complaint. He said he was supposed to pay the smugglers $5,500 once he got there.

He said that those in the truck were given no water or food and that the immigrants soon began to struggle to breathe and started passing out.

Latin Americans who enter the United States illegally often hire smuggling networks to guide them across the border by foot or raft, put them in safe houses and then give them rides to their destination in the U.S.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute," said Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The tragedy came to light when a person from the truck approached a Walmart employee and asked for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning after a day of temperatures in the 90s and over 100, police said. The employee gave the person water and then called police.

In one of the worst smuggling-by-truck tragedies on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003. The driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

Activists blamed federal and Texas authorities' hard-line immigration policies for contributing to the latest deaths by forcing immigrants to take greater risks to reach the U.S.

"These tragedies are compounded when it's incredibly dangerous and incredibly expensive and we push migration into the hands of illicit actors," immigration activist Bob Libal said.

___

Associated Press writers Claire Galofaro in Louisville, Ky.; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; Scott McFetridge in Schaller, Iowa; Mike Graczyk in Houston; Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Peter Orsi in Mexico City; and Frank Bajak in San Antonio contributed to this report.
A legal dispute over ownership of the popular fact-checking site Snopes.com is threatening the existence of the online sleuthing service, which now says it is in dire financial straits. As a result, Snopes on Monday started soliciting donations through a GoFundMe campaign and approached its $500,000 goal in its first day of fundraising.

Visited by more than 18 million people a month, Snopes mission is to dispel urban legend and internet myths. The company, whose profile was raised during the 2016 presidential race, now has a staff of 16 employees. Its fact-checking capabilities were further validated when the organization was one of several selected last year to help Facebook sort the real news from the fake stuff.

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Snopes, however, could run out of money. The company, which generates revenue through advertisements, says all funds have been withheld since April by its advertising partner, San Diego-based internet media company Proper Media. The matter is further complicated as Proper Medias CEO Christopher Richmond and President Drew Schoentrup together hold a 40 percent stake in Snopes parent company, Bardav, Inc.

Now the companies are embroiled in a contentious battle over who governs the popular site and its finances, with the San Diego Superior Court of California set to determine the outcome.

We are in danger of having to discontinue operations, said David Mikkelson, Snopes co-founder and CEO .

Established in 2003, Bardav, Inc. was the joint venture of Mikkelson and his then-wife Barbara Mikkelson, who each owned one share and 50 percent of the company. The couple divorced in 2015. In July of 2016, Barbara sold her stake for $3.6 million to the five directors of Proper Media: Richmond, Schoentrup, Ryan Miller, Vincent Green and Tyler Dunn.

Barbaras stake, according to cross complaints, was divided into fractional shares, with Richmond and Schoentrup each holding 20 percent interest in Bardav; and Miller, Green and Dunn each holding 3.33 percent.

Prior to the sale, however, Bardav had contracted Proper Media to handle all advertising services on Snopes.com, with the companies agreeing to share revenue earned from ads on the site. According to the agreement contained in legal documents, Snopes was entitled to a baseline payment of $85,000 per month, plus 50 percent of net revenue over $85,000. Proper Medias take was the remaining 50 percent of revenue above $85,000.

The contract is, however, subject to a termination clause, and Mikkelson, who continues to own 50 percent of Bardav, attempted to terminate the deal with 60 days notice in March.

(Proper Media is) claiming I cannot terminate the contract because it requires approval of (Bardavs) board of directors, Mikkelson said in a phone interview. I am the only director. Barbara was the other director, and she resigned when she sold her share.  There are now one or more vacancies on our board.

Proper Media counters that Schoentrup is also a board member.

In May, Proper Media filed suit in San Diego against Bardav and Mikkelson. The suit alleges, among other things, that Mikkelson attempted to gain, through conspiracy, a controlling interest of the business, has tried to block Proper Media from its share of company profits and misused corporate funds for personal expenses. The media company, which also owns TVtropes.org and sells advertisements on behalf of publishers, is also seeking to get Mikkelson removed as a director of the company.

Bardav and Mikkelson countersued in June, arguing that Proper Media has not paid Snopes its share of advertising revenue since Mikkelson attempted to terminate the advertising contract.

Motions by both the plaintiffs and defendants are scheduled to be heard on Aug. 4, but time is of the essence for Snopes, which requires an excess of $100,000 per month to manage operations. The court recently awarded Bardav a one-time, $100,000 payment from Proper Media, but the funds arent enough to cover site costs and legal expenses, Snopes said.

Monday, Snopes, went public with its financial plight, soliciting readers via e-mail and a post on the website for $500,000 in donations to keep the site afloat.

Our legal team is fighting hard for us, but, having been cut off from all revenue, we are facing the prospect of having no financial means to continue operating the site and paying our staff (not to mention covering our legal fees) in the meanwhile, Snopes said in a post published to its website.

Meanwhile, in an emailed statement, Proper Medias lawyer Karl Kronenberger asked the media to, conduct its own fact-check of the fundraising plea posted today on Snopes.com.  Todays post only confirms Proper Medias allegations that Mr. Mikkelson has drained the companys bank accounts and is unable to operate Snopes profitably without Proper Medias expertise and management.

Court documents contain a number of salacious allegations made by Proper Media, Bardav and Green, who now works for Snopes and is countersuing Proper Media. The case, however, hinges around the ownership structure of Bardav.

Both sides maintain that Bardav is an S corporation, which means the company can pass corporate income, losses, deductions, and credits through to shareholders for federal tax purposes, thus avoiding double taxation on corporate income. In order to receive the tax break, the organization can only have shareholders who are individuals, not corporations.

Proper Media holds that the five individuals who were sold an ownership stake in Bardav assumed ownership for the benefit of Proper Media, meaning Bardav can, in theory, remain an S corporation. That would also make Proper Media the beneficial owner of 50 percent of the company, giving it equal footing with Mikkelson.

Bardav asserts, on the contrary, that each of the five shareholders have individual ownership claims, as opposed to joint power.

Whos right?

The question is going to turn on the sale documents between the (ex)-wife and the individuals, said Michael Chasalow, a USC professor of law, and an expert in corporate law and governance. Did (Barbara) sell or attempt to sell five pieces of the one share or did she sell one piece to five people?

If the latter is true, the sale to five people would mean that half of Bardav is owned by a partnership, and Bardav is no longer an S corporation. The partners would have collective rights to the 50 percent interest, Chasalow said. That would seemingly benefit Proper Medias claim, albeit changing its tax status.

However, if Barbara Mikkelson sold her single share in five, fractional pieces, then there would six owners, with each owner maintaining individual rights to the shares.

Presumably, if the court finds that there are six owners, and not two, then that would benefit the defense, as that would leave Proper Media plaintiffs Richmond and Schoentrup with a minority stake.

Regardless of the legal outcome, Snopes readers are keeping the lights on for the time being. As of 8:55 p.m. PT, campaign donations totaled $404,444.

The case of Proper Media versus Snopes goes to court Aug. 4 for a hearing on two motions. Proper Media will argue that Mikkelson is unfit to serve as a director of the company. Bardav will seek the release of advertising revenue accrued since April.

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jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin
Marty Frank, who was hoping to open a Native Health medical marijuana dispensary in Lemon Grove, has lost his appeal of an earlier rejection by city staff.

The City Council last week upheld city staff findings that a dispensary at 7309 Broadway would be too close to a daycare facility.

The citys Municipal Code requires a buffer zone between a dispensary and protected uses, including licensed daycare facilities.

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Our duty is to our community and to abide by the law, said Councilman David Arambula. I do want to protect my community.

Frank said he was unhappy that the city didnt tell him where the daycare center was when he first expressed interest in March.

The city said it didnt know where the daycare center was until it did some digging in April.

Development Services Director David De Vries told the council that the California Department of Social Services, the licensing agency for daycare throughout the state of California, does not disclose the addresses of licensed family daycare homes to the general public.

Because those businesses are conducted in private residential settings, there is an expectation of privacy, and such information is restricted by law, De Vries said.

The Department of Social Services eventually supplied a list of family daycare homes and their addresses to Lemon Grove, but under the condition that city staff would not disclose the list to the general public.

De Vries said that in May, staff contacted both of the family daycare home operators and were granted permission to disclose their locations to Frank and property owner John Marks. Staff then notified the men by letter that their application for a zoning clearance was denied.

Several speakers at the July 18 meeting spoke out against the opening of any pot shops in the city. But voters in Lemon Grove passed an ordinance last November allowing dispensaries, with restrictions.

This hearing is not to debate whether medical marijuana dispensaries are allowable, Mayor Racquel Vasquez reminded the standing-room only crowd. The voters decided it is allowable. We are here specifically to discuss this particular property as it is located near a daycare center.

This is not whether or not we disagree or not on marijuana.

Frank said his group has spent a lot of time and money trying to open the dispensary and called the citys process extremely restrictive by design and unconstitutional.

We have not been able to do our due diligence rightfully, Frank said. Our team has invested over $150,000 and we want to see it through.

We want to see this process to license and regulate medical marijuana as what the voters intended. We want to be transparent and we understand compliance and want to be a good addition to the city.

One of the daycare operators, Kristina Pintor, wrote a letter to the city stating that that she had previously been contacted by three different groups with requests to relocate her daycare operation so they could establish a dispensary.

Several speakers asked the city to follow the best practices of other cities, prompting resident Denise Strattman to say, We cant let the polices of other cities dictate our health and well being.

City Manager Lydia Romero said there are currently two groups moving through the conditional use process to open dispensaries in Lemon Grove.

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com
The 2017 Bonitafest Committee is ironing out details for the 2017 street fair and the activities that lead up to it.

Celebrations run Sept. 15-30, with the Bonitafest performing arts festival held Sept. 16 at Bonita Vista High School on Otay Lakes Road from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Max Branscomb is chairman of the the annual tradition, which celebrates the spirit of Bonita and the Sweetwater Valley.

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Volunteers, including adults, high school and college students meet frequently to plan out details leading up to the annual event.

And each year the committee names a person to serve as the grand marshal of the event.

This year it is Terry Sampite, a communication systems engineer with Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in Point Loma.

Sampite initially joined the Bonitafest committee in 1994, first serving on the logistics team, then as chairman in 1999 and 2000.

New to the event in the last few years is the Twilight Trail Parade.

About 7,000 people attended the Bonitafest last year with roughly 700 people participating in the Twilight Trail Parade the night before.

The events raised about $5,000.

All money benefits the Bonita Vista High School Vocal Music Department, which includes the Music Machine mixed choir, girls Sound Unlimited and Lady Tones choir, as well as choirs from Bonita Vista Middle School.

Following the festival each year is the Bonitafest Melodrama, an annual play written by Branscomb.

This years production is Thin Skins and Hayseeds, a musical-comedy featuring bumbling villains Cadwell von Fowl and Lickpenny.

Upcoming Bonitafest events:
Imperial Beach is hiring a San Francisco-based environmental firm to explore options to safeguard its residents and business owners from water quality issues in the Tijuana River Valley.

Local beaches have long suffered from polluted conditions due to sewage flows from south of the U.S.-Mexico border. On average, portions of the citys shoreline has been closed to swimmers for more than a third of each year, according to county records.

It seems like almost on a weekly basis we have a spill into the river valley, said City Manager Andy Hall.

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The city stretches past the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge to the Mexican border, making it vulnerable to pollution and runoff.

Last December through February this year, rains caused flooding and massive amounts of raw sewage to flow into the Tijuana River.

Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina said the city is tired of waiting for help.

Theres not really any clear leadership in Washington, no clear leadership in Congress to actually fund anything on the border thats of concern to us, he said during its July 19 council meeting.

Thats why this council will be acting as aggressively as possible, exploring all our options, and making sure that we hold everyone accountable to fix this problem thats impacting all of us.

The environmental firm, Sher Edling is also handling lawsuits filed recently by Imperial Beach and two Northern California counties against 37 oil and coal companies for billions of dollars in property damages associated with climate change.

The city, along with Marin and San Mateo counties, are going up against many of the worlds largest fossil-fuel companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell.

They allege that greenhouse-gas emissions caused by the companies are contributing to global warming and melting glaciers, which results in sea-level rise that worsens coastal erosion and flooding.

Jack Van Zandt, who previously served on the citys chamber of commerce, spoke as a private citizen against the litigation.

All litigation raises the cost of living for our town, which is a town of hard-working families who are trying to make it, he said.

The lawsuits seek payment for ongoing and future flooding damage caused by storms as well as other issues from more regular weather occurrences.

Dedina said all that damages the citys tourism industry through closed beaches, and decreased real estate sales and property values.

In the past two decades, Mexico and the United States have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to improve Tijuanas sewer system.

Despite that funding, Tijuanas growing population continues to overwhelm the citys aging sewer infrastructure.

Officials in Baja California have outlined a plan with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to fix the most urgent issues facing Tijuanas wastewater system.

However, the endeavor is based on tens of millions in funding, much of which has yet to be secured.

Dedina called it disheartening that Imperial Beach is having to take the reins on finding solutions to fixing Tijuanas infrastructure.

Dedina is also the founder and executive director of local nonprofit WiLDCOAST, and an avid surfer.

Reporter Joshua Emerson Smith contributed to this story.
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Kang pleaded not guilty on Monday in Hawaii, after a grand jury on Friday indicted him on charges of attempting to help the Islamic State, or ISIS.

The 34-year-old soldier was arrested July 8 after being snared in a FBI sting that revealed he was willing to turn over classified military documents to agents posing as ISIS operatives and sympathizers.

Kang also allegedly helped buy a commercial drone that he intended to give to ISIS to help the terrorist organization evade U.S. tanks.

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1. Kang, an Army air traffic controller, is a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The soldier deployed to Iraq from March 2010 to February 2011 and to Afghanistan from July 2013 to April 2014, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court.

Welcome to The Intel, a blog examining the hot military news of the day

2. His father told a Hawaii news outlet that Kang may have from post-traumatic stress disorder.

It would appear that Sgt. Kang  may suffer from service-related mental health issues, which the government was aware of but neglected to treat, Kangs lawyer told Hawaii News Now.

3. The Army flagged Kang to the FBI in August 2016  but Army officials still sent him to be recertified as a combatives master trainer while he was under investigation.

Kangs alleged history of hostile comments goes back to 2011.

He was reprimanded on several occasions for threatening to hurt or kill other service members, and for arguing pro-ISIS views while at work and on base, the FBI affidavit says.

The Army revoked Kangs security clearance in 2012 but reinstated it the next year after he complied with requirements.

The Army also sent him to Afghanistan for nearly a year after that.

4. Kang allegedly started sympathizing with ISIS after deciding that ISIS fighters were devout Muslims who believed in their version of Islam.

He told undercover agents and fellow soldiers that he considered ISIS and its forerunner, al Qaeda, to be oppressed people and that if he deployed to Iraq, he would not shoot back at ISIS.

He even expressed interest in joining ISIS, according to the federal affidavit.

People still say its illegal to join them, but the way I look at it is theyre just fighting people who are committing genocide there. Kang told agents.

Im just going to go there ... and fight these guys who are committing genocide.

5. At least seven FBI operatives were involved in an elaborate scenario to catch Kang.

One posed as a lecturer at a course that the soldier attended. He befriended Kang and the two later prayed at a mosque together.

That FBI agent introduced the soldier to a string of other agents posing as ISIS-affiliated operators.

Another agent posed as an instructor at the Army combatives course.

It was these agents to whom Kang allegedly gave classified documents.

He also made a video, with one of the FBI operatives, that the soldier hoped would help teach ISIS better fighting techniques, according to federal agents.

In front of the same agents, Kang allegedly pledged loyalty to ISIS before being arrested.

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Authorities arrested a 16-year-old girl Sunday on suspicion of fatally stabbing an elderly man in Apple Valley, police said.

On Saturday afternoon, deputies responded to an apartment in the 12700 block of Kiowa Road, where 79-year-old Willie Hunter was found dead with multiple stab wounds, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department.

Investigators believe the teenager, who was not identified, was at the mans apartment when they began arguing.

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The girl allegedly stabbed Hunter several times before taking off with his car, police said.

Police said the pair knew each other, but they did not elaborate on how.

After interviewing the teen, investigators booked her into juvenile hall on suspicion of murder.

Anyone with information about the stabbing is asked to call Det. Justin Giles at (909) 387-3589.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AleneTchek
Two wildfires erupted in Southern California on Sunday afternoon, threatening homes and triggering evacuations in La Verne and Lucerne Valley.

The La Verne blaze scorched about 40 acres of medium to heavy brush, sending three firefighters to the hospital with minor injuries, said Eddie Pickett, a dispatcher with the L.A. County Fire Department.

The fire was reported around 3 p.m. near the 210 Freeway and Fruit Street, where it was burning uphill toward residential neighborhoods.

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As of shortly after 6:30 p.m., the blaze was no longer moving toward homes, though a gust of wind or anything else can change that, Pickett said.

(Steve Clow / Los Angeles Times)

On Twitter, L.A. County Fire officials said the fire  which triggered a three-alarm response and drew nearly 300 firefighters and at least three water-dropping helicopters  was 50% contained.

Voluntary evacuations in the Live Oak Canyon and Webb Canyon areas were lifted.

Police closed Baseline Road between Fruit Street and Japonica Avenue and warned commuters to avoid the area.

Several drivers had stopped their cars on the Fruit Street on-ramp to take photos of the fire, according to the California Highway Patrol. Traffic was snarled in both directions of the 210 Freeway.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation.

#BREAKINGNEWS: Fast-moving brush fire in La Verne burns 7-10 acres, threatens homeshttps://t.co/x9EZE1C1P1 pic.twitter.com/RdiGJNktXM  ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) July 23, 2017

Another fast-moving wildfire erupted about 20 miles southeast of Victorville, charring roughly 100 acres of brush and prompting mandatory evacuations, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The blaze was reported just before 4 p.m. off High Road near Highway 18 in Lucerne Valley, according to Cal Fire spokeswoman Debbie Chapman.

In 2 hours, it exploded from five acres to about 100, burning toward homes scattered in the desert. Roughly 200 firefighters responded to the fire.

Mandatory evacuations were in effect along sections of High Road, as well as south of Sutter, north of Santa Rosa and east of Buena Vista roads.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AleneTchek

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UPDATES:

7:20 p.m.: This article was updated with information about a second brush fire.

5:30 p.m.: This article was updated with new information about the size of the fire.

4:45 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details on the number of acres burned.

This article was originally published at 4:05 p.m.
Al Franken will be Stuart Smalley to me for as long as he lives. But since he was elected to represent Minnesota in Congress, his Daily Affirmations have been replaced with ferocity on the Senate floor, and as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Franken's gotten quite a bit of attention for his unwavering scrutiny of the Trump administration's relationship with Russia. Somehow, he's still managed to squeeze in time to write a memoir about his 2008 electionone that included an eight month recountand thanks to The Strand, he'll be in New York next week to discuss it.

On August 1st, Franken will join fellow political funnyman Seth Meyers at the Great Hall at Cooper Union to dig into Al Franken: Giant of the Senate, his aforementioned memoir focusing on his new-ish career in politics. And if the book is anything like some of Franken's previous work  Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them  it's bound to be good. (I have fond memories of basically crying on my parents' couch while reading the former as a tween, even though I was then blessedly ignorant about Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich.) Bonus: a higher-tier ticket will get you a copy along with admission to the event.

You can also (probably) expect Franken to offer up a few fun behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the Capitol, as well as some highlights from his time at Saturday Night Live, where his political career has managed to net him his own caricature:

The event takes place from 8 to 9 p.m., with seating kicking off at 7 p.m. You can get the book with admission for $32, or just admission for $15, and tickets are now available for purchase online.
Scripps Ranch High School parents are taking legal action against San Diego school officials for the invalidation of hundreds of Advanced Placement exams.

The San Diego Unified School District has received at least eight claims seeking a combined total of nearly $500,000 in damages since Thursday, when Scripps Ranch officials sent an email to parents with information on retests and the liability process.

We understand that some families feel they may have experienced an undue financial hardship as a result of AP exam retesting, the email said. Individuals who feel they have sustained additional monetary loss should submit a district liability claim form along with all supporting documentation.

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The AP tests were administered in May. High school students often spend the entire school year learning material and prepping for exams, which represent a major financial opportunity for those bound for college.

High AP exam scores can often be converted into college credit, potentially saving thousands of dollars in tuition or allowing students to take a smaller class load and still graduate on time.

The College Board, which oversees the exams, and its test administrator, Educational Testing Service, notified the district in June that more than 800 exams were invalidated because of how students were seated.

Specifically, students were too close together  at 6-foot tables instead of 8-foot tables  and were separated by partitions, which are not allowed.

According to copies of five of the liability forms obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune, the claims seek anywhere from $4,524 to $318,000 for damages including loss of income over the summer and tuition for retaking a class if the student is unable to retest.

The family seeking $318,000 had two affected students. The claim asks for $64,000 for both students delayed entry into the workforce due to the loss of credits, $30,000 in extra college expenses to pay for and complete the college courses, $20,000 for pain and suffering, $200,000 for long-term damages to both students earning potential and $4,000 for a loss of income over the summer.

Maureen Magee, a spokeswoman for San Diego Unified, said the district is doing everything possible to minimize damage to students and their families.

Students have been offered two opportunities to retake their AP exams, Magee said, and the school organized study sessions to help students prepare. Costs for both the retakes and study sessions are being covered by the district.

Connie Milton, another Scripps Ranch parent, said her daughter is unable to retake the AP statistics exam in either round of testing sessions because of pre-planned travel.

Milton filed a claim with the district on Friday, seeking  among other things  the cost of the college course her daughter would have been able to skip using credit from the AP exam.

I just want whats fair, Milton said. The district and the school are at fault here and in the grand scheme of things, without some sort of consequence, what motivation do they have to make sure this doesnt happen again?

The College Board began investigating Scripps Ranchs seating protocol after the schools testing administrator reported that a student was caught cheating.

Schools are required to complete an incident report whenever a disruption or disturbance takes place during an AP exam, according to testing instructions on the College Boards website. Each report must be submitted to the College Board along with completed exams and other materials.

Reports of cheating in particular must be accompanied by a seating chart of the examination room.

This was not a mistake but rather gross negligence, said Scripps Ranch parent Tracy Jewell in a claim mailed to San Diego Unified on Friday. If [school officials] had read the exam manual and followed the rules, which is what we expect of our students and adults on a daily basis, this issue would be null.

Jewell said school officials should have taken action immediately after submitting a seating chart proving noncompliance, so students could have retaken exams when the material was still fresh.

Jewells claim seeks damages for the cost for her son to retake the class in college and compensation for the hours he spent studying for the retest when he could have been at his summer job.

Retests started last week, with a second round set to begin on Aug. 7.

Scripps Ranch officials said in an email that all claims must be submitted by mail or delivered in person to San Diego Unifieds risk management department located at 6735 Gifford Way by Dec. 15.

Parents and students seeking a refund for the original cost of the exam do not need to file a claim.

Contact Lauryn Schroeder via Twitter or Email.
San Diego Unified School District trustees will discuss clarifications and new developments to its anti-bullying policy aimed at protecting Muslim students during a meeting with a packed agenda Tuesday night.

Also on the agenda will be a presentation on a sex education curriculum that has drawn protests from parents and a proposal to lower the threshold for taking action if lead is found in drinking water on campuses.

In April, the district approved a plan to address the bullying of Muslim students in response to a study by the Council on Americani-Islamic Relations that found students of that faith were bullied at a disproportionately higher rate in California.

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A backlash that drew national attention soon followed, and six parents filed a lawsuit in May claiming the policy was unconstitutional and favored students of one religion over another.

On Tuesday, the board will hear a report that addresses some specific concerns people had with the policy and will clarify the districts association with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

District public information officer Andrew Sharp said the San Diego Unified never had a formal contract with the organization, and the report states that staff is being redirected from forming a formal partnership with CAIR and instead will form an intercultural committee that will include representatives of all faiths and cultures to provide the district input on cultural sensitivities and needs within the various groups.

Attorney Charles LiMandri, president and chief council for the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, is representing the parents in the lawsuit against the district. He has said the association with CAIR was concerning because officials in the the organization have been linked to terrorism and its mission is to change American society and advance radical Islam.

CAIR has responded on its official website to similar charges by saying the group is being found guilty by association and it has a track record of opposing extremism.

Hearing of the districts latest statement about CAIR, attorney Daniel Piedra of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund issued a statement.

Even though the Board had the opportunity to remedy the anti-Islamophobia initiative prior to this legal action, we are pleased that they have recognized the importance of both protecting the religious equality of all students and minimizing the influence of divisive outside forces, he wrote.

Nevertheless, as we try to work toward a reasonable resolution that avoids further litigation, we will continue  for our schoolchildrens sake  to hold the Board to a standard in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and California state law, he concluded.

In another action that expands on a change mentioned in April, calendars used by teachers will include major holidays for all faiths, not just Islam.

When the policy was first presented in April, district Family and Community Engagement Director Stan Anjan said putting Islam holidays on school calendars would help teachers with Muslim students plan their schedules.

Anjan explained that by alerting teachers of the holidays, they could avoid scheduling things like after-school meetings with parents on days that Muslim families may not attend.

Sharp said the districts calendar lists no religious holidays, and the plan was never to name only Muslim ones. A page of frequently asked questions on the district website has stated for weeks that the plan is to add major holidays for all faiths to help principals and individual school communities plan events at times that are least disruptive to the populations they serve.

Sharp said the board also will hear a report on expanding the Anti-Defamation Leagues No Place for Hate campaign to all schools in the fall. The campaign provides tools for combating bias, bullying and hatred while empowering students, faculty and family members.

Sharp said the program is an example of how the district is trying to protect all students. He also said much of the concern about the district favoring Muslim students was a misunderstanding that came in the spring with discussions about how the district should respond to bullying against that specific faith.

Trustee Kevin Beiser has pushed for the No Place for Hate campaign to expand.

Were going to continue to protect all students, including those who are Muslim, and do it in a way thats inclusive and establishes an expectation that all students are protected and safe, he said.

Also on Tuesday, the district will hear of a plan to lower the threshold of when it should take action if lead is found in water at schools.

The state sets the acceptable level of lead with a formula based on micrograms per liter, which translates to a maximum of 15 parts per billion. A plan before the board would lower the level to 5 parts per billion.

Tests conducted by the city of San Diego this year found elevated levels of lead in water at Co-Operative Charter School 2 and Emerson-Bandini School , which share the same campus, and at Birney Elementary School.

Also on Tuesday, the board will hear a report on the sex education curriculum in grades 6, 8 and in high school. More than 1,000 people have signed a petition that said the lessons are age-inappropriate.

Of 27,000 students who received the curriculum in their biology classes, 0.73 percent, or 196 students, opted out, according to the district.

The board is scheduled to meet 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Eugene Brucker Education Center Auditorium, at 4100 Normal St.

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In response to a lawsuit claiming that hundreds of asylum seekers were illegally turned away at San Diego ports of entry, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D.-Calif., has asked Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly for answers.

In a letter sent Monday, Feinstein asked for policy clarification, data on asylum seekers and what guidance has been given to Customs and Border Protection field officers since President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for tightening of policies for implementation of asylum law.

Under U.S. immigration law, if people say they are afraid to return to their home countries, border officials cannot send them back without passing them along to asylum officers to determine whether their asylum cases might be valid.

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Claims of asylum seekers turned back at the border, particularly in the San Diego region, have surfaced since last summer, well before Trump took office. Those claims have increased in frequency since his inauguration. The allegations range from officials telling asylum seekers that the U.S. isnt accepting any more asylum seekers to officials coercing them into withdrawing their claims.

These are not singular events, Feinstein wrote in her letter. They provide very concerning details suggesting that CBP officials are exceeding their authority and, if true, have the consequence of categorically denying important protections for vulnerable populations fleeing persecution.

As reports have surfaced from asylum seekers saying they were illegally turned away, the Department of Homeland Security has defended its policies, saying that its officials follow the law.

In January, eight immigrant rights organizations sent a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security asking for an investigation into border officials practices involving asylum seekers.

In early July, Al Otro Lado, American Immigration Council and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles to allow entry to several asylum seekers who said theyd been turned away and to establish a monitoring system for border officials.

Feinstein requested that Kelly respond to her letter by Aug. 3.

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Bell Middle School teacher Shane Parmely was detained for over an hour by Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint in New Mexico because she refused to say whether she was a U.S. citizen.

Parmelys family helped her film the incident, which she posted Friday evening on her Facebook account in several segments that were widely shared. Parmely told Border Patrol agents that she believed she did not have to answer their questions. One agent showed her a card listing immigration law and a Supreme Court case decision that give Border Patrol agents authority to operate checkpoints within 100 miles of the border and to ask questions about citizenship without warrants.

Citizens? an agent asked her as she drove up to the checkpoint.

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Are we crossing a border? Parmely responded.

No. Are you United States citizens? he repeated.

Are we crossing a border? Parmely repeated. Ive never been asked if Im a citizen before when Im traveling down the road.

As the agent continued to repeat his question, Parmely told him that he could ask her the question, but she didnt have to answer.

You are required to answer an immigration question, the agent said. You are not required to answer any other questions.

When Parmely refused to answer the question, the agent told her that she was being detained for an immigration inspection.

So if I just come through and say, Yes, Im a citizen, I can just go ahead? Parmely asked.

If the agent is justified by the answer, then yes, the agent responded.

So if I have an accent, and Im brown, can I just say, Yes, and go ahead or do I have to prove it? she asked. I have a bunch of teacher friends who are sick of their kids being discriminated against.

Ok, Im not discriminating against anybody, the agent said.

San Diego teacher refuses to answer Border Patrol questions at a checkpoint. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Later during the encounter, Parmelys son asked to use the bathroom. One agent told Parmely that he could not use the bathroom until his mother answered the question about her citizenship. Another agent came over shortly after to escort the boy to a bathroom.

Border Patrol agents eventually let Parmely go without answering their question.

Parmelys videos are not an isolated incident. For years, people who view such checkpoints as a violation of their Constitutional rights have filmed and posted interactions with Border Patrol agents.

While most praised Parmely for her actions, some criticized what they saw as disrespect to law enforcement doing their jobs.

Im SICK of people claiming that law enforcement is the problem. Until of course you need them, wrote Jaime N Jerry Bevan, who said that her husband is a detective.

Parmely responded, What was the point of refusing to move to the back of the bus?

Enforcing racist laws perpetuates institutional racism, Parmely added in another comment. Im sick of helping perpetuate racist laws just because Im not inconvenienced by them.

Parmely responded to a Facebook message from a Union-Tribune reporter, saying she might be able to talk later but could not for now.

The school website indicates that she teaches English, art and theater.

According to a flier from the American Civil Liberties Union, Border Patrol has the authority to stop vehicles at checkpoints and ask questions to verify citizenship.

The flier says that people can exercise their right to remain silent but may be detained if they refuse to answer citizenship questions. Agents cannot detain someone for an extended time without cause.

Border Patrol spokesman Mark Endicott issued a statement in response to the incident saying the agencys policy is to treat people with dignity and respect.

Border Patrol checkpoints are a critical tool for the enforcement of our nations immigration laws, the statement said. At a Border Patrol checkpoint, an agent may question a vehicles occupants about their citizenship, place of birth, and request document proof of immigration status, how legal status was obtained and make quick observations of what is in plain view in the interior of the vehicle.

During the course of the immigration inspection, if an occupant refuses to answer an agents questions, the agent may detain the driver for a reasonable amount of time until he or she can make a determination regarding the occupants immigration status.

 Join the discussion on Facebook

 According to a flier from the American Civil Liberties Union, Border Patrol has the authority to stop vehicles at checkpoints and ask questions to verify citizenship. (Fox 5, San Diego)

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A handcuffed man escaped from the back of a San Diego patrol car Sunday afternoon and made it more than a mile to the San Diego Bay where he was eventually found in the water, under the deck of a restaurant, police said.

The man was first arrested about 8 a.m. in connection with a domestic violence incident in North Park, San Diego police Sgt. Jordan Wells. The suspect was in the back of the patrol car, parked at the departments headquarters on Broadway, when he managed to move his handcuffed hands to his lap and escape around 1:15 p.m.

A number of witnesses called 911 after spotting the man, and one reported seeing him near West G Street and North Harbor Drive, Wells said. Police headed that way and a police helicopter soon located the man under the Fish Market, a seafood restaurant on the bay, about 2 p.m.

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It took officers about 20 minutes to convince the man to swim to shore, where he was taken into custody, police said.

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More than 400 firefighters were battling a brush fire in rugged terrain near Warner Springs Sunday as the fire raged for a second day.

The blaze, called the Lost fire, charred more than 255 acres and was 40 percent contained, Cal Fire Capt. Kendal Bortisser said Sunday. The fire began around 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The cause remains under investigation.

Authorities on Saturday evacuated the Lost Valley Boy Scout campground and Indian Flats campground. It wasnt threatening any structures Sunday.

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The winds are pretty mild, theyve been cooperating all day today, Bortisser said. The biggest factor is the steep, rocky terrain.

Some crews were flown in to fight the fire rather than hiking to the remote areas, Bortisser said. Crews also were using bulldozers to cut in roads to provide access to the fire area.

The captain said four air tankers and four helicopters were assigned to the fire.

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com
Police arrested a 36-year-old woman early Monday in connection with the stabbing of two women staying in temporary housing at San Diego High during Comic-Con.

The woman who was arrested and the two victims, who were in their 20s, all had worked as security guards at the convention center and were staying at the high school on Park Boulevard.

Shortly before 2 a.m., the older woman became angry when she thought someone had stolen her belongings and began stabbing air mattresses set up in the gym with a kitchen knife, said San Diego police Officer Dino Delimitros.

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When the two women confronted the knife-wielding assailant about damaging the mattresses, they were stabbed, too. The victims suffered injuries not thought to be life threatening, police said.

The suspect ran away after the attack but was found by police a few minutes later and arrested, Delimitros said.

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com
San Diego police are trying to determine whether Saturdays suicide of a 34-year-old woman was the result of grief over the death of her mother or if she was somehow involved in killing her mother.

This could be a distraught family member who takes her (own) life, but we are investigating if theres anything else, if that suicide is connected to the murder, said San Diego homicide Lt. Mike Holden. We need to find out if the murder was a motivating factor beyond grief and thats something we are looking at.

Maria Kelly, 66, had been missing from her Chula Vista home since Thursday. She was found dead inside her Mission Valley office Saturday by family members, Holden said. Her daughter, Crystal Vasquez, committed suicide in a nearby building soon after being told of the death.

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Detectives are reviewing a tremendous amount of video surveillance from cameras in the building and interviewing family and friends of the victim. Investigators got a search warrant for Kellys office where more evidence was collected, the lieutenant said.

The family has been very cooperative, he said. They are a very nice family. It is a devastating event for everyone involved.

Kellys grandson, C.J. Stewart, told reporters Saturday that his grandfather initially wasnt that worried about Kelly because he thought she might have gone to a casino with a friend.

After reporting her missing to police, family members went to Kellys office where she worked as a tax preparer and bookkeeper. They found her body in a locked closet.

Initially, her death was thought to be from natural causes. A county Medical Examiners investigator later determined she had a single gunshot wound and homicide investigators were called.

By time they showed up, a second person was dead.

Family members had called the 34-year-old Vasquez to tell her that her mother had been found dead. Shortly after she arrived, Vasquez went to use the bathroom at the building next door and didnt return. Her husband went to check on her and found her inside with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

Holden said Vasquez, of Chula Vista, had worked with her mother, helping her with her tax preparing business.

A GoFundMe campaign was started by Desiree Eselin, who said she was trying to raise money for funeral expenses for her grandmother and aunt.

These were two beautiful people who deserve to be laid to rest, Eselin wrote. My grandmother was the sweetest person in the world, always thinking of her family and putting everyone else before her. It hurts me to know someone could harm such a beautiful soul.

Vasquez, she wrote, was an amazing mother and wife and is survived by two children.

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com
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Jim Price (Comparing Trump to Obama is ridiculous, July 7) asked for three things that President Obama did to damage our country and our childrens future.

First, he added almost $10 trillion to the national debt. This will be paid for by our children.

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Second, he badly destabilized the Middle East through his foreign policy, directly leading to Ambassador Stevens murder as well and the rise of ISIS. ISIS is not only the single-most-dangerous force in the Middle East but is a growing threat in Europe and America. Third, he set race relations back 20 years. Instead of providing calming leadership, he stirred things up and continually used his position to drive a wedge and further divide the races.

I am hardly a fan of Trump, but President Obamas term was very damaging to America.

Andy Barnes

San Diego

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Just hours after the last ballot returns were counted, the phone lines of defense attorneys across the state began to light up Wednesday morning with calls from inmates.

With the passage of Proposition 47, simple drug possession and property crimes valued under $950 are now misdemeanors, effective immediately. Punishment means, at the worst, up to a year in jail, no longer prison. It also means up to 10,000 inmates serving time for those crimes can begin to apply for shortened sentences, a process many were eager to get started.

This morning at 8 a.m., we took 10 attorneys and put them on the phones, said Randy Mize, a chief deputy at the Public Defenders Office. They were taking 200 calls an hour from inmates in county jail. These are people asking us to file petitions on their behalf.

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The scramble to put the new law into practice was starting to touch all corners of the criminal justice system Wednesday, from the City Attorneys Office, which will have to handle 3,000 extra cases a year, to police officers who will have new protocols to follow for certain arrests.

At Juvenile Hall Wednesday morning, six kids were released because they had felony charges that are now classified as misdemeanors under Proposition 47, and legally minors cant be detained longer than an adult would, authorities said.

I think the roll out today started fairly smoothly, Mize said. He attributed much of that to the fact that criminal justice leaders from around the county  including prosecutors, public defenders, the sheriff and probation officers  have been meeting for the past month to prepare for this day.

Despite the planning, there are still plenty of unknowns when it comes to Proposition 47s impact.

The law is intended to ease prison overcrowding, and put most of the estimated $200 million saved in prison costs annually into drug and mental health treatment programs to staunch recidivism. The majority of law enforcement officials around the state and the county are skeptical it will have the desired effect, and fear less time behind bars will only contribute to the revolving door of the criminal justice system. But, officials say, they will do their best to make it work.

Its still a work in progress, Sheriff Bill Gore said Wednesday. Our primary concern is clearly the publics safety.

Heres a look at the initial steps being taken around the county:

 Law enforcement officers were reminded of the new law in police lineups around the county. As of Wednesday, six crimes that used to be felonies are now misdemeanors: drug possession for personal use, as well as five property crimes valued below $950, theft, writing bad checks, forgery, shoplifting and receiving stolen property.

One of the biggest differences when arresting someone on a misdemeanor, rather than a felony, is that the crime must have occurred in the officers presence, or be witnessed by a citizen willing to sign an affidavit saying so.

Several training memos have been distributed in the past few weeks to prepare deputies on such arrests, Gore said.

 The effect will likely be minimal on San Diego County jails at first. The sheriff said people will still be booked into jail on misdemeanor drug possession cases and those five property crimes. They will still have to post bail or wait until arraignment to be released. The fluctuation will come as inmates currently serving time get released with shorter sentences, as the law requires; and later as offenders who would have previously gone to prison now serve their time in jail.

Right now, Gore said, about 400 of the jails roughly 5,800 inmates are in for drug possession.

 The law means a lot more work for the City Attorneys Office, which handles misdemeanor cases for the city of San Diego and Poway. Having responsibility for these six new misdemeanor crimes will add about 3,000 cases a year to its workload. Thats a 15 percent increase in the 18,000 to 20,000 cases the office already handles annually.

To handle a 15 percent increase while maintaining quality will require either an increase in resources or a change in the way misdemeanors are prosecuted in San Diego, said City Attorney Jan Goldsmith.

As for the affected cases that are currently being prosecuted, the District Attorneys Office  which handles felonies in the city  will keep them. On Wednesday, several of those felony cases were refiled as misdemeanors, said Chief Deputy District Attorney David Greenberg. Those cases will head to either misdemeanor trial or settlement.

 The effect on the county Probation Departments workload isnt clear. It will depend on how frequently the court grants probation in misdemeanor cases, and how much supervision each offender will require. Some offenders might be at higher risk because of their criminal backgrounds, and may require more supervision, said Probation Chief Mack Jenkins.

 The Public Defenders Office has already identified about 200 state prisoners and 1,800 other offenders either in jail or under the supervision of probation who might be eligible to be resentenced under Proposition 47. The first set of petitions are expected to be filed within the next day or so, with priority given to those in custody. Once the application is filed in court, the District Attorneys Office will review it to make sure the person is eligible, then a judge will OK it and hand down a new, shorter sentence. The process could be as quick as a few weeks for the first group of offenders, said Mize, with public defenders office.

There will be a few cases that the DA thinks should be excluded, and we dont, and those will be litigated, Mize said. There may also be a few offenders that prosecutors think are too dangerous to be released, and those cases will be argued. Inmates who cant be resentenced are those who have prior convictions such as murder, attempted murder and violent sex crimes.

The public defenders office has also identified nearly 200,000 other people who have been convicted since 1990  thats as far back as its database goes  of the crimes reclassified under Proposition 47. They can now apply to have their records show misdemeanor rather than felony convictions. Statewide, that could apply to millions of people.

Said Mize, It will certainly take a lot more work in the short term.
It was the Oscars of Drink Making on Saturday night, as 11th annual Spirited Awards took place in New Orleans. Part of the cocktail industry's "Tales of the Cocktail" festivalwhere all your favorite bartenders and cocktail devotees were getting wild this weekendthe awards honor the world's best in shaking and stirring. NYC dominated the American categories, with area cocktail dens and restaurants bringing home four crystal plates.

The West Village's negroni haven Dante (which recently added a summer pop-up in Little Italy) was dubbed Best American Restaurant Bar.

What a ride! Dante, Best American Restaurant Bar 2017  We've been on an incredible journey together. We are so grateful to our Dante family; the huge number of regulars and supporters who have been with us since opening our doors and to everyone who helped us make this dream a reality. We love you!! Time to party!  A post shared by Dante NYC (@dantenewyorkcity) on Jul 22, 2017 at 8:28pm PDT

The NoMad Barnot to be confused with The Elephant Bar at The NoMadwalked away with Best American Bar Team. (Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until August 1st to enjoy their fancy large-format cocktails, as the space is closed for maintenance in July.)

PDT is no stranger to the Spirited Awards, having been named World's Best Cocktail Bar in 2009. Jeff Bell, who's been at the East Village speakeasy since 2010, was named American Bartender of the Year for 2017.

Last night was outstanding!! American Bartender of the Year  A post shared by Jeff Bell (@jeffreymbell) on Jul 23, 2017 at 8:48am PDT

Lastly: Blacktail, the Cuban-themed project from the Dead Rabbit duo of Jack McGarry and Sean Muldoon, took home honors as the Best New American Cocktail Bar.

Be sure to check out the complete list of winners, including a number of bars that are (for whatever reason) not in NYC.
Cherry Hill, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/24/2017 -- Hutchinson Plumbing Heating Cooling Energy Services, an established HVAC company located in Southern New Jersey, is offering the tri-state area energy audits to help lower home energy usage. An energy audit will not only cut utility bill costs by identifying where the home is losing energy, but it can also uncover health and safety concerns as well. Inevitably, homeowners will learn how to use energy more efficiently after an energy audit is completed at their NJ, PA, or DE homes.



A professional energy audit entails an analysis of energy usage, health and safety inspections, and much more. During the health and safety inspection, Hutchinson will check for any active mold, roof leaks, gas leaks, improperly vented exhausts, as well as perform energy tests on the home's gas appliances to identify it they are functioning efficiently. Hutchinson will also review the home for air-sealing opportunities and any insulation problems.



A Hutchinson energy auditor can also suggest where the homeowner can improve energy usage by recommending Energy Star rated appliances they install, which can dramatically reduce a home energy bill over time. Residents in the tri-state area considering a professional energy audit can save up to 30% on their energy bills after upgrading the appliances in their home. The first step to enjoying and experiencing all of these dramatic savings is the Hutchinson energy audit, offered complimentary to new customers and those who have a service agreement.



To learn more about having an energy audit performed in PA, NJ, or DE, please visit Hutchinson's website to take their quick five-point efficiency quiz.



About Hutchinson Plumbing Heating Cooling Energy Services

Hutchinson Plumbing Heating Cooling Energy Services is a family-run business dedicated to providing total home solutions to their South Jersey and Delaware Valley neighbors. Based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, they have been in business for over six and a half decades. Hutchinson is a full-service company offering heating, cooling, and plumbing products and services. Additionally, Hutchinson is accredited by the Department of Energy, ranked first in the nation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for exceptional performance and won the EPA Century Award. Hutchinson has also gained an A+ accreditation rating from BBB.



For more information about Hutchinson visit http://www.hutchbiz.com/.
Las Vegas, NV -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/24/2017 -- SwaySecurity has now been introduced as the newest Las Vegas Private Patrol Company in Southern Nevada, who has Headquarters in Las Vegas. Their Grand Opening will provide the optimum security and protection in all areas of Las Vegas.



The aim of SwaySecurity is to bring out the best cutting edge technology to the world that is simply the best form of protection. They work harder and train harder. They are also acclaimed as security agents with a good reputation. They will offer the most effective and most reliable security solutions for the protection of the lives and properties of people they work for.



SwaySecurity also offers complete portfolio prior to their on-going and completed projects relevance to the excellent private security industry. All projects are suited to the company's aspirations and strengths. They will not take jobs on that don't fit the company brand, and this create a great relationship with their clients.



SwaySecurity also offers Las Vegas executive protection, small business personnel protection, and Residential Solutions such as HOA Guard Gate Access. SwaySecurity purpose is to ensure that they can always handle everything at the safest and most secure way possible. It is also their belief to give only high-quality services.



SwaySecurity also offers security guard jobs for business and construction sites. This means to say that all construction and business industries in Las Vegas will now have a professional and cutting edge option for their private security needs. The company also has the best and most professional security guards who can best manage the safety and protection of their businesses. SwaySecurity also keep a closer bond and relationship with their personnel, off and on duty. SwaySecurity trains officers for their advancement in the Private Security Industries.



With SwaySecurity, everyone in Las Vegas will be assured that their lives and their properties will be protected no matter what happens. People rest assured when they know a company like SwaySecurity can provide the right protection, safety and security that they need.



Contact: Essix

Company: SwaySecurity

Address: Las Vegas, Nevada NV PILB #2292B

Website: www.swaysecurity.com

Email Address: Weprotect@swaysecurity.com

Telephone No.: 888-882-3082 EXT 850
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 07/24/2017 -- Talc is a mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate and is an important industrial and commercial mineral. It has broad applications as an industrial mineral due to its resistance to heat, electricity and acids and oil and grease adsorption. Talc has extensive commercial use because of its luster, softness, purity, fragrance retention, softness and whiteness. It is the softest known mineral and has a rating of 1 on the Mohs hardness scale. It can be scratched by a fingernail and is also sectile that means it can be cut by a knife. It has a specific gravity of 2.5 -2.8 and has clear luster. Talc is slightly soluble in dilute mineral acids and insoluble in water. It is a metamorphic mineral and occurs due to metamorphism of magnesium minerals such as olivine, amphibole, serpentine and pyroxene in presence of water and carbon dioxide. Talc is a tri-octahedral layered mineral and has a similar structure to that of pyrophyllite.



To access full report @http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/talc-market.asp



Talc can be used as an ingredient in paints, roofing materials, ceramics, insecticides, rubber, talcum powder and insecticides among others. It is also used by the cosmetics industry, pulp and paper industry and food industry. Talc is often used to manufacture laboratory countertops and electrical switchboards due to its resistance to heat, acids and electricity. It is used by the cosmetic industry as a lubricant and as a filler by the pulp and paper industry. Talc is extensively used to make astringent baby powders that prevent rashes covered by a diaper. Talc is used by the pharmaceutical industry as a glidant (a substance that is added to powder to improve its flow ability) and by the food industry as an additive. In the European Union the additive number is E553b. In medicine, talc is used as a pluerodesis agent to prevent pneumothorax or recurrent pleural effusion. Talc is also an effective dispersing agent and anti caking agent and helps fertilizer plants and animal feeds to function efficiently and can be used for fertilizers.



A sample of this report is available upon request @ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4609



The paper and pulp industry remains the largest global end market for talc and is the key driving factor for the talc Industry. The automotive industry, ceramics industry and the paint and coatings industry are the other major consumers of talc. The use of talc as a filler in the paper industry is declining today but the use of talc for the manufacture of under the hood automotive parts is substantially increasing that has further lead to surge in demand for talc by the automotive industry.



Asia Pacific is the largest market for talc with China, India, Japan, Bhutan, and South Korea being the key markets in this region. The Indian talc industry is the world's third largest and continues to grow due to increase in domestic consumption. North America and Europe are other regions with a substantial market share of talc. Austria, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and United Kingdom are the major consumers of talc in Europe.



To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4609



Some of the major companies dominating the talc market are Imerys talc, Mondo Minerals, Golcha Group, American Talc, IMI FABI, Nippon Talc, Minerals Technologies Inc, the Jai Group, Aihai Talc, Behai Talc, Shuiquan Talc, Xin Talc, Haumei Talc, Guiguang Talc and Xin Talc among others. Imerys talc is the world's leading producer of talc followed by Mondo Minerals.



Key geographies evaluated in this report are:



North America

U.S

Canada

Europe

France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK

Eastern Europe

CIS

APAC

China

India

Japan

Australia

Others

Latin America

Argentina

Brazil

Others

Key features of this report



Drivers, restraints, and challenges shaping the Talc market dynamics

Latest innovations and key events in the industry

Analysis of business strategies of the top players

Talc market estimates and forecasts(2015 -2021)



About Persistence Market Research

Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.



To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.



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A mysterious hominin species mated with the ancestors of modern-day Sub-Saharan Africans, according to an analysis of modern human genomes published this month in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Previous studies have concluded that the forebears of modern humans in Asia and Europe interbred with other early hominin species, including Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The new research is among more recent genetic analyses indicating that ancient Africans also had trysts with other early hominins.

It seems that interbreeding between different early hominin species is not the exception  its the norm, said co-lead author Dr. Omer Gokcumen, of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Our research traced the evolution of one of the most abundant proteins in human saliva, mucin-7, which helps give spit its slimy consistency and binds to microbes, potentially helping to rid the body of disease-causing bacteria.

When we looked at the history of MUC7, the gene that codes for mucin-7, we see the signature of archaic admixture in modern-day Sub-Saharan African populations.

Dr. Gokcumen and his colleagues from the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and the State University of New York at Buffalo examined the MUC7 gene in more than 2,500 modern human genomes.

The analysis yielded a surprise: a group of genomes from Sub-Saharan Africa had a version of the gene that was wildly different from versions found in other modern humans.

The Sub-Saharan variant was so distinctive that Neanderthal and Denisovan MUC7 genes matched more closely with those of other modern humans than the Sub-Saharan outlier did.

Based on our analysis, the most plausible explanation for this extreme variation is archaic introgression  the introduction of genetic material from a ghost species of ancient hominins, Dr. Gokcumen said.

This unknown human relative could be a species that has been discovered, such as a subspecies of Homo erectus, or an undiscovered hominin.

We call it a ghost species because we dont have the fossils.

Given the rate that genes mutate during the course of evolution, Dr. Gokcumen and co-authors calculated that the ancestors of Sub-Saharan Africans interbred with the ghost hominin species as recently as 150,000 years ago, after the two species evolutionary path diverged from each other some 1.5 to 2 million years ago.

_____

Duo Xu et al. Archaic hominin introgression in Africa contributes to functional salivary MUC7 genetic variation. Mol Biol Evol, published online July 21, 2017; doi: 10.1093/molbev/msx206
The Montana Department of Justices Division of Criminal Investigation is being called to assist with the suspicious death of an adult female found roadside near Jefferson City around 6 a.m. Sunday, according to a press release from the state DOJ.

A citizen discovered the body near the intersection of Corbin Road and Rifle Road and alerted public safety officials. A local ambulance responded and contacted law enforcement after making initial assessments on scene that indicated the death was suspicious.

Confirmation of identity and cause/manner of death is pending until an autopsy is performed, which was scheduled for later Monday. Based on the initial investigation, it has been determined that there is no immediate threat to the public, officials said.

The case is being investigated jointly by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and the Division of Criminal Investigation, with support from the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office, Helena Police Department, Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement Department and the Montana Highway Patrol.
The Medium-altitude Earth Orbit Search and Rescue (MEOSAR) system comprises a ground segment as well as a space segment which deploys Medium-altitude Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites.

Distress signals, emitted from the emergency beacons activated by ships, for example, will be received simultaneously by the MEO satellites and relayed back to the ground segment.

The MEOSAR ground system, costing SGD8.4m ($6.2m), will be fully operational in 2018.

Andrew Tan, chief executive of MPA, said: In any search and rescue mission, time is of the essence. The new MEOSAR system will allow us to detect and locate the distress party more accurately for the expeditious deployment of assets to save lives.

This is in line with MPAs continuous efforts to adopt new technologies to enhance our search and rescue capabilities, Tan said.

The new MEOSAR system is an improvement to the current Low-altitude Earth Orbit Search and Rescue (LEOSAR) system, with access to more satellites and employment of more advanced technologies for faster detection and location of distress parties.
Press Release

July 22, 2017 Sen. Leila de Lima on the Liberal International visit

Dispatch from Crame No. 118 7 / 22 / 17 I thank the Liberal International (LI) Human Rights Committee Chairman Markus Loning for visiting me today, together with the representatives of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) Philippines. The LI President himself, Dr. Julie Minoves-Triquell, was supposed to be part of the group but he was denied entry for purported lack of clearance from PNP higher-ups. I feel bad about this because a proper and timely request was made by my staff. Given the stature of Dr. Triquell in the international diplomatic sphere, this particular incident can be a potential cause for embarrassment for our authorities. In any case, the dialogue with my guests went very well as it was very engaging. We discussed various pressing issues across the globe. I expressed my heartfelt gratitude to them for lending their voices in denouncing the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, for seeking action from the European Union (EU) against what they called as President Duterte's "illiberal state" because of the continuing violations of fundamental rights and rule of law, and for condemning my arrest brought about by Duterte's personal vendetta and political persecution. As they checked on my condition as a prisoner of conscience, I stressed my innocence and asserted that my arrest and detention are founded on orchestrated lies and fabricated evidence. I told them that despite my and the continued attacks and lies against me by this regime, I still manage to perform my duty as a sitting Senator by filing bills and resolutions, but I desire a more active involvement in law-making through participation in the voting particularly on major measures. It is clear: The whole world knows the appalling situation in the Philippines, and it is only a matter of time that Mr. Duterte and his cohorts be held accountable for their injustices and for perpetuating the culture of impunity, fear and violence in this country. Fake news and this regime's propaganda cannot hide these from the international community.
Press Release

July 22, 2017 Explanation of Vote of Senator Juan Miguel F. Zubiri

On the Resolution of Both Houses of Congress Approving the Extension of Martial Law Declaration in Mindanao until December 31, 2017 Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, I rise not just as a Senator of the Republic, but as a Senator representing Mindanao. It is quite frustrating and disheartening that all the gains of economic development we've had in Mindanao these past few years had been shattered by these extremist terrorists who are out to destroy the very freedom that we are enjoying today. Even those protesters earlier who were shouting to the high heavens under the Terrorist Daesh Regime, would have been lined-up outside and immediately shot in the heads. As a peace-loving Mindanaoan, I support our President's fight against these terrorists who know no creed, no religion, no law. The extension of Martial Law is necessary as the threat is still there, it is still present and once Marawi City is free from these terrorists, the harder part of rehabilitating and rebuilding begins. The builders could constantly be under threat by the terrorists similar to what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan who were constantly harassed by firefights and bombings. Why the whole Mindanao? Saan nahuli ang ibang Maute Group? In Davao, Zamboanga, and Cagayan de Oro because the boundaries are so porous that we need to protect all our citizens from the spread of this disease of terrorism. I vote yes, we from Mindanao vote yes for the extension of Martial Law to achieve our ultimate dream of long-lasting peace in Mindanao!
Press Release

July 23, 2017 ANGARA WANTS JOB CREATION A PRIORITY IN 2ND SONA Senator Sonny Angara has called on the Duterte administration to focus more on employment generation in the next five years, which, he said, is key to ending poverty and drug problem in the country. The latest labor force survey showed a decline in unemployment rate from 6.1% or 2.62 million unemployed Filipinos in April of 2016 to 5.7% or 2.44 million people in the same period this year. This translates to about 180,000 Filipinos who gained employment in the past year. "We welcome the improvement in our employment situation during the first year of President Duterte's administration. We call on our labor authorities to not only sustain, but intensify, our job creation programs," said Angara, vice chairman of the Senate labor committee. "We heard our President in his first SONA ordering our police force to triple its efforts to stop the drug trade. We are hoping that he makes the same command to minimize joblessness in the country. Dahil tiyak ko na ang pagbibigay ng sapat at disenteng trabaho ay isa sa mga sagot upang makaiwas ang ating mga kababayan sa droga at matulungan silang makaahon sa kahirapan," the senator added. A Rappler report on the profile of drug users who underwent rehab, which used data from the Dangerous Drugs Board, showed that there were more unemployed than employed rehab patients. Three out of four rehab patients, on the other hand, have a monthly family income of less than P11,000 or just above the poverty threshold. The same report also showed that there were out-of-school youths in rehab than students. Angara, who has shepherded the passage of nine labor laws in his first three years as senator, noted that the correlation between drug abuse and unemployment, especially among the youth, should be urgently addressed. Among his laws are the JobStart Philippines Act (RA 10869) and the law strengthening the Special Program for the Employment of Students (RA 10917) which both aim to help the youth land a job. According to the data from the Department of Labor and Employment, there are 215,615 poor but deserving students and out-of-school youth beneficiaries under SPES in the first year of the Duterte administration, while there are 2,551 JobStart beneficiaries who have stable jobs now. "Patuloy nating suportahan ang pangulo sa mga program nito sa paglikha ng trabaho. Dahil ito pa rin ang daan upang sama-samang umangat ang kalidad ng buhay ng bawat Pilipino. This is the key to realizing inclusive and sustainable growth in our country," Angara said.
Press Release

July 23, 2017 Duterte SONA nothing but a litany on killings and lies - De Lima Senator Leila M. de Lima today expected that the second State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Rodrigo Duterte would be another record for fake news. Speaking to reporters before her trial at the Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court, De Lima said she expects nothing but lies and a litany justifying the extrajudicial killings, even as Duterte has gone beyond his self-imposed deadline. "What will he brag about during the SONA? The killings? The lies?" she said. Let me remind him that he has already gone beyond his self-imposed three to six month deadline that he promised during his campaign," she said. Duterte won under a platform of ending criminality within six months, yet asked for an extension of half a year, to solve crime. A year after assuming power, crimes still exist, as the Administration's war on illegal drugs yielded more murders. De Lima had previously investigated Duterte during his days as Davao Mayor, questioning why extrajudicial killings in Davao remained unsolved during his term. The Senator, a former Justice Secretary, also said that Duterte should put his money where his mouth is, as his promises continue to remain unfulfilled. "The drugs are still there. It thrived once more in Bilibid. Why? Because they allowed these drug convicts to do their thing, in exchange for testifying against me. How about the true drug lords? Were there any arrests? How about those with corruption cases, didn't they release them?" she said. "How about ENDO? How about the salaries of the police and military? How is the traffic? Have prices of basic commodities gone down? Has the peso's value increased? Why is the government allowing China to take over our territory in West Philippine Sea?" she added. Like the fake news his supporters have continued to spread, De Lima only expects fake achievements from Duterte in his second SONA, such as her arrest on trumped-up drug charges. The former Justice Secretary is currently detained on fabricated drug charges of the administration, which is rooted on her strong opposition to the President's war on illegal drugs, as well as his personal vendetta after she investigated him for his links to the Davao Death Squad.
Press Release

July 23, 2017 Villanueva tells economic managers: Double your efforts in safeguarding investments amid ML extension Senator Joel Villanueva on Saturday urged the government's economic managers to exert extra effort in safeguarding the flow of investments amid the extension of Martial Law in Mindanao. In his interpellation during the special joint session of Congress, Villanueva asked regarding the economic implications of the imposition of martial rule in the region. The senator cited a data stating that Mindanao accounts for 5 percent of proceeds from our tourism sector which then makes up 20 percent of our economy. "Pagka nagtuluy-tuloy ang Martial Law hanggang December 2017, some other countries might issue travel bans. Are we ready for this? May buffer ba tayo? Yung Davao Chamber of Commerce nag-issue na sila na tinatamaan na sila doon sa kanilang turismo. I just want to ask how we are preparing for this," Villanueva said. In response to the senator's questions, Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez explained that our country's investors are not affected by the declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao. "Sa larangan ng investment, lahat po ng aming nakakausap ay walang nararamdamang panganib at pag-aalinlangan pagdating sa investment decision kasi ang investment po ay naka-base sa long-term prospects ng pag-nenegosyo at mga investment fundamentals," Lopez said. In terms of tourism, an official from the Department of Tourism shared that there were some reported cancellations for flights going to Mindanao. "But the cancellation does not necessarily mean that there's already a total stop in the arrival of tourists in the area. Overall, as of May this year, the total number of international tourists in the Philippines has increased by 19 percent and from January to May this year, we stayed positive at 14 percent," the tourism official said. On the other hand, the senator cited a Philippine Daily Inquirer article last July 20 stating that investments in Mindanao suffered from 63 percent cut based on the data presented by the Board of Investments. Villanueva said that if Martial Law in the region has indeed affected its local economy, especially the tourism sector, it would be better for the government to "double their efforts in boosting tourism in other regions like Luzon and Visayas." However, Secretary Lopez explained that the said data does not include the increase of international investments by 30 percent due to the "delay on the approval of projects". He added that the investors are more concerned on the Marawi issue and not on the imposition of Martial Law. "In fact, they view martial law as giving extra protection, it's making the environment safer. It's not Martial Law they are concerned about, it's terrorism," Lopez said. Provided with the said data, Villanueva said he is supportive of the extension of Martial Law in the region granted that the economic managers would commit to boosting the local economic development in Mindanao despite Martial Law. "In times like this where an ongoing conflict persists in one of our regions, the people who become the most affected are its residents. If the economic development in Mindanao would suffer, people might be left with no sustainable jobs. The challenge for our economic managers is to ensure economic activities in the region would continue despite the crisis. We would remain vigilant and continuously monitor the initiatives that our economic managers have committed to do," Villanueva said.
Press Release

July 24, 2017 Transcript of Ambush Interview with Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto Q: On the priority legislation of the 2nd Regular Session SPKPimentel: As far as I am concerned the following are my priorities and I have seen the priorities of other senators, plus of course, the unanticipated priority bills of the Duterte administration: the tax reform package, of course I will push that we study the revision of the Constitution, hind lang iyan for federalism purposes but even for the economic provisions, and based on the clamor of the people, they want a national ID system to be established, they want the strengthening of our anti-terrorism laws. Si Senate President Pro tempore Ralph Recto has other priorities in mind, he might.. SPPRecto: I have a full list in my office, maybe later you on might want to take a look at the list as well, consistent with what we have agreed upon in previous LEDAC meetings. Q: Sir you think it is time to tackle death penalty in this 2nd Regular Session? SPPRecto: I don't see that in the radars really. SPKP: Ganito na lang. As Senate President, this bill was submitted by the House so I think we owe it as a gesture of friendship to the House that since they passed it this so it means that they also want us to discuss it. Hanggang doon na lang, I will assure the House that we will discuss the death penalty bill. Q: But priority bill ba? SPKP: Not a priority bill, it is in the regular course of business. Q: Yung Bangsamoro Basic Law? SPKP: Thank you for reminding me, the BBL, kasi kabibigay lang pala noong last Monday noon. The BBL also, especially because it will be certified as urgent. A bill certified as urgent means that it is certified as important. Q: On appeal of former senators for Senate to be "stronger" this 2nd Regular Session SPKP: With the vote last Saturday, 16-4 isn't that strong enough? Huwag naman izero yung voice of dissent. We should not silence the voice of dissent. We should have an opposition or a minority in the Senate to check the majority.
Press Release

July 24, 2017 Recto sees red tape in new Balikbayan Box rules; calls Congress oversight panel to review new rules As complaints mount against unreasonable documentary requirements in the sending of balikbayan boxes, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto has called for the immediate "activation and convening" of a joint Senate-House oversight committee that will review the law's implementation. Recto said the Congressional Customs and Tariff Oversight Committee, which is mandated to monitor the proper implementation of Republic Act 10863, which pegs at P150,000 the total annual value of tax-free balikbayan box shipments, "is the right group to probe if the rules are indeed unreasonable." "We should review if because of the complicated requirements, balikbayan boxes will be wrapped in red tape," Recto said. The oversight committee's convening is also made urgent "by the crisis in Marawi, in order for us to find out if the rules and the system allowing for the duty-free shipment of donated relief goods to evacuees, as provided for in RA 10863, are already in place." Recto issued the call after newly released rules by the Bureau of Customs (BoC) on how an overseas Filipino can send home a balikbayan box include a requirement to paste on the box a detailed list of contents, and put inside the purchase receipts of brand-new goods. Recto said he shares "the apprehension of many OFWs that attaching a list of contents is tantamount to providing a keyhole that might tempt unscrupulous handlers to open it and rid it of its contents." "Ang pangamba nga ng isang OFW, kapag nilista, baka maramaing matukso kasi parang sinulat mo na rin na 'take me I'm yours'", he said. "Dito sa Pilipinas, you can trust almost all of the forwarders to treat the box carefully because they have a business and reputation to protect. Pero kung paano in transit at wala pa sa jurisdiction ng Pilipinas?" he said. While he recognizes the right of BoC to impose rules to ensure that duty-free balikbayan box privileges are not abused by "smugglers", the rules must, however, be designed in a way that they will not inconvenience the greater number of overseas Filipino. "Yung mga unneeded, frivolous requirements na magpapahirap sa mga OFWs, tanggalin na ang mga yan. Yung mga rules that will increase the vulnerability of the boxes being tampered with, out na rin dapat yan," he said. "Ang general principle ay okay lang na merong reglamento pero huwag mahirap at huwag marami. At dapat mga rules na magpapabilis at hindi magpapabagal," he said. Recto said it will be the duty of the oversight committee to make a finding if the BoC , in its 22-page Customs Memorandum Order No. 04-2017 which implements Sec. 800 (g) of RA 10863, or the Customs and Modernization and Tariff Act or CMTA , "committed a bureaucratic overreach. " Section 800 (g) of CMTA allows OFWs and other Filipinos residing abroad to bring in or send to their families in the Philippines tax-free balikbayan boxes, whose contents are not intended for barter and sale and as long as they are not worth P150,000. OFWs can avail of this privilege a maximum of three times in a calendar year. Another concern of Recto is the status of Section 120 of the CMTA, regarding "relief consignment", or goods such as food, medicine, equipment, shelter materials for free distribution to or use of victims of calamities." Under the law, "clearance of relief consignment shall be a matter of priority and subject to a simplified customs procedure," Recto said. "These shipments must be cleared beyond the designated office and shall be waived of corresponding charges. The examination of goods are allowed only in exceptional circumstances," he said. "Because the balikbayan box rules limit the consignees to relatives of senders, what is the rule to be followed if kindhearted OFW sends a package to a non-relative in Marawi?" he said. Under the law, the Department of Finance and the Department of Social Welfare and Development shall jointly issue the rules and regulations on relief consignment. "Hopefully meron na. So that when governments and citizens of predominantly Muslim nations will send aid to Marawi, either by barges or by boxes, the rules are already in place," he said.
Paul Paz y Mino

Several small fires broke out at an Oakland homeless encampment under the Interstate 980 overpass near West Grand Avenue and were quickly extinguished by firefighters Monday morning, officials said.

The Oakland Fire Department reported that two small fires were burning under the freeway about 9:46 a.m.
Its been more than three years since 13-year-old Jahi McMath was declared dead after something went terribly wrong following throat surgery at Childrens Hospital Oakland. Her family has never accepted the declaration and has kept her on life support ever since  and in a new twist, a prominent neurologist says recent videos of the girl show she is alive, with a partially functioning brain.

Jahi is connected to a ventilator in New Jersey, where her family moved her in 2014 after gaining custody of what Childrens Hospital officials and the Alameda County coroner insisted  and a judge agreed  was her corpse. The family, arguing that doctors diagnosis of brain death did not mean the girl was dead, sought unsuccessfully to force the hospital to continue caring for her, something officials there argued would be grotesque.

Now, Jahi is in an apartment in an undisclosed city while her mother and other relatives wage a legal fight to have her death certificate overturned  a preliminary step in what they intend to be a wrongful-injury lawsuit, rather than a wrongful-death case, against the Oakland hospital.

The latest development in the case stems from 49 videos recorded by Jahis family from March 2014 through April 2016. In the videos, according to court documents, Jahi is shown seemingly responding to simple commands, such as moving her right hand or kicking one manicured foot.

In a sworn declaration filed June 29 in Alameda County Superior Court, Dr. Alan Shewmon, a professor emeritus of pediatrics and neurology at UCLA and a well-known critic of the guidelines defining brain death, says the videos demonstrate not only that Jahi is alive but also that her condition is improving.

She is irrevocably and severely neurologically disabled, Shewmon says  the result of what happened after her throat surgery in December 2013 at what is now UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital Oakland, when she went into cardiac arrest suffering massive bleeding and hemorrhaging. But he says she is no longer brain dead.

Jahis subsequent course defied all predictions of what must happen to dead bodies maintained indefinitely on ventilators, Shewmon said in his declaration. Jahi McMath is a living, severely disabled young lady, who currently fulfills neither the standard diagnostic guidelines for brain death nor Californias statutory definition of death.

Nailah Winkfield, Jahis mother, sued the hospital and state and Alameda County officials in December 2015, alleging medical malpractice. Her suit says the county coroner wrongly declared Jahi dead. If the courts reverse the death certificate, Winkfield could arrange to have Jahi receive medical care in California  something that cant happen if she is legally dead.

Ultimately, if Jahi is reclassified as alive, the family could be entitled to millions of dollars in damages. Awards are capped in California at $250,000 for the wrongful death of a child, but there is no cap for wrongful-injury claims because a court can order medical costs to be paid indefinitely.

Jahi has a feeding tube and needs blankets to maintain her temperature, Shewmon said in his court declaration. But she has begun puberty and has menstruated, Shewmon said, based on his observations.

The family videos show several instances in which Jahi appears to respond to commands to move body parts such as her thumb and right hand, Shewmon said. In one clip, he said, Winkfield asks Jahi, Which finger is the bad finger? Which finger would I move if I get mad at somebody? Which finger is the f-you finger?

Seconds later, Jahi appears to slowly flex her middle finger, Shewmon said.

At the time the videos were made, Jahi was in a responsive state, capable of understanding a verbal command and barely capable of executing a simple motor response, Shewmon said.

He maintains that Jahis movements are different from most brain dead patients myoclonic spasms, which is when they twitch a leg or jerk their fingers. Those patients are also known to make the Lazarus sign, raising their arms or holding them crossed against the chest like a mummy. Because some neural pathways connect to the spinal column  not the brain  some spontaneous movement is possible.

Shewmon, a pediatric neurologist who was hired at UCLA in 1989 and retired from there in 2011, said Jahis responses show that she does not meet the criteria for brain death. He first entered Jahis case in 2014, when he wrote an affidavit after viewing two videos of the girl available online, and has argued in medical papers that Californias guidelines for determining brain death result in declarations of death for people who are in some senses alive.

In his June 29 declaration, Shewmon said he recently visited Jahi but didnt witness the movements himself. He said he had not been paid by Jahis family for his time or his court declaration. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Jahis family has not allowed a third-party neurologist to conduct an examination since the girl was declared dead. Her attending physician and nurse also filed recent court affidavits supporting the familys argument, but several medical experts interviewed by The Chronicle noted that neither is an authority in neurology.

Attorneys representing the Oakland hospital and its physicians argue that Jahi was properly declared dead. In a recent court filing, they called her familys position not supported by the law, logic or medicine.

In a statement, UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital said it stands by its position that Jahi McMath fulfills the legal diagnostic criteria for brain death. ... The plaintiffs counsel has agreed that Jahi McMath fulfilled the neurologic criteria for brain death when she was declared brain dead and deceased in December 2013. Jahi McMath has not undergone a brain death evaluation pursuant to accepted neurologic criteria ... since she was legally declared deceased in December 2013. The videotapes do not meet the criteria.

The core issue is whether or not she is clinically brain dead and meets the standard definition of brain death, said David Magnus, a Stanford University medical professor and director of Stanfords Center for Biomedical Ethics. He is not involved in Jahis case and has not viewed the familys videos.

A neurologist went and found her to meet the clinical criteria for brain death, Magnus said of Shewmon. She exhibited none of the signs to prove she is not brain dead. Then he looked at videotapes the family made and, based on that, said she might not be brain dead. That is extremely suspect. Its ridiculous to think you could do an examination based on videos that were sent to you.

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But if Jahi really did do the things Shewmon says he saw her do on the video, that would be a huge challenge, medically and scientifically, Magnus said. It means what people believe they know about brain death based on decades of experience and evidence would turn out to be false.

Under California law, a person is considered brain dead if he or she is in a coma, has no brain stem reflexes and cannot breathe without mechanical assistance. Under a 1983 state court ruling, hospitals are not required to provide care once a patient is diagnosed as brain dead.

The most recent well-known end-of-life battle involves Charlie Gard, a British baby with a rare genetic condition that caused severe brain damage. The 11-month-old cannot breathe on his own, and his parents are trying to obtain medical care outside the United Kingdom.

The case involving Jahi is unlikely to go to court before next year. When it does, it could have far-reaching implications affecting public policy and organ transplantation, which hinges on the diagnosis of brain death.

Its an unprecedented case, said Lawrence Nelson, a lawyer, bioethicist and associate professor of philosophy at Santa Clara University. Either you are alive or you are not. If you are alive, but you are very badly brain damaged, you are a person and have moral and legal rights. If you are not alive, then you have none of those rights. Whether or not Jahi is alive or dead is huge and fundamental.

There has never been a recorded instance of a brain-dead person regaining cognitive capabilities, said Thaddeus Pope, a professor and director of the Health Law Institute at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minn. Pope has tracked Jahis case for years and posts legal documents in her familys case on his website.

Everybody, even the plaintiffs, agrees that Jahi was (brain) dead in December 2013, Pope said. What her family is saying is that she is not dead now. That is significant because there has never been a case ever in human history where somebody was correctly declared dead and had it rescinded later.

New Jersey is the only state in the U.S. that defers to a familys religious beliefs when determining whether to allow continued medical care. Thats why Jahis family brought her there to have a feeding tube inserted at an undisclosed Roman Catholic hospital.

Marjorie Shultz, a retired UC Berkeley professor of health law and medical ethics, said there should be more input from family members when discussing the fate of a brain dead patient.

What it means to determine death is a scary thought for most people, Shultz said. We are going to have to move in that direction and revisit it, legally and collectively. We will continue to learn more about what is going on in the brain of people who are minimally conscious, or something in the twilight zone between unquestionably dead and unquestionably alive.

Lizzie Johnson is a San Francis co Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn
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Sgt. Eric Tang rolled down his patrol-car window and waved as a woman driving by him in Fremonts upscale Scott Creek Terrace neighborhood asked, Did you get my email?

Tang hadnt, so the woman explained that someone had set off firecrackers on a recent night.

We got their license plates and video footage, she said, before Tang promised to look into the matter.

One of the neighborhoods vast array of cameras  positioned by residents to record nearly every movement  peeked over a rosebush as the woman drove off.

Fremont, the fourth-largest Bay Area city with just over 230,000 residents, has cemented its position as one of the safest big cities in the nation, a trend that has followed its emergence as a diverse Silicon Valley hub, and one that police and residents attribute to a combination of hypervigilance and mass public and private surveillance.

The city hasnt seen a homicide since 2015, and counted a total of only eight in the previous five years. Fremont once had nine homicides in a single year, in 1998.

A Chronicle review of homicide counts in the Bay Areas 15 biggest cities in the first half of this year  not including shootings by cops and those ruled to be in self-defense  found more mixed results.

The cities saw 122 killings, up from 120 in the first half of 2016, 107 in the first half of 2015 and 100 the year before that. The counts remain low historically, though  there were 147 in the first half of 2012, and far more in past decades.

San Jose saw improvement from January through June, with 14 killings compared with 25 the year before. Homicides rose in San Francisco from 26 to 34, and in Oakland from 28 to 33.

Fremonts homicide drought stands out, and it comes even though the city has one of the lowest ratios of police officers to residents among California cities.

But it tracks with progress in other areas: From 1995 to 2015, total violent crimes  which include robberies, assaults and rapes  fell 72 percent in Fremont, compared with a decrease of 45 percent statewide. Property crimes are down as well, though not quite as as dramatically.

Everything we do is founded on the strength of the relationship we have with the community, said Police Chief Richard Lucero.

He and other officials noted the citys sprawling surveillance systems, which built up over the past several years and might have caused a bigger privacy furor if they were in another city. Fremont not only uses video cameras but also mounted 11 automated license-plate readers that collect information at major exit points from the city.

The residents of Scott Creek Terrace, meanwhile, banded together to buy cameras after a series of break-ins.

Referring to the license-plate readers, Lucero said, Thats based on our research thats indicated that in most of the serious crimes in the categories of robbery and burglary, the offenders enter our jurisdiction from some other jurisdiction and then leave. Obviously, we have offenders in our community, but the logic is pretty straightforward.

Fremont officers have followed perpetrators to cities like Los Angeles and Sacramento to make arrests, said Tang.

Its not clear, though, how much of Fremonts gain in safety is a result of suppression and how much owes to demographic shifts.

According to U.S. census figures, the city has become older, with a median age of 37.6 as of 2015, compared with 34.5 in 2000. In that period, the median household income rose from $77,000 to $105,000, and the percentage of adults with high school degrees jumped from 60 percent to 92 percent.

The city has attracted a uniquely diverse group of people, many who work in technology or at local companies like Tesla. Residents identifying as Asian or Asian Indian grew by 61 percent from 2000 to 2015, according to the census, and now make up more than half of the population.

Nearly half the city is foreign-born. Fremont has growing Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities. The Little Kabul neighborhood is the center of the nations biggest Afghan American enclave.

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In Scott Creek Terrace, which sits along Interstate 680, the uniting creed is vigilance. Signs about the neighborhoods crime watch are abundant, and cameras peek through red, white and blue garage awnings.

Its actually impressive, Tang said as he drove through, waving to children playing in the driveway of a home.

Residents of the neighborhood put together a 41-page PowerPoint presentation to help other neighborhoods set up surveillance systems. The guide is available on the Police Departments website.

The theme continues at Pacific Commons, a shopping center rife with hidden cameras and signs that warn of the presence of security officers, many of whom have Tangs cell phone number. He said police work with business owners to set up both cameras and license-plate readers.

Fremont is expected to continue growing as city leaders develop plans for a downtown, a new civic center and more housing. Lucero said his department, which now has 195 sworn officers, will grow with it.

On a recent day, 50-year-old Kathryn Gomez, a resident for 28 years, strolled around man-made Lake Elizabeth, shielding herself from the heat with a sun hat.

The appeal of Fremont, she said, is its diversity, access to BART  and, of course, the low crime rate. She said she feels safe, but added that she set up a security camera to film the front of her home.

It seemed like a sensible thing to do, she said.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
Editor s note: Here are five Bay Area startups worth watching this week.

When a string of food-borne illnesses devastated Chipotles reputation in 2015, the phone at San Francisco startup MeWe began ringing off the hook.

It was restaurant owners and brands calling about MeWes CoInspect app, which helps government agencies and companies digitize public health and safety inspections. MeWe said its app could help companies avoid a disaster like Chipotles.

MeWe CEO and co-founder Manik Suri called the Chipotle outbreak an aha moment that inspired the company to refocus the general-purpose inspection app it released in 2014 on the food industry: Everyone eats, everyone eats out, so food and food safety is critical, he said.

A few years later, almost 100,000 inspections have been completed using CoInspect. The app allows inspectors to create checklists that include photos and voice memos. Users can also assign inspections, generate reports and analyze trends.

Restaurant chains TGI Fridays and P.F. Changs are among those using MeWes software for safety and compliance checks. Its also used by government agencies such as the New York State Department of Health and nonprofits including the Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services.

After starting in Cambridge, Mass., in 2014, the 18-person company moved to San Francisco a year later. It has raised $3.09 million in funding  most from a seed round announced in February. Suri said MeWe is not yet profitable.

According to Suri, his motivation to improve the broken workflow of inspections comes from his experience working in a housing clinic as a Harvard Law School student. He accompanied inspectors as they tagged tenant violations, lugging around clipboards, binders and digital cameras to do so. Creating a single inspection report took about four hours.

With CoInspect, reporting is two to three times faster, Suri said.

CoInspect costs $25 per month for a solo account and $50 per person per month for a professional group of up to 25 people. Prices vary for plans used by large organizations, government agencies and auditing firms, though MeWe did not provide details or a range for the cost.

The company is working on integrating its software with food temperature probes and sensors for equipment monitoring. Theres a test unit in the office refrigerator. The goal, Suri said, is to reduce human error and add a layer of verification that is hard to achieve with paper inspections.

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He said the work of conducting safety checks on paper isnt being done with thoroughness.

Also trending:

What it does: A personal finance bot that will find and cancel subscriptions you no longer use or want. It can negotiate a Comcast bill and automatically apply savings on Visa purchases. Users interact with Trim through texts, Facebook Messenger or a Web dashboard.

What happened: CEO Thomas Smyth said the company is growing rapidly. It recently introduced its Visa savings program and is working on a feature to monitor Amazon purchases for potential savings. It was included in a recent roundup of artificial intelligence personal finance products by Nanalyze, a technology research website.

Why it matters: Many finance apps require people to take action. Smyth said this financial assistant app is different because it actually does some of the work on behalf of the user.

Headquarters: San Francisco.

Funding: $2.2 million, according to Smyth.

Employees: 6.

What it does: Creates a tool that companies can use to translate their websites into multiple languages, making it easier to reach international markets.

What happened: Squarespace, a website-building tool, created a support page that explains how users can translate their websites using Localize.

Why it matters: The Internet makes it easier for companies to reach global markets, and tools like this one help them overcome barriers such as language.

Headquarters: San Francisco.

Funding: $1.3 million, according to Crunchbase.

Employees: 11 to 50.

What it does: A virtual staging service that lets prospective buyers visualize furnishings in their future home using a Web browser, iPad or Googles Tango augmented-reality app.

What happened: The company announced a partnership with Surterre Properties, a Southern California luxury real estate brokerage, this month.

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Why it matters: A growing number of home shoppers decide (to buy) a new home without even visiting the property, said Pieter Aarts, RoOomys CEO and co-founder. Virtual staging helps these buyers figure out what their rooms will look like and how to furnish them.

Headquarters: San Jose.

Funding: $15 million, according to Aarts.

Employees: 190.

Atheer

What it does: Creates augmented-reality glasses for enterprise companies. Users can interact with the images through hand gestures and see information ranging from work flow charts to video calls in their field of view.

What happened: It recently acquired SpaceView, an augmented-reality company that allows users to place a virtual object into a physical space.

Why it matters: For years, experts have said that augmented reality will become an important workplace tool. While the technology is still in its nascent stage, analysts said organizations can use it to complement and enhance work flow and employee training.

Headquarters: Mountain View.

Funding: $23.06 million, according to Crunchbase.

Employees: 11 to 50.

Isha Salian and Trisha Thadani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com, isalian@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani

Note: The spelling of Sundus Arains name has been corrected.

How we pick the companies

Every week, The Chronicle and Crunchbase, a San Francisco firm that tracks key businesses in technology, analyze private Bay Area companies based on their financial backing, employees and activity on Crunchbase. We feature five that are moving up in the ranks. For more information on the companies: www.crunchbase.com
At the center of a brightly lit conference room inside the offices of a Silicon Valley software firm, a college student lowered her voice, leaned over to the woman on her right and made an admission: Im scared.

The young woman, 21-year-old Michelle Ahn, is a junior at UC Berkeley. Shes a computer science major and an instructor with Girls Who Code.

And shes afraid of entering the workforce not because she doesnt think she can get a job or do the work she wants to do, but because shes heard about what happens to women in tech. The stories of harassment, discrimination, assault.

If that happened to me, especially just coming out of school? I dont know what I would do, Ahn said. It scares me that I could put all this time and all this work into a computer science degree, and then five years down the line, I could end up quitting because of something like this.

As Ahn spoke, Pratima Rao Gluckman, a user interface manager at cloud-computing firm VMware and a mentor for students, shook her head.

Im not going to lose another one, she said. I will not lose another woman to tech.

In the midst of Silicon Valleys latest reckoning with its mistreatment of women in the industry, programs aimed at pushing more women into science and technology fields are grappling with new questions and anxieties from young woman unsure about entering a world that seems to care so little about them.

One solution is surrounding young women with women who are more established in the industry  mentors and teachers who can help them feel less alone.

Having the support of other women, and watching them share their stories of mistreatment, is what prompted several female founders to come forward last month with allegations of sexual misconduct by venture capitalists, several of whom were forced to step down from their firms and apologize publicly.

Nicole Boliaux/The Chronicle

These women cited people like Ellen Pao, who sued her former employer for discrimination, and Susan Fowler, an engineer who blogged about experiencing rampant sexism while working at Uber.

I think its inspiring that these women are speaking up and showing us that maybe bad things happen but you can fight it, said Burde Prerana Kamath, a graduate student at Indiana University. Now I know more about what to do if it ever happened to me.

Ahn and Kamath were among 20 college students who participated in CodeHouse, a days-long coding workshop put on by VMware, a Dell subsidiary, that challenged them to devise technical solutions to help make the tech industry more diverse.

For these women, the issue of diversity isnt just theoretical. They have to live it every day, several said.

Ricky Trigalo, a mentor and development manager in the office of the chief technology officer at VMware, said she has run into issues with people assuming shes a man  because of her name and technical abilities.

I had someone call me and say, I need to talk to the Ricky who helped fix my code, and I said, Thats me, and he could not believe it, she said. No, I need to talk to the guy. It was unreal.

For Ahn, it was the first time she had ever been in a room full of female engineers. Even her computer science classes, she said, had all been taught by men.

Nicole Boliaux/The Chronicle

Between correcting each others code and practicing their final presentations, the women at CodeHouse  named that because all the participants stay together in one big house to facilitate a near-round-the-clock hackathon environment  swapped stories about being the only woman in their classes or at their internships.

Gluckman recounted an incident when a co-worker stalked her and several female colleagues.

I called the manager and he was fired the very same day, she said, as several young women nodded appreciatively. Thats my personality: fight, fight, fight. What? Were supposed to just shut up and take it? Thats another form of repression.

Outgoing Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer voiced concern last month that all the publicity being given to women sharing their stories of assault and harassment at the hands of powerful technology executives and venture capitalists would scare away girls who might otherwise want to pursue a career in tech.

I worry about the 18-year-old girl right now whos reading these articles and is thinking: Do I really want a career in tech? Is this what I really want to be a part of? Mayer said at a conference.

But the young women at CodeHouse said theyre grateful for these stories.

In the short term, some people might be discouraged, but in the long term, its going to help so many women, said Akanksha Bindal, 23, a computer science graduate student at Georgia Tech. If theres a problem, not talking about it is certainly not going to help fix it.

None of the student groups created a solution that touched on issues particular to women in tech for the coding contest. Most addressed what is known as the pipeline problem, or a lack of women entering tech fields in the first place, with games, aptitude tests and mentor-pairing social networks.

But Sanjay Poonen, the chief operating officer at VMware who gave a lunchtime talk to the women on Friday, said by simply entering the field, these women have the potential to change it.

We have to surround every bad example with nine, 10 good examples  examples of young women, young leaders doing well and being treated fairly, he said. I want these women to go on and inspire another generation of young girls, like my 11-year-old daughter. Thats when well start to see a change.

One of those women may be Ahn, who, days after the workshops conclusion, wasnt as worried as she was before.

She found a new sense of confidence and comfort in meeting women like her and learning that shes not as alone as she thought.

It was great to talk to (the mentors) and realize you might face issues, and there will definitely be things that are different for us as women in the industry, she said, but at the same time, its nothing that cant be overcome.

Marissa Lang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: MLang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Marissa_Jae
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Ask people about the food scene in Montclair and odds are high theyll all use the same adjectives: cute, quaint, charming, quiet. Its a village devoid of critically acclaimed chefs elbowing for a sliver of real estate (like in Hayes Valley).

Its just ... Montclair, a place where youre more likely to see Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors alone at the Montclair Egg Shop than a gaggle of Michelin-starred San Francisco chefs sniffing around for new projects.

Well, at least for now.

This week, Rob Lam (Butterfly) and Marcus Garcia (former Fleur de Lys wine director) will open Perle, a wine bar/restaurant thats arguably the Montclair Villages most significant food-related debut since Chowhaus in 2015 (which closed in 2016). Perle is replacing Pour Wine Bar & Bistro at 2058 Mountain Blvd.

Some of the finer details are still in flux, but Garcia said Perle will be wine-centric with between 300 and 350 bottles. The food, which comes via Lam, is primarily French/Mediterranean.

Sparkling wines and shellfish will be a key food combo, Garcia added. The extensive wine reserves will be anchored in French and European selections with what Garcia calls a ton of Burgundy and Bordeaux.

Prices are still being adjusted on both sides, but an entree of abalone is in the $45 range, while a burger on the menu sits at $16.

The concept, led by the pair of veterans in the San Francisco food scene, is reminiscent of a few 2017 ventures happening across the Bay Bridge. Cultivar in the Marina opened with deep wine reserves and a seafood-centric menu, the FiDis City Counter luncheonette has a notable wine bar component and even Foreign Cinema has grand plans of the same ilk.

So how exactly did Perle skip across the bay and land in Montclair?

(Montclair) is starting to get a little spark, Garcia said. People want something in their own neighborhood that they can go to and feel comfortable in.

Perle will be Lams first major foray back into the Bay Area food scene since closing Butterfly on the Embarcadero about seven months ago. To prepare for the venture, Lam staged at various kitchens in San Francisco to hone his techniques in French and Mediterranean fare while finding ways to incorporate his own style, according to Garcia.

Rob and I have wanted to do a project together for a while, Garcia said. With this, I wanted him to show his muscle and include his soulful Vietnamese flavor, too.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

The other component is convenience. Garcia and Lam both live in the East Bay (Garcia closer to Walnut Creek and Lam actually in Montclair). Theyre familiar with the areas food scene and, based on collective experiences, think Perle will have a receptive audience in Montclair.

Its just something relaxed in a neighborhood spot where people can come and get good food and good wine, Garcia said. Thats it. Its something that anyone would want.

Perle: Opens this week; 2058 Mountain Blvd., Montclair; www.perlewinebar.com

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips
San Franciscos ever-eclectic and critically acclaimed Mission District cocktail bar Trick Dog is no stranger to best of lists, especially when it comes to the Spirited Awards, the cocktail industrys program recognizing the years best bars, bartenders, writers and experts.

After coming up short in the Spirited Awards Worlds Best Cocktail Menu category in both 2015 and 2016, Trick Dog is taking home the title in 2017, an achievement co-owner Scott Baird said reflects the bars meticulous and oddly laissez-faire creative attitude when it comes to their bi-annual menus.
CHP

A deadly crash on Niles Canyon Road between Fremont and Sunol closed the busy commuter route for more than six hours on Monday, a prolonged period that stretched through the evening commute as police worked to clear the scene.

Drivers were urged to avoid the road after a driver died in the single-vehicle, rollover crash around 12:30 p.m. The driver was not immediately identified.
Many of Oaklands immigrant residents are stressed and anxious. The undocumented among them are scared of being deported.

Its because of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that sprays like spittle from the mouths of the president and his most ruthless henchmen and followers, not to mention a big jump in immigration-related arrests nationwide.

The spreading fear is why the Oakland City Councils decision to rescind a cooperation agreement that the police force had with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, was a no-brainer.

The measure, introduced by Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, means that Oakland cannot designate its officers as customs enforcement officers, which would allow them to work with ICE in investigations of human trafficking, drug smuggling and other crimes. It was approved unanimously at last weeks council meeting.

The council cited concerns over data sharing  and a community consumed by the threat of deportation.

The resolution strengthens Oaklands position as a sanctuary city.

Its important that it not just be a symbolic statement, said Kaplan, referring to the citys sanctuary status. We have to make it real, and part of making it real is rescinding this agreement.

Even if past collaboration between the Police Department and ICE was minimal, the move provides reassurance to Oaklands immigrants that the city wont cooperate with the federal government to detain and deport people.

Oakland needed to reinforce its sanctuary status because immigration as a hot-button issue wont cool down as long as building a huge border wall is the foundation of the presidents plan to remake America.

Immigration will remain heated for as long as the travel ban, which restricts entry to the country by refugees and visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries, plays out in the courts.

Immigration will sizzle as long as the administration toys with the idea of ending federal protections for immigrants known as Dreamers who were brought to the country as children.

And as long as the president recklessly foments suspicion and hatred of immigrants, people will be terrified that any cooperation by local police with ICE will lead to families being torn apart.

Its the apprehension of being stopped for the most innocent behavior, said George Larma of the Latino Task Force in Oakland, a community organization of U.S. citizens advocating for immigrants without legal status. For us, its about the mom who takes her kid to the school and then goes to the post office and may end up being picked up.

Brian Hofer, chairman of Oaklands Privacy Advisory Commission, which spent months researching the citys agreement with ICE, said the trauma in the Latino community is not debatable.

The commission found that the Police Departments relationship with ICE, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, didnt result in any demonstrated successes. In its report to the City Council, the commission wrote that under the current administration, ICEs revised policies clearly conflict with Oaklands status as a sanctuary city.

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Oaklands deal with ICE was signed last summer by former Police Chief Sean Whent  just hours before he resigned as a sexual misconduct scandal swept through the department.

New Chief Anne Kirkpatrick opposed the councils resolution. And Deputy Chief Danielle Outlaw said active investigations into sex and labor trafficking would be jeopardized if the agreement were rescinded.

But when the Privacy Advisory Commission asked police officials for a list of officers who had participated in the ICE program, it was told none had done so, Hofer said.

This particular agreement has not provided any benefit to Oakland, Hofer told me. If there was some sort of legitimate need, or information from ICE, we can informally act on that. Theres no need for a formal agreement.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
President Trump had some remarkable things to say at the inaugural meeting of his Commission to Promote Voter Suppression and Justify Trumps False Claims, which is formally known as the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. He also asked a question that deserves an answer.

Lest anyone believe Vice President Mike Pences claim that this commission has no preconceived notions or preordained results, Trump was on hand last week to state clearly what its agenda is.

With the resignation of Sean Spicer as White House press secretary and the rise of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications czar (an appropriate word these days), the television cameras are riveted on the latest reality show, Spicey and The Mooch. But we dare not lose track of the threat the Trump administration poses to the most basic of democratic rights.

Remember that in January, Trump told congressional leaders that between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes were cast in last years election and that they were the reason he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million.

There is not a shred of evidence for this  none, zero, zilch. Trumps defenders could find no plausible way to support his statement, which is not unusual. But Trump never backs off from a falsehood. So instead, he did something without precedent: He appointed a presidential commission solely to justify an offhand lie.

And now that this body exists, it will almost certainly try to find ways to rationalize purging legitimate voters from the rolls and erecting yet more barriers to voting.

Trump would not let the commissioners forget their reason for being there, his belief that those phantom votes really exist, although he put his own words into the mouths of unnamed people, who  surprise!  came to the same conclusions he did.

Throughout the campaign and even after it, Trump said, people would come up to me and express their concerns about voter inconsistencies and irregularities, which they saw. In some cases, having to do with very large numbers of people in certain states.

The commission issued a sweeping request to the states for data that included everything from voters Social Security numbers, military status and party affiliation to information on felony convictions.

Trump purported to be pleased because more than 30 states have already agreed to share the information with the commission. In truth, the request has been met with widespread resistance from Republican as well as Democratic officials. As of July 8, the Associated Press reported not a single state was in full compliance. The Republican secretary of state of Mississippi, Delbert Hosemann, spoke for many of his colleagues (with a regional twist) when he told the administration to go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.

Trump is not happy, and he responded in the way he knows best: with innuendo questioning the motives of others. If any state does not want to share this information, one has to wonder what theyre worried about. And I asked the vice president, I asked the commission: What are they worried about?

Excellent question. Heres what we should worry about.

We should worry about the security of the data. States have absolutely no confidence that the Trump administration will protect it. They also have every reason to fear Trump will misuse it.

We should worry because his commission is the furthest thing imaginable from a dispassionate investigation into voting procedures.

We should worry because Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state, is vice chairman of the commission. Kobach is a voter suppression fanatic. He is also a Trump flunkie. The Washington Posts Philip Bump, who is doing an excellent job covering this charade, noted that when NBCs Katy Tur asked him about the 3 million to 5 million fraudulent vote claim, Kobach replied: We will probably never know the answer to that question. Sorry, but we do know, and if Kobach thinks we dont, not a single state should trust him with a single bit of information.

We should worry because, as Ari Berman noted in the Nation, a new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that 12 percent of the electorate in 2016 encountered a problem voting, and the Brennan Center reported that more states have enacted new voting restrictions in 2017 than in 2015 and 2016 combined. This commission will push states to enact even more laws like these.

We should worry because the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and this Congress has shown no signs of wanting to fix it.

We should worry about the Trump administration closing civil rights offices and the Justice Department switching sides in voting rights cases. As Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said: I am old enough to remember when African Americans were denied access to the ballot box, and I fear that we are watching history repeat itself.

We should worry that Elijah Cummings intuition is right.

 2017 Washington Post

Writers Group

Email: ejdionne@washpost.com Twitter: @EJDionne
Paul Chinn / The Chronicle 2010

Give UC Berkeley credit for learning from the past years intensive course in free speech and right-wing provocation. After a series of standoffs with conservative speakers left the university looking less than eager to accommodate all comers, its approach to the latest controversial invitation strikes the right tone by making unfettered expression the clear priority.

University officials initially expressed reservations about the time, date and type of venue requested for the Berkeley College Republicans next would-be guest, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, prompting the group to revive its accusations of a consistent bias against right-wing speakers. But the university announced Thursday that it would take additional steps, including possibly paying or waiving venue fees, to make the speech happen on the September evening requested by the student organization.
For Americans who oppose perpetual war, no member of Congress has been more admired than Barbara Lee. Ever since she cast the only vote against a blank-check war resolution, three days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Oakland Democrat has earned a reputation for bravely speaking antiwar truth to militarist power.

But, now, the core wisdom of her eloquent speech on the House floor nearly 16 years ago is under threat  from Lee herself.

When Lee beseeched her colleagues to think through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control, she was looking far beyond the politics and passions of that moment on Sept. 14, 2001. In a July 7 tweet, she has stepped away from steadfast support for the necessity of diplomatic initiatives.

Finding alternatives to war must include diplomacy. In the case of the war on terror that Lee resisted from the start, what spiraled out of control was endless and boundless war. These days, the escalating tensions with Russia could spiral out of control all the way to nuclear holocaust.

Thats a major reason the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the symbolic hands of its Doomsday Clock even closer to apocalyptic midnight early this year. The nuclear peril is terribly real, and its growing.

For that overarching reason, former Sen. Sam Nunn joined with three seasoned ex-diplomats to co-sign an open letter in late June, urging Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin to discuss four specific proposals for reducing the dangers of nuclear war. Nunn  drawing on his experience as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee  knows that top-level talks between the Russian and U.S. governments are crucial to reduce the risk of the world blowing up.

But Lee addressed the Trump-Putin meeting at the G20 summit in a very different way. Right after it was over, she sent out a tweet that denounced the very idea of the two presidents sitting down and talking: Outraged by President Trumps 2 hr meeting w/Putin, the man who orchestrated attacks on our democracy. Where do his loyalties lie?

Yet real diplomacy often requires that leaders we dont like  at the top of a foreign government and maybe our own  sit down together, talk and negotiate. In the case of the worlds two nuclear-weapons superpowers, that could turn out to mean the difference between coexistence or co-annihilation.

During her historic 2001 speech on the House floor, when she insisted that some of us must urge the use of restraint, Lee was refusing to be swept up in the easy and dangerous conformity of the times. She saw that militarized confrontation would be a tragically unwise alternative to diplomacy.

Lee now seems to have cast aside such understanding, at least as far as relations with Russia are concerned. Her constituents, as well as other supporters in California and beyond, should encourage her to return to it.

Certainly, Lee deserves credit for ongoing efforts to repeal the 2001 war authorization. Yet this month she veered way off the peace track by proclaiming that she was outraged because Trump and Putin had a meeting.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Rep. Lee offered profound insight and leadership instead of confusion and fear. Thats why the saying Barbara Lee speaks for me took hold and lasted. But now we must let her know when she no longer speaks for us.

Norman Solomon is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2005).
An 86-year-old San Francisco store owner defended his Chinatown business from an intruder armed with a knife by beating him back with a bamboo stick on Sunday, officials said.

A 49-year-old suspect, Thomas Baker of San Francisco, was creating a disturbance in the store on the 700 block of Grant Avenue about 3:51 p.m. when the octogenarian owner tried to get him to leave, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
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When a wildfire sparks, Noah Berger drops everything and heads for the flames.

As a photojournalist, capturing California's fires is part of the job description, but Berger is the first to admit his wildfire-chasing borders on obsession.

"There's something magical about it," he said. "It's beautiful and horrible at the same time."

For Berger, during the three months of California's wildfire season, "Fire is priority."

On Oct. 8, as people began fleeing the deadly Wine Country wildfires, Berger rushed toward the flames. He stayed five days, photographing almost around the clock and grabbing snatches of sleep in his car.

WINE COUNTRY FIRES: Firefighters expect full containment by Friday

Last weekend, when the Wine Country Fires began reaching higher containment levels, Berger took a breather at home, but he returned to the North Bay Monday. The next day, he was in Santa Cruz, photographing a fire in the mountains.

"It felt like fire season had passed," Berger said of the weeks preceding the Wine Country Fires. "But I guess not."

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Quite the contrary. Berger, whose been photographing wildfires for a decade, says he's never seen a fire on the scale of the blazes that tore through Wine Country.

"I don't think anyone whose been in California for years has ever seen this," he said, adding that the scale, in terms of loss of life and property, was evident even without consulting the official numbers.

"It was different than what I'm used to seeing," he said, and Berger has seen a lot when it comes to fires.

Berger is also quick to acknowledge the tragedy inherent to wildfires: lives lost, homes destroyed, livelihoods gone up in smoke. Context, he says, is essential, both for comprehending the emotional weight of the event and conveying a wildfire's scale within a photograph.

Without a human element  a singed car, a soot-covered rooftop  viewers strain to comprehend the size and power of the fires.

San Francisco Chronicle staff photographer Scott Strazzante rarely gets nose-to-nose with the flames. "I typically deal with the aftermath," he says, "photographing people who were affected by the fires."

Strazzante is often one of the first people on the scene after a fire has ravaged a town  members of the media have "incredible access" to wildfires  and he's found himself acting as a "grief counselor."

"Sometimes people just need someone to talk to or want something photographed," he says.

When it comes to items destroyed by fire, Chronicle staff photographer Gabrielle Lurie says people most often lament losing their personal photographs.

"It's ironic to be documenting people who lost their photos," she says, "But it really makes you realize the power of photography."

LOST AND FOUND: Items rescued from the ruins

Lurie talks about fire scenes as if they're settings of post-apocalyptic literature: empty, vast, lacking trees or birds. What does remain standing, she says, is often covered in a chalky film of ash.

When working in such unforgiving conditions, Lurie says coming prepared is the only option, especially if you want to pass the CalFire evacuation line. She carries more than 30 pounds of gear on a typical shoot, including multiple cameras, lenses and a fire tent. The days are long and weighed down by heat. Sleep comes in snatches, and often in the cramped quarters of one's car.

This temporary suspension of daily life and its grievances is a source Berger's fire photo fascination.

"To come back and shoot things that are not fire is hard," he says. "When you're out there, you're just entirely engrossed in it. You feel very alive."

Read Michelle Robertsons latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.
With more than 5,000 firefighters working to contain the blaze, the Detwiler Fire in Mariposa County, which has burned 76,500 acres of wildland and destroyed more than 60 homes, was 50 percent contained Monday morning, officials said.

The fire has raged since July 16, forcing thousands of residents to flee and sending ash and smoke into Yosemite National Park 30 miles away.
When a solar eclipse darkens the sky next month, California energy regulators have a small request:

Dont turn on the lights.

Or, if you must, please make sure theyre LEDs.

The Aug. 21 eclipse that will completely block the sun across a wide arc of North America arrives at a time when California is relying more and more on solar power. During past eclipses in the United States, no one had to wonder how the events would affect electricity supplies. Now they do.

The California Public Utilities Commission has created a website, www.caleclipse.org, that asks state residents to pledge to conserve electricity during the eclipse, which will begin just after 9 a.m. and last almost until noon. If they dont, the state will have to get electricity from fossil fuels.

The organization that manages most of Californias electricity grid insists theres no danger of the eclipse causing power failures.

The California Independent System Operator, which runs 80 percent of the grid, has been planning for the eclipse since last year. Conservation during the event would be nice but unnecessary.

Were confident weve got this handled, said Steven Greenlee, spokesman for the Independent System Operator. The thing about an eclipse is, its very predictable.

While grid managers say the event will be manageable, it does pose a challenge.

ERIC ADAMS/NYT

California has enough large-scale solar power plants, most of them built within the past five years, to generate a maximum of 10,000 megawatts of electricity. A megawatt is a snapshot figure roughly equal to the amount of electricity used by 750 typical homes in a given moment. Electricity from those plants starts trickling onto the grid soon after sunrise, surges rapidly in midmorning, and hits a plateau around 11 a.m.

The eclipse will strike just as the morning solar supply begins to increase.

The path of total eclipse  where the moon completely covers the sun  will steer north of California, leaving the sun partially obscured throughout the state. But it will still make a difference.

In the Mojave Desert, which has more installed solar power than any other part of the state, 65 percent of the sunlight will be blocked, according to the Independent System Operators estimates. In the southern San Joaquin Valley, another region packed with solar plants, sunlight will drop by 69 percent.

As the eclipse deepens, the grid will lose about 70 megawatts of solar power per minute, Greenlee said. By 10:22, production from large-scale solar power plants will drop to 3,143 megawatts  almost two-thirds lower than normal for that time of day.

Then, as the eclipse passes, solar power production will jump by about 90 megawatts per minute until full sunlight returns. (The rebound will be more dramatic than the dip, because the sun will be higher in the sky.)

Grid managers will not only need to replace the missing megawatts. They will also need to supply more electricity to California homes whose rooftop solar panels will be dimmed by the eclipse.

Fortunately, other grid managers have dealt with this.

In the months before a 2015 eclipse in Europe, analysts wondered how the event would affect electricity supplies. Germany had roughly 40,000 megawatts of solar capacity at the time, raising fears that power fluctuations caused by the eclipse could wreak havoc with the grid.

It didnt. Chaos failed to ensue.

California officials consulted their German counterparts to glean lessons. One small result: The Independent System Operator has lined up a little extra capacity  about 200 megawatts, from small natural-gas power plants  to have in reserve. (Natural gas produces greenhouse gases when burned, which is why the state utilities commission would prefer not to use it.)

It is a challenge  its something we havent seen before at this magnitude, Greenlee said. But we have a pretty good idea how it will behave.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com Twitter @DavidBakerSF
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SAN ANTONIO  At least nine people died after being crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer found parked outside a Walmart in the midsummer Texas heat, authorities said Sunday in what they described as an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.

The driver was arrested, and nearly 20 others rescued from the rig were hospitalized in dire condition, many with extreme dehydration and heatstroke, officials said.

Were looking at a human-trafficking crime, Police Chief William McManus said. He called it a horrific tragedy.

Authorities were called to the San Antonio parking lot late Saturday night or early Sunday and found eight dead inside the truck. A ninth victim died at the hospital, said Liz Johnson, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The victims were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water, Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

It was just the latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in tragedy. In one of the worst cases on record in the U.S., 19 immigrants locked inside a stifling rig died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

Based on initial interviews with survivors of the weekend tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at some point in its journey, ICE acting Director Thomas Homan said.

Thirty-nine were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination, officials said. Some of the survivors told authorities they were from Mexico, Homan said.

Authorities did not say whether the rig was locked when they arrived or where it might have been headed. San Antonio is about a 150-mile drive from the Mexican border.

Homan said it was unlikely the truck was used to carry the immigrants across the border. He said people from Latin America who rely on smuggling networks typically cross the border on foot and are then picked up by a driver.

The temperature in San Antonio reached 101 degrees on Saturday. The trailer didnt have a working air conditioning system, Hood said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, from Clearwater, Fla., was taken into custody. Charges are expected to be filed Monday.

The tractor-trailer was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa. A company official did not immediately respond to a phone message.

Eric Gay and Will Weissert are Associated Press writers.
MINNEAPOLIS  The killing of an unarmed Australian woman by a Minneapolis police officer who is a Somali American has turned an unwelcome spotlight on the citys beleaguered Somali community, where many again find themselves on the defensive.

The citys police chief said Officer Mohamed Noors race and ethnicity had nothing to do with the July 15 killing of Justine Damond, who was shot after she called 911 to report a possible rape. But negative comments have included former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmanns recent statement that Noor was an affirmative-action hire by the hijab-wearing mayor of Minneapolis  an apparent reference to the fact that Mayor Betsy Hodges has worn a head scarf when meeting with leaders of the citys Somali American community. Bachmann also suggested Noor may have shot Damond for cultural reasons.
NEW YORK  A battle between two New York billionaires has been holding up a plan to replace a crumbling pier on Manhattans Hudson River waterfront with an avant-garde park on pilings rising above the riverbed.

Now, that years-long fight could be entering another round  or finally headed to detente.

Proponents and opponents of the $250 million project plan to meet Monday to try and reach a settlement that would avoid more legal action in a conflict that has pitted media mogul Barry Diller and his wife, fashion maven Diane von Furstenberg, against Douglas Durst, the real estate developer and skyscraper baron.

Diller helped hatch the idea for the park and has promised, with his wife, to pay for it through a family charitable foundation. He said he didnt plan to attend the meeting but hoped the negotiations would be successful.

Durst, who has funded lawsuits opposing the park, declined to be interviewed. But Richard Emery, a lawyer for the project opponents, confirmed the meeting.

Theres a lot of anxiety that Diller wont follow through if this is further delayed, Emery said.

The plan to tear down the old, deteriorating Pier 54 on the Manhattan waterfront and replace it with a new structure, Pier 55, seemed like a fait accompli when it was first announced in 2014.

The design calls for an undulating 2.4-acre landscape of trees and fields rising over a cluster of mushroom-like pillars. It would have three venues for dance, theater and musical performances and would be accessible via two walkways out over the water. The press dubbed it Diller Island after Diller and von Furstenberg promised to fund the project.

It would be built on a stretch of Hudson River waterfront that has been transformed over many years from a long-faded port district into a green string of popular recreational piers and esplanades known as the Hudson River Park.

Opposition emerged, though, partly based on environmental concerns about the piers impact on aquatic life, and partly rooted in complaints from some over the way in which the project had been planned without broader public input.

The way theyve operated is like moving plants around their personal backyard, said Emery, a civil rights attorney representing the nonprofit City Club of New York, a civic group fueling the contrarian position.

Verena Dobnik is an Associated Press writer.
NEW YORK  When federal prosecutors asked to meet last month with Eric Garners family, it stoked speculation that their investigation into his death was finally nearing a resolution three years after his last words  I cant breathe  became a rallying cry for protests over police killings of black men.

The speculation was wrong: The same day of the Brooklyn meeting, a grand jury heard testimony from a police academy instructor on takedown tactics, dragging out a presentation that began last year, said two people familiar with the secret panels work.

Department of Justice prosecutors have privately told both the frustrated Garner family and police union attorneys that any decision about whether to charge the officer who killed Garner is months away, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Three years later, one of Garners daughters, Erica, tweeted last Monday on the anniversary of her fathers death. I have no ... idea what else to do. I really dont. I have turned over every stone.

The fits and starts of the Garner investigation stands out from other federal civil rights investigations into police shootings of black men.

The Justice Department probe of the death Alton Sterling, who was shot by Baton Rouge, La., police while pinned to the ground in July 2016, was wrapped up in 10 months when prosecutors concluded there wasnt enough evidence to bring charges.

The departments probe of the 2014 police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., ended the same way in March 2015.

It took less than a year for a federal indictment of an officer who pleaded guilty in the 2015 slaying of Walter Scott in South Carolina.

Theres no time limit for civil rights investigations, but the length of the Garner inquiry is unusual, said Jonathan Smith, a former Justice Department prosecutor. Internal politics or concerns for optics could be stalling an announcement, he added.

Its not like theres a lot of (unknown) facts in this case. It was on videotape, he said. What can be known is going to be known at this point.

The widely watched video from July 17, 2014, shows Garner, who had been stopped by officers for selling untaxed cigarettes, telling the officers to leave him alone and refusing to be handcuffed. Officer Daniel Pantaleo responds by putting Garner in an apparent choke hold  banned under New York Police Department policy  as he was taken to the ground.

The heavyset Garner, who had asthma, is heard gasping, I cant breathe before lapsing into unconsciousness. He later was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The medical examiner ruled Garners death a homicide caused in part by the choke hold. But police union officials and Pantaleos lawyer have argued that the officer used a takedown move taught by the police department, not a choke hold, and that Garners poor health was the main reason he died.

The U.S. Attorneys office in Brooklyn took up the case in 2015 after a state grand jury declined to bring charges against Pantaleo.

When the local office concluded there wasnt enough evidence to prove the officer deliberately violated Garners civil rights, the Justice Department  then led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch  assigned prosecutors from Washington to take over and forge ahead.

Current Attorney General Jeff Sessions position on the case is unclear. But the conservative Republican, who has the power to pull the plug on the inquiry, has both criticized the Obama administrations aggressive response to allegations of police misconduct and hailed the guilty plea in the Scott case as demonstrating a commitment to punishing excessive force.

Both the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys office in Brooklyn declined to discuss the Garner case. Pantaleos attorney, Stuart London, had no comment.

Tom Hays is an Associated Press writer.
DECATUR  A Decatur man accused of robbing a teen couple at gunpoint pleaded guilty to an armed robbery charge during his preliminary hearing Monday.

Jordan T. Butts, 22, was also charged with home invasion with a dangerous weapon, home invasion with a firearm and armed robbery with a firearm. Those charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement, according to Macon County court records.

A sworn police affidavit said that Butts and an accomplice, Trenton C. Sullivan, kicked in the door of an apartment in the 3700 block of North Moundford Avenue about 8 a.m. on Jan. 29.

Butts pointed a handgun at the male victim and demanded money, the affidavit said, while Sullivan, 20, went through dresser drawers in the apartment's bedroom in search of money. The male victim told police that he gave the men $1,500 and they fled the apartment.

A sentencing hearing for Butts is scheduled for Sept. 19. He remains in Macon County Jail on $75,000 bond. A pre-trial for Sullivan is scheduled for Aug. 15.
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The owner of whats now known as the "Haunted Hill House" in Mineral Wells, TX, didnt know his house was allegedly haunted when he moved in. That didnt stop the ghosts, folks say.

About nine apparitions reportedly haunt rooms with names such as the Joshua Room, the Shadow Room, and the Scratch Room.

Luckily for potential buyers with an interest in the paranormal, the home is available for sale for the very low price of $99,900. In addition to the ghost stories, you'll get five bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Built in 1890, the house has seen multiple uses, including as a brothel. Multiple deaths are believed to have occurred in the brothel, including the owner falling to his death in the property's well.

One of the employees reportedly gave birth on the property but the child, Joshua, had health problems and died at age 6. He, the story goes, decided to stick around in the room now named after him, and sometimes throws things at visitors.

There have been reports of visitors experiencing mysterious pain and cameras turning off when interviewers enter certain rooms in the main house.

The owner, Phil Kirchhoff, lives in a smaller building on the 1.5-acre property. His wife refuses to set foot on the haunted site.

The property is actually a thriving ghost tour business in which private overnight stays and paranormal investigations go for $400 a night. (They're currently sold out through October!)

Its value is not just in the house, says listing agent Becky Foley-Richards.

Kirchhoff has turned the property into a Paranormal Research Center and often works in conjunction with the nearby Baker Hotel. The Baker has been featured on "Celebrity Ghost Stories" and the Travel Channels "Ghost Adventures" and boasts a rich (and haunted) past of its own. In the early 20th century, hotel visitors likely visited the ladies of the brothel.

After they purchased the property, Kirchhoff and his wife had every intention of doing the renovation work themselvesuntil the spirits reportedly made their presence known. He's currently working with the city to bring the home up to code, but the renovations tend to get supernaturally complicated.

Showings aren't available for idle browsers or curious ghost hunters. Buyers have to be pre-approved with proof of financing from a private lender, or have cash on hand. Of course, the house also seems to be vetting potential future residents, with some visitors reporting experiencing extreme nausea upon opening certain doors.

The listing warns against removing anything from the property.

I wont even take a bottle cap outside, Foley-Richards says. After seeing what happened to one of my clients, theres nothing in that house that I need or want, and Im sure most of my clients feel the same way.

Telling the story is great fun, its like campfire time, she said, but I wont go in by myself.

This post originally appeared on realtor.com.
A man who tried to give a baby a mystery drink at North Berkeleys Ohlone Park in June has been charged with child molesting, authorities report, after several bizarre run-ins with local kids in recent months.

And city officials say they have been working to ensure all Berkeley tot lots have signs indicating that adults without children are not allowed  and to encourage police to enforce the rules in relation to those signs.
DECATUR  A Decatur man told police he was beaten and robbed after being jumped from behind by three men early Saturday as he was walking away from a convenience store.

Sgt. Timothy Maxwell said the 26-year-old victim was set upon about 1:20 a.m near the intersection of East Cantrell and South Maffit streets. The victim said he saw little of the robbers who beat him and grabbed his cell phone, valued at $200, before fleeing. The victim later needed treatment at St. Mary's Hospital for a swollen left eye and left side of his face and a bleeding laceration to the inside of his upper lip.
The Sri Lankan navy conducted a five-hour rescue mission at sea Sunday after two wild elephants became stranded about half a mile off-shore.

Video taken by the Sri Lankan navy shows the elephants struggling in the deep water, their trunks reaching into the air to help them breathe.

The elephants were spotted by a crew on patrol, who immediately alerted wildlife officials, the navy said. Navy personnel immediately launched an all-hands-on-deck rescue mission, including a team of divers.

After a few failed attempts, the rescuers were able to lasso the wayward elephants and tow them closer to shore. Once they reached shallow water, the animals were able to walk back to the beach and into the nearby Foul Point Jungle where they live.

Neither elephant was harmed in the rescue, according to the national navy.

This isn't the first time the Sri Lankan navy has had to save an elephant from drowning. The same crew pulled off a similar rescue earlier this month when an elephant was found struggling 10 miles off shore. In that case, a Sri Lankan navy spokesman told Agence France-Presse the elephant was likely caught in a rip current while crossing the nearby Kokkilai lagoon.

In May, the navy and locals saved 20 stranded pilot whales in the same area, according to the Guardian.

ALSO READ: Elephant rescued at sea, nearly 10 miles from shore

Elephants are native to Sri Lanka, but their numbers have dropped dramatically due to deforestation and development, according the the World Wildlife Fund. The animals are protected under national law as an endangered species and poaching an elephant in Sri Lanka is an offense that carries the death penalty.

Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at amartichoux@sfchronicle.com.
Police interviewed the 44-year-old victim at Decatur Memorial Hospital around 11:12 p.m after he had shown up in the emergency room with a bullet wound to his buttocks. Sgt. Timothy Maxwell with Decatur Police said the victim had been involved in a dispute with the suspect's mother when the suspect intervened and shot him at an address in the 1400 block of East Olive Street.
DECATUR  One person was injured Sunday afternoon after a Decatur traffic accident which ended with a van flipped on its roof, firefighters said.

The accident happened around 2:18 p.m near the intersection of South Jasper and Sedgewick streets when the van was in collision with a pickup truck. Firefighters assisted the van driver who was later treated at hospital. Decatur firefighters said the injuries were not serious. The accident remains under investigation.
EDWARDSVILLE  Attorney Erik Jones on Monday became the latest Democratic challenger in the 13th Congressional District, joining those who hope to take on incumbent Republican Rodney Davis.

Jones of Edwardsville is the fourth Democrat who has announced intentions to challenge Davis of Taylorville, who has represented the district since 2013.

I think weve grown too comfortable with low expectations with our leaders, Jones said in an interview Monday. I think we need to raise the bar, and that starts with who we send to Washington. I still genuinely believe our best days can be ahead of us, we just need to fight for it.

Though a first-time political candidate, Joness background includes tenures as a policy director and assistant attorney general in the Illinois Attorney Generals office, chief investigative counsel for the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and staff of the U.S. House Oversight Committee.

That experience, which included helping companies respond to data breaches and investigating possible government waste and corruption, helps set him apart from other candidates, Jones said.

When it comes to standing up for underdogs, Ill put my record up against anyone, he said.

Jones, 37, joins a Democratic field that already includes David Gill, a Bloomington physician who sought the seat five times before, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, a self-employed fundraiser from Springfield, and Benjamin Webb, an English teacher at University High School in Normal.

State Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, had stated an interest in running against Davis, but said Monday night that she would not seek the office. Others who have said they are considering a run include Jonathan Ebel, director of graduate studies in religion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Jersey County States Attorney Ben Goetten, who serves Jerseyville.

For several years, Jones said he has grown increasingly frustrated by what he sees as elected officials paying lip service, but doing little to address the economic challenges of the 13th Congressional District.

One way of doing that is to help fix the economic foundation of the district, he said. Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, could hurt residents and health care providers, he said.

It will highly increase the number of uninsured in the district, and increase prices for everyone in the district, and it's going to hurt rural hospitals, Jones said. You talk to hospitals, doctors, patients, and no one really wants this. Its going to hurt a lot of people.

Davis has been a perpetual target for Democrats for his entire time in Congress, representing a 14-county district that goes from Champaign-Urbana to Springfield and down to the Metro East area in southern Illinois. He initially won the district in 2012 by 1,002 votes, or 0.03 percent of the total cast.

A competitive race is almost certain to be an expensive affair, with Davis campaign committee reporting $801,532.39 on hand at the end of June, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

Jones said he was confident that he could raise the money necessary to "run a serious campaign" against Davis.

I wouldnt be in this race if I didnt think I could put in a serious campaign, he said.

The election is Nov. 6, 2018.

Staff writer Claire Hettinger contributed to this story.
There is a very good reason legal scholars arent exactly sure if Trump can actually pardon himself  an idea that was, until last week, grossly laughable, but now, given how we live full time in the Upside Down, has been floated as a serious possibility in this fine year of our Trumpian apocalypse, 2017.

Its because its never even been considered before. Its because the idea is so preposterous, so inane, so childish in its thinking and so counter to all human dignity and political integrity  AKA so very Trumpian  the framers of the Constitution didnt even imagine it, much less see fit to say, Wait wait wait, what if we get some authoritarian-minded cretin whos so flagrantly corrupt, so tiny of mind and so shamelessly power-mad, he actually claims 'complete power' to pardon, and tries to, I dunno, pardon himself and every member of his oleaginous family, from all the crimes they hath so obviously committed?
FRANKFURT, Germany  BMW, responding Sunday to claims it formed a cartel with Daimler and Volkswagen to hold down the prices of crucial technology, denied that the German carmakers had agreed among themselves to install emissions equipment that was inadequate to do the job.

The statement by BMW was the first attempt at damage control by the carmakers since the European Commission said Saturday that it was investigating accusations of illegal collusion among them.

The German carmakers, who dominate the global market for luxury cars, can hardly afford another blow to their reputations. They were under fire after several government studies showed that diesel cars, once promoted as environmentally friendly, frequently pollute much more than advertised.

Adding to the pressure, the accusations against the automakers showed signs Sunday of becoming an issue in coming national elections. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, faced increasing criticism that they had been overly accommodating to the carmakers and had enabled wrongdoing by them.

Martin Schulz, the chancellor candidate for the left-leaning Social Democrats, said that if the allegations proved true, it would be a gigantic fraud against customers, according to news reports.

Oliver Krischer, a leading member of the Green Party, told the German news agency DPA that the allegations take the emissions scandal into a new dimension.

Such harsh criticism of the auto industry is unusual in Germany, and it illustrates the degree to which public opinion is turning against the carmakers. Motor vehicles are the countrys biggest export, and Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW are among Germanys largest employers.

In its statement Sunday, BMW said discussions with the other carmakers had been about how to ensure that customers would be able to buy refills of a chemical needed for pollution equipment in diesel vehicles. The chemical, a urea solution sold commercially as AdBlue, is sprayed into the exhaust to neutralize harmful nitrogen oxides.

German magazine Der Spiegel reported Friday that the carmakers agreed in 2006 to limit the size of the tanks used to hold AdBlue to save space in cars. Volkswagen has admitted that its vehicles were programmed to ration doses of AdBlue, leading to excess emissions. Der Spiegel said it had seen documents that were part of an antitrust investigation.

Jack Ewing is a New York Times writer.
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MANILA  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte vowed Monday to continue his bloody war on illegal drugs despite international and domestic criticism and warned that offenders will end up in jail or hell.

In his second state of the nation speech, Duterte also insisted he would not hold peace talks with communist rebels because of continuing attacks.

Security issues dominated his most important annual speech, including a disastrous two-month uprising by pro-Islamic State group militants in a southern city, the worst crisis he has faced.

Thousands of protesters marched outside Congress demanding that Duterte deliver on a range of promises that mirror the diverse burdens of his presidency, from protecting human rights to improving Internet speed.

Two months after more than 600 pro-Islamic State group militants blasted their way into the southern city of Marawi, the military is still fighting the last gunmen  fewer than 100. Duterte told reporters after his speech that the government counteroffensive will not stop until the last terrorist is taken out.

The crisis, however, may not end soon, according to Duterte, because troops have to move carefully to ensure the safety of about 300 hostages he said are being held by the gunmen. I dont want these innocent people to be slaughtered, he said.

Congress overwhelmingly voted on Saturday to grant Dutertes request to extend martial law in the south to allow Duterte to deal with the Marawi crisis and stamp out other extremist groups.

Despite criticism and threats of criminal prosecution, Duterte said his drug crackdown, which has left thousands of suspects dead, will go on.

Do not try to scare me with prison or the International Court of Justice, he said. Im willing to go to prison for the rest of my life.

He reiterated his plea that Congress reimpose the death penalty for drug offenders and others.

The fight will not stop until those who deal in (drugs) understand that they have to stop because the alternatives are either jail or hell, Duterte said, to applause from his national police chief, Ronald del Rosa, and other supporters in the audience.

More than 5,200 suspects have died so far. Human rights groups have reported a higher toll and called for an independent investigation into Dutertes possible role in the violence.

Jim Gomez and Teresa Cerojano are Associated Press writers.
KABUL  A Taliban suicide bomber killed 24 people in a horrific assault Monday in a neighborhood where prominent politicians reside, causing residents and analysts to question the governments ability to protect Afghanistans capital.

Another 42 people were injured in the attack that took place during the morning rush hour as government employees and students made their way to work and school. Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing skyward outside the entrance to a private high school. Students in nearby dormitories were injured by flying glass.

Several cars were destroyed, shops that line the busy street were decimated, and many of the occupants were killed.

The suicide bomber had rammed his explosive-laden car into a minibus, said Kabul police chief spokesman Basir Mujahed.

In a statement to the media, the Taliban took responsibility for the bombing, saying the target was employees of the intelligence services. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said insurgents had spent the past two months in Kabul shadowing intelligence services employees before striking Monday.

Analysts said widespread corruption, rife within the government and the security forces, makes keeping Kabul safe a difficult job.

You can bring any amount of explosives into the city if you have money. Corruption is the big problem, said security analyst Waheed Muzhda. Any group, even a small group, can bring weapons, ammunition to anywhere in the city.

Last year Afghanistan was ranked as one of the worlds most corrupt countries according to Transparency International.

Kabul has been battered by explosions claimed by the Taliban and by the Islamic State groups affiliate in Afghanistan. On May 31, the Afghan capital saw its worst suicide attack since the Talibans collapse in 2001  an attack that killed 150 people and wounded scores.

In a statement the Interior Ministry called Mondays attack a criminal act against humanity.

Kathy Gannon and Amir Shah are Associated Press writers.

Pakistan attack kills at least 26

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck near a police team in the eastern city of Lahore on Monday, killing at least 26 and wounding another 54, many of them police officers.

The outlawed militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Lahore has faced many terror attacks in recent years. A suicide bombing earlier this year killed 16 police officers, while another killed over 70 people during Easter last year.
1 Territorial dispute: China on Monday warned India not to push your luck by underestimating Beijings determination to safeguard what it considers sovereign Chinese territory, amid an ongoing standoff between the two neighbors over a contested region in the Himalayas. Defense ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian reiterated Chinas demand that Indian troops pull back from the Doklam Plateau, an area also claimed by Indian ally Bhutan where Chinese teams had been building a road toward Indias border. India has called for both sides to withdraw forces and reach a negotiated settlement to the standoff that began last month after Chinese troops began working to extend southward the road from Yadong in Tibet.

2 Nigeria violence: At least eight people were killed when female suicide bombers attacked two displaced persons camps in northeastern Nigerias main city, a civilian self-defense group said Monday. It was the first major attack on a displaced persons camp in Maiduguri, the birthplace of the Boko Haram extremist insurgency. The attack started late Sunday and left another 15 people wounded. The extremist groups eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people, kidnapped thousands of others, spilled into neighboring countries and created one of the worlds largest humanitarian crises.
In recent years, the discussion on selling milk from cows marked as A2A2 positive has seemed to skyrocket.

A study suggests A2 milk is easier to digest for some people. According to an article published by the Canadian Dairy Network (CDN), difficulty digesting a protein in A1 milk occurs in about a quarter of people. Milk has two protein versions of beta casein, which are classified as either A1 or A2. The digestion of the beta casein is not the same in A1 and A2 milk because of a different amino acid in A2 milk.

After speaking with Brown Swiss breeders at the National Brown Swiss Convention this summer, I was intrigued to hear that some are getting requests from people for A2A2 genetics when marketing cattle. When looking at various breed bull proofs, there is an indication on whether the bull has been tested for this genotype, indicated as A1A1, A1A2, or A2A2. From a data chart made available by CDN, top breeds for this genotype (A2A2) include Guernsey, Brown Swiss, and Jersey cows.

As fluid milk consumption has seen a trend of tapering off in recent years for various reasons like milk digestion issues, the dairy industry can hone in on this product. However, a company that was founded in New Zealand, called a2 Milk Company, owns patents for the product but is now selling their milk in the U.S.

Elise Regusci grew up on her family's farm in Modesto, Calif. Regusci attends Cal Poly University, majoring in dairy science with an agricultural communication minor. On campus, she is the Los Lecheros Dairy Club Ag Council representative and a member of the Cal Poly dairy judging team. Regusci is the current Brown Swiss Youth Ambassador and is the 2017 Hoard's Dairyman summer editorial intern.

The question still stands on whether there will be a market in the United States for this specialty milk in the coming years. Will it catch on? Possiblyif the demand from consumers rises with additional studies proving there is a greater digestion ability with the consumption of A2 milk.
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LONDON  The parents of Charlie Gard, whose battle to get their critically ill baby experimental treatment stirred international sympathy and controversy, dropped their legal effort Monday, saying tearfully that it was time to let their son die.

At an emotional court hearing, a lawyer for the babys parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, said the couple was withdrawing a bid to have Charlie sent to the United States, where a doctor had offered to try to treat his rare genetic condition. The decision came after new medical tests showed the 11-month-old, who has brain damage and cannot breathe unaided, had irreversible muscular damage.
A South African girl born with the AIDS virus has kept her infection suppressed for more than eight years after stopping anti-HIV medicines  more evidence that early treatment can occasionally cause a long remission that, if it lasts, would be a form of cure.

Her case was revealed Monday at an AIDS conference in Paris, where researchers also gave encouraging results from tests of shots every month or two instead of daily pills to treat HIV.

Thats very promising to help people stay on treatment, the U.S.s top AIDS scientist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said of the prospects for long-acting drugs.

Current treatments keep HIV under control but must be taken lifelong. Only one person is thought to be cured  a man known as the Berlin patient who had a bone marrow transplant in 2007 from a donor with natural resistance to HIV.

But transplants are risky and impractical to try to cure the millions already infected. So some researchers have been aiming for the next best thing  long-term remission, when the immune system can control HIV without drugs even if signs of the virus remain.

Aggressive treatment soon after infection might enable that in some cases, and the South African girl is the third child who achieved a long remission after that approach.

She was in a study sponsored by the agency Fauci heads, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that previously found that early versus delayed treatment helped babies survive.

The girl, who researchers did not identify, started on HIV drugs when she was 2 months old and stopped 40 weeks later. Tests when she was 9 years old found signs of virus in a small number of immune system cells, but none capable of reproducing. The girl does not have a gene mutation that gives natural resistance to HIV infection, Fauci said, so her remission seems likely due to the early treatment.

The previous cases:

A French teen who was born with HIV and is now around 20 has had her infection under control despite no HIV medicines since she was roughly 6 years old.

A Mississippi baby born with HIV in 2010 suppressed her infection for 27 months after stopping treatment before it reappeared in her blood. She was able to get the virus under control again after treatment resumed.

At least a dozen adults also have had remissions lasting for years after stopping HIV medicines.

A study under way now is testing whether treating HIV-infected newborns within two days of birth can control the virus later after treatment stops. It started in 2014 in South America, Haiti, Africa and the United States, and some of the earliest participants might be able to try stopping treatment later this year.

Marilynn Marchione is an Associated Press writer.
So so so so many spoilers. Fairly warned be ye, says we.

The Story Thus Far

The moon-faced Arya Stark poisoned the shit outta just about every Frey while Jon Snow and Sansa gathered up their political pals to talk about Dragonglass (an element that kills the ice zombies) just as Snow's pudgy buddy from The Wall found a book explaining where to find the stuffin a town that Daenerys and Tyrion just so happened to have sailed toward (and that was, like, all dragon-themed). Uncle Greyjoy went to Cersei to try and join forces but she was like, "No thank you." Clegane spent a good long while digging a grave, and it was boring. Oh, and Ed Sheeran creeped everyone out. Hold onto your buttsit's Game of Thrones for Noobs!

The Gist



It was a dark and stormy night in and around Dragon City, the new home of Deanerys "Dragon Tits" Targareyan and Tyrion "The Station Agent" Lannister. Danny is kinda bummed out, but some bald guy (who might be that guy Varys of the Westeros Pinfields, but hand to God I can't remember) is there to be like, "Yeah, we should fight people." She's down, and she reminisces about the good old days when it wasn't abnormal to take dragons to war. Tyrion, displaying the judgment of a saint, is ready to fight Cersei, but he points out they don't have to kill everyone. Everyone agrees that Daenerys wasn't famous til she married Aquaman a few years back, and that just don't sit right with her. Her curly tresses flap and fly in the rainy wind. Oh! She refers to him as Varys, so coolwe're good. Still, she makes him promise her he won't, like, stab her while she's asleep or something with a kicky little remark about burning him alive. He agrees just in time for that Red Witch (who brought Snow back to life last year and who's name I couldn't remember if my life depended on it) to show up and stare all creepy-like. Varys ain't feeling it, especially since she made that Stannis guy burn his daughter alive in the old days, but maybe this witch has no place to go, so she has to be cool. "The long night is coming," she says, "and we need a prince." Daenerys isn't a dude, but her progressive translater is like, "Fuck gender pronouns, they're a regressive social construct for which I have no patience!" Everyone agrees that having an open mind and ditching annoying conceits rooted in systematic oppression is a good plan. Everyone also knows Jon Snow because he famous, but also he hates Cersei as much as they do. A win/win for everyone who wants to kill jerks.

Back in King's Landing, Cersei sits on the sword throne scaring her constituents with promises of dead kids and burned villages. She clearly wants them on her team and is pretty evil. Her haircut still looks good, though, so maybe prison wasn't that bad? She's amassing an army to fight Daenerys, but people know about her dragons because that's, like, her fucking thing she does. People are nervous, especially Jamie, who meets some guy named Dickon (Georgie must've been running out of fantasy-sounding names by then) and tries to get him on the team. He makes promises about how his Cersei love has less to do with their gratuitous incest and more to do with lust for power. He badmouths eunuchs, which is wack because what else can they really go through? Cersei, meanwhile, is thinking about renovating the castle basement. Her contractor is like, "See, your problem is you've got a huge-ass dragon skull in here taking up all the room." Also discovered is a trebuchet, which they'll presumably use to slay them dragons if and when it comes down to it; there are not really animal cruelty laws in Westeros, probably because they're more worried about ice zombies.

Once again in Dragonstone, Danny and Tyrion have what's-her-facethe queen of that Persian-esque countryseriously, what's her name!? Anyway, she's there along with Olenna and her pillbox hat to wax philosophical about respect born of fear. Daenerys, however, plans on starving out King's Landing instead of murdering everyone she comes across. Right on, that's nice, I guess. In the background, Theon and Sheon hang about silently wondering where their murderous uncle might be. Most everyone leaves, but Olenna and Daenerys hang around to talk about how being a lady is hard. They're not wrong. And then the former slaves buy a one-way ticket to Bone City since they'll probably be embroiled in a fucking dragon war any day now.

Over at the library where Pudgy Junior spends his days shelving books and carrying buckets of shit around, Jim Broadbent is still laying into this dude. See, Pudgy thinks he's got the cure for stone-itis, but Broadbent is old-school as fuck and just is like, "No way, sucker." But you know Pudgy, and he brews a concoction for Jorah anyway. Somehow it's less believable that this idiot could cure an infamous disease than any of the rest of the dragon shit and ice zombies and whatever else. I mean, he's not a doctor, right? The most he's ever done is to follow Snow around like some lovesick little punk. Anyway, he starts cutting into the stuff, which is super gross and oozy, and Jorah just kind of deals with it, although you'd think they could at least have knocked him out or something before cutting him all up.

We finally catch up with Arya, who sneakily became about the best part of this show because she's ready to kill literally anyone who crosses her. She is, in fact, so badass, that she keeps telling people she's out to kill Cersei. She does, however, find out that Ramsay Bolton is dead and Jon Snow is, like, the guy up in the North now. She immediately hops on her horse and heads off somewhere. Snow, meanwhile, announces his intentions to travel to Dragonstone to forge an alliace and get the stuff to kill ice zombies. He's the king, right? So why does he have to explain his shit to people? Ugh. He should just die again. And don't get me started on Sansaalways fucking nay-saying Snow's choices and stirring up shit. Epithets and shit-talkery abound in the great hall, though, because ain't nobody like a Lannister and ain't nobody like a Targeryan. Why!? Aw, who cares. Anyway, they tell him he shouldn't leave the town, but Snow makes a speech about how he can go where he wants and everyone should be afraid of ice zombies. And even though she never lets up on him, Snow puts Sansa in charge for while he's gone. And oh wow, suddenly she's all onboard with whatever he wants to do. Jeeze. To celebrate, Snow hangs with Baelish in some horrible fucking catacomb and the pair critiques the states they have there and stroke each other's egos. Snow doesn't like Baelish because he married Sansa to Ramsay, so threats are made while the rest of us wonder who lights the candles in the fucking catacombs. Its snows and snows and snows some more, and Sansa waves from the balcony pretending like she's conflicted about her newfound power and already drafting laws that no one will like.

While that goes down, Arya is just straight-cold woods hanging, but her horse doesn't like it one bit. He's seen The Neverending Story and knows what happens to horses in creepy forests and swamps and such. Gigantic wolves appear as if from nowhere, and Arya seems awfully spooked for a magic assassin who kills whoever she wants. But wait, actually, the biggest wolf of all time shows up. Good thing Arya knows it. Like, she knows this wolf. By name. "It's me, Nymeria," she says, "I'm going on a trip and you should come with," and the wolf is all like, "All I know is ripping up flesh with my fangs!" before leaving. I mean, I guess that sucks, but it also didn't eat her, so it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to her. "That ain't my wolf," she thinks to herself.

Out at sea, the queen of the Persia-like lands trash talks the booze situation on their ship while her daughters argue about who's gonna kill who. Theon and Sheon maybe don't know how much this lady likes to kill people, but it seems like it's gonna be more of a sex situation for Sheon and Queen What's-Her-Dick. Too bad the ship gets attacked, though, especially since it's Uncle Greyjoy and his armada of floating death machines. He's completely nuts, too, and a blood-spraying sea battle takes place. Fire is everywhere, throats are slashed with wild abandon and dudes with spiky brass knuckles punch so many faces it's unreal. Theon gets a few good stabs in for sure, but they're losing an awful lot of buddies. Don't even get me started on the bonkers crotch stabbings that go down or how Uncle Greyjoy is so good at fighting that even Queen What's-Her-Dick's assassin daughters can't fight him (they get killed so hard). The ultimate family feud slows only as Sheon is held captive leaving Theon to try and fucking do something positive for once in his life. But instead he runs away. Or swims away. Either way, he's a fucking coward, although the crotch stabbing would probably freak anyone out. He floats at sea like his name is Rose Dawson or something while the last ship standing sails off into the distance. Good luck going home after this shit, you fucking dick.

The Good

The fight scenes were pretty exciting.

The Bad

What is this emphasis on gross-out stone-itis surgeries and the stabbing of crotches? Why do they need to go that far!?

The Grade: C

Stormborn was probably full of useful information and is surely meant to just set the stage for some pretty good stuff, but there was way more jibber-jabbering between the good stuff than seemed necessary. The gargantuan wolf was pretty alright, but there was a fair level of mostly boring crap at play.

The next episode for noobs is here...

Santa Fe Reporter
Page Content

The Minister of Justice herewith makes the following announcement:





At the time, the Ministry of Justice put all requests for renewal of authorization (i.e. licenses) for possession of (fire)arms on hold, pending the adoption of a new restrictive weapons policy and the establishment of a Weapons Advisory Committee that is to advise the Minister on the applications received.





The new weapons policy was adopted in November 2016, and was subsequently published in the National Gazette of November 25, 2016 ("Nota Policies 2016", National Gazette, 2016 No. 23). The policy is also available for perusal at the secretariat of the Ministry of Justice on the A.Th. Illidge Road 8 in Philipsburg.





Meanwhile, the Weapons Advisory Committee set up by the Minister of Justice, in which the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Police are represented, started the process of handling the large number of applications for permission to carry a weapon.





The Minister wishes to prevent that persons, whose firearms have been registered with the Police and who have proof of having submitted a request for renewal of their weapons permit but who, while awaiting a decision on their application are still in possession of their firearm due to the delay in decision making, run the risk of being fined and prosecuted for illegal weapon possession.





Therefore, the Minister grants these persons, after consulting with and obtaining the consent of the Weapons Advisory Committee, from the date of this notice until the date on which a decision is made on their application, but no later than December 31st, 2017, a license to have that firearm in their possession. This general license is deemed to have been granted under the same conditions as under which they have been previously granted a license for the firearm.





The public is hereby informed that anyone who is in possession of a gun or ammunition without being licensed to do so, should hand over the gun to the police under the Firearms Ordinance. Also, if a license holder dies, his survivors must hand over the firearm as well as the ammunition, to the police.




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"I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting," Kushner wrote. "Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for 10 or so minutes and wrote, 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.' "
An ACT court has found a former Marist College Canberra teacher unfit to be tried on more than a dozen sexual abuse offences allegedly committed against boys in the 1980s.

The court's decision means John William Chute, known as Brother Kostka, 85, will instead face a special hearing in the ACT Supreme Court and, even if found guilty, will likely avoid conviction.

Brother John 'Kostka' Chute (left) leaves the ACT Supreme Court with his lawyer Greg Walsh (middle) after being found not fit to plead to 13 historical child sex offences. Credit:Megan Gorrey

Chute was charged with 13 sex offences allegedly committed against four children between 1979 and 1986.

The alleged offences include one act of buggery, 10 indecent assaults on a male and two acts of indecency on young people.
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte wants all minerals extracted in his country to be processed domestically as part of a crackdown on miners that could hit dozens of Australian companies.

In a state of the nation address, Mr Duterte vowed to tax miners "to the death" if damage to the Philippines' environment persisted.

"If possible we shall put a stop to the extraction and exportation of our mineral resources ... for processing abroad and importing them back to the Philippines in the form of consumer goods at prices twice or thrice the value of the raw materials," he said.

Analysts say the comments will further shatter the confidence of mining companies to explore for minerals in the island-nation, which according to the Australian government's Austrade has untapped deposits worth an estimated $A840 billion.
John Heard, an actor who played pained characters in dramas but was probably best known for his role as the father who mistakenly left his youngest son behind on a family trip to Paris in the comedy Home Alone, has died in Palo Alto, California aged 71. The Santa Clara County medical examiner's office said the cause was under investigation.

Heard recently had surgery for back pain at Stanford University Medical Centre and was recovering at a nearby hotel, where a housekeeper found his body, his former wife, Sharon Heard, said in an interview on Saturday.

Home Alone: The McCallister clan were (front, from left) Hillary Wolf as Megan, John Heard as Peter, Catherine O'Hara as Kate, Angela Goethals as Linnie; (rear) Michael Maronna as Jeff, Devin Ratray as Buzz and Macaulay Culkin as eight-year-old Kevin.

Heard started his career playing serious roles in the theatre and was praised for his wrenching performance as a disabled and emotionally tortured Vietnam veteran in the 1981 film Cutter's Way, which also starred Jeff Bridges.

Heard gained recognition mainly for lighter roles in films of the 1980s and '90s such as Home Alone in which he played Macaulay Culkin's father, and before that, Big, with Tom Hanks. With his squinting blue eyes and clean-shaven good looks, Heard often embodied the stereotype of the 1980s businessman, bringing a mixture of flustered charm and self-assurance to the roles.
On the weekend, the wider community heard a lot about what the NSW public school system could do for gifted children: better teacher training, an overhaul of the selective schools test and, perhaps most controversially, selective primary schools.

But unless you have a gifted child in your family or have taught one or were one, you probably don't know much about them. Gifted children think differently. They often approach problems in a more creative and divergent fashion than the majority of their age peers.

They have an intellectual ability in the top 10 per cent of their age group, but this does not make them more special than anyone else. Giftedness is not elitist. It is not gender-specific, nor is it over-represented in any one cultural group or socio-economic class.

What many people don't understand is that giftedness is not always free from a learning disability. It does not guarantee happiness or success; it is not a golden lottery ticket.
A veteran Liberal who called refugee activists and environmentalists "a bunch of cockroaches" was confronted at the weekend's preselection meeting over the inflammatory remarks by a rising star in the party.

Sources who attended the closed meeting of preselectors held on Saturday said WA Councillor Brent Fleeton, 30, approached failed Liberal senate candidate Michael Sutherland, 63, about his comments, reported by Fairfax Media.

Former WA Liberal MP Michael Sutherland. Credit:WA Liberal party

Mr Fleeton confirmed he questioned Mr Sutherland about his views, saying it was important to take a stand against such tactics.

"I did confront him about it because I wanted him to explain to State Council why he thought it was helpful to use a derogatory term instead of actually debating the issues, no matter how funny to him," he said.
The United Nations refugee agency says it struck a "clear understanding" over several meetings - which included direct discussions with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton - that some refugees from Manus Island and Nauru would be resettled in Australia.

In a statement jarringly at odds with the Turnbull government's public position that no refugees now in offshore detention would set foot in Australia, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the agency had agreed to help administer the deal between Australia and the United States on the understanding there would be exceptions for vulnerable people with family ties in Australia.

The angry statement accusing the government of failing to honour the understanding has led to an extraordinary public standoff between the UN agency and Mr Dutton, whose office on Monday dismissed the UN claim, saying the government had been clear about its position all along.

"Last November, UNHCR exceptionally agreed to help with the relocation of refugees to the United States following a bilateral agreement between Australia and the US," UN commissioner Filippo Grandi said in a statement released on Monday.
The dinner is chronicled in the latest issue of Vogue Australia despite it reportedly being a "very private party".

The daughters of Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart, were photographed together at an intimate dinner celebrating Bianca's 40th birthday party in Perth recently.

Bianca Rinehart at the Pink Hope Gala in Sydney back in 2015. Credit:Tony Aoun

After years of messy legal battles it appears sisters Bianca and Ginia Rinehart have reconciled.

In happier times: Bianca, Gina Rinehart and Ginia Rinehart in 2012.

"A long and public court battle won, Bianca is in a happy place and wanted her people around her," the party report read.

Bianca, who replaced her mother as trustee of the estimated $5 billion Hope Margaret Hancock Trust back in 2015, celebrated her "milestone birthday" at the glass-roofed restaurant at Como The Treasury - an establishment voted second-best hotel in the world by leading travel publisher, Conde Nast Traveler, last year.

For years Bianca and Ginia were on different sides of the bitter war over the family's multibillion-dollar trust.

Ginia sided with her mother, while Bianca and brother John Hancock, claimed documents and accounts relating to the trust established by their grandfather, Lang Hancock, had been withheld from them by Gina. They also claimed Gina had failed to declare up to $500 million in dividends from the family's flagship company, Hancock Prospecting.
There was no good reason for the death of Justine Damond. It is inexplicable, though it could easily have been avoided. She was killed by an American police officer for the crime of having called the police for help. That is horrific enough, but in America these things happen so often that we are engaged in an increasingly polarised debate about whether there is in fact a problem with American policing, and if so what to do about it.

I reported from Ferguson for weeks back in 2014, as protests turned to unrest in the aftermath of the police killing unarmed black teenager Mike Brown. During the day, police were affable and even charming. Once night fell the air began to feel malevolent as the mood turned. I watched uniformed law enforcement violate peoples' rights with reckless abandon. One woman was charged with assaulting an officer for bleeding on his uniform. Reporters were arrested. Every night, police would taunt protesters and then arrest them if they reacted.

I was not watching the enforcement of law nor the preservation of peace; I was watching the Zimbardo experiment in real time. In the three years since, there has been little effort at systemic reform, though thousands more civilians have been killed by police. We make some of their names into hashtags: Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, John Crawford, Rekia Boyd, Philando Castile. And others.
Superannuation fund directors will face jail terms of up to five years for wrongdoing under changes put forward by the federal government.

Under current law, a contravention of the governing rules of a super fund is not an offence and does not result in a civil or criminal penalty. However, a contravention can give rise to a claim for loss or damages by the affected member.

An exposure draft of legislation released by Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer on Monday, a contravention of the governing rules makes the fund possibly subject to a civil penalty which may then give rise to civil and criminal consequences.

In addition, serious breaches of the director's duties, such as those involving intentional or fraudulent contraventions, may constitute a criminal offence punishable by up to five years jail.
More than 40 per cent of the 795,000 students in NSW's public schools do not list any religion on their enrolment form, according to new data that comes as parents and teachers push for an overhaul of the strict rules that leave students with "dead time" if they do not attend scripture.

All schools must set aside at least 30 minutes each week for special religious education (SRE) but the data, released under freedom of information laws, shows that in more than 50 per cent of schools, most students do not nominate a religion.

Christianity remains the main religion listed (about 45 per cent), especially on Sydney's north shore, while some schools in Sydney's west have as many as 90 per cent of students who identify with Islam.

At Banksia Road Public School, 91 per cent of students listed Islam on their enrolment form while at Bellevue Hill Public, 71 per cent students listed Judaism and at Cabramatta High, 35 per cent nominated Buddhism.
People with disability are allegedly experiencing hundreds of incidents of violence, including sexual and physical abuse, a year, new figures from the NSW Ombudsman reveal.

Disability advocates say the figures strengthen the case for a royal commission into the sector.

Labor spokeswoman for disability services Sophie Cotsis says the statistics are scandalous. Credit:Dean Osland

The NSW Ombudsman has released updated figures into reviewable deaths of people with disability as well as allegations of abuse and neglect.

There have been almost 400 reviewable deaths since the Ombudsman started collating statistics in January 2014.
The Sydney University student was dancing with friends and kissing a man at the St John's College end-of-year formal.

The next thing the woman remembered was being in a leafy area with overhanging trees on the grounds of the college with the man, Jean Claude Perrottet on top of her, the NSW District Court heard.

Jean Claude Louis Perrottet (left) is charged with three counts of having sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Mr Perrottet, 20, the younger brother of NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, is charged with three counts of having sexual intercourse with the 19-year-old woman without her consent in the early hours of October 18, 2015. Mr Perrottet has pleaded not guilty.

NSW District Court judge Stephen Norrish informed the jury panel of Mr Perrottet's politician brother before 12 members were selected.
Two Chinese men are accused of being part of a criminal syndicate that imported 370 kilograms of ephedrine into Australia hidden in wall tiles, canisters and cow milking machines.

Huan Tang and Yanpei Zhang were arrested in a raid on a residential property in Dundas in western Sydney, on Thursday after police a fortnight ago intercepted 100kg of ephedrine concealed in foil pouches secreted inside milking machines.

AAP understands the men, both 25, were in Australia on legitimate visas.

They were charged with attempting to import a commercial quantity of ephedrine and appeared before Parramatta Local Court last Friday.
A retired couple in Brisbane's north have celebrated their second Gold Lotto division one win in less than four years, after being one of more than a dozen winners in Saturday's draw.

The couple, who live at Stafford but wish to remain anonymous, won more than $300,000 in prize money, but revealed they also won more than $500,000 in division one in 2014.

A retired Brisbane couple enjoyed their second Lotto win in four years on the weekend.

"That's unreal!" the winning man exclaimed when his Gold Lotto win was confirmed on Monday morning.



"I checked my ticket yesterday and I was sitting there marking the numbers. I checked it again and again. I said to my wife 'we've got six numbers in the Lotto!'.



"I worked hard all my life and it was all manual work.

"Now we can relax and enjoy our retirement.



"We'll share it with our family, buy a new car, and just try and keep breathing.
Your fridge could be turned into a covert listening device by Queensland Police conducting surveillance.

The revelation was made during a Parliamentary committee hearing on proposed legislation to give police more powers to combat terrorism.

Authorities could turn your smart fridge into a secret listening device. Credit:Stocksy

Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said technology was rapidly changing and police and security agencies could use devices already in place, and turn them into listening devices.

"It is not outside the realm that, if you think about the connected home that we now look at quite regularly where people have their security systems, their CCTV systems and their computerised refrigerator all hooked up wirelessly, you could actually turn someone's fridge into a listening device," Mr Stewart said.
Thousands of young Queenslanders are getting in trouble with the law because of child exploitation material (CEM), as a report warns of the dangers of sexting.

In a report into child exploitation material, the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council said young people were increasingly using technology to make, share and possess images that were actually CEM.

A new report has warned about the dangers of sexting for young Queenslanders.

It says sexting is "common, and for the most part becoming normalised among young people in their early to late teens".

The research reveals 1470 young people aged under 17 were diverted by police from the court system over the decade to 2015-16.
Brisbane residents want more bridges, with more than 4500 residents letting peak motoring body RACQ know where they want their bridges and who they want to use them.

In May RACQ launched its Bridging Brisbane survey to get feedback on proposed river crossings.

The results of RACQ"s Bridging Brisbane survey have been released.

More than 4600 votes were cast for the 12 bridges and tunnels proposed.

The most popular project was the proposed upgrade of the Centenary Motorway to eight lanes.
Even with the NBN rollout Australia's fixed-line broadband can be unreliable, which means you need a mobile insurance policy if you can't afford to be offline.

A few months ago I reviewed Telstra's Frontier Gateway broadband modem, which has a built-in SIM card so your home can automatically switch across to Telstra's 4G LTE mobile broadband network if your Telstra fixed-line connection drops out. It would be a good fit for some homes but has limitations which might frustrate power users  which is where the Accelerated 6350-SR LTE comes in.

Accelerated's 6350-SR LTE can automatically switch your home/office across to mobile broadband if your fixed-line connection drops out.

To be fair the Accelerated 6350-SR LTE is aimed at business users and has a hefty $990 price tag, but that's not out of the question for small/home businesses or prosumer home users who need reliable broadband and don't want to be tied to Telstra. Offsetting the upfront price is the fact that ditching Telstra is likely to save you money on your monthly bill.

Run your eye down the spec sheet and the 6350-SR LTE ticks a lot of boxes. It features a Gigabit WAN port for connecting to any broadband modem, whether you're on DSL, cable or any flavour of NBN. There are also four Gigabit LAN ports for running Ethernet cables around your home.
From double-sided televisions to towering see-through displays, LG is designing the screens of the future in a South Korean research lab nestled right against the North Korean border.

Visitors to LG's OLED factory must drive beneath the watchful eye of South Korean soldiers manning the guard towers which mark the edge of no-man's land, dividing prosperous south from its volatile neighbour to the north.

Curved OLED panels might not have taken off in the loungeroom, but LG thinks they have a future in retail. Credit:Adam Turner

Security guards demand to see identification papers at the factory gate and visitors are forbidden from wandering the facility unescorted. The serial numbers of all electronic devices are recorded and smartphone cameras are covered with security tape at reception, before visitors are permitted to peek at the secrets that lie within.

LG Display is the world's only major manufacturer of television-sized Ultra HD OLED panels, and all recording devices are strictly forbidden on the factory floor. Even away from the production line, security is tight in the research and development showroom and there is constant haggling with LG's people as to what can be photographed and reported.
Sargadeep is a father fighting for his son.

The traditional Sikh man is battling a Christian school that he claims refused to enrol his five-year-old boy if he wore the child's version of a turban, called a patka, or grew his hair long.

The school, Melton Christian College in Melbourne's west, insists it has the right to set the uniform its students wear.

The arbitrator of the case will be the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, but it will be closely watched as a test case by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
In an ironic twist, the hotline number of the Wisconsin department that often warns consumers about telemarketing scams is being spoofed in the latest round of scam calls.

The state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection announced that a number of people were receiving calls Monday from the departments Consumer Protection Hotline, an 800 number.

Bill Cosh, the departments communications director, said the Bureau of Consumer Protection does not make calls to consumers via the 800 number. If the Wisconsin department were to reach out to a consumer, it would be via its local 608 line.

The number has not only called Wisconsinites, but people from seven other states. Many of the scam callers do not leave a message, though one consumer reported receiving a message about the Wisconsin Do Not Call list.

The department joins the growing list of Wisconsin entities with numbers that have been spoofed in the last few weeks, including the state Department of Justice and the Madison and UW-Madison police departments. Scammers will sometimes spoof numbers to change what shows up on a persons caller ID.

Cosh urges individuals to hang up if they receive a phone call from the departments 800 number. The number enables consumers to contact the bureau to file a complaint or to inquire about consumer laws.

The department, which releases a Top Ten Consumer Complaints list annually, ranked telemarketing as its top consumer complaint in 2016, at 3,685 complaints, a 45 percent increase from 2015.
A pelican seen being kicked and stomped on by two men in a vicious daylight attack in Melbourne's suburban north-west was so badly injured it had to be humanely killed.

The pelican was left with multiple breaks to its wings and ribs after the shocking attack in St Albans about midday last Tuesday.

An X-ray of the pelican's broken wing. Credit:Werribee Animal Hospital

The bird was left for dead on Gladstone Street.

Rescuers rushed it to a local veterinarian but it was ultimately euthanised.
The police's tactical response group and more than 30 police officers rushed to an armed robbery at a Duncraig fast food restaurant on Sunday night.

Nine News Perth reporter Lee Steele said witnesses described police scouring bushland with torches after a man wearing a balaclava robbed a McDonald's outlet on Marmion Avenue about 8pm.

"The witness that I spoke to said a man walked in, put a gun on the counter and demanded cash," she said.

"The male worker handed over the cash and he left the scene."
Murray Street mall in the heart of Perth's CBD was re-opened just after 3.40pm on Monday after a suspicious package put the retail precinct in lockdown for more than a hour.

WA police confirmed they had been called into the city after a 'suspicious item' was discovered near the Piccadilly Arcade.

Perth's Murray Street was in lockdown on Monday after police discovered a suspicious package. Credit:Twitter @scottlambkin

After investigations the suspect package, believed to be in a brown box, was deemed to be nothing sinister and shoppers are now walking freely through the mall.

Police have not confirmed what the item was but the portion of the street cordoned off with police tape has now been removed.
A Toodyay farmer has been fined $50,000 and copped a four-year conditional prohibition order after dead and decaying sheep were found at his property in March 2014.

Clinton Charles Wheatley was sentenced in Perth's Magistrates Court on Monday after pleading guilty to animal cruelty on his farm.

RSPCA inspectors were disturbed at the scenes on the Toodyay farm. Credit:RSPCA

Inspectors visited his property after a member of the public complained about a large number of dead and dying sheep.

They were disturbed by the scenes of death and decay around the property and worked to rescue a number of sheep who appeared to be clinging to life.
Accused Australian drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury is reportedly under pressure to inform in return for a reduced jail sentence in Colombia.

The 22-year-old is facing 20 years in a Colombian prison after 5.8 kilograms of cocaine was allegedly found inside 18 headphone cases in her luggage at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota last month.

Accused drugs mule Cassandra Sainsbury.

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News Corp Australia says prosecutors will not agree to a plea bargain to substantially reduce her sentence unless she gives them details of who arranged the drug deal.
WARNING: The content of this story may be distressing.

South Sudan's brutal civil conflict has prompted a massive upsurge of sexual violence, as the country's Nuer and Dinka tribes seek to dominate and humiliate one another.

Rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, mutilation, torture, castration and forced nudity are being inflicted mainly by men of both sides on people, mainly women and children, whom they perceive as being representatives of the enemy.

"This is premeditated sexual violence on a massive scale," according to Amnesty International's East Africa regional director Muthoni Wanyeki.
Los Angeles: Minneapolis' Somali-American police officers are "afraid" after a wave of community and online anger in response to last week's fatal police shooting of Australian Justine Damond.

Abdi Warsame, a Minneapolis City Council member, hit back at racist and anti-Muslim comments aimed at the US city's large Somali and East African community since Somali-born officer Mohamed Noor shot dead Australian yoga instructor Ms Damond in a residential alley last week.

"I've heard others describe this tragedy as a terrorist act, as a Muslim against a Christian," Mogadishu-born Mr Warsame told a press conference.

"These statements are dangerous and purely divisive, and they undermine our American values."
Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government accuses of masterminding last year's coup, has his blood pressure checked at his compound in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. Credit:New York Times Settled in London, Ipek spends his days trying to clear his name and somehow reclaim his life. He says he is not a financial backer of Gulen or a beneficiary of favours from his followers. And, he says, he didn't flee Turkey with billions of dollars, as the government has charged. He says his current net worth is less than $US10 million. "I have not committed one single crime in my life, not a traffic penalty," he fumed. An outpost of Faruk Gulluoglu, a popular baklava chain, at Taksim Square in Istanbul. It is one of more than 950 companies which have been expropriated since last year's failed coup. Credit:New York Times 'An Exceptional Person'

A fit-looking 53-year-old, Ipek speaks English learned, in part, as an undergraduate in Britain. A black belt in taekwondo and formerly an exercise addict, he has given up workouts since moving to London and has a pack-a-day cigarette habit. He shaved off the moustache he long wore in Turkey, an act with political overtones given that moustaches are de rigueur in Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, shortened to AKP in Turkey. "They copied me," he said of the AKP's moustachioed members. "After they saw my moustache, they got jealous and started growing their own." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party in Ankara earlier this month. Credit:Presidency Press Service via New York Times He paused a moment, smiled, then added: "That is a joke." On some level, it's not. Ipek has an ego just healthy enough to believe that he could be a facial-hair trendsetter. He described a luxury hotel he built as "the world's best hotel" and the oil he discovered in a south-east province as "the best oil in Turkey".

A fertility clinic in Istanbul that had its services interrupted by the Erdogan government after the attempted coup last year. Credit:New York Times "I'm an exceptional person," he said matter-of-factly. A Toxic Liability There is a counternarrative to Ipek's life from people who knew him or followed his career. It starts with an irony: Ipek's ascent was made possible by the 2003 election to the prime ministership of Erdogan - the man who would become his nemesis. An unfinished housing development owned by Dumankaya Insaat, a company seized by the Turkish state. Critics say that many such companies have been sold at deep discounts to friends of the president. Credit:New York Times

Until then, Turkey had for decades been controlled by a secular elite backed by the military, collectively known as Kemalists. Suddenly, a conservative Muslim was the prime minister, and he badly needed to replace Kemalists with bureaucrats, judges and police officers loyal to the new administration Erdogan struck an alliance with Gulen - then regarded not as a rival but as a conservative Muslim with highly educated acolytes. Gulenists slowly began to take jobs in the government. Businessmen in the good graces of the Erdogan-Gulen entente were marked for greatness. Turkey was entering its expansionary era, and those with the right connections prospered. Being associated with Gulen eventually became a toxic liability. By 2009, Erdogan began to suspect that Gulen wanted to return and run the country. Of course, even if it were the case that Ipek was one of Gulen's truest believers, taking companies with scant due process would seem to violate most countries' legal norms. Many inside and outside Turkey believe Erdogan has exploited the failed coup as a pretext to expand his power, tossing people in prison or firing them from jobs for sins as minor as keeping money in a Gulen-connected bank. More than 130,000 people have been suspended or dismissed in the past year.

Ipek may simply have experienced the wrath of the president before everyone else. During their last face-to-face meeting, in 2012, Erdogan smouldered while reading aloud every word of a column in Bugun, Ipek's newspaper, that he found objectionable. "He was not reasonable anymore," Ipek said. "I told him, 'Consider me your younger brother and let me tell you some truths. You need to look at the whole wall, not concentrate on one brick. I'll ask my columnists to be a little more polite, but we want people to be free to express their opinion. We promised them a free press.'" Ipek must have realised that his future in Turkey was not secure. In late 2014, he began the process of relocating to London, forming a holding company there called Ipek Investments that would control all of his assets. The leverage the government now has over Ipek includes his younger brother, Tekin, who was imprisoned two years ago without a trial. Akin Ipek has offered to fly to Turkey and take his brother's place if the government releases him. Come to Turkey and we'll talk, the government has countered, in Ipek's telling. It is a proposal that he has declined, because he assumes that the government will simply imprison them both. "I've seen them do that before," he said.

Taking Over Finding a government official to speak about the business seizures was not easy. After many phone calls, a high-ranking adviser to Erdogan agreed to an interview at his office in the presidential complex in Ankara. The high-ranking official turned out to be a friendly man who, through a translator, opened by conveying the conditions of the interview: No one else, he said, could be quoted in the article. When I declined that offer, he had another idea. He would provide names of other sources who could be quoted. When I said that wouldn't work either, he explained that he could not appear in an article that contained negative sentiments about Turkey. When that offer was also rejected, he agreed to share his thoughts only if his name was kept from the story and he was referred to as a "high-ranking official". This pre-interview conversation revealed a lot about the state of mind of the country's governing party. The high-ranking official wasn't just setting these terms because he had little use for independent journalism, though he clearly preferred the pliant variety. He was setting those terms out of fear.
A small plane heading to an airshow in Oshkosh crashed in Green Lake County Saturday, but nobody was hurt in the crash.

The Sheriff's Office said the crash landing was in a cornfield on Phelps Road in the town of Green Lake, and happened at about 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Phelps Road is near Markesan and about 40 miles from Wittman Regional Airport, site of the annual EAA AirVenture, a huge airshow in eastern Wisconsin.

Two people were in the plane, a 61-year-old man and a 9-year-old boy. They got out of the plane uninjured. Police did not identify the two, but did say the plane had flown from Ohio.

"The pilot said while he was in a holding pattern waiting to fly into the EAA in Oshkosh, the plane suddenly stopped making power and he was forced to make an emergency landing," said Sheriff Mark Podoll.

The Federal Aviation Administration was contacted and took over the investigation.

EAA AirVenture started Monday and continues through Sunday. The event draw hundreds of thousands of spectators and thousands of planes, making the airport the busiest in the world for one week.
Charlie Gard at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Credit:Gard Family/AP "Dark days lie ahead for [Charlie's] parents," Mr Armstrong said. "They wish to treasure their remaining time with Charlie, however short." Ms Yates, in a statement she read to the court and Chris Gard read again outside, said their child had a "real, genuine chance at life ... the potential to be a normal healthy little boy" if he had been treated earlier. Supporters of Charlie Gard hold placards outside the court in London. Credit:AP "A whole lot of time has been wasted ... our poor boy has been left to lie in hospital for months without treatment, whilst lengthy court battles have been fought," she said. "Charlie has been left with his illness to deteriorate devastatingly to the point of no return.

"We will now have to live with the what-ifs that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. "We have decided that it's no longer in Charlie's best interests to pursue treatment and we will let our son go and be with the angels. "His spirit will live on for eternity ... to Charlie we say we love you so much ... we are so sorry that we couldn't save you. Sweet dreams baby, sleep tight our beautiful little boy." The parents had raised 1.3 million ($2.1 million) to get Charlie to the US for an experimental treatment they believed could have helped their child. Two weeks ago an expert told the court there was a 10 per cent chance it would work. The couple took their fight through English and European courts, trying to get permission to take their son to America.

"[The parents] believe they ought to have been trusted with the decision," Mr Armstrong told the court. "Charlie has waited patiently for his right to receive treatment. Due to the delay that chance has been lost." Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) judged that treatment would have been futile and Charlie should be allowed to die with dignity. Charlie has a rare, fatal genetic disorder and, scans last week again confirmed, severe brain damage. In April the High Court ruled he should be allowed to die. The hospital brought the case back to court after the parents claimed there was new evidence about possible treatment. But the tests last week, including an examination by the American specialist who had offered the treatment, confirmed that Charlie had extensive and irreversible damage to his body and brain, the court was told. The parents were told the test results, which were reviewed by several experts, on Friday.

GOSH's representative in court said "the hearts of hospital and staff go out to Charlie and his father and his mother". In a "position statement" handed to the court, GOSH said "the agony, desolation and bravery of [the parents'] decision command GOSH's utmost respect". "While GOSH has striven to work with them throughout, Charlie's needs have taken priority. "Charlie's parents have fought long and hard for what they have been led to believe was a treatment that would give him a chance to be the Charlie he was before the effects of his illness became apparent. "They feel now, and perhaps will feel for some long time to come, that if only GOSH had treated Charlie months ago, they would have been spared the impossible decision they make now."

But from the moment of his diagnosis, Charlie's prognosis was "known to be bleak", the hospital said. The proposed experimental treatment, called NBT, had never been tried on any human or animal with Charlie's condition, they said. Seizures that began before Christmas caused irreversible neurological damage and "any chance that NBT might have had of benefiting Charlie had departed", leading to the decision in February to withdraw life support. "All aspects of the clinical picture and all of Charlie's observations indicated that his brain was irreversibly damaged and that NBT was futile," the hospital said. "NBT may well assist others in the future, [but] it cannot and could not have assisted Charlie."

High Court Judge Sir Nicholas Francis said "no parent could have done more for their child [and] none of us can begin to understand their agony", before confirming he would not change the orders he made in April. "The parents now have to face the reality that it is in Charlie's best interests to die." He said the court had been guided by the principle that the child's welfare was its paramount consideration. Justice Francis also paid tribute to the medical experts and hospital staff involved in the case, saying it was a "disgrace" that they had been subjected to abuse. Loading
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Association for Psychologists and Allied Professionals Sint Maarten (APAP SXM) is reaching out through a Facebook page to improve communication and awareness in our community.

APAP SXM is an association that has been established over a year ago. It strives to promote the practice and professional development of psychology and related fields. It also focuses on serving the social and professional interests of psychologists and related professionals. To achieve these objectives, the association provides intervention meetings for professionals. It also maintains relationships with related professionals and stakeholders. Furthermore, it looks forward to keeping the community involved and aware about developments in the field of psychology here on Sint Maarten.

The foundations board consists of President Jolien Louwerse (psychologist at Mental Health Foundation), vice-president Stephanie Haseth (psychologist at Mental Health Foundation), secretary Zuleima Violenus (psychologist at SVOBE) and treasurer Miranda Veltman (independent psychologist). Further members are Alexandra van Luijken (independent psychologist), Carmencita Chemont (independent psychologist), Caroline van Oost (psychologist at White & Yellow Cross), and Henriette Schreurs (educational psychologist at SVOBE). Extra-ordinary members are Cheryl Ferero (child & adolescent psychiatrist) and Stephen Ebecilio (visiting neuro psychologist from Curacao).

Through social media, the association is now looking forward to establishing positive relationships with the community, press, and professionals in the field. The Facebook page will provide information regarding which professionals and services are available on the island. Additionally, the foundation will disseminate information of common interest to the general public, such as new developments in the field of psychology, announcements of local initiatives or conferences, and updates regarding the association.

APAP SXM welcomes everyone to follow their Facebook page via facebook.com/apapsxm.

For more information, or for other professionals looking to join the association, please send your e-mails to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
5A: Fort Wayne Snider comes alive in second half to sink Mishawaka

It was looking good for Mishawaka after scoring 15 points before Fort Wayne Snider even touched the ball. Then the second half happened.
Despite the lack of a critical outside funding source, Metro Transit is still planning for a desperately needed, $33.5 million satellite bus garage on the East Side.

The satellite garage is Metros top priority and continuing delays in building it are the main restraint on responding to requests for more bus service, adding bus rapid transit and relieving crowding on buses, Metro general manager Chuck Kamp said.

Were literally out of space, he said.

The city had been pursuing a major federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant to cover half the cost of the facility, but the federal funding source is now uncertain under the Trump administration, Kamp said. Only recently have transportation investments become political, he said.

In 2015 and 2016, Metro was very competitive for a federal TIGER grant, but demand for funds far exceeded available money, Kamp said. The Trump administration has not asked for applications for the grant program this year, with uncertainty about its future, he said.

Were expecting more information in coming months, he said.

Meanwhile, Metro is exploring another new federal grant that would cover 80 percent of costs, but is uncertain if it would apply to the project, spokesman Mick Rusch said.

Metro is still continuing pre-design and engineering work to make the project shovel ready if a grant opportunity becomes available, Rusch said. That includes coordinating with city engineers and entering into an agreement with RNL Design of Colorado for architectural and pre-design work, he said.

The current, sprawling bus garage at 1101 E. Washington Ave. is more than 30 years old and was originally designed to house 160 buses, Rusch said. Currently, 200 40-foot buses and 17 paratransit vehicles are stored there.

Space in Middleton

Metro is also leasing space in Middleton for 15 buses during the school year due to the overcrowding at the main facility, Kamp said, adding that the leased space lacks fueling and maintenance capacities.

At present, Metro has no alternative financing plan for a proposed 165,000-square-foot-facility at Nakoosa Trail and Commercial Avenue, where the city is planing a new Fleet Services building with construction starting in 2019.

Construction on the bus satellite facility was supposed to start in 2016. It would provide storage for 70 40-foot standard buses or 36 60-foot articulated buses, plus 20 40-foot buses, and space for a bus wash, maintenance, repairs, parts, operations and administration offices on a 5.7-acre site.

The citys nonbinding, five-year Capitol Improvement Plan shows a total $33.5 million  including $28.8 million in federal funding  for construction of the facility in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

City officials are working with the states congressional delegation to explore new funding opportunities, and Mayor Paul Soglin is working with lobbyists in Washington, D.C., on new grant opportunities, Rusch said.Soglin is now preparing a capital budget for 2018, and its unclear if construction will somehow start next year or be delayed again due to lack of outside funding, Kamp said.
President Donald Trump won the White House by defying conventional wisdom and following his instincts. His success and support make it unlikely hell change his approach or behavior.

But history shows the folly of Trumps overt attempts to bully special prosecutor Robert Mueller, the ex-FBI director appointed to oversee a probe into Russias attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

On Wednesday, Trump gave an extraordinary interview to The New York Times in which he said he would not have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general if hed known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russian investigation. Trump also warned Mueller to keep his probe tightly focused.

On Thursday, the Times posted another stunning story that said Trumps team is scouring the backgrounds of investigators hired by Mueller, looking for conflicts of interest they could use to discredit the investigation  or to build a case for Muellers firing.

But the terms of Muellers appointment specify that he can look at other matters that may arise directly from the investigation. Bloomberg reported Muellers team is already examining a range of transactions involving Trump businesses and associates, including a Florida real estate deal in which a Russian oligarch paid $95 million for a mansion Trump bought for $41 million and efforts by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to secure financing for some of his familys real-estate properties.

Mueller doesnt seem to be backing away because of Trumps pressure.

Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor appointed in 1994 to look into a suspicious Arkansas land deal involving President Bill Clinton, had similar license to go where evidence took him. Starr ended up persuading the House of Representatives to impeach Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice related to his attempts to hide evidence of his sexual relationship with a White House aide; Clinton was not convicted by a divided Senate.

Given that Trumps indifference to ethical standards recently prompted the resignation of the director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Mueller could end up expanding his probe into areas that have not even come to light yet.

It remains to be seen whether Trump will order Mueller to be fired. If that happened, it would have parallels with events involving another president who faced impeachment: Richard Nixon. In 1973, special prosecutor Archibald Cox refused Nixons order to stop trying to obtain tapes of Oval Office meetings or other presidential documents related to the Watergate scandal.

When Nixon wanted Cox gone, both Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus resigned after declining to fire him, but Solicitor General Robert Bork complied with Nixons order.

What became known as the Saturday Night Massacre quickly eroded Nixons support among elected Republicans. Sen. Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona, the GOPs 1964 presidential nominee, said Nixons credibility has reached an all-time low from which he may not be able to recover. Nixon didnt recover. Less than a year later, he resigned rather than be forced out of office.

If Trump fires Mueller, he will also have reached an all-time low from which he may not be able to recover. That should make him reflect. Will it?
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. High 77F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 56F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
A professional designers stylish and symbolic design has won the State Journals city flag contest.

Rich Mathesons blue, green and white flag was judged best out of 112 entries.

His creation flies high in todays newspaper above Madisons skyline in State Journal cartoonist Phil Hands illustration.

Matheson, of McFarland, holds a graphic design degree from Madison Area Technical College, and he works for a branding agency Downtown.

Matheson said the star in his flag represents the state Capitol and government. The letter M, turned on its side, stands for Madison. The arrows are a nod to the state motto, Forward. The stripes depict our citys Isthmus geography, he said. The green represents city parks and area agriculture, while the blue symbolizes our lakes and waterways.

Matheson said Friday he had fun creating his flag and is honored to win.

I love this city, and am grateful for the opportunity, he said.

Winning our contest doesnt mean Mathesons flag will become the citys official banner. But city officials are considering changing the current flag because an American Indian tribe has objected to Madisons use of the tribes sun symbol inside an outline of the state Capitol building on the current city flag.

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin told our editorial board recently that he would review the winning flag and all of the State Journal contest entries, which can be viewed online.

Runners-up, whose designs are pictured below with comments from our judges, include: John Rieben of Kewaunee, Caroline Sober-James of Madison, Michael Turner of Madison, and Brent Steffenhagen of Mesa, Arizona.

Entries came from around the world, including submissions from Madrid, Spain; Ontario, Canada; and Serbia. But our judges  who viewed each flag design without knowing who had submitted the entry or where it came from  wound up picking mostly Wisconsin artists.

That suggests you have to live here to really get the vibe and understand whats important.

Our judges were State Journal editor John Smalley, managing editor Teryl Franklin, visuals/multimedia artist Laura Sparks, and photographer M.P. King.

Franklin liked Mathesons clean design and the way he artfully worked in the letter M. The flag also highlights our lakes and capital city status in a bold way.

The designer thought a lot about the symbolism behind the design, King added.

A lot of entries tweaked or played off of the current city flag, though none of those made the final cut. We also received some offbeat entries, including a flag with a mustache on it, referencing Mayor for Life Soglins trademark facial hair. Another flag depicted a spaceship, perhaps suggesting Madison is out of this world. And a yelling, unhappy man on a separate entry seemed to fit the citys penchant for protest.

You can see all 112 entries by clicking through the gallery below. Judge for yourself which are best. We thank all participants for submitting their creations. And we hope our contest contributes to the citys pursuit of the perfect banner to represent the citys spirit and unique sense of place.

Who knows? One of these flags  perhaps Mathesons winning entry  might fly across the city someday as Madisons official symbol. His forward-looking and thoughtful design deserves serious consideration.
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Shaheed El-Hafed, 24 July 2017 (SPS) - Minister Counselor to the Presidency of the Republic, member of the National Secretariat of the Polisario Front, Bashir Mustafa Sayed, chaired Monday a meeting of the subcommittee for national and international program of solidarity with the Sahrawi political prisoners group and condemnation of the unjust sentences issued against them.

The subcommittee established a comprehensive national program at national and international levels for solidarity with all Sahrawi political prisoners in Moroccan prisons, condemnation of the occupation regime in various ways and means available and pressure to ensure international protection of human rights and accelerate the decolonization of the last African colony, Western Sahara.

The subcommittee held the Moroccan occupation state fully responsible for consequences of that might result from its unfair sentences against the Sahrawi militants who demand the Saharawi people's right to freedom and dignity, calling on the Saharawi people to pursue the comprehensive mobilization of solidarity and support for the Gdeim Izik prisoners. (SPS)

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Reacting to news of the extreme sentences imposed by the Moroccan authorities against a group of Saharawi activists (which include life imprisonment), the President of the World Peace Council, Socorro Gomes, has issued a statement this Sunday (23) to strongly reject the persecution of the activists and to call for the end of the occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco. The entire trial had been rejected by various entities that dennounced its arbitrariness and the ill-treatment suffered by the prisoners. Read Socorro Gomes statement below:

We denounce the false trial of the Saharawi prisoners; Free Western Sahara!

We have received the extremely serious news of the conviction of Saharawi activists of the Gdeim Izik group by the Kingdom of Morocco and their sentencing to severe punishment up to life imprisonment. We join the movements in solidarity with the Saharawi people in the struggle for their liberation from the Moroccan occupation in condemnation, in the strongest terms, and strongly rejection of the criminal process against the activists, who are persecuted for defending Western Saharas self-determination!

The World Peace Council has supported and expressed its solidarity with the brave combatants for the liberation of the Western Sahara, which has been occupied by the Kingdom of Morocco for more than 40 years since Spain, a colonial power and administrator, withdrew from the territory in the 1970s.

Therefore, the penalty imposed by the Moroccan authorities, first through a military court and later through a civil court, who announced similar sentences, is unacceptable and must be rejected by all governments and social movements in the strongest terms!

Either in a peaceful protest camp organized in 2010 with more than 20,000 people, as well as on the streets of occupied Western Sahara, on a day-to-day basis, numerous human rights and freedom defenders are dragged to suffer torture and other ill-treatment, such as those denounced by the newly convicted activists, in a case that several international observers have denounced as irregular.

The decolonization of Western Sahara must be carried out immediately, with the realization of the referendum promised in 1991, so that the Saharawi people can exercise their right to self-determination. The maintenance of a brutal occupation through human rights violations committed on a daily basis needs to be exposed! The Kingdom of Morocco relies on the connivance and complicity of allies such as France, Spain, the USA and Saudi Arabia, without which it could not continue to maintain an entire people under humiliation, imprisonment, torture, or exile.

We demand the liberation of the Saharawi political prisoners and the liberation of the Western Sahara, now!

Socorro Gomes



President of the World Peace Council (SPS)

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YFCs are being asked to pledge their commitment to putting the training on their Club Programmes during the 2017-18 membership year and NFYFC has developed a series of pledge cards for its 25,000 members to use on social media during the week.

The training, which has been developed with the Farm Safety Foundation  organisers of Farm Safety Week, has been created to ensure the next generation of farmers is more aware of the dangers and can help to instigate changes.

Farming continues to have one of the poorest safety records of any occupation in the UK and Ireland but all the main farming organisations are working together during the week to address this.

The latest annual figures from the Health and Safety Executive show that out of 137 people killed or fatally injured in workplace accidents last year, 27 worked in agriculture.

NFYFC Chairman Ed Ford said:

The Farm Safety Curve training module is a fun and interactive training session with a serious message  it could save someones life. We want all our YFCs to commit to putting the training on their 2017-18 Club Programmes and show their commitment by sharing our pledge cards on social media. We want the world to know that Young Farmers are dedicated to farm safety.
Successful companies are always changing, and their logos and branding often reflect their new approaches or innovations.

Getty Images compiled some cool then & now photographs that track the logo changes of some the world's top companies.
HARTFORD  With an uncertain agenda, state lawmakers will return to the Capitol on Monday for their annual veto-override session.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed 262 bills this year, but vetoed four, including legislation that would give six towns, including Greenwich, Fairfield, Stratford and Milford as additional five years to adopt regulations aimed at increasing affordable housing requirements. The bill previously passed the House 116-33 and the Senate 30-6.

Malloy said Friday that many communities, even affluent ones with high prices, have been able to meet Connecticuts affordable housing guidelines. These laws have been on the books for decades, he said.

Brookfield found a way to meet the requirements, Malloy told reporters in the Capitol. Darien and New Canaan have found ways to make progress. Everybody who works in a community, some portion of them should be able to live in these communities.

Malloy said the nations troubled history on race is part of the issue. What prevents a community from accepting its share of responsibility to make sure that all of our fellow citizens in our state have a decent place to live? he asked. The bill, which originated in the House, will need two-thirds votes, 101 in the House, then 24 in the Senate.

Rep. Brenda Kupchick, R-Fairfield, who worked on the bill in recent years before its passage this year, said she believe it looks good for a possible override. She has been in touch with House Democrats and senators who supported its passage.

Gift to developer

Another vetoed bill would allow for a fuel-cell and thermal loop project in Bridgeport first planned under former Mayor Bill Finch. It passed the Senate 36-0 and the House 100-51. Malloy warned that the bill was bad legislation that would give a single developer a multimillion-dollar project without competitive bidding.

The Bridgeport bill would also foist the expense on ratepayers, who would have to pay an additional $8.6 million a year and $173 million over 20 years, Malloy said.

Plans include the use of waste heat from multiple sources. Warm water would be piped to Bridgeports South End, downtown buildings, courthouses, Housatonic Community College and other buildings.

The way that this bill is written, I believe, violates the law, Malloy told reporters in the Capitol on Friday. I believe we can analyze this to ultimately be a gift to the developer. It would be the first time in our history that all of the credits that could be garnered for the purpose of alternative energy uses would go solely to the developer, as opposed to any of the consumers.

Malloy predicted that if the veto is overridden, the issue will get tied up for years in the courts and there will never be a thermal loop.

House and Senate members will gavel into session Monday morning, then recess for closed-door caucuses to discuss the potential overrides. Last year, lawmakers overrode three bills, for the first time since Malloys 2010 election.

Union concessions

Lawmakers on Monday will also review the recent deal with state unions aimed at saving $1.5 billion during the two-year budget period and $24 billion over the next 20 years.

Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano on Friday raised concerns about the union concessions.

Connecticut needs to pursue a new direction when it comes to our state budget, Fasano said. That path must include structural changes to government, protections for core services, and not rely on new taxes to plug the massive budget shortfall. It also must include changes to state employee benefits to create a system that is fair and sustainable for employees and taxpayers alike.

Malloy discounted Fasanos criticism, telling reporters that Fasano seems to be looking for reasons to vote against the concessions.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
An Oregon, Wisconsin man was arrested Saturday for his alleged third drunken driving offense after he caused a crash in Green County that injured three people.

The crash happened at about 4:15 p.m. on Highway 11 in the town of Jefferson, the Sheriff's Office said.

Zachary Spangler, 27, was tentatively charged with third offense OWI and possession of a Schedule II controlled substance.

Police said Spangler was driving east on Highway 11 when his vehicle crossed the center line and hit a westbound vehicle driven by Lisa Fransen, 47, of Monroe.

Spangler and Fransen were injured but refused to be taken to a hospital, while a passenger in Spangler's vehicle, Derek Sturdevant, 24, of Janesville, was taken to the hospital.
The following headlines and articles appeared in the Stamford Advocate decades ago on July 24.

10 years ago ...

City may bill property owners for blight

The city might start sending homeowners the tab for fixing or demolishing properties that have fallen into disrepair.

The Board of Representatives may take advantage of a new state law that allows the city to charge property owners a special assessment to reimburse taxpayers for public funds spent correcting health and safety code violations.

The charge would appear on the homeowners tax bill. The money would go into a dedicated fund to offset the cost of enforcing the city's blight ordinance, health and housing codes, as well as community policing.

The city is taking the first step toward enacting the legislation, forming a committee to identify properties that might be subject to such a fine and reviewing the cost of code enforcement.

30 years ago ...

Laws conflict on how to fill Truglias seat

Christel Truglia, the widow of state Sen. Anthony Truglia, has been mentioned privately as a candidate to succeed her late husband.

But the woman who traveled to Hartford so often with her husband that she was called the 37th senator is having nothing to do with the idea, her son said yesterday.

Instead, Christel Truglia wants state Rep. Richard Blumenthal of Stamford to succeed her husband in the 27th District, Anthony Truglia Jr. said yesterday.

50 years ago ...

Conservationists back beach purchase

The Stamford Citizens for Conservation has voted unanimously to urge the city to accept the additional offer of land made by Alphonse Donahue.

This tract of beachfront land, known as the Feldman property, would boost the original offer of 28 acres to 45 acres. It would include well over one mile of beach frontage.

Since Stamford currently has only a quarter as much beach property per capita as neighboring communities, it is of utmost importance to take advantage of this opportunity to obtain the additional acreage, according to the group.

As seen in the recently released population studies of the Community Renewal Program, Stamford will have a population of 125,000 by 1980, it noted.
It feels humbling to be pitched by Arthur Selkowitz. Like facing a first serve from Serena Williams or a curveball from Sandy Koufax. You dont dare look away, but lack the tools to counter it anyway.

Selkowitz was a real life Mad Man, minus the dysfunctional personality. He followed a stellar career in advertising by harnessing his talents to reshape rivers, restore natural habitats and revive a 90-year-old plan to turn Stamfords Mill River Park into the jewel of the city.

Hes trying to sell me on the idea of an editorial about the magic of public/private partnerships that inspired the community to contribute $20 million to the realization of a park that can be a magnet, a balm and an economic engine. He caps off his eloquent spiel with the hip exit line Just sayin.

Selkowitz, chairman of the Mill River Collaborative, makes his pitch as a prelude and a postscript to the recent groundbreaking for the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Skating Center and Fountain. By the time hes done, hes pretty much written the edit. Its good too. But I let it pass for the time being, like Williams missile or Koufaxs cruel bender.

Just as Selkowitz and I greet one another after the ceremony, Stamford Mayor David Martin happens to mention a different editorial and makes a pitch of his own. Martin paraphrases a May 25, 2008 edit addressing the controversial removal of the parks iconic cherry trees. Selkowitz pledged at the time that there will be both more cherry trees and more trees of all kinds than exist now.

Mr. Selkowitz just needs to make good on his promise. And the city has to hold him to it, the editorial read.

Martin suggests we use the format where we follow up on a past editorial with an update. Usually, a sequel editorial rewinds a few months, maybe a year. Nine years may seem like a stretch, but the real temptation is to check what we wrote generations before that. In our archives are details of Herbert Swans 1929 Plan of a Metropolitan Suburb, aka Stamfords first Master Plan. Swans idealistic vision of open space along the waterway didnt languish from neglect; it came to a dead halt when the Stock Market crashed a few months later. Flip forward 20 years and Stamfords first Planning Board chairman, E. Gaynor Brennan, bemoaned that Stamford was a city that stalled 20 years ago.

Ive argued conversationally for years that where Swan and Brennan failed, Dannel Malloy was finally able to make headway, thanks to having a headlock on the mayors office for 14 years. Governors seldom have such luxuries of time to drive, say, 30-year transportation visions.

The Swan Plan sat on a shelf until (Malloy) became mayor, in 1995, Selkowitz responds. Dan took it and he and Robin Stein (chief of the land use bureau under Malloy and currently a special assistant to Martin) ran with it. Nothing would have happened without them.

Malloy recruited Selkowitz, a Shippan neighbor, to the cause following his retirement from the ad game in 2002.

I figured it was a marketing challenge and that was my career. And I liked the idea of design and being at the creation of something.

Their progress could have stopped when the Swan Report Curse struck again in 2007 just as Selkowitz was making progress with the fledgling collaborative. Projects like this one are the first to be abandoned during an economic collapse.

But Selkowitz wasnt having it. He went after corporations as well as individuals for donations. Hes not wrong that the public-private collaboration demands attention as a success story. The Cohens donation is the largest to any city park from a private donor.

Selkowitz could be played by Patrick Stewart in a film, given their common air of cool grace and sly wisdom. Nevertheless, he knew pitching the Greenwich hedge fund billionaire and his wife would be a challenging enterprise.

He cites Central Park in his pitches, pointing to visionaries who built Manhattans enduring centerpiece from swamps and pig farms. When he got his one shot at the Cohens, he decided to leverage their interest in combatting childhood obesity by selling the idea of drawing kids outside during winter months.

Alexandra responded that When I was a kid I wanted to be a famous figure skater.

 Oh my god, I said to myself. Selkowitz relives the moment by making a fist.  We got her!

Then she started asking about the fountain. The fountain is less money. I thought Oh, shes going to go for the fountain.

It had taken a year to set up the meeting, but the Cohens came back in a week with their decision: They wanted to fund both the 10,000-square-foot outdoor ice rink and the 60-nozzle interactive fountain that can be programmed for music and light shows.

Both attractions will join the recently opened carousel, which was inspired by ones Selkowitz spotted while stopping off in villages during a French barge trip. He returned from a recent Parisian holiday with the inspiration for placing old upright pianos throughout the park for children to play. I think well do it next summer.

Hes 74 now, and his memories of the parks past flow like the river itself, which didnt flow at all for generations.

Sitting on a bench by the river, he recalls when the park was a destination for skaters in winters in the 1940s and early 50s, before it became a swamp.

Memories shift to the Raleigh Racer and red Schwinn he bought from the bike shop where the playground now stands. When it was torn down it became Stamfords drug and prostitution headquarters, he says.

The memory is interrupted by a visitor across the river and through the brush who clearly feels safe in the park.

Oh, look at that gorgeous heron. You never would have seen that before, Selkowitz marvels.

As we wrap up, he revives his pitch for an editorial. Cant the guy just enjoy a summers afternoon in the park?

John Breunig is editorial page editor of The Advocate and Greenwich Time. Jbreunig@scni.com; 203-964-2281; twitter.com/johnbreunig.
S hares in cheap and cheerful retailer B&M jumped 5% on Monday after a weekend report it is a takeover target for Asda, the supermarket owned by American giant Walmart.

B&M, built by the Arora brothers into a serious challenger to the big grocers, saw shares up 15p to 357p leaving the company valued at 3.5 billion.

Thats still some way shy of the 4.4 billion Asda is supposedly willing to offer, suggesting considerable scepticism about the deal.

The Sunday Times said Asda is in the early stages of assessing a bid for B&M, which is chaired by former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy.

Last month the Aroras cashed in 230 million worth of shares, cutting their stake to 15%. A bid for B&M would be just the latest in the sector. Sainsburys bought Argos last year and Tesco is in the midst of a deal for Booker.

Though sources played down Asdas interest, its parent could clearly afford to make an offer. Walmart is the biggest company in the world by revenue with annual sales of around $500 billion (384 billion). There are 500 B&M stores in the UK, selling homewares and food at knockdown prices.
A cracked smartphone screen may sound like a trivial problem, but it is the kind that fills many Londoners with dread.

Its a spanner in the works for Candy Crush-filled commutes, selfie-taking and keeping on top of group chats on Whatsapp, unless you dont mind tiny shards of glass nestling in your fingertips.

Once upon a time fixing it involved either a trip to a dodgy-looking repair shop or an agonising, sometimes four-day wait to have it dealt with by phone companies. But all that has changed, thanks to 26-year-old Irishman Julian Shovlin.

In 2013 the student turned entrepreneur founded iSmash, a chain of pink-and-white-festooned stores that can fix your phone in as little as 30 minutes.

Billing itself as the tech repair specialist, it now has 17 sites, including Canary Wharf, the Kings Road and St Pancras Station.

Its technicians have handled everything from a phone bent during an energetic stag do to devices that have taken in a dunk in toilet water. (Unfortunately they often find out about the toilet after theyve started their work.)

Restoring an iPhone 7 screen will cost 129.99, while battery replacements are upwards of 19.99.

Laptops, tablets, drones and other gadgets can also be dealt with and for those not local to a branch, there are courier, postal and call-out options. Theres also a special service for businesses.

Shovlin expects to almost double turnover this year to 13 million as he expands his stores network. A Manchester store opened this month and there are more in the works.

It began around five years ago, when Shovlin was a student in Dublin and his own device gave up the ghost. Substandard service from a corner shop led him to tackle the issue himself with the help of an online guide.

Having perfected his technique he offered repairs on Facebook to others in need and quickly realised it could be something bigger.

It just became evident that the market for smartphones was growing, peoples dependency on their device was increasing and no one was offering a professional and reliable service, he said.

I thought there was a sweet spot in the middle of a local independent business and slow and expensive networks of manufacturers for a branded, trustworthy and really quick service.

He developed the concept while finishing his economics and business degree at Trinity College, setting up a store in Dublin as a test.

Almost immediately investors approached, stumping up the cash to grow the company. Shovlin left behind the Dublin store, sensing a greater opportunity across the Irish Sea.

Building its UK presence remains Shovlins top priority, though finding the right property is tricky  the small units in high footfall areas that iSmash wants tend to be the most in demand. Still, he has an initial target of 50 shops by mid-2019.

With a rapid rise like that, its no wonder others want in on the act.

Retailer Dixons Carphone is ramping up its same-day phone repair service.

Dixons thinks it can offer a better deal than the likes of iSmash by ensuring repairs to Apple devices wont violate the original warranties that come with them, though it is yet to agree that with the tech giant. (iSmash repairs phones with void manufacturer warranties, but offers a lifetime warranty on its work.)

Shovlin is unfazed. Our service is more express, more specialised. What our team are passionate about is fixing devices and technology. They [Dixons Carphone] focus on selling contracts and handsets.

What about the warranty tactic? No big deal, he says. The main priority for customers seems to be speed and convenience.

Security of data is also up there: iSmash customers dont need to hand over passcodes and the firm guarantees to protect private data.

All technicians are separated from service counters by a glass screen so customers can monitor the whole process, something nervy bankers in the Square Mile are known to do.

In 2015, Shovlin won private-equity backing, though he wont name the firm. With its support he has been looking at other opportunities for iSmash.

Discussions about partnerships with manufacturers, networks and insurance companies are ongoing, he says.

The idea of selling handsets has been dismissed for now. The grey hairs say we need to focus on the core business, Shovlin laughs.

There are other business ideas fizzing around in his head, but Shovlin is so busy with iSmash that hes putting them aside for now.

Everything moving so quickly now, particularly with tech, so we need to be really on it to take advantage.

No doubt Londons smartphone addicts are grateful for that.
T he summer break has begun. Parliament is off duty until September 5, and though the markets can always throw an August tantrum, there are plenty of reasons to expect they will keep their wits about them until the autumn.

The world economy has at last managed to sustain a synchronised recovery with every rich country now growing, fiscal deficits are more or less contained, and the monetary outlook remains benign. What could possibly go wrong?

The short answer to that is politics: central bankers might be misguided  I happen to think that this long period of ultra-cheap money will go down in the textbooks as a classic collective error, to be studied by economics students for decades to come  but at least they behave like grown-ups.

Too many politicians seem unable to do so.

Now that our MPs have departed from Westminster they should use the time away to reflect on their performance in recent months.

Democracies need to formulate policies and sustain support for them. That is the political process.

But they also need to run the show.

Without competent administration, democracy crumbles and MPs at all levels seem not to care about competence.

In negotiating Brexit, the Government faces the most complicated task of any for the past half century.

Yet ministers have been more eager to brief against each other than to do the detailed slog of establishing priorities, defining the true sticking points, understanding the position of Europe, listening to British business, and coming up with a positive vision for the new relationship.

The business communities on both sides of the Channel are aghast and they are right to be.

Indeed, one of the interesting twists of the past few weeks is the growing awareness on the Continent that for some industries, at least, the UK has been their most profitable export market.

One in seven German-made cars is exported to the UK  some 950,000 last year, a point made by Owen Paterson, MP and former minister for the environment, in a speech in Hamburg last week.

The fall of sterling has already undermined their business plans.

A super-competitive sterling may be making life miserable for British holiday-makers in Europe, but if it has wiped out a 15% profit margin in a key market that has a direct impact on employment in Europe.

The thing that troubles business is British lack of preparation.

You dont need to buy the hostile briefings from Brussels to acknowledge that Michel Barnier, Europes chief negotiator, has a point when he says all he hears is a clock ticking.

There is still time to pull this together. I dont like the expression that Britain would crash out of the EU if there is no deal. That is to accept the hostile formulation of the argument that Europe seeks to put across.

In any case, Britains relationship with Europe will continue to change in the years ahead. This is not a once-and-for-all event, just one stage of a long trudge. But our negotiating team is going to need measured, cautious political leadership, not only from the Cabinet but from MPs of all parties  and that it has most evidently not yet got.

Well only thrive when we value tech

From a global perspective Brexit is a middle-ranking issue. If UK and European growth is cut as a result, then the world economy grows a bit slower too.

But Europe is not a major supplier of additional economic activity, at best generating about 10% of global growth. That puts Europe around number five in the scale of things that will shape the world economy over the next decade. It matters, but not that much.

And those four above it? Well, the US of course, for it is and will remain the worlds largest economy for another 10 years at least.

And China, of course, for it is at present the biggest single generator of growth, bigger than the US. It is a smaller economy, but it is growing much faster. If the US and China manage their relationship with adequate harmony they can pull the rest of the world along with them.

I would, however, add two non- geographical features that will determine whether the world economy, continues to thrive. One is money, the other technology.

Money matters because it creates or distorts incentives. Central banks have used cheap money before to boost growth, but never on the this scale, and usually only in wartime. So they dont know how economies respond to this policy  or indeed how people respond. But common sense would say that whereas benefits are likely to show in the short-term, the costs only become evident in the long. We are now in transition, taking the first halting steps to a more normal policy, and so far only in the US. There lies the danger.

Finally technology: a simple point, which has been made before, is that it cannot be right that the decade of the iPhone has seen the slowest growth of productivity since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution more than 200 years ago.

We must be undervaluing the benefits of the communications revolution.

Understanding how technology benefits society is the key to understanding how the world economy will, we hope, continue to thrive.
A digital health start-up founded in London has received an $8 million (6.2 million) funding boost to expand its team in the capital.

The latest funding round for Hinge Health, which uses wearable sensors and an app to ease the suffering of people with musculoskeletal disorders such as arthritis, was led by London-based venture-capital firm Atomico.

Hinge, which has since relocated to San Francisco but whose software engineers remain in London, was founded by Daniel Perez and Gabriel Mecklenburg, two scientists who studied at Oxford and Cambridge respectively.

Perez said Hinge will help patients avoid being prescribed opiates.

Atomico partner Carolina Brochado said some of the biggest innovations in the next decade will be in healthcare.

We believe this will be driven by tech-enabled solutions that bring consistent high-quality care to even the most remote places, and especially to those who might not have had access to it before. Hinge Health is a powerful example of this, she said.
O n a day when trading screens flashed red, buyers were in need of inspiration  and they found it in Imagination Technologies.

Shares in the company were up 8p, or 6%, to 146.25p after weekend reports that a private-equity fund backed by the Chinese government is circling the troubled chipmaker.

The company put itself up for sale last month, in the wake of news that Apple, its largest client, was to stop licensing Imaginations graphics processors for its iPhones and iPads.

The decision caused Imagination to lose almost two-thirds of its market value in a day.

Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, which is based in Silicon Valley but backed by Beijing, has held early-stage talks about a potential bid, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Last year, Canyon Bridge agreed to pay 1 billion for US firm Lattice Semiconductors, although the deal has come been opposed by US regulators.

Imagination was a rare riser at the start of the week as the IMFs downgrades for growth in the UK and US economies filtered through to the markets.

The gloomier outlook cast a shadow over trading today and investors responded by sending the FTSE 100 down 50.02 points, or 0.7%, at 7402.89.

Companies earning their money outside the UK and US were immune from the sell-off. Those included Asia-focused banks HSBC, up 1.8p at 736.9p, and Standard Chartered, 2.1p stronger at 815.8p.

On the next rung down, Ascential, the owner of the Cannes Lions advertising festival, rose 10p to 346.4p after its first-half results beat analysts forecasts.

Carillion, which has yo-yoed over the past fortnight, had an unusually steady day on the market, up 0.35p at 60.3p, after broker Canaccord slashed its target price to just 20p, on the basis that either net debt swells by 200 million or it will be forced into a painful six-for-one rights issue for 500 million.

Pressure mounted on Acacia Mining, which slumped a further 35.34p, or 14%, to 212.1p amid calls to address alleged human rights violations at its North Mara gold mine in Tanzania.

UK charity Rights and Accountability in Development said the company, which is battling the local government over changes to taxes and royalties, had taken a militarised approach in guarding the mine. Acacia denies any of its staff caused the deaths.

Investors tuned into cinemas group Everyman Media, which rose 1.23p to 169.93p. The company unveiled plans to open three more venues, including one at Borough Market.

On AIM, Indian renewable energy firm Mytrah Energy powered up 3.38p, or 12%, to 31.62p after increasing its solar and wind capacity, taking total capacity to 1119 megawatts.
C onsumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser on Monday admitted it has taken a 318 million hit amid a US pharmaceuticals probe and is still grappling a devastating cyber attack.

The FTSE 100 firm, behind the Durex and Gaviscon brands, said that it has taken a 318 million provision to cover the potential costs of a US investigation. It is alleged that its RB Pharmaceuticals business, which it spun off in 2014, broke competition and consumer protection laws by trying to keep generic versions of Indivior off the market. Reckitt warned the outcome of the probe could cost the company more.

Separately, the Nurofen maker was first hit by the NotPetya hack on June 27, causing systems to grind to a halt and interrupting output at a number of factories, largely in Europe and Asia.

Reckitt blamed the devastating attack as it posted a 2% second-quarter comparable sales fall. Like-for-like revenues dropped 1% across the first half to 5 billion.

The City was unimpressed and the shares fell by 90p to 7791p.

The company had already cut its growth forecasts from 3% to 2% this month. Chief executive Rakesh Kapoor said: I see this as a challenging target. We are experiencing tougher market conditions and we still have work to do on addressing the full implications of the recent cyber attack.

Kapoor admitted it had taken until July 11 to get the majority of its factories back to full health and said it would take until the end of August to fully recover. The firm added: We continue to face some operational disruption.

Reckitt Benckiser said it has significant security in place, but is reviewing further measures to minimise both the likelihood and potential impact of any future attacks.

Kapoor pledged that the company would invest more in cyber security but did not specify in which areas.

RBC Capital Markets analyst James Edwardes Jones said: This subdued outlook does little to allay our concerns around the robustness of the underlying Reckitt Benckiser business.

Investec analyst Eddy Hargreaves said: Overall, the results and commentary are disappointing.

Kapoor is looking to boost sales and overhaul the business after a string of problems.

The manufacturer has been hurt by a scandal in South Korea over the sale of a toxic product linked to almost 100 deaths, has seen its latest Scholl footwear innovation fail to take off and Kapoor has taken a pay cut to avoid an investor row.

Last week the company revealed it has agreed to sell its food business to US spices maker McCormick for $4.2 billion (3.2 billion).

The move will allow the firm to focus on its health and hygiene arm and Mead Johnson, the baby formula firm for which it paid $17.9 billion this year.
S hares in Ryanair fell more than 3% today after the Irish no-frills airline sounded the alarm over fare wars among airlines and disruption from Brexit.

The budget airline spooked investors by saying it could cut fares by as much as 9% this year to fill planes, potentially hitting profits.

Ryanair added: The cost gap between Ryanair and competitor airlines continue to widen.

The shares fell 60 cents to 17.56, and rivals stocks were also dragged lower.

Shares in easyJet lost 33.35p to 1278.65p, while British Airways parent IAG dropped 12.5p to 577.5p.

Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said: Investors are worried that overcapacity will hit fares, reducing profits and margins in the second half.

Ryanair repeated its plea for clarity from the government on the details surrounding Britains exit from EU, and warned it could move its planes out of the UK if no post-Brexit aviation deal is done in good time.

Finance chief Neil Sorahan said: The clock is absolutely ticking.

Ryanair is also considering buying struggling Italian airline Alitalia and has put in a non-binding bid, Sorahan said.

Profits soared 55% to 397 million (356 million) in the first quarter, significantly helped by the later timing of easter.

Traffic grew 12% to 35 million, with Spain, Portugal and Italy continuing to be popular with holidaymakers.
T he old political adage that oppositions dont win elections; governments lose them is only half true. Yes, its only when governments fail that voters are receptive to the alternative  but if they dont like the look of that alternative they return to the status quo. So oppositions can lose elections, too.

With the Tory administration leaderless and divided at present, the question we should be asking is not How come Labour is doing so well? but Why isnt Labour doing a lot better? The answer is: Jeremy Corbyn.

That is not the fashionable view. A succession of Labour moderates have spent recent weeks confessing their apostasy and acknowledging that Jeremy is the Messiah. They should not have embarrassed themselves.

Yes, Mr Corbyn may have enthused a section of younger voters, and that explains the modest rise in the youth turnout. But there were many more voters of all ages looking for a moderate, liberal and sensible alternative to the brittle leadership of Theresa May and her embrace of hard Brexit. They did not find one.

The reason we do not have a Labour government today is because of the publics concerns about the capability of the Labour leader to be Prime Minister.

The poll published by this paper on Thursday shows that this reservation has not gone away. Even with Mrs Mays dramatic fall from grace and the Cabinet civil war for the succession, she is still seen as a more capable occupant of No 10 than Mr Corbyn.

Confusion

The Labour leaders U-turn on student debt provides further evidence that he is not up to the job. There are two coherent positions.

You can either say that the better-educated  and therefore better-off  minority of the population who went to university should pay for the cost of their degrees with loans. Or you can say that the more poorly educated, and worse-off, majority of taxpayers should share in paying the costs.

The first policy is progressive and was introduced by a Labour government; the second is universal but regressive and  surprise, surprise  popular with graduates.

What Mr Corbyn found was the Third Way. He promised during the election to deal with the debt burden of graduates by writing it off, and then abandoned the commitment this weekend because he said he had been unaware that it would cost more than 100 billion.

He compounded the air of confusion by asserting, contrary to his manifesto, that Britain had to leave the single market because it was dependent on EU membership.

That is news to Norway and Switzerland, part of the single market but outside the EU. It also came as a disappointment to the large majority of Labour members who want to remain in the single market, and to the public who (in our poll today) confirm that leaving the single market is now a greater concern than immigration.

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In two U-turns he has confirmed both his unsuitability for the premiership and exposed the shaky foundations of the Corbynista offer.

Many of the attempts to land blows on Mr Corbyn have been misplaced. He is accused, correctly, of failing to condemn terrorism and of consorting with the IRA; but the British government, correctly, negotiated with terrorists, and the IRAs Martin McGuinness became Northern Irelands Deputy First Minister.

Mr Corbyn is accused, rightly, of wanting to take the country back to the socialist mess of the Seventies, but too many in the current Conservative leadership seem keen to take us back to the net curtains of the Fifties, as Britain loses its EU membership and has not yet found a role.

A far better line of attack on Mr Corbyn is the one that, over time, works with hopeless socialist utopians. The promise is always a fairer land of milk and honey. The reality is milk shortages, inequity and bitter disillusionment. Graduates who paid attention at university should know that.
W e all know that London likes a drink, but the capitals cocktail scene really does seem to be unparalleled at the moment. And thats not just us talking, either.

At the weekends prestigious Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards held in New Orleans  known as the Oscars of the cocktail scene  London bars dominated the international categories, with Banksides Dandelyan named the very best in the world.

Ryan Chetiyawardanas bar, which is set within the Mondrian London hotel, won three awards on the night: best international bar team, best international hotel bar, and the nights much-contested biggie  worlds best cocktail bar.

It follows Dandelyan being named third best bar in the world at the also-very-prestigious Worlds 50 Best Bars awards last year, behind The Savoys American Bar not far up river at two and New Yorks The Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog at number one.

The best bars in London 1 /64 The best bars in London Scarfes Bar at Rosewood London 252 High Holborn, WC1V 7EN, rosewoodhotels.com/london

The Rosewood is doubly wonderful for drinkers, as theyve two fine spots. In the modern Dining Room, sit at the gin bar, which outstocks anywhere else in London, with more than 400 gins and 27 tonics. Trying to choose is impossible, but what a lovely impossibility to have. The bar staff clearly had one hell of a tasting session as they know the list perfectly. Across the way is Scarfes Bar, a brilliant, brilliant bar gladly shaken free from all the stuffiness usually found in hotel bars. The drinks are stunning, theyve often live music, it gets wonderfully busy and crackles with laughter. Go a little later and its busier, people drink more, everything is better. Bar Americain 20 Sherwood St, W1F 7ED, brasseriezedel.com

As the name suggests, this is a classic American bar, and done near perfectly. One can become very fond of Bar Americain and very quickly: passing through Piccadilly Circus, it acts as a magnet  a quick negroni becomes a temptation impossible to resist. Its a very beautiful place, calling to mind grand Parisian hotels of the 20s and 30s, bottles winking from the bar, staff floating through with their finery and litres of charm. Youre here to drink the classics: theyve a killer Clover Club and a straight-down-the-line Manhattan. But ask: the bartenders know their stuff and bring their A-game to any challenge  tell them what you like, and theyll bring you something new. They often have specials on, as well. Top marks for the attentive staff, bringing plenty of water and bowl after bowl of popcorn  both essential after a few here. Oriole Smithfield Markets, E Poultry Ave, EC1A 9LH, oriolebar.com

The team behind Nightjar took their winning formula, gave it a bit of a shake up and created Oriole. Theyve live music throughout the week  from Wednesday to Saturday, theres a charge per person, so watch out for that  which gives any night here a bit of zip. This is a strictly seated spot, so be sure to book: once inside, its a whirlwind tour of the world, with fine details from across the globe, both in the styling and the drinks and so much cheaper than booking a holiday. Drinks are excellent, whether youre into New Orleans style classics or something from the depths of Asia: explore the menu (split into Old World, New World and The Orient) and expect something unusual and faintly brilliant, with a touch of the Tiki. Put it this way: Oriole is ideal whether you prefer drinking from a crystal tumbler, a teacup or, er, a silver crocodile. Piano Works 113-117 Farringdon Road, Farringdon EC1R 3BX, pianoworks.bar

Full credit to this fun Farringdon spot: theyve worked hard to make the place better and better since opening, which is pretty good going for what was already a decent spot to begin with. The Piano Works sounds like a quiet jazz bar but instead is a hell-raising house of sound, splendidly raucous, where a house band take requests and belt out your favourite songs. The more you get involved, the more fun it is, and the place heats up the later it gets. Wine starts at 16, house cocktails are 8, but they've tons of terrific deals during the week  including cocktails for a fiver (!!) Drink lots, dance lots and leave in the early hours with someone you shouldnt do. Thats what we did. Hawksmoor, Spitalfields 157A Commercial St, E1 6BJ, thehawksmoor.com

Its hardly surprising the bar snacks are a highlight here  have the oxcheek nuggets with a side of chips, then call the waiter over to order them over again  given how good the steak upstairs is. The drinks and setting, though, match them pound for pound. The old tube tiles on the walls, the beautiful parquet floor, the copper tops and silvery black ceiling make the large space a place to settle in for the night no matter your seat, while the cocktails come with oodles of thought in each one: the new menu has homemade bitters, shrubs and syrups, and its bloody obvious everyone behind the bar is more than a little nerdy about building drinks. Shaky Petes Ginger Brew is the classic, so have it, but follow up with the Shadow Boxer, a mix of scotch, sherry and Fernet-Branca. Odd, oddly delicious. Its also a cracking place to sit for a bottle of wine. Andrew Edmunds 46 Lexington St, W1F 0LP, andrewedmunds.com

Perhaps better than its ever been, Andrew Edmunds recently won The Good Drinking prize in our Restaurant Awards, and for good reason. Its a small spot, cramped to the point that coming here on a first date feels like youre being very forward indeed , with the best tables upstairs and not much to look at  just settle for being distracted by someone beautiful. The food, French-ish/English-ish, is fine, but its the wine that's extraordinary. And youre here for wine: forget cocktails, they have. What a list, and so quietly marked up that youre getting a steal with almost every bottle  indeed, the more expensive the better the deal. Having been going 30 years, those who knew old Soho say its one of the last bastion of such things. Drink too much gorgeous wine and come back often. The Connaught Bar Connaught, Carlos Place, W1K 2AL, the-connaught.co.uk

A bar for the impossibly beautiful, a bar of high heels and glimmering lights, of perfume and leather. Aside from oddly thumping music, the Connaught is wonderfully detached from the world  a place of its own, cosy and winter warm when it needs to be, light and summer when desired. The drinks, naturally pricey, are well put together and while classic in tone, come with crackles of theatre: washes in perfume bottles, branches as garnishes, smoke, the lot. Still, the martini trolley is what theyre famed for, so its only right to indulge. Afterward, head to the Champagne Room: sadly the law stops it being the cigar haven it once was, but it's still gorgeous: romantic and charming with its fireplace, dramatic with its glass ceiling and sculpture swan diving. Treat yourself to the Ruinart blanc de blanc. Damned good olives, too. Milk & Honey 61 Poland St, W1F 7NU, mlkhny.com

You know a bar is good when local bartenders love it, and Milk & Honey has long been a Soho favourite for those in the know. Hidden in plain sight this terrific bar has been doing its thing for just shy of 15 years. The talent hasnt diminished, and neither has the care put into the drinks. Cocktails are strong and proper and happily, they're updating the list soon to freshen things up. At around 10 a drink, M&H is also a bargain for central London, and the quality outstrips the price. It functions as a members bar, but non-members can book up until 11pm  though going earlier in the week means youre more likely to score a table. Milk & Honey is civilised, without the crushing formality. Next door is the Blind Pig, another top 'hidden' spot. Mark's Bar HIX Soho, 66- 70 Brewer St, W1F 9UP, hixrestaurants.co.uk

The bad: you might not get in. If its busy, they dont squeeze people into this basement, so either be there early, or bamboozle them with charm, or dazzle them with your brilliant wit. Were kidding: just take someone hot. The good: pretty much everything else. Naturally, the bar snacks are distractingly tasty, but the drinks list is excellent, and unusual too, with a few historical recipes brought back to life. Attention to detail is everything here, so if youre not sharing one of the big old Chesterfields, head to the bar and sit and watch  theres something about it thats like seeing a cardmaster turn tricks. And have a Hix Fix, just to say you have. The Beaufort bar and the American Bar at The Savoy The Savoy, Strand, WC2R 0EU, fairmont.com

Glitz, glamour and lots of gold: both Savoy bars are wonderfully opulent. The world-famous American bar, recently revamped, is still up there as one of the best bars on our humble planet. The bartenders bible, Harry Craddocks The Savoy Cocktail Book, was written here, and the cocktails served today remain as finely tuned as they ever were. Whereas as other bars try to recreate the glamour of such places, The Savoy neednt pretend: everything is genuine. The palatial Beaufort is absurdly romantic, and drinks are extravagantly presented: it works for the most special of special occasions, and theres something undeniably grand about sipping away in the same place Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway all did. If youre planning a few drinks, either be rich or take someone rich  seriously. Artesian 1C Portland Pl, W1B 1JA, artesian-bar.co.uk

Artesian won its accolades for its team, Alex Kratena and Simone Caporale, who ran the place for eight years and earned its reputation as the best bar in the world. Theyve sadly departed, but have left the place in capable hands, and the feel is much the same as it ever was, which is chic, glamorous, and not taking itself too seriously. While the beautiful and the rich rub shoulders, the bartenders are mixing up excellent but often slightly silly drinks  but its their mischievousness that makes them so winning. Seriously impressive. Les Compagnie Des Vins Surnaturels 8-10 Neal's Yard, WC2H 9DP, cvssevendials.com

Call it CVS and your night becomes considerably easier to pronounce. Sat in Neils Yard, it is one of Londons finest wine bars. Thoroughly French, of course: New World wines barely get a sideways glance, while even Italys finest is only begrudgingly given a little space on the considerable menu. This doesn't mean there is a lack of choice  to the contrary, it is almost overwhelming, though they have a short by-the-glass list, and the charming staff are both well informed and passionate about what to have. In the summer, sit outdoors, in the winter, cosy up by the bar. Wherever you are, try the mystery wine; if you guess it, youll win a bottle. Have food  small plates made to share, and terrifically good  and drink plenty, so the bill doesnt hit as hard. The Shrub & Shutter 336 Coldharbour Ln, SW9 8QH, theshrubandshutter.com

This Brixton bar felt new in the area, taking a little of east London and bringing it down south. Theyve a pleasingly patchwork approach to decor: there are jars and bottles and shakers everywhere, which gives the place a kitchen feel. The cocktails, lovely to drink on their own, are made better with the food, which is designed to match what youre drinking. The pairings initially sound a little gimmicky  crayfish with vodka, venison on the side of The Deerhunter (an old fashioned, basically)  but they work, so drop that sceptical streak for a moment. It gets busy, so book up, get in early, and stay late. Theyve a license until 3am, so itd be rude not to. Sky Pod at the Sky Garden 1 Sky Garden Walk, EC3M 8AF, skygarden.london

The truth of it is, you come for the view, but good God it's a great view, and 360-degrees at that. Up 35 floors, if you can think of a London icon, you can probably see it. When the weather's good, get outside for some fresh air. With completely free entry and minimal security fuss, its worth making a reservation, though if youre ok to queue, theyll have you in. Cocktails arent torturously expensive, at around 11.50, and are very enjoyable  the cognac-chocolate-caramel-port mix that is Black and Gold is particularly good so it doesn't feel like they're relying on the sights.

Theres a sense of special occasion, and all the more so with live music on Thursday, Friday and Saturdays. Theyre hoping for jazz on Wednesdays, too. If youre tempted to eat, Fenchurch and the Darwin Brasserie are well worth trying  Fenchurch is particularly good for veggies. The Gilbert Scott St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Euston Rd, NW1 2AR, thegilbertscott.co.uk

Given the golden hue here, where luxury hangs in the air like perfume, its remarkable that wine starts at as little as 5 a glass. Wine is its strong point, and likeable head sommelier Joris Beijn is a man worth knowing: he is passionate about his list, knowledgeable and accommodating. The bar is flexible, in that it is by turns ideal for a date, or a catch up with old friends, or a pre/post dinner drinks. The room is a stunner: high painted ceilings, dramatic red walls, great big bells as art, marble bar top and crystal glasses catching the light. Cocktails come in at around 14, and err on the light side: lots of gin and floral concoctions. The restaurant, next door, isnt to be missed, either, just be prepared to get an Uber home: invariably, youll stretch and tease out the evening to stay just a little longer. Gerry's Club 52 Dean Street, W1D 5BJ, gerrysclub.com

A word of warning: this is technically a member's club, but you'll probably be fine if you flirt enough  and don't ask for Gerry, he's long since passed. Michael looks after this place now. We've only been once  very late, very drunk and with very good friends. Most old-school Soho drinking dens are dead, but this hub of actors and writers is what remains of 'Old Soho'. If you're boring, steer clear: it is a place to drink wine and beer and tell stories, to laugh uproariously and to give yourself a monumental hangover in a faintly discreet way. 68 and Boston 4-5 Greek St, Soho, W1D 4DD, 68andboston.com

Boston, the bar upstairs, looks like glamorous train carriage from the golden age of cocktails but plays it a little bit safe. Wine bar 68, downstairs, is the real gem, with a wonderful way of pricing: every bottle on the list is 20, so choose what you like, not what you can afford. Better yet, if you don't fancy a bottle, they're served by the carafe (14) or glass (5.50). Wines are well picked and Denise Medrano, wine blogger and lover found behind the bar, is always working to update the list  so go back to try something new. Youll probably end up getting drunk here: the pull of another bottle at just 20 is monumentally hard to resist, but hey, thats what Soho is for. If you fancy drinking something more upscale, ask  theyve a few hidden wines kept hidden away for those in the know. Thats you, now. The Pink Chihuahua at El Camion 25-27 Brewer St, W1F 0RR, elcamion.co.uk

Forget house infusions and drinks that take half an hour to make: sometimes a good night needs tequila and dancing. The Pink Chihuahua is built for it: theyre providing the tequila  more than 300 different types of it, in fact  youre there to drink it down and dance it up. Theyve all sorts of twists on Margaritas and Daiquiris, and, given youre downstairs from Mexican restaurant El Camion, plenty of bar food to indulge in too. Lots of fun, and if youre feeling more in the mood just to sit back and sip something slowly, ask about their choice of Mezcal. There's real talent here, but fun too. The Gibson 44 Old St, EC1V 9AQ, thegibsonbar.london

Given the dearth of decent cocktails in Farringdon, the tiny Gibson is a God-send. Its a parlour pitched somewhere between Edwardian and Art Deco, and drinks arent simply poured here, theyre tended to, built, thought about, adored. All unsurprising, really, given the team learnt their trade at the likes of Nightjar and The Connaught.

This place is doing more creatively to push bartending forward than any bar that's opened up in a while, so ask the team for recommendations and youll be presented with something magic. Youll need to ask, actually, as the menu is a novel and theres the risk of wasting the evening reading instead of drinking, and that simply wouldnt do at all. Peg+Patriot Patriot Square, E2 9NF, talentedmrfox.com

The Talented Mr Fox, Matt Whiley, offers is a nice blend of things here: while the menu takes a sophisticated trip around London, with each cocktail a column of flavour, some managing chameleonic taste all within the space of a sip, the actual bar is surprisingly spare and understated. The effect is such that while drinks are upmarket, one doesnt feel obliged to sit demurely to enjoy them. Relax, have a few  you might want to, as the serves arent huge. It should be said that these cocktails are among Londons most interesting, rather than Londons best: they are talking points, oddities, they put flavours together in a way that isnt available elsewhere. If youre big on trying new things, different experiences, seeing what a cocktail can do, come, its a must. If its just something reliably delicious you fancy, elsewhere may be better. Worship Street Whistling Shop 63 Worship St, EC2A 2DU, whistlingshop.com

One presumes the staff here have night vision, otherwise its a complete and utter mystery how they see customers, let alone their ingredients. Still, they must do, for the output is pretty much excellent through and through at this dark spot. Its Victorian-inspired, which sounds tired and not a little tacky, but the gang from Purl have done it properly. Drinks are busy  lots of fusions, blends, gasses and pressure and all sorts  so its appropriate they come out of a lab. Still, all this engineering seems to be worth it, as the drinks slip down easily, the alcohol often hidden away. Make sure to take a seat in the Dram Shop, and pop in to the Gin Closet too, which operates as an honesty bar. Kansas Smitty's 63-65 Broadway Market, E8 4PH, kansassmittys.com

Below bar Off Broadway  a long way off, its Mexican  sits this glorious den of jazz and juleps. It is a speakeasy for 2016: that is to say, it has none of the contrived mannerisms of bars which proclaim to be speakeasies, it just happens to actually be one: youll need to knock to get in, the music raves loud and hot, and the place is so crowded strangers become family after a drink or two. The house band, for which the place is named, have envy-inducing talent, and the bar has fairly recently overhauled its drinks list, and the results are good. Youll be absorbed by the music, and stay afterwards to ride the buzz of the crowd. GONG 52, Shangri-La Hotel, the Shard, SE1 9QU, .gong-shangri-la.com

Gong is in the Shard, so youre there for the view alone. View it certainly does: at 52 floors up, its by far Londons highest spot to drink: consequently, sipping on a martini, one feels a little like a Bond villain pondering all thats below. Its not a huge bar, but that somewhat adds to the sense of exclusivity. Prices are, naturally, sky high: expect to pay at least 18. The drinks have plenty about them to compete with the view: presentation is everything. Theyve not skipped on the spirits making the mix, either: expect the likes of Zacapa 23 rum (heavenly stuff), Talisker scotch and Tanqueray 10 for the gin. All top drawer stuff. If this all sounds a bit intimidating, bear in mind they operate a no reservations policy, so youve as good a chance of getting in as anyone else. Mr Fogg's Salon 58 St Martin's Lane, Theatreland, WC2N 4EA, mr-foggs.com

Downstairs is a pretty decent pub, busy from theatreland. Upstairs, the salon is quieter, but only a little. The walls are a glittering ballgown of 19th century curiosities, unsubtle nonsense winking away. Head to a chaise longues with a couple of friends or a date and take in something from each one of the five acts which split the menu. Drinks seem to smell especially good here, rich, relying heavily on the likes of rum, cognac and sherry. Gin lovers need not despair: theyve a room with 300 different types next door. Come elegantly dressed. Bar Termini 7 Old Compton St, W1D 5JE, bar-termini.com

Do Bar Termini right and youll love it: do it wrong, and you may be underwhelmed. Tony Conigliaro, cocktail chap par excellence, and coffee maestro Marco Arrigo have built a revolving-door of a place: dont come here to linger. Expect a night of cocktails and youll leave disappointed: instead, love it in the day for the 1 espressos, and swing by in the evening for a negroni (6). Theyre small, but some of the best in the capital. One swishes in and out here, and that way, it adds a touch of Italian glamour to any evening. Trisha's (New Evaristo Club) 57 Greek St, Soho, W1D 3DX



Drinks dont make a bar, and thank goodness, as the stuff served at Trishas  named for its owner  is uniformly pretty awful: red and white wine youd consider an insult if a friend served it at supper, prosecco wildly overpriced, terrible spirits ecetera ecetera. At more than 70, the club is Sohos oldest, and while nobody who goes there can ever remember anything changing  its often quite hard to recall much about Trishas in crystal detail, as it happens  nothing needs to. The bad wine and expensive mixers and paint stripper spirits are all part of the point: its a glorious drinking den, and marvellous, marvellous fun. There are characters here: the last time we were in, we sat being scared witless by an old East End gangster who said hes known the Krays. Tremendous. Long may this place live. The Fumoir Claridge's, 49 Brook St, W1K 4HR, claridges.co.uk

The Fumoir will confuse you, as youll be torn between shouting about it and keeping it all to yourself. This plush purple and leather spot, deco decadence with a touch of welcome pomp, is hidden away behind a secret door at Claridges. Tiny and glitzy enough to feel like a Hollywood dressing room from the Golden Age, its little surprise the likes of Christina Hendricks adore it. For such a small place, they squeeze an awful lot in: plenty of wines, classic cocktails given a stern shake up, buckets of gin, a lovely choice of armagnac and a magnificent scotch list, gleaming with rarities. 69 Colebrooke Row 69 Colebrooke Row, N1 8AA, 69colebrookerow.com

Once known as the bar with no name, henceforth they shall be called the bar with Bernards watch, as there is no other explanation for the speed with which their finely mixed cocktails arrive. Another bar from Tony Conigliaro, its earned its reputation for turning out hit after hit: the drinks list is endlessly tempting. The piano is a nice touch; that is gets played a much nicer one, and make sure to order the Prairie Oyster  fun to drink, and one even for those who cant eat seafood. Bear in mind its a small spot, so youre close to your neighbours, and if you dont like strong drinks where the booze kicks, this wont be for you. Happiness Forgets 8-9 Hoxton Square, N1 6NU, happinessforgets.com

Dont expect frills and fuss or the rest of it here: Happiness Forgets is cocktail bar distilled down to its very essence, and done very well  their tag High End Cocktails/Low End Rent sums it up best. The bartenders are all top drawer, and their creations impeccable. Unsurprisingly, this Hoxton space has its regulars, so the crowd is always good. Tables can be booked, but half are always kept for walk-ins: try your luck, its worth it. Dry Martini by Javier de las Muelas Melia White House Hotel, Albany Street, NW1 3UP, melia.com

Come to this one to brag: Dry Martini is known as Barcelonas best cocktail bar, and has been rated the fifth best bar in the world by the Worlds 50 Best Bars panel. Renowned bartender Javier de las Muelas has bought over his concept to us lucky Londoners, and with it, finely mixed and classic cocktails. No prizes for guessing that the Dry Martini is the house special  if you dont think you like them, heres a place to change your mind. With more than 80 gins on the list, you could easily lose a week here. Gordon's 47 Villiers St, WC2N 6NE, gordonswinebar.com

Gordons seems to get more and more crowded with each passing day, but perhaps rightly so: the beloved Embankment institution is made for knocking back bottles of wine in. Eat a few cold bites and chat into a long, unwinding evening. The wine list is good enough, but youre really here for the atmosphere: in summer, the terrace, buzzing, in winter, the caves indoors, crammed with noise, spilt wine, and joy. Social bar at City Social 25 Old Broad St, EC2N 1HQ, citysociallondon.com

Youd think youre at City Social, up 24 stories of Tower 42, to eat, but if you stop in the bar, theres a good chance you wont make it to your table. The drinks come as something of a surprise: theyre so much better than one expects from a restaurant bar, inventive, put together carefully but not staidly, retaining a sense of fun. And, crucially, damned tasty. Its a dark room, and full of city types, but perfect for a few late night cocktails soaking up the view, which is really quite wonderful. Bloody pricey, but thats part of it. Ladies and Gentlemen 2 Highgate Rd, NW5 1NR, twitter.com

William Borrells bolthole transcends its gimmick (which, if you hadnt guessed, is that its a converted public loo), with the help of some very handy bartenders, and its house-brewed gin, Highwayman, of which twelve bottles a day get distilled. Ladies & Gents manages well as a place for a quiet drink, or better yet, a place to quietly get roaringly drunk. Convenient indeed. The drinks are strong, very interesting, and theres plenty of odd sods on the wall to keep your conversation up. It maintains a veneer of being somewhere faintly upmarket, but youll probably end up reading from one of the books scattered around or trying to dance to the live music. Perfect for a date that gets out of hand. Bull In A China Shop 196 Shoreditch High Street, E1 6LG, bullinachinashop.london

Truth it, youll need to catch this place on a good night, as weve been in often enough to know it has its good nights and its meh nights. But when the place is on, its really cooking, and easily one of the best bars in town. The cocktail list is short, but thought through, and care is taken in even the small things: they even make sure the water glasses are chilled. The chamomile and charcoal Old-Fashioned is a must, and any whisky lovers should get chatting to the bar staff, as theyve bottles which arent available anywhere else in the capital. Sager + Wilde Arch, 250 Paradise Row, E2 9LE, sagerandwilde.com

Wine lovers rejoice, wine bores look elsewhere. Sager + Wilde admirably keep things unpretentious: the exposed brickwork sets the tone: theyre keeping things low key. The specials list changes regularly, and always with interesting choices introduced. Some of the wines are exclusive to this place, so youre all but guaranteed to try something new. Have a SHE + T (sherry with tonic, delicious), and absolutely do not leave without having the grilled cheese sandwich. 7 Tales at Sosharu 64 Turnmill St, EC1M 5RR, sosharulondon.com

Underneath Jason Athertons Sosharu is this sexy, seedy Japanese drinking den, where youll find the hazy, debauched glamour of Tokyo after dark. Unlike so many bars underneath restaurants, 7 Tales doesnt feel like a holding pen, and drinks are precision made, with flavours leaning beyond the usual  think rice-washed gin, sake, infusions of sesame, snacks like tempura. Bar snacks are an irresistible must. Callooh Callay 65 Rivington St, EC2A 3AY, calloohcallaybar.com

Eccentric doesnt seem to quite cover it: enter the surreal world of Callooh Callay through an old Victorian wardrobe, catch sight of a throne and order punch out of a gramophone from a menu thats more of a sticker book. It sounds a bit ridiculous, but the bartenders really know their stuff, so for all the quirks, drinks are fundamentally pretty excellent. On the weekends, its a party bar, and DJs spin music to match: youre here for a good time. Any detectives in your gang will find there are two extra rooms in Callooh Callay to explore  theyre hidden away, too, naturally. If youre good, you might even get an invite upstairs to the Jub Jub Room, where the 10-long cocktail list changes every three weeks. Fans should also head to their new offering in Angel, Little Bat. Dukes Bar Dukes Hotel, 35 St James's Pl, SW1A 1NY, dukeshotel.com

Dukes is known for one reason: martinis. The St Jamess hotel was a favourite haunt of James Bond author and (very) keen drinker, Ian Fleming, who supposedly came up with the shaken, not stirred line here. Their martinis are exceptionally strong, and very large: theres a reason they wont serve you more than two. But look, break the mould: theyre a classic hotel bar, they serve a fine range of classic cocktails. Theres also a cognac and cigar garden, if youre so inclined. NOLA 1st Floor, 68 Rivington Street, EC2A 3AY, nola-london.com

It would be too easy to miss this place, so do your homework and saunter in: its must more attractive than sweatily asking anyone if theyve seen the place. Drawing inspiration from the home of proper cocktails, New Orleans, the bar loves traditional drinks, builds them properly and serves them in a den of music and laughter. Unlike some places specialising in old school serves, NOLA is a place for fun: sure, it seems to say, you could have a quiet drink  but why would you want to? Theres a cracking cigar terrace too, small enough that everyone talks before heading back in for one hell of a Vieux Carre. Call Me Mr Lucky 11 Southwark St, SE1 1RQ, twitter.com

All the hidden bars at the Breakfast Clubs around the capital are popular, with perhaps The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town being the best known. Call Me Mr Lucky, on Southwark Street, happens to be our favourite. Once youve flirted with the staff  ask to get lucky  youre taken through the restaurants kitchens to a lively bar decorated like some twisted take on a kids party. Have a go on the wheel of fortune, where youll really want to get lucky, and win a free shot, and then work your way through the cocktail list. Like any good-time bar worth its salt, this place is big on tequila, and the drinks are light-hearted fun, but  here we go getting lucky again  along with the quirks comes quality. By the of the evening, before youre porured back onto the street, youll swear tequila is your new favourite drink, and youll be singing the party hits they play all the way home. K Bar at The Kensington 109 - 113 Queen's Gate, SW7 5LP, townhousekensington.com

K bar feels majestic  and there is no other word for it  because drinking here is a little like being in the captains quarters of the Titanic, albeit without the sinking feeling. There is glamour here: a kind of place to be seduced in. Cocktails wise, bar manager Ben Manchester is the man to ask for, but theres a fine list to choose from. It avoids stuffiness, and just needs to be packed out to really get cooking. Nightjar 129 City Rd, EC1V 1JB, barnightjar.com

Nightjar has fame which means writing about it is redundant: people think it marvellously good, and theyve live music most of the week. Its seating only and worth booking: just be sure not to cancel, or theyll charge a steep 10 per person. They do the speakeasy theme, but well enough that it isnt too tired yet, and have plenty of old school style on the list. Pick up a pack of cards from the bar on your way out. Reverend J W Simpson 32 Goodge St, W1T 2QJ, revjwsimpson.com

Bourne and Hollingsworth run this rather lovely little bar, downstairs from a small doorway on Goodge St. Service is friendly and speedy, it's comfortable, and drinks more than hold their own  there's both obscure traditional mixes and modern serves made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Luckily, with good drinks come good people, and it's a loud, happy place. Albertine 1 Wood Ln, W12 7DP, albertinewinebar.co.uk

Albertine hasnt changed much since the day East Enders was commissioned there. A wine bar through and through, youll struggle to get anything else (though there are a couple of ales on the menu.) Its a place with spirit, which draws a regular, devoted crowd. They sell everything they serve, and its well worth splashing out: the mark-up gets less and less as the bottles get more expensive, meaning you can get an absolute bargain at the top end of the list. Its also the kind of wine bar you go to to overindulge. First Aid Box 119 Dulwich Rd, SE24 0NG, firstaidbox2015.com

This place really is worth travelling to Herne Hill to, which must be saying something. The team behind Shrub & Shutter have thickly laid on the pharmacy theme here, with cure-all drinks. Its not an idea which sounds like it should work, and yet, how much better life would be if they were one of the emergency services. Expect saline drips, syringes, and the likes of plastic lungs  their take on thirst aid  but rest assured, flavours arent medicinal in the slightest. At 8 - 10 a drink, its reasonable for London, and wonderful to see a bar really trying something new. Bravo. Media Wisdom Photography - Giles Christopher Nam Long Le Shaker 159 Old Brompton Rd, SW5 0LJ, namlong.co.uk

It gained fame for its celebrity fans, which include Mick Jagger and Prince Harry, but Nam Long has held on longer than most A-list haunts: its been going 30 years, and recently was given an overhaul. Its quite possibly the most Chelsea place imaginable  there are literally MIC cast members floating about  and its a go-to spot to drink far too much and party. The upstairs area is bright, airy, and well looked after by the excellent bartenders, while downstairs  "the Opium Den"  is as it sounds (though there was no opium available when we asked... ) The drinks upstairs were made with more care, but downstairs is more intimate, opulent, and better for a small groups. Some of those Chelsea types who go really are the very worst, and the drinks are outrageously expensive, but hey, its a laugh. The Vault at Milroy's 3 Greek St, Soho, W1D 4NX, shop.milroys.co.uk

A bar through a bookcase: were sold. Better yet, its underneath one of Sohos finest whisky shops  with stiff competition from The Vintage House  so if youre taken with something downstairs, buy it on your way out. Its a simple little bar and the service is decidedly so-so, but its usually pretty busy, they play good music and have an excellent range of spirits. The menu is changed regularly, but its a good place to cram into with friends or on a date. You mightnt spend the entire night here, but for a couple of drinks on the way somewhere, or on the way back, it fits the bill perfectly. Bounce 241 Old St, EC1V 9EY, bouncepingpong.com

There are two Bounce bars, one on Old Street and one on Holborn. The Old Street spot is a little more fun, graffiti adorning the walls,the Holborn spot somewhat more upmarket. Still, they both deserve a mention, and for the simple reason theyre damned good fun. Drinks here are good, with a decent spirit selection at both (and a huge number of gins in Farringdon) and a respectable selection of beers. Food is fine, simple. Still, you come to play ping pong. Theyve tables everywhere. Theres little to fault with Bounce: its a laugh, and sometimes thats all somewhere needs to be.

Crowning the capitals night, two more London bars got in on the action, with Trailer Happiness in Notting Hill named best international high volume cocktail bar and Swift in Soho, from the team behind Nightjar named best new international cocktail bar.

Now come on, London. The only appropriate way to celebrate the citys success is with a drink. See you at the bar.
M ichelle Terry has been announced as Emma Rices successor as Artistic Director at Shakespeares Globe.

The Olivier-award winning actress, who performed in a number of Globe productions under Dominic Dromgooles leadership, will take over in April 2018.

At the Globe, she starred as Rosalind in As You Like It in 2015, Titania and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Nights Dream in 2013, and as the Princess of France in Loves Labour Lost in 2007.

Last year, she starred as Henry V in a production at Regents Park Open Air Theatre, as well as a revival of Sarah Kanes Cleansed at the National Theatre. She is an associate artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she she starred in Much Ado About Nothing, Loves Labour Lost and The Crucible. Her performance in Nina Raines Tribes at the Royal Court won her an Olivier award in 2010.

In 2016 she also directed Richard III, King John and As You Like It for The Complete Walk, a series of short films made by the Globe to celebrate 400 years since Shakespeares death.

She is also currently working on a project at the Donmar Warehouse on becoming a mother for the first time. She is writing and performing in a workshop production about the first year of motherhood alongside actress Rosalie Craig.

Terry said that she is proud and excited to be in the privileged position where I can offer artists the opportunity to come together to reclaim and rediscover not only Shakespeare, but the work of his contemporaries, alongside new work from our current writers.

Neil Constable, Shakespeares Globes chief executive, said that audiences who have enjoyed her performances will have the opportunity to see her fresh artistic vision come to life as she moves into a new phase of her impressive career.

Emma Rice, whose controversial departure comes after just two years in the job, will follow her stint as Globe boss with a new theatre company, Wise Children. It will be the company in residence at the Old Vic, with a production of the Angela Carter novel of the same name to be staged next year. Her final production at the Globe will be a musical adaptation of French film Romantics Anonymous, to be staged this Christmas.
A t just four years old, Prince George is probably one of the most adorable fashion influencers out there.

As well as making a strong case for the perfect side-parting, the young royal has single-handedly sparked a revival in traditional childrenswear looks thanks to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - who regularly dress their little ones in vintage-inspired threads.

But while the rompers come and go, theres one beloved wardrobe essential in particular that youll never spot him without: his shorts.

Whether teaming them with knee-high socks or going casual with some tiny Crocs, little George is rarely photographed out and about without a pair.

Prince George: Best moments from his fourth year

Take last weeks royal tour of Germany and Poland for instance, where the royal tot was photographed three times in the same set of navy shorts.

If youve ever wondered why the young prince is always rocking such old-fashioned get ups (and yes - we have too) an etiquette expert has finally shed some light on his unusually dapper wardrobe choices.

Its a very English thing to dress a young boy in shorts, William Hanson told Harper's Bazaar.

Trousers are for older boys and men, whereas shorts on younger boys are one of the silent class markers that we have in England.

Although times are (slowly) changing, a pair of trousers on a young boy is considered quite middle classquite suburban. And no self-respecting aristo or royal would want to be considered suburban.

Matt Porteous/Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

While theres no mistaking that a pair of shorts makes you look like you mean business, Hanson is quick to clarify that its unlikely that the Royal brood are throwing shade at the rest of the country.

He believes that the family most likely maintains the tradition as a nod to the past, rather than to separate themselves from other classes.

Cast your mind back to the Eighties and you might even recall seeing Prince William and Prince Harry in similar styles.

The British upper set are always keen to hold onto to tradition Hanson explained.

Getty Images

But while theyre happy to keep little George in a rotating wardrobe of chino shorts, there is one antiquated fashion rule that The Duke and Duchess have thoroughly decided to ditch.

A newborn boy would be dressed in a gown for their first year or two, says Hanson, and then he was breeched and wore articles of clothing that more resembled shorts or trousers than dresses.

The usual custom is that a boy graduates to trousers around eight years old.
L ast year, passengers arriving at Helsinki Airport were greeted by a striking, soon-to-go-viral banner. Nobody in their right mind would come to Helsinki in November, it declared. Except you, you badass. Welcome.

The slogan  from Finlands national tourist board, no less  typifies the laconic wit of a country whose official emojis include naked sauna-goers and head-banging heavy-metallers. And it isnt just self-deprecation setting Finland aside from its Nordic neighbours. Forget cosy hygge and lagom  Finns are defined by sisu, which roughly translates as gutsy determination and never-say-die spirit. Its evident in Helsinkians plunging into the icy Baltic, the Moomins devilish Little My, the indestructible Nokia 3310 or the fact that Finland has won more Olympic medals per capita than anywhere else.

Sisu is apt in 2017, as Finland celebrates 100 years of independence (until the Russian Revolution, it was an autonomous, tsar-run region). Before Decembers birthday bash, Helsinki has a smorgasbord of events planned, including outdoor sing-a-longs and food festivals. Helsinki is also one of Europes greatest unsung city-break destinations by dint of its unique Scandi-meets-Slavic culture plus seriously cutting-edge design and foodie scenes. And nows the time to head on up there  before it becomes the preserve of badasses.

Where to stay

Indigo Helsinki-Boulevard (0035 8200 48105, helsinki-boulevard.hotelindigo.com) straddles a near-perfect location on the cusp of the Punavuori Design District (designdistrict.fi). Helsinkis main sights are an easy walk away while the hotels proximity to the harbour (where youll catch the ferry to the archipelago islands) means the Baltics briny air hits nostrils once you step outside. It also sensibly adheres to the Finnish penchant for lie-ins (Finns get the most sleep in the world) with 2pm check-outs, even if that means missing the breakfast buffets superb fresh salmon, pickled herrings, sour berries and Karelian pastries (cheese-topped jacket potatoes tucked inside a pastry). Doubles from 130, room only.

Where to eat and drink

While the worlds gastronomes gush over New Nordic cuisine, Finnish food rarely gets a look-in. Aiming to remedy that is Juuri (0035 8963 5732; jurri.fi/en), with its seasonal sapas, a twist on tapas. Inventive plates such as vendace (tiny anchovy-like freshwater fish) with roe and potato, swede with kohlrabi and buttermilk, and horse (yes, horse) with rhubarb are ferried to tables in a never-ending cavalcade, washed down with lashings of cockles-warming aquavit. Each costs around 7.

Sapas at Juur

For a more down-to-earth introduction to Finnish food, try wandering through one of central Helsinkis three food halls. At harbourside Vanha Kauppahalli (0035 89310 23550; vanhakauppahalli.fi), shoppers drift past stalls brimming with smoked salmon, rye breads, korvapuusti (cinnamon rolls) and reindeer kebabs. For the more adventurous, theres a stall hawking canned bear meat, pate and bear grease soap.

Theres no ursine fare at Bystro (0035 83004 72340; bystro.fi), a Russian restaurant near the market. Youre never far from the influence of Finlands big neighbour in Helsinki, whether its the 19th-century St Petersburg-like boulevards or ironic Soviet-kitsch bars such as Kafe Mockba (0035 82017 51620; andorra.fi/kafe-moskova) with its abacus till and Brezhnev speeches played at clearing-out time. At Bystros boozy 25 brunches, diners demolish unlimited waffle-style blinis topped with Baltic herring and caviar, selecting starters from the zakuska (hors doeuvre) table and drinking Ukrainian champagne and shots of vodka.

Finns like a drink, and alcohol prices tend to be cheaper in Helsinki than their Scandi cousins. For sophisticated tipples, try the Nordic cocktails at A21 Decades (00358 40021 1921; a21.fi), where prices start at around 10 a drink. Using unique Finnish ingredients such as sea buckthorn, birch syrup and Arctic bramble liqueur to reinvent cocktail classics, the presentation is innovative too: Smoked Sauna blends Jaloviina (a cognac-brandy concoction born from Second World War rationing), smoked tea and tar, and comes served enshrouded by tree bark in a condensation-lined glass box.

Cocktails at A21 / Laura Nissinen

Where to shop

Helsinkis Design District is fantastic if youre seeking inspiration for your home. New concept store TRE (0035 82917 00430; worldoftre.com) has retro-hipster Suomi staples such as Eero Aarnio ball-chairs, reflective glow-in-the-dark badges and the bear-logoed Karhu trainers worn by Kanye West. A biopic about designer Tom of Finland hit cinema screens this year, whose homoerotic bed linen can be bought at Finlayson (0035 85032 24250; finlayson.fi). Elsewhere, theres Lady Gaga-favoured Minna Parikka shoes (0035 8966 7554; minnaparikka.com), Alvar Aalto-inspired furniture at Artek (0035 81061 73480; artek.fi) and floral smocks galore at Marimekko (0035 81034 43300; marimekko.com).

TRE concept store

What to do and see

There are 3.3 million saunas in Finland  thats two for every three people. New, eco-friendly public sauna Loyly (0035 8961 286550; loylyhelsinki.fi) is rebranding the scene for younger generations. Housed in a shell-like building and with two saunas (smoke and wood-burning), a two-hour booking costs 18. Sitting with an ice-cold sauna beer is a quintessential Finnish experience, as is going for a jolting dip in the Baltic Sea afterwards.

Loyly

Details

Finnair (020 800 10101; finnair.com) flies from Heathrow to Helsinki from 155 return.

visithelsinki.fi

myhelsinki.fi
D ramatic new CCTV footage shows the moment a man is chased into a shop by police before he is restrained and dies after apparently swallowing an object.

The CCTV obtained by the Standard shows Rashan Charles - known as Rash - putting his hand to his mouth as he runs into the shop in east London pursued by an officer.

The images then show him being grabbed by the officer who wrestles him to the floor, with the pair struggling for at least a minute.

A second man, believed to be a passer-by, then helps to restrain the suspect in the shop in Dalston.

A close-up of the CCTV which appears to show him putting an object in his mouth

Relatives and protesters say they are concerned and angered at the death and are planning a vigil outside a London police station later today.

Scotland Yard said the 20-year-old was seen trying to swallow an object and that an officer had sought to prevent the man from harming himself.

The incident took place after police tried to stop a car on the Kingsland Road at 1.45am on Saturday.

Police pursued a man who jumped out of the car and ran into the Yours Locally 24-hour store.

Rashan ran into the shop while being pursued by police

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, said Mr Charles became unwell and first aid was provided by a police officer, police medics and paramedics.

He was then taken to the Royal London Hospital, where he died shortly afterwards.

The IPCC has announced an independent investigation into the death and appealed for witnesses to come forward.

The watchdog said it had obtained evidence which showed an object was removed from Mr Charless throat at the scene.

IPCC investigation: Rashan Charles was pronounced dead in hospital / Twitter

The incident has parallels with the death of Edson Da Costa, 25, last month who died after being restrained by police in Beckton. Mr Da Costa had swallowed a number of packages before his death.

Family members and friends of Mr Charles, who grew up in Dalston, are demanding answers and are due to hold protest outside Stoke Newington police station later today.

Jada, 19, the mother of his one-year-old daughter, said: He was a really good guy. Obviously everyone has their ups and downs but he was never out to harm anyone. But he was a good guy.

Rashan Charles was seen on CCTV apparently attempting to swallow something

He was close to all his family and close to all his friends.

A friend added: I saw him as an older brother..

If he would see me out he would make sure I was alright and would walk half way home and to where it was safe.

Hed do that for everyone. He was liked by loads of people sound here.

When I found out I didnt know what to think. When I saw the video I felt sick.

I just want what the family want. I want justice for him, because thats what they want.

Tributes: A man lights a candle at the scene of the incident / PA

Friends have left bunches of flowers and candles at the scene in memory of their friend.

Merdan Uckac, 18, whose family run the barbers next to the shop where Mr Charles was detained, said: My friend did not deserve to die like this.

He was a great father and is well-known in the area. He was always coming into the barbers and chatting to us. He wouldnt have ever hurt anyone, so thats why we are all so upset.

In a Facebook tribute a family friend said: The family is so shocked and in disbelief because he only just left his grandmothers house to return home after a visit. Within a short while he was dead.

Police scene: The incident happened at Yours Locally in Kingsland Road / PA

Chief Superintendent Simon Laurence, borough commander for Hackney, said: A man, who was in the car, was pursued on foot before entering a shop where he was seen to be trying to swallow an object. He was then taken ill.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched an independent investigation to establish what happened and has viewed the officers body worn video.

All police officers are fully aware that they will be asked to account for their actions  officers are not exempt from the law and we would not wish to be.

The officer involved has not been suspended, police said.
T he devastated friend of a woman killed in a vicious hammer attack has paid an emotional tribute to the woman who helped deliver her son.

Despite the desperate attempts of doctors to save her, teacher Florina Pastina died in hospital after she was attacked at her home in Croydon early last Wednesday morning.

Her friend, Ionela Novac, paid tribute to the 36-year-old, who loved cats, Game of Thrones and watching movies.

She told the Standard that Ms Pastina, who she had known for seven years, even helped with the birth of her son last year.

Ms Novac and Ms Pastina were friends for seven years

She said: Flo was a lovely person. No words can describe her. She was the most caring, happy, friendly and selfless soul.

The school was just about to finish and she was looking forward for the start of the new year.

"She was talking about travelling to New Zealand.

Ms Novac, who used to live and work with Ms Pastina, added: Our friendship was just growing with time. I can say so many things about Flo. She liked rock music, ladybugs and butterflies. I find hard to find my words.

Ms Pastina was killed in a hammer attack at her home in Croydon

I would like everyone to know who she was and what a wonderful person she was.

She was next to me in the most beautiful moments, she helped with the birth of my son, and hard moments as well.

We didn't speak enough on the phone, we didn't meet enough. I miss her already.

Ms Pastina was a teacher

Last week, Ms Pastina's family said in a statement: We are heartbroken at the loss of a much loved sister and friend, who was a well-respected teacher.

"Such a beautiful and kind person, who had so much more to give."

Scotland Yard has launched a murder investigation into Ms Pastinas death.

The 25-year-old man who was also injured in the assault was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries and has since been discharged.

A 34-year-old-man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder.

He suffered non life-threatening injuries and remains in hospital.

All three are believed to be known to each other while the hammer used in the attack was found at the scene.

Detective Chief Inspector Noel McHugh, of the Mets Homicide and Major Crime Command, said: "I am particularly keen to hear from any neighbours or people who passed through Alpha Road at the time of the incident who may have seen or heard something that could assist with our investigation.

"Any piece of information, however small, will help my team build a picture of events that tragic morning."

Any witnesses or anyone with any information is asked to call the Mets Homicide and Major Crime Command by dialling 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at crimestoppers-uk.org.
A leading plastic surgeon today said the number of patients he had treated for acid attacks had reached epidemic levels in London.

Professor Peter Dziewulski, clinical director at St Andrews Centre for Plastic Surgery and Burns, said there had been an explosion of cases involving noxious or corrosive substances since the start of last year.

At the centre in Chelmsford, he looks after Londoners as well as patients from eastern England. Last year he treated 20 patients for injuries caused by chemical burns and has already seen the same number this year, with 10 needing surgery including skin grafts.

It follows a spate of attacks leaving victims scarred or even blind.

East Ham MP Stephen Timms led a debate in the Commons calling for tighter regulation and tougher sentences for those convicted of acid attacks.

Today Professor Dziewulski backed the move, likening the use of corrosive substances to knife crime.

'Epidemic': Plastic surgeon Peter Dziewulski / James Allan

He said: This sort of attack seems more common particularly in London and the South-East where there is now an epidemic. What worries me is that we have seen a slow increase in attacks until last year and this year, where theres been an explosion in the number of cases. This is the tip of the iceberg and we are seeing more serious cases.

It is a complex issue because you cant ban the products people use in their homes. Its a bit like knife crime in that respect. There is a lot of talk about restricting access for youngsters who would need to show ID.

No one thing will stop this happening but we can restrict access and improve legislation so people are properly penalised if they are caught doing it.

Acid attack victim Samir Hussien wears a mask 24/7 after being attacked outside a cinema / VICE

Last month, Professor Dziewulski, who has been a plastic surgeon for more than 30 years, attended a meeting of the Home Office and National Police Chiefs Council where clinicians, officers and politicians discussed the issue.

A total of 455 acid attacks were reported to Scotland Yard last year  a rise of 74 per cent  with 20 people convicted of offences but more than a third of perpetrators never caught.

Between January and April this year alone there were 114 attacks.

Surgery often involves multiple skin graft operations to reconstruct eyelids, noses and ears.

Over the last 10 or 15 years there were a handful of cases at the unit. But last year saw 20. So far this year we have had 20 and 10 have required surgery, Professor Dziewulski said.

The vast majority are under 30. There is a particular proportion which are teenagers and most are male but we have had quite a few female victims.

A lot of the time people are attacked by a stranger but occasionally its retribution for gang-related stuff. For some young ladies they were a partner and the boyfriend is upset in the relationship. I think it is being increasingly used instead of knives because carrying [a blade] results in a longer sentence.

The consequences of the assaults can be devastating both physically and psychologically, he said.

Professor Dziewulski is attending the first of two summits being held by the charity Scar Free Foundation in London in September and October.

It aims to find, within 20 years, a way of treating burn victims which will allow them to be healed without leaving scars.

The charitys chief executive Brendan Eley said: Scarring  like those resulting from these recent, horrific acid attacks  is an epidemic, affecting the lives of millions worldwide. This autumn London will become the centre of a new international focus on improving treatments for survivors.
P olice in London are being equipped with 1,000 acid crime response kits in a major operation to combat the surge in attacks involving corrosive liquids.

Emergency patrol cars across the capital are being supplied with five litre bottles of water to give victims of acid attacks vital immediate treatment on the scene.

The 999 response officers will also get protection gear and medical advice on how to treat injured victims.

Police response cars in east London are already equipped with the kits but every car in London will be issued with the water and protective equipment by the end of the month.

East London has been rocked by a series of horrific acid attacks in recent weeks, with five people targeted in a major spree / Twitter/@sarah_cobbold

The move is part of a series of measures being launched by the Met to counter the explosion in the number of acid attacks taking place across London.

These include issuing officers in east London with simple test kits to allow them to check the contents of suspicious bottles of liquid found on people being stopped and searched in the streets.

In addition, London Fire Brigade is now responding with the police to emergency calls where victims have been attacked with a corrosive liquid because they carry large volumes of water to treat victims - the most effective way of dealing with acid injuries.

An acid attack victim has water poured over his head and torso

Frontline officers are also getting extra training in how to treat victims and how to deal with corrosive liquids in stop and searches.

Acting Detective Superintendent Mike West, who is the Mets lead officer for corrosive based crime, said: We are liaising closely with the London fire brigade, the ambulance service, the Home Office and hospitals as to how to deal with this issue. We are all tuned in to this and determined to tackle it.

He said the trial scheme in east London would allow officers to safely test liquids which criminals often carry in innocent looking soft drink bottles.

Det Supt West also revealed that some big companies who produce acid based products had contacted the Met to ask what measures they could bring voluntarily in to reduce the easy availability of the liquids.

Acid Attack Victim Covered In Water

He also welcomed the Standard investigation last week which highlighted the ease with which industrial-strength chemicals can be obtained from corner shops with few questions asked.

Senior officers from the Met and other forces are now talking to the Home Office and other agencies about new measures to tackle the issue.

Criminals who carry out attacks can be prosecuted for GBH and jailed for life but it is more difficult to prosecute someone carrying corrosive liquids because police have to prove intent to harm someone.

Det Supt West said substances used in attacks ranged from ordinary household sink cleaner and drain cleaners to almost pure sulphuric acid which can be ordered online without checks. Now it is understood officials are examining plans to ban household- type corrosive cleaners for sale to under 18-year-olds and regulate more concentrated acids so only registered businesses can buy them.

Last year there were 455 acid attacks in London - up from 261 in 2015 - with most victims and offenders being aged between 16 and 29.

Police say that, anecdotally, there is evidence from youth offending teams that young criminals are increasingly carrying acid after the two strikes and youre out legislation was introduced in 2015 which meant an immediate jail term for a repeat offence of carrying a knife.

There is also evidence that several gangs in east London are using acid as a means of settling disputes and as a weapon in robberies.

Det Supt West said education would play a key role in future with children being given direct messages showing the impact that acid has victims.

He said: These are life changing injuries, while the volumes in comparison with knife and gun crime are small, the injuries are a life sentence for victims.

I am confident that we are stepping up our response to this crime and we are looking for a safer way to identify some of the substances on the streets.

So you might be walking down the street with what appears to be a bottle of Lucozade but officers will now be testing you to establish what is in that bottle.

He added: The trend is deeply worrying, if you look at the extent of the injuries, it is a life changing event and the people seeking to do that will feel the full force of the police and the courts. It is very clear that will be happening.

We want to make it difficult to walk out the door with these substances or go and buy these substances. 
O rganisers of Londons world-famous Notting Hill Carnival have shut down calls to move the event elsewhere in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

The team which runs the popular August street party pledged this years carnival will show respect for victims and offer solidarity to the devastated community.

Senior Tory minister Greg Hands had led calls to move the capitals world-famous carnival, asking whether it was inappropriate for revellers to celebrate in the shadow of the destroyed high-rise building.

But Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was among those to reject the suggestion, saying it would be a mistake to move the carnival, which is now in its 51st year.

Entrepreneur Levi Roots, who first began selling his famous Reggae Reggae sauce at the carnival in the 1990s, also slammed the idea, as did Croydon rapper Stormzy who claimed Mr Hands was using Grenfell to bolster his get rid of carnival agenda.

The west London carnival takes place near to Grenfell Tower on the Lancaster West Estate. / AFP/Getty Images

On Monday Pepe Francis MBE, the chairman of Notting Hill Carnival Trust, said the 2017 event "will show the local communitys solidarity, support and respect for the victims of the appalling fire at Grenfell Tower".

This year, the blackened marker of Grenfell Tower casts a dark shadow over the joy and celebration of Carnival," he said. "We do not pretend to provide solace. But we can, and will, offer respect and solidarity.

Notting Hill Carnival 2016 - In pictures 1 /24 Notting Hill Carnival 2016 - In pictures Street festival: Thousands of people headed to Notting Hill for the second day of the carnival Getty Snap: Performers in identical blue outfits pose for the cameras Getty Big turnout: Hundreds lined the streets for the procession Getty Caribbean culture: A woman dances her way down the street in the final day of the carnival Getty Festival of colour: A performer dances in front of the crowds during the Grande Finale on Monday PA Drummers filled the streets as Monday's event got into full swing PA Police presence is high following complaints about security last year PA Revellers take part in the Children's Day parade after a paint fight party EPA Revellers take part in the Children's Day parade EPA/WILL OLIVER Dancers perform during the Children's Day parade Isabel Infantes/PA Wire Revellers take part in the Children's Day parade after a paint fight party EPA/WILL OLIVER Dancers perform during the Children's Day parade Isabel Infantes/PA Wire Dancers perform during the Children's Day parade Isabel Infantes/PA Wire Revellers enjoy the Notting Hill Carnival after joining a paint fight party in the early morning Isabel Infantes/PA Wire Performers dressed in flamboyant costumes for the Children's Day parade EPA/WILL OLIVER Dancers perform during the Children's Day parade Isabel Infantes/PA Wire Police Officers during the Children's Day parade Isabel Infantes/PA Wire Revellers enjoy a paint fight party Isabel Infantes/PA Wire

Asked whether respect could be better shown for Grenfell victims by moving the carnival elsewhere, musician Mr Francis said: I have been engaging with my neighbours in Grenfell and we agree that carnival is at the heart of our community, it is part of what brings us together.

Now is a time for solidarity in our community, we want to come together and not to be pushed out to somewhere we dont belong. Carnival will happen in the streets of Notting Hill as it has done for more than 50 years

He said the committee would soon announce their plans on an appropriate message of community respect and to show solidarity with Grenfell.

He added: Carnival is a celebration of inclusivity, diversity and harmony. We will not provide a platform for those who espouse the politics of division and hate and who seek to create disharmony.

We will focus on what we do best, providing joy and release through the music, dance and escapism of Carnival. And we will, this year, take time at Carnival to show proper respect for our grieving neighbours.



Around two million people are expected to turn out for this year's street festival of dancing, music and colourful floats.

The west London carnival is Europe's biggest event of its kind.
P ilots have welcomed a Government crackdown on rules for flying drones amid a spike in potentially catastrophic near misses with passenger planes at Heathrow airport.

New rules on registration, age limit coupled with hefty fines and prison sentences have been revealed by the Department for Transport after a series of incidents were reported at the London flight hub.

A surge in near misses in recent years has fuelled fears among pilots that failure to clampdown on ownership rules could lead to a catastrophic crash over the capital.

The number of drone incidents involving Heathrow planes nearly quadrupled from seven in 2015 to 26 last year, according to reports by the UK Airprox Board.

Incidents of near misses at London's airports have spiked in recent years / Getty Images

In March, a passenger plane came perilously close to hitting two drones while approaching Heathrow Airport, while a spike has been recorded at airports across the country.

The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), which has been campaigning for stricter laws for the past few years, carried out tests recently which showed how drone can smash through the windscreen of a passenger plane and into the cockpit if hit.

Steve Landells, of BALPA, told the Standard: Weve been looking at the drone issue for a number of years and were really pleased about the Government announcement. That is a really positive move.

There is absolutely no doubt now that readily available drones can cause real significant damage to an aircraft.

Now we are seeing reports of near misses at over 12,000 feet and aircraft are moving quite quickly at that height.

I think one of the problems is that everybody has been playing catch up. We were saying years ago that if the sales of drones take off then the legislation is not in place.

Under the new rules, which are subject to consultation and may not come into force until next year, children could be banned from flying drones over a certain weight.

Civil Aviation Authority rules state that drones must not be flown above 400ft or near airports or airfields.

The maximum fine for using a drone in a no-fly zone is currently 2,500, but this is set to increase and prison sentences will be considered for those caught using the unmanned aircraft to deliberately endanger people's lives.

Transport Secretary Chris Graying said: "I think at the very least you should face a substantial fine in situations where you have palpably endangered life then the courts should have the power to send you to prison.

"Lets be frank, if you are knowingly flying a drone in the flight path of an aircraft just above a runway then you should face pretty serious consequences."
P rotesters demanding 'justice' for a 20-year-old man who died after being chased by police officers are set to demonstrate outside an east London police station.

Rashan Charles, from London, has been named locally as the man who died after officers chased him on foot after attempting to stop a car in Kingsland Road, Dalston, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

He ran into the nearby Yours Locally shop where he was seen trying to swallow an object before being taken ill, Scotland Yard said.

The Hackney Stand Up to Racism and Fascism protest group has organised a 'JusticeforRash' vigil outside Stoke Newington police station on Monday evening, saying his death has left members enormously concerned and angered.

It came as new CCTV emerged appearing to show Rashan swallow an object while being pursued.

A screen grab of footage being investigated over the death of Rashan Charles in Dalston / CCTV

The protest group said Mr Charles death was the latest in a seemingly endless list of young black men dying at the hands of the authorities.

CCTV footage posted online under the hashtag #justiceforRash appears to show an officer restraining a young man inside the shop.

CCTV of the moment Rashan Charles enters shop

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched an investigation into the footage, with a post-mortem examination and formal identification set to take place.

Chief Superintendent Simon Laurence, the Met Polices borough commander for Hackney, said: The IPCC has launched an independent investigation to establish what happened and has viewed the officers' body worn video.

"There is likely to be speculation over the next few days regarding what led to this man becoming ill, so I would encourage people to keep up-to-date with the IPCC's statements, as and when they are released.

Tributes: A man lights a candle at the scene of the incident / PA

"All police officers are fully aware that they will be asked to account for their actions - officers are not exempt from the law and we would not wish to be."

Friends have paid tribute to Mr Charles as a humble young man while flowers have also been laid outside Yours Locally.

Erem, who owns the barber shop but did not want to give his full name, said he had seen Mr Charles, known as Rash, about 15 hours before he died.

"He was a humble young man," Erem said, "he was really known in the area."

He said the young man knew how to speak to people: "He was very mature for his age."

"I'm in shock myself," he said, adding he would often speak to the young man outside his shop.
T he parents of Charlie Gard have ended the legal fight over treatment for their terminally ill child.

The boy's mother Connie Yates told a court hearing on Monday afternoon: "We only wanted give him a chance of life."

But, after lawyers representing the boy's parents announced their decision to withdraw the case as the window of opportunity for treatment had passed, she said, "a whole lot of time has been wasted".

Ms Yates added she hoped the loss of Charlie's life would not be in vain.

Explained: the Charlie Gard case

She wept as she said: "We are sorry we could not save you."

Her heartbreaking words came after barrister Grant Armstrong, representing the boy's parents, told Mr Justice Francis: "This case is about Charlie and for Charlie it is too late. Time has run out.

"Irreversible muscle damage has been done. The treatment now offers no chance of success.

"In light of that fact the parents have taken the extremely hard decision with their legal advisors ... to withdraw their application."

Devastation: Connie Yates and Chris Gard arriving at the court / PA

Mr Armstrong said Charlie was assessed last week and the parents were given the news on Friday.

He also said that had the treatment been authorised earlier it may have been successful.

Charlie's first birthday falls on August 4.

The couple felt that continuing their fight would cause the boy pain, according to Mr Armstrong, who called the case "worthy of a Greek tragedy".

Grieving supporters at the High Court after learning of the parents' decision to end their fight for Charlie / PA

Mr Armstrong added that Charlie's parents hoped to set up a foundation and wanted lessons to be learned.

"Dark days lie ahead for these parents," said Mr Armstrong.

"The parents wish to treasure their remaining time with Charlie, however short that may be."

The shock announcement came after Connie Yates and Chris Gard, both in their 30s and from Bedfont, west London, arrived at the Family Division of the High Court looking close to tears.

Mr Justice Francis, who has overseen their five-month legal battle for the right to take their baby to the US for treatment, had been scheduled to analyse what the couple said was fresh evidence at a two-day trial starting at 10am on Monday.

In light of the announcement the judge paid tribute to Charlie's parents, saying no-one could comprehend their agony.

He attacked those who have commented on the baby's case without knowing the facts.

"One of the pitfalls of social media when a car such as this goes viral, the watching world feels entitled to express opinions regardless of whether they were evidence based."

He also hit out at people who had made threats towards hospital staff.

"Some of the staff at the hospital have been subjected to serious threats and abuse.

I've made it clear before and I make it clear now, I am completely satisfied these fine parents had nothing whatsoever to do with these threats."

He added: "It's a disgrace they should have been subjected to any form of abuse whatsoever and I condemn it."

The judge dismissed the "absurd notion" that Charlie had been a prisoner of the NHS, explaining that the hospital had done its duty properly.

He also said lawyers had represented Charlie for free and suggested that they should have been entitled to legal aid.

Other parents were in the same position, said Mr Justice Francis as he suggested a legal aid review.

Charlie suffers from a rare genetic disorder affecting the mitochondria, parts of the body's cells that produce energy.

His care team at Great Ormond Street Hospital have argued that further treatment would not cure the disease and that the boy's life support should be withdrawn to prevent prolonging his suffering.

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Charlie's parents arrived for Monday's hearing without comment as about 20 supporters gathered with megaphones, blue balloons and banners.

The group, part of the "Charlie's Army" movement, chanted slogans and cheered when passing cars beeped their support.

Mainly women and children, they filled the road outside court with choruses of "Trump, the Pope, they all have hope" and "We love you Charlie, we do, oh Charlie we love you."

After the decision was announced, supporters were seen weeping and screaming in the streets.

Two women scream in grief after learning of the couple's decision / PA

Great Ormond Street Hospital said "the agony, desolation and bravery" of the Gards's decision "command GOSH's utmost respect and humble all who work there".

A lawyer for the hospital said: "The heart of each person working at Great Ormond Street Hospital and the heart of the hospital goes out to Charlie and his mother and father.

"One of the many sadnesses in this case that greater transparency has not always led to greater understanding.

"The hospital has said all that I would wish to in its two position statements.

"I ask all those who seek to understand to read them.

"We are more sorry than I have words to say."
D onald Trumps State visit to Britain could be delayed until 2019, it emerged today.

The trip, with full Royal pomp and circumstance, is almost certainly not going to take place this year.

The Palace is understood to have plans for another visit in the first half of 2018, practically ruling out a visit from Mr Trump.

And although the US president could in theory come on a State visit in autumn 2018, this would take place just weeks before crucial mid-term elections for Congress.

A third of the US Senate will be up for election and the whole of the House of Representatives.

So Mr Trump could be fighting for his political life at this time because if the Democrats gain control of the House, the Senate, or both, it would make him far more vulnerable to being impeached if the investigation into his election campaigns links to Russia escalates.

The Queen is not expected to lay on more than two State visits next year, according to one source, though dates for a Trump visit in 2018 are still believed to being explored.

Given the potential delay until spring 2019, the US president may come to Britain earlier to meet Prime Minister Theresa May, but not on a full State visit.

This could take place in 2018, though, there is even talk that it could be arranged for later this year.

Such a visit would allow both Governments, and the Palace, to gauge the level of protests which a State visit by the president could spark.

Nearly two million people signed a petition calling for Mr Trumps planned State visit to the UK to be downgraded following the furore over his comments about women which emerged during the election campaign and his proposed ban on Muslims from certain countries from entering the US.

Ministers in Britain will also be wary that a State visit which went badly could have a knock-on effect on attempts to strike an early and comprehensive trade deal with the US post Brexit.
A man with a chainsaw left at least five people injured after going on a rampage at an office block in a Swiss town, police said.

More than 100 police officers descended on Schaffhausen's old town amid reports that an unidentified male had launched the attack in the office of an insurance company on Monday morning.

The suspect remained at large hours after the incident which left two people seriously injured, police said.

Schaffhausen police released a description of a man who they named as 51-year-old Franz Wrousis.

He has been described as dangerous.

Suspect: Police released an image of the man they believed to be involved / Schaffhausen police

He is believed to be bald, around 190cm tall, with an unkempt appearance, detectives said.

The man is thought to own a a white VW van and believed to be in woods close to the town.

It happened close to a McDonald's store in the Muller-Bluck area of the town, news agency Reuters reported.

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Cindy Beer, from the areas police force, told local media that the victims had been injured with a chainsaw.

Detectives later added that it is believed the suspect is still carrying the weapon.

Schaffhausen Chainsaw attack 1 /5 Schaffhausen Chainsaw attack Armed police descend on Schaffhausen, Switzerland EPA At least five people were injured in the attack EPA Police rushed to the scene of the apparent attack EPA The centre of the town on the German border has been taped off Reuters

Ms Beer urged residents to remain vigilant and not to leave buildings, local newspaper Blick reported.

She said: There is no danger for residents and employees in the old town.

You must not leave the buildings yet."

Witnesses told the newspaper that homes and businesses close to the scene had been placed on lockdown.

One shopkeeper said: "The police completely sealed off the old town. More and more policemen are coming."

Another added: I've seen two injured. They were taken away (in an ambulance)."

Police confirmed the incident is not being treated as "an act of terror", according to Reuters.

This story is being updated.
B oris Johnson has joked that a traditional Maori greeting could be misinterpreted as a headbutt during a visit to New Zealand.

The Foreign Secretary is visiting the South Pacific nation for two days as Britain looks to strengthen ties as it reshapes its global relationships ahead of leaving the European Union.

Mr Johnson today visited the South Island town of Kaikoura, which was struck by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in November that killed two people.

He thanked townsfolk for teaching him a Maori greeting called a hongi, in which people press noses together.

Referring to a headbutt, Mr Johnson joked that the hongi might be misinterpreted in a pub in Glasgow.

But he added: This is the most mind-blowingly, mind-numbingly beautiful country that I have ever seen.

The Foreign Secretary also unveiled a British memorial at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.
P resident Trump has lashed out at members of his own Republican Party for doing very little' to protect him as US lawmakers step up their probe into alleged ties between his election campaign and Russia.

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President, he tweeted.

In a second message, Mr Trump added: As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians.

Washington sources say that Capitol Hill hearings focusing on a controversial meeting between Mr Trumps inner circle and a Russian lawyer will take place this week against a backdrop of a White House under a siege mentality with the president distrustful of even some of his closest aides and intent on going on the offensive against anyone he feels is threatening him.

Donald Trump defends 'wonderful' son's meeting with Russian lawyer

His son, Donald Trump Jr. has also come under fire for striking a deal with a congressional committee to escape public scrutiny and and keep his version of the meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer under wraps at a private session.

The secrecy row blew up after Senator Al Franken insisted that the presidents eldest son should be grilled under oath about his Russian connections at a planned public hearing on Wednesday.

Mr Trump Jr. and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort were due to appear in front of an open Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Wednesday to answer questions about the Trump Tower meeting with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.

But they reached a compromise with committee chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat member Dianne Feinstein this weekend, agreeing to be interviewed and turn over any documents relating to the infamous June 2016 meeting - as long as they did so in private.

That's not good enough, said Mr Franken. It should be under oath.

Speaking on CNNs State of the Nation, Mr Franken said he wants to ask the presidents son if he had any other meetings with Russians.

Senator Feinstein promised the panel will get to the bottom of the intrigue, tweeting: The Judiciary Committee will talk to Trump Jr. & Manafort before they testify in public, but we will get answers.

Nevertheless, the move by Mr Trump Jr. appears to contradict a claim he made a fortnight ago that he had nothing to hide.

Opponents pounced on the meeting as evidence that Mr Trump Jr. was willing to collude with the Russian government to get incriminating information that would help his father's presidential campaign and influence the results of the election.

In e-mail correspondence released by Mr Trump Jr., the go-between who proposed the meeting mentioned Russia and its government's support for Mr Trump.

It is illegal under US election law for a campaign to receive a contribution from a foreign government or national.

After details of the meeting were revealed by the New York Times, Mr Trump Jr. claimed that no meaningful information emerged and he insisted that his father was kept in the dark about the rendezvous itself and the arrangements leading up to it.

The denials have done little to quash the whiff of scandal. Nor has the presidents insistence that stories about his camps ties with Russia were fake news and part of a witch hunt being conducted against him by his enemies,

The new twist in the controversy came as Jared Kushner, husband of the presidents daughter, Ivanka, and Mr Trumps most trusted White House advisor, prepared to sit down today with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Like Mr Trump Jr. and Mr Manafort, he will be asked about his participation in the meeting with Ms Veselnitskaya.

Also like the Capitol Hill interviews of Mr Trump Jr and Mr Manafort - which will be held sometime before August 2 - Mr Kushner will be quizzed in private and he will not be under oath.

He will speak to members of the House Intelligence Committee tomorrow (Tuesday), with the same ground rules.

Members of Congress will want to know:

Exactly what was said at the meeting.

Whether any documents were handed over and, if so, what they were.

How much the participants knew of any Russian government involvement.

If Donald Trump was aware of the meeting.

As well as the Clinton dirty tricks meeting, Mr Kushner is likely to be asked about a Washington Post report that he tried to set up a secret back channel as a way of communicating with Moscow.

The lawmakers will almost certainly also quiz Mr Kushner about his December 2016 meeting with Sergey Gorkov, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin and head of the Vnesheconombank, which faced US sanctions after Russias annexation of Crimea.

Congressman Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House committee, said there will be  a lot of ground to cover.

There's a lot we want to know, he said on CBSs Face the Nation. We certainly want to know about several of the meetings that have been alleged to have taken place. Obviously the meeting with Donald Jr. and the several Russians that we now know were in that meeting.

Mr Kushners lawyer Abbe Lowell said his client will do his best to help put this matter to rest.

As Mr. Kushner has been saying since March, he has been and is prepared to voluntarily cooperate and provide whatever information he has on the investigations to Congress, he said in a statement.

The June 9 meeting is not the only avenue investigators are exploring.

Senator Franken wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to come back and testify before his committee after a report alleging that he spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

Mr. Sessions testified earlier this year that he didnt speak with Russian officials about the campaign.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has also issued a subpoena for Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS, the political firm that employed a former British spy to compile a dossier of unverified information for Mr Trump's political opponents about his past trips to Moscow, after he refused to testify voluntarily.

Senators Grassley and Feinstein said in a statement: Glenn Simpson, through his attorney, has declined to voluntarily attend Wednesday's Judiciary Committee hearing regarding compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Therefore, a subpoena has been issued to compel his attendance.

Simpson's attorney has asserted that his client will invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in response to the subpoena.

Mr Schiff said yesterday that the president is clearly worried about the scope of the investigation by Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed to oversee the FBI probe into possible ties with Russia, and was disturbed by Mr Trumps criticism of his Attorney General Jess Sessions decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

It does concern me that the president should bring this up now if it's an indication that he wants to somehow push Sessions out and get in a new attorney general who would then take Rod Rosenstein's place as supervising the Mueller investigation, said the senator, referring to the deputy attorney general who appointed Mr Mueller as special counsel.

He added: If this is part of a longer-term stratagem to define or confine the scope of the Mueller investigation, that would be very concerning.

Mr Schiff claimed that inconsistencies in the versions given by members of Mr Trumps inner circle are part of a pattern.

If the members of the Trump team were honest, and transparent, and forthcoming about these things, it would raise a lot less questions. But, of course, that has not been the case, he added.
A tourist from east London has drowned after attempting to swim a mile out to an island on Lake Garda in Italy.

His sister and brother-in-law desperately tried to rescue him through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while in the water but were eventually forced to swim to safety themselves, local media reported.

The man, reported by the Times to be Gary Wood from Leytonstone, is believed to have suffered a heart attack.

The 37-year-old had been trying to swim to the Island of Rabbits on the popular holiday lake, near Salo, with his mother, wife, sister and brother-in-law.

His mother and wife had already turned back due to difficult conditions but about a third of a mile from the island, Mr Wood suddenly stopped and became motionless.

His sister and brother-in-law  both doctors  attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in vain for more than ten minutes before exhaustion forced them to swim to the island and raise a signal, LArena reported.

Pierluigi Mazzardi, a volunteer who took part in the rescue, told the Times: Even though the lake is small, the waves bounce off the shores, creating rough conditions.

After 160 yards, the mans mother and wife turned back, and then, about 550 yards from the island, the sister saw her brother had stopped.

She and her husband, both doctors, went to help him, but he had suffered an ailment  possibly a heart attack.

Mr Woods flotation device became detached and his body sank, resulting in a mass rescue effort involving rescue vessels and a helicopter. After two hours, his body was pulled up from 72-ft below the surface.

A spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: We are providing support to the family of a British man who has sadly died in Italy.
A truck driver is due in court today after nine men died in the back of his vehicle in a sweltering Texas supermarket car park.

Some 28 others, including school-age children, were taken to hospital with severe injuries, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

Officials said 17 of those found inside the truck at a Walmart car park in San Antonio were in a life-threatening condition. They are believed to be undocumented immigrants being smuggled by human traffickers.

Federal prosecutors say James Mathew Bradley, 60, of Clearwater, Florida, will be charged today.

The Mexican government called for an exhaustive investigation and officials from the country said their citizens were among the dead and survivors, while Guatemala confirmed two of its nationals were in hospital.

'Horrific incident': Officials investigate a truck that was found to contain 38 suspected illegal immigrants in San Antonio, Texas / EPA

Police were called by a Walmart employee on Saturday night after a person from the truck approached the supermarket asking for water.

The employee first found some water before making the 911 call.

Officials said dozens of people were crammed inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides.

Crime scene: Police officers work on a crime scene after eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the United States were found dead / REUTERS

Some of those in the truck ran into nearby woods.

Investigators checked store surveillance video, which showed vehicles arriving and picking up people from the truck, authorities said.

Liz Johnson, spokeswoman for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said the victims were very hot to the touch.

She said: These people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water. There was also no air conditioning inside as outside temperatures reached 38C.

Immigration officials said more that 100 people may have been packed into the truck at some point.

San Antonio is about 150 miles from the Mexican border and authorities said the truck was used to transport undocumented immigrants from Latin America who had crossed into the US on foot. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said the incident demonstrated the brutality of smuggling organisations that have no regard for human life and seek only profits.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg told the BBC: Our most important focus right now is to deliver compassionate care.
T his Morning viewers were overcome with emotion after former Britains Got Talent winner Ashleigh Butler broke down in tears following the death of her best friend, and work partner, Pudsey.

Ashleigh, 22, struggled to speak as she opened up about the sudden loss of her dog, who died from acute leukaemia last week.

Speaking to hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford she said: I was at a dog show with him last weekend and on the Monday he wasnt himself and was sleeping a lot and we took him to the vet on Tuesday and from the Tuesday to the Thursday he went downhill so quickly.

The vet told us he had acute leukaemia and on Thursday it got to the point where he couldnt lift his head.

Tearful: Ashleigh broke down on the This Morning sofa / Ken McKay/ITV/Rex

Ashleigh  who won Britains Got Talent in 2012 with Pudsey  described him as her best friend and thanked him for helping her to live a life she had only ever dreamed of.

Pudsey was very special it was like he could read my mind. He always knew when it was a big event and he always rose up to it, she said.

Wiping away tears she continued: [Our life] was incredible and he gave me opportunities that I thought I would never have.

Grieving: Ashleigh's pet Sully is helping her to cope with the grief / Ken McKay/ITV/Rex

Viewers were also in tears as they flocked to Twitter to offer their condolences.

One tweeted: My heart breaks for Ashley losing her beloved Pudsey! Sat crying in the car garage watching it on the tv #ThisMorning #RIP #Pudsey (sic).

Another posted: Crying hysterically watching this morning #pudsey #thismorning.

Ashleigh was joined by her other pet dog, Sully, who she praised for helping her to cope with Pudseys death  but insisted he will never become Pudsey.

Speaking about Sully  who is a cross between a Poodle, Border Collie and a Chinese Crested dog  she said: He knows somethings not right. They were inseparable. They did everything together so he is feeling a bit lonely at the moment, but we have got each other.

She continued: This past year they started performing together and I wanted Pudsey to have a retirement. There was always going to be a point when Sully would take over from Pudsey. I didnt expect it to happen like this but just carrying on from what Pudsey started will help me.

He will never ever become Pudsey, but he is special to me.

Britain's Got Talent: Pudsey - In pictures 1 /14 Britain's Got Talent: Pudsey - In pictures Britain's Got Talent' with Ashleigh and Pudsey Ken McKay/Thames/Rex Pudsey The Dog: The Movie Ashleigh Bulter and Pudsey attend the World Premiere of 'Pudsey The Dog: The Movie' at Vue West End Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images Queen Elizabeth II greets Ashleigh and her performing dog Pudsey after the Royal Variety Performance PA David Walliams receives the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Play Pudsey and Ashleigh Buter during the What'sOnStage Awards Ashleigh Butler and Pudsey the dog performing during the 2013 National Television Awards at the O2 Arena, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday January 23, 2013. See PA story SHOWBIZ Television. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire Ashleigh and Pudsey attend the Daily Mirror & RSPCA animal hero awards a Ian Gavan/Getty Images Ashleigh and Pudsey attending Battersea Dogs and Cats Home's Collars and Coats Gala Ball at Battersea Evolution, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday November 7, 2013. Photo credit should read: Ian West/PA Wire Ashleigh Butler and Pudsey at a photocall for Pudsey: The Movie in Cannes Getty Pudsey the dog and owner Ashleigh Butler arriving for the 2013 National Television Awards at the O2 Arena, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Wednesday January 23, 2013. See PA story SHOWBIZ Television. Photo credit should read: Ian West/PA Wire PA Ashleigh and Pudsey PA

This Morning is on ITV, weekdays at 10:30am.
M ontana Brown has said that she has no regrets about her behaviour on Love Island after becoming the latest contestant to be dumped from the show.

The 21-year-old and partner Alex Beattie narrowly missed out on Monday's final after getting the fewest public votes on Sunday nights episode.

I dont regret anything I said on the show, its a very intense environment, she told Metro after leaving the villa.

With Camilla I find it very hard sometimes to see where shes coming from and its not necessarily that I dont like her or anything, we really, really get on and Ive never met anyone like her but naturally in friendships you dont get along 100 percent of the time.

Love Island Series 3 - in pictures 1 /46 Love Island Series 3 - in pictures ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV ITV

Brown seemed to suggest that producers had encouraged her to be b***** during the ITV2 show, although bosses have since denied trying to influence anyones behaviour.

We were all encouraged to be b*****, she said. It was in the heat of the moment and I have been guilty of saying some things.

Piers Morgan Hates Love Island

Montana and Alex ended up in the bottom three with Camilla and Jamie and Marcel and Gabby after the islanders secretly voted them their least favourite couple.

They were then shown the door after receiving the fewest public votes, just a few days away from the eagerly-awaited finale.

The pair bid a tearful farewell to their fellow islanders, although Montana appeared to snub her former friend Gabby but failing to hug her goodbye.
Prime Minister Mihai Tudose has asked Interior Minister Carmen Dan for a report on measures after a police agent died from stabbing at Suceava railway station at the hands of a young man, official sources told agerpres. on Monday.

Simultaneously, the Interior Ministry management will be meeting representatives of all Police trade unions at the ministry's main offices starting at 10:30, EEST, while Prime Minister Tudose will welcome for talks a delegation of the National Trade Unions of Romanian Police Agents at the Government House at 11:00hrs, EEST.

Tudose and the trade unionists will focus on the rights and obligations of Police officers so that measures may be taken that will avoid instances such as the one that occurred in Suceava.

Tudose said on Saturday that no police agent will patrol alone anymore, and that the patrolling teams will be made up of four people.

"As far as I am concerned, I no longer want one-man patrolling teams. When there is just one police officer that has to patrol an area - and it is understood that the area has a criminal or negative potential - the officer is risking his or her life gratuitously. You cannot send them alone. Team will be dispatched, even mixed teams made up of police officers and gendarmes," Tudose told.

Police agent Sorin Vezeteu was stabbed to death on Thursday evening as he was on duty at the Railway Police precinct at the Burdujeni Station, Suceava County. The attacker, Ioan Besa, was put in police custody for 30 days.
Seven cities - Alba Iulia, Baia Mare, Galati, Iasi, Ploiesti, Satu Mare and Suceava - have filed bids this year to win the title of Romania's Youth Capital, which includes winning a 50,000-euro prize.

According to a press statement released on Monday, this is the second competition this year under this national programme, which is similar to the principles of the European Youth Capital, a title held by Cluj-Napoca in 2015.

The programme is coordinated by the Governing Body of the Youth Capital of Romania - the Youth Council of Romania (CTR), the Federation of Cluj Youth (FTC), the PONT Group and Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR) - and designed to come up with guidelines for how local administration collaborate with youth NGOs and the private sector to place young Romanians at the heart of urban development.

The title is currently held by Bacau, a city that will pass the baton on May 2, 2018, the National Youth Day.

The winning city will receive from BCR, the co-initiator of the programme, a cash prize worth 50,000 euros. This award is both a starting point for financing the projects proposed by the title winner and a resource available for its own contribution to attracting additional funding sources.

The evaluation of the submitted projects will be carried out in two stages by an independent jury consisting of representatives of the youth NGO sector, the private sector, youth organisations of parliamentary political parties and public institutions. The first step is to evaluate the simplified form of applications, which will result in the finalist cities being nominated in August. Subsequently, they will submit their full applications by October 15, and the winning city will be announced on November 12 at the Youth Summit, to be held in the current Romanian Youth Capital, Bacau.

The first Romanian city to have held this title and pioneered the programme was Timisoara, May 2, 2016 - May 1, 2017, followed by Bacau, a city named in a competition that will hold the title of Romania's Youth Capital until May 1, 2018.

The 2017 edition of the programme is unfolded under the High Patronage of the President of Romania, Klaus Werner Iohannis, which confirms the value of the concept and the success of the pilot phase.

agerpres.
While MetroLink riders were being killed, robbed and assaulted, some St. Louis County police working the light rail security detail appear to have been lounging in darkened private offices, napping, chatting and conducting private business. They scurried out of sight and taped over video cameras installed specifically to make sure nothing inappropriate was going on.

Families of loved ones assaulted or robbed on MetroLink should be outraged over the details outlined in a series by Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger. County taxpayers, who approved a half-cent sales tax increase for public safety, should be screaming for heads to roll.

Police Chief Jon Belmars stated concerns about privacy and the use of a video monitoring room as a changing room for police seem like a flimsy attempt to explain away an embarrassing lapse in command judgment. So does St. Louis County Executive Steve Stengers response on Monday, echoing Belmars comments about privacy and questioning why MetroLink put cameras in private areas where police officers change clothes.

Messenger obtained video footage from substations through a public records request. Stenger said he has 100 percent confidence in Belmar to investigate and determine what officers were actually doing. Its clear what they were not doing was their job patrolling the crime-plagued transit system.

The relationship between Stenger, Belmar and Metro soured in 2015 when St. Louis city and county police chiefs told Metro to stop issuing tickets under an FBI accreditation number that had been assigned to the county. Metro officers had been using the number since 1993. The FBI rejected Metros application for its own number, leaving the agency without a fully certified security force.

Since then, Metro officers have been unable to enforce laws, even for fare skippers, in the county under legal threat from Belmar and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. Metro officers have Class A peace officer licenses through the state of Missouri, a lesser accreditation than full officer training.

Riders deserve better. Their safety shouldnt be at risk because of jurisdictional squabbles. They shouldnt have to wander around looking for help or become sitting ducks on platforms and trains while law enforcers are lounging and chatting in a back room.

Stenger said he does not have authority over Belmar, who reports to the St. Louis County Board of Police Commissioners. The police board reprimanded Belmar last year for writing a letter to a judge in support of a drug dealer.

Stenger said he was disturbed to read that riders reported not seeing police on MetroLink platforms or on trains in general, and that county officers patrolling Metro stopped using a radio frequency that Metro security officers can monitor.

Cooperation and leadership can help fix Metros security problems. Whatever those county officers were hiding, it certainly wasnt good police work.
Professional smokers only. Smoke while sitting down. Thats the somewhat laughable caution adorning Rocky Patels Edge line. But after recently smoking about five EO 601 Serie Green cigars, I cant help but think how these Nicaraguan puros are infinitely more deserving of the warning.

Introduced at this years RTDA trade show, the Green Label is the youngest, strongest brother in the 601 family. The series  which also includes the habano maduro Blue, Ecuador Connecticut Black, and habano natural Red  is made exclusively for United Tobacco by stogie legend Don Pepin Garcia.

The company is headed by Erik Espinoza and Eddie Ortega (thus the EO brand name). Keepers of the Flame was nice enough to point out in April that the line name signifies the date that Eddie and Erik first went to visit Pepins factory in Nicaragua.

Handmade in Esteli, the La Fuerza (loosely translated as the force) is five and  inches with a ring gauge of 54. This is one fantastic-looking stick. The habano oscuro wrapper is dark and oily with few large veins. For some reason I find the highly detailed green and gold band to be mesmerizing.

A heavy black pepper spice dominates the outset of this smoke with accompanying notes of coffee and roasted nuts  very full and balanced on the palate. That strong flavor settles down after an inch or so into tastes reminiscent of leather, clove, and cocoa bean.

Down the stretch the taste turns slightly bitter. Surprisingly, though, the cigar does not fall into the trap that befalls so many full-bodied sticks by becoming harsh or overpowering at the nub.

The physical properties are exactly what youd expect from a Pepin-blended stogie: outstanding. The burn is good, the ash holds firm, and the draw is smooth and clear.

When its all said and done, this is one of the most full-bodied smokes Ive ever had the pleasure to enjoy. For about $7 you get 80 minutes of hearty, complex flavors that pair well with anything from black coffee to dark rum.

Not an everyday smoke, but clearly a real treat for special occasions, the EO 601 Serie Green La Fuerza is worthy of four and  out of five stogies.

[To read more StogieGuys.com cigar reviews, please click here.]

Patrick A

photo credit: Stogie Guys
In 2010, Rocky Patel bought a 50% share in EO Brands, maker of such lines as EO 601, Cubao, Murcielago, and Mi Barrio (all made at Don Pepin Garcias My Father Cigars factory in Nicaragua). Yesterday, Eddie Ortega, co-founder of EO Brands along with Erik Espinosa, announced he was leaving the company and starting his own outfit called Ortega Cigars.

Ive wanted to do this for quite some time and now is the right time, Ortega told Cigar Aficionado. Eric [Espinosa] is like my brother, but I wanted to be independent. His new company will be headquartered in Sunrise, Florida, just north of Miami. A buyout of his share in EO Brands is being finalized.

Ortegas new website has already announced three cigar lines. The first, due in March, is the Series D, which will feature a San Andreas maduro wrapper around Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos. Ortega also announced two other lines, Brotherhood and Aftershock, but details were hard to come by. To get some information on the other lines, I touched base with Eddie to see what he is planning.

As for Brotherhood, Ortega tells me he doesnt have the blend yet, but plans to soon. I just wanted to start promoting the project because it is for a great cause. I want to somehow help out our military heroes and their families. Fifty percent of all profits will be donated to some of the organizations that help our military men and their families, Ortega told me. He also said that Aftershock is also still in development.

Ortega plans to keep his company small. He says he already has 100 accounts lined up and wants to limit his exposure to around 300 stores. I dont want to open a zillion accountsjust good retailers that support the product. That would be cool with me.

If that happens, he told me he might not even attend the annual IPCPR Trade Show where new cigar companies usually go to promote their brand and open new accounts. At the moment he is handling his own distribution, but he is in talks with a couple of distributors, but only to distribute to certain areas in the country.

The Series D is being made at the My Father Cigars factory in Nicaragua, which is run by the Pepin family, his longtime collaborators at EO Cigars. As for future lines, he said he was planning to make some brands with other factories.

Ortega described the Series D as an awesome blendWe are using some fillers from Jalapa and Esteli that are crazy good and help create a profile that is full-bodied with lots of spice, flavor, and aroma. I know the consumer will love this one!

Patrick S

photo credit: Stogie Guys
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Mark Hughes has revealed a previous pursuit of Kurt Zouma has helped Stoke City see off a swarm of rivals to land the defender on a season-long loan.

There were around 20 clubs at home and abroad seriously interested when Antonio Conte decided to let Zouma out from Chelsea for the campaign, having tied the 22-year-old to a new long-term contract.

But Stoke jumped to the front of the queue partly thanks to Hughes's groundwork about five years ago, when he was in charge at Queens Park Rangers and tried to bring in the centre-back from St Etienne.

Mark Hughes, who is ready to hand Zouma his first run out in a Stoke shirt on Tuesday night at Sheffield United, said: "We're delighted. When you've had contact with players before  and I came close to signing him at a previous club when he was only 16 or 17  sometimes that can help. You can say, 'I wanted you five years ago and now we've got an opportunity to get you to my club again and I want to do it.' That resonates with players sometimes.

"We're pleased. He's an outstanding player clearly. You don't sign an extension to your Chelsea contract unless you're very well thought of. We've got a very good player."

Zouma missed Stoke's 1-0 win at Amiens on Saturday to stay behind for conditioning work, having missed a week of training while he tied up his contract at Stamford Bridge.

Victor Moses and Marco van Ginkel have given the France international the thumbs up for Stoke as a club to continue his development, having previously spent time on loan under Hughes themselves.

Hughes said: "We've got a decent relationship and it's one of my old clubs as well. It helps but it only goes so far.

"They've got to be confident that when they do release players to other clubs that they get the right quality of work, they will be able to prosper and continue to develop. That relationship, for the most part, works well."

Stoke are still trying to bring in Bruno Martins Indi from Porto too  although Hughes is consistent in updates regarding slow negotiations.

"We're in the same position," he said, confirming that he still wanted to add to his defence.

"We've got to bring more players in. I think we acknowledge that and we are actively trying to do that. At times you are at the mercy of the clubs they are still at and you can't really affect that."

Marko Arnautovic has completed his move to become West Ham's record signing for a fee of 20m potentially rising to 25m due to add-ons. The 28-year-old has signed a five-year deal worth 100,000 a week.

Hughes had hoped to convince the maverick forward to stay but that has changed over the last week, with Arnautovic and his brother and agent Danijel going past the point of no return.

"It got to the point where it wasn't redeemable, unfortunately. A lot of things had come to pass and the only outcome was for us to make sure we got a very, very good deal, which we as a club think we have. Marko moves on and we do."

Stoke are now in the market for a new forward and have Schalke's Yevhen Konoplyanka and Salzburg's Valon Berisha on their shortlist.

Hughes, who is also waiting on Manchester City about the possible signing of Fabian Delph, said: "We have not finished in the market yet. We are actively pursuing players as we speak and players will be coming in."
Pictured at KES School last week are from left, Rachel, James, Daniel and Zoe.

NIGHTIME screams for help in the Lake District spurred four King Edward VI School (KES) students into action to help a distressed woman who got lost when she was out hill walking.

Students Zoe Maundrill, Rachel Brooks, James Bennett and Daniel Strand were sat playing cards in their tent at the foot of Scafell Pike when they heard the screams at 9.30pm last Tuesday.

The four were part of a 17 student expedition organised by the school for their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Awards.

The light was fading and we tried yelling back. The woman was shouting help repeatedly. We slotted into our roles immediately, it had been drilled into our training, James said.

Eventually they tracked the woman down and discovered she was a woman called Maggie Lawrenson in her sixties.

The students immediately offered the shelter of their tent by which time Maggie had started to calm down.

Maggie was reunited with her husband the following day.

Rachel Biggs, Duke of Edinburgh Award manager at KES said: It was the students first night of the expedition and they responded superbly, we are all very proud of them.

Full story in this weeks Herald.
Telestream Vidchecker 7.2 Verifies File-based Content Complies with Netflix IMF Requirements

Leading QC software system integrates Netflix Photon java code for fast & easy automated compliance testing

Nevada City, California ( )

Telestream, a leading provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, has announced the integration of Netflix Photon Java code for easy compliance testing within the latest version of Telestreams Vidchecker automated quality control (QC) system. Photon is the open source java code provided by Netflix for parsing, interpreting and validating constituent files that make an Interoperable Master Package (IMP) of content for submission to Netflix.

Targeting broadcasters, caption & OTT service providers, production facilities and post houses, Vidchecker 7.2 significantly simplifies and speeds up compliance testing for all Netflix submissions. Rather than using Netflixs rudimentary and time-consuming command line interface, contributors can test for proper IMF packaging using the automated QC capabilities central to Vidchecker, including the automatic creation of easy-to-read output reports.

The development of this new functionality within Telestream Vidchecker is driven by the search for increased efficiency and automation within file-based workflows. With Vidchecker 7.2, report data can be used in decision-making programs within Telestream Vantage workflows. Furthermore, Vidchecker now provides sophisticated workflow enhancement capabilities including HDR QC testing as a standard feature.

The rapid evolution of Netflix has proved to be a major business driver for enterprises worldwide, so anything that simplifies and speeds up content contribution to the platform is good news for many organizations, commented Paul Turner, Vice President of Enterprise Products at Telestream. Vidchecker is an elegant QC solution and its close integration of both Netflix Photon and Vantage means that Telestream customers have a real advantage in contributing fully compliant content to Netflix.

Reducing human error, freeing creative minds

Vidcheckers auto-template capability speeds up the otherwise complex task of creating test templates. Users can create templates in two mouse clicks by analyzing a reference file.

The system provides easy-to-read reports that include user-configurable alert messages. These messages can be configured in any language using an organizations familiar terminology.



Also, Vidchecker includes the ability to automatically correct errors, which saves time and cost by not requiring material to be sent back to the edit suite for a skilled editor to make technical changes.



In developing this Netflix compliance testing, Telestream recognizes that a broad spectrum of different sizes and scales of organization seeks to contribute content to Netflix and their QC infrastructure requirements differ. The Vidchecker portfolio includes options for broadcasters and media professionals as well as a lower priced option with support for all of the data formats a post production company will need.



Vidchecker 7.2 with Netflix Photon integration is available now. To request a free trial go to: http://www.telestream.net/vidchecker/overview.htm
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has begun his three-nation tour to the Persian Gulf region by visiting Saudi Arabia in an attempt to defuse a political crisis between a Saudi-led quartet of Arab countries, the so-called siege states, and Turkeys ally Qatar, as the unprecedented diplomatic rift deepens.

The Turkish president arrived in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Sunday and was welcomed by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud before heading to Kuwait, a key mediator in the crisis, and holding talks with Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

Erdogan is also due to discuss the crisis with Mohammed bin Salman for the first time since he was raised to the role of Saudi crown prince and his father's heir in an unexpected reshuffle of the royal house that took place in June.

No one has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore, said Erdogan at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, before leaving on the two-day trip, accusing enemies of seeking to fire up tensions between "brothers" in the region.

On Monday, the Turkish president will fly to Qatar to hold his first face-to-face talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. I hope our visit will be beneficial for the region, said Erdogan, whose country has come to Qatar's aid in the crisis, while praising Qatar's behavior in the crisis.

"From the first moments of the Qatar crisis, we have been on the side of peace, stability, solidarity and dialogue," the Turkish president stated.

The widening rift occurred on June 5, when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt severed ties with Qatar, officially accusing Doha of supporting "terrorism" and destabilizing the Middle East, allegations that Qatar says are unjustified and stem from false claims and assumptions.

To further pressure Qatar, Saudi Arabia has totally closed its land border with its tiny neighbor, through which much of Qatar's food supply crossed.

Later in June, the four Arab countries urged Qatar to abide by a 13-point list of demands if it wanted the crippling blockade lifted. The demands included shutting down the Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcaster, scaling back cooperation with Iran, closing the Turkish military base in Qatar, and paying an unspecified sum in reparations.

The defiant Doha government, however, strongly refused to comply, calling the wide-ranging demands "unrealistic, unreasonable and unacceptable." In return, the four feuding countries vowed to impose further sanctions on Doha.

On Friday evening, Qatars emir said in a live TV address that the recent blockade by the Saudi-led group of Arab countries against Doha was a pre-planned smearing campaign.

Its planners planted statements to mislead public opinion and the countries of the world Emir Sheikh Tamim said, while reasserting Dohas position that it would not capitulate under pressure.

The coordinated move against Doha is spearheaded by Riyadh, which often manages to have its vassal states fall into line. Saudi Arabia itself is known as the main sponsor of Wahhabi terrorists it has accused Qatar of supporting. Some analysts believe the Saudi anger is rather because Qatar acts more independently of Riyadh, including in its relations with Iran.
Act fast on accountability issues to avert fragmentation of communities: UN envoy By Namini Wijedasa Visiting UN Under-Secretary General raises concern over lack of progress on truth and reconciliation efforts, attacks on minorities, corruption View(s): View(s):

A top UN official has called for faster progress in Sri Lanka on key promises such as reparations, accountability and a truth and reconciliation commission, saying that failing to implement these could lead to further extremist language and fragmentation of communities.

Sri Lanka had 30 years of hell, said Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs, in an interview. And one shouldnt assume that, just because those 30 years ended, there is no risk. There is. He expressed confidence that politicians and officials he met during his visit from July 19-21 understood those risks and would do their best to ensure they dont manifest.

At nearly every discussion that Mr Feltman attended, recent attacks on Muslim and Christian minorities came up. Sri Lanka was not immune from a quick escalation of these sorts of events, as have happened elsewhere in the world, he warned. While the Governments strong statement, including calling for accountability of those responsible, was welcome, it took a while to get out.

There has been too much impunity in Sri Lanka for, not just crimes related to the 30-year conflict, but for corruption. Mr Feltman hoped, therefore, that accountability for attacks on Muslims and Christians would be followed up.

Now you have new cases of attacks against minorities, he elaborated. I would hope that the practice of impunity for crimes would end with those. Its one thing to talk about how you end impunity for past crimes. These are recent events. You can at least start by ending the impunity for recent events.

Mr Feltman said he received a mixed picture of Sri Lanka, two-and-a-half years after the 2015 presidential election. Without question, I heard from representatives of Sri Lankan society a sense of disappointment that things hadnt moved more quickly, he observed. And weve seen polarised language. We have seen some sad examples of violence against minorities, for example.

But he also said there was a much greater engagement of Sri Lanka with the world, in comparison with the period before 2015. The country was now expanding its peacekeeping contributions again, while the relationship between various parts of the UN and the Government are quite constructive and positive.

And yet, all of us would have liked to have seen more implementation of the initiatives that were envisioned back in 2015. These include truth and reconciliation initiatives, and ones related to accountability, reparations and constitutional change. These were all intended to put Sri Lanka on a stable footing again, with harmony among communities, relief for victims and solutions to longstanding grievances.

The risks of not continuing faster with some of these initiatives were addressed. I know these are difficult, Mr Feltman said. There is a lot of very strong emotion associated with much of this. But we truly believe that Sri Lanka has the opportunity to be a model of a post-conflict country with harmonious relations between communities, where longstanding grievances have been addressed, where victims feel that they have had a sense of relief.

Accountability was essential to addressing the aftermath of the 30-year conflict, he continued. But thats also extremely difficult, he said. Its difficult in all conflict countries. And its understandable why that is. At the same time, its also clear that countries that havent dealt with the accountability question have a much higher risk of falling back into conflict because theres still a sense of grievance, a sense of injustice that hasnt been addressed.

Mr Feltman said they believed strongly that the current Prevention of Terrorism Act needed to be replaced. There has been considerable work done on a new Counter Terrorism Act. The Government has taken suggestions from experts about how to make sure the law serves the purpose of protecting Sri Lanka from terrorism while guaranteeing the rights of individuals. But we also believe that more can be done to see, before the law is finished, that it truly does conform to best practices internationally, that it truly does provide the type of judicial protection for Sri Lankan individuals, he said.

The importance of communication was emphasised. In our view, there is room for improvement in how the government talks about these issues to the people of Sri Lanka, themselves, Mr Feltman explained. Again, a quicker message denouncing hate speech, denouncing extremist rhetoric, perhaps, could have prevented the actual attacks I dont know. A full explanation of what the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) really means would be helpful, and transparency over what is being done in terms of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I think that theres great scope for more communication between the Government and the citizens.

Mr Feltman said he was pleased to have been in Sri Lanka on the week the President signed the official gazette for the OMP. He said he hoped every community will welcome it because every community has missing persons.

But Office of Missing Persons is not yet operational, clearly, he continued, calling for a selection process to produce credible, competent commissioners, and a budget. The Government meanwhile, needed to be both behind the OMP, and allow it to be independent.
Dengue infections and deaths stretch Lanka to the limits View(s):

One helpless Sri Lankan falls prey to killer dengue every 28 minutes now and there is no more space in hospitals for beds. There are not enough nurses and staff. The Government, the municipal services, local administrations, and health services are running out of options and ideas.

While the army and the police were called out by the Government along with unprecedented legal threats against the public after dengue became a national danger, the virus-carrying mosquito is on the march. People paying rates to the municipal councils are taken aback by threats from authorities duty bound to keep the cities and towns clean.

Experts have been flown in from the World Health Organisation and Australia also pledged money to the WHO to control dengue in Sri Lanka.

Municipal sanitation services are yet to be fully functional. Public health inspectors are in short supply, hospitals are overwhelmed. Roadside drains are bubbling with mosquito larvae and insecticide spraying is destroying the mosquitos natural predators such as dragonflies.

This month, 695 cases have been reported every day from across the island.

Until Thursday, July 20, 13,886 cases of dengue have been reported in the country. In June, the tally was 22,937.

So far this year, 290 people have perished. Dengue patients are also facing deadly bacterial infections such as MRSA in hospital wards.

The Sunday Times visited the Colombo North Teaching Hospital in Ragama to see the battle up close. In every bed, there are two patients, some are on the floors and on corridors.

The director of the Colombo North Teaching Hospital in Ragama, Dr Shelton Perera said about 410 dengue patients were being treated this past Thursday. Seven have died this month. Until July 15, 32 people have died this year in the hospital. Of these, 28 were patients who had been transferred in critical stages.

The hospital had three units and has added three more. It has also has received 30 officials from the army and nine from the Civil Defence Force to help.

Even if we open a new dengue unit we cannot do so due to the lack of skilled staff, Dr Perera said. The hospital needs at least 60 more nurses. Hospital staff are among dengue victims. So far this year 156 staff have been infected.

The hospital has 1,460 beds and there is no more space for beds.

It will be unfair if we restrict admissions. The situation in all the hospitals is bad. But even if they are on the floors, at least they are cared for, he said.

The hospital is carrying out a triage system and has managed to avoid unnecessary admissions.

In Negombo, a mother died from dengue, while her son too was critically ill with the virus. At the Negombo hospital, between 500 and 600 patients are being treated, although there has been a decline from previous months.

Consultant Pediatrician and Dengue Specialist at the Negombo hospital Dr. Lak Kumar Fernando said the number of dengue patients has dropped to 500-600 in comparison to 600-700 before. He said about that between 30%-40% of dengue patients are children.

The dengue unit has 17 beds and 11 beds have been temporarily set up in a nearby eye ward. Each medical ward has 60 beds. And in this hospital, too, there is no more space for beds.

In the medical wards and the general paediatric wards two or three patients are being accommodated on one bed. Temporary staff brought in are also not enough.

The regional director of health services in Kurunegala, Dr Champa Aluthweera said there have been 6,236 cases this year. Cases are increasing in Polpitigama, Ridigama, Kuliyapitiya,and Pannala. Staff have been called up from district and base hospitals. She said that cases have declined in high risk areas. The regional director of health services in Jaffna, Dr Nanthakumar, said the number of dengue cases is moderate and there has been no increase or decrease. Fewer than 10 cases a day are reported from the teaching and base hospitals.

However, he said, in Jaffna and Tellippalai, the number of cases is relatively high. The regional director of health services in Badulla, Dr J C M Tennekoon said the situation has been stable.

The regional epidemiologist of the RDHS Batticaloa, Dr Dharshini Murugupillai said: Batticaloa is a vulnerable area where more cases are reported and clean up programmes are continuing. Dr Murugupillai said clean up programmes should become the norm, not just during crises.

The spokesperson of the Provincial Director of Health Services of Sabaragamuwa, claimed that dengue cases have declined in the absence of rains.

New dengue units have been set up in the hospitals in Balangoda and Kahawatte because there has been a relative increase in cases, he said. Hospitals are still overflowing with dengue patients.
Events from the past with lessons for the future View(s):

The old Parliament situated on the seafront in Colombo Fort was totally different from the new modern parliamentary complex in Kotte. There was a great feel for, and sense of history inside the old Parliament. It had witnessed proceedings from the days of the old Legislative Council, the State Council, and then the Parliament of Independent Ceylon. During that period, most of the proceedings were conducted in English, and it had witnessed great parliamentary speeches and historic debates. There were great orators during that time. The members of Parliament and before that the State Council represented largely single member constituencies. Each M.P represented a designated constituency, and they were answerable to those constituents. This was in the tradition of the British Parliament which also had this kind of constituency system. There was a famous M.P. Walter Bagehot who prided himself that he was the M.P. for Bristol, and that he spoke for the constituents of Bristol. With the change of the constitution in 1978 from a parliamentary to a presidential system, the constituency relationship with an individual M.P. was lost, with a new electoral system based on districts, and not individual constituencies. M.Ps no longer represented individual constituencies. So the shift in Parliament from Colombo Fort to Kotte signalled a radical change in the system of electoral representation.

Nihal Seneviratne (affectionately known to all as Galba) is the foremost authority on Parliament in Sri Lanka today. He had a career of 33 years under the Parliamentary and Presidential system. He belonged to the generation of the 1950s of Peradeniya University and after graduation, he opted for the most unusual career for graduates of that time. Our generation from Peradeniya became administrators, teachers, lawyers, bankers and so on, but there was only one who joined the parliamentary staff. Joining as a Clerk Assistant, he worked under the redoubtable R St L P Deraniyagala who was then the Clerk to the House of Representatives and rising later, under the presidential system to be the Secretary General of Parliament. One of his great contributions was in facilitating a smooth transition for Parliament from a parliamentary to a presidential system of government. The author became an authority on Parliamentary practices and was a close confidant of successive Speakers. Nihal had other interests, and after 75 years of being involved with Royal College, he is the iconic old Royalist, active in college affairs through the Old Boys Union. Nihal is synonymous with Royal.

Nihal has written a delightful volume, and it is eminently readable, not high politics, but one which offers many insights into parliamentary affairs. The volume consists of 23 brief chapters and it covers some of the highlights of parliamentary occasions. His chapters on the attempt to impeach President R. Premadasa, the imposition of civic disability on Mrs. Bandaranaike, and the select committee to inquire into Ms Bandaranaikes conduct regarding a gift of a car bring back memories of headline events of long ago. There is an interesting chapter of how the government of Mrs. Bandaranaike lost a no confidence motion by one vote leading to the dissolution of parliament. In discussing his various subjects, the author is reticent in going behind some of the key events which he describes. He is the impartial public servant and he is not inclined to come out with the juicy stories behind these events which would have been lapped up by a discerning public. He always sees the more emollient side of parliamentarians. I also would have preferred a more chronological narrative of the events he describes. But these are minor cavils in what is altogether a fascinating volume.

Nihal describes his school days and his time at University at Peradeniya in the 1950s. He was at Royal College, and many of his contemporaries have distinguished themselves in public life later on. His principal at Royal was E.L. Bradby (the rugby shield is named after him) and Aubrey Collette, the famous cartoonist was his form master. Nihal belongs to the 1945 Royal College Alumni Group. His university group which read law was equally illustrious as his college contemporaries, and Prof. T. Nadaraja was his mentor. His days in the legal profession were brief. He was initially going to Harvard to read international law but when the job in Parliament was offered to him, he had to make a choice whether to go to Harvard or go to the House of Commons and learn his parliamentary trade. His future boss Mr. Deraniyagala told him that international law will not be of much relevance for his new tasks. But before all this and a little after that, Nihal had more than his fair share of family tragedies. His father, who was the Police Surgeon in Colombo, died when he was at school and he tells of the shock that he experienced on this occasion. Then his brother Nissanka who was a leading physiologist died at the age of 55.

Let me now take up a few of the important issues which the author has described. One is the chapter on the Death of Dudley Senanayake and the Lake House Scandal. The government of the day were rather concerned and disturbed about the publicity given and began to wonder if the Lake House Group were actively involved in bringing back the United National Party back to power. This led directly to the takeover of the Lake House Group. To justify the takeover, the government also made other allegations of financial irregularity against the group. The issues that the author raises had ramifications much later. Although the author does not say it, it was the LSSP which spearheaded the campaign against Lake House, and there was a feeling at the time that the SLFP and the Prime Minister herself were pushed hard to agree to the takeover.

The chapter on Speaker Anura Dias Bandaranaikes Historic Ruling describes one of the landmark events in the history of Parliament. The author is one of the very few who had firsthand knowledge of it. The question was basically who was supreme- Parliament, or the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had issued a Stay order restraining the Speaker from appointing a select committee to inquire into the conduct of the Chief Justice. As the author says, this very unprecedented move by the Supreme Court to intervene and interfere with the proceedings of Parliament had to be ruled on. At this time, the author, having retired, was an advisor to Speaker Anura Bandaranaike. The Speakers ruling was that the Supreme Court had no business to intervene in parliamentary proceedings. That was a great, historic ruling. It is intriguing to note that the Speaker sought the advice of an eminent counsel who was his friend, and not that of the Attorney General, in this matter.

Why Have Parliamentary Standards Dropped? asks the author in a chapter of immediate relevance to current affairs. He offers several reasons for the decline. The first is the leaders of political parties have failed to exercise strict control on the conduct of members of Parliament. The second is a failure to choose candidates who are honest and educated, and are men of integrity. Thirdly, the present system of district constituencies has led to financial corruption as one way of raising funds for elections. He also stresses the importance of the role the Speaker in ensuring discipline within the House. Although the author does not refer to it, has television played a role in declining standards? Do members act in a way to gain the attention of a wider public? This chapter is a fine analysis of the reasons for falling parliamentary standards. It is appropriate to ask as to why standards were high in the old Parliament. There was a different class of person taking to politics. They were largely English speaking and well educated. There was a premium placed on incorruptibility. To fight an election did not require massive financial resources. Issues raised by the author in this chapter require wider publicity and extensive discussion.

To conclude, this slim volume by Nihal Seneviratne is a significant contribution to the discussion of the role of Parliament in Sri Lankan affairs. It has discussed many important issues of the past. But what he says has a resonance for the future. The author in his chapter on the shift of Parliament to Kotte offered us some interesting insights as to how the decision was made to build the new Parliament in Kotte. One gains the impression that the last thing in the minds of the decision makers in locating the Parliament was whether it was good for Parliament and not for a few politicians. The decision was made on political grounds. Would it not have been better for Parliament to have remained in Colombo Fort, with refurbished buildings and taking over the old administrative secretariat for its expansion, or some adjoining property? Major decisions of historic importance are made without much thought or inquiry.

Book facts A Clerk Reminisces by Nihal Seneviratne. Published by Livinro (Pvt) Ltd. 97 pages. (2017). Price Rs 850. Reviewed by Leelananda De Silva
At least that's what Rockford conservatives like Michael O'Toole think, and why O'Toole says he won't be voting for Kinzinger's re-election in 2018.

ROCKFORD - The longer GOP Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-16) is in office, the further he moves from conservatives in his home district.

This spring, Congressman Kinzinger said at his Rockford town hall meeting that he fully supports the US Supreme Court majority ruling regarding same-sex marriages, O'Toole told Illinois Review.

"I was there with others and heard what he said. As such, I will be voting against him [next year] to try to get him out of Congress."

Kinzinger was quoted in 2015 saying that the next generation is overwhelmingly supportive of gay marriage ... and while many believe in traditional marriage, he believes the Supreme Court's decision to be a "state decision."

"Ive opposed federal bans on gay marriage. I believe thats something that should be decided at the state level, but then again, look the Supreme Court has spokenIf we respect the Constitution of the United States we have to respect the role the Supreme Court played and they made a decision whether I agree with that decision or not it appears gay marriage is the law of the land and I think thats something were going to have to get used to, RedState.com reports Kinzinger said.

UPDATE: Monday afternoon, Kinzinger's office confirmed his previous comments: "The Congressman says it's the law and the issue was decided by the Supreme Court, and it's unlikely that it will get brought upon again before the courts," spokesperson Maura Gillespie said in an email.

O'Toole told Kinzinger when the 39-year-old challenged former Congressman Don Manzullo in 2012, that "whoever won was expected to not act with any hypocrisy in Congress."

Since that time, Kinzinger has disappointed O'Toole, he said. So much so, the conservative Republican skipped voting for Congress on the 2016 ballot because no Democrat challenged Kinzinger in the General Election.

President Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 17 points in the 16th CD. Those numbers tend to indicate the Democrats will focus their energies elsewhere. But there could be a GOP primary challenger, O'Toole said.

Despite O'Toole's dissatisfaction with Kinzinger's comment on same sex marriage, the FiveThirtyEight website shows that thus far, Kinzinger votes with President Trump's position on legislation 100% of the time.
Hes a small brown bear, forgivably scruffy, who offers comfort and reassurance  he listens to inner-most secrets and fears, shares adventures, is a great cuddle and is consumed by wanderlust.

Yep, he gets around  in fact bear has probably seen more of New Zealand than a lot New Zealanders.

His name is Hero  hero more by name than nature. Hero is a soft toy, a Pommy immigrant, who for two years has been travelling the country and bunking down with type 1 diabetes kids. From Wellington to Whangamomona, from Stratford to Hawea and Alexandra, from Auckland to Blenheim and many points in between.

At the moment Hero is holed up with Ezra Fendley in a cul-de-sac in Gate Pa.

Hero tells me I am not the only person in the world coping with T1 diabetes, there are heaps, says Ezra. It makes him feel better that there are many people around the world who understand what hes going through. So he is resigned and comfortable with his Type 1 and Hero has helped.

It will never go away, there is no cure, says Ezra. I am ok with that its just something I have to do.

Hero arrived from England in December 2015  he was sent by a Donna Hall and The Insulin Gang  her kids, Cerys and Alena. Cerys is T1.

Hero is one of the gangs special travelling bears, one of many travelling the world, says Donna. Their purpose is to spend time with children who have type 1. And the only catch is the host family has to document the travels and adventures after each visit.

So Heros New Zealand diary tells us he has made friends with an old dog called Roscoe, has ridden a motorbike, been go-karting, has endured a Central Otago frost, has fed calves, got himself a Whangamomona passport, been to museums and daycares, seen geysers and Lake Taupo, seen lambs, patted lambs and fed lambs.

Hes also been to Dunedin where it was minus seven degrees, eaten beneath the golden arches, been to taekwondo, seen a traction engine, been to a swimming pool, shopping and had his photo taken with Santa.

And that was all before Ezra and mum Lena took him on a road trip around the North Island, including a tour of the Tui brewery at Mangatainoka. Something different. And Heros been to Maungatainoka when most Kiwis dont even know where it is.

Sometime soon Hero will move on. Not sure where, not sure when. But his work isnt done yet. He will be snuggling up to another kid living with T1. Having new adventures, writing up his diary.

At risk of minimising Ezras hardship, Lena says some good things have come of it.

For example, the family is eating much healthier, says Lena. It has made us aware about food, about how much sugar is in food. Probably something we should all be aware with the rates of obesity.

And when Ezra was diagnosed nearly three years ago, the family had to learn a lot in a short time. They wont let you leave the hospital until they are confident you can manage the condition.
Summer heatwaves can significantly affect our behaviour. Fernando Miralles, a lecturer in psychology at the CEU San Pablo university in Madrid, explained that when the temperature is excessively high people who are highly sensitive to meteorological conditions often become more apathetic and feel tired.

These negative symptoms can be even worse when the weather is humid and the wind is hot, in addition to the high temperatures.

Weather conditions can affect peoples behaviour in increasingly negative ways. They may find it very hard to concentrate and become more impulsive, impatient and bad-tempered, said Miralles.

What is a meteorologically sensitive person? We can say that it is someone whose daily life is affected by weather conditions. That applies to nearly 70 per cent of people, and factors such as temperature, humidity and especially the number of hours of daylight (but not sunshine) have an effect on their everyday life. Thats why we see that some people in winter when there are fewer hours of light, or in countries with little sunshine, are more introverted and feel less inclined to take part in group activities. This sensitivity can even lead to minor depression when there is a lack of light, he explained.

However, when the days are longer and the temperature is not too high, summer is the time of year when we feel happier and become nicer and more tolerant.

Miralles explained, People who are sensitive to meteorological conditions can feel depressed in the autumn and winter because of the lack of light, but in the spring and summer they have more energy and are more cheerful.

But what happens when the temperature is really high? The effects are usually notable when it rises above body temperature (about 37C) and people feel tired, lack concentration and are in a bad mood.

The reason

According to Miralles, when there is a minimal number of hours of light, or in the case of extreme temperatures, the hypothalamus does not regulate the secretion of hormones very well and this can affect some peoples behaviour.

The so-called circadian cycle is the hormonal organisation of the body which makes us feel sleepy at night by secreting melatonin or feel hungry at midday or in the evening. In people who are meteorologically sensitive, the circadian rhythms are altered and their sleep is not refreshing. They wake up feeling tired, depressed or their behaviour changes in some way; they may become impulsive or give inappropriate responses, and in some cases people can even become quite violent, he said.

The heatwaves that hit a large part of Spain every summer cause people to suffer from vasodilation, excessive perspiration and loss of fluids and electrolytes through the skin. To combat these problems, Miralles recommends eating low-calorie foods, not drinking alcohol, sleeping more than normal (for example, taking a 20-minute siesta), drastically reducing physical activity, wearing light clothing and, above all, keeping out of direct sunlight and drinking plenty of liquids.

North-south divide

Compare meteoro-sensitivity in people who live in northern countries with those who live in Spain could explain stereotypical characters.

We can demonstrate sociologically why a British person may seem serious in comparison with a Spaniard, or even why people who live in northern Spain, in places such as Galicia or the Basque Country, seem serious compared with those in Andalucia, he said.

Our surroundings have an influence on our hormone production, and that affects our behaviour, he concluded.
Democrats have been holding this bill since May 31. Our families and students cannot wait any longer, Gov. Rauner said. We must act now, which is why Im calling lawmakers back to Springfield for a special session. Our schools must open on time.

CHICAGO - Frustrated that the Democrat leadership drags its feet in moving to his desk a bill that passed the legislature May 31st, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner called all lawmakers back to the State Capitol Wednesday.

Yet the governor's office nor selected state lawmakers have offered explanation how the call back will be able to force the Senate to move SB 1 to Rauner's desk.

Public schools throughout Illinois may not open on time unless SB 1 is sent to Gov. Rauner. The governor plans to amend SB 1 to remove the Chicago Public Schools pension bailout thats currently included in the bill, which then would provide more money to children and schools statewide.

A dispute over SB 1 erupted when it was discovered that SB 1 would point more funds to Chicago, and undercut suburban districts' resources.

Predictably, the IL GOP reinterated Rauner's call.

It is beyond inexcusable that Mike Madigan and his allies refuse to release education funding for all Illinois schools unless they get their $500 million Chicago bailout. Its just another attempt by Madigan to hold our state hostage for his disastrous Chicago agenda, Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe said.



Governor Rauners decision to call lawmakers back to Springfield is necessary to protect students across Illinois from Mike Madigan's hostage-taking.
Queen Letizia was on the Costa del Sol on Monday morning to preside over the opening of the annual meeting of directors of the Instituto Cervantes, which took place in Malagas Tabacalera building.

The Instituto Cervantes, a worldwide non-profit government agency, is the largest organisation in the world responsible for promoting the study and the teaching of Spanish language and culture.

The queen, who didnt speak officially, was present to get the annual meeting under way. The gathering aimed to agree the organisations plan for the forthcoming year.

Mondays agenda began with a debate on the ambitious culture shock plan proposed by the organisations director, Juan Manuel Bonet.

Other topics that were discussed include the opening of new centres in Seoul (South Korea), Dakar (Senegal) and Zurich (Switzerland), as well as commemorations for Miguel Hernandez, Azorin and Francisco Nieva, among other authors.

In addition, the medium term aim for the institute of extending its presence across the United States with new delegations in California and Washington was addressed.

According to Bonet, [Promoting] better quality culture needs more money. We hope to see an increase in funds from the state and greater spending power. Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alfonso Dastis, also attending the first day, recognised this need and promised an increase pending negotiations with the the guardian of the money, Treasury minister, Cristobal Montoro.

The event, which ran until Thursday, had the citys Russian museum (where Mondays inauguration took place) and the Centre Pompidou as its official venues and included visits to the Picasso museum, the Museum of Malaga and the Antequera dolmens.

Be in no doubt, Bonet said, Our directors will go home as ambassadors for the city.

This came as good news to the citys mayor, Francisco de la Torre, who said: Directors at the Insitituto Cervantes are opinion formers, builders of the Spanish brand, and we want Malaga to be part of that.

Provincial head, Elias Bendodo, stressed the provinces role as one of the leaders in language tourism, with 30,000 students a year coming to Malaga to learn Spanish across the 23 centres accredited by the Instituto Cervantes, half the number in the whole of Andalucia.
BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y. -- A Baldwinsville man ran into his neighbor's burning house this morning to rescue a woman and her dog.

A fire broke out at 20 Elizabeth St. just before 11 a.m., sending smoke billowing from the second floor of the two-story house.

David Weaver, who lives nearby on Virginia Street, said he saw flames as he ran into the house to get the owner out.

"She didn't want to leave," Weaver said.

Weaver was able to get the woman's dog out of the house as he was on the phone with 911. His wife, Carrie Weaver, took the dog to safety and David Weaver ran back in the house to get the his neighbor out.

He was successfully able to get the woman to safety. His family and other neighbors, including former Lysander Town Councilor Melinda Shimer, called Weaver a hero for his bravery.

Dozens of firefighters and multiple fire departments battled the blaze, which took 30 minutes to put out, according to North West Fire District Chief Tom Perkins. Weaver's daughter, Katie Weaver, brought water to the firefighters.

Perkins said no one was injured, but the woman's cat may have perished in the fire.

Perkins said the cause of the fire is unknown. Some neighbors reported seeing a flash of light just before the fire. Officials are investigating to see if lightning could have caused the blaze, Perkins said.

The American Red Cross is assisting two people displaced by the fire.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte's Second State of the Nation Address will be rendered today - July 24, 2017 at 4PM, Manila Time - in broad strokes reviewing past achievements, stating the present situation and announcing future prospects.The speech is written in English, which the President is comfortable with, and if read straight should take approximately 50 minutes; given there will be pauses for applause and off-the-cuff remarks, the speech may take about an hour and thirty minutes.Thewill be available online shortly after the President has spoken.According to the Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella, as a whole, SONA 2017 will be frank and realistic but hopeful.The State of the Nation Address 2017 will be broadcast live by ABS-CBN, GMA7, and TV5 via free local TV but for those who don't have access to the television or for Filipinos who are living abroad, the SONA can also be viewed through's Online Livestream below:The Duterte Administration - through the leadership of PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar - saw the modernization of the People's Television Network (PTV). In January 2017, PTV and Japan-based technology company NEC signed a landmark agreement for the acquisition of new digital transmitters and other facilities to begin the network's transition to digital terrestrial television. Alongside the equipment upgrade, PTV also became more active in creating content for the online platform, making sure that Filipino netizens are well-informed about the activities and projects of the government.
Researchers have discovered a new species of sunfish. The giant marine animal, dubbed Hoodwinker Sunfish (Mola tecta), swim in the ocean waters around New Zealand, off Tasmania, south-east coast of Australia, South Africa, and southern Chile.

New Sunfish Discovered In More Than A Century

The discovery marks the first time that researchers have discovered a new species of sunfish in about 130 years.

The discovery was made after the researchers examined 27 specimens of fish. They also looked at old photos and museum collections, as well as scoured for pictures of sunfish on social media to come up with a network of people who may alert them whenever a sunfish was observed.

In 2014, four sunfish were stranded in a New Zealand beach, giving researchers a good chance to study the animal.

Evaded Discovery For Nearly Three Centuries

Researchers said that the previously unknown species has evaded discovery for nearly three centuries. Japanese researchers found genetic evidence of this species in the waters of Australia a decade ago but the species had evaded earlier discovery because scientists were clueless what it looked like.

"The new species managed to evade discovery for nearly three centuries by 'hiding' in a messy history of sunfish taxonomy," said study researcher Marianne Nyegaard, from the School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University in Australia.

"We felt science had been repeatedly tricked by this cheeky species, which is why we named it the Hoodwinker."

Features Of Sunfishes

The iconic ocean sunfishes are known as the heaviest and most distinctive of bony fishes. Just like the Mola mola and Mola ramsayi sunfish species, the new species is marked by a truncated appearance of half a fish. It has nonetheless distinct features that are different from the other two species of sunfish. For one, it has a slender and smooth body regardless of its larger size. The Hoodwinker also does not have a protruding snout or notable bumps and lumps.

Nyegaard and colleagues looked at texts that date as early as the 16th century to verify that their discovery was of a new species.

"A review of the historic literature revealed that Mola sp. C is a new, hitherto undescribed species, M. tecta, which we describe and diagnose, and that it is the first proposed addition to the genus Mola in 125 years," the researchers wrote in their study published on July 19 by the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
An iPhone 4S owner, with insurance company State Farm, filed a lawsuit against Apple for allegedly selling her a defective unit that started a fire in her home in Wisconsin.

The incident, which happened on April 1, 2016, evokes memories of the numerous explosive incidents that involved the failed Galaxy Note 7, though there have also been a few instances when iPhones were the ones that caused fires.

Apple Lawsuit For iPhone 4S Fire

The iPhone 4S owner, a woman named Xai Thao, and State Farm are demanding for $75,000 from Apple for the damage caused by the fire that was allegedly started by the smartphone.

The lawsuit against Apple claims that the design, manufacture, and sale of the iPhone 4S "created a dangerous, unsafe, and defective condition," which already existed when the smartphone was shipped out. The lawsuit was only recently filed in a U.S. district court, despite the incident happening more than a year ago.

Thao purchased the iPhone 4S in 2014, but it is unclear whether she did so from an Apple store or an authorized retailer. The complaint, however, notes that the device was purchased in new condition, with no tampering of any sort done to the iPhone 4S and its battery.

Preliminary investigations conducted by State Farm claimed that there was evidence to support a "significant and localized heating event" near the device's battery, along with signs of internal shorting. These signs, according to the complaint, point at an internal failure of the iPhone 4S, causing the fire in Thao's home. There were no other possible sources of the fire, with investigations also showing that the damage done to the battery was not caused by a fire. This led to the conclusion that the battery of the iPhone 4S itself caused the incident.

Is The iPhone 4S Dangerous?

Improper design and manufacturing for lithium-ion batteries, the kind of battery used by most consumer devices, carries the risk of explosions. This is what happened to the Galaxy Note 7 last year, as well as to other products such as hoverboards and fidget spinners.

However, there have been no other reports of explosive iPhone 4S units ever since it was launched in 2011, so the smartphone will likely not be considered a dangerous one due to what happened to Thao and her home. This appears to be an isolated incident, which may have been caused by factors such as the state of the iPhone 4S after three years in her possession and the charger that Thao was using at time if the device was charging.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
"Dialogue and negotiation in Venezuela, found at the Paris Forum for Peace, three friends: the governments of France, Argentina and the Republic of Colombia," said the president... | Read More
The man in the photo above is believed to be a suspect in the assault and kidnapping of a woman outside of New Orleans' Dave & Buster's arcade and restaurant at 1200 Poydras St. Sunday, July 23, 2017.
The former mayor-president who tapped Carl Dabadie as his police chief said Monday that Dabadie has been treated unfairly and that his retirement will be a terrible blow to Baton Rouge.

Former Mayor-President Kip Holden named Dabadie as BRPD chief in 2013. The two had an especially close relationship and spoke every day, Holden said.

Holden credited Dabadie with leading Baton Rouge to its lowest level of homicides in a decade during 2016. And Holden criticized current Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, who has been calling for a new BRPD chief since she was on the campaign trail a year ago.

"She made a decision on a good man, a good person, a good law enforcement officer, and it will come back to haunt her," Holden said.

Dabadie submitted his retirement letter Monday morning, saying his retirement would become effective Oct. 2 but he would take accrued vacation time until then.

Both Dabadie's retirement letter and a public statement he released indicated that he had a strained relationship with Broome. Dabadie specifically thanked Holden in his public statement for "his confidence in me and for the opportunity to lead one of the most prestigious police departments in the country."

Holden said Dabadie and Jeff LeDuff  who also led the police department during Holden's tenure  were the two most visible chiefs in recent memory in Baton Rouge. He said Broome has not enumerated specific reasons why she wanted Dabadie gone from his role, and that she will be hard-pressed to replace him.

"Whoever she has in mind [to replace Dabadie]  he or she will go through a tremendous amount of scrutiny," Holden said. "If she thought running for mayor was tough, taking on naming a police chief is going to be even tougher."

And Holden said he has heard rumors that Broome has "somebody local" lined up to fill the job despite the national search Broome reiterated Monday she intends to hold. While Holden would not say who he has heard could be in line for the job, he said Broome should address whether the rumors are true.

The Advocate reported in June that BRPD Sgt. Myron Daniels was one candidate within the department who was widely known to desire the job as chief.

Holden appointed Dabadie as chief in 2013 after Holden's relationship went south with former BRPD Chief Dewayne White. A public back-and-forth emerged between White and Holden, but Dabadie quickly calmed the waters when he took over, winning over Metro Council members and becoming a familiar face at community events.

"Here's a guy who could have chosen a lot of professions," Holden said. "But just like his dad was a police officer, Chief Dabadie chose to follow the path that his dad walked in."

Dabadie's father, Lt. Carl Dabadie Sr., died in 1984 in an on-duty motorcycle wreck.

"I just hope that people understand and give Chief Dabadie the praise he deserves," Holden added. "This man has done everything he could possibly do to make this police department proud as well as the citizens of Baton Rouge."
A member of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education said Monday she wants the panel to vote next month on whether state Superintendent of Education John White should keep his job.

"I feel like BESE has been a little remiss in not addressing this," said Kathy Edmonston, who lives in Gonzales. "That is my sole purpose."

Edmonston said she is still working on exactly what her motion will say.

The aim, she said, is to gauge support for White on the 11-member panel, which sets policies for about 700,000 public school students statewide.

"I am not trying to cause anything," Edmonston said.

"I feel like we are divided enough in the state," she said. "But I just feel like we have not done what we need to do as a board."

White, who has has held the job for 5 1/2 years, is paid $275,000 per year.

However, for the past 18 months he has been working on a month-to-month contract because backers lacked enough support on BESE to extend the agreement.

Even critics of the superintendent concede that any bid to replace him is an uphill fight.

The superintendent often has majority support -- six votes -- on key issues and sometimes seven.

But, it takes a super majority of the board -- eight of 11 members -- to hire a new superintendent.

"I feel certain that what we will see as a result of the vote is that a majority of BESE members want John White to stay and continue to do the good work that he has been doing in the state," said BESE member Jim Garvey, who lives in Metairie.

Edmonston's proposal is set for discussion at the same board meeting Aug. 15-16 where White is scheduled to undergo his annual job evaluation.

Brigitte Nieland, who follows public school issues for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said Edmonston has been considering the issue for a couple of months.

Nieland said any concerns about White's job performance could be discussed during his job evaluation.

"If they want to address anything that is a much more constructive way to address it," she said.

Edmonston, who was elected in 2015, criticized White during the campaign and the rollout of the Common Core academic standards, which White backed.

However, she has generally worked well with the superintendent for the past 18 months despite often being on opposite sides in key public school debates.

BESE is set to hold its annual retreat on Aug. 14, committee meetings on Aug. 15 and the full board meeting on Aug. 16.

When any vote on his contract would take place is unclear.

White is scheduled to undergo his annual job review by BESE on Aug. 16.

He has won favorable marks in his four previous job evaluations.

"At this meeting I am going to be focused on my evaluation and whether my performance was up to the standards that BESE has established for me," White said Monday.

He also said he works well with Edmonston.

"I have enjoyed a strong relationship with Kathy Edmonston and have been privileged to work closely with her on issues in her district, including a very difficult issue related to charter schools in Bogalusa," White said.

BESE's agenda is set to be made public on Aug. 5.

The superintendent already faces scrutiny on the legal front.

Edwards said last week his office is reviewing White's job status in connection with a failed lawsuit aimed at removing him.

Despite earlier comments, governor stands down on bid to replace Education Superintendent John White Gov. John Bel Edwards is putting off his vow to try to replace state Superintendent of Educa

Edwards, a longtime critic of White, said litigation may be needed on whether the superintendent should have undergone a second Senate confirmation hearing, and whether the failure to do so means the office should be vacated.

A state judge ruled earlier this month that, while the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit had no legal standing to make the challenge, the governor could do so.

Edmonston said that, if BESE had voted earlier on White's contract, the lawsuit might have played out differently.

She also said that, while she works well with the superintendent, critics of White are plentiful in her BESE district.

"My constituency is not for John White," Edmonston said. "They weren't for White when I was campaigning and they are not now."
Property developer and investor Charter Hall is looking to increase its funds under management platform with the potential purchase of Westpac Banking Corp's $14.3 billion infrastructure investment business, Hastings Management.

Westpac on Monday said it had entered into exclusive discussions with Charter Hall to sell Hastings. It has been looking to sell the business, which has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, London, New York, Singapore and Seoul, for more than a year.

Bold expansion: Hastings was a member of the consortium that bought Transgrid for $10.3 billion. Credit:Jessica Hromas

Any deal, which is subject to due diligence and regulatory approvals, would give Charter Hall a springboard overseas and into a new business silo.

According to brokers at Macquarie Equities, there were merits in Charter Hall extending its significant domestic and international property investor relationships and retail distribution channels into new infrastructure opportunities.
Australian gambling operators are expressing interest in a new style of "skill-based" machines more like video games that are marketed at younger punters who are unlikely to play the traditional, push-button pokies.

GameCo, an international provider of so-called "video game gambling machines", said its products had recently been approved by several US regulators, and it was ready to explore opportunities in Australian jurisdictions.

"Australian operators have shown interest in skill-based [machines] and our games," GameCo chief executive Blaine Graboyes said.

"There are a number of efforts under way within the region to consider how skill-based gaming may be considered."
A former 7-Eleven franchisee who underpaid his staff has been fined $168,000, following a Fairfax Media investigation that found systemic underpayment and the complicity of head office.

The Federal Circuit Court fined former 7-Eleven store owner Jim Chien-Ching Chang and his business, JS Top Pty Ltd, after finding he had underpaid eight staff members a combined $19,937.

Of this amount, one staff member was found to have been underpaid by nearly $14,000 between 2013 and 2014. The other staff members were found to have been underpaid during a one-month sample period in 2015.

The fines were handed down after the Fair Work Ombudsman took action against Mr Chang and his company in 2016.
Observing the deliberations of Malcolm Turnbull's Indigenous Referendum Council, Aesop might have said: A mountain emitting terrible noises was said to be in labor. But as people watched to see what would happen, all they saw come out of it was a mouse  or, we might add, a pup.

This is not to decry the sincere efforts of those involved in seeking to come up with a formula that would both satisfy legitimate Indigenous claims to be acknowledged as the first Australians and the wider community's willingness to embrace this historical circumstance.

To be fair, the council wrestled mightily with all the contradictions inherent in arguments for and against constitutional change that would have removed what, for some, are offending references to race in the constitution.

In the end, it is hard to escape the conclusion the council squibbed its obligations by formulating proposals that skirted constitutional complexities, and settled on a diversion that could be regarded as symbolic, or substantive, depending on your point of view.
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that good policy has been suffocated by a cacophony of self-interested voices lobbying furiously, campaigning cleverly, and filling a frenetic 24-hour news cycle. But what if all this noise is actually the best friend good policy ever had?

This argument is a hard sell, I understand. No matter where you sit on the ideological spectrum you will have been let down by political leaders who found heat from the public debate necessitated abrupt retreat from the policy kitchen.

Federal governments have reversed in response to the clamour of vested interests on mining taxation, emissions trading, racial discrimination laws, and social expenditure cuts. But many of these volte-faces were not inevitable  they were the equivalent of novice surfers getting dumped by the unexpected strength of big waves.

Our most recent generation of policymakers were thrown into the deep end of a noisy new ocean.
Altering the constitution to institute four-year fixed terms for the House of Representatives has long had bipartisan support. Fixed-term parliaments have been introduced in all states and territories, some by Liberal governments, others by Labor ones.

The most compelling reason for this fundamental electoral reform, which The Age has also long advocated, is that it would remove purely political calculations from election timing, and so increase the scope for governments to focus on developing and implementing long-term policies. With our federal parliaments running for an average of only about 2 years, many budgets and policies are expedient, motivated by short-term political advantage rather than the long-term national good.

Political co-operation alert: Fixed-term parliaments deserve bipartisan support. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The idea was supported in 1988 by then opposition leader John Howard when then Labor prime minister Bob Hawke included the proposition in four referendum questions, none of which succeeded, largely, it is thought, because of imprecise wording. Referendums are devilishly difficult to win; of the 44 held since federation, only eight have passed. Doing so requires a double majority  there has to be an overall national majority and a majority of states. Bipartisan support is crucial.

Polling has shown public backing for the fixed-term change has increased. The issue has been placed on the agenda by the leaders of the two main parties. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull telephoned Opposition Leader Bill Shorten after the Labor leader said on Sunday he would like to push for the change, which is part of his party's policy platform. Mr Turnbull told Mr Shorten he would be happy to explore the notion.
Diana, Princess of Wales', love of dressing up her sons in "bizarre" costumes is revealed in a photo published for the first time to mark a landmark documentary about her life.

Proud mother Diana appeared to like nothing better than putting the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry in matching outfits or themed clothes when they were boys - which to this day has left the royal brothers wondering why.

In the picture, William and Harry are dressed as policemen with toy helmets, ties and utility belts with walkie-talkies.

Harry has a confident pose with his hands on his hips while his brother squints at the photographer who is thought to be their mother.
In fashion, we often talk of micro-trends. And sometimes, they involve very big things.

The 1980s had shoulder pads, the 1990s had logos, and this season, the button has copped the super-size treatment.

Pushing all the right buttons ... Model and blogger Alexandra Lapp in a vintage Chanel sweater and Self Portrait skirt. Credit:Christian Vierig

With fashion in the grip of an oversized moment, which seems to be lasting several seasons, it was only a matter of time before our accoutrement went XL.

Last year, the humble zipper was the hero. After designers spent decades perfecting the invisible zip, it was back in all its exposed glory, on everything from jumpers to evening dresses.
Justine Varga sensed the unease when she was awarded the $20,000 Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture.

"I could feel it in the room that people weren't happy about it," she said.

Ms Varga's winning work, Maternal Line, is a portrait of her grandmother Katalin, yet she does not appear in the image. Neither was a camera used in the production of the image.

Ms Varga created the photographic image, which features scrawls made by her grandmother onto a piece of film, after seeing her sitting at the kitchen table with a jar of pens, testing each of them with a scribble.
A Queensland government minister has admitted to using "colourful" language but says he doesn't remember using the word "f---tard' in an angry outburst over the premier's department.

Agriculture Minister Bill Byrne's chief of staff Tim Grau quit the office after the July 12 incident, reportedly sparked by a request to travel from Mareeba, on the Atherton Tableland, to Cairns, for a photo opportunity with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Bill Byrne has denied ever meaning to insult or denigrated disabled people. Credit:Chris Hyde

The Premier had reprimanded Mr Byrne over the incident, according to a spokesman.

"While these roles can certainly be challenging at times, the Premier has spoken to Minister Byrne and reminded him of the high standard of behaviour she expects of all ministers and ministerial staff," the spokesman said, in a statement.



"Minister Byrne is committed to his portfolio and is today travelling to a meeting of state and federal agriculture ministers in Melbourne, to keep fighting for Queensland farmers."
On its 20-year journey to becoming the world's largest online retailer, Amazon has focused almost purely on consumers.

But in 2015, Jeff Bezos's Seattle-headquartered tech giant decided that it needed to do a better job of tapping into the online business-to-business (B2B) market, which is worth 96 billion ($158 billion) in the UK alone, according to the Office for National Statistics.

It launched a new free-to-use business supplies marketplace called Amazon Business in the US and went on to launch the platform in Germany in December 2016, and the UK this April.

Amazon Business is off to a promising start, according to Bill Burkland, head of Amazon Business in the UK.
A black Mercedes-Benz has been towed from the house of Melbourne woman Karen Ristevski.

A caller to radio station 3AW reported the incident on Monday afternoon.

The caller said the car, sealed with yellow tape, was loaded onto a tow truck outside the Avondale Heights home at 1.20pm.

An unmarked police car with flashing lights escorted the truck away from the home, the caller said.
A council plans to install a memorial plaque in Richmond for the hundreds of people who have died from heroin overdoses in the Victoria Street precinct.

The proposal by Yarra City Council has also angered anti-crime campaigners and some local business owners and residents, who claim rampant drug dealing and crime has ruined their neighbourhood.

The corner of Lennox and Victoria streets in Richmond, which is the proposed site of a memorial for those that have died as a result of drug overdoses in the area. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies condemned the plan as "monumentally stupid".

"A monument honouring people doing something illegal and incredibly stupid could serve as a rallying point for others considering doing the same thing," Mr Davies said.
A French tourist who was due to stand trial in Perth over a crash on a West Australian regional road that killed a father-of-five has remained in his home country and failed to turn up to court.

Jean-Christophe Andre Kerambloch was charged with dangerous driving causing death after he allegedly drove on the wrong side of the road and crashed into 52-year-old motorcyclist Michael Lorne, south of Kalbarri, in July last year.

Jean-Christophe Andre Kerambloch was charged with dangerous driving causing death after he allegedly drove on the wrong side of the road. Credit:not for syndication

About 10 of Mr Lorne's family members travelled to Perth for the four-day trial, which was due to start on Monday.

Instead, the District Court of WA heard Kerambloch had gone to Paris to see his father, who was near death from cancer, and an arrest warrant was issued.
Berlin: A German teenager who joined Islamic State is now being held in an Iraqi prison and says she regrets joining the jihadist group and just wants to come home to her family, media reported on Sunday.

Der Spiegel magazine reported on Saturday that four German women who joined Islamic State in recent years, including a 16-year-old girl from the small town of Pulsnitz near Dresden, are being held in an Iraqi prison and receiving consular assistance.

A German girl from PUlsnitz, who ran away from home shortly after converting to Islam, has been found in Iraq. Credit:DPA/AP

Lorenz Haase, senior public prosecutor in Dresden, said he could confirm the teenager, named by authorities only as Linda W., had been "located and identified in Iraq" and was receiving consular support but could not say anything on her exact circumstances.

"There is the possibility that Linda might be put on trial in Iraq," Haase said. "She could be handed over to Germany."
Israeli border police officers stand near security gates at the holy site. Credit:AP "We are managing this in a level-headed, determined and responsible way," Netanyahu said in televised remarks before his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. However, his right-wing government is wary of being seen to yield to Palestinian pressure over the site, which Jews revere as the vestige of their two ancient temples and which was among areas of East Jerusalem that Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed as its capital in a move not recognised internationally. Violence has erupted in the Gaza Strip over the security measures in Jerusalem. Credit:AP "They [metal detectors] will remain. The murderers will never tell us how to search the murderers," Tzachi Hanegbi, Israeli minister for regional development, told Army Radio.

"If they [Palestinians] do not want to enter the mosque, then let them not enter the mosque." In a statement, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said: "Jerusalem is a red line that Muslims and Arabs cannot allow to be crossed ... and what is happening today is an attempt to impose a new reality on the Holy city". "The Israeli government is playing with fire and risking a major crisis with the Arab and Islamic world." Incensed at what they perceive as a violation of delicate decades-old access arrangements at Islam's third-holiest site, many Palestinians have refused to go through the metal detectors, holding street prayers and often violent protests. Israeli security forces shot three demonstrators dead on Friday, Palestinian medics said. Police said they were investigating the charge. A fourth Jerusalem-area Palestinian was killed on Saturday when an explosive device he was building went off prematurely, the Israeli military said. Palestinian medics said he died of shrapnel wounds to the chest and abdomen.

Abbas ultimatum In a sign unrest was spreading, a Palestinian stabbed three Israelis in the occupied West Bank. On Sunday, a rocket was launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip but hit an open area, causing no damage, Israel's military said. Gilad Erdan, Israel's public security minister, warned of potential "large-scale volatility"  a prospect made more likely in the West Bank by the absence of Abbas' help. "If Israel wants security coordination to be resumed they have to withdraw those measures," Abbas said in a speech on Sunday, referring to the metal detectors.

"They should know that they will eventually lose, because we have been making it our solemn duty to keep up security on our side here and on theirs." Erdan said Israel may eventually do away with metal-detector checks for Muslims entering the al-Aqsa compound under alternative arrangements under review. Such arrangements could include reinforcing Israeli police at the entrances and introducing CCTV cameras with facial-recognition technologies. "There are, after all, many worshippers whom the police know, regulars, and very elderly people and so on, and it recommended that we avoid putting all of these through metal detectors," Erdan told Army Radio, suggesting that only potential trouble-makers might be subjected to extra screening. Any such substitute arrangement was not ready, he added. However, the Muslim authorities that oversee al-Aqsa said they would continue to oppose any new Israeli-imposed measures.

"We stress our absolute rejection of ... all measures by the Occupation [Israel] that would change the historical and religious status in Jerusalem and its sacred sites," the Palestinian grand mufti, acting Palestinian chief justice and Jordanian-run Waqf religious trust said in a joint statement. Speakers at the packed funeral for three Israelis killed on Friday - Yosef Salomon, 70, his daughter Chaya Salomon, 46, and son Elad Salomon, 35 - urged the Israeli government to reject Palestinian claims to the West Bank. "It's time to cut down the hope of the Arabs for a state in the land of Israel and to impose sovereignty in all of Judea and Samaria," said Rafi Mendel, an in-law who referred to the occupied territory using biblical names. Others called on the government to step up settlement building as "revenge" for the killings, saying the young assailant, Omar Abed, should have been killed rather than taken to a hospital after he was shot by an off-duty soldier who heard the family's screams. Hours before the attack, Abed posted a farewell note on Facebook accusing Israel of "desecrating" Islamic holy sites and vowing to "answer the call of al-Aqsa" with a knife.
Kushner speaks to reporters outside the White House. Credit:AP Two sources with knowledge of what Mr Kushner told the Senate staff said the session was pleasant and conversational and that there may be another interview. Mr Kushner said Mr Trump prevailed over his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in November 2016 because he ran a "smarter campaign" and that to suggest otherwise "ridicules those who voted for him". A protester who identified himself as Ryan Clayton brought a Russian flag to Capitol Hill. Credit:AP The Republican President, who has called the Russia probes politically motivated, lashed out at the investigations in Twitter messages on Monday. Mr Trump has been dogged by allegations that his campaign aides worked with Russia, which US intelligence agencies have accused of interfering in the election. Moscow has denied any meddling, and Mr Trump says his campaign did not collude with Moscow.

Mr Kushner arrived with prominent white-collar defense lawyer Abbe Lowell for the meeting with Senate staffers, which lasted about two and a half hours. "Zero evidence" of collusion, US President Donald Trump claims. Credit:AP In his written statement, Mr Kushner said he first met Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in Washington in April 2016 and shook hands. He said he did not recall phone calls with Mr Kislyak between April and November 2016, as reported by Reuters in May, had found no evidence of the calls in phone records and was skeptical they took place. Exchange of gifts Mr Kushner said he met after the election, on December 13, with Sergei Gorkov, the head of Russian state-owned Vnesheconombank, because of Mr Kislyak's insistence and because the Russian had a "direct relationship" with President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Kushner said that "no specific policy issues" were discussed. Sanctions imposed by Democratic former President Barack Obama's administration were not discussed nor were Mr Kushner's business activities, Mr Kushner said. Vneshekonombank is under US sanctions. "He introduced himself and gave me two gifts - one was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village," Mr Kushner said. He said he did not have any contact with Mr Gorkov before the meeting nor had he been in contact with him since. 'Need excuse' to leave meeting

Members of the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees have said they want to hear about a June 2016 meeting involving Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Mr Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. The younger Trump has released emails that showed he welcomed the prospect of receiving damaging information from the Russian government about Mrs Clinton. Mr Kushner and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort were also at the meeting but Mr Kushner described it as a waste of time. "I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote 'Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.'" He said no part of the meeting he attended "included anything about the campaign" and he had no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted. He said an email from Mr Trump Jr. before the meeting was "on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time."

'Back channel' Mr Kushner was expected to face questions about reports he tried to set up a secret back channel to Moscow, as well as other contacts with top Russian officials and business leaders. He said that in a December 1 meeting with Mr Kislyak, the Russian ambassador asked if there was a secure line in Mr Trump's transition office to facilitate a discussion with Russian generals about Syria, and Mr Kushner replied there was not. Mr Kushner said he asked if the Russians had an existing communications channel at the Russian Embassy that could be used to transmit information to the transition team, but Mr Kislyak indicated that was not possible and they agreed to follow up after the inauguration. "Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a 'secret back channel.' I did not suggest an ongoing secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office," Mr Kushner said.

Mr Kushner did not initially disclose any meetings with Russians on forms he filed to get a government security clearance. He has since revised those forms several times. He said the forms were initially submitted prematurely in error and omitted all foreign contacts he had had, not just those with Russian officials. President slams investigation In a pair of tweets early on Monday morning, the President lashed out at the ongoing investigation, the media and Washington at large. Without giving proof, he said no evidence had been found regarding Russia and said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had cast blame on Democrats, not Russia, for the election loss.
Over the seven years Karan Watson served as provost and executive vice president at Texas A&M, payments made by the university or a system agency to the Center for Change and Conflict Resolution -- a company owned by her wife, Nancy Watson -- increased significantly, averaging more than $60,000 per year.

Watson -- who was removed last week from her job as second in command at the university, just a few months before her successor was set to arrive -- was let go after a whistleblower complaint was filed with A&M President Michael K. Young's office in May, then sent the same day to the A&M System Internal Audit Department, which answers to the Board of Regents.

According to documents published by The Eagle last week, the complaint included allegations of misconduct and conflicts of interest related to the business dealings of the Center for Change and Conflict Resolution while Watson served as chief academic officer.

The 2017 auditors said in a July 13 report that the arrangement was in violation of the System's ethics policy, citing five areas in which Karan and Nancy Watson "failed to comply" with the code of conduct created by regents, including that system employees should not violate policies; avoid creating the appearance of violating the rules or policies; not hold direct or indirect financial interests that are in conflict with their official responsibilities; not use their public office for private gain; and shouldn't give preferential treatment to any organization or person.

The audit found that since Watson took over as provost in 2011, the Center for Change and Conflict Resolution had been paid $9,838 by the provost's office and $105,767 from the Office for Diversity, which reports to the provost. Altogether, the business received $438,733 from the university for training services.

The report did not find any evidence that she pressured or tried to influence staff to hire her spouse.

Karan Watson said she wasn't sure what further steps she and her wife should have taken to be more transparent.

"[We] have endeavored to avoid the appearance of any such violations," Watson said, adding that she regularly reported her relationship with Nancy Watson on her annual disclosure form. That also was noted in the audit.

Although the report alleges a conflict of interest, the report does not describe how Nancy Watson's business interest substantially conflicted with the discharge of her or Karan Watson's official duties and responsibilities, which the former provost said is a requirement of the TAMU policy.

From average of $14K to $60K

The May whistleblower's complaint marked the third regarding the business -- all of which were evaluated by the System Internal Audit Department; the first came in 2011 and the second in 2014.

Officials with the Texas A&M University System said the 2011 complaint, which focused specifically on Nancy Watson, was concerned with the fact that the Center for Change and Conflict Resolution had been doing business with the university for almost a decade under a "sole-source contract" without an open bid process to give competitors a chance.

The audit department's findings led to Nancy Watson's business participating in a bidding process with two other companies. The Center for Change and Conflict Resolution was chosen from among the three and awarded a five-year agreement for $20,000 per year.

After the 2014 complaint -- which system officials said "questioned the president using Nancy Watson in a team-building exercise" -- auditors determined the issue to be a "management decision" and sent it to the office of the Texas A&M president, run by then-interim Mark Hussey, for further action. Officials said no audit report was written concerning the matter.

University officials responded by entering into an agreement with a total of six vendors, including the Center for Change and Conflict Resolution, for services set to expire January 2018. This replaced the previous agreement.

Under an additional set of documents obtained by The Eagle, which were confirmed by the Watsons, it shows that between fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2010, the Center for Change and Conflict Resolution received a total of $118,052 at an average of $14,757 per year. No payments were recorded for fiscal year 2004. The fiscal year with the largest total payment to the business during this eight-year period was in 2008 at $30,533; the lowest was in 2003 at $4,256.

Starting with Karan Watson's first year as provost in fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2017, the center received $423,515 at an average of $60,502 annually. Fiscal year 2017 saw the largest financial amount at $92,723. The lowest for this seven-year period was $38,653 in fiscal year 2014.

Although she was appointed to the position in March 2011, Watson had served as interim provost and executive vice president since July 2009. The payments for fiscal year 2009 and 2010 were $12,341 and $15,217, respectively.

Karan Watson said she and her wife believe the uptick in business was prompted by the system-mandated contracts that the center entered into with the university following the 2011 and 2014 complaints, and that it "reflects the university's overall satisfaction with the services it received from the center."

Wants chance to respond

Watson, who said she was told Tuesday about Young's decision to remove her as provost, said she believes she was not afforded due process in the matter and was not given a "meaningful opportunity" to respond to the allegations made in the report.

The job of provost and vice president is considered an at-will position, which can have its employment contract ended at any for no cause at all, according to state law. It does not require the dismissal proceedings conducted for tenured members of the faculty.

Nancy Watson is set to step down from her part-time position as director of climate enhancement initiatives in the Office of Diversity at the end of August -- a decision that Karan Watson said her wife had been considering for some time.

Both women will remain at the university in their faculty positions. Karan Watson is a tenured regents professor in the departments of electrical and computer engineering, and computer science and engineering. Nancy Watson is a clinical associate professor of educational administration and human resource development in the College of Education and Human Development.

Karan Watson said she believes the timing of Young's action, "makes no sense."

"It doesn't do anything for the university," Karan Watson said. "Even if I believed that this was some error or mistake we made and they needed to take correctional action, it makes no sense to not give me a chance so they would have absolute facts before they made that decision. It makes no sense the rush they had to do it."

While Karan Watson said she was disappointed at how the situation was handled, she said she was most concerned with how it has affected the perception of her integrity.

"I think integrity is very important and mine has been questioned," Watson said. "I desire to get my reputation of being a person of high integrity -- as well as Nancy, being such a person -- reinstated. That's the main thing that I'm after."

Watson said she doesn't think she violated any standards and wishes she "would've had time to look at the audit report and a reasonable time frame to respond to some things I believe they were severely mischaracterized."

Karan Watson, who announced almost a year ago that she'd be stepping down at the end of the 2016-17 academic year in May and was given a farewell party in April, said she received a copy of the audit July 15 after a phone conversation with Young.

"[Young] told me he thought he was going to have take some serious action," Watson said of that discussion with Young.

Young declined to comment on the situation through a university spokesperson.

A&M System officials, who said whistleblower complaints must be investigated regardless of whether an employee is exiting the job, noted that the issue of perception in the findings, reiterating that even the appearance of possible wrongdoing is a violation of the ethics policy.

"Common sense would seem to dictate that the second-most powerful executive on a campus, who ultimately controls or affects tenure, hiring, budgets and other academic decisions, should not have her spouse getting contracts from people who answer to that executive," said Laylan Copelin, vice chancellor for marketing and communications. "Just saying you recused yourself doesn't address the perception that your spouse is being hired to curry favor."

Copelin said stronger rules regarding the family members of administrators doing business with the system through one of its agencies or universities are being drafted and are expected to be presented to the A&M System Board of Regents at its August meeting.

Going forward

Karan Watson said she and Nancy Watson are considering what campus processes and procedures are available to them to "be heard and try to set the record straight," though she's not certain exactly what avenue they will pursue.

"I think I have always been fairly reasonable and understanding that just because I think something is wrong doesn't mean it's so," Karan Watson said. "But I would like for people to actually make their decision on facts and not on innuendos."

Karan Watson said she was first notified of the complaint on June 1 and was interviewed by an audit investigator in mid-June. She said it was at that time when she was officially informed of the previous two complaints filed in fiscal year 2011 and fall 2014.

Watson said while she and her wife did not "officially know" about the previous investigations, they suspected they had been audited based on statements made by colleagues who had been interviewed during the review process.

Catherine A. Smock, chief auditor at the time of the 2011 investigation, said in a statement that she did have contact with Nancy Watson in regard to that complaint. Karan Watson said her wife remembers the interview and being asked questions about her business, but not being informed that she was the subject of the investigation.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the 2011 vendor policy change after almost nine years of having a sole-source contract prompted questions from Nancy Watson, or later following the agreement being replaced in 2014.

In a message to university employees Wednesday, Young announced Watson's replacement -- dean of the Rackham Graduate School and vice provost for academic affairs in graduate studies at the University of Michigan Carol A. Fierke, who was selected by the university last month -- would start on Sept. 1, a month and a half sooner than initially expected.

Douglas Palmer, professor of educational psychology in the College of Education and Human Development, will serve as interim provost until Fierke arrives. He recently served as interim chief operating officer over Texas A&M University at Galveston and previously was dean of the College of Education and Human Development at A&M from 2006 until 2015.
Asia's massive unchecked demand for skins, bones, teeth and claws continues to drive poaching of wild tigers. This demand is exacerbated by the supply of huge volumes of African lion bone, teeth and claws, sold as tiger parts to less-discerning consumers in Asia.

At the heart of the lion trade is South Africa - the world's largest exporter of lion bone, teeth and claws, and also an exporter of captive tiger parts - whose Government, in sanctioning the export of 800 lion skeletons a year to generate profits for lion farmers, has failed to take into account the wider impact of such a decision on endangered wild tigers.

In 2016, CITES Parties decided to allow South Africa to set a quota for export of captive lion parts. In June 2017, the South African Government announced an export quota of 800 skeletons (with or without skulls) obtained from captive lions in South Africa.

The Government's misconceived rationale for such trade is purportedly to protect the wild lion population in South Africa. The move, however, fails to take into consideration the fact that there are significant enforcement challenges in distinguishing between wild and captive lion skeletons and that its decision will also stimulate demand for big cat bone products.

It also ignores the failed experiment in China, where the parallel legal trade in skins from captive tigers has not put an end to wild tiger poaching. Contrary to the assertion of pro-tiger farming and trade advocates, the legal trade in skins of captive-bred tigers in China did not flood the market with cheap alternatives and failed to take into account consumer preferences

How captive Lion and Tiger exports threaten endangered wild tigers in Asia

African lions are listed under CITES Appendix II with an annotation meaning that some international commercial trade in wild and captive lion parts and products is allowed. South Africa has been legally exporting lion bone, claws, teeth, skulls and skeletons sourced from both wild and captive lions - the bodies and skeletons of at least 4,296 lions have been exported legally to Asian markets between 2005-15. In 2016, however, CITES Parties agreed to restrict this trade to specimens sourced from captive lions.

South Africa allows lion and tiger farming for commercial trade in parts and derivatives. With regard to the tiger farming operations, this contravenes CITES Decision 14.69. The country's wild lion population is dwarfed by the reported 6,000 to 8,000 captive lions held in up to 200 facilities. Both the number of captive lions and the facilities breeding and keeping them have increased, coinciding with a dramatic increase in exports of lion bone and other lion parts, especially since 2008. A number of these facilities are also breeding tigers; in 2015, 280 tigers were estimated to be in at least 44 facilities in South Africa.

The proliferation of lion and tiger farms in South Africa and the associated trade from such facilities undermines enforcement efforts to end illegal tiger trade and stimulates demand for tiger parts and derivatives. Given consumer preferences for wild-sourced tiger parts, this also sustains poaching pressure on wild tigers.

It is clear that a legal trade in captive lion parts is unworkable and will likely have a detrimental impact, not only on wild lions but also on endangered wild tigers. The Government of South Africa must adopt urgent action to end this trade.

For the full EIA briefing report including the Agency's recommendations see: The Lion's Share
When it comes to climate change, Pakistans stance has unequivocally been that of a country which is suffering the impacts but has not been responsible for the causes.

This is a classic case of, we didnt do it, so we aren't responsible. The country's national and international policies are focused on adaptation to the impacts of climate change, which it is already facing.

The preamble of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), Pakistan's pledge of emissions reduction submitted to the UNFCCC last year, states: "Despite Pakistans diminutive contribution to global GHG emissions, it is among the top ten most climate-affected countries of the world, as indicated by the Global Climate Risk Index developed by Germanwatch."

This is echoed in Pakistans Climate Change Bill, passed in 2016, which states: "Pakistan's per capita emissions of greenhouse gases today is one of the lowest in the world. Yet it ranks amongst the top ten countries most affected by climate change during the last twenty years."

And the theme continues through the media of Pakistan, which also regularly report on how Pakistan is the worlds "7th most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change".

And its true: Pakistan is not only prone to extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, or even the heatwave in Karachi in 2015 that killed up to 1,000 people, but also slow onset impacts such as glacier melt, rising temperatures, sea level rise and soil erosion, among others.

At the same time, as Pakistan has developed, its carbon emissions have grown. Between 1994 and 2015, the countrys carbon emissions grew 123 percent.

And as the country continues to push forward with economic development, under its Vision 2025 strategy and the CPEC, the prime minister recently reiterated the goal of becoming one of the top 20 economies of the world by 2025.

To achieve this economic growth, there will be a focus on the energy and transport sectors, which already account for a sizeable amount of Pakistan's emissions.

In a recent statement, Pakistans minister for climate change stated that given the projected economic growth trajectory, emissions in Pakistan were expected to increase from 405 metric tons carbon dioxide to more than 1,603 metric tons of CO2 in the next 15 years - that means increasing by almost four times.

And although this will still not make Pakistan a big emitter, especially in comparison to its neighbours India and China, it will still have significant environmental impacts, as well as implications for Pakistans position as a country that has historically painted itself as a sufferer of the impacts of climate change, and not a contributor.

From an energy perspective, Pakistans development plans do include investment in renewables under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, such as the $ 1.6 billion hydropower project in Karot, the $ 1.2 billion solar power park in Bahawalpur and the $ 260 million 100-megawatt wind farm in Jhimpir.
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
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NORWALK  Eight youngsters gathered in the back parking lot of Norwalk Community Colleges West Campus on Friday morning.

They encircled a pole which was placed on the ground and attached to a launcher.

10, 9,8, they counted in unison. ...3, 2, 1.

A student, who stood feet away from the pole, pushed a button on the attached launcher.

Almost immediately, a roughly one-foot long rocket  made of cardboard and a small engine  blasted off the pole and high into the air.

The group, of mostly middle school-aged boys, erupted in excitement.

Its been lots of fun, said Billy Kibbey, of Norwalk, as the rocket parachuted to the ground behind him. Ive learned a lot of stuff I think will come in handy next year in sixth grade.

The action was part of the weeklong Rock-et On class, where students learned about aerodynamics and forces associated with flight as they constructed three different rockets. The students then used math to determine how far and how quickly their rockets traveled.

The class is part of the larger College for Kids program at Norwalk Community College, which uses half-day week-long classes throughout the summer to offer kids across the area a dive into different academic subjects in interactive and engaging ways.

I have heard from parents that they don't want their children not engaged with their brains throughout the whole summer, said Kristina Testa-Buzzee, NCCs associate dean of extended studies and workforce development, who oversees the program. We don't want to see brain drain over the summer, and the first week of September they have to get back into the groove of reading, writing, presenting and talking again. It takes a while to get back to where you were last June.

The key, Testa-Buzzee added, is to not make the classes strictly academic.

Its looking at academic subjects in an interactive and engaging way, she said. Its about finding the right balance between engagement in the classroom and academic content.

Ryan Costikyan, a rising sixth-grader, of Norwalk, thought the camp struck a nice balance between learning and recreation.

Its been very fun, Costikyan said. Sometimes its been rough, like when I spilled gorilla glue all over myself, but really, life is good.

Keeping kids engaged during the summer months is important as it helps prevent the dreaded summer slide, a phenomenon based on research that shows students, especially from low-income families, tend to lose gains they made during the previous school year while left unengaged during the summer break.

The College for Kids program offers an array of classes for kids of different ages. There is an Organic Farming for Kids class for fourth- to sixth-graders, a Stock Market Madness class for sixth- to eighth-graders and even a Follow Me Robot class for third- to -sixth graders.

Across Norwalk Community College, on the second floor of the East Campus building, a group of more than a dozen girls, ranging in age from rising fourth- to eighth-graders, sat in a computer lab Friday morning creating video games and art as part of the Gaming Adventure class.

Isabella Pasto, a rising sixth-grader, sat at a computer constructing a game using commands, or pieces of code, from Scratch  a platform that allows students to program their own interactive stories, games and animations.

The class is designed to meet students at their individual skill level and teach them everything from how to copy and paste to how to design and program animations.

It gives them the computational and algorithmic thinking, while they are having fun,  said instructor Clare Woodman, as a part of Saturday Academy Inc.

Pasto said she had learned a lot since joining a week earlier, as she constructed a game with the aim of bouncing a ball along a path of floating platforms.

Pasto said she is interested in the STEM field, Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and though she may not go into programming down the road, she may one day use similar skills in her dream of becoming a veterinarian.

Testa-Buzzee said it's her hope that the program exposes students to being on a college campus and further fosters the concept of college going at a very early age

Enrollment for the College for Kids Program at Norwalk Community College is still open. Visit https://norwalk.edu/

extended-studies/college-f

or-kids/ for more information.

KSchultz@thehour.com; 203-842-2567; @kevinedschultz
Christopher Dawson held that the Christian religion created a distinctive culture that not only preceded, but has continued long after, the thirteenth century. It is only by examining this cultural dynamism that one can appreciate why modern society is a mutilated, or a secularized, version of Christendom.

Todays offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Russell Hittinger as he explores the Christian Humanism of Christopher Dawson as it applies to the redemption of Western Civilization. W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher

Soren Kierkegaard observed that a distinguishing mark of modern culture is its preoccupation with theories of historical progress. Whether he is a philosopher or a shopkeeper, modern man secretly believes that there exists some hidden hand that moves the system of history along. The individual is called upon by an array of public authorities to serve this world-historical process, or at the very least, not to stand in the way of it. Modern man, Kierkegaard argued, has become so proficient in understanding the progress of world history that he has forgotten what it takes to make moral and religious progress in his own life. The situation is a kind of wholesale sanity and a retail madness.

As one sits in the pews of many Christian churches today, he has his attention called to world-historical issues: to the new historical moment of the nuclear arms race; to the movements for social justice in the Third World; to the struggle to liberate men and women from structures of patriarchal oppression; and, in general, his attention is called to all sorts of momentous issues which are linked together by hyphens along what Kierkegaard called the prodigious railroad of world history. Rather than being addressed as individuals who need to cultivate the virtue of justiceas well as the other interior excellences of the soulwe are all too often invited from the pulpit to jump aboard the caboose of the train of world history lest it pass us by altogether.

To point out that this malaise has particularly affected the Christian churches is not to say anything new. Nietzsche contended that the contemporary theologus liberalis vulgaris appears quite innocently to have taken up history and even now is hardly aware that in doing so, probably quite against his will, [he] has entered the service of Voltaires ecrasez.[1] It is often the case that ones enemy speaks prophetically. David Hume, for example, understood very clearly that historical apologetics can prove to be a more effective weapon than ordinary philosophical discourse. Hume devoted much of his philosophical career to polemics against Christian natural theologyagainst the possibility of miracles, against the proofs for the existence of God, and against metaphysics in general. Yet, as he read the galleys of Gibbons Decline and Fall on his deathbed in 1776, Hume conceded that Gibbon would do more to undermine Christianity than would any of his own work. He saw that there is no better way to turn mens minds against Christianity than to suggest that it has played either an insignificant or a harmful role in history and culture. Most men care little for metaphysical debate, but they are willing to entertain a new story.

In our own day, Catholicism has become especially vulnerable to the thrusts of such historical polemic. It is fair to say that in comparison with their Protestant brethren, Catholics have been slower to grasp the extent of this malaise. Cardinal Newman, perhaps, was an exception; he understood that modern debate over religion had shifted from natural theology to historical claims and ideologies, and that with the secularization of Christianity history tends to replace metaphysics as the central paradigm. Nevertheless, until the problem became vividly manifest after the Second Vatican Council, Catholic intellectuals tended to slumber in the commonplaces of the textbook tradition of natural theology. Little attention was paid to the popular momentum of heterodox stories: to what Saint Irenaeus in the third century called vain genealogies. Relatively few intellectuals appreciated the fact that modernism is something more than a set of heterodox philosophical or theological theses; that the real power of modernism consists in its invitation to take a novel view of history; and that it does not so much ask for a consent to carefully worked-out philosophical premises, but calls for a conversion of perspective. Liberation theology, for instance, need not attack directly the traditional (i.e., Augustinian and Thomistic) understanding of the nature of man and society; rather, it employs historical arguments which are intended to demonstrate the historical, cultural, and spiritual obsolescence of the tradition. In short, their goal is to undercut any appeal to criteria which are derived from a culture that is now obsolete. Catholics who have found certain truths dismissed outright simply because they are pre-Vatican II now have reason to sympathize with traditional Protestants who, a century earlier, found their biblical tenets dismissed because they were pre-scientific.

As yet, contemporary Catholicism has not produced a thinker of the stature of Kierkegaard or Karl Barth, who might answer the modernist apologetic. In large part, the work has been undertaken by scholars like Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss, whose interests are devoted more widely to the issue between modernism and pre-Enlightenment Western thought than to the specific theological crises at work in the Christian churches. It is worth pointing out, however, that there was one Catholic thinker who in this century made a significant contribution to answering the modernist historical polemicChristopher Dawson. Although there is somewhat of a Dawsonian revival taking place in America these past few years, Dawson is not well-known; he certainly has never enjoyed the notoriety of Chesterton or Maritain.

II

Born on Columbus Day, 1889, at Hay in Wales, Christopher Dawson was educated at Winchester and at Trinity College, Oxford. After studying economics under Gustave Cassel in Sweden, Dawson returned to Oxford to do postgraduate work in history and sociology. He converted to Catholicism in 1914. His first major work, Progress and Religion (1929), involved an historical inquiry into the causes and the development of the idea of progress and its relationship to religion. Dawsons subsequent work was devoted to two facets of this theme. First, he investigated the general problem of the relationship between religion and culture, focusing on sociological laws of development. Second, he was interested in the specific relationship between the Christian religion and Western culture. Although Christopher Dawson was recognized by many as the pre-eminent Catholic historian of his time, it should be mentioned that his work was better received outside of Catholic schools. In 1947-1948, he was invited to give the prestigious Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh. Then, in 1958, he became the first incumbent of the Stillman Chair of Catholic Studies at Harvard. He was regarded with some suspicion by Catholic educators because he emphasized the paramount importance of historical and cultural studies and warned that a myopic focus upon scholastic philosophy tended to reduce Christianity to a mere set of ideational products shorn of historical and cultural flesh. Dawson suggested that unless the curriculum in Catholic schools was expanded to include these other studies, students would be vulnerable to historical apologetics. In The Crisis of Western Education (1961), he outlined the problem and recommended ways to rectify it. Christopher Dawson was viewed as a dangerous innovator. Though, in retrospect, it is ironic that many of the Catholic educators who regarded him in this light in 1960 were later the ones who insisted upon jettisoning scholastic philosophy altogether from the curriculum, later Dawson was often viewed as dangerously conservative. (How Dawson and other Catholic thinkers prior to Vatican IIlike Maritain and Danielouwere innovators one year and reactionaries the next is a story still to be written.)

Any historical apologetic requires criteria by which to assess whether or not a particular historical subject (for instance, Western culture) has progressed. It requires delineating the subject according to epochs and then showing certain lines of cause and effect. The most successful apologetic of this sort is able to show how a historical subject develops according to principles intrinsic to itself. Such diverse thinkers, as Newman and Hegel, were skillful in this respect. In order to carry on the project of assessing the development of Western culture, it is necessary to designate as precisely as possible what this culture is and when it began. The Straussian perspective, for example, looks prospectively from, and retrospectively back to, the pre-Christian classical culture of antiquity. The birthplace of Western cultureat least symbolicallyis Athens. Modernity, therefore, is assessed according to the extent to which it has departed from Athens. Both Liberals and Marxists, however, are in agreement that any assessment of modernity must be undertaken in terms of modernity itself; both Frankfurt School Marxists and John Stuart Mill would agree that the principles intrinsic to the modern age are rooted in the Enlightenment. They differ in terms of how the development since the Enlightenment is to be judged. Whereas a liberal of a Deweyan stamp would argue that the ongoing task of development is to make the fruits of the Enlightenment more accessible to the common man, a Marxist like Jurgen Habermas would contend that the Enlightenment represents only the first phase of a dialectical process which, on the basis of criteria internal to itself, must find its completion in socialism. In any event, our point is that historical apologetics require answering what the subject is, answering when it began, and establishing criteria of development which are intrinsic to the subject. Where there is no agreement regarding the first two, any debate over the third will appear incommensurable. Alasdair Macintyre has done much to show this in his book After Virtue (1981).

Dawsons position is unique because he argued that the archetypal pattern of Western culture came into being during the so-called dark ages; that is, during that period in the West that stretches from the fall of the Roman imperium to the rise of the schools in the twelfth century. If it was unusual for a Catholic to shift attention away from the thirteenth century; it was all the more unusual for a historian to contend seriously that the three requirements outlined above must be analyzed in terms of what is commonly the most disparaged era of Western history. Nearly all historians are willing to concede some importance to the classical culture of antiquity, to the Renaissance, and to the Enlightenment, yet the notion of a dark ages still exerts a considerable influence upon our historical imagination. Mark Twain, perhaps, best summarized this attitude when he referred to the period as a brainless and worthless long vanished society.[2] Twain thought this period fascinates only romantics and Southerners. Dawson was neither. Nonetheless, he insisted that despite the claims of modern man to have superseded the Christian ideas of the thirteenth century, he has not superseded the culture of Christendom that first took shape during the dark ages. The historical dependence upon an idea or upon a philosophical system of ideas is different from a dependence upon a cultural paradigm. While it is true that certain aspects of medieval science and theology are for all practical purposes obsolete, we do not shed other cultural structures in the same way that we might shed ideas. This is why Dawson believed that Catholics had put too many apologetical eggs, as it were, in the basket of medieval scholasticism; if the Catholic contribution of Western culture is principally identified with the philosophy of the schools of the thirteenth century, then the debate is over. The subject will remain as little more than one of antiquarian curiosity. Hence, it was Dawsons conviction that what had been overlooked is the fact that, in the West, the Christian religion had created a distinctive culture that not only preceded but has continued long after, the harvest of the thirteenth century. It is only by examining the cultural dynamism that one can appreciate why modern society is a mutilated, or what Dawson termed a secularized, version of Christendom.

III

Dawson maintained that Western culture consists of three components. The first is the Augustinian understanding of the relationship between the Two Cities. It is well known, of course, that Saint Augustines City of God was the blueprint for the culture of Western Christendom. His thought stands to Christendom in a way similar to that of Homer to ancient Greece. Dawson argued that the Two Cities theme is inherent in the structure of Western culture and that even though the theological content has been transformed or excised altogether, the drama is archetypal. Both Marxism and Liberalism, he thought, are secularized renditions of the Augustinian position. The second component is sociological and, to a certain degree, political. After the collapse of the imperium in the West, the Christian missionaries brought the various barbarian peoples into what Dawson regarded as a novel kind of cultural unityone that was not based on a racial, geographical, or political hegemony. Western European culture began as a confederacy that had for its center a transnational Church. The birth of Western European culture and the birth of Christendom, for Dawson, are precisely the same thing. It was Christendom that gave to the West its commitment to a pluralistic culture that is unified not on the basis of race or sheer political power, but upon a moral and spiritual ideal. Since the passing of medieval Christendom, the history of the West can be interpreted, according to Dawson, as a continuous series of conflicts over which transnational ideals should play the role once occupied by the Church. The third component is the manner in which Western culture, throughout the centuries, relies upon reform movements for its development. Just as the culture first began under the influence of monastic missionary movements, every subsequent generation has required the force of reform movements. Dawson emphasized that these movements have tended to arise not from within the sphere of State authority, but rather from free spiritual associations which are pre-political in nature. Although, as Paul Johnson has pointed out in his book Modern Times (1983), the twentieth century is a pathetic story of the effort to live by the bread of political power alone, Dawson contended that the dynamism for real progress in the West has been voluntary associations which usually operate on the periphery of political institutions.

Of course, to map out the details of Dawsons case would require a tour through the entire corpus of his work. Here, we will limit ourselves to highlighting a few of his more important insights. Let us first take his understanding of the Augustinian contribution. During this century, Catholic thinkers like Etienne Gilson and Anton Pegis have rightly emphasized the synthetic character of medieval thought and culture. Dawson, too, agreed that medieval culture incorporated synthetically two otherwise discordant ideals: the humanistic ideal, drawn from Hellenism, which is devoted to the powers and virtues of this world; and the prophetic or eschatological ideal, which stresses the power of a transcendent order other than this world. This polarity has been discussed by other scholars under the rubric of Athens and Jerusalem. Dawson, however, took a different approach to this matter by arguing that Christianity was not (and is not) itself the synthesis. Although it gave incentive to the synthetic ideal, the culture-forming energies of Christianity depended upon the Churchs ability to resist the temptation to become completely identified with, or absorbed in, the culture. Dawson maintained that the key of Western culture is the tension between Christianity and the culture which it spawned. In this regard, Dawson would probably agree with Leo Strauss remark that the conflict between the secular and the sacred is the secret of the vitality of the West.[3] It was Augustinian theology that explained how to understand this conflict.

In the Augustinian system, history is not viewed as a synthesis, but as a drama of two intersecting cities. Dawson argued that the predominance of the Augustinian position kept the synthetic ideal in the West from degenerating into a static order, as in fact happened in Christian Byzantium, which followed the Eusebian doctrine of a strict parallelism between church, state, and culture. The current of Augustinianism that flows under the surface of Western culture has frequently erupted as a reaction against tendencies to collapse church, state, and culture together. At times, these neo-Augustinian reactions have gone so far as to negate the very possibility of a Christian culture. Paradoxical though it may seem, Dawson maintained that despite these eruptions against culture, the Augustinian viewpoint actually fuels the prospect of a Christian age and civilization because culture is not regarded as a millennial kingdom but as a field of continual effort and conflict.[4] Once history and culture are viewed as something less than ultimate, the Christian religion can work with it, even implant itself in it, without violating its own fidelity to the first commandment.

Dawsons point is that Augustinian theology de-mystified the worlds presumption of autonomy and thereby unleashed what could best be called a missionary attitude toward culture. It gave incentive to the prospect of a Christian culture because it persistently called attention to the belief that without the leaven of the spirit, the world cannot transform itself. Furthermore, Augustinian theology emphasized the freedom of the human heart and the dynamism of the individual personality. No authentic development can take place behind the back of the individual. Therefore, the spiritual and moral laws which apply to the conversion and development of the individual must also apply to society. Dawson believed that this is a chief reason why, in Western culture, reform has not been successfully accomplished through a mere tinkering with sociological or political structures.

The second component of what Dawson termed the archetypal pattern of Western culture is rooted historically in the situation faced by the Western Church on the eve of its missionary expansion. In the Roman West, in spite of its lower standard of civilization, the conditions were favorable for an original and creative Christian culture. For here, Dawson explained, the church did not become incorporated in a social and political order that it was powerless to modify; it found itself abandoned to its own resources in a world of chaos and destruction.[5] Beginning with the Celtic missionary enterprise of the fifth century and continuing throughout the waves of missions which worked back through the north of Europe, the Western Church created a culture from its own ribprincipally by means of cenobitic monasticism. Under the hegemony of a common ecclesiastical tradition, Celts were allowed to be Celts and Franks to be Franks. From his study of world religions and cultures, Dawson concluded that it is only in the peculiar relationship between Europe and the Christian religion that we find a transnational, interracial pluralism wedded together with a common religion. This is why he argued that every subsequent effort to maintain this pluralism on the basis of the hegemony of a particular nation or race has proved disastrous. Either the principle of unity is lost, in which case Europe tends to revert to its multiple elements in civil war with one another, or one of these elements claims hegemony, in which case pluralism gives way to the totalitarian simulacrum of unity. In Dawsonian terms, it is reasonable to interpret modernity as an ongoing effort to enjoy the benefits of Christendom without a principle of unity sufficient to accomplish the task.

The third component, as we have already said, is the relationship between cultural progress and movements of moral reform. In Religion and the Rise of Western Culture Dawson put it this way: It is only in Western Europe that the whole pattern of culture is to be found in a continuous succession and alternation of free spiritual movements; so that every century of Western history shows a change in the balance of cultural elements, and the appearance of some new spiritual force which creates new ideas and institutions, and produces a further movement of cultural change.[6] Again, underneath the synthetic ideal, the cultural and religious currents of medieval Christendom were in constant tension, if not open conflict. Whether we point to the crisis posed by the Carolingian Empires ambition to create a theocratic monarchy such as that in the East or to the Avignon papacy, there were continuous efforts to maintain the Augustinian distinction between the Two Cities, and by means of grassroots reform movements to emancipate the Church from Caesar. The fortunes of Western culture, in terms of its internal mechanisms of change and development, are deeply tied to the reform impulse arising from the religious sector. This pattern continues into the modern age. In the history of the American Republic, for instance, virtually every major movement of social reform has arisen from the religious sector; even those movements which might be judged radically heterodox from a theological standpoint nevertheless appear to recapitulate the form or pattern that Dawson observes.

Indeed, it is interesting to note that today the burden of reform has been thrust once again upon the religious sector of our society. Religion is called upon to address every type of social or political ill, from drug addiction to race relations, and even to matters of international relations and military affairs. With some justification, it is said that this phenomenon is due, at least in part, to the fact that the clergy has become secularized and has nothing better to do than to dabble in politics. Although this is true to an extent, one is apt to overlook the fact that men in the clergy are invited to do so and, indeed, are rewarded for inserting themselves into social and political affairs. While this frequently amounts to an exploitation of religion, there also appears to be a widespread sense that the bankrupt policies of the City of Man need the moral symbols and authority of the City of God. The situation is complex and confused (and for this reason, I believe, a Dawsonian analysis is necessary in order to sort out all of the moving parts), but the fact remains that there are more rather than fewer appeals to religionso much so that there exists the danger of fanaticism.

For his part, Dawson warned that if religion is to be creative in its cultural tasks, it must first renew itself and diligently protect its own spiritual integrity. If it allows itself to be completely submerged in culture and politics, it will lose its salt. More than once in his writings, Dawson reminded his readers that the main service of monasticism was not its preservation of higher learning and culture but rather its fidelity to the principle of an autonomous Christian order which again and again proved to be the seed of new life.[7] Unfortunately, it has become almost counter-intuitive to many of our religious authorities that in order for religion to serve culture, it must first protect its own integrity. This is not the first time in Western history that, while the bishops concern themselves with international politics, the laity who are really in the culture see the need for a spiritual renewal.

IV

Earlier, we said that a historical apologetics requires designating the what and the when of the subject. Having done this, one is prepared to execute a critique or apologetic according to criteria which are intrinsic to the subject under review. We have outlined Dawsons position on the first two issues. Now, what are we to make of criteria for assessing the progress of Western culture? Dawson thought that it is, first of all, important to understand that modern man has a deep stake in using historical ideologies to hide his cultural dependence upon the pre-modern pattern of the West. At least since the Renaissance, the category of the dark ages was invented in order to suggest that, without the light of classical culture, the world was engulfed in darkness. This hermeneutic was continued by the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment (although it was put to the service of different ends). Whereas the Protestants suggested that the historical period of Christendom was the dark age of the Babylonian Captivity, when the primitive simplicity of the early Church was compromised, the Enlightenment claimed that after the privileged moment of Greek philosophy, the West fell into a darkness that was dispelled only by the emergence of modern science. It was Dawsons conviction (which is basically in accord with that of Eric Voegelin) that through the Archimedean lever of historical method, modern man uses history to posit ruptures in history itself. Whether it is consciously intended or not, this use of history authorizes the absolutism of the present moment. It thus hides and distorts the internal consistency of a historical subject.

It is worth recalling that, in his Discourse on Method, Descartes revealed that before he discovered the Archimedean lever of his own cogito, he first saw the need to set aside everything that he had received from history. He described the historical inheritance according to the metaphor of a haphazardly arranged city. Most cities, he observed, have been built over time by the hands of several masters. Their streets are circuitous and show little foresight. Rather than trying to reform such a city, Descartes vowed to build upon his own foundation.[8] While Descartes is principally remembered for his theory of mind-body dualism, the more basal dualism that is regulative of his entire philosophy is the notion that one can begin de novo, by suppressing those definite points in time and space which are conveyed through history and culture. With Descartes, historical hermeneutics undergoes a radical transformation; for what we have termed criteria internal to the subject no longer applies to a concrete historical subject, but to the mind of the observer. Dawson thought that this attitude toward history was one of the main factors in the secularization of European culture.[9]

In order to engage in a historical apologetic with modernism, it is necessary to demonstrate that modern culture still relies upon the operational efficacy of the original pattern of Western culture. But modernism claims to have superseded that pattern. In one way or another, the ideology that hides the continuing pertinence of the pattern has to be unmasked. We call a theory of history ideological if it entails a systematic divorce of the thinker from the facts of which he speaks. (Even Descartes would have to admit this principle.) Any theory of history that posits black holes in history, and then appeals to these lacunae in order to justify the value or status of the present moment, refutes itself; if history involves such radical discontinuities, then history proves nothing. You cannot have it both ways. Strauss has made this point with regard to historicism in his Natural Right and History (1953). In any case, it is an effective technique to show where the modernist, in his own report of things, relies upon the history that he claims to have superseded.

Both by temperament and training, Dawson preferred to turn his readers attention back to historical facts. He hoped to show that his interpretation of the development of Western culture was empirical and coherent in terms of accounting for the course of the historical subject without positing black holes. In this regard, he followed the spirit of English historiography. But he was not reluctant to use the self-referential argument: That is, to regard as data in support of his own position the fact that modernists implicitly admit the force of the archetypal pattern, even as they seek to dismiss it. For instance, in an essay entitled Karl Marx and the Dialectic of History (1935), Dawson remarked that Liberal interpretation of history has taken over from the Catholic tradition not only its sense of universalism, but also its dualism.[10] Here he wished to show how modern ideologies devoted to the ideal of progress are deeply committed to some version of the drama of the Two Cities, if for no other reason than to explicate why there is a real significance to the struggle between reactionary and progressive forces in Western culture.

In this respect, it is interesting to find John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty, criticizing Calvinism in particular and what he took to be the reactionary nature of Christianity in general, in terminology redolent of the Augustinian theme:

It will not be denied by anybody that originality is a valuable element in human affairs. This cannot be gain-said by anybody who does not believe that the world has already attained perfection in all its ways and practices. It is true that this benefit is not capable of being rendered by everybody alike; there are but a few persons, in comparison with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others, would likely be any improvement upon established practice. But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would be a stagnant pool.[11]

When Mill goes on to state that unless there were a succession of persons [of] ever recurring originality, society would sink into a torpid mediocrity, he has clearly transposed the content rather than the form of the original pattern of Western culture. Now, it is the liberated bohemian rather than the saint who represents the vanguard of cultural progress. Mill, however, implicitly recognizes all three components of the pattern constituted by Christendom: first, in the creative tension between the regenerate and unregenerate elements of a culture; second, in the ideal of an international order unified on the basis of moral freedom; and third, in the need for voluntary movements of reform. Dawson was convinced that one can go through the writings of the moderns and find the same sort of reliance upon the pattern of Christendom that they claim to have superseded.

V

If Dawson is correct in terms of the components which constitute the archetypal pattern of Western culture, then we have at hand criteria by which to assess the progress of our culture. First, we might ask whether the built-in tension represented by the Two Cities theme has been collapsed into a merely intramundane conflictbetween rich and poor, between men and women, or perhaps between the so-called First and Third Worlds. A secular distortion of the Augustinian theme eliminates the transcendent nature and meaning of historical conflict and therefore makes historical development dependent upon a dialectic of continual civil wars within the body of the culture. Second, we might ask whether our society is tending toward a healthy pluralism or whether it gravitates toward a brutal uniformity. Dawson himself contended that despite the self-congratulatory rhetoric about pluralism, modern society is becoming more homogeneous in terms of its practices. Finally, we should ask whether or not our cultural reform is conceived of, and executed, primarily in terms of manipulating political structures; that is, in such a way that the moral and spiritual power of the individual makes little or no difference. When these criteria are taken into account, it is difficult to arrive at any other judgment but that modern society continues in the original pattern but does so in a woefully deficient manner.

In short, our society lacks an explicit knowledge of the criteria required for self-discernment. Dawson, I believe, was correct in pointing out that this problem now has worldwide implications. Just as post-Renaissance historians wanted to demote, or actually erase, the relationship between Western European culture and the Christian religion, many contemporary historians (e.g., Spengler and Toynbee) are eager to dismiss European history itself as a merely parochial story. Not infrequently, it is said that the West is morally and culturally exhausted and that the direction and hope of world history are embodied in the emergent societies of the Third World. The West, like John the Baptist, must decrease so that the new societies may increase.

Of course, only someone operating from a Western perspective would entertain such an idea in the first place. Dawson felt that this attitude is profoundly flawed, for it overlooks the historical fact that the new Asia and Africa which are emerging with such revolutionary suddenness do not represent simply the reaction of Asiatic or African culture against the influence of an alien civilization, but rather the extension of Western civilization and Western international society into the extra-European world.[12] It would be a mistake, he warned, to kick away the ladder of European historiography because nearly the entire world now lives under the influence of European culture and its ideologies. If it is true, as Dawson contended, that these ideologies represent efforts to retain the unity of Christendom on secular terms, then it can be said that Europe has given to the world a broken image of its own Christendom. Europes own cultural and historical amnesia is an international problem. The ambition of Western intellectuals to use history, in the first place, to occlude the Wests dependence on its own religious heritage and, in the second place, to hide the fact that the extra-European world now lives under ideologies generated by the Wests own amnesia, is at the very nerve of the problem of world order.

The recovery, therefore, of a sense of Christendom is not some esoteric religious issue. The struggles of international order today are not essentially between Oriental and Occidental, or between First and Third Worlds, but between forces internal to Christendom itself. That two men from the East, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Karol Wojtyla, should grasp this reality more clearly than Western intellectuals would both please and distress Christopher Dawson.[13]

There are degrees of moral evil in the world, and neither we nor our allies are free of it. But let us remember: because no one is free of moral fault, it does not follow that all are equally at fault. We knew that when we condemned the evil empire of the Nazis. It is no less true when we condemn the evil empires of the Kremlin, South Africa and Ayatollah Khomeini. Sidney Hook

This essay in our series of Timeless Essays was first published here in March 2016. Republished with gracious permission from Modern Age (Spring/Summer 1984).

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politicswe approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.

Notes:

[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis, 1980), pp. 39 f.

[2] Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, in Mississippi Writings (New York, 1982), p. 500.

[3] Leo Strauss, The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy, The Independent Journal of Philosophy, 3 (1979), 113. Here, it is important to note that whereas Strauss is speaking chiefly about ideas, Dawson speaks about cultural structures which certainly involve ideas, but are not reducible to them. Dawson would disagree with Strausss notion that the chief tension is between Greek philosophy and biblical fideism. Dawson would argue that this overlooks the fact that it was only with the introduction of Christianity that the dialectic between Jerusalem and Athens assumed cultural flesh. He believed that the Renaissance represented the rebellion of Athens against Jerusalem and that the Reformation represented the rebellion of Jerusalem against Athens. But, for Dawson, this civil war only makes sense if one assumes the specific historical and cultural reality of Christendom. See his Progress and Religion (New York, 1960), pp. 143 f.

[4] Christopher Dawson, Dynamics of World History, ed. John J. Mulloy (La Salle, III., 1978), p. 239.

[5] Progress and Religion, p. 132.

[6] Christopher Dawson, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (New York, 1958), p. 21.

[7] Christopher Dawson, Medieval Essays (New York, 1959), p. 64.

[8] Descartes, Discourse on Method, Part II, trans. Haldane and Ross (Cambridge, Eng., 1931), pp. 87 f.

[9] Dynamics of World History, p. 245

[10] Ibid., p. 355.

[11] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Indianapolis, 1978), p. 61.

[12] Christopher Dawson, Christianity in East & West (La Salle, Ill., 1981), p. 29.

[13] For a more detailed treatment of the issues in this article, see my essay The Metahistorical Vision of Christopher Dawson, in The Dynamic Character of Christian Culture: Essays on Dawsonian Themes, ed. Peter Cataldo (Washington D.C., 1984).

The featured image is Disputation of Holy Sacrament (between 1509 and 1510) by Raphael (14831520) and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has been brightened for clarity.
The city itself played a big role in attracting the Hendrix-ISA chick hatchery to Grand Island, according to the Grand Island Area Economic Development Corp.

Grand Island made a good impression on Hendrix-ISA executives when they paid their first visit to the city in May of 2015.

The five executives were impressed with the 281 corridor, the downtown area, the citys hike and bike trails, College Park and the Career Pathways Institute.

In recruiting companies to a community, Your city really has to show well, said Dave Taylor, president of the economic development corporation. And Grand Island really does show well. It really does. They were impressed, and still are to this day when they come.

Mary Berlie, executive vice president of the economic development corporation, agrees that the aesthetics of the community played a huge part in it. Hendrix-ISA officials found the 281 corridor appealing and progressive. They also felt that the entire community was progressive, Berlie said. The city, they felt, doesnt sit and wait around for things to happen.

The Hendrix-ISA visitors liked the feel of the community, Berlie said. They felt at home walking off that airplane at the airport.

Efforts of the entire community go into bringing companies to Grand Island, Berlie notes, because voters have approved the use of LB840 funds.

The LB840 program allows cities to use local tax revenue for economic development projects. Through the Grand Island Area Economic Development Corp., the city is giving Hendrix a forgivable loan of $600,000.

The chick hatchery is nearing completion at 2325 Schimmer Drive, where it is the first tenant in Platte Valley Industrial Park East. An open house is planned for Aug. 15.

The hatchery will employ 43 people, at an average minimum rate of $13.50 per hour.

In addition, 10 area farmers are building feeder barns to serve the hatcherys needs.

Nebraskas roots are in agriculture. But we also know that we need to diversify that agriculture, as well as business and industry, Berlie said.

Hendrix-ISA and the feeder barns greatly assist in that diversification, not only for the community and business but for the farmers who are taking part, Berlie said.

Hendrix-ISA employee Bruce Brown said the company currently has three grower farms and three layer farms, the latter of which have birds now.

There are also two layer farms under construction, and two more are scheduled to be built next year.

Hendrix-ISA provides its customers with day-old chicks.

Hendrix-ISA is part of the Layer Business Unit of Hendrix Genetics, which is based in the Netherlands.

The hatchery might also interest other people in Grand Island.

At the open house, were going to have several Europeans here, both from Hendrix and other companies that do business with Hendrix, Taylor said. Were going to make sure they see the city and see the area and learn about what we do here.

Local representatives will share the aggressiveness of Grand Island and what we want to do as far as growth, Taylor said.

Between the hatchery and the feeder barns, the Hendrix project brings an infusion of more than $40 million in capital, Taylor said.

The barns are located in Buffalo, Fillmore, Franklin, Nuckolls, Merrick, York, Clay and Gosper counties.

When the Hendrix officials made their first visit May 15, 2015, the health of the city surprised them. Taylor remembers them saying I had no idea Grand Island was this big.

Features such as hike and bike trails and ball fields were also important. When a business looks at moving into a community, executives dont just look at the proposed site. They also ask, What are my employees going to do while theyre here? Taylor said.

The tour also, of course, included a visit to Platte Valley Industrial Park East.

When they got to Blaine Street and Schimmer Drive, the proposed location, one of the Hendrix executives made a hopeful comment. This is it, he said, about a site that was then a cornfield.

On a tour of CPI, Hendrix-ISA officials were shown what Grand Island does to assist employees who need help for all kinds of manufacturing and production in and around the area, Taylor said.

Traveling in a small bus, the group then went to Fonner Park. Local officials showed them all the buildings and how much we do to support agriculture, Taylor said. The Hendrix executives were impressed with the newness and appearance of the facility, Taylor said.

Coming downtown, they met in the Economic Development office, which is on the second floor of the Yancy Building. They took a walking tour of downtown, which included GIX Logistics and the Chocolate Bar.

The initial Grand Island visit, which was scheduled for two and a half hours, took four.

From there, we had multiple outbound visits to them, and they came here multiple times, Taylor said.

The courtship of Hendrix-ISA included meeting with the governor, and a lunch in Omaha with leadership from the state Department of Economic Development and the state Department of Agriculture.

Grand Island was included when Hendrix narrowed its list of potential cities to five, and then to two. The final selection was between Grand Island and a community in Iowa.

In January 2016, Hendrix announced that it had chosen Grand Island. The company purchased 20 acres of land at the corner of Blaine and Schimmer.

Under the agreement, the city and economic development corporation will provide up to $215,000 in job training assistance, up to $250,000 in job creation incentives and up to $135,000 in infrastructure support.

In choosing Grand Island, Hendrix-ISA liked the citys location. The company, which has a facility in Pennsylvania, is working its way west. If officials decide to, they can deliver their product to the West Coast from Grand Island.

LB840 funding and tax-increment financing were also helpful, Taylor said. But the cities Grand Island was competing against had the same type of incentives.

Central Nebraska is an ag-rich area, but poultry isnt heavy here. Its a relatively new industry in this area, Taylor said. Hendrix executives took the time to speak to farmers about the idea and received very favorable feedback, he said.

A helpful tool is a virtual tour of Platte Valley Industrial Park East and the community, showing access to area highways.

When the Hendrix folks came here, within two hours they had sent the virtual tour back to Europe, Berlie said.

Because of the virtual tour, executives in Europe knew what our community was all about before they even came here, she said.
It is cool and quiet in the Literacy Council of Grand Islands office. The air conditioners pump out chilly air for a lone student: Cenan Lopez is focused on a computer, with white headphones transmitting English lessons into his ears.

Lopez dresses neatly for his classes, with dark slacks, dress shoes and a crisp striped polo. He wears a 32-year-old watch and his hair is combed back.

His personality in the classroom is less formal; hes the Literacy Councils class clown.

I know I am, Lopez said, laughing.

He might spend a lot of time laughing, but he spends even more time studying.

Karla McGeorge, the councils office coordinator, said Lopez studies in the office every day throughout the morning, afternoon and evening.

So Lopez is one of the hardest-working and one of the most mischevious students. He can add another superlative  he is one of the councils oldest students, often his classmates senior by at least twenty years.

Oh no, I am very old! he said. I am 81 years old.

But he feels strong, he said, no problem. And his brain gets stronger every day through his English lessons. But that doesnt make learning the language any easier.

I try reading and writing, he said. This is very, very impossible.

And, he said, very important.

Lopez has been in the United States since 1968. Hes bounced from New York City, Los Angeles, Kissemmee, Fla. and Grand Island to look for job opportunities. Hes worked in restaurants, airports, watch manufacturies, food companies, travel centers, public transport, and in the meat factory he sees his classmates laboring in today.

Everybody is sick, he said, rubbing his body to show the places where many factory workers develop injuries. I could only work in the factory for one year.

Lopez stops his sentences to say just a moment when he needs to think of a word, but hes quick to say what hes learned from living in the United States for nearly half a century.

You need to learn English, he said. If you understand nothing, you get nothing! No job, no work. No nothing. I live a long time in the United States, but I didnt speak English. Now I want to be speaking more and more.

Lopez arrived in the United States from Colombia on Saturday, Aug. 3, 1968. He said he was working by that Monday.

After all, he had come to the U.S. to find a good paying job, which was difficult in Colombia.

Lopez said it is different, living over there. In job interviews, managers look for an expensive suit, a young age and impressive connections.

If you dont have those things?

They say, Two, three days we call. Never. Never get call, Lopez said. When you go, they take the application, and  He mimed throwing paper into a trashcan. This is the system in Colombia, in my country.

Lopez was earning a negligible wage working as a bus driver, in a country with corruption, crime and a broken economy and infrastructure. He told himself, this is an impossible life. I no can continue.

So he talked to a friend living in the United States and told him, Carlos, I need you to help me. I need to go to the United States. An affadavit arrived for Lopez to work in the United States, and he took it to Mr. Jensen at the embassy, Lopez said. I never forget his name.

The embassy approved him and gave him 15 days to leave for the U.S.

They said, If you dont go to the United States in 15 days, then forget it. Lopez said. So I told my wife, I need to go to the United States because it is torture to continue like this, it is torture.

Once in the U.S., Lopez sent money to his wife until she was able to join him in 1969. They had their first of seven children in New York City, and today, his eldest daughter works at CHI Health St. Francis in Grand Island.

Lopez and his wife are U.S. citizens, and they have been residents of Grand Island for 24 years.

I live for 24 years on Elm Street, Lopez said. It is nice, very small city with not too much noise, not too much traffic and very nice people.

He loves the United States for the potential he said it presents.

It is the best country in the world. You eat good, your suit good, you sleep good, your car good. Impossible in Colombia, Lopez said. You have to work hard, but you have everything here.

Lopez retired when he was 62, but his retirement only allowed him to relocate his work ethic to studying English.

When some students open the door to leave 15 minutes before the councils office closed, Lopez asked them: Where are you going? Going home? No, no, no, no, not yet.

They responded, What, are you sleeping here?

He just laughed.

Lopez calls English impossible, but he practices reading, writing and listening constantly.

He changes television channels at home from his wifes novellas to English-speaking programs. He reads every night until 11 p.m., and he practices verbs, which he said are the hardest part of learning English.

I come here all the time, I am a continuing student, Lopez said. It is very important to me to learn everything. If you understand nothing, it is impossible.

And hes happy every day and every night in Grand Island, even with his long studying hours.

I am supposed to come in every day, he said. No lazy. Everyone should come in to study. Everyone, learn all the time. All the time, always.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police has made 20 arrests in the lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ayub Pandit.

J-K Police has made 20 arrests in the lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ayub Pandit.

By Indo-Asian News Service: The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Monday said it has arrested 20 persons accused in the lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ayub Pandit over a month ago.

Pandit was lynched on June 23 by a mob outside the city's biggest mosque in Nowhatta area where he was deployed to regulate entry of devotees.

"The 20 main accused involved in the lynching of the officer have been arrested and more arrests are likely in the coming days," Inspector General of Police Munir Ahmad Khan told the media here.

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"The investigation is ongoing and hunt for the mastermind is on," he said, adding the belongings of the slain officer had been recovered from the accused. Khan said one of the persons involved in the lynching, Sajad Ahmad Gilkar, was killed by security forces on July 12 in Redbugh village of Badgam district.

Khan, however, said the murder of the officer was a spontaneous act and did not look like a pre-planned one.

He said the involvement of senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq in the killing was under the scanner.

The Mirwaiz had delivered a sermon inside the Jamia Masjid in Nowhatta area on July 23 as it was the holy night of 'Shab-e-Qadr'.

Also Watch:

Jammu and Kashmir: Terrorist killed, 3 overground workers of militants arrested

Jammu and Kashmir: Police seize Rs 300 crore of heroin in major cross-LoC drug bust

--- ENDS ---
Maryville police officials have began the process of hiring two new police officers.

The Maryville Board of Trustees approved a motion to allow Police Chief Rob Carpenter to make a conditional offer of employment to two replacement police officers.

The openings were the result of the resignation of two police officers, Colin Subick and Paul Walther, who are training to become members of the Illinois State Police.

In late June, trustees authorized Carpenter to choose potential candidates from the department's hiring list.

Mayor Craig Short said he hopes the process moves along and the two positions are filled.

Sgt. (Brandon) Ponce is conducting the background investigations on the two candidates and has other things scheduled in the coming week with one of the candidates, Short said.

If everything moves forward and pans out like we hope, we will have one position filled soon and one in a few weeks.

Short said if the process would be stopped and one of the two werent hired, the village would have to hire from the new list that will be created in early August when potential candidates will take the written and physical tests to be placed on the list.

The next list will be certified in September, he said. If we dont get both positions filled off the current list, we will have to wait.

Short added that if one of the new hires is a new police officer the process could be delayed further, as the next police academy class would be held in January.

If it comes to that, it makes no sense in hiring someone that we cant get trained.
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Linkedin Sebastian Partogi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 09:10 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa0b57f 4 Art & Culture religion,LGBT,#LGBT,homosexual,Christians Free

In 2010, I attended the final session of a closed critical discussion group questioning religious dogmas. Our college professor, who facilitated our discussions, had requested that we bring our Bibles that day, causing me to raise my eyebrows. That day, I understood why.

He asked us to raise our bibles. Now, those of you who no longer believe in the authority of the good book, slam your bibles, he said. No sound was heard for a few minutes then, slam! We remained quiet for a few awkward seconds before around 30 people inside that room began to stare at me. Me in the corner. Me in the spotlight. Losing my religion, to quote the lyrics of REMs 1991 song Losing My Religion.

I woke up that morning in a cold sweat. Thankfully, it was just a dream, as Michael Stipe sings in that song. My outrage at how religion abuses its power, however, was  and still is  more than just a dream.

I was questioning my religious faith when I was a college student, having read books such as Richard Dawkins seminal work The God Delusion as well as Sam Harris The End of Faith. I was curious about reading these books because certain people warned me that the books could make you lose your faith. Showing the hubris of a 19-year-old, I read the books in order to demonstrate that my faith would not be shaken at all. How naive, right?

What disturbed me most was how religious teachings were blatantly abused to control and subjugate people, particularly the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

In 2010, after being propelled by certain events, I was radicalized as an anti-religion crusader, posting messages on the matter on Facebook (looking back, I realized that my actions were quite risky, considering that there are blasphemy and internet laws). One of the driving forces was the fact that 2010 was the year in which circumstances forced me to stop lying to myself and really come to terms with the fact that I am gay.

I began to see how the Christian church and people who claimed to walk Christs path of compassion could be very judgmental and have no compassion at all for their LGBT family members. I also saw how the Christian right-wing in America, the Westboro Baptist Church for one, could be very hateful toward the LGBT community, as well as women, Jews and Muslims.

This religious delusion is leading us to be cruel to each other. A rising Indonesian LGBT scholar and activist once wrote on their Facebook account that Christians should love your neighbors, except when theyre gay.

Quite recently, certain friends confided in me that theyve started to doubt their faith after witnessing how religion has been grossly politicized during the divisive and highly sectarian election in Jakarta. Families and friends  from different or even the same religion  were quarrelling because of political choices and moral righteousness, thanks to politicians who used religion without any concern about sincere religious faith, but only to obtain power.

In a book called Ethno-religious Violence in Indonesia: From Soil to God, edited by Chris Wilson (Routledge, 2008), readers could comprehend how religious dogmas and the figure of God may serve as a potent justification for people to commit atrocities. Religions have always been atrocious and cruel. Remember how the church used to burn witches at the stake?

The secularization process driven by science and technology, however, has somewhat distorted religious teachings. On the one hand, most people have begun to shy away from literal readings of religious scriptures. But on the other hand, and this is more dangerous, the comprehension of religious doctrines has a greater tendency to be twisted from sincere confession of faith into commoditization for political and economic purposes. This commoditization, coupled with what philosopher Jurgen Habermas terms as the revivalism of religion brought by the spiritually dry modern life, creates a lethal mix.

This explains all the hatred we observe from around the world, whether against LGBT, women, Muslims, Christians and many more. The use of religions as political identities has somehow made the us versus them distinction fiercer, leading to endless conflicts and violence.

Observing the moral arrogance of people around me, I became skeptical, even cynical toward religion. I stopped going to church, I could not even pray anymore. I know a lot of people who perform their religious rituals regularly yet still treat others unfairly.

Then I was forced to get out of my black-and-white reasoning. In 2014, I was invited to a seminar on LGBT issues at the Jakarta Theological Seminary (STT Jakarta). The seminar was organized by a priest who found it distressing to see LGBT individuals being rejected by their families and congregations because of their sexual orientation. My eyes were opened a bit when I saw a number of theologians and Christians there who, no matter what religious doctrine they subscribed to, still chose to see those of the LGBT community as dignified human beings instead of reducing them to labels denoting sexual orientations.

I also went to a Buddhist meditation camp in 2015 at a friends invitation and participated in a 12-day silent retreat. Despite all the violence in the name of God that was going on out there, I felt deep human kindness and compassion in both places. I discovered for myself that this is what it looks like when people practice sincere faith.

Because faith is something very personal  Do not judge, or you too will be judged, Matthew 7:1 says  I began to understand what that meant. Life is tough for everyone. Instead of being judgmental, thereby exacerbating someone elses suffering, why dont we try to alleviate the pain instead?

In the end, my friends and I  who are questioning our religious faith  can be at peace with ourselves again. In the end, only kindness matters. We no longer care what someones religion is as long as we see deep kindness.

We also begin to see the bright side of religion as a system. Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion ( 2012 ) show that religions do have a positive side as they encourage a sense of community and motivate prosocial behavior. We also begin to recognize that there is gold in every religious tradition.

Apparently, spirituality is at the core of such positive things. As Brene Brown says, faith minus vulnerability equals extremism, faith plus vulnerability equals spirituality. We opt for the latter. After all, it is better to be vulnerable and continuously reinvent our spiritual convictions than to have religious doctrines shoved down our throats, propelling us to be brutal extremists.
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Linkedin Mark Heyward (The Jakarta Post) Makassar  Mon, July 24, 2017 09:20 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa0d093 4 People Makassar-International-Writers-Festival,Lily-Yulianti-Farid,Indonesian-writer Free

A bundle of energy with contagious enthusiasm, Lily Yulianti Farid is best known as the founder of the Makassar International Writers Festival (MIWF).

The accomplished writer with a doctorate in gender studies from the University of Melbourne has created something magical with this annual festival, now in its seventh year, and in doing so she has made a lasting contribution to the life of the nation.

Born in South Sulawesi capital Makassar on July 16, 1971, Lily is the only daughter of a Bugis family. She grew up with the heady scent of the printed word  smells of cut paper and fresh ink.

Her parents ran a modest printing business in the city but it was the weekly visit from the book warung (mobile library) that really excited her interest in books and reading. Like a distant lover waits for the postman, the young Lily waited for the man from the mobile library.

Each week he would come at the same time bringing new books on his motorbike  comics and magazines for a family hungry to read. In this way, Lilys childhood was filled with books.

Her father was an avid reader of popular martial arts writer Kho Ping Ho. The books were rented on a weekly basis. Her mother read womens magazines. And Lily devoured weekly editions of Bobo, Ananda and Indonesian comics.

By the time she was in primary school, Lily had her own small collection of childrens literature, including translated copies of Enid Blytons Famous Fiveand Georges Remis Tintin.

With an early instinct for entrepreneurship, she recalls running a small box library, charging her classmates ten rupiah a week for book rentals.

Read also: Agustinus Wibowo: Making peace with identities

In junior-secondary school, Lily began to write, publishing serialized stories in a youth magazine. At 14, she won a writing competition for a short story.

Lily recalls the excitement of receiving a wesel postal note of her prize money which she cashed in at the post office.

This is fun! she recalls thinking. I can get rewarded for writing, the thing I most love to do! At that point, Lilys fate was decided. She had become a writer.

She continued to write at senior-secondary school and university, winning several competitions for academic writing and publishing in the campus newspaper. As the medals accumulated in the family cabinet and she attended various ceremonies, the commitment to writing grew.

After graduating from Hasanuddin University with a degree in Agricultural Studies, Lily joined Kompas newspaper as a cub journalist. And, while she still didnt consider herself to be a real writer, she continued to publish fiction.

Life changed again. In 2001, Lily won a scholarship from the Australian Government and went to study in Melbourne, where she completed a Masters in Gender Studies in 2003 and a PhD in 2015. She continued her journalism, writing for Radio Australia and then Radio Tokyo.

Lily first discovered writing festivals in Melbourne. Then, in 2008, she was invited to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, and in 2009 she was appointed as a member of the curatorial board for selecting emerging writers from Indonesia at the Festival. In that year, she also took part in the Utan Kayu Literary Biennale at the Salihara in Jakarta and the Singapore Writers Festival.

I just thought that festivals were such a cool thing! she says. The way that writers and readers can all come together; all genres; emerging writers and big names; other artists and audiences. Everyone comes together to discuss literature, writing and ideas. At that time, the picture wasnt yet clear, but I had begun to think about the idea of a writers festival in Makassar.

In 2008, Lilys first book, Makkunrai, was published, and, later that year, Maiasaura. Both are collections of short stories that explore issues of gender in Indonesia  and in particular the role of women in traditional Bugis societies.Makkunrai is the Bugis term for female. She later produced another short-story collection, entitled Family Room. All three books have been translated into English by the Lontar Foundation.

Read also: Jakarta 1965 and the foreign correspondent

In 2010, Lily and the filmmaker Riri Riza established Rumata Artspace in Makassar, and in 2011 she launched MIWF.

All of the experience of writing, of reading, of networking, of journalism and travelling to literary events in Jakarta, Ubud, Melbourne, Singapore, Tokyo, The Hague and elsewhere crystalized into this one event. The magic was born.

When talking about the festival, Lilys eyes light up.

There is some magic, she says, when people get hold of the idea and begin to make it happen.

The heart of the festival, she explains, is the people  the volunteers, the sponsors, the audiences, the writers and the artists  all the people that make it happen.

Unlike most literary festivals, all of the events in the four-day festival are free. As a result, the festival attendance is massive. In 2016, over eight thousand officially attended  though the number was probably much higher. This year, in 2017, the number was probably around ten thousand.

Its an investment, explains Lily. An investment in future generations. I see the young people that came to our first festivals growing up. They now have children, their own families. And their children are readers. That is the future!

A few days in South Sulawesi to attend the Makassar International Writers Festival soon confirm Lilys opinion.

The magic is evident when the historic Fort Rotterdam is transformed into a writers festival venue. The lights glitter, throngs of people, young and old, gather together for poetry readings, concerts, book launches and discussions  or just to hang out.

The pop-up libraries and temporary books stalls are crowded with readers and the air is abuzz with the excitement of ideas, of literature, of language and words.

With this years festival over, Lily settles back to her life between Makassar, where she grew up, and Melbourne, where her husband works and her son is studying at Melbourne University.

She pursues her interest in literature and gender studies  and, while anticipating next years festival, she tries to find time to complete the novel she is working on. When asked what the novel about, she simply said, Ah, youll have to wait and see! with that twinkle in her eye.
The governor said that law and order situation in the state is deteriorating and that Yogi government needs to act on this immediately.

By Siraj Qureshi: Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik today lamented that despite his good relations with former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the CM did not act on as many as 40 cases of corruption which he had sent to him through Lokayukta. Now, all these cases have been sent to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Arriving in Agra with family on a personal visit, the governor said that law and order situation in the state is deteriorating and that Yogi government needs to act on this immediately. Outlining his three-year tenure in the state, he said that he has suspended the Kanpur University Vice Chancellor Munna Singh for corruption and asked 29 universities in the state to restore their presently disturbed academic calendar.

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He said that an investigation is underway at the Jauhar University in Rampur and action will be taken after the report arrives. Naik said that it was for the first time that a meeting of the Vice Chancellors was attended by the state's education minister which will definitely improve the state of higher education in Uttar Pradesh.

The governor said that the Dr BR Ambedkar University management has been instructed to ensure the proper upkeep of this statue as Shivaji had a rich history associated with Agra, where he had been kept captive and he escaped from Aurangzeb's captivity through his wit. He said that whatever has been said about Shivaji by British historians is mostly wrong and a result of the British predilection towards drama.

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Ninda Daianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 08:49 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa0b3a8 4 Art & Culture short-story,#shortstory,crime Free

Her real name is not Rachel. Its actually Rah  but Rah is too simple, too blah. She keeps her last name, but nobody usually asks her that. Rah and the black man are standing around five feet from each other, divided only by a glass door. This is not how she wants to die. She locks eyes with his pleading eyes. She runs, reaching for the handles. She locks the door.

His pupils grow bigger. He turns to his right shoulder and then back to her. This is not how Rah wants to die. Rah can see her own reflection through the door. Shes wearing an oversized black shirt and black pants. Her black hair is tied neatly underneath her hairnet, underneath her hat that says Ikucha.

This is not how she wants her body to be found. She shouldve finished her degree  she couldve been working a nine-to-five job and she wouldve been at her apartment now, eating Cheetos. Instead, she quit school and never went back home when she was supposed to. Instead, she works packing someone elses food every night, making sure theyre always the right order. Instead, she has an expired ID and passport. She cant even fly anywhere.

Rah runs back to the counter and hides. The guys a regular, not even once does he change his order: chicken Lo Mein with one eggroll, extra duck, chili and soy sauce. He tips sometimes, a dollar or two.

She is not willing to die because of him. Rah just wants to go home now. Nothing is worth her life: not convenience, not that new zebra purse she bought online last night. Not America.

She tries to find the counter key  she needs to lock the register. Just in case they rob the place. Her manager always tells her to swallow the key in this kind of situation. Rah reaches right to the back of the bottom shelf, amongst the napkins and sanitizer sprays. Her hands tremble as she grabs a small pencil case.

She gets the key from the case. Rah squats, holding her stomach, half sitting. She takes a step back, holding her breath, positioning herself right behind the register. She gropes the registers drawer and finds the keyhole. Rah turns the lock sideways. Click. She puts the key in her bra, right above the wire.

Rah sits back down and sighs. She looks at her watch: 10:03. She hears the man banging on the door. Let me in, yo, please let me in. You know me.

Will it be her responsibility if he gets shot and dies? Will that be her wrongdoing? Will that be on her? Will it count as her sin? But then there is no such thing as sin. If she dies, she would just rot in the ground. This guy is making her go down with him. Who the hell is he? Hes not even her boyfriend. Oh well, she hasnt gotten laid in a long time anyway. If she survives, then shell have to install Tinder.

Hey, yo. I know youre in there. Let me in, please.

She remembers a few years back when she had to write an essay about human priorities and how they change accordingly as human needs in life improve. Up one level. She doesnt remember the term for it. Isnt this, right now, the perfect example of survival skills? She herself will always come first.

It doesnt matter. Rah looks at her watch again. Still 10:03. Not even a minute has passed. Rah takes a look. She bobbles half her head over the counter. Theres that sound again she just heard five days ago: a gunshot. She squeezes her fingers together, forming a fist. This is the third time. Third strike and youre out.

Dont try to run, bitch, she hears another dudes voice. Goddamn it.

Rah digs back under the counter. She can go back to the kitchen now if she wants  at least Kenny and Ani are there.

Bang. Sh*t. She bets the kitchen staff cant hear a thing. Theyre always blasting their nasty upbeat music. If she yells help, itll be too obvious. The glass door is too thin and the windows show the inside of the whole place.

If the guy still has three bullets, he can shoot the dumbass dude again, the glass door, and then he would shoot her last.

F**king hell, man! the guy yells, moaning.

Rah imagines red drops coming from his heart, leaking out through his shirt. The guy is a nice guy, but she deserves to live more than him. Everyone chooses a responsibility and this is Rahs choice. Why would she jeopardize her own life for someone who is nameless in her life? Wait. Maybe his name is Jeremy, if she remembers it correctly.

Imma shoot you again. Stop walking. I already told you  I just wanna talk. Dont make me waste my bullet again, Rah hears footsteps drifting closer to her space. Hey. Stop it. Stop walking. NOW.

She closes her eyes. She sits on the floor; her muscles are sore. Just go away from her take-out shop. Just walk further down the street in front of the FedEx office. Just do your deeds there.

A tear runs down her face. Shell call her mother tonight and tells her she loves her, if all is well. Hell, she has never even seen her nephew. Hes three now. What will her older brother tell him about her?

All she wants right now is that Lontar fruit they usually sell at the fish market, already cut into perfect bite-size pieces, ready to eat. They sell it at a blue stall, right by where they sell the dead turtles. And of course, she wants that peanut sauce with fresh beansprouts, tofu, half boiled eggs and green beans from across from her old school.

The footsteps grow louder and then theyre gone. They must be walking away from here. Rah has never been to other countries besides her home and the great United States.

She opens her eyes and stands up. Theyre gone. She has always wanted to go to Budapest. They say its really cheap.

Rah wipes her tears and fixes her black pants. She walks to the glass door and unlocks it. She sees the regular limping on his right leg. The other man with the gun is still following him, still aiming the gun.

She goes to the kitchen; the men are busy frying pot stickers and unloading the dishwasher, obscure. She fixes her bra and clears her throat.

Hey, Rachel, that ones all packed and ready to go, the cook says. Dont forget to bring that too, alright?

***

Ninda Daianti is an Indonesian writer and writing instructor. She teaches Creative Writing at The Jakarta Post Writing Center.

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We are no longer accepting short story submissions for both online and print editions. New submissions towill not be published.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 22:35 1936 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa28d46 1 City drug-abuse,jakarta Free

Jakarta is home to the highest number of drug abusers of any city in the country, an official has said.



Jakarta Police narcotics unit head Sr. Comr. Nico Afinta said that based on data from the National Narcotics Agency, there were around five million drugs users nationwide, with many living in the capital.



"There are up to five million drug users in the country. Around 1.2 million of them are in Jakarta, Nico said at the Jakarta Police headquarters on Monday as quoted by kompas.com.

He said that in line with the rampant circulation of drugs in the country, the number of drug abusers had continued to increase, adding that those between 25 and 30 years of age were the most prone to fall victim.



Last week, the Jakarta Police shot dead a Chinese national, who allegedly smuggled a ton of crystal methamphetamine from China.



President Joko Jokowi Widodo has instructed law enforcement officers to take a stern stance against drug dealers operating in Indonesia, including gunning them down if necessary.

Another narrative, however, sparked nationwide concern last year, when Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Haris Azhar conveyed information about the alleged involvement of police officials in the network of executed drug lord Freddy Budiman.



Haris said the police had partly contributed to the distribution of drugs in the country. (fac)
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 20:03 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa26d01 1 City Semanggi-interchange,motorcycle,ban Free

The Jakarta administration has decided to bar motorcyclists from using a new overpass in Central Jakarta called Simpang Susun Semanggi (Semanggi Interchange) as a result of fears they might take selfies, which could endanger their lives.

Jakarta Transportation Agency deputy head Sigit Wijatmoko said that motorcyclists tended to stop at the Semanggi cloverleaf to take pictures and the wind pressure at the height of the new road might pose a serious danger.

This is not a form of discrimination against motorcyclists. Instead we are concerned about their safety because instead of crossing the interchange, they may just go there to take pictures, he said on Monday.

Jakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat also expressed similar concerns, saying that the site was dangerous for anyone taking pictures.

Taking selfies has become a trend, right? If something bad happens, who would be responsible? Djarot said.

As previously reported, Djarot is planning to issue a gubernatorial decree for the interchange before the planned soft launch on July 29.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo is scheduled to inaugurate the interchange on Independence Day on Aug.17. (fac)
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Linkedin Nethy Darma Somba (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura  Mon, July 24, 2017 18:15 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa20176 1 National Papua,MamberamoRaya,mamberamo,accident Free

The Jayapura Search and Rescue (SAR) team in Papua are still searching for the 13 people who went missing on the Mamberamo River in the Bintang Mountains in Batani district on Friday.

"Our men are still on the ground, combing along the river but so far none of them has been found," SAR Jayapura head Melkianus Kutta told The Jakarta Post in Jayapura.

The 13 were passengers on a boat carrying a total of 28 people that capsized after it hit logs in the river.

Batani district head Anike Alwolka said the boat was then stuck in the middle of the river until a large wave smashed into it.

"These days the river's stream can quickly escalate because of rain," he told the Post.

Read also: Another cargo plane skids off runway in Papua

Only 15 of the passengers have been found. They were transferred to Jayapura using a Pilatus Porter plane chartered from AMA.

The passengers were residents of Mamblu village in Yahukimo regency who were traveling to Batani to attend a religious ceremony.

"The injured victims are still being treated at the Yowari Hospital,'' Anike said. (bbs)

Topics : Papua MamberamoRaya mamberamo accident
Archeologist and development activist Mitu M. Prie works on many different things but always finds a reason to read.

I always find time to read. I read news on a daily basis as well as things related to work and others in between, said Mitu, who graduated from the University of Indonesia (UI) in 1984.

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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arby (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 19:00 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa25a42 1 City Pancasila,civil-servants Free

Jakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat has warned his staff to resign from office if they feel the state ideology Pancasila is irrelevant to the country.

He said that all civil servants had sworn to protect and abide by the ideology.

"If any civil servant thinks Pancasila is not appropriate, just be nice and send a resignation letter," Djarot told reporters at City Hall on Monday.

Djarot added that those opposed to Pancasila should even leave the country and find other nations that accommodated their ideology.

Djarot made the comment following intensive attempts from the central government to promote Pancasila and crackdowns on organizations believed to threaten the state ideology.

Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo has previously urged all civil servants involved in any activity in contravention of the Pancasila principles to voluntarily resign from their positions. (fac)
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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 13:24 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa1613b 1 Business Jokowi,criticism,Minister,Regulations,investment,climate Free

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has criticism government ministers for issuing ministerial regulations that are not in line with the government's deregulation program to improve the ease of doing business in the country.

The President said some regulations made doing business in the country even more complicated.

"What we need to do is improve ease of doing business in this country. Ministerial regulations should always refer to the objective. They should not scare investors away," Jokowi said during a Cabinet meeting at the State Palace in Jakarta on Monday.

He said unfriendly regulations, for example, had been issued by the environment and forestry minister and the energy and mineral resources minister in the past two months.

The President did not pinpoint which regulations were not friendly to investors, but said the business community had not responded positively to the regulations issued by the ministers.

He called on the ministers to help create a better business climate in the country because the easier it was to open a business, the higher economic growth would be.

Jokowi aims to have the country ranked 40th on World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index by 2019 from the 91st position in 2016. (bbn)

Topics : Jokowi criticism Minister Regulations investment climate
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 20:34 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa27ebf 4 Business illegal-fishing,confiscated-ships,auction,Susi-Pujiastuti,rejection Free

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti has rejected a proposal to auction off three fishing boats confiscated after being used for poaching.

There is no plan to auction the ships or any other measure but to sink them, Susi said in Jakarta on Monday, as reported by kompas.com, adding that there had been no order on the matter from President Joko Jokowi Widodo.

The Batam Prosecutors Office in Riau Islands has reportedly suggested to auction off three foreign vessels, while the Attorney Generals Office is now studying the proposal.

The boats in question are the 150-gross-tonnage (GT) KM KNF 7444, the 100-GT KM KNF 7858 and the 16-GT KM SLFA 5066. The three captains have been found guilty of illegal fishing in Indonesian waters.

Susi said ships that had been confiscated by the state because of illegal fishing could not be used to carry out fishing activities. She said her ministry was open to other options, though.

If there is a proposal to convert them into research ships, we may discuss it further, she said, adding that many confiscated foreign ships were not only used for illegal fishing but also for other crimes, like smuggling.

Meanwhile, she added, confiscated ships would fetch only very low prices at an auction. For instance, a 100-GT ship was offered at Rp 186 million (US$13,975), while in fact it could be worth about Rp 1 billion, she added. (bbn)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 19:01 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa260a8 1 City Royale-VIP-Bus,bus,party-bus,#party-bus,Transportation,#Transportation Free

Those wishing to party amid the hustle and bustle of Jakartas traffic need to look for another alternative. On Friday, the Transportation Ministry reportedly seized the Royale VIP Bus, a bus designed for mobile partying.

First introduced in 2014, the Royale VIP Bus is a luxury tourist bus that can accommodate up to 25 guests and is equipped with a surround-sound system, a karaoke machine, a minibar, a toilet and two dance poles.

The Transportation Ministrys director general for land transportation, Pudji Hartanto, told Kompas.com (http://megapolitan.kompas.com/read/2017/07/21/20480131/bus-pesta-yang-dikandangkan-kemenhub-didesain-seperti-tempat-karaoke) that the agency seized the bus, because it did not have the required paperwork.

Read also: Buses from airport to hotels, shopping centers start rolling

Pudji said the vehicle registration certificate (STNK) obtained for the party bus was in fact issued for a private vehicle and not for public transportation.

The official said that although he considered the bus to be an interesting proposition, he said that it failed to meet the safety standards designed for public transportation vehicles.

Royale VIP Bus owner Deisy Wong Will declined to give a statement when contacted by The Jakarta Post. (jes)
An event organised by the Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA) at the Bathinda Military station witnessed a furious cat-fight between wives of two senior officers.

By Shruti Singh: In a major embarrassment for the Indian Army, the issue of an altercation between the wives of two officers has reached the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which has now sought a report from the Army headquarters.

It was during an event organised by the Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA) at the Bathinda Military station that the wives of two senior officers got into a cat-fight.

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HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED:

The untoward incident happened at Chetak Officer's Institute (COI) in Bathinda Military station, wherein the Commanding Officer's wife scolded, abused, threatened and beat up wife of a Lieutenant Colonel in public during an AWWA event.

The incident was witnessed by several army officers and jawans. Top officials did everything to brush the incident under the carpet but the officer whose wife was abused went ahead and took to the issue to the PMO.

A complaint has been filed by the officer with the PMO and the same letter has also been addressed to Ministry of Home Affairs, National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Women, CBI, and DGP Punjab Police.

The official complaint also read, "The victim is likely to be harassed and curbed from seeking justice by the unconstitutional AWWA and its supporting organisation."

According to a message circulating widely on instant messaging applications like WhatsApp, the Commander of the Corps is now trying to play down the entire issue and the officer is being threatened of adverse ACR in case he pursues the matter any further.

WHAT IS AWWA?

AWWA works for the welfare of the spouses, children and dependents of the Army personnel. It aims at the holistic development and well-being of Army wives including their children and rehabilitation of war widows and differently-abled children.

As the wives of the Army officers do not come under the Army Act, Army authorities cannot take action against the culprit despite the fact that the incident was witnessed by several senior Army officers and jawans.

AWWA is a non-government organistation (NGO) headed by the Army chief's wife and it is mandatory for the wife of every serving Army officer and jawan to be a member and take part in the activities of the Association. The Association has been officially registered as a Welfare Society with the Registrar of Societies, Delhi Administration. It is one of the largest voluntary organisations in India that has charted its course for fulfilling the societal obligation through social empowerment and skill building of spouses and dependents of Army personnel since inception.

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In 2014, the wife of an Army Major posted in Faridkot complained to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of South Western Command for being allegedly forced to take part in rehearsals for a fashion show by the Brigade Commander of her husband.

OTHER COMPLAINTS

The Commanding Officer's wife is 'formally' addressed as the First Lady in the defence forces.

First Lady, as per the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the wife or hostess of the chief executive of a country or jurisdiction or the leading woman of an art or profession.

The complaining officer has filed an RTI seeking answer for whom is the term 'First lady' used.

The officer has also questioned the discontinuation of entitled ration for the officers of Defence Forces post the implementation of 7th CPC last month. The officer has asked for formal certified true copy of the document on which initial proposal for such discontinuation was mooted and which contains remarks and recommendations of the dealing authorities and also the final decision of the competent authority and the document which contains views/ remarks of the three services chiefs on the same.

Also read:

Major's wife threatens action for being forced to rehearse for a show

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Watch: Army officer shoots wife on her way to job interview, tries to shoot her sister too

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 16:01 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa1b3e5 1 City bullying,rehabilitation Free

Nine junior high school students, who were recently expelled after having reportedly harassed and assaulted an elementary school student, are currently undergoing rehabilitation, an official has said.

"Without losing their education rights, they are currently being rehabilitated at the city's Social Agency," Jakarta Education Agency head Sopan Adrianto said at City Hall on Monday.

Sopan said the decision, which involved many parties, including the Social Affairs Ministry and the National Commission on Child Protection, was made in part because the case was reported to the police.

He said the nine students would later be enrolled in private schools to continue their studies after undergoing the three-month rehab.

"We received confirmation from the schools. Everything is being handled by the Social Affairs Ministry," he said.

The nine students, comprising male and female students from several junior high schools in Central Jakarta, were recorded on video appearing to bully a female elementary school student in an empty area of Thamrin City shopping center.

They appear to grab the victims hair and punch and kick her. The video ends with the victim being forced to kneel down before the students and kiss their hands, while they take pictures of the act. (fac)

Topics : bullying rehabilitation
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Linkedin Suzanne Cordeiro (Agence France-Presse) San Antonio  Mon, July 24, 2017 09:45 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa0d4e0 2 World migrant-workers,Texas Free

Nine suspected migrants were dead Sunday after being packed inside an overheated truck that was discovered in a Walmart parking lot in Texas, and 30 others were hospitalized in what police said appeared to be a "horrific" human trafficking crime.

Seventeen of those taken to hospitals after the discovery in the early morning hours in San Antonio -- about a two hour drive from the Mexican border -- were in critical condition, suffering from heat stroke and dehydration, authorities said.

At least 39 people were in the trailer, including one person who was later found in a nearby wooded area, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

At least two were school-age children, Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

It was not immediately clear how many suspected migrants might have fled and were unaccounted for.

City police chief William McManus told CNN that the dead were all adult men. Authorities were not releasing the victims' names or nationalities until their families were notified.

Mexican officials were working with US authorities to identify the dead, the country's foreign ministry said.

McManus told a news conference that someone from the truck had approached a Walmart employee asking for water.

The employee brought water to the truck in the parking lot, and then called the police who "found eight people dead in the back of that trailer," the police chief said, calling it a "horrific tragedy."

"We're looking at a human trafficking crime," McManus said.

The truck driver had been arrested, he said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr, 60, of Florida, was in custody and would be charged Monday morning in San Antonio.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed Sunday evening that the death toll had climbed to nine and called the case "a heartbreaking tragedy."

"Texas will continue to provide protection for the victims who have been robbed of their most basic rights, and bring down the full weight of the law for the perpetrators of this despicable crime," he said in a statement.

- 'Hot to the touch' -

People in the truck were "hot to the touch," Hood said. The air conditioner in the trailer was not working.

"For those people who survived, they took a beating," he told CNN.

"With heat stroke, you sometimes have neurological deficits that you're never going to be able to recover from."

Hood estimated the temperature in the truck could have reached 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius).

"If that truck would have been there overnight, there's no doubt that we would have lost all 38 of those people," Hood said.

- Happens 'all the time' -

The US Department of Homeland Security and immigration officials are assisting local law enforcement with the investigation.

"This is not an isolated incident... this happens all the time," McManus said.

"It happens late at night, under darkness because they don't want to be discovered."

The police chief said store security footage showed that some vehicles came to pick up some travelers who were on the truck and who had made it out alive.

It was not immediately clear how long the truck had been in the parking lot, and police were working to determine who owns it.

Tens of thousands of illegal migrants from Mexico and Central America attempt to make the treacherous trip into the United States each year.

In 2003, 19 would-be migrants died in an overheated truck while being taken from south Texas near the Mexican border to Houston.

President Donald Trump has pledged to build a security wall along America's border with Mexico in order to crack down on illegal immigration.

So far, the project has been stalled by reluctance in Congress to dedicate funding for the barrier, which could cost as much as $20 billion according to some estimates.

US Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has been to Mexico twice to discuss immigration, human trafficking and the spiraling cross-border drugs trade.

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Thomas Homan said the incident "ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished."
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Linkedin Andi Hajramurni (The Jakarta Post) Pangkajene and Islands, South Sulawesi  Mon, July 24, 2017 18:33 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa23f25 1 National Pangkajene-and-Islands,Pangkep,blast-fishing,South-Sulawesi Free

The South Sulawesi Police have arrested 15 people for allegedly importing illegal explosive materials from Malaysia to be used for blast fishing in Pangkajene and Islands regency, South Sulawesi.

The 15 suspects, comprising fishermen, suppliers and distributors of the materials, were nabbed in a series of arrests in the past week, said South Sulawesi Police chief Insp. Gen. Muktiono.

A total of 1,300 detonators and several sacks of ammonium nitrate, which were allegedly imported from Malaysia, as well as three boats, a car and a motorcycle, have been confiscated.

He said the detonators and ammonium nitrate were the main materials to make explosives for blast fishing.

The suspects have been charged under the 1951 Emergency Law and 1992 Crop Cultivation System Law and could face a maximum of 20 years in prison if found guilty.

The alleged mastermind is still at large. He is said to have fled to Malaysia, Muktiono told the press at the Maccinibaji Port in Pangkajene and Islands, last week.

Read also: Fishermen arrested for blast fishing

Pangkajene and Islands Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Edy Kurniawan said the smuggling ring also distributed the materials to other areas in South Sulawesi such as Makassar and Selayar, and even other provinces such as West Kalimantan.

The use of explosives for blast fishing is destructive to the sea biota and submarine natural resources. In addition, the materials could also be used for terrorism, Muktiono said. (bbs)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 18:27 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa23134 1 National Press-Council,hoax,journalistic-code-ethics,media,news-coverage Free

The Press Council is drafting guidelines for media outlets on how to cover and publish news reports on brutal murders and suicides, council chairman Yosep Stanley Adi Prasetyo has said.

These issues are not covered in the journalistic code of ethics. But journalists should develop common sense, he said on Sunday as quoted by Antara.

The fourth article of the journalistic code of ethics prohibits journalists from publishing hoax, slanderous, graphic or obscene reports.

Read also: Man arrested for allegedly hacking Indonesian Press Council website

He added that news reports about people committing suicide could lead to copycat actions by other people with depression or other mental disorders.

Yosep urged psychologists, psychiatrists and the public in general to file written protests or statements to the council if they found improper news reports about suicide, murder or other cases of violent death. Such input will help us in formulating the guidelines, he said. (kuk/bbs)
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Linkedin Ivany Atina Arby (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 17:42 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa1f4ea 1 City Jakarta-council,Councilors,expert Free

The proposal by Jakarta councilors to hire experts as assistants has been met with criticism from Jakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat, who considers the move a waste of money.

"It's wrong for each person to get an expert staffer. It's OK [to hire experts] but should be in line with their expertise. [They can] form an expert team to handle health, education and housing issues," the governor told reporters at City Hall on Monday.

He added that the standard of qualification for experts should be set and their roles needed to be made clear as to how their presence would assist in the councilors' responsibilities.

"Please think again. If one councilor wants one assistant, there would be 106 [experts], moreover there would be experts for factions and city council leaders, how many would that be?" Djarot said.

In an ongoing deliberation of a draft bylaw that would allow increases in their allowance, councilors argued that the hiring of experts was needed to enhance their performance.

The deliberation was based on the 2017 Government Regulation on the financial and administrative authority of regional council leaders and members, signed by President Joko Jokowi Widodo on June 2. (fac)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 13:30 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa16d7e 1 City Rizieq-Shihab,Firza-Husein,pornographic-content,FPI Free

Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab, who fled to Saudi Arabia after police named him a suspect in a pornography case, will return to Indonesia on the countrys Independence Day on Aug. 17, which also coincides with the hard-line groups anniversary, his lawyer has said.

He has planned to go home for a while to attend FPIs anniversary celebration on Aug. 17  only if the situation is possible, said Sugito Atmo Pawiro as quoted by kompas.com on Sunday.

Sugito was quick to add that Rizieq would first observe the developments of his case before making a decision.

Rizieq, the initiator of two large-scale rallies against former Jakarta governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama last year, has been on the polices wanted list since May 31, after twice failing to comply with a summons to question him. He is believed to be in Saudi Arabia now.

The cleric was named a suspect in a pornography case that came to light when sexually explicit WhatsApp chats allegedly exchanged between Rizieq and Firza Husein, who has also been named a suspect, was leaked online. (fac/wit)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 16:35 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa1d750 1 National Handang-Soekarno,arif-budi-sulistyo,EKP,Jakarta-Corruption-Court,corruption,graft,tax-evasion Free

The Jakarta Corruption Court has sentenced senior tax officer Handang Soekarno to 10 years in prison for accepting bribes related to a tax evasion case involving sourcing firm PT EK Prima Ekspor Indonesia (EKP).

Handang was also ordered to pay Rp 500 million (US$37,540) in fines or receive an additional four months in prison.

"Defendant Handang Soekarno has been convincingly declared guilty in this case," presiding judge Franky Tambuwun told the hearing as quoted by kompas.com, on Monday.

The sentence was lighter than the prosecutor's demand of 15 years' imprisonment and Rp 750 million in fines.

Franky said Handang received US$148,500 in bribes from EKP country director Ramapanicker Rajamohanan Nair as a reward for accelerating the settlement of the tax evasion case.

The money was part of the total Rp 6 billion promised by Nair, who was sentenced to three years in prison in April for his role in the case.

Read also: KPK implicates tax chief, Jokowis in-law in graft case

The case has attracted public attention as it has implicated a relative of President Joko Jokowi Widodo, businessman Arif Budi Sulistyo.

Arif testified as a witness in Nairs trial in April when he acknowledged he was a business partner of Nain but denied he had been involved in the bribery. (yon/bbs)
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States  Mon, July 24, 2017 18:45 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa255cb 2 World US,Russia-meddling,trump,White-House,Washington Free

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Monday said he had four contacts with Russian officials but denied any collusion to help his father-in-law Donald Trump win the presidency, US media said.

In a statement Kushner released hours before he was to appear before the Senate intelligence committee, he described contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other Russian officials as normal in his former role as the campaign liaison to foreign governments, the Washington Post said.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner wrote.

"I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector," he said, according to the Post report.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka, will testify before the Senate intelligence committee on Monday, according to his lawyer, and the House panel on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old billionaire investor working at his first political position was to be asked about his meetings with Russia's ambassador to Washington, the head of a major Russian bank and a Russian lawyer -- the latter along with Trump's son Donald Jr.

Kushner plans to submit the 11-page statement for the record.

Special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into possible collusion. The House and Senate, however, have organized separate probes.

Sunday, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 15:06 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa19242 4 Business non-tax-revenue,revision,tax-revenue,workers,protests Free

The Confederation of the Indonesian Workers Unions (KSPI) has rejected a government plan to lower the limit on non-taxable income (PTKP) to increase tax revenue.

KSPI president Said Iqbal stressed that the move would burden low-income workers.

We will reject the plan to lower the PTKP limit, said Iqbal in Jakarta on Sunday as reported by Antara.

Currently, a person earning Rp 54 million (US$4,056) per year or Rp 4.5 million per month or less is exempt from paying income tax. The limit will reportedly be revised down to the level of minimum provincial wages or about Rp 3 million per month.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani announced that her ministry had studied the possibility of lowering the limit because Indonesia had the highest non-taxable income limit in the world.

Iqbal called on the government to instead force rich people to pay their unpaid taxes and not further burden low-income workers.

He argued that people's purchasing power was already very low and lowering the non-taxable income limit would worsen people's purchasing power. (bbn)
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Linkedin Grace Kang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, July 25 2017

Ride-hailing company Grab Indonesia is under pressure from hundreds of drivers that had protested over the alleged suspension of their work contracts and unpaid incentives.

The protest against the company began on June 27, right after the two-day Idul Fitri celebration, after it supposedly failed to give the bonus it had promised drivers who worked during the holiday.

The company, instead, has accused the drivers of committing fraud and suspended their work contracts, preventing them from transporting passengers using the app.

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Biking in the Himalayas is no child's play. Keep these 13 things in mind before you decide to do it.

By Somya Abrol: It's become somewhat "cool" to just pick up your bike--or rent one--and leave for the hills. While the thought itself is brilliant, what most people aspiring to do a biking trip to the Himalayas don't understand is that one needs to be mentally and physically prepared to undertake such a physically taxing journey.

"It's not uncommon now to comes across cases where people have fainted or been extremely breathless in higher altitudes. I've even seen people who have no proper equipment whatsoever, and they come wanting to bike all the way to Leh," says Moksha Jaitley, 54, Manali-based professional biker.

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Here are few things, as suggested by Moksha, that everyone looking to do a bike trip to the Himalayas should keep in mind:

1. Get a thorough health check-up done: Before you embark on such a road trip, don't play guessing games with your health. Get all basic checks done--especially BP and sugar--right before you embark on the journey.

2. Check if the routes are open: A lot of people reach Rohtang on bikes and realise the pass hasn't opened yet. Don't be one of those people. Make sure you check with authorities much before you embark on the journey.

3. Let your body get acclimatised: If you're embarking on a journey to Leh, for instance, and are coming from the plains, stay a couple of days in Manali or around so your body gets acclimatised to the altitude and weather. The altitudes are going to rise further as you proceed. Don't let your body go through such major changes in short spans of time.

4. Talk to the locals: Be it about what and what not eat wherever you take a break, or about the weather that awaits you as you go further--locals know more than you think.

Picture courtesy: Facebook/Moksha Jetley

5. Let the snow melt before you take the trip: Even though the passes open up in June, the snow doesn't melt before July. So, the best time to visit is July-August. In June, most of the ways will be too slushy, and hence, more dangerous.

6. Do not carry camping equipment: You cannot camp in the Himalayas, at that high an altitude. The temperatures are freezing and oxygen levels are very low. So, check into any small hotel you find for the night, and leave early next morning.

7. Keep the baggage light: Don't carry your whole world with you. A heavy bike is difficult to manoeuvre, especially in hilly terrains (it's not as pretty as the plains). Very often, you'll find no road whatsoever. So, the lighter you travel, the better.

8. Sport shoes just don't cut it: Sport shoes are not for biking, especially not in hilly terrains. Buy heavy-duty hiking shoes from a reliable brand; they're an investment in your safety, don't think about the money.

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9. Carry some handy food: Dry fruits, protein/energy bars and chocolates, the kind of food that will give you energy to keep going, even at places where you won't find food for hours.

10. Warm inners are a must: Goes without saying, you need to keep your body warm, especially on a two-wheeler. Dress up accordingly.

11. A proper first-aid kit is a must: This kit should include Dettol/Savalon, band aid, a couple of bandages and basic medicines for headache, stomach ache, allergies, and some generic painkillers.

12. Be prepared for anything: Weather conditions and the conditions of the roads are absolutely unpredictable in the Himalayas. Moksha says she's been doing bike tours for a decade now, and she still is sometimes shocked by the weather up there.

13. Slow and steady: Last but not the least, remember to maintain a slow, sturdy speed. Don't be in a hurry. High speeds will only make it easier for your bike to go out of control in a tricky situation.

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 10:59 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa0f055 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Garuda-Indonesia,BNI-46,tourism-promotion Free

National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia and state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) have recently come up with a tourism program called Ayo Liburan (Lets Take a Vacation) that can help contribute to the tourism ministrys target of 20 million overseas tourists and 275 local tourists by 2019.

Read also: 14 ways for millennials to save money for travel

Ayo Liburan program is a real, innovative and creative act in creating an interesting travel package that attracts travelers to participate, said tourism minister Arief Yahya at the launching event of the program.

As a national flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia has to keep on innovating, expanding their network as well as acting as a bridge that connects the archipelago with people from all over the world; the airline itself is already on track with the worlds standard. We have to calibrate and analyze on what weve done to improve Indonesian tourism, added Arief.

The travel program offers participants to travel to five destinations in Indonesia namely Belitung, Labuan Bajo, Malang, Padang, and Banyuwangi throughout the months of August until November this year.

The Ayo Liburan program can be accessed from Garuda Indonesia mobile app or website www.garuda-indonesia.com. From there you need to choose five destinations that you would like to go, set up the date and pay the fee. Its easy and simple, explained Garuda Indonesia president director Pahala N. Mansury.

Read also: 4 cities in Indonesia where you can travel by foot

Apart from flight tickets, travelers can also make an arrangement for hotels, local tour packages, entrance fee to some of the tourist attractions, transportation and even culinary tour packages from the program.

This program is BNIs support for the development of Indonesian tourism by expanding access to the nations leading destinations through affordable ticket prices, added BNI president director Achmad Baiquni.

The program also offers an interesting opportunity to travel with travel influencers such as Ana Octarina in Malang, Anggey Anggraini in Belitung, Marischka Prudence in Labuan Bajo, Febrian in Banyuwangi and Goenrock in Padang. (asw)
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Linkedin Sebastian Berger (Agence France-Presse) Pyongyang  Mon, July 24, 2017 12:59 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa15577 2 News North-Korea,US,travel,traveling,#NorthKorea,tourists,#travel,#UScitizen Free

The Westerners lined up on Sunday before giant statues of North Koreas founder Kim Il-Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-Il and, on command from their guide, bowed deeply.

It is a ritual that the Trump administration intends to stop US tourists performing, with Washington due to impose a ban this week on its citizens holidaying in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as the North is officially known.

A group of tourists bow before statues of late North Korean leaders Kim Il-Sung (L) and Kim Jong-Il (R), on Mansu hill in Pyongyang on July 23, 2017. The Westerners lined up before giant statues of North Koreas founder Kim Il-Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong-Il on Sunday and, on command from their guide, bowed deeply - a ritual that the Trump administration intends to stop US tourists performing, with Washington due to impose a ban on its citizens holidaying in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as the North is officially known. (AFP/Ed Jones)

The move comes amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile ambitions - it launched a rocket earlier this month which specialists say could reach Alaska or Hawaii - and after the death of US student Otto Warmbier, who had been imprisoned for more than a year by Pyongyang.

Warmbier was convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to 15 years' hard labour for trying to steal a propaganda poster from a Pyongyang hotel. He was sent home in June in a mysterious coma that proved fatal soon afterwards.

Most tourists to North Korea are motivated by curiosity and the desire to experience a different destination.

The iconic 20-metre-high (66-feet) statues at Mansu hill look out over Pyongyang and groups of North Koreans in suits and ties arrive regularly to pay their respects. Passing traffic is obliged to slow down.

Tourists pose for a group photo before statues of late North Korean leaders Kim Il-Sung (L) and Kim Jong-Il (R), on Mansu hill in Pyongyang on July 23, 2017. (AFP/Ed Jones)

As the tourists reached the platform speakers played We miss our general, about Kim Jong-Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong-Un.

President Kim Il-Sung liberated our country and built a people's paradise on this land, they were told.

Call centre manager Kyle Myers, 28, from Ireland, said he wanted to go somewhere very different from what I'm used to for his first trip to Asia, to see something that not a lot of people from back home have seen.

The mounting tensions in the year since he booked the tour had made him nervous, he said, but he added: I don't see the threat here for tourists as long as they behave themselves and they follow the rules of the country.

Read also: Surf's up! North Korea tourism agency tries to woo foreigners

- 'A little disquieting' -

A tourist takes photos before a group of people gathered to pay their respects before statues of late North Korean leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il on Mansu hill in Pyongyang on July 23, 2017. (AFP/Ed Jones)

Some of the visitors -- who paid from 1,850 euros ($2,157) for the tour -- expressed enthusiasm. Australian IT manager Pallavi Phadke, 43, was among those who placed a bouquet before the statues.

It was a sign of respect, she told AFP. It's the same as covering your head when you go to a mosque or removing your shoes when you go to a temple.

The people seem happy, they certainly don't appear to be oppressed or anything, she said. They're very proud of their country, they're proud of their history and it's nice to watch them be patriotic.

Many disagree, with the United Nations, multiple Western governments and independent groups accusing Pyongyang of widespread human rights violations.

Other tourists were more sceptical. Mark Hill, a writer and editor from Calgary in Canada, compared the statues to a very grim Mount Rushmore.

It's all very impressive and also a little disquieting, he said.

For years the US State Department has warned its citizens against travelling to North Korea, telling them that they are  at serious risk of arrest and long-term detention under North Koreas system of law enforcement, which imposes unduly harsh sentences for actions that would not be considered crimes in the United States, including showing disrespect to the country's leaders and proselytising.

It is entirely possible that money spent by tourists in the DPRK goes to fund its weapons programmes, it adds.

The ban will go into force 30 days after it is formally declared, said department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, and US passports will be invalid for travel to, through and in North Korea.

Read also: North Korean spy films to hit theaters in coming months

- 'Monolithic evil force' -

A tourist takes a photo during a visit to a subway station in Pyongyang on July 23, 2017. (AFP/Ed Jones)

The vast majority of tourists to North Korea are from China, its sole major ally and key provider of trade and aid.

Americans make up around 20 percent of the 4,000 to 5,000 Western tourists who go to the country each year, according to Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, the leader in the niche market, which brought Sunday's visitors to Pyongyang.

Warmbier's death had already hammered the market, he said, with bookings down 50 percent since then.

It's would-be customers' perceptions that anybody can make a mistake, he told AFP. And almost everyone in their lives has made some mistake and of course they don't want the consequences of that mistake to be so devastating.

But Washington's move, he said, was self-defeating. As well as the potential ramifications for North Koreans who earn their living from tourism, he said, it would completely eliminate any human interaction between United States citizens and North Korean citizens.

Pyongyang's state propaganda about the US was 100 percent negative, he said, but contacts between tourists and locals work against the idea that foreigners are some kind of monolithic evil force out to undermine the North Koreans.

The idea that tourism is somehow sustaining the government is absurd, he added. The numbers are very low, the revenues are very low.

Young Pioneer Tours, the firm which brought Warmbier to the North, had already said it would no longer take US citizens to the country.

Among Sunday's tour group was comedy writer Evan Symon, from Los Angeles, who as a result of Washington's ban is likely to be one of the last American tourists to the country for several years.

It's just what happened, he said. Kind of cool in a way, I guess.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 16:05 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa1ca14 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,sleman,batik Free

Sleman in Yogyakarta is set to host Sleman Creative Award 2017 that aims to highlight the regencys status as the place for batik shopping.

The award will feature several competitions, such as batik bags, batik clothing and photography competitions.

The competition basically aims to promote Sleman as batik shopping destination, said Sleman Tourism Agency head Sudarningsih.

Read also: 24-hour of cultural adventure at Nglinggo tourist village

Those who seek to participate in batik bags competition can submit their design before July 28 while the final works can be submitted on Aug. 13 at Syiwa Field in Prambanan Temple complex at 3 p.m. Submitting more than one design is allowed in this competition.

The competition is open for the public who are between 17 to 35 years old. Admission fee is priced at Rp 75,000 (US$5.63) per design and the winners will take home a total prize money of Rp 9 million.

Read also: Gili Ketapang: Many goats, ample fish  but leave your bikini at home

As for batik clothing competition, themed "Play[ful] and Fun in Java[nese] Mood, the winners will be awarded with a total of prize money of Rp 12 million.

Meanwhile, the photography contest requires participants to take photos of people wearing Sleman batik in a tourist attraction. They will then need to upload the result to Instagram by tagging and mentioning @slemanfashionfestival and @wisatasleman. Winners will be announced at the finale of Sleman Fashion Show Festival on Aug. 13. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, July 24, 2017 10:06 1937 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aa0d5c1 1 News Competition,robotic,technology,students,#competition,#technology,#students Free

Students from Islamic school TechnoNatura International Madrasah won a silver medal in the innovation category of FIRST Global Challenge, an international robotic competition for high school students in Washington DC, United States, held on July 16-18.

Antara news agency reported that the team, comprising 10 students and three mentors, competed in the event through the presentation of Wowwi, a robot that has the ability to shoot balls into targets. The feature was used during the competitions main challenge, where participating robots had to transport balls, which represented clean water and contaminant particles in accordance to this year's theme of water security issues, into the targets.

Up to 10 different categories of awards were given. Indonesia was awarded second place in the Ustad Ahmad Lahori Award for Innovation in Engineering category, which was said to be given to teams that demonstrate creativity and innovation in building their robot to complete an aspect of the challenge. The first place of the category went to the team from Latvia.

Read also: 11-year-old girl completes 'Seven Summits of Indonesia' challenge

Tras Rustamaji, head of Madrasah TechnoNatura, said robotics had always been a part of the schools curriculum, even from the elementary school level.

TechnoNatura students have won several national and regional competitions, which led the US Embassy in Jakarta to recommend the school for the FIRST Global Challenge. (mas/kes)
At a rally held on Friday morning, City Council member Margaret Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer threatened legal action if the City Planning Commission approves three large-scale development projects in the Two Bridges area.

A joint environmental review is now underway for the towers, which would range in height from 62-79 stories and add around 2,000 mostly market rate apartments in the historically low-income area. Residents have been fighting the projects for months. Since the buildings would all be located in the Two Bridges Large Scale Residential Development (LSRD) area, the Planning Commission must give its approval. Last summer, city officials rejected a request from Council member Chin for a full land use review (ULURP) in the Two Bridges neighborhood. A ULURP would have given the City Council leverage over the proposals.

The rally took place in front of 82 Rutgers Slip, a senior building that will bear the brunt of one of the developments, a 79-story tower from JDS Development Group. The project would be built over the low-income senior complex and could displace up to 20 senior residents. [Developers have said the residents will be relocated in the immediate area.]

Chin and Brewer gathered with other elected officials, including Public Advocate Letitia James and State Assembly member Yuh-Line Niou, as well as tenant leaders and local tenant advocates. In her remarks, the Council member said, These monstrosities will threaten the very character of this neighborhood We are here to remind the administration and the developers that these projects are not a done deal.

To the members of the City Planning Commission, Chin added, we have a simple message: If you rule against this community, we will use every tool at our disposal to make sure the voices of the people are heard. While she did not specifically mention a lawsuit in her remarks, a press release from Chins office threatened, legal action against the Administration if the projects are approved in their current form.

The projects include the JDS tower at 247 Cherry St.; 62 ad 69 story towers from L+M Development Partners and the CIM Group at 260 South St.; and a 62-story building by the Starrett Group at 259 Clinton St. City Planning decided a ULURP was not called for because the developments would have required, in urban planning speak, only a minor modification, rather than a major modification, of the LSRD Plan. The review does not include One Manhattan Square, the 80-story luxury condo tower well on its way to completion on the former Cherry Street Pathmark site.

Both Chin and Brewer worked with the development teams and local residents on a series of public meetings and organized a community task force to help shape the environmental review. But that collaboration ended badly earlier this year. On Friday, Brewer explained, We gave it a chance, we worked with the wonderful tenant leaders, we worked with the task force. It broke down when the developers refused to meet with the task force following a difficult community meeting.

We are now calling on City Planning to get this right, to reconsider the incorrect decision they made, said Brewer. Were both stating, for the record, were willing to do what it takes, to support legal action if we have to. This is not an outrageous request.

Assembly member Niou said, Our message is clear. These luxury towers do not belong on the Lower East Side. The community has long opposed them and the city must reject plans to develop them. In a statement, State Sen. Daniel Squadron added, The massive development proposals in the Two Bridges neighborhood would come with massive impact on the community  and yet the communitys role is massively insufficient.

When it was her turn at the podium, Public Advocate Letitia James urged unity. All of us should be of one accord, said James. There should not be any space between us, because if they see space, they will take advantage of that Ive been to too many events where the community has been divided and the developers win.

Almost all community activists agree that the towers must be stopped, or at least downsized. In an election year, however, with Council member Chin battling for a third term against three outspoken rivals, the community is definitely not speaking with one voice.

Back in May, a new group, Lower East Side Organizing Neighbors (LESON), announced it planned to file a lawsuit against the city over the Two Bridges projects, and blasted the Chin/Brewer approach as too developer friendly. A member of the organization, Tanya Castro-Negron, spoke on Friday in her capacity as tenant president of Lands End II, one of the developments that would be most affected by the new towers. Yes, we stand behind our leaders, said Castro-Negron. We stand behind our elected officials, who with transparency, speak with us. She went on to complain, however, that community members have been prevented from speaking out in the past, particularly during environmental review meetings. She asked, Will you allow the people of the community to speak in this process? In a separate statement, LESON criticized Chin and Brewer for failing to followup after meeting with group members in May and June.

A City Council candidate, Dashia Imperiale, then interjected, asking why the threat of a lawsuit against the city is only being mentioned now. As City Council aides brought the rally to an abrupt end, Imperiale shouted, This is a sham! Shame on you! A few hours earlier, Christopher Marte, another candidate for the District 1 seat released a statement that read, in part, Margaret Chins attempt to take a stand against the waterfront developments is too little, too late.

Imperiale, Marte and a third candidate, Aaron Foldenauer, stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk to make their case against the incumbent. If Margaret Chin really wanted to do something about this, said Foledenauer, she would have acted years ago, not just two months prior to a hotly contested election.

In a statement following the rally, a spokesperson for Council member Chin fired back. Marian Guerra, Chins director of communications, responded specifically to the complaints that community voices were silenced during environmental review meetings. The EIS process given to the community instead of a ULURP, said Guerra, is led by the developer and the Department of City Planning. Neither Council Member Chin nor Borough President Brewer have control over this process, and they had zero say about how the developers ran their meetings. The statement went on to say, the harmful notion that this community action (to demand a ULURP) is too little, too late is exactly what is discouraging the community from coming together to fight back.

On Friday, we contacted the Department of City Planning about Chin and Brewers demands. Heres the statement we were provided:

The City must follow the law. While the modifications sought for the Two Bridges sites do not trigger ULURP  in other words no new density or waivers are needed a thorough environmental review which offers multiple opportunities for the public and elected officials to participate is being conducted. Moreover we are ensuring a coordinated review by the project applicants that looks at the cumulative effects of these three developments at the same time  an extraordinary but important measure that is not ordinarily required. This coordinated review will help produce the best possible outcome for this neighborhood. Much as we appreciate the desire of the community to do so, there are no grounds under which a ULURP could legally be required in this instance.

It should be noted that Mayor de Blasio heard a direct appeal from community members about the mega-towers during a June 21 town hall meeting on the Lower East Side. During that event, Two Bridges tenant leader Trever Holland asked why the city would forego a ULURP, given the massive size and impact of the proposed projects.

In his answer, the mayor contended that previous administrations were to blame for approving land use plans in the Two Bridges area long ago. Referring to the new projects, de Blasio said, We do not believe we can just turn it off. Im just being real with you. We believe it is legally moving forward. Council member Chin, who moderated the town hall, chimed in, telling the mayor, I really disagree with the administration. Every time I look at those proposed towers, it really makes me sick to my stomach. She added, We can not allow it to happen. Weve got to find a way (to stop or change the projects), and Im looking for a way to push back.

The mayor responded, Once a development plan is locked in place by law, its not easy to undo it. Ive got to be clear about this. He said the city hoped to address the concerns about over-development in the Two Bridges area by maximizing the affordability of the new buildings. His administration announced that 25% of the apartments in the three developments would be made available to families earning 60% of Area Median Income (AMI). Another 10% will be set aside for families earning 40% of AMI.

The City Planning Commission will likely not vote on the Two Bridges projects until close to the end of this year.
Former city official Ricardo Morales claims he was fired after complaining about political interference by the mayors office into his dealings with a Queens restaurant owner/de Blasio donor. Morales says he was also terminated after he objected to City Halls lack of truthfulness regarding the lifting of deed restrictions at Rivington House. [Daily News]

A closer look at the mayors efforts on behalf of the restauranteur, Harendra Singh. Mr. de Blasios efforts on behalf of Mr. Singh illustrated in stark terms the transactional form of governing that had largely been absent under Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire who eschewed campaign donations during his 12 years as mayor. [New York Times]

Sheldon Silver might take his federal corruption case to the U.S. Supreme Court. [Newsday]

Video: Charlie Bendit and Paul Pariser of Taconic Investment Partners talk about their role in developing Essex Crossing. No bombshells here, but they did mention that their application for the big project cost around $1 million. Dozens of companies had applied for the RFP in the former urban renewal area. [The Real Deal]

A 20-year-old girl from New Jersey plans to sue Essex Street bar Boss Tweeds after she was locked inside the night spot last Thursday night. Therese Hipolito apparently passed out and found herself on the bathroom floor. [New York Post]

Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs sons tell Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes what it was like becoming Lower East Side orphans after their parents were executed. [CBS News]

From street art phenom to real deal gallery artist: Hanksy reinvents himself as Adam Lucas, a rebirth thats already been met with more praise than he ever imagined. [High Snobiety]
Justice Sadhna Jadhav said, 'Take care that there is no attempt to mislead the court especially by jail authorities. Try to see that this does not happen.'

By Vidya : Bombay High Court today came down heavily on jail authorities as well as the Mumbai crime branch while hearing a petition concerning Byculla jail inmate Manjula Shettye who was allegedly beaten to death last month.

Justice Sadhna Jadhav said, "Take care that there is no attempt to mislead the court especially by jail authorities. Try to see that this does not happen."

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The court was going through the records of jail as well as the police investigation. It was especially perturbed at seeing that the death certificate issued by the doctor at JJ Hospital had said that there were no external injuries found on the body of Shettye though she had died after allegedly being beaten up by jail authorities on June 23.

The post mortem report had revealed many external injuries on Shettye's body. The document infuriated the court and Justice Jadhav said, "All these are your own people. The constables in jail were fully aware. Look at the audacity of placing this document on record."

Even in the initial accidental death registered as well as jail records showed that Shettye had died after falling in the jail washroom. The public pleader Mankuwar Deshmukh told the court that the crime branch which had been investigating the case since June 28 has been recording statements of jail inmates as many of them are coming ahead and claiming that they were eye witnesses.

She also told the court that on June 23, the very day at noon when Shettye is said to have been assaulted by jail authorities, a magistrate had visited the jail at 12.30 pm and was in the premises for over 45 minutes.

The magistrate is said to have reported that no jail inmate had complained about anything. The kitchen was clean and that the food was tasty along with just about every other arrangement being proper.

It was Friday on June 23 and, according to Deshmukh, the jail superintendent visited the Byculla jail on the day and did not note any untoward incident. "It was only at 6.30 pm that a jail inmate had come and told that Shettye had fallen in washroom. Within 15 minutes she was rushed to the hospital," said Seshmukh to the court.

With this the division bench headed by justice RM Savant asked Deshmukh: "What are you driving at? The post mortem report gives a list of injuries on the body of the deceased. People are losing faith in you. We are sorry for this. Do you want to impress upon the court that till post mortem there were no injuries on her body?"

The court raised an objection to the fact that the doctor who had given the death certificate was not even questioned by the investigating officers. The crime branch officers told the court that they were recording statements of jail inmates and that was taking time.

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Justice Jadhav said, "You do not see seriousness until court tells you. The way it is being investigated means that you are shielding someone and giving this justification that we will take time."

The court ordered the crime branch officers to record the statement of the JJ hospital doctor who gave the death certificate within three days and also ordered that a status report be submitted in sealed covers by July 31.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) A 54-year-old businessman died after falling into an open drain while returning from his evening walk in east Delhis Mayur Vihar area, police said today.

The incident took place in a park last evening. The victim, Anil Kumar Gupta, was rescued from the manhole by passers-by after hearing his cries of help, they said.

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He was taken to a nearby hospital but they refused to admit him. The victim was then rushed to another medical centre where he was declared brought dead, police said.

According to locals, water-logging around the park had made the area slippery.

The body has been sent for postmortem, police said, adding the matter is being probed.

The victims family members, however, accused the Public Works Department (PWD) of negligence.

A PWD official on condition of anonymity said the drains are covered with concrete slabs, but some spaces are left open for cleaning.

He said the slabs were often broken and the iron rods removed and sold by drug addicts.

"We have given complaints to the police in this regard several times," the official said.

Reacting on the incident, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari accused the PWD and Delhi Jal Board of negligence and urged Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal to provide appropriate compensation to the affected family. PTI SLB BUN VIT SRY

--- ENDS ---
The reality of Hollywood is that it is a field dominated by men, and the superhero genre is even more so. Jenkins is a real-life superhero, forging through patriarchal obstacles and establishing her success unapologetically, much like the superhero that secured her a place in the history books. Much of the reason for Jenkins success with Wonder Woman is down to her integrity. It allowed her to turn down projects whose narratives betrayed her purpose, and led her instead to a project over which she could have control and tell the real story, the way nobody else could have. Rather than succumbing to the well-rehearsed formulas that have made Marvel and DC movies such a success in the last decade in particular, she utilised other principles to steer this project into becoming the highest-grossing movie ever directed by a woman. She brought to the table new principles of peace, love, and compassion that the genre had previously cast aside, preferring the overly used sequences of white males repeatedly throwing punches at one another. Patty Jenkins was only drafted onto the project after being originally rejected for the job, once the first choice of director left over creative differences with the studio. The talks surrounding Wonder Woman began as early as 2005, and Jenkins initially didnt secure the directing job with Warner Bros. because her vision for the heroines narrative did not correlate with the studios. This very strength and integrity allowed her, the second-time round, to hold fast to her conceptualisation of the superhero, and create something truly different and beautiful. Fighting does not make you a hero, her mother, the Amazonian queen, tells a young Diana. In some ways, this might make the entire premise sound hypocritical, since Diana preaches peace and for the downfall of god of War, yet exists within a genre that requires her to fight. Yet once again Jenkins steps in to ensure the film stays true to both the core of the heroine and to the comic book. She ensured Gal Gadots choreography was defensive, never hateful or destructive, setting her apart from her male peers in the genre, who are often portrayed to enjoy the act of exerting brute force in damaging and lethal ways. Jenkins open embrace of the heroism and optimism characteristic to 1941s Wonder Woman, ensures her 2017 portrayal would stay true to her original purpose. William Moulton Marston created Diana Prince to be an allegory for the ideal leader, one who led through love over force, and for the kind of women whom he believed should run society. A creation of the second World War, part of her purpose was also to inspire hope and faith, at a time when violence, cruelty and death was all around. And in many ways, the political and social climate today has these themes in common with the early 1940s. Therefore, Jenkins decision to remain faithful to Wonder Womans optimism is key to her success, and makes her movie a beacon of light over other recent superhero productions. Jenkins could so easily have ceded to the bleakness that has plagued DC, but instead stuck to her vision: I wanted to tell a story about a hero who believes in lovewho believes in the change and betterment of the world. And that is precisely the spirit and purpose of the superhero genre, that has somehow been lost as it became such an intrinsic part of popular film culture. Criticism arose from online communities in particular, from individuals who found that Dianas appearance was contradictory to her status as a feminist icon. Her outfit has been criticised for being too revealing, which some believe is perpetuating the idea of female characters as products of a patriarchal system that designs them for the male gaze. Once again Jenkins jumps to her heros defence: When people get super critical about her outfit, whos the one getting crazy about what a woman wears? Thats who she is; thats Wonder Woman.In the lovely dress-up montage during which Diana must find civilian clothing to wonder the streets of London in, she complains of each outfit being impractical to fight in. Its a scene that undermines the casual sexism displayed when calling her out on her attire, and legitimises her choice of clothing once in battle. In my opinion, sticking to the original costume is about reclaiming the character, and rejecting the idea that her appearance is intended for the satisfaction of men. This isnt objectification anymore. Its a cultural reset that celebrates the female body for its strength, and that is a feminist act. The turning point of the movie celebrates this. In a sequence that Jenkins had to fight to keep in, Diana defies orders to stay in a trench and instead braves the way through No Mans Land, to go and rescue a village of starving innocents. This scene, when she steps out in her legendary outfit, and becomes Wonder Woman, is the pinnacle of the entire movie. This is a woman who will not obey men, and takes agency over her own destiny. Its symbolic of what not just what Diana can be, but of what everyone can be. Its representative of a belief in peoples ability to inflict good change on the world. Once again Jenkins bright optimism shines through an otherwise grim context. She allows Wonder Woman to hold the camera and the audience for longer than a female superhero has ever been given the chance to; the scene isnt about the enemy, the conflict, or the people in the trench. Its about her.Another key moment of the movie is the opening scene, as we witness Amazonian women of every age, race and build, training, through the curious and gleeful eyes of a young Diana. The first act, set on Themyscira, has a cast of entirely women shown to be capable and complex all at once, something thats unfortunately still a rare feat particularly in the superhero, or even more broadly the action genre. Also, Jenkins from the beginning quashes a recurring issue with movies about warrior women, in which violence against them can become gratuitous. A strong and seemingly unbreakable woman in the action genre can be somehow liberating for violent misogynist propensities. Since shes unbreakable, theres no need to feel bad about the violence perpetuated against her. From the first act Jenkins destroys this trope when Dianas aunt Antiope, military leader of the Amazon women, is murdered during an attack on the island. Violence has consequences, and this movie will not use it, nor will it allow it to be used, needlessly. Having grown up in such an environment, Diana has no concept of gender roles, has never encountered sexism, so is oblivious to it. Jenkins utilises this to expose everyday acts of sexism in society as observed through her eyes, which therefore appears so much more absurd than often does when witnessed by women who have been brought up experiencing ingrained misogyny and are therefore desensitised to it. This is also what allows for Wonder Womans show, dont preach approach to feminism to be so impactful. The film isnt just about displaying feminism through the acts of women, however. Its also an exploration of gender politics. Steve Trevor is permitted to be simultaneously funny, brave, and emotionally complex. He is aware of Dianas intellectual and physical superiority, and celebrates this, instead of being emasculated by the concept of a woman being better than him in his field. Patty Jenkins portrayal of Steve Trevor is a change to represent masculinity with feminist ideals. As Bell Hooks writes on this topic, for too long has patriarchal society taught men that their sense of self and identity resides in their capacity to dominate others But they must also have a clear vision of what feminist masculinity looks like, for how can you become what you cant imagine? Jenkins embraces yet another rare opportunity to present audiences with alternatives to the status quo. Jenkins battle against sexism isnt contained just within the cinema screens. Her own experiences in Hollywood too reflect the industrys sexism. In interviews, she often describes the lack of opportunities given to female directors. Shes been described as a gamble for being put in charge of such a big-budget movie, despite her successes with Monster, which had grossed seven times its budget and won Charlize Theron an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Shes also very aware that any mistake made would likely result in the end of her career, whereas male directors such as David Ayer, Zack Snyder and Martin Campbell, respectively the directors of major DC flops Suicide Squad, Batman v Superman and Green Lantern, have not had their career prospects affected. Because only 7 percent of the 250 highest-grossing domestic movies of last year were directed by women, which most dishearteningly presents a 2 percent decline from the year prior, the spotlight is put on any female director, as if their failure or success would be representative of how well other women would fare in the same position. Even in high-ranking film roles, such as producers, editors and writers, women only represented at 17 percent, which once again is a decrease since 2015. As Jessica Chastain stated in Cannes, the way women are represented in film will only change once women are telling the stories. Therefore, throughout her career, Jenkins has been fighting institutional sexism and the assumption held against her that hiring a woman is a risk. Superhero movies starring women had precedent in 1984s Supergirl, Catwoman, and 2005s Elektra, none of which were successful. This fact that has been used for a long time to excuse why female heroes are so underrepresented in DC and Marvel productions, and why efforts werent being made to rectify this. And whilst things are changing, thanks to female-led movies like The Hunger Games, Mad Max: Fury Road or even Ghostbusters, there was still immense pressure put on Jenkins to ensure Wonder Woman was a success. It didnt get to be just a movie, for it was the first female-directed and female-led superhero production, which saddled Wonder Woman with the task of proving that such a film could be profitable. Somehow the future of blockbuster films with female leads would rest on this one movie; its failure would negatively impact the chances for female directors to be entrusted with big-budget films, and of stories being told with female leads. Jenkins, well aware of this, sadly acknowledges that anything I do could take down half the population of the future aspiring directors. And its with this burden on her shoulders that Patty Jenkins successfully directed the best hold of any American superhero film in over 15 years. What she and Wonder Woman proved about the industry will hopefully inspire change in the future. It undermined the established belief that the audiences for superhero movies, primarily young men, were not interested in the stories of women. Women in this genre were still being treated as a niche audience, until Wonder Women hit the big screen. The audience for Wonder Woman was 52 percent female, and therefore proved that 48 percent of men were indeed interested in female heroes. Somehow this was a revelation to Hollywood executives. A film and television revolution is undergoing, as were witnessing in the recent successes not only of Wonder Woman, but also of Get Out and Hidden Figures. People are clearly craving diversity, in in the age of Netflix and Amazon, when cinema tickets are comparatively extremely expensive, audiences expect new stories, ones theyve not heard before. Patty Jenkins has played an immense part in pioneering the way for women in the industry, and putting pressure on Hollywood to produce more female-led films in all genres. Against all odds she made her way to the top of a male-dominated field, and brought to life a feminist icon to inspire women and men alike. Jenkins leads by example, and ignores the constructs that would otherwise hold her back. Shes a superhero in her own right.
When the sun does come out though it doesnt take long for people to start firing up their BBQs. A butchers in Northern Ireland are selling 40 alcoholic sausages for you to sizzle this summer, including two new flavours pear cider and gin and tonic - which sound delicious.

McCartneys of Moira has been making boozy bangers since the 1980s, and they recently came up with their two new flavours after getting a bit experimental.

As butcher Judith Millar explained, she decided to create a gin and tonic sausage because its a popular summer beverage and the pear cider sausage came about by adding a twist to an old pear sausage recipe.

This summer has seen the launch of two new sausage flavours with the Kopparberg Pear Cider Pork Sausage and a Gin & Tonic Pork Sausage proving to be a big hit with customers, she said.

With the summer weather in Northern Ireland being very hit and miss we were looking for something a bit different to spark some interest for this years summer BBQ season. Deciding to revisit an old pear sausage recipe and then adding a twist by using the ever-popular Kopparberg pear cider alongside real pears the combo makes for a deliciously sweet and succulent pork sausage, which is great for customers looking for something different for the BBQ.

Unfortunately, for sausage lovers, these sausages are only available from the McCartneys of Moira butcher, in Belfast. We can only hope other U.K. butchers will take inspiration from them and conjure up equally yummy gourmet alcoholic sausages, too.
The first lady of Japan was seated next to Trump at a dinner held after the G20 summit in Germany but she apparently didnt say one word to the president, not even hello.

"So, I was seated next to the wife of Prime Minister Abe, who I think is a terrific guy, and shes a terrific woman,," Trump told The New York Times. "Like, not (even) 'hello.'" Since Trumps interview, a video of Abe giving a 15 minute keynote speech where she speaks entirely in English has surfaced.

This video seems to refute Trumps belief that Abe isnt able to say a single word of English - and the internet is loving it.

Many have taken the video as proof Abe went to extreme measures to avoid having a conversation with the controversial president and hailed her a hero and deeply relatable for her actions.

To be honest, for a woman who apparently can't speak a word of English she sounds pretty fluent here:

The First Lady of Japan is an American hero. https://t.co/N7l3qdB3eU  David Samsel (@dssnyc) July 20, 2017

If the First Lady of Japan truly pretended not to speak English for 2 hours to avoid talking to Trump she's both a hero and deeply relatable  Emma Gray (@emmaladyrose) July 20, 2017

Japan's First Lady is the level of petty I aspire to be at pic.twitter.com/KAr6sS4IxN  (@roluxes) July 21, 2017

Trump inaccurately complains about Akie Abe's lack of English. But majority of foreign leaders he meets seem far more fluent than him  Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) July 20, 2017

Akie Abe has released a statement saying she didnt realise Trump spoke English either. #TheProjectTV  #TheProjectTV (@theprojecttv) July 21, 2017

Akie Abe pretending she doesn't speak English to avoid talking to Trump is next level petty and I have nothing but respect for it pic.twitter.com/RYkTvw0Xs2  Catie Hogan (@CatieHogan) July 20, 2017

People on Twitter have been throwing shade at Trump and cheering on the first lady of Japan for spending two hours in silence to avoid having a conversation with a man who is infamous for a never ending list of controversies.
Jeremy Corbyn has insisted he did not promise to write off student debt as he campaigned for the youth vote in the general election.

The Labour leader has faced claims he used students as election fodder by indicating he would wipe out the sums they owed for their education.

So, what did Corbyn really say? And what is everyone else saying about it?

What did he say during the election?

A week before the election on June 8 Corbyn said in an interview with NME that he wanted to get rid of student fees altogether. He said they would ensure future students going into education from the 2017-18 academic year would pay no fees.

(Dominic Lipinski/PA)

As for those already burdened with debt, Corbyn said he wanted to reduce, ameliorate, or lengthen the period in which students have to pay it off.

And I dont see why those that had the historical misfortune to be at university during the 9,000 period should be burdened excessively compared to those that went before or those that come after, he said. I will deal with it.

What has he said now?

The Labour leader told BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning that the comments were not a commitment to erase student debt currently outstanding.

"I did not make a commitment that we would write it off" says @jeremycorbyn on student debt #marr pic.twitter.com/PDCHuFxPaM  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) July 23, 2017

The Labour leader admitted the party had not known at the time how much that would cost, and that they would be making a statement on the issue in the near future.

I did not make a commitment we would write it off because I couldnt at that stage, he said. I pointed out we had written the manifesto in a short space of time because there was a surprise election but that we would look at ways of reducing that debt burden, recognising that a lot of it is never going to be collected anyway and try and reduce that burden.

What did those watching think?

Some who viewed the show have taken Corbyns words on Sunday to be a backtrack.

Corbyn lied to write off student debt. Aim? votes of too young to know better. Now he backtracks. A professional liar. #marr  Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) July 23, 2017

Corbyn said I will deal with those already burdened with student debt"  voters expected that to happen  anything else is a U turn #marr  Happy Gilmour (@HappyGilmour68) July 23, 2017

However, some agree that he did not say student fees would be wiped.

Produce the quote showing Corbyn promised to wipe out past student debt. He didn't. You can't https://t.co/XbUmmt8nr2  Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) July 21, 2017

Okay but where did Corbyn actually say he would wipe all existing student debt? Because this is the first I'm hearing of it.  Lumberjake (@Lumberjakers) July 23, 2017

While others thought it was claims on the side of the Conservatives which are false.

I would hope most university students are capable of understanding what Corbyn said on student debt and seeing through Tory lies. #marr  Briefcase Michael (@BriefcaseMike) July 23, 2017

Corbyns interview with Marr covered a range of topics, including Brexit and the possibility of another general election  an issue he later addressed on his Twitter account.

On #Marr, I explained how Labour is standing up #ForTheMany by challenging the government and forcing u-turns at every opportunity. pic.twitter.com/kaB9r4UqWH  Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) July 23, 2017

The Labour leader insisted he was ready for it if another is called.
The customer swooped in and hit the armed robber with a chair from behind, a fight ensued and the robber ran away.

By India Today Web Desk: A video released by the police in Fresno, California is making headlines across United States.The dramatic surveillance footage shows a customer stepping in to prevent an armed robbery at a Starbucks.

The man, identified as Cregg Jerri, is being hailed a hero by the police. On Thursday evening, Cregg Jerri, 58, was enjoying his Starbucks order and working on his iPad when suddenly a man wearing a transformer mask entered the store and walks towards the counter.

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In the video, the man can be seen holding a gun in his right hand and a plastic bag in his left. He threatens the woman at the counter to put money inside the bag and takes out a knife from his pocket.

Suddenly Jerri swoops in with a chair and hits the man from behind, a fight erupts between them. Jerri gets stabbed on his neck but manages to carry on the fight. He pins the man down punching him on the back, the robber ultimately runs away.

During the fight no one seems to be interested to help Jerri grab the suspect.

A report in the CBS NEWS stated that Police later arrested the suspect and identified him as 30-year-old Ryan Michael Flores.

The report quoted Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer as saying, "there's probably not very many people in America who would do what Cregg Jerri did last night, it was incredibly heroic and the way most people would think that they would respond but may not have the courage to respond."

Watch the video here

FYI || CCTV footage: Armed robbers open fire in Mathura jewellery shop, gun down two traders ||

FYI || Watch: How fearless takeaway owner ignored armed robber and continued to serve, like a boss ||

FYI || The Mummy thief: Man covers face with toilet paper, robs petrol pump in US town ||

--- ENDS ---
The House of Lords launched the first public enquiry on artificial intelligence (AI) developments last Wednesday.

As mentioned earlier this month, the way AI has been developing in the last few years brings with it both high hopes for the future and various fears. Among them, that automation could prove damaging for some sectors of society.

In the attempt of regulating the upcoming consequences of such an exponential growth, the committee announced that the enquiry will focus on "the economic, ethical, and social implications of advances in artificial intelligence."

Submissions from all interested individuals and organisations must be received by 6th September 2017 and will have to answer the following questions:

How can the data-based monopolies of some large corporations, and the 'winner-takes-all' economics associated with them, be addressed?

Is the current level of excitement surrounding artificial intelligence warranted?

What role should the government take in the development and use of artificial intelligence in the UK?

This inquiry comes at a time when artificial intelligence is increasingly seizing the attention of industry, policymakers and the general public, said Lord Clement-Jones, Chairman of the Committee.

We are looking to be pragmatic in our approach, and want to make sure our recommendations to Government and others will be practical and sensible.

The former Liberal Democrat and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI called for ethics in AI work earlier this year.

At the AI Expo event in Berlin last June - and right before the General Election - he stretched the need of forming a parliamentary majority interested in the standards, values, governance, ethics, and moral questions that surround AI, as well as the societal implications.

The committee that called last weeks enquiry includes Labour lords Clive Hollick and Dame Joan Bakewell, and "Third Way" guru Anthony Giddens, director of the LSE, the Lord Bishop of Oxford, and science writer and columnist Matt Ridley.
Robots should be equipped with an ethical black box to keep track of their decisions, a new research has suggested.

The discussion was sparked by scientists at the 18th annual Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems conference at the University of Surrey last week and listed several motivations.

Accidents, we hope, will be rare, but they are inevitable, said Alan Winfield, professor of robot ethics at the University of the West of England in Bristol.

Anywhere robots and humans mix is going to be a potential situation for accidents.

The proposal comes days after a K5 security robot named Steve fell down steps and into a fountain while patrolling a building in Washington DC. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the incident.

Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself.



We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots. pic.twitter.com/rGLTAWZMjn  Bilal Farooqui (@bilalfarooqui) July 17, 2017

However, automation has already caused its first victim, as a man died last year after he left the wheel of his self-driving vehicle to the Autopilot.

Joshua Browns car  a Tesla Model S  did not detect a truck that drove across his path, resulting in the fatal collision.

The following investigation by the US National Highways and Transport Safety Agency blamed the driver for the accident, but the episode led to criticisms that Elon Musks company was actually testing critical safety technology on its customers.

A possible solution to these issues, the experts at the conference said, would be for robotics firms to follow the example set by the aviation industry, which brought in black boxes so that accident investigators could understand what caused fatal crashes and learn crucial safety lessons.

In terms of robotics, an ethical black box would record the robots decisions, its basis for making them, its movements, and sensors information from cameras, microphones and rangefinders.

Do you think this would be enough to prevent robot-related accidents in the future? Let us know in the comments.
Increasingly referred to as one of Europes best-kept secrets, the city of Porto is well-worth a visit.

After suffering an economic downturn during the financial crisis, the city of Porto faced a long road to recovery. Large parts of the city became abandoned ghost towns as people fled to find employment, local businesses suffered crippling financial strains and many shops were forced to close. Criminality rampaged the streets and drugs littered the lives of everybody at any corner, heavy drugs on the streets as an everyday basis.

However, despite the everyday struggles of life in Porto, tourism to this area has continued to rise over the years and, after seeing images of this colourful European city, it is not hard to understand why.

But the beauty of this city is not the only reason that tourism has continued its steady rise in numbers.

The Portuguese government recognised the importance of the tourism sector to their economy and decided to focus on an internet-based strategy to maintain these rising tourist numbers. Joao Cotrim Figueiredo, president of tourism in Portugal, comments, [it is] no secret that were working closely with Google, Amazon and Facebook, so their knowledge of the consumer can be used to fine-tune our marketing effects.

Since many people begin to research a summer break with no set destination in mind, Portugal has an opportunity to stand out. By paying for search engine optimisation, the tourism board can pique the interest of tourists towards lesser known areas of the country.

The strategy is mainly focused on directing tourists to places off the beaten path in order to reveal the hidden gems of this gorgeous country. According to the tourism board, once tourists arrive, they are always guaranteed to enjoy their stay due to the Portuguese talent for hospitality and a balmy climate - it is just a matter of getting tourists there in the first place.

The government has also taken a step back in the regulation of the tourist sector, allowing this industry to thrive without setbacks. For instance, rather than limiting tourist services by forcing them to pay expensive license fees, most tourism companies need only notify the government of their premises, vehicles and appropriate insurance before being approved.

Now, a multitude of airlines, including British Airways and easyJet, offer regular services to Porto making travel to this region more appealing to tourists.

Of course, Portos tourism success cannot be attributed solely to effective marketing techniques - the local people have maintained an optimist and welcoming nature despite the struggles they have faced. The snapshots of daily life in Porto can be the most fascinating parts of an experience in this city and the local people have continued to adapt and grow, maintaining a deep sense of pride for their culture while embracing modern developments.

This city is certainly one of contrasts; from family-run taverns serving traditional dishes with pride to modern fusion restaurants experimenting with new flavours, from grand medieval buildings to colourful local houses, from streets full of boarded up buildings in the old town to the buzzing, bustling cobbled squares.

Adrian Bridge, owner and CEO of The Yeatman hotel in Porto, was interviewed by Forbes magazine and insists that the city is experiencing an exciting and rapid change of pace. He comments: we are writing the future of this ancient town which reaches back to pre-Roman times.

Much like the port for which this region is famous for, ageing has only strengthened the city, adding more complexity and rich flavours over the years. As the Mayor of Porto says, "we don't want to have a city which looks like any other city" and Porto is certainly the unqiue product of a turbulent history and rich culture.

Strolling down Portos cobbled streets during high season, it is hard to believe the area is still in recovery from a recession less than a decade ago, however it is so important to see both sides of this city.

We encourage you to take a look behind-the-scenes of the typical tourist trail and try to understand the remarkable journey of recovery which locals and tourism companies have faced and conquered. Only then, can you truly appreciate the city of Porto.
Love Island couple Montana Brown and Alex Beattie have ruled out marriage and kids, but said they definitely have a future together as they became the latest couple to leave the villa.

The pair narrowly missed out on a place in Monday nights final as they were voted off the show by the public.

They ended up in the bottom three alongside Marcel Somerville and Gabby Allen and the bookies former favourite duo Camilla Thurlow and Jamie Jewitt.

Love Islands Montana and Alex (ITV)

Before finding out their fate, the shows host Caroline Flack announced that the two couples through to Monday nights final are Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies and Chris Hughes and Olivia Attwood.

Speaking after their elimination they both tipped Cetinay and Davies, or Hughes and Attwood to win.

Despite a rough patch for Hughes and Attwood, Beattie said they still had his backing to take home the title and 50,000 prize.

He said: Theyve been through so much together and they came out the other end of it and they are really, really strong. And they are super, super genuine and I love them both, individually and as a couple, and I think they will fly. Theyre wicked and I love them both so I hope they do (win).

The evicted couple also commented on their bedroom antics, following the revelation in tabloids by the shows last dumped couple, Sam Gowland and Georgia Harrison.

Responding to claims that their lovemaking was the loudest in the villa, Brown said: I tell you what, its funny, because Sam and Georgia are right next to us in the bedroom and we are right in the middle,

so

unfortunately, they do get front row seats, so I do feel for them.

Love Islands Montana and Alex (ITV)

But its unfortunate for us as well being smack bang in the middle, but no, (Im) not embarrassed at all, at the end of the day its natural.

Following a previous challenge, which saw the girls each take lie detector tests individually with questions posed to them by their other halves, public support for Allen has been divided with some fans saying her feelings for former Blazin Squad star Somerville are not genuine.

Brown defended Allen, saying: Do you know what, I dont think that she is pretending at all.

They have their ups and downs like a normal couple and I genuinely think her feelings are very genuine. She adored Marcel and I think that lie detector test really knocked her, knocked her confidence in herself and it made her second guess her feelings but I think they are genuine.

During her time in the villa, Brown became emotional when Beattie told her he loved her, resulting in Brown opening up to him about her strained relationship with her father.

Love Islands Montana and Alex (ITV)

Talking about it, she explained: Ive never really had a good relationship with my dad, and so that often kind of puts a barrier up with men in general.

Its just something I thought would be insightful for Alex to kind of get to know me and realise why I am a bit guarded when it comes to relationships.

He (my dad) just hasnt played a big part in my life in general, so for me like I havent had a father figure, so its just something I have to get used to and open up to in relationships.

The penultimate episode saw the couples meeting each others family members.
A Swedish rail operator has bowed to public opinion and named a train Trainy McTrainface, after the suggestion topped an online poll with 49% of the vote.

MTR Express said the decision offered a chance for revenge to those who felt hard done by over the UKs Boaty McBoatface debacle last year.

NERC decided that RSS David Attenborough was a more appropriate name for their new research vessel (British Antarctic Survey/Rolls Royce)

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) decided not to give its latest research vessel the name which topped a public vote, and instead settled on the more refined RSS Sir David Attenborough.

NERC eventually made a concession to disappointed voters and agreed to name a small submersive research unit Boaty McBoatface instead.

The train will constitute one of a brand new fleet that will run between Stockholm and Gothenburg in the coming weeks.

The real Boaty McBoatface, after a large research vessel was denied the name (Peter Byrne/PA)

The company appealed for help naming the trains in May, and executives quickly found that by far the most common suggestion was Trainy McTrainface: a clear link back to its Boaty cousin.

True to its word, MTR honoured the publics choice and announced that one of the passenger vehicles will indeed be baptised with the hallowed name, alongside Glenn  another train in the fleet supposedly named in reference to the names popularity in Gothenburg.

A Swedish rail firm have genuienly named their fleet of trains 'Trainy Mctrainface' after a poll. Go you Sweden! Proud of y'all.  Steph (@pinkwaldd) July 20, 2017

MTR Express said the news will be received with joy by many, not just in Sweden.
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Cops were informed but by the time Aathur DSP Pon Karthik Kumar reached the spot, the hospital was already damaged.

By Pramod Madhav: A video has emerged in Tamil Nadu showing few people attacking each other and damaging hospital property at Aathur, Salem.

The fight that was caught on camera also shows the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.

The scuffle started after Murugan, who owns a fruitshop at Vinyagapuram, Aathur, was admitted to the government hospital after getting injured in the tussle with a person named Radhamani and his friends in a business issue. Apparently, Radhamani was visiting the hospital on Sunday night trying to reach a compromise with Murugan. He, however, did not expect a huge crowd that had come to the hospital hearing about Murugan's injury.

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A fresh argument broke out between the two groups which quickly led to a fist fight. The whole incident was caught on camera where the two groups are seen attacking each other with hospital equipment. The staff and patients, who were present inside the hospital, were left shocked.

Police were informed but by the time Aathur DSP Pon Karthik Kumar reached the spot, the hospital was already damaged. 18 men were wounded in the scuffle. The cops said that they were in search of the miscreants.

Also read: MGR's centenary celebrations end in chair fight

Also read: Tamil Nadu woman chops off husband's genitals after a heated fight

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: (EDS: Updating with Chinas Defence Ministry spokesmans quotes)

By K J M Varma

Beijing, Jul 24 (PTI) Amid the Sikkim standoff, China today hinted that a bilateral meeting between State Councillor Yang Jiechi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval could take place on the sidelines of a BRICS NSAs meet here this week.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, during a briefing, left the door open for talks between Doval and Yang by saying that he cannot confirm it but in the past meetings of BRICS NSAs, the officials have held bilateral meetings.

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Lus remarks came after Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian asserted that China will safeguard its security interests at "any cost" and asserted that India should not "harbour any unrealistic illusions".

"China will safeguard its security interests at any cost. India should not leave things to luck and not harbour any unrealistic illusions," he said ahead of the 90th anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

China maintained its hardline stance on the Sikkim standoff, even as Doval is set to travel to Beijing this week to attend the BRICS NSAs meeting scheduled to be held from July 27-28.

"I dont have relevant information you mentioned right now. As far as we know during the previous meetings, the host countries arranged for the heads of the delegations to hold bilateral meetings in which they exchanged views on bilateral relations, BRICS cooperation and multilateral affairs," Lu said when asked whether there would be a bilateral meeting between Yang and Doval.

Both Doval and Yang are Special Representatives of the two countries in the boundary talks.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, while replaying to a question about Dovals schedule in Beijing, had last week said that if there are any further developments in his programme then the media will be informed.

Asked whether the Doklam standoff will figure in the BRICS NSAs meeting since the agenda included discussion on regional hotspot issues, Lu said, "China and India enjoy smooth diplomatic channels".

"The Indian border troops illegally crossed into Chinas territory. We once again urge India to pull back its troops to the Indian side of the boundary. I want to stress again that this is the precondition for any meaningful talks between the two sides," he said.

Lu also declined to comment on whether the BRICS NSAs would call on Chinese President Xi Jinping or Premier Li Keqiang, saying that he has no information on it.

The tradition of the previous BRICS NSA meetings has been that it was followed by a meeting with the top leaders of the host country.

In his briefing, Lu said Doklam standoff is like no other between India and China.

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Reacting to the Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishops comment that territorial disputes between India and China should solved peacefully, Lu said the Australian leader is "correct".

"But this principle does not apply to the current standoff between China and India because Doklam region has no dispute. The Sikkim section is a defined boundary recognised and abided by both sides," he claimed.

Earlier, commenting on the over a month-long military standoff between the troops of the two countries at Doklam area in the Sikkim section, Wu urged India to "correct its mistake".

Stating that the PLA has taken emergency measures in the region and continues to increase focused deployments and drills, he said, "We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border regions peace and tranquillity."

Last week, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had told Rajya Sabha that China intends to unilaterally change the status of the tri-junction with Bhutan, which poses a challenge to Indias security.

She had said there was a written agreement between India, China and Bhutan in 2012 that the three nations will together decide on the boundaries at the tri-junction point.

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She also accused China of building roads using bulldozers and excavators, which has been protested by Bhutan in writing to China.

The standoff between China and India in the Doklam area near the Bhutan tri-junction has dragged on for the past four weeks. It started after a Chinese Armys construction party attempted to build a road.

Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam while China claims it as part of its Donglang region.

Of the 3,488-km-long India-China border from Jammu and Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh, a 220-km section falls in the Sikkim section.

On the BRICS NSAs meeting, Lu said the meeting is the main platform for the BRICS countries to "discuss and conduct political and security cooperation".

"It will play an important role in strengthening strategic communication, increase political trust and elevate their influence in international affairs," he said. PTI KJV NSA ASK ASK

--- ENDS ---
The National Code of Conduct (CoC) - a 22-page document - should have been this regimes Magna Carta to moralize Liberias political life now and the future. It should have been signed by every government official, framed in gold and hanged along with the picture of the imperial President behind the desk of each state official and in all public places for posterity. But, like all the hundreds of national documents and agreements drafted with millions of dollars evaporated in thin air - while the nation is abandoned to bleed and suffocate in mass poverty, hopelessness and disorder - it too was forgotten since enactment in 2014.



But suddenly, and as if by a miracle - the CoC comes out to create more uncertainties, animosity, confusion and divide further an already divided nation and people in quest of a peaceful democratic transition, genuine national reconciliation and economic development.

So, it ponders my mind and leads me to this question: Was the CoC a genuine intention from the beginning, a music only for the partners/donors ears or the normal 12 years strategy of the UP leadership to systematically dub and manipulate the Liberian people? The latter, of course, is my true conviction; and here is why.

The odd chronology of the CoC bill

For a government elected in 2005 on transparency, efficiency and the fight against corruption as the enemy n1  the CoC should been its first order of business. But this chronology attests otherwise.

After some workshops, retreats, etc, and thousands of dollars went into the pockets, the CoC bill was submitted to the National Legislature in 2009 by the Executive (4 years after the 2005 elections).

At the Legislature, apparently, the CoC bill went missing for over 4 years (full term of a US President) and almost got a search warrant.

But by the stroke of a magic wand, the CoC bill was resurrected in 2014 with articles 5.1 and 5.2 incorporated or modified and passed into law. By this time, though, the government had already been presiding for 8 years (full maximum two years term of a US President); most Ministers had built mansions and mortgages paid in full in the US and elsewhere. Well, corruption had already turned into a vampire while the country sunk in mass poverty and left at the mercy of the Ebola epidemic. But also important, the 2011 general elections were already over, or else the CoC would have been a serious thorn in the flesh of the Liberian leader, the Unity Party and all its legislature aspirants.

Then no sooner the CoC bill was signed into law in 2014, it immediately went into hidden until around mid-2016, when a civil society group and a Superintendent filed separate petitions to the Supreme Court on the unconstitutionality of articles 5.1 and 5.2 of the CoC. The arguments and counter-arguments during the petitions hearings - including the Supreme Court decisions - make some very interesting readings (see: www.frontpageafricaonline./index.php/1447-why-did-president-the-allow-cabinet-ministers-to-violate-the-code).

In essence, the CoC bill took almost 10 years to be passed into law. Then at its first challenge before the Supreme Court in mid-2016, it was soon discovered that the all-important Ombudsman Commission  the monitoring component of this law  had never been established. Reason: no money to create yet another useless commission. Was this a cause for which the law went dormant, and if so, why didnt the Supreme Court see this as a sufficient reason to throw the case out, but it did not. Notwithstanding, the embarrassment and pressure were great enough to oblige the government to hastily set-up the commission just a few months ago.



Another hitch too, in establishing this commission the Legislature made it clear that its functions have nothing to do with election matters  that is, just in case the government was anticipating using the commission to find solutions to the multiple electoral problems developing after the first decisions by the Supreme Court.

The infamous articles 5.1 and 5.2 of the CoC in question

Were it not for articles 5.1 and 5.2 the CoC would not have come out to be a farce or a manipulative instrument; it would gone to oblivion like all the precedent laws. For this reason it merits to be recapped for a better comprehension, reference and analysis.

5.1 All Officials (authors note) appointed by the President of the Republic of Liberia shall not:

engage in political activities, canvass or contest for elected offices;

use Government facilities, equipment or resources in support of partisan or political activities;

serve on a campaign team of any political party, or the campaign of any independent candidate.

5.2 Wherein, any person in the category stated in section 5.1 herein above, desires to canvass or contest for an elective public position, the following shall apply;

Any Minister, Deputy Minister, Director-General, Managing Director and Superintendent appointed by the President pursuant to article 56(a) of the Constitution and a Managing Director appointed by a Board of Directors, who desires to contest for public elective office shall resign said post at least two (2) years (authors note) prior to the date of such public elections;

(authors note) prior to the date of such public elections; Any other official appointed by the President who holds a tenured position and desires to contest for public elective office shall resign said post three (3) years (authors note) prior to the date of such public elections.

From the reading, one does not have to be a constitutional lawyer, but simply objectivity and honesty to know that these two articles of the CoC are not only unconstitutional, but also highly discriminatory, anti-democracy, dictatorial in nature and extremely demeaning for those affected. Because in the spirit of the drafters any corrupt, incompetent and dictatorial President of Liberia, the Vice President (VP) and the legislators (ah, excluding the members of the Judiciary as appointed officials) can  at any time  engage in political activities, canvass or contest for elective offices, but not an honest, hardworking and dedicated superintendent, minister, managing director, and the list goes on indefinitely. Why? Because they are considered the disenfranchised subjects of the imperial President.



Just look at the circus with the so-called endorsement of the VP by some legislators from the rotunda of the National Legislature as if it is their eminent domain, and not a government facility (see art. 5.1 (b)). Of course, this is a typical example of the disdain the UP government has had for our institutions and the Liberian people at large. And for a Vice President talking about change, I think he should have advised his supporters that a minimum of democracy requires that they should have performed such exhibition at the UP headquarters or anywhere else for that matter.



Then the provocation continues. In compensation, the Vice President chose the Speaker of the House (a true son of the soil who already sees himself as the first Kpelle President in 2024) as his running mate. So now these two Honourables (true sons of the soil) will be presiding over the coffers of the National Legislature  the most corrupt branch of the UP government - and at the same time using state facilities and resources (as their native birth rights) to run their campaign because no law or even morality obliges them to be recused, at least, during the official campaign period. Well yes, and they expect Liberians to vote for them in mass for a first round win  God forbids.



On the other hand, an appointed official who desires to contest for public elective office must resign 2 or 3 years prior to the date of such public elections (see: art. 5.2). And whereas the official campaign time is about 3 months to the election date. Now tell me, if this law is not unconstitutional and grossly discriminatory against only a certain category of citizens, then what else could it be?

Discerning the public opinion on the CoC controversies

I was in Liberia recently when Dr. J. Mills Jones, the presidential candidate for MOVEE, first lashed out against the CoC. He vowed: We will resist that law, we dont care whether it was approved by the Court of Pontius Pilate I will contest and nothing can stop me from being a candidate in the elections come 2017. From this moment on this law got into a passionate national debate that should have actually taken place in 2014. And being present on the ground, I observed a public opinion evolved at three levels.



First, the greater majority of the poverty-ridden population does not give a damn of the CoC. In fact, here is what they say the most: That law we will eat? Most of these people have already made up their minds on their preferred candidates, and are impatient for this government to get out of sight as quickly as possible for them to move on with their lives.



Second, there are the political opportunities who, with a very shortsighted view, want the CoC - whether good or bad, to be applied at all cost to eliminate their potential political rivals. These were mostly the folks who repeated: Anyone who does not like the law, let him take his case to the court. But they forget that the Legislature, Judiciary and Executive are identical, inseparable triplets. Or else the arts. 5.1 and 5.2 would never have appeared in such a form or shape in the first place. Thus telling an intelligent man to go to court is a pure sarcasm of a very bad taste; it is like sending him to the gallows to be hanged as a pathetic imbecile.



And the third group are those who think that we have been screwed up and disappointed so much by this regime that it must be obliged at this last hour to respect and apply  for once  a law concocted, signed and imposed by the imperial President. It is a sort of revolt or last stand  so to speak; the regime has been caught red-handed in its own tricks and manipulations, and must be embarrassed straight to the exit door. In short, their message is that this President should not stroll out on a red carpet and applauses while the nation threads on a very bleak future.

And how the CoC boomerangs

Though the theatrical sequences at the Supreme Court on the CoC have left most Liberians confused and circumspect, but also in the process exposed clearly the CoC as a big manipulative fiasco, transforming progressively into a boomerang. And thanks to the courage and farsightedness of Dr. Jones who first challenged the legality of this law  not before the Supreme Court, but instead, before the court of public opinion. Knowing that the law was tailored to fit him, had he ran to the court like a coward and humiliated expeditiously, this law would have certainly been put to rest and forgotten. But now the polemic has naked the emperor up to the exit door. At times, thus, it pays when a man stands up or sacrifices for his rights to awaken the awareness of a hypnotized nation. And yet we forget so soon that more than 250 000 of our innocent compatriots have died to give us our inalienable constitutional rights.



Now let me confess whence comes my source of inspiration for this reflection. I was stunned during my stay in Monrovia when a friend remarked that Dr. Jones should take his case to the Supreme Court if he had any problem with the CoC instead of making threatening remarks. Unbelievable, but I reminded him that when an entire nation and its intelligentsia sat mute, knowing that the infamous arts. 5.1 and 5.2 were injected into the CoC only to bar a single individual (Dr. Mills Jones) from running for the presidency, then you cant ask such a man to seek redress before a court in that Republic where every citizen has lost his soul and dignity to become an economic prison. Then I concluded on the issue concerning some of the chosen vice presidential candidates who had already broken the CoC. He replied that those were minor issues that will be settled later. Ah, I said to myself: Poor Liberia.



Since this amicable episode, I have been holding my breadth as the test-run cases speed through the Supreme Court. The public went into a hysteria of jubilation to praise those first decisions upholding the CoC as constitutional, despite a strong dissenting opinion by Justice Philip Banks. But the decision opened the Pandora-box, and soon the court was at the centre-stage, holding the kenjah and not the National Elections Commission (NEC). Further, as expectations grew, and the people wanted the law to catch the biggest culprits (presidential candidates), only two major vice presidential running mates showed up for the showdown  rejected by the NEC.

Then the curtain opened for the second act. During the first rejection hearing of the two vice presidential running-mates, the defence counsels raised and argued on the issue of desire or intent of the aspirants to be or not to be for whatever they were accused. Apparently, the NEC was caught off balance; so the Supreme Court gently sent the case back to the commission, requesting it to do its homework properly in order to avoid overcrowding the court with pre-electoral complaints. And quickly the same jubilant public was disoriented, suspecting something fishy in this latest decision. But how could that be? Because had we followed objectively all the proceedings in those first test-run cases, we would have known that the Supreme Courts decisions were based on some of these same genuine or amusing legal technicalities that would now liberate the two vice presidential candidates  Kanwea and Sulunteh  to our greatest dismay.



In clear, (and forgive me, Im no lawyer) - the  desire or intent  in a criminal or some civil cases may determine the degree of punishment  if proven beyond all reasonable doubts. In this case article 5.2 of the CoC applied desires abundantly as a clear indication of its importance in the application of this law. The defence counsel knew that the NEC does not have the capacity or within its purview to prove or defend such a vague legal technicality in this case. Why? Because that task should belong to the Ombudsman Commission that never existed when all these aspirants quitted their official duties. And I think this much was not lost on the mind of the Supreme Court since it had constrained the government to set up this commission in precipitation after the first test-run cases. But since its establishment the commission has been conspicuously silent  I guess neither functional budget nor address as yet. How then can anyone expect the CoC to be applied effectively without confusion and loopholes when the monitor and first judge for conflict resolution is non-functional as yet?



So, bravo to the Honourable Supreme Court; you are playing your part in this game to perfection. Instead of sending that kenjah directly to its sponsors, you have placed it around the neck of the NEC.

Remember though, the people are still watching.

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Another Independence Day is just 48 hours away, but what is there to celebrate? Independence Day is not just about celebrating age, but celebrating fulfilled promises. Our sovereignty as a country goes far beyond THE DECLARATION OF INDEPEDENCE. It epitomizes how far we have come as a nation in terms of achieving genuine prosperity, reconciliation, peace, justice and equality. It commemorates socio-economic parity and eulogizes political freedom. Is Liberia different from what it was 170 years ago? The fact after almost 2 centuries is that Liberia and Liberians are free on the PAPER, but not free in RELITY. Independence is not merely about celebrating age in poverty and misery, but celebrating longevity in prosperity, equality and justice for ALL.

The Independence of Liberia has no value when Liberians remain economically enslaved after 170 years. How can a nation proudly claim to be independent when it is not self-sufficient? A country predominantly depending on foreign AID, LOAN and GRANT has no pride to observe Independence Day. I am constrained to conclude that Liberia is INDEPENDENTLY PARASITIC. Independence is not just about freedom from direct rule, but freedom from indirect foreign control, interference and economic slavery. Independence means protecting human dignity and self-worth through an equal and just governance system.

Even though Liberia is popularly referred to as the LAND OF THE FREE and the SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY, but is Liberia actually FREE and SWEET for Liberians in this age and time? After 170 years, are Liberians free from poverty, illiteracy, disease, nepotism, elitism, ethnicity and injustices? Did our Declaration of Independence promise poverty and inequality? Did it promise mass unemployment and extreme hardship? Did it promise messy education, poor healthcare and unsafe drinking water? Did it promise bad governance, corruption, bad roads, poor sanitation, food insecurity, lack of electricity and improved housing? Is this Independence or Dependence?



Has our independence really met its promise or has it given birth to a new and misguided generation of drug addicts, gamblers, car loaders, alcoholics, car washers, store boys, prostitutes, street peddlers, sand miners, rock crushers, casual laborers, coldwater sellers, security guards and a miserable population? Is this Independence Day worth celebrating? July 26 has lost its true essence. After 170 years of sovereignty, Liberians still live like strangers and slaves in their own country. They are predominantly controlled and abused by foreigners. Foreigners even decide what kind of toothpaste they use, food they eat, water they drink and clothes they wear.



Do you really know who are those running Liberia in this era? Do you really know the actual owners of this country? They arent Liberians as you may be thinking. One would be floating in error to arrive at such conclusion. Liberians have become second-class citizens in their own land. In fact, most of them are at the verge of being STATELESS. I am conducting a comprehensive research to release some factual findings, but let me give you a gist of WHO OWNS AND RUNS LIBERIA. Follow me now to know those who are running Liberia and controlling Liberians after 170 years:

1. Telecommunication Companies  The French and South Africans

2. Commercial Banks  Nigerians, Germans, South Africans and Ghanaians

3. Oil Companies  Americans, Canadians and Chinese

4. Gas Stations  The French, Sierra Leoneans and Guineans

5. Rubber Plantations, Other Cash Crops and Export  Americans, The French and Chinese

6. Iron Ore Companies / Mining  Indians, British, Chinese, Russians and Anglo-Australians

7. Gold Mining Industries  Turkish, Malaysians, Chinese and Germans

8. Timber / Logging / Furniture Companies  Lebanese and Dutch

9. Palm Oil Plantations and Export  Americans and Malaysians

10. Fishing Companies  Lebanese, Koreans, Chinese, Italians and Ghanaians

11. Pharmacies and Clinics  Indians, Chinese, Pakistanis, Germans and Lebanese

12. Hotels and Resorts Lebanese, Americans, Chinese and Nigerians

13. Real Estates, Villas and Infrastructural Investments  Lebanese, Americans and Nigerians

14. Supermarkets, Restaurants, Bars/Night Clubs and Casinos  Lebanese

15. Building Material Companies  Lebanese and Indians

16. Road Construction  Chinese, Japanese and Lebanese

17. Multi-million Factories  Lebanese and Indians

18 Importation of Rice, Clothes, Footwear and other Goods/Services  Lebanese, Indians, Ghanaians, Nigerians and Guineans

19. Sand Mining and Crush-rock selling / Export  Chinese and Lebanese

20. Foreign and Local Mineral Water Companies  Lebanese, Chinese and Indians

21. Electrical and Electronic Stores (TV, Laptop, Phones, etc.) Lebanese, Indians and Nigerians

22. Supplier of Vehicles / Cars Lebanese

23. Airlines / Aircrafts  Moroccans, Nigerians, Lebanese, The French, Kenyans, Ghanaians, Gambians and Belgians

24. Agri-businesses and Small & Medium-term Enterprises  Lebanese, Indians, Chinese, Malaysian, Ivoirians, Guineans, Ghanaians and Nigerians

25. Land and Machineries  Lebanese, Malaysians, Chinese and Indians

26. Aluminum, Glass and Steel Factories  Lebanese and Indians

27. Private Sector / NGOs / INGOs / Micro-Finance Institutions Foreigners

28. Garages and vehicle repair centers  Lebanese, Japanese, Guineans and Nigerians

29. Technology and firms  Lebanese, Indians, Nigerians and Ghanaians

30. Do you know who controls your government and influences your politics? Foreigners.

Are Liberians only good enough to be store boys, security guards, street vendors and casual laborers in their own country? Liberia has become a sweet land of liberty for foreigners and a bitter land of misery for Liberians. What an irony! This is an irony of obscurity and misery. This is what happens when PATRIOTISM and NATIONALISM are lacking on an industrial scale. Liberians, especially those in authority are mostly blamed for this.

We can change this sad narrative. Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Nigerians and nations in Africa are taking control of their own destinies. How long will Liberia remain at the very bottom? Only in Liberia foreigners control almost everything. An end to this gloomy, miserable and dehumanizing episode is a MUST.

How can we brag about Independence Day when the best jobs for Liberian youth are store boys, container off-loaders, motorcyclists, security guards, car boys? How can national unity and prosperity exist when civil servants are receiving between US$100 and US$150 per month while high-ranking public officials are becoming millionaires overnight? We cannot celebrate Independence Day when slum communities are increasing while a handful of pseudo-patriots and capitalists live in palaces and mansions. This is an outlook of Liberia after 170 years of Independence  what a shameful reality:

Food insecurity is affecting over about 650,000 according to Liberia Emergency Food Security Assessment, June 2015 Report. Liberia has the highest proportion of children missing out of primary school education according to UNICEF 2017 Report. Liberia is the 8th unhappiest and most miserable nation in the world (United Nations World Happiness Report, March 2017). Liberia is the 4th poorest country in the world after 170 years of independence (Global Finance Report, February 2017). 86% of Liberias population is poor while 83.76% live on US$1.25 a day (UNDP 2015 Human Development Report). Liberia was ranked as the most corrupt country on planet earth (Transparency International GCB Report, 2013). Liberia only has 298 doctors. This means that Liberia has 1 doctor to 15,100 patients in contrast to the desired WHO doctor-patient ratio of 1 doctor to 5,000 patients (Ministry of Health, 2017 Report). Liberia has a teenage pregnancy rate of 38% (UNFPA Report, 2012). Liberia has a National Budget of US$600.2 and a Direct Foreign Investment of over US$16.9 billion, but youth unemployment is as high as 85% (UNDAF Report, 2013-2017). Liberia had 554 rape cases in a period of 12 months (Ministry of Gender Report, January 2015). Liberia spent US$55.3 million between 2006 and 2013 just to purchase expensive cars for public officials (LIPI 2013 Report). Monrovia is the least prosperous capital city with a City Prosperity Index (CPI) of -0.313 (United Nations HABITAT Report, 2015). Only 25% of Liberias 4 million people have access to clean, safe drinking water (Water Aid International 2016 Report). Over 80% of Liberias population lacks access to a decent toilet while 3.7 million people lack access to adequate sanitation (Water Aid International Report, 2016). Over 500 children die every year in Liberia from diarrhea due to unsafe water and poor sanitation (Water Aid International Report, 2016). Six (6) public offices are receiving over US$10.2 million in Liberia in a period of just 12 months while infant mortality rate is 65.8 deaths to 1,000 live births according to the CIA World Factbook. Update to now, no one is yet to be held accountable for signing 66 bogus concession agreements. No one is yet to give an account for NOCALs bankruptcy, EUs US$14 million to reduce maternal mortality, over US$14.9 million meant to renovate the Executive Mansion and AG John Morlus dozens of audit reports Education is a mess according to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2013.

What are Liberians up to? Why must you be the oldest, but poorest especially in the midst of abundant natural resources? Rich country, old in age and small population, but poor people  The actual identity of Liberia. It is time to rise above the status of a CRAWLING EAGLE and take charge of our economy. There can be no political independence in the midst of economic dependence. Liberians must THINK wisely and ACT promptly in order to rescue their destiny. Surely, Liberians deserve far better as a nation and a people. With these appalling realities, it is needless to celebrate this years Independence Day. Therefore, Liberians must boycott this years celebration as a sign of peaceful protest to these prevailing dilemmas.

Liberians have a choice to alter this miserable chapter. October 10, 2017 is a perfect moment to chart a NEW COURSE. The over US$1 million usually appropriated to lavishly entertain the elites on during Independence Day extravaganza could construct over 10 modern Science Laboratories for more than 10 public schools across Liberia. President John Magufuli of Tanzania cancelled Independence Day celebration in 2015 and transferred the money towards the fight against cholera. Can poverty-stricken Liberia tread this path?

From the largest slum of West and the top of Ducor, I see a NEW LIBERIA rising above the African Continent  A DREAM that we must all work towards if the future of the next generation must be secured.

About The Author: Martin K. N. Kollie is a Liberian youth and student activist, a columnist and an emerging economist who hails from Bong County. He currently studies Economics at the University of Liberia and is a Lux-in-Tenebris Scholar. Martin is a loyal stalwart of the Student Unification Party (SUP). He can be reached at: martinkerkula1989@yahoo.com

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The PLA also said it had undertaken an 'emergency response' measure in response to the incident and would further step up deployments in the area.

By Ananth Krishnan: In its strongest statement yet on the stand-off in Doklam, China's People's Liberation Army said on Monday it would "safeguard China's sovereignty whatever the cost", and demanded a withdrawal of Indian troops as the "basis" for resolution.

The PLA told India to not "harbour any illusions", and revealed it had undertaken an "emergency response" measure in response to the incident and would "further step up deployments" in the area.

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At a special briefing ahead of the PLA's 90th anniversary which falls on August 1, the PLA put out a strong message on the Doklam stand-off.

"Shaking a mountain is difficult," Senior Colonel Wu Qian of the PLA said in a message to India, adding: "Shaking the PLA is even more difficult."

Senior Colonel Wu, also the Ministry of National Defence spokesperson, said that "the history of the PLA over the past 90 years has proven our resolve to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, and are capability and resolve are indomitable."

He strongly defended China's road construction on the Doklam plateau, which China calls Donglang. "In the middle of June, the Chinese military was undertaking the construction of a road. Donglang is China's territory and China building a road on its territory is normal, which is an act of China's sovereignty and is legitimate."

WITHDRAWAL OF TROOPS REMAINS THE MOOT POINT

"The crossing of the mutually recognised international border by India is a serious violation of China's territory and runs against international law. The willingness and resolve of China to defend its sovereignty is indomitable and we will safeguard our sovereignty whatever the cost," he said.

Senior Colonel Wu said that the Chinese border troops "have undertaken emergency response measures in the area and will further step up deployment and training in response to this situation."

"We strongly urge the Indian side to withdraw its troops back from the border line of the two countries. This is the basis for settling the issue," he said, adding that "peace and security of border areas conforms with the interest of both Chinese and Indian people."

"We strongly urge the Indian side to take concrete measures to correct its errors and put an end to its provocative acts, and join with the Chinese side to jointly maintain peace and stability in border areas," he added.

Even as China has kept up its strong rhetoric on the stand-off and has insisted on India's withdrawal as a precondition for talks, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will be in Beijing later this week for a BRICS NSA's meet that will take place on July 28. China's State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who along with Doval is the special representative on the boundary negotiations, will also attend the meet.

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Also read: Now, China moves military equipment to Tibet. Should India be scared?

Also read: In China, women can now send husbands to storage while shopping in a mall

Also read: India's response to Doklam more reasonable than China: Ex-US official

ALSO WATCH: China's public statements on border situation a sign of bullying?

--- ENDS ---
Several public meetings this week in Watertown

Here's a look at who's meeting this week and what they'll be discussing.
The officials said initial reports showed one of the Chinese J-10 aircraft came close to the US EP-3 plane on Sunday, causing the American aircraft to change direction.

By Reuters: Two Chinese fighter jets intercepted a US Navy surveillance plane over the East China Sea over the weekend, with one coming within about 300 feet (91 meters) of the American aircraft, two US officials told Reuters on Monday.

The officials said initial reports showed one of the Chinese J-10 aircraft came close to the US EP-3 plane on Sunday, causing the American aircraft to change direction. The persons spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

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One of the officials said the Chinese jet was armed and the incident took place 80 nautical miles (148 km) from the Chinese city of Qingdao.

Incidents such as Sunday's intercept are not uncommon.

In May, two Chinese SU-30 aircraft intercepted a US aircraft designed to detect radiation while it was flying in international air space over the East China Sea.

China is deeply suspicious of any US military activity around its coastline.

ALSO READ: US says Chinese Sukhoi-30 jets intercepted American radiation-sniffing plane

--- ENDS ---
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
According to city-based NGO Asha Community Health and Development Society, 130 children, including Prince, Devinder and Madhu, from different slums of the national capital got admission in some of the best DU colleges.

By India Today Web Desk: For those who beat poverty and the hardships of an urban slum to secure a spot amid the sky-high cut-offs, the feat becomes all the more significant.

And getting a seat in a top Delhi University college is a dream come true.

With lakhs of students across India come to take admission at DU, only few get the opportunity to study.

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Beating all odds, this year a labourer's son, who wants to become an IAS officer; a boy whose mother earns a living by selling lemons; and a porter's daughter, who aims to empower women through journalism have got admission in DU.

Meet 17-year-old Prince, for whom normal conditions for studying included the constant clattering of passing trains and the stink from heaps of garbage and junk in one of India's biggest scrap markets Mayapuri.

Here's what the talented boy said:

"I had to study at night. There are less trains during this hour. Sometimes, I put ear buds to cut out the deafening sound," says Prince, adding "if I become an IAS officer, I will take my family away from here."

His marks:

Class 12 board exam: 94 per cent

DU course: BA Political Science at Kirori Mal College.

With the desire to become IAS officer, Prince plans to start preparing for the Union Public Service Commission examination soon.

"Though my father earns enough to feed my family, he has never compromised on my education. I hope I can complete my graduation and answer the civil services exam," said Prince in recent PTI report.

Living in tough conditions, on the other side of the city at the Indira Camp slum, Madhu, a student of Hindi at Hansraj College, feels she can empower women by becoming a journalist.

While speaking about empowering women in India, Madhu said, "There is a lot to be done. I can complete my aim of advocating women empowerment by pursuing a career in journalism after graduation. If not I will take up teaching.

Her marks:

Class 12 board exams: 88 per cent

"It was difficult to study with speakers blaring throughout my slum. Even the environment here is very bad. I could have scored better if my surrounding were better," Madhu added.

Attributing her success to her parents:

"My father works in a shoe factory. He takes things from here to there and ekes out a meagre living. But he always encouraged me to study," the 17-year-old said.

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According to city-based NGO Asha Community Health and Development Society, 130 children, including Prince, Devinder and Madhu, from different slums of the national capital got admission in DU colleges such as Kirori Mal, Kamala Nehru, Zakir Hussain, Maitri and Hansraj.

"This year, 130 students got admission in various institutes under the Delhi University," says senior programme manager at Asha Society Ayesha Seymour, adding these children were identified through the NGOs higher education programme in 90 small and big slums.

(With inputs from PTI)

Read: Against all odds, autorickshaw driver's daughter takes admission in IIT Delhi

Read: CBSE UGC NET: Only 6 per cent of total candidates who appear in exam will be declared qualified

Read: Malala Yousafzai takes a dig at Nigeria's education where 10 million students do not attend school

For more updates, follow India Today Education or you can write to us at education.intoday@gmail.com

--- ENDS ---
A business opportunity that combines growth potential, cost-effective investment, profit and relaxation is, indeed, a heady mix, and one hard to find.

The Luapula province in Zambia, which draws its name from the Luapula river, serves as a natural boundary between

Zambia and Congo DR, bordering with Central, Muchinga and Northern Provinces of Zambia and blessed with a climate that favours most crops.

That's not all: it is a cultural heavyweight too; one of Zambia's most famous traditional ceremonies ~ Umutomboko ~ performed by the traditional ruler, Mwata Kazembe, originates from this province. Politically, Luapula has a special place in the decision-making of the country, as it is the home town of seven ministers, making it easier for any investor to gain access to the highest authority.

The Zambian government has made significant progress in opening up Luapula for investment opportunities across various sectors of the economy, including surface transport and infrastructure, enabling the convenient transfer of goods and commodities.

So, what kinds of opportunities are foreseen for Indian investors? They can take advantage of abundant water, solar and

wind resources in the province to invest in power generation.

The water bodies in the province truly provide an opportunity for investors to invest in the energy needs of Luapula and the province as a whole. So far, plenty of land and sunshinehas ensured that investments in solar energy are workable,

as can be seen in the Samfya district (Mpanta).

If more investments are done in energy, it would be easy to export electricity to the Great Lakes region and feed the national grid, especially since tariff rates in Zambia are now cost reflective. Another sector is tourism. Luapula has many natural wonders to be explored.

The rare white sand beaches in Samfya district are now attracting quality investments in terms of lodges; however,

the province needs five-star hotels to host international conferences. This is another potential area for investors," elaborates Judith KK Kan'goma-Kapijimpanga, the High Commissioner of Zambia to India.

She adds "So far, the airport in Mansa district, the provincial headquarters, has been refurbished, allowing commercial

flights to use the facility. This is also an opportunity for Indian investors who would want to invest in the aviation sector to

consider doing so now."

In the area of health, Luapula now has four district hospitals at various levels of construction in the following areas: Milenge, Mansa, Mwense and Kawambwa while a full-fledged Intensive Care Unit has now been opened

in Mansa. The health sector in this particular Province is yet another opportunity for investments in private health care

facilities, equipped to handle complicated cases. In this part of Zambia, patients would come from Luapula and across borders such as Congo DR, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda if a specialized hospital is built.

Another sector is mining, as Luapula is rich in manganese deposits. High-grade copper is also being mined, on a small scale, in areas such as Mwense district. Readily available land for investment purposes and skilled youth are other USPs.

The government has also built a second Trades Training Institute in Mwense district to complement the efforts of skills training at Mansa Trades. Partnerships in the higher education sector, therefore, hold strong potential as there is a demand for skills, knowledge and technology.

"The first ever Luapula Expo is set to take place on 26-31 July, and we hope to open many doors with this extensive and

vibrant platform that is being offered, encouraging a win-win situation for all involved," concludes Kan'goma-Kapijim

panga.

The sky is the limit, for opportunities in Zambia are abundant and diverse.
India has launched its first petroleum Research & Development (R&D) facility for testing high-end BS-VI quality fuel emissions, according to an official here.

Operated by state-run Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the R&D facility is designed to test all types of fuel including petrol, diesel, ethanol-blended petrol, bio-diesel, CNG, LNG, hydrogen-CNG and 2G-ethanol blends to ensure they meet the superior BS-VI norms that are to be implemented across the country by April 2020, a Petroleum Ministry statement said.

This "first-of-its kind" facility was inaugurated by Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in Faridabad in the National Capital Region (NCR) on Saturday.

"In addition to generating emission data, the facility will also evaluate the fuel blends for energy-efficiency and engine durability," it said.

On the occasion, Pradhan complimented the IOC scientists for developing a "nano-additised battery for use in e-rickshaws, with better efficiency and longer life than commercially available batteries."

"The minister also lauded the efforts of Indian Oil R&D in commercialising Indane Nanocut  the industrial version of LPG for the metal-cutting industry."

Pradhan hoped IOC would take a "quantum leap" in alternative and renewable fuel research arenas in the next 3-4 years, the statement added.
Iran and Iraq signed an agreement to boost cooperation in a host of military fields, media reports said.

The agreement was signed between the Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehqan and his visiting Iraqi counterpart Erfan al-Hiyali on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The agreement encourages promotion of interaction and share of experiences in the fight against terrorism and extremism, border security, training and logistical, technical and military support.

Speaking to reporters after signing the document, the two ministers expressed hope that the agreement would result in deeper and more serious military cooperation between the two countries.

Heading a military delegation, Hayali arrived in Tehran on Saturday for an official visit, Tasnim news agency reported.

On Saturday, Dehqan said that Iran would continue to provide full support to Iraqi and its government to establish security and stability.

"We have cooperated and will cooperate with the Iraqi government and the nation and will continue our support," Dehqan said in a meeting with al-Hiyali.

"We will also use our utmost political, economic and military capabilities along with Iraq's capabilities to establish sustainable security and stability in the country and create a powerful Iraq," he added.

For his part, the Iraqi Defence Minister lauded Iran's full support for the Iraqi government, nation and the armed forces and called for further development of defence and military cooperation with the Islamic republic.

Iran has been providing military advisory assistance to Iraq in its counter-terrorism campaign.
The first batch of 300 Haj pilgrims let for Saudi Arabia from the Chowdhary Charan Singh international airport here on Monday.

The pilgrims were flagged off from the Haj House by Minority Welfare Minister Chowdhary Laxmani Narayan Singh, who was accompanied by his deputy Mohsin Raza and other senior officials while family members and relatives of the pilgrims turned up in large numbers to wish their loved ones well.

While for the last several years, the Chief Minister had been flagging off the first batch of the Haj pilgrims, this time round, present incumbent Yogi Adityanath gave the event a miss.

Officials said Adityanath had flown off to New Delhi to meet BJP President Amit Shah and to attend the swearing-in of new President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday.

This year, in all 29,441 people will leave for the Haj pilgrimage from Uttar Pradesh. Of these, 12,414 will take the flight from Lucknow while the rest will fly for Saudi Arabia from Varanasi and New Delhi.


By PTI: Chennai, July 24 (PTI) The Madras High Court today set aside the forex law violation charges against AIADMK (Amma) leader T T V Dhinakaran in an over two-decade old case, but asked him to put forth his argument against the charges in the case before the trial court in just "one working day."

Justice M S Ramesh gave the reprieve to Dhinakaran and set aside the trial court order against him on his plea that the Economic Offences Court on April 19 last had framed charges against him in the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act case without giving him any opportunity to defend himself.

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The judge asked the trial court to hear Dhinakarans arguments and gave the AIADMK (Amma) leader just "one working day" to put forth his argument against framing of charges in the case filed against him by the Enforcement Directorate. "The petitioner is permitted to put forth his arguments... Such an exercise shall be completed within one working day and such date shall be fixed by the learned Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (E.O.) on or before July 31, 2017," the judge said directing completion of the trial within three months.

Justice Ramesh had on July 7 granted an interim stay on all further proceedings in the EO court against Dhinakaran.

Later on July 17, he had reserved orders on the petition a day after the ED had opposed the stay contending that ample opportunities were given to Dhinakaran in the case which was pending for the past 21 years. It had sought dismissal of Dhinakarans petition.

Pronouncing his order today, Justice Ramesh directed the additional chief metropolitan magistrate (EO) to fix any one day before July 31 to enable Dhinakaran put forth his arguments.

He noted that framing of charges was an important event in the trial of warrant cases and it can be seen that the petitioner had sought only a days time for making his arguments, but it was denied and the court went ahead with the process on April 19.

The prosecution had submitted its arguments on April 10 and the magistrate had rejected the petitioners request for adjournment and expressed his opinion that a prima-facie case was made out for framing of charges, he said.

"In my considered view, one day adjournment could not have caused grave miscarriage of justice but on the other hand, would have extended an opportunity of hearing to petitioner.

"It is needless to mention that no prejudice would be caused to the prosecution if the petitioner was permitted to put forth his argument within a stipulated time limit of one day alone," the judge ruled.

Justice Ramesh directed the trial court to conclude the main proceedings, within three months from the date of receipt of his order and if need be, on a day-to-day basis.

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As per the ED, as the sole director of M/s Dipper Investments Limited Company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, Dhinakaran had transferred over USD 10 million without RBI permission.

A total of six charges were framed against Dhinakaran for alleged violation of various sections of now defunct FERA.

Though registered in 1996, the ED could not proceed ahead with the case due to several rounds of litigation.

Dhinakaran was earlier discharged from the case, but onFebruary 1this year, Justice G Chockalingam of the high court had allowed an EDs revision petition challenging the lower court order.

It paved the way for resumption of the case and led to framing of charges, a step done after a court finds sufficient prima facie evidence against an accused to put him on formal trial.

Incidentally, the Supreme Court had on July 21 dismissed a petition by Dhinakaran challenging the February 1 high court order, paving the way for his trial. PTI CORR VS RAX

--- ENDS ---
July has a special significance for human rights activists in Manipur. It was in July 2004 that 12 elderly Manipuri women leaders stripped themselves naked in front of the Assam Rifles Centre at Kangla with a placard that read, Indian Army Rape Us.That followed the arrest and killing of a suspected woman cadre of a rebel group by personnel of the 7 Bn Assam Rifles.

When protests erupted, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that there was a need to replace the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act by a more humane one. And he did constitute an inquiry commission headed by Justice Jeevan Reddy. It submitted its report within six months, recommending repealing the Act. But no action followed, apparently because of objections from the Army.

On 14 July 2017, the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgment. It's division bench, comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Uday Umesh Lalit, ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe into 62 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings by the Army, Assam Rifles, Central Reserved Police Force and the state police.

Those 62 were picked up from the 1,528 such cases reported to the apex court. While the Army then saved itself

under the Act, the police received political patronage. The legal fight against the AF (SP) Act, 1958 actually began at a canteen in Delhi University's Gwyer Hall, sometime in 1979.

I, along with Lokendrajit Paonam (now a senior lawyer in Delhi) and Elangbam Bijoykumar Singh, now professor at Manipur University, discussed the need to challenge the constitutional validity of the AF (SP) A in the Supreme Court.

On 9 September 1980, entire Manipur was declared a Disturbed Area following, which the Army was inducted.

On 10 October, 1980 we moved the Supreme Court contending that the Act deprived the fundamental rights of citizens as enshrined in the Constitution, among others. That was the first time the apex court was approached to quash this

draconian act. Around 1985, the Naga People's Movement for Human Rights wrote to the Chief Justice of India. And that was later treated as a petition.

Around 1996, the full bench of the National Human Rights Commission visited Imphal. At the press meet, I was surprised to learn that the NHRC knew nothing about the existence of the Act. We had to say that a case was filed by

us in 1980 and was pending. The NHRC then returned to Delhi and moved the Supreme Court making itself a party to the case.

After 17 years the case was finally disposed off in 1997 by a five-member constitutional bench of the Supreme Court headed by then Chief Justice of India J S Verma. And since NSCN (IM) leaders were already engaged in formal talks with the Centre, the Supreme Court thought it prudent to name the case as NPMHR Vs Union of India and others.

Thus, around mid-1997, the Supreme Court upheld the Constitutional validity of the AF (SP) A but at the same time, it

issued dos and don'ts to the Armed Forces operating under the Act. It also attached a rider to the state governments,

which was using the services of the armed forces under the Act, making it mandatory for them to have a bi-yearly review of the Act.

These restrictions find reflection in the recent verdict on the Act. Then, in 1998, the Manipur Government constituted the Manipur State Human Rights Commission. I was made a member and later became its chairperson-in-charge. What we did was to extend the provisions of the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993.That was also the time when the Army/Assam Rifles were on the rampage arresting suspected militants without arrest warrants.

What we did was to empower the state police over the Army by issuing notices to the director general of police to ask the

Army if any person had been picked up by them without issuing an arrest warrant as complaints had been received from the arrested person's guardians. This had a very positive effect. A Colonel came and asked me to desist from doing so (Somehow the MSHRC was made defunct from 2010).

Then in 1999 came the case of Tayeb Ali, a tailor who was allegedly picked up by the 17-Assam Rifles. After three days, when he did not return home, his wife came to us at the State Human Rights Commission. We asked the police to inquire. They came up with a report and statements of persons who saw Tayeb Ali being taken inside the battalion HQs and also the Army's denial. We forwarded this report to the NHRC which, in turn, approached the Defence Ministry.

Its reply stated that Tayeb Ali was killed in an encounter and his body was disposed off by the Kangpokpi police after it was picked up by them following the encounter. In a historic ruling, the NHRC made for the first time a full interpretation

of its Article 19 and ruled that the onus to prove that the missing person was not in their custody lay with the Army and awarded an interim relief of Rs three lakh to the next of kin of Tayeb Ali.

Then the Human Rights Law Network picked up the case and moved the Gauhati High Court praying for a CBI inquiry, which was granted. After the investigation, the CBI ruled that the said encounter happened at a place out of the operational area of the 17 Assam Rifles and held that two Army captains, one noncommissioned officer and two other

ranks and one police inspector who was the then officer-in-charge of Kangpokpi police station, were prima facie guilty of abduction and subsequent murder and disposal of the body of Tayeb Ali.

The two captains have since been promoted to the ranks of Lt Colonels and the police inspector has sinc been made a deputy superintendent of police. When asked about the proceedings on the murder charge in the Civil Court, Meihoubam Rakesh, director of the local HRLN unit said that the matter had come to a dead end as the judge had refused to pursue the case pending the non-issuance of permission by the Government of India for the prosecution of the guilty men as they were protected by the AF (SP) A under which prior prosecution sanction is required from the Centre for crimes deemed to have been committed under provisions of the Act.

The moot point to be raised was the Army-CBI proof.

Then in November 2000, personnel of the 8th Bn Assam Rifles shot dead 10 persons in retaliation to a bomb attack on one of their convoys at Malom. That prompted a young poetess, Irom Chanu Sharmila to undertake an indefinite hunger strike demanding the repeal of the AF (SP) A. This now brings us to the recent ruling of the Supreme Court ordering

a CBI probe into 62 cases of extra judicial killings out a total of 1,528 cases cited by the Human Rights Alert and

the Extra Judicial Executions Families Association.

While welcoming the verdict, chief minister N Biren Singh said that his government will extend full cooperation

to the probe. HRA chief executive officer Babloo Loitongbam said that the ball was now in the CBI's court, adding that the probe should concentrate on identifying who actually gave the execution orders, apart from the personnel who actually carried it out.

But what needs to be taken into account is the manner in which the CBI had been conducting the probe into the killing of Sanjit, a former rebel who was shot in broad daylight some years ago in the heart of the Imphal town after being taken into the custody by the police commandos. Here the main accused is havildar Thounaojam Herojit. He has already

admitted having killed Sanjit on the orders of his senior officer and added that he had earlier carried out 130

such executions, also on the orders of his superiors. That the CBI is yet to record a judicial statement of Herojit

is another angle that needs to be examined.

It is to be hoped that the Supreme Court will direct the Centre to grant prosecution sanction against those armed forces personnel found guilty by the CBI probe. The onus for a fast track trial lies with the state government.

(The writer is the Imphal-based special representative of The Statesmans)
In 1863, J Fergusson of the Geological Survey of India called Assam a region under the dominion of water. That this observation is as valid today as it was then is clear when one looks at the staggering devastation the recent floods have caused in the region, especially in Assam.

The official death toll has been put at 60 but it could be much higher. Altogether 75 revenue circles in 25 out of 34 districts were under water. More than 1.7 million people were affected and about 24,000 took shelter in relief camps. Standing crops on 1.86 lakh hectares were damaged. Over half of the Kaziranga National Park was inundated with irreparable loss to wildlife.

As many as 58 districts in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur reeled under flood waters and 80 people lost their lives. A clear picture of the damage is yet to emerge. It has prompted the Centre to engage the Indian Space Research Organisation to conduct a survey to get a real picture.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal is right to urge the Union finance minister to release the Central share of Rs 1,138 crore for the flood management programme, pending for the last 10 years against 141 schemes.

The flood waters have started receding now and soon the ordeals the people suffered will be forgotten. One may ask whatever happened to the much-talked about Brahmaputra Board that was set up in 1980 under an Act of Parliament. Its avowed object was to evolve a sustainable answer to recurring floods. It is now under the Union ministry of water resources.

The Boards jurisdiction covered seven North-east states, Sikkim and also a part of West Bengal, which means that apart from the Brahmaputra and Barak valley, a part of the Teesta Basin is also under its charge. The board has 21 members  four full-time and 17 part-time, including a representative each of the Union ministry for Development of the North-east region and the North Eastern Council. It has a provision for special invitees from all states concerned.

The Board started functioning from 1982 and, as per its charter, was to prepare master plans in three parts,

and in all 55 such for the tributaries of the Brahmaputra and the Barak and rivers of Tripura and Dhaleswari. There was a separate plan to protect Majuli, the worlds largest river island. By 1997, those master plans were approved and passed on to the state governments for implementation as part of their plans.

In Assam this formed the core of the flood management programme and in other North-east states too covered

activities like the construction, operations and maintenance of embankments and anti-erosion schemes .The Majuli island received special attention as its area had shrunk to 502 sq km in 2004 from its original area of 1,150 sq km. A sum of Rs 200.13 crore was allocated to raise and strengthen embankments and anti-erosion structures.

Several initiatives like the restoration of the Lohit and Dibang rivers and the Harrang drainage development schemes and establishment of the North-east Hydraulic and Allied Research Institute in 1996 indicated the importance attached by the Brahmaputra Board to develop a collaborative strategy for dealing with the floods with other states as partners.

The board is also an agency of the Union ministry of water resources as it identifies hydro-power potential of the region and facilitates multi-purpose water resource development projects.

Assams experience in the current season shows that unabated degradation of land, especially the wetlands, deforestation of the hills, construction of dams and hydel projects in the ecologically- sensitive areas, caused a

massive rise in siltation levels of all rivers, which in turn, led to erosion of river banks across the valley.

One must remember that the devastating 15 August 1950 earthquake in Assam raised he river bed of the Brahmaputra

to a critical level.

On 9 July, when water in the dam of the 405 MW Ranganadi hydropower project a North-east Electric Power Corporation unit in Arunachal Pradesh  started overflowing, the dam authority, as a precautionary measure, released surplus water and that caused breaches in embankments and inundation of the district headquarters of North Lakhimpur.

It may be useful to look at the Brahmaputra closely. It originates from the Konglungkong glacier in Tibet at an elevation of 5,150 metres, traverses 1,625 km in Tibet, 918 in India (278 km in Arunachal Pradesh and 640 km in Assam) and 363 km in Bangladesh.

Twenty six tributaries on its north bank and 13 on the south, join the river. The annual flow of its water at Jogighopa is 573 BCM, on the Bangladesh border, which is 29 per cent of the total water flow of the country. In terms of the sheer volume of water the Brahmaputra carries (85 ha m per sq km), it is next only to theAmazons 87 ha m per sq km. It

encompasses a basin of 5.80 lakh sq km in South Asia.

The challenges of flood moderation of the val ley are, therefore. tremendous and require a sustainable development approach rather than an economic output-centric strategy with focus on hydel power development to meet the demand of areas and earn revenues. All this when the prime need is to conserve the ecosystem of the downstream areas.

Since such projects will invariably be in the hills, downstream plains will be at the receiving end. In this background

it is disquieting to note that Arunachal Pradesh government has signed memorandums of understanding

for 143 projects, for generating 46,442 MW.

Fifteen such projects are under construction (5,480 MW) in the North-east even though the Brahmaputra Boards flood management projects in the Brahmaputra and Barak valley districts have produced virtually no significant impact on floods for want of, firstly, a scientific land use policy for urban and rural areas, and second a wrong perception that water is a resourcein the economic and commercial sense and therefore should be exploited for profit. It is part of the ecology

and its sustainable use is critical for survival of the Earth.

Its time now for the Centre and the states to review the performance of the Brahmaputra Board, its approach to recurring floods in the region and hydro power development, which looks like a zero sum game, and protect the wildlife, human habitat and life support system at the core of its strategy.

On the contrary, in its submissions before the Apex Court in Civil Appeal No 6736 of 2013, the Union ministry of water resources argued in favour of hydro-power projects, citing lower tariffs and capacity to provide peaking power while ignoring the fact that the peaking hydropower would hold up water for 20 hours and thereby throttle the Brahmaputra aspointed out by the petitioners against dams in the North- east.

Indeed, while estimating the hydel power potential, the adequacy of flow, longitudinal integrity of the river stream and the competing needs of society should be fully taken into account.

The All Assam Students Unions demand for the declaration of recurring floods as a national problem is well-timed as it is verily a case of national failure and mis-governance of the environment.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre and has served as a scientific consultant in the office of the principal scientific advisor to the government of India)
Religion is belief in someone else's experience. Spirituality is having your own experience. These words of Deepak Chopra find resonance in today's time. "I keep emphasising the importance of pluralism, as it is important to understand that each individual is unique, and it is this uniqueness that complements the other," says Professor Iwan Pranoto, Education and Cultural Attache at the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in India.

"This is what is also meant by unity in diversity. Culture is an important component of society, and should serve as an important platform to move forward, using the richness of its past." He was speaking on the occasion of the screening of two films ~The Prambanan Temple and Javanese Hinduism, Cosmic Harmony and The Buddhist Legacy of Indonesia,

Learning from Borobudur.

In fact, the latter was the winner of several international awards. Pranoto elaborates using a simple example. "If I want to prepare a salad, I have to combine different components, which are unique in Nature. These when combined, not blended, and when allowed to retain their 'individuality', result in a delicious and colourful salad. Each vegetable

like lettuce, tomato, onion, and others is allow to retain its taste and flavour.

We see this bio-diversity in Nature too. Imagine if Nature's bounties were to be homogenous!" So, what is the gist of the films, both directed by Fred Wibowo and screened at the India International Centre, in Delhi? Harmony would be the simple answer, evident from simple examples like the 135 reliefs of Kalpataru trees at the Prambanan Temple area, not

to forget the structure and resident energy of the temple, in complete oneness with Nature and the cosmos.

The screening of the documentary, created with the objective to understand and explore the role of spirituality and religion in this modern world, was followed by a talk given by Dr Himanshu Prabha Ray, historian and former Chairperson of National Monuments Authority, and Professor, Centre for Historical Studies (CHS) at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

The second film ponders on 'reflection and introspection', two very important aspects of the spiritual path. In fact, the Borobudur Temple ~ a monument for cultural and spiritual studies~ invites pilgrims to search for revelation inside the three temples of Mendut, Pawon and Borobudur.

These revelations are disclosed from the stories on the reliefs and statues in the temples ~ the stories of a rabbit, a quail, a deer, a lion and a woodpecker ~ inviting the pilgrims to reflect and introspect. The film screening was followed by a talk given by Lama DoboomTulku, Founder and Managing Trustee, World Buddhist Trust.

"The common value between India and Indonesia lies in the concept of pluralism. It is important to be open to interpreting, absorbing and learning from different religions or ideas. This done, there would never be any question of hatred or violence on the name of religion. In fact, this year, we will be marking 90 years of Rabindranath Tagore's

visit to Java and his works written there," adds Pranoto.

He goes on to explain the importance of pluralism as an employability skill, which makes complete sense in a globalised world, where different cultures seek to intermingle all the time and therefore demand more tolerance, openness, flexibility, understanding and adaptation than ever before.

The message of both films is clear, as Pranoto put it: foreign ideas are not threats. They are windows to amalgamations ~ amalgamations of indigenous ideas, present learnings and future hopes and aspirations. These are what serve as the ingredients for a better future.

Who says spirituality and religion find no common ground? They do. It is up to the interpreter: Us.
The Communist Party of India (CPI) would hold nation-ide demonstrations including picketing of central and state government offices and 'jail bharo' for three-days from Monday, over farmers issues.

The CPI's state, districts and other units will organise 'jail bharo', picketings, dharnas throughout the country from July 24 to 26 in support of farmers, a release quoting CPI national council secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan said.

The Communist Party of India supports the ongoing agitations of farmers in different states on genuine demands of agrarian sectors and rural people, he said.

Anjaan alleged that the farmers were hit hard due to the central government's economic and agrarian policies and accused the BJP led NDA government of miserably failing to check the ongoing farmers' suicides in the country.

The Indian Agriculture and Farmers welfare ministry in its record said that during 2016 in BJP ruled state of Maharashtra more than 1,841 farmers committed suicides, the CPI leader claimed.

The protests will be for fulfillment of demands including to immediate implementation of recommendations in totality of the Swaminathan Commission, bringing down growing agriculture input cost.

Seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, diesel, electricity, pumping set and generators must have zero tax, which means they should be out of GST, he said.

Among the other demands include creation of Rs 1 lakh crore price stabilising fund by the government to check the downward prices of agri-produce.

Loans taken from all nationalised and cooperative, banks and other agencies be brought under loan waiver scheme, the CPI leader demanded.
India is learnt to have briefed Delhi-based envoys of major countries on the situation arising from the ongoing stand-off between India and Chinese troops at Doklam plateau on the trijunction between India, China and Bhutan.

The briefing, believed to have been done by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and other senior officials of the External Affairs Ministry, took place at a hotel sometime last week.

According to one of the diplomats, who was present, the briefing was attended by 15-20 envoys and senior diplomats from nearly 20 other nations.

The diplomat, who did not wish to be identified, said Jaishankar explained the circumstances in which Indian troops were left with no choice but to prevent Chinese troops from going ahead with the road construction activity in the area in violation of the agreement to maintain status quo ante there.

Delhi expressed confidence that the two countries would be able to resolve the face-off through diplomatic means. It was also pointed out to the foreign envoys that the two countries had successfully maintained peace and tranquility along their long border all these years and New Delhi was committing to settling the current situation too peacefully. Some of the envoys are understood to have raised certain queries with regard to the stand-off.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had last week told the Rajya Sabha that all nations support Indias stand on the Doklam issue. However, the Chinese official media accused her a day later of lying in Parliament. The Chinese, on their part, have also briefed the foreign envoys on their stand on the current tension with India.

There is, however, some concern in diplomatic circles in New Delhi over Indias position. Our concern is that India says it had acted on behalf of Bhutan and stopped the Chinese from constructing the road but what happens if the Chinese enter Jammu and Kashmir and say they are doing so on behalf of Pakistan, a diplomatic source said.

New Delhi appears confident that there would be diplomatic talks on the stand-off when National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval visits China later this week to participate in the BRICS NSAs meeting.

Meanwhile, Beijing continued with its rhetoric against New Delhi,asking India to immediately withdraw all troops from Doklam. Claiming that it was easier to shake a mountain than the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), it said China would defend its territorial sovereignty "at all costs."

"The Chinese border troops have taken initial counter measures at the site and will step up targeted deployment and training," Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defence Wu Qian as saying at a press conference.

Asserting that Chinas demand was a prerequisite to resolving the situation, he said, we strongly urge India to take solid measures to correct its mistakes and desist from provocation." He also called for joint efforts to maintain peace in border areas.

The spokesperson cautioned India to abandon any impractical illusions.The history of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the past 90 years has demonstrated its increasing capacities and unshakable determination to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and others on a plea seeking its permission to allow a 10-year-old rape survivor to terminate her 26-week-old pregnancy even as it asked the member secretary of Chandigarh Legal Services Authority to assist as an amicus curiae and get the rape survivor examined by a board of doctors on 26 July.

A bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice DY Chandrachud said a medical examination of the child was essential before taking a call on the matter and asked the medical board to examine if allowing the abortion would pose a possible threat to the child's life.

It has asked the member secretary to ensure that the rape survivor and one of her parents are accorded proper transportation facility for her examination at PGI, Chandigarh.

Fixing the matter for hearing on 28 July, the apex court said the medical report be filed in a sealed cover before it and asked the counsel for the rape victim to provide her address to the member secretary instantly.

The PIL was filed in the apex court after a Chandigarh district court on 18 July refused to let the girl undergo the abortion after it was confirmed that she was 26 weeks pregnant.

Laws allow medical termination of pregnancy up to 20 weeks under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and can make an exception if the foetus is genetically abnormal.

The petition, filed by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, has also sought that appropriate guidelines be framed by the top court to set up a permanent medical board in each district of India for expedient termination of pregnancies in exceptional cases involving child rape survivors under the best possible medical facilities.

"Medical experts have categorically opined that if the 10-year-old rape survivor is forced to give birth through normal delivery or C-section, it may be fatal to the life of the girl as well as her child," the petition filed through advocate Kedar Nath Tripathy had said.

The petition had also sought direction to the Centre to amend Section 3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, so as to permit termination of pregnancies of more than 20 weeks, particularly involving child rape survivors after obtaining requisite opinion from a permanently constituted medical board.

The matter came to light after the girl was taken to hospital on complaining of stomach ache. After the girl's mother, the accused's sister, filed a complaint, the police arrested the man who allegedly raped the minor repeatedly.
Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will address the Lok Sabha on Monday over the issue of 39 missing Indian citizens in Iraq, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan told the House.

Earlier in the day, Swaraj met her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim Al Eshaiker Al Jafari and discussed the issue of 39 Indians kidnapped by ISIS three years ago from Mosul. Both the leaders also discussed several other issues.

The Congress has reportedly said that it will move a privilege motion against Swaraj in the Lok Sabha for misleading the nation and families of the kidnapped Indians.

As many as 39 Indians, most of them Punjab, were taken hostage by the ISIS when the terror outfit overran Iraq's second largest city Mosul in 2014

Though, Iraq has clarified that they don't have any clue about the missing Indians, India considers them to be alive.
Kolkata was turned upside down last Friday, to use a variant of the committed radical scholar and one of the finest historians, Christopher Hills seminal work on the 17th century English Revolution ~ The World turned Upside Down. Whether or not the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre is dumped by 18 Opposition parties in 2019 ~ as Mamata Banerjee hopes ~ it is time for the Trinamool Congress leadership to reflect on how Martyrs Day on 21 July has over the years become progressively disruptive.

To the extent that this time, Kolkata was thrown out of joint as seldom before, surely never in recent years. Much as we mourn the deaths of 13 Youth Congress activists, who fell to the police bullet in the Chowringhee area in 1993, it is hard not to wonder whether the focus of the occasion has been thoroughly deflected, with the difference that obligatory ranting at the CPI-M has now given way to a robust denunciation of the BJP.

The aversion towards the saffronite is apparently the thread that marks the political philosophy of both the Marxists and the Trinamool Congress. Little or no thought is spared for those who were shot; the presentations, amplified through the tannoy, were intensely political, verging on electoral rhetoric.

Of course West Bengals Chief Minister has fairly cogent reasons to condemn the Centres policies ~ from demonetisation to gau raksha that has assumed mortal proportions. But was it really necessary for her partys footsoldiers to hold the city to ransom and withdraw all modes of conveyance ~ even the ambulance ~ for the better part of the day to transport people from the far-flung areas of the state and thus put in place almost a readymade audience? We do know the dislocation that the city had to endure was akin to that of a bandh, made worse by police curbs on free movement of pedestrians who were forced to take a circuitous trail even to walk short distances.

The citys hoi-polloi was acutely inconvenienced by the withdrawal of transport and closure of the arterial stretch from north to south Kolkata.

Of course, the Metro followed its normal schedule; but commuters had to walk several kilometres to reach the nearest station.

The cascading effect was overwhelming, so very unlike previous occasions when traffic would be diverted, but not withdrawn. Only those buses that had come to the aid of the party were allowed to ply.

Twenty-four years after the Chowringhee shooting, it is time to consider whether the venue of the Martyrs Day rally must of necessity be shifted to the Brigade Parade Ground.

That essential change could mark the 25th anniversary next year, and shorn of such irrelevant sideshows as the Chau dance and the presence of the cultural glitterati on the dais.
Chinese and Russian commanders conducted a simulation exercise in Kaliningrad province for the ongoing joint military drills code-named "Joint Sea 2017" in the Baltic Sea.

In the hours-long exercise on Sunday, two tactical assault groups, consisting of mixed warships from the Chinese and Russian fleets, simulated details of the drills on a map including ship-to-sea firing by secondary cannons, air defense, joint landing and inspection, maritime search and rescue, underway replenishment and other subjects.

"The simulation exercise was conducted for two purposes, namely, making commanders at all levels more familiar with the procedures and subjects of the drills, as well as enhancing coordination and tacit understanding between commanders of the two countries," Xinhua news agency quoted Wang Xiaoyong, deputy captain of a destroyer detachment of the Chinese Navy, as saying.

During the drills, the participating air forces and sea forces will be deployed through unified guidance by a joint directing center, a joint headquarter and a tactical command post, which are formed by commanders from both countries.

The Joint Sea 2017 drills, which kicked off on Saturday and will last until July 28, aims to carry out joint rescue missions and ensure maritime economic activities.

The Chinese fleet consists of one destroyer, one frigate, one supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines. The Russian side includes one frigate, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and marines.

Chinese and Russian navies will conduct a variety of joint exercises and attend the parade in St. Petersburg on the occasion of Russia's Navy Day.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a key visit to the Gulf region aimed at defusing the standoff around Turkey's ally Qatar, saying no one had an interest in prolonging the crisis.

Erdogan, whose country has come to Qatar's aid in the crisis, had talks in Jeddah Sunday with King Salman who hailed the Turkish leader's "efforts in the fight against terrorism and its financing," Saudi state news agency SPA reported.

Erdogan is scheduled to fly to Kuwait before heading to Qatar for his first face-to-face talks with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani since the crisis began.

"No one has any interest in prolonging this crisis any more," Erdogan said in Istanbul before leaving on the two-day trip.

He accused "enemies" of seeking to "fire up tensions between brothers" in the region.

Erdogan praised Qatar's behaviour in the crisis, saying Doha had sought to find a solution through dialogue. "I hope our visit will be beneficial for the region," he said.

On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing extremism and fostering ties with their Shiite rival Iran.

Doha denies the claim and has been strongly backed by Ankara throughout the standoff.

The crisis with Qatar has put Turkey in a delicate position, and Erdogan has repeatedly said he wants to see the end of the dispute as soon as possible.

In recent years, Qatar has emerged as Turkey's number one ally in the Middle East, with Ankara and Doha closely coordinating their positions on a number of issues including the Syria conflict where both are staunch foes of President Bashar al-Assad.

Crucially, Turkey is in the throes of setting up a military base in Qatar, its only such outpost in the region.

It has expedited the process since the crisis began and reportedly now has 150 troops at the base.

"From the first moments of the Qatar crisis, we have been on the side of peace, stability, solidarity and dialogue," said Erdogan.

But Turkey, which is also going through a turbulent time with the European Union and the United States, also does not want to wreck its own relations with regional kingpin Saudi Arabia.

As well as meeting King Salman, Erdogan was also to hold talks with Mohammed bin Salman for the first time since he was elevated to the role of crown prince and his father's heir in a dramatic June reshuffle of the royal house.

"As the elder statesman in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia has a big role to play in solving the crisis," said Erdogan, taking care not to explicitly criticise the kingdom.

Erdogan said he supported the mediation efforts of Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, a possible indication Ankara sees Kuwait as the key to solving the crisis.
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) A delegation of DMK MPs today met Union minister J P Nadda and urged him to hasten the process of getting presidents nod for two bills passed in Tamil Nadu Assembly over exempting the state from the National Entrance Cum Eligibility Test (NEET).

DMK Rajya Sabha MPs Tiruchi Siva, T K S Elangovan and R S Bharathi met the Union health minister and apprised him about the issue.

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"There has been too much delay on the issue. The state (TN) ministers are now taking efforts after we (opposition DMK) announced a human chain agitation on the matter," Siva said, adding that students have been affected by the common medical entrance examination.

The DMK had announced to hold a human chain protest on July 27 across all districts of the state seeking presidential assent to the bills.

Similarly, the ruling AIADMK ministers from the state headed by Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai earlier met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to exert pressure on the Centre regarding the issue. The delegation had also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other central ministers last week regarding the matter.

The AIADMK, DMK and other parties in the state have been opposing the NEET, saying state board students, especially from rural areas, would find it difficult to compete with CBSE students. PTI CPB SRY

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At least 25 people were killed and dozens injured on Monday when a suicide bomber exploded himself near an IT Park in Pakistan's Lahore city, officials said.

The deafening explosion, which authorities blamed on a suicide bomber, occurred at the entrance of the Kot Lakhpat Vegetable Market on Ferozepur Road.

A Punjab government spokesperson said 25 people had lost their lives and 39 were injured.

"No words can express the grief which grips my heart now," Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said.

Minutes after the attack, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan put the death toll at 14 and said the toll may rise.

Senior police official Imran Awan said the injured had been shifted to the Jinnah Hospital and other hospitals. Several of the injured were in critical condition, Geo News reported.

According to Awan, an anti-encroachment drive was underway at the vegetable market near Arfa Karim Software Technology Park when the explosion took place.

A fire erupted after the explosion. Glass panes of nearby buildings were shattered.

The area where the blast took place is supposed to be one of the most secure neighbourhoods of Lahore, just 100 metres from the Chief Minister office.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said security forces were trying to ascertain the target.

Lahore has been in the centre of terror attacks. A suicide blast on February 13 ripped through a crowd of protesting chemists in front of the Punjab Assembly, leaving 13 people dead and 70 others wounded.

Last year, a suicide bomber killed 72 people at the Gulshan Iqbal Park.
By PTI: alive: Iraqi foreign minister

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) Iraq today said it has no "substantial evidence" on whether the 39 Indians abducted in Mosul three years ago have been killed or are still alive but assured India that it is "making the best efforts" to find out.

The issue was raised by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who began a five-day India visit today, nearly two weeks after Mosul was liberated from ISIS by Iraqi forces.

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"We dont know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts," the Iraqi foreign minister told reporters about the Indians abducted in Mosul.

In a meeting with the relatives of the abducted Indians last week, Swaraj had said they might be languishing in a jail in Badush in northwest of Mosul where fighting was going on. However, a media report from Badush on Friday said the jail is now an abandoned structure and has been unoccupied for weeks.

Swaraj is likely to make a detailed statement in Parliament tomorrow about her meeting with her Iraqi counterpart.

In the talks, Swaraj and al-Jaafari decided to take steps to boost cooperation in areas of education, trade, energy and healthcare, official sources said.

The volume of bilateral trade in 2016-17 was nearly USD 13 billion. Iraq contributes significantly to Indias energy security and is the second largest supplier of crude oil to India in 2016-17 with a total volume of over 37 MMT.

The Iraqi foreign minister also met Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

India had requested Iraq to locate the 39 missing Indians, mostly from Punjab, after Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from ISIS.

Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh was also sent to Iraq days after the Iraqi prime minister announced victory in the fight to liberate Mosul. PTI ANZ/MPB MIN

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Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy

By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat
The Kerala High Court on Monday rejected the bail plea of actor Dileep in the sensational actress attack case. Dileep, who has served almost 10 days in jail, had approached the court on Thursday but it had reserved the verdict.

The prosecution had argued that bail should not be granted to Dileep as he was involved in the case and claimed that it had enough evidence to prove it. The prosecution reiterated that the actor was the main conspirator in the case. Dileep's counsel had submitted before the court that there was no evidence against the actor.

The court will also consider the anticipatory bail plea of Dileep's manager, Sunil Raj (Appunni), who has been absconding since the actor's arrest. Meanwhile, the police have found huge amount of money in the bank account of an actress who maintains a close relationship with Dileep. The actor, arrested on July 10, moved the high court for bail after an Angamaly magisterial court refused to grant him the relief and sent him to judicial custody till July 25.

Dileep, charged under various sections of the IPC, including the one for hatching criminal conspiracy for abduction and assault on the actress in a moving car on February 17, is currently lodged in a jail in his home town Aluva. The police have claimed that the conspiracy to abduct and assault the actress and film the dastardly act was hatched by Dileep and 'Pulsar' Suni, the prime accused in the case.

In their remand application, the police had claimed that Dileep had developed a grudge against the actress for letting his then wife know about his alleged affairs and had hatched a conspiracy to take revenge way back in 2013. The actress, who has also worked in Tamil and Telugu films, was abducted and allegedly molested inside her car for two hours by the accused, who had forced their way into the vehicle and later escaped.
The exit of Shankarsinh Vaghela from the Congress, just months ahead of the assembly elections in Gujarat, has come as a major blow to the grand old party, heralding a major shift in the political equations in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state. Given the mass appeal of the 77-year-old veteran, his studied silence about the next course of action has left the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party optimistic and the Congress, which already grapples with infighting, perturbed.

Vaghela's resignation from Congress was not a bolt from the blue as the former chief minister has been upset with his party colleagues and the central high command for quite some time. Bapu, as Vaghela is fondly called by his supporters, reportedly wanted the post of state party president so that he could freely take calls on candidates and campaign strategies during the elections, which are just six months away. He had also demanded that the party announce the chief ministerial candidate in advance.

However, both his demands were repeatedly ignored. Congress, which is eyeing a return to power in the state after 22 years, was not ready to rub state party chief Bharat Solanki the wrong way, since the latter enjoys mass support among Thakors, Kolis and OBCs. Congress plans to cash in on the rampant discontent among these communities.

However, what worries Congress more after Vaghela's exit is a possible rebellion within the partya number of its MLAs enjoy a good rapport with the veteran leader and may switch loyalty anytime. Defying party mandate, ten of its MLAs, including Raghavji Patel and Vaghelas son Mahendrasinh Vaghela, attended the town hall event in Ahmedabad where the septuagenarian announced his resignation. It is speculated that the eight to 11 Congress MLAs who cross-voted for BJP's Ram Nath Kovind in the July 17 presidential elections were those loyal to Vaghela.

To make things worse for Congress, the party is also facing a major threat of exodus of legislators to the ruling faction. The saffron party, which is trying to extend its good run in the state by leveraging the Modi charisma, is also keen on creating irremediable cracks in the opposition party and foil even a remote chance of its return to power. BJP president Amit Shah has reportedly been in direct talks with several of the senior Congress leaders, including MLAs. If local media reports are anything to go by, almost a dozen senior leaders of Congress are expected to join the BJP camp ahead of the assembly elections.

If the dissent boils over in Congress in the coming days, it will dampen its prospects in the Rajya Sabha elections due on August 8. Out of the three seats where elections are to be held, the party is keen to win at least one; Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi's political secretary, will be fielded in one of the constituencies. BJP is comfortably placed on the other two seats. Congress cannot afford a humiliation in the polls as it will further blot out its morale ahead of the assembly elections. In the 182-member assembly, Congress has the support of 57 MLAs. For a win in Rajya Sabha polls, it required the support of at least 47 legislators.

With Vaghela keeping the political analysts guessing, speculations are rife about the formation of a third front in the poll-bound state. He is unlikely to join forces with the saffron brigade in the immediate future, but a pre-poll or post-poll alliance with the party is a real possibility. I have become a victim of intra-party conspiracy for the second time in my political career. First it was the BJP, now it is the Congress, said the former chief minister while quitting Congress. Vaghela is a former BJP member and was expelled from the party in 1996.

A third front in Gujarat will push Congress further into the deep waters. Vaghela's exit is expected to create a major dent in Congress vote share as the veteran leader has made a name for himself among the OBC and Kshatriya communities, which constitute nearly 27 per cent of the state population. Pro-quota Patidar leader Hardik Patel, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani are likely to extend their support to Vaghela if he forms an anti-BJP and anti-Congress alternative. The presence of two NCP MLAsJayant Patel and Kandal Jadejaat Vaghela's birthday bash could be a clear indication of their party's support to the veteran's next move.

For Congress, which desperately looks for a revival in the state where it ruled almost 27 years, it is a herculean task to prevail over the present crisis and keep the flock together.
Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Monday said in New Delhi that he was not sure whether the 39 Indians missing in the city of Mosul since 2014 are alive.

"I am not 100 per cent sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul are alive," al-Jaafari told the media. "We are trying our best (to trace them)."

Most of the 39 Indian construction workers who went missing in 2014 are from Punjab.

The minister's comments came after Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh visited Iraq after Iraqi forces aided by an international coalition liberated Mosul from the Islamic State on July 9.

The Iraqi foreign minister also held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday.

Sushma Swaraj had earlier said that with the freeing of Mosul, the process to trace and rescue the missing Indians would be taken forward.

She said they had information that the Indians were in a jail in Badush, which lies in ruins now.

Singh was earlier sent to Erbil in Iraq to pursue the case of the missing Indians.

On July 12, Singh visited the Kurdish Peshmarga frontline in Mosul area to seek information about the Indians. He said some Islamic State held areas were still being cleared.

Sushma Swaraj has met the families of the 39 persons around a dozen times since they were abducted in June 2014 and assured them that the government was doing everything to locate them.

Iraqi forces liberated Mosul after 266 days of fierce battles, ending three years of Islamic State rule.
Is there a political vendetta behind the crackdown by the National Investigation Agency on separatist leaders in the Valley, or is the central agency just acting professionally? This is the question haunting the political space in Kashmir which has been witnessing NIA sleuths zipping in and out over the last several months raiding and quizzing separatist leaders on allegations of terror funding and links with Pakistani terror outfits and their patrons like Hafiz Saeed.

On Monday, seven separatist leaders including hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Shah were arrested by the agency in connection with the terror funding case. They are accused of fuelling last year's unrest in the Valley, which left scores of people dead.

These leaders were called on Monday morning at the NIA's local office at the BSF camp in Humhama for questioning and arrested soon afterwards. They are expected to be flown to the capital, possibly in a special plane, and produced before the court.

The media were already on their toes as the NIA went with all guns blazing to display its seriousness in cracking down on terror funding. Political leaders in the Valley are livid as they are viewing such moves of the NIA as "mere eyewash".

"These raids and arrests must be followed by some concrete evidence. If anyone has acted against the law, action must be taken and law should be allowed to take its own course. But the NIA action should not be an act of vindictiveness or even appear to be vindictive," Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Party Nationalist chairman Ghulam Hassan Mir told THE WEEK. He further said that similar moves were made by previous governments at the Centre but nothing came out of these probes.

"It's not the first time any government is cracking down on separatist leaders. But they could not support it with evidence," he said.

Interestingly, the Congress party in the Valley is also watching the developments closely. Speaking to THE WEEK, Ghulam Ahmed Mir, president of the JK Pradesh Congress Committee said that the NIA must quickly come out with concrete evidence against those who are the real culprits even as he accused the central agency of undue delay in its investigations.

"The action must now be followed by concrete evidence. Why is the agency taking action only against the seemingly weak leaders? What about any big names? It seems only tokenism, and there is a votebank angle to it ," he said . Mir pointed out that elections are due in many states like Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Odisha and that the BJP is likely to use this action in the Valley for its political gains.

"Elections are going to be held in these states in coming months and years. What the BJP is trying to do is to display more action to the media than taking any real step on the ground," he said. He questioned why the NIA sleuths have been calling the separatists for questioning and leaving them only to call them time and again.

"First the NIA decides they need to be summoned. Then they decide they need to be let off. And then they are called again. Such action is only to show the media and generate attention of the public. But the reality the civil society wants to know is what they are guilty of and where the evidence is. It is time the NIA acted fast and showed concrete evidence," he said.

The NIA, meanwhile, said that it had found enough evidence to prove the complicity of the arrested leaders in fuelling unrest in the Valley and that the probe was on. Besides Altaf Shah, the others arrested are Tehreek-e-Hurriyat's Ayaz Akbar, Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Shahid-ul-Islam of the Hurriyat, Naeem Khan of the Jammu Kashmir National Front and separatist leaders Peer Saifullah and Bitta Karatay, who has been arrested from Delhi. The others were arrested from Srinagar..

Sources in NIA said the six arrested would be brought to the capital and produced before the NIA special court in Patiala House on Tuesday.
The President Shri Pranab Mukherjee demits office in a few hours. His presidency was the culmination of extraordinary career of a political leader. India has seen a few politicians like him who had the capacity to evolve into a statesman irrespective of their political affiliation and the office that they held. Pranabda is one such leader who brought dignity to every office that he held.

My first contact with him started when he, along with Dr. Manmohan Singh, was occupying the opposition benches during the Vajpayee Government. He chaired important Standing Committees which had the responsibility of clearing several legislations. Three of them were important constitution amendments. One related to the freezing of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislatures despite demographic changes in several States. The second involved review of the Anti-Defection Law. The third one dealt with limiting the size of the Council of Ministers both in the centre and the States. His Committee expeditiously considered these amendments and improved upon the drafts that the Government had prepared and produced a much better document. He evolved a consensus on all these issues. Even in opposition he was never an obstructionist. He was a product of the parliamentary system and favoured using Parliament for larger National interest.

In his later years, I closely observed him both as a Member and subsequently as a Leader of the Opposition. His natural ability was to rise above partisan arguments. In Parliament, he almost spoke like an amicus curiae  a friend of the House, rather than a party leader. This quality enabled him to evolve a consensus in favour of the argument that he advanced. Very rarely did he lose his cool, but if he did, he was smiling a minute later and making up with his target through some complimentary references.

He had a great sense of history which blended with his vision of constitutional propriety. The democrat in him insisted that the Government and the opposition had to work in tandem on major issues. He could recollect parliamentary and judicial precedents to decide which was the right course that had to be pursued.

As President, he was unquestionably the guardian of the Constitution. He realised that in a democracy there could only be one power centre i.e. elected Government and the Prime Minister. He, therefore, actively associated with two different Governments during his presidency with equal ease. He ensured that all decisions of the Council of Ministers had to conform to constitutional propriety. On some occasions, he wanted to be satisfied before he accorded his approval to those decisions. I was usually sent to interact with him. He was always well prepared on facts, on Constitutional requirements and the need for fairness. These essentials had to be balanced with the requirement of the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers being forwarded to him. This delicate balance he maintained throughout his tenure. He always accepted the advise of the Council of Ministers.

Pranabda exhibited a unique charm which won him many admirers. He made dealing with him a matter of delight. He put all his interlocutors at ease. He grew in stature with each day. His transformation from a senior Minister to a President was exemplary. As president he was completely non-partisan and conducted himself as an advisor and a guide to his Governments. He owned up the programmes of the Government and became their advocate. He once told me that he had the unique privilege of moving before Parliament the Constitution amendment of Good and Services Tax. He wanted to approve the Constitution amendment during his tenure as the President. It gave him great satisfaction when he did so.

He exits from the Rashtrapati Bhawan with a great stature. He will now assume a greater role of advising and guiding the nation as an amicus curiae which he always was.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Monday suspended six Congress MPs for five consecutive sittings for improper conduct after they tore up papers and threw them towards her podium.

Just a day before, in what may be one among his last speeches as president of India, Pranab Mukherjee, had pitched for dissent, but not disruption. But the very next day, Lok Sabha was adjourned without transacting any business, thanks to disruptions by Congressmen.

Congress members of the Lok Sabha stormed the well, threw bits of paper, as they protested the denial of an adjournment motion on the issue of mob lynchings.

Immediately after Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the Congress parliamentary party, questioned why his adjournment motion on the lynching and attacks on dalits , women and minorities was rejected, the chaos began.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended the six Congress parliamentarians for five days on the grounds of undermining the dignity of the chair with their unbecoming conduct and for disrupting the proceedings of the house. The house was then adjourned for the day.

The suspended leaders included Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary, Sushmita Deb, K. Suresh, Gaurav Gogoi, Ranjeet Ranjan and M.K. Raghavan.

Just when the question hour was about to begin, opposition MPs stormed the well, demanding a debate on the agrarian crisis in place of the scheduled question hour. The sloganeering continued even as some MPs were on their feet, and the subjects being raised varied from reservation for OBCs in Navodaya Vidyalayas to demonetisation.

Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar attempted to intervene and move the sloganeering MPs back to their seats, but without any success.

The Congress had, in fact, been preparing for a face off with the government on the issue of the missing 39 Indians in Iraq. They had plans of submitting a privilege motion against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, alleging she mislead "the country, the house and the families", according to Congress MP Prata Singh Bajwa.

But while that is an emotive issue for the Congress, which is in power in Punjab, the lynching of members of the weaker sections by the cow vigilantes, as well as farmer suicides, were to be the focus among the opposition parties.

Among the slated business for the day in the Lok Sabha, were the introduction of bills pertaining to Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2017 and the Central Road Fund Amendment Bill 2017. The MPs were also slated to consider and pass the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Amendment) Bill 2017 and also the Companies (Amendment) Bill 2016.
By Srijani Ganguly/Mail Today: It's 7:45 in the evening, hours away from nightfall in Dublin, when two actors begin to enact a scene from Samuel Beckett's visionary play Waiting for Godot. The room is compact - with about 25 people in the audience - but competent enough to keep the sounds of the pub (The Duke) below at bay. The staging of the scene is apt since Beckett himself used to live in similar circumstances when he was studying at Trinity College nearby.

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After they end the scene, the two actors - who are acting as guides for Dublin's Literary Pub Crawl - reveal another titbit about Beckett's home during his student days: The pub (Davy Byrne's) above which he lived, which lies less than a minute away from The Duke, is the same one that James Joyce's famous character Leopold Bloom visited in Ulysses. It's an extraordinary connection but not that surprising, considering Dublin's literary history.

Rabindranath Tagores bust in St Stephens Green. Picture courtesy: Mail Today

James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, JM Synge, Bram Stoker, WB Yeats and GB Shaw were all born in or around Dublin. The most prominent influence of their worth can be felt in the physical features of the city. There's the Samuel Beckett Bridge - one of the many bridges that connects the two parts of Dublin divided by River Liffey. Oscar Wilde's importance is manifested in the form of a statue that truly captures his flamboyance. It is located opposite the house (in Merrion Square) he grew up in, which is now owned by the American College Dublin. Joyce shows up in Dublin in many forms but the bust in St Stephen's Green is extra special since it lies only a few metres away from Rabindranath Tagore's statue, which is the only non-Irish one in the park. Tagore has a strong connection to Dublin by way of WB Yeats, the iconic Irish poet who very famously wrote the introduction to Tagore's Gitanjali. Trinity College holds the most importance amongst buildings, in the literary sense, being the place where many of the great Irish writers and poets studied.

Only a few minutes away from Trinity College lie the intertwining paths of Grafton Street, Dawson Street and Duke Street. These three roads host a range of shops, but the most interesting ones -the most literary ones - are the ones selling books. While Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street looks beautiful from the inside and outside, Ulysses Rare Books on Duke Street holds some of the rarest and expensive editions of iconic books. In both bookshops, the Irish heritage is at the centre. In Hodges Figgis, an entire section of the shop is dedicated to Irish writers - both international names as well as local heroes. Ulysses Rare Books, on the other hand, is strategically located right next to the aforementioned pub, The Duke.

Pictures of James Joyce and his famous quote from Ulysses on display at The Little Museum of Dublin. Picture courtesy: Mail Today

Drinking and writing are two sides of the same coin for Irish writers. One of their beloved authors, Brendan Behan, is famous for saying, "I'm a drinker with writing problems." In fact, as one of the actor-guides of Dublin's Literary Pub Crawl quipped during the tour, it wouldn't come as a surprise if Behan had visited all 850 pubs in Dublin. Joyce's iconic character Leopold Bloom too comments on the drinking culture in Dublin, saying that a "good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub." Joyce, undoubtedly, is the literary giant amongst Ireland's writers and poets. Dubliners swear by the greatness of Joyce's work, especially Ulysses, but also admit the fact that it's almost impossible to truly understand it. Beckett ranks second, in their eyes, in this list of incomprehensible Irish writers.

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Although the two writers were born in different centuries, they were fortunate enough to meet each other in Paris. Beckett, in fact, worked for Joyce for a while and even had an affair with his daughter. Neither, unfortunately, returned to their homeland. Yet, despite their varying reasons for abandoning Dublin, the city itself never abandoned them. Their impact on Dublin can be felt all over the city - from solitary statues inside parks to compact rooms above pubs.

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will hold extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari today during which focus is expected to be on the issue of 39 Indians kidnapped by the ISIS three years back from Mosul city.

Al-Jaafari, who is on a five-day visit to India, arrived in the capital today morning. His visit comes two weeks after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced liberation of Mosul, the second biggest city in his country, from the ISIS, which marked a major milestone for the Iraqi security forces.

In their talks, the two sides will to take stock of bilateral relations and explore ways to enhance cooperation in areas of energy and trade.

Iraq has been one of the major suppliers of crude oil to India.

On the visit by al-Jaafari, the external affairs ministry has said the two sides will discuss the entire gamut of bilateral ties as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest.

"The visit is expected to add further impetus to our mutually beneficial bilateral engagement," the MEA had said on Friday.

As liberation of Mosul brightened chances of information about the kidnapped Indians, Swaraj, in a meeting with their relatives last week, had said they might be languishing in a jail in Badush in northwest of Mosul where fighting was going on.

However, a media report from Badush said the jail now is an abandoned structure and has been unoccupied for weeks.

Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh was sent to Iraq days after the Iraqi PM announced victory in the fight to liberate Mosul.

Swaraj had told the family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources had told Singh that the kidnapped Indians were deployed at a hospital construction site and then shifted to a farm before they were put in a jail in Badush.

She had said al-Jaafari may bring fresh information about the kidnapped Indians, mostly from Punjab.
While the word biopsy is enough to send patients into a tizzy, oncologists say it is crucial to correctly identify the cancer stage and faster growing ones for appropriate and timely treatment. And to ensure accuracy, researchers in India are now turning to artificial intelligence (AI).

A team of experts from IIT-Kharagpur (IIT-Kgp) and Tata Medical Centre (TMC), Kolkata, has devised a computer-assisted model they say can automatically grade breast cancer aggressiveness, even in remote settings, providing fresh impetus to AI-based medical technology in India.

It also seeks to reduce human error in identifying breast cancer of various levels of aggressiveness to assist in distinguishing normal and low and higher risk malignant tumours.

To do that, the team tapped into deep learning, a form of AI concerned with algorithms inspired by the structure and function of the brain called artificial neural networks.

The idea is to assess and identify the cancer that's of high risk. This software allows accurate identification of the aggressive cancers anywhere, even in the remotest part of the country, allowing faster referral and quicker treatment for patients, irrespective of their geographical location, Sanjoy Chatterjee, senior clinical oncologist at TMC, told IANS.

Chandan Chakraborty and Monjoy Saha of IIT-Kgp and TMC's Indu Arun and Rosina Ahmed are the co-authors of the study, published in Nature Scientific Reports in June.

They were driven by the fact that the precise grouping of aggressiveness (high or low rates of cell growth) of breast cancer remains a challenge at a time when the disease is the top cancer in women worldwide and is increasing, particularly in developing countries like India, where the majority of cases are diagnosed in their late stages.

For best results, it is always desirable to have experienced pathologists in sophisticated laboratories, but it is also important that we recognise that this is not always feasible, especially outside large urban hospitals, Ahmed pointed out.

The clinical decision on breast cancer aggressiveness is mostly made manually based on certain pathological markers as seen in examining a tissue or cell sample under a microscope (called biopsy), they said.

The manual assessment is subjective, and could be error-prone with a steep learning curve and dependent on the intra and inter-observer ambiguities. The AI algorithm aids pathologists to identify aggressive forms accurately to allow quicker and faster referral and suitable treatment, said Chakraborty, lead researcher and professor-in-charge of the Biomedical Imaging Informatics (BMI) Laboratory, School of Medical Science & Technology, IIT-Kgp.

The software showed over 90 per cent precision in the experimental set-up, he added.

The application revolves around a protein (or marker) called Ki-67 which is used to calculate an index that groups cancers in the low or high aggressiveness groups.

The Ki-67 globally-approved index is used to help predict outcome (prognosis) and help figure out what treatment might work best, they say. It is increasingly being used by doctors to reflect cancer behaviour.

The proposed computerised recognition can precisely measure the Ki-67 score by detection of the faster-growing cancer cell percentage, called hotspots, from the biopsy tissue images.

The software has been standardised. As soon as the pathologists get the biopsy, all they have to do is make a section, grab an image and put in the computer, Chatterjee explained.

To get the job done faster, a basic set up requires a GPU (graphical processing unit) to compute the images.

There is no need for expensive infrastructure. Moreover, in the rural and urban areas with minimum or few advanced instrumentation, manual inspection of Ki-67 scoring may provide results which are error-prone, Saha, research scholar, School of Medical Science and Technology, IIT-Kgp, told IANS.

The study notes: Several machine learning approaches have been reported; nevertheless, none of them had worked on deep learning-based hotspots detection and proliferation scoring.

The next phase of the study is validation. The clinicians and the pathologists are going to recruit patients and we will treat them depending on what the pathologists say. We will tally the results from the software as well as from the pathologists, so the discordant rates are pretty low. Then we can release the process for clinical use, added Chatterjee.

Sourced from IANS
The dissent against Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is out in the open, as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) activists, over the last few days, have put up banners in Lahore, asking the PM to resign and let his younger brother become the premier of the country.

This comes at a time when speculations are high in favor of Shahabaz replacing the prime minister, in case the latter is disqualified in the aftermath of the Panamagate report submitted by the joint investigation team (JIT) to the Supreme Court.

"Janay do janay do Mian sahib (Nawaz Sharif) janay do, aur aanay do aanay do Mian Shahbaz Sharif ko aanay do (Mian sahib let it go (step down) and allow Shahbaz Sharif to take over the top slot)," the Dawn quoted banners which were placed outside the Lahore Press Club.

The party workers who installed these streamers were threatened, ridiculed and abused by other members of PML-N, the Express Tribune reported.

The banners were removed after they caught the attention of electronic media.

One of the persons who was involved in putting these banners and streamers said Nawaz Sharif should step down in the wake of the money laundering allegations to save the party and let Shehbaz replace him.

He claimed many in the party share their opinion, but lacked the audacity to voice their concerns.

On the other hand, these dissenting PML-N workers also got calls from fellow activists who appreciated their efforts to raise a voice.

Rumors have emerged that the ruling party is shortlisting candidates for the slot of prime minister in case Nawaz Sharif is disqualified after a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan reserved its verdict in the Panama Papers case on Friday.

The names of Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi are doing the rounds for the top slot for 45 days till Shahbaz Sharif is elected on a national assembly seat to lead the government for the remaining term, reports the Dawn.

If some reports are to be believed, Kalsoom Nawaz, wife of Nawaz Sharif, is also being seen as candidate for the top post.
How will the Goods and Services Tax impact Indias economic future?

It is a revolutionary reform. It is for the first time in 70 years that there has been a true reassertion of our commitment to the federal structure. This will bring in a new culture of cooperative federalism.

What about the transition phase? Do you foresee any problems?

Initially, for three to four months, there will be problems of transition because of an initial hesitation. But, that is normal. Inherently, human beings are status quo-ist. So, there might be a short period where there may be paucity of certain goods and fluctuation of prices. But, in the long run, it will not only streamline prices, but also reduce prices for certain goods.

From the point of view of the consumer, there is a long list of items that have been exempted, including dairy products like milk, buttermilk and curd, cereals like wheat and common household items such as toothpaste and tooth powder. So, this is going to be a win-win situation.

It will also bring in a huge behavioural change in the Indian society. The GST has got four slabs5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent. For example, luxury cars are placed at 28 per cent. If we can spend on dining or partying, why should we have a problem paying tax? With the enlargement of the tax pool, the state exchequer will get reinforced and provide better funding to pro-poor schemes. So, the poor man will benefit and tax evaders will become tax payers.

Another related advantage is that it will reduce bribery and corruption. For example, there have been inter-state taxes and large queues at toll booths, where people bribe to get through faster. All this will end.

Do you think the spat over the presidential candidate between the ruling party and the opposition hit the dignity of the chair of the president?

The opposition parties were slightly rattled; they had nothing against the candidate nominated by the BJP. Ram Nath Kovind is a candidate with immaculate credentials and, coming from a humble background, he represents the lowest of the lowest section of society. He is a role model for others to follow.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the government will find a permanent solution to the Kashmir problem. Is it a political solution?

My take is that Jammu and Kashmir does not require any solution. I have always held the view that Jammu and Kashmir is as much an Indian state as Punjab, Uttar Pradesh or Tamil Nadu. There are problems in three or four districts. These problems have been initiated by a hostile neighbour, namely Pakistan, which has exported terrorism into the Kashmir valley. [This] is promoted by some political elements in the valley who want to take forward their agenda. Kashmir is an integral part of India, and the only issue, if at all there is one, is how to retrieve the part that continues to be under the illegal occupation of Pakistan. Areas like Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Like other princely states, when Jammu and Kashmir was handed over to India by the then Maharaja Hari Singh, the territory was much larger than what it is today as part of India. The Jammu and Kashmir we have today is just one third of the original princely state, and, therefore, the only pending issue is to restore it back to its original territorial integrity.

There has been talk of declaring Lok Sabha seats from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Yes, there has been such a suggestion. Or even to allot 24 seats of the legislative assembly [to the region]. As long as we claim that that part of Kashmir is being illegally occupied by Pakistan, there is merit in this suggestion.

What about talks with Pakistan? When can we expect any movement on that front?

That is not for me to answer. The ministry of external affairs has to take the call. They judge the situations and take cognisance of various inputs and devise a strategy from time to time.
After killing Osama Bin Laden in a daring raid on his safe house in Pakistan, American commandos dumped his body in the sea. The Americans were sure that if the Al Qaeda chief were buried on land, the grave would become a shrine for jihadis world over. What the Americans feared about Osama is turning out to be true in the case of the slain Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani. He was killed in an encounter with security forces on July 8, 2016, at Bamdooru village in Kokernag, south Kashmir. A year later, people from his hometown, Tral, and other parts of Kashmir have started visiting his grave in the village of Sharifabad for prayers and blessings.

Burhan is buried next to his brother Khalid, who, too, died in an encounter with security forces three years ago. Burhans tombstone has his name, the names of his parents, his place of birth and the date of his death. The grave is marked by a rope and a few flags in green and light blue. There is nothing ostentatious about the grave, like the mausoleums of some revered preachers and mystics. And, groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba do not approve of the saint-like status being accorded to Burhan. Yet, people, mostly men, flock to the place to offer ritual prayers. They leave with a handful of soil, hoping for blessings, healing and even better harvest. Some visit the grave on their wedding day.

Ghulam Nabi Mir, a 65-year-old farmer, said his crops grew much better after he sprinkled soil from Burhans grave on his field. It is no less a shrine for us. Here, I still have some soil from his grave in my pocket, he said, patting his shirt pocket. People come to Burhans grave and leave after picking a fistful of soil, said Abdul Hafiz (name changed), from Sharifabad. He was reluctant to talk freely for the fear of being interrogated by the Army. The security establishment is worried that the growing popularity of Burhans tomb will reinforce the cult of martyrdom that is fuelling militancy in south Kashmir.

Two days before the first anniversary of Burhans death, soldiers from the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) were seen frisking visitors to the grave. As the separatists had urged people to assemble at Tral for the death anniversary, even those who were passing through the area were subjected to stringent checking. The government suspended internet access across Kashmir and deployed a large contingent of security personnel in Tral. Security was also reinforced in other parts of the state, including Srinagar, Pulwama, Anantnag, Kulgam and Shopian. A few attempts to take out rallies on July 8 were quickly quashed. Tral, which was sealed off, remained largely peaceful.

I managed to reach Tral on July 6, two days before Burhans death anniversary. The tension was palpable; most shops were shut. Pedestrian and vehicular movements were thin. A mine protected vehicle was parked outside the graveyard. Although a group of RR men stood guard nearby, I managed to enter the graveyard. When I came out, an RR officer took my mobile phone to check for photos. Another reporter was asked to prove his identity, and when he showed his ID card to the officer, he asked his junior to click a photo of it for verification.

Many boys in Sharifabad, who refused to reveal their names, said the police had asked them to bring their motorbikes to the police station. Most of them complied with the order. The police suspected that we would take out a bike rally on July 8, said a college student.

Burhans father, Muzaffar Wani, who works as a school principal, was summoned by the police to ask about the number of people planning to come for the death anniversary. I told them I had no idea, he said. The government mishandled the situation last year when people came to mourn the death of my son. He said after Burhans death, people from all over Kashmir and outside had come to meet the family. The rush has ebbed, but not ended.

I told the police that I had not planned anything on Burhans death anniversary, but if some people came to meet us, I will offer them a glass of water, at least, said Muzaffar. I cannot stop people from expressing their condolences. They come from all over Kashmir, including Jammu. As we were talking, a group of students dropped in to meet him. They come to meet me out of respect and love for being Burhans father, he said.

The students sat on the chairs kept for the visitors in the lawn. Each one of them hugged Muzaffar. After talking to the students for some time, he said, This has been routine since last July.

What has changed after Burhans death? With two of my sons martyred, I have nothing to fear. The third one is attending college, he said. Do people at the school ask questions? I dont allow any kind of political discussions or activities about Kashmir in the school, he said.

What does he think about people visiting Burhans grave for help? I know people visit his grave, but I dont approve of it, he said. The bloodshed in Kashmir will end if Kashmiris, India and Pakistan show flexibility and talk to each other sincerely to resolve this issue. India has to be sincere in its dealings with Kashmiris.
Jordanian officials are demanding to question the Israeli Embassy in Amman security agent who shot his attacker after being wounded by the screwdriver he was carrying.

The security agent was at his home near the embassy, changing furniture, when he was stabbed in his abdomen with a screwdriver by the worker. He drew his pistol and fired at him, killing him. A stray bullet that he fired also wounded a second man, who later died of his wounds.

There are conflicting reports as per the condition of the security agent, from light to moderate. Jordan is now demanding to question him in the incident and Israel is refusing.

As such, the Jordanians are not permitting the wounded agent to return home to Israel for treatment, compelling him to remain inside the embassy compound, Channel 2 News reports.

The attacker was employed by a furniture company and a worker managed to get behind the agent and begin stabbing him. The owner of the home was present when the attack occurred, some reporting he was a doctor. He was struck and hit by a stray bullet.

The incident is being viewed as a terrorist attack amid growing tensions surrounding Har Habayis.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The Enforcement Directorate is hopeful that by mid-December the UK court hearing Vijay Mallya's extradition case will rule in the agency's favour.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is optimistic that the final order in the UK extradition case against liquor baron Vijay Malya "may come in its favour". A joint team of the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation has just returned from London after providing British authorities with crucial evidence in the Kingfisher Airlines Ltd (KAL)-IDBI Bank loan fraud case against Mallya.

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A UK court is expected to decide by mid-December whether Mallya, who has been declared a fugitive in India, will be extradited back to his home country.

Sources from the ED told IndiaToday.in that the joint ED-CBI team not only submitted crucial evidence against Mallya (in the form of chargesheet), but also clarified various technical and legal issues over which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the UK had major concerns. The CPS is fighting the Mallya extradition case on behalf of the Indian government.

While refusing to elaborate on the issues, an ED official told IndiaToday.in, "Now, we have a strong case in hand against Mallya. All the required evidences (from both CBI and ED) have been submitted before the London court. We anticipate that after one week of next date (December 4), the UK court should issue an order in our favour."

Last week, a joint team of ED (with two senior officials) and CBI reached London and submitted a 5,500-page chargesheet and took part in legal briefings on the extradition case against Mallya.

According to ED sources, some of the major points that were brought to the CPS's notice include:

How Mallya used web of shell companies to launder money outside India.

How Mallya conspired and cheated IDBI Bank by causing a wrongful loss amounting to Rs 1189 crore against the corporate loan of Rs 750 crore.

How out of the total loan amount disbursed by IDBI Bank, around Rs 419.29 crore were remitted to overseas parties by Mallya.

How excess payments were remitted outside India to Formula One team, UBICS Technologies Ltd, UB Engineering and others, despite financial difficulties faced by KAL.

How the loan amount was siphoned off in a calculated and pre-designed manner.

How Mallya structured the Diageo deal (USD 40 million) in a convoluted manner to receive the payments outside India.

How the proceed of crime were generated and routed abroad for the purpose other than claimed in bank loan application

And, how Mallya continued enjoying the good times for himself at the cost of public interest and the national economy.

Meanwhile, the ED has issued letter rogatories (LRs) to UK, USA, Singapore, South Africa, France, Ireland and Mauritius seeking information about Mallya's properties, interest in various companies and dealings/transactions (including that of his family members).

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ALSO READ | Vijay Mallya hits out at media a day after extradition hearing in London court

ALSO READ | SC on Vijay Mallya: Proceedings can't move further unless he is produced in court

ALSO WATCH | Exclusive: How Vijay Mallya splurged public money on IPL team

--- ENDS ---
The staff of Israels embassy in Amman, Jordan, returned to Israel on Monday night, bringing a 28-hour-long crisis to an end. This included a security guard who shot dead two Jordanians after he was attacked by one of them.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Ambassador Einat Shalin and the security guard  whom he addressed as Ziv  upon their return to Israel through the Allenby Bridge crossing.

   ! pic.twitter.com/1EDtmGyfWi  Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) July 24, 2017

The crisis had been triggered by a shooting Sunday in which an Israeli embassy guard killed two Jordanians after one attacked him with a screwdriver. Jordan initially said the guard could only leave after an investigation, while Israel said he enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

Earlier Monday, Shin Bet Director Nadav Argman flew to Amman to end the standoff, which resulted after Jordanian authorities wanted to interrogate the guard over the incident and refused to release him to Israel. Netanyahu also spoke with Jordans King Abdullah II later in the day.

A statement by the Prime Ministers office said:

Personnel from the Israeli Embassy in Jordan, headed by Ambassador Einat Shlein crossed the Allenby Bridge into Israel earlier this evening. Among the staff was the security guard who was injured last night in a stabbing attack in Amman. All are well. The return of the Embassy personnel was made possible thanks to the close cooperation over the past 24 hours between Israel and Jordan. PM Netanyahu spoke a short time ago with Ambassador Shlain and the security guard, inquired after their well-being and welcomed them.

The relatively swift end to the standoff could signal progress toward ending another crisis, after Israel placed metal detectors at Har Habayis following the terror attack which claimed the lives of two police officers.

Israel has said the metal detectors are a needed security measure to prevent future attacks. On Monday, there were growing signs Israel was testing alternative security arrangements.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
During a visit to Intel Israel last week, the chairman of the Science and Technology Committee of the Knesset, MK Uri Maklev, praised the companys CEO that he employs hundreds of chareidi women throughout the country. Maklev learned that one of the best workers in the factory is the wife of an avreich and the mother of 12.

The tour, which included a visit to the tank overlooking the work in the clean room in the Kiryat Gat factory,

At the beginning of the visit, Maklev said that the chareidi women working at Intel should be helped to come to work there. The moment you provide their needs, a suitable work environment is the result, and in return, you receive excellent value from them, and this leads to a cycle of opening doors among other companies that see that good.

Daniel Ben Attar, the plants manager in Kiryat Gat, noted that the plant is working to best suit workers from all sectors in Israel, including the chareidi sector. According to him, flexibility of managers can lead to effective integration of each employee from each sector.

In the course of the tour, members of the Science Committee were presented with the clean room  for the production of chips, which is active 24 hours a day and is 10 times cleaner than the average operating room in Israel. The cleanliness level is high and only necessary workers enter the hall in the appropriate outer protective clothing exclusively to address problems, with most issues corrected without human contact.

As part of the acquisition of Mobileye, the company is expected to hold a large part of its autonomous automobile activity in Israel in the areas of strategy, sales, development and promotion, in an unprecedented scope in Israel. Israel has a good chance of being second only to the US in the automotive sector, said CEO Yaniv Gerti. In terms of Intel, the autonomous vehicle is expected to be one of the dominant sectors in its activity within a decade, if not the most dominant, he said.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Dr. Gil Yaron interviewed a Palestinian woman on Friday, ahead of violent protests against Israels decision to install metal detectors on the Har Habayis.

The woman insisted the murder of two Israeli police officers on Har Habayis was not carried out by terrorists, and said she hopes for violence during the protests.

Presumably, she was thrilled with the horrific slaughter of three innocent Israeli eating their Shabbos seuda.

And then the world demands Israel make peace with these murderers

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
The incident in which two Jordanian citizens were shot dead by an Israeli security guard is still being held at the Israeli embassy by the Jordanians who want to interrogate him, while the embassy staff wants to evacuate him to a hospital in Israel.

An initial investigation into the incident revealed that the staff lived near the Israeli embassy in Amman. The owner of the apartment came and worked to install furniture in the bedroom. One of the workers, Muhammad Joada, 17, tried to stab a security guard with his back and reportedly also the owner of the apartment  a doctor by profession. The security guard immediately jumped up and shot and killed the worker. The owner of the apartment was transported to the hospital where he died of his wounds. It is still not clear whether the security guard shot him or that he was also injured by the workers stabbing.

The incident, which is being investigated in all the media, raises diplomatic tensions since the Jordanians demand to question the Israeli security guard. Israel claims that it enjoys immunity under the Vienna Convention and wants to return him to Israel along with the other embassy employees.

Members of the Jordanian boys family demonstrated in front of the embassy building and demand his arrest and punishment in full severity. We have absolute confidence in Jordanian law, which will impose on the criminal the most severe punishment  the death penalty, is there statement.

Since the incident, some 30 embassy employees have been besieged and cannot return to Israel, since the Jordanians demand that the security guard be interrogated and the team refuses to leave the security guard alone in the embassy.

Political sources estimate that Jordan too, knows that this is a terrorist attack, but is exploiting the tension on Har Habayis in order to garner political capital. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke on Sunday night with Ambassador Einat Schlein and the security guard, while at the same time the Foreign Ministry is working to bring the entire team back to Israel.

The Israeli security establishment believes that this is a nationalistic attack against the backdrop of the magnetometers and the metal detector on Har Habayis after the attack, in which two policemen were shot to death.

On the other hand, the father of the deceased in Jordan claims that his son did not even know that they were Jews. If we knew we would not permit them in the store, it would not be our honor, he said, adding that our son argued with this guy and we do not know if he slapped him or punched him, but how do you then pull a gun? This is the whole truth, thats all thats happening, and I hope our voice will reach the whole world. In spirit and blood, we will redeem you, Shahid.

The Political-Security Cabinet is set to begin meeting today, Monday Rosh Chodesh Av, at 2:00PM to discuss the situation in Jordan and Har Habayis.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Rabbi Menashe Zelicha, the Rav of the Pardes Katz neighborhood in Bnei Brak, is currently in Jordan on the occasion of the Yahrzeit of Aharon HaKohen. The atmosphere however is very tense following the stabbing incident at the embassy and there have been several reports of harassment of Jews.

In a conversation with Tzvika Gronich on Kol Chai Radio, Rabbi Zelicha said: Police came here after claiming that they killed two Jordanians at the embassy. The situation is tense. They do not let us daven at all.

According to Rabbi Zelicha, the policemen told them that in all of Jordan it is forbidden for Jews to daven.

We are not allowed to daven in the morning, even without tallis and tefillin, without anything  we must not daven, even in the hotel, even in the room.

Zelicha goes on to say that policemen came into the hotel and shouted and went wild and said that in a minute, they would take us out of Jordan if we made the smallest squeak and told us, Whoever prays we will take him to jail.'

They brought policemen who have the authority to stop the person on the spot, he says. Those who see them davening will make an arrest. Rabbi Zelicha noted that they discussed among themselves what to do with tefillas Shachris.

Rabbi Zelicha added that when we arrived at the border crossing, everything was fine, everyone behaved politely, we passed all the checkpoints and everything went well, and suddenly, after they realized that we were a group from Jerusalem, we understood from the guides that the story of Har Habayis caused them to turn on us. They decided that they wanted to reexamine all the suitcases.

After we went through an x-ray, everything was fine and then they made us pass through a second time. They began checking the suitcases and checking everything, refusing to transfer books, removing the prayer shawls, removing the tefillin. They took yarmulkes and people remained with only a shirt and trousers.

I and a few other individuals who saw what was happening, he says, managed to remove the tefillin from the side of the suitcase without them seeing.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A diplomatic standoff between Israel and Jordan over a deadly shooting at Israels embassy in the kingdom once again tests the strategic, if turbulent ties forged in a 1994 peace treaty.

In the past, Israel was willing to pay a high price to protect the relationship, including releasing an Islamic militant leader from prison in a deal with Jordan.

Jordan and Israel share a long border, various water and natural gas projects, and cooperate to stem Irans growing influence and the spread of Islamic State militancy in the region.

But the peace agreement remains deeply unpopular in the kingdom, where many citizens are of Palestinian origin and say normalization can only come after Israel reaches peace with the Palestinians.

Heres a look at the Israeli-Jordanian relationship.



ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION

Perhaps the most serious crisis came in 1997, during Benjamin Netanyahus first term as Israeli prime minister. At the time, agents of Israels Mossad spy agency tried to assassinate then-Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Amman. Two agents entered Jordan using fake Canadian passports and poisoned Mashaal as he was leaving the Hamas offices in the Jordanian capital by placing a device near his ear. They were captured shortly after the attack. Outraged by the violation of his sovereignty, Jordans then-King Hussein threatened to void the still-fresh peace accord if Mashaal were to die. Israel ultimately dispatched an antidote that saved his life and the Israeli agents were returned home. Under pressure, Israel agreed to release the spiritual leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, from prison.

JORDAN VALLEY SHOOTING

Earlier in 1997, a Jordanian soldier opened fire at a group of Israeli schoolgirls on a field trip to a joint Israeli-Jordanian tourist resort along the border. A few days after the shooting, King Hussein traveled to Israel to comfort the families of the seven slain girls, in what was seen at the time as a touching gesture to Israel that helped solidify his image as a man of peace. The soldier was released from prison earlier this year, after serving 20 years.

HAR HABYIS

The Har Habayis, has been a frequent source of friction.

Jordan serves as Muslim custodian of the 37-acre walled compound, the third holiest site of Islam.

In 2014, Jordan temporarily recalled its ambassador amid Jewish-Muslim tensions over prayer rights at the site. In a sign of the importance Israel places on its ties with Jordan, the Israeli government moved quickly to restore calm.

The following year clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces around the site quickly led to unrest elsewhere in Jerusalem, across Israel and in the West Bank that have continued intermittently till now.

Over the past week, Jordan was heavily involved in trying to defuse an escalating crisis between Israel and the Muslim world over metal detectors installed at the shrine. Israel set up the security measures in response to a shooting attack from there earlier this month that killed two Israeli policemen.

ISRAELI EMBASSY SHOOTING

On Sunday, an Israeli security guard at the Israeli Embassy in Jordan opened fire and killed two Jordanians, after one of them attacked him with a screwdriver. The Israeli guard was lightly wounded. The incident led to a diplomatic standoff, with Jordan saying it would not let the guard leave without an investigation. A day later, embassy staff remained in the compound, as Netanyahu tried to defuse the crisis and get the guard back to Israel. The incident came at the worst possible time for Israel, complicating efforts to find a way out of the standoff over the metal detectors at the Jerusalem site.

SECURITY TIES

Israel and Jordan share intelligence and have overlapping interests in southern Syria and elsewhere. Israel also considers Jordan an important land barrier on its eastern flank. The stability of the U.S.-allied kingdom is seen in Israel as a major security interest.

Previous crises have shown that both sides are willing to make gestures to maintain the relations.

The incident in Jordan has a potential of disrupting the relations between the two countries, said Oded Eran, a former Israeli ambassador to Jordan.

However, the two countries have an interest to let this incident be solved in a very amicable way, providing that the two states can keep the perception of guarding their national interest, he said.

(AP)
Financial services love an acronym, but the latest - Mifid II - is a particularly obscure label for rules which will materially change the way investors' money is managed.

The new regulations originate from Europe and seek to improve transparency in investment markets across the continent.

Over the coming weeks investors across the UK will receive letters from where they manage their investments, such as Hargreaves Lansdown, Fidelity or other DIY investing platforms, alerting them to the forthcoming changes.

But what do they mean for you and what, if anything, is likely to change? This is Money dug into the detail to explain what you need to know.

Mifid II is an EU directive that is set to have a significant effect on financial services firms operating in the UK and in the remaining 27-country political and economic bloc

What is Mifid II?

Mifid II is shortform for the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive from European regulators.

It builds on regulation brought in during 2007 that sought to make investing more transparent for both retail and institutional investors and which standardised regulatory disclosures required for particular markets.

In plain English that means everyone had to be clearer about costs, charges and fees and explain them in a standard way, up front.

Mifid II is essentially the new trading rulebook for countries in the European Union and will bolster this transparency across financial markets within the EU.

Affected firms include any that provide services to clients linked to financial instruments - shares, bonds, units in collective investment schemes and derivatives - and the places where those instruments are traded.

Mostly it will govern the way that financial investment providers, traders, brokers and advisers exchange data and information, charge and how they disclose their charges.

It must be fully implemented by all affected financial institutions by 3 January 2018.

But aren't we leaving the European Union?

Yes, but Mifid II is scheduled for implementation before the UK Brexit negotiations conclude, meaning UK firms must still comply with European regulation.

The UK regulator - the Financial Conduct Authority - released a statement as recently as spring this year which told financial services firms that they need to continue with their preparations for the application of the directive.

While Mifid II is set to go ahead, the Brexit process is likely to make things more complicated for financial services firms which face the difficult task of adjusting to a post-Brexit marketplace that is yet to be defined.

Will Mifid II make fund fees clearer?

The financial watchdog, the FCA recently revealed findings of an in-depth probe into the fund management industry. There were lots of things to digest in there but one of the key elements was an attack on fund fees.

In essence, it said many investors didn't know how much they were really paying, or what they were paying for.

Mifid II requires investment firms disclose information on all costs and charges related to financial instruments and ancillary services. This includes management, advisory, custodian, fund entry and exit levies.

Firms will be required to express these costs as a percentage and in pounds and pence.

Some charges, like transaction costs, are variable and difficult to predict because a large event, political or market-based, could have a bearing on investment values and can be a legitimate reason to buy or sell in volume. However, previous years' costs will be known.

To this point, the directive stipulates for cost to be presented in an ex-ante (forecast) and ex-post (actual result) basis.

Firms will also be legally obliged to inform clients on the costs incurred at least once a year.

How does the new directive affect me?

Not much initially. Clients of financial advisers, investment platforms and fund management firms should expect to receive a letter soon because Mifid II requires financial services firms to hold up-to-date information about their customers.

Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK's largest fund supermarket, for example, has already written to 520,000 of its clients and will be writing to the rest over the next couple of months to ask them to log into their accounts and confirm their nationality and national client identifier in order to comply with the pending EU directive.

All investment service and stockbrokers will be required to do this.

Investors who do not respond by the end of the year will not be able to trade shares, ETFs, investment trusts, bonds and a number of other stock market-listed securities when Mifid comes into effect on 3 January next year.

Many of these changes will not be visible to the investor but transparency on fees should be. Adrian Lowcock of Architas

Adrian Lowcock, investment director at multi-manager investment firm Architas, said: 'Mifid II is largely focused on transparency, protecting the investor and putting the investors best interests first.

'Many of these changes will not be visible to the investor but transparency on fees should be.'

He added: 'The emphasis of Mifid II is to support the investor so over time we should see products and services which are responding to investors' needs not the businesses' desire to drive up sales in a particular product.'

Fund managers will no longer be allowed to receive investment research for free from brokerages and investment banks they use to buy and sell holdings under Mifid II

Will it drive down investment charges?

The cost of investment research has historically been included as part of the trading levy but under the new rules, fund managers will be required to provide investors with a clear breakdown of the charge.

What is more, fund managers will no longer be able to receive investment research for free from the brokerages and investment banks they use to buy and sell holdings for their funds.

Instead, they will be required to make explicit payments for investment research so they can demonstrate that they have not been induced to trade with a particular company.

Some experts believe that fund managers will simply pass the additional cost burden onto investors - Henderson and Schroders have confirmed plans to pass some of this cost onto clients.

However, the rules have already prompted several fund companies - including Hermes Investment Management, Woodford Investment Management and M&G - to absorb the cost of research themselves rather than passing it on to the investor.

How will the new rules affect my financial adviser?

Some of the more noteworthy changes affect financial advisers. Advisers will be required to detail how the advice they offer will meet their clients' objectives and need to display clearly whether it is based on broad or restricted analysis.

Independent financial advisers, defined as those who offer products and services from the whole of the market, and discretionary fund managers will be banned from receiving and retaining third party payments or benefits in relation to the provision of those services.

The ban, however, excludes 'minor non-monetary' benefits and the FCA has confirmed it will extend this to restricted advisers.

The idea is to ensure that investment professionals are recommending solutions based on what is best for the client rather than the sweeteners they can get from providers.

Is Mifid II a good thing?

Bolstering the suitability and transparency of investment propositions is commendable but there are fears that it will result in unintended consequences.

It will be particularly interesting to see whether fund managers who receive free investment research will absorb the additional cost burden stemming from the requirement to purchase investment analysis outright, or simply pass on the cost to clients.
AIM-quoted Cello Group, by its own admission, is an unusual beast.

To start, it's primarily a healthcare services business listed in London  there are only a handful of others  but most of its efforts, and investment, go into wooing customers across the pond.

It's also a profitable, dividend-paying AIM stock; traits that again help Cello stand out from the crowd.

Standing out: Healthcare services Cello Group is profitable as it acquires Advantage Healthcare

The bulk of the 10million or so profits last year came from its Cello Health division, which on the tin 'provides expertise, processes, intellectual property and market knowledge spanning the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostics, healthcare equipment and consumer health sectors'.

In short, if you want to know what's going on in a particular area of the pharma business, there's a good chance that Cello Heath's database will be able to fill you in.

Competition comes from some billion-dollar sized corporations over in the States, which is where most of the money is, so it's been on something of a land grab in recent months to boost its profile in the country.

US-based Defined Health was acquired back in January and only this week another addition, pharmaceutical product consultancy Advantage Healthcare, was unveiled.

Both of those acquisitions not only bolster the division's presence in the US but also in the fast-evolving biotech arena.

Cello Signal's goal is to show that large corporate firms can be managed by 'real people'

'We were traditionally weighted exclusively towards big pharma, but the biotech space has emerged very energetically in the past ten years so we've had to increase our exposure to it,' said chief executive Mark Scott.

The acquisition, focus on the US and 'strong push' into biotech have paid off as in the first six months of this year, Cello Health saw gross profits jump by more than 25 per cent.

Guidance is always king on the markets, though, and Cello didn't disappoint on this front either with management expecting the profit momentum to continue for the foreseeable future.

'[Cello Health] is a reasonably-sized business now, but in this huge industry we're relatively small but we've got a credible position and we're getting known now,' said Scott.

Cello is more than just its Health business though, it also has a separate smaller division called Cello Signal, which contributes about 25 per cent of the group's overall profits.

Signal provides 'web-centred marketing solutions for big corporates' in the technology, gaming, retail, consumer goods and charities sectors.

Its goal is to 'humanise' brands. In other words, to make you realise that even faceless corporate behemoths are actually run by real people.

Signal is also the home of social media analytics tool Pulsar, which, according to the experts, has the potential to be a real winner and is without doubt the most exciting part of this particular division.

'If you're a big car manufacturer trying to work out what the next big model should be and what people are buying and not buying, alongside classic market research studies [Pulsar allows you to] analyse what is being said, in real time, on social media,' Scott explains.

Like with Cello Health, most of the big customers and big contracts are over in the US.

Pulsar launched there at the start of the year but has grown rapidly in just a few months, so Cello is ploughing in more money.

Even social media specialists are on board with Twitter and Facebook also using the analytics tool Pulsar

A quick search of the client list indicates why. General Motors, O2 and Tesco are clients alongside gaming giant Activision Blizzard (the guys behind World of Warcraft).

Even social media specialists are on board with Twitter and Facebook also using the tool, surely a ringing endorsement of Pulsar's technology.

It's not just customers that are fans of Pulsar, City brokers are too. finnCap analyst Guy Hewett  who expects Cello to record an adjusted pre-tax profit of 11.4million on sales of 174.3million in 2017  'continue[s] to see substantial share price upside potential' from the tool alone.

So far Cello has invested only a few million into Signal and Pulsar. Compared to companies offering a similar service which have pumped in several hundred million, it is clearly punching above its weight.

'We're up against big rivals who are very well capitalised, many of whom have raised $100million or $200million of equity but our product is up there among the best,' said Scott.

With UK-based companies being snapped up left, right and centre by their US counterparts, one can speculate how long it will be before Cello appears on the M&A radar but if Pulsar does take off, it may not be very long.
Ryanair has launched a bid for bankrupt rival Alitalia as it seeks to dominate in Italy.

The budget carrier said it had submitted an offer for the loss-making carrier on Friday but added it would only pursue the move if Alitalia is restructured and the influence of the Italian government is removed.

In May, Alitalia filed to be put under special administration for the second time in less than a decade  starting a process that will lead to the airline being overhauled, sold or wound up.

Flight of fancy: Ryanair said it had submitted an offer for loss-making carrier Alitalia on Friday

It is believed to have received around ten offers, according to Italian media reports . It is an attractive proposition for budget carriers because of the number of routes which Alitalia has.

The news came as Ryanair said that it could slash fares by as much as nine per cent to fill seats.

Chief executive Michael O'Leary said: 'We expect the pricing environment to remain very competitive.'

But it also issued a Brexit warning, saying that it may be forced to cancel flights and move some of its UK-based aircraft to continental Europe from April 2019 if there is no certainty about the legal basis of flights between the Britain and the EU by autumn next year.

This is likely to play a factor in any Ryanair push to extend its Italian reach, where it is already the biggest player. Mr O'Leary said: 'We are serious in indicating we have an interest in Alitalia.

But we are also serious in that our interest in Alitalia is only if there is a significant restructuring so that Alitalia could reasonably be seen to operate on a profitable basis'

He added that there would need to be 'an absence of Italian government interference'.

Ryanair is the largest carrier in Italy where it commands 28 per cent of the market share and also offers flight connections at Rome Fiumicino and Milan Bergamo.

The airline said it will be interested in buying a majority stake so its short-haul flights can link up with Alitalia's long-haul network.

Neil Sorahan, chief financial officer, said: 'The long haul network will be very interesting in the point of view that we could provide the fleet  which is what we've always said.'

Alitalia filed for bankruptcy after workers rejected wage cuts linked to a 1.7billion rescue plan.

It had been hoped that Gulf carrier Etihad Airways, which owns 49 per cent of the firm, would help turn it into a five-star operator after it purchased a 1.5billion stake in 2014.

But Alitalia lost its standing in Italy to Ryanair and EasyJet, while terrorism in Europe hurt tourism in the region.

The Italian government, which has invested more than 5.9billion into the airline over the last decade, also ruled out a bailout.

Meanwhile, Ryanair posted a 55 per cent jump in first-quarter profits after tax to 355million compared to the same period last year  thanks to the late timing of Easter.

Sales jumped 13 per cent to 1.7billion.
Lithium mine: Rio Tinto has signed a deal with the Serbian government

LITHIUM LINK Miner Rio Tinto has signed a deal with the Serbian government over its work developing its Jadar lithium mine, with production due to start in 2023.

TECH TROUBLES UK bosses are struggling to keep pace with technology advances, a survey for auditors KPMG found.

VENUE PLAN Telecoms giant O2 has renewed its deal to front the O2 Academy chain of live music venues across the UK for another ten years.

SALES SURGE Sausage-maker Cranswick boasted a strong start to the year thanks to strong sales in the UK which jumped 27 per cent ahead of the same period the year before.

PLANE ORDER British Airways owner IAG has firmed up an order for three A330-200 planes for its low-cost airline Level.

ON TRACK Gold, copper and silver producer Anglo Asian Mining said work is on track at its Ugur deposit in western Azerbaijan.

DIAMOND DAYS Miner Lucapa Diamond Company said it has found potentially diamond-rich areas at its Lulo project in Angola.

SUB SUPPORT Specialist engineer TP Group has won a 1.9million contract for submarine support systems from a South East Asian shipbuilding contractor.

MINER FLOAT Zimbabwe-focused miner Caledonia Mining will trade on the New York Stock Exchange from July 27.

TAXI TIE-UP Private jet servicing firm Gama Aviation has extended its maintenance contract with French air taxis service Wijet.

NAVY SUPPLIES Defence systems firm Ultra Electronics has won a contract to supply the Indian navy.

CLADDING PROBE Infrastructure investor HICL has launched a review into the use of cladding after last months Grenfell Tower tragedy.

SITE BOUGHT Warehouse investor Tritax Big Box has bought the former 124-acre site of Littlebrook Power Station in London for 65million.

GAMER DEAL Esports business Gfinity has bought US peer CEVO for around 2.1million.

FUTURE ROLE Marketing firm Next Fifteen Communications has appointed Penelope Ladkin-Brand, chief financial officer of publisher Future, as a non-executive director.
The suicide blast was reported near the residence-cum-office of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore.

Pakistani rescue workers prepare to remove a body from the site of a deadly bombing in the eastern city of Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, July 24, 2017. Reuters photo

By Hamza Ameer: A powerful suicide blast rocked Pakistan's Lahore city in the afternoon today after which at least 28 people, including 8 cops, were killed and over 57 left injured.

The incident was reported near the residence-cum-office of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on the main Ferozpur road, near Arfa Karim tower in Lahore. The attack which was targeted at policemen left eight of them dead including a sub-inspector, an assistant sub-inspector and 6 constables.

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Lahore police chief Capt (R) Amin Wains said the "target of blast was police". He also confirmed that it was a suicide blast.

Eyewitnesses say that a bomb exploded in a parked motorcycle parked on the pathway at the main Ferozpur road near old vegetable market (sabzi mandi) of Lahore.

The blast spread chaos on the streets as locals started evacuation on the nearby buildings. According to Rescue 1122, at least 20 people including policemen have been killed in the blast.

An emergency was declared in city hospitals. The condition of several injures is stated to be critical.

The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place.

Citing police sources, Geo News reported that a suicide attacker targeted police personnel deployed at the site. The area has been cordoned off by a heavy contingent of security forces and the section of the road has been sealed.

COAS shares grief with victim families of Lhr blast. Directs for immediate rescue and relief efforts. Troops reached at site.; Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) July 24, 2017

No words can express the grief which grips my heart right now. Blast destroyed many families, but terrorists can never destroy our resolve..; Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) July 24, 2017

Our blood was spilt on the street but I swear to my Allah that the blood of our innocent martyrs will write end of these cowardly assassins!; Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) July 24, 2017

In April, six persons were killed and 15 others injured when a suicide bomber targeted a population census team in Lahore's Bedian Road.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but in the past such blasts have often been carried out by Pakistani Taliban militants.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the majority of those killed and wounded were police and warned the death toll could rise.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast in a statement and "directed for extending best possible medical treatment for the injured".

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(Additional inputs from agencies)

Also read:

Pakistan: 62 killed, 100 injured in multiple attacks on eve of Eid

Pakistan's ISI behind Kabul blast which killed 90: Afghanistan govt to India

--- ENDS ---
MBABANE - Did you ever imagine that one day the process of passing the plate amongst congregants in church for them to pay their tithes would come to an end?

Well, if you did not, then think again because that process looks likely to be a thing of the past in the not so distant future.

Some local churches have since introduced speed point machines on their premises, and congregants are encouraged to use them as a convenient way to give offerings and tithes.

The Times SUNDAY visited one famous church in Mbabane and found a speed point at the information centre.

This is similar to what has been found in neighbouring South Africa where the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) concluded that money, and not God, was now the cornerstone of unregulated and unscrupulous churches.

The commission uncovered that churches had been turned into money-making schemes where church leaders were not only charging congregants a consultation fee before giving them blessings or praying for them, but they were also running fully operational shops where holy water, oil and clothing were sold to congregants at marked-up prices.

This is on top of installing ATMs and speed point machines on the church premises.

The CRL has since urged parliament to deal speedily with its report on the commercialisation of religion.

In Swaziland, Bishop Steven Masilela, the President of the Swaziland Conference of Churches, said they would welcome a similar probe but if the investigation is on regulating the church, then the church leaders should be at the forefront of such a process.

This is because this is a spiritual matter and it wouldnt be easy for government to understand and deal with yet we know and understand each other, the bishop said.

Reverend Johannes Mazibuko of the Mbabane Alliance Church differed slightly as he said probing the church would be interfering in a space that government should not even touch.

If government identifies a preacher who is conducting a business through the church, they should approach him individually and not involve all churches (tingafi ngamvu yinye), he said.

Mazibuko stated that even in South Africa, the churches should have been approached individually and tax demanded from those found to be doing business. But both preachers fully agreed on one thing  that there is no problem in congregants paying their tithes through speed point machines.
SITEKI  A 27-year-old man has had both his legs amputated after he was run over by a train on Saturday morning, near Lubhuku area, not very far from Mpaka Railway Station.



Njabuliso Maziya, who is employed as a security guard at Manyeveni Primary School, is currently recuperating at Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki.



According to Maziya, he was from enjoying meat and liquor from one of the homesteads around Lubhuku when he tripped and fell while crossing a railway line.



Unfortunately, the train was now very close and it ran over me. I could have risen up after falling but I couldnt because bengidlile (I had taken liquor), he said while becoming emotional.

He further said he could have stayed at the homestead after taking the liquor but he was forced to go home by a group of rowdy man who had threatened to stab him.



I had been invited to the homestead to assist in slaughtering a pig and after I had finished, I sat down and enjoyed liquor. These men wanted to stab me, so I felt it was better to leave and go home, he said while visibly holding back tears.



Maziyas condition is stable despite losing both his legs, and nurses are confident that he would be discharged soon.

Meanwhile, Swaziland Railway Corporate Communications Specialist Sive Manana said the company would be launching an investigation to ascertain the exact cause(s) of the accident.
MBABANE  You were also not a virgin as prior to our meeting you fathered two children.



This was the contention of the woman who had been taken to court by her former husband, who is now demanding his lobola cattle back after discovering that she allegedly lied that she was a virgin. Swazrtz Manyeva Dlamini, who is a teacher, is demanding 24 cattle from his former wife Ruth Thembisile Sibiyas family.



Sibiya also denied that she made a verbal warranty that she was a virgin. Prior to our meeting, the plaintiff (Dlamini) fathered two children and as such was also not a virgin, contended Sibiya. She further averred that it was not true that Dlamini did not know that she had slept with another man or that she was already three months pregnant on their wedding day.



She also denied that the cattle that were paid by Dlamini were nine in number and that they were payment for her purity and virginity. Dlamini had claimed that he paid nine cattle and he is now demanding 24 cattle, being the progeny of the nine cows.

Giving a background of the matter, Sibiya stated that when the relationship between her and Dlamini started, she was a minor and his pupil at Ndzingeni High School.



She claimed that although she later changed schools, Dlamini persistently asked her to marry him to an extent that he involved her father. After I completed school in 1995, Dlamini, who was far older than me, insisted that we get married but I refused to marry him since I wanted to pursue my studies, submitted the defendant (Sibiya).



She continued to mention that at the beginning of 1998, she fell in love with one of his peers, Themba Thwala, and since she was at the university, it was difficult for her parents to know about this. Sibiya alleged that it was difficult to tell Dlamini that she had changed her heart about him.
By PTI: on 39 missing Indians

Chandigarh, Jul 24 (PTI) Family members of 39 Indians, who were abducted in Mosul three years ago, expressed pain and dejection after visiting Iraqi Foreign minister Ibrahim al- Jaafari said that he had no "substantial evidence" on whether the missing persons were killed or alive.

The Iraqi minister had also stressed that best efforts were being made to get information about the 39 missing Indians.

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The kin of the missing men, however, were hoping that "concrete" information about the whereabouts of their dear ones would emerge during the Iraqi ministers visit.

"We feel very disappointed. We heard the Iraqi minister say that he does not know whether the 39 missing Indians were dead or alive. We were hoping that he will be able to provide some information or some clue," said Davinder, whose elder brother Gobinder is missing.

"But the minister clearly said he did not have any information about them," Davinder added.

Gobinder was a resident of Murar village in Kapurthala.

"Our family is very tense now; nobody has been able to eat anything," Davinder told PTI.

Family members of the other missing persons said that from the Iraqi ministers statement, it was clear that the Indian government does have any concrete information about the missing.

"Now it has become clear that Indian government does not know about the missing Indians. The government has kept us in the dark for the last three years," said Sarwan.

Amritsar-based Sarwans 30-year-old brother Nishan had gone missing in Iraq.

"The government told us on June 8 that our men were in a church in Iraq. Then on July 16, during a meeting with Union minister Sushma Swaraj, we were told that they might have been lodged in a jail in Badush in northwest Mosul," said Sarwan.

But a recent media report said that the jail was abandoned and it had been unoccupied for weeks, he added.

He demanded that the government make the status of the missing Indians clear.

Gurpinder Kaur, whose 26-year-old brother Manjinder Singh is missing, said, "Now we do not know what to do. Our families were quite worried about the well being of our men."

The families have pinned their hopes on the statement External Affairs minister Swaraj is likely to make tomorrow in the Parliament.

"We will listen to the statement of the Union minister tomorrow and after that we will decide the next course of action," said Sarwan.

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Among the 39 Indians who had been missing, 22 were from different places in Punjab including Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar.

The issue was raised by Swaraj during extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who began a five-day India visit today, nearly two weeks after Mosul was liberated from ISIS by Iraqi forces.

"We dont know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts," the Iraqi foreign minister later told reporters. PTI CHS VJ ADS

--- ENDS ---
SIPHOFANENI  Two Tswanas have been arrested for allegedly breaking into a Shoprite Supermarket and attempted to blast a safe containing money using explosives.



Micheal Kebo Mere (26) and Kagiso Segola (36) have each been charged with three counts following the alleged incident, which was reportedly foiled by the police following a tip-off from Shoprite security officials.



In count one, the two have been charged with housebreaking with intent to commit a crime of theft. Court papers allege that the two suspects, either each or all of them acting jointly in furtherance of a common purpose, did wrongfully and unlawfully break and enter Siphofaneni Shoprite U Save Supermarket. In the second count, the accused have been charged with the crime of Contravening Section 9 as read with Section 8(1)(c) of the Explosives Act 4/1961 in that they allegedly did wrongfully and unlawfully possess an explosive jelly, while at or near Shoprite U Save supermarket, and not being holders of a valid licence or permit.



Mere, the first accused, has also been charged with contravening Section 14(2)(c) of the Immigration Act 17/1982 in that he allegedly wrongfully and unlawfully entered and remained in the country without a valid licence or permit.

And Segola, the second accused, has also been charged with contravening Section 11 of the Theft of Motor Vehicle Act 16/1991.

Court papers allege that, on the day of the foiled burglary, he was unlawfully found in possession of a ligoca, a man-made device normally used to open cars illegally.
MAFUTSENI  A Mkhaliphi family has been left traumatised and with many unanswered questions after one of their own was found murdered and dumped in a forest.



The lifeless body of 13-year-old Sifanele Mkhaliphi was found in a forest near Mafutseni almost in a decomposed state and it is suspected that she was first raped then brutally murdered prior to being dumped in the forest.

Her corpse was found half naked and with severe assault bruises all over.



Her skull was fractured and her left breast badly injured.

The Mkhaliphi family said Sifaneles denim skirt had been pulled up to the waist and she was not wearing any underwear.

Her underwear has still not been recovered. Her uncle, Thamsanqa Mkhaliphi, a teacher by profession, said a post-mortem conducted at the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital confirmed that the girl who dropped out in Grade V, was first sexually abused and then killed by unknown people, presumably from the area.



The family is still shocked and traumatised by the brutal murder incident, which also opened up certain wounds. My brother, Sifaneles father, was murdered in the same forest, exactly this time, about 10 years ago, Thamsanqa said.

Holding back tears, Thamsanqa admitted that Sifanele was not at all a well-behaved child.



He said his niece would disappear from home and not return for months. However, on the Friday, before last week, Thamsanqa said Sifaneles aunt had been tasked with returning with her home but she then disappeared again.
By PTI: Lucknow, Jul 24 (PTI) The first batch of 300 Haj pilgrims left for Saudi Arabia from the Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport here today.

Minister for minority welfare and Muslim waqf, Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary saw the pilgrims off at the airport and urged them to pray for peace and prosperity of the country.

Chaudhary said the state government would continue to improve the existing facilities for the pilgrims.

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"The endeavour of the state government will be to solve the problems of the Haj pilgrims in coming days," said Chaudhary.

Minister of state for minority affairs, Mohsin Raza said 146 Haj assistants would accompany the pilgrims this time, so that the pilgrims do not face any problems in Saudi Arabia.

Of the 300 pilgrims who departed today, 67 are from Siddhartha Nagar, 21 from Lucknow, 20 from Pratapgarh, 18 from Bareilly and 15 from Kanpur. PTI NAV CHT CHT

--- ENDS ---
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By Gina Martinez

Police were searching for a suspect in connection to an attempted bank robbery in Sunnyside.

According to police, on Friday, July 21, at 9:35 a.m., the suspect entered the Queens County Savings bank, located at 107-40 Queens Blvd. Police said the suspect approached a 64-year old female bank teller and passed a note demanding money. According to police, the teller refused and the individual fled the location in an unknown direction without any funds.

Police described the suspect as a Hispanic male who is approximately 5 feet, 10 inches tall and 150 pounds with a light complexion, black hair, and brown eyes.

Police said he was last seen wearing beige shorts and a blue shirt.
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By Naeisha Rose

The Fugitive Task Force in Brooklyn nabbed a fourth Queens suspect wanted in connection with the robbery and sexual assault of a 50-year-old mother of two in Jamaica July 11, police said.

Isaiah Shorter, 20, of Jamaica, was arraigned before Queens Criminal Court Judge Althea Drysdale and charged with a criminal sexual act and sexual abuse, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Browns office.

If convicted, Shorter faces 25 years in prison. He was held on $500,000 bail and scheduled to return to court this Friday, the DAs office said.

Police identified Shorter as the fourth suspect after arresting the three other alleged assailants July 13, according to the NYPD.

His alleged accomplices are Brandon Walker, Justin Williams, and Julisses Ginel, who were each held on $500,000 bond/$250,000 cash bail and will be returning to court on the same day as Shorter, according to Browns office.

Brown said he was appalled by the alleged actions of these four men.

The crimes that this defendant and his three companions are accused of committing that night are despicable and are deserving of significant punishment, Brown said. It is alleged that with a pack-like mentality they set upon a defenseless woman coming from church and subjected her to heinous acts of sexual abuse.

Queens Special Victims Squad worked in conjunction with the detectives of the 103rd Precinct to find the suspects.
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
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The sale of Albany Molecular Research Inc. in a $922 million deal to two private equity firms was more than a year in the making.

The Albany-based pharmaceutical manufacturer said it had been mulling its future  but not actively shopping the company  when it was first approached by representatives of GTCR, a Chicago private equity firm back in March of 2016 about a potential "financing transaction."

At the time, AMRI's shares were trading for roughly $14.50.

Fifteen months later, AMRI would announce that GTCR and a second private equity firm, The Carlyle Group of Washington, D.C., had struck an all-cash deal to acquire it for $21.75 a share, a 49 percent premium from its March 2016 stock price.

AMRI was founded in 1991 and has more than two dozen locations across the globe. Its headquarters are in Albany and it has a manufacturing facility in Rensselaer.

Behind-the-scenes details of the negotiations between AMRI, its lawyers, and various suitors over that time period contained in regulatory filings show that GTCR and Carlyle came together to partner on the deal just days before the deal was announced on the morning of June 6.

But there was also a third, unidentified firm that was offering $22.50 per share  roughly $954 million.

However, AMRI and its bankers from Credit Suisse ultimately stuck with the lower offer after expressing trepidation that the unidentified firm would be able to quickly complete a deal of that magnitude on its own.

Gina Rothe, a spokeswoman for AMRI, would not reveal the identity of the firm that made the $22.50 per share bid, although it appears to have been one with little experience in pharmaceuticals.

A special committee of independent board members that were overseeing the bidding process also worried about the unidentified companies "relative inexperience in evaluating, negotiating and consummating transactions of this size and nature or within our industry..." and the company's "ability to secure equity and debt financing for such a transaction."

The offer from GTCR and Carlyle was ultimately accepted and signed on June 5.

"This transaction is a strong endorsement of our strategy," AMRI CEO William Marth said in a statement the following morning. "Given their deep healthcare industry expertise and financial resources, Carlyle and GTCR are highly attractive partners for us and offer a compelling opportunity to accelerate our growth and enhance delivery of world-class solutions to our customers."

AMRI shareholders are being asked to approve the deal in a proxy vote that will conclude Aug. 18 at a meeting in Boston. Of all goes as planned, the deal is expected to close Sept. 1.

Marth especially will benefit when the deal is completed. His stock and stock options, which will be fully vested and cashed out under the merger, are worth $6.5 million.

If he is let go after the deal, Marth will also get a $2.78 million "golden parachute" cash payment. He has no deal in place yet to remain.

The current stock holdings of Thomas D'Ambra, AMRI's founder and current chairman, will pay $4.1 million.

Local businessman Kevin O'Connor, who has been on the AMRI board of directors since 2000 and was on the special committee of directors that helped to guide the sale process for the company, stands to earn $1.2 million from his shares.
ALBANY  After President Donald Trump fired Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in March, the high-profile former federal prosecutor released a Tweet that led many to conclude that his office might have been investigating the Trump administration.

"By the way, now I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like," Bharara wrote.

Bharara was referring to the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, a panel appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in July 2013 with a broad mandate to probe official misdeeds. Its work was short-lived, though, and the commission was abruptly shut down in a March 2014 deal between Cuomo and legislative leaders. It was later reported that the Cuomo administration meddled in the panel's work and pushed back when it attempted to look at the governor's political allies.

While there may be parallels between the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the Moreland Commission's demise, there are people on both sides of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe whose paths lead back to high-profile corruption cases in New York.

Central among them is Marc Kasowitz, a combative corporate attorney who has represented Trump in civil matters and until recently was the lead attorney for Trump in the Russia probe. Kasowitz has a reduced role in the wake of reports of profanity-laced emails he sent to a stranger; Trump has now turned to a criminal defense lawyer for that role.

ProPublica, citing four unnamed sources, reported last month that Kasowitz had bragged to associates that he played a key role in Bharara's firing. ProPublica also noted that Kasowitz could be prone to exaggeration.

Whether or not he played role in the ouster of Bharara  who was initially assured by the president that he could remain on the job  Kasowitz certainly would have familiarity with Bharara's public corruption work in New York.

In the fall of 2013, the state Assembly's majority Democratic conference hired Kasowitz and his firm to represent the chamber as the Moreland Commission's investigation was heating up. That raised hackles among Assembly Republicans, who said it was a conflict of interest because Kasowitz was a major Democratic donor.

Indeed, Kasowitz or his wife have given more than $222,000 to New York politicians since 2000, according to state Board of Elections records. His firm, Kasowitz Benson, has additionally given about $770,000.

Cuomo has been among the biggest recipients of these political donations. From 2006 (when Cuomo was running for attorney general) through May 2013, Kasowitz or his firm gave a total of $295,000 to the governor's campaign coffers.

Another major recipient of the largesse was Nassau County's Kathleen Rice, who received $103,000 for her unsuccessful 2010 attorney general campaign. She went on to be co-chair of the Moreland Commission, but resigned months before its demise to successfully run for Congress.

In representing the Assembly in the Moreland probe, Kasowitz led efforts to fight subpoenas seeking information about lawmakers' outside incomes. Former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver took the lead in hiring the law firm.

After Cuomo and state lawmakers reached a deal in 2014 to dismantle the Moreland Commission in exchange for a package of ethics reforms, Bharara's office secured its files and continued its work. Separately, Bharara's probe into Cuomo's shuttering of the commission did not result in any criminal charges; the then-U.S. Attorney issued a statement that there was "insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime."

In the subsequent federal criminal trial of Silver, it emerged that Kasowitz was close with the two partners at a law firm, Perry Weitz and Arthur Luxenberg, that had paid millions in referral fees to Silver. That firm had also fought the Moreland Commission's subpoenas.

Silver was convicted of steering $500,000 in state grants to a mesothelioma researcher center in exchange for patient referrals to the firm. The conviction was overturned on appeal earlier this month, and federal prosecutors have promised a second trial.

Bharara's probe of state government has yielded other charges, including indictments of a former top Cuomo aide, Joe Percoco, and seven others. The governor's reaction to Bharara's March firing was muted; he said in an interview that he "didn't follow" the ouster.

Kasowitz also represented Trump in the fraud case brought against Trump University by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, which resulted in a $25 million settlement.

Meanwhile, a former Bharara aide at the center of the efforts to probe corruption in New York is on the other side of the Trump-Russia investigation.

In late June, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Goldstein, who was the top public corruption lawyer in Bharara's office and was part of the team that convicted Silver, joined Mueller's investigative team.

Bloomberg recently reported that Mueller's team is also exploring a wide array of Trump's business dealings. According to published reports, that portion of the investigation apparently grew out of a money-laundering probe into former top Trump campaign advisor Paul Manafort that was launched by Bharara last year. Bharara's investigation has now been folded into Mueller's inquiry.

Meanwhile, Abbe Lowell, an attorney for former Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno in his 2009 federal corruption trial in Albany, has also been retained in the ongoing Russia probe. Lowell, a prominent Washington, D.C.-based criminal defense lawyer, was hired in June to represent Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and a top advisor.

Bruno was convicted in his first trial, but the conviction was overturned on appeal due to a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that pared back the federal honest-services statute used to convict the lawmaker and numerous other public officials. Bruno was acquitted at a second trial in 2014.
Continuous rainfall for three days has inundated many districts of Gujarat, with authorities today calling in the Army and the Air Force for help. PM Modi, who has expressed concern over the situation, is said to be in touch with CM Rupani over the situation.

By India Today Web Desk: Incessant rainfall over the last three days in Gujarat has wrecked havoc across several areas, with many parts of major districts seeing heavy flooding. Three districts in Rajasthan have also been affected.

At least 7,000 people have had to be rescued and moved to safer locations in Gujarat, which is on high alert after the MeT department predicted heavy rainfall in parts of the state today and tomorrow.

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Local media reported that the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force have been called in to assist with rescue operations and that Prime Minster Narendra Modi is in touch with Chief Minster Vijay Rupani over the situation in Gujarat.

Photos and videos shared on social media and otherwise have shown major damage to infrastructure including roads and railway tracks.

Click here to Enlarge Ahmedabad-Kutch highway near Maliya Miyana in Rajkot affected due to heavy flooding (Photo: Twitter/Gopi Maniar)

Two dams - Sipu and Dantiwada, both in Banaskantha - have overflowed due to excess inflow of water, forcing authorities to open seven gates of the Sipu dam and release 50,000 cusecs of water.

RAJASTHAN ALSO AFFECTED

Districts affected by rainfall and flooding include Banaskantha, Rajkot, Surendranagar, Ahmedabad and Morbi. Rescue operations were also required in the districts of Kutch, Mehsana and Valsad.

Some parts of Rajasthan - especially those bordered the northern Gujarat district of Banaskantha - too have been that too have seen heavy rainfall.

Click here to Enlarge Massive water logging in Banaskantha, following incessant rain fall (Photo: Twitter/ANI)

Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts in Rajasthan have been inundated due to heavy rainfall and Indian Army and Indian Air Force helicopters have been pressed into service for relief operations. Road and rail network in the three districts has been affected, news agency PTI reported.

In Gujarat, more than ten teams of the National Disaster Relief Force are active in various areas while at least two Indian Army columns were today requisitioned for relief operations in Banaskantha's Deesa.

Indian Army reaches Deesa, Banaskantha for rescue and relief work. @adgpi pic.twitter.com/Ncf8hiqGvb- Shankar Chaudhary (@ChaudhryShankar) July 24, 2017

(Video credit: Twitter/@ChaudhryShankar)

Click here to Enlarge Flooding wrecks havoc near Maliya Miyana railway station in Rajkot (Photo: Twitter/Gopi Maniar)

The Indian Air Force too has been called in by authorities, with four MI-17V5 helicopter being today pressed into service from bases in Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Phalodi. The IAF choppers are focused on operations in villages in Banaskantha's Dhanera and Deesa talukas in Gujarat and villages in Jalore and Pali districts in Rajasthan.

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According to a statement released by the Gujarat government on Sunday, more than 100 internal roads and at least 19 state highways were blocked because of heavy waterlogging. Indian Railways has to suspend several trains with waters washing away tracks in some areas.

According to the Gujarat government, the state has already received 56.61 per cent of the total rainfall that it expects to get this year.

Click here to Enlarge Car wades through flooded street in Ahmedabad (Photo: Twitter/ANI)

Click here to Enlarge An autorickshaw drives through flooded streets in Maneckbaug, Ahmedabad (Photo: Twitter/Gopi Maniar)

CM RUPANI IN TOUCH WITH PM MODI

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who undertook an aerial survey of several flood-hit areas in Gujarat, is said to be in touch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the situation in the state.

According to local media reports, Rupani also visited the state control room in capital Gandhinagar to take stock of the situation and is in constant touch with PM Modi in New Delhi who has reportedly express worry over the floods and rainfall in Gujarat.

Click here to Enlarge NDRF teams carry out rescue work in Surendranagar (Photo: Twitter/Gopi Maniar)

Rupani today reached Palanpur in Banaskantha, a day after taking an aerial survey of parts of Surendranagar.

CM @vijayrupanibjp reach Palanpur to review flood situation of Banaskantha pic.twitter.com/Ldke5xCqTH- Aajtak Gopi Maniar (@gopimaniar) July 24, 2017

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According to Divya Bhaskar, the Narmada Yatra, which was supposed to begin later this week, has been suspended for now. PM Modi was supposed to inaugurate the Sardar Sarovar Dam on river Narmada at the end of the yatra on August 12.

Click here to Enlarge Flood due to heavy rain in Surendranagar district's Limbdi (Photo: Twitter/ANI)

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ALBANY  Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered state agencies to make voter registration forms available to the public and offer assistance in filling them out in an effort to boost participation in elections.

An executive order the governor signed Monday requires agencies to mail or provide electronic voter registration forms to any member of the public whose contact information is on file. Previously, only the state Department of Motor Vehicles and certain social service agencies provided voter registration forms.

The governor also created a State Agency Voter Registration Task Force to oversee administration of the program, in consultation with the state Board of Elections. Cuomo's counsel, his director of state operations and undisclosed agency heads will sit on the task force.

"It is our responsibility to make it as easy as possible for people to vote because that's what democracy looks like," Cuomo said in a statement. "As the federal government and foreign powers threaten the sanctity of America's democracy, I am exercising my executive power to expand the availability and opportunity for every New Yorker to register to vote."

The governor also ordered other action to expand access to the ballot.

He directed SUNY and CUNY to review campus voter registration practices in order to ensure that necessary steps are being taken to increase voter registration rates among young adults. Cuomo's office said state law requires SUNY and CUNY campuses provide students with voter registration forms at the beginning of each school year and in January of each presidential election year.

Cuomo also has directed DMV to send information on the agency's online voter registration program in email communications sent to customers who need to renew their licenses, ID cards and vehicle or other registrations.

Voter turnout in the Empire State generally is near the lowest in the nation. One pro-voter participation organization pegged New York's turnout in last year's presidential election at 41st in the country. The same group, NONPROFIT Vote, found New York turnout was 49th in the nation in 2014.

Roughly 68 percent of all registered voters statewide cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. NONPROFIT Vote's calculation, which is based on the total voting-eligible population, showed 57 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots last year.

The League of Women Voters was critical of Cuomo's steps on Monday, saying that his executive order "will do little to address the issues New York State voters face on Election Day."

"Voter purges, strict registration and party change deadlines, and long lines at the polls cannot be fixed with enhanced voter registration," LWV Program and Policy Director Jennifer Wilson said in a statement. "Studies show that voter registration is not a major issue in New York state. In 2016, voter registration in New York state reached a record high. Unfortunately, many of these newly enrolled voters faced barriers at the voting booths that deterred them from casting their ballot."

Wilson called for an executive order that would allow for early voting, changed registration deadlines or electronic poll books.

Cuomo proposed early voting, automatic voter registration through state agencies and same-day registration in January. Similar legislative efforts fell flat during the last session.

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10
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ALBANY  Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration says it is working with state unions to ensure that public employees will be eligible for paid family leave benefits as prescribed by a landmark law approved in 2016.

The state Workers Compensation Board on Friday pointed to a statute that a spokesman said details that unions representing public employees must bargain for paid family leave benefits. On Monday evening, a Cuomo spokesman said the state has opted to offer paid leave benefits to state workers and is briefing unions on that decision.

"State employees do not have to wait until an existing collective bargaining agreement expires," said Richard Azzopardi, the governor's spokesman. "The benefit will be available on January 1, 2018, if public entities or unions elect to participate. It is a priority of the state to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to paid family leave, including state employees."

Azzopardi said the unions could either seek to add clauses to their existing collective bargaining agreements to allow for the benefits or enter into memorandums of understanding with the state.

The paid-leave law mandates that private employers provide benefits, initially for up to eight weeks of leave time at 50 percent of an employee's average weekly wage. Public employers may choose to opt in for benefits for unrepresented employees, according to the law.

Representatives from two of the state's largest public-sector unions, the Public Employees Federation and the Civil Service Employees Association, told the Times Union last week that further discussions with the state and evaluation of existing benefits would be taking place.

Barbara Zaron, president of the Organization of state Management/Confidential Employees, said she believes employees under that umbrella will be covered, but the group is awaiting additional word from the state.

The state adopted the final paid family-leave regulations last week. Beginning in 2018, workers will be eligible for the benefits if they give birth or adopt a child, as well as their spouses; are taking care of an ailing family member; or face hardship because a close relative is called away to active military duty. The length of the leave time and amount of compensation will bump up gradually to a peak of 12 weeks and 67 percent of the average weekly wage in 2021.

The program is employee-funded, with workers pumping in 0.126 percent of their average weekly salary. For example, if a person makes $1,000 per week, the contribution would be $1.26, or $65.52 per year.

The new benefit program would appear to be more generous than existing leave time packages under public employee contracts.

PEF spokeswoman Jane Briggs said there is no language in the PEF contract for paid family leave, though the union is "looking forward to discussions with the state to make this benefit available to our members. The contract provides for seven months of unpaid leave for childcare following a birth or adoption. It also allows for 15 days of paid sick leave per year to be used in the event of an immediate family member's illness or death.

CSEA's tentative contract, struck recently with the administration, must still be ratified by members.

"While our existing state agreements have leave benefit provisions, we will be evaluating already negotiated, paid family-leave benefits as compared to the cost and benefits provided in law for all CSEA units, including the state units," spokeswoman Jill Asencio said.

Like the PEF contract, CSEA's 2011 contract also provided for seven months of unpaid leave for childcare following a birth or adoption and up to 15 days per year of paid family sick leave for illness or death.

Similarly, state Troopers PBA President Thomas Mungeer said troopers are given 15 family sick leave days per year.

"We are excited about the ability to increase the family sick leave benefits for our members," he said.

Legislation creating the program was passed in 2016 when the minimum wage was increased to $15. Both were shepherded through state budget negotiations by Cuomo, who has sought to add to his progressive bona fides in recent years.

mhamilton@timesunion.com  518-454-5449  @matt_hamilton10
ALBANY  Three former factory buildings on Broadway purchased by the state in anticipation of locating the city's convention center there are now marked with the red "X" sign that signifies a dilapidated and unsafe vacant structure.

Related: For sale: Downtown living in the Capital Region

The city's fire prevention investigation unit, as part of its regular review of vacant buildings, inspected the exteriors of 2, 4, and 6 E-Comm Square and determined that the structures likely are unsafe to be entered by emergency personnel. The designation was made on May 23.

The red 'x's have become commonplace throughout Albany and Troy, where the cities follow the International Fire Code adopted by New York state that calls for erecting the signs to protect firefighters and other first responders from the hazards posed by unstable vacant buildings.

The E-Comm buildings are owned by the Albany Convention Center Authority, a state public authority that has a board made up of Albany leaders, among them the head of the city's development arm, Capitalize Albany, the president of the Albany County Convention and Visitors Bureau and state Assemblyman John McDonald III.

The authority spent about $8 million starting in 2009 to purchase the E-Comm buildings and various parking lots sandwiched between the South Mall Arterial and Hudson Avenue in anticipation of building a massive convention center and hotel complex. But the plan was greatly scaled back, and a different site was chosen just northwest at Howard and Eagle streets in 2013 - leaving the former site to sit vacant.

Another building owned by the authority, 50 Hudson Ave., had to be demolished last August after a wall began to collapse. The removal had to be done delicately as the city's oldest standing structure, the Van Ostrande-Radcliff House, is next door.

Megan Daly, director of economic development at the Port of Albany who was named interim chairwoman of the authority in June, said authority staff and the city building department have been in contact about the red 'x' designation. But Daly questioned if the red 'x' means the building is unstable, telling the Times Union, "I don't know if that's what the designation is. I think it's a designation that it's not inhabited." She also would not address questions about how the buildings, which in in recent years were used by law enforcement for tactical training, fell into disrepair.

Albany Fire Deputy Chief Joseph Toomey said a red 'x' placard is attached to building if fire inspectors determine there is a possible dangerous condition based on a structure's exterior condition.

Toomey said he didn't know the exact reasons for E-Comm's red 'x' designation. But a brick wall on 6 E-Comm is collapsing, and broken windows can be seen in the floors above. Generally after a red 'x' placard is attached, the case is given to the city building department, which sends a notice of violation to the building's owner. Typically, the city requests an internal inspection of the property. If an inspection is granted, the red 'x' can be removed if the building's condition appears stable, Toomey said.

Robert Magee, director of Albany's Department of Buildings and Regulatory Compliance, said his office has not done an inspection of the buildings. But he doesn't believe the buildings' conditions have degraded  they were next in line for inspection by fire personnel, he said.

"Specifically, we don't have any reason to believe at this point that they've significantly deteriorated or are in danger of collapse or anything of that nature," Magee wrote in an email to the Times Union. "Though it would obviously be better if they were renovated to the extent that they need to be and reoccupied."

Regardless of the buildings' conditions, Magee said, the city can not impose its code standards on a state-run authority. "Since they are owned by the Convention Center Authority they would be, strictly speaking, outside of our jurisdiction (they would be directly overseen by the State)," Magee wrote.

Daly, once a vice president in the city's development and planning office , said the condition of the buildings will be part of a feasibility study conducted by the Empire State Development. The state agency confirmed it is doing a study, but did not respond to questions about what the study will entail or what the future of the E-Comm buildings will be.

The former Adirondacks Trailways building on Broadway, also owned by the authority, also is in need of major work, but was not given a red 'x' designation.

"We've been busy building a phenomenal facility and focused on that," said Daly about the $79 million Capital Center that opened in March.

When asked if the condition of E-Comm Square will have a negative effect on the area's redevelopment chances, Daly said, "Do I think that it's going to prevent something great from happening? No, it's in progress."

The future of the convention center authority is unclear. Recent state legislation cut the number of required authority meetings from monthly to quarterly. Daly said there are no current plans to abolish the authority  meaning it will continue to own the former convention center site for the foreseeable future.

lstanforth@timesunion.com or 454-5697.
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Albany

Folks who'd like to try camping at New York parks are getting the chance to do it this summer for free, courtesy of the state.

New York launched a first-time camper program this summer, offering all the gear necessary for a weekend adventure, including a brand-new six-person tent, sleeping bags and pads, camp chairs, lanterns and towels that participants are free to keep.

But you had to act fast  the 40 slots over eight summer weekends were scooped up within 25 minutes.

"They provided every single thing we would need, including firewood," said Lisha McKoy, a Brooklyn actor who camped with her 3-year-old daughter and three other adults. "A guide helped us set up camp, and they had activities like hiking, fishing, fire-building. It was incredible."

The goal is to nurture a new generation of campers and boost outdoor recreation, which generates nearly $34 billion in consumer spending annually in New York, according to the Outdoor Industry Association.

"We see it as a way of demystifying camping and promoting our campgrounds as a low-cost vacation opportunity," said Laura DiBetta, who oversees outdoor recreation at the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

While the state administers the program, the money for the gear came out of a camping promotion fund provided by the parks reservation service ReserveAmerica under its state contract.

The funds also pay for brochures and advertising to promote state campgrounds.

Even though the cost is relatively low  about $300 per camping gear kit  some critics question the need for the state to be involved in such a program.

"It may make someone feel good, but it's overly generous and clearly unfair to the taxpayers of the state," said Michael Long, chairman of the Conservative Party of New York state.

New York's program indeed appears to be more generous than those administered by other states, which rents gear packages at relatively low cost. Georgia charges $50 for two nights, Minnesota $60 for one night and $85 for two, and Texas $65 a night but the gear package doesn't include sleeping bags.
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ALBANY -- The community has raised nearly $5,000 so far for victims of the Madison Avenue fire, which ripped through four buildings and damaged a fifth on July 17.

Savoy Taproom, working with the Lark Street Business Improvement District and Hudson/Park Neighborhood Association, hosted a fundraiser Saturday raising $4,800 to benefit the Madison Avenue Fire Victims Relief Fund, founded to assist those displaced by the blaze, said Dan Atkins, Savoy owner and Lark Street BID president, on Sunday.

Money still is being collected at various Albany businesses as well as SEFCU, Atkins added.

The cause of the fire, which prompted the demolition of 404, 406, 408 and 410 Madison Ave., still is under investigation, Albany Fire Department officials said. A fifth house at 412 Madison Ave. is expected to be saved.

Area residents sprang into action the night of the fire, brainstorming on how they could help those impacted, Atkins said.

It was very quick that people started reaching out, he said. It really doesnt surprise me  Lark Street and Center Square, its a very tight-knit group. It brings a great joy and pride in our neighborhood to see everybody so quickly get involved.

Funds were raised through a $10-per-person donation at the door, raffles and a silent auction. Taft Furniture also donated 20 mattresses.

More than a dozen people were displaced by the fire that tore through the historic buildings. Those affected were assisted by the Red Cross.

I think they have a lot to think about right now, on top of all their possessions  pictures, greeting cards  theres the big stuff like finding a place to live, replacing your clothes, Atkins said. If we can take care of some of that for them, they can start on some of the little things they need.

afries@timesunion.com - 518-454-5353 - @mandy_fries
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San Antonio

At least nine people died after being crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer found parked outside a Walmart in the midsummer Texas heat, authorities said Sunday in what they described as an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.

The driver was arrested, and many of the 29 others rescued from the rig were hospitalized, with 17 in dire condition with extreme dehydration and heatstroke, officials said.

"We're looking at a human-trafficking crime," said San Antonio Police Chief William McManus. He called it "a horrific tragedy."

Authorities were called to the San Antonio parking lot early Sunday and found eight dead inside the truck. A ninth victim died at the hospital, said Liz Johnson, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The victims "were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water," Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

Authorities would not say whether the trailer was locked when they arrived, but they said it had no working air conditioning.

It was just the latest smuggling-by-truck operation to end in tragedy.

By far the most notorious and best documented case occurred in 2003 and involved a Schenectady truck driver, when 19 of about 100 people being smuggled in a truck trailer in south Texas died of heat-related injuries; including a 7-year-old boy.

More than a dozen smugglers were convicted in that case, including the commercial driver at the wheel, Tyrone Williams of Schenectady, and the purported head of the smuggling ring, Karla Patricia Chavez-Joya, a Honduran national.

Based on initial interviews with survivors of the San Antonio tragedy, more than 100 people may have been packed into the back of the 18-wheeler at one point in its journey, ICE acting Director Thomas Homan said.

Thirty-nine were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination, officials said.

Some of the survivors told authorities they were from Mexico, and four appeared to be between 10 and 17 years old, Homan said. Investigators gave no details on where the rig began its journey or where it was headed.

But Homan said it was unlikely the truck was used to carry the immigrants across the border into the United States. He said people from Latin America who rely on smuggling networks typically cross the border on foot and are then picked up by a driver.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute," Homan said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Florida, was taken into custody and would be charged on Monday. The U.S. Homeland Security Department stepped in to take the lead in the investigation from San Antonio police.

Border officials have reported an uptick in the number of people-smuggling incidents using tractor-trailers. That included one on July 7, when Border Patrol agents in Laredo, Texas, found 72 people from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador locked inside a trailer. Weeks before, they'd rescued 44 people from Mexico and Guatemala discovered after police stopped an 18-wheeler near one of the city's international bridges.

Whether this recent increase is a trend and what might explain it is hard to know. A recent report from European-based global-risk group Verisk Maplecroft suggests that a harder line on border security by the Trump administration might be leading migrants to accept the risks of more dangerous smuggling methods.
ROTTERDAM - Former fire chief John A. Nuzback Sr., who was once honored as the state's arson investigator of the year, died Saturday.

He was 67. A married father of adult children, Nuzback died of complications related to a stroke.

The respected former Schenectady County emergency medical services coordinator and ex-fire chief of the Carman Fire Department in Rotterdam retired in 2013.

The International Association of Arson Investigation of New York honored Nuzback as the investigator of the year a few months after his retirement as the county's full-time fire and EMS coordinator. The Rotterdam resident was rehired as a part-time chief fire investigator, a position he held until his death.

He is credited with more than doubling the team of fire investigators from four to 10. Nuzback also served on a team of investigators who investigated fires in the municipalities around Schenectady.

Nuzback was a fire commissioner with the Carman Fire Department where he was a life member. He began working for the county in 2005, shortly after retiring from the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory.

Nuzback also served on the White Eagle Ambulance and helped lead the company's 2004 merger with Rotterdam Volunteer Emergency Medical Corps to create Rotterdam Emergency Medical Services Inc. or REMS

Dean Romano with REMS praised Nuzback as "an incredibly knowledgeable man who was so down to earth and approachable."

"He just had this humble spirit about him, was an incredible guy, and was passionate about taking taking care of sick people," added Romano. "He leaves behind a legacy that has profoundly changed EMS in Schenectady County and even in the region."

Ed Scholz of Rotterdam worked with Nuzback, while both were assistant chiefs with the Carman fire department in the late 80s.

On Monday, he recalled his buddy as a dedicated family man and fire official who had a sense of humor and was also a DJ.

'I can't think of anybody that didn't like John, he helped everybody," said Scholz, adding he last saw Nuzback about two weeks ago.

Now retired and living in Florida, Lewis Zido worked for several in the late 1970s with Nuzback for the Carman fire department.

Mourners can say their final farewell from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at DeMarco-Stone Funeral Home, 1605 Helderberg Ave. Funeral services are scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday.

"He always had a quick wit and was very caring about people," said Zido, 70, adding he enjoyed sharing his wealth of knowledge of fire services through teaching others. "He was just good at what he did and he cared."
A new species of Sunfish has been discovered in New Zealand after 130 years.

By India Today Web Desk: A new species of fish was discovered in New Zealand when one of them washed up on a NZ beach.

The fish discovered is known as Sunfish and is the heaviest among all the osteichthyes, or the "bony" fish. The sunfish can grow up to 3 meters (10 ft) and weighs around 2 tonnes.

Marianne Nyegaard from the School of Veterinary and Life Sciences and a group of international researchers discovered the species after studying the Indo-Pacific region for more than four years.

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"A Japanese research group first found genetic evidence of an unknown sunfish species in Australian waters 10 years ago, but the fish kept eluding the scientific community because we didn't know what it looked like," Ms Nyegaard said.

Photo: Facebook/Patrick Yananton

According to a research by Murdoch University, Nyegaard collected data for 3 years from 27 specimens of the new species. She travelled thousands of miles to take samples of sunfish found on isolated beaches.

Photo: Facebook/Patrick Yananton Photo: Facebook/Patrick Yananton

Nyegaard also faced a lot of challenges while studying this particular species of sunfish.

She said, "Finding these fish and storing specimens for studies is a logistical nightmare due to their elusive nature and enormous size, so sunfish research is difficult at the best of times. Early on, when I was asked if I would be bringing my own crane to receive a specimen, I knew I was in for a challenging - but awesome - adventure."

According to the researchers, this new species of sunfish managed to 'hide' for three centuries.

"That is why we named it Mola tecta (the Hoodwinker Sunfish), derived from the Latin tectus, meaning disguised or hidden."

Mola tecta or the sunfish seems to have a liking for cold water as it has been found in colder regions like NZ, Australia and southern Chile.

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[July 24, 2017] Tyler Technologies to Provide Mass Appraisal Solution to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Tyler Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: TYL) signed an agreement with the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for Tyler's iasWorld CAMA computer-assisted mass appraisal software solution. The agreement, valued at more than $8 million, includes software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) implementation, data migration, training, maintenance, and support services. The City of Philadelphia identified several opportunities where significant technology upgrades could increase efficiency in its property appraisal processes. The city encompasses approximately 140 square miles and has roughly 580,000 parcels, and it required a new software solution that would be able to better integrate data, enhance audit capability, and offer better workload management and reporting for its staff. The city's existing technology environment consists of siloed systems that are difficult to maintain, and the city needed a vendor that could provide a modern solution with a proven history of handling large and complex municipalities. After a thorough review process, the city ultimately selected Tyler, based upon its proven ability to implement CAMA software in cities and counties across the country. Tyler has a large footprint in Pennsylvania, and with this agreement, Tyler's iasWorld mass appraisal solution will soon cover assessment for over half of the parcel in the commonwealth.



By implementing Tyler's modern CAMA solution, the city will be able to facilitate significant process improvements, specifically: Electronic access to functionality that is either not available today or achieved through paper-driven processes

Access to all pertinent parcel information in one system

Reduction in reliance on shadow systems

Clear identification of the system of record

Better valuation data and data quality

Enhanced audit capability

Better workload management and reporting capability "The City of Philadelphia will greatly benefit from a comprehensive property assessment solution, especially considering it is currently using many disparate systems to maintain its parcel data," said Mark Hawkins, senior vice president of software operation of Tyler's Appraisal & Tax Division. "We're excited to expand our presence for iasWorld in Pennsylvania and add another large and complex city to our client base. We are eager to see how the automation will benefit the city's staff and, in turn, its constituents."

Tyler's iasWorld solution has an expansive footprint covering 25 states in the U.S., four Canadian provinces, and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. Tyler also provides its Eagle Recorder solution to the City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia is Pennsylvania's largest city and the sixth most populous city in the U.S., with an estimated population of 1.5 million. About Tyler Technologies (News - Alert), Inc. Tyler Technologies (NYSE: TYL) is a leading provider of end-to-end information management solutions and services for local governments. Tyler partners with clients to empower the public sector - cities, counties, schools and other government entities - to become more efficient, more accessible and more responsive to the needs of their constituents. Tyler's client base includes more than 15,000 local government offices in all 50 states, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and other international locations. In 2017, Forbes ranked Tyler on its "Most Innovative Growth Companies" list, and it has named Tyler one of "America's Best Small Companies" eight times. The company has been included six times on the Barron's 400 Index, a measure of the most promising companies in America. More information about Tyler Technologies, headquartered in Plano, Texas, can be found at tylertech.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724005082/en/

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[July 23, 2017] BookDoc-MIMS: Reliable Healthcare Development On-time & Anywhere

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- BookDoc announces its partnership with MIMS, a leading healthcare publisher in Asia, Australia & New Zealand, in conjunction with the launch of the new "Health Info" feature which will be embedded in its "BookDoc" app. BookDoc users will now be kept up-to-date on health tips & news, provided by MIMS, which are timely, reliable, and country-specific wherever they are. MIMS, established in 1963, provides tools to empower healthcare communities, and is committed to the life-long learning needs of healthcare professionals and consumers. Originally, the preferred source of drug information, MIMS now provides decision support solutions, industry news and medical education to communities of general practitioners, specialist doctors, pharmacists, nurses and patients across 12 countries and regions including mainland China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. "Health Info" marks BookDoc's enhancement to its mobile and web online healthcare ecosystem with timely health tips & news of various countries. This feature will allow users to obtain customised country-specific health alerts, health tips & development from reliable and authoritative sources, compiled and organised by MIMS. Users could benefit from immediate alerts o health emergencies like dengue fever, Zika virus or avian flu unique to certain countries or outbreak areas; and at the same time, be advised on longer-term lifestyle changes that are necessary in view of latest developments in relation to non-communicable diseases like cancer, obesity, and others.



"Prevention is better than cure. There is no short of information out there but to navigate through the information jungle and get to reliable sources for the latest update could be a challenge. This could be further complicated by language differences across border. Health Info is not a medical dictionary for diseases. It is a pro-active feature by BookDoc to increase public awareness on latest health alerts and development that warrant our due attention. For example, facial creams that are banned in Malaysia or Zika virus updates in Singapore. Timely action and prevention will save us a lot of trouble when you are at home or abroad", explained Dato' Chevy Beh, Founder and CEO of BookDoc. This development comes shortly after its partnership with TripAdvisor where users could access top 10 recommended restaurants and attractions around their health appointment locations; and BookDoc Activ which rewards users for maintaining high level of activity. All the features mentioned above are available through "BookDoc" app which is downloadable for free on Apple App Store (for iOS) and Google Play Store (for Android).

About BookDoc BookDoc, with presence in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand, is an online platform that operates across the healthcare continuum connecting patients to healthcare professionals anytime and anywhere, while incentivising all to stay active. BookDoc has established an integrated online ecosystem for local and overseas health travellers. The ecosystem allows users to search and book healthcare professionals anytime and anywhere, and integrates seamlessly with navigation (Google Map, Waze), transport (Grab, Uber, AirAsia), accommodation (Agoda) and recommended restaurants & attractions (TripAdvisor) for a hassle-free and enjoyable experience to healthcare appointments. In addition, through BookDoc Activ, it rewards users for maintaining high level of activity by partnering major retailers and service providers that offer users discounts for achieving reward tiers based on activity level. The company is backed by a diverse group of investors from entrepreneurs to seasoned healthcare and insurance professionals, banker, regulators as well as ICT professionals. It has made records in achieving the highest pre-seed and seed valuation in Asia Technology Start-up history. It is available online at www.bookdoc.com, App Store and Google Play Store. For More Information Please Contact Name: Ms. Valerie Voon

Tel: +6019-336 6758

Email: [email protected] Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170720/1903296-1 SOURCE BookDoc.

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[July 23, 2017] Taiwan is Largest Semiconductor Materials Market -- as SEMICON Taiwan Approaches

HSINCHU, Taiwan, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Taiwan is the world's largest consumer of semiconductor materials for the seventh consecutive year, bringing new opportunities in this increasingly critical sector. SEMICON Taiwan (13-15 September), held at Taipei's Nangang Exhibition Center, will feature over 1,700 booths and 700 exhibitors, and more than 45,000 attendees from the global electronics manufacturing supply chain. This year, in addition to the much-anticipated Executive Summit, themed "Transformation: A Key to Solution," 27 international forums will be held, exploring major issues. Speakers from TSMC, UMC, Powerchip, NVIDIA, Micron and Amkor will share their insights on trends and strategies of the next-generation electronics industry. According to the SEMI Material Market Data Report, Taiwan's semiconductor materials consumption was US$9.8 billion in 2016 - the world's largest. Global semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$13.1 billion in Q1 2017, exceeding the record quarterly high set in Q3 2000. These figures signal that application drivers will continue to drive the development of a supply chain feeding their manufacturing processes, equipment and materials. "As SEMICON Taiwan celebrates its 22nd year, the exhibition area will be expanded to closely align with the four major trends of applications in the market, which include Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Manufacturing, Smart Transportation, and Smart Medtech," said Terry Tsao, president of SEMI Taiwan. "This year, SEMICON Taiwan aims to increasingly connect the entire manufacturing ecosystem vertically and horizontally. In addition, it will provide an overvie of market trends and leading technologies in the industry, with forums and business matching activities which will enable collaboration and new opportunities."



Theme Pavilions and Region Pavilions Focus on Opportunities In addition to the eight customary theme pavilions, five new pavilions are featured this year, and to promote cross-border collaboration, eight regional pavilions are offered. The 21 pavilions include:

Theme Pavilions Automated Optical Inspection (AOI)

Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP)

Circular Economy

Compound Semiconductor

Flexible Hybrid Electronics/Micro-LED

High-Tech Facility

Laser

Materials

Opto Semiconductor

Precision Machinery

Secondary Market

Smart Manufacturing & Automation

Taiwan Localization Regional Pavilions Cross-Strait

German

Holland High-Tech

Korean

Kyushu ( Japan )

) Okinawa ( Japan )

( ) Silicon Europe

Singapore Co-located with SEMICON Taiwan 2017, the SiP Global Summit will discuss three key system-in-package topics: Package Innovation in Automotive

3D IC, 3D interconnection for AI and High-end Computing

Innovative Embedded Substrate and Fan-Out Technology to Enable 3D-SiP Devices Participants will share trends on 2.5D/3D IC technologies, and the evolution and challenges of embedded technologies and wafer level packaging. The International Test Conference (ITC) will also be co-located with SEMICON Taiwan 2017, marking the first time that ITC is held in Asia. The conference will focus on the rapid growth of emerging applications like IoT and automotive electronics, and how testing technologies are challenged by rapid advancements of manufacturing processes, 3D stacking and SiP.

For more information about SEMICON Taiwan 2017, please visit www.semicontaiwan.org or follow us on Facebook. About SEMI SEMI connects nearly 2,000 member companies and 250,000 professionals worldwide annually to advance the technology and business of electronics manufacturing. SEMI members are responsible for the innovations in materials, design, equipment, software, and services that enable smarter, faster, more powerful, and more affordable electronic products. Since 1970, SEMI has built connections that have helped its members grow, create new markets, and address common industry challenges together. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley (Milpitas, Calif.), Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.semi.org and follow SEMI on LinkedIn and Twitter. Association Contact SEMI Taiwan

Amy Lee

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 886.3.560.1777 ext. 207 SOURCE SEMI Taiwan

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[July 23, 2017] GAC Motor's First All-electric SUV GE3 Now On Sale, Sets New Benchmark in New Energy Sector

SHANGHAI, July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese leading automaker GAC Motor has officially released its first self-developed smart all-electric SUV GE3 into the Chinese market. Made its international debut at the 2017 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in January, GE3 is based on a new EV platform and positioned as a medium- to high-end electric SUV that symbolizes a green lifestyle and new possibilities in future mobility. It wowed the crowd when it was demonstrated at the 2017 Summer Davos, the 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, held in Dalian, China. The smart all-electric GE3 is available within the price range of 150,200 to 173,200 yuan (US$ 22,200 to 25,600), of which highlighting features includes: A range of 310km (192.62 miles) with electric power only;

Ternary lithium battery fast charges t 80 percent in 30 minutes;

Acceleration from 0-100 km (0-60 miles) within 9.3 seconds, braking distance 12.8 meters (42 feet);

Peak power: 120 KW (163.2 Horsepower), peak torque at 290 Nm (214 ft-lb) ;

A flat battery layout that sets benchmark in terms of space, comfort, safety and performance;

General power consumption 16.6 kwh/100km (16.6 kwh/60 miles);

Featuring smart car companion Little Trumpchi, T-BOX Internet of Vehicles 3.0 and INJOY smart entertainment system;

An avant-garde low-poly technology modeling design with low polygon front and rear LED lamp assemblies;

The SUV body meets North American roof compression standards.



Yu Jun , president of GAC Motor. While structuring a sustainable development strategy to engineer trustworthy, environmental-friendly vehicles that excel in design, performance and reliability, GAC Motor as a leader and benchmark setter in Chinese new energy vehicle industry has set the goal of achieving 1 million in sales volume by 2020, 20 percent of which will be new energy vehicles.

The company also applies sustainable and eco-friendly technologies in vehicle production, using only the best quality and eco-friendly materials. GAC Motor plans to open the smart new energy car industrial park in 2019 and establish a new energy subsidiary company to enter an extraordinary new stage of development. "GAC Motor's strategic emphasis in the next five years include launching new energy sedan and SUV models in all markets, achieving 400-500km mileage with electric power and fully charge the batteries in under 30 minutes to solve the consumers' traveling concerns," noted Yu. GAC Motor

A subsidiary of GAC Group, GAC Motor develops and manufactures premium quality vehicles, engines, components and auto accessories, achieving a year-to-year growth rate of 96 percent in 2016, the highest among all Chinese brands in the corresponding period. GAC Motor now ranks the highest among all Chinese brands for four consecutive years and 5th among all global brands in J.D. Power Asia Pacific's 2016 China Initial Quality Study. For more information, please visit: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GACMotor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gac_motor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gac_motor Media Contact: Sukie Wong

+86-186-8058-2829

[email protected] Taki Jiang

+86-134-5028-4242

[email protected] Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170724/1904757-1-a

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170724/1904757-1-b

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170724/1904757-1-c SOURCE GAC Motor

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[July 24, 2017] Crescent European Specialty Lending Announces Financing for Random42 Limited

Crescent Capital Group LP, a leading alternative credit investment firm, announced today that its European Specialty Lending strategy provided a unitranche financing for Random42 Limited ("Random42") in connection with its recently closed acquisition by Graphite Capital ("Graphite"). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. One of the largest global medical animation producers, Random42 provides high-quality medical animation and digital media services to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry. It has expertise in 2D and 3D animation, Virtual and Augmented Reality production, interactive services and mobile application development. Medical animation provides a graphic representation of disease mechanisms and the ways in which medical and pharmaceutical products interact with the human body. "We are very pleased to be able to support Random42, a world-class company in a rapidly growing and exciting industry," said Christine Vanden Beukel, Managing Director and head of Crescent's European Specialty Lending strategy. "Together with the company's partnership with Graphite, our financing will allow Random42 to enter its next phase of development and further expand into adjacent verticals."



About Crescent Capital Group Crescent Capital Group LP is headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Boston, London and New York. With over 70 investment professionals and more than 150 employees, the firm invests at all levels of the capital structure, with a significant focus on below investment grade credit through strategies that invest in senior bank loans, high yield debt, mezzanine debt, distressed debt and other private debt securities. As of March 31, 2017, Crescent Capital Group LP managed more than $24 billion in assets, with a relatively equal split between marketable securities and privately originated debt investments.

About Graphite Graphite is a specialist provider of private equity finance to mid-market companies in the UK. Graphite focuses on management buy-outs and also invests in replacement capital, expansion finance and turnaround opportunities. It backs companies with enterprise values of 25 million to 200 million. In September 2013 Graphite raised 500 million for its eighth fund, Graphite Capital Partners VIII. The fund's investments include: City & County Healthcare Group, the UK's largest home care provider; nGAGE, a fast-growing recruitment business serving a range of niche areas within the public and private sectors; ICR, an energy industry repair and maintenance group; Trenchard Aviation, a civil aircraft maintenance business focusing on cabin services; New World Trading Company, an operator of pub restaurants; and Beck & Pollitzer, a market leader in industrial machinery installation and relocation. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724005359/en/

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[July 24, 2017] Johnson & Johnson Announces Encouraging First-in-Human Clinical Data for Investigational HIV Preventive Vaccine

Johnson & Johnson today announced encouraging first-in-human clinical data for an investigational HIV-1 vaccine regimen in development at its Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies. In an oral presentation of the early stage Phase 1/2a APPROACH study at the 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017), the "mosaic"-based vaccine regimen from Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V. (Janssen) appeared to be well-tolerated and elicited HIV-1 antibody responses in 100% of healthy volunteers (n=393). "Finding a preventive vaccine has proven to be one of the biggest scientific challenges in the 35-year quest to end the HIV pandemic. A successful preventive vaccine for HIV will need to provide broad protection against a wide range of viral strains," said Professor Dan Barouch, Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a key collaborator for APPROACH. "These promising, early-stage results suggest that these vaccines utilizing mosaic immunogens should be evaluated further for their potential ability to achieve this historic goal." Significant progress has been made in the global battle against HIV/AIDS, including the development of critical antiretroviral treatments and HIV prevention tools, yet the disease remains one of the greatest global health threats of our time. An estimated 37 million people are currently living with HIV-1 globally, and nearly 2 million people become newly infected each year. An effective HIV vaccine is elusive due to the unique properties of the virus - including its genetic diversity and ability to mutate rapidly. Mosaic-based vaccines contain immunogens created using genes from different HIV subtypes responsible for HIV-1 infections worldwide. These immunogens are delivered through viral vectors, including Janssen's AdVac technology based on adenovirus serotype 26 (Ad26). The viral vectors are combined with other components such as soluble proteins to form mosaic-based prime-boost vaccine regimens that first prime and then boost the immune system, with the aim of producing stronger and longer-lasting immunity to HIV. Paul Stoffels (News - Alert), M.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson said, "In recent years, a new optimism has emerged that we will find an effective HIV vaccine in our lifetime. The results from today's study add to that belief and we look forward to advancing to the next stage of clinical development as quickly as possible." In pre-clinical studies, regimens incorporating mosaic vaccines demonstrated protection against infection with an HIV-like virus. The most effective prime-boost regimen in these studies reduced the per-exposure risk of infection by 94 percent and resulted in 66 percent complete protection after six exposures. Based on immunologic responses observed in APPROACH, as well as protection observed in pre-clinical studies, a lead HIV-1 vaccine regimen comprising Janssen's Ad26 mosaic candidate and the Clade C gp140 soluble protein has been selected as the basis for further evaluation in a potential Phase 2b proof-of-concept efficacy study. Should this study move forward, Janssen and its global partners anticipate initiating this investigation in southern African countries in late 2017 or early 2018. About the APPROACH Study APPROACH (HIV-V-A004/NCT02315703) is a multi-center, randomized, parallel-group, placebo-controlled, double-blind Phase 1/2a study in 393 healthy HIV-uninfected adults in the US, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa and Thailand. It is evaluating the safety, tolerability and immunogenicityof various mosaic-based, prime-boost vaccine regimens for HIV-1. These vaccine regimens contain two prime doses of the mosaic viral vector Ad26.Mos.HIV and two boosts of either Ad26.Mos.HIV, MVA-Mosaic and/or different doses of the soluble protein Clade C gp140 adjuvanted with aluminum phosphate. Vaccination schedules have been completed for all study participants and 12-month follow-up after the 4th dose is underway.



Results presented at IAS 2017 suggest that all vaccine regimens appeared to be well-tolerated. Injection site pain, headache and fatigue were the most common reported adverse events. The primary analysis post 3rd vaccination showed that most active vaccine regimens elicited antibody responses in 100% of study participants. Antibody titers against autologous Clade C and heterologous cross-clade Env antigens increased in groups boosted with gp140 protein, irrespective of vector. After the 4th vaccination, humoral and cellular responses further increased. The APPROACH study was sponsored by Janssen with support from partner organizations including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC); the United States Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF); the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Ragon Institute; the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI); and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN).

About Janssen's HIV Preventive Vaccine Janssen's HIV-1 AdVac-based vaccine regimen, along with the company's investigational Ebola and inactivated polio vaccine candidates, utilize Janssen's PER.C6 production cell line technology, which has the potential to reduce costs by increasing vaccine production at lower reactor volume. Since 2005, Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V. has been participating in the NIH-supported Integrated Preclinical/Clinical AIDS Vaccine Development (IPCAVD) program under grants AI066305, AI078526 and AI096040. Janssen's HIV vaccine program has also received funding from the United States Military HIV Research Program and the Ragon Institute. Please visit www.jnj.com/HIV for further details on the breadth of HIV science being presented by Johnson & Johnson companies and its partners. About Johnson & Johnson Caring for the world one person at a time inspires and unites the people of Johnson & Johnson. We embrace research and science - bringing innovative ideas, products and services to advance the health and well-being of people. Our approximately 126,400 employees at more than 230 Johnson & Johnson operating companies work with partners in health care to touch the lives of over a billion people every day, throughout the world. 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 @JanssenGlobal. Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, regarding development of a potential preventive vaccine for HIV. The reader is cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations of future events. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results could vary materially from the expectations and projections of Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V. and/or Johnson & Johnson. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: challenges and uncertainties inherent in product research and development, including the uncertainty of clinical success and of obtaining regulatory approvals; uncertainty of commercial success; manufacturing difficulties and delays; competition, including technological advances, new products and patents attained by competitors; challenges to patents; product efficacy or safety concerns resulting in product recalls or regulatory action; changes in behavior and spending patterns of purchasers of health care products and services; changes to applicable laws and regulations, including global health care reforms; and trends toward health care cost containment. A further list and descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in Johnson & Johnson's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 1, 2017, including under "Item 1A. Risk Factors," its most recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including under the caption "Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements," and the company's subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at www.sec.gov, www.jnj.com or on request from Johnson & Johnson. None of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies or Johnson & Johnson undertakes to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information or future events or developments. - Ends - View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724005452/en/

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[July 24, 2017] Growing Team: PCCI Hires VP, Data Science

Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) announces that Vikas Chowdhry has joined the organization to lead its nine person data science team. Chowdhry comes to PCCI after 15 years at Epic Systems Corp., a Wisconsin-based electronic medical records software firm, where he most recently served as head of Data Science and Machine Learning for Population Health. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724005625/en/ Vikas Chowdhry, VP Data Science, PCCI (Photo: Business Wire) "I'm very excited to welcome Vikas to the PCCI family. He is a proven leader with deep data science expertise and broad national experience. The PCCI data science team's training and experience are impressive and somewhat unique in healthcare," said PCCI's President and CEO Steve Miff, PhD "He will be working with a renowned group of clinicians and other healthcare professionals who have strong backgrounds in informatics and will ensure that our vision of creating a world of connected communities so every health outcome is positive becomes reality."



Chowdhry began his career at Epic as a software developer where he was able to improve productivity by 15 percent by creating a new reporting tool to reduce inefficiencies. He also served as a product lead for various service lines. In his most recent role Chowdhry drove the strategy and vision for achieving superior population health outcomes through machine learning. Prior to Epic, he served as software developer at CGI Inc. in Mumbai, India, developing billing applications for Target (News - Alert) Corp., which led to improved turnaround times for end-of-day processing. "The vision for our data science team is to develop advanced algorithms and research that are innovative and clinically valuable and can be deployed at point of care to improve the health of individuals in the communities we serve," Chowdhry shared. "That's why I am so excited about joining the data science team at PCCI."

Chowdhry is joined by Donghui Wu, PhD, PCCI's vice president of technology and a team of highly experienced and skilled healthcare data scientists with more than 50 years of collective experience in cognitive computing, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics. Before joining PCCI, Dr. Wu led the research and development teams at Blue Intelligence software and predictive models for Pinpoint Clinical Insight System (PCIS). About PCCI PCCI is an independent, not-for-profit healthcare intelligence organization focused on creating connected communities through data science and machine learning. We combine deep clinical expertise with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to enable the delivery of precision medicine at the point of care. PCCI is a recipient of more than $50 million in grants directed at developing and deploying patient-centric cutting edge technologies connecting communities, Parkland Health & Hospital System, and beyond. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724005625/en/

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[July 24, 2017] Gigamon Presents Technical Sessions on Enhancing Network and Cloud Security For Improved Threat Defense at Black Hat USA 2017

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Gigamon Inc. (NYSE: GIMO), the industry leader in traffic visibility solutions, invites Black Hat attendees to learn how GigaSECURE Security Delivery Platform can help organizations gain better network visibility and control in detecting and mitigating threats. Visit Gigamon Booth #760 at the Black Hat Business Hall at Mandalay Bay to learn more about the company's network and cloud security solutions. Also visit the Black Hat Network Operation Center (NOC) to see how Gigamon Visibility Platform is integrated into the Black Hat network environment to enable security tools with enhanced performance and efficiencies. Gigamon and its security partners will be presenting sessions and engaging with attendees at Black Hat events. The full list of Gigamon activities is available here. Wednesday, July 26 11:15 a.m.: Live Broadcast Interview with Dark Reading

Interviewer: Lenny Liebmann, contributing editor of Dark Reading

Location: Dark Reading News Desk, Level 2, Mandalay Bay Conference Center

Topic: Lenny Liebmann will interview Shehzad Merchant, CTO of Gigamon, about a new model that leverages GigaSECURE Security Delivery Platform using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to gain greater visibility and awareness into network traffic. The interview will also cover the importance of automation across the attack lifecycle to better detect, predit and contain threats. The interview will be live-streamed on DarkReading.com and replayed on video monitors from the show floor.



11:30 a.m: RSA & Gigamon Joint Solution Presentation

Presenter: Kirk Punches, senior manager, cloud alliances at Gigamon

Location: RSA Booth #907, Black Hat Business Hall

Topic: Companies are increasingly leveraging the public cloud to achieve scale, elasticity and innovative services for their application workloads. However, the public cloud is a shared responsibility when it comes to security. Kirk Punches will discuss how Gigamon Visibility Platform for AWS integrates with the RSA NetWitness Suite to provide pervasive visibility into data-in-motion across public cloud workloads to quickly and efficiently identify, analyze and mitigate potential threats.

NOTE: This presentation will be held again on Thursday, July 27 at 2:30 p.m. at the RSA booth. Thursday, July 27

1:20 - 2:10 p.m.: Speaking Session  "Cyber Risks and Supply Chain Failures: Whether to Zig or Zag"

Presenters: Simon Gibson, CISO at Gigamon and Katie Moussouris, founder and CEO of Luta Security

Location: Oceanside E, Level 2, Mandalay Bay Conference Center

Topic: IT transformation requires partners to deliver results. However, as the supply chain expands, it introduces greater security risks. Organizations might not know if or when something in the supply chain fails. Real-time visibility and control across the infrastructure are necessary to complement the forensics capabilities required for post-incident analysis. How can SecOps teams analyze the resulting increased network data volume to identify and stop threats? Learn how Gigamon and its security partners can help SecOps teams better identify and combat threats. Follow @Gigamon, #BHUSA17 and #seewhatmatters on Twitter for the latest Gigamon updates. About Gigamon

Gigamon (NYSE: GIMO) provides active visibility into physical and virtual network traffic, enabling stronger security and superior performance. The Gigamon Visibility Fabric and GigaSECURE, the industry's first Security Delivery Platform, deliver advanced intelligence so that security, network and application performance management solutions in enterprise, government and service provider networks operate more efficiently and effectively. Learn more at www.gigamon.com, the Gigamon blog or follow Gigamon on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. See What Matters View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gigamon-presents-technical-sessions-on-enhancing-network-and-cloud-security-for-improved-threat-defense-at-black-hat-usa-2017-300492688.html SOURCE Gigamon

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In a horrifying incident captured on video, a female student at a Jaipur college fell six floors down to her death during a mountaineering and zip-lining class where the instructors included the dead girl's father.

By Sharat Kumar, Dev Ankur Wadhawan: A second-year female student at Jaipur's IIS University fell to her death during a mountaineering and zip-lining demonstration organised at a university building. She died in the presence of her father, who was among the trainers present at the class.

Following the mishap, the girl - identified as Jaipur resident Aditi Sanghi - was immediately rushed to the nearby Metro Mas hospital, but she died during treatment. Aditi was a trainer-cum-demonstrator and her father, Sunil, is a trainer instructor who has previously given several such demonstrations and classes a at the IIS University, which is located in Mansarovar, Jaipur.

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The unfortunate incident happened during a zip line demonstration where students were being taught how to use a zip line to descend from great heights. Aditi, who the university says has finished her demonstration and so was not in a harness, lost her balance while standing on the terrace of the university building and fell six floors down to her death.

In a video of the incident, one demonstrator can be seen safely zipping down from the terrace when suddenly another human figure is seen slipping and falling from the terrace's parapet. Witnesses to the incident described with horror Aditi's shrieks as she fell down the six floors.

UNIV: 'NO ONE TO BLAME'

In a statement, the IIS University said Aditi's death was unfortunate and should not be blamed on anyone. "Aditi Sanghi had done one demonstration and she was present on the terrace alongwith another instructor. During this, unfortunately, she became imbalanced and fell. As soon as the University administration got to know about it, it, alongwith her father, took Aditi Sanghi to Metro Mass hospital for treatment but unfortunately she died," Dr. Rakhi Gupta, the registrar of the IIS University, said.

"Sunil Sanghi is a trained instructor and every year, he gives mountaineering training to several students. His daughter was also a trained instructor. It has been established in the statement given by Aditi Sanghi's father to the police that this incident happened due to misfortune. There is no involvement of the University administration in this," Dr. Rakhi added.

Saying that Aditi was not wearing a harness at the time of the incident, the university blamed the incident on destiny. "Because she had completed her activity, her harness had opened. When she would have done the activity again, she would have again had the harness," the statement read.

"Nobody, I don't think anybody should be blamed at this point because father himself was there and he has witnessed this kind of a thing. So, nobody can be blamed at this point. I would say its destiny. She was not even doing that activity," Dr Gupta said. "She was simply standing there and being a party of the training team. This was a demonstration, this was not a part of the training camp. This was only a demonstration exercise that the institute undertook."

The university noted that Aditi's father Sunil is an expert in mountaineering and has been providing such lessons for a decade. "He, Mr. Sunil Sanghi, is himself an expert. We had called him for the demonstration of this activity and he had been sharing this demonstration and this exercise with our children for the last ten years, train them as well."

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Meanwhile, a professor at the university expressed condolences, calling Aditi's death tragic. "I express deep condolence on behalf of the IIS on the extremely tragic incident that happened in this University premises today. Alongwith that, the entire IIS family is standing with the family," Professor Subash Garg said.

ALSO READ | Maharashtra: Gangster shot at, beaten with hockey sticks, butchered to death, CCTV footage goes viral

ALSO READ | Mumbai woman dies after coconut tree falls on her, incident caught on CCTV

WATCH: Girl falls to death during Jaipur mountaineering class

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[July 24, 2017] INVESTOR ALERT: Law Offices of Howard G. Smith Commences Investigation on Behalf of Quanta Services, Inc. Investors

Law Offices of Howard G. Smith announces an investigation on behalf of Quanta Services, Inc. ("Quanta" or the "Company") (NYSE: PWR) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws. On August 5, 2015, the Company disclosed that it encountered "engineering issues" at its Alaskan power plant project, and that, as a result, the Company would record the project as a loss. The Company also disclosed that it made some management changes at the poject. On this news, the Company's share price fell 15.4% on August 5, 2015, thereby injuring investors.



If you purchased Quanta securities prior to 2016, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Howard G. Smith, Esquire, of Law Offices of Howard G. Smith, 3070 Bristol Pike, Suite 112, Bensalem, Pennsylvania 19020 by telephone at (215) 638-4847, toll-free at (888) 638-4847, or by email to [email protected], or visit our website at www.howardsmithlaw.com. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724006074/en/

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[July 24, 2017] Revcontent Wins "Best Places to Work in Florida," Based on Company Culture, Employee Empowerment, and Inspired Leadership, for the 3rd Year in a Row

Revcontent, the world's largest content recommendation network, is honored and humble to be named one of the Best Places to Work in Florida. The Revcontent team is incredibly excited to bring home this award for the 3rd year in a row, a recognition based on company culture, employee empowerment, and inspired leadership. The culture at Revcontent is built on a set of values and ideals to guide every action and decision. Much more than bringing dogs to work, flexible schedules, and annual parties, Revcontent's culture is focused on empowerment, growth, and innovation. The Revcontent Team embodies these characteristics in not only major company decisions but everyday tasks, bringing value through honesty, integrity, and transparency to the long-term success of partners, consumers, brands, and the Revcontent team. Mary Kanary, Events & Culture Coordinator said, "The culture at Revcontent goes beyond the slide and snacks, the workout room, and the fact you can bring your dog to work. It is about respect, creativity, and opportunity. It is a place where you are treated equally regardless of position or tenure." The leadership and team members at Revcontent are inspiring individuals who are constantly leading by example with honesty, integrity, and selflessness. Every Revcontent team member is empowered to take control of their position, own their success, embrace failures, and contribute to the company's success as a whole. Courtney Gerlach, Advertising Executive said, "Being a newer team member, I could see very early on that Revcontent was completely different. Revcontent is a company that does not judge you by your clothing choice, physical appearance, or lifestyle. We value differences and what makes us all special. We embrace the fact that everyone has something unique to offer, and we work together as a team to help grow the success of the company."



Check out the Revcontent Culture Guide to learn more about company culture, values, mission, and everyday life at the Revcontent office. Follow along @Revcontent on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. About Revcontent:

Revcontent is the world's largest content recommendation network, powering 250 billion content recommendations per month. Revcontent partners with the largest media brands in the world such as Forbes, Newsweek, Reuters (News - Alert), and more. Founded by John Lemp, Revcontent's headquarters lies in Sarasota, Florida with global offices including London, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Mumbai, Toronto, and more coming soon. Revcontent reaches 97% of US households, according to Quantcast (News - Alert) and has been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Fox News, and more. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724006198/en/

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[July 24, 2017] Diamond Credit Union Unites Its Community Through Video Collaboration With Vidyo

Integrated video collaboration technology leader Vidyo (News - Alert) today announced that Diamond Credit Union has chosen the Vidyo platform to unite its community and employees remotely through face-to-face video collaboration. Diamond Credit Union uses real-time video to let its members conveniently and efficiently connect in-person with knowledge experts across the organization from the majority of its branch locations. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724006225/en/ (Photo: Vidyo) With $560 million in assets and 160 employees, Pennsylvania-based Diamond Credit Union serves Montgomery County, Berks County and Chester County through five branch locations. Diamond Credit Union uses Vidyo's industry-leading technology to foster relationships and provide its members with a simplified, next-generation engagement experience via expanded access to its organization-wide knowledge base, regardless of individual location. Diamond Credit Union turned to Vidyo to enhance the member experience by recreating the in-branch experience remotely with natural, intuitive, personl communications. For example, members can use video collaboration via an in-branch "Loan Zone" to connect face-to-face with Diamond Credit Union's centralized group of loan experts. They can then quickly and easily apply for a loan through a video call, rather than over the phone, using Vidyo's content sharing features to view documents together in real time.



"Video collaboration is central to our delivering on the core value of unity with our members," said Diamond Credit Union Vice President and Chief Information Officer James Daly. "The experience already served to benefit a member beyond what was anticipated - a hearing-impaired member was thrilled to utilize lip-reading while on a video call with one of our mortgage officers. The overall feedback since our launch of Vidyo has been outstanding; the platform is simple to use for our members, employees and partners, humanizing our relationships across the board." "Video banking is on the rise as it helps credit unions keep the human touch in today's digital member experience," said Vidyo CEO Eran Westman. "Video collaboration is a win-win that simultaneously increases member engagement and branch efficiency. We are thrilled to add Diamond Credit Union to our fast-growing base of credit union customers across the U.S."

The adoption of video banking is increasing among financial institutions. According to a recent survey of banking professionals from Vidyo, CUNA Strategic Services and Efma, almost 20% of survey respondents said that they have deployed at least one form of video banking, while more than 40% are piloting a video service and more than 80% plan to offer video banking in the future. 64% of respondents said that video banking has increased customer satisfaction. In addition to the in-branch services, Diamond Credit Union plans to offer video collaboration through its website so that its members can connect in-person with retail and sales staff while at work or from the comfort of home, as well as use video to remotely conduct staff and board meetings and vendor calls. About Vidyo, Inc. Vidyo is the leader in integrated video collaboration for businesses that require the highest quality, real-time video communications available to directly embed into their business processes. Millions of users around the world visually connect every day with Vidyo's secure, scalable technology and cloud-based services. Vidyo has been awarded over 170 patents worldwide and is recognized by industry analysts for its cloud platform and APIs. Thousands of enterprises, service providers, and technology partners leverage Vidyo's technology to create innovative HD quality video-enabled applications. Learn more at www.vidyo.com, on the blog, or follow Vidyo on Twitter @vidyo and on Facebook (News - Alert). About Diamond Credit Union Diamond Credit Union is the 15th largest credit union in Pennsylvania and is headquartered in Pottstown, Pa., with four additional offices. Diamond serves Berks County and the Tri-County Region and holds over $573 million in assets with over 59,000 members. For more information about Diamond Credit Union, please visit diamondcu.org. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724006225/en/

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[July 24, 2017] Democrats' Plan on Drug Costs a "Bad Deal for Patients and the Future of American Innovation"

Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) Director of Communications Brian Newell released the following statement regarding the drug cost plan released today by Congressional Democrats: "There is broad agreement on ways we can lower drug costs, while preserving incentives for innovation. That is why a coalition of drugmakers, insurers, consumer advocates, and others have proposed a new set of solutions to provide greater access to more affordable prescription drugs. Instead of expanding the role of the federal government as Democrats have proposed, the coalition's approach would leverage the power of the free market because that's the best way to lower costs and preserve the medical innovation that improves the lives of patients. "The proposal outlined today ignores the real drivers of health care spending - hospital care and provider services - and then promises to take us down the failed path toward government price controls and reduced access to prescription drugs. The facts are clear that when patients enjoy choice and competition, like seniors do in the Medicare Part D program, they also enjoy lower drug costs. This political platform undermines a program that's working well for patients and taxpayers. Meanwhile, these so-called 'transparency requirements' would do nothing to lower patient costs or provide useful information to consumers, and instead would have a chilling effect on investment in new cures, particularly with smaller companies. "Make no mistake - this plan is a bad deal for patients and the future of American innovation. The biotechnology industry is ready to work with policymakers from all parties to lower costs and drive savings within our health care system. However, we will not support misguided policies that threaten the medical breakthroughs patients truly need. Our country leads the world in biotechnology innovation, with more new cures being discovered by our researchers than the rest of the world combined. There are real-world consequences to these kind of flawed policies, and we will do our part to inform the public of those consequences." BACKGROUND: The Medicare Part D program - which prohibits the federal government from negotiating drug prices - has cost $349 billion less (45 percent) than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) originally projected. The private plans which administer Part D already negotiate aggressively with manufacturers to achieve savings. A recent analysis from the QuintilesIMS Institute examined average discounts and rebates across 12 widely prescribed therapy classes found that plans and patients in Medicare Part D pay 35.3% below drugmakers' list prices - even lower than what the private sector generally pays for the same drugs. Further, the nonpartisan CBO has stated repeatedly that direct Medicare "negotiations" would have little effect on drug costs unless the government was also empowered to unilaterally set prices and deny access to certain prescription drugs. That is why, earlier this year, more than 200 patient-advocacy groups wrote Congress in opposition to direct Medicare negotiation. About BIO BIO is the world's largest trade association representing biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and in more than 30 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of innovative healthcare, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products. BIO also produces the BIO International Convention, the world's largest gathering of the biotechnology industry, along with industry-leading investor and partnering meetings held around the world. BIOtechNOW is BIO's blog chronicling "innovations transforming our world" and the BIO Newsletter is the organization's bi-weekly email newsletter. Subscribe to the BIO Newsletter. Upcoming BIO Events







BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology

July 23-26, 2017

Montreal, Canada BIO Investor Forum

October 17-18, 2017

San Francisco, CA (News - Alert)

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724006268/en/

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Mega Millions numbers for Friday, Nov. 11, 2022

Here are the winning Mega Millions numbers and results for the lottery jackpot drawing on Friday, Nov. 11, 2022.
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By PTI: complaints

(Eds: With additional inputs from the ministry)

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) The Women and Child Development ministry today launched an online platform to enable women employees of the central government to file complaints related to sexual harassment at the workplace.

Union minister Maneka Gandhi said the platform will cater to central government employees in the beginning and thereafter, its ambit will be widened to include the private sector as well.

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"We are also going to soon conduct a national survey to assess the nature and magnitude of sexual harassment at the workplace," the minister of woman and child development said after launching the portal at her office here.

The online complaint management system -- SHe-box (sexual harassment electronic box) -- hosted on the website of the Women and Child Development Ministry, also seeks to ensure "effective implementation" of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

Once a complaint is submitted to the SHe-Box, it will be directly sent to the internal complaints committee (ICC) of the ministry/department/PSU/autonomous body etc concerned, having jurisdiction to inquire into the matter.

The ICC will take action as prescribed under the Act and update the status of the complaint.

The portal is also an effort to provide "speedier remedy" to women facing sexual harassment at the workplace, as envisaged under the sexual harassment Act, a senior official of the ministry said.

The WCD minister also instructed officials to make the portal as "interactive" as possible.

The portal should offer a list of follow-up details so that the employee gets to know the exact status of the complaint, she told officials.

The Union government has 30.87 lakh employees. According to the Census of Central Government Employees 2011, women constitute 10.93 per cent of the total force.

"To begin with, central government women employees can file complaints, but we are going to widen the ambit to include the private sector as well," she said.

"We just need to make a few changes in our online interface. Once it is done, employees from private companies would also be able to lodge complaints," Gandhi added.

The decision to host an online platform for sexual harassment cases was taken by the WCD Ministry in October last year after the minister received complaints from women employees in various ministries.

Interacting with reporters later, Gandhi said, "If the internal complaints committees (on sexual harassment) is working, then we are out of the picture totally."

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"But people, who will come to us, are those women employees who work where there are no committees or theres one for the sake of it or composed of people who are outrightly negative," she said.

The sexual harassment Act mandates that all workplaces with more than 10 workers constitute an internal complaints committee for receiving complaints of sexual harassment.

"We are not treading on anybodys toes. The idea of this portal is to remedy the cases before they reach the level where legal action may be warranted," the minister told reporters.

Gandhi also asked officials to include a section in the portal where complainants can "vent" their grievances.

On the proposed pan-India survey, she said the idea was initiated after an NGO came up with a small-scale study on women-related matters.

"We will put up the survey on out portal as well as our Facebook page and Twitter handle to reach out to as many people as possible," Gandhi said.

The minister also said the definition of what constitutes a case of sexual harassment must be made available on the portal.

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"Some people say installation of CCTV cameras is a harassment. So, we need to to define it so that there are no frivolous cases," she added.

The senior official said, "The survey would be conducted both online and offline and the ministry will collaborate with organisations which have worked on this subject." PTI KND GVS GVS

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AND WE'RE BACK!!!

Meet The New Kansas City Boss

Past, future jostle for attention as Chiefs introduce current GM - Kansas City Business Journal Before introducing Brett Veach as the new general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt took time to clear the air a bit regarding the firing of previous GM John Dorsey. In June, the Chiefs officially announced that they were "parting ways" with Dorsey, but Hunt made it clear Monday that it was his decision to let Dorsey go.

Golden Ghetto Airport Debate

Leawood residents have chance to weigh in on KCI debate City council members agreed to host a presentation of A Better KCI at a work session meeting at 6 p.m. Aug. 7. The meeting will be in a town hall format allowing for an open dialogue. Leawood citizens are encouraged to attend and comment on building a new single-terminal facility at the same site, which is estimated to be a $1 billion project.

Kansas City Doggie Tragedy

3 dogs dead following house fire in Raytown Three dogs died in a house fire in Raytown on Monday. The house fire happened at 63rd Street and Sterling.

Kansas City Broadway Bridge Bad News

Be prepared for congestion as crews shut down lanes of Buck O'Neil Bridge for inspections KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Be prepared if you plan to use the Buck O'Beil Bridge this week. Starting Monday, crews will close part of the bridge for inspections. If you've driven on this bridge recently, you know it needs some work.

Storm Aftermath Testimony

KCK woman recounts roof falling in during storm KANSAS CITY, Kans, - Saturday night a storm whipped through the Stony Point neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. Sunday morning people who live there assessed the damage, working with chainsaws to remove massive trees from houses and cars. PHOTOS: KC metro recovering from storm damage "It sounded like a train," said Anthony Davis while he cleaned up trees in his front yard.

Kansas City Hip-Hop Tragedy

Kansas City man killed in July 8 shooting had just released his first rap album Frank Raney Jr. was going to move to California. He had just released a rap album and he was going to pursue his music career. He was starting his own clothing line. Instead, he died July 8. He was shot and killed about 6 a.m. in southeast Kansas City, near Bannister Road and McGee Street.

The Local Tech Calendar

Events Preview: Writing a business plan, Code for KC There are a plethora of entrepreneurial events hosted in Kansas City on a weekly basis. Whether you're an entrepreneur, investor, supporter, or curious community member - we recommend these upcoming events for you. Are you hosting a relevant community event? Feel free to add it to the FWD/KC calendar for increased exposure.

Classic Candice just a bit sweaty and rather sultry inspires this look at the top Kansas City mainstream media links for today and without all of the hype or "human interest" filler. Just the meaty news for our blog community . . .And this is thefor right now . . .
Several districts of Gujarat have been inundated following massive flooding and rainfall, prompting authorities to issue a state-wide high alert. More than 25,000 people were evacuated as of Monday.

NDRF teams have been called in to assist with rescue and relief operations in Gujarat (Photo: PTI)

By India Today Web Desk: More than 25,000 people were evacuated as of Monday night after a bitter spell of incessant rainfall battered many districts across Gujarat. North Gujarat was especially affected, with 1,000 rescued and 15,000 moved to safety over the last two days.

Since the beginning of the monsoon, at least 70 people have lost their lives due to rains in Gujarat.

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Banaskantha, which borders Rajasthan, was the worst affected district in Gujarat, with rescue personnel moving 10,300 people to safety.

Three districts of the other parched Rajasthan too were affected by the inclement weather. Two people - a mother and daughter - were killed in Udaipur as Army and Air Force contingents rushed in to help with flood relief work in both Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Click here to Enlarge Homes in Gujarat's Limdi inundated after massive rainfall over three days (Photo: Gopi Maniar)

Click here to Enlarge Bansakantha was among the worst affected districts in Gujarat (Photo: ANI)

FLOOD FURY IN GUJARAT, RAJASTHAN: ROUNDUP Heavy rainfall has lashed Gujarat for three days now, throwing life out of gear in major cities, including Ahmedabad. 10,300 people have been evacuated from Banaskantha, 9790 from Patan district and another 950 people from Morbi district. Around 4,000 people were evacuated from elsewhere as authorities called in the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force for help. Banaskantha, Rajkot, Surendranagar, Ahmedabad, Morbi, Gandhinagar, Kutch, Mehsana and Valsad were among the districts hit by the large-scale flooding. The flooding has been made worse by dams reaching their capacity, forcing authorities at the Dantiwada and Sipu dams to release water into low-lying areas. Rivers and natural reservoirs too have been overflowing. The water levels at Sipu, however, receded according to latest reports. Rajasthan too has seen heavy rainfall, which further exacerbated the flooding in Gujarat, sending a large inflow of water into rivers and dams in Banaskantha and Patan, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said. Two people died in the desert state after a mother and her daughter were washed away in Udaipur. Rajasthan's Jalore, Pali and Sirohi districts have been inundated and road and rail traffic has been thrown out of gear. Rajasthan minister Gulab Chand Kataria called the situation in the three districts "critical". Four MI-17V5 helicopters were conducting sorties from IAF bases in Jamnagar, Jodhpur and Phalodi, but air operations in Rajasthan were hampered by inclement weather. Rajasthan minister Gulab Chand Kataria said that in Jalore five people were precariously perched atop a tree and were unable to climb down due to strong currents. Rescue teams were waiting for the weather to clear to launch fresh efforts to take them to safety, Kataria added. Click here to Enlarge Waterlogging at Palanpur railway station in Gujarat Rail traffic in both Gujarat and Rajasthan was hit because of the flooding. Two trains were terminated in Jodhpur Railway Division following waterlogging on Bhiladi-Samdari section. In Gujarat, on the other hand, at least 17 trains were cancelled. Waterlogging and damage to tracks in Palanpur resulted in the Rajdhani Express and the Agra Express being stopped at Mehsana. The Rajdhani was turned back towards Ahmedabad. The large-scale flooding in Gujarat prompted authorities to declare a state-wide 'high alert' even as teams from disaster relief forces, Army and Air Force remained involved in rescue operations. At least four teams of the National Disaster Relief Force, two of the State Disaster Relief Force, another two of the State Reserve Police Force and one column of the Army were engaged in relief and rescue work. Click here to Enlarge Residents of Surat wade through flooded streets (Photo: PTI) Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani remained at the state control room in capital Gandhinagar to take stock of the situation. Local media also reported that Rupani is in constant touch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has expressed concern over the flooding in Gujarat. Food packets are being distributed to those hit by the flooding, Rupani said while confirming that a state-wide high alert has been issued. The situation in Gujarat and Rajasthan is expected to worsen with the MeT department predicting heavy to very heavy rain over Gujarat and Rajasthan for the next 24 hours.

Watch | Flooding in Dhanera, Banaskantha inundates homes, maroons residents

(With inputs from Gopi Maniar in Ahmedabad, PTI)

ALSO READ | Heavy rains in Odisha trigger flash floods in coastal Andhra Pradesh

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More than a dozen Missouri massage parlors raided - and the reason is incredibly disturbing At least 18 massage parlors were raided in Missouri in July 2017 as part of the state's effort to battle human trafficking. (Image source: Springfield News-Leader screenshot) At least 18 massage parlors were raided in Missouri recently as part of the state's effort to battle human trafficking.

The Missouri Attorney General hoping to win hearts and minds in what could be an upcoming fight to push Sen. Claire McCaskill out of her seat has earned national headlines as of late. Take a look:
KANSAS CITY CITY TRANSIT UNION WORKERS ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES IN THE LATEST ROUND TO CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS!!!

ATU 1287 members Contract Negotiations Update:

Assaults are up 600% from last year on operators. Management is using more of the budget to pay their salaries instead of putting service on the streets for our riders. We have a dedicated tax source and KCATA is not putting service in the Kansas City area that would benefit the ridership as they should.. Down 7 to 10%. Sam would seem to be more interested in keeping his 190K salary plus benefits per year instead of leading this company in the right direction.

This morning our blog community has been tasked with providing news and highlighting the biggest Kansas City transportation issue in the metro that has been downplayed by all other local media.To wit . . .In this latest communique that our blog community haswe learn ofnegotiations and frustrations from workers who aren't being treated fairly by management.Here's the wordand representing alook at Kansas City transit issues that few other news outlets dare to report.Checkit:We have just finished our second round of contract negotiations with the KCATA wanting spread time premiums, RDO work overtime over 8 hours and a host of guarantees for concessions. The KCATA is wanting to increase part-time operators from 35% to 45 % and would like to turn this property into a part-time job eventually.Concession bargaining is all this company wants. From our Binding interest arbitration rights to daily overtime Sam & company are not willing to stand up for their employees to the Board of Commissioners no matter how dangerous and difficult this job has become.Fair bargaining is not within their idea of bargaining.We must stand strong and let the KCATA Board of Commissioners as well as the riding public know that this management team only looks out for themselves and not interested in increasing runs and ridership or being fair to their employees.We have ask for financial information of their operational budget that justifies these concessions.I would like to invite our members to our next negotiations session to observe these individuals as they present their proposals. I hope to educate our members and prepared us for the potential fight we have ahead in arbitration if the KCATA is unwilling to be fair and just.You are also invited to speak at our Board of Commissioners meeting on increasing ridership and runs throughout the Kansas City Missouri and Greater Kansas City area.Let's prepare to fight by sticking together and letting management know that we demand a fair and non concessionary contract.I will update you on all further developments.President B/A ATU 1287#############Developing . . .
The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry said its members exports and re-exports grew by 6.1 per cent during the first half of 2017 to Dh146.7 billion ($39.9 billion) , compared to Dh138.3 billion in the same period of last year.



It added that a total of 8,900 companies joined as members within the first six months of 2017, while it saw its new membership increase by 10.9 per cent year on year.



The Chambers total membership reached 210,000 by the end of H1-2017, making it one of the worlds largest membership-based chambers of commerce.



Saudi Arabia was the top export and re-export market for Dubai Chamber members with a value of Dh51.9 billion. This figure reflects an18 per cent growth rate compared to the same period last year (Dh44 billion).



The Chamber issued 465,680 certificates between January and June of this year at a rate of more than 2,500 certificates per day, and issued 69 ATA Carnets for goods worth Dh24,6 million in addition to other value-added services designed to facilitate international trade and improve ease of doing business in Dubai.



Hamad Buamim, president and CEO of Dubai Chamber, highlighted Dubais rapid progress on implementing its economic diversification plans, and noted that the new figures from the Chamber confirms the crucial contribution of the emirates trade sector to this strategy.



He explained that the growth in member exports came despite challenging global economic conditions, and said that Dubai-based companies have taken a pro-active approach to exploring trade and investment opportunities in promising markets around the world.



Buamim said: Trade relations between Dubai and Saudi Arabia continue to flourish and develop, and this is clearly reflected in the 18 per cent growth in member exports and re-exports to the kingdom in the first half of the year.



In addition, he described the strong growth in new members at the Chamber as a result of increased cooperation between Dubais public and private sectors, which have formed important partnerships that have attracted foreign companies to Dubai and created a favourable business environment in the emirate.



During the first six months of 2017, Dubai Chamber heavily promoted Dubai as a leading trade and investment hub by participating in 56 outbound missions and activities across 38 cities in 33 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, India, Belgium, Germany, Ethiopia, Ghana, China, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, the Netherlands, and Zambia, among others.



The Chamber received 350 delegations from 34 countries, marking a 14 per cent increase in the number of visiting delegations compared to the same period last year. The delegations included more than 849 government officials and businessmen, while the Chambers international offices held 243 meetings with foreign companies that are keen to explore business prospects in Dubai.  TradeArabia News Service
Iran is preparing contracts with French Total and Royal Dutch Shell to implement petrochemical projects, a senior Iranian official said in a report.



The parties are negotiating the final issues for the contracts, Marzieh Shahdaei, head of Iran's National Petrochemical Company (NPC), was quoted as saying in an Iran Daily News report, citing IRNA.



Both Total and Shell signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Iran in the petrochemical sector in 2016.



Shahdaei said that the contract with Total will be worth $2 billion while Iran's deal with Shell is estimated at $6 billion, it said.



Iran plans to attract investment to the tune of $10 billion in the petrochemical sector in the year to March 20, 2018.



Iran's petrochemical output is expected to double by 2021 to reach 120 million tonnes per year.



Total and Iran earlier signed a 20-year contract valued at $4.8 billion to develop Phase 11 of South Pars Gas Fields, added the report.
Oman-based Petrogas Kahil has awarded a contract for the drilling of three exploration wells in Block 55 to global oil services company Schlumberger, a report said.



The one-year integrated drilling services contract is valued at around $20 million, Oman Observer reported, citing Schlumbergers statement in its latest quarterly earnings report.

As part of the contract, Schlumberger will also deploy a range of its proprietary drilling technologies, including vertical drilling rotary steerable systems, modular compact wellhead systems and ridged diamond element bits, it said.



Petrogas has undertaken a comprehensive work programme, including the reprocessing of legacy 2D data and the acquisition of modern 3D seismic to evaluate prospective areas identified from gravity and magnetic surveys.



The block is now covered with some 4,180 km of 2D and 130 km2 of 3D data. This new seismic coverage, along with well control provided by historic drilling has enabled new prospects and leads to be developed, a Petrogas Kahil statement said.



The ongoing exploration programme, according to the operator, is focused on both the Eastern Flank and Tertiary Basin structural targets. The first well will target a mapped fault bounded dip-closure in the Tertiary with stacked reservoir objectives and an aggregate unrisked STOIIP (stock tank oil initially in place) significantly in excess of 100 million barrels.



In the event of a firm discovery of hydrocarbons, options are in place for the appraisal, development and monetization of the resources, said Petrogas.
Swiss-Belhotel International has promoted Herve Peyre the the position of area general manager for Bahrain.



Peyre has been associated with the group since September 2013 as the general manager for Swiss-Belhotel Seef Bahrain.



Making the announcement, Laurent A. Voivenel, senior vice president, Operations and Development for the Middle East, Africa and India for Swiss-Belhotel International, said: We are delighted to promote Herve Peyre as the area general manager for Bahrain where he, with his team, has so successfully positioned Swiss-Belhotel Seef Bahrain as a market leader and winner of several accolades including the Best Four-Star Hotel in GCC at Food & Travel Awards for two consecutive years, 2016-17.



Elaborating on Swiss-Belhotel Internationals rapid expansion in Bahrain, Voivenel stressed: This latest development is part of our strategy to strengthen our management team in key growth markets such as Bahrain where we have extensive expansion. We will be tripling our inventory of rooms in the kingdom this year with the opening of two new hotels early next year namely Grand Swiss-Belresort, a 5-star luxury resort and Seef Swiss-Belresidences Juffair, an upper midscale hotel apartment complex. We are confident Herve, with his strong international and regional experience, is the ideal candidate to support our operations on the ground.



An MBA from Cornell University in Paris, Herve has had an illustrious career in hospitality starting in 1993 as Assistant Food and Beverage Manager at Hilton Paris. Subsequently he spent 18 years with the Hilton Hotels & Resorts working in various senior executive roles. His last posting with the Hilton group was as general manager of Hilton Strasbourg in 2011. Prior to joining Swiss-Belhotel Seef Bahrain, Peyre was the cluster general manager for Flora Creek & Flora Park Deluxe Hotel Apartments in Dubai. - TradeArabia News Service
Turkey is truly a backpackers paradise, with delicious food, budget friendly accommodation, internal and public transportation, and access historical and natural sites.



Traveling in Turkey is definitely a relief, especially for younger people after travelling through Europe this summer.



Turkey is a vast country covering an area 783,356 square kilometers to the southeast of Europe. It is a country where a couple could get by on $100 per day, which includes food, stay and sightseeing.



On a budget, backpackers are advised to use a guidebook rather than a guide and to craft a relaxed itinerary flexible to take on last minute changes. And planning to visit ancient, historical sites in Turkeys beautiful countryside will surely leave a lasting impression.



Visit the ancient city of Aspendos, the modern town of Belkis, and its magnificent Roman theatre, built during the reign of the legendary Marcus Aurelius between 161 AD and 180 AD. Having not lost any of its original splendor, it is one of the worlds best examples of a well-preserved Roman theatre. On Turkey's southern Mediterranean coast, the site is 47 kilometers away from Antalya.



Then move onto Cappadocia, an area in Central Anatolia best known for its moon-like landscape, underground cities, caves and houses carved in the rocks. The valley, canyon, hills and unusual rock formation were created by the erosion from rain and winds over millions of years.



Travellers can literally live in a cave while exploring this amazing destination. There is nowhere on Earth quite like Cappadocia. Visitors usually arrive at sunrise (from an overnight bus) and are met with unique views of this mystical landscape. The whole area can be explored on foot with the use of a map.



In keeping to a budget, one of the best places to spend time and have a world of things to do and see, is Istanbul. It is probably the most exciting city in Turkey and is jam-packed with ancient sites and wonderful experiences for backpackers.



The city has great street food and an old authentic charm mixed with modern architecture. Travellers can get their hands on outstanding food usually served in heaping portions for as little as $4 per person. Mouth-watering kababs and donair kababs can be eaten from hundreds of street-stands across the city.



Balk-ekmek, which literally means fish-bread, is a sandwich composed of grilled mackerel, onions, tomato, and lettuce. The best Balik-ekmek are typically served from mobile grills along the Bosphorus, beside Galata Bridge.



While in Taksim Square, the dilli kasarl tost sandwich is legendary. Essentially a grilled cheese sandwich enhanced with slices of beef tongue, mass consumption of the sandwich usually happens around the Beyoglu area.



And anywhere in Istanbul, boza, which is made from crushed millet, boiled and strained then fermented and ultimately garnished with cinnamon and roasted chickpeas, is very traditional and filling. Popularised during the Ottoman period, boza is sold by mobile vendors and from small shops or cafes.



Turkish baths, or Hamams, can come in very handy at the end of a long day roaming the labyrinth-like narrow streets of Istanbul. To relax and unwind a little, venture into one of the many hamams around the city and get a scrub down, bathe in scalding hot water and chat to the locals enjoying their daily hamam trip. Hamams span back over 1,500 years and have become cultural centers for people to meet and interact.



And staying in hostels or guesthouses in Istanbul is the backpackers best bet. With rooms going for $40 to $50 per night, many travellers choose to share a room to keep to their daily budget. - TradeArabia News Service
Bahrain and Pakistan are looking to deepen their relations and broaden their cooperation across all fields, especially the tourism sector.



Shaikh Khalid bin Humood Al Khalifa, chief executive officer of the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA), received today the Ambassador of Pakistan, Javed Malik.



During the meeting, Shaikh Khalid stressed on the importance of strengthening cooperation and reinforcing bilateral relations between both countries. He also mentioned the BTEAs readiness to strengthen relations with Pakistan and work towards achieving their joint goals.



Malik expressed his gratitude to Shaikh Khalid for his warm welcome, and affirmed his commitment to further enhance relations between both countries and strengthen ties across all fields. - TradeArabia News Service


By PTI: were in the vicinity during Kargil crisis

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) During the height of the Kargil crisis in 1999, an Indian Air Force fighter pilot mistakenly put a Pakistani military base in its sights and was ready to bomb it, but was pulled back by his superiors, ex-senior officials of the IAF said today.

The June 24, 1999, incident had the potential of triggering an all-out war between the two nuclear armed neighbours as, according to Pakistani media, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and then Pakistan Army Chief Pervez Musharraf were present at the base or were in the vicinity.

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According to IAF officials who were then holding senior positions in the IAFs Western Air Command, a flight commander was tasked to bomb Point 4388 in Kargil but he instead ended up aiming at a Pakistani military base in Gulteri through a cockpit laser designation system (CLDS).

The incident was first reported today by The Indian Express newspaper.

Under protocol, a Jaguar pilot first "lased over" the area using the CLDS while a second Jaguar was to drop the bomb on the target coming in the pre-designated path identified by the first one. "Lasing" refers to locking in on the coordinates of a target.

Such a protocol of using two fighter jets was used then as only trainer Jaguars had the CLDS system.

The Pakistani media had reported on June 25, 1999, that Sharif was in Gulteri where in an address to the troops he had called for a dialogue with India to defuse the war-like situation along the Line of Control.

The Indian Express said both Sharif and Musharraf were present at the base when it became the focus of the IAF jets target, even though the government -- then headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee -- had not allowed the IAF to cross over the LoC.

When contacted, an IAF spokesperson said he would not comment on operational issues.

Retired Air Marshal A K Singh, who was a senior officer in the Western Air Command then, said he was also airborne when the two Jaguars went for the operation.

He said the pilot of the first aircraft called him and told him that the target was a big military camp and that he had it on the CLDS.

"The time was around 8.45 AM. I was airborne in the area. When he told me about the target, I told him not to fire."

At the time, Retired Air Marshal Vinod Patney was the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Air Command, and was overseeing IAFs operation in Kargil.

When contacted he told PTI that when the pilot of the first aircraft had a doubt about the target, he told the pilot of the second jet not to fire.

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Both Air Marshal Singh and Air Marshal Patney said they were not aware of the presence of Sharif and Musharraf at the Gulteri military base that day and the matter was never discussed in official meetings. PTI MPB VJ BDS

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Search News Archive : Fast Travel News Promotion Via Search, Social Media + Email Follow Us On : VIETNAM OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES VIETNAM ELECTRONIC VISA FOR THE CITIZENS OF ARGENTINA Industry: Visas

As the government of Vietnam launches an electronic visa system for citizens from 40 countries, including Argentines, Vietnam eVisa continues to assist them with their simplified visa application process.



(TRAVPR.COM) VIETNAM - July 22nd, 2017 - Great news for Argentines, who were worrying about the complex process involved in Vietnam visa application. The government of Vietnam has just officially launched a two-year pilot plan for electronic Vietnam visa for argentine.



Now, Argentine passport holders have become eligible for e-visa application which permits entry into and travel within Vietnam. Vietnam Electronic Visa is a better alternative to entry visa obtained from the embassies of Vietnam and visa on arrival. This single entry visa allows maximum stay of 30 days.



When asked about the launch of Vietnam Electronic Visa for Argentines, "Yes, the Vietnamese government has officially launched an electronic visa system for foreign tourists visiting the country, including citizens of Argentina," replied the spokesperson of Vietnam eVisa.



The basic requirements to opt for Vietnam e-Visa for Argentine citizens include a valid e-mail address, a copy of valid passport, a recent digital photograph, and a valid credit card or PayPal account to pay the Visa application fees.



With its inception in 2008, Vietnam eVisa has been providing exceptional visa application and processing services. In addition to visa application, they also specialize in Vietnam car transfers, hotel bookings and more.



The spokesperson of Vietnam eVisa also added, "Vietnam has been named as the world's fastest growing tourist destination and the foreign arrivals to the country earns the tourism industry VND400 trillion. With this rise in popularity, e-visa platform could contribute to a raise in country's economy in 2020."



"This single entry e-Visa allows a maximum duration of stay of 30 days and this stay cannot be extended or converted to any other types of Visa. The cost of e-visa for Argentines is US$ 40 for tourist visa and US$ 55 for business visa. We only charge for successful application and our process is 100% risk-free," concluded the spokesperson of Vietnam eVisa.



About Vietnam eVisa:



Since 2008, Vietnam eVisa has been providing prompt and exceptional Vietnam visa services through simplified application processes. They also specialize in Vietnam car transfers, hotel bookings and more. ### Please contact the person or company listed above for information regarding the content of this press release. TravPR.com are not the issuers of this press release and are not responsible for the accuracy of the content. Share Release :



CONTACT INFORMATION Name: Jacky Dang Company: Vietnam eVisa Phone: 84933466328 Email: vietnamevisavi@gmail.com Web: PRESS RELEASE TAGS
The RSS would be planting 15 lakh trees across the national Capital, starting the Independence Day to not just commemorate the day India got freedom.

By Siddhartha Rai: After the election of Ramnath Kovind as President and a near certain ascension of Venkaiah Naidu to the Veep's position, the saffron brigade is readying to wash Delhi in the green hues this Independence Day.

The RSS would be planting 15 lakh trees across the national Capital, starting the Independence Day to not just commemorate the day India got freedom, but also to turn a new leaf in environmental activism. RSS functionaries told Mail Today that Delhi's toxic environment and the bad air quality was causing breathing ailments in people of all age groups, and increasing the tree cover of the city was absolutely necessary.

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The drive, called 'Vriksha Lagao Jeevan Bachao Abhiyan', has been planned meticulously. Delhi Prant Prachar Pramukh Rajiv Tuli said all MCDs have been roped in for the purpose. "We have planned the drive after a lot of research into what tree species will thrive best in Delhi's climate. We want fruitbearing trees to be planted. We are considering mango, peepal, banyan, guava, and jamun. So far in Delhi, nearly all plantation drives have seen shrubs. These trees are of no use." Tuli said while the drive was being carried out in Delhi on pilot basis, it would later be expanded to cover the whole of India.

Also Read

BJP's presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind: An ardent dog lover

Ram Nath Kovind is the next President, but BJP isn't satisfied

--- ENDS ---
Iraq's Foreign Minister Dr Ibrahim Al-Eshaiker Al-Jafarisaid they cannot say whether the missing Indians are dead or alive.

By India Today Web Desk: Iraq's Foreign Minister Dr Ibrahim Al-Eshaiker Al-Jafari today said they have no substantial evidence on whether the 39 Indians missing in the war-ravaged country are alive or dead.

"We have no substantial evidence they were killed or still alive. We are doing efforts. Not sure they alive or not," the minister told India Today TV.

He informed that their government is doing their best but till now cannot say what is the fate of anyone of the missing Indians.

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He said they will continue to search operations.

When asked the minister said Iraqi forces are very ardent on finding all those missing in the country.

Less than a week after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj indicated that 39 Indians missing from Iraq since 2014 might be alive in a prison in the civil war-ravaged country, an India Today team travelled all the way to Mosul but found no sign of them in the restive region.

Sources say, the families may likely visit once the visit concludes between External Affairs Minister and Iraqi foreign minister, scheduled to arrive on 24 July. In 2014, the leader of the terror group declared a global caliphate from Mosul after his jehadi guerrillas overran the ancient city.

There was, however, no clarity about al-Baghdadi's whereabouts. An estimated 40,000 people have been killed in Mosul, with many more still unaccounted for. In the city of Erbil, near Mosul, Red Crescent manager Hawre Ihsan Sadiq admitted he had received no information about the missing Indians.

India today's ground report showed that the Badush prison, which government hinted the men were kept as prisoners, had been bombarded long back.

Minister Al-Jaafari began his five-day visit to India today.

After Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from ISIS, India is seeking its help to locate the 39 missing Indian labourers, mostly from Punjab, who are kidnapped in Mosul three years ago.

Also read:

Missing Indians in Iraq: Without proof, no country abandons its citizens, says MoS VK Singh

Missing Indians in Iraq: 3 years and counting, two tales of 46 nurses and 39 labourers

India Today first to reach Mosul after ISIS fall. No sign of missing 39 Indians

No confirmed information on 39 missing Indians, Iraqi ambassador tells India Today

ALSO WATCH: Iraq foreign minister to India Today: No substantial evidence on the fate of missing 39 Indians

--- ENDS ---
TKA Nair

TKA Nair

AS Prime Minister Narendra Modi was busy crisscrossing the globe in his tireless pursuit of winning friends, influencing people and marketing India in its many manifestations from Yoga to space technology  loud rumbles of disquiet were heard from our backyard border. Not quite surprisingly, as our Prime Minister and Chinese President Xi Jinping exchanged greetings on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing accused India of "ulterior motives," referring to the disturbing developments in the trijunction with Bhutan in the Doklam area, triggered by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).

That the Doklam faceoff is not an isolated impromptu initiative or response of the local PLA command is clear from the recent developments in India-China relations, the latest being India's boycott of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative unveiled by President Xi Jinping not long ago. In the inaugural address, President Xi hailed the OBOR as a "vehicle for achieving sustainable globalisation" and invoked Panchsheel, the doctrine of peaceful coexistence propounded by India and China in the 1950s. He defended globalisation with his integrated plan and asserted that China would not export its social system or development model to other countries.

Xi Jingping sought to emerge as the messiah of peaceful coexistence for sustainable globalisation before the galaxy of world leaders, including several heads of government and representatives of the US and Japan and multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the IMF. No Indian was reportedly present in the audience to hear him preaching Panchsheel, thanks to a vigilant Ministry of External Affairs! Subsequently, echoing Xis sentiments, Director of the Institute of South and South-East Asian Studies, Hu Shisheng, exulted that China and India could fill the void in global governance caused by the withdrawal of the US and other western countries. He expected India and China to come together on the Belt and Road initiative as it is aligned with India's Look-East policy. Looking at China-India-Pakistan relations in the global context, especially the changing roles of the US and Russia, he envisioned "a new day of friction-free geopolitical relations between China, India and Pakistan when India and China merge their respective regional cooperation strategies. For obvious reasons, India has not shared this grandiose vision of China, India and Pakistan bhai-bhai. The Ministry of External Affairs came out with a public statement explaining India's objections and concerns about the OBOR initiative.

Most importantly, India objects to the China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC), a the flagship project of OBOR, passing through Gilgit-Baltistan areas of Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK), infringing India's sovereignty over the area. India also flagged environmental and viability issues relating to projects as also its implied apprehensions about the OBOR being more for enhancing China's geopolitical interests than for improving regional connectivity and economic cooperation. India's concerns were duly conveyed to the Chinese leaderships at differrent levels several times, but there was no positive response. However, before the conclave, the Chinese Ambassador to India suggested a four-point initiative to improve India-China relations and the possibility of renaming the CPEC. Similarly, the Chinese Foreign Minister hinted at working around the sovereignty issue over PoK in order to address India's concerns. Apparently, these ideas and possibilities were not seriously pursued by either side at any level as would be evident from the latest developments centring round the Doklam trijunction.

Connectivity across countries and continents is critical for regional and global partnerships in security, trade and commerce and accelerated socio-economic development. On account of its strategic location, size, population, humungous market and potential for global leadership, India is central to several regional and global partnership groupings and initiatives. Significantly, the Trump administration has recently renewed its interest in prompting two major transnational infrastructure projects, namely the New Silk Road (NSR) and the Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor (IPEC), linking South and South-east Asia. Way back in 2011, announcing the Afghan-centric NSR, former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had said: "Turkmen Gas fields could help meet both India's and Pakistan's growing energy needs and provide significant transit revenue for both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Tajik cotton could be turned into Indian linens. Furniture and fruits from Afghanistan could find markets in Astana, Mumbai and beyond". Later in 2013 at the Indo-US strategic dialogue, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the IPEC would spur development and investment as well as trade and transit between the dynamic economies of South and South-east Asia. The project was projected to be in perfect sync with the US-Asia pivot, Japan's Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (PQI) and India's Act-East policy.

Today, the US is perceived to be fumbling its way to maintain its super power status under an erratic leadership while China is seen to be surging forward under an unchallenged helmsman assured of his country's path to power and glory. No doubt, the US still enjoys tremendous comparative advantages, including its legacy of democracy, but China is adroitly playing its cards to seize opportunities for pursuing and assuming global leadership, whether it is in the area of climate change or sustainable globalisation. Aspiring young India is not far behind in its ambitions and is paradoxically pivotal to the global power plays of both whether it is in the OBOR or IPEC. India too is aware of the implications of the great global power games. Non-Alignment stood India in good stead in the days of the Cold War. Much water has flown down the Volga and the Potomac as well as the Brahmaputra and the Indus since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Evil Empire. Both India and China have changed beyond recognition since 1962. Changing in tune with the changing times, the mantra of Non-Alignment is slowly but steadily giving place to the mantra of alignment  alignments which are inclusive, which serve our national self interests, in the emerging global context. The OBOR and the IPEC need not be mutually exclusive and could be complimentary to each other in the wider context of global trade and development. China and the US have their geopolitical agenda to pursue through them.

The complex world of today is witness to strange bedfellows as there are no permanent enemies or friends amongst nations in spite of their periodic protestations of natural partnerships. Netanyahu has married Israel to China and India in Heaven with great aplomb within less than six months. Russia and the US cooperate with each other and China, notwithstanding their differences and suspicions of the motives of each other. Not only Russia and our neighbouring countries, other than Bhutan, but the US and Japan too were present at the conclave not just for listening to the exhortations of President Xi, but hoping to take some advantage of these to further their national interests. Against this backdrop, breaking free of legacy issues and perceptions borne out of past experience, India should make the best of aligning with the OBOR and IPEC initiatives, instead of avoiding them or spurning one and embracing the other.

Competing and cooperating, managing the inherent contradictions and following the path of principled realism, China and India could peacefully coexist and lead the Asian Century.

The writer was the Principal Secretary and Adviser to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 24

The government today flagged off six mobile vans to raise awareness about the Goods and Services Tax (GST) among the trader community and address concerns relating to it in the city.

The mobile help vans, which were flagged off by Finance Minister Manish Sisodia from the Delhi Secretariat here, will travel through various markets across the national Capital and there would be senior officials of the trade and taxes department on board to address issues over the next two weeks.

The GST awareness mobile vans will move for around 15 days or so. Officials will be there to attend to the problems of traders. Traders can also give their suggestions on the new tax regime and they will be put before the GST council, said Sisodia, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister.

Sisodia said the new helpline service will be reviewed after two days. The vans will stop at various locations and announcements will be made about their presence so that traders can easily locate them. The government is also going to set up help desks in markets for traders.

Ahead of implementation of the GST, Sisodia had expressed concerns over the new tax system while taking exception to the exemption of few sectors, including real estate and liquor.

Congress to step up stir against GST

The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC), under the leadership of its president Ajay Maken, will intensify its agitation against the wrong implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in its present form, which will not only adversely affect the small and medium traders and the consumers, but also the common people.

Maken said there is no similarity between the GST that the Congress wanted to introduce with 14 per cent as the outer limit and the GST that has been introduced by the BJP government with multiple tax slabs.

He said the small traders will now have to compete with big industrialists like Adanis and Ambanis after the introduction of the GST by the Modi government.

Addressing a press conference, Maken said the Congress had organised a massive demonstration on July 18 from Jantar Mantar to Parliament House to gherao it to protest against the GST, and in the next phase of the agitation, the party will hold demonstrations in all the 42 major markets across the city to create awareness among the people about the adverse impact of the wrong implementation of the GST through pamphlets.

Maken said the agitations against the GST will start on Sunday when demonstrations will be held at three major markets of the city  Timber Market, Loni Road, Shahdara; Gandhi Nagar Cloth Market and Central Market, Lajpat Nagar.

He said in one week, demonstrations will be held in 42 markets across the city.
Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, July 24

Four youths allegedly killed a man of Mali Majra village of Yamunanagar district following an old rivalry on Sunday night.

After the murder, the accused threw the body of Ravish Kumar Kamboj (28) in a sugarcane field of nearby village, Amadalpur.

According to information, some people of Amadalpur village saw the body lying in sugarcane fields of a farmer of their village in the morning. They informed the police and the kin of the deceased about the incident.

The police took the body at Civil Hospital, Jagadhri, where after post-mortem the body was handed over to kin.

The police said that he was stabbed in the back with some sharp-edged weapon as there was a sharp injury mark on his back.

In his complaint to the police, deceaseds father Baljeet Singh said that his family had an old rivalry over some issue with a family of his village. He alleged that they along with others killed his son.

He further alleged that Monu, one of the accused, took his son with him somewhere last night. He said that his son didnt return home and they got information about his death in the morning.

Subhash Chand, SHO, Buria police station said that a case had been registered against four persons, including Monu and Monti of Mali Majra village under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.

He further said that police teams had been formed to arrest the accused.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 24

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven Kashmiri separatist leaders for allegedly funding militancy and unrest in Kashmir.

Those arrested included Nayem Khan, Ayaz Akbar, Altaf Fantoosh, Mehraj Kalwal, Shahid ul Islam, Peer Saifullah and Farooq Ahmed Dar, alias Bitta Karate. Except Karate, who was arrested in Delhi, all others were arrested in Srinagar.

Those arrested in Srinagar will be brought to Delhi and all the seven will be produced before a special NIA court in Delhi, an NIA officer said.

Altaf Ahmed Shah, known popularly as Altaf Fantoosh, is separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelanis son-in-law.

Last month, the NIA had carried raids in Srinagar, Jammu and Delhi to probe the entire chain of players behind financing of secessionist activities, including pelting of stones on security forces, burning of schools and damaging government establishments.

The raids, were part of its crackdown on funds for subversive activities in the Valley, was the first to be conducted by a central investigation agency in connection with funding for the separatist movement since the 90s.

In 2002, the Income Tax department had raided the establishments of some separatist leaders, including Geelani, and seized cash and documents.

The Hurriyat leadership has called for a bandh on July 25 to protest the arrests.

"The joint resistance leadership of Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik have given a call for complete strike and Kashmir bandh tomorrow to protest and condemn the revengeful arbitrary and illegal arrests of Hurriyat leaders," separatists said in a statement later in the day. (With inputs from PTI)




New Delhi: Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who arrived in the Capital on Monday on a five-day visit, said his government had no evidence if the 39 Indians missing from Mosul three years ago were dead or alive.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The issue was discussed between him and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. Talking to the media, he said, We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts. Swaraj is likely to make a statement in Parliament on Tuesday. TNS
Chandigarh, July 24

Family members of 39 Indians, who were abducted in Mosul three years ago, expressed pain and dejection after visiting Iraqi Foreign minister Ibrahim al- Jaafari said that he had no "substantial evidence" on whether the missing persons were killed or alive.

The Iraqi minister had also stressed that best efforts were being made to get information about the 39 missing Indians.

The kin of the missing men, however, were hoping that "concrete" information about the whereabouts of their dear ones would emerge during the Iraqi minister's visit.

"We feel very disappointed. We heard the Iraqi minister say that he does not know whether the 39 missing Indians were dead or alive. We were hoping that he will be able to provide some information or some clue," said Davinder, whose elder brother Gobinder is missing.

"But the minister clearly said he did not have any information about them," Davinder added.

Gobinder was a resident of Murar village in Kapurthala.

"Our family is very tense now; nobody has been able to eat anything," Davinder told PTI.

Family members of the other missing persons said that from the Iraqi minister's statement, it was clear that the Indian government does have any concrete information about the missing.

"Now it has become clear that Indian government does not know about the missing Indians. The government has kept us in the dark for the last three years," said Sarwan.

Amritsar-based Sarwan's 30-year-old brother Nishan had gone missing in Iraq.

"The government told us on June 8 that our men were in a church in Iraq. Then on July 16, during a meeting with Union Minister Sushma Swaraj, we were told that they might have been lodged in a jail in Badush in northwest Mosul," said Sarwan.

But a recent media report said that the jail was abandoned and it had been unoccupied for weeks, he added.

He demanded that the government make the status of the missing Indians clear.

Gurpinder Kaur, whose 26-year-old brother Manjinder Singh is missing, said, "Now we do not know what to do. Our families were quite worried about the well being of our men."

The families have pinned their hopes on the statement External Affairs Minister Swaraj is likely to make tomorrow in the Parliament.

"We will listen to the statement of Swaraj tomorrow and after that we will decide the next course of action," said Sarwan.

Among the 39 Indians who had been missing, 22 were from different places in Punjab including Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar.

The issue was raised by Swaraj during extensive talks with her Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who began a five-day India visit today, nearly two weeks after Mosul was liberated from ISIS by Iraqi forces.

"We don't know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts," the Iraqi foreign minister later told reporters.  PTI
The court held that the petitioner had no right to stop the release of the film unless it was confirmed that she was indeed a member of the Gandhi family.

By Vidya : The Bombay High Court today threw out a petition filed by a woman named Priya Singh Paul who claims to be the daughter of late Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi. Through her lawyer, Tanveer Nizam, she told the court that Madhur Bhandarkar's film Indu Sarkar should not be allowed to release, as it portrayed Sanjay Gandhi, her alleged father, in a bad light.

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Advocate Birendra Saraf, appearing for Madhur Bhandarkar, told the court that last-minute petitions like these should just be thrown out. "We have a disclaimer saying that the film is based on fiction, and that all characters and incidents portrayed in the film are fictitious, and any resemblance is purely coincidental. Moreover, the censor certificate is issued after various cuts that the filmmakers were asked to do. 20 crores have been spent in the making of the film and 800 theaters have been booked, along with various rights which have been given to channels," he said.

Saraf also cited the court order on the film Dirty Picture, which was made on the life of South actor Silk Smitha. He added that the petitioner approaching the court "is just a way of getting acknowledgement from court on the issue of lineage."

The division bench of Justice Anoop Mohta and Justice Anuja Prabhudesai kept asking the petitioner that when the actual descendents of the Gandhi family are not approaching the court, then what was the locus standi of Paul in the case. Nizam told the court that if others have not chosen to come before the court, that does not mean that Paul should also not come to court.

He added that Paul found out that she had been adopted by a family from a Delhi orphanage and has not been able to find any information about her biological parents. "She is still in the process to get details and has also written to the members of the Gandhi family to give samples for checking the genetic lineage. If at that point it is proved that she is the daughter of the family, she will have no remedy if the film is released which shows her father, Sanjay Gandhi in a bad light as a rapist."

However, the division bench was of the view that "unless the claim of lineage is finalised," the petitioner had no ground to stop the release of film. Indu Sarkar is set for release on July 28.

ALSO READ: Indira Gandhi's 'secret granddaughter' slams Madhur Bhandarkar's Indu Sarkar

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ALSO READ: Madhur Bhandarkar refuses to screen Indu Sarkar for any political party

ALSO WATCH: The story of Emergency in India

--- ENDS ---
Islamabad, July 24

A group of 40 Pakistani teachers left for Beijing to receive Chinese language training. A special see-off ceremony for the teachers was held on Sunday at the Chinese embassy here, which was attended by Zhao Lijian, charge daffaires of the embassy and Arshad Ali, executive director of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, reports Xinhua news agency.

It is the third batch of Pakistani teachers visiting China for language training since 2015. So far, at least 120 Pakistani teachers have received training under the International Chinese Language Teacher Training Programme sponsored by the Chinese government.

The 40 teachers -- 26 females and 14 malesfrom different institutes across Pakistan, will get training under the 15-day programme.

Masooma Nayyar, a headmistress of a school from Pakistans southwest province of Balochistan, told Xinhua that the visit to China is going to be a great booster in her career and life.

I am very excited and believe that the training will help me understand Chinese culture and language better, said Nayyar.

Currently, four Confucius Institutes operate in different areas of Pakistan to impart Chinese language to students from all walks of life.  IANS
Riyadh, July 24

As part of Turkeys renewed mediation efforts, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz to discuss the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and the Saudi-led quartet.

The two leaders on Sunday addressed bilateral ties and regional developments, in addition to the efforts being exerted to fight terrorism, Xinhua news agency reported.

Erdogans Gulf tour, which will also take him to Qatar and Kuwait, came amid Turkeys new diplomatic offensive aimed at brokering an end to the Gulf standoff. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu conducted a Gulf tour to mediate the standoff early last month without achieving major results.

The Saudi-led quartet, which also includes the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 and imposed a blockade on the tiny rich Gulf nation.

Turkey has publicly sided with Qatar, with which it has expansive economic and security ties, while criticizing the Saudi-led blockade as inhumane.

Earlier Sunday, Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before leaving for Saudi Arabia that Turkey is seeking an immediate resolution for the ongoing diplomatic row in the Gulf.

Nobody has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore, Erdogan said.

Among the 13 demands put forward by the Saudi-led bloc included the closure of a Turkish military base in Qatar. Turkey has deployed a number of troops in the base recently in a move aimed at bolstering Qatars defiance in face of sanctions and threat from its neighbors.  IANS
Photo:Jim Park.

The first half of 2017 has been good to the trucking industry, and to the vocational market in particular, and the going into the second half of the year, the underlying economic fundamentals look equally promising. That's the view from Kirkland, Wash., where Paccar vice president and Kenworth general manager Mike Dozier addressed reporters at a press event on July 21.

"Whether you're talking vocational or just the market in general in North America, the underlying fundamentals all remain very positive," Dozier said. "There's a very strong alignment between what we're seeing in terms of sentiment within the industry and factors like growth in GDP and the associated rise in consumer confidence. We expect that to continue throughout the year."

Dozier noted that certain key indicators, namely total construction spending and housing starts, trend closely to actual growth in retail orders for the company's T880 vocational chassis.

Earlier this year, Kenworth had forecast retail sales of 190,000 to 220,000 units. At the time, Dozier among others was a bit worried that the situation might change as the post-election hangover wore off, but it hasn't. In fact, Dozier said consumer confidence remains strong-- and the market remains buoyant.

"Earlier in the year, I would have said we were in the lower range of the estimate band," he said. "But today, with half the year still ahead of us, we are in the upper range of that band. That bodes well for the remainder of the year."

Internally, Dozier said the Paccar MX engine now accounts for just over 45% of engine orders across all Class 8 lines  on-highway and vocational. "We are happy with the growth we've seen so far, and we expect to end 2017 with 160,000 MX engines in service," he said.

The Kenworth dealer network continues to grow. There were 382 North American dealers at the end of 2016 with more than 4,700 service bays. Plans call for over 400 dealers by the end of 2017.

"The vocational market has been a terrific positive throughout the course of the year," Dozier said in summary, "and we're looking for that to continue for the rest of the year. We're hearing and we're seeing it in orders. Customers are telling us they are very pleased with how their years are progressing so far."

*Correction: Post originally said Kenworth's headquarters was in Renton, Wash. It has been corrected to Kirkland.
The owners of Cobles Flowers delivered some joy to people at Green Tree Assisted Living and Memory Care facility and the Sand Springs Nursing and Rehab Center last week in the form of bouquets.

Jo Wells of Cobles Flowers went with her daughter, Lindsey Baker, and grandson, Elliot, to deliver the bouquets.

People were very nice, very receptive, Wells said. (Elliot) was a big hit passing out flowers at Green Tree.

She said they took eight arrangements to Green Tree and four to the Sand Springs Nursing and Rehab Center.

Wells said this was Cobles Flowers first time under new owners to participate in Telefloras Make Someone Smile week.

Florists and volunteers deliver Be Happy bouquets to VA hospitals, Meals-On-Wheels recipients, residents at senior assisted living centers and nursing homes or first responders as part of the event.

Teleflora donates more than 25,000 Be Happy mugs for the event.

Telefloras Make Someone Smile Week is a true testament of flower power, and how a simple act of kindness can make a big difference to someone in need of a smile, Teleflora Vice President of Industry Relations and Publications Rich Salvaggio said in a statement. Since its inception in 2000, Teleflora member florists have put their heart into this program, rallying local volunteers and working tirelessly to share the unexpected gift of receiving flowers with many individuals who may have never received flowers in their lives. Its about brightening someones day, watching their face light up and making them feel special; thats the greatest gift to a florist.
On July 17, the Gujarat High Court rejected a plea by Essar Steel challenging a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular asking banks to recover loans taken by the steel major-by making use of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016. Eleven other firms were also named in the circular. Some have outstanding loans ranging from Rs 5,165 crore to Rs 44,479 crore, according to figures published by the All India Bank Employees' Association. Essar had contended that RBI's order was 'improper', as it was already at an advanced stage of loan restructuring. But even as Essar was fighting its case in court, sources say the government had finalised a new list of indebted companies, 500 of them, whose cases would be referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the insolvency code.

Insolvency is the state of being unable to pay one's debts, which could lead to legal consequences for the insolvent entity - in this case, large Indian corporate houses. The HC order was eagerly awaited by corporates, bankers, consultants and legal experts alike, as it sets a precedent for all future cases under the new law, in a country where proceedings under the insolvency and bankruptcy code are at a nascent and untested stage.

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Bad loans have become the bane of the Indian banking system, threatening to undermine the health of state-owned banks and endangering the government's plans to put the economy back on track by reviving major infrastructure projects. Many companies, especially in the infrastructure, mining and telecom sectors, borrowed cheaply in the boom years before the global financial crisis of 2008 to fund massive infrastructure projects. Several of these projects suffered delays due to red tape, issues relating to natural resource allocation and corruption, leading the companies to default on their loans. As a result, the non performing assets (NPAs)-banking jargon for bad loans-of listed public and private sector banks ballooned to Rs 7.7 lakh crore in March 2017, according to a report by BloombergQuint.

These NPAs have forced banks to go slow on issuing loans to certain sectors-such as infrastructure, real estate and retail-as well as consumer loans that are considered risky, leading to a persistent undersupply of credit. Of late, banks have also been advised to set aside higher provisions for NPAs, which has eroded the profitability of several state-owned banks by tying up their available funds. With the government firming up its drive against the pile-up in the Indian banking system, the Essar Steel case is likely one of many that will be fought in the courts as corporate houses come to terms with the new and arguably more definitive insolvency code. In this case, Essar Steel is likely to move the Supreme Court against the HC order, but given that the courts are already overburdened, insolvency proceedings could be painfully long.

A New Remedy

In May, the Centre issued an ordinance amending the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, to help banks quickly recover NPAs from defaulters. The ordinance empowered the RBI to 'issue directions to any banking company... to initiate insolvency resolution process in respect of a default under the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code'. The amended law also empowered the central bank to set up 'oversight panels' to shield bankers from later action by regulatory agencies looking into loan recasts-a recalculation of the loan value and the payments required-which was one of the purported reasons that banks hesitated thus far to take firm action against defaulters.

On June 12, the RBI took another step in its bid to resolve the crisis. Its internal advisory committee identified 12 corporate accounts that each owed at least Rs 5,000 crore, of which three-fifths had been classified as non-performing as of March 31, 2016. The RBI then recommended that these loans be recovered via insolvency proceedings under the newly enacted insolvency and bankruptcy code. These borrowers have defaulted on loans close to Rs 1,75,000 crore, around a quarter of the total pile of bad loans, and will be referred to the NCLT. The RBI has not made public the names of these defaulters or the sizes of their unpaid debts. However, a newsletter circulated by the All India Bank Employees' Association claims that the top defaulters include Bhushan Steel (Rs 44,478 crore), Bhushan Power and Steel (Rs 37,248 crore), Lanco Infrastructure (Rs 44,364 crore), Essar Steel (Rs 37,284 crore) and Alok Industries (Rs 22,075 crore) (see chart: Race to the Bottom). Bankers say that State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest lender, has issued loans to six of these 12 companies. Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, Union Bank, IDBI Bank and Corporation Bank have also issued loans to these companies. These loans dwarf the Rs 9,000 crore of repayments owed by the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines and its flamboyant onetime chairperson, Vijay Mallya.

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(Figures as claimed by All India Bank Employees' Association)

A Strong Signal

On July 4, the NCLT issued its first approval to an application to begin insolvency proceedings under the new bankruptcy guidelines. The application was filed by SBI against Jyoti Structures Ltd, a power infrastructure company. Jyoti's current total debt, according to NCLT filings, is in the region of Rs 7,000 crore, of which about Rs 1,601 crore is owed to SBI.

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These moves have undoubtedly brought welcome respite to creditors. "The government's decision has empowered the RBI and created a situation where the creditors are in control, not the debtors," says Ashish Chhawchharia, partner, recovery & reorganisation, Grant Thornton. Another positive is that the new law is time bound. Once a company begins the insolvency resolution process with the NCLT, it has six months to find a resolution and pay back part of the loan to remain in business.

While bankers can rejoice that the measure will send a strong signal to erring corporates, those on the insolvency radar are seeking legal means to delay the process. Essar Steel, for instance, has even argued before the high court that it should not be treated on par with the 11 other companies mentioned in the RBI circular. Many of those 11 are in dire financial straits, with some of them even defunct. Essar Steel is still operational, and has an annual turnover of Rs 20,000 crore. In a recent interview, Prashant Ruia, CEO, Essar Group, phrased the argument as: "Based on our performance in the last 15 months... we believe that we should be included in the second category of 488 companies, which have been provided a period of six months to restructure the loan, and not be expressly sent to the NCLT with the potential risks of a deterioration in the operations of the company."

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The Time Factor

If the 12 big cases are resolved, lenders and borrowers will likely be encouraged to find ways to resolve the remaining outstanding debts. But that is easier said than done. Earlier attempts to resolve such cases between banks and corporates failed because both sides found it hard to reach a consensus, says Madan Sabnavis, chief economist with Care Ratings. "The borrowers wanted the banks to take a haircut (reduce the due amount) to restructure the outstanding part of the loan," he says. "The banks, on the other hand, would have wanted to get the highest possible price."

Under the new process, once the NCLT approves the beginning of insolvency proceedings, an interim 'insolvency professional' is appointed to take control of the assets of the indebted company and form a creditors' committee. This committee then appoints a professional to oversee the process, and can even choose to rejig the management of the indebted company. The committee then has to come up with a resolution plan that 75 per cent of the creditors approve of, or else decide to liquidate the company's assets. If the resolution plan is not accepted by the NCLT, or no plan is formed within 180 days (a 90 day extension can also be granted), the company goes into liquidation-its business operations are brought to an end and its assets are divided among creditors and shareholders. "Liquidation will be the last resort," says Sabnavis. "Nobody wants the company to come to an end, with its assets sold off to someone else."

The new code's teeth lie in the fact that it is time bound-a resolution has to be found before the deadline is up, else the company's assets are liquidated to repay the loan. Experts say that India's new insolvency and bankruptcy law has been inspired by a similar law in the UK, which has been in place for 30 years.

The Challenges

Since this is the first time in modern India's financial history that such an attempt is being made to deal with NPAs in a time-bound manner, no one is sure of what's in store, or what legal loopholes indebted companies might be able to make use of. For instance, if a company moves the courts to challenge a decision by the creditor's committee, and the court proceedings continue past the 270-day deadline imposed by the NCLT, does that mean the company will be automatically liquidated, or will a court-granted extension be valid to extend the NCLT's deadlines? Matters like these are yet to be resolved.

Another problem is that in the Indian context, there is no concept of a 'bad bank'-a financial entity created specifically to buy up NPAs from lenders before they are restructured-though such ideas have been discussed for many years now. In the absence of such financial institutions, India is in the unique situation where the central bank is itself involved in the process. Essar Steel has already contended in court that it is inappropriate for the RBI to decide which debts have to be dealt with on a priority basis. However, experts say there is merit in the RBI's decision to choose the largest defaulters for its first list of companies directed to begin insolvency proceedings.

Another issue relates to the liquidation of indebted companies. For example, in the case of a company in the power sector, even the selling of assets could prove a painfully long task for a lack of potential buyers. And with companies taking such problems to the courts, the process could be even longer. "In India, almost anything can go to court and get held up," says Sabnavis.

Moreover, India does not currently have the financial ecosystem to effectively deal with insolvency and bankruptcy cases. The ecosystem would comprise insolvency benches for the NCLT and insolvency professionals who are trained and certified. SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya recently made this point while in Kolkata, adding that the bank is not "rushing" to settle its stressed accounts under the new law.

The stage has been set for one of the biggest resolution processes in corporate India to begin, this time promising to be more definitive and time bound. Even so, it will no doubt be a long and excruciating experience for the participants.

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More Oklahoma high school students are signing up for college courses at the same time funding for the concurrent enrollment program is shrinking.

During the 2016-17 academic year, 19,358 high school seniors statewide completed 91,035 college credits and didnt pay one penny of tuition. They saved an average of $116 per credit earned, according to a report from the State Regents for Higher Education.

Colleges and universities are being reimbursed for only about 27 percent of the cost.

Regents requested $6.4 million from the Legislature to fully fund the program for the coming academic year, but did not receive it.

kmcnutt @oklahoman.com
A Collinsville woman allegedly was driving drunk with a 2-year-old when she was involved in a collision Sunday afternoon.

Owasso police arrested Robyn Leigh Island, 27, on complaints of child endangerment, causing an injury accident while driving under the influence and failure to yield while turning, according to jail records.

Island was driving her vehicle south in the 10600 block of North Garnett Road in Owasso when she attempted to make and eastbound turn, Owasso police state in her arrest report. She collided with a northbound vehicle.

Island told police officers she did not see the other vehicle. According to the arrest report, she was holding her 2-year-old daughter outside the vehicle and showed signs of intoxication when officers arrived.

Island allegedly told officers that she had had a drink earlier in the day. She allegedly had a breath alcohol level of 0.25 percent, according to the affidavit. Oklahoma's legal limit is 0.08 percent.

Island was released Sunday evening from Tulsa Jail on a $28,600 bond. She is scheduled July 31 for a court appearance.
Wagoner County authorities arrested two people over the weekend after allegedly finding a substantial amount of methamphetamine in their residence.

Sheriffs deputies served a search warrant at a Lake Crest area residence, where they found guns and drugs, according to Deputy Nick Mahoney.

Deputies found methamphetamine, marijuana, digital scales, plastic bags and several guns, Mahoney stated in a news release. Much of the meth and marijuana was allegedly packaged for resale.

While the Wagoner County Sheriffs Office is coping with new Oklahoma drug laws, we will not be deterred from hunting down and bringing drug dealers to justice, Sheriff Chris Elliott stated in the news release.

Deputies arrested Wanda Gail Matlock, 54, and Larry Capps, 58, while serving the search warrant. Their juvenile grandson reportedly was in the residence when deputies served the warrant.

Matlock and Capps were booked into Wagoner County Jail on complaints of trafficking methamphetamine, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, possession of a controlled substance in the presence of a minor, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, use of surveillance equipment during the commission of a felony, maintaining a dwelling where drugs are kept and sold, possession of a controlled drug without a tax stamp and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Editor's note: This story has been updated since its original publication.

Foster children will soon be able to receive state funds to attend private school.

The change represents the first time that a state school voucher program, the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program, has been expanded beyond students who are disabled or have special needs. It could foreshadow future efforts to open the program up to more children.

The Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship Program, created in 2010, gives parents of students with disabilities funds to pay for private school tuition and other educational expenses. In the 2016-17 school year, parents of 520 children received a total of just over $2.5 million to pay the costs.

This years changes, which go into effect Sept. 1, expand eligibility to foster children, adopted foster children and children in custody of the Office of Juvenile Affairs. The students are eligible if they have an individualized services plan, which all foster children are supposed to receive within 30 days of being removed from home. State officials said a relatively small number of students will be affected.

The expansion came about through Senate Bill 301, and was signed by Gov. Mary Fallin in May.

Under current law, families can receive the scholarship funds only if their child attended a public school the previous year and was on an individualized education plan, meaning they were designated as special needs or disabled. The new law exempts from that requirement those in foster care or the custody of the Office of Juvenile Affairs or Department of Human Services. Previously, some children with disabilities in DHS custody had been denied scholarships because of the prior year requirement, department spokesman Sheree Powell said.

The Office of Juvenile Affairs has not yet attempted to use the program.

Sen. AJ Griffin, R-Guthrie, who authored the bill, said the intent is to recognize that foster children often have mental health conditions that dont necessarily result in a disability diagnosis.

Kids from care that have suffered significant trauma may do fine on a math test, but may have an emotional issue that prohibits them from functioning in a traditional environment, Griffin said. It allows opportunities for those special children that may not meet the current definition of education special needs.

Griffin said she doesnt plan to propose expanding the program to other subgroups of children, though other legislators might. The bills co-author, Sen. Rob Standridge, R-Norman, also pushed a proposal this year to create education savings accounts, which give parents a portion of the state funding used to educate their child to spend on private school tuition or other qualifying expenses. The bill died in committee but will likely be brought back in 2018.

Other states have approved programs that were incrementally expanded to include additional students. For instance, Arizonas scholarship program was implemented for students with disabilities and was gradually scaled up to include many other subgroups, such as those in military families and at low-performing schools. This year, Arizona legislators approved expanding eligibility to all 1.1 million students.

Opponents of voucher programs say they drain critical funds from public schools, where the majority of children are educated, and send public money to private, often religious, schools.

Broader education savings account proposals have so far been unsuccessful in Oklahoma, facing opposition from public education advocates and lawmakers representing rural areas.

The Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarship program was challenged in court but upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2016. Opponents argued in part that the program would redirect public funds to religious schools. Last year, about 60 percent of the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships provided, or just under $1.5 million, was spent at religious schools, according to the state Education Department.
City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper and former Councilor Jack Henderson agree on one thing: Its all just politics.

Henderson, the longtime District 1 councilor whom Hall-Harper bested last year to win the seat, is a leader of a political faction in the community whose core motivator is being at odds with Hall-Harper.

Until winning Hendersons seat last year, Hall-Harper could be described in much the same way, having led her political faction that was at its core against Henderson.

The most recent issue that is causing political discord in the north Tulsa district is a grocery store moratorium, pitched by Hall-Harper, to curb proliferation of convenient grocery stores that dont offer broad options for fresh produce.

Henderson attended a council committee meeting recently to raise protest when the issue was discussed, saying that turning down businesses from opening new development in the district will have no affect on the opening of a full-fledged grocery store.

Hall-Harper has also faced criticism recently for helping locate the USA BMX headquarters in her district in the historic Greenwood neighborhood, and before that it was a fight between Hall-Harper and Henderson over the Greenwood Chamber.

The two political leaders say the same thing: Its the other sides political attacks, plain and simple.

Theyre looking for an issue to jump on to be contrary to my position, Hall-Harper said. It all boils down to the fact hes still mad he lost the election. Thats it.

Hall-Harper said Henderson is peddling conspiracies around the grocery store moratorium when all she is trying to do is use the tools she has available as a councilor to try and make her community more healthy.

Henderson, naturally, disagrees.

Shes trying to undo anything Ive done and take credit for it, Henderson said. This moratorium is about the craziest thing Ive ever heard.

Henderson said the moratorium is currently focusing on the 36th Street corridor, an area for which he helped develop a plan to ready it for development.

Were going to do great things on 36th Street North, Henderson said. Ive already got some interest from smaller stores. If we get that moratorium, thats going to hurt. She just wants to hurt Jack Hendersons popularity.

Some in Hall-Harpers district took issue with the recent announcement to build USA BMXs headquarters and the home of an Olympic sport at the citys long-vacant Evans-Fintube industrial site.

Hall-Harper, who helped Mayor G.T. Bynum announce the plan, said a third of the site would be reserved for private development, which she would encourage and support members of her community to take advantage of.

To me, its a win-win, but the only way its going to be a win-win is if we stay engaged, Hall-Harper said. Unfortunately, this came about in such a quick way that I didnt get a chance to address the entire community in a way that I like.

Critics of the plan, fearing gentrification, have voiced concern that Evans-Fintubes location, on the eastern edge of the Greenwood District, means that it should be developed to bolster the areas historic black culture.

It was an opportunity for Vanessa and her little group to make it look like they are doing something, Henderson said. That was odd for me.

Hall-Harper said she expects to take more criticism from the faction in her district that stand behind Henderson, and she will take it as it comes.

I campaign by work, Hall-Harper said. I campaign by action. Action speaks louder than words. You dont make progress by sitting on the sideline and complaining.
More than 100 pills were sold for every adult in the Cherokee Nation's tribal lands in 2015, prosecutors for the country's second-largest tribe wrote in an affidavit filed Friday in U.S. District Court.

In April, the Cherokee Nation became the first tribe ever to sue pharmaceutical providers for their alleged role in the country's opioid epidemic. The lawsuit, filed in Cherokee Nation court in Tahlequah, takes on some of the nation's largest drug distributors and pharmacies, including Walmart and Walgreens. The six companies named in the lawsuit contract with the tribe's health care system.

In a motion for a preliminary injunction filed in June, attorneys for the drug distributors asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma to remove the lawsuit from tribal court, arguing the Nation lacks the jurisdiction to litigate the case in its court system.

Several affidavits filed Friday by prosecutors from Cherokee Nation Attorney General Todd Hembree's office lay out the tribe's argument that an opioid epidemic of unprecedented proportions has swept through the tribe's lands for the last several years.
Update: Authorities booked Shawn Sexton, 25, into Creek County jail Monday morning after he was released from the hospital.

Sexton was booked on a complaint of possession of a firearm after a former felony conviction, use of body armor during commission of a felony and five complaints of shooting with intent to kill, a Creek County jailer said.

Sexton is being held without bond pending his initial appearance Monday in court.

Sexton was on probation with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. According to online prison and court records, Sexton was previously convicted in of a series of felonies committed between 2008 and 2012.

He was convicted on many of those charges in 2011 and 2013, including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, aggravated assault and battery, conspiracy, second-degree burglary, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and larceny of a controlled substance.

A Creek County judge sentenced Sexton to eight years  five years in DOC and three years on probation  for his 2011 convictions, according to court records.

For his 2013 convictions, he was sentenced to 20 years  four years in prison and 16 on probation. Sexton was released in January 2017.

A Bristow police officer shot a drive-by shooting suspect Sunday afternoon, after the man shot at the officer and another driver while fleeing the shooting, authorities said.

No one was seriously injured, officials said.

On Sunday afternoon, Shawn Dale Sexton, 25, of Bristow, fired a shot at an officer as he was fleeing a drive-by shooting he had just allegedly committed in Slick, about 13 miles southeast of Bristow, according to a news release from the Oklahoma State Bureau of investigation.

Sexton reportedly spotted the Bristow officer on Oklahoma 48 and shot at him, hitting his car, the OSBI said.

As Sexton was fleeing, he shot at a driver who was injured by flying debris. That Missouri man was treated and released from a local hospital, the OSBI said.

During the pursuit, an officer shot at Sexton, hitting him in the chest. Sexton then ran into a bridge, wrecking the Jeep he was driving.

Sexton was wearing a bullet-proof vest and suffered only minor injuries, the OSBI said.

Sexton was arrested for numerous felony crimes, the agency said, without elaborating on the specific complaints.

A half-dozen OSBI special agents were investigating both the drive-by shooting in Slick and the officer-involved shooting in Bristow.

The shootings prompted law enforcement to close a stretch of Oklahoma 48 south of Bristow.

Creek County sheriffs deputies and Oklahoma Highway Patrol were called to assist at the scene near Oklahoma 48 and 251st Street about 4:30 p.m.

The shooting caused troopers to close the northbound highway lanes. They remained closed Sunday night, and law enforcement was waving motorists by.

Bristow is about 30 miles southwest of Tulsa.

OSBI asks anyone who witnessed the shooting late this afternoon on Highway 48 near 251st Street in Bristow to please call the OSBI hotline at 1-800-522-8017 or the Bristow Police Department at 918-367-2252.

Paighten Harkins Tulsa World
Hundreds of bodies of foreign ISIS fighters are stored in freezers in Misrata, a town in Libya, as countries like Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt have refused to take them.

By Reuters: Seven months after Libyan forces defeated Islamic State in the coastal city of Sirte, hundreds of bodies of foreign militants still lie stored in freezers as authorities negotiate with other governments to decide what to do with them, local officials say.

The corpses have been shipped to Misrata, a city further to the west whose forces led the fight to defeat Islamic State in Sirte in December.

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Allowing the bodies to be shipped home to countries such as Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt would be sensitive for the governments involved, wary of acknowledging how many of their citizens left to fight as jihadists in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

"Our team removed hundreds of bodies," a member of the Misrata organised crime unit dealing with the bodies told Reuters, his face masked to conceal his identity because of security concerns.

"This is the main operation which allows us to preserve the bodies, document and photograph them and also collect DNA samples."

The crime unit said it was awaiting a decision from the Prosecutor General, who was in talks with foreign governments over the return of the bodies.

Islamic State has now been defeated in its main stronghold in the Iraqi city of Mosul and is under pressure in its base in the Syrian city of Raqqa. But at the height of its territorial control it attracted recruits from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe to its ranks.

In Tunisia alone, officials say more than 3,000 citizens left to fight in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Tunisians who trained in militant camps in Libya carried out two gun attacks on foreign tourists in 2015 that battered Tunisia's vital tourism industry.

Islamic State took over Sirte in 2015, taking advantage of infighting between rival Libyan armed factions and using the city as a base from which to attack oil fields and other nearby towns.

ALSO READ:

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Meet Harjit Masih, the only one among the Indians abducted by ISIS to have returned home

India Today first to reach Mosul after ISIS fall. No sign of missing 39 Indians

Teenager reveals horrific details as sex slave in ISIS captivity

ISIS publishes female sex slave handbook

EXCLUSIVE: The story of ISIS sex slaves

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While not all of us can make it out to San Diego for Comic-Con, we still get to hear and see some of the very exciting announcements made there every year. Unfortunately, many Marvel fans were hoping the studio would drop some sort of footage from their upcoming massive team-up film; Avengers: Infinity War. But sadly, that wasn't the case, as we were limited to descriptions and left praying someone would leak the footage. Well it seems our prayers have been answered, cause not only did a piece of the trailer leak, but now a full version has popped up online. Enjoy.

Two parts of the full Comic-Con poster given to fans

The last Comic-Con trailer released showing the remaining missing characters from the film



So what did you think of the footage? Did it live up to your expectations? Let us know below!

Here is the full trailer that was shown:The footage is pretty overwhelming, and matches with the descriptions we've read. It starts on a lighter tone with Thor crashing onto the windshield of Star-Lord's ship The Milano. It then gets much darker, but some highlights include Peter Parker rocking the amazing Iron Spider suit offered to him at the end of Homecoming. Another is Bucky Barnes being unfrozen and an entire army of Wakandan soldiers lead by Black Panther ready to head into battle. We also get a glimpse of an emotional scene between Tony and Peter, and a face off between Tony and Thanos. Its a lot to take in, but watch it while you still can folks.Spidey isn't the only character we see get a makeover in this movie, as we see a badass long haired and bearded Steve Rogers (Not as Captain America). Rumor has it he has vacated the mantle and will be taking on the identity of Nomad, like he did in the comics. Black Widow also isn't sporting her trademark red hair, and instead will have blonde locks this time around. From what we can gather, Thor somehow ends up in space after the events of Ragnarok and comes across the Guardians. In the meantime, Rogers is in Wakanda where Bucky is being kept and presumably fights alongside T'Challa's army. And Scarlet Witch and Vision are both imprisoned somewhere, but its too vague to tell where.
Tonight Dateline is in Southern France to meet the French farmer rebelling against authorities, to help refugees find a better life in Europe.

French farmer, Cedric Herrou is standing trial for helping hundreds of migrants crossing the border from France to Italy illegally. As he faces possible incarceration for defying authorities, Dateline travels to the Roya Valley in southern France to ask whats driving this ordinary olive farmer to risk everything to help these young immigrants.

Its not up to me to judge whos black or white, legal or illegal. Thats not my job. Im a farmer. My job is to feed people, Cedric tells Dateline.

These are people with desires, with pasts, with families waiting for them; people who are in love; parents who love their kids; kids who love their parents. Some kids cry for parents who are still in Italy or dead. Theyre people with emotions, desires and hopes for the future.

Last year alone, 181,000* refugees arrived in Italy on their way to other parts of Europe. With migrant camps overflowing and borders closed, many try to find alternative routes  routes that traverse mountains that are often deadly. Without the help of locals like Cedric some wouldnt survive.

The Eritreans came here fleeing dictatorship, the Sudanese came here fleeing war I wanted to take them to my home and help them, said Cedric.

At one point, I had about 60 people at my place. We were worried we couldnt cope.

Cedrics farm has become a haven for refugees daring to sneak across the Italian-French border. Its made him a hero to some and a criminal to others.

The public prosecutor described my actions as humanitarian and important, so I continued doing it with better resources.

But this is the third time Cedrics been arrested and this time he may be jailed.

In fact, an unexpected humanitarian movement has sprung up in the Roya Valley with Cedric and 10 others facing charges for providing sanctuary to illegal migrants, many of them unaccompanied minors.

As anti-immigration sentiment rises, Cedrics trial has attracted global attention. His efforts and those of other immigration activists have been described as the French Underground Railroad.

In France, passions are running hot  Cedrics case has attracted enormous sympathy from some sections of the French public, but the stakes are high for this olive farmer with a big heart. Will he be jailed for doing what he thinks is right? Is he a hero or a people smuggler?

*Source: UNHCR

Tuesday 25 July at 9.30pm on SBS.
This week on Foreign Correspondent Hamish Macdonald speaks with Manchesters Muslim community following the tragedy surrounding the Ariana Grande concert.

After all the grief & fury -how does a city recover?

After one of its own sons bombed the Ariana Grande pop concert, killing 22 people and injuring 116 more, the city of Manchester put on a brave face.

Everyones standing together, says young local James. Theres just no hate at all here, says his friend Olivia.

If only it were that simple. For all the tolerance that Manchester has shown after the attack, the spotlight turned quickly to its Libyan community, where the 22-year-old bomber came from.

Enough is enough, declared Prime Minister Teresa May, warning of difficult and embarrassing conversations with Muslims, who account for about five per cent of Britains population, and 16 per cent of Manchesters.

Yet her government refuses to release a controversial report that is believed to detail Saudi funding of extremist groups in the UK. Saudi Arabia is a strong ally of Britain, which is a major supplier of military equipment to the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia.

So now Manchesters Muslims are under pressure to come up with answers no one else has. As reporter Hamish MacDonald discovers, many are asking themselves the question: what can I do when an atrocity is committed in my name?

For Sumayya, a 15-year-old Ariana Grande fan, there is no answer, just confusion. She was at the concert and was traumatised by seeing the bloodshed. But she also cops the public backlash: People look at me like, Youre a Muslim, you must be like a terrorist or something.'

Psychologist Amna leads a group of women who hit the streets to engage with the wider community. But at home she grapples with what to tell her kids about Islam and terrorism. She chokes up as she describes her daughter telling her: I can understand why they hate us now.

Libyan community leader Hashem loves the city that gave him refuge from the Gaddafi regime 41 years ago. He feels shame that a Libyan bombed the concert, and regrets that he and others somehow did not stop it. Its a big responsibility for anybody to own.

We have to say there has been a naivete, he says. I think possibly society is right in saying, Hey Libyans, you have to stand up and be counted and own up to this.'

Local councillor Amina Lone claims Islam has been hijacked by conservatives and needs to change. To make her point she takes Foreign Correspondent to a suburban mosque where women dont have space to pray.

It makes me angry, she says. It feels like youre a second-class citizen.

In Manchester, Hamish Macdonald finds a community struggling for solutions, but at one in its willingness to engage in those difficult and embarrassing conversations.

Tuesday July 25 at 9.20 pm on ABC.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan yesterday spoke at Series Mania Industry Day and addressed differences between the Writers Room in the US compared to Australia.

Gilligan said a small group of writers plotted every episode intensely before a writer subsequently penned the script itself.

Its a sequestered jury that never ends. Were sitting around all day talking ad nauseam, talking about minute detail, he explained.

The breaking of the episodes is the hardest part and takes the most elbow grease. It probably takes on average 3 weeks to break each episode. Sometimes weve gone as many as 5 or 6 weeks.

Thats why its such a blessing to have more pre-production time.

We want the show to be visual storytelling, we want it to be cinematic -we want to dispense with dialogue. We love writing dialogue for Saul Goodman or Jimmy McGill.

But thats the cherry on top.

Writers plot on 35 cards with a felt pen marker, putting each plot on a large board.

When were done any one of us could write that episode, he continued.

The writing is, in a sense the easy part. The breaking of the story is all-hands-on-deck, intense, focus-until-your-eyes-bleed. Its the least-fun part of the job, but the saving grace is we all like each other.

We dont send a writer off to write until weve found it in the Writers Room because its a waste of time otherwise.

But when moderator Kelly Lefever explained Australian Writers Rooms are usually given just 2 days to plot an episode, Gilligan was shocked.

Im truly sorry to hear that. Most shows in the States get more time than that. Not a whole lot more, but we are blessed even compared to other shows, he said.

Most shows in the States you might get a week to break an episode, maybe less. Not 2 days. Thats crazy -no offence.

Youve gotta have time to think it all through. Otherwise youre running for your life. Youre up your ass with alligators.
Somali refugee Sabah holds up photos of her three children at a detention centre in Nauru, in 2014. She had not seen them for three years.  Panos/ Vlad Sokhin

Australias policy of offshore processing in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, which denies access to asylum in Australia for refugees arriving by sea without a valid visa, has caused extensive, avoidable suffering for far too long.

Four years on, more than 2,000 people are still languishing in unacceptable circumstances. Families have been separated and many have suffered physical and psychological harm.

In light of this dire humanitarian situation, last November UNHCR exceptionally agreed to help with the relocation of refugees to the United States following a bilateral agreement between Australia and the US. We agreed to do so on the clear understanding that vulnerable refugees with close family ties in Australia would ultimately be allowed to settle there.

UNHCR has recently been informed by Australia that it refuses to accept even these refugees, and that they, along with the others on Nauru and Papua New Guinea, have been informed that their only option is to remain where they are or to be transferred to Cambodia or to the United States.

This means, for example, that some with serious medical conditions, or who have undergone traumatic experiences, including sexual violence, cannot receive the support of their close family members residing in Australia.

To avoid prolonging their ordeal, UNHCR has no other choice but to endorse the relocation of all refugees on Papua New Guinea and Nauru to the United States, even those with close family members in Australia.

There is no doubt these vulnerable people, already subject to four years of punishing conditions, should be reunited with their families in Australia. This is the humane and reasonable thing to do.

The Australian governments decision to deny them this possibility is contrary to the fundamental principles of family unity and refugee protection, and to common decency.

UNHCR fully endorses the need to save lives at sea and to provide alternatives to dangerous journeys and exploitation by smugglers. But the practice of offshore processing has had a hugely detrimental impact. There is a fundamental contradiction in saving people at sea, only to mistreat and neglect them on land.

Australia has a proud humanitarian tradition, manifested in its support for overseas aid and its longstanding refugee resettlement programme. I urge Australia to bring an immediate end to the harmful practice of offshore processing, offer solutions to its victims, for whom it retains full responsibility, and work with us on future alternatives that save lives at sea and provide protection to people in need.

At a time of record levels of displacement globally, it is crucial that all States offer protection to survivors of war and persecution, and not outsource their responsibilities to others. Refugees, our fellow human beings, deserve as much.

Background

Approximately 2,500 refugees and asylum-seekers have been forcibly transferred by Australia to offshore processing facilities in Papua New Guinea and Nauru since the introduction of the current policy in 2013. Of these, some 1,100 remain in Nauru and 900 in Papua New Guinea.

Following the Australia-US bilateral agreement on relocation, UNHCR has referred more than 1,100 refugees to the US over the past eight months. Another 500 people are still waiting for the outcome of the refugee status determination processing being carried out by authorities in PNG and Nauru, under the Australian arrangement.

Media contacts:
Linda W, 16, who joined ISIS with other German women, has been located and identified in Iraq. She is currently being held in an Iraqi prison and receiving consular support.

By Reuters: A German teenager who joined Islamic State is now being held in detention in Iraq and says she regrets joining the jihadist group and just wants to come home to her family, media reports said.

Der Spiegel magazine reported on Saturday that four German women who joined Islamic State in recent years, including a 16-year-old girl from the small town of Pulsnitz near Dresden, are being held in an Iraqi prison and receiving consular assistance.

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Lorenz Haase, senior public prosecutor in Dresden, said he could confirm the teenager, named only as Linda W., had been "located and identified in Iraq" and was receiving consular support but could not say anything on her exact circumstances.

German broadcasters NDR and WDR and newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said they had interviewed Linda W in the infirmary of a military complex in Baghdad and she told them she wanted to leave.

"I just want to get away from here," she was quoted as saying. "I want to get away from the war, from the many weapons, from the noise."

She added: "I just want to go home to my family."

The media outlets said the teenager had told them she regretted joining IS, wanted to be extradited to Germany and would cooperate with authorities.

They said the girl had a gunshot wound on her left thigh and another injury on her right knee that she said was caused during a helicopter attack.

"I'm doing well," she said.

German prosecutors said last week they were checking reports that a 16-year-old under investigation for supporting Islamic State was among five women arrested in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where Iraqi forces declared victory over Islamic State earlier this month.

German authorities have been investigating a teenage girl who went missing from Pulsnitz last summer for alleged contacts with the jihadist group about preparing a possible act of terrorism.

On Tuesday Haase said the girl had travelled to Turkey about a year ago with the apparent goal of reaching Iraq or Syria and security officials had later lost her trail, but new evidence had since emerged in the case.

ALSO READ:

Meet Harjit Masih, the only one among the Indians abducted by ISIS to have returned home

India Today first to reach Mosul after ISIS fall. No sign of missing 39 Indians

Teenager reveals horrific details as sex slave in ISIS captivity

ISIS publishes female sex slave handbook

WATCH: EXCLUSIVE: The story of ISIS sex slaves

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By PTI: (Eds: Updating with JNU VCs reax)

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) JNU Vice Chancellor Jagadesh Kumars demand for an army tank in the campus was virtually rejected by students and teachers alike, saying that the institution cannot be turned into a "theatre of war".

"The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA) is amused by the vice chancellors earnest desire that a tank be rolled onto JNU campus. It is surprising that Prof Jagadesh Kumar can only be inspired to patriotism upon beholding instruments of war," JNUTA president Ayesha Kidwai said in a release.

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"The JNU community does not need these visual aids to feel love and concern for this land," she said.

During the Kargil Vijay Diwas celebrations held at the campus yesterday, the VC had asked Union ministers to help him procure a tank to be displayed inside the varsity premises as a reminder of sacrifices of Army personnel.

Reacting to the criticism of his demand by the students and teachers associations, JNU VC Jagadesh Kumar told PTI, "A tank was asked only to recognise and respect sacrifices of our alumni. JNU has been issuing degrees for cadets from all three forces---the Army, Navy and Air Force".

"VC taking a lead in turning the campus into a parade ground is a worrying sign of debilitating and distinctly anti-intellectual effects," JNUTA said.

The association also accused the central government for making vice chancellors comply with its agenda to constantly demonstrate love of country through physical symbols and staged events.

JNU Students Association (JNUSU) General Secretary, Satarupa Chakraborty, said good academic environment, intellectual space for debates and discussions, good academic and infrastructural facilities were primary requirements for an educational institution.

"Army tanks are not for spectacle. Nationalism cannot be infused through beholding instruments of war. The VC and his idea of a tank in the varsity is not needed to instill patriotism. Patriotism is not to be enforced upon," Chakraborty said. PTI CPB SRY ZMN SRY

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(July 24, 2017) -- George Perry, the Semmes Foundation University Chair in Neurobiology and dean of the College of Sciences at The University of Texas at San Antonio, has created a massive open online course (MOOC) focusing on the progression of Alzheimers disease from molecular and genetic perspectives.

Perry is one of the most prolific Alzheimers disease researchers in the United States and is the 10th most cited Alzheimers disease researcher in the world. His new course is one of the first of its kind.

This is a great opportunity for an undergraduate or graduate student to gain a baseline knowledge of Alzheimers disease, Perry said.

The MOOC was created in collaboration with the UTSA Office of Online Learning and the Video Production Group under the UTSA Office of Information Technology. It allow students to explore the history of Alzheimers disease and identify the major scholars who contributed to the advancement of the research in addition to helping them understand the correlation between clinical disease, morphologic changes and molecular pathways. Also, students will learn to identify the contribution of healthy lifestyle habits to prevent or delay the development of the disease.

The top-tier course is free of charge and available online. It consists of a variety of audio-visual lessons to appeal to several different learning styles. Perry will open the lessons through short videos to provide an overview of the knowledge about to be imparted. Students may earn a passing grade by scoring 80% or higher on their quizzes.

We want to increase literacy on the issue, said Perry. To do that, we knew we had to work with a wider audience, and that meant going online.

The course is crafted to give undergraduate and graduate students a strong understanding of neurodegenerative disease. It also works effectively as an introduction to brain health research, which has a home at UTSA in several institutes including the UTSA Neurosciences Institute, the San Antonio Cellular Therapeutics Institute, the South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, the Center for Innovative Drug Discovery and the Institute for Health Disparities Research.

Additionally, Perry designed the course with frequent collaborator Rudy J. Castellani, professor of pathology at the University of Maryland at Baltimore to be useful to the medical community. Medical professionals treating Alzheimers patients could benefit greatly from the course by gaining a greater understand of the disease as well as neurodegenerative diseases in general, he said.

The course launches on August 28 through edX, a massive open online course provider created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Online enrollment is open now.
JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar termed the programme "historic" and said it was an important day to remember the sacrifices made by the Army.

By Press Trust of India: The air of the JNU campus, which was at the centre of a controversy for alleged anti-India slogans last year, was today filled with patriotic spirit as the varsity observed Kargil Vijay Diwas to mark the sacrifices of Indian soldiers in the 1999 war.

It started with the JNU faculty and students along with the kin of Kargil martyrs and members of Veterans India, a body of ex-servicemen, holding a march with a 2,200-feet-long tricolour and paying tributes at the Wall of Heroes - located in JNU's convention centre where 21 portraits of Param Vir Chakra awardees are exhibited.

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The programme also witnessed a performance by the army band. At the event, women family members of soldiers who died fighting in the Kargil war were felicitated.

JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar termed the programme "historic" and said it was an important day to remember the sacrifices made by the Army and other security forces for the country.

ARMY TANK IN JNU

The V-C also said the varsity has asked the government to help them procure an army tank which can be put up on display in the campus so that students can be reminded of the sacrifices and valour of the soldiers.

Lauding the initiative taken by the university, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, said JNU created history today by organising Tiranga March, setting up Wall of Heroes and by raising slogans of "Bharat Mata ki Jai" and "Vande Mataram".

He further said "In no other country, is the Army being questioned. As India is a democracy, some powers dare to show India in poor light. May God give sch people better sense".

SPIRIT OF UNITY

Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh was also present at the event.

"The outside forces never succeeded with their powers. They became successful only when an insider helped them out. The Indian veterans have been trying to instill the spirit of unity in every Indian heart," the former Army chief said.

He added that Indian soldiers work with the feeling that the nation is above all and there is no division within the Army on the grounds of religion, caste and community.

He said the Indian Army is the best in terms of observing human rights.

Veterans India's Major General G D Bakshi spoke of how Indian soldiers guard the nations treacherous borders with Pakistan in extremely inhospitable weather conditions in Kashmir.

Also read: Delhi man arrested for masturbating while looking at German JNU scholar

Also read: Missing Najeeb case: CBI seeks details of JNU students involved in fight with him

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Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 35 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

By Reuters: A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 40, and the death toll could rise, an Interior Ministry spokesman in the Afghan capital said.

Police cordoned off the area, located near the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shi'ite Hazara community live.

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Monday's suicide bombing was yet another example of the unrelenting violence in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

"I was in my shop when suddenly I heard a terrible sound and as a result all of my shop windows shattered," said Ali Ahmed, a resident in the area of Monday's blast.

Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 35 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

Salim Rasouli, director of the city's hospitals, said at least 13 dead and 17 wounded had been taken to hospitals.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the Islamist group in a post on Twitter, saying 37 "intelligence workers" had been killed.

The Taliban often exaggerate the scale of attacks against Afghan government and foreign targets.

Mujahid said the target of the attack had been two buses that had been under surveillance for two months.

Government security forces said a small bus owned by the Ministry of Mines had been destroyed in the blast.

Three civilian vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or damaged in the blast, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

At least 1,662 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in the first half of the year. The latest suicide bombing came two weeks after the Islamic State group claimed an attack on a mosque in the capital that killed at least four people.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in a massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to United Nations figures.

On Sunday, dozens of Afghan troops were under siege after Taliban fighters overran a district in northern Faryab province, a spokesman for the provincial police said.

There was also fighting in Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Kunduz provinces in Afghanistan's north, and Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan in the south, according to officials.

The resurgence of violence also coincides with the U.S. administration weighing up its strategic options for Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops to bolster the training and advisory mission already helping Afghan forces.

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Also read:

Afghanistan: Taliban fighters attack police, capture two districts

Kabul bomb blast death toll hits 80, over 350 others injured in suicide attack near Indian embassy

Dozens killed or wounded in attack on Afghanistan police headquarters, Taliban claims responsibility

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani orders execution of 11 Haqqani, Taliban terrorists

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Kevin Hart and Hartbeat Productions announce the return of HartBeat Weekend at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas with headliners Dave Chappelle and Usher. The fourth annual weekend event will span Sept. 13, 2017 and feature the best in music and comedy (Pictured: Usher  Photo credit: Kurt Iswarienko).

International superstar Usher kicks off Friday night with an explosive concert at The Chelsea inside The Cosmopolitan followed by Kevin Hart & Friends comedy set on Saturday night. Sunday will feature a cant-miss show as Kevin Hart brings legend Dave Chapelle to the HartBeat stage, creating what is sure to be one of the most iconic nights in comedy history.

I cant wait for HartBeat Weekend 2017. Every year gets better and better, remarked Hart.

A portion of the weekends proceeds will support Kevin Hart Charities benefitting BrittiCares International. Britticares is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to finding new and better ways to improve the quality of life for children who have been diagnosed with cancer. Hart has worked with the BrittiCares organization over the years including designing custom dream-like bedrooms specific to each childs wish.

Were thrilled to be working with Kevin Hart and Hartbeat Weekend again, it has meant so much to us, the children and families that have been helped over the years. stated Shirelle Henderson, Founder of Britticares International.

THE HARTBEAT WEEKEND FULL LINEUP:

FRIDAY, SEPT. 1

HartBeat Weekend Concert with Usher Hosted by Kevin Hart

The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

Show at 9 p.m.; Doors open at 8 p.m.

Tickets: GA prices starting at $49

Eight-time Grammy-Award winner Usher joins the wildly popular weekend with a concert at The Chelsea. Usher has been ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America as one of the best-selling artists in American music history, having sold over 65 million albums worldwide. He has won numerous awards including eight Grammy Awards and was named the #1 Hot 100 artist of the 2000s decade. Billboard named him the second most successful artist of the 2000s decade, with his career-propelling 2004 album Confessions being ranked as the top solo album of the 2000s decade. Usher has attained nine Hot 100 #1 hits (all as a lead artist) and 18 Hot 100 top-10 singles. 2016 proved to be a big year for Usher not only in Music but also in Film and his philanthropic endeavors. Musically, Usher released his much anticipated 8th studio album entitled Hard II Love which has already spawned his 15th number one single with the song No Limit.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 2

HartBeat Weekend Kevin Hart & Friends Comedy Show

The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

Show 1 at 7 p.m.; Doors open at 6 p.m.

Show 2 at 10:30 p.m.; Doors open at 9:30 p.m.

GA and reserved prices starting at $49

Guests must be 18+ to attend

Hosted by Hart, HartBeat Weekend features comedic, stand-up performances of Kevin Hart & Friends inside The Chelsea. The evening will showcase stand-up acts by Harts uproarious comedian comrades.

SUNDAY, SEPT. 3

HartBeat Weekend Presents Dave Chappelle Live

The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

Show 9 p.m.; Doors open at 7p.m.

GA and reserved prices starting at $69

Dave Chappelle is a comedian, actor, and producer whos brash, clever, in-your-face brand of humor has made him one of the most respected entertainers of his generation. The panoramic monologue he delivered during his debut on Saturday Night Live was the highest rated SNL in three years. In March 2017, Chappelle returned to television via streaming giant Netflix with two highly-anticipated specials, The Art of Spin, and Deep in the Heart of Texas, filmed in Los Angeles, CA and Austin, TX respectively. Esquire Magazine has called him the comic genius of America, and he was featured on the cover of GQ Magazines Man of the Year issue in 2015. In April 2017, he graced the cover of The New York Times T-Magazine.
Vietnam continues to showcase strong growth patterns despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, leading investors to favorably consider the country as an ideal...
Businesses receive recognition for outstanding financial and corporate reporting at Vietnams Annual Report Awards in Ho Chi Minh City, Photo: Le Toan

Lasting legacy

Vietnams Annual Report Awards (ARAs), organised by VIR, the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE), and the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), with support from Dragon Capital, will celebrate their 10th anniversary this Tuesday, July 25, in Ho Chi Minh City.

According to VIRs editor-in-chief Le Trong Minh, the ARAs have had a major impact on Vietnams reporting standards in the past decade.

In particular, the ARAs have honoured the most outstanding reports in Vietnam, as well as created added value for the practice. Besides financial results, annual reports have been encouraged to include details on risk management, investor relations, sustainability reporting, and corporate governance.

Nguyen Thi Hoang Lan, deputy CEO of HNX, noted that these practices were generally non-existent in Vietnam in 2008, when the ARAs started. No other publication can express a firms visions, strategy, and creativity like the annual report. Companies can use the report as a powerful communication tool to investors, and the ARAs have successfully promoted this idea in Vietnam, said Lan.

Dragon Capital chairman Dominic Scriven, meanwhile, recalled the time when annual reports in Vietnam were only three pages long. After 10 years, the ARAs have grown from a reports competition into a strong advocate for sustainability and corporate governance.

Most importantly, the ARAs have built the foundation for Vietnams Sustainability Index, launched by HOSE in 2017.

Le Hai Tra, deputy CEO of HOSE and head of the ARAs Organising Committee and Selection Board, emphasised that sustainability is an important factor in attracting foreign capital.

Through the ARAs, listed firms now understand that they must adopt good practices on governance and sustainability if theyre looking for foreign investors, Tra said.

Big changes in 2017

To celebrate their 10th-anniversary milestone and lasting impact on Vietnams annual reporting, the ARAs have made major changes in their 2017 edition. This year, for the first time ever, the reports have been evaluated by four leading audit firms:

Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Out of 638 participating reports, 125 made it to the final round, where they were judged based on content (75 per cent of the points awarded) and presentation (the remaining 25 per cent). Some firms earned bonus points for preparing the reports under International Financial Reporting Standards and for providing an English version. This is a new addition for 2017.

To enhance fairness, the number of judges for this years ARAs was increased from seven to nine. These new members hail from the Vietnam Securities Depository and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

As part of the 10th-anniversary celebration, on July 25, the ARAs will also reward individuals who made special contributions to the programme over the past decade. As usual, the award categories are divided into the Top 10, the Top 30, and the Top 50. There are also separate awards for corporate governance and sustainability.

The ARAs sustainability judge To Vi Hung, head of Accounting at Rosneff Vietnam and member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, noted an improvement in sustainability reporting this year. According to Hung, most of the Top 10 reports have adopted the G4 version of the Global Reporting Initiative. Some reports also included the 17 Sustainability Goals from the United Nations.

Looking forward

Following the ARAs 10th anniversary, there is a lot more to be done as Vietnam pursues emerging market status.

Minh expressed his hope to see businesses greater efforts in preparing annual reports and making information disclosures. This is crucial for the transparency and sustainable growth of the Vietnamese market, he said.

To enhance objectivity and the ARAs reputation in the global market, the organisers will invite a wider variety of business groups, professional circles, and policymakers from Vietnam and overseas to join the Selection Board.

Tra acknowledged that sustainability reporting and risk management are still at their early stages in Vietnam. It will take more time for listed companies to get used to global standards  during which, the ARAs will continue to promote these practices.

Scriven is set on supporting the ARAs in the years to come. He noted that as the world enters the digital era, annual reporting in Vietnam will also change. Scriven is interested to see how technology will continue to affect firms in their communications with investors.

Future editions of the ARAs should also address the issue of independent and diverse board members in Vietnam, he suggested.



Looking back on 10 years of the ARAs

- 2008: The first edition of the ARAs was organised by Dragon Capital, HOSE, and VIR.

- 2009: In the second edition, firms listed on HNX were eligible for entry, raising the number of participants to 46. For the first time, participating companies included details on cash management, as well as their provisions for declines in stock prices and inventories.

- 2010: Starting from this year, all annual reports on HNX and HOSE were automatically eligible for participation, and the firms did not have to author the reports themselves. The number of reports grew nine-fold thanks to this decision.

- 2011: Although still based on Circular No.09/2010/TT-BTC, the fourth edition introduced stricter criteria to serve institutional investors need for high-quality information.

- 2012: The ARAs celebrated their fifth anniversary. Vuong Dinh Hue, then-Minister of Finance and current Deputy Prime Minister, attended the awards ceremony to celebrate this milestone.

- 2013: The ARAs introduced the Sustainability Reporting Awards. Representatives from the International Finance Corporation and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants joined the Selection Board.

- 2014: A separate award for governance was introduced. Five companies with the most outstanding reports on corporate governance were honoured for their work.

- 2015: The preliminary round was joined by independent experts from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Law. The Selection Board also welcomed a new judge from the State Securities Commission.

- 2016: This marked the first year that all listed firms were required to disclose information in English, in the context of Vietnams efforts to qualify as an emerging market and attract international investors. The three companies with the most drastically improved reports received the ARA Outstanding Improvements Award.

- 2017: The ARAs hit their 10th milestone, welcoming new judges from the Vietnam Securities Depository and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Reports complying with International Financial Reporting Standards and those with an English version will be rewarded.
GoBear is Asias first and only metasearch engine in insurance and banking products

The new awareness page from GoBear Vietnam provides users with a tool to quickly search for unsecured loan offers from professional finance companies in Vietnam, with simple procedures and rapid disbursement time. This tool is designed mainly to help unbanked users, who account for 70 per cent of Vietnams population, to save time and efforts when searching for unsecured loan offers that best fit their needs.

Tran Nhat Khanh, GoBear Vietnam country director, said: Unsecured loan is a feasible financial product for most Vietnamese users, especially those who are unbanked or being cash salaried. They cannot access traditional banking products that require proof of income. By launching unsecured loan awareness page with a tool to search for unsecured loan offers from professional finance companies for these underprivileged users, we are trying to provide them a quick, convenient, unbiased search solution so that they can independently select the products that benefit their own needs.

Website gobear.com/vn/campaign/vaytienmat provides users with a tool to quickly search for unsecured loan offers from professional finance companies in Vietnam

It is also a fact that GoBear is one of the first webpage in Vietnam that offers users a free, personalised and unbiased tool to search for unsecured loans offers from professional finance companies, thus helping underprivileged users to find the best trust loan offer that best fit their needs fast and easy.

Since it officially went live in Vietnam in early December 2016, with three products  comparison of credit cards, personal loans and travel insurances, GoBear Vietnam was able to land over 500,000 comparison hits on the website gobear.com/vn and became a trusted provider of search and compare services for financial products in Vietnam.

The unsecured loan awareness page launched at this stage is part of GoBears strategy to diversify services and adding more benefits to users over time.

GoBear is Asias first and only metasearch engine in insurance and banking products. It was founded based on the simple premise that a consumer should find freedom and ease when making financial decisions related to insurance, credit cards and loans.

Headquartered in Singapore since early 2015, GoBear is also in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Just over two years into its operation, more than 11 million users have put their trust in GoBear to make comparison of financial products in a fast and personalised way.

As one of the fastest growing fintech startups in Asia, GoBear is leading the way in democratising financial shopping experience with its unbiased and personalised comparison process.

GoBears user-oriented platform neither aggregate nor sell products. GoBear simply offers consumers a free and transparent comparison process based on their financial needs. The result is a user-friendly and informed experience that saves consumers both time and money.

GoBear Vietnam gives 2-people Singapore tour to lucky website user In celebration of the upcoming launch of its travel insurance comparison product on its website gobear.com/vn, GoBear Vietnam will host a small online competition for users called Gau oi, minh i Sing nhe! (My dear Bear, go with me to Singapore), with the special prize being a 2-people Singapore tour worth of VND20 million ($880).

GoBear Vietnam crosses 100,000 users mark one month after launch GoBear Vietnam crowded in over 100,000 users for its services just within one month following launch in Vietnam.

GoBear looks to become the TripAdvisor of finance With the current wide range of financial services on offer, Vietnamese consumers are often frustrated by a lack of unbiased information to help them make a choice. Andre Hesselink, founder and CEO of GoBear, shared his perspective with VIRs Nam Phuong on how financial technology can help solve this problem and bring financial institutions closer to their consumers.
New cars are seen in a parking lot of the Brilliance factory in Shenyang, in China's northeast Liaoning province on Jul 17, 2017. (Photo: AFP)

However, wage growth remains sluggish which risks increasing tensions that have pushed some countries toward more anti-global policies, while efforts to erode financial regulations put in place since the 2008 crisis could erode stability, the IMF warned.

"The recovery in global growth that we projected in April is on a firmer footing; there is now no question mark over the world economy's gain in momentum," IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said.

Presenting the latest update of the World Economic Outlook (WEO), he said "recent data point to the broadest synchronised upswing the world economy has experienced in the last decade."

The fund still expects the global economy will grow by 3.5 per cent in 2017 and 3.6 per cent in 2018, the same as in the April WEO.

However, the unchanged forecast masks some significant revisions, including in the United States where the IMF downgraded its growth estimate last month after judging that spending plans promised by President Donald Trump that had been expected to provide a boost to the economy were stuck in limbo.

The US estimate was cut to 2.1 per cent for this year and next, down 0.2 points and 0.4 points, respectively, from the more optimistic forecast in the last report.

The outlook for the British economy also was revised down by 0.3 points to 1.7 per cent this year on weaker-than-expected activity in the first quarter, while the impact of Brexit "remains unclear."

UPWARD REVISIONS

But those downward revisions were offset by the improving outlook in key economies, including the euro area where growth prospects have improved in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The euro area now is projected to see economic growth of 1.9 per cent this year and 1.7 per cent in 2018.

Japan also is seeing improved growth prospects, with an expansion of 1.3 per cent this year expected, although that is seen slowing sharply to 0.6 per cent in 2018.

Meanwhile, China continues to be a major engine of global growth, expanding by 6.7 per cent this year, and 6.4 per cent next, driven by economic policies in Beijing.

The forecast for 2017 was revised up by 0.1 percentage point, "reflecting the stronger than expected outturn in the first quarter" which the IMF said was underpinned by Beijing's "supply-side reforms."

The 0.2-point upward revision for 2018, however, was the result of the expected delay in the "needed fiscal adjustment," which could cause risks down the road.

China's "higher growth is coming at the cost of continuing rapid credit expansion and the resulting financial stability risks," Obstfeld warned in his prepared statement.

KEY TO PROSPERITY

But within the mostly upbeat forecasts, the IMF once again sounded the warning on the growing anti-global sentiment, which could leave all economies worse off.

That has been fuelled in part by the fact the benefits of increased growth have not been broadly shared.

"Even as unemployment is falling, wage growth still remains weak," Obstfeld said.

That "not only holds back the improvement of living standards, but also carries risks of exacerbating social tensions that have already pushed some electorates in the direction of more inward-looking economic policies."

While the report does not specify any country, it comes amid Brexit talks and the Trump administration's continuing focus on "America first" policies, including cutting bilateral trade deficits and backing away from free trade agreements.

The report warned that "policies based narrowly on domestic advantage are at best inefficient and at worst highly damaging to all."

Obstfeld said, "Strengthening multilateral cooperation is another key to prosperity."

Finally, the IMF cautioned that "a broad rollback of the strengthening of financial regulation and oversight achieved since the crisis" - something the Trump administration is pushing - could increase the risk to global financial stability.
Primary school students in Ha Noi attend a four-day Military term programme during summer vacation. The programme aims to teach the basic military skills of discipline, performing activities on schedule and teamwork. - VNS Photo Hong Lan

These classes, organised during the three-month summer vacation in Viet Nam, claim to train children on important communication and survival skills that can then be applied to real-life situations.

However, are these classes as effective as their numerous advertisements claim? Its a question that has many parents worried across the cities.

Many teaching centres holding classes for children aged between 7 and 14 in important life skills have been coming up.

These centres design the life skills programmes separately for each age group, and include various outdoor and indoor activities.

One such life skills teacher said children would be trained in self-efficacy, ability to analyse and synthesise issues, working independently or in a team, and ability to communicate.

Nguyen Kieu Lan, a teacher at the Ha Noi Children Palace, said many parents created conditions for their children to succeed in all fields, but forget that an important skill is the survival skill, including escaping skills, knife-using skills, self-service, behaviour skills when lost, knowing to use money, and knowing the full menu for a meal, among others.

Generally, such useful skills help children live independently under all circumstances, she said.

However, according to pedagogical psychological experts, before sending children to life skill classes, parents should thoroughly research the content, curriculum, goals, specific experiences schedule, and the quality of teachers in the class.

In particular, parents should not rely solely on online advertisements.

Parents should send their children to specialised centres that teach life skills, rather than places where its only a coursework.

Nguyen Ngoc Oanh, a mother of two from Ha Nois Hoan Kiem District, said initially she was confused about choosing the apt life skills class for her children. She then decided to choose a presentation skills class for her eight-year-old boy and leadership skills class for her 12-year-old girl.

They (two children) study hard and are stressed during the whole academic year, so, during the summer, I want them to rest while honing the skills they lack.

I was struggling to decide, because I did not know what to choose, as all skills centres are making attractive offers. At home, the children dont have to do any housework, so teaching them to be independent is necessary, she said.

According to the WHO, life skills are adaptive, and positive behaviour enables an individual to cope effectively with the needs and challenges of everyday life.

Life skills are divided into two categories: Psychosocial skills and personal skills. Personal skills consist of 10 elements: Self-awareness, creative thinking, problem solving, communication, coping with stressful and emotional situations, sympathy, commentary and critical thinking, decisiveness and negotiation.

In real life, many parents do not have the time to care and educate their children. They then entrust their children to teachers and educational institutions.

Many children have excellent academic record at school but lack basic living skills, or are good at theory, but lack practice. So, during the summer holidays, parents take children to life skills classes, hoping that these will provide step-by-step training to children.

However, is a week, two weeks or a month, even two months of learning life skills enough to make children capable?

A complaint raised by a father was that at the end of her life skill class, his eight-year-old girl had only learnt to write a letter to her relative, which too had been copied from an online source.

According to experts, parents must remember that they are their childrens first teachers.

Viet Nam has a saying: Teach children from their childhood.

It means that before children enter the school, family is the foundation for their whole education progress, as well as basic life skills.

Thus, parents need to self-enrich their knowledge on life skills, through constant and close communication with their children, experts said.

Among the various types of life skills classes, the programme Military term received good and positive feedback from parents and children. A term, lasting from one week to two weeks, with the goal to train children as soldiers, it included teaching the basic military skills of discipline, performing activities on schedule and teamwork, among others. Though some parents complained about the teaching methods, the content far exceeded their expectations.

Prof. Pham Thanh Nghi from the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences said the summer activities were necessary to supplement the childrens knowledge beyond the school curriculum.

Also, parents should be encouraged to play with children, and guide them in life skills at home to help them remain active before a new school year, experts noted.
Grab and Uber litigation secondary

According to Ho Huy, chairman of Mai Linh, in reality, blaming technical companies like Uber and Grab only shows how traditional taxi brands are unable to renew themselves. If these traditional taxi brands cannot find a solution, they will lose their brands value and will be slowly drifting towards bankruptcy.

Instead of harassing Grab and Uber, it is important for Mai Linh to review the companys operation mechanism as well as to learn from the advantages of Grab and Uber. Mai Linh agrees with Vinasuns taking Uber and Grab to the court, however, it is not our major target. The group will focus on investing in technology as well as changing the management system, said Huy.

However, Mai Linh will still join the lawsuit as Grab has committed copyright infringement at their expense. Notably, Grab violated Decree No.86/2014/ND-CP on the paint colour of cars, confusing passengers about their brands. Besides, Grab used Mai Linhs cars in some of its advertisements. Huy asked Grab to stop these violations, however, they have yet to receive a response.

Regarding business culture, Huy said that with a fleet of 50,000 cars, Uber and Grab have caused a loss of trillions of VND of tax each year.

All enterprises operating in Vietnam must complete three responsibilities - efficient operations and development, creating stability for employees, and contributing tax to the state budget.

Determination to change

Uber and Grab are not transportation business companies, they are only IT firms investing and developing a technical infrastructure and a mobile application (app) to connect contracted drivers with passengers.

Thanks to the apps convenience, it has created a competition between IT firms such as Uber and Grab, and traditional transportation business companies.

Thus, Mai Linh has invested in technology to enhance its competitive capacity. Notably, the firm applied a smart call center to replace employees, reducing staff by 50 per cent.

Mai Linh is also completing procedures to propose the Ministry of Information and Communications to to use the only call center with the dial number of 1055, aiming to create convenience for passengers. In the next two months, Mai Linh will merge its call centers in the three regions into a single one. The merger is a part of its plan to list its shares on foreign stock exchanges.

The firm is also piloting a programme of five electric buses on major streets in Ho Chi Minh City. If the pilot does not make a loss, Mai Linh will put one or two more electric buses in operation. This programme is expected to help protect the environment.

Huy said that it is easier for Mai Linh to overcome the competition than it was dealing with its financial crisis in 2012 because, at the time, Mai Linh operated 10,000 taxi cabs and borne a loan interest of VND750 billion ($33.1 million), while at present, the taxi volume is 15,000 and the loan interest is VND200 billion ($8.83 million) only.

Mai Linh aims to cover 63 cities and provinces across the country and looks to invest abroad. The firm may build Mai Linh University, specialising in transportation sector training, Huy said.
Local and international tourists get on the double-decker bus in Ha Noi. - VNA/VNS Photo Minh Son

The ministry will announce a new plan for the buses after it receives guidelines from Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Last December, the PM agreed in principle to start a pilot project of operating double-decker buses in Ha Noi, HCM City, a Nang, Quang Nam, Thua Thien-Hue, Lam ong and Kien Giang.

The buses can accommodate up to 45 passengers, and would take them to the airport and various tourist spots. As scheduled, about 10 buses were to be put into operation in July. The trial would last for five years.

Based on this plan, the ministry submitted documents to relevant ministries and sectors so as to run these buses.

However, in late March, the ministry announced a draft decree on the pilot plan of carrying people in passenger buses to boost tourism in these cities and provinces.

The decree received many opinions from concerned ministries and the local authorities of these localities.

To avoid overlapping the operation of public means of transport for tourists, and ensure the traffic flow in these localities, the ministry has now decided to halt the operation of double-decker buses until it receives guidelines from the Government.
Speaking to India Today, R Ashok, chairman of the Karnataka Public Accounts Committee, said that he has sought an action-taken report over the allegations raised by IPS officer D Roopa in her explosive report on alleged bribery in the state prison system.

By Nolan Pinto: Soon after the government transferred both D Roopa and Sathyanarayana Rao from their respective posts of DIG (Prisons) and DGP (Prisons), the state Assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) held a meeting at the Vidhana Soudha.

The meeting was held on the same day it emerged that senior police officers, on being questioned, have confirmed parts of D Roopa's stunning report on VVIP treatment given to both AIADMK (Amma) chief Sasikala and stamp paper racket kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi.

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Speaking exclusively to India Today, R Ashok, senior BJP leader and chairman of the PAC says that 15 days' time has been given to officials to submit an Action Taken Report (ATR) on not just the Parappana Agrahara Central Jail in Bengaluru but throughout the state. He considers D Roopa to have done her job as a government servant and an IPS officer. Based on D Roopa's report, officials were questioned in detail by members of the PAC.

"This (the allegations) is not good for society and we want the problem to be corrected immediately," R Ashok said. On the basis of powers granted to the PAC, he along with other members have ordered the concerned officials to strictly place the ATR before the committee in 15 days' time.

On whether the allegations raised by D Roopa are correct, R Ashok said, "I cannot say whether she is right or wrong. The enquiry is on." The PAC members plan to visit the Parappana Agrahara Central Jail in a week's time to see for themselves the actual condition of prisoners as well as if possible hear their grievances.

D Roopa had in her report submitted to the government alleged that Sasikala has been given five rooms, cot, bed, television and a separate kitchen inside the prison. It was also alleged that to avail these facilities an amount of Rs 2 crore was paid to then DGP (Prisons) Rao. Following this, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ordered a high-level probe into these alleged irregularities

Meanwhile, a Bengaluru-based High Court Lawyer S Nataraj Sharma has filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). Drawing on allegations made by D Roopa, he has asked the ACB to conduct an investigation. He says, "allegations will come to light when it is proved before the court and hence an FIR has to be filed." He further added that if there is a delay in registering an FIR, he will take the matter up to the Karnataka High Court.

ALSO READ | Why Sasikala's VIP treatment in jail smacks of favouritism for rich and powerful

ALSO WATCH | Exclusive: Exposing poor administration doesn't amount to criticising the govt, DIG Roopa to India Today

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1. Objectives: Promoting national image, Vietnamese businesses and trademarks; boosting export of products in which Vietnam has advantages to Laos and Thai north-eastern areas; establishing distribution network and increasing the number of investment projects in Laos;

2. Scope: 300 booths measuring nine square meters each in which 150 booths will be for Vietnamese companies (around 100 businesses) and the remainder for the Lao counterparts;

3. Time: November 25-29, 2010;

4. Venue: Lao International Exhibition and Convention Center (Lao ITECC), Vientiane City, Laos;

5. Content: Agro-forestry-fisheries products and processed food; garment and fashion; electrical-electronic industries; industrial machinery and equipment, construction and building materials; wooden furniture and fine handicrafts; consumer goods; pharmaceutical products; medical equipment; investment, tourism and trade services; 6. Participants: Businesses from assorted economic sectors operating under the law and trade promotion organizations (trade promotion centers in provinces, municipalities, under ministries/departments, and business associations);

7. Selection criteria: Businesses producing competitive items that are compatible to the Lao market requirements; the people taking part in the trip must have the ability to take part in an international trade fair;

8. Expenses:

a) The State will finance the booth lease fee, the fee for decorating the Vietnamese pavilion area and all related expenses for export promotion;

b) Based on the production sector, the State will pay the lease fee for at most four booths/each business;

c) Businesses must incur the following expenses: The fee for making entrance/exist formalities, food, drink, travel and accommodations; goods related expenses. Besides, if they impinge on the organizing committee regulations, they must pay additional charges;

d) Each business must pay a deposit of VND4 million/one booth right after sending a registration record The account for deposit transfer: The Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency, account number: 001.1.00.028621.2 at the Transaction Bureau of the Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam; If a business was chosen to take part in the trade fair, however, it later sends a document to Vietrade to cancel the participation after October 22, 2010 it will loose the deposit. This money will be used by Vietrade to cover relevant state expenses;

9. Obligations: Businesses taking part in the trade fair must:

- Completing registration records, financial obligations and seriously observing the regulations of the Vietnamese group's organizing committee;

- Businesses must send a summary report to Vietrade within a month after the fair ending;

10. Registration records:

- A business registration certificate;

- An application form;

- A company profile;

- A list of staff who will take part in the fair;

- An application for information disclosure in the fair catalogue;

- An explanation why it wants a special booth;

- Any product presentation or promotion programs;

Note: Businesses must send one floppy disc to ngokhacbao@vietrade.gov.vn (including one enterprise logo and two product photos to be shown in the fair's catalogue).

11. Deadline for registration:

October 15, 2010. As the booths are limited in number, not all registered businesses will be selected. Vietrade will later inform the name of chosen businesses.

Interested businesses must send records to:

Export Promotion Center, Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency Floor 5, 20 Ly Thuong Kiet, Hanoi

Tel: 0439364792 +84439364792 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +84439364792 end_of_the_skype_highlighting fax: 04 39369491

Contact: Mr. Ho Ngoc Quan; Mobile: 098 306 9998 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting

Mr. Ngo Khac Bao; Mobile: 091 555 4177 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting Email: ngokhacbao@vietrade.gov.vn
The local stock market is set to experience another week of corrections but the decrease will likely slow down with divergence based on the results of second-quarter earnings, analysts say.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange lost over 2 per cent last week with four falling sessions and only one mid-week rising trade.

The key index closed Friday at 761.86 points, down 2.7 per cent from the nine-year peak of 782.665 seen on July 6.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index slumped 2.5 per cent for the whole week, ending at 97.96 points on Friday.

The market seems to be exhausted and faces risks of downward corrections. However, the speed of fall last week was quite strong and fast, negatively impacting investors psychology, said Nguyen Huu Binh, leading analyst at Vietnam Investment Securities Co, told tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn.

But this could also be a sign that the market will soon retreat to the strong support threshold of 740-750 points, Binh said.

All shares, including large-caps, medium-caps and penny stocks, performed badly last week with a majority of stocks falling across the two exchanges electronic boards.

The shares weighing down the market most included PV Gas (GAS), Vinamilk (VNM), big banks like Vietcombank (VCB), BIDV (BID), Vietinbank (CTG), Military Bank (MBB), Mobile World Group (MWG), steel manufacturer Hoa Phat Group (HPG), insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH). They were among top 30 largest shares by market value and liquidity on the HCM Stock Exchange.

However, liquidity is waning, which may indicate weaker demand and a possibility that the high selling pressure would soon stop, Binh said, predicting would increase again at the 740-750 points for the VN-Index.

Trading volume through order matching method on the HCM Stock Exchange rose 2.5 per cent over the previous week, averaging 193.3 million shares per session but it was seen that the volume was declining towards the end of the week.

A downward correction was inevitable after seven consecutive months of growth and in my opinion, this is an essential correction before the market will advance into the next growing period in the last months of the year, said Nguyen Trung Du, head of the brokerage division in the North region under HCM Securities Co.

Divergence

According to analysts at BIDV Securities Co (BSC), the VN-Index is likely to remain under correction pressure in the next one to two weeks with a support threshold at 750 points. However, they added, the market will also see divergence based on second-quarter earnings results of listed companies.

Nearly 320 out of total 719 companies on the stock exchanges, accounting for 45 per cent of total listed companies, have released their second-quarter earnings as of July 21. In terms of absolute value, net profits of these companies reached VND10 trillion ($439 million), up 10 per cent over the same period of last year.

Five biggest earners were Vietcombank, Pha Lai Thermal Power, Vicostone, Kido Group and Nam Long Investment Group.

About 160 companies reported improved earnings results compared to last years same period.

With such results, the market will likely experience strong divergence in the coming time, BSCs stock analysts wrote in a report.

They suggested that investors refrain from investing in the companies with unstable business performance as well as those that have gained large value in the past rallies.
Flood insurance rates could rise for hundreds of thousands of homeowners under proposal
Dismissing the PIL filed by an NGO called Roots in Kashmir, the Supreme Court said it is difficult to have any probe and collect evidence on the issue more than 27 years after the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits.

By Anusha Soni: The Supreme Court today rejected a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking investigation into the killing of Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir nearly three decades ago and the prosectuion of Kashmiri separatists accused of the murders and forcing the community out of the Valley.

Dismissing the PIL filed by an NGO called Roots in Kashmir, the apex court said it is difficult to have any probe and collect evidence on the issue more than 27 years after the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. "Almost 27 years have gone by," the court asked.

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"Where the evidence will come from? Such a plea should have been moved long time ago," the Supreme Court observed.

The plea had also sought trial of persons including separatist leaders Yasin Malik and Bitta Karate for their alleged offences against Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley in 1989-90.

The petitioners had told the Supreme Court that they need a "sense of justice" in the case. "Due to the exodus, many people could not join the investigation," they said, addind that no chargesheet could be filed in many cases in all these years.

"The community has legitimate expectation. The successive governments have repeatedly made fake promises that the Pandits could return. No one is protecting them," they said.

The court, however, raised doubts over the petition and questioned seriousness of the petitioner, wondering if the NGO was doing it for publicity.

Also read:

Supreme Court asks Centre, states not to protect any kind of vigilantism

Mob lynching India's shocking war within, a challenge Narendra Modi must confront

Watch Video: Man lynched despite PM's warning: Why is mob vigilantism rampant in BJP-ruled states?

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As the credits rolled on this episode, I had a strange thought: I imagined what it would be like to try and explain what was happening on this show to someone who had just casually sat down to watch it, having never seen Twin Peaks before. Oh, you see, that cherry pie is really important because he enjoyed it on the old show, and hed say its damn good, just like that. Oh, and hes not actually Dougie Jones  hes Dale Cooper and his mind has been addled after spending 25 years in a place called Black Lodge and he came to us from nonexistence through an electrical outlet. Trying to explain the surreal, hair-raising emotional connections of Twin Peaks: The Return feels impossible. Especially after an episode like this one. But like the connections in Bradley Mitchums dreams, they might not entirely make sense, but they are felt. They are powerful. And they are true.

Things get particularly intense in this weeks episode. It begins with the bloody reveal that Miriam survived her encounter with Evil Richard Horne and crawled to safety  and good golly, whenever I see kids playing on this show Im now conditioned to think theyre going to get run over  and it soon spirals into a series of violent encounters and supernatural standoffs, with a heavy focus on guns and the inherent danger they bring.

The cycles of abuse continue as Becky has found out that Steven is stepping out on her with another lady (played by Twin Peaks vet Alicia Witt, reclaiming her role as piano recitalist Gersten Hayward). Becky screams an angry streak, pulls her gun, steals Shellys car, and nearly kills her with it in a terrifying scene (am I crazy, or was Madchen Amick doing Zoe Bell-like car stunts?!), all before firing off some rounds into Gerstens door. This is some high-energy stuff, but what really impresses are the quiet scenes that follow in the Double R Diner, where Shelly and Beckys dad  who turns out to be none other than Bobby Briggs  sit down for a difficult parental conversation. Everything about the way Dana Ashbrook plays it rings true to me: the mix of concern and love, the measured attempts not to push too hard, and the constant walking on eggshells, all in hopes that their Becky will find her way home to them.

But home is a long way off. Becky is still dodging, still making excuses for Steven, and still hiding his abuse. Until she suddenly remembers that she almost killed her mom in a fit of anger. They embrace, but as much as we think Shelly is all put together, a sudden visit from Red (Balthazar Getty) brings out her schoolgirl side. We also know the cycles of abuse dont really fade away, because bad news is going to follow Red wherever he goes. Once again, Bobby sits and watches it all unfold, the silent pain on his face saying it all: Hes still clearly in love with Shelly, he knows Steven is abusing Becky, and he understands the painful truth that he cannot save anyone from themselves.

But with a sudden gunshot ringing through the Double R Diner, the scene take a left turn into one of the weirdest and most literally gut-churning sequences of The Return so far. Turns out the shooter was a kid playing with a gun in the back of a minivan. Bobby swoops in to handle the parents, a silent and guilty father and a screaming mother who cannot believe whats happened. The car behind them honks, and chaos ensues. Bobby stares at the young child who fired the round, but the kid postures tough right back at him, mimicking his father. The message is clear: I knew exactly what I was doing with that gun. Shaken by this moment, Bobby still has to go take care of the road rage behind them, which puts him face to face with a woman screaming bloody murder and the sick girl next to her, a barfing, drooling kid whos bordering on zombie. Bobby can only stare in horror at the both of them, a pair of fitting images for a show in which no child seems to be doing all that well. The message is clear: The kids arent all right.

Meanwhile, the sight of Gordon Cole and Albert walking toward a dilapidated house holding revolvers like a couple of cowboys pretty much made my week. Theyre the last bastions of law and decency in this crazy, mixed-up world. But as a shadowy, disheveled man lurks around them, Gordon ends up having a standoff with a vision in the sky, a dark swirl thats pulling everything into it. Albert sees Cole fading into this nethersphere and, ever the loyal friend, pulls him out. But no one is safe, not yet. The shadowy figure, phasing in and out of sight, makes his way into the car, and poor William Hastings gets the top half of his skull crushed. Which of course becomes a prompt for Lynch, who has the best comic timing on the show, to promptly declare, after a beat, Hes dead.

The sequence serves to remind us how The Return is circling the drain, bringing us closer to the center point, a seeming confluence of all things. But the pieces of this show dont merely stack or build together like Lego bricks; they blend as if were mixing a potion, each element its own shade of the swirl. The coordinates on the librarians body will likely bring us to the same place as Hawks map, a map which he says is always crying, for it is a living thing. (What might seem to some to be a hokey treatment of Native American custom is far more likely a part of Lynchs own spirituality.) And, as always with Twin Peaks, we find ourselves returning to the fire symbol and the continued notion of fire walk with me  only the intention behind the fire symbology is now made more explicit. Hawk tells us plainly it is like electricity (which is a huge motif in The Return), the good and evil nature of which depends on those who wield it. He also warns Sheriff Truman of the black corn, death, and black fire that are coming for them. Even the Log Lady shows up again to warn, Theres fire where youre going. Dark tidings all, but the only one that really made my hair stand up is when Sheriff Truman asks about the black bug symbol on the map. Hawk looks him right in the eye, and with every ounce of seriousness in world, tells him, You dont ever want to know about that. Consider my dreams sufficiently haunted.

The truth is that Ive always loved the spiritual bent at the heart of Twin Peaks. Its a world in which FBI agents and deputies pay as much attention to mystic forces and the tenets of Buddhism as they do to psychological profiles and perps fingerprints. To Lynch, its all part of the same thing. Its this same profound sense of spiritualism that rests at the heart of the machinations that save Dougie Jones from certain doom. Sure, he still has to be led around by coffee and the guidance of the Red Room, but the power of dreams will emanate through him. The very kind of dream that makes the Mitchum brothers go from cant wait to kill this guy! to inviting him out for a lovely dinner. We go along on that terrifying journey, certain that Dougies fate is part of a ticking clock, only to be thrown into surreality as we hear the dreamy, poppy Shawn Colvin cover of Viva Las Vegas, only to be thrown again when Dougie Jones safely brings Rodney Mitchum the cherry pie of his dreams. Sure, it makes no literal sense and its pure deus ex machina, yet it makes every bit of sense to us as viewers. Just as Jim Belushi suddenly makes sense to me working under Lynch. Just as Candies hilarious, vacant staring makes sense to me in this weird, wayward universe.

The thing about Lynchs universe is that it is not merely silly and safe. We watch the first half of the episode and know too well that danger and violence are very real  that they come for us in every moment and in every way. But in our fight against them, yes, we have wholesomeness, we have decency, we have spirituality, and we have dreams. And so, Im really left to wonder one simple thing:

Whether, maybe, cherry pie will save us all.
After sitting on the money laundering case against former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi for seven years, the Chennai Police transferred the case to Mumbai Police only to have it declined and returned.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: After India Today reported on June 14 that Chennai Police has decided to transfer the case of money laundering against the ex-commissioner of Indian Premier League (IPL) Lalit Modi to Mumbai Police, the latter has declined to probe the matter.

After sitting on the case for almost seven years, the Chennai Police recommended a CBI probe and transfer of case to Mumbai Police on grounds of, "territorial jurisdiction to Mumbai Police is legally sound and justified for effective and speedy investigation".

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But according to latest reports, Mumbai Police has returned the case to Chennai Police saying that the 'FIR was filed in Chennai'.

K Jayanth Murali, Additional Director General of Police, Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CBCID), Chennai confirming it said, "It is true. It has returned to Chennai. The reason Mumbai Police gave to us is - as per the law, it is not tenable."

Murali further added, "We will be now referring it to the state government. Whatever they decide, we will follow the orders".

WHY DID CHENNAI POLICE TRANSFER THE CASE?

In early July 2017, A K Vishwanathan, Commissioner of Police, Chennai had opined the proposal for transferring Lalit Modi's case to Mumbai Police or to the CBI, considering the nature, gravity and inter/intra state ramification and the parallel investigation conducted by the ED. The Central Crime Branch (CCB), Chennai had also agreed to it.

In a confidential letter, accessed by Indiatoday.in, the Chennai Police Commissioner opined that "Tamil Nadu (TN) Police have no territorial jurisdiction to investigate the case, therefore, the case is to be transferred from CCD department, Chennai to Mumbai Police, without any further delay".

Surprisingly, the state government, after careful examination accepted the proposal and accordingly, directed the Director General of Police to transfer the case to Mumbai for further investigation. The Tamil Nadu (TN) Police was also directed to inform the status to ED, Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue and Government of India.

WHAT IS THE CASE?

In 2010, the Chennai Police registered an FIR against Lalit Modi and others, on complaint filed by former BCCI Chief N Srinivasan.

Subsequently, the ED registered its ECIR under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) under Sections 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The case relates to Lalit Modi allegedly receiving a huge kickback in the form of diverting funds by switching TV rights contracts, cheating, criminal misappropriation and falsification of documents etc.

Later, CBCID Chennai took up the investigation conducted by CCB Chennai under Section 409, 420, 468, 477, 120 (B) IPC.

The probe revealed that the alleged transaction by committing various irregularities by Lalit Modi and six others, betrayed the interest of BCCI.

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The internal investigation report tabled by Chennai Police before the state government said, "The accused committed the offences of criminal breach of trust, forgery, cheating, falsification of accounts and defrauded BCCI in several instances to the tune of Rs 425 crore, Rs 125 crore, Rs 200 crore and Rs 3.5 crore without the consent of the IPL governing council".

"The investigation conducted by CCB Chennai had revealed that, most of the alleged transactions took place in Mumbai, and not in Tamil Nadu. Therefore, it was decided to transfer the case to Mumbai," senior official told Indiatoday.in.

Also read: Trouble mounts for Lalit Modi as Chennai Police recommends CBI probe into IPL betting case

Also read: Lalit Modi applies for citizenship in Caribbean tax haven to evade law

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Residents of Thamaraikulam village have accused the former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvan of a dubious land deal. The villagers have also staged protest against the leader.

By Pramod Madhav: New trouble has emerged for former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam. A leaked document revealed that a disputed well, owned by OPS' family was promised to be sold to the residents of Thamaraikulam village. However, it was sold a day before to a private party by OPS' wife, Vijayalakshmi.

A week ago, villagers had protested against OPS and his family over a giant well dug in his farm. They claimed that the water level around the area depleted due to this well. As the matter began to tarnish OPS' image, he called for a meeting with the villagers and agreed to sell the well to them, but kept a condition that they should also buy his 40 acre coconut farm rated at 25 lakhs per acre within 90 days.

Copy of the document which surfaced

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Stragely, the villagers had agreed to the condition and were in the process of collecting money when a copy of the new document surfaced. The copy revealed that Vijayalakshmi is the owner of the well and had sold it to a person named Selvaraj, a day before the negotiations began.

The alleged document revealed that the 18 cent land holding the well and 6 acre farmland was sold at a price of 20.10 lakh to Selvaraj. The leaked document has again stirred up unrest in the Thamaraikulam village.

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An attorney for Twin Peaks biker Christopher Jacob Carrizal said Friday she will object strenuously if courthouse security measures during Carrizals trial feature a display of force similar to one in Fort Worth during the trial of a Bandido leader.

The topic of courthouse security and other miscellaneous pretrial matters came up Friday as officials prepare for Carrizals trial. Carrizal, 35, a Bandido from Dallas, is scheduled to be the first of 155 bikers indicted in the May 2015 Twin Peaks incident to stand trial.

His trial is set to start Sept. 11 in Wacos 19th State District Court. Judge Ralph Strother directed McLennan County District Clerk Jon Gimble to summon 600 potential jurors to court Aug. 25 to fill out questionnaires to assist in jury selection.

Carrizals attorney, Casie Gotro, of Houston, asked Strother about courthouse security and referred to the June murder trial in Tarrant County for Howard Wayne Baker, the Bandidos Fort Worth chapter president.

Gotro said the display of force from law enforcement, including extra deputies and state troopers, created an indelible, prejudicial atmosphere around the courthouse, including officers not allowing anyone in the courtroom without a full pat-down search.

Strother said the sheriffs office has a courthouse security plan for the biker trials but said he doesnt expect anyone to be stripped searched or patted down.

Baker, 62, was sentenced to 45 years in prison after his conviction for shooting a member of a rival biker group at a Fort Worth bar in 2014.

Gotro also asked Strother to instruct prosecutors to provide clarification, and perhaps additional ballistics testing, on projectiles recovered from a biker who was shot twice in the head.

She said one projectile was determined to have been fired by a Waco police officer, but the second, which is similar in size and caliber, could not be traced to one of the three rifles police fired that day.

Prosecutor Michael Jarrett said he would look into the matter.

Gotro also asked if prosecutors could pare down their potential witness list. She said it contains 900 names, including 75 experts.

Jarrett said he would try to have the list narrowed by the next status hearing on Aug. 4.

Before the hearing ended, Strother arraigned Carrizal on new charges in a superseding indictment returned in late June. A packed courtroom listened for at least 15 minutes as Jarrett read the repetitious, 13-page document aloud in court.

The superseding indictment charges Carrizal with one count of directing activities of a criminal street gang, a count of engaging in organized criminal activity with an underlying offense of murder and one count of engaging in organized criminal activity with an underlying offense of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The superseding indictment takes the place of the original indictment against Carrizal, which, like the matching arrest warrant affidavits used to jail 177 bikers the evening of the shootout, was identical to the other indictments charging engaging in organized criminal activity with underlying offenses of murder and aggravated assault.

The new charges allege that Carrizal, as part of the identifiable leadership of a criminal street gang, directed or supervised the commission of a conspiracy to commit murder and/or aggravated assault, by members of a criminal street gang, Bandidos.

The first count carries a punishment range of 25 years to 99 years or up to life in prison.

The second count charges that Carrizal, with the intent to establish, maintain or participate as a member of a criminal street gang, to wit: Bandidos, did commit or conspire to commit murder by causing the death of Wayne Campbell, Matthew Smith, Charles Russell, Daniel Boyett, Jacob Rhyne, Richard Kirschner, Richard Jordan II, Manuel Rodriguez and Jesus Rodriguez.

The second count carries a penalty range of 15 years to 99 years or life.

The third count charges that Carrizal, as a member of a criminal street gang, committed aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against 18 bikers injured or wounded in the melee. The count charges that Carrizal used or exhibited a firearm, and/or a knife or a sharp object and/or a club and/or an asp and/or a whip and/or brass knuckles and/or a chain and/or feet and or/hands and/or an object unknown to the grand jury.

The third count carries a penalty range of five to 99 years in prison or up to life.
By Shashank Shekhar, Arvind Ojha: After Kashmir, terror looms over Northeast. Banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is now provoking jihadis to wage war in the northeastern states of India. The malice intention of Lashkar came under the radar of security agencies through a video, where its cofounder Amir Hamza is seen instigating his cadre to spread violence in Northeast, including Darjeeling and Sikkim.

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A recent video, believed to be shot in Lahore on July 19, has left security agencies in a tizzy. Citing example of China military standoff with India over Doklam plateau, Hamza is asking jihadis to break up Indian states.

"We will fight in Sikkim, we will fight in Bhutan, we will fight in Darjeeling, we will fight in Srinagar," Hamza can be heard saying in the video, which is in possession of Mail Today. Agencies have also authenticated the video clips. Recently, several terror activities came under the radar of security agencies from Northeast states but the fresh threat has raised alarms bells in the Home ministry.

Senior officials claim Hamza was seen recently in Lahore and this was his first public appearance since JuD chief Hafiz Saeed's house arrest in January.

Hamza, in the video, threatens to create violence in several states of the country. "For one Bangladesh, we will take seven states," says Hamza.

He has also praised China and talks about the dispute over the 40-km-long stretch between Doklam and Bangladesh border. This video is the first such proof of Lashkar-e-Taiba's direct involvement in the Northeast and their strategy to work along with China. "if India will send its army in Bhutan to counter China, then along with Pakistan, Chinese troop will enter Srinagar," Hamza said in the video.

Hamza was designated global terrorist by US in 2012 and is wanted by India for the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that claimed over 160 lives and left more than 300 injured. He was detained by Pakistan authorities along with 26/11 key operative Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi soon after the attacks. He enjoys the position of number two in Lashkar ranks currently.

In the video, Hamza, in his screeching voice, is also asking jihadis to fulfil Saeed's dream of Ghazwa-e-Hind (holy war to capture India). The Ghazwa-e-Hind is a saying some Islamic traditions attribute to Prophet Muhammad, prophesying that army arising from the West will seize India. According to reports, in a separate gathering held this month, Lashkar-e-Taiba-led jihadist commanders met in Islamabad to demand that the Pakistan government should go to war with India to seize Kashmir.

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Also Watch: Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists sound war cry against India, ask Pakistan to seize Kashmir

Also Read

Moving a mountain easier than shaking PLA: China's army threatens India

Ahead of NSA Ajit Doval's visit, China says open to bilateral talks, but imposes a Doklam precondition

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Water rationing could be introduced in Rome on 28 July.

Romes water management company ACEA is considering turning off the water supply for eight hours a day in rotating districts of the capital, according to Italian news agency ANSA.

The measures could be introduced on 28 July, coinciding with the Lazio Region's order to stop water being pumped into the city from Lake Bracciano, an important source of potable water for Rome, located about 30 km north of the city.

The rationing could affect 1.5 million residents, ANSA reports, but would not affect supplies to essential services such as hospitals or to fire fighters who have been working round the clock in recent weeks to put out fires in the greater Rome area.

ACEA says that water levels at the city's reservoirs have been reduced dramatically thanks to lower-than-average rainfall over the last two years coupled with an ongoing heatwave across Italy.

The president of the Lazio Region, Nicola Zingaretti, describes the falling water levels at Lake Bracciano as a "tragedy" and warned that action was necessary to avert an "environmental disaster".

During the first six months of this year Rome had 157 mm of rain over just 26 days, compared to 649 mm of rain over 88 days during the same period last year, reports Italian daily newspaper La Stampa.

Photo: Lake Bracciano by Corriere della Sera
Lok Nayak Bhawan is located in Delhi's Khan Market area and houses many government offices including the Enforcement Directorate headquarters.

By India Today Web Desk: A fire today caused scare in Delhi's Lok Nayak Bhawan complex which houses many government offices.

28 fire tenders were rushed to the building located in Khan Market area where the blaze was reported from the fourth floor.

Since the incident happened during peak office hours, several people were trapped inside their offices and later on rescued. After few hours, the flames were brought under control. No casualties were however reported.

Efforts to douse fire at Delhi's Lok Nayak Bhawan still underway; all people rescued safely. pic.twitter.com/nMw2ENIAD5 ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

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Lok Nayak Bhawan houses offices of Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, Income-Tax department, etc.

#WATCH: Fire fighting ops underway at Delhi's Lok Nayak Bhawan. pic.twitter.com/wnHXBbX3tf; ANI (@ANI_news) July 24, 2017

ALSO WATCH: Delhi: Fire breaks out in Lok Nayak Bhawan office complex, 25 fire tenders rushed

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Momentum is building within the Coalition for a postal vote plebiscite on same-sex marriage, with former prime minister Tony Abbott indicating support for the idea for the first time.

But moderate MPs such as Warren Entsch are vigorously opposing the postal vote proposal on the basis it would be "very divisive" and lack legitimacy.

There is a growing view among conservative MPs that a postal plebiscite is the best way to head off a push among moderates for a conscience vote on same-sex marriage.
A Coalition MP will push ahead with a private member's bill to introduce fixed four-year terms despite the idea receiving a lukewarm reception from senior ministers in the Turnbull government on Monday.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday signalled support for Bill Shorten's call to overhaul the federal electoral system and plans to meet with the Labor leader in a bid to forge a bipartisan consensus.

But the suggestion has already been met with scepticism from senior government ministers and constitutional experts who argue the idea is complicated and could remove one of the few checks and balances in Australia's electoral system.
For the first time, IVF doctors will be able to provide women with helpful statistics about the chances of giving birth based on their age and the number of treatment cycles undertaken.

New research published in The Medical Journal of Australia shows that women who start the IVF process while aged between 30 to 34 have a 43.4 per cent chance of a live birth after just one cycle, compared to those between 40 to 44, who have a 10.7 per cent chance.

As expected, the greater the number of cycles, the higher the chances of success. For women who begin the process aged 40 to 44, the success rate can climb to 37.9 per cent for the eighth cycle.

"Firstly, we considered a cycle as all fresh and frozen embryos associated with an ovarian stimulation cycle, and secondly, we calculated the probability of success over repeated cycles," said Associate Professor Georgina Chambers from the University of New South Wales.
More Australians are dying from accidental opioid overdoses each year, with prescription painkillers rather than heroin now accounting for two-thirds of the fatalities, latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows.

An analysis of finalised ABS data by researchers at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found 68 per cent of the 668 overdose deaths in 2013 were related to pharmaceutical opioids  a far cry from the heroin epidemic of the 1990s when the majority of opioid deaths were caused by illicit drugs.

The death rate has more than doubled among addicts aged between 35 and 44 since 2007. The death toll is expected to rise.

"We expect further increases once the deaths data for 2014 and 2015 are finalised," said lead author Amanda Roxburgh.
Almost two years after the death of greyhound trainer John Burrows in the small NSW central west town of Portland, police have made a breakthrough in the case that shocked the close-knit community.

Police are urging the community to help them put together the final pieces of the puzzle surrounding the death of the popular 58-year-old father of three.

Investigators have determined that the improvised explosive device (IED) which killed Mr Burrows early on the morning of July 24, 2015 was detonated remotely with a radio-controlled receiver.

Chifley Local Area Command crime manager, Detective Chief Inspector Luke Rankin, said someone in the small community of 2000 near Lithgow must have information about the origin of the radio-controlled receiver.
WA detectives have charged a man after its alleged they located approximately two million child exploitation material images on his computers.

Detectives began investigating the 43-year-old man in April after it was alleged he sexually assaulted and indecently recorded three young girls known to him.

Investigators will allege they located approximately two million child exploitation images. Credit:Eddie Jim

As part of the investigation detectives executed a search warrant on the man's home where they seized 19 computers and electronic storage devices.

During an initial inspection of the devices detectives are alleged to have found child exploitation material.
Western Australia's economy is still the worst performing in the nation, a finance report released on Monday shows.

CommSec's quarterly State of the State report analyses eight key indicators to cast judgement on how well an economy is faring.

The mining industry in WA is showing signs of improvement.

It looks at economic growth, retail spending, equipment investment, unemployment, construction work completed, population growth and housing finance and dwelling commencements.

New South Wales again took top spot with only a small gap to Victoria and the ACT.
A 26-year-old man stabbed a Boxer-Labrador mix puppy to death because the animal used to take his girlfriend's side during arguments.

By India Today Web Desk: A man stabbed a Boxer-Labrador mix puppy to death because the animal used to take his girlfriend's side during arguments.

According to an arrest report, 26-year-old Mike Lado was furious as Blue, the puppy, would "always take her side in arguments" so he stabbed the animal to even the score.

Stunned by the act, the Florida police arrested him and now the 26-year-old is facing an animal cruelty charge.

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Also read: After an intense battle, dog sacrifices life to save Kerala family from cobra

The incident took place when Mike and his girlfriend got into an argument following a lengthy drinking binge. After the argument, Blue went and sat next to Mike's girlfriend.

But when things got a slightly better, Mike went to the kitchen and Blue followed him and that's when he lost control over his anger and stabbed the dog with a large butcher knife as reported by Fox 47 .

Also read: Lapse of reason: Dog sentenced to death in Pakistan for biting a child

According to the girlfriend, Blue did not approach Mike 'aggressively' but was barking and growling at him.

Investigators in a report said that there was blood on the doors at the end of the hallway, as if the dog was trying to get away from Mike.

The 26-year-old is being held on a $5,000 bond in the Lee County Jail.

Also read: Hyderabad man arrested for raping and killing dog

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In an affidavit, Tanaji Vishal Gharbudave, an interim jailor at the Byculla women's prison, refuted allegations that jail staff was responsible for the death of Manjula Shetye who was allegedly assaulted for prison officials.

By Vidya : Controversy over the death of Manjula Shetye at Mumbai's Byculla women's prison refuses to end with Shetye's family members now taking offence to an affidavit filed by prison officials.

The affidavit was filed by Tanaji Vishal Gharbudave who was an interim jailor at the Byculla prison for two days - June 22 and 23. It was on June 23 that Manjula Shetye was brought to the JJ Hospital where she was declared dead. Ghadbudave's affidavit claims that he did not notice anything amiss during the time he was present at the jail and while making rounds of the prison.

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The 53-year-old jailor states that reached the Byculla women's prison at 9.05 am on June 23 and, following laid-down in procedure, took a round of the jail with Dr Khan, the medical officer, and other jail staff between 9.45 and 10 am. "I heard the problems of women prisoners including deceased Manjula Shetye and others. Deceased was well at that time," Gharbudave says in his affidavit, adding that he was near the barracks until 6.35 pm and and that until then no one had complained about ill health of any inmate or any incident of assault.

It was only after 6.35 pm that "one jail staff came to me and informed that one lady prisoner fell down in women prison. I was in judicial office of prison. I instructed Dr Khan to go to the prison [to provide] treatment to the prisoner who collapsed. Therefore Dr Khan and jailor Anthony Nemesis ran towards the women prison (sic)," Gharbudave says. The affidavit goes on to say that Shetye was immediately brought to the main gate after Dr Khan recommended that she be hospitalised.

"I called ambulance and along with jail staff she was taken to JJ hospital. Ambulance left at 6.50pm and at that time no bleeding injury was seen on the body of deceased," the affidavit further states.

Notably, the affidavit is in stark contrast to the statements given by the complainant in the case, an inmate called Mariam Sheikh. Sheikh told Mumbai Police that jail officials had brutally beaten up Shetye on the morning of June 23, following which she fell unconscious. Sheikh's claims that Shetye was left unattended to for the entire day and that jail officials took her to a hospital only in the evening.

Gharbudave's statement also seemingly is not in line with the post-mortem report, which found a number of injuries on Shetye's body.

Following Shetye's death, the Byculla prison saw massive unrest with prison staff accusing Sheena Bora murder accused Indrani Mukerjea, who was lodged in the same jail, of leading a riot.

ALSO READ | Manjula Shetye murder case: Mumbai Crime Branch says don't need custody of accused jail officials anymore

ALSO READ | Indrani Mukerjea to be shifted out of Mumbai's Byculla jail where she was beaten up

ALSO WATCH | Brother of woman, who died in Byculla jail violence, wants guilty to be hanged

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For the Cook family, they know the toll that smoking can take on one's health

"My father got throat cancer from smoking and he passed away because of different things associated with that," said Leroy Cook.

Others like Tonya Price said smoking was once a popular pastime she enjoyed.

"I smoked when I was 14. I smoked with my brother and my girlfriend. We used to sneak them out and go into the woods and smoke. We thought we were something," said Price.

In West Virginia, over 25% of the population currently smokes. In California, Hawaii, and New Jersey the smoking age was recently raised from 18 to 21. So should the Mountain State also make this change?

"I don't think it may have much of an effect on anything. Kids are going to smoke regardless," said Cook.

"Cigarettes are not good for you. In my opinion, young kids are getting a hold of them anyway so lets make it harder for them to get," said George Darrah.

According to Tobacco Free Kids, statistics show from 2016 show that nearly 20% of high school students in West Virginia smoke cigarettes, while the national rate is a little over 10%.

"When I was in Morgantown there was a young gentleman around 16 that asked me for a cigarette. I told him I couldn't do that because I wasn't going to get in trouble for handing a 16-year-old a cigarette," said Charles Barkman.

"I think it is a good idea. I was a smoker at one time. I quit about 12 years ago and it's just not good for you," said Robert Barr.

Annual health care costs in West Virginia directly caused by smoking equal up to an estimated one billion.

Several of you also shared your thoughts with us on social media.

Hugo Corleone Munoz said, "I'm a believer that you should be free to do to your body what you please but America's schools are terrible at educating people about health, addiction and and any basis of economics and accounting."

Chris Burkhammer said, "Instead of raising the age to 21, shouldn't they worry about all the underage smoking."

George Arnold said," Raising it to 21 would make even more underage smoking since all the 18-20 year old's would be prohibited. Look at the drinking problems. How many underage consumption entries are on the county CAD's for Harrison, Marion & Mon each month--especially when college students are here?"
The Delhi High Court had constituted a committee in 2015 with Sreedharan as its head to look into the 111-km rail corridor from Katra to Banihal.

By Sweta dutta: Drawing a page from his experience in the Konkan Railways, Metro Man E Sreedharan said he had recommended the formation of a special purpose vehicle to expedite the Katra-Banihal rail corridor, a crucial link to the Kashmir Valley.

However, with the Railway Board summarily dismissing the suggestions, Sreedharan warns yet again that if work goes on at the same pace "it will take another 20 years to complete the project".

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In response to a public interest litigation filed by advocate and politician Prashant Bhushan's Centre for Public Interest Litigation, the Delhi High Court had constituted a committee in 2015 with Sreedharan as its head to look into the 111-km rail corridor from Katra to Banihal. The line connecting Katra, a Hindu pilgrimage town near Jammu, with Banihal in the Kashmir Valley, is plagued by inordinate delays and cost overruns since work commenced in 2002 with the Railways having spent Rs 10,000 crore already.

"Work has been going on for 15 years and one difficult stretch on the corridor is yet to be completed. As the head of the High Court ordered committee, "I have suggested that the project be taken away from the Railways and given to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which should be formed if the Railways wants the project to be expedited on priority," Sreedharan said. "A similar arrangement was done for the Konkan Railways. Only if the SPV is formed will the project be completed in the next 8 to 10 years. Otherwise with the present style of working, it will take another 20 years"

Sreedharan, 85, who had spearheaded the challenging Konkan Railways project, delivering 760 km of rail corridors with 59 stations, 92 tunnels and 2328 bridges, added, "We had finished the project in seven years. The Katra section is extremely important and will facilitate transportation of troops and bring down prices of essential commodities. However, Railway Board has turned down my suggestion."

The Katra-Banihal stretch is considered to be the most difficult engineering challenge in the country. With 27 bridges including the tallest railway bridge in the world and 37 tunnels, one of the longest in Asia, it throws up challenges coupled with a hostile terrain.

While two-thirds of the larger 326-km corridor ranging from Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla is ready, only the Katra-Banihal calls for attention. Railway Ministry has formed a special monitoring team to oversee its execution and is targeting for an opening by 2021.Also Read

Yogi Adityanath puts metro-man back on track, E Sreedharan to plan metros of 3 more cities

Metro Man E Sreedharan says Kochi was his most challenging project

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By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 24, 2017 | 06:35 AM | BOAZ, KY

Three people were arrested on methamphetamine charges Sunday night in Graves County.

Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon says deputies served a warrant and arrested 29-year-old Jeremy Petter at a home on Hopewell Road in Boaz. During a search of the home, deputies found methamphetamine, cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

While at the home, 33-year-old Kenneth Baker and 27-year-old Destanie Wilburn drove up to the home to pick up some property. Deputies searched their vehicle and found meth and drug paraphernalia.

Baker and Wilburn were both arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. Petter was charged with possession of meth, possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was also served a warrant for burglary and criminal mischief.

All three were lodged at the Graves County Jail.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 23, 2017 | 07:46 PM | DRAFFENVILLE, KY

Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear will be in Marshall County today.

Beshear will address local business leaders on how his office is working to combat human trafficking and improve the safety of Kentucky families. Beshear will be speaking at the Marshall County Rotary Club's meeting at Majestic Pizza & Steakhouse in Draffenville at noon. State Rep. Will Coursey and Marshall County Sheriff Kevin Byars are also expected to attend.

Over the last year, Beshear has established the Attorney Generals office as the leading agency fighting human trafficking, a modern-day form of slavery in which adults and children are forced into sex or labor. Earlier this month, Beshear announced his office is offering human trafficking training in Western Kentucky this week for health care workers, law enforcement officials, first responders and civic leaders.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jul. 24, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 24, 2017 | 03:18 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Former Fulton County Jailer Ricky Parnell has been sentenced for conspiring to defraud Fulton County taxpayers during the expansion of the county detention center.



In a press release, U.S. Attorney John E. Kuhn, Jr., said Parnell was sentenced to 97 months in prison.



Public corruption simply cannot be tolerated, Kuhn said. Corrupt public officials erode the fairness and integrity of our public institutions, and they undermine the publics trust in our government. I hope this conviction and restitution will reassure the public that the Department of Justice will hold elected officials to the highest standards of honesty and integrity  and that we will seek repayment of every tax dollar spent corruptly by public officials.



Parnell coordinated a scheme with contractors and suppliers where he helped get them contracts on the project. They over-charged the county during construction of the detention center, and Parnell got a kick-back from each of them. He received money and other items valued at $175,000 or more.



Along with co-defendants Michael Homra, Danny Larcom and Ron Armstrong, a total of $154,000 in restitution is owed to the county. Homra has paid $32,500 and Larcom paid $22,000. The remaining $100,000 balance is due by Parnell and Armstrong.



In April, the 59-year-old former jailer pleaded guilty to several charges, including honest services fraud and multiple counts of wire fraud.



Larcom, Armstrong and Homra pleaded guilty to charges for their participation in the conspiracy. Armstrong was sentenced to 35 months in prison, while Larcom and Homra were each sentenced to 2 years of probation.



The illegal activity took place between April 2015 and August 2016. Parnell served as the Fulton County Jailer from 1990 until late last year.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 23, 2017 | 09:10 PM | WATER VALLEY, KY

Three people were arrested on drug charges over the weekend after police reportedly found drugs at a Graves County home.

Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon says deputies responded to a Water Valley home Saturday after receiving information that drug activity was taking place. During the course of the investigation, deputies received consent to search the premises.

During the search, deputies found approximately seven ounces of marijuana, several items of drug paraphernalia, pills and approximately $1,600 in cash that is believed to have accumulated from drug transactions.

Steven Youngblood, William Gilbert and Selina Shelton were placed under arrest and lodged in the Graves County Jail.

Youngblood is charged with trafficking in marijuana less than eight ounces and possession of drug paraphernalia. Shelton is charged with prescription not in the proper container and possession of controlled substance. Gilbert is charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
The Enforcement Directorate had conducted raids on July 8 at three Delhi farmhouses owned by Misa Bharti, her husband and a firm linked to them, in a money laundering case probe.

By India Today Web Desk: In further trouble for Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad's MP daughter Misa Bharti, the Enforcement Directorate has decide to seize a farmhouse owned by her in Delhi.

The ED will seize the farmhouse located in Delhi's Bijwasan as the central agency is not convinced by Misa and her husband Shailesh's response during the investigation in a money laundering case.

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The Enforcement Directorate had conducted raids on July 8 at three Delhi farmhouses owned by Misa Bharti, her husband and a firm linked to them, in a money laundering case probe.

Sleuths of the central probe agency carried out searches at the farmhouses in Ghitorni, Bijwasan and Sainik Farms

The farmhouses are linked to Bharti, her husband Shailesh Kumar, and Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited.

The searches were connected to a money laundering probe being conducted by the agency against two brothers, Surendra Kumar Jain and Virendra Jain, and others who are alleged to have laundered several crore rupees using shell companies.

The Jain brothers were arrested by the ED under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

One of the firms that the arrested duo dealt with was Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited. Bharti and her husband are alleged to have been directors of this firm in the past.

The agency said 1,20,000 shares of Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited were bought between 2007 and 2008 at a rate of Rs 100 per share by four shell companies - Shalini Holdings Limited, Ad-Fin Capital Services (India) Private Limited, Mani Mala Delhi Properties Private Limited and Diamond Vinimay Private Limited.

These 1,20,000 shares were bought back by Bharti at Rs 10 per share, the agency said.

The ED also arrested Rajesh Agarwal, a chartered accountant allegedly linked to Bharti, who provided accommodation entries or black funds of about Rs 60 lakh to Mishail Printers and Packers Private Limited.

The firm was registered at 25, Tughlaq Road here till the shares were bought back by Bharti, the agency said. Between 2009 and 2010, the address was changed to Bijwasan, it added.

ALSO READ:

Misa Bharti's accountant Rajesh Agarwal arrested by ED in money laundering case

I-T department attaches Lalu Yadav's daughter Misa Bharti's Rs 50 crore assets

Stung by Income Tax raids, Lalu Prasad hits back, says will continue fight against Fascist BJP

Lalu Prasad Yadav burns Sushil Kumar Modi with a single tweet

WATCH: ED raids properties of Lalu Yadav's daughter Misa Bharti in Delhi

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By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 23, 2017 | 07:21 PM | MAYFIELD, KY

The Mayfield-Graves County Needline and Food Pantry has announced that the Community Yard Sale, planned for this fall, has been canceled.

Director Jackie Herndon said the cancellation is due to several reasons, with the main one being the loss of the building in which the event has previously been held.

This has been a good fund raising event for us but this year, there have been so many obstacles in the way that it finally caused the board to make this decision. It is something that we plan to re-visit in the future. says Director Herndon. We want to thank everyone who has worked so hard and given countless hours for the past success of the yard sale. It could not have happened without the support of the wonderful people of Mayfield and Graves County.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 23, 2017 | 09:48 PM | SMITHLAND, KY

A contractor for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is making good progress on the New Lee Creek Bridge along Cutoff Road in Livingston County. Cutoff Road remains closed at mile point 00.847 while the new bridge is under construction.

Work on the new bridge started May 2 with a target completion date of August 3. According to the KYTC, the project is reported at about 80% complete. With favorable weather the project appears on track to meet the estimated completion date. The project timeline was established to allow the New Lee Creek Bridge to be ready for traffic in time for the start of school this fall.

Flash flooding during July 2016 caused major transportation issues in Livingston County by taking out a culvert and damaging the Lee Creek Bridge along Cutoff Road at a time when it was being used as a detour for construction of a new culvert on KY 453 south of Smithland.

To restore the critical detour and provide access to the nearby elementary school, a temporary construction bridge was placed across Lee Creek. That temporary bridge was removed to allow construction of the new bridge.

There is a marked detour for Cutoff Road via KY 453 and US 60.
By The Associated Press

By The Associated Press Jul. 23, 2017 | 03:36 PM | FRANKFORT, KY

Kentucky's Senate Democratic Caucus is asking former Gov. Julian Carroll to resign his state Senate seat after a TV report alleged he groped a man in 2005.

In a statement Sunday, the caucus asked the Frankfort lawmaker to resign immediately and removed him as minority whip.

Spectrum News of Louisville reported Saturday the alleged incident happened at the man's home. Carroll, who denied the allegations, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

After the alleged incident, the man went to state police and played a taped conversation of the meeting. No charges were filed.

There's no evidence of groping on the tape, which shows the man refusing Carroll's sexual proposition and Carroll then backing down.

Carroll was Kentucky's governor from 1974 to 1979.
Rascal Flatts lead singer to appear at Mayfield Save A Lot
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Poverty, crime and grime are at the heart of Oliver Twist, one of Charles Dickens' most popular novels. Anya Reiss' impressive adaptation fillets the story very effectively, condensing swathes of plot into neat scenes that propel Oliver's adventures forward.

But galloping through the story at this pace means that  despite the heroic efforts of characters like Monks (Rina Fatania) to explain Oliver's backstory  there are bound to be times where children in the audience lose the plot. Does it matter? Not in this production, where the whole sense of who's a goodie and who's a baddie is made crystal clear by the multi-tasking cast.

The programme notes help children differentiate characters by describing their costumes, and designer Fly Davis devises a curious mix of steampunk Victoriana and modern graffiti-sprayed leathers for Fagin's boys. In a nice touch, the Dodger (Danny-Boy Hatchard) wears wheelies, all the better to escape with. The set is an ingenious construction of shipping containers, and makes imaginative use of the revolving stage in the numerous chases and escapes.

There's also impressive work from sound designer Josh Anio Grigg, whose sinister industrial soundscape helps to conjure the misery of a nineteenth century workhouse.

Queen of the production is Gbemisola Ikumelo, who plays self-serving workhouse matron Mrs Corney, as well as the spirited Nancy, a warm-hearted London girl through and through. Daniel Hoffmann-Gill provides a physical and emotional centre of gravity as stone-hearted Mr Bumble, and the horribly sinister Bill Sykes. Because of his very striking appearance  and magnificent beard  it might have helped to make his costume change a bit more obvious between characters.

Michael Hodgson creates a manipulative, sly Fagin with a heart of darkness that's revealed most fully in the quietest moments, such as his warning to Bill about dealing with Nancy.

The title role is a very physical one for any child, as Oliver is kidnapped, posted through a window, locked in a coffin and so on. Here it's alternated between three young actors, including Lewis Fernee, who gives a touching and engaging performance.

In the later part of his life, Dickens went on tour to perform live readings from his books. One of his most popular and effective was the account of Nancy's murder at the hands of Bill Sykes  which exhausted him so much his doctors told him he had to stop including it in the show.

In this production, for children aged six and up, there is certainly an ominous sense of something bad happening, but this cruellest of scenes is managed with real sensitivity by director Caroline Byrne, who has produced an action-packed, thrilling show with just the right amount of audience interaction to engage and entertain.

Oliver Twist runs at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre until 5 August.
Swaraj, last week said that the missing Indian could be in Badush jail in the troubled town country, however, India Today's investigation showed that the jail did not exist as it was razed by ISIS few months back.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: A complaint case has been filed against External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in a Muzaffarpur Court for misleading the country over the issue of 39 missing Indians who allegedly were abducted from Iraq in 2014. Swaraj, last week said that the missing Indian could be in Badush jail in the troubled town country, however, India Today's investigation showed that the jail did not exist as it was razed by ISIS few months back.

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"The Minister officially had said that 39 Indians could be in Badush jail and now investigations have shown that the jail does not exist. Her statement only shows that she not only misled the family members of the 39 missing Indians but also the country. Therefore I have filed the complaint case", Tamanna Hashmi, complainant.

The comments of the Minister has not only embarrassed the Narendra Modi govt but has also given ammunition to the opposition who have decided to bring a privilege motion against her for misleading the country.

On the other hand, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told has said he had no information on whereabouts of the missing Indians.

The court has admitted the complaint case and the matter be heard on Tuesday.

ALSO READ

Are 39 Indians missing in Mosul still alive? Iraq government has no clue

Missing Indians in Iraq: Without proof, no country abandons its citizens, says MoS VK Singh

Missing Indians in Iraq: 3 years and counting, two tales of 46 nurses and 39 labourers

India Today first to reach Mosul after ISIS fall. No sign of missing 39 Indians

No confirmed information on 39 missing Indians, Iraqi ambassador tells India Today

ALSO WATCH: Iraq foreign minister to India Today: No substantial evidence on the fate of missing 39 Indians

--- ENDS ---
Dubai-based smugglers are coating gold with the colour of copper to ensure it is not detected by customs officials at airports.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: Gold seems to be changing its colour, especially when it is smuggled into the country.

Dubai-based smugglers are coating gold with the colour of copper to ensure it is not detected by customs officials at airports.

In the last 24 hours, a team of customs officials has apprehended three people at Mumbai airport for smuggling gold worth Rs 36 lakh.

Gold seized from smuggler that was coated with copper paint.

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On Sunday night, a passenger named Kandathil Mohamed Rafi was apprehended. Rafi, who belongs to Kerala, had arrived from Dubai on an Indigo flight, and was carrying a hand baggage. He works as a salesman in Dubai.

"During the search, we recovered copper-coloured wires stitched on to embroidery panel of fabrics from him. Chemical tests revealed that these were gold wires coated with copper paint. The gold weighed 587 grams and was worth Rs 17.32 lakh," an official said.

The smuggled gold was stitched on to fabric.

In another incident, the Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) intercepted Altaf Husain Ghulam Shabbir, who had arrived from Dubai on a Jet Airways flight.

They recovered four gold chains worth Rs 7 lakh from him. Shabbir had hidden the gold chains in tubes of toothpaste.

Another smuggler carried the gold inside toothpaste tube.

In a third incident, officials arrested Faisal Farukhbhai Paliwala, a resident of Ahmedabad, for smuggling four gold bars worth Rs 11.8 lakh in his trousers.

The gold was found in a specially designed pocket on the waistband of his trousers.

ALSO READ:

Mumbai Customs arrested 21 carriers in single flight for smuggling gold in water bottles

Meerut: Arms smuggling, animal skin trade racket busted at Retd. Colonel's house

Flying high: Homing pigeon seized with little backpack full of drugs arrested

--- ENDS ---
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A plan to convert the top two floors of the former Osborne Village Inn into micro-apartments has been scrapped.

Instead, they will be redeveloped as boutique office space, one of the listing agents for the Osborne Street property said.

Ken Yee, senior vice-president of Cushman & Wakefield Winnipeg, said the developer  Winnipegs Fusion Capital Corp.  had second thoughts about going with apartments because of the type of retail tenants that likely will open on the main floor of the three-storey building.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS files Restaurants and office space will call the Osborne Village home once renovations are done. A plan to install micro-apartments was scrapped.

Yee said it looks like the 4,600 square feet on the north half of the main floor will likely be leased to a pizzeria bistro and to a western-based coffee house.

A restaurant/bar with an outdoor patio is the likely tenant for the 4,900 square feet on the south side of the floor.

Converting it to office space Became more practical, given the tenancies we were attracting on the main floor, he explained.

It made more sense from a noise-level standpoint because an office tenant would be leaving work around 5 (p.m.) or so and we wouldnt have to be worried about quiet enjoyment, so to speak.

This is the second time the redevelopment plans for the hotel have changed since it closed in 2015. The original plan called for it to be converted into a boutique hotel with 20 to 30 rooms on the top two floors, a restaurant and lobby area on the main floor, and a stand-alone bar in the lower level.

The furnished micro-apartments that were part of the second plan were small  250 to 450 square feet  and expensive at $975 to $1,400 a month, including utilities.

Some suggested that while they might be a good fit for pricier cities such as Toronto or Vancouver, they would be a tough sell in the Winnipeg market.

However, Yee had no interest in wading into that argument.

We didnt go too deep into that (testing the market for micro-apartments), he said, so it would be unfair to comment on whether or not there would have been ample demand.

There should be ample demand for new boutique office space, he said, since there isnt a lot of that available in Osborne Village. He noted there is a new six-storey office complex under construction at the intersection of Osborne, Pembina Highway and Donald Street, but thats at the southern edge of the Village.

Yee said there is about 8,000 square feet of space on each of the top two floors, and the kinds of tenants he thinks that might be interested in the space include massage therapists, physiotherapists and doctors.

And we dont have a bunch of it (space), so we should be alright.

Yee said the north half of the main floor will likely be leased to a pizza bistro and a coffee house.

A Western Canadian restaurant chain and a strong local group are interested in the leasing the other half of the main floor, while the buildings lower level likely will be leased to a new-concept-bowling offering, he added.

It will have a nice, hipster-like theme to it. It will be different from the bowling alleys of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

Yee said they hope to have leasing deals finalized this fall, and to turn the spaces over to the new tenants before Christmas.

But they probably wont be opening for business until early in the new year, he said.

Know of any newsworthy or interesting trends or developments in the local office, retail, industrial or multi-family residential sectors? Let real estate reporter Murray McNeill know at the email address below, or at 204-697-7254.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Google is bringing you to space.

The search engine giant announced last week its popular map imagery tool, Street View, will allow anyone a peek inside the International Space Station. Viewers will have access to complete 360-degree, panoramic imagery showing how astronauts aboard the space station live.

We will never know what its like to live and work in space, but that doesnt mean we cant bring a taste of that to all the people who have ever dreamed of being an astronaut, said Deanna Yick, global program manager for Street View.

While clicking through each of the 15 parts of the space station  or modules  as well as Space Xs Dragon spacecraft, users will see dots overlaid on top of objects, which when clicked on show annotations explaining what each item is and its purpose.

For example, viewers will see exercise equipment folded up and an annotation reveals what it looks like in action and explains how astronauts exercise in zero-gravity.

The space station was launched into Earths lower orbit in 1998 as a joint research hub for the U.S., Canada, Russia, Japan and Europe. At any given time, astronauts from several countries live and conduct research aboard the space station orbiting about 400 kilometres above the planet.

Googles Street View team has completed similar projects in hard-to-reach locations, including on top of mountains in the Alps and the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef.

This is the teams most ambitious project yet.

Mapping in zero-gravity presented a unique set of challenges for Google. Typically, someone with a camera will physically go to a location Google wants to map.

But since the space station is orbiting the planet, that wasnt possible.

With the help of NASA and an educational organization called CASIS, Google was assigned a French astronaut from the European Space Agency. The astronaut, Thomas Pesquet, used equipment already on board the station to map the entire station for Google.

Then there was the issue of gravity  or the lack thereof.

Individuals mapping for Google usually put a camera on a tripod, which is then rotated to get a full 360-degree view. In space, a tripod would just start floating.

We usually use a tripod to ground the imagery at a single point and rotate the camera around that point, Yick said.

Without gravity, its basically impossible to have a single point that youre rotating around.

Google had to design an entirely new method of collecting images. Working with a replica of the space station at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the company developed a solution.

They affixed two bungee cords to the walls of a module, thus creating a fixed point for the camera. Pesquet then rotated himself around the point.

For four months, from February until May, Pesquet gradually collected photos, which were then sent back to Earth and stitched into a 360 view.

The station has technical equipment on all surfaces, with lots of cables and a complicated layout with modules shooting off in all directions  left, right, up, down. And its a busy place, with six crew members carrying out research and maintenance activities 12 hours a day, Pesquet said in a statement.

There are a lot of obstacles up there, and we had limited time to capture the imagery, so we had to be confident that our approach would work.

 USA Today

#international-space-station
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Note to Sensitive Readers: If you are offended by the word booger, you should skip todays column and head straight for the business section. Also, you might want to consider counselling.

There is a famous saying about the topsy-turvy nature of life that states: Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you.

I wasnt entirely sure what that meant until the middle of last week when I experienced one of those days when getting eaten by a bear would have been a turn for the better.

The day began when my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, headed out on a 12-day road trip to visit family on the West Coast, leaving me and the two dogs to fend for ourselves.

The dogs dealt with this by slumping on the floor and spending the day with their moony little faces pressed to the picture window in the living room, waiting for their mom to come back.

Whereas I, a crusading columnist with naturally curly hair, had to park myself at the home computer and spend the day pounding out Saturdays Speiriscope column, a fun and informative weekly feature that, in professional journalism circles, is described as extremely long.

Typically, it takes all day to hammer out this feature, and I was about two-thirds of the way through it  having just described how termites had gobbled $225,000 in cash at a bank in India  when (BLAMMO!) the computer froze and every word Id written disappeared, forcing me to start again at Square 1.

Despite losing about two hours worth of work, I persevered and, after spewing several words that cant be repeated in a family newspaper, finished the feature and headed to Mona Lisa Ristorante to join my buddies for a pair of heated games in our bocce league.

For the uninitiated, bocce is kind of the Italian equivalent of curling, wherein you fling coloured balls down a grass pitch with one hand while the other maintains a vise-like grip on a glass of wine.

My bocce buddies and I were embarrassed in the first game by a score that I do not remember. In the second game, we were humiliated in the sense that our opponents got 21 points, while my team got zero.

What you need to know here is that, under the laws of sheer random chance, even the worst bocce team in the world would be expected to get at least half a dozen (bad word) points, so posting a goose egg left us feeling emotionally vulnerable.

After being battered in bocce, we slunk into the restaurant and drowned our sorrows in extra-large pizzas, which we consumed after first sprinkling the slices with chopped-up hot peppers mixed with olive oil.

When you put this spicy mixture in your mouth, it feels as if a volcano has erupted on your tongue  or as if you have just licked the sun  and it caused me to sweat from every part of my body, including my nose.

If you recall the warning at the start of todays column, this is where the boogers come in. What Im trying to say is that after soothing my spiritual wounds with pizza, I drove home, popped the dogs in bed, then walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Which is when I looked in the mirror and discovered, to my horror, that trapped on my face, dangling between my nose and upper lip, was what I am now going to describe as (dramatic pause) #TheMonsterBoogerFromHell!

I apologize if you were eating breakfast when you read that last paragraph, but I can tell you it was a troubling moment for me on a personal level.

On the one hand, I was embarrassed to think I had spent a couple of hours sitting around with my pals, oblivious to #TheMonsterBoogerFromHell parked right above my upper lip.

On the other hand, I was ticked off that  hold on while I activate the caps lock feature of my keyboard  NONE OF MY FRIENDS SAID A WORD ABOUT THIS FLAGRANT NOSE-RELATED GROOMING FAUX PAS!

What bothered me most is that everyone knows an unwritten law states that you are morally required to inform your friends if they have a big piece of spinach stuck in their teeth or if they have a you know what dangling from their you know what.

I told this story to my exceedingly polite editor and he agreed wholeheartedly that my friends, at minimum, should have warned me via the universal non-verbal gesture, wherein you catch the victims eye, then rapidly point at your own nose to indicate there is a flagrant nasal emergency.

In her etiquette column, Dear Helena, on the website Chowhound, Helena Echlin advises: If youre dining with a group, first try a non-verbal hint. Give the person a significant look and discreetly gesture at the corresponding area of your own face If youre dining alone with the person, or if the non-verbal hint didnt work, say something. Your goal is to let the person know whats wrong while drawing as little attention to it as possible.

Well, thank you, Helena. Naturally, the following day, I confronted my friends at a backyard barbecue, and all of them vehemently denied being aware of #TheMonsterBoogerFromHell (which I sincerely hope starts trending on social media.)

The polite point is, the bear definitely ate me that day. And if he reads this column, I think hell go vegetarian.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg is among Canadas leading cities in helping to protect companion animals by having only shelter dogs and cats available for adoption in city pet stores.

While councillors in Vancouver voted unanimously last month to ban the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores in that city, joining numerous other locations in Canada that have recently done the same, the Winnipeg Humane Society (WHS) has had a partnership with Petland for the past five years to exclusively house and showcase adoptable animals from the WHS.

Since 2012, with all three Petland locations, the humane societys partnership list has grown to 10 stores: adding four Petsmart stores, two Best West Pet Foods stores and one Pet Valu store as pet-adoption locations.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Nine-year-old Sara-Lynn Giesbrecht and parents Lindsay and Joseph adopted a puppy at a Winnipeg Humane Society adoption event at Petsmart Kenaston on Saturday.

All 10 locations donate in-store kennel space for shelter cats and kittens available for adoption. All stores hold regular one-day adoption events, at which shelter dogs and puppies are brought in from the WHS just for the event.

The WHS mantra of adopt, dont shop represents the goals of the partnership  reducing pet overpopulation and inhumane breeding operations as well as promoting responsible pet ownership.

Theres been a lot of really positive parts of the partnership. Its just a really great relationship, WHS spokeswoman Aileen White said. For the stores, they get their animals from a reputable organization that has the proper backing. We do the vet checks, spay and neuter and other important things. And theyre not supporting backyard breeders.

Backyard breeders or puppy mills have become known for rampant cases of abusing and neglecting dogs, particularly females which are forced to have litter after litter, poor living conditions, as well as health problems and suffering for the dogs.

Petland Crossroads manager Robert Cinch said the partnership with the Winnipeg Humane Society supports the companys belief  and his personal belief  that every animal deserves a chance at a good life and a good home.

I think its amazing what the humane society does when it comes to that for animals because the animals cant speak for themselves, Cinch said. He said his family has a dog, a basenji/Boston terrier dog named Bella, and two cats from the humane society.

This is an organization that is giving them a voice that says, I may not have had the best start in life but I can still have a very good, fulfilling life. Ive seen a three-legged cat get adopted and that woman brought my entire staff here to tears. It was such a touching moment. Ive seen a one-eyed cat get adopted, he said.

It touches me so deeply that there are people out there that are willing to take these animals into their homes and add them to their families. We want to help with that.

There are four or five adoption events per month among the various partner pet stores. All adoptions are facilitated through applications to the WHS and are subject to the humane societys regulations, such as mandatory spaying/neutering, vaccinations and safe homes for a pet.

White said the partnership to have only shelter dogs and cats in pet stores serves the city in place of a bylaw at this time.

A proposal was before the citys protection and community services committee in January 2013 but the matter was not pursued.

However, White said a ban on retail sales of dogs and cats in Winnipeg is worth revisiting.

It would help us in making a greater stand against other online retailers that you can go to. It would help enforce, in a greater way, the importance of responsible acquisition or however you go about adopting your pet, to do that as responsibly and ethically as possible, she said.

Craigslist has banned pet sales on its website, allowing only re-homed pets for a small adoption fee, but Kijiji continues to allow pet sales.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If Premier Brian Pallister isnt careful, hes going to miss his Danny Williams moment.

Williams was the bombastic former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. From 2004 to 2010, Williams forged a lasting national profile  quite an achievement for the premier of a small province  largely because of his appetite for tussling with and, ultimately, defeating the federal government.

That kind of experience could be instructive now for Pallister, a premier who has a similar appetite for tussling with Ottawa but who has, to date, not figured out how to gain the upper hand.

Mike Dembeck / The Canadian Press Files Former Newfoundland premier Danny Williams is a well-regarded contrarian.

In many ways, Williams early years bear an eerie similarity to what Pallister is going through now.

After he was elected in 2004, Williams immediately slashed spending to deal with a deficit that had grown to more than $800 million. Just as Pallister is doing now, Williams delayed infrastructure projects, closed schools and hospitals, froze civil-servant pay and laid off another 4,000. The latter decision sparked a month-long strike by more than 20,000 civil servants that was only ended by back-to-work legislation.

And like Pallister, Williams austerity agenda steadily eroded the support for his government. A few months after pulling 60 per cent of the popular vote, polls showed the Williams government had only 41 per cent support and was back in a statistical dead-heat with the opposition Liberals.

The Williams government seemed destined for the political disaster until a dispute with the federal government intervened.

Then-prime minister Paul Martin locked horns with Williams on the renewal of the Atlantic Accord, a deal between the province and Ottawa on the management of off-shore oil and gas resources.

When he couldnt get the terms he wanted, Williams decided to go to war. In December 2004, he took down all the Canadian flags from provincial government buildings. The dispute, which captured the attention of the nation, continued until February 2005, when Williams achieved a more favourable agreement and put the flags back up.

Polls in the immediate wake of the renewal of the Atlantic Accord showed support for Williams government had surged to more than 80 per cent, a level almost unheard of in Canadian politics, then or now. But that was not the end of Williams sparring with Ottawa.

In 2008, Williams battled then-prime minister Stephen Harper, accusing him of reneging on a pledge to exclude oil and gas revenues from calculation of equalization payments. To press his case, Williams eventually launched the Anything But Conservative campaign to coincide with the 2008 election, urging citizens of his province to vote against all Tory candidates. Ultimately, the federal Conservatives lost all three seats in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Williams would leave provincial politics just two years later as one of the most dynamic and popular premiers in any province, even though his legacy is not entirely positive. Spending cuts and rough play with public servants still rankle some  and he is largely blamed for squandering enormous oil and gas revenues. Still, Williams proved it is possible for the premier of a smaller province to prevail in a battle with Ottawa.

Williams legacy would appear, at first blush, to be instructive for Pallister, a leader who has shown a Danny-like appetite for conflict.

Pallister has refused to sign a health-funding deal he says is patently unfair to the provinces, has shunned Ottawas carbon tax plan and lashed out at Ottawa for its pot legalization timetable.

And then there is Churchill.

The private owner of the Hudson Bay Railway, Omnitrax, has refused to undertake repairs to the rail link between The Pas and Churchill, putting the residents of Manitobas northernmost town at risk of going without basic necessities  or having to pay exorbitant prices for them  throughout the winter.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS files Premier Brian Pallister could use some help in his ongoing tussles with Ottawa.

Pallister wants Ottawa to dig into its pockets to reacquire the port from Omnitrax. Only then, Pallister has said, would he consider some sort of direct involvement in repairing the line. The silence from Ottawa is deafening and suggests that nobody in the federal government cares a whole lot about what he has to say.

For a leader who seems to embrace conflict, this is an incredibly passive response. Even Pallisters pledge to spend $6 million to bring propane to heat Churchill homes was greeted as a too-little, too-late gesture.

If Pallister is going to spar with Ottawa, he ought to find ways of underlining his dissatisfaction with direct action.

Taking down the Canadian flags from provincial buildings in Manitoba is an option, but that alone may not be enough to sway things Pallisters way.

Pallister needs to deliver a made-in-Manitoba plan to fix the rail line and nudge Omnitrax out of the equation and then use some carrot and some stick to get the federal government to help cover the costs.

Perhaps he can use Manitobas support for the health-care accord and carbon tax framework as bargaining chips to get support on Churchill.

Taking the lead on Churchill  and settling the health and carbon tax disputes  would also help distract from the severe austerity measures Pallister has invoked and perhaps reverse the recent, significant decline in public support for his government.

Pallister is increasingly being viewed as a bystander to the most pressing issues in his own province, a leader with a long list of grievances who is desperate to find someone else to lead on solutions. Its an approach that does not look good on the Tory premier.

As he searches for solutions and weighs the political benefits and liabilities, it would be helpful if Manitobas premier asked himself one important question: what would Danny Williams do?

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg airport workers began a strike Monday morning after their union failed to reach an agreement with the Winnipeg Airports Authority.

The Public Service Alliance of Canadas Union of Canadian Transportation Employees served the authority with a 72-hour strike notice Thursday, stating its members would begin striking at 3 a.m. today if there was no agreement.

About 150 airport employees  including duty managers, administrative workers and various tradespeople, among others whove been without a contract since June 30, 2016 and in bargaining negotiations since October  are on strike. Roughly 40 people were walking the picket line as of 8 a.m.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Workers picket at the Richardson International Airport on Monday morning.

Representatives of the airports authority and the union had been negotiating for the last week with the help of a federally appointed mediator. Outstanding issues include wage discrepancies, pension plan changes and the contracting out of work to non-union employees. The airports authority denied contracting out any more union work than what is allowed under the expired agreement.

At the start of the mediation process, the airports authority tabled an offer it said included a five per cent wage increase over the course of a five-year agreement, along with a commitment to no layoffs. On Sunday, before negotiations broke off, the authority upped its offer to a 7.5 per cent increase.

The union is asking for a 5.5 per cent increase for all employees in each year of a two-year agreement, retroactive to 2016, according to the airports authoritys release.

An official statement from the union stated the offer failed to address almost all of those issues the negotiations were meant to resolve.

PSAC is committed to a successful strike action if that is what is necessary to ensure that these important workplace issues are resolved and employees work is protected, said Marianne Hladun, executive vice-president for the alliances prairies region.

The airports authority said the proposed changes would increase the salary range for unionized employees from $25 to $56 to $28 to $65 per hour.

Under (the unions) proposal, the lowest salaried full-time employee would move from $49,000 a year to $54,500 a year, while those at the top of the range would move from $109,000 to over $126,000 a year, the authoritys statement said. Overtime and shift premiums are over and above this amount.

The airports authority and the union each claim the other side was the one to abandon negotiations and walk away from mediation.

Hladun, who was on the picket line Monday morning, said the airports claim that union representatives walked away was completely untrue.

Even with the 72-hour strike notice, she said union negotiators were awaiting an updated offer or any form of communication from the airport until 2 a.m. Monday, but hadnt heard back since the last offer was made Sunday night.

When asked whether union representatives left negotiations as stated in the airports authoritys statement, Tyler MacAfee, the authoritys director of corporate communications and public affairs, said it was more accurate to say that talks broke down.

Hladun said the strike is not meant to disrupt anyones travel schedule, and the picket line allows travellers a clear path to and from airport entrances and exits.

Our mandate is to operate our airport in a fiscally prudent manner in the best interests of our community, said airports authority president and CEO Barry Rempel in a release. We are confident our offer would keep (the airport) as one of the most sought after places of employment.

The airports authority doesnt anticipate the strike will result in significant disruption to airport operations, stating it has plans to deal with issues that arise.

Their habitual use of temporary and contract workers goes against their declarations of respect. Today, it might be one person, and tomorrow it might be someone else.

Some workers, including duty managers, will continue to work during the strike, MacAfee said, adding that essential roles will continue to be filled.

He said the airport will bring in temporary workers, both from Manitoba and outside the province.

Were in a position now where we just need people in place, he said.

Union negotiators wanted to address the use of temporary workers, Hladun said.

Their habitual use of temporary and contract workers goes against their declarations of respect. Today, it might be one person, and tomorrow it might be someone else, she said.

Hladun confirmed a duty manager will be at work at all times in accordance with the airports essential-services agreement, and that other tradespeople, such as electricians, are on standby in case essential repairs or maintenance work are needed.

Until an agreement is reached, picketers will be out at the airport seven days a week, likely starting at 5 a.m. each day, Hladun said.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When it comes to work ethic, one of Yahya Kazmouzs employers say hes a machine. The 23-year-old works full time for a restoration company, picks up two shifts a week at Pizza Hotline and is helping to launch a catering business called Syriana Foods.

When he came to Canada in February 2016, he had no English skills. Since then, the government-assisted Syrian refugee has integrated more quickly than most. Of the nearly 900 Syrian newcomers who arrived in Manitoba two winters ago, most now rely on social assistance, provincial government figures show.

Their first year in Canada, government-assisted refugees are supported by the federal resettlement assistance program. Privately sponsored refugees are supported and resettled by their sponsors. After one year in Canada, all refugees are eligible for provincial employment and income assistance benefits.

At the end of March, 204 Syrian refugee families who arrived in Manitoba during winter 2015-16 were on assistance. By summer, there were 193 families receiving provincial welfare.

The province doesnt keep track of how many of the Syrian families collecting welfare were government-assisted or sponsored by private groups, but studies show those with community connections and sponsors to help them resettle will find work and integrate more quickly.

Last December, a federal study of Syrian refugee adults who arrived in Canada from November 2015 to April 2016 found fewer than 10 per cent of adults who were government-assisted refugees were working, while more than 52 per cent of those who were privately sponsored were employed. Of the nearly 900 Syrian refugees who arrived in Manitoba two winters ago, 686 were government-assisted.

Big break: meeting established refugee job-creator

As a government-assisted refugee with lots of work, Kazmouz is one of the exceptions. He lists two key ingredients in his recipe for successful employment: language and connections.

When he arrived in Winnipeg, he had neither. Kazmouz, who lives in a North End duplex with his parents and siblings, attended language classes five days a week. Then he took part in a four-month Pathway Program to Construction Skills at Red River College, which offered basic English, safety and skills training, and a month-long job placement. It was one of four refugee employment development initiative pilot projects launched by the provincial government this year. At the end of July, six of its 95 participants were employed.

That program helped, but it wasnt enough, said Kazmouz.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Nour Ali (from left) and his employee Yahya Kazmouz with his father Ibrahim, his sister Rasha and his mother Maha Ahmad, holding his cousin Ibrahim. Yahya Kazmouz is a Syrian refugee who arrived in the big wave of refugees two winters ago. After his first year here, his refugee support ran out and he went on social assistance for a short time but is now working full time for Thank You Canada.

His big break into the workforce was connecting with entrepreneur and community activist Nour Ali, an established Syrian refugee who has set out to create jobs and volunteer opportunities for refugees while helping them establish their own businesses. So far, theres the catering company, a transportation company and a snow-removal service.

His restoration business, Thank You Canada, hired more than two-dozen refugees last month alone, including many from Syria who had no local connections such as Kazmouz, who is a work machine, Ali said.

We should make jobs more easy for people with experience from back home to get Theyll pay taxes and you can spend that money on something else. Nour Ali

We try to fill that gap, said Ali. He benefitted from the community support and job connections he received as a privately sponsored refugee when he arrived in Canada nearly five years ago. Now, he wants to pay it forward.

My goal within this coming year is to support as much as possible to get people working, he said. Many newcomers arrive with job skills and experience, and he thinks they should be able to put them to use as soon as possible.

If you have experience, you should do what you know, said Ali. The sooner resettled people can get back to work, the better it is for everyone, but its not always easy, he said.

Recent arrivals risk having benefits clawed back if they take paid work. Some worry about accepting temporary jobs and not being able to get assistance again if the work dries up. Some have been exploited by employers in unsafe work conditions for low pay. A lot of people dont want to start working as a slave, said Ali. He said he pays his restoration company employees $14 an hour, to start.

Skilled newcomers shouldnt be required to pursue college-entrance levels of English to have their credentials recognized in Manitoba, said Ali.

We should make jobs more easy for people with experience from back home to get, he says. If they can put their skills to work and increase their earning power, its good for them and the government, said Ali.

Theyll pay taxes and you can spend that money on something else.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Nour Ali (left), who provides jobs and volunteer opportunities for refugees, has been a benefactor to Yahya Kazmouz, a Syrian who arrived in Winnipeg in February 2016.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So, is this what the early  or, perhaps, middle  stages of panic look like?

The ever-perplexing behaviour of U.S. President Donald Trump made a subtle shift from erratic to frantic last week, as the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as the Trump campaigns possible links to it, took an apparent turn toward the presidents personal and business activities.

In the span of just 48 hours, from Wednesday into Friday, the New York Times and Washington Post reported that Mr. Trump had issued a veiled threat about the scope of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation, inquired to White House staff about his latitude for issuing pardons to his staff, his relatives and himself, and publicly lambasted his hand-picked attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for having recused himself from the Russian investigation and therefore allowing the election-meddling probe to proceed.

Bill O'Leary / Washington Post U.S. President Donald Trump

At the same time, the Times reported that members of the Trump administration were digging through the personal and professional backgrounds of investigators hired by Mr. Mueller, looking for information, such as perceived conflicts of interest, that could be used in an effort to discredit the results of their investigation.

Desperate times. Desperate measures.

Coming on the heels of previous revelations about a meeting involving Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law/adviser Jared Kushner, former campaign chair Paul Manafort and Russian-connected officials (first one, then two, then three and then four Russians, according to mutating versions of the story), these latest Trump-presidency travails suggest a commander-in-chief who is so fully on the defensive about his personal entanglements that he has lost the ability and will to govern.

It was supposed to be the week Republicans celebrated their long-desired and loudly promised repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act  also derisively known as Obamacare  but the party that controls both houses of the U.S. Congress and the White House was again, for the third time, unable to muster the necessary votes.

In the aftermath of that fiasco, many observers pointed to Mr. Trumps failure to rally the party behind repeal/replace as a key factor in its triple-miss meltdown.

The presidents attention, they complained, was focused elsewhere and his interest in the health-care file was at best middling.

It was also supposed to be Made in America week, with the president showcasing his push to return America to greatness by bringing jobs and production back home. The clumsy photo-op arranged to mark the occasion was quickly undermined by reminders that most of Mr. Trumps own branded products are made overseas, and that his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida has applied for permission to hire 70 foreign workers this fall.

Controversy and contradiction dont just follow Mr. Trump; he invites, invents and incites them on a daily basis.

But there was something different about POTUSs antics toward weeks end.

The edge seems to have come off the Im-in-charge belligerence, and the anger that usually drives his anti-media tirades has been enveloped by a whiff of dread.

Observers of U.S. politics are almost unanimous in the view that Mr. Mueller  a decorated war hero and career investigator whose appointment received bipartisan praise  will not be deterred by Mr. Trumps latest brushback attempts.

The investigation will continue, and more will be revealed. If Mr. Trump has things to hide  and the accumulating evidence suggests he does  the shift from erratic to frantic might just be a logical next step on the way to full-fledged presidential panic.
According to some reports, the two-year-old kid was snatched by a leopard while he was walking with his family in the forest patch of Goregaon Film City.

By Mustafa Shaikh: A two-year-old was found dead in Goregaon Film City on Saturday, with deep gnaw marks on his neck about 300 meters from the spot where a leopard was found sitting on a hedge hours later.

Vihaan Naik (2) had come to the film city to visit a relative with his family. The incident occurred at Morcha Pada, near the helipad in Aarey colony.

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According to some reports, Naik was snatched by the leopard while he was walking through a forest patch in the film city.

Naik's neck had injuries similar to bite marks of a strong-jawed animal.

The two-year-old was rushed to the hospital in Jogeshwari but was declared brought dead.

Watch:

Mumbai: 2-year-old found dead in Goregaon Film City, leopard spotted in the area later

--- ENDS ---
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 24/07/2017 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new Canadian and Sisler High School student is using all her intellectual potential to help find solutions for climate change and ways to reduce Canadas energy footprint.

A new Canadian and Sisler High School student is using all her intellectual potential to help find solutions for climate change and ways to reduce Canadas energy footprint.

Supplied photo Guneet Uppal is one of the 2017 SHAD program participants at the University of Calgary.

Guneet Uppal is one of 800 students who are attending the 2017 SHAD program in 13 universities across the country until July 28. Each year, the month-long program presents youth with a design engineering challenge to innovate and come up with a new product or service that will help solve a current economic or social problem applying STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) disciplines to real life challenges. This year, the students are tackling climate change.

SHAD, a registered Canadian charity, aims to empower high school students from Grade 10 to 12 to recognize their abilities and envision their potential as future leaders and change makers. Uppal said leading new initiatives in her school is one of her goals after she leaves the program.

I believe that learning about skills is about exposure, said the Grade 11 student who moved to Canada from India three years ago. The more you get exposed to different people, different environments, the more youre going to learn.

All that experience is going to come into use later in your life at some point. (You have) to expose yourself to things as soon as possible so that youre prepared later on for any other time you may need (the skills).

Students are selected through a competitive process and are recognized as top performers and potential leaders who demonstrate creativity, initiative and aptitude to make changes. According to Uppal, shes has learned more about the new country she now calls home.

With SHAD I felt like it would be a good learning opportunity for me to learn more about what Canada really is because even after being here for three years, theres still a lot more to learn.

The 16-year-old girl is exploring another part of Canada at the University of Calgary. SHAD exposes students to many distinct experiences. She said theyve done a variety of different activities such as learning about business and marking plans, public speaking and engaging in physical recreational activities like rock climbing.

Its something I wouldnt have done if I was by myself. In a team work environment, everything seems a bit easier, she commented. Its been really amazing so far. Weve had all these varieties of lectures. Its never been about one thing all day. Were halfway through the program, and it doesnt feel like it.

Teddy Katz, a spokesperson for SHAD said most students call the program transformational when they are brought together with other like-minded and driven students from around the country who are passionate about STEAM and are looking to make a difference.

Being part of the SHAD network, getting hands on experience and being challenged in new ways gives them a new confidence to get started, he said.

Uppal said the program was more than what she expected.

Its really interesting to see the amount of talent other people have and share my own.

SHAD teamed up with many experts to help youth understand the multiple aspects of this issue and to serve as mentors and judges. The engineering challenge concludes in the SHAD-John Dobson Entrepreneurship Cup, SHADs annual national awards which will be handed out in Toronto on October 26.

To learn more about the program, go to www.shad.ca
WASHINGTON  Normally, Republicans are in favor of giving consumers more choices.

Normally, Republicans are all about law and order.

And normally, Republicans claim to be strong defenders of the Constitution.

For some reason, though, the idea of giving consumers the choice to participate in a court of law  a right enshrined in the Seventh Amendment  leaves some GOP legislators quaking in their loafers.

Thats the implication of a resolution introduced in both the Senate and House on Thursday. While you were busy pondering President Trumps views of Napoleon, members of Congress were working to keep you from your day in court.

Heres the context.

When you get a new bank account, credit card, payday loan or auto lease, theres a lot of fine print. Often, the fine print says that if the company harms you  say, charges you a questionable hidden fee, blocks your ability to access your own money or opens a sham account in your name without your knowledge  you cant sue it in court.

Instead, you have to resolve the dispute outside the court system, bound by a decision made by a private individual rather than a judge or jury. Sometimes this private individual, called an arbitrator, is selected and paid by the very company that you believe ripped you off.

Which does not exactly suggest that this is a neutral party.

Another consequence of this fine print  called a forced arbitration clause  is that it prevents you from bringing or joining a class-action suit against the company that harmed you. Thats true no matter how many other people were victimized by the exact same company, even if they were victimized in the exact same way.

Wells Fargo, for example, opened millions of fake accounts in the names of unsuspecting customers. But because these consumers had other accounts that included forced-arbitration clauses, Wells Fargo repeatedly tried to use this fine print to block class-action suits over those bogus accounts.

The Wells Fargo case is perhaps the most notorious recent example, but there are lots of others. Tens of millions of Americans are bound by these forced-arbitration clauses, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The vast majority dont realize theyve signed away their rights until something goes wrong.

Removing the ability to join a class-action suit is a big deal. Joining others who have been harmed is often the only sensible strategy if the harms are small but widespread.

As federal Judge Richard Posner once wrote, The realistic alternative to a class action is not 17 million individual suits, but zero individual suits, as only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.

Once upon a time, Congress recognized that the proliferation of mandatory-arbitration clauses was a problem.

As part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, Congress gave the newly created CFPB the authority to ban or limit forced arbitration in connection with consumer financial products or services, though the law said the agency had to do a study first.

Since then, the CFPB has conducted two studies examining the prevalence of these clauses, and their effects on consumers and the financial system. After an extended comment period, the agency issued a final rule this month saying such clauses can no longer be used to block class-action suits.

Consumers can still go through arbitration if they wish. But they also now have the option of banding together with other consumers if a lot of people have been hurt similarly.

In other words, the CFPB gave consumers more choices.

Which, again, sounds like something Republicans should support.

Instead, on Thursday, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, announced legislation to kill the CFPB rule using the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to nullify executive-branch regulations by a simple majority vote, so long as they act within 60 legislative days.

The Trump administration also appears to be developing a Plan B, should Congress not act in time.

A Trump appointee, the acting comptroller of the currency, has suggested he might try to obstruct the rule through a regulatory route, based on the absurd argument that the rule could threaten the stability of the financial system.

Note that the CFPBs rule only applies to financial products and services, since those are what falls under the agencys jurisdiction. The Trump administration has meanwhile also begun to repeal or re-examine other Obama-era regulations designed to curb forced arbitration for disputes involving nursing homes and for-profit schools.

So much for the presidents pledge to look out for the little guy.
Submit an event for Around Town by emailing calendar information to bnr-news@wiscnews.com at least three business days before the event date.

Today

Blood drive: 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., American Red Cross, VFW, 200 Veterans Drive, Reedsburg. To make an appointment or for more information, call 800-RED-CROSS (800-733-2767) or visit redcrossblood.org.

Senior iPhone workshop: 12:30-3:30 p.m., Baraboo Area Senior Center, 124 Second St., Room 24, Baraboo. Cell Plus Device Specialist, Gene Rolland, will lead the workshop which includes a class booklet, instruction about calls, messaging, email, apps, settings and more. For more information, call Diane Pillsbury at 608-356-8464.

Animal show: 1 p.m., Ruth Culver Community Library, 540 Water St., Prairie du Sac. Natures Niche will bring live animals for children of all ages. For more information, call 608-643-8318 or visit pdslibrary.org.

Tuesday

Travel discussion: 10-11 a.m., Baraboo Area Senior Center, 124 Second St., Room 24, Baraboo. Travels on Tuesday will present co-speakers Manatsu Sato from Hokkaido, Japan, and her hosts Kay and Roger Hobler. Sato is in Wisconsin serving as a chaperone for a dozen Japanese youth on the state 4-H exchange. She will also lead a hands-on craft or food prep activity. For more information, call Diane Pillsbury at 608-356-8464.

Lego club: 1-3 p.m., Ruth Culver Community Library, 540 Water St., Prairie du Sac. Drop-in to build with the legos provided For more information, call 608-643-8318 or visit pdslibrary.org.

Teen game: 4 p.m., Baraboo Public Library, Attridge Park, 900 Second Ave., Baraboo. Play a life-size version of Candyland complete with candy and treats. This free program is for teens who have completed grades 6-12. For more information, call 608-356-6166 or visit baraboopubliclibrary.org.

Teen Tuesday: 6:30 p.m., Ruth Culver Community Library, 540 Water St., Prairie du Sac. Building Challenge: Strawctures, where teens can build structures from drinking straws. Suited for grades 6-12. For more information, call 608-643-8318 or visit pdslibrary.org.

Wednesday

Brewery tour: 1 p.m., Sauk City Public Library, 515 Water St., Sauk City. Meet at the library to tour the Vintage Brewery construction site for a behind-the-scenes tour of the building process and ask questions about the construction. For more information, call 608-643-8346 or visit saukcitylibrary.org.

Free meal: 4:30-6:30 p.m., Advent Christian Church, 200 La Valle St., La Valle. The meal of pulled pork, brats, coleslaw, salad, and desserts will be prepared by Summit Ridge Restaurant and Hartje Farm & Home volunteers will serve and provide dessert.

Concert: 6:30 p.m., Reedsburg Area Chamber of Commerce, Concert in the Park series at City Park. Wheelhouse will perform. Bring a lawn chair or blanket; food, refreshments and Farmers Market products will be available; no vehicles or pets allowed in park. For more information, call 608-524-2850. In case of inclement weather, signs will be posted indicating a new location.

Support group: 7:30 p.m., Al-Anon Family Group, The Comfort Zone, St. Vincent De Paul Resource Center, 1906 North St., Prairie du Sac. Support group meets every Wednesday.

Thursday

Train ride: 9:30 a.m., Baraboo Public Library, Mid-Continent Railway Museum, E8948 Museum Road, North Freedom. The library will host a special train ride and behind the scenes museum tour. For children ages 11 and younger with an adult caregiver. This is a free program. For more information, call 608-356-6166 or visit baraboopubliclibrary.org.

Open house: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Central Wisconsin Community Action Council, Inc., First United Methodist Church, 615 Broadway St., Baraboo. Project Homeless Connect-Sauk County open house will offer free of charge lunch, haircut coupons, health screening and vision checks along with information and services on housing, employment services, financial help, youth education opportunities, veteran services, domestic violence, sexual assault services and more. Everyone is welcome, including children. For more information and for transportation needs, call Wendy at 608-254-8353.

Book club: 1 p.m., Sauk City Public Library, 515 Water St., Sauk City. July pick: Coop by Michael Perry. All are welcome; copies of the book available for check out. For more information, call 608-643-8346 or visit saukcitylibrary.org.

Bingo: 2-3 p.m., Sauk City Public Library, 515 Water St., Sauk City. Bingo every Thursday through Aug. 31. Prizes from book sale coupons to chocolate bars. Free event open to the public. For more information, call 608-643-8346 or visit saukcitylibrary.org.

Hospice training: 5-9 p.m., Agrace Hospice and Palliative Care, 1670 South Blvd., Baraboo. Volunteers are needed to visit and provide companionship to local hospice patients. For more information, an application and to schedule orientation, call 608-327-7163.

Guided Hike: 6-7:30 p.m., Aldo Leopold Foundation, E13701 Levee Road, Baraboo. During the hike with the staff of the Leopold Foundation learn about the Leopold-Pine-Island Important Bird Area and the ongoing management improving breeding bird habitat along the Wisconsin River. This free program is open to all ages.

Concert: 7 p.m., Sauk County Courthouse lawn, 515 Oak St., Baraboo. Concerts on the Square concert series will present the Hert Alpert Band. The Al. Ringling Theatre will serve as the rain site. For more information, visit barabooconcertsonthesquare.com.

Friday

Seminar: Noon to 1 p.m., Aldo Leopold Foundation, Leopold Center, E13701 Levee Road, Baraboo. University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire English professor and author B.J. Hollars will lead a discussion on extinct birds from his book, Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds. The seminar is free and open to the public. For more information, call 608-355-0279 or visit aldoleopold.org.

Movie: 1 p.m., Sauk City Public Library, 515 Water St., Sauk City. View a free family-friendly movie, rated PG; 2 hours 10 minutes; call for title. Adults must accompany children 5 and younger. Popcorn and bottled water will be served. For more information, call 608-643-8346 or visit saukcitylibrary.org.

Art Crawl: 5-9 p.m., Reedsburg Artslink, downtown Reedsburg. Reedikulus Art Crawl, free walking tour featuring local and regional fine artists exhibiting in retail spaces, vacant storefronts, back alleys, galleries and city parks. There will be live music, food, free arts activities, wine, and beer available. Visit LK Design & Photography, 170 E. Main St., Reedsburg, from 4:30 p.m. to pick up an Art Crawl Map/Passport.

Artist show: 5-9 p.m., Wormfarm Institute, Woolen Mill Gallery, 28 E Main St., second floor, Reedsburg. Resident Artist Show includes work by current or early season Artists in Residence showing weaving, book art, wearable art and installation art.

Concert: 6-10 p.m., Full Throttle Night, FloodZone Bar & Grill, 109 W. Broadway, Rock Springs. Performance is by Flip City Live. All proceeds go to the Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue to help care for the animals. In addition to live music, there will be classic cars, trucks, motorcycles, food, arts and crafts vendors, 50/50 raffles and prizes. For more information, call Jeff Kozlowski at 608-697-8643 or email jeff@wisconsinbigcats.org.

Lyme disease support group: 6:30-8 p.m. Hillsboro Public Library, 819 High Ave., Hillsboro. Monthly meeting for people afflicted with lyme borrelia burgdorferi and other tick-bourne diseases in Vernon, Monroe, Sauk and Richland counties. For more information, call Gary Cepek at 608-489-2725, email sudywessos2@mwt.net or mail Gary Cepek, S1468 Cepek Road, Elroy, WI 53929

Paint night: 7-9 p.m., River Arts Inc, River Arts on Water Gallery, 590 Water St., Prairie du Sac. Attendees will etch patterns and designs into glass water bottles. The fee is $40 and includes all necessary supplies, a class instructor and two drink tickets. For more information, contact Kristina at kcoopman@riverartsinc.org, 608-643-5215 or visit riverartsinc.org/crafts-drafts.

Movie night: 7:30 p.m., The Village Booksmith, 526 Oak St., Baraboo. Featured movie will be the 1957, The Smallest Show on Earth with Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna and Peter Sellers. For more information, call 608-355-1001 or visit villagebooksmith.com.

Saturday

Hospice training: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Home Health United-Hospice, training session, St. Clare Hospice House, 915 12th St., in Baraboo. Volunteers are needed in both administrative and patient-interactive areas. For more information or to register for training, call 877-356-4514 or email volunteers@hhuvns.org or visit homehealthunited.org.

Festival: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Reedsburg Revitalization Organization, City Park, 222 N. Park St., Reedsburg. Party in the Park will feature a flea market with antiques and up-cycled wares from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; DJ from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; food vendors from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; free kids crafts from 1-5 p.m.; magic show from 3-5 p.m.; artwork; live music with Jake OMcClusky Band from 5-7 p.m. For more information visit facebook.com/reedsburgrevitalizationorganization.

Brat sale: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., People Helping People, Cell.Plus, 906 Highway 12, Baraboo. Cell.PlusUS Cellular Agent will match the funds raised, up to $1,000. The PHP brat stand will offer grilled brats for $3.50, all-beef franks for $3, as well as chips, soda and bottled water.

Art Stroll: noon to 5 p.m., Reedsburg Artslink, downtown Reedsburg. Saturdaze Art Gallery Stroll, a self-guided walking tour of established and pop-up venues, with a Party in the Park, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in City Park; featuring a flea market, food trucks, kids crafts, and Jake OMcClusky Band from 5-7 p.m. Visit LK Design & Photography, 170 E. Main St., Reedsburg, to pick-up a map.

Fashion show: 2-3 p.m., Wormfarm Institute, Avalon Ballroom, 170 East Main St., second floor above the Vault Wine Bar. Unconventional fashion show, Off the Wall.

Concert: 4:30 p.m., Witwen campground, S9855 Highway E, Sauk City. Outdoor concert with Harmonious Wail. Grounds and concessions open at 4:30 p.m. music starts at 6:30. Bring lawn chairs and beverage. Free to the public, goodwill offering.

Bulls & barrels: gates open 5 p.m, event 7 p.m., La Valle Team Penners Association, CC Bucking Bulls, E4320 Schultz Road, La Valle, off Highway 33 between Reedsburg and La Valle. La Valle Bulls & Barrels event for bull riding and barrel racing. DJ in concession stand to follow show. Lawn seating is available. Advance tickets $12; at the gate, $15; free for ages 6 and younger. Tickets available at Jays Power Center in Reedsburg, State Bank of Cazenovia in La Valle and Fedderly Dodge in Reedsburg. For more information, call 608-434-3518 or visit ltpa.weebly.com.

Music event: 7 p.m., Mirror Lake State Park. Earth, Music, Magic will be presented at the Ampitheater. The educational musical enrichment presentation will feature primitive musical instruments from all over the world highlighting songs, stories and humor with audience participation. The event is free, but donations would be appreciated. A current park sticker is required to enter the park. Bring a chair or blanket and flashlight. For more information, call 608-254-2333.

Dance: 7:30-10:30 p.m., Devils Lake State Park. Dance to the Big Band sounds of the Hal Edwards Orchestra at the Chateau. Cost is $10. For more information, call 608-356-8301.

Astronomy event: 8:30-10:30 p.m., Devils Lake State Park. Madison Astronomy Society will host Explore the Night Sky. Join astronomers from the University of Wisconsin Astronomy Program to explore the universe. Meet near the North Shore boat launch parking lot behind the Rock Elm Shelter. For more information, call 608-356-8301.

Sunday

Concert: 6-8 p.m., Devils Lake State Park. Swing Crew will perform a free concert on the north shore, just outside the Chateau. The concert is sponsored by the Friends of Devils Lake State Park. For more information, call 608-356-8301.
One of my favorite columnists, Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune, had a little fun with Gov. Scott Walker earlier this month.

The governor of Wisconsin owes me $3.50, he wrote, explaining how he tried to get Walker to live up to his promise of buying those in the liberal media a beer.

Gov. Walker is acting more and more like Donald Trump these days. Not only is he a fan of Trumps health care plan to dump some 22 million people off health coverage, hes taken to Twitter and Instagram to bemoan the liberal media, a favorite pastime among Trump acolytes.

Huppke saw Walkers message earlier this month responding to a Wired magazine columnist who made fun of Walkers boring posts of food on Instagram, including many photos of his notorious brown-bag lunches and one of a cup of plain vanilla ice cream  no toppings  that Walker ordered. Walker responded by tweeting a picture of a can of Miller Lite along with the words, For those in the liberal media who dont like my Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, I have a simple response. Can I get you a beer?

The Trib columnist jumped at the chance. Figuring he was a pretty liberal dude and a member of the media, Huppke responded, Yes! I would like a beer. When should I meet you? Not kidding. You just offered me a beer. Hit me up.

But no response from our governor. So he tweeted Walker again, insisting it isnt cool to offer a guy a beer and then not even respond to his message. Still no response from Walker. But the governor did send another tweet to his followers, this time offering cheese curds to go with the beer.

And Huppke loves Wisconsin cheese curds. But he not only didnt get any responses to the tweets, the governors office wouldnt respond to his phone calls offering to meet somewhere for beer and cheese curds.

To make a long story short, Huppke never did get a response from our reneging governor, so he drove to Wisconsin, stopped at Mars Cheese Castle on I-94 near Kenosha, ordered a Miller Lite and cheese curds, and now has the receipt to prove the gov owes him $3.50 for the bottle of Lite. (Huppke said hed pay for the cheese curds himself.)

Huppke explained, though, that he had a broader mission. He wanted to talk with Walker about his liberal media comments, the catch-all descriptor among conservatives that appears to have metastasized. Walker was miffed at a Wired magazine opinion piece, but instead of singling it out, he, like Trump, painted the media with a broad brush, as if they are all the same. Must feel funny to a columnist like Huppke, who works for the ultra-conservative Chicago Tribune.

Theres no question a majority of journalists are liberal  not all but, statistically speaking, a high percentage, he wrote. There are also a vast majority of journalists who are professional enough to do their jobs without being influenced by their political or ideological beliefs, adding that while a study showed most plumbers are conservative, that doesnt mean theyll mess up their job just because the house belongs to a liberal.

The problem with the broad-brush approach that Walker and others use is that you widen the rift between people and the press, making it an us-versus-them scenario that doesnt have to be that way, Huppke pointed out.

Politicians like Walker also cant  or dont want to  distinguish news stories from opinion columns. Just because columnists like John Nichols and I find Walkers policies and beliefs the exact opposite of good government, that doesnt mean that The Capital Times beat reporters take one side or the other.

Walker, Trump and their ilk find it easier and more appealing to their followers to condemn one and all in the media to, as Huppke points out, make the divide wider for their own purposes.

Heres hoping Rex Huppke gets Walker to pay for his beer. Ill pass on that drink.
MK Cellular, the local U.S. Cellular agent in Columbus, will be hosting its annual company anniversary celebration with a weekend sales event that runs from Friday, July 28 through Monday, July 31.

Featured promotions will include the opportunity to get a free iPhone 7 when switching from a different carrier, $100 accessory bonus with a new smartphone activation, as well as waived activation fees. In addition, MK Cellular will offer the chance to win a variety of prizes throughout the event.
The Bank of Wisconsin Dells received the Small Business Associations Lender with the Most 504 Loan Participations award for fiscal 2016. In addition to being one of 11 Wisconsin lenders recognized by SBA for its commitment to small businesses in fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2016, the Bank of Wisconsin Dells also placed in the top 100 community banks nationwide, ranking 95th out of 6,800. The bank received its award in May at the Wisconsin Lenders Conference.

At the Bank of Wisconsin Dells we have been able to use the SBA 504 lending program to help our customers finance purchases and expansions of businesses with significantly less down payment requirements, longer amortizations, and offer them long term, up to 20-year, fixed rates on a portion of their financing package, said Senior Vice President and Chief Lending Officer, Paul Schaller. This public private partnership with the SBA has allowed us to better serve the communities and customers we represent. As a community bank, anytime we can find programs that help our customers to improve the rates and terms they can finance their project with, it is a win, win, win. The customer, the community, and our bank are all winners! We are very proud of this award. I want to compliment my lending team for their efforts in delivering this valued program to our customers and most of all we are ALL very pleased to be able to use this program to the benefit our customers and communities.
Two undertrials managed to get hold of some wires of the CCTV cameras on the boundary wall behind the Barack number 5 of the prison and then scaled the wall to jump off.

By Divyesh Singh: The Special Inspector General of Prisons has ordered an inquiry into the jail break at Kalyan Central Prison on Sunday morning where two undertrials managed to flee.

On Sunday morning, two undertrials managed to get hold of some wires of the CCTV cameras on the boundary wall behind the Barack number 5 of the prison and then scaled the wall to jump off.

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The undertrials identified as David Devendram, 25 and Manikant Nadar, 24 were lodged in their cell in the barrack number 5. As per the daily routine the jail warden let the undertrials out of their cells in the morning. Accoding to the jail officials, Devendram and Nadar somehow managed to slip behind the barrack and were not seen by any of the security personnel.

The two then ripped of the wires used for the CCTVs and used it to climb the twenty-feet high wall and then escaped outside.

In order to fix the accountability, an inquiry was ordered by IG Rajwardhan Sinha. The jail authorities only came to know of the escape when they counted the number of prisoners while sending them back to their barracks around two to three hours later.

Devendran and Nadar had been arrested for causing grievous hurt, robbery and attempted murder cases and had been lodged in the prison.

According to local police, the two accused fled the prison at around 6:20 am and then crossed a pipeline and a creek to avoid getting seen. They then saw a biker who was speaking over the phone and snatched his bike.

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A federal complaint says immigrants packed into a tractor-trailer discovered outside a Texas Wal-Mart were taking turns breathing through a hole in the trailer and pounding on the walls to get the driver's attention.

According to a complaint filed Monday, a passenger in the trailer told investigators that he and others who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally were guided into the trailer to be taken north to San Antonio.

The complaint says passengers appeared fine during the first hour of their journey, but people later began to struggle to breathe. They were trying to get the driver's attention, but to no avail.

Federal prosecutors on Monday charged James Matthew Bradley with illegally transporting the immigrants for commercial or financial gain, resulting in the deaths of 10 people inside.

(Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Previous Story

Federal authorities say charges will be filed against a Florida man in connection to the deaths of nine people found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer outside a San Antonio Walmart.

U.S. Attorney Richard Durbin Jr. released a statement Sunday saying 60-year-old James Mathew Bradley Jr. of Clearwater, Florida, is in federal custody in San Antonio.

Almost 40 people were found loaded inside the tractor-trailer Sunday in what police are calling a horrific human trafficking case.

Nine people have died, twenty other people are in extremely critical or serious condition and eight more are suffering from lesser injuries including heat stroke and dehydration. The temperatures in San Antonio topped 100 degrees and the truck did not have a working air air conditioning system authorities said.

Durbin says Bradley is expected to make a court appearance after a criminal complaint is filed Monday.

Durbin's office wouldn't say whether Bradley was the alleged driver of the truck. Authorities said earlier Sunday that the driver was in custody.

Durbin's office says Bradley will have a charge or charges filed against him in the criminal complaint.

>

Previous Story

Eight people were found dead and one person later died after being in found in a tractor-trailer loaded with at least 30 others outside a Walmart store in Texas stifling summer heat in what police are calling a horrific human trafficking case. The driver was arrested.

Twenty other people in extremely critical or serious condition and eight more with lesser injuries including heat stroke and dehydration were found inside the truck, which didnt have a working air conditioning system despite blistering temperatures that topped 100 degrees (37 Celsius), authorities said. All were taken to several hospitals.

They were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water, said San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood, briefing journalists at the scene in video authorities posted on social media. It was a mass casualty situation for us.

A person from the truck initially approached a Walmart employee in a parking lot and asked for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, said police in San Antonio, where temperatures on Saturday reached 101 degrees (38 Celsius). The employee gave the person the water and then called police, and when officers arrived they found the eight people dead in the back of the trailer and 30 other survivors inside, police Chief William McManus said.

The driver had been held, McManus said, but he didnt release the drivers identity.

Investigators checked store surveillance video, which showed vehicles had arrived and picked up other people from the tractor-trailer, police said.

Were looking at a human trafficking crime this evening, McManus said, adding many of those inside the truck appeared to be adults in their 20s and 30s but also apparently two school-age children. He called the case a horrific tragedy.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was involved in the investigation into what happened, he said.

The National Weather Services local office said the temperature in San Antonio hit 101 degrees (38 Celsisus) just before 5 p.m. Saturday and didnt dip below 90 degrees (32 C) until after 10 p.m. Saturday.

Other cases of human trafficking in the United States have led to more deaths. In May 2003, 19 immigrants being transported from South Texas to Houston died inside a sweltering tractor-trailer.

Prosecutors said the driver in the 2003 case heard the immigrants begging and screaming for their lives as they were succumbing to the stifling heat inside his truck but refused to free them. The driver was resentenced in 2011 to nearly 34 years in prison after a federal appeals court overturned the multiple life sentences he had received.
Wits Choirs tour of Europe a success

The Wits Choir has returned home after a 21 day tour of Europe.

The tour was a resounding success on many fronts. Musically, we did 11 performances and received 11 standing ovations. We brought the music of Africa and South Africa to Europe and they loved it and appreciated it! beams Dalene Hoogenhout, Wits Choir Conductor.

Diplomatically, the Wits Choir was outstanding ambassadors for the University and for South Africa. We built bridges between the audience members  be they from Germany, France or Austria and South Africa, and their impression of us was of a group of responsible, enthusiastic and musical people bringing credit to the University and our country.

The Wits Choir is renowned for its cultural diversity and its musical repertoire, which draws from different parts of the continent. The choir also boasts unique in-house compositions.

A journey of hard work, learning and healing

Taking a 21-choir member on tour is not an easy feat given the economics and human dynamics. I would compare putting a tour like this together with building a 10 000-piece puzzle  it is a challenge, but the satisfaction of having pulled it off so successfully is priceless, continues Hoogenhout.

For Charlotte Motsoari, a fourth year social work student, the trip has reinforced tolerance and psychological and vocal endurance and taught new important life lessons.

It is interesting to travel the world and realise how different music is and how similar it is at the same time.

Motsoari, whose skilful joyful ululation accompanies some songs, was pleasantly surprised to discover from one of the audience members, during their performance in France, that ululation is also used in some parts of Switzerland.

Some of the European choirs who performed used their own techniques of unusual and weird vocal sounds to make beautiful music, she says.

While showcasing African music was at the top the agenda, the Wits Choir undertook this journey to rebuild their morale after a tumultuous 2016 filled with student protest.

The music stopped between September and November 2016. This was a challenge for the choir, which practices regularly to deliver flawless performances at Wits ceremonies and around the country.

There was added pressure with the looming international tour.

We had six months to prepare the repertoire that would normally take a year. This challenge was met and musically we are stronger now that we have been in the past two years, says Hoogenhout.

The trip would not have been such a success were it not for the kindness of hosts.

For most of their journey, the choir was hosted by communities contributing to building bridges amongst people and promoting cultural exchange.
A 22-year-old pregnant woman was murdered by her husband for not making perfectly round rotis.

By India Today Web Desk: In Delhi's Jahangirpuri , a 22-year-old pregnant woman was murdered by her husband for an absurd reason. Because she could not make perfectly round chapatis.

Simran and her husband got into a fight on Saturday during which he kicked her in the stomach. When the couple's four-year-daughter tried to save Simran, she was dragged into another room and locked up.

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He later then strangled Simran to death. It was on Sunday around 4 am that Simran's brother found her lying unconscious in her flat and called the police.

The daughter told the police that her parents often fought about her mother's chapatis.

"My mother was a good cook but the chapati shape angered my father," she said as reported by TOI .

Simran's husband's business had failed and he had to work at a factory to make ends meet.

Also read: Delhi horror: Man stabs wife 25 times in front of son

Also read: Delhi: Suspecting wife of having affair, man stabs her lover 25 times

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Uma Bharati today told Parliament that the initiatives taken by the government to clean River Ganga would start yielding results by 2018.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Responding to supplementary questions in the Rajya Sabha over Clean Ganga project, Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati said that the initiatives taken by the central government would start showing results in 2018.

Umar Bharati said that the cleaning of the river was a gigantic task and it was not like river Thames or Rhine, where people do not take a dip like in the Ganga where about 60 crore people bathe every year.

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"The Ganga cannot be like Thames and Rhine" said Uma Bharti Water Resources Minister, adding, "Some rivers which have been cleaned once, do not require further cleaning. Only maintenance is required." The Ganga is not like those rivers, Bharati said.

About, 20 lakh people take dip in the Ganga every day, the minister said. Uma Bharati further said, "We are working to bring a Ganga Act, which will be shared by her ministry with state governments soon in order to get better results."

UMA BHARATI ON CLEAN GANGA: THINGS TO KNOW Speaking about cleaning two popular Ganga Ghats in Varanasi - Manikarnika Ghat and Dashashwamedh Ghat - Uma Bharati said, "Any key change made by government of India needs approval of the High Court as per a ruling. Since there is history and reverence attached to the place, with thousands of years of reverence and practice of Hindu tradition, we need to seek permission each time any work is done." Uma Bharati said that work on a new Ganga law to lay down guidelines for cleaning the holy river and implement the Namami Gange programme is underway. Earlier, the government had formed a committee to prepare the draft of the new Ganga Act. The committee was headed by Justice (Retd) Girdhar Malviya. The committee has submitted the draft law to the Water Resources Ministry for further examination. 79-year-old Malviya is the chairman of Ganga Mahasabha, which was formed by his grandfather and Banaras Hindu University founder Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya. The draft law aims at expediting implementation of Namami Gange programme. It would lay down guidelines to rid the river of silt and pollutants. While Uma Bharati responded to the questions in the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition created an uproar contesting her claim. Naresh Aggarwal of the Samajwadi Party (SP) claimed "zero work" has been done by the Water Resources Ministry under Namami Gange Programme. The Namami Gange project of integrated conservation mission of the Narendra Modi government was approved as the flagship programme in June 2014 with budget outlay of Rs 20,000 crore. Its objectives are effective abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of the Ganga.

ALSO READ|

PMO unhappy with the pace of Namami Gange project

ALSO WATCH | Uma Bharati denies that Namami Gange project is progressing at slow pace

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By PTI: Ghaziabad, Jul 24 (PTI) Noida businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his servant Surinder Koli were sentenced to death by a special CBI court here today in the Nithari serial killings case for murdering 20-year-old domestic help Pinki Sarkar in 2006.

Special judge Pawan Kumar Tiwari, who had convicted the duo on Saturday, handed down the sentence after which Pandher, who was out on bail, was taken into judicial custody.

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Special senior public prosecutor Jai Prakash Sharma said the court termed it as a rarest of the rare cases after being satisfied that there was no scope left for their reform or rehabilitation.

The judge found both of them guilty of kidnapping, raping, murder and having hatched a criminal conspiracy.

The case related to the disappearance of Sarkar on October 5, 2006 when she was returning home from work along the road outside the D-5 residence of Pandher in NOIDA.

The CBI had said that Koli allegedly abducted her, raped her and later killed her. After the murder, he beheaded the victim and threw her head and garments in a drain behind Pandhers house, it had said.

The CBI had filed the case after the victims parents identified her clothes in April 2007 and later some of the skeletal remains were identified by matching the DNA samples with her parents.

This is the second time that Pandher has been awarded death sentence. He, along with Koli, was given capital punishment by the special court on February 13, 2009 for the murder of 14-year-old girl Rimpa Halder at his house.

However, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court had turned down the trial judges verdict and acquitted him.

The Noida police had discovered 19 skeletons from the drain near Pandhers house in Nithari village on December 29, 2006. After a nationwide uproar, the case was handed over to the CBI.

Pandher and Koli were chargesheeted in 16 of the 19 cases, while three were closed for want of evidence. Most of the victims were young girls.

Prior to the Pinki Sarkar case, Koli was sentenced to death in all the nine cases. Seven cases were in various stages of trial.

In its order today, the court also slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on Koli, besides an imprisonment of 10 years for destruction of evidence.

Pandher was also slapped with a fine of Rs 5,000 and a seven-year jail term for destruction of evidence.

He had been out on bail since 2014 following an order of the Allahabad High court.

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The shocking and gruesome case had come to light in December 2006 when the Noida police discovered skulls and skeletal remains of 16 persons, mostly children, from the drain.

Earlier, many children had gone missing from the nearby clusters of Nithari and it was alleged that Koli would lure them to the house on the pretext of offering them sweets and chocolates, murder them and then have sex with the corpses.

In a few cases, Koli had eaten human flesh as well, according to the CBI charge sheet. PTI SKL CORR SC

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What Is The Cheetah?

The cheetah is a large feline species that is native to some areas of Iran and the eastern and southern regions of Africa, where it prefers savannas and scrub forests. It is easily recognized by its goldish-tan coat, black spots, and tear-like streaks running down the corners of its eyes. This species is the fastest land mammal in the world, reaching speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. While sprinting after its prey (primarily antelopes and gazelles), the cheetah actually spends more time with its feet in the air than on the ground. Cheetah offsprings have a higher mortality rate than other mammals of the same region. This article takes a closer look at the conservation status, threats, and global population of the cheetah.

Conservation Status Of The Cheetah

Cheetahs could once be found across all of Africa, eastern India, the Arabian Peninsula, and Asia. A little over 100 years ago, research indicates that the global cheetah population was more than 100,000. Today, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed this species as vulnerable, although many organizations are pushing for it to be changed to endangered. The cheetah population has experienced a dramatic decline over the last century due to a number of factors and is currently estimated at around 7,100 in the wild and under 8,000 in total (including those held in captivity).

Threats To The Cheetah Population

Hunting

The first and principal cause of this population decline is attributed to the unsustainable hunting that occurred during the 20th century. Today, the global cheetah population decline continues due to a several factors, including: the illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss, and human contact.

Capture As Pets

Because of their unique appearance and historical association with wealth and power, cheetahs are highly sought after as pets. This species has difficulty breeding in captivity, therefore must be caught in the wild to be sold on the illegal, international pet market. Baby cheetahs, known as cubs, are targeted in this practice and less than 20% survive being smuggled around the world.

Habitat Loss

Cheetahs also suffer significant habitat loss in the form of degradation and fragmentation. This loss is due to urbanization and agricultural production, leaving them with insufficient resources for survival.

Human-Animal Conflict

Humans threaten cheetah populations by more than just destroying their natural habitat. As cheetahs are pushed out of their territories and into human-occupied areas, conflict arises. In an attempt to protect their livestock, many people set traps or kill cheetahs, which they view as a threat.

Cheetah Population In The Wild

As previously mentioned, the current wild cheetah population is recorded as around 7,100. These cheetahs are divided into roughly 33 population groups, each with less than 100. Unfortunately, much of the wild cheetah population lives outside of protected parks and reserves. Even those that live within these protected areas, however, are threatened as well.

Cheetah Population in Africa

The majority of these wild cheetahs can be found in Africa and are concentrated within the southern and eastern regions of the continent. Today, the range of cheetahs in Africa has been reduced to an average of only 10% of the historic range. In eastern Africa, the territory of the cheetah is only 6% of the original. This 119,918-square mile area stretches across Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda. In southern Africa, its range has been less affected, although it has been reduced to only 22% of its original state. This 472,353-square mile area is laid out across several countries, including: southern Zambia, northern South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, and Namibia.

Very small cheetah populations can be found in the Sahara Desert, although they are as scarce as there are only 2 to 3 cheetahs for every 3,900 square miles. The global cheetah population continues to decline. Over the last 16 years, for example, the population in Zimbabwe been reduced by 85%. According to research, cheetahs are now extinct in 11 of the 15 protected areas in west and central Africa.

Cheetah Population In Iran

In Iran, an even smaller population of cheetahs can be found. This particular species is known as the Asiatic or Iranian cheetah and it has suffered severe population decline over the last 50 years or so. In the 1970s, for example, records indicated a population size of around 200. That number dropped to between 50 and 100 in the 1990s and is currently thought to be around 82. Its historic range once stretched across the Arabian Peninsula, the Caspian region, Pakistan, and India. Today, it has been sighted in approximately 14 protected areas located in the eastern region of Iran. Because of this reduced territory and extremely small population size, it has been listed by the IUCN as critically endangered.

Cheetah Population In Captivity

Cheetahs have a long history of being held in captivity that dates back to the Sumerians over 5,000 years ago. These captive cheetahs were believed to be completely tame as there are few if any historical records of violent behavior toward humans. They were traditionally used as hunting partners, particularly in the Middle East during the 7th century AD, and would chase down prey after dogs flushed the prey out into the open. Cheetahs were also kept as pets by such famous figures as Genghis Khan and Akbar. Art from this time depicts these pets with decorative collars and leashes.

According to the 2008 version of the International Cheetah Studbook, 1,513 cheetahs are currently living in captivity. These animals are being kept at 262 locations in 48 different countries. Of these, around 680 are registered in zoos around the world with nearly 33% in zoos in North America. The number of cheetahs kept illegally as pets is harder to estimate with accuracy.

In an attempt to restore the global cheetah population, many organizations manage captive breeding programs. Reproduction rates, however, are low for cheetahs in captivity. Recent records indicate that only 38.6% of the captive population is known to have bred and reproduced successfully. Unfortunately, the captive breeding programs in North America report that the cheetah death rate has exceeded the birth rate in 10 of the last 12 years. For now, many of these organizations are focusing on making the captive population sustainable in order to expand to wild populations.
Literacy is a critical piece of individual progress, social development, and economic health. Having the ability to read and write provides more educational and employment opportunities to the population, allowing people to increase their household incomes and bring their family out of low-income conditions. This skill has also been tied to improved public health conditions and increased political participation. This article takes a closer look at the most literate countries in Africa.

The Most Literate Countries Of Africa

Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa all hold the first place as the most literate countries in Africa. These nations have a 95% literacy rate in the population of over 15 years of age.

1. Seychelles

Of the countries in the 95th percentile, Seychelles is the only one to have achieved the 6 goals set forth by the UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) Education for All program. These goals, which were to be met by 2015, include: establish free primary education, improve the quality of education, improve childhood education, improve adult literacy by 50%, provide gender equality in the classroom, and address the educational needs of youth and adults. The government of Seychelles first began promoting adult literacy during the 1980s, which is also when free public education became available. All of these efforts in the educational sector have worked to make Seychelles one of the most literate countries in Africa.

1. Equatorial Guinea

The literacy rate in Equatorial Guinea is around 95% for both males and females over 15 years of age. The literacy rate is actually higher, 98%, when only individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 are considered. This country has also recently made significant progress toward the Education for All goals, achieving a preschool enrollment of over 70% in 2015. This continued commitment to improved education is expected to be reflected in future literacy rates.

1. South Africa

Despite the 95% literacy rate in this country, some researchers report that literacy in younger individuals is on the decline. Recent surveys have found that 29% of 4th-grade students are illiterate, while another 48% do not have reading comprehension skills. Part of this problem, researchers suggest, is due to the multilingualism in this country. For example, approximately 70% of students in 1st through 3rd grade receive classes in an African language. When they reach 4th grade, however, lessons are given in English. Because these children have not yet accomplished reading comprehension in African languages and they are not yet fluent in English, literacy is much more difficult for them to achieve. If this illiteracy problem persists, South Africa could find itself with a lower literacy rate in the future.

2. Sao Tome and Principe

Sao Tome and Principe has the second highest literacy rate in Africa. In this country, 92% of all individuals over the age of 15 are able to comprehend what they read and write. This percentage reflects a significant increase over the 2008 literacy rate, which was recorded at 69.5%. In 1981, the adult residents of this country reported only a 57.3% literacy rate. In the past, Sao Tome and Principe has had significant issues with its educational system, including low enrollment levels and graduation rates, an insufficient number of classrooms, and inadequately trained teachers. In recent years, the government has increased educational expenditures and made primary education mandatory, which has had a clear effect on the adult literacy rate reported today.

Libya, Namibia, and Mauritius each hold the position as the third most literate countries in Africa with a 91% literacy rate.

3. Libya

The 91% literacy rate in Libya reflects a significant increase over the previously reported number. For example, in 1921, while this country was still under Italian colonial forces, only 2% of the adult population was able to read and write. By the mid-20th century, however, the government was making attempts to improve the education system here and after the al-Fateh revolution in 1969, adult education was made a top priority. This country now works to eliminate illiteracy through several prevention methods, like making school mandatory for youth, and several reactive methods, like opening adult literacy centers in each of the districts.

3. Namibia

The current 91% literacy rate in Namibia reflects significant improvement over previous years. For example, this number was at only 89.4% in 2011 and 76.5% in 2007. This improvement is due, in large part, to the success of the National Literacy Program, which is administered by the Ministry of Education. Additionally, the government of Namibia has increased its educational expenditures and as of 2013, allocates 29% of the federal budget to public education.

3. Mauritius

Like the previously mentioned countries, Mauritius has also experienced an improvement in its literacy rates, which currently is at 91%. In 1990, literacy here was reported at only 79.9%. In 2000, it was around 84.3%, which at the time, was the highest rate in Africa. It has since dropped to third place, but only due to the large advances made in other African countries.

Cabo Verde and Botswana are tied as the fourth most literate countries in Africa. Each nation reports a literacy rate of 88%.

4. Cabo Verde

Currently, Cabo Verde is considered the 4th most literate country in Africa (along with Botswana) with an 88% literacy rate. This percentage marks an important improvement in the literacy of this country. For example, in 1990, it was only 62.8%. This increase in literacy is due to the educational system that was put into place after this country gained its independence in 1975.

4. Botswana

Just 30 years ago, the literacy rate in Botswana was under 70%. Today, this country is the 4th most literate in Africa with 88% of the population over 15 years of age able to read. This reflects the commitment to education made by the government of Botswana and the success of its National Literacy Programme. This program was established in 1977 and has made significant progress in reaching the adult illiterate population.

Swaziland and Zimbabwe are both tied as the 5th most literate countries in Africa with a literacy rate of 87%.

5. Swaziland

One of the biggest improvements in the adult literacy rate since the 1970s has been achieved by Swaziland. In 1977, this country reported that only 55.3% of its adult population was able to read and write. Today, that percentage has increased to 87%.

5. Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, like other countries previously mentioned, has also reported progressively increasing literacy rates. In 1982, only 77.8% of the adult population in this country was considered literate. With an 87% literacy rate today, Zimbabwe has achieved an average annual literacy growth of 3.79%.
One of the biggest problems with island life is the limited availability of land. As the human population on islands grow, people find themselves forced closer and closer together. This crowding has already become a problem on many islands. This article takes a look at the 10 most crowded islands around the world.

Santa Cruz del Islote, Colombia

Santa Cruz del Islote is located in the Caribbean Sea near the coast of Colombia, where it covers an area of only .004 square miles. On this very limited space, approximately 1,247 individuals make their homes. The island has very little economic activity, no electricity, and no running water. When a family member passes away, they are buried on a nearby island due to lack of space.

Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong

Ap Lei Chau is a small island located off the coast of the island of Hong Kong. It covers an area of .5 square miles and has a population size of 86,782. Despite this lack of land and high population, Ap Lei Chau is home to a number of businesses, including a shopping center, brewery, and winery. Most of the residents here are concentrated in the north.

Migingo Island, Kenya

Between 100 and 200 people live on the tiny island of Migingo in the middle of Lake Victoria between Kenya and Uganda. These 2 countries have a long-standing dispute over ownership of the island and fishing rights in the lake. This half-acre rocky outcropping is covered in shacks, the first of which was built in 2002.

Fadiouth, Senegal

Fadiouth Island is connected to the Petite Cote of Senegal by bridge. Approximately 9,000 people live on this .05-square mile, clamshell-covered island. These shells are so deep that they crunch underfoot and are used as building material here.

Male, Maldives

Male Island is the capital of the Maldives and covers an area of only three-quarters of a mile. It has a population size of over 90,000, roughly 25% of the entire population of this country. This island experiences a higher-than-average level of flooding and in response, the government has built a large wall around its perimeter.

Ebeye, Marshall Islands

With less than a quarter-square mile, Ebeye Island is part of the larger Marshall Island territory. It is home to around 15,000 people, many of whom came to this island to escape nuclear testing carried out by the US government on the Bikini and Enewetak atolls nearby.

Ilha de Mocambique, Mozambique

Ilha de Mocambique measures 2 miles in length and 1,800 feet in width. Within this tiny area lives a population of just over 54,000. It is home to both the oldest European building in the southern hemisphere and the oldest fort in sub-Saharan Africa.

Manhattan, US

Manhattan belongs to New York City in the US. It covers an area of 23 square miles and is filled with high rise apartments and office buildings. Approximately 1.62 million people live on this island, although many have been forced out due to the high cost of living.

Salsette Island, India

Salsette Island is located off the western coast of India, where it is home to the metropolitan area of Mumbai. It covers an area of 238 square miles, making it one of the largest islands on this list. Salsette Island also has one of the largest population sizes with over 15 million inhabitants.

Ile Saint-Louis, Paris

The Ile Saint-Louis is located on the Seine river, connected to Paris by a bridge. It spreads over 0.04 square miles and is home to around 2,465 individuals. This island is popular with tourists looking to get away from the busy streets of Paris.
By PTI: New Delhi, July 24 (PTI) Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Eshaiker al-Jafari today said his government has no substantial evidence whether the 39 Indians who went missing in Mosul three years ago have been killed or are still alive.

"We dont know whether they are dead or alive. We are equally concerned. There is no substantial evidence whether they are alive or not. We are making the best efforts," he told reporters after meeting Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan here.

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Al-Jaafari began his five-day visit to India today.

After Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from ISIS, India is seeking its help to locate the 39 missing Indian labourers, mostly from Punjab, who are kidnapped in Mosul three years ago. PTI ANZ SA

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with more details)

By Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Jul 24 (PTI) Pakistan today summoned Indias Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh over alleged ceasefire violations during which he lodged a strong protest over the death of an Indian soldier and many civilians in firing by Pakistani troops.

The Indian diplomat told the Pakistani side that India has noticed increased movements of terrorists and infiltration attempts along the Line of Control, official sources said.

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Pakistani troops have been providing cover firing to infiltration attempts, Singh told them.

Singh, who was summoned after one civilian was killed and three others injured in alleged ceasefire violations across the LoC by Indian troops, told the Pakistani side that there have been more than 243 ceasefire violations so far from Pakistani troops in 2017, official sources said.

The Director General (SA & SAARC), Dr. Mohammad Faisal, summoned Singh here and "condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations by the Indian occupation forces," the Foreign Office said.

It alleged that Indian forces resorted to "unprovoked firing" on Leepa Sector on July 21 which killed Umair (12) and injured three civilians in Gheekot village.

"The deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws," Faisal said.

During the meeting, Singh conveyed to Faisal that the ceasefire violations were initiated by Pakistani troops and Indian troops responded appropriately.

He told the Pakistani side that India has lost one soldier on July 21 in Sunderbani sector and many civilians.

During the past few days, Pakistani troops have been attacking civilian areas on the Indian side in various sectors, including on schools. As a result, local people have been shifted to relief camps, Singh told the Pakistani side.

The Foreign Office said Faisal urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 ceasefire arrangement; investigate this and other incidents of ceasefire violations; instruct the Indian forces to respect the ceasefire, in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the LoC.

This was the third ceasefire violation by the Indian forces in the past four days, it said in a statement.

It alleged that despite calls for restraint, India continues to indulge in ceasefire violations.

In 2017 to date, Indian forces have carried out 618 ceasefire violations along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary, it claimed.

Faisal also urged India to permit United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to play its mandated role as per the UN Security Council resolutions.

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According to the UN Security Council mandate of 1971, UNMOGIP observes and reports on ceasefire violations along and across the LoC and the Working Boundary between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as reports developments that could lead to ceasefire violations.

India maintains that UNMOGIP has outlived its utility and is irrelevant after the Simla Agreement and the consequent establishment of the Line of Control. PTI SH ZH PYK ZH

--- ENDS ---
For decades separatism and regionalism have been used to split the working class and prevent it from waging an independent and unified struggle against capitalism. Now the pseudo-left Podemos party is suffering factional divisions over which type of nationalism to cultivate.

The backdrop is the sharp tensions between Madrid and Barcelona, after regional Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont announced a referendum on independence to be held on October 1. The Spanish government under the minority conservative Popular Party (PP) has declared the referendum a coup against the state that will not be allowed to take place.

This month Defence Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal, in a threat to the Catalan secessionists, made a speech to army leaders reminding them of their duty to protect the integrity and sovereignty of the country.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy met with Socialist Party (PSOE) opposition leader Pedro Sanchez to show their absolute agreement over the fundamental issues related to Catalonia: the rejection of the referendum and the defence of the Spanish Constitution. Sanchez, however, has concerns that PP threats to use Article 155 of the Constitution to take control of Catalonia only serves to feed independence.

The speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Carme Forcadell, has replied to the threats, stating that Catalan deputies will defend their rights as representatives mandated by the citizens of Catalonia and thus the sovereignty of the Catalan people.

Soon after the ruling, the Together for Yes coalition and the pseudo-left and ultra-nationalist Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) presented to parliament a draft Referendum Law giving the referendum a legal cover. According to CUP parliamentarian Gabriella Serra, the draft means that if yes wins the declaration on independence will be carried out in 48 hours.

Against this background, further divisions are appearing in Podemos.

The party has already been wracked by a factional dispute between the Errejonista wing led by the former number two, Inigo Errejon, and the Pablista wing led by party leader Pablo Iglesias. Their various disagreements are over how best to suppress opposition in the working class, whether through token protests in alliance with the trade unions or by avoiding any and all social mobilisations in favour of purely electoral and parliamentary manoeuvres oriented to the PSOE. But at the Podemoss Vistalegre II Congress in February a new dispute erupted over the relationship between the central leadership and regional affiliates.

From its creation Podemos has been an amalgam of forces with opposing views on regional nationalism. Its Pabloite wing, represented by Anticapitalistas, defends the right of the secessionists to hold a referendum and declares the breakup of Spainalways referred to as The Spanish Stateas progressive. Its Stalinist wing opposes this idea and favours instead giving economic and constitutional concessions to the Catalan bourgeoisie as a way of defending the unity of the state. The suppression of these differences is now unravelling.

In Andalusia, the partys Pabloite leader Teresa Rodriguez demands her regional affiliate be delinked from the control of Madrid. In Castilla La Mancha the local leadership is currently consulting its membership over an invite from the PSOE to enter into a formal coalition, the first time since Podemos was created, in order to get the budget approved in the regional parliament.

In Catalonia, a faction in Podem (the Catalan branch of Podemos)against Iglesiass wisheshas refused to join the umbrella party Catalonia in Common (CiC), founded in January by Barcelonas mayor Ada Colau. CiC integrates the majority of Catalan pseudo-left organisations, including Initiative for Catalonia Greens, the Stalinist-led United and Alternative Left, Barcelona en Comu and the green Equo.

Podem has publically announced that it backs the referendum and is calling on people to vote as an act of protest against the obstinacy and authoritarianism of the Spanish government. Their main difference with the secessionists is that they do not consider the vote binding and are therefore opposed to an immediate declaration of independence.

The Podem announcement goes against the stated position of the Podemos leadership, expressed by Iglesias, who declared, If I were a Catalan citizenwhich I am notI probably would not participate in the October 1 referendum, and I would not vote for one option or the other. He said the vote has no guarantees and therefore cannot be seen as an exercise of the right to decide.

The leadership position was approved on July 8 by the CiC executive, which voted 85 against 29 in support of all the mobilisations in defence of the right to decide but added that it would not actively call for participation in the referendum because we understand that, probably, some things have not been done well in the roadmap to independence.

CiCs declaration represents a setback for the Catalan separatists, who have courted Colaus party. In effect the position of the Podemos and CiC leaderships means that a referendum can only be held through an agreement with the Spanish government and amendments to the constitution, something virtually impossible given that such changes require the support of three-quarters of Congress deputies.

This position has come into conflict with a range of pseudo-left forces orbiting around Podemos and CiC. Typical is Class Struggle, attached to the International Marxist Tendency and working inside Podemos, which has posted, We do not share at all the position of CiC and Podemos, and calls for a Catalan Republic.

These forces have for years encouraged workers and youth to put their hopes in Catalan separatist forces as a way of solving deep social problems. They dressed up as progressive the project of splitting off Spains most prosperous regionit contributes 20 percent of Spains GDPby saying it would provide better social conditions for Catalans.

Separatism, whether under the guise of far-right separatist movements like Lega Nord in Italy, Vlaams Belang in Belgium or the supposed progressives of Catalonia and Scotland, offers nothing to the working class. These forces exploit legitimate social grievances fuelled by the savage cuts and austerity measures imposed by central governments to forge direct ties with the European Union and global finance capital. Their reaction, in what is almost always the most prosperous parts of a country with potential control of some valuable asset such as North Sea Oil taxation in Scotland is, in essence, to say, Were paying too much to central government to subsidise the poor, we want it back.

They are aided by the pseudo-left tendencies, who also hope that the relative wealth of their regions will allow them a more privileged existence.

In one recent article published in the Pabloite Viento Sur, veteran Anticapitalistas leader Jaime Pastor states that those opposing independence are the same people that approved article 135 of the Constitution, which enshrined austerity in the constitution, are breaking down the limited non-confessional (secular) features of the state by giving more power to the Catholic Church and attacking fundamental rights like the freedom of speech. He then adds the massive corruption scandals of the PP to the mix.

However, Pastor conveniently forgets that the Catalan separatist parties have imposed brutal austerity in the region, to the point it has become known as the laboratory of the cuts, and that the largest party, the Democratic Convergence (CDC), was forced to refound itself as the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDECAT) last year largely as a result of its association with corruption scandalsparticularly of its long-time leader and Catalan President, Jordi Pujol.

Worse still, Pastor is completely indifferent to the fate of workers in the rest of Spain. For him, they could rot with the PP, austerity, corruption and the rest. Meanwhile, Catalans would be under the separatists, busy imposing austerity and channelling social anger towards over half of the population who oppose independence.

Pastors recipe is for the balkanisation of Spain and Europe, with workers struggling against one another in a race to the bottom in terms of jobs, wages and conditions, or, worse still, fighting one another in fratricidal wars, as the experience of Yugoslavia shows all too terribly.

Podemos meanwhile are staunch defenders of the Spanish nation state and its geopolitical interests worldwide. While defending concessions to the Catalan nationalists as a means to stop the secessionist drive, they abhor the possibility of Spain losing the wealth the region generates.

In their internal feuds, all factions of the pseudo-left are articulating the interests of privileged middle-class layers. They are auxiliary tools of the ruling class in helping to divide the working class, when everything depends upon the waging of a unified struggle on the basis of socialist internationalism. This means the overthrow of Spanish imperialism and its state apparatus, not the creation of a new repressive state in Catalonia.
On July 18, Connecticuts State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) announced that its members had approved a concessions contract with Democratic Governor Dannel P. Malloy. SEBAC, an umbrella group for 16 public worker unions, said 85 percent of workers who voted were in favor of wage freezes, and 83 percent voted in favor of higher contributions toward health insurance and retirement.

State Democrats and union executives, pointing to an estimated $5 billion budget shortfall for the two-year period starting July 1, browbeat the 40,000 state workers into accepting the deal with the threats of mass layoffs. They also held the possible bankruptcy of the City of Hartford over the heads of workers that could result in the gutting of city worker pensions and retiree health benefits as it did in Detroit and other municipal bankruptcies.

The concessions deal agreed to by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and other unions will rob more than $1.5 billion over two years from state workers. The deal makes false promises that the state wont lay off workers.

Once again, this governor has asked us to step up and we came to the call, Darnell Ford of SEIU local 1199 told WFSB, adding we were asked to help and after months of negotiations we have come up with every penny sought.

This was not easy, Salvatore Luciano of AFSCME Council 4 said of foisting the deal on union members, we hoped if we explained it, everyone would pass it.

The SEBAC concessions deal includes:

No raises, except in cases of promotion, for fiscal years 2017, 2018, or 2019. A lump-sum payment of $2,000 is promised for fiscal year 2019.





Three furlough days in the coming year.





An increase of workers share of health insurance premiums to 15 percent.





An increase in health insurance contributions for workers who retire after October 2.





A cap on the Cost of Living Adjustment for pensions of workers retiring after July 1, 2022 and a 30-month period with no COLA for those same retirees.





A requirement that disabled retirees apply for Social Security Disability Insurance in order to get them off of Connecticuts books. Threatened federal attacks on entitlement programs will leave these workers between a rock and a hard place.

The unions previously agreed to concessions in 2011 in the wake of the Great Recession. Like many states, including neighboring Massachusetts, Connecticut is now seeing declines in tax revenue as workers wages stagnate and corporations are handed huge tax cuts.

CNBC reported this month that actual FY17 revenues were lower than budgeted in 33 US states, and that 23 states made mid-year spending cuts.

While destroying the livelihoods of state workers, Malloy, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, has showered top corporations and financial institutions with massive tax cuts and other subsidies. GE and Aetna have kept their tax rates low by moving their corporate headquarters out of state while keeping most of their workforces in state.

Although the state is home to 19 Fortune 500 companies, in the fiscal year just ended, corporate taxes were only 5.7 percent of total Connecticut revenues; in FY16, the share was even lower, at 4.8 percent. Total corporate taxes in FY17 were approximately $800 million, or less than half what is being taken away from state workers.

Sales and Use taxes, which are regressive and which the state expanded during the 2011 crisis, brought in about five times as much as corporate taxes in FY17.

Connecticuts personal income tax rate is not flatand, therefore, not completely regressivebut upper-bracket income tax increases would also decrease the budget deficit. In 2012, the lowest 20 percent of state residents had an average income of $14,000 per year, while the top 1 percent raked in nearly $2.7 million a piece.

The state is not expected to close tax loopholes that allow wealthy hedge fund managers to pay much lower tax rates on their personal earnings than the top marginal rate, according to The Connecticut Mirror.

SEBAC membersexcept those in the state police and assistant attorneys general unionshave been without a contract since June 30, 2016; the ruling out of a raise for the year July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017 therefore puts in writing an austerity measure under which workers were already suffering. The agreement promises 3.5 percent raises in fiscal years 2020 and 2021. However, it is obvious the freeze through June 30, 2019 is meant to match the two-year budget cycle just beginning, and that an excuse will be found to deny raises in the cycle beginning July 1, 2019.

Much noise has been made in the press about the job security provisions in the concessions agreement, which supposedly offset the wage and benefits give-backs. These provisions will nominally be in force through June 30, 2021.

However, the promised moratorium on layoffs does not apply to anyone hired after July 1, 2017, and the state still has the right to restructure and/or eliminate positions provided those affected bump or transfer to another comparable job.

The agreement spells out a four-phase bargaining process, which will allow the state to demand that the unions agree to future layoffs. Phase I states, In the event of a significant reorganization, the State may contact affected bargaining units, and the Coalition [SEBAC], to discuss voluntary alternatives to placement to be offered to employees who would be affected. Phase II promises only that the state will use its best efforts to maximize the likelihood of success.

In short, the unions and Democrats have forced workers into their second major concessions deal since the Great Recession, and workers are left with false promises. Governor Malloy was instrumental in negotiating this rotten deal and said in a statement that the agreement delivers over $20 billion in savings to taxpayers over the long term. In the mouths of politicians like Malloy, the word taxpayer is code for private corporations.

While praising the unions for their historic concessions, Malloy has gone hat-in-hand to Aetna asking them to keep their headquarters in state. According to the Wall Street Journal, on May 15 the governor sent a letter to Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini about his own governments behavior, stating that the lack of respect afforded Aetna as an important and innovative economic engine of Connecticut bewilders me.

The SEBAC agreement still needs to be ratified by the state legislature, where Republicansthe minority partyare demanding even deeper attacks on wages and benefits.
US President Donald Trump issued an ominous warning to Iran on Friday, declaring in a White House statement that his administration is prepared to impose serious consequences if Tehran fails to release detained American citizens. This provocative declaration marks a further ramping up of tensions between Washington and Iran, which the US ruling elite has long decried as a major obstacle to its unchallenged primacy over the energy-rich Middle East.

Trumps bellicose remarks came just days after he reluctantly agreed to certify Irans compliance with the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord, the Joint Cooperative Plan Of Action (JCPOA), negotiated under the Obama administration. The deal promised a normalization of economic relations with the West in exchange for Iran dismantling large parts of its civil nuclear program, freezing others, and accepting an onerous inspection regime. However, the US president must certify Iranian compliance to Congress every 90 days; otherwise punishing US sanctions, based on Americas central position in the world banking system, snap-back into force.

Even as Trump granted a further 90-day extension, he stepped up pressure on Iran by pledging to enforce stricter monitoring of the deal. On Tuesday, the Trump administration seized on Irans ballistic missile program to implement economic sanctions against several individuals and organizations, including two groups associated with the powerful Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

In leaks to the media, anonymous sources pointed to a bitter conflict raging within the administration over its Iran policy. According to the New York Times and Foreign Policy, Trump was irate with his advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for not presenting him with the option last Monday of decertifying Irans compliance with the nuclear deal. One source said that Trump had demanded of Tillerson in April, when he granted his first approval for deals the continuation, that he lay the groundwork for a decision to decertify this time around.

According to a Foreign Policy source, Trump, not trusting Tillerson, has now appointed a committee of White House staffers to draft a proposal to scuttle the nuclear deal, removing responsibility from the State Department. The president has reportedly insisted that when the next 90-day approval comes due in October, he wants to be in a position to claim that Tehran has failed to live up to its JCPOA commitments, so he can justify refusing to grant the waiver under which the sanctions are suspended. The push for the immediate abandonment of the Iran deal is reportedly being led within the White House by Trumps fascistic chief political adviser Stephen Bannon.

Washingtons repudiation of the nuclear agreement would place the US and Iran on a short-track to a war that would likely envelop most of the Middle East and potentially involve other great powers. In arguing for the JCPOA, US President Obama repeatedly argued that for US imperialism the only alternative to a nuclear deal with Iran is war.

The internecine warfare within the Trump administration is bound up with the deepening crisis confronting US imperialism in the Middle East. More than a quarter century of bloody military violence has failed spectacularly to reverse Washingtons economic decline and consolidate its hegemony over the worlds most important oil producing region. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, as well as US-backed conflicts in Yemen and Somalia, have claimed the lives of millions and laid waste to entire societies. With its extensive military support to its two main client states in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Washington also bears responsibility for the brutal suppression of the Palestinian people and increased sectarian divisions throughout the Middle East.

Trump, together with hard-right sections of the Republican Party, speak for the faction of the American ruling class seeking all-out war with Iran. He denounced the nuclear accord during the presidential election campaign as the worst deal ever and has repeatedly ratcheted up tensions since taking office. In May, he delivered an aggressive denunciation of Iran in a speech in Riyadh, endorsing the Saudis efforts to forge a US-backed Sunni military alliance to confront Iran. Emboldened by this declaration, Saudi Arabia, with Trumps explicit endorsement, rallied its regional allies some two weeks later to impose an all-out diplomatic and economic blockade of Qatar that stopped just short of war. Riyadh is demanding that Doha make sweeping foreign policy concessions, including downgrading its ties with Iran, and shelving its funding of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Unlike Trump, Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have given no encouragement to the blockade the Saudis, several other Gulf states, and Egypt have imposed on Qatar. Over the past seven weeks they have been working for a diplomatic solution to the dispute, while making clear that they think the Saudis are the ones who should do most of the backing down.

This is motivated in part by Qatars crucial strategic role as home to two giant US airbases as well as the forward base of the Central Command, which conducts the wars in Afghanistan and Syria/Iraq. Tillerson and Mattis are also concerned that the stoking of tensions among the Gulf client states will get in the way of their plans for a broader US intervention in Syria. Similar reasoning lies behind their opposition to Trumps plot to scuttle the nuclear agreement, at least in the current conjuncture.

In Syria, where the US incited a civil war with the aim of ousting the pro-Iranian and pro-Russian Assad regime in Damascus, the war is increasingly developing into a regional struggle for power. As Islamic State loses ground in Syrias east, Washington is moving decisively to block the establishment of a land bridge from Tehran through Syria and into south Lebanon that would enable Iran not only to supply Assad, but also its ally Hezbollah. To this end, US and British Special Forces are training Sunni Islamists at a military base on the Syrian-Jordanian border, while allowing defeated ISIS fighters in Raqqa to move south to confront pro-Assad troops in the province of Deir ez-Zor.

Washingtons immediate goal in this reckless agenda is to push back Iranian influence, while at the same time establishing a fighting force on the ground that can be thrown into a sectarian struggle for power against the Assad regime at the first appropriate opportunity. The Trump administrations ending of the program funding al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels, combined with the recently unveiled ceasefire agreement with Russia in Syrias south, amounts to an attempt to drive a wedge between Iran and Russia as part of the preparation of a direct military conflict with Iranian forces in Syria.

While the US political establishment, Republican and Democratic alike, is determined to ultimately bring Iran to heel, there are deep divisions over how this can best be achieved and how this figures in the broader drive for US world hegemony.

Scuttling the Iran nuclear deal and putting the US on the fast-track to an all-out war with Iran would, argue powerful sections of the ruling elite, dangerously distract from Americas military-strategic offensives against Russia and China.

A July 20 editorial in the New York Timeswhich has been at the forefront of the hysterical anti-Russia campaign that is aimed at forcing Trump to continue and escalate Obamas hardline stance towards the worlds second-largest nuclear powerargued that the US should pursue regime change in Tehran by means other than conquest. Irans government, it declared, continues to be torn between anti-American hard-liners and moderates like President Hassan Rouhani who are willing to engage with America. Mr. Trump would make a grave mistake if instead of trying to work with those moderate forces he led the nation closer to war.

A significant consideration behind the opposition of Tillerson, Defence Secretary James Mattis and the Times editorialists to the US repudiating the Iran nuclear deal is the hostile response this would provoke from Europe, above all Germany and France. The European imperialist powers have gone much further than Washington in developing economic ties with Iran since 2015, as shown recently by the conclusion of a $1 billion investment agreement between Frances oil giant Total and Tehran to develop a large gas field jointly operated with Qatar. It was also displayed in the differing responses to the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. While Trump enthused over Riyadhs tough stance against terrorism, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel pointedly attacked the Trumpification of relations in the region and urged that all parties be included in a negotiated settlement.

With considerable justification, Iranian officials have charged the Trump administration with already violating the terms of the JCPOA, both by imposing additional sanctions (purportedly targeting Irans missile program) and by attempting to discourage foreign companies from doing business with the country. The 2015 deal stipulates that the US refrain from taking measures to prevent the normalization of economic relations with Iran.

In a move that will further irritate the Trump administration, Iranian media reported Sunday that Iran and Iraq have concluded a joint military agreement to deepen the fight against terrorism. Large numbers of Iranian fighters, including military commanders, have long operated in Iraq in alliance with Baghdads Shiite-dominated regime and played a significant role in the recent bloody siege and capture of Mosul.
The crisis that erupted after the resignation of French armed forces chief of staff General Pierre de Villiers has rapidly exposed the class character of Unsubmissive France (LFI). Shortly after launching LFIs movement against President Emmanuel Macrons drastic austerity policies, LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon rapidly aligned himself with the financial demands de Villiers had made before resigning.

This underscores a basic political reality: the anti-Macron movement Melenchon wants to build is a pro-war movement that would subordinate the interests of the working class to the strategic interests of French imperialism. But long historic experience shows one cannot defend workers living standards by kowtowing to the generals. Explosive class struggles are being prepared against Macron, but workers opposition will be expressed and can only find expression through struggles waged independently of Melenchon and his allies.

Melenchon is an unambiguous advocate of military spending and war. To the media, he denounced Macrons enormous error in proposing 850 million in defense budget cuts. He also applauded de Villiers provocative statement to the National Assembly denouncing these cuts: If his duty is to serve, his duty is also to say the reality of the situation. The head of state has created an extremely unhealthy situation between the army and the Nation, and I deplore this.

On his blog, Melenchon demanded unstinting financial support for Frances wars: Whatever one thinks of the value of defense spending, whatever one thinks of the conflicts in which our armed forces are engaged, the duty of the country is to abide by these decisions. We cannot open up four military fronts without knowing who will finance them. Refusing to do so when men and women are engaged in combat threatens the entire system with dislocation, by showing it that its leaders themselves do not believe in the value of what they have decided.

Melenchons arguments are reactionary and false. It is not the duty of the French people to abide by neo-colonial wars launched behind their backs by small cabals leading the NATO alliance and a series of anti-working class governments in France who were impervious to anti-war sentiment.

The French armys warswhether in the Middle East, where they participate in US-led coalitions, or in Africa where they try to maintain French imperialisms hegemony over its former colonial empireare imperialist acts of plunder. The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the wars in Syria and Libya or Mali have been bloody catastrophes.

Melenchons claim that everything must be done to prevent the dislocation of the army, by preserving the prestige and the massive financing of these politically criminal wars, shows that he is on the side of the ruling elite against the workers in France and around the world. This is the political context in which the movement Melenchon is proposing to launch against Macrons social counterrevolution can be understood.

Events since the French legislative elections last month have confirmed that the European Union (EU) and Macron are preparing a historic confrontation with the working class. An enabling act is to allow Macron to rewrite labor law by decree, to incorporate policies launched by the German social democrats against the German workers with the Hartz laws a decade ago. The writing of much of the state of emergency into common law would eliminate all judicial oversight of the police repression Macron is making preparations against the social opposition his attacks will undoubtedly provoke.

The giant step Macron is making towards a dictatorship in France vindicates the political line of the Parti de legalite socialiste (PES) in the French presidential elections. The PES rejected illusions that one could defend democratic and social rights by voting for Macron against the neo-fascist candidate Marine Le Pen; it called for an active boycott of the second round. The PES explained that only a politically independent line for the working class, opposed to the parties tied to Macron and the outgoing Socialist Party (PS), could prepare the workers for the struggles to come.

The four million blank or spoiled ballots cast in the presidential run-off, and the massive 57 percent abstention in the second round of the legislative elections, indicate the vast potential support for the positions of the PES in the working class.

Melenchon for his part is continuing his policy in the presidential electiontrying to channel mass opposition to both Macron and Le Pen toward a bankrupt, parliamentary perspective. Even after most LFI supporters indicated their support for a blank or spoiled ballot in the presidential runoff, Melenchon did not call for a boycott. He refused to take any position; later he called on his voters to elect an LFI majority in the National Assembly so he could become Macrons prime minister.

After this stunning abdication of the responsibilities conferred upon Melenchon by the 20 percent support he had received in the first round of the presidential election, LFI obtained only 15 deputies in the Assembly. On July 12, surrounded by the LFI deputies wearing tricolor sashes on Republic Square in Paris, Melenchon called on his voters to launch a social movement. Its purpose, by Melenchons account, is to increase the parliamentary influence of the LFI minority, which Melenchon sees as the sole legitimate political representation of the mass movement.

He said, In August, we will have a national caravan. In September, of course, we will help the trade unions if they ask for it. And we will have our own marches that will also take place  You must prepare to act and interact with your parliamentarians, so osmosis occurs between the mass movement and the political representation that we are.

He pointed to Macrons decrees aiming to allow trade unions and bosses to negotiate firm-level contracts openly violating the national Labor Code: You understand, that which was the particularity of the class struggle in France and of workers trade union actions and the great conquests, first of the beginning of the century when the Labor Code was first created, then of 1936, then of the Liberation, then of May 1968, then of May 1981  all of that, in a stroke of the pen, will be eliminated  Everything will be overthrown in favor of micro-local agreements.

There is no doubt that behind Macron, French and global finance capital is preparing a historic attack on the working class whose scale mirrors the scale of the crisis of capitalism. The hegemony of US imperialism, the unipolar power after the Stalinist bureaucracys dissolution of the USSR, is collapsing, as is the European Union (EU), discredited by its destructive and irrational austerity policy. And France, lacking in international competitiveness, is suffering an industrial and economic collapse to which the bourgeoisie is responding with dictatorial measures.

What does Melenchon propose? He wants to use the population, mobilized in an artificial movement, as a back-up for a small, impotent minority in the National Assembly that openly sympathizes with the army. He will also coordinate with the trade union bureaucracies who, for their part, will organize a few protest marches without any perspective while negotiating the trade union check and other pseudo-legal bribes Macron is proposing to give them in his decrees.

This strategy is an absurdity that can only serve to demobilize the workers. Its main characteristic, as Melenchons support for the army makes clear, is its national and parliamentary orientation, which signifies that it will be and can only be a brake on the development of struggles that will emerge in the working class in the coming months and years.

Macrons attacks represent the implementation in France of social attacks carried out by the EU across Europe. Worked out in coordination with the German SPD, the labor law Macron is seeking to produce with his decrees aims to achieve what the EU imposed with its austerity policy in Greece: destroying all the gains the working class made through the class struggle in the 20th century.

These attacks will not fail to provoke explosive class struggles with revolutionary implications across Europe. Like the French general strikes in 1936 and 1968, or Europes liberation from fascist rule at the end of World War II, the struggles of the working class will emerge independently of the trade union bureaucracies and will rapidly overflow the borders of whichever individual country they begin in. In these struggles, the allies of workers in France are the workers of the rest of Europe and the world.

Melenchons strategy is reactionary, since it cuts French workers off from their international class brothers and sisters and blocks a struggle of the working class for power. It currently has no chance of success, given LFIs tiny minority in the Assembly. But even in Greece, where Melenchons Syriza allies won the 2015 elections, their nationalism and their refusal to appeal to the European working class for support condemned Syrizas opposition to impotence. It ultimately capitulated to the pressure of the banks and the EU, led by Berlin.

The conclusion drawn by Melenchon in his anti-German pamphlet, Bismarcks Herring, is that Paris must prepare for conflict with Berlin, including a military confrontation if necessary. We are OK, he wrote. But we have the right to ask questions. Come on, we were invaded three times [by Germany] in less than a century. And now Germany has become the worlds third-largest exporter of weapons in less than 20 years.

If Melenchon defends de Villiers against Macron, it is in no small part because he opposes the Franco-German industrial alliance on military production proposed by Merkel and Macron last week. He applauds de Villiers for having opposed the project, which he denounces as a threat to Frances capacity to defend itself against Germany by maintaining a defense industry that is fully autonomous from Berlin.

On his blog, he wrote: When  the president presented an improbable plan for a military rapprochement with Germany, bitterness won out!  We have already sold half the company that produces [Frances] Leclerc tanks to a family of German billionaires. We thought the total sell-out of our defense interests that characterized [PS President Francois] Hollandes term in office would finally come to an end. But it turns out not to be the case. The armed forces, that will now be using German rifles, will tomorrow fly in airplanes whose production will also escape national control.

These reactionary remarks bear a definite resemblance to the posturing of French bourgeois politicians of the 1930s who swore to struggle against Hitler, before abjectly capitulating to the Nazi invasion in 1940. They aim above all to divide the European working class and to inflame inter-imperialist tensions that twice in the past century erupted into world war in Europe.

Melenchons political bankruptcy reflects the general collapse of the PS, European social democracy, and its broader periphery, which have been transformed into supporters of austerity and war. The specter of a revolutionary explosion now haunts Europe. The task the PES sets itself is, acting in coordination with the other sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Europe, is to give political leadership to unify these struggles across national boundaries into a revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of the United Socialist States of Europe.
About 400 people attended the March for Public Education in Washington, D.C. Saturday. The rally, which was dominated by trade union speakers and former members of the Obama administration, was followed by a march to the Department of Education to appeal to the Trump administration.

Trump and his education secretary, billionaire heiress Betsy DeVos, are avowed enemies of public education. The presidents proposed budget cuts $9.2 billion in federal education spending, or 13.5 percent of the Department of Education budget, through the elimination or reduction in funding for more than 30 discretionary programs. This includes slashing funding for teachers professional development, class size reduction, preschool development grants in low-income communities and after-school programs.

The budget proposal also included a $1 billion public school choice program under Title I, and a $250 million private school voucher program.

Under conditions of widespread opposition to Trump and DeVos, the pitiful turnout underscored the vast gulf between workers and youth seeking to defend public education and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA), which have long collaborated in the attack on teachers and public education.

The event, which followed a week of lobbying Congress by teacher unions, was aimed at boosting a sickly dependence among teachers on the Democratic Party and sections of the Republicans, which the unions claim can be relied on to defend public education. This is after eight years of the Obama administration, which spearheaded the destruction of hundreds of thousands of public school jobs, the doubling of charter school enrollment and the funneling of billions in education business to hedge funds and private corporations.

The turnout was also low in Detroit and other cities where coordinated demonstrations were held. A few hundred attended in Detroit to hear local Democrats and union officials swear their allegiance to public education. Detroit, which was dubbed ground zero for school reform by Obamas first education secretary, Arne Duncan, has seen a massive increase in totally unregulated for-profit charter schools, long promoted by DeVos. The Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) spent last year colluding with the Democrats to smother wildcat protests by teachers against decaying schools and privatization, and has just accepted a contract proposal that includes merit pay for new teachers.

Keeping in line with the unions nationalist orientation, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the president of the NEA, the largest teacher union in the United States, led participants at the Washington rally in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to kick off the march. She called attendees true patriots for standing up to the Trump administration.

Noxious identity politics were also promoted at the event. Some student and teacher speakers addressed the effect of disabilities, crippling standardized testing regimes, and poverty on student performance. However, a significant number speakers promoted the lie that the attack on education was based on racism, not a ruling class attack on one of the most fundamental social rights won by the working class.

The Trump administrations attack on public education is racist at heart, Washington Teachers Union President Elizabeth Davis declared, adding that the spread of charter schools is an attempt to re-segregate the nation.

Daviss racialist perspective obscured the role played by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party in the school privatization process. Race to the Top (RTTT), Obamas signature education policy, vastly intensified the pro-charter policies of the Bush administration by forcing states to compete for federal assistance in exchange for promoting charter schools and increasing standardized testing.

The spread of charter schools has been aided by the teacher unions and local Democratic Party officials, many of them, in cities like Detroit and Baltimore, who are African American. The AFT and NEA have welcomed charters into public school systems with the caveat that the unions be included in deciding which schools to close and that they be allowed to enrich their coffers by collecting dues from the exploited employees at charter schools.

Even as Democratic and Republican administrations starve the public education system of funding to pay for unending military interventions abroad, not a single speaker attempted to connect the attacks on public education to militarism and war. In fact, these policies were tacitly endorsed.

In her speech, the Washington Teachers Union President Davis mentioned Erik Prince, brother of DeVos and former CEO of private military contracting firm Blackwater. Davis complained that Prince, like DeVos, wanted to privatize public services, implicitly suggesting that if such wars were conducted by the US military it would be far better.

While the union functionaries offered no way forward participants at the rally expressed their determination to defend public education. Shannon, a test coordinator in Virginia, told the World Socialist Web Site that she came to the rally to protest unfair and unequal education [for] kids. She said education should be free for all, noting that a childs quality of education shouldnt be decided by geography or being born where there are more resources. Trump Jr. said that educations a business. Its not a business, its a public service.

Cutting military spending would alleviate many problems, Shannon added. Just 10 percent would be enough to feed, clothe and educate millions of children worldwide. When education and general infrastructure are starved for funding and crumbling here at home, what are these wars abroad actually defending? she asked.
Over the past few days, tensions between Germany and Turkey have markedly increased. Berlin, in particular, has adopted a more aggressive posture.

Last week, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, announced a realignment in the governments policy towards Turkey. It cannot go on like this, he said. We cannot continue as before. We will now have to look at how we adapt our policy towards Turkey in light of the aggravated situation.

The German government immediately placed a question mark over state guarantees for German business investments in Turkey. No one can be advised to invest in a country if there is no longer any legal certainty and even totally respectable companies are maligned as having links with terrorists, said Gabriel. He added that did not see how we, as a federal government, can continue to guarantee German corporate investments in Turkey.

The foreign minister went on to question European Union aid to Turkeys bid to enter the EU, as well as negotiations to extend the customs union. This follows the announcement of an official travel warning. The foreign ministry website features a notice saying: People who travel to Turkey for private or business reasons are advised to be more cautious and it is recommended that they register on the Crisis Prevention List at consulates and the embassy, even for short-term stays.

Gabriel justified the measures by citing conspicuous developments in Turkey. He said, Whoever sacks hundreds of thousands of civil servants, soldiers and judges; throws tens of thousands in jail, including parliamentary deputies, journalists and human rights activists; expropriates the possessions of thousands; closes down hundreds of press outlets; whoever sweepingly accuses dozens of German businesses of providing aid to terrorists clearly wants to turn back the wheel of history and remove the foundations of the rule of law so successfully established in recent years.

Whom is Gabriel seeking to impress with his human rights propaganda? It is obvious that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his conservative AKP (Justice and Development Party) government are in the process of establishing an authoritarian regime in Turkey. But the German government is in no position to lecture Ankara on the rule of law and democracy. Gabriel has no problem calling butchers such as Egypts military dictator Abdel Fatah al-Sisi an impressive president. The German government, moreover, has no scruples when it comes to abrogating fundamental rights and using brutal force against journalists and demonstrators, as demonstrated by the police crackdown against protesters at the recent G20 summit in Hamburg.

If someone is seeking to turn back the wheel of history, it is the ruling class of Germany. At the Munich Security Conference in 2014, then-German President Joachim Gauck and the federal government announced that despite its crimes in two world wars, Germany would again have to develop an aggressive foreign policy and pursue great power politics. This agenda was implemented in the Middle East with the delivery of arms to the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq and Germanys entry into the Syrian war.

The wars carried out by the imperialist powers have not only transformed the Middle East into a powder keg, they have also undermined relations with Europes traditional ally in the region. Ankara is a party to the war in Syria, but it pursues its own interests there. Tensions with the Western governments have been building for some time, above all on the Kurdish question and Turkeys foreign policy approach to Russia and China.

Already before the failed Turkish coup in July 2016, which had the silent support of sections of the ruling class in the US and Germany, German-Turkish relations had entered into crisis. In June 2016, the Bundestag (German federal parliament) adopted a resolution describing as genocide the mass murder during World War I of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan had warned beforehand that the adoption of such a resolution would cause damage to diplomatic, economic, political and military relations between the two countries.

This year, the conflict has sharpened. Prior to the Turkish constitutional referendum in April, the German authorities imposed a ban on Turkish government members traveling to several German cities. In June, the Bundestag decided, by a large majority, to move Bundeswehr (army) units from the Turkish Air Force base at Incirlik to the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. This came after Ankara banned members of the Bundestag from visiting German soldiers in Turkey.

The Turkish government justified its position by accusing Germany of sheltering terrorists from the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamist Gulenist movement. Ankara accused the latter of playing a central role in the failed coup of July 2016.

In all, more than 400 Turkish soldiers, diplomats and high-ranking government officials who are suspected by the Turkish government of supporting the coup attempt are applying for asylum in Germany. According to the Turkish media, these include officers from a renowned military academy in Ankara who are among the leading conspirators in the failed putsch of 15 July. Germans imprisoned in Turkey, including the journalist Deniz Yucel and the human rights activist Peter Steudtner, are accused by the Turkish judiciary of terrorism and espionage.

Gabriels provocative outburst has triggered a violent reaction. In a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan called the statements unfounded and malicious and said Germany had to pull itself together. Beyond Turkey, Gabriels statements are exacerbating tensions within the EU and NATO.

In an interview with broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, Austrian social-democratic politician Hannes Swoboda accused the German government of having failed to seek agreement on its position with the European Commission and the European Parliament. It was necessary to take into account that many countries have a very different relationship with Turkey, he said. He was thinking of Italy, Spain and some Nordic countries that see this quite differently. Germany had to take care that it represents a common European position to avoid being left standing in the rain.

In an interview, former German Defence Minister Volker Ruhe, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, criticized NATO and called for the military alliance to show somewhat more hardness towards the Turkish government. If the largest and most important NATO nationsthe Germans, the English, the French, in Europe, and the Americansact together here, then I am sure that one can achieve something with Mr. Erdogan. This must, however, begin with the NATO secretary general, who is much too defensive.

While the German government is aggressively pushing its new Turkey policy, it is also trying to avoid a complete break with Ankara. At the end of his press conference, Gabriel stated that his relations with Turkey were very close to his heart. The German government was interested in continuing good and trusting relations with the Turkish government. He added, We want Turkey to remain a part of the West. But It takes two to tango!

For several reasons, Turkey, as a central bridge between Europe and the resource-rich regions of the Middle East, is of great importance for German imperialism. A current strategy paper from the German Society for Foreign Affairs (DGAP) states: Despite the many points at issue between Germany and Turkey, the country remains an important partner for Germany and the EU.

On the topic of security policy, the paper warns against a further distancing of Turkey from the EU. This would pose the danger of NATO being weakened and Turkey moving closer to Russia in security policy and becoming increasingly active against German and European interests. In addition, in the sealing of Europes borders against refugees from the war zones in the Middle East and Afghanistan, Turkey, as a transit country on the EUs external border, is of crucial importance.

Another core interest of Germany, according to the DGAP paper, is economic cooperation with Turkey. Last year, the volume of bilateral trade amounted to 37.3 billion euros, of which 21.9 billion was attributable to German exports to Turkey. Germany is the second largest investor in Turkey within the European Union. In addition, Turkey is important as a transit country for European energy supplies from the Middle East and the Caspian region.
Following the suppression of the July Insurrection, a government of national safety with unlimited repressive powers is announced in Petrograd. This government receives the support not only of the entire spectrum of bourgeois and reactionary parties, but also from the populist and opportunist parties in the Petrograd Soviet, who are all united in demanding order. The death penalty is restored in the army, and Kerensky, who is emerging as a Bonapartist figure, announces that he will beat the country into unity with blood and iron.

The official press is fulminating rabidly against the Bolsheviks, branding them Germanophiles and the recipients of German gold from the Kaiser. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Bolshevik leaders, and Bolshevik newspapers are censored. The Bolsheviks are blamed for all the countrys problems, including the disorganization of economic life, the unrest in the capital, and the military defeats.

New York, July 24: Times hails Kerensky dictatorship in Russia

In a lead editorial, A Dictatorship for Russia (July 24) and lead news articles, Kerensky Made Dictator of Russia (July 24) and Kerenskys Rule to be Merciless (July 25), the New York Times enthusiastically endorses capitalist dictatorship in Russia and the violence required to enforce it.

[D]eliverance from a state of paralysis of authority, the Times writes in its editorial, is through a dictatorship, and if Russia is to have a dictator, KERENSKY is probably the best man to exercise the supreme power.

The Times explains that, up until this point, the Provisional Government could have been successful if only it could have secured obedience from the Russian people at home and from the armies at the front. This has been prevented by the poison of socialism and radicalism, whose infection spread until it was arrested by KERENSKY.

The Times joins in the great slander against Lenin as a German agent who should have been deprived of all power to do mischief long ago. The larger obstacle, however, is socialism itself, whose ideas must be driven out of the Russian mind, or at least sternly suppressed.

The most immediate fear in American ruling circles, articulated by the Times, is that the powerful cry for peace raised up by the Russian Revolution will deprive the Allied imperialist powers of the Eastern Front, allowing Germany and Austria to devote their entire attention to the Western and Southern fronts. They fear more the example the Russian workers have given the working class and oppressed masses in the US and the world over.

The Times serves up its proposals for mass suppression without a hint of shame. A mouthpiece of Wilsons pious rhetoric about the war for democracy, the Times, like the American president, shows its willingness to crush liberty when it suits the interests of US capitalism.

Ottawa, July 24: Canadian parliament passes military conscription bill

The House of Commons votes in favor of the Military Service Act, enabling the Conservative government of Robert Borden to initiate conscription. Borden, reversing his previous policy, introduced the measure May 18 to compensate for spiraling Canadian casualties on the Western Front and a drop in enlistment. Demonstrations broke out almost immediately following Bordens announcement, with a major rally in Montreal on May 24.

The debate over recent weeks has intensified divisions within the country. Tensions exist between English and French Canada, and these are exacerbated by the prospect that people from Quebec, where opposition to the war is strongest, could now be forced to serve. Many Liberal Party MPs throw their support behind the Tories, leaving former Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier leading a diminished group of Liberals in opposition. The vote in parliament sees almost all English-speaking MPs back conscription, while most deputies from French-speaking areas oppose it. One day later, an income tax bill is introduced in parliament by Finance Minister Thomas White to help raise funds for the war. Presented as a temporary measure, the countrys first income tax will remain in force permanently.

However, opposition also exists to conscription in English-speaking Canada, where the main base of support for the war comes from the ruling elite and recent immigrants from Britain.

The main fear of the ruling class is that popular opposition to conscription could trigger the emergence of a mass antiwar movement. The people are agitated, writes Monseigneur Bruchesi, the Archbishop of Montreal, to Borden. In the province of Quebec; we can expect deplorable revolts. Will this not end in bloodshed?

July 25 (July 12, O.S.): Death penalty reintroduced at the Russian front

Following the July Days insurrection, many of the liberties and rights that were guaranteed in the aftermath of the February Revolution are abruptly curtailed. The most unpopular of these counterrevolutionary measures is the reintroduction of capital punishment at the front, which had been abolished following the collapse of tsarism.

Commanders are given blanket authority to open fire on soldiers who hesitate to obey orders. Meanwhile, the Provisional Government establishes divisional military revolutionary tribunals, authorized to impose the death penalty. There is no appeal from the decisions of these tribunals. The convicted soldier is executed immediately.

The reintroduction of capital punishment has a profound impact on the consciousness of masses of enlisted soldiers, who see in this the reintroduction of the old tyranny. The pro-war parties that support it are dramatically discredited among soldiers. Within the populist Socialist Revolutionary party, largely based on the peasantry, the reintroduction of the death penalty dramatically sharpens internal divisions. While the SR right wing consists of open militarists, the left wing of the party is incensed.

Prominent left-wing SR Maria Spiridonova decries the measure as the greatest shame, as organized judicial murder, and as an abandonment of SR principles. Among soldiers, a rapid shift to the left is underway. The broader base of the moderate socialist parties, which have enjoyed popular support since the February Revolution, is eroding.

Born into the nobility, Spiridonovas assassination of the hated tsarist police official G. N. Luzhenovsky in 1906 shocked public opinion throughout the Russian Empire. The audacity of the act, as well as her brutal torture at the hands of the police, made her a folk hero in certain radical circles. She was exiled to Siberia, where she spent 11 years, before being released after the February Revolution. The Left SRs, of which she was a leading figure, gravitated towards the Bolsheviks in the period leading up to the October Revolution, but turned against them in 1918.

Dublin, July 25: Irish Convention holds first sitting

Ninety-five delegates from political parties and cultural organizations, along with figures from public life, meet at Trinity College for the first sitting of the Irish Convention. The body has been established by British Prime Minister Lloyd George in a desperate attempt to secure a constitutional settlement that keeps Ireland within the British Empire.

Sinn Fein, which has already won three by-elections against the Irish Parliamentary Party this year, boycotts the gathering because its terms of reference state that Ireland must remain part of the Empire. The Irish Party, which still holds the majority of Irish seats in Britains House of Commons, has been for decades the chief advocate of a constitutional settlement that extends home rule to Dublin while retaining Irelands position in the Empire. The partys leader is John Redmond, who has campaigned strongly for the British war effort. He successfully encouraged the majority of the Irish Volunteers, a militia recruited prior to the war to secure home rule for the whole of Ireland, to join the British army.

The British House of Commons passed a home rule bill in May 1914 and home rule officially came into force in September of that year. However, it was suspended for the duration of the war. Unionists in Ulster, led by Edward Carson, who supports the Lloyd George government, criticized the 1914 bill and are opposed to an Irish home rule parliament without guarantees for the unionist minority.

The main reason for Lloyd Georges urgency is the rapid radicalization of Irish workers and sections of the middle class. Public opinion has shifted even more decisively against Britain since the brutal suppression of the 1916 Easter Rising, including the cold-blooded execution of 12 of its leaders. In addition, the Irish Volunteers Redmond helped recruit into the British war effort have suffered heavy casualties. The introduction of conscription in Ireland has been repeatedly delayed as politicians fear the backlash from an increasingly militant working class.

Petrograd, July 27 (July 14, O.S.): Kerensky announces an Extraordinary National Council to save Russia

Premier Kerensky announces that he is taking the emergency measure of assembling an Extraordinary National Council in Moscow, without waiting for the Constituent Assembly to convene. Kerensky blames the economic disorganization, the military defeats, and the unrest in the cities and the countryside on German plotters operating behind Russian lines. The solution to these German intrigues: impose a dictatorship, arrest the Bolsheviks, and disarm the workers.

The previous day, Kerensky announced that he had summoned two prominent tsarist generals to Petrograd from retirement: General Nicholas Ruszky, formerly Commander-in-Chief of Russias northern armies, and General Iosif Romeyko-Gurko, a former commander on the Russian southwestern front.

Kerensky declares: My government will save Russia. If motives of reason, honor, and conscience prove insufficient, I will beat her into unity with blood and iron. Kronstadt is ordered to turn over its radical and socialist leaders or face a naval blockade.

Petrograd, July 26-27 (July 13-14, O.S.): Bolshevik leadership debates the slogan All Power to the Soviets

An expanded meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, after a discussion, rejects Lenins call to abandon the slogan All Power to the Soviets. In his work, On Slogans, Lenin states that this formula was rendered obsolete following the July Insurrection and subsequent counterrevolution.

No one, no force, can overthrow the bourgeois counterrevolutionaries except the revolutionary proletariat... Soviets may appear in this new revolution, and indeed are bound to, but not the present Soviets, not organs collaborating with the bourgeoisie, but organs of revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie. It is true that even then we shall be in favor of building the whole state on the model of the Soviets. It is not a question of Soviets in general, but of combating the present counterrevolution and the treachery of the present Soviets.

However, the majority of the Bolshevik leadership declines to abandon the slogan, which continues to enjoy enormous popularity among Petrograd workers and soldiers.

New York, July 28: Silent parade against East St. Louis race riot

A crowd estimated at 8,000 marches down Fifth Avenue in New York City to protest the recent racist pogrom in East St. Louis that killed scores of African Americans, as well as other recent lynchings and acts of racial violence.

The march, organized by W.E.B DuBois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), proceeds in silence in memory of the victims of East St. Louis. It aims to pressure President Wilson to enact federal legislation to stop the epidemic of lynchings that have killed thousands of African Americans in recent decades. Wilson, who has recently reintroduced segregation into the workforce of the federal government, will do no such thing.

New York police confiscate a banner that depicts an African American woman pleading with Wilson from her knees, alongside two small children. The caption that reads, Mr. President, why not make America safe for democracy?

London, July 28: Right-wing mob violently disperses antiwar meeting

A meeting of the Workers and Soldiers Council at Brotherhood Church in north London is violently broken up by a right-wing mob singing Rule Britannia.

The council was established following the June 3 conference in Leeds, which declared its support for the February Revolution. Political leadership of the conference and the Workers and Soldiers Council is in the hands of Labour Party politicians and trade unionists who embrace the defensist line put forward by the Mensheviks to legitimize the continuation of the war in the name of achieving a democratic peace.

The meetings location, associated with Christian socialism, has long been a venue for socialist and antiwar gatherings. In 1907, Brotherhood Church hosted the Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, participants in which included Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov and Luxemburg.

The riot, which involves several thousand people, had been incited by the Special Branch and right-wing newspapers. Basil Thomson, head of the Special Branch, wrote in his diary yesterday, They will have a rude awakening tomorrow, as I have arranged for the Daily Express to publish the place of the meeting and strong opposition may be expected.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell, a delegate to the meeting, would later recall what took place, writing, The mob burst in led by a few officers; all except the officers were more or less drunk. The fiercest were viragos who used wooden boards full of rusty nails. An attempt was made by the officers to induce the women among us to retire first so they might deal as they thought fit with the pacifist men, whom they supposed to be all cowards.

Russell continued: Everyone had to escape as best they could while the police looked on calmly. Two of the drunken women began to attack me with their boards full of nails. While I was wondering how one defends oneself against this type of attack, one of the ladies among us went up to the police and suggested they should defend me. The police merely shrugged their shoulders. But he is an eminent philosopher, said the lady, and the police still shrugged. But he is famous all over the world as a man of learning, she continued. The police remained unmoved. But he is the brother of an earl she finally cried. At this, the police rushed to my assistance. They were, however, too late to be of any service, and I owe my life to a young woman whom I did not know, who interposed herself between me and the viragos long enough for me to make my escape.

Only one arrest is made by the police, and the man taken into custody was a delegate. The churchs interior is completely destroyed by the mob.

Washington, July 29: Gompers convenes AALD, pledges to fight influence of socialism

The American Association for Labor and Democracy (AALD), with AFL President Samuel Gompers at its head, is convened in Washington. The new organization, whose top positions are populated by pro-war union bureaucrats and former labor radicals, pledges to speed up industry, tamp down on strikes, and fight the influence of socialism and antiwar sentiment among American workers.

According to the New York Times, the AALD holds that the success of the socialistic propaganda already under way in the United States would work to the benefit of the enemies of the nation. In order to counter socialism, the AALD will give full attention to labor activities throughout the country and the full strengthwill be directed at keeping the industrial strength of the nation at the maximum.

As Gompers later recalls, We developed a plan for bringing together in one organization representatives of the American trade union movement and representatives of what were known as radical organizations. Members of this organization agreed to lay aside for the period of the War whatever differences they might have upon procedure and to rally in defense of the fundamental principles for which our government stood.

The efforts of the AFL and AALD to contain the American class struggle face long odds. This week alone the US sees strikes of iron miners in Michigans Upper Peninsula, coal heavers in New York, and railway switchmen stalling traffic at 19 railways out of Chicago. Strikes in the copper industry have crippled production, and provoked the vigilante deportation of scores of IWW workers in Bisbee, Arizona. The threat of tie-ups in the lumber industry brings another deportation of IWW members, this week from Bemidji, Minnesota.

Helsinki, July 30 (July 17, O.S.): Provisional Government dissolves Finnish parliament

Four of the ministers in the Provisional GovernmentKerensky, Chernov, Skobelev, and Tseretelidecide to dissolve the Seim (Finnish parliament) by force. The move comes after the Finnish Social Democrats, which hold a majority of 103 seats in the 200-seat legislature, declared the Seim the sovereign power in Finland, excluding foreign and military affairs, on June 5.

The move reflects the support of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries for maintaining the system of national oppression maintained by the tsarist regime. An appeal sent by Finlands Social Democrats, who are aligned with the socialist parties in the Provisional Government, for support for the Seim is answered by their Russian comrades with soldiers bayonets. Lukomsky, a monarchist holdover in the Russian military, warns that any opposition to Russian troops would result in Finnish cities, including the capital, being laid to waste.

Finland has been part of the Russian Empire since the early 19th century, when Tsar Alexander I took control of it from Sweden. Workers in Helsinki were inspired by the 1905 Russian Revolution, launching an uprising and forming red guards. The Tsar was forced to concede limited parliamentary reforms in 1906 as popular opposition continued.

Finlands parliament was virtually powerless, since the Tsar was not obliged to accept any of the laws it passed. Sentiments in Finland are strongly in favor of secession, although bitter class differences exist between the bourgeois right-wing parties and the Social Democrats that will soon erupt into civil war. The bourgeois parties back the suppression of the Seim.

Trotsky would later write in his History of the Russian Revolution that the government issued a solemn manifestoa plagiarism from the monarchy even in its literary styledissolving the Seim. And on the first day of the offensive they placed Russian soldiers withdrawn from the front at the doors of the Finnish parliament. Thus the revolutionary masses of Russiamaking their way to Octobergot a good lesson on the qualified place occupied by the principles of democracy in a struggle of class forces.

Opposition to the provisional governments suppression of the Seim soon mounts. By early September, a meeting of the Soviet of soldiers in Finland pledges military assistance to the Seim if its parties decide to recommence parliamentary sittings.

East Africa, July 30: Heavy fighting as German colonial force driven back

An offensive by allied forces under the command of South African General Jacob van Deventer engages German troops in heavy fighting in German East Africa. The German force, made up of German soldiers and colonial conscripts, is compelled to retreat.

The war in East Africa, which grew out of the inter-imperialist rivalries that developed prior to 1914 during the Scramble for Africa, is being fought over an area of 750,000 square miles, three times the size of the German Reich. It has pitted German forces on the one side against Belgian, Portuguese and British troops on the other. The British forces are composed mainly of South African, Indian and other African fighters.

Germany is attempting to resist the allied advance into German East Africa, modern-day Tanzania, while Belgian and Portuguese forces are fighting to defend their colonial possessions in the Congo and Mozambique, respectively. Britain is attempting to expand its control from its colonies in British East Africa, now Kenya, and Rhodesia, now Zambia and Zimbabwe.

On top of the approximately 150,000 allied troops who will serve in the East Africa campaign by wars end, the British also conscript close to a million Africans to serve as carriers with the task of supplying troops in often difficult terrain. With virtually no medical care available, disease claims more casualties among soldiers than fighting. At least 95,000 carriers, including one in eight adult males from British East Africa, die during the conflict, which also claimed more than 11,000 British imperial soldiers lives.

Reflecting the contemptuous arrogance of the British ruling class towards its colonial subjects, one official remarks of the East African campaign that it only stopped short of a scandal because the people who suffered the most were the carriersand after all, who cares about native carriers?

Brazil: Strikes spread across the country

In Sao Paulo, Brazils largest industrial center, more than 50,000 workers from all sectors have paralyzed production, trade and public transport. The working-class districts of Bras, Mooca and Ipiranga are in the hands of the strikers, who have organized themselves through the Proletarian Defense Committee.

Since the beginning of June, Brazil has seen a wave of strikes in its main industrial centers. The country, which is heavily dependent on the industrialized products of the warring countries, is experiencing an industrial boom mainly in the South and Southeast regions, fed by capital accumulated from coffee exports, the main product inflating Brazils trade balance.

Poor working conditions, low wages and the increasing cost of living are the main concerns of Brazilian workers, who are mainly concentrated in the textile and food and beverage industries. The workforce is dominated by European immigrants and their children, who came first to work on the coffee plantations, and then became the backbone of industrial production. Anarcho-syndicalism is the main political current within Brazilian workers organizations. The strike itself, however, began with unorganized women weavers walking off their jobs.

After failed attempts to contain the movement, mayor Washington Luis has stepped up police repression, leading to the killing of Spanish shoemaker Jose Martinez. The cry of Death to repression! Death to repression! is heard throughout the city, as the strike movement intensifies. The government is mobilizing troops, and the Navy has sent two warships to the port city of Santos.

With the shooting of a 12-year-old girl in the Barra Funda district, tensions have increased even further. The military sets up machine gun nests at entrances to the wealthy neighborhoods inhabited by Sao Paulos factory owners.

Inspired by the February Revolution in Russia, striking workers try to win over the soldiers, attempting to convince them that they are being exploited and their interests are the same as those of the working class.

The strike movement is continuing to spread, with mass walkouts in Rio de Janeiro, the interior industrial centers of Campinas and Ribeirao Preto, and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazils south, the most industrialized state in Brazil after Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Workers demand salary increases, an eight-hour day for men and six hours for women and children, reduction in food prices, fixed bread prices, reduction in housing rents and in transit fares.

Also this month: Scientific breakthrough in Gottingen, Germany

One hundred years ago this month, the method of analyzing matter using X-ray diffraction by crystalline powders was under development by Peter Debye and Paul Scherrer in Gottingen, Germany. Around the same time, a similar method was developed independently by Albert Hull at General Electric Laboratories in Schenectady, New York. The method involves shining light through a powdered material, which is reflected according to the shape of the crystals in the sample, revealing information about its microscopic structure.

The development of the powder diffraction method is a significant scientific breakthrough, which will go on to enjoy long and widespread use. On December 4, 1915, Scherrer had submitted a work to the journal Physikalische Zeitschrift that used this method to explore the physical structure of lithium fluoride. A second paper, dated May 28, 1916, analyzed diffraction in liquids. The third paper, dated July 18, 1917, established the physical structure of graphite: hexagonal squares. Scherrer, who is in his mid-20s, is working on his dissertation under Debye.

Also this year: Poet Hugo Sonnenschein expresses sympathy for the Russian Revolution

This year, the stateless poet and pacifist Hugo Sonnenschein (1889-1953) is working on his volume of poetry Soil of the Earth. In it, he protests the war and expresses his sympathy for the Russian Revolution. The volume contains a portrait of the author by the painter Egon Schiele and includes the following poem, entitled Song of the 17th Regiment:

Listen, soldiers, your brothers

Are going to war for peace,

Wake up! Lower your weapons,

Brothers, and in this way help us to victory: In the struggle for human rights

Against the tyranny that enslaves us

Rise, soldiers! Long, ye children of all countries,

Have shed your blood in vain.

Drive out the oppressors!

Who gave them judgement

Over life and death?!

Rise, soldiers! The free Earth belongs to us,

The sun light is ours,

Rise, that each one becomes free,

With equal rights and equal duty!

See how the tyrants tremble

When they sense our will!

Rise, soldiers! Listen, soldiers, your brothers

Go to the final war;

Be men once more Great is the victory which is ours

In the struggle for human rights

Against the tyrants who enslave us!

Rise, soldiers!

The volume is banned by the censors and was not published until 1920.

Sonnenschein, the son of a Jewish peasant, was born in 1889 in Gaya near Brno in what is now Slovakia. He began writing poetry as a schoolboy. As a deserter of the bourgeoisie, he lived the life of a drifter, as it was idealized throughout Europe prior to the First World War. He saw himself as an outsider and a rebel by conviction, as he puts it in an autobiographical sketch, a man who is a vagabond and bastard, between the races, cultures, and classes, an unreal person, without a country. His poems are published in Franz Pfemferts magazine The Action, among others.

In 1914, Sonnenschein was sent to the Balkan front as an infantryman, but was repeatedly arrested for his pacifist endeavors. His work, The Legend of the World Degenerate Sonka, appears in 1920 and is still considered his best. From then on, he also writes under the pseudonym Sonka or Brother Sonka.

In 1918, he would welcome the October Revolution with excitement and become a member of the Red Guard in Vienna. After this, he went to Prague and became a cofounder of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. In the summer of 1920, he was a delegate to the Second World Congress of the Communist International and met Lenin and Trotsky, with whom he later corresponds frequently as a member of the Left Opposition. In 1927, he was expelled from the party for his defense of Trotsky. Trotsky observes of Sonka in 1930: First, that the author is a poet; second, that his views are rather far from the communists. But Marx once said: Poets are queer fish. He did not mean this as an insult, for he had applied it to Freiligrath.

In March 1934, the fascist government in Austria declared Hugo Sonnenschein a bothersome foreigner. He was deported to Czechoslovakia and following the invasion by German troops was arrested by the secret police and deported to Auschwitz in 1943, where his wife died. Following his liberation by the Red Army, he goes back to Prague. The Stalinist regime arrests him on the absurd charges that he collaborated with the secret police during the Second World War. He is sentenced to 20 years in prison. He dies in the Mirov prison in 1953.
CAIRO, Ga. (WTXL) - Karen Singletary is taking a stand against childhood cancer in a unique way.

The cause is personal to Singletary. She's been shaving her head at this event every year since 2011 in honor of her son Zach, who was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma in 2006. Zach fought his brain tumor and won, but Singletary says his battle took a huge toll on his health and their family.

"When you see your own child go through treatment, you realize something really needs to be done because so many kids don't survive treatment; a lot of times it's because the drugs are so toxic that their bodies can't handle it," said Singletary. "I felt I had to do something to help other kids in the future who might have to do what my child had to go through."

According to the St. Baldrick's Foundation, the 46 Mommas team was created in 2010 and named to reflect the reality that on average each weekday in North America, 46 mothers are told that their child has cancer. Each year, a new group of Mommas engage and empower fellow parents of children with cancer by coming together to raise funds and awareness for childhood cancer research.
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) The Supreme Court today constituted a medical board to examine a woman, who has sought permission to terminate her 22-week-old pregnancy on the grounds that the foetus was suffering from a neurological problem.

A bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar said the woman should be examined within two days by a medical board, consisting of the heads of the departments of gynaecology, neurology and cardiology of the Mumbai-based JJ Hospital.

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The apex court fixed the matter for hearing on July 28 and directed Maharashtras standing counsel Nishant Katneshwarkar to present the medical boards report before it in a sealed cover.

During the hearing, the counsel representing the woman argued that she had been examined by a paediatric neurologist who opined that the foetus was suffering from a neurological problem which was likely to aggravate.

Quoting the doctor, the counsel said the problem "may increase significantly before the delivery causing harm to the developing brain and possibly cognitive impairment".

According to the counsel, the doctor also said that after its birth, the infant would require neurosurgical procedure which could be expensive.

Section 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act prohibits the abortion of a foetus after 20 weeks of pregnancy. PTI ABA MNL SJK RKS BDS

--- ENDS ---
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In his last address to the nation, President Pranab Mukherjee said his sacred text has been the Constitution and Parliament his temple.

By India Today Web Desk: Today was outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee's last day in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. At a function in the Central Hall of Parliament House tomorrow, India's 14th President Ram Nath Kovind will be sworn-in by the Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar.

After the function, both the incoming and outgoing presidents will depart for their respective new residences - Rashtrapati Bhavan and 10 Rajaji Marg.

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On his last day in office, President Pranab Mukherjee gave his last address to the nation where he stressed on the virtues of pluralism and tolerance.

WHAT PRANAB MUKHERJEE SAID:

I have received much more from the country than I have given.

How successful I was in discharging my responsibilities will be judged, over the time, by the critical lens of history.

For the past fifty years of my public life, - My sacred text has been the Constitution of India; my temple has been the Parliament of India; and my passion has been the service of the people of India.

The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance.

"Everyday we see increased violence around us. At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust," Pranab Mukherjee said.

Climate change has put farming sector under tremendous stress.

Each day of these five years, I was conscious of my responsibility. I learnt from my travels across the length and breadth of the country.

Happiness is fundamental to the human experience of life.

For development to be real, the poorest of the land must feel that they are a part of the nation's narrative.

Creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper have to be promoted in our institutions of higher learning.

A reordering of society is possible through the transformative power of education.

The multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special.

We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal.

"When I speak to you tomorrow, it will not be as the President but as a citizen - a pilgrim like all of you in India's onward march towards glory," Mukherjee said.

--- ENDS ---
An Israeli embassy security guard shot dead a Jordanian who stabbed him with a screwdriver in the Amman mission compound in an incident in which a Jordanian bystander was also killed.

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The owner of the building where the attack took place, a Jordanian doctor, was struck by a stray bullet and killed as well.

Jordanian security forces who arrived at the scene surrounded the embassy building in order to launch an investigation into the incident and sought to question the security guard.

Scene of the attack near Israeli embassy in Amman (: )

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Israel informed Jordan that according to the Vienna Convention, the security officer is immune from all criminal charges and civil suits in Jordan, and he will not be subject to arrest or interrogation. Currently, there is no official Jordanian request for the extradition of the Israeli security guard.

The guard, as well as all security personnel and embassy employees, are consequently now confined to the embassy compound.

Jordanian security forces responding to the scene (Photo: EPA)

According to ministry officials, the 17-year-old Mohammad Jawawdah entered the home of an embassy official to replace furniture, whereupon he happened to encounter the Israeli security guard and the Jordanian property owner.

The terrorist then came up behind the security guard and proceeded to stab him with a screwdriver, prompting the guard to produce a firearm and open fire at his attacker, killing him and the landlord.

According to Jordanian newspaper Al Ghad, the attacker died after being shot twice, while the Israeli security guard was stabbed in the chest.

Jawawdah had previously done maintenance work in the Israeli embassy and its residential compound.

Photo: EPA

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials said they believe the young man decided to attempt to murder an Israeli out of nationalistic motivations over the events surrounding the Temple Mount and had it not been for the guard's swift reaction, the incident could have ended differently.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with the Israeli ambassador in Jordan, Einat Schlein, on Sunday along with the security guard who was stabbed.

Both the Foreign Ministry and security officials are working through various channels with the Jordanian government in an attempt to contain the situation.

Israeli embassy in Amman (Photo: David Robinger)

The Israeli censor barred overnight media reports on the incident in what it called a move to protect the diplomats from reprisals, and its statement on Monday did not detail the aftermath.

The Israeli embassy in the affluent Rabae district of Amman is protected by Jordanian gendarmes. It has long been a flashpoint of anti-Israel protests at times of turmoil in the Palestinian territories.

A US official said that President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, was due in Israel on Monday and was likely to attempt some mediation in the crisis.

'My son is a martyr'

Dozens of family members of the attacker gathered in Asharq Al-Awsat square in Amman to protest his death. They demanded that the Jordanian government release all details of the investigation and punish the shooter. Jordanian security forces dispersed protestors using tear gas.

Family members protesting attacker's death

In an interview with Jordanian television station Ro'ya TV, the stabber's father insisted that his son did not know the nationality of the man who killed him and that he was a regular customer who bought furniture from them.

"My son was not a trouble-maker or a terrorist and he did not belong to any political parties," said Zakaria Jawawdah, whose family has Palestinian roots. "I want to know how the investigation is going and know what happened and what led to the killing of my son."

Zakaria said an Israeli embassy employee bought a bedroom furniture set and the 17-year-old came to the apartment to set up the furniture. "Our last conversation was at 2pm. He told me he was going to get the equipment he needed for installation," he said.

He added that he was told about the shooting after calling the building's security guard, who told him his son was taken the hospital along with another local and an Israeli guard.

"I consider my son to be a martyr for Allah," said the father.

Mohammed al-Zawawdeh

According to a senior Israeli official, "We have no doubt that the young Jordanian was a terrorist who came to murder an Israeli." The official also pointed a finger at Jordan, who is demanding to question the guard, saying, "They also know full well that he is a terrorist, but they're taking advantage of the Temple Mount crisis."

"This is a serious incident, but we have to put it in proportion because both countries prefer to prevent this matter from disrupting relations at such a sensitive time," said former Israeli ambassador to Jordan Oded Eran.

"Jordan has other problemsa million and a half refugees, ISIS in the kingdom, and it's too sensitive and explosive. This incident cannot darken relations between Israel and Jordan," said Eran.

Photo: EPA

According to Eran, the incident can be resolved in a number of manners.

"For example, a copy of the Israeli investigative report and interview with the Israeli security guard can be given to the Jordanian government. Also, the Jordanians could interview the guard within the Israeli embassy and in the presence of Israeli representatives. There are creative ways to get out of this undesirable predicament."

Eran also emphasized that "Jordan has no interest in adding fuel to a fire that it cannot control. As such, we need to give them a way to get out of this in a creative way so that the king does not lose face.

"He (the king) should be given the opportunity to appear to be in control of his kingdom, while at the same time preserving the rights of that security guard and the political rights that Israel has."

King Abdullah II (Photo: AFP)

Israeli-Jordanian tensions have escalated since Israel installed metal detectors at entry points to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after two police guards were shot dead by gunmen there on July 14.

Jordan is the custodian of the Al-Aqsa complex and has a large Palestinian population, making Amman sensitive to any changes of status at the site.







In a demonstration in Amman on Friday, thousands of people protested against Israel while brandishing model rockets with the inscription "Al Aqsaa red line." Other protestors shouted, "How beautiful it is to kill soldiers in Jerusalem."
Jerusalem Police spokesperson issued a statement Monday, saying that during the previous night, there were disturbances in several locations in the city's Silwan and Ras al-Amud neighborhoods.

Rocks, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails were reportedly thrown at security forces.

Over the last week and a half, there have been a string of violent Muslim protests against the added security measures at the Temple Mount, most notably the terror attack at the West Bank settlement of Halamish, in which three family members were murdered.
An IDF tank attacked a Hamas station in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night after a rocket was fired at an open area in the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no casualties or damage. No alarm was sounded, since the rocket fell in an unpopulated area.

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On Sunday, a previous rocket hit an open area in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional. As was the case on Monday, there were no casualties or damage. Last month, the IAF attacked two Hamas targets in the northern and southern Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire at the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council.

The rocket remains from Sunday's launch

The IDF said in response to Monday's attack that "as a terrorist organization, Hamas is the ruler of the Gaza Strip, and it is responsible for any attempt to harm the State of Israel." The Palestinians reported that the IDF's response attack targeted two stations of the Hamas military wing, one in Gaza City and the other in Rafah. There were no casualties or injuries reported from either station following the IDF attack.
Theres a problem with Muslims. Theyre human beings. Theyre equal. But sometimes, they insist on being treated like small children. Last time, it was the dispute over the call of the muezzin . Not that the muezzin bill was so smart, but its a fact that similar restrictions exist in Muslim countries too, and in Saudi Arabia theres even a fatwa against excessive noise. Nevertheless, they used the motif of an offense to our honor.

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When the person seen as their most important religious leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, called on Muslims to finish Hitlers job, there were no protests in the West. And when anti-Semitic cartoons are regularly published in newspapers in the Muslim world, there are no angry reactions from Jews. Muslims havent been pelted with stones. We havent heard about an offense to our honor. But when the Muhammad cartoons were published in Denmark, they sparked a series of bloody protests around the world. Dozens were killed. Consulate buildings were set on fire. After all, there was an offense to their honor.

Muslim worshippers hold mass prayer outside Lions' Gate in protest of Temple Mount crisis (Photo: Reuters)

Now its about the metal detectors . Its true that its a terror prevention measure. Its true theyre the main victims of terror. Its true the idea to place the metal detectors was raised after three jihadists entered the Temple Mount with weapons. Its true it could happen again. But that doesnt matter. The offense to our honor motif has reappeared.

In the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, there are similar concerns. There are 5,000 closed-circuit television cameras there. Every movement is recorded. Every suspicion is checked. Moreover, the company in charge of security, G4S, is a British company. One of the security measures is an electronic bracelet attached to each of the millions of pilgrims throughout their entire stay in the kingdom, allowing the authorities to monitor each and every one of them. The Brits control the information. That hasnt stopped the pilgrimage. Its possible that instead of metal detectors, Israel should make it clear any measure that is acceptable in the Muslims holiest site would be used in their third holiest site as well.

The sad thing is the threats are working. The metal detectors will likely be removed. Because the angry reactionalong with the cooperation between Fatah and Jerusalems mufti, Muhammad Hussein, and Hamas incitementis completely irrational. This is because of the occupation? Dont make them laugh. Theyre not peace activists.

In a ceremony aired on Palestinian television, the host, a Fatah member, said: Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs is a war of religion and faith. Hussein, who spoke after him, delivered the famous slanderous verses, that the resurrection of the dead wont arrive until you fight the Jews, with a call to kill Jews. That was in 2012. There were no metal detectors then. But the chorus is the same chorus.

This isnt about the Muslims. Far from it. But where are the moderate Muslims? The sane ones? Why are they keeping quiet? Why are they allowing this double standard, in which they are treated according to the low expectations syndrome, which sets low expectations from certain populations to begin with. After all, this is racism for all intents and purposes.

Only few people speak up. The ones who have had enough of the racism. The ones who treat themselves as equals. They are the ones who have the courage to come out against the self-deception. But there are only few of them. Occasionally, they speak firmly even in the pan-Arab media. Some of them are forced to live in constant fear or with bodyguards.

When these few people turn into a significant movement, it will be wonderful news for the world in general and for Muslims in particular. And no, it has nothing to do with the occupation. It has to do with racism, with Muslims making themselves inferior. And as long as this self-racism continues, so will the inferiority.

Mecca pilgrimage. Some 5,000 closed-circuit television cameras (Photo: AP)

After the Temple Mount attack, Knesset members from the Joint List and representatives of the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee expressed feeble reservations. Theyre against violence. How nice of them. But then came the but, placing the entire responsibility on Israel. We are against it, they said, but its because of the occupation. The part dedicated to the reservations was about one-tenth or one-fifth of the statement, while most of the text was dedicated to a justification of the legitimate resistance to the occupation, blah blah blah. In other words, it wasnt an opportunity to condemn violence. It was another opportunity to say something against Israel.

The reactions of the leaders of the Arab public remind me of the reactions of intellectuals from the forces of progressnot all of them, but many of themfollowing the attack on the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo . They spoke against violence. And then came the but, which was an indictment against the West, against the bombings in Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan. In short, its the Wests fault. The terrorists had no other option but to respond. The reactions of Noam Chomsky, the idol of the free worlds forces of progress, and Tariq Ramadan, European Muslims prominent speaker, belonged to the same department.

Salman Rushdie called these respondents the But Brigade. They offer a weak condemnation, to fulfill their obligation, and then immediately present the but, followed by a series of justifications.

There seems to be no difference between the reactions to the terror attack in Paris and the reactions to the terror attack at the Temple Mount. Its a disease shared by many people.
Jared KushnerUS President Trump's son-in-law and senior advisoris leading American efforts at deescalating the Temple Mount crisis surrounding the installation of metal detectors , according to a senior administration official on Sunday.

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The official said that Kushner is working with Israel, the Palestinians and Jordan in an effort to solve the current calamity together with Trump emissary Jason Greenblatt and Ambassador David Friedman.

Kushner and Netanyahu (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt (Photo: EPA)

Greenblatt is expected to arrive in Israel on Monday to hold talks between Israel and the Palestinians and Jordanians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also met with Ambassador Friedman on Sunday to discuss ways to ease tensions.

According to the same administration official, Kusher and Netanyahu spoke last Wednesday during the latter's visit to Hungary in an attempt to formulate a plan to end the crisis.

Protestors clashing with police (Photo: AFP)

Photo: Gil Yohanan

Similarly, Kusher also spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last Thursday, apparently before the Israeli decision to leave the metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount.

CNN reported that Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan refused to give details on discussions, but noted that there was direct contact with the White House to bring about calm in the region.

Despite increasing international efforts to ease tensions, Palestinian protestors continued to clash with Israeli security forces Sunday evening, with many vowing to continue the fight "until death, even if they shoot us."
Israeli pharmaceutical company NeuroDerm has been sold to Japanese pharmaceutical company Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma in a deal worth $1.1 billion.

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NeuroDerm is an Israeli clinical-stage pharmaceutical company that develops treatments for central nervous system disorders.

NeruoDerm CEO Dr. Oded Lieberman

Assuming both regulatory approval and that of shareholders, a timetable for the acquisition will be finalized in the near future. NeuroDerm expects the deal to be completed in the four quarter of 2017.

"We believe the transaction will bring important benefits to shareholders of NeuroDerm and patients with Parkinson's disease who urgently need innovative treatments," said NeuroDerm CEO Dr. Oded Lieberman in a statement confirming the deal.

NeuroDerm is currently developing a new drug delivery method and concentrating on treatments for Parkinson's disease. The company is hoping to launch two new products in the coming two years, one low-dose drug aimed at replacing an oral delivery method and another high-dose drug aimed at replacing a surgical procedure for an implanted drug release device in patients.

The company is currently at the end of two phase 3 trials in the United States for a moderate and severe drug for Parkinson's disease, the results of which could be accepted this year. Additionally, NeuroDerm is also in a Phase 3 trial in Europe, which is expected in the second half of 2018.
Just before the funerals of the three members of the Salomon family who were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist last Friday in the West Bank settlement of Halamish during Shabbat dinner, an intensive care unit entered the Modi'in cemetery. Wounded from the terrorist's stabbing, Tova Salomon (68) was helped out of her wheelchair, next to the three stretchers on which the shrouded bodies of her husband Joseph (70) and their children, Chaya (46) and Elad (35) lay. The sound of weeping could be heard throughout the cemetery.

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After the funerals ended, Tova was was taken to Sha'are Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, where she is still recovering. She does not intend to return to her house in Halamish. "I'm not going back there," she told the friends who came to visit her in the hospital on Sunday. Tami Hofi, a neighbor and close friend of Tova's, said that Salomon was crying and has yet to realize the extent of her loss. Salomon does, however, remember the tragic events of Friday night, which took place in the middle of a celebration of the birth of another grandson in the family.

Tova Salomon

"It was supposed to be Shalom Zachar (a Jewish-Ashkenzai celebration in honor of the birth of a soned) for the new grandson, and the door was not locked, so when someone knocked on the door, we thought it was a guest," Salomon reportedly told her Friend Hofi. "Chaya opened the door, he stabbed her and she ran away from the house and screamed out to call people, but even then I did not realize it was a terrorist."

The Salomon family funerals (Photo: Tal Shahar)

"I approached the door, the terrorist turned to me with a wide smile. He wore a white shirt with dark pants and I thought it was someone who had come to celebrate Shalom Zachar who I maybe did not know, so I asked him, 'Who are you?' He laughed in my face, and then he pulled out a knife. I realized what was happening, bent over and turned my back to him so that if he were to stab me, he would hurt my back and not my neck."

Tova continued to describe the moments of horror: "I saw him running toward my husband, Yossi, but I did not see exactly what happened, only that Yossi fell and then that the terrorist ran to Elad and that Elad fought him for a long time. Elad was no match for him, with the terrorist coming toward him with a knife, but he blocked him for a few critical minutes to save his family.

"At that moment, I didn't know where Chaya was. I hoped she had been saved by hiding in the bathroom. We looked for her inside the house until we realized she went out to call for help, and that she was gone. Her resourcefulness in running to call for help, and that of Elad's who saved his wife and five children, are the only things that comfort me in my terrible pain."
According to tradition, the Foundation Stone is located under the Dome of the Rock at the Temple Mount. Thats where it all began. The Holy of Holies at the Temple or the place where Muhammad and his horse ascended to heaven. Some archaeologists say what we see under the mosque today is a relic from a pagan shrine, but that makes no difference as far as the believers are concerned. Fake archaeology existed way before fake news. Holy sites have their own life. They are born in peoples minds and die for no reason.

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If the Foundation Stone is the center of holiness, the story of the Hebrew metal detectors is the marginsthe external plaster. A potential of turning into the new holy thing, if we only let it. In modern Israel, there is someone to blame for every mishap and there is a metal detector for every governmental failure. Giving up the metal detectors is a security mistake and governmental weakness. Nowhere in the world would metal detectors be removed for hurting peoples feelings.

The Temple Mounts religious identity and Muslim sacredness are developing thanks to Israeli indecision

We should listen to Jerusalem District Police Commander Yoram Halevy. In the sea of hesitant voices, he speaks to the point. A metal detector is a metal detector. Incitement is incitement. All the rest is the gap between the bombastic statements of sovereignty and the national sugar crash a moment later.

This crazy reality actually began at a time when people knew how to make decisions. The days of joy over the Six-Day War victory. Thats how the Mughrabi neighborhood and its 600 residents were forcibly evacuated to create the Temple Wall plaza at the site, instead of another Arab neighborhood which Israel doesnt enter and doesnt invest in. Thats how Israeli communities were built in the Jordan Valley to reinforce the eastern border, and thats how the city was united. In the Temple Mounts case, the decision was a strategic mishap.

Whoever put the Waqf in charge of the Temple Mount instead of the Israel Antiquities Authority created a religious monster and a center for a Jewish-Arab conflict. The Palestinian identity was created through Zionism and its victoriesa people which wasnt a people and adopted a national identity through hatred. The Temple Mounts Muslim religious identity and sacredness are developing similarly thanks to the Israeli indecision. Its not about the sanctity of the Koran, but about the sanctity of the conflict with the Jews.

The decision made in 1967 was followed by thousands of unmade decisions. It took 50 years for the place to turn into a threat in our eyes: Digging the Western Wall Tunnels, taking care of ruined antiquities, renovating the Mughrabi Bridgewhich was deemed dangerous by the city engineeror placing security measures to prevent the smuggling of weapons. Everything is sacred, everything is a threat.
The dramatic stabbing attack at the Israeli embassy in Amman that led to the death of the terrorist and the wounding of an Israeli security guard was preceded by days of increased tensions between Jordan and Israel as a result of Temple Mount tensions

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While King Abdullah II condemned the terrorist attack at the Temple Mount which resulted in the deaths of two Israeli policemen, Jordanian society and the parliament are outraged at the ensuing Israeli security measures.

Protests against Israel in Amman

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This anger is evidenced by a recent protest in Amman where protestors chanted "how wonderful to kill soldiers in Jerusalem" and by a moment in parliament where lawmakers prayed for the souls of the terrorists who committed the attack.

Protestors in Amman wave model rockets in demonstration against Israel

A day after the attack, King Abdullah II called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and condemned the attack. The Jordanian king rejected violence in all its forms, especially at holy sites, while at the same time, called for the Temple Mount to be reopened to worshipers after it was decided to close the compound following the events.

PM Netanyahu and King Abdullah II (Photo: AP/AFP)

However, less than a day after this conversation, other voices were heard in the Jordanian parliament. Jordanian legislators strongly condemned "Israel's actions in the Al-Aqsa Mosque" and even praised the three terrorists who murdered the two policemen.

Protests in Amman

"May God have mercy on our martyrs who quench our pure soil. We will raise our heads through the sacrifice of the young Palestinians who still fight in the name of the nation. The damage by the Israeli occupation in the holiest sites of Jerusalem and in Al-Aqsa are grounds for continuing the resistance, not to surrender in the face of oppression or tyranny.

Prayer held for Temple Mount terrorists in Jordanian parliament

"The Israeli persistence and the severity of its crimes it is committing are the reasons for the setting of fire of revenge in their hearts among the generations who inherit the hatred of the occupation," said parliament chairman Atef Tarawneh.
While Centre has argued in favour of privacy in the WhatsApp policy case, it has maintained that right to privacy is not a fundamental right but a common law right vis-a-vis the Aadhaar case.

The Centre's stand on privacy in the WhatsApp case is against its argument in the Aadhaar case. Photo for representation: Reuters.

By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court will hear the Centre's argument on the right to privacy debate in the Aadhaar case on Tuesday.

In the Aadhaar case, the Centre has maintained that right to privacy is not a fundamental right but a common law right, and only unauthorised intrusion into one's privacy is protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.

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This line of argument is in contrast to the government's stand in favour of privacy before the Supreme Court in the WhatsApp privacy policy case.

In a hearing on the WhatsApp privacy case on Friday, the Centre told the Supreme Court that data belonging to an individual is an extension of one's personality that resides in Article 21 of the Constitution.

CENTRE ARGUES FOR PRIVACY IN WHATSAPP POLICY CASE

The Centre told the Supreme Court that data belonging to an individual was intimate and an extension of his or her personality.

"Data is an extension of my personality, footsteps of my life and intimate to me and resides in Article 21. Anything that can impinge on data, that is my own, impinges on my right," said Additional Solicitor General P S Narasimha.

"If data is goods (product) and if it is, then in whom does the proprietary rights vest. Then how can I park it--either by contract or by commercial or without commercial consideration?" ASG Narasimha told the Supreme Court.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra is hearing the plea challenging WhatsApp privacy policy on the ground of violating right to privacy and allegedly sharing data with Facebook, which bought the messaging app in 2014.

The Centre also told the Supreme Court that there was a need to devise a mechanism to regulate online message service platforms.

CENTRE SAYS OTHERWISE IN RIGHT TO PRIVACY DEBATE

In contrast, the Centre has said that the petitions challenging the validity of the Aadhaar scheme over violation of right to privacy cannot be entertained under Article 21.

The Centre, in written submission to the court, said that only unauthorised intrusions into one's privacy are protected under Article 21 of the Constitution.

In its submission, the Centre has fallen back on two previous verdicts in the M P Sharma case in 1954 and the Kharak Singh case in 1963 which did not recognise right to privacy as a fundamental right.

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A nine-judge Constitution bench, comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar, is hearing the right to privacy debate, while a smaller bench will subsequently hear the petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme.

In the court, petitioners have argued for a broader definition of privacy with senior counsel Gopal Subramanium saying that fundamental ideas of liberty and freedom cannot exist without right to privacy.

On Tuesday, Centre will present its arguments in the Supreme Court on the right to privacy case.

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--- ENDS ---
Police are calling a stabbing attack in Petah Tikva a terrorist attack after a 40-year-old man was stabbed and wounded moderately-to-severely by a West Bank resident. The victim was evacuated to Rabin Medical Center for treatment.

The terrorist was cornered and apprehended by police.
Lebanon's Shi'ite militia Hezbollah and the Syrian army advanced against Sunni militants on Saturday, the second day of an assault to drive them from their last foothold along the Syria-Lebanon border, pro-Damascus media reported.

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The operation has targeted Sunni Muslim insurgents from the former Nusra Front, a group that was aligned to al Qaeda and who have controlled the barren, mountainous zone of Juroud Arsal.

Hezbollah missile being fired at Syrian rebels

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Hezbollah firing missiles at rebel positions

A military media unit run by Hezbollah said its forces captured a strategic hilltop area called Dhahr al-Huwa, previously a key Nusra Front base, which allowed them to overlook several border crossings in the area.

Forces had earlier seized Jwar al Sheikh, Wadi Kriti and other areas in the southern part of Juroud Arsal, it said.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran's Shi'ite government, has played a critical part in previous campaigns against Sunni insurgents along Lebanon's border, part of its wider role backing President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war.

Hezbollah's role has drawn criticism from its Lebanese political opponents, including Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who is a Sunni.

Footage on Hezbollah's Al Manar TV channel showed fighters on a hilltop firing assault rifles and wire-guided missiles at militant positions. The media unit also reported that some Nusra fighters had raised white flags in surrender.

The chances of any negotiation with the militants appeared dashed, however, when a mediator and former deputy mayor of Arsal was killed in rocket fire by Nusra fighters, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.

The rocket hit Ahmed al-Fliti's his car, killing him and wounding another passenger, it said. Previous negotiations had failed to secure the militants' withdrawal from the Juroud Arsal area to other rebel-held parts of Syria.

Syrian warplanes meanwhile struck militant positions on the Syrian side of the border, near the town of Fleita, it said.

The offensive began on Friday and killed at least 23 Nusra militants on the first day, the Hezbollah unit said. At least five Hezbollah fighters were also killed.

A security source put Hezbollah's death toll at 15 early on Saturday, and said at least 43 militants had been killed.

Hezbollah flag over a conquered position in Syria

The Lebanese army has taken up defensive positions around Arsal town, ready to fire at Sunni militants trying to break through its lines, and has beefed up security in the area.

The Lebanese army is not taking part in the operation, according to a commander in the pro-Damascus military alliance and a Lebanese security source.

The army is facilitating the passage of Syrian refugees fleeing the area, with UN supervision, the security source said.

UN refugee agency UNHCR and aid groups are preparing for an influx of Syrian refugees from Juroud Arsal and Arsal town. Only a handful of refugees were reported to have fled on Friday.

Refugees on border (Photo: Reuters)

Several thousand Syrian refugees occupy camps east of Arsal.

The Lebanese army and Hezbollah have regularly targeted militants penetrating the border area.

In 2014, Arsal was the scene of one of the most serious spillovers of the Syrian war into Lebanon when jihadists briefly overran the town.
A 32-year-old man was moderately-to-severely wounded Monday morning from a stabbing attack near Petah Tikva's Central Bus Station. He was rushed to Rabin Medical Center with injuries to upper body, with MDA staff tending to wounds on his neck. The attacker, a 21-year-old Palestinian from the town of Ar'ara who was illegally residing in Israel, was caught and taken into police custody.

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The terrorist reportedly told police that he "did it for Al-Aqsa." He was previously incarcerated between 2015  2016 for a nationalistcally motivated attack.

Apprehending the terrorist (:hafakarashit)

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The police further stated that "the attacker is a resident of the West Bank who stabbed an Israeli next to a shawarma stand, wounding him moderately-to-severely. The attacker was caught and the incident is under investigation."

Photo: MDA

The attacker reportedly attempted to escape through a side street, when he was spotted by a driver, who proceeded to ram his car into him.

Tzahi Cohen, who works at the shawarma stand where the attack took place, told Ynet about the moment of the attack: "While I was preparing the dish for (the victimed), another driver came in and suddenly I heard him shout 'Attack, attack.'"

Rescue team attends to stabbing victim (Photo: MDA)

"I saw the terrorist coming out of the store, and then he fell on the sidewalk, got up and continued to run toward the alley where he was later caught," Cohen added. "I quickly went to the injured driver. I saw him wounded and bleeding. He kept saying, 'Call an ambulance, call an ambulance.' I took a piece of paper and a shirt and put them on his neck to stop the bleeding, until MDA personnel arrived and continued to treat him."

The shawarma stand where the attack took place (Photo: Kobi Richter/TPS)

The incident appears to be the latest in a series of violent and deadly attacks carried out as part of a Muslim backlash against Israel's decision to add metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount area, in which the Al-Aqsa mosque resides.
Jordan's King Abdullah asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call Monday to remove the metal detectors at entrances to the Temple Mount, according to Jordan's state news agency Petra.

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Abdullah "stressed the need to find an immediate solution and remove the causes of the ongoing crisises in Al-Haram Al-Sharif, ensure the return of the situation to what it was before the outbreak, and ensure the full opening of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

The Jordanian king and Israeli prime minister also spoke about the diplomatic crisis at the Israeli embassy in Amman.

Jordan's King Abdullah and Netanyahu meet in Amman (File photo)

A 17-year-old Jordanian wielding a screwdriver attacked a security guard from the Israeli Embassy in Amman on Sunday. The guard shot and killed the assailant, while the owner of the building, a Jordanian doctor, was struck by a stray bullet and killed as well.

Jordanian security forces who arrived at the scene surrounded the embassy building in order to launch an investigation into the incident and sought to question the security guard.

Israel informed Jordan that according to the Vienna Convention, the security officer is immune from all criminal charges and civil suits in Jordan, and he will not be subject to arrest or interrogation.

The guard suffered only superficial injuries in the attack and was treated at the embassy by a trained medic. While he needs further treatment at a hospital, he was not taken to one because of the circumstances of the incident.

While the Jordanians agreed to allow the rest of the diplomatic staff to leave the embassy, they insisted the guard remains for questioning. The diplomatic staff refused to leave without the guard, leaving some 30 of them on lockdown in the embassy compound.

Israeli embassy in Amman (Photo: David Robinger)

Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman flew to the Jordanian capital on Monday morning to investigate the incident and speak to the guard. Argaman, accompanied by Jordanian investigators, conducted a reconstruction of events. He then returned in the late afternoon to brief the prime minister.

Netanyahu held consultations with other Israeli defense chiefs on the matter on Monday afternoon ahead of a Security Cabinet meeting about the situation.

"There's desire from both countries to solve this crisis," a senior Israeli official said.

It appears the guard will be allowed home after an agreement between Amman and Jerusalem receives a royal approval. A Jordanian official said as part of the talks between Amman and Jerusalem, Israel has made promises concerning the removal of metal detectors from the Temple Mount amid the ongoing crisis.

But the Prime Minister's Office denied there was a Jordanian demand to condition the return of the guard to Israel in the removal of the metal detectors on the Temple Mount.

Jordanian security forces (Photo: EPA)

Speaking in front of the UN Security Council on Monday, Israel's Ambassador Danny Danon said he believes the crisis be resolved soon.

He also spoke of the terror attack in Halamish, which claimed the lives of three Israelis, saying, "The Palestinians are spreading lies, saying these acts of violence are Israel's fault."

To prevent further escalation of the situation, he said, "simply stop the payments to terrorists and the incitement to terrorism."

Jordan threatens 'diplomatic steps'

A Jordanian official told Ammon News the guard will not be allowed to leave the country until the official investigation into the incident is completed.

According to the source, "Diplomatic steps will be taken if Israel continues with its position that the guard not be questioned under the Vienna Convention."

A Jordanian official in Amman said, "Jordan is aware of the treaty (Vienna Convention) and all options are open."

The same official also added that Jordan is continuing to be in contact with the Israeli side and according to him, Israel has two options: Either agree for the guard to be questioned as part of the official investigation or refusein which case, "all things (will be handled) in due time."

Two additional Jordanian officials told Jordanian newspaper Al Ghad that Jordan will take diplomatic steps against Israel if the guard is not turned over to Jordanian authorities for questioning. The officials also stated that the guard is not allowed to leave the Israeli embassy in Amman due to the killing of the two Jordanians.

17-year-old terrorist Mohammed Zakariya al-Zawawdeh

Netanyahu spoke with the Israeli embassy guard and assured him that he will be returned to Israel safely.

"I spoke twice overnight with Israeli Ambassador to Jordan Einat Shalin and with the security guard. I gained the impression that she is managing matters there very well. I assured the security guard that we will see to bringing him back to Israel; we have experience in this," Netanyahu said ahead of his meeting with Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili.

"I told both of them that we are holding ongoing contacts with security and government officials in Amman, on all levels, in order to bring the incident to a close as quickly as possible," Netanyahu went on to say.

"The Jordanian Ambassador to Israel arrived at the Foreign Ministry this morning and was asked to assist on the matter. We are also holding contacts on various other channels with one objective  to bring the incident to a close and to bring our people to Israel. And we are doing this determinedly and responsibly," the prime minister concluded.

Initial investigations into the attack show that 17-year-old Mohammed Zawawdeh stabbed the security guard twice with a screwdriver, once in the chest and once in the back.

According to a senior Israeli official, "We have no doubt that the young Jordanian was a terrorist who came to murder an Israeli. They (the Jordanians) also know full well that he is a terrorist, but they're taking advantage of the Temple Mount crisis."
Former Mossad director Danny Yatom on Monday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to talk to Jordan's King Abdullah II in an effort to resolve the diplomatic crisis with Jordan , as well as the standoff over the additional security at the Temple Mount

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"The two events are entirely different, but the end is the same. In order to end the crisis, Netanyahu needs to talk to King Abdullah," said Yatom, who was the head of the Mossad during the failed assassination of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Jordanian soil 20 years ago.

"The prime minister needs to be in constant contact with King Abdullah and propose a 'give and take' deal in which the Jordanians don't feel like they're coming out suckers," Yatom elaborated in an interview with Ynet.

Former Mossad director Danny Yatom

Late Sunday night, a 17-year-old Jordanian wielding a screwdriver attacked a security guard from the Israeli Embassy in Amman. The guard shot and killed the assailant, while the owner of the building, a Jordanian doctor, was struck by a stray bullet and killed as well.

Israel is refusing to allow Jordanian authorities to question the security guard under the Vienna Convention and as such, all security personnel and diplomatic employees are currently confined to the embassy compound.

Various diplomatic officials have claimed throughout the day Monday that the stabbing is a terror attack related to the unrest in the east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

According to Yatom, the assessment is certainly possible. "In any case, there was apparently a threat to the life of the security guard, so he did the right thing when he shot the person who tried to harm him," he opined.

He proposed a trade-off: "The Jordanians will release our people from the embassy and especially the security officer that shot, and in return we will help the Jordanian Waqf to carry on its role on Temple Mount. We will also take off the metal detector gates."

Photo: EPA

"I see this as an opportunity to solve the problem on the Temple Mount," Yatom said. "We don't need to prove that responsibility for security is on us or that we control the territory; we see it every step of the way and every time there is a clash between an angry Palestinian mob and our policemen, who do dangerous and excellent work. We don't need to prove that we are the best, we know it."

Former Mossad deputy director Ram Ben Barak echoed similar sentiments. "I hope the Jordanians manage to get out of this with a deal. The embassy guard has immunity and he acted in self defense.

"The Jordanians have a lot to lose if they don't have a relationship with Israel. There are a lot of shared interests; Jordan is invested in Israel and Israel is invested in Jordan. There are a lot of interests and in the end, it will work out."

PM Netanyahu and King Abdullah II (Photo: AP/AFP)

What will happen before this ends?

"Islamic extremists will try to score a few points, Arab leadership will try to see how it can get out of this messbecause they have no interest in breaking relationsand Israeli leadership needs to see what it can do so everyone can get out of this. That's what needs to happen."

What do you think Israel needs to give in return to end this crisis?

"They mentioned the metal detector issue, maybe that will be the deal or maybe they'll freeze the use of them so it sounds better. Israel has more ways to pressure Jordan."

For example?

"Israel supplies Jordan water. I don't want to talk about the other ways."

We have already heard MKs calling for the cancellation of agreements with Jordan.

"I am not calling for cancellation, our relations with Jordan are strategic and we don't need to make the situation worse, but we definitely need to see how to get out of this mess. In the meantime, there is nothing but constant deterioration"

Jordanian expert: 'You should've listened to the Shin Bet, IDF'

Ayman Hunaiti, a Jordanian expert on Israel, told Ynet the incident with the Israeli guard is "still being investigated and it is not yet clear what the real story is."

"Our security forces want to investigate this incident and that is our right. The situation is sensitive because of Al Aqsa and the metal detectors that Netanyahu wants to leave. This is against the peace treaty with Jordan and Jordanian sovereignty. Israel violates the peace treaty every day," said Hunaiti.

Hunaiti also explained that tensions are inflamed in Jordan and demonstrations similar to those last Friday in Amman are expected.

Jordanian protests in Amman

"We need to sit now and make all the necessary arrangements for a deal, with Jordan's full agreement, because Jordan is the one that holds sovereignty over Al Aqsa and Israel is violating the status-quo by making unilateral moves. That is what angers us. We want to ease tensions. We do not want escalation.

"The blood of the Salomon family from Friday and the blood of the four Palestinians that were killed in unrest is on the hands of Netanyahu, (Education Minister) Bennett and (Public Security Minister) Erdan. They should have listened to the IDF and the Shin Bet. If they would have taken the recommendations of the Shin Bet and the IDF, there would be no casualties. I condemn killing on both sides."
Nadia Murad, who managed to escape ISIS return to Iraq after suffering severe torture, called on the Israeli government to recognize the Yazidi genocide at the hands of the terror organization at a special Knesset session on Monday.

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Nine Knesset members from various factions submitted a bill calling for the recognition of the Yazidi genocide, which includes a memorial day on August 3, a study program and a central rally in memory of those killed.

In the summer of 2014, the Kurdish-minority Yazidi community gained international recognition for becoming the target of the Islamic State throughout Iraq and the region. ISIS proceeded with the an attempt to eradicate the Yadizis, which included mass murder, serious abuse, rape and the trafficking of women due to their beliefs.

Murad (Photo: Yotam Pulitzer/Israid)

Murad is a UN goodwill ambassador and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in the world on behalf of the Yazidi people and her efforts to get the governments of the world to recognize the genocide of her people. She is visiting Israel for the first time in conjunction with the IsraAid and the Society of International Development (SID) Israel, and at the initiative of MK Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union).

Yazidi refugee women (Photo: Reuters)

"I feel very happy to be in Israel for the first time, and I feel that this country, which has gone through things like the Holocaust, will show an understanding of the crimes committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people and against many minorities in Iraq and Syria," she told Ynet. "The Yazidi people are in a state of collective annihilation after the rule ISIS rule for three years. I ask people to support us so we can receive our rights and achieve justice."

Yazidi protestors (Photo: AFP)

During her visit to Israel, Murad will try to convince the government to recognize what happened to the genocide victims. "Many countries and the European Union have knowledged this is genocide, said Murad. "I want people to recognize that this is a collective extermination and to provide medical and humanitarian assistance to the victims," She added that "I hope they will give something special to the Yazidis."

Murad speaking at teh Knesset (Photo: Yotam Pulitzer/Israid)

News of the fall of ISIS in Mosul makes Murad happy. She currently lives in Germany and hopes to one day return to Iraq. "The Iraqi government has been fighting the Islamic State for three or four years, sacrificing casualties, but we want to see the people of ISIS stand trial. We, as Yazidis, see our future in Iraq in the hope that it will be better, that we will be protected and receive our rights. "

MK Svetlova (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

MK Svetlova, who also serves as chairperson of the lobby to strengthen the connection between Israel and the Kurdish people, said that as the people who passed through the Holocaust, Jews must not stand by in the face of the massacre in Yazidis. "It is the moral duty of the State of Israel to recognize this terrible crime, both because of our history and because of our forefathers' commitment to stand by all the world's peoples in such difficult times, which is why I submitted this bill," she said. In addition to Svetlova, the bill is co-signed by MKs Merav Michaeli, Nachman Shai, Zouheir Bahloul and Mickey Rosenthal (Zionist Union), Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin, Tamar Zandberg and Ilan Gilon (Meretz), and Yehuda Glick (Likud).

Tel Aviv University Yazidi researcher Idan Barir told Ynet that Israel should listen to Murad and reach out to the Yazidi people. "Nadia has come here to continue to raise awareness of an issue she has been working on for yearsthe recognition of the Yazidi genocide and finding a solution for kidnapped women who have been released. Frankly, this is something I have been trying to do with her for three years. Israel has a moral obligation to help the Yazidis. On the one hand, I'm sad that the Knesset waited three years with this, but it's better late than never."
MOSCOW - Russia has deployed military police to monitor the cease-fire in a safe zone in the eastern suburbs of Syria's Damascus, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Monday.

Russia has been providing air cover for Syrian President Bashar Assad's offensive against the Islamic State group since 2015 and previously deployed a military police force to patrol the city of Aleppo last year.

Russia, Iran, which supports Assad, and Turkey, which backs rebels fighting his forces, in May approved a plan to create four "de-escalation" zones in Syria, pressing Assad's air force to halt flights over designated areas across the war-torn country.

Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi told a news conference Monday that Russia set up two checkpoints and four monitoring posts in one of the zones, in the area known as eastern Ghouta. The Russian Defense Ministry last week said that the Syrian government and the opposition reached an agreement on the boundaries of the zone, several days after bombardment and airstrikes in the area.

Rudskoi also said the Syrian government and the opposition are still discussing the boundaries of another zone in Idlib province in northern Syria where there is a large al-Qaeda presence.
Israel's Ambassador to the UN said Monday at the Security Council he believes the diplomatic crisis with Jordan can be resolved soon.

He also spoke of the terror attack in Halamish, which claimed the lives of three Israelis, saying, "The Palestinians are spreading lies, saying these acts of violence are Israel's fault."

To prevent further escalation of the situation, he said, "simply stop the payments to terrorists and the incitement to terrorism."
Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon presented photos from the scene of the terror attack in Halamish, which claimed the lives of three Israelis, at the UN Security Council on Monday.

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"Instead of condemning terrorism and calming down the situation, the Palestinians are spreading lies and claiming this horrific murder is Israel's fault," Danon said.

"Don't believe these lies. The terrorist who murdered the Salomon family will receive a monthly salary from the Palestinian Authority. He was taught that cold-blooded murder of Israelis is holy," he continued.

Danon speaking at the UN Security Council

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During a press conference at the UN Security Council, the Israeli ambassador talked about the Salomon family that sat down for a Friday night dinner to celebrate the birth of a new grandson.

"Instead, their night of celebration ended in massacre," Danon said. "They were sitting down for Shabbat meal when the heinous terrorist entered their home and stabbed them to death."

Danon at the UN Security Council presenting photos from the scene of the attack

Yosef, 70, was murdered along with his daughter Haya , 46, and son Elad, 35. Yosef's wife, Tovah , 68, was wounded. Elad's wife, Michal , and their five children were hiding in another room.

The terrorist was stopped when a neighbor, a paramedic in the IDF's canine unit Oketz, shot him in the stomach, neutralizing him. Upon his release from the hospital, the terrorist was taken to questioning by the Shin Bet.

"This attack is part of a wave of terrorism against the free world. These terrorists are brainwashed and full of hatred," the ambassador stated.

"The Security Council must demand (Palestinian President) Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to act immediately to stop the incitement to terrorism before more victims are claimed," Danon said.

Security Council meeting on Temple Mount standoff

Danon also addressed the flare-up of violence following the installation of metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount.

"We will enable everybody to come and pray on the Temple Mount, but at the same time we will do whatever is necessary to maintain security," he said.

The UN Security Council held a meeting Monday to discuss ways to de-escalate tensions.

Photo: AP

Egypt, France and Sweden called for the talks following clashes over the weekend that left four Palestinians dead.

Asked whether Israel was prepared to remove the metal detectors, Danon said: "Our goal is to calm the situation by allowing access to the holy site, but also to maintain security at this important place."

The Security Council was to hear a report from UN envoy Nikolay Mladenov during a closed-door meeting later Monday.

"We hope that members of the council will send a clear message to the parties to de-escalate, to exercise restraint, to refrain from provocations, and to work together to lower tensions and discourage violence," said Swedish diplomat Carl Skau.

Sweden is among a handful of European countries that recognize Palestine.

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said there was concern at the council about a possible escalation.

"Its important that the Security Council plays our part in calling for calm," Rycroft told reporters.
A group of some 20 ultra-Orthodox Jews was detained at a hotel near Petra on Monday while religious items were taken from them by Jordanian authorities.

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The group was in Jordan to visit the grave of the high priest Aaron, the brother of Moses, in a place known as Mount Hor in the Torah.

The first day of the Hebrew month of Av, which falls on Monday, is the anniversary of Aaron's death. An annual celebration is held in Petra on that day in his memory.

While other groups of Jewish faithful were able to get to the grave, one group was prevented from leaving their hotel.

The families of the detained Haredim contacted the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement: "The consul spoke to them and ask them to keep a low profile and follow police's instructions. In addition, the consul will advise them to return to Israel earlier due to the explosive timing."

Members of the group described great hostility towards them and attributed it to the incident at the Israeli embassy in Amman

They said high-ranked Jordanian police officers treated them badly and conducted thorough searches of their possessions for any Jewish symbols, such as kippahs, prayer shawls or tefillin.

A member of another group, which had already returned to Israel, said the Jordanians did not let them bring any Jewish religious items into the country "due to security reasons."
"I will be satisfied when I have the means to knock off the entire debt burden confronting my farmers," he says, evidently reluctant to trumpet the waiver of Rs 9,500 crore in unpaid crop loans of some 1 million small and marginal farmers as a 'big-ticket' achievement. But in his second avatar as Punjab chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh is clearly a more 'worldly wise' politician, for he quietly informs you later that the waiver proposes "double the relief announced by Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra" (both, incidentally, ruled by the BJP).

Amarinder has never had it so good. The Congress swept to power this March with an unexpected 78 out of the 117 seats in the state assembly. And the party high command in Delhi, acutely aware that it was he who 'delivered' them Punjab in the face of a surging Aam Aadmi Party, has refrained from any significant interference.

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In capital Chandigarh too, with most party foes like former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and veterans like Shamsher Dullo and Ashwani Sekhri having lost at the hustings or simply rendered irrelevant in state politics, he's virtually without any challenge. Even Pratap Singh Bajwa, Amarinder's most bitter critic and the former state Congress chief, was moved to the Rajya Sabha well ahead of the February 4 polls.

Close to four months into his new government, the difference is telling. "The last time, it took me nearly two years to get a hang of things, how things work in the state government," Amarinder candidly confesses. This time, he says, "we have hit the ground running".

The very first meeting of the new council of ministers on March 18 cleared as many as 144 proposals, including the setting up of a special task force (STF) to combat the drug menace in the state. Equally key was the dismantling of the highly controversial 'halqa (constituency) in-charge' system put in place by the previous SAD-BJP coalition, whereby ruling party MLAs or party-appointed functionaries ruled the roost-from police stations to the allotment of tube well connections. But perhaps the best received decision was the summary order banning the use of lal battis (red beacons) on all official and private vehicles with the exception of ambulances and emergency service transport. The July 5 move, promptly emulated by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, was extended to ban the use of hooters and sirens by politicians and bureaucrats as well.

Under Amarinder's watch, the Punjab government has looked keen to usher in much-needed reforms alongside a measure of downsizing the state administration. Calling for an immediate review of the 'gunman culture' that has plagued Punjab since the troubled times of the Khalistan movement in the 1980s and early '90s, he set the ball rolling by culling over half of the security detail assigned to himself. "Did you know they (the state police) had given an entire battalion for my protection!" says Amarinder who has ordered nearly 500 security personnel back to law and order duties in the understaffed police districts.

"We are already acting on poll promises that involve administrative and governance changes. Things that need a financial component are in the pipeline. That will take some time," Amarinder told India Today at the newly re-designated chief ministerial residence-cum-office complex in Chandigarh.

Coming up with the cash will be a huge challenge. Against the state debt of Rs 1.35 lakh crore they had estimated before the polls, Amarinder and his colleagues in the new government are actually faced with the daunting prospect of servicing a Rs 2.08 lakh crore debt. A 'white paper' on the state of Punjab's finances, prepared by a team headed by finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, details how the 2006-'07 fiscal deficit of Rs 4,384 crore has risen to Rs 21,000 crore and the revenue deficit to Rs 13,000 crore. The total debt-servicing expenditure of Rs 14,145 crore is expected to be up by over 30 per cent in the current fiscal.

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"We're scraping the deepest recesses of the barrel," says the chief minister. But despite the fiscal constraints, he has committed to an ambitious plan to rescue small (up to 5 acres) and marginal (under 2.5 acres) farmers from their existing debt on account of crop loans.

Criticised, among others, by former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, for allocating a mere Rs 1,500 crore towards the crop loan waiver this year, Amarinder clarified that his government would "take over the farmers' debt and pay the banks in instalments over the next 4-5 years". Although capped at Rs 2 lakh per farmer and limited to loans from state cooperative banks, the scheme, the CM says, will eventually benefit some 1 million cultivators.

Bringing further relief to indebted farmers, the government has also abolished kurki-Section 67A of the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961-which allowed banks to auction the agricultural holdings of defaulting farmers. Although the move will cause major cash flow problems-state cooperative banks have already sought a bailout by the government ahead of the paddy sowing season-it has clearly put the smiles back on the faces of the farmers.

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Defending the decision to rescue small farmers, Amarinder trots out the numbers: of the 77 suicides since the new government took power (March-end), he says, "more than 90 per cent have been farmers with less than five acres". The CM has also borrowed from PM Narendra Modi's 'give it up' campaign on LPG subsidy-he announced he was 'giving up' the electricity subsidy available to all farmers in Punjab. His appeal to other 'big farmers to follow suit, however, found few takers. Not discouraged, he says, "These things take time. Change is difficult, particularly when it requires a transformation of mindsets."

Besides the farm debt waiver, pensions to the aged, disabled and widows have been enhanced; assistance under the Aashirwad scheme for baby girls has been increased from Rs 15,000 to Rs 21,000; there are free textbooks and wi-fi in all state-run schools and colleges; free school and college education for girl students; and a flat Rs 5 per unit power tariff for the industry.

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But where's he going to get the cash from? "We'll obviously have to tighten our belts," he says. On a more realistic note, the state expects to earn an additional Rs 5,000 crore annually from GST. "We are also working on a number of out-of-the-box ideas to raise revenues," Amarinder says, though he's not ready to reveal his plans yet. Sources within the government indicate that specific cesses are being considered.

The CM is also looking to the Centre for help. Besides formal requests to the prime minister's office for assistance to rescue Punjab's farmers, Amarinder has been careful not to ruffle any feathers in Delhi. Indeed, he says that "PM Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley have gone out of their way to help". He cites Jaitley's interventions in particular in releasing funds for wheat procurement in April. "The PM," he said, "was equally amiable on the SYL issue."

One area where the government has already demonstrated results is in containing the drug menace. The independent STF established under ADGP Harpreet Sidhu, the CM claims, has broken the narcotics supply chain in the state. More than 5,000 individuals, including a number of police personnel, involved in the illicit trade have been arrested and nearly 4,000 cases have been registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act since the new government assumed office. Sidhu has now been given charge of the entire Punjab Police Border Range to tackle drug trafficking more effectively. "That the street price of heroin has shot up from Rs 1,500 a gram to over Rs 5,000 is clear proof that the crackdown is working," he says, while also pointing to the increased footfalls at de-addiction facilities across Punjab. Amarinder does concede, though, that most of the 'big fish' have moved out of the state. "There's evidence that the trade has progressively moved to Delhi and the NCR region, but that won't stop us from going after them," he says.

The CM is also upbeat about Yaari Enterprises and Apni Gaddi, Apna Rozgar-two employment generation schemes, the first envisaging the setting up of 100,000 micro enterprises every year until 2022, and the second where the state has tied up with cab aggregators like Ola and Uber. Criticised by rivals for "trying to turn Punjab's youth into taxi drivers", Amarinder was quick to retort, "I'd rather have them driving cabs than doing drugs and indulging in crimes."

But amid all the 'happy tidings', barely two months into its tenure, the Amarinder Singh government also found itself in the midst of a raging controversy. Rana Gurjit Singh, the state's power and irrigation minister, had allegedly made benami bids through private employees, including a former Nepali manservant, to win sand mining concessions that were auctioned online on May 18. Expectedly, both the AAP and SAD went to town with the allegations.

Clearly upset, Amarinder ordered an inquest by a commission headed by retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge J.S. Narang. "If my minister is found guilty, he will not be spared," the CM said in Chandigarh. Amarinder says he is not willing to end his final stint in politics with a sullied slate. To that end, he is clearly willing to call it as he sees it-whether by calling Canadian defence minister Harjit Singh Sajjan a "Khalistani sympathiser", or rising to the defence of the young army major who gave his men the protection of a human shield in Kashmir. Even, perhaps, by dropping a 'corrupt' colleague.

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An Israeli lawyer has asked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to bar attorney Yitzhak Molcho from continuing to work as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's special envoy.

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Molcho works with attorney David Shimron, who is currently under investigation for suspected corruption in two massive defense procurement deals for submarines and patrol ships that Israel signed with German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp.

Attorney Shahar Ben-Meir claims Molcho's continued work for the prime minister constitutes a conflict of interest.

Yitzhak Molcho

"Since 2010, there has been a legal and administrative 'extraterritorial' area in the Prime Minister's Office, where a private individual who is not a state employees, attorney Yitzhak Molcho, serves as a 'private foreign ministry' of sorts for the prime minister, while at the same time working as a senior partner in the law firm E. S. Shimron, I. Molcho, Persky & Co. This inappropriate 'extraterritorial' area has unfortunately gotten your approval as an attorney general as well as that of your predecessor," Ben-Meir wrote in a letter to Mandelblit.

Ben-Meir went on to state that, "Molcho is not subject to any laws that apply to state employees and public employees. At the same time, he continues being a senior partner and enjoying the earnings of a law firm. This is already wrong, as the employment of a private individual in positions reserved for state authorities should have been stopped. The fact that you, as an attorney general, and your predecessor, did not see anything wrong about this is problematic in itself."

Ben-Meir noted that Shimron, who is one of Netanyahu's close confidants and advisors, is now a suspect in a criminal investigation. "And that is not the most absurd situation we currently face, with Shimron being investigated by police for suspicions concerning issues Molcho has been handling... This state of affairs highlights the failure point and illustrates just how grave Molcho's employment is and how a 'conflict of interest' could become worse when it's not stopped at the start," he wrote.

"Shimron is being investigated by police, Molcho continues working, and they're both enjoying payments for their services in the submarines deal, as if this is how things are supposed to be in a state of law," he added.

Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber was entrusted with handling Ben-Meir's request. Ben-Meir gave the Attorney General's Office 30 days to respond to his request before he petitions the High Court of Justice.
The diplomatic staff of Israel's embassy to Jordan, including a security guard who shot dead two Jordanians after he was attacked by one of them, returned to Israel on Monday night, bringing a 28-hour-long crisis to an end.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to both Ambassador Einat Shalin and the security guard upon their return to Israel through the Allenby Bridge crossing, asked how they were and welcomed them home.

The Prime Minister's Office said the return of the Israeli diplomatic staff was made possible thanks to a close cooperation between Israel and Jordan.

Israeli embassy in Amman (Photo: David Robinger)

Ambassador Shalin told Netanyahu the staff was "grateful for all of the efforts you put to bring us back home."

The security guard, Ziv, echoed her sentiments, saying "I know an entire country stands behind us. You told me yesterday I'd return home, and you calmed me down, and then it happened. I thank you whole-heartedly."

Netanyahu speaking to the ambassador and security guard

Jordanian authorities, meanwhile, announced they have completed the investigation into the incident.

According to a statement by Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate (GID), while two people began work to install furniture, an argument broke out between one of themthe son of the furniture shop ownerand an Israeli embassy employee who lives in the apartment.

The argument, according to the GID, was over a delay in completing the work at the time agreed upon, and took place while the landlord and the building's security guard were present.

At the heat of the argument, according to the Jordanians, the son of the furniture shop owner attacked the Israeli diplomat, who was wounded, and the latter responded by opening fire at the worker, wounding him and the landlord who was nearby. The two were rushed to the hospital but both succumbed to their injuries.

A 17-year-old Jordanian wielding a screwdriver attacked a security guard from the Israeli Embassy in Amman on Sunday. The guard shot and killed the assailant, while the owner of the building, a Jordanian doctor, was struck by a stray bullet and killed as well.

Jordanian security forces who arrived at the scene surrounded the embassy building in order to launch an investigation into the incident and sought to question the security guard.

Israel informed Jordan that according to the Vienna Convention, the security officer is immune from all criminal charges and civil suits in Jordan, and he will not be subject to arrest or interrogation.

While the Jordanians agreed to allow the rest of the diplomatic staff to leave the embassy, they insisted the guard remains for questioning. The diplomatic staff refused to leave without the guard.

Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman flew to the Jordanian capital on Monday morning to investigate the incident and speak to the guard. Argaman, accompanied by Jordanian investigators, conducted a reconstruction of events. He then returned in the late afternoon to brief the prime minister.

Netanyahu also spoke on the phone to Jordan's King Abdullah in an effort to resolve the crisis.

According to a Jordanian official, as part of the talks between Amman and Jerusalem, Israel has made promises concerning the removal of metal detectors from the Temple Mount.

But the Prime Minister's Office denied there was a Jordanian demand to condition the return of the guard to Israel in the removal of the metal detectors on the Temple Mount.
According to And Chill Property Managements inaugural Short Stay Confidence survey, one in three Australians is keen to list their investment property on Airbnb.

High property prices are causing low relative rental yields and higher mortgages, which coupled with [APRAs] push for tighter investor lending, is putting significant stress on investors, said Chris Leeson of And Chill Property Management. The shortage of short stay accommodation and leasing on Airbnb provides high comparative yields for these investors.

While the public enthusiasm for Airbnb is at an all-time high, and many indicators point to sustained growth, some hosts fail to consider how current smoke alarm legislation will impact their property investments.

According to Julieanne Worchurst, national sales and marketing director at Smoke Alarm Solutions (SAS), homeowners and investment property owners who offer Airbnb accommodations need to ensure theyre compliant with the existing federal and state smoke alarm legislation.

Although the jury is still out as to whether Airbnb hosts qualify as landlords or not, it is imperative to ensure their propertys fire detection system is working and compliant to specifications set out in the Building Code of Australia, which concerns all Australian properties, Worchurst said. Regardless of whether you are a homeowner or a landlord, each smoke alarm installed in your property needs to be operational and the system needs to comply with federal legislation.

Queensland, in particular, has very stringent new smoke alarm legislation for brand new properties that receive development approval after January 1. Photoelectric, 240-volt interconnected smoke alarms need to be installed in each sleeping place, Worchurst said.

To safeguard your guests, its best to hire a reputable smoke alarm maintenance service provider to install and service the smoke alarms in your Airbnb property.

On the other hand, if Airbnb hosts dont have appropriate smoke alarms installed on their properties, does this revoke their landlord insurance?

It depends on the circumstances and whether or not the landlord was aware, said Sharon Fox-Slater, executive general manager at EBM Insurance. There is no specific requirement in many landlord policies to have smoke alarms fitted. However, all steps must be taken to minimise risk, and also, all legislative requirements must be met.

If the appropriate smoke alarms were not installed and the landlord was aware, chances are the policy wont respond to a subsequent loss. Likewise if it is deemed that reasonably the landlord should have been aware regardless, then the policy likely will not respond to a subsequent loss, she added.

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Perths property market showed signs it had stabilised in the June quarter, according to the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA). The latest preliminary data revealed there had been little change recorded to key market indicators over the three month period.

While conditions remained softer, there were some indications the market had finally begun to settle, a welcome relief according to REIWA president Hayden Groves.

Were certainly not experiencing the steep declines across the board we once were. Although no one can accurately ascertain the future of the property market, the signs are there that we have finally found, or be very close to finding, the floor of the market, he said.

Preliminary figures for Perths median house price came in at $500,000 for the three months to June 2017.

As with most quarters, this preliminary figure sits noticeably below the revised March quarter median of $515,000, but when we compare like for like, the June and March quarter preliminary medians are very comparable and show there has been little movement in median house price in the first six months of this year, Groves said.

Once all transactions have settled, we expect the revised June quarter median to increase to a level commensurate with the revised March quarter median.

Perths median unit price also fared relatively well in the June quarter, coming in at $412,000. Pleasingly, this is only down a marginal 1.8 per cent on the revised March quarter unit median, which suggests that once all sales have settled, this quarters median unit price should come in higher than last quarter, Groves said.

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As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More
Zabka, Warszawa, 166 m2

Lokal znajduje sie w budynku apartamentowym Unimax Development w inwestycji Viva Vitolin, przy ul. Grochowskiej 87 w Warszawie. Bedzie dostepny w 4Q 2023 roku (podpisanie umow przeniesienia wasnosci).
The Supreme Court is seized with two PILs on matters very close to the RSS-BJP camp. The PIL on triple talaq awaits judgment of the apex court while in another case the legality of Article 35A, which makes Article 370 special, has been challenged.

By Prabhash K Dutta: Uniform Civil Code and Article 370 have been on the agenda of the BJP since its birth on the lines of the RSS philosophy of Ek Vidhaan, Ek Nishaan (one law, one symbol). The same found its way in the BJP manifesto for 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which saw Narendra Modi emerge as the most towering leader in the country.

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Both the issues have been controversial and political parties in power have not tried to meddle in the affairs directly. Even the BJP, which has based its politics on the RSS ideology, has shied from taking any legislative route to implement its agenda repeated in every election manifesto.

Now, two public interest litigations are paving way for implementation of BJP-RSS agenda of having a Uniform Civil Code and bypassing or making Article 370 irrelevant. The two cases, somehow, originated in the last quarter of 2015 and incidentally in both matters the Centre has played key role while responding to the Supreme Court's notices.

UNIFORM CIVIL CODE

India has a uniform criminal code in the form of the Indian Penal Code, which applies in the entire country save Jammu and Kashmir, where the Ranbir Penal Code is in force.

The civil code varies for different set of people or communities depending on their age-old religious and cultural practices. Though several issues of civil litigation are covered under a uniform set of rules and laws, the matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance have been contentious. There is no uniformity.

The Directive Principles of State Policy chapter of the Constitution calls for a Uniform Civil Code. The Supreme Court has on several occasions nudged the Centre for doing away with "total confusion" in the civil laws. As recently as February 2016, the Supreme Court asked the Centre if it was serious about having a uniform civil code.

The RSS believes that there cannot be two different set of rules to decide cases for citizens belonging to different community. So, when a PIL came up before the Supreme Court questioning the practice of instant triple talaq, it found a window to have uniform civil code.

THE TRIPLE TALAQ CASE

The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its judgment in the triple talaq case anytime soon. Chief Justice of India JS Khehar is due to retire by the end of August. He is heading the five-judge Constitutional bench hearing the matter. It is expected that before he retires, the bench would pronounce the judgment.

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The matter of triple talaq has its origin in a Supreme Court order of October, 2015 in the Prakash versus Phulavati case. The Supreme Court had ruled , in Part I of the judgment, that the 2005 Amendment to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 could not be applied retrospectively.

In the second part of the judgment, the Supreme Court referred to "an important issue of gender discrimination" against Muslim women. The apex court laid the road for a separate PIL by issuing notices to the Centre and the National Legal Services Authority.

Later, several petitioners approached the Supreme Court challenging triple talaq, niqah halala and polygamy allowed under the Muslim Personal Law. One of the petitioners, who approached the apex court in October 2016, is Saira Bano, whose husband pronounced instant talaq after 15 years of marriage.

The Centre told the Supreme Court that it is for legal prohibition on the practice of instant talaq. The BJP and RSS hope that the Supreme Court would declare triple talaq illegal, which they consider would take the country one step closer towards uniform civil code.

BYPASSING ARTICLE 370

The BJP and the RSS have been calling for repealing Article 370 of the Constitution. This Article gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir. But, repealing Article 370 requires a Constitutional amendment in agreement with the Legislative Assembly of the state which may never agree to it.

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There is another provision that appears in the Appendices of the Constitution as Article 35A. This is considered as the real force behind Article 370.

Article 35A accords special power to the Jammu and Kashmir legislature to enact laws to give special privileges and rights to the residents of the state. It also empowers the Assembly to define Permanent Residents of Jammu and Kashmir. Such laws cannot be challenged on grounds of violating fundamental right to equality of Indian citizens from other states.

PERMANENT RESIDENTS

The present law defines a Permanent Resident as a person who was a state subject on May 14, 1954, or who has been a resident of the state for 10 years and has "lawfully acquired immovable property in the state."

As per the existing laws framed using Article 35A, an outsider cannot buy a property or settle in Jammu and Kashmir. An outsider is not allowed to vote in state Assembly election or contest election to the state legislature. Such a person cannot get a job in the Jammu and Kashmir government or join a professional college or get an aid from the state government.

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In short, Article 35A gives Jammu and Kashmir a different kind of exclusivity to maintain its demographic composition. The RSS, on the other hand, believes that the Kashmir can only be resolved by changing the demographic composition of the state particularly the Valley.

Its emphasis on the repeal of Article 370 is based on the belief that a more diverse demographic composition of Kashmir Valley would help seamless integration of the region with rest of the country.

PIL AGAINST ARTICLE 35A

In December 2015, a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court by an RSS-linked NGO 'We the Citizen' seeking repeal of Article 35A on the ground of constitutionality. A similar PIL had been filed in the Delhi High Court earlier by the RSS think tank Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre.

Article 35A was inserted in the Appendices of the Constitution through a Presidential Order and not by an Amendment to the Constitution. The petitioner challenged its constitutionality in the court.

The Supreme Court issued notices to both the Jammu and Kashmir government and the Centre in December 2015. The Jammu and Kashmir government filed its reply one year later.

TRICKY RESPONSES FROM STATE, CENTRE

The state government, of which the BJP is a constituent, stated that as the Article is there for more than 60 years and enjoys the status of law. It said that it would not be appropriate to tinker with the arrangement.

The Centre has filed its only recently saying that the matter involves complex issues of constitutionality and the government has no view on it. It said that it would appropriate for the Supreme Court to decide the matter.

The Centre further told the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court earlier this month that it would be better if a larger bench was constituted to hear the matter. The Supreme Court has now decided to set up a three-judge bench to hear the constitutional legality of Article 35A. The matter is scheduled for hearing in August.

"As it seems, this matter involves scrutiny of the Article 35A as the guidelines laid down in Article 368, which provides for Amendment in the Constitution. In the Supreme Court, Article 35A will have to stand the test of Article 368," Supreme Court lawyer Atul Kumar told India Today.

WHAT IF ARTICLE 35A IS DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

If Article 35A is declared invalid in the Supreme Court, it may have some far reaching implications. The immediate implication would be that all the 41 subsequent Presidential Orders, each of which was an amendment to the 1954 Order, would become invalid.

This would also mean that the Governor and the Chief Minister would be addressed as the Sadr-e-Riyasat (President) and Wazir-e-Azam (Prime Minister) in Jammu and Kashmir.

The extent of authority of the Supreme Court and the Election Commission of India would also be curtailed. Using Article 35A, the government of India has made 94 of 97 entries in the Union List applicable in Jammu and Kashmir. A total of 260 of 395 Articles of Indian Constitution are applicable in Jammu and Kashmir via Article 35A.

The control of the Centre on Jammu and Kashmir would legally be limited to only Defence, External Affairs and Communication. The repeal of Article 35A would mean a reformulation of legal arrangements with Jammu and Kashmir with the government of India.

The RSS is of the view that with the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, a favourable arrangement can be arrived at paving way for permanent solution to the Kashmir problem.

ALSO READ |Triple talaq: Supreme Court concludes hearing, reserves verdict on constitutional validity

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WATCH | Triple talaq: Supreme Court reserves verdict as 6-day hearing ends

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New Delhi: German luxury car maker Mercedes- Benz can bring in BS VI emission compliant models as early as 2018 to India for which it can also forge partnership with oil firms for higher grade oil.

The car maker has already sought help from various ministries, including Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, which has asked them to get in touch with oil and gas firms.

"We would be ready as early as 2018. We could bring the first set of vehicles in 2018 into the country," Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director and CEO Roland Folger told PTI when asked about the company's plans regarding launch of vehicles compliant with Bharat Stage (BS) VI emission norms.

The move would, however, depend on issues like availability of BS VI grade fuel by 2018, he added.

"We are already talking to some of the oil and gas companies or it is going to be something which nobody expects us to do," Folger said.

When asked if the company would work with some of the oil and gas companies to source BSVI grade fuel, Folger said: "Of course, we work with some of them."

Citing the example of Reliance Industries, he added that the oil and gas major has been exporting BS VI oil for the last five years.

"They are exporting to Europe, US. They actually produce more BS VI grade fuel for export markets than they do normal fuels for India," Folger said.

He added that the major challenge in front of them is the availability of BS VI fuel across adequate fuel stations across the country.

"If say 50 of our vehicles come into the marketplace how many fuel stations you expect to get BS VI fuel and how much time will it take to ramp it up. It is a hen and egg situation. We are waiting for all the fuel to be available and the fuel stations are waiting for all the vehicles to be there," Folger said.

He added that it was important to start as early as possible with smaller volumes and then ramp it up accordingly.

Elaborating further he said the company is in talks with various ministries regarding the issue.

"We have already asked Ministry of Road Transport and Highways whether they would support us and they haven't said no. They have asked us to speak to oil and gas companies and that's what we are doing," Folger said.

In a bid to curb vehicular pollution, the government has decided to implement stricter emission norms of BS VI from April 1, 2020 by skipping BS-V altogether.

Oil marketing companies (OMCs) are incurring an expenditure of Rs 90,000 crore for phase-wise upgradation of the fuel quality.
By PTI: Moscow, Jul 23 (PTI) Pakistans restive Balochistan province has received a Mi-171E non-combat helicopter from a Russian firm, the second such chopper delivered to the country this year, a media report has said.

The Mi-171 is a civilian variant of the Mi-17 military cargo helicopter, which is already in service in the Pakistan Army.

"I am confident the convertible Mi-171E handed over to the customer will perform decently when accomplishing any missions, whether in passenger and freight carriage or in medical, search and rescue operations," Chief Executive Officer of Russian Helicopters Andrei Boginsky was quoted as saying by the Russias TASS news agency.

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In the case of a medical emergency, the chopper can be used as an ambulance as it has the capacity to carry 14 stretchers if seats are replaced.

Russian Helicopters made the helicopter supply contract with the government of Balochistan province in December 2016.

The helicopter was built in the convertible option. The helicopter cabin can be converted from a freight one to a VIP cabin with 13 seats and a flight attendant at customer?s option within the short period.

Mi-171E can carry up to 27 passengers and up to four tonnes of cargo inside the cabin or on the external suspension in its transport version. Three points for direct deployment provide quick landing of paratroopers and rescuers when the helicopter is hovering, it said.

The Mi-17 is widely used across the world due to its reliability and ability to operate in all climates and could be used by the provincial government to transport cargo or passengers or as an emergency response aircraft.

Russian Helicopters has sold Mi-171E helicopters to several countries, including China.

Balochistan has also been facing insurgency by Baloch nationalists and Islamist militants.

Earlier this year, on February 13, a blast took place near the Saryab Bridge in Karachi killing two personnel of the bomb disposal squad and leaving 11 injured. PTI AMS NSA AMS

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New Delhi: The NIA on Monday filed a chargesheet against nine accused for their involvement in a conspiracy to carry out terrorist act by planting explosives on the railway tracks near Ghorasahan station in Bihar`s Motihari district in September 2016.

Umashankar Patel, Gajendra Sharma, Rakesh Kumar Yadav, Ranjay Sah, Mukesh Yadav, Motilal Paswan and Arun Ram -- all resident of East Champaran (Motihari), along with Brij Kishore Giri and Samsul Hoda -- both residents of Nepal -- have been charged in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) chargesheet.

The chargesheet had been filed under sections 150 of The Railways Act, Sections 3 and 4 of the Explosive Substances Act and sections 16, 17, 18, 18B and 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, an NIA official said.

Of the chargesheeted accused, six are in judicial custody, Giri and Hoda were earlier arrested in a murder case in Nepal`s Bara district, while Ram was murdered on December 25, 2016.

In the chargesheet, the NIA has mentioned that Hoda, Mohammed Shafi, a resident of Pakistan, and Giri were the main conspirators in the Ghorasahan case.

"Hoda entered into a criminal conspiracy with Shafi and others to carry out a series of terrorist acts in India, for which he visited Pakistan in July 2016 along with Shafi.

"The conspiracy hatched was to carry out IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) explosions on railway tracks and bridges to blow up passenger trains in order to cause loss to public life, disrupt essential lines of communication and thereby cause threat to the security and integrity of India," the chargesheet said.

In furtherance of the conspiracy, the chargesheet said, Hoda associated Giri and transferred to him large funds to recruit other associates and arrange logistics for the terrorist acts.

The funds were sent from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for Giri in various bank accounts in Nepal and India, the chargesheet said, adding that Giri, in turn, recruited other accused persons to carry out the terror activities.

"The accused procured explosives and other material for the fabrication of IEDs. They fabricated and planted a pressure cooker IED on the railway tracks near Ghorasahan Railway Station in the night of September 30, 2016 in order to cause loss to public life and property and to disrupt the essential lines of communication.

"They later fabricated and planted another IED on the railway track near Adapur and Nakardei railway stations in Bihar in the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 2016," the chargesheet added.

An NIA official said that further investigation against Hoda, Giri and Shafi was going on.

After the Home Ministry`s January 25 and 26 orders, the NIA took over the Ghorasahan case to probe the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)`s role, which was first pointed to by Bihar Police.
Mumbai: The King of Romance  who ironically played villainous characters early in his career, is gearing up to set the silver screen ablaze with a romantic comedy  Jab Harry Met Sejal  starring Anushka Sharma.

Directed by Imtiaz Ali,  Jab Harry Met Sejal  happens to be SRKs first film with the Highway filmmaker! Interestingly, Shah Rukh hasnt watched any of Imtiazs films!

When Imtiaz approached SRK with a story of a man trying to commit suicide, the superstar dismissed it instantly and instead asked the director to work on a happier subject. And thats how Jab Harry Met Sejal was born.

"I haven't seen Imtiaz's films, to be honest, but when I met him, I found him extremely gentle and sensitive. Amongst the people I had worked with earlier, it was the same quality that Yash ji, Adi, Karan (had). They are personally very different but also very sensitive, PTI quoted the actor as saying.

Shah Rukh recalled how a popular director once approached him to do a love story, which the actor turned down.

"I really believed the director wasn't sensitive enough, he just wanted to do a love story. You don't just do a love story; you make it, feel it, live it. And I think Imtiaz is like that. I may not be romantic, but I am extremely sensitive.

"To me, it can't be a person with lesser level of sensitivity directing me in a love story. I find Imtiaz sensitive, dignified. These are not filmmaking qualities, these are personal qualities which translate into your films or acting."

Jab Harry Met Sejal is slated to hit the theatres on August 4.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday told Tihar Jail authorities not to torture alleged middleman in All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) election symbol bribery case.

The Court sought reply from Tihar Jail Authorities on a plea by middleman Sukesh Chandrasekhar wherein he alleged that he was strip-searched by jail officials when he was lodged in a high risk ward.

The court further sought to know from jail authorities as to why the accused was kept in a high-risk cell meant for dangerous criminals.

The Court also warned saying that any such incident will not be tolerated. The court has listed the matter for hearing on August 22.

Court also directed Tihar Jail Authorities to ensure that accused is not tortured in the custody.

The Election Commission (EC) bribery case also involves AIADMK (Amma) faction leader TTV Dhinakaran.

On July 17, a Delhi court adjourned the hearing on a charge sheet filed by the Delhi Police against Chandrasekhar in this matter.

The Tis Hazari court has set the next date of hearing on July 25.

He was arrested for allegedly taking money from Dhinakaran to bribe the EC officials to get the AIADMK`s two leaves symbol for the faction lead by former general secretary of the AIADMK, V Sasikala.

Dhinakaran was arrested on April 25 for allegedly attempting to bribe an unidentified EC official. He was granted bail in the case on June 1. His aide Mallikarjuna, who was accused of helping Dhinakaran transfer his money from Chennai to New Delhi, was also granted bail.

On July 14, the Delhi Police filed a chargesheet in the Special Court of Judge Manoj Jain against Sukesh, who was arrested on April 16 and has been denied bail twice by the sessions court and then again by the Delhi High Court.

The police, however, did not name Dhinakaran in the final report and said that a supplementary charge sheet will be filed against him and other accused after it completes the probe against him.

The EC had frozen the AIADMK`s symbol after the two factions - one led by Sasikala and the other by former chief minister O Panneerselvam - staked claim on it.
New Delhi: A major fire broke out on Monday at Lok Nayak Bhawan in Central Delhi, the Delhi Fire Services said.

The fire started on the fourth floor of the multi- storeyed building, located next to the upscale Khan Market, a fire official said.

"A call was received around 4 pm. Around 26 fire tenders have been pressed into service," the official said.

The building was vacated soon after the fire broke out.

The fire at the Lok Nayak Bhawan was doused after hours of fire-fighting efforts.

However, what caused the fire is yet to be ascertained.
New Delhi: One of the Tamil Nadu farmers protesting here on Monday tried to commit suicide by consuming 10 sleeping pills apparently because of depression, fellow farmers said. Police, however, denied that the farmer had tried to kill himself.



The farmers said Subramani, 61, lost consciousness after he quietly took the sleeping pills at the Jantar Mantar protest site in the heart of the capital.



"He tried to commit suicide. We have rushed him to hospital. He was tired as the government is not listening to us," Prem, one of the farmers, told IANS.



Delhi Police dismissed the suicide claim.



"There was no case of attempt to suicide. He (Subramani) was admitted to RML Hospital as he fell sick," said a police official.



The farmers have been protesting here to press their demands including a drought relief package, loan waiver, adequate renumeration for agriculture produce, crop insurance as well as linking of rivers to address the water crisis.
New Delhi: It's a great feeling when amidst news of animal species becoming endangered or extinct, one gets to hear about a new discovery.

It isn't everyday when one comes across a rare find at that. Especially one that has been discovered after three centuries!

Scientists have come across a new species of gigantic ocean sunfish  that could weigh up to two tonnes. The species is the first addition to the Mola genus in 130 years.

The iconic fishes are bony fishes, but are also the heaviest and most distinctive among their species. The latest discovery, aptly named the Hoodwinker Sunfish, is thought to approach a similar size, researchers said.

Marianne Nyegaard from Murdoch University in Australia uncovered the new species while researching the population genetics of ocean sunfish in the Indo-pacific region.

Nyegaard, began her investigations after noticing genetic differences in sunfish samples from the Australian and New Zealand long line fishery.

"A Japanese research group first found genetic evidence of an unknown sunfish species in Australian waters 10 years ago, but the fish kept eluding the scientific community because we did not know what it looked like," Nyegaard said.

Researchers collected data from 27 specimens of the new species, travelling thousands of miles or relying on strangers to take samples of sunfish found stranded on remote beaches over a period of three years.

"The new species managed to evade discovery for nearly three centuries by hiding in a messy history of sunfish taxonomy, partially because they are so difficult to preserve and study, even for natural history museums," Nyegaard said.

"That is why we named it Mola tecta - the Hoodwinker Sunfish - derived from the Latin tectus, meaning disguised or hidden," she said.

The process we had to go through to confirm its new species status included consulting publications from as far back as the 1500s, some of which also included descriptions of mermen and fantastical sea monsters, researchers said.

"We retraced the steps of early naturalists and taxonomists to understand how such a large fish could have evaded discovery all this time. Overall we felt science had been repeatedly tricked by this cheeky species, which is why we named it the Hoodwinker," they said.

Similar to its two sister species, Mola mola and Mola ramsayi, the new species has the characteristic truncated appearance of half a fish, but the differences between the three species become clear with growth, researchers said.

Mola tecta remains sleek and slender even in larger sizes, differing from the other species by not developing a protruding snout, or huge lumps and bumps.

Researchers suspect that, as with other sunfish species, feeding takes place during deep dives. The digestive tract contents of three specimens they sampled consisted mostly of salps, a gelatinous sea creature loosely resembling a jellyfish.

Mola tecta appears to prefer cold water, and has so far been found around New Zealand, along the south-east coast of Australia, off South Africa and southern Chile, researchers said.

The study was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Adding to its successful `A1` series of BRAVIA TVs, Sony India on Monday launched its much-awaited premium flagship line-up of OLED TVs.

The company has a pre-booking offer from August 1-15 where customers will be entitled to get a PlayStation 4 for free on purchase of these OLED TVs from select dealers.

The new series -- `KD-65A1` and `KD-55A1` -- are based on OLED technology which brings enriched visual experience with blur-less image and a wide-viewing angle.

`KD-65A1` with screen-size 163.9 cm (65 inch) is priced at Rs 464,900, while `KD-`55A1` with screen size 138.8 cm (55 inch) will cost Rs 364,900.

The units will be available at retail stores from August 4, the company officials told reporters here.

The OLED TVs have a sound technology called `Acoustic Surface` which can emanate sound directly from the screen itself using two `actuators` behind the TV that vibrate the screen to create sound.

In addition, there is an integrated sub-woofer behind the TV which provides powerful bass for movie experiences.

Sony has introduced `One slate` concept which gives the TVs single plane surface display, incorporating different functions within the screen itself, eliminating the need for distinct elements like speakers, a bezel or a stand.

The TVs come with 4K HDR display which provide refined image quality with the latest detail enhancement and noise reduction technology for amazingly realistic pictures.

The TVs are powered by `4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme` which enables 40 per cent more real-time image processing than `4K Processor X1,` offering great visual experience with combination of superior picture quality of OLED.

The `smart` TVs come with Android 7.0 Nougat platform and support `Dolby Vision` which further enriches the visual experience.
New Delhi: Following Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley`s stand that no political party had come forward with suggestions to make party funding cleaner, the Congress on Monday released a May 30 letter that advocated complete transparency on donors and donees.

In the letter written by Congress MP and party treasurer Motilal Vora, the party expressed concern over transparency in funding of political parties and said the names of donors, donees, and the money donated must be revealed to the public.

Jaitley said on Monday that the government was actively working on the issue of electoral bonds, but no party had come up with suggestions to make party funding cleaner.

The letter said: "This is with reference to your letter to the Congress President dated May 2... the government is concerned with transparency in electoral funding of political parties. Transparency implies that the electorate must know who is the donor, which is the donee political party and what is the amount donated."

Vora said in the letter that Jaitley`s Budget speech in Parliament indicated that a scheme on the issue will be framed by the government, though the party could not locate such a scheme.

"We, therefore, have only the Budget speech and some comments that you made in April to the media. Going by these, we infer that the donor`s name will be known only to the bank issuing the bond and the donee`s name will be known only to the Income Tax Department," the letter added.

"In effect, only the government will know the names of the donors and the donees, and the people will not know who donated how much to which political party... this will not ensure transparency in electoral funding. On the contrary, it will be a completely opaque mechanism."

Vora said the Congress would be able to comment further only after the party had studied the scheme promised to be made by the government.

In reply, Jaitley wrote: "I have received your letter dated May 30, regarding the issue of transparency in electoral funding of political parties."
New Delhi: Being the President was not exactly Poltu-da's (Pranab Mukherjee's nickname) plan of action in his 48-year-long political career.

In 2015, a secret cable sent to the then US secretary defense Donald Rumsfeld by ambassador David Mulford, described Mukherjee, the then Finance Minister, as the prime minister-in waiting.

The cable, a part of Wikileaks, described him with "influence over both government policy and public opinion is rivaled only by that of the prime minister himself. He is, in effect, the deputy prime minister, and we believe he aspires to the top job," the cable reads.

Mukherjee narrowly missed the top post twice: In 1984, immediately after Indira Gandhi's assassination, when Rajiv Gandhi was chosen as the next prime ministerial candidate; and once again in 2004, when Congress chose Dr Manmohan Singh.

Fate, it seems, had other plans.

In 2012, Poltu-da was nominated as the presidential candidate of the United Progressive Alliance. He won the election with 713,763 votes, becoming the first Bengali to hold the post of President of India.

Tonight, President Pranab Mukherjee, the 13th president of India, will leave the Rashtrapati Bhavan, paving way for his successor Ram Nath Kovind.

A close confidant of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, the Pranab Mukherjee had a reputation -- no one could make him divulge information that he did not want to reveal.

Throughout his career, Poltu-da held several offices including that of finance, defence, foreign portfolios.

But all this came at a cost.

"I have no personal life even though I am a family man ... days together it may happen living under the same roof hardly I see my wife though she is sick," he said, reported NDTV.

His wife Suvra Mukherjee died as the First Lady of India on August 18, 2015.

Mukherjee's tenure has been called the 'copybook president' - fearless, powerful, pragmatic and a strong negotiator.

Poltu-da will now move in to a new heritage home at 10, Rajaji Marg mansion in Lutyen's Delhi.
By PTI: in 1989-90

(Eds: Updating with observations)

New Delhi, Jul 24 (PTI) The Supreme Court today dismissed a plea seeking a probe into mass murder of Kashmiri Pandits at the height of militancy in the Valley in 1989-90, holding no fruitful purpose would emerge as evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture.

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The plea was made by an organisation named Roots In Kashmir which claimed that 215 FIRs had been lodged relating to the killings of Kashmiri Pandits and other heinous offences and that none of the cases have reached a logical conclusion.

A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud cited the lapse of almost 27 years in raising the cause of Pandits before it as the key reason for rejecting the plea and said that now no evidence can be found.

"We have heard counsel for the petitioner at some length. We however decline to entertain this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, for the simple reason that the instances referred to in the present petition pertain to the year 1989-90, and more than 27 years have passed by since then.

"No fruitful purpose would emerge, as evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture. The instant petition under Article 32 of the Constitution is accordingly dismissed," the bench said.

Advocate Vikas Padora, appearing for the petitioner, said the plea was belated as the victims were on the run to save their lives and at no point of time efforts were made to ensure justice for them either by the state government or by the Centre.

"Even the courts did not take suo motu congnizance of the offence aimed to wipe out entire community from the earth," Padora said, alleging over 700 Pandits were killed in the Valley and that moreover, separatist leader Yasin Malik has confessed to his role in a news show on a television channel.

At one point of time, the bench got irked when the lawyer kept seeking issuance of directions and said "unfortunately, you are seeking headlines. Argue on law and facts".

The lawyer said that the entire community including him has suffered during the forced mass exodus from the Valley and grave injustice would be caused if justice is not done to the cause.

Kashmiri Pandits were forced to migrate from the Valley and could not join the investigation leading to the delay but neither the Centre nor the state government nor the judiciary took adequate note of it to do the needful, he said.

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Kashmiri Pandits were forced to flee the Valley in the early 1990s amid rising threats and attacks during the peak of militancy. PTI SJK ABA MNL RKS GSN GSN

--- ENDS ---
Former space scientist and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman Udupi Ramachandra Rao passed away at his residence in Bengaluru. The 85-year-old had served as the organisation's head from 1984-1994. He had launched India's first satellite Aryabhatta in 1975.

"Rao passed away at his residence in the city`s eastern suburb at around 3 a.m., after prolonged illness and age-related health issues," the Indian Space Research Organisation official told IANS.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted:

Saddened by demise of renowned scientist, Professor UR Rao. His remarkable contribution to India's space programme will never be forgotten.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 24, 2017

Rao was currently the Chairman of the Governing Council of the Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad and Nehru Planetarium at Bengaluru and chancellor of Indian Institute for Space Science and Technology (IIST) at Thiruvananthapuram.

Rao was the recipent of Padma Bhushan in 1976 and Padma Vibhushan in 2017.

He was the first Indian to be inducted in the Satellite Hall of Fame - Washington in 2013 and in International Astronautics Federation (IAF) in 2016.

Rao completed his B.Sc from Madras University, M.Sc from Banaras Hindu University and Ph.D from Gujarat University under the guidance of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai.

He taught at MIT and University of Texas at Dallas, before returning to India in 1966 as a professor at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.
New Delhi: India recorded a 34.6 per cent decline in registered number of workers emigrating to Gulf countries between 2014 and 2016, informed the Ministry of External Affairs. This has led to a slight drop in overall remittances or private transfers made by Indians working abroad.

The official figures for emigration to six gulf countries - United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain - dropped from 775,845 in 2014 and fell to 507,296 in 2016, said the ministry while responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

The decline in the number of Indian workers emigrating to the gulf countries has been attributed to economic slowdown in Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC countries by the MEA.

"There has been a decline in the number of Indian workers emigrating to the gulf countries for employment due to economic slowdown in GCC countries triggered by the weak oil prices, which has resulted in lack of demand for workers," said the MEA.

"However, it has been reported by the Indian Missions that by undertaking different fiscal measures, these countries have been able to cope with the depressed oil and gas prices," it added.

The decline in number of Indian workers emigrating to the Gulf has also impacted the overall remittances sent home.

"As per information provided by the Reserve Bank of India, the overall remittances/private transfers made by the Indians working abroad, all over the world, including Gulf countries, as recorded in Indias balance of payments statistics has fallen slightly from US$ 69,819 Million in 2014-15 to US$ 65,592 Million in 2015-16," said the ministry.
Mumbai: A 36-year-old woman was killed when she was thrown off her two-wheeler while avoiding a pothole on a road near Mumbai and was crushed by a passing truck. Bandra-resident Jagruti Hogale, a member of the all-women 'Bikerni' motorcycle club, was on a trip with two other bikers to Jawhar in Palghar district yesterday when the incident occurred, a police official said.

The advertising professional tried to overtake a truck on the Jawhar-Dahanu road around 9 AM but her bike landed in a pothole, throwing her off. She was then crushed under the wheels of the truck, the official said, quoting an eye witness.

Hogale was rushed to a hospital where she was declared dead before admission, Kasa police station's assistant police inspector Jaiprakash Guthe said. The biker had earlier driven up to Khardung La in Ladakh, one of the highest motorable roads in the world, the police official said.

An accidental death report has been registered and the truck driver has been arrested. He has been booked under the IPC sections 304-A (causing death by negligence), which carries a punishment of up to two years in jail, and 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), which provides for up to 6 months in prison, Guthe said.

Following the horrific incident, Maharashtras public works minister Chandrakant Patil assured that the state government has ordered an enquiry on the issue. He also asserted that the roads cannot be repaired till the rain stops.We completed the maintenance works of all roads before the monsoon. There have been issues on some roads, which have led to accidents. It is raining heavily in almost all parts of the state. Until the rain stops, repair and maintenance works would not be possible, leading daily Hindustan Times quoted Patil.

This is the fourth death this year caused by vehicles skidding on potholes on the Jawhar-Dahanu road, police said. On July 4 this year, an 18-year-old boy was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle while trying to avoid a pothole at Bhiwandi Naka in the neighbouring Thane district. He fell from the vehicle and later died of head injuries.

Earlier, a 21-year-old man was killed when his two-wheeler landed in a pothole near the state-run JJ Hospital in Mumbai in September last year. Popular radio jockey Malishka Mendonsa recently incurred the wrath of the Shiv Sena which controls Mumbai's civic body for a satirical song on pothole ridden-Mumbai roads during the monsoon.

(With inputs from agencies)
New Delhi: Iraqi Foreign Minister Dr Ibrahim Abdul-Kareem Hamza Al-Eshaiker Al-Jaafari on Monday said his government is not 100 percent sure whether the 39 missing Indian labourers are dead or alive.

They were kidnapped by the Islamic State terror group in Mosul three years ago.

While briefing the mediapersons here, the Iraqi minister said, Can't confirm anything about the missing Indians, adding that his government will continue to its level best to trace them.

"I am not 100 percent sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul are alive," al-Jaafari told the media. "We are trying our best (to trace them)."

Al-Jaafari is on a visit to India from July 24 to July 28.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met Ibrahim Al-Eshaiker Al-Jafari discussed the issue of 39 Indians kidnapped by ISIS three years ago from Mosul city, along with several other key areas of mutual interests.

Swaraj has met the families of the 39 persons around a dozen times since they were abducted in June 2014 and assured them that the government is doing everything to locate them. She has maintained that they have received inputs from sources over the months of the 39 men being alive.

Thousands of Indians visit Iraq annually for pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
New Delhi: Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif and former Army chief General Pervez Musharraf had a narrow escape on June 24, 1999, when an Indian Air Force fighter jet Jaguar was about to hit the Gulteri base at around 8:45 AM, a report said on Monday.

The pilot of the Jaguar was supposed to drop the bomb but chose not to fire it at the military base as Sharif and Musharraf were present at the target, shows an official document accessed by The Indian Express. Reportedly, an Air Commodore, who was airborne simultaneously, suggested the pilot to not fire the bomb, which was then dropped on the Indian side of the Line of Control.

On 24 June 1999, Jaguar CLDS [Cockpit Laser Designation System] engaged Point 4388. The pilot had lased over Gulteri across LoC but the bomb did not reach the target as it was released outside the laser basket," the newspaper report stated.

Gulteri, a forward administrative base of the Pakistan Army, was at the forefront of providing logistics support to Pakistani soldiers during Kargil war.

It has been reported that on that day, Sharif and Musharraf, were on their first visit to forwarding areas along the LoC in Shakma sector.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday constituted a medical board to examine a woman, who has sought permission to terminate her 22-week-old pregnancy on the grounds that the foetus was suffering from a neurological problem.

A bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar said the woman should be examined within two days by a medical board, consisting of the heads of the departments of gynaecology, neurology and cardiology of the Mumbai-based JJ Hospital.

The apex court fixed the matter for hearing on July 28 and directed Maharashtra's standing counsel Nishant Katneshwarkar to present the medical board's report before it in a sealed cover.

During the hearing, the counsel representing the woman argued that she had been examined by a paediatric neurologist who opined that the foetus was suffering from a neurological problem which was likely to aggravate.

Quoting the doctor, the counsel said the problem "may increase significantly before the delivery causing harm to the developing brain and possibly cognitive impairment".

According to the counsel, the doctor also said that after its birth, the infant would require neurosurgical procedure which could be expensive.

Section 3(2)(b) of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act prohibits the abortion of a foetus after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday described the outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee a guardian of the Constitution who always upheld its propriety.

"Pranab da exhibited a unique charm which won him many admirers. He made dealing with him a matter of delight. He put all his interlocutors at ease. He grew in stature with each day. His transformation from a senior minister to a president was exemplary. As a president he was completely non-partisan and conducted himself as an advisor and a guide to his governments," he said in a Facebook post.

Members of Parliament had yesterday bid adieu to the outgoing president at a gala ceremony in the Central Hall of Parliament. He will demit office tomorrow.

Following is Jaitley's full post:

The President Shri Pranab Mukherjee demits office in a few hours. His presidency was the culmination of extraordinary career of a political leader. India has seen a few politicians like him who had the capacity to evolve into a statesman irrespective of their political affiliation and the office that they held. Pranab da is one such leader who brought dignity to every office that he held.

My first contact with him started when he, along with Dr Manmohan Singh, was occupying the opposition benches during the Vajpayee government. He chaired important Standing Committees which had the responsibility of clearing several legislations. Three of them were important constitution amendments. One related to the freezing of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislatures despite demographic changes in several States. The second involved review of the Anti-Defection Law. The third one dealt with limiting the size of the Council of Ministers both in the centre and the States. His Committee expeditiously considered these amendments and improved upon the drafts that the government had prepared and produced a much better document. He evolved a consensus on all these issues. Even in Opposition he was never an obstructionist. He was a product of the parliamentary system and favoured using Parliament for larger national interest.

In his later years, I closely observed him both as a Member and subsequently as a Leader of the Opposition. His natural ability was to rise above partisan arguments. In Parliament, he almost spoke like an amicus curiae  a friend of the House, rather than a party leader. This quality enabled him to evolve a consensus in favour of the argument that he advanced. Very rarely did he lose his cool, but if he did, he was smiling a minute later and making up with his target through some complimentary references.

He had a great sense of history which blended with his vision of constitutional propriety. The democrat in him insisted that the government and the Opposition had to work in tandem on major issues. He could recollect parliamentary and judicial precedents to decide which was the right course that had to be pursued.

As President, he was unquestionably the guardian of the Constitution. He realised that in a democracy there could only be one power centre ie. elected government and the Prime Minister. He, therefore, actively associated with two different governments during his presidency with equal ease. He ensured that all decisions of the Council of Ministers had to conform to constitutional propriety. On some occasions, he wanted to be satisfied before he accorded his approval to those decisions. I was usually sent to interact with him. He was always well prepared on facts, on Constitutional requirements and the need for fairness. These essentials had to be balanced with the requirement of the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers being forwarded to him. This delicate balance he maintained throughout his tenure. He always accepted the advise of the Council of Ministers.

Pranab da exhibited a unique charm which won him many admirers. He made dealing with him a matter of delight. He put all his interlocutors at ease. He grew in stature with each day. His transformation from a senior Minister to a President was exemplary. As president he was completely non-partisan and conducted himself as an advisor and a guide to his governments. He owned up the programmes of the government and became their advocate. He once told me that he had the unique privilege of moving before Parliament the Constitution amendment of Good and Services Tax. He wanted to approve the Constitution amendment during his tenure as the President. It gave him great satisfaction when he did so.

He exits from the Rashtrapati Bhawan with a great stature. He will now assume a greater role of advising and guiding the nation as an amicus curiae which he always was.


New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the nation for the last time before he demits office.

He was sworn-in as the 13th President of India in 2012 after bagging the majority of the votes of the electoral college.

Poltu da, as he is lovingly called, had a long and illustrious political career, and was the presidential candidate of the United Progressive Alliance.

Here are the live updates:-

- President Pranab Mukherjee ends his farewell speech.

- I congratulate Ram Nath Kovind for becoming President; I have received more than I have given to the country: Pranab Mukherjee

Also Read: Full text of President Pranab Mukherjee's first speech after assuming office.

- For us, creation of an inclusive society has to be an article of faith: President Mukherjee

- Creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper have to be promoted in our institutions of higher learning: President Mukherjee

- Our universities should not be a place for rote-memorizing but an assembly of inquisitive minds: President Pranab Mukherjee

- A reordering of society is possible through the transformative power of education: President Mukherjee

- As I had said on assuming Office of the President, education is the alchemy that can take India to its next golden age: President

- Power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society: President Mukherjee

- Only a nonviolent society can ensure the participation of all sections of the people in the democratic process: President

- When I speak to you tomorrow, it will be as a citizen a pilgrim like all of you in Indias onward march towards glory: President Mukherjee

- During my five years in Rashtrapati Bhavan, we tried to build a humane and happy township: President

- The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance: President Mukherjee

- How successful I was in discharging my responsibilities will be judged, over time, by the critical lens of history: President Mukherjee

- We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal: President Pranab Mukherjee

- For development to be real, the poorest of the land must feel that they are a part of the nations narrative: President Pranab Mukherjee

- I have received much more from the country than I have given; for that, I will remain ever indebted to people of India: President Mukherjee

- For the past 50 years of my public life, my secret text has been the constitution of India.....my temple has been Parliament of India, my passion has been the service of the people: President Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan

- President Mukherjee begins the farewell speech.

- President Pranab Mukherjee addressing the nation on the eve of demitting office as the 13th President of the Republic of India.

- Under President Pranab Mukherjee, Rashtrapati Bhavan became a Lok Bhavan: PM Modi

- The guidance I received from President Pranab Mukherjee will help me immensely. I am sure those who worked with him feel the same: PM

- President Pranab Mukherjee is extremely knowledgable and extremely simple: PM

Also Read: President Pranab Mukherjee's full farewell speech

- Whenever I would discuss official matters with President Pranab Mukherjee he would guide me and offer constructive feedback: PM Modi

- Prime Minister is addressing a farewell programme for President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking a probe into mass murder of Kashmiri Pandits at the height of militancy in the Valley in 1989-90, holding no fruitful purpose would emerge as evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture.

The plea was made by an organisation named 'Roots In Kashmir' which claimed that 215 FIRs had been lodged relating to the killings of Kashmiri Pandits and other heinous offences and that none of the cases have reached a logical conclusion.

A bench of Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice DY Chandrachud cited the lapse of almost 27 years in raising the cause of Pandits before it as the key reason for rejecting the plea and said that now no evidence can be found.

"We have heard counsel for the petitioner at some length. We however decline to entertain this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, for the simple reason that the instances referred to in the present petition pertain to the year 1989-90, and more than 27 years have passed by since then.

"No fruitful purpose would emerge, as evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture. The instant petition under Article 32 of the Constitution is accordingly dismissed," the bench said.

Advocate Vikas Padora, appearing for the petitioner, said the plea was belated as the victims were on the run to save their lives and at no point of time efforts were made to ensure justice for them either by the state government or by the Centre.

"Even the courts did not take suo motu congnizance of the offence aimed to wipe out entire community from the earth," Padora said, alleging over 700 Pandits were killed in the Valley and that moreover, separatist leader Yasin Malik has confessed to his role in a news show on a television channel.

At one point of time, the bench got irked when the lawyer kept seeking issuance of directions and said "unfortunately, you are seeking headlines. Argue on law and facts".

The lawyer said that the entire community including him has suffered during the forced mass exodus from the Valley and grave injustice would be caused if justice is not done to the cause.

Kashmiri Pandits were forced to migrate from the Valley and could not join the investigation leading to the delay but neither the Centre nor the state government nor the judiciary took adequate note of it to do the needful, he said.

Kashmiri Pandits were forced to flee the Valley in the early 1990s amid rising threats and attacks during the peak of militancy.
New Delhi: Addressing a public gathering on a cleanliness drive in Jamhore village of the Aurangabad district in Bihar, Kanwal Tanuj the District Magistrate stoked a controversy after saying that those men who cannot build a toilet for their wives, should sell them.

"Due to lack of toilets, women get raped and harassed. It only costs Rs. 12,000 for the construction of the toilet. Is 12,000 more than anyone's wife's dignity? Who can let her wife get raped in return of Rs 12000? If this is your mentality then go and sell your wife. Those who cannot build toilet should sell or auction his wife,''Tanuj had said on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party on Monday demanded strict action saying,"He is an IAS officer and they are trained to have control on their language. Their salary comes out of the tax paid by people. His remark is against his conduct rules. Action should be taken against him. I would want to urge the government and the Chief Minister (Nitish Kumar), to take strict action against him."
By PTI: From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Jul 24 (PTI) Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will embark on a three-day visit to the Maldives tomorrow to take part in the countrys 52nd Independence Day celebrations as the chief guest.

Sharif has been invited by Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom to be the chief guest at the celebrations of the 52nd Independence Day of Maldives on July 26.

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Sharif will also hold talks with the Maldivian President during the visit, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

"A number of MoUs/Agreements for cooperation in various fields would also be signed after the talks," the Foreign Office said.

"Pakistan attaches high importance to its relations with the Maldives which are characterised by cordiality, mutual respect and commonality of interests," the statement said.

"The visit of the Prime Minister will provide impetus to further strengthen our bilateral relations with the Maldives in all areas including political, trade, economic, defence, tourism, education and people to people contacts," it said.

The Foreign Office said that Pakistans diplomatic relations with Maldives, established on July 26, 1966, have grown from "strength to strength".

"Both the countries closely coordinate with each other at regional and international fora on issues of mutual importance. The visit by Prime Minister is in line with our pro-active policy of engagement with the countries of our region," it said. PTI SH PMS

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Beijing: Amid a dragging stand-off on the border between the two Asian giants, China on Monday warned India not to underestimate the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and reiterated that Indian troops should pull back from the Dokalam area.

"Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the PLA is hard," ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a briefing, adding that its ability to defend China`s territory and sovereignty had "constantly strengthened".

The official statement comes after a Chinese daily on June 21 warned India to be ready for war and lose even its own territory if it did not pull back troops.

New Delhi and Beijing have been engaged in the standoff in the Dokalam area near the Bhutan tri-junction since June after a Chinese Army's construction party attempted to build a road. Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam, while the 'Dragon' claims it as part of its Donglang region.

In the wake of an Army face-off and chill in ties with India over Dokalam stand-off, the Chinese media outlets have been issuing provoking statements.

Amid the ongoing standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at the Dokalam area, the PLA also conducted live-fire exercises in Tibet.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will visit Beijing to attend the BRICS NSA's meeting on July 27-28.

India has said Beijing's action to "unilaterally determine tri-junction points" violated a 2012 India-China pact which says the boundary would be decided by consulting all the concerned parties.

The Indian Army is ready for a long haul in holding onto its position in the Dokalam area near the Bhutan tri-junction, notwithstanding China ratcheting up rhetoric against India demanding pulling back of its troops.

The Indian soldiers deployed in the disputed area have pitched in tents, in an indication that they are unlikely to retreat unless there was reciprocity from China's PLA personnel in ending the face-off at an altitude of around 10,000 feet in the Sikkim section.

A steady line of supplies is being maintained for the soldiers at the site, official sources said, signalling that Indian Army is not going to wilt under any pressure from China.
New Delhi: Veteran leader Shankersinh Vaghela, who quit the grand old party Congress July 21 has resigned as Leader of Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly on Sunday. The resignation letter which was sent to party president Sonia Gandhi clearly mentioned that Vaghela was forced to take this 'tough decision' as some Congress leaders were conspiring against him ahead of the Assembly polls, expected to be held in Gujarat in December.

Vaghela thanked Gandhi for making him Union minister in the UPA-1 government in the letter. Venting his anger on the Congress, Vaghela claimed he was left with no other option but to resign as his suggestions for the upcoming Assembly polls were not accepted.

"As I can see right now that once again history is repeating itself, as a well-planned conspiracy within the party is at work for ousting me during the forthcoming elections. Hence, I strongly feel that I should not remain in the party at the cost of my dignity and self-respect," he said in the letter.

My resignation letter to Madam Sonia Gandhi. pic.twitter.com/3CqPvLguq7  Shankersinh Vaghela (@ShankersinhBapu) July 23, 2017

Vaghela said since he has also decided to resign as the sitting Congress MLA of Kapadwanj seat, he will submit his resignation to the Gujarat Assembly speaker in the coming days.

The former RSS leader, who had left the Bharatiya Janata Party 20 years ago, also asserted that he would not join any other political party. "Congress party sacked me 24 hours ago as they did not know what I was going to say at this rally; when one's destruction time is soon to arrive, one begins to think negatively)," Vaghela had said, adding that he is finally free of Congress.

However, the Congress has asserted that it did not take any action against Vaghela and that the senior leader took a decision on his own accord. Vaghela had been at loggerheads with the Congress leadership for quite some. Last year in June, the former Gujarat chief minister lashed out at the Congress Party for lack of preparedness to fight the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections.
New Delhi: In his last address to the nation as president, Pranab Mukherjee on Monday advocated freeing of public discourse from violence and asserted that the country derived its strength from pluralism and tolerance.

He said the capacity for compassion and empathy was the "true foundation" of the country's civilisation. "But everyday, we see increased violence around us. At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust.

We must free our public discourse from all forms of violence, physical as well as verbal," Mukherjee, who will demit office tomorrow, said in his last televised address to the nation as the president.

He made it clear that only a non-violent society could ensure the participation of all sections of the people, especially the maginalised and the dispossessed, in the democratic process.

Also Read: President Pranab Mukherjee's full farewell speech

"The power of non-violence has to be resurrected to build a compassionate and caring society," Mukherjee, 81, said.

The soul of India, he emphasised, resided in "pluralism and tolerance".

"India is not just a geographical entity. It carries a history of ideas, philosophy, intellect, industrial genius, craft innovation and experience," the president said.

Plurality had come through the "assimilation of ideas" over the centuries, he said.

"Multiplicity in culture, faith and language is what makes India special. We derive our strength from tolerance," he added.

Not ruling out divergent stands in public discourse, he said, "We may argue, we may agree or we may not agree. But we cannot deny the essential prevalence of multiplicity of opinion. Otherwise, a fundamental character of our thought process will wither away."

The president reminded the people of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy and said the creation of an inclusive society had to be an article of faith.

Gandhi wanted the people to move forward unitedly in "ever-widening" thought and action, he said, and stressed the need for focusing on the poor.

"Financial inclusion is at the core of an equitable society. We must empower the poorest of the poor and ensure that the fruits of our policies reach the last person in the line," he said.

Mukherjee, a former lecturer who has often assumed the role of a teacher during his visits within and outside the country, spoke about education, which he called the alchemy that could take India to its next golden age.

Referring to the "transformative power" of education, he called for upgrading higher educational institutions to world-class levels.

"Our education system must accept disruption as a norm and prepare our students to manage and build upon the disruptions. Our universities should not be a place for rote- memorising but an assembly of inquisitive minds," he said.

Institutes of higher learning must promote "creative thinking, innovation and scientific temper", he said.

"It calls for the application of logic through discussion, argument and analysis. These qualities have to be cultivated and the autonomy of the mind has to be encouraged," he said.



Talking about the need for protecting the environment, he said nature had been kind in its bounty but cautioned that "when greed exceeds need, nature lets loose its fury".

He asked scientists and technologists to work with farmers and workers to revive the health of the soil, arrest the decline in water tables and restore ecological balance.

Mukherjee emphasised the people's right to lead a happy life which, he said, could be achieved through good governance, social inclusion and poverty eradication.

"Eradication of poverty would provide a strong boost to happiness. A sustainable environment would prevent damage to planetary resources. Social inclusion would ensure access to the fruits of progress to all," he pointed out.

Good governance would enable the people to "shape their own lives through transparent, accountable and participatory political institutions", the president said.

"We all have to act together now for the future may not give us another chance," he said.

Describing President Mukherjee as extremely knowledgeable and simple, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the guidance he received from the outgoing president will help him immensely.

"Whenever I would discuss official matters with President Pranab Mukherjee he would guide me and offer constructive feedback," he said after releasing the fourth volume of selected speeches of the President.

Mukherjee, who completed his five-year term today, will step down for President-elect Ram Nath Kovind, former Bihar Governor, who will assume office from tomorrow.

Poltu da, as he is lovingly called, came a long way from the reluctant schoolboy of West Bengal's Mirati village who grew to be one of India's most respected politicians.

It all started when Indira Gandhi spotted him during a by-election in Midnapore where he was V K Krishna Menon's election agent. His astute management saw Menon, a Malayali contesting in West Bengal as a candidate of Congress' rival faction Bangla Congress, win with a huge margin.

Impressed with his political acumen, Gandhi brought Mukherjee into the Congress and initiated his parliamentary journey through the Rajya Sabha in 1969.

There have been many firsts since then for the 81-year-old, fondly known as Pranab Da.

He became India's youngest finance minister of India in 1982 at the age of 47.

From 2004, he went on to head three crucial ministries - External Affairs, Defence and Finance - and became the first occupant of the Rashtrapati Bhavan to have this distinction.

He will also go down in the history as the only non-prime minister who was the leader of the Lok Sabha for eight years.

Known for his political acumen and ability to form consensus across party lines, Mukherjee was heading 24 of 39 GOMs (groups of ministers) when he became president in 2012. Between, 2004-12, he had chaired 95 GOMs.

That is why friends and rivals will agree that there was enough politics left in him when he accepted his retirement from active politics in the form of the presidency.

It's a mixed bag legacy for the politician who won his first election in 2004 from Jangipur in West Bengal.

Also Read: Full text of President Pranab Mukherjee's first speech after assuming office

Mukherjee's lasting contribution as finance minister, for instance, includes introduction of an egregious tax change - a retrospective amendment to the Income Tax act that targeted Vodafone and allowed closed tax cases to be reopened. That amendment shook foreign investor confidence in India as a safe investment destination, say experts.

A tough taskmaster, avid reader and history aficionado, Mukherjee has ensured that he leaves his mark on the presidency.

(With agency inputs)
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the government to allow a 10-year-old rape victim abort her 26-week-old pregnancy.

Responding on a plea seeking permission to terminate the foetus, a bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said that a medical board will look in to the possible risk on the girl's life due to the abortion.

The bench asked the member secretary of Chandigarh Legal Services Authority to assist it as an amicus curiae and get the rape survivor examined by a board of doctors on July 26, reported the PTI.

The top court further asked the member secretary to ensure that the girl and one of her parents are provided proper facilities during examination at PGI Chandigarh. The next hearing is now on July 28.

A public interest litigation or PIL was filed post Chandigarh district court refused the girl to undergo abortion on July 18.

Courts allow medical termination of pregnancy up to 20 weeks under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act and can make an exception if the foetus is genetically abnormal.

"Medical experts have categorically opined that if the 10-year-old rape survivor is forced to give birth through normal delivery or C-section, it may be fatal to the life of the girl as well her child," the petition filed through advocate Kedar Nath Tripathy had said, reported the PTI.

The petition also sought to amend Section 3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, allowing termination of pregnancies of more than 20 weeks, particularly involving child rape survivors after obtaining requisite opinion from a permanently constituted medical board.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday will hear a plea challenging the Centre's notification prohibiting sale and purchase of cattle at animal markets for slaughter on the grounds that it violates the right to free trade.

Earlier on July 11, the apex court, while hearing a matter on a cow slaughter ban, said that the Madras High Court`s stay on the government's notification banning the sale of cattle for slaughter at animal markets is operational.The Centre told the Supreme Court that owing to public objections, it is re-considering certain aspect of its recent rules banning sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter from animal markets.

The Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Narasimha, told the apex court that the Centre was studying the market trends in the regard and may come up with the modifications likely by end of August.Earlier, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had stayed the Centre's notification on cattle slaughter ban while the Kerala High Court refused to order a stay on it.

On May 25, the Centre through an order imposed a ban on the sale of cattle, including cows, for slaughter and restricted cattle trade solely to farm owners.Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Harsh Vardhan had ordered that the ministry has notified the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 to ensure that the sale of cattle is not meant for slaughter purposes.

Regulating animal trade is a state business, but animal welfare is a central subject, thereby providing the window for the ministry to notify the rule.In lieu of this, there was widespread opposition of the order, with many states openly denying accepting the notification.
New Delhi: Iraq Foreign Minister Dr Ibrahim al-Jaafari arrived in New Delhi on Monday morning for a five-day visit to India. Dr. Ibrahim will meet External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan to hold discussion on the entire gamut of bilateral relations between both the countries, as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest. He will be accompanied by a senior-level official delegation.

He's also scheduled to meet Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan in the afternoon. Later in the day, he's expected to meet Vice President Hamid Ansari at 6, Maulana Azad Road.

On the second day of his visit, the Iraqi Foreign Minister will attend a programme in the National Capital and on Wednesday he will fly to Mumbai to attend a programme.

On the fourth day of his visit, Dr Ibrahim will come back here to be a part of another programme and on Friday July 28, he will emplane to Iraq at around 4 a.m.

"India and Iraq have historically enjoyed close and friendly political, economic and cultural ties. Our robust bilateral trade amounted to nearly US$ 13 billion in 2016-17. Iraq contributes significantly to India`s energy security and is the second-largest supplier of crude oil to us (over 37 MMT during 2016-17). Thousands of Indians visit Iraq annually for pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement.

Minister of State for External Affairs V. K. Singh had visited Iraq this year to coordinate and facilitate the return of the Indians stuck in Iraq.

Earlier in August 2016, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar visited Iraq.Bilateral trade till August 2016 between India and Iraq was of USD 5077 Mn of which India`s Exports accounted for USD 425 Mn and Imports for 4652 Mn.Indian exports to Iraq consist of cereals, iron and steel, meat and meat products, pharmaceutical products, agro chemicals, cosmetics, rubber manufactured products, paints, gems and jewellery, ceramics, manufactures of metals, machine tools, electrical machinery and instruments, transport equipment, electronic goods, handicrafts, sugar, tea, garments.
New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has released the University Grants Commission (UGC) National Eligibility Test (NET) exam 2017 official notification.

The interested candidates can check cbsenet.nic.in for getting the details regarding CBSE UGC NET Exam 2017.

CBSE will conduct the next UGC-NET for Junior Research Fellowship and Eligibility for Assistant Professor on November 5, 2017.

The candidates are required to apply online from August 01, 2017. The last date for applying online is August 30, 2017 and fee can be paid up to August 31, 2017.

The role of CBSE is only upto the conduct of NET Examination and declaration of result. The e-certificates to qualified candidate are issued by UGC- NET Bureau. So the candidates declared qualified in NET are informed to contact Head, UGC NET Bureau, University of Delhi, South Campus, Benito Juarez Marg , New Delhi, Pin Code-110021, Phone No. (011-24116316, 24115416, 24115419) .
Srinagar: A CRPF company commander was allegedly thrashed by his subordinates following death of their colleague due to illness in Anantnag district of Kashmir, a police official said on Monday.

Khupmani Misall of 28 Battalion CRPF, posted at Qaimoh, was taken ill on Saturday night, the official said.

He said Misall was taken to the CRPF Unit hospital at Anantnag, where he died.

The death of the jawan angered his colleagues who allegedly thrashed their company commander for not allowing Misall to be taken to the nearest health facility, which caused delay in timely medical attention to him, the official said.

He said they have not received any complaint from the CRPF in this regard so far. Inquest proceedings have been initiated to ascertain the jawan's cause of death.

A CRPF spokesman said an inquiry has been ordered into the entire incident including the alleged thrashing of the company commander by his subordinates.

"Once the inquiry is completed, action, as warranted under rules, will be taken," he added.

The incident comes close on the heels of Army men allegedly thrashing and injuring seven police personnel at Gund in Sonamarg and ransacking the police station also.

While the Army has downplayed the incident as a minor altercation, the state police has asked the Army to take action against the erring soldiers.
Mangaluru: A 22-year-old student of a city college was arrested here on Monday for allegedly swindling over Rs 50 lakh from other students by borrowing sums from them, citing various reasons.

The accused, identified as Vinod, a native of Sangli in Maharashtra, has been staying with his parents in an apartment in the city for the last 25 years, police said.

The fraud was revealed after Vinod, who borrowed Rs three lakh from another student Sunil Shetty with the promise of returning it within three days, failed to repay the amount even after two months.

He had told Shetty that his parents were into the jewellery business, police said.

Shetty filed a police complaint and preliminary investigation revealed that Vinod had taken money from many other students under one pretext or other.

Several students have since then filed complaints against him.

Police said they had got information that he had duped over 50 students and taken more than Rs 50 lakh from them.

The accused was produced in court and remanded to judicial custody.
Thiruvananthapuram: In the recent times, Kerala has fast emerged as a hot bed of terror-related activities with many having close links with the Syria and Iraq-based global terror outfit Islamic State.

What is certainly an alarming situation for the Indian security agencies, many residents of Kerala are believed to have forged strong links with the ISIS, new agency ANI claimed on Monday.

Though the agency didn't confirm the number of ISIS recruits, it, however, quoted the sources saying that suspects have gone to Syria to join the dreaded terror outfit.

The NIA has been probing cases of at least 21 missing Keralites who had left the state under mysterious circumstances over a period of time and are suspected to have joined the IS.

Among them, 17 were from Kasaragod and four from Palakkad. They include four women and three children.

In 2016, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had informed the State Assembly that 21 people, including children, were missing and this included 17 from Kasargode district and four from Palakkad district.
Madhya Pradesh government is working on a crop insurance scheme separate from that of the Centre. The state government says that the central scheme does not meet all the requirements of the farmers.

By Hemender Sharma: The Madhya Pradesh government is thinking of starting its own insurance scheme that can replace the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojna (PMFBY) that was launched with much fanfare by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at MP's Sehore in 2014.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan at that time had called the PMFBY a boon and permanent solution to the problems of farmers.

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But, that boon seems to falling short on expectations of the Shivraj government. Talking to India Today outside the Madhya Pradesh Assembly in Bhopal today state Agriculture Minister Gauri Shanker Bisen confirmed that the government was planning to have its own agriculture insurance scheme for farmers of the state.

"Our Chief Minister has made it clear that farmers' interests have to be kept in mind and it has been felt that Insurance companies work for a profit. Also, it has been felt that if the crop loss is more than the premium collected the insurance, the company will not compensate the farmers. So, we are thinking of having our own insurance scheme. The work has started but it is just in the initial stage," Bisen said.

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM

According to those working on the proposed insurance scheme, it has been felt that the PMFBY does not provide help from natural disasters and losses suffered due to adverse market conditions. These concerns would be addressed in the new insurance scheme.

The opposition Congress party has, however, is not happy with the proposal. The Congress alleged that the BJP was just trying to divert the attention of farmers.

"The farmers know that Shivraj Singh has bullets for them as he demonstrated at Mandsaur. No matter how hard he tries, the farmers across the state will not forget the fact. This new insurance scheme is just another jumla," a Congress spokesman said.

Under the PMFBY, insurance companies made a neat profit of around Rs 2,000 crores in 2016. A premium of Rs 3,600 crores was collected from across the state while claims worth only Rs 1,600 crores were settled.

Also read:

How onion auction was rigged to sell to private players at throwaway prices in Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh farmers strike: 3 reasons why Shivraj Singh Chouhan may not be a worried man

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Centre and Madhya Pradesh Government over the 2016 encounter of SIMI activists in Bhopal.

The apex court also asked that why was the case not handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at the time.

The police alleged that the accused were escaping from jail which led to an encounter in which the activists were killed.

However, parents of the slain SIMI activists alleged that they were killed by the police and branded it as a "cold-blooded murder".

The Supreme Court has granted four weeks time to reply. Eight Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists in October, 2016 were killed in an encounter by the police on the outskirts of Bhopal.

The encounter took place hours after they escaped from the high-security Bhopal Central Jail and killed a security guard.
Mumbai: Markets broke new ground on Monday as the Nifty came tantalisingly close to 10,000 and the Sensex signed off at 32,246 after banking stocks came alive on better-than-expected quarterly results.

Oil and gas, IT and FMCG stocks also threw their weight behind the rally.

There was cheer on the growth front as the (IMF), in its World Economic Outlook Update, retained India GDP forecast at 7.2 cent for the current fiscal, saying the country will pip China in growth sweepstakes in 2017 and 2018 as well.

The 30-share BSE barometer rose to all time intra-day high of 32,320.86 as index heavyweight Reliance Industries, ITC and TCS registered strong gains.

The Sensex settled higher by 216.98 points, or 0.68 per cent, at 32,245.87, a closing record.

The NSE Nifty too broke free and hit an all time high of 9,982.05 in day's trade. However, it closed at 9,966.40, a life high, up 51.15 points, or 0.52 per cent, over its last close.

Reliance Industries raced to 52-week high on better than estimated earnings and announcement of bonus share. It closed with gains of 1.89 per cent on the BSE.

The stock of HDFC Bank jumped 1.83 per cent after it posted 20 per cent growth in net profit.

"Positive growth metrics for India endorsed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya propped up investors' risk-on sentiment. Latest report from the IMF has projected India's growth at 7.7 per cent in 2018 estimating a significant increase against the backdrop of ongoing economic reforms," said Karthikraj Lakshmanan, Senior Fund Manager ? Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.

Bharti Airtel, FMCG giant ITC, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, ICICI Bank and SBI all had a good day, posting gains of up to 2.20 per cent.

Better-than-expected earnings by most corporates so far and a steady progress in monsoon also aided the rally that saw several stocks touching fresh 52-week highs, traders said.

The bullishness rubbed off on broader markets, lifting both small-cap and mid-cap indices.

Bucking the trend, Dr Reddy's, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma lost by up to 2.44 per cent.

Most Asian markets ended mixed as investors trained their attention to the US Federal Reserve meeting later in the week.

European shares were under pressure in their late morning trade.

Foreign portfolio investors bought shares worth a net Rs 12.90 crore while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) made purchase to the tune of Rs 147.66 on Friday, as per provisional data.




Bhubaneswar: Odisha government on Monday decided to set up around 6,500 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) and Automatic Rain Gauges (ARG) under the Odisha State Disaster Management Autrhority (OSDMA) for better drought management.

Besides the OSDMA, departments of Water Resource, Agriculture, the Central Relief Commissioner and IMD would also be involved in the setting up of the AWSs and ARGs.

This was decided at a meeting of the state drought monitoring cell (SDMC), chaired by chief secretary A P Padhi.

Padhi directed the OSDMA to set up farmers? advisory cell in the Agriculture department to advise the farmers about appropriate measures to be taken, as per the weather conditions.

The advisory cell will issue agricultural advice on the basis of the weather readings and soil moisture condition, to be availed from the AWSs and ARGs.

The chief secretary said, the AWS and ARGs would be set up in secure locations.

It was decided to locate the AWSs and ARGs in the premises of gram panchayat offices and OPTCL power stations. These stations would have GIS coordinates, OSDMA chief P K Mohapatra said.

Under the new system, the SDMC will study the data received from these automatic stations. Other parameters like rainfall deviation, dry spell situation, vegetation indices, and crop situation, soil moisture and hydrological indices will be integrated and analyzed scientifically on regular basis for advance assessment of any drought-like situation, Mohapatra said.

Padhi directed seven departments of Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment, Water Resources, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Fisheries and Animal Resource Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water and the IMD to nominate nodal officers to coordinate with the SDMC and furnish the required data on weekly basis.

Meanwhile, the Odisha government has signed a MOU with Karnataka Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre for mutual exchange of knowledge, technical knowhow and subject expertise for more effective monitoring of drought units.
New Delhi: The showbiz industry went into a state of a tizzy when private pictures of Malayalam actress Mythili were leaked online. Now, it is being said that Kerala police has arrested a production executive named Kiran Kumar for posting her images on social media.

According to an India.com report, the bond of friendship between the duo turned sour with time and things got ugly towards the end. Kiran was reportedly blackmailing Mythili and demanding money from her. When she ignored his demands, he posted the images online which went viral in no time.

This is when Mythili approached the police and filed a complaint.

As per reports, Kiran has been booked under sections 354 (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66 (A) of the IT Act.

Further details awaited.
Bhubaneswar: National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI) on Monday said its Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) App has crossed 16 million downloads and 4 million active customer base and a new updated version would be launched soon.

BHIM App is a common platform across the nation for making simple, easy and quick payments.

"Transactions via BHIM App is witnessing growth with each passing month since its launch on December 30, 2016. Download numbers breaching 16 million mark is a remarkable achievement towards digital transactions and creating a less-cash society," A P Hota, MD and CEO of NPCI, said today.

Currently, the 1.3 version of the app is available on Google Play Store and Apple Store and soon a new update (Version 1.4) of the app will be launched, he said.

BHIM referral scheme is also operational now, where the existing BHIM user (referrer) needs to encourage the new BHIM user (referee) to download the BHIM App and enter the referrer's mobile number as the referral code.

For both referrer and the referee to get their incentive, the referee has to make minimum 3 unique transactions totalling minimum value of Rs 50. On successful completion of the process, the referrer would get Rs 10 and the referee who does the payment would get Rs 25, NCPI said in a release.

About BHIM/Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a smart mobile phone based app that allows simple, easy and quick payment transactions using UPI. One can easily make direct bank to bank payments instantly and collect money using Mobile number or payment address.

It is a unique payment solution which empowers an individual with immediate send and collect request. It uses an email like Virtual Payment Address (VPA)/ Mobile Number@upi /Account number and IFSC Code/Aadhaar Number as payment identifier for sending or collecting money instantly.

NPCI is an umbrella organisation for all retail payments system in India. It was set up with the guidance and support of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks' Association (IBA).
New Delhi: Google has announced a new update for users, to enable them to discover, promote and attend various events across the town with the help of using user-friendly interface.

As per the new Google update, everyone can now search for events of their choice on the Google mobile search app.

The new feature will display a concise summary of events and activities from popular sites from across the web like BookMyShow, AllEvents.in, EventsHigh and 10times.com.Each listing contains key details in the event title including date, time, location, and even price where available.

Tapping on an event listing takes the user directly to the website from where they can learn more or buy tickets making it easy to use.Google, however, has also released developer guidelines to help developers format their event listings so that users can find them with ease when looking for activities and events on the app.
Mumbai: Kapil Sharma hasnt been keeping well for quite some time. There were reports suggesting that the comedian had to call off The Kapil Sharma Show shoot a couple of times in the recent past owing to illness. His sister Pooja has spoken about the same to make some clarifications.

According to a report in Bollywoodlife, originally attributed to DainikBhaskar.com, Pooja said, These days, bhai is going through lot of health issues and its sad to hear that people are calling him unprofessional. He has always respected his work; he will never give an excuse to cancel his shoot.

It is also being believed that low TRPs have been a major cause of concern and Kapil is stressed about the same. His has been suffering from low BP and the doctors have reportedly asked him to take rest.

Moreover, The Kapil Sharma Show faces stiff competition from The Drama Company even though the new programme hosted by Krushna Abhishek hasnt impressed the viewers much.
New Delhi: Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is on a visit to India from July 24-28, said on Monday that he was not sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul since 2014 were still alive.

"I am not 100 percent sure if the 39 Indians missing in Mosul are alive," al-Jaafari told the media.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister, however, assured that all efforts are being made to trace the missing Indian labourers.

"We are trying our best (to trace them)," he added. Most of the 39 Indians who went missing in 2014 are from Punjab.

His comments came days after Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh visited Iraq after Iraqi forces aided by an international coalition liberated Mosul from the IS on July 9.

EAM Swaraj had earlier met with the visiting Iraqi leader in the national capital this morning.

The two leaders had reportedly discussed the issue of 39 Indians kidnapped by ISIS three years ago from Mosul city, along with several other key areas of mutual interests.

His visit came just two weeks after Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the liberation of countrys second largest city, Mosul, from ISIS.

Swaraj, who met with the relatives of the missing Indians last week, had said that the missing Indians might be imprisoned in Badush region of northwest Mosul, where the fighting between ISIS and Iraqi forces is still going on.

Sushma told the family members that an Iraqi official quoting intelligence sources had informed Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh that the missing Indian citizens were deployed at a hospital, from where they were later shifted to a farm, before they were put in Badush jail.

However, a media report from the region on July 22 claimed that the jail was abandoned several weeks ago.

The Union Minister also told family members that Al-Jafari might shed some light on the possible whereabouts of the kidnapped Indian citizens.

Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal MP Chandu Majra sought answers from the government on the issue in Parliament today.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the MP said that most of the missing citizens are from Punjab and the truth must be let out.
Ghaziabad: After a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Uttar Pradesh on Monday awarded the death sentence to accused Moninder Singh Pandher and Surinder Koli in the 20-year-old Pinki Sarkar murder case, the mother of victim said that as long as the punishment is not implemented she will not rest.

"We will fight for our rights. The court has given order, implementing it will take another 10-11 years. As long as that doesn`t happen, I won`t be at rest," Pinki Sarkar`s mother told the media here.

Meanwhile, the victim`s advocate, Khalid Khan, said, "The court agreed that this was inhuman and the rarest of rare case.

The CBI hadn`t produced any evidence against Pandher, and he was punished following victim`s statement. Under Section 302, they had been given the death sentence.

The penalty has also been imposed on them. Surinder Kohli and Pandher both were found guilty.

On Saturday, the bench found prime accused Moninder Singh Pandher and his helper Surinder Koli guilty.

The case pertains to the horrific Nithari case where the police found skulls and bones of 16 people near Pandher`s house in a Noida village.

The CBI registered a case under Sections 302, 376, 364, 201 and 120 (B) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on December 29, 2006.

Both Pandher and his domestic help Surinder Koli have confessed to charges of raping, killing and cannibalism.

Koli has been already convicted of the five murders and was sentenced to death.

While earlier he was given death sentence which was later changed to a life sentence by the Supreme Court on September 7, 2014.
Lucknow: The kidnappers of Uttar Pradesh businessman Sanjeev Gupta have reportedly demanded Rs 100 crore in ransom from his family even as his whereabouts remain sketchy for a second day.



The ransom message sent from Gupta`s mobile phone to his wife Sarika Gupta threatens he will be harmed if the money was not paid.



Gupta`s car (UP83 AC-4100) has since been recovered from a mechanic`s shop in Uttar Pradesh while the location of his mobile phone being used by the criminals has been traced to Delhi and Chandigarh.



A team of police officers fear the businessman might have been taken to Chandigarh.



The Special Task Force also feels that the kidnappers are continuously changing location to escape electronic surveillance.



Gupta is a partner in prominent food chain Sagar Ratna, located about 30 km from Firozabad where he lives. He was kidnapped on Sunday.
President Sonia Gandhi will be protesting with other party members near Gandhi statue in the Parliament around 10:30am today.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Congress party led by President Sonia Gandhi is all geared up to protest inside and outside the Parliament today. This comes after Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended six MPs.

President Sonia Gandhi will be protesting with other party members near Gandhi statue in the Parliament around 10:30am, after the Congress Parliamentary Party meet in party office.

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"Our MPs were just protesting as we were not allowed to raise mob lynching issue in the house. But Speaker madam without listening to our side of story announced such harsh punishment. We will protest inside and outside Parliament," Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M K Raghavan for their improper behaviour in the Parliament.

Congress MPs were demanding a debate on mob lynching in the lower house. They tore official papers and threw it towards the Chair, prompting members of the treasury benches to shout "shame, shame".

Sumitra Mahajan said that all this happened depsite her allowing Mallikarjun Kharge and few other members to speak. When they misbehaved the speaker suspended them from the house for 5 days.

"We were raising an issue that impacts us all. If talking about mob lynching and atrocities against Dalits, minorities will lead to suspension then we are ready to get suspended again and again," said Congress MP Ranjit Ranjan.

Meanwhile, Congress party's youth wing workers are planning to tie a black cloth around their mouth staging a silent march upto the Parliament.

Even last year 25 Congress MPs were suspended by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan from the house for five days.

Also Read

Massive turnout at the Delhi Congress Protest against GST

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LucknowShort-staffed for very long, the Uttar Pradesh Police will soon be rolling out a major recruitment drive, an official said on Monday.



Applications for eligible candidates would be invited some time next week, and the drive would cover vacancies of over 30,000 police constables and 3,200 sub-inspectors, the official said.



Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath`s government proposes to recruit more than 1.5 lakh police personnel in the next five years.



In the past too there have been police recruitments, specially in the two regimes of the Samajwadi Party (SP), first when Mulayam Singh Yadav was the Chief Minister and then when his son Akhilesh Yadav was in power.



Both the recruitment drives were tainted with charges of nepotism and favouritism by the political leaders. The employments were subsequently set aside and challenged in the courts.



The present dispensation, a source said, was laying special emphbasis on ensuring that the process was transparent and judicious.


Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday an arrest warrant against Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung, his wife Asha and 20 others before a city court in connection with the Madan Tamang murder case.

The CBI counsel prayed before the chief judge of City Sessions Court Kundan Kumar Kumai that the arrest warrant be issued against the 22 accused, who were absent at the hearing in the case.

Out of the 48 accused in the case against whom CBI has prayed for framing of charges for the murder of All India Gorkha League leader Madan Tamang in the heart of Darjeeling in 2011, 26 accused were present.

The appeal from CBI came on a day when the Director General of Police and other senior police officers are expected to visit Darjeeling to assess the law and order situation in the hills as the GJM-sponsored indefinite shutdown entered its 40th day.

The situation in Darjeeling still remains tense tense but no incidents of violence or arson has been reported since last night, police said.

West Bengal DGP Surajit Kar Purkayastha, along with ADGP (law and order) Anuj Sharma and other senior police officers are scheduled to visit Darjeeling today.

They will hold meetings with district police officers and administrative officials.

Police and security forces patrolled the streets of the hills and kept a tight vigil at every entry and exit routes.

Except medicine shops, all the other shops, restaurants,, hotels, schools and colleges remained closed.

The GJM has plans to hold rallies in various parts of the hills in demand of separate state of Gorkhaland.

In the morning, some political party activists, dressed in traditional Nepali attire, took out rallies.



They were heard shouting slogans in support of Gorkhaland.

With food supply severely hit due to the ongoing shutdown, GJM activists and NGOs of the hills were seen distributing food to the locals.

With PTI inputs
Kabul: At least 35 people were killed when the Taliban attacked a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend, a presidential spokesman said on Monday.

"When the Taliban entered the hospital they killed 35, all civilians," spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. "This is a cruel crime against humanity."

He did not elaborate, but unconfirmed reports Sunday claimed that the Taliban had set the hospital alight and killed those inside.

The Taliban have denied the claim, though a spokesman said that parts of the local hospital were damaged in fighting in the area.

It came as the insurgents captured Taywara district in Ghor province after days of fighting, the latest victory by the resurgent militants.

Afghan forces control 59.7 per cent of the country, according to a US watchdog's report issued in May after the winter lull in fighting, up slightly from the previous quarter.

But the insurgents have ramped up their offensive across the country since launching their so-called "spring offensive" earlier this year.
Beirut: Hezbollah said its forces seized a strategic valley from Sunni Muslim militants on Monday, the latest advance in an offensive to oust jihadists from their last foothold along the Syria-Lebanon border.

The Shi`ite Muslim Hezbollah said it had advanced from several directions in the Wadi al-Kheil valley in Juroud Arsal, a barren mountainous border zone that has served as a base for militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.

The advance gave Hezbollah control over what had been "the most important base for Nusra Front" in the area, Hezbollah`s military media unit said in a statement.

The offensive, launched on Friday by Hezbollah and the Syrian army, has so far focused on militants from al Qaeda`s former Syria branch, previously called the Nusra Front.

Hezbollah has reported rapid advances against Nusra fighters. The next target will be territory held by Islamic State militants, local media have reported.

The Syrian army and Hezbollah recaptured the area around the town of Fleita on the Syrian side of the border on Sunday, the Syrian state news agency SANA said.

The offensive has so far killed 19 Hezbollah combatants and more than 130 Sunni militants, according to a security source.

Hezbollah has played a critical part in previous campaigns against Sunni insurgents along Lebanon`s border, part of its wider role backing President Bashar al-Assad in Syria`s six-year-old civil war.

Hezbollah`s role has been criticised by its Lebanese political opponents, including Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who is a Sunni.
London: The parents of Charlie Gard dropped their legal battle to give the terminally ill British baby further treatment on Monday and will now hold discussions with his London hospital about how he should be allowed to die.

Charlie`s mother, Connie Yates, who won the support of US President Donald Trump and Pope Francis with a campaign to keep him alive, said 11-month-old Charlie could have lived a normal life if he had been given treatment earlier.

"This is the hardest thing we`ll ever have to do," she said in London`s High Court where a judge had been due to hear final arguments as to why a hospital should not turn off the boy`s life support.

"We have decided it is no longer in his best interests to pursue treatment," Yates said. "We have decided to let our son go... Charlie did have a real chance of getting better. Now we will never know what would have happened if he got treatment."

Charlie has a rare genetic condition causing progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. His parents had sought to send him to the United States to undergo experimental therapy.

Britain`s courts, backed by the European Court of Human Rights, refused permission, saying it would prolong his suffering without any realistic prospect of helping the child.

Lawyer Grant Armstrong, speaking in the High Court, said the parents had dropped their legal fight for Charlie to continue to receive treatment because scans showed that the child suffered irreversible damage.

"For Charlie, it`s too late, time has run out. Irreversible muscular damage has been done and the treatment can no longer be a success," he said.

"Charlie has waited patiently for treatment. Due to delay, that window of opportunity has been lost."

The judge hearing the case, Nicholas Francis, said no parents could have done more for their child.

Francis had been due to preside over a final two-day hearing after which he would have decided whether the boy`s parents could take Charlie to the United States for treatment by Michio Hirano, a professor of neurology at New York`s Columbia University Medical Center.

Hirano had said he believed there was at least a 10 percent chance his nucleoside therapy could improve the condition of Charlie, who cannot breathe without a ventilator, and that there was a "small but significant" chance it would help aid brain functions.
Beijing: China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) will hold war games instead of usual military parade to showcase its military might on the world's largest standing force's 90th anniversary next week, a media report said on Monday.

President Xi Jinping, who is also the overall commander of the 2.3 million-strong army, has ordered war games over military parade to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA on August 1, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Xi is expected to attend the drills in full battle uniform, it said.

He will be the special guest at China's biggest annual war games at Asia's largest military training base, the Post quoted officials as saying.

President Xi will make his first known visit to the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base, 400-km northwest of Beijing in Inner Mongolia, to observe war games involving cyberwarfare, special troops, army aviation and electronic countermeasures, the daily said quoting PLA sources.

"There had been speculation the anniversary would be marked by a parade in Beijing, but Xi, who as chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), has been pushing the PLA to modernise, will instead be guest of honour at Zhurihe to see how that effort is progressing," it said.

"There will not be a military parade on Tiananmen Square in Beijing on August 1 as rumoured, but a full-scale, head- to-head military manoeuvre in Zhurihe to celebrate the armys birthday," a military insider told the Post, adding that Xi would observe the war games from the base?s command centre.

He said a squadron of Chinas first stealth fighter, the J-20, which went into service with the PLA Air Force in March, was very likely to feature.

"All participant units will grab this opportunity to show off state-of-the-art development," he said.

"The full-scale military manoeuvre will test the PLAs capability to integrate and coordinate land forces, army aviation, the newly established rocket force, strategic support units and logistics between different troops, with more hi-tech weapons being displayed," the official said.

The planned war games coincide with over a month-long standoff between Chinese and Indian troops in the Dokalam area in the Sikkim sector.

Chinese and Indian soldiers have been locked in a face- off in the disputed area in the southernmost part of Tibet in an area also claimed by Indian ally Bhutan after Indian troops stopped the Chinese army from building a road in the area.

Besides Dokalam, China is also concerned by the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile by the US in South Korea despite its opposition.

"The war games this year were supposed to be the biggest ever to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA, but developments on Chinas borders, such as the current military stand-off between Chinese and Indian troops in the Himalayas and Pyongyangs missile tests, may affect its scale," the daily quoted the military insider as saying.

The PLA was founded on August 1, 1927 when the Communist Party of China (CPC) under the leadership of Mao Zedong carried on with his national liberation movement.

It is one of the rare national armies which still continues to function under the leadership of the CPC and not the Chinese government.

Xi heads the Central Military Commission (CMC) which is the overall command for the PLA.

Xi who heads the CPC, the presidency besides the military, has emerged as the most powerful leader holding all the three posts from the first day he came to power and carried out major reforms of the military as part of his plans to make it most modern force.

The massive drills has been kept as a secret as the PLA which held a media briefing here today on its 90th anniversary celebrations has not announced the programme of celebrations.

The biggest military parade in China's modern history was held in Beijing on September 3, 2015, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war.

"There is no sign any military parade will take place in Beijing because so far we have not seen any marching training inside or outside the capital," Beijing-based military expert Li Jie told the Post, adding that such training always started several months before a parade.

Retired PLA major general Xu Guangyu said live war games could be part of the PLA's birthday celebration.

Xu said the unscripted manoeuvres at Zhurihe would add authenticity to the army's training because the encounters would be closer to actual battles.

Macau-based military commentator Antony Wong Dong said that based on video footage and reports provided by state media, the scale of war games in Zhurihe had been closer to real battles in recent years, indicating the PLA ground forces determination to abandon its previous single force operation and move to joint operation involving different units.
STEPANAKERT, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. Vardavar  the Armenian festival when people douse each other with water  was celebrated in Artsakhs Tigranakert.

The state tourism committee and Artsakhs economy ministry initiated the Discover Your Country program for representatives of the media, with Tigranakert being one of the destinations.

Artsakhi locals were excited, foreign tourists were impressed.

Photos by Tatev Duryan

Vardavar is an Armenian festival where people drench each other with water.

It is a Christian tradition, celebrating the transfiguration of Jesus Christ. Vardavar is celebrated 98 days (14 weeks) after Easter.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. The military investigative committee has launched an investigation into the death of Junior Sergeant Vardan Melkonyan, an enlisted serviceman of the Armenian Armed Forces.

The investigative committee told ARMENPRESS the body of the serviceman was discovered in the early morning of July 23 near an unnamed military base. The body was hanged.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS.A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 40, and the death toll could rise, an Interior Ministry spokesman in the Afghan capital said, Reuters reports.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the Islamist group.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandian and his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Janelidze, Vice Prime Minister, minister of foreign affairs, exchanged messages on the occasion of 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Georgia, the foreign ministry told ARMENPRESS.

In his message, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia mentions that the twenty five years are just a drop in the bucket of the centuries-old chronology of our two nations. However, in the modern history of the two countries, that have regained their independence, this past quarter of a century defines an important phase of establishing and enhancing interstate friendly relations, a period that has been filled with significant achievements and successes.

Edward Nalbandian stresses, that Armenia is determined to exert joint efforts in further strengthening and developing the relations based on this traditional ties, adding that it will be possible to make full use of the existing opportunities in a more efficient manner, once the whole potential of our bilateral relations is explored. The Foreign Minister of Armenia highlighted that Armenians of Georgia play a significant role in strengthening the traditionally friendly Armenian-Georgian relations and serves as a bridge between our two countries.

Concluding the message Foreign Minister of Armenia expresses the confidence that through effective cooperation the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Georgia will continue to make their important contribution to the development of relations between the two countries.

Foreign minister of Georgia notes that over the last two decades, since regaining the independence, Georgia and Armenia have developed relations, based on mutual understanding and common interests. Minister states, that two countries have already achieved a significant progress in various directions, with many more opportunities ahead.

Mikheil Janelidze commends the existing relations between two people and close ties between the two countries fully comply with the traditional friendship between two nations and are based on solid historical foundation and the mutually shared principles of freedom and democracy.

Foreign Minister of Georgia emphasized with satisfaction the close and effective cooperation of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Georgia and Armenia, and confirms the readiness to undertake all the necessary efforts to further strengthen our cooperation in bilateral and multilateral formats
By PTI: Washington, Jul 24 (PTI) Pet translating devices that allow you to talk to your furry companions may become a reality within the next 10 years, experts suggest.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) software to help analyse the calls of prairie dogs - a type of north American rodents - researchers found that they had "a sophisticated communication system that has all the aspects of a language".

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"They have words for different species of predator and can describe the colour of clothes of a human, or the coat of coyotes or dogs," said Con Slobodchikoff, professor at Northern Arizona University in the US.

Slobodchikoff is convinced that other animals use similarly decipherable language and is attempting to raise money to develop a cat and dog translation device.

"A lot of people talk to their dogs and share their innermost secrets," Slobodchikoff was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Researchers suggest that devices that can can translate animal language may be less than 10 years away. PTI APA MHN SAR MHN

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YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. The main purpose of the bill of the joint operation of Norduz-Meghri gate is to launch perspective economic agreements, expert on Iran Armen Israyelyan told a press conference today.

This relates to increasing of bilateral commercial turnover volumes and implementation of various programs in the economic branch. The joint operation of the Norduz-Meghri gate is aimed at the implementation of transit cargo shipments, namely shipments en route from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea, he said, adding that it will also increase the investment appeal of both countries for international investors.

The expert said a task force will be created for rapid customer service in order to avoid double operations in border checkpoints and swiftly carry out customs procedures.

In addition, Armenia and Iran will exchange information on smuggling cases, in order to rapidly solve the problems which might occur at the border, Israyelyan said.

He said a significant growth has been seen in the Iranian-Armenian trade turnover in the recent years.

In 2016, the commercial turnover (non oil products) amounted 170 million dollars, compared to the 120-130 million of 2015.

In the past couple of years a number of economic processes happened  the visa regime was lifted between Iran and Armenia, the 500 dollar insurance payment for inbound vehicles from Iran to Armenia was revises and decreased to 90 dollars etc. This also contributed to the development of tourism, he said.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian on July 24 held a meeting with Ambassador of Poland to Armenia Jerzy Marek Nowakowski on the occasion of completion of his diplomatic mission, press service of the Ministry told Armenpress.

Minister Nalbandian attached importance to Nowakowskis personal contribution to development of the Armenian-Polish ties at different spheres and awarded the Ambassador with Foreign Ministrys Honorary Medal for his valuable input.

The Polish Ambassador thanked for highly appreciating his activity and the continuous support provided by the Foreign Ministry during his mission in Armenia.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. Human Rights Defender of Armenia Arman Tatoyan held a phone conversation with the representative of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (CoE) over the shelling of bordering villages of Armenias Tavush province by the Azerbaijani forces on July 20-22, 2017, the Ombudsmans Office told Armenpress.

Ombudsman Tatoyan expressed concern that the Azerbaijani armed forces are targeting mainly civilians and their property, shell the schools, kindergartens, houses of the village, especially at the times of the day when the possibility of causing danger to civilians life and health is higher.

The Ombudsman stated that the international community must publicly condemn the targeted actions against civilians.

According to the agreement reached between the Ombudsman and the Office of the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, the data on the recent shelling towards bordering Chinari, Barekamavan villages of Tavush province and their consequences will be summed up and submitted to the Commissioner.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. Iran is interested in establishing ties with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Armen Israyelyan  expert on Iranian studies, told reporters during a press conference on July 24, reports Armenpress.

According to him, during Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis visit to Armenia, Iran-Armenia-EAEU cooperation opportunities were discussed, thereafter, he departed for Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan where again the cooperation prospects within the EAEU were touched upon.

Iran tries to establish economic ties at all directions in order to solve its economic problems. At the moment each market is important for Iran, Israyelyan said.

As for Turkey-Iran cooperation, the expert said over the past years the trade turnover between the two countries has decreased which is linked with certain regional controversies, thus, in this sense, strengthening ties with Armenia is appropriate for Iran.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. During a working consultation in the Yerevan Municipality chaired by Mayor Taron Margaryan, the assistance programs for Syrian-Armenian families and the quick solution of issues voiced by them were touched upon, the Municipality told Armenpress.

By specifically highlighting the importance of quick integration of Syrian-Armenians, Mayor Margaryan tasked the social insurance department and heads of administrative districts to constantly control solving the issues of Syrian-Armenians and in case of necessity provide respective assistance to those Syrian-Armenians who have a desire to be engaged in small entrepreneurial activity.

Settling the problems of Syrian-Armenian families living in Yerevan will always remain in our spotlight, and the social assistance programs provided under the annual program will be continuous. In line with this, under our powers, provide respective assistance to those Syrian-Armenians who have a desire to be engaged in small entrepreneurship by having their unique participation in our citys development, Taron Margaryan said.
YEREVAN, 24 JULY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 24 July, USD exchange rate up by 0.03 drams to 478.85 drams. EUR exchange rate up by 0.51 drams to 558.10 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.15 drams to 7.99 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 1.47 drams to 624.32 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 152.84 drams to 19221.91 drams. Silver price up by 3.87 drams to 252.95 drams. Platinum price up by 293.39 drams to 14425.47 drams.




YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. The Investigative Department of Tavush province launched criminal cases over shelling of Chinari village of the province, destroying, damaging the kindergarten, property of villagers by the Azerbaijani forces, as well as attempt to kill a minor on July 20, the Investigative Committee told Armenpress.

On July 20, from 13:00 to 18:30, the Azerbaijani forces fire shots towards Chinari village of Tavush province by targeting civilians. In particular, shots were fired towards a Chinari village resident, born in 2000, who hid behind a stone to avoid the Azerbaijani shots and stayed there for about 2 hours.

For a long time the village was under shelling as a result of which the kindergarten, houses of the residents, their property were destroyed and damaged. According to preliminary data, the damage amounts to more than 12 million AMD.

As a result, 5 criminal cases were filed at the Investigative Department of Tavush province.

Forensic examination is launched.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. The Bollywood film producers have started shooting a film in Armenia in early July.

Lilit Martirosyan  executive producer at Sharm Holding, told Armenpress the shootings of the film will continue until late July.

The cooperating sides are confident that the shooting of an Indian movie in Armenia will boost inter-cultural ties.

Now filming is being conducted and it will be carried out in Sevan, Dilijan, as well as in many beautiful sites of Yerevan. The film is a melodrama featuring a love story of a girl and a boy who come to Armenia for study. The film crew, nearly 30 people, have arrived in Armenia. They brought all professionals from their country, there will be no need for Armenian hair stylist or makeup artist, Lilit Martirosyan said, adding that Armenian actors as well will be featured in episodic roles.

She informed that Armenias Ambassador to India Armen Martirosyan, in addition to various economic programs, have also examined the Indian film market and proposed to Indian film producers to consider Armenia as a prospective country for film-making. The Indian film producers are cooperating with Sharm Holding on organizing the shootings.

Indian movie production is quite developed and most of the films during the year are shot in India, about 1000 films. If half of Indias population watches a movie shot in Armenia, our country will become well-known. It will first of all boost our economy. We are interested in developing film production in Armenia, Lilit Martirosyan said.

The film will be screened in the Indian market. By the end of the year it will appear on a big screen. This is the first time in Armenia when an Indian film is being shot.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Karen Nazaryan on July 24 held a meeting with representatives of different subunits of the European Parliament, press service of the Ministry told Armenpress.

During the meeting the Armenia-EU recent developments, the ongoing works on forming legal framework at different spheres, Armenias participation in the EU programs were discussed.

Deputy FM Nazaryan said majority of commitments reflected in the joint declaration of Riga summit have been implemented, by attaching importance to the active cooperation both with the EU structures, including the EP, and the EU member states aimed at completely implementing them.

At the request of the guests, Deputy FM Nazaryan presented the efforts of Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairing countries aimed at creating respective conditions for moving forward the peaceful settlement process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, and highlighted that Bakus unconstructive and provocative actions hinder that process.

Karen Nazaryan answered to numerous questions relating to urgent regional affairs.

Agreement was reached to continue such format meetings to discuss agenda issues.
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. Defense Minister of Armenia Vigen Sargsyan on July 24 met with the members of an initiative group to create a Military Disability Rehabilitation Center in the #1 hospital complex of the M. Heratsi Yerevan State Medical University (YSMU), as well as military disabled undergoing treatment at the center, press service of the defense ministry told Armenpress.

From the very start the Defense Minister attached importance to this initiative, stating that it is one of the best manifestations of civilian stance. The Minister assured that the health recovery problems of disabled military servicemen will always be in the spotlight of the ministry.

YSMU rector Armen Muradyan briefed on the carried works and the upcoming programs to equip the center with necessary rehabilitation equipment.

At the end of the meeting Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan expressed hope that the center will operate already in autumn and will enable the servicemen disabled while defending the homeland to recover their health.
The Sri Lankan Navy rescued two elephants that were washed out to the sea. This is the second such incident, after July 11.

By Pramod Madhav: A group of naval personnel attached to the Eastern Naval Command managed to rescue two elephants that were swept out to the sea, in between Round Island and Foul Point, Trincomalee this morning.

The jumbos in troubled waters were first noticed by an Inshore Patrol Craft on routine sea patrol. Upon being alerted the Department of Wildlife in Trincomalee, a combined rescue mission was launched by the Navy and Wildlife officials to save the two wild elephants. Responding promptly to the situation, the Navy augmented the rescue mission by deploying 3 more Fast Attack Craft, on patrol and a team of Navy divers.

Sri Lankan Navy rescues two more jumbos

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Accordingly, the mammoth effort of the rescue teams saw the two jumbos being carefully directed to the shore without causing any harm to the animals. Having safely guided the two elephants to the shore, they were subsequently released to the Foul Point jungle.

In the same vein, a team of naval personnel belonging to the same naval command saved an elephant caught in current in the seas about 8 nautical miles off Kokkuthuduwai on July 11.

Also Read:

Did Modi's Sri Lanka visit influence Colombo to reject China submarine request?

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. The U.S. House Appropriations Committee approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) Appropriations Bill, the Armenian Assembly of America reported.

In total, the bill provides $47.4 billion in funding for SFOPS, which is $10 billion less than FY17. The bill maintains Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act and includes language for aid to nations hosting Syrian refugees.

The SFOPS Report highlighted the need for additional assistance to "vulnerable populations in Syria and in neighboring countries," comprised of Syrian refugees, Christians, and other minorities affected by the Syrian civil war and persecuted by the Islamic State (ISIS). The Committee raised concerns regarding "the lengthy displacement of Syrians and the ongoing burden they face, as well as the continued strain Syrian refugees are placing on host communities."

The Armenian Assembly of America welcomed approval of the bill by the Committee. "To date, Armenia has welcomed over 22,000 refugees from Syria who have escaped with their families. As conditions worsen in Syria, Armenia continues to serve as a sanctuary for persecuted Christians and other at-risk groups escaping genocide and violence in the Middle East. As the humanitarian crisis in Syria continues, we must ensure that relief aid reaches those in need, which includes Armenia as a host nation for refugee resettlement," Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny said.
LOS ANGELESFuckingAwesome.com on Monday announced Samantha Rone as their new brand ambassador.

Rone will be responsible for helping mold the image of Fucking Awesome and raising their profile. She will represent the FACrew across all social media channels including: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, where shell be present on a daily basis producing content and interacting with fans. The goal will be for Rone to give fans of the adult industry a glimpse into the #FuckingAwesome porn brand.

FuckingAwesome.com is a free 4K Ultra HD porn site that offers full-length 2160P videos for streaming and download. A new 4K video is added weekly and theyre compatible with mobile phones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers. FuckingAwesome says it is also the first adult site to offer a video player with native 4K Ultra HD Porn Casting to your TV with Chromecast and Airplay (AppleTV).

"We offer an all-inclusive porn experience, where you can not only watch your favorite stars in ridiculously high quality, but you can also learn all about them by reading complete biographies and watching exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews and videos, allowing you more access to your favorite performers than ever before," the FACrew said.

There are no advertisements or need to sign up, FA said.
Legal education has become a surprisingly regular topic of news media for several years now. Most of this commentary has focused on enrollment and matriculation problems, bar passage rates, accreditation standards, student debt, and the job market for recent graduates. These are pressing issues that raise vexing questions for law school administrators, and they warrant the attention they've received.Little attention, however, has been paid to curriculum, except as it pertains to those issues. And not just curriculum, but subject matter within the curriculum.There are certain subjects-let's call them "the permanent things"-that always have and will interest scholars of the law because of their profound influence on legal norms and institutions: history, philosophy, literature, and theology. Whether they belong in law schools or some other department, whether they prepare students to become practice-ready or not, these topics will remain relevant to subsequent generations of jurists and legal scholars. There will be a place for them somewhere within the world of legal learning and letters.Law school faculty and research centers have expanded over recent decades to include studies of these humanistic fields. As long as these fields populate law school, there's a felt need for rigorous liberal education in them.Ordered liberty in the United States has historically rested on a commitment to religious faith and pluralism, fidelity to the rule of law, and traditional liberties grounded in the conviction that all humans are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. These values characterize the American experiment. Our society is built on them, and its continued vitality depends upon maintaining and promoting our commitment to them.Yet these values are ridiculed and attacked in universities across the country. When they're taught, they're often treated as products of a morally inferior era and thus as unworthy of our continued respect. And because these values aren't seriously or rigorously taught, students lack working knowledge about them and are therefore unprepared for the kind of civic engagement that young people desire and demand.A decline in civic education has caused misunderstanding and underappreciation of our foundational norms, laws, and liberties. Religious liberty is mischaracterized as license to harm and on that basis is marginalized. Economic freedom is mischaracterized as oppression and is regulated away. Well-positioned reformers with good but misguided intentions seek to fundamentally transform the American experiment from the ground up. They work to limit foundational freedoms and increase regulatory power.Without well-educated lawyers and civil servants equipped to resist these reformers, the transformation of America will result in the destruction of the freedoms enabled by our founding generation. We cannot allow this to happen. The Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty at Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, for which I serve as executive director, therefore seeks to educate the legal community in such areas as natural law, natural rights, religious liberty, economic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly, and other liberties that find expression not just in the American but in the larger Western jurisprudential tradition.I define "legal community" broadly to include law students, law professors, public policy institutes, political theorists, judges, and businesses in addition to practicing lawyers. Because my center is housed in a law school, it's well positioned to instruct future lawyers while bringing together faculty from different disciplines who are steeped in liberal education.Numerous organizations promote these values in the political arena, but few attempt to reconnect foundational values with the law. The Blackstone & Burke Center aims to fill this gap by bringing together scholars and students committed to American constitutional government and the common law foundations of our cherished liberties. Our target audience will include law students, judges, and civics groups.For law students, we offer the Sir Edward Coke Fellowship. We've accepted our inaugural class of fellows, who, beginning this fall, will study formative texts in Western jurisprudence in monthly seminars that supplement their core coursework. Next semester, we'll read and discuss works by Aristotle, Grotius, Hayek, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Robert P. George. The center will be a key networking opportunity for fellows seeking careers at foundations, think tanks, universities, and public policy organizations.Fellows will also help to organize a judicial college for state jurists. Thanks to the Acton Institute, Atlas Network, and the Association for the Study of Free Institutions, the Blackstone & Burke Center possesses the grant money needed to host its first judicial college in October. Professor Eric Claeys of Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University will direct this event, the readings for which include selections from not only cases (old and recent) but also Aquinas, Locke, Blackstone, and Thomas Jefferson. The readings for judges are extensive, and the seminar sessions are meant to be intensive to ensure that judges get as much out of the experience as possible.The center will also provide basic civics education to local communities. For several years, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute issued reports on the poor state of civic literacy in the United States. The National Association of Scholars recently issued a detailed report on the inadequacies and politicization of the " New Civics ." The current issue of Academic Questions, moreover, describes the sorry state of civics knowledge in the United States and the tendentious methods and institutions that teach political activism rather than deep learning.Against these alarming trends, my center organized and hosted a reception featuring a U.S. Library of Congress interactive Magna Carta exhibit, which was displayed in the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court for three weeks and now remains in the possession of the Alabama Supreme Court Law Library. The reception included prominent judges, business and university leaders, lawyers, and the general public.For example, Chief Justice Lyn Stuart of the Alabama Supreme Court and Judge William "Bill" Pryor of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals delivered remarks about Magna Carta during the reception, and young people conversed casually with judges about the legal system, federalism, and the challenges and opportunities facing the legal profession in the 21st century. This fall, the center is cosponsoring an event with the Foundation for Economic Education on the campus of Auburn University to explore the relationship between law and markets, and I hope to see as many high-school students as college students in attendance.Legal education is strikingly different today than it was when Thomas Jefferson apprenticed under George Wythe, or when Abraham Lincoln read law before receiving from a county circuit court certification of his good moral character, then a prerequisite to practicing law.Nevertheless, legal education looks much the same as it did in the late nineteenth century, when Christopher Columbus Langdell, dean of Harvard Law School, instituted a curriculum, pedagogy, and case method that came to characterize "the law school experience." If there's been a paradigm shift, it's been toward more practical aspects of legal education such as clinical programming. Yet many lawyers remain ignorant of the history and philosophical conventions that shaped their profession over centuries.The Blackstone & Burke Center for Law & Liberty is a modest corrective in that it doesn't seek to remake legal education or demolish longstanding practices and procedures in one fell swoop. Rather, it does what it can with the resources and tools available to strive to renew an America where freedom, opportunity, and civil society flourish. In the long run, I think, these reasonable efforts will have powerful effects and far-reaching benefits, both within the legal academy and beyond.
We Just Have to be Patient

Later on in this posting is a July 2009 Blog Posting that has been read by tens of thousands of people around the world. OK, maybe I exaggerated a bit. To be perfectly honest, I do feel confident in saying it has been read by a few people somewhere or other.



The Posting addressed the fact that so many of our manufacturing jobs have been and are being shipped overseas.



Before you (lucky you) get to read that Old Foolishness, you will see I have inserted the first 2 paragraphs of an article in the October 22, 2016 edition of the Wall Street Journal. This WSJ Article appears to be saying that my 2009 Foolishness is not so Silly after all.

***********************************

Article by Andrew Browne October 22, 2016



Just about a century ago, the Boston merchants who had helped to build the textile town of Lowell, Mass., into the cradle of the American industrial revolution started pulling out. First, the spindles and looms shifted to the low-wage South. A half-century later, they migrated to the "miracle" economies of East Asia.



In the 1990s, much of the global textile industry relocated yet again, to cities like Dongguan in southern China, the world's factory floor. Now, as Chinese wages soar, textiles and apparel along with other labor-intensive export industries are on the move once more, this time to inland China and, increasingly, to fast-growing regional rivals such as Vietnam and Bangladesh.



***********************************

We know that Mr. Browne is smart because he writes for the WSJ. You, my dear readers, are smart because you read what I write for you...



Blog Posting by the Smartfella July 13, 2009 (The comments in parentheses below were obviously not in the 2009 posting.)

Many of us are concerned about American jobs being shipped overseas. Many of us believe this to be a sign portending really dire happenings to the Economy of the Good Ole USofA. The SmartFella says don't worry it is all going to be OK...eventually.



We Just Have To Be Patient!



Here is what's going to happen...



 In the years to come, we will see more and more of our jobs transferred to countries like India, Vietnam, Bangladesh and China.

 Our economy will continue to languish.

 We will see unemployment rise at a rate that we once would not have thought possible.

 Our children and grandchildren's lifestyles will fall below that of their parent's, generation after generation.

(That crazy Trump guy might make the above 4 bullets not come true but don't count on it because he is crazy...Or is he?).



We Just Have To Be Patient!



It will turn around...



 Eventually, these labor-intensive manufacturing jobs over there will begin to move back over here because we have become the home of cheap labor since we have been in dire straits for decades.

 As the Over There Countries have boomed, their workers have demanded and have received ever increasing wages.

 Slowly but surely we will see our economy rebound.

 The lifeblood of prosperity will fill our economic veins.



It's going to be wonderful!



We Just Have To Be Patient!



Would I kid u?

Smartfella



Lagniappe: Lowell, Mass will be a boom town all over again and their workers will start demanding higher wages.


Veteran outside Kyla Richey led the way for Canada as she earned 22 points, including 17 kills, to lead the Canadians to a 3-1 (20-25, 25-17, 25-17, 25-21) win over Peru in the 2017 World Grand Prix at the Richmond Olympic Oval Saturday.

Alongside Richey, Canada's Elly Wendel came off the bench to contribute 20 points in Canada's first-ever World Grand Prix win on home court. The Canadian block also proved to be massive for the home side, with Canada putting up 18 blocks to Peru's six.

The victory made further history for Canada, as their third victory in this year's World Grand Prix marks the most wins a Canadian women's team has ever earned in the tournament.

Canada will wrap up its 2017 World Grand Prix campaign Sunday against Czech Republic, which will be streamed live on CBCSports.ca and the CBCSports app at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Peru's Maguilaura Frias and Katherine Mabel Olemar, who was a factor off the bench, each had 11 points. However, Angela Leyva, who has been Peru's top scorer throughout this year's tournament, was held to just 10 points.

Peru took control early in the first set, opening a 13-6 lead and forcing Canada into a quick timeout. Canada pushed back, getting within three points at 19-16, but were never able to climb any closer. With Mirtha Uribe, Maguilaura Frias and Leyva tallying four points each, the Peruvians pulled away for a five-point win. A Uribe ace capped the set for the visitors. Coming off the bench, Canada's Wendel had a team-high four points in the opening set.

Home crowd spurs Canada on

With Canada riding the Wendel wave, the home side took a 10-8 lead early in the second set. Peru fought back, going ahead 13-12, before Wendel sparked a 5-0 Canadian run that gave her team the lead for good. With the home crowd spurring Canada on, they rolled to an eight-point win thanks in large part to a pair of superb blocks from middle Jennifer Cross. Wendel had 13 points through two sets, including 10 kills.

Story continues

With momentum squarely in Canada's corner, they scored the first six points of the third set and were in complete control the rest of the set. With Richey coming to life and collecting seven points in the set, Canada pulled away for a second straight eight-point win. Fittingly, Richey iced the set with the winning kill.

In the fourth set, Canada established a 6-1 lead and never trailed. Peru closed the gap to just one point, at 13-12, but three straight Canadian points sent Canada into the technical timeout with a four-point advantage. With Marie-Alex Belanger coming off the bench midway through the set and sparking the Canadians from the right side, the home team held on for a four-point win. Richey earned match-point with a huge block.

"I'm really happy we could pull out that win. We had a bit of a slow start, but it's really awesome that we could find our momentum and use the home crowd to our advantage," said Richey. "Our game plan is to shut down No. 12 (Angela Leyva) and No. 20 (Carla Rueda Cotito) because they're huge hitters and they've always been like that. Peru are long-time rivals and we knew their game plan, so if we can shut down them and neutralize the others, it's going to be easier for us."

Canada and Peru have met twice previously in the World Grand Prix, with the teams splitting their 2014 encounters, with Peru winning in four sets and Canada earning a straight sets victory.
Jared Kushner returned from a closed-door meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday to reiterate the message he gave to investigators earlier in the day.

Let me be very clear, Kushner, President Trumps son-in-law and top White House adviser, said in a public statement delivered outside the White House shortly after his meeting on Capitol Hill. I did not collude with Russia nor do I know anyone in the campaign who did so.

The Senate committee, along with its House counterpart and the FBI, is probing Russian efforts to influence last years election.

Since the first questions were raised in March, I have been consistent in saying that I was eager to share any information I have with the investigating bodies, and I have done so today, Kushner said. The record and documents I have voluntarily provided will show that all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign.

Kushner also took a shot at critics who suggest Russias interference helped Trump win the election.

Donald Trump had a better message and ran a better campaign, and that is why he won, Kushner said. Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him.

After delivering his statement from an official White House lectern, Kushner left without taking questions from reporters.

Jared Kushner departs after delivering a statement outside the White House on Monday. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Earlier Monday, Kushner released a lengthy statement to both congressional committees investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, insisting that neither he nor anyone in the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.

I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government, Kushner wrote in a 3,700-word statement released on Monday, hours before his appearance before the committee. Kushner is also scheduled to answer questions from the House Intelligence Committee in a private session on Tuesday.

Kushner, who served as a senior adviser to Trump during the campaign, said he was largely overwhelmed by a fast-paced environment in which he took thousands of meetings and received thousands of emails  including the one that led to the controversial sit-down Donald Trump Jr. had arranged with a Kremlin-connected lawyer. Kushner said he did not recall the meeting until he was reviewing emails in response to committee requests.

Story continues

In June 2016, my brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr., asked if I was free to stop by a meeting on June 9 at 3:00 p.m., Kushner stated. He eventually sent me his own email changing the time of the meeting to 4:00 p.m. That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time. As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office. Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner. No one else was mentioned.

The emails  which were disclosed earlier this month by Trump Jr. after the New York Times obtained copies  have come under intense scrutiny by lawmakers, who say it is the first tangible piece of evidence showing the Trump campaign was willing to collude with Russia.

Kushner suggested he did not know what would be discussed at the meeting, but said that after he arrived it was quickly apparent that the discussion was a waste of time  so much so that he emailed his assistant to call him in order to get him out of it.

Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting, Kushner said he wrote in the email.

Jared Kushner arrives for his appearance before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday. (Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Kushner also said that he could not recall two phone calls he reportedly had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He said he had trouble even remembering the ambassadors name.

The presidents son-in-law disclosed two meetings he had with Russian officials during the transition. In a Dec. 1 meeting at Trump Tower with Kislyak and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trumps national security adviser-designate, Kushner said he stated our desire for a fresh start in relations and asked the Russian ambassador about setting up direct discussions with Vladimir Putin.

The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day, Kushner noted in his statement.

Then on Dec. 13, Kushner said he met with Sergei Gorkov, who he was told was a Russian banker with a direct line to Putin. Kushner said that Gorkov presented him with gifts and expressed a desire for better U.S.-Russian relations.

There were no specific policies discussed, Kushner stressed. We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration.

Kushner added that he had no improper contacts with any foreign government and has tried to be fully transparent in the refiling of his security clearance form.

Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest, Kushners statement concluded.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Artificial Intelligence

2 Cornell U Teams Land up to $15 Million to Study AI, Autonomous Systems

Two research groups at Cornell University were recently awarded grants from the Department of Defense (DOD) of up to $7.5 million each to study artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

Awarded under the DoD's Multidisciplinary University Research initiative (MURI), the grants will go to groups led by Robert Bruce van Dover, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Hadas Kress-Gazit, an associate professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The grants will provide $1.5 million in funding each year for three years, with another two years of funding dependent upon progress and availability.

Van Dover and his team are working "to develop a multi-agent system that accelerates the science of materials discovery and development by integrating quantum physics principles, experimental materials synthesis, processing, characterization and AI-based algorithms," according to information released by Cornell.

The project, dubbed "Scientific Autonomous Reasoning Agent (SARA): Integrating Materials Theory, Experiment and Computation," aims to meet the goals of the Materials Genome Initiative, a project launched in 2011 "to create a new era of policy, resources and infrastructure that support United States institutions in the effort to discover, manufacture and deploy advanced materials twice as fast, at a fraction of the cost," according to the initiative's website.

Kress-Gazit and her team will work on "PERISCOPE: Perceptual Representations for Actions, Composition and Verification," a project designed "to develop autonomous systems capable of completing complex missions in unstructured and changing environments through the synthesis of ideas from control, perception, learning and verification," according to a Cornell news release.

The group will seek to create robots that are able to assess their own performance and make repairs. Instead of making assumptions about the environment that can't be modified, the group's robots will be able to verify or falsify assumptions and change their behavior accordingly.
STEM

Stanford Team Develops 4D Camera for Use in Robots, VR, Autonomous Cars





Stanford researchers have designed a new 4D camera for use in robotics, autonomous vehicles and virtual and augmented reality technologies.

"We want to consider what would be the right camera for a robot that drives or delivers packages by air," said Donald Dansereau, a postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering, in a report about the new camera. "We're great at making cameras for humans but do robots need to see the way humans do? Probably not."

The camera uses a technique called light field photography, originally described by Stanford professors Marc Levoy and Pat Hanrahan in 1996, that captures information about the direction and distance of the light that hits the sensor. Light field photography allows for images that can be refocused after they are taken and could allow robots to see through things like rain, that might otherwise obscure their vision.

"A 2D photo is like a peephole because you can't move your head around to gain more information about depth, translucency or light scattering," added Dansereau. "Looking through a window, you can move and, as a result, identify features like shape, transparency and shininess."

The camera also takes in an extremely wide field of view, at 138 degrees, capturing nearly two-thirds of the circle around it with each shot, thanks to a spherical lens. That lens also caused problems, though, as it channels light onto a flat sensor. Leaning on optics and fabrication expertise from team members at the University of California, San Diego and the algorithmic expertise of Stanford Assistant Professor of Engineering Gordon Wetzstein's lab, the team was able to overcome those challenges.

"It's at the core of our field of computational photography," said Wetzstein in a Stanford release about the camera. "It's a convergence of algorithms and optics that's facilitating unprecedented imaging systems."

From a distance, the camera works more or less like a conventional camera, but it is designed to improve more close-up images and would be particularly useful, according to the team, in situations such as robots navigating small areas, self-driving cars or landing drones. It would also be useful for improving rendering of real scenes in virtual or augmented reality systems and would be helpful in combining real scenes and computer-generated components.

So far the team has created a proof-of-concept camera. Next, they plan to produce a prototype small and light enough for use in a robot, with one humans can wear following shortly.

"Many research groups are looking at what we can do with light fields but no one has great cameras. We have off-the-shelf cameras that are designed for consumer photography," said Dansereau in a Stanford release. "This is the first example I know of a light field camera built specifically for robotics and augmented reality. I'm stoked to put it into peoples' hands and to see what they can do with it."

For more information about the camera, visit computationalimaging.org.
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New York, July 24, 2017An Azerbaijani courts sentencing of Faiq Amirov, financial director of the independent newspaper Azadliq, is a further serious blow to press freedom in the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

A district court in Baku today sentenced Amirov (also known as Faiq Amirli) to three years and three months in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of 39,000 manats (U.S. $23,000) on charges of inciting religious hatred, and tax evasion, according to media reports. Amirov can appeal the verdict. Following his August 20, 2016, arrest, the state-run printing house in Baku ceased publishing Azadliq because the newspaper could no longer make payments that only Amirov could authorize, according to media reports. Azadliq has not published since, and its website is blocked in the country. Azerbaijani authorities have repeatedly pursued and jailed Azadliqs staff in recent years.

According to press reports, the basis for Amirovs conviction on incitement charges was his possession of books by exiled Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government accuses of masterminding the July 2016 failed military coup there. The government of Azerbaijan voiced strong support for the Turkish government following the failed coup.

Amirovs wife, Lala Amirli, on June 29 told the website Kavkazsky Uzel that her husband has difficulty moving, that half of his face is paralyzed, that he suffers from stomach ulcers that have been exacerbated by prison food, and that he cannot get proper medical treatment in prison.

This sentencing of an already sick prisoner to even more jail time is a cruel attempt by an authoritarian government to put a nail in the coffin of one of the few independent news outlets in Azerbaijan. Having gone after Azadliqs journalists, the authorities are now jailing its accountant on the flimsy pretext of possessing a book by a religious leader out of favor in Turkey, said CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney.
The 46-year-old Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act does not allow a woman to abort if her pregnancy crosses 20 weeks.

By Harish V Nair: There is hope for a 10-year-old rape survivor who approached the Supreme Court to abort her 26-week old foetus. The apex court on Monday ordered setting up of a medical board comprising senior doctors of the Chandigarh medical research institute to examine the schoolgirl and ascertain risk to her life due to labour or abortion.

The 46-year-old Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act does not allow a woman to abort if her pregnancy crosses 20 weeks. However, the courts have made a few exceptions lately where grave risk to the life and health of the mother or the foetus was medically established.

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Making a fervent plea for the court's permission to abort, the girl's lawyer, Alakh Alok Srivastava said the girl's doctors have said her pelvic bones are not fully developed because of her age and, therefore, "tolerating a full-term pregnancy at this tender age is very risky".

"Medical experts have categorically opined that if the 10-year-old rape survivor is forced to give birth through normal delivery or C-section, it may be fatal to the life of the girl as well as her child," the petition said.

The girl, a resident of Chandigarh, was allegedly raped by her uncle over seven months. Her pregnancy was discovered only recently when she complained of stomach pain and her parents took the child to a local hospital. The accused has been arrested.

The shocking and rare medico-legal case "has left many medical experts dumbfounded" because of her age, the counsel for the girl told the apex court.

PHYSICAL TRAUMA FOR THE GIRL

On Monday, the court also made the member secretary of Chandigarh Legal Services Authority a party in the case as an amicus curiae (one who assists the court) to get the girl examined on July 26 and to oversee the implementation of the court order.

The court advised the legal officer to ensure that the girl and one of her parents are provided proper facilities at the hospital during examination. It fixed July 28 as the next date for hearing.

The girl was forced to approach the apex court after a local court rejected her plea on the basis of a report by doctors at Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh.

The report said that if the girl went in for an abortion, there could be "high chances of physical trauma" considering her age and health.

The report also pointed out that three years ago the girl had undergone a surgery for a hole in her heart.

The girl's petition also sought to amend Section 3 of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, to lift the 20-week ceiling over termination of pregnancies, particularly involving child rape survivors after obtaining requisite opinion from a permanently constituted medical board.

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A public interest litigation seeking extension of the legal limit for abortion from the present 20 weeks to 28 is already pending before the Supreme Court.

The National Commission for Women, the Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of India (FOGSI), international community and several other women groups back the PIL, saying the Act violates women's rights to physical integrity.

Recently, on July 4, the apex court allowed a Kolkata-based woman, who was in her 26th week of pregnancy, to abort her foetus which was suffering from severe cardiac ailments. In another similar case, in May this year, a minor pregnant with the child of her rapist stepfather was allowed abortion by a city court in Haryana. The long-awaited Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) (Amendment) Bill, which contemplates the extension of the legal limit for abortion from the present 20 weeks to 24, is pending since June 2014.

Also Read

India Today Investigation: Shimla gang rape victim was subjected to horrific torture

Tamil Nadu: 14-year-old girl found dead with throat slit, suspect held for rape and murder

--- ENDS ---
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New York, July 24, 2017The trial of 17 journalists, managers, and board members of the pro-opposition daily newspaper Cumhuriyet on terrorism-related charges is a further blow to press freedom in Turkey, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

A court in Istanbul today began trying the 17, including Can Dundar, the newspapers award-winning former editor, Murat Sabuncu, who replaced him, columnist Kadri Gursel, and cartoonist Musa Kart, on charges of being members of a terrorist organization, aiding a terrorist organization while not being a member, and employment-related abuse of trust, according to press reports. Turkish prosecutors accuse the journalists of being or aiding followers of exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom the government accuses of masterminding a failed military coup in July 2016, and of aiding the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey classes as a terrorist group. The defendants deny the charges, press reports said.

The pretext of terrorism has worn so thin that nobody but the staunchest of government loyalists could possibly believe it, CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said. Prosecutors should not be doing the bidding of the presidents office to censor free speech but should be pursuing actual criminals. All charges against Cumhuriyets employees and board members should be dropped immediately and the scores of journalists jailed for their work should be released.

Eleven of the 17 suspects, including Gursel, Sabuncu, and Kart, are jailed, according to press reports. Dundar, whom CPJ honored with its International Press Freedom Award in 2016, is in exile and is being tried in absentia. A court last year sentenced him to five years and 10 months in prison in connection with a 2015 story Cumhuriyet published alleging Turkeys intelligence service sent weapons to Syrian rebels under cover of humanitarian aid, according to press reports.

When CPJ last conducted its annual census of journalists imprisoned around the world for their work, more journalists were jailed in Turkey than in any other country at any time since CPJ began keeping records in 1992.
On July 16th, nearly 7.2 million Venezuelans voted in an unofficial plebiscite to reject President Nicolas Maduros plan to create a new, 545-member Constituent Assembly that would have the power to rewrite Venezuelas constitution  a further step in endangering democracy in that country. This new body would also be capable of dissolving state institutions, including the Supreme Court and the National Assembly, in which the nations voters elected opposition parties to an overwhelming majority.

Over 98 percent of voters rejected the formation of the proposed Constituent Assembly. They also called on the military to defend the existing constitution, and demanded early elections which would take place prior to the 2019 end of President Maduro's term in office.

Despite the widespread popular rejection of its plans, the Maduro government refused to cancel the July 30 vote to elect the Constituent Assembly. It claims this new assembly will solve Venezuelas problems, even though it would change none of the underlying social, economic, and political issues driving the increasing hunger and desperation in the country. The atmosphere was tense. At least three people died, and more were injured, when shots were fired into the crowd at two different referendum polling stations.

President Donald Trump chose to side with the Venezuelan people, the United States will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles, and warned that Venezuela would be subject to swift and strong economic actions, should President Maduro go through with creating a constitutient assembly.

The United States applauds the courage and determination of Venezuelans who exercised their rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly in defense of their democracy on July 16. [The] vote was a massive repudiation of the proposed National Constituent Assembly, which would undermine Venezuelas democratic institutions. The vote by millions of Venezuelans was an unequivocal affirmation in support of free and fair elections as well as respect for the existing constitution, said State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert.

Millions of Venezuelans voices must not be ignored. The United States calls on the Government of Venezuela to abandon the proposed National Constituent Assembly. We encourage governments in the hemisphere and around the world to call on President Maduro to suspend this process which only seeks to undermine democracy in Venezuela.
In support of efforts to protect fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced, in mid-July, that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has issued awards totaling $16.7 million from its RESTORE Act Science Program. This year, the awardees proposed projects support research into bluefin tuna, blue crabs, Mississippi oyster farmers and other parts of the Gulf ecosystem.

These grants highlight the vital role NOAA plays in the Gulf of Mexico," said Secretary Ross. The fisheries which will be studied through the RESTORE Act Science Program are critical to local economies along the Gulf.

The RESTORE Act authorized NOAA to establish and administer the RESTORE Act Science Program, which funds programs assisting research monitoring Gulfs recovery and protecting the long-term sustainability of local fisheries to ensure that American jobs are secure far into the future.

Awards will go to researchers and resource managers from 37 institutions including universities, federal and state agencies, and non-governmental organizations. The competition focused on living coastal and marine resources and their habitats in the Gulf of Mexico.

These projects will have a measurable effect on our understanding of finfish, shellfish and other important species in the Gulf, said Dr. Julien Lartigue, director of the NOAA RESTORE Act Science Program.

Of the 15 projects, 13 are being led by institutions located in the Gulf of Mexico region. In total, 78 researchers and resource managers will be involved, with 58 of them located in the region. The awards range from 231,671 to 2,312,275 dollars. These projects were selected following a rigorous and highly competitive process, which included a review by a panel of outside experts.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was pleased to work with our counterparts in NOAA on this round of funding awards under the RESTORE Act Science Program," said Dr. Kevin Reynolds, case manager for the Department of the Interiors Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration.

The cooperative spirit between our agencies ensured a focus on science that will meaningfully benefit the management of our trust resources and improve our understanding of the Gulf ecosystem.
Mexico is a crucialpartner for the United States in our efforts to promote a comprehensive energy security strategy and economic security for North America, said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.

That is why it is a top priority to pursue a North American energy strategy that will ensure security, stability, economic growth for the United States, Mexico, and for Canada.

Secretary Perry made these remarks in Mexico City in mid-July when he traveled to meet with the President of Mexico Enrique Pena Nieto and Mexicos Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell. Speaking at a joint press conference hosted by Mexicos Ministry of Energy Secretary Perry noted, The Strategy will guide our collaboration on shared energy interests, including the development of North Americas vast untapped energy resources, diversify our energy supplies, supporting the growth of our domestic energy industries.

Energy Secretary Perry said the work plan will identify concrete actions that we can undertake in three areas: first, to accelerate development of our vast, untapped energy resources; second, to promote energy trade and economic development; and thirdly, to enhance the security, reliability and resilience of North Americas energy systems.

The North American Energy Strategy, he said, will build upon our existing ties and bring economic benefits to both the United States and Mexico as well as Canada. Mexico is already our second-largest energy trading partner. Increased energy trade and bilateral investment will increase North Americas self-sufficiency that will reduce our reliance on energy imports from outside the continent. Obviously it will create jobs, a lot of jobs. Good jobs. And bring down energy costs for consumers.

We are joined together, said Secretary Perry, in the quest for a better tomorrow. Mexicos prosperity is inextricably intertwined with our prosperity. Our cultures are blended, our heritage and our families are shared, our economies forever linked. We must build a better future together starting with a vision of North American energy dominance. We must continue to develop our energy resources, invest in innovation, and build a competitive energy industry together.
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford Louise Richardson. Carlos Rosillo

A large question mark hangs over Britains university sector. Academics, researchers and students from the European Union who have chosen to make their careers in the United Kingdom say they feel unsure about their future in the wake of last years Brexit vote: should they remain at some of the worlds leading educational institutions or move abroad to centers that may not enjoy the same recognition, but whose governments are more welcoming.

Meanwhile, these institutions, which contribute a respectable 2.8% to the UKs GDP, have been joining forces to pressure Downing Street in the hope of reducing the impact of divorce with the EU as much as possible. But the consequences will be felt: the number of people applying to UK universities from abroad has already fallen, while 47% of EU citizens resident in Britain are considering leaving, according to a recent survey by Deloitte LLP.

A universitys excellence comes from its academics, says Louise Richardson, the Irish-born Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. And if that talent leaves, universities lose their prestige, and along with it, the millions of euros in EU research funding that will be replaced by huge tax increases, or, as researcher at Queen Mary University of London Barbara Petrongolo argues, EU students will have to pay more than their British counterparts. Over the last 13 months, says Richardson, there has been a 14% drop in applications to British universities.

The people facing the biggest problem are those who have already begun their doctorate Paolo Ruffino, Lincoln University

The UK receives more EU educational funding than any other member state (4 billion, or 4.46 billion, in 2016), followed by Germany and Spain. It also generates more scientific output. That said, a quarter of all theses are produced jointly with EU researchers. Universities here depend on internationalization, says Marcos Centeno, a Spanish-born researcher at London Universitys School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). The school illustrates the problems that Brexit will create for many British educational institutions: half of its teaching staff is from overseas, and since the Brexit vote applications for 2018 have fallen by 40%. Its Department of Japanese and Korean Studies, where Centeno teaches, is the most important in the world and could face closure for lack of funding and a brain drain. Of the 60 people on my team, only three or four are British, he says.

A student at the University of Lincoln. carlos rosillo

Rocco Micchiavello, from the London School of Economics, is more optimistic, and says that regardless of Brexit, the exchange of ideas between Britain and the EU will continue. But he also admits, like most academics in the UK, that research funding will be hit hard by the withdrawal  for example, the grants given by Horizon 2020, the European Commissions research and innovation program, the European Research Council, and Erasmus+.

But Petra Kammerevert, president of the European Parliaments cultural committee, says it is too early to assess the impact of Brexit. Similarly, Santiago Fisas, a Spanish member of the European Popular Party, doubts there will be a brain drain because the UK needs to hold onto talent. That said, the data seems to say the opposite. And then there is the growing feeling among EU citizens based in the UK that they are no longer welcome: If this country doesnt want me, then I dont want to stay here, says Greek Cypriot Maria Chatzichristodoulou of London South Bank University.

A universitys excellence comes from its academics

Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University

European Research Council grants are awarded on a personal basis, meaning that an EU researcher who undertakes a project in the UK, which receives 22% of ERC funding out of 44 countries, could take their money elsewhere. It is critical for our economy, argues Welsh European MP Jill Evans of the Green Party.

Louise Richardson of Oxford University says that European universities are now contacting researchers there with ERC funding, pointing out that one of the ERCs requirements is that at least half of the duration of a project must be spent in an EU member state. I would do the same she says, noting that two of her best academics have already gone. Cambridge University declined to comment on the impact of Brexit. Paolo Ruffino, an Italian researcher and lecturer at Lincoln University says: There is a lot of anxiety. The people facing the biggest problem are those who have already begun their doctorate. Making plans is difficult for them.

Oxford University  like others in the Russell Group lobby, which represents 24 of Britains top universities, and which currently employ 20% of European academics in the UK  says it intends to take an inventive approach toward the looming abyss. Its vice-chancellor has already raised a couple of million pounds [a little over 2 million] to spend on holding onto top EU talent. Jill Evans recommends opening a campus in Europe so as not to lose ERC funding. We cannot rule out any options, she says.

UK universities in figures Some 330,000 joint UK-EU publications were produced between 2003 and 2012, more than Portugal, Norway and Ireland combined.

The United Kingdom coordinates more than 20% of EU-financed projects as part of Horizon 2020, followed by Spain and Germany.

More than 200,000 EU students currently attend UK universities, 30% of the total.

British universities generate some 82.5 billion, contributing 2.8% of GDP.

UK universities generate more than 750,000 jobs.

The UK, with just 0.9% of the world's population, produces 15.9% of leading scientific articles in specialist publications. SOURCE: Universities UK.

English version by Nick Lyne.
Details added (first version posted at 18:32)

Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Armenian foreign ministers visit to the occupied Azerbaijani Kalbajar District under the pretext of participating at a religious ceremony Gandzasar 777 is another example of how Armenia politicizes the falsification of history and religion at the state level, Spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend.

Hajiyev reminded Armenias FM that the Albanian-Christian temple, located in the Kalbajar District occupied by Armenian armed forces, is called Ganjasar, but not Gandzasar, and it has nothing to do with the Armenian Orthodox Church.

This has been proved by Azerbaijan and foreign historians, he noted.

The architecture and composition of the temple complex and sculpture elements confirm the temples belonging to the architecture of Caucasian Albania, said Hajiyev. The pseudo-Armenian historiography is unable to explain the difference between the Ganjasar temple and an Armenian church, he added.

Hajiyev noted that in general, Armenias appropriation of Islamic and Christian temples belonging to the Azerbaijani people is a grave violation of international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Conventions.

Participation of the Armenian FM at the event once again demonstrates that Armenia is not interested in a peaceful settlement of the [Nagorno-Karabakh] conflict and tries to strengthen the status quo, continuing the occupation of Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region and adjacent districts, Hajiyev said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

Trend:

The Azerbaijani army positions in Qaymagli, Kemerli villages of Qazakh district, as well as Kokhanebi, Aghbulag, Aghdam villages of Tovuz district of Azerbaijan underwent fire from the Armenian army positions located in the Berd and Noyemberyan districts of Armenia, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend July 24.

The ministry was commenting on the information of the Armenian media that allegedly the Azerbaijani armed forces were shelling Armenian villages located near the state border.

"Similar news, spread by the Armenian authorities, is aimed at justifying the provocations committed by Armenia against Azerbaijani civilians in the border villages," the ministry said.

According to the ministry, to prevent this provocation the Azerbaijani armed forces took immediate counter measures by suppressing the Armenian armed forces shelling in that direction.

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.
By Geeta Mohan: Exclusive Interview with Syrian Ambassador to India Riad Kamel Abbas on the issue of the 39 missing Indians and latest reports suggesting they could have been taken to Raqqa or some other part of Syria by the ISIS.

Q. Massive operation is being carried out against the ISIS by Syria. What is the update on that?

A. As you know we are the only authorities on the ground, who with our allies, are defeating terrorism. We have defeated ISIS to about eighty present and we have almost reached Raqqa city and had it under siege and we kept away only because of the civilians who would want to pull out or vacate before our assault. We had mentioned all along that this terrorism will not remain only in Syria, it would spread all along and now look what has happened. Now there is infighting within the GCC countries especially between those countries that support terrorism on the ground.

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Q. What have you heard of the recent reports that the ISIS could have taken the captured Indians across the border from Iraq into Syria?

A. We were very sad when we heard about the 39 Indian hostages taken by ISIS and we pray for them to return home safely. About your question, I don't have any information whether these Indians are in Raqqa city but definitely if they are there our Army will bring them back safely. When we get official information, I will forward it to our Ministry of External Affairs and share with you Ambassador in Damascus.

Q. Is there any information about their whereabouts?

A. I would like to assure you that our government is very keen about their citizens wherever they are whether in Syria or in Iraq. They follow issues of their safety very keenly. There is good cooperation between intelligence agencies of our two countries. Don't worry. If they are in Syria, they definitely will come back safely to their homeland. I hope if they are in Raqqa then don't worry, they will come back safely.

Q. Has MEA got in touch with you regarding these 39 Indians?

A. When we meet, we talk of different domains not just about his case. We talked about this and forwarded some information to my government to further get some information on if there is any good or bad news. But for now, our intelligence agency is following the case on the ground. When we get any kind of information, it will be passed on to your government.

Q. So they have been in touch with you?

A. Our Army on the ground are doing the best that they can for our citizens and other citizens from friendly countries like India because Syrian government highly appreciates Syrian stand on the issue that is why we are very keen and serious to follow this case on the ground. There is good relations between our two countries. If there is any information then we would immediately give it to your government.

Q. There are now reports emerging that six Indians including one from Kerala and joined the ISIS. What is the information that you have on this? What is the route that they take?

A. We have informed the civilians that most of the Indians who travel to fight with the ISIS go from other countries. Most Indians who go are not from India. They are residents in GCC countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia from where they are recruited and then taken from Turkish border into Syria. Most of the Indians that you are mentioning of I heard only in the media. But please highlight this that if you want anything from ISIS or Baghdadi all you have to do is ask Erdogan. He is the leader of ISIS who move under the watch of Turkish intelligence.

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Q. What do you make of the West's role in all this and what should the Assad regime do in order to take out Daesh?

A. We are the only forces on the ground fighting terrorism. We don't care for the opinion of western countries. We are only interested to ensure security of our people. We need to fight terrorist networks. We don't care for the opinion of the western nations who are primarily responsible for what is happening in Syria today. Now, after we defeated terrorism on the ground, many intelligence agencies of western countries have come begging for help with intelligence. All western countries who support terror on the ground have come on secret visits to Syria seeking for help.

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Q. How confident is the Assad regime that will root out ISIS from their country?

A. You can go and see on the ground that we have defeated them. Today we stand victorious.

Q. But there are still some areas that are under ISIS hold?

A. There is no Army in the world that can control such elements. We need to plan how to liberate those areas. Some secret missions we can't highlight in the media for the safety of our troops and for the safety of our friendly nations. But if they are in Raqqa, our intelligence would make a plan to rescue them.

Q. Is Syria planning a rescue operation?

A. There is definitely a plan by our Army and our intelligence on how to move and how to help citizens of our friendly nations. That is why war takes a long time and also rescuing people takes longer. Civilian safety comes into question. Where is the safety of our civilians if we try to free Raqqa? That is why we are making a plan. Will our civilians get a safety zone to pull out? All these things need to be looked into.

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Q. Are Indians being issued visas from your embassy. And has anyone got visa from here and has ended up with the ISIS?

A. All visas from here are for specific reasons. We don't issue visas for civilians anymore. All those Syrians who went to join ISIS entered Syria illegally. I would like to assure you that they (six boys from Kerala) did not get the visa from this embassy and if anyone got visa then I would inform the Indian government because why would we allow people to go to Syria to fight our own Army.

Also read:

Missing Indians in Iraq: Without proof, no country abandons its citizens, says MoS VK Singh

Missing Indians in Iraq: 3 years and counting, two tales of 46 nurses and 39 labourers

India Today first to reach Mosul after ISIS fall. No sign of missing 39 Indians

No confirmed information on 39 missing Indians, Iraqi ambassador tells India Today

ALSO WATCH: Iraq foreign minister to India Today: No substantial evidence on the fate of missing 39 Indians

--- ENDS ---
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Azerbaijan's cooperation with Russia can solve many economic, political, regional and geopolitical issues, Alexander Karavayev, research fellow at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Trend.

Busy agenda of Azerbaijani-Russian relations, which was discussed by the two countries presidents in Sochi, largely determines the future of these relations, Karavayev said, commenting on the last weeks meeting of Azerbaijani and Russian presidents, Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin.

The list of issues discussed between the two presidents does not only involve bilateral relations, Karavayev said.

The heads of state certainly considered the issues of the international agenda, in particular coordinated possible actions of Moscow and Baku on resolving the Syrian problem, where Russia is one of the main players and Azerbaijan is an observer, Karavayev said.

The expert said he believes that another important topic of the talks was the development of cooperation in trilateral formats, such as Azerbaijan-Russia-Turkey and Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran.

The delivery of Russian weapons to Azerbaijan holds a special place in cooperation between the two countries, Karavayev said.

The expert added that another important issue is expansion of exports of Azerbaijani goods to Russia.

Karavayev said that as for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, Russia is the most consistent and serious negotiator on the conflict.

It is not excluded that Moscow will continue to adhere to this policy, he added.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

Trend:

Azerbaijan and Hungary outlined promising areas of cooperation during the talks between the two countries foreign ministers in Budapest, Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said in a message July 24.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarovs official visit to Hungary started July 24.

Azerbaijan considers Hungary as a strategic partner and this cooperation level creates favorable conditions for development of cooperation in all spheres, Azerbaijani FM told a meeting with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto.

The sides expressed interest in developing cooperation in transportation, agriculture, industry, education, pharmaceutics and other spheres.

Noting the important role of Azerbaijan in ensuring energy security of Europe, Peter Szijjarto expressed interest of Hungary in imports of Azerbaijani gas.

Szijjarto also pointed out successful activities of Hungarian companies in Azerbaijan and said that Hungarys partners from Western Europe compete for the Azerbaijani market.

Further during the meeting, the sides mulled preparation for high-level talks and the next meeting of the intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's visit to Russia and his meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi on July 21 is important in terms of developing the relations between the two countries, said Arzu Nagiyev, a political analyst and deputy director general of Trend Agency.

The expert said he believes that holding of this meeting at the initiative of the Russian president shows that Azerbaijan is a reliable partner of Russia.

The announcements made in connection with the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict show that Azerbaijan is an important partner and has a casting vote in solving regional problems as well as economic, political and military issues. As is known, it is impossible to implement economic projects and solve military and political issues in the region without Azerbaijan and Russia. And this is despite the fact that pro-Armenian and anti-Azerbaijani forces in the leadership of Armenia and Russia hinder this and will continue to do so, he said.

The main issue of interest for Azerbaijan at the Sochi meeting was the process of resolving the deadlocked Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, according to the expert.

In the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, as a successor to the Soviet Union, plays a key role in resolving this conflict and has a mechanism of full pressure on Armenia. One of the main issues discussed at the meeting was related to the steps to be taken to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It is also extremely important that the heads of state mulled this issue one-on-one, and I think this will contribute to the settlement of the conflict.

The fact that prior to this meeting, Ilham Aliyev met with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan is no less important, according to Nagiyev.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Elchin Mehdiyev  Trend:

Extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin, who was sentenced to three years in prison by the Baku Grave Crimes Court, is not on the agenda, the bloggers lawyer Eduard Chernin told Trend July 24.

The lawyer said that this is impossible until the court decision comes into force.

He [Lapshin] is still being kept in the Baku detention facility #1. I am meeting with him next week, he noted.

Lapshin has not yet decided on filing an appeal, Chernin said, adding that this will become known after the meeting.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and had a criminal collusion with Armenians in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin was accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. On Jan. 17, Alexei Stuk, deputy prosecutor general of Belarus, issued a ruling on Lapshins extradition to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was brought to Azerbaijan on Feb. 7.

On July 20, Lapshin was sentenced to three years in prison by the Baku Grave Crimes Court.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

Trend:

Kiev has hosted the EASA-organized Second Project Steering Committee Meeting on supporting the sustainable development of civil aviation of countries of the Eastern Partnership and Central Asia (EaP/CA project).

The meeting was attended by representatives of the State Civil Aviation Administration of Azerbaijan.

The Civil Aviation Administration said in a message issued July 24 that the working groups first meeting was held in Chisinau, Moldova in July 2016.

The EaP/CA project is financed by the European Union and is designed for four years. The main objective of the project is to assist the aviation authorities of the participating states in ensuring a sustainable civil aviation administration system, as well as harmonizing the rules with European safety and security standards.

The overall objective of the Kiev meeting was to celebrate together the achievements of the first phase of the project and to decide on the direction and priorities for the projects second phase.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

The Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) has expressed confidence that the oil market is steadily progressing towards rebalancing, OPECs official website reported July 24.

The JMMC is composed of three OPEC Member Countries  Algeria, Kuwait and Venezuela, and two non-OPEC countries  the Russian Federation and Oman.

The JMMC met in St. Petersburg for its fourth meeting on July 24 to review the June 2017 report as well as the first six months of the Declaration of Cooperation, as submitted by the Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Technical Committee (JTC).

This meeting was graciously hosted by the Russian Federation, and the Committee expressed its deep appreciation to Alexander Novak, Minister of Energy, for the warm hospitality and excellent arrangements extended to all delegations, the report said.

The Committee reviewed the JTC report and noted that the oil market is making steady and significant progress towards rebalancing.

This assertion is based on the Report of the JTC for the month of June 2017, which reviewed market developments and the results of the first six months of progress made according to OPECs 171st Ministerial Conference Decision and the respective voluntary adjustments in line with the Declaration of Cooperation.

According to the JTC report, there are several positive indicators going forward. Oil demand is expected to increase significantly in 2H17 compared to 1H17, with the growth reaching a level of 2 mb/d, which should sustain the inventory draws.

Furthermore, the participating OPEC and Non-OPEC producing countries achieved a conformity level of 98% in June 2017.

In addition, same level of high conformity was observed for the first six months of January to June 2017. Between January and June 2017, the participating producing countries adjusted their production downwards by an estimated volume of 351 mb.

Also, the overhang of OECD commercial oil stocks over the 5-year average level has fallen by 90 mb for the period from January to June 2017 and now stand at 250 mb.

The JMMC noted that despite the high level of conformity at the aggregate level, there is still room for improvement by some participating producing countries, and demanded that all participating producing countries must promptly reach full conformity.

Consequently, the JMMC had serious discussions with those countries and will continue to engage with all participating countries individually, in particular those that are yet to achieve 100% conformity for the remaining period of the Declaration of Cooperation.

The JMMC, having reviewed the report of the JTC, including the presentations made by the representatives of Libya and Nigeria on their production recovery plans, prospects, and challenges, acknowledges the upside limitations of both countries beyond their current production levels.

Once their production levels stabilize, participating producing countries should further cooperate in a manner that contributes to the stabilization of the market. The JMMC will continue to monitor and recommend further actions including the holding of an extraordinary conference of the 24 producing countries if needed.

The JMMC further welcomed the flexibility of Nigeria in this regard, which despite its commitment to recover its pre-crisis production level, voluntarily agreed to implement similar OPEC production adjustments as soon as its recovery reaches a sustainable production volume of 1.8 mb/d. The JMMC also recommended keeping the extension of the Declaration of Cooperation beyond 1Q18 as an option should further action be required for the stabilization of the market.

The 5th Meeting of the JMMC is scheduled to take place in September 2017, or earlier if deemed necessary.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 21

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Energy remains the basis of cooperation between Sophia and Baku, Azerbaijani ambassador to Bulgaria Nargiz Gurbanova said in an interview with Trend.

"Azerbaijan regards Bulgaria not only as a country consuming Azerbaijani gas, but also as a transit country in the European area," she said.

The diplomat also stressed that Bulgaria fully supports the Southern Gas Corridor project, which envisages the supply of Azerbaijani gas to Europe and regards Azerbaijan as a key player in this project.

Azerbaijan and Bulgaria signed an agreement on the supply of one billion cubic meters of gas per year from 2020.

"Moreover, taking into account that gas production will increase in Azerbaijan from 2020 till 2030, the countrys government and SOCAR regard Bulgaria as a very important transit country, and in this context there are great chances to expand cooperation," the ambassador said.

"Two countries signed an agreement on the import of gas from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria in 2013, which will meet one-third of the country's needs," the diplomat said.

Gas from the Caspian region will be supplied to Bulgaria via a new gas pipeline between Azerbaijan and Greece - IGB.

IGB is a gas pipeline, which will allow Bulgaria to receive Azerbaijani gas, in particular, the gas produced from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz 2 gas and condensate field. IGB is expected to be connected to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) via which gas from the Shah Deniz field will be delivered to the European markets.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey.

At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.

As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

The deal between OPEC and non OPEC oil producers on oil output cut allowed removing of 350 million barrels of oil from the market, RIA Novosti quoted Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak as saying.

"Over 350 million barrels of oil supply were removed from the market by joint efforts in the first half of the year," Novak said at a meeting of the ministerial committee responsible for monitoring of the implementation of the oil output cut deal.

He noted that oil reserves in oil storage facilities have reduced thanks to this deal. In particular, oil reserves in OECD countries have reduced by 90 million barrels since the beginning of the year, Novak said.

In late 2016 OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1, with top exporter Saudi Arabia cutting as much as 486,000 barrels per day. Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce the output by 558,000 barrels per day. The agreement was for six months period, extendable for another six months.

In May, all the participants of last year's agreement agreed to extend it to another nine months.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, July 24

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili sent a letter to his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries, the Turkmen government said in a message.

In his letter, Margvelashvili expressed readiness to deepen and expand mutually beneficial partnership with Turkmenistan.

The Georgian president pointed out the high level of bilateral relations built upon the principles of friendship and mutual respect, reads the government message.

It was earlier reported that Ashgabat and Tbilisi are studying projects on creation of transport and transit infrastructure between the Caspian and Black Sea regions, the use of which will ensure broad interregional integration with the states of Europe and the Middle East.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

German Siemens and Uzbek State Committee for Investments signed a Memorandum of Understanding within the German-Uzbek business forum in Berlin, Siemens has announced.

The Memorandum is the first document covering the most important issues of cooperation between Uzbekistan and Siemens in the spheres of mutual interest.

The parties expressed their intention to cooperate in such areas as the modernization of energy, industry and transport infrastructure, buildings automation and security and digitalization in manufacturing industries.

Within the memorandum it is planned to prepare scenarios for the development of energy in Uzbekistan with a focus on the introduction of innovative technologies, job creation, product localization and export opportunities.

A comprehensive program will be developed to train young Uzbek engineers to work with Siemens energy equipment. Moreover the possibilities of introducing modern digital technologies in Uzbek enterprises will be studied. The innovative solutions are planned to be used in railway transport sphere as well. The parties plan joint projects for automation and electrification of the Uzbek railway infrastructure.
Taliban launched a coordinated attack in Taywara forcing the Afghan troops to retreat, and then they also took control of a district in Ghor province

Afghan security forces have suffered heavy casualties at the hands of the Taliban in recent years (Pic: AP)

By Indo-Asian News Service: Banned militant outfit the Taliban took control of a district in Ghor province in Afghanistan, after an earlier seize on the same day of a district in the northern part of the country, an official source said.

"After a week of heavy fighting between the security forces and the Taliban, finally this morning Taywara district fell under Taliban control," provincial governor's spokesperson Abdul Hai Khatibi said on Sunday.

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The spokesperson, who did not mention the number of casualties, said the Taliban launched a coordinated attack in Taywara forcing the Afghan troops to retreat, Efe news reported.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid in a tweet confirmed the taking of Taywara, where the insurgents allegedly killed 42 soldiers and captured a large amount of weapons, equipment and vehicles.

Earlier in the day, the Taliban captured Kohistan district in the northern Faryab province.

DEATH TOLL

According to the Afghan Defence Ministry, at least 109 militants have died and another 60 wounded in anti-insurgency operations across the country in the last 24 hours.

On April 28, the group led by Mullah Haibatullah launched its annual spring offensive, which for the first time included political objectives as well as military ones, such as the creation of institutions and systems for propaganda in the regions under its control.

Since the end of NATO's combat mission in January 2015, the insurgents have been gaining ground in various parts of Afghanistan and currently control, influence, or are in dispute with the government over at least 43 per cent of the territory, according to the US.

Also Read

Dozens killed or wounded in attack on Afghanistan police headquarters, Taliban claims responsibility

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani orders execution of 11 Haqqani, Taliban terrorists

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Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held phone talks with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, the presidential press-services of these countries said July 24.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev during the telephone conversations congratulated Shavkat Mirziyoyev on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

The presidents also discussed bilateral cooperation and expressed interest for development and enhancement of mutually beneficial partnership. It was noted that it will favor the interests of the nations.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

Tehran has denied reports suggesting that Kuwait has decided to expel Iranian ambassador to the Persian Gulf state, amid the recent escalation of diplomatic row between the two Middle Eastern countries.

Iranian ambassador to Kuwait will stay in the country and the embassy will carry on its activity on the level of ambassador. There is no problem regarding the issue, IRNA news agency quoted spokesperson of Foreign Ministry of Iran, Bahran Qasemi, as saying at a press conference in Tehran on Monday.

We saw a reduction in the number of Iranian embassy staff in Kuwait. They were neither announced undesirable elements nor expelled, he added.

The official placed the blame on Kuwait for worsened diplomatic ties, saying Tehran has always had positive ties with the Arab state.

Despite the decision, the sides can continue talks and stay in contacts, the spokesperson added.

Earlier on Thursday a group of Kuwaiti and Iranian media reported that the Arab nation ordered the expulsion of the Iranian ambassador and 14 other diplomats for alleged links to a "spy and terror" cell.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

As OPEC and some of non-OPEC oil producers are meeting in Russia to discuss the oil market, an Iranian official and an expert told Trend that cancelling the oil production deal is unlikely.

Before, Russia and Kazakhstan have said that they may leave the oil cut deal, however, Russia's energy minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that Libya and Nigeria were approaching the moment when their output should be capped due to significant rises in recent months, Reuters reported.

Libya has been producing over 1 million bpd, below its capacity of 1.4 million to 1.6 million bpd but near its record high since violence erupted in 2011. Nigeria has also ramped up the output. The two have now increased their output by about 700,000 to 800,000 bpd since the OPEC-led pact was agreed.

According to the deal, OPEC should decrease output by 1.2 mb/d during January 2017-March 2018. Non-OPEC producers also had agreed to decrease output by 558,000 b/d.

Meanwhile, Iranian expert Behzad Ahmadi Nia told Trend July 24 that the discussions are focused on forcing Libya and Nigeria to join the oil cut deal.

An Iranian official, who asked to remain anonymous, also told Trend that regarding the hard fluctuations in oil piece, both OPEC and non-OPEC producers are keen to help market to be established.

In case some of the obliged nations want to leave the oil cut deal, the prices would plunge, said the official, adding that they may even deepen the oil cut volume as well.

OPEC sources told Reuters on Saturday that Nigeria could cap output if it managed to sustain production at 1.8 million bpd for 90 days. They also said Libya could struggle to sustain output at above 1 million bpd and hence a cap was not needed.



The option of deeper output cuts has so far been ruled out, OPEC sources said. Non-OPEC member Oman's oil minister Mohammed al Rumhy told reporters he saw no need for additional production cuts from OPEC and non-OPEC producers.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

The Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC), which met in St. Petersburg, Russia, will likely decide to force Libya and Nigeria to join the oil cut deal, Fereydoun Barkeshli, president of Vienna Energy Research Group in Austria and the National Iranian Oil Companys former general manager for OPEC and international affairs, told Trend July 24.

Alongside Saudi Arabia, the committee known as the JMMC, includes Russia, Kuwait, Venezuela, Algeria and Oman.

The pressure on Libya may be harder, because it has increased oil output more than expected. The OPECs commitment to oil cut deal also decreased from 107 percent in February to 92 percent currently. By the way, Saudi Arabia with 32 percent of OPECs total output has fortunately good compliance with the deal as of now and manages the markets like it did in 1980s, he said.

Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that Libya and Nigeria were approaching the moment when their output should be capped due to significant rises in recent months, Reuters reported.

Libya has been producing over 1 million bpd, below its capacity of 1.4 million to 1.6 million bpd but near its record high since violence erupted in 2011. Nigeria has also ramped up the output. The two have now increased their output by about 700,000 to 800,000 bpd since the OPEC-led pact was agreed.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

The head of Irans Judiciary System called on the US for immediate release of Iranians jailed in the United States, Tasnim news agency reported July 24.

Ayatollah Sadeh Amoli Larijani said that detaining Iranian citizens in the US is against international lows.

He also called the seizing of Iranian properties in the United States a clear theft.

Larijanis statement came after Donald Trump on July 21 warned that Iran could face "new and serious consequences" if Tehran refuses to free "unjustly detained" American citizens.

Just one day after Trumps warning, Tehran called for the freedom of Iranians who have recently been arrested across the world at the US request.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araqchi has said that a group of Iran nationals have recently been arrested in several countries across the globe on the charges of bypassing the sanctions on the Islamic Republic, ISNA news agency reported.

About 12 Iranians are in prison in the US due to violating Washingtons sanctions on Iran. Four American citizens also were sentenced to prison in Iran, are charged on security issues.

A New York jury also has ruled in June 2017 that US can seize a Manhattan skyscraper worth as much as $1 billion from an Iranian-American charitable foundation accused of violating sanctions against Iran.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

Consuming non-standard alcohols led to death of 5 and poisoning of 114 people in Irans Sirjan city, Kerman Province.

"Consuming home-made alcohol has resulted in 44 people being hospitalized in Sirjan," Khabar Online quoted Mohammd Saberi, an official of Iran's Health Ministry.

He added that the alcohol was mixed with methanol and poisoned people.

Recently, Ali Akbar Sayyari the deputy of health minister said that some 420 million liters of alcohol is consumed in Iran annually.

Considering that alcohol sale is forbidden in the Islamic Republic, a part of the volume is home-made and the rest is smuggled into the country.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey may carry out new military operations in Syria in coordination with the US, Atilgan Bayar, Turkish foreign policy strategist, told Trend July 24.

Bayar, who is also the foreign and domestic policy strategist, said that information that Turkey can not launch new military operations in Syria without the US permission is false.

Bayar added that the US is one of the allies of Turkey.

"Turkey prefers to act in coordination with the US, which corresponds to the country's traditions and allied relations with the US," Bayar said.

Turkey can launch new military operations in Syria in case of necessity, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik said earlier in an interview with TRT Haber TV channel.

Isik said that Turkey is entitled to neutralize any threat from outside and in particular from Syria.

Turkey has been deploying military equipment to the border with Syria since June 21. Military equipment is in Turkeys south-central province of Kilis, which borders Syrian territories controlled by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

On Aug. 24, 2016, the Turkish Armed Forces launched the Euphrates Shield operation against the Islamic State (IS) militants and liberated the city of Jarabulus, as well as the city of Al-Bab in northern Syria with the support of the Syrian opposition.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

There are forces interested in tensions between Syrian refugees and the local population in Turkey, said governor of the Turkish province of Sakarya, Irfan Balkanlioglu.

Throughout its history, Turkey has accepted refugees from various countries and Sakarya is one of those provinces that host refugees from different parts of the world, he told Trend on July 24.

Balkanlioglu did not rule out that the Syrian intelligence service and external forces play a big role in the tensions between Syrian refugees and the local Turkish population.

Previously, no clashes have been observed between the local population and Syrian refugees. However, in recent months one can see the anti-Syrian propaganda that is being conducted on social networks, he said.

A mass fight took place in mid-June between the Syrian refugees and the local population in Sakarya.

External forces are trying to increase the number of clashes between the local population and Syrian refugees in Turkey, and their goal is to put the government  which pursues a loyal policy towards the Syrian refugees  in a difficult position, according to Balkanlioglu.

Balkanlioglu said that while Western countries closed their doors to Syrian refugees, Turkey accepted them.

Currently, there are Syrian refugees in all Turkish provinces, and the country plans to grant citizenship to some of them, according to him.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the UN, has claimed more than 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The Islamic State (IS), the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The long-forgotten phrase Islamic resistance literally revived after the victory of President Donald Trump in the US elections. What kind of resistance there can be without Hamas, and, of course, without the Muslim Brotherhood, which became a headache for Qatar.

As is known, these two organizations are among the key reasons which led to the Qatar crisis, the initiative on the resolution of which was taken by Ankara.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as part of his Middle East tour, visited Kuwait, as well as Saudi Arabia, which is seen as the initiator of this crisis. Erdogan also held several meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud.

It should be noted that Saudi Arabia has already unblocked today the access to the Al-Jazeera TV channel, as well as to Qatari internet resources. According to Arab analysts, these decisions, like the previous steps, are a positive move for the speedy resolution of the crisis.

Previously, the states that boycotted Qatar demanded that Doha meet 12 conditions, whereas now the list of demands has been reduced to six. Meanwhile, the closure of Turkeys Al-Rayyan military base in Qatar was excluded from the list of demands.

It is obvious that the Saudi-led bloc and Qatar will be able to agree on a partial resolution of the crisis, but there is still an unresolved issue on the agenda regarding Dohas support to such organizations as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Several analysts in Turkey are confident that despite Qatars political support to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the activities of these organizations are of concern to Qatar itself and, particularly, to Turkey. Atilgan Bayar, adviser to Turkeys former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the expert on foreign and domestic policy of Turkey, has the similar opinion.

Some Arab media outlets also hint that the latest clashes between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem are a clear provocation of Hamas supporters. The call for a new intifada in Palestine is a provocation by the Hamas organization, which ideologically doesnt differ from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Speaking about the solution of the Qatari crisis, it should be noted that Erdogan also visited Doha as part of the Middle East tour. It is not excluded that during the Turkish presidents visit, the further activities of the Muslim Brotherhood will also be discussed.

Unlike some Arab countries, Turkey doesnt recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Earlier, Turkeys former Deputy Prime Minister and current Minister of Culture and Tourism Numan Kurtulmus in an interview with the Turkish media said, if we take into account the recent changes in the region, we can say that the Muslim Brotherhood is the only organization that has managed to prove that it can become democratic. The Muslim Brotherhood was successful in Iraq, Syria, Libya and in particular, in Tunisia, he added.

At the same time, it is obvious that Ankara has always wanted the Muslim Brotherhood to be more secular and similar to the Justice and Development Party (AKP). To this end, Erdogan has repeatedly called on the Muslim Brotherhood to carry out internal reforms.

However, as it is known, after the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from the political life of Egypt, arrests of leaders of the banned organization began in the country. After being banned, the Muslim Brotherhood moved into underground activity, which is not new for them, and this, in turn, will affect the political life of Egypt in the future.

Despite the ban in Egypt, one of the ideological mentors of the organization, theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi is in Qatar today. Back in 2014, Egypt demanded from Qatar to extradite al-Qaradawi, but Qatar rejected this demand of Egypt. But, what if Qatar agrees to extradite Sheikh al-Qaradawi in order to resolve the crisis?

Meanwhile, even the Arab countries that dont recognize the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization may refuse to accept al-Qaradawi, because in almost all Arab countries there is an opinion that the Muslim Brotherhood is a real threat to the authorities.

Of course, Turkey is an exception in this issue. It isnt known yet how the Qatar crisis will develop in the future, but if Qatar decides to expel Al-Qaradawi, Ankara may agree to accept the theologian.

---

Rufiz Hafizoglu is the head of Trend Agencys Arabic news service, follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

A meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries will be held in Istanbul, Turkey, the OIC told Trend.

The meeting is expected to be held in early August, according to the message.

During the meeting, the OIC foreign ministers will discuss the recent clashes in Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society earlier said that clashes took place between worshipers and the Israeli police at Bab al-Asbat near al-Aqsa Mosque.

The worshipers were attacked after performing evening prayer outside al-Aqsa Mosque in protest against the metal detectors installed by the Israeli authorities at the entrances of the Mosque.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Police have arrested a man on the charges of rape and murder of a minor girl, who was found dead at her home with throat slit.

By Pramod Madhav: A 14-year-old girl was yesterday found dead with her throat slit in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu. The police suspect that the girl was killed after a molestation attempt. The incident has left the city dweller shell-shocked.

Police have arrested a 25-year-old youth from the same locality on the charges of rape and murder. The accused has been identified as Ashok Kumar.

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The victim was a resident of Thiruporur in Kancheepuram district not very far from Chennai. The incident took place when the girl's mother had left for her night shift job at a private hospital around 6 pm.

Around 7.20 pm, deceased's brother and sister, who had gone to a relative's place, returned home to find the teenager in a pool of blood.

Police said that there was no sign of forced entry into their house indicating that the perpetrator might have been known to the victim. According to the police, the girl's clothes were ripped off.

The body of the girl was sent for postmortem as the police began their probe.

SECOND CASE OF SEX CRIME IN 2 DAYS

This was the second case which involved sex crime against a minor in Chennai. A 55-year-old man had been arrested the previous night for rape of a 13-year-old girl, who was reported to be pregnant.

Accused identified as Aruchamy from Kallipatti was arrested after the girl accused him of sexually assaulting her twice earlier this year which led to her pregnancy. Police have various charged him under various sections of POCSO Act.

Incidentally, the CAG recently raised concerns about safety of women in Tamil Nadu. The CAG noted that the state government had not earmarked a sum for the Nirbhaya Fund created for the sole purpose of enhancing security measures for women.

ALSO READ |

Chennai man arrested for receiving anti-national WhatsApp message. Yes, for receiving it

--- ENDS ---
The White House said on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump was open to signing legislation toughening sanctions on Russia after Senate and House leaders reached agreement on a bill for stronger action against Moscow, Reuters reported.

Congressional Democrats said on Saturday they had agreed with Republicans on a deal allowing new sanctions targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea in a bill that would limit any potential effort by Trump to try to lift sanctions against Moscow.

A White House official said the administration's view of the legislation evolved after changes were made, including the addition of sanctions on North Korea.

The official said the administration "supports the direction the bill is headed, but won't weigh in conclusively until there is a final piece of legislation and no more changes are being made."

Trump has faced resistance from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers for his pledge to pursue warmer relations with Moscow. His administration has been bogged down by investigations of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia. Trump has said his campaign did not collude with Russia.

With the bill, Republicans and Democrats are seeking to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Putin has denied any interference in the U.S. democratic process last year.

Two U.S. senators said they believed the legislation would pass with enough votes to override a veto should the Republican president decide not to sign the bill.

In recent weeks, Trump administration officials have met with lawmakers to argue against parts of the Senate version of the bill, including the requirement that Trump obtain Congress' permission before easing sanctions.

"We support where the legislation is now and will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved and it certainly isn't right now," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" program.

The sanctions bill, known as the Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act, was passed by the Senate a month ago but held up in the House of Representatives after Republicans proposed including North Korea sanctions in the bill.

Lawmakers, including Republican Senator John Thune and Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Sunday the bill had broad bipartisan support.

"I think (it) will pass probably overwhelmingly again in the Senate and with a veto-proof majority," Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, said on "Fox News Sunday."

In a statement on Friday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce said the bill would "help bolster the energy security of our European allies by maintaining their access to key energy resources outside of Russia."

The previous sanctions bill contained a provision to penalize companies partnering with Russia on the countrys pipeline export projects.

International energy companies and German politicians criticized the measure, saying it would hurt partnerships on Nord Stream 2, a pipeline to bring gas from Russia to consumers in Europe.

In Brussels, the European Union has sounded an alarm about the U.S. moves to step up sanctions on Russia, urging Washington to coordinate with its Group of 7 partners.

The European Commission, the EU's executive body, warned that there could be "wide and indiscriminate" unintended consequences, notably on the EU's efforts to diversify energy sources away from Russia.
Five people were killed and nearly a dozen injured in separate shootings in Mexico City on Sunday, authorities said, adding to a growing death toll in the capital which has largely been spared the criminal violence plaguing the country, Reuters reported.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot four people in a bar in the gritty Llano Redondo neighborhood on the city's southwestern fringe early on Sunday morning, according to the local attorney general's office.

A woman of 23, and two men aged 23 and 38 died of their injuries. Authorities said the fourth victim, a 23-year-old man, remains in hospital after the attack.

The gunmen fled, said a spokesman for the attorney general's office, adding that all the victims were Mexicans.

Then on Sunday afternoon, a 45-year-old woman and a man of 55 were fatally shot at a street market in the sprawling borough of Iztapalapa on the eastern edge of Mexico City, the attorney general's office said in a statement.

Ten other people, including two minors, were injured by the gunfire, the statement said.

The motives for the shootings were not immediately clear and investigations are continuing, the spokesman said.

Last week, Mexican marines shot dead eight suspected gang members during an exchange of fire in broad daylight in the south of the city, one of the most explosive outbreaks of violence to occur in the capital in recent years.

Murders have risen sharply in Mexico over the past 18 months, creating a major headache for President Enrique Pena Nieto, who pledged to end gang violence when he took office in December 2012. A new president will be elected next year.

This year the country is on track to register its highest murder toll since modern records began in 1997.

Official data show the May-June period was the most violent two-month stretch on record in Mexico City, which has not been as badly affected as much of the country by warring drug gangs.
At least two people were killed and six others injured when a car slammed into a group of people Monday outside a rehabilitation center in southeast South Dakota, authorities said.

Highway Patrol spokesman Tony Mangan said the investigation is ongoing, but the crash appears to have been accident. He said the driver of the vehicle was among those brought to a hospital, AP reported.

Mangan initially said eight people were taken to hospitals, but later said the number was actually six. He didnt immediately provide details about the conditions of the injured.

The crash occurred outside the Alcester Care and Rehab Center, where officials referred questions about the crash on Monday to the Highway Patrol. Alcester is a town of roughly 800 people about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Sioux Falls.

Mangan said he doesnt know the drivers identity and couldnt provide details about what preceded the crash. He said the cars speed, whether the driver had any relation to the facility or whether alcohol was a factor in the crash were all under investigation.

Mangan said the South Dakota Highway Patrol is leading the investigation.
The purchase of S-400 missile defense system from Russia is not "worrying", Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, Anadolu reported.

"Why would it be worrying? Every country needs to take certain measures for its own security," Erdogan told reporters at Ankara Esenboga airport.

Erdogan's remarks came a day after Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford, labeled media reports about Turkey purchasing the S-400 system from Russia as "incorrect", saying: "That would be a concern, were they to do that, but they have not done that."

Erdogan said it was "important" for Turkey to choose an entity with which it could be in co-production.

He added that negotiations on the missile system had been "largely" completed.

Russian presidential aide Vladimir Kozhin said late June that Moscow and Ankara had agreed on the delivery of S-400 mobile systems but that the Kremlin had not approved a loan for the deal.

The S-400 system was introduced in 2007 and can carry three types of missiles capable of destroying ground and air targets, including ballistic and cruise missiles.

It can track and engage up to 300 targets simultaneously and has an altitude ceiling of 27 kilometers (17 miles).
KYODO NEWS - Jul 24, 2017 - 16:22 | World, All

North Korea has decided not to hold a beer festival this summer for unknown reasons, according to a Beijing-based tourist company.

"Sadly today we have been informed that the 2017 Pyongyang Beer Festival has been cancelled," Koryo Tours, one of the leading agencies organizing regular tours to North Korea, said Sunday on its website.

(KCNA/Kyodo)

"The reason for the cancellation is unclear and we don't expect full information to be forthcoming but it is possibly down to the ongoing drought in the country that has caused a great deal of trouble," it said.

The festival in Pyongyang was due to run from Wednesday to the end of August. A week ago, North Korea's official media was still reporting about the event, so the decision to call it off was likely made abruptly.

The U.N. Food Agriculture Organization said last week that a prolonged dry spell from April in North Korea's main central and southern cereal-producing provinces is causing its worst drought since 2001.

North Korea organized its first beer festival in 2016. The event featuring draft Taedonggang beer, one of the most popular brands in North Korea, food and music performances, was a big success and it was also open to foreign tourists.

The production of the popular beer started in 2002 after North Korea bought a defunct British brewery, which was dismantled and brought to Pyongyang.

(KCNA/Kyodo)
KYODO NEWS - Jul 24, 2017 - 21:41 | World, All

The death toll from a suicide car bomb blast in the western part of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Monday rose by more than 10 to at least 35 with at least 40 others injured, Reuters reported.

The car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees during the morning rush hour, destroying the bus, three civilian vehicles and several nearby shops.

(Getty)

Children were among the wounded in the blast, which happened in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shiite Hazara community live, according to Reuters.

The Taliban earlier claimed responsibility for the blast, saying employees of the government's intelligence service were targeted.

However, the bus in question was carrying staff of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, according to media reports.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack "on civilians and government employees."

According to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, there were 1,662 civilian deaths in the first half of 2017, with Kabul accounting for nearly 20 percent of the toll.

Security has been worsening in Afghanistan as not only the Taliban but also the militant Islamic State have been stepping up their attacks.

(Getty)
Key findings from the second Swaziland HIV Incidence Measurement Survey, SHIMS2, reveal impressive progress in confronting the HIV epidemic in the country. Results show a doubling in population viral load suppression since 2011 and a decrease by nearly half in the rate of new HIV infections. The findings were released today at a press conference held by the Prime Minister's office in Mbabane, Swaziland and at the International Aids Society (IAS) 2017 Conference in Paris, France.

"Because of the severe HIV epidemic in Swaziland, it was critical for us to implement a combination HIV prevention package, scale up HIV care and treatment services, and engage in ongoing measurement of HIV incidence in order to assess the impact of these efforts," said Senator Sibongile Ndlela-Simelane, the honorable Minister of Health, Swaziland. "The results of the SHIMS2 survey reveal a dramatic improvement in the state of the epidemic in Swaziland and we are very encouraged by this progress. We understand that the battle is not over, and therefore we must maintain the momentum."

The data come from one of the population-based HIV impact assessment (PHIA) surveys led by the Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland (GKoS) through the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Central Statistical Office (CSO). The survey (SHIMS2) was implemented by ICAP at Columbia University and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with funding from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). SHIMS2 is the second national incidence survey to be conducted in Swaziland, following the 2011 survey (SHIMS1) among adults 18-49 years of age.

In SHIMS2, over 14,000 children and adults participated in this nationally representative survey by agreeing to be interviewed and providing a blood sample for HIV testing.

Key SHIMS2 survey results include:

The annual rate of new HIV infections ("HIV incidence") among adults ages 15 years and older was 1.36 percent: 1.70 percent among females and 1.02 percent among males. Among adults 18-49 years, HIV incidence was 1.39 percent, nearly half of the prior HIV incidence rate in 2011 2.48 percent.

The percentage of the adult population living with HIV ("HIV prevalence") was 27.0 percent: 32.5 percent among females and 20.4 percent among males. The HIV prevalence among adults 18-49 years was 30.5 percent, similar to the 2011 HIV prevalence of 32.1 percent.

The percentage of all HIV-positive adults with viral load suppression (VLS), an indication that the infection is under control, was 73.1 percent: 76.0 percent among females and 67.6 percent among males. VLS was estimated using all people living with HIV (PLHIV) as a denominator, regardless of knowing their HIV status or use of antiretroviral drugs. Among all HIV+ adults aged 18-49 years, twice as many had VLS in SHIMS2 as compared to SHIMS1 (71.3 percent compared to 34.8 percent in 2011).

The percentage of all HIV-positive adults who knew their HIV status was 84.7%; of these individuals, 87.4% reported current use of antiretroviral treatment and, among those reporting treatment, 91.9 percent had VLS. These results indicate Swaziland has made substantial progress toward achieving all three of the "90-90-90' targets set by UNAIDS to help end the HIV epidemic.

The progress represented by the findings is attributed to the expansion of HIV testing in the country as well as a substantial increase in the number of HIV-positive individuals on antiretroviral drugs from 2011 to 2016. This is combined with other HIV control interventions expanded in the country.

"These remarkable findings from Swaziland add to the evidence base that we are beginning to control the HIV epidemic in several high-burden countries," said Ambassador Deborah L. Birx, M.D., U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. "They both demonstrate our extraordinary progress in ensuring that older HIV-positive adults are on life-saving treatment and virally suppressed as well as reveal key gaps that remain in reaching younger men and women with HIV services."

"An amazing array of partnerships lasting over a decade - from collaboration within and between governments to coordination across international organizations and implementers - have brought us to an incredible level of success in the work on HIV and AIDS in Swaziland," said Lisa J. Peterson, US Ambassador to Swaziland. "These partnerships are about people bringing their time and talents together to effect change. Thanks to these joint efforts, the SHIMS 2 data show that many more people will have the opportunity to share their own time and talents with their families and communities. It is especially important that we sustain and strengthen our collective engagement with Swaziland's youth to ensure that we achieve an AIDS-free generation."

"The partnership with the Swazi Ministry of Health was fundamental to the success of the survey," said Shannon Hader, MD, MPH, director of the CDC's Division of Global HIV & TB. "As we've seen in other countries, the PHIA findings will help the Ministry of Health and its partners to focus resources on urgent program priorities to achieve epidemic control."

"The findings from SHIMS2 are a testimony to the remarkable commitment by the Government of Swaziland in confronting the HIV epidemic," said Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA, director of ICAP. "It is a demonstration that all the efforts put into the scale-up of HIV prevention, care and treatment services have borne fruit. ICAP is honored to have played a role in helping to support this successful scale-up."

"Each Population-based HIV Impact Assessment -- PHIA -- survey provides a 'report card' on how each country is doing in responding to its epidemic as well as a blueprint for future response," said Jessica Justman, MD, ICAP's senior technical director and principal investigator of all of ICAP's PHIA projects, including SHIMS1 and SHIMS2. "Swaziland has made notable progress and is poised to continue making great strides forward with the implementation of test and start and ongoing scale-up of routine viral load monitoring. The SHIMS2 results will help focus efforts and prioritize specific populations in need of urgent attention and innovative approaches."

###

Other collaborating governmental entities in Swaziland included the Health Research Unit, Swaziland Health Laboratory Services (SHLS), Swaziland National AIDS Program (SNAP), Health Promotion Unit, Health Management Information System, Environmental Health Department, and National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA).

Additional details on SHIMS2 are available in the summary sheet released by the Swaziland Ministry of Health and the websites for the Ministry of Health http://www.gov.sz , CDC/PEPFAR http://www.cdc.gov and http://www.pepfar.gov, and ICAPs PHIA Project: phia.icap.columbia.edu.

About ICAP at Columbia University

ICAP was founded in 2003 at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. A global leader in HIV, tuberculosis, other health threats and health systems strengthening, ICAP provides technical assistance and implementation support to governments and non-governmental organizations. More than 2.2 million people have received HIV care through ICAP-supported programs and over 1.3 million have received antiretroviral therapy through such support.
Oil ends the week lower with OPEC output seen rising

Investing.com - Oil prices settled lower for the second session in a row on Friday, ending at its weakest level in about a week as sentiment soured amid indications that supply from OPEC was set to rise, despite the cartel's agreement to curb production.

The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude September contract sank $1.15, or around 2.5%, to end at $45.77 a barrel by close of trade Friday. It touched its lowest since July 13 at $45.54 earlier in the session.

Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent oil for September delivery slumped $1.24, or 2.5%, to settle at $48.06 a barrel by close of trade, after touching a one-week trough of $47.81 earlier.

Friday's sharp drop erased earlier gains made during the week. WTI posted a nearly 1.7% decline on the week, after earlier being on pace to post a roughly 1.5% weekly gain, while Brent declined 85 cents, or about 1.8%.

Oil sank on Friday after tanker-tracking firm PetroLogistics said crude output from OPEC members was set to rise by 145,000 barrels a day in July from a month earlier.

The increase in oil supply would push production above 33 million barrels per day, due to increased output from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Nigeria.

The news comes ahead of a highly-anticipated meeting of some oil ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Russia on Monday, who are gathering to discuss compliance with the cartel's deal to cut production.

Market experts say the ministers will likely recommend maintaining the policy of holding back output at current levels, but efforts will be made to bring Nigeria and Libya into the framework due to the recent recovery of their production.

In May, OPEC and some non-OPEC producers extended an agreement to slash 1.8 million barrels per day in supply until March 2018. So far, the agreement has had little impact on global inventory levels due to rising supply from producers not participating in the accord, such as Libya and Nigeria.

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Meanwhile, in the U.S., weekly figures from energy services company Baker Hughes showed that the number of active rigs drilling for oil declined by 1 to 764 last week, suggesting early signs of moderating domestic production growth.

The count is often seen as proxy for the outlook on domestic production.

Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for August slumped 4.2 cents, or about 2.7%, to end at $1.563 on Friday. It still closed about 0.2% higher for the week.

August heating oil finished down 2.8 cents, or 1.8%, at $1.515 a gallon, ending about flat for the week.

Natural gas futures for August delivery sank 7.3 cents, or 2.4%, to settle at $2.970 per million British thermal units. It saw a weekly drop of roughly 0.4%.

In the week ahead, traders will await the outcome of Monday's meeting of major crude producers for further clarity on how they will try to bring down global inventory levels.

Meanwhile, market participants will eye fresh weekly information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products on Tuesday and Wednesday to gauge the strength of demand in the worlds largest oil consumer.

Ahead of the coming week, Investing.com has compiled a list of these and other significant events likely to affect the markets.

Monday, July 24

Ministers from OPEC and other non-OPEC producers will meet in St. Petersburg, Russia to discuss compliance with a pact to cut production.

Tuesday, July 25

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, is to publish its weekly report on U.S. oil supplies.

Wednesday, July 26

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is to release weekly data on oil and gasoline stockpiles.

Thursday, July 27

The U.S. government is set to produce a weekly report on natural gas supplies in storage.

Friday, July 28

Baker Hughes will release weekly data on the U.S. oil rig count.

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By PTI: Washington, Jul 24 (PTI) Scientists have discovered three new species of toads living in Nevadas Great Basin in the US, that have been isolated from other populations for 650,000 years and may already be at risk of extinction.

Discoveries of new amphibians are extremely rare in the US with only three new frog species discovered since 1985 - and toad species are even more rare, with the last species discovered north of Mexico, the now extinct Wyoming toad, in 1968.

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"Weve found the toads in small, wet habitats surrounded by high-desert completely cut off from other populations," said Dick Tracy, professor at University of Nevada in the US.

"These are absolutely new, true species that have been separated from other populations for 650,000 years," said Tracy.

The three new species, the Dixie Valley toad, Railroad Valley toad and Hot Creek toad are not connected geographically.

They were found in Tracys 10-year long survey of the desert-dominated Great Basin.

The toads are small in size, yet each have a suite of unique physical features that differ from each other, as well as other toads in the region.

Each of the species have slightly different colours, and they are about two inches long when full grown.

"The Dixie Valley toad is a pretty toad, with flecks of gold on an olive background," said Tracy.

The Dixie Valley toad is only found in an isolated spring-fed marsh which make up less than four square miles surrounded by an arid region where aquatic resources are both rare and widely scattered.

The habitat occupied by this newly described species is also adjacent to a proposed site for a geothermal power plant that could dry up the marsh and threaten the toads survival.

"If this power plant goes in and the habitat is dried up, this recently discovered species could go extinct," Tracy said.

"Its a good candidate for an Endangered Species Act listing," he said.

The Dixie Valley species has the smallest body size among the regions complex of related species in the western US, and can be further diagnosed from other toads in the complex by the large glands on its hind legs in addition to its distinctive colouration.

The Railroad Valley toad is in the Tonopah Basin in the central Nevada desert and the Hot Creek Toad is about 56 kilometres away but in Hot Creek Mountain Range, in a drainage isolated from the Railroad Valley toad.

All three new species are natives of the Great Basin in Nevada, which was once covered by large marshes and giant inland lakes during the Pleistocene Epoch and is now among the most arid regions in the US with only one per cent of the landscape containing water.

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The findings were published in the journal Zootaxa. PTI MHN SAR MHN

--- ENDS ---




doctor patient concern worry

Once confined to the fringes of debate, the idea of single-payer healthcare is making a comeback with support from some unlikely places.

Single-payer healthcare is a system used in Canada, France, the UK, Australia, and other countries that in theory provides nearly universal coverage through the government rather than private insurance companies. (Some countries use a hybrid public/private structure.)

While progressive groups have long pushed for a single-payer system in the US, Democratic Party leaders are starting to suggest they are open to advocating such a system.

"We're going to look at broader things" for the nation's healthcare system, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on ABC on Sunday. "Single-payer is one of them."

Some of the richest and most powerful Americans  many of them Republicans  have recently brought up the possibility of shifting to a single-payer system. It comes as the Republican-controlled government has spent months attempting to revamp the US healthcare system with legislation that would move the system further from single-payer.

Perhaps most striking was Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini recently saying at a private conference that the US should start considering the idea.

According to Vox's Sarah Kliff, Bertolini told Aetna employees at a town-hall-style meeting in May that he thought "we should have that debate" about single-payer "as a nation."

[Money Basics: How bankruptcy works]

Kliff said that based on his comments, Bertolini did not support a total government-run single-payer system but could be open to a private-public system used in some nations.

"So the industry has always been the back room for government," Bertolini said. "If the government wants to pay all the bills, and employers want to stop offering coverage, and we can be there in a public private partnership to do the work we do today with Medicare, and with Medicaid at every state level, we run the Medicaid programs for them, then let's have that conversation."

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The idea, for Bertolini, is that the government would finance insurers to provide the care, similar to Medicare for all. The Aetna CEO, however, said he didn't think total government-run healthcare was the solution, which makes sense, considering it would put him out of business.

"But if we want to turn it all over to the government to run, is the government really the right place to run all this stuff?" Bertolini said. "And that's the debate that needs to be had. They could finance it, and if there is one financer, and you could call that single-payer."

The shift is understandable for Aetna, since for the first time, most of its business is coming from government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Additionally, as Bertolini likes to point out in interviews, the insurer was the first Medicare provider in 1965.

In addition to backing from the CEO of one of the five largest public insurers in the US, the single-payer idea has also received recent support from the business titans Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.

charlie munger and warren buffett

Munger, a Republican, railed against the current US healthcare system at Berkshire's annual meeting on May 6 and in subsequent interviews said the country should shift to single-payer.

"The whole system is cockamamie," Munger said in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick in May. "It's almost ridiculous in its complexity, and it's steadily increasing cost, and Warren is absolutely right. It gives our companies a big disadvantage in competing with other manufacturers. They've got single-payer medicine, and we're paying it out of the company."

When asked by Quick if he supported single-payer, Buffett said, "I personally do."

Buffett also bemoaned the fact that healthcare costs make up roughly 17% of the US's gross domestic product  according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, it was 17.8% of GDP in 2015  much more than any other developed nation. The Berkshire CEO said these increased costs for businesses, rather than the corporate tax rate, were holding back American competitiveness.

Even President Donald Trump, who has supported Republican-led efforts to overhaul the healthcare system, has praised Australia's public-private system in a meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and in subsequent tweets.

"I shouldn't say this to our great gentleman and my friend from Australia, because you have better healthcare than we do," Trump said in his meeting with Turnbull on May 5.

After critics noted that Australia has a universal healthcare system in which the government pays roughly 70% of all costs, Trump used Twitter to defend the comment the next day.

"Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we do  everybody does," Trump tweeted.

With Republican control of the presidency and Congress, much of the talk about single-payer is likely to amount to just talk on the national level. There is some action on the state level, though  both California and Illinois have recently discussed legislation that would provide a single-payer system, and others have previously discussed the issue.

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ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A rebalancing of the oil market is progressing more slowly than expected, but it will speed up in the second half of the year, OPEC's Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said on Sunday.

"We are pretty sure that the rebalancing process may be going at a slower pace than earlier projected, but it is on course. It is bound to accelerate in the second half," Barkindo told reporters in the Russian city of St Petersburg.

Barkindo cited strong oil demand growth, conformity with a global pact by OPEC and non-OPEC countries to cut output as well as an inventory draw in the United States as reasons why a rebalancing of the oil market would speed up.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Rania El Gamal; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Toby Chopra)
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Key OPEC and non-OPEC oil nations will discuss the situation in producers including Libya and Nigeria at a meeting on Monday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters on Sunday.

Speculation has been swirling in oil markets that the meeting might ask Libya and Nigeria to join a production cutting deal from which they are currently exempt.

Six OPEC and non-OPEC ministers will meet on Monday in St Petersburg to discuss the market outlook and compliance with output cuts.

Novak also said Russian output had fallen by around 300,000 barrels per day since October.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Mark Potter)
President Donald Trump lashed out at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House committee investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, in a set of Monday morning tweets.

The president called Sessions, who he's had a strained relationship with since the attorney general recused himself from investigations related to Trump's campaign, "beleaguered" and asked why the Justice Department and Congress aren't investigating "Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations."

Following up with another tweet minutes later, Trump called Schiff "sleazy" and "totally biased," and accused him of spending "all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!"



So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017



Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into "Russia," spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

In a remarkable admission during an interview with The New York Times last week, Trump said that he would not have chosen Sessions to be attorney general had he known that he would recuse himself from the ongoing Russia investigation.

"Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else," Trump told the Times.

Jeff Sessions

A former Alabama senator who was one of the earliest supporters of and an important surrogate for the Trump campaign, Sessions recused himself from the investigation in March, after it was revealed that he failed to disclose at least two meetings he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during the course of the campaign.

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Reports have circulated for months that Trump felt hamstrung by Sessions' recusal, and reports emerged in early June that Sessions had offered to resign amid heightening tensions between the two.

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Responding to Trump's comments last week, Sessions told reporters that he plans to remain in his role "as long as that is appropriate."

Later on Monday morning, Schiff shot back at Trump on Twitter, calling his comments "beneath the dignity of the office" and accused him of spending too much time watching TV.



With respect Mr. President, the problem is how often you watch TV, and that your comments and actions are beneath the dignity of the office. https://t.co/NvZydYbnyW

 Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) July 24, 2017

According to an April Washington Post report, Trump routinely watches a host of cable news networks, starting his mornings off with CNBC's "Squawk Box," Fox Business Network's "Mornings With Maria" which is hosted by Maria Bartiromo, and Fox News's "Fox and Friends." Trump has repeatedly praised "Fox and Friends" for its favorable coverage towards him, while blasting networks like MSNBC and CNN for their more critical coverage of his administration and policies. He has called the latter "fake news" on a number of occasions, both in public and on Twitter.

At night, the report said, the president occasionally "hate-watches" cable news shows that are critical of him, sometimes talking on the phone with friends while doing so. Shows and journalists that Trump has frequently lampooned include MSNBC's "Morning Joe," NBC's "Nightly News," and CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Don Lemon.

Trump is reportedly sensitive to comments about his TV-watching habits and earlier this month tweeted that he has "very little time for watching T.V."

"He gets very irritated when we all report that he watches a lot of TV. He does watch a lot of TVit doesnt seem like thats a massively controversial statement," Maggie Haberman, a Times reporter who has covered Trump extensively, told The New Yorker last week. "But he doesnt like when that is said because he thinks its shorthand for saying he doesnt work that hard."

Sonam Sheth contributed to this report.

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(Adds Oman background)

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Iran would face "new and serious consequences" unless all unjustly detained American citizens were released and returned, the White House said in a statement on Friday.

Trump urged Iran to return Robert Levinson, an American former law enforcement officer who disappeared more than 10 years ago in Iran, and demanded that Tehran release businessman Siamak Namazi and his father, Baquer.

The statement capped a week of rhetoric against Tehran. On Tuesday, Washington slapped new economic sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program and said Tehran's "malign activities" in the Middle East undercut any "positive contributions" coming from the 2015 nuclear accord.

Those measures signaled that the Trump administration was seeking to put more pressure on Iran while keeping in place an agreement between Tehran and six world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions.

Friday's statement said Trump and his administration were "redoubling efforts" to bring back all Americans unjustly detained abroad.

An Iranian court sentenced 46-year-old Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer Namazi to 10 years in prison each on charges of spying and cooperating with the United States.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps detained Siamak in October 2015 while he was visiting family in Tehran, relatives said.

The IRGC arrested the father, a former Iranian provincial governor and former UNICEF official in February last year, family members said.

Levinson, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and for the Drug Enforcement Administration, disappeared in Iran in 2007 and the U.S. government has a $5 million reward for information leading to his safe return.

An Iranian court sentenced Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen graduate student from Princeton University, to 10 years in jail on spying charges, Iran's judiciary spokesman said on Sunday.

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"Iran is responsible for the care and wellbeing of every United States citizen in its custody," the White House said in the statement.

Separately, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Oman's foreign affairs minister, Yusuf bin Alawi on Friday.

Washington has in the past sought Oman's mediation to help in securing the release of detained Americans abroad. Last year American prisoners held captive by Yemen Houthi rebels were released after Omani mediation.

Oman also paid bail that ultimately helped in the release of three American hikers in 2010 and 2011. (Reporting by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by James Dalgleish, Toni Reinhold)
As the self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State (IS) crumbles in Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan is bracing for an influx of radical fighters from the Middle East.

Kabul in particular is expecting to face battle-hardened Central Asian militants who form a sizeable part of the core IS military machine in Iraq and Syria, where the group is under tremendous pressure from international and Syrian forces.

After losing its seat in Iraq, Mosul, this month, IS now faces the demise of its territorial control over Raqqa, its capital, which is surrounded by various hostile forces. Such an eventuality will force its international jihadist cadres to disperse.

Porous borders in the region might help some Central Asian IS fighters to return to our country, a Middle East-based Afghan diplomat tasked with tracking IS activities in the region told RFE/RLs Gandhara website.

The diplomat, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, monitors resources and manpower being sent to his countrys conflict from Middle Eastern nations.

He said it was difficult to predict the exact number of militants Afghan authorities expect to join the fighting in their country.

Daesh fighters are already responsible for some of the instability in northern Afghanistan after they moved there from the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan [in 2014], he said, using the local name for IS.

The diplomat was referring to Salafist fighters from Central Asia who formerly allied with Taliban groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Most were affiliated with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) or its various splinter groups.

A Pakistani military offensive in 2014 targeting their North Waziristan stronghold along the countrys western border with Afghanistan dispersed them into various Afghan provinces while some joined IS in the Middle East.

Western specialists say the IMU diaspora and new recruits from Central Asia and Russia have provided IS with thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.

The Afghan diplomat says he now worries that after the demise of IS in Syria, the fighters will find ways to join their comrades already active in Afghanistan.

They will pose a great danger if they get to Afghanistans border with Central Asian countries, he said. This is a major threat not only to Afghanistan but also to its Central Asian neighbors. Turkmenistan in particular is vulnerable.

Afghan officials near the countrys western borders with Turkmenistan agree.

Baz Mohammad Dawar, the governor of Darzab, a rural district in northern Jowzjan Province, has seen Daesh establish a firm foothold in the region this year.

He says a local Taliban commander, Qari Samad, paved the way for IS to establish a local presence after he switched allegiance to the radical group.

Most of the IS trainers now active in Darzab are Uzbekistanis. They are training children and have shut down schools, he said. The strategic region of Darzab is set to turn into another Achin in the north if a robust offensive fails to prevent the militants from building a firm foothold.

Since early 2015, Achin -- a mountainous district in Afghanistans eastern province of Nangarhar on the Pakistani border -- has served as the de-facto capital of Khorasan Province, a local affiliate of IS in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Dawar says ISs Central Asian fighters are already paving the way for their arrival in Afghanistan.

Last month, some delegations of IS operatives visited from Iraq and Syria. They were mostly Uzbekistanis and were tasked with coordinating between the two branches of Daesh, he said. We have reports that one of these delegations, which comprised four people, was nabbed by Taliban commander Mullah Baqi, who killed them in the district of Kohistan [in neighboring Faryab Province].

According to the Afghanistan Analysts Network, Central Asian fighters make up less than a third of ISs fighting force in Afghanistan. They have to compete against a large number of Pakistani fighters and leaders. Following the directions of central IS, the Central Asian fighters recently agreed with the Pakistanis to form a 40-member shura, or council, to appoint leaders.

[IS] is also facing emerging internal differences, mainly between the more radical Central Asian fighters and the locally better entrenched and therefore more powerful Pakistani leaders, noted a recent report by the group.

The arrival of Central Asian IS fighters from Syria and Iraq will ultimately help their bid for leadership of the group and pave their way to project power into their home countries bordering Afghanistan.

If they succeed in establishing a foothold in Afghanistan, they will become a major headache for our government alongside the Taliban, the Afghan diplomat noted.
Afghan officials say a Taliban suicide car bombing has killed at least 26 people and wounded 41 others in the capital, Kabul.

The July 24 attack came as a presidential spokesman said the militant group also killed 35 civilians in an attack on a hospital in central Ghor Province over the weekend.

The deadly attacks came amid a surge of violence in Afghanistan, where the United Nations says more than 1,700 civilians have been killed this year.

The Taliban said in a statement that the bombing targeted two minibuses belonging to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country's spy agency, and claimed to have killed 37 personnel.

However, the government said their intelligence staff never travel in minibuses.

There were conflicting reports on the death toll.

Reuters quoted a senior government official speaking on condition of anonymity as saying the death toll stood at 35, while The Guardian cited unnamed officials reporting at least 38 dead.

Afghan presidential spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said 26 were killed and 41 wounded in the Kabul attack.

At a press conference, Murtazawi also said the Taliban killed 35 people in the hospital attack in Ghor's Taywara district, captured by the Taliban over the weekend.

Murtazawi said all the victims were civilians, without specifying if they were patients or staff.

"This is a cruel crime against humanity," he added.

EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said the "targeting of civilians, particularly doctors and patients in a hospital, is a clear breach of international humanitarian law."

The Taliban denied the claim and reports that they had burned down the hospital, although a spokesman said parts of the building were damaged in clashes with government forces.

Witnesses said the Kabul attacker appeared to have rammed into a bus. Shattered glass from nearby buildings was scattered over the roadway after the blast.

Danish said the bus was badly burned. He could not confirm if the occupants were all government employees.

In a statement, the Interior Ministry called the attack a "criminal attack against humanity."

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing. "Once again, these terrorist are attacking civilians and targeting government staff," Ghani said in a statement.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) also condemned the attack and urged restraint.

I am personally outraged by all attacks against civilians, said Pernille Kardel, the UN Secretary-Generals Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and acting head of UNAMA. The detonation of another large suicide device in a busy, civilian-populated area is egregious, cowardly and bereft of humanity.

The attack came as Hazaras, a Shi'ite ethnic minority in predominantly Sunni Afghanistan, planned to hold a demonstration to mark the one-year anniversary of twin bombings that killed more than 80 people and wounded 230 others, most of them Hazaras.

But the protesters had agreed to delay the demonstration over security fears and after meeting with Ghani on July 23, a presidential statement said.

The bombings on July 23, 2016, were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

Police cordoned off the scene of the July 24 blast, located near the residence of Mohammad Mohaqiq, the deputy to Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. A spokesman for Mohaqiq said he was not injured.

The July 24 blast adds to the unrelenting violence in Afghanistan, where at least 1,662 civilians were killed in the first half of the year, according to the United Nations.

It was also the 10th major attack this year in Kabul, which has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2017.

The Taliban has launched a series of attacks around the country in recent days, prompting clashes in more than half a dozen provinces.

On July 23, the Taliban overran two districts in northern and central Afghanistan.

There was also fighting reported in Baghlan, Badakhshan, Kunduz, Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan provinces, according to officials.

With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, and Reuters


NEW YORK, July 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TCS Energy Limited. (the "Company" or TCS), a Ghana based independent power producer developing a 1000MW Seawave power project in Ghana, today announced that it has engaged Palewater Advisory Group Inc ("PAG"), a leading investment banking firm headquartered in New York, as the Company's corporate finance advisor to provide strategic advisory services, in particular related to assisting in the development of a financial strategy for the construction of the power project, advise on the IPO of the company in the US and the capital raising of $2 billion or more. PAG will also focus on assisting TCS in creating and executing new strategies for maximizing shareholder value through its full scope of investment banking services.



Pursuant to the advisory that commenced on July 10, 2017, PAG has received an engagement fee of $250,000 and will continue to receive on the first day of each month of the twelve-month term, $30,000 (USD). In addition, the agreement entitles PAG to specific success-based compensation, along with the raising of $2 billion.

"We chose to partner with Palewater because of their successful track-record as a respected, multinational investment banking firm and we look forward to their advice and guidance with respect to our important strategic decisions," said Anthony Opoku, President & CEO of TCS Energy Limited. "Their Energy team will be an invaluable partner in the execution of our growth strategy, added Mr. Opoku.

TCS Energy is developing the largest power project in West Africa and given Ghanas current electricity shortages and demand, TCS is poised to become one of the largest companies in Ghana both by market size and revenue. We are delighted to be part of this amazing journey with TCS Energy and we thank Mr. Opoku for the faith he continues to demonstrate in us at Palewater, said Solly S. Asibey, Group CEO of MB Africa Investments and Senior Partner at Palewater Advisory Group (Africa) in Johannesburg.

TCS Energy Project will significantly impact Ghanas energy generation capacity and positively stimulate the nations economic health. Bridgewater Advisors Limited (Ghana) is therefore delighted to partner Palewater Advisory Group (Africa) and MB Africa Investments on this groundbreaking capital raising agenda, said Prosper D. Melomey, CEO, Bridgewater Advisors.

About the project.

TCS Energy Limited (TCS) is a wholly owned Ghanaian Independent Power Producer seeking to generate 1,000 megawatts per hour (MW/H) of electricity from sea waves, in the Gulf of Guinea. The objective of TCS Energy is to introduce wave power as a sustainable alternative of generating electricity to meet Ghanas medium to long-term power challenges. The sea waves energy park to be put up at Ada (a suburb of the Greater Accra Region) has successfully completed its piloting programme and is currently about to add on capacity to start generating in commercial scale. It is the vision of TCS Energy to be the key leader in production and distribution of bulk electricity to feed the national grid of Ghana, Africa and beyond.

Brian K. Kistler, President & CEO of Palewater Advisory Group Inc in New York, stated, We are delighted to be invited by TCS Energy Limited to advise on such a large transaction. The government support that this project continues to enjoy is overwhelming and given the fact that TCS has already secured an off-take agreement with the government of Ghana, PAG will use that as a springboard through which sufficient capital for the development and operation of the project is raised. We look forward to a fruitful relationship with one of Ghanas most astute businessman Mr. Anthony Opoku and his team.

About TCS Energy Limited.

TCS Energy Limited, established in 2013, is a Ghanaian Limited Liability Company. The company boasts a dynamic team of technical and operational professionals who are experts within the energy and power sectors. The Company has strategic partnerships with international partners and OEMs, and as such leverages off the best practices of its group of partners to provide cost effective and sustainable solutions within its focus areas. www.tcenergy-gh.com.

About Palewater Advisory Group Inc.

Palewater Advisory Group is a multinational corporate and public affairs advisory firm with headquarters in New York. We specialise in cross-border and M&A transactions, financing, public affairs, political campaign capital raising and strategy. Collectively as the team, we have had an excellent track record with more than 1000 references in our line of advisory work. We have a robust and yet solid network of contacts with specific focus on certain core industries, investment and banking communities. Our directors, leaders, professionals, and senior advisors collectively provide access to senior industrial, political, economic, government and financial decision makers throughout the world.

We provide individual and personal advice and react swiftly to our clients needs, while always providing direct access to the team, including the partners involved. As a professional services firm, we provide the best possible advice based on confidentiality and total discretion. We are committed to the principles of integrity and client service, and operate free from any conflict of interest. www.palewateradvisory.com
By PTI: Chhindwara (MP), Jul 23 (PTI) The police and forest officials, in a joint operation, have seized a tiger hide and arrested four persons in this connection.

The police got a tip-off that some persons were looking for customers to sell the hide of the striped animal for about Rs 8 lakh, Superintendent of Police Gaurav Tiwari said.

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A team was constituted and a trap was laid. The police kept a watch on the movement of these persons, he said.

As three of the accused yesterday arrived at the house of Sandip Ahirwar (22), a resident of Rani Kamath area here, to sell the hide, the police team arrested the four men from the spot, he said.

Apart from Ahirwar, the other three arrested persons are Rajesh Vishwakarma (33), Ramkumar Ahirwar (33) and Abhijit Sakarwar alias Matru (30), he said.

The SP claimed that during the interrogation, the accused said they got the tiger hide from another person, a resident of the districts Kabalpipla village, who is absconding.

He said once they are able to arrest the absconding accused, further details about the source of the tiger hide would be known.

Chhindwaras Chief Conservator of Forest U K Subuddhi said all five accused have been booked under relevant sections of The Wildlife Protection Act.

"Efforts are underway to arrest the absconding accused," he said, adding that "the hide seems to be around three months old."

Some portions of the Pench and the Satpura wildlife sanctuaries are spread over Chhindwara district. PTI COR ADU GK

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Acting on the recommendation of a British government committee investigating the high incidence in white lead factories of illness among employees, most of who were women, the Home Secretary proposed in 1895 that Parliament enact legislation that would prohibit women from holding most jobs in white lead factories. Although the Women's Industrial Defense Committee (WIDC), formed in 1892 in response to earlier legislative attempts to restrict women's labor, did not discount the white lead trade's potential health dangers, it opposed the proposal, viewing it as yet another instance of limiting women's work opportunities. Also opposing the proposal was the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW), which attempted to challenge it by investigating the causes of illness in white lead factories. SPEW contended, and WIDC concurred, that controllable conditions in such factories were responsible for the development of lead poisoning . SPEW provided convincing evidence that lead poisoning could be avoided if workers were careful and clean and if already extant workplace safety regulations were stringently enforced. However, the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL), which had ceased in the late 1880s to oppose restrictions on women's labor, supported the eventually enacted proposal, in part because safety regulations were generally not being enforced in white lead factories, where there were no unions (and little prospect of any) to pressure employers to comply with safety regulations.

Show Spoiler E

1. The passage suggests that WIDC differed from WTUL in which of the following ways?

Show Spoiler A

2. Which of the following, if true, would most clearly support the contention attributed to SPEW in highlighted text?

Show Spoiler B

3. The passage is primarily concerned with

Show Spoiler C

4. According to the passage, the WIDC believed that the proposed legislation resembled earlier legislation concerning womens labor in that it

(A) WIDC believed that the existing safety regulations were adequate to protect women's health, whereas WTUL believed that such regulations needed to be strengthened.(B) WIDC believed that unions could not succeed in pressuring employers to comply with such regulations, whereas WTUL believed that unions could succeed in doing so.(C) WIDC believed that lead poisoning in white lead factories could be avoided by controlling conditions there, whereas WTUL believed that lead poisoning in such factories could not be avoided no matter how stringently safety regulations were enforced.(D) At the time that the legislation concerning white lead factories was proposed, WIDC was primarily concerned with addressing health conditions in white lead factories, whereas WTUL was concerned with improving working conditions in all types of factories.(E) At the time that WIDC was opposing legislative attempts to restrict women's labor, WTUL had already ceased to do so.(A) Those white lead factories that most strongly enforced regulations concerning worker safety and hygiene had the lowest incidences of lead poisoning among employees.(B) The incidence of lead poisoning was much higher among women who worked in white lead factories than among women who worked in other types of factories.(C) There were many household sources of lead that could have contributed to the incidence of lead poisoning among women who also worked outside the home in the late nineteenth century.(D) White lead factories were more stringent than were certain other types of factories in their enforcement of workplace safety regulations.(E) Even brief exposure to the conditions typically found in white lead factories could cause lead poisoning among factory workers.(A) presenting various groups' views of the motives of those proposing certain legislation(B) contrasting the reasoning of various groups concerning their positions on certain proposed legislation(C) tracing the process whereby certain proposed legislation was eventually enacted(D) assessing the success of tactics adopted by various groups with respect to certain proposed legislation(E) evaluating the arguments of various groups concerning certain proposed legislation(A) caused divisiveness among womens organizations(B) sought to protect womens health(C) limited womens occupational opportunities(D) failed to bolster workplace safety regulations(E) failed to make distinctions among types of factory work
Re: Admissions consultant - Stacy or Sandy? [ #permalink

2 Kudos

Not sure about Sandy but definitely not .



They are too expensive and the work is mediocre because of the sheer volume of applicants that go there. After 15 iterations of my essay, I still saw little grammatical issues here and there. Besides, my consultant barely remembered my story in my essays and failed to give me good ideas to make my essay stronger. Overall, they charge too much money and do not guarantee any kind of refund whether you are applying to 1 school or using their help to apply to 5 schools ( $5000+).



I used essay critique this year for one of my schools and thought the service was much better and affordable.





Dec 2010 Update: I spent $6000 (for 6 schools). I re-used the essays for 2-3 other schools. Unfortunately, I did not even get a single invite out of 8-9 schools. I had originally also discussed the schools I wanted to apply to. I guess it depends which consultant you use from which consulting company. I know it is not a money guarantee program but after I told as to what had happened, she said they would give me a discount the next time I use them.....are you freaking serious???....It is good to do a business while you benefit everybody and you are fair. She can help whoever she wants but this one experience was pathetic and I would never recommend the company to anybody specially for the price it charges and the lack of courtesy.
Re: Recommendation letters from current employer vs. previous. [ #permalink

Hi zcdh30 -



Interesting question. I have a few thoughts to share from my 15 years as a Director of MBA Admissions at a top 20 school.



- Unless you worked for the professor, I'd be reluctant to use that person as an MBA recommender. My experience with professor-written recommendations is that they are focused entirely on classroom performance, and don't speak at all to professional performance or potential.



- A recommendation from a supervisor at a part-time job is fairly weak, unless you did something that made a significant impact to their business.



(So far, this is sounding pretty dismal, isn't it? Don't worry - I'll get to some positive news soon!)



- Your current supervisor may not be the strongest in terms of written language skills. However, if he can provide the Admissions Committee with insights into your professional performance, then it is of value. The committee will not judge *you* by his lack of grammar, etc. They will consider the content. So, your decision should be based on this question: Can he provide content that will help sell you to the Admissions Committee? Because this is your only professional full-time employment, you may need to use him.



I recall receiving a letter of recommendation written by an elderly man, and scribbled on an odd size of note paper. At face value, you may think this would look very bad for the applicant. However, this recommender told a poignant story about how the applicant helped him run his business and created changes that very important for the continuity of the business. It was of high value to the admissions process.



Conversely, I've received letters from former Presidents (of the U.S.) that said, "I know this young man's family and they are great supporters of my campaign. They are good people and I'm sure he is as well." Guess what? That letter - despite it coming from a former President - carried a negative value for the Admissions Committee. Why? The candidate went for a "glamour" recommender, who clearly did not know him, and could not speak to his professional performance.



- If you don't want to use your current supervisor, this is easily explained (and be sure you do explain it) to the Admissions Committee as not wanting to jeopardize your current employment (as noted by JonAdmissionado).



- Who else can provide a reflection of your professional performance and potential? Clients? Vendors? Community leaders who you've worked with on a significant volunteer role?



I hope these observations are helpful to you. Just remember - who you select as a recommender reflects your professional judgement. Demonstrate good professional judgement!



Let me know if I can help you further.
Hi guys, long time lurker here and this is my first postI am a Vietnamese applying for this 2017-18 MBA season and my desired specialization is marketing, for either B2C or tech.As my current job involves B2C marketing, initially my primary school list was mostly Midwest ones where most of CPG companies are located (Carlson, Wisconsin, Olin, Fisher...) yet I've heard it is extremely hard for international students to compete for B2C jobs as most companies are not willing to sponsor and just mainly recruit native students.So as I've read on Poets&Quants, seems like the tech job prospect is much higher than CPG which is why I am changing my school shortlist strategy a bit. I'm just wondering:1. Are the tech firms more open to hiring international students and do they usually recruit/ offer internship opportunities? As far as I know, almost all of them are located in the Bay Area. Which leaves the school options pretty limited. Considering the top 100 ranking, in the Bay Area, after excluding Stanford and Haas (which I am aware as too much of a stretch) there is like only UC Davis left, whose reputation seems a bit downhill recently (not many people apply there as far as I've known).2. So is there any other good, reach option schools (top 20-ish downwards) for tech job opportunities? (I'm also concerned with fellowship/scholarship options as given the employment uncertainty for international students, I don't want to graduate with a lot of debt). Is it wise to include other schools located outside SF like the LA area (USC, UCI) and WA (Washington-Foster) in the list? I've heard some other not-in-the-West names Illinois and Purdue are also known for tech, is that right?I am mostly interested in the more creative names in the industry like Instagram, Youtube, Netflix, Spotify... as far as I've researched they are not the most common names for MBA recruiting so if anyone have experience with them and can shed a light that would be great!Thank you very much!(Sorry if this post appears twice, I remembered to post this on the Business School Discussion thread yesterday but somehow it just disappeared
of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way as

Thank you Daagh for your time on GMAT Club and all your contributions! Thank you for everything you did!

Your work will remain a great tribute to you here on GMAT Club !

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Scientists have found new evidenceheartburnby monitoring whats going on within their bodies.A. of people initially registering emotions like sadness or anger in much the same way asB. of people initially registering emotions such as sadness or anger much the same way as experiencingC. that people initially register emotions such as sadness or anger in much the same way as they experienceD. that a person initially registers emotions such as sadness or anger much the same way as experiencingE. that a person initially registers emotions like sadness or anger much the same seemThere seems to be some misconceptions about subjunctive mood's form and usage, which have to be nipped ASAP.The command subjunctive is uses in satiations where an element of mandating or an amount inevitability, compulsoriness or unskippability is involved. The subjunctive mood is used when the verb indicates a desire, intention, command, recommendation, request, resolution, or advice. It is also used along with such adjectives as advisable, better, desirable, and directive, essential, fitting, imperative, important, necessary, urge, urgent and vital. Very important thing to note here is that the word - that -will always accompany such subjunctive mood sentences and the verb of the relative sentences will always be the base form called 'the bare infinitive' or the root form of the verbAs a side shoot, it is also true then 'that' is essential whenever there is a command subjunctive, but whenever 'that' is used, it need not be a subjunctive tool. The word 'that' is a multi - dimensional, used as a connector, a relative pronoun, a demonstrative pronoun, an adjective, an adverb, a subordinate conjunction, and a subordinate clause introducer. Therefore, the moment we see the word 'that' we should not to decide the issue is subjunctive.The verb form that has to be used in a command subjunctive is called the bar infinitive, for example: 'to talk' is the ordinary infinitive. If we remove the 'infinitive marker 'to' from the infinitive, and simply say talk,' it is called the bare infinitive. people may call it the base form or the root form, but they are all okay. Only thing is that they should not be call plural verbs.Coming to the question at hand, first thing is the evidence is not one of those subjunctive markers. Therefore, there is no need to use the bare infinitive as the subjunctive mood in this case.This is just a test of the use of 'such as and like' and secondly about the sub-pronoun number agreement._________________
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
Prison officials in the Public Accounts Committee Meeting of Karnataka Legislative Assembly alleged that former DIG Prisons D Roopa's allegations against VK Sasikala are true.

By India Today Web Desk: It was alleged that VK Sasikala is being given special treatment in Parappana Agrahara Central jail, where she has been imprisoned after being acquitted in the disproportionate assets case.

This claim was made by Karnataka's Deputy Inspector of General Prisons D Roopa who has now been transferred. D Roopa, in her report, also suggested that Sasikala paid Rs 2 crore was paid to avail facilities like five rooms, cot, bed, television and a separate kitchen inside the prison. A probe was ordered by Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, who ordered Roopa's transfer.

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However, during the Public Accounts Committee Meeting of Karnataka Legislative Assembly, that was recently, the prison high officials agreed that the former general secretary of AIADMK was given special treatment.

The committee is headed by Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and former home minister R Ashok who has asked the officials to submit a report within 15 days. D ROOPA'S CONTROVERSIAL REPORT

In her four-page report after visiting the central prison on July 10, Roopa had said a special kitchen was functioning in the jail here for Sasikala, a convict in a corruption case, in violation of the rules.

Sasikala has been lodged at the Parappana Agrahara central jail in Bengaluru since her conviction in February in a disproportionate assets case along with her two relatives, VN Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, all serving a four-year jail term.

(With inputs from Priyamvatha P)

Also Watch: Exclusive: Exposing poor administration doesn't amount to criticising the govt, DIG Roopa to India Today

--- ENDS ---
Be it about expressing his reservations on governments choosing the ordinance route to make laws or being critical of frequent disruptions in Parliament by the Opposition, Pranab Mukherjee has never believed in mincing words.

President Pranab Mukherjee has always been forthcoming about expressing his views on important matters. Photo: PTI.

By India Today Web Desk: As President-elect Ram Nath Kovind takes oath as the 14th President of India today and enters Rashtrapati Bhavan, Pranab Mukherjee will leave for 10, Rajaji Marg.

A seasoned parliamentarian, Pranab Mukherjee, as the 13th President of India, has always held the mirror to the government, the Opposition, and society on various occasions.

Be it about expressing his reservations on governments choosing the ordinance route to make laws or being critical of frequent disruptions in Parliament by the Opposition, Pranab Mukherjee has been forthcoming in airing his views on matters that matter.

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A LOOK AT FIVE TIMES PRESIDENT PRANAB MUKHERJEE SPOKE HIS MIND ON KEY ISSUES:

1) On frequent disruptions in Parliament, President Pranab Mukherjee said there was "no justification for constant disruption of proceedings" at the India Today Conclave in March this year.

President Pranab Mukherjee said, "In my view, there is absolutely no justification for constant disruption of proceedings, low level of attendance, shrinking in number of days that the Parliament and state legislatures meet as well as the irresponsible manner in which important legislation, including the budget and financial proposals, get passed with hardly any discussion."

Mukherjee said it was of benefit to both the ruling party and the opposition "to break this vicious cycle" of disruptions and disorderly behaviour and urged political parties to arrive at an agreement to take up grievances in a manner that doesn not affect Parliament's proceedings.

2) On the rise in the instances of mob lynching, Pranab Mukherjee urged citizens to be vigilant and defeat the "forces of darkness".

"When mob lynching becomes so rampant and uncontrollable, we have to pause and reflect, are we vigilant enough? I am not talking of vigilantism, I am asking whether we are vigilant enough, proactively to save the basic tenets of our country... Vigilance by citizens against such acts can act as the biggest deterrent to the forces of darkness," Pranab Mukherjee said at the relaunch of the National Herald newspaper on July 1.

3) Arguing for freedom of thought and expression, Pranab Mukherjee said "there was no room in India for the intolerant Indian", while delivering the 6th K S Rajamony Memorial Lecture on 'India@70' in March this year.

Speaking after violence rocked Delhi University following clashes in Ramjas College campus, the President said: "Our premier institutions of higher education are the vehicles on which India has to propel itself into a knowledge society. These temples of learning must resound with creativity and free thinking. Those in universities must engage in reasoned discussion and debate rather than propagate a culture of unrest. It is tragic to see them caught in the vortex of violence and disquiet."

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4) President Pranab Mukherjee once again stressed on the need for an "atmosphere of free debate" in campuses at the 52nd convocation of IIM-Calcutta in April.

"Institutions must allow an atmosphere of free debate, discussions and dissent but not conflict and confrontation. The atmosphere should be free from violence, not just physical but also mental," said Pranab Mukherjee.

He said that India is the land of Buddha and Gandhi where people always accept and embrace and not reject others.

"India's campuses are known for its liberalism, confluence of various thoughts and ideas. Let there be debate, disagreement and dissent but not intolerance," the President said.

5) In his farewell speech in Parliament on Sunday, outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee hailed the passage of Goods and Services Tax (GST) as a shining example of cooperative federalism. He, however, cautioned the government against using ordinances to get laws passed.

On ordinance, Pranab Mukherjee said, "I am firm in the opinion that the Ordinance route should be used only in compelling circumstances and there should be no recourse to Ordinances on monetary matters. Ordinance route should not be taken on matters which are being considered or have been introduced in the House or a committee of the House. If a matter is deemed urgent, the concerned committee should be made aware of the situation and should be mandated to present its report within the stipulated time."

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ALSO READ:

President Pranab Mukherjee remembers Indira Gandhi, lauds GST in his farewell speech

In praising Modi, President pushes a rider - Cong-led UPA made economy strong

Pranab Mukherjee: Leaving the Rashtrapati Bhavan on a plume of nostalgia

ALSO WATCH: My career was mentored by Indira Gandhi, says Pranab Mukherjee in his farewell speech

--- ENDS ---
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Polands president has vetoed two of three laws designed to change the countrys judicial system.

Opponents of the laws have argued that they will harm the independence of the judicial system.

Supporters say the countrys judicial system is slow and needs to reform.

Andrzej Duda announced his decision on national television.

Duda said, I have decided to send back to the parliament, which means I will veto, the law on the Supreme Court, as well as the one about the National Council of the Judiciary.

His decision followed more than a week of street protests across the country.

Law would give ruling party too much power, critics said

The first law would permit the justice minister to choose Supreme Court justices. The justice minister also serves as the top lawyer for the government or the prosecutor general.

Under Polands political system, the bill would have put the Supreme Court under the control of the ruling political party.

The president said the prosecutor general has not traditionally had such powers and that he could not permit them now.

A second law would give lawmakers the power to choose who sits on the National Judiciary Council. That council nominates Supreme Court Judges.

The vetoes appeared to surprise members of the ruling Law and Justice Party. Duda has been considered an ally of the ruling Law and Justice Party although he ended his membership in it when he took office.

There had been unconfirmed reports of conflict between the president and party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Duda said he would sign a third law which would change how judges in lower courts are appointed.

American and European officials expressed concerns about the laws after the full legislature approved them.

At the time, the U.S. State Department urged all sides to make sure such reforms would not violate Polands constitution or international laws. It also said the reforms should respect the ideas of judicial independence and separation of powers.

The European Union threatened to start the process of ending Polands EU voting rights if the laws were passed.

Earlier, European Council President Donald Tusk said that he was disappointed that Duda had not accepted an invitation to discuss the laws with him before they were passed. Tusk is a former prime minister of Poland.

The Associated Press reported that Duda said he would present new versions of laws reforming the Supreme Court and the National Council of the Judiciary within two months. He said he would discuss the changes with experts.

The legislature could reject the veto but only with support from minority parties.

The Polish president said he did not discuss the legislation with either the ruling party leader or the prime minister.

He said a former leading anti-communist activist, Zofia Romaszewska, most influenced his decision to veto.

Duda said the activist told him, Mr. President, I lived in a state where the prosecutors general had an unbelievably powerful position and could practically do everything. I would not like to go back to such a state.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Polish president Lech Walesa called Dudas move a difficult and a courageous decision.

Im Caty Weaver.

And Im Mario Ritter.

Isabela Cocoli reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English with additional material from AP. Caty Weaver was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

judiciary  n. The branch of government that includes courts of law and judges

prosecutor  n. a lawyer who represents the side in a court case that accuses a person of a crime and who tries to prove that the person is guilty

disappointed  adj. feeling sad, unhappy, or displeased because something was not as good as expected or because something you hoped for or expected did not happen

practically  adv. nearly

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The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is coming soon, and itll bring the new look and feel of Fluent Design, new cloud-based features that let you pick up where you left off when switching between Windows devices, and a number of other updates (although at least one of those updates isnt ready just yet).

But Microsoft is also killing some legacy Windows features with the Fall Creators Update.

Some older apps and features will no longer be available at all. Others simply wontt be installed by default. And others will no longer be under active development, which means they may be removed in future updates.

For example, Outlook Express is being removed from Windows altogether. The Reader and Reading List apps are being killed but their functionality will be added to the Edge web browser. And Microsoft Paint is being deprecated, which means itll still be available, but development has ended and the apps days may be numbered.

That last ones not particularly surprising, since Microsoft introduced a new app called Paint 3D with the Windows 10 Creators Update.

Other features that are being removed include the 3D Builder app, screen saver functionality in themes, syskey.exe, and TPM owner password management.

Newly desecrated features include Windows PowerShell 2.0, TPM remote management, and System Image Backup.

You can find a complete list of removed and deprecated features, along with more details, at Microsofts support page.

Update: Microsoft says Paint will be moving to the Windows Store, where it will be available as a free download. But the company makes no promises that itll receive any updates, only saying that the new Paint 3D app will continue to receive new features moving forward.

via MSPowerUser
Dr. Joseph Ravenell talks to patrons of a New York City barbershop. Credit: NYU Langone Health

Aging black men are at much greater risk of dying prematurely of colorectal cancer than any other group in the United States, and are less likely than their white counterparts to be diagnosed at an early stage of the disease. Now a new study finds that patients who enrolled for screening through patient navigator programs at local barbershops were twice as likely to get screened for colorectal cancer.

The new clinical trial was led by the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health and published recently in the American Journal of Public Health. It is the first, say the authors, to evaluate patient navigationin which healthcare staff guide patients toward colorectal cancer screening in a timely fashionin a familiar community setting.

Unlike the newly published MISTER B study (the Multi-intervention study to Improve colorectal cancer Screening and To Enhance Risk reduction in Black men), most prior studies of programs that link black men to patient navigators for colon cancer prevention have based themselves at clinics. Specifically, the researchers found that participants who received help from the navigators in MISTER B were twice as likely to get screened as those who did not receive a patient navigator.

"Black men are less likely than the general population to be insured and to have a personal doctor, which is why we went beyond the clinic and to the community," said Joseph Ravenell, MD, MPH, the principal investigator of the study and associate professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone's Center for Healthful Behavior Change. "Barbershops in particular hold special appeal for community-based intervention trials, are popular forums for open conversation, and could be leveraged to lessen the death rate from colorectal cancer in black men."

How the MISTER B Study Was Conducted

From late 2009 to late 2013, community health workers visited 111 interested barbershops in all five boroughs of New York City and screened 4,025 black male customers or nearby residents aged 50 or older for eligibility based on whether they were up-to-date for colorectal screening. The study then enrolled 731 men in one of three groups.

The first group was paired with a patient navigator who helped them address barriers to setting up a colorectal screening. These included a lack of insurance coverage and a lack of knowledge about the need for screening, available options, and screening locations. The second group, which was the control group, received motivational interviewing intervention for blood pressure control by a trained counselor. The third group received both interventions.

Researchers then reviewed health education materials published by the American Cancer Society addressing colorectal cancer screening and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute on high blood pressure self-management with all participants.

Those randomized to the patient navigation intervention received follow-up phone calls from patient navigators within two weeks and then periodically over the course of six months to help them schedule a colonoscopy, or choose another type of screening for colorectal cancer. Participants who preferred fecal immunochemical test screening were sent a kit and instructions by mail, and received follow-up calls from the navigator to confirm the testing.

Six months after enrollment, 17.5 percent of men who were enrolled in the patient navigation arm, and 17.8 percent of men who got both patient navigation and motivational interviewing were screened for colorectal cancer, compared to 8.4 percent of those who got no extra support for colorectal cancer screening.

The participants faced several challenges in getting adequate healthcare, according to study findings. Only 60 percent had a personal physician, and only 40 percent had received a checkup within the past year. Many were uninsured and had low health literacy. The median salary was $16,726an income low enough in New York City to make someone eligible for housing assistance. Almost one-third had less than a high school education, and nearly one-half were unemployed.

"Although previous studies have shown that patient navigation improves colorectal cancer screening among ethnic minorities in clinical settings, our study is the first of this scale to look at a community approach," said Helen Cole, DrPH, first author and a former project coordinator at NYU Langone, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Institut Hospital del Mar d'Investigacions Mediques in Barcelona, Spain. "These findings add to the growing body of evidence that healthcare systems should expand their work in trusted community spaces to reach those who might not be seen in a clinical setting."

More information: Helen Cole et al, Community-Based, Preclinical Patient Navigation for Colorectal Cancer Screening Among Older Black Men Recruited From Barbershops: The MISTER B Trial, American Journal of Public Health (2017). Journal information: American Journal of Public Health Helen Cole et al, Community-Based, Preclinical Patient Navigation for Colorectal Cancer Screening Among Older Black Men Recruited From Barbershops: The MISTER B Trial,(2017). DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.303885
The antiretroviral (ARV) drug dapivirine that is released from an experimental vaginal ring to protect against HIV is absorbed in very low concentrations into breastmilk, according to a U.S. study of the dapivirine ring among women who were no longer nursing their babies but still producing milk.

Use of the ring for 14 consecutive days was also associated with low levels of dapivirine in women's plasma, and posed few safety concerns, researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) reported today at the 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017) in Paris. The Phase I study, known as MTN-029/IPM 039, is the first study of the dapivirine ring in lactating women, following two Phase III trialsASPIRE and The Ring Studythat found the ring was safe and helped protect against HIV among more than 4,500 women in sub-Saharan Africa.

Encouraged by these results, MTN investigators are planning additional studies that will explore whether the dapivirine ring is safe to use by women who are actively breastfeeding, and therefore safe for their infants; and, also evaluate the safety of the ring during pregnancy. These studies would be conducted at trial sites in Africa, and women would use the ring for a month at a time, as directed for HIV prevention.

The monthly dapivirine ring was developed by the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), a non-profit organization. When in place inside the vagina, the ring slowly releases dapivirine over the course of a month. The ring is made of a flexible plastic material, and women insert and replace the ring themselves each month. IPM is seeking regulatory approval of the dapivirine ring for women ages 18-45 based on results of ASPIRE , which was conducted by MTN, and The Ring Study, led by IPM.

Because the effects dapivirine could have on the developing fetus and breast-fed infants are unknown, women who participate in studies of the ring cannot be pregnant or breastfeeding, and are required to use effective contraception. Participants who become pregnant immediately stop use of the ring. Such precautions are standard in any clinical trial testing a new drug product in women of reproductive age. Consequently, a drug that may receive regulatory approval is often contraindicated in women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, yet, might be used by some anyway - without the benefit of knowing it is safe to do so. If approved, the same would be true of the dapivirine ring.

Many women remain sexually active during pregnancy and breastfeeding, when there may be greater risk of acquiring HIV, and may be especially difficult for women to negotiate the use of condoms with their partners. Moreover, in regions where HIV incidence is high, such as sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of women of reproductive age who are either pregnant, breastfeeding or both is also high.

Taken together, it is hoped that the results of the MTN-029/IPM 039 study and those of planned studies of the dapivirine ring among pregnant and breastfeeding women will demonstrate the product's safety in this population.

"There is little doubt that safe and effective HIV prevention methods are needed for women during all times of their lives," commented Sharon Hillier, Ph.D., principal investigator of the MTN, and professor and vice chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "With the dapivirine ring, conducting this study was an important first step. If the ring is approved, we'd want it to ultimately be made available to all women, including those who are breastfeeding."

"Understanding the safe use of drugs in pregnancy and breastfeeding is a high priority across women's health. Eventually, we hope that we can assure women that using the dapivirine ring during breastfeedingand pregnancy - is safe, with minimal exposure of the drug to their infants. However, understanding a product's safety during pregnancy and breastfeeding requires carefully designed trials that can obtain critical safety information while also ensuring the well-being of this special population. In this first study of dapivirine and breast milk, we were able to gather initial data without exposing infants to drug," said Lisa M. Noguchi, CNM, Ph.D., research associate in the department of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and MTN's scientific director for pregnancy research, who reported the study results at IAS 2017.

MTN-029/IPM 039 enrolled 16 participants - women who had stopped breastfeeding their babies but could still pump breast milkat the University of Pittsburgh-affiliated Magee-Womens Hospital and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Women were asked to leave the vaginal ring in place for 14 days. Researchers collected milk and blood plasma samples prior to the ring being inserted, and then after three hours, six hours, 24 hours, seven days and 14 days, when the ring was removed. Samples were collected again two days later.

All participants had detectable drug in milk and plasma, beginning at three hours with concentrations gradually increasing until reaching a steady state between seven and 14 days. (Peak concentration for milk and plasma were 676 pg/mL and 327 pg/mL, respectively.) Two days after the ring was removed, drug levels had decreased by 60 percent.

Based on levels measured in maternal breast milk, researchers estimated that an infant's daily exposure to drug would be very low. For instance, a 6-month old baby weighing 8 kg (about 18 lbs) would probably take in about 600 ng (or 6/10,000 of a milligram) of dapivirine on a daily basis. By comparison, said researchers, a similar weight baby being breastfed by a mother taking the combination ARV Truvada would be exposed to about 4,000 ng of tenofovir and 300,000 ng of emtricitabine each day, levels that so far have not been seen to pose a health risk for breastfed infants.

Dr. Noguchi led the MTN-029/IPM 039 study with Richard Beigi, MD, MSc, an associate professor of reproductive health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.

Three new studies are being planned as a follow-up to MTN-029/IPM 039 that will be conducted at four MTN-affiliated trial sites in Malawi, Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe The first, MTN-041, is a qualitative study that will explore attitudes about use of a vaginal ring and oral PrEP during pregnancy and breastfeeding among women who are themselves pregnant and/or breastfeeding, male partners and key community gatekeepers, such as health care providers, traditional healers and religious and traditional leaders. Pending ethics and in-country approvals, the study is expected to start early 2018.

In MTN-042, researchers are proposing to evaluate the safety of the ring as well as oral PrEP in approximately 750 pregnant women, while MTN-043 would involve approximately 100 women who are breastfeeding as well as their infants.

Provided by Microbicide Trials Network
By PTI: Chennai, July 24 (PTI) Ruling AIADMK today said it would take legal action against senior Karnataka police official D Roopa if she did not withdraw her charges that party general secretary V K Sasikala was provided special treatment in prison, contravening laws. AIADMK mouthpiece Namadhu Dr MGR quoted the partys Perambur MLA and district secretary P Vetrivel and partys Karnataka state unit secretary V A Pugazhendi as saying that legal actions would be taken if Roopa did not take back her false charges. As DIG (Prison) a few days ago, Roopa had alleged that Sasikala was provided amenities flouting prison rules. Though she was eased out of the prison department subsequently, she continues to stick to her stand.

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Sasikala is lodged at Parappana Agrahara central prison in Bengaluru ever since her conviction in February in the disproportionate assets case along with her two relatives V N Sudhakaran and Elavarasi, all serving a 4-year jail term.

Extensively quoting the Karnataka Prison Manual, the AIADMK mouthpiece explained rules that permitted amenities for those sentenced to simple imprisonment and in respect of women prisoners.

Convicts undergoing simple imprisonment are allowed to wear their own clothes and use their own mattress.

With the permission of jail superintendent, the class-1 prisoners could also cook food for themselves inside the jail out of their money and may get help from other prisoners in this regard as well, the daily said.

They are entitled to a table, a chair and a mirror.

Similarly, they could buy fruits, biscuits from their own funds and get them from their friends and relatives too.

Such prisoners could also get help from other prisoners in cleaning the cooking utensils with the permission of the jail superintendent, it said.

They could also read books, magazines and newspapers from the prison library and may even buy them from outside if a particular magazine or book is not available in jail.

Though she was entitled to such amenities, Sasikala did not even fully utilise them, the ruling partys mouthpiece, which is perceived to have the backing of party deputy general secretary T T V Dhinakarans faction, said.

"While this is the real status, former Karnataka Prison DIG Roopa is making allegations. There is not even an iota of truth in any of her charges and she has not released any evidence for the same," the daily said, attributing it to the party functionaries.

"It is obvious that Chinnamma is fully following all prison rules and she was not provided any special treatment, flouting laws."

The Karnataka government had on July 17 shunted out Roopa who brought to light the alleged special treatment to Sasikala in the central prison in Bengaluru and dragged her senior into a bribery row over the matter.

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While shifting DIG (Prisons) D Roopa, the government also transferred DGP (Prisons) H N Sathyanarayana Rao after they sparred over a report on the charges in public. PTI VGN SS APR RAX

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In a new study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing's Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR), and the Rutgers University School of Nursing examined the factors influencing the likelihood of missed nursing care in the home care setting. Their findings indicate that home care nurses with poor work environments are more likely to miss required care.

"This study provides the best evidence to date that better home care agency work environments and patient care can be expected from home care agencies that achieve Pathway to Excellence designation," said Olga F. Jarrin, PhD, RN, assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Nursing and a senior fellow at CHOPR. "There has been a lot of research on the topic of hospital work environments, but very little on home care. Given that the homebound elderly and community dwelling disabled are a particularly vulnerable population, our question was, to what extent is the work environment in home care agencies related to the quality of care nurses provide to patients in their homes?"

Jarrin was first author on the paper, available online ahead of print in the journal Nursing Outlook, the official journal of the American Academy of Nursing and the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science. She collaborated with CHOPR Director Linda H. Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, the Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing and the senior author on the paper, and Youjeong Kang, PhD, MPH, CCRN, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington School of Nursing.

To address their questions, the researchers relied on survey data collected from nearly 3,500 home care registered nurses in over 800 home care agencies between 2006 and 2007. Among other questions, nurses were asked whether they had omitted any required or necessary care activities due to a lack of time.

The quality of the home care agency work environment was determined from survey responses regarding nurses' autonomy, the health and safety of the work environment, opportunities for professional development, quality of nursing management, and other standards of workplace excellence outlined in the American Nurses Credentialing Center Pathway to Excellence Program.

The Pathway to Excellence Program recognizes health care organizations that create positive work environments where nurses can excel in their practice and patient care.

"The pursuit of Pathway credentialing holds promise for recognizing nursing excellence in home care organizations and as a blueprint for moving more home care organizations into the highest levels of patient care excellence," says Aiken.

As has been found in other settings, nurses working in agencies with poor work environments were more likely to report not having enough time to complete necessary patient teaching, counseling, and care coordination.

Categorizing home care agencies into poor, mixed, and better work environments, Jarrin and colleagues found that, nurses in in better work environments were less than half as likely to report missing necessary care coordination, counseling, or education of patients and their caregivers compared to nurses working in agencies with poor work environments.

Home care nurses were impacted as well. Specifically, nurses in the best work environments were less than one-third as likely to experience burnout, job dissatisfaction, or intend to leave their jobs compared with nurses working in the worst work environments.

"Having enough time to provide patient education and counseling helps nurses feel they are making a difference in the community and reduces burnout," Jarrin said.

She noted that not only would ensuring that nurses have supportive work environments and manageable workloads improve care quality, but it could also improve retention for home care agencies.

Such attention to quality care is particularly significant in home care nursing, where a lack of good nursing care can lead to avoidable hospitalizations and institutionalizations.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Being exposed to and actively remembering violent episodeseven those that happened up to a decade beforehinders short-term memory and cognitive control, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The study, which was co-authored by Princeton University's Pietro Ortoleva, examined more than 500 civilians in Colombia, a country that has experienced both urban violence and rural warfare within the past two decades.

The findings demonstrate the long-lasting effects of violence on cognition and memory recall and highlight the need for policies that provide proper therapy for those coping with violence.

"Memory and cognitive control impact how people do in school, how they perform at work and if they can keep their jobs, and how they fare in life in general, which all has significant impacts on the economy as a whole," said Ortoleva, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

In addition to Ortoleva, who conducted the work as a faculty member at Columbia University, the research team included Francesco Bogliacino of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and Gianluca Grimalda and Patrick Ring, both of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

To study the effects of violence on both short-term memory and cognitive control, the research team conducted experiments on two groups: one from an urban setting and the other from a rural area.

The urban group consisted of residents of Bogota, where violence and crime are widespread. Those surveyed were between the ages of 18 and 24, and came from all but two of Bogota's 19 districts. This age group was chosen because young people typically have not moved away from the neighborhood in which they grew up.

The rural group consisted of civilians displaced by war, who experienced armed conflicts up to 10 or 20 years ago. Many of these people were forced to abandon their homes and move elsewhere under the threat of massacres by paramilitary groups, which happened just months before in the same region.

"We studied both short-term memory and cognitive control because they are important determinants for individual well-being and societal development," Ortoleva said. "Stronger short-term memory is positively associated with school attainment, job performance, and with lower probability of contracting Alzheimer's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Weaker cognitive control among children has been shown to lead to issues with physical health, higher mortality rates, lower personal wealth and criminal offenses 30 years later."

In the first experiment, the researchers asked a randomly chosen subset of the urban group to recall an event that occurred in the last year that caused anxiety or fear, explicitly hinting at violence as a possible cause of such an emotional state. These individuals reported different types of violence, including armed assault or witnessing murder. The remaining participants were asked to recall a joyful experience or a generic experience devoid of emotion.

Participants were then asked to recall a sequence of geometrical figures to test short-term memory, or their ability to store information after recalling such violent episodes.

Those in the group who were exposed to serious violence and recalled such an event performed poorly on this test. For those who were not exposed to serious violence, or were not asked to recall a violent event, no effect was seen.

The researchers repeated a similar experiment with the rural group. These individuals also reported different types of extreme violence, including experiencing rape or witnessing murder.

In addition to the short-term memory test, these participants were also given a cognitive control test to test their ability to inhibit immediate, instinctive responses. Participants were given numerical sequences in which a digit from one to four appeared one to four times and were asked to state the number of times the digit appeared.

"A person's first instinct is typically to say the digit that appearsnot the number of times a digit appears. If they exercise cognitive control, however, they can recognize the question is about the latter," Ortoleva said. "This was a challenge for the participants who were exposed to violence and asked to remember such traumatic episodes."

Similar effects were seen in the memory test of the participants in the rural group as the urban group, and the same happened for their cognitive control. Those who were both exposed to and recalled a violent event exhibited poorer performance than those who did not.

"We used these distinct groups to compare the short- and long-term effects of violence and the impact of different types of violence: warfare in rural areas versus ordinary criminality in urban areas," Ortoleva said. "Regardless of place or type of violence, if subjects were exposed to high levels and were asked to recall it, poorer performance in our tests is seen."

"Our results demonstrate that exposure to violence can have effects on cognitive functions," said Ortoleva. "Besides the obvious negative effects on the physical and psychological well-being, this may lead to vicious cycles: both poverty and violence hinder the ability to develop for a person or a group, which in turn may generate further poverty and violence. The study has broad implications, especially for the ongoing peace process in Colombia."

Susan Fiske, Eugene Higgins Professor at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, edited the paper for PNAS and emphasized its importance with relation to war, crime and violence.

"This innovative research suggests a cognitive mechanism for how exposure to violence spills over to daily life later," Fiske said. "Interventions should fight the downstream cognitive effects of experiencing war, terrorism, and neighborhood violence."

The paper, "Exposure to and recall of violence reduce short-term memory and cognitive control," will be published online July 24 in PNAS.

More information: Francesco Bogliacino el al., "Exposure to and recall of violence reduce short-term memory and cognitive control," PNAS (2017). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Francesco Bogliacino el al., "Exposure to and recall of violence reduce short-term memory and cognitive control,"(2017). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1704651114
(HealthDay)Galectin-1 (Gal-1), allergen-specific immunotherapy (SIT) co-administration may suppress allergic responses in the intestine more than use of SIT or Gal-1 alone, according to an experimental study published online July 18 in Allergy.

Li-Tao Yang, Ph.D., from the Shenzhen University School of Medicine in China, and colleagues developed an intestinal allergy mouse model to examine whether Gal-1 administration promotes and prolongs the efficacy of SIT. In sensitized mice, the authors assessed the impact of co-administration of SIT and Gal-1 on suppression of allergic responses, prevention of mast cell activation, and generation of antigen-specific regulatory T cells (Tregs).

The researchers found that, compared with use of SIT or Gal-1 alone, co-administration markedly suppressed the allergic responses in the mouse intestine. Gal-1 bound to immunoglobulin E/FcRI complexes on the mast cell surface to prevent mast cell activation during SIT. The SIT-generated allergen-specific Tregs were promoted by Gal-1 in the intestine of the sensitized mice. The efficacy of immunotherapy for suppressing allergic responses in the intestine was enhanced significantly by co-administration of Gal-1 and SIT, which lasted for at least 12 months.

"Long term effects of specific immunotherapy on intestinal allergy can be achieved with Gal-1/SIT therapy by inhibiting mast cell activation and facilitating Treg development," the authors write.

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Credit: University of Texas at Dallas

New research by a UT Dallas neuroscientist has established a link between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and pain sensitivity.

The study, led by Dr. Xiaosi Gu, outlines alternations in pain perception faced by people on the autism spectrum and how those changes can affect them in social functions.

"This provides some of the first evidence that links pain perception to social function in ASD. Most experiments on ASD focus either on the social dysfunction aspects or the sensory dysfunction aspects. But very few studies have looked at them both," said Gu, assistant professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, the study focused on a very specific aspect of sensory processingpain perception, with a goal of determining what happens in the brains of high-functioning adults with ASD when they anticipate and feel pain sensations.

The researchers used a stimulation device to deliver mild electrical shocks to the participants, who decided how much pain they were willing to tolerate. The shocks were delivered while the subjects were inside an MRI scanner, so that researchers could measure brain activity and physiological responses when participants anticipated pain and when they experienced it.

One of the areas in the brain known to encode anticipation of pain is the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). As participants waited in the scanner before receiving a pain signal, researchers could see this part of the brain light up.

Gu said there were three main findings from the study:

It confirmed that people with ASD are hypersensitive to pain, a finding that has been documented in previous studies.

In a new finding, the study showed that when people with ASD anticipate painful stimulus, their brains generate greater neural responses in the ACC, compared to those without ASD.

In addition, the research indicated that the more brain activity the participants show during pain anticipation, the less they score on an empathy quotient questionnaire. Gu said people with autism often are poor at empathy, which is the ability to understand what another person may be feeling. This result indicates that pain anticipation is related to social impairments faced by those with autism.

She said that a withdrawal from interactions may be a way of protecting oneself.

"The risks of encountering pain are part of daily life and are normal for non-ASD individuals, but may be overwhelming for autistic people," Gu said. "Therefore, one possible explanation of our finding is that to protect themselves, individuals with ASD may not engage in social interactions as much. You reduce the risk of encountering pain or other sensory experiences that are very normal for non-ASD individuals, but not for those with ASD."

Based on the study results, Gu said that therapists and experts who work with people with ASD should consider developing interventions and treatment options to help with sensory processing, particularly pain.

More information: Xiaosi Gu et al. Heightened brain response to pain anticipation in high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder, European Journal of Neuroscience (2017). Journal information: European Journal of Neuroscience Xiaosi Gu et al. Heightened brain response to pain anticipation in high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder,(2017). DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13598
They may live for the limelight and the call of their muse, but musicians may also be prone to eating disorders, according to new research.

A study of active musicians  including amateurs, students, professionals, and retired musicians  has found that they may have a high prevalence of food-related disorders, which could be explained by a combination of personality traits and the demands of the job.

According to the researchers, the apparent prevalence of eating disorders seen in musicians "could be due to their increased levels of perfectionism", and the findings could help doctors to look for warning signs among a subset of patients.

In the study, published this month in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, researchers gave questionnaires to 301 self-reported musicians, focusing on their physical and mental health.

Striving for perfection

Over the course of 28 questions participants divulged key information about how anxious or depressed they were, their physical health and if they had ever suffered from a clinically diagnosable eating disorder.

The musicians performed across a broad range of musical genres  including jazz, hip hop, folk and rock  but the majority (85%) were classical musicians. Almost two-thirds of the participants were female, and the average age of the group was around 31 years of age.

After analysing the questionnaire data, the researchers revealed almost one-third of the group (32.3%) reported having experienced an eating disorder, a higher proportion than the estimated 1.6 million adults thought to be affected in the UK.

Questions around mental health showed high rates of depression and stress among the group, and anxiety levels were higher still.

According to lead author Marianna Kapsetaki, a concert pianist and current PhD researcher in neuroscience at Imperial, the mental and practical strains arising from an unpredictable work schedule and constant travel may draw professional musicians into "a vicious circle of unhealthy eating".

Dr Kapsetaki explained that the demand to perform and to look the part may also add to the stress of musicians, adding: "These pressures can also lead to anxiety and depression which are risk factors for eating disorders."

Limiting factors

The authors highlight that a number of limiting factors may have influenced the outcomes, including the fact that musicians under the age of 18 were not incorporated in the study  a group in which eating disorders may be more prevalent  as well as a potential for more musicians with eating disorders to have taken part, based on the nature of the study.

Eating disorders are also statistically more likely to affect girls and women, which may have added to the prevalence reported by the largely female study group.

However, they add that making clinicians aware of the increased prevalence of eating disorders in musicians could enable them to provide additional care, helping to optimise their health, and ultimately, their performance.

Dr Kapsetaki said: "Performing Arts Medicine is a fairly new field and I believe there will be many more interesting projects in the future relating to the mental health of performing artists."

She added: "Future studies could compare musicians with and without eating disorders with behavioural tests and neuroimaging to see if there are any differences in brain structure."

More information: Marianna Evangelia Kapsetaki et al. Eating disorders in musicians: a survey investigating self-reported eating disorders of musicians, Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity (2017). Marianna Evangelia Kapsetaki et al. Eating disorders in musicians: a survey investigating self-reported eating disorders of musicians,(2017). DOI: 10.1007/s40519-017-0414-9
(HealthDay)The prevalence of vertebral fracture varies for different methods of radiological assessment, according to a study published online July 18 in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

Ling Oei, M.D., Ph.D., from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues assessed cross-sectional radiographs for 7,582 participants aged 45 to 95 years to examine statistical measures of agreement and prevalence of osteoporotic vertebral fractures. The authors compared the quantitative morphometry (QM) method, which evaluates vertebral height loss that affects vertebral shape, and the algorithm based qualitative (ABQ) method, which judges endplate integrity and includes guidelines for the differentiation of vertebral fracture and non-fracture deformities.

The researchers found that the prevalence was 14.2 and 4.0 percent with QM and ABQ, respectively. Inter-method agreement was 0.24 and 0.74 according to the kappa statistic and Prevalence Adjusted Bias Adjusted Kappa (PABAK), respectively. Between-method agreement was highest for females ( = 0.31; PABAK = 0.78), participants aged older than 80 years ( = 0.40; PABAK = 0.66), and at the L1 level ( = 0.40, PABAK = 0.97). Most fractures were found at the thoraco-lumbar junction (T12 to L1), followed by the T7 to T8 level with ABQ, while most deformities were in the mid (T7 to T8) and lower thoracic spine (T11 to T12) with QM; similar numbers of fractures were seen in both peaks. Agreement between methods was increased by excluding mild deformities ( = 0.24 to 0.36; PABAK = 0.74 to 0.86) and re-examining mild deformities based on endplate depression ( = 0.24 to 0.40; PABAK = 0.74 to 0.86).

"Vertebral fracture prevalence differs significantly between QM and ABQ; reexamining QM mild deformities based on endplate depression would increase the agreement between methods," the authors write.

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
In this Saturday, July 1, 2017, file photo, a man is treated for suspected cholera infection at a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. Since April, a cholera epidemic has ravaged the country with around 400,000 suspected cases and over 1,800 deaths. The rainy season underway threatens to worsen the situation and the number of cholera cases is expected to double by the end of the year, according to ICRC. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File)

The chief of the international Red Cross made a rare visit to the front lines in Yemen Monday, taking a dirt road to reach the besieged western city of Taiz, devastated by more than two years of fighting.

The visit by Peter Maurer, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, is meant to provide the ICRC with a firsthand look at Yemen's raging cholera epidemic and humanitarian crisis amid the civil war. Maurer already visited the southern port city of Aden and will be ending his trip in Sanaa.

The executive directors of UNICEF and WHO are also in Yemen to urge for much-needed humanitarian aid. The $2.1 billion humanitarian appeal for Yemen is only 33 percent funded, and the response to the cholera epidemic requires an additional $250 million, of which just $47 million has been received, according to the United Nations.

Maurer posted a video showing him driving on unpaved roads to Taiz and tweeted: "The city is encircled and main roads are cut off."

"I find this needless suffering absolutely infuriating. The world is sleep-walking into yet more tragedy," Maurer said on Sunday.

The visit is unprecedented since Taizonce Yemen's cultural hubhas been split by the bitter war into zones controlled by the Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies, and those controlled by factions financed and armed by the Saudi-led coalition and the Yemeni government.

Hundreds of thousands of Taiz residents have been caught in the crossfire and residents use donkeys to carry smuggled goods and basic necessities on unpaved roads in and out of the city.

The Saudi-led coalition has waged an extensive air campaign since March 2015 to dislodge the Houthis who currently control the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country's north. The conflict has pushed the already impoverished nation to the verge of famine, displaced 3 million residents, and killed over 10,000 civilians.

Since April, a cholera epidemic has ravaged the country with around 400,000 suspected cases and over 1,800 deaths. The rainy season underway threatens to worsen the situation and the number of cholera cases is expected to double by the end of the year, according to ICRC.

Maurer urged the warring parties to allow in humanitarian aid. Since the beginning of the Saudi-led air campaign in 2015, the coalition has imposed a blockade on Yemen's air and sea routes, shut down Sanaa's airport and limited access to vital sea ports.

"Further deaths can be prevented, but warring parties must ease restrictions and allow the import of medicines, food and essential supplies and they must show restraint in the way they conduct warfare," Maurer said.

The ICRC chief is also expected to discuss the issue of illegal detentions and forced disappearances. He says around 10 Yemeni families attend ICRC's offices every week to report a missing person.

Hundreds of detainees are held in undisclosed locations and informal prisons across Yemen, including southern cities where the United Arab Emirates and forces loyal to it have set up a network of secret prisons where torture is rampant.

Maurer said that he discussed the issue of the detainees with government officials in Aden and would do the same with their Houthi counterparts during his visit to Sanaa. He added that the ICRC "prefers to have a quiet and confidential discussion with all sides in order to de-block a situation... no side is moving because the other is not moving."

"I am here to remind all sides in that conflict the international humanitarian law must be respected, that detainees on all sides have to be treated humanely. This is an important issue which I have discussed with the authorities in Aden and will continue to discuss on my way through Yemen during the week," he said.

Over the past two days in Mukalla, the provincial capital of the Yemen's largest province of Hadramawt, dozens of families of detainees gathered outside the governor's office and the UAE-run air base of Riyan, which has been turned into a detention center.

Women cloaked in black and men in traditional Yemeni attire carried signs that read: "Where is the judiciary? No to the militias."

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Structures of the ion channel of the glutamate receptor in the closed (left, blue) and open (right, orange) states viewed parallel (top) or perpendicular (bottom) to the membrane, from the extracellular (synaptic) side. Credit: Sobolevsky lab/Columbia University Medical Center

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have captured the first three-dimensional snapshots of the AMPA-subtype glutamate receptor in action. The receptor, which regulates most electrical signaling in the brain, is involved in several important brain activities, including memory and learning.

The findings were published today in Nature.

"With our new findings, we can now, for the first time, visualize how the neurotransmitter glutamate opens glutamate receptor ion channels," said Alexander Sobolevsky, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia and senior author of the paper. "This is the fundamental process that directly affects learning and memory, and finding its structural determinants has been the primary goal of molecular neuroscience since the '90s."

Most signaling in the brain is triggered by glutamate, a neurotransmitter that activates proteins on the surface of neurons called glutamate receptors. Glutamate receptors underlie a variety of high cognitive functions, including learning and memory. AMPA receptors are glutamate receptors that open and close very quicklyin less than a millisecondand are involved in fast processes in the brain, such as the rapid perception and reaction of an organism to its surrounding environment.

Previously, the Sobolevsky lab deciphered the structures of the AMPA receptor alone and in complex with other proteins that regulate the speed and strength of synaptic connections. In the current study, the researchers captured the AMPA receptor in action, as glutamate activates the receptor to allow ions to flow through its channel and initiate signaling in the brain. This provides the first precise insights into how receptors mediate brain function.

Cryo-electron micrograph (left) and 3-D structural reconstruction (right) of the activated glutamate receptor synaptic complex with stargazin (STZ). Credit: Sobolevsky lab/Columbia University Medical Center

To freeze the AMPA receptor in an active state, the researchers fused it with stargazin, a regulatory protein that prompts the channel to open. The images they captured show that when signaling molecules such as glutamate are present, the entrance to the AMPA receptor, which consists of four units, opens up like a camera's iris, or aperture, to reveal its pore. To shepherd the ions through, the receptor widens the diameter of its channel, and a specialized channel pore lining ushers the ions into the cell.

"These new fundamental discoveries have implications for our understanding of neurotransmission by glutamate, our brain's major neurotransmitter" says Edward C. Twomey, a PhD candidate at CUMC and first author of the paper. "Understanding these processes will impact future studies on glutamate receptor signaling in neurodegenerative diseases as well as drug design."

To study the receptor, Sobolevksy's team used cryo-electron microscopy, a technique that captures an array of two-dimensional images of a molecule and combines them into a three-dimensional structural image. The method was pioneered by co-author Joachim Frank, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of biological sciences at CUMC.

Defects in glutamate receptors, or the processes they mediate, are implicated in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma; psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and drug use disorders; as well as in acute disorders such as brain trauma and stroke. The new structure of an active AMPA receptor and understanding of the activating mechanism create a solid platform for developing therapeutics to treat neurological disorders that are associated with glutamate receptor dysfunction.

More information: Edward C. Twomey et al. Channel opening and gating mechanism in AMPA-subtype glutamate receptors, Nature (2017). Journal information: Nature Edward C. Twomey et al. Channel opening and gating mechanism in AMPA-subtype glutamate receptors,(2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature23479
Credit: Vera Kratochvil/public domain

Smokers who undergo a CT scan of their lungs are more likely to quit than those who don't, concludes a trial led by Cardiff University.

The findings of the study, looking at the effect of CT screening on smokers at high-risk of developing lung cancer, dispute the belief that a negative screening result offers a 'licence to smoke' and reveal that engaging with lung screening can give smokers an opportunity to access smoking cessation support, at a time when they are likely to be receptive to offers of help.

Dr Kate Brain, Reader at Cardiff University's Division of Population Medicine, said: "Our trial shows that CT lung cancer screening offers a teachable moment for smoking cessation among high-risk groups in the UK. We now need evidence about the best ways of integrating lung cancer screening with stop-smoking support, so that services are designed to deliver the maximum health benefits for current and future generations."

The trial, led by researchers at Cardiff University working with the University of Liverpool, King's College London and Queen Mary University, involved 4,055 participants aged 50-75 years who were randomised either to a group who underwent low-dose CT screening for early detection of lung cancer, or to a control group who did not undergo screening.

Of the smokers who took part in the screening, 10 percent had successfully quit after two weeks, and 15 percent had quit at two years  both higher than rates in the control group.

The UK Lung Cancer Screening (UKLS) pilot trial is the first to assess the feasibility, cost-effectiveness and behavioural impact of lung cancer screening, using a single low-dose CT screen on a high-risk population in the UK.

Lung cancer is one of the most common and serious types of cancer and has the highest mortality of all cancers in the UK. Around 44,500 people are diagnosed with the condition every year in the UK.

The UKLS pilot trial was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme.

The full scientific publication 'Impact of low-dose CT screening on smoking cessation among high-risk participants in the UK Lung Cancer Screening Trial' is published in Thorax.

More information: Kate Brain et al. Impact of low-dose CT screening on smoking cessation among high-risk participants in the UK Lung Cancer Screening Trial, Thorax (2017). Journal information: Thorax Kate Brain et al. Impact of low-dose CT screening on smoking cessation among high-risk participants in the UK Lung Cancer Screening Trial,(2017). DOI: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2016-209690
Many couples undergo multiple rounds of IVF. Our new stats on the chances of a successful pregnancy reflect that. Credit: www.shutterstock.com

Australian women considering IVF will now, for the first time, have a more meaningful idea of their chances of having a baby, whether it's their first or subsequent round of IVF.

Overall, for women starting IVF, 33% have a baby as a result of their first cycle, increasing to 54-77% by the eighth cycle.

Our research, published today, reports the probability of IVF success from a patient's perspective after repeated cycles, rather than how it is usually reported, for each cycle.

This will help women of all ages to make informed decisions, with their fertility doctor, about whether to start IVF, or if they have already started, whether to proceed to their next cycle.

Unlike previously reported statistics, our data better reflects that IVF can include both fresh and frozen embryos, and that many women undergo multiple IVF cycles over a course of treatment.

Infertility affects about one in six couples

While estimates vary, infertility affects about one in six couples, causing significant personal suffering to as many as 186 million people around the globe.

Assisted reproductive technologies  more generally referred to as in-vitro fertilisation or IVF  have revolutionised how we treat infertility. Now, more than 70,000 treatment cycles are performed in Australia and New Zealand each year.

A typical IVF cycle, involves stimulating a woman's ovaries to produce multiple eggs, retrieving those eggs, which are then fertilised in the laboratory to create embyros. These embryos grow for two to six days before one, or occasionally two, fresh embryos are transferred to a woman's womb.

Extra embryos are frozen and if necessary thawed and transferred in a subsequent cycle or cycles (known as "frozen/thaw" cycles).

A complete IVF treatment cycle

What we did

We used data from the Australian and New Zealand Assisted Reproductive Technology Database, which contains information on all IVF cycles performed in Australia and New Zealand.

We looked at data from 56,652 women starting IVF treatment for the first time who underwent 120,930 IVF cycles between 2009 and 2014. We excluded women who used donated eggs or embryos.

We linked all fresh and frozen/thaw IVF treatments to the initial episode of ovarian stimulation for each individual woman, which allowed us to report by "complete" treatment cycles.

The new statistics reflect how IVF is conducted today. Credit: Chambers GM, et al. Med J Aust 2017; 207(3):114-118, The Medical Journal of Australia  reproduced with permission., Author provided

We reported two measures: the live-birth rate for each consecutive IVF cycle (cycle-specific rate), and the cumulative live-birth rate for each consecutive IVF cycle. The latter took into account all previous cycles performed (for up to eight complete cycles), taking into account the age of the woman when she started treatment.

What we took into account

Around 30% of women drop out of treatment after an unsuccessful IVF cycle, mainly because of the physical and emotional demands of treatment, a poor chance of success with continued treatment and the cost, which is around A$2000-4000 per cycle in Australia.

So we calculated two measures of the cumulative live-birth rate based on assumptions around the chance of future success for women who dropped out of treatment  a conservative and an optimal rate.

The conservative cumulative live-birth rate assumed these women would not have achieved a live birth if they continued with treatment. The optimal cumulative live-birth rate assumed these women would have had the same chance of a live birth as those who did continue with treatment.

The range between the conservative and optimal cumulative live-birth rates gives a reasonable appraisal of the probability of a women achieving her first live birth.

What we found

Overall, for women starting IVF, 33% had a baby as a result of their first cycle, increasing to 54-77% by the eighth cycle.

The cycle-specific rate varied by the age at which women started treatment and the number of previous cycles performed, but the cumulative live-birth rate continued to rise with repeated cycles.

Women who started IVF before they turned 35 had the highest success rates. For example, women under 30 had a 44% chance of a live birth in their first cycle, and a cumulative live-birth rate of between 69% (conservative) and 91% (optimal) after six cycles; women aged 30-34 had only marginally lower rates than these.

Women aged 40-44 had an 11% chance of a live birth in their first cycle, and a cumulative live-birth rate of between 21-34% after six cycles.

The implications

We hope providing success rates in this more meaningful way is reassuring for women and couples. Looking at the success rate over a course of treatment, most women will take home at least one baby. In fact, two out of three women who start IVF before they are 35 will, as a conservative estimate, take home a baby after three cycles.

However, these are population estimates and every couple is different. Our analysis does not take account of individual factors that affect the chance of IVF success. These include, how long the couple has had trouble conceiving, the level of body fat (measured as body-mass index or BMI), and ovarian reserve (a measure of the reproductive potential of the ovaries).

Whether women should start IVF treatment or continue it should ultimately be a decision for the fertility doctor and patient, taking into account all medical and non-medical factors.

This type of analysis can also be used to inform policy on IVF treatments as it allows policymakers to look at the success of IVF over a full course of treatment, better reflecting clinical practice than success rates with individual cycles.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Credit: Shutterstock

Australian researchers have completed the world's first randomised control trial (RCT) assessing the efficacy and safety of ketamine as a treatment for depression in elderly patients.

The results, published in the latest American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, provide preliminary evidence suggesting ketamine's effectiveness as an antidepressant when delivered in repeated intravenous doses.

Led by a team of researchers from UNSW Sydney and Black Dog Institute, the trial tested different doses of ketamine among 16 older age participants (aged over 60 years) who had treatment-resistant depression, administered at Wesley Hospital.

"These findings take us a big step forward as we begin to fully understand the potential and limitations of ketamine's antidepressant qualities," said lead author UNSW Professor Colleen Loo, who is based at Black Dog Institute.

"Not only was ketamine well-tolerated by participants, with none experiencing severe or problematic side effects, but giving the treatment by a simple subcutaneous injection (a small injection under the skin) was also shown to be an acceptable method for administering the drug in a safe and effective way."

Participants received increasing doses of ketamine over a period of five weeks, with doses optimised for each individual participant using a new dose-titration approach developed by Professor Loo's Sydney research team and collaborators.

As part of the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, an active control treatment which causes sedation similar to ketamine, was used to substitute for one of the treatment sessions. Researchers monitored for mood and other side-effects after each treatment session.

Following the RCT, participants also received 12 ketamine treatments in an open-label phase to investigate the effectiveness of multiple doses of ketamine.

By the six-month follow-up, 43% of participants (7 of 14) who completed the RCT had entered remission, with five remitting at amounts below the commonly-used dose of 0.5 mg/kg. Repeated treatments also resulted in a higher likelihood of remission or a longer time to relapse, with an overall response and remission rate of 68.8% for the patients receiving ketamine treatment.

"Elderly patients with severe depression face additional barriers when seeking treatment for the condition. Many medications may cause more side effects or have lower efficacy as the brain ages," said co-author Dr Duncan George from UNSW.

"Older people are also more likely to have co-morbidities like neurodegenerative disorders and chronic pain, which can cause further complications due to ketamine's reported side effects.

"Our results indicate a dose-titration method may be particularly useful for older patients, as the best dose was selected for each individual person to maximise ketamine's benefits while minimising its adverse side effects."

Previous studies into ketamine treatments for older people with depression  which are limited to just five case reports  show mixed success, with findings limited by small sample sizes.

More broadly, little is known about ketamine's potential side effects at different doses, which include cognitive and dissociative effects, elevated blood pressure and heart rate, liver inflammation and urinary problems.

"These results are a promising early piece of the puzzle, but the risks of ketamine use are still not wholly understood. Future studies with greater sample sizes are needed to formally assess ketamine's side effects, such as its impact on liver function," Professor Loo added.

More information: Duncan George et al. Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Titrated Subcutaneous Ketamine in Older Patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression, The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry (2017). Journal information: American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry Duncan George et al. Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Titrated Subcutaneous Ketamine in Older Patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.jagp.2017.06.007
A new SIM-swap scam in South Africa can cost consumers dearly.

The Weekend Argus reported that bank customers have been warned of the new scam, with a cellphone network asking subscribers to guard against social engineering attacks.

The scale of the problem could be greater, as the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) said it was aware the latest scam had occurred across banks, stated the report.

Sabric was reportedly reluctant to disclose further details and referred queries to the banks in question.

It is understood that the social engineering attack happens after criminals have gained access to a victims online banking details.

The banking information is usually obtained through an email phishing attack, where a victim is fooled into clicking on a link to a fake website.

After the information is gathered, the fraudsters need to perform a SIM-swap.

The criminals, who claim to be from a service provider, contact the person and ask them to confirm certain information.

After gathering the needed information, they perform a fraudulent SIM-swap.

The SIM-swap allows the criminals to receive SMSs destined for the account holder, letting them add beneficiaries to the online banking account.

MTN call warning

MTN recently warned customers of a scam in which an MTN call centre agent asks for a clients security details.

This is done under the pretext that they are blocking the processing of a SIM-swap request that is being made on the subscribers number without their authorisation.

The scammers will then use the customers responses that they obtained during the call to perform a fraudulent SIM swap, said MTN.

MTN said it will not contact customers from its call centre to block the processing of a SIM swap.

Sabric vishing warning

At the end of 2016, Sabric warned of an increase in what is known as vishing  the telephonic equivalent of phishing.

Here, a fraudster phones their victim posing as a bank official or service provider and uses social engineering skills to manipulate them into disclosing confidential information, said Sabric.

If you receive a phone call requesting confidential or personal information, do not respond and end the call.

It warned that if you lose mobile connectivity under circumstances where you are usually connected, check whether you have been the victim of a SIM swap.

Receiving a one-time-pin on your phone without conducting any online transactions should also raise red flags.

Do not provide the OTP telephonically to anybody. Contact your bank immediately to alert them to the possibility that your information may have been compromised, said Sabric.
More than 50 of poorest developing countries are on brink of bankruptcy, says UN official

Armenia ex-ombudsman: We are facing serious national security issues (PHOTOS)

Biden has no plans to meet with Saudi crown prince at G20 summit

EU offers natural gas price cap assurances amid disagreements with member countries

Scholz is against establishment of ceasefire in Ukraine on Kremlin's terms

Turkologist: Turkey does not support agenda of achieving peace with Armenians

Sweden to not permit deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory after joining NATO

Erdogan signs decree on appointing Turkey ambassador to Israel

Information security expert: Some Armenia officials received letter that they were victims of national hackers attack

Armenia FM meets with France minister of foreign trade

Foreign Policy: US to resume nuclear arms control talks with Russia

Armenia opposition MP: Artsakh army reduction is impermissible

Biden to warn Chinas Xi that North Korea path could lead to increase in US military presence

US Treasury chief: India can buy as much Russian oil as it wants

Newspaper: Armenia authorities trying to find legal grounds for signing peace treaty

Newspaper: People of Karabakh not going to tolerate final destruction of their army

Texas woman sentenced to death for killing pregnant woman, removing fetus from victim

Van Gogh's painting sold for a record $117 million

Gentiloni: EU countries have accumulated enough gas to get through the coming winter

Several dozen activists detained at protest rally in Baku: They chant slogans 'Freedom!', 'Resign!'

Princess Haya seeks asylum in Wales

Pashinyan: Iran is concerned about the presence of other actors in our region, which are not in the territory of Armenia

Pashinyan: Presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan listened to presented proposals

Volvo reveals its flagship EX90 electric crossover

Pashinyan: Yerevan supports Russia's proposals for Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement

Pashinyan: Russia cannot withdraw from Karabakh unless it creates additional guarantees for peacekeeping mission

Pashinyan: We will do everything to Armenia-Azerbaijan sign peace treaty by end of year

Russia bans entry of Biden's family and White House press secretary

Pashinyan: We believe there should be a dialogue between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh

Pashinyan says positions voiced by some member countries of CSTO are unacceptable

19 countries that use euro currency will slide into recession over winter

Pashinyan to Baku: If 1991 border is mutually recognized, what are your troops doing near Jermuk?

Pashinyan: If the Karabakh issue is solved, why is Azerbaijani Armed Forces shooting at Karabakh residents?

Pashinyan: Russia should say whether their version of peace settlement is still circulating?

Pashinyan: Maybe Azerbaijan doesn't want Armenia to receive revenues?

Pashinyan: Azerbaijan must withdraw its troops from Armenia

Pashinyan: My yesterday's speech served its purpose, Azerbaijani MFA no longer uses 'corridor' term

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's collection of world masterpieces sold for $1.6 billion

Public TV of Armenia hosts Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan

China shows drone killer

Armenian FM meets his French counterpart

Rishi Sunak decides to close hole in British budget through austerity

Delegation of Russian MPs visits Jermuk resort town

Lavrov and Mirzoyan discuss regional agenda

Harut Sasunyan: The best way to achieve peace is to be prepared for war

Turkish prosecutor demands court to ban Istanbul mayor from political activities

German business leaders warn against leaving China

Sasunyan: Russia and US pursue their own interests in South Caucasus

British economy shrinks in three months, foretelling prolonged recession

Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan summoned to Foreign Ministry

Euro rises above dollar for first time in long time

Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister calls Council of Turkic States 'forum of peace' and praises Turkey

EU embargo on Russian oil will be a boon for OPEC

Armenia defense minister receives China ambassador, military attache

Lemkin Institute condemns Azerbaijan president's genocidal rhetoric

Dollar goes up, euro rises sharply in Armenia

U.S. warns Europe that conflict over Taiwan will cause massive global economic shock

EU calls on Armenia, Azerbaijan to moderate their rhetoric

Erdogan says Turkey has been waiting at door of EU for 52 years and will give answer when time comes

U.S. fears that European support for Ukrainian strategy will begin to weaken

Armenia, Iran emphasize need to quickly implement agreements reached (PHOTOS)

Armenia soldier wounded by Azerbaijan shooting undergoes surgery

Gas over morality: Hungary guards Azerbaijan's interests

U.S. quietly seeks concessions from Saudi Arabia after Mohammed bin Salman humiliated Biden

Italy's Ambassador to Armenia visits Gyumri

Russian Armed Forces complete redeployment of grouping from right bank of Dnieper

IRGC: Adversaries are frightened and on alert

Armenia appoints ambassador to Sri Lanka

Kremlin doesn't consider leaving Kherson 'humiliating'

Israeli president thinks the world is concerned about Netanyahu's far-right coalition partner

Chinese MFA: China is not distancing itself from Russia, as Biden believes

Ukraine will seek help from its foreign partners in financing Starlink satellite internet systems

Erdogan: Situation in South Caucasus remains fragile

Marukyan: Azerbaijans Aliyev admitted that his country started 2nd Karabakh war, despite previously insisting opposite

Azerbaijan blackmailing Armenia through Lachin corridor

Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus becomes observer in Organization of Turkic States

Armenia PM: In his latest speech Aliyev flagrantly violated agreement on refraining from threat or use of force

World Bank official: Armenia is one of best countries in terms of credit portfolio performance

Azerbaijan president makes repeated accusations, threats against Armenia

Iran citizens injured in Armenia road accident
Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, exchanged messages on the occasion of 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Georgia.

In his message, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia notes that the twenty five years are just a drop in the bucket of the centuries-old chronology of our two nations. However, in the modern history of the two countries, that have regained their independence, this past quarter of a century defines an important phase of establishing and enhancing interstate friendly relations, a period that has been filled with significant achievements and successes.

Edward Nalbandian stresses, that Armenia is determined to exert joint efforts in further strengthening and developing the relations based on this traditional ties, adding that it will be possible to make full use of the existing opportunities in a more efficient manner, once the whole potential of our bilateral relations is explored. The Foreign Minister of Armenia highlighted that Armenians of Georgia play a significant role in strengthening the traditionally friendly Armenian-Georgian relations and serves as a bridge between our two countries.

Concluding the message Foreign Minister of Armenia expresses the confidence that through effective cooperation the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Georgia will continue to make their important contribution to the development of relations between the two countries.

Foreign minister of Georgia notes that over the last two decades, since regaining the independence, Georgia and Armenia have developed relations, based on mutual understanding and common interests. Minister states, that two countries have already achieved a significant progress in various directions, with many more opportunities ahead.
YEREVAN.  After reaching agreements on the Iranian nuclear program, new opportunities for cooperation and implementation of joint Armenian-Iranian projects emerged, expert Armen Israelyan told reporters.

Over the past two years there have been processes that contributed to the signing of a number of documents.

For example, they abolished visa regime that operated between Armenia and Iran, the expert said, adding that joint economic forums are also being held in Armenia and Iran.

All this, as the Iranian noted, contributed to an increase in the tourist flow. According to Israelyan, the opening of the Free Economic Zone on the territory of the Syunik region of Armenia will have a positive contribution to the development of bilateral economic relations.
YEREVAN.  Armenian Ombudsman briefed Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights on Azerbaijans shelling of the border villages of Tavush region on July 21 and 22.

During a phone conversation, Arman Tatosyan said Azerbaijani armed forces are targeting civilians and their property, shelling schools, kindergartens and houses especially on the hours when there is great likelihood of hurting civilians.

Ombudsman emphasized that the international community has to condemn shelling of civilians.

Under the agreement between Armenian Ombudsman and the office of the Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights, the reports on shelling of Chinari and Barekamavan villages will be summed up and presented to the Commissioner.
More than 50 of poorest developing countries are on brink of bankruptcy, says UN official

Armenia ex-ombudsman: We are facing serious national security issues (PHOTOS)

Biden has no plans to meet with Saudi crown prince at G20 summit

EU offers natural gas price cap assurances amid disagreements with member countries

Scholz is against establishment of ceasefire in Ukraine on Kremlin's terms

Turkologist: Turkey does not support agenda of achieving peace with Armenians

Sweden to not permit deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory after joining NATO

Erdogan signs decree on appointing Turkey ambassador to Israel

Information security expert: Some Armenia officials received letter that they were victims of national hackers attack

Armenia FM meets with France minister of foreign trade

Foreign Policy: US to resume nuclear arms control talks with Russia

Armenia opposition MP: Artsakh army reduction is impermissible

Biden to warn Chinas Xi that North Korea path could lead to increase in US military presence

US Treasury chief: India can buy as much Russian oil as it wants

Newspaper: Armenia authorities trying to find legal grounds for signing peace treaty

Newspaper: People of Karabakh not going to tolerate final destruction of their army

Texas woman sentenced to death for killing pregnant woman, removing fetus from victim

Van Gogh's painting sold for a record $117 million

Gentiloni: EU countries have accumulated enough gas to get through the coming winter

Several dozen activists detained at protest rally in Baku: They chant slogans 'Freedom!', 'Resign!'

Princess Haya seeks asylum in Wales

Pashinyan: Iran is concerned about the presence of other actors in our region, which are not in the territory of Armenia

Pashinyan: Presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan listened to presented proposals

Volvo reveals its flagship EX90 electric crossover

Pashinyan: Yerevan supports Russia's proposals for Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement

Pashinyan: Russia cannot withdraw from Karabakh unless it creates additional guarantees for peacekeeping mission

Pashinyan: We will do everything to Armenia-Azerbaijan sign peace treaty by end of year

Russia bans entry of Biden's family and White House press secretary

Pashinyan: We believe there should be a dialogue between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh

Pashinyan says positions voiced by some member countries of CSTO are unacceptable

19 countries that use euro currency will slide into recession over winter

Pashinyan to Baku: If 1991 border is mutually recognized, what are your troops doing near Jermuk?

Pashinyan: If the Karabakh issue is solved, why is Azerbaijani Armed Forces shooting at Karabakh residents?

Pashinyan: Russia should say whether their version of peace settlement is still circulating?

Pashinyan: Maybe Azerbaijan doesn't want Armenia to receive revenues?

Pashinyan: Azerbaijan must withdraw its troops from Armenia

Pashinyan: My yesterday's speech served its purpose, Azerbaijani MFA no longer uses 'corridor' term

Microsoft founder Paul Allen's collection of world masterpieces sold for $1.6 billion

Public TV of Armenia hosts Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan

China shows drone killer

Armenian FM meets his French counterpart

Rishi Sunak decides to close hole in British budget through austerity

Delegation of Russian MPs visits Jermuk resort town

Lavrov and Mirzoyan discuss regional agenda

Harut Sasunyan: The best way to achieve peace is to be prepared for war

Turkish prosecutor demands court to ban Istanbul mayor from political activities

German business leaders warn against leaving China

Sasunyan: Russia and US pursue their own interests in South Caucasus

British economy shrinks in three months, foretelling prolonged recession

Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan summoned to Foreign Ministry

Euro rises above dollar for first time in long time

Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister calls Council of Turkic States 'forum of peace' and praises Turkey

EU embargo on Russian oil will be a boon for OPEC

Armenia defense minister receives China ambassador, military attache

Lemkin Institute condemns Azerbaijan president's genocidal rhetoric

Dollar goes up, euro rises sharply in Armenia

U.S. warns Europe that conflict over Taiwan will cause massive global economic shock

EU calls on Armenia, Azerbaijan to moderate their rhetoric

Erdogan says Turkey has been waiting at door of EU for 52 years and will give answer when time comes

U.S. fears that European support for Ukrainian strategy will begin to weaken

Armenia, Iran emphasize need to quickly implement agreements reached (PHOTOS)

Armenia soldier wounded by Azerbaijan shooting undergoes surgery

Gas over morality: Hungary guards Azerbaijan's interests

U.S. quietly seeks concessions from Saudi Arabia after Mohammed bin Salman humiliated Biden

Italy's Ambassador to Armenia visits Gyumri

Russian Armed Forces complete redeployment of grouping from right bank of Dnieper

IRGC: Adversaries are frightened and on alert

Armenia appoints ambassador to Sri Lanka

Kremlin doesn't consider leaving Kherson 'humiliating'

Israeli president thinks the world is concerned about Netanyahu's far-right coalition partner

Chinese MFA: China is not distancing itself from Russia, as Biden believes

Ukraine will seek help from its foreign partners in financing Starlink satellite internet systems

Erdogan: Situation in South Caucasus remains fragile

Marukyan: Azerbaijans Aliyev admitted that his country started 2nd Karabakh war, despite previously insisting opposite

Azerbaijan blackmailing Armenia through Lachin corridor

Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus becomes observer in Organization of Turkic States

Armenia PM: In his latest speech Aliyev flagrantly violated agreement on refraining from threat or use of force

World Bank official: Armenia is one of best countries in terms of credit portfolio performance

Azerbaijan president makes repeated accusations, threats against Armenia

Iran citizens injured in Armenia road accident

China reveals new giant drone that could point to the future of air warfare

US embassy in Armenia closed today

Karabakh MOD: Defense Army did not fire at Azerbaijan positions located in occupied territories

Israel and U.S. counter threat of hypersonic missiles together

U.S. and EU plan to publish new roadmap on artificial intelligence

Armenia ombudsperson meets with Belgium colleagues

Newspaper: Armenia parliament opposition seats to no longer be empty

Newspaper: Armenia parliament committee of inquiry into 2020 war circumstances is inactive

U.S. will no longer consider Russia a country with a market economy

US intends to protect Azerbaijan from threats of Iran

Aliyev, Erdogan discuss results of tripartite meeting in Russias Sochi

Azerbaijan army fires at Armenia positions, uses mortars as well

UAE is going to launch flying cabs from airports

Volvo Cars expects to introduce electric SUV by 2024

Amazon becomes world's first public company to lose $1 trillion in market value

EU's odd couple: Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel can't stand each other

US, China set first benchmarks ahead of presidents' meeting

Iranian MFA summons Azerbaijani ambassador to carpet in connection with anti-Iranian propaganda

Washington to resist any attempt by new Israeli government to annex West Bank

Biden thinks Elon Musk's relations with other countries are worthy of being looked at
The European Court of Human Rights (ECoHR) on Monday recognized the violation of the right provided for under Article 5 of the ECHR (Right to Liberty and Security) of Armenian citizen Armen Badalyan based on the complaint lodged by attorneys Ruben Sahakyan, Lusine Sahakyan and Yervand Varosyan. The court has also obliged the Armenian Government to pay EURO 3,000 compensation to A. Badalyan, attorney Lusine Sahakyan told Armenian News  NEWS.am.

''Based on the report made by Armen Badalyan in 2011, investigator of Metsamor Investigative Division of Armavir province of the General Investigative Department of Armenian Police, materials were prepared by investigator of the mentioned division, Senior Lieutenant of the Armenian Police Armen Umurshatyan. On June 22, 2017 phone conversations took place between A. Badalyan and the investigator, during which A. Badalyan, outraged by the statements made regarding his ex-wife, swore at the investigator. Since A. Badalyan's actions were not criminally punishable, only offenses being heard in the conversation recorded by the investigator, two investigators of the investigative department testified that they heard the unrecorded part of the conversation, wherein A. Badalyan also allegedly threatened A. Umurhstyan,'' she noted.

According to the attorney, on the same day a criminal case was launched in the investigative division of the same province on charges of threat to use violence against a state official in connection with his or her official duties. On July 23, 2012, Armen Badalyan was detained and charged. On the same day, arrest was chosen as a preventive measure against him. ''The European Court considered a violation of the European Convention the imprisonment of A. Badalyan, which was based on this very decision made by the court,'' Sahakyan said, adding that another complaint related to the violation of other rights of A. Badalyan provided for by the Convention is being considered by the European Court.
The participants of Sevan StartUp Summit will not only 'struggle' in 'battles' and competitions, receive prizes and listen to lectures, but they will also be able to get a better idea of the situation in the country and the world, as well as figure out what solutions they can offer for the exiting issues.

Founder of StartUp Armenia Foundation, Hakob Hakobyan, said the aforementioned, speaking at the grand opening of the event.

''We should believe that it is exactly us, who will bring changes in the country and we have gathered here for this very goal,'' he said.

Hakob Hakobyan also added that during the summit the participants will help each other, together solve the issues they face and become the founders of a new system of values. The summit will give them not only monetary and other prizes, but also network and support, which each company will receive.

Annual Sevan StartUp Summit organized by StartUp Armenia Foundation is held on the beach of Lake Sevan from July 24 to 31. Over 1,000 participants, including 100 startups and teams of developers, investors, venture companies and mentors from over 10 countries of the world, take part in the event.

According to the organizers, the event is aimed at creating new ways of cooperation for startups and exchange of experience. The format of the summit is unique: during seven days all the participants, including the mentors and investors, share their household, communicate and participate in different competitions and events. Consequently, new companies will be established and many projects will be able to find investors and enter the market in the near future. Moreover, there will be competitions, whose winners will get over 20 monetary and other prizes.

The winner of Big Battleone of the largest competitions within the framework of Sevan StartUp Summit 2017will receive a grand prix in the amount of $8,000 from the general partner of the summit, Ameriabank. In the framework of other competitions there will be monetary prizes from other sponsors as well.

Last year the prize fund of the startup summit amounted to $7,500, whereas this year it has reached $40,000 thanks to the attraction of larger number of investors and partners. Apart from this, within the framework of the summit, $30,000 investments were made in a number of startups last year. This year the amount of investments will grow up to $ 200, 000.
North Carolina Sentinel Site Cooperative

The coast of North Carolina encompasses 325 miles of sweeping beaches, barrier islands, two national seashores, a National Estuarine Research Reserve, a National Marine Sanctuary, two shipping ports, and U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. It is full of extensive marshes, vast stretches of seagrass, and sheltered harbors that support a high concentration of fishing, recreation, and tourism. The region is also renowned for a wealth of academic and scientific institutions, research laboratories, and state and federal coastal management and fisheries agencies.

Aerial view of Middle Marsh in the North Carolina Rachel Carson Reserve, part of the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve.

NOAA's North Carolina Sentinel Site Cooperative (the Cooperative) promotes a network of partners among the scientific and academic communities, resource managers, and nongovernmental organizations. Its active research and monitoring programs play a key role in understanding the coastal environment, including sea level rise, marsh ecosystems, and living shorelines.

Oysters are used as a shoreline stabilization technique as part of living shoreline demonstration project at the North Carolina Rachel Carson Reserve. Credit: North Carolina Coastal Reserve

Sea Level Rise

NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve track local sea level changes and effects on marsh ecosystems. NOAA tide gauges positioned along the North Carolina coast monitor sea-level rise trends, which show higher rates of rising waters at the northern end of the state and lower rates to the south. The central region, where the Cooperative is located, falls in the middle of that spectrum, with an estimated sea-level rise of 2.83 millimeters about the thickness of two dimesper year. According to the NOAA Tides and Currents website, that is higher than the annual global average rate of sea level rise ( 1.8 millimeters per year).

Marsh Ecosystems and Living Shorelines

NOAA scientist Dr. Carolyn Currin provides expertise on marsh ecosystems and living shorelines to local resource managers and community members through the North Carolina NERRS Coastal Training Program.

According to Dr. Currin, "A 'living shoreline' is the term used to describe an alternative approach to shoreline stabilizationan approach that uses natural vegetation and native habitats instead of hardened materials such as a bulkhead, riprap, or sea wall. The living shoreline approach was developed because that we learned over time that those hardened shorelines have adverse impacts on estuarine ecosystems. We are trying to do something that's better for the ecosystem, better for property owners, more resilient, and more cost-effective in the long run."

Project partners (including NOAA researcher Carolyn Currin and City of Jacksonville, North Carolina staff) install marsh boardwalks and Surface Elevation Tables (SETs) in natural and created marshes on the New River in support of a collaborative research project with the City of Jacksonville, North Carolina. Photo credit: Pat Donovan-Potts

Current Projects

The North Carolina King Tides citizen science project is the outreach component of the NOAA Ecological Effects of Sea Level Rise funded project led by Principal Investigator Christine Voss of the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences (UNC-IMS). Through outreach efforts with community groups, Dr. Voss asks community members to take pictures of high water level events during King Tides and upload them to the What's your water level? app developed by Dr. Christine Buckel of NOAA. The aim is to advance awareness and potential dangers of coastal flooding.

The North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores partnered with the Sentinel Site to design interpretive signs to increase public understanding of marsh ecosystems, ecosystem services, and the role of marshes in coastal resiliency. Through funding provided by NOAA's Southeast and Caribbean Regional Team, five signs were installed along the marsh boardwalk adjacent to the aquarium in October 2016. They are accessible to the aquarium's 500,000 annual visitors.

A partnership with the City of Jacksonville, North Carolina, resulted in a collaborative research project funded by the North Carolina Sea Grant Community Collaborative Research Grant Program, titled "Quantifying and Communicating the Function of Restored Estuarine Habitats." The project team, led by Dr. Mike Piehler of UNC-IMS, includes the City of Jacksonville Storm Water Services Division, the Cooperative, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejuene, and NOAA. Team members are evaluating the ecosystem services of restored and natural marshes within the urbanized area of Wilson Bay, part of the New River Estuary. Additionally, six Surface Elevation Tables were installed in Wilson Bay, three in the restored marsh and three in the natural marsh, so that the City of Jacksonville can determine whether the restored and natural marshes are able to keep pace with sea level rise.

Monitoring Tools
Driving up Richmond Road on the way to Day Four of Country Thunder, it was like a different world  or an extended game of strip poker had taken place along the highway. Discarded shirts, hats, pants and shoes littered the roadside.

I was actually laughing as I pulled into the parking lot  because, seriously, who loses their shoes when theyre walking in them? Or at least, who walks out of them and just leaves them there? Poor, hapless, drunkly forgotten shoes. Then, when I got out of the truck in the parking lot, same story: shoes, hats, shirts most of them nearly buried by tire tracks.

I think the new standard by which we determine whether Country Thunder has been a roaring success is the amount of clothing left behind. Because, well, thats just awesome.

The forecast was for storms early. Ironic. Thunder. Storms. Get it?

Anyway, storm delays plagued High Valley, the first act out of the gate. Once they did hit the stage in the rain, though, what a show! Their half hour set was way, way too short. It included their incredible hit "Make You Mine," plus their latest single, "Shes with Me." The last time I saw High Valley, they opened for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and I wanted more. Today, I wanted more yet again. They are just so damn good.

Next up: Tracy Lawrence. He sported a cowboy hat and a Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" T-shirt. I loved it  a great artist wearing other great artists shirt. His set was filled to the brim with about eleventy billion of his hits (the man is seriously like the Midas of country music). He had quite a draw, too. The bowl started to fill while he was on stage. The sun came out, and the temperature started to rise. See? Midas.

Because of the early storm delays, the transitions between artists was shortened, so the pace of Thunders final day was quick. And for a final day when everyone was dragging and tired and water-logged, it was perfect

Despite some initial sound issues, Maddie & Tae blew in like the calm after the storm: sweet, energetic, beautiful. They pulled out songs from their freshmen album, including my personal favorite, "Sierra," about a girl who bullied Maddie in high school. Maddie & Tae also laid down "Girl in a Country Song" like the bosses that they are. Interestingly, the song is still as true today as it was when it topped the charts  although it is getting better. They tried out a new song which demonstrated a stretching of their wings, but still stayed true to their style.

Big & Rich, following a masterful opening by D.J. Minister, took the stage under a beautiful setting sun. They were their usual crazy, bouncing, robust selves, complete with at least one busted guitar. No Big & Rich show would be complete without Cowboy Troy, and Country Thunder Wisconsin 2017 was no exception. He joined them for an entirely much too fun version "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy."

One very touching thing that Big & Rich is known for is their support of the military. For Sunday nights show, they brought two members of the military out on stage to pay tribute. Big & Rich handed them the mic. One of them asked us to please support veterans because you love them and they love you back. The other gave this advice, "Respect God, country, friends, family, and have good-ass music in your life." Both members received rousing ovations, after which the boys performed a version of "8th of November" that brought me to tears.

The Big & Rich boys were the perfect opening act for Jason Aldean. Their set was incredibly dynamic so that even if you werent a huge Big & Rich fan, you had to get pumped up. It wasnt a choice.

The hustle by the backstage crews to transition quickly paid off, as Jason Aldean took the stage nearly on time. Good thing, too, because the Thunder Bowl was packed, and the crowd was ready to party. And party they did, for nearly an hour and a half.

Aldean blasted onto the stage, cowboy hat low over his eyes, wearing knee-ripped jeans and an outstanding Bob Seger North American Tour 2011 T-shirt. Authentic Aldean and perfect for his opener and latest single release, "They Dont Know," a song about not understanding what it means to be small-town rural farmers.

Jason Aldean paused after his third song to joke that Country Thunder needed to be renamed "Mud Fest, I feel like the day we were filming the Hicktown video when I looked out here today, man." He was right; not only was there mud everywhere on the ground, there was mud everywhere on everyone, including yours truly.

Before picking up again, Aldean noted that hes "not a guy who stands up here and does a lot of talking throughout the night. I really cant dance worth a sh*t so I dont do a lot of dancing up here throughout the night. The way I look at it, you guys bought a ticket to hear some music, and were gonna play as much music up here as we can."

After that, Aldean took us on a journey of his extensive catalog of hits, taking a break only to pay tribute to a huge influencer on his career  Mr. Gregg Allman  by playing "Midnight Rider."

Really, I should say that its not that Aldean didnt talk at all during the night. He did. He checked in, making sure the crowd was still with him (they sang every song, including "Midnight Rider"  they were definitely with him). Halfway through, he paused to find out if everyone was happily drunk, deadpanning that the people in the reserved seats were feeling comfortable, but that the people in the back (in the mud and puddles) had been drunk as all get out all day. Which, of course, drew a giant roar of approval.

He played out with "My Kinda Party" and then came back for a two-song encore. As with every headlining artist this weekend, we seriously wanted more. I mean, I know they cant play all night. But Aldeans set seemed to fly by in a blur of dancing (us, not him) and singing (him phenomenally, us not so much).

Mr. Aldean shotgunned a beer before leaving the stage. And with that, Day Four of Country Thunder and the festival itself came to a close. It was a grand thing  epic at times, sweet at others. Once the rains came, it was exciting and death-defying trying not to fall or get your shoes sucked off by mud. A wedding. A party. A few port-o-potty fires in the campgrounds. A lineup to be envied. And at the very end, a friendly John Deere tractor pulling mud stranded motorists out of dire straits in the parking lot.

We are country. This is us.

Set list - Jason Aldean

"They Dont Know"

"The Only Way I Know"

"Johnny Cash"

"Take a Little Ride"

"A Little More Summertime"

"Any Ol Barstool"

"When She Says Baby"

"Crazy Town"

"Just Gettin Started"

"Midnight Rider" (Allman Brothers cover)

"Tatoos on This Town"

"Night Train"

"Amarillo Sky"

"The Truth"

"Fly Over States"

"Burnin It Down"

"Hicktown"

"Lights Come On"

"Dirt Road Anthem" (Colt Ford cover)

"My Kinda Party" (Brantley Gilbert cover)

Encore

"Big Green Tractor"

"Shes Country"
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The Google Transparency Project, an arm of an organization called the Campaign for Accountability, released a study this month claiming that Google funneled money to hundreds of academic research projects related to antitrust, intellectual property and other legal policy issues important to the company's bottom line. Worse, the Google Transparency Project alleged that most of the resulting publications failed to disclose Google's financial stake in the research. Pitched as an expose of corporate corruption of the ivory tower, the story got immediate traction in national and international media outlets.

The study comes at a time of justified public anxiety about the outsized power and influence of tech titans such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. Google overwhelmingly dominates the global market for online searches. Along with Facebook, it controls almost half of the world's digital advertising market. Its Android operating system powers about 80 percent of the world's smartphones. And its YouTube video-sharing platform boasts 1.5 billion monthly users.

Given Google's size and power, it may be tempting to reflexively credit the Google Transparency Project's allegation that the company has paid off a small army of academic researchers. The project has identified some troubling examples of undisclosed Google funding; however, its broader claim of a vast network of bought-and-sold academic researchers deserves careful scrutiny. In an environment in which academics already are seen by many as biased, the Google Transparency Project's claims further undercut public confidence in academic expertise. If academic research is secretly funded and directed by large corporate interests - and Google is among the largest - why should the public and policy makers trust it?

Corporate funding alone does not mean that research is unreliable. As federal and state dollars available for research continue to dwindle, more research is likely to be funded directly or indirectly by corporations, foundations and other private sources. When specific research projects rely on such funding, that relationship should, of course, be disclosed. But ultimately, regardless of whether research is privately funded, its results should be evaluated on the merits.

Judged on these two criteria - disclosure and merit - the Google Transparency Project's study fails miserably.

For a project committed to transparency, this one is evasive about the sources of its funding. The organization has yet to tell the Internal Revenue Service where its money comes from, and its executive director has refused to answer repeated inquiries from journalists about who pays the Campaign for Accountability's bills. To date, only one project funder has come forward. That benefactor, Oracle, is currently locked in a billion-dollar copyright fight over its Java programming language. Oracle's opponent in that years-long legal battle? Google.

As for the study itself: It's deeply flawed.

The Google Transparency Project's methodology for identifying "Google-funded academics" was sloppy; it defined that category so loosely that it swept up researchers who have never actually received funding from Google.

The project's dragnet captured scholars who were affiliated with but not actually paid by academic centers that have disclosed receipt of funds from Google. (Annemarie Bridy was named for that reason.) The project also deemed scholars "Google-funded" on the basis of nominal stipends they received as graduate students for summer work at public interest organizations. And once a scholar was "Google-funded," all of his or her subsequent academic work, even work undertaken at a new institution, was tainted in the Google Transparency Project's reckoning.

Another example: Over the years, courts have directed settlement funds from class-action suits against Google to law school clinics around the country. Any scholar who worked in one of these clinics was "Google-funded," according to the project, as well as co-authors of such scholars. (Aaron Perzanowski fell into the funding-by-association category.)

In short, the financial connections to Google for many academics included in the Google Transparency Project's database are tenuous at best and sometimes verifiably nonexistent. Dozens of scholars already have objected to the inaccurate inclusion of their work.

The report raises valid questions about the corporate funding of academic research. It should make all researchers consider their disclosure practices and their financial relationships. Ultimately, however, the Google Transparency Project's efforts have generated more confusion than clarity. The body of data underlying the study is awash in misrepresentations and mistakes that the authors should have sorted out before publication. The study's legitimacy is further undermined by the project's adamant refusal to abide by any funding disclosure standard.

Most harmful, the Google Transparency Project's targeting of academics contributes to a treacherous trend in public discourse that seeks to delegitimize the role of expertise in the policymaking process. The attacks on academics that we have grown to expect in the domain of climate science are now creeping into the contentious field of technology policy. Journalists who report on "studies" like the Google Transparency Project should think twice before simply repeating the authors' conclusions. And the public should demand transparency from any organization that purports to be in the business of exposing the hidden agendas of others.

More information: Annemarie Bridy is a professor of law at the University of Idaho. Aaron Perzanowski is a professor of law at Case Western Reserve University. Neither has received funding, directly or indirectly, from Google. They wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

2017 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Interspecies relationships can help traumatised animals form healthy attachments. Credit: Sugarshine animal sactuary, CC BY-SA

Rosie, like a real-life Babe, ran away from an organic piggery when she was only a few days old. She was found wandering in a car park, highly agitated, by a family who took her home and made her their live-in pet. However, after three months they could no longer keep her.

She was relocated to the Sugarshine animal sanctuary, outside Lismore in New South Wales. Kelly Nelder, Sugarshine's founder and a mental health nurse, described her as "highly strung" and "needy". It's not surprising that Rosie, after the loss of two primary care attachments, was unable to bond with the other pigs; she was traumatised.

I met Rosie when I visited Sugarshine, investigating the similarities between human and animal trauma. I spent 20 years as a clinical and forensic psychologist, but as an undergraduate I studied zoology.

My zoology lecturers told us not to anthropomorphise  that is, not to project human qualities, intentions and emotions onto the animals we studied. But now there is a growing recognition of animals' inner life and their experience of psychopathology, including trauma.

At Sugarshine, traumatised animals are given freedom to find solitude or company as they wish. Interspecies relationships are encouraged, like a baby goat being cared for by a male adult pig, or a rooster who sleeps alongside a goat.

Rosie has been at Sugarshine for a few months now and is more settled, roaming its gullies, farmyards and shelters, although according to Kelly she's still anxious. She prefers the company of the bobby calves, wedging herself between them as they lie on the ground, getting skin-to-skin contact, falling asleep, and beginning the reattachment process.

Understanding trauma in animals

I first made the connection between human and animal trauma on a visit to Possumwood Wildlife, a centre outside Canberra that rehabilitates injured kangaroos and abandoned joeys, wallabies and wombats. There I met its founders, economics professor Steve Garlick and his partner Dr Rosemary Austen, a GP.

When joeys were first brought into their care, Steve told me, they were "inconsolable" and "dying in our arms", even while physically unharmed, with food and shelter available to them.

But this response made sense once they recognised the joey's symptoms as reminiscent of post-traumatic stress disorder in humans: intrusive symptoms, avoidant behaviour, disturbed emotional states, heightened anxiety and hypervigilance.

Researchers at the University of Western Australia have developed non-invasive means for measuring stress and mood in animals and are now working with sheep farmers to improve the well-being of their animals. PTSD has been identified in elephants, dogs, chimpanzees and baboons, for example.

Safe, calm and caring

To rehabilitate from trauma, humans and animals need to feel safe and away from cues that trigger the individual's threat response, deactivating the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-flight response). They also need a means of self-soothing, or to gain soothing from another, activating the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest, digest and calm response).

Progress, from then on, requires the development of a secure relationship with at least one other accepting and caring person or animal. Often, this "other" is someone new. In mammals, including us, this activates our affiliative system: our strong desire for close interpersonal relationships for safety, soothing and stability. We enter a calmer, receptive state of being so that the reattachment process can begin.

Possumwood uses three stages for trauma rehabilitation. Young animals are first kept in a dark, quiet environment indoors to reduce noises or sounds that might trigger their fight-flight response. Here they have the opportunity to develop new kin friendships of their own choosing.

Rosie the anxious pig likes to sleep with bobby calves at Sugarshine animal sanctuary. Credit: Sugarshine animal sanctuary, CC BY

Sedatives (Diazepam and Fluphenazine) are judiciously used in the early stages. Then, the principal carer spends as much time as possible feeding and caressing them to build a new bond.

Kangaroos are social animals, unable to survive in the wild unless part of a mob. So joeys are moved next to a large garage, and then finally to an outdoor yard, gradually being exposed to more kangaroos and creating social bonds. Once a mob grows to 30 or so healthy animals, they are released into the wild together.

The fundamentals are the same

The similarity between animal and human trauma is not surprising. Mammalian brains (birds also appear to experience trauma) share the principal architecture involved in experiencing trauma. The primates, and certainly humans, have a greater capacity for cognitive reflection, which in my clinical experience can be both a help and a hindrance.

My observations of trauma rehabilitation at Sugarshine and Possumwood emphasises the universal fundamentals:

A sense of agency (freedom and control over their choices)

To feel safe

To develop a trusting, caring bond with at least one other creature

Reintegration into the community at the trauma sufferer's own discretion.

For those experiencing social isolation and shame around their trauma  such as returned soldiers or the victims of domestic violence  these principles could not be more pertinent. And for our non-human cousins, like Rosie, we would do well to remember that they do feel, and they do hurt.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Color image of the central part of MOO J1014+0038 made with an F814W stack and the F105W and F160W from our first triggered HST imaging near maximum light. The inset panel uses different scaling, and only IR data (F105W, F125W, and F160W). The compass arrows are 100 in linear scale. Both panels use hyperbolic arcsine intensity scaling. In green, we show contours of our computed lensing amplification model (in magnitudes). Credit: Rubin et al., 2017.

(Phys.org)Using gravitational lensing, an international team of astronomers has detected a new Type Ia supernova. The newly discovered lensed supernova was found behind the galaxy cluster known as MOO J1014+0038. The findings were detailed in a paper published July 14 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

Gravitational lensing occurs when a large mass bends the path of background light. The method is mainly used to detect objects regardless of the light they emit. Massive galaxy clusters often serve as gravitational lenses enhancing the apparent brightness of distant objects. They offer an amplified and magnified view of the high-redshift universe.

Recently, a team of researchers led by David Rubin of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, have used one such massive galaxy cluster to reveal the presence of a new type Ia supernova. This type of supernovae can be found in binary systems in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. Type Ia supernovae are important for the scientific community as they offer essential clues into evolution of stars and galaxies.

Rubin's team monitored 12 massive galaxy clusters with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as part of the Supernova Cosmology Project "See Change" program. These observations were complemented by an analysis of images available in the Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE Survey.

The researchers found a promising supernova candidate at a redshift of 2.22 behind the galaxy cluster MOO J1014+0038. Follow-up photometric and spectroscopic observations conducted using HST and the X-shooter multi-wavelength medium-resolution spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile confirmed that the newly found object is a type Ia supernova.

"We present the discovery and measurements of a gravitationally lensed supernova (SN) behind the galaxy cluster MOO J1014+0038. Based on multi-band Hubble Space Telescope and Very Large Telescope photometry and spectroscopy, we find a 99 percent probability that this SN is a SN Ia, and a 1 percent chance of a core collapse (CC) SN," the scientists wrote in the paper.

According to the paper, the newly detected supernova, designated SN SCP16C03, is the highest redshift Type Ia supernova with a spectroscopic redshift and the highest redshift lensed supernova of any type. So far, the redshifts of gravitationally lensed background Type Ia supernovae have been lower than 1.39.

Moreover, SN SCP16C03 is also the most amplified Type Ia supernova discovered behind a galaxy cluster to date.

"We estimate an amplification of 2.8 (1.100.23 mag)compatible with the value estimated from the weak-lensing-derived mass and the mass-concentration relation from CDM simulationsmaking it the most amplified SN Ia discovered behind a galaxy cluster," the paper reads.

More information: The Discovery of a Gravitationally Lensed Supernova Ia at Redshift 2.22, arXiv:1707.04606 [astro-ph.GA] arxiv.org/abs/1707.04606 Abstract

We present the discovery and measurements of a gravitationally lensed supernova (SN) behind the galaxy cluster MOO J1014+0038. Based on multi-band Hubble Space Telescope and Very Large Telescope (VLT) photometry and spectroscopy, we find a 99% probability that this SN is a SN Ia, and a 1% chance of a CC SN. Our typing algorithm combines the shape and color of the light curve with the expected rates of each SN type in the host galaxy. With a redshift of 2.2216, this is the highest redshift SN Ia discovered with a spectroscopic host-galaxy redshift. A further distinguishing feature is that the lensing cluster, at redshift 1.23, is the most distant to date to have an amplified SN. The SN lies in the middle of the color and light-curve shape distributions found at lower redshift, disfavoring strong evolution to z = 2.22. We estimate an amplification of 2.8+0.6-0.5 (1.10+-0.23 mag)-compatible with the value estimated from the weak-lensing-derived mass and the mass-concentration relation from LambdaCDM simulations-making it the most amplified SN Ia discovered behind a galaxy cluster.

 2017 Phys.org
A view of the ruins of the town of Sai. Founded by the Egyptians on the island of the same name in the Nile, in what is now Sudan, the town was occupied from 1500 until 1200 BC. Credit: Julia Budka

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich Egyptologist Julia Budka is studying the impact of intercultural contacts in Ancient Egypt. Her excavations in Sudan have uncovered a tomb dating to around 1450 BC on the island of Sai in the Nile.

A previously unknown tomb, some 3400 years old, has recently been uncovered on the island of Sai in the River Nile. It was in use for some time and contains the remains of up to 25 persons. Further analysis of the finds could elucidate the multicultural nature of the island's population during this period. The island was then located in Nubia, which was the primary source of gold for the New Kingdom of the Egyptian Pharaohs at that time. The tomb was most probably built for a master goldsmith by the name of Khnummose, and was discovered during excavations conducted by Julia Budka, Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Art. Investigation of the tomb's contents and inscriptions has so far revealed that, following the conquest by the Pharaoh Thutmose III of the local African Kerma kingdom of Kerma, the local elites were rapidly integrated by the new regime. The earliest Egyptian-style burials on Sai date to the reign of this king.

Over the past 5 years, Budka has carried out parallel studies on three different Egyptian settlements that were established during the period of the so-called New Kingdom between 1500 und 1200 BC. The excavations on the island of Sai, which lies in what is now the Sudanese section of the Nile, not only provide insights into the relationship between the official representatives of the occupying power and the local Nubian population, they also demonstrate that the island was inhabited for longer than hitherto assumed. "It had been thought that the settlement on the island was abandoned after the foundation of a new town at Amara West. Our finds, on the other hand, prove that Hornakht, one of Egypt's highest ranking bureaucrats during the reign of Ramses II, not only had his official residence on the island, but was also buried there," says Budka. This clearly shows that the town on Sai survived until about 1200 BC.

Several Egyptian cemeteries have been identified in the vicinity of the town of Sai. In one of them Julia Budka has excavated a tomb (Tomb 26) consisting of several chambers in which as many as 25 people were buried. Credit: Julia Budka

A stone statuette depicting a so-called shabti or servant for the afterlife. Because shabtis typically bear the name of the deceased, the occupant could be identified as the master goldsmith Chnummose. Credit: Julia Budka

The wooden coffin has disintegrated, probably as a result of flooding, but this heart-shaped stone scarab was found nearby. Credit: Julia Budka
Norwegian girl. Credit: Andre Kongevold / flickr, CC BY-SA

For progressives around the world, it has become almost a pastime to romanticise the quasi-socialist Scandinavian countries. Nations such as Norway, Finland and Sweden are  to many  not only examples of wealth and well-being but also bastions of social progress and tolerance.

Norway, in particular, consistently leads the world in quality of life and happiness, and the country is responding compassionately to the Syrian refugee crisis, unlike its many critics in Europe. But is life in Norway really so great?

I'm not so sure.

As an Australian who worked in Oslo for three years, I found that while freedom, tolerance and happiness are indeed important values there, you can expect to enjoy them only if you're Norwegian.

You're welcome?

After the the 2011 mass shooting by Anders Breivik, which he carried out in the name of rejecting a "Muslim colonisation" of Europe, Norway emerged determined to defy xenophobia.

In 2015, during the height of the European refugee crisis, the country, which has a population of 5.2 million, considered some 31,000 asylum cases, a national record. And in contrast to most European countries, Norway extends full social support and protections to all asylees while they await a ruling.

Still, Norway's far-right Progress Party  to which Breivik belonged in his youth and which holds 29 seats in parliament  has fought to roll back migration and benefits.

Since 2015, Integration Minister Sylvi Listhaug has pursued aggressive restrictions on immigration, particularly for Muslims. As a result, the country deported a record number of migrants in 2016, including minors between the ages of 16 and 18, as per new restrictions.

A history of exclusion

This fear-mongering taps into a dark strain of Norwegian history. As recently as 1977, the Norwegian government forcibly sterilised members of its Romani minority population.

Such policies also echo Norway's treatment of its indigenous population, which I have been studying. Indeed, it seems forgotten in post-colonial societies that Norwegian history is blighted with atrocities against the native Sami.

Until the second half of the 20th century, the Norwegian government forcibly seized Sami lands in middle and northern Norway and sought to eradicate Sami culture. A policy of Norweginisation, known as fornorsking, meant that Sami children were sent to Norwegian boarding schools, where they were beaten for speaking their native language.

The Sami were also denied the right to purchase property if they could not speak Norwegian. Today, Sami people are still suppressed by Norwegian policy and experience ten times more discrimination than ethnic Norwegians.

Many Sami live throughout the country, and though their right to an education in Sami and to the use of their language for public purposes has now been recognised, these rights are enjoyed only in small municipalities in the rural north that have been designated as Sami territories.

Generally speaking, to participate in Norway's society and economy, you must forgo being and speaking Sami.

While popular and even academic writing in Norway describes immigrants from the Middle East as speaking "kebab Norwegian", my 2016 analysis of online comments to Sami-themed news found a similarly pervasive prejudice.

The analysis shows that Norwegians argue that the Sami threaten the purity of Norwegian ethnicity and way of life. Some say Sami cannot be seen as Norwegian citizens, do not deserve indigenous status and have invented their historic oppression.

In another display of discrimination, when Troms, the major town of the far north, considered designating itself a Sami zone, opposing voices were filled with hate. Opponents even fired bullets at bilingual signs to express displeasure.

Assimilation nation

This racist undercurrent in Norway may derive from an American-style exceptionalism in Norway, whereby Norwegians are told and truly believe that they are world leaders in social policy.

But to survive in Norway, those of a non-Norwegian culture are expected to adopt a Norwegian world view. The compulsory language courses given to migrants really brings that message home. Its curriculum celebrates Norway but presents almost hegemonic views on nearly everything else, from alcohol consumption to social values and Norwegian history.

The Sami and Romani are almost entirely absent from the language-course curriculum.

To suggest that all is bad in Norway would be false. I, too, have been thankful for Norway's affordable health care and generous leave entitlements. And the upcoming parliamentary election, to be held in September 2017, presents an opportunity for a broader change, including on immigration.

But not all is rosy in the Norwegian utopia. Next time someone extols the virtues of this "perfect" Scandinavian society, remind them that the Norwegian dream is not available to all.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Credit: University of Portsmouth

Language patterns could be predicted by simple laws of physics, a new study has found.

Dr James Burridge from the University of Portsmouth has published a theory using ideas from physics to predict where and how dialects occur.

He said: "If you want to know where you'll find dialects and why, a lot can be predicted from the physics of bubbles and our tendency to copy others around us.

"Copying causes large dialect regions where one way of speaking dominates. Where dialect regions meet, you get surface tension. Surface tension causes oil and water to separate out into layers, and also causes small bubbles in a bubble bath to merge into bigger ones.

"When people speak and listen to each other, they have a tendency to conform to the patterns of speech they hear others using, and therefore align their dialects. Since people typically remain geographically local in their everyday lives, they tend to align with those nearby."

Dr Burridge from the University's department of mathematics departs from the existing approaches in studying dialects to formulate a theory of how country shape and population distribution play an important role in how dialect regions evolve.

These maps show a simulation of three language variants that are initially distributed throughout Great Britain in a random pattern. As time passes (left to right), the boundaries between language variants tend to shorten in length. One can also see evidence of boundary lines fixing to river inlets and other coastal indentations. Credit: University of Portsmouth

Traditional dialectologists use the term 'isogloss' to describe a line on a map marking an area which has a distinct linguistic feature.

Dr Burridge said: "These isoglosses are like the edges of bubbles  the maths used to describe bubbles can also describe dialects.

"My model shows that dialects tend to move outwards from population centres, which explains why cities have their own dialects. Big cities like London and Birmingham are pushing on the walls of their own bubbles.

"This is why many dialects have a big city at their heart  the bigger the city, the greater this effect. It's also why new ways of speaking often spread outwards from a large urban centre.

"If people live near a town or city, we assume they experience more frequent interactions with people from the city than with those living outside it, simply because there are more city dwellers to interact with.

Each black line is an isogloss generated by Burridges model. An isogloss is a line which separates regions where one pronunciation dominates from a region where another dominates (an example pronunciation could be how people pronounce the a in bath). If a traveller travelled over a zone where many isoglosses had bundled together (such as the North-south bundle that connects the Bristol Channel to The Wash shown here) they would experience a sharp/noticeable transition between dialect. Whereas when the lines are more spread out, or messy, the traveller might hear more of a gradual dialect change. The darker orange colours represent higher population density. In the right hand plot people have greater mobility - they regularly travel 10km or more around their home. In the left hand plot they only travel about 5km. Credit: University of Portsmouth

His model also shows that language boundaries get smoother and straighter over time, which stabilises dialects.

Dr Burridge's research is driven by a long-held interest in spatial patterns and the idea that humans and animal behaviour can evolve predictably. His research has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

The research was published last week in the American Physical Society journal Physical Review X.

More information: James Burridge. Spatial Evolution of Human Dialects, Physical Review X (2017). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.7.031008 Journal information: Physical Review X
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Pescadero Basin emit scalding liquids that form light-colored carbonate spires. These vents have been colonized by the largest and densest colonies of Oasisia alvinae tubeworms ever observed. Credit:  2015 MBARI

An article just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B describes two remarkably different hydrothermal vent fields discovered in the southern Gulf of California. Despite being relatively close together, these vents host very different animal communities. This finding contradicts a common scientific assumption that neighboring vents will share similar animal communities. Instead, the new paper suggests that local geology and the chemistry of vent fluids are important factors affecting vent communities.

In 2012, scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) used undersea robots to discover a new hydrothermal vent field along the Alarcon Rise at the southern end of the Gulf of California. Continuing the effort in 2015, they discovered a second, very different vent field in the Pescadero Basin, just 75 kilometers to the north.

Led by MBARI scientists, the research involved scientists from Mexico, Canada, Russia, and Germany. In preparing the recent paper, they analyzed collected organisms and video surveys to determine community composition. They also performed DNA analyses of water samples to identify larvae of vent animals and stable-isotope analysis to assess food supplies at each vent field.

The scientists compared the animals living at the Alarcon and Pescadero Basin vent fields with those found in the Guaymas Basin, 400 kilometers to the north, and on the East Pacific Rise, about 300 kilometers to the south. The researchers found that, despite their close proximity, the Alarcon and Pescadero vent fields support radically different animal communities, sharing only seven out of 61 animal species.

This finding contradicts a common scientific assumption that neighboring habitats will share similar animal communities. Instead, the results suggest that local geology and chemistry of the vent fluids play dominant roles in structuring the animal communities. The findings are relevant to assessing the possible ecological impacts of seafloor miningscientists must account for the uniqueness of local geology and chemistry and not assume that a common supply of animal larvae will colonize and restore neighboring habitats.

Lead author Shana Goffredi, an MBARI adjunct and associate professor at Occidental College, explained, "Just like human cities, the community that forms in a particular area depends not only on who arrives at that location, but also whether the underlying resources are suitable for their success. Variation in these resources, whether physical or chemical, contributes greatly to the diversity of the region, which is important for community stability."

Though neighbors, the Alarcon Rise and Pescadero Basin vent fields are geologically very different. The seafloor along the Alarcon Rise is covered in young, fresh lava, and the fluids spewing out of the vents are very hot (up to 360 degrees Celsius) and rich in metal sulfides that form dark, crumbly chimneys known as "black smokers." Animals at the Alarcon Rise are similar to locations further south (almost 300 kilometers) on the East Pacific Rise.

In Pescadero Basin, however, hydrothermal-vent fluids pass through thick layers of seafloor mud. As the hot hydrothermal fluid flows through this mud, it "cooks" organic material, forming methane (natural gas) and oil-like hydrocarbons. The Pescadero Basin vents contain very little sulfide, and the superheated fluids produce giant, light-colored, carbonate chimneys streaked with dark, oily hydrocarbons.

Most of the animals found at the Pescadero vents are worms, and many species are new to science. The dominant tubeworms (genus Oasisia) are not common elsewhere in the Gulf. Surprisingly, two thirds of the Pescadero vent animals are not found at vents to the north and south.

For the last two decades, marine biologists have been trying to document how seafloor animals manage to disperse from one discrete hydrothermal vent habitat to another. The majority of vent animals release microscopic larvae that are carried by ocean currents. If some of these larvae survive long enough to reach another hydrothermal vent, they may settle on the seafloor, grow into adults, and colonize a new vent.

This colonization theory led vent biologists to assume that neighboring vent fields should harbor similar animal communities. However, the new paper shows that larvae from one vent may not successfully colonize a neighboring vent. MBARI researcher Shannon Johnson used high-throughput DNA sequencing to identify larvae collected from the water around the vents. Her results showed that larvae from other sites can reach the Pescadero Basin, but prevailing geological and chemical conditions apparently preclude their settlement and growth there.

The researchers conclude that numerous factors affect the composition of the animal communities found at particular vents. Water depth, geology of the seafloor, temperature and chemistry of the vent fluids, and the ability of larvae from other vents to colonize the site all play roles. Given developing efforts to mine deep-sea hydrothermal vent fields for precious metals, the scientists involved in this research suggest that conservationists and management agencies need to consider a broader range of factors in their efforts to predict the environmental impacts and the resiliency of affected communities.

More information: Shana K. Goffredi et al, Hydrothermal vent fields discovered in the southern Gulf of California clarify role of habitat in augmenting regional diversity, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0817 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
A topographic map of the area around the Tibetan Plateau, left, and the map view of the composite strong and weak Asian plate model, right. The composite plate strength model -- with the Asian plate stronger in the west (Tarim Basin) and weaker to the east -- results in a topography that is similar to what exists today. Credit: Lin Chen

Geoscientists have long puzzled over the mechanism that created the Tibetan Plateau, but a new study finds that the landform's history may be controlled primarily by the strength of the tectonic plates whose collision prompted its uplift. Given that the region is one of the most seismically active areas in the world, understanding the plateau's geologic history could give scientists insight to modern day earthquake activity.

The new findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Even from space, the Tibetan Plateau appears huge. The massive highland, formed by the convergence of two continental plates, India and Asia, dwarfs other mountain ranges in height and breadth. Most other mountain ranges appear like narrow scars of raised flesh, while the Himalaya Plateau looks like a broad, asymmetrical scab surrounded by craggy peaks.

"The asymmetric shape and complex subsurface structure of the Tibetan Plateau make its formation one of the most significant outstanding questions in the study of plate tectonics today," said University of Illinois geology professor and study co-author Lijun Liu.

In the classic model of Tibetan Plateau formation, a fast-moving Indian continental plate collides head-on with the relatively stationary Asian plate about 50 million years ago. The convergence is likely to have caused the Earth's crust to bunch up into the massive pile known as the Himalaya Mountains and Tibetan Plateau seen today, but this does not explain why the plateau is asymmetrical, Liu Said.

"The Tibetan Plateau is not uniformly wide," said Lin Chen, the lead author from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "The western side is very narrow and the eastern side is very broadsomething that many past models have failed to explain."Many of those past models have focused on the surface geology of the actual plateau region, Liu said, but the real story might be found further down, where the Asian and Indian plates meet.

"There is a huge change in topography on the plateau, or the Asian plate, while the landform and moving speed of the Indian plate along the collision zone are essentially the same from west to east," Liu said. "Why does the Asian plate vary so much?"

To address this question, Liu and his co-authors looked at what happens when tectonic plates made from rocks of different strengths collide. A series of 3-D computational continental collision models were used to test this idea.

"We looked at two scenariosa weak Asian plate and a strong Asian plate," said Liu. "We kept the incoming Indian plate strong in both models."

When the researchers let the models run, they found that a strong Asian plate scenario resulted in a narrow plateau. The weak Asian plate model produced a broad plateau, like what is seen today.

"We then ran a third scenario which is a composite of the strong and weak Asian plate models," said Liu. "An Asian plate with a strong western side and weak eastern side results in an orientation very similar to what we see today."

This model, besides predicting the surface topography, also helps explain some of the complex subsurface structure seen using seismic observation techniques.

"It is exciting to see that such a simple model leads to something close to what we observe today," Liu said. "The location of modern earthquake activity and land movement corresponds to what we predict with the model, as well."

More information: Lin Chen et al, Crustal rheology controls on the Tibetan plateau formation during India-Asia convergence, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15992 Journal information: Nature Communications
4000 km wide view of Mars (colour-coded topgraphy) Coprates Chasma. Credit: NASA/USGS/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G Neukum), CC BY-SA

It may seem that Mars was once a much more exciting planet. True, there are dust storms and possible water-seeps occurring today, but billions of years ago it was a dramatic place with huge volcanoes, a giant canyon system and branching river valleys being formed.

But now planetary scientists have identified what looks like more recently formed volcanoes, in geological terms. Excitingly, they may have once provided the perfect environment for microbial lifeforms to thrive.

Mars' Olympus Mons is the solar system's largest volcano  22km high and more than 500km across its base. It began to grow over 3 billion years ago, but some lava flows high on its flanks appear to be as young as 2m years, judging from the relative lack of overlapping impact craters. Craters caused by asteroid impacts show how old a surface in the solar system is  the more craters the longer it has been around. However, fresh lava from a volcano can bury former craters, resetting this clock.

This is exactly what's happened at Olympus Mons, and indeed several of its neighbours, which means these volcanoes are unlikely to be extinct. They may even be able to squeeze out some lava again in the future, although we might have to wait a few million years to see it happen.

In search of small volcanoes

But are there still volcanoes forming on Mars? Where are the youngest ones, the volcanoes that sprang into life most recently? Researchers have previously spotted various clusters of small and evidently quite young "cones"  symmetrical hills with summit craters  but their origin has always been controversial. They could be true sites of volcanic eruption, but they could equally well be "mud volcanoes" formed by expulsion of mud from below ground or "rootless cones" formed by explosions caused by lava flowing across wet or icy ground.

1700km-wide region of Mars including Olympus Mons (upper left) and several other volcanoes of Marss Tharsis province. Colour-coded topography. Credit: NASA/USGS/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G Neukum)

Now a study by a Czech-German-American team led by Petr Broz presents convincing new evidence convincing new evidence that at least some of these are genuine volcanoes. Broz and his team studied cones in Coprates Chasma, the deepest part of Mars's Valles Marineris canyon system. This is far removed from any of Mars's main volcanic provinces, and suggest magma has erupted from the interior though ancient but reactivated fractures in the canyon system.

The researchers are convinced that these are true volcanic cones, similar to common volcanoes on Earth known as scoria cones and tuff cones. They base this on the fine layers visible on the inside of the crater walls on images from the HiRISE (High resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and other evidence. The detail in the images is sufficient to reveal that the cone is built of layers in a similar way as in tuff cones on Earth.

The cones themselves are too small to date by counting impact craters, but crater-dating of the surrounding terrain (which would be similar in age) comes out at about 200 to 400 million**** years  around the time giant amphibians and early dinosaurs roamed the Earth. On our planet, cones like these are built in a single episode of eruption (which may last weeks or months), so this date almost certainly pinpoints the birth of these small volcanoes as well as their demise.

The cones must have been built by explosive eruption of clots of lava, from the size of a grain to that of a brick, from a central vent, growing the cone layer by layer until reaching its final height. Each cone's surface may be "armour-plated" because these clots hit ground still hot enough to partially weld together and protect it. This could account for their fresh appearance, in contrast to mud volcanoes, which would be more vulnerable to erosion.

The findings are exciting for many reasons. Volcanism this young on Mars suggests there's still some volcanic action on the planet  and there could still be volcanoes forming today.

A cluster of six young cones in Coprates Chasma. The biggest is about 400 metres high, and they all have a summit crater. Credit: Petr Broz and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Astrobiological potential

So far, the team have obtained compositional information from just one of the cones using MRO's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM). This reveals the presence of a mineral called opaline silica as well as sulfate minerals, which suggests that the hot rocks, whether before or after after eruption, reacted with martian ground water.

If so, there could have been, even if only briefly at each volcano, a suitable mixture of water, warmth and chemical energy to support microbial life of the kind that inhabits hot springs on Earth. Given that the cones in this study are at least 200 million-year-old, they are unlikely to host life today, but they would be good targets to search for fossilised microbes with minimal risk of contaminating an active ecosystem.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
As tear gas chokes the air and water cannons gush in the streets, a skinny young man wearing the red, blue and yellow of Venezuela's flag stands bravely amid the chaos and plays the violin. That is 23-year-old Wuilly Arteaga doing his bit -- contributing music to the nearly daily street rallies rocking the country as the opposition tries to force President Nicolas Maduro from power. Arteaga, who was badly injured in the face Saturday at a demonstration, has become a sort of fixture at the rallies -- a powerful symbol of everyday people's anger with a leader they blame for a severe economic crisis. As bedlam erupts around him, Arteaga stands and plays the national anthem or traditional Venezuelan music. Big time performers abroad like pop star Shakira have taken notice and expressed support for Arteaga. On Saturday, Arteaga was seen with blood pouring from cuts on the left side of his face. He said later he had been struck with buckshot. "They are not going to frighten me," Arteaga said in a video he posted on Twitter from a hospital bed, with big swollen lips and bandages on his face. "We are going to keep fighting." Then he picked up his violin and played a little. On social media, people went nuts with praise for him. - 'I know I am nobody' - The musician became an icon of the protest movement on May 8 when he was pictured calmly weaving through tear gas with his violin on his shoulder, playing a classic Venezuelan folk song called "Alma Llanera." Immortalized in photographs from that performance, he said he meant it as a message of peace. Arteaga learned to play with an award-winning Venezuelan network of youth orchestras created for kids from underprivileged areas. Arteaga shot to fame when he performed at the funeral of an 18-year-old musician, Armando Canizales, who died of a gunshot wound May 3 at a protest rally in Caracas. "I was very afraid because I thought not even music had the power to make people stop and think. But I left the cemetery and went to the protest with even more strength," he told AFP. Since then Arteaga is often seen playing at protest rallies. Four months of them have degenerated into violence that has left 103 people dead. Arteaga used to make a living playing in the street for donations, although he has traveled to Europe seven times with the youth orchestra organization. He cried openly when a soldier broke his violin during a protest march on May 24. Video and photos of that incident triggered an outpouring of sympathy on social media and people chipped in money so he could buy another instrument. With his taste of fame, Arteaga's life has changed. At the invitation of non-governmental organizations he traveled to the United States to show off his talent and visited the headquarters of the United Nations. "I know I am nobody," he said during that trip. But he added, "I will do whatever it takes for Venezuelans like me to be able to live in our country in peace."
An explosion claimed by the Pakistani Taliban killed at least 26 people and injured dozens in a busy vegetable market in the Pakistani city of Lahore Monday, officials said. The powerful blast hit a bustling main road in the south of Lahore and blew out windows in nearby buildings. "A suicide bomber of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) used a motorcycle bomb to kill dozens of policemen," TTP spokesman Muhammad Khurasani said in a statement emailed to local media. "Our message to frontline allies of enemies of Islam is to get out of our way or be ready to suffer this fate," Khurasani added. Initial police investigations suggested it might be a suicide bomb attack. "Apparently, according to our initial findings, he was a suicide bomber, who used a motorcycle," deputy chief of police operations for Lahore, Haider Ashraf, told reporters, adding that at least 10 police officers were among the dead. The city's commissioner Abdullah Khan Sumbul said the blast targeted police. Senior local administration official Sumair Ahmad Syed put the new toll at 26 dead with over 50 injured. District Emergency officer Ahmad Raza confirmed the death toll, though he put the number of injured at 63. The area was busy with police at the time because officers had been sent to the market to clear stalls that had illegally spilt onto the road. Provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah said the blast had appeared to target the vegetable market, which was crowded with shoppers. - 'Deafening blast' - Eyewitness Sher Dil, who works at an office close to the site of the explosion, said it blew out the windows of his office building. "I was in my office when it all happened. It was a deafening blast, which shook the entire Arfa Karim Towers," Dil told AFP. Pakistan's president, prime minister and army chief all issued statements expressing condolences for the loss of life. Lahore has been hit by significant militant attacks in Pakistan's more than decade-long war on extremism, but they have been less frequent in recent years. The last major blast in the city was in March last year, when 75 were killed and hundreds injured in a bomb targeting Christians celebrating Easter Sunday in a park. But the country was also hit by a wave of attacks in February this year, including a bomb that killed 14 people in Lahore. In April a further seven were killed in an attack in the city targeting a team that was carrying out the country's long overdue census. After years of spiralling insecurity, the powerful army launched a crackdown on militancy in the wake of a brutal attack on a school in late 2014. More than 150 people, most of them children, died in the Taliban-led assault in the northwestern city of Peshawar -- the country's deadliest ever single attack. It shook a country already grimly accustomed to atrocities and prompted the military to step up an operation in the tribal areas, where militants had previously operated with impunity. Explosions caused by gas cylinders -- which are used for cooking as well as in cars -- are also common in Pakistan. A blast in Lahore in February was initially thought to be a militant attack, but turned out to be a gas explosion. Officials have since been cautious about prematurely confirming the nature of explosions. Lahore, a city of around six million, is Pakistan's cultural hub and the capital of its most powerful province, Punjab.
Thousands of demonstrators bearing candles marched on the Polish Supreme Court on Sunday in protest against controversial proposed judicial reforms. "Constitution, Constitution!" they chanted in front of the court building in Warsaw. Poland's senate backed on Saturday the Supreme Court reforms, despite warnings from the European Union, appeals from Washington and massive street protests against the measures which reinforce political control over the court. The move still needs to be signed by President Andrzej Duda to become law and on Sunday the marchers urged him to veto the bill. "We have come especially with a group of 14 people from (the western city) Wroclaw to protest against the taking control of the courts," Karolina Chorej,a 29-year-old doctor, told AFP. "We want to call on the president to use his veto, even if we don't have too much hope". Duda is closely allied with Poland's ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has pushed through the legislation. Another protester, Michal Bialek, a 30-year-old chemist, called it "an historic moment for our country" adding that "we must fight for the freedom of the courts, for democracy". The protesters, including many more young people than at previous rallies, held candles aloft as passages from the constitution were read out from a stage erected in front of the Supreme Court. They also waved Polish and EU flags as well as white roses, the symbol of the civil movement against the reforms. Similar protests were held Sunday in a hundred other Polish towns, according to media close to the opposition. The ruling right-wing PiS party has defended the reforms, calling them indispensable to combat corruption and streamline the judicial system. The European Union has warned the Polish government to suspend the controversial court reform effort or risk unprecedented sanctions. The proposed reforms "would abolish any remaining judicial independence and put the judiciary under full political control of the government," European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans said last week.
Colombia's leftist FARC rebels said Monday they will officially transform into a political party on September 1, a major step in reintegrating into civilian life as part of a historic peace deal. "The democratic opening that Colombia needs is approaching. We will launch our party on September 1," the FARC's top leader Rodrigo Londono wrote on Twitter, almost a month after the rebel group completed its disarmament. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is the largest and oldest rebel group in the country's long-running civil war. Although a smaller rebel group, the ELN, has yet to put down its weapons, the transition of the FARC into a political party will put a stop to a 50-year conflict that left 260,000 people dead. FARC commander Carlos Antonio Lozada, whose real name is Julian Gallo, said the group had been working on the details of the "great political-cultural act." "We made peace to participate in politics," FARC chief negotiator Ivan Marquez added. - Ahead of pope's visit - The FARC political party's policies and name will be decided at a congress at the end of August. That meeting will take place just days before Pope Francis makes a special four-day visit to Colombia, from September 6-11, to add his weight to the process of reconciliation. The disarmament last month by the roughly 7,000 members of Colombia's biggest rebel group under the 2016 peace accord brought a halt to the war. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for reaching the historic deal with the FARC that was signed last November. The accord was narrowly rejected by Colombians in a referendum last year before it was redrafted and pushed through congress. That rejection was due to in part to resentment by many ordinary Colombians that the FARC would be allowed to enter political life, after decades of killing and kidnapping. The country's only remaining rebel group, the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, is currently following the path set by the FARC to negotiate a peace deal aiming to disarm and demobilize. On Monday, the ELN and the government started a third round of talks in Ecuador aimed at reaching a similar peace deal as the FARC's. "We will try to advance a ceasefire agreement," said government chief negotiator Juan Camilo Restrepo on Twitter. Political analyst Victor de Currea said the process was making "very solid" progress and that both sides were hoping to declare a bilateral truce during the pope's visit. - FARC viewed negatively - As well as leaving a quarter of a million dead, about 60,000 Colombians remain unaccounted for and seven million have been displaced in the conflict. The FARC was born in May 1964 from a peasants' revolt, and its ranks were made up mostly of country-dwellers who rallied behind the group's Marxist-Leninist ideology, with land reform its key demand. A former rebel, Erika Montero, said the new political incarnation of the FARC will be "anti-patriarchal" and "anti-imperialist." The nascent party will especially focus on gender issues, the youth, and agricultural, urban and economic subjects, she said. One option being considered is to keep the FARC acronym, but have it stand for different words. It will be up to each former rebel to decide whether to participate in the party under their nom de guerre or their true identity. Historically, the FARC had a bad image in Colombia because of the many kidnappings and deaths it was responsible for during the conflict. Among the abductions was that of a former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, in 2002, who was held for six years. According to a survey in May by the Gallup polling firm, 82 percent of Colombians have a negative opinion of the FARC. - Security guarantees - Candidates for the future FARC party are to be given security guarantees to avoid a bloody repeat of political violence in the 1980s and 1990s directed at the leftwing Patriotic Union, which emerged from a previous peace initiative. Some 3,000 members of that party were killed. Marc Chernick, a political science professor at Georgetown University in Washington and Los Andes University in Bogota, said "the FARC's political party could be a step towards an opening up of Colombia's political system." He said the new party would not "necessarily be Marxist" and could face the challenge of being one of several parties on the left in Colombia. "They are going to seek alliances," he predicted. As an early phase, the government is to allocate at least five seats in the 166-member House of Representatives and five in the 102-seat Senate to the movement. The former guerrillas may expand on that in elections due next year.
Photo of Sonny Liew with his three Eisner awards: Chan Shiuan

UPDATE: This article has been amended to reflect the National Arts Councils congratulatory message to Sonny Liew and the date that Jeremy Tiangs manuscript was submitted.

Singaporeans will know it: we are so very fond of awards and plaudits. Whether its being the top student at the A-levels or being crowned the worlds best airport or praise from international bodies for our lack of corruption, we love to crow about our successes and punching above our weight.

So when Sonny Liew scored a hat-trick of Eisner Awards, the comic industrys equivalent of the Oscars, on Saturday (22 July), you might have expected congratulatory messages to come flooding in from every corner. After all, he is the first Singaporean to win an Eisner  comparable to the Pulitzer or Man Booker Prize  one of the greatest achievements on the international stage by a local artist. His graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is also internationally acclaimed.

But two days after the award ceremony, while writers, artists and members of the public have been fulsome in their praise of Liew, the silence from the establishment has been conspicuous. Not a single Peoples Action Party Member of Parliament or minister has congratulated Liew.

Non-Constituency MP Leon Perera of the Workers Party wrote on Facebook, Sonny Liew has done Singapore proudGreat art should always be supported, regardless of the political perspectives it expresses (unless criminality or disharmony is incited).

Compare this to the aftermath of Joseph Schooling winning Singapores first Olympic gold medal in August 2016, when everyone rushed to congratulate him, and he was even lauded in Parliament. While some might argue that an Eisner win is not on the same level as an Olympic gold, Liews achievement is no less difficult.

Perhaps the authorities do not like to be reminded of the controversy over Charlie Chan, when in 2015, the National Arts Council (NAC) withdrew an $8,000 publishing grant for the book over its sensitive content that could potentially undermine the legitimacy of the government. While the NAC has never specified just what was so sensitive about Charlie Chan, it is not difficult to figure out why it struck a raw nerve.

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Jarring with the official narrative

While the protagonist is fictional, the book is brimming with references to some of the most controversial moments in Singapores history from the 1950s to the 1980s. They include Operation Coldstore, the detention without trial of dozens of left-wing politicians and trade unionists in 1963, defamation suits filed by ministers against opposition figures and the alleged Marxist conspiracy of 1987. The late Lee Kuan Yew and Lim Chin Siong, co-founders of the ruling Peoples Action Party, are also key characters in the narrative.

In history textbooks and other official sources, we are told that the late Lee and the PAP saved Singapore from the looming communist threat. Lim and his compatriots were jailed in 1963 as they were communist sympathisers who posed a threat to national security. Charlie Chan offers an alternate narrative, drawing on a diverse range of research materials to argue that Lim was unjustifiably jailed and examining the governments draconian control of the media. One chapter even imagines a parallel universe where Lim is prime minister, while Lee is exiled to Cambodia.

It must be said that Liew has been far from blacklisted from official events. He was a featured writer/artist at last years Singapore Writers Festival and will also feature at the upcoming Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). But Liew did tell Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore in a recent interview that the NAC has adopted a schizo approach towards him: it can support him as an artist, but would rather not talk about Charlie Chan, his main claim to fame. This is perhaps reflected in its congratulatory message to Liew on Facebook, which did not mention the book: We are pleased that a Singaporean has been accorded international recognition for artistic merit.

In this regard, the authorities are caught between a rock and a hard place. By staying silent on Liews historic win, they seem to be sending a message that artists should steer clear of sensitive political topics for their creative works, rendering the impression that its support for the arts scene comes with strings attached.

On the other hand, if ministers and PAP MPs were to praise Liew, they would undermine the original position of the NAC, inferring that the agency had erred in withdrawing the grant. Perhaps the government could have chosen the latter course, couching its congratulatory messages with the proviso that while it stands by NACs position, it wants to support talented artists like Liew with the aim of nurturing a vibrant arts scene.

If Liews three prestigious gold medals arent enough to merit words of encouragement from the authorities, what more for artists whose laudable achievements might not be on the same level as the Eisners?

A widening space

Liew is not the only creative artist to have his grant withdrawn by the NAC. After writer Jeremy Tiang sent out to NAC in 2011 the first draft of his novel State Of Emergency, which is about the history of leftist movements in Singapore, NAC withdrew the remainder of the grant awarded to him. Tiang had received $8,600 of the $12,000 grant before NAC pulled the plug.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the government standing its ground on the official narrative. But if it aims to pay more than lip service to the broader national goal of fostering critical thinking among students, then there has to be greater space for dialogue and alternative views. As Liew said in an interview with The New York Times, My book is meant to create a more inclusive vision of Singapores history, one that encourages readers to look at all narratives with a critical eye.

In February this year, The Straits Times reported that a panel of academics and former senior civil servants, including leading diplomats Kishore Mahbubani and Chan Heng Chee, said that Singapore needs more people to speak up and challenge authority. We need to create new formulas, which you cant until you attack and challenge every sacred cow. Then you can succeed, said Mahbubani.

In all fairness, the space is opening up for works like Charlie Chan. Books written by revisionist historians  a term that has often been used by the government to describe historians who disagree with the official narrative  on subjects such as Coldstore are easily available. Plays like Cooling Off Day, which takes a light-hearted look at the idiosyncrasies of Singapores electoral system, are staged without cuts. These works would probably not have seen the light of day more than a decade ago.

But the so-called OB markers still remain. During a talk conducted by Epigram Books, the publisher of Charlie Chan, shortly after the books release, a teacher revealed that the NAC grant saga underscored the message that there was a line drawn in the sand by the authorities about the interpretation of modern Singapores early history, and teachers were wary of crossing it.

If it were true that teachers might be discouraged from openly discussing Charlie Chan with students by contrasting its interpretations of Singapores momentous events with the approved textbooks, it would be a poor reflection of the education system. After all, the spirit of free enquiry should be embraced by everyone in Singapore, including the government.

And if nothing else, Liew, like every Singaporean who has done the country proud, deserves at least a simple Congratulations from authorities.
Planet Earth is feeling the heat.

With the world facing increased warming, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, intense weather events and other global disasters, scientists are exploring ways to re-engineer the planet to counter the effects of global warming.

Earth's surface has warmed, on average over land and sea, 1.53 degreesFahrenheit (0.85 degrees Celsius) since 1880, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international organization created by the United Nations to evaluate the state of climate change science. [Changing Earth: 7 Ideas to Geoengineer Our Planet]

In the most recent issue of the journal Science, published online Thursday (July 20), two researchers provided perspective on two geoengineering methods that could reduce the so-called greenhouse effect, under which gases and clouds in Earth's atmosphere trap the sun's heat. Both schemes could contribute to a cooler climate, but they are not without risks. And as both researchers made clear, neither idea addresses the rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere that is primarily to blamefor global warming and higher levels of oceanic acid. This acidity is killing the coral reefs that shelter marine life and support the fish that humans eat.

Ulrike Lohmann and Blaz Gasparini, both researchers at the Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Scienceat ETH Zurich inSwitzerland, proposed a counterintuitive plan : Seed the upper atmosphere with tiny particles of desert dust to reduce cirrus clouds. These are the wispy, nearly invisible clouds that form at high altitudes. Unlike fat, billowy clouds that reflect sunlight, these clouds trap heat energy radiating up from Earth out into space.

"If cirrus clouds behave like a blanket around the Earth, you're trying to get rid of that blanket," Lohmann, a professor of experimental atmospheric physics at ETH Zurich, told Live Science.

Thinning the clouds

Seeding the atmosphere with dust would paradoxically thin out cirrus clouds, Lohman said. Under normal circumstances, the atmosphere at altitudes of about 16,000 to 40,000 feet (4,800 to 12,200 meters) is full of tiny particles. Some are solid particles like mineral dust, and some are liquid aerosols, such assulfuric acid. The liquid aerosols freeze instantly and create ice crystals that form long-lasting cirrus clouds.

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Cirrus thinning changes this dynamic, Lohman said. The idea, Lohmann said, is to inject solid particles, like desert dust, into the atmosphere at spots slightly lower than where cirrus clouds would naturally form. The quantity of dust introduced would be far less than the number of particles that exist higher up. This part is key, because fewer particles will attract more water vapor, creating larger crystals. As the ice crystals grow to larger and heavier, they would and fall as precipitation, and depending on the conditions would evaporate before reaching the ground.

"You remove the water vapor, you remove the humidity and you prevent the normal cirrus cloud formation," Lohmann said. [8 Ways Global Warming is Already Changing the World]

Ideally, the method would be applied to locations most susceptible to cirrus cloud formation, Lohmann said  geographical latitudes above 60 degrees, including the Arctic, where temperature increases from CO2 are the greatest.

The researchers' computer models have shown that if done correctly, cirrus thinning could reduce global temperatures by 0.9 degrees F (0.5 degrees C), Lohmann said. But if done incorrectly, the activity could produce cirrus clouds where none existed before, contributing to the very problem it's meant to solve, she added.

Risky business

The risk of doing more harm than good is a concern, said Ulrike Niemeier, a climate scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, and her colleague Simone Tilmes, a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Niemeier and Tilmes published a separate commentary in this week's issue of the journal Science that discusses a geoengineering method called stratospheric aerosol modification (SAM).

SAM involves injecting sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere to increase the reflectivity of Earth's atmosphere. Computer models have shown that SAM could reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the planet's surface. The effect would resemble that of ash clouds that linger after volcanic eruptions, which have been shown to lower global temperatures, the researchers wrote.

But the science behind SAM is in its very early stages, and the technologies to deploy it are not developed, the researchers added.

"It was our intention to say that [geoengineering] is not something that we should have in the back of our minds as the main solution," Niemeier told Live Science.

Niemeier and Tilmes wrote that different computer models consistently identify side effects to SAM. For example, reducing incoming solar radiation also reduces evaporation, which in turn reduces precipitation, and that can slow the hydrological cycle, particularly in the tropics, the authors wrote. Less rainfall could increase droughts that are already devastating parts of the world.

Although computer models tend to agree that its best to inject the aerosols into the stratosphere above the tropics or subtropics, and that the aerosols would disperse globally, the models differ on the extent of injection required for a given level of cooling, the authors wrote.

"Most current Earth-system models do not adequately capture important interactions, such as the coupling between stratospheric aerosols, chemistry, radiation and climate. They cannot, therefore, simulate the full impact of the interventions," Niemeier and Tilmes wrote.

Complicated solutions

Even if scientists could figure out a precise method, the economics are mind-boggling. Using SAM to bring down global temperatures just 2 degrees F (1 degree C), to preindustrial levels, would require injection amounts equivalent to one volcanic eruption per year the size of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo blast in the Philippines  the largest volcanic eruption in the last 100 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The cost of dispersing that much content artificially would cost $20 billionper year and require 6,700 aircraft flights per day over 160 years, the researchers wrote.

No single method can solve the climate change problem as a whole, either, they said.

"Any geoengineering method we know of can only offset part of the global warming that we have," Lohmann said.

And no method designed to cool the planet deals with the gases in the atmosphere that are the sources of the problem and are contributing to increasing levels of acid in the oceans, the researchers said.

"It doesn't get at the heart of the problem," Lohmann said. "The ocean acidification is ongoing."

If society decides to undertake any geoengineering method, she said, this action should be accompanied by large efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Niemeier said emission reductions should be the primary focus. "We are quite critical about [geoengineering], and we want people to be aware it would be a difficult."

Original article on Live Science.

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By Aradhana Aravindan SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Ride-hailing firm Grab expects to raise $2.5 billion to spend extending its lead over Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] and expanding into financial services, in the latest injection of funds into Southeast Asia's burgeoning tech scene. Chinese peer Didi Chuxing and Japan's SoftBank Group Corp <9984.T> will contribute most of the money, which a person close to the Singapore-based firm said would value it at $6 billion. The investment would be the latest in a Southeast Asian tech startup as major companies seek growth in the region's huge developing economies with young, tech-savvy demographics. Chinese social media firm Tencent Holdings Ltd <0700.HK> put up to $150 million into Grab's Indonesian peer Go-Jek, sources said this month, while in June, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd spent an additional $1 billion to raise its stake in Singapore-based e-tailer Lazada. Grab's fresh fundraising is "a real endorsement of the potential and promise" of Southeast Asia's startup community, said Dane Anderson, a vice president at researcher Forrester. Didi and SoftBank are already investors in Grab and other ride-hailing services globally. The pair will add $2 billion, and with $500 million from others, the fundraising will be Southeast Asia's biggest-ever single round of financing, Grab said on Monday. "With their support, Grab will achieve an unassailable market lead in ride-sharing, and build on this to make GrabPay the payment solution of choice for Southeast Asia," Anthony Tan, group chief executive officer and Grab co-founder, said in a statement. CONSUMER TECH Grab operates private car, motorcycle, taxi and carpooling services across seven countries with 1.1 million drivers. It said it has a market share of 95 percent in third-party taxi-hailing and 71 percent in private vehicle hailing in Southeast Asia. But its share could be under threat as San Francisco-based Uber, the world's largest ride-hailing service, is expected to increase its focus on the region after it folded its China business into Didi last year. Earlier this month, Uber also agreed to combine its Russian ride-sharing business with Yandex NV , the "Google of Russia." Grab said it plans to expand its research and development expertise and look for any strategic investment opportunities. Building on soaring user numbers of its Grab ride-hailing app and GrabPay function, the firm aims to transform into a consumer technology firm that also offers loans, electronic money transfer and money-market funds. As part of that ambition, the five-year-old startup bought Indonesian payment service Kudo earlier this year. "The heterogeneity of the banking system, multiple competitors in each country, and multiple regulations to meet are barriers to success," said analyst Rushabh Doshi at researcher Canalys. "However, given no single payment solution has been able to work across all Southeast Asian markets, Grab stands a good chance of building market share via its ride-sharing business model, and then extending the payments to other adjunct businesses," he said. Investors in Grab's previous fundraising include sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp [CIC.UL], hedge fund Coatue Management LLC, venture capital firm GGV Capital, and Vertex Ventures Holdings - a subsidiary of Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings (Pte) Ltd [TEM.UL]. (Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran and Iraq signed an agreement on Sunday to step up military cooperation and the fight against "terrorism and extremism", Iranian media reported, an accord which is likely to raise concerns in Washington. Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan and his Iraqi counterpart Erfan al-Hiyali signed a memorandum of understanding which also covered border security, logistics and training, the official news agency IRNA reported. "Extending cooperation and exchanging experiences in fighting terrorism and extremism, border security, and educational, logistical, technical and military support are among the provisions of this memorandum," IRNA reported after the signing of the accord in Tehran. Iran-Iraq ties have improved since Iran's long-time enemy Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 and an Iraqi government led by Shi'ite Muslims came to power. Iran is mostly a Shi'ite nation. U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced concern over what he sees as growing Iranian influence in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where it is aligned with Shi'ite fighters. Tensions between Iran and the United States have heightened since the election of Trump, who has often accused Tehran of backing militant groups and destabilising the region. Earlier this month, Trump said that new threats were emerging from "rogue regimes like North Korea, Iran and Syria and the governments that finance and support them". The U.S. military has accused Iran of stoking violence in Iraq by funding, training and equipping militias. Iran denies this, blaming the presence of U.S. troops for the violence. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Toby Chopra)
By Martin Petty MANILA (Reuters) - Two months after Islamist militants launched an assault on one of the biggest southern cities in the Philippines, the fighting is dragging on, and President Rodrigo Duterte says he is prepared to wait for a year for it to end. The defence top brass admits it underestimated its enemy and is struggling to finish off the highly organised, pro-Islamic State fighters who swept through Marawi City on May 23 and have held parts of it despite sustained ground attacks by hundreds of soldiers and daily pummelling by planes and artillery. On Saturday, lawmakers approved Duterte's request to extend martial law to the end of the year on the island of Mindanao, granting greater powers to security forces to go after extremists with a reach that goes far beyond Marawi. But it remains unclear how exactly Duterte plans to tackle extremism after troops retake Marawi, where about 70 militants remain holed up in the debris of what was once a flourishing commercial district, along with many civilian hostages. More than 500 people have been killed, including 45 civilians and 105 government troops. After missing several self-imposed deadlines to re-take the city, the military says its options are limited because of the hostages. Duterte has said he had asked to military to avoid more civilian casualties. "I told them 'do not attack'. What's important is we do not want to kill people," he said on Friday. "If we have to wait there for one year, let us wait for one year." The southern Philippines has been marred for decades by insurgency and banditry. But the intensity of the battle in Marawi and the presence of foreign fighters fighting alongside local militants has raised concerns that the region may be becoming a Southeast Asian hub for Islamic State as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria. Militants from neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia, both Muslim-majority nations, are fighting in Marawi. About 5 million Muslims live in the Catholic-majority Philippines, mostly on Mindanao. Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana indicated on Saturday that after Marawi, the government would strengthen surveillance in the region, widening the net to detect rebel training camps and movements of militants. "We need communications equipment, high-tech communications equipment that we can use to monitor cellphones of the enemies. We also need drones," he told Congress. OVERHAUL Security experts say the government needs a strategic overhaul after failing to act on warnings long ago that radical ideology was taking hold in Mindanao, and luring foreign fighters unable to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. "Things have changed dramatically ... our country must pursue some paradigm shifts," said analyst and retired police intelligence officer Rodolfo Mendoza. "We have to counter the spread of terrorism not only by supporting use of intelligence or counter intelligence, but tackling the root causes." The Marawi assault was planned and executed by a relatively new group, Dawla Islamiya, better known as the Maute Group, which wants recognition from Islamic State as its regional affiliate. Led by two brothers, the Maute Group want a "Wilayah", or province of Islamic State, in Lanao del Sur province, where it has engaged in fierce, days-long battles with the military since 2016, each time suffering heavy losses before regrouping months later. The brothers, Abdullah and Omarkhayam Maute, have been joined by Isnilon Hapilon, the anointed Southeast Asian "Emir" of Islamic State and leader of a faction of another Mindanao group, Abu Sayyaf. The Marawi fighting has been much publicised across militant networks and experts say it could attract more fighters to the region. "It has inspired young extremists from around the region to want to join," the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict said in a report on Friday, adding the fighting had "lifted the prestige of the Philippine fighters in the eyes of ISIS Central". Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at Manila's De La Salle University, said the military is seeking to neutralise the Maute brothers to buy time to disrupt recruitment and stop fighters regrouping. Moderate separatist groups from Mindanao should be co-opted to counter the extremist message, he said, while the military should work closer with the United States and Australia, which have provided operational advice and surveillance planes. The Marawi crisis erupted not because of intelligence failures, but the policy priorities of Duterte, Heydarian added. He said Duterte, who came to power a year ago, channelled security resources into a war on drugs instead of countering Islamic radicalisation in the south, an issue the president himself has himself flagged in the past. "They were all aware of this. It was just a matter of time," Heydarian said. (Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Poland's governing conservatives on Monday vowed to press on with judicial reforms, even after the president used his veto following huge street protests and threats of unprecedented EU sanctions. President Andrzej Duda vetoed two out of three controversial reforms on Monday in a move that surprised observers because he is a close ally of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party that had pushed the legislation. Prime Minister Beata Szydlo responded that "the president's veto today slowed down reform work" but insisted that the PiS would not back down until the judicial system saw change. "We're open to discussion regarding the details, but these discussions cannot lead to the reform coming to a deadlock," she said. "We cannot give in to pressure from the streets and abroad... We have a stable majority. We won't give in to pressure. We will realise our plan." Duda said he had made his decision after consulting legal experts at the weekend, when thousands of people took to the streets across Poland urging him to veto the proposals that critics said threatened the rule of law. The reforms now return for amendment to parliament, where they require a three-fifths majority -- which the PiS does not have -- to go through unchanged. "I have decided to send back to parliament -- therefore, to veto -- the law on the Supreme Court, as well as the law on the National Council of the Judiciary," Duda said in a televised announcement. "This law would not strengthen the sense of justice" in society, he said. The opposition welcomed his move. "It's without a doubt a step in the right direction," said Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a lawmaker from the liberal Nowoczesna party. "It's proof that pressure from citizens can work." Polish freedom icon Lech Walesa, a Nobel Peace laureate and former president, said he "was pleasantly surprised." "The people have woken up, young people have woken up... We'll do what we can so that these people (the conservatives) get off the wrong path or that we manage to replace them," Walesa said. - Candlelit protest - The reforms would have increased political control over the judiciary, sparking an outcry among critics who said the PiS party was seeking to reduce the independence of the courts. "It was never part of our tradition that the attorney general could interfere in the work of the Supreme Court," Duda said. The role of attorney general has been held by the justice minister in Poland since 2016, following one of the PiS's earlier reforms. "I don't want this situation to deteriorate, because it's reinforcing divisions in society. There's only one Poland. Poland needs peace and I feel responsible for it as president," Duda said. He added that "a good reform" of the judicial system was needed and said he hoped to table his own versions of the laws within two months. Supreme Court chief justice Malgorzata Gersdorf offered Duda her "intellectual collaboration" on the new texts, and publicly thanked him for the veto. The Polish senate had on Saturday backed the reforms, but they had still needed the president's sign-off. Huge crowds of protesters held a candlelit protest outside the Supreme Court on Sunday urging Duda to veto the changes. Several hundred gathered at the court again on Monday. - Church cheers veto - The European Commission had threatened to halt Poland's voting rights over the proposed reforms -- a so-called "nuclear option" that the EU has never invoked -- while the United States also expressed concern. A Commission spokesman said it would discuss the situation on Wednesday. Poland's powerful Catholic Church also welcomed the veto. Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki said "I'd like to thank the president" and recalled that Saint John Paul II had said the separation of powers was "a guarantee of a well-functioning democracy." The PiS, which began making changes to the judiciary after coming to power in late 2015, has argued resistance to its reforms is a case of an elite defending its privileges. Under the current system, Supreme Court candidates are selected by an independent body consisting mainly of judges but also some politicians. "I'm not a fan of this decision," PiS lawmaker Stanislaw Pieta told AFP. "Once emotions have cooled down after the holidays and everyone is well-rested, we'll have to calmly prepare a new law to follow through with the great reform of Poland's judicial system that the PiS and the president himself had promised." The president's spokesman said Duda would sign a third controversial judicial reform into law, one allowing the justice minister to replace the chief justices of all the common courts without explanation.
Staff from one of Turkey's most respected opposition newspapers on Monday rejected as absurd "terror" charges laid against them, on the first day of a trial which has intensified alarm over press freedom under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The 17 defendants from Cumhuriyet daily were detained from October last year and a dozen of them have now spent more than eight months in jail. They have been held under a state of emergency imposed after the July 15, 2016 failed coup aimed at ousting Erdogan that the authorities blame on US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen. The case has further raised tensions between Turkey and the European Union, in particular Germany, which fears the crackdown is being used to target any critic of Erdogan. The Cumhuriyet journalists, cartoonists and executives were applauded by supporters crammed into the Istanbul courtroom as the trial opened. Supporters released dozens of multicoloured balloons outside the courthouse, chanting: "Don't be silenced! A free media is a right!" If convicted, the journalists face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail. In an extraordinary coincidence, the trial opened on Turkey's annual national day of the press which marks the end of official censorship in the Ottoman Empire in 1908 under Sultan Abdulhamid II. - 'Illogical' - Those on trial include some of the best known names in Turkish journalism including the columnist Kadri Gursel, the paper's editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, cartoonist Musa Kart as well as its chairman Akin Atalay. They are charged with supporting in the newspaper's coverage three groups considered by Turkey as terror outfits -- the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the ultra-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and Gulen's movement, which Ankara calls the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO). The indictment accuses Cumhuriyet of beginning a "perception operation" with the aim of starting an "asymmetric war" against Erdogan. But supporters insist the paper has always been bitterly critical of the three groups, including Gulen's organisation. Gulen denies any link to the failed coup. "To say I was in contact with FETO members is illogical and against good sense," Gursel told the court in a powerful testimony where he sought to refute the accusations charge-by-charge. "There is nothing to justify my jailing -- nothing apart from slander," he added. "The claims are totally without basis." Atalay said it was the authorities who were scared. "But Cumhuriyet will not give in... independence and liberty are written into the DNA of the paper," he said. Cartoonist Kart meanwhile denounced the accusations against him as "unfair, unfounded and unacceptable". - 'Test for Turkey' - Cumhuriyet (Republic), which was set up in 1924 and is Turkey's oldest mainstream national title, has been a thorn in the side of Erdogan in recent years. It is one of the few genuine opposition voices in the press, which is dominated by strongly pro-government media and bigger mainstream dailies that are increasingly wary of challenging the authorities. Also being tried in the case is the investigative journalist Ahmet Sik who in 2011 wrote an explosive book "The Imam's Army" exposing the grip Gulen's movement had on the Turkish state. Eleven of the 17 including Gursel, Sabuncu, Kart and Sik, are being held in custody. The trial will resume Tuesday and this preliminary stage is expected to last until Friday. Since their arrests, Cumhuriyet has continued publishing the columns of the jailed journalists but with a blank white space instead of text. "This trial is a test for Turkey," Aydin Engin, one of the writers on trial who was freed after his initial arrest. "Erdogan says justice is balanced in Turkey. Now we will see." Being tried in absentia is the paper's former editor-in-chief Can Dundar, who was last year sentenced to five years and 10 months in jail over a front-page story accusing the government of sending weapons to Syria. He has now fled Turkey for Germany. - 'Criminalising journalism' - Steven Ellis, director of advocacy at the International Press Institute (IPI), said outside the court that the case aimed at "criminalising journalism." "If it works... then they will do it again and again," he said. Turkey ranks 155th on the latest Reporters Without Borders (RSF) world press freedom index, below Belarus and the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the P24 press freedom group, there are 166 journalists behind bars in Turkey, most of whom were arrested under the state of emergency. Erdogan, however, insisted in an interview earlier this month there were just "two real journalists" behind bars in Turkey and anyone else was jailed for offences including robbing ATMs. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said last month that the detention of the staff was arbitrary and that they should be immediately released and given the right to compensation.
The UN warned Monday that the crisis over new security measures at a volatile Jerusalem holy site must be swiftly resolved, as a top US official arrived in Israel to try to ease tensions. The crisis, which saw a weekend of deadly violence, was also discussed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II of Jordan, a day after an Israeli guard at its embassy in Amman shot two Jordanians dead after an attack. UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov's warning and the visit by US President Donald Trump's top aide Jason Greenblatt come after more than a week of tensions over the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the site, which includes the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, after an attack on July 14 that killed two policemen. "It is extremely important that a solution to the current crisis be found by Friday this week," Mladenov said after briefing the UN Security Council, which met to discuss how to defuse the tension. "The dangers on the ground will escalate if we go through another cycle of Friday prayer without a resolution to this current crisis," he said, warning that violence there could spread "beyond the Middle East itself". Palestinians view the new security measures as Israel asserting further control over the site. They have refused to enter the compound in protest and have prayed in the streets outside instead. Israeli authorities say the metal detectors are needed because the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the site and emerged from it to shoot the officers. Clashes have broken out during protests over the measures, leaving five Palestinians dead. Three Israelis were also killed when a Palestinian sneaked into a house in a West Bank settlement and stabbed them. - Netanyahu, Abdullah II speak - Greenblatt met Netanyahu along with US envoy to Israel David Friedman Monday, an Israeli official told AFP. In Amman, Jordan insisted on questioning an Israeli embassy security guard who according to Israeli officials shot dead a Jordanian attacker Sunday night, killing a second Jordanian at the time as well, apparently by accident. Israel said the guard had diplomatic immunity. He arrived back in Israel late Monday along with the rest of the embassy staff, a statement from Netanyahu's office said, but details of how we was able to return were not given. It followed a phone conversation between Netanyahu and King Abdullah, who reiterated Jordan's demand that Israel remove all the recent security measures at the Al-Aqsa compound, an official Jordanian statement said. Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. The king stressed "the need to find an immediate solution and remove the reasons for the ongoing crisis at the Haram al-Sharif compound", the statement said. The head of Israel's Shin Bet, Nadav Argaman, visited Amman Monday to try to calm the situation, the internal security agency told AFP. Israeli officials have signalled they may be open to changing the measures at the holy site. Cameras have been installed at entrances in a possible indication of an alternative to the metal detectors. - 'Playing with fire' - Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit has accused Israel of "playing with fire" with the new security measures, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called them an insult to the Muslim world. Arriving back in Ankara late Monday at the end of a trip to the Gulf, Erdogan went further still, accusing Israel of flouting international law. "Israel is mistaken in the steps it has taken and -- I will say this very openly -- is heading into isolation," he warned. Friday's main weekly Muslim prayers -- which typically draw thousands to Al-Aqsa -- brought the situation to a boil. Clashes erupted between Israeli security forces and Palestinians around the Old City, elsewhere in annexed east Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank, leaving three Palestinians dead. They continued on Saturday, leaving two more Palestinians dead. Friday evening also saw a Palestinian break into a home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank during a Sabbath dinner and stab four Israelis, killing three. The Israeli army said the 19-year-old Palestinian had spoken in a Facebook post of the holy site and of dying as a martyr. The holy site in Jerusalem has served as a rallying cry for Palestinians. It is in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community. Considered the third holiest site in Islam, it is the most sacred for Jews.
By Pavel Polityuk and Anton Zverev KIEV/SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (Reuters) - The career of Sergei Yeliseyev helps to explain why Ukraine's armed forces gave up Crimea almost without a fight - and why NATO now says it is alert to Russian attempts to undermine military loyalty in its eastern European members. His rise to become number two in the Ukrainian navy long before Russia seized Crimea illustrates the divided loyalties that some personnel in countries that once belonged to the Soviet Union might still face. Yeliseyev's roots were in Russia but he ended up serving Ukraine, a different ex-Soviet republic, only to defect when put to the test. NATO military planners now believe Moscow regards people with similarly ambiguous personal links as potentially valuable, should a new confrontation break out with the West. In 2014, Yeliseyev was first deputy commander of the Ukrainian fleet, then largely based in Crimea, when Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms took control of Kiev's ships and military bases on the peninsula. Instead of resisting, Yeliseyev quit and subsequently got a new job: deputy chief of Russia's Baltic Fleet. Yeliseyev, now aged 55, did not respond to Reuters questions sent to him via the Russian defence ministry. In Kiev, however, there is no doubt where his loyalties lay. "When he took an oath to Ukraine, these were empty words for him. He has always been pro-Russian," said Ihor Voronchenko, now commander of the Ukrainian navy, who once served with Yeliseyev. In fact, the Russian soldiers were pushing at an open door in late February 2014 - Yeliseyev was just one of many to defect and almost all Ukrainian forces in Crimea failed to resist. Russia annexed Crimea the following month, prompting a major row with the West which deepened over Moscow's role in a rebellion in eastern Ukraine that lasts to this day. At the time, Moscow and its allies in Crimea exploited weaknesses within Kiev's military to undermine its ability to put up a fight, according to interviews conducted by Reuters with about a dozen people on both sides of the conflict. The Russian defence ministry did not respond to questions on their accounts of the events in 2014 submitted by Reuters. One NATO commander told Reuters that, in a re-run of the tactics it deployed in Crimea, Russian intelligence was trying to recruit ethnic Russians serving in the militaries of countries on its borders. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the commander said the alliance was particularly sensitive to the risk in countries with high concentrations of ethnic Russians, notably the Baltic states. NATO had to guard against this, said the commander, though the risk should not be overstated because having Russian roots did not necessarily mean that a person's loyalty is to Moscow. Officials in the Baltic states, former Soviet republics which unlike Ukraine are NATO members, play down the danger. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg likewise said he trusted the armies of the Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Still, he told Reuters: "We always have to be vigilant. We always have to develop our intelligence tools and to be able to see any attempts to try to undermine the loyalty of our forces." DROPPING THE GUARD Years before the Crimean annexation, a Ukrainian appointment panel appeared to drop its guard when it interviewed Yeliseyev for the deputy naval commander's post. Yeliseyev was born near Moscow, graduated from a Soviet naval school in the Russian city of Kaliningrad in 1983 and served with the Russian Pacific fleet. So the panel asked Yeliseyev what he would do if Russia and Ukraine went to war. He replied that he would file for early retirement, according to Myroslav Mamchak, a former Ukrainian naval captain who served with Yeliseyev. Despite this response, Yeliseyev got the job in 2006. Mamchak did not disclose to Reuters how he knew what was said in the interview room but subsequent events bear out his account. Relations between Russia and Ukraine dived as Kiev moved closer to NATO and eight years after his appointment, with the countries on the brink of conflict over Crimea, Yeliseyev stayed true to his word by quitting. Russia's actions were not the only factor in the Crimean events. Ukraine's military had suffered years of neglect, there was a power vacuum in Kiev after the government was overthrown, and many Crimean residents felt more affinity with Moscow. Still, Ukrainian service personnel with Russian ties switched sides when the annexation began and some officers pretended to put up resistance only to avoid court-martial. Moscow also intercepted orders from Kiev so they never reached the Crimean garrison. "There was nothing spontaneous. Everything was organised and each fiddler played his role," said Mykhailo Koval, who at the time was deputy head of the Ukrainian border guard and is now deputy head of the Security Council in Kiev. INVITATION TO DEFECT Voronchenko, who was another deputy commander of the navy at the time of the annexation, said he had received invitations to defect to Moscow's side soon after the Russian operation began. These, he told Reuters, came from Sergei Aksyonov, who was then head of Crimea's self-proclaimed pro-Russian government, as well as from the commander of Russia's southern military district and a deputy Russian defence minister. Asked what they offered in exchange, Voronchenko said: "Posts, an apartment ... Aksyonov offered to make me defence minister of Crimea." Neither Aksyonov nor the Russian defence ministry responded to Reuters questions about the contacts. Voronchenko, in common with many other senior Ukrainian officers, had been in the Soviet military alongside people now serving in the Russian armed forces. He had spent years in Crimea, where Russia leased bases from Ukraine for its Black Sea fleet after the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union. "Those generals who came to persuade me ... said that we belong to the same circle, we came from the Soviet army," he said. "But I told them I am different ... I am not yours." Naval chief Denis Berezovsky did defect, along with several of his commanders, and was later made deputy chief of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Many in the ranks followed suit. At one Ukrainian signals unit, service personnel were watching Russian television when President Vladimir Putin appeared on the screen. "To my surprise, they all stood up," said Svyatoslav Veltynsky, an engineer at the unit. "They had been waiting for this." The majority of the unit defected to the Russian side. JUST A SHOW Even those willing to resist found themselves in a hopeless position. One member of the Ukrainian border guards told Reuters how his commander had despatched their unit's ships to stop them falling into Russian hands, and ordered his men to train their rifles on anyone trying to enter their base. However, the base's military communications were not working, having been either jammed or cut by the Russians. Isolated from his own side, and outnumbered and outgunned by Russian troops outside, the commander struck a deal with the head of a Russian special forces unit. Pro-Russian civilians were allowed to force the base's gate without reprisals. The Ukrainians "supposedly could not do anything; you cannot shoot civilians", the member of the unit said on condition of anonymity because he is still living in Crimea and feared repercussions. Russian troops then followed the civilians in, taking over the base and offering the unit a chance to switch allegiance to Russia. About half agreed, although the base's chief refused and was allowed to leave Crimea. "The commander did not resist," said the unit member. "On the other hand, he did what he could under the circumstances." Two other people involved in the annexation - a former Ukrainian serviceman now on a Russian base in Crimea, and a source close to the Russian military who was there at the time - also described witnessing similar faked confrontations. "You have to understand that the seizure of Ukrainian military units in Crimea was just a show," said the source close to the Russian military. LESSONS LEARNED NATO's Baltic members differ significantly from Ukraine. Soviet-era commanders, for instance, largely left their armed forces after the countries joined the Western alliance in 2004. Officials also point out that Russian speakers were among the seven members of Latvia's forces to die during international deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. Nevertheless, lessons have been learned from Crimea. "We learned, of course, that there was not only the issue of loyalty, but also false orders were submitted and there was a blockage of communication during the Crimea operation," said Janis Garisons, State Secretary in the Latvian defence ministry. Latvia has changed the law so that unit commanders are obliged to resist by default. But Garisons said the simplest step was taken long before the annexation, with the introduction in 2008 of vetting by the security services for "everybody who joins the armed forces, from private to general". (Additional reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko in KIEV, Andrius Sytas in VILNIUS, Gederts Gelzis in RIGA, David Mardiste in TALLINN, and Robin Emmott in BRUSSELS; editing by David Stamp)
Study: our Paris carbon budget may be 40% smaller than thought

Posted on 24 July 2017 by dana1981

In the Paris climate treaty, nearly every world country agreed to try and limit global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, and preferably closer to 1.5C. But a new study published in Nature Climate Change notes that the agreement didnt define when pre-industrial begins.

Our instrumental measurements of the Earths average surface temperature begin in the late-1800s, but the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-1700s. Theres also a theory that human agriculture has been influencing the global climate for thousands of years, but the mass burning of fossil fuels kicked the human influence into high gear.

We may be at 1C or 1.2C warming since pre-industrial

We know that since the late-1800s, humans have caused global surface temperatures to rise by about 1C. But what about the human influence in the centuries before that, which are technically still pre-industrial? The new study used climate model simulations from 1401 to 1800, during which time we know the climate influences of natural effects like solar and volcanic activity fairly well. They found that depending on the starting point, global surface temperatures during that period were 0 to 0.2C cooler than the late-1800s.

According to the last IPCC report, to have a 50% chance of staying below the 2C target, when accounting for non-carbon greenhouse gases, we have a remaining budget of about 300bn tons of carbon dioxide. But that was for 2C warming above late-1800 temperatures. If we add another 0.1C of pre-industrial warming, the study authors estimated that the budget shrinks by 60bn tons (20%), and if there was an additional 0.2C pre-industrial warming, the 2C carbon budget shrinks by 40%. As one of the study authors Michael Mann put it:

Either the Paris targets have to be revised, or alternatively, we decide that the existing targets really were meant to describe only the warming since the late 19th century.

Its an important point if we want to measure whether weve succeeded or failed in meeting the Paris climate targets. And its important to know if our budget should be set at no more than 300bn tons, or more like 200bn tons of carbon dioxide pollution.

Were moving in the wrong direction

However, were not yet on track to meet the Paris climate target budget. Based on current national pledges, humans will cause around 3 to 3.5C warming above late-1800 temperatures by 2100. However, the Paris treaty included a ratcheting mechanism through which countries can gradually make their carbon pollution targets more aggressive. If successful, that ratcheting could limit global warming to 1.8C above late-1800 temperatures, which is likely less than 2C above pre-industrial temperatures.

Global greenhouse gas emissions and 2100 temperatures under no action, current pledges (INDCs), and successful ratcheting scenarios. Illustration: Climate Interactive

To accomplish that goal, the US would have to ratchet its carbon pollution down to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, for example. But at the moment, America is moving in the wrong direction, shamefully becoming the only nation announcing withdrawal from the Paris treaty, aiming to join Nicaragua (which declined to sign due to objections that the agreement was too weak) and Syria (which did not participate due to a civil war) as the only non-signatory countries. Fortunately, other countries like China and the EU are stepping up to fill the global leadership role vacated by America under the Trump administration.

Regardless, we need to cut carbon pollution ASAP

Its also important to remember that 2C isnt a red line  that if we cause 2.1C the world will end or that at 1.9C everything will be fine and dandy. The 2C target is a reasonable one for two reasons:

Click here to read the rest
Trade negotiators reached an initial deal to sell American rice in China for the first time ever, the Department of Agriculture announced Thursday.

America Exporting Rice to China?

A deal to open Chinese markets to rice grown in the U.S. has been in the works for more than a decade, but agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says its finally coming to fruition.

This is another great day for U.S. agriculture and, in particular, for our rice growers and millers, who can now look forward to gaining access to the Chinese market, Perdue said in a statement. This market represents an exceptional opportunity today, with enormous potential for growth in the future.

China is the worlds largest producer of rice, but it is also the largest consumer. The country imported almost 5 million tons of rice last year, mostly from Vietnam, Thailand and other Asian nations.

The U.S. and China reached an agreement on the process for ensuring the safety of imported American rice in January 2016, a more complicated and detailed than any other rice protocol in the world, Dow Brantley

The announcement comes after trade talks between the Chinese and U.S. officials took a disappointing turn. At the end of the high-level trade talks Wednesday, the U.S. was only able to claim that China acknowledged our shared objective to reduce the trade deficit which both sides will work cooperatively to achieve, but the two countries could not agree on solutions to the $347 billion trade deficit, the Wall Street Journal reports. (RELATED: US-China Trade Talks Falter As Relations Spiral)

China allowed U.S. beef imports last month for the first time in 13 years, in exchange for the U.S. allowing imports of cooked poultry products.

Republished by permission. Original here.
When a 2003 Chinese ban on American beef was lifted recently , ranchers in the U.S. were cautiously optimistic. There is a possibility the move is designed to tweak Chinas beef trade with Australia, but also a huge opportunity if the Chinese market opens up for U.S. ranchers.

Considerations Before Investing in a Cattle Ranch

Small Business Trends spoke with Buzz Tatom. Hes a Partner/Ranch Sales Associate at Venture West Ranches in Montana. Here are 10 things to know before investing in a cattle ranch.

Take a Look at the Land Support Capability

Simply put, you need to know what the land will support. Most important here is animal carry capacity. Its all about the number of cattle that can graze on the property without destroying it.

Be Clear on the Agricultural/Recreational Value

A big part of the value thats being represented is recreational, Tatom says. Buying a ranch means knowing the importance of the term agricultural value or the land that can be irrigated otherwise and used for cattle. Canyons and the like are recreational. You need to look at how much of each type is available.

Follow Your Rights for Water

Making sure you understand your rights about the water that flows through your property is critical. Having senior water rights that are current means being assured of a steady flow. If youre further down a list, someone higher up can change the amount of water you get for important aspects like irrigation.

Know Your Mineral Rights

Buying a cattle ranch means knowing who owns whats above and below the surface. If you only have whats called surface rights, another party can dig up your ranch to get at the minerals underneath.

Tatom explains why mineral rights are important.

Without them, someone can literally walk in on you the next day and drill wells on your property.

Understand Access to the Property

Are there easements running through the land youre interested in? Does any part of your land cross a neighbors? Its good to know if there are any extenuating circumstances like these before you buy.

Have the Soil Tested

Groundwater contamination could ruin the entire deal if its bad enough. Find out if there were any dump sites in the area and hazardous wastes buried on the property.

Get the Skinny from the Locals

I always encourage clients to spend some extra time in local cafes and shops asking peoples opinions about the ranch, Tatom says. Youll be surprised at some of the things people will say about present owners.

Check the Neighbors Out

Youll have dealings with the people next door, even if you dont see them all the time. Fences will need to be mended and mineral rights and a host of other issues looked after. Getting to know the neighbors can make bigger decisions like wildlife management easier.

Take a Look at Tax Status

When you buy a ranch, it should come with some exemptions that are tied to your tax status. There are agricultural exemptions and wildlife exemptions that you want to look into. Its critical to find out what you need to do to keep these active.

Look at your Financing Options

Finally, its important to know what your best options are for paying for your new ranch.Everything is easiest if youre buying a place with cash. Otherwise youre going to need to find a qualified agricultural lender to help steer the purchase to a conclusion.
International Relations  July 24, 2017  Lars T. Lih

All power to the Soviets! is surely one of the most famous slogans in revolutionary history. It is right up there with Egalite, liberte, fraternite as a symbol of an entire revolutionary epoch. In this essay and others to follow, I would like to examine the origin of this slogan in its original context of Russia in 1917.

Our slogan consists of three words:    (vsya vlast sovetam). Vsya = all, vlast = power, and sovetam = to the soviets. The Russian word sovet simply means advice, and, from that, council. By now, of course, we are very used to the Russian word, because it evokes a specific set of meanings arising out of the revolutionary experience of 1917.

In this series, I will often use the Russian original of another term in this slogan, namely, vlast (I will henceforth transliterate without the soft sign). Power is not an entirely adequate translation; indeed, in an attempt to catch these nuances, vlast is often translated in English by the unidiomatic phrase the power (for example, by John Reed in Ten Days that Shook the World ). Vlast has a more specific reference than the English word power; the Russian word refers to the sovereign authority in a particular country. In order to have the vlast, one has to have the right of making a final decision, to be capable of making the decisions and of seeing that they are carried out. An effective vlast needs firm control over the armed forces, a strong sense of legitimacy and mission, and a social base. Max Webers phrase a monopoly of the legitimate use of force goes to the heart of the matter.

Adopting the Slogan

When, why and how did the Bolsheviks come to adopt this slogan in the spring of 1917? The usual answer to these questions asserts that in order for the party to arrive at the slogan, it had to be rearmed by Lenins April Theses . The metaphor of rearming was first used by Lev Trotsky in the early 1920s, but today it is by no means restricted to writers in the Trotskyist tradition. Indeed, the rearming narrative is the heart of a broad consensus about the Bolsheviks in 1917 upheld by both activists and academic historians.

Among the basic themes of the rearming narrative are the following:

Lenins April Theses contained a radical political and ideological innovation. The exact nature of this innovation is vague, with little agreement among writers, but usually it has something to do with socialist revolution in Russia.

contained a radical political and ideological innovation. The exact nature of this innovation is vague, with little agreement among writers, but usually it has something to do with socialist revolution in Russia. The April Theses represented Lenins de facto acceptance of Trotskys permanent revolution outlook.

represented Lenins de facto acceptance of Trotskys permanent revolution outlook. The April Theses exploded like a bomb among the Bolsheviks; they were shocked and scandalized by the Theses because of their rejection of Old Bolshevism or perhaps even of basic Marxist principles.

exploded like a bomb among the Bolsheviks; they were shocked and scandalized by the Theses because of their rejection of Old Bolshevism or perhaps even of basic Marxist principles. The April Theses constituted a sharp change of political line from the semi-Menshevik policies hitherto pursued by Petrograd Bolsheviks, who had earlier shown their confusion and dismay by censoring Lenins Letters from Afar .

constituted a sharp change of political line from the semi-Menshevik policies hitherto pursued by Petrograd Bolsheviks, who had earlier shown their confusion and dismay by censoring Lenins . Lenin won over the party to his views in a hard-fought campaign, although a significant portion of the party and its leadership were never convinced.

The April Theses were a necessary condition for the Bolshevik victory in October.

I believe these propositions are all incorrect or, at best, seriously misleading. As a challenge to them, I argue for what I call the fully armed interpretation of Bolshevik politics in spring 1917. As opposed to the rearming narrative, which cuts Bolshevism off from its past, I stress the continuity with Old Bolshevism. The Bolsheviks were not flummoxed by the February revolution; they faced the post-February situation with a winning strategy that was based firmly on Old Bolshevisms class scenario. The return of Lenin and other emigre leaders to Russia in early April marked an important shift in tactics  but this shift was not due to the controversial April Theses . Bolshevik praktiki who expressed misgivings about the April Theses did so because they shared the goal of soviet power. The canonical three-word slogan All Power to the Soviets! was not adopted as a party slogan until early May  after the debate over the April Theses had been settled at Bolshevik party conferences.

My proposed counter-narrative has met a lot of resistance and will no doubt continue to do so. One big reason for this is that my counter-narrative seems to fly in the face of established facts. What about the critical support for the bourgeois Provisional Government shown by such Bolsheviks and Lev Kamenev and Iosif Stalin? What about the notorious censorship of Lenins Letter from Afar by the editors of Pravda ? Didnt the April Theses cause great scandal among the Bolsheviks?  for example, a vote in the Petrograd party committee rejected the Theses in toto by a lopsided vote of thirteen to two? Dont Trotskys writings from 1917 illustrate the rearming narrative? And so on.

These are valid questions, and the aim of the present series is to respond to them in detail. By the end of the series, the tables will be turned, and the defenders of the standard rearming narrative will have a mountain of new evidence to consider. In the meantime, I am heartened by the fact that scholars who have done empirical research on these issues after I first put forth my hypotheses a number of years ago have validated essential parts of my argument, as shown by recent blogs by Eric Blanc.

Biography of a Slogan, the essay that opens the series, will set forth my fully armed interpretation with a minimum of polemics. My heartfelt thanks for the encouragement and support of John Riddell, who has generously provided a home for this extensive series.

Biography of a Slogan

From the days of Lassalle, Social Democracy had always given a great deal of attention to slogans  watchwords, mots dordre  as a way of focusing political campaigns and imposing unity on mass action. A history of Social Democracy in its various national manifestations could be written based on its slogans over the years. All Power to the Soviets! is assuredly one of the best of these: short enough to fit on a banner, extensive enough to provide a response to almost any issue. In April, Grigory Zinoviev responded to some written questions from factory workers, and one such question was: when will we get some decent cafeteria service in this factory? Zinovievs response: when the whole vlast is given to the soviets.

The political strategy behind the slogan All Power to the Soviets! is based firmly on the application of old Bolshevism to the prevailing circumstances in Russia after the February revolution. The heart of Old Bolshevism was a reading of the constellation of class forces in Russia in the aftermath of the 1905 revolution  the so-called driving forces of the revolution. This reading gave rise to a political strategy that the Bolsheviks called hegemony (not to be confused with later uses of the protean word). We will examine the hegemony strategy in detail later in the series, but we can summarize it here: the Bolsheviks must strive for a vlast based on the workers and peasants that would carry the revolution to the end (achieve the maximum of political and social transformation available at the time) in opposition to the drive of anti-tsarist liberals to halt the revolution as soon as possible.

As soon as the dust had cleared after the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in early 1917, the Bolsheviks had little trouble mapping the hegemony strategy onto the basic political realities of the new situation. The vehicle of the worker/peasant vlast would obviously be the soviets, first in Petrograd and then nation-wide. Unlike the prototype soviets of 1905, the Petrograd Soviet of 1917 also represented the soldiers in the Petrograd garrison, and thus, indirectly, the peasants. The anti-tsarist liberals were ensconced in the Provisional Government and, as predicted, they were trying to take over the leadership of the revolution and put a halt to revolutionary change as rapidly as possible. The implications of the hegemony strategy for political strategy under these circumstances were straightforward: worker/soldier soviets must take over the full vlast and carry out the revolutionary program come what may.

In March 1917, this strategy was given concrete application by the Petrograd Bolsheviks, including Kamenev and Stalin. Faced with a Soviet that on the one hand was recognized as an authority by the workers and soldiers but on the other hand had itself ceded state authority to the Provisional Government, the Bolshevik leaders wagered on an inevitable confrontation between the Provisional Government and the soviet constituency, since events would rapidly reveal the Provisional Governments total inability to carry out the demands of the soviet constituency and indeed its hostile and counterrevolutionary desire to eliminate soviet influence. As soon as the soviets and their mass base grasped these realities (as the Bolsheviks believed them to be), they would take full and complete vlast [vsia polnota vlasti] into their own hands. Insofar as the revolution is going to develop and to deepen, it will come to this, to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry (Lev Kamenev, Pravda editorial of 14 March 1917).

Although the Petrograd Bolsheviks put the goal of soviet power firmly on the agenda, they refrained from issuing a direct call for soviet power in slogan form. Two main tactical dilemmas led to this restraint. First, such a call would be perceived as anti-Soviet, given its present leadership and majority outlook. Second, a premature call to overthrow the Provisional Government, prior to acquiring support among the soviet constituency in the capitals and in the provinces, would be extremely disorganizing. As Kamenev remarked in March, Nevazhnovziat vlast, vazhnouderzhat (Its not such a big deal taking power  but keeping it, thats a big deal).

These considerations were not the result of a namby-pamby lack of revolutionary fervor, but rather of some very real tactical dilemmas  dilemmas that caused problems for the Bolsheviks throughout the year (consider the July Days). In the meantime, the Bolshevik leaders undertook to hasten the great day by organization, organization, and organization ( Pravda in March) as well as by setting in motion the standard Social Democratic technique of an exposure campaign. A typical campaign of this kind made concrete demands on the ruling elite with the aim of persuading the masses that these demands would not be met as long as the bourgeois elite government was in power. A paradigmatic example in 1917 was the demand to publish the secret treaties. This campaign was launched in March before Lenins return and continued right up to the moment when Trotsky entered the Foreign Affairs building.

An open call for full soviet power became part of the Bolshevik message in April, along with the crucial proviso that persuading the soviet constituency was an essential prerequisite. This shift (not turnaround) in tactics can be ascribed to the return of the emigre leaders Lenin and Zinoviev (a perusal of Pravda in April will quickly reveal Zinovievs major role) and also to the accelerating political crisis that (as predicted by Petrograd Bolsheviks in March) deepened the rift between the Provisional Government and the soviet constituency.

The impact of these various factors should not automatically be assigned to the April Theses in and of themselves. Let us take a look at the Pravda issue of 8 April that appeared very soon after Lenins return and the publication of his Theses . On page four can be found a short article by Kamenev entitled Our Disagreements that contained a critique of Lenins Theses , thus signaling disagreement within Bolshevik ranks and the beginning of an intra-party debate. On the front page of the same issue was emblazoned an extensive article by Zinoviev in a manner that suggested a semi-official statement that reflected a party consensus. This article is a clear, succinct and authoritative exposition of the thinking behind All Power to the Soviets!  with special emphasis on the all  without, however, anything resembling the actual slogan itself.

As Zinoviev accurately states in this article, revolutionary Social Democracy in Russia (aka Bolshevism) had traditionally seen a victorious Russian revolution as a prologue, an introduction to socialist revolution in the West. This perspective imposed a duty upon Russian revolutionaries which Zinoviev summed up using the time-honor formula of carrying the Russian revolution to the end (do kontsa). And how would this goal be accomplished?

Among the Kadets we hear protests that are more and more envenomed against the dual power [dvoevlastie] that now exists in Russia. We protest against the fact that alongside the government of Lvov/Guchkov/Miliukov there exists another vlast, the vlast of the Soviets of Worker and Soldier Deputies. So say the Kadets.

We also do not want dual power: so we, the revolutionary Social Democrats, answer. We also desire that in our country there be only a single vlast. And that vlast should be the Soviets of Worker and Soldier Deputies.

Zinovievs article gives us a template for Bolshevik rhetoric throughout the year: take a widely-accepted revolutionary goal and point out that it cannot be achieved until the soviets who truly represent the workers and peasants have all the vlast.

The April Theses : A Reception History

On 8 April, then, we find in Pravda both a clear and unambiguous statement of the goal of soviet power in a manner that suggests party unity and an opening round in the party dispute over Lenins Theses . In order to assess the impact of the famous Theses, therefore, we need to take a careful look at the reception of the April Theses . Since this document does not present a unified message, but rather sets forth a number of disparate propositions, it is not helpful to speak of a reaction to the Theses as a whole. We need to break down the Theses in a way that helps us distinguish different reactions to different points.

The reception of the April Theses by party activists can be divided into three categories. First are the positions that were not controversial because they expressed a Bolshevik consensus. The goal of soviet power was definitely one of these widely-shared positions, along with the imperialist nature of the war, no confidence in the Provisional Government, and rejection of revolutionary defencism. These positions  by far the most important  did not lead to any pushback. On the contrary. Here are the words of the most articulate critic of Lenins Theses, Sergei Bagdatev: Everywhere and always, every day, we have to show the masses that until the vlast has been transferred into the hands of the Soviets of Worker and Soldier Deputies, there is no hope for an early end of the war and no possibility for the realization of their program. Bagdatev used these words in April precisely to explain why he had misgivings about some of Lenins propositions.

Bagdatevs remarks lead us to the next category of the reception of the Theses: misgivings about the possible practical implications of this or that proposition. These misgivings were not occasioned by the goal of soviet power, but rather by disagreements about the best way to attain it. These misgivings arose because Lenin was far from clear, both in his elliptical Theses and in various other comments made after his return. According to recent news stories, a group of Catholic cardinals have presented Pope Francis with a set of dubia or request for clarifications about the implications of some of his pronouncements. These dubia are an excellent model for this final category of Theses reception.

The essential feature of the Bolshevik dubia in April 1917 was that they were passionately pro-soviet power. Later in the series we will examine the two most extensive critiques, those of Sergei Bagdatev and Lev Kamenev. Although the former is usually placed on the extreme left of the party and the latter on the extreme right, their critiques substantially overlapped  indeed, Bagdatev quoted Kamenev and solidarized with him. There is no mistaking the fervor with which these two Bolsheviks warn against what they consider to be fatal missteps in achieving the goal of soviet power.

The process of clearing up misunderstandings began almost immediately, since Lenin had to provide defensive glosses to prevent misunderstanding in the very article that contains the canonical text of the Theses. After repeating what he had earlier made public in speeches immediately after his return, Lenin adds: some people deduce from my Theses that I dont support the Constituent Assembly  what slanderous nonsense!

In 1926, the pioneer party historian Vladimir Nevsky published the first substantial source-based history of Bolshevism. His book appeared in the brief interval after primary sources had been collected but before Stalinist orthodoxy ended genuine historical debate. Nevsky himself was active in the Petrograd Bolshevik organization and therefore speaks with the authority of an eyewitness as well as of a historian who is still highly regarded today. He makes the following extremely revealing comment about the reception of the April Theses :

We must stress that even in the ranks of our party were people who at first understood these theses incorrectly, taking them as a call to an immediate implementation of socialism, despite categorical explanations [to the contrary].

In fact, Lenins position [in the April Theses ] was the natural development of the doctrine that he had worked out long ago in the previous periods of the history of our party, since one of the basic propositions of Bolshevism  was the one put forward already during the first Russian revolution [in 1905]: the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. This same idea also implied all the conclusions and all the measures inevitably arrived at, as soon as the party was convinced of the necessity and the inevitability of a proletarian-peasant dictatorship.

Later in the series we will look at the response of both Lenin and Trotsky to this particular misunderstanding about socialism. At present, we need to stress two crucial implications of Nevskys authoritative remarks. First, misunderstandings were indeed crucial to the reception of the April Theses . Of course, Nevsky removes any blame from Lenin for causing these misunderstandings, and no mention is made of the possibility that Lenin himself might have misunderstood the outlook of Petrograd Bolsheviks such as Kamenev.

Even more revealing is Nevskys firm assertion of the essential continuity between Old Bolshevism and the April Theses : Lenins position [in the April Theses ] was the natural development of the doctrine that he had worked out long ago in the previous periods of the history of our party. Nevsky sums up the continuity by quoting Lenins formula about the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, which, when unpacked, is equivalent to the hegemony strategy: a vlast based on the workers and peasants in order to carry the revolution to the end (achieve the maximum of political and social transformation available at the time) in opposition to the drive of anti-tsarist liberals to halt the revolution as soon as possible. Nevsky knew Bolshevik party history better than anyone living today and his testimony on this point should be given due weight.

The process of clearing up misunderstandings worked in both directions: having just arrived in Russia from abroad, Lenin himself had misconceptions about the position of the Petrograd Bolsheviks. As we shall see later in the series, probably the most important of these misconceptions concerned the propriety of making demands on the Provisional Government. Due to his passionate emigre polemics against Kautsky and the Social Democratic center, Lenin came back to Russia breathing fire and brimstone against the whole idea of making demands  in his eyes, such demands only spread illusions about the possibility of reform. What?! (asked the critics)  do you mean to say we should forego exposure campaigns that make demands such as publish the secret treaties?

A very similar issue was kontrol, which is better translated by supervision than by control: in the context of debates in April, kontrol means keeping an eye on the government to ensure that they carried out the demands of the Soviet. Lenin rejected any talk of kontrol for the same reason that he was hostile to making demands: any such talk seemed to imply a belief that the Provisional Government would actually carry out the program or the demands of the Soviet. But Kamenev and other Bolsheviks wanted to use kontrol by the Soviet precisely in order to expose government failure  like Lenin, they believed there was no chance that the government would actually carry out the policies demanded by the Soviet.

The following three comments about the issue of demands from the party conferences in April are a miniature paradigm of the rather messy process of clearing up misunderstandings. According to Lenin:

Our line should not consist of showing that we are demanding the publication of treaties from the government. That would be an illusion. To demand this from a government of capitalists  its just like demanding that it uncover commercial frauds. If we say that we must reject annexations and indemnities, then we have to point out how this can be done; and if we are asked how to do it, we will say that it is basically a revolutionary step, and such a step can only be taken by the revolutionary proletariat.

Kamenev responded:

Should we, as a political party, take on ourselves to demand the publication of the secret treaties  announce that this is our political demand? People will say to me: excuse me, youre demanding something impossible. But the demands I make are not founded on the expectation that Miliukov will respond to me and publish the treaties. The policy of making demands that I am advocating is an agitational device for the development of the masses, a method of exposure of the fact that Guchkov and Miliukov cannot do this, that they do not want the publication of the secret treaties, that they are against the policy of peace. It is a device for showing the masses that if they really want to create a revolutionary policy on an international level, then the vlast must be transferred into the hands of the Soviet.

After this exchange, Kamenev and Lenin strove to minimize their differences. Kamenev affirmed that he was dissatisfied with Lenins reports mainly for technical reasons. According to Lenin, Kamenev and I are on the same path, except on the question of kontrol. Subjectively, he understands this word better than Chkheidze and others. Chkheidze was a Menshevik leader of the Soviet who genuinely hoped that the Provisional Government would really and truly carry out the program of the Soviet.

One aim of the present series is to make what was apparent to Lenin at the end of April 1917 equally as apparent to readers in 2017  namely, that Kamenev and others were on the same page as Lenin and not on the page of Menshevik leaders such as Chkheidze. For the present, let us note that the Bolsheviks found it perfectly possible to have agitation campaigns about the secret treaties that met the criteria of both Lenin and Kamenev. I am now looking at a photograph that shows soldiers during the April days standing under a banner reading Trebuyem [sic] Nemedlennogo Vskrytiia Soiuznykh Dogovorov  We Demand the Immediate Uncovering of the Allied Treaties (emphasis added).

Misgivings about demands, kontrol and a variety of other topics were not rebutted  they were cleared up. Consensus about the April Theses was reached not because Lenin changed the minds of the praktiki  rather, he made it clear to them that they didnt have to change their minds in order to accept his Theses.

The final category of the reception of the April Theses can be labelled Lenins enthusiasms: those parts of the April Theses that are not in the core consensus, but also were not perceived by his fellow Bolsheviks as antithetical to it. Under this category falls bank syndicalization, renaming the party, and the soviets as a higher form of democracy (in contrast to the soviets as a vehicle for the worker/peasant vlast). These proposals were not shocking or controversial as such, but nevertheless people wondered how relevant or helpful they were to the task of crafting a dynamic party message in the ongoing revolution. In the end, these points were not rejected but simply allowed to drift into the fine print of the Bolshevik message  even as set forth in Lenins own writings that are directly addressed to the soviet constituency in 1917 ( State and Revolution is excluded here, since it was not published until 1918).

All three categories of the reception of the Theses are exemplified by some remarks by the important Bolshevik activist Mikhail Kalinin at the April party conferences. As we recall, the first category consists of fundamental points that caused no controversy. For example, Kalinin specifically endorses Lenins agrarian policy and refers to his own Pravda article from 17 March. The basic message of this earlier article can be summarized as all power to the peasant committees!. Crucially, in his comments to the conference, Kalinin also specifically endorses the goal of soviet power: the Soviet of worker and soldier deputies is for the present moment the only possible vlast.

Because of his agreement on these fundamental positions, Kalinin insisted that the April Theses did not constitute a radical break with the longstanding party outlook: the method of thinking remains an Old Bolshevik one that can handle the particularities of this revolution. Neither did they constitute a break with recent Bolshevik tactics in March: All you have to do is read our first document during the revolution  the manifesto of our party, and you will be persuaded that our picture of the revolution and our tactics differ in no way from com. Lenins theses.

The second reception category consists of practical misgivings: has Lenin considered the full implications of this or that point  implications that we praktiki believe will hamper the drive for soviet power? For example, Kalinin did not object to changes in the name of the party per se, but he felt that from practical considerations the party should go slow when instituting the change. Kalinin shows his awareness that the source of some of Lenins concerns was emigre polemics: I understand the comrades who have arrived from abroad, where the word Social-Democrat has been so befouled. But thats not the case with us.

The final category of reception is acceptance of Lenins personal enthusiasms without making them in any way a central part of the actual Bolshevik message. For example, one of Lenins Theses insisted on bank nationalization. Kalinin had no substantive objection to such a measure, but he commented that the point about the banks doesnt have much practical propagandistic significance. As we saw earlier, Kalinin endorsed the soviets as a vehicle for the class vlast of the workers and peasants, a la Old Bolshevism. Nevertheless, he did not endorse Lenins own personal enthusiasm about the soviets as a higher type of democracy:

The only thing new in Com. Lenins theses is the assertion that the Soviet of worker deputies is the only [acceptable] form of government. Thats not true, but what is true is that the Soviet of worker and soldier deputies is for the present moment the only possible vlast. So a correction is needed here.

In the event, Lenins rationale about the soviets as a higher type of democracy was certainly not rejected but it was also not given more than marginal status in the Bolshevik message during 1917. This issue thus illustrates the way Lenins personal enthusiasms became no more than the fine print of the Bolshevik message.

All in all, we get a more accurate picture of the Bolshevik message throughout the year by reading Kalinins remarks than by reading the April Theses . The core of this message was based on what Lenin and Kalinin had in common: the twin goals of power to the soviets and land to the peasants. But, as accurately foreshadowed by Kalinin, bank nationalization, the soviets as a higher type of democracy, and the party name-change all remained marginal.

Great Slogans Are Found, Not Made

All in all, the story of All Power to the Soviets! can be told without mentioning the April Theses  nothing essential would be lost thereby. So we return to our regularly scheduled story about the Bolshevik slogan. The thinking behind the slogan derived from Old Bolshevism and was never really in doubt. As we have seen, the open call for soviet power as a proximate goal was made in early April, when the debate over the April Theses had barely begun. But the canonical slogan itself  Vsia vlast sovetam!  is still nowhere in evidence. The slogan certainly does not appear in the April Theses . I have looked through the resolutions and proclamations of local party committees in April found in various document collections. On the basis of this evidence, neither our familiar slogan nor any recognizable variant of it was used anywhere during the month. The absence of a pithy formulation of a key demand made itself felt in the various appeals and calls for action issued by local Bolsheviks.

In the resolutions of the all-Russia Bolshevik conference that ended on 29 April, the call for full state vlast for the workers and peasants is an insistent leitmotif throughout the text. Yet the wording is not only clumsy, compared to the crisp canonical slogan, but also unfocused. The most common wording is transfer of all of the vlast into the hands of  with significant variation in the identity of the hands involved. Sometimes the vlast is placed in the hands of the soviets, but in other places it is transferred directly into the hands of social classes such as the proletariat. Other organs of democratic self-government  even the Constituent Assembly!  are also mentioned as possible vehicles for the vlast.

Who first came up with the exact wording of the canonical slogan? On present evidence, it was some mid-level Petrograd Bolshevik who was involved in the organization of demonstrations during the April crisis. The first appearance I have tracked down was on a banner that appeared in the streets on April 21 (as reported in Pravda the next day). This activist was no doubt summarizing what he had been reading in Pravda . The banner attracted the attention of Lenin, either from direct observation or from newspaper reports, and he mentions it in his description of events. Lenin liked the slogan well enough to use it himself a little while later in a Pravda article on May 2.

Lenin is usually and incorrectly associated with the canonical slogan via his Theses at the beginning of April. Nevertheless, Lenin does deserve major credit for its adoption. During the April demonstrations at the end of the month, Lenin was perspicacious enough to observe the slogan and note its possibilities. On present evidence, Lenin was indeed the leader who lifted it out of anonymity and made it central to Bolshevik agitation.

The first appearance of the slogan that I have been able to find in an authoritative party document  not just on an anonymous banner or in a signed article by an individual  occurs on 7 May on the front page of Pravda in Draft of a mandate for use in electing delegates to the Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies. The aim of the mandate was to help the soviet constituency to distinguish a genuine Red from an ALBINO (A Lousy Bolshevik-In-Name-Only). As such, this document is a good guide to the meaning of the slogan in the context of 1917. [See Mandate for Soviet Elections.] The mandate ends with these ringing words:

Vsia vlast Sovetam Rabochikh i Soldatskikh Deputatov! [All of the vlast to the Soviets of Worker and Soldier Deputies!] The whole world will believe in it. Only then can we end the war and bring Russia to happiness.

The mandate goes through the challenges facing the country and argues in each case that soviet power is a precondition for an effective response: Unless the vlast goes into the hands of the workers, soldiers, and the poorest peasantry  those who genuinely do not want to be predators  we will continue to spill our blood only to serve the interests of a handful of capitalists and landowners.

The mandate calls for state kontrol of production and distribution, but also makes clear that this is something the state would be doing anyway  the only question is who will have the vlast, who will have the final say about the actual policies. Thus the flip side of all power to the soviets is condemnation of any agreement with the capitalists: All of the vlast [vsia vlast] in the country must belong solely to the Soviets of Worker, Soldier, Peasant, and other Deputies (we must include the Soviets of the railroad workers and other civil servants). Agreement [soglashenie] with the capitalists, leaving the capitalist gentlemen with the vlast, prolongs the war and worsens the situation within the country.

 the policies advocated by the mandate came from the Social Democratic minimum program and the common democratic platform of the socialist parties: a just peace, land to the peasants, eight-hour day, a universal militia.

The theme of socialism is conspicuous by its absence. Also absent are any of Lenins personal enthusiasms from the April Theses : soviets as a higher form of democracy, shift of focus to the batrak, model farms on confiscated estates, bank regulation. Otherwise, the policies advocated by the mandate came from the Social Democratic minimum program and the common democratic platform of the socialist parties: a just peace, land to the peasants, eight-hour day, a universal militia. The campaign against the secret treaties is not forgotten. Even the old slogan of the German Social Democratic party  not one penny!  is called back into service. To sum up, the mandate is a concrete application of the long-standing Bolshevik consensus: a vlast based on the workers and peasants committed to carrying the revolution to the end by enacting a broad democratic transformation of Russian society.

We conclude our short biography of a slogan with an excellent evocation of the meaning of All Power to the Soviets! as it was received by the soviet constituency. In his description of a factory rally in Moscow in May 1917, one of the workers, Eduard Dune, pushes away learned Marxist discourse about types of revolution with some impatience:

How could one know whether the bourgeois revolution was finished or whether Russia was ripe for socialist revolution? The Bolsheviks spoke in a way that was more comprehensible. We must preserve and strengthen the power we had won during the revolution, not give any of it away to the bourgeoisie. We must not liquidate the soviets as organs of power, but transfer power to them instead, so that there would no longer be dual power, but a single revolutionary government

For sociologists the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat was more complicated than it was for us. We wanted only one thing: the establishment of a revolutionary government that could be trusted and the strengthening of those practices that had been tried and tested by the experience of the revolution. We were for land to the peasants, for an end to the bloody war, for everything that workers in other countries wanted. There was no revolution anywhere else as yet, but there would be. Foreign soldiers trusted their officers as little as we trusted ours and would soon follow our example. All those who spoke against power to the soviets were enemies of the revolution, hiding the fact that at a suitable moment they would act against the gains that it had brought about.

We could perhaps continue the story of our slogan along the standard lines of a biography of a famous movie star: an early success in the demonstrations on June 18, a period of rejection, confusion, and self-doubt after the July Days, and finally a triumphant return to star billing in September, ending with a historic performance in late October. But for the present, we here conclude the first chapter in the biography of All Power to the Soviets! 

This article is Part 1 of a series. The series itself is one part of an important curation of articles, documents and other commentary on the anniversary of the Russian Revolution at John Riddels blog.
The Slovak Spectator brings you the set of the most frequently asked questions with regard to buying and selling real estate in Slovakia.

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Roman Spalda of ARTHUR Real Estate Company, RE/MAX Vision, Tatrabanka, CSOB, VUB, and Slovenska Sporitelna kindly helped us answer the questions.

Read also more in our section: Frequently asked questions

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This section is sponsored by ARTHUR REAL ESTATE COMPANY, which specialises in real estate sales and rentals.

Q: I want to purchase an apartment in Slovakia. Which authorities will help me with ownership issues?

Q: What should I pay attention to before I sign a contract of purchase?

Q: How do I go about entering real estate in the land registry/cadastre office?

Q: How much does it cost to get the paperwork done?

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Related article Real estate prices in Slovakia Read more

Q: Who usually covers the costs - the buyer or the seller?

Q: Do I need to have permanent residence in Slovakia in order to be eligible for a bank loan from a Slovak bank?

Q: What other conditions do I need to fulfil in order to be eligible for a loan from a Slovak bank?

Q:How do I proceed at the Cadastre Office?

Q: As a foreigner, am I entitled for a loan for the young (under the age of 35)?

Do you have more questions about buying and selling a property in Slovakia? Please let us know at spectator@spectator.sk.



Q: I want to purchase an apartment in Slovakia. Which authorities will help me with ownership issues?

A: The only state office you will be dealing with as the buyer of real estate is the cadastre office, or land registry office (Kataster or Katastralny Urad) in your respective district office. If you are buying your apartment or house through a real estate agency, the agents usually handle this for you.

Q: What should I pay attention to before I sign a contract of purchase?

A: The contracts must contain certain features as stipulated by the law on cadastre (162/1995), amended 212/2018. The contract must clearly state: identification data of both parties of the contract, a detailed specification of the real estate including description, location, square metres, equipment, and technical condition. If the cadastre office finds any mistakes in this, they will suspend the proceeding.

It should also clearly state the purchasing price, how the money will be transferred from the buyer to the seller, and the deadline by when the transfer needs to be completed.

The details on how the apartment or house will be given over to the new owner, such as keys or new locks, needs to be clear in the contract, as well as the deadline by when it should be done.

By law, the contract should include the name and contact of the administrator of the apartment block and the sanctions for both parties if they fail to fulfil their duties as defined by the contract.

Q: How do I go about entering real estate in the land registry/cadastre office?

A: The transfer can be proposed by either the buyer, or the seller, or both together, based on the agreement between the two parties. They should then file the proposal to enter the ownership rights at the cadastre office (Navrh na Vklad Vlastnickych Prav). This needs to be done in person at your respective cadastre office (respective to where the transferred flat or house is located).

Q: How much does it cost to get the paperwork done?

A: If the transaction is facilitated by a real estate agency, these fees are usually included in the fee paid to the real estate agent. The fee can be a fixed sum or a percentage of the purchasing price.

If you choose not to use the services of a real estate agent, you need to count on the fees for the cadastre proceeding (66 for regular proceeding within 30 working days or 266 in a fast-tracked proceeding, within 15 working days).

There is also a fee for the verification of the signatures of the sellers on the contract (price per signature, at a notary office or at your municipal office). The price per signature may be around 3 or so.

If you are buying real estate with a mortgage, you should also count on another fee at the cadastre office, 66, for entering the deposit contract with the bank in the registry.

Q: Who usually covers the costs - the buyer or the seller?

A: This depends on the agreement between the two parties. Typically the buyer pays the cadastre fees, but some people choose to divide the costs equally between themselves. If a real estate agency is involved, they pay the fees.

Q: Do I need to have permanent residence in Slovakia in order to be eligible for a bank loan from a Slovak bank?

A: No, banks provide mortgage loans also to foreigners who do not have permanent residence in Slovakia. Some banks, however, might require a confirmation of income from a company based in Slovakia.

Q: What other conditions do I need to fulfil in order to be eligible for a loan from a Slovak bank?

A: The standard criteria apply to foreigners the same as for Slovak citizens. The bank will want to see your ID, as well as any record of loan registry from your home country. When deciding on granting a mortgage, banks look at a range of parametres, including age, education, job, income, and number of children. It is not possible to guarantee your loan for real estate located outside Slovakia.

Q: How do I proceed at the Cadastre Office?

A: When paying for your real estate with a mortgage, you need to file a proposal to enter the depository right to your property in favour of the bank (Navrh na Vklad Zalozneho Prava). You can do this simultaneously when filing the proposal to enter the property in the registry (Navrh na Vklad Vlastnickych Prav).

Q: As a foreigner, am I entitled for a loan for the young (under the age of 35)?

A: Yes, this benefit applies to foreigners in the same way it does to Slovak citizens. However, they need to have a permanent residency in Slovakia and will often have to meet strict criteria.

Roman Spalda of ARTHUR Real Estate Company, RE/MAX Vision , the banks Tatra Banka, CSOB, VUB, and Slovenska Sporitelna kindly helped us answer the questions.

This section is sponsored by ARTHUR REAL ESTATE COMPANY, which specialises in real estate sales and rentals.
Most people want the EU to exist in the future  we just have to mobilise this majority and not take things for granted, says Austrian Ambassador to Slovakia Helfried Carl in an interview with The Slovak Spectator.

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The Slovak Spectator (TSS): Ari Rath, a prominent journalist in Israel and your close friend, passed away this January. What was his message?

Helfried Carl (HC): It was interesting to hear from Ari about how he faced challenges in Austria and had to escape from the Nazis, but also about how important it was to come to terms with the past. This was difficult because many people had to face the history of their parents, victims or perpetrators. To look openly into the eye of history can be very difficult and painful, but it has a liberating effect. Ari exemplified this for me, from the perspective of a victim who wanted to contribute to society, to make sure things like those in the 1930s would never happen again. His legacy is that we need to be very attentive to any kind of movements that go in the direction of differentiating between the rights of different people.

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TSS: You have paid your share of attention to Slovakia. The Engerau memorial in Petrzalka comes to mind.

HC: Petrzalka is not a story of Slovakia because it used to be part of Germany. It was a story which was actually tackled by the courts. This is not typical in Austrian history, that you have Nazi perpetrators brought to justice after 1945. And all of this has been documented very well by Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider, who did a lot of historical and scientific work on this issue but also worked with civil society to bring people here to commemorate the event every year.

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TSS: Are you planning any more activities on this topic?

HC: Next year is a very important year for our common history, the anniversary of 1918, but so are 1938, the so-called Anschluss of Austria, 1948 when communists took power in Czechoslovakia, 1968 which is important for Czechoslovakia and for Austria, in terms of the wave of refugees who came after the occupation, and then 1988 the first demonstrations here, and 1993, the anniversary of Slovakia and our bilateral relations. I am focusing on a big project which we hope will help to relate all these different anniversaries in one project lasting from March to November 2018. And the second-half of next year is also going to be the Austrian presidency of the EU.

TSS: You mentioned the 1968 refugees, who are important to remember in the current context.

HC: Yes, although these were a different kind of refugees, they were clearly political refugees. There is a difference from what we see today, where you really have to look carefully at who has the right to asylum.

TSS: President Van der Bellen visited Slovakia this spring. What was the most important outcome of his visit from your perspective?

HC: It was one of the first visits that he paid to a foreign country, after Germany and Switzerland, and the first visit he paid to a V4 country. This was a signal that he feels very much in tune with President Kiskas pro-European attitude. I think the aim to have a close working relationship between the two presidents was established during that visit. There was a clear understanding between them, and we had a very good discussion at the university. He was impressed by his visit to Devin, and we had an economic forum at the end of the visit that highlighted the very important business relationship we have. I am sure it was not his last visit to Slovakia, and I am certain that the presidents will have a chance to exchange their views again soon.

Read also:

Read also: President: Slovakia wants to stay at the core of the EU Read more

TSS: President Van der Bellen was elected through a very complicated process.

HC: Its actually the first time a national-level election had to be repeated nationwide. This is a result of the very high standards our Constitutional Court applied to the conduct of the elections. So we can now be certain that this is the result and nobody can doubt it.

TSS: His victory was one of the positive political signals for Europe in the past few months. In hindsight, what did his win mean to Austria?

HC: One of the important results of the election is that it did not leave the country divided, as some had feared. President Van der Bellen is a universally accepted president now. One of the most important things we have learned over the last couple of months is that it is possible to relate to the mainstream feeling that the European Union is a positive achievement in the history of the European continent. There is criticism, but the broad majority of people want the EU to exist in the future. The important thing is to mobilise the majority and not assume that things will work out on their own. We always have to fight.

TSS: This year, we celebrate the 300th anniversary of the birth of Empress Maria Theresa, but in Austria it is celebrated much more intensively than in Slovakia.

HC: I realised that for Slovakia the important date is the coronation, and this was also celebrated by the city of Bratislava last year. But we marked the 300th anniversary here too. The Austrian Cultural Forum did an exhibition, which was a joint effort between our national library, the Bratislava University Library and the Gallery of the City of Bratislava. There are some interesting works there, most of them facsimile prints, and it underlined the linkage that Maria Theresa provides between Slovakia and Austria.

TSS: That was the time when Slovaks and Austrians were basically part of one large nation, and only the later history created a distance between the two countries. Are we still so distant?

HC: The normalisation of our relations has grown, and this is a big step forward. Its also a danger because people think this is a given, but it was not. Everybody takes for granted that there are no borders between us, and this benefit is being used by people more and more. In my view, Slovaks are much more aware of Austria than vice versa. I am trying to contribute to raise the awareness. Overall, I think there is remarkable progress.

TSS: President Van der Bellen also mentioned the potential of the Vienna-Bratislava-Brno region. What are the areas where the cross-border cooperation between Slovakia and Austria can develop further?

HC: We have the trilateral Slavkov cooperation. During the Slovak presidency of the Slavkov cooperation, a work-plan was agreed where the partners stated they wanted to focus on transport, dual education, industry 4.0, energy infrastructure and security and common European issues. The perception of the area as a common region is growing. The problems we face are very similar, like dual education, and although our labour markets are very different, we face similar challenges. It is always about keeping in mind that the economy does not end at the border. The administrations need to realise that their planning horizons need to go further.

TSS: The Austrian government has presented a plan to stop social and wage dumping and to prefer the local workforce to migrants from other EU countries. How are these plans proceeding, and are they likely to be realised even after the early elections in Austria?

HC: One thing is the principle of having same pay for the same work in the same workplace. This is something that is not contested in the EU. It is very difficult for us to accept that if workers are sent to Austria by foreign companies, they are not paid the same as workers in Austria. This has now been extended to transportation, and there were complaints that this was creating too many bureaucratic hurdles. We are looking for ways to improve that, and to inform everyone on how to deal with these issues. Austria has launched a homepage in seven languages. But the principle of giving the same pay for the same work in the same workplace needs to be applied everywhere in the EU. And I hear with interest that the same slogan is now being used by the Slovak trade unions when they are confronted with workers from abroad. I always ask the Slovak partners to show empathy and to imagine a situation when Ukrainian workers would arrive to the Slovak market.

We also need to understand that the EU is a very important project that needs to be safe politically. That means that people must not see it as a threat to their interests. So we all have to think about solutions that, on the one hand, do not create disturbances in the market but, on the other hand, also protect our societies. The most vulnerable are often those who do not have highly-paid or highly-skilled jobs.

TSS: The tests of the Slovak veterinary authority have recently confirmed that there is the quality of food sold in Slovakia and western Europe is different. What is your opinion on such practices? Is the argument used by some firms that the customers prefer regional tastes justifiable?

HC: It was a big achievement of the V4 to take this to the European Commission to look into it. This is a perfect European way to deal with such an issue - to take it out of the bilateral sphere, to ask the Commission to look at something. As an aside, I have heard so many stories about this that I find hard to believe. Some people tell me they go to Austria to fill their tanks with Austrian petrol, because it is better than the Slovak petrol. I have my doubts of this, but I do not complain about it as an Austrian ambassador.

TSS: Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has signed an agreement with the Slovak government to explore building a hyperloop system that connects Bratislava with Vienna. How do you view the possibility of travelling from Bratislava to Vienna in 10 minutes?

HC: It sounds like a fascinating project. There is a possibility it will exist at some point. Obviously, it would be a nice development between the cities. For now, I am happy the Austrian railways are investing a lot into the modernisation of the track between Vienna and Bratislava main stations. In five years time, you will be travelling between the cities in only 40 minutes, with modern train stations along the way. This will help the region a lot. And I am also very much looking forward to a modernised train station in Bratislava.

TSS: Austria remains one of the largest investors in Slovakia. Where do you see space for further investments?

HC: Austrian companies are investing in Slovakia. We are the second largest investor in this country and the largest when you look at the real investments in terms of the industry, automotive and insurance companies. There are new plans, and I hear that Austrian investors are quite happy with the workforce here and with our priority to look into dual education. Overall, the polls show that there is a high level of satisfaction among Austrian SMEs.

TSS: Are they feeling the problems with the lack of labour force?

HC: There are hard factors and soft factors affecting this. You find that the people who work in Austrian SMEs stay there longer. This is one of the main advantages of dual education: people are becoming part of the company on an emotional level. The investment spent on someone who learned on the job pays off because the fluctuation rate is very low. They face some challenges for the future, but at the moment they are optimistic that they can at least keep the people they have as long as wages are rising.

TSS: Austrias economy is mostly based on SMEs while in Slovakia the economy stands on large companies.

HC: We are in a good position, with a lot of SMEs that, as we always say, form the backbone of the Austrian economy. But they are also competitive on the global market. We have a lot of niche companies, who produce something very specific and are very good at it, which also means that we have a broad variety of products. They are not so dependent on the growth of individual markets, either regional or product-specific. But as in Slovakia, there is a big pull towards the automotive industry in Austria, though it is not as strong as here. We are producing parts for the cars.

TSS: What strikes you as interesting in Slovakia, that is different for you coming from Austria?

HC: I like almost everything about Slovakia, and I am not saying this just as a diplomat. I feel very welcome here. I like travelling the country. Its very beautiful. We are divided by a language barrier, but I think there is a big similarity in the characters of Austrians and Slovaks. There is a pragmatic streak in both. I discovered the beauty of the cities here.

Regretfully, most Austrians do not know the cities further east, and there is a big heritage waiting to be discovered, to find that there is this linkage between cities like Bardejov or Levoca, Banska Stiavnica, the old mining cities, linked by the Fuggers to Austria. Also, going back to Maria Theresa, the first mining university in Banska Stiavnica was founded by her and after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867, most of the German-speaking professors went to the other side of the empire. And the famous Mining University in Leoben owes its existence to Banska Stiavnica. These are things I did not know before, and I love sharing what I have learned with my Austrian visitors.

TSS: If you had an Austrian who could spend only one day in Slovakia, where would you take them?

HC: I would tell them to go to Levoca, because this is the least-known. It reminded me very much of my own hometown, Salzburg, because there are important altars from the same time period and because Paul of Levoca is not well-known among the general population in Austria. For me it was really touching to see.

TSS: How is the language barrier? Is it hard for a German-speaking tourist to travel around the country?

HC: I think its quite easy. The language barrier is from the other side, since there are so many German speakers here that it is very difficult for me to practice my Slovak. And I promised myself that I would master the language, so that I can have a normal conversation before I leave the country.
The new law should secure that the employees dispatched to Austria receive the same wage for the same work in the same place.

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A new law to combat social and salary dumping came into force in Austria on January 1, 2017.

The law should secure that the employees dispatched to Austria receive the same wage for the same work in the same place, the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry informed on its website.

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The Austrian financial police thus extended the controls that are carried out mostly in the construction sector to the transport sector, the TASR newswire reported.

The ministry also warned Slovaks that the Slovak Embassy in Vienna cannot interfere in any communication or disputes with the Austrian inspection bodies.
Its true that in the past four months, Mr Fico has been comparatively less busy than his Visegrad Group partners.

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In March, the Visegrad Group prime ministers met to complain that some consumer goods are made with a different recipe in their region as compared to elsewhere in Europe. This week they did the same thing. In an update, they were mad last time, but now they are really really mad  and they mean it. Robert Fico is the maddest of all.

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Fico is so mad that before the V4 summit even began he held a special press conference to show everybody his outrage. He is so mad that he took off his suit jacket and brought props to set up on a cute little table next to him (examples of offending brands of fabric softener, coffee, fish fingers). If the European Commission doesnt do something very fast (its not clear what, but Fico needs to feel they are with him in spirit, he said), he is prepared to take unilateral action by limiting the food in state-run cafeterias to things sourced from Slovakia.

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I dont have any data to support this, but I am sure most Slovaks prefer domestically made coffee to say the kind imported from Italy? Right? Strong leader that he is, Mr. Fico might lead by example and be the first to switch.

At his press conference, Mr. Fico targeted Lenor fabric softener for criticism. It just isnt good enough  or so he has heard.

Our women have known for a long time already, Fico the feminist said.

While its clear it has been awhile since the prime minister did his own laundry, it also seems like he doesnt do much shopping. There are seven other brands of fabric softener available at Tescos online shop (Silan, Lovela, Poppy, Coccolino, Bupi, Springforce and Tescos own brand), and 61 different types of fabric softener in all. The same goes for the Jacobs coffee Fico tried to shame (62 other brands to choose from, a total of 306 types of coffee). Though there are only five other types of fish fingers that could replace the Iglo brand ones Fico doesnt like, he might be able to go to another of the countrys grocery store chains  Kaufland, Billa, Coop Jednota, Lidl, Carrefour, Metro  if he needs more options.

Since the last time the V4 prime ministers met, the Hungarian government launched a mass anti-semitic propaganda campaign, the Poles have moved to dismantle their own judiciary and the Czech prime minister destroyed his own political career while setting his party up for a landslide loss in October elections. Its true that Mr Fico has been comparatively less busy in the past four months  ignoring anti-corruption protests, not asking his Interior Minister to resign, not moving out of an apartment building owned by Ladislav Basternak. Now we know he has been busy taste-testing fish fingers all this time.

I propose that the next V4 summit focus on the regions low quality politicians.
Butter will now be used for products meant for the eastern-European market.

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Bahlsen, the German producer of cookies, has reacted to the pressure of central-European countries and unified its production standards in Europe. It will now put butter  as prescribed by the original German recipe  instead of palm oil in products meant for the eastern-European market.

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We satisfied the wish of consumers, the company spokesperson told the Sme daily. The change in Bahlsen Poland, which supplies the whole eastern-European market, took place at the beginning of July, and the decision for the change had been made several months ago, the company wrote in a statement.

V4 protesting differences

The Visegrad Group countries of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary have criticised the practice of selling products with the same name but different ingredients in individual national markets within the European Union.

They have put more pressure on the EU to prevent this by introducing control mechanisms, Sme wrote on July 22.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico called the practice of delivering products with lower-quality contents to post-communist countries degrading and unacceptable, the DPA newswire wrote.

We acknowledge that part of the globalisation process is the constantly growing expectation of producers that products  regardless of the market in which they are offered  suit the same standard, the companys statement notes. However, the company spokesperson added that consumers will not see the change from one day to the next.

The family company Bahlsen from the Lower-Saxony city of Hannover has been producing the cookies since 1889. Last year, it had a revenue of 552 million.
Do not trust the hoax that tells you it will - and other hoaxes that appeared on the Slovak internet this week.

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Mess left behind by migrants is a hoax

Do we want this to happen here? This is my own picture from the French town of Ostende, you can see the building of the Eurotunnel administration in the background.

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Facebook user Jan Blazek posted a picture with the above caption on the Facebook fan group of Czech President Milos Zeman. The picture shows a field of tents flooded with trash, and the caption suggests that the mess was created by refugees who had left the site.

The post can clearly be seen as a hoax, even if one did not check the picture in Google Images. The inaccuracies in the caption betray it: Ostende is not a town in France but in Belgium.

As for the picture, the Czech website fighting hoaxes, Zvol si info, wrote that it was taken at a British music festival in Glastonbury.

Anti-Semitic hoax also shared by the Matica Slovenska head

An anti-Semitic rant appeared on the internet. It would not be worth the attention if it did not get shared by Marian Tkac, the head of Matica Slovenska, a state-funded cultural organisation.

The text reads, The attempts of the global elites for the islamisation of Europe are prevented by a symbol - the Slovak double cross, that embodies Catholicism and Orthodoxy. And this Slovak double cross may allegedly not be displayed on Slovak national flags anywhere in the half-islamic western Europe!!! We have seen this before, when the Khazars ruled us under the cover of communism.

The author of the text is the athlete and regional governor candidate Rastislav Blasko, who originally published it on the website Parlamentne Listy. When Tkac shares this, he gives the text legitimacy to some in Slovakia.

The article does not state the source for the claim that the double cross may not be displayed in western Europe. It is an easy-to-check fabrication - just look at the pictures of the sessions of the European Parliament, for example, where the Slovak flag is displayed, complete with the Slovak coat of arms with the double cross.

The last sentence about Khazars is a hoax too. The Khazars were an ancient tribe that ruled the empire spreading between eastern Europe and Asia in early Middle Ages. The empire ceased to exist in 965, and that was practically the end of the Khazars too.

Their name however persists in anti-Semitic texts as a synonym for Jews. This is due to the unproven hypothesis that the Jews are descendants of the Khazars.

The Sme daily did not manage to get in touch with Tkac about the text.

Cancer from watermelon is a hoax

Do not eat watermelon with cracked pulp, otherwise you risk getting cancer, warns the website bajecnylekar.sk.

The cracks in the pulp of the fruit allegedly are a clear proof that the melon was not grown naturally but rather with the use of dangerous synthetic substances that sped up its growth.

This information is a hoax but has still been shared at least 4,000 times on Facebook alone.

The cracks and holes in the pulp of the watermelon simply mean that the fruit is botanically ripe, Zuzana Fischerova, head of the department of vegetable foodstuffs of the State Veterinary and Food Administration, told the Sme daily.

The botanical ripeness is a condition when the seeds in the watermelon lose their ability to nurture themselves from the plant.

The best time to eat watermelon however is slightly before this happens - at the time of its consumption ripeness, according to Fischerova.

In its full botanical ripeness the fruit no longer has its ideal taste qualities, and the pulp is dry, Fischerova said.

The cracks in the pulp are a consequence of irregular irrigation or steep temperature changes during growth.
Stefan Nosal, long-time choreographer and artistic director of the Lucnica folklore ensemble, died at the age of 90.

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Nosal died in Bratislava on the evening of Saturday, July 22, the TASR newswire reported.

Nosal was born in the Banska Bystrica Region village of Hrinova on January 20, 1927 and received a degree in civil engineering in Bratislava in 1953 before continuing on to study dance choreography.

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A Lucnica dancer since 1949, he was appointed the ensembles artistic director and choreographer just two years later. He created over 100 dance compositions and a number of feature compositions during his prolific career and also taught at the Academy of Performing Arts (VSMU) in Bratislava.

Nosals nearly 70-year tenure as the artistic director of Lucnica is viewed as a unique feat worldwide. Lucnica began in 1948 as a troupe of young enthusiasts from the Zivena Society. Nosal received a number of state accolades, including the Ludovit Stur Order Second Class in 1997 and the Pribina Cross First Class in 2007.

Top state officials, Lucnica members mourn Nosal

State representatives like Prime Minister Robert Fico, Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko, Culture Minister Marek MaDaric and President Andrej Kiska expressed their sympathies, calling Nosal an unforgettable personality of Slovak folklore who has made immense contributions. They also mentioned that his dedication to Lucnica  which is an original contribution to the countrys cultural heritage  was enormous, and that Slovak folklore became the countrys brand that rightly receives admiration abroad.

Nosals name will forever be linked with Lucnic, they said, according to TASR.

Lucnicas members and representatives also expressed their sorrow over Nosals passing. The troupe manager, Julius Jackuliak, said that Nosal will forever have a place in the hearts of Lucnicas big family and the whole of Slovakia.
A powerful storm swept through the city on July 23.

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An emergency situation was declared in the eastern-Slovak city of Presov at 16:00 on Sunday, City Hall spokesperson Veronika Kmetony Gazdova told the TASR newswire.

Strong winds tore off and damaged roofs on several houses and public buildings. Emergency units have begun the clean-up work, which includes installing provisional roofing to prevent further damage. The fire brigade is removing fallen trees and branches from roads.

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The Slovak Hydro-meteorological Institute had issued prior warnings about the risk of storms for all of Slovakia. In addition to the Saris area surrounding Presov, storms have also hit the nearby Spis area and are moving across the Zemplin area further to the east.

The city hall began calculating the cost of the damage on July 24, the SITA newswire wrote, adding that it has asked residents to report sites where fallen branches and trees have to be removed. The declared emergency situation and third-degree flood warning continue. The worst-hit localities include Solivar, Sekcov housing estate and streets Vychodna, A. Matusku, Moyzesova and Palarikova, Kmetony Gazdova informed SITA.

The last time Presov was hit by a supercell, or long-lasting thunderstorm, was at the beginning of July, when the damage was estimated at 60,000.
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Kinder Morgan, Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. The company operates through four segments: Natural Gas Pipelines, Products Pipelines, Terminals, and CO2. The Natural Gas Pipelines segment owns and operates interstate and intrastate natural gas pipeline, and underground storage systems; natural gas gathering systems and natural gas processing and treating facilities; natural gas liquids fractionation facilities and transportation systems; and liquefied natural gas liquefaction and storage facilities. The Products Pipelines segment owns and operates refined petroleum products, and crude oil and condensate pipelines; and associated product terminals and petroleum pipeline transmix facilities. The Terminals segment owns and/or operates liquids and bulk terminals that stores and handles various commodities, including gasoline, diesel fuel, chemicals, ethanol, metals, and petroleum coke; and owns tankers. The CO2 segment produces, transports, and markets CO2 to recovery and production crude oil from mature oil fields; owns interests in/or operates oil fields and gasoline processing plants; and operates a crude oil pipeline system in West Texas, as well as owns and operates RNG and LNG facilities. It owns and operates approximately 83,000 miles of pipelines and 143 terminals. The company was formerly known as Kinder Morgan Holdco LLC and changed its name to Kinder Morgan, Inc. in February 2011. Kinder Morgan, Inc. was founded in 1936 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Cabot Corporation operates as a specialty chemicals and performance materials company. It operates through three segments: Reinforcement Materials, Performance Chemicals, and Purification Solutions. The company offers reinforcing carbons used in tires as a rubber reinforcing agent and performance additive, as well as in industrial products, such as hoses, belts, extruded profiles, and molded goods; and engineered elastomer composites. It also provides specialty carbons used in inks, coatings, plastics, adhesives, toners, batteries, and displays applications; masterbatch and conductive compound products for use in automotive, industrial, packaging, infrastructure, agriculture, consumer products, and electronics industries; inkjet colorants used in the inkjet printing applications; fumed silica used in adhesives, sealants, cosmetics, batteries, inks, toners, silicone elastomers, coatings, polishing slurries, and pharmaceuticals; fumed alumina used in various products, including inkjet media, lighting, coatings, cosmetics, and polishing slurries; and aerogel, a hydrophobic, silica-based particle for use in various thermal insulation and specialty chemical applications. In addition, the company offers activated carbon products used for the purification of water, air, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, and other liquids and gases; and activated carbon solutions for activated carbon injection in coal-fired utilities, mobile water filter units, and carbon reactivation services. The company sells its products through distributors and sales representatives in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. Cabot Corporation was founded in 1882 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
Blended Learning

Feds Give LAUSD $3 Million to Study Efficacy of Online Credit Recovery Programs

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has awarded the second largest public school district in the nation, the Los Angeles County School District (LAUSD), a grant of $3.256 million over five years to study the efficacy of online credit recovery classes for high school students.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan American Institutes for Research (AIR) was selected to conduct the research, with Cynthia Lim from LAUSD and Jordan Ricks from AIR as co-principal investigators leading the study. The researchers will investigate how online credit recovery affects students content knowledge, credit accumulation and graduation, the grant description explains. They will also compare a blended learning model of online credit recovery courses and face-to-face courses to identify differences in instructional experiences for each.

The study will take place at 15 LAUSD high schools and involve 3,000 sophomore students who:

Entered grade 10 for either the 2017-2018 or 2018-2019 school years; and

Failed either Algebra I and/or English 9 and require course credit.

Teachers and students in the blended learning portion of study will utilize curricula and content from online course provider Edgenuity, the Los Angeles Times reported.

One of the key outcomes for the study is to advance student content knowledge, the description explains, which will be measured in several ways. For example, researchers will collect and analyze feedback from participating teachers, like surveys and monthly logs. In addition, results from end-of-course assessments and state-issued Smarter Balanced math and English/language arts assessment results will be collected.

To measure student credit accumulation, researchers will utilize districts administrative records to gather demographic, enrollment and course data.

Finally, the study will administer a student survey that gauges students experiences in their credit recovery course.
LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Belarus sees no solution to the crisis between its neighbours Russia and Ukraine without another regional summit, the country's Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said on Monday. "I believe that for now there are no prospects for a solution to the Ukraine crisis," Makei told a joint news conference with his Slovenian counterpart Karl Erjavec during a one-day visit to Slovenia on Monday. "To solve the crisis the Minsk agreements would have to be respected, which unfortunately is not the case today," Makei, who was speaking through an interpreter, said in reference to an agreement reached in the capital of Belarus in 2014 and 2015. This was designed to ensure a ceasefire and long-term stability after the crisis which erupted at the start of 2014 when protesters ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, prompting Russia to annexe Crimea. Makei said another meeting between Russia, Ukraine and other participants in the crisis would have to be organised in order to solve the crisis. (Reporting by Marja Novak; editing by Alexander Smith)
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
The family of a woman who died from an infection caught after a sex game have lashed out at the hospital who treated her.

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Patricia Widdowson said the complete and utter neglect of Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham and a junior doctor who had been in the UK for four months were responsible for her daughter Katies death.

Ms Widdowson, from Telford, Shropshire, confirmed her daughter and her boyfriend-of-five years Dean Smith had sex on New Years Day morning when he tied her up.

Shortly after that, Katie, 23, complained of pain in her wrist, resulting in a trip to Good Hope Hospital.

At first the injury was dismissed as a sprained wrist and she was given some painkillers before being sent home.

But by the next day it had turned black and was covered in blisters and she was unable to move it.

Katie was taken to Heartlands Hospital via ambulance but had a heart attack on the way and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at A&E on January 2 this year.

Katie Widdowsons arm became infected after a sex game with her boyfriend Dean Smith (SWNS)

Ms Widdowson said: They (Katie and Dean) had been at a New Years Eve party until 5am on New Years Day.

Theyd got home around 6am and theyd had sex and she was tied up. They were a loving couple and its nobodys elses business what they did behind closed doors.

Later that day Katie sent Dean a photo of her wrist saying it was hurting.

MORE: Man who fell asleep during bondage game is jailed after leaving tied-up partner to die

MORE: NHS to stop giving patients deadly drug that killed Prince

The next night her arm looked horrific. Dean took a picture of it while the ambulance was on its way.

There is a black mark on the base of her thumb and we think that is where the injury started.

I dont know what caused the injury but it doesnt matter because that was not what killed her. The hospitals complete and utter neglect killed her.

The 23-year-old died after having a heart attack on the way to hospital (SWNS)

When she went into Good Hope Hospital on the 1st she had a MEWS (Modified Early Warning Score) of six which is a red flag for sepsis but this was ignored.

Story continues

The junior doctor had only been in the country for four months. She had come over from India. If they had treated Katie properly she would still be alive.

Katie suffered a heart attack on her way to Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham on January 2 but despite desperate attempts to save her she died at 5.20am the next day.

Katies boyfriend Dean Smith, 25, said: The coroner did say it was most likely to be the tying up as the cause (of the deadly infection) but I have no recollection of it, we were drunk because wed been celebrating the New Year.

I went to work on New Years Day at about 11.30am and she was fine. She messaged me at 5pm a photo of her swollen wrist.

Katies mum said her daughters death was down to the neglect of Good Hope hospital (SWNS)

We went to the hospital and the first doctor we saw referred her to a more senior doctor but they just dismissed her.

I think they were busy and understaffed. Katie told the doctors at the hospital that I tied her up.

The next day I woke up about 11.30am and I was leaving for work and I said if you need me during the day then I will come home.

Her condition got worse and I told my kitchen manager but by the time the ambulance arrived she was very delirious when she was talking to the paramedics.

In the ambulance, she looked at me and smiled and then she suffered a cardiac arrest.

She died in the ambulance but they managed to get her back.

She eventually suffered another cardiac arrest and died at 5.20am on January 3.

Katie died of a heart attack on the way to Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham (Google)

Assistant coroner Emma Brown said that Katie should have been kept in hospital and undergone major surgery.

She told Birmingham Coroners Court: They (the doctors) flagrantly ignored the policy that was there for the very situation Katie found herself in.

Her early warning score was six and should have resulted in regular and ongoing observations and further investigations.

These were not carried out. If Katie had remained in hospital, it is clear that her death would have been avoidable.

Top pic: SWNS
Linda Wenzel says she now regrets joining the jihadist group

A 16-year-old German girl who ran away from home to join Islamic State (Isis) has said she regrets joining the jihadist group and wants to come home.

Linda Wenzel, who disappeared from Pulsnitz near Dresden on July 1 last year, was detained in Iraq, along with other female supporters of the group, after the Battle of Mosul, which saw Isis fighters forced out of the ancient city.

Lorenz Haase, senior public prosecutor in Dresden, confirmed the teenager had been located and identified in Iraq.

Wenzel, who is thought to have converted to Islam after being groomed on social media, was arrested by Iraqi forces along with 20 female Isis supporters from Russia, Turkey, Canada, Libya and Syria.

The group are believed to have barricaded themselves with guns and explosives in a tunnel underneath the ruins of Mosuls old city.

German media interviewed Wenzel, who told them she regretted joining the group and wanted to leave.

Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in Mosul (Rex)

I just want to get away from here, she said. I want to get away from the war, from the many weapons, from the noise. I just want to go home to my family.

MORE: Hero London Bridge Pc tells how he took on THREE Jihadis despite being stabbed in the eye

MORE: Man who took images of shot London terrorists describes the moment police shot them dead

They added that she wanted to be extradited to Germany and would cooperate with authorities.

Despite having a gunshot wound on her left thigh and another injury on her right knee, which she said was caused during a helicopter attack, she said she was doing well.

Mr Haase told the Associated Press that is not clear whether the teenager will return to Germany.

We, as the public prosecutors office Dresden, have not applied for an arrest warrant and will therefore not be able to request extradition, he said.

There is the possibility that Linda might be put on trial in Iraq. She might be expelled for being a foreigner or, because she is a minor reported missing in Germany, she could be handed over to Germany.

Story continues

Earlier in the year, her parents said they didnt think anything of their daughters new-found interest in Islam before her disappearance. [We] even bought her a copy of the Quran, her mother, Katharina, said.

The girl was identified after Iraqi forces declared victory over Isis in the groups former stronghold of Mosul earlier this month.

Haase said the teenager had travelled to Turkey about a year ago with the aim of reaching Iraq or Syria.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran on Monday denied reports that Kuwait had expelled its ambassador, saying it would maintain a dialogue with the Gulf Arab state after a diplomatic row over Tehran's alleged links to a "spy and terror" cell. Iranian and Kuwaiti media reported on Thursday that Kuwait had ordered the expulsion of the Iranian ambassador and 14 other diplomats, worsening an unusual public dispute between the two countries. "The ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to be present in Kuwait and the embassy will be active at the ambassadorial level, and there is no problem in this regard," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. "(Kuwait's) action is reprehensible but we can continue our talks and contacts," Qasemi said, quoted by IRNA. Kuwait also told Iran's cultural and military missions to shut down, following a court case that increased tensions between the Gulf Arab state and Tehran. Iran responded to the expulsions by filing a complaint with the Kuwaiti charge d'affaires. The expulsions were a rare move for Kuwait, which avoids conflict and has worked at keeping good relations with nearby countries and whose ruling emir is a regional diplomatic broker. Saudi Arabia, which severed ties with Tehran last year over attacks by Iranian demonstrators on its missions in the Islamic Republic, welcomed the move. Last year, Kuwait convicted 23 men -- one Iranian and the rest Kuwaiti -- of spying for Iran and Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah. That trial followed the discovery of guns and explosives in a raid on the so-called "Abdali cell" in 2015. Iran has denied any involvement in the case. Apart from the diplomatic row with Iran, Kuwait has also been trying to mediate in the crisis involving Qatar. Some other Gulf states have imposed sanctions on Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism and having links to Tehran. (Reporting by Dubai Newsroom Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
By Shihar Aneez (Reuters) - Two opposition leaders accused soldiers and police in the Maldives of roughing up opposition lawmakers on Monday, using pepper spray to prevent them from entering parliament to take part in an impeachment vote against the speaker. Police said access to the parliament building was restricted by the government because the scheduled parliament session was cancelled. They said they were now investigating "a case of obstruction of police duty" against lawmakers who broke into the restricted area around the parliament building which was cordoned off by a police line The opposition is trying to unseat Speaker Abdulla Maseeh Mohamed, an ally of President Abdulla Yameen, for blocking its requests to summon government officials accused of corruption. "After Yameen (lost his) parliament majority, he is trying to use both military and police to suppress the opposition," Eva Abdullah, an opposition MP told Reuters via telephone from Male. "This is almost like a military coup and they take over legislature." The soldiers and police surrounded the parliament building and stopped 30 opposition legislators from entering the premises, the chairman of the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party Hassan Latheef also told Reuters by telephone from Male. He said the opposition MPs were pepper sprayed and tear gassed by the police, and stopped from entering the parliament. He blamed Yameen for ordering the closure because he was sure of losing the vote. The police blamed the lawmakers. "Maldives Police Service was requested by the Maldives National Defence Force (military) to intervene in clearing out individuals who forcefully entered the parliament building," the police said in a statement. The Maldives has been mired in political unrest since Mohamed Nasheed, its first democratically elected president, was ousted in 2012. Nasheed in a statement said he was "extremely worried about an imminent coup in the Maldives". The opposition alleges the Yameen administration is trying to cover up corruption including money laundering. The government has denied the accusations. The move to impeach the speaker gathered momentum after 10 Yameen loyalists in the 85-member legislature defected and joined the opposition to unseat him. (Reporting by Shihar Aneez Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
DAKAR (Reuters) - Christian militias in Central African Republic have launched several attacks in the town of Bangassou in recent days, attempting to seize a cathedral housing displaced Muslims and killing a Moroccan peacekeeper, the United Nations said on Sunday. The incidents, including one on Sunday, came after attacks on the same diamond-mining town in May that killed at least 115 people and point to the inability of U.N. peacekeepers to contain violence in a country where government control barely extends outside the capital. "The attack took place as the peacekeepers from the Moroccan contingent were escorting water trucks filling up in the river in order to meet the humanitarian needs of the town," Vladimir Monteiro, spokesman for the 13,000-strong U.N. mission (MINUSCA), said of the Sunday incident. Three others were injured, he added, in an attack he attributed to anti-balaka fighters drawn from the country's Christian majority. Fighters from the same group launched a foiled attack on Friday on the town's cathedral that is housing hundreds of displaced Muslims who have been sheltering there since the May killings, Monteiro said. Like some 500,000 others displaced in the country, many of those inside the cathedral have nowhere to return to since their homes were destroyed in the May killings. Thousands have died in the ethnic and religious conflict that broke out when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013, provoking a backlash from Christian anti-balaka militias. The latest incidents this weekend have prompted some 14 humanitarian organisations to suspend their activities in the town, 700 km (435 miles) east of Bangui on the Congolese border, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Reuters. An official at French medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres, which operates the local hospital, confirmed fresh shootings on Sunday. But she said the charity remained present. Violence has escalated since former colonial power France ended its peacekeeping mission in the country last year that once had as many as 2,000 soldiers. It continues despite a peace deal signed between the government and rival factions in Rome last month. (Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Peter Cooney)
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai police have seized nearly $21 million worth of assets, from cars to cryptocurrency, belonging to the late founder of dark web marketplace AlphaBay, who died in a Bangkok jail this month, they said on Monday. Alexandre Cazes, a 25-year-old Canadian citizen, was arrested in Thailand on July 5 at the request of the United States. Thai police on Monday confirmed he was the administrator of AlphaBay, an online site devoted to the sale of illicit goods, ranging from computer hacking tools to drugs and weapons. AlphaBay was widely considered the biggest online black market for drugs, estimated to host daily transactions totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. Cazes was found dead in his cell at the Narcotics Suppression Bureau in Bangkok on July 12 before he was due to be extradited to the United States, deputy national police chief Chalermkiat Sriworakan said. "We have seized over 700 million baht worth of assets, cars, and cryptocurrency," Chalermkiat told Reuters. The sum is equivalent to $21 million. Cazes faced charges related to narcotics distribution, identity theft, money laundering and other crimes. It was unclear if Cazes had been provided a lawyer or if police had appointed one for him, as is sometimes the case in Thailand. His Thai wife, Sunisa Cazes, also faces a money laundering charge. She is in custody and Reuters was unable to reach her for comment. Cazes, referred to as "DeSnake" by some in the online community, operated chiefly from Thailand, where media said he owned several properties and had connections in many countries. His arrest followed a police operation called Bayonet, which involved authorities in six countries including the FBI, the Dutch National Police and the Royal Thai Police. AlphaBay was "the largest dark net marketplace in history", U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last week, when he announced its shutdown by the U.S. Justice Department. [nL1N1KB0RW] ($1=33.41 baht) (Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Writing by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Clarence Fernandez)
There is a perception that when it comes to health care in Georgia, there are two distinct, and unequal, levels of care when meeting the needs of people. There are the urban areas, such as Atlanta, with numerous access points for doctors, services, and treatment; and rural communities like Lumpkin County, where opportunities for quality health care are more limited.

For example:

Lumpkin has one of the highest resident-to-physician ratios in the state, 881 persons to one doctor, compared with the state average of 489 residents per physician.

The number of deaths per year (adjusted per 100,000 population) in Lumpkin, 945.6, is one-fifth higher than the state as whole, 782, in 2015.

There are fewer than 30 private doctors in the county, with no obstetrics services.

The 49-bed Chestatee Regional Hospital is the only medical care facility in Lumpkin County. The hospital had a total of 1,008 admissions, with 10,129 patients visiting the hospital's emergency room.

A two-phase grant from the Healthcare Georgia Foundation and a community coalition that includes the University of North Georgia (UNG), the Community Helping Place (CHP), county government entities, local nonprofits and Lumpkin County citizens aims to narrow the gulf between these two areas.

The Healthcare Georgia Foundation is a statewide private foundation whose mission is to advance the health of all Georgians and expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved communities and individuals.

The Foundation introduced The Two Georgias Initiative in October 2016, outlining grant opportunities for rural counties with populations of less than 35,000 residents to address health care needs in their specific communities. The first phase of the initiative rolled out this month, with grants totaling $770,000 to 11 statewide community health partnerships to develop plans next year for increased funding in 2018 based on each community's health care findings.

Dr. Robert Powers, associate professor and director of research for the College of Health Sciences and Professions at UNG, was the grant writer and assists in community planning for the $65,000 grant to study health care needs in Lumpkin County. The UNG contingent also includes Dr. Andy Novobilski, associate provost and chief research officer, Dr. Teresa Conner-Kerr, dean and professor at the College of Health Sciences and Professions, and Dr. Pamela Elfenbein, professor of human services and sociology, who serves as an outside consultant.

"UNG will be in a partnership role with the city and county governments, local merchants, charitable organizations, and chambers of commerce," Powers said. "That gives the University the opportunity to share in addressing the needs of the community in which we serve."

The grant is administered through CHP, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting those in need who live in Lumpkin County, providing free medical and dental services food, clothing, and emergency assistance. Jessica Dudley, CHP's executive director, will head local leadership through planning, development, and execution of the initiative.

The CHP clinic's services include primary care, lab services, medication assistance, and basic dental care to the underprivileged, homeless and working poor who cannot afford medical care. In 2016, it provided more than 1,200 patient visits, nearly 450 lab visits and dispensed more than 700 medications in the Prescription Assistance Program.

CHP is partnering with the Department of Physical Therapy at UNG through the Student-led Therapy and Rehab Clinic (STAR), organized and operated by UNG Doctor of Physical Therapy students under faculty supervision, to serve needy Lumpkin residents at no cost, on the Dahlonega campus.

Powers said once phase one planning for the Lumpkin initiative is complete and its findings are presented to the Healthcare Georgia Foundation, more grant money, upward of $200,000 a year for the next three to five years, will establish a sustainable, long-term plan to provide better and more widespread health care throughout Lumpkin County.

"UNG will be a source of numerous capabilities during the second phase of this grant," said Powers. "We will bring all of our expertise in health care, education, business, as well as our students and faculty as research begins on what the citizens of Lumpkin County need in regards to improved access to quality health care."
Cour Cass, Ch. com., 8 juin 2017, decision No 15-21.357 -

Estate of Chateau Cheval Blanc

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e

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Chaussie's graphic mark registered in 2003

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A Kat a bit touchy about her wine...

...who would not be?

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'How long do you have to take legal actions against a deceptive mark?' was the last question asked to the French Supreme Court in a decade-long dispute between two wine-making companies, over the trade mark rights in the household name 'Cheval Blanc' ( here in French language ). 'As long as the statutory limitation' will allow, the Court said. Yet, this answer does not quite clarify the crux of this claimant's matter...what should be the starting point of this limitation period...the day the mark was registered or the day the deceptiveness ended?The claimant in this dispute is the wine-making company trading as 'Chteau Cheval Blanc' based in St Emilion, a region of France well-known for its vintage. The company registered the work mark 'CHEVAL BLANC' for the class of goods 33, in 1933 and renewed its registration ever since. In 2008, Chteau Cheval Blanc assigned a competitor, Mr Chaussiand his company "Chausside Cheval Blanc", in revocation of two of their trade marks and of their company's name.The defendant has owned the word marks "Domaine du Cheval Blanc" (reading in English " Estate of Cheval Blanc") and "Chateau Relays Cheval Blanc", as well as the graphic mark featuring a horse head (see below) for the same class of goods (33) since their registrations in 1973 and 2003, respectively. The dispute had taken them to the Bordeaux Court of Appeal in 2012 which confirmed the dismissal of Chteau Cheval Blanc's claim by the judgement of first instance. Both decisions confirmed the defendant's right to use the place name "Cheval Blanc" in the context of his professional activities, including trade mark registrations and the name of his registered company. However, neither lower court responded to the claimant's argument on the deceptiveness of the mark, in their respective decisions. Chteau Cheval Blanc advanced that, even marks relying place names may be refused or revoked if deceptive. The claimant lodged their first appeal before the Court of Cassation on this ground, which was received by the highest civil court on 1 January 2014, the French Supreme Court . The Court of Cassation quashed the Court of Appeal decision for not addressing the question of deceptiveness, and referred the case back to them to perform the relevant assessments to this end.In 2015, a different formation of the Bordeaux Court of Appeal heard the case upon referral from the Supreme Court. The appeal judges rejected for a second time the claimant's revocation for the latter had failed to comply with the (then) 30-year statutory limitation placed on legal actions. The Court of Appeal held that the claimant should have applied for the revocation of the word mark no later than 2003, counting thirty years from the registration of Chaussi's mark.Following the Bordeaux decision, Chteau Cheval Blanc filed for a second appeal before the French Supreme Court arguing that the appellate Court had misinterpreted the provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code by concluding their right to legal actions against a deceptive mark had lapsed. The claimant argued that Article L 711- 3 provided that the deceptiveness of a mark was unaffected by neither time nor use, and is a ground for revocation at any point within the period of the mark legally registered. Chteau Cheval Blanc thus submitted that their action against Chaussi's deceptive mark could not have lapsed, since deceptiveness is itself declared unaffected by time by Article L 711-3 which bases their action. The claimant also dispute the starting point for the limitation period picked by the Court of Appeal. In their view, the starting point of the time limitation of their action in revocation for deceptiveness could not have been the date of the registration of the mark because the 'vice' (of deceptiveness) of the disputed mark was still ongoing at the time proceedings were introduced. This, they contended, should have prevented any time from running, for the purposes of statutory limitation. Finally, the claimant appealed the decision of the Bordeaux Court to deny them damages for the prejudice they suffered from Chaussi's use of the phrase 'Cheval Blanc', they regarded to dilute the prestige and reputation of their business name and mark.The French Supreme Court rejected all claims for a second time. The highest court held that the fact that deceptiveness was unaffected by neither time nor use should not be interpreted as lifting statutory limitations on legal proceedings relying on Article L 711-3 as a primary cause of action. This response of the Supreme Court implies that, indeed, time does not affect claims of revocation for deceptiveness when the latter are introduced as a defence against infringement, but not otherwise. The question of the starting point of time limitations for the revocation of alleged deceptive marks was left unaddressed by the Supreme Court as it was a new argument introduced in appeal, contrary to procedural rules. The Court stressed that such grounds should be been raised in previous instances and could not be reviewed upon 'cassation' at this point, as it required an assessment of both facts and law for which the Court of Cassation has no authority, and the defendant should be given the opportunity to put forward a response to such claims. Finally, the Supreme Court confirmed the Court of Appeal's decision with regard to damages. The decision stresses that the claimant's prejudice in their reputation and name was unsupported by appropriate evidence.One may question whether this decision will indeed be the finale of the dispute, as the question of the starting point of the statutory limitation of actions in revocation of marks of deceptive marks was left unanswered by the French Supreme Court. Should we expect yet another action from Chteau Cheval Blanc to clarify this point in the future?
Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. provides natural gas compression services and equipment to the energy industry in the United States. It fabricates, manufactures, rents, and sells natural gas compressors and related equipment. The company primarily engages in the rental of compression units that provide small, medium, and large horsepower applications for unconventional oil and natural gas production. As of December 31, 2021, the company had 2,023 natural gas compression units in its rental fleet with 418,041 horsepower. The company also engages in the design, fabrication, and assembly of compressor components into compressor units for rental or sale; engineers and fabricates natural gas compressors; and designs and manufactures a line of reciprocating compressor frames, cylinders, and parts. In addition, it is involved in the design, fabrication, sale, installation, and service of flare stacks and related ignition and control devices for the onshore and offshore incineration of gas compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, natural gas, and liquefied petroleum gases. Further, the company offers customer support services for its compressor and flare sales business; and exchange and rebuild program for small horsepower screw compressors. Its primary customers are exploration and production(E&P) companies that utilize compressor units for artificial lift applications; E&P companies that focuses on natural gas-weighted production; and midstream companies. Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Midland, Texas.
Dril-Quip, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, sells, and services engineered drilling and production equipment for use in deepwater, harsh environment, and severe service applications worldwide. The company's principal products include subsea and surface wellheads, subsea and surface production trees, mudline hanger systems, specialty connectors and associated pipes, drilling and production riser systems, liner hangers, wellhead connectors, diverters, and safety valves, as well as downhole tools. It also provides technical advisory services, and rework and reconditioning services, as well as rental and purchase of running tools for use in the installation and retrieval of its products; and downhole tools comprise of liner hangers, production packers, safety valves, and specialty downhole tools that are used to hang-off and seal casing into a previously installed casing string in the well bore. The company's products are used to explore for oil and gas from offshore drilling rigs, such as floating rigs and jack-up rigs; and for drilling and production of oil and gas wells on offshore platforms, tension leg platforms, and Spars, as well as moored vessels, such as floating production, storage, and offloading monohull moored vessels. It sells its products directly through its sales personnel, independent sales agents, and representatives to integrated, independent, and foreign national oil and gas companies, as well as drilling contractors, and engineering and construction companies. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Young people can be hard to impress, but students from Albuquerques Academy of Trades and Technology charter school were visibly stoked by a tour of Rader Awning during 2016 Manufacturing Day events.

Before-and-after shots of the 15 ATTHS students who visited the factory where Rader manufactures awnings, shade panels and fabric products illustrate what can happen when young adults get a close look at the world of manufacturing: a transformation from bored detachment to delighted engagement.

Its the kind of transformation that inspires New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the organizers and sponsors of local Manufacturing Day, to focus on introducing a fresh generation to careers in advanced manufacturing.

Closing the gap

U.S. employers have long warned that more than half of the 3.4 million manufacturing jobs expected to open by the mid-2020s could remain empty if companies cant find workers with the computing, technical, problem-solving and math skills required in the modern factory. A 2015 study by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte LLC concluded that a domestic talent deficit of this magnitude would mean that customers wont get the products they need from American companies.

New Mexico MEP uses the monthlong National Manufacturing Day celebration to highlight New Mexico-made products and introduce young people to the many career opportunities available in the field.

The nonprofit organizations outreach to high school and college students includes career fairs, manufacturing facility tours and school presentations. More than 4,600 students participated in New Mexico Manufacturing Day events last year, and 200  including the group from ATTHS, some of them described as at-risk  attended private tours of 11 facilities where wood flooring, herbal supplements and remedies, organic cosmetics and architectural lighting are produced.

New look at life

Rader Awning was the first stop for ATTHS students on Oct. 18; the second was OGB Architectural Millwork. Students quietly shuffled through the welding, sewing and upholstery work areas at Rader until the end, when company co-owner Jill Mowery-Litt entertained questions.

Through ATTHS social worker Dana Flores, one student asked to talk to a company welder he had noticed on the tour. The welder explained how he had made poor choices before heeding life-altering advice to study welding. He perfected his craft through correspondence courses to earn certification.

By the time they visited OGBs facility, where employees design, engineer and create quality woodwork, the students were at full attention. Company president and tour leader Rick Thaler talked about how he acquired woodworking skills as a teenager in the construction trades. Eager to learn, he refined his skills and earned promotion to more demanding positions, eventually buying the business.

In a post-tour session, students discussed what types of training they would need to forge their own paths to good-paying employment in manufacturing. According to New Mexico MEP state director Jennifer Sinsabaugh, the shift in attitude, from negative to positive, was palpable.

Manufacturing Month 2017 will be celebrated in October. Schools and businesses interested in participating should contact mfgday@newmexicomep.org.

Finance New Mexico connects individuals and businesses with skills and funding resources for their business or idea. To learn more, go to www.FinanceNewMexico.org.
Real estate agents say 2017 could be a record-setting year for New Mexicos housing market.

The Realtors Association of New Mexico reports that 2,081 single-family homes were sold in June, representing an increase of nearly 5 percent over the same period last year.

However, it wasnt as good as good as the month of May, when 2,237 homes were sold statewide.

The median price of a New Mexico property also continues to rise. Junes $197,00 median is the highest reported since RANM started keeping statewide statistics in 2008.

Median price indicates that half the homes sold for more; half sold for less.

The following year, the recession hit hard and New Mexicos home prices began a long decline until the recovery of recent years.

The figures also show 10,410 single-family home sales year to date, compared to 9,474 over the same period this year.

Two-thirds of those transactions occurred in Bernalillo, Sandoval and Santa Fe counties.

Association officials say inventory is still tight in many areas and homes that are priced right are going quickly and sometimes getting multiple offers.

The group says property sales contributed over $2.4 billion to New Mexicos economy during the first six months of the year.

Lumber tariff hard on homebuilders

Sentiment among home builders slid in July after a stretch of strong months as rising costs for materials started to pinch, according to MarketWatch.

The monthly confidence gauge from the National Association of Home Builders fell two points to a reading of 64. Junes reading, initially reported as 67, was revised down one point.

Builders had high hopes for the new administration after then-candidate Donald Trump addressed the trade group in August, pledging to roll back regulations. But many of the presidents policies, including a steep tariff on Canadian lumber, have had the opposite effect.

Our members are telling us they are growing increasingly concerned over rising material prices, particularly lumber, NAHB said in a release. This is hurting housing affordability even as consumer interest in the new-home market remains strong.

The trade group previously estimated that the tariff could cost as many as 8,241 jobs and increase the cost of an average single-family home as much as $1,236.

FreeRange 2.0

The owner of a Central Ave. co-working business is adding more space to help entrepreneurs grow with their businesses.

Dentist-turned-developer Joseph Pitluck, who opened FreeRange Shared Workspaces, an 11,000-square-foot facility at Central and University earlier this year, said the concept will be replicated at a second location, but with some tweaks.

Its mostly targeting those who are graduating from an open environment to needing some private offices.

Many are moving up from a hot desk to a dedicated desk to a more personal space to store their stuff, said Pitluck of his evolving clientele.

A commercial building Pitluck owns at 4317 Lead Avenue SE will be the next iteration of FreeRange. Pitluck said half of the square footage at the 4,000-square-foot facility will be earmarked for co-working space.

The idea behind the co-working space is to provide a space for small-business owners, freelancers and others in an open-office environment. Users pay a monthly membership fee. The cost to lease a two-person office is $595 per month at the Lead Avenue location, but that incudes all utilities, janitorial services and access to FreeRange space on Central, a five-minute drive away.

The goal of co-working is to expand the opportunity of membership to all interested individuals, including home-based business people looking for an inexpensive second office with reliable Internet as well as the recent retiree whos been toying with the idea to create a new widget.

Co-working also brings the opportunity to network with other professionals, said Pitluck.

A late August opening is envisioned at the second location.
WASHINGTON  Russian ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak  a high-profile figure in the controversy over Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election has concluded his assignment in Washington.

The Russian Embassy in Washington announced on Twitter that Kislyaks tenure ended on Saturday.

Kislyaks successor has not been announced, although it is widely expected to be Anatoly Antonov, a deputy foreign minister and former deputy defense minister seen as a hardliner regarding the United States.

A Washington fixture with a sprawling network, Kislyak has emerged as a central figure in the investigations into Russian interference in the election and whether any Trump associates were involved. President Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed the story as fake news, but the investigations have shown no signs of stopping, with a focus on top aides heightening.

Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired after the White House concluded he had not been truthful about conversations he had with Kislyak. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation after acknowledging two previously undisclosed contacts with Kislyak.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Kislyak said he discussed election-related issues with Sessions when the men met last year. The Post cited anonymous U.S. officials who described U.S. intelligence intercepts of Kislyaks descriptions of his meetings with Sessions. The Justice Department said Sessions stands by his previous assertion that he never had conversations with Russian officials about any type of interference with the election.

The presidents son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has also been criticized for failing to immediately disclose a meeting with Kislyak on his security clearance questionnaire. In that December meeting, he proposed a secret back channel between the Kremlin and the Trump transition team.

During a long diplomatic career, Kislyak has led the life of a fairly typical global envoy, making himself a reliable presence on the circuit of receptions, teas and forums that make up the calendar of any ambassador.

Kislyak, who was appointed to his post in 2008, is regularly spotted walking around town, heading to and from meetings. Early in his tenure, he often opened the doors of the Russian Embassy, hosting dinners for foreign policy professionals, Pentagon officials, journalists and Capitol Hill staffers.

His first foreign posting was to New York where he worked at the Soviet delegation at the United Nations in the early 1980s. He spent the following years as the first secretary and then councilor at the Soviet Embassy in Washington before returning to Moscow in 1989, where he took a succession of senior jobs at the Foreign Ministry.

He did a stint as Russian ambassador to Belgium and simultaneously served as Moscows envoy at NATO. He then returned to Moscow to serve as a deputy foreign minister, overseeing relations with the United States and arms control issues before being sent to Washington.
Kuwait has been very patient with regard to its neighbors intransigence and acts that hurts with Kuwaits national security. Irans behavior has been the same since the sectarian regime came to power in 1979 and the Khomeini era began.

But there are questions craving for attention. Who blew up the convoy of Kuwaits former and late Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad? Who blew up Kuwaits popular cafes? Who hijacked a passenger aircraft? Who recruited the Kuwaiti cell in Mecca? Who established the Khomeini terrorist cell in Kuwait, known as the Abdali cell?

In August 2015, Kuwaiti interior ministry said that a number of suspects who possessed weapons were arrested. The seized weapons were found in a farm in Abdali near the Iraqi borders and in houses owned by the suspects and included 19 tons of ammunition, 144 kilograms of explosives, 68 different types of arms, 204 grenades and electric detonators.

At the time, the Iranian embassy issued a statement condemning the Kuwaiti interior ministry. This upset many Kuwaitis and they have every right to be angry. The Iranian foreign ministry has today condemned Kuwait and threatened it following its recent sovereign measure, which it took after the Kuwaiti judiciary made a decision regarding the terrorists of the Abdali cell.

Iranian boats

The cells members are being pursued and monitored. Following reports that they escaped on board Iranian boats and headed to the Khomeini republic.

Let us also recall the attack on the Bahraini Jaw Prison last January, which was meant to break out members of a terrorist cell after killing a Bahraini policeman. The plan failed after Bahrains security forces captured the wrongdoers before they reached the Shetan shore.

Kuwait has for decades been lenient with its neighbor. Partisan political figures supporting the Khomeini republic  such as famous MP Abdul-Hamid Dashti  have enjoyed decent margin of activity in Kuwait. A while ago, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Sabah al-Khaled went to Tehran to mediate between Iran and the Gulf countries. But at the end of it all, this is how Iran has rewarded Kuwait.

Kuwaits official statement voiced, Regret over the negative developments in relations between the two countries. This is not the first crisis to erupt between Kuwait and Tehran, as there have been other developments, one of which happened five years ago.

The moot point is that Iranian intransigence will not end until it destroys everything. According to their fatal illusion, they think they are Gods representatives. This is the unfortunate reality.

Iran is not a country that one can reach an understanding with. The best solution is a truce as for peace, yet there isnt any.
For many children, going to the store at the end of the summer and picking out a new backpack for the upcoming school year is an annual ritual. Getting a new backpack is an opportunity to show off ones personality and set a new direction for the next grade. The backpack becomes more than a means for carrying school items; its a symbol for all of the knowledge and experiences students hope to gain in school that year.a

Unfortunately, many kids in New Mexico dont have this opportunity. One-third of New Mexicos children live in low-income households. Around 140,000 kids in New Mexico are living in poverty, and 64,000 of those children are living in extreme poverty, meaning their families are existing on an annual income of less than $12,018.

To these kids, getting a new backpack for school is an unthinkable luxury. In fact, many of them will not even be able to buy basic items like pencils and paper that we all take for granted.a

Imagine being a student preparing to learn without having the necessary tools to help you succeed. Yet this scenario is a heartbreaking reality for too many New Mexican children.

This year, we have partnered with Molina Healthcare to try to change this situation. From now through August 4, we are asking New Mexicans to help these kids by donating new backpacks for the school year.a

Drop-off locations are available throughout New Mexico, and Molina has generously offered to match what is donated, up to 700 backpacks. We will also be hosting special school supply drives to provide teachers and students with the classroom items they need.a

Distributing new backpacks and school supplies to New Mexicos children will help them get a good start to the school year. It is a simple and meaningful way to show that we care about our students and their ability to learn.a

We have all read about the statistics and reports that annually rank our states educational outcomes at the bottom of most categories. While we are making progress in some areas, there is still much work left to do.a

Improving academic excellence in New Mexico will require a combination of actions, both large and small, through policy decisions and by partnering together in our local neighborhoods. We can start by each of us doing our part in equipping underprivileged children in our communities with the supplies they need to reach their potential.a

The end of summer break is coming quickly. Next month kids across the state will be headed back to their classrooms. Like a backpack at the start of a school year, their minds will soon be filled with new ideas and skills.a

We have an opportunity to help these children start the new school year right. I encourage all New Mexicans to take a moment during the next few weeks and help out our neighbors in need. By working together, we can give each of New Mexicos children the support they deserve.

Albuquerque residents can drop off their backpack donations at the following locations:

 Erna Ferguson Public Library, 3700 San Mateo Blvd NE

 Jewish Community Center, 5520 Wyoming Blvd NE

 Paradise Hills Community Center, 5901 Paradise Blvd NW

 Taylor Ranch Library, 5700 Bogart St NW, Albuquerque.
Actor James Cromwell was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the hit movie Babe, and throughout his career for numerous Emmys. But on a cold December day in 2015, the drama he participated in was no act. Cromwell and five others were arrested in upstate Wawayanda, N.Y., protesting against the construction of a 650-megawatt fracked gas power plant. He and two others refused to pay their fines and were sentenced to a week behind bars. On Friday, July 14, the 77-year-old actor, along with Pramilla Malick and Madeline Shaw, a grandmother, surrendered themselves to the Orange County jail.

Cromwell is no stranger to protest. He was inspired by Southern civil-rights activists and joined the anti-Vietnam War movement. He provided direct support for Black Panther activists targeted by the FBIs illegal COINTELPRO program in the 1960s. A vegan, he has been arrested protesting the mistreatment of animals. This latest action and subsequent jailing, however, mark an escalation in his commitment to bring about revolutionary change.

We are, all of us, engaged in a struggle, not to protect a way of life, but to protect life itself, Cromwell told us on the Democracy Now! news hour the day before he was to report to jail. Our institutions are bankrupt. Our leaders are complicit. And the public is basically disillusioned and disenchanted with the entire process.

The Wawayanda gas-fueled power plant is owned by Competitive Power Ventures, which touts itself as a leader in clean energy. CPV is, in turn, owned by the multinational Global Infrastructure Partners, which has fossil-fuel projects around the globe. The Wawayanda plant is not complete yet, and Cromwell and others want to make sure it never is.

We chained ourselves together with bicycle locks, and we blocked the entrance to the plant for  according to the prosecution, about 27 minutes. The judge and the prosecution seemed to imply that it made absolutely no difference.  But it does make a difference, Cromwell told us. Were trying to get out the message that this is one instance, but it is happening all around this country and all around the world. The image of their arrest is chilling, with Cromwell surrounded by New York state troopers, one of whom is applying a massive bolt cutter to the lock around Cromwells neck.

There is a direct link between that plant and the Middle East, Cromwell said. Were at war not only with Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan and Yemen. Were at war with Dimock, Penn., where the gas comes from, with Wawayanda, that uses the gas, with Seneca Lake, where it was to be stored, and with Standing Rock. Cromwell explained why he risked arrest that day: Most people cant put their finger on the cause of it, but everybody perceives the threat. Capitalism is a cancer. And the only way to defeat this cancer is to completely, radically transform our way of living and our way of thinking about ourselves. And I call that radical transformation revolutionary. So this is the revolution.

If the revolution Cromwell describes comes, it will erupt, in part, from the work of the countless local grass-roots groups that are springing up around the globe to address the growing catastrophe of climate change. Protect Orange County, founded by Pramilla Malick, is one of those groups, and is the organizing hub against the CPV plant.

Malick joined Cromwell in our studio, and described their strategy: We actually can stop this. Theres one permit left.  We are calling on everybody to demand of our governor, Gov. Cuomo, to be a real climate leader and reject the permit for that last pipeline, the lateral pipeline, and to pull the plug on this plant.

The protesters were released from jail (July 17), after three days of their seven-day sentence. Going to jail is a statement about how we have to lift our game. Its no more good enough just to picket and to petition, because nobody is listening. The way people get the message out is you do an act of civil disobedience, Cromwell told us. We have to change our relationship both to the planet and to the people who live on this planet, including the people who are opposing us. James Cromwell has a commanding presence on the big screen and will certainly continue practicing his craft. But the primary stage for this towering actor will be the streets, in what will likely be his lifes most demanding role.
LAS VEGAS, N.M  A Highlands University special education professor earned national recognition for his book, which is the first to chronicle the gay pride movement in Albuquerque.

Paul James, PJ, Sedillo and his 2017 book, Solidarity Through Pride: LGBT Pride in Albuquerque 1976 2016, were featured in USA Todays Faces of Pride special section June 30.

The majority of New Mexico is very accepting of the LGBT community, which I believe is related to our states rich diversity, Sedillo said. Whats remarkable about Albuquerque is that as a relatively small city it was a leader in the LGBT movement in the Southwest, and one of the first six cities nationwide to sponsor a pride event.

Sedillo, an Albuquerque native, served as president and co-president of Albuquerque Pride from 1989- 2010. The nonprofit works to present a positive image of the LGBT community. The organization sponsors the annual pride parade and Pridefest in Albuquerque.

Sedillo joined the Highlands University faculty in fall semester 2013 and teaches at the universitys Rio Rancho Center.

Previously, Sedillo, who earned his bachelors degree in elementary education from Highlands, was an educator and resource teacher in Albuquerque Public Schools for 29 years.

We welcome suggestions for the daily Bright Spot. Send to newsroom@abqjournal.com.
Five of Albuquerques eight mayoral candidates have secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in their campaign coffers, but three of them have also already spent significant chunks of their campaign funds.

While attorney Brian Colon is leading the pack in fundraising, businessman Ricardo Chaves is the leader in spending since April, according to the latest round of campaign finance reports filed earlier this month.

Chaves reported spending more than $134,000. The vast majority of that money  $100,000  was paid to Bob Cornelius, Chaves campaign manager. Another large chunk, a little more than $26,000, was paid to SC Consulting, a political consulting firm.

State Auditor Tim Keller, the only publicly financed candidate in the mayors race, has spent close to $131,000 since April. Of that, $113,400 was paid to Rio Strategies, the Albuquerque firm running his campaign. The Keller campaign paid another $15,000 to GBA Strategies for research.

City Councilor Dan Lewis, meanwhile, has spent close to $118,000 since April. The Lewis campaign paid $38,600 to Stoneridge Group, a Georgia firm, for a variety of services, including campaign materials, web design and digital consulting. Lewis campaign paid another $26,800 to Premier Consulting, of Albuquerque, for fundraising services. And campaign manager Steward Bragg was paid $18,000 during that period.

Colon and Bernalillo County Commissioner Wayne Johnson have been a little more thrifty with their spending.

Colon has spent close to $54,000 since April. More than half of that  $28,000  was paid to Global Strategy Group for polling.

Johnson, meanwhile, has spent just over $23,000 since April. Of that, nearly $12,000 was paid to Ekern Co. Anne Ekern serves at Johnsons finance consultant.

Election Day is Oct. 3, about 10 weeks away.

Money in hand

So how much cash did the mayoral candidates have on hand as of July 13? Heres the rundown: Colon: $517,540; Chaves: $373,957; Keller: $232,446; Lewis: $192,589; Johnson: $187,008; Michelle Garcia Holmes, a former chief of staff for the state Attorney Generals Office and a retired Albuquerque police detective: $27,590; recent University of New Mexico graduate Gus Pedrotty: $1,987; and Susan Wheeler-Deichsel, founder of the civic group Urban ABQ: $341.

Firefighters approve

Keller has added the Albuquerque Area Fire Fighters, Local 244 of the International Association, to his growing list of endorsements.

He knows we must invest in fire and police staffing, operations and infrastructure to protect our community, Diego Arencon, president of IAFF Local 244 said in a news release.

Martin Salazar: msalazar@abqjournal.com
LAS CRUCES  State Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces; former U.S. Senator Peter Domenici and his wife Nancy Domenici are joint recipients of the national 2016 Torrey Advocacy Award, the highest honor given by The Treatment Advocacy Center in recognition of courageous efforts to make treatment possible for more people with severe mental illness.

The organization is a leading nonprofit based in the Washington, D.C. area working to eliminate barriers to timely and effective treatment of severe mental illness nation-wide. The award is given to individuals who have demonstrated courage and tenacity fighting for the right of individuals with severe mental illness to receive treatment, even if they are unable to seek it.

We are delighted to recognize three individuals who worked diligently in New Mexico to make assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) a reality for residents, said Brian Stettin, policy director of The Treatment Advocacy Center. Sen. Mary Kay Papen has been a tireless mental health advocate for many years, raising her voice for the voiceless. She brings personal passion to the issue, and has repeatedly introduced legislation in the state capitol to deliver life-saving assistance to vulnerable New Mexicans. Her efforts were rewarded with the passage of SB53, the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Act,

Also known as involuntary outpatient treatment, AOT allows family members and others, such as hospital directors, to petition a district judge for an order directing an adult with a mental illness to participate in an outpatient treatment plan. It commits local mental health systems to serve participants at the same time it commits participants to adhere to their mental health treatment plans.

During his distinguished career as New Mexicos six-term U.S. Senator, Pete Domenici was a leading voice for reform of our nations mental health policies in Washington, D.C. In retirement, Sen. Domenici and his wife Nancy remain passionate advocates for people with severe mental illness and their families.

The Domenicis support was crucial to New Mexicos enactment of AOT. They made their case in an urgent appeal to Gov. Susana Martinez, calling for her to support legislation of great importance to authorize AOT.

I am deeply honored to receive this award along with Sen. Domenici and Nancy Domenici, Papen said. Getting compassionate help and care for New Mexicans suffering from mental illness is critical. Helping those individuals with the most severe mental illness live safely in our communities is an important step forward for treatment in our state, and an accomplishment that we may all take pride in.



2017 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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A 24-year-old who shot and killed a man in a Downtown parking lot last summer was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison.

Edward Chavez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He admitted in court Monday that he had at least four prior felony convictions. In exchange for his plea, the District Attorneys Office agreed to a 15-year sentence.

Police were called June 11, 2016, a Saturday, to a parking lot at Central and 6th at night where they found Antonio Thomas, 22, dead with two gunshot wounds.

A concerned citizen later offered information to police that eventually led them to Chavez, who was attempting to flee to Mexico. Chavez told officers that Thomas attempted to stab him. And he admitted that his DNA would be on the murder weapon. Its not clear what the two were fighting about.

Two others, accused of trying to help Chavez escape, have felony cases pending in District Court.
Sandia National Laboratories hopes to recruit women in the engineering and science fields with the help of a new fellowship program named after immediate past lab director and first woman in that job, Jill Hruby.

The Jill Hruby Fellowship Program will provide postdoctoral candidates with a three-year technical leadership development program, including mentoring by executives and exposure to national security policy. The program is aimed at women interested in becoming technical leaders in national security, according to a news release.

I am honored to have a fellowship in my name to inspire science and engineering in public service, and that recognizes leadership as an important element of contributing to Sandia Labs and across the Department of Energy, Hruby said in the lab news release.

The program will help participants lead technical areas at Sandia and other national labs and national security organizations. It complements the existing Truman Fellowship, which is geared toward developing researchers.

Hruby was Sandias director from July 2015 through April 2017, the first woman to lead a national security laboratory. She worked for Sandia for 34 years, first at its California site beginning in 1983. She moved to the New Mexico lab in 2010 as a vice president overseeing counterterrorism, homeland security, energy security and nuclear, biological and chemical security.

Hruby was replaced by Stephen Younger this year when the lab changed management for only the second time in its history. National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, took over from Lockheed Martin, which had managed the lab since 1993.

The fellowship, which will begin in fall 2018, is open to all qualified applicants. Applications must be submitted by Nov. 1 at sandia.gov/careers; search for job number 658086.
Hours before Victor Ortiz, 46, fatally stabbed a taxi driver with a sword Thursday night, he carjacked the vehicle of an acquaintance who was giving him a ride in the South Valley, Albuquerque police say.

Ortizs acquaintance told Bernalillo County sheriffs deputies on Thursday that he had been driving near Coors and Dennis Chavez SW with Ortiz in the passenger seat when Ortiz punched him in the face and burned him with a cigarette, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. He told police Ortiz then pulled out a knife and threatened him until he got out of the car.

The victim fled to a nearby Walmart at Coors and Rio Bravo SW, and Ortiz drove away in his car, according to the complaint. He told deputies where Ortiz lived, but when they went to his Southeast Albuquerque home, neither Ortiz nor the stolen vehicle was there.

A spokeswoman for the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office said Monday afternoon that she didnt know whether the vehicle had been found.

On Sunday night, Ortiz, who was already in jail and charged with murder in the death of cabdriver Khalil Jabbour, picked up the new charges of robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault.

It is unclear what time the reported carjacking happened, but Albuquerque Police Department officers say that later that night, around 11:30 p.m., Ortiz called for a Yellow-Checker cab to pick him up at home.

He later told detectives he thought Jabbour, the driver, was part of the Illuminati  a supposed secret global society of elites who control the worlds powers  that he believed had been breaking into his home and stealing from him.

So, Ortiz told detectives, he stole Jabbours bag and pulled a sword from a sheath and stabbed him in the chest when he tried to get it back. A bystander saw the incident and drove Jabbour, 59, to a hospital, where he died.

Ortiz will be held in the county jail until a hearing in the 2nd Judicial District Court to determine whether he should stay locked up until trial, according to online court documents.
New computer modeling by Public Service Company of New Mexico suggests the utility could save $445 million by pulling out of the coal-fired Four Corners Power Plant this year, rather than waiting until 2031.

The Santa Fe-based environmental group New Energy Economy has seized on those projections, released in early July, to oppose the utilitys request to recover $148.7 million in capital investments at the plant in its current rate case at the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.

But PNM says the computer projections, which PRC rate-case examiners compelled the utility to do based on a request by New Energy Economy, are misleading and speculative because they rely on unrealistic and inaccurate assumptions provided by the environmental group.

It was a bogus request, said PNM spokesman Pahl Shipley. We were told to run an analysis using NEE parameters that are wrong and/or inappropriate, which resulted in a bogus number simply designed to further NEEs false narrative.

The capital investments at Four Corners cover PNMs share of costs for new pollution controls, plus maintenance and operating expenses at the plant, which is run by Arizona Public Service Co. PNM owns a 13 percent stake in the facility.

Recovery of those investments accounts for a significant chunk of the $62.3 million in new annual revenue PNM is seeking in its rate case. If approved, base rates for PNM customers would increase 9 percent, to be phased in over two years.

New Energy Economy says the new computer projections show PNM should have pulled out of Four Corners in 2013, instead of signing new contracts that year to remain in the plant until at least 2031. The group says PNM should have conducted a new financial analysis in 2013 to justify its decision, rather than relying on outdated modeling from 2012 that showed Four Corners generation was still cheaper than other alternatives like natural gas and renewables.

Were asking for disallowance of the capital expenditures associated with Four Corners, New Energy Executive Director Mariel Nanasi said. The PRC has to regulate if such investments are prudent before ratepayers pay for it.

But PNM says the new modeling inappropriately uses current assumptions about prices for natural gas and renewables, and about growth in electric demand, whereas projections in 2012, and again in January 2014, showed remaining in the plant was still more economical than divesting.

The new modeling also ignores wind and solar resources PNM recently added to the grid, making Four Corners divestment more economical today, as well as costs for breaking contracts with plant co-owners and replacement power needed if PNM leaves the plant.

Other environmental organizations appear unswayed by New Energys arguments. Those groups signed a settlement agreement with PNM in May that lowered the utilitys initial rate request from 14 percent to the current 9 percent request.

Western Resource Advocates and the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy said they still support the settlement. Sierra Club, which also signed the May agreement, declined to comment on the new computer modeling.
Albuquerques commercial property sector may be one of the beneficiaries of the growth of the bioscience industry in New Mexico.

Richard Larson, executive vice chancellor for research at the University of New Mexicos Health Sciences Center, on Monday outlined some of the current economic benefits realized by the state and some of the steps New Mexico is taking to further grow its bioscience sector. Larson was addressing the monthly luncheon of the New Mexico chapter of NAIOP, the trade association for commercial real state and developers.

Some 700 biotech companies of varying sizes now work in human health, agriculture and environmental issues around the state, generating $1.2 billion in revenue in 2015. That includes new medical devices, diagnostic tools and treatments, as well as improved methods and tools for food production and safety, and innovative use of microbes and enzymes to make manufacturing and chemical processes environmentally friendly, said Larson.

Since 2004, 42 companies have either spun out of UNM labs or licensed university technology to form a commercial enterprise, he said.

Those businesses directly employ about 9,300 people, and up to 41,000 if related support jobs are included. That represents about 7 percent of all New Mexicos private sector jobs, according to the a new report from GrowBio, an initiative headed by the UNM Health Sciences Center and the Albuquerque Economic Development Department.

And those are generally high-paying jobs that often dont require advanced degrees, Larson said.

The takeaway is that every professional group growing the economy needs to get on board with this, said Larson of the potential not only for bioscience-related job creation, but capitalizing on the need for real estate. These companies, whether startups or more established, will need specialized facilities for research and development, light manufacturing and administrative offices.

Larson said while 75 percent of the countrys bioscience sector is concentrated in nine cities, places like New Mexico still can compete. Venture capital looks for deals either in terms of less expensive real estate, costs of doing business and an available workforce, he said. Both coasts are saturated.

Larson said New Mexico is bolstering its competitiveness with the establishment of a bioscience authority, which will establish connections between the innovation community and sources of capital to fund bioscience startups or attract new companies to the state.

Such an entity will help coordinate policies and incentives to attract investor capital and reduce administrative roadblocks, helping to translate biotechnology discoveries made in the states universities and national laboratories into new job-creating enterprises, Larson said.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

After three years, New Mexico students have slightly improved their performance on the PARCC exam, but the scores remain low.

The 2017 results, released Monday, show 28.6 percent proficiency in English language arts and 19.7 percent in math. In 2015, the first year PARCC was administered in New Mexico, the numbers were 26.4 percent and 17.4 percent, respectively.

Albuquerque Public Schools and Rio Rancho Public Schools actually saw English scores decline slightly over the past three years, while math was nearly flat.

English scores for APS dropped 2.1 percentage points and were below the state average in the latest results at 27 percent; math scores increased slightly and were on par at 19.7 percent.

Christopher Ruszkowski, acting secretary of education, pointed to several large districts that saw improvement but acknowledged that APS  with one-quarter of the states students at more than 80,000  had a huge impact on the states overall scores.

No question the largest district is a bellwether of how we are doing, he told the Journal. We cant move forward as a state without our largest district on board.

APS did not respond to a request for comment.

A Rio Rancho Public Schools spokeswoman said administrators are still reviewing the results and highlighted positives such as double-digit gains in eighth-grade math and English.

While our results overall indicate areas where students did well, they also reveal areas where we need to improve, Kim Vesely said in an emailed statement.

Despite the poor growth, RRPS is still one of the top performers in the state  40 percent of students were proficient in English and 29.2 percent in math, according to the latest data.

Santa Fe Public Schools saw slight gains, with 28.3 percent proficiency in English and 16.5 percent in math.

Ruszkowski said several districts that embraced reforms saw progress on PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment and Readiness for College and Careers, a computer exam administered in grades 3-11.

Other districts, including Farmington and Belen, signed on for many PED programs and improved their PARCC scores as a result, Ruszkowski said.

Farmingtons scores are now among the best in the state  39.3 percent proficient in English and 25.5 percent in math, an increase of 11.5 percentage and 5.8 percentage points, respectively, over the past three years.

Gadsden, a district near El Paso, is also above average. In 2017, 31.8 percent of its students were proficient in English and 24.4 percent in math, up 10.7 percentage points and 6.9 percentage points since 2015. Ruszkowski said Gadsden is not signed up with all of the PED programs but has embraced reform similar to PEDs.

Ruszkowski highlighted two PED mentorship programs he feels are driving significant change: Principals Pursuing Excellence and Teachers Pursuing Excellence. The efforts target low-performing schools and educators for additional support. PED graphics show that schools in those programs, while starting at lower levels, showed more growth than the rest of the schools.

Farmingtons Heights Middle School is participating in both programs and has seen English proficiency rise 15.8 percentage points from 2015 to 2017, while math proficiency is up 14.2 percentage points.

Similar schools in Belen and Alamogordo are also posting strong gains.

We need the whole state to be where these schools are, Ruszkowski said. Progress is possible for those embracing reform.

Ruszkowski, who took over as head of the Public Education Department from Hanna Skandera on June 20, is hopeful more districts will decide to take advantage of such programs.

In mid-August, he said, he will sit down with APS Superintendent Raquel Reedy for the first time as acting secretary of education.

While I am optimistic about meeting with the educators, the superintendent and the team, the board has to chart a course that puts student learning and academics and college and career readiness front and center, he said.

He said the first step would be for him to learn about APS new academic master plan, which outlines the districts goals and how to reach them.

Opt-outs down

Ruszkowski also noted the dramatic decline in the opt-out movement, which was a force when PARCC was introduced in 2015. That year, 5,497 students refused to take the test and walkouts were staged across the state to protest the rigorous, Common Core-aligned exam.

The number of opt-outs dropped to 2,300 in 2016 and 1,235 in 2017.

But PARCC continues to be divisive, particularly the use of the test scores in calculating teacher proficiency and school grades. PED has said the approach holds teachers and districts accountable, but the states teachers unions claim it is unfair and produces inaccurate results.

Betty Patterson, National Education Association of New Mexico president, argued that standardized tests based on a narrowly prescribed curriculum and linked to specific grade levels are not a good way to judge student or teacher success.

Similarly, American Federation of Teachers New Mexico President Stephanie Ly said PARCC is not working for students, schools and educators.

It is now 2017, and other than continued low scores, New Mexico doesnt have much to show for its tens of millions of dollars wasted on the PARCC exam, Ly said, citing the states payment to the PARCC test company, Pearson.


Gutenberg, the global integrated communications agency, providing Digital, Content, Video and Public Relations services today announced that Christina Daniels has joined the company as Director of Content for India.

Harjiv Singh, Founder & CEO, Gutenberg, said, I am pleased to welcome Christina in our leadership team. We have taken our time to find the right content leader, whose understanding of the communication business is phenomenal. Christina will be responsible for conceptualising and executing cutting-edge content that speaks to a global audience. The diversity of her experience and the depth of her talent will be key in driving the creative transformation at Gutenberg.

Christina brings an experience of 15 years in the field of corporate story telling. In past, she has been associated with several leading technology, retail and media brands - creating compelling sories that help them communicate powerfully. Christina is also the author of the bestseller Ill Do It My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan, a filmography that studies the work of the actor Aamir Khan, which was long listed for the Crossword Book Award, and now has a Turkish edition.

Prior to joining Gutenberg, Christina held the position of Marcom Manager at CGI. She led marcom content development at the Global Communications Center in India. Before this, Christina was also associated with organizations such as Microsoft, Metro Cash & Carry, Dell Services, Wipro Technologies, IBM and STAR, to name a few. It is an honour to have been associated with Gutenberg, where story telling is at the core of the organizations approach. By working on content strategy and building out capabilities across the country, we will be able to provide brands with other engaging ways to connect with consumers. Working with the talent at Gutenberg, I believe sky is the limit, said Christina Daniels, Director (Content), Gutenberg.

Globally, Gutenberg services industries such as technology, financial services, real estate, healthcare, education, renewable energy, aviation, defence, hospitality, infrastructure and not-for-profit causes. The companys clientele includes KPIT, U.S.-India Business Council and Quikr, to name a few.
BSE-SME listed Majestic Research Services and Solutions Ltd has acquired 100% stake in Singapore-based market research company Market Probe Asia Pacific Pte Ltd from its US parent  Market Probe Inc. in an all cash deal.

Explaining the rationale behind the acquisition, Raj Sharma, Chairman, MRSS India said,We had three criteria set for strategic acquisition that are captive client base, specialized capability and geographical reach. The Market Probe Asia acquisition acts as a gateway to ASIA specifically growth markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Market Probe Asia is a full service research agency with full time staff strength ofapproximately 50 and has over 800 projects under its belt across public, private and government sectors. It is one of the select few market research firms licensed to undertake Singapore government projects valued at SGD 10 million. The agency has completed 15 years of business excellence in Singapore.

Speaking on the deal, Dr T.R. Rao, Chairman of Market Probe Inc said, The intrinsic nature of the Market Research industry is to scale by inorganic growth. MRSS, albeit a disruptor is on the right track by eyeing acquisitions as an important component of their growth strategy. I am delighted that I am handing over the reins of a very critical part of Market Probe to MRSS who have grand plans of taking it to next level.

Sarang Panchal CEO, MRSS, said, The opportunity for a turnaround are immense via MRSS as we not only will look at converting a traditional market research firm to a Digital Insights Agency but also will re-orient the customer focus that the agency so far had. Of course, there is always the added advantage of cost restructuring to improve the margins.

Speaking on the synergies, Raj Sharma said, The capabilities of Market Probe Asia are in sync with and salient to the clients that MRSS is currently servicing in India. The acquired company already has multiple government contracts that have been serviced for several years. This is the just the beginning of MRSS Asia which has been the vision for Majestic Research.

Research methodologies currently practiced by Market Probe Asia include web surveys, face to face interviews, street intercept, dip stick polls, telephone interview, focus group discussion, in depth interviews, mystery shopping, traffic count among others. Saji Kumar,

MD of MP- SG added Raj, Sandeep and Sarang are a great team and I look forward to working with them and take the clients, team and the agency to the next orbit with renewed dynamism and energy
Today, mobile marketing and advertising have become an integral part of marketers strategy to tap the digital savvy generation. The innovation and immense creativity in mobile campaigns is making the industry stand up and take notice.

The MOBEXX Awards have been designed to recognise and celebrate excellence in mobile marketing and advertising. The Awards seek to set industry-wide benchmark in mobile engagement. MOBEXX Awards will be a true marker for mobile initiatives that are innovative, creative and effective. The Awards will be held during the Modern Marketing Summit, New Delhi, on October 25, 2017. Entries for the Awards are currently open.

The MOBEXX Awards are judged by an independent panel of highly acclaimed thought leaders in the advertising ecosystem-advertising agency executives who create campaigns for the worlds most powerful brands, marketers with direct control over many of the largest advertising budgets and major media company leaders. They include:

Anita Nayyar, CEO - India & South Asia, Havas Media Group

Shubhodip Pal, Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer, Micromax Informatics

Manav Sethi, CMO, ALTBalaji

Florent Valluri, Managing Director - Sales & Marketing South East Asia Pacific & Indian continent, Gameloft

Jaswant Singh, Managing Director - India, AdTech, iMedia and Mobile Media Summits - Comexposium

Sanjeev Jasani, Senior VP & Chief Digital Office - India & SW Asia, Cheil India

Anjali Hegde, CEO, Ansible Mobile India

Shibu Shivanandan, Founder & Managing Director, PivotRoots

Shamsuddin Jasani, MD, Isobar India

According to Anita Nayyar, CEO - India & South Asia, Havas Media Group, Given the obvious progression across the world from traditional to digital, agencies need to redefine the idea of mobile and be future-ready with the development of AI and the explosion of virtual reality. It is great to have dedicated platforms like MOBEXX that focus on such digital innovations, recognise and honour them. I am honoured to be part of an esteemed jury panel. Looking forward to some exciting entries and being an integral part of the inaugural edition of MOBEXX Awards 2017.

We are now living in the era of mobility, remarked Shamsuddin Jasani, MD, Isobar India, adding, India as a country is a mobile first country and I truly believe that marketing needs to be mobile first to keep pace with the users. It will be quite interesting to witness the work done in the space and see some innovation coming in.

Jasani further said, Recognising this growing hike of the mobile, we are certain to see some excellent work in the mobile marketing and advertising space. It gives me great pleasure to be a part of the inaugural session and inspire the community by directing the future trends and where the industry is heading.

Florent Vallauri, Managing Director - Sales & Marketing South East Asia Pacific & Indian Continent, Gameloft, too, believes that mobile advertising is growing by leaps and bounds and soon has the potential to take over the ad spend from other traditional platforms. It is time we recognise the digital drivers and award them the due credit for driving this exponential growth and encourage any form of innovation or forward thinking in mobile ad technologies, he added.

Vallauri further said, It is an honour to be associated with MOBEXX as a part of their esteemed jury panel to recognise the mobile leaders and honour innovation, creativity and success in the field of mobile advertising.
It all started when actor Sara Arfeen Khan did not get paid for her stint in the show Jamai Raja. The actor says that once the show ended, the producer also disappeared. "I worked for 3 months in Jamai Raja last year. I was part of the show in October, November and December and my first cheque was due in January. The show got shut down and since then we have had problems connecting to the office and Meenakshi," says Sara.

When they got no response, the former cast decided to approach Cine and TV artists association (CINTAA). "After 5 months of no one responding to our calls and messages, we actors formed a group and decided to go to CINTAA. CINTAA organised a meeting with Meenakshi, who promised us that the cheques would be cleared in a few weeks. She even mailed us the same. After that we waited for another two months, but nothing happened," she says.

Sara adds, "Finally after dropping messages and warning her a couple of times about going to the media, her office staff released two post dated cheques for one month's payment. But the first cheque bounced! I informed the office and got really mad at them and they promised me that they will issue another cheque and that the 2nd one will not bounce."

However, the second cheque also bounced, which was when Sara decided to take legal action. "After waiting for another 10 days, my office deposited the cheque which also bounced. Then I told my coordinator that this is a criminal offence and that I need to talk to my lawyer. After that I got a a message from Meenakshi promising me that she will do a RTG transfer within 5 days. After 5 days, I messaged her again and reminded her of her promise. She did an RTG transfer of only 50,000, which was nothing compared to the amount due. Several messages were sent to her and my coordinator and there was no response. Then I contacted my lawyer and he sent her the first notice," she says.

Although some money was returned, Sara says that a lot is still balance. "After the notice, she transferred the balance amount of one month's payment. By then my lawyer had already stated in the notice that according to section 138, she has to pay 18 percent of the bounced cheques. After that no money has been transferred and there is no response from Meenakshi regarding our payments. It's been 7 months and our payments have not been cleared. I am left with no chance but to seek the help of media," says Sara.

A helpless Sara states that she feels hurt at being betrayed in this way. "I feel very cheated as I used to work religiously and would travel for 3 hours daily to Naigaon for the show. Most of the time I even put in extra hours, which clearly has not been appreciated " she says.
Google updated the Smart Reply feature of its Gmail app with native support for Spanish, the Mountain View, California-based Internet giant announced on Monday. Seeing how the Gmail Android app didnt receive a client-side update since Friday, it seems that the newly introduced functionality is being rolled out with a server-side switch and may take between several hours and a few days before being available to users all around the world. The English version of Smart Reply was distributed to Gmail users in a relatively swift manner earlier this year, with Alphabets subsidiary completing that particular rollout in a matter of hours instead of days. Past successes still dont guarantee a smooth release in this case as even Silicon Valley giants with vast amounts of resources can sometimes encounter unforeseen development issues, as Google itself recently found out while distributing the new Feed functionality of its flagship Google app. The Spanish support for the Smart Reply feature of Gmail is being simultaneously rolled out to both the Android and iOS version of the service, the company confirmed.

The solution itself is essentially a slightly reworked version of the Smart Reply functionality thats been available to Googles Inbox users since late 2015 and also made its way to the Google Allo instant messaging (IM) app last September. Just like its name suggests, the feature provides you with the ability to send quick, pre-written replies to your recipient, as Googles machine learning and other artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will analyze the contents of your email and attempt to guess three short answers that youre most likely to want to send back. The answers youre able to send in just a few taps usually consist of only a few words, though they still might help you be more productive, depending on the type of emails you usually send and receive.

The English version of the same functionality is also already available to desktop users of Gmail, though it remains to be seen how long will Google take to update its web app with Smart Reply Spanish support. Regardless, given how much the company has been promoting the service in recent weeks, the feature may start supporting even more languages in the near future.
The new and improved Feed experience of the Google app is experiencing a number of distribution issues on Android devices, the Alphabet-owned company confirmed on Sunday. In a statement provided to Recode, a Google spokesperson said that the main issue preventing a smoother distribution of the functionality to all Android-powered smartphones and tablets pertains to the manner in which the Google app is meant to be accessed on these devices. A large number of consumers are already used to accessing the service by simply swiping right on their system home screens and the Mountain View, California-based tech giant designed the new Feed to load as soon as the user does so. However, an unspecified development issue is currently preventing some smartphones and tablets from loading the Feed following that gesture and the company is currently in the process of doing a better job of integrating the functionality into its ubiquitous operating system, Google said.

According to the firms official comment on the matter, the launch of the feature on devices that are yet to receive it may take slightly longer than the Internet giant originally planned, though the company didnt provide a more specific time frame to accompany that announcement. Whereas Google is now struggling to update the Android version of its service with the new functionality, Alphabets subsidiary apparently had no issues with distributing the feature to the iOS build of its mobile solution.

The Feed itself is essentially a redesigned version of a similar feature that Google already debuted in late 2016, though the company reportedly significantly improved its content aggregation algorithms in the last seven months and claims that the latest solution is much better at identifying content you may be interested in. The service is powered by the firms proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and is primarily looking to act as a content hub that users will like to browse from time to time and stay on top of all topics theyre interested in. As such, the functionality is more or less looking to compete with Facebook and Twitters news feeds in the sense that it wants users to see the Google app as not just a tool for getting answers to specific questions, but a compilation of recent updates on all subjects they care about.
The HTC U11 Sapphire Blue is now available for pre-orders in India and will start shipping to customers after July 30, the Taiwanese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) announced. The smartphone happens to be a more premium version of the U11 lineup as it packs 6GB of RAM and 128GB of UFS 2.1 internal storage instead of 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage which is available in a number of other markets. It is priced at Rs. 51,990 ($807) and can be pre-ordered from HTC Indias official online store. Two other color variants are already available for purchase in the South Asian country, though the Brilliant Black model is currently out of stock.

HTC launched the U11 a few months back, introducing it as its main 2017 flagship with high-end specs. This includes a 5.5-inch QHD display protected by Cornings Gorilla Glass 5 and IP67 certification that guarantees dust and water-resistance. The HTC U11 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip (SoC) equipped with the Adreno 540 GPU. One of the main features of the HTC U11 happens to be its camera setup that currently holds the highest score in terms of camera performance on DxOmark. The UltraPixel3 camera is a 12-megapixel sensor assisted by HDR Boost, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), a BSI sensor, and UltraSpeed dual-pixel PDAF for fast focusing. Meanwhile, selfies and video calls are handled by a 16-megapixel camera module located on the front of the device.

Keeping the lights on is a 3,000mAh non-removable battery that comes with support for Qualcomms QuickCharge 3.0 technology. The HTC U11 is charged via its USB Type-C port, which happens to be the only port present on the handset. HTC also boasts support for Edge Sense, a new feature that allows users to squeeze the sides of the phone to perform certain functions. In terms of software, the HTC U11 comes with Android 7.1.1 Nougat running out of the box, enhanced with the OEMs proprietary mobile software suite. Connectivity options of the device include Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, and NFC support for contactless payments. A fingerprint scanner has also been embedded into the home button housed by the HTC U11s bottom bezel.
OnePlus Launcher reappeared on the Google Play Store on Sunday, just under three weeks after being pulled from Googles digital marketplace. The BBK Electronics-owned company initially published the launcher on the Google Play Store shortly after introducing the OnePlus 5 and presumably in an effort to be able to update the service independently of general system updates for its devices, though the company delisted the app shortly after. OnePlus has yet to comment on the matter in any capacity and the firm also didnt reflect on the launchers reappearance as of this writing, but as things stand right now, it seems that the service went through some changes in the last three weeks of its absence from the most popular Android digital store on the planet.

The changelog accompanying the latest build of the launcher still isnt particularly telling, as it only mentions some general performance enhancements and bug fixes that are supposed to improve the end-user experience of the app but arent elaborated on by the Shenzhen, Guangdong-based original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Still, the app itself is now seemingly available for download for all owners of compatible OnePlus-made devices and will presumably be updated on a regular basis in the future. Its currently unclear whether the original beta program that accompanied the first release of the launcher in early July is still supported by the service, though theres little reason for it not to be.

Having its proprietary mobile software suite listed as an Android app on the Google Play Store allows OnePlus to issue OnePlus Launcher updates in a more efficient manner as its able to host the new builds on Googles servers and its team working on the service doesnt need to wait for other software departments and bundle its patches with those of their own. As users can simply set the app to be automatically updated through the Google Play Store, they can continue receiving the latest features before anyone else while still not having to worry about manually updating any software on their devices. The reappearance of the app came to light shortly after the Chinese phone maker confirmed that the most high-end variant of the OnePlus 5 is now back in stock and is shipping momentarily.
Following in the footsteps of the K10000 Plus and the K10000 Pro, OUKITEL has now confirmed the full specs for its latest K10000 addition, the K10000 MAX. One of the clear differences with the K10000 MAX compared to the rest of the K10000 range is its emphasis on durability. As among other things, the K10000 MAX offers a rugged casing which makes this an option aimed at those that need greater levels of protection, without having to compromise on performance.

In terms of that protective casing, the K10000 MAXs body makes use of a anti-drop and anti-dust outer shell. As a result, and thanks to the included IP68 certification, this is also a waterproof smartphone. In terms of the rest of the main specs, the OUKITEL K10000 MAX is a smartphone that is equipped with a 5.5-inch display along with a 1920 x 1080 resolution. Inside, the K10000 MAX comes loaded with 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, and is powered by a MediaTek 6753 octa-core processor (clocking at 1.3 GHz). The rear camera comes in a 13-megapixel form, although it is interpolated up to 16-megapixels. While the front-camera is an 8-megapixel camera (interpolated up to 13-megapixels). Additional features worth noting include expandable storage (up to 64GB), 4G LTE support, USB Type-C connectivity, and Android 7.0 (Nougat).

Of course, the K10000 MAX would not be a K10000 smartphone if it did not come loaded with a battery to last. In this case, the K10000 MAX once again comes loaded with a 10,000 mAh battery, one which OUKITEL suggests will last for several days before needing to be charged again. Which coupled with the military-grade outer casing makes this the type of smartphone that will likely appeal to industry workers and outdoor enthusiasts, as well as general consumers. OUKITEL is already accepting subscriptions for those who want to be one of the first to pick up the K10000 MAX, and those early subscribers will receive a $50 coupon code which can be used against the purchase when the smartphone does become available. Some of those subscribers will also have the opportunity to pick the K10000 MAX up for half the price it will be on sale for. More details on the subscription process through the link below.
Major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will both collaborate and compete with one another in the second half of the year, industry sources said on Monday, adding that the likes of Samsung Electronics, Google, LG Electronics, and Apple will be reliant on their competitors as much as theyll be looking to beat them. According to the latest report from South Korea, LG will be manufacturing at least one of the two members of the upcoming Pixel 2 lineup that the Alphabet-owned company is expected to introduce in early fall. The Mountain View, California-based tech giant enlisted the help of HTC for the original Pixel series but is now reportedly looking to split the manufacturing burden between the Taiwanese phone maker and LG Electronics, insiders previously claimed.

The Seoul-based consumer electronics manufacturer already has a long working history with Google, having previously manufactured the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and the Nexus 5X for the company. Google was reportedly eyeing a major investment in LGs mobile OLED business earlier this year but its still unclear whether the firm ultimately decided to went through with that idea. Whereas LG will be helping Google on the hardware front, the company will turn to its partner for assistance in regards to mobile software, as the Google Assistant is expected to be pre-installed on the upcoming LG V30, sources close to the firm claim. Likewise, the LG V30 will reportedly ship with support for Googles virtual reality (VR) platform Daydream thats also expected to roll out to the Galaxy S8 lineup in the coming weeks. Its currently unclear whether the upcoming Galaxy Note 8 will support Daydream out of the box, though that particular model is at least said to ship with the Google Assistant in addition to featuring Samsungs proprietary Bixby companion.

Samsung is simultaneously looking to supply certain components for the iPhone 8 series to Apple, and this interconnected state of affairs in the mobile industry has a realistic chance of negatively affecting innovation, some industry watchers speculate, adding how most of the major OEMs are slowly becoming too dependent on each other and are hence not putting a large focus on major technological advancements.
Three new renders depicting whats said to be Huaweis Honor Note 9 leaked online on Monday, having initially been shared by one industry insider from China. The newly uncovered images that can be seen in the gallery below show a device with an edge-to-edge display panel and a relatively slim top and bottom bezel thats largely similar to another supposed sighting of the Honor Note 9 from earlier this month. The handset shown in the renders doesnt have a physical Home button and its top bezel houses a single camera sensor, whereas its rear panel features a dual lens camera setup with a dual-LED (dual tone) flash unit, with the imaging system itself entailing two horizontally arranged sensors located in the top-left corner of the phones back plate. The fingerprint scanner of the supposed Honor Note 9 is placed approximately one-third of the way down from the top of its rear panel and is centered, with the device depicted in the new renders also featuring Honors branding on both its front and back side.

The Honor Note 9 initially started leaking online as early as March, and while older sightings of the phablet arent identical to the more recent ones, its possible that Huaweis subsidiary had a number of its prototype units leaked, whereas the handset shown below is more in line with the final version of the product. According to previous reports, the Chinese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is looking to equip the Honor Note 9 with either the Kirin 960 or the unannounced Kirin 970, with the device itself also being set to sport up to 6GB of RAM and at least 32GB of internal flash memory. The Honor Note 9 will likely run some build of Android Nougat out of the box, enhanced with Huaweis Emotion UI, and the smartphone should be updated to Android O by early 2018.

The device is expected to pack a massive 6.6-inch display panel and its dual camera setup is said to consist of two identical 13-megapixel sensors. The front camera module of the Honor Note 9 was previously rumored to be of the 8-megapixel variety, with some industry insiders claiming that the handsets battery will have a capacity of up to 5,000mAh. The Honor Note 9 may launch in late September or early October, around the same time the Huawei-owned phone maker introduced the Honor Note 8 last year.
MPV

Next-generation crossover MPV is how Mitsubishi refers to its newcomer, with the official name scheduled to be made public at the Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show 2017. Let me repeat that: Mitsubishi is keeping this people haulers name secret until August 10!Despite everything, numerous reports from Japan and Indonesia refer to the crossoveras the Expander. From a visual standpoint, Mitsubishi hasnt made too many modifications to the exterior design of the XM Concept shown during last years Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show.4,475 millimeters long, 1,750 millimeters wide and with a ride height of 20.5 centimeters, the tentatively named Expander comes with seating for seven as standard. A replacement for both the Freeca and Zinger, the multi-purpose-vehicle hides a 1.5-liter gasoline-fed four-cylinder engine behind the Dynamic Shield front grille. Exclusively available with front-wheel-drive, the Expander comes with a choice of two transmissions: five speeds of the manual variety or a kei car -inspired four-speed automatic.The interior is a melange of straightforward design and ergonomics-oriented layout, the highlight coming in the form of wood detailing on the passenger side of the dashboard and door panels. The steering wheel, if you know your Mitsubishi vehicles well, comes from refreshed Outlander Scheduled to enter production at the Mitsubishi plant in Bekasi, Indonesia , the Expander is expected to go on sale in the third quarter of 2017 from 189 million rupiah. Thats $14,200 based on the current exchange rates, whereas the range-topping configuration is expected to kick off in the ballpark of 246 million rupiah (approximately $18,475).While Indonesia waits for the Expander to hit dealer showrooms, Europe and the U.S. brace themselves to welcome the Eclipse Cross . The compact crossover utility vehicle is also due to arrive at dealers this fall.
Icon Aircraft hopes to deliver 15 aircraft by the end of this year and ramp up to 200 for 2018. In an interview at AirVenture 2017, CEO Kirk Hawkins said six aircraft have been delivered to customers who have so far been pleased with the aircraft. Customers love it, said Hawkins, who added that resumption of deliveries is a significant milestone for the company. The company suspended production 18 months ago when it became apparent that its production goal of 200 a year from its Vacaville, California, assembly plant was overly optimistic because it was plagued by supply-chain problems from third party suppliers, particularly in composite parts. We took that back in-house, he said. A new 300,000-square-foot composites facility in Tijuana recently came online and the first airplane using parts from the Mexican plant will be delivered in September.

Along the way, the company has identified small design modifications that make the aircraft easier to build. The new aircraft will be designated as 2018 models. He said the company has a backlog of 1800 orders but will increase production based on new demand from the market. He said its gratifying to finally have some revenue coming into the company instead of it pouring out and hes pleased with the reception from customers. While waiting for the production facilities, the company focused on training position holders and has put 125 customers through the course. We have an airplane factory and a pilot factory, Hawkins said.
Following years of incremental progress and cabin mock-ups, Stratos arrived at Oshkosh 2017 with a real airplane. After first flight in November 2016, the proof of concept aircraft is still early in envelope expansion testing. At 70 flight hours, company test pilots have taken the Stratos 714 to 330 knots true airspeed, 250 knots indicated and 18,000 feet. Kevin Jordan, chief sales officer, says the production airplane will carry four 200-pound passengers, with bags, for a 1,500 nautical mile trip at 400 knots true and FL410.

Specifications for the jet were laid down over a decade ago, before the great recession, when very light jets were the next big thing. Lancair owner Michael Lemaire and Lancair engineer Carsten Sundin had a vision for the next airplane Lemaire wanted. The single-engine jet would need to be at least 50 knots faster and go 50% farther than the Lancair IV-P with four full-sized people. Thats still the plan. Stratos has enough cash for one more test article, but Jordan says getting the airplane certified will require additional outside funding. If they cant get the additional funding, Jordan says Stratos could begin production on a kit version today, and that it would be a profitable business model, but its not their first choice.

Stratos isnt projecting a final sale price, in part because aircraft certification and sales are likely still years away, but Fred Hadlich, director of maintenance and prototype project manager, says buyers can expect pricing competitive with comparably sized, certified turboprops like the Epic LT or the TBM 930. Hadlich believes the market for the 714 will be more robust than the overall success of the VLJ concept would suggest. With the utility of smaller turboprops, speed of small twin-jets and the simplicity of a single engine, there are quite a few markets the 714 can accessif Stratos can get the airplane through certification.
The Government Accountability Office, which audits other federal agencies to uncover instances of fraud and abuse of power, set up an undercover operation to determine whether the Department of Defense would sell military-grade equipment to unauthorized buyers, per The Marshall Project.

The GOA created a fake law enforcement agency  accompanied with a faux website claiming it did high-level security and counterterrorism work, and an address that led to an empty parking lot  and applied for the gear. Within a week the agency said in a report that its fake cops received $1.2 million worth of night vision goggles, simulated M-16A2 rifles, and pipe bomb equipment from the DoD's 1033 Clinton-era program.

"They never did any verification, like visit our 'location,' and most of it was by email," Zina Merritt, director of the GAO's defense capabilities team, told The Marshall Project. "It was like getting stuff off of eBay."

1033 program: The Clinton-era program enables local cops to obtain equipment not being used by the U.S. military. Following Ferguson, Barack Obama issued an executive order rolling back the scope of the program, and ordered law enforcement agencies requesting military gear to undergo training and agree to oversight procedures.

What's next: The GAO report says the DoD has vowed to crack down on its verification procedures, and will now try to visit the location of agencies that apply to the program. The department will also complete an internal fraud assessment by April 2018.
24 July 2017 12:58 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The situation in the frontline between the Armenian and Azerbaijani troops remains unstable, and the Armenian side continues to use this in its false statements in an attempt to denigrate the Azerbaijani Army.

Recently, the Armenian media reported that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces allegedly fired on Armenian villages located near the state border between two countries. However, the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry has refuted this false news.

This kind of news published by the Armenian government is aimed at deceiving different countries in the military alliance by bringing them to its ugly adventure and justify its provocations against Azerbaijani civilians residing in border villages, the ministry told APA on July 24.

The Armenian armed forces themselves shell Azerbaijani villages, its civilian population, and this was proved in early July, when two Azerbaijani civilians living in the border village of Alkhanly  Sahiba Allahverdiyeva and her two-year-old granddaughter Zahra Guliyeva  were killed by an Armenian shell.

Today, Armenia continues such provocations against Azerbaijani civilian population. The Defence Ministry said that the Kamarli and Gaymagli villages of Azerbaijans Gazakh region and the Kohanabi, Agbulag, and Aghdam villages of Tovuz region have been fired on by the Armenian armed forces from guns of different calibers.

As a result, civilian facilities in the settlements, sown areas and private farms were damaged, the Ministry said, noting that the enemy was silenced immediately with retaliatory fire.

Armenias criminal-political regime is fully responsible for the tension in the frontline and its consequences. The Armenian government, instead of coming to the negotiating table with Azerbaijan to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, continues to shell Azerbaijani positions and villages daily, thus preserving fragility in the region.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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24 July 2017 18:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijani language is gaining popularity among Armenians, as more and more people in the post-Soviet country believe it is necessary to speak "enemy's language".

Increasing trend in the number of those desiring to know Azerbaijani was emphasized in an article recently published by the Open Caucasus Media news agency.

The author of the article, titled A growing trend in Armenia  learning Azerbaijani, writes that the Armenians believe it is strategically important to know the language of the enemy.

The relations between the two South Caucasus nations have dramatically severed in late 1980's, following Armenia's wish to annex Azerbaijan's region of Nagorno-Karabakh through war. Armenia occupied 20 percent of neighboring Azerbaijan's territory and displaced over 1 million Azerbaijanis from their native lands. Since then the Armenian authorities pursue the policy of hatred against Azerbaijan among their population. Armenian children are behaved with in the spirit of strong hatred towards Azerbaijanis, and maybe this is one of the main reasons why the almost 30-year-old Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is still unresolved.

However, the Armenian authorities claim that Armenians are peaceful people who are raising children in the spirit of peace. It is obvious that majority of Armenians do not like and even hate their eastern neighbor Azerbaijan, because the political regime of this country leads the nation in this way.

It is noteworthy that Armenians do not learn Azerbaijani for no reason. As the deputy rector of the Oriental Studies Faculty of the Yerevan State University Ruben Melkonyan said, the university courses in Azerbaijani language started in 2008, and this program is implemented together with Armenias Ministry of Defence, which funds the education of four students.

Thus, it is clear what would be the future occupation of these students in the future. They will obviously become Armenian saboteurs, which wont only join the Armenian intelligence agency but also may organize terrorist attacks in Azerbaijan by infiltrating into the country with false documents.

There were enough proofs of Armenian attacks against Azerbaijani civilian population in the past. For instance, there were two terrorist attacks in March and July 1994 in the Baku metro. The investigation then established that the instructors of these terrorist acts were the members of the Armenian intelligence agency Colonel Karen Bagdasaryan and Captain Seyran Sargsyan.

Therefore, the fact that the Armenian Defense Ministry funds the courses of the Azerbaijani language raises serious concerns. There is a high probability that those students are being prepared for further provocations against Azerbaijan and the countrys population.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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24 July 2017 17:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The issue of extradition of the blogger Alexander Lapshin, who was sentenced to three years in prison in Baku, is not on the agenda, Lapshins lawyer Eduard Chernin told Trend on July 24.

Last week, the Baku Court on Grave Crimes sentenced the blogger to three years of imprisonment on charges of his illegal visits to the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani lands and a criminal conspiracy with the Armenians living there.

Chernin said the extradition is impossible as long as the court decision doesnt come into force.

The verdict against Lapshin has not yet entered into force. Therefore, he is still contained in the Baku detention facility No. 1, said the lawyer.

Chernin added that he will meet with Lapshin next week.

After the meeting we will know whether he will appeal the courts decision. Lapshin hasnt yet made any decision in this regard, the lawyer said.

Blogger Lapshin was charged with his illegal visits to the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani lands and a criminal conspiracy with the Armenians living there. He violated Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

Helped by his accomplices in the occupied territories, Lapshin paid a number of visits to Azerbaijans occupied lands, where he voiced support for "independence" of the illegal regime, and made public calls against Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

The blogger was arrested in Minsk in late 2016 and transferred to Baku in February 2017.

By the decision of the Baku Court on Grave Crimes, Lapshin will serve his three-year sentence in a general regime colony.

Unauthorized visits to Nagorno-Karabakh and other regions of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia are considered illegal, and any individuals paying such visits are included in the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's black list.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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24 July 2017 13:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Looking for reasons to try yoga? From increased strength to flexibility to heart health, yoga has many benefits.

Yoga does more than burn calories and tone muscles. This total mind-body workout combines stretching poses with deep breathing and meditation.

The relaxation techniques incorporated in yoga can lessen chronic pain, such as lower back pain, arthritis, headaches. Aside from the physical benefits, it also helps a person manage stress.

YARAT Contemporary Art Space has an open air yoga festival.

The yoga festival is a vivid experience, classes with the best teachers in yoga, workshops for children, healthy food and excellent mood.

The event, co-organized by Baku Boulevard State Administration aims to promote healthy lifestyle, Trend Life reported.

The festival began on July 23 with a mass outdoor yoga session by head of The Art of Living Azerbaijan Kanan Mammadov.

"Yoga is not just exercise, there are various styles that include both the physical constituent of yoga, and a philosophical part. And usually beginners take a yoga class from a sporting point of view, but in the future they experience considerable mental change  inner peace and harmony. The word "yoga" from the Sanskrit root means to unite the harmony of body, soul and mind," said Mammadov.

Before the festival, all participants were provided with detailed information about practices of yoga, lectures, workshops, consultations, classes for children, etc.

During the day variety of different activities were held. Green lawns near the Caspian Sea, yoga classes with professional teachers, master classes for children, music performances, fire show, flying yoga, healthy food, aikido, capoeira, and a great mood were provided to all participants.

The festival organizers have also prepared special events for kids  face art, yoga for kids, drawing.

The yoga day sparked the interest of Baku residents.

"I do yoga for almost three years, and try not to miss such events. The festival is a great opportunity to meet like-minded people, learn about different areas of yoga, to attend classes and workshops. During class, you feel a surge of energy, so I advise everyone to do yoga," said Sabina Mustafayeva who joined the festival.

Partners to the festival are Yoga Shahi Studio,The Art of Living International Foundation, Indian Dance Studio Chandramukhi and Sevimli Bala children's organization.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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24 July 2017 14:15 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

A small missile ship Grad Sviyazhsk and a rescue tugboat SB-45 of the Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy arrived in Baku, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported on July 23.

The crew of the vessels will take part in the international competition Sea Cup-2017 to be held in the territorial waters of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea.

Alongside Russia, warships of Azerbaijan, Iran and Kazakhstan will participate in the competitions, which will be held on August 1-11. Missile boats Paykan and Joshan of the Iranian Navy, and the Kazakh rocket-artillery ships Kazakhstan, Sary-Arka and the hydrographic vessel Zhaik docked at the Baku port a day earlier, on July 22.

The Sea Cup is held in the framework of the International Army Games. The competition has become the modern form of military training. Last year, Azerbaijan successfully performed in the Army Games held in Russia.

Participating in the contests Tank biathlon and Caspian Cup of the international military competition, representatives of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces became the winners of the various stages in both categories and represented the country at the highest level. Azerbaijani military seamen ranked second at the Caspian Cup 2016 and were awarded with special medals.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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24 July 2017 16:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijan and Hungary have identified promising areas of cooperation during the meeting of two countries foreign ministers in Budapest on July 24.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov underlined that strategic partnership relations between Azerbaijan and Hungary create productive ground for the development of comprehensive cooperation.

Mammadyarov also noted that the support by the Hungarian government for the just position of Azerbaijan on Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and firm stance on resolution of the conflict on the basis of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is highly appreciated.

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto, in turn, noted the important role of Azerbaijan in ensuring energy security of Europe and expressed interest of Hungary in import of Azerbaijani gas.

Szijjarto also emphasized the successful activity of Hungarian companies in Azerbaijan, noting that the partners of Hungary from Western Europe are competing for the Azerbaijani market.

Both sides expressed interest in developing cooperation in such spheres as transport, agriculture, industry, education, pharmaceuticals and others.

During the meeting, the ministers also discussed the preparations for highest-level negotiations and for the next meeting of the intergovernmental trade-economic cooperation commission.

Among the South Caucasus countries, Hungary has the highest trade turnover with Azerbaijan. To be more exact, over 50 percent of the Hungarian trade with the South Caucasus region accounts for Azerbaijan. Last year, the trade turnover between two countries amounted to more than $50 million.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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24 July 2017 13:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

American producers of shale oil are ready for a dialogue with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The OPEC dialogue with U.S. shale oil producers, which was launched last year, will continue, said Secretary General of OPEC Mohammed Barkindo in an interview with RBC.

"For the first time in the history of OPEC, we started a dialogue with producers in the U.S. We initiated this dialogue, I should say that I was surprised by the warmth with which they accepted this initiative, he stressed.

Barkindo also talked about working with Russia, which, he said, has lasted for more than 10 years. "We have come a long way with Russia. Now it has reached the point where we are working together on the stability of the world oil market. We hope that eventually American manufacturers will join us in these joint efforts to restore stability to the industry, which in the past two years has been declining," he added.

The Secretary General noted that according to the preliminary forecast of cartel experts, this year the organization expects zero growth, further adding that this is a direct threat to future oil supplies.

The forecast for oil production in non-OPEC countries, he notes, on the contrary, will only grow.

Ministers from the OPEC and other non-OPEC producers will meet in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on July 24 to review market conditions and examine any proposals related to their pact to cut output.

Sources familiar with the talks said the meeting may introduce a conditional cap on output from Nigeria and Libya - two OPEC members so far exempt from output cuts, according to Reuters.

OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached the agreement in December 2016 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices. OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from January 1.

Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from Jan. 1, 2017.

The parties decided to extend the production adjustments for a further period of nine months, in May 2017.

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24 July 2017 17:05 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Italian Ministry of Environment guarantees that the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will not have any negative impact or consequences for the territories through which it will pass.

This was stated by TAP's country manager for Italy Michele Mario Elia at the expert meeting on environmental and climate issues in Italy, Italian media outlets reported.

He noted that TAP will link Italy with Azerbaijan's gas fields and will make Italy energy independent by providing it with about 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

The country manager recalled that the TAP consortium was granted permits for the construction from the authorities of Apulia region, with whom it closely cooperates.

Michele Mario Elia also underlined that TAP has no contraindication from the point of safety as it uses the same technologies and standards as the 35,000-kilometers long gas network already operating in Italy.

The European Union recognizes the role of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) in addressing the urgent energy policy objective of ensuring security and diversity of energy supply to Europe.

Once built, TAP will play a part in helping secure Europes energy future. One of the most important energy infrastructure projects will allow Caspian natural gas to flow into Europes energy markets.

TAP has been given a Project of Common Interest (PCI) status for its role in opening up the Southern Gas Corridor, one of 12 so-called energy corridors identified by the EU as priorities for the achievement of European energy policy objectives. The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

The pipeline will connect to the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italys south.

TAP will be 878 kilometers in length (Greece 550 kilometers, Albania 215 kilometers, Adriatic Sea 105 kilometers, and Italy 8 kilometers).

TAPs shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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24 July 2017 11:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Iraqi Defense Minister Erfan al-Hiyali thanked Iranian government, people and the armed forces support for Iraq in fighting terrorism, adding that Islamic Republic assistance had determining role in achieving the victories, IRNA reported.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Iran's Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani.

Iraqi defense minister pointed to Iran and Iraq joint interests and goals and called for boost of cooperation between the two states in various fields.

The Iraqi Army will response to any aggression and occupation of its territory and will not permit formation of new seditions and breach of law aimed at partitioning of the country, he added.

Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and his Iraqi counterpart here on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on defense and military cooperation.

The expansion of cooperation and sharing experiences in the fields of fight against terrorism and extremism, border security, training, logistics, technical and military supports were included in the MoU.

Major General al-Hiyali, heading a high-ranking Iraqi defense delegation, arrived in Tehran on Saturday at invitation of Brigadier General Dehqan.

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24 July 2017 13:29 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The United States is ready to take a harsher stance on Moscow by adopting a new law on sanctions.

U.S. President Donald Trump will most likely sign the bill toughening sanctions against Russia, when Senate and House of Representatives reach an agreement, the White House spokesperson said on July 23, Reuters reported.

Republicans and Democrats have reached agreement on the legislation which "would limit any potential effort by Trump to try to lift sanctions against Moscow."

"We support where the legislation is now and will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC's 'This Week' program.

A new tough package of sanctions against Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and for meddling in the 2016 presidential elections was previously approved by the Senate on June 15, but has not yet been considered by the House of Representatives.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said that a vote is expected to take place in the House on July 25.

Trump's new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, said the president had not yet decided whether he would sign the bill. However, some U.S. high officials consider that the legislation may pass with enough votes to override the presidents veto.

Certain parts of the bill were negotiated between Trump's administarion and lawmakers including the requirement that Trump obtain Congress' permission before easing sanctions.

The proposed sanctions involve a reduction of the maximum period for market financing of Russian banks to 14 days, and companies in the oil and gas sector to 30 days.

The document also suggests that the U.S. president can impose sanctions on persons who intend to invest in the construction of Russian export pipelines more than $5 million per year or $1 million at a time or to provide projects with services, technologies and information support.

The question of new Russian sanctions has been raised by a number of senators in both parties after the intelligence community announced in January its conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of President Donald Trump. Putin has denied any interference in the U.S. democratic process last year.

Previously, the White House promised to block this document if it gets to the president's signature.

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[July 23, 2017] DOOGEE BL5000: A Revolutionary Large Battery Beauty

HONG KONG, July 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Speaking of the name of DOOGEE, it had become a competitive player in smartphone markets all over the world. The Spain-based brand had launched many popular products in recent years. Such as 'X5' the excellent budget phone, 'Y6 3D Max' the first 3D supported phone, and the latest oneDOOGEE MIX, a bezel-less phone carrying dual rear cameras. Now they unveiled a new product for a new series, the BL5000. A phone balanced battery, design, and performance that you can hardly find in other brands. Design: A unique appearance among highly homogeneous products BL5000 have something in common with Huawei Honor 9, Huawei Magic, or HTC U11 if you are familiar with these phones. Inspired by and integrated with some attractive elements, BL5000 shows a unique and innovative appearance. In the first glance of DOOGEE BL5000, no one will ignore the beautifully curved sides of the body. It applied the "8 curves design" for the body, which means every corner of BL5000 is rounded and smooth, without any hard edges. The "8 curves design" is promoted by Honor Magic in the first place, while BL5000 improved it and colored it with black, blue and gold finishes. It shows that BL5000 is produced with advanced 3D polishing layering to get the impressive glassy radiance on the back. The technology created the unique luster across the body, and it will shine and reflect lights with every movement on your hand. If you are looking for an eye-catching phone, the innovative design will definitely meet your needs among all the highly homogeneous products nowadays. They have also paid much attention to the integrated unibody, not only the back is covered by a whole piece of glass-like shell, the decorative rings of fingerprint and cameras are color-matched to the rest of the phone. Concept video of BL5000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye0Vg4fGD5c Display: the most stunning 5.5" display According to DOOGEE, BL5000 comes with a 5.5"IPS display. It is not only the perfect channel o interact with, but also a stunning display to watch at. A 1920*1080 FHD in display contributes to a crystal clear visual effect.



A peak brightness of 650 nits won BL5000 another advantage in display. Even when it's under direct daylight, BL5000 is able to show pictures clearly, while iPhone 6 is not. Meanwhile, the blue ray adjustment technology helps it stay soft and gentle with high brightness. Battery: excellent endurance and charging

As the name of it shows, BL5000 is featuring long life battery, 'BL' stands for 'Be Long time, and also belong to you'. Housing a massive 5050mAh polymer battery, it can last for 2 days of moderate use. From the statistics given in DOOGEE official sites, full battery in BL5000 could support 10 hours of gaming, 15 hours of online movies playing and 28 hours of navigating. Quick charge is applied. As high as 12V-2A fast charge technology would bring 40% power in 10 minutes of charge. To charge BL5000 to full capacity, it only takes two hours. Surely, OTG is supported to connect other devices, for example, you can charge iPhone with your BL5000. Camera: good as it always be Following the trends of smartphone design this year, DOOGEE BL5000 carries dual rear cameras of 13.0MP+13.0MP and one 8.0MP selfie camera. It is worth mentioning that the dual cameras are not protruded from the back, which improved the smoothness of design. Besides the beautiful design, camera performance of BL5000 is good as DOOGEES always be. The rear dual cameras have one main sensor to capture main picture, and one assistant sensor to create the sense of depth. Just like the last product DOOGEE MIX, BL5000 cooperated with ArcSoft, the famous software solution partner, to work out the multiple shooting modes built-in. A bigger softlight is put in the rear, so that low light shooting wouldn't be a problem anymore. Performance: it's in mid-range and meet everyday needs Positioned as a mid-tier product, BL5000 is powered by a MTK octa-core CPU, MTK 6750T. The octa-core CPU is applied in many other phones before and proven to be solid. As far as the storage is concerned, there is no need to worry with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, which is expandable to up to 128GB. In the aspect of connectivity, BL5000 supports dual SIM standby and 4G+. BL5000 runs on Android 7.0 out of box, with customized UI system, Doogee UI 1.0. It keeps the practical features in Android OS like screen split or dual ID. Some of the customization features including characteristics wallpapers, themes and DIY options. New way of shortcuts, the "floatview" is always accessible, too. All in all, DOOGEE BL5000 is a fair enough mid-tier product that we would like to recommend. Especially when you are in need of long battery life without sacrificing the slim body. Official price of BL5000 is not announced yet, but there are some units are selling at $180 on AliExpress. So we can make a bold guess about its price of ranging around $200, which is a really competitive price comparing to other big names. Now it is on pre-order in DOOGEE official sites, and the global launch day will be someday late July. Ten free units will be given away if you subscribed this product, and 50 units are going to be sent to reviewers all over the world. Related Images image1.jpg image2.jpg image3.jpg image4.jpg Related Links Doogee BL5000 Sale Doogee BL5000 Product Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye0Vg4fGD5c

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24 July 2017 14:27 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Energy-rich Turkmenistan invites foreign investors to participate in the development of the gas and chemical industry.

Central Asian country plans to build several large gas chemical complexes, a source in the fuel and energy complex of the country said, Trend reported.

These large complexes will focus on the production of polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, monoethylene glycol, dimethyl ether and other chemical products using modern technologies for extraction of ethane from natural gas, as well as using methanol to olefin technology for methane recovery and processing.

In addition, the work on the construction of a plant for the production of liquid petroleum products from natural gas (using GTL technology) is currently underway.

Turkmenistan is ready to study other proposals on the organization of investment projects aimed at high-technology processing of natural gas and the production of export-oriented products, according to the source.

It is possible to use several forms of mutually beneficial cooperation for participation in the implementation of the project, including Production Sharing Agreements, service contracts - for field development projects and construction of gas chemical plants, and creation of joint ventures - for servicing and repairing oil and gas equipment, managing the production process as well as marketing.

The country aims at strengthening the development of the gas and chemical industry in the next 10 years by implementing numerous projects in this area. Particularly, it is planned to reconstruct a natural gas processing plant and launch production of liquefied gas at the Bagaja deposit in Lebap province and build a gas and chemical complex with the capacity of 80,000 tons of styrene-butadiene rubber and 45,000 tons of polystyrene per year on its basis.

A big investment project is proposed to be implemented at the field of Central Karakum, located near the Yylanly gas compressor station in the Dashoguz province. As part of the project, it is planned to build a plant to process two billion cubic meters of natural gas and produce 70,000 tons of liquefied gas.

The country also plans to build a gas and chemical complex in the Kiyanly village of Balkan province in order to produce 200,000 tons of linear low-density polyethylene, 390,000 tons of polypropylene, 100,000 tons of polyvinylchloride, 10,000 tons of liquefied gas, 82,000 tons of caustic soda and 10,000 tons of hydrochloric acid.

Turkmenistan is one of the key players in the energy industry of the Caspian region. The Central Asian state has the world's fourth largest natural gas reserves.

Currently, the country supplies gas to China and Iran.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
24 July 2017 13:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Frances Alstom has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Industrial Development & Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO) to establish a joint venture to manufacture metro wagons for urban transport, Mehr news agency reported July 24.

The report didnt elaborate the exact value of project, but said that the joint venture would manufacture 1000 wagons per year. Alstom would take a 60-percent stake in the project.

Alstom signed a MoU with IDRO in February 2016 to develop industrial cooperation with Iran in the field of mainline and urban transport.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
24 July 2017 19:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The European Union supports the initiative of energy-rich Kazakhstan to develop its renewable sources for transition to the green energy production.

Over the past five years, the financial institutions of the European Union, specifically European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and European Investment Bank, have provided 500 million euros for development of the projects in the field of clean renewable energy in Kazakhstan, Kazinform reported.

These remarks were made by the Deputy Director General of the Energy Directorate Gerasimos Thomas on the sidelines of the forum held as part of EXPO-2017 in Astana.

The last transaction in the amount of 100 million euros was made last week, according to the Secretary General of the European Investment Bank Klaus Tromel.

We try to deviate from the supply of exclusively oil and uranium from Kazakhstan [the delivery of uranium to the European Union countries from Kazakhstan takes about 21 percent of the total]. We plan to develop renewable energy sources. Of course, there are many already implemented as well as ongoing projects. Currently, the EU is focused on building energy-efficient buildings, Thomas said.

He pointed out that the European Union is the largest foreign investor of Kazakhstan noting that EU member states' interest towards Kazakhstan continues to grow.

"Astana is definitely a new and innovative city and along with the Kazakh government policies, it has a great potential for development. But at the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the modernization of other cities and environmentally friendly solutions during construction. Energy efficiency strategies may be applied in any field, be it the development of agriculture, small and medium-sized businesses or civil society," Thomas added.

Kazakhstan plans generating 50 percent of its electricity from renewable and alternative energy sources according to President Nazarbayevs ambitious 2050 strategy. This strategy is a part of the countrys comprehensive initiative to transfer itself from one of the worlds major hydrocarbon energy producers to the green economy model.

Transition to the green economy reduces risks of global threats such as climate change, exhaustion of natural resources and deficit of water.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
24 July 2017 18:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

As a result of purges in Turkeys armed forces after the July 15 military coup attempt, the number of generals and admirals decreased by 40 percent, the Turkish media report.

There were 236 generals and admirals in the Turkish armed forces before the coup attempt, and currently, their number totals 196.

Reportedly, after the military coup attempt, about 13,000 servicemen were accepted into the Turkish armed forces, and most of them are reserve officers.

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. More than 200 people were killed during the attempted coup.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
24 July 2017 18:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkey which plays an important role and enjoys authority in the Islamic world plans to take advantage of this and try to resolve the crisis in the Persian Gulf.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 24 arrived in Doha - the last destination in his Gulf tour aimed at resolving difficult situation around Qatar that also included Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

He is scheduled to hold talks with the Emir, on the Gulf crisis and bilateral relations.

The Turkish leader is accompanied by a high-profile delegation which includes Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli, Chief of Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, and National Intelligence Organization (MIT) head Hakan Fidan.

Earlier, Erdogan has held talks with leaders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as part of his efforts to find solution to the regional crisis. During these meetings, ways to combat extremism and related financing were high on agenda, however, the details of the talks were not revealed.

Ahead of his flight to Saudi Arabia Turkish President stated that no one has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore. He accused "enemies" of seeking to "fire up tensions between brothers" in the region.

Erdogan praised Qatar's behavior in the crisis, saying it aims at finding solution through dialogue and expressed hope that the visit will be beneficial for the regional stability.

He has previously called for an early settlement of this crisis and stated that the confrontation does not fit the Islamic world, and all issues can be resolved through dialogue. In this regard, Erdogan drew attention to the position of Saudi Arabia calling Riyadh "the key to solving the current crisis in the Persian Gulf."

International efforts to resolve the crisis, including U.S. involvement, have failed.

Since the first day of the crisis, Turkey has been trying with all its efforts to settle the conflict by sending troops to Qatar and supplying food to help the small Gulf nation.

Qatar has strategic importance for Turkey which established a military base in the oil-rich nation after a 2014 agreement. As many as 1,000 soldiers could be stationed there.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain in early June cut off diplomatic relations, severed air, land and sea links with Qatar, accusing the latter of supporting terrorism, and ordered Qatari citizens to leave their countries within two weeks.

In early July, the Arab states sent a list of demand and required Doha to cut diplomatic relations with Iran, close the Turkish military base, eliminate Al-Jazeera TV channel, extradite all persons wanted in four countries on charges of terrorism and pay compensation. Doha refused to fulfill these requirements calling the list unrealistic and not actionable.

On July 19, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt reduced the list of requirements for Qatar and urged Doha to commit to six common 'principles' on combating "extremism" and "terrorism", and to negotiate a plan with specific measures to implement them without a specific time-frame.

These principles include commitment to combat extremism and terrorism in all their forms and to prevent their financing, suspending all acts of provocation and speeches inciting hatred or violence, full compliance with the Riyadh Agreement of 2013, adherence to all the outcomes of the Arab Islamic American Summit held in May 2017, and refraining from interference in the internal affairs of states.

Kuwait acts as the main mediator in the crisis.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
10 Simple Hairstyles For College Girls Hair Care oi-Monika Khajuria

When in college, you want to look your best. If you're a college-going girl, you know how important a hairstyle is. A great hairstyle can transform your entire look. You do want to do those amazing hairstyles to pump up your look, but either you don't have the time to do those complex hairstyles or maybe they are just too daunting for you.

Either way, this puts you in a fix. So, should you get back to those simple, basic hairstyles? Absolutely not. Every problem has a solution and we have one for you! Today, in this article, we bring to you ten amazing hairstyles that are simple, easy and won't take much time to do. These would enhance your look while giving the impression that you've spent hours getting them done. Interested? Well then, let's have a look at these hairstyles.

1. The Loose Side Braid

We'll start off with the simplest one. Giving a simple twist to your everyday braid can make a whole lot of difference. And this is the perfect hairstyle for when you're running late.

How to do

Comb through your hair.

Side part your hair and sweep them to one side.

Braid your hair in a loose three-strand braid.

Secure the ends using a hair tie.

Pull on the braid a little to give it some volume.

2. The Half Updo Bun

Next is the funky hairstyle for all those who don't like to tie their hair in a bun, but still want to give the bun a try.

How to do

Comb through your hair.

Pull your hair in a half ponytail and secure it at the top of your head.

Twist the hair of the ponytail and wrap it around the base of the ponytail to make a bun. Secure the end using some bobby pins.

Tug on the bun a little to give it some more volume.

3. The Multi-Tied Braid

This is a refreshing, easy and pretty twist to your regular ponytail. This looks chic and takes about 5 minutes to do.

How to do

Comb through your hair.

Pull your hair back in a ponytail.

Now you need a few scrunchies, preferably black.

Depending on the length of your hair, tie your ponytail at two to three places spaced equally.

Pouf out each section to create a bubble and you're done.

4. The Front Twist

A twist to the front doesn't take much time, but it does add dimension to your hair. And the best part - it takes just a minute to do this.

How to do

Side part your hair to the side you think looks best on you.

Take the front section from the larger parting, twist it and secure it at the back using a couple of bobby pins.

Now take the section from the smaller parting, twist it and secure it at the back using a couple of bobby pins.

Comb through the hair that is kept at the back.

5. A Sleek High Ponytail

While a ponytail is a regular, placing it a bit higher can make a lot of difference. You can straighten the hair and it adds to that some more.

How to do

Apply a heat protectant on your hair and then proceed to straighten it using a flat iron.

Comb through your hair.

Pull it back in a high ponytail and secure it using a hair tie.

If you have those baby hairs in the front, use some hair gel to settle it down.

Lastly, use some hair spray to set everything in place.

6. Loose Waves Ponytail

Curling your hair in loose waves and letting it loose is something that you might have done a million times. Pulling those loose waves in a ponytail can give your ponytail a new dimension.

How to do

Apply a heat protectant on your hair.

Curl your hair in loose waves from the middle till the end.

Pull the hair back in a low or medium ponytail and secure it using a hair tie.

You can either side part, middle part or pull back all your hair back in the front as per your preference.

7. The Front Side Braid

If you just want to get that extra mile, but still look like you have put in some effort, a side braid is for you. This hairstyle will work for you no matter the length of your hair.

How to do

Comb through your hair and make a middle parting.

Start from the very front of your parting and start braiding your hair in a Dutch braid while you continue to pull the section from the sides and adding it to your braid.

Secure the braid at the back using some bobby pins.

You can do this on both sides or just one side. It depends on your preference.

8. A High Bun

A high bun works for you no matter the occasion or the place. This is perfect for the days when you just can't decide how to style your hair. Tie it in a high bun and you're good to go.

How to do

Comb through your hair. Ensure that you get rid of all the knots.

Pull your hair back in a high ponytail at the front of your head and secure it using a scrunchy.

Now, twist your hair and start wrapping it up around the base to make a bun.

Secure the ends using some bobby pins.

Pull on the bun to give it some more volume.

Lastly, apply some hair spray to set everything in place.

9. A Rope Braid

Braids are the most common hairstyle. And you must have tried various versions of a three-strand braid. But this exquisite braid can be done using two strands. It is quick to do and will make you stand out.

How to do

Comb through your hair to remove any knots.

Gather all your hair and pull it back in a high ponytail.

Take a small section of your hair from under the ponytail and wrap it around the hair tie to hide it. Secure it with some bobby pins at the back.

Now, divide your ponytail into two sections.

Now twist both the sections in the same direction and twist both the sections around each other in the direction opposite to the one in which you have twisted each section.

Keep on doing this until you reach the end and then secure it with a hair tie.

Apply some hair spray to set everything in place.

10. Braid With A Half Updo Bun

This hairstyle is for someone who wants to get the best of both worlds. You braid a section of hair and tie it into a half updo. This hairstyle will give you an edgy look.

How to do

Comb through your hair thoroughly to remove any knots and tangles.

Now take the middle-front chunk of your hair.

Start braiding this chunk into a chic French braid.

After you're done with three to four plaits, tie it into kind of a half ponytail.

Twist this ponytail and wrap it around the base to make a bun.

Secure the ends using some bobby pins.

Pull it on a little to give it some volume.

Apply some hair spray in the end, if possible.
Polka Love Shama uploaded two of her looks in polka dot attires and in both she totally slayed it. Her two looks, one from Switzerland and another from Italy look perfect to the 'T'.

In the one from Switzerland, she wore a yellow frock dress with black polka dots all over its body. She carried a black and partially striped sling bag, completing the look with a hair bun and a pair of rounded shades.

In another look with polka, she wore a white shirt with black polka dots and matched it with a pair of blue high waist trousers. She looked really cool in both of them.

In Blacks She wore black outfits many times for her latest vacation but we have picked out two looks where she totally looked like a slayer. There was a picture she posted from Switzerland where she wore a Robert Cavalli top with an Etro skirt and bag. She matched her look with Dolce & Gabbana earrings, Satellite rings, Feragamo watch and Michael Kors open-foot boots.

Her second best look in black was from the Budapest bridge in Hungary and here she killed it in a black tube gown and sky-blue shrug which she wore with the same Michael Kors shoes.

Going Classy Shama looked really classy in a pair of separates from Dolce & Gabbana. By wearing the D&G high-neck bowed black coloured top with the pink floral skirt, she made the look a classy one. She completed the look with white and grey sneakers that totally matched the super amazing look.
[July 24, 2017] Clear Channel Outdoor RADAR Gets Smarter by Adding Cuebiq's Real-time Mobile Analytics to Help Advertisers Understand Campaign Performance in the Physical World

Clear Channel Outdoor Americas (CCOA) (NYSE: CCO), a subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc., today announced the evolution of its Clear Channel (News - Alert) Outdoor RADAR suite of Out-of-Home (OOH) advanced advertising platform with the addition of Cuebiq's location intelligence and attribution solutions, which leverage the largest source of accurate location data in the U.S. The new agreement enables CCO RADAR to tap into Cuebiq's location insights and footfall attribution analysis, based on aggregated and anonymized mobile location data, to identify audiences exposed to CCOA's printed and digital billboards. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724005980/en/ 24 Hour Fitness launched their campaign on Clear Channel Outdoor's printed and digital billboards in two California markets. (Photo: Business Wire) These additional insights, via Cuebiq's privacy-compliant methodology, helps inform advertisers and media buyers how to most efficiently reach consumers and measure campaign performance based on real-world behavior. This enhances CCO RADAR's suite of solutions by offering advertisers access to more location data at scale and with more granularity and speed, including the ability to measure campaigns in smaller markets and from many local businesses. Since February 2016, a diverse mix of national brands, ranging from QSR, beverage, retail, cable TV and automotive, have successfully used CCO RADAR to measure double digit lifts in the results driven by their OOH ad campaigns with CCOA. As marketers engage with connected and highly-mobile consumers, adding these new location solutions to CCO RADAR provides brands with additional insights into consumers' offline behaviors such as uplift in store visits, how long they spent at a location and brand affinities. Cuebiq's proprietary technology, which spans tens of millions of mobile devices in the U.S., helps advertisers to better identify audience groups exposed to CCOA's media. 24 Hou Fitness, a leading fitness industry pioneer with nearly four million members in more than 400 clubs across the U.S., recently tapped the new CCO RADAR capabilities to plan and measure the impact of its latest OOH campaigns. 24 Hour Fitness used Cuebiq's accuracy and scale against CCOA's OOH inventory in two markets to anonymously identify mobile IDs exposed to their OOH campaign. CCO RADAR audience insights were used to identify the CCOA locations that most efficiently reached 24 Hour Fitness customers and non-customers. The company was then able to measure the lift in physical gym visits among customers exposed to the advertising. The exposed audiences showed a significant increase in guest traffic.



In addition, the combination of data accuracy, density and scale used for its footfall analysis allowed 24 Hour Fitness to review their results at an even more granular level, including: by DMA; how frequency of exposure affected visitation rates; dwell time of exposed devices; and by daily comparison of visitations between the exposed and control groups. "These enhanced RADAR data sets provided valuable insights that allowed us to quantify the impact of our OOH campaigns," said Tom Lapcevic, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, 24 Hour Fitness. "We look forward to working with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas in the future to help us improve more lives through fitness."

"We're excited to partner with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas to bring our attribution, location intelligence and audience analysis solutions to advertisers' OOH campaigns," said Antonio Tomarchio, CEO, Cuebiq. "Our proprietary technology delivers higher data accuracy and data density per user at larger scale, providing advertisers actionable insights into consumers' offline behaviors." "The addition of Cuebiq to our growing list of respected and privacy compliant mobile data partners dramatically increases the scale of CCO RADAR insights," said Andy Stevens, SVP, Research & Insights, Clear Channel Outdoor Americas. "This means we can apply our analytics more quickly, with greater precision and in more markets than ever before, and it addresses advertisers' greater demand for location analytics based on mobile users' offline behavior." About Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., (NYSE:CCO) is one of the world's largest outdoor advertising companies, with more than 650,000 displays in over 35 countries across five continents, including 43 of the 50 largest markets in the United States. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings offers many types of displays across its global platform to meet the advertising needs of its customers. This includes a growing digital platform that now offers over 1,200 digital billboards across 28 U.S. markets. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings' International segment operates in 22 countries across Asia and Europe in a wide variety of formats. More information is available at www.clearchanneloutdoor.com Like us on Facebook (News - Alert) at facebook.com/CCOutdoor

Follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) at twitter.com/CCOutdoorNA About Cuebiq Cuebiq is a next generation location intelligence company, leveraging the largest database of accurate and precise location data in the U.S. Its leading data intelligence platform analyzes location patterns of 61 million monthly active U.S. smartphone users on over 180 mobile apps, allowing businesses to glean actionable insights about real-world consumer behaviors and trends. Cuebiq provides clients geo-behavioral audiences for cross-platform ad targeting, the industry's only SaaS (News - Alert) based real-time campaign optimization and footfall attribution tools, and offline location analytics. Cuebiq does not collect any personally identifiable information. Its privacy-sensitive methodology has earned the company membership status with the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), the leading self-regulatory industry association dedicated to responsible data collection and its use for digital advertising. Cuebiq is headquartered in New York with offices in Chicago, Italy and China. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/Cuebiq

Follow us on LinkedIn (News - Alert) at linkedin.com/company/cuebiq View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170724005980/en/

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Skipping Breakfast Can Lead To Gallstones Formation News oi-Staff

Skipping breakfast can lead to a number of health issues with the major one being lack of energy. However, a shocking case was revealed recently where a woman from China who skipped breakfast for 8 years had developed 200 gallstones.

The woman who has been identified as 45 year old Ms Chen had gone to Guangji Hospital, Hezhou in China, with a history of stomach pain for about 10 long years. She did not go for medical examination as she feared of any kind of surgery.

However, when the pain worsened she came to the hospital. Following the tests she was found to have innumerable gall stones.

According to the doctors some of the stones were as large as eggs. She had to undergo six and a half hours of surgery, for the removal of stones from the gallbladder and bile ducts.

Dr Quanwei Wei, one of the surgeons who performed the operation said, the stones could have resulted from her habit of skipping breakfast.

He further stated that if someone misses breakfast it stops their gallbladder from shrinking or expanding, leading to a build-up of bile.
Man Played Guitar While Undergoing A Brain Surgery! Pulse oi-Syeda Farah

Music can heal any kind of an emotion and it is so soothing to the body and soul. It can make us realise that music has the power to cure many things.

A recent case of a man who underwent a brain surgery, while he was playing guitar when being operated on, makes us realise that technology and music are reaching their high ends!

You May Also Like To Read: Her Face Ruined After A Dentist's Visit!

Bengaluru Musician plays guitar during Brain circuit surgery | Oneindia News

Check out the details of this interesting case of the man playing a guitar in the operation theater.

Who Is He? A techie-turned-musician, who apparently was suffering from a condition which is known as musician's dystonia, was being operated on. This 32-year-old man from Bengaluru, India, played the guitar while he was undergoing a seven-hour-long brain surgery. Also Read:Surgeon Removes 30-inch Of Intestine From A Man's Stomach! What Is Musicians Dystonia It is a neurological muscle disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions, cramping three fingers on the left hand. Musician's dystonia occurs due to abnormal and involuntary flexion of muscles, because of rigorous use. What Actually Happened... He had apparently started feeling cramps in his three fingers on his left hand. The cramps first started a year-and-a-half ago due to long hours of practice, and last week, the man went under the knife for it. How He Was Treated Doctors asked him to play the guitar as they operated to locate the affected areas of the brain. The treatment involved opening up the skull and "burning" the parts of the brain that were causing the convulsions. He Faced The Problem When He Was Playing The Guitar As the man suffered from the problem only while playing the guitar, he was asked to continue playing it during the surgery. This was done to provide the real-time response to help the doctors target the exact problem area and perform the procedure with precision. Why Was This Done? It is said that the seven-hour surgery relieved him from this condition and the doctors had "burned down" his brain's portions, which actuated the abnormal vibrations in his muscular tissues when he played the instrument to assist them locate those muscles that were upsetting the regions. Doctors Revealed The operation was successful, and within three days, the man could return home to his life of music. "I was amazed to see my fingers improve magically on the operation table itself. By the end of the surgery, my fingers were 100% cured and I could move them like before," he said.
Photo: Contributed

Wind and lightning are set to hit central and southern B.C. tonight, according to Navi Saini, fire information officer with the B.C. Wildfire Service.

"Today a cold front is forecast to move across central and southern B.C., bringing gusty winds and scattered showers. There is also a 40 to 60 per cent chance of lightning in the southeast of the province," Saini said.

Wind and lightning can often cause concern for fire crews because the flames can move or spread spontaneously.

Strong winds between 30 and 70 kilometres per hour are expected in the Cariboo and Interior regions, with thunderstorms expected in the Kootenays in the late afternoon, according to Environment Canada.

Officials say it's unclear when thousands of people will be allowed to go home.

Evacuation orders for 100 Mile House and Princeton were downgraded to alerts on Saturday, allowing residents to go home, although with the knowledge that they may have to leave again on a moment's notice.

Transportation Minister Norm Parks told a conference call Sunday that the return to the Interior communities had gone smoothly.

"From our point of view, the entry was well planned and well executed," he said.

More than 30,000 people remained displaced by wildfires on Sunday.

The weather is making it difficult to predict when other evacuees, including about 10,000 people from Williams Lake, may be able to return home, said Saini.

"It's hard to say right now how close we are to allowing people into Williams Lake. It really depends on fire activity."

Across the province there are currently 152 wildfires burning.

 with files from The Canadian Press
MATTOON -- Dean Hughes, a World War II veteran, was impressed when he checked out David Smiths 1977 military Jeep in the moments leading up to the start of the Bagelfest Parade on Saturday.

Oh my, thats a nice Jeep, he said at the time.

The 90-year-old Mattoon man went out to the Jeep with Betty, his wife of almost 70 years, who said at the time that she wanted to stop by and see someone.

So, it came as a shock to him when the sign perched on top of the Jeep was pointed out to him. The bold sign stated, Wave. Dean is 90 today. WW2 veteran.

I walked him around the Jeep, showed him the sign, and said, 'You are in the parade with me,' Smith said.

Hughes said his only reaction was, Wow. Hughes had been in several parades in his lifetime. He would often ride his tractor in parades including the annual Bagelfest Parade. However, Saturdays parade proved to be a little different for him.

He didn't know about it.

Weeks in the making, Betty and his family devised a plan to make July 22, his 90th birthday, a little more special: to get Dean in the parade without him knowing it.

Dan Hughes, Deans son, said the whole family thought it was a great idea.

Betty was inspired with the idea weeks in advance. She noticed in the newspaper that the parade landed on his birthday and kept that in her mind. After making a couple of calls, Betty got in touch with Smith, a family acquaintance. Smith said he was immediately on board with the idea.

Being a veteran and knowing a World War II veteran, I would do just about anything for those guys, Smith said.

Smith and Dean had known each other from their participation in American Legion Post 725. Smith said their families have been friends for years as well.

He had been in the parade before but was heartened by a number of birthday wishes and greetings he got along the route.

I don't know how many had come up and thanked me for my service, he said.

Hughes enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1945 as the war was ending. When in the service, he and his ship cruised all across the Pacific, taking prisoners from islands that had not surrendered yet. He said he was a water tender, tasked with tending to fires and boilers in the steam-powered ship's engine room.

Following his time in the service, Dean said he worked as an engineer on the railroads.

Dean said Saturday was a wonderful birthday surprise.

I didn't know anything about until this morning, he said that day.

It meant a lot, he said.

Dean joked that the next parade he would be in he would be driving his tractor again with his wife on the back of a trailer to celebrate their 70th anniversary.
Caribbean Cement still has no second director elected to the board

ICR Newsroom By 24 July 2017

Sunday Finance had reported last week that Colin Steele, a public certified accountant, would assume the position for a second Jamaican domiciled member of the board of directors of the Caribbean Cement Company Ltd (CCCL). However, the position has not been taken up, reports the Jamaican Observer.

Colin Steele was lined up to be the second board member after an attempt to remove the obligation to elect a second Jamaican director was blocked by shareholders at the company's AGM.



Steele had been publicly advertised as the duly-nominated choice of the Jamaican shareholders.



But Steele informed the Caribbean Business Report that he had not sought election to the board . This was confirmed yesterday by spokespersons for the shareholders.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Thermo Fisher Scientific: 236 Perinton Parkway LLC, 27 Forge Parkway LLC, ABR--Affinity BioReagents, ACI Holdings Inc., ARG Services LLC, ASPEX Corporation, Abgene Inc., Abgene Limited, Acoustic Cytometry Systems Inc., AcroMetrix LLC, Acros Organics B.V.B.A., Advanced Biotechnologies Limited, Advanced Scientifics (ASI), Advanced Scientifics Inc., Advanced Scientifics International Inc., Affymetrix Biotech Participacoes Ltda., Affymetrix Biotech Shanghai Ltd, Affymetrix Inc, Affymetrix Japan K.K., Affymetrix Pte Ltd, Affymetrix UK Ltd, Afora S.A.U., Ahura Scientific, Alchematrix Inc., Alchematrix LLC, Alfa Aesar, Alfa Aesar (China) Chemical Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar (Hong Kong) Limited, Allergon AB, Alphine Mountain Limited, Ambion Inc., Apogent Denmark ApS, Apogent Finance Company, Apogent Holding Company, Apogent Technologies Inc., Apogent Transition Corp., Apogent U.K. Limited, App-Tek International Pty Ltd, Applied Biosystems B.V., Applied Biosystems Finance B.V., Applied Biosystems International Inc., Applied Biosystems LLC, Applied Biosystems Taiwan LLC, Applied Biosystems Trading (Shanghai) Company Ltd., Applied Biosystems de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Applied Scientific Corporation, Avances Cientificos de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Avocado Research Chemicals Limited, B.R.A.H.M.S. Biotech GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. UK Ltd, BAC BV, BAC IP BV, Barnstead Thermolyne LLC, Beijing Phadia Diagnostics Co Ltd, Bender MedSystems GmbH, BioTrove Corporation, BioTrove International Inc., Bioanalysis Labsystems S.A., Biochemical Sciences LLC, Biolab, BmT GmbH Laborprodukte, Bonsai Tecnologies - Sistemas para Biotecnologia e Industria Unipessoal Lda, Brammer Bio, Bumi-Sans Sendirian Berhad, CAC Limited, CB Diagnostics AB, CB Diagnostics Holding AB, CEPH International Corporation, CHK Holdings Inc., CRS Robotics, CTPS LLC, Capitol Scientific Products Inc., Capitol Vial Inc., Cellomics Inc., CellzDirect Inc., Cenduit GmbH, Cenduit LLC, Cezanne S.A.S., Chase Scientific Glass Inc., Chromacol Limited, Clintrak, Clintrak Clinical Labeling Services LLC, Clintrak Pharmaceutical Services LLC, Cohesive Technologies (UK) Limited, Cohesive Technologies Inc., Columbia Diagnostics Inc., Compendia Bioscience Inc., Comtest Limited, Consolidated Technologies Inc., Consultores Fisher Scientific Chile Ltd, Core Informatics, Core Informatics LLC, Core Informatics UK Ltd., D-finitive Technologies Inc., DCG Systems B.V., DCG Systems C.V., DCG Systems G.K., DCG Systems GmbH, DCG Systems Korea Ltd., DCG Systems LLC, DPI Newco LLC, DSM Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Dharmacon, Diagnostix Ltd., Dionex (China) Analytical Ltd, Dionex (Switzerland) AG, Dionex (UK) Limited, Dionex Austria GmbH, Dionex Benelux B.V., Dionex Brasil Instrumentos Cientificos Ltda, Dionex Canada Ltd., Dionex China Limited, Dionex Corporation, Dionex Denmark A/S, Dionex Holding GmbH, Dionex I LLC, Dionex Pty Ltd., Dionex S.A., Dionex S.p.A., Dionex Singapore Pte Ltd., Dionex Softron GmbH, Dionex Sweden AB, Distribution Solutions International Inc., Doe & Ingalls Investors Inc., Doe & Ingalls Limited, Doe & Ingalls Management LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties II LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties LLC, Doe & Ingalls of California Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Florida Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Maryland Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Massachusetts Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of North Carolina Operating LLC, Doublecape Holding Limited, Doublecape Limited, Drakeside Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Duke Scientific Corporation, Dynal Biotech Beijing Limited, EGS Gauging Ltd., EGS Gauging Technical Services Company, EP Scientific Products LLC, Ecochem N.V., EnviroEquip Pty Ltd, Epsom Glass Industries Limited, Equibio Limited, Erie Electroverre S.A., Erie Finance Limited, Erie LP Holding LLC, Erie Scientific Company of Puerto Rico, Erie Scientific Hungary Kft, Erie Scientific LLC, Erie U.K. Limited, Erie UK 1 Limited, Erie UK 2 Limited, Erie UK Holding Company, Erie UK Senior Holding Limited, European Laboratory Holdings Limited, Eutech Instruments Europe B.V., Eutech Instruments Pte Ltd., Eutech Instruments Sdn Bhd, Ever Ready Thermometer Co. Inc., FEI Asia Pacific Co. Ltd., FEI Australia Pty Ltd, FEI CPD B.V., FEI Company, FEI Company Japan Ltd., FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd., FEI Czech Republic s.r.o., FEI Deutschland GmbH, FEI EFA Inc., FEI EFA International Pte. Ltd., FEI Electron Optics B.V., FEI Electron Optics International B.V., FEI Europe B.V., FEI France SAS, FEI Global Holdings C.V., FEI Hong Kong Company Limited, FEI Houston Inc., FEI Italia Srl, FEI Korea Ltd., FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd., FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd, FEI Munich GmbH, FEI Norway Holding AS, FEI SAS, FEI Saudi Arabia LLC, FEI Servicos de Nanotecnologia Ltda., FEI Technologies Inc., FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V., FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., FEI Trondheim AS, FEI UK Ltd., FHP LLC, FRC Holding Inc. V, FS (Barbados) Capital Holdings Ltd., FS Casa Rocas Holdings LLC, FS Mexicana Holdings LLC, FSI Receivables Company LLC, FSII Sweden Holdings AB, FSII Sweden Holdings I AB, FSIR Holdings (UK) Limited, FSIR Holdings (US) Inc., FSUK Holdings Limited, FSWH Company LLC, FSWH II C.V., FSWH International Holdings LLC, Fermentas China Co. Ltd, Fermentas Inc., Fermentas International, Fermentas Sweden AB, Fermentas UK Limited, Fiberlite Centrifuge LLC, Finesse Scientific Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Finesse Solutions AG, Finesse Solutions Inc., Finnzymes Oy, Fisher Alder S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Asia Manufacturing Ventures Inc., Fisher Bermuda Holdings Limited, Fisher BioImage ApS, Fisher BioPharma Services (India) Private Limited, Fisher BioSciences Japan G.K., Fisher BioServices Inc., Fisher Bioblock Holding II SNC, Fisher CLP Holding Limited Partnership, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 1, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 2, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 3, Fisher Canada Limited Partnership, Fisher Chimica BVBA, Fisher Clinical Logistics LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services (Bristol) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Colombia) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Korea) Co. Ltd, Fisher Clinical Services (Mexico) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Peru) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services Colombia S.A.S., Fisher Clinical Services GmbH, Fisher Clinical Services Inc., Fisher Clinical Services Japan K.K., Fisher Clinical Services Latin America S.R.L., Fisher Clinical Services Limited Liability Company, Fisher Clinical Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Clinical Services Peru S.R.L, Fisher Clinical Services Pte Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services U.K. Limited, Fisher Emergo B.V., Fisher Germany Holdings GmbH, Fisher Hamilton China Inc., Fisher Hamilton Mexico LLC, Fisher Holdings ApS, Fisher Internet Minority Holdings L.L.C., Fisher Laboratory Products Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Fisher Luxembourg Danish Holdings SARL, Fisher Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Maybridge Holdings Limited, Fisher Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific (Austria) GmbH, Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Fisher Scientific (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific (SEA) Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific A/S, Fisher Scientific AG, Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Limited, Fisher Scientific Biotech Line ApS, Fisher Scientific Brazil Inc., Fisher Scientific Central America Inc., Fisher Scientific Chile Inc., Fisher Scientific Colombia Inc., Fisher Scientific Company, Fisher Scientific Company L.L.C., Fisher Scientific Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Fisher Scientific Europe Holdings B.V., Fisher Scientific GTF AB, Fisher Scientific Germany Beteiligungs GmbH, Fisher Scientific GmbH, Fisher Scientific Holding Company LLC, Fisher Scientific Holding HK Limited, Fisher Scientific Holding U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific Holdings (S) Pte Ltd, Fisher Scientific International LLC, Fisher Scientific Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Fisher Scientific Ireland Investments Unlimited, Fisher Scientific Ireland Limited, Fisher Scientific Japan Ltd., Fisher Scientific Jersey Island Limited, Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd, Fisher Scientific Latin America Inc., Fisher Scientific Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Fisher Scientific Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific Mexico Inc., Fisher Scientific Middle East and Africa Inc., Fisher Scientific Norway AS, Fisher Scientific Operating Company, Fisher Scientific Oxoid Holdings Ltd., Fisher Scientific Oy, Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific S.A.S., Fisher Scientific S.L., Fisher Scientific SPRL, Fisher Scientific The Hague I B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague II B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague III B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague IV B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague V B.V., Fisher Scientific U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company 2, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company Limited, Fisher Scientific Unipessoal Lda., Fisher Scientific Venezuela Inc., Fisher Scientific Worldwide (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Holdings I C.V., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Inc., Fisher Scientific de Mexico S.A., Fisher Scientific of the Netherlands B.V., Fisher Scientific spol. S.r.o, Fisher Servicios Clinicos (Chile) LLC, Fisher Servicios Clinicos Chile Ltda, Fisher WWD Holding L.L.C., Fisher Worldwide Distribution SPV, Fisher Worldwide Gene Distribution SPV, Flux Instruments, Fuji Partnership, G & M Procter Limited, G V Instruments Limited, GV Instruments Canada Ltd., GV Instruments Inc, Gatan Inc, General Scientific Company Sdn Bhd (M), Genomed molekularbiologische und diagnostische Produkte GmbH, Gerhard Menzel B.V. & Co. KG, Gold Cattle Standard Testing Labs Inc., Golden West Indemnity Company Limited, Goring Kerr Detection Limited, Greenville Service Company Inc., HENO GmbH i.L., Hangar 215 Inc., Helmet Securities Limited, Henogen, HighChem, HyClone International Trade (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Hybaid Limited, I.Q. (BIO) Limited, IDnostics AG, ILS Laboratories Scandinavia AB, Inel Inc., Inel SAS, InnaPhase Inc., InnaPhase Limited, IntegenX, Intrinsic BioProbes Inc., Intrinsic Bioprobes Inc., Invitrogen (Shanghai) Investment Co. Ltd., Invitrogen Argentina SA, Invitrogen BioServices India Private Limited, Invitrogen Europe Limited, Invitrogen Finance Corp., Invitrogen Holdings LLC, Invitrogen Holdings Ltd., Invitrogen Hong Kong Limited, Invitrogen IP Holdings Inc., Invitrogen Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ion Torrent Systems Inc., Ionalytics Corporation, JSC Thermo Fisher Scientific, Jouan LLC, Jouan Limited, Jouan SA, Kendro Containment & Services Limited, Kendro Laboratory Products Ltd, Kettlebrook Insurance Co. ltd., Keystone Scientific, KonTEM GmbH, Kyle Jordan Investments LLC, LIFE TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, LTC Tech South Africa PTY Ltd., La-Pha-Pack GmbH, Lab Vision (UK) Limited, Lab Vision Corporation, Lab-Chrom-Pack LLC, Lab-Line Instruments Inc., Labomex MBP S. de R. L. De C.V., Laboratoire Service International - L.S.I, Laboratory Management Systems Inc., Laboratory Specialties Proprietary Ltd., LambTrack Limited, Laser Analytical Systems Inc., Liberty Lane Investment LLC, Liberty Lane Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Life Sciences International (Poland) SP z O.O, Life Sciences International Holdings BV, Life Sciences International LLC, Life Sciences International Limited, Life Technologies AS, Life Technologies Australia PTY Ltd., Life Technologies BPD AB, Life Technologies BPD UK Limited, Life Technologies Brasil Comercio e Industria de Produtos para Biotecnologia Ltda, Life Technologies Chile SpA, Life Technologies Clinical Services Lab Inc., Life Technologies Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Czech Republic s.r.o., Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostic (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Europe B.V., Life Technologies Finance Ltd., Life Technologies Finland Oy, Life Technologies GmbH, Life Technologies Holdings PTE Ltd., Life Technologies Inc., Life Technologies International B.V., Life Technologies Japan Ltd., Life Technologies Korea LLC, Life Technologies Limited, Life Technologies Magyarorszag Kft, Life Technologies New Zealand Ltd., Life Technologies Norway Investments US LLC, Life Technologies Polska Sp z.o.o., Life Technologies SA, Life Technologies SAS, Life Technologies s.r.o, Linkage Biosciences Inc., Linkage Biosciences S.a.r.l., Loftus Furnace Company, Lomb Scientific, Lomb Scientific (Aust) Pty Limited, MTI-GlobalStem, Marketbase International Limited, Matrix MicroScience Inc., Matrix MicroScience Ltd., Matrix Technologies Corporation Limited, Matrix Technologies LLC, Maybridge Chemical Company Limited, Maybridge Chemical Holdings Limited, Maybridge Limited, Medical Analysis Systems Inc., Medical Analysis Systems International Inc., Medical Diagnostics Systems Inc., Metavac LLC, Microgenics Corporation, Microgenics Diagnostics Pty Limited, Microgenics GmbH, Microm International GmbH, Microm Laborgerate S.L.U, Molecular BioProducts Inc., Molecular Probes Inc., Molecular Transfer Inc., NAPCO Inc., NERL Diagnostics LLC, NOVODIRECT GmbH Labor- und Industrie- Megerate, Nalge (Europe) Limited, Nalge Nunc International (Monterrey) LLC, Nalge Nunc International Corporation, Nanjing WeiKangLe Trading Industrial Co Ltd, NanoDrop Technologies LLC, National Scientific Company, Navaho Acquisition Corp., Neomarkers Inc., New FS Holdings Inc., NewcoGen PE LLC, Nihon Dynal K.K., Niton Asia Limited, NovaWave Technologies Inc., Nunc A/S, ONIX Systems Inc., OXOID CZ s.r.o., Odyssey Holdings Corporation, Odyssey Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 1 S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 2 S.a r.l., Odyssey Venture Corporation, Omega Data Systems, One Lambda Inc, Onix Holdings Limited, Orme Scientific Limited, Owl Separation Systems LLC, Oxoid (ELY) Limited, Oxoid 2000 Limited, Oxoid AS, Oxoid Australia Pty. Limited, Oxoid Company, Oxoid Deutschland GmbH, Oxoid Holding SAS, Oxoid Holdings Limited, Oxoid Inc., Oxoid International Limited, Oxoid Investments GmbH, Oxoid Limited, Oxoid N.V., Oxoid New Zealand Limited, Oxoid Pension Trustees Limited, Oxoid Senior Holdings Limited, Oxoid UKH LLC, PAX - DSI Acquisition LLC, PE AG, Pacific Rim Far East Industries LLC, Pacific Rim Investment LLC, Panomics L.L.C., Panomics S.R.L., Patheon, Patheon API Inc., Patheon API Manufacturing Inc., Patheon API Services Inc., Patheon Austria GmbH & Co KG, Patheon B.V., Patheon Banner U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon Biologics (NJ) LLC, Patheon Biologics Australia Pty Ltd, Patheon Biologics B.V., Patheon Biologics LLC, Patheon Calculus Merger LLC, Patheon Cooperatief U.A., Patheon Development Services Inc., Patheon Finance LLC, Patheon France SAS, Patheon Holdings B.V., Patheon Holdings I B.V., Patheon Holdings II B.V., Patheon Holdings SAS, Patheon I B.V., Patheon I Holding GmbH, Patheon Inc., Patheon International AG, Patheon Italia S.p.A., Patheon KK, Patheon Life Science Products International GmbH, Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC, Patheon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Patheon Pharmaceuticals Services Inc., Patheon Puerto Rico Acquisitions Corporation, Patheon Puerto Rico Inc., Patheon Regensburg GmbH, Patheon Softgels B.V., Patheon Softgels Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings LLC, Patheon UK Limited, Patheon UK Pension Trustees Limited, Pelican Acquisition Corporation, Perbio Science (Canada) Company, Perbio Science AB, Perbio Science BVBA, Perbio Science France SAS, Perbio Science Inc., Perbio Science International Netherlands B.V., Perbio Science Invest AB, Perbio Science Nederland B.V., Perbio Science Projekt AB, Perbio Science Sweden Holdings AB, Perbio Science Switzerland SA, Perbio Science UK Limited, Phadia AB, Phadia Diagnosticos Ltda, Phadia GmbH, Phadia Holding AB, Phadia International Holdings C.V., Phadia Korea Co. Ltd, Phadia Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Phadia Malta Holdings Limited, Phadia Oy, Phadia Real Property AB, Phadia Sweden AB, Phadia Taiwan Inc., Phadia US Inc., Phadia s.r.o., Pharmacaps Mexicana SA de CV, Phenom-World B.V., Phenom-World Holding B.V, Phenom-World Innovations B.V., Phinotex, Pierce Biotechnology Inc., Pierce Milwaukee Holding Corp., Pierce Milwaukee Inc., Polychromix, Power Sweden Holdings I AB, Power Sweden Holdings II AB, Power Sweden Holdings III Aktiebolag, Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments LLC, Princeton Security Technologies, Prionics AG, Prionics Asia Ltd., Prionics Deutschland GmbH, Prionics France SAS, Prionics Italia S.r.l., Prionics Lelystad B.V., Prionics USA Inc., Priority Air Express LLC, Priority Air Express Pte. Ltd., Priority Air Express UK Limited, Priority Air Holdings Corp, Priority Solutions International, Promedica Pty Limited, Proxeon, Proxeon Biosystems ApS, Qiagen, REP GBP I-B Blocker Inc., Raymond A Lamb Limited, Remel Europe Limited, Remel Inc., Richard-Allan Scientific Company, Robbins Scientific LLC, Robocon Labor- und Industrieroboter Gesellschaft m.b.H, Rupprecht and Patashnick, Rupprecht and Patashnick (R&P), Russell pH Limited, S.C.I. du 10 rue Dugay Trouin, SCI Inno 92, STC Bio Manufacturing Inc., Samco Scientific (Monterrey) LLC, Samco Scientific LLC, Saroph Sweden AB, Schantz Road LLC, Seradyn Inc., Shanghai Life Technologies Biotechnology Co. Limited, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (C-I) Trading Co. Ltd, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (S) Trading Co. Ltd, Southern Trials (Pty) Ltd., Specialty (SMI) Inc., Spectra-Physics AB, Spectra-Physics Holdings Limited, Spectra-Physics Holdings USA LLC, Spectronex, Staten Island Cogeneration Corporation, Sterilin Limited, Stokes Bio Ltd., Sweden DIA (Sweden) AB, SwissAnalytic Group GmbH, Systems Manufacturing Corporation, TFLP LLC, TFS Breda B.V., TFS LLC, TFS Singapore HK Limited, TFSL Financing GP LLC, TFSL Senior GP Holdings 2 LLC, TK Partnership, TKA Wasseraufbereitungssysteme, TMOI Inc., TPI Real Estate Holdings LLC, TSP Holdings I LLC, TWX LLC, Technology Design Solutions Pty Ltd, Thermedics Detection de Argentina S.R.L, Thermo Allen Coding Limited, Thermo Asset Management Services Inc., Thermo BioAnalysis LLC, Thermo BioAnalysis Limited, Thermo BioSciences Holdings LLC, Thermo CIDTEC, Thermo CRS Holdings Ltd., Thermo CRS Ltd., Thermo Cambridge Limited, Thermo Cayman Holdings Ltd., Thermo Corporation, Thermo DMA Inc., Thermo Detection de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Dutch Holdings Limited Partnership, Thermo EGS Gauging LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings I LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings II LLC, Thermo Eberline LLC, Thermo Electron (Calgary) Limited, Thermo Electron (Chile) S.p.A., Thermo Electron (Karlsruhe) GmbH, Thermo Electron (Management Services) Limited, Thermo Electron (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Electron A/S, Thermo Electron Australia Pty Limited, Thermo Electron Export Inc., Thermo Electron Holdings SAS, Thermo Electron Industries, Thermo Electron LED GmbH, Thermo Electron LED S.A.S., Thermo Electron Limited, Thermo Electron Manufacturing Limited, Thermo Electron Metallurgical Services Inc., Thermo Electron North America LLC, Thermo Electron Pension Trust GmbH, Thermo Electron Puerto Rico Inc., Thermo Electron SAS, Thermo Electron Scientific Instruments LLC, Thermo Electron Sweden AB, Thermo Electron Sweden Forvaltning AB, Thermo Electron Weighing & Inspection Limited, Thermo Elemental Limited, Thermo Environmental Instruments LLC, Thermo Fast U.K. Limited, Thermo Finland Holdings LLC, Thermo Finland Holdings MT1 B.V., Thermo Finland Holdings MT2 B.V., Thermo Finnigan LLC, Thermo Finnigan Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Malta Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN-I) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (CN-II) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings I Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings II Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings 2) LLC, Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) II Limited, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Heysham) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Kandel) GmbH, Thermo Fisher CHK Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust II, Thermo Fisher Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Thermo Fisher Cyprus Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Detection Mexico LLC, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics (Ireland) Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AB, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AG, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Aps, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Austria GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics B.V., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics K.K., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics NV, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.L.U., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.p.A. , Thermo Fisher Diagnostics SAS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Thermo Fisher Eurobonds Ltd., Thermo Fisher Financial Services Inc., Thermo Fisher GP LLC, Thermo Fisher German Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Germany B.V., Thermo Fisher India Divestco Private Limited, Thermo Fisher India Holding B.V., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Thermo Fisher Israel Ltd., Thermo Fisher Production et Services SAS, Thermo Fisher Project Cyprus LLC, Thermo Fisher Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Asheville) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Australia) C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Barbados) Holdings Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Breda) Holding BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (CN) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China-HK) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (DE) Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Ecublens) SARL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance II) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Fuji) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Holding II) B.V. & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Johannesburg) (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mexico City) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Milwaukee) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mississauga) Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Monterrey) S. De R.L. De C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (NK) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) Austria Holding GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-I) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-II) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN1) UK Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) Dutch LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Praha) s.r.o., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) GmbH & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Schweiz) AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Instruments Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Suzhou) Instruments Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific AL-1 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific AU II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Aquasensors LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V.B.A., Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (I) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (II) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics UAB, Thermo Fisher Scientific Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Biosciences Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brahms LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Instrumentos de Processo Ltda., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Servicos de Logistica Ltda, Thermo Fisher Scientific C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cayman Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chemicals Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific China (C-I) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China (S) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings IV B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings Aps, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus IV C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus V C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Denmark Senior Holdings ApS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie 1 Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Europe GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC Finance C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSUKHCO Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Falcon Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Finance Company BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific GENEART GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Germany BV & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific HR Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) I, Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) II , Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings Europe Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific IT Services GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Pvt Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Malta) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments Malta (Sweden Financing) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Invitrogen Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific K.K., Thermo Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific LSI Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments III S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments IV S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life NL Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Netherlands Holding C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Switzerland Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Tech Korea Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Enterprise Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investments Holding LP, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Luxembourg Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Enterprise Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg German Holdings S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Life Technologies UK Holding S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings I S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings II S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malta Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Messtechnik GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Mexico City S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Middle East Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Milano Srl, Thermo Fisher Scientific NHK Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Holdings, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway Holdings AS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway US Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Operating Company LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Oy, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 C.V, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Panama I Cayman Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Peru S.R.L., Thermo Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific SL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Financing LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Holdings Australia LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific South Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific SpA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg I S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Investments Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Switzerland Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific TR Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Taiwan Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific West Palm Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Wissenschaftliche Gerate GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Worldwide Investments (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific eCommerce Solutions LLC , Thermo Fisher Senior Canada Holdings LLC, Thermo Foundation Inc., Thermo Gamma-Metrics Holdings Pty Ltd., Thermo Gamma-Metrics LLC, Thermo Gamma-Metrics Pty Ltd, Thermo Holding European Operations LLC, Thermo Hypersil Ltd, Thermo Hypersil-Keystone LLC, Thermo Informatics Asia Pacific Pty Ltd., Thermo Instrument Controls de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Thermo Kevex X-Ray LLC, Thermo Keytek LLC, Thermo LabSystems Inc., Thermo LabSystems S.A., Thermo Life Science International Trading (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Thermo Life Sciences AB, Thermo Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo MF Physics LLC, Thermo Measurement Ltd, Thermo Measuretech Canada Inc., Thermo Neslab LLC, Thermo Nicolet Limited, Thermo Onix Limited, Thermo Optek (Australia) Pty Ltd., Thermo Optek Limited, Thermo Optek S.A., Thermo Orion Inc., Thermo Portable Holdings LLC, Thermo Power Corporation, Thermo Process Instruments GP LLC, Thermo Process Instruments L.P., Thermo Projects Limited, Thermo Quest S.A., Thermo Radiometrie Limited, Thermo Ramsey Italia S.r.l., Thermo Ramsey LLC, Thermo Ramsey S.A., Thermo Re Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Pte Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Sdn Bhd, Thermo Scientific Portable Analytical Instruments Inc., Thermo Scientific Services Inc., Thermo Securities Corporation, Thermo Sentron Canada Inc., Thermo Sentron Limited, Thermo Shandon Inc., Thermo Shandon Limited, Thermo Suomi Holding B.V., Thermo TLH (UK) Limited, Thermo TLH L.P., Thermo Trace Pty Ltd., Thermo-Fisher Biochemical Product (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ThermoLase LLC, ThermoSpectra Limited, Trek Diagnostic Systems LLC, Trek Diagnostic Systems Ltd., Trek Holding Company II Ltd., Trek Holding Company Ltd., Trex Medical Corporation, USB Corporation, Union Lab Supplies Limited, United Diagnostics Inc., VG Systems Limited, Westover Scientific Inc., ZAO PE Biosystems, eBioscience GmbH, eBioscience Ltd, eBioscience SAS, and picoSpin LLC.

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Waters Corporation, a specialty measurement company, provides analytical workflow solutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. It operates through two segments, Waters and TA. The company designs, manufactures, sells, and services high and ultra-performance liquid chromatography, as well as mass spectrometry (MS) technology systems and support products, including chromatography columns, other consumable products, and post-warranty service plans. It also designs, manufactures, sells, and services thermal analysis, rheometry, and calorimetry instruments; and develops and supplies software-based products that interface with its instruments, as well as other manufacturers' instruments. Its MS technology instruments are used in drug discovery and development comprising clinical trial testing, the analysis of proteins in disease processes, nutritional safety analysis, and environmental testing. The company offers thermal analysis, rheometry, and calorimetry instruments for use in predicting the suitability and stability of fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, water, polymers, metals, and viscous liquids for various industrial, consumer good, and healthcare products, as well as for life science research. Its products are used by life science, pharmaceutical, biochemical, industrial, nutritional safety, environmental, academic, and governmental customers working in research and development, quality assurance, and other laboratory applications. Waters Corporation was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in Milford, Massachusetts.
The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. provides insurance and financial services to individual and business customers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. Its Commercial Lines segment offers workers' compensation, property, automobile, liability, umbrella, bond, marine, livestock, and reinsurance; and customized insurance products and risk management services, including professional liability, bond, surety, and specialty casualty coverages through regional offices, branches, sales and policyholder service centers, independent retail agents and brokers, wholesale agents, and reinsurance brokers. The company's Personal Lines segment provides automobile, homeowners, and personal umbrella coverages through direct-to-consumer channel and independent agents. Its Property & Casualty Other Operations segment offers coverage for asbestos and environmental exposures. The company's Group Benefits segment provides group life, disability, and other group coverages to members of employer groups, associations, and affinity groups through direct insurance policies; reinsurance to other insurance companies; employer paid and voluntary product coverages; disability underwriting, administration, and claims processing to self-funded employer plans; and a single-company leave management solution. This segment distributes its group insurance products and services through brokers, consultants, third-party administrators, trade associations, and private exchanges. Its Hartford Funds segment offers investment products for retail and retirement accounts; exchange-traded products through broker-dealer organizations, independent financial advisers, defined contribution plans, financial consultants, bank trust groups, and registered investment advisers; and investment management and administrative services, such as product design, implementation, and oversight. The company was founded in 1810 and is headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut.
Australian Baptist church under fire for pastor who calls Islam 'a cancer we must destroy'

An Australian Baptist church that works in government schools has come under fire after its pastor made incendiary statements about Islam, calling it a 'a cancer we must destroy'.

Liberty Baptist Church, based in Cherrybrook, Sydney is a state-approved provider of scripture, known officially as special religious education (SRE). SRE is required of any government school that has access to a provider; the program amounts to at least 30 minutes a week of teaching about religion per week.

The church has now been referred to the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education, because of the teachings of its founding pastor Keith Piper, according to The Guardian.

In a video on his Youtube channel last year, Piper called the Islamic Qur'an 'a virus infecting the brains [of Muslims]', and said Australian schools were rejecting western values and teaching 'sodomy'.

'Ungodly, leftist western leaders are afraid to teach the Bible, salvation and Christian values in state schools,' he said in April. 'Instead they teach sodomy and how to become a weirdo.

'Islam and Qur'an-practising Muslims are culturally incompatible with western and Christian values ... Islamism is a cancer [and] we must destroy that cancer.'

Critics have warned that Piper's positions were a threat to the multicultural commitments of the government's education policy.

'We are concerned that the current provisions for SRE ... greatly increase this risk by enabling organisations such as Liberty Baptist Church to authorise their own curricula over which your office has no control or authority,' wrote Darrin Morgan, the NSW director of Fairness in Religion in Schools, in a letter to education minister Rob Stokes.

Currently, SRE is 'self-regulated', and the education department has minimal control over it. Piper told the Guardian that the school's SRE work used only externally approved materials and did not cover issues of Islam or homosexuality.

'The scope of these curriculums is available online and they don't deal with the issues you are concerned with,' he said. 'Liberty Baptist Church, as a special religious education provider, is committed to providing a safe and happy environment in every SRE class taught by our dedicated volunteers.

'They have undertaken Working With Children screening and have received their ... clearance authorisation. They have been formally trained to teach SRE in public schools and are committed to ongoing training.'

However, Piper made clear his view that 'The teachings of the Qu'ran and Islamism are indeed dangerous. I advocate against the Safe Schools program in schools, the content of which promotes the homosexual lifestyle.

'I have love for Muslim people who are victims of the ideology of Islam and I am committed to telling them the good news of Jesus Christ.'

Morgan said that Piper needed to ensure his church's SRE lined up with 'NSW's 21st century multicultural society'. Piper has previously said that multiculturalism would lead to 'people becoming Muslim through breeding and proselytising', and said he supports a ban on Muslim immigration.

Parents can have their children opt out of SRE if they wish.
Dawkins no-platformed for 'abusive speech', protests: 'Why is it fine to criticise Christianity but not Islam?'

Richard Dawkins has been 'no-platformed' by a US radio station who dropped him after discovering his 'abusive speech' against Islam. Dawkins protested that he was not abusive, but made no apology for criticising the 'oppressive cruelties of Islamism'.

Reuters

Dawkins, renowned evolutionary biologist and vocal critic of religion, was due to speak about his latest bookScience in the Soul: Collected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist, at an event for the Berkeley, CA based radio station KPFA on August 9.

However, KFPA cancelled the talk last Thursday, according to The Independent. The station explained in an email: 'We had booked this event based entirely on his excellent new book on science when we didn't know he had offended and hurt  in his tweets and other comments on Islam  so many people.

'While KPFA emphatically supports serious free speech, we do not support abusive speech. We apologise for not having had broader knowledge of Dawkins's views much earlier.'

The author of The God Delusion responded that he was 'astonished' by the move. In an open letter in response, he said: 'The idea that I have engaged in abusive speech against Islam is preposterous, which even the most rudimentary fact-checking by KPFA would have made clear.

'I have indeed strongly condemned the misogyny, homophobia, and violence of Islamism, of which Muslims  particularly Muslim women  are the prime victims. I make no apologies for denouncing those oppressive cruelties, and I will continue to do so.'

He noted that he 'used to love' KFPA, which he said was once the 'iconic home of free speech'.

Dawkins added: 'I am known as a frequent critic of Christianity and have never been de-platformed for that. Why do you give Islam a free pass? Why is it fine to criticise Christianity but not Islam?'

London gay Pride march. Police happy with Jesus is Gay banners. But banned @theCEMBs Allah is Gay banner. @KPFA-grade hypocrisy!  Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) July 23, 2017

Dawkins has increasingly come under fire in recent years for incendiary comments made on Twitter, frequently taking aim at 'Islamism'. He stoked controversy again at the weekend, protesting that a London Gay Pride march had banned the sign 'Allah is Gay' but didn't ban the Christian equivalent of 'Jesus is Gay'.

He said it was 'KFPA-grade hypocrisy!'
Iraqi forces claim to have captured 16-year-old girl who ran away from Germany to marry ISIS jihadi

An alleged 16-year-old German schoolgirl-turned-jihadi bride was captured alongside a female suicide squad member in a tunnel system in Mosul after it was recently liberated from ISIS. The girl, named in media reports as Linda Wenzel, was found by troops with a group of 20 other suspected foreign female members of the terror group.

Wenzel was initially mistaken for a kidnapped Yazidi girl as she didn't speak fluent Arabic. She was reported missing last year from her home in the small town of Pulsnitz, near Dresden. Prior to her disappearance, the teenager was considered "a brilliant student" but very quiet and withdrawn.

Wenzel reportedly grew up in a Protestant family, but her parents' divorce and her mother's subsequent relationship to the school caretaker apparently devastated her and drew her closer to Islam. It began in May last year when she met online a Muslim preacher from Hamburg who sent her a copy of the Quran which she brought to school every day.

She is believed to have begun learning Arabic, wore conservative clothes and engaged with ISIS members on chat rooms until she was completely radicalized. Later, the Muslim man she met online urged her to join him in Iraq. She is reported to have used her mother's credit card to buy an airline ticket to Istanbul under her mom's name.

Wenzel left her home July 1, 2016 and told her mother she would spend the weekend with a friend. She didn't come back home but instead traveled to Frankfurt, then made her way to Turkey before smuggling herself to Iraq. Her mother was surprised as she had apparenty never even traveled by train alone.

Last week, Iraqi troops found Wenzel along with four other German women in a tunnel under the Old City. They were part of 20 members of the all-female police force of ISIS that included Russian, Turkish, Canadian and Chechen nationals. Some of them were wearing suicide vests when they were found.

German authorities have confirmed that the captured girl is Wenzel, although they did not confirm whether she had been fighting with the Islamic State.
Pioneer ministry: How a new generation of ministers is changing the face of mission

The Church Mission Society has just seen the most students ever graduate from its Pioneer Mission Leadership Training programme. A total of 24 students left with a range of university awards in theology, ministry and mission at a ceremony at CMS headquarters just outside Oxford.

But what are 'pioneer' leaders, and why is the movement growing?

'Pioneer' was first used to officially describe the ministry that was going on at the edges of traditional church in the Church of England's 2004 Mission Shaped Church report. The report highlighted the ways Christians were engaging with people outside the usual reach of church and suggested this represented a significant hope for the future.

It also recognised that different gifts and skills were needed to start something new, as opposed to growing and maintaining an existing established congregation. The report recommended creating a new designation, the Ordained Pioneer Minister (OPM), as well as a new training pathway that would nurture and resource this pioneer gift.

Anglican theological colleges were soon offering a new pioneer track. But it was essentially the same training offered to all ordinands, with an additional session or two on pioneering. A few years in, it was acknowledged that this was not meeting the expectations of either those training as pioneers or the needs of the Church of England.

Consequently, CMS was approached to devise specialist training in cross-cultural mission and launched its Pioneer Mission Leadership training in 2010.As one of the oldest missionary sending agencies, this seemed a natural fit  particularly as about 30 years previously CMS had come to realise that the greatest missionary challenge was now on its own doorstep. In response, it was applying learning from more than 200 years of taking the gospel to other cultures around the world, to the sub-cultures of the UK and Western Europe.

According to CMS director of mission education Jonny Baker: 'The course gives pioneers a supportive learning community  a place to belong, as well as equipping and empowering them to initiate and follow through with mission projects that have a wider impact on the church and society.'

It's not just Anglican pioneers that train with CMS. Students also include Baptists, Methodists and Pentecostals.Among those graduating this year is Janice Hamilton who is being ordained into the Church of England as a deacon in Gloucester Diocese.She is involved in a community regeneration project in Sedbury, Gloucestershire, to refurbish a disused youth club. Organisers hope this initiative will draw the local community together. Overall, the project will cost 55,000 and the team has launched a crowdfunding initiative as well as seeking funding from local sources.

Lay pioneer Libby Hawkness-Smith lives in Oxfordshire and heads up Journey On, a community for people with learning difficulties such as autism. Libby says: 'Like so much of society the Church can be unintentionally patronising for people with autism, but a lot of people want to be challenged, they just need someone to help them build up to a challenge.'

Claire Elwood, another graduate, is involved in Tea and Toast, an outreach initiative to students in Nottingham's city centre. Every Friday night after the clubs have shut, the team offers revellers hot drinks, friendship and support to those in distress, and if the situation allows it, they take the opportunity to share their faith.

From September CMS will be offering two new courses, one in Pioneering Youth Work and another for pioneers working in children's and family ministry. These will draw on the expertise of the Oxford Centre for Youth Ministry and Streetspace, part of Frontier Youth Trust.As well as the courses being run from its base in Oxford, CMS is now setting up hubs in other locations around the country. The first hub, St Cedd's Centre in Romford, is a partnership between CMS and Chelmsford Diocese and has just successfully completed its first year, training 14 pioneers.

CMS's pioneer training has also been a catalyst for supporting those engaged in mission in other church streams and networks. On 18th July CMS hosted a day conference, in collaboration with Methodist Pioneering Pathways, on Pioneering on Estates and New Housing Developments. More than a hundred practitioners gathered to hear stories of mission, share learning and consider some of the political and theological issues that are raised by their ministry.

Government figures show that in England around 150,000 new homes are built every year. While this is still not sufficient to meet the demand, it represents a huge opportunity for the hurch to engage with people outside the boundaries of established church, as brand new communities are being formed.

Ben Norton, whose ministry is on a new housing estate in Hull, says of his experience there: 'I believe we have to create the space for trust to be established.People have to trust us before they can begin to trust in the promises of God. We have to start with people rather than programmes or services.'

As Jonny Baker says: 'Mission Pioneers are giving the Church a glimpse of the future, where mission will not be delivered solely by large para-church organisations, but increasingly through agile, innovative and creative pioneers, witnessing love in action.'
WANTED: Christian coders, techies and creatives. The CofE is inviting you to its first 'digital lab'

At the Church of England, we are looking for Christians with a bright idea for an app, website or social media campaign to bring more people to faith in Jesus Christ, grow and develop disciples, support their local church or the national church.

We're launching Church of England Digital Labs to gather together the many Christian coders, creatives and techies who have the skills and passion for using technology to aid the church. Whether you have a fully formed plan for an app, website or social media campaign or just a spark of an idea, we want to hear from you.

Our digital comms team at Church House, our HQ in London, has been up and running for about eight months now. We've seen the impact that digital and social media campaigns at Christmas and Easter can have in encouraging existing Christians and bringing new people to faith. There is so much more we can do, which is why we're establishing Digital Labs.

Our first event will be taking place on Saturday 24th February 2018, from 10am-9pm, in central London. You'll get to meet and network with people like you, spend time refining your ideas and taking advantage of the knowledge and skills available all in one room.

Towards the end of the day you'll get the chance to pitch your idea to a panel of industry experts with the aim of turning the best ideas we hear into one or two solutions that the Church of England will build and make available to more than 16,500 CofE churches.

Spaces at the event are limited so please do let us know if you are interested in attending by signing up here and we'll be in touch over the coming weeks and months with more details.

Digital Labs is part of the Church of England's Renewal and Reform programme. It is aimed at helping us become a growing church for all people and for all places.

James Poulter, senior social innovation manager at LEGO, who is on the judging panel, told me: 'Seeing the Church of England continue to pioneer new initiatives that engage digital culture and innovation is so exciting, and a crucial part of reaching new people with the Gospel. I can't wait to see what new projects and ideas may come out of the labs and look forward to collaborating with the winning pitches to bring them to life.'

Adrian Harris is Head of Digital Communications at the Church of England. He is leading a three-year digital transformation project at the Church of England. The team has just been been shortlisted for two national awards, the Digital Impact Awards and the CorpComms Digi Awards, for its work over the last eight months. Find him on Twitter @c_of_e and @adrianharris.
Lincoln Industries Innovation Manager, Adam Matzner, is pleased to announce the selection of John Jarecki to innovation engineering specialist. Jarecki started at Lincoln Industries in 2011 where he spent three years as an intern. In 2015 he transitioned into a contractor position for the innovation team. As the innovation engineering specialist he will be responsible for developing product and processes in the Innovation department to provide solutions for customers.
World Church leaders offer prayers for 'just peace' in Jerusalem

Churches around the world are offering prayers for 'just peace' in Jerusalem after some of the most difficult scenes in years.

Israel has said it will not remove the metal detectors at entrances to al Aqsa mosque compound but could eventually reduce their use, Israeli officials said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering alternatives to the walk-through gates that were placed at the mosque after two policemen were shot there on July 14.

'My heart and my prayers are with you and your churches these days, and with all the peoples of faith in Jerusalem and the Holy Land,' said Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, in a pastoral letter. It says: 'We are calling for churches around the world to pray for you these days and for a just peace for Jerusalem. We are sure that churches around the world are following you with great sympathy and with great determination that, together, we will change this situation.'

He adds: 'We have been monitoring the situation in Jerusalem with deep sorrow and grave concern recognising that violence is spiriting conflict on a contentious site for both Jews and Muslims. As a worldwide fellowship of churches, we are urging the world church body and all people of good will to unite in prayer for a just and peaceful solution in Jerusalem.

'We pray and plead for both sides in this precarious situation to talk with one another and arrive at a bone fide solution for access to the Holy Site so that people of faith may worship peacefully. This is the only way forward to coexistence and the violence to cease.'

Tzachi Hanegbi, Israeli minister for regional development and a senior member of the ruling Likud party, told Israel's Army Radio. 'They (metal detectors) will remain. The murderers will never tell us how to search the murderers. If they (Palestinians) do not want to enter the mosque, then let them not enter the mosque.'

In spite of the murders of the two policemen which made the additional security necessary, Palestinians believe the new gates violate agreed arrangements for entry to the mosque, Islam's third-holiest site. Many have refused to go through the metal detectors and there have been violent protests. Israeli security forces shot dead three demonstrators on Friday, according to Palestinian medics.

A fourth Jerusalem-area Palestinian was killed on Saturday when an explosive device he was building went off prematurely, the Israeli military said. He died of shrapnel wounds to the chest and abdomen.

Palestinian leaders had called for a 'day of rage' after the clashes.

Jerusalem church leaders have been among those calling for a return to the status quo, urging peace and freedom of worship.

Additional reporting by Reuters
Disability charities have been left disappointed after junior government ministers offered the sector little support over demands for 400m of back pay, the chair of Mencap has said.

Last week Mencap warned that the disability care sector is on the brink of collapse with multiple charities facing insolvency, after HM Revenue & Customs sent out demands for six years worth of back-pay for carers on "sleep-in" shifts - estimated to cost the sector up to 400m.

Senior leaders from United Response, HFT, Mencap and private sector provider Voyage Care met business minister Margot James and health minister Jackie Doyle on 20 July.

Some charities have been ordered to make payments by as early as 15 August, and ministers were warned that they needed to make an intervention before that date to halt HMRC enforcement, or charities would be put at risk of insolvency. But Mencap chairman Derek Lewis said the ministers were unable to say what they would do.

He said: The learning disability sector welcomed the acknowledgement by junior ministers of the gravity and scale of the problem and their concern for vulnerable families.

However, the inability of government even to indicate the likely timing of a decision, let alone put forward an interim solution to the problem, was more than surprising after months of discussion.

As Mencap has made clear, the clock is ticking  no decision to halt HMRC enforcement action by 15 August will have very serious consequences for providers and their continued viability to operate.

In Charity Finance

Lewis said his charity would continue to lobby the government and said the potential crisis of charities going bust should be a top priority for the senior ministers in any caring government.

Mencap has appealed an employment tribunal case taken by trade union UNISON relating to the back-pay issue, with a hearing scheduled for March 2018. It said that if the Court of Appeal upholds the tribunal's decision, the government will have to step in and fund back pay.
Today at 3 pm, CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope addressed the House Judiciary Committee in a bipartisan forum on press freedoms . These are his prepared remarks.

Dear Members of the Committee,

My name is Kyle Pope, and I am the Editor and Publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today.

CJR has been around since 1961 as both an advocate for and a watchdog of the press. Over that half century and more, we have seen moments when the press has been revered and honored in this country, and moments when its reputation has suffered. We have seen great and noble work by journalists here and around the world, and we have seen embarrassing blunders and lapses of judgment.

But what we have never seen, until now, is an attack by a sitting US president on the presss very role as a democratic institution.

This is new, it is dangerous, and it has resulted in a sharp increase in threats against the American press and its work. Our job as members of the press is to highlight why this approach is at odds with hundreds of years of American history, and to show how it will make it harder for Americans of all political stripes to stay informed and make smart decisions about the policies that affect their lives.

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But first, a reminder of how we got here. For more than a year now, candidate and now President Trump has made a war against the press a central plank of his public persona. He has called us enemies of the American people, dishonest, liars and crooked and failing. He has singled out individual journalists for ad hominem attacks and declared entire news organizations to be working against Americas interests.

We cant ignore that he was helped in that effort by the medias coverage of the 2016 election, when many outlets simply missed the biggest story of the campaign, failing to understand the size and intensity of the electorate that would bring Trump to power. In addition, many national news outlets broke decades of tradition and practice in the run-up to the election and took on a much more aggressive and even partisan approach to covering Trump, a tactic that fed his supporters suspicion that the media was biased against the president.

But Trumps media attacks didnt end with the election. If anything, its intensified since hes been in office, often in proportion to the number of scandals plaguing the White House. As Trump has struggled to deliver on the policy promises he made during the campaign, his war against the press has become his single most coherent ideology; the one point on which he can reliably connect to the base that got him elected. It is his default approach to governing.

But lets be clear: Donald Trumps attack against fake news is, in one very important sense, fake. Throughout his life as a public person, Trump has shown that he desperately craves media attention, and has become a master at cultivating it. New York City tabloid reporters will tell you how obsessive he was about his media image, even pretending to be his own PR rep calling reporters to pitch stories about himself. Now, as president, the same week he tries to demean The New York Times on Twitter and elsewhere, he sits down with its reporters in the Oval Office and makes clear how much hed like to do it again.

If that were the end of the story, we could largely dismiss Trumps sham press war and move along to more important things.

Unfortunately, it has not ended there. President Trumps attacks on reporters, despite the dishonesty at their core, are starting to have real effects in the real world.

CJR, along with other organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists, has worked in recent months to track increases in attacks against the press, both here and around the world. The number of incidents is startling, and they range from name-callinglike the governor of Texas joking about shooting reportersto actual gunfire being aimed at a newsroom in Kentucky and a reporter in Montana being assaulted for questioning a candidate for Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee is looking into threats to press freedoms.Our EIC Kyle Pope will speak. Livestream here: Posted by Columbia Journalism Review on Monday, July 24, 2017

So while the rhetoric and threats coming from the Trump team are scary enoughloosened libel laws, a war against whistleblowers, the banning of reporters it doesnt likewhats even scarier is the message that is trickling down to state and local elected officials, as well as to some of the presidents more rabid supporters. The message is: The press is the enemy; nothing they say should be believed; there is no role or need for them in American democracy.

That is why you see reporters home addresses and childrens names now being published by Trump surrogates on the internet. Thats why journalists increasingly are being excluded from public forums around the country. Thats why attacks against the press are climbing overseas, as norms that had been established in the US are increasingly seen as being abandoned here.

What began as a sham war against the press by a media-obsessed president has become something of real danger and real consequence. Our jobyours in Congress as well as ours in the pressis to convey that threat to the American people. We need to look for ways to show that this is not a partisan issue or a fight about this story or that scandal. Its about whether we care about a functioning press as an important check in our democratic system.

I have written in recent months about what the media shouldnt be doing if it wants to have that conversation with Americans. It shouldnt whine every time the Trump administration snubs it, and it shouldnt always make the story about itself. Every time Trump tweets the words fake news, it doesnt warrant a Breaking News alert or a front-page headline.

Instead, reporters should be focused on the presidents team and his policies, examining his remaking of American government. These are the stories that resonate with Americans, not his views about whats airing on MSNBC or CNN some Monday morning. We are already seeing some excellent reporting in this vein. We need more.

The lack of trust that now exists between the press and the public didnt start with Trump, though he certainly has done his part to exacerbate it. It has been building slowly for decades, to the point that the conversation between the media and its readers is broken. Many Americans no longer think the press listens to or understands them, and they long ago started tuning us out. We became part of the establishment that had turned its back on them. These are our failings, and they need to be fixed.

We need to start listening again and reporting the kinds of stories that matter in peoples lives. We need to make it clear that were in our readers corner, not in the pocket of the source who gave us the tip in the first place. That means fewer stories about the horse race of politics, less inside gossip about whos up and whos down in Washington, and, yes, a lot less writing about ourselves and the burdens of covering this White House.

We have our role to play, but so do you. As members of Congress, you can choose to either reinforce the presidents destructive rhetoric against the press, or you can stand up to it. When the president attacks the First Amendment from the Oval Office, or makes sweeping and false statements about some of the most important news organizations in the world, you can hide from it and hope it goes away, or you can speak up, saying publicly, Thats not right, and its not what I believe. Quite frankly, too few of you have stood up as weve come under attack.

You can support your hometown newspapers and their efforts to report important, accurate information. Local news resources have been decimated throughout the country, for reasons that have nothing to do with Donald Trump. You can help by treating those local outlets as important voices in your communities, including them in your decision making and your outreach. One of the lessons of the 2016 election is that national reporting suffers when there are fewer local reporters on the ground. While you cant change the business challenges of local news, you can do everything possible to support the local reporters in your districts.

And, finally, you can look for ways to bridge the trust gap between the media and your constituents. Encourage town hall meetings that sit reporters down with readers who mistrust them. Write op-eds encouraging readers to tune out the Washington rhetoric and actually listen to what their local journalists are reporting. Distance yourself from the claims of fake news that you know are untrue.

As you do your part, so will we, reporting to keep journalism honest, advocating for a free and open press, and reminding media consumers why the actions of this president to discredit the American press will ultimately affect them, too, in the form of less accountability for elected officials, less transparency on important policy decisions, and less light on areas of government than should not be kept secret.

Thank you for your time and attention this afternoon.

RELATED: Dont cry for Sean Spicer

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Kyle Pope is the editor in chief and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review.
Fewer than half of Americans say they personally know a Muslim personwhich means many draw their opinions of Muslims from news coverage that is overwhelmingly negative. A recent Harvard analysis of major newscasts of CBS, Fox, and NBC from 2015 to 2017 found that war and terrorism account for 75 percent of the coverage of Muslims, and that human interest stories or those depicting Muslims as productive members of society were overlooked by news directors.

At best, that creates a poorly painted picture of a community that numbers 3.3 million in the United Statesand offers a challenge to news organizations to provide fuller coverage to encourage understanding. That type of groundbreaking work is already under way at some publications, notably at BuzzFeed News, where reporter Hannah Allam wants to offer a richer, though not always glowing, depiction through her beat: Muslim Life in America.

Since March, the former McClatchy war correspondent and Middle East bureau chief has been digging into the lives of American Muslims full-time. Allams work bears witness to a tide of anti-Muslim sentiment in modern America, and is intent on dissecting the challenges facing the multi-faceted and diverse religious community.

She spoke with CJR about how she approaches the beat and what reporters should avoid or seek out in coverage of Muslims. The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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After covering the Middle East from overseas and Washington for McClatchy, what brought on this transition to cover Muslim life for BuzzFeed?

I came back from being a foreign correspondent in 2012, right after the Egyptian election where Morsi was elected. I came back here to do a foreign policy beat, so I was still covering a lot of the same issues about Middle East policy, especially Syria, but from the Washington perspective, a policymaking perspective rather than from on the ground. As McClatchys mission shifted toward more domestic reporting, my beat expanded and basically became more of a broader national security beat.

I had a focus on Middle East and counterterrorism issues but even then I was really cognizant of trying not to write about Muslims only through that lens. For me a pivotal point in understanding how foreign Muslims are portrayed in mainstream media came in the aftermath of the San Bernardino killings. When that cluster of reporters went into the shooters home and they were marveling over ordinary items of a Muslim household, as if they were evidence of extremism, when in fact it was like a Quran or a string of prayer beads or a prayer carpet. Those are things that many Muslim homes have all across the country. I just thought about how little the reporters knew about Islam to point to those things as, you know, ooh look heres evidence.

Anti-Muslim hostility has led to a well-meaning but sad genre of corrective journalism that says 'Look at this Muslim doing a normal thing!'  Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) November 29, 2016



It made me realize what were really up against in terms of portraying this community accurately and with nuance. That was the jumping off point for doing more stories about US-Muslim life while I was still at McClatchy. I was very lucky that at McClatchy they totally supported that and recognized that it was a community that isnt always written about with nuance and depth. It coincided with the 2016 presidential campaign, and the rise of Trump and this new era of really open, vocal hostility toward Muslims.

Even though my beat was more broadly race demographics, I was writing a lot about what it felt like to be Muslim in the United States during the rise of Trump. And so that was just sort of expanded when I joined BuzzFeed in March.

The fallout of American global policy and who it impacts locally, in a sense.

Yes, and not even just policy but the social changes, the changes in how Americans all across the country speak about Muslims. And how its not confined to one demographic or political leaning because even during the campaign I would always point out how Clinton also, you know, when describing Muslims, almost always spoke about Muslims through a national security lens. As in, you are some line of defense, you sort of should be out there sort of policing your neighbors. That is sort of the subtext that Muslims heard, and that doesnt sound good either.

Right, a lot of people responded to that and felt doubly harmed. As if somehow Muslims that learn that this violence exists like anyone else were supposed to also be able to police that?

Right. I dont think people understand how absurd it sounds to many Muslims. At least, Muslims Ive interviewed, who say, You want us to stop international terrorist plots that the worlds best spy agencies couldnt detect? (laughs) You know, Im trying to make rent and feed my kid. I dont know what you want from me.

The other thing that I think gets lost in reporting these issues is that after these big attacks, American Muslims also feel grief, the same grief as any other American. And they say theyre sort of not even allowed to grieve with the rest of the nation because theyre already worried about the next phase which is the backlash or retaliation that they often face after a big attack.

One of the things I like best about your coverage is that you depict this community as not being a monolith, but as being very diverse. We see that in your coverage of LGBT Muslims, and the discussion in your Nabra Hassanen coverage, where you depicted not only the reactions to her murder, but also the tensions of black Muslims and how they dont feel embraced by other Muslims sometimes.

Im wondering if thats key to your approach, to express how within Islam there are so many different people?

Yes, absolutely. Its important to me that I dont write about this fictional thing called the Muslim community. Whenever I speak about it, I try to always say Muslim communities. And absolutely, I do go out of my way just to make sure that Im not talking about one narrow Muslim experience, and to broaden it and to show that there are so many different ways of being a Muslim in America.

And this current era of open hostility toward Muslims affects different communities in different ways. I just think that is fertile ground for so many stories because there is not one single Muslim experience and how is this moment is feeling for the estimated 3.3 million American Muslims?

LGBT Muslims held an iftar in Minneapolis  a risky undertaking from the moment they tried to hand out invitations.https://t.co/CKdnzhiFwU  Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) June 24, 2017

ICYMI: Thank God the brain cancer waited for the Pulitzer

How is the rise of hostility that you note affecting these communities?

Everyones interpreting it a different way, and everyone is handling this in different ways. Yes there is this sort of response that is defensive: youths sometimes literally taking self-defense courses. Or staying inside, removing the hijab, watching what is said in publictheres that but theres more.

Its important for me to also depict that Muslims arent just victims, but theyre responding in other ways such as increased activism, reaching out to communities they havent partnered with before, pushing into political office and leadership positions. Its not just [as if] Muslims are cowering in a corner, really worried that the country is turning against them. Theres a lot of fear, for sure. But thats just part of it.

And then the other thing is yes, my beat is called Muslim Life in America. I dont want to use my beat as some sort ofI dont know how to say this, but I dont want to get in trouble.

Say it carefully, take your time.

Im not an activist; Im a journalist.

Right.

And so Im covering these communities in a way that I hope is complex and accurate and fair, and that shows what its like to be Muslim at this point in America. And that doesnt mean portraying Muslims as victims all the time. It doesnt mean portraying Muslims as perpetrators all the time and only covering radicalization sorts of stories.

But to show that this is, as studies have shown, the most diverse major religion in the United States. No single ethnicity dominates it. I think the largest single bloc is African-American Muslims, who are more often left out of the conversation.

What else gets left out of the conversation?

Its important to show also that these communities are in transformation. And theyre struggling. Theres a crisis of leadership right now where people are asking: Who speaks for American Muslims? What are the main priorities? How far do Muslims go in allying with other groups? Those are all questions Ive heard Muslim communities asked, and I think as a journalist I also have to point out controversies and the sticking points and the thorny issues within the community.

What is an example of a thorny issue among American Muslims right now?

Right now those issues include: womens roles in leadership, and what is turning away people from the mosque.

What do you do to avoid missteps in this coverage?

Theres this idea that all Muslim life in America is centered around the mosque, when studies have shown that [less than half] of American Muslims even attend a mosque regularly. And yet so much of the reporting about them is centered around the mosques.

I try to get outside the mosque. I try to definitely include African-American Muslims, the biggest single block of Muslims in America in my stories. I try to have a good mix of foreign born and homegrown Muslims. I always try to have women in every story.

Thank you.

(Laughs) And to show the generational differences, and also marginalized voices such as LGBT Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslims, Shia Muslims, et cetera.

Which means thatas someone who grew up in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Statesyou are investigating Muslim experiences that are fairly unfamiliar to you.

Yeah, to me its exciting and its daunting because I grew up mainly knowing Sunni Islam and then later was exposed to Shia doctrine and leadership in Iraq and the Middle East. Now I take those overseas foreign experiences of Islam and to see how theyre being interpreted here: whats being kept, whats being discarded, how thats meshing with homegrown American Muslims.

All of those traditions and questions and interpretations get even more jumbled up. To me, all of that is great fodder for journalism, to understand the transformation of the practice of a faith at a stressful time.

I also imagine that theres a little bit of media fatigue that you have to work past with some Muslim sources. With so many negative and clumsy portrayals in the news, I cant imagine people are always really excited to meet a reporter from BuzzFeed. How do you bridge that gap and assuage those fears if and when you encounter them?

I really try hard to make sure that my beat is not a hate-crime-of-the-week beat, that it goes beyond that and really explores the lives of American Muslims. I try to include as much of peoples stories and, as I can, their backstories. The great thing about BuzzFeed is that thats what they hired me to do. They asked me to do these deep stories about Muslim life in America.

When youre out reporting, people [need to] see that youre really committed, youre not just parachuting in for a day but you have a couple of days to spend with them. [They see] that you want to really go beyond the surface of their lives, that you ask follow-up questions, that there is a dedication or commitment to understanding and getting it right.

How has being an American Muslim and your global travel shaped your reporting?

I was born in Oklahoma and grew up some in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, and returned to Oklahoma. I was in high school in Oklahoma when the Oklahoma City bombing occurredI remember it, we could hear it. Within a few hours sketches had come out of John Doe #1 and John Doe #2, who were these suspects that appeared to be Middle Eastern men. This was before we knew that it was McVeigh. I remember other kids in high school saying Hannahs dad is John Doe Number Two. Ha ha ha. That was a painful experience because I was just this kid in Oklahoma who was as devastated as every other Oklahoman about this horrific act of terrorism, and then within hours Ive got kids pointing at me, saying my dads responsible?

So I am definitely attuned to how it feels to have your faith and your background and your religion questioned. Some people say Oh youre a Muslim. That must be easier for you to understand how the religion is practiced here. Actually, Im learning every single day. Im encountering so many different interpretations. If you go in just sort of saying Im here to learn, people are willing to teach.

Also I think the flipside is true, where they might see you as a Muslim so maybe they trust you more to write accurately about their faith and not to distort thingsbut at the same time they have to understand that I am writing with a critical distance. Im not there to write a Valentine or a P.R. campaign for them. Im a witness, basically.

So many times Ive started on a story on this beat thinking it was one thing and then finding out it was another. Its not just this beat but any beatits so important not going with the preconceived notion of what the story is because then you start talking to people and its always more complex. I also try to stay in touch with people when Im not writing about them. And I recognize too that its not everywhere that has that space and time. Those are luxuries now.

That luxury seems to be offering a very unique vantage point, one that is really needed right now to inform the zeitgeist.

Some of these ideas about Muslims are so ingrained I cant pretend that a dozen stories I write are going to change overnight how people think about or perceive Muslims. A lot of how I think about my beat is that Im just witnessing these communities going through a tough moment and trying to record what that looks like: How its changing Muslim Activism. How its changing Muslim leadership. How its changing Muslim political engagement. How its changing Muslims physical safety and sense of place in the country.

I think about how: If I look back in a year and read these stories would I get a sense of how these communities have transformed?

Are there reporters you admire on your beat?

Oh absolutely. Hamed Aleaziz at the San Francisco Chronicle, Niraj Warikoo at the Detroit Free Press, Jaweed Kaleem at the LA Times. Leila Fadel from NPR is starting to do this. Abigail Hauslohner from the Washington Post, Emma Green at the Atlantic.

And I think a lot of people right now are starting to look at these issuesif not as a full time beat, at least as a sub-beat.

Which probably means there are journalists who feel like they should be covering this and they dont know how to get started. Do you have advice for the reporter who wants to cover this community and doesnt know how?

It would be good to remember that most American Muslim life happens outside the mosque. So while the mosque might be a good starting point to get to know Muslims who can regularly attend the mosque, its only one way in. Look at other organizationsdoctors associations, Muslim free clinics, Muslim student associations at universities, and maybe just ordinary families in your hometown. Thats actually the most typical Muslim experience, somebody who doesnt go to a mosque regularly.

In addition to certain negative stereotypes that are out there, the other most common and narrow representation is the cleric, or that only clerics speak for Muslims and we dont have a whole lot of just ordinary Muslims. The example that I always think about is how some producers tried to make that reality show about Muslims years ago. It got canceled because they were just boring. It turned out that they just lived their lives, raised their kids, and paid their taxes. And who wants to see that? So it was canceled. Thats why I always try to tell people. Like, its really not that spooky and mysterious.

Do you run into people who wonder why your beat is necessary?

[Im asked] why cant it just be a religion beat or part of a race and demographics beat. And I think about that a lot. And you know the response I would give is: There was one religion singled out in the inaugural address in January. There was one religion singled out in the travel ban. Theres one religion that is constantly vilified in political discourse and has a whole sortof industry dedicated now to smearing it. So I think that theres plenty of justification for looking closely at what Islam is, how its practiced in the United States. Why does this radical fringe exist and how did that fringe come to represent. 3.3-plus million Americans?

Muslims. They're just like you. (Today in well-meaning but awkwardly worded press releases). pic.twitter.com/7YdotDZkcw  Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam) April 19, 2017



Those are all really interesting things to explore and these things have implications in so many other aspects of American life, [beyond] national security. I mean it gets to the fundamentals of civil rights, justice in the court system, and all of those other questions of US democratic values. I mean theyre all sort of put to the test with how Muslims are being regarded right now.

Race in America seems to be predicated on (often fuzzy) perceptions and fears that develop from those perceptions. How do you see that play out when it comes to race and American Muslims?

Race is one of the most interesting aspects to cover right now. And one of the most surprising aspects about Muslim life right now is covering how the hostility toward Muslims in general have forced confrontations that the Muslim populationand Muslim leaders and these advocacy groups etcthat they have all really shied away from for a long time, many people would say for too long. Its forcing conversations within the Muslim community about how Black Muslims are perceived, embraced or not embraced. Why arent they reflected more in leadership and advocacy groups? Why are there specific issues that arent being addressed?

Theres enduring racism that exists even within the Muslim community. Theres a lot of movement against that in this new generation. Young Muslim activists for the most part are looking at race in a much different way than I think the previous generation did. Were talking about a homegrown American generation of young Muslim leaders emerging and their values dont always mesh with the older generations.

The face of activism in America is changing, and one of the positive things that I hear from African-American Muslims is its creating a bigger platform for their voices, and a reckoning for how theyve been treated by other Muslims in America. Thats a very interesting conversation about where to go from here. I hear African-American Muslims saying that they still have a degree of wariness about working with other Muslims, foreign-born Muslims, South Asian and Arab Muslims. They say Oh well now were all facing this hostility so now you want to band together? I think thats an important schism to cover on this beat.

In a sense, Muslims face the same issues that other communities of color have dealt with for years and years, you know especially African-Americans who were always portrayed in stereotype or associated with crime and negative stereotypes. So I often hear Muslim community activists saying its to the detriment of Muslims if they do not support, work with, connect with, and learn from African-Americans and, as many have pointed out, Japanese-Americans. Its interesting to see a number of Japanese-Americans come up and start speaking out on behalf of Muslims, recognizing the kind of demonization of an entire community that preceded Japanese internment.

Do you ever worry that youll be the reporter who files from an internment camp? Do you hear those fears in the community?

Oh, absolutely. There is a lot of fear. Ive written about people who are coming up with Plan Bs and escape routes and exit strategies from the only country that theyve ever known. Its sad to hear that.

Every journalist I talk to these days has concerns about feedback and trolls. Whats your mail look like these days? Are you seeing an increase in threats? Are you ever nervous on your beat covering this stuff? Do you feel vulnerable?

Yes, absolutely. I remember even before I applied for this job that BuzzFeed posted it and the posting itself was getting all kinds of criticism on social media. With people saying oh look, why are they hiring a Muslim reporter. Whats so special about that community? Just basically questioning the wisdom of hiring that role and taking a lot of criticism.

So I thought, OK, if theyre getting criticism from just the job posting, whats going to happen when the female Muslim reporter shows up? [But] Ive had really wild comments said to me throughout my career. Even back when I was covering things in the Middle East, I remember a reader writing in to say if this doesnt work out for you maybe you can go be Osama bin Ladens secretary.

I talked to BuzzFeeds security team about what to do in case I encounter online bullying, plus what I know already from working as a foreign correspondent in conflict zones for many years. I kind of already have a security protocol that I live by. So I try to be very careful about doing things that reveal my location or that could be used against me. I take some basic precautions.

Luckily though I havent received outright threatening emails in a long time. Theyre mostly offensive. A lot of memes. I think its less about my being Muslim and more about the general anti-press statements in politics right now.

What beats can do a better job of covering Muslims?

The politics beat, public safety beats, and yes, national securitybut also just the religion beat. Considering the study you mentioned about how often and how badly Muslims are portrayedthere are just so many easy ways to quote Muslims on stories that are outside the national security beat or questions of Islamophobia. Muslims are over represented in the medical corps, so if youre doing a story on Parkinsons disease or heart attacks, why not quote a Muslim doctor?

I will say alsoand this is something that I dont think gets covered enoughis Muslims sense of humor. I mean, it is a difficult time. Its a hard time. Its a scary time for many Muslims, but I also hear a whole lot of humor in how its discussed. [Like] Hasan Minhajs White House Correspondents speech where he introduced himself as My name is Hasan Minhaj, or as Ill be known in a few weeks, number 830287. Its taking ownership of labels and hashtags like #notaterrorist. I think its also being dealt with in many different ways than just being scared and staying indoors.

Theres activism, there is humor, theres art. I mean theres a lot. This moment is also leading to a real era of Muslim creativity. Whether its creating memes to counter stereotypes or deciding that the narrative about Muslims is so negative that theyre going to write their own TV pilots and movies and screenplays and novels. So thats also a really exciting aspect to cover.

ICYMI: Writers dish on scoops that slipped away

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Shaya Tayefe Mohajer teaches journalism at the University of Southern California and works as a freelance journalist in Los Angeles. Previously, she was the news editor for TakePart.com and a reporter for The Associated Press. She is a graduate of New York University's masters program in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @Shaya_in_LA.
BEFORE DONALD TRUMP was elected, Mario Guevaraan immigration reporter at El Mundo Hispanico, the Atlanta areas oldest Spanish-language print outletreceived a handful of calls each day from people dealing with immigration issues. Georgia is home to the countrys seventh largest undocumented immigrant population, estimated at 375,000.

But the weight of the beat is much heavier since Trump became president. Guevara says he currently receives up to 40 calls or messages a day, via text or Facebook, from people whose lives are shaped by immigration policy and enforcement, in one way or another.

During a recent interview with CJR, Guevara placed his cellphone on a table in the conference room off of his newsroom. El Mundo Hispanico shares the newsroom with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which acquired the Spanish-language paper in 2004. As if to make the point, his phone rings. Its the Honduran consul. She wants to let Guevara know that they can help the next time a Honduran national dies and family members cant afford a funeral. Guevara wrote about such a case the day before, and his story helped raise $6,000 for the family of the deceased.

In a way, were advocates for the community, says Guevara after the consul hangs up.

Within minutes, another text arrives: ICE came and took my brother and sister and I dont know where they are. What should I do?

People will call me before they even call the police.

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IN 2007, OPPORTUNITY AGENDAa New York-based social justice communication labpublished an analysis by New America Medias Elena Shore of Spanish-language coverage of immigration .

In the last year, the Spanish-language press was at the forefront of the immigration reform and immigrant rights movement, wrote Shore, who reviewed 175 stories from 30 print publications, nearly all of them Spanish-language or bilingual, published during the federal immigration reform efforts of George W. Bushs presidency. Spanish-language newspapers mobiliz[ed] millions of people in the immigration marchesaround the country and helped their communities navigate an increasingly anti-immigrant climate.

For many, that climate has grown more difficult in recent months. Federal immigration arrests in Georgia increased by 75 percent during Trumps first three months in office, compared to the same period one year earlier, according to the AJC. Nationwide, that figure is at 40 percent. Not only that, federal authorities are arresting higher numbers of people with no history of violent or drug-related crimes than during the Obama administration.

Those numbers have made for long days for immigration reporters like Guevara. But if Shores study is any indication, then Spanish-language news outlets can be a lifesaver for the communities they cover.

People will call me before they even call the police, Guevara says. He recalls a case in which a babysitter contacted him and said, I cant call the police, because I dont have papers, but the boy Im taking care of is being beaten at home. She sent him a video showing the childs bruises. Guevara called the police. They promised not to pick her up, and came to get the kid, he says. Police are now searching for the parents, and the child is with social services. Guevara has held off on writing about the case until police are successful in their search, he says.

I felt satisfied that I had done a good deed, Guevara says. I did the right thing for a child in my community.

Guevara recently returned from a trip to Nogales and Ajo, Arizona. It was his tenth trip to the southwest border in nine years at El Mundo Hispanico. He spent a week with a group that tries to help immigrants navigate challenges and dangers like dehydration while crossing the US border. His reporting included finding the remains of someone who didnt survive the trip. His stories from the border visit, which include video, will try to educate the community here, and show the reality of things are they areits very dangerous [to cross the border], not like it was 20 years ago.

Other recent stories by Guevara include news of a Hispanic man accused of armed robbery who had been caught by police and also had unresolved issues with immigration authorities; how to avoid being ripped off by notaries passing themselves off as immigration attorneys; and video of a pre-dawn detention by ICE of an SUV full of men on their way to work. The latter report notified viewers that federal authorities were using unmarked cars and dressed in uniforms bearing the word, Police, and were stopping anyone, at any time. Everything has changed with the Trump administration, Guevara says. The community lives in fear. They dont go to church, avoid schoolsdont drive as much.

Every newspaper advocates for a community.

THE SORTS OF STORIES Guevara and other Spanish-language reporters write at local outlets nationwide have led many to observe that Hispanic media differ greatly in their approach to immigration coverage from their English-language peersoften in disparaging terms. This may be especially acute during presidential elections, when GOP candidates accuse Hispanic media of favoring Democrats, especially on immigration policy. The coverage is biased in defense of Hispanic immigrants [and]  is advocate journalism, says Alejandro Alvarado, director of the masters program in Spanish-Language Journalism at Florida International University.

But the so-called ethnic press has always been aimed at immigrant groups and minorities who are feeling political and financial pressure, or not feeling welcome, says Kent Wilkinson, director of the Harris Institute for Hispanic and International Communication at Texas Tech University. Current heightened concerns in the community have led Spanish-language news outlets to cover immigration even more closely, Wilkinson says.

And a closer look at English-language news can lead to a different interpretation of what constitutes advocacy.

Every newspaper advocates for a community, as does TV news, says Jose Luis Benavides, a journalism professor at California State University, Northridge, where he created a minor program in Spanish-language journalism.

Benavides brings up traffic coverage on TV news, which usually excludes buses and trains. Youre leaving out minorities that use public transportation, and focusing on the middle class and above.

Guevara is aware of this ongoing discussion. He notes his newspapers slogan: El vocero de la comunidad hispana, or The Spokesperson of the Hispanic Community.

Im convinced of my work, he says. Im giving a voice to those who dont have one. And the newspaper backs me up.

Its the futureand non-Hispanic people need to know about Hispanic people.

EL MUNDO HISPANICO has changed in recent years, notes editor Maria Bastidas. The print edition has been reduced from 80,000 free copies to 61,000, distributed to the Atlanta metropolitan area each week. However, Cox Communicationsowner of both El Mundo Hispanico and the AJChas taken the Spanish-language brand national, with digital and print editions in 11 other cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Charlotte, NC.Four national editors work from the Atlanta newsroom, and the digital staff is now larger than the print staff, she says.

But one thing hasnt changed. Immigration is vital content for our audience, says Bastidas. As for how immigration is covered in Spanish-language outlets like hers, compared to English-language outlets like the AJC: For them, the political aspect might be more important, Bastidas says. For us, its the human aspectsomething they dont get into as much.

Shores 2007 analysis reached similar conclusions. The vast majority of articles from the Spanish-language press portrayed the human side of immigration, wrote Shore, including interviews with people whose lives have been affected by immigration policy and anti-immigrant sentiments.

Bastidas notes that El Mundo Hispanico and the AJC have collaborated more in recent years, especially when it comes to stories where Hispanics are involved, and where language skills and community relations can make for better reporting. Those stories include parts of a series on doctors who abuse their patients. The womenwere Spanish-speakers, mostly undocumented immigrants who feared deportation, wrote Guevara for one story in the series.

Weve begun to have a seat at the table, says Bastidas. These are steps toward continued collaboration.

Melita Garza, journalism professor at Texas Christian University, says she has recently seen more efforts in larger English-language outletsfrom The New York Times to the Los Angeles Times to the Dallas Morning Newsto humanize immigration reporting. Theres a greater effort to be more comprehensive, and  to talk to people who are affected by the issue, she says.

Differing approaches to the issue are not new, Garza adds. This year, Garza published research that compares Great Depression-era coverage of immigration and immigrants in three San Antonio, Texas-based news outlets: San Antonio Express, San Antonio Light, and La Prensa, a Spanish-language paper.

In La Prensa, there tended to be more stories that put a face to the problem, says Garza. The English-language outlets tended to focus on how immigration legislation in Washington was going to affect the local and state economy.

Now, Garza notes, the nations demographics have changed. Its the futureand non-Hispanic people need to know about Hispanic people. If [English-language] newspapers think the community isnt interested in this, they need to find a way to make it interesting.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Timothy Pratt is a journalist based in the Atlanta area. He has written for The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, and many other publications. He also lived in Las Vegas and worked for the Las Vegas Sun from 2001-2009.
Genuine Parts Company distributes automotive replacement parts, and industrial parts and materials. It operates through Automotive Parts Group and Industrial Parts Group segments. The company distributes automotive replacement parts for hybrid and electric vehicles, trucks, SUVs, buses, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, farm vehicles, small engines, farm equipment, marine equipment, and heavy duty equipment; and accessory and supply items used by various automotive aftermarket customers, such as repair shops, service stations, fleet operators, automobile and truck dealers, leasing companies, bus and truck lines, mass merchandisers, farms, industrial concerns, and individuals. It also distributes industrial replacement parts and related supplies, such as bearings, mechanical and electrical power transmission products, industrial automation and robotics, hoses, hydraulic and pneumatic components, industrial and safety supplies, and material handling products for original equipment manufacturer, as well as maintenance, repair, and operation customers in equipment and machinery, food and beverage, forest product, primary metal, pulp and paper, mining, automotive, oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, power generation, alternative energy, governments, transportation, ports, and other industries. In addition, the company provides various services and repairs comprising gearbox and fluid power and process pump assembly and repair, hydraulic drive shaft repair, electrical panel assembly and repair, hose and gasket manufacture and assembly, and other value-added services. It operates in the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Indonesia, and Singapore. The company was incorporated in 1928 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
Hampton Enterprises is pleased to welcome Shasteen and Morris, P.C., L.L.O. as a new tenant to Hampton's Corporate Centre at 7441 O St., Suite 105, in Lincoln. Shasteen and Morris is a Nebraska law firm that assists injured workers and others who have been injured living throughout the state and country with legal matters including workers' compensation and other personal injury cases.

"We are excited to welcome Shasteen and Morris, P.C., L.L.O. to the Corporate Centre business park. They are a great addition to the other professional businesses in the office park. We are thankful they have chosen to work with Hampton, and we look forward to building a long-term relationship with them," said Michelle Keogh, president of properties at Hampton Enterprises Properties & Construction.

Mr. Shasteen has been practicing law for more than 30 years. He graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1979 with a B.A. in history and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law in 1982 and is a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association and the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys. Mr. Shasteen practices in the area of personal injury and trial law, with a special emphasis on workers' compensation and, generally, the area of personal injury caused by negligence.

Holly Morris graduated from Creighton University and went on to earn her law degree from the University of Nebraska. While working for the firm in law school, she quickly developed a passion for representing plaintiffs in workers' compensation and personal injury cases. Ms. Morris handles workers' compensation and personal injury cases for clients throughout the state of Nebraska, as well as for out-of-state workers injured while working for Nebraska employers or others injured in the state of Nebraska.

"Hampton Enterprises Properties and Construction, helps business owners find their office or retail space, build it, and manage it. What makes Hampton different from other commercial property/real estate businesses is we own, build, and manage all of our properties here in Lincoln, Nebraska. Meaning for a business owner; finding and leasing space is extremely easy and stress free. Our team truly enjoys helping people find their office or retail space and developing relationships with them," said Keogh. View all of Hampton's commercial properties available at www.hampton1.com/realty/properties
Phillips 66 operates as an energy manufacturing and logistics company. It operates through four segments: Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties (M&S). The Midstream segment transports crude oil and other feedstocks; delivers refined petroleum products to market; provides terminaling and storage services for crude oil and refined petroleum products; transports, stores, fractionates, exports, and markets natural gas liquids; provides other fee-based processing services; and gathers, processes, transports, and markets natural gas. The Chemicals segment produces and markets ethylene and other olefin products; aromatics and styrenics products, such as benzene, cyclohexane, styrene, and polystyrene; and various specialty chemical products, including organosulfur chemicals, solvents, catalysts, and chemicals used in drilling and mining. The Refining segment refines crude oil and other feedstocks into petroleum products, such as gasolines, distillates, aviation, and renewable fuels at 12 refineries in the United States and Europe. The M&S segment purchases for resale and markets refined petroleum products, including gasolines, distillates, and aviation fuels primarily in the United States and Europe. This segment also manufactures and markets specialty products, such as base oils and lubricants. The company was founded in 1875 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
07/24/2017

Photo (c) Derek Key - Flickr The owners of Atlantis, Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas  frequented by American tourists  has reported a data breach involving the payment network serving the resort's food and beverage and retail businesses.

The company says credit and debit cards used to make purchases at those locations within the resort between November 1, 2016 and April 3, 2017 may have been compromised. Cards used to pay for room charges were not affected.

The company said it was alerted to a potential security issue by its credit card processor. It then hired third-party forensic experts who examined the payment network and confirmed the presence of malware.

Malware removed

The Resort has confirmed that malware may have captured data from some credit and debit cards used at food and beverage and retail locations at the Resort, the company said in a statement. The Resort has removed the malware at issue to contain this incident and implemented additional procedures in an effort to prevent any further unauthorized access to customers' credit and debit card information.

Because a different payment network was used to record credit and debit transactions for room reservations, those cards were not compromised. That includes food and beverage purchases that were charged to a guest's room and not paid for at the point of sale.

The forensic investigation is still underway but the company said what is known at the moment is the malware may have collected card numbers, expiration dates, and CVVs. The breach apparently did not involve customers' names or PIN numbers. It is also not known how many cards may have been compromised.

"The Resort takes the security of our customers' information extremely seriously, and we apologize for the inconvenience this incident may have caused our customers," said Howard Karawan, president and managing director of Atlantis, Paradise Island.

What to do

Guests who used a credit or debit card for purchases in bars, restaurants, and gift shops at Atlantis, Paradise Island between November 1, 2016 and April 3, 2017 should contact the card issuer and report it. The bank or credit card company should then issue a new card.

Because the breach may have exposed these consumers to fraud, the company notes they may contact all three credit reporting agencies and place a fraud alert on their file at no charge.
Today, credit unions are doing a better job across the board enhancing their cyber risk management strategies to include more advanced risk controls.

However, one of the key risk controls that continue to be overlooked is employee education. With the increase of the potential exposure to cybercriminal attacks, credit unions NEED to make employee risk education a top priority, so staff members at all levels of the organization can help your credit union detect and prevent future fraud risk exposures.

Regular risk training should be provided to employees in order to instill data security culture within the credit union. Employee risk education training should touch on:
Talking Points:

Crude oil prices tumbled after tanker tracker Petro-Logistics SA said OPEC output will exceed 33 million barrels per day in July, making it the largest yet this year. That stocked skepticism about the ability of the cartel-led production cut effort to work off a global supply glut and boost prices.

All eyes now turn to St Petersburg, where representatives of major producers taking part in the coordinated output reduction scheme will meet to discuss their progress. Prices may fall further if comments from the sit-down maintain the status quo without signaling deeper cuts are a possibility.

Gold prices rose as the US Dollar fell with front-end Treasury bond yields, boosting the appeal of non-interest-bearing and anti-fiat assets. Deteriorating Fed rate hike expectations appeared to drive the move, with the probability of another increase in 2017 falling to the lowest in a month at 40.4 percent.

From here, the preliminary set of Julys US PMI surveys is in focus. Recent US data outcomes have cautiously improved relative to forecasts, opening the door for further upside surprises that might cap gold gains in the near term. A lasting reversal before the FOMC policy announcement seems unlikely however.

Retail traders are betting that gold will rise. Find out here what that hints about the coming trend!

GOLD TECHNICAL ANALYSIS  Gold prices posted the largest advance in a month, taking out resistance at 1250.38 marked by the 50% Fibonacci retracement. The next layer of resistance is at 1261.16, the 61.8% level, with a daily close above that exposing the 76.4% Fib at 1274.50. Alternatively, a reversal back below 1250.38  now recast as support  targets the 38.2% retracement at 1239.60.

Chart created using TradingView

CRUDE OIL TECHNICAL ANALYSIS  Crude oil prices recoiled from resistance in the 47.10-29 area (38.2% Fibonacci retracement, July 4 high). A break lower confirmed on a daily close below support at 45.32 opens the door for a retest of the May 5 low at 43.79. Alternatively, a move above 47.29 sees the next upside barrier marked by the 50% Fib at 48.65.

Chart created using TradingView

--- Written by Ilya Spivak, Currency Strategist for DailyFX.com

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American Water Works Company, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States. It offers water and wastewater services to approximately 1,700 communities in 14 states serving approximately 3.4 million active customers. The company serves residential customers; commercial customers, including food and beverage providers, commercial property developers and proprietors, and energy suppliers; fire service and private fire customers; industrial customers, such as large-scale manufacturers, mining, and production operations; public authorities comprising government buildings and other public sector facilities, such as schools and universities; and other utilities and community water and wastewater systems. It also provides water and wastewater services on various military installations; and undertakes contracts with municipal customers, primarily to operate and manage water and wastewater facilities, as well as offers other related services. In addition, the company operates approximately 80 surface water treatment plants; 480 groundwater treatment plants; 160 wastewater treatment plants; 52,500 miles of transmission, distribution, and collection mains and pipes; 1,100 groundwater wells; 1,700 water and wastewater pumping stations; 1,300 treated water storage facilities; and 76 dams. It serves approximately 14 million people with drinking water, wastewater, and other related services in 24 states. American Water Works Company, Inc. was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.
Juniper Networks, Inc. designs, develops, and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; wide-area network SDN controllers; and session smart routers. It also provides switching products, including EX series Ethernet switches to address the access, aggregation, and core layer switching requirements of micro branch, branch office, and campus environments; QFX series of core, spine, and top-of-rack data center switches; and juniper access points, which provide Wi-Fi access and performance. In addition, the company offers security products comprising SRX series services gateways for the data center; Branch SRX family provides an integrated and next-generation firewall; virtual firewall that delivers various features of physical firewalls; and advanced malware protection, a cloud-based service and Juniper ATP. Further, it offers Junos OS, a network operating system; Contrail networking, which provides an open-source and standards-based platform for SDN; Mist AI-driven Wired, Wireless, and WAN assurance solutions to set and measure key metrics; Mist AI-driven Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, which identifies the root cause of issues; Juniper Paragon Automation, a modular portfolio of cloud-native software applications; and Juniper Apstra to automate the network lifecycle in a single system. Additionally, the company provides software-as-a-service, technical support, maintenance, and professional services, as well as education and training programs. It sells its products through direct sales, distributors, value-added resellers, and original equipment manufacturers to end-users in the cloud, service provider, and enterprise markets. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.
The following companies are subsidiares of CIT Group: 1143986 Ontario Limited, 1244771 Ontario Limited, 3918041 Canada Inc., 544211 Alberta Ltd., 555565 Alberta Ltd., 555566 Alberta Ltd., Baliardo Limited, C.I.T. Leasing Corporation, C2 Aviation Capital LLC, CBG LJB 21 LLC, CCERU Finance LP, CFHE Funding Company LLC, CIT Aerospace (Australia) Pty Ltd, CIT Aerospace Asia Pte Ltd., CIT Aerospace Belgium Sprl, CIT Aerospace Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, CIT Aerospace Holdings (France) SAS, CIT Aerospace International, CIT Aerospace International (Aruba) A.V.V., CIT Aerospace International (Australia) Pty Ltd., CIT Aerospace International (Bermuda) Limited, CIT Aerospace International (France) Sarl, CIT Aerospace International Leasing II, CIT Aerospace LLC, CIT Aerospace Sweden AB, CIT Asset Management LLC, CIT Aviation Finance I (France) Sarl, CIT Aviation Finance I (Ireland) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance I (UK) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance I Ltd., CIT Aviation Finance II (France) Sarl, CIT Aviation Finance II (Ireland) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance II (UK) Limited, CIT Aviation Finance II Ltd., CIT Aviation Finance III Ltd., CIT Bank N.A., CIT CBK Funding Company LLC, CIT CBK Funding Inc., CIT CLO Holding Corporation, CIT CLO I Blocker Inc., CIT CLO I LLC, CIT CLO I Ltd., CIT Canada Finance LP, CIT Canada Finance ULC, CIT Capital Aviation (UK) Limited, CIT Capital Finance (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Capital Securities LLC, CIT Capital USA Inc., CIT Cayman Coconut Palm Leasing Ltd., CIT Cayman Sandy Keys Leasing Ltd., CIT Communications Finance Corporation, CIT Credit Group USA Inc., CIT Equipment Finance (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT FSC Eighteen Ltd., CIT FSC Nineteen Ltd., CIT Finance & Leasing (Tianjin) Corporation, CIT Finance & Leasing Corporation, CIT Finance LLC, CIT Financial (Alberta) ULC / Services Financiers CIT (Alberta) ULC, CIT Financial (Barbados) SRL, CIT Financial (Hong Kong) Limited, CIT Financial II (Barbados) Srl, CIT Financial Ltd./Services Financiers CIT Ltee., CIT Financial USA Inc., CIT Funding (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Funding Company LLC, CIT Funding LLC, CIT Funds LLC, CIT Group (Hungary) Financial Servicing Limited Liability Company "under voluntary dissolution", CIT Group (NFL) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Group (NJ) LLC, CIT Group (Singapore) Pte Ltd (In Members' Voluntary Liquidation), CIT Group (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Group Finance (Ireland), CIT Group Holding (Germany) GmbH i.L., CIT Group Holdings (UK) Limited (in liquidation), CIT Group Holdings B.V., CIT Group Inc., CIT Group Italy Srl in liquidazione, CIT Group SF Holding Co. Inc., CIT Healthcare LLC, CIT Holdings (Barbados) SRL, CIT Holdings B.V., CIT Holdings Canada ULC, CIT Home Lending Securitization Company LLC, CIT Insurance Agency Inc., CIT Leasing (Bermuda) Ltd., CIT Leasing (Germany) GmbH i.L., CIT Lending Services Corporation, CIT Lending Services Corporation (Illinois), CIT Loan Corporation, CIT Malaysia One Inc., CIT Maritime Leasing LLC, CIT Mezzanine Partners of Canada Limited, CIT Millbury Inc., CIT Rail Holdings (Europe) SAS, CIT Rail LLC, CIT Railcar Funding Company LLC, CIT Small Business Lending Corporation, CIT Strategic Finance Inc., CIT TRS Funding B.V., CIT TRS Holdings B.V., CIT TRS Subsidiary B.V., CIT Technology Financing Services Inc., CIT Trade Finance Funding Company LLC, CIT Transportation Holdings B.V., CRE CT 21 OTHER LLC, CRE CT 27 OTHER LLC, CRE FFBC LLC, CRE LJ 21 OTHER LLC, CRE LJ 27 OTHER LLC, CRE LJ 4800 Riverside LLC, CRE LJ CA 2 LLC, CRE LJ CA LLC, CRE LJ CP ESCONDIDO LLC, CRE LJ TX LLC, Canadian Income Partners I Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners II Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners III Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners IV Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners V Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners VI Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners VII Limited Partnership, Canadian Income Partners VIII Limited Partnership, Capita Corporation, Capital Direct Group Inc., Centennial Aviation (Bermuda) 1 Ltd., Centennial Aviation (France) 1 SARL, Centennial Aviation (France) 2 SARL, Centennial Aviation (Ireland) 7 Limited, Direct Capital Corporation, Direct Capital Funding III Company LLC, Direct Capital Funding V LLC, Education Loan Servicing Corporation, Emerald Funding (Netherlands) C.V., Emerald Holdings C.V., Financial Freedom Acquisition LLC, IMV 11 PALM LLC, INDYMAC VENTURE LLC, Jessica Leasing Designated Activity Company, MEX CIT SERVICIOS S. de R.L. de C.V., Madeleine Leasing Designation Activity Company, Memphis Peaking Power LLC, Millennium Leasing Company I LLC, Millennium Leasing Company II LLC, NACCO (U.K.) Limited, NACCO GmbH, NACCO Rail Ireland Limited, NACCO S.A.S, Nacco Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Newcourt Financial Espana S.A., North Romeo Storage Corporation, ONEWEST VENTURES HOLDINGS LLC, OWB REO LLC, OneWest Bank N.A, OneWest Investments II LLC, OneWest Investments LLC, OneWest Resources LLC, PL Servicing LLC, Rita Leasing Designated Activity Company, The CIT GP Corporation III, The CIT Group Securitization Corporation II, The CIT Group/Business Credit Inc., The CIT Group/Commercial Services Inc., The CIT Group/Corporate Aviation Inc., The CIT Group/Equipment Financing Inc., The CIT Group/Equity Investments Inc., The Capita Corporation do Brasil Ltda, The Equipment Insurance Company, and Worrell Capital Limited.

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Delek Logistics Partners, LP owns and operates logistics and marketing assets for crude oil, and intermediate and refined products in the United States. It operates through three segments: Pipelines and Transportation, Wholesale Marketing and Terminalling, and Investment in Pipeline Joint Ventures. The Pipelines and Transportation segment includes pipelines, trucks, and ancillary assets that provide crude oil gathering, crude oil intermediate and refined products transportation, and storage services primarily in support of the Tyler, El Dorado, and Big Spring refineries, as well as offers crude oil and other products transportation services to third parties. This segment operates approximately 400 miles of crude oil transportation pipelines; 450 miles of refined product pipelines; and approximately 900 miles of crude oil gathering, and intermediate and refined products storage tanks with an aggregate of approximately 10.2 million barrels of active shell capacity. The Wholesale Marketing and Terminalling segment provides wholesale marketing, transporting, storage, and terminalling services related to refined products to independent third parties. The Investments in Pipeline Joint Ventures Segment owns a portion of three joint ventures that have constructed separate crude oil pipeline systems and related ancillary assets, which serves third parties and subsidiaries. Delek Logistics GP, LLC serves as the general partner of the company. Delek Logistics Partners, LP was incorporated in 2012 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee. Delek Logistics Partners, LP operates as a subsidiary of Delek US Holdings, Inc.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. The company offers general purpose servers for multi-workload computing and workload-optimized servers; HPE ProLiant rack and tower servers; HPE BladeSystem and HPE Synergy; and solutions for secondary workloads and traditional tape, storage networking, and disk products, such as HPE Modular Storage Arrays and HPE XP. It also offers HPE Apollo and Cray products; and HPE Superdome Flex, HPE Nonstop, HPE Integrity, and HPE Edgeline products. In addition, the company provides HPE Aruba product portfolio that includes wired and wireless local area network hardware products, such as Wi-Fi access points, switches, routers, and sensors; HPE Aruba software and services comprising cloud-based management, network management, network access control, analytics and assurance, and location; and professional and support services, as well as as-a-service and consumption models for the intelligent edge portfolio of products. Further, it offers various leasing, financing, IT consumption, and utility programs and asset management services for customers to facilitate technology deployment models and the acquisition of complete IT solutions, including hardware, software, and services from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others. Additionally, the company invests in communications and media solutions. It has a partnership with Striim, Inc. to offer high performance and mission-critical solutions with real-time analytics. It serves commercial and large enterprise groups, such as business and public sector enterprises; and through various partners comprising resellers, distribution partners, original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors, systems integrators, and advisory firms. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Aetna Inc. operates as a health care benefits company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Health Care, Group Insurance, and Large Case Pensions. The Health Care segment offers medical, pharmacy benefit management service, dental, behavioral health, and vision plans on an insured and employer-funded basis. It also provides point-of-service, preferred provider organization, health maintenance organization, and indemnity benefit plans, as well as health savings accounts and consumer-directed health plans. In addition, this segment offers Medicare and Medicaid products and services, as well as other medical products, such as medical management and data analytics services, medical stop loss insurance, workers' compensation administrative services, and products that provide access to its provider networks in select geographies. The Group Insurance segment offers life insurance products, including group term life insurance, voluntary spouse and dependent term life insurance, group universal life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment insurance; disability insurance products; and long-term care insurance products, which provide the benefits to cover the cost of care in private home settings, adult day care, assisted living, or nursing facilities. The Large Case Pensions segment manages various retirement products comprising pension and annuity products primarily for tax-qualified pension plans. The company provides its products and services to employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups, and expatriates. Aetna Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in Hartford, Connecticut.
A Valley-based bank with branch locations throughout eastern Nebraska has announced the launch of interactive teller machines.

First Nebraska Bank said the first interactive tellers went live at the Valley branch on July 13, and the bank will roll out the service at its other locations over the next year.

The interactive teller machines allow bank customers to deal with a live employee remotely through a video interface. The bank said its customers will be able to conduct up to 95 percent of typical teller transactions through the interactive tellers.

The machines will be staffed in the banks Valley location, where employees will remotely service and support customers at any of the banks locations. The interactive tellers will be available for extended hours from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8-11 a.m. on Saturdays. There will also be additional holiday hours added on some bank holidays.

Bank customers will be able to use the machines without the interactive teller feature for simple ATM withdrawals and transactions 24/7.

Todays bank customers are busy, First Nebraska Bank President Lydell L. Woodbury said in a news release. They need more flexibility in their banking hours, and First Nebraska Bank is using the efficiency and convenience of interactive tellers along with our other mobile banking services to better serve our customers whenever and wherever they need it.

First Nebraska Bank, which has $281 million in assets, has 10 locations, including one in Bennet in Lancaster County.
The following companies are subsidiares of Colgate-Palmolive: 887357 Ontario Inc., COLGALIVE S.A., CP GABA GmbH, CP International Holding C.V., CP West East Investment Limited, Cleaning Dimensions Inc., Colgate (BVI) Limited, Colgate (Guangzhou) Company Limited, Colgate (U.K.) Limited, Colgate Business Services of the Americas S.C., Colgate Flavors and Fragrances Inc., Colgate Global Business Services Private Limited, Colgate Holdings, Colgate Inc., Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals Inc., Colgate Palmolive Ghana Limited, Colgate Palmolive Holding S.Com.P.A., Colgate Palmolive Nouvelle Caledonie Sarl, Colgate Palmolive Tanzania Limited, Colgate Sanxiao Company Limited, Colgate Venture Company Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Asia) Pte Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Blantyre) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Brunei) Sdn Bhn, Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc. y Compania Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive (Centro America) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (China) Co. Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Costa Rica) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominica) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominican Republic) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (East Africa) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Eastern) Pte. Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Egypt) S.A.E., Colgate-Palmolive (Far East) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Fiji) Pte Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Gabon) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Guyana) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (H.K.) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Hellas) S.A. I.C., Colgate-Palmolive (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Kazakhstan) L.L.P., Colgate-Palmolive (Latvia) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Middle East Exports) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Myanmar) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (New York) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive (Proprietary) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Research & Development) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Romania) SRL, Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Uganda) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Vietnam) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Zambia) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Zimbabwe) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive A.B., Colgate-Palmolive A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Adria Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Treasury Services Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Belgium S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Bolivia Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Canada Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Caricom Service Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Central European Management Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Chile S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cia., Colgate-Palmolive Comercial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Commercial (Hellas) SP LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Commerciale S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive Commericale S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive Compania Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive Company Distr. LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Company GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Cote dIvoire S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cyprus Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Development Corp., Colgate-Palmolive East West Africa Region (Pty) Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Enterprises Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Espana S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Europe (Holdings) Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Europe Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Finance (UK) plc, Colgate-Palmolive Global Trading Company, Colgate-Palmolive Holding Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Holding Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Hungary Kft Limited Liability Company, Colgate-Palmolive IHQ Services (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Inc. S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Industrial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Industriel S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive International Holding LLC, Colgate-Palmolive International LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Investment Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (BVI) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (PNG) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Investments Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Israel Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Italia S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive JSC, Colgate-Palmolive Lanka (Private) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Latin America Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Manufacturing (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Marketing Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive Maroc S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Mocambique Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive NJ Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Nederland B.V., Colgate-Palmolive Norge A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Participacoes e Investimentos Imobiliarios Lda., Colgate-Palmolive Peru S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Philippines Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Pty Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Retirement Trustee Limited, Colgate-Palmolive S.A. de C.V., Colgate-Palmolive S.p.A., Colgate-Palmolive Senegal S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Services (Hellas) LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Services (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Services CEW GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Services S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Slovensko s.r.o., Colgate-Palmolive Support Services, Colgate-Palmolive Temizlik Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticart S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Transnational Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Ukraine LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Unipessoal Lda, Colgate-Palmolive de Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive de Puerto Rico Inc., Colgate-Palmolive del Ecuador S.A.I.C., Colgate-Palmolive del Peru (Delaware) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Eeska republika spol. s r.o., Colpal CBS S de R. L. de C. V., Consumer Viewpoint Center Inc., Cotelle S.A., Dimac Development Corp., Dominica Coconut Products Limited, EKIB Inc., ELM Company Limited, Elta MD Holdings Inc., Elta MD Inc., EltaMD, Filorga Americas Inc., Filorga Asia Limited, Filorga Benelux SA, Filorga Cosmetiques Polska, Filorga Middle East DMCC, Filorga Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Filorga RU Limited Liability Company, GABA Europe Holding GmbH, GABA International, GABA International Holding LLC, GABA Schweiz AG, GABA Therwil GmbH, Gamma Development Co. Ltd., Global Trading and Supply LLC, Hamol Ltd., Hello Products, Hello Products LLC, Hills Funding Company, Hills Pet Nutrition (NZ) Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Asia Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Canada Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Denmark ApS, Hills Pet Nutrition Espana S.L., Hills Pet Nutrition GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Holding B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Indiana Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Italia S.r.l., Hills Pet Nutrition Korea Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing s.r.o, Hills Pet Nutrition Norway AS, Hills Pet Nutrition OOO, Hills Pet Nutrition Pty. Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition S.p.A., Hills Pet Nutrition SNC, Hills Pet Nutrition Sales Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition South Africa Proprietary Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition Sweden AB, Hills Pet Nutrition Switzerland GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Taiwan Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition Trading (GZ) Co. Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hills Pet Nutrition de Puerto Rico Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition s.r.o., Hills Pet Products (Benelux) S.A., Hills Pet Products Inc., Hills Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Hills-Colgate (Japan) Ltd., Hopro Liquidating Corp., Hygiene Systemes et Services SA, IES Enterprises Inc., Inmobiliaria Colpal S. de R.L. de C.V., Inmobiliaria Hills S.A. de C.V., Innovacion Creativa S.A. de C.V., Kolynos Corporation, Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Espana S.L.U., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Italia S.R.L., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques S.A., Laser Brand Toothpaste, Lournay Sales Inc., Mennen Company, Mennen Interamerica Ltd., Mennen Limited, Mennen South Africa Ltd., Mennen de Chile Ltd., Mennen de Nicargua S.A., Mission Hills Property Corporation, Mission Hills S.A. de C.V., Norwood International Incorporated, Olive Music Publishing Corporation, PCA SKIN, Paramount Research Inc., Penny LLC, Pet Chemicals Inc., Physicians Care Alliance LLC, Productos Halogenados Copalven C.A., Purity Holding Company, Purity Music Publishing Corporation, Refresh Company Limited, Samuel Taylor Holdings B.V., Sanex, Sanxiao Company Limited, Services Development Co. Ltd., Societe Generale de Negoce et de Services (GENESE) S.A., The GDN - The Global Distributive Network SAS, The Lournay Company Inc., The MPDP - The Medical and Pharmaceutic Distributive Platform SAS, The Murphy-Phoenix Company, Tom's of Maine, Toms of Maine Holdings Inc., Toms of Maine Inc., Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Vipont Pharmaceutical Inc., and XEB Inc..

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Best Buy Co., Inc. retails technology products in the United States and Canada. The company operates in two segments, Domestic and International. Its stores provide computing products, such as desktops, notebooks, and peripherals; mobile phones comprising related mobile network carrier commissions; networking products; tablets covering e-readers; smartwatches; and consumer electronics consisting of digital imaging, health and fitness, home theater, portable audio comprising headphones and portable speakers, and smart home products. The company's stores also offer appliances, such as dishwashers, laundry, ovens, refrigerators, blenders, coffee makers, and vacuums; entertainment products consisting of drones, peripherals, movies, music, and toys, as well as gaming hardware and software, and virtual reality and other software products; and other products, such as baby, food and beverage, luggage, outdoor living, and sporting goods. In addition, it provides consultation, delivery, design, health-related, installation, memberships, repair, set-up, technical support, and warranty-related services. The company offers its products through stores and websites under the Best Buy, Best Buy Ads, Best Buy Business, Best Buy Health, CST, Current Health, Geek Squad, Lively, Magnolia, Best Buy Mobile, Pacific Kitchen, Home, and Yardbird, as well as domain names bestbuy.com, currenthealth.com, lively.com, yardbird.com, and bestbuy.ca. As of January 30, 2022, it had 1,144 stores. The company was formerly known as Sound of Music, Inc. The company was incorporated in 1966 and is headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota.
Vipshop Holdings Limited operates online platforms for various brands in the People's Republic of China. It operates in Vip.com, Shan Shan Outlets, and Others segments. The company offers women's apparel, such as casual wear, jeans, dresses, outerwear, lingerie, pajamas, and maternity clothes; men's apparel comprising casual and smart-casual T-shirts, polo shirts, jackets, pants, and underwear; and skin care and cosmetic products, including cleansers, lotions, face and body creams, face masks, sunscreen, foundations, lipsticks, eye shadows, and other cosmetics-related items. It also provides shoes and bags, which comprises casual and formal shoes, purses, satchels, luggage, duffel bags, and wallets; handbags; apparel, gears and accessories, furnishings and decor, toys, and games for boys, girls, infants, and toddlers; sportswear, sports gear, and footwear for various sporting activities; home furnishings, such as bed and bath products, home decor, kitchen and tabletop items, and home appliances; and consumer electronic products. In addition, the company offers food and snacks, beverages, fresh produce, and pet goods; beauty products; and internet finance services, including consumer and supplier financing, and microcredit. Vipshop Holdings Limited provides its branded products through its vip.com and vipshop.com online platforms, as well as through its internet website and cellular phone application. Further, it offers warehousing, logistics, product procurement, research and development, technology development, and consulting services; software development and information technology support solutions; and supply chain services. Vipshop Holdings Limited was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Guangzhou, the People's Republic of China.
Under Armour, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the developing, marketing, and distributing performance apparel, footwear, and accessories for men, women, and youth. The company offers its apparel in compression, fitted, and loose fit types. It also provides footwear products for running, training, basketball, cleated sports, recovery, and outdoor applications. In addition, the company offers accessories, which include gloves, bags, headwear, and sports masks; and digital subscription and advertising services under the MapMyRun and MapMyRide platforms. It primarily offers its products under the UNDER ARMOUR, UA, HEATGEAR, COLDGEAR, HOVR, PROTECT THIS HOUSE, I WILL, UA Logo, ARMOUR FLEECE, and ARMOUR BRA brands. The company sells its products through wholesale channels, including national and regional sporting goods chains, independent and specialty retailers, department store chains, mono-branded Under Armour retail stores, institutional athletic departments, and leagues and teams, as well as independent distributors; and directly to consumers through a network of 422 brand and factory house stores, as well as through e-commerce websites. It operates in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Under Armour, Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
Sen. John Murante of Gretna on Monday announced his candidacy for state treasurer with a promise to be a conservative and dependable steward of taxpayer dollars.

Murante, who was re-elected in 2016 to a four-year term in the Legislature, is seeking the Republican nomination to succeed State Treasurer Don Stenberg, who will be term-limited out of office at the end of next year.

Murante's announcement in the Capitol Rotunda was accompanied by ample evidence that he is his party's choice to step into the treasurer's position.

Stenberg and State Auditor Charlie Janssen pledged their endorsements.

Attorney General Doug Peterson showed up for the event, as did Lincoln attorney Bob Evnen, who earlier announced his candidacy for secretary of state with an array of Republican leaders and officeholders, including Sen. Deb Fischer, on hand to pledge their support.

Secretary of State John Gale is not seeking re-election next year.

As a member of the Legislature, Murante said, he has been focused "first and foremost on the reduction of taxes  property taxes, sales taxes and income taxes."

Murante, who will be term-limited out of the Legislature, said he's also been "a champion" of voter photo ID requirements and a fighter in the battle to "shrink the size and scope of government."

Stenberg described Murante as "a stalwart of conservative causes (with) a proven record as a solid conservative Republican."

Murante's legislative experience "will be helpful" in carrying out the duties of state treasurer, Stenberg said.

During his final year in the Legislature, Murante told reporters following the event, he will "continue to advocate for voter ID and apply a laser-like focus on tax reform."

With the 2020 federal census approaching, he said, "now is a great time" to also tackle the issue of redistricting reform. Murante has been working on a bipartisan effort to achieve reform for several years.

Murante said he has taken a leave from his duties as CEO of Big Fred's Pizza, a family-owned business in Omaha, to conduct a campaign that will take him to all 93 counties.
Kelli Lierley moved from Columbus in 2009 to start school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

She graduated in 2013 with a degree in elementary and special education, married a man from Grant and stayed in Lincoln. And now she's a second-grade teacher at St. John the Apostle Catholic school.

Lierley is among a growing number of people who have moved to Nebraska's three largest counties  Lancaster, Douglas and Sarpy  where more of the state's population is centered.

"Through college I really fell in love with the city and I really wanted to stay here," she said.

She likes that Lincoln is a bigger town  about 280,000 people  with a small-town feel. There's more to do, more of her friends are here and her sister. Her brother is attending law school in Omaha, just 45 minutes up the road.

Population trends, gathered by the University of Nebraska at Omaha Center for Public Affairs Research, show residents continue to become more and more concentrated in Nebraska's most populous counties. The state has five urban counties  Lancaster, Douglas, Sarpy, Hall and Dakota  and eight more that feed workers into them.

That's been going on for decades, probably since the 1930s, UNO researcher Jerry Diechert said. But it's becoming more pronounced.

The population trend of rural vs. urban crossed a line in the 1960s, when the numbers in metro counties began climbing and more rural counties began collectively drifting downward. As of 2016, the metro counties combined for more than an estimated 1.2 million people  nearly 64 percent of the state  and the nonmetro less than 700,000.

The population trends tell Sen. Paul Schumacher, chairman of the Legislature's long-term planning committee, that Nebraska's relatively slow, and somewhat concentrated, growth will present challenges to its future, and creative thinking will be needed, barring some unexpected change. The state adds only about 10,000 people a year, much of that attributed to natural growth of births exceeding deaths.

Its cities and villages with less than 5,000 residents are probably going to continue to decline. Those with at least 10,000 are probably going to grow slowly, unless they're within an hour's drive of Omaha or Lincoln.

And even with the eastern growth, the state's population core of the Omaha and Lincoln areas is going to have to compete with other larger metro areas out of state for industry and economic development, Schumacher said.

With only a little more than 1 million people in its two largest cities, and much slower growth than Texas, for example, which saw a 20 percent growth between 2000 and 2010, and neighbors Colorado and Wyoming, the state will have a lot of challenges in that competition, he said.

It's the task of the planning committee to figure out how to make Nebraska viable in the Omaha and Lincoln areas, at least sustainable in the towns that are around 20,000 population, and to continue agricultural production with fewer people, he said.

Nebraska grew to an estimated 1.9 million people in 2016, up 4.4 percent since 2010. Between 2000 and 2010, the state's population growth was predominately in minority racial and ethnic groups, according to the UNO report. In 2016, the minority population accounted for 20.4 percent of the state's population, compared with 7.4 percent in 1990.

Hispanic/Latino residents grew by 77 percent, and accounted for nearly two-thirds of the state's overall growth. The white, non-Hispanic population barely increased, by 0.4 percent. And the minority population is much younger, with relatively more under the age of 45.

UNO's Diechert met this month with the Legislature's planning committee to talk about what the population trends will mean for the future of the state, and how the state can adapt to it.

Diechert and Schumacher said Nebraska, with its water supply and good soil, will continue to have to rely on agriculture as its economic base, but it will take fewer and fewer workers to produce crops and cattle. Even though direct production may eventually decline, farm-related industry may increase, such as meatpacking, farm loan banking and transportation of ag products.

Schumacher has tossed around a couple of unique ideas for several years that could help "grow Nebraska."

One unpopular one, he said, would be creating an industry around nuclear energy for the power that would be needed for 11 billion people on the planet by the end of the century.

There is a need to develop that in the next 30 years, but so far the Nebraska power companies and the university have not stepped up with technology development ideas and research, he said.

"There's some things that can be done in the development of nuclear energy that I think are doable, but they're unpopular because we're not educated about the nature of nuclear energy and we are afraid of it," he said. "And also we somehow think that wind or solar can do it, and that hope is, I don't think, sustainable."

Another creative idea is to develop a new city at the Interstate 80 and Interstate 76 interchange near Big Springs in western Nebraska, with a high-speed rail connection to Denver's international airport. It would be a new development in a strategic location that would be unencumbered by problems such as how to retrofit a sewer system, he said.

"I mention it, and it's the kind of thing that grows on you," he said.

A major new development at that location creates an economic triangle including Denver to Cheyenne.

"And you anchor energy on the Nebraska corner of the economic triangle, you might have suddenly a future western Nebraska," Schumacher said.
Nigeria-focussed oil and gas production and development company Eland announced the appointment of a new chief financial officer on Monday.

The firm said it had appointed Ronald Bain, with effect from 1 August, after his predecessor Olivier Serra agreed to step down from the board.

Bain previously led financial integration planning for the merger of Baker Hughes and GE Oil and Gas, and prior to that he was the regional accounting director for Europe, Africa and Russia for Baker Hughes.

The AIM-listed company said Bain was bringing a depth of experience relevant to the role, including controllership, company secretarial, treasury and financial planning and analysis with companies including BJ Services, Donside Paper Company and Vetco Gray.

He is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

It also confirmed Serra was set to remain as a consultant to the company, concentrating on strategic debt structure and future strategic options.

I am delighted to welcome Ron to the company, said Eland CEO George Maxwell.

Ron has excellent technical and management experience which will be invaluable given the ambitions of Eland.

I would also like to thank Olivier Serra his contribution to the company as CFO, and we look forward to him positively driving forward our strategic debt planning for the development of our Nigerian assets, Maxwell added.
Malvern International , a holding company for several businesses who provide educational qualifications in the UK, Singapore, Malaysia and Cyprus, has won back its EduTrust accreditation for its Singaporean business.

The EduTrust certification scheme is a voluntary program for private education institutions in Singapore to benchmark themselves against high standards of both, management and educational services. It is a prerequisite for any educational institute seeking to enrol international students.

Malvern's certification was withdrawn in 2013 after it failed to meet certain requirements.

After reinstatement of the accreditation, Malvern are looking to attract and enrol international students to its Singapore campus and adopt a similar strategy to Malvern House London, its sister school.

Deputy chief executive officer Dr Sam Malafeh stated: "The team in Singapore has worked very hard for the last nine months to turn the situation around.

"The operation has been through two extensive internal reviews followed by major improvements in setting a systemic and robust approach to operations, meeting the regulatory requirements and providing the best service and quality delivery. The leadership team in Singapore proved that they are capable of delivering the results.

"This accreditation is a key step in establishing the Singapore school as a centre of excellence in the country and the region."

As of 1300 BST Malvern shares were standing at 2.88p, an increase of 9.52%
NetScientific updated the market on its portfolio company ProAxsis on Monday confirming it had now gained further support for its ProteaseTag technology through a project co-funded by Innovate UK.

The AIM-traded firm said its investee company was awarded a grant to support its project titled Development of Technology to Support the Advance of New Protease Therapeutics.

It said the project will be conducted at its purpose-built laboratory facilities at Catalyst in Belfast.

The Innovate UK grant would commit financial resources of 57,390, representing 60% of the total expected cost of the project.

We are very excited to announce that ProAxsis has been awarded this grant from the prestigious Innovate UK agency, said Francois Martelet, chief executive of NetScientific and chairman of ProAxsis.

The award represents external validation of the ProteaseTag technology and will enable ProAxsis to generate further clinical data, helping ProAxsis advance towards near-term value inflection and commercialisation.
European stocks fell in early trade on Monday with auto issues under the cosh as investors digested the latest data on the eurozone manufacturing and services sectors.

At 1045 BST, the Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.5%, while Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 were off 0.8% and 0.4% respectively.

David Madden at CMC Markets said: "European equity markets are offside today as traders are still spooked by Fridays sell-off. The major decline that we witnessed at the end of last week rattled dealers and that bearish sentiment hasnt gone away. The announcement from Ryanair that fares could be cut to order to fend off competition has put pressure on the entire airline sector. The strength of the euro is still causing problems for Continental equity markets."

Autos were under pressure after the EU antitrust body confirmed it is investigating allegations of collusion between the big car manufacturers over diesel emission treatment systems and cost agreements. The Stoxx 600 autos and parts index was down 2.1%.

On the data front, surveys released by from Markit showed eurozone services and manufacturing sector growth remained strong in early July, though both came in slightly less strong than expected.

A preliminary, or 'flash', euro area manufacturing purchasing managers' index for July showed a slight easing back to 56.8 from 57.4 in June, falling short of the consensus forecast of 57.2.

The eurozone manufacturing PMI was at its lowest since January, but still well up on the 50.0 reading that separates growth from contraction.

The eurozone services PMI for July, also produced by Markit, remained at 55.4 for a second month, though the market had expected it to improve slightly to 55.5.

The headline composite PMI declined to 55.8 from 56.3, below the consensus forecast of 56.2.

Economists said the composite PMI looks consistent with quarterly gross domestic product growth of about 0.6% for the eurozone.

Investors were also mulling over news that the International Monetary Fund has downgraded its economic growth forecasts for the UK and the US this year. It cut its UK growth expectations to 1.7% from 2% and its estimate for the US to 2.1% from 2.3% earlier.

In corporate news, Ryanair flew lower despite reporting a jump in profit for the three months to the end of June, after the budget carrier warned it could cut fares by up to 9% on some routes as competition in the industry intensifies.
Randgold Resources was continuing to ramp up production at its Tongon gold mine in Cote d'Ivoire, tracking towards its 2017 target of 285,000 ounces, the company reported on Monday morning.

The FTSE 100 company confirmed that, with Tongon now operating to plan, its focus had shifted to finding additional reserves and resources to replace depleted ounces and extend the mines life beyond the currently anticipated four years.

At the same time, the mine had continued its engagement with employees and other regional stakeholders, according to chief executive Mark Bristow.

Elsewhere in Cote d'Ivoire, Randgold said its exploration programmes had defined a large target at Boundiali in the Fonondara corridor, which Bristow described as potentially the most exciting gold prospect in West Africa.

The company recently completed its annual review of its exploration targets, which Bristow said also highlighted very positive results from its other holdings in the country, underlining Cote d'Ivoire's exceptional prospectivity.

The success of Cote d'Ivoire's growing gold mining industry is a tribute to the vision and commitment shared by the government and the industry, and to a mining code which is fair to both parties," Bristow said.

We cannot rest on past achievements, however, and the future of the industry depends on new discoveries and developments.

There have been some project failures recently and these I believe have shown the need for greater resolve and engagement by the government, particularly in the north of the country, where the new opportunities are located.

Bristow said the single biggest challenge facing the industry was the increasing and unhindered encroachment of illegal mining, which he claimed was happening at Boundiali.

He asserted that while all stakeholders should address this growing problem, it was ultimately the government's responsibility to assert the rule of law.

The delivery of new projects was also being impeded by delays and difficulties in the permitting process, Bristow claimed, but the new mining cadastre system recently put in place by the Ministry in charge of mines was giving hope that the problems would be resolved very soon.

Bristow also claimed that Randgold's $28m contribution to a public-private partnership investment in the power infrastructure had not yet been settled despite the Ivorian power utility having earned almost $100m from supplying the mine and surrounding communities.

Tongon last quarter declared its second dividend, of which the government's share - including taxes - was $20m.

In total, the Tongon mine had contributed just under $1bn to the Ivorian economy in the form of royalties, taxes, dividends, salaries, payments to local suppliers and community investments since it started production in 2010, Randgold claimed.
Ryanair reported an impressive jump in quarterly profits but its warning of pricing pressures sent shares across the airline sector descending fast on Monday morning.

The Irish budget carrier said its first quarter result, where profit after tax rose 55% to 397m, was greatly helped by a later Easter this year boosting prices, but management continued to guide to first-half average fares falling roughly 5% amid a drive to grow traffic by almost 11%, while checked bag revenue is seen as continuing to steeply decline.

Ryanair raised its full year traffic target to 131m from 130m, predicted ex-fuel unit costs were on track to deliver a 1% reduction in the year and kept full year post-tax profit guidance for a range of 1.4-1.45bn.

But its added that, "after a difficult winter last year, we expect the pricing environment to remain very competitive" into the second half, where it expects to grow traffic by roughly 7% and see fares decline 8% on average in the second half.

The profit forecast is "heavily dependent" on close-in summer bookings, second-half average fares "and the absence of any further security events, ATC strikes or negative Brexit developments".

Shares in Ryanair fell almost 5% to 17.30 in early trading on Monday, while fellow airlines IAG and Easyjet and were down 4.8% to 576.5p and down 2% to 1,274.65 respectively. Carriers Flybe and Wizz Air, and travel groups Tui and Thomas Cook were also in the red.

Investors are worried that overcapacity will hit fares, reducing profits and margins in the second half, said analyst Neil Wilson at ETX Capital.

He said Ryanairs Q1 was by any reckoning very good, with margins improved and costs 6% lower.

"Ryanair also seem to be making less money from all those extra charges, noting that lower bag revenue was a factor in the lower profits as more customers switch to its two free carry-on bag policy."

Wilson noted with the recent Wizz Air update, which showed a similar trend of strong growth but downbeat outlook, the industry is pretty good at competing away any margin accretion by creating more capacity, with lower costs tending to equate to lower fares.

"Rynair is rightly cautious on fares but there is a good chance to gain market share this summer as legacy carriers restructure."
Private contractor Serco is facing a two-week long strike from its employees at four hospitals in London, as they continue to fight for an increase in wages.

Following discussions between Serco and Unite officials last week, no agreement could be reached in order to avoid a third strike in the last month from the NHS workers.

The Serco workers held a 48-hour demonstration on 4 July, before ratcheting up the pressure with a seven-day strike a week later. The latest protest will be followed by further prolonged action if there is no improved offer from Serco, Unite said on Monday.

The strike involves domestic staff in four hospitals which form part of the Barts Health NHS trust, with over 700 cleaners, catering staff and porters expected to walk out on Tuesday.

Unite regional officer Ruth Hydon said: Hundreds of low paid workers remain determined to fight for a decent pay rise which recognises the important contribution they make to keeping Barts safe and clean.

Serco is failing to seriously address the genuine concerns of the low paid workforce who are getting even poorer year on year. Serco is a multimillion pound company and it can afford to reward its workers fairly.

Hydon went on to say that Serco should get serious about the dispute and return to the negotiating table with an adequate offer for its staff.

'ABSOLUTE PRIORITY'

Serco defended its actions ahead of the beginning of the latest strike, and affirmed that its priority during the strike was to ensure the hospitals continue to serve patients effectively.

In agreement with the Trust, we guaranteed to pay our staff at least the London Living Wage of 9.75/hr from day one of our contract, which has resulted in an average increase in pay of 3.5% for over 140 permanent staff, said Serco contract director Phil Mitchell.

Our absolute priority during the strike has been to continue ensuring a safe, clean and caring environment for patients. Feedback from the Trust on how we have maintained services and patient safety has been positive and we have robust plans in place to ensure we can continue to support the Trusts hospitals to operate as normal during Unites action.
Recruitment firm SThree reported a rise in profit and revenue for the first half on Monday as its international diversification bore fruit.

For the half year ended 31 May, pre-tax profit rose 5% to 19.2m on revenue of 521m, up 7% on the same period a year ago.

The company said it saw a strong performance in the US, with gross profit up 16% year-on-year and now representing 22% of group gross profit versus 19% last year. In Continental Europe, profit was up 7% on the year.

It was a less cheery picture in the UK and Ireland, however, where profit fell 16% year-on-year, hit by the EU referendum, the general election and public sector reforms.

Chief executive officer Gary Elden said: "We are encouraged by our first half performance, with a step up in growth achieved in Q2 against a background of mixed trading conditions. The growing breadth and scale of our international operations, which now account for four fifths of gross profit, underline how far the group has grown from its UK roots, with particularly strong performances in Continental Europe and the USA, which is now our second largest region.

"Our strategic focus on contract business continues to deliver good growth across almost all regions, as well as a greater resilience in more uncertain economic conditions. Our permanent business made good progress in increasing productivity and remains focused on achieving further gains in the balance of the year."

At 1245 BST, the shares were up 2.6% to 292.50p.
When she's figuring out how much fur should be painted near a bobcat's ears, Abbey Ahmed needs only to walk a few feet to check.

The 24-year-old spent her week painting a mural atop a storm drain just steps away from the bobcat enclosure at Lincoln Children's Zoo.

Ahmed is one of 10 local artists who are part of the UpStream Art project  painting storm drains to bring awareness to the fact that drains lead directly to creeks or lakes.

Created by the Watershed Management Division of the Public Works and Utilities Department, the project will display "Only rain in the drain" on each drain alongside varying themes, project coordinator Erin Kubicek said.

Ahmed, a graphic designer, was encouraged to apply by her boss at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Nebraska One Health  a program that connects "human, animal, plant and ecosystem health," according to its website.

Drawing animals was a pastime of Ahmed's from a young age. She recalls sketching horses at age 2.

The UpStream Art project seemed like a natural fit. Her proposal featured a fox drinking from a stream leading toward the drain. When she found out her mural would be near the bobcat exhibit, she traded the fox for a bobcat.

The zoo holds a place in her heart, Ahmed said. Growing up in Milford, the zoo  a half-hour drive from home  was one of her favorite places to go. She remembers spending Halloween there as a child, collecting treats during the annual Boo at the Zoo.

As she sat down inside the makeshift, fenced-off portion of sidewalk to paint Thursday afternoon, curious children came over to watch.

"It's really special to be here," Ahmed said. "It brings back a lot of good memories."

The project has been in the works for two years, Kubicek said. She saw similar projects online and was inspired to create some public art in Lincoln.

The 10 selected artists have just less than a week to complete their murals, all in high foot-traffic locations.

The paintings will be coated with a concrete sealer that Kubicek said is supposed to preserve them for three to five years.

Not everyone knows, Kubicek said, that water from the drains leads to creeks and lakes in Lincoln, and awareness is important.

"It's really supposed to be educational and help people to draw that connection between storm drains and our local waterways," Kubicek said. "If people realize that, then hopefully they'll be a little bit more careful about what goes down there."
A reef off the coast of Cancun will become the first in the world with its own insurance policy, testing a new strategy meant to encourage local investment in the wellbeing of the reef.

Under the policy, created by insurance company Swiss Re and the Nature Conservancy, local hotels and other organizations dependent on tourism will pay into the policy, receiving reimbursements to repair the reef and local beaches after natural disasters.

Mexico isnt the only place where reefs are getting their own bank accounts: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently awarded Hawaii $715,000 to encourage local actions to promote reef resiliency. Half of the coral reefs in the state were killed in bleaching events between 2014 and 2015.

Public-private partnerships are the key, Mark Tercek, chief executive of the Nature Conservancy, told the Guardian. Tercek predicted that the business model in Cancun will be an inspiring example for other governments, businesses and insurance firms around the world.

I used to get very frustrated that not enough was happening [to protect the environment], Tercek said. We have to push business leaders to go further, to stick their neck out to tackle issues beyond the short term.

For a deeper dive:

Mexico: The Guardian, Bloomberg Businessweek. Hawaii: AP

For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for daily Hot News.
Although not on most peoples radar here, New York is one step closer to becoming the first state to have genetically modified, non-sterile insects released outside without cages.

Last week, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA-APHIS) ended the public comment period for its most recent environmental assessment of the proposed field release of a genetically engineered (GE) diamondback moth, an insect that causes serious damage to cruciferous crops such as broccoli and cauliflower. The release would be the first open-air trial in the U.S. of a GE agricultural pest created with a technology that doesnt use sterility as a way to control population.

USDAs assessment supports the permit application by Dr. Anthony Shelton of Cornell University and paves the way for trials that would take place on the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in bucolic upstate New York. Although the comment period occurred in the middle of planting season, the USDA did not honor a request by Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York and Food & Water Watch for a 30-day extension to allow interested parties to properly assess the complex report. Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York Liana Hoodes described the lack of an extension as unfortunate for the farmers of the region who may be significantly affected by these trials.

If the permit is approved, Cornell will be able to release up to 30,000 GE moths per week for three to four months for up to two years. The modified moths are imported from Oxitec, Ltd., the same British company that engineers the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which is at the center of a fierce controversy in the Florida Keys.

Oxitecs designer moth uses the same technology employed with their modified mosquitoes that have already been released in Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands. As in those programs, the male GE moth is not sterile but instead carries an engineered trait designed to kill most of its female offspring. However, although approximately 99 percent of the females will not survive to adulthood, many will die on the target crop, which raises concerns about ingestion of the tiny GE larvae by livestock, wildlife and humans if the process is eventually put into widespread use. In addition to this obvious ick factor, watchdog organizations have also questioned the use of tetracycline as the agent that switches off the lethality gene in the laboratory, citing antibiotic resistance among other issues.

This phase of the project follows closed cage trials that Cornell conducted in 2015. Critics of the open release proposal point out that data from those experiments have still not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Consumer advocate groupsincluding the Center for Food Safety, Food & Water Watch, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, Consumers Union, GeneWatch UK and Friends of the Earthhave written to Cornell and asked for more details about the earlier trials.

Doing this new environmental assessment without releasing previous data is irresponsible, Jaydee Hanson, Center for Food Safety senior policy analyst, said.

On the last day to submit comments, the USDA had received nearly 600 responses to their assessment of the open release plan, the overwhelming majority of which were opposed to granting the permit. About 40 commentersprimarily academics and conventional farming and biotech industry representativesexpressed support. Among those who asked the USDA to reject the proposal, commenter Jessica Visconti of Paramus, New Jersey, made a very simple plea: Do not do this, she wrote.
The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY) denounced the USDAs permit for the worlds first open-air trials of the Genetically Engineered (GE) Diamondback moth to be released in Geneva, New York.

This announcement came concurrently with the availability of a final environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact for the field release of the GE Diamondback moths. NOFA-NY considers the Environmental Assessment lacking comprehensive health and environmental details.

NOFA-NY considers the release of a novel genetically engineered organism to be a major activity with potentially significant and heretofore unknown health and environmental effects, said NOFA-NY policy advisor Liana Hoodes. It is now up to New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to ensure the safety of its citizens before granting the necessary state permit. We call on the NYS DEC to require a full environmental impact statement and public hearings during a complete review under State Environmental Quality Review Act.

Hoodes added that most of the USDAs environmental assessment confines its review to the general impacts of the new technology, yet neglects to adequately assess the potential impacts of the trials themselves on farms and residences near the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York and across the state.

NOFA-NY is concerned that the owner of this technology (originally, Oxitec UKnow Intrexon) never completed a comprehensive, independent health, safety and environmental review required by international protocols prior to bringing this organism to the U.S.

The Diamondback moth is a pest to brassica plants worldwide. The purpose of this new GE insect would be to reduce pest populations of Diamondback moths through engineering a new female lethality trait into male GE moths. Thousands of these males mate with wild females who produce eggs that are laid on the brassica, then the females die. The GE males continue the cycle and suppress the numbers of wild Diamondback moths.

Before such an open air release can happen, Cornell University must apply to the New York State DEC for a permit. Typically, Cornell research permits receive cursory review by the department, but because this is the first worldwide release of a new insect, NOFA-NY believes in the strongest terms that this action should trigger a full environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Such review must include a public hearing to determine the contents of a Full Environmental Impact Statement.

Both Cornell University and the technology owner Intrexon must fulfill their responsibilities to the citizens of the State for full disclosure of potential impacts prior to releasing such an organism into our air. Without a full environmental review, NOFA-NY believes this experiment must be stopped.
By Jessica Corbett

As Senate Democrats stay silent on an energy bill that environmental groups call a pro-fracking giveaway to oil and gas interests that would commit America to decades more of dangerous fossil fuel dependence, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is receiving applause for speaking out against it.

As a nation, our job is to move away from fossil fuels toward sustainable energy and energy efficiency. This bill does the opposite, Sanders said in a statement.

Sanders opposition to the bill was praised by environmental advocates who continue to pressure Democrats with thousands of phone calls to their Congressional offices.

Once again, Bernie Sanders shows that he is a champion of the American people by reminding the Senate that clean renewable energy, not obedience to industry executives, is the future of our country, said Bill Snape, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter called on others lawmakers to follow Sanders lead.

By coming out in opposition to the dirty energy bill currently looming before the Senate, Senator Sanders has once again demonstrated the real progressive leadership that is too often hard to find in Washington, Hauter said. With our climate and a livable future hanging in the balance, Senate Democrats need to wake up, state their sensible opposition to this foolish energy bill now, and ensure it doesnt see the light of day.

Earlier this month, more than 350 green groups sent a letter to pressure Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to oppose the bill. However, according to recent reporting by Bloomberg, no Democrat has publicly voiced opposition to the legislation, which is nearly 900 pages, even though it would entrench natural gas into the U.S. energy portfolio for years to come.

The bill, Sanders said, would make us more reliant on fracking for natural gas for decades to come by expediting the review process for natural gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas. It would also provide millions of taxpayer dollars to research new offshore natural gas extraction techniques.

Supporters of the legislation are quick to point to its power grid updates, as well as cyber security, public lands, and energy efficiency provisions. Some senators also see it as an opportunity to work across the aisle.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), often considered one of the Senates major advocates for the environment, told Bloomberg: Theres been no slaking of the thirst for bipartisan work because nones been available, and I think in energy, there are areas where we can work together Were not going to agree on everything, but its worth a try.

Environmental advocates and organizations disagree, and said in their letter to Schumer:

No energy legislation is better than bad energy legislation that serves to increase our dependence on dirty fossil fuel production instead of advancing energy efficiency to reduce the amount of energy we utilize and building on successful policies to expand clean energy sources such as solar and wind. In light of the current administrations overt efforts to make it easier for the fossil fuel industry to pollute our air and water, it is more essential than ever that Congress resist efforts to increase fossil fuel production.

The Senate dirty energy bill would further Trumps extreme agenda by increasing fracking. Resisting Trump means resisting fossil fuels, said Ben Schreiber, a senior political strategist at Friends of the Earth.

By opposing this bill, Senator Sanders continues to be a real climate leader in Congress, said actor and environmental advocate Mark Ruffalo. There can be no more trading off a few good conservation provisions in a bill for increased coal projects and fracking. We must transition swiftly to renewable clean energy. Our time is running out.

Reposted with permission from our media associate Common Dreams.
By John R. Platt

Tiger Shark Terror. Great White Shark Serial Killer Lives. Great Hammerhead Invasion. Australias Deadliest Shark Attacks. These are just a few of the programs airing this week during Discovery Channels annual Shark Week and NatGeo Wilds copycat, Sharkfest.

Undoubtedly, these programs will attract their usual massive ratings, but they may be guilty of the same kinds of film fakery that plagues many wildlife films, where the images on your screen dont tell a full or even truthful story. In the process, experts warn the films may actually send the wrong conservation message and harm endangered species.

The term fakery has many nuances to it, said Chris Palmer, founder of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University in Washington, DC. Palmer shined a light on some of the worst aspects of wildlife filmmaking in his 2010 book and 2013 documentary Shooting in the Wild. Shark Week, he said, typifies one of the most common aspects of film fakery, where producers create a mistaken impression in the audiences minds about what goes on in the wild.

With Shark Week, people get to see sharks as being dangerous and man-eating because thats what gets ratings. The networks are looking for that male demographic, age 21 to 35, so they push sensational shots of sharks chomping down on people.

Palmer, who has won two Emmy Awards for his own wildlife films, believes that pushing this misinformationthat sharks are nothing but dangerous killing machinescan hurt conservation efforts.

The wrong perception can lead to misperceptions and in the end, I think, hurt public policy toward these animals, he observed. One has to wonder how that affects work that goes on at CITES [the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species] and places like that where we try to get international protection for sharks. If the populace is thinking of sharks as dangerous, why would anyone save them? That makes it harder, I think, to do the right thing.

Real or fake?

Demonizing animals is just one of the many kinds of fakery tainting the wildlife filmmaking industry. Another kind of deception involves manipulating events to get the right shots on film. That might include leaving food out for animals, dosing a carcass with candy, drugging animals so they dont move or pushing them toward the camera. The worst case is when you put predator and prey together to get photographs, Palmer said. Although this technique has been employed extensively in the past, he called it immoral: You get these dramatic shots, but people dont see animals as they really are.

In other cases, what appears to be on camera isnt completely true, even if it may seem to be that way on the surface. Some films claim to follow the story of specific animals, although the footage is of multiple individuals edited together to tell a real story. In other films, discordant shots are edited together to depict something that could not be filmed in the wild. Sir David Attenboroughs Frozen Planet series infamously mixed footage of polar bears in the wild with sequences shot in a zoo. This created a scandal a few years ago when viewers found out, and the Discovery Channel added a disclaimer when it brought the series to the U.S.

A more subtle kind of fakery can occur in the editing stages. Filmmakers might be in the field for months at a time, getting limited shots of their subjects every few weeks. But all too often those short shots can be edited together to make it seem as if they occurred in a very short sequence.

The final film looks like there are a lot of these rare animals, Palmer said. People watching it are saying to themselves, Well, golly, whats the problem? I was just watching this film, and I see hundreds of these chimps or these white-tipped oceanic sharks or whatever, and then they dont realize that the film has been put together with very little footage because its hard to find these animals.

The risk to wildlife

In addition to fakery, Palmer pointed out that the animals themselves are often endangered by filmmakers. We get too close, we harass them, were desperate to get the money shots, he said. And we go in so close and bother them that some of the animals even get killed. Ethical codes for filmmakers should prevent this from happening, but they lack enforcement. They set a marker, but if someone breaks them there is no one in the field to say, Dont do that,' Palmer said.

Many filmmakers may find themselves placed under extreme corporate pressure to get dramatic footage of rare and endangered species. Because most crews contain just one or two people and no one is in the field watching, circumstances can lead to cutting corners. No ones looking at you, Palmer said. Its very easy to do things that no one would know about. He noted that there arent any real metrics about this, because people dont admit it, but it happens: The only time you hear the truth is at 2 a.m. after a few beers.

The publics role

The public can have a role in reducing film fakery, whether its during Shark Week or on another wildlife program. I would encourage people to be a little skeptical and ask questions, he said. How did they get that shot? Is the animal being controlled? Did that animal come from a game farm where it was held under inhumane conditions? Especially for endangered species, how was it treated? Did the filmmakers keep their distance so the animal was undisturbed or was the animal harassed and chased down to get good footage? Asking television networks these questions, he suggested, can lead to change: All of these networks are sensitive. I think if the public speaks up, they will do a better job.

Although he expressed a lot of criticism for fakery, Palmer does think that wildlife filmmaking can have a very positive effect, even in cases where the narrative plays loose with a few facts to pull at heartstrings. People who love the film may vote in a positive way for senators and congressmen who will vote in a more sustainable manner, he asserted. That may be an example where fakery is, if you like, pro-conservation.

A version of this article appeared in 2013 at Scientific American. Reposted with permission from our media associate The Revelator.
By Andy Rowell

For years, environmentalists have warned that due to climate change, there will be billions of barrels of oil that we will never be able to burn. These reserves will become what has increasingly been called stranded assets.

To give you one example: In a new report, Friends of the Earth argued that The coal, oil and gas in reserves already in production and development globally is more than we can afford to burn. There is no room for any new coal, oil or gas exploration and production.

Fossil fuel corporations continue to focus on new fossil fuel exploration and development, Friends of the Earth added. This is increasing the amount of assets the world economy cannot afford to useassets which will become stranded.'

To make matters worse for the industry, it has become increasingly clear over the last few months that the coming electric vehicle revolution will also have a huge impact on oil demand. As Reuters pointed out last week, Investors may be entering the age of stranded assets, and it very likely could be driven as much by technological change as by climate change.

The writing has been on the wall for oil investors for a while as they bet on an industry beset by low prices, increasing competition from renewables and the threat of global action on climate change.

But still belligerently people invest in fossil fuels, with devastating results.

The Wall Street Journal on Sunday ran the headline, From $2 Billion to Zero: A Private-Equity Fund Goes Bust in the Oil Patch. The Journal reported how A $2 billion private-equity fund that borrowed heavily to buy oil and gas wells before energy prices plunged is now worth essentially nothing, an unusual debacle that is wiping out investments by major pensions, endowments and charitable foundations.

The Houston-based private equity fund, EnerVest, posted this massive loss in one of its energy funds, meaning that the fund has essentially gone bust and is worth essentially nothing. John Walker, EnerVests co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement to the Journal, We are not proud of the result.

That surely is an understatement.

Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James in Houston, argued that the lesson for everyone is that excessive leverage in a commodity downcycle can be lethal.

And so what happens when more oil companies go bust as the whole fossil fuel industry goes from a downcycle into a potential death spiral, as some have warned it will do?

The whole industryfrom producers to power stationscould be in trouble. Again, to give you one example: Early Tuesday, Mark Campanale from Carbon Tracker tweeted: Up to 240 gas and 150 coal fired power stations in Europe could be stranded assets says European Env Agency by 2030.

Amid the inevitable bankruptcies, who will pay for the clean up of the oil patch, from the tar sands of Canada to the vast fracking fields of North Dakota to the offshore wells in the Gulf, let alone the vast industry infrastructure outside of North America?

There is already a need to clean up old oil and gas areas, before we even consider the new shale gas and tar sands areas. For example, the InsideEnergy website reported Monday on the Toxic Legacy in North Dakota which looks to clean up old oilfield waste. The website noted that clean up of these old brine pits could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, with the bulk of that bill potentially falling to the state.

The same theme was touched upon by Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence in Canada in a recent article, Who cleans up the mess when oil and mining companies go bankrupt?

Grays article noted how the Alberta Energy Regulator was appealing a judges ruling that had given creditors priority access to a bankrupt oil companys assets over its financial obligations to clean up abandoned wells.

There is no doubt Canada has a huge problem: in Alberta, toxic tailing ponds now cover an area larger than the cities of Toronto and Vancouver combined. It is estimated that it will cost a whopping $44.5-billion to clean up existing ponds, with more waste being added every day.

Who will pay for this toxic legacy if companies suddenly leave or go bankrupt, especially as many predict Alberta will be one of the first oil and gas regions to become stranded? It is likely that it will be Canadian taxpayers.

Gray argued that clearly change is needed and that Canadas bankruptcy laws could be amended so that the cleanup of environmental damage takes priority over creditors.

Otherwise, as he pointed out, we all pay to clean up the mess.
Late last year, the tiny house community celebrated a watershed momentan official appendix in the 2018 version of the International Residential Code, the model building code used by most jurisdictions in the U.S.

There are many things that are monumental in the adoption of tiny house construction codes by the IRC, cheered Thom Stanton, the CEO of small space developer, Timber Trails. Among them, that architects, designers, builders, community developers and (maybe most importantly) zoning officials have a means of recognizing tiny houses as an official form of permissible dwelling.

Although it will take a few years for local governments to formally adopt the new code, the appendix gave the tiny house movement something it had long sought: Legitimacy.

Whats a Tiny Home?

Tiny homes are generally between 100 to 400 square feet and can be built on wheels or a permanent foundation. Some might deride these micro-homes as glorified trailers, but theres a lot to admire about the lifestyle.

The architectural and cultural phenomenon emerged after the 2007-2008 housing market collapse, as recession-scarred folks abandoned the McMansion fantasy and chose to significantly downsize. Proponents of tiny houses tout their cheaper costs, freedom from unnecessary material possessions and a smaller environmental footprint (see infographic).

Frankly, some of these dwellingslike this 240-square-foot, completely off-grid tiny house nestled in a Hawaiian rainforest paradisemake me want to leave it all behind too.

Enthusiasts also suggest that tiny homes could address homelessness and add affordable housing options in cities experiencing extensive gentrification and rising costs of living.

Portland, Oregon, for instance, needs tiny houses to keep its own identity in place, Michelle Boyle, who lives in a tiny house in nearby Sherwood and hosts the Tiny House Podcast, told Portland Tribune.

In order to encourage diversity in your population, you have to encourage diversity in your housing stock, she added.

Indeed, Oregons largest city has seen home prices outpace much of the nation. The median price of homes currently listed in Portlands metro area is $404,990, according to Zillow.

There are people who Portland would love to have living in our city, but they cant afford it any more, local small-scale developer Eli Spevak told the Tribune.

Tiny homes are certainly cheaper than building or buying a regular-sized house because of their small size. Prices for tiny homes vary widely, but GOOD Money crunched the numbers and determined that a DIY tiny house costs between $20,000 to $30,000. Contracting a professional builder or buying a prefabricated unit ranges from $50,000 to $449,000 (like this luxurious 315-square-foot mini mansion in Maryland).

Why Go Tiny?

Despite the proliferation of HGTV reality shows and documentaries on the topic, tiny house living is far from the norm. New American homes are actually bigger than ever. The typical single-family home in the U.S. is roughly 2,500 square feet, about 50 percent larger than in the late 1970s.

Some might find tiny living too small and even abandon ship. The Atlantic examined the psychological toll of living in New York Citys first micro-apartments, which range from 260 to 360 square feet, and warned about possible claustrophobia and crowding-related stress for some residents.

Sure, these micro-apartments may be fantastic for young professionals in their 20s, Dak Kopec, the director of design for human health at Boston Architectural College, said in the article. But they definitely can be unhealthy for older people, say in their 30s and 40s, who face different stress factors that can make tight living conditions a problem.

Then theres the whole legal issue. Although these rules are slowly evolving (i.e., the new tiny house appendix), the countrys decades-old zoning regulations and patchwork of building codes just wont allow you to wheel or construct a tiny house onto whatever empty lot you like and call it home.

There are two types of tinys with specific rules for each. First, theres the tiny house on a foundation, which is legally considered an Accessory Dwelling Unit. ADUssmall or tiny homes built on the same property of an existing homeare subject to local laws such as minimum square footage requirements and will probably require a permit to build.

The second type is the portable tiny house, or a tiny house on wheels, which is typically classified as a recreational vehicle (RV), meaning it could require licensing and registration at a state transportation department. Legally parking a tiny house on wheels is also a frequent issue that also varies by jurisdiction.

Because of all these rules, tiny housers sometimes live under the radar and just cross their fingers that a nosy neighbor wont alert the authorities.

If that isnt enough of a headache, online youll find a whole host of other complaints (its just a fad; theyre difficult to resell) as well as thoughtful arguments (the unavailability of open space and the high cost of land in urban centers) against tiny homeownership.

The New Minimalism

Tiny homes arent for everyone, but its clear that their popularity is far from waning. An expanding list of micro-communities are popping up around the country and in January 2016, Fresno, California became the first city in the nation to develop tiny house-specific codes. Fellow Californian city Ojai followed Fresnos footsteps not long after.

Back in Portland, the famously progressive city has become an epicenter of the tiny house movement (of course) and is even a national leader in ADU development. In 2016, the city granted about as many building permits for ADUs as for regular single-family homes.

And late last month, with very little fanfare, Idaho became the first state in the nation to adopt the tiny house appendix.

This is a huge step forward for everyone who wants to live legally in their tiny home, declared Andrew Morrison of Tiny House Build a day after the vote. There is still a lot of work to be done in Idaho, but this is absolutely the best outcome from yesterdays vote.

Morrison, a veteran tiny house builder, co-authored the tiny house appendix and spearheaded efforts to get it approved. He is now working on an appendix specifically for movable tiny houses.

As the Portland Tribune noted, many obstacles remain before tiny houses on wheels get the same treatment as ADUs here and elsewhere, but many say its inevitable, given spiking house and rent prices and the growing popularity of tiny houses.

At least for now, it looks like this movement is not-so-tiny after all.

Reposted with permission from our media associate AlterNet.
New study suggests big drop in smoking rates over five-year period when surgeons get involved in helping patients quit smoking before their operations

New York City (July 24, 2017, 10:00 am ET): Cigarette smoking is one behavior that can lead to poor postoperative outcomes in spine operations, a very common procedure. However, smoking is one of the toughest habits to break.

But a new American College of Surgeons (ACS) quality improvement program that moves the concept of the checklist (used in operating rooms across the country to reduce medical mishaps) out of the operating room and into the preoperative setting is linked to a two-thirds decrease in the rate of smoking in patients undergoing cervical and lumbar spine procedures, according to new findings presented yesterday at the 2017 ACS Quality and Safety Conference.

"There is perhaps no greater opportunity to improve the outcome for spine surgery patients than in getting people to stop smoking," said lead study author David Flum, MD, MPH, FACS, professor of surgery and associate chair for research at the University of Washington, Seattle. "People who smoke are two to three times more likely to have a failure of the spine surgical fusion, endure continued pain and dysfunction, and have a reoperation that can cost as much as $100,000."

Strong for Surgery is a presurgical health optimization program launched by the University of Washington in 2012 for elective procedures. In late 2016, the American College of Surgeons became the national home for Strong for Surgery. The ACS has begun administering and promoting it as a quality initiative aimed at identifying and evaluating evidence-based practices to optimize the health of patients before their operations.

The aim of the program is to prepare patients for surgery by helping them become healthier. Patients are screened for several risk factors during a preoperative visit. For example, by using the Strong for Surgery smoking checklist, surgeons determine patients' smoking status. If a patient does smoke, he or she can use the program's tools to direct them to smoking cessation programs and treatment, said study coauthor Matthew A. Bartek, MD, a surgical resident and senior research fellow at the Surgical Outcomes Research Center, University of Washington.

For this study, the University of Washington team sought to determine the proportion of smokers undergoing spine procedures and to see if the Strong for Surgery program actually had an impact on patient smoking habits. This objective was achieved by conducting an observational study on cigarette smoking that involved nearly 24,000 patients (between the ages of 46 and 72) undergoing cervical (45.3 percent) or lumbar (54.7 percent) spine fusion procedures at 18 hospitals across Washington State between 2011-2016.

Next, the researchers looked at the Surgical Care and Outcomes Assessment Program (SCOAP), a Washington State hospital dataset that had incorporated the Strong for Surgery modules into its data collection. The analysis showed that the proportion of patients who smoked in 2011 was 36 percent compared with just 12 percent in 2016. In addition, smoking cessation counseling increased from 6.14 percent in 2012 to 42 percent in 2016.

"We also saw a substantial decrease in the variability of smoking rates among all the hospitals between 2011 and 2016, which is the goal of any quality improvement program," Dr. Bartek said.

"Strong for Surgery is a complex intervention and there are several factors that had an influence on cigarette smoking rates," Dr. Flum said. "In addition to the Strong for Surgery checklist, getting surgeons directly involved in the messaging around cigarette cessation is very powerful, whereas public health interventions are about generic messaging directed at everyone. In general, surgery is a very teachable event, so it's a prime opportunity for patients to take stock of their health, and we find that patients are more apt to listen."

Efforts are now underway for the ACS to expand the program nationwide. "Strong for Surgery will help surgeons play a much greater role in reducing complications, optimizing health for surgery, and recognizing that our job is to help the total health of the patient and the public," Dr. Flum said.

Adds Dr. Bartek, "Our study findings are evidence that Strong for Surgery may be an effective program for changing surgeon behavior, and by changing surgeon behavior perhaps changing patient behavior."

A new study is already in the works by this research team to see whether lowering smoking rates results in a dramatic improvement in spine fusion rates.

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Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes And Digestive And Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32DK070555. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

About the American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 80,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit: http://www.facs.org.
A well-structured water distribution and documentation process led to increased water intake at one hospital, according to study results presented at 2017 ACS Quality and Safety Conference

NEW YORK (July 24, 2017, 11 a.m. ET): Nurses on the bariatric surgery care team at a Connecticut hospital were having difficulty keeping track of patients' fluid intake after hospital admission. To standardize this process, and to avoid patient readmission following bariatric surgery procedures, the team implemented a water intake improvement project to increase the amount of water these patients drank following their weight-loss operations. Study results were presented yesterday at the 2017 American College of Surgeons Quality and Safety Conference.

Adequate fluid intake is an important component of the recovery process. Dehydration is one of the most common reasons for patient readmission after bariatric surgical procedures. However, after a bariatric procedure, patients often have nausea and pain. "Coupled with drastically reduced stomach capacity, it can be very difficult for patients to meet their hydration goals for some time after the procedure," said Cheryl Williams, MS, RD. Ms. Williams is the study's primary author and the bariatric program coordinator at Greenwich [Conn.] Hospital.

Ms. Williams said dehydrated patients can present to the emergency room with complaints of vomiting, headache, and dizziness, which leads to greater costs for the patient. "Preventing dehydration helps to improve the patient's recovery, as well as decrease emergency room visits and hospital admissions," she said.

To avoid this complication, a team of nurses and performance management staff at Greenwich Hospital, realized they needed to better document patients' water intake. Before this project was implemented, patients were encouraged to drink water between meals, but there were water containers of various sizes in patients' rooms and no restrictions existed regarding who could bring outside beverages into rooms, Ms. Williams said.

As a result, "it was really tough for nurses and patients to get an accurate picture of how much fluid patients were drinking," Ms. Williams said.

Once this problem was identified and the team was assembled, Ms. Williams said they decided to limit the number and type of water containers available to patients admitted to the hospital after sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass operations. The team collected baseline data on fluid intake for two months. Patients then received six 8-ounce water bottles numbered consecutively and 1-ounce measuring cups at meals.

Water and meal provision was restricted to nurses only so they knew what the patients were consuming. Once the process was in place, data was collected for seven months, and is still being collected, on fluid intake and documentation. Nurses, nursing assistants, and food service staff members were educated about the program and patients were provided with a clear message regarding fluid goals.

The average water intake during the baseline period for 12 patients was 381.5 mL over 24 hours. After the project was put in place, the average intake for 39 patients increased to 1109.5 mL over 24 hours. Currently, the average for 102 patients is 1007 mL.

"By standardizing the intake and supplying and numbering the water bottles, this project was a great success in terms of being able to monitor how much the patients were drinking because you knew how many bottles they had," said Jacquie Hyland, RN, MHA, a study coauthor and senior performance management specialist at Greenwich Hospital. Ms. Williams added the measuring allowed patients to drink consistently even after they went home from the hospital.

Ashutosh Kaul, MBBS, FACS, medical director of the bariatric surgery program at Greenwich Hospital, said this study shows the importance of team building to improve patient care.

"We built a core team that implemented a simple, low-cost, structured, and well-defined water distribution and documentation process, which resulted in better compliance of water intake," Dr. Kaul said. "This reduced variability and improved postoperative intake progression, and we are presently studying its effect on reduction of readmissions and facilitating early discharge."

To further ensure adequate water intake, study authors began adding flavorings to the water in March, Ms. Hyland said. They have also discussed expansion of the program on other floors of the hospital, but have no concrete plans to do so at this point.

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In addition to Ms. Williams, Ms. Hyland, and Dr. Kaul, other study authors from Greenwich Hospital are Katrina Melei, MS, RD, LDN; Loriann Dilg, RN; Cristina Difeo, RN; and Christine Zuccarelli, RD.

Greenwich Hospital's bariatric surgery center is accredited by the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP), a collaboration between ACS and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS).

About the American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 80,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit: http://www.facs.org.
First of its kind study may lead to new era of Alzheimer's drug discovery and therapeutic targets

Alzheimer's disease tragically ravages the brains, memories and ultimately, personalities of its victims. Now affecting 5 million Americans, Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., and a cure for Alzheimer's remains elusive, as the exact biological events that trigger it are still unknown.

In a new study published today, Arizona State University-Banner Health neuroscientist Salvatore Oddo and his colleagues from Phoenix's Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) -- as well as the University of California, Irvine, and Mount Sinai in New York -- have identified a new way for brain cells to become fated to die during Alzheimer's diseases.

The research team has found the first evidence that the activation of a biological pathway called necroptosis, which causes neuronal loss, is closely linked with Alzheimer's severity, cognitive decline and extreme loss of tissue and brain weight that are all advanced hallmarks of the disease.

"We anticipate that our findings will spur a new area of Alzheimer's disease research focused on further detailing the role of necroptosis and developing new therapeutic strategies aimed at blocking it," said Oddo, the lead author of this study, and scientist at the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center at the Biodesign Institute and associate professor in the School of Life Sciences.

The findings appear in the advanced online edition of Nature Neuroscience.

Necroptosis, which causes cells to burst from the inside out and die, is triggered by a triad of proteins. It has been shown to play a central role in multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig' disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS), and now for the first time, also in Alzheimer's disease.

"There is no doubt that the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease have fewer neurons," said Oddo. "The brain is much smaller and weighs less; it shrinks because neurons are dying. That has been known for 100 years, but until now, the mechanism wasn't understood."

Links with Alzheimer's

Necroptosis was first identified as a result of inflammation, a common malady in Alzheimer's.

Three critical proteins are involved in the initiation of necroptosis, known as RIPK1, RIPK3 and MLKL. The study describes a key event in the process of necroptosis when RIPK1 and RIPK3 form a filamentous structure known as the necrosome.

The formation of the necrosome appears to jump-start the process of necroptosis. It activates MLKL, which affects the cell's mitochondria, eventually leading to cell death.

Winnie Liang, TGen assistant professor, director of TGen Scientific Operations and director of TGen's Collaborative Sequencing Center, said MLKL executes necroptosis to ultimately cause cell death.

"In this study, we show for the first time that necroptosis is activated in Alzheimer's disease, providing a plausible mechanism underlying neuronal loss in this disorder," said Liang, who contributed to the study's gene expression analyses.

To explore necroptosis, the research team utilized multiple cohorts of human samples obtained from the Brain and Body Donation Program at the Banner Sun Health Research Institute and Mount Sinai VA Medical Center Brain Bank.

First, they measured RIPK1, RIPK3 and MLKL in a specific region of the brain that is typically ravaged by cell loss during the advance of Alzheimer's disease -- the temporal gyrus. Results showed that during necroptosis, these markers were increased in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.

Next, they identified the molecular cascade of necroptosis activation, with RIPK1 activating RIPK3 by binding with it. This protein complex then binds to and activates MLKL. Analysis of mRNA and protein revealed elevated levels of both RIPK1 and MLKL in the postmortem brain tissues of patients with Alzheimer's when compared with normal postmortem brains.

Furthermore, they also demonstrated that necroptosis activation correlated with the protein tau. Intriguingly, necroptosis did not appear to be linked with the other chief physiological characteristic of Alzheimer's pathology, beta-amyloid plaque.

Engines of decline

To assess the relationship between necroptotic protein levels and cognitive health, the study revisited the scores of patients whose postmortem brain tissue was evaluated for necroptosis. Results showed a significant association between RIPK1, MLKL and diminished scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), a widely used test measuring cognitive health.

Given the established relationship between necroptosis and Alzheimer's pathology, including cell loss and attendant cognitive deficit, the study sought to inhibit the process to study the dynamic effects on cell death and memory loss.

With such experiments not possible in people, the team demonstrated in a mouse model of the disease that lowering the activation of the necroptosis pathway reduces cell loss and improves performance in memory-related tasks, offering new hope for human therapeutics to halt or reverse the effects of Alzheimer's.

The results reveal that the inhibition of necroptosis activation through the blockage of RIPK1 prevents cell loss in mice. Compellingly, mice with inhibited activation of necroptosis pathways performed significantly better in tests of spatial memory involving navigation through a water maze.

New understanding, new hope

The study opens a new window on Alzheimer's research and offers hope for therapies targeting cell loss in the brain, an inevitable and devastating outcome of Alzheimer's progression.

Oddo stresses that RIPK1, RIPK3 and MLKL are among many potential drug targets, and others will likely follow as the links between necroptosis and Alzheimer's become clearer. While multiple causes of the disease are likely, understanding more clearly all targets that trigger disease will offer the best hope since neuronal loss has been found in people more than a decade before any symptoms of dementia.

"One may not agree as to which molecules trigger Alzheimer's disease, " said Oddo, "but everybody agrees that the end result is the neuronal loss. If you can prevent that you may have a beneficial effect."

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Media Contacts:

Joe Caspermeyer

Managing Editor

Biodesign Institute

Arizona State University

480-727-9577

joseph.caspermeyer@asu.edu

Steve Yozwiak

TGen Senior Science Writer

602-343-8704

syozwiak@tgen.org

This work was supported by grants from the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium and the National Institutes of Health (R01 AG037637) to Salvatore Oddo, and R01 NS083801 and P50 AG016573 to Kim Green.

Data for the RIPK1 causal regulatory gene network were generated from postmortem brain tissue collected through the Mount Sinai VA Medical Center Brain Bank and were provided by Dr. Eric Schadt from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The computational resources and staff expertise provided by the Department of Scientific Computing at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai also contributed to the performance of this research.

Paper Title: Evidence for necroptosis activation in Alzheimer's disease

Antonella Caccamo1, #, Caterina Branca1, #, Ignazio S. Piras2, Eric Ferreira1, Matthew J Huentelman2, Winnie S. Liang2, Ben Readhead3, Joel T. Dudley3, Elizabeth E. Spangenberg4, Kim N. Green4, Wendy Winslow1, and Salvatore Oddo1,5,*

1Arizona State University-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center at the Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA.

2Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ, 85004, USA.

3 Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.

4Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.

5School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 85281, USA

About the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University

The Biodesign Institute plays a critical role in advancing the research mission of Arizona State University, a comprehensive metropolitan university that is the second largest in the U.S. The Biodesign Institute embodies the guiding principles of the New American University, as defined by Arizona State University President Michael Crow, specifically, to conduct use-inspired research, fuse intellectual disciplines and value entrepreneurship.The Biodesign Institute at ASU addresses today's critical global challenges in healthcare, sustainability and security by developing solutions inspired from natural systems, translating solutions into commercially viable products and clinical practices. For more information, go to: http://www.biodesign.asu.edu Follow Biodesign on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

About TGen

Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) is a Phoenix, Arizona-based non-profit organization dedicated to conducting groundbreaking research with life changing results. TGen is focused on helping patients with neurological disorders, cancer, diabetes, and infectious diseases, through cutting edge translational research (the process of rapidly moving research towards patient benefit). TGen physicians and scientists work to unravel the genetic components of both common and rare complex diseases in adults and children. Working with collaborators in the scientific and medical communities literally worldwide, TGen makes a substantial contribution to help our patients through efficiency and effectiveness of the translational process. TGen is allied with City of Hope, a world-renowned independent research and cancer and diabetes treatment center. This precision medicine alliance enables both institutes to complement each other in research and patient care, with City of Hope providing a significant clinical setting to advance scientific discoveries made by TGen. For more information, visit: http://www.tgen.org. Follow TGen on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter @TGen.

About the Sun City Brain Bank

The Banner Sun Health Research Institute Brain and Body Donation Program of Sun City, Arizona is a world leading, community-based resource to advance our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases. The Brain and Body Donation Program is supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (U24 NS072026 National Brain and Tissue Resource for Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders), the National Institute on Aging (P30 AG19610 Arizona Alzheimer's Disease Core Center), the Arizona Department of Health Services (contract 211002, Arizona Alzheimer's Research Center), the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission (contracts 4001, 0011, 05-901 and 1001 to the Arizona Parkinson's Disease Consortium) and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.
Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. (July 24, 2017)--Excessive and improper applications of insecticides and other agriculture chemicals in local fruit orchards may have triggered an outbreak of acute encephalitis syndrome (AES), a condition often associated with deadly inflammation of the brain, that killed 13 children in a rural Bangladesh community in 2012, according to a new study published online today in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

All of the deaths, which occurred within 20 hours of the onset of symptoms, were linked to exposure to lychee, a small, reddish fruit with a sweet white flesh that is cultivated across China and South Asia. Similar deaths from AES have been observed near lychee orchards in India; however, a recent analysis published in the journal The Lancet concluded that those deaths were caused by a reaction to a naturally occurring toxin found in lychee seeds and pulp.

"Our investigation suggested the seeds might not be the cause as the seeds are not eaten in Bangladesh and instead found the deaths in 2012 were most likely due to an exposure to multiple, highly toxic agrochemicals," said M. Saiful Islam, MSS, MPH, an Associate Scientist at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) and the lead author of the study. "These deaths occurred at a time when lychee was being harvested and consumed across Bangladesh. If the seeds were the cause, then we would expect to see cases scattered across the country, not just in a certain small area."

Islam and colleagues from icddr,b, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) based their conclusion on an exhaustive investigation into 14 cases of AES in children 1 to 12 years old that occurred between May 31 and June 30, 2012 in the Dinajpur District in northern Bangladesh. Only one child survived.

The scientists discovered that around the time of the 2012 outbreak, growers were applying endosulfan in the orchards, which, the study notes, is a "highly toxic" insecticide that has been banned due to the deleterious health effects in more than 80 countries. As of 2016, Bangladesh was one of several countries, including the United States, that still allowed restricted use of endosulfan. The pesticide was slated to be phased out of use in the United States by the end of 2016.

According to the study, 13 of the 14 children lived either right beside or within 10 meters of a lychee orchard. One victim did not live as close to an orchard, but, before falling ill, he reportedly consumed a large number of lychees collected from the same orchards.

The outbreak occurred around harvest times, when there is typically an abundance of lychee fruit on the ground around the trees. Local residents told the investigators that it was common for children to play in the orchards and to eat fruit that had fallen on the ground without washing it, using their teeth to peel the lychee's tough skin. In addition, several of the victims had family members who worked in the orchards, which, the study notes, could have increased exposures via residues on clothing worn into the home.

Several families of victims reported the symptoms began with a sharp, sudden cry from their child. Loss of consciousness occurred, on average, about 2.5 hours after the onset of illness and deaths within about 20 hours or less. Other symptoms included respiratory distress, froth at the mouth and convulsions. While it is known that an infection like meningitis can lead to AES, the scientists asserted that the "short duration between onset of illness and death all suggest the outbreak was more likely due to a toxic poisoning than an infection."

Islam said physical evidence collected from the orchards, which included discarded containers of insecticides and other chemicals, and interviews with community residents suggested that multiple chemicals were applied to the fruit and in amounts far greater than are normally used by other lychee producers. The study also found evidence that the lychee growers were applying an insecticide that had been approved only for use in cotton, not food crops.

"People in the communities told us that sometimes the spraying was so heavy it became difficult to stay in their houses and that the smell would linger for hours," he said.

The researchers also noted that clinical symptoms seen in the children were similar to what was noted in an outbreak of sudden child deaths in 2009 in Bangladesh that was linked to the carbamate class of insecticides, which were also used in the lychee orchards. Additionally, the study pointed to a 2015 outbreak in the same region that involved 12 recorded hospitalizations and 11 deaths as further evidence that the 2012 outbreak is likely associated with the use of toxic chemicals in the area.

Islam and his colleagues plan to conduct follow-up studies in an effort to obtain more biological evidence from victims--specifically liver and brain biopsies along with a focused ethnographic study that could provide more definitive evidence of chemical exposures.

"This study makes a strong case for the value of solid detective work and community engagement when investigating the causes of a dangerous and tragic public health crisis," said ASTMH President Patricia F. Walker, MD, DTM&H, FASTMH. "By working closely with the affected communities and earning their trust, researchers were able to identify the potential role of agricultural chemicals in this outbreak. Community education and improved oversight of pesticide use will be needed to help reduce the risk of future tragedies"

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About the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, founded in 1903, is the largest international scientific organization of experts dedicated to reducing the worldwide burden of tropical infectious diseases and improving global health. It accomplishes this through generating and sharing scientific evidence, informing health policies and practices, fostering career development, recognizing excellence, and advocating for investment in tropical medicine/global health research. For more information, visit astmh.org.

About the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

Continuously published since 1921, AJTMH is the peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and the world's leading voice in the fields of tropical medicine and global health. AJTMH disseminates new knowledge in fundamental, translational, clinical and public health sciences focusing on improving global health.
Dr. Lauren Esposito, one of the world's only female scorpion biologists, and her colleagues describe two new genera and three new species of Earth's oldest living, land-based arthropods

SAN FRANCISCO (July 24, 2017) -- A team of researchers -- including Dr. Lauren Esposito, Curator of Arachnology at the California Academy of Sciences and colleagues from the American Museum of Natural History and Universidade de Sao Paulo (Brazil) -- have painstakingly revised a large group of Neotropical "club-tailed" scorpions. After sifting through DNA and comparing the physical traits of hundreds of specimens to reorganize (and strengthen) scientific understanding of this scorpion group, the scientists described two new genera and new species. The authors also restored a long-forgotten group called Heteroctenus. The colorful, new-to-science club-tailed scorpions hail from the tropical regions of North, Central, and South America. The results appear this summer in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.

Pre-dating the dinosaurs

"Clocking in at 435 million years old, scorpions are among the oldest living terrestrial arthropods on the planet," says Esposito, one of the world's only female scorpion biologists and expert in the evolution of their venoms. "We need to understand what they are and where they live so we can protect them. This review clears up longstanding confusion about the club-tailed group, but there's still so much to discover."

Scorpions -- which give birth to live young--are found in every ecosystem on the planet, from cave systems below sea level to the snow-capped peaks of the Alps. Arachnologists estimate that the 2,200 species of known scorpion species only encompass around 60% of the group's total diversity. Esposito is part of a dedicated group of arachnologists determined to fill in those taxonomic gaps and care for vitally important museum collections -- often referred to as "libraries of life" available to students and researchers around the world.

Club-tailed finds (and a "maraca" warning)

Though their characteristics vary, specimens of the three new species -- Ischnotelson peruassu and Physoctonus striatus from Brazil, and Rhopalurus ochoai from Venezuela -- inhabit the same overarching group of mostly large-bodied, strikingly colored, and sonically gifted scorpions.

"Savannas, caves, deserts, open fields, and forests -- you name the Neotropical landscape," says Esposito, "and we can show you a club-tailed scorpion that lives there. One wild thing about this group is that many species have the unique ability to make sounds by rubbing a specialized comb-like structure against their sandpaper-like abdomen. We think it's probably a loud way to tell predators: 'back off.'"

Esposito says the warning is audible to the human ear, adding that it "sounds like hiss, or even like a maraca shaking."

Most specimens collected explicitly for this study -- about 200, in addition to specimens from museum collections--were detected at night using UV lights that produce a blue-green glow on scorpions' armor. Many of the study's authors turned over rocks, searched caves, and explored near rivers and forests to look for male and female representatives of the club-tailed group. Portable GPS devices record the geographical coordinates of each discovery so scientists can trace specimens back to their home environment.

"This project exemplifies the many uses of natural history collections, without which research of this kind would be impossible," says Dr. Lorenzo Prendini, Curator of Arachnida at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and coauthor of the study. "Making use of the vast scorpion collections at the AMNH, among the world's largest, we were able to combine 'traditional' comparative morphological and anatomical data, reflecting the physical attributes of these scorpions, with DNA sequences from their nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. Integrating these diverse sources of data enabled us to achieve a more holistic understanding of the evolution and classification of these amazing scorpions."

"It's mind-blowing how new genomic technology allows us to reevaluate entire plant and animal groups," says Esposito. "We can take new and old scorpion specimens, zoom in on their DNA and other characteristics, and use that information to better understand where they belong in the evolutionary tree. This would have been unthinkable decades ago."

Inspiring the next generation of scorpion experts

Lead author Esposito is on a mission to train the next generation of scientists and nature advocates. In 2014, she co-founded Islands & Seas, a science and education nonprofit currently building an independent network of field stations where scientists, tourists, and locals can work together to conserve natural resources. Its first field station is in San Juanico, a small fishing village in Baja California Sur situated just south of El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, the largest wildlife refuge in Latin America. While ecotourism businesses built around whale-watching surround the area, the local community is only just on the verge of development; with their work, Islands & Seas hopes to influence development in a sustainable direction. "First, the locals need to know what they have," says Esposito. "And before they can know what they have, we need scientists and students to conduct biodiversity surveys because nobody knows what's there."

The organization recently completed its first "Science & Surf" summer institute in field biology for undergraduate students, with scientists from the Academy and other partner institutions showing them the ropes. "With the help of the students and local community, we've started building baseline information of what's there in the biosphere reserve," says Esposito. "And then we'll continue to build from there." Biology enthusiasts (and scorpion fans) stay tuned for open spots in 2018.

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Hi-res images available upon request at press@calacademy.org

New genera:

Jaguajir

Found in: Brazil, French Guiana, and Guyana (possibly in Suriname and Venezuela, too)

This new genus is named for the Tupi word Jaguajira -- meaning scorpion or "one who devours." The scientists say these "large, robust" scorpions reach up to more than four inches long and range in color from deep browns and black to yellow and slightly orange. The three known species of this group have been found under stones in daylight and with UV light detection at night.

Ischnotelson

Found in: northeastern Brazil

Named for Greek words referring to a remarkably slender part of this scorpion group's abdomen, this small new genus (two known species) is endemic to northeastern Brazil. They are colorful; orange, many shades of yellow, reddish-brown, with black details. At just under two inches long, the Ischnotelson scorpions are generally smaller than members of the new Jaguajir genus.

New species:

Ischnotelson peruassu

Found in: Brazil

This medium-sized, reddish-brown scorpion (about two inches long) is named for the Brazilian state park where it resides. It is known from only two semi-arid spots in Brazil along the Peruacu River.

Physoctonus striatus

Found in: Brazil

Collected from beneath stones by day and under UV light detection by night, this new species ranges from dark yellow to light brown. They are small -- only about one inch long -- and prefer veryf dry environments with sandy soil.

Rhopalurus ochoai

Found in: Venezuela

This pale yellow or tan scorpion is named for Peruvian arachnologist Jose Antonio Ochoa Camara, a prolific scorpion biologist who collected most of the type material of this new species. Rhopalurus ochoai is medium-sized (about two inches long) and appears to be restricted to the dry forests of Venezuela.

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.
Ithaca, NY--Within the next few decades, human-caused habitat loss looms as the greatest threat to some North American breeding birds. The problem will be most severe on their wintering grounds, according to a new study published today in the journal Global Change Biology. By the end of this century, the study's authors say predicted changes in rainfall and temperature will compound the problem for birds that breed in eastern North America and winter in Central America.

"This is really the first study to measure the combined impact of climate change and land-use change over a bird's full annual cycle," says lead author Frank La Sorte at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Typically, studies tend to focus on the breeding season. If you do that, you're missing the real story which is inherently dynamic and complex."

Migrant wintering grounds are vitally important because the birds spend a greater proportion of the year in these places.

"We found the species we studied spend up to 60 percent of the year on their wintering grounds in Central America, where they occur in higher numbers and densities," says La Sorte. "That means more individuals of more species are likely to be exposed over a longer period of time to habitat loss as people continue to convert forests to cropland or grassland."

The scientists ran dozens of scenarios to predict what the future might look like for 21 species, most of them flycatchers, vireos, and warblers. They used observations that volunteers entered into the eBird database from 2004 through 2014 to establish where and in what density the species are found throughout the year. Then, they layered in modeled climate change projections (temperature and rainfall) and habitat data (land-use changes and the location of protected areas).

The study finds loss of wintering habitat in the near future will likely be magnified by the long-term effects of climate change. By the end of this century the study species are expected to encounter several significant changes:

Greater warming on the northern breeding grounds and during autumn migrations--a surface temperature increase of about 9F (5C) with uncertain consequences for breeding and migration success; a smaller increase of about 5.4F (3C) is projected for their wintering grounds.

Less rain on the nonbreeding grounds: a projected decline of 20 percent or more during the summer would reduce available habitat and food for birds arriving after fall migration.

More rain on the breeding grounds, nearing 25 percent more during the winter on their breeding grounds. This could enhance vegetation growth and increase insect densities for returning spring migrants--a positive trend if the birds arrive at the right time.

By examining the birds' full life cycle, La Sorte points out, we learn that birds face a host of challenges all year long--and the intensity of those challenges shifts, depending on whether the birds are breeding, wintering, or migrating. Short-term conservation action will be most effective if it's targeted to the times and places birds face their biggest threats. Knowing what may lie ahead in the long term underscores the need for action right now to offset the impact of climate change.

"Human activities are placing pressure on bird populations from many different angles at varying intensities," says La Sorte. "Birds are responding with tools designed to function under gradual environmental change--but how effective this will be under rapid change occurring from many different sources is not well understood."

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Reference:

La Sorte, F.A., D. Fink, P.J. Blancher, A.D. Rodewald, V.R. Gutierrez, K.V. Rosenberg, W.M. Hochachka, P.H. Verburg, and S. Kelling. 2017. Global change and the distributional dynamics of migratory bird populations wintering in Central America. Global Change Biology. July 2017.
New York, NY (July 24, 2017)?Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have captured the first three-dimensional snapshots of the AMPA-subtype glutamate receptor in action. The receptor, which regulates most electrical signaling in the brain, is involved in several important brain activities, including memory and learning.

The findings were published today in Nature.

"With our new findings, we can now, for the first time, visualize how the neurotransmitter glutamate opens glutamate receptor ion channels," said Alexander Sobolevsky, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia and senior author of the paper. "This is the fundamental process that directly affects learning and memory, and finding its structural determinants has been the primary goal of molecular neuroscience since the '90s."

Most signaling in the brain is triggered by glutamate, a neurotransmitter that activates proteins on the surface of neurons called glutamate receptors. Glutamate receptors underlie a variety of high cognitive functions, including learning and memory. AMPA receptors are glutamate receptors that open and close very quickly--in less than a millisecond--and are involved in fast processes in the brain, such as the rapid perception and reaction of an organism to its surrounding environment.

Previously, the Sobolevsky lab deciphered the structures of the AMPA receptor alone and in complex with other proteins that regulate the speed and strength of synaptic connections. In the current study, the researchers captured the AMPA receptor in action, as glutamate activates the receptor to allow ions to flow through its channel and initiate signaling in the brain. This provides the first precise insights into how receptors mediate brain function.

To freeze the AMPA receptor in an active state, the researchers fused it with stargazin, a regulatory protein that prompts the channel to open. The images they captured show that when signaling molecules such as glutamate are present, the entrance to the AMPA receptor, which consists of four units, opens up like a camera's iris, or aperture, to reveal its pore. To shepherd the ions through, the receptor widens the diameter of its channel, and a specialized channel pore lining ushers the ions into the cell.

"These new fundamental discoveries have implications for our understanding of neurotransmission by glutamate, our brain's major neurotransmitter" says Edward C. Twomey, a PhD candidate at CUMC and first author of the paper. "Understanding these processes will impact future studies on glutamate receptor signaling in neurodegenerative diseases as well as drug design."

To study the receptor, Sobolevksy's team used cryo-electron microscopy, a technique that captures an array of two-dimensional images of a molecule and combines them into a three-dimensional structural image. The method was pioneered by co-author Joachim Frank, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of biological sciences at CUMC.

Defects in glutamate receptors, or the processes they mediate, are implicated in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma; psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and drug use disorders; as well as in acute disorders such as brain trauma and stroke. The new structure of an active AMPA receptor and understanding of the activating mechanism create a solid platform for developing therapeutics to treat neurological disorders that are associated with glutamate receptor dysfunction.

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The paper is titled "Channel opening and gating mechanism in AMPA-subtype glutamate receptors." Additional authors (CUMC) are Maria Yelshanskaya, PhD, and Robert Grassucci.

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (F31 NS093838, R01 NS083660, R01 CA206573, and R01 GM029169), the Pew Scholar Award in Biomedical Sciences, the Irma T. Hirschl Career Scientist Award, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The authors declare no financial or other conflicts of interest.

Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, preclinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Columbia University Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest faculty medical practices in the Northeast. The campus that Columbia University Medical Center shares with its hospital partner, NewYork-Presbyterian, is now called the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. For more information, visit cumc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org.
New research shows that the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) significantly improved the number of youth in the United States who had health insurance and received well-child visits. However, disparities in insurance coverage and access to care remain, as improvements for Latino youth weren't enough to narrow the significant gap between them and white and black children.

Alex Ortega, PhD, professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health, led a team that examined national survey results of more than 60,000 youth -- who ranged in age from birth to 17 years old -- to determine the effect the Affordable Care Act had on children according to race, ethnicity, and family poverty level. They hoped to discover whether the health law increased insurance coverage and improved health care access, as well as whether the large disparities that exist between Latino children and others were reduced in a significant way.

While insurance rates improved for all children, the data showed that insurance rates still remain markedly lower for Latino children when compared with their peers of different races.

"Latinos compose a substantial population group in the U.S. -- one in four children now, more than one in three by 2050 -- that is generally underserved," Ortega said. "National and local studies have found that, among children, Latinos have the worst rates of health insurance coverage, health care access, and utilization. Unmet health care needs can result in unnecessary short- and long-term costs to society and families, morbidity, poor educational and professional attainment, and avoidable death."

From 2011 until 2013, when the Affordable Care Act's coverage expansions were not fully implemented, to 2014 and 2015, after the full implementation of the law, the portion of white and black youth who did not have health insurance fell from 5 to 4 percent. But Latino children experienced a drop three times that, going from 12 to 9 percent, according to the study, which was published in Academic Pediatrics.

"That reflects an insurance uptake of more than half a million Latino children and over 30% of children newly insured under the law," Ortega explained. That is great news but not enough to ameliorate the disparity between them and white and black youth.

Black youth actually experienced a marked closing of the disparities between them and white youth when it came to insurance coverage after the law was implemented. But while Latino children may have benefitted the most from a 25% reduction in uninsurance, they are still more than twice as likely to lack insurance coverage.

Insurance wasn't the only story, as well-child visits were much more likely for all youth after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

"Utilizing well-child visits is very important for prevention and identification of child health problems," Ortega said. "During well-child visits, health care providers look for problems in growth and development, test for hearing, vision and other concerns, as well as administer immunizations for vaccine-preventable diseases."

Again, while numbers improved overall, Latino children are still the least likely to have well-child visits, with black children having the highest probability for them, even higher than whites.

One potential issue affecting the disparities seen in Latino children is the Affordable Care Act's exclusion of undocumented immigrants and recent lawful permanent residents -- people legally living in the United States for less than five years.

Compounding that are fears of deportation. While Ortega said that 90 percent of Latino children in the United States are native-born and eligible for state and federal programs, many of them have parents who are immigrants, with one in four of immigrant parents estimated to be undocumented. These families are termed "mixed-status."

"While children in mixed-status families may be eligible for government programs, the fear of deportation among parents may serve as a barrier for enrollment," Ortega said. "The Affordable Care Act protects immigrant parents from having to disclose their citizenship status when applying for insurance for their citizen family members, but many do not trust the system."

To knock down the remaining disparity in health insurance and access, Ortega believes local education and assistance in navigating the system might help. Some states, including California, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts allow for undocumented children to have access to Medicaid.

But all of this could be naught if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and Medicaid programs are cut by one-fourth or more, as proposed by House and Senate Republicans. Ortega is worried that the gains seen -- and any chance of reducing disparities -- might be wiped away, and even possibly reversed.

"Approximately 93 percent of children had some type of insurance in the pre-ACA period, and that percentage has changed to 95," Ortega said. "A 2 percent difference might seem trivial on the surface, but this translates to an uptake of insurance for almost 2 million children, which is more than the total population -- including adults -- of 14 whole states. The changes proposed in the AHCA and BCRA to state Medicaid programs would almost certainly result in children losing coverage, benefits, and access to care."

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Implementing a decision support tool for the use of computed tomography for adult head injuries resulted in reduced CT use and allowed for better identification of injuries, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study published today in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

This study examined the use of the Canadian CT Head Rule (known as CCHR) in U.S. emergency departments. CCHR was developed to help physicians determine which minor head injury patients needed head CT imaging. According to the study's authors, this tool has the potential to be replicated in other health systems.

"Our aim with this study was twofold: to decrease unnecessary CT scans that may harm patients and increase costs, while ensuring patients receive the highest quality, recommended care," said lead author and emergency department physician Adam L. Sharp MD, MS, Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation. "This effort also demonstrates the feasibility and positive impact the implementation of a clinical decision rule has on CT use in community emergency departments."

The intervention included clinical leadership endorsement of CCHR; physician education through an e-learning module; and a clinical decision support tool embedded into the electronic health record, which prompted emergency department physicians to avoid CT imaging based on the CCHR recommendations.

The study included 43,053 adult trauma patients from January 2014 to December 2015 in 13 Kaiser Permanente community emergency departments in Southern California. Patients had a mean age of 59, were 53.6 percent female and racially diverse. Overall, 14,018 (31.1 percent) of all adult trauma patients received a head CT. Researchers noted a 5.3 percent reduction in CT use and an increase in CT-identified injuries. Nearly all (12 of 13) of the emergency departments reduced head CT following the implementation of the intervention.

This analysis reflects real-world examination of a simple intervention that many emergency departments should be able to replicate. It also adds to previous Kaiser Permanente research published earlier this year by Dr. Sharp, which found approximately 33 percent of CT scans performed for head injury could be avoided.

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Additional study authors include: Brian Z. Huang, MPH, Tania Tang, PhD, MPH, Ernest Shen, PhD, and senior author Michael K. Gould, MD, MS, all with the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research & Evaluation; Michael H. Kanter, MD, regional medical director of Quality and Clinical Analysis at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California; and Edward R. Melnick, MD, MHS, and Arjun K. Venkatesh, MD, MPH, from the Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale University.

This study was supported by Kaiser Permanente Southern California's Care Improvement Research Team internal funds, which support operational research to improve patient care.

About the Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation

The Department of Research & Evaluation conducts high-quality, innovative research into disease etiology, prevention, treatment and care delivery. Investigators conduct epidemiologic research, health services research, biostatistics research, and behavioral research as well as clinical trials. Major areas of study include chronic disease, infectious disease, cancer, drug safety and effectiveness, and maternal and child health. Headquartered in Pasadena, California, the department focuses on translating research to practice quickly to benefit the health and lives of Kaiser Permanente Southern California members and the general public. Visit kp.org/research.

About Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente has a mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve more than 11.8 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal Permanente Medical Group physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: kp.org/share.
New Orleans, LA - Research conducted by Jason Middleton, PhD, Assistant Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy, and Neuroscience at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine, and colleagues may lead to a treatment to prevent long-term sensory problems by restoring normal brain function in survivors of cardiac arrest. The study, done in a rodent model and using modeling data, is published online in eNeuro, an open-access journal of the Society for Neuroscience, and is available here.

Cardiac arrest is a common cause of brain injury. When the brain is deprived of oxygen, not only can cells die, but surviving cells can suffer damage resulting in long-term sensory dysfuntion in the cortex. The cerebral cortex is the outer covering of the brain -- the gray matter that covers hemispheres of the brain like a helmet. This is the part of the brain that receives sensory input, such as vision, hearing and touch, and areas of the cortex are also involved in more complex functions, such as memory, language, creativity, judgement and emotion.

The research team studied the long-term impact of cardiac arrest on the cortex in a rat model. They measured sensory response and found that after oxygen deprivation, the sensory circuits in the cortex are less responsive with behavioral deficits. Their data suggest that cardiac arrest and resuscitation permanently affect cortical circuit function in survivors.

"Our work characterizes the changes that occur in the sensory cortex after a form of global hypoxic injury in juvenile rats," notes Dr. Middleton. "The injury did not result in widespread cell death as occurs in other forms of acute, focal ischemic injury; the deficits uncovered were subtler and reflected decreased ability of the cortex to discriminate sensory stimuli. We used computer modeling of the neural network to implicate changes in the balance of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission in the cortex."

According to the American Heart Association, more than 350,000 Americans experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest last year. With bystander CPR, 46.1% survived.

"These findings lay the groundwork for further studies to pinpoint therapeutic targets to restore excitatory/inhibitory balance in the injured brain and mitigate sensory deficits later in life," concludes Middleton.

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The research team also included Drs. Daniel J. Simons, Robert S. B. Clark and Patrick M. Kochanek from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Drs. Jennifer W. Simmons and Michael Shoykhet from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The research was supported by NIH Grants K08 NS-082362, 75 NS19950, HD045968, the Pediatric Critical Care Scientist Development Program (5K12-HD04739-8, University of Utah), Children's Discovery Institute of the St. Louis Children's Hospital, McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience and Child Health Research Center of Excellence in Developmental Biology at Washington University School of Medicine (K12-HD01487).

LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans educates Louisiana's health care professionals. The state's health sciences university leader, LSU Health New Orleans includes a School of Medicine, the state's only School of Dentistry, Louisiana's only public School of Public Health, and Schools of Allied Health Professions, Nursing, and Graduate Studies. LSUHSC faculty take care of patients in public and private hospitals and clinics throughout the region. In the vanguard of biosciences research in a number of areas in a worldwide arena, the LSUHSC research enterprise generates jobs and enormous economic impact. LSUHSC faculty have made lifesaving discoveries and continue to work to prevent, advance treatment, or cure disease. To learn more, visit http://www.lsuhsc.edu, http://www.twitter.com/LSUHealthNO or http://www.facebook.com/LSUHSC.
MOSS LANDING, CA--An article just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B describes two remarkably different hydrothermal vent fields discovered in the southern Gulf of California. Despite being relatively close together, these vents host very different animal communities. This finding contradicts a common scientific assumption that neighboring vents will share similar animal communities. Instead, the new paper suggests that local geology and the chemistry of vent fluids are important factors affecting vent communities.

In 2012, scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) used undersea robots to discover a new hydrothermal vent field along the Alarcon Rise at the southern end of the Gulf of California. Continuing the effort in 2015, they discovered a second, very different vent field in the Pescadero Basin, just 75 kilometers to the north.

Led by MBARI scientists, the research involved scientists from Mexico, Canada, Russia, and Germany. In preparing the recent paper, they analyzed collected organisms and video surveys to determine community composition. They also performed DNA analyses of water samples to identify larvae of vent animals and stable-isotope analysis to assess food supplies at each vent field.

The scientists compared the animals living at the Alarcon and Pescadero Basin vent fields with those found in the Guaymas Basin, 400 kilometers to the north, and on the East Pacific Rise, about 300 kilometers to the south. The researchers found that, despite their close proximity, the Alarcon and Pescadero vent fields support radically different animal communities, sharing only seven out of 61 animal species.

This finding contradicts a common scientific assumption that neighboring habitats will share similar animal communities. Instead, the results suggest that local geology and chemistry of the vent fluids play dominant roles in structuring the animal communities. The findings are relevant to assessing the possible ecological impacts of seafloor mining--scientists must account for the uniqueness of local geology and chemistry and not assume that a common supply of animal larvae will colonize and restore neighboring habitats.

Lead author Shana Goffredi, an MBARI adjunct and associate professor at Occidental College, explained, "Just like human cities, the community that forms in a particular area depends not only on who arrives at that location, but also whether the underlying resources are suitable for their success. Variation in these resources, whether physical or chemical, contributes greatly to the diversity of the region, which is important for community stability."

Though neighbors, the Alarcon Rise and Pescadero Basin vent fields are geologically very different. The seafloor along the Alarcon Rise is covered in young, fresh lava, and the fluids spewing out of the vents are very hot (up to 360 degrees Celsius) and rich in metal sulfides that form dark, crumbly chimneys known as "black smokers." Animals at the Alarcon Rise are similar to locations further south (almost 300 kilometers) on the East Pacific Rise.

In Pescadero Basin, however, hydrothermal-vent fluids pass through thick layers of seafloor mud. As the hot hydrothermal fluid flows through this mud, it "cooks" organic material, forming methane (natural gas) and oil-like hydrocarbons. The Pescadero Basin vents contain very little sulfide, and the superheated fluids produce giant, light-colored, carbonate chimneys streaked with dark, oily hydrocarbons.

Most of the animals found at the Pescadero vents are worms, and many species are new to science. The dominant tubeworms (genus Oasisia) are not common elsewhere in the Gulf. Surprisingly, two thirds of the Pescadero vent animals are not found at vents to the north and south.

For the last two decades, marine biologists have been trying to document how seafloor animals manage to disperse from one discrete hydrothermal vent habitat to another. The majority of vent animals release microscopic larvae that are carried by ocean currents. If some of these larvae survive long enough to reach another hydrothermal vent, they may settle on the seafloor, grow into adults, and colonize a new vent.

This colonization theory led vent biologists to assume that neighboring vent fields should harbor similar animal communities. However, the new paper shows that larvae from one vent may not successfully colonize a neighboring vent. MBARI researcher Shannon Johnson used high-throughput DNA sequencing to identify larvae collected from the water around the vents. Her results showed that larvae from other sites can reach the Pescadero Basin, but prevailing geological and chemical conditions apparently preclude their settlement and growth there.

The researchers conclude that numerous factors affect the composition of the animal communities found at particular vents. Water depth, geology of the seafloor, temperature and chemistry of the vent fluids, and the ability of larvae from other vents to colonize the site all play roles. Given developing efforts to mine deep-sea hydrothermal vent fields for precious metals, the scientists involved in this research suggest that conservationists and management agencies need to consider a broader range of factors in their efforts to predict the environmental impacts and the resiliency of affected communities.

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Original journal article: Goffredi, S., Johnson, S., Tunnicliffe, V., Caress, D., Clague, D., Escobar, E., Lundsten, L., Paduan, J.B., Rouse, G., Salcedo, D.L., Soto, L.A., Spelz-Madero, R., Zierenberg, R., and Vrijenhoek, R. (2017). Hydrothermal vent fields discovered in the southern Gulf of California clarify role of habitat in augmenting regional diversity. Proc. R. Soc. B 20170817. DOI: 110.1098/rspb.2017.0817

Online news release with images: http://www.mbari.org/new-study-challenges-prevailing-theory-about-how-deep-sea-vents-are-colonized/
PARIS, July 24, 2017 - The antiretroviral (ARV) drug dapivirine that is released from an experimental vaginal ring to protect against HIV is absorbed in very low concentrations into breastmilk, according to a U.S. study of the dapivirine ring among women who were no longer nursing their babies but still producing milk.

Use of the ring for 14 consecutive days was also associated with low levels of dapivirine in women's plasma, and posed few safety concerns, researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) reported today at the 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017) in Paris. The Phase I study, known as MTN-029/IPM 039, is the first study of the dapivirine ring in lactating women, following two Phase III trials -- ASPIRE and The Ring Study -- that found the ring was safe and helped protect against HIV among more than 4,500 women in sub-Saharan Africa.

Encouraged by these results, MTN investigators are planning additional studies that will explore whether the dapivirine ring is safe to use by women who are actively breastfeeding, and therefore safe for their infants; and, also evaluate the safety of the ring during pregnancy. These studies would be conducted at trial sites in Africa, and women would use the ring for a month at a time, as directed for HIV prevention.

The monthly dapivirine ring was developed by the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), a non-profit organization. When in place inside the vagina, the ring slowly releases dapivirine over the course of a month. The ring is made of a flexible plastic material, and women insert and replace the ring themselves each month. IPM is seeking regulatory approval of the dapivirine ring for women ages 18-45 based on results of ASPIRE , which was conducted by MTN, and The Ring Study, led by IPM.

Because the effects dapivirine could have on the developing fetus and breast-fed infants are unknown, women who participate in studies of the ring cannot be pregnant or breastfeeding, and are required to use effective contraception. Participants who become pregnant immediately stop use of the ring. Such precautions are standard in any clinical trial testing a new drug product in women of reproductive age. Consequently, a drug that may receive regulatory approval is often contraindicated in women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, yet, might be used by some anyway - without the benefit of knowing it is safe to do so. If approved, the same would be true of the dapivirine ring.

Many women remain sexually active during pregnancy and breastfeeding, when there may be greater risk of acquiring HIV, and may be especially difficult for women to negotiate the use of condoms with their partners. Moreover, in regions where HIV incidence is high, such as sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of women of reproductive age who are either pregnant, breastfeeding or both is also high.

Taken together, it is hoped that the results of the MTN-029/IPM 039 study and those of planned studies of the dapivirine ring among pregnant and breastfeeding women will demonstrate the product's safety in this population.

"There is little doubt that safe and effective HIV prevention methods are needed for women during all times of their lives," commented Sharon Hillier, Ph.D., principal investigator of the MTN, and professor and vice chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "With the dapivirine ring, conducting this study was an important first step. If the ring is approved, we'd want it to ultimately be made available to all women, including those who are breastfeeding."

"Understanding the safe use of drugs in pregnancy and breastfeeding is a high priority across women's health. Eventually, we hope that we can assure women that using the dapivirine ring during breastfeeding -- and pregnancy - is safe, with minimal exposure of the drug to their infants. However, understanding a product's safety during pregnancy and breastfeeding requires carefully designed trials that can obtain critical safety information while also ensuring the well-being of this special population. In this first study of dapivirine and breast milk, we were able to gather initial data without exposing infants to drug," said Lisa M. Noguchi, CNM, Ph.D., research associate in the department of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and MTN's scientific director for pregnancy research, who reported the study results at IAS 2017.

MTN-029/IPM 039 enrolled 16 participants - women who had stopped breastfeeding their babies but could still pump breast milk -- at the University of Pittsburgh-affiliated Magee-Womens Hospital and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Women were asked to leave the vaginal ring in place for 14 days. Researchers collected milk and blood plasma samples prior to the ring being inserted, and then after three hours, six hours, 24 hours, seven days and 14 days, when the ring was removed. Samples were collected again two days later.

All participants had detectable drug in milk and plasma, beginning at three hours with concentrations gradually increasing until reaching a steady state between seven and 14 days. (Peak concentration for milk and plasma were 676 pg/mL and 327 pg/mL, respectively.) Two days after the ring was removed, drug levels had decreased by 60 percent.

Based on levels measured in maternal breast milk, researchers estimated that an infant's daily exposure to drug would be very low. For instance, a 6-month old baby weighing 8 kg (about 18 lbs) would probably take in about 600 ng (or 6/10,000 of a milligram) of dapivirine on a daily basis. By comparison, said researchers, a similar weight baby being breastfed by a mother taking the combination ARV Truvada would be exposed to about 4,000 ng of tenofovir and 300,000 ng of emtricitabine each day, levels that so far have not been seen to pose a health risk for breastfed infants.

Dr. Noguchi led the MTN-029/IPM 039 study with Richard Beigi, MD, MSc, an associate professor of reproductive health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.

Three new studies are being planned as a follow-up to MTN-029/IPM 039 that will be conducted at four MTN-affiliated trial sites in Malawi, Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe The first, MTN-041, is a qualitative study that will explore attitudes about use of a vaginal ring and oral PrEP during pregnancy and breastfeeding among women who are themselves pregnant and/or breastfeeding, male partners and key community gatekeepers, such as health care providers, traditional healers and religious and traditional leaders. Pending ethics and in-country approvals, the study is expected to start early 2018.

In MTN-042, researchers are proposing to evaluate the safety of the ring as well as oral PrEP in approximately 750 pregnant women, while MTN-043 would involve approximately 100 women who are breastfeeding as well as their infants.

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About the Microbicide Trials Network

The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) is an HIV/AIDS clinical trials network established in 2006 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with co-funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health, all components of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Based at Magee-Womens Research Institute and the University of Pittsburgh, the MTN brings together international investigators and community and industry partners whose work is focused on the rigorous evaluation of promising microbicides -- products applied inside the vagina or rectum that are intended to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV - from the earliest phases of clinical study to large-scale trials that support potential licensure of these products for widespread use. More information about the MTN is available at http://www.mtnstopshiv.org.

About the dapivirine ring

The dapivirine ring is made of a flexible material, and women can insert and remove it themselves. It sits high inside the vagina where it slowly releases the active drug over the course of a month. The ring was developed by the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), a nonprofit with offices in the United States, South Africa and Europe. IPM holds an exclusive worldwide license for dapivirine from Janssen Sciences Ireland UC, part of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), which is designed to ensure that women in low-resource settings have affordable access to any dapivirine-based microbicide. Dapivirine, also known as TMC-120, belongs to a class of ARVs called non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors that bind to and disable HIV's reverse transcriptase enzyme, a key protein needed for HIV replication.

Results of ASPIRE and The Ring Study, which were reported in February 2016, found the ring reduced women's risk of acquiring HIV by about 30 percent overall (by 27 percent in ASPIRE and by 31 percent in The Ring Study). Higher levels of protection were seen in women 21 and older, who used the ring regularly. Results of an exploratory analysis of ASPIRE data reported at AIDS 2016 found the level of HIV protection was at least 56 percent with consistent use and as high as 75 percent or more with near perfect use.

IPM is seeking regulatory approval of the dapivirine ring for women ages 18-45, the same age group in the ASPIRE and The Ring Study Phase III safety and efficacy trials. IPM is hopeful that the first regulatory approvals in African countries could be received as soon as early 2019.

For more information about the dapivirine ring, go to http://www.ipmglobal.org.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found a specific gene in corn that appears to be associated with resistance to two and possibly three different plant leaf diseases.

In a paper published this week in Nature Genetics, NC State researchers pinpoint the gene - caffeoyl-CoA O-methyltransferase - that seems to confer partial resistance to Southern leaf blight and gray leaf spot, and possibly to Northern leaf blight, a trio of diseases that cripple corn plants worldwide.

Finding out more about the mechanisms behind complex traits like disease resistance has the potential to help plant breeders build the best traits into tomorrow's corn plants, says paper corresponding author Peter Balint-Kurti, a research plant pathologist and geneticist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service (USDA-ARS) who is housed at NC State.

Balint-Kurti's group and colleagues identified several regions of the genome where genetic variation had a significant effect on variation in resistance to multiple diseases.

"There were hundreds of genes in this region and identifying the specific genes affecting disease resistance was a challenge," Balint-Kurti said. "It's like looking for a particular restaurant in a city - without Google to assist you."

Using an approach called fine mapping, NC State postdoctoral researcher Qin Yang winnowed the region down to a small segment of DNA carrying just four genes, and then with a number of collaborators from NC State, Iowa State University, the University of Delaware, Texas A&M University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Cornell University and the USDA Agricultural Research Service she performed more tests to narrow those four genes down to one.

"It's interesting that this gene also seems to be involved in lignin production," Yang said. "Generally, more lignin production seems to be linked to more robust disease resistance in plants."

Balint-Kurti says the gene appears to confer a small but important disease-resistance effect.

"It's difficult to see these small effects, but it is also difficult for pathogens to adapt to counter them," Balint-Kurti said. "Much of the resistance to Southern leaf blight and gray leaf spot is conferred by multiple genes that each have small effects."

Southern corn leaf blight is a moderate problem in the southeastern United States, Balint-Kurti says, and can be a significant problem in Southeast Asia, southern Europe and parts of Africa. Prevalent in hot, humid climates around the globe, it causes small brown spots on leaves. The spots get larger and eventually spread to the whole plant. Severe infections can cause major corn yield losses. Gray leaf spot - which produces an eponymous effect - is found both in the U.S. Midwest and Southeast and is also an important corn disease in Africa. Northern leaf blight can be found in the Midwestern corn belt and in the Northeast; it causes cigar-shaped lesions on leaves. All three are so-called necrotrophic pathogens that derive much of their nutrition from dead host tissue.

"This gene is also involved in suppressing programmed cell death," Balint-Kurti says, "which, perhaps counter-intuitively, can be a good defense mechanism against necrotrophic fungi like these three diseases."

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The research was supported by U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Science Foundation grants IOS-1127076 and 1444503 and by NIH Grants S10 OD016361 and P20 GM103446.

Note: An abstract of the paper follows.

"A maize caffeoyl-CoA O-methyltransferase gene confers quantitative 2 resistance to multiple pathogens"

Authors: Peter Balint-Kurti, USDA-ARS at North Carolina State University; Qin Yang, Yijian He, Amy Kelly, Yang Bian, Xu Li, North Carolina State University, et al. Published: July 24, 2017, in Nature Genetics

DOI: 10.1038/ng.3919

Abstract: Alleles that confer multiple disease resistance are valuable in crop improvement though molecular mechanisms underlying their functions remain largely unknown. A quantitative trait locus, qMdr9.02, associated with resistance to three important foliar maize diseases, southern leaf blight, gray leaf spot and northern leaf blight had been identified on maize chromosome 9. Through fine mapping, association analysis, expression analysis, insertional mutagenesis, and transgenic validation, we demonstrate that ZmCCoAOMT2, which encodes a caffeoyl-CoA O-methyltransferase enzyme associated with the phenylpropanoid pathway and lignin production, is the gene within qMdr9.02 conferring quantitative resistance to both southern leaf blight and gray leaf spot. We suggest that resistance might be caused by allelic variation at the level of both gene expression and amino acid sequence causing differences in levels of lignin and other metabolites of the phenylpropanoid pathway and in regulation of programmed cell death.
A nine-year-old South African child who was diagnosed with HIV infection at one month of age and received anti-HIV treatment during infancy has suppressed the virus without anti-HIV drugs for eight and a half years, scientists reported today at the 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science in Paris. This case appears to be the third reported instance of sustained HIV remission in a child after early, limited anti-HIV treatment.

Previously, the "Mississippi Baby," born with HIV in 2010, received anti-HIV treatment beginning 30 hours after birth, stopped therapy around 18 months of age, and controlled the virus without drugs for 27 months before it reappeared in her blood. In 2015, researchers reported that a French child who was born with HIV in 1996, started anti-HIV therapy at age 3 months, and stopped treatment sometime between ages 5.5 and 7 years continued to control the virus without drugs more than 11 years later.

"Further study is needed to learn how to induce long-term HIV remission in infected babies," said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "However, this new case strengthens our hope that by treating HIV-infected children for a brief period beginning in infancy, we may be able to spare them the burden of life-long therapy and the health consequences of long-term immune activation typically associated with HIV disease."

NIAID funded the clinical trial in which the child received treatment and follow-up monitoring.

The South African child whose case was reported today was definitively diagnosed with HIV infection in 2007 at 32 days of age, and then was enrolled in the NIAID-funded Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) clinical trial. HIV-infected infants in the trial were assigned at random to receive either deferred antiretroviral therapy (ART) or early, limited ART for 40 or 96 weeks. The current child was assigned to the group of 143 infants who received early ART for 40 weeks.

Before starting treatment, the child had very high levels of HIV in the blood (viral load), but after beginning ART at about 9 weeks of age, treatment suppressed the virus to undetectable levels. Investigators halted treatment after 40 weeks and closely monitored the infant's immune health, and the child has remained in good health during years of follow-up examinations. Although it was not standard practice in South Africa to monitor viral load in people who were not on ART, recent analyses of stored blood samples taken during follow-up showed that the child has maintained an undetectable level of HIV.

When the child was 9-and-a-half years old, investigators conducted thorough laboratory and clinical studies to assess the child's immune health and the presence of HIV. The scientists detected a reservoir of virus integrated into a tiny proportion of immune cells, but otherwise found no evidence of HIV infection. The child had a healthy level of key immune cells, a viral load that was undetectable by standard assays, and no symptoms of HIV infection. The researchers detected a trace of immune system response to the virus, but found no HIV capable of replicating. The scientists also confirmed that the child does not have genetic characteristics associated with spontaneous control of HIV, suggesting that the 40 weeks of ART provided during infancy may have been key to achieving HIV remission.

"To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of sustained control of HIV in a child enrolled in a randomized trial of ART interruption following treatment early in infancy," said Avy Violari, F.C.Paed. Dr. Violari co-led the study of the case reported today as well as the CHER trial with Mark Cotton, M.Med., Ph.D. Dr. Violari is head of pediatric research at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, part of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Dr. Cotton is head of the division of pediatric infectious diseases and director of the family infectious diseases clinical research unit at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

"We believe there may have been other factors in addition to early ART that contributed to HIV remission in this child," said Caroline Tiemessen, Ph.D., whose laboratory is studying the child's immune system. "By further studying the child, we may expand our understanding of how the immune system controls HIV replication." Dr. Tiemessen is head of cell biology at the Centre of HIV and STIs of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Johannesburg.

An ongoing NIH clinical trial called IMPAACT P1115 is testing the hypothesis that giving ART to HIV-infected newborns beginning within 48 hours of birth may permit long-term control of HIV replication after treatment is stopped, potentially leading to HIV remission. IMPAACT P1115 began in 2014 and has enrolled close to 400 HIV-exposed infants, 42 of whom are HIV infected, in Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, the United States, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The first children may become eligible to stop ART in late 2017.

NIAID provided funding for the CHER trial as part of a Comprehensive International Program for Research on AIDS-South Africa grant. Additional support was provided by the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit at University College London, the Departments of Health of the Western Cape and Gauteng in South Africa, and ViiV Healthcare. The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, also part of NIH, supported continued observation of the children in CHER after the study ended. The EPIICAL Consortium funded the recent analysis of viral load in the children who participated in CHER. The South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation of South Africa funded the laboratory studies of the child whose case was reported today.

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Reference: A Violari et al. Viral and host characteristics of a child with perinatal HIV-1 following a prolonged period after ART cessation in the CHER trial. 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science, Paris (2017).

NIAID conducts and supports research -- at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide -- to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health
BRISBANE, Australia: It's the competition that could save Amazon.com billions in logistics - and QUT's custom-built robot may be the winning solution.

Built by a team of roboticists from the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision (the Centre), headquartered at QUT, 'CartMan' the logistics robot will pit its item-picking skills against 15 other international robots in the third annual Amazon Robotics Challenge, part of RoboCup 2017 in Nagoya, Japan, on Thursday 27 July.

And with a prize pool of US$250,000 for teams that successfully complete the task of picking and stowing objects from a storage system, team leader Dr Juxi Leitner said competition will be fierce.

"Our robot has a vision system to recognise specific items in a crowded container, and a mechanical system to retrieve and stow that item into a shipping box," said Dr Leitner, a roboticist from QUT.

"You won't believe how hard is it to teach a robot to see a clear bottle of water among a bunch of groceries, or teach it the best way to pick up a bag of marbles.

"We opted to build our own robot from scratch - a three-axis Cartesian robot that acts much like a gantry crane you see at ports. With six degrees of articulation and both a claw and suction gripper, CartMan gives us more flexibility to complete the tasks than an off-the-shelf robot can offer."

The Centre's team of 27 roboticists from QUT, The University of Adelaide and the Australian National University has invested more than 15,000 hours into the project.

Despite placing sixth in last year's challenge - a significant achievement in this highly competitive field - the team is not resting on its laurels.

"We are world leaders in robotic vision and we're pushing the boundaries of computer vision and machine learning to complete these tasks in an unstructured environment - we won't even be told which items CartMan must pick and stow until just before our heats," Dr Leitner said.

"But I think we stand a good chance - the robot is robust and tackles the task in an innovative way we hope will give us the advantage."

Unlike traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers that use warehouses and distribution centres to ship products to stores, online retailers such as Amazon focus on fulfilment centres - facilities full of shelving, from which human workers literally pick and stow individual items in order to fill customer orders.

While Amazon has mastered using robots to move products around its fulfilment centres, picking and stowing items is the glaring gap in its automated logistics system.

The global giant is banking on the challenge to unearth open-source solutions.

QUT retail and logistics expert Associate Professor Gary Mortimer said that could be a game changer for Amazon's anticipated move into the Australian market next year.

"Amazon, in its current form, isn't likely to make a massive impact on Australia's retail market because we only buy about seven per cent of our goods online, and because geographical distances and higher wages increase logistics costs," Professor Mortimer said.

"If Amazon can reduce the cost of doing business in Australia by automating the picking and stowing process, it could very well increase its market penetration."

The Centre's team is sponsored by the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, Amazon Robotics, Osaro and QUT.

The Amazon Robotics Challenge runs 27-30 July.

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Small reductions in childhood measles vaccinations in the United States would produce disproportionately large increases in the number of measles cases and in related public health costs, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Baylor College of Medicine.

A 5 percent drop in the number of children ages 2 to 11 inoculated against the measles, mumps and rubella would triple the number of annual measles cases in this age group, the study found. The MMR vaccine is an inoculation against the three diseases.

The additional measles cases would increase annual public health expenditures by at least $2.1 million, or $20,000 per case of measles.

The study will be published July 24 in JAMA Pediatrics.

"We focused on measles as a case example of the effects of declining vaccine coverage because it is highly infectious," said Nathan Lo, the study's lead author and an MD-PhD student at Stanford. "It's likely to be the first infectious disease causing outbreaks if vaccination declines."

Lo said he hopes the findings will be considered by state legislators making decisions about vaccination policy.

"I think our study is a wake-up call for what we can expect in the coming months and years as vaccine coverage rates continue to decline in the 18 states that now allow non-medical or philosophical belief exemptions," said senior author Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor.

Across the country, several regions are near the threshold of 90 to 95 percent vaccine coverage needed to prevent measles outbreaks. The new study predicts a sharp rise in measles cases if vaccination further declines.

'A tenuous handle on measles'

"We have a tenuous handle on measles disease now. It's all dependent on very small increments of vaccination," said Yvonne Maldonado, MD, professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Stanford. Maldonado, an expert on vaccination, was not involved in the study. "We really need to focus on making sure that all children are vaccinated to eliminate this disease from the face of the Earth," she added.

Although vaccination has been successful at controlling measles in the United States, a few dozen to a few hundred cases occur here every year, usually when U.S. citizens travel abroad and unknowingly bring the virus home. Infected people can spread the virus by sneezing and coughing for four days before they show symptoms. Measles lingers in the air and remains infectious for up to two hours, an unusually long time for an airborne virus, and a high percentage of unvaccinated people exposed to the infected air become sick themselves.

All 50 states require the MMR vaccine and other childhood vaccinations prior to enrollment in elementary school or day care. In all states, children can be exempted from vaccination for medical reasons. All but three states also allow parents to decline vaccination for religious reasons, and 18 states have exemptions for personal beliefs. (Notably, California eliminated its religious and personal-belief exemptions in 2015 following a large measles outbreak that originated at Disneyland.)

Lo analyzed MMR vaccination data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He constructed a mathematical model from the data to predict the effects of declining vaccination rates in children ages 2 to 11, simulating about 10,000 scenarios that could occur as measles is introduced by returning travelers into different locations around the country at a rate similar to that of recent years. They also estimated the cost of declining vaccination rates if children younger than 2 were included in the models -- a scenario that increased the predicted public health costs by another $400,000 per year beyond the $2.1 million cost for older children. (Infants are not eligible for their first dose of the MMR vaccine until they're 1, making them especially vulnerable to measles.)

The public-health costs estimated in the new paper from declining vaccination rates are conservative, Lo said. The costs are for measles alone, and do not include other infectious diseases that may rise with lower vaccination coverage, such as mumps and pertussis. The costs include some health care expenditures and outbreak-containment tasks, such as tracking and vaccinating those whom infected people contacted, but not the costs of hospitalization or days of work missed by parents of ill children. Children ages 2 to 11 now account for about 30 percent of U.S. measles cases, meaning that the impact of declining vaccination rates would be significantly larger than the figures predicted in this study if all age groups were considered.

Geographic hotspots

Unvaccinated people tend to cluster in certain geographic areas, and introducing measles in these areas would cause significant outbreaks, the researchers noted. Such outbreaks took place in 2014, when 383 measles cases occurred in unvaccinated Amish communities in Ohio, and this spring among an under-vaccinated community of Somali immigrants in Minnesota.

"Even in states with a high level of vaccine coverage, there can be very large differences within the state, including poorly vaccinated pockets of communities that may be masked," Lo said. If travelers bring home measles to well-vaccinated communities, the number of cases is much lower than if they come home to a poorly vaccinated region. The study capped the outbreak size in the researchers' calculations at 100 cases, although individual outbreaks can become larger, especially with declining vaccine coverage.

The study was also conservative in the level of infectiousness it built into its calculations, Maldonado noted. "They used the lowest possible level of infectiousness that is reasonable for measles and still found substantial public-health and medical consequences to not getting vaccinated," she said.

Lo hopes state lawmakers will consider the study's findings as they contemplate vaccination policies, especially non-medical personal belief exemptions to childhood vaccination requirements. "Every year, an increasing number of states are debating non-medical exemptions, which are a critical driver of vaccination coverage," he said. "This study quantifies the consequences of a rise in measles cases and state dollars that will be spent if personal belief exemptions that can reduce vaccine coverage are in place."

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Lo is supported by the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Stanford School of Medicine. Stanford's Department of Health Research and Policy also supported the work.

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Geoscientists have long puzzled over the mechanism that created the Tibetan Plateau, but a new study finds that the landform's history may be controlled primarily by the strength of the tectonic plates whose collision prompted its uplift. Given that the region is one of the most seismically active areas in the world, understanding the plateau's geologic history could give scientists insight to modern day earthquake activity.

The new findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Even from space, the Tibetan Plateau appears huge. The massive highland, formed by the convergence of two continental plates, India and Asia, dwarfs other mountain ranges in height and breadth. Most other mountain ranges appear like narrow scars of raised flesh, while the Himalaya Plateau looks like a broad, asymmetrical scab surrounded by craggy peaks.

"The asymmetric shape and complex subsurface structure of the Tibetan Plateau make its formation one of the most significant outstanding questions in the study of plate tectonics today," said University of Illinois geology professor and study co-author Lijun Liu.

In the classic model of Tibetan Plateau formation, a fast-moving Indian continental plate collides head-on with the relatively stationary Asian plate about 50 million years ago. The convergence is likely to have caused the Earth's crust to bunch up into the massive pile known as the Himalaya Mountains and Tibetan Plateau seen today, but this does not explain why the plateau is asymmetrical, Liu Said.

"The Tibetan Plateau is not uniformly wide," said Lin Chen, the lead author from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "The western side is very narrow and the eastern side is very broad -- something that many past models have failed to explain."Many of those past models have focused on the surface geology of the actual plateau region, Liu said, but the real story might be found further down, where the Asian and Indian plates meet.

"There is a huge change in topography on the plateau, or the Asian plate, while the landform and moving speed of the Indian plate along the collision zone are essentially the same from west to east," Liu said. "Why does the Asian plate vary so much?"

To address this question, Liu and his co-authors looked at what happens when tectonic plates made from rocks of different strengths collide. A series of 3-D computational continental collision models were used to test this idea.

"We looked at two scenarios -- a weak Asian plate and a strong Asian plate," said Liu. "We kept the incoming Indian plate strong in both models."

When the researchers let the models run, they found that a strong Asian plate scenario resulted in a narrow plateau. The weak Asian plate model produced a broad plateau, like what is seen today.

"We then ran a third scenario which is a composite of the strong and weak Asian plate models," said Liu. "An Asian plate with a strong western side and weak eastern side results in an orientation very similar to what we see today."

This model, besides predicting the surface topography, also helps explain some of the complex subsurface structure seen using seismic observation techniques.

"It is exciting to see that such a simple model leads to something close to what we observe today," Liu said. "The location of modern earthquake activity and land movement corresponds to what we predict with the model, as well."

###

The Strategic Priority Research Program (B) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Key Research and Development Project and the National Natural Science Foundation of China supported this study.

Editor's notes:

To reach Lijun Liu, call 217-300-0378; ljliu@illinois.edu

The paper "Crustal rheology controls on the Tibetan plateau formation during India-Asia convergence" is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15992
Glutamate receptors play a central role in the human nervous system. Scientists estimate 90 percent of the human brain's synapses, or connections between neurons, send signals using glutamate. The role of similar receptors in plants, which do not have a nervous system, is not fully understood.

A new study led by Jose Feijo, professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, revealed two previously unknown roles for glutamate receptor-like proteins in plants: controlling the navigation of sperm to locate eggs and regulating the development of fertilized eggs. This work was published in the journal Nature on July 24, 2017.

"Scientists have shown that plants' glutamate receptor-like proteins play a role in pollen tube growth and defense against pathogens, but we discovered completely novel functionalities for these receptors that no one has ever observed before," Feijo said. "Since glutamate receptors were thought to act in neural transmission and essentially nothing else, no one knows why plants would have so many copies of these genes. It is very exciting to find that such genes may have been conserved during plant evolution to mediate cell-to-cell communication in sexual reproduction."

Feijo and his collaborators tested the function of glutamate receptor-like proteins in the moss Physcomitrella patens because it contains only two genes that encode for these proteins. The popular plant model Arabidopsis thaliana, on the other hand, contains 20 glutamate receptor-like genes.

After the researchers removed the two glutamate receptor-like genes from P. patens by mutation, the mosses grew normally, but did not reproduce. The reason: the mutant plants' sperm did not reach the archegonia, the female organ that contains eggs for fertilization and secretes a chemical signal to attract sperm.

While normal sperm twisted and tumbled and took sharp turns to find the archegonia entrance, mutant sperm swam normally but did not change direction to reach the eggs. In addition, normal sperm could find the archegonia of mutated plants, while mutated sperm could not locate normal archegonia. Together, these findings suggest that sperm require glutamate receptor-like proteins to translate the archegonia's signal.

"This is important because glutamate receptors are actually present on many non-neuronal tissues in the human body, including sperm, but the reason is unclear," Feijo said. "Our results suggest one answer, which is that glutamate receptors on swimming sperm may be evolutionarily conserved."

In some mutant plants, sperm found the archegonia by chance, fertilized eggs and created spores, but the spores died shortly thereafter. The researchers found that the mutant plants did not produce BELL1, a protein needed for development. Supplying BELL1 to the mutant spores led to normal plant development. The results suggest that glutamate receptor-like proteins regulate the production of BELL1 protein, possibly as a second control point of fertilization.

Feijo and his collaborators also investigated how the moss glutamate receptor-like protein might be conducting a signal in plants. They found that it behaves as a channel that allows calcium ions to flow through it. Many human glutamate receptors function in the same way, suggesting that both the plant and the human versions of the receptor conserved this function during parallel evolution.

Going forward, Feijo plans to search for the signaling molecule of the plant receptor, which he believes is not glutamate. In addition, having demonstrated that an important neuronal receptor is related to a receptor in moss, Feijo is enthusiastic about the potential of using plants to study neuronal functions.

"It's difficult to study these receptors in humans because of the complexity as well as ethical issues," Feijo said. "But if we can study them in a plant context, we may get answers about fundamental cell biology that could help us understand much more complex functions, such as memory, learning or neurodegenerative diseases."

###

This work was performed in collaboration with the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia (IGC) in Oeiras, Portugal. Other study co-authors affiliated with the UMD Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics include visiting assistant research scientist Erwan Michard, postdoctoral associate Daniel Damineli and graduate student Alexander Simon. IGC-affiliated researchers were Carlos Ortiz-Ramirez, Jorg Becker and Marcela Hernandez-Coronado.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Award No. MCB 1616437/2016), the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Award Nos. BEX-BCM/0376/2012 and PTDC/BIA-PLA/4018/2012) and the Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (Award No. FP7-PEOPLE-ITN- 815 2008). The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

The research paper, "Glutamate Receptor-like channels are essential for chemotaxis and reproduction in mosses," Carlos Ortiz-Ramirez, Erwan Michard, Alexander Simon, Daniel Damineli, Marcela Hernandez-Coronado, Jorg Becker and Jose Feijo, was published online in the journal Nature on July 24, 2017.

Media Relations Contact: Irene Ying, 301-405-5204, zying@umd.edu

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BALTIMORE, Md. - The April 2015 civil unrest associated with Freddie Gray's death while in police custody caused a significant spike of stress in mothers of young children living in affected neighborhoods, according to new research from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM). The research, conducted before, during and after the period of civil unrest, found that the number of mothers with depressive symptoms increased from an average of 21% before the incident to an average of 31% during the acute period, spiking to 50% in August 2015. Mothers also reported concerns about disruptions in daily routines such as eating, sleeping and shopping, all of which can undermine maternal well-being and negatively affect parenting behaviors and subsequently, child development.

The study was published in the American Journal of Public Health, and is unique because the authors had data prior to the incident, during the acute period surrounding the incident, and following the incident, says senior author Maureen Black, PhD, the John A. Scholl, MD and Mary Louise Scholl, MD Endowed Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Director of the Growth and Nutrition Clinic in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland Children's Hospital.

"We found that the number of mothers reporting depressive symptoms increased dramatically in neighborhoods where the unrest occurred, but not in neighborhoods that were farther away from the unrest, but still in Baltimore City," says Black. "After five months, their symptoms returned to previous levels."

The team of pediatric growth and nutrition experts surveyed 1,095 mothers between January 2014 and December 2015 as part of their ongoing Children's HealthWatch project. The surveys were conducted at the pediatric emergency department and primary care clinics within the University of Maryland Medical System. The mothers were mostly African-American (93%), had public or no health insurance (100%), and had children age 24 months or younger (73%).

Although the decline in the prevalence of mothers with depressive symptoms just five months after the civil unrest is a positive sign, having more than one fifth of mothers report depressive symptoms, along with one half reporting material hardships, such as food and housing insecurity, signifies chronic conditions of stress for mothers that may undermine young children's health and well-being, according to the study.

"This study's findings, while not unexpected, reveal just how difficult life can be for many mothers and children in our urban areas. It also shows how resilient these mothers are," says UM SOM Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, who is also the vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor. "The study underscores the enormity of the social issues that mothers and children must contend with, especially during times of unrest."

Like many U.S. cities, community violence has long been a serious health threat in Baltimore. While chronic violence affects the entire community, it has particularly harmful effects on maternal-child health. Mothers exposed to violence are at increased risk for poor physical and mental health, including depression, aggressive behavior and negative parenting practices. In Baltimore, many mothers and their families live with high amounts of stress and health problems as a result of material hardships like food and housing insecurity.

The paper comments on the social injustice associated with the April 2015 civil unrest, and recommends that policies and practices be implemented to ensure that mothers and children are protected from community violence and civil unrest.

In the days following Freddie Gray's death in April 2015, protests erupted with some turning violent. As a result, at least 20 police officers were injured, at least 250 people arrested, 300 businesses damaged, 150 vehicle fires, 60 building fires, 27 drugstores looted, thousands of police and Maryland National Guard troops deployed, and a state of emergency was declared in the Baltimore city limits.

Steven J. Czinn, MD, the Drs. Rouben and Violet Jiji Endowed Professor of Pediatrics and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Director of the University of Maryland Children's Hospital, says, "This research gives us important insight into the unique and serious challenges the families we care for are facing. We will build on this knowledge, and use it to shape the future of pediatric care and advance children's health."

###

Yimgang, DP, Wang, Y, Paik G, Hager, E, Black, M. "Civil unrest in the context of chronic community violence: impact on maternal depressive symptoms." Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print July 20, 2017: e1-e8: doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.303876

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Commemorating its 210th Anniversary, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 and is the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as an innovative leader in accelerating innovation and discovery in medicine. The School of Medicine is the founding school of the University of Maryland and is an integral part of the 11-campus University System of Maryland. Located on the University of Maryland's Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine works closely with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide a research-intensive, academic and clinically based education. With 43 academic departments, centers and institutes and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians and research scientists plus more than $400 million in extramural funding, the School is regarded as one of the leading biomedical research institutions in the U.S. with top-tier faculty and programs in cancer, brain science, surgery and transplantation, trauma and emergency medicine, vaccine development and human genomics, among other centers of excellence. The School is not only concerned with the health of the citizens of Maryland and the nation, but also has a global presence, with research and treatment facilities in more than 35 countries around the world.http://medschool.umaryland.edu.

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The University of Maryland Children's Hospital is recognized throughout Maryland and the mid-Atlantic region as a resource for critically and chronically ill children. UMCH physicians and staff excel in combining state-of-the-art medicine with family-centered care. More than 100 physicians specialize in understanding how to treat conditions and diseases in children, including congenital heart conditions, asthma, epilepsy and gastrointestinal disorders. The Drs. Rouben and Violet Jiji Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) provides the highest level of care to the tiniest newborns. To learn more about the University of Maryland Children's Hospital, please visit http://umm.edu/programs/childrens.
PHILADELPHIA - Women undergoing daily radiation therapy for breast cancer are commonly told they should not use antiperspirant for fear that it could cause greater radiation damage to the skin, but a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania shows that advice is not based on sound science. While they found that about eight out of every 10 patients reported their doctors told them not to use antiperspirants and roughly the same number of doctors say they routinely make that recommendation, their study also showed there was no difference in the radiation skin dose absorbed by these patients with or without these deodorants. They published their findings in Radiotherapy and Oncology this month.

"Going without antiperspirants entirely for a 3-6 week course of radiotherapy can have a negative impact on a patient's quality-of-life," said the study's lead author Brian C. Baumann, MD, who recently completed his residency in Radiation Oncology at Penn and is a member of Penn's Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He is also currently an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology at Washington University in St. Louis. "Our study suggests that antiperspirants can be safely used during breast radiotherapy without risking increased skin side effects."

The study tackled two key areas. First, it established that it's still common practice for physicians to advise breast cancer patients to avoid antiperspirants during radiotherapy. Second, it debunked the myth that the use of these antiperspirants increases the amount of radiation the skin receives, thus causing more damage to the skin.

For the first part of the study, researchers utilized OncoLink, an online cancer service dedicated to patient and provider education that is run by Penn's Radiation Oncology unit. They developed a survey to find out what percentage of providers still tell their patients not to use antiperspirants, and what percentage of patients say they received that advice. Of the 105 doctors and nurses who responded and said they regularly manage radiation dermatitis for their patients, 86 of them (82 percent) said they regularly tell patients not to use antiperspirants during their course of radiation treatment. On the patient side, 92 women responded who said they have received radiotherapy for breast cancer, 73 of whom (79 percent) say their healthcare providers advised them to avoid using deodorant for the duration of their treatment.

"While the sample size of the survey is relatively small, the percentage of patients who received the advice to avoid antiperspirants and the percentage of providers who routinely offer this advice was very similar. We cannot make any conclusions about the exact prevalence of this recommendation, but we think the results strongly suggest that the recommendation remains popular," Baumann said.

The advice persists despite a lack of scientific evidence. Trials have not shown antiperspirant use leads to higher skin side effects during breast radiation therapy, but those trials do not appear to have changed clinical practice. Baumann says that shows providers either do not know about these studies or they are skeptical of the results.

"There can be a discrepancy between the ways we measure skin toxicity in clinical trials versus the problems patients report to their healthcare providers," Baumann said. "The current skin toxicity scoring system has important limitations. It does not take pain or itching into account, for example, so it is possible that the studies may have missed a clinically meaningful effect because of the limitations of the measurement tool." Researchers addressed that discrepancy in the second part of this study as they sought to find out if antiperspirants really do increase the surface dose of radiation on the skin. For this portion, researchers used optically stimulated luminescent dosimeters (OSLDs) - a common device for measuring the amount of surface radiation absorbed with each dose. They used three squares of paper: one with nothing on it, one with a thick coating of standard antiperspirant, and one with a thick coating of extra-strength antiperspirant. They placed the squares of paper in the beam's path and measured the absorbed radiation dose with OSLDs.

"We found no significant difference in surface dose with or without antiperspirant," Baumann said.

Baumann's team also moved the beam to four different angles, but found it did not lead to different results.

These antiperspirants also contain aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex glycine, a common metal found in antiperspirants. The standard deodorants contain 15 percent of it, while the extra strength contains 25 percent.

"We specifically wanted to know if the radiation could hit that metal and scatter, sending radiation off target and into other, healthy parts of the skin, but any difference in surface dose we found was within the margin of error," Baumann said.

"This study shows providers should be more liberal in letting patients use antiperspirants during radiation treatment, which may improve patient quality-of-life."

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Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $6.7 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $392 million awarded in the 2016 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2016, Penn Medicine provided $393 million to benefit our community.
PHILADELPHIA (July 24, 2017) - In a new study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing's Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research (CHOPR), and the Rutgers University School of Nursing examined the factors influencing the likelihood of missed nursing care in the home care setting. Their findings indicate that home care nurses with poor work environments are more likely to miss required care.

"This study provides the best evidence to date that better home care agency work environments and patient care can be expected from home care agencies that achieve Pathway to Excellence designation," said Olga F. Jarrin, PhD, RN, assistant professor at Rutgers University School of Nursing and a senior fellow at CHOPR. "There has been a lot of research on the topic of hospital work environments, but very little on home care. Given that the homebound elderly and community dwelling disabled are a particularly vulnerable population, our question was, to what extent is the work environment in home care agencies related to the quality of care nurses provide to patients in their homes?"

Jarrin was first author on the paper, available online ahead of print in the journal Nursing Outlook, the official journal of the American Academy of Nursing and the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science. She collaborated with CHOPR Director Linda H. Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, the Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing and the senior author on the paper, and Youjeong Kang, PhD, MPH, CCRN, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington School of Nursing.

To address their questions, the researchers relied on survey data collected from nearly 3,500 home care registered nurses in over 800 home care agencies between 2006 and 2007. Among other questions, nurses were asked whether they had omitted any required or necessary care activities due to a lack of time.

The quality of the home care agency work environment was determined from survey responses regarding nurses' autonomy, the health and safety of the work environment, opportunities for professional development, quality of nursing management, and other standards of workplace excellence outlined in the American Nurses Credentialing Center Pathway to Excellence Program.

The Pathway to Excellence Program recognizes health care organizations that create positive work environments where nurses can excel in their practice and patient care.

"The pursuit of Pathway credentialing holds promise for recognizing nursing excellence in home care organizations and as a blueprint for moving more home care organizations into the highest levels of patient care excellence," says Aiken.

As has been found in other settings, nurses working in agencies with poor work environments were more likely to report not having enough time to complete necessary patient teaching, counseling, and care coordination.

Categorizing home care agencies into poor, mixed, and better work environments, Jarrin and colleagues found that, nurses in in better work environments were less than half as likely to report missing necessary care coordination, counseling, or education of patients and their caregivers compared to nurses working in agencies with poor work environments.

Home care nurses were impacted as well. Specifically, nurses in the best work environments were less than one-third as likely to experience burnout, job dissatisfaction, or intend to leave their jobs compared with nurses working in the worst work environments.

"Having enough time to provide patient education and counseling helps nurses feel they are making a difference in the community and reduces burnout," Jarrin said.

She noted that not only would ensuring that nurses have supportive work environments and manageable workloads improve care quality, but it could also improve retention for home care agencies.

Such attention to quality care is particularly significant in home care nursing, where a lack of good nursing care can lead to avoidable hospitalizations and institutionalizations.

###

The work was supported by grants from the American Nurses Foundation/Margretta Madden Styles Credentialing Research Grant, the National Institute of Nursing Research (NR007104 and NR014855), the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (HS022406), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (053071), the John A. Hartford Foundation, and the Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation.

About the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is one of the world's leading schools of nursing. For the second year in a row, it is ranked the #1 nursing school in the world by QS University, and has four graduate programs ranked number one by U.S. News & World Report, the most of any school in the United States. Penn Nursing is consistently among the nation's top recipients of nursing research funding from the National Institutes of Health. Penn Nursing prepares nurse scientists and nurse leaders to meet the health needs of a global society through research, education, and practice. Follow Penn Nursing on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube.

About the Rutgers University School of Nursing

Rutgers School of Nursing educates 1,800 undergraduate and graduate students at four campus locations in Newark, New Brunswick, and Blackwood, New Jersey. An extensive program of continuing education is available for nurses and other health care professionals. In U.S. News & World Report's Best Graduate Programs 2018, the school's Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program was ranked 18th in the nation and its Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) program was ranked 20th. Follow Rutgers School of Nursing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram & YouTube.

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NFU Cymru has explained to Defra Secretary Michael Gove that farmers should not be 'pigeon-holed' in one area, but should rather be celebrated for the many areas they contribute in.

The Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns and Defra Secretary Michael Gove have both arrived at the Royal Welsh Show to talk with Welsh farmers.

Last week, Mr Gove unveiled his plan for a 'Green Brexit', one which would reward farmers for the environmental work they do.

This led the Farmers' Union of Wales to label the plans as one that 'neglects' food production.

At the Royal Welsh Show today, NFU Cymru representatives took the chance to stress to Mr Gove Welsh farmers overall contribution as producers of Wales food, environment and landscapes.

The union said farmers should not be 'pigeon-holed' as providers in one area  as farmers are 'proud to produce on so many levels'.

'Already enhancing'

NFU Cymru President Stephen James said: Following Mr Goves comments last week about farmers earning their subsidies through environmental work, we were quick to point out to Mr Gove that a large number of Welsh farmers are already enhancing their environment through agri-environmental schemes and this is a responsibility they take extremely seriously.

We underlined to Mr Gove that while it is important to look at the environmental perspective, Welsh farmers should not be pigeon-holed as providers in one area  our farmers are proud to produce on so many levels.

They provide an overall package of food production, environmental enhancement and landscape management that has a resounding impact on Welsh culture and significant benefits for Welsh society.

We think it is vitally important that the work active family farms across Wales carry out in terms of food production and contributing to the nations overall food security should not be undersold or undermined.

Mr James said he wanted to make it 'crystal clear' to Mr Gove that a 'transnational period' from current arrangements to a new agricultural policy  carried out over a number of years  is a must.

He continued: We want to lessen the impact on the industrys productive capacity, continuity of supply to the food chain and ensure the ongoing delivery on environmental management and enhancement.
There has been another fatal farm accident after a man became trapped under his trailer in Devon.

The man, Todd Riggs from Holsworthy, died after becoming trapped under a trailer.

The accident happened on Tuesday, July 18.

Mr Riggs, who was in his thirties, was declared dead at the scene by the ambulance service.

Police were called by the ambulance service at around 1pm and a man was found trapped under the farm trailer.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said: "It would appear that the trailer has gone over the top of the man.

"The man was declared deceased by the ambulance service at the scene.

"Police attended the scene and members of the serious collision investigation unit were aware."

Farm safety week

The news comes as the farming industry gears up for this year's National Farm Safety Week, taking place next week, 24 - 28 July.

Organised by the Farm Safety Foundation, the week sets out to reduce the number of deaths and injuries and offers support and guidance for those working in the industry.

Agriculture remains the most dangerous profession in the UK  yet many of the fatalities and serious injuries reported each year can be easily avoided.

The provisional annual data for work-related fatal accidents revealed that 137 workers were fatally injured between April 2016 and March 2017 (a rate of 0.43 per 100,000 workers), the second lowest year on record.

27 fatal injuries to agricultural workers were recorded.
Global appetite for Welsh lamb is at an all-time high, with exports - making up a third of Wales total food and drink exports - hitting 110 million last year.

Ahead of his first visit to the Royal Welsh Show, the Environment Secretary Michael Gove hailed the success of the sector.

It now exports nearly 30,000 tonnes of lamb to more than 40 countries around the world. Shipments go as far as Hong Kong, Canada and the UAE.

Speaking ahead of the Royal Welsh Show, Mr Gove said: "We all care about where the food on our dinner plates has come from and its journey from farm to fork.

"Welsh lamb, with its unique heritage and character, has become a symbol of high quality and great taste around the world and I am thrilled to see this sector going from strength to strength.

"Leaving the EU will provide this hugely successful industry with new opportunities to grow and flourish and I am looking forward to meeting farmers and producers today to hear their views on how we can drive the sector forward."

Kuwait

Global demand for Welsh lamb now means up to 40% of total produce is exported around the world.

Total food and drink exports from Wales have risen by a fifth in the past year and are now worth more than 337 million.

The UK government has said it is committed to opening new markets for lamb.

In March, Farm Minister George Eustice secured a 15 million export deal to Kuwait.

Welsh lamb and sheep are at the heart of the Royal Welsh Show, with more than 3,000 sheep in competitions over the three days and a large number of lamb producers showcasing.
The government has not ruled out lowering British food standards to seal potential post-Brexit trade deals.

Prime Minister Theresa Mays official spokesman refused to answer media questions on whether this could mean lifting the ban on the controversial practice of chlorinated chicken from the US.

UK Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox is about to embark on a trip to the US to pave way for potential trade deals.

In the US, the government permits such practices as chlorinated chicken, which consists of dipping meat into chlorinated water to prevent microbial contamination.

In America, they argue that it is standard procedure which protects millions of consumers.

But this practice is banned in the EU, which fears the practice could actually worsen safety standards.

However, the farming industry in the US is expected to push for agriculture to be included in any food deal. It has insisted that Britain must come into line with the US.

The Daily Telegraph has reported a cabinet split on the issue, with Dr Fox and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson relaxed on the position of lowering British food standards. They have reportedly argued their case against Defra Secretary Michael Gove.

Struggle to compete

UK farming unions are concerned that the influx of low quality imports will mean British farmers will struggle to compete.

President of the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) Barclay Bell said: Politicians must ensure that food standards are upheld and cheap, low quality imports are not permitted to undermine our industry.

Countries wishing to trade with us must demonstrate they can meet the high standards expected by UK consumers.

At the NFU conference earlier this year the union's president, Meurig Raymond, warned that any new free trade agreements negotiated with countries outside the European Union could open the British market to lower quality, lower welfare food imports.

'Sucking in more imports'

At the Lincolnshire Farming Conference, NFU vice president Guy Smith told FarmingUK that the United Kingdom would risk losing its biggest manufacturing industry unless it protected British agriculture.

He warned that politicians needed to be careful about the terms of any trade deals they negotiated with other countries following the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

He said: "The key point to make to Government is that if, as a result of leaving the European Union, we end up just sucking in more imports from other parts of the world of lower standards then that is a fail and that will export our agriculture to other parts of the world.

"The key point is that that may take the manufacturing base with it because, if you are a processor processing agricultural products, you will probably want to go to those parts of the world where you are sure there is local supply."
Producers see losses increase to 26-28 per pig, estimates show
The Actress Is Not A Part Of Prabhas' Saaho

The report stated, ''While there is a lot of clamour to see Anushka and Prabhas sharing screen space in the upcoming film Sahoo, reliable sources say the actress is not part of the action drama.''

Anushka Wanted Two Months Time

''The 35-year-old actress had asked for two months before coming on board.''

Not Enough Time For Her

''Now feels she hasn't had enough time at her disposal.''

The Dates Would Clash

''Moreover, she had also signed a Tamil film earlier and she felt that the dates would clash with that of Saho."

It's Highly Unlikely That She Would Work In Saaho

"It is highly unlikely that she'll be part of the film.''

She Is Giving More Preference To Her Tamil Film?

''Also, she had a Tamil film to start shooting for, so there could be clash of dates between the two films.''

It's Disappointing For Pranushka's Fans

We all know that Prabhas and Anushka Shetty make a wonderful pair and the fans love them. So much so, that they even started the rumours about Pranushka's marriage.

A New Update About Saaho

According to BL, Bollywood actor Chunky Pandey will also be doing Saaho.

He Loved The Idea Of The Futuristic Film

"He loved the idea that went behind scripting the futuristic film and has a special role."

Stunt Director From Hollywood For Prabhas

Kenny Bates, who is known for his stunt and action sequences in Hollywood, has specially been brought on board for this film.
It's A Stylish And Fun Journey

Bebo was quoted as saying to Mumbai Mirror, " "It is going to be quite a chic flick, with everyone trying to make it to my wedding. It's a stylish and fun journey."

Sumeet Vyas Turns Kareena's Hubby

Actor Sumeet Vyas who rose to fame with the popular web-series Permanent Roommate will be playing Kareena's husband in this movie.

Bebo To Meet Him Soon For The First Narration

Kareena confirmed this development to the leading daily and added, "Rhea's got a solid plan. I'll meet Sumeet soon and everyone's excited about starting shoot."

Sumeet Says His Sister Is Treating Him 'Extra Nicely'

Sumeet is kicked about the pairing too and says that his sister has been treating him "extra-nicely" ever since he signed the film and added, "My mileage with my family has shot up too because they are all big fans of Kareena. It's hard to contain all the excitement."

He Has A Meaty And Badmaash Role

Sumeet is quick to point out that even though it is a film about female-bonding, he has a "meaty and badmaash role".

I Am Not Being Delusional

"My character brings a sense of humour to the plot. Shashanka made it clear that it wasn't just a male part thrown into the picture. He wanted a solid actor on board. But I'm not being delusional, I know it's a film about four girls with a mind-blowing script!"
The first song from 'Bareilly ki Barfi' 'Sweety Tera Drama' is here and has already got everyone dancing to its rocking music. It's a perfect song to dance your heart out. The song features Kriti Sanon, Rajkummar Rao and Ayushmann Khurrana shaking their legs to the fast paced song.

The song beautifully captivates the essence of Desi celebrations. Set in the backdrop of a wedding, the song forces you to dance to its tunes. 'Sweety tera drama' showcases the trio indulge in the Nautanki that follows at the desi celebrations rooted in India.

Kriti Sanon, Ayushmann Khurrana and Rajkummar Rao set the screen on fire with their electrifying moves.

The song has an upbeat track and catchy lyrics that are bound to be stuck in your head. It won't be long before you see people humming the tunes wherever you go.

Kriti Sanon as 'Bitti' looks very vibrant the song dancing like no one's watching, while Ayushmann is equally jovial. It is, however, refreshing to see Rajkummar breaking into a jig in the song. It is very interesting to witness friendly equation of the trio.

The energetically pumped song is sure to be the favorite track at every celebration.

'Sweety Tera Drama' is sung by Dev Negi, Pawni Pandey and Shraddha Pandit. The lyrics are penned by Shabbir Ahmed and the music is given by Tanishk Bagchi.

Bareilly Ki Barfi is produced by Abhay Chopra and Juno Chopra's BR Studio in association with Junglee Pictures, the film is directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and is scheduled to release on 18th August 2017.
Zain Ali, who participated in singing reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa in 2012, was found dead at a friend's place, in Sheikhupura near Lahore, on Friday (June 21).

His death has shocked everyone. Zain's brother Sonu was quoted by a leading daily as saying, "Zain told us that he was going to hang out with his friends for a few days, but we woke up to the news of his death."



Sonu further said that Zain was unmarried and had no love affairs or financial troubles as per their knowledge. He even added that Zain was excited as he was about to make a new song for an upcoming film soon!

According to reports, Zain was found unconscious in the washroom. Although Sonu admitted that Zain was a drug addict, the family claimed that he cannot cross the limits.

The exact cause of death is still unknown, but it was hinted at brain haemorrhage. The medical investigations are still on.

Zain, who had participated in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, was part of famous duo Sajid-Wajid's team. He was loved by both Indian and Pakistani audiences and won lot of accolades from veterans of both the music industries.
Kinder Morgan (KMI 2.69%) recently put the wraps on another solid quarter. However, overshadowing its financial results was the unveiling of the company's plans to return more cash to shareholders starting next year. Its management team provided more details on that policy change, as well as some other valuable nuggets, during the accompanying conference call. Here are four things they wanted investors to know about that plan and what else to expect in the future.

No. 1: Our hard work is finally paying off

Founder and Executive Chairman Richard Kinder led off the call by saying:

At the end of 2015 we made a very difficult decision to reduce our dividend for the first and only time in KMI's history. We said we would work hard to strengthen our balance sheet and fund our growth CapEx from our internally generated cash flow without having to issue equity or additional debt. And that when we had made sufficient progress on those goals, we would begin to return additional value to our shareholders through some combination of dividend increases and/or stock repurchases.

Kinder would go on to note that the company's efforts resulted in the completion of a string of strategic initiatives that have reduced debt by $5.8 billion. These included selling a 50% stake in its Southern Natural Gas system to Southern Company (NYSE: SO), partnering two projects with private equity, and completing the IPO of a 30% stake in Kinder Morgan Canada Limited (KML). As a result of completing those initiatives, the company is now in the position where it can start giving back more money to investors next year, including a 60% dividend increase in 2018, a plan for 25% annual increases in 2019 and 2020, and the authorization to repurchase $2 billion of shares.

No 2: We'll be the most conservative pipeline company in the sector

That said, even with that big boost in shareholder distributions, one thing Kinder wanted investors to know is that his company doesn't plan to go back to the way things were. Before slashing its dividend in 2015, the company paid out nearly all its cash flow to investors and relied on issuing equity and debt in the capital markets to finance growth. However, Kinder stated that going forward:

We intend to take these steps [of increasing shareholder distributions] while continuing to strengthen our balance sheet by funding all our growth capital needs at KMI out of operating cash flow without the need to issue equity or incur additional debt. We expect to maintain best in class coverage for our dividend, for example about 2.5 times coverage in '18 and two times or better in '19 and '20.

Those dividend coverage ratios are much higher than what rivals expect. For example, Canadian energy infrastructure giant TransCanada (TRP 1.88%) only expects a 1.8 times coverage next year, which would rise to 2.0 by 2020 while Enbridge (ENB 2.22%) expects its coverage to be 50% to 60% of available cash flow from operations. Meanwhile, many U.S. pipeline companies are comfortable with coverage ratios of 1.2 times or lower.

No. 3: Our backlog is growing, with more on the way

Despite the boost in shareholder returns, Kinder Morgan still has plenty of growth ahead of it even though it will be fully funding that growth with internally generated cash flow. CEO Steve Kean pointed this out on the call by saying that "the backlog currently stands at $12.2 billion. That's an increase from last quarter." Furthermore, he noted that the company is "seeing additional opportunities on the horizon across multiple fronts, whether it's producer push projects out of the Permian, additional power plant connections, export needs to Mexico and LNG as well storage opportunities." In fact, it is currently developing a more than $1 billion natural gas pipeline project in the Permian as well as looking at a large expansion opportunity on its EPNG system.

No. 4: The Kinder Morgan Canada Limited IPO serves two purposes

One of the highlights of the quarter was the successful completion of the Kinder Morgan Canada Limited IPO, which provided the company with the vehicle to finance the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project in the country. That said, financing that project was only part of the rationale behind the creation of that new entity. The other, according to the Kinder Morgan Canada CFO Dax Sanders, is that he sees the shares as a "good currency" for potential merger and acquisition opportunities in the country. Sanders said on the call that "we think there are some good opportunities out there and we like a lot of the assets that we see in Western Canada. So I think it is a good currency." In other words, don't be surprised to see the company start making deals in Canada using Kinder Morgan Canada's stock.

It all adds up to one thing

Kinder Morgan's combination of increasing shareholder returns and improving growth profile highlights its transformation into a low-risk, high-growth income stock. In fact, its current dividend growth projections trump those of rivals Enbridge and TransCanada, which see low double-digit dividend growth over the next few years. Given its faster growth pace, Kinder Morgan's stock could outperform the sector in the coming years.
The invoice price is generally somewhere in the range of 5 - 6% below MSRP. So a $70K MSRP truck, the invoice is going to be in the $65 - $66K range. Then you have any rebates on top of that.

That basically leaves the hold-back to get much more out so the dealer will decide how much of the $2,100 he wants to let you have. Outside of some regional incentives to move trucks, $10K off a Super Duty is doing well. If you look at MSRP between F150 and F250 trucks, you will find that the F150 is likely higher, feature for feature which, I believe anyway, is how dealers are able to advertise F150 trucks at higher discounts than F250/350.....pricing "strategies" with the higher volume truck to make the deals appear better......
Renault confirmed the Pole will drive on the first day of the two-day test, which begins on the Tuesday following this weekend's race at the Hungaroring circuit.

Cyril Abiteboul, Renault's F1 managing director, said the test will allow the team to fully assess Kubica's current capabilities - and how likely he might be to 'return to competition in the upcoming years'.

"The first two days of testing allowed both Robert and ourselves to gather a great amount of information," Abiteboul said.

"The upcoming session with the R.S.17 at the Hungaroring will allow us all to obtain detailed and precise data in a current car and representative conditions.

"After this test, we will carefully analyse the collected information to determine in what conditions it would be possible for Robert to return to competition in the upcoming years."

Hungary will be the third test Kubica has conducted for Renault in the last two months, following on from runs in Valencia in June and Paul Ricard in July. The 32-year-old completed 76 races in his career for BMW Sauber and Renault, but has not driven current F1 machinery since the start of 2011.

Renault test driver and Formula 2 racewinner Nicholas Latifi will take over for the second day of the Hungaroring test.
What is glioblastoma?

The most common type of primary brain tumor is called a glioma, so named because it begins in the glial (the Greek word for glue), or supportive, tissue of the brain. A glioblastoma is the most malignant form of this tumor and is synonymous with a grade 4 glioma. Glioblastoma is also sometimes called a grade 4 astrocytoma because it arises from star-shaped cells called astrocytes, one of several types of glial cells. According to the American Brain Tumor Association, glioblastomas represent about 15 percent of all primary brain tumors. An estimated 12,390 cases are predicted for 2017.

Sen. McCain previously was treated for melanoma. Is this new tumor related?

No. McCain has had several early-stage melanomas removed, and melanoma can metastasize to the brain. However, a primary brain tumor  as McCains doctors described the tumor in the statement released by McCains office  forms because of abnormal cell growth in brain tissue rather than spreading to the brain from elsewhere in the body. Melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, starts in melanocytes, the cells that give skin its color.

How is McCains brain cancer different from former President Jimmy Carters cancer?

Carter did have melanoma that had spread to his brain and liver, which he revealed in 2015. Until recently, someone whose melanoma had spread to the brain usually survived for only about four months. However, in 2011, melanoma became one of the first cancers to be treated with immunotherapy. After surgery to remove a small mass from his liver, Carter began receiving an immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab (Keytruda), one of several checkpoint inhibitors that helps free the immune system to attack the cancer. Data from clinical trials show that 50 percent of patients who received penbrolizumab for metastatic melanoma are alive three years later.

What are the treatment options for glioblastoma?

Since 2005, a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation has been the standard of care for glioblastoma, according to neurosurgeon Dr. Eric Holland, who is director of Seattle Translational Tumor Research and senior vice president and director of the Human Biology Division at Fred Hutch. McCain underwent a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision last week to remove what at first was described as a blood clot and later identified as glioblastoma. According to the statement from his office, further treatment options under discussion include chemotherapy and radiation.

Sadly, this aggressive cancer poses significant challenges to standard treatment, which is why median survival remains stuck at 15 months. (Median survival means the time, from diagnosis, at which half of patients are expected to still be alive.)

As Holland explains, glioblastoma is very difficult to completely remove surgically because it is so diffuse in the brain. The blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain and its associated fluid, limits the drugs that can reach tumors, and glioblastoma is resistant even to those drugs that can get in. Brain tissue, and especially brain cancer, is also resistant to radiation.

What about immunotherapy?

In May, a team of Hutch researchers led by Holland began a two-year pilot study to test several novel immunotherapy approaches for glioma.

The standard of care for patients with these tumors  surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy  has not changed in decades, and neither has the outcome, Holland said at the time. We hope through this work to change the standard of care and prolong survival for glioma patients.

T-cell therapy, an experimental treatment in which certain immune cells are engineered to recognize and attack tumors and which is showing promise for certain blood cancer patients, is being tested in some small, early-stage clinical trials for patients with glioblastoma at some other research centers. Other types of immunotherapy for glioblastoma also are in early clinical trials.

But it is still early days for these approaches designed to harness or amplify certain components of the immune system. Holland warned that the interplay between cancer and our immune system is complex and much is still to be learned, especially in relation to a cancer as challenging as glioblastoma.

Are there other promising approaches?

Yes. For example, here are four promising avenues of research:

The advent of in-depth tumor gene sequencing has given scientists insights into mutations in a gene known as isocitrate dehydrogenase, or IDH, which usually make gliomas significantly less aggressive than gliomas with a normal IDH gene. Median survival of patients with IDH mutations can be five or even 10 years. Holland and his team have developed mouse models that will allow them to study these mutations, which until now has been impossible because the mutant cells will not grow in laboratory dishes. Holland is hopeful that research into the fundamental nature of IDH-mutant glioma cells and their interaction with the immune system will reveal an Achilles heel" for targeted treatments.

Holland also is hopeful that precision oncology  which is his area of expertise  can lay the groundwork for better treatments for glioblastoma and other cancers. He and others are collecting data and developing tools that will help researchers and doctors better understand how a patient is likely to respond to a given treatment  whether standard or immunotherapy  and to tailor their care accordingly, he said.

Fred Hutch gene therapy experts Drs. Hans-Peter Kiem and Jen Adair are taking a different tack against glioblastoma  using gene editing to protect blood stem cells from a drug that can make chemotherapy more effective against the cancer. Some patients with glioblastoma produce a certain protein in their tumors that make cancer uniquely resistant to chemotherapy. There is a drug that can unlock the tumor cell to that chemotherapy, Kiem said in a recent interview, but that drug molecule is very harmful to blood cells. Kiem, who holds the Endowed Chair for Cell and Gene Therapy at the Hutch, and his colleagues developed a workaround: engineering the blood cells in the lab with a gene that shields them from the molecule and then transplant the protected cells back into the patient before proceeding with chemotherapy cycles. Results from a small early clinical trial look very good, Kiem said, and he is putting together a larger, multicenter study with two other cancer research centers.

After his mothers death from glioblastoma almost 20 years ago. Dr. Barry Stoddard, a Fred Hutch protein engineer, got involved in a research project to modify a protein from yeast for possible use as part of targeted cancer therapy. The modified protein was the brainchild of Washington State University biologist Dr. Margaret Black, who recognized that with a few tweaks, this natural molecule could have potent anti-tumor power. After years of development and testing in animal models, the engineered enzyme was tested in a small clinical trial for patients with aggressive glioblastoma that was led by a biotech company in San Diego, Tocagen. Recently, the company researchers and their colleagues reported results from that early-stage trial: The enzyme  and the rest of the drug built around it  is safe and maybe extending patients lives.

Fred Hutch News Service writers Rachel Tompa, Sabrina Richards and Kristen Woodward contributed to this story.

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Sony launches Bravia OLED A1 flagship television series in India News oi -Chandrika The A1 series TVs will be available for sale in stores from August 4.

Today Sony has launched its flagship Bravia OLED A1 television series in India at a starting price of Rs 3,64,900. The TVs from the Sony Bravia A1 arrive with 4K display, High Dynamic Range (HDR) support and a brand new image processor.

In addition, they are also equipped with Acoustic Woofers, which are claimed to make these the world's first large screen television sets with powerful sound. Sony has launched two variants of the A1 OLED series: the 65-inch KD-65A1 and the KD-55A1 with a 55-inch screen. The KD-65A1 costs Rs. 4,64,900, while the 55-inch version carries a price tag of Rs. 3,64,900.

According to Sony, the new television sets have more than 8 million "self-illuminating, individually controlled OLED pixels," which will offer a high-quality visual experience as well as better contrast, depth, texture details while viewing content on the TV.

The 4K HDR OLED panel has a resolution of 38402160 pixels, and the TVs feature a 4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme. Besides this, the Acoustic Surface Technology is another USP of the A1 series and the television comes with an integrated sub-woofer behind the TV.

Also, the OLED TVs sport a new One Slate concept design from Sony, which incorporates all different functions inside the screen, eliminating the need for a speaker or a stand.

The 65-inch Sony Bravia A1 measures at1451mm x 834mmx 86mm sans the stand, while with stand the dimensions are 1451mmx834 mmx339 mm.

The 55-inch Sony A1's dimensions without the stand are 1228 mm x711 mm x 86 mm and with stand the dimensions are 1228 mm x 711 mm x 339 mm. Along with the television, you will also get the Voice Remote Control, an IR Blaster to control DTH with the BRAVIA remote.

Sony's new television series also provides support for HDR content. As claimed by the company, this new television set has its own 4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme, which has 40 percent more real-time image processing as compared to the 4K Processor X1.

Sony A1 4K HDR OLED TVs run on the latest Android TV version 7.0 Nougat layered with Sony's UI on top. The television set has inbuilt Chromecast built-in, and users will be able to stream their smartphone, tablet content on the A1 TVs itself. Moreover, the television set will recognize 42 different languages including English spoken with an Indian accent.

The pre-booking for the Sony OLED TV will start from August 1 to August 15 from select dealers. The A1 series TVs will be available for sale in stores from August 4. Additionally, Sony is also offering customers a PlayStation 4 with the television set.

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Upcoming Dual SIM Nokia Android N smartphones Features oi -Harish Kumar We can expect these Nokia Android smartphones to be launched in the coming months.

HMD Global is all set to launch around six or seven Nokia Android smartphones in the market within the end of this year.

Lately, we saw the names and the processor details of these upcoming Nokia smartphones hit the web. The list revealed that the company is in plans to release the Nokia 2, Nokia 7, Nokia 8 and Nokia 9 by the end of 2017. Notably, they have already released three Nokia Android smartphones - Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 those are available for purchase in many global markets.

List of Nokia phones to buy in India

One thing we know for sure is that HMD is too ambitious with the Nokia smartphones, The company has already announced that it will provide two years of OS support to the already announced smartphones. We believe the same to happen with the upcoming ones as well.

With just four more months left for this year to come to an end, the rumors regarding the upcoming Nokia smartphones are increasing lately.

Given that the Nokia 8 is rumored to be unveiled on July 31, we have come up with a list of upcoming Nokia Android smartphones to be launched with Android Npugat and dual SIM support. Do take a look at these smartphones from here.

Nokia 2 Rumoured Key Features A 5.2-inch qHD IPS display Screen

internal storage capacity of 16GB

expanded up to 64GB via a microSD card

dual-SIM support

4G

Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

Bluetooth 4.2, GPS

microUSB 2.0 port

non-removable Li-Ion 3,000mAh battery Nokia Edge Rumoured Key Features

a 5.5 inches IPS LCD 1080 x 1920 pixels display

Android,7.0 Nougat

Octa Core 2.3 GHz

4GB RAM

Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor paired

64GB native storage capacity

23MP main snapper at its rear

5MP front-facing selfie shooter

Non-removable Li-Ion 3880 mAh battery Nokia 8 Rumoured Key Features a 5.3 inches IPS LCD 1440 x 2560 pixels display

Android,7.1.1 Nougat

a Octa Core 2.45 GHz

4/6 GB RAM

Qualcomm MSM8998 Snapdragon 835 processor paired

64GB native storage capacity

13MP main snapper at its rear

8MP front-facing selfie shooter

a Non-removable Li-Ion 4000 mAh battery powering Nokia 7 Rumoured Key Features

A 5.5 inches IPS LCD 1080 x 1920 pixels display

Android,7.1 Nougat

Octa core

1.8 GHz 4GB RAM Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor

64GB native storage capacity

a 16 MP main snapper at its rear

8MP front-facing selfie shooter

support for USB microUSB v2.0 and Dual SIM (Nano SIM).

Non-removable Li-Ion 4000 mAh battery Nokia E1 Rumoured Key Features

a 5.2 inches IPS LCD 1080 x 1920 pixels display

Android,7.0 Nougat

Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53

2GB RAM

Qualcomm MSM8917 Snapdragon 425 processor

16GB native storage capacity

13MP main snapper at its rear

5MP front-facing selfie shooter

support for USB Yes, microUSB v2.0 and Dual SIM (Nano SIM).

a Non-removable Li-Ion 2700 mAh battery Nokia D1C Rumoured Key Features

a 5.0 inches IPS LCD 1080 x 1920 pixels display

Android,7.0 Nougat

Octa Core 1.4 GHz

3GB RAM

Qualcomm MSM8937 Snapdragon 430 processor

16GB native storage capacity

13MP main snapper at its rear

8MP front-facing selfie shooter

support for USB Yes, microUSB v2.0

a Non-removable Li-Ion battery powering Nokia 9 Rumoured Key Features

a 5.5 inches OLED 1440 x 2560 pixels display

Android,7.1 Nougat

Octa core (2.45 GHz, Quad core, Kryo + 1.9 GHz, Quad core, Kryo)

4/8 GB RAM

Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 MSM8998 processor paired

64GB native storage capacity

13MP main snapper at its rear

12MP front-facing selfie shooter

Non-removable Li-Ion 3900 mAh battery powering Nokia Z2 Plus Rumoured Key Features

a 5.5 inches IPS LCD 1080 x 1920 pixels display

Android,7.0 Nougat

Quad Core 1.77 GHz

4GB RAM

Dual SIM

Snapdragon 820 processor

64GB native storage capacity

16MP main snapper at its rear

8MP front-facing selfie shooter

a Non-removable Li-Ion 3000 mAh battery powering Nokia C9 Rumoured Key Features

a 5.0 inches IPS LCD 1080 x 1920 pixels display

Android N

Octa core Processor

3GB RAM

Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 MSM8996 processor

32GB native storage capacity

16MP main snapper at its rear

5MP front-facing selfie shooter

a Non-removable Li-Ion 4000mAh battery powering

support for USB microUSB v2.0 and Dual SIM (Nano SIM)

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Multi-Window support

Now you will be able to use two apps side-by-side in Xiaomi devices like in some devices running on Android Nougat. This makes the multitasking much easier and better and in turn increases the productivity too.

Reply from Notification

After this Xiaomi MIUI 9 upgrade, you will be able to reply notification without opening the app or unlocking the phone. Already, this features is available on Apple devices and other Android Nougat running devices.

SEE ALSO: Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 catches fire in store

Doze Mode

This is the feature to save battery during idle times. This helps to save a lot of power by managing the apps and killing the apps which were running in the background. Moreover, instead of killing the background apps the apps will go into hibernation mode.

Data Saver

During our Internet usage, some apps running in the background consumes data, which cannot be controlled in Xiaomi devices. With MIUI 9 update there is a new data saver feature, which lets you control the data access of the apps while they run in the background.
JioPhone dual SIM variant to be launched in October News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu JioPhone to arrive with dual SIM support soon.

The much-awaited JioPhone has been announced and will be available for pre-booking starting from August 24 on a first come first serve basis.

In the meantime, there are media reports that the JioPhone will be made by domestic manufacturers such as Micromax and Intex. The reports point out that Reliance is in the advanced stages of discussion with these vendors for making the JioPhone.

Talking about the JioPhone, the smart feature phone that doesn't cost a single penny can be bought by paying a security deposit of Rs. 1,500. This amount is 100% refundable for 36 months. For now, it is a single SIM phone only but it looks like Jio is all set to launch a dual SIM variant of the JioPhone in the coming months.

According to a report by TheMobileIndian citing sources familiar with the development of the device, the company seems to be in plans to launch the dual SIM variant of the JioPhone around October. It is said that the first SIM card slot will be meant only for the Jio 4G SIM card and the second one, which is a 2G SIM card slot will support SIM card from any operator. You can get your doubts regarding the device clarified from the JioPhone FAQs.

The JioPhone has a wow factor despite being a feature phone. In the smartphone dominated era, the JioPhone comes preloaded with a voice assistant that makes it possible for users to interact with it easily. The device also supports a screen mirroring kind of a feature that is possible with the TV-Cable costing Rs. 309.

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What will be the color options for Samsung Galaxy Note 8? Find out News oi -Chandrika The upcoming flagship phablet is expected to be powered by a Snapdragon 835 SoC or an Exynos 8895 SoC depending on the market.

There is exactly one month left for the launch of Samsung's Galaxy Note 8. The company recently confirmed that the phablet will get unveiled on August 23 by sending media invites for its Unpacked event.

Thanks to the innumerable leaks and rumors, we already have a fair idea about what the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will bring to the table. Now, we have come across a new leak revealing the color options of the upcoming device. Popular leakster Ronald Quandt has taken to Twitter to claim that the Galaxy Note 8 will be available in three different color variants. The colors are Black, Deep Blue and Orchid Gray.

While Black and Orchid Gray colors are quite common, we are excited to see the Deep Blue variant of the device. It should be noted that Quandt's tweet mentions "at least", which means there will more be more color options.

Samsung usually releases its flagship devices in a number of colors, although they don't get shipped to all the markets. So don't get surprised if the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 comes in 4-5 different colors.

As far as the specs are concerned, the Galaxy Note 8 is tipped to arrive with a 6.3-inch Super AMOLED display. It is likely to use an Infinity Display as seen on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ with an aspect ratio of 18.5:9.

Under the hood, the upcoming flagship phablet is expected to be powered by a Snapdragon 835 SoC or an Exynos 8895 SoC depending on the market. This processor is said to be coupled with 6GB RAM, 64GB/128GB storage capacities and a 3300mAh battery.

There are claims that the Galaxy Note 8 will arrive with an advanced S Pen stylus. Moreover, the device is believed to be the first one from Samsung to feature a dual camera setup at its rear.

Going by the recent reports, the Samsung flagship phablet might feature a fingerprint sensor at its rear as on the Galaxy S8 and S8+ and an iris scanner at the front along with the selfie camera.

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As of now, we don't need to pursue the idea of a floor price: TRAI News oi -Priyanka All operators in June this year have suggested telecom regulator to imposing a floor price for voice and data services

Telecom Regulator (TRAI) has finally ruled out the demand by some telcos to fix a floor price for voice and data services.

Telecom Regulator Authority of India (TRAI), Chairman, RS Sharma said: "during the meeting, a consensus had emerged that fixing a floor price was not a workable idea and as of now, there was no need for it."

"The consensus is that as of now, we don't need to pursue the idea of a floor price. We had detailed discussions for over two hours, There will be no further discussion or consultation on the issue," Sharma said.

The whole issue came to lime light after, Reliance Jio announced its entry into telecom sector with free services and low tariffs which further added stress on telecom sector.

To recall, all operators in June this year have suggested telecom regulator to imposing a floor price for voice and data services

In fact TRAI, Chairman said "Some of the telcos raised the issue of operators offering below-cost tariffs to consumers, and said it could hurt the financials of the industry.

He added,"at the moment we have heard both the views..but how we move forward on this idea, that we will have to discuss among ourselves."

The regulator has all rights to fix the tariff rates.

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Reliance Jio to launch fixed line services: Mukesh Ambani News oi -Priyanka To support the enhanced coverage, we are also expanding our physical distribution network across India.

After giving jitters to telecom operators, Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio is all set to launch fixed line services, yes you heard it right, as the company has announced the same at 40th annual general.

Ambani said that "In next level, we're very focused in terms of giving fixed line connectivity to both home and enterprise."

He said that "Jio is targeting to expand its wireless network to cover 99 per cent of the country's population in the next 12 months which will make sure that the 4G coverage in the country is more than the 2G one.

To support the enhanced coverage, we are also expanding our physical distribution network across India. We will soon have over 10,000 Jio offices, across every city and tehsil town of India. These offices will service our sales channel partners and over ten lakh physical retail outlets that sell Jio services. In addition, we will integrate with all major e-commerce platforms."

Ambani further added that, in less than 170 days, more than 100 million customers signed up for Jio's services. On an average, Jio added the customers per second every single day. This was the fastest adoption of any technology service, anywhere in the world. Faster than even Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype."

He pointed out that, in just 6 months of Jio's launch, data consumption in India went from 20 crores GB to 120 crore GB per month and has been multiplying ever since. Now, Jio customers alone are consuming over 125 crore GB of data every month, including 165 crore hours of high-speed video every month, making Jio the largest mobile video network and India has overtaken USA and China in mobile data usage.

Before Jio's launch, India was 155th in the world in mobile broadband penetration. Now India is number one in mobile data consumption and well on its way to becoming the number one in mobile broadband penetration, in the coming months."

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News - General News - Safety Takata scandal claims first Australian life ACCC launches inquiry into management of Takata recall after Australian mans death UPDATED: 24/07/2017 at 4:30PM.



THE first Australian fatality involving a faulty Takata airbag has spurred the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to launch an investigation into the handling of the national recall after consumer advocacy group Choice slammed car-makers for slow and possibly misleading repairs.



However, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), which represents the interests of Australian automotive companies, is adamant that its members have not engaged in any wrongdoing.



Throughout this recall campaign, the industry has acted with the utmost concern for the safety of vehicle owners and will continue to do so, FCAI chief executive Tony Weber said.



New South Wales police confirmed that the death of a motorist in Cabramatta earlier this month related to an incorrectly deployed airbag, taking the global number of Takata-related fatalities to 18.



Investigations have revealed that the death of the man is likely due to a fault in the airbag, causing the man to be struck in the neck by a small fragment, it said.



Further investigations revealed the vehicle in the incident was subject of a worldwide recall for a faulty airbag.



The death has been reported to the NSW Coroners Court to determine if an inquest is necessary.



The ACCC issued a recall for the vehicle involved in the incident, confirmed to be a 2009 Honda CR-V, back in June 2015, with the car-maker saying it would contact affected owners by mail once parts availability is confirmed at the time.



The fault found within Takata airbags involves metal shrapnel shooting out of the inflator when deployed due to the improper installation of chemical components, with factors such as age and high temperature increasing the likelihood of occurrence.



Honda Australia said it has completed 70 per cent of all its repair work involved in the Takata recall incident, averaging about 5000 replacements a week.



In an official statement, the Japanese car-maker said: We are aware through NSW Police that an incident occurred on July 13, 2017, and resulted in the tragic death of the driver.



Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the family of the driver during this difficult time.



Honda Australia is working closely with authorities to provide whatever assistance is required.



Similarly, the FCAI released a statement saying it extends its deepest sympathies to the friends and family of the man involved in the tragic incident of July 13 and we understand that Honda Australia is working closely to provide whatever assistance is required.



In the wake of the death however, the ACCC has announced it is launching its own investigation into the handling of the call backs with aid from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development (DIRD)  who are overseeing the recalls  and vehicle manufacturers.



According to the ACCC, since the recall was initiated locally in 2009, 850,000 out of the 2.3 million vehicles have had their faulty airbags replaced, putting the Australian repair rate at about 37 per cent.



Globally, over 100 million at-risk airbags have been identified from more than 30 automotive brands including Toyota, Honda, BMW, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Ferrari, Jeep, Lexus, Nissan and Subaru.



Replacing faulty parts has been slow as availability and production of stock has stretched the embattled airbag manufacturer to breaking point. Takata filed for bankruptcy late last month.



However, Choice is claiming that some car-makers are replacing old, defective airbags with new units that feature the same problem as a stop-gap solution, often with wait times stretching to over six months.



Manufacturers are installing new iterations of the recalled airbags as a temporary fix, after investigations revealed the fault develops over time, the report said.



Choice also indicated that many (manufacturers) confirmed a percentage were treated with like-for-like replacements and will therefore have to be recalled again with the brands involved including Toyota, BMW, Mazda and Subaru.



ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the consumer watchdog will look into claims of misleading repair work.



Were seeking information from the DIRD as to exactly what information it is requiring car manufacturers and retailers to give consumers about their cars airbag, including the likelihood of the airbag being replaced again, he said.



We would have very serious concerns if manufacturers were found to be misleading consumers about their cars safety in breach of their obligations under consumer law.



If consumers have already had their airbag replaced, they should contact their manufacturer for advice as to what kind of airbag it was replaced with and how long it is expected to last.



Mr Sims urged affected vehicle owners to heed the warnings from car-makers and to take action as soon as possible.



Do not ignore or delay responding to a letter from your cars manufacturer or retailer asking you to have your cars airbag replaced, he said.



The airbags degrade over time and can become lethal by misdeploying and firing metal shards at the cars occupants.



Mr Weber said the automotive industry is committed to seeing all recall issues resolved and also insisted that affected vehicle owners get in contact with manufacturers.



The industry joins the call from government and the ACCC in strongly urging all owners to assess whether their vehicle is affected and if so, to urgently contact their authorised network.While more than 850,000 affected vehicles in Australia have been rectified, there still remains a large number which have not been campaigned. It remains the industrys steadfast resolve to get in contact with these owners and advise them of the recall.

Read more 26th of June 2017 Takata files for bankruptcy Airbag supplier Takata seeks bankruptcy protection in US, sells assets for $US1.6b 15th of May 2017 Honda hoping for more recall response Takata airbag recall progressing, but Honda calling on all owners to respond 28th of April 2017 Takata airbag injures Australian motorist Northern Territory woman wounded from shrapnel flung from Takata airbag 21st of April 2017 Recalls for Tesla, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Citroen, Land Rover More cars called back for Takata fault, while other brands issue separate recalls 4th of April 2017 Takata airbag pandemic keeps on rolling 119,000 Australian Toyotas recalled in latest bout of Takata-related airbag faults 28th of February 2017 Takata accepts guilty plea Questions hang over car-makers' knowledge of faulty inflator as Takata pleads guilty 5th of May 2016 Takata airbag recall doubles in US Another 35-40 million vehicles scooped up in US Takata airbag inflator recall
News - Mercedes-Benz - X-Class Australia helped shape Benz X-Class Mercedes credits detailed market research in Australia in X-Class development



Benz started looking at the viability of a mid-size pick-up back in 2010 and market research kicked up a gear in 2012 before it signed the deal with Renault-Nissan Alliance to share the underpinnings of the NP300 Navara two years later in 2014.



During the research phase, Mercedes marketing executives headed Down Under to gain a greater insight into the ever popular pick-up segment, which has since grown to be Australias second-largest market segment behind small passenger cars.



Last year combined sales of 4x2 and 4x4 pick-ups hit a record 190,760 units, up from 137,184 sales a decade earlier in 2006.



Mercedes-Benz Vans Australia and New Zealand managing director Diane Tarr said the idea behind the local market research was to ensure that any future pick-up would not be Euro centric and that it spoke to and positioned itself to the various audiences that are outside of Europe in the core markets.



Left: Mercedes-Benz Vans Australia and New Zealand managing director Diane Tarr



One of the first experiences was of the headquarters colleagues was waking up at 5:30am and heading down to the fish markets in Sydney, she said at the X-Class international reveal in Cape Town last week.



And just literally driving around Sydney, Queensland, Melbourne. They were here for many weeks at various times. There were focus groups, a lot of support from colleagues in engraining the real Australian mindset and ute business. But they spent a lot of time driving around and speaking to accessory developers, so there is a lot from an Australian perspective.



Ms Tarr said that the market research work conducted Down Under has helped boost the global standing of the Australian arm within Mercedes-Benz Vans.



I think X-Class has presented a greater opportunity for us to have a voice.



With X-Class coming into our market and of course increasing our volume position, we definitely see a greater voice in the business. However, when we look at the current vans business now, we are split into Europe and overseas.



Already we are not blanketed and outshone by the European market. We certainly have a voice and are a strong contender in the overseas market. And we have a very strong and good relationship with our colleagues at headquarters and they certainly respect us as a market. We deliver what we say we will deliver in terms of our numbers, targets, responsibilities.



Ms Tarr added that Mercedes-Benz Vans Australia was also providing important information about market requirements for the next-generation Sprinter large van that is due to be revealed late next year.



Yes we certainly feedback information. With the new Sprinter we have had a lot of dialogue around what we require as a market. And the differences in the markets so they certainly take that on board. AUSTRALIAN tradies, fishmongers and farmers have helped shape the Mercedes-Benz X-Class ute, with the German automotive giant using the experience of locals to develop its first pick-up.Benz started looking at the viability of a mid-size pick-up back in 2010 and market research kicked up a gear in 2012 before it signed the deal with Renault-Nissan Alliance to share the underpinnings of the NP300 Navara two years later in 2014.During the research phase, Mercedes marketing executives headed Down Under to gain a greater insight into the ever popular pick-up segment, which has since grown to be Australias second-largest market segment behind small passenger cars.Last year combined sales of 4x2 and 4x4 pick-ups hit a record 190,760 units, up from 137,184 sales a decade earlier in 2006.Mercedes-Benz Vans Australia and New Zealand managing director Diane Tarr said the idea behind the local market research was to ensure that any future pick-up would not be Euro centric and that it spoke to and positioned itself to the various audiences that are outside of Europe in the core markets.One of the first experiences was of the headquarters colleagues was waking up at 5:30am and heading down to the fish markets in Sydney, she said at the X-Class international reveal in Cape Town last week.And just literally driving around Sydney, Queensland, Melbourne. They were here for many weeks at various times. There were focus groups, a lot of support from colleagues in engraining the real Australian mindset and ute business. But they spent a lot of time driving around and speaking to accessory developers, so there is a lot from an Australian perspective.Ms Tarr said that the market research work conducted Down Under has helped boost the global standing of the Australian arm within Mercedes-Benz Vans.I think X-Class has presented a greater opportunity for us to have a voice.With X-Class coming into our market and of course increasing our volume position, we definitely see a greater voice in the business. However, when we look at the current vans business now, we are split into Europe and overseas.Already we are not blanketed and outshone by the European market. We certainly have a voice and are a strong contender in the overseas market. And we have a very strong and good relationship with our colleagues at headquarters and they certainly respect us as a market. We deliver what we say we will deliver in terms of our numbers, targets, responsibilities.Ms Tarr added that Mercedes-Benz Vans Australia was also providing important information about market requirements for the next-generation Sprinter large van that is due to be revealed late next year.Yes we certainly feedback information. With the new Sprinter we have had a lot of dialogue around what we require as a market. And the differences in the markets so they certainly take that on board.

Read more 21st of July 2017 Mercedes rules out AMG X-Class  for now Performance-honed Mercedes-AMG X-Class unlikely, but cab-chassis on the way 21st of July 2017 X-Class much more than Navara clone: Mercedes Mercedes execs talk up differences between X-Class and Nissan Navara donor car 19th of July 2017 First look: Mercedes gets tough with X-Class Mercedes-Benz to take on booming ute segment with X-Class range from early 2018 27th of October 2016 Mercedes uses Aussie Ford as ute benchmark Locally developed Ranger, HiLux and Amarok key benchmarks for Mercedes X-Class 26th of October 2016 First look: Mercedes shows off X-Class ute Mercedes previews future X-Class pick-up with pair of concepts in Sweden
IAM names new director

Elizabeth Moss was named executive director of Interfaith Assistance Ministry.

The Board of Directors of Interfaith Assistance Ministry announced Monday that Elizabeth Willson Moss has been hired as IAMs new executive director.

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Moss will fill the vacancy created by David Cooks retirement from the position he has held for 17 years. She start the job on Aug. 14, said Lynn Pope, president of IAM Board of Directors.

The IAM Board of Directors and the Transition Planning Committee conducted a four-month regional search and chose Elizabeth Moss because we believe she possesses a strong connection to our community and the skills to lead the organization into the future, Pope said.

After an award-winning career as a reporter and editor in Florida and Boston and locally at the Times-News after moving to Hendersonville, Moss most recently worked as a fundraiser for the Pardee Hospital Foundation before moving into her role as Director of Community Affairs and Outreach for Pardee UNC Health Care.

We are very proud of the work that Elizabeth has done not only at Pardee, but more importantly, within our broader community, said James M. Kirby, II, CEO and president of Pardee UNC Health Care. In her time at Pardee, I have seen firsthand the deep commitment she has to community involvement and improving the lives of others. She will be missed at Pardee but clearly will be an asset to Interfaith Assistance Ministry in her new role as executive director. We wish her well.

Moss has worked to strengthen the community professionally and as a volunteer during her 19 years in Henderson County. She currently serves as president of the Hendersonville Kiwanis Club and as an elder at First Presbyterian Church of Hendersonville. She is stepping down from her roles as vice chair of Henderson County United Ways Board of Directors, co-chair of Women United, vice chair of Henderson County Recreation Advisory Board, the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce Board, Safelights Board of Directors, the Hendersonville YMCA Advisory Board, Henderson County Partnership for Health, the Athena Committee and Henderson County Education Foundation to focus her efforts on IAMs mission.

I am honored to serve our community by helping IAM continue its vital ministry of lifting up our Henderson County friends and neighbors in times of need, Moss said. I am grateful to follow in the large footsteps of retiring executive director David Cook who has guided IAM on a strong course into the future with a dedicated staff, new state-of-the-art building and a veritable army of volunteers.

Moss lives in Flat Rock and is married to Bill Moss, editor and publisher of the Hendersonville Lightning. They have two grown children.

The mission of IAM is to provide emergency relief to Henderson County residents in financial crisis by offering food, funds, guidance and referrals in an atmosphere of compassion and respect. For more information about IAM, call 697-7029.
After the designation of Syed Salahuddin as global terrorist, the international community is now waking up to the menace of terror funding under the garb of the Kashmir cause. In the latest, Canada has revoked the charity status of ISNA Islamic Services of Canada for non compliance according to the notice given by Canada Revenue Agency. This is the second organisation affiliated to the Islamic Services of North America-Canada (ISNA-Canada) that has been under the scanner of Federal regulators.

Four years ago, another affiliate the ISNA Development Foundation lost its charity status over fundraising for a Pakistani relief group linked to militancy in the disputed Kashmir region.

The Canadian agency took action after the recent audit cited possible funding of Pakistan militant organisation, Hizbul Mujahideen. The money collected by Toronto-based Jami Mosque was further given to ISNA to be sent to organisations that support and fund militants. According to the audit findings which India Today has accessed, the organisation issued donation receipts for a total of USD340,516, under one of three donation categories: Relief, Zakat, or Masjid. The agency added that the funds raised by Jami Mosques Relief fund were collected by the Mosque in cooperation with the Canadian non-profit organisations, with the ultimate goal of sending the raised funds to a Pakistan-based non-governmental organisation entitled the Relief Organization for Kashmiri Muslims (ROKM).

CRA Charities Directorate, the nodal agency, looked into where the funds were going, what was ROKM using it for and wrote in its newly-released records, Our research indicates that ROKM is the charitable arm of Jamaat-e-Islami, a political organization that actively contests the legitimacy of Indias governance over the state of Jammu and Kashmir, including reportedly through the activities of its armed wing Hizbul Mujahideen, the CRA wrote.

Speaking to Mail Today, Sean Craig, a journalist with Global News who has been tracking this story said, In both cases they had their status revoked because the CRA had concerns about the way they had maintained their books which had to do with how they received the charitable donations and of course the most striking of the allegations that they made was that they had through a mosque raised funds remitted to a Kashmiri relief organisation which as is reported has ties with the Hizbul Mujahideen.

Outlining the audit findings in a letter to ISNA Islamic Services , federal officials said Hizbul Mujahideen had been listed as a terrorist organization by the Council of the European Union and the government of India. Adding, Given the identified commonalities in directorship between ROKM and Jamaat-e-Islami and the Hizbul Mujahideen executive committee, concerns exist that the funds collected and disbursed as part of this relief fund may have been used to support the political efforts of Jamaat-e-Islami and/or its armed wing Hizbul Mujahideen.

A timely move that has come about after all the diplomatic engagement by India to reach out to the highest levels of government machinery in the world to impress upon the leadership on the need to freeze funds that forment unrest and back militants. It also helpled matters that Syed Salahuddin, chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, was placed on the US State Departments list of designated terrorists on the 26th of June.

This further emphasises the importance that Canada and India attach to fighting terrorism and comes ahead of Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus visit to India.

The letter from Canada Revenue Agency

Source : India Today
Responsible for driving the pre-opening development of Carpe Diem Beach Resort & Spa, Socrates Alvaro will also oversee the day-to-day operations of the resort and the development of his team. No stranger to the region, Socrates returns to the Maldives 4 years after a previous General Manager posting with Coco Collection ended in 2013. He joins Carpe Diem from prior General Manager roles in Dubai and South East Asia with Emaar Hospitality Group, Aleenta and Minor Hotels. Socrates, who officially started in July, spent his first week inspecting the new island development in Raa Atoll, reviewing the construction and design plans for the 115 pool villa resort and discussing the natural marine and reef diversity with visiting marine biologists from Coral Reef CPR. Located in Raa Atoll, one of a trio of uninhabited islands on the cusp with Raa Atoll, Carpe Diem Beach Resort & Spa is on track to open in Spring 2018. The resorts vast lagoon will be home to a private water park of inflatable slides, which is included in full-board packages and bespoke stays across the 115 pool villas, spa and restaurants.
Swiss-Belhotel International (SBI) has announced the promotion of Herve Peyre as the Area General Manager for Bahrain. Herve has been associated with the group since September 2013 as the General Manager for Swiss-Belhotel Seef Bahrain. Elaborating on Swiss-Belhotel Internationals rapid expansion in Bahrain, Laurent stressed, This latest development is part of our strategy to strengthen our management team in key growth markets such as Bahrain where we have extensive expansion. We will be tripling our inventory of rooms in the Kingdom this year with the opening of two new hotels early next year namely Grand Swiss-Belresort, a 5-star luxury resort and Seef Swiss-Belresidences Juffair, an upper midscale hotel apartment complex. We are confident Herve, with his strong international and regional experience, is the ideal candidate to support our operations on the ground. An MBA from Cornell University in Paris, Herve has had an illustrious career in hospitality starting in 1993 as Assistant Food and Beverage Manager at Hilton Paris. Subsequently he spent 18 years with the Hilton Hotels & Resorts working in various senior executive roles. His last posting with the Hilton group was as General Manager of Hilton Strasbourg in 2011. Prior to joining Swiss-Belhotel Seef Bahrain, Herve was the Cluster General Manager for Flora Creek & Flora Park Deluxe Hotel Apartments in Dubai.
El Segundo, CA  Today, Vagabond Inn Corporation announced the opening of the Vagabond Inn Ridgecrest In Ridgecrest, CA. The new hotel is located at 416 S. China Lake Blvd., Ridgecrest, CA 93555.

In late 2016, Matthew Dees, Vice President of Franchise Development to Vagabond Inn Corporation predicted that the Vagabond Inn collection would grow by 20% in 2017. Vagabond Inn has fulfilled this prediction only halfway through 2017 by signing this Ridgecrest hotel to the Vagabond Inn Brand.

"We feel pretty pleased with how things have gone for us this year," said Scott Pokorny, Director of Franchising to Vagabond Inn Corporation. "We're exceeding our own growth expectations."

"Ridgecrest is a great location to have on our roster," Pokorny also said. "It boosts our presence in the very southern end of central California, and gives us another central California location outside of the central valley."

Ridgecrest serves as a connecting point for a few different minor highways: CA-178, CA-395, and CA-14.

The city lies almost exactly equidistant between the southernmost pints of Death Valley National Park and the Sequoia National Forest. Outdoors-driven tourism often passes through Ridgecrest on the way to one of these two areas. Ridgecrest is located in Kern County, in the southern end of the Indian Wells Valley. It has a hot, dry climate. This is typical of the Indian Wells Valley's position in the high Mojave Desert.

Ridgecrest also butts up against Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake (NAWS). Much of the area's business community revolves around it.

The hotel features an outdoor pool, rooms equipped with air conditioning, free parking, and free high-speed WiFi.

About Vagabond Inn Corporation

Vagabond Inn Corporation,a reputable west coast hotel brand and franchise company, has delivered on its promise of "Great Value, Friendly People" since 1958. With numerous corporate-owned and franchise locations throughout busy markets in the United States,Vagabond Inn provides all the essentials for travelers up and down the west coast. Vagabond Inn Corporation delivers revenue-maximizingservices to hoteliers, including cutting-edge technology, revenue management, reputation management, and digital and traditional marketing. To learn more about the rich history of Vagabond Inn or to book a reservation, visit http://www.VagabondInn.com.

R. R. Graner

Marketing Coordinator

Vagabond Inn Corporation
Traveler Insights Part 1: The Mobile Experience

Technology and social media have changed the expectations for travel. Not only are people looking to spend time on their mobile while traveling, but they also seek a simple, smart and hassle-free experience. Here are some interesting statistics about the modern traveler and their mobile behavior.

According to Google Smarthink Insights on hospitality and travel trends, more travelers than ever before are consulting travel information on their mobile devices. Statistics show that 40% of unique page visits to U.S. travel sites and 60% of destination information searches now come from mobile devices.

Source: hi Inc

Once the traveler has decided on a destination, 70% of them will use smartphones to do research. Searching online is the most common way to discover the brands they ultimately book with and 31% of leisure travelers and 53% of business travelers book travel on a smartphone.

Mobile is also helping people find what they want more quickly. Time spent per session on mobile travel sites is down 7%, while mobile web conversion rates for travel sites have grown 88% in the past year .

According to the global research travel company PhocusWright, mobile travelers in the U.S. are increasingly using smartphones to plan or book a trip. Two in three travelers have either serached or booked a hotel on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet. Nearly half are under the age of 35 years while older travelers are also comfortable traveling with their mobile. Around 69% of mobile travelers feel they can find the same flight and hotel information on a smartphone compared to any other device, and 66% of mobile travelers are comfortable planning or booking a trip with a smartphone. When asked if travel is a very important part of their lifestyle, more mobile travelers strongly agreed than non-mobile travelers, and they took more time on trips and spent more on travel.

Mobile engagement on a deeper level

When looking at Google's concept of the travel customer journey, there is a huge amount of untapped travel intent that marketers can target by addressing "I-want-to-get-away moments." 38% of non-branded searches  like flights to Florida or hotels in Chicago  were done via mobile devices in 2015. Mobile flight-related queries on Google.com are up 33% year-on-year, while mobile hotel queries are up 49%.

Upon arriving at a hotel, a traveler's mobile search behavior is about exploring their unfamiliar surroundings. Mobile queries per user from hotel properties have grown 49% since last year, with many including the phrase "near me."

Source: hi Inc

What to expect from the modern traveler in 2017

Mobile vs Desktop

Based on Phocuswright research, modern day travelers are increasingly using their smartphone to plan future travel and destination purchases. The modern day traveler will use their mobiles more often to book flights and to find the best experiences while at their destination of travel.

However, in the most mature online markets, research shows that travelers are still holding on to entrenched desktop habits when it comes to booking. Hotel and travel providers should consider enhancing the user booking experience of their mobile hotel websites to encourage more users to book on smartphones.

The majority of U.S. travel bookings will not be booked on mobile in 2017. Despite the preference of the modern traveler for using mobile in reality, users still get on a desktop to make final bookings as hospitality and travel providers have yet to make a mark in mobile commerce.

Rise of In-Destination Travel

Based on statistics from the U.S., online market, in-destination travel activities from North America, Europe and Asia combined are valued at USD112 billion, making it a significant emerging segment of opportunity for both hotels and travel operators.

More importantly, the modern traveler is now booking online activities at their travel destination with mobile through search. U.S. mobile travelers who have researched local activities on their smartphone increased by 24% from 2015 to 2016.

Source: hi Inc

With mobile becoming the natural platform for modern travelers to do on-the-go transactions related to travel activities, it's quite clear that hotels must quickly adopt mobile concierge services for their guests.

Sources:

Destinations on Google Data, U.S., Jan 2016. Google/Ipsos MediaCT, "The 2015 Traveler's Road to Decision" Google Analytics, U.S. data from May 2014 to May 2015 Eyefortravel - Mobile in Travel report series 2016-2017 Phocuswright - 2017 - Phocus Forward The year ahead in travel

handy Press
Businesses everywhere seek to retain key staff, but it turns out that one successful strategy can be found in the Beatles' song, 'All You Need Is Love'. A study that focuses on employee job satisfaction finds that loving family support is critical to encouraging workers to stay in their jobs. Beyond that, a second study outlines the importance of manager support for a balance between work and family responsibilities.

In a study entitled, 'A matter of love: Exploring what enables work-family enrichment,' I worked with Mireia las Heras and Maria Jose Bosch to survey 157 people in Spain, as well as conduct a series of interviews of three groups representing the highest family enrichment scores, middling scores, and low scores. Our sample included highly-educated dual-income couples with relatively well-paid jobs.

As we identified the contributors to enrichment, one factor emerged above all. This resource, which we labeled "agape love," is only generated in the family role. Agape love is characterized by loving (and being loved by) others unconditionally and giving of oneself. Other aspects of agape love include exclusivity and a long-term perspective in which one understands a partner's needs, thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Additional home resources thus generated include couple congruence, parenting experience, and share of caring responsibilities.

To test this newly-identified aspect of work-family balance, we conducted a quantitative survey of 302 employees at a firm in Chile. The results of this study confirmed that family-to-work enrichment is driven by such factors as love from one's spouse and love for children.

We also found, however, that a person's intrinsic motivation modifies this relationship. Here's how that works: when individuals are highly energized by intrinsic motives, love in the family is less relevant in making a difference in the workplace. Indeed, we found a strong direct relationship between intrinsic motivation and family-to-work enrichment.

Our findings in this first study point to family-supportive policies in the workplace. However, a second study reinforces this idea by specifically identifying the importance of support from managers.

This study, which I conducted with Mireia Las Heras and Pablo I. Escribano, focused directly on the effect of satisfaction with work-family balance and turnover intentions. We conducted a study of 340 individuals working for multinational companies operating in Argentina. As I explain below, we concluded that family-supportive environments in organizations facilitate greater satisfaction with work-family experiences, and, in turn, this drives lower intentions to leave the company.

Underlying this study is the idea of social-exchange relationships. Such relationships go beyond tangible or quantifiable rewards to include exchanges of socially-relevant rewards. The exchange in this case includes things like gaining social status and recognition in exchange for loyalty, commitment, and involvement.

Once again, employees' satisfaction with work-family balance is an important factor in their favorable feelings towards their job  and those favorable feelings make it less likely for workers to look elsewhere for employment. We note that satisfaction with work-family balance comprises three aspects: time, involvement, and overall satisfaction. Thus, the balance includes an equal amount of time dedicated to work and family roles, an equal level of psychological involvement in work and family roles, and an equal level of satisfaction with work and family roles.

We wanted to find out whether employees in our study believed that their firm maintained a family-supportive environment, and whether their supervisor specifically supported a balance between work and family. So, to address supervisor support, for example, we asked them to rate the following statement: "My supervisor is willing to listen to my problems in juggling work and non-work life." And to get a sense of whether their firm had a family-supportive environment, we asked them to evaluate the following proposition (which scores in reverse): "To get ahead at this organization, employees are expected to work more than 50 hours a week, whether at the workplace or at home." Finally, we asked them about their satisfaction with work-family balance and about their turnover intentions.

We found that supportive supervisor behavior was significantly related to a work-family-friendly culture. Although these factors significantly reduced turnover intentions, this turnover-reducing effect was noticeably magnified by satisfaction with work-family balance.

In summary, we concluded that employees no longer want their employer to determine how they will focus their attention, energy, and time, with no consideration of balance between work and family, and little thought given to employees' own preferences. The good news for employers in this study is that employees who are allowed to decide how to allocate their own resources best are more committed to their jobs. Combining this idea with our first study, we find a virtuous cycle of mutual support between work and home and family

EHL Hospitality Business School

Communications Department

+41 21 785 1354

EHL

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Social Media Marketing in the Hotel Industry: Trends and Opportunities in 2017

As social media platforms gain traction in usage rates and become ubiquitous in day-to-day life through the proliferation of mobile devices, they are proving to be valuable marketing channels, especially when targeting younger consumers. Although several prominent hotel brands have begun to scratch the surface of utilizing these social media channels for marketing and bookings, the state of this practice in North America is in its infancy. Other technology giants around the world have already capitalized on this opportunity with their social-media, mobile-adept user base. Nonetheless, the mass adoption of digital payment in North America is likely to take place in the near future given that technology companies are actively working out the technological and legislative challenges. The advent of digital payment has the potential to create new challenges for the North American hotel industry, but with these challenges comes opportunities for those who have done their groundwork.

Hoteliers should embrace the new ways people are communicating and be ready for the changes in consumer behavior and expectations that are on the horizon. By being up to date with social media marketing trends and developing a dynamic online presence, hotel companies can quickly adapt to the disruption and achieve an early adopter advantage when attracting business from tech-savvy millennials.

Mobile Device & Social Media Growth

Globally, the number of mobile device subscriptions has seen exponential growth over the past decade. At the end of 2016, there were 4.8 billion unique mobile subscribers65% of the world's population. By 2020, it is estimated that there will be 5.7 billion mobile subscribers, representing a mobile phone penetration rate of 73%. The growth in mobile device usage has transformed the travel and tourism industry; travel bookings are increasingly occurring through mobile devices. Consumer engagement has begun to shift towards mobile platforms, and rightfully so; the vast reach and worldwide interconnectivity of mobile devices make them a suitable platform for commerce. As mobile device penetration rates strengthen globally, consumer engagement through this platform is only expected to strengthen.

Social media usage is likewise on the rise. Today, digital consumers are spending more time on social networks and messaging platforms than ever before. It is thus important for hotels to have a brand presence and a marketing effort on social media channels, especially since social media marketing has been proven to be more effective than traditional marketing (when utilized correctly). Social media marketing allows for two-way communication between consumers and customers; this interactive element helps companies cement a long-term consumer following. Additionally, social media marketing supports the real-time promotion of new products and services, all while yielding measurable consumer data that can be further leveraged to target, engage, and grow a base of consumers.

Popular social media networksFacebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchatare steadily growing on a global scale. The following chart shows the number of active users over time on each of these social media networks. Most of these social media networks have achieved stellar year-over-year growth in daily active users; the only exception is Twitter, whose user-growth trajectory seems to have plateaued. With the rapid growth in these social media channels, the pool of potential consumers that they provide access to is also growing in tandem. Significantly, all of these potential consumers are directly accessible through marketing on these channels.

Social Media Marketing in the Hotel Industry: Trends and Opportunities in 2017 | By Jimmy Quach Photo by HVS

New Opportunities from the Rise of Consumer Sharing

Digital media is ever moving towards greater consumer empowerment and content creation given the ease with which digital media (particularly photos and videos) can be transmitted through mobile platforms and the internet. As part of sharing their own content and experiences through pictures and videos, users are also spreading digital word-of-mouth about a brand, a product, or an experience to their personal networks, which can reach a substantial audience. Geo-locational tags and brand hashtags allow user posts to be found via metadata searches, thereby increasing the reach of such posts.

Hotels can capitalize on this trend by motivating consumers to use branded hashtags or specific hashtags that are relevant to a current promotion or event. For example, Starwood hotels launched a campaign in 2016 to encourage the #SPGLife branded hashtag on Instagram. Posts with this hashtag feed into the Starwood website's guest gallery of user-generated content, where visitors can also book a hotel room directly via a link. A simple hashtag is effective because it allows users to easily discover related content through a search filter.

Influencer Marketing

In influencer marketing, an individual's expertise, popularity, or reputation is used to sway someone's thoughts and purchasing behavior. Although this method of marketing has been used for decades, the rise of social media platforms that allow for user-generated content has empowered more people from all walks of life to become influencers. Additionally, social media platforms have an added a layer of measurability to influencer marketing that go beyond mere conversions/sales, such as cost per thousand impressions (CPM), inbound links, and lead growth (number of followers, social mentions, etc.). With these added metrics, businesses can more accurately identify their return on investment against marketing dollars spent.

In 2015, Starwood Hotels experimented with Snapchat geofilters at some of its W Hotels to see how guests would use them. Geofilters allow users of Snapchat to add a sponsor-created geolocational tag to their photo or video message (coined "Snap") that can only be used when sending a Snap within a sponsor-defined geographical area (e.g., within a 10-metre radius of the hotel). The usage rates and number of views for the geofilters were well above what Starwood had anticipated, indicating that Snapchat may be a viable option for future brand marketing initiatives.



Social Media Marketing in the Hotel Industry: Trends and Opportunities in 2017 | By Jimmy Quach Photo by HVS

Marriott Hotels recently launched a Snapchat campaign that features social influencers who created organic content on the brand's Snapchat account to showcase the brand's loyalty program and several hotels around the world. The social influencers also used their own Snapchat accounts to broadcast their experience to their followers, hoping to create brand awareness among millennial travellers in the process.

Opportunities for Personalization

Within the hospitality industry, improved personalization is coterminous with a higher level of service. As such, hotel companies are attempting to personalize communications by interacting with consumers through their mobile device. Mobile phones are often perceived as an extension of an individual, or as an intimate partner that accompanies a person into almost every aspect of daily life. Reaching an individual through their mobile phone thus has the benefit of seeming like a personal interaction. To capture this opportunity for more personalized interaction, hotel companies must become phone-friendly and create the infrastructure necessary to allow guests to interact with the hotel easily and meaningfully through their mobile device.

Personalization through the mobile phone ecosystem and social media platforms is constantly evolving. Personalization can occur on a broad level, such as an interaction between a brand's social media channel and a consumer account, or on a more granular level, such as communication between a hotel guest and the hotel's guest services team through a messaging application. From an advertising standpoint, several social media platforms have launched dynamic advertising whereby a consumer's recent travel searches will trigger personalized advertisements, which present a touchpoint for possible consumer conversion (by a direct hotel booking, for example). This represents a critical opportunity for hotel companies, particularly since the use of online travel agents (OTAs) diminishes the profitability of a hotel. In 2016, IHG began using Dynamic Ads on Facebook to target "high-potential" customers with personalized advertisementsand live pricingbased on searches, which yielded an increase in the brand's ability to reach relevant travellers and a lower cost per booking. In the big picture, social media channels are beneficial to hotel companies because they offer an opportunity to create personalized interactions with consumers, which can be leveraged to yield more direct online bookings.

Digital Payment Platforms: A New Opportunity

With the proliferation of mobile devices and internet access around the world, the use of digital payment has seen accelerated growth. According to Allied Market Research, "the global mobile payments market is estimated to reach $3,388 billion by 2022, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 33.4% from 2016 to 2022," with the AsiaPacific region accounting for most of this growth. The North American market, although far from mass adoption, is amenable to digital payment. Based on the 2016 North American Consumer Digital Payments Survey, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of digital payment options, and American consumers responded that they foresee being more likely to use mobile payment apps and mobile wallet apps in 2020 than in 2016.

For the North American hotel industry, the projected adoption of digital payment, along with the growth of social media users, is an opportunity for direct booking and quicker conversions directly through mobile devices. In China, for example, mobile payment has already become part of daily lifethe country is advanced in this area relative to North America. The two major digital payment platforms in use there, WeChat Wallet and Alipay Wallet, have enabled digital payment through mobile devices and have had incredible success in adoption; this form of payment is accepted at almost all vendors in major cities. Notably, WeChat has evolved from a person-to-person messaging application to an all-in-one social-media, messaging, and digital-wallet application. The integration of a mobile digital wallet into the social media and messaging application has allowed users to send money to each other and/or make purchases entirely through the WeChat ecosystem. Through the account feed of a vendor, users can pay for not only restaurants and retail purchases but also such things as utility bills and public services, all through their mobile wallet. Through WeChat, vendors are able to offer discounts or reward loyalty points, thereby further incentivizing the use of the channel. For example, the Kempinski Hotel in Chengdu has launched a function that allows direct bookings through its official WeChat account and also provides a discount or an amenity to those using this channel. In the case of WeChat, hoteliers were able to directly tap into a pool of daily active consumers and generate conversions through the social media messaging platform.

In North America, digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, and PayPal exist; however, mobile users lag in adoption. Traditional forms of payment, such as cards, are not yet seen as "broken," so many consumers don't see a need for change. As digital payment adoption is expected to grow in future years, it is important for hotel brands to keep up with consumer expectations. Given that the evolution of messaging applications into mobile-purchasing ecosystems has already started, hotel companies need to be in a position to provide digital payment options in anticipation of the change in consumer behavior, especially since this will be key to protecting the online reputation of the company. In Canada, a 2016 study into mobile wallet usage by the Nielsen Company found that 76% of respondents would switch to a mobile wallet as their primary mode of payment if all reward programs would honour mobile transactions, 75% would make such a change if more merchants accepted mobile transactions, and 74% would do so if rewards programs and mobile wallets could be integrated to redeem rewards instantly. Therefore, an opportunity may exist for hotel companies to integrate their rewards programs with digital payment.

In North America, hotels are slow in the adoption of mobile payment platforms that take the form of a digital wallet. Nonetheless, several hotel brands have implemented the use of messaging platforms that allow guests to interact with customer service agents and even property-specific guest service agents, and also book directly (but without digital wallet capabilities). Through brand-specific native applications, third-party applications, and established messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, hotel brands are experimenting with personalized guest communication, which will likely lead to a more seamless adoption of mobile payment at a later date. In 2014, for example, Starwood Hotels launched "Let's Chat," which allows guests to communicate with the company's guest service team at more than 150 properties worldwide through WhatsApp, BlackBerry Messenger, or iMessage at any time, from anywhere.

Social Media Marketing in the Hotel Industry: Trends and Opportunities in 2017 | By Jimmy Quach Photo by HVS

Moreover, Hyatt hotels was the first to provide customer service through the Facebook Messenger platform following the launch of Facebook's Businesses on Messenger in 2015. Through the platform, Hyatt customer-service agents can help with bookings worldwide, and also respond to guest requests.

Social Media Marketing in the Hotel Industry: Trends and Opportunities in 2017 | By Jimmy Quach Photo by HVS

Hotel brands clearly see an opportunity in tapping into the vast user base among these messaging platforms, and they are beginning to implement these platforms as a means of communicating with guests. The personal experience of messaging builds loyalty and guest engagement even as the messaging platform serves as another vehicle for direct bookings; however, the mobile ecosystem in North America has not gained as much traction as other markets internationally. Nonetheless, the continued growth of mobile devices and social media users is expected to align with digital payment in the near future, thereby connecting a pool of potential consumers with seamless mobile purchasing platforms once digital payments become mainstream.

Conclusion

The tactics and tools employed in social media marketing within the hotel industry are constantly evolving. Companies that are early adopters of new social media marketing tools hope to gain an edge over the competition; being first to the plate can yield success, but it is not without risk, both of failure and of squandered resources. For hoteliers to remain relevant in this dynamic field, it is essential to understand the pulse of current technology trends within the hotel industry, and be prepared for changes in consumer behaviour. A positive outlook remains for the hotel industry as companies continue to expand their scope of social media marketing. Meanwhile, the mass market is inexorably moving towards the adoption of digital payment; its anticipated convergence with social media and messaging platforms will generate new opportunities for personalization, engagement, and conversion.

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During their summer break, 310 hospitality teachers from 129 vocational schools and universities in 23 Chinese provinces attended the annual China Hospitality Education Initiative (CHEI) Teaching Conference. Held at the Shenzhen Marriott Hotel Nanshan on July 11-14, the conference was themed Collaboration: Together is Better!

CHEI is a project of The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation that offers a portfolio of programs, including the teaching conference, to enhance hospitality education. Many educators in China have limited exposure to real-world hospitality operations. They also have few opportunities to network with industry professionals, academic experts or peers. The conference brings industry and academia together and offers workshops and activities that enable attendees to network, experience hotel operations first-hand, and gain knowledge and resources to incorporate into their classrooms to better prepare students for career success.

CHEI has grown exponentially and primarily by word of mouth, said Anne Gunsteens, executive director of The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation. We were thrilled this year to welcome teachers from 129 schools. Our conference theme of collaboration was brought to life by speakers from Marriott International; San Diego State University, universities in China, Singapore and the United States; STR (Smith Travel Research) and Culinary Institute of America. CHEI is proud to help elevate academic hospitality and tourism programs by providing professional development resources for teachers.

Conference attendees included school presidents and government officials. Craig S. Smith, Marriott Internationals president and managing director of Asia Pacific, and Chairman Yao, the host hotels owner, attended the closing gala celebration to network with educators and show their support.

Each year, the conference hotel staff transforms the venue into a learning laboratory that engages the teachers in exciting, educational activities that offer insights into hotel operations and event planning, said Joy Dong, CHEI project director. This year, associates from different hotel departments choreographed performances to entertain and inspire educators about various aspects of hotel operations.

Teachers gain knowledge and resources to use in classrooms

A visionary project of The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, CHEI was developed in partnership with global academic and industry advisors, including San Diego State University and Marriott International. CHEIs goal is to enhance hospitality education in China to better prepare students for meaningful hospitality and tourism careers, improving the socio-economic status of youth.

CHEI was initially funded with a commitment of RMB 40.5 million (USD 6.5 million) in 2013. Since then, more than 800 educators have participated in CHEI train the teacher programsthe only such programs in China. These educators are having an impact on more than 100,000 hospitality students. CHEI programs include:

Faculty internships in hotels

Field trips to hospitality venues

Guest lectures on campus

Hospitality curriculum and resources

Regional teaching forums

International fellowships

Annual teaching conference

School visiting and demonstration classes

Quotes from conference attendees:

It is very important to attract students to the hospitality and tourism industry in China, said President Cui Dong, College of Arts and Sciences, Jinghan University. This conference inspires me to think differently. The interactive, western teaching methods we learn through CHEI are transforming the way teachers teach and students learn. With better teachers, our students are better prepared for career success.

CHEIs success demonstrates great potential and prosperity for the future. The conference bridges the gap between schools and enterprises, improving their cooperation, said Party Chief Lei Zhong Liang, Guangzhou Institute of Railway Technology. CHEI focuses on teachers first, to improve their capabilities aligned with the current requirements of academia in China.

Workshops were content rich and created great excitement among the educators, said President Wang Yuan Hao, Anhui Zhong-Ao Institute of Technology. I believe all schools in China with hospitality programs want to participate in CHEI to achieve the same goal: enhance hospitality and tourism education and better develop students for the industry.

The conference creates a terrific enrichment opportunity for teachers to learn and exchange information with peers from across China, said Dean Zhong Liping, College of Arts and Sciences, Jinghan University. The teaching methodologies learned through CHEI will build a bridge between teachers and students to enhance hospitality and tourism education.

Originally launched as a five-year project, the Marriott Foundation has committed to provide support for another five years. During this time, CHEI intends to continue to build on its success, further localize programs and increase its capacity to meet the growing demand for CHEI programs from schools across mainland China. Visit www.chei.org for more information about CHEI programs.
Today TGI Fridays, Oracle and Mastercard announced the launch of Bar Tab at their Leicester Square location. Bar Tab is a new function within Mastercards Qkr! payment app that allows consumers to set up, manage and pay bar tabs using their smartphones. The application will be integrated into Oracle Hospitalitys restaurant management platform and Masterpass, the digital payment service. After todays initial debut, TGI Fridays plans to deploy the app to 80 additional locations in the UK by the end of 2017.

Customers can easily manage their tab through a designated four-digit PIN that connects orders in the restaurant management software to the Qkr! payment account. This means customers can easily manage the rounds that they are in with friends and split the bill. There is no need to hand over a payment card to bar staff, and no need to use a card machine.

Were always looking for ways to improve the unique Fridays experience for our guests, said Jeremy Dunderdale, Head of Business Solutions, TGI Fridays UK. With Bar Tab, were able to offer our diners the freedom to settle their bills on-demand, with this quicker and more convenient payment platform. Enabling self-service payments also allows our team members to focus on engaging guests in more meaningful ways  which is what were all about at Fridays.

Betty DeVita, Chief Commercial Officer for Mastercard Labs, said: Nobody wants to hand over their card to a bartender. Your card should be with you at all times, so its natural for people to leave a pub without having closed their tab. This is a common problem we wanted to solve through Qkr. For bar staff themselves we have removed the headache of card storage and admin.

Oracle Hospitalitys restaurant management platform allows the food and beverage industry to innovate by creating a single view of operations, said Dale Grant, Senior Vice President Food and Beverage Oracle Hospitality. With Oracle Hospitality solutions at the core, restaurants and bars can easily integrate additional solutions like Mastercards Qkr payments platform to reinvent their customer experience. By implementing Bar Tab, TGI Fridays can now offer its customers a quicker, more convenient experience that empowers staff to provide more welcoming bar experiences while reducing the number of unpaid tabs at the end of the night.

About Oracle Hospitality

Oracle Hospitality develops hardware and software solutions that work together to help produce tailored guest service for hotels and F&B establishments. By addressing every facet of the business, Oracle Hospitality solutions help optimize operations across the board to deliver the speed, agility and efficiency required to meet customers unique needs.

About Mastercard

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the worlds fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities  such as shopping, travelling, running a business and managing finances  easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardUKBiz, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.

About TGI Fridays

TGI Fridays offers authentic, contemporary, and full-flavoured American food, signature cocktails, and a lively, personalised experience. With a continually evolving menu overseen by award-winning executive chef Terry McDowell, its the perfect stop for free-poured, personalised cocktails served by Fridays Master Bartenders, a quick tasty bite, or a longer dinner with friends. Fridays opened its first UK restaurant in Birmingham in March 1986. There are now 80 Fridays open in the UK.

For more information visit www.tgifridays.co.uk or www.fridays.com. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or visit our YouTube channel.

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
How to Ready Your Company for Potential Overtime Pay Changes

Posted by Tania Fiero on Wednesday, 07-19-2017 4:29 pm

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Does your company pay overtime? If so, now is a good time to pay attention to politics. In May, the House of Representatives approved theWorkingFamilies Flexibility Act of 2017 (H.R. 1180)by a 229-to-197 margin. Introduced by Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL), the bill would allow employers to offer paid time off instead of time-and-a-half pay for overtime work to eligible hourly and salaried nonexempt employees. The Senate has received the bill but has yet to vote on it. President Donald Trump has endorsed the bill. Unsurprisingly, the House vote was split along party lines, with all Democrats and six Republicans in opposition.Rep. Roby and other Republican lawmakers arguethat, if passed into law, the proposal would expand employees' compensation choices. Democrats and employee groupsworry the billcould allow employers to avoid paying overtime. A Win-Win Bill? Although the bill is now in the Senate's hands, the House version could benefit employers and employees. Still, Democrats and...

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ICMCP Adds Two Senior Level Leaders to Executive Staff

Posted by Press Releases on Monday, 07-24-2017 4:15 am

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FBI Veteran Mary Chaney and Lynx Technology Partners Co-founder David Elcock join ICMCP to help achieve the mission of Bridging the Great Minority Cyber DivideNORTH HALEDON, NJ (PRWEB) JULY 20, 2017The International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals (ICMCP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mary Chaney as Vice President and David Elcock as Executive Director.The board is excited to have Mary and David amongst the ICMCP executive leadership, said Aric K. Perminter, President at ICMCP. Their experience, knowledge of the organization, and vision for the future are vital to the organization as we work with our 1,500 members to strengthen and preserve services to underrepresented women and minorities in the fast-growing field of cybersecurity.Ms. Chaney brings with her to ICMCP a wealth of experience within the cybersecurity industry, having spent over 20 years in the fields of information security, privacy, and risk management. She graduated from Xavier Unive...

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Lucas Group Launches Together, We Own D.C. Campaign

Posted by Press Releases on Monday, 07-24-2017 2:54 pm

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Customer-focused campaign gives Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia companies a competitive edge for talent recruitment with free educational resources.Executive recruitment firm Lucas Group announced the launch of its new customer engagement campaign, Together, We Own D.C..The three-month campaign reaffirms Lucas Groups strong commitment to providing customer-centric recruiting solutions tailored to the dynamic Washington, D.C. market, including companies based in Northern Virginia and central Maryland.D.C. is a fast-paced, dynamic city with a crop of ambitious, rising stars, says Chief Marketing Officer Scott Smith. These professionals seek out high-performing companies that will support their career trajectories. Thanks to the strong regional economy, these top performers can afford to be selective. Were working side-by-side with companies to source this in-demand talent that will fuel continued growth.Lucas Groups Washington, D.C. practice focuses on Accounting & Fi...

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Who Wants to Be a Recruiting Metric-Aire?

Posted by Maren Hogan on Monday, 07-24-2017 9:11 am

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If youve been in HR for any amount of time, you know that people want to hear about metrics. Whether its a vendor telling you about their metric heavy dashboard, a VP of talent acquisition spouting the metrics she watches, or a recruiting admin trying to make sense of the numbers his boss is throwing at him, metrics are a big part of the job. Like marketing, recruiting has its own vanity metrics. For example, while traffic to a job board might seem like an important metric on which to base a purchasing decision, its just an impressive number that may have little to do with the requirements you are ultimately able to fulfill using that platform. So what are the metrics that matter and how do we know theyre so effective? To answer that question, we turned toCarol Gordon, vice president of talent acquisition at IBM, to explain what these metrics are, why theyre important, and then how to calculate them on your own. Ive got three:speed to hire,quality of hire, andthe hiring ex...

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A little context is critical here.

It would be too easy to dismiss Donald Trump's Commission on Electoral Integrity as superfluous evidence of the intellectual erosion of the Republican Party. As a Twitter observer @LOLGOP quipped last week when the commission held its first meeting: "All the evidence in the world won't get the GOP to accept climate change but no evidence is necessary to stop black people from voting."

And yes, the hypocrisy is staggering. Scientific consensus, Miami Beach flooding, record heat and a chunk of ice the size of Delaware breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf are not enough to convince President Dumpster Fire and his party to get serious about climate change. Meantime, a few dubious anecdotes of voting irregularities get us a presidential commission furrowing its brows over a "problem" that does not exist.

But the truth is, hypocritical is the least bad thing this is. Which brings us back to context.

Consider, for instance, the rise over the last 10 years of photo ID laws, putatively designed to keep ineligible people from voting.

Never mind that this happens only slightly more frequently than Darth Vader dances the Macarena. Never mind, too, the alarms raised by observers who point out that poor people are less likely to have -- or be readily able to obtain -- such IDs.

Further context is found in the Supreme Court's 2013 evisceration of the Voting Rights Act. The VRA, enacted to fight the systematic denial of the ballot to African-American voters, required states that had engaged in this practice to get federal permission before changing their election laws. The Republican appointees on the court united to strike this provision down.

Still more context: the ongoing resistance in Republican states like Florida, Kentucky and Iowa to allowing ex-felons to vote. Mind you, having once served time does not exempt you from a duty to pay taxes, but, in many places, it does rob you of the right to have a say in how those taxes are spent.

It is no mystery who these and other restrictions are designed to hurt. After all, the populations most likely to be affected, including African Americans and the poor, are those most likely to vote for Democrats. But if deductive reasoning is not enough to sway you, there's also the fact that a Republican is occasionally impolitic enough to admit the chicanery outright.

A party official from North Carolina bragged in 2013 that the state's photo ID law would keep "lazy blacks" and others from voting. "The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt," Don Yelton told "The Daily Show."

In a sense, you can't fault Republicans for this. The GOP is built on appealing to older, straight, white, Christian voters. What do you expect the party to do when faced with a rising electorate of rainbow colors, ages, religious philosophies and sexual identities? Change? Broaden? Be serious.

It is only mildly hyperbolic to describe what is happening here as a soft coup -- the theft of legitimate power by illegitimate means. The GOP has inflicted calculated violence on a core American creed that says we all have a voice and all our voices deserve to be heard.

Apparently, that's something Republicans no longer believe. And this new panel cannot help but have a chilling effect on non-GOP voters -- precisely what it is intended to do. Too bad the party is not serious about ferreting out threats to the integrity of our elections.

It would not have to look far.
Hyderabad, Jul 24 (IBNS): City of the Nizams, Hyderabad in India, will host the World Congress of Optometry in September this year where experts from various related fields will meet to discuss 'Accessible, quality vision and eye health'.

The World Congress will be held from Sep 11-13 this year at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, and will see experts address issues of blindness, refractive error, and vision care as an integral component of public health.

This years theme ties into the WHO Universal Eye Health: A global action plan 2014 - 2019, part of a target to reduce the prevalence of avoidable visual impairment by 25% by 2019.

One of the ways to accomplish this is to have in place a strong and equitable eye health system within which optometry plays a valuable and essential role, said the organisers. Preventable blindness and eye care delivery as a public health issue is of paramount importance for tackling the problem.

The Congress will be hosted by the World Council of Optometry, Asia Pacific Council of Optometry and the India Vision Institute (IVI).

Professor Kovin Naidoo, CEO, Brien Holden Vision Institute, is the conferene chair. He is associated with several universities, including in Australia and the US.

Professor Naidoo said, "This conference brings together world leading experts in Public Health and clinical care. The program is aimed at addressing the twin challenges of quality care and access."

"We are really glad to host this in India as India has made tremendous strides in terms of creating access through civil society organisations and the government. Concurrently, Optometry is growing at a rapid pace in India and the challenge of quality of care is brought into increased focus," Professor Naidoo added.

IVI CEO Vinod Daniel said, "With 100 million Indians suffering from blindness-related ailments, including uncorrected refractive error - and around 10 million children with the problem, the Congres could not have come to the country at a better time. It will not only highlight and raise awareness of issues, but will also further the important strides made by India to improve both access to vision care and reduce avoidable blindness."

"The Congress will deliberate key issues of preventable blindness, skill development and training optometrists and vision care delivery as an integral element of public health," he said.

The first World Congress was held in Medellin (Colombia) in 2015.

Image: WCOwebsite
Kolkata, July 24 (IBNS): Championing the importance of womenas contributions to the growth and development of aviation, aviation major Emirates recently hosted Shaesta Waiz for a Boeing 777 simulator challenge in its home base of Dubai.

Waiz is the founder and pilot of Dreams Soar, Inc. (DSI), a non-profit organization, whose mission is to inspire and empower young females to become the next generation of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and aviation professionals, through a global outreach mission.

The outreach includes a global solo flight mission, where Waiz is piloting a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza A36 to circumnavigate the globe.



Waiz stopped in Dubai, one of 34 stops across 18 countries in her five continent journey which will clock in just under 47,000 kilometres upon completion.

Shaesta was met at Emirates Aviation College by Bakhita Al Muheiri, Emirates Boeing 777 First Officer, to test her aerial skills in an Emirates Boeing 777 simulator.



Bakhita is one of Emirates youngest female Emirati pilots at 24 years. She earned her wings in 2016 and has accumulated over 1,100 flying hours after completing the airlines National Cadet Pilot Programme.

After a short briefing, Shaesta and Bakhita began their simulator challenge in the Boeing 777 cockpit, taking-off, landing and piloting each assigned journey. Watch both pilots command the Boeing 777 simulator and share their personal experiences here.

Adel Al Redha, Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer Emirates airline said: Through our National Cadet Pilot Programme, we want to grow the next generation of female pilots, by creating an environment that retains, nurtures and values them so they are able to progress and take a wider role within our industry. We also believe that one of the ways to support the need for pilots today is to tap into the female talent pool and inspire them to take their career path into aviation which is one of the most rewarding fields."

Bakhita Al Muheiri also commented on the simulator experience with Shaesta: I am truly inspired by Shaestas story. As the first civilian female pilot from Afghanistan, she has demonstrated that the world is full of possibilities and when we expose females to a wide range of careers in STEM and aviation we boost their interest to enter fast-moving sectors with a wealth of opportunities.

Commenting on her twin engine Boeing 777 simulator challenge, Shaesta said: An airplane doesn't know if you are a girl or boy, what your religion or background is. It reacts based on the input of the pilot. My hope from the time I spent flying the Boeing 777 simulator with Bakhita, learning of her empowering story, and Emirates helping to pave the way for many more young women, is for more role models to devote their time and energy inspiring our next generation. Let us work together and expend our resources to create brighter futures for our tomorrow.
Srinagar, Jul 24 (IBNS): Kashmir Police stated that at least six Lashkar-e-Toiba militants were arrested from Srinagar city along with arms and ammunition on Sunday evening.

According to sources, acting on a tip-off, Srinagar police laid a cordon at Tangpora bypass, on an outskirt area of Srinagar, summer capital of the state, on Sunday evening.

During searches six youths believed to be Lashkar-e-Toiba workers have been arrested along with an AK-47 and other ammunition,' a police officer said.

"Two vehicles have also been seized, the officer added.

The official termed the arrest of the six LeT activists as a major success, as the members were scheduled to meet their counterparts in north Kashmir as part of an arms deal.

Meanwhile, police have registered a case and have started further investigations.

(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)


Ethiopian Airlines make emergency landing at IGI airport in Delhi India Blooms News Service | | #EthiopianAirlines, # EmergencyLanding, # IGIAirport

New Delhi, July 24 (IBNS) An Ethiopian Airlines plane on Monday made an emergency landing in New Delhias Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport following a technical snag in the air.
Thiruvananthapuram, July 24 (IBNS): Malayalam actor Dileep, who was arrested over alleged abduction and molestation of an actress, was denied bail by the High Court on Monday, media reports said.

Dileep, consequently, will have to stay in the judicial custody.

The actor was earlier denied bail by the the Angamaly Judicial First Class Magistrate Court.

The special prosecutor argued in the court that the accused would destroy the evidences against him, if he was granted bail.

The actress, who shared screen with Dileep in several films, stated in her complaint that she was abducted on the night of Feb 19 this year while she was travelling from Thrissur to Kochi.

She alleged that she was molested and her pictures taken by the abductors who later dropped her by the roadside near the house of a film producer, according to media reports.

The actress also named Sunil Kumar or Pulsar Suni as the leader of the gang who abducted her, in her police complaint, reports suggested.

Sunil was later arrested by the police.

Image: File.
New Delhi, Jul 24 (IBNS) : Minister of State for Minority Affairs (Independent Charge) & Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday morning flagged off the first batch of 300 Haj pilgrims from New Delhi Airport with prayers of countryas safety and prosperity.

Naqvi congratulated the Haj pilgrims and extended best wishes to them for their pilgrimage.

He said that the Ministry of Minority Affairs in cooperation with Haj Committee of India and other concerned agencies, had completed preparations for Haj 2017 well before in time to ensure smooth Haj pilgrimage.

Naqvi said that new Haj Policy 2018 will be finalised soon and Haj from next year will be organised according to this new Haj policy. A high-level committee constituted in this regard will soon submit its report.

The new Haj policy is aimed at making Haj process transparent and smooth.

Naqvi also said that reviving the option of sending Haj pilgrims through sea route also is part of the new Haj policy.

Sending pilgrims through ships will help cut down travel expenses by nearly half as compared to airfares. It will be a revolutionary, pro-poor, pilgrim-friendly decision, he added.

The practice of ferrying Haj pilgrims between Mumbai and Jeddah by waterways was stopped from 1995.

Naqvi said that another advantage with ships available these days is they are modern and well-equipped to ferry 4,000 to 5,000 persons at a time. They can cover the 2,300-odd nautical miles one-side distance between Mumbai and Jeddah within just two-three days. Earlier, the old ships used to take 12 to 15 days to cover this distance.

Saudi Arabia has increased annual Haj quota of India by 34,005. After significant increase in Indias Haj quota by Saudi Arabia Government, a total of 1,70,025 people have been going to Haj pilgrimage this year from India out of which 1,25,025 pilgrims will go through Haj Committee of India while 45,000 people will go through Private Tour Operators from 21 embarkation points. 1628 Haj pilgrims will go from Delhi. A total of 16,600 people will go from Delhi embarkation point which include Haj pilgrims from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.

Besides Delhi, Haj pilgrims are going to Saudi Arab today from embarkation points in Goa, Guwahati, Lucknow, Mangalore, Varanasi, Srinagar and Kolkata today. Haj Flights will also go from Gaya (27 July), Ranchi, Kolkata, Bhopal and Bangalore ( August eight), Nagpur ( August ten), Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Chennai, Cochin & Jaipur ( August 13 ) and Indore and Hyderabad (August 14).

The 21 embarkation points include- Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, Guwahati, Lucknow, Mangalore, Varanasi, Srinagar, Kolkata, Gaya, Ranchi, Bhopal, Bangalore, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Chennai, Cochin, Jaipur, Indore, Hyderabad.

A total of 10958 Haj pilgrims from Ahmedabad, 11657 from Cochin, 12380 from Lucknow, 5605 from Mumbai, 2729 from Aurangabad, 4641 from Bangalore, 3370 from Chennai, 4483 from Guwahati, 6273 from Hyderabad, 4777 from Jaipur, 10348 from Kolkata, 2187 from Nagpur, 3159 Haj pilgrims from Ranchi have been going to Haj this year.

Image: Wikimedia Commons
New Delhi, Jul 24 (IBNS): Union Minister JP Nadda assured parliamentarians on Monday that the government will look into issue of anomalies in conducting the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) examination for entry into medical courses, according to media reports.

On Monday, Rajya Sabha MPs from the Trinamool Congress Party and the AIADMK raised the various issues related to NEET as observed in their respective states, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

The MPs alleged that different sets of question papers were being given to students who were answering the common medical entrance examination in regional languages, media reported.

The media quoted Derek O'Brien (TMC) as saying that 40,000 of the 56,000 students who wrote the exam in Bengali or Tamil had "disastrous" results.

Last week, Tamil Nadu's ministers D Jayakumar, C Ve Shanmugam, K P Anbalagan and C Vijaya Basker, and Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker M Thambidurai even met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi to voice their concern against anomalies in NEET examination, media reported.

Image: Jagat Prakash Nadda twitter
New Delhi, Jul 24 (IBNS) : China asked India on Monday not to nurture "illusory thinking" about the Chinese army's ability and immediately withdraw its troops from the Doka La border, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The 90-year history of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) demonstrated that the army's ability to safeguard the national sovereignty and territorial integrity has continued to strengthen. It is easier to shake the mountains than to shake the PLA," defense ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said at a press conference in Beijing.

"China's border forces have put in place emergency response measures and will further enhance targeted deployment and training. China will safeguard its territorial sovereignty and security interests at all costs," W said.

The warning he issued comes amid a heightened tension in the relationship between the two countries following a standoff at the disputed Doka La plateau at the next to Sikkim at the India-China-Bhutan border tri-junction.

According to China, Indian troops have crossed into its territory to obstruct work on a road.

Bhutan also lays claim on the region and India considers the Chinese activities in the region a threat to its own security.

Bu Wu said : "The Doklam region is part of China's territory. China has every right to build road in its own territory."

"India should immediately withdraw its troops to the Indian side of the boundary with China, which is a precondition and basis for resolving the conflict. India should take practical measures to correct its wrongdoing, stop provocation and jointly safeguard peace in the border regions," he said. .

"The Chinese border troops have taken initial counter measures at the site and will step up targeted deployment and training."

"India should not leave things to luck and not harbor any unrealistic illusions," he said, adding that the military had taken emergency measures in the region and would continue to increase focused deployments and drills.

India has said it warned China that construction of the road near their common border would have serious security implications.
Srinagar, Jul 24 (IBNS): Jammu and Kashmir Police on Monday issued a Press Release stating the case involving the lynching of DySP Mohammed Ayoub Pandith on June 22.

The release said that Pandith from the Security Wing of Jammu and Kashmir Police, along with others, were detailed for Access Control Duty at Jamia Masjid, Srinagar, on the eve of Shab-i-Qadar, on June 22.

The officer while performing his duties was caught by an unruly mob near Jamia Masjid and lynched, the release said.

Subsequently, a case was registered in Nowhatta Police Station and investigations were set into motion.

The police, in the release said that the incident received widespread condemnation across all sections of the society.

A Special Invsrigtion Team (SIT) headed by SP City North, Srinagar, was constituted to carry out the investigation expeditiously, according to the police.

The police said it was "encouraging to note that a very good response was received from the general public and eyewitnesses voluntarily came forward to render assistance in the investigation and provide valuable information regarding the incident."

The police said they have not only managed to identify and arrest the culprits but also recovered important pieces of evidence, including the weapon of offence (iron rod), the identity card, the service pistol (in damaged condition) and the cell phone of the deceased officer.

According to Police, the four main accused were identified and arrested, which led to subsequent arrests.

In the release, police said that a group of assailants saw the officer checking the security personnel deployed for access control duties of the Jamia Masjid and as the officer came out of the premises of the Masjid, the assailants heckled him.

"It was during the course of this time, a number of miscreants assembled there joined these assailants and started beating the officer leading to his lynching. The officer in self defense fired some shots from his Service Pistol below the waistline causing injury to three assailants who were in his immediate proximity and were heckling him. However, the mob continued to beat him which ended in his lynching," the release mentioned.

During investigations, statement of a number of eyewitnesses were recorded before the Hon'ble Court of CJM under Section 164-A CrPC, according to police.

The Press Release also mentioned that the postmortem report revealed "fatal head injuries/face injuries resulting in vital organ damage and his spontaneous death." The weapon of offence recovered corroborated the same, the report said.

The police said that so far 20 assailants involved in the incident have been arrested in the case and one of the accused, Sajad Ahmad Gilkar, has been killed in an encounter on July 12 at Redbugh, Budgam.

"Needles to say vigorous efforts are being made for identification and arrest of the remaining assailants involved in the commission of crimes, besides recovery of other evidence related to the commission of the crime is under way. The investigation of the case is going at a fast pace and some arrests are expected which will lead to the completion of investigation and the case will submitted for judicial determination within the stipulated time frame," " Jammu and Kashmir Police said in the release.
New Delhi, July 24 (IBNS): Union Minister Kiren Rijiju attacked the Congress party after its six lawmakers were suspended from the Lok Sabha for five days for their "highly unbecoming conduct".

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended the lawmakers after they tore official papers and threw them at the chair and disrupted proceedings when the House was discussing the Bofors case and the recent incidents of mob lynching and cow vigilantism.

Reacting to the episode, the Minister tweeted: "aaaaaaaa aaaaaYa aa aaa aaaa aaaa

Why can't Congress Party discuss & debate in a civilised manner?"

A united opposition decided to stage a dharna on Tuesday in protest against the Speaker's order.

Mahajan said she was constrained to bar for five days the MPs - Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M K Raghavan- for "undermining the chair's dignity."

"The entire country should watch this...Show it, let them watch," the Speaker said.

. Opposition members trooped into the well shouting slogans and flung pieces of paper toward the treasury benches and the House chair. In condemnation, the treasury benches to shout "shame, shame".

Congress president Sonia Gandhi was in the House.

She later met other opposition leaders in her office and they announced a sit-in in front of Mahatama Gandhi's statue in Parliament house on Tuesday in protest against the suspension.

Image: twitter.com/KirenRijiju
Kolkata, Jul 24 (IBNS): Police on Monday held two suspected Maoists from Harish Chatterjee Street area, metres away from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's house, under Kalighat Police Station limits in south Kolkata, officials said.

According to reports, the duo- a man and a woman- was booked with firearms and ammunition in the morning.

"We detained two suspected members of Naxalite groups from Harish Chatterjee Street today morning and seized firearms from their possessions," a local police official told IBNS.

After hour-long interrogation, the suspects were arrested and handed over to city police's Special Task Force (STF), reports said.

A senior official of Kolkata Police's STF claimed that during interrogation the duo confessed their links with Maoist groups.

"While being quizzed, they claimed that their names are Sundari Singh Sardar and Sujat Singura, and they are the residents of Baghmundi in West Bengal's Purulia district," the officer told IBNS.

"They also confessed that they were active members of Maoist group's Baghmundi unit and the duo claimed that they came to meet Chief Minister as they wanted to surrender before her," the police official added.

STF, however, have started investigation into the case.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)

Image:google maps
New Delhi, July 24 (IBNS): Vice President M. Hamid Ansari on Monday said that Punjab was a focus of freedom struggle against the British rule.

He was addressing the gathering after releasing the book Indian National Congress in Punjab authored by Dr. Sukhchain Kaur Bassi, here today.

The Vice President said that the Indian National Congress acquired a representative character to stand for the will and aspiration of all the Indian people who were reeling under the yoke of British imperialism.

With the coming of Mahatma Gandhi on our political scene, the struggle transformed from a campaign by the elites into a true mass movement, he added.

The Vice President said that the first Annual Convention of Congress in Punjab - the undivided Punjab - was held in Lahore in 1893 under the charge of the redoubtable Dadabhai Naoroji.

The rapid growth of Congress activity and organization thereafter, is as much a testimony to the active participation of the people of Punjab in our freedom struggle as the energy and efforts of the political leaders and freedom fighters from Punjab, he added.
Patna, July 24 (TheBiharPost/IBNS): The RJD on Monday launched a blistering attack on Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and described him as a man who spends the day with RJD but night in the company of the BJP.

Nitish Kumar is the man who spends the day in the company of the RJD and night in the company of the BJP, RJD MP from Araria Mohammad Taslimuddin told the media on Monday.



He also questioned Nitish Kumars take on corruption saying the entire Bihar is troubled with the rampant corruption and bribery in the government offices but deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav is only targeted for corruption.



The stinging attack comes amid the JD-U constantly seeking resignation of the deputy chief minister who was made an accused in a corruption case by the CBI along with his parents earlier this month.

The RJD has also accused the JD-U of speaking the language of the BJP which has gone on constantly targeting the RJD chief and his family and seeking resignation of Tejashwi since the CBI registered a case against him.

(thebiharpost.com)
Guwahati, July 24 (IBNS): Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Monday directed the state government officials to speed up all development works in the state.

Sonowal stressed on expediting file movement for the interests of stimulating overall development of the state and speedy implementation of the government schemes.

For speedy disposal of a file, efforts have to be taken at all levels of a department.

Chief Minister Sonowal observed this while addressing the senior officers at the conference hall of Janata Bhawan in Guwahati.

Sonowal also said that through an impressive work culture the aims and aspirations of the people have to be met.

A section of people of the State have alleged that the speed of the government works have slowed down and there has been negative impact on the culture of work. In this backdrop, all the government departments have to take responsibility to restore the trust of the people in governance.

Sonowal said that for the larger interests of the people of Assam the present BJP led government has come to power and to achieve the desired changes in real sense of the term the government has to work resolutely.

To give respect to the tenets of democracy, the fruits of governance have to be delivered even at far flung areas.

We have to double the good works done by the government this year after the impressive first year of the present government in power, Sonowal said.

He also said that the government officers have immense experience and this vast experience have to be translated into action. The senior officers have to be role model for the batteries of junior officers and other employees.

Sonowal also said that to stimulate all sections of the people, Central and State Governments have been taking several schemes and flawless implementation of the schemes will lead to overall development of the State.

Sonowal also reiterated that the present State Government is committed to form a state free from corruption, pollution, terrorism and illegal foreigners and for that everybody has to take responsibility.

He also advocated that government has to stand by the side of the people during any exigency. In the recent wave of flood, every effort was made by the State Government to reach out to the affected people, adding he said that media through its reports had brought to the fore where administration could not reach.

He, therefore, thanked the media for bringing to the notice of the state government and helped it to reach out to all the affected people.

He also stated that in the coming days all steps have to be made in making the government more responsive and accountable.

Water Resources Minister Keshab Mahtanta, Chief Ministers media adviser Hrishikesh Goswami, Chief Secretary VK Pipersenia and host of senior officers were present during the meeting.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Srinagar, July 24 (IBNS): With an immediate effect, Jammu and Kashmir government banned e-cigarettes completely in the state, media reports said on Monday.

Issuing a statement, the state government banned e-cigarettes with an aim to discourage people, particularly the young generation from consuming tobacco.

According to the circular, a complete ban on the manufacture, sale, distribution, import, trade and even advertisement of e-cigarettes was imposed.

Minister of Health and Medical Education Bali Bhagat was quoted saying by media: "J&K is the fifth state in the country to implement such ban which will be a landmark moment in anti-tobacco measures initiated by the Government."

Image: Wikimedia Commons


twitter.com/NIA_India

Srinagar, July 24 (IBNS): Indiaas National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday arrested seven separatist leaders, including National Front Chairman Nayeem Ahmed Khan, in connection with its probe into the funding of subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley, officials said.

Officials said that after arresting Bita Karate from New Delhi, NIA arrested six separatist leaders from Kashmir capital Srinagar, who according to them will be taken to New Delhi for more proceedings.

Those who have been arrested include, Naeem Ahmed Khan, Bitta Karate, Ayaz Akbar, Pir Saifullah, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Shaid-ul-Islam and Syed Ali Shah Geelanis son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah alias Altaf Fantosh.

Pertinently, in May this year, the NIA team had arrived here to probe the allegations of terror funding by Pakistan for illegal activities in Kashmir.

The team had raided the residential houses of several businessmen and separatist leaders.

Officials said that these separatist leaders will be questioned in New Delhi as they were unable to appear before the NIA branch here in Srinagar due to their continuous preventive detention.

Meanwhile, terming these arrests as revengeful arbitrary and illegal Joint Resistance Leadership led by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik has called for a complete shutdown on Tuesday.

Asking people to protest and observe a shutdown against the arrests of Hurriyat leaders Altaf Ahmed Shah, Shahidul Islam, Ayaz Akbar, Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Peer Saifullah by NIA in Srinagar on Monday.



(Reporting by Saleem Qadri)


Amman, Jul 24 (IBNS) : A Jordanian man stabbed an Israeli security officer at the Israeli embassy in Amman on Sunday before he was shot dead, media reports said.

According to reports, a second Jordanian was also killed.

The incident occurred late Sunday afternoon, but was kept under gag order by the Israeli military censor until Monday morning, The Times of Israel said..

Three people were initially wounded in the incident. .Two Jordanians later died, according to authorities and the news site Hala Akhbar, linked to the Jordanian military.

The injured Israeli is deputy director of security at the Israeli embassy and is still receiving treatment in hospital.

He was said to be lightly injured in the incident.
Geneva, July 24 (IBNS): At least five people were injured in a chainsaw attack at Schaffhausen town of Switzerland on Monday, media reports said.

A man reportedly attacked the victims with a chainsaw.

Police are searching for the male suspect.

The attack - which the authorities stated was not terror-related - was reported to the police a little after 10:30 in the morning. The suspect entered the local branch of the CSS insurance company where he deliberately attacked staff members, according to a company spokeswoman, reported Swissinfo.

Swiss Public Television SRF has tweeted past picture of the suspect.
Lahore, July 24 (IBNS): At least 22 people were killed when a blast rocked Lahore's Ferozepur road on Monday, media reports said.

The incident left 32 others injured.

Police sources said a suicide attacker targetted police personnel deployed at the site, Geo News reported.

According to reports, the explosion hit close to the Arfa Karim IT Tower in the city.

Several motorcycles and at least one vehicle was reportedly damaged in the mishap.

The injured people were rushed to Jinnah Hospital and other nearby hospitals for treatment.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

More details are awaited.
RACINE  The Racine Concert Band continues its 95th season of free concerts at the Racine Zoo with a performance at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 30.

The concert features mezzo-soprano Allison Hull and trumpet soloist Nancy Quist. Music Director Mark Eichner will conduct the band, and Don Rosen is the master of ceremonies.

Hull returns for her 10th guest artist appearance with the band. Shell sing Pres des ramparts de Seville, a Spanish dance from Bizets opera, Carmen, and Non so piu cosa so from Mozarts Marriage of Figaro.

Hull is a frequent performer on professional stages, including roles at the Milwaukee Opera Theater, the Skylight Opera, the Florentine Opera and Music By the Lake. She returns later in the program to sing two selections from the Great American Songbook: Someone to Watch Over Me by George and Ira Gershwin and Blue Moon by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.

Quist will perform Concert Etude by Alexander Goedecke. A member of the Racine Concert Band since 2009, Quist is also a member of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside Community Band, the UW-Parkside Community Orchestra and the Kenosha Pops Concert Band.

Featured works on the program include Mozarts only ballet overture, La Petit Riens, and Bizets suite of Childrens Games.

Harold Arlens The Wizard of Oz Concert Suite, Congo del Fuego Nuevo, and marches by John Philip Sousa, George Kenny, and Paul Lavalle complete the program.

The concert takes place at the Kiwanis amphitheater on the east side of the zoo grounds. Audience members can enter the free concert at the Walton Avenue or Augusta Street gates, beginning at 7 p.m. A courtesy cart, for people who need assistance, is available before and after the concert. Audience members should bring lawn chairs or blankets. This is the final 2017 concert with a 7:30 p.m. start time. August concerts begin at 7 p.m. Beverages and snacks are sold.
Lahore, July 24 (IBNS): A suspected suicide attack in Lahore city of Pakistan left at least 25 people killed on Monday, officials said.

The blast left 39 others injured.

Sources confirmed to Geo News that eight policeman are among those martyred in the blast.

The blast occurred close to the Arfa Karim IT Tower.

According to reports, several motorcycles and at least one vehicle was destroyed in the blast.

Security forces have cordoned off the area.

Officials have started investigation into the matter.

The injured people were shifted to Jinnah Hospital and other nearby hospitals for treatment.

The official Twitter account of the Government of Punjab (Pakistan) posted: "#LahoreBlast - 5 PM update: '39 people injured and 25 persons have lost their lives.' - Deputy Commissioner Lahore."

"Chief Minister Punjab @CMShehbaz has strongly condemned the blast in Kot Lakhpat," read another statement.

Pakistan's Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa mourned the loss of lives in the incident.

Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor tweeted: "COAS shares grief with victim families of Lhr blast. Directs for immediate rescue and relief efforts. Troops reached at site."
Washington, Jul 24 (IBNS): Flustered by the actions of his party members, Donald Trump took a shot at them for failing to agree with his proposed healthcare bill.

In a blunt statement on Twitter, Trump wrote, "It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President."

A couple of hours later the US President was back to his media bashing avatar, picking on The Washington Post and the New York Times.

Commenting on the quality of their reports, Trump said, "It's hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!"

He also warned the Republican senators of a greater repercussion if they fail to repeal ObamaCare.

In a not-so-covert threat, he said, "If Republicans don't Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!"

A few days ago Trump suffered a blow as two more Republican senators, Mike Lee and Jerry Moran, declined to back his proposed healthcare bill and the repeal of ObamaCare.

Denouncing his support, Lee's statement read: "In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesnt go far enough in lowering premiums for middle class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations."

Moran said that the bill "fails to repeal the Affordable Care Act or address healthcares rising costs."

By protesting against the repeal, Lee and Moran joined Rand Paul and Susan Collins, both senators, who too opposed the move.

For Trump, his republican party with just 52 seats needed at least 50 votes for the bill to pass.



Image: twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
San Antonio, Jul 24 (IBNS): At least nine people were found dead inside a trailer truck after police checked the parked vehicle outside a Walmart store in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, media reports said.

The law enforcement officer launched the operation following a phone call from a Walmart employee and found at least 39 people inside the truck, several of whom were seriously injured.

Police said that eight people, including a 15-year-old had already died when they reached there, and another died later after being moved to a hospital.

"Checking the video from the store, we found there were a number of vehicles that came in and picked up a lot of the folks that were in that trailer that survived the trip," CNN quoted San Antonio Police Chief William McManus as saying.

He added, "We are looking at a human trafficking crime here."

Condemning the incident, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said, "We are still learning about the tragic events that unfolded on our doorstep overnight, which shines a bright light on the plight of immigrants looking for a better life and victims of human trafficking. As we work to coordinate a humanitarian and legal response to this terrible tragedy, I find comfort in the compassionate response of our first-responders, our local medical professionals and the outpouring of support from our community.

Meanwhile, the issue has weighed in on US President Donald Trump's proposed 'wall' along the US-Mexico border.

Police said that the incident took place just two and a half hours drive from the Mexican border.

"Federal authorities said that the victims were 'undocumented aliens'", The Washington Post reported.

The Consul General of Mexico in San Antonio Reyna Torres said that some of the deceased were Mexican nationals and added that a probe was on.

Commenting on the incident, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said that some of the victims will experience 'irreversible brain damage', owing to the severe heat.

"With heat strokes or heat injuries, a lot of them are going to have some irreversible brain damage," he was quoted as saying by CNN.

Police are questioning the owner of the truck company as to how the vehicle ended up there.



Image: Wallpaper
Toronto, July 24 (IBNS): Two men died while a woman sustained serious injury in a shooting which took place at a birthday party in Scarborough in Toronto on Sunday, media reports said.

The shooting took place at a house on Gennela Square, near Morningside and Sheppard avenues, on Sunday.

Two men, Rinaldo Cole (33) and Dwayne Campbell (30), were shot at the backyard of the house. They died immediately.

The woman, who received injury, was taken to a hospital. She was the host of the party.

Toronto Police Det. Rob North said there were around 200 people at the party but no one else was injured.

However, no name of the suspect was taken by the police.

Image: Creative Commons.
In Person Satirist Feels Restraint After Recent Arrest

Satirist Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing is released at a Bahan Township court hearing on June 16. / Thet Htun Naing / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Until last month, columnist Ko Kyaw Zwa Naingalso known by his pen name British Ko Ko Maungenjoyed press freedom to some extent in his satirical writings.

His articles questioned the Parliament, Union-level organizations performance and criticized the policies of regional governments, and he spoke out on the suffering caused by the countrys long civil wars.

But on June 2, the writer was arrested and charged under the controversial Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Lawwhich concerns online defamationafter a Myanmar Army official complained that one of his satirical pieces harmed the militarys dignity.

The piece titled Kyi Htaung Su Thitsar in Burmese, meaning Oath Made in a Nation of Bullets questioned the countrys armed struggle and peace process. It was published on March 26, coinciding with the army-produced film Union Oath, which commemorated the countrys 72nd Armed Forces Day.

U Kyaw Min Swe, the chief editor of the newspaper The Voice Dailywhich published the articlewas also arrested and charged with Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing, and remains in detention.

Despite being acquitted on the charges under Article 66(d) after two weeks of detention, the military brought another lawsuit against both Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing and U Kyaw Min Swe, resulting in the pair being charged under Article 25(b) of the Media Law.

Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing said he was still reeling from the first arrest, particularly in seeing his family suffer as a result.

In this recent interview with The Irrawaddy, he spoke about his feelings following his release, and the impact that the experience has had on his writing.

You have been arrested and charged over a satirical article. What you would like to say, concerning this?

I wrote in line with the technique of satire. It did not name specific institutions, groups, or the army, but generically satirized the situation of countrys long civil wars. But the military complained, saying that it harmed their dignity. I dont want to comment on the charge under the Media Law, but using the undemocratic Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law against the media is unacceptable. We have the enacted the Media Law and if anyone has a complaint against an article published in the media, the charges should be brought forward with the Media Law.

I was arrested for 14 days even before the court accepted the case. I was released later, with the courts ruling, after the Ministry for Transport and Communications remarked that the online defamation charge was not fit to prosecute me with, as I wrote for a newspaper. But I lost my child. My wife who was two months pregnant, miscarried because of the anxiety she went through for me running to the prison, the police station and the court. Who will compensate for that?

Did you expect the arrest and lawsuit over your article?

Indeed, we satirists are writing at the risk of imprisonment. In the past, we satirized very indirectly, but in these days, our satire is not as indirect, so as to be more understandable to the readers, but not crossing the line.

For the article Kyi Htuang Su Thitsar, I read it three times after I finished it. I did not care to accuse or defame anyone or any group. It only included the feelings of pain, hurt and loss caused by the civil wars. I have a clear conscience about the article. Thats why I was surprised when I was arrested over it.

When did you start writing satire?

Since 2012, under the pen name British Ko Ko Maung and sending [articles] regularly to The Voice, Myanmar Post and many other publications.

Are you still writing satire since your release?

Yes.

Are publications to which you regularly sent your articles still accepting them in the way they did before?

They ask me for articles. But some publications have requested that I not criticize China or the military. But as a satirist, it is not all right to write under [such] controls. If it is not okay with me, I dont send to them. Thats it.

How about satirizing the peace process or the military?

I satirize not only the military but also the current issues. I write as if I am viewing the issues. But now, it feels like, rein it inbring it to a halt [laughing]. But if the issue comes up to write about, I will do it.

Lets ask frankly: knowingly or unknowingly, are you self-censoring in your writing?

I have to think about the consequences. I cant just simply do what I believe. My wife has suffered from this incident. And also Ko Kyaw Min Swe [the chief editor of The Voice Daily] is still detained even though I was released. His family has suffered from this too. It has not just hurt me but also the people around me, directly or indirectly.

That thought has become a restraint to me. And thats what I was afraid ofthat it would also restrain other writers and media workers. It is not good for either press freedom or the countrys democracy.
In Person The NLD Cant Restrict Me Now

U Sein Win resigned from the National League for Democracy. / U Sein Win / Facebook

U Sein Win, the National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker of Irrawaddy Regions Maubin Township, resigned from the party last week.

The agriculturalist-turned-lawmaker had represented the township for the NLD since the 2012 by-election. Under the previous government, he served as the head of the Union Parliaments Committee for Confiscated Farmlands and Other Lands for the Irrawaddy Region.

Under the current government, he was appointed as the chairman of the Farmers and Labor Affairs Committee of the Lower House, but was removed from the position last December for his alleged failure to follow NLD guidance.

He recently talked to The Irrawaddy about the reasons behind his resignation, his removal from the parliamentary committee, and his future plans.

Why did you resign from the NLD?

I am restricted by the partys rules and regulations to go and meet farmers outside the township [Maubin]. Farmers have invited me, but I was not able to meet them. I want to meet and disseminate agricultural knowledge to farmers in any township independently without restraints.

As you won the seat in the 2012 by-election, werent you restricted in your communications with people outside your constituency around that time?

Yes, I was. I was not allowed to give talks outside my constituency for almost six years. I dont know why they [restrict], but it disadvantages farmers as I am an agriculturalist.

How did you submit your resignation? And what was the partys reply? Did they request that you stay?

I submitted the resignation dated July 14 to the party headquarters, and the Union Election Commission (UEC) told me by phone on July 20 that they had received the [NLDs] letter informing them of my resignation. So, I confirmed my resignation. They didnt ask me not to resign. I presented all the reasonsabout the difficulties I faced since the previous termin my resignation letter, so they knew that they had nothing to say.

Last year you sued four people including two NLD members in Maubin, according to local media, under fraud and defamation charges for allegedly distributing leaflets relating to farmers affairs that bore your signature. Did the lawsuits impact your decision to resign?

That time, I filed a complaint under criminal charges against the four at the police station, and the party asked me not to file the complaint. But I refused, saying that police and the judicial sector would decide whether it is an offense or not, but the party should not use its power to restrict it. Then the party removed me from the chairman position [of the farmers affairs committee], saying I didnt obey their guidance. I stepped down willingly.

But if they are to remove a parliamentary committee chairman, there should be an internal investigation in Parliament to prove the chairman is not dutiful. I was appointed with the approval of all the MPs, but only the parliamentary speaker dismissed me. As the parliamentary speaker did this according to the instruction of the party, this means the Parliament is under the influence of the party.

Now you are an independent lawmaker, what are your future plans?

I can engage in the issues of farmers and laborers widely. They cant restrict me now. I am able to give talks [to farmers] beyond my constituency. It is suffice to say that the resignation has given me the opportunity to help and fulfill their wishes to the best of my ability.

Some candidates contested the 2015 election using the image and strength of the party. Will you have full confidence contesting the 2020 election as an independent candidate?

Ill engage in serving the interests of farmers as an independent candidate. Ill do what I should depending on their wishes and support. I mean, they will decide for me whether or not to contest the next election.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
Asia US Presses Myanmar to Cease Military Ties With North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reacts with scientists and technicians of the DPRK Academy of Defence Science after the test-launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 in this undated photo released by North Koreas Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang July 5, 2017. / KCNA / via Reuters

WASHINGTON  Myanmars military has maintained ties with North Korea, even though the civilian-led government denies any cooperation, and the Trump administration is pressing for a complete break-off of remaining links, current and former US officials said.

Washington made its case to Myanmars de facto leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and the army chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing during a visit to the country this week by the US special envoy for North Korea.

US Ambassador Joseph Yuns trip to Myanmar underlined continuing US worries over North Korean links that date back to Myanmars decades of military rule, according to a senior State Department official on Friday.

It was an opportunity to message that any engagement with North Korea, particularly military engagement, is counterproductive to trying to end this threat that North Korea poses to the region and to the globe, the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He declined to specify what kind of military cooperation had continued between North Korea and Myanmar.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from Myanmars embassy in Washington.

The official said US sanctions leveled this year against the Myanmar Armys procurement body were meant to reflect long-standing concerns about the militarys dealings with Pyongyang.

Myanmar insists that arms deals and other military relations with North Korea stopped before Myanmars transition to a nominally civilian government in 2011.

Myanmars military was believed in the past to have imported North Korean-made weapons and North Korean personnel also worked in Myanmar, two former US officials said.

Any residual ties may be unfinished business between the two armies dating back to Myanmars previous military-led government, one of the former officials said, adding there was no indication of a nuclear component to the relationship.

Relying on Diplomacy

The State Department official did not rule out the possibility of imposing further North Korea-related measures on Myanmar, saying, If a situation becomes so egregious and serious for our national security interests, there are a variety of tools, including sanctions.

For now, though, Washington was relying mostly on diplomacy with Myanmar, a resource-rich and strategically placed country that Washington wants to keep out of Chinas orbit.

He stressed, however, that it would be difficult to proceed toward full normalization of US relations with Myanmar until Washington was convinced of a halt to ties with North Korea.

Yuns trip followed North Koreas test on July 4 of an intercontinental ballistic missile that Pyongyang says can carry a large nuclear warhead, and which experts believe can reach Alaska.

As Yun arrived in Yangon for talks on Monday, Kyaw Zeya, permanent secretary at Myanmars Ministry of Foreign Affairs, insisted Myanmar no longer had military ties with Pyongyang and was complying with UN resolutions banning such links.

Its normal relations between the two countries, he told reporters. As I understand, theres no such relations between military to military. Definitely not.

The State Department official told Reuters that Myanmar authorities did not explicitly deny that some vestiges of the previous North Korea relationship remained but said those ties are not what they were in the past.

Myanmars former ruling junta, which, like North Korea, was widely shunned by the outside world over its suppression of human rights, was known to have ties to Pyongyang. This included sending missile experts and material for arms production to Myanmar.

Myanmars Directorate of Defence Industries (DDI) was sanctioned in March under the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act.

The DDI was previously sanctioned in 2012 and accused of materially assisting North Korea but had fallen off the sanctions list in October after the Obama administration dropped most measures against Myanmar in recognition of a successful political transition.
Burma Flood Victims Rise to More Than 1,000 in Irrawaddy Region

An inundated residential area in Nyaungdon Township, Irrawaddy Division. / The Irrawaddy

PATHEIN, Irrawaddy Region  Heavy rains and floods have forced more than 1,000 people from their homes to relief camps in Danubyu, Myanaung, and Ingapu townships in Irrawaddy Region.

We have so far opened four relief camps, and victims mainly need food. We are prioritizing emergency food supplies in each township, said director of the Irrawaddy Region Relief and Resettlement Department U Than Soe.

More than 60 households are taking shelter at a relief camp in Myanaung; more than 120 households are at two relief camps in Danubyu; and more than 100 households are at a relief camp in Ingapu Township. More than 60 schools have been closed across the region because of the floods.

There are 470 flood victims at the relief camps in Danubyu, mostly from villages and wards outside of the dike, regional lawmaker U San Htwe of Danubyu told The Irrawaddy.

The social welfare department has provided rice, and weve distributed it. The situation is not serious and the [township] flood rescue committee has prepared sand bags, he said.

The water level of the Irrawaddy River is two feet above its danger level in Hinthada and Zalun townships, three feet above in Danubyu, and 2.6 feet above in Nyaungdon, according to the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology.

The Irrawaddy Delta saw devastating flooding last year that affected more than 500,000 people in Maubin, Hinthada, Pathein, Pyapon and Myaungmya districts, and inundated more than 200,000 acres of paddy fields, according to statistics from the Irrawaddy regional government.

Since July 18, nearly 5,000 people from four townships in Mon State have also been affected by flooding, according to the regional relief and resettlement department.

In Rakhine State, roads and residential areas in Ann and Taungup townships were inundated with water up to five feet in some places as of Sunday. In Thandwe, three monasteries gave shelter to 360 people displaced by floods, while four quarters and a village nearby were inundated on Friday.

Meteorologist U Tun Lwin has warned of possible upcoming torrential rains in Myanmar due to a strong monsoon in the Bay of Bengal. Rakhine State, Irrawaddy Region, Magwe, Yangon and Bago Regions are prone to flooding.

Additional reporting by Hintharnee from Mon State and Moe Myint from Yangon.
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Burma Four Border Police Missing in Rakhine State Boating Accident

Armed border police in Buthidaung Township, northern Rakhine State, in March 2017. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  A border police major from northern Rakhine States Maungdaw Township confirmed to The Irrawaddy under the condition of anonymity that four policemen went missing after a schooner capsized in a local river early Sunday evening.

The officers were returning from clearance operations in the Tin May village tract of neighboring Buthidaung Township.

Security forces have discovered the vessel but have not found the bodies yet, he said.

According to the police major, the missing policemen were from Taungbazar border police station. The Irrawaddy obtained a police report on the incident on Monday, stating that a police major named Ye Zaw Htut had led one dozen policemen to the Kyaung Taung border police station as reinforcements. Another 19-man team led by another police major, Nay Lin Htet had joined Maj Ye Zaw Htut as they received a tip-off concerning militant activities near the Tin May region on Sunday.

The Maj Ye Zaw Htut-led security team traveled along local waterways to return to the Kyaung Taung border police station on three schooners after clearing territory in Tin May village. But the vessel which carried Maj Ye Zaw Htut and six officers unexpectedly overturned when it encountered a strong current.

Maj Ye Zaw Htut, Cpl Khin Maung Than, LCpl Ko Ko Aung and Tun Lin Htike were still missing as of Monday evening. According to local media reports, three other policemen and the schooner driver, identified simply as a man named Mustafa, had survived the incident.

The police report stated that police discovered the empty vessel near the shore of Kyaun Pauk. In it were two assault rifles and four magazines with two hundred rounds of bullets, but no one remained on board. The border police called in reinforcements to search for the passengers.

The report did not elaborate on whether the vessel had life jackets on board, or if the boat was owned privately or by the government.

Rakhine States transportation system is dominated by ferries, speedboats, and shipping routes but operators are notorious for not applying safety measures, including provisions of life vests, and a number of people have killed in the region in tragic boating accidents.

On March 13, 2015, the government-owned Aung Ta Kon (3) ship, running between Sittwe and Kyaukphyu, sank near the Naungdawgyi Sea in Myebon Township. The boat was overloaded with various goods and around 300 passengers. According to local publications, at least 160 people died; only 72 dead bodies were discovered.
Burma H1N1 Flu Outbreak in Myanmar Linked to One Death

Women wear masks in Yangon to protect themselves against an outbreak of H1N1 influenza. / Thet Htun Naing / The Irrawaddy

NAYPYITAW  Thirteen people have contracted A (H1N1) influenza in Yangon and Chin States Matupi Township, with one thought to have succumbed to the virus, according to the Ministry of Health and Sports.

In Chin State, one of the 10 people diagnosed with H1N1 since early July has died. Two patients are receiving treatment for H1N1often referred to as swine fluin the intensive care unit of Yangon General Hospital.

Another patient is receiving treatment for the disease at New Yangon Hospital, according to the deputy director-general of the Public Health Department, Dr. Than Htun Aung.

It is not swine flu or avian flu. It is a strong seasonal flu that affects humans. It can be cured with prevention and early treatment, but it is strong. Children and elderly persons will be vulnerable to this type of flu, Than Htun Aung told reporters in Naypyitaw.

Health minister Dr. Myint Htwe and other ministry officials discussed short- and long-term plans to prevent the disease on Monday morning.

Well inform hospitals how to carry out prevention work, and educate people through State media about the disease, said a health officer who attended the meeting.

The ministry confirmed the outbreak as H1N1, saying that Myanmar saw 16 infections in 2009, 232 in 2010, 29 in 2012, 169 in 2013, three in 2015, and nine in 2016. No cases of infection were reported in 2011, said the ministry.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared H1N1 a pandemic in 2009 as it was spreading fast around the world.

This disease is called world human flu. It broke out as a pandemic in 2009, and it still persists in Myanmar. Now there are continuous rains, the weather is damp, and the disease easily spreads in populous areas. Though it is strong, fatality rates for the disease are low, said Than Htun Aung, who is also in charge of the pandemic and disaster resilience division under the ministry.

The flu vaccine invented in the aftermath of the 2009 outbreak is unsafe, according to the ministry, which has not used it but instead focused on prevention.

People would go to private clinics in the case of infection, meaning there is a need for private clinics to report to us. If necessary, we have to do X-ray, blood, and saliva tests and administer medicines depending on the severity of the virus, said Than Htun Aung.

H1N1 has broken out annually since 2009, he explained, but awareness and in turn fear of the disease has grown recently. The three patients in Yangon are recovering, he said, and urged people to exercise caution but not panic.

H1N1 flu symptoms are the same as seasonal flu, including cough, fever, sore throat, stuffy or runny nose, body ache, headache, chills and fatigue.

The health ministry has encouraged people to wear masks and wash their hands frequently, cover mouths when coughing and sneezing, and avoid crowded places.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
Burma Top Mon Politician Resigns as Merger Hopes Stumble

Dr. Aung Naing Oo talks about his resignation from the All Mon Region Democracy Party on July 22. / Hintharnee / The Irrawaddy

MOULMEIN  Dr. Aung Naing Oo, the deputy speaker of Mon State parliament, has resigned from the All Mon Region Democracy Party (AMDP) amid calls for a new regional organization.

Aung Naing Oo announced that he had submitted his resignation letter to his party at a gathering of ethnic Mon parties in Mon State on Saturday, but declined to disclose the reason behind his leaving.

I have no plan to form a new political party with those who are expelled by the Mon parties. The two parties are just giving lip service about the merger, but nothing is happening in reality, he said at the meeting, referring to the proposed merger of his party and the Mon National Party (MNP).

AMDP Joint Secretary 1 Nai San Tin said the party received and accepted his resignation in the second week of July.

We have nothing to say about it as he did it of his own volition, said Nai San Tin.

Aung Naing Oo, who was serving as the secretary of Chaungzon Township AMDP chapter, contested and won the bid to represent Chaungzon in the 2010 and 2015 general elections.

He supports the idea of merging the AMDP and MNP, and, as a member of a group of independent Mon politicians, polls the public on their thoughts regarding a new Mon political party. The group also explains Mon States current political developments to locals.

On July 13-15, the MNP held a central executive committee (CEC) meeting which saw the expulsion of two CEC members and four central committee members including Dr. Min Soe Lin, who won the seat for Ye Township in the 2015 general election.

Joint secretary 1 Nai Soe Myint of the party told The Irrawaddy that Min Soe Lin was dismissed because of his lengthy absence from party meetings, although Min Soe Lin believes his dismissal was because of the potential merger.

I was expelled because I actively support the merging of the two parties, he told The Irrawaddy.

The two parties confirmed to The Irrawaddy that they had chosen representatives to hold discussions on the mergeran idea that was first presented around 2013, but has been continuously stalled by struggles to find common ground on the terms of a coalition.

In the 2015 election, the National League for Democracy (NLD) won the majority of votes in the state, which many Mon blamed on votes being split between the two Mon parties.

In January, about 300 Mon youth in Lamine sub-township in Ye protested against the leaders of the AMDP and MNP after they refused to combine their parties. Growing calls to form a new Mon political party followed the protest.

Citing local opinion polls, former member of the New Mon State Party committee Nai Ta La Nyi said about 60 percent of Mon locals support the idea of a fresh political outfit.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
A law which shields big tech platforms from lawsuits over content provided by users is being challenged in the US Supreme Court, and is likely
The leak of a massive trove of data in Sweden has recently come to light, with the actual leak having happened nearly two years ago. But the person responsible was only docked half a month's pay.

In September 2015, the Swedish Transport Agency outsourced the handling of IT services, including the management of its database, to IBM in the Czech Republic and NCR (formerly AT&T) in Serbia.

The leak was brought to the attention of the media by Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the first Pirate Party and the head of privacy at Private Internet Access.

He said IBM was contracted to run  and this was done from Serbia  Sweden's secure intranet, the SGSI, or the Secure Government Swedish Intranet. This network is connected to the European Unions STESTA, which is a European Union secure network. The Swedish Transport Agency gave staff in Serbia administrative network access to this network.

The entire Swedish registry of driving licences, including pictures, and also sensitive information about bridges, subways, roads and harbours in Sweden was among the data that leaked.

In January this year, there was an inkling that something was wrong after the director-general of transport, Maria Agren, was fired.

But it was only on 6 July that the reason for her being sacked came to light. Agren had signed the contract for off-shoring the handling all the data bypassing the guidelines that the agency had in place for such contracts.

Falkvinge said in a post: "It goes to show, again, that governments cant even keep their most secret data under wraps  so any governmental assurances to keep your data safe have as much value as a truckload of dead rats in a tampon factory."

Among the information that had leaked, as enumerated by Falkvinge, was:

the weight capacity of all roads and bridges (which is crucial for warfare, and says a lot about what roads are intended to be used as wartime airfields);

names, photos, and home addresses of fighter pilots in the Air Force;

names, photos, and home addresses of everybody and anybody in a police register, all of which are classified;

names, photos, and home addresses of all operators in the militarys most secret units  equivalent to the SAS or SEAL teams;

names, photos, and home addresses of everybody in a witness relocation program or who has been given protected identity for other reasons; and

type, model, weight, and any defects of any and all government and military vehicles, including their operator, which says a ton about the structure of military support units.

Falkvinge says the data is still available for anyone to see and that plugging the leaks will take more time.
If I have an accident in my car, which I now know has the recalled dodgy airbags, I could be killed by flying shrapnel, but it turns out the recall sees car makers re-installing still faulty airbags!

Consumer advocates CHOICE have uncovered a disturbing factor in the very slow replacement of millions of faulty airbags, in what has become a worldwide problem, and one that the ACCC is now investigating, too.

CHOICEs investigation into the largest automotive recall in Australian history has found Toyota, Mazda, BMW, Lexus and Subaru have been refitting vehicles with potentially faulty airbags and have failed to inform consumers of the ongoing risk of death or injury".

Thats incredibly worrying, with CHOICE spokesperson Tom Godfrey stating: With 2.3 million vehicles in Australia requiring their potentially lethal Takata airbags to be replaced, its clear the car companies are under pressure to fulfil their obligations under Australian Consumer Law. However, refitting vehicles with the same dangerous airbags still leaves people driving ticking time-bombs.

My own car, a Mazda 6, is within the recall period, and even though the car was purchased second-hand, I have received a letter from the dealer stating the airbags are being recalled.

I duly called the dealer, but they have no replacement parts yet, which Ive read is a global problem thanks to Takata, the Japanese manufacturer, having reportedly gone bankrupt, which youd imagine would cause problems with timely and quality replacements!

Here are some key findings before we continue with CHOICEs eye-opening revelations:

The Takata airbag recall in Australia is more than 21 times bigger than that of the VW 'Dieselgate' debacle.

Only 31% of 2.3 million affected vehicles have had their potentially lethal airbags replaced as of April 2017.

Toyota, Mazda, BMW and Subaru have admitted making like-for-like airbag replacements in Australia.

More than 180 people have been injured and 18 people have been killed worldwide.

Some Takata Alpha airbags can deploy defectively in up to 50% of cases. These Alpha inflators can be found in 12,300 Honda vehicles in Australia.

Separately to that, Choice advised that it pressured the 14 manufacturers affected in Australia to reveal if they applied this temporary fix to the cars they have recalled. Many confirmed a percentage were treated with like-for-like replacements and will therefore have to be recalled again".

Godfrey said: While estimates of how long the dodgy Takata airbags take to break down vary, its deeply concerning to think these bombs in a bag lie in wait in many popular cars poised to explode their deadly shrapnel into unsuspecting victims.

Although Toyota, Mazda, BMW, Lexus and Subaru admitted to CHOICE they made identical replacements, perhaps more worrying are the other manufacturers who continue to refuse to share this information with the public.

However, we are told that Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi all have vehicles impacted by the recall but are remaining silent about any potential ongoing risk to the public".

Godfrey added: We are also concerned by reports that consumers who respond to the recall and make contact with car companies are being told to wait in excess of six months before any form of remedy can be achieved.

CHOICE explained how police reports detail how these airbags violently explode, sending metal shards, shrapnel and/or foreign material into the cabin where the car's occupants sit captive. The shards have been known to puncture people's eyes, face, neck and chest".

If that doesnt scare the bejeezus out of you, then what would? Clearly, even being a passenger in one of these cars with faulty airbags puts you in serious danger should you suffer the misfortune of being in an accident.

Godfrey continued: This is yet another wake up call for governments about the flaws in our product safety system.

Its hard to understand how the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development could give their tick of approval to car companies who knowingly reinstall potentially lethal airbags and yet that is exactly what has happened.

We need to end this product safety charade and make it a legal requirement for companies to ensure that the products they place in the market are safe. We believe the best way to achieve this is through the immediate introduction of a general safety provision coupled with strong penalties within the Australian Consumer Law.

By introducing and enforcing a general safety provision, the regulator would be able to take swift and meaningful action against companies who knowingly put lives at risk, Godfrey concluded.

CHOICE explained it is calling on all car companies involved in the flawed recall to come clean and inform the public about their like-for-like airbag replacement programmes".

The revelations come as federal, state and territory consumer affairs ministers are set to meet next month to discuss the changes to the Australian Consumer Law. Among the proposed changes are the need for a general safety provision and the ability for consumers to assert a right to a refund after experiencing multiple minor failures with a product.

CHOICE has a Takata recall page here and a call for a general safety provision and a stronger consumer law here.

Meanwhile, the ACCC has opened its own investigation  a link will be provided here shortly.
The ACCC is finally moving to investigate the Takata killer airbag scandal which has resulted in the largest vehicle recall in history.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission states that it is urgently seeking information from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development (DIRD) and car manufacturers regarding Takata airbags at the centre of the largest vehicle recall in history".

Since 2009, we are told that more than 2.3 million vehicles in Australia have become subject to the recall of airbags made by Japanese manufacturer, Takata. The airbags are in 60 makes of cars sold in Australia, including Honda, Toyota, BMW, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Lexus, Jeep, Nissan, Chrysler, and Dodge".

The issue has worsened, with consumer advocates CHOICE discovering that some manufacturers are replacing faulty airbags with new airbags that will eventually develop the same fault, which can cause shrapnel to shoot out like a bullet, with the airbag and which can penetrate a persons body, potentially killing them (as has already happened in cases around the world).

The ACCC states it is urging all drivers to check if their cars airbag has been recalled by visiting the Product Safety website ( direct link to recall page here ).

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said: Do not ignore or delay responding to a letter from your cars manufacturer or retailer asking you to have your cars airbag replaced. The airbags degrade over time and can become lethal by misdeploying and firing metal shards at the cars occupants.

We are told that a man in NSW was tragically killed on 13 July when his airbag misdeployed, and a woman in the Northern Territory suffered severe injuries from her airbag after a crash in April".

In Australia, 850,000 cars have already had their airbags replaced. Further vehicles will be added to the recall over time.

I personally am the owner of a more than 10-year-old second-hand Mazda 6, and I received a recall letter as well from the original dealer. A call to them last week noted there was a huge delay for replacement airbags to come in, but as CHOICE has warned, would I simply be getting an airbag that will also be equally faulty down the track?

The ACCC says due to the availability of stock worldwide, retrofitting issues and the availability of authorised technicians able to fit airbags, progress on the recall was initially slow but is improving over time as stock becomes available. Car manufacturers say there is now sufficient stock available for affected cars to be fixed".

The ACCC then makes note of CHOICEs findings, stating: Some cars have already had their airbag replaced with one treated with a water-absorbing chemical designed to address the problem, but these may also degrade over time. This means some cars subject to the recall may need have to have their airbags replaced again in around six years time.

Sims said: Car manufacturers and retailers must let consumers know when they are having their cars airbag replaced what type of airbag it is being replaced with, and if it is likely to be the subject of another recall down the track.

The ACCC states that the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development is responsible for motor vehicle safety standards and is monitoring the recall.

Sims added: Were seeking information from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development as to exactly what information it is requiring car manufacturers and retailers to give consumers about their cars airbag, including the likelihood of the airbag being replaced again.

We would have very serious concerns if manufacturers were found to be misleading consumers about their car's safety in breach of their obligations under consumer law.

Our advice to consumers is not to panic, but to visit the Product Safety Australia website to see if their car is affected by the recall and, if it is, to contact their cars manufacturer immediately.

If consumers have already had their airbag replaced, they should contact their manufacturer for advice as to what kind of airbag it was replaced with and how long it is expected to last.

The ACCC says it will closely examine the current recall strategies employed by DIRD to ensure each manufacturer is complying with its obligations under the Australian Consumer Law".

Lets damn well hope so, lest a minor accident in your car prove unintentionally and tragically fatal to driver or passenger.
As the seventh anniversary of its forking from OpenOffice.org looms, the free office suite LibreOffice has established itself as the most widely used free office suite, winning a race that began in early 2011.

The suite is governed by a body known as the Document Foundation which says in its annual report for 2016 that more and more developers were joining the project.

While LibreOffice is the main project of The Document Foundation, there is another project known as the Document Liberation Project which aims to provide conversion libraries, for a large number of open and proprietary file formats, and make them available to other software projects.

LibreOffice was born in September 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org after the latter went into Oracle's ownership as a result of the acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The fork took place when developers decided that it would be easier to develop a separate project rather than depend on Oracle.

(OpenOffice.org has since been handed over to the Apache Software Foundation and is known as Apache OpenOffice.)

An online version of LibreOffice is being developed by Collabora allowing it to be used in the cloud. This provides basic collaborative editing of documents in a browser by re-using LibreOffice desktop's "core engine".

There are native language LibreOffice projects in Japan, Taiwan, Albania, India, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil and Paraguay.

The 2016 report said that development during the year saw close to 300 committers active, with about 80 being active contributors every month. Four hackfests were organised during the year - in Brussels, Turin, Ankara and Brno - to add new features, fix bugs, and improve file format compatibility.

The report has detailed accounts of the development process, the people involved and plans for the future.
Cross-platform software vendor Parallels has appointed Kevin Greely as general manager of its Asia Pacific region.

Greely joined Parallels in 2011 as ANZ channel manager, and was subsequently promoted to ANZ country manager.

His new role involves customer and partner engagement and business development across the region, including ANZ, Greater China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.

Greely previously worked as marketing director at Manaccom, business planning consultant at AES Ireland, and channel manager at Maus Business Systems.

He holds a bachelor's degree in business and economics from Trinity College Dublin.

Greely's predecessor, Jerry Huang, left the company to pursue other interests.
Global software provider SmartBear Software has opened a new Asia-Pacific region headquarters in Melbourne to satisfy what it says is increasing regional demand for its services.

According to Smartbear, with more than 37% of the worlds software developers located outside North America and Europe, it has seen demand for its products beyond more traditional IT markets.

To support the demand, SmartBear says its Melbourne APAC headquarters will offer training, sales and support to regional customers, partners and the greater tech community across local time zones.

The establishment of an APAC headquarters follows what SmartBear says is dramatic expansion of its EMEA headquarters in Galway, Ireland, earlier this year.

Growing internationally is a large aspect of the continued growth of SmartBear, and were thrilled to announce the opening of our APAC Headquarters in Melbourne, said Darin Welfare, vice-president of International, SmartBear.

Melbournes unique location and a diverse, active tech community make it an ideal location to accelerate our APAC operations.

Philip Dalidakis, Victorias Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade, said: The Victorian Government is excited to welcome SmartBear Software as they join Melbournes vibrant tech ecosystem.

SmartBear joins the growing list of significant tech players who are setting up headquarters in Melbourne, attracted by our skilled and innovative workforce and our reputation as the world's most liveable city.

SmartBear, which says further expansion is planned into the APAC region with a presence in India later this year, has offices across five countries and claims customer reach in over 190 countries.
RACINE  On a recent Thursday at the Greater Racine Kennel Club, Racine Police Officer and K-9 handler Steve Beal was working with Dixie, his 3-year-old Belgian malinois.

Dixie, who performed perfectly that day, isnt just the newest Racine K-9 officer; shes also the model for where the Police Department is headed in how it will acquire and train its dogs. Both functions are coming in-house  and Dixie, Beals own dog whom he bred and trained, is the first example of that.

Dixie is proving that doing dogs in-house works, Beal said.

Acting the part of the bad guy was Racine Police Officer and fellow K-9 handler Don Rybarik, who had volunteered to don the bite suit for the apprehension practice.

We spend a lot of time in the suit, Rybarik remarked. Its uncomfortable sometimes, but the suit protects you.

Mostly, Beal added with a grin.

As they played out several different arrest scenarios, each time Beal eventually sent Dixie to leap, bite and hang onto Rybarik, growling and shaking the prey shed caught.

Beal also demonstrated how he could stop Dixie in mid-chase with a command, even though she wanted nothing more in those moments than to clamp her jaws on her target.

Being able to stop a dog during a charge is an essential part of training, Beal explained, in case an innocent person would ever walk into an apprehension situation, react loudly in alarm and thus unwittingly make themself the unintended target.

Fully staffed

The Racine Police Departments K-9 unit consists of four handlers and five dogs (Beal currently alternates between Odin and Dixie).

Through the years, said Racine Police Lt. Mike Smith, the K-9 Unit supervisor, weve gone from having patrol dogs out in the field working, sometimes various shifts  weve been able to expand to the point where now we actually have a K-9 unit that were able to deploy on all the shifts out to our drug unit, gang unit or community policing unit.

I think were at a good level, Smith said.

Traditionally, Smith explained, a police department will buy a dog through a vendor. Then theyll send a handler out there, theyre paying for the training of the handler, the handler goes out for six to eight weeks, and they hit the road. Besides losing that officer for a couple of months during training, the bill can approach $18,000 for the dog, travel, training and related expenses.

Training in-house will slash those costs. We know its going to be a fraction of that cost, Smith said.

Weve received a lot of support from the public with donations and such, he said. That helped us really push, putting more dogs out there.

With what were proposing, Smith continued, it just shows that were fiscally responsible with that money, too. We dont take those things for granted, and now that weve been put in that position (of having enough dogs), I feel like its our role now to make sure that we sustain it so that each time that we need a dog, were not going to the community and saying, Hey, you need to do this for us again. 

Expert on staff

What will allow the Racine Police Department to take over the acquisition and training of its future K-9 officers is having Beal, a longtime and certified dog trainer, in its ranks. He officially started training dogs in 1990 in the sport of schutzhund, a base sport for police work.

Thats where I draw a lot of what I use here and tweak from a sport aspect to a police aspect, because they do deploy differently, said Beal, who also is certified to train other dog trainers.

In the selection of future K-9s, Beal said, were trying to pass down a skill  teaching these handlers that if we were to go look at a prospective replacement dog  either for them or a new handler that we select  they know what traits theyre looking for in a dog so that this can become sustainable.

Saving on cost isnt the only reason for the new approach to future police dogs. Beal said they want to be able to control each dogs early-life experiences  instead of the risk of getting a dog that could react unpredictably to something unknown from its past.

Smith said: We can essentially have maybe even a better product than what we could purchase for a lot of money.

The program will take full effect the next time the department can foresee an existing K-9 officers retirement. Then it will go out to select a 1- to 2-year-old German shepherd or Belgian malinois, and the training of the cadet will begin.
Switching the national broadband network to using fibre-to-the-distribution-point technology is an interim solution; the correct solution, which will cost about the same, is to go full fibre.

This is the considered opinion of Mike Quigley, former chief executive of the NBN Co, who was asked by iTWire to offer a view on using FttDP in preference to the fibre-to-the-node technology that the majority of Australians will get under the NBN Co's current network rollout plan. Rod Tucker, Laureate Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne and a member of Labor's Expert Panel that advised on the NBN, was in agreement on this point.

A switch to FttDP has been repeatedly advocated by the head of the non-profit, Internet Australia, Laurie Patton.

Quigley said FttDP was also an interim solution that relied on the copper lead-in and cited a number of negatives for the network operator if this technology was used.

"It is not necessarily an easy technology to deploy and in introducing another technology variant NBN Cos long-term operating costs will rise yet again," he said. "It also requires the build out of a local fibre network which is a big part of what was required for FttP. But given the unreliability of FttN and the inability to predict or guarantee FttN performance for any particular subscriber it is not surprising that NBN Co is talking up FttDP."

Fibre-to-the-node installation in progress. Photo: courtesy NBN Co.

Quigley was categorical that the right answer was to use FttP. "It is clearly now the technology of choice for most telcos worldwide - even BT is talking about using more FttP. The argument that it is much more costly than FttDP has been demonstrated to be false.

"NBN Co is still quoting a cost of $4400 for FttP  the same cost they were quoting back in 2013, but if they just made the decision to use FttP and put some effort into getting the costs down, as Chorus in New Zealand has shown they can do with their 44% cost reduction over a few years, the cost of FttP would be very similar to FttDP. And that is even before you have to start adding in the eventual upgrade costs of FttDP and its impacts on long-term operating costs."

Prof Tucker said: "Surprising as it may seem, this means that if NBN Co wanted to, it could be rolling out FttP at about the same cost as its FttN rollout and its HFC upgrade. It is possible that FttP could even be rolled out at about the same cost as FttDP/C by implementing some of the new lower-cost fibre lead-in techniques being used in countries like New Zealand."

Mark Gregory, associate professor in network engineering at RMIT, was careful to draw a distinction between FttDP and fibre-to-the-curb, which is the terminology used by NBN Co.

"There is a clear distinction between FttDP and FttC and there are significant benefits when FttDP is used, as there is an opportunity for premises to be easily upgraded to all fibre," Gregory told iTWire.

He said many years ago, he had written about how FttDP would be an improvement over FttN "because it would mean that fibre was rolled out to a pit on the boundary of premises, typically within 40 metres, before copper cable is used for the lead-in".

"FttDP would permit fibre self-installation from the pit or service providers could do the fibre installation from the pit for customers that signed up to a 24-month plan similar to how we get mobile handsets on a 24-month plan today."

Gregory said the term FttC had been around for much longer and referred to an FttN variation where the fibre was rolled out to within 300 to 400 metres of premises to either a pit or pole, and copper cables used for the lead-in.

"In Australia, NBN Co adopted this US term and has indicated that it will install fibre to within 150 metres of premises to either a pit or pole and use copper cables for the lead-in," Gregory said.

"The percentage of premises that will not have fibre rolled out to the premises boundary is unknown at this time, but if fibre is rolled out any distance from premises the opportunity for self-installation of fibre into premises or for service providers to install the fibre into premises could be lost."
Using fibre-to-the-distribution-point technology for the NBN instead of fibre-to-the-node will enable the Turnbull Government to save face and also provide a better network, a senior academic who was involved with the project at its inception says.

Rod Tucker, Laureate Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne and a member of Labor's Expert Panel that advised on the NBN, told iTWire in response to queries that if NBN Co made a switch from FttN to FttP, then it would reflect badly on Communications Minister Mitch Fifield.

"After all the recent criticism levelled at FttP by Fifield, how could NBN Co be expected to admit that he is wrong and that FttP is now affordable?" he asked.

iTWire sought Prof Tucker's views on the use of FttDP, in the wake of repeated suggestions by Laurie Patton, head of Internet Australia, that the government and opposition should devise a bipartisan policy and switch the remainder of the rollout away from FttN to FttDP.

"The best option has always been FttP - it is reliable and future-proof, and users such as small businesses that need gigabit per second bandwidth can get it now," Prof Tucker said. "But the damage has been done  NBN Co is now well into its rollout of FttN. And FttN is the worst possible option. FttN is slow, and the maximum speed depends on the distance between the node and the customer.

"In addition, there is no easy way to upgrade FttN to FttP or even to FttDP/FttC. An upgrade would involve a rollout of

new fibre to each premises and trashing the expensive nodes dotted around the streets. Because of this, a FttN network will have much lower resale value than a FttP network."

Prof Tucker said Patton was correct in pointing out that FttDP/FttC is a much faster technology than FttN. "And a big advantage of FttDP/FttC is that it brings fibre close to the premises, which means that future upgrades to FttP will be feasible and potentially affordable."

But, he added, there was a downside. "On the other hand, FttDP/FttC will be yet another technology in the multi-technology mix, and every time a new technology is added new network management systems are needed and the operating cost (Opex) of the network increases."

Prof Tucker pointed out that FttDP/FttC used active devices in the distribution point (pit) outside each house and active devices inevitably required more maintenance than passive devices; this would put more upward pressure on the Opex.

But, he said, there was another option which was the best. "In my opinion, NBN Co should drop FttN as soon as possible and move directly to FttP rather than FttDP/C. NBN Co has its head in the sand regarding the costs of FttP. For years, NBN Co has been quoting the cost of FttP as $4405 per premises. This flies in the face of recent reports from around the world showing that FttP rollout costs have dropped by 50%.

"Surprising as it may seem, this means that if NBN Co wanted to, it could be rolling out FttP at about the same cost as its FttN rollout and its HFC upgrade. It is possible that FttP could even be rolled out at about the same cost as FttDP/C by implementing some of the new lower-cost fibre lead-in techniques being used in countries like New Zealand.

Prof Tucker said in summary, FttDP/FttC would be an enormous improvement over FttN. "But there is really no point in stopping at FttDP/FttC. The best thing for NBN Co to do would be to switch directly to FttP. The cost of a switch from FttN and HFC to FttP would be about half of what NBN Co claims, or about the same as they are spending on FttN."

He added that such a network would have lower operating costs, a higher resale value, and provide Australia with an NBN that was ready for the future.
Bertschi Named Emerging Nurse Leader

Lydia Bertschi '05

July 24, 2017

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.  Illinois Wesleyan University Assistant Professor of Nursing Lydia Bertschi has been selected as a recipient of the 40 Under 40 Emerging Nurse Leaders Award from the Illinois Nurses Foundation.

Bertschi is the third member of the School of Nursing faculty to be chosen for this honor, now in its third year. Winners were chosen by a panel of their peers based on their achievement in the profession, leadership, and community and association involvement.

A 2005 graduate of Illinois Wesleyans School of Nursing, Bertschi earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her previous work includes nursing in critical care at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington, and in pulmonology and intensivist services at UnityPoint Health  Methodist.

She has been active in humanitarian and medical relief for Haiti since 1998, serving as volunteer medical team coordinator for Hospital Lumiere in Bonne Fin, Haiti, since 2013. She is currently researching the identification of cardiovascular risk factors through health screening clinics at a rural Haiti hospital. This research will provide transformational research opportunities for IWU nursing students, said Vickie Folse, School of Nursing Director and Caroline F. Rupert Endowed Chair of Nursing, in recommending Bertschi.

"Dr. Bertschis ongoing commitment to expanding her research internationally as well as involving undergraduate students in her research strongly positions her to be a leading nursing scholar that will impact current and future generation of nurses," Folse said. "Her selfless service also serves as a model of interprofessional collaboration for our students."

Bertschi is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, and serves as Vice President of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, Theta Pi Chapter.

Previous recipients of the 40 Under 40 Emerging Nurse Leader distinction at Illinois Wesleyan were assistant professors of nursing Ann Eckhardt (2016) and Amanda Hopkins (2015). This year's winners will be honored at a Sept. 14 event in Chicago.
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Nawzat Shamdeen | (Mosul) | (Niqash.org) |  

Locals in Mosul are divided on whether to rehabilitate, reconcile or punish the families of Islamic State members. Meanwhile rumour has it that secret detention camps are already being set up.

The families of the Islamic State are more dangerous than the members of the Islamic State themselves, says Basma Basim, the head of the Mosul district council. They are the soil in which the seeds of the Islamic State have been planted and allowing them to stay in the city will mean a repeat of the bloody scenario that has taken place here.

Basim told NIQASH that she thinks the families associated with the Islamic State group, the extremist organization that has controlled Mosul for around three years, should leave the city on their own. She was particularly keen after seeing what happened in the nearby town of Qayyarah, home to the IS treasury for more than two years, repeated in the larger city: There locals got together to push the Islamic State, or IS, families out of their town, without any need for intervention from local security forces.

Public anger about the situation has impacted the Mosul council. On June 10, they did issue decisions along these lines, stating that IS families should not be allowed to return. However, Basim says no action has yet been taken.

Punishing or isolating innocent people will just mean that we are creating schools for terror.

The IS families are not worth more than the families of those people who were killed or dishonoured or displaced, or who lost their sources of living, Basim argues. If the IS families had any sense of responsibility, they would leave without being forced. They would do it to honour the martyrs, or out of their own shame.

This opinion is just one of the many that are being debated by locals in Mosul today. The question of what to do with the families whose children joined the IS group, or who worked for the IS group, over the past three years, has yet to be resolved. Whatever solution is eventually agreed upon, it will affect hundreds of Mosul families.

But there are also plenty of other opinions.

The IS families who are not convicted of any wrong doing should be allowed to stay in Mosul but their movements should be restricted, suggests well-known Mosul novelist, Ghada Siddiq Rasool, who left for Baghdad in 2015. They should be carefully monitored, Rasoul says: They need psychological rehabilitation, their place of work should be recorded and observed, and they should be obliged to volunteer for community work. If the families are expelled, they will pose even more danger in the future, Rasoul says.

Under the IS groups rule, local engineer Salam Saeed lost a brother, who died along with other members of his family when their house collapsed; the family had been hiding in the basement. Saeed also lost his own house and the business he started 20 years ago. So he believes the IS families must pay in some way  that would only be fair, Saeed says.

Despite the various videos that have been appearing online, showing how suspected members of the IS group are being interrogated, beaten and even executed by the Iraqi pro-government forces, Saeed is actually critical of the way IS families have been being treated by the pro-government forces.

Many of them [the IS members] escaped from Mosul through the humanitarian corridors that the military tried to open up during the fighting, Saeed points out. They just mixed with innocent civilians: We even saw some of them on the news. Thats not justice. They should suffer the way that we have suffered.

A journalist working for the Al Mosuliya satellite TV channel, which broadcasts out of Istanbul, identified several members of the IS group infiltrating the displaced locals who were fleeing the fighting. The pictures of those IS members were published on Facebook and there was a lot of anger directed at the security forces, for allowing the perpetrators to escape. Iraqis also voiced fears on social media, that this meant that IS sleeper cells were already being assembled.

Saeed believes that the Iraqi military dont have a proper overview of who was, and who was not, involved with the IS group. But locals such as himself do. They should get help from the people who lived under IS for three years, Saeed told NIQASH. Because we saw everything with our own eyes.

The members of the IS group and their families have committed ugly crimes against us, says Othman Qassim, a civil society activist, who was critical of those who were advocating a more tolerant approach. They should be punished. We will only accept an eye for an eye.

Qassim believes that the IS families should be transferred to special camps outside Mosul where they could be supervised by security forces and members of the judiciary as well as the Ministry of Education. The latter needs to be there because the IS families would have to complete courses in rehabilitation before they were allowed to return back to society. As for those locals that actually joined the IS group, they needed to be imprisoned and they should be stripped of their Iraqi nationality, he said.

Local writer Ali al-Jumrad has a different idea. He thinks that isolating all of the IS families in one place creates a whole new danger and that it will eventually result in an angry and vengeful generation that believes only in the IS groups ideology. Those children will grow up believing their fathers were martyrs, al-Jumrad warns.

And what sin did that father commit, that he and his family now have to pay for the crimes of the son?

Al-Jumrad thinks that IS families from outside Mosul should be handed over to their original tribes for safekeeping. Each tribe should protect the families and observe their behaviours at the same time, the writer notes. Tribal leaders should take responsibility for their members before the state. This could happen together with government-sponsored guidance  especially for the children  so that the influence the IS group had on them is diminished.

As for the IS families originally from Mosul, once again al-Jumrad believes community is the answer. Community leaders in the different neighbourhoods should liaise with security forces to report any suspicious activity. But that needs to be done carefully, al-Jumrad adds. It should not undermine the dignity of innocent people or create enemies in the society.

Other locals are committed to a more moderate path when it comes to the families of IS, saying that they want the real criminals punished but that it would not be right to also punish the criminals families.

Women, children and the elderly did not commit any crimes so there is no reason to punish them, argues Mohammed al-Obaidi, a Mosul lawyer. I am for punishing those who are convicted, according to the law, but I am against punishing their relatives, by expelling or arresting them. This is an unacceptable form of collective punishment.

Punishing or isolating innocent people will just mean that we are creating schools for terror, that only extremists, who want to destroy our society, will graduate from, he continued. They will always feel oppressed and they will want revenge upon those who they believe oppressed them. I am not ready to let my sons pay that price in the future, for my mistakes.

To prove his point, al-Obaidi pointed to the collective punishment of tens of thousands of members of the now-outlawed Baath party, once headed by Saddam Hussein. Former members of the party and the Iraqi army were prosecuted, deprived of job opportunities and otherwise punished. Most of the leaders of the IS group are former members of Saddam Husseins security forces, he said.

Mosul professor, Ibrahim al-Allaf, former director of the Regional Studies Centre at the University of Mosul, told NIQASH that he knows of one man whose son joined the IS group. The son was eventually killed in fighting. But the father, who once held a senior role in a local government institution, is a peaceful man who loves his country. He had no idea where his son ended up until recently.

And what sin did that father commit, that he and his family now have to pay for the crimes of the son? al-Allaf argued. Only those who actually committed the crimes should be punished.

We must work to bring unity back to Mosul, al-Allaf argues. We shouldnt be dragged into this plan to expel families from Mosul because that will just perpetuate the cycles of hatred, and will eventually create organisations far bloodier than the IS group. Its important to let the families stay and for the government to keep an eye on them.

Civilians treading carefully on the way home because the IS group have left boobytraps.

Local journalist and columnist Marwan Yassin al-Dulaimi believes that it would be unwise to get too emotional about this question. He points out that some politicians are already using too much emotional rhetoric around the issue, in order to encourage division and consolidate their own powers. According to al-Dulaimi, the only real solution should be provided by the Iraqi legal system.

We need to treat people as individuals rather than as herds, the way that the IS group treated them, al-Dulaimi argues. Lets look at other examples. Look at the Kurds and how they reconciled with those who carried arms against them. And look at the experience in South Africa.

For the time being, as Mosul strains to recover and the remaining IS fighters make their last, suicidal stand in certain parts of the city, nobody seems to have come up with any real conclusions as to what to do with the IS families.

Local rumour has it that no matter what decisions are being made, or that will be made in the future, the process of pushing the IS families out of Mosul has already begun. On condition of anonymity, a local police officer told NIQASH that the Iraqi army has already detained approximately 170 IS families in Bartala, a formerly-Christian-majority town east of Mosul. Nobody has been allowed to leave the camp.

Basim of the Mosul district council says that they have not moved any families to Bartala.

Other information also suggests that the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration has transferred around 100 families from Bartala to another camp, south of Mosul.

The authorities will not acknowledge that these are families with an IS connection. But locals say it is an open secret: Just as in other parts of Iraq, like Tikrit, there is already a special camp for IS families, who are kept separate from other displaced Iraqis, and who may not enter or leave the camp without permission. Their punishment has already begun.

Via Niqash.org

-

Related video added by Juan Cole:

EuroNews: West Mosul a deserted, shattered city
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By Solaiman M. Fazel | (Informed Comment) |  

Candidate Trump in his dynamic public rallies repeatedly criticized the former U.S. president for not winning anymore. Trump also mentioned, If Im president, well win so much, youll get bored with winning. Well it has now been a little over six months since the presidential inauguration. One main question that has been posited to President Trump is  how do we win in Afghanistan?

Phone talks between President Trump and his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani have already taken place. The assessment of the Afghanistan War has been studied by Defense Secretary James Mattis and other officials. Is the New Afghanistan Strategy going to intensify the fight against the Taliban or will it continue with Obamas quasi-containment policy with more contribution from NATO? The options of a steep reduction of U.S. and NATO personnel or a sudden increase in sending private mercenaries to take over the War in Afghanistan are unrealistic scenarios.

For any type of New Afghanistan Strategy to be winnable, Washington D.C. and Kabul must be on the same wavelength. This means, without attention the actual problems facing todays Afghanistan, no matter what type of strategy is orchestrated by experts is bound to fail. With this reality in mind, lets take a closer look at three key challenges facing President Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Abdullah Abdullahs National Unity Government (NUG) in Afghanistan.

1.) Unreliable Security

Since NUGs controversial formation in 2014, it has continuously fallen short in serving people, namely in protecting life and property. The lack of reliable security has provoked a recent wave of domestic relocation and emigration to other countries. Absence of security has either stopped or severely limited the development projects in numerous cities and towns under the control of the Taliban or other militants. For example, the ongoing battles and road closures in the provinces of Baghlan and Qundoz pose threats to the overall security and socioeconomic conditions of northern and northeastern Afghanistan.

2.) Political Challengers

The National Unity Governments failure to provide security and the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions has caused two political alliances to appear over the course of last month. The first anti-NUG alliance, Coalition for the Rescue of Afghanistan (CRA) was formed on June 30, 2017 in Turkey between the countrys First VP and Head of Junbish Melli  General Rashid Dostum, the Governor of Balkh and Chief Executive of Jamiat Islami  Atta Noor, and Member of Parliament (MP) and Deputy Chief Executive of Hizb-e Wahdat  Mohammad Mohaqiq.

On July 17, 2017 a second anti-NUG alliance, Axis of Afghanistan People (AAP), was formed in Kabul. AAP is co-directed Dr. Spanta, the former National Security Advisor, and Rahmat Nabil, the former Intelligence Chief. Both the CRA and AAP have a sizeable degree of support among the people.

The CRA and AAP have openly expressed their frustrations with NUGs foreign policy and lack of domestic political will to confront and resolve the underdevelopment and economic problems facing the country. President Ghani has frequently been accused by his opponents for making unilateral political actions, micro managing the government subcontracts, and for hiring a team of expert advisors who are at times undermining the authority of the ministers. Tolo Television two days ago referred to President Ghanis cadre of advisors as Afghanistans real cabinet.

On July 21, 2017, the NUGs Second VP, Sarwar Danish, publicly questioned the legality of CRAs alliance since its founders are current government officials. Danish also rejected the notion of an interim government or the possibility of organizing an early election. NUG supporters have also reminded the CRA of their own previous criminality and destruction back in the 1990s. It remains to be seen if Dostum, Noor, and Mohaqiq will continue their anti-NUG rhetoric without resigning.

The enmity between the Coalition for the Rescue of Afghanistan versus the National Unity Government appears to be headed for the courts. This legal case (the Old Guard vs. the new technocrats) is something that Trumps nominee, John Bass, as the new Ambassador to Afghanistan will be watching carefully since it could potentially jeopardize the success of New Afghanistan Strategy. If the new road map is botched, if will have detrimental impact on Trumps approval rating and President Ghanis reelection.

3.) Patronage Networks

Aside from security and jobs, President Ghani also made promises while campaigning to bring the corrupt economic networks that had mushroomed under his predecessor to justice. So far not much palpable results are visible under his tenure.

The insular economic networks enjoy close ties with elite politicians who carry influence in the countrys National Procurement Authority (NPA). NPA was created within the Administrative Office of President Ghani in late 2014. NPA is in charge of prioritizing and assigning contracts that are vital to economic development so the country could move in the direction of economic autonomy. According to the opposition, contracts are mostly given to firms that have good ties with NUG or contracts are issued to ghost subcontract companies where the allocated funds were/are pocketed by the insular networks. If news of corruption leaks, then the same patronage network assembles a team, based on personal trust and not on professional merit, to investigate the corruption charges. Transparency within the NPA decision-making circle and annual budget remains a mystery for most outsiders.

In conclusion, winning in Afghanistan is partly depended on military triumphs, in part depended on the cooperation of neighboring countries, and in part depended on the unwavering determination of NUG. What is missing from NUG is an Edgar J. Hoover like urgency to fight organized corruption. Otherwise, the gap between the state and a frustrated society will continue to increase, which could generate anti-Western attitudes among the left behind masses that could derail President Trumps New Afghanistan Strategy.

Solaiman M. Fazel, recently completed his doctorate in the Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington



Related video added by Juan Cole:

CNN: Marines remaining in Afghanistan face hardship

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TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - July 24, 2017) - Denison Mines Corp. ("Denison" or the "Company") (TSX:DML)(NYSE MKT:DNN) is pleased to report that multiple high-grade intervals of uranium mineralization have been returned from the initial drill holes completed during the summer 2017 drilling program on the Company's 60% owned Wheeler River project. The summer 2017 drilling program is focused on the delineation and expansion of the Gryphon deposit and, to date, has been successful on multiple fronts including expansion of mineralization within the A, B and D series of lenses.

A total of 9,446 metres in 17 holes have been completed as part of the summer 2017 drilling program, which is expected to include approximately 18,000 metres in 40 holes. Results below are reported as preliminary radiometric equivalent grades ("eU 3 O 8 ") derived from a calibrated downhole total gamma probe. The Company subsequently reports definitive assay grades following sampling and chemical analysis of the mineralized drill core.

Highlights

Nine infill and delineation drill holes have been completed on the Gryphon deposit's A, B and C series lenses, as part of the Company's infill drilling program to bring the current estimated inferred resources to an indicated level of confidence. Results are provided in Table 1 and include the following highlights: 1.3% eU 3 O 8 over 25.3 metres (including 3.3% eU 3 O 8 over 7.8 metres) in drill hole WR-604D1 4.1% eU 3 O 8 over 5.9 metres in drill hole WR-692 2.3% eU 3 O 8 over 9.3 metres in drill hole WR-564D1 3.0% eU 3 O 8 over 7.0 metres (including 3.6% eU 3 O 8 over 5.7 metres) in drill hole WR-610D1 1.9% eU 3 O 8 over 8.4 metres (including 2.5% eU 3 O 8 over 6.2 metres) in drill hole WR-570D1



The results show good consistency with the current inferred block model, with drill holes WR-564D1 and WR-570D1 indicating potential for resource growth in their respective areas of the deposit. In total, 31 infill and delineation drill holes have been completed of the approximately 40 holes required.

Five initial drill holes have been completed within the Gryphon D series lenses, which are located outside of the current resources estimated for the Gryphon deposit. Each drill hole intersected meaningful mineralization, highlighting the potential for resource growth at the indicated or inferred level of confidence. Results are provided in Table 2 and include the following highlights: 3.5% eU 3 O 8 over 3.2 metres (including 4.1% eU 3 O 8 over 2.7 metres) in drill hole WR-621D2 2.7% eU 3 O 8 over 2.3 metres (including 4.5% eU 3 O 8 over 1.3 metres) in drill hole WR-691 3.2% eU 3 O 8 over 2.0 metres (including 6.1% eU 3 O 8 over 1.0 metres) in drill hole WR-621D1



Three initial drill holes have been completed as part of the summer 2017 program with the objective of adding indicated resources from areas surrounding and within the Gryphon deposit's A and B series lenses. All three drill holes intersected mineralization, including drill hole WR-582D3 which was highlighted by a mineralized interval of 1.7% eU 3 O 8 over 8.6 metres. Results are provided in Table 3.

The summer program at Wheeler River also includes the continuation and completion of certain Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") field activities, including environmental and engineering data collection programs. An updated mineral resource estimate for Wheeler River is planned once the summer 2017 assay results are received, and is then expected to be incorporated into the completion of a PFS planned for 2018.

Dale Verran, Denison's Vice President of Exploration, commented, "As we near the halfway mark of the summer 2017 drilling program at Wheeler River, we are very pleased with the downhole probe results received to date - particularly the eight holes drilled outside of the current Gryphon resource area, which have returned mineralization that we expect will increase the size of the resources at Gryphon. Drilling that has targeted the D series lenses continues to deliver new high-grade mineralization and we continue to see results from our infill drilling program that are expected to support an increase in both the size and confidence of the previously estimated resources for the Gryphon deposit."

Illustrative Figures & Further Details

Figure 1: Plan map of the northeast plunging Gryphon mineralized lenses projected up to the simplified basement geology at the sub-Athabasca unconformity.





Figure 2: Inclined longitudinal section of the Gryphon A series lenses.





Figure 3: Inclined longitudinal section of the Gryphon B series lenses.





Figure 4: Inclined longitudinal section of the Gryphon C series lenses.





Figure 5: Inclined longitudinal section of the Gryphon D series lenses.





A plan map of the Gryphon A, B, C and D series lenses is provided in Figure 1. The inset on Figure 1 shows a schematic cross section of the A, B, C and D series lenses and their respective inclined longitudinal section windows (as shaded rectangles). Figures 2 to 5 provide inclined longitudinal sections of the Gryphon A, B, C and D series lenses respectively. The modelled mineralized lenses shown in Figures 1 to 5 are defined using a 0.05% U 3 O 8 grade shell and minimum thickness of two metres and have been updated following receipt of the winter 2017 assay results. There is no certainty that the modelled mineralized lenses shown will constitute future mineral resources and they may be subject to modifications as further drilling data becomes available.

Further details regarding the Gryphon deposit and the current mineral resource estimates are provided in the NI 43-101 Technical Report for the Wheeler River project titled "Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Wheeler River Uranium Project, Saskatchewan, Canada" dated April 8, 2016 with an effective date of March 31, 2016. A copy of this report is available on Denison's website and under its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml.

Detailed Radiometric Equivalent Probe Results

The following tables provide a complete set of the radiometric equivalent probe results to date from the drill holes completed during the summer 2017 exploration program at Wheeler River.

Table 1: Radiometric equivalent probe results for Gryphon deposit infill and delineation drill holes

Section Drill Hole From (m) To (m) Length (m)5 eU 3 O 8 (%)1,2,4 Lens Designation 4925GP WR-567D3 680.7 681.7 1.0 0.10 A Series and 690.0 698.0 8.0 1.7 A Series including3 690.2 691.2 1.0 7.0 A Series including3 694.3 695.3 1.0 4.1 A Series including3 696.8 697.8 1.0 1.6 A Series and 705.7 707.9 2.2 0.14 B Series WR-692 706.9 713.4 6.5 2.3 A Series including3 710.7 711.8 1.1 11.3 A Series and 737.3 738.3 1.0 0.37 B Series and 740.5 743.1 2.6 0.57 B Series and 746.2 752.1 5.9 4.1 B Series including3 746.4 751.8 5.4 4.4 B Series and 758.2 759.2 1.0 0.11 B Series 4975GP WR-693 No significant mineralization WR-564D1 681.0 682.0 1.0 0.10 A Series and 693.8 694.8 1.0 0.11 A Series and 702.3 703.3 1.0 0.49 A Series and 709.8 710.9 1.1 1.6 A Series including3 709.9 710.9 1.0 1.7 A Series and 714.6 715.6 1.0 0.26 A Series including3 718.4 719.4 1.0 2.7 A Series and 718.5 726.1 7.6 0.92 A Series including3 722.4 723.4 1.0 2.3 A Series and 730.6 732.1 1.5 0.21 B Series and 742.2 751.5 9.3 2.3 B Series including3 746.1 748.3 2.2 7.9 B Series including3 750.4 751.4 1.0 2.2 B Series and 754.4 755.4 1.0 0.30 B Series 5025GP WR-571D3 731.6 738.1 6.5 2.3 A Series including3 733.1 737.5 4.4 3.3 A Series and 759.3 760.9 1.6 3.4 B Series including3 759.8 760.8 1.0 5.3 B Series and 762.9 763.9 1.0 0.12 B Series and 775.6 776.6 1.0 0.25 C Series 5075GP WR-610D1 513.2 514.4 1.2 0.24 A Series and 751.0 752.0 1.0 0.11 B Series and 799.3 806.3 7.0 3.0 B Series including3 800.1 805.8 5.7 3.6 B Series WR-604D1 749.1 750.1 1.0 0.20 A Series and 764.6 766.1 1.5 1.2 A Series including3 765.0 766.0 1.0 1.7 A Series and 769.0 794.3 25.3 1.3 A Series including3 774.3 775.5 1.2 1.3 A Series including3 778.3 779.3 1.0 1.0 A Series including3 779.6 787.4 7.8 3.3 A Series and 798.0 800.5 2.5 1.3 B Series including3 798.7 800.2 1.5 1.9 B Series and 801.2 802.2 1.0 0.11 B Series WR-570D1 744.7 752.4 7.7 0.92 A Series including3 744.9 745.9 1.0 2.1 A Series including3 748.1 750.9 2.8 1.5 A Series and 753.6 754.6 1.0 0.13 B Series and 758.6 759.6 1.0 0.10 B Series and 766.2 774.6 8.4 1.9 B Series including3 768.2 774.4 6.2 2.5 B Series and 785.8 786.9 1.1 0.18 C Series 5100GP WR-606D3 782.7 787.0 4.3 0.32 A Series and 789.9 805.1 15.2 0.63 B Series including3 791.4 792.4 1.0 4.3 B Series including3 798.1 799.1 1.0 1.6 B Series

Notes:

eU 3 O 8 is radiometric equivalent U 3 O 8 from a calibrated total gamma downhole probe. eU 3 O 8 results are preliminary in nature and all mineralized intervals will be sampled and submitted for chemical U 3 O 8 assay. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 0.1% eU 3 O 8 unless otherwise indicated. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 1.0% eU 3 O 8. Composites are compiled using 1.0 metre minimum ore thickness and 2.0 metres maximum waste. As the drill holes are oriented steeply toward the northwest and the basement mineralization is interpreted to dip moderately to the southeast, the true thickness of the mineralization is expected to be approximately 75% of the intersection lengths. Drill hole WR-692 was drilled steeply to the north and therefore the true thickness of the mineralization is expected to be approximately 60% of the intersection lengths in this hole.

Table 2: Radiometric equivalent probe results for drill holes targeting the Gryphon D series lenses

Section Drill Hole From (m) To (m) Length (m)5 eU 3 O 8 (%)1,2,4 Lens Designation6 5175GP WR-691 639.7 640.7 1.0 0.59 A Series and 699.3 700.3 1.0 0.21 B Series and 712.8 713.8 1.0 0.14 D Series and 785.9 786.9 1.0 0.47 D Series and 788.9 790.1 1.2 0.16 D Series and 791.8 794.2 2.4 0.95 D Series including3 793.1 794.1 1.0 2.1 D Series and 804.9 805.9 1.0 0.43 D Series and 810.9 813.2 2.3 2.7 D Series including3 811.5 812.8 1.3 4.5 D Series and 817.1 818.1 1.0 0.12 D Series 5200GP WR-621D1 752.5 754.5 2.0 3.2 D Series including3 752.8 753.8 1.0 6.1 D Series and 761.5 764.0 2.5 0.62 D Series including3 762.7 763.7 1.0 1.2 D Series WR-621D2 706.3 707.3 1.0 0.11 D Series and 752.8 756.0 3.2 3.5 D Series including3 753.1 755.8 2.7 4.1 D Series and 762.7 765.4 2.7 0.34 D Series and 776.7 777.7 1.0 0.11 D Series WR-638D3 709.4 710.8 1.4 0.37 A Series and 715.7 716.7 1.0 0.24 A Series and 758.2 759.3 1.1 0.26 C Series and 770.9 771.9 1.0 0.11 C Series and 775.4 779.5 4.1 0.44 D Series including3 777.5 778.5 1.0 1.3 D Series WR-621D3 736.4 737.4 1.0 0.26 C Series and 762.1 763.1 1.0 0.24 D Series and 765.6 766.6 1.0 0.27 D Series and 769.8 770.8 1.0 0.10 D Series

Notes:

eU 3 O 8 is radiometric equivalent U 3 O 8 from a calibrated total gamma downhole probe. eU 3 O 8 results are preliminary in nature and all mineralized intervals will be sampled and submitted for chemical U 3 O 8 assay. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 0.1% eU 3 O 8 unless otherwise indicated. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 1.0% eU 3 O 8. Composites are compiled using 1.0 metre minimum ore thickness and 2.0 metres maximum waste. As the drill holes are oriented steeply toward the northwest and the basement mineralization is interpreted to dip moderately to the southeast, the true thickness of the mineralization is expected to be approximately 75% of the intersection lengths. Drill hole WR-691 was drilled steeply to the north and therefore the true thickness of the mineralization is expected to be approximately 60% of the intersection lengths in this hole. Drill holes targeting the D series lens mineralization, in some cases, also intersect mineralization in the A and/or B and/or C stratigraphic horizons outside of the Gryphon resource area.

Table 3: Radiometric equivalent probe results for Gryphon deposit additional infill and expansion drill holes

Section Drill Hole From (m) To (m) Length (m)5 eU 3 O 8 (%)1,2,4 Lens Designation 5175GP WR-638D1 724.0 725.8 1.8 0.22 A Series and 728.6 729.6 1.0 0.20 A Series and 786.6 787.7 1.1 0.85 D Series 5200GP WR-582D3 738.8 747.4 8.6 1.7 A Series including3 743.3 745.8 2.5 5.3 A Series and 756.4 757.4 1.0 0.16 A Series and 805.2 806.2 1.0 2.3 D Series 5225GP WR-582D4 746.3 748.6 2.3 0.24 A Series and 763.2 764.2 1.0 0.10 A Series and 798.1 799.1 1.0 0.28 D Series and 814.4 816.2 1.8 0.81 D Series including3 814.7 815.7 1.0 1.2 D Series

Notes:

eU 3 O 8 is radiometric equivalent U 3 O 8 from a calibrated total gamma downhole probe. eU 3 O 8 results are preliminary in nature and all mineralized intervals will be sampled and submitted for chemical U 3 O 8 assay. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 0.1% eU 3 O 8 unless otherwise indicated. Intersection interval is composited above a cut-off grade of 1.0% eU 3 O 8. Composites are compiled using 1.0 metre minimum ore thickness and 2.0 metres maximum waste. As the drill holes are oriented steeply toward the northwest and the basement mineralization is interpreted to dip moderately to the southeast, the true thickness of the mineralization is expected to be approximately 75% of the intersection lengths.

Qualified Persons and Data Quality

Dale Verran, MSc, P.Geo, Pr.Sci.Nat., Denison's Vice President, Exploration, who is a Qualified Person in accordance with the requirements of NI 43-101 has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this release. The Company currently reports preliminary radiometric equivalent grades ("eU 3 O 8 "), derived from a calibrated downhole total gamma probe, during its exploration programs and subsequently reports definitive assay grades following sampling and chemical analysis of the mineralized drill core. Radiometric equivalent probe results are subject to verification procedures by qualified persons employed by Denison prior to disclosure. For further details on the total gamma downhole probe methods employed by Denison, QAQC procedures and data verification procedures please see Denison's Annual Information Form dated March 23, 2017 filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).

About Wheeler River

Wheeler River is the largest undeveloped high-grade uranium project in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin region, in northern Saskatchewan. The project is a joint venture between Denison (60% and operator), Cameco Corp. ("Cameco") (30%), and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited ("JCU") (10%), and is host to the high-grade Gryphon and Phoenix uranium deposits discovered by Denison in 2014 and 2008, respectively. The Gryphon deposit is hosted in basement rock and is currently estimated to contain inferred resources of 43.0 million pounds U3O8 (above a cut-off grade of 0.2% U3O8) based on 834,000 tonnes of mineralization at an average grade of 2.3% U3O8. The Phoenix unconformity deposit is located approximately 3 kilometres to the southeast of Gryphon and is estimated to include indicated resources of 70.2 million pounds U3O8 (above a cut-off grade of 0.8% U3O8) based on 166,000 tonnes of mineralization at an average grade of 19.1% U3O8, and is the highest grade undeveloped known uranium deposit in the world.

On April 4th, 2016, Denison announced the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the Wheeler River Project, which considers the potential economic merit of co-developing the high-grade Gryphon and Phoenix deposits as a single underground mining operation. The PEA returned a base case pre-tax Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 20.4% based on the current long term contract price of uranium (US$44.00 per pound U 3 O 8 ), and Denison's share of estimated initial capital expenditures ("CAPEX") of CAD$336M (CAD$560M on 100% ownership basis). Exploration results from the subsequent drilling programs have not been incorporated into the resource estimate or the PEA. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. On July 19th, 2016 Denison announced the initiation of a Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") for the Wheeler River property and the complimentary commencement of an infill drilling program at the Gryphon deposit to bring the inferred resources to an indicated level of confidence.

As previously announced on January 10th, 2017, Denison has entered into an agreement with its Wheeler River Joint Venture partners, Cameco and JCU, to fund 75% of Joint Venture expenses in 2017 and 2018 (ordinarily 60%) in exchange for an increase in Denison's interest in the project to up to approximately 66%. Under the terms of the agreement, Cameco will fund 50% of its ordinary 30% share in 2017 and 2018, and JCU is expected to continue to fund its 10% interest in the project.

About Denison

Denison is a uranium exploration and development company with interests focused in the Athabasca Basin region of northern Saskatchewan. Including its 60% owned Wheeler River project, which hosts the high-grade Phoenix and Gryphon uranium deposits, Denison's exploration portfolio consists of numerous projects covering over 330,000 hectares in the infrastructure rich eastern Athabasca Basin. Denison's interests in Saskatchewan also include a 22.5% ownership interest in the McClean Lake joint venture, which includes several uranium deposits and the McClean Lake uranium mill, which is currently processing ore from the Cigar Lake mine under a toll milling agreement, plus a 25.17% interest in the Midwest deposit and a 63.01% interest in the J Zone deposit on the Waterbury Lake property. Both the Midwest and J Zone deposits are located within 20 kilometres of the McClean Lake mill.

Denison is also engaged in mine decommissioning and environmental services through its Denison Environmental Services division and is the manager of Uranium Participation Corp., a publicly traded company which invests in uranium oxide and uranium hexafluoride.
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - July 24, 2017) - Continental Gold Inc. (TSX: CNL) ( OTCQX : CGOOF) ("Continental" or the "Company") is pleased to report that it has commenced a 15,000-metre Phase 1 Expansion underground drilling program as part of the 2017 exploration program at its 100%-owned Buritica project located in Antioquia, Colombia. Presently, there are three drill rigs operating at site, with two more rigs anticipated to arrive by the end of Q3 2017.

The aim of the directional drilling program is multifold and will include infill drilling of both probable reserves and inferred resources in order to move them into higher classification categories. Additionally, step-out drilling is planned to target high-grade extensions along both probable mineable reserve blocks and inferred mineral resources located at or below the elevation of the Higabra Valley Tunnel. Lastly, multiple new targets with high-grade gold potential, identified from grassroots exploration conducted around the Buritica project during the past two years, will be tested towards the end of the Phase 1 Expansion drilling program. The Company anticipates the first results of this drill campaign to be available in September.

"We are excited to have drills turning again for the first time in more than two years and expect that future results will continue to be positive," commented Ari Sussman, Chief Executive Officer. "With both the Yaragua and Veta Sur deposits wide open for expansion, we are confident that drilling will drive shareholder value as we embark on our next phase of corporate growth."

About Continental Gold

Continental Gold Inc. is a development-stage gold mining company. With a first mover advantage in Colombia, the Company has a portfolio of high-grade and high impact exploration and development properties. The Company's flagship Buritica project is a high-grade and multi-million-ounce precious metal project boasting mineral reserves of 3.7 million ounces at 8.4 g/t gold (13.7 million tonnes), with production scheduled for early 2020. Newmont Mining recently invested US$109 million at a 46% premium to market to purchase a 19.9% interest and, as a result, the Company is well-funded to initiate construction of the Buritica mine and initiate aggressive drill programs throughout its portfolio of properties.

The technical information in this news release has been reviewed by Mauricio Castaneda, Vice-President, Exploration of Continental, who is a Qualified Person under Canadian National Instrument 43-101 standards.

For information on the Buritica project, please refer to the technical report, prepared in accordance with NI 43-101, entitled "Buritica Project NI 43-101 Technical Report Feasibility Study, Antioquia, Colombia" and dated March 29, 2016 with an effective date of February 24, 2016, led by independent consultants JDS Energy & Mining Inc. The technical report is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, on the OTCQX at www.otcmarkets.com and on the Company website at www.continentalgold.com.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 24, 2017) - Zinc One Resources Inc. (TSXV: Z) (OTC Pink: ZZZOF) (FSE: RH33) ("Zinc One or the Company") is pleased to announce that it has achieved a major milestone by entering into a five-year surface access agreement (the "Surface Access Agreement") with the Comunidad Campesina de Yambrasbamba ("CCY") to permit surface access for exploration and development work on the Bongara Zinc-Oxide Mine and Charlotte Bongara Zinc-Oxide Project.

With the Surface Access Agreement signed, Zinc One will immediately commence the process of updating the environmental baseline study within the framework of the current Environmental Impact Assessment; this study is the key component of the drill-platform permit applications, which are planned to be filed during Q3. Zinc One is now in the process of starting the bid process for various services related to the upcoming drill campaign, which is expected to commence in August 2017.

"Reaching an agreement with the Yambrasbamba community is a major milestone for Zinc One and the Bongara Zinc-Oxide Mine Project. The Yambrasbamba community has previously seen the full gamut of mining - from exploration to construction to operations to remediation - which is extremely rare. They are very knowledgeable and not only understand the economic opportunities it will afford the CCY stakeholders, but have seen the overall minimal impact of mining and the benefits of remediation. We are grateful to have such a supportive community and, if the project moves ahead as we expect, then we see the building of the Bongara Zinc Oxide Mine Project as a win for the community, government and company shareholders," commented James Walchuck, CEO of Zinc One.

Results of Annual General Meeting

Zinc One is also pleased to announce the results of Zinc One's Annual General Meeting held on July 13, 2017.

Shareholders voted in favour of all items put forward by the Board of Directors. Shareholders set the number of directors at five and approved the appointment of James Walchuck, Dr. William C. Williams, W. Barry Girling, Greg Crowe and Gunther Roehlig to the Board of Directors.

Shareholders also approved the appointment of Zinc One's auditors, Charlton & Co LLP, the Company's rolling 10% stock option plan and the Company's restricted share unit plan. The restricted share unit plan is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Zinc One also announces that it has granted a total of 1,750,000 restricted share units to James Walchuck, its Chief Executive Officer and director. The grants are subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Bill Williams, COO and Director of Zinc One, a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
By John J. Metzler



UNITED NATIONS  After a bitter eight-month fight, the Iraqi military has finally freed Mosul from the brutal grip of Islamic State. This victory in retaking this key northern city has shattered the myth of IS invincibility and moreover liberated one of the so-called Caliphate's twin capitals.



The fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) known as IS or Da'esh in Arabic is far from over. The terrorist group still controls territory in both Iraq and Syria.



U.S. Lt General Stephen Townsend, Commander of the allied task force stated, "Make no mistake; this victory alone does not eliminate ISIS and there is still a tough fight ahead. But the loss of one of its twin capitals and a jewel of their so called caliphate is a decisive blow." Now the allied coalition is tightening the noose on IS in the Syrian city of Raqqa.



Significant U.S. behind the scenes military efforts helped the Iraqi army secure victory.



Addressing the Security Council, Jan Kubis, the UN's Special Representative for Iraq stated, "The historic liberation of Mosul should not conceal the fact that the road ahead is extremely challenging."



After American and allied forces had sufficiently secured Iraq by 2010, the political calculus of the new Obama Administration changed the reality on the ground. It became clear that the U.S. was going to withdraw from Iraq without leaving a sufficient stabilizing force as an insurance policy against any future attacks. Moreover, an inept Baghdad government was more focused on sectarian politics than national unity, thus creating the conditions for the rise of renewed radicalism.



People have already forgotten the bloody debacle. President Obama withdrew all U.S. forces by the end of 2011. In early 2014 Obama jibed that ISIS was a "junior varsity" type terrorist group; just months later the militants would prove him laughably wrong.



By June 2014 Islamic State forces went on the offensive and seized Mosul in what became a humiliating defeat for the Iraqi military and stunning psychological setback for Iraqi sovereignty. The fall of a major city and the loss of significant territory presented the Baghdad government with a near total military collapse in the north.



By spring 2015, IS was on the offensive capturing Ramadi just 70 miles from Baghdad as well Palmyra in Syria. Treasured Assyrian archaeological sites such as Nimrud and Hatra were sacked and plundered by Islamic State.



IS lightning expansion in Iraq's Sunni Muslim Anbar province proved symbolically devastating. Americans viewed the setbacks in Anbar as particularity bitter given the blood spilled by U.S. forces stabilizing the region during the Iraq war.



IS has thrived on Iraq's intra-Islamic divide between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority.



Now in the wake of Mosul's liberation from IS, Jan Kubis conceded, "To turn the gains of the military victory into stability, security, justice and development, the Government will have to do everything possible to give the people back their lives in security and dignity."



"The fighting may be stopping but the humanitarian crisis has not," warned Lise Grande, a UN Development Program official. She cited a litany of destruction; of Mosul's 54 residential districts, 15 are heavily damaged "basically flattened," and 23 other neighborhoods suffered moderate damage. UN estimates to stabilizing these areas may cost $700 million alone.



Since the start of the fighting last year, nearly 940,000 civilians fled Mosul.



Following the liberation of Mosul President Donald Trump stated, "We have made tremendous progress against ISIS, more in the past 6 months than in the years since ISIS became a major threat. The victory in Mosul, a city where ISIS once proclaimed its so-called caliphate,' signals that its days in Iraq and Syria are numbered. "



An unspoken victim of the IS rule has been the fate of the once significant Christian minority in Mosul and the Ninevah plain who have faced a decade of persecution. Swedish European parliamentarian Lars Adaktusson, writing in the Jerusalem Post warned, "The disappearance of first Jews and now Christians from most parts of the Middle East means the termination of the historical Middle Eastern mosaic of peoples."



Ancient Christian communities are being systematically decimated in both Iraq and Syria. Since 2003, the Iraqi Christian population fell from 1.4 million to 275,000.



The spider web of IS control over Iraq has receded but has hardly disappeared. Crucially,



a combination of renewed American resolve and Iraqi government military commitment has delivered the people of Mosul from the IS barbarism. Has anyone noticed?





John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China." Contact jjmcolumn@eartthlink.net.




By Kang Seung-woo





Models promote Feng Li Su, a famous Taiwanese desert, at a Home plus store in Seoul, July 13. Courtesy of Homeplus

The nation's leading discount retailer Home plus has brought Taiwan's famous pineapple pastry cakes to local consumers.

According to the company, Monday, it started selling the Taiwanese snack, called Feng Li Su, July 13 at its 92 stores across the nation.

Feng Li Su is a small, bite-sized pastry with a pineapple jam stuffing that is one of the top selling desserts there.

Emerging as a "must-have" item when in Taiwan to bring home as a souvenir, Home plus imported it last September and they sold out within two weeks.

Considering its high popularity, the discount chain has introduced chocolate pineapple cake along with the original royal pineapple cake. Both are available at 8,990 won ($8).

In order to fully meet Korean consumers' growing demand for the cakes, Home plus has brought them through direct sourcing that helped the company secure enough supplies _ more than twice as much as previously.

In particular, Home plus is pinning hopes on the chocolate pineapple cake.

To provide a new flavor to Korean consumers, who are accustomed to the pineapple taste, Home plus cooperated with a local company from the planning stage on the new product for six months.

The brand new cake that looks like a brownie has a pineapple paste filling in a chocolate crust.

Home plus also stresses that this year's edition of Feng Li Su boasts of more pineapple stuffing that last year's imports by up to 250 percent.

To offer the Taiwanese cakes at a lower cost, those who use Shinhan, Samsung and KB Kookmin credit cards can buy them for 7,990 won until July 26.

"In order to thank our customers' interest in Feng Li Su last year, we have added the chocolate pineapple cake to the royal pineapple cake. We plan to introduce a variety of global desserts for our customers," a Home plus official said.
ROCHESTER  July 12 started as another normal day at 28317 Plank Road in Rochester. Nick Hunt, a physical education teacher at Park High School, and Jackie Hunt, a physicians assistant at Ascension All Saints Hospital, had just returned from a night of celebrating a relatives anniversary.

Little did the Hunts know at the time that the area was going to get about 7 inches of rain, bringing the Fox River in Burlington to an all-time high and flooding the region  flooding which would ultimately destroy their basement and basements of many others in the area.

Tired friends and family, in town for the celebration, streamed into the Hunts home that night and laid their heads on beds and couches around the house. Nicks two brothers and niece chose a couch and bed downstairs. There was plenty of room in the basement.

The Rochester couple, now with a 15-month-old and a 3-year-old, set to work a couple years ago renovating their cold, empty basement into a place where family and friends could hang out and live.

We really spent a lot of time making it how we wanted it, Jackie said.

The next morning

But at 6 a.m. that Wednesday, Jackie woke up to a text from a neighbor warning that Nicks two bothers and niece might be under water if they remained in the basement.

Jackie looked out the window. Three-quarters of her property was submerged under about 3 feet of water. The Hunts jumped into action and got all the kids and family onto the road across from the standing water. After the kids were safe, Jackie called her brother, a firefighter at the Greenfield Fire Department, to get help saving their basement.

By this time, at about 7 a.m., there was already more than 2 feet of water in the Hunts basement, and the Hunts were scrambling to get their ruined furniture out. As the floodwater crept up over the side of the house, it was stopped by the basements sliding windows. If the windows hadnt held back the floodwater, rescuers said her entire bottom floor would have filled up to the ceiling.

It could have been worse

It could have been worse Jackie explained. We are so lucky they held  our neighbors were not so lucky.

In a scene repeated several times that day in Burlington and surrounding towns, rescuers began pumping water out of the Hunt home. In a matter of hours, the water had receded slightly and the basement had been cleared. But, even though the rain had stopped, there was still up to 3 feet of water covering most of their 3-acre property.

The drainage culvert under the road wasnt wide enough for the amount of water coming through our property, Jackie said. All the Hunts could do was wait as the water level dropped as the culvert caught up.

Meanwhile, the Hunts began ripping out carpet, drywall and insulation up to the high-water mark, about 2 feet of wall. We sank up to $30,000 into these renovations, and we expect to only get about $5,000 back, Jackie said of the damage to her home. Wed be lucky if that takes care of our furnace and our water heater. Meanwhile, they still need to make all those repairs.

Plans to rebuild

The Hunts plan to start rebuilding in a year, but their lives are returning to normalcy already. Numerous members of the community in Rochester, from co-workers to firefighters to complete strangers, have helped the Hunts recover. The Hunts already have water and electricity back, and are back living in their home.

We thought we were going to lose the whole house. We really got very lucky to be sleeping in our own beds tonight, Jackie said. I have to be positive. I dont really have a choice. We just have to keep going.
Sleeping dogs lie, but sleeping whales  "stand" on their tails? That was the scene recently glimpsed by a diver in the Caribbean, at least, when the photographer encountered a group of sperm whales napping together, all of them suspended tails-down in the water.

Photographer Franco Banfi was free diving  underwater diving without a breathing apparatus  on Jan. 28 off the coast of Dominica, an island in the Caribbean Sea between Martinique and Guadalupe, when he spied six still and silent sperm whales drifting in their upright postures at a depth of around 65 feet (20 meters).

Researchers first saw this unusual sleep behavior in sperm whales in 2008, describing it in a study published in January of that year in the journal Current Biology. The scientists in that study found that sperm whales dozed in this upright drifting posture for about 10 to 15 minutes at a time, and the whales did not breathe or move at all during their naps, the study authors reported. [Sleep Tight! Snoozing Animals Gallery]

Banfi, who has won several international awards for his underwater photography, began documenting life underwater in the early 1980s, just a few months after he started diving, Canon Europe reported in April.

Capturing images of whales can be especially challenging, because the animals are so big that they are difficult to illuminate with strobe lights, which underwater photographers frequently use in dark ocean depths, Banfi told Canon Europe.

"You have to use natural light," he said. "You have to look at where the sun is coming from and have the animal lit from the sun."

And if a photographer isn't in the right position to capture an elusive underwater moment, the subject may not stick around long enough to provide a second chance, Banfi added.

Toothed whales and dolphins in captivity exhibit very different sleeping behaviors from those of the napping sperm whales; captive cetaceans have been observed sleeping with one hemisphere of their brains still active, so that they can swim and breathe voluntarily while at rest, the 2008 study authors wrote.

Those scientists discovered the sleepers in the wild when their boat accidentally drifted into the pod of six whales bobbing just below the surface in waters off the coast of Chile. The animals were inactive and unresponsive, even when the scientists approached them in a boat, but all the whales awakened quickly and swam away when the boat brushed against one of them and woke it up, the study authors reported.

Further observations revealed that the sperm whales entered these sleeping states by first descending head-down to a depth several times that of their bodies, then passively turning head-up and drifting closer to the surface. The findings showed that sperm whales around the world practice this vertical sleeping posture  but infrequently, spending only about 7 percent of their time asleep, which is less than any other mammal spends, according to the study.

Those scientists collected their data from the ocean surface. Banfi, on the other hand, captured this and other images of sperm whales by free-diving to depths of 49 feet (15 meters) and staying underwater as long as 1 minute to photograph the whales, he told Canon Europe.

"For this kind of picture, you come up and maybe you breathe three times and then you have to go down again because you want to take more pictures," Banfi explained. "You cannot stay long on the surface, because the situation will change.

Original article on Live Science.
Lifted from the bible

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Numerous accounts of wars and battles that involved ancient Israel, Judah, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and other powers in the region are recorded in the Bible and other ancient sources. Some of these conflicts may never have taken place, while others occurred but didn't have the results that the Bible claims. Here's a look at tales from 12 "biblical" ancient wars and battles.

Merneptah conquers Israel?

(Image credit: Jim-Henderson/Alamy)

The earliest mention of the name "Israel" comes from a stele (an inscription carved on stone) that was written in the name of the pharaoh Merneptah (reign ca. 12131203 B.C.). In the stele, Merneptah claims to have "laid waste" to "Israel," along with other cities and kingdoms in the eastern Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the stele gives no details about what Israel was like, only that it was one of many places or people that Merneptah claimed to have conquered.

Escape from Egypt

(Image credit: The British Library Board)

The Book of Exodus claims that the Jewish people fled from Egypt while being pursued by Egypt's army. Moses supposedly called on god to part the Red Sea, allowing the Jewish people to cross. When the Egyptian army attempted to cross the sea, it recedes, engulfing the Egyptian army in water. [The Science of the 10 Plagues]

In the story, the Egyptian pharaoh ruled from a city named Rameses, a place that archaeologists now know was Egypt's capital for a time during the later second millennium B.C. and was abandoned by 1000 B.C.

While scholars regard the parting of the Red Sea as being legendary, whether some of the Jewish people could have fled, or otherwise left, Egypt during the late second millennium B.C. is still an open question. Egyptian records do tell of groups from Asia who lived in Egypt at various times in antiquity.

Battle of Jericho

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

In the Hebrew Bible, Jericho is a major city that was taken after the Israelis crossed the Jordan River. The story says that the Israeli army marched around the city for seven days, blowing trumpets and carrying the Ark of the Covenant in front of the main body of the army. On the seventh day, the leader of the army, Joshua, commanded the entire army to shout and, miraculously, the walls of the city of Jericho collapsed, allowing the Israeli army to take the city.

While scholars regard the miraculous destruction of the city walls to be fictional, there is a debate as to whether an Israeli army could have destroyed Jericho during the second millennium B.C.

Archaeologist John Garstang (who lived 1876-1956) found that a large city flourished at Jericho and was destroyed around 1400 B.C.; Kathleen Kenyon (1906-1978) found that this city had been destroyed around 1550 B.C., a date that many scholars believe is too early for an Israeli army to have destroyed it.

Battle of Ai

(Image credit: Dore's English Bible)

In the Hebrew Bible, the Israeli army takes the city of Ai after capturing Jericho. The Israeli leader, Joshua, splits the Israeli army into two groups: a main group that is under orders to retreat when the army of Ai attacks it and a smaller group that lies in wait near the city gates, with orders to enter the city and set it on fire once the Ai army has been lured away. In the story, the plan succeeds, and the city is plundered and destroyed.

Some archaeologists believe that the city of Ai is located at an archaeological site called et-Tell; however, archaeological excavations show that the ancient city at el-Tell was destroyed during the third millennium B.C., making it impossible that Joshua's army could have destroyed it. A few archaeologists believe Ai could be at another site called Khirbet el-Maqatir. While the debate on Ai's location is ongoing, many archaeologists now believe that the story of Ai's destruction by an Israeli force is fictional and that this battle never took place.

Battles against the Philistines

(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Hebrew Bible tells of numerous battles between the Israelis and the Philistines. In one of the most famous battles an Israeli force led by David battled a Philistine force led by a giant named Goliath. David killed Goliath when a sling stone and the Israeli force won the battle.

However, the Israelis were not always successful in their battles. The Hebrew Bible claims that one battle ended in disaster with the Philistines not only routing an Israeli force but capturing the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines later gave the Ark back to the Israelis after the Ark supposedly brought about a series of deaths and misfortunes to the Philistines.

Recently a large cemetery was discovered by archaeologists in the ancient city of Ashkelon, a city which the Hebrew Bible and other ancient texts say was under Philistine control. Analysis of the remains found in the cemetery is ongoing but researchers hope that the discovery will provide more information about who the Philistines were.

War between Israel and Judah

(Image credit: Christian Muller)

The Hebrew Bible claims that the kingdom of Israel split apart during the reign of King Rehoboam (who lived around 3,000 years ago). After the split, Rehoboam ruled a kingdom based at Jerusalem that was called Judah, while another Jewish state that kept the name Israel formed a separate kingdom. The Hebrew Bible claims that disputes over taxes and Corvee labor (free labor) drove apart the kingdom that formerly united the Jewish people.

The Hebrew Bible claims that Israel and Judah often fought each other, sometimes allying with different powers in the region. In their last war, Judah allied with Assyria while Israel allied with another power named Aram. This last war led to the destruction of Israel by an Assyrian force in 723 B.C.

While archaeologists and historians generally agree that two separate Jewish kingdoms existed, how they broke up or whether they were ever united is a matter of debate among scholars.

Assyrian siege on Jerusalem

(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty)

Both the Hebrew Bible and ancient Assyrian texts describe how the Assyrian king Sennacherib (reign ca. 704-681 B.C.) laid siege to Jerusalem in 701 B.C. The Kingdom of Judah, led by King Hezekiah, prepared for defense by constructing a water tunnel that connected Jerusalem with a spring outside the city (the location of this tunnel is a source of debate among archaeologists).

Both the Hebrew Bible and Assyrian texts also agree that the Assyrians didn't conquer the city, but why the Assyrian army left is unclear. The Hebrew Bible claims that after part of the Assyrian army left to battle an Egyptian force, the "angel of the lord" killed the remaining Assyrian soldiers. Assyrian records claim that the Assyrians left only after Hezekiah agreed to pay a vast tribute that included a large amount of gold, silver, ivory, elephant hides and even Hezekiah's own daughters.

Nebuchadnezzar II's conquest of Jerusalem

(Image credit: Bodleian Library/University of Oxford)

In 587 B.C., the Babylonian Empire, led by King Nebuchadnezzar II, conquered Jerusalem. The Hebrew Bible says that the Babylonian force looted and set fire to the First Temple, the holiest temple for the Jewish people. The Babylonians also tore down Jerusalem's walls, sacked and destroyed much of the city and deported much of the populace to various sites around the Babylonian Empire. The Kingdom of Judah was destroyed.

Recently, several cuneiform tablets have emerged in Iraq that describe the lives of the Jews who were exiled to Babylonia. The tablets say that some of the exiles and their descendants lived at a village called Al-Yahudu which means the "village of Judea." The tablets say that the exiled people who lived at Al-Yahudu adopted local languages and legal traditions. Many of the tablets have been purchased by private collectors from the antiquities market, raising concerns that the tablets were looted.

Battle of Megiddo

(Image credit: Werner Forman Archive/Alamy)

In 609 B.C., a confrontation was brewing between Egypt (led by Pharaoh Necho II) and the Babylonians (led by King Nabopolassar) who had conquered much of Assyria.

Necho II sent an army to meet up with the surviving Assyrian forces to battle the Babylonians. The Hebrew Bible claims that for Necho II to meet with the Assyrians he had to pass through the city of Megiddo, which was controlled by Judah (led by King Josiah). Necho II requested safe passage through Megiddo, but Josiah refused and fought the Egyptian force somewhere near Megiddo, leading to the defeat of Judah's army and Josiah's death in battle. Archaeological remains from this battle have not been found, and there is a debate among scholars as to whether this battle actually took place.

Maccabean Revolt

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

By A.D. 170, the area that was Israel and Judah was under the control of the Seleucid Empire, one of several empires that were created after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. The Seleucid Empire was growing weaker, and, between A.D. 170 and A.D. 160, a Jewish rebel army inflicted a series of revolts and defeats inflicted on the Seleucids, leading the Jewish people to regain their independence. A priest named Mattathias ben Johanan (died 165 B.C.) and his son Judas Maccabeus (died 160 B.C.) led the Jewish rebel army in the revolts.

A new Jewish dynasty, which historians call the Hasmonean Dynasty, was founded in this newly independent state. The Jewish temple, which had been sacked by the Babylonians, was rededicated, an event celebrated by Jews every year during Hanukkah.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Evolution has been occurring for billions of years, producing organisms that are perfectly adapted to their environments. And this includes abilities that we would normally consider superpowers if humans were to have them. But these powers really do exist in the animal kingdom.

1. Echolocation

In the superhero world, Matt Murdock, who was blinded by radioactive waste as a child, developed a superhuman ability to sense using sound waves and became the superhero Daredevil. This gives Daredevil a 360-degree field of "vision," allowing him to precisely locate objects or people in all directions, an obvious advantage over normal vision.

Bats, despite being nocturnal animals, cannot see in the dark. Instead they have evolved a similar ability known as use echolocation to navigate and locate prey at night. The bat emits a very high frequency sound and listens for the echo that bounces off objects. The difference in time between emitting the sound and hearing the echo allows the bat to build up a mental "picture" of its environment. Sounds that take longer to bounce back indicate that the surroundings are further away.

Matt Murdock's ability may not be too far from reality as humans can also learn to use echolocation. By making clicking noises or stomping their feet some visually impaired people are able to accurately "visualise" their surroundings.

2. Magnetic Sense

The X-Men's arch-villian Magneto can sense and manipulate magnetic fields with his mind. And some animals have a similar magnetic sense known as "magnetoreception" that they use to navigate and orient themselves. For example, homing pigeons are able to navigate back to their home lofts when visual cues are missing but can't do so when magnets are nearby. This suggests that they may use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate.

Although we don't understand exactly how they do this, pigeons have been found to possess a substance called magnetite in their beaks, which becomes magnetised when exposed to magnetic fields (opens in new tab). So they may be following their nose, so to speak.

Of course, Magneto's magnetic powers can produce a much wider range of effects, from lifting and manipulating metal objects to rearranging matter (a power definitely not seen in animals). However, his daughter Polaris has the ability to perceive the world as patterns of magnetic energy, which actually isn't too dissimilar to the powers present in the animal kingdom.

3. Shapeshifting

The ability to shapeshift and mimic the form of others is a formidable power for a superhero or villain  and has been used by XMen's Mystique on many occasions to lure and manipulate her foes. A rare few animals are capable of changing their shape and size in the real world, most notably the mimic octopus.

It can alter its colour, behaviour, shape and texture to mimic a diverse range of species, with at least 13 examples recorded so far including sea snakes, jellyfish and sea anemones. Most of the impersonated species are poisonous, and so pretending to be them helps the octopus ward off predators. But this shapeshifter is also able to imitate its prey, possibly in an attempt to lure them in closer before feasting on them.

4. Absorbing powers

The ability to steal the superpowers of another individual is surely the ultimate power, enabling you to have any power in existence. XMen's Rogue has the incredible ability to absorb superpowers of anyone she touches  but so do the Pitohui birds of New Guinea (well, almost). The feathers and skin of Pitohui contain a noxious substance, making them possibly the only poisonous birds in the world and giving them defence against predators. But the birds don't appear to be able to produce the toxic substance directly. Instead, they acquire it by eating Choresine beetles.

Furthermore, scientists think this toxicity might even rub off onto the birds' eggs and young, making them toxic to predators as well, even though they have never eaten the Choresine beetles. So the infant birds are essentially absorbing the superpower from their parents in the same way that Rogue absorbs powers when she touches other people.

5. Chemical weapons

One animal ability even goes beyond what has been imagined by superhero fiction. Bombardier beetles are noted for their unique defence mechanism that enables them to produce acid gas bombs to deter predators such as ants. In extreme cases they may bombard predators with a lethal dose of these chemical bombs that they kill them. The acid bombs consist of two chemical compounds stored separately in the beetle's abdomen. When threatened, the beetles combine the two compounds, resulting in the production of a boiling mixture that explodes out of the tip of the directional abdomen as a gas.

You'd think this remarkable "weapon" was surely the precursor for a superpower. And the superheroes Anarchist and Zeitgeist (members of X Force) both have acid generation powers. Anarchist secretes an acidlike sweat, whereas Zeitgeist spews acidic vomit. But these are hardly formidable weapons. Perhaps it is time that some superheroes caught up with the amazing set of powers that have already evolved in the animal kingdom.

This article is an adapted extract from a chapter in "The Secret Science of Superheroes" published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Louise Gentle, Senior Lecturer in Behavioural Ecology, Nottingham Trent University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. 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 Live Science.
Two huge, Apollo-era NASA computers and more than 300 data-recording tapes were found in the Pittsburgh basement of a dead engineer in late 2015, according to media reports.

In November 2015, a scrap dealer was invited to clean out the basement of the recently deceased IBM engineer, who did some work for NASA at the height of the Space Race, Ars Technica reported. The dealer found about 325 magnetic data tapes and the two giant computers, both of which were marked "NASA Property."

The scrap dealer contacted NASA to inform the agency of the find, and NASA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) performed an investigation. Ars Technica obtained the OIG's report via a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Please tell NASA these items were not stolen," the engineer's heir told the scrap dealer, according to the OIG report. "They belonged to IBM Allegheny Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15212. During the 1968-1972 time frame, IBM was getting rid of the items, so [the engineer] asked if he could have them and was told he could have them."

The relevant names have been redacted in the OIG report.

NASA officials told the deceased engineer's family that the agency did not need the computers back. After further investigation, an agency archivist determined that 93 of the tapes contained data from Pioneer 10 or Pioneer 11, flyby missions to Jupiter and Saturn that launched in the early 1970s.

A few of the other tapes recorded data from the Pioneer 8, Pioneer 9, Helios 1 and Intelsat IV missions, but most of the recordings  about 215 of them  could not be identified. The archivist recommended that all the tapes  which were moldy and in generally poor condition  be destroyed, because they didn't contain anything of historical significance.

You can read the NASA OIG report here and the full story at Ars Technica here.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Granted, Phelps didn't race directly against the sharks during the hour-long broadcast, called "Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White." Rather, the Discovery Channel clocked the swim times of three types of sharks: the hammerhead, great white and reef, and then created computer-generated images so it appeared as if Phelps were racing against the animals side by side in the open water off South Africa.

Even though the virtual great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) bested the Olympian, Phelps wasn't completely left in the dust. In the 100-meter (330 feet) race, Phelps clocked in at 38.1 seconds. The virtual great white shark finished the 100-meter race in 36.1 seconds. [See Photos of Great White Sharks Breaching the Water's Surface]

Before the 100-meter finale, Discovery had Phelps swim in a shorter, 50-m (164 feet) race against virtual reef and hammerhead sharks. Incredibly, Phelps finished in 18.7 seconds, beating the reef shark by 0.2 seconds. But he lost against the hammerhead, which finished with a time of 15.1 seconds.

Michael Phelps surfaces to breathe, a slowdown that the virtual great white shark doesn't need to resort to, because it has gills. (Image credit: Discovery)

Phelps has set 39 world records and won 23 Olympic golds, but he still needed a helping hand to compete against the sharks. So, Discovery gave him a monofin flipperthat added a few miles per hour to his speed. For comparison, Phelps' set a world record for the 100-meter butterfly in Rome in 2009 with a time of 49.82 seconds  11.7 seconds longer than his race in open water with the monofin.

Phelps also wore a Phantom wetsuit that reportedly increased his buoyancy and reduced his drag, according the suit's maker, Aqua Sphere.

In fact, Phelps' getup was one of the few details that Discovery divulged about the race before it aired. The lack of details made many shark biologists wary, as sharks are usually depicted as villains of the ocean, and footage of them is often paired with menacing music.

"However, the show turned out to be good, clean fun and provided several opportunities to showcase shark science," Andrew Nosal, a marine biologist and shark scientist from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, who is not involved with the Discovery Channel program, told Live Science in an email.

He added that "any show not about shark attacks" is welcome. Except for "Great White Shark Serial Killer Lives," a show about a supposed serial killer shark that aired last night, "Shark Week had a great first day with much less sensationalism, fearmongering and misinformation than in recent years," Nosal said.

Michael Phelps swims off the coast of South Africa next to a virtual great white shark. (Image credit: Discovery)

As for Phelps, the race gave him a new "appreciation for how fast [sharks] move through the water, especially at their size," he told USA Today (opens in new tab). But because the water was so cold  only about 55 degrees Fahrenheit [13 degrees Celsius]  the swimmer asked for another go in a tweet, saying, "Rematch? Next time ... warmer water. #SW30 @Discovery@SharkWeek"

See more

Some viewers wondered why Phelps wasn't racing the fastest shark in the ocean: the mako shark.

However, if Phelps can't beat a great white shark, a fish that can swim about 25 mph (40 km/h), it makes little sense for him to race against the world's fastest shark, the mako, which can reach speeds of between 40 and 60 mph (64 and 96 km/h), Nosal said.

"[It's] a moot point," Nosal said.

Original article on Live Science.
by Tobi Elkin @tobielkin, July 24, 2017

A new eMarketer report projects that this year, 2.46 billion people -- about one-third of the global population and 71.0% of internet users -- will access social networks at least once a month.

Thats up 8.2% from 2016, according to Worldwide Social Network Users: eMarketer's Estimates and Forecast for 2016-2021. The digital research firm notes that the growth is driven by mobile phone adoption and expanding mobile coverage.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Corey McNair, the report's author, stated in an article: "In recent years, leading platforms Facebook and Twitter have faced competition from Snapchat and messaging apps like WeChat, which eMarketer does not include in its social network definition, that have adopted overlapping features and services."

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According to eMarketer, Facebook and Twitter are focused on developing video content to differentiate themselves from rivals.

However, more video content hasn't necessarily meant more new social network users, but instead helped to reinforce existing usage, the report noted. North America and Western Europeand urban areas with widespread mobile bandwidth to support streamingwill see social network user growth of only 2.9% and 3.4%, respectively, eMarketer stated.

Most user growth will be driven by the widespread availability of affordable smartphones, accessible Wi-Fi coverage and expanding 3G and 4G networks. Individuals taking advantage of these developments in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa will largely be new internet users who are signing up for social media for the first time. In 2017, 81.8% of social network users worldwide will log on via a mobile phone. By 2021, that share will grow to 86.7%, the article stated.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, July 24, 2017

Google recently promised to end its practice of scanning email messages in order to surround them with ads. Now, the company has also agreed to resolve a class-action privacy lawsuit stemming from its prior email practices.

The proposed settlement agreement, submitted Friday to U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, calls for a three-year injunction that could affect Google's ability to send ads to people based on the content of their emails.

Among other terms, the proposed settlement requires Google "to cease all processing of email content that it applies prior to the point when the Gmail user can retrieve the email in his or her mailbox ... and that is used for advertising purposes," according to the court papers.

Google also plans to stop processing email contents after they reach users' in-boxes, but the company will not be required to agree to that term as part of an injunction, according to the court papers. Instead, that change is viewed by Google as "independent of the settlement," but consistent with it, according to documents filed with Koh.

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The deal doesn't call for individual users to receive monetary damages, but allows them to pursue their own lawsuits against Google. The class-action attorneys who brought the case could receive up to $2.2 million.

The settlement stems from a complaint filed in September 2015 by San Francisco resident Daniel Matera, who alleged that Google violates a California privacy law and the federal wiretap law by intercepting messages without people's consent.

Google's terms of service disclosed that it analyzed the contents of email messages for features including "tailored advertising." But Matera alleged that he didn't have a Gmail account, and therefore never agreed to those terms.

Koh rejected a previous settlement that would have required Google to make some technical changes to its scanning system. Koh said at the time that it wasn't clear how those prior terms would remedy the alleged violations of the federal wiretap law or California's privacy statute.

Even though Google will no longer scan emails for ad purposes, the company still plans to send targeted ads to Gmail users based on data such as their search queries and YouTube viewing histories.
by Wayne Friedman , July 24, 2017

Key TV viewership losses accelerated in the second quarter, with double-digit percentage declines for both broadcast and cable networks.

MoffettNathanson Research says Nielsen C3 viewership among 18-49 viewers in the second quarter of 2017 in prime time sank 12% for broadcast and cable networks -- following an 8% decline in the first quarter.

Broadcast networks fared worse than cable in the second three months of this year. They were down 15% (to 5.5 million 18-49 prime-time C3 viewers) with cable off 12% (to 21 million). The C3 metric is the average commercial minute ratings plus three days of time-shifted viewing.

Things are playing out worse than we imagined, as the second quarter 2017 will mark a record low in prime time... [the] decline of 12% surpasses the prior weakest 1Q 2015, which was up against a Winter Olympics compare, writes Michael Nathanson, senior research analyst for MoffettNathanson Research.

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NBC was the best of the worst: down 9% (to 1.39 million viewers), while CBS lost 10% (1.25 million). ABC was down 19% (1.7 million), and Fox sank 20% (1.0 million).

Among cable networks, A+E Networks was down 5% (1.2 million prime-time C3 18-49 viewers), while NBCUniversal slipped 6% (2.1 million). Discovery Networks was down 7% (1.7 million), while Viacom gave up 8% (2.4 million) and AMC Networks was down 9% (681,000).

Four cable network groups are down double-digit percentages: Fox cable networks, down 10% (1.2 million); Scripps Networks Interactive, 10% lower (1.0 million); Time Warner, giving up 14% (2.7 million); and Disney-ABC, down 15% (1.1 million).
by Erik Sass @eriksass1, July 24, 2017

Online health media juggernaut WebMD has been acquired by Internet Brands, a media holding company owned by private-equity firm KKR & Co., for $2.8 billion, the companies announced Monday. Internet Brands is paying $66.50 per share, for a premium of around 20% over the most recent closing price of $55.26.

WebMD will be incorporated into the advertising network operated by Internet Brands, which includes hundreds of Web sites in business-to-business and consumer media Web sites, spanning the automotive, home, travel, health, and legal categories.

WebMD may also be a useful adjunct for other parts of Internet Brands business, including healthcare directories, marketing, workflow management and Web services for the health sector.

Founded in 1996 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur James Clark as an online health compendium with a search component, WebMD became an early, high-profile Web publishing success story.

It was one of the first online publishers to go public, with an IPO asking for $24.65 per share in 2005. The stock price fluctuated over time, reaching as low as $13.37 in November 2012, but had been trending steadily upwards over the last three years, reflecting steady revenue growth and solid profitability.

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In 2016, WebMD posted total revenues of $705 million, up 11% from $636 million the year before, due principally to its advertising and sponsorship business, which increased 12% from $499 million to $561 million. Its WebMD Health Network, which also includes Mescape, attracted a total of 180 million unique visitors per month in the last quarter of the year.

In addition, the company publishers a print magazine, WebMDMagazine, that is distributed to doctors offices.

Despite its high profile, WebMD also faces competition from a growing number of rivals, like Everyday Health and MedlinePlus.

The acquisition closes a long, wide-ranging auction that saw multiple bids for the site. According to WebMD chairman Martin Wygod, around 100 different suitors came forward with expressions of interest over the course of the sale process.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, July 24, 2017

Twitter, Google and Facebook have been hit with another lawsuit alleging that they support terrorism.

This latest complaint -- at least the fourth such lawsuit against Twitter and the third against Google and Facebook -- was brought by family members of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian citizen who was killed in the January 1 bombing of a nightclub in Istanbul.

"Without ... Twitter, Facebook, and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible," the family members allege in documents filed in the Northern District of California.

The family members allege in a 104-page complaint alleges that the Web platforms enable ISIS to recruit new members and promote terrorism.

"ISIS and other nefarious groups are dependent upon having a social media network from which to collect money and conduct terrorist operations including recruitment and radicalization," the complaint alleges.

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The family also argues that Google, Twitter and Facebook "routinely profit from ISIS" through ad revenue. "Defendants profits are enhanced by charging advertisers extra for targeting advertisements at viewers based upon knowledge of the viewer and the content being viewed," the lawsuit alleges.

All three companies have faced similar lawsuits before. Twitter previously defeated a complaint brought by the widows of Lloyd Carl Fields, Jr. and James Damon Creach -- who were killed in 2015 by a terrorist in Amman, Jordan.

U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick in the Northern District of California ruled in that matter that the Communications Decency Act immunizes Twitter from liability based on users' activity. "In substance, plaintiffs aim to hold Twitter liable as a publisher or speaker of ISISs hateful rhetoric," Orrick wrote in a 19-page decision dismissing the case. "Such liability is barred by the CDA."

The family members have appealed the dismissal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Facebook also prevailed in a lawsuit that sought to hold the social networking service responsible for terrorist attacks in Israel. U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis in the Eastern District of New York accepted Facebook's argument that it is protected from liability for users' activity.

Despite that ruling, victims continue to bring cases against tech companies for allegedly enabling terrorism. In May, family members of three people killed by a terrorist in San Bernardino, California sued Twitter, Facebook and Google for allegedly allowing their platforms to be used for recruitment and fundraising by ISIS members.

The major tech platforms recently said they would cooperate in an effort to remove terrorist propaganda.
Kanoo had seen a lull in Boko Haram activity since a November 2014 bombing and shooting attack on the city's main mosque that killed over 100 people and injured scores of others. By (AFP)

24.07.2017 LISTEN

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Police in the northern Nigerian city of Kano said they arrested five suspected Boko Haram militants after a gunfight Sunday, marking a flare-up of jihadist violence in the city.

The suspects were taken into custody on the outskirts of the city as they were about to launch attacks on markets and "places of worship", Kano state police chief Rabiu Yusuf told reporters.

Intelligence indicated that "the remnant of a Boko Haram group who escaped from Sambisa Forest were regrouping in some states in the north including Kano," Yusuf said.

The suspected jihadists opened fire and hurled home-made explosives, injuring three policemen, said Yusuf.

Police arrested five suspects, three men and two women, including a 20-year old Nigerien national, said Yusuf.

Guns, explosives, military uniforms and face masks were recovered from the suspects.

The northern city had seen a lull in Boko Haram activity since a November 2014 bombing and shooting attack on the city's main mosque that killed over 100 people and injured scores of others.

In December last year, the Nigerian military claimed it had ousted Boko Haram from its Sambisa forest stronghold in northeastern Borno state.

The military said it captured the group's "Camp Zero" enclave in the forest, where leader Abubakar Shekau was said to be hiding.

At the time, Kano state governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje warned that Islamists who escaped from Sambisa were relocating to Kano.

Today there are growing concerns that Boko Haram militants are moving back into Sambisa Forest.

Nigerian troops had left the area in March, but an internal military memo circulated on June 24 and seen by AFP warned the jihadists had retaken "Camp Zero".

"Elements of Boko Haram...have started regrouping at Camp Zero," said the document.

"The insurgents purportedly from Abubakar Shekau faction were reported to have taken the opportunity provided of the facilities being left unguarded after the last range exercise... to reenter and take it over as their camp".

If Boko Haram retakes "Camp Zero" it would represent a setback for the Nigerian military.
Bangui (Central African Republic) (AFP) - An ambush killed a Moroccan peacekeeper and wounded three others on Sunday in the Central African Republic, the United Nations said, blaming pro-Christian militias for the violence.

"A MINUSCA (peacekeeping mission) military convoy was targeted by anti-Balaka," it said of the clash in the southern city of Bangassou.

The country is struggling to emerge from a civil war that erupted in 2013 following the overthrow of former president Francois Bozize, a Christian, by Muslim rebels from the Seleka coalition.

The coup led to the formation of "anti-Balaka" (anti-machete) vigilante units, drawn from the Christian majority, which began to target Muslims. Both sides committed widespread atrocities.

"The attack took place while the Moroccan peacekeepers were escorting water tankers to the river to help resupply the village," the MINUSCA force said Sunday, condemning the assault and sending "condolences to the family, the people and the government of Morocco".

A rebel of the Seleka coalition holds a portrait of ousted Central African President Francois Bozize at one of his pillaged residences in Sassara, some 300 km north of Bangui, in April 2013

Earlier on Sunday, the UN condemned an "attack by anti-Balaka near a cathedral where a number of displaced people are living". Two children were seriously wounded, it said.

On Friday, a patrol of peacekeepers was shot and one of the attackers killed, Herve Verhoosel, spokesman for MINUSCA, told AFP on Saturday, blaming pro-Christian militias once again.

On the same day, a Muslim woman was kidnapped by what is believed to be an anti-Balaka unit and six Christians were held by Muslims. All were released on Saturday following negotiations.

Six peacekeepers were killed in May in the city and surrounding region, which lies around 470 kilometres (300 miles) from Bangui on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Militias are still flourishing given the weakness of the state.

Former colonial power France intervened in 2013 to stop violent Christian-Muslim clashes and formally ended its peacekeeping mission only last month, hailing it a success despite fresh outbreaks of violence.

That leaves mainly the UN's 12,500-strong MINUSCA peacekeeping mission to protect civilians from armed groups.
As my train travelled through the mountainous Rhone Valley in southern Switzerland, it was plain to see what this region is known for. Terraced vineyards carpeted the slopes, while fruit trees covered the valley floor: apple, pear and especially apricot, from which the area makes its famous schnapps, Abricotine.

The people in the Swiss canton of Valais are rightly proud of their home-grown products. And so its perhaps no surprise that they are now embracing a home-grown way to buy them.

The Rhone Valley in southern Switzerland is famous for its terraced vineyards and home-grown produce (Credit: Karl Thomas/Getty Images)

In May 2017, a group of Valais residents launched a new regional currency. Like the UKs Bristol pound and the the Franco-Spanish Basque region's Eusko , its a complementary rather than replacement currency. Its banknotes are worth the same as Swiss francs  the countrys official currency  but can only be spent in participating businesses in the Valais, which so far includes more than 150 restaurants, artisans, farm shops and wineries.

Its a local initiative, backed by local people, that aims to boost the local economy, so it is apt that its been given a name with such local meaning: Farinet.

The name Farinet is common in Valais towns: its a restaurant in Crans-Montana, a pub in Champery, and an apres-ski bar in Verbier where skiers dance on tables in their thermals.

Tourists may not realise its significance, but locals know that all those popular nightspots are so called because their namesake, Joseph-Samuel Farinet, probably would have enjoyed dancing on tables himself.

Farinet was a roguish charmer, lover of wine and an infamous 19th-Century counterfeiter (Credit: Caroline Bishop)

A roguish charmer, a lover of wine and women and an escaped convict, Farinet was a 19th-Century counterfeiter and a legend in these parts, even if the myth that now surrounds him is more colourful than the reality.

After fleeing from authorities in his native Italy where he was wanted on counterfeit charges, Farinet arrived in the Valais in 1869 and once again began minting fake money  specifically, 20 centime coins dated 1850. To court favour with the poverty-stricken locals, he was generous with his forged currency, in return gaining food, shelter and protection from the authorities who pursued him. In doing so, he not only evaded capture for many years but also liberated local people from debt, something that later earned him the nickname Robin Hood of the Alps.

In 1880, at the age of 35, Farinet was finally cornered by police in a gorge above the medieval Valais village of Saillon where he fell, jumped or was possibly killed  a mysterious death that only added to the intrigue of his life.

The new regional currency was named after Joseph-Samuel Farinet, a known counterfeiter and a local hero (Credit: lefarinet.ch)

In Valais everyone knows this story, said David Crettenand, a member of the committee that established the Farinet currency .

Crettenand admits that naming the new currency after a notorious counterfeiter could create ambiguity, with some people asking if its fake, but that doesnt bother him. He feels its more important that the name embodies the aims of the currency: to be rooted in the region, to foster networks between local people and to boost the local economy.

Farinet is a name that speaks to the Valaisans, he said. Its very much a part of the region, and thats the aim of the currency, to be regional.

Its also a name the people here take pride in, something that was obvious when I visited Saillon, where Farinet met his unfortunate end and is buried.

The Museum of Counterfeit Money displays a court judgement convicting the famous forger (Credit: Caroline Bishop)

The legend is paraded in the villages Museum of Counterfeit Money , which displays a copy of a court judgement convicting the famous forger, and one of his fake coins. It also explains how the man became a myth through a 1932 novel, Farinet ou la Fausse Monnaie, by Swiss writer Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, and a 1938 film Farinet ou lOr dans la Montagne, which romanticised the story, painting Farinet as a freedom-loving hero of the people.

In 1980, Farinets generous reputation inspired a group of fans calling themselves the Friends of Farinet  among them French actor Jean-Louis Barrault, who played the counterfeiter in the film  to plant a tiny vineyard above Saillon in Farinets name. With only three vines, its registered as the smallest in the world. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in charitable spirit. The vineyard was bequeathed to the Dalai Lama in 2000, and the proceeds from its modest sales go towards helping disadvantaged children. Meanwhile the vineyard itself has become a sort of pilgrimage site for the free spirited, a place dedicated to freedom, love, peace and living the good life, values Farinet has come to embody.

The tiny vineyard above Saillon named after Farinet has become a pilgrimage site for the free-spirited (Credit: Caroline Bishop)

Messages left over the years by visitors  including local officials and famous names  swing in the wind on colourful panels strung along a path leading up to the vines. Better to go fishing on a bike than to a job in a Mercedes, reads one. If you view life as rose tinted it will become so, says another. Its a whimsical homage to the mythical spirit of a figure who, once hunted by the authorities, now has them leaving messages in his honour.

The rebel outsider became a local hero, so it seems fitting that the counterfeiter now has his own legal currency. He would surely be laughing in his grave.
24.07.2017 LISTEN

The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) has expressed worry over reports that subsidised fertilisers meant to support the Planting for Food and Jobs are being smuggled to neighbouring Togo and Burkina Faso.

Volta Region Minister, Dr Archibald Letsa, revealed recently that the fertilisers meant for distribution to farmers in the Volta Region as part of government's flagship agriculture programme are finding their way to the neighbouring countries and are sold at higher prices.

Under the fertiliser subsidy programme, farmers are required to pay 25% of the cost of fertilisers up front and another 25% after harvesting, and the government pays the other half (50%) as an incentive to boost agriculture in the country.

In a press release on the revelations, the PFAG said the situation is unfortunate because small-holder farmers will be the most affected.

In view of this, we wish to draw the attention of state actors and the security agencies along the borders and suggest that, a more practical proactive steps be adopted to address the situation. We are of the view that, if our security agencies work closely with our watchdog members, the situation can be brought under control.

Let us all sincerely help curb the smuggling of fertiliser across neighbouring countries and secure it for the Ghanaian farmer.

The fertiliser watchdog committee members [of the PFAG] will continue to monitor the movement of subsidised fertilisers across neighbouring countries and report such perpetrators to the security agencies for arrest and prosecution, the Association said in the release issued in Accra.

The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG), is the apex Farmer-Based Non-Governmental Organisation in Ghana with the mandate to advocate for pro poor agriculture and trade policies and other issues that affect the livelihoods of small holder farmers.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
24.07.2017 LISTEN

The Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) has told Citi Business News it will from next month [August], pilot its systems aimed at achieving a paperless transaction at the ports.

The General Manager, of GCNET Alwin Hoegerle, explains that the exercise should help adjust the system for a smooth take off in September 2017.

Probably very early in August we will be starting to check everything and I will expect that we will be able to meet the Vice President's deadline as far as paperless processing is concerned,he told Citi Business News at this year's National trade Facilitation Awards over the weekend.

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has instructed that all agencies at the ports streamline their activities for a paperless transaction in September this year.

In his view, the move should reduce the level of human interaction and cut down corruption.

In addition, businesses should be able to save time and money as their turnaround time at the ports will be reduced substantially.

As it stands now, the various agencies have barely two months and some are racing against time to meet the September 1st deadline.

Speaking at the same event, the Deputy Trade Minister, Robert Ahomka Lindsay, said the paperless regime will also minimize revenue losses.

The benefits of engaging in a paperless are enormous; they include reduced cost of shipping goods across borders, enhanced collection of fees, duties and penalties, reduction in corruption and illegal trade activities as well as enhanced transparency and accountability, he stated.

Deputy Transport Minister, Titus Glover has insisted that the new mechanism will encompass 90 percent of activities at the ports.

In Mr. Hoegerle's view, this is justified and he explains as;

For example if you take the Bill of Laden, it is a title deed for the good so they will still be holding that in paper but what they will not have to do is to bring a copy of the Bill of Laden into the long room or into the clearance process.

In all, ten companies were awarded for their role in trade facilitation for the year under review.



By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
General Khalifa Haftar (R), commander of the armed forces loyal to the internationally recognised Libyan government, shakes hands with the head of the UN backed Libyan Presidential Council, Fayez al-Sarraj, in the eastern town of al-Marj in 2016. By (LIBYAN ARMED FORCES MEDIA OFFICE/AFP/File)

24.07.2017 LISTEN

Paris (AFP) - Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj will hold talks near Paris on Tuesday with Khalifa Haftar, the powerful military commander based in the country's east, the French presidency said.

French President Emmanuel Macron will host the meeting, the presidency said in a statement on Monday.

"France intends, through this initiative, to facilitate a political agreement" between the two rivals as the newly appointed UN envoy for Libya, Ghassam Salame, takes office, the statement said.

Tuesday's talks, which were first reported by France's Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday, would be the second between Sarraj and Haftar in the space of three months after they met in Abu Dhabi in May.

Sarraj this month laid out a new political roadmap for his violence-wracked country, including the scheduling of presidential and parliamentary elections in March 2018.

Political rivalry and fighting between militias have hampered Libya's recovery from the chaos that followed the 2011 uprising that toppled and longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, who was killed in the aftermath.

Sarraj's Government of National Accord has been struggling to assert its authority since it began work in Tripoli in March 2016. Haftar's rival administration based in the remote east has refused to recognise it.

Western intelligence services fear that Islamic State jihadists are capitalising on the chaos to set up bases in Libya as they are chased from their former strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Libya has also become the main springboard for migrants seeking to reach the European Union by sailing to Italy in often flimsy and overloaded boats.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told newspaper Le Monde in June that Libya was "a priority" for Macron and said there was "a security risk because of the trafficking of all kinds, including humans" from Libya.

"In consultation with all its partners, France intends to show its support for the efforts to build a political compromise, under the aegis of the United Nations, which unites... all the different Libyan actors," Monday's statement from the Elysee Palace said.

"The challenge is to build a state capable of meeting the basic needs of Libyans and endowed with a regular unified army under the authority of the civil power.

"It is necessary for the control of Libyan territory and its borders, to fight terrorist groups and arms and migrant traffickers, but also with a view to a return to a stable institutional life."
Forestry Commission officials in Ashanti Region are patting themselves on the back for what they claim is victory in the fight against illegal mining.

Acting Regional Manger of Forestry Services Division, Isaac Noble Eshun, is full of praise for stakeholders.

He says perseverance and resilience of personnel, as well as the watchdog roles played by communities, have contributed to the progress.

Mr. Eshuns assessment follows the recent arrest of four illegal miners in Bekwai District.

They had been mining in the Odaw Forest Reserve.

Forestry officials, early this year, expressed worry at the invasion of reserves by illegal miners.

They mounted Champhi machines, a Chinese-technology, on rivers and streams like Aboabo, Offin and Odaw.

The illegal miners also invaded Apraprama, Supima, Subin Shelter Belt, Desires and Asenayo as well as Tano-Offin and Prako Reserves.

Officials say they have now won the fight against the perpetrators.

Mr. Eshun says just a little over one per cent of forest lands have been destroyed by illegal miners.

Since galamsey emanated about 5-years ago weve guarded against our forest reserves. Whenever anybody makes any attempt to go in, we are able to mobilise our people to either flush them out or arrest them," he said.

Mr. Eshun, however, indicates that there is no room for complacency as the commission remains relentless in its efforts to protect the forest.
When you hear this: The Special Prosecutor is coming, you get the sense that theres a potential waterloo shaping up at the political arena. Sounds also like a roaring lion pursuing its prey viciously. Literally it means individuals deemed to have willfully caused financial loss to the state, involved in financial impropriety, scandals, looting, thievery, corruption, bribery, larceny, fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation etc. will be investigated by the special prosecutor to be appointed by the president Akufo-Addo.

Well that alarm bell was sounded by Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Marfo and its already creating uneasiness and discomfort among the political domain.

Some politicians (mainly from the Minority NDC) have criticised the creation of such an Office, citing conflict of interest and other factors. A former deputy Interior minister James Agalga said: The new political experiment to fight corruption could be nothing more than old witch-hunting repackaged.

However, most Ghanaians hold different view. They seem to be very enthusiastic about it. According to them they cant wait to see the special investigator investigate, probe and prosecute corrupt public officials as well as deal with corruption which is a major problem facing the nation.

We want the Special Prosecutor Bill get passed as early practicable, one political analyst told me.

At times our politicians make a fool out of us. They tell us blanket lies and make us to believe that they hold the plumb line. Like it or not it seems they almost always have their way. And I think if we fail as citizens to hold them to account of what they say or tell us, what they do or how they do it we would be fooled again and again and again, the analyst said.

Whats happened to the Bill?

The Special Prosecutors Bill which was introduced on the floor of the Parliament House last week didnt have a smooth ride as expected. And it appears the momentum it gathered from the onset had been jolted. It seemed like a ditch on a highway but as this writer notes it rather tends to deepen our fledgling democracy.

On Friday 21 July, 2017 Parliament announced that it will no longer consider the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, 2017, under Certificate of Urgency. The move followed a report by the Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to the plenary recommending that the Bill be allowed to go through the normal legislative procedure since they do not see the urgency of such Bill.

The Bill 2017 was laid in Parliament under certificate of urgency on Tuesday 18, by the deputy minister of Justice and Attorney-general Joseph Dintiok Kpemka on behalf of the Attorney General and minister of Justice in accordance with Article 106 of the Constitution.

Criticisms swirled following its introduction and its quest for Certificate of Urgency.

Dominic Ayine, a former deputy Attorney General, said even though the Minority supports the Majority and government on the issue of fighting corruption, the group maintains that due process must be adhered to.

What we are saying is that the procedural requirement of the Constitution and the standing orders must be complied with. If this is an important government Bill, if we have to enact it, we have to enact it in accordance with law. Our fight is about due process of the law, Dominic Ayine

The Bolgatanga East legislator who is also a member of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee contended for such a Bill to be laid, it had to be gazetted 14 days before it will be brought to the Parliament but that was not done.

Article 88 of the 1992 Constitution puts the responsibility of prosecution under the ambit of the Attorney General and any attempt to hand over that responsibility to another agency or person must be done in accordance with law, Mr. Ayine stressed.

But his argument was undercut by the Majority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu. According to Mr. Mensah Bonsu who doubles as the Minister in charge of Parliamentary Affairs, the Office of the Prosecutors Bill came to Parliament under a certificate of urgency for which reason it did not require a 14-day maturity period.

Did the Majority Err?

Sascha Mueller a Lecturer in Law at the University of Canterbury, Australia writing under the topic: Wheres the Fire: The Use and abuse of urgency in the legislative process, said: In some circumstances speed may be desirable, but rushing legislation comes with downsides. The different stages of the legislative process have an important purpose: they are designed to improve the quality of the bill. The committee stages are meant to scrutinise the bill as to its ability and efficiency.

According to the law professor the regular use of urgency in New Zealand for example is by no means a new Phenomenon. He thinks it may rather be viewed as tradition, nothing that even though the term has its demerits, it also has many advantages..

Since the late nineteenth century, the ability to accord urgency has allowed the New Zealand Parliament to prioritise certain business, and thus accelerate its completion. This is done primarily by extending the Houses sitting hours until the urgent business has been completed. Normally, the House sits for six and a half hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays

and for four hours on Thursdays.10 However, under Standard Order SO 55 urgent sittings can be extended to last from 9 am to midnight on any day apart from Sunday, professor Mueller submitted.

The Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, 2017, was laid in Parliament under a certificate of urgency on Tuesday, July 17, 2017, by the Deputy Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka on behalf of the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice in accordance with Article 106 of the Constitution.

The Bill was then referred by the Rt. Hon. Speaker, Prof. Aaron Michael Oquaye, to the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for consideration and report pursuant to Article 106 of the Constitution and Order 179 of the Standing Orders of the House.

Following the debate as to whether the Bill should be treated under a certificate of urgency, the Rt. Hon. Speaker the Committee to determine the urgency or otherwise of the Bill in accordance with Article 106 (13) of the Constitution and Order 119 of the Standing Orders of the House.

However, at a sitting on Friday, July 21, 2017, Chairman of the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Ben Abdallah Banda, told the House that the Committee had considered the Bill as directed by the Rt. Hon. Speaker came to the conclusion that due to the nature of the Bill and the interest it has generated in the public domain, there was the need for time to allow for broader consultations on the subject matter in order to avoid any chaos it may cause.

The Office of the Special Prosecutor as envisaged in the Bill will transcend different political regimes, hence, the need for the Committee to engage in broader consultations with Civil Society Groups and other key Stakeholders to solicit their inputs.

The Committee acknowledges that the Attorney-Generals Office is overburdened in the discharge of its duties and therefore the need to carve out some of its investigative and prosecutorial duties to the proposed Office of the Special Prosecutor. The Committee, however, does not see any vacuum created by the absence of the Office of a Special Prosecutor to warrant the Bill to be treated as urgent, he noted.
Strategic Thinkers Network (STRANEK) has taken note of the recent happening at Electoral Commission (EC) where there has been 27 allegations against the Chairperson and in return, a 28 point response has also been sighted by her in which Mrs. Osei has denied any acts of fraud and financial malfeasance on her part in her response to the allegations made in the petition to the President Nana Akuffo-Addo to remove her.

We at Strategic Thinkers Network (STRANEK) will like to call on His Excellency the President of Ghana to forward the petition against the Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson and her response to the appropriate investigative bodies since they seem to suggest corrupt practices within the Electoral Commission of Ghana.

Having read the 27 allegations made against the EC Chair and her response in a 28 point rebuttal against some members and staff of the Commission, we at Strategic Thinkers Network (STRANEK) are alarmed by the indications of wanton abuse of taxpayer funds under the management of the Electoral Commission.

From the Chairpersons response, we see a rather bleak picture of a commission fraught with endemic corruption of which she is trying to cure. We are therefore of the opinion that both allegations should be investigated thoroughly before the reliefs of the petitioners are considered.

We are also of the opinion that in order to preserve and protect the independence of the electoral commission and thus preserve the sanctity of our democracy, any incursion by the executive or parliament into resolving issues relating to the internal matters of the Electoral Commission must be done taking into consideration our National Security.

Sincerely, we are optimistic Mrs. Osei will help in cleaning up corruption in her institution hence we advise that she should not be removed at all. Instead her efforts at cleaning up the commission should be encouraged so more people of courage will be able to stand up against the onslaught of systemic corruption.

We are all involved in building our motherland Ghana.

Signed.

Nii Tettey Tetteh

(Executive Director)

+233 249 659 467

24th July, 2017.
Research and education think tank, Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (ACILA) has urged the Akufo-Addo administration to prioritize the passage of the International Criminal Court Bill to give effect to the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Ghana.

The Rome Statute set up the Court (ICC) at The Hague, Netherlands, and the Court is authorized to bring to trial persons who commit international crimes such as crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes when a state is unwilling or unable to prosecute such persons.

When passed into law, Ghanas ICC law will provide the legal framework for the courts in Ghana to prosecute persons who commit crimes tried by the ICC as well as enable the ICC to prosecute cases that Ghanaian courts are unable to prosecute.

A statement signed by ACILA executive director, Mr. William Nyarko, said that even though Ghana is to be commended for demonstrating support for international justice by ratifying the Rome Statute in 1999 and has since had a distinguished Ghanaian serve as a Judge on the ICC, Ghana is still required to meet its obligations under the Rome Statute and domesticate the Statute.

The statement regretted that Executive action has stalled on the Ghana ICC bill, which was drafted in April 2016, adding that as an early adopter of the Rome Statute in 1998, Ghana should have domesticated the Statute when it came into force in 2002.

The statement noted that in 2012 when Ghanas human rights record came up for review at the United Nations Human Rights Council under the Universal Periodic Review mechanism in Geneva, Ghana accepted a recommendation to domesticate the Rome Statute by the next review cycle in November 2017.

Ghanas human rights record will be reviewed again under the UPR in November 2017 but regrettably Ghana has not met its international obligation nearly five years after it had accepted the recommendation, the statement added.

ACILA also urged Ghana to publicly support international justice and the work of the ICC while calling for reforms at the ICC.

The call for Ghana to domesticate the Rome Statute is considered timely coming at a time when there had been persistent calls by majority of African leaders for mass withdrawal from the ICC. In addition, Ghana was not among the few countries that voted against the non-binding resolution that was adopted by the African Union on 31 January, 2017, in Addis Ababa for the mass withdrawal from the ICC.

Although previous administrations in Ghana had not publicly denounced the ICC, the immediate past administration had pursued a two-track approach: ensuring that Ghana did not withdraw from the ICC while at the same time supporting calls for the expansion of the jurisdiction of the proposed African Court of Justice and Human Rights (ACJHR) in Tanzania to prosecute the international crimes that are currently being tried by the ICC. The establishment of the proposed court followed the adoption of The Protocol on the Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights commonly referred to as The Malabo Protocol.

In addition, Ghana was also among the first eight countries to follow through with its support for the establishment of the ACJHR when it signed the Malabo Protocol in February 2016. It would take ratifications by 15 African states for the Malabo Protocol to come into force for the criminal jurisdiction of the existing court to take effect. So far, no African state has ratified the Malabo Protocol, but nine states including Ghana, have signed the Malabo Protocol, which provides immunity for sitting heads of state and heads of government.

The issue of the ICCs no immunity for sitting heads of state continues to be contentious and has become a rallying point for denouncing the ICC as biased, selective, and targeting of African leaders while other leaders who commit international crimes in other parts of the world escape justice.

Earlier this year, ACILA had said that it is opposed to the immunity provision in the Malabo Protocol that will provide immunity to serving African heads of state, Government, or other senior state officials when the proposed African criminal court becomes operational in Arusha, Tanzania.

The immunity provision in Article 46A bis of The Malabo Protocol which was adopted by AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in June 2014, states that:

No charges shall be commenced or continued before the Court against any serving African Union Head of State or Government, or anybody acting or entitled to act in such capacity, or other senior state officials based on their functions, during their tenure of office.

Mr. Nyarko had emphasized that the immunity provision runs contrary to the preamble or the object and purpose of the Malabo Protocol to fight impunity on the African continent.

In addition, he said, the immunity provision also runs contrary to a settled matter in international justice which provides no immunity to anyone appearing before an international criminal tribunal or international criminal court, adding that if the immunity provision is not deleted from the Malabo Protocol, it is likely to encourage impunity as Heads of State who commit or direct the commission of international crimes will stay in power for life to prevent being brought to justice when they leave office.

He said that since the commission of international crimes such as crimes against humanity and war crimes (which were committed in Sierra Leone) and genocide (in Rwanda, and Darfur), are not part of the official job functions of a Head of State, African leaders should not even contemplate being provided immunity for these serious international crimes.

Although the Rome Statute of the ICC, which 34 African states have ratified does not provide immunity for sitting heads of state, some African states, including Kenya, whose president came under ICC investigation, have pushed for an amendment to the Rome Statute to provide immunity to sitting heads of state.

That action having failed, African states moved to take steps to establish what appears to be a rival African criminal court, by making amendments to and including immunity for sitting heads of state and government and senior officials to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in June 2014.
Government has charged the board of National Lottery Authority (NLA) to institute measures to help maximize its revenue mandate.

Deputy Finance Minister, Kweku Kwarteng, said this is critical to help improve governments revenue mobilization drive.

He made the call at the inauguration of a seven-member board for the NLA at the ministry on Friday.

Mr. Kwarteng praised the Authority for some measures instituted so far aimed at ensuring that the much-needed revenue is available at all times to help government achieve its mandate.

He praised the NLA's public-private-partnership platform which has also helped to improve revenue adding the NLAs revenue generated through fixed-odds lotto since 2006 contributed over GHC 250 million into the consolidated fund.

You would be surprised to know that more than GHC500 million has been paid as prizes for changing lives over the same numbers of years."

The Board Chair of NLA, Togbe Francise Nyonyo, on his part, said they would strictly uphold principles that have turned the company around and ensure that they contribute meaningfully to complement governments efforts aimed at creating jobs and increasing revenue.

We pledge to do more to maintain the said standard for the benefit of all Ghanaians.

Director General of the Authority, Kofi Osei Ameyaw, told JOYBUSINESS they are introducing some measures that would improve revenue generation by the Authority.

The nine-member board is chaired by Mr. Nyonyo include; Director General Kofi Osei Ameyaw, Henry Yentumi, Adelaide Kumi, Helen Akpene Awo Ziwu, Joana Frances Adda and Philip Kofi Aning.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Joy Business
Johannesburg (AFP) - The number of rhinos killed for their horns by poachers in South Africa dipped slightly in the first half of this year, but more than 500 were still slaughtered, the government announced Monday.

South Africa is battling a scourge of rhino poaching fuelled by insatiable demand for their horn in Asia.

Most of the demand emanates from China and Vietnam, where the horn is coveted as a traditional medicine, an aphrodisiac or as a status symbol.

"A total of 529 rhino have been poached since January 2017, compared to 542 in the same period for 2016, representing a decrease of 13 rhinos," Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa told reporters.

"These declining numbers do not mean we can proclaim victory (but) the downward trend is being established, which is cause for cautious optimism."

The famed Kruger National Park, which has suffered the brunt of the slaughter, has so far this year seen a 34 percent drop in numbers of rhinos killed.

But the poaching has shifted elsewhere with the minister reporting that the "number of rhino poached unfortunately increased in some other provinces".

The number of rhinos killed climbed steeply in the past decade from just 13 in 2007 reaching a peak of 1,215 in 2014, according to the TRAFFIC wildlife trade monitoring group.

In the last eight years alone, roughly a quarter of the world population of rhinos has been killed in South Africa, home to 80 percent of the remaining animals.

Rhino horn is composed mainly of keratin, the same substance as in human nails.

It is normally sold in powdered form as a supposed cure for cancer and other diseases.
Nigerias president has been pictured in London for the first time since he left his homeland almost 80 days ago.

President Muhammadu Buhari, 74, came to the UK for treatment for an unspecified illness.

On Sunday, he met governors from his party for lunch and was very cheerful, according to a government statement.

His absence has led to some anxiety in Nigeria, with some speculating that he might have died.

Others have worried he may not be able to return to duty.

The statement said the president was very cheerful and has not lost any bit of his sense of humour.

Governor Rochas Okorocha, who was among the delegation, said President Buhari was asked about the rumours swirling around his health and laughed them off.

President Buhari was completely unperturbed by the cocktail of lies. He, instead, sent his best wishes to Nigerians, he said.

He added that during the hour-long meeting, the president was fully engaged in discussions on home affairs.

Mr Buhari left Nigeria on 7 May  his second trip to the UK for treatment this year.

In his absence, he has given Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo full powers to act as head of state.

Buharis unhealthy start to 2017

19 January: Leaves for UK on medical vacation

5 February: Asks parliament to extend medical leave

10 March: Returns home but does not resume work immediately

26 April: Misses second cabinet meeting and is working from home

28 April: Misses Friday prayers

3 May: Misses third consecutive cabinet meeting

5 May: Appears at Friday prayers in Abuja

7 May: Travels to UK for further treatment

6 June: Buharis wife says he is  recuperating fast 

12 July: Acting head of state says the president will be home  very soon 
An executive of the ruling New Patriotic Party in the Northern region has vented anger on the regional minister Salifu Saeed, describing him as a liar, distrustful and hinted of ongoing efforts for a meeting with President Nana Addo to discuss the minister.

Mr. Abdulai Imoro, a polling station chairman in the Salamba electoral area and known litigant who sued some national executives in 1992 for a breach of the partys Constitution, is the latest party insider in the regional capital to join the growing lists of dissatisfied bloc calling for the removal of the minister whose administration has been plagued with controversies over contracts and presidential appointments.

According to the chairman, the minister was inaccessible and wantonly indifferent to the plight of constituencies, polling stations executives and youth groups and urged party leadership to suspend lip service and get into action.

Initially, I thought he could do better but no I dont think, because there are prominent people trying to get him at the office but nil, nilyou wont get him. I dont trust him at all. He doesnt speak the truth: because we are now in government and government is just like a rainy thunder  a rain thunder, immediately you resume the power anything can hinder you not to do what to do. There is power and its not a small thing. A lot of avenue particularly for the polling executives and the youth groups. They are suffering; so let us stop talking, talking and take the action and stop the lie, lie, he said.

He said the minister has neglected majority of party faithful in whose unquantifiable contributions brought it power and was now running the regional coordinating council with a clique of family and friends, the lightning rod for his anger.

Mr. Imoro claimed further that the minister after sharing contracts among his cronies, had not been able to spend a night at both his official and private residences and only wandered from one hotel to another. He mentioned the Modern City Hotel as the ministers new home, a claim Starr News was unable to verify.

He rated the minister as nonperforming and told Starr News he had already planned a meeting with the president to tell him a lot about Salifu Saeed.

I was (sic) prepare to go to Accra and there is no way that I wont get Nana Akufo-Addo, and I will tell him a lot. Look, my friend let me tell you, Im not a new person to Nana Addo, chairman Imoro boasted.

The regional minister is not new to such damning allegations by regional party executives including the regional chairman, Bugri Naabu and Women organizer, Hajia Amamata Sayibu who had accused him of sabotaging their interest and denigrating presidential nominations.

Saeed is yet to respond to all the allegations.
The picture of a handful of APC Governors and President Muhammadu Buhari, which was purportedly taken in London yesterday, is old and fake.

I have been reliably informed that they were taken during Ramadan in Abuja some time back and not yesterday in London.

Quite apart from that even though the picture was meant to have been taken in London curiously all the drinks on the table are Nigerian products and Nigerian-made.

Did the Governors take all those drinks along with them to London when rhey went to see the President?

Is Buhari not coming home soon again? Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and some government officials told us that he would be back on the 28th of July which is just a few days away.

Why the need for the APC Governors to "visit" him in far away London if he will be back in Nigeria in a few days?

What was the purpose and point of this fake photo-shoot and this strange breakfast meeting? What was the purpose and objective of this monumental fraud and deceit?

Whatever the answers may be to these questions the curtain must be brought down on what can only be described as a puerile and nauseating conspiracy.

This crazy and noxious charade just has to stop. We do not wish the President dead but we have a right to know the truth. As a matter of fact we demand to know that truth because, as he once said, he "belongs to us all".

For those who still believe that the meeting actually took place there are some nagging questions that need to be answered.

For example why were the Nigerian and foreign media not allowed to cover the proceedings and participate in this celebrated photo-soot and merry London feast?

Why did the Villa press corps not take one of their own camera men to London and make a short video of the event?

Why was the whole event shrouded in so much secrecy? Why is it that only one picture was taken? Why were more pictures not taken? Why was Buhari not put on audio tape and recorded talking to his guests?

Why did he not offer a few words of hope and encouragement to the Nigerian people to ease the tension that has been generated in the land by his prolonged abscence?

How can they expect us to take Rochas Okorocha's words for anything without any solid proof or evidence to back those words up or give them a measure of veracity or credibility?

I for one would not believe a word that a man like Rochas tells me. If he told me that it was day outside I would have to assume that it was night. It is that bad.

Again why did Buhari not shake anyone's hands during the photo-shoot? Why did he not get up from his chair, say "cheese" and give us a big Daura smile?

Why was he just sitting there like a stuffed mannequin who really did not know where he was and who he was interacting with?

Is it not obvious that he can no longer function properly? Why the tall tales that he is getting much better?

Is it not clear that he is simply being stuffed with and pumped up by a dangerous cocktail of steriods? Is it not obvious that he is suffering from an extreme form of dementia?

Is it not clear that even if he were to be brought back to Nigeria tomorrow he can no longer function properly and lead the nation?

Is it not obviou that he is barely lucid and that he is little better than a zombie?

Where is the shame in admitting these truths and prevailing on him to resign in order for him to be able to go home to Daura and take care of his health?

Better still he could resign and be taken to Prophet T.B. Joshua's Synagogue Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) in Lagos for prayer, deliverance and healing.

Those who truly love him and care for him would advise him to take one of these two options.

The bitter truth is that we have become the laughing stock of the entire civilised world since this shameless charade started.

A nation of 180 million people whose President has gone missing and who have no idea where he is, what is wrong with him or what the prognosis for his condition is. The situation is shameful and bizarre.

Worse still we have a media that is so fawning and easily intimidated that they simply refuse to ask the right questions about this matter or undertake to carry out the necessary investigations.

In addition to that we have a Senate with 109 distiguished and able Senators and a House of Representatives with over 300 honorable legislators and yet not one of them has the fortitude or guts to call for the resignation of this ailing man who is clearly no longer well enough to lead our nation.

The following questions must be answered: are the Nigerian people under a blinding and binding spell? Is this the unholy work of witch-doctors and necromancers? Have we been charmed by these broom-loving APC wizards and witches?

The truth is that God is watching this charade and He is not mocked. No matter what anyone says or does His will shall be done, His counsel shall stand, His purpose shall be established and His name shall be glorified in this situation and in our nation.

Nigeria is too important, too big and too good to be subjected to these malevolent indignities and infantile rubbish.

She is too blessed and advanced a nation to be manipulated by a faceless little cabal of power-hungry, godless, self-seeking, evil, callous and bloodthirsty men.

We as a people deserve far better than that and we ought to demand much more. Buhari is not a King with divine rights and neither is he God.

He is a human being like you and I and, just like us, blood runs through his veins. He is not immortal and he is not infallible.

He is mortal and he is fallible. He is not indispensible. Like all human beings, he is dispensible. With or without him Nigeria shall go on and our nation shall survive.

In any case whether he comes back alive or not is not the point and neither is it the question.

The relevant point and question is whether he can continue to function as President if and when he does come back and, based on the information at my disposal, it is very clear to me that he cannot.

The truth is that if and when he does come back, he will come back as a shell of his former self. This is sad, pitiful and tragic but the sooner we come to terms with it the better it is for us all.

This is a man that I have been reliably informed has lost his memory, his powers of speech, his recollection of events and his ability to perform even the most basic mental and physical functions. A man in such a condition can hardly be described as being fit to rule this great nation.

The morbid obsession with retaining power at all costs which has afflicted those in the Presidency that Mrs. Aisha Buhari has graphically described as the "hyenas and jackals" coupled with their insidious attempt to institutionalise what I have described elsewhere as "corspsocracy" (the rulership of the living by the dead) in the body politic of our nation must cease forthwith.

Nigerians are gracious, kind, long-suffering, resilient, loving, patient and compassionate people who wish the best for their President but that does not mean that they should be taken for granted, taken for a ride or treated like fools. They are not children and they are not stupid.

It is time for this horrendous madness and hideous nightmare to stop!

It is time for Buhari's seat to be declared vacant and it is time for Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to fully take over and be sworn in as the new and substantive President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Pressure has been mounted on the Electoral Commission to be "comprehensively audited" following full-blown media battle between the chairperson, deputies and staff.

Vice-President at IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil said for years the EC has used its constitutional protection of its independence, to do "whatever they want".

Charlotte Osei, the second chair person of the 25-year-old commission is facing a mutiny from her staff who accuse her of managerial incompetence, doubtful political neutrality, and breaches of contracts and the Public Procurement Act.

Her detailed response rejecting the accusations has also roped in two other deputies, commissioner in charge of Operations, Amadu Sulley and Commissioner in charge of Corporate Services, Georgina Opoku Amankwah.

The concerned staff want her out and have triggered impeachment processes set out in the Constitution.

Charlotte Osei has also vowed to get her two deputies investigated for allegations, some bordering on crime.

The revelations have left the country stunned.

Adding to calls by veteran journalist, Kweku Baako for investigations, Kofi Bentil observed the implosion at the EC was just a matter of time.

He said Mrs. Charlotte Osei "very early on, started complaining" about the state of the commission after her appointment in June 2015.

The political activist and lawyer said the chair tried to use "unorthodox" methods to run the commission without her managers.

Bentil said the problem at the EC "is not a Charlotte Osei problem" but an accountability issue.

According to him, attempts to audit the accounts of the EC during the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) government led by John Agyekum Kufuor, was resisted. But Mr. Bentil argued, 'independence cannot mean, you cannot be audited'.

He expressed shock that a general election in Ghana could be priced at $900m by the Electoral Commission.

He wants every allegation made against the EC Chair as well as those made by the Chair, to be investigated.

The member of pressure group Occupy Ghana, warned, the Commission could lose focus and become "something else" if the issues are not resolved.

Story by Ghana|myjoyonline.com|Edwin Appiah|[email protected]


PLANS ARE in the pipeline for the construction of a modern Ashanti regional party office for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Kumasi.

Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, pointed out that the yet-to-be-constructed office, would boast of modern amenities.

According to him, the construction of a new office facility would significantly boost the day-to-day running of the party in the stronghold.

He was speaking during this year's annual Ashanti Regional NPP Delegates Conference, held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Rented Office

Despite being the strong fortress of the ruling NPP, the Ashanti regional branch of the NPP operates from a rented house at Krofrom in Kumasi.

The party's regional executives used to operate from a small facility at Bantama, donated by a party member, before the office was moved to Krofrom.

Bernard Antwi Boasiako aka 'Wontumi', whilst seeking election as the NPP's chairman in the region, rented a full house at Krofrom as party office.

The party's regional executives had for the past four years managed the affairs of the party from this three-storey rented facility at Krofrom.

New Party Office

Mr Osei Mensah stated that it is unacceptable for the NPP to continue to manage the party's affairs in the region from a rented facility.

In this regard, he stressed on the need for the construction of a modern regional office for the party in Kumasi, with immediate effect.

The Ashanti Regional Minister announced that in two weeks time a committee to ensure the successful building of a party office would be formed.

He said the committee's members would be tasked to work around the clock so as to ensure that the party's dream to have an office becomes a reality.

Mr Osei Mensah stated that the Ashanti Region is the heartbeat of the NPP therefore the party should be well catered for in the region.

He also entreated constituency executives of the NPP to consider building party offices at their various areas to help boost the image of the party.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi


The acting National Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Freddie Blay, has said the government is putting in place steps to turn around the country's fortunes.

He said the NPP was in power to correct the mistakes of the previous National Democratic Congress government, and thus urged Members of Parliament (MPs), Municipal and District Chief Executives (MDCEs), party executives and supporters, to serve with humility and intelligence to achieve the country's developmental goals.

He was speaking in an address to sympathizers and supporters of the party at the Brong Ahafo Regions annual delegates conference held at the Sunyani Technical University on Saturday.

With pragmatic measures, there will be money in the economy, opportunities will be available and development will come to our communities he emphasized.

He said the NPP was a development-oriented party citing government's flagship One district, One factory, One million dollars programs as a few of the plans the new government has for people, and urged leaders in the constituencies to monitor and supervise the programmes to ensure value for money.

I will urge you the chairmen, organizers and leaders in the community to be up and doing because the money is meant for development, and multiply what will be given to you so there will be more prosperity among us. We are not coming to share poverty, we are coming to share wealth. We are coming to spread opportunities, we coming to make our people work hard and make more money to prosper and develop the country he said.

He charged party executives, communicators and serial callers to brace themselves and counter all the propaganda of the NDC against government's policies in the media.

The acting General Secretary of the party, John Boadu, asked regional and constituency executive committees to incorporate the ideas of government appointees in their decision-making process by inviting them to their discussions.

He said the party will monitor activities of the executive committees and appointees and appropriate sanctions meted out to non-performing officials.

Mr. Boadu called on aggrieved party members to use laid down party structures to seek redress, and warned MPs, MMDCEs and party executives, not to manipulate the party's register ahead of their internal elections.

The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, i his welcome address, called for unity among sympathizers and supporters of the party.

The conference was attended by Members of Parliament (MPs), Ministers, Ambassadors, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in the region, national, and constituency officers of the party in the region.



By: Mashoud Kombat/citifmonline.com/Ghana
SME-focused commercial bank, Premium Bank, has announced a GH5 million integrated credit facility for members of the Ghana Startup Club 100 through its HelpStation initiative.

The announcement which was made by the Managing Director, Mr. Kwasi Tumi, during a special business forum and networking cocktail held in honour of the 100 most outstanding startups in Ghana, who were announced as members of the first cohort of the Ghana Startup Club 100 at the recent Ghana Startup Awards.

In a special interaction with Ekow Mensah, CEO of The African Network of Entrepreneurs (TANOE), curators of the Ghana Startup Club 100, he mentioned the intentions of Premium Bank is a prayer answered for most startups in Ghana, and hopes startups will make the best use of the opportunity to expand their businesses to become more innovative and globally competitive.

Beyond the integrated credit facility, Premium Bank will also be providing digital solutions to the various startups to aid their online financial transaction.

The Ghana Startup Club 100 (GSClub 100) is an annual ranking of the top 100 most outstanding start-up companies in Ghana, spearheaded by The Startup Network, a network under TANOE.

Prestigious and coveted; the Ranking celebrates Ghana's entrepreneurs and innovators.

It offers a unique chance for small to medium scale businesses to be recognized for their hard work, commitment and of course, success.



By: citifmonline.com/Ghana
Good morning,

Hon. Assembly Members, the media, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you all to the first press conference since I became the Metropolitan Chief Executive of Cape Coast. I thank you all for the co-operation and support you have given me since taking over as the MCE. I called you here this morning to discuss with you the development of Cape Coast and how the media can assist us in reaching out to the investor community.

Ladies and gentlemen, Cape Coast as the cradle of Ghanas education and the heartbeat of tourism is still bedeviled with challenges such as joblessness, poor sanitation and fallen standards of education. Many of us gathered here today are not happy with our level of development. We must thus change the fortunes and build a new Cape Coast. As I indicated to you in my inaugural speech, my focus as the Metropolitan Chief Executive is to tackle these challenges and to promote the wellbeing of the people I serve. Since taking over as the MCE, I have put in place programmes to deal with these challenges.

Even though, there is an attempt to tackle these challenges, the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly cannot do it all alone. It is therefore prudent to look for partners both home and abroad to support us in this regard especially in tackling joblessness and poor sanitation.

The Assembly is committed to supporting and creating a conducive atmosphere for investments. My commitment is fueled by the vision and investor friendly policies of the Nana Addo led government to turn the fortunes of Ghana. We are fortunate to have a government which has birthed a renewed confidence in the investor community towards our country around the globe. The national agenda to promote investment in all parts of the country is something that we must feed into as a Metropolis. As you are aware, there are a lot of opportunities in the tourism, agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me use this opportunity to invite the media to be partners as we seek to build a new Cape Coast. We want you as key partners because we can achieve a little without your support. I will thus challenge you to use your platforms to promote the things of Cape Coast that will attract investors. To investors, both home and abroad, we invite you to take advantage of the many resources of Cape Coast and invest for our mutual benefit.

Finally, let me use this opportunity to also invite citizens of Cape Coast living everywhere to come on board as we build a new Cape Coast. Those of you who can lead us to investors are encouraged to do so.

Cape Coast as the cradle of education in Ghana has a competent and easily trainable workforce. Again, it is a great location for reaching out to 28 million people of Ghana; the ECOWAS sub region and the many tourists who visit Ghana. These characteristics and many others make Cape Coast one of the best destinations to do business in Ghana. Our priority as an Assembly is but not limited to the following areas:

1. Construction of Arts and Crafts Village

2. Provision of accommodation to serve both domestic and international tourists.

3. Provision of amusement facilities to cater for the tourism industry in Cape Coast.

4. Put up a fruit juice factory

5. Assist out growers to cultivate fruits and vegetables for processing into juice for export and local use

The media, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, let me also use this opportunity to introduce to you our website for this project-www.meetcapecoast.com . This website is currently under construction ad when completed, it will have all the relevant information on all the opportunities available to investors.

The media, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, it is my hope and prayer that, this media encounter is the beginning of the many investment opportunities for Cape Coast. We look forward to your cherished support.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Hon. Ernest Arthur

MCE, Cape Coast
Charlotte Osei

24.07.2017 LISTEN

I seem to have reneged on my decision to quit internet publications for something extremely of personal importance to me in my aspirations to be of maximum selfless service to my nation, people and humanity in the broader sense. No, I shall be doing exactly as I have promised myself and the public readers, however, my contribution to solving the EC saga is called for and very appropriate and is in time.

I should not be missing out on such an important occasion when Ghana is calling for assistance to solving her numerous daunting socio-economic problems deliberately brought about by institutional corruption masterminded and orchestrated by the very elected or appointed leaders in whom we have entrusted our lives and welfare.

I hold no personal grudge against the person of Mrs Charlotte Osei, the EC Chair, but her obstinate and deplorable machismo and corrupt character. I cannot stand her corrupt posture, before, during and after the 2016 general election. Did she not disregard all useful and sagacious admonitions to her to be wary of her actions that had the potency to trigger Ghana into civil war? She thought she was Omnipotent because then President Mahama and the ruling NDC party were continually supportive of her in all that she did or determined to do.

Now, where are her powers? She is now sprawled on the floor dishing dirt at her junior EC colleagues that have accused her of gross misconducts hence calling for her investigation and impeachment.

Read a publication on Ghana web titled, Amadu Sulley illegally took GHC 6 million from parties  Charlotte Osei and under the web link below to familiarise yourself with the rot at the EC as revealed by the Chair of the Electoral Commission herself.

Amadu Sulley illegally transferred votes  Charlotte Osei

Some people including my own highly-respected ace Ghanaian journalist Mr Kweku Baako jumped in castigating the petitioners as faceless with their charges levelled against Charlotte Osei being baseless. They were calling on President Nana Akufo-Addo not to tolerate the petition but brush it under the carpet or chuck it into the waste bin.

However, Rockson Adofo, the son of Kumawu/Asiampa and his like-minded concerned and discerning citizens of Ghana, have been of the view that it is worth looking into the allegations preferred against her contrary to the foolhardy action by all those calling for the petition to be consigned to the waste compactor where in their hazy minds eye, it rightly belongs.

In a nutshell, has the petition not provoked Mrs Charlotte Osei to start talking; revealing all the rot and corruption she has so far quietly been presiding over or sitting on at the Electoral Commission? Would she have come out with the secrets and facts about the ongoing misappropriations of funds, abuse of positions and blatant disregard of the governing laws at the Electoral Commission if the petition was not instituted? No, she wouldnt.

Subsequently, if the petition falls through, at least it has caused Charlotte Osei to reveal to the whole world the corruption and nonsense that have been going on in her department. The revelations are weighty and prosecutorial. This is more than enough to tell that the petitioners are right to have made the petition in the first place.

Whichever way the axe falls, Ghana has gained. Some people will be made to cough out the money they have misappropriated, be they Charlotte Osei or the petitioners.

Have the pessimists and supporters of evildoing calling for the petition to be thrown away because of their undisclosed selfish and parochial interests now seen how valuable the petition has become to Ghana?

I conclude with a quote from the most famous and popular British Prime Minister Sir Winston S. Churchill who said, A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

What Kweku Baako and NDC were rubbishing as faceless and baseless hence a difficulty, Rockson Adofo was calling it an opportunity worth exploring and in the end, who is the winner, the pessimists or the optimists in this case?

My resolve to fighting corruption using the power of the pen or the internet as a tool has never been stronger than now.

I dedicate this publication to every Ghanaian supportive of ridding Ghana of institutional corruption, the bane of Ghanas socio-politico-economic development.

Rockson Adofo
Johannesburg (AFP) - A new book detailing Nelson Mandela's last days has been withdrawn after it was condemned by his outraged widow, publisher Penguin Random House said Monday.

The book by Mandela's physician Vejay Ramlakan was released last week to coincide with the late anti-apartheid leader's birthday, July 18, which is marked each year as Mandela Day.

It revealed several undignified episodes at the end of Mandela's life as well as bitter family squabbles over his care and legacy, prompting fury from his widow Graca Machel who threatened legal action.

The company said it had decided "to immediately withdraw the book Mandela's Last Years from the trade, and no further copies will be issued."

It added that the book "was meant to portray Nelson Mandela's courage and strength until the very end of his life, and was in no way intended to be disrespectful."

Machel accused Ramlakan, a former military surgeon, of breaching patient confidentiality.

The book detailed how Mandela regurgitated blood due to a lung infection and disclosed that after his death at the age of 95, a spy camera was found in the morgue where his body was held.

It also revealed that an ambulance transporting Mandela to hospital during his final months caught fire on the highway forcing him to wait for a backup.

His eldest grandson Mandla Mandela also criticised the book.

Machel said she had not been consulted, though Ramlakan claimed that the book had been approved.

"We received permission from the family," the author told local television eNCA before the withdrawal. "All parties who needed to be consulted were consulted."

"The story of Madiba's last years is actually, in a sense, more impressive than when he was a fit human being," he added, paying tribute to his "unconquerable fortitude".

Mandela, often known by his clan name Madiba, died on December 5 2013, at the age of 95.

Penguin Random House did not say how many copies of the book had already been sold.

Mandela married Machel, his third wife and the widow of Mozambique president Samora Machel, in 1998.
Bragha Ghana Limited, a leading company of fast-moving consumer goods in the country, has donated more than a hundred (100) packs of their product, Bacchus energy drink, to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Accra.

According to the Managing Director of the Company, Mr. Patrick Wontumi, the donation of the energy drinks, Bacchus Energy Drink - a premium non-alcoholic beverage - is to help energize party members during the upcoming Conference in Cape Coast.

Mr. Sammi Awuku, who is the Chairman of Operations and Events Committee for the National Delegates Conference 2017, received the items on behalf of the National Planning Committee.

He thanked Bragha Ghana Limited for their kind gesture and urged other corporate and non-corporate bodies to also support in any way possible.

We as a party want to raise the funding of this Conference on our own and not from State Coffers, so we are grateful for this kind of support, he said.

He advised the management of Bacchus Energy drink to liaise with the Committee so that they can also get the chance to market their drinks at the impending Annual National Delegates Conference which comes off from the 25th to the 27th August 2017 in Cape Coast.

For us as a political party, when we see Huge numbers we see Votes, But for you Businessmen when you see huge numbers u see profit, he stated.

The Conference is expected to attract thousands of people to the Ancient Colonial town.

Other planning committee members present at the presentation ceremony were Mrs. Barbara Asher Ayisi, Deputy Minister of Education, Yaw Adomako Baafi, Ag. Communications Director, Alfred Thompson, member of the committee, Kofi Agyepong Ag. Deputy Director of Communications and a member of the committee, and Emmanuel Attafuah Danso, Ag. Director of International Affairs and a Member of the committee.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Thirty (30) underprivileged girl-child at the Demonstration School for the Deaf, Mampong have benefited each from school uniforms, house dresses and a sponsorship fund for the payment of their Parent Teacher Association (P.T.A) levies for one academic year. This came to fruition under a partnership project of African Development Programme (ADP) and Holt International Childrens Services (HICS)

The beneficiaries were identified under a project titled, Child Interventions for Protection and Educational Development (CIPED). A four month intervention that seeks to address socio-economic challenges that deprive children of their full potential whilst in school.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony, the Acting Executive Director of ADP, Mr. Charles Othniel Abbey, noted that this intervention has become necessary due to challenges that families of these beneficiaries go through in ensuring their wards stay in school throughout the expected period. He was hopeful the support will go a long way in boosting their morale to learn and compete with their male counterparts and in the process promote quality education and gender equality under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He commended the staff for the services they were offering to the vulnerable children in the midst of several challenges they articulated as hampering the smooth running of the school. He emphasized on the fact that, the visit was to make deliveries of the items and tighten the knot of relationship ADP and Holt has with the school.

The Senior Executive of Holt International Childrens Services, Africa and Haiti Programs, Mr. Charles Abbey said poverty is multidimensional and also delves into lack and want in the education sector. He stressed that these uniforms and sponsorship package makes a difference between poverty and progress. He assured the students that, Holt International hopes to contribute modestly towards their education. The collective effort of Holt and other organizations like ADP will contribute to make vulnerable students comfortable as we co-share in the same vision to make the world a loving and secure place for children , he added.

The Programs Coordinator at Holt International Childrens Services, Africa and Haiti Programs, Mrs. Danielle Peebles made the presentation of the school uniforms and house dresses to the pupils. Mr Akuffo Kpeli, the Assistant Headmaster of the School, on behalf of the students received a cheque payment for the (P.T.A) levies and thanked the partners for their support.

Some participants and beneficiaries who spoke after the event said it is one of the best things they have seen in years and that if well to do individuals, CSO, groups and corporations were doing this on regular basis, their pressing needs would have been taken care of by now.

ADP is a Social Development NGO based in Accra, near WestHills Mall and Holt International Childrens Services is a US-based Charity organization headquartered in Eugene, Oregon with operations in fourteen (14) countries across the world. The project, CIPED runs from June-September 2017 in various institutions in Eastern and Central Regions
Abidjan, Cote dIvoire, 24 July 2017 - The NEPAD Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (NEPAD-IPPF) has advocated the establishment of a regional information hub to advertise bankable projects in Africa.

NEPAD-IPPF proposes that each country should have a window linked to the centralized hub as part of an overall objective to unlock bankable investment opportunities in Africa.

It would be both a project hub and a help desk - a centralized IT platform for bankable projects which potential investors can access. Such a hub could be housed by the AfDB to ensure credibility and confidence by both project owners (governments) and potential investors, Shem Simuyemba, Coordinator for NEPAD-IPPF said at an assessment and programming session to develop a pipeline of bankable infrastructure projects for three years, 2018-2020.

The assessment and programming session was held at the AfDB Headquarters in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire on 20July 2017.

Simuyemba explained that the one-stop-shop initiative would not just be a listing of projects, but a differentiation of the financial-readiness of the projects in terms of all the key returns that investors look for: assurance of transparent procurement practices, tenure, risk, returns, availability of co-financing, depth of local capital markets, among others.

The important point to remember is that projects need to be bankable from the point of view of the person who will provide the risk capital to make the project happen. While bankability is about figures, it is also about risk and reality and these factors all go together in making an investment decision, Simuyemba said.

He stressed the need for bankable investment opportunities in Africa to be unlocked to attract regional and international investors.

Unlike other regions such as North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America which have strong private sector project developers and sponsors, the emergence of an indigenous class of trans-continental investors such as Dangote was just the beginning for Africa.

This is attributable to a number of factors, among which is a history of state monopoly companies which crowded out the private sector and stifled its growth; heavily controlled and regulated sectors particularly in infrastructure - which did not have the necessary enabling environment and incentives for private sector participation; as well as weak capital markets.

Unlocking investment opportunities in Africa requires a number of measures to be undertaken as a matter of policy priority.

Simuyemba outlined three other measures to be taken to achieve this.

The first is the liberalization of sectors which are still dominated by government. He gave examples of the information, communications and technology (ICT) sector whose liberalization a few decades ago opened massive investment opportunities for the private sector.

He observed how African countries which have recently opened up their energy-power sectors have witnessed major investments by independent power producers (IPP) and even smaller players in off-grid green energy investments.

The transport sector for both road freight and passengers is now vibrant because it is predominantly private sector driven. However, the same cannot be said about railways where governments still need to provide clear guidelines on an open access rules for railway operations. Equally, despite the Yamoussoukro Decision (of an open African air transport market), investments in airport infrastructure, safety and industry have remained relatively limited. The key to unlocking investments in these sectors is clear market rules.

The second is the need to scale-up capacity for project preparation and development as this is the only means to assess, package and structure the projects in such a way that there is a rolling pipeline of bankable projects.

Speaking at a NEPAD-IPPF Project Financing Roundtable facilitated by the international law firm - Baker and Mckenzie - on 2 May 2017, investors lamented the absence of bankable-investment-ready projects tailored to the needs of public financiers, concessionaires (public-private partnerships) and the private sector.

Investors had noted that the appetite to invest depended on risk considerations which were very different depending on whether the investor was a Development Finance Institution (DFI), a project developer or a private investor.

To achieve this requires considerable scaling-up of capacities and resources for project preparation and development. This is a space largely neglected in terms of resources even though it has been demonstrated that US$1 committed to project preparation and development unlocks between US$80-100 in investment financing. Thus, a project with US$10 million in preparation costs can unlock between US$800 million to US$1 billion in financing depending on the sector and project location, Simuyemba explained.

He also spoke on the importance of regional markets which he said need to be created through deliberate policy reforms, enabling environment, incentives and strengthened partnerships.

Most African countries are too small to be attractive markets for major infrastructure investments or even major industries. While there was a lot of debate related to the lack of political will in the past, African countries have more recently shown a new resolve by undertaking bold reforms and also reaching consensus on major African Union (AU) continental initiatives such as the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) and the AfDBs High 5s.

For instance, major investments in power generation and transmission lines currently going on in Africa will achieve a greater economic impact if they are accompanied by policies to create a vibrant continental energy market whose elements are already in place through the regional power pools.

To spur industrialization in Africa, there is need to create inter-connected trade and transport corridors to enhance efficiency and reduce transaction costs so as to make African industries, and therefore, make imports and exports competitive within African, intra-regional markets and international-global markets.

While Africa has huge potential particularly in the infrastructure sector, bankable investment opportunities in Africa must be unlocked. There has been much talk about Sovereign Wealth Funds, Pension and Insurance Funds, and other institutional investors investing in infrastructure in Africa, but this has not happened to the scale envisaged. These institutional investors have not been guided towards the right types of projects tailored to their specific profiles and financing needs and given the massive resources in these institutions. This gap needs to be bridged as a matter of urgency to unlock these funds for the much needed infrastructure investments on the Continent.

The NEPAD Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (NEPAD-IPPF) is a multi-donor Special Fund hosted by the AfDB. It supports African countries to prepare regional infrastructure projects in energy, transport, ICT and transboundary water to make them bankable for investment.

Established in 2005, the Facility supports African countries to prepare bankable regional and cross-border projects across the infrastructure sectors. It is funded by a number of Donor Partners, namely, Canada, Germany, the UK, Spain, Denmark and Norway.
It has emerged that hours before the raid in his house, the former Power Minister had met with the New Patriotic Partys KT Hammond to make compromises over the controversial Ameri Power deal.

Dr Kwabena Donkor who appeared to have been angered by the raid told Joy News Parliamentary correspondent Elton John Brobbey all compromises made in that two hour meeting in the house of KT Hammond is now off the table.

He however, and for the first time, admitted that, like previous power arrangements entered into with the Government of Ghana, the AMERI Power deal in retrospect may have structural faults which could be relooked at.

His house was besieged Monday morning by officers of the Criminal Investigative Department, who with a search warrant from a circuit court, seized his laptops, and pen drives.

They were in search of documents covering the controversial AMERI power deal signed in 2015 between the erstwhile John Mahama administration and the Turkish power company.

KT Hammond

According to Dr Kwabena Donkor, the officers even wanted to take away his phones but he resisted and only provided his serial numbers.

The $510 million worth AMERI power deal which was to provide emergency power during the countrys power paralysis triggered massive controversy in 2015.

The then opposition New Patriotic Party as well as other think tanks accused the government and the then Power Minister Dr Kwabena Donkor of short-changing the country.

The Vice President of policy think tank IMANI Ghana said the AMERI power deal which cost $510 million of the tax payers money was a collusion by former government officials and officials of AMERI group to "over charge the state."

Kofi Bentil did not understand how the erstwhile National Democratic Congress government paid that much for an emergency plant when it could have gotten it for $220million on the open market.

According to him, the former NDC administration paid a whooping sum of $150 million to a middle man, AMERI, for little or no job done.

"We could have done without the middle man, but we used him and ended up paying the middle man $150million," he argued.

Despite these allegations, the former Power Minister Dr Kwabena Donkor insisted the AMERI deal was above board.

On winning the election, the Akufo-Addo led administration constituted a committee to investigate the circumstances under which the AMERI deal was signed.

The committee led by Lawyer Philip Addison, after investigating the details of the deal concluded the state had been short-changed.

Despite the revelations by the Committee, Dr Kwabena Donkor still questioned the findings of the committee and challenged the government to proceed to court if they believe something untoward has been done.

On Monday, there were indications a former Deputy Energy Minister under the Kufuor administration KT Hammond had been meeting with Kwabena Donkor over the AMERI deal.

Dr Donkor will not say the details of the meeting with Hammond except to state that there were some "compromises" being made over the AMERI deal.

Just a day after the meeting with Hammond, some personal effects of the then Power Minister have been seized by police officers in his home.

He told Elton Brobbey the invasion of his house violated his right as an MP and did not follow procedures required by Parliamentary conventions.

While he suspects powerful hands were behind the invasion of his house, he was quick to state that he was sure the president had nothing to do with it.

Somebody above the police is calling the tune, he said, adding, I believe this is political.

I have done nothing untoward. I am waiting for my day in court, he indicated.

He said the raid on his house has changed the dynamics of the compromises he had with the government officials and is now ready to appear in court.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah
Alexandria, Virginia USA:The Virgina branch of the NDC USA Chapter invited Honorable Sylvester Mensah to be the keynote speaker at their event recently! The event was to bring all members of the branch together in an attempt to whip up enthusiasm in the members after the tragic loss of the party in the 2016 Parliamentary and Presidential elections. The leadership of NDC USA chapter and members from other branches in the USA also attended.

Hon. Sylvester Mensah briefed the audience on some happenings back home in Ghana and took the opportunity to share with them issues relating to leadership and the future of the party.

According to deep throat SOURCES at the meeting who wouldn't want to be identified, the majority of party executives support the idea of a new leader, a new voice, a new vision, a new style and new relationships as proposed by Sylvester and which the gathering maintained he, Sylvester represented. There is a growing call on the former NHIA boss to consider leading the party into the 2020 elections. Recently a large group of former Hon. MPs, MMDCEs and Ministers largely from the Volta, Northern, Eastern and the Greater Accra Regions called on him at home. Everyone has been tight lipped on the content and nature of their discussions but it followed immediately with various meetings in the Volta and Western regions. Reliable sources say that the SM [SLY] brand is growing significantly in popularity and tipped to be the favourite to win any possible future contest for leadership in the NDC.

Also present at the Meeting was the General Secretary of the NDC Honorable Asiedu Nketia ;Hon Kofi Attor, director of international relations; Honorable Dr. Hannah Bissiw and H.E

Mr. Daniel Osei, former head of Consul , Dubai.

The SM [SLY] campaign has gathered tremendous momentum and it's rumoured to begin the second leg of its regional consultation tours to garner support for his ambition to lead the party in the 2020 elections.
The Deputy Attorney General who led the oral examination of businessman Alfred Agbesi Woyome says the state is making progress with efforts to retrieve the GHS51.2 million.

Godfred Dame said no stone will be left unturned in the attempt to take the money given the NDC financier.

The two adjunct dates given by the court will be sufficient to cover the broad array of issues I want to cover. I want to clearly find out from him whether he has no means of satisfying the judgment debt, he said.

The oral examination of Mr Woyome came off Monday at the Supreme Court in which the Deputy AG explored how the businessman spent the money given him.

He also uncovered potential sources of income for the businessman which could help the state recover the over 50 million.

After the grilling which took more two hours, the sole judge adjourned the oral examination to October 2.

Godfred Dame

The ongoing judgment debt saga dates back to 2008 when Mr. Woyome received 51.2 million judgment for helping the state with financial engineering to raise funds to construct stadia for the hosting of the 2008 African Cup of Nations.

In 2010, however, an Auditor Generals report said the amount paid to him was illegal.

As a result, the Supreme Court in 2014 ordered the businessman to pay back the money after a former Attorney General, Martin Amidu, challenged the legitimacy of the payments by the state.

Oral Examination

Initially, Mr Woyome told the court he has not done any business since 2011 which was proven to be untrue when evidence showed he had incorporated companies in 2016.

He told the court, he lost all his businesses after his arrest in 2011 as a result of the suit brought against him.

When asked about the AAW Management Consulting Services, incorporated in 2016, Mr. Woyome told the court despite being established in 2016, the company is not in business.

He, however, described as erroneous the decision by the Attorney General to drag him before the Supreme Court to orally examine him over the money.

Alfred Woyome

Responding to questions during the oral examination, he further told the court he felt persecuted by the state through these actions given that he had agreed on a payment plan agreed with the AG.

Some documents prior to the oral examination showed that a charge had been placed on Mr Woyome's properties as demanded by the Attorney Generals office.

The companies affected by the charge included Green Township Security Services Company Limited, Anator Holding Company Limited, Woyome Brothers International Limited, AAW Management Consulting Services, Anator Construction Company Limited, Stewise Anator Company limited and Stewise Shipping Compan Limited.

The optimistic Deputy AG said the state will be the victor as Mr Woyome has companies and assets after he disclosed in court that another of the businessman is situated at Kokomlele in Accra.

There is another asset at Ablemkpe that the court has told him to present documents for. Little by little, we are getting close how the state will recover the money.

We have more assets in our possession that we will prove to him that he owns and he cannot but admit, he said.

However, law lecturer and legal practitioner Yaw Oppong said the state with it coercive force will still have to contend with a citizen who owes it.

Mr Oppong lauded the competent procedure engaged by the state, saying the law makes provision for both parties in fighting for their right.

"Any purpose of examination of a debtor is to indeed find out if he is a person of straw incapable of settling his just debt or the person is deliberately engaging in acts to conceal his ability to pay.

I am excited that the Supreme held in other cases that there is no offense as owing someone so the previous procedure to show cause was struck out from our laws.

But this will show that there is still a residual procedure which is akin to that summons to show cause so that even if the person will not go to prison for owing, he can still be subjected to some form of cross examination to ascertain if he is capable of paying his just debt," he said.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim |[email protected]
The son of late President Professor John Evans Atta Mills says he is yet to be told the cause of his fathers death since his passing in 2012.

Sam Kofi Atta Mills told Joy News Beatrice Adu Monday management of the 37 Military Hospital where the former leader died did not give the family any autopsy report.

I dont think any member of my family will be able to give evidence of how President Mills passed away, the only child of the late President said.

Sam Kofi Atta Mills

He made the remarks during the fifth-anniversary celebration of the life of the former President at the Asomdwee Park in Accra.

Prof Mills is the first sitting leader in the history of the country to die in office.

He died on July 24, 2012, at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra, three days to his 68th birthday.

The details about the cause of his death are still scanty but there were suggestions he died from hemorrhagic stroke complications.

Sections of Ghanaians did not believe the cause attributed to the death of the late leader. Some said the truth has been hidden from them.

Wading in the matter first time since the death of his father, Mr Atta Mills said he has heard many stories about the death of his father but he will need evidence and facts to convince him.

There have been several rumors and stories, but until I see some concrete evidence I dont really have much to say, he said.

Samuel Atta Mills

Sam Kofi Atta Mills said he will collaborate with anyone who is also keen on knowing what led to his fathers death.

If someone wants to approach me to do investigations, I will champion the course because he is my father and I want to know.

But the brother of the late President, Samuel Atta Mills said the family has the autopsy report and his nephew knows "whom to talk to" if he wants to know the content.

"If he wanted to talk about it, we are glad to talk about it," the KEAA MP told Evans Mensah on Joy FM's Newsnite Monday.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brakopowers | [email protected] | Instagram: @realbrakopowers
2 held with fake notes

Police has arrested two persons in possession of counterfeit Nepali currency with a face value of Rs 174,000 from Biratnagar-9 in Morang.
Former Beauty Queen, actress cum entrepreneur, Mina Horsfall, is having the best vacation so far in the United Arab Emirates, as she visits places to learn more about the country.

She is not just there for the fun that comes with it but also to see where they are getting it right and return to make some impact in her state.

The actress believes that going on vacation should not just be spending the money in other country but ability to visit places and learn how they have been able to puts some things in place and then go home to teach others.

She was also a guest at the Al Ayadi School in Sharjah, where she motivated and had talks with the Africans working there as she also spent quality moments with the kids.
Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. We provide a platform for our authors to report on investments fairly, accurately, and from the investors point of view. We also respect individual opinionsthey represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive.

To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research.

Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.
Dr. Ian Renner, Renner Winery Vintner, at his Canterbury Vineyard in Vallecito View Photos

Murphys, CA  More details are becoming available about the sudden passing a few days ago of Dr. Ian Renner, co-founder of the Mother Lodes Renner Winery.

His wife, Diane Gray Renner, shares that the 79-year-old vintner, renowned physician-educator and scholar, peacefully passed away in his sleep Thursday evening due to prostate cancer complications.

A colorful and beloved local figure, in recent years Dr. Renner could often be found behind the bar at the Renner tasting room in downtown Murphys, where he enjoyed chatting with visitors. His love of reds, particularly Syrah, was as well-established as his dream to produce among the worlds best.

Anyone visiting Renners 55-acre Canterbury Vineyard in Vallecito would have a difficult time being less than wowed by its Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Zinfandel and Viognier plantings across the sites stunning topography, which he described as somewhat evocative of his native New Zealand. Before moving to the US, Renner spent time in Australias Barossa Valley, where his love for Syrah  or Shiraz as it is known there  first developed. It was back in 1995 that Renner and his now-deceased wife Elena, both southern California doctors at the time, initially planted vines. The winery itself was launched as its 2006 vintage came to market.

His wife Diane, Renner Winery principal and sales manager recounts that the plantings were established well before Murphys was on anyones wine radar. So he had a vision long before the current, vibrant Murphys wine economy, so he knew, she confides, adding that it is the winerys hope that it will continue towards achieving Ians dream of making world-class wines.

For those who knew him only as a vintner, she adds, He was an extraordinary doctor  and people do not really know because he was very modest about his background  but he made a huge contribution in the world of medicinedeveloped endoscopies and ERCPs. ERCPs, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography as referred to in medical jargon, is a pioneering procedure used to diagnose and treat conditions of the bile ducts.

A former professor of medicine at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, in Los Angeles, Dr. Ian Graham Renner notably trained numerous young physicians in complex endoscopic procedures that he was instrumental in developing. After earning his undergraduate degree in physics and mathematics at Christchurch University, New Zealand and a medical degree from Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand, Renner completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology. The experience led him to dedicate future clinical and research efforts towards treating diseases of the liver and pancreas, particularly those cancer-related and his subsequent work was widely published. In 2013, he affiliated for a time with Mark Twain Medical Center as a specialist in gastroenterology and hepatitis services.

Besides his wife Diane, Ian is survived by son Ashly Ian Renner, stepson Travis Gray Bardsley, and grandchildren Isaac, Mia, Lua, and Ellis. His family plans a Celebration of Ians Life on August 12 at the vineyard he loved so dearly. For more details, contact Renner Winery at 209 728-2314.
Nigeria is one of the biggest rice producers in Africa. Despite this fact, it`s also the largest rice importers in Africa. It`s an essential cash crop for small-scale producers! What can we notice in the Nigeria Rice production statistics? Continue reading to find out!

Rice production Statistics in Nigeria

Over the past decade, the rice consumption rates have risen rapidly. According to Stanley Nkwazema from This Day Live, only in the last decade, the consumption rate has risen to 7 million Metric Tons. Still, only 2.7 million metric tons are produced by Nigerian farmers.

According to the Index Mundi, this number has risen to 2.772 million metric tons. This means that even the increase in rice production in Nigeria still leaves a significant gap of 4.2-4.3 million metric tons. Therefore, Nigeria is only able to supply 49% of the domestic demand. Per capita consumption rate of rice is about 27 kilograms, according to Stanley Nkwazema.

The statistic of rice production in Nigeria clearly shows a 5% increase every year. For the first half of this year, it has already risen by 2.67%, according to the Index Mundi. The Industry Reports also shows the fluctuation of the local commodity production to be between 2,400 to 3,600 in the past five years. The import rates have also increased to 5,850 from 4,800 during the same period of time.

Rice Production Statistics in the States

Only eight states out of 36 can be considered heavy producers of rice. These states include:

- Anambra;

- Nassarawa;

- Ebonyi;

- Kaduna;

- Niger;

- Kano;

- Kaduna;

- Benue.

According to the Nigeria rice production statistics, the imports have started to make up 50% of the local consumption rates. Currently, Nasarawa State is the leader when it comes to rice production in Nigeria. It has over 10,000 fully irrigated rice hectares, according to Stanley Nkwazema.

Anambra State is a clear miracle of rice production in Nigeria. The industrial rice farms have already pushed the rice production of the State from 90,000 metric tons to 210,00 metric tons. Stanley Nkwazema informs that with this capacity, production will soon reach 320,000 metric tons. Therefore, it will reach and then surpass the rates of consumption of rice in Adamawa State. When this number is reached, it will show a clear victory over consumption rates.

Who are the importers of Nigeria?

The Global rice production statistics show that the top five importers of Nigeria are the USA, Vietnam, India, Thailand, and Brazil. These countries help Nigeria to overcome the shortfall of over 4.3 million metric tons. This shortfall is valued over N365 billion. This great sum of money is needed to meet Nigerian demand of over 7 million metric tons.

Why Nigeria can`t meet its own demand?

READ ALSO: History of economic recession in Nigeria

According to the Chairman of the Export Group of Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (NACCIMA), Ade Adefeko, the rice producers in Nigeria have to overcome great challenges to meet the market demands.

One of these challenges is the inadequate irrigation techniques. The low levels of technologies can`t result in a high yield! Therefore, the rice farmers are not able to fight against the impact of birds, insects, and weeds.

There are also other drawbacks which keeps Nigeria from being able to supply its own demand for rice. According to Ade Adefeko, these drawbacks include:

- Poor quality control practices;

- Poor drying techniques;

- Poor sorting drying techniques;

- Power failures in some regions of the country;

Ade Adefeko also disclosed that the problems of rice production are horrible for the end users. Due to the chaotic chain of suppliers, the end-user has to get the end product through a number of the middle-men. Therefore, the price of the end-product is pretty high.

Ade Adefeko, in his interview on This Day Live also pointed out that Nigeria keeps is working towards getting out from the rice import dependency, but the progress is too slow. The government of Nigeria may try to change the situation with agricultural loans or rice production loans.

Conclusion

The Statistics of rice production in Nigeria clearly shows that the country needs 7 million metric tons of its demand. For today, Nigeria is only capable to supply only 49% of domestic demand. The rice production in Nigeria keeps growing, but it will not be enough to supply the domestic demand of the whole country in the next several years.

READ ALSO: Jobs in Abuja for fresh graduates 2017

Source: Legit.ng
Sandra Okagbue is an entrepreneur, model, and actress in Nigeria. This beautiful woman won several beauty queen contests in Nigeria. She is also known as a baby mama of another Nigerian celebrity  Flavour. If you are her fan  you shouldn`t miss Sandra Okagbue biography! Continue reading to learn more!

Sandra Okagbue Biography - Beginning

Sandra Okagbue was born in Anambra State. She is the eldest of the six children in her family. She hails from Ogechukwu Clara Okagbue of Onitsha Kingdom. Currently, she is a model and one of the popular female entrepreneurs in Nigeria.

She is currently the CEO of Borderline Business Solutions Limited. The Miss Delta Soap Pageant contest helped her to become extremely popular in Nigeria. She has already been in the modelling industry for more than 15 years.

Sandra Okagbue Age

She does not reveal her age. If you look at Sandra Okagbue Instagram photos, you may notice that she looks quite young. Her youthful looks are what attract her fans.

Sandra Okagbue Brother

She also has a famous brother! His name is Christopher. The names of Sandra Okugboe's other siblings are Bella, Christabel, Jane and Christian Okugbue. They are all sons and daughter of the late Monarch Obi Ofala Okagbue. Christopher and Sandra are connected with Orange D.r.u.g.s. Limited.

Sandra Okagbue became the winner of the Miss Delta Soap Pageant in 2010. This beauty contest was organized by Orange D.r.u.g.s. Limited. Consequently, in 2010, she became a face of Delta Soap gracing television, billboards, handbills, newspapers and calendars. In 2010, her brother became the brand ambassador of Orange D.r.u.g.s. Limited and Passion Energy Drinks. He also appeared in TV commercials for Multinational Companies, like Cadbury PLC., Airtel, MTN, LG, and e.t.c.

Sandra Okagbue brother won several model and acting contests. One of the most noticeable awards is The Ultimate Man courtesy of the Gulder Ultimate Search Season 8: Contest of Champions!

Chris and Sandra Okagbue continue to work together! They have recently produced a movie titled Latanna. In this movie, Chris plays the leading role of Lotanna. According to the story, Lotanna has to find out a way to pay up the N20 million debt owed by of his father. From an early age, Lotanna had to figure out a way to become rich and repay the debt or lose his life.

Sandra Okagbue and Mikel Obi

Sandra Okagbue is an ex-girlfriend of Mikel Obi, who is a Chelsea FC midfielder. In 2013, the news magazines and websites published dozens of articles about their marriage. In 2013, Sandra Okagbue and Mikel Obi had been dating for three years.

They were together for quite a long time and according to some sources, even planned to spend the rest of their lives together. Unfortunately, details and rumours of an upcoming wedding seemed to fade. Later on, Nigeria was informed about a new man in Sandra Okagbue life  his name was Flavour Nabania.

Sandra Okagbue and Flavour Nabania

READ ALSO: Iyabo Ojo biography

Sandra Okagbue is the mother of Flavour Nabania's child. Even if he refused to accept this child as his own at the beginning, today he can`t deny his little Ugbege (mirror, Igbo). You just cannot help but fall in love with their cute pictures together.

Sandra Okagbue and Flavour Nabania started dating in 2014. They have been together for three years now. Still, there are some controversies about their relationship. In an interview, Flavour Nabania revealed that he is not ready for marriage. However, according to rumours, Flavour Nabania and Sandra Okagbue wedding ceremony has already happened. On the other hand, the same rumors were spread when Sandra Okagbue was dating Mikel Obi. So we really can't know for sure.

Sandra Okagbue Baby

Sandra Okagbue has a daughter from Flavour Nabania. Her name is Gabrielle. Her father calls her my Ugbege or my little mirror. Interestingly enough, Flavour Nabania has a second baby mother called Anna Banner. These two women are currently at war with each other, and on Sandra Okagbue Instagram page you can find a lot of hints about that.

For example, in one of Sandra Okagbue Instagram posts where she was pictured in the mansion of Flavour Nabania, she added the hashtag #Golibe. Golibe is a song by Flavour which starred Anna Banner.

Sandra Okagbue has a wonderful career as a model and actress. She is also a successful entrepreneur and a happy mother. This is why her fans can't wait to hear more news about her in the future!

READ ALSO: Sweetest love story in Nigeria

Source: Legit.ng
- Appeal Court dismissed Tompolo's appeal against bench warrant arrest issued against him by federal high court

- Tompolo failed to appear in court in response to the Summons and rather filed an appeal

- He is facing charges for a multi-billion naira fraud involving land contracts for the construction of a Nigerian Maritime University

The Lagos Court of Appeal had dismissed the appeal against Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by former Niger Delta militant, Government Ekpemukolo, aka Tompolo, over the bench warrant against him.

The initial bench warrant was issued against Tompolo by Justice Buba of the Federal High Court in Lagos.

It will be recalled that on December 15, 2015, the EFCC instituted a criminal charge against Tompolo and 9 others.

The Commission, through its counsel Festus Keyamo, could not serve Tompolo personally with the summons.

On January 12, 2016 Keyamo applied and obtained an order for substituted service of the said summons by pasting same on Tompolo's last known address at No. 1 Agbanu DDPA Extension Warri, Delta state.

READ ALSO: Apapa mayhem: Lagos police command arrests trigger-happy cop

However, despite the substituted service of same on Tompolo, he refused, neglected and failed to appear in court in response to the Summons.

Consequently on January 14, 2016 Justice Buba issued a Warrant for the arrest of Tompolo pursuant to Section 131 of the Administration of Criminal justice Act 2015.

Tompolo thereafter filed a Motion on Notice dated the 27th day of January, 2016 seeking the following reliefs: an order of court setting aside its order of 12th January, 2016 for issuance of Summons to compel the appearance of the defendant; an order setting aside Charge No: FHC/L/553C/15 and service of summons to compel the appearance of the defendant and, an order setting aside the Warrant for the arrest of the defendant issued on 14 January, 2016.

After arguments, Justice Buba dismissed Tompolo's motion. Dissatisfied, Tompolo appealed the dismissal of his motion.

In its judgment today, the Court of Appeal agreed with the Commission that Tompolo had been properly served with the summons and saw no reason to set aside the Bench Warrant still subsisting against him.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

The court unanimously held that Tompolo's appeal is devoid of any merit and thereby dismissed it. The court upheld the decision of Justice Buba to issue a Bench Warrant against Tompolo.

Tompolo is facing charges of N45.9 billion fraud preferred against him and nine others by the anti-graft agency and has been in hiding since then.

Meanwhile, Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to seize the assets belonging to Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo.

The judge gave this order on Thursday, May 12 asking the EFCC to take charge of the assets if Tompolo fails to make an appearance in three months.

Legit.ng asked our readers what they think Nigeria having a young president and they provided their reactions in the video below:

Source: Legit.ng
Nepal Police Promotion Dispute: 3 senior officials file plaints at PSC

Three senior police officials have lodged complaints at the Public Service Commission (PSC), expressing their disagreement over the recent recommendations to the positions of Nepal PoliceAdditional Inspector General, Deputy Inspector General and Senior Superintendent.
A female student from Enugu state Ali Cynthia Chineche has passed her May/June 2017 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) with flying colours.

The student set the record high after she made all A's in her nine subjects. She is the overall best students for 2016/2017 academic session in her school.

Chineche had represented her schools in various inter secondary school competitions and had won several awards including an award from Mathematical Society of Nigeria.

The genius students teacher, Chibulu Austin, who was proud of his students achievement, took to Facebook to share her result to the world.

Nigerian female candidate makes nine A1 in WAEC Photo Source: Igboist group

In his post, Austin noted that he is very proud and happy to have taught the Enugu state-born student.

READ ALSO: Meet genius 19-year-old boy who scored 337 in his JAMB exam (photos)

He wrote: Today we have produced and I am very much proud teaching this lovely and wonderful lady in a great citadel of learning."

Nigerian female candidate makes nine A1 in WAEC Photo Source: Facebook user Chibulu Austin

Meanwhile, Nigerians have urged the Enugu state government to provide a university scholarship for the genius lady and show her appreciation for making her state proud.

"In a world peopled by men with even the tiniest regard for Excellence, this brainy Queen here would already be on her way to one of the best universities on GOVT Scholarship. Sadly, and to our collective shame as a people, ours is a broken society presided over by broken men who would rather squander millions and billions plus car gifts on some half naked daughters of Eve on some beautiful nonsense called Beauty Pageant and other frivolities only to turn around and gift outstanding students like this with mere Calculator and Mathematical Sets.

Our sense of priority here is nothing short of a walking tragedy! The govt of Enugu state owe it to both man and God to see to it that exceptionally brilliant students such as this girl here, are made to see the inside of a university on Govt Scholarship."

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You may recall that the 2016 (WASSCE) also produced a Kaduna state student who also made all A's.

The West African Examination Council after releasing the results indicated that more students scored credit passes in 5 subjects and above compared to 2015 and 2016.

See how JAMB applicants complained about registration hassles Legit.ng TV below:

Source: Legit.ng
South South Nigeria is also known as the Niger Delta region. Most of the oil wells are located in this region. Learn more about South South states Nigeria.

Nigeria was divided into six geopolitical zones or regions under the regime of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. Each zone is made up of states in Nigeria with identical cultures, ethnic similarities, and some common history. The zones were created in order for the federal government to be able to allocate resources effectively. The six regions in Nigeria are:

 North West

 North East

 North Central

 South West

 South East

 South South

In this article, we will focus on the South South region. The South South geopolitical zone is made up of six states. These six states are known as the Niger Delta states. One of the things these states have in common is that they have the keys to the Nigeria economy - oil. These states are the major oil producing states in Nigeria. These six states are:

 Akwa Ibom

 Bayelsa

 Cross River

 Delta

 Edo

 River

READ ALSO: South East states in Nigeria

Akwa Ibom State

Akwa Ibom motto is known as the 'Promise Land.' The state is located on the coastal part of Nigeria. It has a land area of 7,081 km2. The population is about five million people. Akwa Ibom is bounded by Cross River State, Abia State, River State, and the Atlantic Ocean. The capital city of Akwa Ibom is Uyo. There are four major languages spoken in the state namely Annang, Ekket, Ibibio, and Oron.

There are many African religions practised in the state but the majority of the people practise Christianity. The richness of their cultural and historical heritage is summarized in their beliefs, mythology, folklore, food, songs, and dance. The people of Akwa Ibom are majorly civil servants, farmers, fishermen, traders. and blacksmiths.

Among the oil producing states, Akwa Ibom is currently number one. The state is blessed with not only crude oil but other resources like coal, natural gas, limestone, clay, silver nitrate, glass sand, and salt. Also, it is a land of tourism, you can visit places like:

 The Oron Museum

 Ibeno Sand Beach

 The Amalgamation House where the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorate to form one Nigeria in 1914 took place

 Lord Lugard Residence

 The Slave Masters Lodge

 Mbo Forest Reserve

 Mary Slessor House and Tomb and many others

Bayelsa State

Bayelsa State is known as the Pride of the Nation. Bayelsa was created out of Rivers state in 1996 by General Sani Abacha, the then Head of States. It is located in the southern part of Niger Delta region. Bayelsa is bounded on the north by Delta State, on the east by Rivers State, and on west and south by the Atlantic Ocean. The capital city of Bayelsa is Yenagoa. There are many ethnic groups found in Bayelsa but the most predominant are the Ijaws. All these ethnic groups have their own dialect. The major religions practised in Bayelsa are traditional worship and Christianity. It is one of the smallest states in Nigeria with a land mass of 10,773 km2. It has eight Local Government Areas, the lowest in Nigeria.

Bayelsa State has one of the biggest oil and gas depots in Nigeria. It is also one of the major oil producing states in Nigeria, contributing more than thirty percent of Nigerias oil output. Most parts of the state are covered with water as more than three-quarters of the state is located under sea level. The people are well known for farming, fishing, trading, weaving, and carving. Also, there are large reserves of sand, gravel, and clay found in Bayelsa.

Bayelsa State has a rich historical heritage with interesting places like:

 The Akassa Slave Transit Camp and Tunnel. It was the place where they camped the slaves before moving them to America and the Caribbean via the Atlantic Ocean.

 Mungo Park Residence - a divisional headquarters of the colonial masters.

 Nigeria First Oil Well Oloibiri discovered in 1956.

 Others places include the Ox-Bow Lake, Akassa Wildlife Forest, Okpoama Beach, Mangrove Creeks, and many others.

Cross River State

The motto of Cross River State is The Peoples paradise. It is one of the oldest states in Nigeria. It was created in 1976. The capital city is Calabar. Cross River is bounded on the west by Benue State, on the south by Abia State, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. There are two major local dialects in the state, Efik, and Ejagham. There is a minority of Igbos in the western part of the state. Cross River is divided into eighteen Local Government Areas.

Cross River State has the abundance of natural resources in oil and gas, limestone, barite, quartzite, kaolin, clay, and salt. Most of the beautiful landscapes in Nigeria are located in Cross River State. Interesting places you can visit in Cross River include:

 Obudu Mountain Resort

 Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary

 Agbokim Waterfalls

 Calabar Drill Monkey Ranch

 Kwa Falls

 Calabar Cenotaph

 Ikom Monoliths

 Calabar Museum: You can find most of the original documents related to the slave trade and palm oil production in Nigeria in this museum.

 Mary Slessor Building.

Delta State

Delta State is known as the 'Big Heart'. The state was created in 1991 from the old defunct Bendel State. The name of the state came from the delta of river Niger. It is one of the major oil producing states in Nigeria. The capital city of Delta is Asaba. Delta state has twenty-five Local Government Areas. Ir is a multi-ethnic state comprising of the Urhobos, Isoko, Itsekiri, Ijaw, Ukwuani etc.

Delta State has an abundance of solid mineral resources in crude oil, silica, lignite, industrial clay, tar sand, kaolin, limestone, and decorating rocks. Delta State houses some of the incredible cultural and historical centers. Some of them include:

 Chief Nanas Palace Living History Museum, Koko

 Araya Bible Site

 River Ethiope

 Mungo Park House

 Niger Bridge

 Falcorp Mangrove Park

 Other places of interest in Delta include Leisure Paradise Amusement Park, Escarvo Beach, Gordon River Resort, Olona Ranch & Holiday Resort, Asaba Beach, Bomadi Beach etc.

Edo State

Edo State, the Heartbeat of Nigeria, is one of two states created from the old Bendel State in 1991. The other one is Delta State. The capital of Edo is Benin City. It was one of the major destinations of the Europeans when they came to explore Africa. The state comprises of four major ethnic groups, they are Afemai, Binis, Esan, and Owan. The state is however populated with people from all over Nigeria due to its cosmopolitan tendencies. Edo State is divided into eighteen Local Government Areas.

Edo State is rich in cultural and historical heritage. There are more than a hundred major festivals in Edo State between September and March every year. The state is blessed with natural resources such as crude oil, natural gas, clay, marble, limestone, and chalk. Places of interest to visit in Edo State include:

 Ogba Zoological Garden

 Benin Brass Work

 Obas Palace

 Benin City Wall and Moat

 Benin City Museum

 Igun Bronze Casters and Crafts Centre

 Okomu National Park

 Somorika Hill

 Lampese

 Idoma Hill

River State

River State is known as the 'Treasure Base of the Nation'. River State is one of the oldest states and was created in 1967. The capital of River State is in Port Harcourt. There are more than twenty languages spoken in River State but Ijaw and Ikwerre are the two major languages. It is a land of diverse ethnicity. River State is divided into eighteen Local Government Areas.

Rivers State is one of the major oil producing states in Nigeria contributing more than forty percent of the crude oil produced in Nigeria.

Places of interest in River State include:

 Port Harcourt Tourist Beach

 Isaac Boro Garden Park

 Zoological Garden

 Cultural Centre

 Statute of King Jaja of Opobo

 Bonny Island

 Biseni Forest

The South South States have some of the great landscapes in Nigeria. They have some beautiful places you can visit. So, for your next holiday trip, you can travel to one of these states.

READ ALSO: Most beautiful state in Nigeria 2017

Source: Legit.ng
- 700 suspected cultists and 38 suspected armed robbers were arrested in different parts of Anambra in the last three weeks

- This was disclosed by the Anambra state commissioner of police, Garba Umar

- The incident is coming barely four months before the Anambra governorship election

No fewer than 700 suspected cultists and 38 suspected armed robbers were arrested in different parts of Anambra in the last three weeks, Garba Umar, the state commissioner of police, has said.

Umar told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, July 23 in Awka that the arrests were clear signal that Anambra was no longer a safe haven for criminals.

This number of arrests within three weeks to me was unprecedented and we will sustain the tempo until we flush out all the bad eggs in the state, he said.

He said that the police recovered several types of arms and ammunition from the suspects.

The commissioner said that some of the suspects had been arraigned, while the command was still investigating cases leveled against others.

He said that additional personnel had been deployed in Anambra by the Inspector-General (IG) to beef up the existing security in the state.

Umar said that the command had created 20 new units and deployed its personnel to various flash points across the state.

I personally patrol some of these locations to ensure efficient operations. I am not an arm chair police commissioner.

I move round myself to make sure that things are done the right way for security of lives and property of residents, Umar said.

Umar warned those who were in the habit of operating in offices and residential houses, especially around the Government House, Awka axis, to desist.

He said that the command had set its dragnet in every location in the state; especially Awka, the capital, and that any person or group caught would be severely dealt with.

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On extortion of money and other corrupt conducts by police officers, Umar warned them to shun such negative conduct, adding that corruption was viewed as a serious offence.

His words: I have read my riot acts to officers and men in Anambra state police command that under this administration of the present IG, there is zero tolerance to corruption.

No police personnel can extort money from an individual or group and go free.

We have the mechanism to checkmate the activities of our men; both the Inspector General and Commissioner of Police monitoring units are working hard.

We gave out our telephone numbers to the public to report any case of extortion and act of incivility and misconduct to us.

The commissioner also advised the people of the state to disregard threats by any group that the forthcoming November 18 governorship election in Anambra would not hold.

We learnt that there are some disgruntled elements making some pronouncements against the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that people should boycott the Nov.18 governorship election in the state.

The group can say whatever they like, but the police and other security agents have a duty to secure the nation and as well ensure that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is protected.

Where offences are committed; we will enforce the laws handed over to us for enforcement. We are ever ready to do that in Anambra and that is the fact.

We have all the resources at our disposal to ensure that those who are eligible to vote perform their civic responsibilities without any molestation.

And nobody within or outside the state can stop the exercise, he said. (NAN)

READ ALSO: Agitation for Biafra is being sponsored by politicians looking for political power - Methodist Prelate

Meanwhile, a United States of America-based IPOB leader, Candy Stallworth, has cautioned supporters of the group to quit hate speeches in their quest for the sovereign state of Biafra.

Stallworth who is IPOB's mobilization leader in the US, sent the message to supporters of the group via her Facebook page today, Thursday, July 20.

Watch Acting President Yemi Osinbajo talk about the unity of Nigeria on Legit.ng TV below:

Source: Legit.ng
- A major shake-up has been effected in the top hierarchy of the Nigerian Army

- The redeployment of officers was said to have been approved by the Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai

- Seven major generals, 45 brigadier generals and 597 other officers were affected

A report by Premium Times indicates that the Nigerian Army redeployed, cancelled or amended postings of seven major generals, 45 brigadier generals and 597 other officers last week.

The move is said to be one of its most far-reaching shake-up exercise in the Nigerian Army in recent years.

The list of officers redeployed by the Nigeria Army. Photo credit: Premium Times

According to the report, no reasons were given for the new postings and cancellations and amendments of previous postings.

Some of the major generals affected had their recent redeployment cancelled, but no new posting was assigned to them.

No reasons were given for the redeployment. Photo credit: Premium Times

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The shake-up was announced in a memo with reference number MS/G1/3OO/2O7 and signed by I.O. Rabiu, a major general and military secretary, military sources quoted in the report said.

Legit.ng gathered that about 100 Nigerian Army formations, units and departments within and outside the country were copied in the memo.

The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, approved the exercise on Tuesday, July 18.

Three major shake-ups had been recorded within the last seven months in the Nigerian Army, with the most recent affecting 147 officers in May.

A total of 227 officers were affected in a similar exercise last December.

A breakdown of the remaining 597 affected officers shows that they included 197 colonels, 50 lieutenant colonels, 99 majors, 138 captains, 111 lieutenants and two second lieutenants.

This is the biggest shake-up of the Nigerian Army under Buratai. Photo credit: Premium Times

Thirty-eight out of the total 649 officers had their postings cancelled or deleted.

That included two major generals, one brigadier general, seven colonels, five lieutenant colonels, 10 majors, eight captains and five lieutenants.

While eight of the officers had their postings deleted, the redeployment of 30 others were amended by the Army.

It is the responsibility of all formation/unit commanders whose officers are affected by this posting to implement accordingly.

Officers must take over on the effective dates indicated. Formation/unit commanders will be held responsible for lapses in the implementation of the directives contained therein, the memo stated.

Over 600 officers were affected by the exercise

READ ALSO: 3 female Boko Haram terrorists killed in new attack (photos)

Meanwhile, a public commentator, Ibrahim Bulama, has said that the resurgence of Islamist group, Boko Haram, is due to the forthcoming 2019 general elections.

Bulama stated that the recent attacks by Boko Haram is a politically induced terrorism, orchestrated by a clan of politicians in Borno state who derive inspiration and energy from the phobia of losing 2019 elections and obliterating their political future.

Watch the Legit.ng TV video report of the winging ceremony of the latest pilots of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF).

Source: Legit.ng
- There is a battle in Imo state APC about which zone will present the next governor

- Governor Okorocha doubts there is anyone who can replace him and do well as governor

- APC Chieftain, Onyeagucha told Okorocha to prepare for prison for running the state down financially

The battle over which zone in Imo state will present the next governor is getting hotter as APC chieftain, Uche Onyeagucha, has told Governor Rocha Okorocha to prepare for prison.

Onyeagucha said Okorocha has failed at governing and has allegedly ran the state down financially.

He urged the governor to start making a prison uniform as he might soon be sent to jail.

Legit.ng gathered that Onyeagucha made this statement while reacting to a statement allegedly made by Okorocha that whoever will take over from him as governor may be stoned by the people if his performance fell below the standard he had set.

Onyeagucha, while speaking to The New Telegraph, said: I was a senatorial candidate, I should be a leader in APC, while Rochas should be in prison for the way and manner he has looted Imo state.

READ ALSO: Lagos LG polls: Political thugs allegedly disrupt Mushin/Ojuwoye LCDA voting

He should rather be sewing his prison uniform. This is a person who has never gone on any commercial flight since he became governor; he has been travelling around on private jet at the states expanse.

What is this nonsense? He said he built this and that in the state. Is it Concord Hotel which he renovated, Ikemba Ojukwu Centre was built by Mbakwe and he renovated it; the Imo State Commissioners Quarters, he just changed the roof and renovated it; the State Secretariat was built by Chief Achike Udenwa, he changed the roof when there was no need for that."

Onyeagucha said most of the projects the governor claimed to have built were old buildings renovated and presented as newly built.

He said: Today, there are many leaky roofs at the secretariat.

Avutu poultry, which he renovated, has collapsed under one year. At the appropriate time, Imo people will beam to the world, the many grisly misdeeds of this cruel administration.

When we in APC went on campaign, we said we will build factories, industries, and create jobs. That is what we promised, even on billboards then.

When I told him he is a fraud, he removed them and changed the message. Show me one factory built by Rochas and I will apologise.

No block industry, no toothpick industry, no sachet water industry just the ones that could be built with little amount, none!

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He has deceived our people for too long, he has bamboozled them with lies, and we have tolerated it long enough.

Meanwhile, Okorocha has transformed 305 youths into instant millionaires by empowering them with the sum of one million naira each.

The youths who benefited from empowerment programme were selected from the 305 wards across the 27 local government areas of the state, according to a statement by Sam Onwuemeodo, the chief press secretary to the governor.

The Okorocha explained that he chose to empower one youth each from the 305 wards in the state to encourage the youths to succeed and begin to contribute to the progress and prosperity of the state in particular and the nation at large.

Watch video of APC chieftain warning members of internal fracas that may end the party:

Source: Legit.ng
Budget for freed Kamaiyas frozen

A budget freeze after concerned authorities to failure to utilise the Rs 22.1 million allocated for rehabilitation of freed Kamaiyas within the last fiscal year, several families awaiting the fund are now at their wits end.
- The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) police command, on Monday, July 24, paraded a suspected Boko Haram member

- The suspect, Seth Yakubu Adokwe, is said to have been taking refuge in the FCT, Abuja for a while

- He was arrested based on tip-off from those around him due to his behaviour

The FCT police command on Sunday, July 23, arrested the second in command of a unit in Islamist group, Boko Haram, at Gwako village in Abuja.

According to Vanguard, the suspect, 20-year-old Seth Yakubu hails from Obi local government area in Nasarawa state.

Legit.ng gathered that he was arrested at about 11.30am after police received a tip-off on his suspicious behaviour from people around him.

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According to the FCT commissioner of police, Musa Kimo, the suspect while confessing to his membership of Boko Haram said he escaped to the village from Sambisa forest after their hideout was dislodged by the Nigeria Air Force through a major air-strike about a week ago.

He further confessed that he left Maiduguri on Friday, July 21 and arrived Gwako village on Saturday, July 22 at about 10pm to conceal his identity and seek refuge.

The suspect said he was lured to join the Boko Haram terrorists group by a young man who approached him with a promise of an automatic employment into the Nigerian Army only to end up with the sect group.

He said he was given a form to fill and after completing the form, he was taken to an unknown depot where he and some others received training.

He stated that apart from being the second in command in his unit, he actively participated in several deadly attacks launched by the insurgents against innocent citizens.

Daily Sun reports that the suspect was not allowed to be photographed by photo-journalists by the police.

Meanwhile, the FCT police commissioner has enjoined residents of the FCT and environs to be vigilant and always report any strange and suspicious person or persons, or activity to the police.

His words: The command wishes to also advise community leaders to guard against habouring strangers, especially those whose mission to the community is not clear.

Upon the identification of any strange face in a community, the nearest police formation can be alerted or the FCT police Command emergency helplines-lines and they are 08032003913, 08061581938, 07057337653 and 08028940883.

READ ALSO: Anambra: 700 suspected cultists, 38 armed bandits arrested in 3 weeks

Legit.ng earlier reported that Nigerian army arrested some members of the Boko Haram terrorists group even as more of them willingly surrendered to troops of 27 Task Force Brigade, Borno state.

The army in a press statement through Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman, director, Army Public Relations, said it also arrested a suspected logistics supplier to the terror group.

Watch the Legit.ng TV video report of the newly reopened Nyanya bus station in Abuja after it was bombed by Boko Haram:

Source: Legit.ng
- The federal government of Nigeria is set to start regulating social media

- Information managers at the state level are expected to open a website to counter report of any misinformation posted by the social media

- The FG fears that social media might take over the 2019 elections

The National Council on Information (NCI) has recommended the setting up of a Council to regulate the use of social media in Nigeria.

The recommendation is contained in a communique issued at the end of Extraordinary Meeting of NCI on Hate Speeches, Fake News and National Unity held on Friday in Jos.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: APC governors and leaders meet with Buhari in London (photos)

In the communique made available to newsmen on Sunday, the Council recommended the use of stringent measures in checking conventional media and their programmes.

The Council, presided over by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, noted that Social media has no address as such vetting and editing posting in social media might be difficult.

The Council recommended that Information managers at the state level should open a website to counter report of any misinformation posted by the social media as quickly as the hate speeches, misinformation and fake news are posted.

It recommended immediate killing of whatever postings on social media assumed or presumed to be hate speeches or fake news or misinformation by the information managers in various states.

The Council noted that social media might take over the 2019 elections because Nigerians had come to rely more and believe the social media over the conventional media.

It directed the Federal and State Ministries of Information to use jingles to promote peace and come up with cartoons on the TV and Newspapers telling the dangers of fake news and hate speeches.

The collaboration must start with National Orientation Agency and the state governments, the Council recommended.

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The Council underscored the need to start talking to those responsible for law and enforcement of justice to address the issues of citizens taking laws into their hands.

The body also emphasised that the welfare of the people is paramount, people well fed will listen to their government.

The extraordinary meeting of the council was declared open by Gov. Simon Lalong of Plateau, represented by his Deputy Prof. Sonni Tyoden.

Lalong observed that the combination of hate speech, conducts, commentaries, writing and displays that combined with the engagement of Hate Media Platforms had in global history proven their ability to incite genocide.

He emphasised that any person or group of persons using any media outlet to bait and explore the innocence and gullibility of a few people must be condemned and sanctioned as criminal, by all people of conscience

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a keynote address, expressed displeasure over the hate spewed on radio stations across the country which according to him has become alarming.

The Minister said that the careless incitement to violence and the level of insensitivity to the multi-religious, multi-ethnic nature of the country must not be allowed to continue because it is detrimental to the unity and well-being of our country.

The NCI is the highest policy making body for information articulation and delivery in the country.

Delegates to the Council included Heads of Parastatal Agencies in the Federal Ministry of Information and Commissioners for Information in the 36 states.

Legit.ng had reported that the federal government has dismissed reports circulating on the social media that it has mandated that ministry of interior to monitor and record all phone calls and social media posts made by citizens.

The minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, described the reports as false and misleading.

Watch this Legit.ng video on President Buhari's absence:

Source: Legit.ng
- Senator Dino Melaye said Governor Yahaya Bello has forgotten how he became the governor of Kogi state

- Melaye said Bello who became the governor of the state by chance has decided to use his current position to impoverish his people

- He however declared that the almighty God will not tarry for so long before delivering the people from Bello's government

Senator Dino Melaye, lawmaker from Kogi West senatorial district, has again attacked Governor Yahaya Bello for intimidating the people whom he was meant to protect.

Reports have it that Melaye said Bello is intoxicated by his current position because he has forgotten that he got there by chance.

READ ALSO: President Buhari meets with APC governors and leaders in London (photos)

Legit.ng reports that in 2015, Governor Yahaya Bello who was a runner-up at the APC primary election replaced late Prince Abubakar Audu who died before the final outcome of the November 21st 2015 governorship election in Kogi state.

He said: Apparently the position he occupies today is intoxicating him. He has forgotten how faith and chance played out to bring him into that position.

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Rather than use it for the maximum benefit of the people, he has decided to use it to intimidate, maim, impoverish and destroy the people whom he was meant to protect!

''The groan of the people, their agonies, their sufferings are going into the high heavens! The Almighty hears and am sure will not tarry for so long before delivering the people from the power drunk governor Bello.''

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that just a year after becoming the governor of Kogi state, Yahaya Bello was recently enmeshed in a N1.5 billion scandal exposed by his former friend, Senator Dino Melaye.

Melaye released a very long article detailing how the money was spent by the governor on a staff verification exercise that died on arrival.

Watch this Legit.ng TV Video of of Kogi West senatorial district to recall senator Dino Melaye from the Nigerian Senate:

Source: Legit.ng
Gautam Buddha Airport Project: Chinese contractor at risk of termination

As the Gautam Buddha Airport project in Bhairahawa has slowed to a crawl, the project has hired international contract management experts to analyse risk of terminating contract with the non-performing contractor.
- Security operatives have arrested inmates of Okaka prisons attempting jail break

- One of the prisoner used an improvised explosive device to blow up the prison cell

- The noise from the bomb however gave them away

Security agents have apprehended six inmates of Okaka prisons for attempting to escape from incarceration in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: APC governors and leaders meet with Buhari in London (photos)

Punch reports that the mastermind of the attempted jailbreak, Mr. Victor Tekekuma, used an improvised explosive device to blow up the prison cell.

According to the report, the noise made by the bang of the explosion gave the show away as it drew the attention of security operatives who quickly mobilised to the scene, and consequently arrested six of the inmates who wanted to escape.

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Legit.ng had reported that the Enugu state controller of Nigeria prisons service (NPS), Mr Isaiah Amariri has announced the re-arrest of 6 inmates who escaped from Nsukka prisons on the night of Tuesday, August 9.

Amariri denied telling newsmen on Thursday, August 11 the exact number of inmates who escaped.

What do Nigerian women have to say about the state of the nation? Watch this Legit.ng video:

Source: Legit.ng
- The governor of Imo state has revealed when President Buhari will return to Nigeria

- Rochas Okorocha said Buhari would likely be back in Nigeria within two weeks

- Okorocha said this after his visit to President Buhari in London

The governor of Imo state Rochas Okorocha has said that President Muhammadu Buhari will return to Nigeria within the next two weeks.

Okorocha who spoke to BBC in an interview said the president was in high spirits and was keeping tabs with events in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu mobbed as he visits Ebonyi state (photos, video)

The governor also said President Buhari was totally engaged in discussions concerning Nigerian politics.

Legit.ng earlier reported that some governors and leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) visited President Buhari in London.

READ ALSO: Buhari photo: Mixed reactions from Nigerians (Read what they are saying)

The APC leaders led by their national chairman John Oyegun were received by the president at the Abuja House in London.

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In a statement by Femi Adesina, the media aide to President Buhari, the president was delighted to receive the delegation and asked each governor about the state of affairs in their states.

Okorocha also said the president also spent more than an hour over lunch with the APC governors and leaders.

You can watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nigerians reacting to President Buharis absence for so long:

Source: Legit.ng
- Germany has expressed support for the unity of Nigeria

- Its ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Bernhard Schlagheck, called for restructuring to unite the country

- He called on all Nigerians to abide by the constitution

The German Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Bernhard Schlagheck, says his country will support a more united and prosperous Nigeria devoid of wrangling.

Schlagheck spoke during an interactive session with the leadership of the Enugu state chapter of Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, in Enugu on Monday, July 24.

The ambassador also said that the Federal Republic of Germany had confidence in Nigerias ability to deal decently with the call for the restructuring of the country for a more equitable nation.

READ ALSO: President Buhari meets with APC governors and leaders in London (photos)

He, therefore, advised all stakeholders to respect the constitution and territorial integrity of the country.

We are very much interested in seeing a decent constitutional process and plead with all stakeholders to respect the Nigerian Constitution and territorial integrity.

I am quite confident that the Nigerian people and their representatives in the parliament will take appropriate steps to make the restructuring process successful for the people of Nigeria.

Let all stakeholders abide by the constitution and bring in what they have to say in the discussion process and make Nigeria better, prosperous and more successful," he said.

Schlagheck said that his country was concerned about the effects of the agitations in parts of the country on future elections.

Responding, Chief Chiedozie Ogbonnia, the president of the state chapter of Ohaneze Ndigbo, said that the agitations from the south-east arose out of the feeling of marginalisation.

Ogbonnia said that the main purpose for the agitation was to secure a better condition for the people of the area in a united Nigeria.

He said that the clamour for the restructuring of the country had become a national discourse and imperative to give all sections of the country equal sense of belonging.

According to him, it is the hope of all Nigerians that all issues relating to the restructuring of the country are sorted out before the 2019 general elections.

Ogbonnia said that the zone was working with other regions of the country to ensure a process that would keep intact the unity of the country.

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He said that the current administration at the Federal level was a product of the yearnings for change by Nigerians, adding that much needed to be done to keep the people together.

The type of federation we run in Nigeria is not like others elsewhere in the world. We have to do away with the feelings of injustice in the country, Ogbonnia said.

Legit.ng had reported that the south-east people vowed not to participate in any election in Nigeria from October 1 if Nigeria is not restructured.

There have been calls for a change in the current structure of the country with Nnamdi Kanus Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) insisting on the break-up of the country.

Kanu met with Igbo women assembly on Monday, July 24, where the call for the restructuring of the country persisted.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of Nigerians speaking about the issue of restructuring:

Source: Legit.ng
- Suleiman Abdulazeez, the spokesperson of the Arewa Youths Coalition, said the north does not support restructuring

- Abdulazeez further noted that the youths would take a new action if the quit notice to the Igbos in the north is not obeyed

Igbo people living in the northern part of Nigeria must obey the quit notice issued to them by Arewa youths recently, according to a spokesperson of one of the organisations, Suleiman Abdulazeez.

Suleiman Abdulazeezs current warning negates a report at the weekend that the national president of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Yerima Shettima, said Igbo people in the region are now safe.

Abdulazeez, the spokesperson of the Arewa Youths Coalition, said upon the expiration of the quit notice, the youths in the north would meet with the governors of the 19 states that make up the region.

The meeting would be to move that the north withdraw the ownership of property belonging to Igbos if they failed to leave the region.

READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu storms Ebonyi (photos, video)

Legit.ng notes that Abdulazeez had earlier asked the United Nations to declare the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a terrorist group while speaking on behalf of the coalition in Abuja.

In a recorded interview with Dickson Iruegbu of the Nigeria Right Now Project, Abdulazeez said the Igbo people in the north must leave.

He also said the north does not believe in restructuring as was being clamoured for.

We gave the Igbos quit notice because we want to have peace. You see, some people have insisted that they are not Nigerians.

And their brothers in other places supported the impressions and supported that they are not Nigerians, but people of an independent nation of Biafra, then we asked them to go.

We did not say therell be violence.

But if by October 1 the Igbos in the North fail to pack their things and go, well go to the government, ask them evoke the properties. And went that didnt happen, weve done our best.

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Im concoring to Nnamdi kanus position that the Igbos are entitled to Biafra and so should quietly leave our region. We are helping the Igbos achieve their aim.

Igbos are not entitled to be equal citizens with other Nigerians in Nigeria. No theyre not unless a referendum is conducted and they say yes we are Nigerians, he said.

Watch the interview session here:

Legit.ng earlier reported that the leader of Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF) Yerima Shettima on Friday, July 21, made a U-turn on the quit notice issued to the Igbos living in the North by the forum.

Shettima while speaking with the Sun said Igbos who are living in the Northern part of Nigeria can continue to live there without fear of any form of attack.

The Arewa youth leader said: "They [Igbos] are safe. You can rest assured they are safe. You can quote me; they are safe in the North.

Watch what Acting President Yemi Osinbajo says about Nigeria and the need for unity:

Source: Legit.ng
- The IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu has given one condition as to why the 2017 Anambra governorship poll may not hold

- Kanu said unless the country is restructured before October 2017, there would be no election in Anambra state in November

- According to him, it is only in Nigeria that political leaders do not understand the difference between self determination and war

The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has said that the only way the November governorship election in Anambra state would hold is if Nigeria would be restructured between now and October 1, 2017.

According to Daily Post, Kanu stated this on Monday, July 24, at an event where he received awards from three Igbo groups.

READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu storms Ebonyi (photos, video)

Legit.ng gathered that when asked about the reaction generated so far by his call for election boycott, he said the world would be shocked with the fate that would befall the election unless the federal government restructures the country before October 2017.

He said: There will be no election in Anambra State come November 2017 and going forward there wont be any election until they give me date for a referendum.

They know what to do; convene a meeting, I will send my rep; give us a date for referendum, that is the only way.

In which part of this earth have you ever found a measure of self-determination to be equated to war except in Nigeria because the political leaders do not understand the difference between self determination and war?

Self-determination does not mean hate speech; the status quo can no longer remain. Like my brother Evangelist Eliot Ugochukwu-Uko said, if on or before October 1 nothing happens in terms of substantial restructuring, then there wont be any election; the people will support us.

Legit.ng previously reported that a large number of pro-Biafra supporters converged in Igweocha in Port Harcourt to receive the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu on Friday, July 21.

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Addressing the crowd which was reported to be over 3 million, Nnamdi Kanu said there is nothing like one Nigeria, insisting that Biafra is the reward of the people. The IPOB leader described Biafra as the destiny of the people.

In the video below Legit.ng TV takes a critical look at Nnamdi Kanu and the struggle for the actualisation of the Republic of Biafra.

Source: Legit.ng
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- Fourteen political parties have supported the call for Nigeria's restructuring

- The parties under the Coalition for New Nigeria are determined to set a new path for the country

- The national chairman said the coalition would engage in a integrated fight against corruption

No fewer than 14 political parties on the platform of the Coalition for New Nigeria (CNN) have expressed support for the restructuring of the country.

CNNs national chairman, Alhaji Abdulkadir Abdulsalam, who addressed journalists on Monday in Abuja, said the coalition was determined to chart a new course for Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Arewa spokesperson reveals what will happen after October 1 quit notice to Igbo people in the north

According to him, CNN is committed to the unity, indivisibility and progress of Nigeria.

He said that the vision of the coalition was a new Nigeria that would be secure and prosperous through effective governance.

Our goal will be to create jobs for all those who want to work and economic opportunity for all want to achieve.

Our immediate task will be to strive to heal the wounds of the past through reclamation, reconciliation and reformation.

We are committed to the economic, political and internal restructuring of Nigeria as well as empowering of our youths, women and persons with disability through well-articulated policies toward a better Nigeria, he said.

Abdulsalam said CNN would engage in a holistic fight against corruption with the sole aim of abolishing hunger and poverty.

The national chairman said that CNN looked forward to a government that would undertake economic renovation and reforms capable of transforming the country into a leading industrial giant.

The 14 political parties in the coalition are:

1. Labour Party

2. National Action Council

3. Democratic Peoples Congress

4. Progressive Peoples Alliance

5. People for Democratic Change

6. Democratic Alternative.

7. Better Nigeria Progressive Party

8. Action Alliance

9. United Democratic Party

10. Peoples Party of Nigeria

11. Advanced Congress of Democrats

12. Young Democratic Party

13. Mega Progressive Peoples Party

14. African Democratic Congress

In a previous report by Legit.ng, the German Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Bernhard Schlagheck, said his country will support a more united and prosperous Nigeria devoid of wrangling.

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Schlagheck spoke during an interactive session with the leadership of the Enugu state chapter of Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, in Enugu on Monday, July 24.

The ambassador also said that the Federal Republic of Germany had confidence in Nigerias ability to deal decently with the call for the restructuring of the country for a more equitable nation.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of Nigerians speaking about the issue of restructuring:

Source: Legit.ng
- The leader of the Biafran Reformation Movement, Mr Ndubuisi Igwekani, warned that Nnamdi Kanu would cause the declaration of a state of emergency on Anambra

- Igwekani also wants Nigerians to hold Yerima Shettima of AYCF responsible for anything that happens to Igbos in the north

The Biafran Reformation Movement (BRM) has put a clog in the reported progress of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu.

The BRM, on Monday July 24, while Kanu was relishing some support in Ebonyi state, said the IPOB leader was carrying out actions dangerous to the interest of the Igbo people.

While speaking with journalists in Enugu, the leader of the group, Mr Ndubuisi Igwekani, said Kanus call for the boycott of Anambra election was ill-mannered.

He said Kanu was behaving like an enemy to the Igbo people adding that the forthcoming election in Anambra state must hold.

According to him, if the election is scuttled, it could lead to a state of emergency being imposed on the state.

He said: Anybody that says there wont be election is making mistake. There must be election in Anambra state.

READ ALSO: Nnamdi Kanu storms Ebonyi (photos, video)

If we stop the election, our enemy will impose state of emergency here and thereby bring another enemy to rule us.

So, it is not in Igbo interest for anybody to say that there wont be election. Kanu and those proposing this are making us to see them as enemies of Ndigbo. If a northerner should be imposed on Anambra people, it will take us 20 years back.

He however warned that nothing must happen to Igbo people in the north.

If anything happens to any of our people in the north, we shall hold Shettima responsible. No matter where he goes to hide, we shall get him.

We are, therefore, calling on the Federal Government and the International community not to take it as empty threat.

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Efforts should be made to protect our people because if anything happens on the contrary, we dont guarantee what will be the retaliatory effect here, he said.

Legit.ng earlier reported that Igbo people living in the northern part of Nigeria must obey the quit notice issued to them by Arewa youths recently, according to a spokesperson of one of the organisations, Suleiman Abdulazeez.

Suleiman Abdulazeezs current warning negates a report at the weekend that the national president of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Yerima Shettima, said Igbo people in the region are now safe.

Watch this video relating to Nnamdi Kanu and his agitation:

Source: Legit.ng
Editorial credit for marijuana dispensary image: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com

A marijuana extract rule adopted last year by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has produced adverse consequences for companies selling cannabidiol (CBD), said a lawyer who has sued the government agency.

DEAs rule has discouraged investment, resulted in several companies exiting the business, and scared consumers, noted Bob Hoban, a lawyer who specializes in cannabis law.

Its scared them [consumers] away from buying it because they think they might be buying an illegal substance, [and] that ... the police are going to be at the door when it might arrive by mail, or if they buy it at the store," Hoban said in a podcast interview that will go live July 27 on Natural Products INSIDER.

Hoban, managing director of Hoban Law Group in Denver, said the marijuana extract rule also has created problems at the U.S. border.

South America desperately wants kilos upon kilos of extract that contains cannabinoidsnothing with THCfor their nationalized healthcare systems," the lawyer said. Yet were having trouble at the border getting these products into those governments hands, [and] into those doctors hands, to treat people around the world."

Hoban said he has met with members of Congress who start with the premise that somehow this is a controlled substance.

Theyve drank the Kool-Aid," he told INSIDER. They believe the rhetoric that the DEA is putting out there that these substances are scheduled substances."

Hoban said its important to educate members of Congress that cannabinoids are not illegal substances, particularly if they derive from exempted parts of the cannabis plant or legal hemp under the 2014 Farm Bill.

In a complaint filed by Hobans law firm, the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) and other petitioners have sued DEA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The petitioners want to strike DEAs definition of marijuana extract or amend it to reflect the law, Hoban said.

In a Federal Register notice establishing the drug code, DEA defined a marijuana extract as an extract containing one or more cannabinoids that has been derived from any plant of the genus cannabis, other than the separated resin (whether crude or purified) obtained from the plant."

When the DEA says that marijuana extract is an illegal substance, and they say that anything that comes out of cannabis is an illegal substance, theyre wrong because cannabis was never outlawed," Hoban asserted. Marijuana was outlawed, and its not the entire plant."

HIAs lawyers have been in talks with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve the lawsuit, but they havent come to an agreement.

We are philosophically aligned on the legal tenets, but we cant figure out a way to get it done because  its the government, and the government has to do things through public processes," Hoban said. And to figure out what public process, or due process, would apply to creating a resolution to this has been the sticking point."

The controversy began in December when DEA issued a final rule establishing a new code number for marijuana extract. DEA previously created separate code numbers for marijuana and for tetrahydrocannabinols (THCs), but not for marijuana extract.

The agency said the new rule would help it to record accurate data for reporting to international bodies as mandated by multilateral agreements involving the United States.

In a court filing, DEA argued its adversaries lacked the right or standing" to file the lawsuit because, for instance, the marijuana extract rule neither restricts the hemp industrys activities nor imposes new penalties for any conduct.

As the rule and DEAs subsequent guidance make clear, the new identification number does not apply to any substance that the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] did not previously control as marijuana," Justice Department lawyers wrote in their brief filed with the Ninth Circuit. It simply requires that persons handling a subset of the materials defined as marijuana write a different identification number on their administrative paperwork."

While Hoban noted DEAs drug codes are used by universities, hospitals and others with DEA registrations for tracking purposes, he said his firm intended to submit to the court several examples in which the marijuana extract code has been applied in ways that are inconsistent with the CSA. He cited, for example, seizures of hemp-based products.

The Justice Department has argued petitioners waived any claims because they didnt participate in DEAs rulemaking proceeding. In 2011, DEA signaled its intent to create a code number for marijuana extract in a notice of proposed rulemaking, but the agency only received six comments on its proposed ruleand none of them addressed issues raised by the petitioners in their lawsuit, government lawyers noted.

Hoban said he anticipated the waiver argument, and there are ways were dealing with that."

The petitioners have until July 28 to file a reply brief with the Ninth Circuit. No oral arguments have been scheduled yet in the appeal.
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NC leaders for putting amendment bill to vote

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PM Deuba inaugurates Global Meeting of White Ribbon Alliance

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There is a lot of confusion over the multiple incarnations of the Republican health care plan, but in the end, how different are they?

We looked at key numbers in six of the proposed plans  three from the House and three from the Senate  that were analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan group of economists and statisticians.

The increases in the number of uninsured are nearly the same.

One of the most important variables  how many people would be without health coverage  is essentially the same in five of the plans that repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Those plans would increase the number of uninsured by more than 20 million people in 10 years.

How the number of uninsured would increase

60 million uninsured Senate partial repeal First two House bills Final House bill 50 Revised Senate bill Initial Senate bill 40 30 Under the Affordable Care Act 20 10 2017 2026 60 million uninsured Senate partial repeal First two House bills Final House bill 50 Revised Senate bill Initial Senate bill 40 30 Under the Affordable Care Act 20 10 2017 2026 Note: The uninsured numbers would stay the same as the first under the second House bill that was scored.

The uninsured would increase by more than 30 million people under a sixth plan, a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act with no replacement. This plan is similar to a 2015 repeal bill that was vetoed by President Barack Obama in 2016.

Republican leaders in the Senate say they will vote this week on whether to start debating a health care bill, but as of Friday it was unclear which bill they would take up.

The six versions that have been analyzed by the C.B.O.

Plan Description Initial House bill American Health Care Act. Second House bill First plan scored with amendments, including changes to taxes and Medicaid. Final House bill Passed on May 4. Initial Senate bill Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017. Revised Senate bill Latest Senate bill. Senate partial repeal Repeals coverage provisions.

The House produced multiple variations of their bill before narrowly passing one on May 4 with no Democratic votes.

The Senate has released four different draft bills so far, three of which have been analyzed by the budget office.

The fourth Senate draft, which includes an amendment initiated by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, is not shown in the charts in this article because it has not yet been evaluated by the budget office.

The different versions take a variety of approaches to providing health coverage for middle-income Americans who don't get insurance through work or a government program.

The six versions would make deep cuts to Medicaid.

With each new version, changes were made to appease lawmakers with sharply different priorities in an effort to pick up a few more votes.

A common thread in all the House and Senate versions, however, is that people with Medicaid coverage would be the largest group to be affected.

How many fewer people would have Medicaid in 2026

Compared to the number covered if the Affordable Care Act stays in place.

Initial House bill 14 million 14 million Second House bill 14 14 Final House bill 14 14 Initial Senate bill 15 15 Revised Senate bill 15 15 Senate partial repeal 19 19

Under the Affordable Care Act, 31 states and the District of Columbia expanded Medicaid coverage to poor adults who were previously uncovered. Republicans in Congress are seeking to sharply curtail federal support of the expansion, likely causing many states to end it.

In all the bills, the largest savings  more than $750 billion over 10 years  would be achieved through deep cuts to the program.

Total amount the federal government would save from Medicaid cuts through 2026

Initial House bill $880 billion $880 billion Second House bill $839 $839 Final House bill $834 $834 Initial Senate bill $772 $772 Revised Senate bill $756 $756 Senate partial repeal $842 $842

Most of the plans would also make changes to the structure of the entire Medicaid program, including spending reductions that the C.B.O. thinks are likely to cause coverage reductions over time.

The cost of premiums would eventually fall in five of the plans.

Republican lawmakers have long cited rising premiums as one of the main reasons for repealing the Affordable Care Act.

In all plans scored by the C.B.O.  except the partial repeal bill  average insurance premiums would rise in the first year, but eventually become lower than the current law by 10 percent to 25 percent.

How average premiums would change

Relative to the level if the Affordable Care Act stays in place.

Plan In 2018 In 2026 Initial House bill 15% to 20% higher 10% lower Second House bill 15% to 20% higher 10% lower Final House bill 20% higher 20% lower in some states Initial Senate bill 20% higher 20% lower Revised Senate bill 20% higher 25% lower Senate partial repeal 25% higher 100% higher

The C.B.O. said that the changes would largely result from increases in average insurance deductibles and reductions in the number of older Americans with coverage.

The biggest difference among the plans is how much they would lower the deficit.

The one place where there is wide variation among the plans is in how much money the federal government would ultimately save over 10 years.

How much money the federal government would save in 10 years

Initial House bill $337 billion $337 billion Second House bill $150 $150 Final House bill $119 $119 Initial Senate bill $321 $321 Revised Senate bill $420 $420 Senate partial repeal $473 $473

The final House bill, which was approved, would save the government less than the original House bill because lawmakers had to add spending in various areas to get enough votes to pass, including $8 billion over five years to help cover insurance costs for people with pre-existing conditions.

The revised Senate bill, however, would achieve larger savings than the initial Senate version because it would keep two taxes on high-income earners that were eliminated earlier.
Retrofitting grant for quake survivors soon

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There are two kinds of people: those with, and without, grace. President Trump can decide on which side he falls, although Mrs. Abe the Japanese Prime Minister's wife has clearly made up her mind. Anyone who can read a whole speech in English knows enough to say, 'Excuse me, I do not speak English well'. So, to not respond at all to the U.S. president sitting beside her, who turns to converse, conveys a distinct meaning.



There was a time when countries prided themselves on their civility and their citizenry for their courtesy. Now the byword is the put down; rudeness, crudeness and vulgarity rule the day -- not to forget the jingoism, demagoguery and xenophobia that can win elections. If such was the state of a democracy, its founders, were they alive, would weep.



In the past week, U.S. presidential ire has been directed at Iran. Shortly after the administration's quarterly declaration to Congress certifying Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal, it slapped additional economic sanctions the following Tuesday (July 18). Three days later, Trump added threats of 'new and serious consequences' unless detained U.S. citizens are returned . Robert Levinson, a former law enforcement officer disappeared ten years ago in Iran. In addition, Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen, as well as a father and son Iranian-Americans, Baquer and Siamak Namazi -- the elder a former provincial governor in Iran -- have been sentenced to 10 years jail for spying. For perspective, it is worth noting that 5 million tourists visit Iran annually contributing $2 billion in revenue, and the country is trying to expand its tourism industry.

The nuclear agreement itself is difficult for the U.S. to abrogate unilaterally as it involves the five permanent veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Yet Trump appears to have swallowed the Netanyahu line on the deal. Add that to Trump's new found chumminess with the Saudis and their deep Wahhabi antagonism towards Shia Iran, and we could be on the edge of another cataclysm in the Middle East, this time enveloping the whole region.

If we recall the history of the deal, the Obama regime first had to give up their zero-enrichment requirement before the Iranians would even agree to talk. They got low enrichment.

While sanctions had hurt Iran, it refused to buckle under the pressure; in fact it added centrifuges and speeded up enrichment. Had the Obama administration continued on this course, they would have had a nuclear Iran or war.

There are those in Washington who still believe sanctions and pressure would bring Iran to its knees. They have forgotten the Iranian response to Iraq and the Iran-Iraq war when Iran stood up to a better-prepared Iraq despite enormous casualties.

If Trump keeps up the pressure imposing further sanctions, how soon before the extremists in Iran secure an upper hand and the deal falls apart? Could an unwinnable war (Iraq and Afghanistan are living examples) and/or a nuclear Iran be the consequence?
Reprinted from popularresistance.org by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

We recently wrote that the United States is losing its global standing and that we are entering a multi-polar era in which no single country will dominate. As the power shifts, we need to shape our future in a positive way. The alternative future, one envisioned by those in power, places us at risk of a major global conflict and runs counter to our vision of social justice and sustainability.

DoD study on failing US empire

(Image by Kevin Zeese) Details DMCA



The Pentagon recently released a report, "At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World," which details its concerns about losing access to resources and "resistance to authority" both at home and around the world as governments lose legitimacy. Faced with these changes, the United States could embrace them, become a cooperative member of the world, transition to a lower-waste lower-energy sustainable existence and draw back the military to use those resources to meet domestic needs.

Sadly, that is not what the Pentagon has in mind. There is a saying, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The US is the biggest empire in the world; therefore, the Pentagon's solutions are "more surveillance, more propaganda ('strategic manipulation of perceptions') and more military expansionism."

It's US against the world

The Pentagon is not alone in seeing this reality. In a new book, "In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power," historian Alfred McCoy predicts that US empire is ending and will be over in the next decade. Even now he says the "United States can no longer dictate to the world, or at least much of the world, like we could back in the 1950s." He predicts that by 2030 US empire will be finished.

Once this loss of global primacy and the Pentagon's plan to go down with a fight are understood, the recent decades of war and military expansion come into perspective. Under President George W. Bush, the US declared an "axis of evil", attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, conducted drone strikes in Pakistan, escalated conflict with North Korea and worked for regime change in Venezuela. Under President Obama, the US continued those conflicts, added Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia, increased the US military presence in Africa by 143%, expanded NATO, overthrew governments in the Honduras, Ukraine and Brazil, lined the Russian border with weapons and shifted a large part of the US military to surround China.

At the same time, although the Gross Domestic Product rose, wealth inequality and poverty grew in the US. Under Obama the GDP growth went to the top 1%. Over the last 40 years, whileCEO pay rose 937 percent worker compensation remained stagnant. We live an Empire Economy that only works for the wealthiest and the transnational corporations.

Militarization of the police, surveillance and crack downs on the media and whistle blowers are also growing. Infrastructure is failing and basic necessities such as housing, education, health care and water are not universally available because they are being sold off and privatized. Trade agreements have hollowed out manufacturing and driven the rise of a service industry, in which workers are exploited because they are disposable.

The Obama administration aggressively negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade-in-Services Agreement (TiSA) in secret. These three expansive international treaties would have fundamentally consolidated global corporate power and taken a sledge hammer to the sovereignty of our communities and the countries involved. They would have, but so far they have not because a global solidarity movement of movements took action to stop them.

Popular power

Popular movements must organize to end US Empire in the least damaging way possible and to prepare for the post-Empire era. The time for a global popular solidarity movement for peace, justice and sustainability is now. Global wealth rests in the pockets of a few, but the power to overcome them and to build a world that works for everyone pulses in the minds and the muscles of the many. Here are a few examples.

TRADE: This week, the Trump administration released its negotiating objectives for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Friends of the Earth's analysis reveals that they are modeled on provisions in the TPP and will undermine public health and food safety, if they become law. Walden Bello writes that activists have been working for decades to define a new economy and structure of globalization. The pieces are there and groups from Canada, the US and Mexico are assembling them into a vision that inspires action. CLICK HERE to join the effort by sending a letter to your local paper.



Christopher Glen and Kevin Zeese holding No War sign at White House. By Chris Owens.

(Image by Chris Owens.) Details DMCA



PEACE IN KOREA: Millions of people mobilized in South Korea to remove President Park Geun-hye from power and elect a new president. They are calling for peace and reunification with North Korea and a reduction in the US military presence, including removal of the THAAD missile defense system. There are ongoing protests against THAAD. Instead of negotiations, a few senators are calling for greater sanctions, even targeting Chinese banks that do business with North Korea. Peace activists are traveling to South Korea this month to take action in solidarity. CLICK HERE for information to call your senators to stop sanctions and demand peace.

RIGHT TO BOYCOTT APARTHEID: For more than a decade, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli Apartheid has grown into a powerful nonviolent tool against oppression. The Israeli lobby, AIPAC, has been working at the state level to pass legislation prohibiting businesses, groups and individuals from participating in the boycott. Now, Members of Congress have introduced legislation to criminalize participation in the boycott with fines between $250,000 and $1 million and 20 years in prison. CLICK HERE for an action tool created by Jewish Voice for Peace.

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UML leader Nembang hospitalised

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The Empire

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[This article is offered as a comment on "Donald Trump and The Coming Fall of American Empire" , an interview with historian Alfred McCoy about his book: "In The Shadows of the American Century --"]

Many predict that America's role as the Number One superpower in the world will be eclipsed in the near future by the rising influence and economic strength of China. I don't see it that way, and my reasons are based neither upon an unapologetic patriotism, nor an authoritative insider's knowledge of political and economic policies. Perhaps this may be only an exercise in wishful thinking.

America earned the Number One Superpower status as a consequence of World Wars I and WWII with the collapse of the British Empire, which held that position for two or three centuries, and a twice-defeated Germany. The "power" of a nation traditionally consists both of industrial wealth and military might, which historically has allowed it to dominate and subjugate other countries. But a modern "superpower" has other requisites: mainly its position as a model of democracy in an awakening world, as reflected in its internal and external policies; and the respect and trust it gains by practicing those policies, as evidenced by what it contributes to the world, not by what it takes.

After WWII, America financed the reconstruction of Europe, admittedly in self-interest, to prevent the spread of communism and counter the rising power of the USSR. Time after time, both the government and the private sector have given generously for international emergencies; and America has long served as a refuge for oppressed and poverty-stricken peoples. Going back to the Civil War era, President Lincoln was admired throughout the world as a great liberator for abolishing slavery. The Peace Corps and similarly dedicated non-governmental agencies are good examples of American altruism. And for much of the 20 th century, as of now, America's military power was widely - although not always wisely - deployed to protect "friendly" nations threatened by external takeover or revolution.

Somewhere along the line, the aura of respect towards America changed, even though its facade of wealth and freedom is still much admired and emulated. Much as the now defunct USSR represented "the evil empire" to us, today, in the eyes of many people in third world countries, we have become the purveyors of evil and poverty as large corporations representing the extremes of self-interest and unscrupulous capitalistic ventures became more influential in American domestic and foreign policy, e.g.: Iran, Vietnam, Iraq, Chile, Central America, etc.

On this score, China is not qualified or ready to replace America. It seems to be following the same path of self-interest and massive consumption that needs to devour everything in sight to sustain and expand its economy. To do so will necessitate the same kinds of aggressive policies that have cost us favor in many parts of the world. For the foreseeable future, such demands on the world's resources cannot be fully offset merely by green technologies. Inevitably, they can only be met by denying other countries a fair share of material progress while, at the same time, hastening the deterioration of our shared environment.

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From Mondoweiss

The bill in Congress that c ould make it a felony punishable by prison-time to advocate for boycott against Israel is causing a big splash in liberal and progressive waters. Numerous organizations have come out against the bill, including J Street, which warns against giving the Trump administration any power to "lock them up."

Though there is also considerable confusion about just what the law would allow the government to do. The ACLU says that "simply requesting information about such boycotts" could expose a person to penalties. But Jewish Voice for Peace warns its followers not to let the bill chill their advocacy, because it "does not make it illegal for individual consumers to boycott Israeli or settlement products."

Here are some of the responses. First, here is the full ACLU letter to Senators opposing the legislation.

July 17, 2017

RE: Oppose S. 720 -- Israel Anti-Boycott Act

Dear Senator:

We write today in opposition to S. 720, also known as the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. We understand that proponents of the bill are seeking additional co-sponsors. We urge you to refrain from co-sponsoring the legislation because it would punish individuals for no reason other than their political beliefs. We also urge you to oppose the bill, whether in committee or on the floor, unless it has undergone significant revision to resolve its constitutional infirmities.

The bill seeks to expand the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 which, among other things, prohibit U.S. persons from complying with a foreign government's request to boycott a country friendly to the U.S. The bill would amend those laws to bar U.S. persons from supporting boycotts against Israel, including its settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, conducted by international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union. It would also broaden the law to include penalties for simply requesting information about such boycotts.

Violations would be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $ 1 million and 20 years in prison. We take no position for or against the effort to boycott Israel or any foreign country, for that matter. However, we do assert that the government cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, punish U.S. persons based solely on their expressed political beliefs.

This bill would impose civil and criminal punishment on individuals solely because of their political beliefs about Israel and its policies. There are millions of businesses and individuals who do no business with Israel, or with companies doing business there, for a number of reasons. Some, like those who would face serious financial penalties and jail time under the bill, actively avoid purchasing goods or services from companies that do business in Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories because of a political viewpoint opposed to Israeli policy.

Others may refrain from Israeli-related business based on political beliefs, but choose not to publicly announce their reasoning. Still others do no business with companies in Israel for purely pragmatic reasons. Under the bill, however, only a person whose lack of business ties to Israel is politically motivated would be subject to fines and imprisonment -- even though there are many others who engage in the very same behavior. In short, the bill would punish businesses and individuals based solely on their point of view. Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment.

The ACLU has long supported laws prohibiting discrimination, but this bill cannot fairly be characterized as an anti-discrimination measure, as some would argue. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already prevents businesses from discriminating against customers based on race, color, religion, and national origin. This bill, on the other hand, aims to punish people who support international boycotts that are meant to protest Israeli government policies, while leaving those who agree with Israeli government policies free from the threat of sanctions for engaging in the exact same behavior. Whatever their merits, such boycotts rightly enjoy First Amendment protection.

By penalizing those who support international boycotts of Israel, S.720 seeks only to punish the exercise of constitutional rights. Accordingly, we urge you not to co-sponsor this bill and to oppose it when it comes before you either in Committee or on the floor. Please contact advisor on First Amendment issues Michael Macleod-Ball at 202.253.7589 if you have questions or comments about ACLU's opposition to this legislation.

Sincerely,

Faiz Shakir

National Political Director


Rush Limbaugh

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In the early days of the Obama administration, Rush Limbaugh proclaimed, "I hope he fails!" Although typical of his unfettered pronouncements (which now seem like an early version of Trump-speak), this remark struck liberals and moderates as over the top. People hostile to the new regime may very well have thought in that way, but it seemed unpatriotic to say it aloud. After all, if the president of the U. S. fails, the nation will suffer.

Now that Obama has been replaced by a man who is his polar opposite in every way, the shoe is on the other foot, and those same liberals and moderates find themselves thinking, if not saying, "I hope he fails!" So what had seemed sacrilegious coming out of the mouth of a malicious political troublemaker has been normalized by the vast Electoral College pivot that put Trump into power. And liberals, who had been unwilling to give Limbaugh's ejaculation any justification, now have to do precisely just that as a result of finding themselves harboring thoughts that once seemed unthinkable. They will have to do so with the realization that whatever argument is used to defend anti-Trumpism will also apply to the earlier anti-Obamaism. So here goes.

Taken at face value and expressed with the vitriol of which Limbaugh has long been a master, the statement sounds repulsive. I loathe Obama so much--it implies--that I am eager for him to crash even at the expense of the well-being of the nation. In other words, I hate more than I love. But that of course is not the sole or main meaning of the outburst. A more defensible version of what Limbaugh meant would be:

I have no strong feelings one way or another about Obama the man, but I detest his liberal ideology and policies. And I do so because they are bad for America, and the wished-for failure on his part would therefore be good for America. If Obama were--Limbaugh might say further---to turn out to have masked a conservative philosophy with liberal platitudes in order to get elected and then managed a right wing presidency, all would be forgiven and his success would be celebrated. But such an outcome is unlikely, and therefore I wish his liberal presidency ill.

Such a position, in other words, does not betray an unpatriotic outlook, but, on the contrary, a patriotic one from a conservative perspective; what is good for America--a solid conservative regimen---cannot come from the liberal Obama.

But while this interpretation rescues Limbaugh from the accusation of unpatriotic behavior, it does not address a second, less admirable, motive. If Obama and his liberal policies were to revive the nation, that success would be like a verdict on an experiment: It would prove that liberalism has a stronger connection to reality and, more important, would cast doubt on the viability or relevance of the conservatism that Limbaugh has long propagated. As a result, Limbaugh would lose face and, worse, listeners and advertising money. Here we certainly deal with ego, greed, and selfishness on Limbaugh's part.

That brings us back to the current, reverse situation. A perfectly rational argument drives liberals, moderates, and even quite a few of never-Trump conservatives today, just as it did the Limbaugh crowd eight years ago. Were Trump to succeed, America would be isolated and diminished abroad, and riven by class conflict at home. Many government functions would be privatized and rendered expensive, money would be transferred from the many to the few, the environment raped, necessary regulations shredded, public education eviscerated, the separation of church and state weakened, etc. Additionally, recent revelations suggest that while the Trump family may not be guilty of treason, they certainly are closer to treason than to innocence.

To be sure, in the unlikely event that Trump were to regress and to implement some of the rhetoric he used during the campaign--provide inexpensive health care insurance for all, clamp down on the financial aristocracy that he said was "getting away with murder," and bring back jobs, his success would, for liberals, augur well for the nation (setting aside his many character problems).

But the policies he is actively pursuing--to wit, the most hard right in modern American history--are to the detriment of the welfare state that America has embraced. Hence liberals are inclined to root for a political derailment that will hasten the return of progressives to governance. His failure will not harm America but, on the contrary, show that liberalism is somewhat more in tune with reality than is conservatism.

Hence, yes, as patriotic Americans worried over the consequences of bad policies, liberals cannot but "hope he fails." Limbaugh should have no trouble recognizing that sentiment.
This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.





Apart from its propaganda value, U.S President Trump's recent announcement to stop funding "rebels"[1] in Syria is meaningless.

The U.S-led coalition has been funding and arming all of the terrorists in Syria, and they will continue to do so.

Arms will continue to be shipped covertly by the CIA via airways such as Silk Way airlines, and through U.S firms such as Chemring, Culmen International, Orbital ATK and Purple Shovel. [2]

But the stories, repeated incessantly, and sold to an ever gullible public, are shifting. The original story that there were "moderate" terrorists and that they were somehow "legitimate" is running into difficulties -- despite the fact that it is patently absurd and the public usually swallows stories that are the polar opposite to the truth -- so now a back-up story is being introduced to divert attention from the previous lies.

In an earlier article I explained this CIA strategy:

The strategy of "stories within stories", and using competing narratives to confuse, to distract, and to lead the public down false paths (red herrings) is entirely consistent with the 9/11 crimes, the subsequent "War On Terror", and the criminal invasion of Syria. [3]

Now the minority Kurds are being portrayed as the "good guys", and so they will be deemed "legitimate" by the purveyors of "official narratives".

The PKK terrorists from Turkey are now being re-packaged as YPG and SDF in Syria -- an alphabet soup of confusion, and the perfect foundation for more stories within stories.

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Let's not mince words.

Jeff Sessions, the nation's top law enforcement official, would not recognize the Constitution if he ran right smack into it.

Whether the head of the Trump Administration's Justice Department enjoys being the architect of a police state or is just painfully, criminally clueless, Sessions has done a great job thus far of sidestepping the Constitution at every turn.

Most recently, under the guise of "fighting crime," Sessions gave police the green light to rob, pilfer, steal, thieve, swipe, purloin, filch and liberate American taxpayers of even more of their hard-earned valuables (especially if it happens to be significant amounts of cash) using any means, fair or foul.

In this case, the foul method favored by Sessions & Co. is civil asset forfeiture, which allows police and prosecutors to "seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets--all without so much as charging you with a crime."

Under a federal equitable sharing program, police turn asset forfeiture cases over to federal agents who process seizures and then return 80% of the proceeds to the police. (In Michigan, police actually get to keep up to 100% of forfeited property.)

This incentive-driven excuse for stealing from the citizenry is more accurately referred to as "policing for profit" or "theft by cop."

Despite the fact that 80 percent of these asset forfeiture cases result in no charge against the property owner, challenging these "takings" in court can cost the owner more than the value of the confiscated property itself. As a result, most property owners either give up the fight or chalk the confiscation up to government corruption, leaving the police and other government officials to reap the benefits.

And boy, do they reap the benefits.

Police agencies have used their ill-gotten gains "to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear," reports The Washington Post. "They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles."

Incredibly, these asset forfeiture scams have become so profitable for the government that, according to The Washington Post, "in 2014, law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did."

In 2015, the federal government seized nearly $2.6 billion worth of airplanes, houses, cash, jewelry, cars and other items under the guise of civil asset forfeiture.

According to USA Today, "Anecdotal evidence suggests that allowing departments to keep forfeiture proceeds may tempt them to use the funds unwisely. For example, consider a 2015 scandal in Romulus, Michigan, where police officers used funds forfeited from illicit drug and prostitution stings to pay for ... illicit drugs and prostitutes."

Memo to the rest of my fellow indentured servants who are living through this dark era of government corruption, incompetence and general ineptitude: this is not how justice in America is supposed to work.

We are now ruled by a government so consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population that they are completely unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.

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In America's convoluted, inequitable healthcare system, there are many millions of Americans who are highly dependent upon healthcare coverage provided by either Obamacare or Medicaid programs.

And while many of them are sick with a wide variety of afflictions there are other Americans who are the sickest of all. They are the Republicans in the Congress who are absolutely determined to implement a plan that would take away the medical coverage from up to 32 million Americans currently covered by Obamacare and Medicaid by the year 2026.

What Republicans are doing in both the House and the Senate is pure treachery, a betrayal of the American people; incomprehensible, reprehensible actions and behavior. Of all the many destructive actions that Republicans have taken against the people of this country in recent times this has to be at the top of the list; about as low as they can get.

Initially, House Republicans passed a plan that Sen. Bernie Sanders and others called disastrous. Then their cohorts in the Senate came up with their own plan which was just as bad. Legislation covering such a totally misguided plan might have been approved in the Senate were it not for three Senators, all female by the way, who stepped forward and said they could not, in good conscience, vote for a plan that would be so very harmful to many millions of Americans.

These three exemplary individuals were Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Shelley Moore Capito. When GOP majority leader Mitch McConnell was ready to initiate a vote on a motion to proceed on a repeal of the ACA without a replacement, these courageous senators did the right thing; they stood up for the people of America rather than their own political party.

What is astounding is that the large majority of the Senate Republicans were entirely comfortable with voting yes on this terrible plan even though they knew that it would o great harm to their fellow Americans. Take about extreme selfishness; all of them and their families are provided with excellent medical coverage that is obtained through Obamacare D.C. exchanges. Why worry about others?

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From Paul Craig Roberts Website



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A decade ago in 2007, John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Academic Dean of the Kennedy School from 2002-2006, published The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

The publisher was the prestigious publishing house, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The authors made a convincing case that Israel operating through its American lobbies, which are not registered as foreign agents, succeeds in using US foreign policy in Israel's interests. The authors conclude that the use of US foreign policy in Israel's interests is damaging to both America's national interests and to Israel's long-term security.

Many were pleased that two distinguished experts had breached a taboo issue. But the Israel Lobby was not among them. Instantly, the authors and the book were denounced as anti-semitic. The demonstration that Israel had influence was misrepresented as the claim that Israel controlled the US government. The authors were denounced for their "extremism" which some alleged could result in a new holocaust.

Other critics took a different approach and claimed that there was no difference between Israeli and US interests and that anything that served Israel also served America. Some evangelicals added: "and also serves God."

The authors remained dispassionate throughout the long controversy and stuck to their point that Israel's influence on US foreign policy was not in the interest of either country.

If we think of a spectrum with influence at one end shading into control at the other, in the decade since The Israel Lobby was published, Israel has moved closer to the control end of the spectrum. For example, we learn from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that a bill in the US House of Representatives "would require U.S. to consult with Israel before selling arms in Mideast."

Last month the House of Representatives unanimously passed HR 672 titled "Combating European Anti-Semitism Act of 2017." Former CIA official Philip Giraldi reports that "the bill requires the State Department to monitor what European nations and their police forces are doing about anti-Semitism." In other words, the bill makes Washington an enforcer over Europe for Israel. There is a companion bill in the US Senate.

And then there is S. 722 backed by AIPAC, titled "An act to provide congressional review and to counter Iranian and Russian aggression." Iranian and Russian "aggression" exist by assertion, not by fact. The bill more or less makes it impossible for President Trump to remove the sanctions and normalize relations.

And there is much more since 2007. In 2010 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Netanyahu's boast that America was a country easy for him to manipulate. In 2015, Congress without consulting President Obama invited Netanyahu to address Congress on the appropriate US foreign policy toward Iran. Congress is accustomed to grovelling at Israeli feet. Every year Congress attends AIPAC's meeting and pays homage to its liege lord. One would think that the sight of the legislative body affirming its allegiance to Israel would raise questions about what country Congress represents.

If Mearsheimer and Walt have the strength, the time is ripe for a second edition of The Israel Lobby.
From Truthdig

Donald Trump's ideological vacuum, the more he is isolated and attacked, is being filled by the Christian right. This Christianized fascism, with its network of megachurches, schools, universities and law schools and its vast radio and television empire, is a potent ally for a beleaguered White House. The Christian right has been organizing and preparing to take power for decades. If the nation suffers another economic collapse, which is probably inevitable, another catastrophic domestic terrorist attack or a new war, President Trump's ability to force the Christian right's agenda on the public and shut down dissent will be dramatically enhanced. In the presidential election, Trump had 81 percent of white evangelicals behind him.

Trump's moves to restrict abortion, defund Planned Parenthood, permit discrimination against LGBT people in the name of "religious liberty" and allow churches to become active in politics by gutting the Johnson Amendment, along with his nominations of judges championed by the Federalist Society and his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants, have endeared him to the Christian right.

He has rolled back civil rights legislation and business and environmental regulations. He has elevated several stalwarts of the Christian right into power -- Mike Pence to the vice presidency, Jeff Sessions to the Justice Department, Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Betsy DeVos to the Department of Education, Tom Price to Health and Human Services and Ben Carson to Housing and Urban Development. He embraces the white supremacy, bigotry, American chauvinism, greed, religious intolerance, anger and racism that define the Christian right.

More important, Trump's disdain for facts and his penchant for magical thinking and conspiracy theories mesh well with the worldview of the Christian right, which sees itself as under attack by the satanic forces of secular humanism embodied in the media, academia, the liberal establishment, Hollywood and the Democratic Party. In this worldview, climate change is not real, Barack Obama is a Muslim and millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

The followers of the Christian right, like Trump and his brain trust, including Stephen Bannon, are Manicheans. They see the world in black and white, good and evil, them and us. Trump's call in his speech in Poland for a crusade against the godless hoards of Muslims fleeing from the wars and chaos we created replicates the view of the Christian right. Christian right leaders in a sign of support went to the White House on July 10 to pray over Trump. Two days later Pat Robertson showed up there to interview the president for his Christian Broadcasting Network.

If the alliance between these zealots and the government succeeds, it will snuff out the last vestiges of American democracy.

On the surface it appears to be incongruous that the Christian right would rally behind a slick New York real estate developer who is a very public serial philanderer and adulterer, has no regard for the truth, is consumed by greed, does not appear to read or know the Bible, routinely defrauds and cheats his investors and contractors, expresses a crude misogyny and an even cruder narcissism and appears to yearn for despotism. In fact, these are the very characteristics that define most of the leaders of the Christian right. Trump has preyed on desperate people through the thousands of slot machines in his casinos, his sham university and his real estate deals.

Megachurch pastors prey on their followers by extracting "seed offerings," "love gifts," tithes and donations and by selling miracle healings along with "prayer clothes," self-help books, audio and video recordings and even protein shakes. Pastors have established within their megachurches, as Trump did in his businesses, despotic fiefdoms. They cannot be challenged or questioned any more than an omnipotent Trump could be challenged on the reality television show "The Apprentice." And they seek to replicate their little tyrannies on a national scale, with white men in charge.

The personal piety of most of the ministers who lead the Christian right is a facade. Their private lives are usually marked by hedonistic squalor that includes mansions, private jets, limousines, retinues of bodyguards, personal assistants and servants, shopping sprees, lavish vacations and sexual escapades that rival those carried out by Trump. And because they run "churches," in many cases church funds pay for their tax-free empires, including their extravagant lifestyles. They also engage in the nepotism found in the Trump organization, elevating family members to prominent or highly paid positions and passing on the businesses to their children.

The Christian right's scandals, which give a glimpse into the sordid lives of these multimillionaire pastors, are legion. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Praise the Lord Club, for example, raked in as much as $1 million a week before Jim Bakker went to prison for nearly five years. He was convicted of fraud and other charges in 1989 because of a $158 million scheme in which followers paid for vacations that never materialized. As the Bakker empire came apart, there also were accusations of drug use and rape. Tammy Faye died in 2007, and now Jim Bakker is back, peddling survival food for the end days and telling his significantly reduced television audience that anyone who opposes Trump is the Antichrist.

Paul and Jan Crouch, who gave the Bakkers their start, founded Trinity Broadcasting, the world's largest televangelist network, now run by their son Matt and his wife, Laurie. Viewers were encouraged to call prayer counselors at the toll-free number shown at the bottom of the TV screen. It was a short step from talking with a prayer counselor to making a "love gift" and becoming a "partner" in Trinity Broadcasting and then sending in more money during one of the frequent Praise-a-Thons.

The Crouches reveled in tasteless kitsch, as does Trump. They sat during their popular nightly program in front of stained glass windows that overlooked Louis XVI-inspired sets awash in gold rococo and red velvet, glittering chandeliers and a gold-painted piano. The network emblem, which Paul Crouch wore on the pocket of his blue double-breasted blazer, featured a crown, a lion, a horse, a white dove, a cross and Latin phrases among other elements. The Crouches would have been at home in Trump Tower, where the president has a faux "Trump crest" -- allegedly plagiarized -- and has decorated his penthouse as if it was part of Versailles.

The Crouches were masters of manipulation. They exhorted viewers to send in checks for $1,000, even if they could not afford it. Write the check anyway, Paul Crouch, who died in 2013, told them, as a "step of faith" and the Lord would repay them many times over. "Do you think God would have any trouble getting $1,000 extra to you somehow?" he asked during one Praise-a-Thon broadcast. Viewers, many of whom struggled with deep despair and believed that miracles and magic alone held them back from the abyss, often found it impossible to resist this emotional pressure.

Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is home to many of the worst charlatans in the Christian right, including the popular healer Benny Hinn, who says that Adam was a superhero who could fly to the moon and claims that one day the dead will be raised by watching TBN from inside their coffins. Hinn claims his "anointings" have cured cancer, AIDS, deafness, blindness and numerous other ailments and physical injuries. Those who have not been cured, he says, did not send in enough money.

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From Reader Supported News

"For seven years I've been hearing about health care, and I've been hearing about repeal and replace and Obamacare is a total disaster, some states had over a two hundred per cent increase, two hundred per cent increase in their premiums, and their deductibles are through the roof, it's an absolute disaster. And I think you'll also agree that I've been saying for a long time, let Obamacare fail and then everybody's going to have to come together and fix it". Let Obamacare fail, it'll be a lot easier. And I think we're probably in that position, where we'll just let Obamacare fail. We're not going to own it, I'm not going to own it. I can tell you the Republicans, they're not going to own it. We'll let Obamacare fail and the Democrats are going to come to us and we're going to say, "How do we fix it? How do we fix it? Or, how do we come up with a new plan?" " It would be nice to have Democrat support, but really they're obstructionists, they have no ideas, they have no thought process, all they want to do is obstruct government, and obstruct -- period..." -- President Trump, luncheon comments, July 18, 2017

Responding to a reporter's question, the President's four-minute lunch ramble [excerpted above] is remarkable in many ways, starting with its fundamental incoherence: expecting Democratic obstructionists with no thought process "to come to us" to fix it. The record is clear: when Republicans were in the minority they refused to work on Obamacare, and since the Republicans have been in the majority they've refused to ask Democrats to work on Obamacare. Republicans are not invested in health care, especially for poor people, Republicans are invested in tax cuts for the rich (to which Democrats are not necessarily opposed).

The President's ramble is remarkable for its mischaracterization of reality when he says "Obamacare is a total disaster." Yes it has problems, as he points out, without also pointing out that these are problems Democrats embraced rather than enact a single payer health care plan. But for all its problems, Obamacare is far from a total disaster in the real world. The majority of Americans still perceive it as a relative success, and the people who benefit directly from it mostly see it as a godsend.

The President's ramble is remarkable for the oblique way he blames the present mess on Republicans, without naming them. "For seven years" he's been hearing about health care, he says, without adding: and for seven years these ideological idiots haven't been able to craft a single useful alternative. He also doesn't say: believe it or not, some of them actually want to help poor people stay healthy and think it's OK for really rich people to help pay for the common good. "I'm not going to own it," he says frankly. (The same day his White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushed the same lie about Democrats being responsible for fixing the law even though they have no power to do so.) The reality, however unfair it may be, is always that responsibility lies with those in power. For Trump, health care is all his now, whatever happens.

The President's ramble is remarkable for his expressed plan to abandon a duly-enacted law: "we're probably in that position, where we'll just let Obamacare fail." This future course is apparently based on the false and contradictory assessment that Obamacare has already failed ("total disaster"). The President of the United States is blithely embracing a plan that will cause incalculable harm to millions of American citizens, and he seems either uncomprehending or uncaring about the consequential suffering his choice would cause to the country he imagines he's making great again.

But now comes the most remarkable aspect of the President's ramble, his naked embrace of a course of action that clearly comprises multiple violations of the Constitution, multiple impeachable offenses.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."-- Oath of office, President, US Constitution, Article II, Section 1

President Trump swore this oath on January 20, 2017, before what he seems to believe was the largest inaugural crowd ever. In case it's not clear enough what it meant to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States," the Constitution offers some guidelines, including "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" (Article II, Section 3). The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is a duly-enacted statute that has survived challenge before the Supreme Court. Obamacare is indisputably a law that the President has a constitutional duty to faithfully execute.

The way the Obamacare law is written gives the President considerable authority over the way the law operates, well or badly. Among the techniques of sabotage publicly discussed, the President could cut subsidies that lower the cost of insurance (House Republicans already have a lawsuit to force him to do that.). He could refuse to carry out the law's mandate that most Americans have health insurance or pay a penalty enforced by the IRS. He could undermine enrollment in Obamacare by refusing to promote the open enrollment period in November. He can continue to lie about and exaggerate the flaws of Obamacare until he makes its failure a self-fulfilling prophecy. He could try any or all of these tactics, which would likely have a cascading effect, undermining insurance markets and consumer confidence and turning health care into chaos for millions of people.

Well, guess what? The Trump administration has been attacking the government since day one or thereabouts. Even though the attack is continuous and taking place in plain sight -- starting with the appointment of agency heads who hate their agencies, almost all duly approved by collaborators in the Senate -- little attention has been paid. Congress members with publicly funded staffs have paid little attention to the daily erosion of the public good across the government. Major media companies with ample staff and budget prefer sitting in video-free White House press-stonewalling sessions to digging into what is actually happening at agencies no longer fulfilling their lawful mandates.

One exception to this inattention (no doubt there are some others) is a long piece by Sam Stein on July 17, detailing some of the ways the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Secretary Tom Price is undermining America's health and human services, Obamacare in particular, immorally and probably illegally. Near the end of his piece we learn that Democratic senators Patty Murray and Ron Wyden flagged this issue in February but have had no response yet from HHS. What's up with that!?

One last remarkable aspect of the President's ramble is that news coverage of it has stressed more concern for protecting insurance markets than acting lawfully in constitutional good faith. (A quick Google search found only one current exception, tarpley.net, plus myself in Reader Supported News four months ago on the same issue. Constitutionally, Trump has been impeachable since the moment he took office, but only a political process can impeach a President.)

The political will to impeach this deceitful, destructive President and his administration does not exist despite millions of people, even some in Congress and the media, knowing impeachment is abundantly justified. And it's not just Obamacare, or Trumpian self-enrichment in violation of the emoluments clause, or even the Russian hooha (whatever it really is). Every day, with little attention, this administration violates the constitutional duty to faithfully execute the law to protect the environment, to defend the right to vote, to protect civil rights and civil liberties, to support public education, among its other travesties of governing, foreign and domestic.

Faced with the obscenity of Republican "health care," Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said, "I did not come to Washington to hurt people." That makes her an enemy of her party, for now at least. But it's not as though there's a host of Democrats expressing human decency with such simple, direct eloquence. Not hurting people, defending the Constitution, why is that too much to ask?

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Kitten

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I originally read and then wrote about Zig Zag in 2009, and today somehow I found his story again. So, it was like reading it for the first time, and I felt incredibly saddened by it and righteously angry with the cruel punks who victimized him.

This account came to me through a newsletter from United Animal Action. Here is their account of what happened to Zig Zag: "Zig Zag was minding his own business in south-central Los Angeles on one warm day, when, according to police reports and eyewitness accounts, five young teens approached the Rottweiler mix, caught him and tied him up. They took wooden boards with nails and beat him. Then they beat him with a steel pipe. Bleeding and howling, Zig Zag lapsed into unconsciousness. But the torture wasn't over.

One of the youths poured boiling water over him until he woke up. As he regained his senses, one of the teens poured lighter fluid on him and set him afire. Zig Zag tried to run, but he was beaten again until nearly every bone in his body was broken.

When the police arrived, Zig Zag crawled into their squad car and died."

On reading this, I felt terribly saddened that no one seeing this horrendous act tried to stop it. Can you believe that teens could actually do something so horrendous to an innocent dog they found on the streets? What kind of upbringing did these monsters have?

I hope the saying "What goes around will come around" will apply to these incredibly cruel punks. If any teens deserved jail time - in my opinion, these did. However, per the newsletter --the perpetrators in this case received scant punishment and were quickly back on the streets, free to harm more innocent animals. Not only did we have cruel teens, seemingly inadequate parenting, but a criminal justice system which failed to address this cruelty adequately, and which allowed the cruel perpetrators to go improperly punished.

If you are not ashamed of these horrible "punks" -people like me are. If you are not ashamed of a justice system which failed Zig Zag, then people like me are.

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Well, we did it. Climate change denial has finally paid off for the country, and now nobody wants to work with us.

At the recent G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, nineteen of the twenty leaders could agree on all points made in the communique. The only exception: Donald Trump, who couldnt agree on the summits declarations to fight climate change.

Why fight something that doesnt even exist, right? Or at least, that seems to be how Trumps mind works.

The move comes just a month after the president pulled out of the infamous Paris Agreement, placing the U.S. among Syria, Nicaragua, and Uzbekistan as the only countries not part of the pact. You know how the adage goes: Always follow Uzbekistans leador something like that.

In addition to his international climate blunders, Trumps rooted the country in 19th century, blast-and-burn mentality by reviving coalthough its difficult to revive whats been dead/dying for decades. Hes almost made it cool for coal mines to dump their waste into rivers; and hes pretty much opened the country to fracking, even in Yellowstone. Trumps also appointed climate-change deniers to head the EPA and Department of Energy; hes removed the word science from the EPAs mission statement; and, in full Orwellian nightmare, hes tried to purge government agencies of any mention of human caused climate changeessentially a modern-day book burning.

Trump isnt just trying to isolate the United States. Hes trying to turn the nation into a backwoods hermit, who has no contact with the rest of the world, no concept of the rest of the world.

Can the United States afford to be a climate loner? Withdrawing from this global wave of climate change cooperation risks diplomatic relations.

Chris Uhlmann, the political editor of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, described Trumps presence at the G20 as an, uneasy, lonely, awkward figure at this gathering and you got the strong sense that some of the leaders are trying to find the best way to work around him.

We learned that Donald Trump has pressed fast-forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader. He managed to isolate his nation, to confuse and alienate his allies and to diminish America.

Perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but, with the rest of the world assessing each others contributions to stabilizing climate change, Trumps rejection of common science will affect how the international community interacts with this administrationwhether it be over science or trade or whatever. That is: They wont.

Adoption of the plan, along with the declaration by all other leaders that the Paris Agreement is irreversible, shows that President Trumps fossil fuels forever agenda is failing to get any traction, no matter how hard he tries to cling to it, wrote the Union of Concerned Scientists in a statement.

President Trump may have forced inclusion of language in the communique on access to and use of fossil fuels by threatening to block the whole text if he didnt get his way, but that will do nothing to slow the accelerating shift away from polluting fossil fuels towards a global economy powered by clean, renewable energy.

Those are the key words: Economy powered by renewable energy. Its already happening, and, economically, its stupid not to join the action.

China alone is poised to spend some $360 billion on renewable energy by 2020, an investment that will create 13 million jobs. Meanwhile, Trumps coal revival will still employ fewer people than Arbys. If anything, the world needs more curly fries than coal miners.

India laid out an electricity plan that includes no coal plants for at least the next decade, and the country is eyeing another 1 million jobs in the green sector by 2022. All the while, coal jobs have fallen by 36-percent.

The country is supposed to be at the heart of coal plant growth, but its interesting to see the tide go against what we often hear about China and Indiathat theyre going to keep building coal plantswhen actually, theyre both stalling production, said Christine Shearer, a senior researcher at CoalSwarm and lead author of a report that noticed Indias departure from coal told CityLab.

Hell, even in the U.S. renewable energy is one of the fastest growing job markets, having increased by 18-percent from 2015 to 2016 and its expected to increase another 11-percent in 2017, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

Economists project the global clean energy economy to reach a $6 trillion market by 2030, and even big businessRepublicans love big businesswant in on the action.

Back in January, more than 600 businesses and investorsincluding DuPont, General Mills, HP, and many othersthat hold over $22 trillion in assets wrote a letter demanding the president to support low carbon policies and alternative energy.

It is imperative that the public and private sectors work closely together to get the signaling and incentives right to shift the trillions of capital required across the global economy. This includes creating the policy frameworks to support investment in low carbon assets now and into the future, to evolve the financial frameworks required to improve the availability, reliability and comparability of climate-related information, and to ensure the utilization of tools and metrics that effectively incorporate the risks and opportunities into financial assessments.

Investors are willing and ready to work with governments to facilitate the changes that are needed to improve the pricing of climate-related financial impacts, and to mobilize the capital flows that are required to underpin a strong and resilient financial system.

Itd be economically irresponsible to ignore this. Though if anybodys familiar with economic irresponsibility, its a man whos started a failed university, failed airline, failed casinos, failed steak, and even a failed brand of vodka. #winning

Itd also be economically irresponsible to ignore the statesmany of which conservative leaningtaking advantage of Paris Agreement initiatives.

Iowa, for example, depends on green energy, Thirty-seven percent of the states energy comes from wind farms, and, currently, theres $4 billion in investments for new wind projects. Florida just signed a bill that provides tax breaks for residential and solar installations. Brian Sandoval, the Republican governor of Nevada, just last week, signed a bill that encouraged solar investment in the state. Even Virginia, a traditional coal state, has more solar jobs than coal jobs now, and, according to the Solar Foundation, the industry grew by roughly 65-percent over the last year.

At the end of the day, whether the U.S. can afford to be isolated diplomatically or economically doesnt matter. Climate change isnt an issue to be fought individually. Its a planetary.

Trumps action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two-hundred-and-fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid, said Stephen Hawking to the BBC.

By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.

Can the U.S. afford to be a climate loner? Trump thinks he can. The U.S. cant.

Top photo by The White House, CC0

Tom Burson is a travel writer, part-time hitchhiker, and hes currently trying to imitate Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? but with more sunscreen and jorts.
Mount Hekla is due to erupt any day now. Actually, the Icelandic volcano is supposed to erupt every 10 years, and hasnt since 2000. If youre vaguely recalling the Icelandic eruption that shut down European flights in 2010, that was Eyjafjallajokull, a glacier located on the Southern shores of the country. The aftermath of the eruption left many travelers stranded, but more importantly, forced the farmers affected by the destruction to start from scratch. Faced with months of work, the farmers revised their previous setup to create an even more effective system, preparing themselves for the next event. Moreover, they didnt waste time dwelling on the bleak ash clouds or the stress on their families. They began fixing what they could, and moving on when it was necessary. Ironically, the outstanding amount of ash and lava rejuvenated the soil, resulting in an extraordinary harvest.

This past May, I spent two weeks in Iceland, assisting a college study abroad group. Our first week was spent in the capital city, Reykjavik, while the second week, which focused on the countrys geology, was spent on the southern shores. Towards the end of our trip, a guide drove us down a long, remote road, eventually stopping at a small pull off. To our right was Mount Hekla, breathing as the locals call it. It stuck out immediately, covered in ice, against its surrounding mountains of brown and green. Our guide, orar, explained that our location was as close as we could be to Hekla, and we were rather far. Warning signs had recently been installed, explaining that travelers were not permitted to be any closer. He also added, in that dark brand of Icelandic humor, that anything could happen at that moment. The present never felt so real, and while I probably should have been filled with a sense of dread and worry, I couldnt help but marvel at the symbolic creature I was so close to.

As humans, we sometimes fall into the pattern of believing we are invincible its easy to forget that a volcano could change our flight plans at the drop of a hat. Spending time in Iceland forces the mind to acknowledge these possibilities. I was having my Ishmael moment, faced head on with the acceptance of my environment holding power over us completely. Many of our excursions were perpetually educational, as every natural attraction linked back to the ever changing environment. Understanding the power that lies beneath Hekla and her fellow volcanoes is crucial. Within the study abroad group, the sense of calm was humbling, as we savored the peaceful manner of Hekla. I am typically an anxious person, but being physically close to the possibility of destruction taught me the importance of the present.

Iceland is known for its beauty, but underneath the mossy green hues and towering mountains lies the Atlantic Ridge. In turn, the country is slowly spreading apart, adding another layer of reality to the countrys culture. Icelandmag recently reported, The rate of spreading along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge averages about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) per year, or 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) in a million years. Which really means, the Iceland I have visited will not be the same Iceland my grandchildren will (hopefully) visit.

Realizing my own ability to function calmly in the active country, I noticed the constant ease that the Icelanders display. Unless our group inquired about the possibility of an eruption, locals never mentioned it. Icelanders have an admirable respect for their country, and children go through school learning about the volcanoes and geology of their home. Stefan, the operations manager at Midgard Base Camp, shed some light on the realistic approach the Icelanders use: The eruption is usually not the problem, its more about the consequences. Ash and lava is not a problem. But some of the volcanoes (Katla for example) is covered with a thick layer of ice (500 meters) which can cause a big flooding. So there are evacuation plans in place for all the houses, farms and villages involved  So yeah, we do focus on what is happening right now, not worrying about problems that might arise, but still being ready for everything coming up.

Of course, I dont believe that my anxiety is completely gone. In fact, it became very central on the flight back from Iceland, when we hit a bit of turbulence. However, my experience in the country allowed me the opportunity to step back from my day to day fears, and placed me in the forefront of a separate cultures much more pertinent fears. Examining their continual push forward, and the appreciation of their current blessings, was a blessing to observe. The Icelanders have a powerful, two word saying that I continually remind myself of: etta reddast, or everything will be okay.

Photo by Milan Nykodym, CC BY-SA 2.0
Barring any last-minute hitches, the Attorney General (AG) and the Minister of Justice, is today expected to orally examine National Democratic Congress (NDC) financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, over the GH51.2 million judgement debt he received from the State.



This follows the dismissal of an application filed by lawyers of the embattled businessman at Supreme Court last week seeking to temporarily halt the examination.



The three-member panel of judges presided over by Justice William Atuguba had held that the matter before the court had been settled by CI 98, 2016, insisting that the motion was misconceived.



Woyome had filed a writ at the Supreme Court seeking to reverse a ruling by a judge of the apex court  Justice A.A. Benin  who granted an application by the Attorney General, to cross-examine Woyome orally in connection with attempts by the State to retrieve the money.



The embattled NDC financier argued that Article 134 (b) of the 1992 Constitution gives him the opportunity to apply for a stay of Justice Benins decision by asking that a panel of three justices vary, discharge and or reverse the order.



However, a Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, argued that the provision cited by Woyome upon which he filed the application does not apply since the State is merely attempting to enforce an earlier judgement of the same court.



Mr Yeboah Dame, who led a team of state prosecutors to the court, welcomed the ruling of the court, saying that Woyomes frivolous applications were aimed at frustrating the retrieval of the money he fraudulently received.



Order



Justice Benin had also placed an embargo on the shares owned by the businessman in 11 companies, following his indebtedness to the state.



Shares affected include those in Anator Holding Company Limited, AAW Management Consulting Services Limited, Green Township Security Services Company Limited, Anator Construction Company Limited, Woyome Brothers International Limited and Stewise Anator Company Limited.



The rest are Stewise Shopping Company Limited, Green Townships and Industrial Parks Development Company Limited, Anator Power Company Limited, Green Townships (Gh) Company Limited and Special Economic Zone International Trading Company Limited.



Per the order, Mr. Woyome was also to appear before the court to explain why the embargo should not be made permanent.



AGs Motion



It followed a motion filed by the Attorney General on May 17, 2017, praying the court to impose a charging order on all the shares owned by the businessman in the 11 companies.



The order also followed a motion filed by the AG on June 2, 2017, praying the court to be given the opportunity to orally examine the businessman.



The oral examination, the court ordered, would border on whether Mr. Woyome owed the state any debt and whether he had any property for satisfying the judgement of the court, dated July 29, 2014.



Also, the oral examination, according to the court, would be premised on whether the businessman has any means of satisfying the judgement of this court, dated July 29, 2014 and the manner in which he used the money paid to him by the Republic of Ghana.



Day Of Reckoning



At a recent media interaction at the Flagstaff House, President Akufo-Addo said the day of reckoning for Woyome was in sight to retrieve the fraudulently acquired GH51.2 million from him.



Woyomes money is a subject of all kinds of legal processes; those legal processes some day will come to an end. I know there will come a day for reckoning on that matter, the president told journalists.

Source: Daily Guide









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Taehoon Han Wins PokerStars Festival Korea Main Event (83,130,000)

July 24, 2017 Mo Nuwwarah Editor

Almost the whole way through PokerStars Festival Korea Main Event, the story looked like it was going to be Yuki Ko dominating from start to finish at Paradise City Hotel & Resort in Incheon. The very aggressive Korean, who makes his home in Japan, bagged the chip lead after each of the first two starting days and went into heads-up play with Taehoon Han holding a vast experience edge.

Han had a slight chip lead, but with just about $8,000 in live cashes to his credit against a man with almost $300,000, he didn't appear to be the favorite.

Perhaps he felt that way too, as after he eliminated a short-stacked Weikuo Hsiao in third, he immediately asked Ko if he wanted to discuss a deal. The two looked over the numbers briefly but couldn't come to an agreement. According to Han, Ko asked for 73 million  about $65,000  of the 138 million left in the prize pool.

"In my mind, that was too much," Han said. "If he asked for a chop or maybe a little bit more, I'd have taken it. Eight million, and I had the chip lead as well... that was too much.

"So, I just played it out and it went well."

Well indeed. The two entered a deep-stacked heads-up battle with each north of 4 million at 25,000/50,000/5,000, and it was all Han from there. He outmaneuvered Ko in the big pots and pulled the upset, banking 83,130,000 and forcing Ko to settle for 55,280,000.

On the final hand, a short-stacked Ko pushed all in with jack-ten and found himself at risk and dominated by Han's queen-jack. A rail heavily supporting Ko started to cheer as the dealer opened up a flop with a ten in the window, but they hushed quickly when a queen followed it. No further help emerged for Ko to seal his fate.

Yuki Ko

Han admitted afterward that being turned down on a deal made the victory a little extra sweet.

"This is my first big tournament cash," he said. "It feels unreal."

Han, a Korean-born 26-year-old, moved to Auckland, New Zealand about 15 years ago. There, he initially cut his teeth in poker by playing online on PokerStars. Two years ago, he moved back to Korea and started grinding live cash games.

That's how he currently makes his living, he said, but he wavered a bit on whether he considers himself a professional.

"I was [a professional poker player] I guess, but I don't want to be," he said with a laugh. "I'm still considering whether to get a job in Korea or go back to New Zealand. My parents stayed there. I have options, but I'm not sure."

One thing he is sure of: the sleek silver chunk of a trophy he hoisted in his winner's photo is nice, but it's all about the coin when it comes to what he values from the big win.

Whatever he decides to do now, he's 83,130,000 richer, minus whatever he spends hitting the town in Seoul with a couple of friends. He admitted he felt a bit lonely without any railbirds sweating him as the tournament wound down, but he still planned to go out and celebrate a bit.

"Good money, good result, that's good enough for me," he said.

Place Player Home Country Prize 1 Taehoon Han New Zealand 83,130,000 2 Yuki Ko Korea 55,280,000 3 Weikuo Hsiao Taiwan 40,430,000 4 Mitsuru Sano Japan 32,635,000 5 Harunobu Kojima Japan 25,600,000 6 Scott Janik United States 19,400,000 7 Jwahyoung Kim Korea 14,220,000 8 Dmitrii Kovalevskii Russia 10,450,000
What Would You Do? Final Three Face Big Decisions in WSOP Main Event

July 24, 2017 Martin Harris

It's all over. Following a dramatic finale on Saturday, Scott Blumstein of New Jersey is the 2017 World Series of Poker Main Event champion.

Three-handed play began with Blumstein enjoying a big chip advantage over his two remaining challengers, Dan Ott and Benjamin Pollak. It would take 51 hands before Pollak was eliminated in third, then another 65 hands of heads-up between before Blumstein knocked out Ott to win the title.

Blumstein's large chip advantage meant three-handed play was punctuated by frequent all-ins by the other two, with each surviving their shoves until Pollak was finally ousted. Then heads-up play saw Blumstein whittle Ott down further, building close to a 10-to-1 chip advantage before Ott was finally all in and at risk a couple of times, with Blumstein at last winning.

For this last round of "What Would You Do?" from the 2017 WSOP Main Event, let's highlight the night's three most memorable hands, each of which involved meaningful, not-so-simple decisions made by players that affected the outcome.

Poker Face Meaning  What Is a Poker Face and How to Get a Good One?

Play along with one of the players in each hand, and try to make your choice regarding what you would do without thinking about how the hand actually played out. And after making your choices, share any further comments about the hands below.

Worth keeping in mind as well, of course, were the remaining payouts  $8.15 million (first place), $4.7 million (second), and $3.5 million (third).

Hand #146: Big River Decisions

Players left: 3

Blinds/antes: 1,000,000/2,000,000/300,000

Blumstein started play with 226.45 million or nearly 63 percent of the chips in play, but didn't win any of the first 10 hands of the night as both of the short stacks came out firing to claim all of the early pots.

By the night's 11th hand Blumstein was down 180.85 million, Ott up to 135.575 million, and Pollak still short with 44.15 million.

That's when Ott had the button and raised again to 4.4 million. Blumstein looked down at in the small blind and chose to three-bet to 13.5 million.

"Look at this," said Antonio Esfandiari on the televised commentary in response to Blumstein's reraise. "Blumstein has had enough."

Pollak folded, and after thinking a short while Ott called.

The flop came all clubs   giving Blumstein the nut-flush draw, and he continued for 16 million (just over half the pot). Ott called. The turn was the . Blumstein bet again, 20 million this time, and Ott called again. That brought the pot up to 101.9 million.

The river was the . Blumstein had 131.1 million behind, while Ott had 85.8 million. If you're Blumstein...

Blumstein elected to make the all-in push, sending Ott into a lengthy tank with his . Try if you can to look at the action from Ott's perspective. If you're Ott...

Ott folded his eights, and the big pot went Blumstein's way, carrying him right back to roughly the same stack he had to start the night.

After he'd won, Blumstein was asked about this key hand of the tournament.

"I had the , a pretty good card to bluff with," he said. "When you get to the river with king-high and there's all those chips in the middle... and Dan was kind of short, I went for it and got the fold."

Hand #181: To Push or Not to Push

Players left: 3

Blinds/antes: 1,200,000/2,400,000/400,000

Skipping ahead, both Ott and Pollak had survived all-ins by the time the following hand occurred, at the start of which Blumstein had almost 279 million (116 big blinds), Ott 46.2 million (just over 19 BBs), and Pollak 35.6 million (just under 15 BBs).

Pollak had the button and opened with an all-in shove. The action was on Ott in the small blind holding . Put yourself in Ott's position.

After thinking almost exactly one minute, Ott did push all in. Blumstein then looked down at and immediately asked for counts of both of the other stacks.

"Should I go for night-night?" Blumstein said, glancing back at his rail. He thought another 15 seconds or so.

Blumstein called, setting up a three-way all-in and the potential to end the Main Event right then and there. It would have been the first time ever for a Main Event to conclude without any heads-up at all, but the board came , giving Ott a pair of kings and knocking Pollak out in third.

In his interview just after, Pollak said "I was surprised when Dan decided to shove with king-nine offsuit." Later after the night was over, Ott conceded "I think I got it in a little loose," on the hand.

Hand #246: Last Call

Players left: 2

Blinds/antes: 1,500,000/3,000,000/500,000

This one may seem a less difficult decision comparatively speaking, but we'll include it for the sake of completeness and to provide another point of discussion.

As noted, Blumstein and Ott battled heads-up for 65 hands. By the last one Blumstein had just over 296 million versus Ott's 64 million.

Blumstein then limped in from the button, and after being dealt Ott raised to 8 million. Blumstein responded with an all-in shove, and Ott tanked for more than two minutes as he decided what to do.

"You just have to do it in a heads-up spot when you have 21 bigs," said Esfandiari on the commentary, and indeed Ott eventually did make the call.

The board came a dramatic , the deuce on the river hitting Blumstein's kicker and giving him the pot and title.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-07-24 02:03:01

Gareth McAllister Named President of LORD Corporation Asia-Pacific Region

LORD Corporation

Will Austin, 919-259-5205

will.austin@lord.com

Gareth McAllister has been named President Asia-Pacific (APAC) Region of LORD Corporation, a global leader in vibration and motion control technologies, sensing systems, adhesives and coatings.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201707230050

Gareth McAllister has been named President Asia-Pacific (APAC) Region of LORD Corporation. (Photo: Business Wire)

Gareth previously served as the Regional Director of China where he focused on commercial excellence and technical support through driving the culture to achieve greater customer engagement. This resulted in double digit growth and many new business wins. Gareth will bring this focus to his new role. He sees partnering with customers to achieve commercial excellence as the way forward in the APAC region. We want to support our customers in growing their business as this achieves a win-win for us all.

Gareths experience, accomplishments and business acumen make him the best choice to lead our APAC region, said Ed Auslander, president and CEO of LORD Corporation. Our presence in the APAC region has grown steadily over the past 5 years with additions of technical, production, and commercial staff. Gareth is well poised to lead this region and drive additional innovation and growth.

Gareth joined LORD in 2007 and has worked in a number of regional and global roles of increasing responsibility, including business management, operations, strategic alliances, and product management.

Prior to joining LORD, Gareth served in management positions with Arch Chemicals, Henkel KGaA, and Dow Chemicals. He has fulfilled business assignments in Switzerland, France, Italy, USA, and China, and he will be based in Hong Kong in his new leadership role. Gareth holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree from University College Dublin and an Executive MBA from University College Cork.

Gareth succeeds Becky Williams, who will continue her career at the company as president of the companys Aerospace & Defense business. Under Williams leadership, the APAC region achieved major new customer wins in commercial aerospace, automotive and industrial customers.

About LORD Corporation

LORD Corporation is a diversified technology and manufacturing company developing highly reliable adhesives, coatings, motion management devices, and sensing technologies that significantly reduce risk and improve product performance. For more than 90 years, LORD has worked in collaboration with our customers to provide innovative oil and gas, aerospace, defense, automotive and industrial solutions. With world headquarters in Cary, N.C., LORD has approximately 3,100 employees in 26 countries and operates 19 manufacturing facilities and 10 R&D centers worldwide. LORD actively promotes STEM education and many other community engagement initiatives. For more information, visit www.lord.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201707230050
PR-Inside.com: 2017-07-24 23:00:12

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Renaissance Gold Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---White Rock, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Renaissance Gold Inc. (TSX Venture:REN). has issued a press release with the following headline:Renaissance Gold Grants Stock OptionsTo 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 Renaissance Gold 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/Renaissance Gold Inc.Source: Renaissance Gold Inc. (TSX Venture: REN, ISIN: CA75971J1057, WKN: A1C7Z0)Date: July 24, 2017Time: 5:00 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Renaissance Gold 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.)
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.




#SheAppsAfrica - This is the Third Round of Funding for STEM Initiatives

By: DotConnectAfrica

Miss.Africa Seed Fund 2018 open

Contact

DotConnectAfrica

***@dotconnectafrica.org DotConnectAfrica

End

-- In a #SheAppsAfrica Pan-African campaign for year 2017/2018 the pioneering Miss.Africa Digital program is mobilizing the third Round of Miss.Africa Seed Funding, for Tech initiatives throughout Africa.Having seen high level of success in the past consecutive years, the Miss.Africa Seed Fund, will again avail a sum of Seven Thousand United States Dollars (USD 7000), in grants to support women and girls in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields to launch or expand their own initiatives that will increase digital opportunities in IT related training, jobs and leadership roles.The 2016/17 winner of the Five Thousand United States Dollars (5000USD) grand prize was awarded to Abocoders, a Nigeria based initiative. Bahir Dar University STEM Center, Ethiopia and Ubongo Game Lab, Zambia both received a sum of One Thousand United States Dollars (1,000 USD) for the second seed fund category.Hundreds of Women have so far benefited from the Miss.Africa seed funding. The program expects the number to increase by the end of the year when the 2016/17 cohort graduate.The second round of Miss.Africa Seed Fund received over 200 applications from 24 countries across Africa. At 33%, Nigeria took the first place for most Miss.Africa seed fund applications submitted, Kenya was second with 11% while the third place was taken by Ghana at 9%.For the first round in 2016, Miss.Africa Seed Fund received over 90 applicants from more than 18 Countries across the African continent. Over fifty (50) women, selected from over three hundred applicants, benefited directly by receiving training from the 2016/17 Miss.Africa Seed Fund Winner, eMobilis.The Miss.Africa Digital Program is now pleased to announce the third round, 2017/2018 Miss.Africa Seed Funding initiative to support tech start-ups expand their capacity and create further socio-economic value for women by effectively leveraging tech opportunities in Africa.eoi(at)dotconnectafrica.orgApply Here: http://dotconnectafrica.org/ yes-campaign/ miss-africa/ miss-africa- 2018-seed-funding/ July 28, 2017: Miss.Africa Fund Online Application opensNovember 15, 2017: Miss.Africa Seed Fund Application deadlineMarch 2, 2018: Round One of Miss.Africa grants announced
Contact

Jean Cao

***@sevenbilliontoday.com Jean Cao

End

-- Contact: Jean Cao, Executive Director+852 53609885jean@sevenbilliontoday.comHong Kong (24 July, 2017)  Seven Billion Today (sevenbilliontoday.com), a new social media platform with a conscience, has been launched across the world, designed for people, charities and NGOs to post and raise awareness of the issues affecting mankind today.Top votes of last week on Seven Billion Today:1. Yemen Cholera Worst on Record: Oxfam82% of voters think the ongoing civil war is responsible for the worst cholera crisis in Yemen.2. N. Korea: Worst Drought in 16 Years Threatens Supplies50% of respondents believe the international community should loosen sanctions on North Korea because of its severe food shortages.3. Charities Urge UN to Blacklist Saudi Coalition in Yemen67% of voters support Saudi-led coalition being blacklisted by UN for attacking civilians in Yemen.4. Venezuelan Assembly Triggers Economic Recovery, or Violence?31% of voters think Constituent Assembly is an available path to peace and recovery in Venezuela.5. US, Japan Cautious to S. Korea's Proposal to Talk with North53% of people think the talk is the likeliest way to end the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.6. Saudi Woman Sparks Controversy with "Mini-skirt Video"Only 22% of respondents think the Saudi woman in the video should be punished for breaking the traditional dress code.7. Displaced IS Families Left in Iraq Pay Prices for Militants57% of respondents think families of Islamic State militants should be isolated from other civilians during rehabilitation.Get involved on: sevenbilliontoday.com To find out more visit us or email Jean Cao, Executive Director, via email: jean@sevenbilliontoday.com ( mailto:jean@ sevenbilliontoday.com? subject=To%20Seven% 20Bi... ).About Company: Seven Billion Today donates its profits to causes, charities or NGOs that the community nominates on a monthly basisThe platform is available to all participants on a zero-cost basis.We live in a time when greed and profit, corruption, injustice, inequality, conflict and bureaucracy reigns. As humanity, we see poverty, crime, sickness, famine, environmental decay, war, displacement, and hopelessness borne out of poor governance and profiteering.We have had enough. Seven Billion Today is where we meet, share our views, get heard, be counted and make a difference - because together, we can.Users can get involved by:- Posting articles, images and videos about issues or projects you are passionate about- Creating polls, and voting on different topics- Connecting with and messaging like-minded people across the planet
SE Alabama chooses to make long term relationship with GD over the use of the CAREpoint Workstation.

By: SE Alabama Medical Center

Contact

Andy Birnbaum, Marketing Manager

***@general- devices.com Andy Birnbaum, Marketing Manager

End

-- Contact: Andrew BirnbaumE: marketing@general-devices.comP: 201-313-7075F: 201-313-5671W: www.general-devices.comGD GD has announced that Southeast Alabama Medical Center has joined the family of more than 800 hospital and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) communication system implementations by the company. The Alabama based hospital and local EMS network have taken the initiative to enhance patient care by implementing new CAREpoint workstations. GD's CAREpoint Workstation & e-Bridge Mobile Telemedicine systems help hospitals and EMS improve patient care while reducing costs through process and QA improvements, plus better documentation and data management. "Managing patient care the Emergency Department is complex enough.", says Curt Bashford, GD's CEO. "Integrating prehospital care from EMS with the ED and critical services like trauma, cardiology and neurology magnifies it. This is where Responsive Innovation from GD makes a real difference."adds Bashford.Like other hospitals throughout the Unites States, Southeast Alabama will use GD's CAREpoint to manage all its EMS related activities from the powerful workstation. Typical usage goals aimed to deliver a strong Return on Investment (ROI) through improvements in patient care and cost reduction include: Improving EMS call handling and notifications from 2-way radio, phone and web Reduce door-to-treatment times for Stroke, STEMI, and Trauma Provide secure mobile notifications to remote Cardio, Neuro, and Trauma teams Simplify and unify reception, distribution, and documentation of prehospital 12-Lead ECGs Enhance CQI with better documentation, digital voice/data logging and reporting tools Implement a HIPAA-secure platform for Mobile Telemedicine pictures, video and data Overall enhancement to on-line medical direction and decision supportSoutheast Alabama Medical Center is a not-for-profit community health system dedicated to improving the health and quality of life of the residents of southeast Alabama, southwest Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. Through advanced treatment and technology, it provides for the changing healthcare needs of the growing communities it serves since 1957. The progress of the Medical Center represents the distinguished service of dedicated board members, physicians, employees and volunteers, and a supportive community.It takes more than technology and a modern facility to treat people. It takes a team of dedicated, well-trained professionals to continually deliver quality healthcare. Employing a staff of more than 2,700, the Medical Center is recognized as one of the largest employers in the region and is proud of its reputation of providing a positive and responsive work environment. The Medical Center is supported by a medical staff of approximately 350 physicians representing virtually every medical specialty. Ninety percent of the medical staff at Southeast Alabama Medical Center is board-certified compared to the national average of 60 percent.Responsive Innovation includes the CAREpoint Workstation ( http://www.general- devices.com/ carepoint ), which is used by hospital emergency departments to manage all EMS-hospital communications, information, documentation and mobile telemedicine on a single interoperable, easy-to-use system.e-BRIDGE Mobile Telemedicine apps enable the sharing of real-time, HIPAA-compliant multi-media messaging: voice, text, pictures, video clips and live video; as well as data from connected devices such as NIBP, SP02, weight, ultrasound, and more. Available for smartphones, tablets and PCs, the apps are used for consults between EMS, mobile integrated health-community paramedicine, hospitals, and public safety entities for enhancing patient care.Based in Ridgefield, NJ, GD is a medical device and technology solution company. Its Core Purpose is to improve the health and wellbeing of the public at large by providing Responsive Innovation for public safety responders and health care providers. For more than three decades, GD has been the leader in EMS-hospital communications and mobile telemedicine systems, connecting care providers nationwide and handling over 10,000 calls daily.For more information, visit www.general- devices.com


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M&G Real Estate has acquired a 59.3m industrial portfolio in Denmark, representing a net yield of 6.8 percent. This latest purchase further demonstrates the businesss core strategy for pan-European growth, and marks its fourth acquisition in Denmark. The 75,139 sq m Danish portfolio has been leased back to Denmark's largest

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If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity.

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Colombias Canal Cartagena has selected broadcasting equipment from Spains Albala to transport its SD and HD feeds and adapt them to Tigo-UNEs headend.





Through the agreement reached with Albals local partner ADTEL LATAM, the Cartagena de Indias channel will revamp its video contribution system to make it 100% digital.The selected technology includes several Cross Connect modules, such as a double digital signal converter SDI to DVI, and a fibre-based receptor and a two-channel encoder in Tigo-UNEs headend.The Cross Connect equipment features the possibility of externally monitoring both the video and the audio signals, improving the detection of any failure, stated the Spanish manufacturer.Colombia has become Albalas strongest Latin American market, in which it recently closed several agreements, including a partnership with the countrys public broadcaster RTVC and NEC in order to provide DTT equipment
Russian law-enforcement officials said two men suspected in abducting a top official in the troubled North Caucasus region of Daghestan have been detained.

The Investigative Committee said July 24 that the two were suspected of kidnapping the regional construction minister four days earlier.

The men, whom the committee identified as residents of the regional capital, Makhachkala, demanded a 100 million rubles ($1.7 million) ransom for the official's release.

The committee said in a statement that the minister was freed after a special police operation in the nearby region of Kabardino-Balkaria. The two men were detained in the operation.

Kidnappings are common in the North Caucasus, which continues to be beset by violence linked to a nationalist and later, Islamist insurgency, fueled by two wars in Chechnya since the early 1990s.

The region is also plagued by organized crime, political disputes, clan rivalry, and persistent poverty.
The White House on November 12 hailed Russias withdrawal from the Ukrainian city of Kherson as an "extraordinary victory" for Ukraine.

"It does look as though the Ukrainians have just won an extraordinary victory where the one regional capital that Russia had seized in this war is now back under a Ukrainian flag -- and that is quite a remarkable thing," national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters as he accompanied President Joe Biden to the ASEAN summit in Cambodia.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Sullivan spoke hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared that Kherson is "ours after his special forces entered the strategic southern city following the retreat of Russian troops, marking another dramatic battlefield victory in Kyivs drive to recapture territory occupied by Russia since the start of its unprovoked invasion.

Separately, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on November 12 that Moscow's "strategic failure" in Kherson will sow doubt among the Russian public about the point of the war in Ukraine.

"Russia's announced withdrawal from Kherson marks another strategic failure for them. In February, Russia failed to take any of its major objectives except Kherson," Wallace said in a statement. "Now with that also being surrendered, ordinary people of Russia must surely ask themselves: 'What was it all for?'"

Video posted online showed people on the streets, flying Ukraine's national flag and chanting as Ukrainian troops arrived in the city. Photos circulating on social media on November 12 showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by the occupation authorities the Kremlin installed to run the Kherson region.

"We are winning battles on the ground. But the war continues," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said after Ukraine's recovery of Kherson.

Speaking at the summit in Cambodia on November 12, Kuleba said that reclaiming the city was "quite an exercise.

I understand that everyone wants this war to end as soon as possible. We are definitely the ones who want that more than anyone else," Kuleba said during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of the summit.

Sullivan said that the Russian retreat would have "broader strategic implications," including relieving the longer-term threat by Russia to other southern Ukrainian cities, such as Odesa.

"It's a big moment, and it's due to the incredible tenacity and skill of the Ukrainians, backed by the relentless and united support of the United States and our allies," Sullivan said.

Asked about reports that the Biden administration has started to press Zelenskiy to explore negotiations with Moscow, Sullivan said that Russia, not Ukraine, was the side that has to decide whether or not to go to the table.

"This whole notion, I think, in the Western press of, 'When's Ukraine going to negotiate?' misses the underlying fundamentals," Sullivan said.

WATCH: Local residents welcomed Ukrainian soldiers into Snihurivka on November 10, as advance forces of the Ukrainian military recaptured the town in the southern Mykolayiv region. Other footage from the village of Blahodatne in the Kherson region shows a massive cache of abandoned weapons left by the Russian troops after their retreat.

Russia, he added, continues to make "outlandish claims" about its self-declared annexations of Ukrainian lands, even as it retreats from Ukrainian counterattacks.

"Ultimately, at a 30,000-foot level, Ukraine is the party of peace in this conflict and Russia is the party of war. Russia invaded Ukraine. If Russia chose to stop fighting in Ukraine and left, it would be the end of the war. If Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it would be the end of Ukraine," he said.

"In that context, our position remains the same as it has been and fundamentally is in close consultation and support of President Zelenskiy, he said.

The Ukrainian military said on November 12 that it had carried out stabilization measures near Kherson following the end of the eight-month Russian occupation.

In a regular social media update, the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces said the Russians were fortifying their battle lines on the river's eastern bank after abandoning the capital. About 70 percent of the Kherson region remains under Russian control.

With reporting by AFP
BAKU -- A leading opposition politician in Azerbaijan has been sentenced to over three years in prison.

The Sabail District Court in Baku found Faiq Amirli, a member of the opposition Popular Front of Azerbaijan (AXCP) party, guilty of inciting religious hatred and violating the rights of citizens under the pretext of conducting religious rites.

Amirli was sentenced to three years and three months in prison on July 24.

Amirli, who is also the financial director of the daily Azadliq, pleaded not guilty.

His lawyers called the courts ruling absurd and told RFE/RL that they will appeal it.

Amirli was arrested in August 2016. Investigators said he possessed books by U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Turkish authorities blame for a failed coup in July 2016. Gulen denies any involvement.

Azerbaijani and international rights groups accuse Baku of using Turkey's crackdown on Gulens followers to harass critics of the Azerbaijani government.

Baku has voiced strong support for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following the failed coup.
The West seeks to revive peace talks on Ukraine. And Russia moves to rebrand the war.

On this week's Power Vertical Briefing, we look ahead to efforts by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to revive the Minsk peace process; and at the call by Moscow-backed separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko to replace Ukraine with a new state called Malorossia, with its capital in Donetsk.

Joining me is RFE/RL News Editor Steve Gutterman.

Enjoy...

NOTE: The Power Vertical Briefing is a short look ahead to the stories expected to make news in Russia in the coming week. It is hosted by Brian Whitmore, author of The Power Vertical blog, and appears on Mondays.
A leading Republican senator says a bill toughening sanctions on Russia has not been finalized, despite earlier announcements of a bipartisan agreement.

Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters on July 24 that "we still have a little work to do," adding that he expected differences over details in the legislation to be settled quickly.

Corker's comments came just minutes after the White House said President Donald Trump would examine the bill, which also includes new sanctions on Iran and North Korea, to determine if it was the "best deal" for the American people.

"He's going to study that legislation and see what the final product looks like," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on July 24 during a briefing on Air Force One.

The comments by the White House and Corker appear to back off earlier announcements from the administration and Congress over the status of the legislation.

On July 22, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Washington said they had reached agreement on the legislation that would slap the new sanctions on Moscow and limit the presidents ability to ease or lift them by himself.

A day later, the White House indicated it was ready to accept the legislation, which the administration had originally opposed.

"We support where the legislation is now and will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved," Sanders told ABC television on July 23.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to improve ties with Moscow, triggering bipartisan concern in Congress that he could lift or ease sanctions punishing Russia for its 2014 seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine.

So far, the U.S. administration has shown no indication it intends to lift Ukraine-related sanctions targeting Russia, which denies providing weapons and personnel to separatists in eastern Ukraine despite evidence of such support.

The bill is set to be considered in the House of Representatives as early as July 25.

The Senate will also have to vote on the new bill, which would require Trump to send a report to Congress outlining why the administration wants to suspend or terminate any sanctions. Lawmakers would then have one month to decide whether to allow such a move.

A refusal by Trump to sign the bill would likely trigger political backlash in Washington given the ongoing FBI and congressional investigations into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election and contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials.

Objections to the legislation has come from Russia as well as from Washingtons European Union allies, who have been highlighting the effect it might have on joint energy projects.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia is "working with our European partners on implementing a number of large-scale projects."

"It goes without saying that we and our European partners attach great importance to finishing these projects and we will work towards this," Peskov said in response to a question about the potential effect on projects such as Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that is to carry Russian gas across the Baltic Sea to Europe.

"That is why discussions about 'sanctions themes' -- which could potentially obstruct these projects -- are a cause of concern for us."

In Brussels, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said the EU is "activating all diplomatic channels to address these concerns [about] the U.S. measures with our U.S. counterparts."

"For us, G7 unity regarding sanctions is of key importance, as...is respect of the implementation of the Minsk agreement," he said, referring to the Western-backed 2015 agreement on a cease-fire and steps to end the conflict between Russia-backed separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine.

With reporting by RFE/RL Correspondent Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels, Reuters, and TASS
Whenever the Kremlin or its proxies dream up a new name for Ukraine, it's often a sure sign that trouble is on the way.

Russia's war in the Donbas of course commenced as Kremlin spinmeisters coined the term Novorossia to refer to the crescent-shaped strip of land stretching from Kharkiv in the north to Odesa in the south.

Now, it's tempting to dismiss as absurd calls last week by the Moscow-backed separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko to replace Ukraine with a new state called Malorossia, with its capital in Donetsk.

But while it may be tempting, it's probably not a good idea.

Because this little effort at rebranding comes at a time when Moscow is desperately trying to reset the war in Ukraine.

It comes as SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak said Russia is escalating its efforts to destabilize Ukraine by "organizing artificial provocative protests."

It comes in the aftermath of the assassination of two Ukrainian military intelligence officers.

And perhaps most significantly, it's been blessed by Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin's point man on Ukraine policy.

Russia doesn't want or need a frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The war in the Donbas has always been a means to the end of crippling and controlling the entire country.

And the Malorossia gambit is a clear signal that Moscow is unhappy with the status quo and is preparing to shake it up.

Whenever Russia dreams up new names for Ukraine, we should always pay attention.

Keep telling me what you think on The Power Vertical's Twitter feed and on our Facebook page.
TBILISI -- Hundreds of nationalist and pro-European demonstrators faced off in the Georgian capital, with eggs, water bottles, and insults thrown but no serious violence reported.

Activists with a political party called the Movement for Liberty-European Georgia staged the rally July 23, saying that Russian propaganda in Georgia was "fomenting xenophobia, aggression, and violence."

The protesters marched through Tbilisi along the same route that an ultranationalist and anti-immigration group followed nine days earlier, during a so-called "March of Georgians.

City officials and the influential Georgian Orthodox church had asked pro-European activists not to march, fearing an outbreak of violence.

Anti-immigration demonstrators threw eggs and water bottles at, and exchanged insults with, the pro-European activists on July 23, but riot police prevented serious clashes.

Nationalists have demanded the government deport illegal immigrants, toughen of the countrys immigration laws, and ban the foreign funding of civil society organizations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Kuwait, which is acting as a mediator in a regional dispute between Qatar and four other Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia.

Erdogan on July 23 held talks with Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, the official Kuwaiti news agency Kuna reported, although it did not provide details.

Erdogan earlier in the day traveled to the Saudi city of Jeddah, where he met with King Salman to discuss ways to combat extremism and related financing, the official Saudi news agency SPA reported.

The Turkish leader is scheduled to visit Qatar on July 24 on the final stop of his two-day mission.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other countries broke all diplomatic and commercial ties with Qatar over the Gulf nations alleged funding for Islamic extremists and its close ties to regional rival Iran.

Qatar denies the allegations but says it is ready for talks to resolve the crisis so long as the nations sovereignty is respected.

"No one has any interest in prolonging this crisis anymore," Erdogan said on July 23 before leaving on the trip.

He accused "enemies" of seeking to "fire up tensions between brothers" in the region.

Erdogan also said Riyadh -- as the "elder statesman in the Gulf region" -- has to play a "big role" in solving the crisis, although he was careful not to explicitly criticize the kingdom.

International attempts to resolve the crisis, including with U.S. involvement, have so far failed.

Since the crisis erupted in June, Turkey has sent troops to Qatar and continues to ship food to help the small Gulf nation.

Qatar holds strategic importance for Turkey, which established a military base in the oil-rich nation after a 2014 agreement. Ankara says as many as 1,000 soldiers could eventually be stationed there.

The two countries also are believed to support Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, seen by Gulf countries as a threat to their rule.

Qatar is home to the Al-Udeid forward base for U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Some 10,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed there.

Based on reporting by dpa and Reuters
A German teen who was found in Mosul after running away from home following her conversion to Islam a year ago says she regrets her decision and just wants to go home to my family, German media reported.

German broadcasters NDR and WDR and the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on July 23 said they had interviewed the girl, identified only as Linda W., at a military complex in Baghdad.

Iraqi officials said the girl was arrested after she was found hiding in a tunnel or basement amid the rubble in Mosul after Islamic State (IS) extremists had been driven from the city.

The officials said the girl had been working with the extremists police force in Mosul.

"I just want to get away from here," she was quoted by the German media as saying. "I want to get away from the war, from the many weapons, from the noise."

"I just want to go home to my family," she added.

The German media outlets reported the girl said she regretted joining IS, wanted to be extradited to Germany, and would cooperate with authorities.

They said she had a gunshot wound in her thigh and an injury on her knee that she said occurred during a helicopter attack.

Officials said the girl flew from Frankfurt to Turkey a year ago with the desire of reaching either Iraq or Syria and that she had married an IS fighter while in Mosul.

Based on reporting by Reuters and The Express
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law said that he has not colluded with any foreign government and had "no improper contacts" with Russians during the U.S. presidential campaign or the transition period.

Jared Kushner made the remarks July 24 after meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of several congressional committees looking into interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials and Russia's alleged meddling in last year's election campaign.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who did so, said Kushner, who is a senior White House adviser.

I have had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, he told reporters outside the White House.



In a written statement released ahead of his Senate meeting, Kushner said he had "perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives" during the campaign and the transition period after Trump's victory on November 8.

In the statement, Kushner also said that a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, was a "waste of time. He said that, prior to the meeting, he had not seen e-mails suggesting that the attorney would provide information that would be damaging to Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

He also denied that he suggested a "secret back channel" for communications with Moscow -- a reference to U.S. media reports that he made such a suggestion at a meeting with the then Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, at the Trump Tower in New York in December 2016.

Kushner said that conversation was about Syria and that when Kislyak asked whether there was a secure line for him to provide information on Syria from what Kislyak called his "generals," Kushner asked if there was an existing communications channel at the embassy that could be used. Kushner says he never proposed an ongoing secret form of communication.

Kushner was scheduled to meet on July 25 with the House Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating the matter.

WATCH: Kushner -- 'I Had No Improper Contacts' With Russian Officials

Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the House committee, said earlier that Kushner would be questioned about his meetings with Russia's ambassador, the head of a major Russian bank, and a Russian lawyer, among other things.

"We certainly want to know about several of the meetings that have been alleged to have taken place," Schiff told CBS televisions Face the Nation program July 23.

Schiff said that lawmakers "expect this is just going to be the first interview."

But Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, said he hoped the appearances would be "the last time that he has to talk about Russia."

The congressional investigations are being conducted separately from a probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed by the Justice Department in May to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the election and any possible collusion by Trump's team.

The U.S. intelligence community issued an assessment in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "influence campaign" targeting the U.S. election, with goals that included undermining trust in the U.S. electoral process, denigrating Clinton, and helping Trump.

Russia denies meddling, despite what critics say is strong evidence, and Trump denies any collusion.

The controversy has cast a shadow over Trump's presidency and hindered what he suggested during the campaign would be efforts to improve badly strained ties between Washington and Moscow.



With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
Pakistani officials say at least 14 people have been killed in a blast in the eastern city of Lahore.

The explosion occurred July 24 on a busy road in Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province.

Police cordoned off the area and ambulances rushed to the scene to carry the wounded to nearby hospitals.

Jam Sajjad Hussain, a spokesperson for the Punjab rescue service, told dpa that 20 people were wounded in the blast.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told a press conference that most of the casualties were police officers and some bystanders.

"It is not yet confirmed if it is an incident of terrorism or an accidental explosion," he said.

Lahore has been the scene of deadly militant attacks in the past decade, although they have been less frequent in recent years.

With reporting by AFP and dpa
Toomaj Salehi's lyrical support for protesters in Iran has landed him behind bars before, but this time the popular rapper's fortune-telling has fans and family members fearing for his life.

Just days before his September 30 arrest, the 32-year-old Salehi released his latest music video, in which he makes foreboding predictions about the future of Iran's clerical regime if it continues its violent crackdown against ongoing anti-government demonstrations.

"I am the predictor, the fortune teller," he raps in the video for Omen, which shows him reading the patterns left in his coffee cup and warning that brute force will not prevail.

"I saw a cage in the coffee grounds -- a lion was hunting a jackal," he explains, alluding to a fairy tale about wisdom defeating physical strength. "We will rise from the bottom and target the top of the pyramid."

Salehi goes on to warn that the regime's protectors -- including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Basij paramilitary forces, the Intelligence Ministry, and the state media -- will all get their day in court.

Salehi followed up on the new video by posting on social media images of him standing alongside protesters and chanting against security forces in his native city in Isfahan Province. The rapper, an ethnic Lur who was arrested last year after releasing other songs critical of the government, offered to turn himself in if protesters detained in his hometown of Shahinshahr were released.

In subsequent posts, he called the provincial authorities "cowardly vermin" and "scum who suppress and arrest [innocent] people."

Shortly afterward, Salehi went missing and has not been heard from since.

State media reported on September 30 that Salehi had been arrested, and a news agency close to the IRGC published a photo of the blindfolded rapper inside a car.

A short video later released by a press club associated with Iran's state broadcaster purports to show the rapper admitting he made a mistake.

But the reports' claims he had been caught while "illegally exiting the western borders of the country" have been fiercely disputed, and the video confession has been labeled a fake by some and a coerced confession by others.

Family members as well as Salehi's official Twitter account have said the rapper was, in fact, arrested in the southwestern Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, hundreds of kilometers from Iran's western border.

In a statement, Salehi's uncle Eghbal Eghbali said his nephew was in the province's city of Borujen on the morning of September 30 when he wrote saying "suspicious things" were happening outside his home. Soon after, Salehi stopped communicating. Eghbali said he learned from Salehi's neighbors and friends that security personnel had arrived to take the rapper away.

Later on September 30, a prosecutor in nearby Isfahan Province was quoted by the Meezan news agency, which is close to Iran's judiciary, as saying Salehi was arrested "in one of the provinces of the country." The prosecutor alleged the rapper had played a key role in "creating disturbances and inviting and encouraging the recent disturbances in Isfahan Province and in Shahinshahr."

The official IRNA news agency, meanwhile, quoted a judiciary official from Isfahan Province as saying Salehi stood accused of "propagandistic activity against the government, cooperation with hostile governments, and the formation of illegal groups with the intention of creating insecurity in the country."

Thousands of Iranians, many of them from the younger generation, have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died shortly after being arrested for allegedly violating Iran's hijab law requiring that women cover their hair.

As the protests have continued, the authorities have intensified their crackdown, resulting in the deaths of at least 305 people, including 41 children, according to the latest figures released by the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) on November 6.

Salehi is among the hundreds of prominent young voices, including activists, artists, and athletes, who have been arrested for speaking out against the states bloody crackdown on the protests. Overall, activists estimate thousands of people have been arrested by the authorities since the rallies erupted.

Faced with a potential existential threat to Iran's clerical rule, 227 of 290 Iranian lawmakers this week called for even greater force by urging the judiciary to "deal decisively" with those behind the protests.

In recent years, Salehi has gained notoriety for his open opposition to the country's leadership, using his music and social media presence to take on issues that resonate with Iranian youths.

In the song Normal, he highlights the effects of poverty, saying "Our children sleep hungry at night" and asking Iran's leaders how their conscience can let them sleep.

The song Rathole, released in 2021, accuses members of the media and art community both inside and outside Iran of being an "ally of the tyrant," a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In another song, he blasts Tehran's close relationships with Moscow and Beijing, asking: "Haven't you robbed us enough? Now, you want to give away half [of our resources] to China and the rest to Russia."

Salehi was detained in September 2021 after security agents raided his home in Isfahan, with Human Rights Watch decrying the detention of the artist for "exercising his right to freedom of expression."

Salehi was charged with "spreading propaganda against the state," but after more than a week was released on bail. In January, he was sentenced to six months in prison but was released on a suspended sentence in February.

While out, he continued his work and released Omen amid the states increasingly violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

"Someone's crime was dancing with her hair in the wind," he raps. "Someone's crime was that she was brave and criticized."

Listing a litany of violent acts carried out by the authorities against protesters, Salehi asks, "How many young people did you kill building a tower for yourself?" and predicts that next year, the 44th year of the clerical regime's rule, will be its "year of failure."

Salehi's arrest has led to widespread condemnation inside and outside Iran, and his advocates have spread the #FreeToomaj hashtag on Twitter to shed light on his situation.

His family has said they do not know Salehi's whereabouts or health, leaving them wondering if he is even alive.

But the authorities have shed some light on the fate of another Iranian rapper arrested shortly before Salehi. The judiciary announced on November 7 that Saman Yasin, a rapper from Kermanshah Province -- a northwestern region with a significant Kurdish population and that has been a focus of the government crackdown -- has been accused of waging "warfare" against Iran and acting against the country's security.

Based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, with contributions by RFE/RL senior correspondent Michael Scollon
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Polish President Andrzej Duda says he will veto controversial judiciary reform legislation that has sparked large protests and drawn warnings from the European Union.

Duda said on July 24 that would veto two of three bills that opponents fear would erode the division of powers in the EU country and give the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) too much influence over the courts.

"I have decided that I will send [the bill] back to [the] Sejm (lower house of parliament), which means I will veto the bill, on the Supreme Court, as well as the one about the National Council of the Judiciary," Duda said.

Before the reforms became law, they required the approval of the Duda.

"As president, I don't feel this law would strengthen a sense of justice," Duda said in a statement broadcast on national television.

Prime Minister Beata Szydlo later on July 24 criticized Duda's plan to veto the bills, saying it was necessary to reform the court system and that previous governments had been unwilling to deal with the matter.

The prime minister said the move would slow the pace of reform but that "we will not back down from the path of repairing the state."

The Supreme Court bill would have given the justice minister, who is also the prosecutor-general, power to appoint judges.

Duda spoke ahead of planned discussions with top judiciary officials that were aimed at resolving the dispute over the reform bills, which were initiated by PiS and passed by the Senate.

Duda is closely aligned with the PiS and has backed its agenda since he became president in 2015.

The PiS has rejected claims that the reforms were a move toward authoritarian rule.

The European Commission had warned that it could suspend Poland's voting rights if it went ahead with the changes.

On July 24, Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of a liberal alliance in the European Parliament, wrote on Twitter that Duda "made the right decision. But the fight for rule of law in Poland goes on -- we are with the Polish people!"

Tens of thousands of protesters have demonstrated across Poland since July 19 to oppose the legislation and urge Duda to veto it.

In the capital, Warsaw, demonstrators on July 23 rallied in front of the presidential palace, waving Polish and European Union flags and signs and shouting, "We want a veto!" "Free court!" "Freedom, equality, democracy!" and Free Poland!"

Rallies against the legislation also took place in Krakow, Wroclaw, and other Polish cities. Polish supporters held smaller rallies in Paris, Brussels, London, and other European cities as well.

With reporting by Reuters, dpa, and AP
Russia and the European Union are both expressing concern about proposed new U.S. sanctions against Moscow, focusing in particular on how they might affect joint energy projects.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman and EU officials spoke on July 24, a day after the White House said that President Donald Trump is open to new legislation that would slap fresh sanctions on Russia and limit his ability to ease or lift them by himself.

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives reached agreement on the legislation last week, and the House could vote on it on July 26.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia is "working with our European partners on implementing a number of large-scale projects," when asked about the possible impact of the new U.S. sanctions on projects like Nord Stream 2.

"It goes without saying that we and our European partners attach great importance to finishing these projects and we will work towards this," Peskov said in response to a question about the potential effects of sanctions on projects such as Nord Stream 2, a pipeline that is to carry Russian gas across the Baltic Sea to Europe.

"That is why discussions about 'sanctions themes' -- which could potentially obstruct these projects -- are a cause of concern for us," he said.

In Brussels, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that the EU is "activating all diplomatic channels to address these concerns [about] the U.S. measures with our U.S. counterparts."

"For us, G7 unity regarding sanctions is of key importance, as...is respect of the implementation of the Minsk agreement," he said, referring to the Western-backed 2015 agreement on a cease-fire and steps to end the conflict between Russia-backed separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine.

"So we in the European Union will have interest in this discussion and we expect these interests to be addressed by the...legislative process which is ongoing in the U.S.," Schinas told a news conference.

The EU and the United States have imposed sanctions on Russia over its involvement in the war, which has killed more than 10,000 people since April 2014, and over Russia's occupation and seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014.

On July 23, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "We support where the legislation is now and will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved."

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to improve ties with Moscow, triggering bipartisan concern in Congress that he could lift or ease sanctions against Russia.

The bill would require Trump to send a report to Congress outlining why the administration wants to suspend or terminate any sanctions against Russia. Lawmakers would then have one month to decide whether to allow such a move.

His refusal to do so would be likely to trigger political backlash in Washington, given the ongoing FBI and congressional investigations into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election and contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials.

But two senior U.S. senators said on July 23 that the legislation is likely to pass the Senate with enough support to override a possible veto by Trump.

With reporting by RFE/RL correspondent Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels, Reuters, and TASS
Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak says Nigeria and Libya should join an agreement brokered by OPEC, Russia, and others to cut oil output as soon as the two countries output stabilizes.

Novak made the comments on July 23 in an interview with The Financial Times ahead of a meeting by OPEC and non-OPEC oil ministers in St. Petersburg on July 24 to discuss the effects on pricing as production rises in Nigeria and Libya.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and several other producers outside OPEC joined Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and other cartel members in a November 2015 agreement to cut global production in an effort to boost lagging prices.

The effort has had limited success, especially as production ramps up in Nigeria and Libya, along with rising shale output in the United States, which is not part of the agreement.

I think that these countries (Nigeria and Libya) should join other responsible oil producers and contribute to the market stabilization initiative as they reach a stable level of output, Novak told The Financial Times.

We believe that once oil output in Libya and Nigeria stabilizes, there will be less uncertainty on the market as to their future moves, said Novak, who added that the issue would be on the agenda of the July 24 meeting.

The Arab News reported that some ministers may seek to have the two countries formally asked to join the accord.

The agreement, which seeks to cut total output by 1.8 million barrels a day, initially helped lift oil prices. But they are down about 13 percent in 2017.

Separately, Novak told the Financial Times that Russia was looking to continue widening its ties to Saudi Arabias energy sector.

Russian and Saudi companies are exploring opportunities in both oil and gas sectors, he said. We also remain proactive in our dialogue with our Saudi partners on technology cooperation between our countries.

With reporting by The Financial Times, The Arab News, and TASS
A top Russian military official says military police have deployed to the eastern suburbs of the Syrian capital, Damascus, where they will monitor a cease-fire in the safe zone there.



Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi told reporters July 24 that that Russian soldiers set up two checkpoints and four monitoring posts in the eastern Ghouta district.



It wasn't immediately clear how many soldiers had been sent to the area. Russia has had a sizable contingent of air force units and supporting troops operating out of an air base in the coastal province of Latakia.



The zone is one of four proposed in a plan approved by Russia, Iran, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Turkey.



Under the Russian plan, Assad's air force would halt flights over designated areas across the country.



The ministry also said talks on creating a new de-escalation zone in Idlib Province were continuing.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
A Russian opposition activist who is in prison after being convicted of assaulting police during a protest has started a hunger strike.

Rights activist Yelena Efros told Ekho Moskvy radio on July 24 that Sergei Mokhnatkin is protesting the failure of administrators of the prison in the remote northern town of Kotlas to provide him with adequate medical care.

Mokhnatkin, 63, was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison in 2014 after being found guilty of assaulting two police officers during a December 2013 antigovernment protest in Moscow.

He says prison guards beat him severely in March 2016, damaging his spine, after he refused to be transferred from one facility to another without a written ruling.

Mokhnatkin was charged with insulting a guard and disrupting prison operations and in March 2017 was sentenced to two additional years.

Mokhnatkin first came to prominence in 2009 when he was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of attacking a police officer during another opposition rally. He was pardoned by then-President Dmitry Medvedev in April 2012, one month before Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency.

With reporting by Ekho Moskvy
A Moscow court has ordered a university instructor accused of trying to stoke mass disorder through anonymous Internet postings and republishing a Kanye West rap video be transferred from prison to house arrest.

The Presnensky district court also on July 24 restricted Dmitry Bogatovs access to the Internet and his use of cell phones until the end of August.

Bogatov, a software programmer who also teaches math at a Moscow university, was arrested in April after being accused by law enforcement of writing a series of anonymous Internet posts calling for mass disorder in central Moscow.

The posts were tied to an unauthorized anticorruption demonstration in Moscow on April 2.

According to investigators, they called for people to bring weapons to Red Square. One also linked to a video clip by American rap stars Kanye West and Jay-Z, which shows demonstrators throwing Molotov cocktails and people clashing with riot police in what appears to be a European city.

WATCH: The video that investigators claim Bogatov shared.

Bogatov, 25, denied the charges, saying he never visited the Internet chat forum where the posts were published.



Dozens of people were detained during the April 2 protest, which came a week after thousands of people took to the streets in a rally organized by anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny.

More than 1,000 were detained during the earlier demonstration.

Rights activists criticized the case against Bogatov, saying he was targeted because of his use of Tor, an Internet tool that shields users identities from surveillance.

Russia in recent years has stepped up its policing of online content it deems extremist in nature.

It has also prosecuted government critics over Internet posts that free speech advocates say are protected by the constitution.

Russian security agencies have also aggressively sought to curtail the use of anonymizing software like Tor and encrypted chat technology.



With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service and Current Time TV
ON MY MIND

Russia appears ready to switch to Plan C on Ukraine.

Plan A, of course, was to seize all of that which Moscow called Novorossia, the crescent-shaped strip of land stretching from Kharkiv to Odesa, creating a land bridge to Crimea.

That plan failed when locals in much of eastern Ukraine proved more loyal to Kyiv than expected and the Ukrainian armed forces performed much better than anybody dared hope.

The Kremlin then switched to Plan B: Force Kyiv to reintegrate the Moscow-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts into a decentralized (and dysfunctional) Ukraine.

But Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has played a very bad hand very well and has prevented Moscow from getting its way in implementing the Minsk peace deal.

And now, with the call by Moscow-backed separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko for a new state called Malorossia, with its capital in Donetsk, to replace Ukraine, it appears Russia is shifting to Plan C: a fresh effort to destabilize Ukraine.

As I note on today's Daily Vertical, when Russia starts dreaming up new names for Ukraine, it's usually a sign that trouble is on the way.

IN THE NEWS

U.S. President Donald Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is scheduled to meet with the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 24 as part of an investigation into contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

The White House says it is open to new legislation that would slap new sanctions on Russia and limit U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to ease or lift them by himself.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Moscow on July 23 to protest Internet censorship and demand the resignation of the head of Russia's state media regulator.

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told a security conference that Russia is the most capable state actor that the United States faces, but it is just one of many security challenges in todays environment.

Sergei Kislyak, Russias controversial ambassador to Washington, departed from the United States as he ended his nine-year term as Moscows chief diplomat to its main global rival.

Lawmakers of the pro-Moscow breakaway region of Transdniester assailed calls by the Moldovan government that Russia pull its troops out of the territory.

THE POWER VERTICAL IN WASHINGTON

I had the honor of addressing the U.S. Helsinki Commission in Washington last week at a briefing on Kleptocrats Of The Kremlin. Joining me on the panel were Ilya Zaslavskiy of the Free Russia Foundation, Anders Aslund of the Atlantic Council, Marius Laurinavicius of the Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, and Ambassador Daniel Fried of the Atlantic Council. You can watch the video here.

NEW POWER VERTICAL BRIEFING

On this week's Power Vertical Briefing, we look ahead to a new round of diplomacy on Ukraine as Russia tries to shake up the status quo.

WHAT I'M READING

Trump And Putin

In a piece for The Atlantic, Mark Galeotti of the Institute for International Relations in Prague asks: "Is Trump bad news for Putin?"

And in Vanity Fair, Peter Savodnik looks at how the Kremlin views Trump.

A Tank's Rough Ride

War Is Boring looks at the role of BMD fighting vehicles in the war in the Donbas.

Escalation In The Donbas

In the Jamestown Foundation's Daily Monitor, Pavel Felgenhauer looks at the recent escalation in the Donbas and what it says about Russia's intentions in Ukraine.

What Are 'Traditional Values'?

In Republic.ru, Maksim Trudolyubov looks at Russia's "traditional values" and explains why the Russian Orthodox Church "doesn't believe in human rights."

Russian Diplomatic Compounds

Foreign Policy has provided a guide to Russia's diplomatic properties in Washington.

The Evolution Of Putin's Praetorian Guard

In Intersection magazine, political analyst Pavel Luzin looks at the evolution of Russia's National Guard, one year after its creation.
20 Members of Russian opposition parties take part in a march for a free Internet in central Moscow on July 23. The protest came amid a broad crackdown on online speech in recent years that rights activists say is targeting legitimate dissent under the pretext of battling extremism. (AFP/Mladen Antonov)
The German government says Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine have agreed on a number of "immediate measures" to push forward with a peace deal brokered in 2015 to end the bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The government in Berlin said late on July 24 that the so-called Normandy Group called for the immediate halt to all violations of the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists are fighting forces of the central government in Kyiv.

A statement after a two-hour phone conversation between the leaders of the four countries said separating Ukrainian troops and Russia-aligned fighters and the withdrawal of heavy weapons also are priorities.

Details on specific measures were not immediately provided.

A 2015 peace plan known as the Minsk accords has failed to stop fighting in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people since erupting in April 2014.

All previous cease-fire calls have failed, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the Group of 20 meeting in early July that progress in efforts to end the violence had been "very, very slow."

In the July 24 phone call, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko demanded that Russia stop sending weapons to the separatists and called for deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force in the conflict regions near the Russian border.

Poroshenkos office said in a statement that President Emmanuel Macron criticized last week's announcement by a separatist leader who said he wanted to establish a new state in Ukraine called Malorossia, or Little Russia.

The Kremlin said in a statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin "presented in great detail Russia's approach on all key points of the [Minsk] agreement."

The United States and other Western nations have imposed sanctions on Moscow after it illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea region and for its support of separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.

Russia denies providing weapons and personnel to the separatists, despite evidence of such support.

A representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which independently monitors the conflict, also participated in the call, officials said.

The talks came as the newly appointed U.S. envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, traveled to Kyiv in an effort to revitalize the Minsk deal.

With reporting by dpa, The Kyiv Post, and AP
The U.S. special envoy to Ukraine has described the violence in the eastern part of the country as a "hot war." Kurt Volker said Russian aggression was to blame for the ongoing fighting, which he said should not be regarded as a "frozen conflict." Volker made the comments during a visit to the Ukrainian government-controlled town of Kramatorsk on July 23, near territory held by Russia-backed separatists. (Reuters)
Mr. Rajiv Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Auto Limited announced a new product strategy, which will be implemented by December 2017. The automaker plans to launch new products under each of its sub-brands which include the Discover, Pulsar, Avenger and Dominar.

Bajaj Auto Limited sales volumes fell 11% during the June quarter with a 22% fall in motorcycle sales and 30% decline in sales of 3 wheelers. Demand from company dealerships across the country also dipped just ahead of the implementation of Goods and Services Tax from 1st July 2017. Though sales in domestic markets dipped, the company has noted that current export markets are recovering and Bajaj Auto plans on entering new markets.

The new product lineup is promised by December 2017 and the new products will fall under the companys seven brands of CT, Platina, Discover, V , Avenger, Pulsar, Dominar. Opening of three wheeler permits and promises of permissions to sell quadricycles along with a more positive emphasis on the motorcycle market is all expected to allow Bajaj Auto Limited to reach its targeted market share.

It is not clear as to what Bajaj plans to do when they say that they will launch new products under their motorcycle brands. In the past, they have launched same motorcycles with revised styling, new colour options, etc, and called them as new. Will this be the case this time around as well? Or will Bajaj actually offer new motorcycles under their Dominar, Pulsar, Avenger range?

If they do offer new range of motorcycles, it will indeed be interesting. This in addition to the fact that they are closing in on announcing their new acquisition (most likely Ducati). More on that can be read here.

In terms of global markets, Bajaj Auto Limited, which currently exports to various markets in the Southeast Asian region that includes Philippines, Singapore and Myanmar will also be exporting bikes and three wheelers to Thailand. The company has noted good response from Malaysia while exports to Africa and Latin America has also noticed increased demand.
Just when did humans first start affecting the climate?

Posted on 13 January 2015 by howardlee

Fire!

Homo incendius  fire man  is an informal nickname for our ancestors who first learned how to make fire. As one of the quintessential human attributes, you might expect fire-making to have arisen along with our own species, Homo sapiens when we emerged in Africa some 208,000 years ago.

Nope.

You have to go much further back in time, before Neanderthals and even before the earlier Homo heidelbergensis. The first solid evidence for our ancestors regular use of fire dates to 1 million years ago, and possibly as far back as 1.5 million years ago. Thats during the reign of Homo erectus  our first fire-making, food-cooking, big-game-hunting, art-making, intercontinental-travelling ancestor.

Homo erectus a.k.a. Homo incendius (Source: Cicero Moraes - via Wikimedia Commons)

Homo erectus took fire-making skills to the Levant and all the way to China by about 770,000 years ago, but strangely our contemporary ancestors who traveled to the fringes of the ice sheets in Europe dont seem to have been habitual fire-users until much later - about 400,000 years ago.

Our pre-agricultural ancestors may have set fire to their surroundings by accident or deliberately to flush out prey or predators. Either way they left traces of their activity in the form of changes in the quantities and type of charcoal washed into lakes or blown into the dust deposits, later to be recorded by scientists. From records like these it seems that humans were already disrupting of the natural feedbacks between climate, fire regime, and vegetation in a small way as long as 150,000 years ago. Wherever our early ancestors went they affected their regional environment directly through burning and indirectly by removing large browsing animals, with consequential changes to vegetation distribution, but our population was too small (perhaps a few hundred thousand people in all the world 100,000 years ago) to have much impact on global Pleistocene climate.

Pre-industrial, human-caused global warming

Feeding a growing population

Domestication of crops began in the Middle East around 12,000 years ago and by 8,000 years ago people there had become dependent on agriculture for most of their food. Around 7,500 years ago people across a large area of Europe and Egypt began farming those same Middle-Eastern crops, along with domesticated cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats. In China, people began to farm millet and dryland rice around 9,500 years ago, followed by rice farming in flooded paddy fields around 6,500 years ago. Between 7,000 and 5,000 years ago the number of farmed sites in China multiplied a staggering forty-fold!

In South Asia, livestock farming began around 7,000 years ago, spreading across much of Eurasia by about 1,000 years ago. In Sub-Saharan Africa crops like millet, yam, oil palm and Kola nuts were cultivated from around 5,000 years ago, with other crops added later. As the global climate cooled and the summer monsoon weakened, herders moved south from the Sahara, introducing livestock southwards as they went.

In the Americas people began to domesticate various kinds of squash around 10,000 years ago, adding beans, tomatoes and other vegetables later. By 8,700 years ago they had begun to cultivate maize (corn), but it took until 4,300 years ago for human selection to evolve maize with cobs big enough for people to cease dependence on wild foods. Large parts of South America became cultivated, and in North America farming-supported cultures spread through the land surrounding the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio rivers from around 2,500 years ago, to the point that by the 16th century much of the region was thickly inhabited.

Burning and breeding

Across the world people cleared forests to make space for agriculture. They used stone tools like the ax in the photo below to girdle (ring-bark) trees until they died, then set fire to the dead wood during dry spells, before planting in the clearings. This earliest farming used extravagant amounts of land compared to today's practices, requiring around 4 hectares (8-9 acres) per person, because of the need to let soil recover ("long fallow") and because there was much less competition for land due to lower populations.

But those farm-fed populations grew dramatically. In Europe the population was well under 1 million at the dawn of agriculture, but by 2,000 years ago it had reached 30 million! In China the intense rice-based agriculture supported a dramatic population rise to about 60 million people by 2,500 years ago. And in the Americas, by the time of the earliest European contact, the population was around 40-60 million, or about 10% of the global population.

An approximately 4,000 year old neolithic stone ax from Langdale in England. By JMiall CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Dwindling resources

By the Roman era, European deforestation was already so extensive that lumber for ship building had to be imported from the far reaches of the empire. By then half the forests of Europe had been eliminated, a process that continued until rulers protected the remaining tracts of woodland by banning commoners from them in the Middle Ages. In China, intense deforestation forced people to burn coal for heat in lieu of wood by the year 400.

By 1600 all but 5-15% of Western Europe had been deforested and there was a growing need to get ever more food from the available land to sustain rising populations. This triggered a number of farming innovations (better plows, windmills to drain wetlands, manure fertilizer, a shorter fallow period, animal husbandry, imported American crops like potatoes), which delivered enough food to sustain a European population of 180 million by 1800 (also helped by better sanitation and medicine).

Pre-industrial greenhouse gas rises

The timing of the widespread adoption of agriculture across Eurasia coincides with increases in atmospheric CO 2 and methane levels recorded in ice cores.

Trends in CO 2 and methane (CH 4 ): red current interglacial (Holocene), dark blue average of prior interglacials over the last 800,000 years aligned by insolation to match early Holocene trend, light blue - standard deviation of dark blue. Source: Ruddiman, et al: Does pre-industrial warming double the anthropogenic total? The Anthropocene Review 2014 1: 147 (annotations added for this article)

Methane and CO 2 levels had been declining from around 10,000 years ago, in line with the natural cooling climate due to changes in Earths orbit, just as they had done in all the prior interglacials. But then they reversed their natural decline at around 6,000 years ago for CO 2 and 5,000 years ago for methane. This departure from the natural trend of all prior interglacials in the last 800,000 years was strong and sustained, eventually exceeding the natural range long before the industrial era.

How the spread of agriculture generated greenhouse warming

Most natural methane is emitted from wetlands, and cultivation of rice in wet paddies creates artificial wetlands, which are a significant source of manmade methane. Livestock is another significant source of methane.

Scientists calculated the rise of pre-industrial methane with the help of a GIS (Geographic Information System) populated with archaeological data on the spread of rice farming and also the spread of livestock. They found that the modeled methane increase from both sources tracks the rise of atmospheric methane recorded in ice cores, although calculations suggest that both human-caused and natural sources of methane are needed to explain the methane levels recorded in ice cores.

That methane is gradually oxidized to CO 2 at rates of about 540 million tonnes per year. But most of the CO 2 was emitted from tree burning and decay, which combines carbon in the wood with oxygen to make CO 2 . Scientists have calculated that the carbon emitted by the land clearance between 7,000 years ago and the industrial era was around 340 billion tons of carbon, a figure that dwarfs natural emissions. Much of that was returned to the ground in Arctic peat bogs, but the remainder, along with methane, kept the climate warmer by between 0.7C and 1.2C than it would otherwise have been. That is roughly the same as the industrial era warming that has occurred since then, but industrial warming is packed into a time period less than 4% as long as the pre-industrial era.

The significance of that warming is that it kept our world from sliding back into the next ice age, which was the natural order of prior interglacial-to-glacial cycles, controlled by wobbles in Earth's orbit around the Sun. In fact, without that extra CO 2 and methane, year-round snow would by now be blanketing parts of northern Canada and Eurasia as precursors of the ice sheets typical of ice-age glaciations.

War, Famine, Pestilence, Death!

By the Roman era, population growth, trade, and large-scale movements of armies brought with them the fabled four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Between the years 200 and 600 the population of Europe declined by about 40% (10 million people) through a sequence of plagues: Galen's Plague and the Plague of Cyprian (both possibly smallpox), and the Plague of Justinian (bubonic plague). As a result, farms and villages were abandoned and reclaimed by forests as Europe experienced its "Dark Ages."

Plague struck Europe again between 1347 and 1352 - the "Black Death." Around 30% of the European population died (25 million people). Entire villages were wiped out and crops were left unharvested. In populous areas abandoned farms were soon taken over by others, but in more remote parts of Northern Europe many farms reverted to the wild.

Invasions and civil strife in China between the years 200 and 600 caused the loss of some 15 million people (around 7.5% of global population). Later the Mongol invasion caused a population decline between the years 1200 and 1400. Around 30 million people perished, mostly as a result of starvation resulting from the Mongol destruction of rice paddy infrastructure. Later, in the 1600s, war and smallpox claimed 20 million lives.

But those losses pale when compared to the event which Bill Ruddiman has called: "arguably the greatest tragedy in all of human history."

European contact in the Americas introduced smallpox, swine 'flu, measles, tuberculosis, whooping cough, anthrax, brucellosis, leptospirosis, and malaria, both by personal contact and via the introduction of livestock. Known as "The Virgin Soil Pandemic," it caused the loss of some 50 million people or 85-90% of the combined American population over a century starting around the year 1525. Entire cultures collapsed and the old settlements, farms, buildings, monuments, roads and earthen mounds were abandoned to nature.

These episodes of abandonment and reforestation are reflected by reductions in CO 2 levels recorded in ice cores.

Population decreases and CO 2 decreases recorded in ice cores from the Law Dome over the last 2000 years alongside global temperatures, Total Solar Irradiance, and major volcanic eruptions. Population and CO 2 redrawn from Ruddiman 2014 "Earth Transformed" figure E-6 (W H Freeman), Temperature anomaly redrawn from Marcott et al 2013 figure S11(c), Volcanic sulfate redrawn from Sigl et al 2013, TSI redrawn from Steinhilber et al 2009 (0=1986 (1365.57 Wm2)).

Calculations of the American population collapse suggest that about 37 billion tons of carbon was captured and sequestered from the atmosphere at that time. This is a staggering quantity of CO 2 drawdown over such a short time, and likely contributed to the cooling of the Little Ice Age (see the figure above).

Industrial Warming Crecendo

Pre-industrial human influence kept the climate warmer than it would otherwise have been, insulating us and delaying the normal slide back into the next ice age that had happened at the tail end of all the prior interglacial periods. But although their effect was diminished, natural orbital changes did not relinquish overall control on our climate, which carried on cooling over the last 6,000 years despite pre-industrial emissions. When CO 2 levels were reduced by the American population collapse, our climate flirted with glacial conditions in the Little Ice Age.

But everything changed in the industrial era, when humans finally snatched control of the climate away from the natural, orbitally-driven cycles that had governed the climate and punctuated our evolution and dispersal throughout the last several million years.

In just the last century or two, 6,000 years of orbitally-driven cooling temperatures have been entirely reversed! (see the graph below). That's because greenhouse gasses are now 68% more abundant in the atmosphere than they were in 1750, and the trend is sharply higher still, to levels and temperatures not seen since long before the evolution of our first fire-making ancestor, Homo erectus.

Temperature reconstruction for the last 11,300 years by Marcott et al, plus recent temperatures (HadCRUT4) Created by Tamino.

Continued debate

It's fair to say that the Early Anthropocene Hypothesis hasn't yet gained universal acceptance (as the IPCC AR5 highlights). Some of the debate has centered on the relative contribution of natural versus human-caused contributions to pre-industrial climate. Some of the debate has suggested that the MIS 11 interglacial shows a similar late uptick in greenhouse gas levels depending on the method of comparing the timing of different interglacials. But Ruddiman et al gave a detailed defense of their methods in 2011, and an expanded treatment of alternative explanations for the data can be found in Ruddiman's book: "Earth Transformed." Over the past 14 years the theory has garnered support from longer ice core records, expanded archaeological evidence, and improved estimates of population and land cover.

Further reading

Bill Ruddiman's 2014 book: "Earth Transformed" (published by W.H. Freeman) is a fascinating, readable, and well-reasoned examination of the topic for those who want to delve into more detail than space here allows. Even though the book was written for undergraduates, its use of plain English makes it an easy read for a general audience too.

The book is the source for all content in this post not otherwise attributed.

I'd like to thank Andy Skuce and John Mashey for helpful comments and suggestions
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A mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars. This view is similar to what one would see from a spacecraft, according to NASA.

The Trojan asteroids that follow Mars in its orbit might have come from the planet itself, blown off in an ancient impact rather than being late arrivals, a new study suggests.

Several planets in Earth's solar system have Trojan asteroids  bodies that run ahead of or behind the planet. Jupiter, for example, has thousands. Earth has at least one, discovered in 2010. Uranus, Neptune and Venus also have them. Trojan asteroids are so called because the first ones to be discovered were named for figures from the Trojan War, including Achilles and Agamemnon. NASA plans to launch a mission in 2021, called Lucy, to study six of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.

David Polishook, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and lead author on the new study, posits that the Trojans following Mars were blasted off the surface of the young planet at least a billion years ago, and settled into their current positions soon after that. [Mars Myths & Misconceptions: Quiz]

Trojans orbit at Lagrange points, regions of gravitational stability numbered 1 through 5, where an object that is a small fraction of the mass of a planet and the sun, such as an asteroid, will maintain its position.

Around Mars, for example, Lagrange point No. 1 (or L1) is on an imaginary line connecting Mars and the sun, while L2 is directly behind the planet if one extends that same line. Extend the line through the sun so that it touches the point in Mars' orbit exactly opposite the planet to reach L3. L4 and L5 are at points 60 degrees ahead and behind Mars along its orbit. (If you draw lines between L4, L5, Mars and the sun, you get two equilateral triangles.) Mars' Trojan asteroids are at L4 and L5.

Mars has nine Trojan asteroids, the study notes. One, called 1999 UJ7, runs ahead of the planet at the L4 position. Three others, 5261 Eureka, 2001 DH47 and 2007 NS2, travel behind at L5. Astronomers had already studied the reflected light from Eureka and noted that the object was rich in the mineral olivine.

The new study shows that 2001 DH47 and 2007 NS2 also are rich in olivine. Olivine is rare in asteroids, but it is common in larger bodies  and occurs on Mars in impact basins.

An artist's concept of NASAs Lucy mission, which will study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. (Image credit: Southwest Research Institute)

"This mineral crystallizes in high pressure, for example in the mantle of terrestrial planets," Polishook told Space.com, "Mars, Earth and Venus have olivine, too, but dynamically speaking, it is much easier for Mars to capture Martian ejecta than to capture Earth, lunar or Venus ejecta."

That, Polishook told Space.com, is one good reason to think that the Trojans were pieces of Mars. Earlier studies estimated the age of Eureka is about 1 billion years, so that means the cluster of Trojans has to be at least that old.

The question, though, is how such large pieces of Mars settled into the Trojan orbit at the L4 and L5 points. Polishook thinks it happened because Mars and Jupiter  the latter, especially  have both migrated from the positions they were in when they formed.

Mars' orbit, like many of the planets, changed in the early solar system. As this change progressed, bits of the planet that blasted off in an impact, which might ordinarily have escaped or remained in orbit around the planet itself, ended up as Trojan asteroids, Polishook said. "If ejecta are present within a new orbit of Mars, then they may be captured into a Trojan orbit."

The Trojans could be captured this way only early in the solar system's history  once the planets settled into their current positions, any bodies that ended up in Trojan orbits would tend to stay there, and any subsequent planetary migrations would free existing Trojans, Polishook said.

The study appears in Monday's (July 17) issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
NASA, SpaceX and Boeing expect test flights of their Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner vehicles to take place next year after extensive delays.

WASHINGTON  Both NASA and the two companies developing commercial crew vehicles say those efforts remain on schedule for test flights that are in some cases less than a year away.

NASA published July 20 what it called "the most recent publicly-releasable dates" of the test flights of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicles. Each company, under terms of Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts awarded in September 2014, are required to first fly an uncrewed test flight of their spacecraft, followed by one with astronauts on board.

The latest SpaceX schedule calls for an uncrewed test flight in February 2018, followed by a crewed test flight in June 2018. Boeing's schedule anticipates an uncrewed test flight in June 2018 and a crewed test flight in August 2018.

Those scheduled have slipped considerably from the original CCtCap announcement. At that time, NASA expected both vehicles to have completed their test flights and be certified for regular crew transportation missions to the International Space Station by the end of 2017. Both companies have suffered technical problems that have pushed back those flights, in some cases by more than a year.

A leading NASA official, though, sounded more confident about the companies' efforts towards those 2018 test flights. "Commercial crew is making great progress," said Kirk Shireman, ISS program manager, in a July 18 speech at the ISS Research and Development Conference here.

"By the next ISS R&D Conference, I expect to have flown the first Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon flight," he said. The 2018 conference is scheduled for late July in San Francisco.

In an on-stage interview with Shireman at the conference July 19, SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk also expressed confidence his company's schedule. "Our primary focus will be on, particularly over the next year or so, our Dragon 2 spacecraft," he said, using the company's name for what NASA calls Crew Dragon.

"What's our primary focus? Making sure we stay on track for getting crew to station, as we promised NASA, around the middle of next year," he said. "That's going to be real exciting."

Musk acknowledged that developing the Crew Dragon spacecraft has been "way more difficult" than the cargo version of Dragon currently flying. "As soon as people enter the picture, it's really a giant step up in making sure things go right," he said. "The oversight from NASA is much tougher."

"We have some debates going into next year about some of the technical details," he said of SpaceX's relationship with NASA. However, he later described those debates as minor "technical bones of contention" on unspecified "esoteric" issues.

Boeing is also confident in its ability to maintain its schedule. "We are in the middle of a very aggressive test program," said Chris Ferguson, director of Starliner crew and mission systems at Boeing, during a July 20 panel session at the conference. Prior to the flight tests, he said, is a pad abort test planned for early 2018 at White Sands, New Mexico, as well as ongoing parachute and drop tests.

Ferguson, in his presentation, said the flight test program would run from June through December of 2018, followed by NASA certification, and in an interview earlier in the day said those launches would take place in the "latter part of next year." He clarified, though, that the schedule of June and August test flights remains in place.

"Our schedule hasn't changed from June," he said in the interview. "That said, we've got challenges we've got to deal with and we'll let the schedule fall out where it will."

Boeing may offer more clarity about that test flight schedule in the near future. Ferguson said that United Launch Alliance, who will launch the CST-100 on Atlas 5 rockets, requires a "non-handshake type of agreement" about 12 months before launch. "If there's going to be movement, of which there's been nothing planned yet, it's going have to occur soon just to keep it consistent with what ULA wants," he said.

Another upcoming milestone is the selection of a NASA astronaut to fly on the crewed flight test along with a Boeing test pilot. "Traditionally it's been about [launch] minus 12 months," he said of prior crew selections. "I think what they would like to do is have some schedule assurance before they go ahead and assign crews. Once they feel comfortable that they're about 12 months out from a crewed flight launch, I think you can see an assignment come out."

Ferguson said the first operational, or post-certification mission (PCM) for the CST-100 could fly as soon as next December, but that schedule is dependent on both the vehicle's development as well as ISS needs. "I think the next crewed mission to be assigned would launch in May of 2019," he said. "We're keeping a close eye on that. NASA has a void they'd like to fill there. We'd like to be there to fill it for them."

Originally published on SpaceNews.
The German space agency DLR plans to fly two physical sciences experiments on Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle when it resumes test flights later this year.

WASHINGTON  The German Aerospace Center, Germany's space agency, will fly two experiments on a suborbital flight by Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle later this year as part of an effort to diversify its microgravity research efforts.

Thomas Driebe, head of the physical and material sciences program at the center, known by the German acronym DLR, said in a presentation July 18 at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference here that the center planned to fly the physical sciences experiments under a commercial deal with Blue Origin.

"This is another opportunity for German scientists," he said in a brief discussion about the mission, scheduled for the second half of this year, during his presentation.

In a later interview, Driebe said one of the experiments will test a phenomenon known as photophoresis, the movement of particles suspended in a gas triggered by light. In astrophysics, photophoresis plays a role in the formation of planets in protoplanetary disks. The other experiment, he said, will test granular matter dynamics in microgravity.

DLR flies microgravity experiments on suborbital sounding rockets, but those opportunities are limited: two launches every three years, he said. "There, we really put in experiments which have a strong demand for the six and a half minutes of microgravity time that we have," he said, referring to the time on the sounding rocket flight where the payload is in weightlessness.

Commercial suborbital vehicles offer shorter times in microgravity. Blue Origin, on its website, advertises "approximately three minutes in a high-quality microgravity environment" on each New Shepard flight.

Cost is also a factor. "The sounding rockets are rather cost-intensive," Driebe said. "So this was an opportunity to put small payloads on another platform." DLR purchased the payload space on the New Shepard flight, he said, but he did not disclose the price the center paid. "Since it's one of the first flights, as far as I know there was a special discount."

New Shepard last flew in October 2016 on a test flight that demonstrated the abort system of the vehicle's crew capsule. The company has not given a specific timetable for future test flights, using newly-constructed capsules and propulsion modules, but has suggested they would resume later this year, including the first flights with people on board.

"We're going to go through the test program, and we'll put humans on it when we're happy," company founder Jeff Bezos said at a press conference in April during the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. "I don't think it's going to be 2017 at this point. It could be." He added that it commercial flights, carrying space tourists, could still begin by the end of 2018.

Blue Origin has marketed New Shepard both for suborbital space tourism and research payloads. While the vehicle has yet to carry people, some of the test flights of New Shepard in 2016 included science and technology demonstration payloads as part of a pathfinder program with selected research groups.

New Shepard joins a wide range of other platforms used by DLR for microgravity experiments, from drop towers that provide a few seconds of weightlessness to payloads flown on the ISS. Driebe said he has had discussions with companies like Nanoracks to send additional microgravity payloads to the station.

DLR also previously flew payloads on Foton, a Russian spacecraft that carried experiments into space for a few weeks at a time before returning them to Earth. However, the last Foton mission was in 2014, with no plans by the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos to fly additional missions.

"It's really a pity that we lose this platform for microgravity times of several weeks," he said, noting that it filled a gap between suborbital flights and extended ISS experiments.

Driebe said later that he had discussions several years ago with SpaceX about flying payloads on DragonLab, a version of the company's cargo spacecraft that would carry experiments on orbital flights lasting a few weeks. SpaceX announced plans in 2008 to launch two DragonLab missions in 2010 and 2011, but those missions have yet to fly and are no longer listed in the company's manifest of missions on its website.

"I can easily think of experiments to fill a DragonLab," he said. "It's just a matter of budget."

Originally published on Space News.
There probably aren't nearly as many giant planets zooming alone through the Milky Way galaxy as scientists had thought, a new study reports.

Previous research had suggested that huge "rogue" or "unbound" worlds, which have no discernible host star, are extremely common in the Milky Way, perhaps outnumbering stars by a factor of 2 to 1. But that's probably not the case, according to the new study.

"We found that Jupiter-mass [rogue] planets are at least 10 times less frequent than previously thought," study lead author Przemek Mroz, a researcher at the Warsaw University Observatory in Poland, told Space.com via email. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

Astronomers think most rogue planets were likely booted out of their native solar systems by interactions with neighboring planets. Scientists generally hunt for these lonely worlds using a technique called gravitational microlensing, which involves watching for a foreground object to pass in front of a distant star. When this happens, the closer body's gravity bends and magnifies the star's light, in ways that can reveal clues about the foreground object's mass and other characteristics.

A 2011 study, based on 474 microlensing events detected by a telescope in New Zealand, estimated that gas-giant rogue worlds are nearly twice as common as main-sequence ("normal") stars in the Milky Way. (The number of stars in our galaxy is a matter of debate, with estimates ranging from 100 billion to 1 trillion.)

In the new study, Mroz and his team analyzed a much bigger data set  more than 2,600 microlensing events that were detected between 2010 and 2015 by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). This survey, which is run by researchers at the University of Warsaw, depends primarily on observations made at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

The researchers determined that the Milky Way likely hosts a maximum of one Jupiter-like rogue for every four main-sequence stars  still a lot, but to be sure, but not nearly as many as the previous study had suggested.

The gravity of a free-floating rogue planet may deflect and focus light from a distant star when passing closely in front of it. Owing to the distorted image, the star temporarily seems much brighter. (Image credit: J. Skowron/Warsaw University Observatory)

The new results make sense on a number of levels, Mroz said.

"Our new microlensing observations are in agreement with theoretical expectations on the frequency of free-floating Jupiters and with infrared surveys for planetary-mass objects in star-forming regions," he said.

Intriguingly, the OGLE survey also spotted a few extremely brief microlensing events, which Mroz said were likely caused by much smaller worlds  ones about the size of Earth, or just a bit bigger.

"Because our sensitivity to such short events was very low, free-floating Earths should be very common, perhaps more frequent than stars, but we are unable to provide a precise number owing to [the] small number of detections," he told Space.com.

Increasing the number of ground-based microlensing detections would give astronomers a somewhat better understanding of the population of small rogue planets, Mroz said. But big gains may have to wait for future space observatories, such as Europe's Euclid mission and NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

"Thanks to the superb quality of photometry from space-based observatories and the possibility of continuous observations during approximately 100-day-long windows, future space-based missions, such as WFIRST and Euclid, will have the potential to explore the population of free-floating Earth-mass planets in more detail," Mroz and his colleagues wrote in the new study, which was published online today (July 24) in the journal Nature (opens in new tab).

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
A cargo container that was built to fly on NASA's space shuttles is being repurposed as a prototype for a deep space habitat.

Lockheed Martin announced it will refurbish the Donatello multi-purpose logistics module (MLPM), transforming from it from its original, unrealized role as a supply conveyor for the International Space Station to a test and training model of a living area for astronauts working beyond Earth orbit. The work is being done under a public-private partnership between the aerospace corporation and NASA. [Orion Explained: NASA's Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (Infographic)]

"We are excited to work with NASA to repurpose a historic piece of flight hardware," said Bill Pratt, Lockheed Martin's program manager for the deep space habitat contract, in a statement.

Donatello was one of three MPLMs that was designed to fly in the space shuttle payload bay to transfer cargo to the station. Built by the Italian Space Agency under a contract with NASA, two modules, Leonardo and Raffaello, flew on 12 shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011.

In February 2011, Leonardo became a permanent storage module for the station, in part by using insulation that was stripped from the never-flown Donatello.

Lockheed Martin will build its full-scale habitat prototype in the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the Donatello module has been located. The MPLM measures 21 feet long by 15 feet in diameter (6.4 by 4.6 meters).

In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, workers help the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Donatello settle onto a work stand in February 2004. (Image credit: NASA)

Over an 18-month period, Lockheed Martin will build upon its deep space habitat concept it developed during the first phase of NASA's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships, or NextSTEP, program by using virtual and augmented reality prototyping in an effort to reduce costs and schedule, as well as identify and address issues while early in the design process. The results, to be shared with the space agency, will help to further understanding of the systems, standards and interfaces needed to make living in deep space possible.

"It is easy to take things for granted when you are living at home, but the recently selected astronauts will face unique challenges," stated Pratt, referring to NASA's 2017 class of astronauts, who may be assigned to deep space missions. "Something as simple as calling your family is completely different when you are outside of low Earth orbit."

"While building this habitat," Pratt continued, "we have to operate in a different mindset that is more akin to long trips to Mars."

The deep space habitat is intended to be part of the Deep Space Gateway, a planned crew-tended spaceport in lunar orbit under development by NASA. In addition to the living module, the gateway, as proposed, includes a power bus, docking capability, an airlock and a propulsion module.

To be launched within he first few missions of the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket, the gateway could also eventually serve as a staging point for a transport for astronaut missions outward into the solar system, or as a staging ground for missions to the lunar surface.

In addition to the deep space habitat prototype, Lockheed will also build a deep space avionics integration laboratory in Houston to demonstrate command and control between the Deep Space Gateway and the Orion spacecraft, also being developed by the company. According to Lockheed Martin, the lab will "help reduce risk associated with critical data interfaces" between gateway elements and "provide an environment for astronauts to train for various mission scenarios."

Lockheed Martin artist rendering of the NextSTEP habitat docked with Orion in cislunar orbit as part of a deep space gateway. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin)

"Because the Deep Space Gateway would be uninhabited for several months at a time, it has to be rugged, reliable and have the robotic capabilities to operate autonomously. Essentially it is a robotic spacecraft that is well-suited for humans when Orion is present," said Pratt.

In addition to Lockheed Martin, NASA selected five other companies to develop ground prototypes and concepts for deep space habitats, including Boeing, Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Bigelow Aerospace and NanoRacks.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2017 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
Aspiring astronauts can now pretend to float on the International Space Station (ISS), thanks to Google. The company worked with astronauts on the orbiting complex to provide a Google Street View of the space station, from its science labs to its beautiful Earth-facing Cupola window.

Thomas Pesquet, a European Space Agency astronaut who helped collect the images earlier this year, said in a blog post that the experience of capturing the tour "describes the feeling of being in space" better than words or a picture can. But there were limitations to collecting the data. For one, astronauts float in space, so the imagery of the ISS couldn't be captured the same way as other Google Street View locations.

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama worked with Google to create a "gravity-free method of collecting the imagery," Pesquet said in the blog post. These methods included using DSLR cameras and other equipment already available at the space station. An extended video provides an additional look at how the view came together. (Pesquet didn't specify the other equipment in the blog post.) [The International Space Station: Inside and Out (Infographic)]

"I collected still photos in space, that were sent down to Earth where they were stitched together to create panoramic 360 degree imagery of the ISS," Pesquet wrote.

"We did a lot of troubleshooting before collecting the final imagery that you see today in Street View," he added.

"The ISS has technical equipment on all surfaces, with lots of cables and a complicated layout with modules shooting off in all directions  left, right, up, down," Pesquet wrote. "And it's a busy place, with six crew members [at the time] carrying out research and maintenance activities 12 hours a day. There are a lot of obstacles up there, and we had limited time to capture the imagery, so we had to be confident that our approach would work."

The International Space Station's U.S. laboratory module as seen through Google Street View. (Image credit: Google Street View)

The tour is the first Google Street View captured in space, and it features annotations that pop up to explain additional information about each module, such as how astronauts stay physically fit or the kinds of food they eat.

You can read the entire blog post here: https://www.blog.google/products/maps/welcome-outer-space-view/ and take a virtual tour of the International Space Station here in Google Street View: https://www.google.com/streetview/#international-space-station/

The International Space Station's Cupola observation module as seen through Google Street View. (Image credit: Google Street View)

The ISS has been occupied continuously since November 2000. It generally houses three to six crewmembers, who split their days between science and maintenance activities. Crewmembers currently "commute" to space on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, but within the next few years, commercial spacecraft from SpaceX and Boeing will ferry astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle's retirement in 2011.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
A new NASA app will allow folks across the United States to become citizen scientists and collect data for an interactive map.

The NASA-sponsored Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program launched the app to allow enthusiastic spectators to document their solar eclipse observations wherever they may be along path of the Aug. 21 total eclipse.

This nationwide citizen-science experiment is easy to become a part of, and, as highlighted in the new GLOBE Observer (NASA GO) Eclipse App instructional video, requires you to have only a smartphone and a thermometer as you experience a partial or total eclipse. [The Best ISO-Certified Gear to See the 2017 Solar Eclipse]

"When the Earth goes dark for a few minutes during a total solar eclipse, animals, plants and environmental conditions react. In the path of the eclipse, temperatures and clouds can change quickly," said the NASA video's narrator.

A still from a new NASA video describing how a participant can use the free Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) smartphone app to record local temperatures, which drop during a total or partial solar eclipse. (Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Rich Melnick)

Since all of North America will experience at least a partial eclipse on Aug. 21, NASA encourages everyone to get involved in scientific observations during this rare experience.

"No matter where you are in North America, whether it's cloudy, clear or rainy, NASA wants as many people to help with this citizen science project," Kristen Weaver, deputy coordinator for the project, said in a statement.

NASA will certainly benefit from the plethora of data it is hoping to receive from citizen scientists across the continent. However, this initiative is also a way for NASA to inspire concern and participation in an international scientific endeavor, according to GLOBE. The idea is to democratize scientific observation by helping observers to understand their surroundings and to excite folks about what they are capable of.

By mobilizing people to empirically analyze the world around them on Aug. 21, Weaver said, "We want to inspire a million eclipse viewers to become eclipse scientists."

Once participants download the free GLOBE Observer app and register themselves, the app will guide them to record their observations. The information is then placed by the app onto an interactive map that people can view to see how individual contributions have added to the collective project.

A still from a new video for the free NASA GLOBAL Observer app. The continental United States, as well as Canada and Mexico, will experience a partial or total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017. Observers within all ranges of the eclipse path are invited to measure temperatures in their vicinity and then upload the information to the new NASA GLOBE Observer (NASA GO) app. (Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Rich Melnick)

Readers who want to get involved can download the GLOBE Observer app here. You can also follow the project on Twitter @NASAGo, and on Facebook here.

Editor's note: Space.com has teamed up with Simulation Curriculum to offer this awesome Eclipse Safari app to help you enjoy your eclipse experience. The free app is available for Apple (opens in new tab) and Android, and you can view it on the web.

Follow Doris Elin Salazar on Twitter @salazar_elin. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Bir-Lehlu, July 23, 2017 (SPS)  President of Republic, Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO, Brahim Ghali, has called on the United Nations to make all necessary representations to the Moroccan authorities to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of the Sahrawi political prisoners of Gdeim Izik Group and all Sahrawi political prisoners held unlawfully in Moroccan jails, in a letter Friday to UN Secretary-General Mr. Antonio Guterres.

Following is the full text of the letter addressed by President of Republic, Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO, Brahim Ghali, to United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Antonio Guterres:

Bir Lehlou, 21 July 2017

Mr Secretary-General,



I would like to draw your attention to a serious development relating to the question of Western that may have adverse consequences on the UN ongoing peace process in the Territory.



On 19 July, in a mock trial, a Moroccan court delivered harsh sentences against the Sahrawi political prisoners, known as the Gdeim Izik Group. The unjust sentences, which are virtually identical to those issued by a Moroccan military court against the same group in 2013, range from 20 years to life imprisonment.

As we have warned on numerous occasions, the Moroccan authorities never had any intention to give the Sahrawi political prisoners a fair trial considering the fact that the detainees were arrested mainly because of their political opinions as well as their public defence of the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination. However, the recent sentences represent a serious development in the Moroccos infamous record of human rights violations in the Sahrawi occupied territories.

Mr Secretary-General,

As you may be aware, the members of the Gdeim Izik Group were arrested in the aftermath of the violent dismantling of the peaceful protest camp that was set up by thousands of Sahrawi civilians at Gdeim Izik some 15 kilometres south-east of the occupied city of La Aaiun at the beginning of October 2010. The main objective of setting up the camp by the Sahrawi civilians was to protest against the deteriorating socio-economic and political conditions in which they had been living for over three decades under Moroccos illegal occupation of their country.

Despite the peaceful and non-violent nature of the protest, in the early morning hours on 8 November 2010, the Moroccan army and security forces attacked the protestors and violently destroyed the camp using rubber bullets, live bullets, tear gas, water cannons, truncheons and stones. The violent attack resulted in the loss of life and destruction of property, and many Sahrawi civilians were arbitrarily arrested and brutalised including the members of the Gdeim Izik Group.

After two years in detention, on 17 February 2013, the members of Gdeim Izik Group were brought before a Moroccan military court and were given long sentences that ranged from 20 years to life imprisonment. The sentences were based on fabricated and ready-made accusations and records concocted at the Moroccan police stations where the detainees were subjected to all sorts of torture. Moreover, apart from the illegality of bringing civilians before military courts in keeping with international law, the Moroccan courts do not have jurisdiction over matters occurring in Western Sahara, which has its internationally recognised status as a Non-Self-Governing Territory.



Many national, regional and international organisations around the world condemned the unfair trial and the politically motivated sentences. On 19 February 2011, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed its concern about the use of a military court to try Sahrawi civilians, as it raised serious problems as far as the equitable, impartial and independent administration of justice was concerned. Amnesty International, for its part, expressed its concern about the trial that it considered flawed from the outset, as it cast a serious doubt on the Moroccan authorities intention and whether they were more concerned with securing a guilty verdict than justice.

Thanks to a series of hunger strikes that the detainees had to undergo to protest against their unlawful detention as well as international pressure, the Moroccan Court de Cassation referred the case to the Moroccan court of appeal in Rabat, which condemned the political prisoners to the above-mentioned sentences.



Mr Secretary-General,



The unjust sentences against the group of Sahrawi political prisoners are another demonstration of Moroccos intentions to continue its policy of human rights abuses without the presence of witnesses, which highlights the urgent need for establishing a human rights mechanism in Western Sahara to monitor, protect and report on the human rights situation in the Territory.

It has become evident therefore that Moroccan authorities do not respect international humanitarian law and persist in their gross violations of human rights in Western Sahara, which lies within the scope of the United Nations responsibility in anticipation of the decolonisation of the Territory and the exercise by its people of their inalienable right to self-determination and freedom.

In view of the above, I would like to call on you in your capacity as Secretary-General of the United Nations to make all necessary representations to the Moroccan authorities to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of the Sahrawi political prisoners of Gdeim Izik Group and all Sahrawi political prisoners held unlawfully in Moroccan jails.



In anticipation of your urgent action, please accept, Mr Secretary-General, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Mr Brahim Ghali



Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO

Mr Antonio Guterres



Secretary-General of the United Nations



New York (SPS)

062/090




Brussels, July 23, 2017 (SPS) - Sahrawi Minister, representative of the Polisario Front for Europe Mohamed Sidati on Sunday urged the European Union (EU) to intervene to end the escalation of Morocco's repression against the Sahrawi people and force it to stop its occupation and oppression policy.

We call on EU for urgent and firm intervention with Morocco to put an end to its escalation of repression and to stop its occupation and oppression policy, wrote Sidati in a letter sent to the head of the European diplomacy Federica Mogherini.

Warning EU on its responsibility in the occupation and colonisation policy of Western Sahara led relentlessly by Morocco, Mohamed Sidati affirmed that this policy dangerously exposes UNs peace operation in Western Sahara.

Sidati called EU to condemn the unjustified sentences pronounced Wednesday against the prisoners of Gdeim Izik group and demand the release of all the Sahrawi political prisoners. (SPS)

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In mid-2017 Belgium ordered 60 Jaguar EBRC combat and reconnaissance vehicles and 417 Griffon VBMR multirole armored vehicles from France. The total cost will be $1.2 billion. This is another aspect of a much larger modernization program that is upgrading elderly Cold War equipment and responding to the increasing threat from Russia. This Griffon and Jaguar purchase is one of the biggest single investments ever for the land forces.

The new vehicles will replace aging Piranha III 6x6 armored vehicles and Dingo II 4x4 armored vehicles used by Medium Brigade. The purchase price includes spare parts, crew training and maintenance support. Moreover the new vehicles are also used by France making it easier for the two neighbors to organize joint training and logistic support exercises. The Jaguar and Griffon are scheduled to enter service with Belgian troops 2025 and 2030.

The Griffons VBMR is a multi-role 6x6 armored vehicle that is part of the French scorpion program to replace the 1970s vintage VAB APC (armored personnel carrier). The Griffon can carry up to 10 personnel, weighs about 25 tones and can go about 800 kilometers on roads using internal fuel. It is equipped with a remotely-controlled weapons station. Thanks to modular design it will be available in five main variants: typical troop transport (1022 vehicles), command-and-control variant (333), engineer and recovery (54), artillery observation vehicles (117) and ambulance (196).

Griffon is more like a MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle than typical APC like Stryker, Patria AMV or other similar designs. MRAP designs have one big advantage in that they are more similar to typical trucks so are much easier to drive than mentioned earlier APCs.

Jaguar EBRC is on the other hand is a 6x6 reconnaissance vehicle which another evolution of French family of 6x6 reconnaissance vehicles like AMX-10RC and ERC 90 Sagaie. So there is no surprise that the Jaguar EBRC is similar design. It weighs about 25 tons and can be operated by the crew of three. Instead of 105mm or 90mm guns found in earlier vehicles of this type the ERBC uses a new Anglo-French made CTA 40mm (telescoped ammunition) autocannon in addition two MMP anti-tank missiles (range up to 4 kilometers) mounted on turret side. -- Przemysaw Juraszek
China's government has a well-founded reputation for its excessive censorship and surveillance of online behavior, but it seems the problem is even worse for some of its minority citizens. In the north-western border region of Xinjiang, home to much of the country's Muslim population, residents have been told to install an Android spying app or face detention.

Authorities used messaging service WeChat to inform residents of Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, that they must install an app called Jingwang. The notice was written in both Mandarin and Uyghur - the language of ethnic group Uighur. It says the app will automatically detect "terrorist and illegal religious videos, images, e-books, and electronic documents."

The message included a QR code for downloading the surveillance app. There's also a warning that anyone who fails to install the spyware would be detained for ten days.

It's reported that Jingwang works by scanning the digital signatures of media files on a device and comparing them to a government database of illegal, "terrorist-related" material. If there's a match, users will be prompted to delete the offending items.

According to Jingwang's website, the app is also designed to "block pornographic websites, online scams, trojan horses, and phishing sites; to alert users of how much time they spend online; and to enable remote control of one's home network."

The part about controlling a user's home network is throwing up a lot of red flags. What's also worrying is that the app collects information such as Wi-Fi logins, IMEI numbers, and SIM card data. Moreover, it records copies of chat conversations from Weibo and WeChat. Radio Free Asia reports that 10 Kazakh women from Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture were arrested over WeChat messages they sent soon after they installed the app.

Authorities in the area say they will be performing random spot checks to make sure Jingwang is installed on users' devices.

"The goal is ostensibly to identify and purge any 'terrorist videos,' but the action violates the privacy rights of Urumqi's 3 million residents and exposes them to punishment for a host of other possible offenses, including those related to peaceful religious or political expression," writes US-based human rights group Freedom House.
The size and influence of today's technology companies are unparalleled. From Apple's $216 billion per year revenue, to Facebook's 2 billion users, to Amazon's ever-increasing share of all US commerce, these firms have become unstoppable juggernauts that affect our lives in numerous ways. But some economists argue this is a bad thing, and if their continuing domination can't be stopped, the tech titans should be broken up.

Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, strongly says that the country's biggest tech firms have become too large, and that's led to a lack of innovation and problems for the economy as a whole. He also believes that Google's domination of the internet is as close to a monopoly as the Bell telephone system in 1956.

Bloomberg notes that Google gets about 77 percent of US search advertising revenue. Together, Google and Facebook control about 56 percent of the mobile ad market. Amazon takes about 70 percent of all e-book sales and 30 percent of all U.S. e-commerce. And Facebook's share of mobile social media traffic, which includes WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, is around 75 percent.

In addition to problems like inequality, fewer business startups, and stagnating job creation, Taplin warns the tech titans' focus on AI will lead to mass job eliminations. It's been an issue long associated with the - admittedly slow - rise of self-driving vehicles, along with other forms of job automation.

In a Wall Street Journal piece, Taplin writes:

Over the past decade, Google, Facebook, and Amazon have wreaked havoc on much of the creative economy---journalists, musicians, authors, filmmakers. In the decade ahead, the tech behemoths will use their dominance in artificial intelligence to overturn much of the service economy as well, including transportation, medicine and retail. With what result? To give just one example, Goldman Sachs recently reported that self-driving cars (a technology that both Google and Apple are developing) could eliminate as many as 300,000 jobs a year in two decades or more. Will we be ready when the flood of unemployment brought about by the artificial-intelligence revolution is upon us?

Taplin goes on to note the crushing effect large tech companies can have on smaller competitors, citing Facebook's attempted acquisition of Snapchat as an example. After the social network's $3 billion offer was rejected in 2013, the company introduced a number of features that were almost identical to those found in its rival's app. A photo editor, self-destructing messages, and Stories (which Facebook also called Stories), all appear to have been 'borrowed' from Snapchat, which has seen its shares drop to $15 from the $17 initial offering price.

While the likes of Apple, Google, and Amazon face antitrust charges in Europe, monopoly cases have fallen in the US, from an average of 15.7 per year from 1970 to 1999, to fewer than 3 per year from 2000 to 2014.

Not everyone agrees with Taplin. Many believe breaking up the companies will have little to no effect. As the Economist writes: "Breaking up a firm like Google into five Googlets would not stop network effects from reasserting themselves: in time, one of them would become dominant again."
Many companies reward ethical hackers who report bugs and security flaws to them, but not in Hungary. An 18-year-old Hungarian man was arrested after finding an exploit in a poorly coded website and reporting it to the owner. The site belongs to Budapesti Kozlekedesi Kozpont (BKK), which is Budapest's public transportation authority. One of the functions of the website was to sell tickets, and that was the page where the bug was found.

The teen had discovered that he could alter ticket prices just by changing them in the source code using the browser's developer tools. He then ordered a $35 ticket for $0.20. The purchase went through because BKK's system had no validation procedures in place on the client or the server side. So the flaw did not even require any real hacking.

After he had discovered the flaw, he contacted BKK to let them know about it. However, instead of thanking him and fixing the poor coding, they called the police and filed a complaint that he had "hacked" their systems. The police went to the man's residence and arrested him in the middle of the night, even though he never used or even received the ticket and didn't live near Budapest.

As if they had accomplished something truly noble, BKK held a press conference bragging about how they had thwarted a "cyber attack" and caught the hacker. When word got out that the hacker was a white hat and had tried to warn the company about the flaw, the storm on Twitter was furious. People scolded, cursed, and sarcastically congratulated @bkkbudapest. There is also talk of protests being organized.

ohai @bkkbudapest congrats on all the press on your #fail website after squealing 'cyberattack' because of whitehat reported bug ? crybabies --- mysty (@mysty) July 24, 2017

Guy who reported the price bug was charged and ws taken by police for interrogation. A protest will be held tonight.https://t.co/9SPz0bA6l9 --- Gabor Heja (@gheja_) July 24, 2017

Additionally, the company now has a one-star rating on its Facebook page thanks to thousands of people flocking to it to give them one-star reviews. Currently, the page has 46,000 one-star ratings. Judging by the total number of reviews (only 222 five-star ratings), this is a deficit that BKK will never recover from without creating a new page.

"Learn to validate server side, you noobs," said one review. "What were you guys thinking?"

During its presser, BKK claimed that it had "secured" its systems. Of course, angry white hats immediately scrutinized the site and started pointing out other flaws. One Twitter user even called the website's security "a goddamn train wreck." The BKK site is currently down.

I would like to congratulate the devs / ticket controllers of @bkkbudapest on the rollout of the new e-ticket system. Very secure CAPTCHA! pic.twitter.com/TbkZKaHLwX --- vista (@vista_df) July 14, 2017

T-Systems Hungary shame on you! Sending the SWAT instead of bug bounty to a 18 years old guy who found a bug on your app??? WTF??? --- Csaba SARI (@Clausewitz45) July 21, 2017

Hungarian IT company, T-Systems has a million dollar contract with BKK and is responsible for the website. The company has not received as much criticism as the transportation authority, but it has received some backlash on social media. Ironically, according to the company's own website, it has sponsored ethical hacking contests in the past. Since the news broke of this wrongful arrest of an ethical hacker, the company has taken the page down, but thanks to the Internet Archive, nothing is ever really deleted.

The incident causes one to wonder if there shouldn't be protections in place for ethical hacking. Should there be laws to protect someone from prosecution if all they were doing was trying to point out a bug in a piece of software or a website? Even though common sense seems to dictate that we should not need them, we do have Good Samaritan laws to protect us from lawsuits and prosecution when trying to save someone's life. Why shouldn't we enact similar legislation to protect Cyber-Samaritans?
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. owns and operates utilities, transport, midstream, and data businesses in North and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company's Utilities segment operates approximately 61,000 kilometers (km) of operational electricity transmission and distribution lines; 5,300 km of electricity transmission lines; 4,200 km of natural gas pipelines; 7.3 million electricity and natural gas connections; and 360,000 long-term contracted sub-metering services. This segment also offers heating and cooling solutions; gas distribution; water heaters; and heating, ventilation, and air conditioner rental, as well as other home services. Its Transport segment offers transportation, storage, and handling services for merchandise goods, commodities, and passengers through a network of approximately 22,000 km of track; 5,500 km of track network; 4,800 km of rail; 3,800 km of motorways; and 13 port terminals. The company's Midstream segment offers natural gas transmission, gathering and processing, and storage services through approximately 15,000 km of natural gas transmission pipelines; 600 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage; 17 natural gas processing plants; and 3,900 km of gas gathering pipelines, as well as one petrochemical processing complex. Its Data segment operates approximately 148,000 operational telecom towers; 8,000 multi-purpose towers and active rooftop sites; 10,000 km of fiber backbone; 1,600 cell sites and approximately 12,000 km of fiber optic cable; and 2,100 active telecom towers and 70 distributed antenna systems, as well as 50 data centers and 200 megawatts of critical load capacity. The company was founded in 2007 and is based in Hamilton, Bermuda. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management Inc.
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.
Citizens Financial Group, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Citizens Bank, National Association that provides retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, corporations, and institutions in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Consumer Banking and Commercial Banking. The Consumer Banking segment offers deposit products, mortgage and home equity lending products, credit cards, business loans, wealth management, and investment services; and auto, education, and point-of-sale finance loans, as well as digital deposit products. This segment serves its customers through telephone service centers, as well as through its online and mobile platforms. The Commercial Banking segment provides various financial products and solutions, including lending and leasing, deposit and treasury management services, foreign exchange, and interest rate and commodity risk management solutions, as well as syndicated loans, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and debt and equity capital markets services. This segment serves government banking, not-for-profit, healthcare, technology, professionals, oil and gas, asset finance, franchise finance, asset-based lending, commercial real estate, private equity, and sponsor finance industries. It operates approximately 1,200 branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia; 114 retail and commercial non-branch offices in national markets; and approximately 3,300 automated teller machines. The company was formerly known as RBS Citizens Financial Group, Inc. and changed its name to Citizens Financial Group, Inc. in April 2014. Citizens Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1828 and is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.
OttawaOn Oct. 1, 1987, days before the U.S. and Canada signed their biggest-ever trade deal, then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney shocked the Americans by walking away from the negotiating table.

It was a high-stakes gamble designed to ensure the Free Trade Agreement contained a dispute-settlement mechanism  what Mulroney called his essential condition  that would give Canada a way to resolve trade conflicts outside U.S. courts. The David-and-Goliath move worked, and two days later the countries reached an agreement.

Fast forward 30 years, and Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister, is arriving at the same crossroads as his predecessor. The U.S. confirmed last week that among its top objectives in upcoming negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement  which superseded the FTA in 1994  is the elimination of the Chapter 19 dispute-resolution mechanism that Mulroney went to such lengths to preserve.

Read more:

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Will it be the deal breaker it was in 1987?

Things like getting rid of Chapter 19 dispute-settlement panels, thats not a small bean. Thats a biggie, Derek Burney, Mulroneys chief of staff during the FTA talks and a key player in NAFTA negotiations, said in a telephone interview last week. We wouldnt have the trade agreement if we didnt get that dispute settlement. Burney also zeroed in on why the Canadian side was willing to risk so much to get the mechanism into the FTA: We dont trust their trade-remedy tribunals, we never have.

The first round of NAFTA renegotiations begin on Aug. 16, with representatives from the U.S., Canada and Mexico gathering in Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw from NAFTA if Mexico and Canada dont agree to more favourable terms for the U.S.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada will continue to defend its supply management system in upcoming NAFTA talks. Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the negotiation objectives released by the U.S. were what Canada expected. (The Canadian Press)

Contested Issues

NAFTAs Chapter 19 dispute-resolution mechanism allows review by independent, binational panels  instead of judicial review by domestic courts  in anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases. Since NAFTA came into force, Canada has been involved in about 73 panels over items such as cattle, magnesium, hot-rolled steel, colour-picture tubes, greenhouse tomatoes and supercalendered paper, according to the website of the NAFTA Secretariat, which is responsible for managing Chapter 19 proceedings.

But given that in the last decade Canada has only initiated three cases under the provision, Robert Wolfe, professor emeritus at Queens Universitys School of Policy Studies in Kingston, Ont., questions whether Chapter 19 is essential. Wolfe suggests Canada may want to consider bluffing, and when push comes to shove, give in on Chapter 19 in exchange for something better, gaining concessions on Trumps Buy American rules, for example, which restrict the ability of Canadian companies to bid on U.S. government contracts.

Heres why Trumps fear of trade deficits isnt really necessary

If you had to choose between a real restraint on Buy American and keeping Chapter 19, Id yell and pound the table and give up Chapter 19, Wolfe said. A lot more Canadian jobs might benefit from stopping discriminatory government procurement in the U.S.

Wolfe says cross-border supply chains are much more prevalent and a company that is part of such an arrangement would be shooting itself in the foot by taking a trade-remedy action against its partner. He cites the motor vehicle industry, saying youre not going to see anti-dumping between Canada and the U.S., because the bits and pieces of the cars go back and forth over the border so many times.

Chad Bown, senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in a July 19 report the Trump administrations goal under NAFTA negotiations is to make it easier to restrict imports from Canada and Mexico. Thats worrisome because it could eliminate any new trade liberalization gains or reverse previous inroads, and likely lead to a situation where Canada and Mexico respond in kind against U.S. exports.

Popular Pact

By 2016 only 1.3 per cent of imports from NAFTA partners were covered by U.S. anti-dumping and countervailing duties versus 9.2 per cent of Chinese imports and 2.7 per cent of imports from the rest of the world, Bown wrote. He predicts Trumps barriers could more than quintuple the level of Canadian imports covered by trade remedies to 6.6 per cent. Without safeguards such as Chapter 19, the Trump administrations NAFTA could make U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico much less free.

NAFTA, which many people thought would lead to widespread job losses, is now much more popular in Canada than the other two countries. A Pew Research survey found 76 per cent of Canadian respondents felt the pact has benefited their country, versus 60 per cent of Mexicans and 51 per cent of Americans.

NAFTA is also credited with having had measurable and positive impacts on everything from trade flows and investment to employment and productivity. A 2014 study on the effects of NAFTA by the Peterson Institute estimates Canada is about $50 billion (U.S.) richer each year in additional gross domestic product because of expanded two-way trade under NAFTA.

Trudeaus Leverage

That may give Trudeau an advantage over his U.S. and Mexican counterparts. The status quo in many respects works just fine, whereas Trump may be under pressure to deliver a quick victory, and the Mexicans are said to want to wrap up negotiations before NAFTA becomes a battleground in summer 2018 presidential elections.

Canada walking away is the worst-case scenario, Wolfe said. We dont want to have to do that and we dont want President Trump to rip the thing up. Theyre a bigger boy in the schoolyard than we are, but we dont have to think were going to get pushed around. We do have leverage.

David MacNaughton, Canadas ambassador to the U.S., said at a forum last week that it makes sense to have some kind of dispute-resolution mechanism within the agreement but the current one could be improved. A spokesperson for Chrystia Freeland, Canadas minister of foreign affairs, declined to comment on the dispute-resolution mechanism.

Mulroney fought so hard to preserve the dispute settlement because without it, he reasoned, Canada would face years of litigation in the U.S. court system whenever a disagreement arose. Thats why he took the extraordinary step in 1987 of calling his chief negotiator in Washington to tell him to pack his bags and come home.

Mulroneys Gambit

I instructed Simon Reisman to return, and used it as a manner of getting the attention of the American government big time, Mulroney said in a 2011 interview. That happened, and I think it led to the resolution of the impasse and the Free Trade Agreement.

Burney, who the government has reached out to for advice as it prepares for a new round of talks, has called on Canada to start drawing lines in the sand and spell out what its not willing to compromise on. Trudeaus government has so far been publicly quiet on its NAFTA priorities. If push comes to shove, Trudeau may need to channel Mulroney, who has acted as his informal adviser in dealing with the Trump administration.

Youve got to be able to walk away from the table. Otherwise you dont go to the table, John Manley, chief executive of the Business Council of Canada, said in a recent interview. Canada needs to stand firm on dispute settlement, otherwise were sitting ducks.

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The powerful trade association that represents champagne makers has sued bloggers, water bottlers and haute couture fashion brands. They warned Apple against calling the gold iPhone champagne and spent three years making sure that no one but French producers could snag champagne-related wine URLs.

But last week the Comite Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne scored an even more significant victory, when Europes highest court suggested in a nonbinding ruling that even products containing the French sparkling wine may not be able to use the name champagne.

The opinion from the European Court of Justice  on a product sold by the discount grocer Aldi as Champagne sorbet  reinforces and expands the reach of European Union laws that dictate that only Portuguese dessert wine can be called port, and that only the British-made blue cheese can be called Stilton.

While the opinion is not final, experts say it furthers the Champagne regions effort to protect its brand.

Champagne is fighting this battle in Europe, and they seem to be winning, said Bernard OConnor, a managing partner at the European law firm Nctm who specializes in trade and agriculture law. It seems logical that theyll next take the fight to global markets.

The case in question involved Champagne sorbet, which Aldi sold at a number of its German stores in 2012. The dessert contained 12 per cent champagne  the real kind, from France  but the Comite Champagne claimed the use of the protected name on a non-wine product risked cheapening it.

Under long-standing European law, hundreds of traditional foods, wines and spirits that are closely linked to a specific region enjoy special protections: Theyre granted exclusive use of the regional product name, and legally guarded against a range of infringements.

Stilton cheese must be produced in the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire in Britain, using pasteurized local milk. (It cannot, ironically, be made in the nearby town of Stilton.) Port specifically describes a fortified wine produced in Portugals Douro Valley. Feta, Manchego, Roquefort and Asiago must come from Greece, Spain, France and Italy, respectively.

Even indirect or passing uses of protected names are illegal, in many instances. Food producers cannot misuse, evoke or imitate a protected name, which has been interpreted in several national and EU-level cases to mean that they cant use it to label, advertise or draw a comparison to other products.

In other words, Miller High Life  the champagne of beers  would not fly in Europe.

In this case, however, the product contained the ingredient: It was 12 per cent champagne. Aldi  which has long since stopped selling the dessert in question  has argued that its product couldnt possibly be said to exploit the champagne brand or mislead consumers.

Aldi and Galana invoked the right to use a correct and non-misleading trade denomination, a lawyer for Galana, the sorbet manufacturer, said in a 2014 statement. According to the defendants, the use of Champagne for a sorbet containing Champagne was justified.

But the opinion released Thursday by Advocate General Manuel Campos Sanchez-Bordona took a broad interpretation of name protections, ruling that food manufacturers may only use the name of a protected ingredient if the final product also captures its essential characteristics. They may also not market the product on the basis of its protected ingredient.

The producer and distributor (of the champagne sorbet) hope to evoke in the mind of their consumers the quality and prestige associated with this designation of origin, and extend it to the sorbet, he wrote of Aldis product.

The Advocate Generals opinion is not the end of the matter: A final judgment will be issued by the European Court of Justice within a few months, and is expected to mirror Bordonas position. The case will then return to a German court, where it began, though the Court of Justice precedent will stand throughout Europe.

Even at this stage, however, the judgment is a win for protected products and sets an important precedent, experts said.

If the European Court of Justice adopts the opinion of the Advocate General then protected products, even when used as ingredients, will continue to enjoy a high level of protection, said Katie Vickery, who heads the food and drink practice at European law firm Osborne Clarke.

That sort of protection is gaining traction, even outside the EU.

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OTTAWAThe provincial and federal governments are promising to put an end to the colonial health system in some Ontario Indigenous communities, many of which have been rocked by waves of tragic suicides, and empower them to deliver their own services.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler met with the Ontario and federal health ministers Monday to sign what the leaders described as a milestone roadmap to fix a health system that has failed for decades to stop recurring crises and service gaps in First Nations across northern Ontario.

The announcement comes as the Pikangikum First Nation grapples with the deaths of four young people  two 12-year-olds and two 16-year-olds  who have taken their own lives since Canada Day. Ontario has pledged 20 full-time mental health workers for the community near the Manitoba border, at a cost of $1.6 million.

That additional funding was followed Monday by a ceremonial signing of an agreement to work toward transforming the way health services are delivered to 49 Indigenous communities that make up Nishnawbe Aski Nation. The aim is to give more authority to the group to design and administer their own care, similar to the system under the British Columbia First Nations Health Authority.

The colonial health system that was set up and currently exists  is not serving First Nations communities well, Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins said.

Jane Philpott, Canadas health minister, added that the Indigenous-led model is being looked at for communities elsewhere in the country.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, right, met with Ontario and federal health ministers Monday to sign what the leaders described as a milestone roadmap to fix a health system that has failed for decades to stop recurring crises and service gaps in First Nations across northern Ontario.





There is no question that the systems as theyre functioning now were not designed in the best interest of First Nations, she said. Thats exactly what weve acknowledged.

Following the signing ceremony in Ottawa, Fiddler said he is hopeful the stage is finally set for lasting change  even if hed like to see the transformation described in the agreement implemented now.

They are ready to take on health care for themselves, for their communities, Fiddler said of the Nishnawbe Aski member communities.

To me, this represents a return to what my late father used to talk to me about, that this is how we governed ourselves a long time ago. And it worked.

While there was no firm timeline for the promised change to occur, Hoskins said Monday the new system would come together over the coming weeks and months.

Earlier Monday, a group of 23 doctors who work in NAN communities called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Philpott to immediately commit to change the health system for Indigenous peoples in Canada.

The letter describes a health system failure, where there is virtually no access to child psychiatrists, child psychologists or similarly skilled therapists and arbitrary administrative denial of health services still exists.

Short-term crisis-response intervention cannot form the backbone of any health system, they wrote.

Dr. Michael Kirlew, one of the letters signatories who works in the Wapekeka First Nation, has described a lack of basic supplies like painkillers and asthma medication. He told the Star he welcomes Mondays agreement to transform the system, but said he is concerned that there is no concrete timeline for change.

He pointed out that communities already have plans to deliver their own services; Wapekeka had a $380,000 proposal for youth mental health services rejected last year, just weeks before two young girls killed themselves in the community.

We pay with lives (for) the extra time it takes. Its very easy to say wait when its not your children dying, Kirlew said. How many children have to die before the time is now?

While Health Canada doesnt keep track of suicides in First Nations, NAN says more than 540 people have taken their own lives in their communities since it started counting in 1986. So far this year, 22 people have killed themselves in NAN communities. Eight of them were children between the ages of 10 and 15.

Since taking power in late 2015, the federal government has said that improving mental health services for Indigenous peoples is a priority, and that it wants to simplify the process to access such services. Last week, Philpott pledged $500,000 to plan a new health facility in Wunnumin Lake First Nation, as well as $465,000 for a two-year initiative to address the causes of suicide and make sure mental health services are easier and quicker to access.

This initiative, called Choose Life, is also active in other Indigenous communities. It is set to receive $4.4 million of the $69 million over three years that the federal government announced for mental health emergency programs in June 2016.

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DIEPPE, N.B.It was officially code-named Operation Jubilee and the Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe was a pivotal moment in the Second World War. But 75 years later, a battle is brewing over just what to call the bloody assault that claimed the lives of nearly a thousand Canadian soldiers.

The Royal Canadian Mint issued a collector coin in May commemorating the Battle of Dieppe, prompting outcry from a New Brunswick veterans group that says the attack is called the Dieppe Raid.

After months of growing tension over the silver coin, which depicts a soldier rushing ashore with explosions in the distance, a truce has been called.

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The mint said Monday it understands the concerns expressed by the veterans group and apologized if the coin offended anyone. It also plans to produce a Dieppe Raid collector coin in 2018.

But the current coin, roughly 28 grams of pure silver with a price tag of about $93, will continue to be sold as part of the mints Second World War battlefront series, something a military historian calls a mistake.

Thats a bad idea, Dieppe Military Veterans Association historian Ronald Cormier said. The coin is wrong. Its like showing a picture of the Parliament Buildings and calling it the House of Commons. Its inaccurate.

Keith Brewer, executive director of the veterans group, said if the error is allowed to stand, history will be changed forever.

The 913 Canadians who died on the beaches of Dieppe during the raid would be misrepresented in history, he said. Thats our objection.

Although Brewer said hes not comfortable with the mints plans to continue selling the flawed coin, he said he hopes the new Dieppe Raid coin will offset the previous coins impact.

The crux of the issue has to do with the difference between a raid and a battle, and what took place on Aug. 19, 1942.

In a battle, you go and take ground and you try to hold it, like Vimy Ridge, Brewer said. But in raid, you go in and do your dirty work and you get out.

A spokesperson for the mint said it consulted with the Department of National Defences history and heritage directorate to confirm the accuracy of the coin before producing the commemorative item.

We consulted . . . military historians on the design of the coin commemorating the 75th anniversary of Dieppe and they confirmed that using The Battle of Dieppe . . . was appropriate, Alex Reeves said in an email.

Despite the mints position that the coin was thoroughly vetted by military historians, the Crown corporation said it will review its design for a new Dieppe Raid coin with the New Brunswick veterans group.

But Cormier, who has studied the Second World War and the Dieppe Raid for decades, said he finds it hard to believe that a military historian would have signed off on the coin.

Both the Canadian War Museum and Veterans Affairs Canada refer to the attack on the French port city as the Dieppe Raid.

Dalhousie University history professor Christopher Bell, who specialized in military history, said it should be called the Dieppe Raid.

I cant recall ever hearing it referred to as the Battle of Dieppe, he said.

The mint produced 7,500 coins referring to the Battle of Dieppe, about half of which have been sold so far.

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Sen. Murray Sinclair, the respected former chair of Canadas Truth and Reconciliation Commission, will lead an investigation into Thunder Bays embattled police board.

The Ontario Civilian Police Commission, a quasi-judicial agency that oversees all police boards in the province, announced Sinclairs appointment on Monday.

In a statement, the commission said it has serious concerns about the state of civilian police oversight and public confidence in the delivery of police services in Thunder Bay.

This announcement was welcome news for Indigenous leaders, advocates and Thunder Bay citizens. Thunder Bay has been rocked by a series of crises: both its mayor and police chief are facing charges, and the police service and board are both under investigation.

Read more:

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Racial tensions in the city are also at a high point after the deaths of two Indigenous teens in May, and the July 4 death of Barbara Kentner, a 34-year-old mother who was hospitalized for months after being hit by a metal trailer hitch in the stomach as she walked down a Thunder Bay street.

Those of us who have had the honour and privilege to work with Murray Sinclair, we believe in his ability to do a thorough job and fulfil the mandate given to him by the OCPC, said Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a political organization of 49 First Nations in northern Ontario. Fiddler was manager of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions regional and Ontario liaisons. The commission documented the painful 150-year history of Canadas residential school system, which saw 150,000 Indigenous children taken from their families to attend government-funded, church-run schools. Sinclair was appointed head of the commission in 2009.

The Ontario Civilian Police Commission  which, along with Sinclair, was not conducting interviews Monday  said in the statement that it has concerns with the police boards ability to address matters raised by Indigenous leaders relating to a recent series of deaths of Indigenous youths and the quality of the investigations into these deaths conducted by the Thunder Bay Police Service.

The police service is currently under investigation for allegations of systemic racism by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) regarding how the force handles Indigenous death and disappearance cases.

Julian Falconer, NANs lawyer during an inquest into the deaths of seven Indigenous students who lost their lives while at school in Thunder Bay from 2000 to 2011, called Sinclairs appointment an important step. Three of those students were found in rivers and their cause of death was ruled undetermined by a coroners jury last summer.

It is essential someone of Sinclairs prominence receive the appointment because it sends a loud and clear message on the level of seriousness of the issues, Falconer said.

Sinclairs investigation will neither interfere with nor duplicate the review being carried out by the OIPRD, or any related police or coroners investigations.

The commission also said it is concerned with police board representatives stating that the publics concerns about systemic racism existing within the service and the quality of the services investigations are without basis.

The commissions statement noted the recent criminal accusations against Thunder Bay police Chief J.P. Levesque, who was charged with breach of trust and obstruction of justice in May. He is now on leave.

Sinclairs investigation will probe the boards performance in carrying out its responsibilities to ensure adequate and effective police services. He will also examine the boards role in determining objectives and priorities with respect to police services in Thunder Bay and its role in establishing policies for the effective management of the police.

In addition, the probe will examine the boards role in ensuring that police service in the city complies with the Police Services Act, specifically the importance of safeguarding the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code.

An interim report is to be released on Oct. 31, with a final report expected by March 31, 2018.

Racial tensions are heightened in the city after the recent deaths of two Indigenous teens. Both Tammy Keeash and Josiah Begg disappeared on the night of May 6.

Keeash, a 17-year-old high school student from North Caribou Lake First Nation, failed to make her curfew that night and her body was discovered on May 7, lying in shallow waters.

Begg, a 14-year-old from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, vanished while he was in town for medical appointments. He was found dead in the McIntyre River on May 18 after an intensive community search.

Ontarios chief coroner, Dr. Dirk Huyer, announced last month that York Regional Police would be brought in to investigate the deaths of Keeash and Begg.

Last Friday, Ontario Provincial Police charged Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs, a former police officer, with extortion and obstruction of justice in connection with an investigation into allegations of criminal wrongdoing that include a municipal official and local resident.

The OPP alleges that Hobbs, 65; his wife, Marisa, 53; and a third person, Mary Voss, 46, attempted to induce a prominent local lawyer to purchase a house (for Voss), by threats, accusations, or menaces of disclosing criminal allegations to the police, thereby committing extortion, court documents show.

Hobbs lawyer Brian Greenspan told the Star on Friday that his client denies the charges. Hobbs and his wifes obstruction charges are both related to their alleged attempt to interfere with an investigation into an allegation of extortion reported to the RCMP, court documents show. Hobbs is now on paid leave.

The charges have not been proven in court. But they are the latest in a series of criminal and civil allegations that also saw prominent lawyer Sandy Zaitzeff arrested on sexual assault charges late last year.

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This is human life.

For years the battle-hardened and decorated American veteran wrestled with his conscience, with whether hed done the right thing in saving the life of Omar Khadr, seen by many as a terrorist who profited from his crimes.

Now, watching from afar the furor over the Canadian governments $10.5-million payout to Khadr, Donnie Bumanglag wants to tell his story, offering a perspective born of bitter experience  one he admits may not be popular with many Canadians, or even some of his own former comrades-in-arms.

Bumanglag, 36, of Lompoc, Calif., has spent years coming to terms with his former life as an elite airborne medic supporting U.S. special forces during three missions to Afghanistan and Iraq. Hes been haunted by flashbacks, frequently thrown back to that time in the summer of 2002, when he spent hours in the back of a helicopter frantically working on Khadr, then 15 years old and at the very edge of death.

Read more:Everything you need to know about the Omar Khadr saga, but were afraid to ask

This is a human life. This is war. This is something that most people cant fathom, and they want to be real quick to give an opinion just because it makes them feel good about themselves, Bumanglag says. (But) theres more to this story than just talking points.

The following account is based on interviews Bumanglag gave to The Canadian Press, as well as on a recent podcast he co-hosts in which he talks about saving Khadr.

Little guy on a door

Doc Buma, as the 21-year-old Ranger medic was known, was looking forward to leaving the remote area of Afghanistan in which he had been operating for more than a month and heading to Bagram for a shower and some downtime before redeploying to Kandahar.

Instead, as they flew toward Bagram that day in July 2002, a distress call came in. The MH-53 helicopter veered toward Khost and an encounter that would stay with him for years.

Edmund Sealey, then the Rangers platoon sergeant, remembers the call coming in with orders to divert and pick up an enemy fighter who had been shot.

I was on the aircraft. We picked up that casualty in a firefight, Sealey, 47, now of Columbus, Ga., said from Afghanistan. where he still works as a contractor. With Buma being a Ranger medic, hes going to assist as soon as you get on board. Enemy or friendly, it doesnt matter.

With the chopper gunners providing covering fire, they landed in a field. Sealey led the way, Bumanglag behind him, as they threaded their way through a suspected minefield, down a road, and connected with a group of U.S. special forces soldiers.

On what appeared to be a wooden door lay the wounded enemy fighter, shot twice by one of the elite Delta forces. The soldiers had found the casualty barely alive in a compound the Americans had pounded to rubble during a massive assault. One of their own, Sgt. Chris Speer, had been killed by a grenade, and another, Layne Morris, blinded in one eye. It was apparent to the incoming medic that the Delta soldiers were in some pretty severe distress over the loss of their comrade.

Theres a look on somebodys face when the whole world went to s--- 10 minutes ago and its too much to process, Bumanglag says.

As he recalls, the soldiers gave him bare-bones biographical data on the casualty: The fighter had killed Speer. He was a Canadian who had been Osama bin Ladens houseboy. They also told him to keep the high-value detainee alive because he would be a vital source of information, and passed him off.

Bumanglag was now charged with saving Khadr, son of a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda. He didnt know Khadr was 15 years old, but his youth struck him.

I dont know if I can call him a little kid but he sure looked little to me. Hes 80 pounds or something. Hes a little guy whos on a door, basically, Bumanglag says.

They moved the patient up the ramp and the chopper took off. The medic immediately began working to save the boy, who was covered in blood and sand.

Omar, with gunshot wounds and flex cuffs like an animal had been shot, didnt look human, Bumanglag recalls. But moving in closer and working on him as a patient and seeing the facial features and seeing the skin pigmentation, those images always stuck with me.

Khadr, it turned out, bore a striking resemblance to one of Bumanglags cousins, which bothered the young medic then, and for years after.

All I seen was a kid that looks like a kid that I knew.

Everybody is jihad

As the chopper bobbed and weaved toward Bagram, Doc Buma worked to stabilize his disoriented, barely conscious patient, who was writhing and moaning in pain. At the other soldiers insistence, Khadrs hands remained handcuffed behind his back out of concern he might turn violent.

Bumanglags main task was to deal with Khadrs two gaping bullet exit wounds on his chest. His mind raced with thoughts about whether he should save the life of this terrorist, and whether hed have enough medical supplies for his own guys should something happen. He even pondered pushing the enemy fighter out the chopper and being done with it.

Hes rocking his body around everywhere, he says. I took it as aggression. You get this idea that everybody is jihad and theyre going to fight to the death.

Then there was his ego, he admits: the notion that saving this captive would earn him praise, would show he had what it took. So he kept working, trying to staunch the bleeding.

My mission, my job was just to save him, keep him alive. There was no politics in it then. I was a young Ranger and this was my chance, Bumanglag says. I worked on him for over two hours in the back of a helicopter as the sun went down. At the end, Im working under finger light.

He kept working, and Khadr kept living, not saying anything, just making noises.

His body indicated that he was a pretty brave guy. He fought for his life just as much as we fought to save him, Bumanglag says. Some people have a will to live and some people dont. He definitely did.

They finally touched down at Bagram.

We plugged all the holes and we tried to keep things viable, he says. I pass him off and I dont know whether hes going to live or die.

What he did know was that Khadr hadnt died on his watch and it was therefore mission accomplished  one for which he would later be commended by his superiors. It would take another year or so before Bumanglag learned that Khadr had survived.

After the battle

Omar Khadr, born in September 1986 in Toronto, spent several months recovering from his wounds at Bagram, where, from the moment he was conscious and able to speak, he underwent what were, by most accounts, some of the harshest interrogations the Americans had devised in the War on Terror.

A few months later, in October 2002, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay. He had just turned 16.

It was in his early days at the infamous U.S. military prison in Cuba that Canadian intelligence officers went down to interrogate him. The Americans made the interviews conditional on having the information he provided passed on to them. The Canadians also knew the teen had been subjected to the frequent flyer program, a brutal process of sleep deprivation designed to soften him up.

Video would surface years later of a weeping teen, now realizing the Canadian agents werent there to help him, whimpering for his mother.

Khadr ultimately pleaded guilty to five war crimes in 2010 before a widely discredited military commission. He later disavowed his confession to having killed Speer, saying it was the only way the Americans would return him to Canada, which happened in 2012.

Former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr says in July he hopes a settlement reached with the federal government ? reportedly for $10.5 million ? won?t ?cause people pain.? The Liberals also apologized to Khadr in settling a lawsuit over violations of his rights. (The Canadian Press)P

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal government had violated Khadrs rights. The ruling underpinned the recent settlement of his lawsuit in which Ottawa apologized to him and, sources said, paid him $10.5 million.

If you say youd go through what he went through for $10 million, youre out of your mind, and thats the truth, Bumanglag says.

Khadr has said he no longer remembers the firefight and would not comment on Bumanglags account.

Im glad I saved his life

Doc Buma returned to his native California and left the military in 2003. He became a police officer, working anti-narcotics, for almost 10 years. Ultimately, the flashbacks and the post-traumatic stress bested him and he retired as a cop about five years ago. He studied educational psychology, he said, as part of trying to sort himself out.

He took up co-hosting a podcast, Sick Call, in which he and a fellow vet talk about a variety of issues, including topics related to the military and law enforcement. In one recent episode, he talks about Khadr. Its all part educating others, part therapy for himself, he says.

The years since his time in the military, when he was ready to drop everything at a moments notice and heed the call of duty wherever it took him, he says, have afforded him time to grow up, to gain some perspective on war, on his life as a soldier, on demonizing people he has never met or with whom he has no personal quarrel.

Ive been on the worst combat missions. I bought into the ideology. Now its time for reflection, he says.

Time and again, he is careful to make clear he intends no disrespect to Speers relatives or to Morris and empathizes with what they have lost.

Omar lost his eye, too. I dont know how much more symbolic that can be.

At the same time, he is clear that Speer and Morris were grown men who had signed on the line to become elite professional soldiers, knowing the risks of their jobs.

On the other hand, Bumanglag also makes it clear he empathizes with the young Canadian who was taken by his father to another country and thrown into an ideologically motivated war over which he had no control.

As a married father of four, Bumanglag says its naive to believe Khadr could somehow have just walked away from the compound his father had sent him to. More to the point, he says, had he found himself where Khadr did that fateful day in July  under heavy bombardment, with the fighting men dead and the enemy closing in for the kill, he likely would not have hesitated to throw a grenade.

What happens if the shoe is on the other foot? This is the scenario that Ive played in my head, Bumanglag says, his mind turning to those who are furious at the Canadian governments settlement with Khadr.

They can be upset but the reality is that they dont understand the full story. I dont think any of us do.

Doc Buma says he no longer frets that he should have let Khadr die.

Everybody may hate him but Im glad I saved his life, he says. It just wasnt his time then.

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Unless you are a liar, you wont be able to say you were not warned.

You cannot plead ignorance to the perennial, century after century cannibalization of Black humanity and dignity in the pursuit of western civilization.

You cannot say no one told us there is a problem; that the descendants of enslaved Africans are still considered less than human. That even as they walk among us, in Toronto the Good, in the burgeoning suburbs from Burlington to Bowmanville and up to Barrie, an off-duty cop allegedly stopped a young Black man for no apparent reason, fabricated evidence, beat him up and no one in the police chain of command reported it to the agency that investigates police. The cop faced no repercussions until the young Black mans lawyer reported it. The young Black man was left with several broken bones and an eye that is so badly damaged it will have to be taken out.

Our Black citizens are:

Carded by police  in case theres some future, maybe, possible, potential indiscretion.

Racially-profiled  cause, yknow, they are up to no good. Right?

Disengaged and discouraged in the halls of learning.

Overlooked in the workplace, their credentials undervalued and competencies discounted.

Under-paid, over-worked, over-incarcerated, victims of higher unemployment, poorer health and more likely to be victims of violence.

Invisible everywhere except in the bulging tenancy of the prison complex where membership costs as little as smoking a joint, the kind of indiscretion that earns white citizens a shrug of the shoulder, not the long arm of the law.

These are not the wild musings of Black Lives Matter (BLM) radicals we tolerate for a moment before we tune out and return to a world dominated by the colonizer. (Those European empire builders who traversed the world to discover indigenous and established civilizations, capture land, enslave the inhabitants and appropriate their labour for economic gain  all the while denigrating the captured as heathen or not fully human.)

These are the lived daily experiences of Black folk  our friends and lovers, our teacher and accountant, our surgeon and carpenter and insurance broker. These are the stories laid bare again Wednesday by the latest report, called the Black Experience Project, chronicling Black life in the GTA.

And, give me a shake, the next generation of Black people in Toronto feel more victimized than the previous one.

Astonishingly, half of Black youths aged 16 to 24 identify racism as the greatest challenge facing the Black community. These are kids born here. In 2011, for the first time, the majority of young Black adults in the GTA were Canadian-born, outnumbering those born in the islands. But instead of building security on top of their parents angst, they report anxiety beyond that of their elders.

And still you wonder why Black Lives Matter has such resonance.

Hundreds filled the auditorium of the downtown Y on Wednesday night to receive the report, six years in the making. Black folk interviewed themselves, in depth, 250 questions over two or more hours, each posed to more than 1,500 respondents in the GTA, buttressed by the polling expertise of the Environics Institute.

Findings? No surprises here. The gathering had a vibe of self-prescribed group therapy where victims comfort each other with nodding heads and sighs that breathe, the story of my life.

Validation is good, one woman said, providing feedback. Now I know its not just me; Im not crazy, she said.

Another summed up the daily toll of racism encountered in a society steeped in the ethos of colonized and colonizer. It drains you, she said.

Then she asked the tough question. How are you getting this information in front of the people who need to hear  so its not just us talking to ourselves, telling us what we already know?

Almost 40 years ago when I took pictures and wrote stories for Contrast Newspaper, the parade of headlines had a numbing sameness: Man beaten by police. Mother says school discriminates. Youth says racism kept him from job.

In the 1980s when I joined with Toronto Star colleague Leslie Papp to examine life in Metro Toronto for Black folk compared with whites, little had changed. In daily interactions large and small, Black folk endured the slings and arrows of outrageous racism.

In 2002 the Star unleashed its study on racial profiling, Black pain and suffering finally received an official stamp of institutional and scientific approval. No one who was serious could deny the reality anymore. Black people were being targeted, harassed, arrested, imprisoned and victimized at a rate three to four times their white neighbours  not because of wanton crimes but for the same misdemeanor and behavior that left white citizens free of censure.

When the Star verified in 2010 what Black youths complained about from my Contrast days  that they are systematically watched, targeted, surveilled, had their movements recorded and carded as a matter of police policy  one would have thought the jig was up.

But no, the racism deniers only got bolder and intransigent.

Police chiefs and mayors and citizens defended the most outrageous violation of the human and civil rights of its Black citizens  in the name of a safety no one could identify or specify.

I sat at a police services board meeting and watched my mayor support carding  immediately after Black and white citizens begged the board to please, stop, in the name of God or justice. Former metro councillor Bev Salmon was in tears. Former police board member Roy Williams was near depressed. Desmond Cole renounced his journalism credentials and attempted to shame the bastards into doing the right thing. And they sat there unmoved.

I wept that day  at police headquarters.

I wept many other nights that year as I watched the systematic de-humanization of Black people, across America and the globe.

Why do we matter so little?

Fowzia Duale Virtue, one of the presenters Wednesday night, in a moment of revelation, put her finger on the trigger:

Ive been Black in a lot of places in the world. Ive lived on four continents, lived in 22 countries and encountered racism so overt that I didnt want to spend another dollar in that place. And shes experienced the refreshing welcome of humanity in places without the history of colonization.

Right here, Black response evolved into Black Lives Matter (BLM)  young, accented in Canadian lilt and vocabulary. Where Dudley Laws and Charles Roach and Black Action Defence Committee (BAD-C) once roamed, BLM occupies. The youths seem more strident, more forceful, direct and impatient and radical.

And some GTA teacher posted or retweeted the sentiment that says BLM is our local terrorist group.

Dude! You should be ecstatic. The alternative will be unrecognizable  more combustible and radical and urgent and disruptive than the 2017 version of BLM.

Consider that the majority of young Black adults is now Canadian born. They have more white friends and connections than their immigrant parents. One might expect their reported experiences in Toronto society would leave them with a more hopeful, less victimized existence. Yet this latest report says:

Young Black Canadian-born adults are more likely to identify racism as an obstacle they face; more likely to say they experience some forms of unfair treatment because they are Black; and more likely to be adversely affected by these experiences. It appears, therefore, that young Black adults are more impatient with the failure of Canadian society to deliver on the countrys promise of equality.

Thats what should bother us. BAD-C leads to BLM. What will BLM morph into, if current conditions persist?

Carding had to go because it was just too odious. The disrespect so obvious that regular middle-class folk, Black and white, could see its devilish design. But the racism thats part of our DNA is so much harder to erase.

Black people have shown they wont stop pushing for equality. Torontos next wave of Black voices will be more urgent, strident, boisterous and radical. You can count on that.

Malcolm X talked about the ballot or the bullet, even as Martin Luther King marched in non-violent protest. One day, the idea of Black Lives Matter as an incendiary terrorist group will be as absurd as calling the Black Action Defense Committee dangerous. Current requests will pale in the face of future demands.

We are just like everyone else, Virtue said Wednesday, her form steady, poised, articulate and resolute. We will fight and demand that our humanity is respected and honoured and received.

We wont be able to send these kids home  back to Africa or Jamaica. They are home. What too many of them are telling us  if we open our ears and hearts  is that our beloved Toronto doesnt feel like home.

We have been warned.

Royson James column appears weekly. rjames@thestar.ca

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The news of the sale of Centre Islands antique carousel sent Toronto residents to their photo albums, as they celebrate and mourn the family ride that gave the city more than 50 years of memories.

The 110-year-old carousel  one of 150 of its type that has survived  has been sold to the city of Carmel, Ind., for a record $3 million. The president of Beasley Enterprises, which runs Centreville Park, cited a lack of revenue due to the closure of the Toronto Islands this summer as the main reason for the sale.

We asked Star readers to share some of their memories of the carousel. They have been edited for space.

Benjamin Wert:

For one summer, over 10 years ago I was the foreman of the carousel at Centreville. I operated it six days a week, 10 hours a day. There was a lot of dizziness and almost falling asleep from the hypnotic spinning colours and constant staticky organ music. Over the course of the summer I tried to name the animals, sometimes coming up with names myself, sometimes asking kids. The ostrich may have been Bills favourite (Bill Beasley, president at Beasley Enterprises), but he wasnt alone. Most pre-teens, young teens would always rush to the ostrich. As a kid, I did too, but as an operator I was more a fan of the cats. We were always told that the lion was the most valuable animal on the carousel . . .

I worked at Centreville for nine summers over the course of 11 years or so. As a kid, Id been going to Centreville since I was younger than I can remember. Having it then be a seasonal job for such a long time was neat.

Im happy to hear that Centreville will continue after this devastating season, but sad to hear that my animal friends will be living in Indiana.

Caroline Ralph and Stella Cole:

My husband and I were married at the Algonquin Island Clubhouse on May 24, 2003 and we made going over to the islands an annual trip to celebrate our anniversary with a picnic and walkabout.

Once our daughter was born in 2005, we continued to visit and made going to Centre Island a family tradition ferrying over across Lake Ontario with all our gear. The beautiful and colourful carousel was always a huge hit with all of us.

So sad to see it go, but I am glad we have such fond memories of it.

Barbara Samson:

I have always loved merry-go-rounds.

My partner of the time, Rob Davidson, and I were Ryerson photography students in the late 70s. We were experimenting with Polaroid negative film and decided to work with it on the island. When we processed the negative for this shot, we were surprised that the negative had polarized. We printed the image and I hand coloured it and it currently hangs in my home.

When I first framed it I gave the picture to a very close friend . . . and she had it for many years. Two years ago, she had to part with most of her possessions because she was moving to the States and couldnt take everything with her. She re-gifted it to me and so I am experiencing the carousel anew. I received the pleasure of the piece three times: making the image, gifting it and receiving it again.

Taylor Roberts:

. . . the carousel there represents a rite of passage for parents as much as for their children. I hope other children and parents will make similar memories at Centreville, if not the carousel then on other rides.

Neil Evans:

In the late 60s, I worked for the Beasley family at the CNE for several summers, and stayed one year to help with maintenance, both at the CNE and the Centre Island park. One of my co-workers was an elderly gentleman named Charlie; I forget his surname long ago. Charlie was a skilled sign painter who was responsible for the period signage at Centreville along with much of the signage at the Beasley bingo hall at the CNE. I learned about silk screening, neon lettering, gold leaf, and a host of other subjects in the short time I watched Charlie ply his trade over that winter.

One of Charlies duties was to restore the paint on the various animals of the carousel Beasley had recently acquired. When Charlie was working at this project, he would stop at the Riverdale Zoo on his commute in from Queensville. He would study the lion or whatever animal he was working on that week, in order to make the colouring as lifelike as possible.

I had absolutely no aptitude for the work Charlie did, but nevertheless it was fascinating to watch his mastery.

Pavani Reddy Das:

So sad to see it go! The ostrich was our favourite too.

Chris Staples:

Sad. As a teenager working at Centreville in the late 70s, the first thing you learned when working on the carousel was how to jump on and off when it was moving.

Kim Hogan-Bujold:

My memories have just been sold!! I cant believe its leaving! I went to Centreville every summer of my childhood . . . the carousel was the first ride and last ride of the day! Took my siblings there, then my four children . . . same schedule, first and last ride! It was like stepping back in time . . . same carousel, same music, same favorite animal to race around and jump on. This makes me so sad.

Sharon Wright:

I rode that carousel in 1966 when I first arrived in Toronto. (Facebook)

Richard Jon Latimer

Such a shame, took my daughter on it in 1983 and her son on it last year! Will be missed!

Jacqui Holloway:

My father took me to Centre Island when I was little just after my brother was born. It will always be a fond memory.

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The carousel will stay at Centreville Park until November, and will open for Carmel residents in the spring of 2018 or 2019.

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The first thing Blake Talbot saw when he arrived at the scene of his mothers accident was the blood.

Just minutes earlier, he had received a call at his job at a nearby rec centre from a woman who said she was with his mother, who had just crashed her bicycle.

Talbot arrived to find his mom, Stacey Talbot, 56, inside an ambulance, covered in blood and still bleeding, with her upper lip and nose (swelled to) more than double their size.

Read more: Cyclists death renews calls for stricter penalties for drivers

Thats when she told him the full story: she was knocked off her bike after a vehicle turned in front of her, and she felt lucky to be alive.

I didnt even see it coming, she told the Star.

Shortly after the accident, Blake, 26, shared a photo of his mother, bloodied shirt and all, in a Facebook post, calling for justice for what he and his mother believe was a hit and run.

Halton Regional Police confirmed that they are investigating, and are doing extensive canvassing to try to find out more about the alleged incident.

The online engagement has snowballed since Blake uploaded the picture Friday. The original post had more than 1,200 likes, 750 comments and 5,300 shares on Facebook as of early Monday evening, with countless strangers and friends expressing their outrage and sadness at the incident.

We would love to catch the dirt bag who thinks its OK to leave a bleeding woman they just hit on the street, Talbots post reads, describing his mother as the most peaceful person.

Stacey Talbot told the Star she had been riding home from work around 2:30 p.m. on Friday on Nottinghill Gate in Oakville when a car crossed into her lane while attempting to make a turn in front of her, causing her to crash into the vehicle.

When I first looked up (after the collision), I thought that the car had pulled over onto the side of the road. Then I went down again, Talbot said. And then there was a lady there who was helping me and I assumed she was the driver (until) I said something about the car, and (she) said there was no car there, it left.

That woman was the one who called her son, and has since given her account of events to police, Blake Talbot said.

Incidents like this are relatively rare in the Halton region, said Sgt. Ryan Snow.

(We) only get about 100 collisions (per year) in our region involving cyclists, he said.

Since 2010 Halton Regional Police have only recorded six deaths in collisions between cyclists and vehicles. In 2016, there was one death and 83 non-fatal injuries. Unfortunately, Sgt. Snow said that solving hit and runs can be difficult, especially since drivers sometimes dont realize theyve struck someone.

Without a licence plate number . . . the ability of the police to locate the offending vehicle and driver becomes greatly diminished, Snow said.

Halton Traffic Services told the Star police believe they are looking for a white car, but the division said that they have not yet been able to get more detailed suspect information.

Stacey Talbot has been in hospital since the accident Friday, when a CT scan revealed bleeding in her brain. An MRI was performed Monday, but as of early evening they had yet to receive the results.

She said her sons impassioned defence of her is one reason why they received such a crazy response online. I think that really touched people.

She needs new glasses, and her teeth are so numb that she cant chew or bite with them at all, but despite that, she is willing to forgive the driver.

Thats not good enough for Blake. The fact that his mother said the car continued on despite hitting her is inexcusable to him.

We are Canadian, he said. We are known for being caring, giving people. At least we used to be.

Thankfully his mother was wearing her helmet at the time of the accident. He believes that if she wasnt wearing her bike helmet, it would have killed her.

Sgt. Snow said that a helmet is not the be all and end all of walking away from a collision, but that at the end of the day anyone riding a bicycle should have one on.

Ive always been kind of hit and miss with wearing my helmet and fortunately I had my helmet on when that happened, Stacey Talbot said. I will never ride without a helmet again.

With files from Emily Fearon

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Its not Brexit, really, that Brits are talking about down at the pub. Its the baby.

Because the life of one very sick infant is a common denominator, a horror that can strike any family. More morally confounding, at least in the moment, than the great befuddlement of disentangling from Europe and how much thats going to cost.

Everybody wants whats best for Charlie Gard. Theres far less agreement on what that might be for the terminally ill 11-month-old at the centre of a power struggle between medical authorities, the babys parents, a hospital of tremendous renown, a judge whos expected to pronounce with the wisdom of Solomon and a platoon of lawyers.

Though Charlies mom and dad werent the only parties astonished to discover last week that the barrister whos speaking for their little boy in front of the bench  appointed to the role by a publicly funded state body that acts in the best interests of children in court cases  is also chair of Compassion in Dying, a sister organization to Dignity in Dying, a charity that advocates to make assisted dying legal in the United Kingdom.

The conflict of interest is obvious and galling, though few involved in this long-running drama seem to appreciate that fact.

(As an aside, why do death activists always attach terms like dignity to their campaigns? As if death, however messy and agonizing, is ever undignified, except perhaps as a public execution. Even then, the indignity accrues to the state that embraces capital punishment.)

A private tragedy has turned into Grand Guignol theatre, sloshing beyond the walls of the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London where Charlie is being treated  except theres been no treatment beyond keeping the baby alive on a ventilator while Justice Nicholas Francis considers a last-chance appeal that might persuade the judge to reverse his April decision that life support should be switched off.

The Pope has weighed in, with a Vatican-owned hospital in Rome offering to take Charlie into its care. U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would help the family if they want to pursue experimental treatment in the U.S. Editorial writers have delicately taken sides, always posited within a framework of compassion and mercy.

Charlie is allegedly in the terminal stage of mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a gene mutation disorder that affects muscles, organs and the brain. There is no cure and the condition is astronomically rare  only 16 known cases have been recorded, according to the literature.

This baby, specialists say, cannot see, cannot cry, cannot move, cannot breathe on his own, suffers seizures and is on a low dose of morphine because doctors believe hes in pain. Its the pain factor  if true, which nobody can assert unequivocally  thats most distressing and far more convincing an argument for ending Charlies existence than inchoate postulating about quality of life, an issue that rightfully alarms the old, the frail and the severely disabled.

For Charlies parents  indeed, for anybody ever confronted with life-or-death decisions on behalf of a loved one  their son is warm to the touch. They can hold him. They can love him. They can desperately seek experimental treatment, a fragile lifeline that might be available and which could perhaps alleviate some of the symptoms, with a small  maybe 10 per cent  chance of improving brain function.

The hospital argues that Charlie has already suffered irreversible brain damage and the proposed therapy  Dr. Michio Hirano, professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Centre examined the baby last week for the first time  would not improve Charlies quality of life.

On Friday, during a procedure before the same judge  hes said he will reopen the hearing only if presented with compelling new evidence  the hospitals lawyer revealed that the latest MRI scan made for sad reading, information that had not been shared with the parents in advance. Charlies mom fled the courtroom in tears; the babys father shouted: Evil!

The lawyer apologized. I didnt mean to cause distress.

It has been nothing but distressful, lo these many months. Charlies parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, have lost their battle at every level of the legal process: High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights.

More than $1.7 million has been raised via a public funding campaign to help the parents access treatment in the U.S. Meanwhile, the case grows ever more toxic with the hospital complaining on the weekend that its staff and patients are being constantly harassed and death threats have been received. Theres an irony there  indignation over hothead death threats when death, Charlies death, is precisely what the hospital has deemed humane.

The hospital has not been shy about parading its own suffering. But its professed empathy for the suffering parents rings hollow. Most abominably, after the judge sided with the hospital in his April decision, hospital authorities refused the parents entreaty that they be allowed to take their baby home to die. They would not permit even that small mercy.

Charlies parents may be grasping at straws. Yet their greater sin, it seems, is a refusal to capitulate to monolithic medical authority and to the state, which has aligned itself with that establishment. It was the hospital that turned to the courts for permission to end the babys life. The judge is expected to rule on this last-ditch gambit Tuesday.

Why such adamant opposition to even the faintest-hope therapy? What does the hospital have to lose? How can whats best for Charlie equal death? There is no best in death.

Charlies case may indeed be hopeless. But the hospital is insisting the baby die on its terms.

That is insufferable.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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Driving through the prairies, the horizon may seem like one endless field of glorious, golden wheat. After all, nine million hectares of it are growing in western Canada this year.

But looks can be deceiving.

On farms throughout the prairies, theres actually more crop diversity than ever. It started back in the 1970s when researchers developed canola, which has gone on to became a prairie mainstay. Farmers planted 9.2 million hectares of canola this year, the first time its surpassed wheat acreage.

New varieties of other crops are being grown too that can handle harsh prairie conditions, such as corn and soybeans. They were previously found mainly in comparatively mild Ontario and Quebec.

Read more:The consumer connection in homegrown beef: The New Farm

As a result, Canadian consumers have access to an increasingly wide breadth of homegrown food for their plates.

Some of these crops fill niches and market demands from Canadas young and diversifying population. Some reflect societys growing interest in healthy alternatives. And some, such as peas and chick peas (called pulses), do both.

For example, in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan, three farmers there have started an artisan farm-to-plate company, appropriately called Three Farmers. Peas and chick peas are their key crops.

But rather than sell them as simple, raw commodities, theyve decided to add value to them by roasting them for snacks and toppers.

Elysia Vandenhurk, chief operating officer for the company (which includes her father and two neighbouring farmers) says their target is snack-happy millennials.

Millennials think products like hummus are OK, she says, but they really want crunchy snacks.

After roasting the peas and chick peas, Three Farmers adds sweet and salty flavours, gives them names like Dill Pickle Pow and Sriracha Slap, and markets them as a nut-free alternative snack.

And they can barely meet demand. Specialty stores across the country, especially in Ontario, routinely sell out.

They have a very satisfying crunch, taste and density, says believer Marika Li, a University of Guelph environmental science student.

But Three Farmers most unusual product is a cold-pressed oil made from whats dubbed an ancient oilseed they grow, called camelina.

Camelina, which looks like mustard seed, has a lot going for it (besides being certified as a novel food by the federal government).

To begin with, it has an unusually well-balanced fatty acid profile, and a stable shelf life of up to two years. And at 475 degrees F, it has the highest smoke point of any popular cooking oil, by far.

Plus it tastes great in salads. Its light, nutty and earthy, all at the same time.

But the biggest surprise to Vandenhurk is how camelina has caught on with horse and dog owners. They say it makes their animals coats shiny, reduces inflammation and increases joint health.

And its all traceable. A unique code on the back of every Three Farmers product leads consumers right to their farm.

Were trying to connect people to our farm so they can see whats going on for themselves, Vandenhurk says. Theres a divide between rural and urban living, and we want to reduce it.

Making more homes for badgers

Ontario farmers who conserve habitat for endangered badgers (as reported here May 29), are being offered up to $20,000 each in year two of a program called BadgerWay. Its an Environment and Climate Change Canada initiative that encourages conservation for species at risk on farm land.

Inaugural scholar is former refugee

Former refugee Nasrin Husseini, the first Afghan woman to graduate in veterinary medicine after the Taliban period, is one of five inaugural Arrell Food Institute scholars at the University of Guelph. Shes studying high immune response technology in Canadian beef, which helps producers select and breed the most naturally disease-resistant livestock.

Owen Roberts is an agricultural journalist at the University of Guelph. Follow him on Twitter at @TheUrbanCowboy

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Five years ago, the Affordable Care Act had yet to begin its expansion of health insurance to millions of Americans, but Jeff Brahin was already stewing about it.

Its going to cost a fortune, he said in an interview at the time.

This week, as Republican efforts to repeal the law known as Obamacare appeared all but dead, Brahin, a 58-year-old lawyer and self-described fiscal hawk, said his feelings had evolved.

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As much as I was against it, he said, at this point, Im against the repeal.

Now that youve insured an additional 20 million people, you cant just take the insurance away from these people, he added. Its just not the right thing to do.

As Brahin goes, so goes the nation.

When U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, his partys long-cherished goal of dismantling the Affordable Care Act seemed all but assured. But eight months later, Republicans seem to have done what the Democrats who passed the law never could: make it popular among a majority of Americans.

Support for the Affordable Care Act has risen since the election  in some polls, sharply  with more people now viewing the law favourably than unfavourably. Voters have besieged their representatives with emotional telephone calls and rallies, urging them not to repeal, one big reason Republicans have had surprising trouble in fulfilling their promise despite controlling both Congress and the White House.

The change in public opinion may not denote new-found love of the Affordable Care Act so much as dread of what might replace it. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that both the House and Senate proposals to replace the law would result in more than 20 million more uninsured Americans. The shift in mood also reflects a strong increase in support for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor that the law expanded to cover far more people and which faces the deepest cuts in its 52-year history under the Republican plans.

In remarks prepared for a meeting with Senators at the White House, President Donald Trump told Republicans: "We can repeal, but we should repeal and replace, and shouldn't leave town" until the bill is complete. (The Associated Pres

Most profound, though, is this: After years of Tea Party demands for smaller government, Republicans are now pushing up against a growing public belief that the government should guarantee health insurance. A Pew survey in January found that 60 per cent of Americans believe the federal government should be responsible for ensuring that all Americans have health coverage. That was up from 51 per cent last year and the highest in nearly a decade.

The belief held even among many Republicans: 52 per cent of those making below $30,000 a year said the U.S. government has a responsibility to ensure health coverage, a huge jump from 31 per cent last year. And 34 per cent of Republicans who make between $30,000 and about $75,000 endorsed that view, up from 14 per cent last year.

The idea that you shouldnt take coverage away really captured a large share of people who werent even helped by this bill, said Robert Blendon, a health policy expert at Harvard who has closely followed public opinion of the Affordable Care Act.

In 2012, when the New York Times talked to Brahin and others in Bucks County, Pa., a perennial swing district outside Philadelphia, their attitudes on the law tracked with national polls that showed most Americans viewed it unfavourably.

But now, too, sentiment here reflects the polls  and how they have shifted. Many people still have little understanding of how the law works. But Democrats and independents have rallied around it and many of those who opposed it now accept the law, unwilling to see millions of Americans stripped of the coverage that it extended to them.

I cant even remember why I opposed it, said Patrick Murphy, who owns Bagel Barrel near Brahins law office in Doylestown, Pa.

He thought Democrats jammed it down our throats and like Brahin, he worried about the growing deficit. But, he said, he has provided insurance for his own dozen or so employees since 1993.

Everybody needs some sort of health insurance, Murphy said. Theyre trying to repeal Obamacare but they dont have anything in place.

Five years ago, people here could barely turn on their televisions without seeing negative ads warning that the Affordable Care Act would lead to rationed care and bloated bureaucracy. The laws supporters, meanwhile, including the president whose name is attached to it, were not making much of a case.

To win support, Democrats were emphasizing that little would change for people who already had coverage; then-president Barack Obama promised that you could keep your plan and your doctor, even as a few million peoples noncompliant plans that did not offer all the laws required benefits were cancelled as the law was rolled out.

The best way to get something passed was to argue it was small change, said Stanley Greenberg, a veteran Democratic pollster. It was only when Republicans got control that people then, on their own, discovered that this is what the benefits are.

Jennifer Bell, sitting outside Murphys bagel shop with a friend, was raised a Democrat and always supported the health-care law. But it was only after she was injured in a serious car accident in 2013 that she thought to advocate for it. She used to get health insurance through her job as a teacher. Now disabled with extensive neurological damage, and working part time in a record store, she qualifies for Medicaid, and without it, she said, could not afford her ongoing treatment.

Its very, very scary to think about not having health insurance, she said.

If the condition doesnt kill you, the stress of having it does, in this country, she added. The fact that people do without health insurance is a sin, in my opinion.

Bell, 35, joined about 2,000 others for a womens march in Doylestown after the inauguration and now makes calls to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, both Republicans, urging them to protect the Affordable Care Act. She is working to elect a Democrat challenging Fitzpatrick, who voted against the House bill to replace the law, saying he worried about people losing coverage.

More vigorous support among the laws natural constituents since Trumps election has helped lift public opinion. The Kaiser Family Foundation polls tracking monthly support for the law have shown the greatest gains among Democrats and independents, with an increase of 10 to 12 points among each group over the last year, while Republicans opinion has remained as unfavourable as ever.

When something is threatened to be taken away, people start to rally around it, said Liz Hamel, the director of public opinion and survey research for Kaiser, a non-partisan group.

There has been an increase in the percentage of Republicans and Democrats saying that Medicaid is important for them and their families; between February and July, the percentage of Republicans saying so had increased 10 points to 53 per cent.

The law still faces hurdles even beyond the debate in Congress. Five years ago, Cindy McMahon, who works at the store on the vegetable farm her family has owned for nearly a century, was not intending to buy health insurance, despite the laws requirement that people have it or pay a tax penalty. She remains uninsured (and the Trump administration has suggested it may not enforce the penalty).

If I had to pay a penalty, its still less than I have to pay for having health care all year, McMahon said. At 52, she has diabetes and says the strips to test her blood sugar are so expensive that sometimes she tests once a month rather than daily. She has not looked into whether she might qualify for the Medicaid expansion; she was not aware Pennsylvania had expanded the program.

Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup, said that the area of biggest agreement in polls is that Americans want the law changed. In the most recent poll, 44 per cent of Americans said Congress should keep the law but make significant changes. That compares with 23 per cent who want to keep it as it is and 30 per cent who support the Republicans plan to repeal and replace it.

Greenberg said the growing belief that the government should make sure people have health coverage was less an outbreak of compassion than a matter of affordability. In focus groups, he conducted, Trump voters said they wanted the president and Congress to lower their health insurance premiums; they did not want to lose the Affordable Care Acts protections against insurers charging more to people with pre-existing conditions, or denying coverage of basic health benefits.

Mark Goracy, an insurance consultant in Langhorne, near Doylestown, calls the coverage he and his wife get through the individual market a joke. Their premium is $1,415 a month, with combined deductibles of more than $12,000.

Still, Goracy, 62, said he nonetheless wants the laws mandate blocking insurers from charging people more because of pre-existing conditions to survive.

While he once wished for root-and-branch repeal of the Affordable Care Act, he is not disappointed about the Republican failure to repeal it.

Unlike when Democrats passed ACA with not one Republican vote, what the Republicans need to do is get together with 20 or 25 Democrats and pass some kind of reform, he said. That, to me, is how legislation is supposed to proceed.

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When 15-year-old Lisa W. started to wear long-sleeved clothes early last year, it quickly struck her classmates and teachers in the sleepy eastern German town of Pulsnitz as odd. Her conversion to Islam was noticed almost immediately in a part of Germany where only 0.5 per cent of the population is Muslim and where the backlash against Chancellor Angela Merkels pro-refugee policy had been stronger than almost anywhere else in the country.

Lisa W.s school soon reached out to her mother and stepfather about the subtle changes, German prosecutors said. But when the teenager told her parents one day last July that she would sleep at a friends place over the weekend and be back Sunday afternoon, they later said, they did not suspect anything unusual.

By that time, the 15-year-old had decided to join Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL, investigators believe. They said that after chatting online with members of the extremist group, she left her parental home and travelled to Daesh territory, where she is believed to have remained for at least 12 months. The case prompted criticism of German authorities, with many questioning why the teen had not been stopped from travelling aboard despite having shown signs of possible radicalization.

More than a year later, Lisa W. has been arrested by Iraqi authorities, although the exact circumstances of the operation that led to her being taken into custody remain unclear. German officials have spoken to the teen, now 16, at an Iraqi military site where U.S. doctors are treating her for injuries, according to the German TV network ARD and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

But Germany has not officially requested an extradition, indicating that she could face charges both in Iraq and in Germany. If sentenced in Iraq, Lisa W. could face the death penalty, although German intelligence officials are reportedly in talks with their Iraqi counterparts over her return to Europe.

Speaking to ARD, the 16-year old said that she hoped for a quick return to Germany and that she regretted her decision to join Daesh. I want to go home to my family, she said.

As officials are deliberating how to transfer her back to Germany, prevention specialists and researchers wonder why she left Europe in the first place. Her case has renewed the spotlight on Daeshs continued ability to attract boys and girls across Europe to its cause, even as the overall number of adult recruits has dropped.

Underage terrorists have been a particular concern in Germany, where multiple plots by minors were foiled last year alone. In February 2016, a 15-year-old girl stabbed a police officer in an attack allegedly inspired by Daesh. Last July, a 17-year-old Afghan refugee attacked passengers on a train in Bavaria after pledging allegiance to the group. And in December, a 12-year-old boy with Iraqi parents was caught planning a nail-bomb attack targeting a German Christmas market.

ISIL has turned terrorist recruitment and radicalization effectively into a mass product mostly on young adults aged between 17 and 23 for the simple reason that they are unlikely to be government spies, said Daniel Koehler, director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies.

Daesh has frequently used videos, songs and even games to recruit younger Europeans online. Children, however, are particularly susceptible because they lack experience in separating fact from fiction and are often not targeted in counter-radicalization schemes set up by government agencies and non-governmental organizations.

Because of its federal structure, which puts regional governments in charge of police and domestic security issues, Germany has been even slower than other European nations in formulating such schemes. In several German states, concerned teachers or family members would have been able to call an expert hotline associated with local authorities by last July. There was no such program in the state of Saxony, where Pulsnitz is located, however.

There, a counter-radicalization centre was opened by authorities in March  four years after Daesh seized its de facto capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa, and long after Lisa W. and an estimated 900 other Germans had left their homes for the groups territory.

Correction  July24, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version to update a photo caption that misstated the German teens given name as Linda.

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ACHIN, AFGHANISTANA recurring rumble of explosions echoes off the barren, boulder-strewn slopes of the Spin Ghar mountains, each ordnance aimed wishfully at redoubts where militants of Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, are suspected of hiding. Afghan and U.S. special forces listen in on enemy chatter, intercepting dozens of their radio channels. American AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighter jets whir in circles overhead, at low altitude, waiting for strike orders. Soldiers on the ground man the mortars.

The operation against the Islamic State in Khorasan  or ISIS-K, as the Syria-based groups Afghan contingent is known  is now into its fourth month of unremitting warfare. The U.S. military has pledged to annihilate the group by years end, and the redoubled assault has contributed to a spike in U.S. airstrikes to levels not seen in Afghanistan since President Barack Obamas troop surge in 2012. One in five of those strikes is against ISIS-K, despite it controlling only slivers of mountainous territory.

The battle is lopsided, but each day the front line here in Achin district moves back only slightly. Both local intelligence officials and the U.S. military believe that ISIS-K is replenishing its stock of fighters almost as quickly as it loses them. A sense that this may be an indefinite mission has set in.

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Soon after its founding in 2014, ISIS-K descended into this district and established it as its stronghold. Entire villages emptied as word of the groups mercilessness spread. Fighters infamously strapped defiant local clerics to explosives and filmed their detonations. For nearly three years, ISIS-K held firm not just in the Spin Ghars but in the vacated villages in the fertile valley beneath them.

In April, the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb, a MOAB  nicknamed the mother of all bombs  on a cave complex in one of Achins valleys, known as the Momand. It is unclear how many fighters, if any, were killed. The MOAB  which felt so forceful that every ant in the valley mustve died, said one villager  was followed by weeks of airstrikes on compounds that ISIS-K fighters had held for two years.

On a recent trip up the valley, the bodies of at least four were still there, lying in abandoned fields overgrown with wild cannabis. The corpses were mostly just bones after months in the sun.

Over the past three years, ISIS-K has succeeded in carrying out ghastly attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But as Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria is whittled away, coalition forces here are worried that Afghanistans notoriously ungovernable eastern provinces could become a safe haven for fleeing fighters and a new staging ground for attacks on the West.

We believe that ISIS-K is not currently able to launch attacks because they are essentially being hunted, said Capt. William Salvin, spokesperson for the U.S. military here. But he did not refute the assessment of a local Afghan intelligence officer in Achin, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media: In terms of numbers, ISIS-K has not been severely reduced. The battle is looking more like one of attrition.

While the Pentagon maintains that ISIS-K is down to about 1,000 fighters across Afghanistan, from a high of 2,500 in 2015, the Afghan intelligence officer surmised that there were more than 1,000 in Achin district alone.

The fierce conflict is also scattering fighters across a wider swath of the mountainous east, ensuring a longer, more dispersed mission. Last week, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. drone strike killed Abu Sayed, ISIS-Ks leader, or emir. That took place in neighbouring Konar province, indicating that the fighting has spread at least that far.

Most of ISIS-Ks fighters are thought to be Pashtuns, with few, if any, coming from Iraq and Syria. According to Salvin, the United States sees ISIS-K as more of an authorized franchise of ISIS-main than the Islamic States operation in Libya, which is more closely tied to the fighting in the Middle East. Instead, Afghan analysts say, ISIS-K derives much of its support from Pakistans military establishment.

In Nangahar, it is Pakistans game, said Davood Moradian, director of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, referring to the province in which Achin is located. Pakistan has launched its own military operation against Islamist militants on its side of the Spin Ghar range, but Moradian was skeptical that they shared the goal of the groups elimination.

Pakistans military operation against Daesh is more of a disciplinary mission: Stop your internal disagreements and concentrate on the target weve agreed upon, namely, the Afghan state, he said.

Pakistan has always denied playing a destabilizing role in Afghanistan, but its neighbours ongoing instability has proved hugely lucrative for Pakistans military, which has ruled the country for almost half its 70-year existence. George W. Bushs and Barack Obamas administrations gave the Pakistanis a combined $33.4 billion in aid, and there is little evidence their support for Afghan militants has stopped.

Members of the U.S. Congress have been calling for years for a drastic reduction or elimination of security assistance to Pakistan, as well as ending its status as a major non-NATO ally  or even designating it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said that the Trump administrations new Afghanistan strategy, expected this month, will have a regional component, but it is unclear if that means a curtailment of U.S. aid to Pakistan. In fact, a hostile Pakistan might well pose a greater threat to the U.S. mission here.

Even so, exasperation toward Pakistan runs high here.

That people are even asking the question Should the U.S. stop giving money to Pakistan? shows the silliness of the discourse in Washington, Moradian said. It is like asking if we should stop giving heroin to an addict. Of course. It is the very first thing you must do. Otherwise, you will keep fighting permutations of the same adversary here for eternity.

During a recent meeting of his full national security team, U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly focused on Pakistans role in harbouring Islamist militants, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster pressed for a more punitive approach.

Among the Momand Valleys former residents, the belief that Pakistan wants to destroy Afghanistan is near universal. People eagerly share conspiratorial evidence of Pakistans hand in their calamity. Daesh leaders all speak Punjabi, one of Pakistans main languages; their long hair and beards are just wigs supplied by the Pakistani government; one man said that he had seen fighters swimming in the Momand River, and one had a big Pakistani flag tattooed on his biceps.

Many of these peoples homes were destroyed by U.S. airstrikes because they were suspected of being used by ISIS-K as hideouts. Most shops in Shadal Bazaar, the valleys main market, were reduced to rubble, too, although the fighting is now far enough into the mountains that some butchers and barbers have dared to rebuild.

Yet the Momand Valley possesses a mesmerizing beauty that makes those who fled yearn to return. If they do, they will find the evidence of ISIS-Ks presence not just in their ruined homes but in the few that were left standing. ISIS-K converted Kitab Guls home into a prison, for instance, and the disturbingly small cages in which they locked those accused of petty crimes such as smoking cigarettes are still lying about. The Afghan army has requisitioned Guls home as a lookout post.

Despite the U.S. bombing of their homes, and despite U.S. support for Pakistan, locals were largely positive about the campaign to annihilate ISIS-K.

They are not Muslim. Their only religion is cruelty, and there is nothing crueler than what they have done to us, said Mir Jamal, a proud but exhausted father of nine who has spent two years loading trucks for meagre sums since escaping his village with nothing but the clothes on his back. When fighters swept into the valley, Jamals brother and elderly father stayed behind to protect their home. They were caught. His brothers forearm was burned with embers from a fire, and he was waterboarded. His father was pitilessly beaten and now barely speaks.

My father had red cheeks. He prayed five times a day. He had a big chest, and he farmed late into his life, said Jamal, fighting back emotion. How can we ever accept Daesh?

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LONDONThe parents of Charlie Gard, whose battle to get their critically-ill baby experimental treatment stirred international sympathy and controversy, dropped their legal effort Monday, saying tearfully that it was time to let their son die.

At an emotional court hearing, a lawyer for the babys parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, said the couple was withdrawing a bid to have Charlie sent to the United States, where a doctor had offered to try to treat his rare genetic condition. The decision came after new medical tests showed the 11-month-old, who has brain damage and cannot breathe unaided, had irreversible muscular damage.

Both parents wept in the packed courtroom at the High Court in London as lawyer Grant Armstrong made the announcement, his voice breaking.

This case is now about time, Armstrong said. Sadly, time has run out.

Outside court, Chris Gard said that Charlie wont make his first birthday in just under two weeks time.

We are about to do the hardest thing that we will ever have to do, which is to let our beautiful little Charlie go, he said.

Gard and Yates, who are in their 30s and from London, have fought ferociously for their son, who was born in August 2016 with mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a rare genetic disease.

The baby has been treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, one of the worlds leading childrens hospitals. Doctors there say Charlie is in pain and further treatment would only increase his suffering. They have sought permission from the courts to switch off his life support and allow him to die peacefully. His parents have resisted, arguing that an experimental treatment could extend and improve Charlies life.

The case gained international attention after Charlies parents received support from Pope Francis, U.S. President Donald Trump and some members of the U.S. Congress.

On Monday, the Vatican said Pope Francis was praying for Charlie and his parents, and urged the faithful to join him in prayer so that the babys parents may find Gods consolation and love.

As the legal battle dragged on, U.S.-based pro-life activists had flown to London to support Charlies parents, and the case became a flashpoint for opposing views on health-care funding, medical intervention, the role of the state and the rights of the child.

The parents of critically ill baby Charlie Gard dropped their legal bid Monday to send him to the United States for an experimental treatment after new medical tests showed that the window of opportunity to help him had closed. (The Associated Press

Passions have often run high, with activists demanding justice for Charlie rallying outside the High Court and Great Ormond Street Hospital. Over the weekend, the hospital said it had contacted police after staff received abuse and threats.

Read more:

U.K. hospital insufferable for insisting that baby Charlie Gard die on its terms: DiManno

Baby Charlie protesters rally as hospital reports threats

U.K. baby Charlie Gards latest brain scans reveal irreversible damage, hospital says

Charlies parents condemned the abuse, and on Monday thanked the hospital for the care it had given their child.

Some commentators portrayed the case as a clash between family and the state, and U.S. conservatives used it to criticize Britains government-funded health care system  even though the case was never about money.

Judge Nicholas Francis criticized those who know almost nothing about this case but who feel entitled to express opinions.

At its heart, the case pitted the right of parents to decide whats best for their children against the authorities responsibility to uphold the rights of people who cant speak for themselves.

Under British law, children have rights independent of their parents, and it is usual for courts to intervene when parents and doctors disagree on the treatment of a child  such as cases where a parents religious beliefs prohibit blood transfusions.

British courts and the European Court of Human Rights all ruled against Charlies parents and in favour of Great Ormond Street. The case returned to court this month when the hospital asked the judge to reassess the possible benefits of a treatment pioneered by Dr. Michio Hirano, a neurology expert from Columbia Medical Center in New York.

At a hearing earlier this month, Hirano said there was a 10 per cent chance of a significant improvement in Charlies muscle use with the treatment, known as nucleoside therapy. But he conceded it had never been tried on a human with Charlies exact condition and no tests had ever been done on mice to see whether it would work on a patient like Charlie.

Hirano came to London last week to examine Charlie along with other experts. After seeing the results of new tests, the babys parents agreed to drop their case, meaning Charlies life support can now be removed.

But they still believe Charlie could have been saved had months not been spent in legal wrangling about whether he should get treatment.

Had Charlie been given the treatment sooner he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy, Yates told the court.

Our son has an extremely rare disease for which there is no accepted cure, but that does not mean that this treatment would not have worked, and it certainly does not mean that this shouldnt have been tried.

The hospital disagreed. Its lawyer, Katie Gollop, said Charlie had suffered irreversible neurological damage and the treatment would have been futile. She said the hospital stood by its belief that Charlie was in pain.

At the first hearing in Charlies case in March, (Great Ormond Street Hospitals) position was that every day that passed was a day that was not in his best interests, Gollop said in a written statement. That remains its view of his welfare.

The hospital also criticized Hirano, saying that he had given evidence to court without having read previous judgments or Charlies medical records. And it noted that Hirano had told the court that he retains a financial interest in some of the ... compounds he proposed prescribing for Charlie.

Ending a case he called tragic for all involved, the judge paid tribute to Charlies parents, saying it was impossible to comprehend the agony they faced.

No parent could have done more for their child, he said.

Yates cried as she told the court she and Charlies father had only wanted the best for their son.

We are so sorry that we couldnt save you, she said.

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SAN ANTONIOThe tractor-trailer was pitch-black inside, crammed with maybe 90 immigrants or more, and already hot when it left the Texas border town of Laredo for the 150-mile trip north to San Antonio.

It wasn't long before the passengers, sweating profusely in the rising ovenlike heat, started crying and pleading for water. Children whimpered. People took turns breathing through a single hole in the wall. They pounded on the sides of the truck and yelled to try to get the driver's attention. Then they began passing out.

By the time police showed up at a Walmart in San Antonio around 12:30 a.m. Sunday and looked in the back of the truck, eight passengers were dead and two more would soon die in an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone tragically awry.

Read more:Immigrants die in sweltering truck during smuggling attempt in Texas

The details of the journey were recounted Monday by a survivor who spoke to The Associated Press and in a federal criminal complaint against the driver, James Matthew Bradley, who could face the death penalty over the 10 lives lost.

"After an hour I heard ... people crying and asking for water. I, too, was sweating and people were despairing. That's when I lost consciousness," Adan Lara Vega, 27, told the AP from his hospital bed. By the time he came to, he was in the hospital, where his ID bracelet identified him by the last name Lalravega. Mexican consulate and U.S. officials later told AP the correct spelling was Lara Vega.

Bradley, 60, of Clearwater, Florida, appeared in federal court on charges of illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death. He was ordered held for another hearing on Thursday.

He did not enter a plea or say anything about what happened. But in court papers, he told authorities he didn't realize anyone was inside his 18-wheeler until he parked and got out to relieve himself.

In addition to the dead, nearly 20 others rescued from the rig were hospitalized in dire condition, many suffering from extreme dehydration and heatstroke.

Mexico's foreign ministry released a statement Monday night that said "according to preliminary information," 25 of the migrants inside the rig were Mexican.

Four of those who died and 21 of those hospitalized are Mexican, the statement said. Some of the others inside the truck were from Guatemala.

Many of the immigrants had hired smugglers who brought them across the U.S. border, hid them in safe houses and then put them aboard the tractor-trailer for the ride northward, according to accounts given to investigators.

"Even though they have the driver in custody, I can guarantee you there's going to be many more people we're looking for to prosecute," said Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Bradley told investigators that the trailer had been sold and he was transporting it for his boss from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas. After hearing banging and shaking, he opened the door and was "surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground," according to the criminal complaint.

He said he did not call 911, even though he knew at least one passenger was dead.

Bradley told authorities that he knew the trailer refrigeration system didn't work and that the four ventilation holes were probably clogged.

The truck was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa. President Brian Pyle said that he had sold the truck to someone in Mexico and that Bradley was supposed to deliver it to a pickup point in Brownsville.

"I'm absolutely sorry it happened. I really am. It's shocking. I'm sorry my name was on it," Pyle said, referring to the truck. He said he had no idea why Bradley took the roundabout route he described to investigators.

Bradley told authorities that he had stopped in Laredo  which would have been out of his way if he were travelling directly to Brownsville  to get the truck washed and detailed before heading back 240 kilometres north to San Antonio. From there, he would have had to drive 440 kilometres south again to get to Brownsville.

"I just can't believe it. I'm stunned, shocked. He is too good a person to do anything like this," said Bradley's fiancee, Darnisha Rose of Louisville, Kentucky. "He helps people, he doesn't hurt people."

One passenger described a perilous journey that began in Mexico, telling investigators he and others crossed into the U.S. by raft, paying smugglers 12,500 Mexican pesos (about $700 U.S.), an amount that also bought protection offered by the Zeta drug cartel.

They then walked until the next day and rode in a pickup truck to Laredo, where they were put aboard the tractor-trailer to be taken to San Antonio, according to the complaint. The passenger said he was supposed to pay the smugglers $5,500 once he got there.

Another passenger told authorities that he was in a group of 24 people who had been in a "stash house" in Laredo for 11 days before being taken to the tractor-trailer.

Lara Vega told the AP that he was told by smugglers who hid him and six friends in a safe house in Laredo that they would be riding in an air-conditioned space.

The Mexican labourer from the state of Aguascalientes said that when they boarded the truck on a Laredo street Saturday night for the two-hour trip to San Antonio, it was already full of people but so dark he couldn't tell how many.

He said he was never offered water and never saw the driver. Lara Vega said that when people are being smuggled, they are told not to look at the faces of their handlers  and it's a good idea to obey.

Bradley told authorities that when he arrived in San Antonio, nobody met the tractor-trailer. But one passenger said six black SUVs were waiting to pick up the immigrants and were full in a matter of minutes. And San Antonio police said store surveillance video showed vehicles picking up some of the immigrants.

Lara Vega said he was deported from the U.S. three years ago but decided to take another chance because the economy is depressed where he lives with his wife, 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son.

"A person makes decisions without thinking through the consequences," he said, "but, well, thanks to God, here we are."

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JERUSALEMA deadly shooting at Israels Embassy in Jordan further complicated Israeli government efforts on Monday to find a way out of an escalating crisis over a major Jerusalem shrine, including mass Muslim prayer protests and Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The shooting, in which an Israeli security guard killed two Jordanians after being attacked by one of them with a screwdriver, led to a diplomatic standoff between the two countries at a time when Jordan is heavily involved in efforts to defuse the crisis over the Jerusalem holy site.

Jordan is the Muslim custodian of the shrine, which is also holy to Jews.

Jordanian officials said Monday that the guard could only leave after an investigation, according to a news site linked to Jordans military. Israel insisted the guard has diplomatic immunity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke to the guard and assured him that Israel has experience in dealing with such a situation and would bring him home. He said Jordans ambassador to Israel came to the Foreign Ministry earlier Monday to help solve the crisis.

The drama played out as U.S. President Donald Trumps Mideast envoy, Jason Greenblatt, headed to the Holy Land on Monday. It was the first sign of a high-level, on-the-ground attempt by the Trump administration to end the standoff between Israel and the Muslim world.

The holy site is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The escalation began earlier this month when Arab gunmen fired from the holy site, killing two Israeli policemen. In response, Israel installed metal detectors at the site, a move that incensed the Muslim world.

Read more:

Israel installs new security cameras at Jerusalem holy site as clashes continue over shrine

Israeli troops in West Bank put on high alert after stabbing, unrest

6 dead as protests in Jerusalem, West Bank over metal detectors turn violent

The shooting at Israels embassy in the Jordanian capital of Amman could further inflame Jordanian public opinion against Israel.

The Amman shooting took place on Sunday evening in a residential building used by the embassy staff.

Israels Foreign Ministry said the incident began when two Jordanian workmen arrived at the building to replace furniture. It said one of the workers, later identified as a 17-year-old of Palestinian origin, attacked an Israeli security guard with a screwdriver.

The guard opened fire, killing the teen. A second Jordanian, the owner of the building who was also a physician, was hit by gunfire and later died of his wounds. The guard was lightly hurt, the ministry said.

The Jordanian news site Hala Akhbar, which is linked to the kingdoms military, quoted diplomatic and security officials as saying that Jordan refused to let the guard leave without an investigation.

The website quoted the officials as saying that Jordan might take diplomatic measures if Israel refuses to meet the demand.

Israels Foreign Ministry did not refer to Jordanian demands, but said the guard enjoys diplomatic immunity under international conventions.

An Israeli government official said talks were under way whether to evacuate the embassy staff, given the tensions in Jordan.

He said either all or none of the staff would be evacuated, and that the security guard would not be left behind. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the diplomatic efforts underway to defuse the situation.

The father of the slain teen on Monday called for an investigation and said he would not bury his son until he was shown security camera footage of the incident.

Zakariah al-Jawawdeh told The Associated Press that his son Mohammed is a son of Jordan who was shot on Jordanian soil and he deserved justice.

He described Mohammed as apolitical, saying his son spent long hours working in the family furniture store and had no time to watch the news.

Israels security Cabinet met from late Sunday until the early hours of Monday to discuss the crisis at the shrine and the embassy shooting, and was to convene again Monday afternoon.

Netanyahu said Israel is in regular contact with security and government officials on all levels in Amman to bring as speedy a resolution as possible to this event.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace deal in 1994, but the agreement remains deeply unpopular in the kingdom where many residents are of Palestinian origin. Jordan and Israel have close security ties, but frequently clash over Israeli policies at the Jerusalem shrine.

Jordans ruling Hashemite dynasty, said to trace its ancestry to the Prophet Muhammad, draws much of its legitimacy from its role as protector of the shrine.

Meanwhile, the security Cabinet reached no decision after a six-hour meeting on how to defuse the crisis over the Jerusalem shrine, Israeli media said. The ministers were reportedly reviewing the initial decision on installing the metal detectors and weighing possible alternatives.

Israel has said the metal detectors were a needed security measure to prevent future attacks. However, the government is facing growing domestic criticism, with some commentators saying it did not fully weigh all the repercussions of introducing new measures at the most volatile spot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Muslim religious leaders have alleged that Israel is trying to expand its control at the site under the guise of security  a claim Israel denies. The tensions have led to mass prayer protests and deadly Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Ikrema Sabri, a senior Muslim cleric, said Monday that Jerusalems police chief, Yoram Halevi, met a day earlier with a lawyer representing the Muslim leadership to discuss solutions to the crisis.

Sabri said newly installed security cameras, described in media reports as a possible alternative to the metal detectors, were discussed.

He said the lawyer was to brief the Muslim leadership later Monday on Israels responses.

In another sign of the tense atmosphere, a Palestinian assailant stabbed an Arab citizen of Israel in the neck in central Israel, apparently mistaking him for a Jew, police said. The assailant was detained.

The 37-acre walled compound is the third holiest site of Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It is also the holiest site of Judaism, revered as the place where biblical Temples once stood.

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WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trumps son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner answered questions from Senate investigators for hours behind closed doors Monday, acknowledging four meetings with Russians during and after Trumps victorious White House bid and insisting he had nothing to hide. He emerged smiling to publicly declare, All of my actions were proper.

Kushner, a quiet insider who generally avoids the spotlight, was the first top Trump lieutenant to be quizzed by the congressional investigators probing Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The wealthy developer-turned-presidential adviser spoke privately with staff members of the Senate intelligence committee and will return to talk to the House intelligence panel Tuesday.

Let me be very clear, Kushner said afterward in a rare public statement at the White House. I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so.

Trump watched on TV as Kushner made his appearance outside the West Wing and thought Jared did a great job, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She said his House testimony on Tuesday would show what a hoax this entire thing is.

Earlier Monday, Kushner released an 11-page statement that was billed as his remarks to both the Senate and House committees. In it, he acknowledged his Russian contacts during the campaign and then the following weeks, in which he served as a liaison between the transition and foreign governments. He described each contact as either insignificant or routine and he said the meetings, along with several others, were omitted from his security clearance form because of an aides error. Kushner cast himself as a political novice learning in real time to juggle thousands of meetings and interactions in a fast-paced campaign.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

His statement was the first detailed defence from a campaign insider responding to the controversy that has all but consumed the first six months of Trumps presidency. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia sought to tip the 2016 campaign in Trumps favour. Congressional committees, as well as a Justice Department special counsel, are investigating whether Trump associates co-ordinated with Russia in that effort and whether the president has sought to hamper the investigations.

Kushner said Monday he will continue to co-operate as I have nothing to hide.

He provided for the first time his recollection of a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who was said to have damaging information about Trumps Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Emails released this month show that the presidents son, Donald Trump Jr., accepted the meeting with the idea that he would receive information as part of a Russian government effort to help Trumps campaign. But Kushner said he hadnt seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

He called the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya such a waste of time that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering. He says he arrived late and when he heard the lawyer discussing the issue of international adoptions, he texted his assistant to call him out.

Jared Kushner released a statement before meeting with Senate Intelligence Committee staffers on Monday. Kushner says the June, 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer was such a "waste of time," he had his assistant call him out. (The Associated Press)

No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign; there was no followup to the meeting that I am aware of; I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted, he said.

Kushner also confirmed earlier media reports that he had suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities to set up secure communications between Trump adviser Michael Flynn, who would become Trumps national security adviser, and Russian officials. But he disputed it was an effort to establish a secret back channel.

His statement describes a December meeting with Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in which Kushner and Kislyak discussed establishing a secure line for the Trump transition team and Moscow to communicate about policy in Syria.

Kushner said that when Kislyak asked if there was a secure way for him to provide information from his generals, Kushner suggested using facilities at the Russian Embassy.

The ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Nothing else occurred, the statement said.

Read more:

Trump denounces illegal leaks in new accounts of his campaigns contact with Russia

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Kushner said he never proposed an ongoing secret form of communication.

He also acknowledged meeting with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, at the request of Kislyak but said no specific policies were discussed.

In an effort to demonstrate how distanced he was from international diplomacy, Kushner said in his statement that he could not even remember the name of the Russian ambassador when he wanted to verify an email purporting to be an official note of congratulations from Russian President Vladimir Putin on the day after the election.

As for his application for a security clearance, Kushner said his form was submitted prematurely due to a miscommunication with his assistant, who had believed the document was complete.

He said he mistakenly omitted all of his foreign contacts, not just his meetings with Russians, and has worked in the past six months with the FBI to correct the record.

On another matter, Kushner described receiving a random email during the presidential campaign from someone claiming to have Trumps tax returns  which the president hasnt released  and demanding ransom to keep the information secret.

Kushner said the e-mailer demanded payment in Bitcoin, an online currency. Kushner says he showed the email to a Secret Service agent, who told him to ignore it.

Trump Jr. and Trumps former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was also at the June 2016 meeting, were scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. But on Friday their attorneys said they remained in negotiations with that panel. The two men are now in discussions to be privately interviewed by staff or lawmakers, though the GOP chairman of the committee, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, has said they will eventually testify in public.

The president took to Twitter on Monday to repeat his criticism of the investigations, and reiterate his allegation against his former opponent, questioning in a tweet why investigators arent looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations.

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MANILAPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte vowed Monday to continue his bloody war on illegal drugs despite international and domestic criticism and warned that offenders will end up in jail or hell. In his second state of the nation speech, Duterte also insisted he would not hold peace talks with communist rebels because of continuing attacks.

Security issues dominated his most important annual speech, including a disastrous two-month uprising by pro-Daesh militants in a southern city, the worst crisis he has faced.

Thousands of protesters marched outside Congress demanding he deliver on a range of promises which mirror the diverse burdens of his presidency, from protecting human rights to improving internet speed.

A look at the most serious issues confronting Duterte as he enters his second year in power.

Daesh-linked siege

Two months after more than 600 pro-Daesh militants blasted their way into the southern city of Marawi, the military is still fighting the last gunmen  fewer than 100, about 10 of them foreign. Duterte told reporters after his speech Monday that the government counteroffensive will not stop until the last terrorist is taken out.

The crisis, however, may not end soon, according to Duterte, because troops have to move carefully to ensure the safety of about 300 hostages he said are being held by the gunmen. I dont want these innocent people to be slaughtered, he said.

Read more:

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wins vote to extend martial law

Philippines eyes truce with communist rebels amid siege of militants in southern city

Philippine flag raised on Independence Day in war-torn Marawi

Congress overwhelmingly voted on Saturday to grant Dutertes request to extend martial law in the south to the end of the year to allow Duterte to deal with the Marawi crisis and stamp out other extremist groups across the south, something five presidents before him have failed to do.

About half a million people have been displaced by the Marawi fighting. Some have threatened to march back to the still-besieged city to escape the squalor in overcrowded evacuation camps in nearby towns. Rebuilding Marawi will require massive funds and national focus and will be fraught with pitfalls. Amid the despair and gargantuan rebuilding, its important to ensure that extremist teachings do not find fertile ground, said Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.

Drug war

Despite criticism and threats of criminal prosecution, Duterte said his drug crackdown, which has left thousands of suspects dead, will go on. Do not try to scare me with prison or the International Court of Justice, he said Monday. Im willing to go to prison for the rest of my life. He reiterated his plea that Congress reimpose the death penalty for drug offenders and others.

The fight will not stop until those who deal in (drugs) understand that they have to stop because the alternatives are either jail or hell, Duterte said, to applause from his national police chief, Ronald del Rosa, and other supporters in the audience.

During the campaign, he promised to rid the country of illegal drugs in three to six months and repeatedly threatened traffickers with death. But he missed his deadline and later declared he would fight the menace until his last day in office. When then-U.S. President Barack Obama, along with European Union and UN rights officials, raised alarm over the mounting death toll from the crackdown, Duterte lashed out at them, telling Obama to go to hell. Dutertes fiercest critic at home, Sen. Leila del Lima, was detained in February on drug charges she said were baseless.

More than 5,200 suspects have died so far, including more than 3,000 in reported gun battles with police and more than 2,000 others in drug-related attacks by motorcycle-riding masked gunmen and other assaults, police said. Human rights groups have reported a higher toll and called for an independent investigation into Dutertes possible role in the violence.

Duterte has unleashed a human rights calamity on the Philippines in his first year in office, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said. In April, a lawyer filed a complaint of crimes against humanity against Duterte and other officials in connection with the drug killings before the International Criminal Court. An impeachment complaint against the president was dismissed in the House of Representatives, which is dominated by Dutertes allies.

South China Sea

More than a month into Dutertes presidency, the Philippines won a landmark arbitration case before a tribunal in The Hague that invalidated Chinas massive territorial claims in the South China Sea under a 1982 UN maritime treaty.

Aiming to turn around his countrys frosty relations with China, Duterte refused to demand immediate Chinese compliance with the ruling. He promised he would take it up with Beijing at some point. Confronting China, which has dismissed the ruling as a sham, risks sparking an armed conflict that the Philippines would surely lose, Duterte contended.

In a news conference Monday, Duterte said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping during a Beijing visit last year that the Philippines would drill for oil in disputed areas it asserts as its own, and that Xi responded that such an action would spark an armed confrontation.

Nationalists and critics blasted Duterte for what they see as a sellout to China. After the Xi meeting, China allowed Filipino fishermen to return to Chinese-controlled Scarborough Shoal, where Chinese coast guard ships drove Filipinos away in 2012.

The Philippines had been the most vocal critic of Chinas assertive behaviour in the disputed waters until Duterte took power and reached out to Beijing, partly to secure funding for infrastructure projects.

His move has de-escalated tensions in the busy sea, but critics have warned that Dutertes friendly overtures to China may erode the countrys chances of demanding that China comply with the ruling and relinquish its claims to waters regarded as the Philippines exclusive economic zone.

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WARSAWPolands president announced Monday that he will veto two contentious bills which were widely seen as assaults on the independence of the judicial system by the ruling party and that sparked days of nationwide protests.

The decision marks the first time Andrzej Duda has broken openly with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the powerful leader of the ruling Law and Justice party. Duda was hand-picked by Kaczynski as the partys presidential candidate in 2015 and has loyally supported the partys conservative, nationalist agenda until now.

Duda appeared to take party leaders by surprise with a move that, at least for now, halts the partys attempts to consolidate its power. The partys moves over the past two years, including a successful neutralizing of the constitutional court, have raised concerns about rule of law in a country long considered a model of democratic transition.

Read more:

Plan to put Supreme Court under political control sparks nationwide protests in Poland

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As Kaczynski arrived at his office for an emergency party meeting following Dudas announcement, he refused to answer reporters questions and appeared tense. Mateusz Morawiecki, the deputy prime minister and one of the most prominent figures in the party and government, said he was surprised and disillusioned.

Lech Walesa  the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, democracy leader and ex-president  praised Dudas step, calling it a difficult and a courageous decision.

Crowds outside the presidential palace chanted We thank you! and chanted the names of Polish towns where protests had erupted repeatedly over more than a week.

Duda said he would veto the two most controversial bills out of three recently passed by lawmakers aimed at overhauling the judicial system. One would have put the Supreme Court under the political control of the ruling party, giving the justice minister, who is also prosecutor general, power to appoint judges.

Duda said the countrys justice system as it works now needs reform, but he said the planned overhaul threatened to create an oppressive system and that the protests of recent days show that the changes would divide society.

He said that there is no tradition in Poland for a prosecutor general to have such large powers and he would not agree to that now.

He said that he consulted many experts before making his decision, including lawyers, sociologists, politicians and even philosophers. He did not mention having consulted with either Kaczynski or Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, in what might be another sign of a rift with party leaders.

He also noted that he had not been consulted by the ruling party on the legislation, a break with procedure.

He said the person who influenced him most was Zofia Romaszewska, a leading anti-communist dissident in the 1970s and 1980s.

He said Romaszewska told him: Mr. President, I lived in a state where the prosecutors general had an unbelievably powerful position and could practically do everything. I would not like to go back to such a state.

Duda said he was also vetoing a bill changing the functioning of the National Council of the Judiciary. The change would have given lawmakers greater power over the courts.

He said he would present new draft laws reforming the Supreme Court and the Council within two months after wide consultations with experts.

However, he said he would sign a third bill that reorganizes the functioning of the lower courts.

Dudas step mostly won the praise of members of the political opposition who had been urging him to veto the bills.

Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a leading member of the opposition party Modern, called it a step in the right direction and an act of courage. She said Dudas decision also shows the power of civic protests.

Some people expressed disappointment that he accepted the third bill.

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LAHORE, PAKISTANA suicide bomber struck near a police team in the eastern city of Lahore Monday killing at least 26 and wounded another 54, many of them police officers, an official said.

Senior police officer Haider Ashraf said a suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck near police guarding a demolition site at Kot Lakhpats vegetable market on the outskirts of Lahore.

Ashraf said it was believed earlier that the bomb was in a car, but it was later discovered that the vehicle belonged to a police officer, among the eight officers killed.

He said many of 35 wounded are policemen and several bystanders were wounded by the impact of the powerful blast. Ashraf added that near the blast site a highrise building houses important information technology offices but the apparent target was the police gathering.

The outlawed militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, confirming they used a suicide bomber on a motorcycle.

Rana Sanaullah, the home minister of eastern Punjab province of which Lahore is the capital, said anti-state elements who want to see instability in the country were behind the attack.

No matter what name they use, these terrorists are one but they cannot demoralize the Pakistani nation, said Sanaullah.

Malik Mohammad Ahmed, a spokesman for the Punjab government, said the blast occurred near the secretariat of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif but that he was not in the office oat the time.

Sharif in a statement condemned the attack and called for the best possible medical service for the survivors.

Lahore has faced scores of terror attacks in recent years. A suicide bombing earlier this year killed 16 police on a busy road while another killed over 70 people during Easter last year.

Read more: Taliban suicide bomber rams car into bus in Kabul, leaving 24 people dead

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KABULA Taliban suicide bomber killed 24 people in a horrific early morning assault in a neighbourhood where prominent politicians reside, causing residents and analysts to question the governments ability to protect Afghanistans capital.

Another 42 people were injured in the attack that took place during morning rush hour as government employees and students made their way to work and school. Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing skyward outside the entrance to a private high school. Students in nearby dormitories were injured by flying glass.

Several cars were destroyed and small shops that lined the busy street were decimated and many of the occupants within killed.

The suicide bomber had rammed his explosive laden car into a minibus carrying employees of the mines and petroleum ministry, said Kabul police chief spokesman Basir Mujahed.

In a statement to the media the Taliban took responsibility for the bombing saying the target was the employees of the intelligence services. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said insurgents had spent the last two months in Kabul shadowing intelligence services employees before striking early Monday.

Analysts said widespread corruption, rife within the government and the security forces, makes keeping Kabul safe a difficult job.

You can bring any amount of explosives into the city if you have money. Corruption is the big problem, Kabul-based security analyst Waheed Muzhda told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Any group, even a small group, can bring weapons, ammunition to anywhere in the city.

Last year Afghanistan was ranked as one of the worlds most corrupt countries according to Transparency International.

The western Kabul neighbourhood where the attack occurred is home to many prominent political leaders, such as Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq. It has also been the site of several previous attacks, including the suicide attack last month that killed prominent Shiite Muslim cleric Ramazan Hussainzada, who was also a senior leader of the ethnic Hazara community.

Amir Helam, whose friend died in the explosion, told Afghanistans Tolo TV that every day people are dying. Addressing the government Helam said: If you cannot bring peace then please leave and bring other people. And to the insurgents, he said: If you are the Taliban opposition please come and talk with the government. It is enough, stop killing the people.

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At least eight officers dead in Afghanistan as Taliban seize two districts, police say

UN reports rise in Afghan war deaths, blames insurgents

Explosions kill at least 6 attending Kabul funeral

Kabul has been battered by explosions claimed by the Taliban and by Daeshs affiliate in Afghanistan. On May 31, the Afghan capital saw its worst suicide attack since the Talibans collapse in 2001  an attack that killed 150 people and wounded scores.

In a statement the Interior Ministry called Mondays attack a criminal act against humanity.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said police were working around the clock to keep the capital secure, however he said intelligence to thwart attacks also required the publics co-operation. Residents have to help the security forces, he said.

A second security analyst, who also served as governor of Kunar and Herat, Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi said a growing mistrust of the government by many Afghans has helped insurgents.

The police are corrupt, the security people are corrupt and the people are against the government, all this together makes it easy for the Taliban, said Wahidi.

The Taliban said the attack was carried out by an insurgent identified only as Ahmad and the target of the bombing was the intelligence services and their employees. Taliban spokesman Mujahid claimed the bus was filled with employees of the intelligence services saying 37 people were killed, but the Taliban often exaggerate their battlefield gains and death tolls.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the bombing.

Once again, these terrorist are attacking civilians and targeting government staff, Ghani said in a statement.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also strongly condemned the horrifying bomb attack in Kabul claimed by the Taliban saying the deliberate targeting of civilians constitutes a grave violation of human rights and international humanitarian law and may constitute a war crime, according to UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.

Neighbouring Pakistan issued a statement condemning the attack and saying that terrorism is a common enemy.

Pakistan has been bitterly criticized by both the United States and the Afghan government for providing safe havens to Taliban insurgents, a charge it strongly denies. Both countries routinely accuse the other of harbouring their enemy insurgents.

Noorullah, who uses just one name, was in his dormitory at a nearby university when the explosion occurred. He says he saw so many injured people and cars burning. Noorullah sustained minor wounds from flying glass.

The sound was very strong, the ground shook, said Mohammed Nader, who owns a convenience store in the neighbourhood.

The Taliban have stepped up their attacks against both Afghan forces and civilians since U.S. and other NATO-led foreign combat troops pulled out of the country at the end of 2014, leaving only an advisory and training contingent of international forces. In addition, American troops in Afghanistan have a counterterrorism role.

The insurgents have also steadily expanded their reach across the country, staging offensives targeting entire towns and expanding their footprint.

The Afghan military and security forces, with 195,000 soldiers and more than 150,000 policemen, have struggled to contain the insurgency on their own.

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Motley throngs of masked anti-government protesters hurl rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails. Police and soldiers retaliate with tear gas, water cannon blasts, rubber bullets and buckshot.

An uprising is brewing in Venezuela.

Nearly every day for more than three months, thousands have taken to the streets to vent fury at President Nicolas Maduro and his increasingly repressive leadership.

These confrontations often turn into lopsided and sometimes lethal street brawls  more than 90 people have been killed and more than 3,000 arrested.

I have worked as a photojournalist for The New York Times in Venezuela for nine years, and for the past two have focused on the plight of Venezuelans struggling with the worst economic crisis in the countrys history.

I have witnessed their growing anger as food and medicine disappear and Maduros authoritarianism intensifies.

His government has delayed elections while jailing opponents. Now he has called for a new constituent assembly, empowered to rewrite the constitution, which many Venezuelans have called a blatant power grab and threat to their democracy.

Maduro has called the protests a violent attempt to overthrow his government. Demonstrators say they are invoking their right to rebellion against tyranny, guaranteed by the constitution he wants to revise.

I often start my day now hopping onto a motorcycle taxi and heading to the front lines where the tear gas is wafting and the projectiles are flying.

Ive come to know some of the regular protesters, like Tyler, 22, a former government supporter who has become adept at dodging rubber bullets and buckshot behind a homemade shield painted blue, yellow and red to match the Venezuelan flag. His eyes peek from the black T-shirt wrapped around his face to hide his identity.

We sat beside a burning barricade during a lull and he told me about his family.

Tyler said he was fighting because of medicine shortages that killed his mother, worsened his grandmothers high blood pressure and left his asthmatic little sister gasping. He said his family could afford only one meal a day, usually just plain white rice.

We are living with a hunger that we have never had before, he said. Things are already really ugly here, and we wont take it anymore.

Tyler joined La Resistencia  the ragtag street protesters who clash regularly with security forces. Members of La Resistencia say taking to the streets is the only option left.

If they dont kill us here protesting, we will die either way  be killed for a cellphone or a pair of sneakers  or we will die of hunger, or die simply from catching any disease because there is no medicine here, said Marco, a graduate student.

I feel as if I am inside a video game when photographing the front lines  skipping over obstacles and dodging projectiles whizzing from all directions. Dozens of antagonists get hit during each protest, some evacuated with broken bones and bloody wounds.

Unfortunately for the press corps, both sides have less-than-perfect aim. We are frequently pelted with rocks, paint and water cannons. I took a buckshot blast to the helmet from roughly 15 yards that gave me a concussion. Many photographers have fared worse, hospitalized with serious injuries.

Security forces regularly target journalists, beating and arresting them, smashing or seizing their cameras. More than 200 acts of aggression against journalists have been reported since the protests began.

Protesters have beaten captured soldiers and police officers and burned their motorcycles. They also have committed mob vigilantism. When a man was accused of stealing during a protest, Resistencia members punched and stabbed him, doused him with gasoline and set him afire. The man, Orlando Figuera, died days later.

When armoured military vehicles aim water cannons to disperse protesters, La Resistencia members sometimes fire back with giant slingshots, manned by four people each. Their artillery rounds are baby-food jars full of paint or even human excrement.

Its nasty, one protester said, but everyone has it, and most important, its free.

The protesters also improvise to protect themselves. Some turn swim goggles and plastic soda bottles into makeshift gas masks, and create shinguards from old magazines and duct tape. Others have fashioned armour from carpet scraps to thwart rubber bullets and buckshot, lethal at close range. More than 30 protesters have died this way, according to a tally by local journalists.

Dont knock it, one protester said with a grin when asked about his carpet vest. It has already saved me several times.

Members of La Resistencia are generally young and say they support neither the government nor the opposition politicians. Some are middle-class university students who fight with cameras affixed to their skateboard helmets to update their Instagram pages.

The peaceful demonstrators vary widely. Young, old, professionals and unemployed join sit-ins and actions to block streets. Hundreds of thousands have marched toward government offices. Almost always, security forces violently block them.

During the March for Health, thousands of doctors, nurses and patients protested the crippled public health system. They held signs made from empty drug boxes with messages like SOS and without medicine, theyre also killing us.

When soldiers used tear gas on them, doctors in white lab coats locked arms  gagging with tears streaming  but refused to budge.

In another march, Catholic priests, nuns and other religious protesters carried a large Virgin Mary decorated with the national flag.

At the March of the Empty Pots, families banged on cookware to protest food shortages and soaring prices. A recent poll found that 90 per cent of Venezuelans say they cannot afford the food they need.

The homemade protective gear is no guarantee of safety. Neomar Lander, 17, was wearing a carpet vest when he died on the front lines. Comrades placed candles around the bloodstained spot where he fell, keeping vigil until late into the night.

Johan Caldera, a friend of Landers, said he was even more determined to protest.

Now, I have no fear, because I already lost the fear I had, and the respect for the military, he said.

The real soldiers of Venezuela wear rags on their faces, he said. They dont use grenades  they use stones.

Many Resistencia members wear T-shirts resembling the uniform of Simon Bolivar, who led the rebellion for Venezuelas independence from Spain. They sometimes plead with soldiers to join them, quoting Bolivar: When tyranny makes law, rebellion is a right.

The government calls Resistencia members terrorists and has threatened a more muscular military response. If Venezuela was plunged into chaos and violence and the Bolivarian Revolution destroyed, we would go to combat, Maduro said.

At the vigil for Lander, a fellow Resistencia member squatted on the spot where Lander was killed, and vowed to stay in the street until the government falls.

Staring into my camera, he had this message for the president: Take a good look at my face, because I am not afraid.

Meridith Kohut is a freelance photographer for The New York Times who has covered the turmoil in Venezuela for the last two years.

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WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump is expressing his frustration with fellow Republicans, saying they do very little to protect their President.

In one of several tweets issued Sunday afternoon and evening, Trump said the lack of support happens even with some that were carried over the line on my back.

Trumps tweet wasnt clear about why he was upset. It came as Republicans in the Senate struggled to come together on a bill to overhaul former U.S. president Barack Obamas health care law.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

On that topic, another tweet from the president was more specific: If Republicans dont Repeal and Replace the disastrous ObamaCare, the repercussions will be far greater than any of them understand!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump insisted that senators not leave town for their August recess without passing a health bill.

Trump has had a complicated relationship with the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have continued to be generally supportive of the president, even as his approval ratings have slipped.

Democrats did not escape Trumps twitter rantings as he turned his attention for a moment to the ongoing investigation into Russia meddling in the presidential election. In another missive he wrote: As the phoney Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!

The president also took a shot at favourite targets in the news media: Its hard to read the Failing New York Times or the Amazon Washington Post because every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!

Read more:

Jared Kushner: I did not collude with Russia

Americans warm up to Obamacare amid threat of Republican repeal

Story of Donald Trumps White House tenure a soap opera without the sex and fun

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ISTANBULJournalists and staff from a Turkish newspaper staunchly opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have gone on trial in Istanbul, accused of aiding terror organizations  a case that has added to concerns over rights and freedoms in Turkey.

The 19 defendants, including Cumhuriyets editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, investigative journalist Ahmet Sik, commentator Kadri Gursel and cartoonist Musa Kart went on trial on Monday  a day that is marked as press freedom day in Turkey. They are accused of sponsoring several outlawed organizations, including Kurdish militants, a far-left group and the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who is blamed for last years failed coup.

Twelve of the defendants are in jail, while five were released from custody pending the outcome of the trial. Two of the suspects, including Cumhuriyets former chief editor Can Dundar, are being tried in absentia. Dundar is in Germany.

Read more:

A newspaper in the dock in Turkey on Press Freedom Day

Tens of thousands march in Turkey to mark 1 year since coup attempt

Turkey sentences opposition lawmaker to 25 years in prison for revealing secrets

Some of the Cumhuriyet staff members have been in prison for nine months. They face a variety of prison terms ranging between 7  and 43 years. Those questioned on Monday, including Gursel, denied the accusations against them.

A few hundred of their supporters gathered outside the courthouse demanding their acquittal and release, shouting Rights, law, justice! and Freedom for journalists!

Turkeys journalism syndicate also marched from the Cumhuriyet newspaper building to the courthouse, holding Mondays edition of the paper.

This case is about criminalizing journalism. Its about punishing those who speak out. And if it works here today in this week, they will do it again, again, and again, said Steven M. Ellis, director of communications of International Press Institute, who arrived in Istanbul to observe the trial, along with other representatives of international media freedom advocacy groups.

The Cumhuriyet arrests were part of a widespread government crackdown in the wake of the coup attempt, which has led to the imprisonment of more than 50,000 people, including journalists, opposition lawmakers and activists. Critics say the crackdown that initially targeted people suspected of links to the failed coup has expanded to include government opponents.

As part of the crackdown, about 160 journalists are currently in jail, mostly on terrorism-related charges, while more than 150 media outlets, from broadcasters to newspapers and magazines, have been shut down, leaving thousands unemployed. The country is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

The government insists that the journalists have been arrested for criminal activities  not for their reporting.

In Berlin, Dundar told The Associated Press in an interview that it was ironic that his colleagues were defending themselves in court on Turkeys press freedom day.

We are defending our news (reports), our articles, our tweets  nothing else, he said. Its a case about journalism not terrorism, said Dundar, who runs a bilingual news website in Berlin.

Dundar was convicted of revealing state secrets after he published a report about alleged arms shipments to Syrian rebels. He left for Germany after he was freed on appeal.

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To most parents, losing a child to suicide is unfathomable; a pain so heartbreaking that it cannot even be imagined. This pain is becoming a daily reality for families in First Nations communities in Northern Ontario, most recently in Pikangikum and Nibinamik. Parents are losing their children. Brothers and sisters are losing their siblings. Friends are losing friends. As a parent, Member of Parliament for the Kenora riding, and former Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, I believe this is unacceptable.

The catalysts behind these suicides are complex, varied, and each scenario presents a unique case. There are, however, a few common threads: many of these First Nations are remote, rural, and isolated, so access to mental health services remains a major concern, as many communities have limited, if any, direct access to counselling or psychiatric services. When these resources are needed, patients are often transported from their communities to larger urban centres, such as Thunder Bay. This process is far from flawless, as patients are often faced with long wait times for beds, while simultaneously dealing with being away from their family.

While accessible, appropriate health care is a primary concern, it is not the only challenge faced by many First Nations people. We must also look at connecting these communities with roads to deal with isolation and remoteness, connect them to the electrical grid, and invest more in education in order to develop multi-faceted, sustainable solutions to help prevent future tragedies. Take, for example, Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, which has been cut-off from the mainland for more than 100 years. Official construction on a permanent, all-weather road has begun, which will aid in ending the communitys boil water advisory, increase safety, and lead to greater economic opportunities for the residents.

Perhaps most importantly, children need the opportunity to be children. They need hope. They deserve to attend school, engage in play and sport. Right now, First Nations children are patrolling their neighbourhoods with Canadian Rangers and community leaders to ensure that their friends are safe. This should not be the reality for any child in Canada.

Just recently, I, along with Health Minister Jane Philpott, visited Wunnumin Lake First Nation, where she announced $500k for the planning of a new health facility and $465k for Wunnumin Lakes Choose Life Program, designed to expedite access to mental health services and supports for First Nations children and youth in NAN communities who are at risk of committing suicide. These types of Indigenous led programs are needed to combat this crisis.

Unfortunately, First Nation communities have felt the crippling effects of suicide epidemics for far too many years. These same effects ripple throughout the Indigenous community, the region of Northwestern Ontario, and internationally.

Despite media coverage, despite the studies, meetings, and inquiries, Indigenous youth suicide remains the skeleton in Canadas closet. Our current initiatives are not enough: they are often reactive and only set in motion after a crisis has occurred. We need more accessible, better funded, proactive programming and projects in place to prevent future tragedies. We need to help these communities find hope.

On Monday, Philpott, Ontario Health Minister, Eric Hoskins, and other Indigenous leaders are meeting in Ottawa to discuss this health care crisis. We need to finally deal with the jurisdictional disputes between the provincial and federal governments as to who is responsible for the health and overall well-being of Indigenous people.

In the short term, I hope the outcomes of this meeting provide First Nations with direct, immediate, and necessary access to resources in their time of need, so they are not left scrambling for solutions.

In the coming months, I will continue meeting with the chiefs, councils, and leaders of First Nations within Northern Ontario, focusing on those who have been affected by suicide. Each community has both the knowledge and answers needed to end their crisis; what they require is support. They know, better than anyone else, that when support ends and projects lose funding, they lose children.

This cannot be a partisan issue. It is not about which party is in power, or the optics of providing Indigenous support for political gain. Parties of all stripes, whether federal or provincial, must agree to long-term programs that are not called into question with each change in government.

We need to do better and stop losing Indigenous youth. While long-term solutions and planning are required, we also need immediate, short-term solutions to turn this epidemic around.

There simply is no cookie cutter solution to this ongoing crisis, but by setting politics aside and working together, I am confident we will find a way forward. I am encouraged by the level of commitment from both the federal and provincial governments, as well as a number of agencies.

I hope, this time, we are able to develop sustainable solutions to put an end to this continued tragic loss of life. As a community, region, province, and country, we must support and join with Indigenous leaders and their communities on the path to healing and recovery. We must not, and cannot, fail.

Robert D. Nault is the Member of Parliament for Kenora riding.

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Federal Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer is wasting no time. In the space of a few weeks he has rolled his party directly back to its Stephen Harper attack-dog roots  at the worst possible moment for Canada.

As recently as February, the Conservatives were publicly committed to taking a constructive, non-partisan approach to the Canada-U.S. relationship.

The reason was simple. With Canada, the United States and Mexico poised to revisit, modernize and  we expect  improve the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, a united front was essential. High-stakes international negotiations are not the place for partisan sniping.

How curious it is then, not to say lamentable, that the Tories are now enthusiastically trashing that sensible approach with attacks as disingenuous as they are crass  and on foreign soil, to boot.

This is direct from the Harper play book of constant attack, whatever the context or consequences  as when, in 2003, he went on the assault in the pages of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) arguing Canada should have helped invade Iraq.

Read more: Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says it's Justin Trudeaus fault if Omar Khadr payout hurts NAFTA

Little evidence Tories experiencing buyers remorse over Scheer win: Hebert

First on deck were MPs Peter Kent and Michelle Rempel, appearing in the WSJ and on Fox News respectively, hammering Canada for settling the long-running Omar Khadr legal case.

As the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale had earlier acknowledged, this was a difficult, highly charged issue. There was no ideal resolution; only degrees, ranging from the undesirable to the least bad.

The move to settle flowed from a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that made a bruising and costly loss in any future court battle a certainty. There is no credible reason to doubt the settlement has saved Canadian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

But never mind the nuance  or the truth.

Here we have Canadian federal politicians, making an unalloyed attempt to whip up American anger at Canada. How this falls under the duties of an MP is anybodys guess.

Not to be outdone, leader Scheer himself appeared on Bloomberg TV, offering his considered analysis of cross-border relations. He lacked confidence, he claimed, that the PMO, the Prime Minister and his cabinet [are] fully engaged on these issues. And its so critical that Canada gets this right.

Never mind the latter line (We must get this right) was lifted verbatim from the prime ministers keynote speech to U.S. governors in Rhode Island last week  an address in which he argued powerfully that a renewed North American Free Trade Agreement is in Americans own best interests, as well as Canadians.

Not fully engaged, says Scheer. Really?

Since President Trumps inauguration, Canadian elected officials  led by the prime minister himself on multiple occasions  have undertaken more than 185 visits to the States and/or engagements in Canada and abroad, with senior American officials.

Through this effort, as well as calls by Canadian officials and outreach by Canadas ambassador in Washington, more than 315 senior U.S. decision-makers have been contacted. That includes the president and vice-president, 16 cabinet secretaries, 200 members of Congress, and more than 50 governors and lieutenant-governors.

Additionally, the Liberal government has initiated extensive engagements with U.S. businesses and business leaders, bringing them into the effort to protect their access to Canadas rich market. This has occurred at round tables, during factory and plant visits, meetings with Chambers of Commerce and the like, for months on end.

Scheers response? Pretend none of it happened. Pretend he doesnt know it happened. Then argue strenuously it must happen, and the sooner the better!

That [appeals to U.S. economic self-interest], I think, theyll understand more than just getting Adam Smith read to them by Canadian diplomats, he told a plainly mystified interviewer.

Cue the imaginary monocled Canadian diplomats, hurriedly thrusting battered copies of Smiths The Wealth of Nations into their greatcoats.

This performance is not only transparently dishonest: Its an insult to every Canadian who has reached out to our American friends this year, including provincial premiers across the political spectrum.

The effort has involved, literally, thousands of hours of work. It is a national project. The future of our country, quite literally, depends on it. But there go the Andrew Scheer Conservatives, merrily making stuff up, merrily bashing.

Lively political debate and criticism are healthy. But when delivered via cheap partisan broadsides from abroad, they weaken the country.

One wonders what the Tories think theyll achieve, should they succeed in what seems a deliberate effort to actively harm the Canada-U.S. relationship, at this critical time in our history.

Marco Mendicino is the Liberal Member of Parliament for Eglinton-Lawrence.

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Far too often in Ontario seniors and those with mental health issues are forced to live in deplorable conditions, deprived of the care they need. It's a deeply troubling reality.

Equally troubling is news that Ontario is so unprepared to deal with this deepening crisis and the systemic problems that underlie it that provincial health-care workers and community organizations are sometimes the ones responsible for placing elderly people in these dire situations.

Reports last week of the province turning a blind eye toward unlicensed care facilities suggest they will only proliferate, placing more people at risk. Ontario cannot ignore this problem any longer. Its time to come up with a fully funded strategy so seniors and people with mental health issues will no longer have to suffer the indignity of living in unbearable conditions.

The dire situation reported on by the Star prompted the provinces response, highlighting $5 billion earmarked for affordable housing improvements since 2003. That funding, however, lacks a clear commitment by the government to address the systemic problem of unsafe living conditions in senior care homes where people are forced to stay because there are often no alternatives.

This year Ottawa committed $4.2 billion to Ontario in targeted health-care funding for home care and mental health initiatives over the next decade. Advocates such as CARP, which works on behalf of seniors, want funding in Ontario used to train more senior support workers. They also want money for better housing infrastructure and a safety and oversight regime to ensure those in care are being treated properly.

The current situation is clearly untenable.

As the Star revealed, last year the Ontario Provincial Police conducted a probe, after receiving complaints, which found seniors at two unlicensed Scarborough facilities living in conditions that included: strong odours of human urine and feces, bedrooms with mattresses on floors and multiple residents, mouse feces and dead mice. There were inadequate food supplies and some of the workers were unlicensed.

The Stars Betsy Powell and Kristin Rushowy reported that investigators said similar residences are a systemic issue across the province.

But, with no alternative housing, not only are vulnerable seniors being referred to such facilities by health-care workers, they are being kept in these dangerous, often illegal, places because of a failing provincial system that has nowhere else to put them.

Taylore Hald, commander of the OPPs health fraud investigations unit, wrote that enforcing laws these unlicensed facilities are breaking would mean removing vulnerable people with no other options.

Its not acceptable, said Toronto Mayor John Tory in response to the news, for people to be living in deplorable, unsafe, unhealthy conditions like that.

But as Tory rightly pointed out, its the provincial governments responsibility to find and fund a solution, not municipalities, many of which are still struggling with the cost of public housing, downloaded onto them by the province in 2000. Referring to the need for some alternate form of accommodation for seniors and residents facing mental health issues, Tory said its not going to come from the Toronto zoning enforcement office.

So far, the provincial Health and Long-Term Care Ministrys response is a commitment of $45 million to provide 1,150 units for those with serious mental illness or addictions who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless over three years.

That investment would no doubt be welcome, but it would barely begin to address the need. As the province grapples with the challenges of a rapidly aging population, and seeks to make the most of Ottawa's targeted contribution, it should waste no time in developing and articulating a comprehensive plan.

The ministry says it is constantly striving to make Ontario the healthiest place in North America to grow up and grow old. But right now, for too many seniors and Ontario residents suffering mental health problems, this is not a safe, healthy place to live and grow old. Thats a disgrace.

And things will only get worse if our government continues to ignore this growing crisis.

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Re: $10.5M is far too much, Letter, July 18

$10.5M is far too much, Letter, July 18

Hard to disagree with this writers well-penned thoughts. The Omar Khadr issue has become so visceral due to being judged in two courts: the court of laws and the court of public opinion.

No civilized country can survive without a fair and comprehensive legal system. The court of laws quite rightly and rationally stated clearly that Khadrs rights were not protected, leaving him open to torture and abuse. The non-action of Canadian authorities was despicable, illegal and Khadr deserved at least an apology and some amount of monetary compensation.

In the court of public opinion, emotions come into play. Here, Khadr is seen as a violent jihadist taken at a young age into a war zone to be a soldier by his violent, jihadist father.

Its the optics of the size of the award that rankles much of the public, not just the award itself. Surely, much of the award money could have gone to other purposes. For instance, in the same issue of the paper, an article about the lack of funds to maintain the graves of soldiers who joined up to defend Canada and not fight against it. Could not some of the award have gone to veterans wounded physically and mentally in combat?

The strict legalists are right in their views but they just dont get it, as they brush away public anger as ill-informed. The first court touts fairness, the second unfairness.

Sam Markou, Mississauga

Too many years ago, when I took the Queens shilling and signed on to the British Territorial Army Parachute Battalion, I also accepted that I might be put in harms way. That was the contract between myself and my sovereign.

I can only assume that when Sgt. Chris Speer signed on to the American army, he accepted that his president could put him in harms way in defence of American interests. Sgt. Speer accepted this contract. He worked very hard to be a first-rate professional soldier.

His toughness, skill and dedication were rewarded by his acceptance into the American armys Delta force, a unit that is the equivalent to the Canadian Joint Task Force, the British Special Air Service and the American Navys SEALS. These are units of dedicated, elite soldiers; war is their profession and they are proud and eager to exercise it.

Speer and his Delta force comrades accepted that they could get killed and sadly Speer did die on the battlefield. He died doing what he was trained to do in a unit he was proud to belong to. Regardless of who killed him, that is the reality of soldiering.

Surely, Canadian judges will rule that Speer was killed in the line of duty. That he was allegedly killed by Omar Khadr is immaterial. That the U.S. courts have allowed the action against Khadr to go forward is a travesty of justice.

Peter Guy Silverman, Cobourg, Ont.

Come on, Canada! Omar Khadr was a child, for heavens sake, at age 15. Just look at his picture at that age: he looks 12. We dont even publicize the name of a young teenager in Canada who commits a crime and this young man/child was thrown into a terrible prison, tortured and kept there for 13 years.

With fanatical parents like his, he had no choice. He was dragged over to a foreign country and forced to get involved in a war. He was robbed of a teen life, first by his parents and then by gun-happy Americans. But some of my fellow Canadians think he doesnt deserve a mere $10.5 million.

If this were your child, nephew or brother, how would you feel about compensating him? I thought we Canadians were bigger than that. More understanding, more sympathetic.

Sandra Cowley, Scarborough

When speaking this week about the $10.5-million payout to Omar Khadr, Romeo Dallaire asked: How much is 10 years of your life worth? How much is your future-destroyed life worth?

This explanation of why Canada owes Khadr so much money is truly ill-conceived. Take a look at what actually happened to Khadr. His problems began when his father decided to take him to Afghanistan to become a terrorist. He arranged for Khadrs indoctrination as a jihadist and his training in the art of improvised bomb  making. Khadr was unfortunate enough to be in an Al Qaeda safe house when American troops arrived and a grenade killed an American medic.

Khadr was shot, taken prisoner and delivered to Guantanamo by the American military, where he languished for years, likely suffering various forms of torture. The Americans refused to acknowledge that Khadr was a child soldier and that the medics death, however tragic, was the result of warfare, not a brazen act of murder.

Khadr was put on trial and sentenced to an additional eight years of incarceration after a plea deal in which he admitted killing the medic.

And what was Canadas involvement in this long, horrific history? Canadian diplomats questioned Khadr in Guantanamo and shared information with his U.S. captors, a violation of Khadrs rights as determined by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Since Khadr can show an actionable transgression by Canadian authorities, he is entitled to recover damages attributable to that transgression. Thats where Dallaires reasoning, however dramatic, falls dreadfully short. What Canadian diplomats did was totally inappropriate but had no impact on Khadrs life. For the 10 years lost and the future problems, Khadr need look no further than his own father, for turning him into a terrorist, and to a U.S. military intent on punishing him as a murderer, regardless of international laws.

Canadians who question whether Khadr should receive $10.5 million are perfectly justified in their concerns.

Mirek A. Waraksa, Toronto

I live in Thornhill and Peter Kent is my MP. I am astounded that he wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal criticizing the Canadian governments payment to Omar Khadr. If he has something to say, he should either do so in the Canadian press or in the House of Commons. I am ashamed that he is my MP.

Michael Neill, Thornhill

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Nine people were found dead in the trailer of a semi-truck parked in the lot of a San Antonio, Texas Walmart (WMT) - Get Free Report Sunday morning. The nine were among a group of 38 who were hidden in the truck and succumbed to heat and dehydration.

The "horrific scene" was the work of "ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo," said the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Richard L. Durbin Jr. in a statement about the incident.

In a press conference Sunday, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood reported initially that eight people had died and another 20 were in very serious or critical condition. They were hot to the touch and had heart rates of over 130 beats per minute, Hood said. The trailer had no air conditioning and the people had no access to water. A representative from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement later told the Associated Press that the number of deceased had risen to nine.

The people were discovered after one managed to escape the trailer and approached a Walmart employee to ask for a glass of water. The driver of the truck, 60 year-old James Mathew Bradley Jr. from Clearwater, Fla., has been arrested.

Walmart is one of the few U.S. retailers that permits people to stay overnight in their parking lots, however the company said that policy wasn't a factor in this situation, since the truck had been there only a short period of time.

According to its website, while Walmart doesn't have any kind of electrical hookup, "Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers." As a result, the company permits overnight parking in its store lots generally, although there are some Walmarts that don't allow it.

In addition to RVs, many truck drivers spend the night in the lots. One truck driver told a photographer documenting those living in Walmart lots, that he sleeps better there than in rest stops that are a flurry of activity.

Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said Sunday that the company does check vehicles that have been on the property a long time, but that wasn't a factor in this incident. Hargrove added that the company is doing all it can to assist authorities investigating the very sad incident.

The incident follows three other human trafficking events involving more than 100 people found in truck trailers near San Antonio, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Walmart shares rose 0.8% to $77.52 on Tuesday morning.

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Shares of Amazon.com, Inc (AMZN) - Get Free Report have been on fire, climbing more than 36% this year. However, could that run be over within the next 12 months?

Analysts at FinTrust Investment have initiated the stock with a sell rating and $640 price target, implying more than 36% downside. Amazon stock last traded at these levels in early 2016.

It's perhaps a shocking rating and price target for a company that has not only dominated the stock market, but has also dominated retail. Traditional retailers like Macy's (M) - Get Free Report , Kohl's (KSS) - Get Free Report and J.C. Penney (JCP) - Get Free Report have felt immense pressure as e-commerce trends continue to gain momentum. And while there's other competitors in the online space, none stack up to Amazon.

It struck a deal with dying Sears Holdings (SHLD) to sell its Kenmore brand online, dealing blows to companies like Home Depot (HD) - Get Free Report and Lowe's (LOW) - Get Free Report .

The company has built an impenetrable wall in the e-commerce space, but its cloud business has become a force to be reckoned with as well. Big tech companies like Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Free Report and Alphabet (GOOGL) - Get Free Report have taken notice of Amazon's presence, which continues to grow with seemingly limitless boundaries. For as much as Amazon is a powerhouse in the cloud business, this is the same company that agreed to shell out more than $13 billion for Whole Foods Markets (WFM) .

Here's what Jana Partners is doing with its huge winning stake in WFM.

It's one reason TheStreet's founder Jim Cramer, who also manages the Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust portfolio, said Microsoft should consider a tie-up with Walmart (WMT) - Get Free Report .

On Monday, Blue Apron (APRN) - Get Free Report received buy ratings from Goldman Sachs, Stifel and RBC with price targets ranging from $10 to $11. At a minimum, that implies more than 50% upside to the stock, should it return to its $10 IPO price. But the fear of Amazon has already pressured the stock, which went public less than a month ago. Of course, Amazon's entrance into the meal kit business along with its acquisition of Whole Foods is reason for fear.

All of this is to say, do we really believe Amazon will fall? We can't predict if FinTrust will be right, but it's not as insane as it sounds -- even though the analyst is perhaps taking a bold stand before Amazon reports earnings on Thursday.

Despite how powerful Amazon seems to be and how crazy of a call this looks on the surface, just remember that Amazon stock can be volatile. On December 31 2015, shares closed at $675. Just five weeks later on February 5, shares were sitting at $500, a decline of more than 25%. That doesn't count the intraday moves below $500 either.

Watch: This Is Why Earnings Matter for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet

For its part, investors aren't taking the note too seriously -- at least when it comes to the stock price. Amazon shares are up 0.52% to $1031 in early Monday trading.

It doesn't need to be a company-specific issue that trips up Amazon. A market-wide hiccup can also take it down, at least temporarily. For the rest of the analyst community, not all are bearish. Wedbush's Michael Pachter reiterated his outperform rating and $1,250 price target, expecting an beat on earnings Thursday and robust revenue growth.

Keybanc also had some positive commentary as well, reasoning that a tentative consumer and strong online competition won't hurt Amazon.

Amazon shares rose 0.1% to $1,040.12 by Tuesday's close.

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Starbucks Has an Alarming Problem That Even Its Fans Must Admit Has to Be Fixed -- and Soon!

Amazon Tumbling Almost 40% Is Not as Crazy as It Sounds

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This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author had no positions in the stocks mentioned.
Shares of NeuroDerm Ltd. (NDRM) jumped 16.3% to $38.60 in premarket trading on Monday, July 24, after the Rehovot, Israel-based firm agreed to sell to Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. for $1.1 billion.

Meanwhile, shares of vaccine company Novavax Inc. (NVAX) - Get Free Report were up 6.8% to $1.58 ahead of the Gaithersburg, Md.-based firm's 4:30 p.m. ET conference call on Monday in which it plans to announce topline data from a Phase 2 safety and immunogenicity trial of the RSV F vaccine in adults 60 years old and up.

Other items on the preliminary agenda announced July 17 include the release of additional findings from prior Phase 2 and 3 studies in adults. The company also plans to give an update on its RSV Phase 3 study for infants via maternal immunization.

Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR) - Get Free Report shares rose 5.7% to $23.50 after the San Francisco firm and Eli Lilly Co. (LLY) - Get Free Reportunveiled a collaboration to co-develop NKTR-358, a immunological therapy discovered by Nektar.

As part of the deal, Nektar will receive an initial payment of $150 million and could receive up to $250 million in additional development and regulatory milestone payments. Nektar will be responsible for completing Phase 1 clinical development of NKTR-358. The two will share Phase 2 development costs, with Lilly shouldering 75% and Nektar, 25%.

Nektar will have the option to take part in Phase 3 development on an indication-by-indication basis, and has the opportunity to receive double-digit royalties that increase commensurate with their Phase 3 investment and product sales. Lilly will be responsible for global commercialization costs. Nektar will have an option to co-promote in the U.S. under certain conditions.

Other biotech movers include Radius Health Inc. (RDUS) - Get Free Report , down 4.1% to $40.49. The Waltham, Mass.-based firm said on July 21 that the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has issued a second Day-180 List of Outstanding Issues and requested additional data analyses related to the safety and efficacy of abaloparatide-SC as part of their ongoing regulatory review.

Radius president and CEO Jesper Hoiland said in a statement that the company looks forward to working with the committee to address the additional questions. The company expects the committee to issue an opinion on the marketing authorisation application for abaloparatide-SC before the year is over.

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Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL) - Get Free Report monster $2.7 billion antitrust fine will be front and center when the internet giant reports fiscal second-quarter results after Monday's closing bell.

Late last month, the European Commission fined the Google parent company $2.7 billion for favoring its own shopping services over those of rivals. The company has until the end of August to decide how it will resolve the issue and inform the EU of its plans. And it has until the end of September to change how it presents results, lest it risk being fined up to 5% of Alphabet's daily revenue.

Google is still considering an appeal of the decision and said it disagrees with regulators' case that consumers or rivals have been harmed via its Shopping service.

The one-time charge is unlikely to be onerous for a company that had about $92.4 billion in cash at the end of March, but its earnings will take a hit in the second quarter. Alphabet said in a release that the $2.74 billion charge is not tax deductible, so it will reduce its earnings per share and net income by the full amount.

As a result, several analysts cut their earnings estimates for Alphabet's second quarter. BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon now expects the company to report earnings of $4.56 per share, down from $8.45 per share, while Stifel analyst Scott Devitt lowered his estimates to $4.02 per share from $7.91 per share.

For the quarter, Wall Street expects Alphabet to post earnings of $4.47 per share and $20.91 billion in revenue. Alphabet's other businesses, including mobile search, YouTube and programmatic advertising, are all expected to remain healthy during the quarter. Total cost per click, which measures how much Google pays per ad, is expected to fall 16.4%, but that's lower than the 19% decline it saw during the first quarter.

Another key metric, total paid clicks, or how many times people click Google's ads, is expected to rise 37.2%. Other Bets, which includes Waymo, Verily and Nest, is still expected to lose money.

Analysts are likely to ask some questions about the fine on the company's earnings call late Monday. This is because the fine not only has implications for how Google's Shopping business is run, but also may lay the groundwork for its future dealings in Europe. Alphabet faces increased oversight from EU regulators for the next several years, especially as it's involved in two other ongoing cases with regulators -- one over its Android operating system and the other dealing with its AdSense advertising service.

Others remain concerned that the EU will continue to try to limit how U.S. tech giants do business overseas. Google is not the first of the Silicon Valley juggernauts to face scrutiny from the European Union. Apple Inc. (AAPL) - Get Free Report , Microsoft Inc. (MSFT) - Get Free Report and Facebook Inc. (FB) - Get Free Report are just a few companies who have been fined previously by the European Commission, Europe's largest antitrust watchdog.

Monness, Crespi, Hardt analyst James Cakmak believes the recent string of charges represents "more posturing on the EU's part," but that it's unclear how U.S. officials will ultimately respond. "Fines are one thing, forcing change on business practices is another," Cakmak said.

It seems likely that Google will be able to pay the one-time cost and move on with few major disruptions to its search engine ad business, he added.

"We believe there is an ever-growing need for paid search advertising given consumer consumption patterns on mobile, thereby limiting the effectiveness of organic results," Cakmak explained. "Hence, the wind is very much at Google's back."
As AT&T Inc. (T) - Get Free Report works to close the purchase of Time Warner Inc. (TWX) , the media group's well-known brand could be a casualty of the deal.

The telecom would keep the Turner, Warner Bros. and HBO brands following a deal, as it did with satellite television group DirecTV following its 2015 acquisition. However, the New York Times reports that AT&T would not keep parent company Time Warner's brand.

Tossing the Time Warner name from the marquee would mark a big change from one of the telecom's formative deals a little more than a decade ago.

Back in 2005, acquisitive Baby Bell SBC Communications Inc. set its sights on the former AT&T Corp., a struggling long distance and business telecom. The AT&T brand had been tarnished following declines in its business and a reorganization that resulted in the divestiture of the wireless and broadband operations in 2002 and 2003.

However, the thinking was that the American Telephone and Telegraph brand, which dates to 1885, was so well-known around the globe that it was worth more than SBC's own name, which stood for SouthWestern Bell and had an inherently parochial ring. The buyer ultimately took on the AT&T name, which SBC Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre called "one of the world's strongest brands."

AT&T boss Randall Stephenson presumably sees less value in the Time Warner brand.

AT&T is number 12 on the Forbes list of the most valuable brands in the world, worth an estimated $36.7 billion. Apple (AAPL) - Get Free Report , Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL) - Get Free Report Google and Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Free Report top the list, with brand valuations of $170 billion, $101.8 billion and $87 billion, respectively. Disney (DIS) - Get Free Report (no. 7, $43.9 billion brand value), ESPN (no. 32, $15.8 billion) and Fox (FOXA) - Get Free Report (no. 56, $10.7 billion) are the only legacy media brands that Forbes names. Time Warner did not even make the list.

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While Time Warner is neither as old nor as valuable as the AT&T brand, its legacy is nothing to sneeze at.

Henry Luce and Briton Hadden founded venerated publisher Time in 1922. A year later, brothers Albert, Sam, Harry and Jack founded Warner Bros. The companies merged in 1990.

Confusion with some of the other former Time Warner companies should not be a long-term issue for AT&T.

Time Warner Cable, which was spun off in 2009, is now part of Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR) - Get Free Report and operates under the Spectrum brand.

Time Inc. (TIME) , which was spun out in 2014, still exists, but could soon exit the market. Jana Partners pushed the publisher to consider a merger with Meredith Corp. (MDP) - Get Free Report recently, though Time broke off talks in April. The New York Post reported that Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) - Get Free Reporthad interest in Time. While a Verizon purchase of Time could create brand confusion with AT&T-Time Warner, a deal is not likely.

As AT&T pads its portfolio with media assets, it will inevitably face some tough decisions about branding its new businesses.

AT&T declined to comment for this story.

The telecom may already have enough brand equity. Besides, "American Telephone & Telegraph & Time Warner Inc." would probably be a little bit much.

Editors pick: This story was originally published July 24
Amid news that KKR is buying WebMD Health (WBMD) , TheStreet's Action Alerts PLUS Portfolio Manager Jim Cramer said the health website is an "under-monetized asset.

It's also an asset that has been in focus of late.

The deal represents a big win for an activist investor who cut his teeth working for the private-equity behemoth that acquired the health care web portal.

The sale comes after activist fund Blue Harbour Group LP's Clifton Robbins began building a stake in WebMD shortly after the health care internet portal announced on Feb. 15 that it was conducting a strategic review.

Blue Harbour's Clifton Robbins and his team engage in a collaborative behind-the-scenes form of activism. That means they won't launch a director-election proxy contest to drive a sale. However, the activist fund typically engages the management and boards of companies that are on the receiving end of their large minority investments. They will on occasion push for M&A related efforts to drive share-price improvement in behind-the-scenes negotiations.

It is very likely that they had sought a deal in private negotiations. Consider that Robbins has lots of connections with the buyer, KKR, in part because he worked at the private equity behemoth as a general partner between 1987 and 2000.

In addition, the sale is a big win for Blue Harbour. The fund accumulated its 9% stake between Feb. 23 and March 3 at prices ranging from $51.93 a share and $52.36 a share, significantly below KKR's $66.50 a share acquisition price.

Further, it was a serious possibility that had WebMD not completed a sale of its business that another activist fund, this one more aggressive, could have launched an insurgency at the company.

Jana Partners' Barry Rosenstein recently reported owning a 1.2% WebMD stake. The insurgent fund just last week had liquidated its activist position in Whole Foods with an approximate $320 million profit. Jana Partners is likely looking to invest some of its profits into a new activist target. It was very possible that Rosenstein could have accumulated a significantly larger position and launched a director-election contest to have the company sold or broken into two businesses if it had not taken M&A related steps on its own.

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The Williams Companies, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment comprises Transco and Northwest natural gas pipelines; and natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region, as well as various petrochemical and feedstock pipelines. The Northeast G&P segment engages in the midstream gathering, processing, and fractionation activities in the Marcellus Shale region primarily in Pennsylvania and New York, and the Utica Shale region of eastern Ohio. The West segment comprises gas gathering, processing, and treating operations in the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado and Wyoming, the Barnett Shale region of north-central Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale region of South Texas, the Haynesville Shale region of northwest Louisiana, and the Mid-Continent region, which includes the Anadarko, Arkoma, and Permian basins; and operates natural gas liquid (NGL) fractionation and storage facilities in central Kansas near Conway. The Gas & NGL Marketing Services segment provides wholesale marketing, trading, storage, and transportation of natural gas for natural gas utilities, municipalities, power generators, and producers; risk and asset management; and NGL marketing services. The company owns and operates 30,000 miles of pipelines, 29 processing facilities, 7 fractionation facilities, and approximately 23 million barrels of NGL storage capacity. The Williams Companies, Inc. was founded in 1908 and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Freeport-McMoRan Inc. engages in the mining of mineral properties in North America, South America, and Indonesia. The company primarily explores for copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and other metals, as well as oil and gas. Its assets include the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia; Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita, and Miami in Arizona; Tyrone and Chino in New Mexico; and Henderson and Climax in Colorado, North America, as well as Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile. The company also operates a portfolio of oil and gas properties primarily located in offshore California and the Gulf of Mexico. As of December 31, 2021, it operated approximately 135 wells. The company was formerly known as Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. and changed its name to Freeport-McMoRan Inc. in July 2014. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
Matador Resources Company, an independent energy company, engages in the exploration, development, production, and acquisition of oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates through two segments, Exploration and Production; and Midstream. The company primarily holds interests in the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring plays in the Delaware Basin in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas. It also operates the Eagle Ford shale play in South Texas; and the Haynesville shale and Cotton Valley plays in Northwest Louisiana. In addition, the company conducts midstream operations in support of its exploration, development, and production operations; provides natural gas processing and oil transportation services; and offers oil, natural gas, and produced water gathering services, as well as produced water disposal services to third parties. As of December 31, 2021, its estimated total proved oil and natural gas reserves were 323.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, including 181.3 million stock tank barrels of oil and 852.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The company was formerly known as Matador Holdco, Inc. and changed its name to Matador Resources Company in August 2011. Matador Resources Company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
Royal Bank of Canada operates as a diversified financial service company worldwide. The company's Personal & Commercial Banking segment offers checking and savings accounts, home equity financing, personal lending, private banking, indirect lending, including auto financing, mutual funds and self-directed brokerage accounts, guaranteed investment certificates, credit cards, and payment products and solutions; and lending, leasing, deposit, investment, foreign exchange, cash management, auto dealer financing, trade products, and services to small and medium-sized commercial businesses. This segment offers financial products and services through branches, automated teller machines, and mobile sales network. Its Wealth Management segment provides a suite of advice-based solutions and strategies to high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. The company's Insurance segment offers life, health, home, auto, travel, wealth, annuities, and reinsurance advice and solutions; and business insurance services to individual, business, and group clients through its advice centers, RBC insurance stores, and mobile advisors; digital, mobile, and social platforms; independent brokers; and travel partners. Its Investor & Treasury Services segment provides asset servicing, custody, payments, and treasury services to financial and other investors; and fund and investment administration, shareholder, private capital, performance measurement and compliance monitoring, distribution, transaction banking, cash and liquidity management, foreign exchange, and global securities finance services. The company's Capital Markets segment offers corporate and investment banking, as well as equity and debt origination, distribution, advisory services, sale, and trading services for corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, private equity firms, and governments. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
Church & Dwight Co., Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets household, personal care, and specialty products. It operates through three segments: Consumer Domestic, Consumer International, and Specialty Products Division. The company offers cat litters, carpet deodorizers, laundry detergents, and baking soda, as well as other baking soda based products under the ARM & HAMMER brand; condoms, lubricants, and vibrators under the TROJAN brand; stain removers, cleaning solutions, laundry detergents, and bleach alternatives under the OXICLEAN brand; battery-operated and manual toothbrushes under the SPINBRUSH brand; home pregnancy and ovulation test kits under the FIRST RESPONSE brand; depilatories under the NAIR brand; oral analgesics under the ORAJEL brand; laundry detergents under the XTRA brand; gummy dietary supplements under the L'IL CRITTERS and VITAFUSION brands; dry shampoos under the BATISTE brand; water flossers and replacement showerheads under the WATERPIK brand; FLAWLESS products; cold shortening and relief products under the ZICAM brand; and oral care products under the THERABREATH brand. Its specialty products include animal productivity products, such as MEGALAC rumen bypass fat, a supplement that enables cows to maintain energy levels during the period of high milk production; BIO-CHLOR and FERMENTEN, which are used to reduce health issues associated with calving, as well as provides needed protein; and CELMANAX refined functional carbohydrate, a yeast-based prebiotic. The company offers sodium bicarbonate; and cleaning and deodorizing products. It sells its consumer products through supermarkets, mass merchandisers, wholesale clubs, drugstores, convenience stores, home stores, dollar and other discount stores, pet and other specialty stores, and websites and other e-commerce channels; and specialty products to industrial customers and livestock producers through distributors. The company was founded in 1846 and is headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is the best big-screen phone yet, thanks to its versatile dual cameras, S Pen improvements and beautiful 6.3-inch screen.

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 .

Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 is a big-screen phone that commands your attention  and not just because it's a sequel to a device the company was forced to recall. It's because the Note 8 ushers in a new class of smartphones that is super-premium.

Priced between $930 and $960 (depending on the carrier), Samsung's new phablet has the loftiest price tag of any mainstream Android handset yet. But the Note 8 tries to justify its high price with the first dual-camera setup ever on a Samsung phone; the biggest screen ever offered by Samsung, at 6.3 inches; and a host of new tricks for the S Pen. The Note 8 also offers more RAM than the Galaxy S8 and S8+, as well as a smart new way to multitask.

Is all of that worth about $80 to $100 more than the already large-and-in-charge Galaxy S8+? After living with the Note 8 for more than a week, I would say "yes."

We've updated our review of the Galaxy Note 8 based on our in-depth smartphone drop tests. See the results below.

Design: The pinnacle of phablets

With its curved Infinity Display that goes from nearly edge to edge, the glass front of the Galaxy Note 8 is simply stunning. In fact, it makes other big-screen phones like the LG V30, Google Pixel XL and iPhone 7 Plus look downright dowdy.

I know what you're wondering: Is 6.3 inches too big? Not really, and I have pretty small hands. That's because this phone has the same narrow 18.5:9 aspect ratio as the Galaxy S8 and S8+. I found I could reach across the screen with my thumb, but because the Note's design is so tall, I sometimes had to reposition the phone in my hand to target items on the top or bottom of the display.

Samsung purposely made the curves on this screen less severe than those on the S8 or S8+, which gives you more usable real estate for the pen. I dig these more slanted edges, as they also help visually differentiate the Note 8 from its siblings. However, I do wish Samsung would offer more color options in the U.S. to make this phone truly pop. U.S. carriers are offering midnight black and orchid gray, but I want to see the gold and blue versions that are available overseas arrive stateside, too.

Around the back, you'll find the dual-lens cameras and a fingerprint reader to the right of the flash. I'm not a fan of this somewhat awkward placement, as it would be easier if the sensor were beneath the camera. It also didnt always work on the first try; fortunately, you can log in via facial recognition or iris scanning.

MORE: Which Carrier Has the Best Note 8 Deal?



Measuring 6.4 x 2.9 x 0.34 inches and weighing 6.9 ounces, the Note 8 is on the heavy side, but it feels pretty balanced in my hand. By comparison, the S8+ is slightly shorter, at 6.3 inches, but significantly lighter, at 6.1 ounces. That's to be expected, though, because the Note 8 carries a stylus.



Durability: It could be tougher

As with the Galaxy S8, the Note 8 is water-resistant. It's also pretty tough; I accidentally stepped on the screen, and it didn't crack.

But to get a better sense of the phone's durability, we tested the toughness of the Galaxy Note 8 by dropping it on its face onto wood from a height of 4 feet and 6 feet; we then dropped it on its edge and face onto concrete from 4 feet; we then dropped it on its edge and face from 6 feet onto concrete.

Samsung's phablet withstood 4- and 6-foot drops on its face onto a wood surface without any difficulty. A 4-foot fall on its edge onto concrete caused some minor scratches on the bottom edge, but a 4-foot drop on its face cracked the screen in a number of places, including in front of its front-facing camera, which gave selfies a very artistic look. A 6-foot face drop onto concrete caused the Note 8's screen to start flashing white, black and green, and the touch screen was completely unresponsive.

As a result, the Note 8 earned a low toughness score of 4.3 out of 10. To see the results of other smartphones, as well as our complete scoring methodology, check out our smartphone drop tests.

Galaxy Note 8 Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally Price $930 to $960, depending on carrier

Display: A big and beautiful canvas with more purpose

The 6.3-inch Infinity Display on the Note 8 makes your jaw drop even before you put it in your hands, and Samsung devised a clever new way to make the most of the phone's billboard-like real estate.

For starters, the Note 8's screen is deliciously colorful. I was mesmerized by the multifaceted silver armor of Cyborg in the Justice League trailer, as well as his piercing red eye. When playing Mortal Kombat X, I marveled at how grotesquely awesome the gooey brains of my splayed enemy looked when they spilled out of his head.

MORE: The Best Smartphones Available Right Now



In our lab tests, the Note 8's display covered 204.8 percent of the sRGB color gamut. By comparison, the Moto Z2 Force's OLED screen hit 199.7 percent, and the LG G6's LCD displayed 134 percent. The Note 8's display delivers accurate hues, too, as it registered a Delta-E score of 0.5; a score of 0 is perfect. The Z2 Force notched 1.06, and the LG G6 scored 1.1.

Because the Note 8's panel supports HDR (high dynamic range), you should be able to enjoy better contrast and more colors when streaming HDR content.

To maximize this phone's ultrawide screen, Samsung introduced a feature called App Pair with the Note 8. When you swipe in from the right side of the screen, you can launch two apps on the screen at once  side by side or on top of each other, depending on how you hold the phone. It's also pretty easy to create pairs.

I liked being able to have the Email app open on the left and the Calendar app on the right, or the browser on one side and YouTube on the other.

Dual Cameras: Amazing photos, great flexibility

Samsung isn't just playing catch-up with the dual cameras on the Note 8. It has leaped ahead of the iPhone  at least for now. That's because both 12-megapixel cameras on this device offer optical image stabilization; the iPhone 7 Plus' telephoto lens doesn't have that feature.

What can you do with these dual shooters? For starters, you get a 2x optical zoom with a simple tap on the screen. In Union Square, I could easily zoom in on a statue from afar without losing any detail.

You also get a new Live Focus mode, which is similar to the Portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus, which blurs the background and makes your subject pop. But only the Note 8 lets you adjust the intensity of this effect both before and after you snap the photo.



I felt like a pro when I snapped an image of purple flowers in front of a fountain. The iPhone 7 Plus did a better job than the Note 8 of blurring the background more consistently through the frame, but I liked that I could control how much of the fountain I could see.



I also really like the Dual Capture feature on the Note 8, which snaps both a close-up and a wide-angle photo at the same time, and then lets you toggle between both views in the gallery. One pic I took of the New York City skyline looked so good that a woman sitting next to me on the bus asked me to text it to her. Even in a moving vehicle, the picture turned out fairly sharp, thanks to the optical image stabilization.

My only complaint is that I sometimes had to tap more than once on the screen to switch between the close-up and wide-angle views.

In terms of image quality, the Note 8 delivered the same type of remarkably sharp and colorful pics that made the Galaxy S8 our top camera phone.

Compared with a shot taken with the iPhone 7 Plus, a Note 8 photo of trees and a statue in Union Square had richer greens and slightly more refined details around the edges when zoomed in. However, as with most iPhone photos, its colors were warmer than the Note 8's, and the Samsung image ran a bit cooler and nearly blew out some of the highlights.



S Pen: Neat new tricks (with some kinks)

Samsung has been broadening the appeal of the S Pen for the past few years, and the Note 8 takes it to the next level.

For starters, you can now take up to 100 pages of notes using the Screen Off memo feature. You just take out the pen and start writing. It's easy to pin notes to the always-on display and to edit notes in place. I found this feature handy when crossing off items on my to-do list and shopping lists.

The coolest new S Pen feature is Live Message, which turns your scribbles into animated GIFs to share with others. For example, I wrote "Love you" on top of a photo with a fun sparkle pen tip and then tried to send it to my wife via text message. I say "tried" because I got an error message that said "Maximum total size of attachments exceeded." Strangely, other times, I didn't get that error, so it might depend on the size of the image captured.

The other noteworthy new S Pen feature is the ability to translate full sentences into different languages just by hovering the pen above the screen. This worked well when I visited the French site Le Monde and highlighted a few rows of text.

For those so inclined, the S Pen remains a viable tool for sketching and drawing. I handed the Note 8 off to a colleague to create a couple of sketches, and he found the pen to be fairly accurate. However, he wished that the pen offered more nuanced control, as the Apple Pencil does on the iPad.

Battery Life: Surprisingly good

We'll have to wait and see whether the Note 8's battery lives up to Samsung's safety claims, but I can say that the phone lasts quite a long time on a charge. Although the battery's 3,300-mAh capacity is a bit lower than that of the battery inside the ill-fated Note 7, as well as the battery in the Galaxy S8+ (both 3,500 mAh), it turned in excellent results.

On the Tom's Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over 4G on 150 nits of screen brightness, the Note 8 lasted a very strong 11 hours and 11 minutes on T-Mobile's network. That's even better than the 11:04 that the S8+ turned in and the 10:39 runtime from the S8, both also tested on T-Mobile. It's possible that the Note 8's extra RAM makes it slightly more efficient.

MORE: Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life

By comparison, the iPhone 7 Plus lasted 10:38, and the Moto Z2 Force ran for 10:23. The LG G6 mustered only 8:39.

Performance: More RAM, serious power

The Note 8 has the same Snapdragon 835 processor as other current Android flagships, but it ups the ante with 6GB of RAM. Most other phones make do with 4GB of RAM; exceptions include the OnePlus 5, which comes with up to 8GB of RAM.

In everyday use, the Note 8 was very swift, whether I was jumping right into the camera from the lock screen instantly (just double-press the home button) or playing Injustice 2 with silky-smooth frame rates. However, there were more than a couple of times when I had to tap the screen more than once for the phone to do what I wanted.

On Geekbench, which measures overall performance, the Note 8 scored 6,564 on the multicore portion of the test. That's better than the Galaxy S8 (6,124), a bit better than the Moto Z2 Force (6,489) and just slightly faster than the OnePlus 5 with 8GB of RAM (6,542).

When it comes to graphics performance, the Note 8 more than holds its own. It notched 39,834 on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited test, which beat the Galaxy S8 (35,903) and edged out the Z2 Force (39,807) and the OnePlus 5 (39,576).

Software: Bixby is underrated

Other than the added capabilities of the S Pen and the App Pair feature for split-screen multitasking, Bixby is the highlight software feature on the Note 8, which runs Android 7.1.1. It's best not to think of Bixby as a direct Siri competitor but rather more of a personal assistant that speeds up tasks that typically take multiple taps.

For instance, I said, "Capture a screenshot, and show it to me in the gallery," and the Note 8 did both tasks in succession successfully. I also liked that I could add specific items to my to-do list by saying them aloud, such as "Add 'approve vacation day' to my task list." At first, Bixby thought I said "A prove," but the mistake was easy to correct.

MORE: Galaxy Note 8: Features to Enable and Disable

The other main highlight is the Apps Edge menu, which makes it easy to pull up your favorite apps without having to go back to the home screen. You can also quickly access your favorite contacts from this menu.

Accessories Aplenty

The Galaxy Note 8 has a new design, so you're definitely going to need a new case for this 6.3-inch monster. The good news is that there are plenty of options to choose from already, including a suede-like Alcantara cover that's available in multiple colors. My favorite is green.

MORE: 11 Best Galaxy Note 8 Accessories

The Note 8 also supports a new version of the Gear VR headset ($129) for people who want to get into virtual reality. The headset comes with a motion controller to make the VR experience more immersive.

DeX Station

If you want to leverage the full power of the Note 8 on a bigger screen, check out the DeX Station, which costs about $125. With this dock, you can run Android apps on a full-size HD monitor, and get a desktop-like experience with a mouse and keyboard connected to the peripheral. More developers are starting to support this accessory, including Zoom, which lets you seamlessly continue your conference call after you plug the phone into the dock.

Bottom Line

Spending nearly $1,000 on a smartphone seems a bit nuts when you can get a very good phone, like the OnePlus 5, for less than $500. But the Note 8 isn't just very good  it is awesome. The combination of its glorious 6.3-inch Infinity Display, excellent dual cameras and more versatile S Pen makes it the big-screen phone to beat. Some people may want to wait for the iPhone 8, but if you're an Android fan, you need look no further.

The Note 8 could be better in some ways. The fingerprint sensor is located in an awkward spot, and the Live Message feature (as novel as it is) doesn't always work the way it should. Then, there's the price. If you don't have a need for the S Pen and you just want a big screen, you'll be plenty happy with the $850 Galaxy S8 Plus. But I'd spend the extra dough on the Note 8 simply because of its dual-lens camera and what you can do with it.

Credit: Shaun Lucas/Tom's Guide


Dentons, a leading global law firm, has advised Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) on the issuance by OmGrid Funding Limited of $500 million guaranteed notes, guaranteed by OETC.



OETC is a member of Nama Group and is the sultanate's main electricity transmission network operator.



This latest issuance follows on from the successful debut issuance in 2015, which was the first ever investment grade international bond issuance of its kind at that time by an Omani corporate entity.



The notes were listed on the Irish Stock Exchange and were offered to qualified institutional buyers in the US in reliance on Rule 144A under the US Securities Act of 1933 (the Securities Act), and outside of the US in reliance on Regulation S under the US Securities Act.



The transaction was also the first international bond offering for an Omani corporation since recent sweeping changes were introduced in Oman's tax regime implementing extensions to withholding tax, which was addressed with the inclusion of a novel issuer substitution mechanism in the terms of the Notes. The transaction was also launched in just over four weeks from the start of work to completion.



JP Morgan and Bank Muscat acted as joint lead managers on the transaction, said a statement.



Dentons' Middle East co-head of banking and finance Sadaf Buchanan, said: We are delighted to see the successful launch of another issuance on behalf of OETC, and are honoured to have supported the OETC team again throughout this transaction.



Dentons corporate partner in London, Cameron Half, said: We are very pleased to have advised OETC on not only another landmark transaction for the company but also Oman and the region. The pricing reflects the continued confidence of investors.  TradeArabia News Service
The Saudi Ministry of Interior has announced that a major terrorist attack has been prevented by security services in the city of Saihat in the Qatif governorate, according to a press release on behalf of the ministry.



On the evening of July 14, security services intercepted a stolen Toyota Corolla vehicle in a busy, built-up district of the city, reported Wam, the Emirates official news agency.



As the vehicle was surrounded by security services, three men in the car produced guns and started firing at both the officers and crowds of civilians near the scene.



Saudi security services were able to shoot the three terrorists dead before they were able to cause any injury to either officers or pedestrians.



Inside the stolen vehicle, officers found a number of weapons, including three machine guns, a pistol, live ammunition and over ten kilograms of explosives. During investigation to establish the identity of the criminals, it was discovered that they were part of a known terrorist cell and wanted for a number of serious crimes over the past few years, including the murder of ten security officers.



A Ministry of Interior spokesman said, "It is very clear that these men were intent on causing a major terrorist incident which would have resulted in the death of many innocent citizens."



"Terrorists and extremists target Saudi Arabia just as they do the countries of Europe and other peace loving parts of the world. We in Saudi Arabia are determined to defeat them, and will devote all available resources to overcoming this great evil. Saudi Arabia will have zero tolerance for terrorist crimes of this kind, which threaten both national security and the lives of our citizens."
An Air Seychelles pilot and his co-pilot have been commended for avoiding what would have been a fatal mid-air collision with an Emirates A380 plane last week, reports said.



Captain Roberto Vallicelli and First Officer Ronny Morel, who were flying an Air Seychelles Airbus A330 over Mauritius, made a sharp turn in order to dodge an Emirates Airbus A380 - the world's largest passenger jet - which was headed straight into his path, said the Mail Online report.



The Emirates plane was flying from Dubai to Mauritius last Friday, and had been cleared to make its descent by air traffic control. The Air Seychelles aircraft had just taken off from the airport in Mauritius and was heading toward Mahe Island, and straight into the path of the Emirates plane.



The Emirates Airbus A380-800 from Dubai to Mauritius, flying at 40,000 feet, was cleared to descend to 38,000 feet by air traffic control; the crew read it back as 36,000 feet, which was not corrected by air traffic control, according to an Aviation Herald report.



The Air Seychelles Airbus A330-200 flying from Mauritius to Mahe Island (Seychelles), had been cleared to climb to 37,000 ft and was climbing through 33,000 when the Emirates descended through 38,000.



Both crews could see each other when the traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) alert was initiated and the Air Seychelles turned right to avoid a collision.



Meanwhile, Emirates said in a separate statement shared to local media: Emirates has received reports of an event on July 14, 2017 in relation to aircraft separation involving flight EK-703 in Mauritius airspace.



The matter has been reported to the respective air transport authorities and Emirates will extend its full cooperation to any investigation. The safety of our passengers and crew is of utmost importance.



Air Seychelles said in a statement Monday: We commend our Captain Roberto Vallicelli and Seychellois First Officer Ronny Morel who were operating the HM054 flight from Mauritius to Seychelles on the evening of Friday 14 July 2017.



Their training standard and operating protocols immediately kicked in which demonstrates the extremely high standards of training which our Air Seychelles pilots attain. We highly commend them for what they have done, Air Seychelles added.


In light of the current political situation with Doha, the government of Saudi Arabia has extended its welcome to pilgrims from Qatar and has expressed its keenness to enable them to perform Umrah, said a report.



The Ministry reaffirmed that Qatari pilgrims can continue to perform Umrah at any time and can arrive into the kingdom through any airlines, except Qatar Airways, said a report in Saudi Press Agency.



Qatari pilgrims are expected to start from Doha and come through any transit station via any carrier and arrive at King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah or Prince Mohammed Bin Abdul Aziz Airport in Madinah.



Qatari pilgrims and those residing in Qatar who have Haj permits from the Ministry of Haj and Umrah and the Haj affairs authorities in Qatar, and have been registered in the Haj electronic system, will be able to come directly from Doha or through any other transit station via any carrier, other than Qatar Airways, selected by the Qatari government and approved by the GACA, it said.
Personal finance writer Michelle McGagh weighs in on how to save money effectively.

A few months ago, Michelle McGagh wrapped up her year of no spending. The London-based personal finance journalist made a radical decision on Black Friday 2015 not to spend any money on superfluities for 12 months. She would only pay bills and mortgage, and buy groceries for homemade vegetarian meals. No money for bus fares meant she rode her bike everywhere, and no budget for going out forced her to come up with alternative ways to socialize with friends.

McGagh looks back on the year as a great success. She managed to put 22,000 toward her mortgage, reducing the interest and number of years shell be indebted to the bank. In an article for Moneywise, she shared 10 practical tips learned during this experiment in extreme frugality. Four of these stood out for me while reading, and I will share them below.

1. Needs versus wants

When faced with a purchase, ask yourself whether its a need or a want. Its far too easy to come up with a reason for why you think you need (or deserve) something  a new pair of shoes, a shirt, a vacation, even a new car  but its important to analyze the urge critically, especially if youre already in debt.

McGagh writes:

There are lots of reasons people buy: because theyre bored, happy, sad or because they want to treat themselves. If you can identify why youre buying things or patterns in your behaviour, then you can stop yourself before handing over your credit card.

2. Set a goal

Saving money is a lot easier if youre working toward something specific. Youll cope with short-term sacrifices better, knowing what the long-term benefits will be. While McGagh chose to target her mortgage, your goal could be anything: building up an emergency fund, paying to re-train for a new career, or treating the kids to a holiday of a lifetime.

3. Look to the past

Some of the best lessons in frugality can be found by looking back in time, to the way our grandparents lived. They were experts in stretching a dollar and reusing food in creative ways (not to mention engaging in self-denial and delayed gratification). McGagh managed to slash her grocery bill to just over 30 per week, including food, toiletries, and cleaning supplies, by returning to the discipline of old-fashioned housekeeping.

4. Get out of your comfort zone

When I wrote about McGaghs challenge last year, I was struck by her statement that she had to stop trying to replicate her old life in order to succeed. It was only after figuring out new ways of socializing, traveling, and keeping herself occupied that she was able to feel happy.

You have to embrace the new and sometimes unusual, and be willing to be more adventurous if you want to live a frugal life and have some fun. So many of us get stuck in a pattern of spending.

Its not necessary to live as extremely as McGagh did, but there are valuable lessons to be learned from the experience. It boils down to a basic concept  having a plan and sticking to it  that can make all the difference between financial incompetence and financial success.

Read the full article "10 practical tips from my year of spending nothing" here.
Why this could be the future of construction and why we should be very, very afraid.

This may look like your normal Holiday Inn, but Chapman Taylor, a huge multinational architecture firm that started in the UK, describes it in a press release as the first volumetric modular hotel to be completed in Manchester (my emphasis):

Chapman Taylors Manchester studio, alongside the main contractor, Bowmer & Kirkland, developed the detailed design for the off-site hotel adopting a completely different design process, which was informed by the modular providers system. All 220 guestrooms have been constructed off-site from purpose-built steel shipping containers; complete with fully factory finished interior furniture, fixtures and fittings, including carpets, curtains, wallpaper and full-height windows.

 Chapman Taylor

But what does volumetric modular mean? And what are these "purpose-built shipping containers"? And where do they come from?

 CIMC Modular

Not mentioned on any of their press releases or in almost any of the articles about this project (and I think why they downplay the words "shipping containers" in most articles and press releases) is where these modules are manufactured -- China. They are built, fitted out and delivered by CIMC Modular Building Systems, a subsidiary of China International Marine Containers, and the largest provider of modular buildings and modular building systems in the world. And with the politics of jobs, immigration and Brexit these days, there would probably be serious outrage. So nobody mentions the C-word.

 CIMC/ This doesn't look like the inside of a shipping container.

Regular readers of TreeHugger will know that I have complained that shipping containers are designed for freight and not for people, and that the interior width is too small for comfortable habitation; even tiny houses are 6 inches wider. But I also believed that designers were missing the point of containers, that it's not about the box. In my post about shipping container architecture I complained that architects and builders had to "finally figure out what shipping containers actually are, which is not just a box, but part of a global transportation system with a vast infrastructure of ships, trains, trucks and cranes that has driven the cost of shipping down to a fraction of what it used to be."

Some like MEKA, have tried building container-sized modules from scratch that piece together to make bigger spaces. It doesnt work very well. Most modular construction works with larger dimensions, like 12 foot wide, which doesnt travel very well.

Shipping containers have changed the world.

Yet shipping containers have changed the world, globalized the economy, and made it possible and economical to offshore the manufacturing of just about everything to China with its low labor costs and a very different regulatory environment. Almost everything moves in containers now, thanks to the incredible international transportation system of trucks, cranes and ships designed to handle them. The entire system is based on that standard 20 or 40 by 8 dimension that the standard spreader can pick up. (Listen to Alexis Madrigal's fabulous container podcast to learn about the industry.)

What CIMC Modular has done that I have never seen before (and you can see in this video) is somehow bury the corner castings, set the required 8 by 40 apart, in the middle of what I am eyeballing as a 12 by 48 module. Shipping containers can be stacked empty up to 16 containers high because the corner castings and corner posts are so strong; everything else is much lighter, and the corrugated sides act as a monocoque shell to hold up the top. I do not know how they transfer the load from those castings to the corner posts that they still need to stack the boxes, but they somehow pull it off.

Construction News/ Module being picked up/Video screen capture

You can see in the screenshot a bog-standard spreader picking up the box as if it was a standard container, but the box is so much wider and longer. The video is from Construction News, which has a paywall protected article withlots of photos. CIMC Modular notes that the whole project is a perfect case to show efficiency by using CIMC Modules that [takes] 3 months on module design, 3 months on manufacture, and 2 months on shipping. Thirty-six modules have been installed with 3 days on site. And they don't ship empty boxes either; they are finished and furnished.

Why is this so important?

Across the US and the UK and, in fact, everywhere, millions of jobs have been lost to offshoring and to automation. Construction is one of the last industries that has been barely affected by these changes, and that still provides lots of blue collar jobs to people all over the country. But some construction jobs are so hard that Americans and Britons dont want to do them anymore, and the industry relies on a lot of foreign workers, which are a diminishing resource as America and Britain close their borders.

 Chapman Taylor

Chapman Taylor notes in another press release when pitching Umbrellahaus, a residential model:

Offsite construction has been in existence for some time and has been viewed by many as a niche market related to the prefab projects of the post war years. Things are changing fast. Contractors and developers are regularly talking about the merits of modular construction and, increasingly, large multi-national companies are making offsite a key component of their future growth strategies. This trend will grow exponentially over the next decade and beyond.



Lloyd Alter/ Broad Sustainable Building Factory/CC BY 2.0

As noted previously, in all of their documentation and in every article, they never mention China or credit CIMC Modular Building Systems. But I have been to factories in China where they build housing and hotels and I have seen how vast, fast and efficient they are; how they have everything from floor finishes to furniture feeding right in; how the quality can better than you get on most site-built projects.

Lloyd Alter/ Building housing in China /CC BY 2.0

And the funny thing is, they dont use this technology much in China. Most residential buildings are built traditionally with concrete, brick and tile, using hundreds of thousands of workers. In China, the construction industry is a vast employment program; the more sophisticated modular and flatpack technology is for export. When the Chinese housing bubble implodes, they will build everybody elses homes.

Why we should be afraid, very afraid

This might well, as Chapman Taylor notes, make housing more affordable and even better quality, its construction and energy consumption more efficient. But is it a good thing, when we should be building out of sunshine and employing more local people? I doubt it. However, I suspect that it is inevitable. If this takes off, we might well see the kind of disruption in the construction industry that we have seen in everything else, where our buildings become like our iPhones: designed in America but built in China. We might get our housing faster and cheaper, but we might also lose thousands of jobs as the industry is offshored.

 Chapman Taylor

Now that they have figured out how to ship a human-sized module in a transportation system designed for freight-sized containers, it really does change everything. I have to agree with Chapman Taylor; this is going to grow exponentially and might just eat the entire construction industry as we know it. Just don't mention the C-word.
Overfishing is the largest threat to sharks, with an estimated 100 million sharks killed each year by commercial and recreational fishers. Fortunately, many international organizations and national governments have developed regulations and management systems aimed at protecting endangered sharks from extinction, but much progress is still needed if humans want sharks to survive. Here are 10 of the incredible sharks currently at risk of extinction.

Over 500 species of sharks have been discovered by humans so far, and each one plays a key role in marine ecosystems, where sharks are often the top predators. Unfortunately, approximately 30% of shark species are either vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

1 of 10 Angelshark - Critically Endangered Douglas Klug / Getty Images The angelshark (Squatina squatina) has lived in the coastal waters of Western Europe and Northern Africa for thousands of years, and populations used to be plentiful. Ancient Greek authors and physicians such as Aristotle, Mnesitheus, and Diphilus as well as the Ancient Roman author Pliny the Elder have mentioned the angelshark in their works, noting the appeal of its meat as a food source and the usefulness of its skin as a means of polishing ivory and wood. For the next 2,000 years, the angelshark remained a popular source of meat, fishmeal, and shark liver oil throughout Europe. Unfortunately, the high demand for angelshark meat led to overfishing, which decimated angelshark populations. Angelsharks also have low reproduction rates and are often accidentally caught in fishing nets as by-catch, which further contributed to population declines. Over the past 45 years, global angelshark populations are estimated to have declined by 80-90%. Furthermore, the species is believed to be extinct in the northern Mediterranean Sea as well as in the North Sea, two areas that once hosted abundant angelshark populations. Today, the IUCN lists the angelshark as critically endangered, but efforts are being made to conserve the species. In 2008, the UK government made it illegal to catch angelsharks in the waters surrounding England and Wales. Soon after, in 2010, the EU made it illegal to catch angelsharks in the coastal waters of any member countries, and in 2011, catching the angelshark in the Mediterranean Sea was also made illegal. However, despite these efforts, populations still remain critically low.

2 of 10 Oceanic Whitetip Shark - Critically Endangered Ken Kiefer 2 / Getty Images The oceanic whitetip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus) is found throughout the world's oceans between the latitudes of 45 degrees north and 43 degrees south. A popular food source, the oceanic whitetip shark is used by humans for its meat and oil, and its fins are often used in shark fin soup. It is also valued for its skin, which is used for leather. The high demand for this shark's skin, meat, and fins has led to overfishing that has caused a sharp decline in population numbers. One study found that oceanic whitetip shark populations have declined by 71% between 1970 and 2021. The IUCN has thus listed the oceanic whitetip shark as critically endangered, but efforts have been made to conserve the species. In 2013, the species was added to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and in 2018, it was added to Annex 1 of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Migratory Sharks. Both organizations aim to conserve endangered species. Furthermore, the oceanic whitetip shark is the only shark species to be protected by all four major tuna fishery management organizations.

3 of 10 Great Hammerhead - Critically Endangered Alastair Pollock Photography / Getty Images The great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran) is found in tropical coastal waters around the world between the latitudes of 40 degrees north and 37 degrees south. One of the preferred shark species for shark fin soup, the great hammerhead is primarily targeted by fisheries for its fins, while its meat is rarely eaten. Its skin is also used as leather and its liver is used for shark liver oil. Great hammerheads are also occasionally caught recreationally by big game fishers and suffer extensively from being accidentally caught as by-catch. The overfishing of great hammerheads for their fins combined with the species' long generation time has caused worldwide populations to plummet by an estimated 51% to 80% over the past 75 years. The IUCN lists the great hammerhead as critically endangered, but efforts have been made to conserve the species. The great hammerhead was added to Appendix II of CITES in 2013 and Appendix II of CMS in 2014. However, overfishing of this shark continues around the world and many laws aiming to conserve the species, such as the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean's (GFCM) ban on retaining great hammerheads, have not been enforced.

4 of 10 Zebra Shark - Endangered Placebo365 / Getty Images The zebra shark (Stegostoma fasciatum) is found in the coastal waters of the Indo-Pacific region of the Earth's oceans, stretching from the coasts of East Africa to Australia. Since the zebra shark spends much of its time resting on the ocean floor near coral reefs, the destruction of coral reefs by human activity and pollution is a serious threat to population numbers. Furthermore, the zebra shark is often caught by fisheries. Its fins are used for shark fin soup, its meat is eaten either fresh or dried, and its liver oil is sold as a vitamin supplement. These factors have all contributed to a stark decline in global population size by an estimated 50% over the past 50 years. The IUCN lists the species as endangered globally, although zebra sharks in some regions are more susceptible to extinction than in others. In an effort to save the species, the Malaysian government has protected the zebra shark under the Malaysian Fisheries Act. In addition, many of the areas off the coast of Australia that are home to zebra sharks are protected marine areas, such as Moreton Bay Marine Park and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

5 of 10 Shortfin Mako Shark - Endangered Richard Robinson / Getty Images The shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) is found in oceans around the world, but populations are declining in all regions except for the south Pacific. It is estimated that the global shortfin mako population has declined by 46% to 79% in the past 75 years. The sharpest declines were in the Mediterranean Sea, where populations have declined by up to 99.9% since the 1800s. Shortfin makos are some of the fastest sharks in the world, making them common targets of big-game fishers who catch the sharks for sport. Of the shortfin makos that are caught for this reason and returned to the ocean, an estimated 10% will die. Furthermore, the meat of this species is considered to be among the highest quality of all sharks. Thus, shortfin makos are commonly targeted by commercial fisheries, which also value them for their fins. Due to the shortfin mako's popularity among fishers and their declining population numbers, the IUCN has listed the species as endangered. In 2008, the species was added to Appendix II of CMS, but unfortunately, few other efforts have been made to conserve the species. In 2012, catching shortfin makos was banned by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), but these laws have barely been enforced, and fisheries in many Mediterranean countries continue to catch the shark. Spain, for instance, is consistently the world's biggest shortfin mako fishing nation.

6 of 10 Basking Shark - Endangered Green Fire Productions / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is the second-largest extant shark species and is found in oceans worldwide, generally in waters with temperatures ranging from around 46.5 degrees to 58 degrees. The basking shark has been a popular target of fishers for centuries and has long been valued by cultures around the world as a source of food, medicine, and clothing. Its skin is used to make leather, and its meat is eaten by humans. Furthermore, its exceptionally large and squalene-rich liver has made it a popular source of shark liver oil, and its cartilage is used in traditional Chinese medicine. Basking shark cartilage is also considered by some cultures to be an aphrodisiac. The species is also highly valued for its large fins, which are used to make shark fin soup. A single fin can fetch a price of up to $57,000. The high demand for the various parts of the basking shark has led to overfishing, decimating populations. Global populations are believed to have decreased by 50% to 79% over the past century. The IUCN, therefore, lists the basking shark as endangered, but efforts have been made to conserve the species. The basking shark was one of the first shark species to be listed under many wildlife treaties. Furthermore, the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) has banned basking shark fishing since 2005, and as of 2012, there are no known legally sanctioned commercial fisheries that target basking sharks.

7 of 10 Speartooth Shark - Endangered Bill Harrison / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 The speartooth shark (Glyphis glyphis) is one of the rarest shark species on earth, found only in tropical rivers in New Guinea and northern Australia. The speartooth shark is not targeted by fisheries for its meat or fins, but it may be accidentally caught in fishing nets as by-catch. Because of its low population numbers and its severely restricted habitat, the biggest threat to this species is habitat degradation. River pollution caused by toxic waste from mining operations is especially dangerous to the survival of the species. The IUCN lists the speartooth shark as endangered, and efforts to conserve the species have been minimal. It is protected in Australia both under the 1999 Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and under the 2000 Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act, but no management program has been implemented yet. Furthermore, no regulations have been established by the government of Papua New Guinea to protect the species.

8 of 10 Dusky Shark - Endangered Amada44 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0 The dusky shark (Carcharhinus obscurus) is found in coastal waters worldwide. Another shark valued for its fins, meat, skin, and liver, the dusky shark is frequently targeted by fisheries, which often catch juvenile sharks. Fisheries in southwestern Australia, for example, mainly target dusky sharks that are less than three years old. As a result, 18% to 28% of all newborn dusky sharks in the region are caught by fishers in their first year of life. Young dusky sharks are also targeted by recreational fishers around the world and are frequently caught accidentally as by-catch. Overfishing combined with the species' low reproductive rate has decimated global populations. Populations have declined globally over the past century by an estimated 75% to 80%. The IUCN, therefore, lists the dusky shark as endangered, but there have been some efforts to conserve the species. Fishing for dusky sharks is currently illegal in the United States, although sport fishers are still known to catch the species. The Australian government has also implemented measures aimed at conserving the species, and the dusky shark was added to Appendix II of CMS in 2017.

9 of 10 Whale Shark - Endangered Steve Woods Photography / Getty Images The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is the largest fish species on earth. It is found in all tropical and warm temperate seas around the world except for the Mediterranean, mostly between the latitudes of 30 degrees north and 35 degrees south. Whale sharks are targeted by fisheries for their meat and fins and are occasionally caught as by-catch. Because whale sharks are so large and filter feed near the water's surface, they risk being struck and killed by large ships or injured by ships' propellers. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 had a strong impact on whale shark populations in the Gulf of Mexico, as whale sharks in this region were unable to avoid the oil due to their feeding habits. These threats combined with the late maturation of the species have caused a significant decline in global population numbers, with an estimated decline of over 30% in the Atlantic Ocean over the past 75 years and a simultaneous decline of 63% in the Indo-Pacific. The IUCN thus lists the whale shark as endangered, but many efforts have been made to conserve the species. The species has been listed on Appendix II of CITES since 2002. Over forty countries have laws protecting the whale shark, and many key habitats for the species are protected areas, such as the Ningaloo Reef in Australia and the Yum Balam Flora and Fauna Protection Area in Mexico. Furthermore, many large commercial whale shark fisheries have been recently shut down. However, several illegal fisheries are still in operation and pose a serious threat to the survival of the species.
The President General of the NUGFW and NATUC, James Lambert says, too many people in the cou
US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker has stated that the situation in Donbas is hot war, not a frozen conflict.

As the ATO Headquarters press center reports, Volker made such a statement while visiting the front-line Avdiivka.

"As I see, this is not a frozen conflict. This is hot war. And the cost is dangerously high  human lives," Volker said, having met with the military, representatives of the military and civil administration and the affected residents of the town.

He stressed that the main task now was "to restore the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine."

According to Volker, he arrived in Donbas to personally get acquainted with the details of the events. During the visit to Avdiivka, he heard the tragic stories of people and saw the destructions.

According to Volker, after his visit to Ukraine he plans to hold a series of meetings with representatives of European governments to form a consolidated position on the situation in Donbas.

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The ships of the Standing NATO Maritime Group have entered today the port of Odesa, southern Ukraine.

This is reported by the press service of the Ukrainian Navy in Facebook.

"The ships of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, the UK Royal Navy destroyer Duncan and the Turkish frigate Yildrim have entered the port of Odesa today, July 24," the statement reads.

The program of the ships' stay provides for protocol meetings with the commander of the Ukrainian Navy and the representatives of authorities, visits to ships by residents and guests of the city, meetings with Ukrainian military sailors.

The visit will last until July 27.

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Defense Minister of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak says he doesnt rule out possible provocations from the side of the Russian Federation during the Russian-Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2017.

In a post on his Facebook page, Minister Poltorak wrote: The Russian military exercise Zapad 2017 raises concerns. We do not rule out possible provocations from the side of the Russian Federation. In such case, Ukraine will have to ensure its defense capacity.

He also praised constructive work of experts and US Special Envoy in Ukraine Kurt Volker while visiting Donbas, and added that the world community now will be able to impartially evaluate the situation in eastern Ukraine due to their help.

As earlier reported, the joint Russian-Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2017 is scheduled to take place in Belarus on September 14-20.

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Polish manufacturer of railway vehicles, PESA, says it may open its enterprise in Ukraine.

In a letter to Ukrinform, the Polish company said: We're holding talks on the creation of a repair and assembly site in Ukraine. We also do not rule out the launch of own enterprise in your country.

PESA noted it considers the Ukrainian market as developing, and it is interested in expanding its positions in this country.

"Of course, this process is a long way, maybe, but in the future it will create dozens of jobs, and local service firms will have an opportunity for cooperation," PESA said.

As earlier reported, PESA won a tender to supply 40 tram wagons to Kyiv city.

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The city of Avdiivka is still without water supply because of enemy attacks that cut the Donetsk water filtration station off the power.

This has been reported by the press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

"As of 7 a.m., July 24, the Donetsk water filtration station was without electricity supply. Water supply to the city residents is carried out in line with the schedule from a city reservoir, the volume of which is 4,000 cubic meters, reads a report.

The issues on repairs of power lines, as well as the safe access of workers to the station are being settled.

On July 22, as a result of military operations, a high-voltage power transmission line was damaged, which led to the termination of power supply to the Donetsk water filtration station that provides water to Avdiivka.

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President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has participated in the phone conversation in the Normandy format and called on Russia to immediately stop its aggressive actions and supplies of weapons to the occupied territories of Ukraine.

This is reported by the press service of the Head of State.

"President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko held a phone conversation in the Normandy format with President of France Emmanuel Macron, Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and President of Russia Vladimir Putin. The parties heard the report of Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine Ertugrul Apakan and his deputy Alexander Hug. President Poroshenko called the last days of July one of the bloodiest in 2017 and urged Russia to immediately cease aggressive actions and supply of weapons to the occupied territories," the statement reads.

The parties noted the importance of full ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry and troops, as well as 24/7 monitoring by the OSCE SMM. Petro Poroshenko emphasized the importance of deployment of the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas.

In addition, the Head of State once again noted that the liberation of hostages is blocked by the Russian party. Ukraine insists on the immediate liberation of all hostages, including those illegally kept in Russia, particularly Oleg Sentsov and Roman Sushchenko, Poroshenko stressed.

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Ukraines Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk will pay a working visit to the Italian Republic on July 24-25, 2017, the governments press service reports.

"Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk will pay a working visit to the Italian Republic on July 24-25. The program of the visit includes meetings with Minister of Finance and Economy of Italy Pierre Carlo Padoan, General Commander of the Financial Guard Giorgio Toschi, Director of the Tax Revenue Agency Rossella Orlandi, and Director General of the Customs Agency Giuseppe Peleggi, reads the report.

During the visit Minister Danyliuk will familiarize with the aspects of the work of the Financial Guard of Italy, which is an Italian law enforcement agency under the authority of the Minister of Economy and Finance and is essentially responsible for dealing with financial crime and smuggling. Also, the issues pertaining to the functioning of the Italian tax system and the customs will be discussed.

The visit was scheduled due to the launch of activities on the establishment of Financial Investigations Service that is a similar body aimed to investigate economic crimes against the state under the authority of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine.

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Majority of Ukrainians is aware of the decentralization reform. Only 18% of citizens have heard nothing about it.

Oleksiy Sydorchuk, the political analyst of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation said this during a press conference, where the results of a nationwide poll were presented, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We see a significant increase in awareness of the decentralization reform. Now only 18% of Ukrainians have heard nothing about it. A year ago the share of such people was 30%. Other citizens are either well aware of it (20%) or at least have heard something about it (62%)," Sydorchuk said.

He clarified that a year ago those figures were, respectively, 12% and 54%. The residents of southern Ukraine (69%) are the least informed about the reform, while the residents of central Ukraine are the most informed ones (87%).

According to him, the support for the decentralization reform has also increased.

"The vast majority of Ukrainians (42%) support the reform of decentralization, while 27% of Ukrainian citizens do not support it. This proportion has somewhat improved over the year," Sydorchuk said. Last year, these figures were, respectively, 43% and 32%.

At the same time, he said that the majority of Ukrainians still did not feel any changes from the increase in local budgets.

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AMMAN, 24 July 2017  As the humanitarian crisis in Yemen deepens and with no end in sight, UNICEF welcomes the latest contribution of over US$2 million from the State of Kuwait to support children affected by the acute watery diarrhoea /cholera outbreak.

Kuwait has been one of the largest donors to UNICEFs work in the region. Since 2013, Kuwait contributed nearly US$150 million allowing us to provide lifesaving assistance to children impacted by the multiple conflicts including in Iraq and Syria, said Geert Cappelaere UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

This recent funding will be used to expand the delivery of integrated life-saving assistance through simultaneous acute watery diarrhoea and cholera treatment; water, sanitation, hygiene and nutrition support to the children of Yemen and the dissemination of information on preventative behaviour for the population at large.

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The impoverished West African country of Niger has high rates of obstetric fistula. We report a 6-month postoperative follow-up of 384 patients from the Danja Fistula Center and assess factors associated with operative success or failure.The medical records of 384 women who had completed a 6-month follow-up after fistula surgery were reviewed. Cases were categorized as "easy," "of intermediate complexity," or "difficult" based on a preoperative points system. Data were analyzed using simple chi-squared statistics and logistic regression.The patients were predominantly of Hausa ethnicity (73%), married young (average 15.9 years), had teenage first pregnancies (average first delivery 16.9 years), and experienced prolonged labor (average 2.3 days) with poor outcomes (89% stillbirth rate). The average parity was four. Patients commonly developed their fistula during their first delivery (43.5%), but over half sustained a fistula during a subsequent delivery (56.5%). Prior fistula surgery elsewhere (average 1.75 operations) was common. The overall surgical success ("closed and dry") was 54%. When the 134 primary operations were analyzed separately, the overall success rate was 80%. Increasing success was seen with decreasing surgical difficulty: 92% success for "easy" cases, 68% for "intermediate" cases, and 57% success for "difficult" cases. Success decreased with increasing numbers of previous attempts at surgical repair.These data provide further evidence that clinical outcomes are better when primary fistula repair is performed by expert surgeons in specialist centers with the support of trained fistula nurses.Int Urogynecol J. 2017 Jun 9. doi: 10.1007/s00192-017-3375-7. [Epub ahead of print]Ouedraogo I, Payne C, Nardos R, Adelman AJ, Wall LL1 The Danja Fistula Center, Danja, Niger.2 The Worldwide Fistula Fund, Chicago, IL, USA.3 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, OR, USA.4 Division of Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.5 The Worldwide Fistula Fund, Chicago, IL, USA.6 Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1114, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA. 7 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA.
For nearly two decades Ngul Nguon has relied on the trade brought by tourists visiting Battambangs bamboo railway. But his life is about to change as the famous railroad looks set to be closed as the government moves ahead with plans to refurbish the countrys railways.

The heavily tattooed 56 year old says he will have to seek work as a moto-taxi driver or a construction worker to make a living after the line closes.

As a bamboo train driver, he earns between $7.50 and $12.50 per day plus tips to support his family of three.

Rumors that the government may relocate the railway in an attempt to keep tourists coming to the area would be welcome if true, he says.

I dont oppose [the closure], but there should be something for villagers who have been reliant on that business, he said.

Another bamboo train driver, Pheach Tum, 52, said he was saddened by the news of the railways imminent closure.

I am so sad. I am old and cannot migrate to Thailand [for work]. I only have a smallholding to grow things, he said. I dont know what to do yet. Perhaps I can feed cows and raise chickens and ducks.

Located about 10 kilometers from Battambang town, in ODombang commune, the bamboo trains, known as norry in Khmer, support some 50 families who have set up small businesses at stops along the line.

The small wooden-framed decks sit on top of two independent axles and wheels reclaimed from destroyed wartime tanks. Powered by an on-board motor, each cart cost about $500 to build.

A round trip on the railway takes about an hour and costs about $10.

Chan Samleng, director of the Railroad Department, said the trains would stop operating next month to make way for the repairs. They can find other jobs, he said, referring to the local residents and adding that the government had paid out compensation to some of the train operators.

The government plans to rebuild Cambodias French colonial-era northern railroad between Phnom Pen and the Thailand border, which is expected to open in April.

Since it was officially closed, the disused railroad has been plied by the bamboo carts, carrying people and freight to the border. But the government aims to put a stop to the illegal use of the railway.

Phuong Sophoan, 62, another local resident, asked for government help to find a new job when the train stop moving. I dont know what to do, she said.

Nou Seng, a tourist police officer, said there had been no serious accidents or other incidents on the railway in the eight years he has manned the area.

Meanwhile, Chum Nhor, a local district governor, said the authorities were investing in a new bamboo train in nearby Banan district. There will be a new place, he said. I hope there are more tourists since there is also ecotourism.

Ian Sokeng, 40, a vendor living along the current bamboo train route, said the changes would affect her business. I cant move to another place. Its far from my home.

(Watch video: Bamboo train railroad in Battambang)
The Cambodian government has announced plans to increase the number of women involved in local politics to hold between a fifth and a quarter of all positions by next year.

Currently women account for just 12 percent of local government officials, according to the government.

Ngan Chamroeun, secretary of state at the interior ministry, told a forum in Phnom Penh last week that women played a vital role in developing the country, but had been prevented from gaining equal access to officialdom.

Women should compete with men if they think they are capable, she said. The government, public institutions and private sector should set clear policies.

Khol Yuthly, vice president of the National Council for Democratic Development, said ingrained sexism had hampered access to positions of authority for women.

Leadership is a challenging task, especially leading a commune or district. They will face problems such as working at nighttime, discouragement from spouses, and maternity leave, which will affect their work, he said.

The forum was held after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced in March a drive to encourage women to play a more prominent role in governance.

In June, Mithona Phuthong became the first female provincial governor elected in Cambodia after being chosen to head the Koh Kong administration.

She is the granddaughter of Say Puthong, a former high-ranking member of Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party, and daughter of Yuth Puthong, a CPP member and former Koh Kong governor himself.

Ros Sopheap, executive director of Gender and Development for Cambodia, however, said the government had no concrete plans to get more women into positions of power, adding that she had no faith that the announcement would bear fruit.
When the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee visits the country, the government sometimes prevents her from visiting certain locations, normally areas affected by ongoing conflict.

On her most recent trip, her third under the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, she wanted to travel to Hsipaw, a hilly town in northern Shan State, to visit three Myanmar journalists being held in the local prison.

UN official prevented from meeting with jailed journalists

However, despite Hsipaw being a tourist destination and frequented by foreigners, I was not allowed to go there, she told reporters at the Chatrium Hotel in Yangon on Friday evening as her trip concluded.

For anyone following the case, the development was not surprising. The high-profile trial of the three reporters, who stand accused of associating with an ethnic armed group in Myanmar, has gotten off to a rocky start, with concerns over lack of access and unexpected hearings clouding the proceedings so far.



Lawi Weng from the Irrawaddy and Aye Naing and Pyae Phone Aung from the Democratic Voice of Burma were arrested in late June after attending a drug-burning ceremony held by the Taang National Liberation Army, one of more than a dozen organizations still fighting for more autonomy amid a fraught peace process.

The three were charged under the Unlawful Associations Act and could face up to three years each in prison. The colonial-era act has been used to weaken support for ethnic armed groups fighting with the Burmese military, but it has rarely been deployed to target journalists. And the arrests have created a chilling effect on Myanmars media.

Pre-trial confusion

Almost from the beginning, it was not clear where the trial would even be held, and some of the hearings occurred at unexpected times or were pushed back, creating the impression that authorities were trying to throw off supporters and limit media coverage. Little is also known about three additional people  initially reported as four  who were arrested with the reporters.

While legal access has been allowed, Maung Maung Win, the attorney for the Democratic Voice of Burma, said conditions were less than ideal.

He said that when he spoke to his clients, Hsipaw prison staff stood too close to them and took photos. The attorneys were not allowed to bring in their own phones to record, and Maung Maung Win's assistant had to take notes. The situation created an atmosphere in which they felt they could not speak freely to their clients

We had to be controlled if we wanted to discuss in detail. I have never experienced [something] like this in my 40 years of a professional career. They only have the right to watch us from a pretty far distance, he said.

The account could not be independently verified. Hsipaw prison officials could not be reached.

Yanghee Lees comments on Friday only seemed to confirm suspicions that deliberate attempts were being made to restrict the flow of information about the case, which has also highlighted the uneasy relationship between Myanmars civilian leadership and the still-powerful military.

Aung San Suu Kyi react

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won elections in 2015, ending decades of outright military rule, declined to condemn the arrests when asked about them in the capital Naypyitaw earlier this month, saying they were a judicial matter. When asked for comment on the reasoning behind barring Yanghee Lee from Hsipaw, a spokesman for the government referred to a statement released on Saturday by Aung San Suu Kyis Ministry of the Office of the State Counselor. The statement said the government was disappointed with the Special Rapporteurs end of mission statement and that it contained many sweeping allegations and a number of factual errors.

It did not go into detail about the errors. In her briefing, Yanghee Lee covered a wide-range of topics related to her visit, but she focused at the beginning on the ongoing practice of surveillance and the limitations placed on her travel.

Despite the lack of transparency about the case, information has trickled out. A Democratic Voice of Burma reporter managed to record a video interview with the three journalists as police escorted them to the courthouse.

The unexpected interview resulted in powerful statements about Myanmars ongoing fight for rule of law and press freedom, which was curtailed under military rule until pre-publication censorship was lifted in 2012.

Just look at these chains, Lawi Weng was quoted as saying. Can you call this democracy?

The next hearing is scheduled for July 28.

Aung Naing Soe contributed to this report.
In Lebanon, trash is being dumped into the Mediterranean as landfill, sparking criticism and concern over the environmental impact of the practice. The country has had a long-term problem with waste management, a situation that even led to large scale protests two years ago as garbage piled up in Beirut's streets. Fishermen are now the latest group to complain about the apparent inability of authorities to come up with a strategy to deal with the country's waste. John Owens reports from Beirut.
The United States and Britain are launching preliminary talks in Washington on a trade deal that will set up a new trade relationship between the two countries, after Britains exit from the European Union. Britain hopes removing barriers under its current EU arrangement will boost trade with the United States by $40 billion by 2030. But as VOA Europe correspondent Luis Ramirez reports from London, no one is expecting these to be easy negotiations.
The United States and Britain launched preliminary talks Monday in Washington on a trade deal that will set up a new trade relationship between the two countries, after Britains exit from the European Union.

Britain hopes removing barriers under its current EU arrangement will boost trade with the United States by $40 billion by 2030.



No one is expecting these to be easy negotiations, but British trade officials said they are confident they had the support of the U.S. leadership, including the U.S. Congress, but especially of President Donald Trump.



The U.S. leader, speaking on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg this month, said he wanted to move very, very quickly on a trade deal with Britain.



Britain is poised to secure a place at the front of the line on trade negotiations with the United States, just more than a year after then-President Barack Obama warned the British about the future trade relationship if they voted to leave the European Union. In remarks that stoked anger among pro-Brexit campaigners, Obama said Britain would go to the back of the queue on trade deals with the United States if the British voted to leave the European Union.



Free, open trading wanted



British Prime Minister Theresa Mays government hopes that Brexit and U.S. President Donald Trumps America First policy can avoid the pitfalls of isolationism and protectionism.



It is very important that we keep the United States orientated towards an open, free trading approach because it is the world's biggest economy and what happens there will affect everybody else, British Trade Secretary Liam Fox said last week in Geneva. So I think that directing the debate away from some of the protectionist noises into a free market, rules-based debate is a very important discussion for us to have.



Fox led the British delegation on a two-day trip to Washington where he was to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and other top U.S. officials.



The talks are only preliminary. Britain has no authority to enter trade agreements until it is completely out of the European Union, and that is two years away.

Domestic politics at forefront



But laying down the groundwork early is important not only practically, but politically, especially as the popularity of Mays leftist rival, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, grows and so do concerns that a U.S. trade deal may mean opening up Britains national health care system, the NHS, to U.S. firms.



I am not sure that the British government is going to have the whole public opinion behind it in striking a trade deal with the United States, said Angelos Chryssogelos, a European international politics professor at Kings College London. It could get very, very controversial.



For the British, agriculture is a major sticking point. Critics point to big differences between U.S. and British farming methods when it comes to the use of antibiotics and genetically modified crops, neither of which are welcome on British store shelves.



In the important financial services sector ties are already strong, and some believe a direct U.S. deal could mean more growth.



When you are dealing with the E.U., you are dealing with a trade agreement (where) all these different pressure points come in from Italian wine makers to French cheese makers to German auto, and so any pure, for want of a better word, or direct agreement with the U.S. can sometimes be hostage with elements like that, said Rob Misselbrook, head of Mylor Ventures, Ltd, a venture capital firm headquartered in southwestern England.



Dealing on a direct basis, it is us and them. We speak the same language in many ways, he said.
A man armed with a chainsaw injured five people Monday in the Swiss town of Schaffhausen.

Police said the man allegedly entered an insurance office in the center of the small town, wounding two staff members and three other people before fleeing.

Reuters reported Swiss health insurer CSS said tehre is no information on the suspect's possible link to the company.

The police have launched a manhunt for the suspect, but added that this was "not a terrorist act".

Downtown Schaffhausen, a medieval town of 36,000 near the border with Germany, has been sealed off and shops closed as the investigation and manhunt continue.
Two Chinese fighter jets intercepted an American surveillance aircraft over the East China Sea, U.S. officials said Monday. The incident happened over the weekend.

Two U.S. military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that one of the Chinese J-10 fighter jets flew directly in front of the U.S. Navy EP-3, forcing the American aircraft to take "evasive action" to avoid a collision. One of the Chinese jets was armed.

The American reconnaissance plane was conducting normal operations over international waters 80 nautical miles from the Chinese city of Qingdao when the incident occurred.

Such incidents are becoming increasingly common around China's coastline. In May, Chinese fighter jets intercepted a U.S. plane designed to detect radiation as it flew over international waters.
Colombia's Marxist FARC rebel group will officially launch its new political party on Sept. 1, part of a peace deal with the government under which former guerrilla fighters will serve in congress.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fought the government for more than half a century, but handed in its weapons as part of a deal negotiated during more than four years of talks in Cuba.

"From Sept. 1 we will be publicly launching our new political movement" said FARC secretariat member Carlos Antonio Lozada. The launch will be celebrated at an event outside of Congress in Bogota's Bolivar Plaza.

The accord allows the FARC 10 unelected seats in Congress through 2026 and grants amnesty to the majority of ex-fighters.

Rebels convicted by special courts of human rights violations will avoid traditional prison sentences, instead performing reparations work such as removing landmines.

The group has not yet announced which of its members will fill the congressional seats or the new party's name, but will hold meetings before the launch to fine-tune its policy proposals, Lozada said.

"In the coming days we will focus on not just the names but above all and fundamentally the proposals," he added.
Democratic leaders believe they lost to President Donald Trump partly because voters don't know what the party stands for. So they're trying to rebrand themselves with a new slogan and a populist new agenda as they look ahead to the 2018 midterms.



It's called "A Better Deal" and House and Senate Democratic leaders are rolling it out Monday afternoon in Berryville, Virginia. They're intentionally traveling outside the Beltway, and into the district of one of the GOP House members they hope to defeat next year, Barbara Comstock.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, along with other top House and Senate Democrats, are making the presentation after months of internal debate and analysis of polling and focus groups.



Democrats think of themselves as the party of working people and were surprised when Trump was able to steal working-class voters from them. They subsequently figured out that voters don't know what the party stands for, and the new effort is aimed at changing that.

Schumer acknowledged on Sunday that Democrats were partially to blame for the American people not knowing what the party stands for.



"When you lose an election with someone who has, say, 40 percent popularity, you look in the mirror and say what did we do wrong? And the number one thing that we did wrong is we didn't have  we didn't tell people what we stood for," Schumer said on ABC's "This Week."



The full title of the agenda is "A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future." (After an earlier and incomplete version leaked on Thursday, Twitter users mocked the similarity to the slogan for Papa John's pizza, "Better Ingredients, Better Pizza.")



"The Democratic Party's mission is to help build an America in which working people know that somebody has their back," say documents accompanying the roll-out.



There are three overarching goals: raising wages, lowering costs for families, and giving working Americans better skills for the 21st century economy.



Detailed planks will be rolled out over time. On Monday, three are being unveiled:



- Lowering prescription drug prices. Suggestions include a new agency that could investigate drug manufacturer price hikes, and they would allow Medicare to negotiate directly for the best drug prices.



- Cracking down on corporate monopolies. Democrats would enact new standards to limit large mergers, and create a new consumer competition advocate.



- Creating millions more jobs. The agenda includes proposals for expanding apprenticeships and providing a tax credit to employers to train and hire new workers.

Democrats hope to make gains in next year's midterm elections, and perhaps even flip the 24 GOP-held seats necessary to regain the majority in the House.



Yet they are mostly playing defense in the Senate where 10 Democrats are trying to retain seats in states won by Trump, including Republican strongholds like West Virginia, Missouri and North Dakota. Party strategists say that for most Senate candidates, in particular, a national party message has little value, and instead each candidate must fight on their own terms and issues.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte urged his critics in his State of the Union address Monday not to trivialize his drug war by muddling his anti-drug campaign with demands for human rights.

The controversial leader has made the drug war a central theme of his administration and began his address at the House of Representatives in Manila emphasizing what he said is his "unrelenting fight " on drugs. "Despite international and local pressures, the fight will not stop," he said.

Duterte's 'law-and-order' image is under attack with growing concerns about rights violations in his anti-drug campaign.

The president was elected on a pledge to end the country's drug abuse problem, and officially there have been 5,000 drug-related killings or suspect deaths as a result of police operations. Media reports said, despite the crackdown, the price of illicit drugs has actually gone down, suggesting the campaign is not working.

According to the British Daily Mail, officials insist crime has dropped and thousands of drug dealers are behind bars, while a million drug users have registered for treatment. Manila's police chief, Oscar Albayalde. has acknowledged thousands have been killed, but says millions more live.

"I have resolved that no matter how long it takes, the fight against illegal drugs will continue because it is the root cause of suffering," the president told the lawmakers.

Duterte warned drug dealers that "they have to stop because the alternative is either jail or hell."

Protesters outside the House of Representatives demanded Duterte deliver on the promises he made last year in his first State of the Union speech, including holding peace talks with communist insurgents and improving Internet speed.
Turkey's president has condemned Israeli security precautions at a sensitive Jerusalem holy site saying the Islamic world would not remain silent.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed reporters Sunday in Istanbul before departing on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.

He says: "No one can expect the Islamic world to remain unresponsive after the humiliation Muslims suffered with the restrictions at the Noble Sanctuary."

Earlier this week, Israel installed metal detectors at the shrine in response to a deadly attack by Arab gunmen there which killed two Israeli policemen. The metal detectors are perceived by the Palestinians as an encroachment on Muslim rights and have led to protests in the Muslim world.

Erdogan called on Israel to remove the detectors in a phone conversation with his counterpart Reuven Rivlin on Thursday.
Famine could soon strike tens of thousands of people in northeast Nigeria as food stocks run low, prices soar and aid supplies dwindle due to the Boko Haram insurgency, a leading humanitarian agency said on Monday.

The hunger crisis is set to worsen by late August as the lean season before harvest takes its toll, driving up the number of people in need of food aid by at least half a million to 5.2 million, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

About 50,000 people are predicted by the United Nations' food agency to be at risk of famine, yet the situation could be far worse with many areas cut off from help due to the threat of Boko Haram, said Cheick Ba, the NRC country director in Nigeria.

The jihadist group's eight-year insurgency to create an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has killed more than 20,000 people and forced 2.7 million people to flee their homes.

The militants have been driven out of most of the territory they held in early 2015, yet continue to carry out bombings and raids in northeast Nigeria, as well as in Cameroon and Niger.

"Armed conflict and violence are driving this food crisis," Ba said in a statement. "Innocent families are bearing the brunt ... even after they have escaped horrific violence."

"We [NRC] were forced to reduce the food basket we provide to families this month, to make up for the increased price of rice beans and millet," Ba added, explaining how prices in conflict-hit areas were 150 percent higher than in 2015.

A funding shortfall recently forced the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) to cut back emergency food aid for about 400,000 people, and just focus on helping the 1.4 million most in need.

The WFP's regional director told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in May that hundreds of thousands of people in the northeast could starve to death this year due to the shortfall.

Nigeria's aid response plan for 2017 has been less than half funded to date  $444 million of a requested $1.05 billion - according to the U.N.'s Financial Tracking Service (FTS).

"Providing people with food is only a short term solution," said Ba of the NRC. "The crisis will only end when the conflict has been resolved and communities can safely return to their land to rebuild their lives."
Islamic State fighters in Iraq appear to be in disarray and are managing only sporadic counterattacks, after losing the months-long battle for the city of Mosul, says a top U.S. general.

According to Gen. Andrew Croft, the highest ranking U.S. Air Force officer in Iraq, the jihadists are struggling to regroup with their fragmented forces, due to coalition air power restricting one of their past battlefield strengths, the ability to move rapidly and amass fighters.

In 2015, IS demonstrated its mobility, enabling it to counter-punch and score episodic successes to establish a pattern of jihadist wins.

After being ousted from Tikrit, the first substantial city lost by IS, the militants pulled off a series of battlefield counterattacks. They forced Iraqi government forces to abandon their positions in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Iraqs Anbar province, while launching a powerful attack more than 96 kilometers away on Syrias Palmyra, the desert town containing one of the worlds most important ancient Roman heritage sites.

Those days appear gone, although the terror group remains dangerous and retains strongholds in the Euphrates River Valley and other parts of Iraq. Croft and other U.S. commanders are not discounting the insurgency IS can still mount, but say air power has given the anti-IS coalition a significant battlefield advantage.

Night and day tracking

The revolution in warfare has been our unmanned aircraft and the capability to see day and night, Croft told VOA in a Skype interview.

We can launch precision strikes in the middle of nowhere, where IS thinks it has a sanctuary and it really doesnt. We can track them in the desert, we can track them on the water and we can track them in open areas.

Croft oversees the anti-IS coalition air war in Iraq. He characterized IS attacks now as sporadic and said the fighters appear to be in disarray with their units fragmented.

We have sensors on the aircraft, all different variations of sensors; in the grand scheme of things, they are relatively inexpensive, so we can build a lot of them and we network them together. That networked warfare with precision sensors is a game-changer, he said.

He cited a recent skirmish in which Islamic militants tried to cross the Tigris River near Mosul.

We could tell the IS fighters were really capable, the way they moved tactically on the ground, the way they avoided some of our capabilities; but, we were able to catch seven of the guys in a boat trying to get away from us at night and we were able to launch a precision airstrike.

Croft says foreign fighters are among the IS forces. One of the dynamics you see is that foreign fighters can't just blend in with civilians and go to an IDP camp. So the foreign fighters often move around in groups and they will often fight to the death.

They are essentially coming to Iraq and dying for nothing, he added.

Human shields

A jump in reported civilian deaths from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, since campaigns to capture Raqqa, Syria and Mosul from IS started to escalate, has prompted alarm from Syrian opposition and international rights groups.

Syrian political activists blame the coalition airstrikes for the deaths of at least 370 civilians, more than 100 of them women and children, last month in Syria. That's half of the 740 civilian deaths activists say they documented in June.

Earlier this month, an Amnesty International report detailed the loss of civilian life in the battle for Mosul, documenting 400 civilian deaths between January and mid-May.

While acknowledging IS fighters ruthlessly exploited noncombatants to use them as human shields, Amnesty faulted the coalition for using indiscriminate tactics.

Croft rejects the allegation, saying the coalition has been restrained and striven to minimize civilian deaths. We have had zero civilian casualties as a goal. Obviously, thats very difficult to achieve. We do things that are as discriminate as possible, as precise as possible and as proportional as possible.

He adds, IS will put snipers on a mosque or a school or use mortars and start firing at us knowing we will not strike those targets because it is a violation of the laws of armed conflict. So, what we will do is use an extremely precise bomb or rocket that has the ability to strike within feet with a very small amount of explosives on it in an attempt to try to neutralize that sniper.

He says, We use proportionality as a rule of thumb of whether it is even worth striking and sometimes we will not strike because we don't want to cause any undue damage or civilian casualties.
Tensions surrounding a disputed Jerusalem holy place that is sacred to Muslims and Jews has spilled across the border into Jordan.

Angry protests have erupted in Amman, where a guard at the Israeli embassy Sunday shot dead two Jordanians who attacked him with a screwdriver.

The incident complicates Jordanian efforts to resolve a dispute over new Israeli security measures at the Mosque of Al-Aqsa, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

The installation of security cameras and metal detectors at the holy site in Jerusalem's Old City has sparked Palestinian riots and stabbing attacks.

Jordan is the custodian of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Although Jordan is a key mediator because it has good relations with both Israel and the Palestinians, it now finds itself locked in a diplomatic dispute with the Jewish state over the shooting.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is holding contacts with senior officials in Jordan to end the crisis quickly and peacefully.

Israel fears that violence could escalate into a third Palestinian uprising. As tensions remain high, observers say resolving the dispute may prove more difficult. Israel says the measures are necessary to prevent terror attacks like the one by Arab gunmen that killed two police officers on the site nearly two weeks ago.

Palestinians say any security checks at the mosque humiliate Muslims and accuse Israel of trying to seize control of the third holiest place in Islam.

In Washington, the Trump administration has expressed concern over the situation, and U.S. envoy Jason Greenblatt is in the region to try and mediate a compromise.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces a grilling in parliament on Monday over a suspected scandal that has cut his ratings to their lowest since taking office in 2012 and after a candidate from his ruling party lost a mayoral election.

Several opinion polls have shown Abe's support below 30 percent and, while this does not immediately threaten his job, it does cloud the longer-term outlook.

Abe was until recently seen as being on track to become Japan's longest-serving prime minister by winning a third three-year term when his current tenure ends in September 2018.

Further pressure is likely to come from Sunday's victory by an opposition candidate in the mayoral election for the northern city of Sendai. Abe's party suffered a devastating defeat in elections for the Tokyo assembly earlier this month.

A July 22-23 Mainichi newspaper poll published on Sunday showed Abe's support slipping 10 points to 26 percent from the previous survey in June. It also showed that 56 percent of respondents did not back Abe's government, a 12 point rise.

Abe and his aides have repeatedly denied intervening to help Kake Gakuen (Kake Educational Institution) win approval for a veterinary school in a special economic zone. Its director, Kotaro Kake, is a friend of Abe. Abe will appear at an ad hoc committee meeting in parliament on Monday. Also appearing at the session will be his aide,

Hiroto Izumi, and Kihei Maekawa, who resigned as the education ministry's top bureaucrat in January and has accused the government of distorting the approval process.

The scandals, and a perception among many voters that Abe's administration is taking them for granted, are encouraging rivals and casting doubt on Abe's hopes for a third term as ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader.

Abe is expected to reshuffle his cabinet early next month in an effort to repair his damaged ratings, a step often taken by beleaguered leaders but one that can backfire if novice ministers become embroiled in scandals or make gaffes.

Also in trouble is Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, an Abe protege, who faces calls to resign over media reports of direct involvement in a ministry cover-up of documents about a sensitive peacekeeping operation. She denies the reports

Opposition lawmakers are also expected to grill Abe about media reports that Inada allowed defense officials to conceal logs about the activities of the Self-Defense Forces, as Japan's military is known, in a U.N.-led peacekeeping operation in South Sudan.
Developments in Washington, D.C., over the weekend include upcoming congressional testimony from President Donald Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign manager Paul Manafort; an upcoming vote in the Senate on its latest health care legislation; a tweet storm by the president early Saturday; and the resignation of former White House communications director Sean Spicer and the addition of the new head, Anthony Scaramucci.

5 Reasons Why Health Care Bill Would Fail, 3 Why it May Not --

There are many reasons why the Senate will probably reject Republicans' crowning bill razing much of former President Barack Obama's health care law. There are fewer why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might revive it and avert a GOP humiliation. Leaders say the Senate will vote Tuesday on their health care legislation. They've postponed votes twice because too many Republicans were poised to vote no. That could happen again.

Trump's New Message Guru Wants 'a More Positive Mojo' -- Trump's new communications adviser says it's time to hit the "reset button." Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci pledged to begin "an era of a new good feeling" and said he hopes to "create a more positive mojo." He also promised to crack down on information leaks and pledged to better focus the message coming from the White House.

Trump Son-in-Law Expected on Capitol Hill for Russia Testimony -- The probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. election crosses into new territory this week as congressional committees seek information from two of Trumps family members, including the presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is expected to make the first of two appearances on Capitol Hill Monday. In closed-door sessions, Kushner is slated to answer questions before the Senate and House intelligence committees. Both are expected to seek information about Kushners Russia contacts, including a December meeting with Russias ambassador and, last June, with a Russian attorney and other figures connected to Moscow.

Trump's Position Uncertain as US Congressional Leaders Reach Accord on Russia Sanctions -- The U.S. Congress is moving toward adoption of new sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, but it was unclear Sunday whether Trump would sign the legislation. Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, told CNN, "You've got to ask President Trump. My guess is he's going to make that decision soon." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC News "the White House supports where the legislation is now." Key Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached accord Saturday on the measure, which does not include changes Trump wanted to make it easier for him to lift penalties against Moscow.

Kislyak Ends Term As Russias Ambassador To Washington -- Sergei Kislyak, Russias controversial ambassador to Washington, on Saturday departed from the United States as he ended his nine-year term as Moscows chief diplomat to its main global rival. The Russian Embassy said his departure was part of a scheduled reassignment for the 66-year-old ambassador. Russian state-run Interfax news agency quoted a source as saying Kislyaks next move could be to become a member of Russias upper house, the Federation Council.

Trump Blames New York Times for Ruining Plans to Kill IS Leader -- Trump criticized The New York Times on Saturday on Twitter for allegedly ruining a U.S. attempt to assassinate Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The president did not provide details or explain how the Times supposedly ruined plans to kill Baghdadi, but his tweet was posted minutes after a Fox News Channel segment about information leaks was broadcast. A i spokesman, meanwhile, has asked the White House for details about Trump's tweet, according to a Times statement provided to Politico.

Trump Helps Commission New Warship, Says Vessel Sends Message to the World -- Trump helped commission Saturday the USS Gerald R. Ford, a technologically advanced nearly $13-billion warship that he said sends a "100,000 ton message to the world" and will cause enemies of the U.S. to "shake with fear." After three years of delays and billions of dollars of cost overruns, Trump officially turned over the first of the next generation nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to the U.S. Navy at Naval Station Norfolk in the southeastern state of Virginia. "Wherever this vessel cuts through the horizon, our allies will rest easy and our enemies will shake with fear because everyone will know that America is coming and America is coming strong," he said.

South China Sea Dispute Smolders as Trump Administration Weighs Approach -- The first six months of the Trump administration saw relatively few confrontations over the territorial disputes in the South China Sea; however, analysts and officials say the lack of public conflict does not mean the issues have disappeared.

Former Top US Intel Officials Criticize Trump's Stance on Russia -- Two former top U.S. intelligence officials harshly criticized Trump on Friday for not standing up to Russia for meddling in the presidential election, one of them wondering aloud whether the president's real aim is to make Russia great again. Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan didn't hold back their anger about Trump's past disparaging comments about the intelligence agencies and their assessment that Moscow deliberately interfered in the election and tried to sow discord in the United States.

Trump Communications Director Awaits US Approval to Sell Business -- Scaramucci agreed in January to sell his hedge fund firm to clear the way for a job with Trump, but he has yet to receive US permission to sell to a group led by Chinese conglomerate HNA. Scaramucci, the Trump administrations new communications director, has yet to get approval from U.S. regulators to sell his hedge fund firm to a group led by Chinese conglomerate HNA, according to a person familiar with the matter.

White House Press Secretary Spicer Resigns -- White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has resigned. Sources quoted in media reports say his decision to step down is linked to the appointment of new White House communications director Scaramucci. They say Trump's spokesman offered his resignation shortly after Scaramucci, a New York financier, was named.

Trump's Eldest Son, Former Campaign Chairman in Talks to Meet with Senate Judiciary Committee -- The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is in talks with Trump's eldest son and his former campaign chairman about holding a private interview with the two next week in its investigation of Russia's alleged interference in the U.S. election. The committee said Friday that Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort are negotiating with the committee about being interviewed and are also discussing the possibility of turning over documents. Another Senate committee, the Intelligence Committee, says it will meet privately on Monday with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, about the Russia investigation. Kushner is also expected to meet with the House Intelligence Committee the following day.

Indiana Carrier Plant to Notify Workers of Layoffs, Outlined in Trump Deal -- The U.S. Carrier factory where Trump says he saved 800 jobs from moving to Mexico is expected to notify 300 people this week that they are being laid off. The layoff notices are expected to start as early as Thursday, exactly six months since Trump took office. The layoffs are part of a deal Trump made with the company in December to prevent deeper cuts at the Indianapolis plant.
Officials in Pakistan say a suspected suicide bomb in the eastern city of Lahore has killed at least 26 people and wounded around 50 others.

Monday's attack occurred in a busy marketplace where local administration workers were working to remove illegal makeshift shops near government buildings, citing security concerns. Police were escorting the workers to deter protesters.

Provincial health minister Salman Rafiq told reporters that several police officers were among the dead and that some of the hospitalized victims were in critical condition.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the violence, saying one of its suicide bombers carried out the attack.



Haider Ashraf, the director general of Police Operations in Lahore, said a preliminary investigation indicates the blast was the work of a suicide bomber riding a motorbike.



The explosion occurred around Arfa Kareem Tower - a building not far from the office of the state's chief minister.

Militant bomb blasts are relatively common in Pakistan, but Lahore, the country's second largest city, has seen relatively few attacks recently.
The U.S. Carrier factory where President Donald Trump says he saved 800 jobs from moving to Mexico notified 300 people last week that they were being laid off.

The layoff notices began Thursday, exactly six months since Trump took office. The layoffs are part of a deal Trump made with the company in December to prevent deeper cuts at the Indianapolis plant.

The layoffs are the first of a group of 630 job terminations planned for the year as the company moves some of its operations to Mexico. Carrier  owned by United Technologies Company (UTC)  announced in December that its fan coil department would relocate to Mexico by the end of 2017.

WATCH: Despite Trump's efforts, Indiana Carrier lays off employees

The Carrier plant, which makes gas furnaces, became an issue in last year's presidential election when UTC announced plans to eliminate about 2,100 jobs in the state and transfer those operations to Mexico. As a presidential candidate, Trump roundly criticized that decision.

After winning the election, Trump worked out a deal with his vice president-elect, Mike Pence, who was then the governor of Indiana, to provide as much as $7 million in tax incentives and training grants for Carrier in exchange for keeping about 700 of those jobs in the state.

In a letter sent to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development in May, a human resources manager for Carrier said, "While the entire facility is not closing, the separations are expected to be permanent."

In addition, UTC is expected to lay off an additional 700 workers at factories in the town of Huntington, Indiana, near the city of Fort Wayne.

However, Carrier has also said it will honor its commitment, made in 2016, to employ about 1,100 people in Indianapolis.

Robert James, head of the United Steelworks Local 1099, the Carrier workers' local union, told VOA the union is trying to negotiate retirement incentives and "voluntary separation" incentives, or buyouts, for the workers to cut down the number of actual job losses.

During the 2016 presidential election campaign, James was most concerned about job security. When he spoke to VOA in April of 2016, he was expecting to lose his job when Carrier moved the work to Mexico.

A lot has happened since.

We appreciate what President Trump did, James said at the time, referring to Trumps efforts to keep the Carrier facility open and employing workers in Indianapolis making furnaces.

Uncertainties

While a lot of positive developments have happened since VOA last spoke to James, he recently said a cloud of uncertainty still hangs above the facility.

What we saw in December when President Trump came to Carrier  it was a dog and pony show. Because only some, not all, of the jobs were saved, he added.

He stood up there before 100 people who were in that room and told those 100 workers that there were 1,100 jobs being saved. And he was wrong, James said.

According to James, only 730 are slated to stay in Indiana.

Mohan Tatikonda, a professor of Operations Management at the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University, said most factories like Carrier have already moved.

Tatikonda said lower-skill jobs such as those at Carrier naturally flow to a lower-wage environment, eventually.

"We can be happy  it [[saving some jobs]] made a difference for so many families, but it wasnt a lasting solution, and it is not a solution that is in any way replicable or applicable to other factories, Tatikonda said.

While James job at the plant is secure, for now, he is focused on helping those who are leaving this year to look for other work, including some the same age as I am that is going to make it a lot harder. Because when you are in your 50s, trying to look for a job  thats not a good thing, he added.

Earlier this year, Trump tweeted twice about former union leader Chuck Jones after Jones criticized the deal. Trump said Jones had done a "terrible job" negotiating for the workers and suggesting that he "spend more time working."

Jones has since retired.

Carrier said the employees who lose their jobs will get severance pay. It says at least 30 people are taking advantage of educational funding offered by Carrier.
French President Emmanuel Macron faced the first grassroots revolt from within his own camp on Monday when hundreds of activists asked a court to halt voting on new rules for the political party that helped him win power in May.

The challenge came on the heels of a poll showing a slump in the 39-year-old president's approval rating after a series of politically testing events, including a budget row that prompted the head of the army to quit.

Members of Macron's Republic on the Move party (LREM), which espouses a break with old ways of doing politics, are taking part in an electronic vote on new party statutes that is due to end on July 31.

The activists involved in the legal challenge say they number about 1,200, a fraction of the LREM's total membership of more than 375,000, but they reveal a degree of discontent in the ranks with Macron's forceful style of leadership.

The group says the disputed statutes would limit decision-making and future internal ballots to the LREM's upper echelons.

"This 'lockout' exposes a lack of trust in party members and looks at odds with LREM [party] values," they said.

"The lack of internal democracy is even more distasteful due to the fact that it's all been done in a rush in the middle of the summer without proper consultation of activists."

A party spokeswoman brushed off the accusations, saying LREM was giving a bigger role to grassroots members in its structures than other French parties and had further increased that power after consulting members earlier this month.

A ruling is expected this week on the court challenge after a hearing on Monday.

Macron, who swept to power on promises of non-partisan rule and an end to traditional Left-versus-Right politics, has had a tough month, marked by a public row over military spending cuts with top armed forces chief General Pierre de Villiers that led to de Villiers' resignation.

An Ifop poll released on Sunday showed Macron's approval rating falling 10 percentage points to 54 percent.

Billed as the biggest drop for a newly elected president since Jacques Chirac in 1995, it echoed a broadly similar result in a recent BVA poll.
Massachusetts' highest court ruled Monday it is against the law for local police officers to hold people based exclusively on their immigration status in order to give federal officials time to detain them.

The state's Supreme Judicial Court concluded in the case of Commonwealth v. Sreynuon Lunn that "nothing in the statutes or common law of Massachusetts authorizes court officers to make a civil arrest in these circumstances."

According to federal law, people who come to the United States legally and overstay their visas so that they are in the country unlawfully, have committed no crime. They are subject to civil penalties, not criminal ones. In addition, entering the U.S. illegally is a misdemeanor, or minor wrongdoing.

The ruling came after Sreynuon Lunn's lawyers filed an appeal on his behalf. Lunn came to the United States as a refugee when he was an infant in 1985 with his Cambodian parents, who were fleeing the Khmer Rouge.

Lunn, who is now in his 30s, was arrested Oct. 24, 2016, on a single count of unarmed robbery. The charge was eventually dismissed, but he continued to be held by court officers at the Boston Municipal Court at the request of a federal immigration hold, also known as a detainer.

Massachusetts law provides no authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer, beyond the time that the individual would otherwise be entitled to be released from state custody, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling states.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office director in Boston, C.M. Cronen, said Monday in a statement that, "While ICE is currently reviewing this decision to determine next steps, this ruling weakens local law enforcement agencies' ability to protect their communities. The dedicated men and women of ICE will continue to do our sworn duty to enforce our immigration laws and protect the safety and security of the citizens of Massachusetts' communities."

Detainers

Over the years, ICE has issued requests that local law enforcement hold on to individuals if ICE believes they are subject to deportation.

The practice had local sheriff's departments across the country skeptical about the legality of these requests.

Sheriffs say holding someone on a detainer after they have completed their local or state custody is essentially a new arrest that must meet Fourth Amendment requirements.

But at least in Massachusetts, the practice of detaining a suspected undocumented immigrant for up to 48 hours after a criminal judge has ordered his or her release is now against the law.

Because the ruling was made by the state's supreme court, there is no higher authority to appeal to except the U.S. Supreme Court, which would not be applicable.

"No appeal to the U.S. Supreme because there is no federal question like constitutionality that is raised by the case," Texas immigration attorney Denise McGettrick told VOA.

Sanctuary cities

The Massachusetts state ruling comes on the heels of a ruling last week from a San Francisco federal judge that refused to reinstate a January executive order of President Donald Trump withdrawing federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick III in San Francisco found that a memo from the Justice Department narrowing the scope of the executive order to a small number of federal grants and specific violations of immigration law was not grounds to reverse his own injunction against the order.

While government lawyers argued that the memo negated the need for the stay, the judge said it wasn't binding and could easily be reversed.

The lawsuit was brought by the city of San Francisco and Santa Clara County, which are sanctuary jurisdictions.

Sanctuary cities and counties generally decline to cooperate with federal immigration officials in rounding up illegal immigrants, including refusing to honor detainers.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner last week, ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan said he plans to send more resources and agents to sanctuary cities to crack down on illegal immigration.

The Trump administration says that local authorities endanger public safety when they decline to hand over illegal immigrants arrested for crimes.
The first picture of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari seen in 78 days -- since he left Abuja for medical treatment in Britain -- surfaced on Sunday: a photo that shows him smiling during a luncheon meeting in London with a delegation of state governors from Nigeria.

Buhari adviser Femi Adesina posted the photo on Facebook, along with an account of Sunday's meeting by Imu state Governor Rochas Okorocha. The governor, who along with others at the luncheon is a member of Buhari's All Progressives Conference party, wrote that the president was cheerful and attentive during a discussion that lasted more than an hour. There is no independent verification that the photo is authentic.

Including his current stay in Britain, which began on May 7, the 74-year-old president has been away from Nigeria for nearly two-thirds of this year - 128 days - seeking treatment for an illness that has never been described in detail. The lengthy absences have prompted concern, speculation and questions in Nigeria; periodic government statements about Buhari have been met with increasing skepticism.

Nevertheless, presidential adviser Adesina quoted Governor Okorocha as saying: "Nigerians don't have to worry at all. ... President Buhari will be back as soon as the doctors give him the green light."

In Buharis absence, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has been running the country as acting president. The presidents prolonged absences have left many Nigerians wondering when Buhari will return, or even if he will return, and whether he is fit to lead the country.

The growing public skepticism was evident last month, when an audio recording of Buhari commemorating the end of Ramadan stoked suspicion and concern about his health. Some Nigerians questioned whether the voice they heard was Buhari's.

The infrequent updates and secrecy around Buharis health have caused some to question whether he is even alive.

In his post Sunday, Adesina quoted Okorocha as saying: "The merchants of lies have been put out of business, and Nigerians will not buy the garbage they have been selling. All those who look up to fake news can find better use for their time."

The governor said Buhari was asked about the swirling rumors concerning his health, but laughed them off, "completely unperturbed by the cocktail of lies."

Buhari spent almost two months in Britain in January and February. On his return in March, he did not resume work immediately. In April and early May, Buhari was back in Nigeria, but he missed three cabinet meetings and was said to be "working from home." In early June, a month after he returned to Britain, the president's wife said he was "recuperating fast."

Buhari had been expected to address the nation at the end of May, the midpoint of his first presidential term, but that speech never took place.

Buhari is not the only African leader to spend extended time seeking medical treatment overseas this year. Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe have spent extended time in Spain and Singapore, respectively, tending to health concerns.
On Monday, the parents of terminally ill British infant, Charlie Gard, abandoned the legal bid to take their son to the United States for experimental care after being presented with dire new medical tests.

The couple's attorney, Grant Armstrong, said recent tests on the 11-month-old revealed irreversible muscular damage and that the couple made their final decision after seeing Charlie's latest brain scans.

"It's too late for Charlie," Armstrong told Judge Nicholas Francis during a London High Court hearing. "The damage has been done."

Judge Francis was due to rule Monday on whether there was sufficient new evidence to permit the parents to bring Charlie to the U.S. for a an experimental therapy.

The parents broke into tears in the courtroom as their lawyer told the judge: "It is no longer in Charlie's best interest to pursue this course of treatment."

The decision ends a case that has drawn global attention, prompting world leaders like President Donald Trump and Pope Francis to weigh in.

Charlie Gard was born with a rare genetic disease called encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. Globally, there are currently only 16 confirmed cases of the genetic mutation.

He is deaf and blind, he cannot breathe or move without aid, and he suffers from frequent epileptic seizures.

Earlier this year, the London hospital treating him asked for permission to remove him from life support, calling it the most humane path forward. His parents wanted to take him to the United States in an effort to prolong his life - even though his disease has no cure - but lost the legal fight in both Britain's Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

In its decision, the Court of Human Rights argued that Charlie "was being exposed to continued pain, suffering and distress, and that undergoing experimental treatment with no prospects of success would offer no benefit, and continue to cause him significant harm."

President Donald Trump and some conservative American politicians used the case as an opportunity to criticize Britain's single-payer health care system. A week after the Court of Human Rights decision, Trump wrote on Twitter that the United States would be "delighted" to help.



British government maintained that the case was never about money. It argued that under British law the courts have the final say in medical disputes about children. "In this country, children have rights independent of their parents," Judge Francis said.

Outside the courtroom, supporters held blue balloons in solidarity with the parents, who intend to "establish a foundation for Charlie's voice to be heard," Armstrong said.

"There is one simple reason for Charlie's muscles deteriorating to the extent they are in now - time. A whole lot of wasted time," said the father, Chris Gard, after emerging from the courthouse. "Had Charlie been given the treatment sooner he would have had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy."

Balloon-holding supporters responded by chanting "Justice for Charlie." Staff at the hospital where Charlie is on life support have received death threats, which have been condemned by the parents.

The hospital released a statement saying that experts concluded before Christmas that Charlie had experience irreversible brain damage, meaning the length of the court case played no role in the medical outcome.

"We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately won't make his first birthday in just under two weeks' time," Gard said.

Judge Francis commended the parents "for the love and the care they gave to their child Charlie," adding that "no parents could have done more for their child."
One of the pope's top advisers, Cardinal George Pell, makes his first court appearance in Australia this week on charges of historic sex crimes, a bitter reminder for his home town reeling from more than a dozen abuse cases.

Pell, the Vatican's economy minister, last month became the most senior Catholic to be charged with sex crimes. He has vowed to fight the still-unspecified charges, calling them false and the result of a "relentless character assassination."

He declined to respond to interview requests for this story.

He is expected to appear before Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.

Police have not released details of the charges, but the start of Pell's court battle in Melbourne revisits a troubled past for Ballarat, the former gold town of 100,000 people 75 miles (120 km) to the west where Pell grew up and cut his teeth as a priest in the 1970s and 1980s.

Before a 2013 state government inquiry into institutional abuse, Ballarat was best known to Australians as the site of the Eureka Stockade, a bloody 1854 uprising by gold miners against colonial authorities.

But the government inquiry exposed shocking accounts of child abuse and allegations of a cover-up in the Ballarat diocese over many generations, sparking a more powerful federal Royal Commission that heard testimony from hundreds of people, including allegations against 17 priests in Ballarat alone.

At least five priests from the diocese have been jailed for abuse. Supporters of the victims have tied hundreds of colorful ribbons to the fence outside the city's main Catholic church, St. Patrick's.

Pell, 76, testified at both inquiries, mostly about his knowledge of the handling of complaints against the church when he was a young priest in the 1970s and 1980s. He repeatedly denied direct knowledge of practices which, according to the testimony of others, involved moving suspect priests between parishes to avoid detection.

Neither inquiry heard complaints against Pell himself.

Victoria state police, which brought the charges against Pell last month, haven't said where the charges originated and haven't offered any detail other than that they were for multiple historic sex offenses.

Police declined to comment on specific charges. The Royal Commission, which will deliver its final report to the government later this year, also declined to comment.

"The important thing is that the result of it will be truth and justice, no matter what the truth is," said Reiny Strybosch, who has lived in Ballarat since 1956, on his way to Mass.

Closed Hearing

For Pell, like the city he grew up in, the charges are a reminder of the past. His rise through the Australian clergy paused in 2002, a year after taking the country's top Catholic role as Archbishop of Sydney, when he was accused of abusing two boys at a youth camp in the 1960s.

Pell strongly denied the accusation and took leave to fight it. The church then ran a closed hearing in a Melbourne hotel room, overseen by a retired judge who found that the alleged victim seemed to be telling the truth but that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the complaint.

The 2002 accuser has not spoken publicly since.

Pell went on to became the Vatican's first economy minister in 2014 as Pope Francis sought to end financial scandals.

Thousands of miles away, the Royal Commission rolled on, with much attention on Ballarat. Data released by the inquiry showed Ballarat was the diocese with the most alleged perpetrator priests after major cities Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Ballarat had more alleged perpetrator priests than Perth, a city of 2 million, according to the data.

Ballarat had 3 percent of Australian Catholic abuse complaints since 1950, despite having just 0.4 percent of the country's population. Reuters was unable to independently confirm the data.

Before he was charged, Pell's seniority and political connections had made him a target for many abuse survivors' frustration about what they believed was reluctance by church and government to listen.

When Pell said in 2016 that he wanted to give evidence from Rome via videolink because he was too sick to fly home, a group of survivors, mostly from Ballarat, traveled to Italy to watch him testify in person.

Now that Pell is to appear before the court, some of those survivors say they want the cardinal treated like any other member of the church accused of sex crimes.

"I can't see any reason that he won't get a fair and just trial," said abuse survivor Philip Nagle, an agronomist. "I'd like to see the claimants get a fair and just trial too."
Plans in the Philippines to reopen a tract of the disputed South China Sea for oil and gas exploration are likely to complicate the foreign policy of Manilas new friend Beijing, which claims the same waters, and adds to a regional pushback against Chinese maritime influence.

Philippines oil drilling plans

The Philippine Department of Energy is ready to restart drilling at Reed Bank, an 8,866 square-kilometer table mount west of Palawan Island, domestic news reports say. In December 2014 the government suspended those plans to prepare for world court arbitration over which country had a stronger claim to the feature.

That court in The Hague ruled that Reed Bank falls within a Philippine ocean exclusive economic zone. China rejected the outcome and in May warned Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte against reopening it for exploration, Philippine media reports say. China claims more than 90 percent of the sea.

You had Duterte saying he spoke to (Chinese President) Xi Jinping in May and China threatened to take action if they started drilling, said Carl Thayer, Southeast Asia-specialized emeritus professor at The University of New South Wales in Australia. Its a sensitive time. July 12 was the anniversary of the arbitral tribunal decision.

Ismael Ocampo, director with the Department of Energy's Resource Development Bureau, said this month he expected the country to lift the drilling suspension by December, per news reports from Manila. The department did not answer a VOA request for comment.

China with a wait and see strategy

Chinese officials have kept quiet about Reed Bank this month, though on July 12 a foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing said China was dedicated from start to finish to negotiating with related countries to resolve disputes related to maritime sovereignty.

The Philippines may be using Reed Bank to see how far it can push China, said Fabrizio Bozzato, a Taiwan Strategy Research Association fellow specialized in Asian political issues.

Probably Mr. Ocampos statement is a way that Manila has to test Chinas resolve or restraint or even to elicit some cooperative stance from China without risking to irritate or antagonize Beijing, Bozzato said.

China might answer any drilling at Reed Bank by withholding aid or investment as promised or allocated to date, Bozzato said, hurting Dutertes ambition for economic development. Chinese officials could restart any suspended aid if relations improved.

China had pledged billions in aid

China pledged $24 billion for the Philippines in October, and Dutertes government set aside the maritime sovereignty dispute with China, which claims waters off most of his archipelagos west coasts. Duterte is tapping China now to help fund parts of a $167 billion plan for new public infrastructure by 2022. His predecessor, in contrast, had filed for the world court arbitration.

A strained friendship with Beijing would push Manila back toward Washington. Duterte has resisted U.S. military aid in his 13 months in office so far, delighting China.

Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam as well claim parts of the 3.5-million-square-kilometer South China Sea, prized largely for its oil and gas reserves.

Beijing officials are probably taking a long view of ties with Duterte, who they see as more volatile than other world leaders, so they may cut him slack, experts said in April after another flap involving China.

Fewer than half of Filipinos surveyed in the first quarter of 2017 trust China, research institution Social Weather Stations found, and analysts say Duterte must bear that in mind as an elected official.

Other countries testing China

China may also see a trend of resistance developing beyond Reed Bank, experts say. They point to Vietnams agreement this month with Indias offshore oil and gas driller to explore in a tract that Beijing claims and to Indonesias deletion of the word China from its official name of the sea near the island of Borneo.

I think the worst case scenario is that the Southeast Asians (are) divided, look over their shoulder and one by one start making their accommodations to China, said Euan Graham, international security director with the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney.

Were not seeing it when it comes to these key countries, he said. Indonesia, the Philippinescertainly the Vietnamese are continuing I think their sort of steady push to try to assert control.
Poland's president says he is vetoing two of three bills recently passed by lawmakers to reform the countrys judicial system.

Andrzej Duda announced his decision on television Monday, days after mass street protests.

"I have decided to send back to parliament, which means I will veto, the law on the Supreme Court, as well as the one about the National Council of the Judiciary," he said.

Both bills are generally seen as challenges to the independence of the judicial system and are part of a legal overhaul, planned by the ruling Law and Justice Party.

The third bill reorganizes the functioning of local courts and Duda said he would sign it.

The bill on the Supreme Court would have put the judiciary under the political control of the ruling party, with the justice minister, who is also prosecutor general, having the power to appoint judges. Duda has rejected such power for a prosecutor general.

In making his decisions, Duda broke openly for the first time with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is the leader of Law and Justice Party, de facto leader of the country, but does not hold a formal government post.

The president said he believed that Poland badly needs reform of the judiciary, but he did not feel that these bills would raise the sense of security and justice in the country.
Serbia's new chief war crimes prosecutor has filed a request to resume the landmark trial of eight former Bosnian Serb police officers charged with taking part in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.



The proceedings were halted after an appeals court ruled this month that the charges were invalid because they were filed when Serbia did not have a chief war crimes prosecutor. The trial marked the first time that a Serbian court had dealt with the killings by Bosnian Serb troops of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, Europe's worst single atrocity since World War II.



Serbia's human rights groups had criticized the ruling, warning of state obstruction of war crimes trials in the Balkan country seeking to become a member of the European Union. The request to resume the trial was filed last week by the chief war crimes prosecutor, Snezana Stanojkovic, her office said.



The eight former officers were charged with participating in the killing of 1,313 people in a warehouse in Kravica, a village outside Srebrenica. They were crammed into a warehouse in the village and then killed with grenades and machine guns as they tried to escape the Serb onslaught.



Special police unit commander Nedeljko Milidragovic, also known as "Nedjo the Butcher,'' was the defendant accused of organizing the killings. An indictment alleged that Milidragovic fired his pistol at those who still showed signs of life after the night-long rampage.



Serbia actively supported and armed Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 war that left over 100,000 people dead and forced millions from their homes.
Russia has started to deploy military police to Syria to monitor a cease-fire in two newly established safe zones, Russian authorities said Monday.

Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Russian forces had set up checkpoints and monitoring posts around safe zones in southwest Syria and in Eastern Ghouta - a suburb of Damascus.

In May, Russia, Iran, and Turkey approved a plan to establish four safe zones in Syria in an effort to de-escalate the six-year-old conflict. Under the plan, Syrian President Bashar Assad's military and air force will cease operations in the designated areas.

About 2.5 million people live in the four zones.

The cease-fire between Assad forces and Syrian rebels in Eastern Ghouta was negotiated Saturday under Egyptian mediation in Cairo.

The Russian military said that the cease-fire agreement "fix[es] the borders of the de-escalation zone, locations, and authorities of the forces observing the de-escalation, as well as routes for delivery of humanitarian aid and free movement of the civilians," according to the Russian press agency TASS.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since 2011, when anti-government protests grew into a civil war.
Emergency crews in the southwestern U.S. state of Arizona have rescued 17 hikers who had been trapped in a scenic canyon after flash floods.

A police helicopter rescued the final two hikers on Monday morning after they spent the night in the canyon at Tenque Verde Falls, outside Tucson. The other 15 people, including a 4-year-old boy, were either airlifted out of the canyon or walked out with the aid of rescue teams on Sunday.

Officials say there is no indication that any of the hikers were seriously hurt in the incident.

They say rescuers dropped food, water and blankets to the last two hikers who spent the night on a cliff surrounded by water.

Officials say they canyon normally has only a trickle of water, but flash floods raised the water level to up to 244 centimeters.

Police officials say that hikers often decide to go out just after it rains because the air temperature is cooler, not realizing that they are walking into areas that are at risk of flash flooding.

Earlier this month, 10 members of a family were killed, including several children, when they were at a popular swimming hole in Arizona. A flash flood caused a wall of water to descend into the canyon without warning, sweeping the family away on the Verde River inside Tonto National Forest.

Local authorities say up to 4 centimeters of rain from an intense thunderstorm had fallen during one hour in a remote area about 14 kilometers upstream causing the surge of water downstream. They say the swimmers had no warning before the wall of water hit them.
The U.S. government says the HIV epidemic is "coming under control" in Swaziland, the country with the world's highest prevalence of the virus.

The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) said Monday that new infections among adults in Swaziland have dropped by nearly half since 2011. It said the latest research also shows that life-saving anti-retroviral treatment has doubled in the country during the same time period and now reaches over 80 percent of infected adults.

PEPFAR has focused much of its efforts on increasing access to anti-retroviral drugs for over 11 million people, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.

Monday's statement also says the southern African nations of Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe "demonstrate significant progress toward controlling the HIV epidemics."

The U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Deborah Birx, said "These unprecedented findings demonstrate the remarkable impact of the U.S. government's efforts ... We now have a historic opportunity to change the very course of the HIV epidemic."

The data shows that the number of people in Swaziland who have achieved a suppression of the virus - meaning the virus does not replicate to make them sick - has doubled since 2011.

While the results show large progress in combating the epidemic, it also reveals key gaps in HIV prevention and treatment. PEPFAR says the data shows that women ages 15-24 and men under age 35 are less likely to know their HIV status, be on HIV treatment, or be taking anti-retroviral drugs than older adults.

"These gaps are all areas in which PEPFAR continues to invest and innovate," the statement said.

Swaziland's government says about 27 percent of its population was HIV-positive in 2016, down from 31 percent of adults in 2011.
Three African nations are holding major elections in August: oil giant Angola, East African powerhouse Kenya and tiny, rapidly developing Rwanda.

Campaigning is under way in all three nations ahead of these votes. While these nations are geographically, politically and economically very different, analysts say each of these polls could be a turning point for their nation.

Rwanda

First up is tiny, landlocked Rwanda, which will vote August 3-4. Again, the undisputed favorite is the longtime president, who has ruled since the end of the tiny nations horrific 1994 genocide.

Even the head of the European Union electoral commission said to VOA in May, I think you would not lose any money if you bet on Mr. Paul Kagame.

Senior Horn of Africa analyst Murithi Mutiga of the International Crisis Group says poll watchers agree, but that the democratic exercise is an important one for Rwanda and its wealthy aid partners.

Its been essentially the Paul Kagame show for the last two decades, and not too many people see that changing, he tells VOA from Nairobi. I think it matters to the extent that obviously there have been questions as to whether Rwanda is an authoritarian country, whether it respects the norms and practices of a democratic country, and especially as a major recipient of aid from the West.

Kenya

Kenya, he says, is a different story: the August 8 poll is a contest between incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga. That may be why the EU has decided not to send observers to Rwanda, but to deploy more than 100 observers to Kenya.

The African Union is sending an observer mission headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, and the U.S.-based Carter Center will send a mission co-led by former Secretary of State John Kerry.

This poll falls 10 years after the worst episode of post-election violence Kenya has ever seen. Odinga's loss in 2007 sparked weeks of political and ethnic violence that took the lives of more than 1,100 people.

This year, voters are again divided along ethnic lines, but since 2007 Kenya has enacted constitutional reforms designed to prevent such violence.

This poll, Mutiga says, is a test, of whether those reforms can hold up.

"Just as in 2007, the outcome will be close, the stakes are high for the candidates and the institutions, especially the electoral commission, are struggling to cope with the huge responsibility on their shoulders," he says.

Angola

And last up, the oil juggernaut, Angola. On August 23, the southern African nation will hold its first vote in decades without President Jose Eduardo dos Santos at the helm. The 74-year-old, who has recently taken several trips to Spain for medical reasons, is stepping down after 38 years in power.

The poll itself is a straightforward two-way race, between the longtime ruling party and the established opposition; but, the winner will lead a nation whose fortunes are heavily dependent on oil, which accounts for about 45 percent of the nations gross domestic product, and 95 percent of exports.

Angolas economy has recently been shaken by the slump in oil prices, which has hit the economy hard.

Analyst Maja Bovcon of business consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft says that while the poll itself is interesting, the real test will come after the winner is announced. The new president will have to address the nations foundering economy and gaping inequalities.

To do so, Bovcon says, the president will have to untangle the complicated network of state resources, which until now have been largely controlled by President dos Santos and his family.

Because Angola has never actually had this transition  or, okay, it has not had a real transition for almost the past 40 years, nearly 38 years  means that everybody now, all analysts, everybody, is looking at how this transition will succeed, she says.
Fisherman Wissam Francis paid little attention when Lebanon's trash crisis drew tens of thousands of protesters, but two years later, he and his fellow fishermen have become a symbol for a problem continuing to blight the country.

Francis, who fishes sardines from a port in Beirut's Bourj Hammoud district, claims a state-backed plan to reclaim land from the sea by using waste has led to the destruction of fish spawning grounds.

The plan was part of a short-term fix to the rubbish that piled up on Beirut's streets, sparking the "You Stink" protests of 2015.

"They've killed the sea here, and now they've killed the fishermen's livelihoods," said Francis of those behind the new plan, claiming pollution of the water has increased.

Mountain of trash

A mountain of trash has amassed over Bourj Hammoud's port since the site was first used as a dumping ground during the country's 15-year civil war, which began in 1975.

But it is in dumping waste from the mountain into the sea, creating potentially lucrative land in the process, the fishermen claim the most recent damage is being done. A seawall, supposed to be part of the plan to prevent the tide from pulling at the newly submerged waste, has yet to be built.

In Photos: Trash Crisis Hits Fishermen Hard

Francis told VOA his nightly catch has been hugely reduced, while Ali Fawzy, who works on one of his boats, feared for the future of his four children.

"This is the first year it's been like this  we live off the sea, we have no other source of income."

Sea wall construction is set to begin in the coming months after compensation talks between the government and petroleum companies, which would have to re-route pipes.

A spokesman for the Council for Development and Reconstruction, the government department overseeing the project, told VOA that daily tests are being carried out to ensure the waste dumped into the sea was not polluting.

But the situation at Bourj Hammoud's port speaks to a bigger story.

Beyond the port

Paul Abi Rached, president of Lebanon Eco Movement, claims his organization's calls for the government to carry out a fuller environmental assessment before dumping waste into the sea fell on deaf ears.

The Bourj Hammoud plan is one of two projects launched as a temporary response to the 2015 trash crisis, which many protesters saw as a consequence of inept planning and political corruption.

Another recently-opened dump site, an area south of Beirut airport known as Costa Brava, has also sparked environmental concerns. Earlier this year, seagulls attracted to the site were shot amid fears they could cause a plane crash.

The government has delegated powers to municipalities to deal with their own trash, though many remain cash-strapped.

As a consequence, alongside official dumping grounds like that of Bourj Hammoud, there are reportedly close to 900 illegal waste dumps across Lebanon  a significant increase since before the 2015 protests  with the burning of rubbish a common practice.

No plan

Lebanon's Environment Ministry has drawn ire for its handling of the situation, but Bassam Sabbagh, head of urban environment at the ministry, said the government did not listen to its proposals. Despite numerous suggestions from the ministry, he said there is still no government waste management plan for Lebanon.

The new Bourj Hammoud site is only set to take waste until approximately the end of 2018, according to the Council for Development and Reconstruction.

"What is the alternative then?" Sabbagh asked. "The waste goes back on the streets, there is open burning [of rubbish] again in Beirut? We don't have any alternatives."

In deep water

There is deep cynicism about the state's desire to fix the country's problem in a sustainable way. Some critics are calling for pressure to be applied from beyond the country's borders.

With $88 million in European Union money pumped in to help solid waste treatment in Lebanon since 2004, the country's potential breaching of the Barcelona Convention, which seeks to stop countries polluting the Mediterranean, should prompt action, they claim.

"Why [are] the embassies, why is the European Commission silent? They will have a negative impact on their sea shores, on their tourism, not only in Lebanon," said Abi Rached.

A spokesman for the EU delegation in Lebanon told VOA it had "always expressed the need for a comprehensive national strategy."

Back at the Bourj Hammoud port, questions on whether a long-term, sustainable waste management plan can be developed are irrelevant to Francis.

"The damage is already done" he told VOA, "there's no more fish here."
A truck driver suspected in a smuggling operation that left 10 people dead has been charged in Texas with illegally transporting immigrants, according to a court document released Monday.

The 60-year-old man, identified as James Bradley Jr. from Florida, could face life in prison or the death penalty for the charges, said authorities.

Bradley was arrested in San Antonio on Sunday after police recovered eight bodies in the back of his broiling tractor trailer in a Walmart parking lot. Two more victims later died and the others were hospitalized, many in critical condition, after suffering from heatstroke and exhaustion. Authorities say they fear the death toll could rise.

According to the criminal complaint filed against Bradley, he told federal investigators that he was driving the truck from Schaller, Iowa to Brownsville, Texas and was not aware that anyone was inside until he stopped in San Antonio.

Bradley described opening the doors "and was surprised when he was run over by 'Spanish' people and knocked to the ground," according to the court document. Investigators say Bradley called his wife, but not the emergency 911 number, even though he knew that there were fatalities. The complaint said Bradley's wife did not answer the phone when he called her.

Witness accounts indicate that at least 100 smuggled immigrants were in the back of the truck at some point during the journey.

"All were victims of ruthless human smugglers indifferent to the well-being of their fragile cargo," Richard Durbin, Jr., U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said in a statement. "These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters. Imagine their suffering, trapped in a stifling trailer."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas Homan said in a statement, "By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished."

He also said that ICE's Homeland Security Investigations division "works year-round to identify, dismantle, and disrupt the transnational criminal networks that smuggle people into and throughout the United States."

Surveillance footage recorded vehicles pulling up to the truck Saturday night, taking a few people at a time from the trailer, then closing the truck and driving away.

The truck's human cargo was discovered after someone from the trailer asked a Walmart employee for water. That request led to a police check, and the discovery of the human cargo, including two school-aged children, along with those who died - all adult men.

Mexico's foreign ministry said Monday that preliminary information indicated that 25 Mexicans were among those in the trailer, including four who died and 21 others who were hospitalized. The statement also said the Mexican consulate in San Antonio will continue working with local and state authorities to help identify the nationality of all the victims.

An earlier statement from the Mexican government said it has called on authorities to conduct an exhaustive investigation.

It doesnt happen every day but it does happen every few years," Nestor Rodriguez , a sociology professor at the University of Texas-Austin, told VOA. "Its almost a common problem," he said, adding that financial and security concerns often lead people from Mexico and Central American countries to pursue risky journeys to the United States, sometimes leading to such tragedies.
Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trumps son-in-law and senior adviser, denied Monday that he or anyone else with the Trump campaign had any improper contacts with Russia leading up to or after the 2016 election.

"I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so," Kushner said at the White House in a brief statement after answering questions in a closed-door meeting with Senate Intelligence Committee investigators, the first of two congressional interviews for Kushner this week.

"I had no improper contacts," Kushner said. "I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information." He said that all of his "actions were proper, and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign."

WATCH: Kushner delivers statement after Senate meeting

The presidents eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and former campaign manager Paul Manafort are also sharing information with another panel, the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, also an adviser to her father, told reporters that "serving the president and the people of the United States has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime. I am so grateful for the opportunity to work on important matters such as Middle East peace, and reinvigorating Americas innovative spirit. He took no questions from reporters.

In a written statement issued before his appearance on Capitol Hill, Kushner confirmed that he, the younger Trump and Manafort met with a Russian lawyer and other figures tied to Moscow last June, but asserted he arrived late to the meeting and heard no discussions of the presidential campaign.

That meeting has become a focal point for numerous investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election aimed at helping Trump win after his son Donald Jr. released emails expressing eagerness for what he expected the Russian attorney would provide: incriminating material about Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trumps 2016 election opponent.



No mention of key events



Kushners statement made no mention of some key events that are pertinent to the Russia probe, including President Trump's firing of former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey, who was leading the agency's Russia probe before Special Counsel Robert Mueller, another former FBI director, took over.

Kushner's statement does not rule out the possibility of Russian election interference, which the U.S. intelligence community has concluded was directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rather, it asserts that Kushner himself had no interactions or knowledge about plots from Moscow by himself or anyone else.



Congressional reaction



Kushners closed-door cooperation with congressional committees whetted some lawmakers appetites for public testimony.



Kushners statement  raises far more questions than it answers, said Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon. It is imperative that the public hear Jared Kushner testify in an open session of the Senate Intelligence Committee, under oath, and support his claims with full transparency in the form of emails, documents and financial records.



There should be no presumption that he is telling the whole truth in this statement, Wyden added.

As Kushner left Capitol Hill after Monday's closed door testimony, he was approached by a protester who tried to give Kushner a Russian flag.



Trump attacks probe



Meanwhile, President Trump once again assailed the Russia probe.



So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G. [Jeff Sessions], looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations? Trump wrote on Twitter.



Trump last week rebuked Sessions for removing himself from Justice Department oversight of the agency's Russia investigation, which led to the appointment of Mueller.





Trump Jr, Manafort testimony postponed

Donald Trump Jr. and Manafort were initially scheduled to appear this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But that testimony has been postponed based on an understanding that the two men will provide the committee with records and other information.

With the Russia investigations now scrutinizing those closest to Trump, questions have arisen about possible presidential pardons. Trump's legal team noted the Constitution grants the president broad pardoning powers, but insisted that nothing is being contemplated.

At the same time, the White House insisted the news medias focus on the Russia probe is misguided.

The top three issues that Americans care about are immigration, health care, and jobs, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday, also on "This Week." The top three issues that the media cares about are Russia, Russia, and Russia.
The room in Istanbuls main court house was packed as the trial of 17 journalists working for Cumhuriyet newspaper got underway. The trial is widely seen as pivotal for the future of press freedom in Turkey with Cumhuriyet one of the last remaining mainstream newspapers critical of the government and president.

The first day of the hearing Monday was devoted to reading the terrorist charges against the journalists. Most have been charged with membership of a terrorist organization or actions that support a terrorist organization while not being a member.

The charges have been widely used since the introduction of emergency rule, following last Julys failed coup, that has resulted in more than 50,000 people being jailed.

The 17 journalists on trial include some of the papers top executives, leading columnists and even a cartoonist. Speaking in his defense, Cumhuriyet editor in chief Kadri Gursel strongly condemned the charges, claiming prosecutors had broken the law in collecting evidence against him. He strongly refuted the evidence that included unsolicited texts from alleged supporters of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Ankara blames Gulen, who lives in self imposed exile in the Untied States, and his followers for being behind the coup attempt, in which more than 240 people died. Gursel is accused by the government of supporting Gulen and the Kurdish rebel group the PKK.

Gursel has for decades been one of the most outspoken critics of Gulen, and in the 1990s was kidnapped and held for several weeks by the PKK.

Government dislikes editorial policy

A key part of the case against the journalists presented in Mondays hearing was that Cumhuriyet changed its editorial policy, which prosecutors claim is evidence the paper is following Gulen's agenda.

The change in policy cited by the prosecution included focusing on human rights violations in the ongoing crackdown on the Kurdish rebel group the PKK, and exposing links between President Recep Tayyip and his government, and Gulen before the coup attempt.

The paper decided to cover human rights abuses during the state of emergency, and even before, abuses committed during military operations against the PKK, and highlighting the responsibility of the government for cooperating with Fethullah Gulen. All these are taboos in Turkish media today, claims Erol Onderoglu, Turkeys representative for Reporters Without Borders, the Paris based media freedom group, Something which is purely editorial has been brought here to the courthouse today as a criminal activity.

Cumhuriyet CEO Akin Atalay told the court the prosecution case against him and his fellow journalists is, A complete legal murder. Atalay accused prosecutors of seeking to either silence the paper or take it over.

Wider rights issues for Turkey

The Cumhuriyet case has become a focal point for growing concerns about media freedom in Turkey.

Before the start of the case hundreds of journalists, newspapers supporters, and members of parliament from the two main opposition parties marched from the nearby Cumhuriyet office to the Istanbul court house, chanting rights, justice and you cannot silence the media."

Erdogan has strongly backed the prosecution of journalists, insisting no one is above the law. He recently claimed the jailed journalists are being prosecuted for terrorism offenses, not for being journalists.

Cumhuriyet, the countrys oldest newspaper founded shortly after the creation of the Turkish Republic, has a long tradition of challenging and scrutinizing power. The case against it is increasingly seen as sending a message to wider Turkish society.

It will be much more easier to silence all the rest of the small, diverse, media outlets critical of the government, after imposing silence on all these prominent journalists working at Cumhuriyet, warns Reporters Without Borders Onderoglu.
The United Nations' envoy for the Middle East peace process is urging a quick resolution to the current crisis around the Al-Aqsa mosque, also known as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem.

"It is extremely important that a solution to the current crisis be found by Friday this week," envoy Nickolay Mladenov told reporters following closed-door discussions with U.N. Security Council members. "I think the dangers on the ground will escalate if we go through another cycle of Friday prayer without a resolution to this current crisis."

Mladenov said it is "critically important" the status quo that has been in place in Jerusalem since 1967 be preserved, and he urged Israelis and Palestinians to refrain from provocative acts and show restraint.

Later Monday, the Israeli security cabinet decided to stop the use of metal detectors at a highly sensitive Jerusalem holy site. Israeli authorities decided to heed "the recommendation of all the security bodies to change the inspection with metal detectors to a security inspection based on advanced technologies and other means," according to a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Tensions have risen over the past few weeks between Israelis and Palestinians after Israel installed metal detectors and security cameras at the holy site after two Israeli policemen were shot to death there by three Palestinian worshippers. Palestinians have rejected the measures as a humiliation to Muslims, increasing tensions over who controls the contested compound.

Events could have 'catastrophic costs'

On July 21, three Palestinian youths were killed in clashes with Israeli security forces following midday prayers. Later that night, a Palestinian teenager fatally stabbed three members of an Israeli settler family in their West Bank home, in apparent retaliation.

"Jerusalem is perhaps one of the most critical cities in the world," Mladenov said. "It is an emotionally, religiously and historically charged place for billions of people worldwide."

Mladenov said he asked council members to use their influence with all sides to encourage a de-escalation of tensions. The U.N. envoy said perceptions that the events of the past few weeks are "localized" are wrong, and that they have the potential "to have catastrophic costs" beyond Jerusalem and the region.

France calls for talks

France, along with council members Sweden and Egypt, called for Monday's private discussions after the increase in violence since Friday.

"We are calling on all parties to refrain from any act or statement that could exacerbate tensions and to work toward easing the situation," France's U.N. ambassador, Francois Delattre, told reporters.

Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour told reporters that the recently installed security measures at the holy site must be removed.

"We want all obstacles put in place to deprive worshippers of exercising their right to go and pray, all these including metal detectors, cameras, obstacles, all of them, they need to be removed, completely and without conditions," he said.

Different views on attack

When asked, Mansour would not condemn the Friday attack on the settler family, saying that many Israeli settlers carry weapons, attack Palestinians, steal their land and destroy their crops, making their lives miserable.

"If people think the Palestinians are going to live that situation without any form of resistance to it, that is not realistic and that is not fair," Mansour said. "Violence is by the Israeli occupying authority: It has the tanks, it has the weapons, it has the army."

Israel's U.N. envoy, Danny Danon, expressed his government's outrage over the attack on the settler family and showed reporters a photo of the family's blood-smeared dining room.

"We do not need more carefully worded statements asking for calm," Danon said of the Security Council. "The council must demand real action by [Palestinian leader Mahmoud] Abbas  make him stop his tacit support for terror, force him to end this unbearable wave of violence, and make him do so immediately, before the lives of more innocent victims are lost."
An American university student is free after being detained for a week in China for allegedly injuring a taxi driver who manhandled his mother during a fare dispute, in a case that brought U.S. lawmakers to the student's defense.



Guthrie McLean, a University of Montana student, was released from a Zhengzhou detention center early Monday, according to his mother, Jennifer McLean, a teacher who lives in the central Chinese city.



"We are very, very, very, very happy," Jennifer McLean wrote in an email to The Associated Press. She said the release  at 2 a.m. local time, when her son was delivered to her doorstep  came as a surprise after she was twice told to anticipate his release only to be disappointed.



"They have not finished the process completely, but we are hopeful it will go smoothly from here on," Jennifer McLean said.



The U.S. State Department confirmed Guthrie McClean's release but provided no details, citing privacy concerns.



"The safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas is one of the Department's highest priorities," it said in a statement.



Guthrie Mclean's release followed an agreement with Chinese authorities to drop any charges against him, according to Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines. Details on the deal were not disclosed.



Daines and Montana's other congressional delegates  U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Rep. Greg Gianforte  had pressed McLean's case with China's ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.



The lawmakers said Guthrie McLean had justifiably defended his mother, who is deaf, from the driver, whose knee was reportedly hurt in the encounter.



Jennifer McLean told the AP the taxi driver was shoving her and hurting her when her son intervened and pushed the taxi driver to the ground.



Jennifer McLean said that when police detained her son five weeks later on charges of intentional injury, they demanded the equivalent of $7,400 in compensation and threatened to imprison him for up to three years if they refused to pay.



People who answered the phones at Zhengzhou police headquarters said there was no one available to comment on the case.



The family did not pay $7,400, according to Daines, who added that more details would be released at a later time.



``After two 20-hour days in back and forth negotiations with Chinese officials, we were able to come to an agreement that worked for everybody, most importantly for Guthrie and for Jennifer,'' Daines said in a conference call with reporters.



Daines said he spoke with Guthrie McLean after his release, and he plans to return to Montana to resume his studies next month.



Tester and Gianforte issued statements Sunday saying they were pleased with the outcome.



Guthrie McLean has been majoring in East Asian studies at the University of Montana in Missoula for about two years and works in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, according to school officials.



He is a U.S. citizen but he largely grew up in China after living in Missoula as a young child while his mother was studying at the university, according to his boss, Olivia White.
The U.S. military says it is preparing to conduct another test of a missile defense system put in place to counter threats from North Korea.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Captain Jeff Davis, said Monday that the test of the military's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in the far northwestern state of Alaska is scheduled to go ahead "soon." He said the test is a "routine measure" to make sure the system is ready.

In a notice to mariners, the U.S. Coast Guard said the test could take place as soon as Saturday and advised vessels to avoid large areas of the ocean between Kodiak Island, Alaska and Hawaii.

Earlier this month, the U.S. military said it successfully tested THAAD, shooting down a simulated intermediate-range missile. The test was the first time the United States has deployed THAAD in an effort to shoot down an intermediate-range ballistic missile, a faster and more difficult target to hit than shorter-range missiles.

The test took on new urgency after North Korea fired its first successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which analysts believe is capable of reaching Alaska.

THAAD incorporates "hit-to-kill" technology, where kinetic energy from the interceptor missile destroys the incoming target.

North Korea, despite sanctions imposed by the United Nations, has been developing nuclear weapons and has launched numerous missile tests to advance the capabilities of its arsenal.
Venezuela's president has threatened to imprison new Supreme Court judges appointed by the opposition dominated National Assembly.

During a televised appearance Sunday, Nicolas Maduro said that the new high court magistrates sworn in Friday would be jailed and their assets and accounts would be frozen.



He also verbally attacked U.S. President Donald Trump and several Latin American leaders for their statements against Maduro's plan to rewrite the constitution.



"The imperial right wing believes it can give orders to Venezuela," Maduro said, "The only ones who give orders here are the people. This time next week (on Sunday) Venezuelans will be voting for a Constituent Assembly."



Venezuela's opposition has announced a two-day national strike this week aimed at pressuring Maduro to cancel the controversial July 30 election for a the body that will be charged with rewriting the country's constitution.



"We are calling out the entire people, all groups in society, for a 48-hour strike" on Wednesday and Thursday, lawmaker Simon Calzadilla said.



Calzadilla said a protest march on Friday, following the strike, will demand that Maduro officially scrap the vote.
A new book by a former South African military doctor that documents Nelson Mandela's medical treatments before his 2013 death violates doctor-patient confidentiality, according to some relatives of the anti-apartheid leader and Nobel laureate.



But the retired doctor, Vejay Ramlakan, said in an interview this weekend on the eNCA news channel that the Mandela family had requested that the book be written. While Ramlakan declined to say which family members had given permission for the book, his remarks could indicate continuing rifts in a family whose members have feuded over the years on issues such as inheritance.



The book, "Mandela's Last Years," covers Mandela's health while he was imprisoned during white minority rule, during his tenure as South Africa's first black president and in retirement. It also focuses on the dramatic final months of Mandela's life, when he was suffering a lung infection and other ailments before dying at age 95.



"It documents the complex medical decisions; disputes between family members and staff; military, political, financial and security demands; constant scrutiny from the press; and the wishes of Mandela himself, all of which contributed to what he and those closest to him would experience in his final days," according to Penguin Random House, the publisher.



Mandela's widow, Graca Machel, said she is considering legal action and will consult with the executors of Mandela's will, South African media reported.



"We are deeply disappointed that the doctor appears to have compromised himself and the man whom he had the privilege to serve," Nkosi Mandela, a grandson of the anti-apartheid leader, said in a statement. He said the book might contain ethical violations.



In the eNCA interview, Ramlakan said he had permission to write the book and that "all parties who needed to be consulted were consulted."



Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Mandela's ex-wife and a prominent figure in the anti-apartheid movement, was with her former husband when he died, according to Ramlakan, a former surgeon general of South Africa who headed Mandela's medical team.



"She's the one who was there when he passed on," he said. "I think Mrs. Machel was in the house or busy with other issues. But I have no idea because I was focusing on my patient."
Britain's Prince William and Harry have spoken of their regret over the last conversation they had with their mother Princess Diana before she died, saying the telephone call was "desperately rushed."

In a documentary called "Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy" timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Diana's death in a Paris car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, the two princes said they spoke to their mother shortly before she died.

"Harry and I were in a desperate rush to say goodbye, you know 'see you later' ... if I'd known now obviously what was going to happen, I wouldn't have been so blase about it and everything else," Prince William said.

Prince Harry said: "It was her speaking from Paris, I can't really necessarily remember what I said but all I do remember is probably regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was."

Nick Kent, the film's executive producer, told Reuters he believed the document offered a glimpse of "the private Diana". "Nobody has ever told this story from the point of view of the two people who knew her better than anyone else, and loved her the most: her sons."

The princes recall their mother's sense of humor, with Prince Harry describing her as "one of the naughtiest parents".

They also recall the pain of their parents' divorce and how they dealt with the news of her death and its aftermath.

While the film addresses aspects of Diana's life such as her charity work involving HIV and landmines, it shies away from some other issues, such as extra-marital affairs.

According to the makers, however, the British royals were very open and did not put any subject off limits. Rather, they wanted to cover new ground and make a different type of film.

"What we had in mind is that in years to come, Prince William and Prince Harry would be happy to show this film to their own children and say this is who your grandmother was," Kent said.

"Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy" will be broadcast on British and U.S. television on July 24.

A number of commemorative events have been planned to mark Diana's death.

William and Harry attended a private service this month to rededicate her grave and the brothers have commissioned a statue to be erected in her honor outside their official London home.

Rarely-seen possessions of Diana, including her music collection and ballet shoes, went on display on Saturday at Buckingham Palace. An exhibition celebrating Diana's fashion opened in February.
A man armed with a chainsaw injured five people Monday in the Swiss town of Schaffhausen.

Police said the man allegedly entered an insurance office in the center of the small town, wounding two staff members and three other people before fleeing.

Reuters reported Swiss health insurer CSS said there is no information on the suspect's possible link to the company.

The police have launched a manhunt for the suspect, but added that this was "not a terrorist act".

Downtown Schaffhausen, a medieval town of 36,000 near the border with Germany, has been sealed off and shops closed as the investigation and manhunt continue.
Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and one of his close advisers, says he met with Russian officials four times during last year's presidential campaign and its aftermath, but did not collude with them or any other foreign governments.

Kushner released an 11-page statement Monday ahead of his closed-door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and another planned session Tuesday in front of the House Intelligence Committee. Both congressional panels are examining Russia's meddling in last year's U.S. election.

"The record and documents I am providing will show that I had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable," Kushner wrote.

WATCH: Kushner arrives on Capitol Hill



He further described several brief meetings with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., saying they discussed a desire to improve U.S.-Russia relations, but he denied media reports that he and Sergey Kislyak had further conversations by phone.

The congressional committees are expected to seek information about Kushner's Russia contacts, including a June 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney and other figures connected to Moscow.



Russia probe focus



U.S. investigators have focused on the meeting since the presidents son, Donald Trump Jr., released emails expressing eagerness for what he believed the Russian attorney would provide: incriminating material about Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trumps 2016 election opponent.

Kushner's statement came as President Trump lashed out in new Twitter comments at the Russia investigations consuming his presidency.

He questioned why congressional committees, investigators and "beleaguered" Attorney General Jeff Sessions are not "looking into" Clinton's "crimes & Russia relations."



Trump last week rebuked Sessions for removing himself from overseeing the Justice Department's Russia investigation, which led to the appointment of an independent special prosecutor by Sessions' deputy.

Trump branded the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee as "Sleazy Adam Schiff," calling him "the totally biased Congressman looking into 'Russia,' spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!"

In another tweet, Trump said, "After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found" of collusion between his campaign and Russia, a leading Democrat, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, said, "Democrats should blame ourselves, not Russia," a paraphrase of remarks Schumer made about last year's election in a Sunday interview.

Trump complained, as he has in the past, about forces aligned against him in Washington and the mainstream news media, saying, "Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer - it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!"

Trump Jr, Manafort testimony postponed



The younger Trump and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, who also attended the meeting, were initially scheduled to appear this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But that testimony has been postponed based on an understanding that the two men will provide the committee with records and other information.

Kushner said in his statement that while he was in the meeting at Trump Tower in New York, there was no discussion of the election campaign, and that he "quickly determined that my time was not well-spent in this meeting."

With the Russia investigations now scrutinizing those closest to Trump, questions have arisen about possible presidential pardons. Trump's legal team noted the Constitution grants the president broad pardoning powers, but insisted that nothing is being contemplated.

Were not researching the issue because the issue of pardons is not on the table, one of the presidents attorneys, Jay Sekulow, said on ABCs "This Week program." Theres nothing to pardon from.

At the same time, the White House insisted the news medias focus on the Russia probe is misguided.

The top three issues that Americans care about are immigration, health care, and jobs, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Sunday, also on "This Week." The top three issues that the media cares about are Russia, Russia, and Russia.

Lawmakers of both political parties are also having their say. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, took to Twitter to urge full disclosure of a leaked U.S. intelligence intercept of Kislyak relaying to Moscow an account of an alleged conversation with then-senator Jeff Sessions, a Trump campaign supporter and now attorney general. Kislyak reported that he had discussed Trump's presidential campaign with Sessions.



Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, has assailed any preemptive presidential pardons of those under investigation in the Russia probe.


(Daniel Baxter/For The Washington Post)

Ask barbecue fanatics where they learned their craft and they typically cite their back yards.

Theyll recall their father (always their father, seldom their mother) at the grill, sometimes flipping burgers, other times smoking a whole hog. That sense memory is often the inspiration for a lifelong barbecuing passion.

Not for me. My father rarely cooked outdoors. He was more a Saturday farmhouse-breakfast or weekend spaghetti-and-meatballs kind of guy. The only times I recall my dad even being around a grill is at large family gatherings at a public park, and I was too busy splashing in the pool or chasing my cousins with a water gun to notice anything about the grilling.

So, I was a true novice when, in my early 20s, I moved to Texas in the mid-1970s. I made a lot of mistakes while learning this most elemental of cooking methods. I committed those errors so you dont have to. Here, just in time for the second half of summer, is my take on 11 mistakes rookies make with their charcoal grills, and how to correct them.

(Daniel Baxter/For The Washington Post)

Mistake: Crowding the grill

The weekend after I bought my first grill, I threw a party. I put so many hand-formed burgers on the grill it looked like the Beltway at rush hour. Within minutes, I was scooping the disks of meat off the grill, each one more burned than the one before.

Correction: Leave enough space between your food items to comfortably tend to each one.

Pro tip: Live-fire cooking creates different heat intensities. Know your hot spots and move your food around (now that youve got the room) to avoid burning.

Mistake: Using lighter fluid

Shortly after getting married, I squirted a hydrants amount of lighter fluid on a mountain of charcoal and torched it with a match. Impatient with the fires progress, I did it again. And again.

Each time, the flames blazed with a demonic fearsomeness, as if I were Jimi Hendrix and the grill was my guitar. Watching from just outside the back door, my betrothed, Jessica, voiced her concern.

[Fire up your grills for recipes from the seasons best barbecue books]

Jim, if you kill yourself, then. . . . She paused in search of the right words. Then. . . . Apparently not finding precisely the right ones, she hollered a two-word epithet ending with the word you.

I broke out laughing. Really?

I was wrong to be cavalier. Lighter fluid is dangerous  and risking self-immolation is no way to start a marriage.

Dont use it. The odor is foul. The stuff is flammable, so it is a needless accident waiting to happen when stored in the garage.

Correction: Use a charcoal chimney. You simply stuff wads of newspaper in the bottom, put charcoal in the top, light the newsprint and, within 20 minutes, your coals ash over and are ready to use.

Pro tip: Fill your chimney with only as much charcoal as you need for the meal you are cooking. Grilling four burgers? Fill it about halfway. Grilling eight burgers? Fill it to the top.

(Daniel Baxter/For The Washington Post)

Mistake: Building a single, large fire

For more time than I care to remember, I spread hot coals over the entire base of the grill.

That led to two problems. One, I was limiting the grills capacity, because all the heat was at basically the same intensity. Two, I burned a lot of burgers because they were all cooking at the same time and temperature, and it was impossible to pull them off quickly enough.

[How to cook seriously good barbecue on a simple charcoal grill]

Firing up the whole grill is like having all the burners on your kitchen stove top stuck at the same heat level. No one can cook like that.

Correction: Create two zones, one with fire for direct cooking, the other without fire for indirect. That way, you have plenty of room to maneuver the food to cook as fast or slow as you want.

Pro tip: Sear over a direct fire. Then, more often than not, close the lid when cooking on the indirect side, to gently roast your food.

Mistake: Cooking too hot

In Austin in the 1980s, there was a barbecue legend named C.B. Stubblefield. You may know him as the inspiration behind the Stubbs line of barbecue sauces.

A towering and solidly built man, his presence loomed large at the back of the fabled blues club Antones. Nothing ended the dance-drenched night like a plate of his pork ribs  meaty, lightly charred and as tender as an Elvis Presley ballad, so wondrous that I credit them with sealing the deal between my wife-to-be and me. (Full disclosure: Stubb, as everyone called him, catered our wedding.)

My ribs, meanwhile, were the opposite of Stubbs: tough, dry, with a never-ending chew. Eventually, I figured out that it was because my fire was too hot.

[Grilled chicken: How to get it perfect]

Correction: To cook slower, extend the fire and give the ribs that smoky flavor, set the lid on the grill. You can also cook at a low temperature by using fewer coals or allowing the coals to cool down a little, but both of those techniques are for foods such as fish and chicken pieces, which cook faster, not big meats such as ribs.

Pro tip: Your grill is a convertible. Leave the top off for fast grilling of steaks and chops. Put the top on for slow cooking and smoking of ribs and pork butts, and adjust the vents (more open for faster cooking, less open for slower cooking).



(Daniel Baxter/For The Washington Post)

Mistake: Watching

My first experiments with beef brisket were so abysmal that I actually threw out a couple of woefully underdone briskets rather than eat them. One Sunday morning, I called Jessicas cousin, Red, a family brisket legend, who revealed his secrets. Although my briskets sometimes still dont quite measure up, usually theyre delicious  and I havent thrown one out in years.

[Tips for raising your brisket game]

The problem is, I was opening the lid too often to see how the meat was doing, as if it were a movie and I didnt want to miss any of the good parts. That was messing with the temperature, which was messing with the cooking time.

Correction: On big meats, like brisket and pork shoulder, dont peek.

Pro tip: Fire management and patience are the two most important ingredients for creating great barbecue. Learning how to feed the fire helps with both. Buy a hinged grate to more easily add coals or wood chips to your fire to keep the fire steady over long cook times. If using an offset or other smoker, use larger-size hardwoods, such as chunks and split logs. Theyll help maintain an even fire because they smolder for long periods of time, and the space between the fire and the food will help avoid over-smoking.

Mistake: Saucing too soon

There was a chain restaurant known for its ribs that I used to enjoy. The ribs came out shellacked with sauce.

I tried to do that at home. But my ribs inevitably came out as cinders. Then I learned a little chemistry. Sauce has sugar in it. Sugar caramelizes. When put over fire too soon, it burns. Save the sugar for the sweet tea.

Correction: Baste with sauce during the last 10 minutes of cooking.

Pro tip: Dont use sauce, period. (I rarely do, anymore.) The flavor of meat, spice rub and smoke is sublime. If you must use sauce, offer it as an option at the table.

(Daniel Baxter/For The Washington Post)

Mistake: Not cleaning the grill

When I started out barbecuing, my food often stuck to the grate. I would take a spatula and pull a burger or salmon filet up from the cooking surface, leaving some parts of it on the grates.

Like Homer Simpson, Id blame the fire or the appliance: Stupid grill. It took some time, but I finally learned that the fault was not with the flames or the grates  but with myself. There is no self-cleaning function on a grill.

Correction: After cooking, while the grill is still warm, use a hard-bristle brush and scrub the grates. Then, dip a rag or wadded-up paper towel in vegetable oil and, using long-handled tongs, oil the grates. You can also wait until the next time you cook and, after starting the fire, scrub and oil the grates.

Pro tip: Wait just a little longer than you think you should before turning food. Once it caramelizes or gets dark grill marks, the food releases much easier from the grate. Also, you might lightly oil your food  coins of squash, a hunk of steak, whatever.

(Jayne Orenstein,Kara Elder,Bonnie Benwick/The Washington Post)

Mistake: Limiting your menu

From everything youve read so far, you probably think that all I ever grilled or smoked was meat. Until recently, youd be right. I was so meat-centric that I regarded chicken as a side dish.

Then I traveled to Italy. Antipasti, especially in Tuscany, inevitably included grilled eggplant, zucchini, onion and red bell peppers. It was a lightbulb moment.

Correction: Grill fruits and vegetables, especially in season when the flavors are at their peak. Try smoking tomatoes for gazpacho. Do the same with blueberries for a pie that will rock your world.

[Make the recipe: Smoky Spicy Blueberry Pie]

Pro tip: Use the grill as an outside version of your stove and oven. Anything you can cook indoors you can cook outdoors. Liberate your imagination.

Mistake: Cooking solely by feel

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. By that standard, I used to be a genius. The quality of my grilled and smoked foods was that inconsistent.

I started keeping a log of seasonings, heat intensity and cooking duration to help me reduce mistakes. My food improved. But it wasnt until I purchased one simple tool that dependability became part of my barbecue vocabulary.

[This one simple trick can help you grill the perfect corn]

Correction: Use an instant-read thermometer. Stuck into the thickest part of the meat, it provides a reliable guide to doneness.

Pro tip: Dont rely on the thermometer alone. I may not use feel exclusively anymore, but I still use it a lot. A thermometer doesnt tell you whether that brisket jiggles the way it should. Trust your instincts.



(Daniel Baxter/For The Washington Post)

Mistake: Thinking you know it all

As much as you learn, there will always be more to learn. To this day, I will ask a friend a question about something he did on the grill that I hadnt seen before or inquire how, exactly, he achieved that perfect crust and succulent interior on a brisket.

Correction: Remain curious.

Pro tip: Read grilling and smoking cookbooks and check the Internet. Two reliable sources: Meathead Goldwyns exhaustive site, AmazingRibs.com, and barbecue yoda Steven Raichlens BarbecueBible.com.

Mistake: Not preparing

I wasnt even a rookie for this one, but mistakes can happen to the best of us. In late June, I was in New Orleans visiting my son and helping his crew of friends throw a barbecue. The fire was as ornery as any I can remember. It would smolder at far too low a temperature, then spike horrendously.

The reason? No wood. More accurately, the wrong wood. They only had logs. Adding a whole, big, round log to the firebox of a smoker is more likely to put out the fire (no oxygen) than to keep it going. Which is basically what kept happening.

Correction: Prepare, of course, but also improvise. Even if we had exactly the right wood and it was cut to our specifications, who knows what else might have gone wrong? Live-fire cooking is unpredictable. The climate, the moisture in the wood, the wind, any number of things can impact the way the food cooks. We were cooking two racks of ribs, a mess of chicken wings, some links of sausage, an eggplant and a few wedges of watermelon.

Nowadays, Im adept enough to handle many different foods at once. I know approximately how long each one takes, over what intensity of flame. On that day in New Orleans, approximate cooking times perished in the slow-fast fire. We ad-libbed furiously, moving foods far from the fire to directly above hot flames, then back again, all the while fiddling with the fires intensity with wood chips I found at a local grocery store and split logs provided from a barbecue joint that took pity on me.

Pro tip: Dont panic, and slow down. Always allow a buffer zone of time of at least an hour for big meats (pork shoulder, brisket, ribs) and 20 minutes for quick-grill items (steaks, fish). If you think the ribs will take four hours, allow five. The extra time allows you to stay calm when things go south. And if everything goes perfectly? Great. Meat should rest, anyway.

Shahin is an associate professor of journalism at Syracuse University. He will join Wednesdays Free Range chat at noon: live.washingtonpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jimshahin.
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized hot, humid air as being heavier than cold, dry air. This version has been corrected.

Q: How do I stop my wood-burning fireplace from smelling like smoke in humid weather? A faint smoke smell would be okay, but this is obnoxious. It seems worse when the air conditioner or even the washer and dryer are running. The smell just wafts on in from the chimney. We have a glass door installed, but it doesnt help.

Burke

A: Chimney smells stink up indoor air when the air pressure is lower indoors than out. Especially in a house that was built to be fairly airtight, this can happen when a dryer or other exhaust fan runs or if there are leaks in heating and air-conditioning ducts. To equalize the pressure, air moves down the chimney, making your house stink. Summer conditions add to the smoke-smell problem because our noses sense smells more intensely when the air is humid. In theory, closing the damper on your fireplace should stop the airflow where the air picks up the smell. But fireplace dampers often dont seal very well. For a better seal, you could have a chimney sweep install a spring-loaded stainless-steel damper at the top of the fireplace flue. A&T Chimney Sweeps in Arlington (703-659-1699; atchimneysweeps.com) would do this for $629, said Veronica Campbell, the administrative assistant.

Or, for $42.99 to $86.99, depending on the chimney width, you could install an inflatable device known as a Chimney Balloon, available at Amazon.com. It has mixed reviews, however, with some buyers reporting that it punctures as easily as a water balloon. Filling a hefty plastic bag with insulation and stuffing that into the chimney opening at the base of the fireplace might work just as well and would surely cost less. Just be sure to remove the plug before you use the fireplace.

If closing off the chimney doesnt stop the smell, call a heating and air-conditioning company to assess air balance in your home. It might help to pipe fresh air directly to combustion appliances (which would include the dryer if yours is a gas model). Or you might benefit from a heat-recovery ventilator, which could introduce more fresh air but in a way that uses the temperature of indoor air to preheat or precool it so you dont waste energy. Sealing leaks in heating and air-conditioning ducts or balancing the system by adding more openings might also be part of the solution.

Q: We have a KitchenAid Superba garbage disposal that was installed in January 2011. For the past few months, it has failed to grind up and flush vegetable matter that it previously had no problem with. The blades rotate, chopping up the waste, but the waste does not exit the unit. I called the manufacturer for guidance. I was told to fill the disposal with ice to help with grinding. Although some relief was obtained, much of the waste remained in the disposal. Any ideas about why it is failing? Is it time to replace it?

Arlington

A: This is a three-fourths-horsepower model thats still sold. It has a five-year limited warranty that would cover a repair visit to your home  if it were still in effect. But the warranty expired about 1 years ago, a sign that its probably time to replace the unit. The current cost is $279 at Lowes and perhaps even less from other retailers if you shop around online.

If youre reasonably handy, you could probably install a new unit yourself. KitchenAid provides installation instructions that appear straightforward. But if you want professional installation, Lowes would do that for about $120, said a spokesman at the companys Beacon Center store in Alexandria (703-765-8011).

Before you resort to that, you might try repeating the ice trick a couple of times. Disposals sometimes work poorly because of a buildup of grease and other debris. Ice particles whip around in the mechanism and pick up the gunk, helping to clean it.

Also try another cleaning method that the manufacturer suggests in its care manual: With the unit off, place a stopper over the opening and fill the sink halfway with warm water. Mix one-fourth cup baking soda with water and dump it in. Turn on the disposal as you remove the stopper. If youre lucky, the force of the water, plus the bubbling action and grease-cutting properties of baking soda, will help restore the units performance, as well as eliminate any foul odors. After the sink drains, remove the sink baffle and clean it by hand or in the dishwasher. Replace it before you operate the disposal again.
San Antonio police officers investigate the scene where multiple people were found dead in a tractor-trailer loaded with undocumented immigrants outside a Walmart store in stifling summer heat. (Eric Gay/AP)

The discovery of dozens of migrants in a dangerously overheated trailer in San Antonio this weekend has further inflamed the national debate over illegal immigration, particularly sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal authorities.

In a Facebook post late Sunday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) appeared to blame the tragedy on sanctuary policies like those adopted by San Antonio, San Francisco, Chicago and other jurisdictions, which he said entice people to illegally cross the border by creating the impression that local authorities will shield them from deportation.

He praised a Texas law  currently under court challenge  that would impose harsh penalties on jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

Immigrant rights groups, in contrast, pointed the finger at increasingly harsh U.S. tactics toward undocumented immigrants, which they said drive would-be migrants to turn to unsafe methods to enter the United States.

They cited the Texas law, which will take effect Sept. 1 unless the lawsuit against it is successful, as an example of that worsening treatment.

Pedro Paredes joins hundreds of protesters at the state Capitol rotunda in Austin on May 29 to protest Texas immigration policy. (Ricardo Brazziell/AP)

Authorities say the tractor-trailer found in the parking lot of a San Antonio Walmart on Sunday was used to illegally transport more than 100 immigrants from Mexico as part of a smuggling operation.

There was little ventilation and no cooling in the cargo bay, creating punishing conditions as temperatures soared into the triple digits. Ten of the trucks occupants have died, and dozens of others remain hospitalized, some in critical condition.

The incident comes at a time of stepped-up immigration enforcement by the Trump administration, which has made it a priority to deport those in the country illegally and pledged to dramatically increase border security.

In Texas, tensions also are rising over the anti-sanctuary-city law known as S.B. 4. The measure requires local authorities to hold and turn over undocumented immigrants who have been ordered detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It carries harsh penalties, including fines and even jail time, for officials who refuse to comply.

Several cities and counties, including San Antonio, have sued to block the measure, arguing that it violates the U.S. Constitution. Critics of the law say cooperating closely with federal immigration authorities erodes public trust and often forces them to keep people in jail beyond their sentences.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) suggested Sunday on Twitter that better border security would have forestalled this weekends human-smuggling episode.

Compassion is called for, he wrote. But lawlessness ensures cartels will continue to profit from these tragedies. Status quo is not compassionate.

A bottle of water, flowers, candles and stuffed animals form a makeshift memorial in the parking lot of the Walmart store after immigrants died in the back of a truck. (Eric Gay/AP)

In his Facebook statement, Patrick wrote, Sanctuary cities entice people to believe they can come to America and Texas and live outside the law. Sanctuary cities also enable human smugglers and cartels. Today, these people paid a terrible price and demonstrate why we need a secure border and legal immigration reform so we can control who enters our country.

The posting  which was shared more than 1,500 times  drew immediate rebukes from immigrant rights advocates, who argued that the anti-sanctuary-cities law would make such tragedies more common.

We think that it is policies like S.B. 4 and the growing criminalization of immigrants and the growing militarization of our border that . . . pushes people into shadows, sometimes literally to the back of the truck to hide from authorities, said Amy Fischer, policy director for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

In 2003, 19 people died in the trailer of an 18-wheeler during a 120-mile journey across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Two weeks ago, Houston police discovered 12 immigrants who had been locked in a sweltering box truck for hours and were seeking help by banging on the walls. And in May, border agents discovered 18 immigrants locked in a refrigerated produce truck, the temperature set at 51 degrees.

At a vigil for the victims Sunday night, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), said U.S. lawmakers should bear some of the blame for this and other smuggling disasters.

This represents a symptom of a broken immigration system that Congress, of which I am a part, has had the chance to fix but has not, Castro said. Thats a colossal failure that has a human cost.

Rey Saldana, the San Antonio City Council member who represents the area where the truck was discovered, said it would be a mistake to conclude that people are drawn to the United States because of sanctuary policies. He said they come because of larger and more complex desires for a better life  pressures that have existed for decades.

I would lay a lot of this on people who have ignored a system that has incentivized this one kind of entry, Saldana said. And so people turn to the danger of human smugglers.
BLOOD DONATIONS

Blood drives Aug. 4, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Loudoun County Fire and Rescue, 801 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg, 800-733-6727; Aug. 11, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Northern Virginia Bahai Center, 21415 Cardinal Glen Cir., Sterling, 800-733-6727; Aug. 15, 8 a.m.-1 p.m., NALC Health Benefit Plan, 20547 Waverly Ct., Ashburn, 800-733-6727; Aug. 18, 1:30-6 p.m., St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St., Leesburg, 800-733-6727.

Inova Blood Donor Center Mondays noon-8 p.m., Tuesdays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Fridays 6 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sundays noon-4 p.m. Dulles Town Center, 45745 Nokes Blvd., Sterling. 866-256-6372 or inova.org/donateblood.

FIRST AID

First aid/adult, infant and child CPR/AED (Automated External Defibrillator) Fauquier Health Medical Office Building, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Call for schedule. Registration required. 540-316-3588. $85.

HEARING

Disability Resource Center Technical assistance through the state Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and presentations to businesses, groups and schools. Third Tuesdays 2-5 p.m., Workplace, 205 Keith St., Warrenton. Call for an appointment, 800-648-6324; TDD, 540-373-5890. Free.

MENTAL HEALTH

Counseling for sexual violence survivors Provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice. 703-771-9020.

Crisis Intervention Treatment and Assessment Center Provides emergency mental-health, substance-use and developmental services to Loudoun residents. Daily 7 a.m.-11 p.m. 102 Heritage Way NE, Suite 102, Leesburg. Emergency services are available 24 hours a day at 703-777-0320.

Crisislink Suicide and crisis intervention. Community education, a volunteer crisis response team and CareRing, a telephone outreach program for the elderly and disabled. 703-527-6016, volunteer@crisislink.org or crisislink.org.

Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services This mental-health nonprofit organization is accepting clients ages 16 to 30 for a coordinated services program with Loudoun County to help young people with their first experience of psychosis find hope and recover. For information, call Lisa Beran at 703-388-6572 or go to prsinc.org.

Piedmont Chapter, National Alliance on Mental Illness Serves Fauquier, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock counties. Support group, education classes and events for people living with mental illness and their family members. First Wednesdays 7-9 p.m. Fauquier Hospital, 500 Hospital Dr., Sycamore Room A, Warrenton. 571-426-8213.

Mental health first-aid A public education program offered by the Loudoun County Department of Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services to help residents understand mental illness and seek intervention. Go to loudoun.gov/mhfirstaid.

Northern Virginia Chapter, National Alliance on Mental Illness Support group, classes and programs for people living with mental illness and their loved ones. naminorthernvirginia.org.

PREGNANCY, PARENTING

Adoptive family preservation Adoptive families discuss common experiences; registration required. Third Tuesdays 12:30-2 p.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd. Call 703-941-9008, Ext. 23, or email jmellario@umfs.org.

Birthright of Loudoun County Free pregnancy tests, baby clothing, transportation and support throughout pregnancy, 823 S. King St., Leesburg. 703-777-7272.

Bond Between Us A nonprofit organization that offers support to birth parents when children have been placed for adoption. Fourth Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. Call for location. 703-771-7844.

Breast-feeding support Mondays 9:30-10:30 a.m., Fauquier Hospital Family Birthing Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588.

Community lecture: Having a Healthy Pregnancy Monday 7 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. Free.

Dad support New and expectant fathers share ideas. First Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. 703-858-6360.

For the Childrens Sake A group for separating or divorcing parents to share advice. Four-hour session weekly. Information: 703-391-8599 or fitsfoundation.org.

La Leche League Mother-to-mother support and breast-feeding information. 10 a.m. second Wednesdays in Warrenton, 540-351-6103. Third Fridays 10:15-11:45 a.m., call for location, 703-444-7386. Second Fridays 10:15 a.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd., 703-829-0349. Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Panera Bread, 43670 Greenway Corp. Dr., Ashburn, lllashburn@gmail.com. Third Fridays 10:15 a.m., Christ the Redeemer Church, 46833 Harry F. Byrd. Hwy., Sterling, 540-338-4637.

Loudoun Fatherhood Program Fathers discuss the joys and challenges of being a parent. Meets every other Saturday for two hours for four months; sponsored by Northern Virginia Family Service. 571-748-2796. Free.

Loudoun Nurturing Parenting Program Positive parenting techniques; children attend with parents. Registration required. Call 703-771-3973, Ext. 27, or email nurturingprogram@lcsj.org. Free.

Mothernet/Healthy Families Loudoun Program links first-time parents with medical, social and educational resources to give children a socially and physically healthy start in life. Family-support workers meet with participants in homes. English-Spanish translation provided. 703-444-4477, Ext. 217, or inmed.org.

New mother support Wednesdays 9:30-11:30 a.m. Inova Loudoun Medical Pavilion, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg. Babies welcome. 703-858-6360.

Online childbirth education program Inova Loudoun Hospitals Web-based program uses animation, videos and interactive activities to guide users through the basics of childbirth, breast-feeding and caring for newborns. 703-858-6360 or thebirthinginn.org/classes.

Parenting Alone group For parents who have school-age children and have lost a spouse or partner to cancer. Second Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call 703-698-2536 or email jennifer.eckert@inova.org.

Pregnancy and childbirth support Childbirth Solutions Resource Center, 8393 W. Main St., Marshall. 571-344-0438.

Young parent services Support for teenage parents. Loudoun County Department of Family Social Services, 52 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg. Call for times. 703-771-5375.

SENIORS

Chair yoga Age 55 and older. Mondays 11 a.m.-noon, Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Wear comfortable clothes. Bare feet or socks encouraged. 571-258-3400. $2 drop-in.

Exercise equipment Age 55 and older. Weights, treadmills, bikes and a cardio-glide. Instruction provided. Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

Eye care LensCrafters staff members clean glasses and make minor repairs. Second Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2397. Free.

Inova Loudoun mobile van Blood pressure checks. Second and fourth Tuesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling, 571-258-3280; first Wednesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039.

Laughing yoga for seniors Improve flexibility and balance. Thursdays 9:30-10:30 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

Loudoun Adult Day Centers For seniors with physical limitations or memory loss, a safe and social environment, therapeutic activities, individualized care and respite for caregivers. Limited transportation. Sliding-scale fees. Weekdays in Leesburg, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., 703-771-5334; Purcellville, 571-258-3402; and Ashburn-Sterling, 571-258-3232.

Senior Outreach Services Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Senior Center at Cascades. First and third Wednesdays 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280.

Senior Outreach Services Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Sign up in the Leesburg Senior Center lobby. Second and fourth Thursdays 11 a.m.-noon and 12:30-4:30 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

Senior Outreach Services Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Carver Center. First and third Mondays, 12:30-5 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 703-737-8741. Free.

Tai chi for seniors Stretching and strengthening movements. Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free.

Zumba gold class Age 55 and older. Wear rubber-soled shoes and comfortable clothing; bring water and a towel. Tuesdays 11 a.m., Tuesdays and Fridays 1 p.m. Senior Center of Leesburg, 102 North St. NW, Leesburg. 703-737-8039. $24 per month.

Zumba For people 55 and older learning Zumba for the first time, or those who prefer a lower-impact version. The fitness program combines Latin and international music with dance. Thursdays 11 a.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280. $12.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Addiction support Tuesdays 7 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Email sznnodum@gmail.com or 540-935-8148.

Al-Anon Service Center of Northern Virginia A volunteer is available 24 hours with information for spouses, family members and friends of problem drinkers. 703-534-4357 or 877-339-8350. Mondays 8 p.m., Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 125 W. Washington St., Middleburg, 540-554-2747; Tuesdays 7:30 p.m., St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg, 877-339-8350; Fridays 8:30 p.m., Grace Episcopal Church, 6507 Main St., The Plains, 800-344-2666; Tuesdays 12:15 p.m., Warrenton Church of Christ, Route 29 N., 540-347-7448; Tuesdays 7 p.m. and Saturdays 8:30 p.m., Warrenton Presbyterian Church, 91 Main St., 800-344-2666.

Alcoholics Anonymous Various meeting times and locations in Loudoun County. 800-208-8649 or 703-876-6166. nvintergroup.org.

Alzheimers caregiver support For those who care for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Fourth Wednesdays 4-5:30 p.m. The Villa at Suffield Meadows, 6735 Suffield Lane, Warrenton. 540-316-3800.

Alzheimers caregivers support For those caring for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Second Mondays 7-8:30 p.m. Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-430-9229. galileeumc.org.

Alzheimers caregivers support Emotional, educational and social support for family members and friends of people with the disease. Third Saturdays 10 a.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Ashburn. Call 703-771-5407 or email lesley.katz@loudoun.gov.

Alzheimers caregiver support group Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831 or alz.org.

Alzheimers support First Tuesdays 10-11 a.m. Spring Arbor Assisted Living, 237 Fairview St. NW, Leesburg. 540-338-6520.

Alzheimers support First Wednesdays 4 p.m. Leesburg Adult Day Center, 16501 Meadowview Ct., Leesburg. 703-771-5334.

Alzheim ers support First Thursdays, noon, Lansdowne Woods of Virginia, 19375 Magnolia Grove Sq., Lansdowne. 703-283-6554.

Alzheimers support Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400.

Talk About Curing Autism A nonprofit organization educating and supporting families affected by autism. tacanow.org.

Good Autoimmune support Last Thursdays 6:30-7:30 p.m. Jackson Building, 209 Gibson St., Leesburg. autoimmunesupport@hotmail.com.

Bereaved parent support One-on-one counseling is available. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814 or scsm.tv.

Bereavement support Age 18 and older. Third Mondays 1 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-957-1800.

Breast cancer support For those with new diagnoses or starting treatment. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 5-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857.

Breast cancer support Fourth Tuesdays 7-8 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Tower, Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-0588.

Breast cancer support For those who have finished treatment, have had a recurrence or have metastatic breast cancer. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857. Free.

Breast Cancer Support Assistance Fund Loudoun County residents who have received a diagnosis or have undergone treatment in the past 12 months are eligible to apply for financial assistance. Areas included are wigs, bras, puffs and prostheses, mammograms and medical bills, food and help with utilities, rent or mortgage, and transportation costs. The Pink Assistance Fund has been established by the Loudoun Breast Health Network. lbhn.org.

Cancer support Oncology nurses, social workers and spiritual-care providers offer education and support to patients, families and caregivers. Second Mondays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2273.

Cancer support Life with Cancer, for patients, family members and friends. Second Thursdays 7 p.m. Ashburn Presbyterian Church, Room 202, 20962 Ashburn Rd. 703-729-2012 or ashburnpresbyterian.org.

Caregiver support Emotional, educational and social support. Encourages caregivers to maintain their physical and emotional health while caring for people with dementia or other chronic illness. Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831.

Caregiver support and resource group Wednesdays 10:30 a.m.-noon (no meeting first Wednesdays), Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv.

Caring for Aging Parents Support group. Confidential. Fourth Wednesdays 7:30 p.m., Family Focus Counseling Service, 20-B John Marshall St., Warrenton. 540-349-4537.

CHADD parents support For parents of children with ADD/ADHD. Fourth Sundays 3 p.m. KinderCare, 44051 Ashburn Village Shopping Plaza. chadd.novaloudoun@gmail.com.

Chronic illness support Tuesdays 1:30-2:30 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministries, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814 or scsm.tv.

Coffee and Conversation Support for those discouraged because of illness, bereavement, caregiving or a loved one in the military. Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814.

Compassionate Friends For parents who have experienced the death of a child. First Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. N W, Leesburg. 540-882-9707.

Creating and Connecting Two-hour art therapy and relaxation workshop for cancer patients. Every other month, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-858-8850.

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance of Western Loudoun Saturdays 3 p.m. Purcellville Library, 220 E. Main St., Carruthers Room. Call 703-431-7160 or email kathy@dbsanca.org.

Drop-in grief support Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. St. Davids Episcopal Church, 43600 Russell Branch Pkwy., Ashburn. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-597-1781.

Families Overcoming Drug Addiction Support group. First and third Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. myfodafamily@gmail.com or 540-316-9221.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth and parent support A group in partnership with Metro DC PFLAG. Fourth Sundays 4-6 p.m. Unitarian Universalist Church, 22135 Davis Dr., Sterling. 703-328-6518.

Griefshare Open to anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. Tuesdays through Oct. 3 from 7-8:30 p.m. Purcellville Baptist Church 601 Yaxley Dr., Purcellville. Call 540-338-0918 or email caring@purbap.org. Workbook, $15.

Griefshare Nondenominational seminar and support group. Tuesdays 7:30-9 p.m., and Wednesdays, 1-2:30 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Free.

Grief support Sponsored by Hospice Support of Fauquier County. Individual counseling available. First and third Thursdays 3:30-5 p.m. Hospice Support Office, 42 N. Fifth St., Warrenton. Registration required. Email hospicesupport@verizon.net or call 540 - 347-5922.

Grief support Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814.

Hospice support Free medical-equipment loan facility for Fauquier County residents. Especially needed are donations of wheelchairs, bedside commodes, rolling walkers, electric hospital beds, shower benches and chairs, adult diapers, lift chairs, Ensure and hospital bed mattresses . 540-347-5922.

Look Good, Feel Better For women undergoing or emerging from cancer treatment. Every other month, 6:45-9 p.m., Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-776-2820. Free.

Loudoun CHADD support Led by Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Third Thursdays 7 p.m. Leesburg Town Hall, lower-level conference room, 25 W. Market St. 703-669-2445.

Lyme disease support Fourth Sundays 2-4 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Conference Room A and B, Leesburg. Go to natcaplyme.org or email loudounlymeadvocates@gmail.com.

Lyme disease support Third Thursdays 7-9 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Call 540-341-8245 or email phillipsgeo@comcast.net.

Lyme disease support Age 18 and older. First Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Email charphealy@yahoo.com.

MADD Loudoun victim support For those who have been affected by drunken driving. Third Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. 210 Wirt St., Leesburg. 540-338-6491.

Man-to-Man cancer support Sponsored by Loudoun Cancer Care Center, for prostate cancer patients and their families. Second Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-858-8857 or karen.archer@inova.org.

Menopause support Third Thursdays 6:30-9 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg (second floor, Patient Education Room). 703-858-8060.

Mens grief support Second Mondays at 7 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 703-568-3346. Free.

Multiple sclerosis support Saturdays 10:30 a.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-2826.

Multiple sclerosis support Last Sundays, September-June, 2-4 p.m. Cascades Library, 21030 Whitfield Pl., Potomac Falls. Call ahead to confirm. 703-771-4256.

Nar-Anon family support For those affected by loved ones with addiction. Meaningful Mondays, 7-8 p.m., Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-203-9792; Wisdom Wednesdays 7-8 p.m., St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, 37730 St. Francis Ct., Purcellville, 703-606-7125; Serenity Thursdays, 7-8 p.m. Leesburg Presbyterian Church, 207 W. Market St., Leesburg, 703-606-7125.

Overeaters Anonymous For fellowship and support. For locations and times, go to oa.org.

Parkinsons social Coffee and conversation. Third Wednesdays 10 a.m.-noon, Tribute at One Loudoun, Welcome Center, 20618 Easthampton Plaza, Ashburn. parkinsonsocialnetwork.org or 703-378-7221. Free.

Parkinsons support Open to those with Parkinsons disease, their family members and caregivers. First Tuesdays 1:30-3 p.m. Call for Ashburn location. 571-442-8851.

Postpartum support Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Cornwall Campus, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg. Call 703-909-9877 or email lamckeough@gmail.com. Registration required.

Reach to Recovery Home-visit program for mastectomy and lumpectomy patients. Temporary prostheses, exercise instruction and encouragement. 703-938-5550.

Sexual assault and incest survivors group counseling Services provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice and the Loudoun Abused Womens Shelter are free and confidential. 703-771-9020.

Sexual assault survivors empowerment support Sponsored by Sexual Assault Victims Volunteer Initiative. Child care available with 48 hours notice. Mondays; call for times and locations. 540-349-7720.

Spiritual support group For cancer patients, family members and friends. Third Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8850.

Stroke support First Wednesdays, noon-1:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. Free.

Stroke survivors and caregivers support Second Wednesdays 11 a.m.-noon, Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second floor, Patient Education Room. 703-858-6199 or jill.lieb@inova.org.

Suicide counseling Third Wednesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Leesburg Town Office, Conference Room 2, lower level, 25 W. Market St., Leesburg. 703-587-1618 or survivorsofsuicidelossleesburg@gmail.com.

Widows and widowers support Third Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039.

Womens support Sponsored by Services to Abused Families. Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Confidential location. 540-825-8876.

Womens cancer support Woman to Woman, first Wednesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Registration required. 703-858-8850.

MISCELLANEOUS

Brain trauma survivors brown-bag lunch For survivors and caregivers. First Tuesdays, noon-1:30 p.m., Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second-floor Patient Education Room. Call 703-737-3150 or email jberg@braininjurysvcs.org. Free.

Child developmental screenings For ages 2-5. Children may not be kindergarten-age-eligible. Sponsored by the Loudoun County school systems Child Find Center. 571-252-2180.

Cholesterol screenings Weekdays, 6 a.m.-8 p.m. Fauquier Health LIFE Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2640. Registration required. $35.

Emergency food supplies Loudoun County residents in need can receive a free three-day supply of groceries. Supplies are distributed Mondays through Saturdays by Loudoun Hunger Relief. Call 703-777-5911 or go to loudounhunger.org.

Fauquier free walk-in medical clinic Call Thursdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. to register for the clinic, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Patients are seen by appointment Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fauquier and Rappahannock residents only. Bring proof of address for the first visit. Patients cannot have Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance. Information: 540-347-0394 Tuesdays or Thursdays, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Fauquier Hospital Bistro Senior Supper Club Nutritious meals and fellowship for people 55 and older. Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Bistro on the Hill, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $5.49.

HEROES (Hometown Enabling Relationships, Opportunities and Empowerment through Support) is a program for military families. Support to military members and families, from pre-deployment up to two years post-deployment. Assistance includes financial help, job placement, family care and mental-health services. caring@purbap.org or heroescare.org.

Inova Loudoun Hospital Mobile Health Services Blood pressure screenings, Tuesday 9 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling; Wednesday 10 a.m.-noon, Lansdowne Woods, 19400 Leisure World Blvd., Leesburg; Thursday 10 a.m.-noon, Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Call 703-858-8818 or go to inova.org/mobilehealth. Free.

Loudoun Cares information and referral help line Call 703-669-4636 for help in finding resources for county residents on issues of eviction, utility cutoffs, health care and employment.

Motor skill screenings Birth to 21 months. First Thursdays, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. Call for an appointment. 703-858-7620. Free.

Northern Virginia long-term-care ombudsman Call 703-324-5861 for help with complaints related to long-term-care facilities.

Road to Recovery Free rides to appointments for cancer patients. Call 410-781-6909 or email jen.burdette@cancer.org. Free.

Safe sitter classes For girls and boys ages 11-14. First Saturdays except for holiday weekends. 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. To receive a Safe Sitter Certificate, students must pass practical and written tests on babysitting and handling an emergency. Take a lunch from home or buy one in the cafeteria. $70, includes handbook and snacks. Registration required. 703-858-8818 or charlene.martin@inova.org.

Seven Loaves Food Pantry Individuals and families can receive a three-day supply of food, distributed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m.-noon. Go to sevenloavesmiddleburg.org or call 540-687-3489.

Tree of Life Food Pantry Serving western Loudoun County. Food is delivered Wednesdays and Saturdays. 703-554-3595.

 Compiled by Sandy Mauck

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The Confederate statue that had stood for decades next to Rockvilles Red Brick Courthouse has been relocated to its new home: near a privately run Potomac River ferry named for a Confederate general.

Montgomery County officials struck a deal in February with Whites Ferry, which operates a car ferry linking Dickerson, Md., and Leesburg, Va., to take the 13-ton bronze soldier.

Officials said they chose a quiet, midsummer Saturday to load the statue onto a flatbed truck to avoid protests or other incidents.

The relocation, first reported Monday by the Bethesda Beat, cost about $100,000.

The statue was donated to the county in 1913 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and was ordered removed from government property by County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) in the summer of 2015, at the height of a national debate over the location of Confederate memorials and monuments.

Shortly after Leggetts announcement, vandals spray-painted Black Lives Matter at the statues base. It had remained encased in a wooden box since then to prevent further damage.

The statue depicts a young cavalry private, arms folded and with a saber hanging from his side. The plaque reads: To Our Heroes of Montgomery Co., Maryland, That We Through Life May Not Forget To Love The Thin Gray Line.

Several relocation sites were considered, including the Beall-Dawson house, a pre-Civil War home operated as a museum by the Montgomery County Historical Society. The city of Rockville, which owns the home, rejected the idea last year.

Leggett, the first African American elected to the County Council and then to be county executive, said in a statement Saturday that he wanted the statue to remain in Montgomery  it will be on the Maryland side of the Potomac  but not on county-owned land, because it reflected only one part of the countys Civil War history.

This statue is inaccurate because it pays tribute only to the Montgomery County young men who fought for the Confederacy, Leggett said, not also to those county residents who fought to preserve the Union and free those held in bondage.

The ferry used at the Dickerson-Leesburg crossing is named for Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early, a Confederate general who reached the outskirts of Washington during an 1864 raid.
Krishanti Vignarajah, a onetime policy director for former first lady Michelle Obama, said Monday that she is seriously considering joining a crowded field of Democratic candidates running for Maryland governor.

Vignarajah, 37, of Catonsville, is the second woman in the past week to say she is looking closely at the race. Her interest in running was first reported by the political blog A Miner Detail.

A number of folks have encouraged me to run, and Im seriously considering it, Vignarajah said in a text message. She declined to comment further.

Five Democrats have already launched their campaigns for the Democratic nomination to take on Gov. Larry Hogan (R) next fall: former NAACP president Ben Jealous, Prince Georges County Executive Rushern Baker III, state Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr., tech entrepreneur Alec Ross and attorney Jim Shea.

Four others  Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, Rep. John Delaney, former attorney general Doug Gansler and Maya Rockeymoore, a policy expert and wife of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings  are said to be weighing bids.

The primary is next June.

Vignarajah, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, worked for Obama for a little over two years, according to her LinkedIn page. The Yale graduate is the founder and chief operating officer of Generation Impact, a firm that specializes in developing strategies for companies and nonprofits.

Steve Rabin, a friend of Vignarajahs who was chief speechwriter for former governor Martin OMalley (D), said many Democrats took notice of Vignarajah after she gave the keynote speech at a summit of Democrats in Western Maryland this spring.

With the retirement in January of longtime senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D), Rabin said, we dont have a single woman in Maryland who holds a statewide elected position.  There is not only an opening and a need for a woman, but there is an opening and need for a young, energetic and innovative policymaker who has dedicated their life to serve.
Glen S. Nishimura, who spent many years as editor of opinion columns at USA Today and was a member of the papers editorial board until his retirement two years ago, died July 22, 2017, at his home in McLean, Va. He was 68. (Family photo/Family photo)

Glen S. Nishimura, who spent many years as editor of opinion columns at USA Today and was a member of the papers editorial board until his retirement two years ago, died July 22 at his home in McLean, Va. He was 68.

The cause was lymphoma and myelodysplastic syndrome, a type of cancer affecting bone marrow and blood, said his wife, Susan Schmidt, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporter.

Mr. Nishimura spent much of his early career as a news editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, where he became adept at page design and layout. He also worked briefly at the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe as an editor before joining USA Today shortly after its founding in 1982 as an assistant editor on the Washington desk. He later moved on to the editorial staff as a writer and then op-ed editor, where he conceived and commissioned opinion pieces from experts and advocates in many fields.

Glen Susumu Nishimura, a third-generation Japanese American, was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 14, 1948. He was a 1971 graduate of California State University at Los Angeles.

At his death, he had drafted part of a book about the internment of his family in relocation camps during World War II. He consulted older generations of relatives as well as letters written between his parents throughout the war and their internment.

Besides his wife of 37 years, survivors include two daughters from his marriage, Kate Nishimura and Lacey Nishimura, all of McLean; a daughter from a previous relationship, Christina Gibson of Calabasas, Calif.; a sister; two brothers; and two grandchildren.

 The Washington Post
A 19-year-old has been arrested in connection with a double homicide that occurred this month in Suitland, according to Prince Georges County police.

Jharrod Armstrong of Northwest Washington has been charged with first- and second-degree murder in the fatal shootings of Courtney Simms, 22, and Anthony Douglas, 23, police said.

Simms and Douglas were fatally shot at about 7:20 p.m. July 9 in the alley between businesses in the 4600 block of Silver Hill Road, police said.

Police said they need help finding two other men wanted in connection with the case.

Authorities have identified one as Robert Suesbury, 27, of Northwest Washington. A warrant is out for his arrest, police said. Detectives also need help identifying a third man who was seen in surveillance video released by police.

Detectives believe that Simms and Douglas were shot in an attempted robbery, police said.

Authorities are asking anyone with information about this case to call 301-772-4925 or 1-866-411-TIPS (8477). A reward of up to $25,000 is available for information leading to an arrest or indictment.
President Trump, accompanied by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, center left, speaks at the first meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity last week. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

A federal judge on Monday allowed President Trumps voting commission to go forward with seeking voter data from 50 states and the District, ruling that the White House advisory panel is exempt from federal privacy review requirements, whatever additional risk it might pose to Americans information.

The ruling averted a public setback for a president who has claimed that widespread fraud cost him the popular vote in November. The commissions request for the voting information of more than 150 million registered voters remains controversial, with many state leaders from both parties voicing objections about its potential to reveal personal information, suppress voter participation and encroach on states oversight of voting laws.

The panels June 28 letter to the states requested that they turn over publicly-available voter roll data, including names, addresses, dates of birth, party registrations, partial Social Security numbers and voting, military, felony and overseas histories, among other data.

On July 10, the White House clarified that it had scrapped plans to use a Pentagon-operated website to accept the data and had designed a system inside the White House to take the submissions.

[Trumps voter commission hasnt even met  and its already off to a rough start]

Those changes appeared crucial in a 35-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington.

The mere increased risk of disclosure stemming from the collection and eventual, anonymized disclosure of already publicly available voter roll information is insufficient to block the data request, she wrote.

Kollar-Kotelly , who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997, ruled against the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group that sought to block the commissions data request because the panel had not conducted a full privacy impact statement as required by a 2002 federal law for new government electronic data collection systems.

She concluded that although the watchdog group had the right to sue under the law for a privacy review, the commission was a presidential advisory panel, not a federal agency subject to the privacy law.

Neither the Commission or the Director of White House Information Technology  who is currently charged with collecting voter roll information on behalf of the Commission  are agencies  of the federal government subject to the courts review in this matter, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

To the extent the factual circumstances change, however  for example, if the . . . powers of the Commission expand beyond those of a purely advisory body  this determination may need to be revisited.

Kollar-Kotelly wrote that the only added risk to privacy was if the White House computer systems are more vulnerable to security threats than those of the states, or that its de-identification process would be inadequate.

The commission is led by Vice President Pence, with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) as vice chairman.

In a statement Monday, Kobach called the ruling a major victory for government accountability, transparency and the publics right to know about the integrity of our elections processes, adding, We look forward to continuing to work with state election leaders to gather information and identify opportunities to improve election integrity.

Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a statement that the group will push forward. The Commission cannot evade privacy obligations by playing a shell game with the nations voting records.

The court order was not a final ruling on the commissions work, with other groups filing lawsuits and one appealing to a higher court to block its action under open records and meeting laws.

But Mondays ruling removed one legal obstacle even as the commission faces other political head winds. The commission had asked states to hold off submitting the voter data the panel had requested pending the court decision.

At least 44 states have indicated that they wont provide all their voter data, with some saying they would give nothing and others offering what information they could under state laws.

The vice presidents office has said 20 states have agreed to share at least some data and 16 more are reviewing the request.

Trump has said that widespread voter fraud cost him the popular vote in November, although critics say the claim is unsubstantiated and a pretext for federal laws to suppress voter participation, including by racial minority groups and poor people.

[Why almost every state is partially or fully rebuffing Trumps election commission]

Trump has championed the commissions work as a way to strengthen up voting procedures by identifying vulnerabilities . . . that could lead to improper voter registrations and improper voting. Conservative board members have advocated stricter federal election laws, alleging that a bias in U.S. enforcement has benefited liberals.

Republicans such as Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan had called the commissions request a hastily organized experiment, or a federal intrusion and overreach, as Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler (R) put it.

Democratic New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo refused to perpetuate the myth voter fraud played a role in our election, while Vermont Secretary of State James C. Condos (D) called the commission a waste of taxpayer money.

In court filings, Rotenberg called the privacy implications of creating a secret database stored in the White House of hundreds of millions of voter records from across the country staggering and lacking legal authorization.

The watchdog group said the proposal would increase privacy risks to every registered voter, including in particular military families whose home addresses would be revealed, people whose partial Social Security numbers are used as passwords for commercial services, and people with felony convictions.

Trump formed the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after repeatedly suggesting that millions of illegal voters cost him the popular vote against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Studies and state officials of both parties have found no evidence of widespread voting fraud.

[Trump challenges states on voter fraud: What are they trying to hide?]

Led by Pence, the panels other members are Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson (R); New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner (D); Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D); former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell (R); Christy McCormick (R), commissioner with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission; former Arkansas state representative David Dunn (D); Mark Rhodes, clerk of Wood County, W.Va. (D); Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow of the Heritage Foundation (R); J. Christian Adams (R), a conservative columnist; and Alan Lamar King (D), a probate judge in Alabama.

[Trumps voter-fraud commission wants to know voting history, party ID and address of every voter in the U.S.]

Kobach said in the court filing that McCormick is not serving in her official capacity as a member of the EAC. Kobach said the Trump commission has no legal relationship with the EAC, and that while the president can appoint additional members to the newly formed advisory commission, to Kobachs knowledge, no other federal agency officials are under consideration.

[Trumps voting commission asked states to hand over election data. Some are pushing back.]

Although the May 11 executive order stated that the commission would be supported by the General Services Administration  a federal agency subject to privacy requirements  the administration said in fact data would be downloaded onto White House computers, with an employee of Pences office and White House information technology staff responsible for collecting and storing it.
A second D.C. man was arrested Friday in a fatal shooting in Southeast last year, police said.

At around 2:50 p.m. on Feb. 24, 2016, officers responded to the report of a shooting in the 3100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, D.C. police said in a statement. They found 22 year-old Demetrius Medlay of Southeast suffering from gunshot wounds, and he died at a hospital, the statement said.

[Arrest made in February homicide]

On Aug. 23, 24-year-old Kevin Grover of Southeast was charged with first-degree felony murder while armed in connection with the shooting, police said.

Then on Friday, 18-year-old Justin Robinson of Southeast was arrested and charged with first-degree felony murder while armed in connection with the shooting, according to police.
Melvin Henson picks up food at a mobile food bank arranged by Prince George's County Division of Parole and Probation on Monday in Hyattsville. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Aaron Arnold had just emerged from an appointment with his probation officer when he and his family came upon the bounty outside the court building: boxes of lettuce, cabbage and celery stacked high along a wall, cartons of cottage cheese piled on a table nearby and shining bars of chocolates.

Arnold and his family filled their bags with fresh food and goodies, without having to pay a dime. They were among the first to take advantage of a new mobile food pantry in Maryland designed to alleviate one of the pressures many on parole and probation face as they try to stay out of jail  feeding their families.

Its gonna help us out, said Arnold, who was eyeing a bag of marshmallows. A lot of people just dont have the means.

The mobile food pantry in Hyattsville on Monday was part of an effort to improve relationships between probation officers and their clients while lending a hand to those working to rebuild their lives, said Sabra Mastalski, a field supervisor for the state parole and probation office.

[In rural Tennessee, a new way to help hungry children: A bus turned bread truck.]

Staffer Chris Wiggins, who works at the county's Division of Parole and Probation, helps out at the mobile food bank. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

We have to hold you accountable, but were not just here to lock you up, Mastalski said. We want you to be successful.

While many people envision parole and probation officers as stern figures looking only to toss people back in jail for violations, agents also aim to help their clients stay out of the criminal justice system by helping them find jobs, overcome substance abuse or, in this case, fight hunger.

The Capital Area Food Bank brought in between 5,000 and 10,000 pounds of food for Mondays mobile pantry outside Prince Georges County District Court in Hyattsville.

Dario Muralles, head of the nonprofit groups Maryland-area operations, said the organization has been aiming to develop more partnerships that bring food to people who need it, rather than having them find transportation to travel to food bank sites.

Its a perfect connection because were reaching an underserved community who has obstacles to overcome, Muralles said.

Within the first hour of the mobile pantrys opening, nearly 100 families picked up food, said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation. The location in Hyattsville is one of the busiest in the state, with agents handling about 2,000 active cases out of about 50,000 in Maryland.

Although it is aimed at helping people on parole and probation, the food pantry is open to the public and will return to the courthouse in Hyattsville on the fourth Monday.

Arnold said he was at the office after being arrested on theft charges for pawning jewelry that he said he did not know was stolen.

Parole and probation officers on Monday filled bags and helped people load boxes of food into their cars.

Bridgette Anderson, a parole and probation agent, said some of her clients are struggling to find jobs or are homeless, making it difficult for them to follow the terms of their probation. Some of her clients told her that theyve stolen food from gas stations or stores because they were hungry or had to feed their families.

It breaks your heart, said Anderson, who helped organize the mobile food pantry. Theyre committing crimes to survive.

[The months seem a bit longer for a D.C. woman and her family after recent cuts to the food stamps they rely on.]

Anderson said getting clients access to food also improves the relationship between officers and those on probation, which also helps deter people from doing something that would lead to a violation.

We care about them, and we care about their well being, Anderson said. Its hard to come back home.

Melvin Henson stopped by the mobile food pantry a little before 10 a.m., his bags and boxes filled with fresh lettuce, milk, corn bread and cereal.

Henson, who is on probation after serving two years on a burglary charge, said he would mostly rely on his sister or eat at a McDonalds restaurant were it not for the food he collected Monday.

I can look forward to a good meal, said Henson, who said his probation officer told him about the food pantry and encouraged him to come. This will last awhile, and it is good food.

Shortly after, Hensons sister pulled up in a black SUV and he loaded in bags and boxes.

Henson hopped in the car, and as they drove off, his sister hollered to the probation officers through the window, God bless you!
A man who was arrested in the fatal shooting of his girlfriend in Southeast Washington on Saturday had been released from prison last month after serving time for killing a man in 1999, according to court records.

Ronald Randolph Jr., 40, of Southeast Washington was charged this weekend with first-degree murder while armed in the death of Shameka Delephine Jones, 32. She was found dead about 8:15 a.m. Saturday in her apartment in the Woodberry Village complex in the 2200 block of Savannah Terrace SE, near Congress Heights.

An arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court says Randolph called 911 on Saturday morning and told the operator, I shot my girlfriend. Police said the victim had been shot in the head while in bed and that a chrome revolver was found on the floor. Jones was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said in the affidavit that Randolph accused Jones of having an affair.

He told detectives that he had taken the gun from his closet the night before and held on to it through the night, while he was thinking about everything, the affidavit says. He confronted Jones in the morning and he shot her when she denied his accusation, the court document says.

[Two killed in District over weekend]

Randolph was ordered detained during his initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court on Monday. A preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 25. One of Randolphs relatives declined to comment Monday, and his attorney with the Public Defender Service did not respond to an interview request.

Randolph was released from prison June 22. He and another man, Phillip A. Stewart of Southeast Washington, were convicted in 2001 of kidnapping and first-degree murder while armed.

Police said they had abducted Carlos Thomas, of Fort Washington, Md., from a restaurant on Alabama Avenue in October 1999 and shot him four times in the head in an abandoned apartment building in Southeast Washington. Randolph was 22 at the time; Stewart was 21.

Authorities said in court documents that the victim and suspects were acquaintances embroiled in a dispute. The precise nature of the argument was never determined. Randolphs attorney at the time, Gary Sidell, said witnesses gave varying accounts of a possible motive throughout the trial.

Stewart and Randolph were each sentenced to more than 40 years to life in prison. Both men appealed, calling into question testimony from a woman who said in court that a man had told her that he saw Randolph and Stewart kidnap the victim.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the statement should not have been allowed into evidence and threw out Randolphs conviction, saying there was little other evidence against him. The court let Stewarts conviction stand, saying there was other overwhelming evidence of his guilt.

Prosecutors recharged Randolph, and in 2006, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder while armed, court records show. He was sentenced to seven to 23 years in prison; he had been in jail since he was arrested in 1999.
Police think a BB or pellet smashed the window at the 3rd District police station in White Oak in Montgomery County, Md., this weekend. (Mongtomery County Police Department)

Montgomery County police are searching for a vandalism culprit who may have used a BB or pellet gun to shoot out a window of a police station Monday morning.

Police officials report they found a window smashed at the 3rd District station, located in the 1002 Milestone Drive in White Oak, about 10 a.m. No injuries were reported.

Detectives believe the damage happened late Sunday night or over the weekend.
Senate Minority leader Charles E. Schumer speaks about the Democrats A Better Deal in Berryville, Va., as other Democratic lawmakers look on. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Democratic leaders traveled to a deep red corner of Republican Rep. Barbara Comstocks Northern Virginia district Monday to unveil a strategy they hope will convince voters they have more to offer than just opposition to President Trump.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Mark R. Warner (Va.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), stood on a stage in a community park under a blazing sun to roll out their plan, called A Better Deal.

Democrats have too often hesitated from directly and unflinchingly taking on misguided policies that got us here, Schumer said. So much so that too many Americans dont know what we stand for. Not after today.

In one of the few references to Trump in the hour-long event, Schumer said the president campaigned on a populist message but abandoned working people when he took office.

Democrats proposals are designed to appeal to middle-class workers  ways to lower prescription drug prices and provide more federal funding for apprenticeships and job training, and more aggressive monitoring of proposed corporate mergers  all poll-tested ideas that they think will win back voters who supported Trump last year.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks in Berryville, Va., flanked by Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, right, and other Democratic lawmakers. (Cliff Owen/Associated Press)

Its not enough to just identify the problem, said Van Hollen, who as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is in charge of preserving Democratic seats next year and trying to increase their number. Its not enough to simply analyze and empathize. We have to put forward bold solutions.

Democrats said they would discuss specific legislation later, and Schumer did not answer a question from a resident who urged the party to push for efforts to revive the Depression-era banking regulations of the Glass-Steagall Act.

A relatively convenient 90-minute drive from Capitol Hill for busy lawmakers but a world away from Washington, Berryville is the seat of Clarke County, in the western end of the 10th Congressional District, which Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won by double digits in November.

Trump won the county with 57 percent of the vote to Clintons 37 percent  15 points worse than she performed across the rest of the district.

For Democrats to gain control of the House, they would have to unseat members such as Comstock  a point made by Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (N.M.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

While its early, theres no doubt that this district and so many others are up for grabs in the 2018 midterms, he said. This wont be easy. And Democrats cant take anything for granted.

Seven Democrats are competing for the chance to take on Comstock in 2018, a sign of both enthusiasm within the party and a sense that she may be vulnerable.

Before the event, the Virginia GOP tweeted a photo of Comstock in Clarke County and another of her with Clarke officials, in keeping with Comstocks successful strategy last year of focusing on local issues and refusing to delve into national politics. Comstock beat her Democratic opponent in the county last year, 63 to 37 percent.

Activists from the liberal groups Indivisible and Dump Comstock watched the Democrats event as well.

Comstocks political director, Ken Nunnenkamp, said Democrats trotted out their most extreme left wingers for a bizarre visit rife with the same tired talking points.

Maddie Anderson, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, likened the Democrats event to an in-kind contribution to Comstock.

Im glad that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Elizabeth Warren got to experience Clarke County, where Rep. Comstock is fighting for local issues each day, including the heroin epidemic, Anderson said in a statement. Her massive level of support in Clarke County reflects the fact that shes working hard for the people of the 10th, while Pelosi swings through for a couple hours and leaves without shaking a single hand.

Warner, who gave a shout-out to two candidates for state delegate in the front row, said later that Democrats can win in places like Clarke County with an economic message. For example, he said, expanding broadband access would allow people to work remotely and remain in their communities.

I believe it still is how you sort through the economic anxiety that the changing economy brings, he said.

A few protesters in the crowd silently held signs needling Warner for winning only 39 percent of the vote in Clarke County in his 2014 race.

One of them had a pizza box that said Still Pelosi in a knock on the Democrats new slogan, A Better Deal, which some have mocked as similar to Papa Johns Better Pizza tagline.

But after years of watching GOP lawmakers successfully make similar pitches to voters, Democrats have decided they must do things differently, and they think focusing more on pocketbook issues  and less on Trump  will resonate.



Topping their list is the establishment of a federal price gouging enforcer who would lead a new agency to monitor prescription drug costs and negotiate lower prices. Cutting the cost of prescription drugs remains a major issue with the public. In a survey in late April by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 64 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans named it as one important step that Trump and Congress could take to improve health care.

The heart of the drug-price proposal  letting the government negotiate the rates at which pharmaceuticals are sold within Medicare  is a policy that Democrats have been championing for more than a decade, without success.

The idea was a major point of contention in 2003, when Congress added prescription drug benefits to the program, known as Part D. During that debate, Republicans, at the urging of drugmakers, kept such direct negotiations out of the law. That makes Medicare, which enrolls about 77 million older and disabled Americans, unlike the nations other health-care entitlement program, Medicaid, in which drugs must be sold at the deepest discount that any entity can negotiate.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misquoted Anita Gallagher of Leesburg. Gallagher urged lawmakers to push for  not against  efforts to revive Glass-Steagall banking regulations. The story has been corrected.

OKeefe reported from Washington. Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.
Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) at a town hall meeting in February, which he called in respones to criticism that he was avoiding face-to-face meetings with the public. Brat complained then that the women are up in my grill. (Timothy C. Wright/For the Washington Post)

When Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) complained months ago that female constituents pressuring him to hold a town hall were in my grill no matter where I go, he didnt know how prescient those words were.

[The women are in my grill, Brat complains]

Five women  and one man  are running for the Democratic nomination to challenge the two-term congressman from suburban Richmond next year. The group includes a former CIA operative, a civil attorney and a Marine turned commercial airline pilot.

Women, mostly Democrats, are entering House primary contests in record numbers in Virginia.

Many say they are running to channel their frustration with President Trump. Democratic organizations  long desperate for female candidates  are recruiting them aggressively.

For a Democratic Party riding high on activist fervor, even a long shot district like Brats, which has been in Republican hands since the early 1970s, seems within reach.

When my heart was broken and our dreams were dashed on November 8, I wasnt sure what lay ahead of us, said Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Virginia Democrats. That feeling soon gave way to hope, she said. The whole thing has been very exhilarating and exciting.

Brat declined an interview for this article but through an aide dismissed the pack of Democrats vying for the chance to take him on as acolytes of the House minority leader.

Dave is hard at work keeping his promises to pass positive, principled policies that put our country back on the right track, his chief of staff, Mark Kelly, said in a statement. Nancy Pelosi desperately wants another vote for her liberal agenda that puts more power in the hands of Washington. Dave looks forward to a debate of ideas about Americas future after the Democrats pick their liberal nominee next June.

Democrats say their best chance to flip a House seat in Virginia is a district already represented by a woman who has at times distanced herself from Trump. Rep. Barbara Comstock (R), of Northern Virginia, has seven Democratic opponents, four of whom are women.

A Democratic woman is considering challenging Rep. Scott Taylor, a Republican freshman from Virginia Beach. And two Democratic women are competing to run against Rep. Rob Wittman, whose eastern Virginia district includes parts of Prince William and Fauquier counties.

Theres even a Democratic woman taking on Marylands only Republican representative in Congress, Rep. Andy Harris, who hails from the Eastern Shore.

The day after the election, phones started ringing at Emerge America, an organization Andrea Dew Steele created 15 years ago in California, to prepare women to run for office. Today there are programs in 20 states, with 10 more in the works.

This is a completely different kind of experience to have so many women wanting to run like this, Steele said. Normally you have to recruit women heavily and convince them to step up and run.

Women hold about 20 percent of the 535 seats in Congress; 21 in the Senate and 84 in the House, according to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

Research shows women didnt run for office previously because they were less likely to identify themselves as qualified  a point that has not changed  and they were less likely to receive encouragement or be recruited  a factor that is changing.

Since Election Day, Emilys List, a national group that endorses women who favor abortion rights, has heard from 16,000 women interested in running for office at all levels of government, compared with the 920 women who reached out during the 2016 cycle.

Emilys List is talking to more than 130 women who are either running or considering a bid in at least 80 House districts, spokeswoman Alexandra De Luca said.

Jennifer L. Lawless, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University, said women are running because many Democrats believe they can take advantage of Trumps low approval rating, win competitive open seats, or pick off Republicans whose association with Trump could make them vulnerable.

In the past several election cycles, 70 percent of women who have run for office were Democrats, she said.

Yet Lawless cautioned that a record number of women candidates wont necessarily translate into a record number of women in office.

The stars have to align pretty perfectly for Democrats, she said.

Brats comments earlier this year encouraged online liberal groups and constituents, some armed with Its grilling time signs, to lash out at him at a rowdy town hall in Blackstone in February. Yet privately, Democrats acknowledge he will be tough to beat.

Buoyed by a reputation as the economics professor who unseated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014, Brat entered Congress with a national profile and sailed to reelection two years later by double digits. Trump won his district by 6 points.

The primary race on the Democratic side will force candidates to spend money and resources while Brat keeps up his frequent TV appearances touting the causes of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus.

Abigail Spanberger, 37, has captured early attention with a compelling biography and a profile in Elle Magazine. A former CIA operations officer stationed around the world, she grew up in the district and returned three years ago to work in the private sector.

She wasnt sure shed run for office until the day of the health-care vote in the House when she heard from a friend whose daughter suffers from a genetic disorder.

The mother said the repeal of the Affordable Care Act would leave her worried not just about her daughters condition but also going bankrupt over medical bills.

Spanberger texted her husband, Im definitely running. This is it for me. This is my turning point, she said.

Eileen Bedell, 44, ran against Brat last year and is the only Democrat with experience seeking public office. An attorney specializing in civil litigation, she grew up in Arlington and Fairfax and has lived in the district for about 20 years. Brats support for repeal of the Affordable Care Act and his embrace of Trump make him vulnerable, she said.

I call him Trump-lite, she said. Dave is Trump before Trump was Trump in Virginia.

Kim Gower, 54, left a consulting career to earn her doctorate from Virginia Commonwealth University and teaches at the University of Mary Washington. A Michigan native, she has lived in the district most of the past decade.

Helen Alli, 52, considers herself a community activist and has served on the Richmond Economic Development Authority. Alli, who has lived in Henrico for 30 years, said she served in the Army for four years and owns a weight-loss and hormone-therapy business.

Janelle Noble, 35, owns a small IT consulting firm. She has lived in Louisa for 1o years and said she would like to see more subsidies for farms. She favors a basic universal income modeled after an experiment in Finland.

The only male candidate in the race, Dan Ward, served two stints in the Marines, including three years with the State Department under Hillary Clinton. He retired in 2014, bought a small farm in Orange and returned to an earlier career flying for a commercial airline.

Dave Brat represents the extreme right, he said. Hes on TV all the time saying some crazy stuff.

In addition to Brats infamous in my grill comment, the congressman has raised the ire of Democrats for defending Trump and accuses reporters of perpetuating fake news.

Brats Twitter and Instagram accounts recently posted a photo of the smiling congressman standing beside a man holding a sign that read Hillary for U.S. ambassador to Libya.

The photo, taken at a July 1 gun show in Fredericksburg, was quickly deleted because it was being misinterpreted. Goal here is informing/sharing, not inflaming. Happy 4th, according to a tweet Brat posted that evening.

He has positioned himself as a foil to Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who is leading a Trump investigation as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who suggested Trumps son committed treason.

Mark Warner is seeing smoke everywhere he goes, like hes in a Cheech and Chong movie, Brat said on CNN last week. And Kaine now thinks the son is worse than Benedict Arnold. Weve gotten a little hysterical.

Asked how a Democrat who has never held political office could emerge from a six-way nomination fight to topple a telegenic congressman with national notoriety, Democrats noted that stranger things have happened.

Look, nobody thought Dave Brat was going to upset Eric Cantor, said Swecker, the state Democrats chairwoman. That was the upset of the century until now.
The timer signals 10 seconds left for an answer from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, left, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie, right, at the Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va., on July 22. The two major party candidates in Virginia's closely watched race for governor clashed at their first debate over President Trump, health care, immigration, and social issues. (Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)

The Virginia governors race is a dead heat, with Republican nominee Ed Gillespie tied with Democrat Ralph Northam, according to a new survey released Monday.

The poll of likely voters by Monmouth University found Gillespie and Northam tied with 44 percent each. Libertarian candidate Cliff Hyra drew 3 percent, while 9 percent were undecided.

President Trump, seen unfavorably by 57 percent of Virginia voters and favorably by 37 percent, is looming large in the November gubernatorial contest, the countrys marquee statewide race this year.

[Gillespie shifts from avoiding Trump to dropping his name]

Nearly four in 10 voters said Trump was a factor in their choice for governor. Half of Northam supporters listed Trump as a factor in their decision-making, compared with one-third of Gillespie backers and one-third of undecided and third-party voters.

A small but crucial portion of Northams support is coming from voters who are primarily anti-Trump, said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. Unless one of the candidates breaks out with a clear advantage on Virginia-centric issues, the president could wind up as a decisive factor in the outcome.

[Northam, Gillespie tangle over Trump in first debate]

Northam, who called the president a narcissistic maniac in a widely seen campaign ad, appears to be benefiting from a Trump backlash. The poll found that if Trump were not a factor in the election, 12 percent of Northam voters would shift their support elsewhere and Gillespie would have a five-point lead.

Gillespie faces a dilemma: Virginia is the only Southern state won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and a place where Trump is deeply unpopular. In the months leading up to the June primary, Gillespie tried to distance himself from Trump, and nearly lost the Republican nomination to Corey Stewart, a provocateur who ran a Trump-like campaign.

Since that near-loss, Republicans from the White House to the state legislature have urged Gillespie to surround himself with strategists who understand Trump voters and to embrace some parts of the presidents agenda. In recent weeks, Gillespie has begun mentioning Trump and touting his ability to work with the Trump White House.

Both candidates have room to grow their support, with many voters saying they have no opinion of either man. Northam had a 38 percent favorable and 16 percent unfavorable rating, with 46 percent of voters having no opinion of the current lieutenant governor. Gillespie had a 36 percent favorable and 20 percent unfavorable rating, with 44 percent having no opinion of the former Republican National Committee chair and counselor to President George W. Bush.

The candidates still need to introduce themselves to voters and lay out their plans on key issues that Virginians want to hear them talk about, Murray said, noting that only 3 percent of voters said they watched the campaigns first debate, which was live-streamed Saturday from the Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va.

Virginia voters were more optimistic about the future of their state than about the country. Just over half of voters said the commonwealth was headed in the right direction, while less than a third said the same about the nation.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who is barred by law from seeking consecutive terms, got a thumbs-up from voters, with 52 percent approving of his performance as governor while 37 percent disapproved.

[Read the full poll]

Health care was cited most frequently by voters as a top concern, followed by jobs, the economy and education. Transportation and infrastructure, taxes and illegal immigration were each cited as most important by about 10 percent of voters.

The poll found regional differences in voter preferences. Northam had a 13-point lead over Gillespie in voter-rich Northern Virginia, 50 percent to 37 percent, and a nine-point lead in the eastern part of the state, 50 percent to 41 percent. The race is about even in central Virginia, with Gillespie at 43 percent and Northam at 41 percent. And Gillespie had an 18-point advantage in the western half of Virginia, 52 percent, to 34 percent for Northam.

Younger voters between 18 and 49 favored Northam by an 11-point margin, while Gillespie had a four-point lead among senior citizens. The poll also found a stark racial gap: Northam had a 50-point lead among nonwhite voters while Gillespie led white voters 52 percent to Northams 36 percent.

Monmouth pollsters surveyed 502 Virginia residents between Thursday and Sunday. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Other polls have shown Northam leading Gillespie in a general election.

He had a eight-point lead in a Quinnipiac University survey taken in the days after the June 13 primary, while a hypothetical matchup polled by The Washington Post and George Mason University in May gave Northam a nine-point edge.
Crews contending with triple-digit temperatures slowed the spread of an aggressive wildfire that destroyed dozens of homes in a rural area of California near Yosemite National Park, officials said Sunday.

The blaze has burned for a week and has scorched more than 119 square miles of dense brush and dead trees in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Many residents who were evacuated were allowed to return, but flames continue to threaten about 1,500 homes in Mariposa County.

The fire was 45 percent contained, but officials said it could take two more weeks to fully surround it.

They are still out in front of an uncontrolled fire, but the fire isnt moving at 30 mph. The fire is crawling along, fire spokesman Brandon Vaccaro said Saturday.

Flames spared Mariposa, a historic Gold Rush-era town, but more than 130 buildings, including 63 homes, were destroyed.

More than 5,000 firefighters fought the blaze using air tankers, helicopters and bulldozers.

The fire grew by up to 47 square miles a day at its peak. But by the weekend, the growth rate was slowed despite dry, blistering weather, Vaccaro said.
It began with a desperate request for water and a Walmart employees suspicions about a tractor-trailer parked outside. That led officials on Sunday to discover at least 39 people packed into a sweltering trailer, several of them on the verge of death  their skin hot to the touch, their hearts dangerously racing  and eight men already dead. Another would die later at a hospital.

Authorities think they found an immigrant smuggling operation just 2 hours from the Mexican border that ended in what San Antonio Police Chief William McManus described as a horrific tragedy. The victims, as young as 15, appeared to have been loaded like cargo into a trailer without working air conditioning during the height of the Texas summer. It was unknown how long they had been in the trailer or where their journey started, but 30 of the victims were taken to area hospitals and 17 had life-threatening injuries. Federal authorities said the victims were undocumented aliens.

Reyna Torres, consul of Mexico, confirmed in Spanish that Mexican nationals are among those dead and in the hospitals and said the consulate is interviewing the survivors.

City Fire Chief Charles Hood said some of the victims appeared to have suffered severe heatstroke, with heart rates soaring over 130 beats per minute. In the worst cases, Hood said, a lot of them are going to have some irreversible brain damage.

Even more people were thought to have been inside the trailer before help arrived, police said. Survivors at six area hospitals told investigators that up to 100 individuals were originally in the tractor-trailer.

1 of 11 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  The scene in Texas after dozens were found inside a sweltering tractor-trailer View Photos Nine are dead among dozens of people whom authorities found packed into a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio. Caption 10 are dead among dozens of people found packed inside a transport vehicle in San Antonio. July 23, 2017 Barbie Hurtado speaks at the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio during a vigil for victims who died as a result of being transported in a tractor-trailer. At least eight migrants perished inside the trailer; two others died later. Spencer Selvidge/For The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

[San Antonio truck deaths recall horror of 19 who died in 2003 Tex. smuggling case]

Walmart surveillance video showed cars stopping and picking up people as they exited the back of the trailer. But suspicions were not raised until an employee noticed a disoriented person, who asked for water. The employee then called police, authorities said. Then, a chaotic scene unfolded outside the Walmart on the citys southwest side, as ambulances and police cars arrived and people were carried away, leaving behind shoes and personal belongings strewn across the asphalt and trailer floor.

The trucks driver, identified as James M. Bradley, 60, of Clearwater, Fla., has been arrested and is expected to be charged Monday morning, said the U.S. attorneys office for the Western District of Texas.

The grisly discovery in San Antonio comes as the Trump administration is calling on Congress to increase funding for border security and to expand the wall on the southern border with Mexico.

It also illuminates the extreme risks immigrants face as they attempt to elude border agents in the searing summer heat. Some try to slip through legal checkpoints undetected, while others sneak illegally across the border. Often, they are fleeing violence and poverty in Latin America, advocates say.

Many have died attempting to enter the United States, drowning in the Rio Grande, lost in the desolate ranch lands of south Texas, or collapsing from exhaustion in the Arizona desert.

Two weeks ago, Houston police discovered 12 immigrants, including a girl, who had been locked for hours inside a sweltering box truck in a parking lot, banging for someone to rescue them. Three people were arrested. A Harris County prosecutor said the migrants were at imminent risk of death.





In May, border agents discovered 18 immigrants locked in a refrigerated produce truck, with the temperature set at 51 degrees. Passengers were from Latin America and Kosovo.

One of the deadliest smuggling operations occurred in 2003, when 19 people died after being discovered in an insulated trailer abandoned at a truck stop in Victoria, Tex. The truck driver in that case, Tyrone M. Williams, was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison.

In San Antonio, the driver was working with Pyle Transportation, a hauling firm in Schaller, Iowa. The companys name was emblazoned on the truck. Owner Brian Pyle said Bradley, the truck driver, operated largely independently from his company.

This was his very first trip, Pyle said. Its a common thing in the trucking industry. . . . He had my name on the side, and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel.

Pyle declined to name the driver, who he said was from Louisville, and said he did not know what the man was transporting.

A woman at a Louisville address listed for Bradley declined to comment.

The tractor-trailer was found outside the Walmart about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, police said. The store, which was closed at the time, is surrounded by a heavily wooded area. Police feared that some people had fled the trailer when emergency workers arrived. A search using a police dog and a helicopter found one more victim, who was taken to a hospital.

In the morning, Margarita Balderas, 64, stopped by the Walmart on her way home from Sunday Mass. She had seen the news but was shocked to realize that the tragedy had occurred at that store.

It makes me feel so bad. Why are they treated like that? she said of the migrants. Theyre just trying to make a living.

A vigil was held Sunday night by groups that support immigrants in San Antonio.

Well be praying for the survivors, praying that they are able to recover and be okay, said Amy Fischer, policy director for RAICES, a nonprofit group that provides legal services for immigrants in central Texas.

Fischer expressed concern that upon finding the victims in the trailer, San Antonio police called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities. Police spokesman Sgt. Jesse Salame said that is standard practice for cases of international smuggling.

We didnt call ICE to get everybody deported. We called them because they are the investigating authority, Salame said.

What will happen to the survivors once they are released from the hospital has not been decided.

But authorities indicated that their journey was not over.

Salame said he expects the victims to be released into ICE custody.

They have to be turned over to the custody of somebody, he said. They dont have anywhere else to go.

Later Sunday, moments after Mass ended at the historic San Fernando Cathedral, two dozen people held a gathering in Main Plaza to show their support for immigrants. A handful of people made speeches and said prayers in Spanish and English, using a megaphone, to a crowd of about 50 people. Children played in the splash pads nearby while adults wandered in and out of the crowd, many taking photographs and videos.

Hold your family extra tight tonight, said Barbie Hurtado, the statewide organizer for RAICES, which organized the event, and keep the people that lost their lives in your thoughts, in your prayers.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), a San Antonio native, addressed attendees at the end of the hour-long service.

This represents a symptom of a broken immigration system that Congress, of which I am a part, has had the chance to fix but has not, he said. Thats a colossal failure that has a human cost.

Another San Antonio native, Debbie Leal-Herrera, 55, said she was in town visiting from New Mexico this week and wanted to come to the plaza because it touches me as a Hispanic.

Leal-Herrera, an elementary school teacher, said she knows several people who have immigrated to the United States illegally and has taught many students whose parents are undocumented.

It reminds me of how much we truly take for granted, she said. What a beautiful gift it is to be an American.

Advocates for immigrants in Texas are still reeling from the recent passage of the tough new immigration law, set to take effect Sept. 1. The deaths marked yet another blow.

Maria Victoria de la Cruz, who is originally from Mexico, publicly urged federal officials not to deport the immigrants who were found Sunday.

As an immigrant, I feel destroyed, she told the group in Spanish. Its not fair to return them to the place they have fled.

During the vigil, a somber group quietly approached the consul from Mexico to ask about a relative. Juan Jose Castillo, who said he is from the Mexican state of Zacatecas but lives in the United States, said he was relieved that his 44-year-old brother was among the survivors.

He came out of necessity, Castillo said in Spanish. Its very bad.

Frankel reported from Washington. Maria Sacchetti in San Antonio, Julie Tate in Washington and James Higdon in Louisville contributed to this report.
Indian social activists and children release ribbons and balloons during an event to mark World AIDS Day in 2014. New research is giving hope for an HIV cure as a child remained virus-free for years after treatment. (Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images)

A South African child, believed to have been infected with HIV around the time of birth, has remained free of the virus for 8 1/2 years after early treatment  renewing hope among scientists that such outliers may hold clues to help end the decades-old epidemic.

The case study, described by researchers before a presentation Monday at an international AIDS conference in Paris, suggests a paradigm shift in the treatment of those infected. It establishes that HIV may be controllable in some way other than a daily and lifelong regimen of antiretroviral drugs.

This is really the first step toward HIV remission and a cure, said Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Childrens Center in Baltimore. Understanding the factors that came into play to lead to this outcome is really going to inform science.

Out of the millions of children worldwide who are HIV-positive, the child, now 9, is one of only three who have been identified by scientists as having the ability to stop the virus from resurging for an extended period of time.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, struck notes of both optimism and caution when speaking about him. Fauci described the child as being in remission rather than being cured. And while hoping that the child would never have an active infection, Fauci noted that HIV tends to hide in funny places and that it is not entirely inconceivable a small amount of the virus may remain in the body and start replicating again.

It is exciting to see this. It is encouraging to see a child going for such a long period of time without rebounding, Fauci said. But we dont have the full answers to what this means yet.

The first case of extended remission in a child was announced to great excitement in 2013. Startled researchers reported that a girl  who came to be known as the Mississippi baby  appeared to be functionally cured 23 months after stopping treatment. The celebration was premature, however: The virus returned shortly after that announcement, and the young girl had to be put back on medications. But her case brought to light the possibility of viral suppression in children and led to the funding of other research into the phenomenon.

The second case, reported in 2015, involved a French teen who underwent treatment from soon after birth to age 6 and whose blood continued to have undetectable levels of the virus for 12 years after stopping the drugs.

[A look at the doctor who treated baby infected with HIV]

The South African child came to the attention of researchers in 2008 through a larger study funded by the National Institutes of Health. It took place from 2005 to 2011 at hospitals near Johannesburg and Cape Town and involved nearly 400 HIV-positive babies.

Mark Cotton, a pediatric AIDS expert and one of the lead authors of the paper being presented Monday in Paris, explained that children were randomly put in one of three groups. One received the standard of care at the time, which was to start therapy only when the individual showed signs of becoming sick or evidence of a weakened immune system. The other two groups started treatment immediately after their HIV-positive status was confirmed, and stopped after 40 weeks or 96 weeks, respectively. The goal was to figure out whether early treatment was better than deferred treatment.

Cotton said the data appeared to show that children who had the virus rebound earlier had to go back on medication after a couple of weeks. But there was a huge surprise for subjects whose remission lasted longer, he said, with several children not needing to return for two or more years after 96 weeks of treatment.

For the 40-week treatment group, the average remission period was about 30 weeks; for the 96-week treatment group, it was about 70 weeks  although researchers caution that the results are still being analyzed and should be taken as very preliminary.

Yet the one child is already considered a distinct outlier. Born to an HIV-positive mother, the baby was taken to one of the clinics in the study at about 8 weeks old. The child began therapy when the viral load was relatively low and took liquid antiretrovirals twice a day until about 48 weeks of age. By the time the child was done with treatment just before turning 1 year old, the viral load was undetectable, and year after year during follow-up visits, the child continued to show no signs of an actively replicating virus.

The researchers wrote in an abstract describing their work with the child that to our knowledge, this is the first case of sustained virological control from a randomized trial of interruption following early treatment of infants.

Cotton, who practices at South Africas Tygerberg Childrens Hospital and is a professor at Stellenbosch University, said he couldnt share much information about the child, partly because caregivers have asked for confidentiality and partly because the childs mother is believed to be dead. The father is still reachable, and scientists hope he will agree to be part of the continuing research to determine what the children who were able to be off medication the longest might have in common. The childs body does have the virus, Cotton said, but it seems to be asleep.

[HIV-positive couples can conceive naturally]

One of the leading theories about how children in the study who had the longest remissions might be different has to do with how their immune systems give them the power to suppress any rebound. Another factor may be that their very early treatment did not give the virus a chance to fully establish itself.

I think the [9-year-old] is blessed with a good immune system that we need to learn more about. But I also think there was probably a combination of being on treatment early, protecting his immune system and allowing it to get used to the virus and adapt and cope, Cotton said.

A similar pattern of remission has been found in France in 14 HIV-positive adults who were treated shortly after they were infected. As of last year, 12 had been in remission a decade on average.

Despite huge drops in mother-to-child transmission of HIV, about 150,000 infants still are born HIV-positive each year worldwide, and so the identification of the South African child provides promise for the whole field, said Persaud, who was involved in the treatment of the Mississippi baby, but was not one of the researchers in the South African study.

The South African childs case has some unique features, however. One is that the viral load seems to have dropped even before treatment started: It indicates that child has some type of control of the virus outside the actions of the drugs, Persaud explained. Most infants viral loads go up until treatment begins.

I do want to caution that many kids around the world have been treated, and, having gone through this with the Mississippi child, I think its important to know this is a very rare outcome, a notable outcome, but not a common one, she said.
Work crews do soil borings on the Georgetown Branch of the Capital Crescent Trail near downtown Bethesda as part of pre-construction work on the Purple Line. ((Katherine Shaver/The Washington Post))

Regarding the July 20 editorial Common sense on the Purple line:

Anyone who supports the federal appeals court ruling that will allow the chainsaws to start buzzing along the proposed Purple Line should walk the route for this grossly expensive project. Take the trestle over Rock Creek on a nearly 100-degree day while Marylands coal-fired power plants belch more pollution into the already dirty air. See the more than 40 acres of mature, healthy green trees; they give life-sustaining oxygen back into the air. Human-focused urban planning nurtures trees; it doesnt destroy them wholesale.

The Purple Line is all about money and the greed of developers. Find a better way to do mass transit without ruining an urban environment. Shame on The Post for taking sides only with the developers, who so badly need to go back to the drawing board.

Mary Margaret Patterson, Chevy Chase

I was disappointed that the July 20 editorial supporting the Purple Line called U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon fuzzy-headed. Mr. Leon reasonably questioned the projected ridership numbers provided by the state.

The judiciary branch of our government is an essential part of our democratic system and deserves respect for the difficult job it does. To brand Mr. Leon fuzzy-headed because The Post disagrees with him seems remarkably close to labeling a news story as fake news if one disagrees with the content.

Mary Ann McNamar, Bethesda, Md.
Trump administration officials consistently point back to the Obama administrations failed Syria policy to justify their approach, which includes teaming up with Russia, accepting the continued rule of Bashar al-Assad and abandoning many of the rebels America supported for years.

But although the Trump team inherited a terrible hand in Syria, the way it is playing it repeats the same fundamental mistakes made by President Barack Obama  and it will likely have the same negative results for the Syrian conflict, as well as for American interests.

Last week at the Aspen Security Forum, CIA Director Mike Pompeo laid out what he sees as U.S. interests in Syria. He said the United States has two principal enemies there, the Islamic State and Iran. In addition to stopping Iran from establishing a zone of control that spans the region, the U.S. goal is providing the conditions to have a more stable Middle East to keep America safe.

President Trump has no choice but to work with Russia in Syria because Obama and then-Secretary of State John Kerry invited Putin into Syria in 2013 to work on a chemical weapons deal, according to Pompeo. But theres still no real evidence that Russia wants to fight terrorism there, he said.

We dont have the same set of interests in Syria as Russia, said Pompeo. What are the Russian goals in Syria? They love a warm-water naval port and they love to stick it to America.

Pompeo is right, but hes not in charge of U.S. Syria policy. That portfolio belongs to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who made completely contradictory remarks in Hamburg this month, right after he and Trump met with Putin to arrange a cease-fire in Syrias southwest.

Russia has the same, I think, interests that we do in having Syria become a stable place, a unified place, Tillerson said.

Tillersons top Middle East official, acting assistant secretary Stuart Jones, also spoke in Aspen and said the United States has effectively outsourced security in Syria to the Russians by having them police the cease-fire.

This is a real test of the Russians ability to lead this process, he said. The solution is to put this on the Russians and, if that fails, its a problem.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Thats almost the same exact formulation Kerry used when he was negotiating Syrian cease-fires with Russia in late 2015 and early 2016. Over and over, Kerry said Russias willingness to be a constructive partner in Syria must be tested. Over and over, Russia proudly failed that test by helping the Assad regime expand its control and continue its atrocities against civilians.

To be sure, Obama and Kerry made many mistakes. The U.S. effort to train and equip Syrian rebels was poorly executed and may have spurred the Russian military intervention in 2015. The Obama administration deprioritized the push to remove Assad after that and began working on cease-fires with Russia because that offered the best hope of stopping the slaughter.

Many argue that Trump has no choice but to continue that policy. As Jordans ambassador to Washington, Dina Kawar, said in Aspen, What is the alternative?

Perhaps there is none. But the Trump administration ought not to repeat Kerrys chief mistake, which was to negotiate with Russia without leverage. Thats why Trumps reported decision to cut off the CIA program to train and equip some Syrian rebel groups fighting Assad is so shortsighted. Trump is giving up what little leverage he has for nothing in return.

Trump also must not repeat the Obama administrations second mistake, which was to allow Assad and Iran to expand their areas of control. Jones said that the regime and its partners are using the cease-fire in southwest Syria to free up resources to advance in southeast Syria, where the fight for the strategic region around Deir al-Zour is underway.

The Trump administration seems fine with allowing Iran and Assad to take over another large part of Syria. But the Sunni Arabs who live there will not be. What are we going to do when these people coming back to their homes come under fire from Iranian militias? asked Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Lastly, Trump should increase support to local Sunni Arab communities, if not with weapons than with support for local governance, education and basic services. Empowering local leaders is a prerequisite for any kind of long-term stability, and it will be crucial if and when a political process emerges.

The Trump administration is not responsible for past American mistakes in Syria, but it is responsible for what the United States does now. Rather than simply blaming Obama and Kerry for the mess, this administration should learn the lessons of that failure.

Read more from Josh Rogins archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Theres a lingering impression in Washington that Iraqi Kurdistan is what it was five years ago, before the rise of the Islamic State: a peaceful, prospering, emerging pro-Western democracy whose aspirations for full independence from Iraq are increasingly hard to ignore.

Unfortunately, a great deal has changed since then, thanks to war, the U.S. retreat from the region and the Kurds own dysfunctions. As the Islamic State slowly crumbles to its south and west, Kurdistan is politically and economically broken. President Masoud Barzani remains in office four years after his term ended, and parliament has not met in almost two years. The government is deeply in debt and can scarcely afford to pay the three-quarters of the workforce who are state employees. The army and security services are divided into rival factions.

Barzanis reaction to this distress has been to schedule a referendum on Kurdish independence for Sept. 25. The initiative has been rejected not just by the Iraqi federal government, but also by Kurdistans powerful neighbors Iran and Turkey, as well as the United States. More significantly, it is being viewed even by staunchly pro-independence Kurds as evidence that the regions politics have reached a dangerous dead end.

The referendum is an excuse by Kurdish leaders to remain in power, says Shaswar Abdulwahid Qadir, the owner of Kurdistans independent NRT television network. The younger generation doesnt know anything about their fight in the mountains against Saddam Hussein. So the old leaders need another excuse to run the country for another 26 years.

Those bitter words reflect Qadirs perspective as one of a rising generation of Kurds  and Iraqis  struggling over how to create stable political institutions and a working economy amid the mess of sectarian conflicts, extremist movements and corrupt establishments littered across the post-Islamic State landscape. Their challenge, like it or not, is nation-building  and they desperately need U.S. help.

An independent television network is, at least, a place to start. While most Iraqi media are controlled by the government or political parties, Qadir is one of Kurdistans few self-made magnates: Born in the city of Sulaymaniyah, he started peddling electronic games as a teenager and became one of Kurdistans largest real estate developers before founding NRT in 2011, at the age of 32.

Launched under the slogan courage, balance, truth, the network saw its first office attacked and burned within a week of opening; Qadir blames militants from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the regions two historical political forces. Two years later he survived an assassination attempt. Kurdish authorities have closed NRTs offices and arrested its journalists on multiple occasions. Yet it has persisted and flourished: It now has two Kurdish channels, an Arabic channel covering all of Iraq, and an English-language website.

As Qadir sees it, Kurdistans focus should be on reconciling its feuding factions and building a viable foundation for the economy and a democratic political system, rather than grand gestures such as the independence referendum. We dont have an economy, he told me during a visit to Washington last week. We have one oil pipeline. We dont have a judicial system. We dont have a united army. We dont have a parliament.

A referendum, Qadir says, might prompt Turkey to shut down that pipeline, through which Kurdistan exports the relative trickle of petroleum that is its only reliable revenue. It also might cause the Turks and Iran to back opposing factions of the army, which is divided between the PUK and Barzanis Kurdistan Democratic Party, triggering a resumption of the civil war they fought in the 1990s.

What kind of Kurdistan would we have? Qadir asked. Would we have South Korea or South Sudan?

The right course, he says, is not a referendum but a free and fair election for a new parliament, something that is due by November but that, like the presidential vote, is likely to be postponed. Qadir freely admits his interest: If an election is held, he intends to form his own electoral list and make a bid to become prime minister. His aim is to mobilize Kurdistans post-Hussein generation, which has no recollection of the existential threat the Iraqi dictator once posed to the Kurdish nation, and which wants a pragmatic government that can provide still-missing basic services, such as reliable electricity.

One goal of Qadirs visit to Washington was to revive U.S. interest in promoting Kurdish democracy, which all but evaporated during the Obama administration. The United States didnt focus on those issues, and that undermined all that we accomplished since 2003, he said. Persuading the Trump administration to make Kurdish elections a priority is a tall order. Yet Congress might listen to Qadirs compelling point: The more we have free and fair elections, he says, the less chance we will get into instability and violence.

Read more from Jackson Diehls archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
On Thursday, we will lay my father, F. Bruce Olmstead, to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Our grief is compounded by our dismay at the articles we read in The Post about Russian connections to leadership in Washington. Throughout my fathers Air Force career, he and his colleagues worked to protect our country from foreign threats and interference in our democratic way of life, efforts largely focused on the Soviet Union. In 1960, he and five others were flying a mission off the northern coast of the Soviet Union when they were attacked over the Barents Sea. Two survivors, my father and navigator John McKone , were picked up by fishing boats and held and interrogated in Moscows notorious Lubyanka prison. My father suffered a broken back, consistent sleep deprivation, freezing temperatures, limited nutrition and no hope for release to his family and country. But, fortunately, he and McKone were released in early 1961.

After his 28-year career in military intelligence, my father took pride in the breakup of the Soviet Union, but he had no malice toward the people of the Soviet republics. He visited St. Petersburg with other retired U.S. military officers, and he and my mother hosted retired Soviet naval officers in their home in Annapolis in the late 1990s.

Given his imprisonment in Lubyanka and long military career, my father meant it when he said, Freedom isnt free. I cant imagine what he would make of the Russian interference in our presidential election, but I know he would want our leaders and each of us ordinary citizens to commit to defending American values and our democratic process.

Karen Busek, Salisbury, Md.
David Cole is national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Faiz Shakir is national political director of the ACLU.

The right to boycott has a long history in the United States, from the American Revolution to Martin Luther King Jr.s Montgomery bus boycott to the campaign for divestment from businesses serving apartheid South Africa. Nowadays we celebrate those efforts. But precisely because boycotts are such a powerful form of expression, governments have long sought to interfere with them  from King George III to the police in Alabama, and now to the U.S. Congress.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, legislation introduced in the Senate by Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and in the House by Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.), would make it a crime to support or even furnish information about a boycott directed at Israel or its businesses called by the United Nations, the European Union or any other international governmental organization. Violations would be punishable by civil and criminal penalties of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. The American Civil Liberties Union, where we both work, takes no position for or against campaigns to boycott Israel or any other foreign country. But since our organizations founding in 1920, the ACLU has defended the right to collective action. This bill threatens that right.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act is designed to stifle efforts to protest Israels settlement policies by boycotting businesses in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The bills particular target is the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, a global campaign that seeks to apply economic and political pressure on Israel to comply with international law.

Whether one approves or disapproves of the BDS movement itself, people should have a right to make up their own minds about it. Americans engage in boycotts every day when they decide not to buy from companies whose practices they oppose. Students have boycotted companies that sold clothing manufactured in sweatshops abroad. Environmentalists have boycotted Nestle for its deforestation practices. By using their power in the marketplace, consumers can act collectively to express their political points of view. There is nothing illegal about such collective action; indeed, it is constitutionally protected.

In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the Supreme Court in 1982 upheld the right of NAACP activists to hold a mass economic boycott of segregated businesses in Mississippi. The court stated that the boycotters exercise of their rights to speech, assembly, and petition . . . to change a social order that had consistently treated them as second-class citizens rested on the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.

This is not to say that all boycotters are automatically free speech heroes; indeed, BDS advocates have themselves at times shut down Israeli academics or speakers to the detriment of academic freedom. Thus, its understandable that free speech advocates might not immediately identify BDS supporters as victims of censorship. But when government takes sides on a particular boycott and criminalizes those who engage in a boycott, it crosses a constitutional line.

Cardin and other supporters argue that the Israel Anti-Boycott Act targets only commercial activity. In fact, the bill threatens severe penalties against any business or individual who does not purchase goods from Israeli companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories and who makes it clear  say by posting on Twitter or Facebook  that their reason for doing so is to support a U.N.- or E.U.-called boycott. That kind of penalty does not target commercial trade; it targets free speech and political beliefs. Indeed, the bill would prohibit even the act of giving information to a U.N. body about boycott activity directed at Israel.

The bills chilling effect would be dramatic  and that is no doubt its very purpose. But individuals, not the government, should have the right to decide whether to support boycotts against practices they oppose. Neither individuals nor businesses should have to fear million-dollar penalties, years in prison and felony convictions for expressing their opinions through collective action. As an organization, we take no sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But regardless of the politics, we have and always will take a strong stand when government threatens our freedoms of speech and association. The First Amendment demands no less.
Regarding the July 19 Style article Rutter is a rainmaker, but some see clouds:

I have worked closely with Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter and found her vision for the orchestra, the Kennedy Center and the role of the board and symphony administration inspiring.

The orchestra board delegated the process for selecting its new music director to a search committee composed of musicians, board members, orchestra management and Ms. Rutter. The committee unanimously recommended, and Ms. Rutter enthusiastically supported, the selection of Gianandrea Noseda.

With Mr. Noseda, the orchestra is on the brink of an exciting new era and we are fortunate to attract his level of talent to our stage. Without Ms. Rutters vision, support and encouragement, the orchestra would certainly not be where it is now. She has the boards full confidence for leading this iconic center into the future.

Jeanne Weaver Ruesch, Chevy Chase

The writer is the chair of the Board of Directors

of the National Symphony Orchestra.


Afghan commandos man a checkpoint in Afghanistans Momand Valley. The building was captured from the Islamic State in Khorasan, which used it as a prison and court. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

A recurring rumble of explosions echoes off the barren, boulder-strewn slopes of the Spin Ghar mountains, each ordnance aimed wishfully at redoubts where Islamic State militants are suspected of hiding. Afghan and U.S. special forces listen in on enemy chatter, intercepting dozens of their radio channels. American AC-130 gunships and F-16 fighter jets whir in circles overhead, at low altitude, waiting for strike orders. Soldiers on the ground man the mortars.

The operation against the Islamic State in Khorasan  or ISIS-K, as the Syria-based groups Afghan contingent is known  is now into its fourth month of unremitting warfare. The U.S. military has pledged to annihilate the group by years end, and the redoubled assault has contributed to a spike in U.S. airstrikes to levels not seen in Afghanistan since President Barack Obamas troop surge in 2012. One in five of those strikes is against ISIS-K, despite it controlling only slivers of mountainous territory.





The battle is lopsided, but each day the front line here in Achin district moves back only slightly. Both local intelligence officials and the U.S. military believe that ISIS-K is replenishing its stock of fighters almost as quickly as it loses them. A sense that this may be an indefinite mission has set in.

Soon after its founding in 2014, ISIS-K descended into this district and established it as its stronghold. Entire villages emptied as word of the groups mercilessness spread. Fighters infamously strapped defiant local clerics to explosives and filmed their detonations. For nearly three years, ISIS-K held firm not just in the Spin Ghars but in the vacated villages in the fertile valley beneath them.

[Two Americans killed battling ISIS in Syria]

In April, the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb, a MOAB  nicknamed the mother of all bombs  on a cave complex in one of Achins valleys, known as the Momand. It is unclear how many fighters, if any, were killed. The MOAB  which felt so forceful that every ant in the valley mustve died, said one villager  was followed by weeks of airstrikes on compounds that ISIS-K fighters had held for two years.



Children make their way home through a violent storm in Afghanistans Nangahar Province. They and their mother, a woman named Shaguftar, fled their home in another district of Nangahar after their father, Mohammad Karim, a chef working for the Afghan government, was killed by fighters from ISIS-K a year ago. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

On a recent trip up the valley, the bodies of at least four were still there, lying in abandoned fields overgrown with wild cannabis. The corpses were mostly just bones after months in the sun.

Over the past three years, ISIS-K has succeeded in carrying out ghastly attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But as Islamic State territory in Iraq and Syria is whittled away, coalition forces here are worried that Afghanistans notoriously ungovernable eastern provinces could become a safe haven for fleeing fighters and a new staging ground for attacks on the West.

We believe that ISIS-K is not currently able to launch attacks because they are essentially being hunted, said Capt. William Salvin, spokesman for the U.S. military here. But he did not refute the assessment of a local Afghan intelligence officer in Achin, who spoke on a condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media: In terms of numbers, ISIS-K has not been severely reduced. The battle is looking more like one of attrition.

[Head of ISIS in Afghanistan killed in drone strike, U.S. officials say]

While the Pentagon maintains that ISIS-K is down to about 1,000 fighters across Afghanistan, from a high of 2,500 in 2015, the Afghan intelligence officer surmised that there were more than 1,000 in Achin district alone.



Inside the former ISIS-K building in the Momand Valley that is now a government checkpoint, an Afghan commando holds a bayonet he says belonged a rebel fighter. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

The fierce conflict also is scattering fighters across a wider swath of the mountainous east, ensuring a longer, more dispersed mission. Last week, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. drone strike killed Abu Sayed, ISIS-Ks leader, or emir. That took place in neighboring Konar province, indicating that the fighting has spread at least that far.

Most of ISIS-Ks fighters are thought to be Pashtuns, with few, if any, coming from Iraq and Syria. According to Salvin, the United States sees ISIS-K as more of an authorized franchise of ISIS-main than the Islamic States operation in Libya, which is more closely tied to the fighting in the Middle East. Instead, Afghan analysts say, ISIS-K derives much of its support from Pakistans military establishment.

In Nangahar, it is Pakistans game, said Davood Moradian, director of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, referring to the province in which Achin is located. Pakistan has launched its own military operation against Islamist militants on its side of the Spin Ghar range, but Moradian was skeptical that they shared the goal of the groups elimination.

Pakistans military operation against Daesh  an alternate name for the Islamic State  is more of a disciplinary mission: Stop your internal disagreements and concentrate on the target weve agreed upon, namely, the Afghan state, he said.

Pakistan has always denied playing a destabilizing role in Afghanistan, but its neighbors ongoing instability has proved hugely lucrative for Pakistans military, which has ruled the country for almost half its 70-year existence. George W. Bushs and Barack Obamas administrations gave the Pakistanis a combined $33.4 billion in aid, and there is little evidence their support for Afghan militants has stopped.

Members of the U.S. Congress have been calling for years for a drastic reduction or elimination of security assistance to Pakistan, as well as ending its status as a major non-NATO ally  or even designating it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

[U.S. poised to expand military effort against Taliban in Afghanistan]

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said that the Trump administrations new Afghanistan strategy, expected this month, will have a regional component, but it is unclear if that means a curtailment of U.S. aid to Pakistan. In fact, a hostile Pakistan might well pose a greater threat to the U.S. mission here.

Even so, exasperation toward Pakistan runs high here.

That people are even asking the question Should the U.S. stop giving money to Pakistan? shows the silliness of the discourse in Washington, said Moradian. It is like asking if we should stop giving heroin to an addict. Of course. It is the very first thing you must do. Otherwise, you will keep fighting permutations of the same adversary here for eternity.

During a recent meeting of his full national security team, President Trump reportedly focused on Pakistans role in harboring Islamist militants, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster pressed for a more punitive approach.



Shaguftars children play with neighbors  also from families displaced by conflict  in the yard of their simple house in Surkh Rod district of Nangahar Province. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

Among the Momand Valleys former residents, the belief that Pakistan wants to destroy Afghanistan is near universal. People eagerly share conspiratorial evidence of Pakistans hand in their calamity. Daesh leaders all speak Punjabi, one of Pakistans main languages; their long hair and beards are just wigs supplied by the Pakistani government; one man said that he had seen fighters swimming in the Momand River, and one had a big Pakistani flag tattooed on his biceps.

Many of these peoples homes were destroyed by U.S. airstrikes because they were suspected of being used by ISIS-K as hideouts. Most shops in Shadal Bazaar, the valleys main market, were reduced to rubble, too, although the fighting is now far enough into the mountains that some butchers and barbers have dared to rebuild.

[The Islamic State has tunnels everywhere. Its making ISIS much harder to defeat.]

Yet the Momand Valley possesses a mesmerizing beauty that makes those who fled yearn to return. If they do, they will find the evidence of ISIS-Ks presence not just in their ruined homes but in the few that were left standing. ISIS-K converted Kitab Guls home into a prison, for instance, and the disturbingly small cages in which they locked those accused of petty crimes such as smoking cigarettes are still lying about. The Afghan army has requisitioned Guls home as a lookout post.



Mir Jamar and his family are living in an abandoned hotel since fleeing their village in Afghanistans Achin district. He says his brother and father, who stayed behind to protect their home, were tortured by ISIS-K. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

Despite the U.S. bombing of their homes, and despite U.S. support for Pakistan, locals were largely positive about the campaign to annihilate ISIS-K.

They are not Muslim. Their only religion is cruelty, and there is nothing crueler than what they have done to us, said Mir Jamal, a proud but exhausted father of nine who has spent two years loading trucks for meager sums since escaping his village with nothing but the clothes on his back. When fighters swept into the valley, Jamals brother and elderly father stayed behind to protect their home. They were caught. His brothers forearm was burned with embers from a fire, and he was waterboarded. His father was pitilessly beaten and now barely speaks.

My father had red cheeks. He prayed five times a day. He had a big chest, and he farmed late into his life, said Jamal, fighting back emotion. How can we ever accept Daesh?

Read more

Five families slipped away from southern India, moving to ISIS territory in Afghanistan

Some in Afghanistan question U.S. choice to use 22,000-pound bomb against ISIS

National security adviser goes to Kabul for talks days after U.S. dropped massive bomb on ISIS forces

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
A rescue worker and others at the crime scene after a suicide blast in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday. (Mohsin Raza/Reuters)

At least 26 people were killed and dozens injured in a suicide attack Monday in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, officials said.

The blast occurred near a vegetable market and a software technology park on the citys busy Ferozepur Road, close to the residence of Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and chief minister of Punjab state, of which Lahore is the capital.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan , the countrys main branch of the Taliban, asserted responsibility for the attack in an email, saying that one of its soldiers had used an explosives-laden motorcycle.

A senior police official in Lahore, Haider Ashraf, confirmed the claim and told journalists that a suicide bomber appeared to target police personnel taking part in a drive to clear street vendors from the market area.

Earlier, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told journalists in Islamabad, the capital, that the nature of the attack was not yet clear and that an investigation was being launched.

Most of the casualties and those injured are police personnel, he said.

Punjabs health minister, Khawaja Salman Rafique, said that about 50 people were injured in the blast.

Suicide attacks have long been common in Pakistan, but in recent months Lahore and other major urban centers have experienced a period of relative peace. Before Mondays explosion, the last such attack in Lahore was a suicide bombing targeting an army census team in April in which six were killed.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and a splinter group, Jamaat ul-Ahrar, are the most active anti-government militant groups in the country. Both are known colloquially as the Pakistani Taliban.

The Taliban in Afghanistan claimed to have carried out a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital, Kabul, early Monday that killed 24 people, mostly government workers.

Prime Minister Sharif condemned the attack in Lahore in a statement issued by his office and urged that the injured be given the best possible medical treatment.

Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Read more:

Trump administration abruptly shutters diplomatic office on Pakistan and Afghanistan policy

A much-feared Taliban offshoot returns from the dead

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
President Emmanuel Macron last week promised clarity on the death of Sarah Halimi. But critics complain of societal doublespeak. (Pool photo by Kamil Zihnioglu/European Pressphoto Agency)

What happened to Sarah Halimi resembles the plot of a horror film.

In the early hours of April 4, the 65-year-old retired doctor and schoolteacher, an Orthodox Jew, was asleep in the modest apartment in northeastern Paris where she lived alone. Shortly after 4 a.m., a neighbor from the floor below, 27-year-old Kobili Traore, a Franco-Malian Muslim, is accused of having broken into her flat. Traore allegedly beat her to death and hurled her body off the balcony into the courtyard below.

In the days that followed, French authorities treated Halimis killing as an isolated incident. But Jewish leaders immediately protested, especially after other neighbors testified that they heard Traore scream Allahu akbar, Arabic for God is great, while allegedly attacking Halimi, who was the only Jew residing in the building, her family said. Ever since, the Halimi Affair has simmered on the margins of public discourse, boiling over last week when President Emmanuel Macron promised  after months of saying nothing  clarity on the death of Sarah Halimi.

In a country that has suffered a devastating slew of attacks in recent years, that clarity now means far more than the gruesome details of one particular case. At stake is a set of profound questions, as political as they are existential. What makes an act of violence a terrorist attack? And who decides what is terrorism and what is merely murder?

[Macron hosts Netanyahu, condemns anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism]

Strictly speaking, French law classifies as terrorism any grave act of violence whose individual or collective intent is to seriously disturb public order through intimidation or terror.

Legally, it is Frances chief public prosecutor for Paris who decides whether to launch a terrorism investigation. In the Halimi case, Francois Molins, who occupies that position, declined to consider it as terrorism  and, initially, as an act of anti-Semitic violence.

The decision sent shock waves through the French Jewish community, Europes largest. For many, it evinces a political calculus that weighs certain attacks over others.

Its purely and simply ideological, said Gilles-William Goldnadel, an attorney for the Halimi family and a well-known conservative commentator for Frances Le Figaro newspaper. Of Traore, Goldnadel added: He had the profile of a radical Islamist, and yet somehow there is a resistance to call a spade a spade.

In general, the definition of the term radical Islamist remains a major debate in France.

In this case, neighbors testified that they heard Traore recite verses from the Koran in Halimis apartment. Then, in early June, Liberation, a French newspaper, gained access to the police dossier on Traore, which suggested he had a record of petty crime and violent tendencies almost identical to those that have characterized the profiles of other terrorist suspects.

On a different level, other small-scale incidents  even ones that experts see as comparably minor  have instantly been classified as terrorism. In June, for instance, a man attacked police officers near Notre Dame cathedral in Paris with a hammer. Whereas Traore is believed to have yelled Allahu akbar, the assailant in this earlier case yelled, This is for Syria! In any case, the Notre Dame incident  in which no one was killed  was considered terrorism.

So was the killing of a police officer on the Champs Elysees on the eve of the French election in late April, as well as an attempted shooting at Pariss Orly Airport in March. But not the slaying of Sarah Halimi.

The office of Francois Molins did not return a request for comment.

The difference, for some security analysts, is that these other cases were all defined by some discernible motivation of public disturbance, targeting as they did busy thoroughfares and transit hubs.

The simple fact that someone killed someone else because of confession or religion is not enough, said Jean-Charles Brisard, director of the French Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, a Paris-based think tank. It needs to have a certain degree of willingness to disrupt the French public order.

For Sarah Halimis family, however, that she was thrown off a balcony into a public space presented a dark spectacle meant to be seen  and to pose a clear threat to other Jews. In an interview, Halimis brother, William Attal, 62, said that the familys principal objective was securing public recognition of the anti-Semitism that, in their eyes, killed their mother, sister and grandmother.

As Attal put it: I want you to understand that the fight of this family is that people recognize the Islamist, anti-Semitic nature of the assassin, who massacred and killed a Jewish woman, whom he knew was a Jew and whom he knew was alone.

In the French Jewish community, the Halimi Affair provides what many consider yet another example of the French state refusing to acknowledge the realities of contemporary anti-Semitism in France.

[Black Lives Matter movement comes to France. But will it translate?]

For many, this affair harks back to another Halimi Affair, from 2006, when Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old cellphone salesman who had no relation to Sarah Halimi, was abducted and murdered by the Gang of Barbarians, a gang of immigrant criminals from the Paris suburbs. They had targeted their victim merely because he was Jewish, which French authorities initially refused to recognize.

These ostrich politics must stop, and our leaders must become aware of what is happening in the country, read a recent letter signed by 17 prominent French intellectuals in the aftermath of the latest Halimi Affair.

Its always the same story in France, journalist and public intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy, another advocate of Halimi and her family, said in an interview. Anti-Semitism is not supposed to exist, especially among minority communities.

On the whole, the recent and widely publicized uptick in Jews leaving France for Israel has slowed, and the number of reported anti-

Semitic acts decreased by nearly 59 percent in 2016, according to the French Interior Ministry.

In general, the wave of terrorist violence that has struck this country in the past two years has not singled out Jews as targets. But scattered instances of anti-Semitic violence have continued to be reported, with victims often identifying their assailants as North African or West African.

France is also home to one of Europes largest Muslim populations, a group that is repeatedly criticized across the political spectrum, particularly by the staunchly anti-immigrant National Front. Anti-Muslim violence also has become a reality of modern French life. So as not to channel that rhetoric and to condone that violence, many elected officials are loath to accuse the entirety of a diverse and sprawling community of a blanket charge as severe as anti-Semitism, analysts say.

It comes from a very good, honorable place of not wanting to overgeneralize, but sometimes it can go too far, said Ethan Katz, the author of an acclaimed book on the history of Jewish-Muslim relations in France and a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati.

Whats a fair critique is that mainstream politicians have not figured out a genuine way to address, aside from security measures, the legitimate problem of anti-

Semitism in France today  including in certain areas of Frances Muslim population.

This, for her family and many others, is the tragedy of the Halimi Affair: the effacement of an anti-Semitism that remains a real threat, especially in tense urban areas. In the words of Goldnadel, the lawyer: Without naming it, there is no chance to escape this sickness.

Read more

Thank you, dear Donald: Why Macron invited Trump to France

Trump and Macron, once cast as adversaries, show they have much in common

Two deaths in Europe point to the rebirth of E.U. optimism

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
The president of Poland wielded his veto power on Monday to pull the nation back from further undermining the independence of its judiciary, rejecting two measures that European officials  and tens of thousands of protesters  have condemned as a danger to democracy and the rule of law.

The decision of the president, Andrzej Duda, opened an unexpected new chapter in a debate that has riven Poland, once a model of post-communist democracy in Eastern Europe.

His morning announcement came as a surprise, and a setback, for the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party, which came to power in 2015.

Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said the presidents decision was incomprehensible.

But Lech Walesa, a former leader of Solidarity who won the Nobel Peace Prize and went on to serve as Polands first president after the downfall of communism in 1989, called the surprising veto difficult and brave.

People gather in front of the presidential palace on Monday during a protest against the Supreme Court legislation in Warsaw. (Reuters)

The leader of the Law and Justice party, and the architect of efforts to bring the judiciary to heel, is Jaroslaw Kaczynski, 68. He had chosen Duda, 45, to run for president in 2015. Before that, his late brother, Lech Kaczynski, had mentored the younger man, at one point calling him his son. The relationship led many to believe that Duda would fall in line, as he had done previously at crucial moments when the populist party had moved against Polands independent institutions.

But Duda, who is trained as a lawyer, was apparently troubled by aspects of the legislation, and faced fierce domestic and international pressure to resist Law and Justice. He said he would rewrite the legislation over the next two months, in consultation with judges and nongovernmental groups.

Poland needs a reform, but a wise one, Duda said at a morning news conference, adding that he made his decision after conversations with lawyers and politicians but also sociologists and philosophers. I am aware I will be criticized, probably by both sides of the political scene, but I make my decision with great responsibility for the Polish state.

Later Monday, in an address from the presidential palace, he said the judiciary must remain independent but pledged reform. Without changes, he said, there is no way to build a just state.

One of the measures he quashed, which had cleared Parliament just two days earlier, would have removed all current justices of the Supreme Court except those handpicked by the governing partys justice minister. The other would have given lawmakers authority over appointments to the National Council of the Judiciary, currently an independent body that names judges to the nations courts. Duda let stand a measure that gives the justice minister more control over local courts.

To override the presidents veto, Law and Justice, which has only a slim majority in Parliament, would need to muster the support of 60 percent of lawmakers, making such a move unlikely.

Party members huddled Monday at their headquarters to chart a path forward. In an evening address, Szydlo said that instead of meeting with lawyers, the president should listen to the voices of ordinary Poles.

Duda gave several reasons for his veto, saying that he had not been properly consulted and that such drastic changes had not been part of Law and Justices election platform. He also said the restructuring handed too much power to the justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, who also serves as the governments prosecutor.

We dont have a tradition that the general prosecutor can interfere in the Supreme Courts work, Duda said.

His thinking, he said, had been informed by talks with Zofia Romaszewska, who was active in Solidarity, the Polish labor union that helped bring down communism across Europe. He said she told him, Mr. President, I have lived in a country in which the general prosecutor could do anything, and I would not come back to it.

Bolek Matuszewski, a private attorney in Warsaw, said the presidents feeling that he was left out of the process was compounded by the fact that the changes increased the authority of the justice minister at the expense of his own. There were also plainly unconstitutional elements, Matuszewski said.

Opposition leaders hailed Dudas stand but said he did not go far enough in turning back Law and Justices efforts to paralyze the courts. The presidents veto was the last hope for opponents of the changes, as the Constitutional Tribunal, the body with the authority to invalidate the legislation, has already been remade to reflect government interests.

It is a step in the right direction and recognition for the protesters, said Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a leading member of the Modern party. Now we need consultation and negotiations, not this hasty legislative process.

Walesa called on Poles to continue demonstrating against the third measure.

Duda was pulled in opposite directions. As activist groups threatened to intensify their protest if he did not also veto the third measure, the president met with top Law and Justice officials, including the prime minister. But his spokesman said he would not change his mind.

The Supreme Courts chief judge, Malgorzata Gersdorf, who also met Monday with Duda, said afterward that she was ready to cooperate in drafting changes to the judiciary.

Without a doubt, the judiciary requires reform, Gersdorf said in an interview Friday, citing the need to steer more litigants to arbitration. But there was no evidence, she maintained, of systematic corruption, the charge leveled by Law and Justice. The voters who have been convinced otherwise, she said, are those who have not seen their lives improve since the fall of communism in 1989.

The philosophy of social attention that inspired Solidarity fizzled, she said.

At the same time, she said, mass demonstrations made clear that many people continue to hold the courts in high regard. Polling showed that a majority of the country wanted Duda to reject all three bills.

Popular opposition to the legislation was amplified by warnings from Brussels, where European leaders pushed hard against what they said was a threat to the rule of law in a nation once held up as a post-communist success story. Poland joined the bloc in 2004, part of the expansion that included much of Eastern Europe.

Perhaps even more significant was the warning that came from the United States, said Bartosz Weglarczyk, director of Onet.pl, a major Polish news portal. Two weeks after President Trump visited Warsaw and extolled the governments nationalist leaders, without mentioning the judicial overhaul, the State Department said Friday that it was concerned about the rule of law in Poland.

That was probably one of the key elements of the pressure, said Weglarczyk. But it all came together over the weekend  the demonstrations, the calls by politicians and judges, the demands from universities, the international pressure. Truthfully, Ive never seen a Polish politician under such huge pressure.

Stanley-Becker reported from Berlin. Magdalena Foremska in Warsaw contributed to this report.

Read more:

Polands long march toward democracy is threatened by quick steps away from it

It only took two years for a robust European democracy to fall apart

Led by populist party, Polish Parliament moves to strip Supreme Court of independence

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
In a major reversal, Israeli security forces began removing controversial metal detectors early Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered placed at the entrances to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalems Old City.

The metal detectors angered Palestinians, who said the devices were not installed for their safety, but to increase Israels control over access to the mosque.

Netanyahu and his supporters said the metal scanners were needed after three Arab Israeli gunmen smuggled homemade machine guns into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound on July 14, then shot and killed two Israeli policemen at the site, which both Muslims and Jews regard as holy.

The removal of the devices appears to have been part of a deal struck between Netanyahu and Jordans King Abdullah II, who oversees the administration of the holy site as part of an agreement dating back to 1967.

In a telephone call on Monday, the king urged Netanyahu to remove the cause of the current crisis, according to Jordans official news service.





The unilateral decision by Netanyahu to set up the metal detectors had upset the Jordan monarch, the official custodian of the Jerusalem mosque, and sparked a surge of deadly violence and protests in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Amman, Jordans capital.

[Israeli troops deploy across East Jerusalem and West Bank after violence over holy site]

The removal of the metal detectors began just a few hours after Israel and Jordan managed to end a diplomatic showdown.

On Sunday, a Jordanian workman of Palestinian descent used a screwdriver to stab and wound an Israeli security guard at the Israeli Embassy compound in Amman. The guard shot and killed the assailant and killed another Jordanian, reportedly an innocent bystander.

Fearing violence against its diplomats, Israel sought to have its embassy staff, including the guard, quickly leave Amman and return to Israel.

Jordan balked and initially blocked their departure, insisting that the guard first be interrogated about the killing. Israel claimed diplomatic immunity on his behalf.

Late Monday night, the Israeli diplomats and embassy staff, including the guard, were allowed to return to Israel.

The prime ministers office denied that Jordan had demanded the detectors be removed as a condition of allowing the embassy staff to leave Amman for Israel.

Even so, hours after the embassy staffs safe return, Israels security cabinet decided to remove the metal detectors and buttress security at the entrances to the mosque compound with high-tech cameras.

The decision by Israel to remove the scanners represents a win for the Palestinians, who had vowed not to pass through the detectors. Instead, Muslim worshippers gathered at Israeli police barricades and prayed outside.

The Palestinians say that their fury  manifested in mass protests and the killing of three Israelis at a Jewish settlement on Friday  is driven by fear that their sacred mosque is under threat.

For their part, many Israelis scoff at that kind of talk. They say the metal detectors were a normal, everyday security tool and that opposition to their use was just an excuse to incite violence against Israel.

Many Israelis and their leaders said that the root cause of the recent violence has little to do with metal detectors and is about Palestinian hatred for Israel and rejection of the very idea of a Jewish state.

[Abbas to freeze contact with Israel until metal detectors at al-Aqsa Mosque are removed]

The Palestinian U.N. ambassador, Riyad Mansour, warned on Monday that Palestinians will stay in the streets until the metal detectors and any other obstacles are removed, the Associated Press reported.

The United Nations Mideast envoy, Nikolay Mladenov, told reporters in New York that the dangers on the ground will escalate if Israels metal detectors are still in place for Muslim prayers on Friday.

The U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors Monday to discuss the violence in Jerusalem and Jordan and planned a second, open session on Tuesday.

We are calling on all parties to refrain from any act or statement that could exacerbate tensions and to work toward easing the situation, Frances U.N. ambassador, Francois Delattre, told reporters.

The site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, has been the scene of frequent clashes.

Following Palestinian protests, Jordan in 2016 abandoned a plan to install security cameras at the site and make the footage instantaneously available to Israeli and Jordanian security teams.

Seeking to help ease the soaring tensions, the Trump administration dispatched presidential envoy Jason D. Greenblatt to the region Sunday night, after a weekend of diplomatic outreach that involved telephone calls from Greenblatt, White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and the U.S. ambassador in Israel, David Friedman.

A senior administration official said Greenblatt met Monday with Netanyahu and then flew to Jordan.

Greenblatts visit is open-ended, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the behind-the-scenes U.S. engagement.

Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more:

On first trip as envoy, Kushner wades into the Israel and Palestinian conflict

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Jared Kushner, President Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law, spent two hours Monday answering questions from Senate investigators about his contacts with Russian officials, as the various probes into Russian interference during the 2016 campaign entered a new phase involving some of those closest to Trump.

After his closed-door questioning, Kushner spoke briefly to reporters outside the White House.

Let me be very clear: I did not collude with Russia, nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so, he said. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses, and I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information.

Since the first questions were raised in March, I have been consistent in saying I was eager to share whatever information I have with investigating bodies, and I have done so today, he said. All of my actions were proper.

Legal experts expect that all of Kushners answers to the Senate Intelligence Committee will be shared with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is conducting a separate investigation of potential criminal activity surrounding Russian meddling and key figures in the Trump campaign.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, center, accompanied by his attorney, Abbe Lowell, right, arrives on Capitol Hill on July 24. (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president was very proud of Jared for voluntarily going to the Hill and being very transparent with every interaction that hes had. He thought Jared did a great job and was very glad that he was able to go through that process and lay everything out and I think show the members of that committee as well as everybody else what a witch hunt and hoax this whole thing is.

Kushner dismissed outright the notion that Russia could be responsible for his father-in-laws election victory. Donald Trump had a better message and ran a smarter campaign, and that is why he won. Suggesting otherwise ridicules those who voted for him, he said.

Kushners appearance Monday will be followed by further questioning Tuesday  again, behind closed doors  before the House Intelligence Committee, which is also probing Russian election-year meddling.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the Russian government orchestrated a far-reaching campaign to disrupt last years presidential campaign and influence the outcome in Trumps favor. A major question for the current investigations is whether any Trump associates acted to help or advise the Russian effort.

Kushner and the White House used the grilling to offer their most detailed refutation  in the form of an 11-page written statement  of the idea that anyone in the campaign sought to coordinate with people acting on behalf of the Russian government.

Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest, Kushner wrote.

Kushners statement detailed four meetings he had with Russian officials or nationals during the 2016 campaign and transition period. He described them as brief and unremarkable contacts in his role as the Trump campaigns liaison to foreign governments.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

[Read Kushners prepared statement]

Kushner wrote that his first meeting with a Russian official was in April 2016 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where Trump delivered a major foreign policy speech, the execution of which Kushner said he oversaw. Kushner wrote that he attended a reception to thank the events host, Dimitri Simes, publisher of the National Interest, a foreign policy magazine. Simes introduced Kushner to four ambassadors at the reception, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Kushner said.

With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trumps speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to Americas foreign policy, he wrote. The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.

Kushner did not name the other three ambassadors he met at the reception, and he denied having had any other contact with Kislyak during the campaign, disputing a report by Reuters that he had two phone calls with the ambassador.

While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador, Kushner wrote. We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place.

In fact, he said that on Nov. 9, the day after the election, when the campaign received a congratulatory note from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kushner tried to verify it was real and could not remember Kislyaks name. So I sent an email asking Mr. Simes, What is the name of the Russian ambassador?  Kushner wrote.

Kushner also described attending a June 2016 meeting organized by his brother-in-law Donald Trump Jr. with a Russian attorney. He said it was listed on his calendar as Meeting: Don Jr. | Jared Kushner. He wrote that he arrived at the meeting late, and that when he got there the Russian lawyer was talking about a ban on adoption of Russian children by Americans.

I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting, Kushner wrote. Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for 10 or so minutes and wrote, Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting. 

Kushner also detailed two interactions with Russian officials during the transition period, before Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20. The first, on Dec. 1, was a meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower in New York. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who would become the presidents national security adviser, also attended.

I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations, Kushner wrote. Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President. The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day.

Kushner wrote that Kislyak addressed U.S. policy in Syria and wanted to convey information from what he called his generals.  But Kislyak said they could not come to the United States and asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation.

Kushner said that he or Flynn explained there were no such lines, and that Kushner asked Kislyak if the Russians had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn. He wrote that Kislyak said that would not be possible, and they agreed to wait until after the inauguration to receive the information.

The Washington Post first reported in May on Kushner and Kislyaks discussions about establishing a secret means of communication, although Kushner suggested in his testimony that the channel would have been for the purpose of this one meeting.

I did not suggest a secret back channel,  he wrote. I did not suggest an ongoing secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period.

The second transition-period meeting Kushner said he had with Russians was on Dec. 13, when, at the urging of Kislyak, he met with Sergey Gorkov, a banker with a direct line to Putin.

On Dec. 6, the Russian Embassy asked Kushner to meet with Kislyak on Dec. 7, and Kushner declined, he wrote. The Russians asked if he could meet on Dec. 6, and Kushner declined again, he wrote. Kislyak then requested a meeting with Kushners assistant  and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed, Kushner wrote.

Kislyak and Kushners assistant, whom Kushner did not name, met on Dec. 12, and Kislyak requested that Kushner meet with Gorkov, who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together.

Kushner agreed to meet Gorkov, making room in his schedule for him the next day. Their meeting lasted 20 to 25 minutes, Kushner wrote, and Gorkov presented two gifts  a piece of art from Nvogorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and a bag of dirt from there. Kushner gave the gifts to his assistant and asked him to formally register them with the transition office.

During the meeting, Kushner wrote, Gorkov told him about his bank and discussed the Russian economy, expressing disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future. Kushner wrote that no specific policies were discussed, including sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

Ashley Parker contributed to this report.
President Trump and his advisers are privately discussing the possibility of replacing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and some confidants are floating prospects who could take his place were he to resign or be fired, according to people familiar with the talks.

Members of Trumps circle, including White House officials, have increasingly raised the question among themselves in recent days as the president has continued to vent his frustration with the attorney general, the people said.

Replacing Sessions is viewed by some Trump associates as potentially being part of a strategy to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and end his investigation of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

On Tuesday, Trump renewed his attack on Sessions, accusing him on Twitter of taking a VERY weak position on alleged crimes by Hillary Clinton and intelligence leakers.

The president had taken another swipe at Sessions on Monday, calling his attorney general our beleaguered A.G. and asking why Sessions was not looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Both points are notable. Sessions was once considered one of Trumps closest advisers and enjoyed access few others had. Now he is left to endure regular public criticism by his boss.

Trumps suggestion, too, that his top law enforcement official investigate a former political rival is astounding, and even his allies have said in the past that such a move would be unheard of in the United States. Trump, after the election, had backed away from the idea of possibly prosecuting Hillary Clinton.

Sessionss tight relationship with Trump and the White House has unraveled since he recused himself in March from the Russia probe. The president had privately complained about that decision for weeks, and in an interview with the New York Times last week he said he would not have appointed Sessions as attorney general had he known that Sessions would do such a thing.

[Sessions says he plans to stay in role, despite Trumps comments about him]

After Sessions recused himself, he passed on the responsibility to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who then appointed Mueller as special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation .

Trump could order Rosenstein  and then Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand  to fire Mueller. If they quit instead of doing so, he could appoint an acting attorney general who would. Trump could also appoint an acting attorney general with them in place  effectively passing over Rosenstein and Brand  and order that person to remove the special counsel.

Trumps authority to jump Rosenstein and Brand, though, is murky. The Justice Department has issued opinions in the past saying that such a move is and isnt permissible. And his pick for an acting attorney general would have to have Senate confirmation and be serving elsewhere in the government or have worked in the Justice Department for 90 days within the past 365 and be at a certain senior pay level.

(The Washington Post)

[Column: Trump or Congress can still block Mueller. I know. I wrote the rules.]

Another scenario is that Trump could make a recess appointment, said Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Under that plan, Trump could choose an attorney general during the August recess who would serve until the end of the next Senate session, which would run to Jan. 3, 2019. That person would have the same authority as someone who is confirmed by the Senate, Vladeck said.

Among the names being floated as possible Sessions replacements are Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Giuliani dismissed a report mentioning his name as a possible attorney general and told CNN that Sessions made the right decision under the rules of the Justice Department to recuse himself. He did not return a message seeking comment.

In a statement released late Monday, Cruz said he is deeply gratified that we have a principled conservative like Jeff Sessions serving as Attorney General. The stories being reported in the media tonight are false. My focus is and will remain on fighting every day to defend 28 million Texans in the U.S. Senate.

Some Trump advisers said that this process could be agonizing for the attorney general, with the presidents anger flaring but no decision being reached for weeks or maybe months, leaving Sessions isolated from the White House. Sessions was at the White House complex on Monday for a routine meeting but did not meet with the president.

But not all in Trumps orbit share the view that Sessionss days are numbered.

Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, told CNN on Monday afternoon that Trump and Sessions need to sit down face-to-face and have a reconciliation and a discussion of the future.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a vigorous Trump ally, said in an interview that he and Trump had talked about Sessions and that Trump had indicated he was very unhappy both with the recusal and the fact that Jeff didnt talk to him beforehand. But Gingrich said he would strongly oppose the firing of Sessions, because I think his base likes Sessions.

His base thinks that on things like [violent street gangs] and sanctuary cities that Sessions is doing a fine job, and I think his base would be confused, Gingrich said.

Gingrich also said he believed Sessions could survive the presidents criticisms.

He said hes beleaguered, not failed, and he is a little beleaguered, Gingrich said. This whole thing has been a mess.

Trump, though, continues to let Sessions twist in the wind. One person close to Trump said the president asked him about how firing Sessions would play in the conservative media. Trump also asked him whether it would help to replace Sessions with a major conservative, the person said.

For his part, Sessions shows no signs of stepping down.

On Friday, Sessions traveled to Philadelphia to meet with law enforcement officials. In his speech, he vowed to crack down on illegal immigration and on sanctuary cities that are not communicating with federal authorities about undocumented immigrants. He spoke of how hard he is working, despite having none of his U.S. attorneys in place and most of his senior officials still not confirmed by the Senate.

I do my best every day, Sessions said, to fulfill the goals the president and I share.

Several of Sessionss Republican former colleagues on Capitol Hill have defended him in the face of the presidents criticism.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a close friend, said that Sessions was doing just fine. He also encouraged the president to try to patch up his relationship with his attorney general.

Theyre both adults, and they can work it out, Cornyn said.
At least 24 people were killed in the latest violence to rock Afghanistans capital Monday morning when a suicide bomber struck near a minibus in the southwestern neighborhood of Dehbori.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danesh confirmed the death toll and said that about three dozen others were injured. Images shared on social media showed a street strewn with burning vehicles and debris, with smoke rising above.

The blast occurred not far from the residence of Mohammad Mohaqiq, Afghanistans most prominent politician from the Hazara ethnic minority. Dehbori is home to many Hazaras.

According to ABC News, a witness said the attacker drove his car into a minibus. The sound was very strong. The ground shook, said the witness, a store owner named Mohammed Nader.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the attack targeted an employee of a spy agency.

Exactly one year ago, a massive bombing in Kabul killed 80, mostly Hazaras who were marching to demand better infrastructure in areas of the country where they represent the majority. A commemorative march had been planned for Monday but was canceled Sunday, ostensibly because President Ashraf Ghani had agreed to meet the protest leaders and consider their demands.

Hazaras have long been victimized as an ethnic and religious minority. Most Hazaras are Shiites, while Afghanistan is overwhelmingly Sunni.

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Welcome to The Independent Herald E-Edition! Check back each week on Tuesday to see our[Read More]
As President Donald Trump boasted of American pride and prestige in a speech to sailors in Virginia on Saturday, an American nightmare was playing out in San Antonio, Texas.

Nine immigrants are dead and 19 are in critical condition after being locked in a sealed semitruck trailer for 24 hours. The trailer was parked in the sun in a Wal-Mart parking lot in 100-degree weather.

Shortly before 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning, one of the trapped immigrants managed to break out of the trailer to ask a Wal-Mart worker for water. The worker brought water and called 911 for help.

Police and immigration officials arrived at the scene and detained the immigrants as they stumbled out of the trailer and into the parking lot. Once those still alive had been captured, police dragged out the bodies of the eight who died of heat stroke or dehydration, including two children. Another individual died at the hospital on Sunday.

As investigators studied the scene in the parking lot Sunday, the Wal-Mart store remained open.

It is difficult to imagine the hell the migrants experienced, gasping for air in the stifling heat as death encircled them. San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told the press that the survivors were very hot to the touch. Their heart rates were all above 130 beats per minute.

Amid reports that some of the migrants had fled the parking lot, police and immigration authorities launched a manhunt, searching the surrounding area for escaped immigrants to arrest and jail. A helicopter shone a searchlight in nearby woods and continued its search for hours as dawn broke.

Only the bodies of the dead will be allowed to stay in the United States, for burial. The survivors will be thrown into detention centers and promptly deported, most likely without the right to appear before a judge to plead their case.

Thomas Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), delivered the following statement:

The horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle The men and women of ICE are proud to stand alongside our law enforcement partners to protect the public and those who would fall victim to their dangerous practices that focus solely on their illicit profits.

This statement will serve as a key exhibit in a future trial for crimes against humanity. Prosecutors will point out that, yes, what took place was a horrific crime. Furthermore, it is true that the criminals, driven by their drive for profit, display a reckless disregard for the lives of their victims.

However, it is not the smuggling networks that are primarily responsible for what took place in San Antonio. It is ICE, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and the bipartisan policies of the US government that are to blame. Like the recent Grenfell fire in London which killed dozens, the San Antonio tragedy is a case of social murder, for which the ruling class is guilty.

In the 1990s, under President Bill Clinton, Democrats and Republicans enacted programs like Operation Gatekeeper and Operation Hold-the-Line, the aim of which was to militarize urban crossing zones and force migrants to cross in the uninhabitable deserts.

In 2006, under the Bush administration, Congress passed the Secure Fences Act, which facilitated the construction of hundreds of miles of border barriers and further militarized the border. Those voting yes for this law included then-Senators Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and Charles Schumer. In 2010, Obama signed legislation that deployed a fleet of drones to the border and 1,500 National Guard soldiers to block or arrest immigrants. Thousands have been killed attempting to cross as a result of these policies.

Donald Trump is living up to his pledge to unshackle ICE and CBP and has hired fascist and white supremacist advisors to key positions in the immigration agencies. The Trump administration has already arrested over 60,000 immigrants in the first six months of 2017, roughly 40 percent more than Obama, who was known among immigrants as the deporter-in-chief.

The tragedy in San Antonio has gone practically unnoticed by the political establishment. The Democratic Party response consisted of statements denouncing the smugglers, including the declaration of Joaquin Castro, U.S. Congressman from San Antonio, who said, The smugglers responsible for the incident, who showed no regard for the lives of the people they were transporting, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The fact that so many migrants still embark on such dangerous journeys is a testament to the depth of the social crisis in Mexico and Central America. Devastated by a century of imperialist exploitation and military intervention, countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have never recovered from the imprint left by US-backed dictatorships and death squads.

The same is true of migrants escaping the Middle East, where US-led wars have killed millions and forced many more to flee. Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean. In August 2015, 71 Middle Eastern migrants suffocated in a truck trailer after attempting to cross into Austria.

The world is pulsing with people who are forced to flee their homes under the weight of decades of economic exploitation and war. According to a UN report from 2015, there are 65.3 million refugees in the world, more than the population of the United Kingdom, France or Italy.

The refugee crisis is the product of the capitalist system and requires a socialist solution. Never in history has the contradiction between the ease with which capital flows across borders and the difficulty with which human beings flee across national boundaries been so acute. As the world economy becomes increasingly interconnected through the advent of the Internet, mobile phones and integrated global supply lines, the ruling classes of the so-called democratic countries are increasingly protecting themselves, as Leon Trotsky put it, by a customs wall and a hedge of bayonets.

Socialists reject attempts to reconcile left-wing slogans with nationalist poison. Figures like Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US expose their pro-capitalist outlook when they talk about reasonable management of migration (Corbyns Labour Party manifesto) and denounce open borders as a right-wing proposal that would make everybody in America poorer (Sanders interview with Vox, July 18, 2015).

Socialists oppose the division of the world into nation-states and call for bringing the geographical organization of the world into harmony with the international character of the global economy.
North Korea has yet to respond to South Koreas offer of military talks that the latter had proposed for last Friday. Seoul urged Pyongyang to accept the proposal, keeping the deadline open for a response until this Thursday, the anniversary of the armistice agreement between the two sides that ended the Korean War in 1953.

Pyongyang published an article in Rodong Sinmun last Thursday criticizing Seoul. Ditching confrontation and hostility is a precondition for opening the door for the two Koreas reconciliation and unity, the article stated, but it did not outright reject the talks. On Friday, after it became clear Pyongyang would not respond, South Koreas Defense Ministry stated that it once again calls on the North to respond positively to our offer as soon as possible.

Seoul has also reiterated that it will not backtrack from the international sanctions that have been slapped on North Korea in response to its nuclear and missile tests. Rather it is attempting to use the economic pressure generated by the sanctions to bring the Kim Jong-un regime to the negotiating table.

The South Korean government announced the offer of military talks at Panmunjom, along the border between the North and South, last Monday to ease border tensions between the two sides. It also proposed holding separate talks August 1 on conducting family reunions for those split by the US division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945 and by the 1950-1953 Korean War.

The US responded coldly. Since Trumps inauguration, his administration has systematically ramped up the threat of war against North Korea.

Conditions [for talks] that would have to be met are clearly far away from where we are now, said now-former White House press secretary Sean Spicer. US Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, went further, threatening military action: The United States will deploy every economic, diplomatic, and if necessary, military tool at our disposal to deter Pyongyang and to protect our allies.

The US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Saturday, Many people have talked about military options with words like unimaginable. I would probably shift that slightly and say it would be horrific, and it would be a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes, and I mean anyone whos been alive since World War II has never seen the loss of life that could occur if theres a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

But as Ive told my counterparts, both friend and foe, it is not unimaginable to have military options to respond to North Korean nuclear capability. Whats unimaginable to me is allowing a capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado. Thats unimaginable to me. So my job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesnt happen.

The idea that South Korea, Japan, or other US allies need protection from North Korea is absurd. The US has waged wars and carried out violent regime change operations around the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Despite attempts by Pyongyang to open its economy to foreign capital by establishing special economic zones, Washington finds impoverished North Korea a convenient pretext for its military buildup in Asia ultimately directed at subordinating China and Russia.

Seoul quickly sought to reassure Washington that its offer was in line with the US position. The proposal for the early stage of contact to resolve humanitarian issues and ease cross-border tensions is a matter that is different from full-fledged talks for North Koreas denuclearization, said the Unification Ministrys vice spokeswoman Lee Yu-jin last Tuesday.

The South Korean bourgeoisie is committed to the US-South Korean military alliance, from which it has drawn its historic legitimacy following Washingtons establishment of a police state in Seoul in 1948. However, the ruling class is divided between the conservatives, with longstanding ties to the military and Washington, and the Democrats, who favor friendlier relations with China to boost trade and turning North Korea into an ultra-cheap labor platform.

While the US exerts a great deal of pressure and influence on South Korea, the latter has grown into the 11th largest economy in the world. The ruling Democrats in their current incarnation as the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the Moon Jae-in administration are engaged in a balancing act between Beijing and Washington, attempting to boost the South Korean economic interests on the one hand while maintaining US support on the other.

At the same time, the Moon administration is acutely aware of the deep concerns in South Korea about a new war on the Korean Peninsula and its proposals are a gesture towards placating widespread anti-war sentiment. Greater Seoul, a city of some 25 million people, lies within the range of North Korean rockets and artillery. According to some estimates, the casualties in the capitaldead and woundedwould be more than one million in the first few days of fighting.

North Korea is currently faced with tremendous external and internal pressures, including the worst drought this year since 2001. Pyongyangs missile launches and nuclear programs, their only bargaining chips short of complete capitulation, have not brought talks with the US as the regime had hoped.

Pyongyang may wait until the conclusion of next months Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG) military exercises between the US and South Korea, to decide on talks which it has not rejected outright. The North Korean regime has repeatedly denounced joint US-South Korean drills as the preparation for war and insisted they be called off to improve diplomatic relations and the prospects for talks.

The US and South Korean militaries conduct the annual UFG war games in August, the second largest joint exercises between the two countries after the Foal Eagle/Key Resolve drills that are held each year in spring. Last year, 25,000 US troops and 50,000 South Korean soldiers took part in the exercises. This years UFG war games are set to begin around August 21.
San Francisco (AFP) - Google parent Alphabet on Monday saw shares slide as the market reacted to a massive fine by the European Commission and word that success in mobile, cloud and YouTube is coming with higher costs.

Alphabet reported a quarterly profit of $3.5 billion, in a sharp decline from a year ago, with a $2.74 billion antitrust fine in Europe biting into earnings.

The technology giant reported that revenue grew to $26 billion in the recently ended quarter, and that profit would have tallied nearly $6.3 billion if it were not for the fine levied on search engine Google by the European Commission.

Earnings for the quarter fell 28 percent from the same period last year.

Revenue was up 21 percent from the same quarter last year.

Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat said the report showed "strong growth with great underlying momentum," as the company makes "focused investments in new revenue streams."

Alphabet shares slid about 3.1 percent to $967.20 in after-market trades that followed the release of the earnings figures.

Reasons for the drop likely included the mixed blessing of Google use booming on mobile devices, bringing in more revenue but also paying more to websites hosting ads.

Alphabet also said it was spending more money on operating data centers, acquiring YouTube content, and its line of hardware, which were cited as growing businesses at the company.

- Mulling options -

Investors have been concerned about what the regulatory trouble in Europe means for Alphabet, which gets most of its money from Google advertising while investing in "other bets" such as self-driving cars and life sciences.

Alphabet took in $248 million in revenue and posted a narrowed loss of $772 million in its "other bets" category in the recently ended quarter.

Google and the EU are gearing up for a battle that could last years, with the Silicon Valley behemoth facing a relentless challenge to its ambition to expand beyond search results.

Story continues

Brussels has already spent seven years targeting Google, fueled by a deep apprehension of the company's dominance of internet search across Europe, where it commands about 90 percent of the market.

In a verdict that could redraw the online map worldwide, the EU's top antitrust sheriff, Margrethe Vestager, in June imposed a record fine on Google for illegally favoring its shopping service in search results.

The EU accuses Google of giving its multitude of services too much priority in search results to the detriment of other price comparison services.

The decision -- if it survives an expected appeal process -- could prove to be momentous for Google, as well as for competition law in general.

"We are still early in our analysis of the decision," Porat said in response to a question about the fine during an earnings call with analysts.

"We do have time to notify the commission for proposed remedies as well as to implement changes."

Porat said Alphabet was reviewing its options and declined to comment further on the ongoing legal matter.

The EU is also examining Google's AdSense advertising service and its Android mobile phone software.

- Finding a balance -

Alphabet would be wise to diversify, but it must be careful not to take advantage of its powerful position in online search to gain advantage, said Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.

Investors will also be watching to make sure this is a one-time fine, because not even a behemoth like Google can take that kind of cash hit each quarter, the analyst said.

"I don't see Google changing its behavior, which means the EU could continue to hit them with excessive fines," Enderle said.

"The EU does not have a sense of humor when it comes to US companies telling them to take a hike."

The company announced separately that Google chief executive Sundar Pichai would join Alphabet's board of directors.

Pichai is responsible for Googles product development and technology strategy, as well as the companys day-to-day-operations.
New White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci named President Donald Trump as the anonymous source casting doubt on the intelligence community's consensus that Russia interfered in the 2016 election during a CNN interview on Sunday. "You know, somebody said to me yesterday  I won't tell you who  that if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those e-mails, you would have never seen it," Scaramucci told "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper. RELATED: Putting the Trump-Russia timeline into perspective "You would have never had any evidence of them, meaning that they're super confident in their deception skills and hacking," Scaramucci continued. "My point is, all of the information isn't on the table yet. But here's what I know about the president " "Well, wait, wait, wait," Tapper interjected. "Let me finish. Let me finish," Scaramucci said, before letting Tapper cut in. "Well, you're making a lot of assertions here," Tapper said. "I don't know who this anonymous person is that said, if the Russians had actually done it, we wouldn't have been able to detect it, but it is the unanimous " "How about it was  how about it was the president, Jake?" Scaramucci said. "I talked to him yesterday. He called me from Air Force One. And he basically said to me, 'Hey, you know, this is maybe they did it. Maybe they didn't do it'." Scaramucci's use and subsequent revelation of Trump as an anonymous source came as the administration continues to slam media outlets for using anonymous sourcing in stories unfavorable to the White House. After returning from his first foreign trip abroad in May, Trump said in a pair of tweets, "Whenever you see the words 'sources say' in the fake news media, and they don't mention names ... it is very possible that those sources don't exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!" Trump cast doubt on anonymous sourcing as recently as July 12, when he tweeted, "Remember, when you hear the words 'sources say' from the Fake Media, often times those sources are made up and do not exist." In an interview with Tapper directly after Scaramucci's admission, Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota expressed his disbelief that Scaramucci unmasked the president as his anonymous source. "I thought  when he brought it up, I thought it was a disinterested intelligence expert who brought that [anonymous leak]," Franken said. Tapper then brought up how Scaramucci said Trump still didn't accept his own intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. "That's  what can you say? It's just bizarre," Franken said. See Also:
Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort have agreed to testify in front of Congress about Donald Trumps campaign ties to Russiabut only behind closed doors.

The move by President Trumps son, son-in-law and former campaign manager has drawn criticism from Democrats who say that it is example of another effort to stymie progress of the Russian probe.

Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas and a former federal prosecutor, says that their requests to testify in privatewhich were granted as part of an agreement with the Senate and House intelligence committeesare likely because they are going to discuss classified information and want to reduce the publicity surrounding the hearings.

The most likely explanation is that one or both sides want to discuss classified information, Osler said. I think its just really so that they have a discussion go where it needs to go without crossing over into classified information.

He added that they also may not want the press attention.

The committee is expected to grill Kushner, Trump Jr. and Manafort on recently revealed reports they met with a Russian lawyer looking to share dirt on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, as well any other reported links. Kushnerwho is also a senior advisor to President Trumpmet with Russian ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak in December 2016 to discuss opening up a secret communications channel between the Trump campaign and Moscow. He also failed to disclose meetings with dozens of foreign government officials when applying for a security clearance.

Kushner is testifying before the Senate committee on Monday and the House intelligence committee on Tuesday. On Monday morning, he released a statement to the House and Senate committees saying he had no other meetings with Russian operatives, other than the four encounters that have already been reported, and denied any collusion or improper comments.

Trump Jr. and Manafort have not scheduled a date yet but have agreed to testify to Senate lawmakers privately. After Trump Jr. released emails exposing the details of the encounter with the Russian lawyer two weeks ago, he said in an interview with Sean Hannity that he would testify under oath.

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Still, even though their hearings will likely not be under oath or public, if they lied it would still land them in deep water. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, said on Twitter that if they lied during their testimony it would be a crime.

Tell jake tapper at CNN it's a crime to lie to congress whether trump jr is under oath or not. Pretty std way to conduct on record intrvu  ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) July 23, 2017

And Osler added that though Americans may not like it, the best strategic move is to testify privately.

I dont know what any of them would have to gain by an open hearing, quite frankly, Osler said. Theyre all going to be asked awkward questions. Theres going to be answers where theres going to be further explanation on what they said. I think they want to not have that be the news cycle that day.
Is Bernie Sanders considering a 2020 run? 'Yes, is the answer' Bernie Sanders might be considering running for president again. When one of Sanders' associates was asked if the 75-year-old had begun to think about another run, the associate said, "Yes, is the answer." SEE ALSO: Senator McCain's daughter says she went for a hike with father Even though Sanders hasn't publicly said he has plans to run again, his actions might be confirming just that. Sanders visited Iowa, a state he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary, and has plans to visit again to promote his new book "Bernie Sanders: Guide to Political Revolution." RELATED: Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail in 2016 He's also held campaign-style rallies in West Virginia, Kentucky and even toured across Republican-heavy states. Sanders' campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said Bernie Sanders is "keeping the door open" for a second White House run. The Vermont Senator is an independent, but if he does decide to run, one former campaign advisor believes he will run as a Democrat. Some recent polls suggest Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden would be favorites in a 2020 race against President Trump. One associate said, "The last thing he's going to do is step aside and let Joe Biden take it."
On Conan, cast members from Game of Thrones joined Conan OBrien at Comic-Con in San Diego at the Spreckels Theater, where they talked spoilers and drones.

Because of the immense popularity of the show, the paparazzi has sent drones to GOT shooting locations to try to get a sneak peak of what season seven has in store. Liam Cunningham, who plays Sir Davos, was not a fan of these fire gods in the sky. I dont know why youd want to tell the end of the joke halfway through the joke. These are people that want to watch the world burn, he said.

Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow, is also not a fan. On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he said he had to shoot three fake scenes on his day off in to mislead the paparazzi. Each scene was a solid five hours of work.

Conan joked that Season 7 has been ruined for him by the drone photos. He went on to show a Photoshopped drone shot of Daenerys and Lord Tyrion on a beach with N.J. Gov. Chris Christie lounging nearby.

Conan airs weeknights at 11 p.m. on TBS.

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Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi, center, huddle with other Democratic leaders in a coffee shop before unveiling their Better Deal plan. (Photo: James Lawler Duggan/Reuters)

WASHINGTON  Congressional Democrats rolled out their message for the 2018 midterm elections Monday, vowing to focus on raising wages and creating jobs as they vie to reclaim majorities in the House and Senate.

In a press conference in rural Berryville, Va., top Democrats acknowledged they cannot merely oppose President Trumps policies if they want to change their momentum after a challenging election cycle.

Instead they are pushing a strategy centered around the slogan a better deal that will include expanding job training programs, fighting back against high prescription drug prices and corporate mergers and boosting the minimum wage.

This is the start of a new party, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. He added that Democrats are unified around the new series of proposals after years of highly publicized infighting between the progressive and moderate wings of the party.

The platform comes at a time when many observers believe the Democratic Party lacks a clear message. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that only 37 percent of Americans believe that the party stands for something. A majority of the voters surveyed said Democrats only stand for opposing Trump.

These numbers come on the heels of disheartening special election losses in Kansas, Montana and, most notably, Georgia, where Democrat Jon Ossoff was defeated by Republican Karen Handel despite leading in the polls ahead of election day. These losses all occurred in traditionally Republican areas, though Hillary Clinton narrowly won the Georgia district in 2016.

On Monday, Schumer noted that the party did not effectively lay out its own policies in recent election cycles. But he argued that the new message will change that.

When you lose elections, as we did in 2014 and 2016, you dont flinch, you dont blink. You look in the mirror and ask, What did we do wrong? The No. 1 thing we did wrong is not present a bold, strong economic agenda to working Americans so their hope for the future might return again, Schumer said.

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This includes a goal of creating 10 million good paying jobs, according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on July 20 at her weekly Capitol press conference. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

We have focused on economic issues; we think thats what the American people are most yearning about, Schumer said. Thats where the American people are hurting, and thats what we most felt was missing in the past years, the last couple of elections. We all take the blame on that, I know I certainly do, but we have to get the focus back on the economy.

Typically, the party out of power gets a boost in midterm elections, and this effect could be more pronounced at a time when Trumps approval rating hovers around 40 percent.

But there are few strong opportunities to pick up seats in the Senate, and Democrats will be forced to defend members in strongly Republican states won by Trump in November, including North Dakota, West Virginia, Indiana and Montana.

The Democrats path to retaking the House, while far from a given, is clearer. There are 23 Republican districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, including the district where their Friday messaging event was held, represented by Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va. Leaders say claiming victory in those areas will be a top priority.

But Democrats also face steep obstacles to retaking the House. In addition to more districts being gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, Democratic voters tend to be more densely packed in a fewer number of districts than their counterparts.

While its early, there is no doubt that this district and so many others are up for grabs in the 2018 midterms, said Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and chair of the campaign arm of House Democrats. But this wont be easy, and Democrats cant take anything for granted. As a matter of fact, we have a lot of work to do.

Meanwhile, some Republicans rolled their eyes at the Democrats messaging event.

Have you seen this creative, innovative, totally unique Better Deal messaging campaign coming the Democrats unveiled this morning for the 2018 cycle? House Speaker Paul Ryans spokeswoman said in a statement, with a repeated tongue-in-cheek link to his own A Better Way plan.

You might be thinking to yourself: That sounds familiar, she continued. I swear Ive seen this message before. Maybe from House Republicans? Like maybe a year ago or so? I mean, who can say?

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Jordanian security forces stand infront of their armored vehicle next to the Israel embassy, in Amman, Jordan - EPA

Jordan is refusing to allow an Israeli diplomatic security agent to leave the country after he killed two Jordanians while being attacked at Israels embassy in Amman, leading to a diplomatic standoff between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbour.

The situation began on Sunday when a 17-year-old Jordanian carpenter came to a residential building inside the heavily-fortified Israeli embassy compound to replace some furniture.

The carpenter then attacked the Israeli guard with a screw driver, according to the Israeli foreign ministry. The guard opened fire and killed the carpenter but also fatally wounded the landlord of the building, a Jordanian doctor.

Jordanian police deployed to Israel's embassy after a shooting left two people dead Credit: REUTERS

Jordanian police are now demanding that the wounded security guard submit to interrogation over the killings. But Israel has said the agent has diplomatic immunity and cannot be arrested or questioned.

In accordance with the Vienna Convention, the security officer has immunity from investigation and imprisonment, the Israeli foreign ministry said.

Jordan's Department of Public Safety said it was investigating the incident.

The scene outside Israel's embassy in Amman Credit: REUTERS

Jordan is one of only two Arab countries that have diplomatic ties to Israel and the shooting in Amman adds new strain on the already sensitive Israeli-Jordanian relationship.

The shooting comes amid a wave of violence sparked by tensions over the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam.

Israel installed metal detectors at the mosque after Palestinians smuggled guns into the holy site and used them to kill two Israeli police officers.

But the metal detectors have sparked a major backlash from Palestinians, who see them as part of Israeli effort to assert its control over the holy site, which is also sacred to to Jews and known to Israelis as the Temple Mount.

The clashes took place in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank Credit: AFP PHOTO / Ahmad GHARABLIAHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images

On Friday there were widespread clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces, which ended with the deaths of three young Palestinians.

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Late on Friday evening a Palestinian teenager crept in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and killed three Israelis as they sat for traditional shabbat dinner.

It was not clear if the carpenter in Amman was motivated by the situation at al-Aqsa. There have been large demonstrations in Jordan in solidarity with Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Jordan plays a role in the Islamic administration of the al-Aqsa mosque and Israeli and Jordanian officials had been speaking behind the scenes all last week to try to reach a compromise to reduce tensions. No agreement was struck.

Palestinian Muslim worshippers pray outside Damascus Gate, a main entrance to Jerusalem's Old City Credit: / AFP PHOTO / GALI TIBBONGALI TIBBON/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trumps peace envoy, Jason Greenblatt, was due to fly to the region on Monday to try to help broker a deal.

The Palestinian Authority - the semi-autonomous Palestinian government in the West Bank - has cut all official contact with Israel over the situation at al-Aqsa. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is under pressure from his public to take a hard line over al-Aqsa.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is under similar pressure from the Right-wing of his own coalition government.

While the Israeli military and lead security agency are said to favour removing the metal detectors at al-Aqsa to calm the situation, Mr Netanyahus more Right-wing cabinet ministers say removing the detectors would be giving in to Palestinian pressure.

The cabinet met late on Sunday to discuss the issue but no decision was made.

Jordanian security forces deployed around Israels fortress-like embassy in Amman on Monday to protect it. Israels diplomats were huddled inside the compound, effectively stuck there until the situation with the guard is resolved.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and security authorities are working with the Jordanian government over various channels, the Israeli foreign ministry said.
Questions will be raised for Mr Kushner over his meetings with a top Russian official and a Russian lawyer - AP

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner is denying that President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, saying in a statement ahead of congressional interviews that he has "nothing to hide."

The 11-page statement provided to the press on Monday details four contacts with Russians during Trump's campaign and transition. Mr Kushner plans to deliver the statement during closed-door meetings with investigators on the Senate and House intelligence panels this week.

Mr Kushner is meeting with staff on the Senate committee Monday and lawmakers on the House committee Tuesday as part of both panels' investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and possible links to the Trump campaign.

Mr Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter, Ivanka, says none of the contacts was improper. He also denies that Russians finance any of his business in the private sector.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government,"Mr Kushner said in the statement.

In it, he also details a June 2016 meeting with a Russian-American lawyer and says it was such a "waste of time" that he asked his assistant to call him out of the gathering.

Emails released this month show that the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., accepted the meeting at Trump Tower with the idea that he would receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton. But Mr Kushner says he hadn't seen those emails until recently shown them by his lawyers.

Ivanka Trump and husband Kushner dance at the Inaugural Ball Credit: Getty

Mr Kushner said in his statement that Mr Trump Jr. invited him to the meeting. He says he arrived late and when he heard the lawyer discussing the issue of adoptions, he texted his assistant to call him out.

"No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted," Mr Kushner's statement says.

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Mr Kushner also denies reports he discussed setting up a secret back-channel with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

He said he did speak with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in December at Trump Tower. But he says that conversation was about policy in Syria.

Mr Kushner says that when Mr Kislyak asked if there was a secure line for him to provide information on Syria from what Mr Kislyak called his "generals,"Mr Kushner asked if there was an existing communications channel at the embassy that could be used. Mr Kushner says he never proposed an ongoing secret form of communication.

He also says he met with a Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, at the request of Mr Kislyak. But he says no specific policies were discussed.

Mr Trump Jr. and Mr Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was also at the June 2016 meeting, were scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. But on Friday their attorneys said they remained in negotiations with that panel. The two men are now in discussions to be privately interviewed by staff or lawmakers, though the GOP chairman of the committee, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, has said they will eventually testify in public.

The president took to Twitter over the weekend to defend himself and repeat his criticism of the investigations. On Sunday, Trump tweeted: "As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians!"
Donald Trump has derided reporters in front of a group of White House interns, after facing questions on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and healthcare.

During a photo opportunity with the White House's latest group of interns, he was asked by a reporter if he had anything to say about the current healthcare battle in the Senate. He replied with two words: "Be quiet".

When asked about Mr Sessions and whether the Attorney General should resign, Mr Trump rolled his eyes, before turning to the interns and saying: "Theyre not supposed to do that."

The President had tweeted earlier that Mr Sessions was "beleaguered" and asking why he was not looking into 2016 election opponent Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia.

The Attorney General is not the US President's attorney, but there to represent the American people. The office is independent from the White House, serving as the head of the Department of Justice.

The Trump campaign team is being investigated by the FBI, Congress, and Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller for the same.

What prompted the tweet was likely Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his appearance in a closed session hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mr Kushner has had to revise his paperwork submitted to obtain security clearance to include previously undisclosed financial holdings and a meeting with former Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, who he claimed he was unaware was the Ambassador.

So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

His son Donald Trump Jr and former campaign manager Paul Manafort are also scheduled to testify in front of Congress over a meeting with a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and alleged financial ties.

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Mr Trump has routinely railed against the "fake media," particularly those in the White House press corps despite giving a recent in-depth interview to the "failing" New York Times.

When asked about the status of the Republican replacement to Obamacare, he once again solicited laughter from the interns as he told the assembled reporters to "be quiet".

The Senate vote to pass the replacement bill failed as dissent within the Republican party grew and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lost too many votes.

The media were soon ushered out of the room. The press had actually been unexpectedly called into the photo opportunity with the interns and it is customary for them to shout out questions during such events.

Mr Trump's aides, including former Press Secretary Sean Spicer, current spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and advisor Kellyanne Conway, have all been critical of mainstream media coverage of the President.
Eight suspected illegal immigrants have been found dead inside a truck parked behind a Walmart store in Texas, authorities say.

A ninth victim died later in hospital after being rescued alongside around 30 others. Many were suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion in the trailer, which lacked air conditioning or a water supply, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

The discoveries were made after a Walmart employee was approached for water by one of the travellers who had managed to escape from the vehicle in the early hours of Sunday.

Twenty people were airlifted to seven hospitals and their conditions were "critical to very critical", Mr Hood said. Eight others were admitted to hospital in a less serious condition. The people range from school-age children to adults in their twenties and thirties, he said.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said many of the those who survived would suffer severe permanent brain damage.

Firefighters and paramedics arrived on the scene shortly after midnight, Mr Hood said. Officials determined that the truck had reached over 100F (37.7C).

Officials investigate a truck that was found to contain 38 suspected illegal immigrants and eight dead bodiesin San Antonio (EPA)

The temperature in San Antonio reached 101F (38C) on Saturday and didn't dip below 90F (32C) until after 10 pm.

[The passengers] were very hot to the touch, Mr Hood said. Each one of them had heart rates over about 130 beats per minute.

Some of the travellers scattered into the surrounding forest when authorities arrived, according to reports. Officials are now trying to identify the dead and locate those who fled. San Antonio police said the case has been transferred to federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Thomas Homan, ICE acting director, condemned the horrific crime in a statement on Sunday morning.

By any standard, the horrific crime uncovered last night ranks as a stark reminder of why human smuggling networks must be pursued, caught and punished," he said. "These networks have repeatedly shown a reckless disregard for those they smuggle."

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A hearse sits in the car park of a Walmart supermarket in San Antonio, where eight people were found dead in a tractor-trailer loaded with at least 30 others on 23 July (AP)

In a statement released by ICE, US Attorney Richard Durbin vowed to identify those responsible.

These people were helpless in the hands of their transporters, he said. Imagine their suffering, trapped in a stifling trailer in 100-plus degree heat. The driver is in custody and will be charged.

Authorities declined to identify the driver, who was driving a Pyle Transportation truck. Brian Pyle identified himself to The Washington Post as the owner of the company, but said the driver operated largely independently.

[The driver] had my name on the side and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel, Mr Pyle said, adding that he had no idea what the man was transporting.

Authorities say the driver could face federal and state charges.

"[This] is not an isolated incident, the San Antonio police chief warned. This happens quite frequently ... Fortunately there are people who survived, but this happens all the time.

This is not the first time suspected illegal immigrants have died while being transported into the country. In one of the deadliest cases on record in the US, 19 immigrants locked inside a truck died in Victoria, Texas, in 2003.

President Donald Trump has vowed to make human trafficking a priority in federal immigration enforcement, claiming the problem is not talked about enough. His daughter, Ivanka Trump, has championed the cause, leading a roundtable discussion on the issue at the White House and helping unveil an international human trafficking report.

But immigrants rights advocates say Mr Trumps crackdown on immigration will only make the problem worse, forcing victims of human trafficking to stay silent for fear of being deported.
The duo behind a series of local news pranks is being sued. Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher have been the masterminds behind the dubious Yo-Yo Master Kenny K-Strass Strasser and Chop & Steele, two unfit strong men. In March, WEAU in Wisconsin had the two on as their characters, Chop & Steele, and demonstrated their exercise regimen, which included lifting jugs of gravy and hurling sticks at each other.

The owners of Wisconsin station Gray Television are now suing the group. Pickett and Prueher, who run the Found Footage Festival, appealed to their fans to help pay for the legal fees. They released a video explaining that their work, proves that TV stations arent doing their due diligence. They hope to raise $80,000 on their gofundme.com campaign.

After they finish with their legal troubles, Pickett and Prueher vow to return to pranking local TV as something as ridiculous as jugglers celebrating Arbor Day.



Watch: Found Footage Duo Prank Local News Again, This Time as Fake Strongmen Chop & Steele

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Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer was forced to take a mini-fridge from junior White House staffers' office early in his tenure, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. A few weeks into his new job, The Journal said, Spicer asked his aide to go to the executive office building located near the White House and tell junior staffers to send him their mini-fridge. SEE ALSO: Anthony Scaramucci says he's deleting old tweets: 'My political views don't matter, I serve POTUS' The staffers reportedly refused to do so. As a result, Spicer was forced to wait until the evening, when the staffers had all left, and was "spotted by a fellow White House official lugging the icebox down the White House driveway after 8 p.m.," The Journal reported. The incident was just one of many snags Spicer hit during his brief run as White House press secretary. He resigned from his position on Friday, and multiple media reports claimed he did so in protest of President Donald Trump's hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director. Scaramucci has denied there's any animosity between himself and Spicer, though he reportedly refers to Spicer as Melissa McCarthy to White House officials. See Also:
Berlin (AFP) - A German 16-year-old girl suspected of joining the Islamic State jihadists in Iraq was arrested last week in Mosul, a German judicial source said Saturday.

"The Dresden prosecutor confirms that Linda W. was identified in Iraq," where she is receiving German consular assistance, said the prosecutor's office in Dresden, near the teen's eastern hometown of Pulsnitz.

German media earlier reported Iraqi soldiers had captured the teenager last week along with several other suspected IS 'brides' in a tunnel where they had taken refuge and where weapons and explosives belts had also been uncovered.

Linda W. disappeared last year after apparently making contact with IS members via internet messaging and reportedly converting to Islam.

German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday Linda W. had been detained in Baghdad with three other German women and that they had been questioned following the liberation of Mosul from IS control which Iraq reported on July 10.

Spiegel said the Iraqi authorities handed the German embassy a list of names of German women in the area "at the start of the week" and added consular officials had since visited four of them at a prison at Baghdad airport.

The magazine said one of the four was of Moroccan origin and that another was believed to be of Chechen origin but had a German passport.
By Linda Sieg TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's support slid 10 points to 26 percent in a poll published on Sunday, a day before Abe will be grilled in parliament over a suspected scandal that is cutting his ratings to the lowest since taking office in 2012. The July 22-23 Mainichi newspaper poll also showed that 56 percent of respondents did not back Abe's government, a 12 point rise from a previous survey in June. The precipitous drop in support does not immediately threaten Abe's job, but clouds the outlook for the premier. Abe was until recently seen as on track to become Japan's longest-serving prime minister by winning a third three-year term when his current tenure ends in September 2018. Abe and his aides have repeatedly denied intervening to help Kake Gakuen (Kake Educational Institution) win approval for a veterinary school in a special economic zone. Its director, Kotaro Kake, is a friend of Abe. Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, an Abe protege, meanwhile faces calls to resign over media reports, which she has denied, of direct involvement in a ministry cover-up of documents about a sensitive peacekeeping operation. The scandals and a perception among many voters that Abe's administration is taking them for granted, are encouraging rivals and casting doubt on Abe's hopes for a third term as ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader. Abe is expected to reshuffle his cabinet early next month in an effort to repair his damaged ratings, a step often taken by beleaguered leaders but one that can backfire if novice ministers become embroiled in scandals or commit gaffes. Abe will appear at an ad hoc committee meeting in parliament on Monday. Also appearing at the session will be his aide Hiroto Izumi, and Kihei Maekawa, who resigned as the education ministry's top bureaucrat in January and has accused the government of distorting the approval process. Opposition lawmakers are also expected to grill Abe about media reports that Inada allowed defense officials to conceal logs about the activities of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), as Japan's military is known, in a U.N.-led peacekeeping operation in South Sudan. Media reports have said officials had tried to hide the logs because they showed a worsening security situation in the African country. Japan ended its participation in the peacekeeping operation in May but said the withdrawal was not related to security concerns. (Reporting by Linda Sieg; Editing by Mark Potter)
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner arrives to speak to the media outside the West Wing on July 24, 2017. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Jared Kushner, Donald Trumps trusted senior aide and son-in-law, will be questioned Tuesday by the House Intelligence Committee, following his Monday appearance before its Senate counterpart, in the ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Kushners emergence as a key figure in the Russia scandal reveals an uncomfortable truth that has been made more manifest since Trumps inauguration six months ago: The presidents son-in-law has become the unlikely vessel for at least some of the outrage with the political system that helped fuel Trumps campaign.

Kushner, a 36-year-old political novice, can justifiably claim to be an outsider not steeped in the culture of the nations capital. But clearly his family connections have opened the doors for him to achieve extraordinary power, fame and wealth. Kushners vast fortune (together with his wife, Trumps daughter Ivanka, he is said to be worth well north of $700 million), and his influential White House role, combined with his almost total lack of relevant government experience, have made him a toxic symbol of the rigged system that Trump railed against during the 2016 election.

Kushner pretty much owes his fortune and real estate empire and White House job to nepotism in business and politics. He inherited his real estate empire from his father, Charles Kushner, a convicted felon who served 14 months in prison in a blackmail scheme directed against his own brother-in-law.

In taking the reins of his fathers real estate empire, Jared Kushner inked multimillion-dollar real estate deals and bought the New York Observer for $10 million shortly after his father pleaded guilty. Far from having pulled himself up by his own mythical bootstraps, Kushner comes off as the opposite of a Horatio Alger hero, a symbol of widening inequities in Americas economic structure and social system. Even his admission to Harvard University was the subject of controversy: A ProPublica reporter found that Kushners parents donated $2.5 million to Harvard shortly before Kushner applied and that his high schools administrators thought he was unlikely to be accepted based on his record.

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Donald Trump appointed him to a role as influential as any first lady or chief of staff in modern times, although its hard to find any qualifications  other than his family ties and Trumpian loyalty  to justify his expansive White House portfolio. Former first lady Hillary Clinton entered the White House with an extensive background in policy on family and childrens issues, health care and poverty. Karl Rove, Bushs Brain, was the architect of George W. Bushs political victories in Texas and the 2000 presidential election. Obama friend and White House aide Valerie Jarrett had years of senior experience in Chicagos City Hall and knew urban development, transit policy, health care debates and other fields.

Of course, relatives of politicians who run for office often enjoy some built-in advantages  including name ID, access to donors and ready-made loyalists. Still, family members seeking elective office must appeal to the voters and make their case to the public that they are best suited for the job. Their support is earned by enlisting the electorates support. From Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush to Jerry Brown and Elizabeth Dole, the family ties dont guarantee success or failure. Political appointees are another matter entirely: Bobby Kennedy had a mixed record as attorney general, especially on civil rights, and Hillary Clintons time as chair of the health care task force backfired despite her obvious qualifications. Americans have tended to chafe at the practice of big White House roles being handed to family members of the president.

President Trump at the White House with daughter Ivanka Trump; her husband, senior adviser Jared Kushner; and their children, Arabella and Joseph. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Jared Kushner  with his utter lack of relevant experience and policy knowledge  is far worse than these prior appointments. In a Trump White House beset by internal chaos, media scrutiny and a special counsel investigation, Kushner enjoys a direct line to the president and oversees a sprawling portfolio that has no relation to his interests and experience since his graduation from Harvard in 2003.

Trump has put him in charge of helping to negotiate a peace accord in the Middle East, reinventing the federal government (Vice President Al Gores task in Clintons White House), leading the Office of American Innovation and solving the epidemic of opioid addiction. His achievements in these roles have yet to be made manifest. He is reportedly an influential voice in staffing decisions and has appeared in photographs touring war zones in Iraq and meeting with foreign heads of state.

Prior to Trumps presidential campaign, Kushner had dabbled in philanthropic efforts such as donating to the New York City Police Foundation. But the pre-White House focus of his life was to build up his real estate empire and ascend the ladder of New York society. Although he notched some achievements in real estate, his time owning the Observer was marked by a scorched-earth campaign against his enemies and by what one former editor described as Kushners view of the paper as another vanity object.

If one were looking for evidence that the system is somehow rigged against average Americans, Kushner would be Exhibit A. He embodies a society in which wealth begets more wealth, where the rich intermarry and grow richer, where financial elites are walled off from less-wealthy citizens, and where money and family connections buy access to education, political influence and positions in government that have much power over the lives of Americans.

Nepotism is not, ipso facto, inimical to American politics; some politicians relatives have served the country admirably. But when family members are handed vast power over peoples lives with scant preparation, knowledge or skills applicable to their assigned roles, the public grows more cynical about government  understandably. Ironically, it is almost as if Kushners White House roles affirm his father-in-laws anti-Washington inaugural message that for years the establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.

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Matthew Dallek, associate professor at George Washingtons Graduate School of Political Management, is author of Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security.

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Donald Trumps son-in-law bought part of old New York Times building from Soviet-born tycoon, Guardian investigation into Russian money in NYC property market finds

Jared Kushner, seen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, who acts as his senior White House adviser, secured a multimillion-dollar Manhattan real estate deal with a Soviet-born oligarch whose company was cited in a major New York money laundering case now being investigated by members of Congress.

A Guardian investigation has established a series of overlapping ties and relationships involving alleged Russian money laundering, New York real estate deals and members of Trumps inner circle. They include a 2015 sale of part of the old New York Times building in Manhattan involving Kushner and a billionaire real estate tycoon and diamond mogul, Lev Leviev.

The ties between Trump family real estate deals and Russian money interests are attracting growing interest from the justice departments special counsel, Robert Mueller, as he seeks to determine whether the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia to distort the outcome of the 2016 race. Mueller has reportedly expanded his inquiry to look at real estate deals involving the Trump Organization, as well as Kushners financing.

Kushner will go before the US Senate intelligence committee on Monday in a closed session of the panels inquiry into Russian interference in the election in what could be a pivotal hearing into the affair.

Leviev, a global tycoon known as the king of diamonds, was a business partner of the Russian-owned company Prevezon Holdings that was at the center of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit launched in New York. Under the leadership of US attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump in March, prosecutors pursued Prevezon for allegedly attempting to use Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from the Russian treasury.

The scam had been uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant who died in 2009 in a Moscow jail in suspicious circumstances. US sanctions against Russia imposed after Magnitskys death were a central topic of conversation at the notorious Trump Tower meeting last June between Kushner, Donald Trump Jr, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.

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Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who investigated a massive $230m tax fraud in 2007.



After he revealed the scam, Magnitsky was arrested by the same officials whom he had accused of covering up the racket and was imprisoned. He died in jail after being denied medical treatment. Russia accused him of committing the fraud himself and even put him on trial posthumously.



After a long campaign by his associates, the Magnitsky Act was passed by Congress in 2012, banning entry to the US and freezing assets of officials believed to have been involved in Magnitsky's persecution and death. Russia responded by banning a list of US citizens it deemed hostile to Russia, and blocking the adoption of Russian children by US citizens  a controversial move that led critics to suggest the Kremlin was punishing Russias most vulnerable children.

Donald Jr and Manafort have been called to testify before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, at which they are certain to face questions about the Trump Tower encounter.

Two days before it was due to open in court in May, the Prevezon case was settled for $6m with no admission of guilt on the part of the defendants. But since details of the Trump Tower meeting emerged, the abrupt settlement of the Prevezon case has come under renewed scrutiny from congressional investigators.

Four Russians attended the meeting, led by Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with known Kremlin connections who acted as legal counsel for Prevezon in the money laundering case and who called the $6m settlement so slight that it seemed almost an apology from the government. Sixteen Democratic members of the House judiciary committee have now written to the justice department in light of the Trump Tower meeting demanding to know whether there was any interference behind the decision to avoid trial.

Constitutional experts are also demanding an official inquiry. We need a full accounting by Trumps justice department of the unexplained and frankly outrageous settlement that is likely to be just the tip of a vast financial iceberg, said Laurence Tribe, Harvard University professor of constitutional law.

Separately, the focus of investigators on Trump family finances stem from the vast flow of Russian wealth that has been poured into New York real estate in recent years. As Donald Trump Jr put it in 2008, referring to the Trump Organization: We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.



Among the overlapping connections is the 2015 deal in which Kushner paid $295m to acquire several floors of the old New York Times building at 43rd street in Manhattan from the US branch of Levievs company, Africa Israel Investments (AFI), and its partner Five Mile Capital. The sale has been identified as of possible interest to the Mueller investigation as Kushner later went on to borrow $285m in refinancing from Deutsche Bank, the German financial house that itself has been embroiled in Russian money laundering scandals and whose loans to Trump are coming under intensifying scrutiny.

Court documents and company records show that AFI was cited in the Prevezon case as a business partner of the defendants. In 2008, Prevezon entered a partnership with AFI in which Prevezon bought for 3m, a 30% stake in four AFI subsidiaries in the Netherlands. Five years later, AFI tried to return the money to the Russian-owned company, but it was intercepted and frozen by Dutch authorities at the request of the US government as part of the Prevezon money-laundering investigation.

In Manhattan, Levievs firm also sold condominiums to Prevezon Holdings from one of its landmark developments at 20 Pine Street, just a few blocks from Wall Street.

Real estate brochures describe the lavish interior decor of the condominiums, replete with bathrooms bedecked in stone and exotic woods, and boasting the ultimate in pampering; a sybaritic recessed rain shower. The 20 Pine Street apartments that Leviev sold to Prevezon were later frozen by US prosecutors seeking to block the flow of what they alleged to be money stolen from the Russian treasury and laundered through New York real estate.

Prevezons 20 Pine Street apartments and 3m in assets were all released as part of the settlement in May.

The Guardian contacted both Kushner and Leviev for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

The pursuit of Prevezon Holdings for alleged money laundering took on enormous political significance as it unfolded. For the prosecutors, it was a test case over suspicious Russian money flows designed to show the US was serious about going after money launderers. For the Russians, it was an opportunity to push back against stringent US sanctions that had long infuriated the Kremlin.

In court documents, US prosecutors accused Prevezon and its sole shareholder, Denis Katsyv, of participating in the laundering of proceeds of the vast tax fraud that stole $230m from the Russian treasury and moved it out of the country in chunks. Prevezon was alleged to have received some of the fraudulent spoils through a network of shell companies, hiding the money by investing in Manhattan real estate including the Leviev condominiums in 20 Pine Street.

Prevezon and Katsyv have consistently denied any involvement in money laundering and have dismissed the lawsuit as ill-conceived. In a statement released at the time of the settlement, they said they had no involvement in or knowledge of any fraudulent activities.

Magnitsky discovered the massive tax fraud, said to be one of the largest in Vladimir Putins Russia, in 2007. After he blew the whistle on the scam, he was arrested by the same officials whom he had accused of covering up the racket and imprisoned, dying in jail having been denied medical treatment.

Magnitskys death led to a political backlash in the US that in turn spawned tough sanctions on Russia, known as the Magnitsky Act. Russian individuals associated with the lawyers demise and other human rights abuses were banned entry to the US.

Veselnitskaya not only acted as Prevezons Russian counsel in the money-laundering case, she also was a leading lobbyist against the Magnitsky sanctions. She raised the subject prominently at the meeting in Trump Tower with Don Jr and Kushner, though according to Veselnitskaya the presidents son-in-law left after 10 minutes.

By the time of the Trump Tower meeting, Veselnitskaya was already personally acquainted with Russias powerful prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, and her lobbying against the Magnitsky sanctions had drawn significant attention in government circles.

Natalias main role was coordinating, including regular coordination with Chaika, whom she knew personally, said a source acquainted with the Prevezon case.

Veselnitskaya told the Guardian: My meeting with Trumps son was a private meeting; nobody in the government had anything to do with it. She declined to answer a follow-up question about whether and how she knew Chaika.

Jamison Firestone, the founder of the Russian law firm that employed Magnitsky at the time that he exposed the fraud, said that Veselnitskaya clearly intended to use the Trump Tower meeting to lobby against the Magnitsky sanctions. They really made it a state priority to get rid of these sanctions, he said.

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He is in the process of divorcing the wife who stood by him during his prison sentence, but Prison Bae turned model Jeremy Meeks has wasted no time falling in love with Topshop heiress Chloe Green.

Meeks filed from divorce from his wife, Melissa, last week, shortly after photos surfaced of him and Green making out aboard a yacht in Turkey, and also shortly after Melissa gave an exclusive interview with The Daily Mail, where she discussed the situation and revealed that she was stunned when she saw the photos.

Read: What is Chloe Greens Estimated Net Worth?

Now, according to Us Weekly, after Meeks and Green were spotted out together in Beverly Hills on July 21, and when asked by photographers about their relationship, Meeks gushed about the new woman in his life, expressing that he was so much in love with her.

Their relationship has come under scrutiny, especially after Melissas interview, where she admitted she was blindsided by the scandal because she thought her husband had been on a work trip when he was really with Green. She also admitted that she was extremely angry with Green, because she believes the other woman knew he was still married.

I know it takes two to tango but she knew he was married. To me, thats unforgivable. My whole world has been torn apart by this. What do I tell our children? My heart is broken, she said. What sort of woman would do something like this to another woman? My marriage wasnt perfect but I thought it could be saved, until this happened.

Of course Im angry at her. What she did is unforgivable. And Im angry at him too. What they did destroyed my entire world, she added. Did either of them think about the children and how will this affect them? Theyre the innocent victims in this. And so am I.

Read: How Much Money Does Jeremy Meeks Make?

Melissa also admitted that the fact that their drama has played out in public hasnt improved matters for her, because the humiliation she feels is multiplied.

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Its all been so public. They werent even trying to be discreet. Ive been publicly humiliated, which makes the pain so much worse.

Meeks first rose to fame as the hot mugshot guy in 2014, when his arrest photo was released and caused a stir online because of his looks. Following his release from prison, he found a successful career as a model, and remained with his wife, who stayed faithfully by his side while he remained incarcerated.

The couple share a son together, Jeremy Meeks Jr., 7. According to the court documents for legal separation which Meeks filed, he was seeking physical and legal custody of their son, and listed the legal date of separation as June 24, four days before the photos of him and Green surfaced.

Meeks reportedly cited irreconcilable differences in the filing as well, and had not yet determined the full nature and extent of his separate property assets and/or liabilities.

Jeremy Meeks

Photo: Getty Images

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Kid Rock on Twitter last week teased a possible run for Senate. Very quickly people dismissed the move as a promotional effort and as a joke. Politico, however, reported Sunday that people shouldnt be so quick to dismiss the artist.

Before he was Kid Rock, he was Robert James Ritchie and was born to an affluent family in Romeo, Michigan.

READ: Kid Rock Claps Back At Coverage Of His Announcement To Run For Senate

Politico detailed Ritchies popularity across Southeast Michigan as an earnest celebrity who has given a considerable amount to charity, especially military charities, and has fostered a genuine relationship with his hometown.

Presuming Kid Rock doesnt get caught in bed with a little boy, or beat up a woman between now and August 2018, hes going to win the nomination if he gets in, said Dennis Lennox, a Republican political consultant in Michigan to Politico. I think theres no question about that. I think hes the prohibitive favorite if he gets in.

If Ritchie were to run for Senate in his home state of Michigan and as a Republican, hed eventually have to face the incumbent Democrat, Debbie Stabenow. She has a 47 percent approval rating and a 38 percent disapproval rating as of April according to the Morning Consult.

Ritchies opponents wouldnt have to look hard to dig up dirt. While the Kid Rock persona has transitioned into a family friendly country-rock mold recently, Ritchie began his musical career as Detroit rapper with extremely crude language. Ritchie has been in a sex-tape. He has also has had several run-ins with the law including a 2007 Waffle House fight for which he plead guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge.

But, there is obviously a mold for an outsider Republican celebrity who has never held elected office and has a crass mouth. President Donald Trump, and Ritchie appeal to the same voters. Trump was also able to win Michigan by a narrow margin after it had gone to Barack Obama twice.

Ritchie isnt a complete stranger to politics. Mitt Romney, a Detroit-native, sought Ritchies endorsement ahead of the Michigan Primary in 2012. Ritchie eventually did endorse the former Massachusetts governor.

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While there is no official paperwork signed as of yet, according to Politifact, it may not be prudent to count him out.

READ: Kid Rock Is Planning Run For Senate In 2018, Says Twitter Campaign

Sen. Al Franken, who was himself a celebrity as Saturday Night Live cast member a before entering politics, didnt dismiss the candidacy, though he said he would support Stabenow against whoever her opponent is.

Kid Rock will have to make his case, said Franken on CNN Sunday.

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Beirut (AFP) - A Lebanese mediator was killed on Saturday in a second day of fighting between the powerful Hezbollah group and militants near the border with Syria, the official news agency said.

"Ahmad al-Fliti, who was mediating between fighters and Hezbollah... was wounded when his car was hit by shelling of unknown origin in Jurud Arsal," ANI said.

"He later succumbed to his wounds."

Lebanon's army said Fliti was killed in shelling by "the terrorist organisation of the Al-Nusra Front", referring to the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

Hezbollah on Friday said its fighters had begun an operation against militants on both sides of the country's border with Syria.

On Saturday, Hezbollah announced several advances in the mountainous border area of Jurud Arsal.

Funerals were held on Saturday for 11 Hezbollah fighters killed in the clashes, nine in Beirut and two in Baalbek.

Lebanon's army has not officially announced its participation in the offensive, but said Friday it had targeted "terrorists" in the area.

Thousands of Syrian refugees live in informal camps in Jurud Arsal after having fled the six-year war in their home country.

But security in the area has also long been a concern, with Lebanese forces battling jihadists in the area in 2014.

Hezbollah on Friday also announced fighting on the other side of the border in Syria's Qalamun, where the Lebanese Shiite group has fought for years alongside President Bashar al-Assad's army against rebels and jihadists.

Syria's air force on Saturday carried out air strikes near the border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

More than a million refugees have flooded into Lebanon since the Syria conflict erupted with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Their presence has been largely tolerated despite testing the limited resources and ageing infrastructure of a country of just four million.
PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron will call the leaders of Russia, Germany and Ukraine on Monday to discuss the conflict in eastern Ukraine, his office said in a statement, as world powers step up efforts to try to end the violence in the region. The conversations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Germany's Angela Merkel and Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko are part of moves involving the four countries since 2014 to resolve the separatist conflict in which some 10,000 people have been killed. A ceasefire agreement was signed in February 2015 in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, but has failed to end the violence. Macron met Poroshenko in June, shortly after winning the French presidential election. At the time, Macron had said he saw no better way of negotiating an end to the conflict in Ukraine than through the Minsk agreements - comments that contrasted with those of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Tillerson said on June 14 that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump did not wish to be "handcuffed" by the 2015 accords, and he suggested Kiev could reach a separate, independent agreement with Moscow. Tillerson carried out his first official visit to Kiev earlier this month, during which he said Russia should make the first move to bring peace to eastern Ukraine, and that Washington's primary goal was the restoration of Ukrainian territorial sovereignty. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Bolton)
How many people are killed by terrorist attacks in the UK?

MI5 Director General Andrew Parker has made a rare public appearance to talk about the intense threat Britain faces from Islamist terrorism.

The head of the UK's Security Service said jihadists were now conceiving and preparing attacks in a matter of days, referring to both the number of thwarted and successful attacks the UK has faced this year.

The UK has been rocked by four terror attacks in 2017, with the most recent attack taking place at Parsons Green tube station last month.

But despite this string of attacks, relatively few people have been killed by terrorist attacks in the UK in recent years.

Victims of terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom

This is due in part to the success of security services in thwarting attached. Earlier this year, a senior Whitehall source revealed the security services foiled five attacks in the two months after the Westminster attack.

Defending against accusations that MI5 had been repeatedly warned the Manchester suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was dangerous, the source outlined the scale of the job facing counter-terrorism officials.

But despite this scale, the number of British people killed in acts of terrorism has remained low compared to other countries - with 49 people dying because of terrorism in the UK between 2010 and 2017.

Terror is killing far fewer people in the UK now than it was in the 1980s

Between 2000 and 2017, 126 people have been killed in the UK in terrorist attacks, according to figures from the Global Terrorism Database. Although not on British soil, a further 30 British people were killed in Tunisia when a gunman attacked a hotel popular among Western tourists.

This compares to 1,094 deaths in the 15-year period before that, between 1985 and 1999, and a further 2,211 between 1970 and 1984.

The worst year for terrorism-related deaths in the UK was 1988, when 372 people died. The majority of these died in the Lockerbie disaster, when 270 were killed as a Pan Am transatlantic flight was destroyed by a bomb.

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Since 1970, Northern Ireland has seen the most terrorism-related deaths out of any nation in the UK, with IRA-related terrorism plaguing the nation for decades.

1972 saw the peak of this violence, with 353 people killed in Northern Ireland - out of a total of 368 in the whole of the UK.

How does the UK's terror threat compare with the rest of Europe?

Since 1970, the UK has faced the most deaths as a result of terrorism in Western Europe - totalling 3,395.

Spain is the next worst-hit, with 1,261 deaths since 1970. 2004 was the country's worst year for terrorism, when 192 people died as Madrid bombings.

Victims of terrorist attacks in Western Europe

1988 was the worst year for terror in Western Europe, when 440 people in total were killed in attacks - the majority being killed in the Lockerbie bombing.

In 2015, France saw its worst ever attack in Paris when nine terrorists killed 130 people at multiple locations across the capital.

Since 2000, there have been seven deaths per year in the UK due to terrorism - which, according to research from BuzzFeed, means you're more likely to be killed by dogs (18 deaths per year), hot water (100 deaths per year) or using your phone while driving (2,920 deaths per year).

UK terror threat timeline

Despite public concern, the terror threat in Europe is relatively low

Terrorism is becoming an increasing concern for Europe's people, with the UK's own threat level set at "severe" - but the figures show that Europe is one of the safest areas in the world for terrorist-related incidents.

While there have been several large attacks in Western Europe in recent years, the number of people killed by terrorism in this region is relatively low compared to other parts of the world.

The Global Terrorism Index found that 38,422 people were killed in terrorist attacks across the world in 2015.

The majority of these were in the Middle East and North Africa, where 17,752 died in terror attacks. Sub-Saharan Africa was the next worst-hit, followed by South Asia.

Since 1970, the Index has counted 106,539 deaths in this region, out of a worldwide total of 348,759 - compared to 6,400 deaths in Western Europe.
Most of the seven natural wonders of the world tend to be stationary, but not the Aurora Borealis. Often called the Northern lights, the aurora is a caused by particles that shoot out from the sun, speed to Earth and trigger a release of particles and reactions between charged electrons and protons that collide with neutral atoms in the upper atmosphere. Those reactions are visible in the form of blankets of colorful red, yellow, green, blue and sometimes purple light.

As the name implies, natures light show happens in the Northern Hemisphere, and the closer you are the the North Pole the better. Meaning if you're in North America you should probably head up to Alaska or western Canada. If youre in Europe the northern parts of Norway, Sweden or Finland are your best bet. Generally you want clear skies, proximity to the North pole and preferably, winter time, says the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

Read: Total Solar Eclipse August 2017: What It Is, How And Where To See It

But if you cant make it to one of these areas you still have a chance at seeing them. Just last weekend the lights made an appearance in Michigan and other parts of North America. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration can forecast the phenomenon and in early July announced the chance to see the aurora. Viewers in Michigan, Washington and Canada got a glimpse of the colorful display.

NOAA offers a three day forecast for those looking to track the wonder. But if you dont live in one of the areas that offers optimal viewing, NASA has taken some incredible photos of the dancing lights.

northern lights

Photo: NASA

The crew on the International Space Station orbit the Earth every 92 minutes so they have many chances to catch a glimpse of the aurora.

norther lights iss 1

Photo: NASA

The different colors that the aurora displays happen due to the difference in gases that are excited by the electrons. Oxygen creates the green/yellow light or red light which is the most common one to see. Nitrogen gives off a more blue colored light, says NASA.

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Northern lights iss 2

Photo: NASA

The general shape of the aurora depends on where the electrons come from in the magnetosphere, but scientists are still working on establishing what each shape means. Very different shapes can all be seen in the same night, says NASA.

aurora

Photo: NASA

The name "aurora borealis" means "dawn of the North." Galileo Galilei coined this term because he thought the lights came from sunlight reflecting from the atmosphere and Aurora is the Roman goddess of morning, according to NASA.

northern lights day

Photo: NASA

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Joe Gibialantes health insurance premiums are so high that people think he must be fibbing about them.

Before the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2014, Gibialante, 53, an estate manager who lives in Bethesda, Maryland, paid about $2,300 per year for insurance that covered him and his wife, with a $1,000 deductible for each. Premiums have soared since then, and he now pays $13,000 per year for a plan with a $6,550 deductible per person. Im driving an older car than Id like, weve trimmed back on holidays and weve cut all charitable giving, Gibialante tells Yahoo Finance. What really frustrates me is whenever I get in a conversation about this, I get told, youre lying. No way. People just dont believe this is the case.

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, has helped about 20 million Americans gain health insurance coverage, and lowered costs for others. But the law came with glitches that have caused huge cost increases for a subset of the insured public that numbers perhaps 1 million Americans. Congress could tweak the law to help those being pinched by it. But thats not on the agenda in the Republican-controlled Congress or President Trumps White House, where the only options seem to be an outright repeal of the law or a major rollback. If the GOP repeal bills fail, which seems likely, Trump has said bluntly, well let Obamacare fail.

The ACA benefits lower-income Americans the most, since they qualify for the most generous subsidies that help cover the cost of insurance. Subsidies decline as income goes up, and disappear completely for people who earn more than 400% of the poverty level, which this year is $48,240 for an individual and $98,400 for a family of 4. Theres another catch above those income levels. Up to 400% of the poverty line, federal subsidies are supposed to cover the incremental cost of a benchmark plan once it exceeds 9.69% of income. Above that level of income, however, theres no limit on the cost of insurance, even if it were to eat half of your paycheck. This middle-class cliff is one reason the ACA began as an unpopular law and still enjoys only tepid public support.

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Joe Gibialante of Bethesda, Md.: People just dont believe this is the case.

About 28 million Americans buy coverage on their own, without the benefit of an employer plan. Roughly 9 million of those folks qualify for Obamacare subsidies. Of the rest, its hard to know how many are grappling with sharply higher health-insurance costs, but health care analysts estimate that its 1 million or more. They tend to be middle-class professionals between 50 and 64 who work as independent contractors, small-business owners, or employees of a small business that doesnt offer coverage. This is really hitting people between 400% and 500% of the poverty line, says John Holahan of the Urban Institute. Its a real cliff, and if youre on the wrong side of that cliff, youre getting hammered.

Earning too much for subsidies

Jill Ballion, 51, is a certified public accountant in Chandler, Arizona who left a stable job with insurance in 2013 for a position at a startup she felt would be more exciting. The startup didnt offer insurance, but she found reasonably priced coverage for around $300 per month in the individual marketeven though she earned too much to qualify for ACA subsidies. That insurer pulled out of her area in 2015, however, and she spent a year on a plan with a $6,800 deductible that required her to pay for all routine careincluding preventive visitsout-of-pocket. Then she left her job to take care of ailing parents. She still does some consulting, and her income last year was too high to qualify for ACA subsidies this year. With a lower income now, she decided to go without insurance in 2017. Im just priced out, she says. For the first time in nearly 52 years, I dont have any insurance. Im probably going to have to find somebody to work for who has insurance, because I need the insurance more than I need the money.

Jill Ballion of Phoenix: I have a new mantra for 2017: If I get sick, I hope I die quick.

Obamacare critics argue that the best way to address the high cost of unsubsidized individual plans is to fully repeal the law. That would force millions of people currently buying subsidized care or receiving care through Medicaid into the normal individual market, alongside people like Ballion. A larger pool of people shopping for insurance, in theory, would help stabilize rates. It would also help, critics say, to kill an Obamacare provision requiring every policy to offer a wide range of benefits and let consumers shop for coverage a la carte, paying only for coverage options they want. The problem with this critique is that more people would end up priced out of coverage altogether under the GOP plans, with young, healthy people foregoing coverage. Insurance pools including a larger portion of older, sicker customers would be more costly, by definition.

It just needs to be fixed

But many people struggling with the high cost of individual plans dont think the solution is repealing Obamacare. Whats in place does work for some people, says Kristin, 45, a systems analyst in northwest Connecticut who asked that her last name not be used. It just needs to be fixed. Kristin got laid off in 2015, and would have foregone insurance in 2016, except shes a cancer survivor who needs frequent checkups. So she bought a high-deductible plan and ended up spending about $12,000 out-of-pocket last year$9,000 more than the year before. She got a new job this year with insurance, which lowered her costs. But she still has friends dangling over the middle-class cliff, including one family paying nearly $20,000 per year for coverage. I was 100% behind this act, she says. My problem is that this act does nothing for the middle class. It needs to be fixed. Not replaced. Not repealed. Fixed.

A group of six Democratic senators wants to do that. They recently proposed a change to the ACA that would cap the amount any individual or family must pay for health insurance at 9.69% of incomethe same level for somebody at 400% of the poverty line. Above that, government subsidies would kick in to help defray the cost. Other Democratic proposals would help iron out inefficiencies in the individual market, to lure more insurers and reduce costs through competition.

Those proposals have a dim future, however, since Republicans show no interest in improving the ACA so it functions better. As the politicians bicker, ordinary Americans improvise. I have a new mantra for 2017, says Ballion. If I get sick, I hope I die quick. No wonder voters are fed up with Washington.

Confidential tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com. Encrypted communication available.

Editors note: This story has been corrected to indicate that approximately 28 million Americans buy health insurance on the individual market, not 9 million.

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Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - One Jordanian was killed and two people, a Jordanian and an Israeli, were wounded in a shooting incident on Sunday in a building inside the Israeli embassy complex in Jordan's capital Amman, police said. The two Jordanians, working for a furniture firm, had entered the embassy compound before the shooting, the police said in a statement, adding that the dead man was killed by a gunshot and the two wounded men had been rushed to hospital. Israel has imposed a ban on reporting the incident and has made no public comment. Violence against Israelis is rare in Jordan, a tightly policed country that is also a staunch regional ally of the United States. But tensions have escalated between the two countries since Israel installed metal detectors at entry points to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after two Israeli policemen were shot dead by three Arab-Israeli gunmen on Friday near the site. The new security measures have triggered the bloodiest spate of Isreli-Palestinian violence for years. Jordan has called for the removal of the metal detectors and thousands of Jordanians have protested against the Israeli move. In their statement, the Jordanian police said that after the attack they had sealed the heavily protected embassy in an affluent part of the capital and deployed dozens of anti-terrorism gendarmie forces. Initial checks suggested the two Jordanian men had entered the embassy compound as workmen, they said. Many of Jordan's 7 million citizens are of Palestinian origin. They or their parents or grandparents were expelled or fled to Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948. Israel has in the past given repeated assurances that it understands Jordan's concerns and does not seek to alter the status quo in the Muslim holy sites of Jerusalem. King Abdullah's Hashemite monarchy has been custodian of the sites since 1924, paying for their upkeep and deriving part of its legitimacy from the role. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Gareth Jones)
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Muhammed Muheisen A Palestinian boy reacts as youths frighten him by pointing their toy guns at him, in an alley in the West Bank refugee camp of Al-Amari in Ramallah, June. 16, 2009. (Photo: Muhammed Muheisen/AP)

Muhammed Muheisen was born in Jerusalem in 1981 and graduated with a degree in journalism and political science. He is the Associated Press chief photographer for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Muheisen joined the Associated Press in 2001, covering major events in the Middle East, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the funeral of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. He spent four years in Pakistan as APs chief photographer for that country. Muheisen documented the Yemeni revolution and the Syrian civil war as well as events in Saudi Arabia, China, Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Germany, Macedonia, Croatia, France, the Netherlands, New York, Serbia, Greece, and South Africa, including the funeral procession of Nelson Mandela. Most recently he has been documenting the refugee crisis across Europe.

His work has received numerous international awards, including: Two-time Breaking News Pulitzer Prize winner, in 2005 and 2013, for covering the war in Iraq and the civil war in Syria; Picture of the Year for 2007; Time Magazines Best Wire Photographer of 2013; and the 2014 Oliver S. Gramling Award for journalism.

Muheisen also won multiple prizes in: the APME News Photos Award, the John L. Dougherty Award, Asia Media Awards, National Headliner Awards, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, Festival Du Scoop, China International Press Photo Contest, NPPA Best of Photojournalism, Sigma Delta Chi Awards, Xposure International Photography Festival Award and the MCF Engaged Journalist Award. He participated in the 2012 World Press Photo Joop Swart Master Class, and served as a jury member in the 2016 Picture of the Year International, the 2015 World Press Photo Joop Swart Master Class and the 2013 Visa dor award in that years Visa pour lImage exhibition.

Muheisen is a member of the advisory committee for the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award, which is run by the International Womens Media Foundation, and hes on the nominating committee selecting the participants for the World Press Photo Joop Swart Master Class. In addition, hes the founder of the Everyday Refugees project on Twitter.

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Among other exhibitions, in 2013 a collection from a decade of Muheisens work about life in war was exhibited in the French photo festival Visa pour lImage in Perpignan, France. In 2014 his work about refugees was exhibited at the Festival des Libertes in Brussels, and work of his covering displaced people was shown in the outdoor photographic exhibition the Fence in Brooklyn, Atlanta, Boston and Houston. Most recently a selection of his work was exhibited at the 2016 Xposure International Photography Festival in Sharjah, UAE. (AP)

Follow Muhammed Muheisen on Instagram and Twitter.

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr.
There is speculation that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may be thinking about stepping down from his job amid reports of mounting conflicts with the Trump White House. CNN is reporting that Tillerson has been discussing leaving the position with people close to him outside of Washington, however he appears to be determined to finish out at least a year on the job. But two inside sources indicated to the network that the move could come sooner, citing "a noticeable increase in the secretary's frustration" with the White House. Among the issues the secretary of state is believed to have with the administration is President Trump's recent criticisms against Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In a recent New York Times report, Trump went after Sessions, saying that he "should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else." The president reportedly believes that Sessions' decision resulted in the special counsel investigation currently headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Tillerson is also said to have disagreed with Trump about the Paris climate agreement, with a Washington Post reporter quoting him as saying, "I took a counter view to the decision that was made." He was reportedly one of the most vocal opponents of the decision to withdraw within the administration, notes The Week. The report about his potential early departure comes on the heels of press secretary Sean Spicer's recent exit and speculation that Trump may be considering replacing Sessions with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Research is the lifeblood of modern universities, but there are very few ways for those behind the academic output to show the real creativity and emotion that underpins it. The story of the research is lost  the many failures that led to the results, the often tortuous process, or the ecstatic highs of successes and the serendipitous path that changes the researchers career all fall by the wayside.

Researchers are creative by nature  and at Swansea University we wanted to give them the opportunity to communicate their work in a different way, as art. Our annual Research as Art competition gives researchers a platform to explore their creativity and convey the emotion and humanity in their research.

The striking images entered into the competition are the hook to draw the audience in, but the text is the researchers opportunity to engage with people. The most compelling submissions arent just an image that was lying on a lab hard drive for years, or a beautiful false-colored electron microscopy image by which color is added to an image so that researchers can see the different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. They are the submissions that describe the years of failure in the laboratory, the inspiration, and the way researchers question themselves daily.

Below are just a selection of the images from this years winners, accompanied by their own words.

beauty in failure

Photo: Swansea University

This photo, taken with an optical microscope, is the result of a perovskite [a type of mineral] sample that went wrong.

The resulting picture looks like meteors crashing onto a sun. Those meteors and their tails may have been formed by the presence of impurities on the sample. In contrast, the sun might have resulted from ethyl acetate not uniformly diffusing into the perovskite sublayer [the slice of mineral].

Scientific research is not always fruitful, however, it is when you make mistakes that you learn the most and have the most fun.

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file-20170713-4670-1gsmes

Photo: Swansea University

I work with big data to explore children and young peoples mental health, analyzing millions of anonymized routinely collected health records in a secure environment.

In a public lecture I was asked how do feelings become numbers?. So in collaboration with artist Karen Ingham we worked with young people to use new technology differently, and explore feelings more directly. We asked them to create a 3D immersive version of their state of mind using a virtual reality VIVE headset with a tilt brush. They could walk in, out and around these visual representations of feelings  a true mind-body approach.

hiding in plain sight

Photo: Swansea University

In nature, some animals can blend into their environments to avoid being eaten or to reduce their impact on the ecosystem around them.

Taking inspiration from these evolved systems, we investigate the notion of chameleon-like approaches for mobile interaction design. Our approach shows the value of the concept and motivates further research in materials and form factors that can provide more effective automatic plain-sight hiding.

banality

Photo: Swansea University

I wonder whether we researchers can become so close to our work that it becomes banal to us. Not boring or without merit, but something we have become so familiar with we forget that its original and unique work that no one else is doing.

Every day I analyze ancient volcanic ash using cutting edge x-ray microscopes, but it takes a third party to remind me how out of the ordinary such a career is.

iron

Photo: Swansea University

Amy Dillwyn was one of the first British female industrialists. She has been painted as a woman whose bright future was dashed by the death of her fiance when she was just 18. In reality, she was already in love with the woman who would dominate her life and fiction for the next 30 years. Her radical novels  some of the earliest lesbian fiction in print - bend gender and reject romantic endings.

The iron on the dress was created by sculptor Mandy Lane, who poured molten iron over a century-old wedding dress. One observer remarked of the image: It is like a crime scene, and it is a crime, the crime is the fact that we need to retell the story of this clearly influential woman.

This research, and the artwork, is about uncovering and correcting the historical and literary record.

mirror trees

Photo: Swansea University

We aim to create future mobile user interfaces which are highly changeable in both their visual and tactile appearance.

Our image shows the spreading effects when a voltage is applied across EGaIn (an alloy of Gallium and Indium). Its surface tension is affected by the potential across the electrodes causing dramatic spreading effects. This means that the metal transitions from an almost perfect spheroid, to a great, flat, intricate branching tree structure. Modulating the voltage, then, can cause rapid oscillating effects to provide exciting visual and tactile feedback.

aberration

Photo: Swansea University

In our lab, we are working with atoms cooled to a millionth above absolute zero. Atomic motion becomes so slow that you can interact with them with astonishing precision. To talk to the atoms we need some form of postman to deliver this information: we use an optical fiber -400 nanometers thick! We place the nanofiber close to the atoms and shine a laser through it.

Simply because the size of the fiber is smaller than the wavelength of light that passes through it, light spills out due to a quantum mechanical effect akin to quantum tunneling. It is thanks to this spillage that light propagating through the fiber can interact with the atoms which are outside of it! In this image, you see this exact spillage from our optical nanofiber. The beautiful pattern arises from a slight misalignment of the camera lenses, known as spherical aberration.

bioblocks

Photo: Swansea University

Over 200 children used cubes of clay to sculpt ecologically attractive habitats for coastal creatures. These bioblocks demonstrate that human-made structures can support marine life, while children and their families have gained a better understanding of the unique resilience of sea creatures.

It is hoped that the diverse and complex habitat will enable more species to use this new material as a living space: crevices and holes will provide shelter; variable textures and overhangs will allow animals and seaweed to cling to the material.

Richard Johnston, Associate Professor of Engineering, Swansea University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Photo: The Conversation

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Snow this morning will give way to lingering snow showers this afternoon. Temps nearly steady in the mid to upper 30s. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 80%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..

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James Mathew Bradley Jr arrives at a Texas federal courthouse for a hearing: AP Photo/Eric Gay

The truck driver charged in a Texas human smuggling case in which 10 people died could face the death penalty, the state attorney's office has said.

James Mathew Bradley Jr of Clearwater, Florida, has been charged with one count of transporting illegal immigrants. The crime is punishable by life imprisonment, death, or a $250,000 (190,000) fine and three years of supervised release. He has yet to enter a plea.

The driver appeared in court on Monday morning, the day after 39 suspected illegal immigrants were discovered in the back of his truck outside a Walmart in San Antonio.

Officials said temperatures in the truck  which had no air conditioning or access to water  reached over 100F. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) estimated more than 100 people were crammed into the truck at one point, some as young as 15.

Eight of the passengers were found dead and two more died on Sunday, officials said. Thirty victims were transported to locals hospitals, including 17 with life-threatening injuries. Most suffered from heat stroke, and many could suffer significant, permanent brain damage, the local fire chief said.

Mr Bradley denied any knowledge of the suspected illegal immigrants in the trailer, telling officers he discovered them only when he stopped at the Walmart to relieve himself. When he opened the back of the truck, he found 30 to 40 people, and at least one dead body, but did not call 911.

The passengers were discovered only after one stopped to ask a Walmart employee for water.

Mr Bradley told investigators he was towing the trailer from Iowa to Brownsville, Texas for his boss, but was not given an exact delivery location or time.

Brian Pyle, the owner of the trucking company for which Mr Bradely worked, told The Washington Post he had no knowledge of the alleged smuggling.

This was [Mr Bradley's] very first trip, Mr Pyle told the Post. "He had my name on the side, and I pay for his insurance. He makes his own decisions, buys his own fuel.

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Passengers interviewed by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) described being smuggled over the Rio Grande River by various groups, housed in "stash houses," and eventually piled into the back of the big-rig truck.

"To maximise their criminal profits, these human smugglers crammed more than 100 people into a tractor trailer in the stifling Texas summer heat resulting in ten dead and 29 others hospitalised," acting ICE director Thomas Homan said.

"Our ICE agents and officers, working closely with our law enforcement partners, will pursue these smugglers and bring them to justice."

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly said the incident demonstrated the "brutality" of human smuggling rings.

"The Department of Homeland Security and its partners in the US, Mexico and Central America will continue to root out these smugglers, bring them to justice and dismantle their networks," he added.

Mexican officials confirmed that several of the victims came from Mexico, and asked American authorities for an exhaustive investigation. In a statement, the Mexican government said it was working to identify the victims and, if necessary, repatriate their remains.

Officials investigate a truck that was found to contain 38 suspected illegal immigrants and eight dead bodies in San Antonio (EPA)

Amy Fischer, policy director at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) in Texas, said the victims may be able to make a case for asylum, or for protection as victims of human trafficking.

"Our biggest fear is that instead of being offered some type of justice, instead of being able to pursue some kind of claim in court, [the victims] are instead swiftly deported," Ms Fischer told The Independent.

Under new DHS guidelines, illegal immigrants can be funnelled through an "expedited removal" process if they have lived in the US for less than two years.

Ms Fischer said the case highlights the dangerous journey that many asylum-seekers face in attempting to cross the border.

"This is happening in a context in which migrants and asylum seekers are regularly being turned away at the border," she said. "Folks who are trying to take refuge in our country and are forced into taking risky trips into the US. Theyre risking their lives in order to save their lives."

Ron Nirenberg, the mayor of San Antonio, said the incident "shines a bright light on the plight of immigrants looking for a better life and victims of human trafficking".

"Our response should serve as a lesson to the world that San Antonio will not turn its back on any man, woman or child in need," he added.
Trump communications chief: I will take dramatic action to stop those leaks

If they want to stay on the staff, theyre going to stop leaking

Donald Trumps new communications director has called leakers of confidential White House material un-American and promised to take dramatic action to stop such information reaching the press.

Two days after his appointment  which prompted the resignation of White House press secretary Sean Spicer  Anthony Scaramucci toured the Sunday news shows.

Brushing off questions about his deletion of tweets expressing views at odds with the president and his publicly stated criticism of Trump in the Republican primaries, he told CBSs Face the Nation: [Trump] is the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States. People that are standing around him that are doing that sort of nonsense are actually un-American.

Theyre doing an injustice to the institution of the American presidency. And were going to work very hard to change the culture of that.

On Fox News Sunday, Scaramucci, a Wall Street financier and Republican fundraiser, said: If we dont get the leaks stopped, I am a businessperson, and so I will take dramatic action to stop those leaks.

Scaramucci was answering questions about a report in the Washington Post which cited intelligence intercepts to say departing Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak told superiors he discussed the Trump campaign with Jeff Sessions in meetings in 2016.

Sessions was then an Alabama senator and Trump adviser. Now attorney general, his failure to disclose those meetings immediately led to his recusal from investigations into links between Trump aides and Russia. He has denied that the campaign was discussed.

If youre going to keep leaking, Im going to fire everybody. Its just very binary Anthony Scaramucci

Trump gave an interview to the New York Times this week, before the Post story was published, in which he was strongly critical of Sessions. The attorney general subsequently said he would serve as long as is appropriate.

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On CBS, Scaramucci said leakers were going to get fired. Im just going to make it very, very clear, OK?

Tomorrow Im going to have a staff meeting. And its going to be a very binary thing. Im not going to make any prejudgments about anybody on that staff. If they want to stay on the staff, theyre going to stop leaking.

If the leaks continue, we are strong as our weakest link. And Ill say it a little differently in a pun. Were strong as our weakest leak. So if you guys want to keep leaking, why dont you guys all get together and make a decision as a team that youre going to stop leaking?



But if youre going to keep leaking, Im going to fire everybody. Its just very binary.

In six months in power, the Trump White House has been bedevilled by leaks. Complaining about them has become the administration line when pushing back against the deepening Russian scandal.

Trump, for instance, has repeatedly accused James Comey, the FBI director he fired in May, of leaking classified information. On Saturday morning, he tweeted: While all agree the US president has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS.

Trump, Scaramucci told CBS, doesnt like the fact that he has a two-minute conversation in the Oval Office or in his study and that people are running out and leaking.

In May, Trump was reported to have discussed highly confidential information with Russians including Kislyak, in the Oval Office.

In March, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow publicised a leaked portion of Trumps tax returns that showed the president in a favourable light. Observers including the recipient of the paperwork, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, suggested that the president could have been the leaker responsible.
Elon Musk isnt the only expert who thinks we need to regulate AI soon. (image: Terminator 2: Judgement Day Paramount)

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and Space X, recently sounded the alarm that murderous artificial intelligence-powered robots could one day rampage through American neighborhoods. And the only way to stop them, he said, is to begin regulating AI before it destroys us all.

Musks warnings that AI poses an existential threat may have been a bit dramatic, but hes not the only expert hoping for some kind of government regulation of AI. And as companies from Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) to Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) continue pouring money into the field, those regulations may be needed sooner than later.

AI on the market

Carnegie Mellons Manuela Veloso, an expert on AI, doesnt believe were even close to the point where an army of T-1000s will march down Broadway and demand our fealty.

But we should have regulations of any AI-created products that reach the mass market to ensure the safety of consumers, according to Veloso, department head of the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellons School of Computer Science.

I believe there should be regulation [of AI] the same way if you and I would create some kind of milk in a factory, Veloso said, noting that the Food and Drug Administration, for example, would have to approve a new kind of milk before it reached the general public.

Veloso, however, draws the line at regulating AI research. Instead, she believes scientists should be able to push the limits of AI as far as they can in the safety of their labs.

I think the research, before it becomes a product, you can experiment, you can research or anything, otherwise well never advance the discoveries of AI, she said.

Regulating AI like people

Bain & Companys Chris Brahm, meanwhile, believes AI should be regulated not just when it serves the mass market, but also when its tasked with performing the same jobs we regulate humans  jobs like banking.

Today, as a society we have clearly decided that certain types of human decision making need to be regulated in order to protect citizens and consumers. Why then would we not, if machines start making those decisions  regulate the decision making in some form or fashion? he said.

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Who regulates the AI?

So researchers and experts agree that there should be regulations put into place. The big question, though, is who will create those rules.

The government doesnt have a regulatory body dedicated to ensuring that AI is properly vetted, and while it may not be able to stomp around crushing cars, the technology is already beginning to permeate our society from our smartphones to our hospitals.

It doesnt look like such a body will take shape and begin offering rules anytime soon, either. A House panel only recently began discussing regulations for self-driving cars, and those, in some states, are already on highways and residential streets.

Generating and enforcing such regulations can be very hard, but we can take it as a challenge, Veloso said.

So while Musks fear that the robot apocalypse is nearly upon us might be farfetched, his concerns over whether the government can implement any kind of regulations in a timely fashion are very real.

More from Dan:

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate will vote Tuesday on whether to open debate on a healthcare bill, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor. The only way the Senate can actually consider ways to overhaul healthcare law is by opening a debate in the chamber said McConnell, a Republican. "That means voting to begin the open amendment process. That means voting to kick off a robust debate ... It means voting to proceed, and that will occur tomorrow." (Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak leaves a farewell reception hosted by the US-Russia Business Council: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to Washington who became a household name amid allegations of Kremlin meddling in the US election, is officially leaving Washington.

The Russian embassy announced his resignation via Twitter, writing, Ambassador S.Kislyak has concluded his assignment in Washington, DC.

The post will be temporarily filled by Minister-Counselor and Deputy Chief of Mission Denis Gonchar while the Kremlin confirms a replacement. Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov is slated to take over the position, but his nomination has yet to be approved.

Mr Kislyak has previously served as Russian ambassador to Belgium and permanent representative of Russia to Nato in Brussels. He has worked for the Russian Foreign Ministry since 1977.

The 66-year-old diplomat, who was appointed ambassador to the US in 2008, has developed a much higher profile in recent months, thanks to the intrigue surrounding his home country and the Trump administration.

Days before the embassy announced his departure, for instance, The Washington Post reported that US intelligence had intercepted conversations between Mr Kislyak and Moscow concerning US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The intercepted communications purportedly reveal that the ambassador and Attorney General had discussed campaign-related matters, including issues important to Moscow, over the course of the Trump campaign. Mr Sessions, the former senator from Alabama, has previously claimed he met with Mr Kislyak only in his capacity as a US legislator.

Mr Sessions has already recused himself from the Justice Departments Russia probe, after failing to reveal multiple meetings with Mr Kislyak over the course of the campaign.

Sergey Kislyak worked hard during the election campaign to reach out to members of the Trump team (Getty)

Mr Kislyak also played a role in the downfall of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who stepped down after it was revealed that he had misled the Vice President and others as to the extent his conversations with Mr Kislyak.

One of those conversations, it was recently revealed, included Mr Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The two men met Mr Kislyak at Trump Tower in December 2016 to discuss setting up a private back-channel for communications between Washington and Moscow, The New York Times reports.

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Mr Kushner failed to include this meeting in his initial security clearance paperwork, but later disclosed it, along with several other phone calls with the ambassador.

The Russian government denies any interference in the US election, and Mr Trump has decried any accusations of collusion as a witch hunt.
Beirut (AFP) - Syria's regime carried out air raids on one of the last rebel strongholds near Damascus Sunday, a monitor said, a day after it declared a ceasefire in parts of the besieged enclave.

The Syrian army on Saturday announced a halt in fighting for parts of Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held region on the outskirts of the capital that has been ravaged in the six-year conflict.

"Regime warplanes targeted the area of Ain Terma with at least six strikes since early morning, and two raids were carried out on and around the city of Douma," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

The Britain-based monitor, which relies on sources in Syria for its information, did not report any casualties.

Regime shelling also hit the outskirts of the town of Jisreen on Sunday, the Observatory said, after regime artillery and rocket fire on areas including Ain Terma and the town of Harasta on Saturday after the ceasefire started.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces have surrounded the Eastern Ghouta region for more than four years, and regime forces have regularly targeted the area.

Assad's forces have for weeks been fighting rebels on the outskirts of Ain Terma, which links Eastern Ghouta to opposition-held parts of the Damascus district of Jobar.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said no jihadist forces were present in the areas targeted by regime bombardment.

The army announced a halt in fighting in areas of Eastern Ghouta on Saturday from midday local time, but did not say which areas exactly would be included.

The ceasefire announcement came after regime ally Russia said it had reached a deal with "moderate" rebels on the boundaries and policing of the safe zone.

It said the sides had also agreed "routes to supply humanitarian aid to the population and for free movement of residents".

But no rebel group yielding influence in Eastern Ghouta said they had signed that agreement.

The rebel enclave is in one of four proposed "de-escalation zones" designated in a deal reached by government allies Iran and Russia and rebel backer Turkey in May.

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But the accord has yet to be fully implemented over disagreements on policing the safe zones.

A ceasefire was implemented in another "de-escalation zone" in southern Syria on July 9, but none has so far been announced for the northwestern province of Idlib or parts of the central province of Homs.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since its conflict broke out in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces and their allies have recaptured territory from Islamic State in countryside southeast of its stronghold Raqqa after air strikes in the area, a pro-Damascus military media unit and war monitors reported. The advances toward the provincial boundary between Raqqa and Deir al-Zor took place late on Saturday, the media unit, run by Damascus ally Lebanese Hezbollah, and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The army seized an oil field in the Sabkha area as part of the advance. It was a rare advance for Damascus's forces in that area, which is close to territory controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-dominated alliance separately fighting Islamic State. It also brings government forces closer to Deir al-Zor province, another Islamic State stronghold. The Syrian army has active front lines with Islamic State in western Raqqa province and has made recent gains there. Incidents between the Syrian military and SDF last month raised tension between Washington and Damascus and its ally Moscow. Separately in the north of Syria, one of the country's most complicated battlegrounds, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels are fighting U.S.-backed Kurdish forces over control of some areas along the border, in clashes that threaten to distract from the fight against Islamic State. The Kurdish YPG militia, which forms the largest part of the SDF, controls much of northeastern Syria after capturing vast tracts of land from Islamic State. (Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Mark Potter)
Even fans who couldnt make it to San Diego Comic-Con can enjoy the spoils of the annual event  and by spoils, of course, we mean trailers, clips, and sizzle reels for the studios buzziest upcoming films. While some of the new footage hasnt yet debuted outside of Hall H (including those for Marvels Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Warners Blade Runner 2049 and Aquaman), seven of them have been posted online for your immediate gratification. Read on for our ranked list of the best Comic-Con movie trailers, featuring the return of Wonder Woman, a sci-fi sequel five years in the making, a new Marvel superteam, and a Netflix film that will have everybody talking.

7. Ready Player One (March 30, 2018)

The first teaser for this highly anticipated quest film plays like the video games its hero (Tye Sheridan) loves: big on visuals, low on emotional stakes. It may not win over a lot of new fans, but thats OK, because plenty of people are already very excited for Steven Spielbergs big-screen adaptation of Ernest Clines bestselling sci-fi novel. Set in the year 2045, the movie takes place largely in a virtual-reality world called the Oasis, created by a tech genius obsessed with the 1980s. Look closely at the trailer for pop-culture nods ranging from Freddy Krueger to Lord of the Rings.

6. Pacific Rim: Uprising (Feb. 23, 2018)

The long-awaited sequel to 2013s sci-fi fantasy film Pacific Rim doesnt have a proper trailer yet, but this SDCC promo video is a tantalizing tease. John Boyega is featured in a mock propaganda campaign for Jaegers, the giant human-piloted robots devised to battle a giant monster uprising. Its like Transformers, minus Michael Bay and all that weird revisionist history.

5. The Lego Ninjago Movie (Sept. 22, 2017)

The team behind The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie takes a stab at the samurai genre in their latest brick-building comedy. The trailer is, at times, a little too reminiscent of the original Lego Movie, with its outcast hero (Dave Franco), exasperated mentor (Jackie Chan), deadpan villain (Justin Theroux), and myriad daddy issues. However, the inclusion of a live-action cat (Meowthra!) and a joke about a missing toy limb shows that the producers are still willing to push the limits of their Lego format, with very funny results.

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4. Bright (Dec. 22, 2017)

The trailer for Netflixs first $100 million movie has a lot going for it: Will Smith in full reluctant-hero mode, special effects to rival any studio blockbuster, and a premise thats so bonkers, one cant help but be intrigued. Bright is a gritty police procedural that takes place in a city where orcs, fairies, and other magical creatures live alongside humans. Partnered with the first orc cop (Joel Edgerton), Smiths human character must put aside his prejudices to keep a literal magic wand (like a nuclear weapon that grants wishes) away from supernatural criminals.

3. Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Sept. 22, 2017)

Even those who missed out on Matthew Vaughns action-spy comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service are likely to be pulled in by this fun, frenetic trailer for the sequel. The suave British secret agents of the 2014 film (among them a seemingly back-from-the-dead Colin Firth) are joined by their American cousins, a spy team of lasso-wielding cowboys that includes Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges. Their common enemy: Poppy (Julianne Moore), a cheerfully depraved criminal mastermind in a floral print. Its like James Bond meets a Quentin Tarantino Western, with hints of Vaughns trademark cheeky, grisly humor.

2. Justice League (Nov. 17, 2017)

With a major shakeup happening in the D.C. Extended Universe  namely, that Ben Affleck may be replaced as Batman  Warner Bros. has a lot riding on the success of Justice League. Fortunately, the first full-length trailer shows a studio thats wisely playing to its strengths. And by strengths, we mean Wonder Woman. Diana Princes box-office-conquering alter ego (Gal Gadot) is front and center in the Comic-Con trailer, stepping up to protect a Superman-less world from a mysterious villain. Fighting alongside her at the behest of Bruce Wayne (Affleck, stepping into a more Nick Fury-like mentor role) are aquatic warrior Aquaman (Jason Momoa, with charisma to spare), newbie superhero Flash (Ezra Miller, providing some comic relief), and man-turned-machine Cyborg (Ray Fisher). The trailer is an exciting hint of things to come, with enough footage of Themyscira and shirtless Momoa to please fans who just want the Wonder Woman sequel (date TBA) and the Aquaman movie (Dec. 2018) to get here already.

1. Thor: Ragnarok (Nov. 3, 2017)

How did Marvel manage to top the first Thor: Ragnarok trailer, which broke the Marvel record for most trailer views in 24 hours? They did it by giving fans the big picture: not only does a hammerless Thor (Chris Hemsworth) battle Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) in an intergalatic gladiator match, but he recruits Bruce Banner for an impromptu superhero team-up that includes Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and new warrior Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) against an antlered Goddess of Death (Cate Blanchett). Add awesome visuals that look like they stepped off an 80s metal album  Warriors flying horses through thunderclouds! A giant fire monster!  and some witty Asgardian banter, and youve got a Marvel trailer that strikes the perfect balance between new and familiar. Not bad for the third movie in a franchise.

Read more from Yahoo Movies:
President Trump has reportedly asked advisers about the scope of his presidential pardoning powers, specifically whether he can pardon his top aides, family members and himself, according to the Washington Post.

Trump declared Saturday on Twitter that the U.S. president holds the complete power to pardon, so the issue is on his mind. But when Trumps lawyer Jay Sekulow was asked about the tweet on ABCs This Week, he said that he had not discussed pardons with the president.

Were not researching the issue, because the issue of pardons is not on the table, Sekulow said. Theres nothing to pardon from.

Trumps recent foray into exploring the scope of a presidents power to pardon has touched off debates among constitutional law experts over whether the commander in chief can pardon himself. Some say he can because its not explicitly prohibited in the Constitution. Others cite a 1974 Department of Justice memo (written as the Watergate investigation was closing in on President Richard Nixon), which held that under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.

But Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt, an expert on constitutional law who has been writing for the past 20 years on presidential pardons, says the question is very much open. In an interview with Yahoo News, Kalt explains the power to pardon, historical precedents and how a pardon could affect independent counsel Robert Muellers investigation into the Trump campaigns ties to Russia.

Yahoo: What is a presidential pardon?

Brian Kalt: The Constitution [Article II, Section 2] says the president has the power to target offenses against the U.S.  In cases of federal crime, the president has the power to preempt or undo some part of federal prosecution.

If youre convicted of a crime  youre sentenced to some sentence and maybe for the rest of your life youre restricted in certain ways. You cant vote, or you cant have a gun, something like that. Nine times out of 10, a presidential pardon is someone in that situation saying, You know, I committed a crime but it was a long time ago, and Ive done good things since then. Do you think you could forgive me for this and restore my civil rights? Thats typically how [a pardon] works, and it goes to Department of Justice and the president doesnt really see it. [The DOJ] processes it for him and he just signs off on it.

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But the president could also use that power to prevent someone from staying in prison. So someones in the middle of being imprisoned; the president could commute the sentence and get him out.

The president can, earlier in the process, stop a prosecution. The president can pardon someone before theyve been charged, [before] theyve been convicted, and that would prevent the prosecution from even happening.  Its preempting or undoing some part of federal prosecution.

President Trump (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Can the president pardon himself?

Ive been writing about this for 20 years, and it just amuses me any time I see commentary, people saying, Well, of course he can, or Well, of course he cant.

The answer is we dont know.

Any court that took this question, it would be appealed up to the Supreme Court, and they could do whatever they want.  I favor the argument that he cant. But there are good arguments on both sides. It could go either way.

The basic argument on the side that says he can do it is, look at the Constitution and it doesnt say he cant. It says he can pardon federal crimes. It says in another clause he cant pardon an impeachment away; he cant stop or undo an impeachment.  Those are the only limits.

There are two main arguments pushing back at that. One, a pardon has to be a pardon. So there are certain limits just inherent in the fact that its something we call the pardon. You cant pardon someone for a future act.  If the president said, Im pardoning you for what youre going to do next Tuesday, it wouldnt be valid; the court wouldnt respect it. Even though the Constitution doesnt specifically say that thats not OK.  For [the argument against] self-pardons, it would be its inherent that its something you give to someone else and it has to be bilateral in that way, like a donation.  You cant donate something to yourself. The other main argument is this old legal principle that you cant be the judge of your own case, and youve got to hand it over to someone else to decide.

Has a president tried to pardon himself before?

No. Thats why we dont know, because its never been tested. The closest we came was Nixon [with Watergate]. He asked his lawyer [J. Fred Buzhardt], What are my options? His lawyer said, You could quit, [or] you could pardon yourself and then quit.

But the Department of Justice, who would have been prosecuting [Nixon] presumably after he left office  analyzed it and said they could prosecute him after he left office even if he pardoned himself, that [it] wouldnt be valid if he pardoned himself.

Can he be prosecuted while in office?

President Richard Nixon speaks at the Associated Press Managing Editors annual meeting, Nov. 17, 1973. Nixon told the APME, I am not a crook. (Photo: AP)

The Constitution doesnt say you cant. So people say, If there was something that said presidents are immune while in office, then great, but [the Constitution] doesnt, so lets prosecute him. Other people say its kind of weird  hes head of executive branch and the executive branch would be prosecuting him, so he could fire the special counsel or whoevers prosecuting him.

When Nixon was being investigated under the Watergate investigation, [the grand jury] indicted a lot of people, but they didnt indict him. They didnt know if they could do it and they didnt want to press their luck.  President [Bill] Clinton was in a similar situation. It looked like [the DOJ was] waiting for him to leave office to prosecute him, and they cut a deal the day before he left office and settled that case.

Can the president pardon his aides and/or family members?

It seems like he has much more leeway to do that.  President Clinton pardoned his own [half] brother [Roger Clinton, who was arrested and imprisoned on drug charges]. That was controversial because people thought that was unseemly, but no one thought he couldnt do that just because it was his half-brother.

There are limits on the pardon power besides whether the pardon is valid or not. One of them is political. [T]he president needs  political support, and doing something like pardoning your family members or pardoning yourself would damage you politically in most cases.  On the other side, theres the possibility its a crime. Just because you could pardon people and the pardon could stick doesnt mean if [the pardon is] corrupt that they couldnt prosecute you. If I gave the president $1 million to pardon me, the pardon would stick, but thats a bribe, and [DOJ] would prosecute. If [the president is] doing it in a way thats corrupt, thats obstructing justice.

One important point that I think gets missed a lot: People talk about the pardon power [believing] pardons are for guilty people. [They think] if you accept a pardon youre admitting youre guilty. Ninety-nine percent of the time thats what a pardon is.  But pardons are used to exonerate people.  Someones exhausted all their appeals, new evidence comes out, the court wont look at it. The president can say, Im issuing a pardon because this person is actually innocent. You can imagine the president saying, This special prosecutor has gone too far. This is a witch hunt. This is fake news. This is all a bunch of inappropriate use of power. Im the president. I have the power to stop it ,and Im going to use that power.  You can imagine at least 30 percent of the country would say, Yeah, hes right, this is ridiculous.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone whos being prosecuted. Lets say you are sure youre innocent but youre being prosecuted anyway. If the president pardoned you, you would probably take it. Why take the chance?

If the president successfully pardoned his top aides or family members, what would that mean in terms of a political legacy?

President-elect Donald Trump stands with his children Ivanka and Donald Jr., during Trumps press conference at Trump Tower in New York on Jan. 11, 2017. (Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

Every once in a while people talk about amending the Constitution to restrict pardon power. The president has the pardon power because hes politically accountable.  The fact of the matter is the Constitution doesnt get amended for stuff like that. But you can imagine a very controversial pardon  might spur the amendment process. Congress [says that] there have been some abuses here [and] pass an amendment to restrict some pardon powers; [and] in certain matters the president can pardon but the Senate has to approve it.  But even then, it would be controversial, but its politics. Clinton did his controversial pardons, and there was a big fuss about it and now no one talks about it.

Whats the historical precedent for these controversial pardons?

I would say probably the [most] controversial pardon was when [President Gerald] Ford pardoned Nixon. He did it in 1974, and he still had to run for reelection [in 1976], and he lost, and it probably cost him the election.  Thats the way its supposed to work. The president did it because he thought it was the right thing to do, and he was accountable. So that one didnt blow over; that haunted Ford for the rest of his term, but it was probably the right thing to do. I think thats got to be the No. 1 most controversial because it cost him the election.

Once youre pardoned, can you be prosecuted in the future?

The state can prosecute you still. The pardon would have to specify what it covers. Fords pardon of Nixon was pretty broad. It was for anything [Nixon] did or might have done as president.  But if it said something like, I pardon you for your role in the Iran-Contra scandal, then they might still be able to prosecute me for anything else I did [outside of that], or lying to investigators. So you have to look at the terms of the pardon and see what falls under it. But basically if youre pardoned and you havent already been prosecuted, then you cant [be prosecuted]. Whatever [the pardon] says its covering, then it covers it. But that still leaves [state prosecution], and it still leaves impeachment.

What is the timeline for a pardon?

The usual process is that it goes through the Department of Justice. It takes years, and they make a recommendation.

But if the president wants to pardon someone, basically all you have to do is take out a piece of paper. Maybe you can even tweet it, if youve got the right language. All you have to say is, I, Donald J. Trump, as president of the United States, hereby pardon so and so for such and such  and then sign it. And thats that.  The timeline is whatever the president wants it to be.

Whats a situation in which a president could get a pardon? How likely is the 25th Amendment scenario (in which Vice President Mike Pence steps in and then pardons Trump)?

Vice President Mike Pence watches as President Trump departs the White House on his trip to the Middle East and Europe, May 19, 2017. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

What [someone in my law school class] said was, why would you go out of the way to pardon yourself when you could just do that? Im having a colonoscopy and Im going to hand over power to the vice president. And then the vice president pardons you, and then you come back and be president again.

Thats a great example of the most important check on the pardon power being political. It would be a tremendous political black eye to try and do something like that. You would think they would do that if they thought they could get away with it or if they had nothing to lose.

Politically, they might try and do it if they thought they could get away with it. If they had nothing to lose, then thats not something worth protecting. As a legal matter I dont see any reason why they couldnt do that. The pardons would stick. You could say they made a deal; its a conspiracy to obstruct justice  but the pardons would stick. I dont know why Mike Pence would want to stick his neck out like that.

Hes not one of the people who has nothing to lose.

Right, and hes the one person Trump cant fire.

You mentioned this earlier  the Justice Department has a 1974 memo stating that the president cannot pardon himself. What does that memo mean if Trump tries to pardon himself? Is it binding in any way?

No, [its not binding]. Its value is that it is potentially persuasive to say its a well-respected office, the Department of Justice, and smart people looked into it and this is what they thought.  It would be a weight on the scale, but it wouldnt present any kind of insurmountable barrier.

How would pardons affect Fifth Amendment protections?

[Thats] one drawback to pardoning people if youre trying to derail an investigation. Lets say the president tries to pardon his son-in-law [Jared Kushner]. And you say, OK, now Mueller cant go after him and hes out. But Mueller can still investigate. He cant prosecute him. Now that Kushner is pardoned, he cant plead the Fifth. That means hes more likely to have to testify and that protection youre giving to him comes at the cost of exposing everyone he would then be forced to testify against.

The cynical answer is [that] in exchange for his loyalty  he would testify in a way that didnt incriminate anyone. But the fact of the matter is they cant take the Fifth; that provides an important protection. Thats exposing everyone above him in the enterprise.

If theres a possibility of state prosecution, then you might still plead the Fifth. Ive been pardoned but I dont want to incriminate myself as far as any state proceedings, so Im not going to talk to you. But you could get around that by saying, Well take your testimony and not share it with the state.

And this would only apply to things the person was pardoned for.

Right.

What are the chances that Trump actually pardons someone in his circle? Or that he pardons himself?

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner arrives on Capitol Hill July 24, 2017, to meet behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Time and time again, when I try and predict what Donald Trump will do, I say, Well, surely he would never do that, and then he does. Ive given up estimating the extent of his ambition or what I thought were political barriers to doing things.  He would probably not use the pardon power until or unless it really starts to get real. In other words, he wouldnt do it at this stage. Once people are indicted, once it looks like theyre going to be indicted. Even then its a question of loyalty: Who does he feel like he needs to protect?

If it came to that, I dont think he would hesitate to do it. This is a fault in my analysis before; I just assumed politically it would be be suicide to pardon your own inner circle like that. But public opinion is so divided and people view the news in such polarized and mutually exclusive ways, I could see him saying, Im not bailing out my corrupt cronies. Im protecting them from the other side being corrupt and inappropriate and of course Im going to do the right thing here.

If you dont have enough people in Congress  the Republican majority would have to be against it  then you get away with it. I think he could get away with a lot more politically than I ever imagined a president could.

Would that person have to accept a pardon?

Sometimes the president issues a pardon conditionally. If you do X, then youre pardoned. In that case, the person can say, Well, I dont want to do that, so I dont accept the pardon. In that case, you can say it has to be accepted. But there are other cases where the president says, for instance, President [Dwight] Eisenhower, there was a guy [Maurice Schick] who was about to executed and Eisenhower commuted his sentence and said, Give him a life sentence and dont execute him. [Schick] said, I dont want a life sentence; Id rather be executed. The court said, Its not up to you to accept it or not. A pardon doesnt have to be accepted even though there are a lot of contexts in which it does. If the president wants it to happen without the person accepting it, there are ways he can do that.

How could a pardon affect the independent counsels investigation?

It would reduce the number of targets for prosecution, but it would expand the amount of testimony they could get. The question is how many targets are left versus how much testimony does it open up?

What about any congressional investigations?

Thats where the Constitution specifically says pardons dont apply to impeachment. You couldnt do anything to an impeachment  if anything, it could add fuel to the fire for an impeachment.

And the Donald Trump Jr. Senate hearings this week?

No. Congress power to investigate and to impeach are totally outside of the reach of the pardon power.

Ex-ethics chief Walter Shaub tweeted that we should never underestimate the willingness of the Office of Legal Counsel to revise its views when the White House finds them annoying. Whats your response to that?

but never underestimate willingness of OLC, which issued torture memo + nepotized WH, to revise its views when WH finds rule of law annoying  Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 21, 2017

That sounds pretty cynical to me, but the line between cynical and realistic is getting thinner every day.  I wouldnt put it that way, but I cant disagree with that.

What are people missing when theyre looking at this question of Trump and presidential pardons?

People arent paying enough attention to the possibility of state prosecution. The attorney general of New York [Eric Schneiderman], [is] no friend of Trump, and theres nothing [Trump] can do about stopping state prosecution.  He cant pardon it away.

People dont ignore this as much, but I think they need to emphasize it more. When it comes to presidents and their accountability for their potentially criminal actions, its first and foremost political, and its first and foremost up to Congress and whether theyre going to impeach. The independent counsel can prosecute all sorts of people, but he cant do anything to the president without Congress going first.

We saw that with [independent counsel] Ken Starr [who investigated Clinton].  He took his report [on Clinton] and he sent it to Congress [which helped the impeachment begin].

Could a court challenge a pardon?

It would have to come up where the president pardoned himself and the prosecutor went after him anyway. The court would have to decide at that point if the president didnt pardon himself, we wont know. If he did pardon himself and they didnt try to prosecute, we wouldnt know.

But if he pardons himself and they try to prosecute him anyway, then we would, or if they start to and they ask the court. As long as its not theoretical, the court will weigh in. Once they do, its settled.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Following a Washington Post report, there has been speculation whether Donald Trump's team has discussed presidential pardons in connection with the Russia probe. Jay Sekulow, one of President Trump's lawyers, appeared on ABC News' 'This Week' Sunday and said, "the issue of pardons is not on the table, there's nothing to pardon from." SEE ALSO: Trump claims 'complete power to pardon' amid the White House's escalating war on Russia investigation When asked if he thinks Trump could pardon himself, Sekulow responded, in part, "...from a constitutional and legal perspective -- and you can't dismiss it one way or the other. I think it's a question that would ultimately, if put in place, would probably have to be adjudicated by the Supreme Court to determine constitutionality." However, he went on to repeat that it's an issue they are not researching. RELATED: Putting the Trump-Russia timeline into perspective President Trump also addressed the matter on Saturday, asserting what he calls his "complete power to pardon." He made the comment in one of many tweets where he sounded off on various topics including the media, Obamacare, and the Russia investigation. Trump wrote, "While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS." Meanwhile, during an on-camera press briefing Friday, newly named press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared to leave open the possibility that Trump could issue pardons over Russia when she stated: "The president maintains pardon powers like any president would, but there are no announcements or planned announcements on that front whatsoever."
Black River Falls is slated to hire a new police chief.

Pending a background check, Kelly Bakken  a current captain in the Jackson County Sheriffs Department  will make the transition to lead the citys police force.

I believe there are some things that can be done as far as community-oriented policing, Bakken said. Right now we know there is a huge drug problem. It is a community problem, not just a police problem, and that is definitely something that I feel can be worked on through community policing and being out there and talking to the community.

Brad Chown, city administrator, said Bakken is expected to begin her first day around Sept. 1. The BRF Hiring Committee approved Bakken in a unanimous vote Wednesday evening.

In a statement released by Bakken, she said, I envision a new beginning of transparency and relationship building that builds a community. I plan to implement a philosophy that emphasizes officer honesty, transparency, professional and respectful service to the community.

Bakken has lived in Jackson County for 12 years and has been in law enforcement for 19 years.She has been the patrol/investigations captain for the Jackson County Sheriffs Office since 2016.

Bakken is married and has two children and a stepson. Her husband is a sergeant for the Wisconsin State Patrol.

According to the BRF Hiring Committee, Bakken will earn $31.25 an hour plus benefits. As part of the employment package, the city will also pay up to $1,500 for Bakken to attend a Department of Justice leadership and management training course at Fort McCoy.

The citys former police chief, Scot Eisenhauer, resigned earlier this year with an abrupt Facebook announcement. He took a job as director of criminal justice training at the Wisconsin Technical College.

Following the Hiring Committee, the citys common council met in a special session. The Council moved forward on several agenda items and other business matters.

During departmental reports, it was announced that pumps to drain water-logged E. Gordon Street could be in place by Aug. 1. Other business included approving an ordinance to license taxi service. There were previously no certifications necessary to drive a cab in the city.

An audit of the citys finances indicated BRF is doing well in areas such as debt payment and growth. Mayor Jay Eddy praised the citys department heads and Chown for their budgeting process.

Thanks for all your hard work, Eddy said.

The audit was presented by the accounting and advisory firm Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, LLP.

The Common Council also discussed residential tenancy in basement levels, something which officials are unsure is permitted by the policys current wording. Officials are keen to enact more concrete guidelines after a tenant living in a basement was unaware of a structure fire overhead earlier this year, officials said.

We couldve lost an individual in this fire, said BRF Fire Chief Steve Schreiber.

City officials and the BRF attorney will explore the feasibility of banning apartments below ground level, Chown said. The citys efforts could be complicated by tenants who already live below-level and dont want to move elsewhere.

In an effort officials say helps balance a landfill budget thats in the red, the Council approved a lease between the city and Modern Disposal Systems. According to Chown, MDS will lease the citys unused transfer station space at $800 per month.

Chown said the lease increases yearly, and added that MDS is eyeing land to build its own transfer station within city limits.

Additionally, permits were given to the BRF Police Department for a street dance on South 1st Street on Aug. 18, and for an American Red Cross benefit event in downtown on July 22.

The Common Council next meets 6 p.m. on Aug. 1 at City Hall.
President Donald Trump might be investigating whether he can pardon himself, according to the Washington Post on Friday, but the complicated legal question has many scholars and law experts scratching their heads.

One of Trumps personal lawyers, Jay Sekulow, believes it would be the Supreme Courts responsibility to adjudicate the matter, but denied that Trumps legal team is examining the matter.

READ: Mueller Investigating Trump's Business Dealings In Russia Probe: Report

If put in place, (a presidential pardon) would probably have to be adjudicated by the Supreme Court to determine constitutionality, said Sekulow Sunday on ABCs This Week. There's academics that are arguing both sides of this. And as I said, we're not researching it. I haven't researched it because it's not an issue we're concerned with or dealing with.

Sekulow was emphatic that the Trump legal team wasn't discussing pardons.

We have not and continue to not have conversations with the president of the United States regarding pardons, Sekulow said. Pardons have not been discussed, and pardons are not on the table.

Despite his own lawyers insistence that the administration isnt discussing it, Trump brought up pardons on Twitter Saturday.

While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS, the president tweeted.

The Washington Post reported that pardoning discussions stem from the several ongoing investigations into connections between Trumps campaign and transition and Russia. Trump and his surrogates have been most focused on the Justice Departments investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one (source). A second person said Trumps lawyers have been discussing the presidents pardoning powers among themselves, wrote the Washington Post Friday. One adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Muellers investigation.

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The Washington Post also reported that Trumps team is looking into ways to stymie Mueller and discredit his investigations. Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, had gone on several shows to point out that several of the lawyers working for Mueller have donated to Democrats.

In a separate article, the Washington Post reported that intelligence intercepts show Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed campaign matters with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sessions publicly has said that he did not discuss campaign matters in the meeting.

Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia investigations by the Justice Department, and in a New York Times interview, Trump said he would have never hired Sessions if he knew he would recuse himself.

READ: Mark Kasowitz, Mark Corallo Quit Trump's Legal Team Amid Russia Probe

Trump lashed out at the media Saturday as the Russia investigations are heating up.

A new INTELLIGENCE LEAK from the Amazon Washington Post, this time against A.G. Jeff Sessions.These illegal leaks, like Comey's, must stop! Trump tweeted.

Related Articles
Scaramucci: Trumps view is maybe they did it, maybe they didnt do it

White House sends mixed signals about new sanctions against Moscow

Donald Trump speaks in the commissioning ceremony of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford in Norfolk, Virginia. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Donald Trump remains unconvinced that Russia interfered in last years US election, his new communications chief said on Sunday, as the White House gave mixed signals about whether it would approve new sanctions against Moscow.

Anthony Scaramucci said the president believed Russian intelligence services were super confident in their deception skills and hacking and would have left no trace if they had intruded into Democratic computer systems.

If the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those emails, you would have never seen it, you would have never had any evidence of them, Scaramucci quoted the president as saying, during an interview with CNNs State of the Union.

Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, also confirmed that the president had recently discussed his power to pardon people for criminal wrongdoing, contradicting denials from Trumps legal team following leaks to the media this week.

US intelligence concluded in January that Russian state hackers broke into email accounts at Democratic party headquarters and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, as part of an effort ordered by Vladimir Putin to help elect Trump.

The FBI, a special counsel and two Republican-controlled congressional committees are investigating whether anyone on Trumps campaign colluded with Russian officials.

Trumps son, Donald Jr, is due to testify to senators after it emerged that he and other advisers on Trumps campaign met a Russian attorney who represented the countrys intelligence services when promised damaging information about Clinton.

Yet after six months of his presidency being consumed by the Russian controversy, Trumps view on the Kremlins alleged interference is that maybe they did it, maybe they didnt do it, Scaramucci said on Sunday.

The Trump White House has in recent weeks been lobbying members of Congress to weaken a proposal for new sanctions intended to punish Moscow for its meddling in the US election.

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Asked on Sunday if Trump would veto the new sanctions, which were passed overwhelmingly by both parties in the Senate, Scaramucci said: He hasnt made the decision yet to sign that bill, one way or the other.



This clashed with remarks by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the newly promoted White House press secretary, who said Trump does intend to approve the legislation. She told ABCs This Week: We support where the legislation is now.

Two senators, Republican John Thune and Democrat Ben Cardin, told Fox News Sunday there would be enough support in the upper chamber to override a veto from Trump.

Scaramucci also contradicted White House denials of reports this week that Trumps legal team was looking into pardons as it sought to limit the reach of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating links between Trump aides and Russian meddling.

On Saturday, Trump said in a tweet that all agree the US president has the complete power to pardon.

Asked on CNN if Trump had discussed pardons, Scaramucci said that it has been coming up a lot and emphatically defended Trumps right to look into his pardoning powers, saying: Hes the president of the United States.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Scaramucci said: Im in the Oval Office last week, were talking about that, he brought that up. But he said that he doesnt have to be pardoned, nobody around him has to be pardoned, he was just making the statement about the power of pardon.

Scaramuccis remarks came soon after Jay Sekulow, one of Trumps attorneys, told reporters on Saturday there had been no such discussions among the presidents team.

Were not researching [pardons] because its not an issue, Sekulow said at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. Questioned by reporters, Sekulow said: I dont know where this came from. There is nothing to pardon.

Citing a person familiar with such discussions, the Washington Post last week said Trump had asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe.

The Post also quoted a close adviser as saying: This is not in the context of I cant wait to pardon myself. The report prompted the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, Mark Warner, to express serious concern.

Legal experts who spoke to the Guardian doubted that a president could pardon himself, but said the legal picture was by definition unclear, given that Richard Nixon was pardoned after resigning over the Watergate scandal  but by his successor, Gerald Ford.

It really is uncharted territory, and that makes it interesting to discuss but hard to predict, said Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University and author of a recent book, Constitutional Cliffhangers. Anyone whos certain is wrong.

Trumps tweet immediately concerned  and seemed to confirm  the leak to the Washington Post of intelligence material that said Sergey Kislyak, the outgoing Russian ambassador to the US, told superiors he discussed the Trump campaign with then-senator and Trump adviser Jeff Sessions at meetings in 2016.

Sessions, now attorney general, has denied discussing the campaign with Kislyak. His failure to immediately disclose such meetings led to his recusal from the justice department investigation.

This week, in an interview with the New York Times, Trump criticised Sessions and said he regretted hiring him. Sessions said he would stay in the job as long as is appropriate.



Trumps Saturday tweet was one of 10 fired off in an hour, on the morning after the appointment of Scaramucci as the new White House communications director and the subsequent resignation of the press secretary, Sean Spicer.

The president defended his son for meeting the Russian lawyer last June. He also attacked Clinton, Democrats, the Post and the Times. He added that healthcare reform, stalled in the Senate, was now solely the responsibility of the Republican party.

Citing unnamed sources, Reuters reported that investigators were hoping to gain the cooperation of Trumps former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, in their inquiry into links with Russia.

Additional reporting by Tom McCarthy




President: some GOP politicians were carried over the line on my back

Comms director had told CNN Trump would dial back some tweets

Donald Trump listens as Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan address party members at the White House in May. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

President Donald Trump expressed his frustration with Republicans on Sunday, saying they do very little to protect their president.



In an afternoon tweet, Trump said this happened even with some that were carried over the line on my back.

The presidents tweet, sent following one about Russia and after a controversial volley of 10 such messages on Saturday, followed a suggestion by new communications director Anthony Scaramucci on CNNs State of the Union that Trump will probably dial back some of those tweets.

The president did not make clear why he was upset. But pressure over FBI, special counsel and congressional investigations into links between Trump aides and Russia is increasing while Republicans in the Senate are struggling to come together on a bill to overhaul President Barack Obamas healthcare law.



On Saturday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers announced a new package of sanctions against Russia, measures the Trump White House opposes.

In talk show appearances on Sunday, Scaramucci and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave differing answers over whether Trump would sign the sanctions legislation.

Senior Republican and Democratic senators told Fox News Sunday they thought the sanctions would have a veto-proof majority.

On healthcare, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is making a last-gasp effort to resuscitate the legislation after Trump, who stated three positions on the bill within one week, finally insisted senators should not leave town for their August recess without passing reform.

Trump has had a complicated relationship with the Republican party since announcing his run for president in 2015. But GOP lawmakers have been generally supportive with him in the White House, even as his approval ratings have slipped to historic lows.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Scaramucci said he would let the president be the president, as he wanted to help aid and abet his agenda.

Asked on CBSs Face the Nation about the presidents tweets about the Russia investigation, Scaramucci said: If he thinks its helpful to him, let him do it.
Istanbul (AFP) - Seventeen directors and journalists from one of Turkey's most respected opposition newspapers go on trial Monday after spending over eight months behind bars in a case which has raised new alarm over press freedoms under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The suspects were detained from October last year under the state of emergency implemented after the July 15, 2016 failed coup blamed on the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.

The opposition fears the emergency has been used to go after anyone who dares defy Erdogan and if convicted, the defendants face varying terms of up to 43 years in jail.

The trial is seen as a test for press freedoms under Erdogan in Turkey, which ranks 155th on the latest Reporters Without Borders (RSF) world press freedom index, below Belarus and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the P24 press freedom group, there are 166 journalists behind bars in Turkey, most of whom were arrested under the state of emergency.

Erdogan, however, insisted in an interview earlier this month there were just "two real journalists" behind bars in Turkey.

- Blank space columns -

Cumhuriyet (Republic), which was set up in 1924 and is Turkey's oldest mainstream national title, has been a thorn in the side of Erdogan in recent years.

It is one of the few genuine opposition voices in the press, which is dominated by strongly pro-government media and bigger mainstream dailies that are increasingly wary of challenging the authorities.

A total of 17 staff of the newspaper -- including writers, cartoonists and executives -- will go on trial from 0600 GMT at the imposing palace of justice in Istanbul.

Those appearing in court include some of the best known names in Turkish journalism including the columnist Kadri Gursel, the paper's editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu and the respected cartoonist Musa Kart.

Also being tried in the case is the investigative journalist Ahmet Sik who in 2011 wrote an explosive book "The Imam's Army" exposing the grip Gulen's movement had on the Turkish state.

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The book was initially banned and caused a sensation when published on the internet as "000Kitap" ("000Book").

Eleven of the 17 suspects including Gursel, Sabuncu, Kart and Sik, are held in jail with the other six free under judicial supervision.

Being tried in absentia in the case is the paper's former editor-in-chief Can Dundar, who was last year handed a five-year-and-10-month jail term over a front-page story accusing the government of sending weapons to Syria.

He has now fled Turkey for Germany.

Those held will on the first day of the trial have been imprisoned for 267 days, with the exception of Sik, who has been held for 206 days.

Since their arrests, Cumhuriyet has continued publishing the columns of the jailed journalists but with a blank white space instead of text.

- 'Turkish journalism on trial' -

Supporters have labelled the charges against the newspaper staff as absurd and simply an attempt to muzzle the newspaper.

They are charged with supporting in the newspaper's writings no less than three groups considered by Turkey as terror outfits -- the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the ultra-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and Gulen's movement, which Ankara calls the Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO).

But supporters insist that the paper has always been bitterly critical of the three groups, including Gulen's organisation. Gulen denies any link to the failed coup.

The indictment accuses Cumhuriyet of beginning a "perception operation" with the aim of starting an "asymmetric war" against Erdogan.

"It's journalism in Turkey, not just Cumhuriyet, that is being put on trial," said RSF secretary general Christophe Deloire.

"Journalists are yet again being treated as terrorists just for doing their job," he added.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in an opinion released last month, said it found that the detention of the staff was arbitrary and that they should be immediately released and given the right to compensation.

It said that their imprisonment "resulted from the exercise of their rights and freedoms" and said it was concerned by the "vagueness" of the charges of aiding terror groups.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republicans and Democrats have reached agreement on legislation that allows new sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea, leading congressional Democrats said on Saturday, in a bill that would limit any potential effort by President Donald Trump to try to lift sanctions against Moscow. The Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act, which was passed by the Senate a month ago, was held up in the House of Representatives after Republicans proposed including North Korea sanctions in the bill. The House is set to vote on Tuesday on a package of bills on sanctions covering Russia, Iran and North Korea, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthys office. The measure will "hold them accountable for their dangerous actions," McCarthy said in a statement Saturday. Under the proposed bill, Trump must submit to Congress a report on proposed actions that would "significantly alter" U.S. foreign policy in connection with Russia, including easing sanctions or returning diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York that former President Barack Obama ordered vacated in December. Congress would have at least 30 days to hold hearings and then vote to uphold or reject Trumps proposed changes. Many lawmakers hope the bill will send a message to Trump to keep a strong line against Russia. Trump, who met Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg earlier this month and said it was an "honor" to meet him, has been criticized for seeking to reset U.S.-Russian relations. His administration has been bogged down by ongoing investigations of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia. With the bill, Republicans and Democrats are seeking to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea, a peninsula belong to Ukraine, and for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Putin has denied any meddling in the U.S. democratic process last year. Trump has said that his campaign did not collude with Russia. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Russia's "outrageous and unacceptable" behavior in the 2016 U.S. election and in Europe "demand that we have strong statutory sanctions enacted as soon as possible." Even so, she expressed concerns that by including North Korea the legislation could face procedural delays in the Senate. Senior Republican lawmakers did not immediately comment on the latest bill. In Brussels, the European Union sounded an alarm about the U.S. moves to step up sanctions on Russia, urging Washington to coordinate with its Group of 7 partners. The European Commission, the EU's executive body, warned of possibly "wide and indiscriminate" "unintended consequences," notably on the EU's efforts to diversify energy sources away from Russia. McCarthy and Ed Royce, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement the revised bill helps "bolster the energy security of our European allies by maintaining their access to key energy resources outside of Russia." Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said a strong sanctions bill "is essential," and said in a statement that he expects "the House and Senate will act on this legislation promptly, on a broad bipartisan basis." Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the agreement was reached after "intense negotiations." "A nearly united Congress is poised to send President Putin a clear message on behalf of the American people and our allies, and we need President Trump to help us deliver that message," he said in a statement. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)
By Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump was open to signing legislation toughening sanctions on Russia after Senate and House leaders reached agreement on a bill late last week. Congressional Democrats said on Saturday they had agreed with Republicans on a deal allowing new sanctions targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea in a bill that would limit any potential effort by Trump to try to lift sanctions against Moscow. "We support where the legislation is now and will continue working with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation in Ukraine is fully resolved and it certainly isn't right now," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" program. A White House official said the administration's view of the legislation evolved after changes were made, including the addition of sanctions on North Korea. The official said the administration "supports the direction the bill is headed, but won't weigh in conclusively until there is a final piece of legislation and no more changes are being made." Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's new communications director, said Trump had not yet decided whether he would sign the bill. "My guess is ... that he's going to make that decision shortly," Scaramucci told CNN's "State of the Union." Trump has faced resistance from Republican and Democratic lawmakers for his pledge to pursue warmer relations with Moscow. His administration has been bogged down by investigations of possible ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia. Trump has said his campaign did not collude with Russia. With the bill, Republicans and Democrats are seeking to punish Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied any interference in the U.S. democratic process last year. VOTE EXPECTED ON TUESDAY The House is expected to vote on the sanctions bill on Tuesday. The legislation would require the president to submit to Congress a report on proposed actions that would "significantly alter" U.S. policy toward Russia, including easing sanctions or returning diplomatic properties in Maryland and New York that former President Barack Obama ordered vacated in December. Congress would have at least 30 days to hold hearings and then vote to uphold or reject Trump's proposed changes. If Trump were to veto the bill, he would run the risk of an embarrassing political setback if Congress were to override his veto. In recent weeks, Trump administration officials have met with lawmakers to argue against parts of the Senate version of the bill, including the requirement that Trump obtain Congress' permission before easing sanctions. The sanctions bill, known as the Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act, was passed by the Senate a month ago but held up in the House of Representatives after Republicans proposed including sanctions on North Korea. Lawmakers, including Republican Senator John Thune and Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Sunday the bill had broad bipartisan support. "I think (it) will pass probably overwhelmingly again in the Senate and with a veto-proof majority," Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, told "Fox News Sunday." In Brussels, the European Union has sounded an alarm about the U.S. moves to step up sanctions on Russia, urging Washington to coordinate with its Group of 7 partners. The European Commission, the EU executive, will consider its next steps at a meeting on Wednesday in Brussels if Trump signs the bill into law, and is willing to consider retaliation, according to an EU official. After warning against unilateral U.S. sanctions at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is concerned Congress' legislation could hit European companies upgrading pipelines in Russia that feed into Ukraine's gas transit system. The measures could also target European companies doing legitimate business with Russia in rail transport, financial, shipping and mining, the EU official said. Any significant EU retaliation would need the support, however, of the EU's 28 governments and would face resistance from members of the bloc, such as Britain and Hungary, that are reluctant to upset the Trump administration. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Tim Gardner in Washington and Robin Emmott in Brussels; Editing by Caren Bohan and Peter Cooney)
(HONOLULU)  A federal grand jury in Hawaii indicted a U.S. soldier Friday for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Kang was arrested by an FBI SWAT team on July 8. Kang was ordered held without bail.

Kang will be arraigned in federal court on Monday when he had previously been scheduled for a preliminary hearing. Kangs court-appointed attorney, Birney Bervar, told The Associated Press Friday that the indictment was expected.

We havent had a preliminary in federal court here in probably 25 years, Bervar said. They dont like to let us question their witnesses.

Bervar said his client will plead not guilty on Monday when a federal judge will set a trial date.

Bervar said he is working on getting Kang a mental health evaluation and that his client may suffer from service-related mental health issues.

A turning point for Kangs mental state seems to be a 2011 deployment, Bervar said. Hes a decorated American soldier for 10 years, goes to Afghanistan and comes back and things start going off the rails.

Elliot Enoki, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii, and Dana Boente, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security, announced that the indictment in a statement.

Kang is charged with four counts of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group based on events that occurred in Hawaii between June 21 and July 8, they said.

Federal officials say Kang met with undercover FBI agents he thought were with the terror group and provided classified military documents to the agents.

The FBI said in their criminal complaint that Kang wanted to commit a mass shooting after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group.
Let's be honest; there's really no such thing as a regular McLaren F1 is there? Any version of this truly ground-breaking car in good condition goes for seven figures, and there's little prospect of prices going in any direction other than upwards for the foreseeable future. After all, it was the fastest road car in the world for a number of years, thanks to the 627 horsepower produced by its BMW M V-12 engine. Another fact about the McLaren F1 is that each one was a very individual car in its own right, but there are some that are more individual than others. When it comes to the 1995 model that's about to go up for auction by Bonhams at its Quail Lodge, California event on August 18, its unique selling point is the fact it was the first one imported to the USA and made fully street-legal. And if that isn't enough to bump up the eventual hammer price, the car has also only had one owner from new.

Bonhams has revealed the car is number 44 of 64 made, it was originally purchased by its current owner in 1996, and immediately after taking delivery of it at McLaren's factory in Woking, Great Britain, he took it on a grand road trip across continental Europe. When the road trip was concluded, the owner had the McLaren shipped back to America for a company called Ameritech to do what was needed to be done to meet US safety and emissions regulations for it to be certified street-legal. In the 22 years since the owner took delivery, he's put just 9,600 miles on the clock so it's every bit your genuine low-mileage, one-owner used car. Well, perhaps not quite.

Anyone familiar with buying and selling used cars will be pleased to learn the original tool roll, the tool box for maintaining the McLaren, and the bespoke luggage are still with the car. After importing the car though, the owner had it returned to its original European specification but all the parts are still there for returning it to US-spec should the new owner want.

The auction company hasn't issued a guide price for this exceptional car, but it could fetch as much as $10,000,000, or possibly even more.
Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump's new communications chief has deleted tweets in which he shared views contrary to the US president's own, saying they were a distraction.

The day after he started his new job Friday, Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier, cleared up his Twitter trail of remarks in which he differs from Trump on illegal immigration, climate change, Islam and even gun control.

"Full transparency: I'm deleting old tweets. Past views evolved & shouldn't be a distraction. I serve @POTUS agenda & that's all that matters," the new man on the White House job announced on Twitter.

A bit later, Scaramucci followed up with "The politics of 'gotcha' are over. I have thick skin and we're moving on to @POTUS agenda serving the American people."

In a 2012 comment he tweeted, he appeared to back many causes long championed by Democrats, describing himself as "for Gay Marriage, against the death penalty, and Pro Choice."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer abruptly resigned Friday in protest at Scaramucci's hiring.

In a written statement, Trump said he was "grateful" for Spicer's work and praised his "great television ratings" -- a reference to Spicer's keenly watched, combative and often-satirized news briefings.

Spicer's departure marked rising tensions in an administration that has seen its legislative agenda falter at the same time it has been buffeted by an investigation into alleged collusion with Russia.
Photo credit: Getty

From Popular Mechanics

The thatched roof held back the sun's rays, but it could not keep the tropical heat at bay. As everyone at the research workshop headed outside for a break, small groups splintered off to gather in the shade of coconut trees and enjoy a breeze. I wandered from group to group, joining in the discussions. Each time, I noticed that the language of the conversation would change from an indigenous language to something they knew I could understand, Bislama or English. I was amazed by the ease with which the meeting's participants switched between languages, but I was even more astonished by the number of different indigenous languages.

Thirty people had gathered for the workshop on this island in the South Pacific, and all except for me came from the island, called Makelua, in the nation of Vanuatu. They lived in 16 different communities and spoke 16 distinct languages.

In many cases, you could stand at the edge of one village and see the outskirts of the next community. Yet the residents of each village spoke completely different languages. According to recent work by my colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, this island, just 100 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, is home to speakers of perhaps 40 different indigenous languages. Why so many?

We could ask this same question of the entire globe. People don't speak one universal language, or even a handful. Instead, today our species collectively speaks over 7,000 distinct languages.

And these languages are not spread randomly across the planet. For example, far more languages are found in tropical regions than in the temperate zones. The tropical island of New Guinea is home to over 900 languages. Russia, 20 times larger, has 105 indigenous languages. Even within the tropics, language diversity varies widely. For example, the 250,000 people who live on Vanuatu's 80 islands speak 110 different languages, but in Bangladesh, a population 600 times greater speaks only 41 languages.

Story continues

Why is it that humans speak so many languages? And why are they so unevenly spread across the planet? As it turns out, we have few clear answers to these fundamental questions about how humanity communicates.

Some ideas, but little evidenceMost people can easily brainstorm possible answers to these intriguing questions. They hypothesize that language diversity must be about history, cultural differences, mountains or oceans dividing populations, or old squabbles writ large  "we hated them, so we don't talk to them."

The questions also seem like they should be fundamental to many academic disciplines  linguistics, anthropology, human geography. But, starting in 2010, when our diverse team of researchers from six different disciplines and eight different countries began to review what was known, we were shocked that only a dozen previous studies had been done, including one we ourselves completed on language diversity in the Pacific.

These prior efforts all examined the degree to which different environmental, social and geographic variables correlated with the number of languages found in a given location. The results varied a lot from one study to another, and no clear patterns emerged. The studies also ran up against many methodological challenges, the biggest of which centered on the old statistical adage  correlation does not equal causation.

We wanted to know the exact steps that led to so many languages forming in certain places and so few in others. But previous work provided few robust theories on the specific processes involved, and the methods used did not get us any closer to understanding the causes of language diversity patterns.

For example, previous studies pointed out that at lower latitudes languages are often spoken across smaller areas than at higher latitudes. You can fit more languages into a given area the closer you get to the equator. But this result does not tell us much about the processes that create language diversity. Just because a group of people crosses an imaginary latitudinal line on the map doesn't mean they'll automatically divide into two different populations speaking two different languages. Latitude might be correlated with language diversity, but it certainly did not create it.

Can a simple model predict reality?A better way to identify the causes of particular patterns is to simulate the processes we think might be creating them. The closer the model's products are to the reality we know exists, the greater the chances are that we understand the actual processes at work.

Two members of our group, ecologists Thiago Rangel and Robert Colwell, had developed this simulation modeling technique for their studies of species diversity patterns. But no one had ever used this approach to study the diversity of human populations.

We decided to explore its potential by first building a simple model to test the degree to which a few basic processes might explain language diversity patterns in just one part of the globe, the continent of Australia.

Our colleague Claire Bowern, a linguist at Yale University, created a map that shows the diversity of aboriginal languages  a total of 406  found in Australia prior to contact with Europeans. There were far more languages in the north and along the coasts, with relatively few in the desert interior. We wanted to see how closely a model, based on a simple set of processes, could match this geographic pattern of language diversity.

Our simulation model made only three basic assumptions. First, populations will move to fill available spaces where no one else lives.

Second, rainfall will limit the number of people that can live in a place; Our model assumed that people would live in higher densities in areas where it rained more. Annual precipitation varies widely in Australia, from over three meters in the northeastern rainforests to one-tenth of a meter in the Outback.

Third, we assumed that human populations have a maximum size. Ideal group size is a trade-off between benefits of a larger group (wider selection of potential mates) and costs (keeping track of unrelated individuals). In our model, when a population grew larger than a maximum threshold  set randomly based on a global distribution of hunter-gatherer population sizes  it divided into two populations, each speaking a distinct language.

We used this model to simulate language diversity maps for Australia. In each iteration, an initial population sprung up randomly somewhere on the map and began to grow and spread in a random direction. An underlying rainfall map determined the population density, and when the population size hit the predetermined maximum, the group divided. In this way, the simulated human populations grew and divided as they spread to fill up the entire Australian continent.

Our simple model didn't include any impact from contact among groups, changes in subsistence strategies, the effects of the borrowing of cultural ideas or components of language from nearby groups, or many other potential processes. So, we expected it would fail miserably.

Incredibly, the model produced 407 languages, just one off from the actual number.

The simulated language maps also show more languages in the north and along the coasts, and less in the dry regions of central Australia, mirroring the geographic patterns in observed language diversity.

And so for the continent of Australia it appears that a small number of factors  limitations rainfall places on population density and limits on group size  might explain both the number of languages and much of the variation in how many languages are spoken in different locations.

Applying the model elsewhereBut we suspect that the patterns of language diversity in other places may be shaped by different factors and processes. In other locations, such as Vanuatu, rainfall levels do not vary as widely as in Australia, and population densities may be shaped by other environmental conditions.

In other instances, contact among human groups probably reshaped the landscape of language diversity. For example, the spread of agricultural groups speaking Indo-European or Bantu languages may have changed the structure of populations and the languages spoken across huge areas of Europe and Africa, respectively.

Undoubtedly, a wide variety of social and environmental factors and processes have contributed to the patterns in language diversity we see across the globe. In some places topography, climate or the density of key natural resources may be more critical; in others the history of warfare, political organization or the subsistence strategies of different groups may play a bigger role in shaping group boundaries and language diversity patterns. What we have established for now is a template for a method that can be used to uncover the different processes at work in each location.

Language diversity has played a key role in shaping the interactions of human groups and the history of our species, and yet we know surprisingly little about the factors shaping this diversity. We hope other scientists will become as fascinated by the geography of language diversity as our research group is and join us in the search for understanding why humans speak so many languages.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/why-do-human-beings-speak-so-many-languages-75434.

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WASHINGTON (TNS)  A president whose brand is all about flouting basic political manners is getting matched in misbehavior more and more by fellow Republicans in Congress.

The first six months under President Donald Trump have been marked not only by a further coarsening of GOP rhetoric, stoked mainly by incessant infighting in backrooms, but also by increasing defiance of decades of behavioral norms  from Trumps nominal friends and skeptics alike, when theyve been trying to work with him and when theyve been scrambling to maneuver despite him.

The declining standards of congressional comportment are remarkable, but, in a sense, have been easy to anticipate:

When the formalities of procedural and political regular order get abandoned at the Capitol, a world of informal and sometimes even infantile irregularity will quickly start shaping how lawmakers approach the legislative process, their political calculations, and their dealings with one another.

A return to normal for the Hills Republicans is essentially impossible so long as their partys leader is someone who unabashedly, even boastfully, violates Washingtons already lowered expectations for minimally collegial conduct  and whose win-at-all-costs, never-admit-mistakes code is fundamentally at odds with proper political manners.

But its also true that even before Trump, the partys high command, first and foremost in the Senate under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, had started whacking away at procedural regular order and thereby helping to define decorum down.

His stature as the longest-tenured top GOP official in Washington, and someone who used to wear the institutionalist label with pride, makes all the more striking McConnells behavioral shift toward embracing indecorous conduct on the Hill he could once be counted on to deride as deviant.

This is not about the partys inability to live up to one of the most fundamental requirements of having good manners: Keeping the promises you make  in this case, the vow, incessantly repeated for seven years, that putting Republicans in charge would make repealing and replacing the 2010 health care law the first order of business.

Instead, this is about the breakdowns in interparty comity and institutional standards for fair play that helped push that promise near to oblivion.

The start can fairly be traced back to the night of Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016. That was when McConnell waited less than 90 minutes after learning that Justice Antonin Scalia had died before transforming the period of mourning into the setting for a bold partisan power play.

In turning a moment for unexpected grieving into an opportunity for Machiavellian maneuvering, he tossed aside two centuries of precedent saying that every president  no matter that his party was different than the Senate majority, and especially one with a quarter of his term remaining  deserved the senatorial courtesy of a hearing and at least a committee vote for any high court nominee.

McConnell won his discourteous and bold bet: Holding the seat open and making the future of the judiciary a prime campaign issue helped Trump score the biggest upset in presidential election history and create the first all-GOP power structure in Washington in a decade.

And since rewarding ungentlemanly behavior will inevitably produce more of such conduct, its not surprising that a secretive, churlish and entirely-outside-the-normal-channels approach has, from the start, distinguished his balky and now repudiated tackling of the defining legislative battle of Trumps first year.

Straightforward legislative etiquette would have required at least a few hearings and legislative markups on health care where Democrats could have gone on record in opposition and Republican skeptics, on the hard right and in the center, could have vented concerns and offered mollifying language  long before spreading anxieties at both ends of the GOP ideological spectrum crippled the bill.

And proper political politesse would have also had the top party bosses providing supportive cover to rank-and-file members before they got called on to cast votes destined to make their public lives more difficult.

But McConnell and, to a lesser extent Speaker Paul D. Ryan, did not succeed at the Hill leaderships customary work of enlisting important trade associations, think tanks and other big-money advocates to get behind the GOP health care bill.

(Of course the president, for his part, hasnt made any real effort to help Congress get to yes by taking the bully pulpit. There has been no Oval Office speech to the nation on behalf of the legislation, no town hall meeting and no rally in any on-the-fence senators home state devoted to the cause.)

Propriety in Congress has historically meant the leadership does not make members cast tough votes for no lasting reason  especially when defeat seems guaranteed, so going on the record can do harm back home without any chance of making progress toward new policy. But, at Trumps insistence, the Senate is on course to vote this week on whether to open debate on the health care bill  a motion that will force more than half a dozen wavering but keeping-their-powder dry Republicans to take a stand with only the slimmest hope of producing anything meaningful in return.

Maybe this is an antiquated Republicans-at-their-country-club notion of manners, but it might have been courteous as well as savvy to invite at least one female senator in the initial GOP working group in search of a passable bill. Is it just coincidence that the three senators who came out quickest against McConnell most recent fallback  repeal now, replace later  were Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, each of whom has health care policy chops meriting a spot in those talks?

A consequence of all this discourteousness from the top is that Republicans one step down the food chain have felt free to act increasingly impertinent.

Wisconsins Ron Johnson has accused his own majority leader of a pretty significant breach of trust in the negotiations  fighting words in a business thats still supposed to be regulated by handshakes and verbal assurances.

Mike Lee of Utah turned on his best friend and closest ideological soul mate at the Capitol, Ted Cruz of Texas, by voting to kill a bill reliant on Cruzs unusual efforts at deal-making instead of conservative combat.

Lee and Jerry Moran of Kansas then decided to announce their opposition in the middle of a Trumps steak and cobbler dinner with about half a dozen other senators  ignoring customary courtesies about informing your leader or the president of your own party before dropping a bad news bomb on them.

Trump had all GOP senators to lunch two days later, Lee and Moran included, a gesture toward comity quickly nullified by his awkwardly uncouth approach  He wants to remain a senator, doesnt he?  to the pivotal GOP senator seated next to him, Dean Heller of Nevada.

To top that off, the president kept the Republicans so long they all had to cancel their next collective meeting, a rude affront to none other than Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Just a dozen years ago, Howard Deans screaming exhortations after losing the Iowa caucuses were so collectively derided by the nation as ill-mannered that his presidential campaign crashed that night. This spring, Greg Gianfortes patently offensive body-slamming of a reporter was so readily shrugged off by the voters in Montana that he won a seat in the House the next night.

Starting his State of the Union speech a decade ago, President George W. Bush bathed in warm bipartisan applause after striking the simplest of grace notes  declaring it a distinct honor to be the first president who got to address Madam speaker from the rostrum. Arriving for her husbands first speech to Congress this winter, Melania Trump had to endure the sight of many Democrats declining to clap and slumping back into their seats at her introduction.

In spite of the glamorization of outlaws and gangsters, people do not naturally think that their leaders should violate the standards to which they subscribe, Judith Martin, the syndicated columnist Miss Manners, wrote in a February essay for The Atlantic on declining political etiquette. We still pay obeisance to virtue. What has happened is that the virtues have been redefined.
A New York woman awaiting trial for murder has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in the drowning death of her fiance during a kayaking trip.

Angelika Graswald, of Poughkeepsie, pleaded guilty Monday in a Goshen courtroom to one count of criminally negligent homicide, authorities said.

Read: Could Angelika Graswald Have Killed Her Fiance in a Kayak by Doing This?

The 37-year-old Latvian native had earlier been charged with murder and manslaughter in the death of Vince Viafore, 46, who disappeared after his kayak overturned on the Hudson River in 2015.

His body was found about a month after he disappeared.

Prosecutors had accused her of removing a drain plug from Viafores vessel and pushing away a paddle after the kayak capsized.

The womans attorneys claimed the death was accidental and caused by alcohol, choppy waves and cold water.

Weeks before her trial was to begin, Graswald reached a plea agreement Monday with prosecutors.

During lengthy interrogations by investigators, the woman at one point said she was glad Viafore was dead, authorities said. Im OK with it, she allegedly told detectives.

She has been in custody pending her trial.

Read: Woman Accused in Fiance's Kayak Death Insists From Jail: 'I Loved Him'

While no outcome can compensate for the loss of a beloved son, brother and uncle, this disposition will hopefully bring a measure of closure to the Viafore family, Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler said in a statement.

This plea ensures that the defendant will be held criminally liable for her actions. By pleading guilty, [she] has acknowledged that Vincent Viafores death was not simply a tragic accident, but the result of this defendants criminal conduct, Hoovler said.

Watch: Man Accused of Killing Quadriplegic Pregnant Fiancee and Her Fetus

Related Articles:
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said on Monday his country and its citizens were exposed to risks by potential leaks of sensitive material from an IT-contract that one official said had been rushed. Lofven told a news conference he regretted he had not been informed earlier about the issue, which stems from the outsourcing of IT-services for the Swedish Transport Agency to IBM Sweden in 2015. The contract process was speeded up, Jonas Bjelfvenstam, the new head of the Transport Agency, said at the same news conference, bypassing some laws and internal procedures, That resulted in people abroad, without proper security clearance, handling servers with sensitive materials, he said. IBM Sweden declined to comment, saying it never discussed client issues publicly. Most vehicles on land, air and sea in Sweden are registered with the agency, and whistleblowers have raised concerns that information about vehicles used by the armed forces and the police may have ended up in the wrong hands. "This is a disaster," Lofven said. "This has exposed Sweden and Swedish citizens to risks." He said the government had initiated an investigation into what had happened and vowed to tighten laws for handling of sensitive material. The armed forces said the situation could be contained and that all registration of important military vehicles are handled by the army and were not affected. The security police said the situation was serious but manageable. The transport agency said it had no indications sensitive material had actually ended up in the wrong hands. However, the scandal has raised questions about the way it has been handled within the government. The security police informed the Justice Ministry in late 2015 but Lofven said he only found out about it early this year. Lofven said Anna Johansson, minister of infrastructure and responsible for the Transport Agency, had not passed information on to him. Johansson on Sunday in turn blamed one of her former state secretaries for not informing her about the scandal. "I wish I had been informed earlier," Lofven said while adding he had no plans to fire any ministers. "I have full confidence in them (ministers) until I say otherwise." The scandal has sparked a heated debate in Sweden and several opposition parties have said they don't rule out calling a vote of no-confidence against three ministers in the government Johansson, Interior Minister Anders Ygeman, and Justice Minister Morgan Johansson. ($1 = 8.2289 Swedish crowns) (Reporting by Johan Ahlander Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
Tsatsu Tsikata, a lawyer and former CEO of GNPC, has been celebrated by his people at Srogboe in Keta in the Volta Region, the GBC has reported.

Click here to get the latest news in Ghana.

The chiefs and people of the community held a durbar in honour of Tsikata for what they said was his contribution to national development as well as his contribution to the development of the community.

The durbar was also to celebrate his freedom after he was jailed by an Accra high court for allegedly causing financial loss to the state.

The event, which was characterised by pomp and pageantry, was attended by many people in the community as well as others from neighbouring communities such as Alakpe, Fiaxor, Xenui and Whuti.

Clothed in all-white attire and flanked by his wife, Tsika expressed gratitude to God for saving his life when he fell sick while serving time at the Nsawam Prison.

Tsatsu Tsikata and wife

He said but for divine grace, he would have died one night when he suffered an asthma attack in prison and had to be sent the 37 Military Hospital in Accra for care.

For his part, Torgbi Tsikata Agbodzie II, the chief of Srogboe, described Tsikata's incarceration at Nsawam as unfortunate.

He said the lawyer had been wrongfully imprisoned and thanked those he said had contributed to getting him out.

READ ALSO: Navrongo SHS students gets 8 As in WASSCE but cannot go to university due to poverty (photo)

Share your views on this story with us in our comments section below. Do you have an inspiring story to share? Get featured!

We are on Facebook and can be reached via email at info@YEN.com.gh.

Source: YEN.com.gh
City of Tomah public works director Kirk Arity was prepared for the worst Friday morning.

Fortunately, the worst never arrived.

A predicted second round of heavy rain that was supposed to arrive Friday afternoon slid to the south and spared the city any significant flooding.

Aritys concern was centered on Lake Tomah, where the dam was releasing water at a significant rate after heavy rainfall Wednesday night.

We were monitoring it around the clock, Arity said. We had quite a lot of water to get rid of, and it was quite a challenge.

Tomah received 3.1 inches of rain Wednesday night/Thursday morning followed by just .3 inches of rain Friday. Arity said there was some street flooding in the neighborhood around Lemonweir Elementary School, but his department hadnt received any reports of any significant property damage.

He said the lake hit the high-water mark at 6 p.m. Thursday.

The rising Lemonweir River caused roads outside the city to close. Highway CM upstream from the dam and Highway ET and Formica Road downstream were closed to traffic when water overran bridges. The water had subsided by late Friday.

City of Tomah administrator Roger Gorius said releasing water from the dam was a delicate balancing act.

Were releasing water at a pretty good rate, but we have to be aware of whats happening downstream, Gorius said Friday.

Arity said he was quite nervous Thursday after hearing forecasts of another one to three inches of rain for Friday afternoon.

In hindsight, it was a good training session for me, but Id rather not go through it again, he said. I think the emergency in Sparta was a lot more pronounced than ours.

Southern and western Monroe County were hit hard by the storm. Monroe County Emergency Management reported late Thursday that 39 families in the county had been evacuated and 47 others have been affected by storm damage.

Governor Scott Walker declared a state of emergency for Monroe County and 16 other counties impacted by the storm.

In Sparta, where 4.38 inches of rain fell, water spilled over the dam at Perch Lake, and authorities advised those who live downstream on the La Crosse River to evacuate. Also in Sparta, Long Court was evacuated, and portions of Walrath and South Water Street were closed. Residents of Riverside Trailer Park on South K Street also were encouraged to evacuate.

Evacuation centers were set up at the Barney Center in Sparta and St. Patricks Catholic Church. Monroe County emergency government director Darlene Pintarro said only one family utilized the Barney Center and that the Red Cross has closed operations there at noon Sunday.

Sand bags were made available at the countys dog pound site in Sparta.

Anyone who has experienced storm damage is urged to call 1-800-362-8255.

Highway 131 between Niagara Road and Ontario and Highway 27 between Leon and Cashton were closed for extended periods. The Kickapoo River swelled above its banks and washed over numerous corn fields south of Wilton. Several town roads were also flooded as the La Crosse and Baraboo rivers reached flood stage.

Ontario flooded

One of the hardest-hit areas was the village of Ontario, just south of the Monroe-Vernon county border. Ontario received eight inches of rain, and the Kickapoo River rose to 21.1 feet in the village, just shy of the 22-foot record set in 2007.

Monroe County has asked for assistance from FEMA, said state Rep. Lee Nerison, R-Westby. First the state has to declare a disaster and then they have to see if they meet FEMA requirements. There is the Wisconsin Disaster Fund.

Nerison said in 2005, when Viola was hit by a tornado, the village did not qualify for FEMA aid, so they used the Wisconsin Disaster Fund.

There isnt much money there, Nerison said. This is so widespread  from Arcadia to Wauzeka.

As the rain continued, Nerison shook his head and said, This is ridiculous  2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and now, and in September of last year when Viroqua got hit. The sad part of it is we know what to do and do it without thinking about it because weve done it (dealt with flooding) so many times.

Pintarro said three towns had reported infrastructure damage totals as of Sunday. The town of Portland reported $1 million in losses, and the towns of Sheldon and Wells both reported $200,000.

The Department of Natural Resources reported damage at several state trails and properties. The horse campground and all horse trails at Wildcat Mountain State Park will be closed until at least late this week, and portions of the Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail and 400 State Trail were blocked by high water and downed trees.

Rainfall totals diminished rapidly north and east of Tomah. Black River Falls received 1.57 inches, and Nekoosa received less than a half-inch.

I think the emergency in Sparta was a lot more pronounced than ours. Kirk Arity, city of Tomah public works director
Monday, July 24, 2017

The Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board has proposed the permanent disbarment of a convicted attorney

In addition to being a licensed Louisiana lawyer, Respondent held a license as a mortgage originator and was a principal of Metropolitan Mutual Mortgage, Inc. (MMM), a mortgage company licensed as a mortgage broker by the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions (OFI). The most serious misconduct for which Respondent was charged arose out of her handling of real estate transactions. In connection with three such matters, she was charged with felony theft. As part of a plea agreement with the Office of the District Attorney for East Baton Rouge Parish, she entered a guilty plea on May 19, 2015, in one of those matters in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge. Other charges of misconduct relate to events which led to the revocation of her mortgage originators and MMMs mortgage brokers licenses by the OFI in 2003 and included her failure to make restitution to several individuals. She was further charged with filing frivolous pleadings in federal court, failing to comply with court orders, failing to act with diligence and communicate with clients, engaging in the unauthorized practice of law after she was placed on interim suspension, among other charges.

The Hearing Committee and Board sustained the charges

Respondents conduct clearly demonstrates her disregard for her clients, her duties as an attorney and the authority of the courts of this state. In order to protect the public and maintain the high standards of the legal profession, the Board finds that Respondent should not be allowed the opportunity to return to the practice of law in the future. Accordingly, the Board recommends permanent disbarment.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/07/the-louisiana-attorney-disciplinary-board-has-proposed-the-permanent-disbarment.html
Monday, July 24, 2017

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the conviction of a mother tried with her son in a tax fraud conspiracy case.

The son's conviction was vacated and the case against him was dismissed.

Upon consideration of the weakness of the evidence offered against Andre and its centrality to the issue of his mens rea, we conclude that the prosecutors blatant misstatements of key evidence during closing arguments, in the absence of any steps to mitigate the resulting prejudice, require reversal of Andres convictions. Further, we conclude that the evidence against Andre was insufficient and consequently he is not subject to retrial. Finally, finding no such prejudice from the closing arguments as to Sherri, and concluding her evidentiary challenges are unpersuasive, we affirm Sherris convictions but remand her case for resentencing and for consideration of her claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.

As to the son

Examination of the prosecutors closing arguments reveals multiple misstatements of this evidence and, given the gaps in the governments evidentiary case, their prejudicial effect is readily apparent. For instance, the prosecutor told the jury that Andre personally designated the bank account into which tax preparation fees were deposited in 2013 and that Andre and Sherri made a staggering amount of money but failed to report such income in their individual tax returns. Trial Tr. 170 (Jan. 28, 2015). Even assuming that the first point is not false, because Andres designation of the bank account might be viewed as a reasonable inference from the TaxWise evidence, there is no evidentiary basis for the second, nor does the government point to any on appeal. The evidence of earnings and income reporting related only to Sherris receipt of fees and failure to accurately report her individual income to the IRS. There was no comparable evidence as to Andre. Not only was there no direct evidence Andre received fees for preparing and filing false returns, much less in staggering amounts, as the prosecutor told the jury, Trial Tr. 170 (Jan. 28, 2015), there was no evidence Andre under-reported his individual income on his tax returns. Lumping Andre together with Sherri in this manner was clearly prejudicial to Andre. The prosecutor also misleadingly minimized Sherris role in completing Jaycoxs 2012 return, telling the jury that Sherri only came over to make sure it was okay, or something to that effect, id. at 88, when Jaycox testified that Sherri finalize[d] his taxes and finished everything else out on his 2012 return. Trial Tr. 47, 80 (Jan. 22, 2015 (am)).

But not for mother

In his final statement during rebuttal closing argument to the jury, the prosecutor told the jury that Sherri Davis is not going to stop until somebody tells her to stop. Your job is to tell her to stop. Trial Tr. 177 (Jan. 28, 2015). Because Sherri raised her objection that this statement constituted prosecutorial misconduct in moving for a new trial, our review is for abuse of discretion, see United States v. Vega, 826 F.3d 514, 529 (D.C. Cir. 2016), and we find none.

the evidence against Sherri was overwhelming, see supra Part I, and Sherri understandably does not challenge her convictions on the ground of insufficient evidence, see Reply Br. 28. Further, the prosecutors errant statement neither bolstered nor discredited any witness testimony, nor concerned a critical issue for which there was no evidence.

The court rejected an asserted Brady violation but remanded claims of ineffective assistance of counsel

Sherri contends that she was denied the effective assistance of counsel because trial counsel failed (1) to introduce into evidence the undercover videotapes of LaDonna preparing false tax returns for IRS agents; (2) to introduce a Facebook post by a taxpayer witness referencing business endeavors that purportedly suggest the claimed expenses on his returns were not false or, at least, that Sherri was unaware they were false; and (3) to request a mistrial following the prosecutors closing argument and to consult with her about making that request. Because the record does not conclusively demonstrate that Sherri is not entitled to relief, further factual development is necessary. United States v. Fareri, 712 F.3d 593, 595 (D.C. Cir. 2013). Although trial counsel moved for a new trial on the ground that the prosecutors argument was prejudicial and we affirm the district courts denial of the motion, the district court should address Sherris third objection as well because our review was limited to determining whether the district court abused its discretion, not whether Sherri has demonstrated denial of her Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel.

NBC4 covered the conviction. (Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/07/the-united-states-court-of-appeals-for-the-district-of-columbia-circuit-upon-consideration-of-the-weakness-of-the-evidence-o.html
Monday, July 24, 2017

The Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board web page notes

On July 10, 2017, the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board revoked Jud Andrew Fischels license to practice law based on his affidavit consenting to the revocation. By tendering his consent to revocation at a time when allegations of misconduct are pending, Fischel acknowledges that the material facts upon which the allegations of misconduct are pending are true.

Fauquier Now reported on his crime

A well-known Warrenton lawyer got sentenced Monday afternoon to 60 days in jail for sexually assaulting two female clients in his law office last year.



With good behavior, Jud A. Fischel will serve half that time.



After a nearly four-hour hearing in Fauquier County Circuit Court, Mr. Fischel immediately began his sentence.



The 68-year-old former substitute judge pleaded guilty in January to two misdemeanor charges of sexual battery.



A misdemeanor sexual battery conviction carries a penalty of up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine.



Judge David H. Beck sentenced Mr. Fischel to six months for each count, suspending all but 30 days per offense.



Mr. Fischel also will remain under the supervision of Fauquiers Adult Court Services Office until that agency determines the disgraced attorney has received proper treatment.



He entered Alford pleas during the January hearing in circuit court. Under such a plea, the defendant asserts innocence but acknowledges enough evidence to support a conviction.



By pleading guilty, he avoided two jury trials that had been scheduled for March.



Mr. Fischels victims  whose identities the court has sealed  still could file civil lawsuits.



Both testified during Mondays hearing. The assaults  one in June, the other in February 2016  took place at the lawyers 24 Ashby St. office, according to the women.



A Fauquier grand jury on Aug. 1 indicted Mr. Fischel on the first misdemeanor charge of sexual battery. Another grand jury on Nov. 28 indicted him on a second count.



One of the women Mr. Fischel represented got convicted for a minor offense.



The defense attorney had told her that she received insufficient punishment and therefore should be spanked, the victim said.



He spanked me very hard. . . on my behind, she testified Monday. When that happened, I freaked out . . . . I couldnt believe this happened.



The experience has had a disturbing and lasting effect on her, the 55-year-old woman said.



I just think about it all the time. . . . I just cry every day.



Mr. Fischel represented the other victim in an auto collision case.



The 58-year-old sobbed as she recalled the assault.



Mr. Fischel had walked behind her and grabbed her breasts, she said.



Traumatized by the attack, I just lost myself, the victim said. I felt like I was a dog.



That experience also has strained her relationship with her boyfriend.



Intimacy with her boyfriend sometimes can be emotionally trying for her, she suggested.



Its a big problem between us, she told the judge.



Citing medical tests, evaluations and the testimony of Mr. Fischels wife, Georgia, long-time friends and a former employee, defense attorney Blair D. Howard argued that dementia helps explain his clients actions.



Mrs. Fischel spoke of periodic attacks in the last couple of years, during which her husband experienced memory loss and trembling hands. Among other things, he repeatedly suffered severe migraine headaches, collapsed and went to the emergency room.



Mrs. Fischel feared her husband had been developing dementia, noting that he several times got lost on his way to their Warrenton home.



Mr. Fischel closed his law practice in July.



During 18 months before he shut the business, it had been in disarray, partly because Mr. Fischel seemed befuddled, his former secretary Kathy Welch testified.



He misfiled documents and scheduled repeat meetings with clients to discuss the same topics, leaving them confused, Ms. Welch said.



Warrenton neurologist Larry L. Stevenson has treated Mr. Fischel since the 1990s.



Dr. Stevenson spoke of events over the years that caused Mr. Fischel to lose his memory and footing.



Mr. Fischel several months ago began using a cane to steady himself.



Under questioning by Mr. Howard, the doctor acknowledged that the effects of the attacks could have impaired Mr. Fischels judgment and contributed to his actions.



In his closing comments, Mr. Howard spoke at length of his clients long and distinguished career as a lawyer, substitute judge and community volunteer.



He involved himself in many things.



Mr. Howard made no excuses for his clients actions.



His mind  his mental health was not good when these events occurred, he said.



While Mr. Fischel pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor sexual battery charges, this isnt reckless driving or disorderly conduct, Senior Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Charles Peters told the judge in his closing comments. These are extremely serious misdemeanors.



These are such a horrible violation of both a personal and professional trust.



Moments before he got sentenced, Mr. Fischel said he couldnt apologize enough to his victims.



The defendant said he felt horrible about his actions. Im ashamed. Im humiliated. Ive lost my self-respect.



And though he didnt challenge his victims accounts, Mr. Fischel said he had no recall of the assaults.



Judge Beck referred to the defendants exemplary career. But, because Mr. Fischel had violated an important trust between a lawyer and his clients, it is appropriate there be some jail time.



Mr. Fischel will complete his sentence at the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center in Winchester.



He and his wife intend to retire to New Mexico.

Maryland indefinitely suspended an attorney for similar misconduct in 1993

Catharine Sweitzer retained Mr. Goldsborough to seek recovery for injuries she received in 1978 when she was accidentally shot by a trespassing deer hunter. In connection with his representation, Goldsborough visited Sweitzer at her home. At one point during the visit, Goldsborough told Sweitzer she was a "bad girl," pulled her over his knee, and lightly spanked her several times on her buttocks. A second incident occurred in Goldsborough's Easton office when Sweitzer visited to tell Goldsborough she had become engaged to be married. Goldsborough became upset with Sweitzer because he believed her engagement might make a jury less sympathetic to her injuries, thereby affecting her lawsuit. Again calling her a "bad girl," he pulled Ms. Sweitzer across his knee and, as before, spanked her lightly several times.

While investigating Sweitzer's complaint, the Commission's investigators learned of allegations that Goldsborough had behaved improperly toward at least one other female client, and had also repeatedly spanked a young woman who had been his personal secretary several years earlier. Ultimately, both of these women testified before the Commission's Inquiry Panel and before Judge Simpson. The client, Peggy Porter, had retained Goldsborough in the summer of 1984 to represent her in a divorce proceeding. At a meeting in Goldsborough's office in the fall of that year she became emotionally upset and, as she was leaving, Goldsborough put his arm around her and kissed her on the neck and cheek. She pulled back, said "I don't think you should be doing this," and left the office. Porter subsequently retained another attorney.

In January 1986, Sandy Schisler, then seventeen years old, applied to Goldsborough's office for a job as a secretary. She was interviewed once and then called back by Goldsborough for a second interview which took place in Goldsborough's office at which only she and Goldsborough were present. During this second interview, Goldsborough explained that he intended to teach Schisler to be a good secretary and would accomplish this by disciplining her with spankings. He demonstrated this by placing her over his knee and patting her on the buttocks. Schisler was offered a job and eventually became Goldsborough's personal secretary.1 Schisler testified that during her employment from January 1986 to November 1987, Goldsborough spanked her approximately once a week. By Schisler's account, on "more than just a handful" of occasions Goldsborough required her to bare her buttocks for the spankings. She testified that these disciplinary measures were provoked by typing errors she made in Goldsborough's documents and elementary mistakes that Goldsborough called "no brainers." Schisler testified that she did not want to be spanked, but felt that Goldsborough was trying to teach her to be a good secretary. When asked if she believed she could lose her job if she did not submit to the spankings, Schisler testified that she thought so, "because I wouldn't be learning, and I wouldn't be trying to correct my mistakes." In November 1987, Goldsborough's wife heard of the spankings and suggested that Schisler leave her job. Mrs. Goldsborough referred Schisler to counseling, for which Mrs. Goldsborough paid. Schisler also received over three times her gross weekly salary in severance pay.

The Baltimore Sun covered the Maryland decision.

The District of Columbia imposed a reciprocal sanction of suspension of at least two years in the Goldsborough case and noted

The Board [on Professional Responsibility] found more difficult the question whether Goldsborough's spanking and kissing of his clients and his spanking of his secretary violated the District's disciplinary rules. In the Board's view, the spanking and kissing did not, under District of Columbia law, constitute conduct that is "prejudicial to the administration of justice."

...Under these circumstances, we are satisfied that reciprocal discipline can and should be imposed without our having to resolve some difficult questions raised in the Board's comprehensive and scholarly opinion. Specifically, we decline, in the absence of the refinement of the issues, which would be provided by the adversarial process, to adopt any precedentially authoritative construction, as applied to the present context, of the phrase "prejudicial to the administration of justice," see Rule 8.4(d) of the Rules of Professional Conduct, or of the provision in former DR 7-101(A)(3) that a lawyer shall not "[p]rejudice or damage his client during the course of the professional relationship." We likewise need not decide whether, in a reciprocal discipline case in which the issue has been contested, the Board could permissibly invoke a disciplinary rule different from the one on which the court relied in the jurisdiction in which the initial discipline was administered. By defaulting, Goldsborough has, at least on these facts, admitted the existence of liability, and has thus conceded that the imposition of reciprocal discipline is warranted.

And footnoted

The Board was apparently of the opinion that Goldsborough's regular spanking of his young secretary over a substantial period of time did not violate any District of Columbia disciplinary rule then applicable to Goldsborough. Cf. Goldsborough I, 624 A.2d at 511 (misconduct was "relevant to law practice"); In re Adams, 428 N.E.2d 786, 787 (Ind.1981) (per curiam) (kissing female client and raising her blouse held to be conduct indicating moral turpitude and lack of fitness to practice law, but lenient negotiated discipline imposed).

In the present case, the Board pointed out that Goldsborough's misconduct predated the adoption, effective in 1991, of Rule 9.1 of our Rules of Professional Conduct, which provides in pertinent part that a lawyer "shall not discriminate against any individual in conditions of employment because of that individual's ... sex." See Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 61-67, 106 S. Ct. 2399, 2402-06, 91 L. Ed. 2d 49 (1986) (explicating relationship between sexual harassment and discrimination in employment).

I well remember that debate and was amazed that the then-BPR rose to the attorney's defense.

But I was regularly amazed back in those days.

In this case, it took D.C. eight years to disclose an attorney convicted and imprisoned for sexually assaulting a vulnerable client notwithstanding his Georgia disbarment

We turn now to the question whether Mr. Rehberger's misdemeanor convictions of sexual battery and simple battery involved moral turpitude on the facts presented. Mr. Rehberger argues that [w]hat was done to [him] is a known political prank and fixed proceeding. The record disputes this characterization. The Court of Appeals of Georgia described in graphic detail his sordid sexual contact with and abuse of a female client who sought his advice concerning divorce action taken by her husband. See Rehberger II, 510 S.E.2d at 595-96. Mr. Rehberger's criminal conduct not only offend[ed] the generally accepted moral code of mankind, but it also was base, vile, and depraved, as well as contrary to  good morals. In re Colson, supra, 412 A.2d at 1168.

In addition, Mr. Rehberger's conduct toward his client was for his own personal gratification which [exceeded] his ability to demonstrate a public respect and appreciation of existing societal morals and values. In re Wolff, 490 A.2d 1118, 1120 (D.C.1985) (alteration in original). In the past, we have determined that an attorney's misdemeanor sexual contact conviction relating to a minor involved a crime of moral turpitude on the facts. See In re Bewig, 791 A.2d 908, 909 (D.C.2002). We agree with the Board that our designation of misdemeanor sexual convictions as crimes of moral turpitude on the facts should not be limited to particularly vulnerable classes of persons such as children. Indeed, respondent's twenty-seven-year-old client and victim was quite vulnerable while being subjected to Mr. Rehberger's forceful, unwelcome, sordid sexual conduct. We also agree that the Board's disposition would not foster inconsistent decisions for comparable conduct or otherwise be unwarranted. D.C. Bar R. XI,  9(g)(1).

The Rehberger case took so long (and was inherited by Betsy Herman after I departed) because the then-BPR improvidently granted him a hearing because the crime was a misdemeanor rather than impose reciprocal disbarment based on his (entirely legitimate) disbarment by the trial court who presided over the case. (Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/07/the-virginia-state-bar-disciplinary-board-farquiernow-reported-on-the-crime.html
A man was shot multiple times with a large-caliber handgun in Lebanon during a neighborhood dispute on Sunday night, according to the Linn Cou
On Nov. 1, Linn Benton Food Shares warehouse in Tangent received two truckloads of food and household supplies arranged by the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
China would consider sending peacekeeping troops to a disputed Djibouti-Eritrea border region after Qatar pulled out its troops last month, Chinas top diplomat to the African Union said Friday, as the Asian giants military role overseas grows.

China also would consider stepping in to mediate the dispute between the East African nations if asked, Kuang Weilin told The Associated Press.

This month, China dispatched members of its army to Djibouti to man its first overseas military base. The move is key to the wide-ranging expansion of Chinas armed forces in step with the countrys growing economic and political footprint.

Qatar withdrew 450 peacekeeping troops from the contested Dumeriah mountain area in June while caught up in its own diplomatic clash with other Arab nations. It had mediated the territorial dispute and its peacekeepers had been deployed after a 2010 cease-fire deal.

China hopes the Djibouti-Eritrea border issue will be solved amicably, Kuang said.

China is relatively new to peacekeeping but already is the biggest contributor of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with more than 2,500 deployed on U.N. missions as of the end of June.

There currently is no U.N. mission in Djibouti or Eritrea.

Djibouti is already home to the United States only permanent military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, while France, Britain, Japan and other nations also maintain a military presence in the small but strategically located Horn of Africa nation.

Chinas base in Djibouti will only have logistical purposes, not defense capabilities, Kuang said. China has said the logistics center will support anti-piracy, U.N. peacekeeping and humanitarian relief missions in Africa and western Asia. Elias Meseret, AP
The Macau Book Carnival 2017 officially kicked off last Friday at the Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM), with many English-language childrens books on offer. The event will run at IPMs Multisport Pavilion until July 30.

Chan Im Wa, President of the Macau Literacy Promotion Association, told the Times that this years carnival will have 70 tables, of which ten will sell English-language books.

I think the percentage of English books probably goes up to one-seventh, said Chan, who noted that the selection of English-language books on offer still caters mainly to youth and children in efforts to meet the markets biggest demand.

You can see that the English books are mainly for the youth and children because as their parents want them to learn English, parents want them to read [English books], explained Chan, adding that there are also language learning books for people who are currently studying English as a second language.

Portuguese books are targeting those who are studying Portuguese, naturally. [] There are some Macanese who also come here looking for cookbooks, Chan remarked.

Chan said she was unable to predict how readers would react to a larger selection of Portuguese novels being brought to the fair.

Chan pointed out that there are some Portuguese-language books talking about Chinas history and politics available and that the readership for this subject comprises Portuguese speakers who want to learn more about China.

When asked whether the carnival gives priority to English books rather than to Portuguese books, Chan said it was a market-driven decision.

Its a matter of market choice, she said, further indicating that the people of Macau can only learn Portuguese by taking the initiative because the language is not a compulsory subject in most local schools. More members of the Macau public learn English because it is a mandatory subject.

Nowadays, parents give more and more importance to English, said Chan.

When talking about whether the carnival will offer more English-language books in a future edition, Chan emphasized that it all depends on sales.

If the market maintains its current enthusiasm towards English books, then the carnival will uphold its current percentage of English books, she said.

There are also some English books from Singapore, Chan continued, noting that they consist mainly of magazine series. These extracurricular books are edited [according] to Singapores course outline.

They are mainly science books, said Chan, adding that all our [public] sources are put for the children.

The theme of this years book carnival is Learn From the Words of the Wise. In total, there are around 30,000 books on offer in the exhibition, all sourced from publishers in mainland China, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the UK, the US and Singapore.
Lawyer Oriana Pun has said her client Ho Chio Meng intends to file an appeal with the Court of Final Appeal. This month the same court sentenced the former top prosecutor to 21 years in jail and imposed huge financial penalties. On the sidelines of an event this weekend, Pun said that the inability to appeal constitutes a technical problem that can be circumvented. According to Pun, this technical problem is minor when compared with the right to appeal, which she said constitutes a fundamental right. Pun told TDM that the appeal will be filed soon. We are going to present our arguments and our appeal to the Court of Final Appeal, she said.

Pace of inflation quickens

The Composite Consumer Price Index (CPI) in June 2017 rose by 1.06 percent year-on-year to 109.44, according to information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). This increase was even higher than the 0.95 percent year-on-year growth recorded in May 2017. As in previous months, DSEC has attributed the increment to higher charges for outpatient services, eating out, rising tuition fees, vehicle prices and parking meter rates. Contributing to the increase were the price indexes for the sectors of education and health, which increased by 7.46 percent and 5.15 percent, respectively, year-on-year. The price index of food and non-alcoholic beverages  accounting for the largest share of household expenditure  went up by 1.77 percent. The price indexes of communication and housing and fuels dropped by 5.82 percent and 0.96 percent, respectively. The average composite CPI for the second quarter of 2017 (109.18) increased by 0.94 percent year-on-year.

SSM says flu situation is stable

The director of the Health Bureau (SSM) Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Lam Chong, said that the influenza or flu situation in Macau is stable. According to Lam, this is because large numbers of residents have been vaccinated against the disease; of the 95,000 people in Macau who have been vaccinated, 70 percent received the vaccine in primary school. The percentage of vaccinated residents rises to 90 percent when the elderly population are included. Many members of the elderly population have received the vaccine while residing in nursing homes. SSM previously stated that recent data recorded by its monitoring systems showed a significant increase in influenza infections compared to the same period last year.
Chinas diesel and gasoline exports surged in the first half of the year as a domestic supply glut and slowing demand growth prompted refiners to sell more fuel abroad.

Diesel shipments jumped almost 21 percent in the first six months compared to the same period a year ago, averaging about 328,500 barrels a day, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data posted Sunday on the website of the General Administration of Customs. Gasoline exports rose 8.1 percent, averaging nearly 222,000 barrels a day.

Chinas state-run fuel makers have sent more fuel overseas to draw down stockpiles that have swollen thanks to a refining capacity glut and higher production from independent refiners, known generally as teapots. Meanwhile, the nations gasoline and diesel demand growth has been slowed by alternative transportation such as shared bicycles, as well as gas-fed vehicles and electric cars, according to ICIS China, a Shanghai-based commodity researcher.

Alternative transportation has taken a notable toll on consumption of traditional fuels this year, Lin Jiaxin, an analyst with ICIS China, said before the data were released. With new refining units coming online in the second half of the year, refiners will have to ship even more overseas.

Average gasoline demand in China, the worlds biggest energy user, will grow by 95,000 barrels a day this year, dramatically below gains of 230,000-290,000 barrels a day during the prior two years, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in a report this month.

The use of shared bikes in big cities may replace 1.27 million metric tons of gasoline demand this year while natural gas cars have already displaced 22 million tons of fuel used in transportation in 2016, according to Guo Yifan, an analyst at Shanghai-based Sinolink Securities.

The nations gasoline exports totaled 4.81 million tons in the first half of the year, with 770,000 tons shipped in June, yesterdays data showed. Diesel shipments totaled 7.97 million tons between January and June, with exports at 1.31 million tons last month. Bloomberg
The mother of an American college student arrested in central China following an altercation with a taxi driver five weeks earlier said police are demanding the equivalent of a USD7,400 ransom for his release.

Jennifer McLean has not been allowed to see or communicate with her 25-year-old son, Guthrie, since his last week arrest on charges of intentional injury to the taxi driver, she said Thursday in an email to The Associated Press.

During a June 10 fare dispute in the city of Zhengzhou, Guthrie McLean pushed the driver to the ground because the driver was roughing up his mother, who is hearing impaired, according to family friend Tom Mitchell, the Beijing bureau chief for The Financial Times, and U.S. officials.

Its unclear why McLean, 25, a senior majoring in East Asian studies at the University of Montana, was not arrested until weeks later. The Zhengzhou municipal public security bureau, when contacted by The AP, said it does not take inquiries about individual cases.

Jennifer McLean told The AP her sons actions were justified because the taxi driver was hurting her.

He would not have ceased had my son not intervened, she said.

Offices from the U.S. Consulate in the provincial capital of Wuhan spoke with McLean Thursday at the Zhenghou #3 Detention Center. He reported no physical or mental health concerns, officials said.

Fine is a bit of an overstatement. He is enduring, Jennifer McLean said.

Montanas U.S. senators, Democrat Jon Tester and Republican Steve Daines, called for Guthrie McLeans quick release and said they were pressing the matter with U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad in Beijing.

Daines said he also spoke with Chinas ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, who pledged to relay the concerns over McLeans fate to the communist nations leadership.

This was a young man who stepped in to protect his deaf mother, Daines said. I realize we are subject to the laws of China [as U.S. citizens abroad] and will respect their government, but we want to make sure there is justice here.

Tester said in a statement that he was in close contact with members of McLeans family and Chinese officials to make sure hes kept safe. The police in China have seven days from the time of his arrest to file charges, Testers office said, based on information provided by the U.S. Embassy.

A U.S. State Department official confirmed the basic details of the case and said the agency was monitoring the situation, but declined further comment.

Jennifer McLean has been teaching in Zhengzhou, where Guthrie visited her this summer.

The altercation occurred after a cab driver refused to give her 30 yuan (about $5) in change upon returning to her residence, Mitchell said. After the driver started to rough up Jennifer, Guthrie came out and pushed the man to the ground, he said.

Police arrived at the residence yesterday, took Guthrie away and demanded he pay 100,000 yuan ($14,800) in compensation for knee injuries sustained by the driver or else he would have to spend three years in prison, Mitchell and Jennifer McLean said.

The price has since dropped to 50,000 yuan ($7,400), Jennifer McLean said.

Guthrie McLean has been at the University of Montana in Missoula for about two years and worked for the past year in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, said his boss, Olivia White.

He largely grew up in China after living in Missoula as a young child while his mother was studying at the university, said White.

Hes very kind, gentle, White said. His mom is all he has and I do think he defended her. Hes not denying that he did it. Hes denying the extent of what happened. Matthew Brown, AP
Preliminary results from East Timors parliamentary election show the Fretilin party has won the most votes while its partner in the national unity government has suffered a slump in support.

With more than 90 percent of votes counted yesterday, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction party of independence hero Xanana Gusmao, or CNRT, had won 28 percent, down from 36.7 percent in 2012, when it was the top-polling party.

Fretilin, or Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, was at 30 percent, little changed from the previous election. The Popular Liberation Party, a new political force led by former President Taur Matan Ruak, and the Democratic Party had each scooped up about 10 percent of the votes.

Fretilin is open to forming a coalition with CNRT, its secretary-general, Mari Alkatiri, said to loud applause and chants of Viva Fretilin.

The vote Saturday was East Timors first parliamentary election without U.N. supervision since peacekeepers left in 2012.

The former Portuguese colony voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1999 after 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation. Indonesias military and pro-Indonesian militias responded to the independence referendum with scorched earth attacks that devastated the East Timorese half of the island of Timor.

In recent years, leaders have focused on big-ticket infrastructure projects to develop the economy, funding them from a dwindling fund of former oil riches, but progress is slow. Today, the country of 1.3 million people still faces poverty, with many lacking clean water and sanitation. Unemployment is high and young people are increasingly going overseas for work.

Nearly two dozen parties contested the election, in which they must win more than 4 percent of the vote to get seats in parliament. Results will be official once certified by the countrys Court of Appeal, likely next week.

The drop in support for CNRT indicates frustration with slow economic progress and concerns about government corruption.

In the first few years after the independence, Fretilin, whose paramilitary arm had waged guerrilla warfare against Indonesias occupation, was popular enough to form a government alone. Raimundos Oki, Dili, AP
A trove of new images captured in the past few days show what is likely to be melted nuclear fuel from inside one of Japans wrecked Fukushima reactors, a potential milestone in the cleanup of one of the worst atomic disasters in history.

Tokyo Electric Power, Japans biggest utility, released images on Saturday of mounds of black rock and sand-like substances at the bottom of the No. 3 reactor containment vessel at Fukushima, which is likely to contain melted fuel, according to Takahiro Kimoto, an official at the company. A survey on Friday found black icicles hanging from the above pressure vessel, which was highly likely to contain melted fuel. Kimoto noted it would take time to confirm whether this debris contains melted fuel.

The pictures that we have gained will assist us in devising a plan for removing the melted fuel, Kimoto told reporters Saturday night in Tokyo. Taking pictures of how debris scattered inside of the reactor was a big accomplishment.

If confirmed, these pictures would be the first discovery of the fuel that melted during the triple reactor accident at Fukushima six years ago. For Tokyo Electric, which bears most of the cleanup costs, the discovery would help the utility design a way to remove the highly-radioactive material.

The pictures were taken by a Toshiba-designed robot the company sent to explore the inside of the reactor for the first time from July 19. The robot, 30 centimeters long that can swim in the flooded unit, was tasked with surveying the damage inside and also finding the location of corium, which is a mixture of the atomic fuel rods and other structural materials that forms after a meltdown.

It is important to know the exact locations and the physical, chemical, radiological forms of the corium to develop the necessary engineering defueling plans for the safe removal of the radioactive materials, said Lake Barrett, a former official at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission who was involved with the cleanup at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the U.S. The recent investigation results are significant early signs of progress on the long road ahead.

Because of the high radioactivity levels inside the reactor, only specially designed robots can probe the unit. And the unprecedented nature of the Fukushima disaster means that Tepco, as the utility is known, is pinning its efforts on technology not yet invented to get the melted fuel out of the reactors.

The company aims to decide on the procedure to remove the melted fuel from each unit as soon as this summer. And it will confirm the procedure for the first reactor during the fiscal year ending March 2019, with fuel removal slated to begin in 2021.

Decommissioning the reactors will cost 8 trillion yen (USD72 billion), according to an estimate in December from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Removing the fuel is one of the most important steps in a cleanup that may take as long as 40 years.

Similar to the latest findings in the No. 3 reactor, Tepco took photographs in January of what appeared to be black residue covering a grate under the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 2 reactor, which was speculated to have been melted fuel. However, a follow-up survey by another Toshiba-designed robot in February failed to confirm the location of any melted fuel in the reactor after it got stuck in debris.

A robot designed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy Ltd. also failed to find any melted fuel during its probe of the No. 1 reactor in March.

The significance of the recent finding might be evidence that the robots used by Tepco can now deal with the higher radiation levels, at least for periods of time that allow them to search parts of the reactor that are more likely to contain fuel debris, M.V. Ramana, professor at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, said by email.

If some of these fragments can be brought out of the reactor and studied, it would allow nuclear engineers and scientists to better model what happened during the accident. Bloomberg
During the 1990s, Beijing handpicked a group of about 40 young graduates from across China and placed them in important government roles in Macau, according to a new report from Reuters.

Citing former officials familiar with the process, Reuters claimed that the young graduates rose through the ranks to become department heads and other important officials, all the while aligning the vision of the local government with that of Beijing.

According to Reuters, over a dozen former officials and civil servants were interviewed to corroborate the claims.

The sleeper cell was comprised of young mainland graduates who had undergone legal training and learned proficient Portuguese.

They were given positions when they were still very young, very leading positions, Jose Sales Marques, who was the territorys mayor between 1993 and 2001, told Reuters.

Among them is Commission Against Corruption chief, Andre Cheong, public prosecutor general, Ip Son Sang, and Macaus Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak, who many believe may run for the chief executive job in 2019.

In a 2015 interview with the news agency, Wong said that Macau adheres to the One Country, Two Systems policy without the need for Beijing to intervene in affairs.

The central government will not meddle or intervene but they will of course want to understand our policies and from what angle we are considering, said Wong, adding that there is daily communication between Macau and Beijing.

Macau is regarded by the mainland government as far more obedient than its neighboring SAR, Hong Kong. The loyalty, in part, stems from the fact that almost half of Macaus population was born in mainland China.

Its obedience, lack of political activism and weakness in the pan-democrat camp has afforded Macau certain rewards from Beijing. According to some analysts, its inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative  entirely unnecessary in the context of Hong Kongs participation  was intended partly as a reward and partly as a means of further diversifying the citys economy.

On the other hand, Beijings official representation in the MSAR, the Liaison Office, may still be eroding the citys autonomy at an alarming rate through its participation in the activities of local associations and political groups. One such accusation was made  and later retracted  by current lawmaker Jose Pereira Coutinho.

I think Macau is losing that autonomy quite fast. I think we have lost two thirds of it in fifteen years, an unidentified civil servant told Reuters.

Now there is a tendency to impose self censorship [in the media and academia] to not raise the attention of the liaison office, Bill Chou, a former professor at the University of Macau, told the news agency. Chou was fired in 2014 for his political activities.

Another unnamed official cited by Reuters said that China was upping its intervention in Macau as a result of the event unfolding in Hong Kong.

They want to make sure the same thing doesnt happen in Macau, the official said.
The neighbors had their suspicions. The young Canadian accused of masterminding the worlds leading darknet internet marketplace lived a seemingly quiet life for more than a year with his Thai girlfriend in a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Bangkok.

But the flashy cars he drove stood out. There was the nearly USD1 million, metallic gray Lamborghini. There was the Porsche, and then the Mini Cooper for his girlfriend. All in an area where people drive pickup trucks and children tool around on plastic tricycles.

The neighbors thought 25-year- old Alexandre Cazes worked in the hotel business. But according to the U.S. Justice Department, he was the mastermind of AlphaBay, an internet marketplace that traded in illegal drugs, firearms and counterfeit goods.

By the time authorities closed in on July 5, Cazes had amassed a USD23 million fortune as the sites creator and administrator, court documents show.

Last week, U.S. Justice Department officials gave details of the global police operation that brought down Cazes, who authorities say hanged himself in his Thai jail cell a week after his arrest, and dealt a serious blow to illicit internet commerce.

Cazes stepmother Kathy Gauthier expressed surprise at the allegations, saying we do not understand how he could have been the person described by the FBI, thats just not his personality!

In a private Facebook message to The Associated Press, Gauthier wrote: Alexandre was always a good boy without any kind of trouble in his past. He was peaceful and anti-drugs. We always thought his wealth came from investments in cryptocurrency, not from a Darkmarket [sic].

She was apparently referring to darknet. She continued: He was raised in a good home by good parents, but now we are exhausted and simply want to accept the situation. Last week my spouse spoke to the media about who Alexandre really was, and our opinion hasnt changed. Now we just want to move forward. And if what the FBI says is completely true, well, thats not the Alexandre Cazes that we knew. But we would love him still, and forgive him.

Interviews with Cazes neighbors paint a picture of a young man who displayed flashes of ostentation but otherwise seemed unassuming.

He was with his girlfriend, said a neighbor, Hassanupong Pootrakulchote. Around New Years or Christmas I saw some of his friends come over and they would have a little party. There were Thai people, some of them were his girlfriends relatives [] Other than that its mostly quiet, nothing flashy or anything.

Nothing except those expensive cars, which were completely out of place in the neighborhood where homes cost less than $120,000.

Why does he have a Lamborghini? Why does he have a Porsche or Mini Cooper? Hassanupong said. There are recent news reports about people laundering money and that sort of thing. But like I said, I thought he was in the hotel business.

Soon enough, talk in the neighborhood was that Cazes was ready to improve his standard of living.

At the time of his arrest, he was building a palatial home about 20 minutes away in a far more upscale area. The price tag? More than $1.1 million.

According to court documents, he also owned a luxury villa on the edge of a cliff in the holiday destination of Phuket and a $400,000 villa in Antigua.

Much of Cazes fortune was in digital currencies, the court documents show. He bought real estate and luxury cars, including the $900,000 Lamborghini, and pursued economic citizenship in Liechtenstein, Cyprus and Thailand.

He used what he claimed was a web design company, EBX Technologies, as a front, the indictment said.

But his life in the Bangkok suburbs appeared stable, neighbors said.

One neighbor, who asked not to be named because the case involves crime, said Cazes rarely left the house before noon. She said she got her first good look at him one day when he was outside, trying to photograph a monitor lizard that had crawled out of a deserted field nearby.

We smiled at each other, thats it, she said.

Darknet websites have thrived since the 2011 appearance of the Silk Road bazaar, which was taken down two years later. Merchants and buyers keep their identities secret by using encrypted communications and anonymity-providing tools such as the Tor browser. The darknet itself is only accessible through such specialized apps.

Cazes own carelessness apparently tripped him up  not the underlying security technology AlphaBay used.

According to the indictment, he accidentally broadcast his personal Hotmail address in welcome messages sent to new users. And when he was tracked down and arrested in Thailand, Cazes was logged into the AlphaBay website as its administrator, allowing investigators access to passwords and other information, it says.

Cazes also used the same personal email address  pimp_alex-91@hotmail.com  on a PayPal account. Kaweewit Kaewjinda, Bangkok, AP
Chinas official news agency Xinhua has recently published an update to its style guide that emphasizes Chinas sovereignty over Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

The guide now has 38 rules for referring to Taiwan and 17 guidelines for referring to Hong Kong and Macau.

Xinhua is owned by the Chinese government and is one of its main propaganda tools. Other Chinese media outlets take Xinhua as a point of reference, particularly during politically sensitive periods.

For Hong Kong and Macau, one rule bans the use of the term separation of powers to describe the Special Administrative Regions political systems, which are, according to Xinhua, dominated by the executive branch.

Another rule states that the two regions cannot be listed independently alongside the name China. For example, the term China-Hong Kong is not allowed, but mainland and Hong Kong is acceptable.

Self-praising words and references to Hong Kong and Macaus opposition should be cited cautiously, another rule stated, as quoted in a recent Quartz article.

The new rules also state that Hong Kongs pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in 2014 should be referred to as illegal Occupy Central, referring to the original name for the planned civil disobedience campaign.

The rules dictate that three principal organizers of the Occupy movement cannot be referred to as the Occupy Central Trio, as they are widely known in Hong Kong. Xinhuas new rule is that their alternative name should instead be Occupy Central Three Clowns.

Yet another rule states that, Taiwan is a province of China [] but taking the feelings of our Taiwan compatriots into account, now we generally dont call it Taiwan Province, and we more often use Taiwan Region or Taiwan.

The list of donts regarding reportage on Taiwan also bans the Chinese media from using the term President (Vice President) of the Republic of China. Instead, media must now use leader (deputy leader) of the Taiwan authorities.

In response to Xinhuas new rules, Taiwans department of China-related affairs issued a statement urging Beijing to fully report reality and respect the fact that the Republic of China exists.
The lumber market roared near a three-month high this week as wildfires threatened forests and sawmills in British Columbia. There are nearly 400 wildfires ablaze in the Canadian province, one of the worlds largest exporters of softwood lumber.

Lumber futures, traded in Chicago, neared $395 per thousand board feet, the highest price since late April, when the market exploded on threats of a trade war between Canada and the United States.

At present, the fires are expanding, resulting in evacuations of nearly 40,000 residents and closures of sawmills in the area.

Here in the United States, there has been strong demand for new construction, which means that this threat to 2x4 supplies could be coming at a bad time for U.S. builders.

Gold and silver boom

as dollar fades

Precious metals rose to a three-week high on Friday, climbing for six straight trading sessions as the U.S. dollar fell to a one-year low.

Investors are fleeing the U.S. dollar and favoring metals after this weeks turmoil in Washington D.C. cast doubts on the GOPs ability to pass wide-sweeping legislation this year. Market watchers had been hoping that Republicans could reach a deal on health care and then pass tax reform that could stimulate the U.S. economy, but the political impasse in the Senate and increasing pressures on the Trump White House are dashing those hopes.

Investors prefer precious metals in times of trouble and have been buying gold and silver over the past two weeks after those markets hit bargain levels in early July.

As of midday Friday, gold was worth $1,253 and silver sold for $16.45 an ounce.

Corn and bean markets

in a whirlwind

Corn and soybean futures had a stormy week as producers, traders, and end-users tried to track the weather and growing conditions across the country. Both crops are at a critical point in the growing season when high temperatures or dry weather can threaten yields.

Uncertainty about forecasts is causing the futures to shift into a so-called weather market that vacillates with every update.

As of midday Friday, markets were dropping due to overnight rains, pulling December corn futures down to $3.97 and November beans to $10.20 per bushel.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)  Longtime Arkansas soybean farmer Mike Wallace thought of his neighbors as a community and always was willing to lend a hand if they faced any hardships with their crops.

Mike would do anything for any farmer, his wife, Karen, said. If there was a farmer who got sick in harvest time or planting time or whatever, he would say, What can I do to help? Heres my equipment. Heres my guys. Lets go do it.

But across much of farm country, a dispute over a common weed killer is turning neighbor against neighbor. The furor surrounding the herbicide known as dicamba has quickly become the biggest controversy of its kind in U.S. agriculture, and it is even suspected as a factor in Wallaces death in October, when he was allegedly shot by a worker from a nearby farm where the chemical had been sprayed.

Concern about the herbicide drifting onto unprotected crops, especially soybeans, has spawned lawsuits and prompted Arkansas and Missouri to impose temporary bans on dicamba. Losses blamed on accidental chemical damage could climb into the tens of millions of dollars, if not higher, and may have a ripple effect on other products that rely on soybeans, including chicken.

The number of complaints far exceeds anything weve ever seen, Arkansas Plant Board Director Terry Walker recently told lawmakers.

Dicamba has been around for decades, but problems arose over the past couple of years as farmers began to use it on soybean and cotton fields where they planted new seeds engineered to be resistant to the herbicide. Because it can easily evaporate after being applied, the chemical sometimes settles onto neighboring fields. Some farmers illegally sprayed dicamba before federal regulators approved versions that were designed to be less volatile.

The chemical has made good neighbors look like bad neighbors, said Reed Storey, an Arkansas farmer who says about half of his soybean crop has shown damage from drifting dicamba.

As the herbicide was put into broader use, complaints began pouring in from farmers in Arkansas and other states. Crops near many dicamba-treated soybean fields turned up with leaves that were cupped and crinkled. The Plant Board has received more than 630 complaints about dicamba so far this year, many more than the 250 or so total complaints normally received in a full year. Complaints have also been registered in Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee.

The issue illustrates the struggle to control agricultural pests as they gradually mutate to render the chemicals used against them less effective. And while some farmers fear damage from their neighbors dicamba, others are worried that their fields will be defenseless against weeds without it.

The drifting herbicide has been particularly damaging for soybeans. A group of farmers in Arkansas filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against BASF and Monsanto, which make dicamba.

The chemical has hurt other crops too, including vegetables and peanuts. As the damage piles up, dicamba has also made it more difficult for one company, Ozark Mountain Poultry, to find non-genetically modified soybeans to use as feed for chickens because more farmers are relying on seeds engineered by Monsanto to resist the herbicide. Non-modified soybeans are needed to market chicken as non-GMO.

Dicambas makers insist the problem is not with the herbicide but how some farmers apply it. They say the states should focus on other restrictions, such as limiting spraying to daytime hours.

It is premature at this point to conclude that it is a fault of the product, Dan Westberg of BASF told lawmakers this month.

Farmers say the herbicide is desperately needed to kill pigweed, which can grow and spread seeds rapidly, threatening a soybean farmers yield.

We cannot lose this technology, Perry Galloway, an Arkansas farmer who has used dicamba and dicamba-tolerant soybean seeds. Weve come too far at this point to just throw it away.

Its not clear what states will do about the herbicide after this year. Missouri lifted its sale-and-use ban for three dicamba herbicides after approving new labels and restrictions for its use. The ban on other dicamba products will be in effect until Dec. 1. Arkansas ban expires in November. Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said a task force needs to study the issue further.

This debate will continue into future planting seasons, and Arkansas needs a long-term solution, he wrote in a letter last month to state agriculture officials.

Wallaces relatives said they are glad the herbicide will be banned for the time being in Arkansas. For them, too much damage has already been done.

Farm worker Allan Curtis Jones, 27, is accused of shooting Wallace, 55, in a confrontation over dicamba, which Wallace believed had drifted from the farm where Jones worked to damage his soybean crop.

Jones told authorities that Wallace called him to talk about the spraying. Jones brought his cousin with him as a witness because he believed Wallace wanted to fight, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in October.

When the two men met, Jones told police, Wallace grabbed him by the arm. Jones said he pulled a handgun from his pocket and fired until the gun was empty, Mississippi County Sheriff Dale Cook told the paper. He is set to go on trial this fall.

Wallace did not want to hurt his neighbor, and he could not understand why people would spray things that would hurt others, said Kerin Hawkins, his sister, who has also seen crops damaged by dicamba. He could not understand because you were supposed to be a good neighbor.
PAUL  Raising sugar beets has changed tremendously in the last 10 or 15 years thanks largely to technology.

In the old days, many beet plants were infected with curly top, a virus that is transmitted by leafhoppers. But thanks to plant breeders who have incorporated resistance into new varieties, the virus while still present  is not as economically devastating as it once was.

Today soil-borne diseases are becoming more prevalent as growers shorten crop rotations and increasingly rely on center pivots to irrigate crops. Oliver Nehr is seeing more rhizoctonia and aphanomyces, diseases that can significantly reduce the sugar content in the beets depending on how early the root was infected. Nehr is a plant pathologist with grower-owned Amalgamated Sugar Co.

Signs of rhizoctonia are similar to aphanomyces but if the grower can scratch away a black scar on the beet with a finger nail, the problem is aphanomyces. Beets that have an unusual number of root hairs are likely infected with rhizoctonia.

A shallow water table or compaction favor development of fungal root diseases, although environmental conditions will exacerbate the problem. Plants under stress are more susceptible to other diseases, Nehr said.

One of those potential problems is cercospora leaf spot. The disease has long been the bane of growers in North Dakota and Minnesota where hot temperatures and high humidity favor the disease. Southern Idaho experienced an outbreak in 2013, but hasnt seen much pressure since.

However, as more beets are grown under center pivots, the potential for an outbreak increases.

Each time you turn a pivot on, you create favorable conditions for blight, Nehr told growers during a research field day held by Amalgamated.

Shutting off the pivot for a day once a week will help dry the field out and reduce the potential for blight to develop. Nehr recommends watching the weather and fields closely. Temperatures above 65 degrees at night favor cercospora along with hotter days and moisture.

Wildfires can also increase the potential for cercospora as excessive smoke can reduce solar radiation and increase humidity within the fields. Nehr recommends scouting first in the overlap areas between center pivots and hand lines systems in a field. Applying a fungicide is recommended when growers see one to two spots per leaf.

If growers suspect cercospora, Nehr recommends calling their fieldman before spraying to collect leaf samples that can be tested for fungicide resistance.

Next to irrigation water management, steel is the best control against cercospora, Nehr said. Plowing infected leaves under allows the residue to break down and only planting beets in a field once every four or five years reduces the amount of inoculum present. Separating fields by at least 300 feet will help prevent disease spread if an infection begins.

Root maggot is another pest problem that growers have struggled with for the last 20 years or so. Crop rotation can help  to an extent. However, planting grain in a field where root maggots were a problem last year and sugar beets in an adjacent field doesnt provide enough distance.

Spraying an insecticide on the grain where it borders the sugar beet field can help prevent insect movement, but wont eliminate the problem, said Dave Elison, an Amalgamated fieldman. He recommends not planting sugar beets in a field adjacent to one with a known root maggot problem.

Keeping accurate field histories is also important for reducing herbicide carryover problems.

Evan Sonderegger, a research technician with Amalgamated, told growers about working with a grower in western Idaho who was renting a new farm and had been assured that a specific herbicide had not been applied to the field. But when the beets struggled to come up and tests were done, it turned out that the herbicide had been used the previous year.

Knowing soil type is also key to minimizing potential herbicide problems, Sonderegger said. Some herbicides persist longer in heavier soils.

Herbicide carryover problems can be prevented, he added. Always read and follow label restrictions.
STEVENS COUNTY, Wash. (AP)  Bellows and bedlam echo across the valley as Rhonda and Kevin DalBalcon keep up a slow, steady pressure on the cows and calves they are moving.

Cmon, girls! shouts Rhonda, her long braid flying as her horse deftly cuts off cows that balk, redirecting them to the herd.

Good as they are at this work, a new player has ranchers here on edge.

Wolves.

No one in Washington has borne the brunt of adjustment to the return of the wolf like the families here. Washington is home to a minimum 115 wolves in an estimated 20 packs. But 11 of those packs are bunched up here, overlapping grazing allotments in the Colville National Forest.

As wolves once again raise their pups this summer, their growing families and appetites raise a specter of dread in ranching country. Last summer, 15 cattle were killed or injured by the Profanity Peak pack  most of which was in turn killed by the state.

Apart from the complications and expense added to their management routines, ranchers are animal people. And they dont like what they see, either in cattle eaten alive by wolves, or wolves shot dead by the state.

When they shot those pups, we felt sick, Rhonda DalBalcon said of the Profanity Peak wolves. Its not the wolves fault. Its like they are breeding them to shoot them. Cant they manage and control them any better than that?

Moving the cattle somewhere else to avoid conflict if wolves show up  or kicking them off the national forest altogether, as some critics would like  isnt so simple.

The Colville National Forest is a 1.1-million-acre sweep of country covering Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties. Grazing here has been federal policy for more than a century, and the calendar of when and where to turn out cows on the land is set by the condition of the land and by federal management policy. Flexibility is limited.

The states wolf-recovery program playing out on these federally managed public lands  where ranching has been encouraged since the forest was founded by executive order of Teddy Roosevelt on March 1, 1907  is actually working very well, notes Mike Herrin, Republic District Ranger for the Colville National Forest. If the score is kept just on the basis of live wolves and dead cows, the numbers bear him out.

Statewide, nine cattle were confirmed killed by four packs and one lone wolf in 2016, including the six confirmed killed by the Profanity Peak pack. Even if far more were killed or injured by wolves than ever found or proven  say 200 cows  that is a small fraction of the 4,476 cow-and-calf pairs turned out on about 1,000 square miles just on the Colville National Forest alone last year, Herrin notes.

Far more cattle are killed in Washington by lightning strikes, logging trucks, illness and accidents, put together, than by wolves.

By now, wolves that initially moved in from Idaho and Canada are so numerous in eastern Washington that unlike in western Washington, they already have been removed from the federal endangered species list. But they remain a state endangered species across Washington, and protected under the states wolf recovery plan.

Wolves were shot, poisoned and hunted to local extinction statewide by 1930. The first pack was not documented again in Washington until 2008. The wolf population has been increasing about 30 percent per year ever since, according to state estimates. But the wolf packs clustered in the Colville National Forest have yet to disperse and multiply enough elsewhere for state wildlife managers to declare statewide success.

That is resented by people here, where wolves are already thriving far in excess of the states own criteria for recovery. If anything, many people here are ready for a hunting season on wolves  as in Idaho, where nearly 400 wolves were killed last year, mostly by hunters.

The goal embraced in Washington state policy is coexistence, including ranchers, livestock and wolves sharing the landscape, statewide.

Economics and tradition

Grazing cattle in the national forest for part of the year is embedded in the economics for many ranchers. They save low-elevation, privately owned or leased pastures to grow the hay to feed their animals over winter, once the cows come down from the national forest in the fall.

The mountain pastures also have green grass with higher protein in summer, with shade and fewer flies, and produce higher-weight cattle.

The product of typical cow-calf operations using grazing allotments in the national forest is a healthy cow returned pregnant from a summer in the mountains, and a calf grown from just a few hundred pounds or less at turnout to some 600 pounds. Those animals are then typically fed grain in feedlots to fatten their muscle, producing marbled meat.

Ranchers typically save out a portion of their herd each year, not only to continue to hone its genetics, but to retain the animals that know the routine of the ranchers operation: where the gates and fences and water are, where the salt blocks are, laced with the minerals cows crave, to lure them to higher ground. These salting locations and water troughs often remain in place for decades, part of a culture learned by each generation of cattle and ranchers using the land.

It kind of has to work like a Swiss watch, said rancher Steve Sanders of Kettle Falls, Stevens County, who bought his fathers ranch and hopes to pass it on to his son. Throw wolves in there, we dont know what to do. Weve run it the same way forever.

Ranchers, cattle stressed

Each rancher has had to seek his or her own solution to the wolves return. Some have embraced help from the state, university researchers and conservation groups. Others have eschewed all three.

Sanders and his wife, Laura, took what they call a proactive approach. They participated in a study at Washington State University, putting radio collars on some of their cows and using data from collared wolves to know where both were on the landscape.

They put up flashing lights and flagging on fence lines, intended to keep wolves away. They hired a range rider to move on horseback through the pasture they lease in the national forest, in the heart of the Profanity Peak packs home range.

So it was with horror last summer that they discovered the carcass of one of the fiercest animals in their herd, a bad-tempered, 1,600-pound cow, killed by the Profanity Peak pack. Laura figures she died defending her calf.

I dont like the way they kill, she said of wolves. She said she could see from the wounds that wolves had been on the cows back, and had chewed out her tongue. For a rancher who once hand-nursed a cow back to health, hand-blinking the animals eyelids all night when the cow was too ill even to blink, having one of her mother cows eaten alive was unbearable.

People here will tell you that wolf kills are just part of their trouble. Even if not killed outright or injured, cows stressed by wolves lose weight, wont breed and wont stay in the forest.

Last year we could not even keep them up there, they kept running home, Laura said. You feel bad, sending them back where they may be killed.

Diamond Ms experience

The nearby Diamond M ranch turned out its cows in the same place as always last summer and put out salt in the same location as usual, to draw the cattle to the high pastures. But what had usually worked before didnt last year.

Video footage shot at night  on a motion-activated wildlife camera that July as part of a WSU study  shows Diamond M cows lumbering down an access road on one of the Diamond M allotments.

Then into the frame comes an adult wolf in pursuit. Big, powerful and headed straight after the cows at a purposeful trot, its every ranchers nightmare vision.

According to its 2016 report on the Profanity Peak pack, state wildlife managers had collared two wolves in the pack by June 12. The Diamond M had already turned out nearly 400 cattle in cow-calf pairs on a 30,000-acre grazing allotment. The turnout site, state managers realized by the end of June, was within 4 miles of the packs den  nothing for an animal that establishes territories that average 349 square miles.

The estimated territory of the Profanity Peak pack last year overlapped 11 grazing allotments, where ranchers turned out about 1,500 cow/calf pairs, or 3,000 cattle in all, to graze.

The state didnt urge the Diamond M to get a range rider out until after the first wolf attack July 8. The ranchers yanked the salt block inadvertently placed near the wolves activity area and hired two more people to patrol the allotment.

Human presence didnt make the expected difference: Diamond M owners even camped on the allotment and said they heard barking and howling within 30 yards of their tent.

By August, the pack had eaten six cattle, and the state committed to killing off the pack. Wily, fast learners, wolves are hard to kill. Gunners tracked the radio-collared animals.

The state spent $135,000 killing seven members of the pack. A female and three pups are known to have evaded helicopter gunners, ground shooting and trapping, and one pup remains unaccounted for. One adult female was shot and injured Aug. 22, then shot again and killed three days later.

Public outrage, death threats

Outrage over the shooting and trapping campaign that went on for weeks spiraled out of control to death threats.

There is no word to describe it, said Justin Hedrick, a co-owner of the Diamond M. It was the second year in a row the state had turned out gunners in helicopters to defend the Diamond Ms cattle against wolves (in 2015 it was the Wedge Pack) and people were blaming the ranch, which has held grazing permits in the forest for 73 years.

People calling and screaming and cussing, people saying they are going to burn us out, Hedrick said. The only way to do it is to shut the phones off. Our ranch phone is at my grandmas house, she is 74 years old and she doesnt need that.

In Olympia, Donny Martorello, the states wolf policy lead, became so fearful for his wifes safety that as the summer wore on, he put her up in a hotel.

Opponents of the killing also felt badly misunderstood and unheard, as the state shot seven wolves dead, all on public land.

Hedrick and others here say the state should have acted sooner, before the pack got a taste for cattle, arguing that would have saved more wolves, and more cattle, too.

Wildlife managers this year vow a quicker finger on the trigger, literally, with a policy adopted this spring to intervene sooner if wolves kill cattle again. The decision was met with skepticism among ranchers who warn its not enough, and outraged despair among opponents who want not a single wolf killed.

Laura Sanders said she feels for the sole surviving female wolf of the Profanity Peak pack, traveling alone with pups all winter.

Like others, she said it is hard living with the new stress on ranching here. But we are not quitters. She also said she doesnt like feeling misunderstood, even blamed, simply for being a rancher.

Somehow we became vilified. Thats not who we are. I love all animals, but we know there has to be a balance, Sanders said. Possibly we have too many wolves.

At days end, as the suns late-evening glow burns high in the forest, Sanders scans the mountains above the home pasture. Shes seen this years collar data, and knows the Sherman Pack has moved in all over their allotment. They are on every ridge.
Trenton Johnson of Missoula was a member of a private firefighting crew that was trying to stop a half-acre, lightning-caused fire northeast of Seeley Lake. He was killed when the top of a tree split off and fell and struck him on Wednesday in Lolo National Forest.
BURLEY  It was like Thanksgiving dinner in the Rivadeneira home on Sunday. The table was filled with plates of turkey, mashed potatoes, squash and dressing. Kira Rivadeneira had been cooking all morning preparing a feast for her four guests from Ecuador who arrived the night before.

Mercy Vilatuna, 13, picked up a container filled with light brown liquid and asked in Spanish what it was called.

Kiras husband, Andres Rivadeneira, replied in Spanish that is was turkey gravy. Mercy poured it over her potatoes. In Ecuador, lunch is the main meal of the day while dinner is treated more like a snack with people usually drinking coffee.

People eat a lot of rice, soups and stews. They also have McDonalds, but it is considered an expensive place to dine.

For a week, the Rivadeneiras will host and entertain the four teenage girls: Briggith Alvavado, Mily Olisaguano, Mercy Vilatuna and Nabila Ludena. The three are part of the Ecuador dance team that is in Burley to perform at the Magic Valley Folk Festival.

It is the first time the Rivadeneiras have volunteered to house visitors for the festival. All dance international team members are housed with local families.

This year, about 150 dancers in six international dance teams from Austria, Belarus, Chile, Ecuador, Indonesia and Switzerland will travel to Burley to perform in events scheduled through Saturday. The festival kicks off at 7 p.m. on Monday at Rupert Square with a parade of dance teams. It is free and open to the public.

My husbands family is from Argentina, Kira said. Its like having a little bit of family here.

Kira said she decided to make one of the girls first meals a traditional American experience.

My job is to keep them fed and to give them a place to stay, Kira said. I love learning about different cultures.

That morning, the family took the girls up to Mount Harrison and Lake Cleveland. The girls spotted a patch of snow and immediately started playing in it while wearing shorts. Mercy showed off photos and video from the trip she took on her cellphone. It was the first time theyd seen snow.

It was beautiful, said Briggith, 16.

Though they are only in their teens, the girls have been performing internationally for years. They dance traditional Ecuadoran dances of the Los Otavalos, indigenous people native to Ecuador. The girls are all from a small town called La Merced. This was their first trip to the U.S.

Briggith said her first impression of Americans was that everyone seemed serious, but as she met and talked to more people, she changed her mind.

Personally, every person is happy here, Briggith said in Spanish as Kira translated. Its really calm and beautiful here.

Houses in America are also bigger and more elegant, she added.

Mercy also showed her host family photos from Ecuador, which also includes the Galapagos Islands.

There is a lot of variety of plants and animals, volcanoes and tourists, she said.

After dinner, the girls showed their host family some of the dances they planned to perform later in the week. Beside the banks of the Snake River they performed while the Rivadeneiras oldest daughter, Hazel, 6, joined them in performing.